I had a great life back in San Francisco during the 90's. I had a great job tending bar, a wealth of friends and a veritable spicerack of lovers. (There are advantages to being straight in a gay town.) I also had a great apartment two blocks from the beach with an utterly amazing ocean view for - get this - $350 a month. And there was plenty of parking.
I lived there for six years - the longest I'd ever stayed in one place since childhood.
One night I had a dream that a tsunami had come and destroyed the place: everything I'd owned and accumulated was gone. The dream itself wasn't long, nor with any narrative besides staring at the ruins of the apartment. Unlike the grief we see on TV when people have "lost everything", I found myself filled with a sudden, overwhelming sense of sheer freedom: I could go now... anywhere I wanted.
I'm not one who normally puts a whole lot of psychological or philosophical weight into dreams, but after that night it became practically unbearable to stay where I was. So I quit my job, gave notice to my landlord, sold all my furniture and flew to Asia.
FB - 1284
USA - 1237
4 comments:
wtf?
i don't get it.
it's an autobiographical note.
so you live in Asia now and these pictures are from the distant past?
you're thinking of stopping your freeway blogging? please say that isn't so, but nice way to motivate the rest of us slackers.
anyway, i thought most of these pictures were from the Northern California area and pretty recent at that.
or are you talking about your actual past and i'm just confused somehow? or you're being poetic?
anyway, i thought of a way to make nice looking letters on a sign without an overhead projector.
choose the height of the capital letter size and cut the cardboard at that height lengthwise.
then make each letter one by one next to eachother (or even as completely seperate pieces -- all the same height).
kinda like huge scrabble blocks.
then, to make a sign, tape the letters together using transparent packing tape wrapped along the meeting edges (including using blank spaces where necessary between words).
reinforce with duct tape on the back or just wrap them with duct tape and then repaint the duct tape white (or find a roll of white duct tape).
i'd bet that making individual letters is easier to do well than eyeballing thier placement in whole words on a big piece of cardboard.
anyway, your "Art" answer of a couple days ago was amusing. especially when i took another glance at the photos.
so when's your book coming out?
you're a genius!
and you're one of American democracy's last true patriots.
i salute thee!
Quit? Naahhh... I'm just saying goodbye to the Bay Area as I'm heading down to southern Cal.
The problem with the letter-by-letter approach is it's fine for one or two signs, but if that's all you're willing to do it's hardly worth the bother. The enemy I'm trying to fight here is a bought-and-paid-for media, which requires a bit more diligence. Tremendous lot of fun doing it though - which is why I keep at it.
I do believe you're right in that the overhead projector is the dealbreaker for most people - that and fear of the law and fear of looking foolish, which is the risk you run by doing something before everyone else starts doing it.
Given that thousands (about four) have pledged to help me out with this, I think what I need to do is simply revamp their entire psychological makeup to be less afraid of criticism and the unknown and more open to the pursuit of endeavours that aren't entirely certain in their outcome... what I like to call "adventure." Naturally this will take awhile, but it ain't like we're getting out of Iraq anytime soon.
I'm not really that much of a patriot, or a genius. What I am is a guy with a pickup truck and an overhead projector. It's the overhead projector that makes me special.
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