daily ruzz

good day

today was one of those awesome days where you get to feel alive almost all day long. thanks to the alchemist, the naughty nurse, the mom 'o ruzz, the mama of the earth and the prophet judekyle. 

all luminaries worthy of exceptionally long nick names.

beautiful day

despite the banality of western habits i found some beauty in the concrete orgasm we call calgary today.

two in a row

two nights of good solid sleep; leaving my brain clear and my neck raw. two days of high code output meeting internal deadlines; leaving my brain raw and my neck throbbing.

i picked up some extra semi long term contract work today. a local isp is going to start running its php/mysql development work through ruzz. this is good. it won't be enough to sustain on it's own, but it could help push me towards financial stability. it can't hurt.

went through some of my pics from august today, deleted an assload of bad ones, and re-established in my own mind that i have some chops. it's hard sometimes, to resist the pull of technical perfection and find the meat of any particular shot. Like a microcosm of life, every thing in this world pulls us away from the meaning and the meat, and it is so in photography too.

the desire to make "technically strong" photos can crush the art of the thing quicklike. i've decided i need to move away from models, and commercial shoots and try to avoid those situations where a non artist is evaluating the quality of the shot. Or, maybe, just that a shot isn't being weighed on the merits of what it can sell.

unless the object for sale is emotion. or energy. then that's cool.

sometimes, it's pretty hard to keep your head on straight. we all love praise, and we all want to have some form of public success. it's central to our psycho-social engines. and that love of praise is the death of meaning. you get looking at the praise and you take your eye off the ball.

i guess that depends on what the ball is for you. for me, it's something hard to translate to words, but i know it when i see it in my viewfinder, or a print.

i know it when i feel it.

so, i've tracked back to the computer stuff and away from the photography. the lure of money in the form of photos is too great. I hope to make a enough money from programming through focus to get by and have time to learn more about photography. to explore things. to think about things. to try to figure out what i want to show you folks.

thinking and art are inextricably linked, and yet it seems they are meant, through romantic notions, to be polar opposites.

because to think is to be human, to create without thought is
something else?
divine?

one more way art has been stolen from our very hands. they make saints out of the great artists, or they make devils out of them, but they never let them be humans. they never let them be people who learnt to translate thought and feeling into art. it's criminal.

but it sells shit.

your brother might write better poetry than cohen, but he doesn't have the mythology cohen does and it aint going to get him laid, no how.

if a regular old human were able to make a master work, then you would be too, and if you are, then everyone is, and if everyone is: it's no longer rare or special.

and since art sells on speculation, rarity, and specialty, it only makes sense.

or they be fucking helmet newton. either way it's meaningless.

anyways, i got a book to read. so you kids play safe. or, if you want to play dangerous, ask yourself what themes re-occur in your life, and how you might speak about those feelings, fears, hopes through creation.

you might be surprised how your brain chugs up some neat shit when you ask the right questions.

in summation

while i woke still smarting from episode last night where i unfolded like a garage sale lawn chair --after watching garden state-- i feel replenished, reruzzed and ready to hold court.

ready to address the army of ruzz with great tales of debauchery and pillaging.

which is why you come.
it aint for the cute mug.
i'm okay with that.

we will, attempt to dig down deep, beyond the haze of champange and margaritas, and see what can be done about making sense of the last few days. I promise no more clairity than you find in my ever changing bio pic (upper left corner) because life is rich and deep and i haven't eaten just yet.

i only want to record this stuff, in it's loosest form because for six months, or more, the cohesion of those tiny tiny universal strands has eluded me and this week i was wrapped up in them tight as tight can be. if you looked close, through all those threads and thoughts and happenings, really fuckin close, you would have seen me staring back, half wide eyed with awe, half filled with terror.

it was
a sight.

as you all know, the week really began with the serving of the final divorce papers. and you all have read it's unwavering effect on my thoughts. yes, it weighs heavy. yes, it comes in when it's least wanted, but maybe most needed.

jude and i have been railing on this point something like an attack on the judeo-christian/pop psychology undermining of the human spirit for days. days and days and weeks. we've both grown beards standing on corners telling and talking. it's been a fun ride.

