Paul Hiatt

Baby Sleep

2007-10-24T09:08:00.000-07:00

Evan sleeps on his back, his arms stretched out, his face perfectly calm. When I hold him, and he finally relaxes and falls asleep after howling and raging against losing consciousness, his muscles give way and he becomes heavier. His body submits perfectly and completely.

I never sleep like that.

Omar

2007-10-12T10:28:00.000-07:00

I was sitting at the Ravenna Tavern way back in 2003, drinking beer and filling my lungs with second hand smoke, when I noticed a tall fellow with long hair staring at me. His eyes were intent on something, (later he told me he was checking me out because I looked "like a psycho"). I thought he was an ass tack looking for a date, or a fight. Below him on the floor, sitting calmly, surveying the room, was his dog, a big Sheppard mix of some kind, with a startling, and instantly recognizable intelligence. It was obvious the dog was taking the man out for play time and was patiently waiting for him to drink his fill.

The tall man with the curious stare was Harrison "DJ DOC SUPERFREAK" Rommel, and the majestic pup, was Omar the Great. The greatest dog who ever lived. At 14, Omar recently died in his sleep...we all lost an incredible friend.

Some diads are perfection; Harry and Omar were like Hendrix and his Strat; they were meant to be together. Harry told me he knew Omar was his dog when he sat calmly in his tiny cage as other death row inmates at the animal shelter barked, growled and paced. "It was like he was waiting for me to show up".

Omar was a mountain dog. Harry took him climbing in New Mexico, Colorado and Washington. I went on a "hike", as Harry called our 12 hour torture-fest up Mt. Pugh, with Omar, who chased marmots all day long and sprinted up to the top and back down without assistance on a trek that damn near killed me.

Omar's greatness was many things...but the most unique thing about him was his otherworldly intelligence. When Harry started dating a woman (who turned out to be a pain in the ass), Omar vanished on the morning of her first overnight, and ran to an X-girlfriends house, who walked Omar back to his apartment to find Harry and Miss Lunatic having breakfast...this was Omar's vote on the new flame. Omar could coax a treat out of the most jaded bartender by making his eyes get bigger, so it looked like he was about to cry! He once guarded a disabled child all day long at a park where he could have been rolling in pooh, or chewing on dead things like most dogs; instead, Omar never left the girls side, and would block anyone who approached her. He was practical as well...once jabbing me with his nose until I woke up and got off the couch I'd passed out on, it was his couch and it was noon, time for me to go.

I swear he walked through walls...he could get out of a locked house any time he pleased and we could never figure out how in the hell he did it...my amazing pal, the ancient Buddhist monk in a beautiful dog's body. He will be deeply missed by everyone who ever knew him.

Ch-Ch-Changes!

2007-01-30T08:23:00.000-08:00

Since my last post we have purchased a new vehicle, become pregnant, and put money down on a new rental...

Life has exploded, turned upside down, gone in reverse, increased in reverb and echo and become that much more fascinating.

My respect and admiration for women grows every day as I watch Kim change and suffer and expand and glow like morning sun.

WOW!.....(mouth hanging open)

Lunch with the President

2006-12-28T08:35:00.000-08:00

In 1987 I had lunch with Gerald Ford.

I was a senior at Homestead High in lovely Fort Wayne Indiana, on assignment as a photographer for the school newspaper. A pal of mine whose grandfather golfed with former president Ford, wrote what must have been an impressive letter, begging Gerry to pay a visit to our school...to give a speech, gag down our food and shake hands with members of the student government and newspaper staff.

The school auditorium was packed with students and friends of teachers and administrators no one recognized. Our government teacher and baseball coach, Keith Potter, was pale and overdressed, scurrying around giving orders in a thin controlled voice, he looked like he might soil himself at any moment.

Ford rolled in like Elvis, Secret Service infested the school like jacket wearing cockroaches, and he was safely at the podium, ready to give an instantly forgettable speech.

I moved down the marble steps of the auditorium, camera at the ready. Secret Service shadowing my every move.

I shot several roles of film and some of my pictures made it into the paper. Later, my negatives were confiscated by Mark Kornman (sp?), our publications teacher.

At lunch Ford was pleasant and at ease, fielding questions from pimpled journalists and eating cafeteria food.

He was among us for several surreal hours and then poof!...back to class.

2006-12-03T09:04:00.000-08:00

Free Range Human has finished their latest cd. "Last Chance" takes one final shot at mesmerism through cut and hack and compose and theft techniques....features Miles Davis, Brett Underwood, John Goddard, Grass Family Reunion, Hemingway, James Garner, Alan Watts, Andre Gregory, Wallace Shawn, Jim Jones and the grumblings and final speeches of 900 people about to drink cyanide.

Drums, words, guitar and production by Paul Hiatt.

Thanks to Kendall Conrad for photo editing.

If you want a free copy leave your info in the comments section.

