John writes: “You know how everyone is an artist... sandwich artist, performing artist, recording artist, make up artist, tattoo artist, etc. If you make sculptures then you can say you are a sculptor. If you make paintings and say you are a painter then people think you want to paint their house. So the question -- What is a good name for someone who paints pictures?"

god good man, don’t buy into the propaganda! sandwich artist? that is all subway, being really sneaky, getting you to say things that sound hip in hopes you’ll promote their product. even when you and your friends aren’t near a television commercial or flat billboard with jared on it, eating all his fingers off his hand, dying for a big mac.

i mean they have really dug deep to plant the meme way down there, where we cannot get to it. it is too late.

it is sprouted. all over the place. you can’t stop it now.

go ahead. wikipedia “sandwich artist.”

see where you end up.

you hear that?

the faint screams?

those are the sounds babies make when they die from suffocation. suffocation from million-dollar marketing schemes that get people to say “sandwich artist” to their friends, in normal everyday conversation.

average guy: “what do you want to be when you grow up?”

john: “i don’t know.” shrugs. “i was thinkin’ maybe an artist.

average guy: “oh yeah? what kind? painter? singer? stained glass? certainly not a graffiti artist – that stuff isn’t art.”

john, laughing: “oh no, no. not graffiti. goodness no. graffiti? you must have eaten fifty caps or something man.”

average guy, giggling: “i’m just kidding. graffiti? what would your mother think!”

john, getting serious: “exactly.” pause. “in all seriousness, i was thinking of going to school to become a sandwich artist.”

hope dies.

______________________________________________________________

but really, my friend tom always used to say “hey greg, everyone’s an artist.”

and i believed him. i still believe him.

i still say that to people.

people that paint pictures are called people that probably feel good. it feels good to make something.

usually. at least in my experience.

sometimes you just don't feel like proofreading -- sorry mrs. bielstein

coreroc writes: “Should the definition of graffiti be changed to reflect the fact that it is art and not just random vandalization. It has more mass appel that most current forms of artistic expression. Yet in the dictionary graffiti artists are deduced to the same thing as a 10 year old that breaks out windows.”

i never knew graffito was the singular form of graffiti – that is the most interesting thing i’ve learned today.

i doubt there are too many people around who can look at something like this



and not acknowledge that the effort is a work of art.

but if it was illegally placed on the side of someone’s barber shop or grocery store, then it’s art and destruction of property.

then again, if someone pays the artist to put it on the side of their health food store or record shop or single-family home, then it is just art.

it’s just like if someone urinates on a 10’x10’ canvas: it’s art. it isn’t necessarily good art, but it’s art.

and: if you urinate in my face, it can be considered art. but: it may also cause the person who owns the face to become pissed. then: you’ve pissed; i’m pissed.

then again, if you create some graffiti on the side of an abandoned warehouse – though it may be illegal – it can still be perceived as an upgrade.

but what if the graffiti is really awful? like this:



still art. but less value, right? (some english hooligan probably painted this after a big spurs win. isn’t there a premier league team named the spurs? i don’t know.)

my second-grade philosophy book defined art as anything that a human created by manipulating or using something from nature to change something else from nature.

do people still argue about graffiti? arguing about whether graffiti is art seems to be on the same level arguing about the big-bang theory. the close-minded people are going to say “graffiti isn’t art dammit!” and the open-minded people are going to say “graffiti can be/is art dammit!”

compromise, schrompromise.

interpretation, insmurpretration.

now i’m going to finish this gin and tonic and go shovel the walk for the third time today. and make some art by pushing snow into various white piles. and hopefully not pass out in the cold.

part 2

Dai Oinuma writes: “All this time, I would think life was a gift given by an all knowing super nice guy living in clouds, just feeding every breathing cell with an ultraimportant purpose.

it was just made of logic and numbers.
god, that makes me feel so fucking alone!”

