Think Tank

Stay away from the shiny cans kids, they'll only give you celullite and feelings of guilt/

Elements of Architecture

Celebrating the Round Arch, the Keystone, the Spandrels, and Jambs.

Really brings you back to 800 BCE doesn't it.

Special Thanks to the Etruscans. Love, Bartles.

ochroma pyramidale

today was the last day of summer. the east coast will understand that.every ten years or so the city clears the trolley trail.so i took my body for a walk to find it mostly atrophied.awake before noon is a good start. even better now with the toxins gone. except for thought.if i had a balsa wood plane i'd go out back and play. i have to find a way to take december down. without it being the same old way. something else something new.i make the best invalid. the only thing i'm qualified for.make a living chewing gum and fingernails and antacid tablets.all the windows are open. all the leaves are gone. christmas lights this early in the season are giving me an empty kind of feeling.in that dead spot above the stomach - below the lungs. swallowing a cinder block somewhere on the walk back home. not surprised to see that one month ago i felt exactly the same. now it would be the 47th day of uselessness. although i remember that i always fall into something else. wouldn't it be grand to step into it for once. step forward. forget it. today we'll cure the insomnia. no more middle of the nights with programs about wallace stevens and hart crane. the isolation games. counting spiders. unnecessary showers. stalking the mailman. there's nothing ever there. i'm good at this. butcher's block for any rational thought. the neighbor has a dog that sits like a statue and i sit still and watch it all day.thinking about my new hero August Belmont, Jr. i would have made a better run at the turn of the previous century.settling disputes between Graham Bell and Elisha Gray. you realize that this goes on ALL DAY...

what else would we have? eat a fucking cookie and shut the fuck up. my phones out of minutes and it's better that way. there is mold on the windowsill and i should dig the christmas stuff out of that closet. won't afford a tree this year but that's just fine. like that christmas years ago where i put a 2 inch square of paper on the floor that read "x-mas tree". i bought some real cool lights last year that were all blue. tomorrow i'll make sure to decorate. shift of focus is what i deserve.... to be continued, obviously.

You're a Genius all the time

insomnia now. and how many more episodes of the x-files or law and order can i possibly watch.
episodes i've seen in fits of insomnia years ago. it is a deja vu life. a great locomotive crashing into itself . i saw an infomercial for a penis pump and cock ring set. it was a system for men who need to "fulfill their manhood".
- it's stranger without escape. i could care less about Kramer, but i was amazed that Paul Mooney is ashamed he ever used the word "nigger" and he now vows to never use it again.

Richard Pryor's act becomes Sindbad's act...

Andy Kaufman could have pulled that racist set off. there would have been no scandal. who cares about Michael Richards anyways?

not scandal- i mean distraction. the united states of distraction. watched a movie about Robert S. McNamara. i was fascinated and frightened. everything is frightening without a way to soften the corners. and I'll just have to stay up and wait this out. and drink another thousand bottles of water...

Company Party

1. Boy did we turn it up at the Bartles and James Holiday party or what. I can't believe I hooked up with that chick! And that guy too! It's amazing how loose you get after huffing Pledge and drinking Everclear with Mountain Dew for a few hours. All kidding aside, I had a great time brother James. The funny thing is we are much fatter than these peple.

tank guys

everyone knows my fascination with "the tank guy" - he was a classic.

but tonight i found a new "tank guy", and this guy was the real deal. he welded himself into a bulldozer that he fortified with armor plates and concrete walls and three external rifles...
i just watched the footage of this- which includes the local police attempt to "fight him" with a larger bulldozer. view the video and judge for yourself. i'm not condoning tank action by any disgruntled locals, don't get me wrong, but i will always be fascinated by "tank guys"...

here's the video of the original, the classic, "tank guy"...

Spirits in the Material World

*This is still in pre-production apparently...so your still "safe".





There is hope brother James.





Developers in the U.K. and developers at the U of N. Carolina and Duke are working on invisibility cloaks as we speak. These geniuses claim the technology and materials already exist. If, much like myself, you are wondering...What the fuck? It's material that is imperious to radar using mirrors that reflect their surroundings. It's not perfect but it sure expands the imagination a little bit. I guess it works best in the desert.

Brings up what Aristotle said about mankind thousand of years ago. To paraphrase, "People will basically misbehave anytime that they are sure no one is looking."

I know this is being designed as something for military defense but my mind wanders when it comes to the shortcomings of modern morality and the temptations of the "Impossible is Nothing" era. But one thing is for sure this thing is going to be expensive if it hits the free market. Good thing only wealthy people will be able to afford it, they never would abuse a vice like invisibilty.