New Kind of Meaning For Sale

2006-10-26T08:49:00.000-07:00

Like anyone with eyeballs and ears and the smallest sense of awareness, I find the culture of mass consumption, where all things are promised and emptiness is delivered, to be frightening and sick...and in need of destruction.

I subscribe to the notion that most people attached to consumer pop culture are sleeping an uneasy sleep, cut off from both internal and external realities, awaiting the next pellet of purchased hope, with vague uneasiness and bruised bank accounts. With eyes half closed they willingly cede their mental and spiritual landscape to the agents of fear and sell.

And IT is everywhere and IT is where most of us want to be. Where the action is. In the know.

To turn away from crass commercialism and constructed reality, is to turn away from civilization, to be cut off, alone in a cruel landscape where wrinkles and allergies and sexlessness await.

Thank God for culture jammers like Adbuster Magazine...where you can purchase an anti-purchasing awareness kit:

A radical new aesthetic vision by Adbusters editor-in-chief Kalle Lasn. Equal parts memoir, manifesto, scrapbook, and revolutionary design manual, this book is an urgent call for artists, designers, architects and communicators to re-engage with the world.
Richly illustrated with highlights from 15 years of Adbusters design activism (and featuring the work of Banksy, Andy Goldworthy, Jeff Wall, Edward Burtynsky, Ryan McGinness, Andre Serrano, Dah Len, Robert Mapplethorpe, John Goto, Mark Tansey, Gregory Crewdson among others), Design Anarchy probes the historical roots of commercial design culture, the cultural impact of the post-modern sensibility and the problem of aesthetic recuperation. Along the way, it proposes two revolutionary new schools of design philosophy and practice: True Cost Design and Psycho Design.
In the battle for a new kind of meaning, Design Anarchy is 400 pages without precedent.
THE AUTHOR
Kalle Lasn is the founder and editor-in-chief of Adbusters magazine. He has been a key figure in international activism for well over a decade. He was the prime author and driving force behind the First Things First 2000 Manifesto.
SCRAPBOOK EDITION
A different take on Design Anarchy, one that achieves a richer expression of the anarchic ideal. Includes an array of handcrafted ephemera, doodles, clippings, transparencies, leaves, sandpaper, stickers . . . plus the Production of Meaning DVD.
NOTE: The scrapbook edition is not eligible for the student/teacher discount.
SHIPPING:USA and Canada: about 10 daysUK, Europe: about 2 weeks

You can't buy "a new kind of meaning" but you can sell an above- it -all aesthetic to those looking for a way out of the sickness.

Unfortunately it's not that easy.

Great Americans

2006-10-24T10:14:00.000-07:00

Recently, a man in Pennsylvania pulled a gun on his 7 year old son's football coach because he wasn't getting enough playing time. The 40 year old was arrested after the un-named coach filed a complaint.

I want to know about the son. Is he a capable football player, overlooked by an insensitive buffoon of a coach? Or does he lack miniaturized blood lust; a passion for inflicting pain on other 1st grade savages.

We can gauge the gun fixated father's level of dementia if we know more about the son's ability to tackle, block and run. If the son can't finish a designed play, or shies aways from bone jarring hits (like most normal humans), the coach is only doing his job by limiting the boy's exposure to an unpleasant, and potentially dangerous situation, and the father is completely insane, off his nut...delusional.

If the boy loves smashing others and can follow plays, but is being ignored by the coach, the father is not, according to American sensitivities, insane, but John Wayne like...saving his boy from a horse thieving coach, a bandit out to rustle away juniors playing time.

And it must be black and white! Nuance is un-American, contemplation is UNAMERICAN!

Thoughtful deliberation is......

Matt Hutton R.I.P

2006-10-20T09:24:00.000-07:00

Years ago, back at the Jefferson house, Matt Hutton was a champion of all things inebriate, and a damn good blues harp player.

I would walk through the front door after another day of wage slaving to find Matt in our kitchen with three or four bags of groceries, a bottle of Jack and a bag of weed. "Hey man, I was wondrin' if yall might want to have a barbecue?" I would laugh...because I wasn't sure how he got in the house...and because he had spent most every night during that time in our kitchen.

Matt was very kind and open to anyone who wanted to kick back and "smoke a tater", or have a drink and talk about music. He had curly blond hair and a cherub face. His Southern charm would disarm, and his penchant for telling tall tales, especially to new friends, was a constant source of bewildered entertainment. I fell victim when we first met. I can't remember the tale, but he got me.

At Christmas, Matt would arrive with ceramic jugs full of what he called "cherry cordial", a liqueur his family made from the cherries they grew.

I remember Matt patiently enduring jam sessions in which the rest of us wanted to freak out, gonzo style, without musical structure of any kind....for hours. During breaks Matt would chime in, "How 'bout a blues man?"