PART 2

norman mailer currently believes “in an existential god.” that’s what he told us anyway.

i expected him to be six-foot-five, and bound into the room cursing, tugging on a fifth of whiskey, and swinging fists at anyone who so much as looked at him sideways.

it turns out age can take a toll on even norman mailer.

by chance, where i stood ended up being along the path he took to get to the table at the front of the room. i turned around when i heard everyone in the room quiet, and mailer was a few feet behind me. he walked with a cane in each hand, and moved very slowly past. he was much shorter than i had expected – maybe five-six or five-seven.

he had come to chicago to read from his new book, the castle in the forest, and to answer questions. his book is about adolf hitler up to age sixteen.

he began by apologizing for being late: “i always hate it when i go listen to a politician or a writer and they are late. and here i am, twenty minutes late. i’ve become what i hate.”

the crowd forgave him.

his voice, despite being housed in an old, broken down body, was loud, full of gravel, and strong. he continued, “i’ll just read a few pages from my book and then take questions. the questions part seems to be the part everyone wants to get to anyways. i’ll tell you, i’ve been answering questions for sixty years so i’ll probably already have an answer ready for you. eventually someone will ask me about religion. i’ll tell you now: i was an atheist. for a long time. now i believe in an existential god. not reincarnation, or anything of the sort. rather, he created us. he can’t control us. he created us though. all of us, and all of this.”

before he began his reading, he had to establish where in the novel he would be picking up the story: “i need to tell you where we’re at in the story. how can i say this politely, for this mixed-crowd? let me put it this way: hitler had just been conceived. it was quite a scene, a tryst involving three individuals – his mother, his father, and satan himself. sparing you the details, let’s just say it was a majestic fuck.”

i don’t remember much of what he read. i just remember thinking “how strange that i’m listening to norman mailer read his words.”

he coughed quite a bit. then he took questions.

a few things i remember:

he said at one point, “i swear i’m not loco.”

on the difference between writing in his twenties and thirties, and now in his eighties: “when i was younger, i could get up and write all day. then i’d go out and party all night, you know. get drunk. really tear it up. then i’d get up the next morning and write all day again. and on and on. now, if i really tear it up, there’s no writing the next day. at this point of my life, the hangover dictates my writing schedule.”

after going off on a tangent in response to a question, he tried to return with the phrase “in any event,” and continued talking. when he finished his answer he said, “and let me let you in on a little secret. anytime you are listening to a speaker, and he says ‘in any event,’ he has completely lost his train of thought and has no recollection of what the original question was. so, in any event, i have no idea what the nice young woman just asked me.”

on how mahmoud ahmadinejad (who has stated he would like to eliminate the state of Israel) compares to adolf hitler: “there’s no comparison. ahmadinejad is a wart on hitler’s ass.”

on book reviewers: “most book reviewers don’t even read the damn book. they skim over it. pick out a few quotes. read some other book reviews of the same book, and then write it as quickly as possible. let’s say they get paid fifty bucks to write a review. they spend forty-five minutes writing it, then go out on a date. take that fifty bucks and get a nice steak dinner. see how it’s done? they are ahead of the game if they can pull it off like that.”

on his existential god: “god is a true artist, he has created much better stories than i have created.”

then it was done, and i waited for the bus.

and i looked around at all the logic and numbers.

part 1

Dai Oinuma writes: “All this time, I would think life was a gift given by an all knowing super nice guy living in clouds, just feeding every breathing cell with an ultraimportant purpose.

it was just made of logic and numbers.
god, that makes me feel so fucking alone!”

PART 1

when i was nineteen or twenty, my dad spent $140 on two tickets to a penguins game. he didn’t like hockey, but he knew i loved it, so he shelled out an exorbitant amount of money on really good seats. he just came home one day when i was home from college and said, “i got these tickets to the penguins game. do you want to go?”

around this time in my life, i didn’t have much to say to dad. i knew everything; he didn’t know anything. but it occurred to me that he was really trying to do something. i went to the game with him – it is the only time i’ve ever gone to a hockey game with dad.

(what happened at the game isn’t what i’ll long remember. details of the game are sketchy except that i can recall these three things:

-dad said we needed to dress up because we were sitting in good seats – i wore a button-up shirt and he wore his church shoes
-the penguins played the montreal canadiens
-the game ended in a tie)

on the ride home we didn’t have much to say. but i remember thinking for almost forty minutes that i wanted to ask him if he believed in god. i don’t know why this was so important to me that night, but i was curious. i had begun to seriously think about god/religion/afterlife issues around age 18. until that point, i just accepted what i was told, went to our lutheran service on sunday, and forgot about it the rest of the week.

by this age, i was beginning to have doubts. but i couldn’t take that next logical step (logical to me, i realize logic is very subjective). i determined that i couldn’t think seriously about the subject of religion until i asked my dad about it. i guess i just needed to hear this man tell me what he thought.

