Broken Back

It's 'only' a flesh wound because it's my flesh

I'm typing with one hand today because a series of horrible decisions brought me to the edge of disaster. I've been living in the parking lot of the day labor hall, mostly to use their bathroom and water spout. But sometimes they have work for me and that's when the trouble starts. I've been roped into moving furniture before but this time was the pits. $7/hr for repeatedly doing 160 lb bench presses for 12 hours. I know why people go to the gym...because they are lazy fucking assholes who hire other people to exert themselves in context of purpose.

Of Mice and Kolaches

Lenny and George at Three Mile Dam

I really wish I had time to fully describe these last few days. No, I'll never have time. But a snippet:

Banner Yet Wave

I was saving this for July 4th but I'm feeling patriotic.

Joplin, Missouri. May 2012. That's not a parking garage, that's a hospital gutted by a tornado.

Joplin, Missouri on the mend. Kid texting on her back. Old Glory flying proud. The Tornado caused massive damage. The hospital was in the background was obliterated but this memorial park will one day be the only evidence it happened. Of course there was absolutely no day labor for me!!

Can you spot the Grackle*? These gregarious birds stop at nothing for food. It tried to get in the escape hatch. It's like a slim chicken.

*I'm not 100% sure that's a grackle. It's either a female boat-tailed grackle or something totally different. Male grackles are black and easy to spot. But this one hangs out with grackles. A Grackle ally.

Saved My Soul

In Muskogee, Oklahoma I met a man named David, or should I say a man named David materialized before me because there's no accounting for our encounter in the empty dark downtown as I sang my Merle Haggard songs. My earthly mission here is to learn Western Swing music and it seems that again I've started walking on the 4th floor. The actual lesson concerning Western Swing music begins with simple Gospel Hymns.

Cave Paintings

Between 15,000 and 30,000 years ago people painted animals and depictions of hunting expeditions on cave walls and ceilings using charcoal. Picasso said of the Altamira cave paintings, "After Altamira, all is decadence."
The wonderment people have when they look at these simple pictures of animals transcends the art and I've recently pondered why that is. What draws us to these striking images and what inspires us about them?

I think they represent an essential humanity that has inadvertently been written as history because it no longer exists. These images were records, tributes to a way of life that was meaningful and I want to point out that 25,000 years ago these might be the only pieces of visual art that were being produced. It wasn't commercial and it wasn't for sale and these details add to our present day observations. No popes were involved; No pop culture; Hollywood was a sheet of ice. We see these images as modern day capitalists and they don't fit our concept of art anymore...and they don't fit our concept of survival. Seeing the cave painting is like hearing what a blind person hears.