Before I left town I ran into Matt. He looked twenty years older than the last time I'd found him in our kitchen. I'd been told he was having some problems, that he was getting into some things that were sure to hurt him. I knew he lost someone he loved...

I remember Matt telling me one time that he felt he had nothing to live for, that life had no purpose and that he needed to find something to believe in. I wasn't shocked because I felt the sadness in him, but I was a little surprised by his revelation. He said he'd lost faith in music because the business is all bullshit and talent means less than fads and networking.

So have a drink and think of Matt Hutton...even if you never knew him. He was a kind and gentle soul.

GFR Radio

2006-10-18T08:02:00.000-07:00

Between 1997 and 2003 I was a member of Trip 20, Bronze Age Idols and Free Range Human. Each project fell apart for various reasons, but during that span of time, there was one constant...a loose collective of mad improvisers known as Grass Family Reunion. GFR was born one night in 1998 when Sherry Lucas offered us a last minute gig at the Way Out Club.

There would be no structure... no planned songs...for better or worse.

That night was special. For some reason our ragged meanderings fell in line and a living organism seemed to enter the room. Someone asked who we were and it was decided our drummer, Steve Grass, was responsible for the mayhem, and the name followed. Perhaps it was his idea to pull our pants down in public (I don't remember).

From that night until I left Saint Louis I had the pleasure to jam with a wide variety of amazing players, in a relaxed, "anything (and I mean anything!) goes" atmosphere, including Steve Grass, Terry Goetz, Dan MacQue, Don Cole, Matt Hutton, Jerry Green, Buzzy, Dave Colin, Henry Horning, John Goddard, Dan Stuvland and the infamous B-Flat. Many other faces passed through our door but I don't remember, or never learned their names.

I am in the process of editing the countless recordings made during this period and will be creating a website where tracks will be posted.

FEET!

2006-10-16T15:13:00.000-07:00

According to the Transportation Research Board, the number of Americans spending an hour or more commuting to work has grown more than 50% in the last ten years. I spent two years working construction and fighting the morning and evening rush hour mayhem. I found driving on four lane highways at five to ten mph annoying and dangerous...but necessary.

Now I work within walking distance of home and quite enjoy being car-less. For thirty minutes I stroll, collecting my thoughts and watching people make coffee, scratch themselves as they retrieve the morning paper, walk their dogs...as I pass coffee shops and bakeries, wonderful aromas fill my nose. I have a favorite tree. He or she is an enormous big leaf maple that stands next to the baseball and soccer park a few blocks from my house. He or she spreads a magnificent canopy over both the street and part of the ball field, playing with the morning light. I say hello on the days I pass. I take a different route every day for the sake of new things to look at...and just because.

Walking wakes you up.

There's no one to get mad at.

You're not at the mercy of the Traffic God who blocks intersections, causes other drivers to go insane, makes lights conspire against you etc...

Use your feet!

Free Range Human

2006-09-06T18:10:00.000-07:00

Anyone interested checking out the propagandic stylings of Free Range Human should visit...

http://www.myspace.com/frangehuman

A new cd is supposed to be finished before the end of the year. "2000 Years" and "Monsters Sublime" are available now. Contact info is at the above address.

Here's a review

"Part necromancer and part mad scientist, Paul Hiatt is the proud owner of the fevered brain behind the jarring mixology of Free Range Human. From a seemingly incongruous jumble of field and studio recordings, samples, spoken word, audio cut-ups and synthesized riffs, Hiatt summons massive green storm clouds of ghosts, gears, dried flowers and luminescent dust particles, then freezes them in time, shatters them with a sledgehammer and offers you the broken shards with a glass of straight rye whiskey. At times hauntingly catchy and often pleasantly disturbing, Free Range Human is the sound of dead cowboys in polyester leisure suits walking abandoned city streets in search of the good old days, of America crammed into a microwave oven with a three-legged cat and a can of pork and beans."

NOW

2006-08-31T16:59:00.000-07:00

Hunter- Suicide
Melissa- Cancer
Brenda- Cancer
Audrey- Unknown
Bill- Diabetes
Joan- Cancer
Helen- Cancer
Drew- Suicide

Matt Hutton- Overdose
Jim- Alcohol
Jeff- Heart Failure
Carrie- Car Crash
Paul- Car Crash
Nancy- Suicide
Emily- Cancer
Carol- Cancer
Fay- Heart
Edna- Cancer
Elmer- Cancer
Lefty- Heart Attack
Nick- Cancer
Bob- Cancer
Sanfort- Seizure
Cully- Unknown
Jim- Cancer
Jennifer- Car Crash
Larry- Heart Attack

There was once a man who was being chased by a ferocious tiger across a field. At the edge of the field there was a cliff. In order to escape the jaws of the tiger, the man caught hold of a vine and swung himself over the edge of the cliff. Dangling down, he saw, to his dismay, there were more tigers on the ground below him! And, furthermore, two little mice were gnawing on the vine to which he clung. He knew that at any moment he would fall to certain death. That's when he noticed a wild strawberry growing on the cliff wall. Clutching the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other and put it in his mouth.
He never before realized how sweet a strawberry could taste......Ancient ZEN proverb....

