MiG-15

Smithsonian museum. Plane engine

Blizzard commute

Still life apple, oil

Spaceman!

16th St. Mall chess player

Bozo the Clown en pointe

Charcoal head study

Light rail commuter

Operation "Bore Children to Tears" is underway.

One week into my daughter's career as a student and this smart and curious little girl is already telling me what a lousy week she had at school, that she doesn't like it, that it powerful sucks because she and her classmates are required to sit and be quiet all day long.

I feel ya, sista.

It's been 35 years since I attended kindergarten, and somehow educators still haven't figured out what makes five-year-old girls and boys tick, haven't figured out that boys and girls do not need to be quiet or sit still in order to learn, that quietness and stillness retard mental and emotional development in five-year-olds, just like it does for most human beings.

Mankind seeks love

You: Distant, incomprehensible, intelligent and wise. Does carbon-based life turn you on?

Me: Violent, creative, instinctual, emotional, frightened.

What I seek: Your total destruction.

What I hope you seek: A little slap and tickle, a good fight.

My dream: An epic clash of cultures, planets ground to dust, depleted stars, trillions dead, a dark epoch and perhaps an epiphany, a small hope, a pair of intrepid dreamers, a common enemy, a common goal, two star-crossed lovers in need of each other’s warmth, strength, life, joined in a technological manner by a mutual commitment of love, of harmony, of balance, drifting through a bountiful universe spreading eternal bliss to all we touch.

My nightmare: That I'm here alone, or simply farther from you than my farthest thoughts, farther than matter can go, farther than light can shine.

Might have to give up fishing because I'm a soft hearted man

When you're as good a fisherman as I am, "catch and release" starts to seem a little cruel. I prefer "catch and fry up in the campfire" because it tends to more quickly end the torment these animals are forced to endure. 

It's a torment I'm directly responsible for every time I expertly present a caddis fly in such a tempting manner that the fish must strike. Poor little guy can't help himself. 

I'm no longer proud of my little triumphs because it's like shooting fish in a... jeez, that's a weak analogy.

Goodbye, Frank.

For 13 years, you were the biggest pain in the butt, yet I miss you and I'm sad that you're gone. If we meet again, I hope you'll forgive me. Jk.

I've come to Andalucia to learn flamenco

I was already an accomplished American guitarist by the time I first heard Vicente Amigo nearly fifteen years ago. When he attacked the strings with his explosive "Spanish strum" I thought to myself, "where the hell have I been all this time? How have I never heard this before?"


So I immediately packed my bags and hopped the first ocean freighter to Cadiz. I lie many wave-tossed nights with my headphones lodged in my ears, listening, cataloging, organizing, learning this music... down to the last detail.

"Did you know skilled flamenco musicians can produce a three-octave melody by simply clapping their hands?

WTF?

"It's true, dude."

Such was my Atlantic crossing. I dreamt of nothing but the guitar. Little did I know of the disappointments and struggle that lie ahead.

In Cadiz, being a good guitarist is nothing. Being a great guitarist remarkable only in the sense that your playing doesn't make Andalucians wince in displeasure. Being a virtuoso gains you an opportunity to apply for apprenticeship.

I still don't know why they accepted me. I was always afraid to ask.

But they put me in a class with a bunch of bookish teenagers. I had proven my technical skills, but my new judges found my heart severely deficient in vitamin "F". Nobody in Cadiz had the slightest hope or care that I pass the final exam. To them, I was just the next Ry Cooder, Carlos Santana, or George Harrison: They, too, thought they were good enough to cross the culture barrier.

I had such a long way to go.

Duece Fuego's Ark

How long does it take to build a gas-powered scale model Pay-n-Pak jet boat?

Is twenty-six years enough time?

Cuz I've been working on my model Pay-n-Pak jet boat for twenty six years, and I'm still not done.

I started the project in junior high, and can understand that it might have been a little beyond the abilities of a first-time R/C boat builder such as I was back then. Mistakes were made, setbacks occurred, bad advice given. And on top it all the self-discipline required to complete a complex project had yet to develop in my youthful brain. Which could explain the first couple of years.

It does not explain the next twenty. I've taken this damned boat with me all over the country, declaring to all who set eyes upon her, "I fully intend to finish this boat, mark my words!"

I don't know exactly how many times I've said that. I can only guess that over the course of twenty years I repeated it many, many times. It became a kind of a joke for those aware of the boat's existence: "Oh, you'll get around to it... you mean like the boat?" I've promised to finish it so many times the promise eventually sounded like a joke to me, too.

In a sense, it means that I've consistently made the decision to NOT FINISH the boat many, many times over two decades. Or maybe it slipped my mind for two decades. Well can you blame me? I didn't know decades were so short...


It comes to an end this year. The goddamned boat will float this summer.

You mark my words.

Gotta polish these bloody ramparts. The woman don't like bloody ramparts. She also wants me to get her swords sharpened -- like I don't have important things to do.

