I've been cooking lately

Bad Thoughts

It's 1am and the neighbors who live on the next corner are still fighting. There's this fat woman there who seems to yell and scream her way through life. All day all she seems to do is yell, at kids, dogs, the tv, maybe herself. Her voice reminds me of the mother in that movie "Throw Momma from the Train." Some woman yelled "Be Quiet" and she screamed back, at a decibel that could be heard through my closed window a good 40 yards away, to "Shut the fuck up Bitch!" Then she started screaming "get the fuck off of my bedspreeeead!" It's truly, truly, truly insane. About three hours into the fighting I finally heard a dissenting voice. It was a man and he slurred and spitted out his words with true hatred. I could hear her loudly slap him. And I wonder how does it get to this point. Why would people endure these situations that obviously make them profoundly unhappy. And at what point does walking away not seem like an option. At what point does being an adult and choosing to realize hey there are kids in the house not become an option. Kids who probably have to be up for school in 6 hours. Today when I was riding home I saw a man in doctor's scrubs kicking a car window with full force over and over again, the entire length of the bottom of his shoe firmly planting on the window. At first I thought did he lock himself out and is now trying to break the window? Then as I approached I realized a woman was in the car, she subsequently pulled off. Is this like domestic violence day or what?

Naked Interview

This morning I had a phone interview at 10am. I was supposed to be at work at 9:30. I called at the appointed time no answer. Then I was like fuck, and was like well I can't sit around, I need to get dressed at least and try to be not obscenely late to work. Take off top, phone rings....

Bang Bang, You're Dead

Though legendary in photojournalism circles, the Bang Bang Club never formally existed. It was really more of a bond among four young photographers — Kevin Carter, Greg Marinovich, Ken Oosterbroek and Joao Silva — united by their ideals, their photography and the historical events unfolding in South Africa in the 1990s - it was a battle most brutally waged in townships populated mainly by poor blacks. .

“Amazing how often these guys were shooting pictures of people committing murder, burning people alive,” said Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times. The Times’s bureau chief in Johannesburg from 1992 until 1995, he often worked with Mr. Marinovich.

Mr. Marinovich was fairly new to photojournalism in 1991 when he won a Pulizter Prize for a series of photographs of supporters of South Africa’s African National Congress burning alive a man they believed to be a Zulu spy.

“I had been too scared to say anything to try to stop it,” Mr. Marinovich said, “and so that really disturbed me about myself and who I thought I was at the moment.”

The group routinely covered situations where it “was not a healthy place to be a witness,” as Mr. Keller put it.

That is the core of what the Bang Bang Club is remembered for: bearing witness. Mr. Carter’s picture of a starving Sudanese girl with a vulture nearby, first published in The Times, won a Pulizter Prize in 1994. The reaction to the picture was so strong that The Times published an unusual editors' note on the fate of the girl. Mr. Carter said she resumed her trek to the feeding center. He chased away the vulture. Afterward, he told an interviewer in April, he sat under a tree for a long time, "smoking cigarettes and crying."

"Kevin always carried around the horror of the work he did," his father, Jimmy Carter, told the South African Press Association.

Oosterbroek was killed in township violence just days before South Africa's historic panracial elections. Carter killed himself shortly afterwards. Another of their posse, Gary Bernard, who had held Oosterbroek as he died, also committed suicide.

Looking for a place called home

When I was a kid we moved from the west coast to Atlanta for a year and half. That first summer was a weird one. I was in the first grade. That summer I had what I call my schizophrenic episode. I firmly believed that two men were following me and trying to assassinate me. So I would run past windows and doorways saying "whew they almost got me". At night I would sleep on the floor in the hallways or under my bed because I was convinced they were trying to crawl into my window to kill me. This would piss my dad off to no end. He would yell at me to stop being weird and that he paid a lot of money for my bed. Over the next few years I added a litany of paranoia's and things I was scared of. These included bathrooms, particularly the sound of toilets flushing, mirrors (after seeing Canydman with my cousin), people in wheelchairs, tampons, Mexicans, and the fear of being kidnapped to name a few. I was four feet and 10 inches of neuroses for most of my childhood. Now as an adult I realized most of these fears revolved around some type of stress, usually dealing with a move. I moved over 12 times between the ages of 7 and 15. The legacy of this is that I probably wouldn't even recognize "home" if it was staring me in the face. I'm always packing up looking for a place. I could have found it and left it a long time ago. I guess I'll never know.