2006-08-30T13:30:00.000-07:00

In between 12 hour shifts posing as caffeine ravaged tint boy and contractor Bo Bo Doll, I have recently spent more time than I want to admit combing the internet for 9-11 conspiracy sites where, to the delight of my Lithuanian suspicion gene, I can get my fix and enjoy, like the simple dirtiness of a deep nose pick, an ocean of suspicion, accusations and rage. My blood pressure rises, my head spins and my fists clench (making typing a bitch). There are dozens of such sites available for all to peruse, scoff at, or send money to. My favorite is Alex Jones, the round-faced shrieker out of Austin Texas, whose passion for all things world orderish I find refreshingly alive, if not at times, slightly demented. Right on target or comically bent, Alex is on fire...maybe you should find a match for yourself instead of watching the goddamn football game.

I'm not going to rant about 9-11, there are plenty of people with more time on their hands willing to pose fascinating questions related to the subject.

Random 4th

2006-07-04T15:46:00.000-07:00

Perfect weather
The sun warms the flesh and the air is infused with a cleansing ocean coolness
The breeze is playful
Leaves are screaming with green brilliance

I meander through Ballard with no destination

A memory comes: Andy Conrad lighting a firecracker in his mouth like a cigarette
The wick, fast as lightning, leaves him a fraction of a second to throw or spit the gunpowder from his mouth

Too late and BLAM!

His lips bleed, his nose is black, the fingers he raised to pull the tiny bomb from his mouth are bright red
He dances the crazed dance of the unexpectedly injured
I am sprawled on the still warm concrete in spasms of laughter watching him

The 4th is filled with memories of pyromania and suburban combat
Bottle rockets, firecrackers, Roman candles and BB guns make for moderately dangerous fun...
There is nothing more pleasing to the pre-pubescent boy than blasting a friend with some kind of burning object...or at least grazing him...ah! the joy of causing minor damage to structures or flesh!

I pass exiled smokers sucking away at sticks of death outside Wingmasters Bar and Grill
Inside the World Cup draws perhaps a dozen shabby looking characters and a few athletes who moan at a very wide screen TV while downing beer and chicken fat in the low light and piss perfumed air...

The coffee shop is packed with various stock characters: pairs of women discussing choices...life choices...food choices...choosing which choices to talk about and deciding if they are really choosing or just settling for someone else's choices (thank you Oprahchrist)....and outsider pensive sorts (like me) gazing at traffic while chewing on pens or attempting to be very pale.....a beard reads the paper, fluffing it in annoyance at something...pierced, bra-less young women fetch baked goods and grind beans....

Everything else is closed

The heat is gobbling up the cool ocean air and I move towards home trying to think of some observation about the 4th of July......

Explosions are fun for everyone except combat veterans and dogs
I've always thought it strange that we celebrate our independence by traumatizing former soldiers
I picture nervous grey haired men locked in closets, clutching pistols, wondering if maybe we could replace bombs and rockets with a traditional sing-a-long or dance....

And i think of food
corn on the cob, burgers, potato and fruit salad, that damn green bean casserole everyone makes, pies and cakes and brownies and cookies and beer and bombs and lawn chairs and and and and bloody flesh burned to perfection for sunburnt, drunk and hungry patriots...........the fat, violent , intolerant masses slobbing in collective gluttony............ and the beautiful ones too

especially the beautiful ones...............

Then I come upon a boarded up building with pictures of Betty Page, Albert Einstein and the Sex Pistols placed in the grimy front window in a wonderful shrine of absurdity...............

Aliens

2006-06-05T21:32:00.000-07:00

My hands are laborer's hands; large, ugly mits with dry, veined skin. I can smash things with my laborer's hands, can violate a guitar with intention, can pick my nose with expert precision...no booger is safe in my nose...can give a decent back rub...but I can't, it seems, fish very well with my land loving paws.

A few weeks ago I went Halibut fishing 27 miles off the Olympic Peninsula in 35 ft Wellcraft with three other men. After an hour long ride that pounded the piss out of me (especially since I was nursing a few cracked ribs left over from Cinco De Mayo), we found the coordinates Capt. Rusty had been given by one of his clients, where we were sure to catch our one fish per person limit in a matter of minutes.

Sure enough, less than five minutes after dumping my three pound lead ball weighted line, baited with frozen fish bits, 520 ft down, I felt the familiar pull, like a pal with something urgent to say tugging at your sleeve.

"Reel him in!" someone yelled. I then began a fifteen minute struggle to commit fish murder.

