"Undermining my electoral viability since 2001."

Making Art

So, the annual talent show came again, and I reached into my bag of tricks and pulled out another performance piece. It was well-received. Matt Barry (local skate video superstar and all around quality kid) said I won the contest, but it wasn't a contest, and anyway I think his talent of shotgunning five beers gives me a serious run for my money.

Getting up and doing the thing felt good though. The piece had a bit of my own meta bullshit in it; doubt anyone really picked up on the "head-fake towards sex-piece" inside joke in the opening, but that's ok. It's really just a meditation on fear of success vis-a-vis the Black President, internet dating, becoming a boss, and popular self-help quotations, wrapped with a couple choice musical cuts. A good pep-talk.

Full text is here: It's our turn

The upshot is it makes me think I can do this more often, and gives me some internal steam to push ahead on the video idea. While hot gossip and unicorns help keep things rolling along, the most popular posts of mine over time (top of the pops) are the noodly think-pieces. If I can stand to look at my face enough to convert these into video form, it might actually get some people jazzed. That'd be fun.

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It's Our Turn

The following text was first performed on 12/13/2008 at the second annual Westhaven Christmas party as part of the talent portion of the evening. Presented as a bit of introspective soul-searching that turns into a pep-talk.

Holiday Cheer

Christmas party went off good. Gift exchange. Talent show. Funtime. My performance/pep-talk went over well; I'll post the text for the archive in a bit.

Number one quote of the night: "Motherfuckers try to front, but the Greatful Dead were hard as fuck."

In the meantime, here's something sure to make you smile:

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Winter's Tale

2008 is winding down. Quite a busy year. I've fallen a bit under the weather -- plague running rampant at the office -- and am generally feeling the decompression beginning. It's been cold at night up here, good for making fires and nice and contrast-y with the hot tub. Moon is almost full, and tonight we took a quick little night mission down to one of the overlooks by Luffenholtz beach where you can walk all the way out to the jutting end of a rock outcrop and watch the waves crash in on all sides.

It reminded me of when I first came out here, going camping with a girl up in the Redwoods north of Orick and walking/sliding down what turned out not to be a real trail, or at least not one made or typically used by humans, ending up on a coarse-grained sandy beach miles from the usual access road. We came for an adventure, and to carry salt-water back for cooking, and to make out a little bit. Something about the way the froth of the waves catches light in the night... connected those two moments for me. Made me feel like a page is turning.

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