I really see you

I hope you see me too

Smile say cheese

I think I'm getting a cavity. And I had a moment. Like fuck I haven't even finished paying for the last dental work I had done. First thougt: I have the mouth of a poor person. Second thought: I am poor. I haven't had health insurance going on 2 years now. It' depressing. It's life. I do pay attention to the more cosmetic stuff, making sure I don't have stains, there is a general pleasant odor maintained at all times, but it seems as if under the surface shits just falling apart. Everything is falling apart. And to come up with the means to fix what's going on underneath, in my mouth, and all the rest, seems like a massive undertaking that I'm not fully equipped to deal with. I need a break, I need some hope, I need you, I need me, I need something.

When turtles orgasm...

I saw two shooting stars tonight

I hope that's a good omen. Because I don't know what the fuck I'm doing.

Thinking of you

Thanks so much. There was a horrific murder here of a young woman who volunteered with Homeless Health Care LA, so I am hyper concerned about safety.
Love,
Mom


Response to mother's request for my contact info. I've lived in the Bay since January. I guess she figures that if I get killed it might be pertinent to know where the fuck I am.

Take a Bite Out of Crime

So tonight was crazy. There was this woman, who looked, shall we say a tad bit indigent, who kept crossing by the window. I was as usual staring aimlessly out the window at the time, and man did she throw a crazy side eye. So of course she comes in and asks for napkins, and I give her some paper towels. And she spoke very softly, I could barely understand her but she kept talking about these "Mexicans at Popeye's". I wasn't really trying to hear her though, actually, really. But I couldn't ignore when I saw her outside again this Mexican man, who is a known creep and works at Popeye's (back story: my manager said if he ever steps foot in the restaurant again he's going to call the cops), starts saying shit in her ear. And hey I'm not an innocent and I was pretty sure he was propositioning her for sex. At that moment she turned and looked at me, and I mouth "No!!" "Don't do it". Why I have no idea, but it was like a gut feeling. She comes back in the restaurant and confirms what I thought went down. And I'm like do you want me to call the police? And she was like no I'm going to try to get in a shelter tonight. I think she thought I was trying to get her in trouble. Anyway she leaves when it looks all clear, and my manager kept watch to make sure she was alright. And then he was like that guys following her call the cops. So I called and I felt like an idiot for not doing more. I told one of the servers and he was like well a crack whore can't be picky. And I was like really offended by that. I mean, I know me of all people, I talk shit about crackies all the time. But no one deserves to be assaulted, or raped, or whatever. So people this is my public service announcement, if you see something, say something. Good night.

I don't know what to do with my life, cuz the one I got just tears me apart - buzzcocks

Wasteland

Dark Clouds - The hidden side of China's miracle economy from panos pictures on Vimeo.

Madame Butterfly was a man

In the 1988 Broadway play and the 1993 film "M. Butterfly," Bernard Boursicot was depicted as a high-ranking diplomat and Shi Pei Pu as a beautiful female opera singer who met in 1964. In fact, Mr. Boursicot was a 20-year-old high school dropout who had finagled a job as an accountant at the newly opened French Embassy in Beijing. His few sexual experiences had been with male schoolmates, and he was determined to fall in love with a woman, he wrote in his diary.

Shi Pei Pu was 26 when they met, delicate and charming. He lived as a man and taught Chinese to the diplomatic wives. He told Mr. Boursicot that he had been a singer and a librettist in the Beijing Opera. One perfect night in the Forbidden City Mr. Shi told Mr. Boursicot a story no romantic could resist: Mr. Shi said he was a woman who had been forced to go through life as a man, because her father required a son. A short time later, the men became lovers, although the sex, Mr. Boursicot would later say, was fast and furtive, always carried out in the dark.\

When the affair was discovered by the Chinese authorities, Mr. Boursicot passed them French documents, first from the embassy in Beijing and later from his posting at the consulate in Ulan Bator, Mongolia.

Mr. Boursicot spent most of his life outside China and was romantically involved with men and women. On his rare visits to Shi Pei Pu, sexual contact was circumscribed. On one visit, Mr. Shi presented him with a 4-year-old boy, Shi Du Du, who Mr. Shi said was their son.