To my surprise, my hands gave out very quickly. It was like a switch had been turned off. The muscular power in my hands and arms was halved and I wasn't even a quarter of the way through my battle. As I gasped and shouted obscenities Capt. Rusty remarked, "I'd help you, but that's against the rules". I didn't want any damn help. My biggest fear was that I'd lose my grip and his 600$ designer fish slayer would be lost. I had 50$ for gas...losing equipment wasn't in the budget.

The victim didn't seem to struggle against my line, but to hang limp and heavy; it was like pulling up a large piece of plywood out of 500ft of molasses. I struggled and batched, rested and bitched and struggled some more.

After what seemed like a half an hour, mercifully, his green-gray body appeared next to the boat. Gasping for air, my arms useless rubbery flesh, I gazed down at him anxious to see what he was. As I was making out the size and form of him, Capt. Rusty, balanced next to me (as the boat rocked and careened) thrust a harpoon through the poor creature and pulled him up out of his home and onto our boat in one quick murderous maneuver, where he removed the harpoon and began clubbing him on the side of his head with a small steel pipe. The Halibut gagged for life, opening his strange mouth as if a sound would issue forth, but there was only the sound of me chasing my breath and the other men whooping and cheering me as he bled around our feet and succumbed.

In no time three more fish between thirty and fifty pounds were harpooned, clubbed and stuffed into holds on either side of our boat. Soon we were ankle deep in bloody water that sloshed and splashed around us as the boat danced and bowed in the swells. Capt. Rusty surveyed the situation, bloody sea water trickling off his nose. Every few minutes one of the doors would rise and fall as our catch wriggled and jerked with echoes of life. My stomach, though medicated wanted to leap out of my mouth, so I gazed at the horizon as the others rested and discussed where we could go to catch some Cod.

I was done fishing. My fingers were unable to perform the delicated operations needed to switch weights, lures and baits...thus I was reduced to a fishing invalid and my mind drifted off from the tasks at hand. I left the others to the killing and couldn't stop thinking about my hands and their alarmingly quick loss of power (as I watched the others I soon discovered I was using the wrong form, all arms and no leaning and reeling, leaning and reeling, using weight instead of brute strength). I felt as meek as a kitten marveling at the outrageous power rolling and crashing all around us. I was a feather being tossed by the furies, a speck of drowsy dust on the tip of a sneeze.

My hands throbbed and we were lifted on a tremendous swell like the ocean took a deep breath. Capt. Rusty started screaming, it was a Grey Whale rolling on his side perhaps 50 yards from our boat. I was awed by the size of him and instantly concerned for our safety...Are we going to get smacked by that monster? My ribs were very tender and each unexpected lurch of the boat made me wince. What if we get thrown out? I couldn't swim with these ribs and my ruined arms, and what good would it be if I could swim, we were on our own!

The ocean has no sense of rhythm...at least not where we were. Capt. Rusty said "She doesn't know what the hell she wants to do today", as waves crashed into each other to form larger waves only to be nugged into submission by a gathering swell. The Gray was spotted again off in the distance and I relaxed as much as I could, trying not to look into the boat to keep from being sick.

We pounded around for three or four more hours in vain looking for Ling Cod. I was content to gaze at the giant cliffs near Rialto Beach as we worked our way back towards land. I pondered the last few minutes of my Halibut's life. Maybe it was getting close to lunch in his world. There he was, lurking about in the darkness, feeling a tad peckish when he saw what looked like (or smelled like) lunch, and the next thing he knows is the sense of being pulled, probably a first for him. As my arms reeled and reeled, he could feel my stregth waning. At some point he may have thought whatever force was pulling him was about to expire. Then there was this foreign light, then a piercing pain as the thrusting harpoon was sent home...then what? Was there pain...terror?

Back at La Push we docked our boat, got measured by a young woman who worked for the Government and ambled up a slippery plank to the cleaning station where men stood around in groups of three or four, cleaning the days catch and eyeing everyone else's. "Nice fish" a guy said to me as I carried the 30lb victim to his last station.

An eccentric Indian boy was pretending to be in charge of the place. I say eccentric because he spoke with a slight British accent and used a fake sing songy high pitch voice. I've never known a Native American to sound British so I kept my eye on him out of curiosity and because there was nothing else for me to do since the fingers in my left hand were numb and useless.

The boy fetched plastic bags from inside a small shed for us to put our meat in. "Here you are gentlemen" he said like a limey waiter. I watched Capt. Rusty deftly dismember my victim and felt a slight sense of shame for having murdered him, and an even deeper sense of shame and regret for not cleaning him. It was disrespectful, and made me look like an ingrate.

