Feelin' kinda lost tonight, folks. Outside, far away from where I want to be. Half the world, in fact. I dream of running under the desert sun, under fire, not knowing what will happen next or if I will be alive to see it. It's the very edge of everything, chaos, terror, horror, and I really want to go and see it for myself. To take pictures and send them back to people in their calm normal existences, and maybe someone will wake up.

The crazy thing is, I can do that. Six months, I'll have the money to go anywhere in the world long enough to make contacts and pictures and sell them and really start a career. It's wild and it's crazy and I'm going to do it.

The weird thing, why I'm lost: I'm not where I want to be, but I don't mind where I am. I have a good job, good money, lots of friends. The climate here sucks, and the scenery is mostly the clouds, but it isn't a bad place. I could hang around here and make a decent life, find some little thing with enough curves and brain cells to keep us entertained, make this job into a career with some law school, and have a good, happy time.

I could do that, a nice stable life. Fuck that though. Why be normal when I can live a dream? Why do average when I can do whatever I want? Hotter women, more languages, more danger, more life. Feel every breath, see every person, love them all. Keep shooting and keep shooting until my light goes out.

OK, not lost any more. Time to sleep.

photos from the week

fuck the fuckin' posers

(Later edit: this is what happens when I blog drunk. It was stupid, so I deleted it. Yeah, like that).

hi, boss.

And hi all the other people. Here's the deal: you can look at the pictures, ignore the writing, and probably get 75% of the good stuff I've put up here. (Theres this one thing I'm proud of, nothing else comes to mind).

So yeah, my boss found this site, and called me a serious blogger, and made some joke about terrorism. I don't don't know what that's supposed to mean... I don't think I've ever written about my politics here, and I don't think blowing shit up helps anybody, no matter who's doing it.

Really though, there are some serious bloggers out there, but I'm not one. I'm a dilletante, too busy to go hunting links or shit. I just throw up my photos for people to see, tell some stories now and again, lather, rinse, repeat. I don't spell check or proofread, except the casual glances I give my html to see if it'll work.

Today was an exceptionally good day though. I went and got some coffee from coffee slingers, which is this trendy place downtown, but they are really good at the whole coffee thing. I had one 12 oz cup and I felt amazing all day. Really good. I felt like a human being, with all the social graces and instincts and quick wit that I sometimes can muster, all from a little paper cup. Like whoa.

Got up a little late, thinking I had a shorter drive, but I ended up having to go all the way to (censored). 2 hours. I then shot 3 whole pictures, emailed them to the person chaining the title, and waited a little bit because he said he might need something else. He didn't call, so on I went to (censored), an hour and a half away. Shot for the whole afternoon, didn't do too bad, 500 photos. My half-day record is 1000, whole day is 1800, and I had to get a wrist brace for my right because those days were right together and it's still a little sore.

That coffee was really something though. High-test, I'm calling it in my head, like they used to call high octane gas. Better stuff. Makes everything run smoother, more powerful. We'll see tomorrow if it was a fluke or what.

I found some more photos...

from the alleycat, actually broken "src" tags. Fixed now, so take a look below. Work goes, and goes, and goes. Still more driving than a nail gun in a roofing project.

I'm reading three books right now, "bomb the suburbs" about hip-hop culture, "Camera lucida" about photography, and "The Yiddish Policemen's union," an alternate history novel. Bomb the Suburbs has some flaws, starting with the title.

First of all, Bomb the suburbs. As social theories go, race analysis sucks. You can't generalize along race lines. Economic and class analysis, however, can be really really good at finding whys and solutions. Second: cultures always cross pollinate and steal things from each other and everybody is richer for it. Wismatt, the author, is against the mainstreaming and what he sees as cheapening of hip-hop, because (to paraphrase) what it was was real, and what it's become is whack and stupid and missing the point.

Here's a thought: the mainstreaming of hip hop has created a cultural dialogue that didn't exist before, has given legitimacy to several new ways of making art, and has empowered people on both sides of the perceived divide to communicate in ways that weren't possible before. And the great thing about dialogue, about discourse: there's always more to say, and rappers and b-boys and kids from the burbs are still out there talking. Of course there's going to be stupid shit out there you can ridicule and try to use to say that the world is fucked up and nobody gets it any more, but you gotta have the shit so you know what smells good.

Camera Lucida is a lot more thoughtful. If "On Photography" (sontag's shitty rant) was about photo with a small p, Camera Lucida is about photography with a capital P. By prodding gently at the subject, rather than slashing and burning, some really interesting ideas come through. Then again, I'm only one chapter in, so it might start to suck soon. Philosophy books usually lose me pretty quickly.

