lovelikerobots

Derisions via Maquillage

2008-12-12T07:42:00.001-08:00

With stale coffee breath, we start the day. We are forgiven for not following our dreams.
After all are we not making a career? Are we not following, closely to what we actually acutely. Who knows. I revel in the pessimism and hypocrisy of modern life.
I am of course a part of this.

Interlude of work.

Just a thought

2008-12-11T14:58:00.000-08:00

There are decisions I need to make, my open mouth in air hangs
What to do, and what to fake, decisions that will come too late
Two eyes tear, I am so angry of sight, I swipe, and poke, unspoken blight
Throbbing Embers, such a painful burn, Please, please erase my face in light

I stare numbly at your door, a window shattered stone
Something more than this, a clump of smeared letters never torn
She knocks, her heels on sinking ground, fabric ripples in the abyss
I am mute, with frozen thoughts, words won't pour but spatter, all is lost.

They say "Sing desire sing", and all I do is watch
"Follow me", I laugh, but you do not move.
I fantasize, a pale shade of yellow, blotted thought
slain your flaccid might, blood and rust has wrought
No respite you've given me, we are destroyed by loving blows
In embrace, we spoke, my kisses crashing on your brow
And then fear thumping in my chest, a bloodied fork
A stranger, tells me," In fact she does not exist",
""her lies", he says, "they break apart", the ocean only foams for love
she spins,an empty face, no eyes, no thoughts, cataclysm is our fate.

They say eskimos remove obstructions with tongue, dear.

2008-12-11T11:27:00.000-08:00

Who was it that said that we spend too much time at work, to not create Art out of our work experiences.
Today I was terribly late, so late in fact, that it was unbelievable that I made it in at all.
Of course it was due to an emergency. An emergency in personal failure. A disaster in personal planning. A lapse in personal success.
Not quite.
The clock shows 10:49, thoughts of confusion swirl in my brain. Not understanding; How illogical these numbers seem to be.
A reality, a sense of understanding slowly dawns upon me...
Ughh what a mess.
Rushing and stumbling, I peel of last nights rags. I ignore the need for a shower or for clean clothes and intact socks, instead I pile on what I find and dart out nearly taking out the door by the hinges.
I remember in some trained Pavlov way to take my cell, keys and wallet.
Oh, how I would love to live without these things.
Careening down the steep peeling stairs, I exit my creaking building, leaving the smells of cooking and stout comfort behind me.
Outside, I pause and look up with my hand outstretched; an empty drizzle from a mute gray sky.
Why is rain so bored with falling. A sharp mist explores me like an ever insistent lover. A violent, piercing tongue removes sleep from my eyes, glides cooly around my face, over to the back of my neck, nesting behind my collar.
My shoes are wet.
With glazed eyes, I scan the wet streets, looking for something, maybe a bread-truck to run in front of, or a careless and recalcitrant satellite to come crashing down, flattening me forever.
I find neither so glumly I head for the train; a loud monster that screams of metal on metal.
It halts my thoughts.
I start running, the sound is my train and I have to catch it.
Out of breath, taking steps in twos and threes, I squeeze in at the last moment, battling an overeager sliding door.
Automation fail.
Is my earlier wish coming true, I ask myself.
Nothing functions properly so I give in and then out.
The pernicious doors slice into my sides.
They want to meet inside of me, dissecting through soft flesh and a weak mind.
Someone screams, and with a sigh, as if caught in the act of homicide, the doors slide open.
I go in, weakly murmuring maudlin sentiments of "Thank yous" .
I lean back, still out of breath, observing the now inside.
17 wet windows like ground glass filtering in a few drab rays of dingy light.
Dozens of plastic seats crowded with people,faces in gloomy darkness, sides squeezed against each other, elbow to elbow, water dripping from raincoats and jackets, gathering in a reek of human juice puddles on the floor.
Each one with their own overstuffed bags under eyes and another over their shoulder.
Bags and backpacks, purses and briefcases, most in their laps, cradled gently like nursing babes, these worthless possessions commanding full respect perhaps of their contents. Smug leather, with obnoxious chrome dominating tastelessly.
I look away.
Unfocused I stare at the ghost reflection of myself in the opposing window. It has gotten darker, and now noon feels like 6pm.
I shiver in an odd anticipation, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up, overcome by a superbly comforting and cozy sensation.
A sound distracts me and I turn towards it.
Abuzz, multiple mandibles grinding away, like insects, all gestating a peculiar breakfast.
An all too familiar delight made of "low fat, calorie free" anguish and dissatisfaction, salted liberally with organic submissiveness.
All this is joined by a cacophony of loud slurping and liberal lip-smacking.
Numb fingers reaching in stomachs, deep down throats, scratching at flesh, blood mixing with scalding coffee, gross efforts resulting in violent retching.
A disgorge of disfigured, semi-digested dreams.
Tired throats spent of shrieking.
These stale openings, wounded by lost fights, haphazardly covered by bandages of parched and cracked skin, these lips.
Underneath, souls still yearning for comfort and some inspiration.
This is the specific sound hidden behind all the daily newspapers, every book, shuttered tightly behind closed eyes, anchored between each set of tinny sounding headphones.
As if anything could really drown out the howl urban hopelessness.
Through a thousand dreads and agonies I press my face upon the cool glass, speckled with what looks to be semen, and I gaze out into the hazy structure of the W_g bridge, solid and unthinkable. I wait for my stop.

