Bus Station, Lubbock, Tex.

Power Lines and Bricks, Lubbock, Tex.

Overheard in Davis Sq Station

In aggravated tone: "..so then the caups tell me I beat my grandmother with a plant..."

I am currently in...

Lubbock, Tex.

FAILURE

It is possible to fail through conscious omission. If you purposely avoid doing something for fear of failing, then you fail automatically.

Early Retirement Plan

Form awesome, three-piece blues-rock-trauma-pop band to tour Texas college towns/cities like Denton, Lubbock, Austin, College Station, etc.

Achievable as early as: summer 2008.

I need

time to think and develop talent(s).

Death Comes to the Gmail Inbox

I just received this wayward email from an unknown Bellinger:

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Adam P" <>
Date: March 21, 2008 11:22:14 AM CDT
To: Amy <>
Subject: Re: Probably soon

Pet her extra for me.

On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 12:21 PM, Amy <> wrote:
Ali is slowing down. For the last week or so, she's been really interested in different kinds of food I've tried to tempt her with, but hasn't been able to bring herself to eat. Last day or two she isn't even interested in smelling. Probably won't be long. Just really hit me today. She's been laying in the closet so I fixed her up a box with a towel. She seems content enough for now.

The Ruination of College Point

This is replacing this.

The gray house in the second picture is my grandmother's.

Oh, that's why they built that giant building with a blank facade in LIC.

Pretty brick building being torn down and replaced by 42-story condo tower. The new tower will align with the new office building you can see pictured at the preceding link.

Check out the laughably blank and highly offensive 42-story cinder block wall behind the little brick house--it's currently visible from Queens but not from Manhattan. Developers to Queens: fuck you! die!

On Transit in New York City

From the City's Wikipedia entry:

Public transit is overwhelmingly the dominant form of travel for New Yorkers. About one in every three users of mass transit in the United States and two-thirds of the nation's rail riders live in New York and its suburbs. This is in contrast to the rest of the country, where about 90% of commuters drive automobiles to their workplace.

Grain Elevator Switcher--Traver, Calif.

A fellow Flickrite just identified the tiny town (pop. 732) in which I shot this from the passenger seat of my colleague/accomplice's rental car.

Harpsichord Terrorist on the T

The Globe reports that a baseless tip about potential terrorists riding the Red Line and talking about drugs and airplanes caused a shutdown of the Red Line and combined Transit Police/State Police manhunt for the offending harpsichordist.

Overkill as usual.

Hand Surgeon

The messed-up thing in my left ring finger has got to go. Consultation is 4/4.

Airplane Safety Cards

In college, I wallpapered my entire dorm room with airplane safety cards--the glossy little brochures with cartoon humans attaching oxygen masks to their heads, finding life preservers under their seats, using inflatable slides as rafts when the plane happens to be floating on liquid, etc. I am thinking of doing it again.

VENDOR (one week ago...)

I was selling books out of this thing in San Diego.

Tumbleweed Disposal

Bakersfield, Calif.

"The West, 'self-referentially eradicating all hope of reconciliation.'"

SEE BELOW.

No Idea Where

Central Calif.

Mom's Motel--Central Calif.

Love that stray pigeon. Hate the dust spot.

Motel, Famoso, Calif.

Italian Restaurant, Bakersfield, Calif

Trailer Park Sunrise, Bakersfield, Calif.

Sun City Mortuary, Perris, Calif.

Tower 23, Pacific Beach

San Diego, Calif.

Tower 24, Pacific Beach

San Diego, Calif.

San Diego Trolley

The Road

is where you work sixteen hours per day.

San Diego, at night without, a tripod

is like....uh....self-imposed artistic erectile dysfunction?? I don't know. I'm exhausted and going to In N Out for a burger and shake.

The Californian ethos of filthy grooved concrete and gaudy neon fails to beckon. It's as bad as they said it would be seventy years ago.

TIE MBTA FUNDING TO THE GAS TAX!!!

The T is continually bankrupt because it is funded by part of Massachusetts's dwindling sales tax receipts. This press release details the issues facing the agency. A world-class city deserves better funding and better service.

By the way, drivers: I'd like you to subsidize the public transit I use. I'm sick of funding roads I choose not to drive on.

Playing music in the spring in Boston...

I can't wait (it's not here yet). Spring in Boston feels more earned than in NY. Coming of age is awesome when you end up who you wanted to be.

An Arrest in Somerville

Traffic Stop

Backup Arrives

The Tow Truck Arrives for the Suspect's Car, and the Suspect is Cuffed.

Suspect is Detained

The Wagon Arrives--Bringing Donuts

Spectators Gather

Reading of Rights and Preparations for Transport

Preparing for Transport

Removing Evidence from the Suspect

Loading

Time for Paperwork...