it took me everything i had inside to ask him, but i squeaked it out: “dad, do you think that there is really a heaven? i mean, do you believe we have a soul?”

he hesitated and sighed. he replied, “no, i don’t really think there is a heaven.”

i said, “yeah, me neither.” the relief – it felt so good to say it! “i think we just die and then we rot away.”

we were both quiet then for a minute or so.

then dad said: “it is kind of a raw deal.”

i agreed.

american spectacle

Jason writes: “is there such a thing as being too avant garde? it’s a yes or no question, so the following is a brief why.”

the new avant-garde is to be as mainstream and as predictable as possible. so what would be more mainstream than writing about the super bowl?

4:55pm CST – the cirque du soleil pre-game show is on. is it just me, or are all the people in the performance wearing indianapolis jerseys white, and all the performers wearing chicago jerseys black?

well i guess it doesn’t matter because the performance was AMAZING. i mean, totally worth the price of admission. i think people will still be talking about it tomorrow. it – was – awesome.

5:04 – jim nantz: “welcome to america’s greatest sports spectacle.” guy debord would be proud.

5:13 – based upon each team’s entrance onto the field, the colts look to be more emotionally pumped up. they were running, yelling, hitting each other. the bears just kind of jogged out and looked around.

5:17 – billy joel – any chance he will sing “piano man” instead?

5:18 – no.

5:19 – hey look – the deaf lady from the show that used to be on television! they got her to – sign the national anthem.

5:20 – prediction: bear 34, colts 17.

5:21 – i can tell already this super bowl is going to be a letdown in comparison to last year.

5:22 – is it wrong to want hope norbit dies at the end of his movie?

5:24 – they said all week kickoff was going to occur at 5:25. no chance they will make it. we haven’t even tossed the coin yet.

5:27 – kickoff is about to occur. i feel like hester is going to run this back.

5:28 – i swear i wrote that before it happened.

5:34 – two false starts and manning is already pissed.

5:36 – katie couric, you suck. kagan’s been doing positive stories since november.

5:37 – bob sanders has got to be the coolest guy in the nfl.

5:39 – the beard comb-over. pretty funny.

5:40 – tracy morgan. i hope for more of him.

5:41 – it’s raining during the super bowl. what the hell, god?

5:50 – it’s great when the field-level mics pick up swear words.

5:52 – phil simms just said “you gotta get up the field to stop the runs.”

5:56 – pride. tom arnold is in it. bernie mac is cracking penis size jokes in the preview. then it gets serious. it’s a race thing too? at a swim meet? am i to laugh? am i to contemplate race relations in america? tom arnold's in it for christ's sake. i’m so confused.

6:14 – david spade is looking a little rough.

6:17 – the coca-cola/video game/grand theft auto/end of the world/love commercial has to be the oddest one yet. it made me feel a little uncomfortable. it didn’t make me want to buy coke.

6:33 – i keep falling asleep. i don’t know if it’s all the pizza i ate or the game that is making me drowsy.

6:34 – colts score a touchdown – momentum has shifted.

6:39 – i don’t know if you have heard, but there are two african-american head coaches in today’s game.

6:43 – it’s about time for the bears to pick-off manning and run it all the way back.

6:45 – well, that didn’t happen.

6:46 – tim allen and john travolta riding their hogs across the country? i can hear the oscar buzz already.

6:54 – the coke commercial with the old man, the one where he has some coke and then runs with the bulls, jumps off the high dive, and rides the motorcycle. he must have had a lot of coke. cocaine.

6:56 – vinatieri missed. whoa.

halftime.

7:07 – i assumed prince alone would have been able to stop the rain when he walked on stage. he didn’t. does he not have the power? no, you say?

next you’re going to tell me there were no weapons of mass destruction.

7:14 – i stand corrected: prince is purposely creating the rain. duh. he needs it for “purple rain.”

7:17 – prince was a perfect choice for the super bowl. he performed to the spectacle. he was great.

7:24 – carlos mencia. he just doesn’t do it for me.

7:35 – i need to remember to draft joseph addai in my fantasy league next season.

7:36 – more curses words heard. awesome.

7:44 – wild hogs was just advertised as “the comedy event of the spring.”

7:45 – it has only been thirty minutes since prince performed. it seems like six hours. i wish he’d come back.

7:46 – hey nantz, it’s booger. not anthony.