I fight the melancholy, of going somewhere where I don't want to; Work.
My ennui diluting all strong motivations. Status is still quo.
15 minutes splashing in puddles. Avoiding reflections.
I walk into the building, wave my pass at the guards, who despite knowing me by name, insist on this ridiculous procedure every single time.
Next time, I decide, I will run in; a mad dash. Let's see if they can catch me.
I will run so fast, my heels will richochet of the small of my back.
God knows these guards need some excitement in their lives, a reprieve from enforcing absurd interdicts.
They are trapped, any refusal of duties, even on the simple basis of human dignity, will result in immediate suspension and replacement by someone, more than eager to continue this and any other ineffectual procedures.

I walk past, murmuring "Good Morning"
I press the elevator button, and it glows.
Thank you glowing button, you ghost in a shell, you are the only one that can comfort me, with your clear communication and directions.
"Thank You.Thank You", I gush.
The elevator hums to life somewhere above me, and a few seconds later, with a playfull "ding" the doors slide open.
This is the last place and the last moment where I can really change my mind.
I can turn back and walk away.
I don't.
I readily walk in, to be taken to a wholly impotent existence for the next 9 hours or so.
My free time negated, abolished, the windows on the floor, showing the outside, purely existing as a Tantalus torture.

I pass by the nearly constant effluvium of the 3rd floor kitchenette.
Today 's miasma is so complex, that it takes me a few moments to be able to distinguish the individual smells.
It reeks of the sweetness of decomposing flesh(perhaps mice), a lemon disinfectant, something cheesy and a cocktail of bleach and feces.

I head to my desk, my eyes cocked on the phone.
When the little red light is illuminated I have messages.
It could be one, or it could be 20. No way of knowing.
Shit, it's there!
A proud, little red herpes on gray plastic future.
I cover up the light with a piece of paper and swivel toward my computer.

Turn on, wait, spinning wheels, wait, errors and flickers, grinding and straining, wait.

I answer emails, feverishly, without any desire, out of a professional obligation and yet with a sweet sense of poetic justice. I specialize in a form of professional terrorism.
I compose convoluted sentences, make up words, ellipses color most of my messages, I disperse of meanings and indulge in triple negatives.
I sow confusion happily for a few hours , my smirk reflected on the screen.

You walk the stairs, I pass by you. a gleam of recognition, but nothing more, neither is important or worth recalling.I still smell your perfume as you step away, flight by flight you are elsewhere. I don't know you, and I haven't seen your face, but I think I love you.
A faceless lover, born without eyes. And I, born without feelings.

Self-Portrait with Imaginary Brother

2008-11-24T14:40:00.000-08:00

I read a word recently that I noticed.
A word I really liked.
Osculation.
To osculate is to buss.
To buss is to kiss.
But the familiar sound of osculation only belies its fantastical nature.
A word that sounds like oscillate, like undulate, like ambulate, coagulate , a physical word that uses our lips to say it and to feel it. How do you say a word that emerges like a plastic octagon, caressing the middle crease of your lips, scratching languidly the soft flesh and falling out with all its gentle weight. It floats to the ground, heavy, your flesh on its edges, a serigraph of a living geometry. A chimera, inanimate and animated, using blood on its surface ,for lack of other supply, no veins, no arteries; bloodshed its only source of life.

