Sleepytime

I found myself in an african village of some sort. It was desert country. A few scattered pieces of brush sprinkled on a barren landscape of dust and sand. Most everyone was wearing redish-orangish-purplish garments, a fiery contrast to their dark wrinkled skin. Many people had bandages and crutches and were in pain. It seemed some uncureable epidemic had been spreading through the village. There was a gathering for a mysterious but expected meeting and everyone had circled around the makeshift village amphitheater. We waited as the murmurs swept through the crowd. It was clear that whatever we were waiting for was not going to begin until the crowd was silent. The murmurs turned to shushes and for several minutes a battle of shushes was waged until finally one superior shush rose up from my mouth and silence overcame the crowd.

Then the music began. Sleepy Time Gorilla Museum began playing their Sleepytime (Spirit is a Bone) song.I crawled under the bleachers and began shuffling through a stack of cards I found. They had the lyrics to the song on them and I was trying to stack them in the proper order as they sang out in the sand.

"Sleepytime
Sleepytime
All you days
All you nights
All you hours numberd
Follow the red line
The black line
The gray line under
Smoking time
TV time
Medicine line
Snack line
Follow the blue line
The green line
The gray line under
Sleepytime
Sleepytime"

A couple verses into it a small girl approached the singer and interrupted him to ask a question. They whispered a hidden exchange in each others ears and the girl shuffled back to report the response to one of the elder women of the tribe. All of the adults wandered away from the concert shaking their heads. Most of the children stayed behind. The band sang on as they moved from the sleepy tones into the louder more intense, building suspense part of the song.

" Spirit is a bone
Bone is a tree
Tree is alive inside of me
Spirit is a bone
Bone is a shape
Shape is a thing
Thing is awake
Spirit is a breath
Breath is a flower
Flower is a tree
Tree is a bomb
Spirit is a bomb
Second is a bomb
Flower is a day
Tree is a year
Bone is a life
Spirit is a bone
Sleepytime
Sleepytime"

I frantically shuffled through the lyrical flash cards trying to keep up. I can never quite remember exactly how this riddle goes. Some of the children are dancing others are just staring in disbelief. The swirling sand is building up around us as the music creeps around our heads.

Suddenly a polyphonic ringtone lifts me out of my sleep and plops me back down firmly on the bed in my hotel room.

Funny how Boojum had just asked me last night if I had been having weird dreams lately. I always have weird dreams. Being waken suddenly seems to help in being able to remember them. I had to pop in the ipod and listen to the song as I wrote this to help me remember how the story went. I couldn't find a link to the actual song anywhere and the myspace "Currently Listening" feature seems to be on the brink. So suffice to say I am listening to Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Grand Opening and Closing which I highly recommend you all just drop what you're doing right now and go out and buy it.

Well go on, get out of here already.

Bunny Jazz

Today is the final day at White Marsh Mall. Then we are of to the arctic King of Prussia for 2 more weeks of mall bliss. Then we have a week off and one event in NYC (this just in...) before we close out the program.

Boojum wants to go to the New Orleans Jazz festival during the week off because it would be fun to drive to New Orleans and back and then go work an event in NYC and then drive to Miami to close out the program. Silly girl obviously is going through some sort of shoe withdrawal crazy talk. Since we can't afford to buy new shoes, she wants to spend money on a trip to New Orleans and to drive there and back because we have only been driving for 8 months straight so why stop now? UUGH. We have to move, and get jobs silly silly girl. This is all just a ploy to buy new shoes I'm sure of it. But I won't be fooled!

Easter News from the front lines:

We have been set up next to the Easter Bunny display for the past two weeks. This odd human activity involves suburban white mothers lining up en mass to with children dressed up in pastel outfits. They wait their turn to pay large sums of money to place their children into the clutches of a complete stranger in a furry bunny outfit and then jump up and down yelling "PEEK-A-BOO!" and make lots of noise in an attempt to get the children to disguise their uncomfortable terror with a fleeting smile to be captured on digital. They then exchange money for key chains or printouts of the oddly dressed children making unusual facial expressions while sitting on the kid in the furry bunny suit. Many mothers sniff their children's behinds before or after placing them on the bunny creature. Many children are filled with awe and excitement at the sight of the bunny. This often turns to sheer terror once they reach the point of actually interacting with the bunny. Many tears are shed. Many pictures are taken of forced smiles on teary eyed faces. Many children are probably traumatized for life. A few actually seem to enjoy it. People are strange indeed.

This could explain the childrens fear of the Easter Bunny though: THE EASTER BUNNY HATES YOU

Spring, Taxes and the Quest for the IDEAL job.

So spring has sprung and taxes are in the air like wildflowers.

Weather is acting up again like a neglected child.
"Look at ME! I'm hailing!"
Then the next day,
"Look at ME! I'm a freaky windy snow storm!"
Today, apparently satiated, it is mildly pleasant.