7:47 – grossman fumbled the snap. again. cue circus music and slo-mo replay.

7:48 – who doesn’t like talking animals? thanks taco bell for the lions.

7:50 – i don’t understand how we – the collective world – can do a total face transplant to replace someone’s destroyed visage but we can’t keep a camera lens dry in the rain. it’s 2007 and we don’t have this technology? what are our scientists doing?

7:57 – robert goulet commerical – that was a good one.

7:58 – ugh, nasty. i just verped. (i added this solely to see if it was in wikipedia. sadly, it is not. someone should really add this entry. soon.)

8:06 – it took this long, but finally jim nantz brings up tank johnson and his multiple arrests. always a nice story.

8:13 – yeah, i’m sure cargill has the best interests of small farmers in mind.

8:22 – unless things change, rex grossman is going to have a long offseason.

8:29 – cato june is my second favorite name in football. (ebenezer ekuban is my favorite.)

8:30 – rex grossman may be hanged this week in chicago. he better just stay in Miami until may or june.

8:31 – everyone is going to be so cranky at work tomorrow. everyone but the girl from indianapolis. and me.

8:44 – it’s over.

8:49 – the score isn’t a final yet, but the colts will soon have won. i don’t think i’ll remember much about this super bowl. except for the rain. that is probably what everyone will remember it by. the rain bowl.

so jason: in answer to your question,

high of 4

Ginger writes: “hey can I borrow an ice cube?”

i’m staring – staring – staring.

it is currently 2 degrees fahrenheit.

on the bus, seven girls from ohio:

“oh my god, look look look! look at the skyline.”

“what?! where? lemme see!”

“there!” pointing. “the skyline.”

“i don’t see it. what skyline?”

“the buildings! the buildings make the skyline. look!”

“oh the buildings! yes, totally cool. i see it. i see the skyline.”

on the phone: “yes, there will be seven of us.”

pause.

“how much is the deep dish?”

pause.

“17.69? okay. we want three cheese.” interrupt: “no! one pepperoni!”

“no, no, wait. make that – yes, i’m sorry – two cheese, one pepperoni.” laughs. “yes, deep dish, totally.”

pause.

“thanks!” hangs up the phone.

“oh my god, it is SO COLD. everything is like ice cubes.”

phone rings. “it’s shawn.” smiles, answers. “hey shawn” – pause – “yeah, we got three” – pause – “no, no sausage, it’s two bucks more” – pause – “well, you’re gonna pay for it!” – pause – “yeah, i know, one-thirty” – pause – “yes (annoyed) i’ll call” – pause – “bye.”

“that was shawn.”

“is he still at the hotel?”

“yes, and he wants SAUSAGE.” grimaces.

she dials phone. “i told him it was two dollars more and we didn’t want sausage and that if he wants sausage he’s paying the extra for the sausage.”

“hi, hello. yes.”

pause.

“i called earlier about the reservation – Cunningham?”

pause.

“i’m sorry, yes, we’d like to change our order?”

pause.

“we’d like one cheese, one pepperoni, and one sausage.”

pause.

“yes, yes, deep dish please.”

pause.

“oh thank you so much! i appreciate it!”

hangs up the phone. sighs, smiles. “i’m just telling you, he is paying extra."

“oh my god, it is so cold guys.”

did you know dick's middle name is bruce?

Elizabeth writes: “you must have more time than God on your hands. or perhaps you can stretch time in your little head to make it rebound – hour after hour after hour – pulling all of the air out of it and making it land on your back porch with as many hours as the sun has to burn…

who are you? this man in this cyber bubble who waits for words to float over his head – waiting to catch them.”

searching for: an outlet.

some people eat
some people lift weights.
some people run marathons.

others collect things.
some hit things.
still others shoot guns or jump out of planes or yell or play their guitar or meditate or pray or eat acid.

some start wars, some bar wars.

i just wait for the floating words. and provide an outlet too.

give and take.

“you give and you take, sam, you give and you take.”

the hungry and the hanged, the damaged and the done

Cecotrope writes: "Title = Altering Response: Fictive Semiotics in chuck bundchen's bomb the world (I can never think of titles so you've got to cut corners somewhere: http://www.brysons.net/generator.html)

You win, you are the next most post-modern thing I have witnessed all day, by which I mean yesterday... technically, you are the most post-modern thing I have seen all day. Before you were the most post-modern thing I witnessed all day there was a Docu-Drama called Intervention. This particular episode which my friend gets on demand was about a 24 year old meth addict/ alcholic named Christy, she has been addicted to meth for 10 years. Thats a long time needless to say, and it definatly shows that meth psychosis can do powerful things to warp the mind, it was absolutly terrifying and proved to be a continual reminder to never touch the stuff (along with cold medicine, all antibiotics (they cause super bacteria to breed right), and heroin (maybe) .)