"Sure, sweetie... I'll take your weapons the smith on the way to this morning's JOUST. No problem, I've got plenty of time to travel 20 minutes out of my way while the squire prepares my armor and horse -- Oh that's RIGHT! My squire quit the other day. Well, I guess I'll just fight for your honor in my pajamas today."

Love you, sweetie!

Message to my 7th grade AP math teacher:

Ms. Harvey:

Would you please put some damn clothes on so I can study these quadratic equations? For god's sakes, this class is hard enough as it is without you prancing around in your tight-fitting preppy purple Izod shirt and your MASSIVE bosoms poking out every which way but Sunday.

I can't keep my mind on these VARIABLES... I've never seen nipples so strong... look like they're gonna spear right through the knit. Come on, boy! All you gotta do is solve for x and you can write your own ticket with this lady!

Spaceman, put the pedal to the metal and get the hell out of here!

Bounce, bounce, bounce off the atmosphere of my heart, you sweet thing! 

I'm taking you home with me. We're gonna get married, you and I. 

But we gotta fly, cuz the authorities are on the hunt for your missing person. 

I'm gonna be your loverbeing. 

I'm gonna show you the way to the center of the sun I'm gonna get you high. 

I'm GONNA MAKE YOU SAY GOODBYE... to that fool you call your man. 

He's such a stupid man-boy human with hairy arms and an unclean mouth. He won't stand a chance when I vaporize his brain. Not a chance in hell when I'm done with him. 

He's a dead man... a dead, stupid man-boy human with hairy arms, an unclean mouth and a soggy brain steaming in his skull. 

That's how much I love thee, my sweet earthling. You make me perform difficult tasks, tasks that creatures beneath us might consider unpleasant. 

The restraining straps aren't too tight, are they? 

Now hold on, Sugarpie... we gotta go.

Strange encounters with a first-time dad

“Don't look at Daddy's dick, sweetie.”

My 9-month-old daughter sat on the tile floor and watched me as I brushed my teeth. I did it just the way I had done for years – naked at the sink... and her gaze started to bother me. If that weren't bad enough, she climbed to a standing position, supported herself against my leg, and reached skyward for my cock!

Now, I had done nothing to provoke this – a guy's gotta brush his teeth. None-the-less my baby's searching hand had forced me past some terrible, unspoken line that prompted a full body spasm of defense far out of proportion to the threat.

I imagined a parade fathers: my dad, my grandpa, Governor Bill Ritter, the neighbor down the street, the social worker – all of them advancing on me, spurning, reproachful, disgusted, shaking their fists in a violent revulsion:

“YOU SICK SON OF A BITCH! NEVER LET THE BABY NEAR YOUR SHAME!”

No, no... of course not. The baby will be punished severely.

But wait a minute... That's not right.

I couldn't be the first guy to have blundered into his daughter's innocent curiosity about her daddy's junk. How had other fathers dealt with this? How did my dad do it?

To answer my own question: he didn't have to. My brother and I didn't pose the same kind of threat. Of course we weren't allowed to go grabbing and pinching his dick, but neither of us ever wanted to (Well, I guess I shouldn't speak for my bro.)

No, I mustn't be brutal about this. I mustn't be harsh, but what do I do? Think, man!

I told her, “Don't grab Daddy's junk, sweetie.”

That made her mother laugh, so I rolled with it and it grew into a running gag. But it didn't end there. Daddies have to change diapers, you see? And in case you didn't know, baby girls have tiny little crevices that are impossible to avoid when wiping up all the poop that seems to ooze out of their butts all the time.

I'm just doing my job, see? There's crap everywhere and I've read that women must be careful when wiping their asses so they don't get that nasty shit stuck in their junk, see?

So I do my best to clean my sweetie's junk – get the bits of blueberry and applesauce crap out of there so she doesn't get an infection or the clap or some kind of unpleasant yeast infection (I'm unclear about these maladies).

And I can't help but notice she's gazing up at me in a relaxed way. Staring right into my eyes. So I wonder if maybe she isn't enjoying this, which on the one hand is A-1, top-shelf, royally effed up... but on the other hand, who wouldn't like to have someone else hand-wash their privates?

Where do I sign up...? Just keep my Dad the hell away from me.

Apparently, incest hadn't entered my baby's mind at all -- probably because she has no shame. Nor should she. She's perfect in every way. Innocent on all counts.

I'm the one who must navigate the murky paths of shame for her. I'm the one who worries this could be weird (it's not.) I'm the one who has to remind himself that it's okay for a father to clean up his daughter after she's crapped all over the place. It's more than OK – it's required.

So maybe I've got a few hangups. Nothing serious, I hope. I can't be the only one.

Rap machine: test number one.

My lyrics don't rhyme
They never did and never will.
Poetry hates me
'Cuz I possess disdain
for quatrain and refrain
for hexameter and hyperbole
for simile
for meter.

My lyrics haven't the time to rhyme like fine wine between thine... hind... legs?
Senseless and fence-less, what-a-mess I've made of my pencils... and my papers.

My lyrics can't rhyme cuz they're slime and haven't a dime.

They're street, baby.