The British Indian boy played with the Halibut carcasses, skillfully removing organ systems, laying them out on the ground and examining them. He found a half digested fish in my victim's guts and held it up for me to see before tossing it to the crazed seagulls fighting and shrieking over discarded flesh. As I watched these giant birds swallowing large pieces of fish matter whole, a Sea Lion swam underneath a gull and swallowed most of him before thrashing him from side to side, completely obliterating the bird as his mates gazed upward to the heavens hysterical for more heads, innards and soft, slippery flesh, unaware of his demise.

As we left town, sitting in the back of an old Chevy pickup we saw a battered Ford upside down, fifteen feet up in a craggy dead tree with both doors hanging wide open like the wings of a dead bird. Tribal police stood outside their cars gazing at the truck like it was an alien craft. There was no ambulance, no one being arrested...just perplexed repose.

I watched the dilapidated homes file past as we drove slowly towards our cabin. There were no residents visible. It seemed like a ghost town but for the fishermen from out of town coming and going, towing giant boats; wide shouldered men in ball caps with thick wallets and coolers full of beer.

I thought of the curious, weird little boy who didn't seem to know who he was, holding up the yellowing eyes of my fish's last meal, the vicious power of the ocean and the savage, unromantic struggle for survival that teams all around us. And having glimpsed some of the larger, timeless, and terrifying realities we have managed through technology to run away from, I was, for the first time, fully aware of my complete and utter removal from them.

We are aliens.

2006-05-23T12:39:00.000-07:00

Slaughterhouse Fay

I saw a man walking a pig down Market St. today. The distinctive gate of Mr. pig and his gentle "groink" barely audible above the traffic, bought forth a series of memories from my childhood...

If you follow Indiana state highway 14 several miles west from the house I grew up in, the subdivisions give way to singular ranch houses and farm fields. Eventually you will cross highway 9 and just beyond there is a long dirt drive that used to lead to Fay and Edna White's farm (the land has since been sold).

I was around ten years old when my parents left me with the Whites while they enjoyed a long deserved vacation alone....the following are fragments of memories from that time

Fay, minus one ear (lost to a corn picker), big as a barn with massive hands, was a gentle man with a musical voice he rarely used. I don't remember anything he said, just the sound. Fay was kind and warm like a well built fire and was always on his way to do something like all farmers. You saw him in passing, usually carrying something.

I was awakened before dawn to eat the biggest breakfast I have ever seen. Edna, large and sweet as cream, Must have been up for some time preparing eggs, sausages, corn cakes, hashbrowns and toast in enormous portions. We stuffed ourselves, washed it all down with cold, fresh juice and made for Fay's 18 wheeler sitting dirty next to the barn in sticky tire waked mud...already loaded with hogs...who made sounds and smelled ripe and ready for delivery.

My excitement faded as the great hulking beast belched black smoke and we lurched and bounced to the highway, the roar of the engine scouring my ears. There would be no radio...just gear after gear, light after light, no talking...just highway and the empty expanse of fields and barns and clumps of trees.

Still painfully full we stopped for doughnuts. Fay placed an assorted dozen on the dashboard and wolfed them down in between shifts. I ate one somehow and started thinking about our cargo. Do they know what awaits them. Obviously they don't, but what if they could? Maybe they'd stage a daring escape attempt while being offloaded...perhaps concentrated ankle biting and sheer numbers could overwhelm us.

We made our way into Ohio and unfamiliar landscapes. The road began winding and hills appeared. I was sinking into a kind of hysterical boredom not uncommon in childhood when trapped in an adult time frame without the ability to be preoccupied or to escape. Each second, every bump in the road that caused the cab to bounce wildly, was pure torture.

Suddenly we turned off the road into a large yard half filled with other big rigs. There was a run down looking house stuffed with big men in flannel shirts. We settled in for the biggest hamburgers I have ever seen and wide cut fries and apple pie. I wanted to stay, to avoid the rotten endless torture of the road.

By early afternoon we arrived at a small whitewashed building where our cargo would be slaughtered. I had almost forgotten about them and their fate, consumed by boredom and anger at my captivity.

And what about them? I suddenly felt that I was just like a goddamn pig...I was carted around by adults, told what to do by adults, forced to stand in line at school, allowed outside into a large field for small portions of each school day.....my pals and I....like talking farm animals.....

I had always hated the regimentation of school....and for the first time it occurred to me that being controlled by others, being controlled by other people's clocks and whims.....might not end when I was finished with school.....I was sour as hell, feeling the distance from home and the strange automation of the world that becomes invisible....just "the way things are".

I watched the piggies trot down a dirty wooden ramp through a greasy flap to awaiting knives and felt ill...not out of pity for them...but pity for us.

Fay seem relieved. He joked with a man behind a sliding window, signed some things and returned to the truck with a large white package.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Dinner", he said.

Back at the farm we gorged on pork steaks and then retired to the TV room to watch the Waltons. Having been pounded into exhaustion by the suspensionless rig and the days caloric intake, I sprawled out on the floor, grateful for the television's static numbness.