Gentrification in a Weak Market

Just so you know...

The Rudds show at the Lizard Lounge this Saturday should be fucking sick.

Missed Shot

Montreal Taxi Inspector's Impala in St Laurent.

stasis=death

stasis=death

stasis=death

stasis=death

stasis=death

stasis=death

stasis=death

stasis=death

stasis=death

stasis=death

So many people

just want you to look at them.

Best Practice Ever #12

Every single music practice with brother is the best yet. This is really moving forward, and has only been happening for 6 months! We need a name!

My Bike and House on Google StreetView

View Larger Map

MATTRESS GALLERIE

This is from an industrial patch close to central Wichita that I have visited twice, once during the rb-DM KC SIEGE 2007 and once for work. The area continues to haunt my mind...stark functionalism amid the dense ruins of an expired landscape. Some of the ruins still work--like dirt-covered rails peering out from the surface of the earth--and some are not really ruins, like the steam-spewing factories and slick mainline tracks.

This is where I "Heartbreakingly miss[ed] a shot of a stray dog lapping blue water from between two rails amidst a backdrop of gray skies and gray hopper cars containing some kind of mineral or cement." I will never forget the image. I need to go back to this completely American place once again, not rushed, and walk around, and be stared at by the refinery workers in their yellow jumpsuits and threatened scowls, and be questioned by the police as usual, and steal better images than I've been stealing there.

Great Night of Solitude

A few scotch/sodas, one-third a tube of Pringles®, new plane tickets to San Diego and from Fresno (work), finishing The Real Life of Sebastian Knight and almost finishing One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich...I would classify these occurrences (11p-2a) as productive.

New Fascination List, 3/1

Updates from the last one are in boldface. When I get around to brainstorming the next edition, I might separate into categories.

What interests me?

The concept of gentrification and my suspicion that it is a term for the gradual creation of a high-margin consumer class, living in small, nonconformity-free clusters.

Transportation systems/industrial infrastructure and how they allow us to live the lives the way we do.

Disappearance of knowledge of infrastructure from the public consciousness, parallel to local and global suburbanization

Role of transport infrastructure in historical development of civilizations and cities.

The remarkable ability television and the internet have to classify viewers into target audiences for advertisers.

Urban planning, the partial obsolescence of the automobile, and convincing people to live more efficiently.

Cities and their representation in all forms of art.

American vernacular music (blues, jazz, swing, country, gospel, r&b, rock, soul, funk, rap) in all combinations and forms. Studying, listening, playing, writing. Preserving venues for original music.

Writing and playing music with brother. Finding a drummer.

Learning drums and eventually steel guitar in addition to improving at guitar and bass.

Class immobility in the U.S. Exploring the reason why since high school I can count on one hand (give or take a few fingers) the number of people I've met who have similar backgrounds to me and live the lifestyle I do.

Understanding why the people I meet with different backgrounds often seek to negate mine, or make me more like them.

Racism. Since I was trained by my childhood surroundings to be a severe racist and spent much of my life unlearning how to be racist, I am curious to explore how others can be taught to do the same.

Debt on micro and macro levels, the acceptance of debt, and the role debt will play in the gradual unraveling of U.S. supremacy.

The American Fear of Sex; anti-sexual attitudes.

Photographic studies of reality, particularly the alleged realties described in this list. Creation of photographs.

Keeping myself alive long enough to explore and write about all of this.

Horror (art forms) as allegory.

Rabid and strangely rewarding obsession for calling out hypocrisy and profiteering.

Cycles of abuse (especially verbal), psychological effect on victims, inescapability of abuse.

Corporatization/privatization of public space, e.g. malls, coffeeshops.

Photographer's rights; artists' rights challenged by fanatical citizens and law enforcement employees (see photopermit.org).

Corporate photo/video surveillance of customers at most retail locations, how it's used, and why they ban photography on their premises but don't inform us we're being constantly watched.

Fierce regionalism in American cuisine: e.g., the Carolina pork barbecue war.

Regionalism in general, with respect to geography, employment, linguistics, etc. Representations in literature, photography, etc.

Widespread American NIMBYism, fanatacism, racism, ignorance, and how to fix them.

American in the age of resignation. Stagnant growth, net job loss, trade deficits. Effect on individuals at all levels of the economy.

Public-private partnerships working on urban (re)development; keeping development smart and focused.

Apparent migration of great fictive writing (whether "literary" or "entertaining") to cable television series as opposed to novels or even films.

The cost of assimilating. Disappearance of family lines and cultures in America. Imported, non-American nationalism in America.

Doing everything. Balance and urgency.