In 1982, Mr. Boursicot — then living openly with a male companion, Thierry Toulet — was able to arrange for Shi Pei Pu and Shi Du Du to live with him in Paris. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Boursicot and Shi Pei Pu were arrested for espionage. Mr. Shi first told the police he was a woman, but he admitted the truth to prison doctors, showing them how he hid his genitals.

Mr. Boursicot, hearing that Shi Pei Pu was a man and always had been, sliced his throat with a razor blade in prison.

In 1986, Mr. Shi and Mr. Boursicot received six-year sentences for espionage. They were pardoned a year later. Mr. Shi is survived by Shi Du Du, who lives in Paris and who, Mr. Boursicot said, has three young sons.

Although Mr. Boursicot and Mr. Shi occasionally spoke over the years, relations were strained. Mr. Boursicot said that they last spoke a few months ago and that Mr. Shi told him he still loved him.

Mr. Boursicot, who is 64 and has been living in a nursing home in France while recovering from a stroke, showed no sadness when he learned of Mr. Shi’s death, on Tuesday, in a telephone interview.

Asked if he had any sadness at all, Mr. Boursicot said: “He did so many things against me that he had no pity for, I think it is stupid to play another game now and say I am sad. The plate is clean now. I am free.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/02/world/asia/02shi.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

next time i'll bring more beer

A man once told me that people never leave you

Tales of the Insane

My dog barks every time my roommate comes in the house. It's severely annoying. So I read in some dog training guide that to alleviate barking you can squirt the offender with a water gun when they bark. So today I bought this bad ass, menacing watergun - it's a pastel colored frog. The water comes out in a stream out of the frog's mouth. Tonight I was half asleep and my roommate came into the house, as if on cue the little yipper started yapping. I quickly fumbled for my gat on the dresser and took aim, but it was too dark and I couldn't see. My dog by this time had stopped barking, probably because she was like what is this bitch doing. I suddenly realized the absurdity of my situation. I was wildly aiming a frog gun in the dark trying to take aim at my five pound dog. I am insane.

Dog Day Afternoon

umm yeah. he's so damn cute it almost hurts.








the grumpy, naked Shinto. the other kids were looking at him like dude put some clothes on. but he just scowled back and then snapped his dick at them like a rubber band. then he put on his blue clogs, hopped on his scooter, and was like what now bitches.

then he rolled up to the painting corner and was like give me that damn brush i can paint better than these peasants. move woman with the unusually white calves!



this is Papi. of Papi & Chico.

this is Chico. a very strange child.

he sang these nonsensical children's songs in his thick italian accent. while chico would periodically, in a high pitched nasally voice, yell out "na, na, na, nah, na"


then Papi collapsed on the floor, as if he just played Madison Square Garden. oh he also was wearing these boots with heels and did some type of Spanish flamenco moves, but he's Italian. In any case the french bulldog barked at him when he did it, so he stopped.




summer barbeque, artist compound, brooklyn

Oops I did it again

Richie totally reminded me of my previously terrible record with animals. My rabbit being eaten by an owl doesn't even come in first place in my little shop of horrors believe it or not. Disclaimer all of this took place before the age of 15, so don't judge me too harshly. Okay so here's my confession. When I was 11 I didn't latch my hamster cage properly and my little hammie got out. Unfortunately, this was the same week that our heater vents had been taken off to be polished. This being winter the heat was on full blast. There was literally black puff balls blowing around the house. I incinerated my first pet. Let's move on, shall we? There was the parakeet, who I one day, after watching some inane Sunday morning cartoon, decided needed to be free. I took my ol' Petey out of the cage and threw him up into the air rather dramatically, whispering gently "fly, fly, fly!" Sad to say my 12 year old brain didn't understand the concept of low ceilings and velocity when thrusting a 8 oz bird at a speed of 30 miles into a 6 foot clearing. Petey hit the ceiling and was out like a light for a good 15 minutes. The next morning he was dead. I had a pet rat once too, to round off my small animal experience. I was playing with the rat on my bed and then forgot about him. The next morning, it's stiff corpse lay smashed beneath my right side. I had a cat for about 15 minutes. Literally, a friend dropped her off to me and the second she drove out of my driveway the little kitty jumped out of my arms, never to be seen again. Eh I don't really like cats that much anyway. But the shitty part was like this kitten was the spawn of my friends beloved pets and she would ask for updates, and even pictures. So sometimes I would take pictures of random ass cats that looked close enough. Sometimes she would be like, oh I don't remember that white patch. I went with this charade for 2 years. I'm sick I know, and possibly as as child, had a predispositoin to become some type of serial killer.