Sleep now. Later everybody.

alleycat photos

photos from the week

Yo, photos:


Refinery. Aesthetically not so hot, but making money like no tomorrow.
Small town, approaching storm.
Dillon. Driving.
Clouds (because I'm a sucka).
Girl (also because I'm a sucka).

Photos of the alley cat in two shakes.

50 Posts! Awesome!

wow. I never knew. I figured this blog wouldn't make it to ten posts, much less fifty. And people are reading. Hi people. Here's photos:

This is from last sunday when I should have been in bed. So is this:

That's Adam's blood. On the concrete. It was more than a little hard to take this one, as I had to lean out over the edge of the bridge, and see what would happen if I fell.

Driving to work. Rain, and I'm the only one going my way.



There's a certain contingent among photographers that there are some places you don't have to bother carrying your camera because there aren't any photos there. One place that commonly comes up is the supermarket. I'm out to prove them wrong.

Now off into tthe wild blue yonder. Later.

so people are still coming here searching for "Matt Mills porn". You kids are weird. First of all, I don't even have a girlfriend. Second of all, I don't do porn. Artful nudes, maybe, and a friend of mine once asked me to do suicide girl shoot for her, but that never went through and so I really have nothing remotely like porn for you people.

Meanwhile, work work work. Went to see Adam yesterday, he seems all right. Broke up as all hell, but all things that'll heal eventually. I'm not a doctor, nor a psychologist, but I have a feeling he's gonna make a good recovery. Tons of good people around him (I mean all the folks I've met over the last few weeks, the Hellcats and boneshakers and just the community around bikes, really lots of awesome people.

I also discovered I don't know how to stick weld at all. I was over at KW's house, he has a workshop and a welding machine. So I decided to build a frankenbike, and then I couldn't put two pieces of metal together to save my life. Although I told my dad what was going on (he's a weldor) and he said it was a case of everything in the situation being wrong, not just that I didn't know any technique. Rod was oxidized and probably too large, so useless. I'll try again next week maybe. Dad said he'd show me some things too, so that'll be cool.

And I gotta go sleep. Catch you later, internets.

Just some photos

Then I'm gonna do my business cards, then I'm out to the build day.

Forgetting names

So I'm meeting a bunch of new people, hanging out with more or less the same group for a few weeks, and at times I really feel shitty, because I can't for the life of me remember their names. Actually, it got a lot better tonight (I don't care that the post time says ten something, it's really 3am), there were introductions for someone else new, and I think I'll remember several more now.

Adam, who is pictured here with his wife, had a really bad wreck. Nobody knows for sure what happened, except some woman saw him come over the side of a bridge over I-44 and stopped to call 911. Multiple injuries, face, knee, ankles, femur, bike's a wreck. I find it hard to believe that all that happened from a fall, but then again, a fall onto concrete from 40 feet (about the height of the bridge) could maybe cause a broken femur. I still think maybe a car was involved. There is maybe a video of the incident, so maybe we can see what happened.

It gave me a thought though, about a story I might do. Bike wrecks caused by cars. Close calls. Talk about how scary it is to be out there on the road with a bunch of homicidal maniacs in death machines aimed at you.

To tell the truth, I almost didn't ride tonight, I thought about driving. at the last second, i realized it was stupid, that not riding was the worst thing I could do, and so I pedaled up to sauced. And that hand-built wheel I finally put back on the bike? Amazing. Anyway, that's all. I really should offload my card and post pictures, but I'm lazy and tired and I'll do it tomorrow sometime, I swear.

work, work, work...

All week long, so not much to talk about. Although everyone's been asking me wether or not I like my job at work which leads me to believe that someone there has been reading the blog... well, the answer is, I really do like my job. OK? I really like the paycheck, and I know that long term (I'm thinking in years here) it's not what I'm going to end up doing. I get to meet lots of people, push myself in interesting ways. Organization, never my strong suit, is critical, and so I'm learning how to do it. I get to meet interesting people, and one of my strong suits, being endearing to the surly, is a big help some places.

My existential doubts the other day (and what I wrote here) were really me thinking out loud. Sometimes I write because I have a good idea, a story to tell. Sometimes I have an idea to work out and if I write it down I can see it better. Then there's what I did the other day: putting my doubts and fears down so I can see if they're real or not after a little time has passed.

Now a little time has passed and I've been working and getting a better feel for what is going on, and it's a good thing, for the most part. The problems I have with corporations, big oil, etc. are political problems. This work isn't political in the least. It's just a low level function of a market economy. A demand for information is being filled.