Funny thought, what if these things start getting mass produced in Mexico. I wonder if a few of those would go missing, you could pretty much open the border at that point.

I'll stop there because we all know the possibilties of these things goes on for infinty.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$


SIDENOTES:

"Spirits in the Material World" is a shitty progressive rock song, but it's been really catchy to me lately. Kind of like "Dreamweaver" it's almost like songs have astrological signs...you know occasionally "Dreamweaver" is going to rock your world while you're doing dishes one of these days. Meanwhile sometimes it's so bad you just have to laugh.

Anyways, that's what Sting has been doin' to me these days.


Today's entry was sponsered by the letter:

G

clean trials

it occurred to me about 18 months ago that i have been living an unmanageable life.
since then i've made many attempts at living the clean and simple kind of life. the last of these trials lasted from some point friday morning - somewhere after passing out from drinking carlo rossi chablis- until forty five minutes ago. about 60 hours without a chemical influence. no cigarettes no booze no coffee. i realize that they all have to go at the same time. needless to say, i've been asleep for 60 hours. but where there's an itch there's a scratch. i've made some valiant attempts. most of january and i think all of may of this year were clean trials. it's the first 72 hours, after that i can handle anything. as i said these are trials, little lessons all leading up to a successful quit. i will try again, but not until after thanksgiving, that's right bartles, one more spree!!!! anyways, i am completely broke- in every imaginable way- so at some point i just have to. like that huge banner on the back of the Chamonix building at adidas/Portland "impossible is nothing". that banner mocked me every fucking day. more later...

Sad Orange Evening

at four a.m. the cat looked really awful. when i checked her again at 7 a.m. she had passed. Miss Sheba the cat. 1991 - 2006
( plus however old she was before she came here to live). i believe she lived a long and happy life, or as happy a life as anyone has in this house. she enjoyed many afternoons in the yard hunting everything in sight, chasing imaginary things on the wall, and learning how to climb ladders. i don't remember exactly how old she was but i do remember coming home from the mall with a Peter Gabriel cassette (I believe it was US) to find that she had pissed on my pillow. I Loved That Fucking CAT!!!! this is to you Miss Sheba. you always looked like you had something sarcastic to say. I will miss you for that...

after i got rid of all the cat's stuff i wrapped her up in this green army fleece i found in the basement and put her in a box in the garage. when my mother came home she kept going out to view her throughout the day. a miserable day with nothing but rain. my mother finally went to bed around four this afternoon and i figured i'd better do something. i seem to remember burying a rabbit in the yard once just to days later see all of it's fur blowing across the yard. then i remembered that the cat was the one that had dug it up. i have no idea why this made me laugh as i went about the morbid task of picking a spot and digging a large enough hole to hold the little coffin i had improvised. it was still pouring and miserable when i placed this little package in the earth and covered it up and tamped down the muddy soil. i took a step back and realized there was this odd orange glow about everything. that moment when the sun reaches that angle where it just has to come out before it sets. i lit a cigarette and thought i should say something. "whisky and raw whores" is all i could think of. the house is now petless, which is for the best. unless you count me as some kind of caucasian gorilla, which i often do.... so say a prayer for a damned fine cat as i say good riddance to one sad orange evening....

goodnight kitty.

love and love...

Grain Alcohol & Rain Water, Please...

Besides the subway system that burned down, this has got to be one of Rochester's Greatest Attempts at Mass Transit. One of the greatest stories ever told.

Does anyone know how to hotwire a ferry? I just want to take it for a little spin.

Maybe it's just me but it seems to be getting dark at 3 in the afternoon, about ten minutes after i wake up i feel like preparing for bed....i need something to do.Sober days are boring. Drunken days are too expensive. i'll snap out of it soon enough.

I need a holiday season. I need some snow to cover up everything in decay. The guy across the street passed away this morning , again. (i thought he died years ago)

The cat can't walk anymore and can barely eat which led me to a very Oregon Trail or pioneer settler kind of moment- "ma, we needs to prepare the grave before the ground freezes up for that winter"

it was an odd thought but the cat doesn't look like it can live another week and i just dont want to walk into the room and find her not moving. that really creeps me out. i guess most people would just take the cat to a vet and have it put down.

i have no further comment on a 20 year old cat.

Maybe i should take a day trip to toronto. If only this city had a way to get there in a short amount of time. oh, yeah, it's called a car...

yuck.

and we all know about the rings we grow around the root of the original problem. blah blah blah. yuck. tonight i watched harold and maude/ dr. strangelove/ & garden state all within an 8 hour period. somehow they all became the same movie. each one telling the other's story. i filled half a notebook with the strangest notes. it was a strange night, to say the least. and fucking beautiful. i'd never seen harold and maude before or understood dr strangelove before or liked garden state before.
i dont want to look for work anymore. i dont need the pressure to have to wake up anymore. atleast not every day.