I've been waiting for you to say it, but I guess I will

So you got a fancy phone, but nobody calls

The Science of Sleep

Oh my God. I just slept for 12 hours. I woke up feeling like a someone jumped on my head during this slumber. There is no food in the house and getting out of the car, or walking further than where my car is parked out front, is not an option. I think the headache is from not having eaten anything for the last 16 hours. This might be the first sleep related injury.

That bitch you spent your money with, is the bitch you need to be with - Neighborhood Crackhead

You heard it here first. Love advice from a crackhead at midnight. I was walking my doggie and this crackhead couple, going through a rocky patch, came walking down the street in the midst of a lover's tiff. I'm so fascinated by this. Crackhead relationship dynamics that is. That fact that people who I presume have trust issues, some of it reasonably earned, can be in relationships while I am totally inept in my romantic endeavors never ceases to amaze me. I mean I would like to believe that if I were a crackhead I would want to hang out with maybe say a heroin addict. Why have some mooch with you to smoke all your shit, right?! Am I right? But maybe there's a lesson to be learned from this. Maybe we should all be with people who have similiar life goals, shared desires, and dreams. Also I guess its comforting to be with someone who kind of has seen you at your worse, and is still rolling with it. This writer on Nerve wrote about friends vs. lovers that "part of snagging a man means pretending to be perfect until he falls in love with you, whereupon you reveal yourself to be the asshole that you really are. There are few things more satisfying than being with people who know you're a giant asshole, but love you anyway." So yeah maybe we should all do some serious self reflection about our worst qualities and find a mirror of that in someone else. Brilliant isn't it!

History of Boys

Tony Leung "2046"

My first boyfriend was in college. He was a 6'8 basketball player and I used to be disgusted by the way he chewed his food. I used to lie about being at his games. I hate sports. When I moved to New York I had another guy who I seriously worshipped. It embarrasses me now to think about it. I would cook him breakfast in $300 underwear and mascara on. One day I asked him why he didn't love me, he said he didn't know. I left him not long after. I bought these really expensive pair of boots to make myself feel better, and the first time I wore them I ran into him at this concert. He was outside and couldn't get in. I was glad I bought those boots. Then I dated this jazz drummer, he had a deep freezer in his Brooklyn apartment, there was a large padlock on it. He said he didn't want his band members to eat all his food. Later this same drummer headbutted me on my 30th birthday in Palm Springs. And lastly there's the Pope. He was my friend, nothing ever really happened. But I've loved him the most. I told people I was starting this blog as a travelogue of my time in Morocco. But if you go back to the beginning every entry is about him. He's married now and just had a kid. I never asked him if he loved me, I guess I already knew the answer.

i was in love with a girl on lsd
she'd see things i'd never see
she brightened her perspective
then i got more selective
i was in love with a girl on lsd

Tom Petty "Girl on LSD"




girl on LSD

This is the end, my only friend, the end

i may be paranoid or i may be wise

get on the floor and dance with me - michael jackson

So sometimes, on occasion, I dance in my underpants in the mirror. And I swear to God I'm like the sexiest motherfucker on the planet. And you get this impression of yourself like yeah I'm an okay dancer, no scratch that, I'm a great dancer. But let's think about this. Most dancing opportunities occur at some social event, where we've undoubtedly had a couple of drinks in us. A song comes on that your mirror is very familiar with and your like "i got this bitches!". But you have no mirror, and who knows maybe your shoulders or hunched creating some hobbit like effect, or your mouth is slack hanging open like some kid on the short bus, or maybe your mirror is some kind of freaky time warp and you've still been practicing those ever elusive moves from that junior high school dance, you know the one were you felt you were 12 and everyone else around you was like 20. So really folks are we really as good of a dancer as we think? I remember one time I had one too many Rieslings at this wedding and I became that bridesmaid, yeah that bridesmaid. Prince's song "Kiss" came on, and I shit you not I ran to the dance floor and reenacted scene for scene, with the exception of the floor sequences, the entire "Kiss" video. Only problem was it wasn't the dance portion of the evening, they hadn't even actually served the main course yet. So people are sitting at the banquet tables, while I'm like a maniac on the floor being my own private dancer. It was definitely a moment. And to this day that one drunk uncle from the wedding, every time I see him is still like "I like you girl! You really know how to party". And I'm like could this have been avoided if it wasn't for that damn mirror. Think about it people, think about it.