Anyway, I need a nap. Photos to follow later, before booze cruise.

Photos from most of the weekend

OK, so before I run off and do more crazy shit, the photos and some more story need to go here. So before I was having all those metaphysical doubts, I got home Friday and then turned around and went out to the Rooster to see who would be around and generally drink. before that though, I ran by best buy and picked up my new ipod, 16gb touch. I actually like it quite a lot, the battery lasts a lot longer than my n800 and the volume goes up louder.



Got there to the booze cruise, and it turned out to be mostly booze, which was nice after a fairly long week. Then my bank card came back declined, despite the paycheck I'd put in earlier that day. It was all good, though, between pitchers and people willing to cover me for the cover at the Blue Note. The band they had as sort of all right as long as you didn't pay them any attention, which was hard as loud as they were. By the time we got there the place was more or less empty except for the bar itself. Magically, beers kept appearing in front of me. I was fairly drunk by the end of the night. I rode home probably faster still than any other time, maybe 20 minutes for 8 miles. No stops. It was nice.





Then I woke up Saturday to go to this bike happening in Mesta Park. I stopped on the way to get a new rear tire, the old one was worn through. Saw Mike, who works at the shop and is an all-around nice guy, said hello, had a coffee next door at coffee slingers, which is really good coffee, by the way, and free wifi to boot.

On to the park, where there were sprints, a slow race, and all sorts of fun things. That wast most of my day, fixie tricks and hanging out and soaking up the sun. I Helped these two girls with their bikes, little things, seat adjustment and brake tension, but it's little things like that which make a ride fun or a pain in the ass.



The next stop was this water park on 36th and Classen, public and free, just out there for people to come and cool off. All kinds of ways to get watered. That was one of the more fun parts of the day, and I have no pictures from it. Oh well. Then the whole group went en masse to the infoshop, which is where I started to feel conflicted about my job a little. Oh well, fuck that. Know the world glued your back to the wall, gotta brawl through that, like Jay z said.



They were having a barbeque, vegetarian, of course, and I had my first ever veggie burger. Tasteless, bland, and later my stomach was not happy with me. The vibe I was getting from them was weird: sort of slightly superior defensive insular. I left to get smokes, came back, and some people were hanging out inside, and the feeling was different: we were telling jokes and riddles and just hanging out. So I don't know about that whole situation/group/whatever. Of course, they're all individuals and probably cool taken by themselves.



And after that I was pretty exhausted, so I came home and went to bed. I know, boring.
Nothing else to report, except I'm editing a new portfolio to go up here soon. We'll see how good it looks, I like the pictures at least. Speaking of pictures: here's one last for your visual enjoyment:

I think I've used all possible iterations of "rock" in a title already

So, anyway, It's been a good couple of days. Drove to Durant and back Thursday and Friday. Three hours one way. But then Friday I got my first paycheck, which was totally awesome. Three months with no money really wears on a guy, you know?

The driving. God there's a lot of driving. Long stretches of road, hot, way way too hot with my broken air conditioner. My watch thermometer said 110 at one point when I was stuck in traffic on Friday. Is it any wonder people get road rage and hate to drive? I still enjoy it in the morning though. Get up, pack my work-things, go to it. Drinking coffee on the highway, I listen to music and think.

What I think is, I'm a vulture. I go around getting photos of all this title research so somebody can buy property, whether it's oil and mineral rights or the surface or whatever. They have to find it though, and get exact legal standings of every little piece. So that's where I come in and photo all the title documents, send them to someone who knows how to decipher what they mean and send that information onto someone else, who then buys or leases rights, and maybe they're extracting something and maybe not.

So I'm a little conflicted. I was hanging out with these hippie anarchists (their pamphlets and zines were indicative of this if not the blond dreadlocks many of them sported), and it got me to thinking: What is this concept of big oil, and who decided it was necessarily evil? And am I complicit in working for these people, even at the bottom of a very large hierarchy?

Here's what I think: My job would get done anyway. Market forces right now are making oil so valuable that any hole with the least drop of it at the bottom is valuable. I'm not at the top making decisions, and I can't have any effect on the bad things that happen in other countries because of oil. Here in the US at least, there are good laws on the books (and contractual obligations to the surface-rights holders) to maintain the land on the surface. I'm a contract worker for a company that itself has contracts with the people actually digging. I could take any shit job and maybe cover my expenses, but with this job I can cover my expenses, keep my sanity, and be done with my debt much sooner. So it's ok. I think. OK, readers, all five of you: am I selling out?

Now I have to go mow grass. More about the rocking weekend later.