jude, it should be noted, has since shaved his beard and took up with three thai hookers claiming he is actually the one true god and refuses to come out again until i agree with him.

i don't know about you folks but i miss that fucker's writing.

in any case, we've been feeding incestiously on each others energy and just keep rasing the bar everytime one of us hits a plateau (wow. i can spell!). it's been ravenous and it all rests, all turns, all hinges on the soft golden flesh of that jogging girl. the one who made a promise to us with her beauty, then cut the papers, in hand, with her ugly soul.

stupid how such a small thing can stick to your ribs.
but those small things man
the way a smile turns up
or
maybe
how
a woman's beauty sometimes walks into a room
just exactly
fuckin exactly the right amount of time
before she does

and you have to catch your breath

but, hey, lifes rich and deep, like i was saying and that snotty lookbutdontyoudaretouch or even getcaughtlooking jogging girl who cashed in a lifetime of judeo-christian guilt in one fell swoop, well shes the acid i dropped and no one has any thing to bring me down.

even kiki looked through her toolkit to no avail.

so yeah, we have that thing, the thing there. we have that. and on top of that i've been shedding skins like holey socks all year. and ive been nibbling on beyond good and evil in the night. when i'm hungry, and think.. man, ruzz, you can't eat now.. i still do it. I grab a page of Nietzsche and snack.

and sure, there's a bunch of crap in there. can't pick up a book of philosophy without finding some crap, but the idea, of a "will to life" well, its just sitting in my craw (what the fuck is a craw anyways) and driving me to the ends of my comfort. it's a tickle in the back of my philosophical throat.

and i get gamely now and then and can't quell that voice and take a strip out of something or someone.

because, well, a will to life, it contradicts the most bastardized of christian ideas. compassion. you know, we're it not for dr.phil, and oprah, and gary zukav, and all those shite spewing do-gooders, compassion might actually mean something. but now, it's just a rationale of acquiescence.

it's a methodology to excuse yourself by excusing others.
to say, well fuck,
what that dood said was about the single most
retarded thing ive ever heard
and your natural reaction, like any thinking person
is to tell them why
but now
handcuffed as you are
you cant.

first you have to understand where he is coming from, account for anything horrible that might have happened to him, you know, get what's going on in his life, before you can act. Because compassion puts you in his shoes and to get into his shoes you gotta do the leg work, and you aint going to. But you miss a great opportunity to really connect to the idiot because you're so busy wondering if his pappy played with his willy that you can't actually have discourse with him about how stupid that thing he just said is

and i say fuck that.
fuck it all the way.

all this pussy-footing isn't helping anyone.
it's just giving everyone a way to avoid reality.
and disengage.
and pass judgement

because, well, if i took the time to try to understand you before i spoke to you --not that i can understand you, because i'm not you, and no matter what i do i'm stuck with my perception of you-- and then you shit on me without returning the mamby pamby new age wrap around, well then i can say, without any need for compassion, that you sir, you sir are a fuckball and i'm better than you because i, you know, i reached out to you like a lyric in some bullshit john lennon song and you didn't have the decency to come back at me with some barbara striesand.

wowzers kiddies.

you damn christians and your head games.
how do you have the strength to get out of bed in the morning.

anyways, i was trying to tell a story.
whose still with me this far?
can i get a woot woot?

oh, yes, you in the white tank top.. hey there, glad you made it.

so we have that, the thing with the jogger, and we have the thing with the german philosopher, and we have a lot of energy, but we don't have any direction to it at this point in the story.

i'm long winded, i know. but i my penis isn't as big as i hoped it would be when i was a child and i've been talking ever since trying to compensate.

so we have those pressing things just now, and we have the whole big move last year, and big change up, and the breaking up and lessening of some unhealthy relationships, and we have me coming to the conclusion that tossing my whole life out the window and torturing myself forever wasn't going to ever explain how much i loved my wife, wasn't going to etch a single stalled heartbeat when she smiled at me, into the ether of human history, and so i ought just console myself to knowing how deeply i loved her and, you know, get off the fucking pot already and try out this thing we call living.

