what were you thinking?

come closer,

 i can't hear you...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_aC5xPQ2f4

Sometimes when I speak to Buddy in our daily jibber-jabber language we have developed through the years, i'll say something that he recognizes ad his ears will perk up and he'll cock his head to the right, just a bit, which means he knows something is up, and he's wondering what...when he is confused about something, he lowers his head and with his hind paw will scratch behind his ear, i think, meaning, he can't quite figure it out...and is anxious. whenever i say "who's coming to see Buddy today?" he will no doubt look up and at me with a question in his eyes. he knows the words, and when i put them together like that, he knows that we are expecting a guest, so, he runs to the window and sits and waits...never fails.

 i always know what's in his head, i always know when he's wondering, questioning, hungry, needs hugs or scratches, because in his eyes, he relates and expresses himself so clearly to me. 

i wish everyone was so easy to read.

Today, in the rehab section of the hospital my father is at, i returned with my mother after my fathers lunch, and when we arrived, he was there in bed, asleep, arms crossed and on his back. soundly he lay, until my mother took her cane and smacked him with it, yelling "JOE!" and he pretended like he wasn't ever asleep at all. he tried to say something, but his mind, which is still quite sharp, was quicker than his mouth, and the words he searched for couldn't be found quick enough...so a sound of frustrated thought was

 heard echoing through the halls of the ward. for a quick second i jumped up to try and help him, but my heart broke when i realized i couldn't, and so i just closed my eyes.

As much as i need to, i know i shouldn't just close my eyes, but i don't know what else i can do, although i do realize, that it's now or it's never and there is no reprise. i need to be strong. i need to be smart. i need to be wise, and not think with my heart. this is it. not much time. i don't have forever, this is right now...so be clever, don't fuck up...

not this time.

not this time.

not this time.

not this time.

notthis time.

notthis time.

not this time. 

I need to be on top of my game. this isn't a joke, it's important. stay on track. don't look back. look ahead. be focused. be true. 

be honest. and smile. 

love your life.

     

all photos from illustrator Fran Kramer's personal collection.

i'm clicking 3 times!

they say home is where the heart is,
home...click three times and you can go back.
but the harsh reality is,
you can go back,
it's just never the same as it once was.
when you leave home for college, there's the holidays and summer break to look forward to. comfortable dwellings await when you return. then in your 20's your bedroom becomes a den, then 30's it's a bedroom for your nieces and nephews, and by the 40's it is being taken up by another family from Uruguay who barely speaks English and is trying to have their children get a better chance at life than they ever had...much like your parents did when they moved to that same space 50 years earlier.
you can go back,
it's just when you do, you drive by the home you once loved, and honk, and as a tear wells up inside your broken heart, you understand that life goes on.
things change.
time goes by.
but it's always gonna be home to me...
just not mine.

superior men

----------

 anyone who has half a brain in his head can tell you that anyone in their right mind and a quarter smarts left in their balls to know when they've been introduced to the presence of someone much more superior

someone much more eloquent and intelligent,

masculine and brawny, someone who makes you wish

you could ever even be aquater of what they are.

it'll never happen boy...

you lose this game.

there's no more innings.

bases were loaded n u struck out.

sucks to be a loser...

sucks even more to know that there's someone twice the man you will ever be, n he's standing right there.

he'll make you wish you were good enough to even stand in his pressence.

nope.

not this time.

not with this guy.

not now...

not ever,

he'll always be better, stronger, faster

and to top it all off,

he's probably hung like a horse...

60 flies so quickly

to fully enjoy this experience, click here;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zqpDVyCB2Y

in a day filled with 24 hours when each hour is filled by 60 minutes that are made up of 60 seconds, it seems like it should be enough time to get everything one man needs to do in that time period to do just that. yet, why is it that those seconds fly by so fast making the minutes tick tock and count up to their goal of 60 so quickly that then the hours mash into each other at rates unheard of and by the time the clock reaches the 23rd hour of any particular day, it's still only 1/4 of the way done with what it started when the sun rose in the east just 23 hours previously?

could it be?

will there ever be enough time in a day or should the man who battles each morning just resign himself a loser before he even gets out of bed, and so, relaxes and knows his battle has already been lost?

one day he will win....

the very day he sees his last hours drift by with the minutes seemingly endless and the seconds moving slower than the day is long.

