fucking snow...

yeah, I'm not one for news pictures so much... the news is all fake anyway, or at least 90% bullshit to 10% truth... but I do like the snow. So, for once, a topical post.

It's been four days since...

I was at the blue note... this was the night I found out someone new was buying it, definitely bittersweet... but the sweet was good, too, Hanging out w/ Kat and Sigrid and Kat's fam (her dad is a pool shark, watchout), and then just the drinking, oh, the drinking...

the last december birthday

Mike J's. At the Sipango. And you might think, from these pictures, that it's not a bad place to hang out. You'd be wrong. I wouldn't go there again unless it's someone's birthday, and they won't see reason and come to a bar with less dudebros. The things we do for our friends. Actually, I only stayed for half an hour, everybody was already pretty well wasted by the time I got there. Although I did have dinner and some beers earlier at Mcnellies that night, I wasn't drinking, if you know what I mean. Tuesday, you know?

It's been seven days since...

I took all these photos. Ok, in that last post, where I said I hadn't taken any good ones of Ali when we were celebrating her bday? I lied. There's one here that I really like and another that's all right, but it's not her face. What else? That was a dfry night, which is becoming more and more common now that blue note has changed the jukebox. My favorite bar is changing owners very soon... this has happened once before, and that change brought us ladies night and free pool afternoons, but we lost good show coming out of there, so maybe this time we'll keep the free beer and get back some awesome shows.

Then there are the two pictures in here that aren't portraits. I'm becoming more impulsive with my photography, and that off ramp was an extreme example. I glanced out of the bar door, saw something, and had a compulsion to go out and shoot it. That's all I came up with; although there are several frames, I only like that one. What else? Holly, you'd better be treating my hat well. Regular walks, exercise, hand wash only. Now I have to get photos off the camera.

two fridays ago...

This was the night of Ali's birthday... sorry ali, didn't get any of you, as you were in tulsa... the following night I also didn't get any, because the light in the dfry is shit. Also, I'm not shooting as much as I used to. it ebbs and flows, just like everything else, and right now, I'm at an ebb... I've just had an idea for a new project, though, one that's been staring me in the face for months and me not even noticing. The working title is 'hackers in the heartland'... a hacker in the sense of 'maker' or 'expert'. You know who you are, expect emails soon. Anyway, on with the photos.

Office christmas party, pt 1

You know, you;d think the office christmas party would be boring, and nothing would really happen. And I suppose I did end up driving myself home that night, so it wasn't that crazy. But still, it requires two posts to get all the photos in. Here:

office christmas party, pt 2

This is the second half, and because it happened later, was more drunken.

two wednesdays ago...

nobody could believe what was happening... I could scarcely deal with it myself... I mean, look at these girls... and I wasn't on my game, just imagine what was actually happening...

seriously though, I need to do some catch up on photos... these are seriously stale... expect a post every three hours until I'm caught up to what's in the camera right now. no promises that the front text will make any more sense than this one did.

Chris' b-day

This is what happens when you get in a fight with a truckon one wheel. And win.





The two group photos we took:




And my own version of a group photo. Didn't get everyone in though.


And now lunch is over; back to the grind.

I think this was that one night...

Remember? The night that I drank far far too much? Excessive amounts of excess. So hungover in the morning I couldn't move? Yeah, well, there was this artshow, and I was broke, and a lot of other people fed me booze, but I wasn't really keeping track. I started counting in the morning, and the number of drinks I had was some where in excess of way too many. I think my short term memory shorted out there at the end, I have a lot of the same picture, like I took it and then forgot. Not that I remember now, but the photos at least tell something. Artifacts. Thank god for autofocus.

I know, deadpan images are dead, but I liked the asshole tax.



Husband...


and wife.

five minutes for a blog post...

first one will be brief. This is from two wednesdays ago, for once I wasn't out at blue note, and Chelsea came down to get a cell phone (I have spares and hers was spastic). While I was looking for the charger, she says, "Why don't we go to norman and see my friends play a jazz set?" and of course I went. I always have some fantastic luck when I hang out with her; I met a former South African paratrooper at one party, or there was the time we came across fire-dancers just before a rock show, etc, etc. This time, one of the professors from OU showed up and asked to sit in, and dude was cool. Didn't hog the stage, played a couple good numbers, and left. And my five minutes were up a while ago:

Trumpet playin' man.






More later.

Pearl Goes Away

It seems like every weekend, we have and excuse to party... and if there is no party, we at least have a reason to drink. Anyway, I know these are like a week and a half late, but I really had far too much fun at this party and the day after... I've had a lot of good days in the past moth or so, and this was one of them (or at least that night and the next morning). The kind of good time that makes me want to hang onto certain pictures, even though they're not as good. When I rush to post, that's when you see 40 pictures split into two posts; when I wait, you get 7 pictures in one post, but I think they're the best 7. Anyway, on with the show:

Return to the Fry

So, a couple weeks ago now, I was in the Drunken fry and some dudebro tried to steal my hat and then start a fight with Cody. This was a mistake on his part, and, well, nothing happened, not really. But I'd been avoiding the fry after that, because who wants to deal with that shit? Anyway, last friday a bunch of us started the night getting smashed and playing dominoes, at which point going to the fry sounded like a good idea. And then there weren't enough seats in the car, so I said "Fuck it, I'll ride my bike." And it was awesome and cold, but mostly awesome. And then drunken, and then fries, in phases.