"You don't care about the way I think, I think I'll just stay here and drink" - Merle Haggard

Just a reminder, Bartles and James have a company party coming soon. I'll be rested and ready to go to the House of Guitars on Wednesday Brother James. So buy a 30 rack of Genny Cream Ale and get photogenic. Time for Blogger techincal training and a drunken photo shoot.

To Patel with Love

I just got off the phone with a young lady from India. (I'm looking for a good anti-virus and I have always heard the Indians have ancient knowledge of those sort of things). Anyways that was a first, I have never talked to India. I have however talked to Mexico, Korea, Ireland, Holland, England, Thailand, and Dubai. None of them sounded as good as India.

Anyways, she had a very sexy voice and if I wasn't trying to get a refund from her I wouldn't have been very concentrated on the pronunciation of her words, nevertheless...she is gone.

What is the deal with India culture and their preferences for arranged marriages? It continues to america as well, how come? They have to be the only ethnic group that came to america and said to themselves, "You mean you can just screw any color you like? That's not enticing to us, we'll just pretend there aren't any options out there." I respect them goddamit.

Very sexy voice. They must be good in the sack if they only screw each other. I guess what I'm saying is does anyone know of any Indian phone sex lines? Don't be commenting back with 1-900-screw-abu either...I already tried that one, it doesn't work.

Until then, Hari Krishna

frothy mixture

It's a great season to say Good Riddance! to senators such as Santorum.

His frothy mixture and disturbing zombie family....

Nothing left to explode...

My main question has to be
"Is there anything left in Iraq to blow up?"
There is no plan left. Pack up and pull them out. Don't even bother with the "cutting" just focus on the "running"...
And we all know it's gone too far when I show any concern.
The United States needs to follow my lead. To remain neutral and out of touch with anything that doesn't concern US.
This is as far as my political arguments go. Seems everyone has had to grow up in the past six years, to think that "Vote for Nader" was ever a logical thing to say...
we did do worse, by the way.

perhaps Bartles before we "ban the bra" we should "ban the US War of Terror"...

Ban the bra

I'm working on a campaign to ban the bra...Join the Revolution....Coming Soon

Blue States/Rumsfeld/K-fed/Bowie

Ever notice somedays...shit just changes overnight?

In one twenty-four hour period the american voting public awoke from a democratic coma that was making a lot of concerned americans wonder if they were insane? The common defintion of insane is to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result each time. Kind of like people who vote against republicans in the 21st century yet always seem to lose. These concerned americans usually spend the day after elections staring really long at faces in large crowds wondering why all these people care so much much about power and religion and so little about they're countrys' welfare and sound public management. Later in the day they plan at looking into international real estate and competitive Latin American job markets.

On the same day that the congress changed power overnight, the secretary of defense...retires. The president says, "The timing was right." As in, "Dude, you better get out of here before those guys kick your ass." Seriously, is there any doubt that Rumsfeld would have been the easiest guy to hang in the room on a daily basis. And isn't there an inkling that he still could? Good luck Don... your security detail moves out 2008! (Don't look at me, I'm lazy)

Last, but certainly not least, the demise of the media filler...K-Fed and Britany Spears.

"Turn and face the strange"

Pickett's Charge

there isn't much new these days. i'm foxholed pretty good. i want to learn how to refinish wood floors. i haven't spoken to a human being in over a week. i'd like to say that i'm planning a new course for attack, but i'm not. i wish i knew how to play chess, i need a brand new strategy...

This is not what it looks like. I am a gentleman

kiss like Iraq

i am choosing to omit october's fatalities. i am instead requiring human beings to own up.
politics are not the answer. there are no democrats who will magically save anything...
it's humanity.
when i was a child i never dreamt that i'd grow up into a world so dim. useless. defeating.
what's worse is when you were young and you finally realize that there is no revolution. no fucking riot to rush it all away. it sticks, to the bones and to the flesh, to form a film over what should be a rational fucking mind.
what makes it make sense?

i called up my brother early this morning to come over and help me clean the garage. we pushed the montego into the lawn and organized tools and shit until it looked like we were running a fucking auto parts shop. we pushed the montego back in and got lunch. i am waiting for my brother (either one) to finally understand that we have to go in business for ourselves. any business. any fucking way.

there is another way and it is never the way you think.