The dreamer will always lose his battle.

Sunset People vs. the Hard Knock Kids

to properly begin the experience, click here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxtn6-XQupM

so it all started like this...

no lie, just straight up real time reality show season 81

starring Valerie Bertinelli as Josie the 14 year old pregnant black girl from Jersey City.

in this episode, Josie wakes up with a clarity in her head that she hasn't felt in years.

she yawns and stretches in a Marc Jacobs gunnysack nightgown and flips her long golden blond hair as she tosses the covers and rises to greet the day.

opening music, credits, and cut, commercial.

that's how it works in my head.

always a sitcom pilot or season 3 season finale with someone shooting J.R..

it always looks better in Technicolor, and a slightly wide angle lens.

everyone's beautiful, even the ones who are on life support or dying with only a 14%  chance of survival if by accepting a pay cut, but renewing their contract.

it's a hard knock life, it seems glamorous, glitzy, even the kind of things that make a great movie script...but the movie script sat on the shelves for years until the Olsen twins, who tried to still pull off their cuteness by playing 8 year olds (in their twenties) turned into a sitcom that had lasted several seasons to long, and, so, it just became another Love Boat with Charo.

the mind is a terrible thing to waste,  as is a cheesecake.

but anyway, it seems to me that the way things change is just to one day without warning or anticipating it's arrival, just appears. birds chirp, sun shines, a warm breeze blows, and all of a sudden you look at everything just a little differently as something in your head starts to see the beauty, and appreciate that it's the gift of a lifetime to be here right now and so, everything else is just a bonus. what is here right now is here at this precise millisecond for a reason. it is perfect because it had to be there at that very time to make the experience that very experience. every factor had to be correct, and everyone, everything, every bug, squirrel, every leaf on every tree, every snowflake, every whatever, was brought together that very second to make the experience exactly that...THAT split second happened because everything else before that, happened when it did.

God that was good weed.

to properly begin the experience, click here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaVjAeZCIPg

and so, because everything happens for a reason, it makes perfect sense that after my photo shoot with Ernesto today, driving home, i forgot my cigarettes. i declined to go back and get them for no reason really, just said fuck it. after we returned home, i downloaded film as he showered and i decided to run to the market to get some food to make for dinner and on the way out realized that in fact i had also forgotten my Adidas jacket that I bought in Germany years before and Ernesto said he would drive me back to the location. so, camera less and choking on pot, we drove to the location which by this point had started it's transformation to sunset, making the sky bluer, the horizon purpler and the sun more gold. he asked me to shoot a shot with his camera phone, i declined, and pulled my trusty Samsung Galaxy Android which i swear by and shot a series of perfection pictures that happen only because we were there at the right time without my usual equipment and only my phone, all because i forgot my sweatshirt, AND only because i declined to get my cigarettes for absolutely no reason...if originally i said yes, lets go get the cigarettes, i would have already stumbled upon the sweatshirt, which means that...everything happens for a reason.

...as the light goes on above Josie's head, we see her eyes open wider, expressing she gets something important has just happened. she looks into the camera with a knowing nod, the audience laughs, then cheers, finale music starts, end credits roll, and THE END.

pumped up

 

sometimes i wonder just what the fuck people are thinking...

has ya lost yer mind bitch?!?

4real!?

the things you hear from their over-injected lips

or see from their over-stimulated actions

makes me sit back and just asses the situation.

if they can do that kinda shit to someone they love

then damn if they wouldn't fuck me up worse

cuz i know they hate my ass...

whateva ho...

ya neva gonna win.

ever!

so, just pack them Luis Vuitton's you got under yer eyes

and hit the road,

cuz i aint got time for that kinda shit nomo.

nope.

i's done.

caput.

it's over gurl.

and let me tell ya one thing right now.

as i live n breathe,

your gonna regret the date that you made me irate.

okay!

r we clear?

good.

now...

step off.

cuz i am out the door

and i aint cumming back for yer sorry white ass no more.

so, don't cry for me senorita,

cuz i aint got nuthin mo to say

cept...

i hate you.

loser!

oh, and....

yea, u are fat...

but i'm fierce at Photoshop,

but i still got the originals,

so...

oink.

i'm PUMPED!