I kept dozing and lost track of the story line. As John Boy learned some bitter life lesson, I looked up at big Fay to see tears streaming down his face.

He sniffled into a hanky and said "Mother it's time for bed".

Laura/Condi

2006-03-24T09:39:00.000-08:00

Last night I slept very solidly which is rare. I dreamed I rode downtown on a plywood board, sitting on my ass hoping like hell through gritted teeth I wouldn't fall off and be skinned as I was traveling very fast. When I came to a stop I was "downtown"...I thought I was in Seattle but nothing was familiar. While standing in a shop of some sort Laura Bush tugged on my sleeve and asked me to come with her to a Presidential Brunch. When we arrived in the large banquet hall Laura began morphing into Condaleeza (sp?) Rice and then back into herself. Cheney, Rummy and George were waiting for food grumbling about something when I leaned over to Laura/Condi and said "You know you're not very popular here..." She/they smiled and gun shots cracked outside the wide doors that separated us from the street. Chaos ensued, goons appeared from no where to tackle people to safety. Cheney kept grumbling about something and somehow remained audible over the assassination din. Bullets made the curtains twitch, lights were blasted out, trumpets blared.......and still Cheney's magical grumbling filled my ears.

Free Writing While Listening to WFMU

2006-03-06T21:58:00.000-08:00

spandex barium cork fizz androgynous crayon fester punch tubs
trends trailing the sheep in new nether region nod pod video enhanced clogs playing pong
orbiting the beat
playing fancy with darling hammer thought girls
gun juggled dumb dance
closets burn
etchings loosen their ties
howling buckets of robotic pun
skeetch scrass scargo-heem
blam tastic blun forsh
herbal speed snorting on park benches covered in hot dog dander
squirrel knuckles needing a massage
three pronged offensive to liberate the laundry
small manipulations
large swallowing of untruthfulnesses
can of rash
parting the hair to pilot the plant
honks
honks
leaking impulse
a nerve never known needing nothing
dull pinch boys with buttons and scurvy libido
drip
and know
how to deconstruct

2006-03-03T12:16:00.000-08:00

After a second, and successful amputation, the most dangerous man in the Midwest has returned home and is looking forward to his first beer in months!

Tainted Water Wounded God

2006-02-22T23:32:00.000-08:00

Last weekend we took a long overdue trip to the Olympic Peninsula making stops in the rain forest, Rialto Beach, various wineries, and crescent Lake. We loaded our borrowed monster Honda pick up truck with a shameful amount of clothing, trying to account for various weather contingencies and made for the Kingston Ferry and a few days of nature worship.

Ferry rides are always interesting. I love standing on the observation deck breathing the icy air, gazing at the lights that make the hills glow yellow and silver. The black water churned through unseen engines and delivered us.

The trip was relaxing.....soul expanding.................... and disturbing

The locals were hard bit and twisted. We ate at a diner owned and operated by chronically obese folks who seem to have been subsisting on bacon fat, GPC Lights and tainted water. Grandma served huge portions good old American ass expansion fare, whipped together by Ma, who cooked while yelling at two dirty children crawling on the floor and counter with matted hair, vague eyes and a desperate need for attention of any kind. Big dangerous Dad watched Mom work while claiming he told her he was going to race this weekend and she had no damn right to be pissed about anything.

One of the little forgotten creatures managed to get his grimy hands on a dish of tartar sauce and began wolfing it down like ice cream. His mouth hung open between gulps...his breath slurped through congestion candy and condiments.

Daughter engaged Kim in meaningless conversation, trying to prove she can spell and count....I think she was around 8 years of age and may have been learning disabled. One eye seemed to wander.

The food was pretty good.

Next morning we ate breakfast at a little diner and had the pleasure of being served by a meth shrunken woman who was too confused to do anything but mumble, wonder around in circles and laugh at her own synaptic crackle.

The night previous, having stopped at the same diner for a beer, we learned from our young, bright and tragically bored hostess that everyone in town is cracked or methed out of their skulls because there "ain't nothin much to do and there ain't that many jobs either..."

The peninsula is a wounded beast of clear cut mountain sides punctuated by protected, and thus god like forests and beaches... and of course the Rain Forest which is a green orb of primal life, silent and mysterious beyond words.

Forgetting the awareness of a limb.

2006-02-15T21:22:00.000-08:00

My father recently had his leg amputated after several surgeries attempting to save his leg by increasing blood circulation failed. He has been hospitalized since January 11th. I've called him almost everyday to discuss the weather, the bad hospital food and his condition. His bravery during this reductive process is both inspirational and informative. Too often most of us wage an internal war against things we cannot control. Too often fear and anger guide our thoughts, shape us. When I asked my father how he felt about losing his leg he chuckled saying "I don't have a choice". The tone in his voice was imbued with calm certainty; there was no bitterness or rage against the cruelest of physical realities...destruction...annihilation. He says the phantom pain is very strange and that he hopes it eventually goes away. Imagine forgetting the awareness of a limb.