CHELSEA ENGAGED!

Only not really. Hi Ms Miller. Heard you liked the blog and couldn't resist a little fun.

Ok, joke's over. Back to your regularly scheduled blog.

friendsgiving part 2

Some good discussion over on my facebook with Kris Kanaly re: that last post where I said the oughts sucked in a lot of ways. If you can read it you should, I don't feel like re-hashing a lot of stuff here. A note on the nature of this blog: I post the photos for other people to see, and I write stuff for myself. It's always rough and nothing I say here is ever final or complete. Also: I didn't mean that there was nothing good happening anywhere, just that only a few pieces of art (and by art I mean writing, painting , photography, and any creative endeavour) were what I'd call transformative, that stick with you, that change you, that have a lasting effect. Then I realized, on reflection, that a small number of works like that might be normal. Not that the worlds sucks, but you don't make the mona lisa every day, either. A fault, but I think the rest of the argument stands- reducing noise and increasing good signal is a good thing. Anyway, on with the photos.

Apples to apples, which is an excellent idea while drunk, even though I lost a lot.



Fixing the flag. also: Permanent Distress would be a good name for a punk band.





Hot ass. Wait. I mean, on fire. Well, jumping over it, anyway.



INFINITE BROMANCE:

Friendsgiving part 1

This post is brought to you by the agave-turkey-waffle-taco, and box wine.

some thoughts and some random

I've been thinking, a lot of people are saying what a craptastic decade this has been, calling it the 'naughts' because that's what it ammounts to. The whole world and every single one of us in it has had kind of a shitty time. There are a few gleaming shiny bits of technology and a lot of death and hate and crap and that's about it. Music has gone to hell. I haven't seen any art that really floored me since about 2003, and all of that was made before 2000. What the hell, people?

I think I have one answer- it's not all of the answer, because so much shit comes from a lot of assholes- but for the first time ever, we have access to everything we want, ever. You know that impulse you have to look at every title in the bookstore at least once, so you don't miss anything? Or to go through all the rooms in the thrift store, for that one special find? That same impulse combined with the internet and the exponential growth of things available to look at has completely consumed our collective conscious. It's normal to be obsessed with something, and it's weird to be disconnected.

Here's the catch: obsessives are crazy. Not the good crazy, the stay up for three weeks on benzedrine and write the great american novel crazy, but the found dead in her house with two dead cats under piles of used toilet paper rolls crazy. We have been so obsessed with mining all that is out there and finding the gems that we have made no time to create our own identity. You think to yourself if you can just finish this season of lost or get that Eames chair or write the perfect tweet, then you can be at peace, but that's a lie.

The truth is, there is no such thing as being finished. There is no rest until you're dead, and no safety either. And as long as you spend your time keeping up with the latest and greatest of the whole world and all of your friends, you will have no time for yourself, to make the world a better place.

I'm not saying to cut yourself off from twitter and facebook and all of that. They are wonderful tools for communication, and they should be used that way. You are not a one person broadcast to the world; you're leaving a note for your friends. You can't keep up with everything, so you might as well take the time to do something that's worth sharing.

And yes, I realize the inherent contradiction, putting this on my blog. Where the hell else am I going to put it? Why share something like this in a channel nobody cares about any more, like a dumb old magazine or newspaper. This is the fucking future, and we didn't get our flying cars and vacations around venus and all that shit, but we did get blogs and iphones and all the tools we could ever dream of for making the world however we want it. Let's let go of the old shit and get out there and create something of our own.

Enough rant. I hope you read it and didn't skip to the photos, even though I like these photos. I have more in this vein, including an expansion of what I mean about not being a broadcast for the whole world, but that's another rant, and there are plenty of photos to bait you all with later, no? ;)

Adam lock Was back in ton for like two seconds, and these are two from that night at Mcnellies. Have fun kids, and look for freindsgiving photos tomorrow.

pretty freakin' awesome

via succeedblog:

Pop Up from abw on Vimeo.

tail end

these are the last that I have uploaded; next is Friendsgiving and maybe thanksgiving even, when I get somewhere with wifi that works. Anyway, battery is also dying. More later.

last wednesday

I just found out that 20% of the calories you burn are burned by your brain. Does that mean, then, that people with super high metabolism can think more and/or faster? Endurance athletes: ultramarathon runners, touring cyclists who do 80+ miles a day, anybody at the olympics, people like that. Can prolonged exercise make you smarter just by making the processor run hotter?