Amarillo by mornin' (Bside)

Guess who just received a make-over.
My number one companion, GENETA, my guitar, also known as "the zombie stunner" and Queen Frog Splash, that's who.

I started about a week ago, and have had to lug around my various tools and treats to finish the job. It took some serious ~12 hours of sanding by hand (the only way I would allow myself to potentially desecrate my mother's 2006 present to me) and a few interesting sessions of applying furniture lacquer. This was definitely not a week long project, but at the moment I feel comfortable (lazy) enough to take the "gentle persistence" approach to all important tasks. The end result is not too shabby, a few defective spots in the lacquer and some areas you can tell that I had no idea how to use sand paper. Oh ya, and there is a beard hair frozen in the lacquer somewhere, which I did not intentionally do, but I am glad it happened.

From Amarillo by mornin'

From Amarillo by mornin'

I am happy with the finished product and excited to devote my newly freed "time" to other vital issues such as: train myself to open eyes under salt water, play the Foreign Exchange market, and rewind cassette tapes with my mind. Ya, and look for cool cities with wind power jobs. I think my pal Justin looks forward to the day his apartment doesn't smell like melted furniture and sweat. It's going to be a while.

Amarillo by mornin' (A)

It has been a bit of bouncing around. Here, to there, to this, and then back. I won't bore you with the details, because I don't really remember them.

This very second, I am in Amarillo Texas. I imagine I will have much to say of this city, particularly about the general populous (human), but I have a week to do it and so far I have not been able to quite settle the thoughts in my mind. However, I have calculated my opinion of the special group of friends that I am truly here to spend time with, and the calculus ensures good times have happened and more good times to come. My buddy pal Justin is teaching his last week of school, so it is exciting times.
He and another of my best friends are soon to be wed.
Their summer of love approaches swiftly
and I am here to do what I can.


Tonight, my thoughts drift to another subset of creature friends, similar in smell, but otherwise very different. This year, seemingly more than any other, I have met, belly rubbed, and ran around with some great dogs. Canines. Pooches. I have always enjoyed dogs, but why this thought is so clear tonight, I am not certain. These guys have just really been provokers of good thoughts. The simple fact that I think of these strange friendships in this way makes me think I am a lot more travel wary than I give myself credit for.
The road, it wears. I am more and more grateful for the good friends.

From Caro Grad

Science Poetry

It has been sometime since I have posted. I suppose it is because I am morphing into a new individual with new goals, far different from the person I was when I began writing this blog. Because I recognize this, it almost seems wrong for me to post here anymore. Awkward.

Briefing: I am in my old hometown of Portales New Mexico living off of the sweet energies of my parents (what's new?). Soon I will make my way back through the plains of west Texas to pursue new adventures.

I have been here reading science poems. Here is my favorite so far:

"High-transmissivity composite left/right-handed uniaxial bulk metamaterials
were fabricated in a multilayered dielectric/hole metal array technology
and experimentally assessed at submillimeter wavelengths
by time-domain spectroscopy." - S. Wang et al

Beautiful isn't it?

Middle of the week. Middle of everything.

A story.
While in Dallas, my pal Will and I rode bicycles with our guitars to the historic Dallas Fair Park to look for an advertised art festival. When we got there, we did not find many people or what might resemble a festival, so we rode around looking at the large fair ground facilities from outside of a fence. At the back of the park we found an open security gate, which we rode through with only minor concerns for the law.

Inside was fascinating, empty game booths, tattered tarps, quietted rides, and a frozen ferris wheel. It was exciting to ride through this sleeping playground and imagine the differences there must be during fair season. After a circle through, we came back to the rear gate to find it had closed. This was more humorous than troubling, and we rode back around in search of an escape. A convenient escape was not to be found, but we decided on jumping the fence and lifting our bikes over. Once to the other side, I couldn't help the feeling that we should have made more of this.
"We should have recorded a video or somethin'."
"I'm in."

After climbing back over the chain link and barbed wire we discussed our plan.
"A music video?"
"Yea. We can play guitar by those giant cable spools."
So we started our recording with me playing by the ferris wheel. It was exciting. Not only had we re-snuck into the place with a purpose of guerrilla video recording, but the rare opportunity to have footage of yourself playing guitar at such a strange place was reason for a small dose of adrenaline.

About two minutes in to the first shot, I glanced right to see a bird fly away from my singing (yelling?) At about two minutes and five seconds, I glanced left to see a security guard staring at us from a golf cart ten feet away. Out of practice, I was able to move on with the show. The man was not making a move, he was letting us finish. At the end of the last chord, we both turned to the man.
"Hey man." "Hello sir."
"How you doin' guys. Let me ask you, how did you get inside of the gate?"
We told him a short, nervous version of the above.
"No problem guys. You know, it is nice to see someone in here doing something positive. That's why I let you finish. And I can let you back out now."
We giggled like school boys and thanked him. We started to pack up and I turned back to the guard. "Do you want to be in our music video?"
He looked down and left for a moment to allow quicker blood passage to the right side of his brain. "Sure!"

We explained a few of the director's ideas and off I went in Larry the security guard's golf cart. Director Will got on his bicycle and recorded me playing guitar while riding with Larry. We were having a great time. Larry even suggested different spots for interesting backgrounds to our video and we gladly took his suggestions. Larry said we helped him pass the time in what normally feels like a prison cell, and he certainly helped make our day.

