Fragments of A Dream

Today was an official spring day. The weather was temperate, the pollen count high, the sun not setting just yet before I entered the bus tunnel to take this whimsical photo. If birds were contracted to start singing, they probably would have, but due to noise ordinances, they can only play in certain stadiums before the hours of dusk and shortly after 7pm.
I was checking out the Whitney and wanting to see it when I get to NY, along w/Matthew Barney at the Gugg, and a score of other museums that I must see. So much to do, so little time. I also have to do taxes this weekend. Ugh. I have scads of other activity this and next week. Seems like there is a rush and blur about April - which is good. I need rush and blur right now. I don't need time to deliberate and agonize. Typically, April is the cruelest month, so sayeth Eliot:
APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding  
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing  
Memory and desire, stirring  
Dull roots with spring rain.  
Winter kept us warm, covering          
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding  
A little life with dried tubers.
I guess winter does keep us in a drunken oblivion, but then again - which month doesn't? April seems to be the month where you're working your ass off in a general direction. Let's hope the direction is going somewhere... In the meantime - have you ever created a Date Tape?, can you guess which one is mine?

What do I get?

I'm doing taxes. Actually - let me rephrase that - I'm struggling to get the tools to do taxes. I'm in a wrestling match with Quicken and TurboTax to install on my mac come hell or high glory. I know I'm probably going to owe, so this is why I've been puttering around the last three months and trying to not think about doing it. Instead, I've been devoting more time to learning more about my camera and do more pictures and interesting videos. Last weekend I started work on a project revolving slow shutter speeds and the Marilyn Monroe movie "Bus Stop". Check out the Marilyn treatment above - parts Warhol and bad camera work.
Speaking of camera's - dad's been going crrrrazy with the new digital camera! I think I've created a monster!!

We take a break from the usual war whines and po-mo indie irreverance to bring you a day in the life of a great man, my dad, born 57 years ago today!!

Happy Birthday, Pop!!

Actually, his birthday is tomorrow, I just had to get this up before he could see it. But see - he's celebrating already and he already has a day more to go!!! Rock on, old man!!! love, kid...

Fool for April

Hey - April Fool, did you read any good articles about the war lately?
Fool: No. Not really.

Appropriate for April Fools day - I'm reading an interview in the latest issue of bomb about Tom Sachs. I love this guy! He created an entire minature car racetrack surrounding Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation and Mies van der Rohe's furniture, a McDonald's restaurant, and 10,000-watt boom box, a ghetto, a modernist art park, a DJ station and had participants do bong hits, drink beer and wager for money. Deeper political implications of driving, modernism and project housing aside, I can't think of a better way to spend a first thursday (in this case, it happened Tuesday nights)... I think this man is the MTV Marcel Duchamp Mac Daddy for the 21st century.

Radioactivity

Been taking digital and analog pics over the weekend. Digitial will be displayed somewhere sometime soon, but in the meantime, here's a gangreen picture of me. I've since shaved off the facial hair (yesterday) when I realized how silly it looked.
Speaking of radio-active, my fave DJ is in NY for all you Seattle Expats looking to represent. (And yes, Ian - he likes Coldplay too...)
Always the morning faithfull...
J.D.

blame

Everyone is queasy and wary of what will happen next. We're not fearful of what others might do - although it's alwyas a constant thought - but what we're about to do to ourselves and our civil liberties. Why no one has stood up and said "If you tolerate this today, your children will surely suffer" is disheartening and sad. Well I did. I faxed my state congrebots and told them I really don't approve of cutting taxes to pay for this mess. $74.4 billion is obscene and insulting, even if you were crazy enough to think this war was a good idea. If you have a moment, fax your congressperson and tell them this just aint right, And you can too...
Yet - maybe we'll need all the money once our foriegn cred slides and no one wants to eat big Macs and shop at Gap anymore. Guess living in America - you often feel like you are working at the bad fastfood resteraunt with poor management. People hate you, throw paint at your windows in global protest, and you can't say anything because the mgt might fire you... (Btw - Picture above by the late Mr David Wojnarowicz, someone who understood what stifling speech meant and how many lives it cost in the battle to find a cure for aids.)

Shock and Awe

I wonder if anyone dwells on pictures like this? They are certainly closer to the hellish war than news graphics. Do people who are pro or antiwar see this and ever think - people are burning, dying, hurting. (Or on the other side - were the people out of harm's way?) We'll never know. We're so distanced, and again, the ripple of horror and fear shivers across humanity like a horse shudder. Something is going on. Something horrible. Something we cannot comprehend. Something we cannot undo. Yet this is spectacle. It's noise. It's show. It's business. It's an action movie with deeper political meaning than you can concieve of (because it will have a ripple into the future so far reaching it comes back to us).
This eerie detatchment from shock, this remote hurt and amazement reminds me of Laurie Anderson's Song "Night In Baghdad", about a journalist stationed during the Gulf War. I think it's somewhat fitting since we're just getting bits and peices of the war and yet we're trained to look below surfaces... Here's the song.

Night in Baghdad - Laurie Anderson, Bright Red

And oh it's so beautiful
It's like the Fourth of July
It's lie a Christmas tree
It's like the fireflies on a summer night.

And I wish I could describe this to you better.
But I can't talk very well now
Cause I've got this damned gas mask on.
So I'm just going to stick this microphone out the window
And see if we can hear a little better. Hello California?
What's the weather like out there now?

And I only have one question: Did you ever really love me?
Only when we danced. And it was so beautiful.
It was like the Fourth of July.
It was like fireflies on a summer night.