and that was pretty hard for me. because it felt like a worse betrayal of my principals than any fool thing i did before that. it really attacked the sanctity of what we had and i don't care if what we had in the end was a shit smeared ball buster, no i don't care about that because what we had at one time was epic. it was the full range of everything i am capable of, and there was a monster tonality to it.

and to let it go, to was harder on me than i have a right to say. i diminish it by trying to explain it. i make it common just by telling you about it. But, i have to, because it's part of this whole thing and i'm avoiding my work right now so i have to write something.

so yeah, no more torture. no more hiding. no more setting up situations to perpetuate the mess. time to take hold and see what else i might find.

and around that time, or shortly there after, i stumbled onto someone who was pretty cool. is pretty cool. and we talked a lot and she was always there in the background (not exactly by choice) and encouraging me to reach out of the shell a bit.

and i need that sometimes because like a tard i carry too much of myself right there on my ugly stained t-shirt.

so thats good, and i could see all this synchronicity, all this gelling but still couldn't make out the shapes. like groping drunk sex you guesstimate which part is the sensitive one.

sometimes i hit, sometimes i miss.

and the photography, as you all know has just seeped into every pore of me. has become my primary focus. and it draws me out when i don't want to too. and it has is quickly become my most focused expression of spirituality. being that i don't believe in the soul, but am anchored to beauty like a guy who stiffed a mobster, i have to find a way to accomodate the more ethereal and untangible aspects of life.

while, i choose not to make commentary on their place, or meaning, i want to celebrate their existence all the same. I want to share the every single bit of it with you. and if i keep working on it, a lifes work, i hope to one day, be able to capture the spirit of things on film.

which, is why the bout of angst this weekend. formidable spirit. not so formidable ruzz.

but back to me being a retard.

so, this thread, this worldweb spun out, this thing we call the thing with no name. how it moves into our lives and shapes everything around us, how the energy, the flow, and the meaning find ways to pour out onto our white white pages and make our sheets smell better astounds me, and i'm in it now.

all the way in it.
i blame the booze.

so, we have the shoot. and emotionally its a disaster for me. emotionally it's like hugging that aunt who smells of bengay, or finding out friday night at 6pm you need to go back into work tomorrow for the full day.

maybe like that.

it had good in it. but it also talked to me about the empty feeling. the hollowness that hides inside perception if we look out the sides of our eyes at whats going on. it was without passion for me. don't get me wrong, i had fun. i had lots of fun. two hotties in lingerie, an all night drink fest with one of them, sure, i had my share of fun.

but still.

you know?

whatssit. whatssit im saying here.
it's something about how it all came together but i'm pussy footing.

i'm having trouble not being aware of who reads this site.

fuck it. will to life y0. friedrich will meet you in the alley with a stick if you diss my shit for being real with you here.

and if he doesn't my boy jude has a trick or two on the ten. you dig.

lets, get cheesballed up and call it an awakening. then. yeah. let's make ourselves puke with the scathing triteness and say, for 8-9 months ive been regulating myself, my emotional state, and it's been squeezing out the other end in the form of photos, and the papers cracked the control mechanism.

and my chi was leaking.

and then, that girl i talked about, well she was senfuckingsational about dealing with my neurotic ass, and it touched me. a lot.

and for a bit i railed against her distance.

and then i hung out with bananna and had a good night. and it was easy and calm and something i can't quite put my finger on, and the leak stopped and life started flowing in the cracks.

and then there was claire.

she who moved me. fuckin epic how she did that without actually doing anything. and yeah, fuck, everyone saw through me trying to say i wasn't fascinated. doc was trying to rip the camera from my hand, jude was just watching and loving it, and that girl in the background was now railing against the distance herself.

and anna, well, she just blipped the fuck off my radar. no one knows where she went.
i like to think shes off to take out the pope.
that fucker needs to die.

i told you folks, im a retard.
and i told you it's all on my shirt plain as the vegetable fiesta soup i spilled earlier.

but this isn't only about women. because, well, fuck folks, i'm the singlest homeboy in the hood and no one's going to put up to that. no, no one is going to try and talk that out.

and i admit to being freaked out. lots of ways freaked out. i admit it. i'm standing here (sitting really) and just saying whats true. whats really fuckin true for me right now and that stupid filter is right turned off. Fuck it, right.