To be concise, this blog of yours is a pick me up. While Miko seems to point out that blogging and the internet in general is very insignificant to the world being pulled and revolved by gravitational forces from the sun, this blog is made up of things. People, numbers, letters, the back bone of what has built our civilizations. You point out this is like reverse spamming, instead of recieving random information about questionable things, you recieve random sweet nothings about real things... and those are probably the best things of all. This blog connects people, it takes whats happening and makes it happen for any person who reads it. I could be doing homework right now and I will, perhaps right around 3am, but I will be cool for class in 9 hours because its night time somewhere and we all know living and sleeping can overlap.

One day we can all erect a giant monument to the cause of the internet, we will gather every discarded monitor and use the cables to intertwine and connect the screens into a giant armature of ones and zeros. It will be glorious and intimidating, and from that day forward true free democracy will flourish through the internet as nations free themselves of oppression with giant robots made out of old computer parts, if we win then bomb the world, if we lose then bomb the world. The fall out will change us all into Lagomorph, our ears will extend and if we happen to be male our scrotums will somehow migrate in front of the penis. Women will likely deviour us after that for creating giant robots out of computer parts.”

i before e, except after c.

when was that phrase burned into my gray mush? 2nd grade? 3rd? 4th? i’ll never forget it – it is impossible. it’s like 7x8=56, 4x4=16, and 12x12=144. around the world in 3rd grade. champion. white card stock; green numerals.

“who among us will avenge miss nina simone?”

only when i’m drinking do i think i’ll smoke.

only then, do i make all the plans in the world.

only then, do i think i could write the bible. in one sitting. alone.

only when i’m drinking do i think i’ll actually do it.

i think i’ll do everything. just tonight.

“dead kids don’t get photographed, god bless our dead marines.”

in november and december, i wrote the above lyrics on a chalk board in a men’s room.

someone wrote “fuck you.” both times.

i also wrote “go black ‘n’ gold.”

someone wrote “fuck yeah.” one time.

“lost a friend to oceans, lost a friend to hills.”

and then i sent a story to the hippest cats this side of the communist manifesto. they said yes; they said no.

and then i showed my dad and he said “you don’t actually believe this stuff, right?”

he said that -- despite the fact that i didn’t get anything but an “A” until 4th grade – you can imagine that day. it was over for me i was sure.

i would never play nintendo again, and i sure as heck wasn’t going to college. and surely i would be sentenced to go to sunday school twice a week instead of just once. maybe three times.

confirmation class was more stressful than the driving exam, GRE’s, or graduate-level final examinations. nicene creed? transmogrification? deuteronomy? worst days of my life. i didn’t sleep the week previous.

“when the world is sick, can’t no one be well? but i dreamt we was all beautiful and strong.”

esophagus – strike one?

no one has ever been stronger – he could stop the tsunami. and fight the killer, and put out the fire, and save the princess, and protect us all.

all in the same night.

the esophagus felled my giant’s father as well.

or maybe peristalsis just wears out like a rubber band.

note: lyrics not mine.

through subterfuge

Beth writes: "Why are there “thousands” of volunteers helping to rebuild south Mississippi but none can be found to help me and my husband put a roof on this place? Yeah, we live in a piece of crap trailer but we still need a roof over our heads! My cabinets are falling to pieces because the rainwater pours in, my floors are rotting because of rain pouring in. We have the wood 2x4 things but can’t find a single soul that will come out here in the Franklin Creek area and help us. My husband has a bad back and I’m not able to help him because I can’t even lift one of those pieces of wood. All we see on the news is all these rich people with volunteers from all over the place help rebuild those big fancy mansions on the beach. What about us little people that really need the help?!"

through subterfuge they took it from us.

we were warm, we were there.

he was the last man.

and just as he suggested, the nightingales couldn’t be trapped or caught. those that did succeed only solidified their own ruin.

today, i cannot hardly speak/write/think of him without tears. what have i become?

but it may just be that time has distorted the details.