This weekend my Rolleiflex locked up. This makes me sad. I love this camera, it takes pictures that I cannot believe I have been a part of. It is at Nippon Photo Clinic getting treatment.
The guys there are all so super nice, all Japanese, all the time. It smells faintly of cameras, film emulsion and cigarette smoke. I find this lovely.
At work today, I was forced to produce for the internet. A swirl of javascript and SWFs and FLA's and HTML screaming at me, through my apparent incompetence, the ugliness of UBER NERDs Unite. I feel more a part of the future than I have in my entire life. And yet I am very hopeful.

Number 1

2008-07-28T02:39:00.001-07:00

She looks lonely. She sits on an uncomfortable F. L. Wright inspired instrument of torture; slumps, pressing her exhaustion into the supporting pillar. She clutches a book in one hand, and in another, an edge of a blanket. She is tired, the sleep in her eyes, easily apparent. It is early, a time when the morning can easily be night, a terrifying moment inspiring nausea of chronic overabundance.
Behind her a window, reflecting the oppressive, circular, mixed temperature indoor lights. Streaks of dark Outside, shyly wax through ; Emergency Flashing LEDs reflecting off her wrinkled clothes, like some weird form of techno varicella.

She moves her body in a languid, tired asymmetry, a sort of imperfect vibration. Her thoughts collect around her, hot and wavy like air of a boiling day.
Inside the AC quietly hums along. She places her bare feet on her suitcase.
A broken callus loudly at her left heel, a red circle of exposed meat, inside, flesh; gilded edges of skin, golden-dead skin around a scarlet wound.

A gasp, we expect truth, the torrent of thoughts; "Escape! from her painful fenestration."

Collective thoughts scream, a chorus of pain.
The wound demurely closes on itself, like a black mirror, a self satisfied sheen of of thick liquid, anticipatory dew of plasma. Moist and raw, like a pomegranate.

The P.A system expands in painful feedback.
Wailing of old technology, of high resistance gives in to a defeated sleepless voice.
An important message, it begins with an apology.
With artificiality -, "This, Ladies and Gentlemen is neither due to a failing infrastructure nor to expensive oil; Forget impending doom and disaster, Forget your paranoia , It is not the end of the world" it states, "But simply human error". A pause, allowed for human comprehension.
A nod of empathy ripples through the room.
She stirs uncomfortably. She prefers the dreamy existence in between. She prefers between the waves.
"The 1st Ambassador has overslept!," they whisper , "No, no, they are not paying attention, It's the 1st Captain," she thinks." "He captains the monocoque shell, sends it through the air."
"He contains the thirst for flight, 10,000 meters far above the earth, above the clouds, where they become pillows, and fill the eyes with plump white.
"No matter" she states through teeth covered by limp lips,
"Processed oxygen will take care of these thoughts."
She elevates her body. She feels modular. Elements of body parts together, connected as she has never felt them before. Muscles acting as teeth, hair as feet, her open callus as an eye, her nails as ears; all connected, haphazardly, like the electronic cables behind a desk, unlabeled , hopefully plugged in, buzzing at 60HZ, all for, of movement and reason.
She grabs her bag and she feels the weight of her monstrosity; could she check this baggage in?
Her mismatched parts, an experiment of internal friction. The speaker promises a prompt departure from Gate 32.

To be continued...

Swimming in Miami Beach

2008-05-28T16:43:00.000-07:00

Pictured above is one messed up, super addicted seaweed.
The black band is the tourniquet.
Notice the foamy vomitus and the awkward posing.
DRUGS ARE BAD!

My new Motorcycle '76 CB 400F

2008-05-27T12:35:00.000-07:00

I have acquired yet another beautiful bike. A classic 1976 Single Overhead Cam red SuperSport.

Ultimately unsuccessful in the States,
it was made for only 3 years(75-77, with less than 5000 produced per year.
Its demise was imminent.
The '77 model should not count, as it was "uglified "to fit with the the then "Harley" image of the motorcycle.
Think "Easy Rider" not "Rebel without a Cause".

With clean racing inspired lines and the very sporty "European" stance , it is -in my eyes- one of the most beautiful motorcycles Honda ever produced.
Its the apparent simplicity that draws your attention to the basic shape. It's as minimal and elegant as a complex machine can be, without covering up with steel monocoque or plastic nonsense.
It is truly a naked bike, a superb exhibitionist.
Most interestingly there is an intentional asymmetry of design.
Absolutely stunning.
The right engine side reveals four metallic lines that sweep across the belly meeting into one towards the back; the one expanding continuously into an inverted cone.
Beautiful and no, not replicated on the left.