gotta be real for a moment here and there and preach it.
can i get an amen.

so you've got this ebbing flow of life sneaking through the cracks. waking, waking, taking my effin breath away, all over everywhere and i'm a puddle of ruzz in the nearly autumn nights. i feel like screaming. like laughing. like loving. like crying. i'm bleeding life.

i think it's over now.
i've talked my ass out of breath to everyone involved
and jack and claire (jack, who i love. even if he don't know movies for shit) have drove away. and doc's mounted his bike

ahem.

and jude, kiki, bron and i are sitting in the scattering of lawn furniture our legs mingling on one chair. we are the spokes on a wheel of love and sadness. together we talk of how moving this period was, how so many levels of things were happening it was hard to focus on just one, how sad we are to see jack and claire go, to see this mini-vacation from the real world go.

it is the somberest moment this street is ever likely to experience. if you ever come to this street, there will be a small plaque honoring it.

wurd.

and for me, i felt like a superhero finally in control of his superpowers. i felt like this is the life, this fucking moment in time, is the life i was always promised. Rich and full, happy and sad, loving, full of loss and promise, and not a single drop of fear to be found for miles. it has been longer than i can say that i sat, still and quiet, looking at a person and knew they loved me.

and it was so easy, like pulling on old jeans.

but it didn't end there.
fuck it coulda. i'd had more than enough for one week.
but it didn't end there, because i thought it would.

and that night. a big talk. a big talk fuelled by a desire to move forward, to feel safe, to embrace what's possible, or at least come to terms with what isn't.

and the next day
garden state.

the movie tore me to little little peices of ruzz. smattered me all over the theatre and left me inside out. my insides were outside
and my outsides
were
in effin side

because this story this fucking story about love and trust and strength
and just the easy
motion of being
well it was hard to keep it together

i had a lot of problems
the little flow
building
building

becomes a torrent
and i'm stuck
wedged between a small chinese man
and a judekyle
and i'm coming apart

i can't hold it together anymore
and i'm bitting my lips
squeezing the fleshy part of my arms
and rocking slightly

and they kissed
and they screamed into the abyss

and life was full and rich
and fear, fear was no where to be seen for miles

and i ached an awful kind of ache
which still throbs now and then
with the quiet beating of my heart

but i don't know for what
or for why
or for whom or where

i only know the gates broke down
the hordes ran through
and left me
sprawled
in a garden of popping poppies
wondering
what comes next

and just fucking brimming
brimming with
that thing i used to keep in my left shoe
called

life.

long post

i have another or three long post(s) simmering in my brain. such an amazingly broad week. the range of emotion, experience, and reflection is off the charts people.

but, you know, i can say, sure there are a whole mess of fairly complicated things that happened one right after another, and this time of year is always a bit chaotic for me (approaching birthday) but last night, sitting outside with jude and kiki and bronte, i've never felt happier, or sadder.

it was a potluck of thoughts and emotions.

some of which are valuable to me, so i will try to untangle them when i get a few moments later tonight.

but, ineluctable is three days late. and i have a review of garden state tonight, and actual real work too.

sit tight people.

so far so good

been away from the computer today. thankfully.

i got partially paid today and teg and i went to the mall in search of discount photo frames.
we hit it large.

and i also got a thirty dollar directional lamp for seven dollars, which i can and did use for lighting subjects. it's quite a happy thing. oddly.

then we came home and watched a movie and just hung out.
low stress day.
had my teg with me.

every day should be so simple and fun.

in honor of that, steven's pet monkey got bumped till tomorrow in the POTD and tegan is there in it's stead. enjoy.

It's up at the photo site, but i will link to it here later.

good day

Today, was a good day. My wrist behaved a bit and i got a fair bit done. I had one of those odd days where everything that was grinding you down just slipped away while i slept and i woke ready to create something. I was thinking clearly almost all day till i hit a wall with ActionScript Variable Scope.

it's as exciting as it sounds, trust me.

Then, after buying a few extra days to get caught up with my various behindedness i had an old friend over who is moving to my future home. Vancouver Island.

and we played some chess. Drank a beer and it was good.
a bit sad, but good.

now, at 2:18am i ask myself. Do i rest my wrist or get another couple hours work in?