To what I think will be your immediate disappintment, I will say that I do not have a video to show you, nor can I promise I will ever have one. Will got some awesome footage and it needs to be edited together to be right. Perhaps one day.

-typed on a small computer-like device.

Dallas, TX (**********)

Happy Friday to all my friends rolling the grind stone and trimmin' the fat.

I have decided to stop downloading music illegally in order to focus more on supporting some musicians. This leaves me searching for ways to "stream" new releases before I go looking to buy them, and luckily there are many great resources out there to help me stay honest. I have established a few more rules for myself on this topic, such as:

1. I won't give a dime to the "Big Four" record labels and their subsidiaries (if I can help it).
2. I will buy directly from the Artist or Artists' distributor when possible.
3. I will buy from local record shops.

This doesn't mean that I won't support those few, good artists who are on major labels. For them I will try to attend concerts or buy merchandise, because, to my understanding, this money typically goes to the artist, while a vast majority of record profits go to the fat cats. Trying to be a smart consumer, so hopefully these are OK steps in that direction.

Oh boy, all this consumption has left me little room in my pockets for creation, but it's all alright. Feeling pretty good sitting on my stool with my tongue hanging out and my belly crawling out over my belt.

~Back in the world of the practical~
Without a single guitar, Will and I went to the Dallas Museum of Art last night for, what I thought was, free night. The man at the front desk asks for $10. Huh? No, no. Free night, right?
"No, not unless you have student I.D.s."
"But, your website says free night tonight."
The man says no, but offers to let us in for $5.
No I say, "I'm sorry, but we came a long way (we did not come from that far at all). Can I speak to a manager or somethin?"
"I am the manager, now if you can show me where on the website it says that, I will let you in for free."
I floated on my cloud of smugness around the desk and cracked my computer knuckles. Other museum visitors watch in line from behind us with a mixture of annoyance and anticipation.
"See, here it is right heeerrrre" I deflated like a whoopee cushion. Tuesdays are free, not Thursday.
I was embarrassed, but the manager was a cool guy and let us both in for $5.

The museum was great. As usual, I spent most of my brain cells in the European 18th/19th/20th century paintings. For the first time, Will helped me notice that there is one very important attribute to human paintings that make or break it, it's the peoples' eyes in the picture. We found a handful of paintings where the subjects' eyes make them look "zoned out". There must be a reason for this, perhaps the eyes are not focusing on the same point in the image, or the eyes are a different size. I have yet to figure it out, but I plan to. I am rambling, next time you are in a museum maybe you will look for it, and it will bug the hell out of you.

On our exit we saw that we had completely missed the special exhibit, "The Lens of Impressionism". As we were walking into the exhibit a lady stopped us. "You have to purchase additional tickets for this exhibit". No big deal, we were pretty worn out anyways so we were just going to head home. Before we left though, I wanted to do something to try to iron out all the wrinkles. I walked back up to that same manager at the desk and asked to make a $5 donation to the museum. "Thank you sir, but we do not accept donations by credit card. But here, take these for your generosity." and he handed me two tickets for the special exhibit and two "member" passes to the museum. I just could not win! This guy was too strong. So we drank down that special exhibit until our four visual cortices were only small, incongruous dots and lines serving as the artist's representation of the actual. It was Impressive.

Dallas, TX (*********)

I have been busy. I am very busy.
Busy getting my heart eaten by Spring.
Walking along sidewalks, pelted by flowers from the flowering trees.
The fragrance of Lilac and Honeysuckle blend into a tide of thick air that pushes its way through my chest.
After a light rain, a rainbow escaped the Earth's crust and melted my eyes as I typed by the window.
Dogs don't bark anymore, they speak.
And I can't stop taking pictures.

From Settlement Dallas

Saturday, instead of riding in the bicycle fundraiser that we have been training for, we decided to stay inside to dodge the rain soaked roads. The forecast online said it was to rain a majority of the day, so we stayed in. We were potentially beat down from the Dr. Dog concert the night before, where we brought. the. house. down. At one point my friends' dancing was more entertaining to some of the audience than the activity on stage. My throat was on fire, and I shit you not, my ears are still ringing 3 days later (I hope I don't have to get this looked at). I can only speak for myself, but I was beat down.

We did our own bicycle riding around downtown Dallas looking for the world to reveal certain mysteries to us. Six helicopters were circling the sky and led us to a marching demonstration. Twenty thousand people were reported to have been marching, all of them speaking out against the recent changes in immigration laws in Arizona, and the word that the state of Texas is considering enacting similar laws. I am not here to write about politics, but I will tell you that after we watched people walk by for a few minutes, we walked, with our bikes, along with the demonstrators. We demonstrated.

When Sunday morning came, we were ready to do nothing but finally ride the second half of the bicycle fundraiser. A lot of the other riders, who rode a grueling 85 miles the previous day, must have thought we were pretty good seeing how hard we were riding, and I wasn't exactly telling everyone how I skipped the first day. But we did ride well, finishing 75 miles of hills, torture, and laughs in a damn good time (I think). I cussed at my two buddies quite a bit as I struggled to stay with them. By the end of the ride I was exhausted and I thought I started hallucinating when I saw two nuns crossing the road in front of me. One of the nuns winked at me, talking in what sounded like Latin. The other turned into a dragon and flew away.

From Settlement Dallas