Thank you Sōichirō Honda 本田宗一郎.

Some pornography below:

In Miami

2008-05-27T12:05:00.000-07:00

So here I am in Miami. The city of Vice. The city of the 70s. The city where everyone is naked, tan, beautiful and branded. The city of of buzzing scooters, and no walking allowed; unless it's Miami Beach.
I flew in yesterday, on a plane. An old plane with coal blackened wings. Stitching on the back of the head rest.
I am staying at the Hilton in Biscayne Bay and it feels completely dead. It feels like no one is there. It feels indefinite. I am on the top floor. Floor 21.
The windows do not open. The view is fantastic especially at night.
My birthday is in 3 days.

Pictures in next post.

2008-04-11T21:33:00.001-07:00

Theremin and Lenin

2008-04-06T21:26:00.000-07:00

This weekend has undoubtedly been a very Red weekend.
I have consumed many Red things, both in liquid and solid form.
Pastarma, Carpaccio(thanks Eli), Pepperoni, Marinara, red beer and wine.

Red references in a book I read over this weekend; of N. Vietnam, and Ho Chi Minh and French Indochina , of French cooking and Gertrude Stein, who's name always makes me think of Roseability by Idlewild, all of which extended into tiresome and endless Wikipedia expeditions.

And finally as tribute to Leon, I have build a Theremin. It's a very simple yet temperamental thing, that I doubt even Clara R. would be able to control . It was meant as an artistic promise whispered through evaporating alcohol in a dark and loud chamber, but our friends are working, and youth has no place in serious work.

But there it is.
A video of a test.
In the future a telescoping antenna of the old am/fm variety and an enclosure of some sort. MeSt will be the inspiration for the latter.

Another night out

2008-04-03T21:03:00.001-07:00

I was attracted to going out. It started at work and ended at
Darkroom. I feel so easily manipulated. The promise of sex weaves
silken links...

Sent from my iPhone

My Vespa rebuild

2008-04-02T19:23:00.000-07:00

For the past few months I have been rebuilding a 1974 smallframe. The
goal was to recapture a past never lived. An experiment.
Many deep cuts, flesh opening in random slits, my blood mingling with the motor.
Its blood visible in dark oily sickle shapes under my fingernails.

A hope to achieve absurd speeds.

This litle 2 stroke will fly, and I will too.
A question remains, what is the best way to get a green scooter down 4 flights?
Spring is here, and her blue eyes are in my dreams. She blushes when she sings.

Dinner tonight

2008-04-01T23:01:00.001-07:00

I always have such a hard time deciding.

2008-04-01T22:53:00.001-07:00

Sent from my iPhone

A day of a fair world...

2008-04-01T19:31:00.000-07:00

Today I had a day-off.
An overcast and
gloomy day
to call my own.

A day without
fluorescents,
specimens of
countless Kelvins.
Their evil fluttering light
turns my insides into
a strob-ing capitalistic dance party.

Nauseating!

Having woken up at at a reasonable hour, and knowing my unreliability in creating a day plan and general proclivity in wasting a day in sweet idleness, I got into my auto, clutched and loaded up on an Americano and a chocolate croissant.
I pointed the nose to the north-east and the machine's tires hissed quitly along the wet pavement to the main artery.

From the freeway I spotted the gigantic remnants of the old World Fair installation.
Having never gone, I decided to brave the maze of exits and through a torrent of honking and curses at my horrid maneuvering managed to end up within walking distance of the Pavilion.

Normally I would not be impressed at the sight of symmetrical iron and concrete structures where it not for the fact that I was the only person in the park.
I assume Midtown would be just as impressive if there weren't a million people crawling on the sidewalks, squinting at the light with their bad morning breath.

What a great idea!

The groaning of old concrete swayed by the wind, creaking iron, and the violent whistles of taut cables, actually made the banality of the scene meaningful.
A metaphor of structural abandonment; a heavy contrast to the optimistic Weltanschauung of the 60's. Our culture reflects our humanity and looking around I couldn't help feeling just how much things have changed in 50 years.
How much promise these structures must have held.
The millions of dollars spent on creating a hope of a globally-unified future.
Sadly money doesn't buy happiness but only time.
These structures hence, are still standing.