I'm so bored

i like his hands the best

i might be too much for you to hold on to. but please try for me.

I'm a naked crimefighter

So I just got out of the shower and I'm sitting on my bed brushing my unruly hair. I hear this loud sound, the sound a car makes when it hits another car. I jump up and look out the window and some motherfucker hit my car! And I start to yell out the window and then I'm like oh shit I have no clothes on. So I'm trying to find something to throw on and my roommate comes in like gangbusters and is like "someone hit your car!" and I'm like "I know!". We are yelling at the top of our lungs like maniacs. I wrap a towel around my head in this like Marge Simpson turban style, and throw on my "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" short silk robe (hey it's Oscar de la Renta bitches) and run out the house. And my roommate is like "he left!" And she jumps in her car and is like "Get in! Let's go get him!". At that moment, I had a quick flash of like am I really going to do this, I'm fucking naked, in the street, and I don't think I really properly tied this robe tight. But I jump in the car anyway and she's like there he is and we speed down the block and do some ill Dukes of Hazzard blocking with the car, and I hop out the car like Daisy, except I use the door handle and I kind of have to duck a little to get the towel turban all the way out. Instead of some guy its some litttle old African lady. And I'm like "open up!" like I'm the police or something. And she looks so scared, and I get all tough and gully, you know in my robe. I'm like I need to see your insurance, license, and fuckin' blood type NOW!!! And then she's like I have to get my license at my house and she gives me her car keys and goes off in the night. And I look at Christine, like woh dude. And then I notice that a cadre of Mexican men are on the corner, and then I'm like oh shit I have to get some clothes on. Except my house is like a block away, and Christine is picking up on the gangsta vibe and is like I'm going to watch this bitches car to make sure no funny business goes down, so I had to walk by myself back to the house. So I did the walk of shame times like a thousand. I'm in my fucking robe and flip flops, with a towel around my head, and I'm pretty sure I flashed my left tit when I ran out the house, and let's not forget the full frontal window show. Strangely enough after I put on clothes I feel less badass. The lady comes back, she just seems scared and pathetic, I start feeling like an asshole, there's no damage to my car really, and before I leave I show her how to turn on the car lights because she said she just bought the car and couldn't figure it out. And yeah so that's Tuesday night for you.

could it be?

i had an exceptionally great night

people are strange when they are strangers

My older brother came up in a conversation in passing the other day. And its stuck with me. I always talk shit about him. I don't hate him, I feel like I do sometimes, but its not the real picture. We used to be each others closest friends. When you move 6 times in 4 years, your brother becomes your de facto oldest and closest friend. He shared the same burden of having a funny Arabic name in the 80's, and asking kids at birthday parties if there was any pork in the cake. That time this woman in Atlanta called us Muslim terrorists at the Po' Boy restaurant, we turned it into a running 5 year joke about how dumb southerners were. We use to laugh for hours about the Abdul Maliks. This family in our Arabic school made up of two wives and over a dozen kids. They were poor. I don't know why it was so funny, but it was. When he used to get spankings, usually because he kicked me, I would cry outside his room. Eventhough he had made me cry minutes before. He was always smart, really smart. They tested him once and he qualified to be in MENSA. Somewhere along the line the genius turned into madness. One day he came up to me and said he was going to do a scathing critique of the Bible and the Qur'an. As the years passed and he holed up in his room, papers everywhere with crazy chicken scratch writings, I thought maybe this is not so great. But I was half way out the door, running away from my family. I wish I could know the exact moment when it all turned. I wish I could have known that he wasn't just being weird, or an attention seeker, or lazy, or all the things I've called him over the years. I wish that time when he told me he was going to kill himself I called myself calling his bluff and told him that he didn't need my permission. I wish I wasn't an asshole sometimes. I wish he wasn't an asshole. I wish he would talk to me, and not scowl and knock me out of the way whenever I visit home. I wish I didn't see such hatred in his face. I wish I knew why he was so so so angry. I wish when my family brings up his name they didn't have that look. The look that he's lost. I want them to fight for him to make him better. But he won't be better. I know that now. And there is nothing anyone can do.