True story: A couple of friends, sitting around one night, slamming back shots and talking. Somehow we got on the topic of government corruption. We quickly narrowed this topic to government corruption in the US because if you include African countries or China or Arabia you can quickly get bogged down by the almost unbelievable levels that corruption can take. So, US corruption: we flipped through the States and ended up with two semi-winners: Washington, DC, i.e. the Federal Government (not the local DC government which has no power over anything, but is corrupt in its own small way) and Florida. OK, so I know that DC represents like ALL the States and Florida is only one, lone, State, so the playing field is far from level, but that's where we ended up. Blame the shots. So, we're talking and it's getting louder and someone who is promoting Florida says: "Yeah, but in Florida dead people VOTE!" Well, that was quickly followed by a promoter of DC yelling back: "That's NOTHING! In Washington dead people are ELECTED!"

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As long as she could remember, she had been able to hear music. It wasn’t a music that just anyone could hear because it emanated from her head. It came from inside of her head. Sometimes it sounded like an orchestra tuning up; sometimes the orchestra played long passages of subtle key changes that slowly evolved into a beautiful crashing wave of sound. At other times the music sounded like some avant-garde jazz ensemble honking away into the tiny hours before day break. As a teen-ager she assumed that what she was hearing, everyone could hear. It was only later that she realized that was not the case. In her early 20s the music began and ended with pain. The headaches would almost knock her down and when she felt them coming on, she had only about three minutes to find a place to lie down. The music and the pain were then accompanied by nausea and blindness. As the orchestral sounds reached for a climax, her vision failed her and changed from color to a world of white; the music in her head devolved into random chaos with the horn section waging was a war against strings, but with percussion edging them both out in the final chord. She sought medical care, finally, and with the saxophone player taking a solo behind a stride piano and the circular brushes of the drummer’s time keeping, was told that there was a tumor pressing on a part of her brain and that it was not operable. She would begin chemo and radiation next week. As she slowly put this information together and attempted to make it understandable, the piano player shifted to a minor key and played a slow and soft solo.

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Everything changes all of the time, without warning, and usually beyond expectation. The air we breathe, the sounds we hear, the smells and tastes, the vibrations, and textures of each moment, evolve into memory and then fade into darkness. It has always been this way. We pass through our days like smoke in the air. We are our own camera, watching the film before us, trying to follow the story, waiting for the punch line before the credits roll.

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The way up.

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Everybody knows the trouble I've seen and everybody knows my sorrow. Few people, however, know how exhausting a day at an art festival can be. After the first hour, images begin to run together and merge so that everything begins to look like everything else. The air inside is dry and sucks moisture out of the art lover's body, further reducing stamina and focus. It is when notice that I am no longer speaking in English but in some form or other of "tongues" and everything I see looks like merde that I have to sit or lie down and rest; take a nap even. This picture is not of me, but of a like minded individual who became my nap partner. I think, but can't remember clearly, that we won some award for performance art. She is now and will always be my beloved.

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Respite on the Bay.

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She knew exactly where she was going and that was "Away"; as far away and as fast away as she could get. She had some money she'd taken from her Mom's "sugar bowl" and she had a small bag of clothes and she was going to get away. Beyond that, she had no plans and she wasn't sure where, exactly, she'd go. There had been a fight. Her Mom yelled and she had yelled back. Her Mom hit her and she hit her Mom back. Her Mom fell to the floor and she ran for her room and slammed the door and began to throw some clothes into a bag and she grabbed the money that her Mom hid and she left without even saying "good bye" or "I'm sorry" or anything else for that matter. She was gone and she wasn't ever coming back!

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This is what we know: The vehicle was found Sunday morning before 7AM by police officers looking for it. The doors were locked and the keys were visibly hanging from the ignition. There was an envelope with a letter inside found on the driver's side dashboard. The contents of this letter have not been made public at this time. The wife reported that a small caliber handgun was routinely kept in the glove compartment. The gun was not found in the initial search of the car. Finger prints were taken from the interior and the exterior of the vehicle. Results from these tests have not been made public. The vehicle was tested for blood stains and none were found. At this time additional tests of materials found in the vehicle are being performed at a police laboratory in the area and officers are continuing to search for the vehicle's owner, described as a middle aged while male, 5 feet, 10 inches tall, 165 pounds with a scare across his left hand index finger. The public has been asked to report any information concerning this individual to local police. Thank you.

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It's almost like the real thing, except with a much lower "carbon footprint". It looks like a real building, but it isn't. It's a billboard of what the "real" building will really look like when it is built. The billboard also covers up the ugly giant hole that has been dug to plant the shiny new building in. You can almost see yourself there, sitting in the cool airconditioned atmosphere, looking out across the Avenue through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, putting all calls on hold and feeling the power that you have, the status that is yours to squander, the sexual rush of playing with the majors.

Stumble It!