(yea girl, i'm talkin' bout you...)

Vincent Price laughing

 

Although it seemed like months had passed since the drugs wore off,

in actuality it had only been a day and a half,

but the longest day and a half he had ever known.

it dragged on endlessly.

he'd look every once in a while at the clock

thinking maybe 20-30 minutes had passed

but then panic would set in as he realized that

in 25 more seconds, it would officially be a minute.

tick tock tick tock.

goddamn he thought,

how do beauty pageant contestants do it,

waiting to know who'll be crowned...

that's where he went, mentally,

and it helped him for another 12 seconds.

12 seconds of semi-peace.

what a lovely way to spend the next 48 hours...

When the alarm went off, he jumped.

sweaty and dizzy he calmed himself and realized that it was all just a bad dream...

one of the weirdest nightmares of his life...

It was that very moment that in the back of his mind

he heard the eerie sound 

of Vincent Price laughing...

i's half friggin' retarded anyway...

Misguided and mistaken

for someone who's just about as clumsey

even when the earth ain't even quakin',

i posted somethin' i shouldnta ever posted

it got seen and then all hell broke loose and it was like

"BUSTED!"

all the times i post the things i see,

i forget that somewties they are only meant to be seen by me.

not the  general public

or even the bf of the guy

who i took pic of 

God, i feel like i could DIE!

i is such a dumb dumb fool...

never censor

never think,

that i am not like the rest of the world

and sometimes that just stinks...

but i never said that i was smart...

no one who knows me can ever question that...

i am what i am and that's a half a brain cell left which,

basically makes me 

ALMOST retarded...

so,

that's too fuckin bad.

love me or leave me.

it's al good bro.

i'll survive.

but...

will you?

and as it all comes into focus,

i remember that it doesn't matter if it comes into focus or not...

i'm half asleep anyway,

and retarded, so...

whatever...

CRL=Loser

What a difference a day makes...

why, just yesterday it was cold, gray and cloudy.

the entire day just dragged on, Buddy was nervous, i was waiting for life to end

and a new one to begin.

i was anxious, as usual, because i had been living under a roof of insanity.

my old roommate Craig the man who puts the L in LOSER was finally moving out.

unfortunately, he, being the evil sinister wicked cunt he is,

 (and fiending meth head who once begged my friend C.J. to slam him up and fuck him)

who told me just weeks before that he wasn't taking his dog Lucy 

(Lulu to ones who actually took care of her)

because he couldn't handle her..

ugh

that's ur dog beotch!

anyway, he said he couldn't handle her, so of course, being that i love her and had been taking care of her for months (she slept in bed with Buddy and I since October)

said immediately that i wanted her and would love to have her.

fine.

2 weeks later, he steals all of the dry dog food (all he fed her cause he was cheap and inhumane)

and ships her off to his mothers house so that she would never be with her true family again.

how sad, for her, and us, but also for Craig, cause he knows deep down (as he even told me) 

that Lucy loved us more than him, so, better to ship her away.

ugh

but, today is a new day, and even tho Buddy and I lost our girl

we have peace back...

sanity.

real life starts today.

maybe Annie was right

the sun did come out today, and yesterday now seems like a zillion miles away.

thank God.

i hope Craig is happy in his new apartment, and i hope i never see her again,

except to wave at him one day as he crosses the street as a truck bulldozes down the street and flattens his skinny ugly pasty ass.

bet ur bottom dollar that that day,

they'll be sun.

thankU

when the best people you know

come from out of the woodwork

and run, not walk

to your rescue...

you know instantly, and without second guessing

that there is something very special in your life,

and you should be grateful.

it's been like an avalanche all around me the past few days,

and it makes me believe that maybe i'll be okay.

maybe it's all just common knowledge that i'm a mess,

but i still have friends behind me to lift me up.

people who know the old me,

the new me,

and all the in-between me's

understand that i am what i am,

i never deny it.

i never question it.

i just live it.

and to know i have support,

is everything times 10 that i could ever ask for.

thank you.

xo

joe