2006-02-11T12:05:00.000-08:00

The sun has returned to Seattle. Without cloud cover the air is crisp and the mountains are in full glorious view. Last night we had a seafood feast in our new cottage. Harrison Rommel was in attendance and survived the evening despite being too tall to move freely in our humble home. An over head lamp attacked him late in the evening...Harry dodged the assault at the last moment avoiding injury.

Life has settled into the all too familiar work a day rhythms. I can feel my mind going to sleep.

Thieves

2006-01-27T14:04:00.000-08:00

Kim and I were sitting in bed last night laughing at Burt Reynolds strutting across the television screen like an over-waxed Trans-Am when she thought there was someone banging against the side of our house. I explained that large vehicles passing or idling in the alley way can make the walls rattle. Kim didn't buy my explanation and focused her super sensitive hearing while I gazed at Burt.

A loud thud sent me scrambling for clothes and my brand new Mag Light, but by the time I got outside thieves had made off with my bike (which is worth perhaps 25$). The violation of property and peace caused my blood to boil. I ran down the alley and around the block, shirtless, wielding Maggie, hoping to find something to smash with her...I scared some guy squinting in the streetlight trying to fix his windshield wipers. "I haven't seen anyone!" he said with his hands up. The streets and alleys were deathly silent. I hulked around aimlessly until I felt ridiculous and half frozen.

The bastards were gone.

Random

2006-01-14T14:59:00.000-08:00

26 days of rain and counting.......

I've been hired by a painting company and am in the process of becoming "tint man". The work mostly consists of juggling color codes and product codes while running around in circles dealing with customers and is annoying at best...but it beats starvation and will hopefully be temporary.
I saw a one-eyed dog tied to a stop sign on my walk to the library. He was mostly hair and stood 1 foot tall. His puff was a rich auburn color and he managed to exude confidence while contemplating passers by.

I just ate the worst Indian food of my life.

A few nights ago I was struck by a car in a grocery store parking lot. Maybe it was more of a buffeting. An insane woman came barreling through the parking lot, jerked her sports car into a parking space I happened to be walking past and grazed me. I was so shocked I just stood there like a dunce looking at my hand (her assault had knocked the coat I was carrying from my grip). Another person said "Hey I saw that!" The woman was on her way into the store before I could react. I found her buying salmon and asked if I looked familiar. She gave me a dirty look and I began yelling at her for driving like a savage. She didn't have time for my ranting and raving and continued shopping as I said terrible things in a loud voice.

The next day while driving a truck downtown I almost killed a pedestrian because I didn't see her. She smacked the side of the truck with a closed umbrella, scratching the paint.

While delivering paint I witnessed construction workers laughing at a homeless guy who was waving his arms and shaking his legs in a kind of chicken dance and meandering dangerously close to traffic.

I can't find my favorite pair of pants.

Slower is Better

2005-12-30T12:08:00.000-08:00

I can't believe how much of my life is wrapped up in the damn computer. Without being able to work on music or writing projects I feel like my teeth have been taken out and put back in the wrong order. Gone is the ability to chip away at a sound collage or writing project. I have been scribbling thoughts in notebooks with the intention of posting them here and find it nearly impossible to read my handwriting. So I close the book and improvise.

Do you remember the last time you wrote or received a hand written personal letter? I receive one letter every year from a good friend and amazing guitar player living in Saint Louis. He sends a three or four page summary every Christmas. It's a unique and touching experience to fold the pages strait and spend a few minutes eyeing another person's script. What was (only a few years ago) commonplace, now seems extravagant. Think of the time and effort involved in writing a letter compared to an email.

Does convenience and immediacy cheapen experience? When you had to flip an LP were you forced to have a greater awareness of what you were listening to? I have another friend here in Seattle who loves electronic gadgetry. She built a computer television monster that has thousands of songs on one of it's many hard drives and has admitted that she no longer listens to any one album or artist long enough to get into the music the way she used to before her monster was built and she relied on a beat up radio with a CD player that didn't always work.

Now she cleans the house or works from home with her monster set on random. "I used to sit and listen to an entire CD doing nothing else but listening...but now I can't do that, there's too much music available...for some reason I love collecting or buying music for the sake of having it. I used to think I'd actually get around to listening to all of it someday, but I would have to quit my job and stop sleeping to have any hope of getting into my own music collection."

Having temporarily lost the ability to live in the digital age I have been forced to slow down creatively and have spent long stretches of time thumbing through old song books and re-arranging material...and developing new songs on guitar. I may be forced out of my cave and into the public arena to experience the intoxication of musical expression! I wasn't aware of my dependence until Svetlana became ill. Now I'm not so sure where I stand on any of this digital revolution stuff. Perhaps the computer should be used in moderation...that seems impossible doesn't it?