In other news we just found out that we owe about $10,000 in taxes this year. YIPPIE! Now it looks like we will be returning back to normal life, broke. Well not totally broke, but almost. We will have to put a large chunk of money into an SEP IRA to avoid having to pay even more taxes which is great for the long term but sucks for the short term as it will leave us with about no money left for right now. And now we have moving costs on the horizon. And I will probably need to get a car again.

SO kicking up the job search a few notches to make sure we are ready to keep the money rolling in as we roll off the road and pull back into "normal" life or something like it.

To that end I have posted my resume online here. I welcome any comments or critique of it, or a job offer.

On Monster they have a spot where you are supposed to fill in what your IDEAL company would look like. My answer:

"One that will pay me ridiculous amounts of money to do fun things. Less than ideal offers will be considered as well."

Mall Realizations

After spending a multitude of hours in the mall I have come to several realizations about life, the universe and everything.

1. I hate teenagers, it may comfort them to know this: None of you are cool, so please stop trying. It is just embarrassing to the species. You are all gangly, clumsy idiots. The sooner you embrace this fact, the better for all of us.
2. No matter where you go there are fat girls in belly shirts. This needs to stop. Seriously.
3. Even old conservative republicans who voted for Bush, now hate Bush. I only wish it was comforting to say I told you so.
4. Another note on teenagers. Get a life. Do you really have nothing better to do on a Sat night than walk or run around in circles in the mall until you get kicked out at closing and then hang out at the exit of the mall hoping some girl will have sex with you if you make fun of her? When I was a kid performed valuable learning exercises like the the combined effects of hallucinogens and bicycles.
5. I don't ever want to be the old guy who spends every day at the mall wandering around because he has no family and nothing else to occupy his time. Seriously if you see me wandering around the mall everyday when I am 80, please just shoot me.
6. Also if you ever see me dressed as a security guard at the mall, or walking around with a broom and a dustpan. Please shoot me, rush me to the hospital so they can resuscitate me. Make sure I have a pulse and then shoot me again.
7. I really do not know how any of these shops stay in business. They must all be fronts for some sort of mafia operation because they hardly ever have any customers. If the malls are any sort of indicator for the American economy at large I would sell all of your stocks and invest in China. In fact if the daily news is any sort of indicator I would recommend the same.
8. Did you know they now have electronic caricature artist machines? This is just creepy on some level. I'm not sure why. It just is.
9. OK, if your child is big enough to put it's feet down and bring the stroller you are pushing to a halt, it is time for their fat ass to get out and walk.
10. If your child is throwing themselves on the floor screaming and crying. Do not continue to stroll along window shopping and ignoring them while the rest of us have to endure their cries of misery. Please put your child up for adoption and shoot yourself. You are not fit to be a parent. I just saw you pushing him by two hours ago stuffing a soft pretzel, an ice cream and a soda in it's face. Now it is all cracked out on sugar and caffeine and suffering neurological damage from being forced to spiral around in the unholy vortex of a mall for three hours. Do not escalate things further by screaming at your kid. The child is having a perfectly normal and logical reaction to the fucked up situation you have placed it in. Please leave the mall, go get some fresh air and stop pumping your kid full of junk. Next time consider saving some money and going for a walk in the park, maybe look at some trees instead of half sized belly shirts that you simply do not belong in.

And this weeks fashion prize goes to the fat girl in flip flops and sweat pants brandishing the t-shirt emblazoned with the words "IF YOUR RICH, I"M SINGLE"!

P.S. No offense to all of the fat bottom girls out there. You are all beautiful in your own way. Unless your way involves a belly shirt, that's all I'm saying.

BLING BLING

BLING



Bling

2 years in the making

So My New Best Friend and I just celebrated 2 years of glorious wedded bliss. Really it has been awesome. We had a week off starting the day before our anniversary so we stayed up north a couple extra days and made a couple trips into NYC. We visited with my old bud "Dave the super drum bucket rabbi" and his wife Rita and their small offspring Ilana. They live in the east Village where all the cool stuff is anyway. So we checked out their apartment and Dave showed us his dunny collection. He also directed us to an all vegetarian Thai restaurant across the street from his house called PUKK. I had the protein duck and MNBF had something else. It was super delish!!! I also ordered the special gay martini and toasted to our cats. Yummy Yum Freshmmmm!

Afterwards we went back up to Dave and Ritas crib and gave Ilana a build a bear we made for her at the shop on 5th ave. Actually we made a build a cat and put one of those little baby laughing noise boxes in it, which are actually quite terrifying and not cute at all. But I knew Dave would appreciate it.

Then they took us to a place I can't remember the name of, but we were assured it had the best italian deserts. So we got some scrumptious little edible doo dads and proceeded to consume them heartily. Ilana just held on to hers forming a gelatinous mess in her little fingers while shouting "WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA" with every step. This is the preferred method of enjoying a scrumptious little doo dad for a toddler.

We then went to a performance a few blocks over at John Zorn's space The Stone and saw a quartet comprised of piano, cello, violin and drums. They proceeded to bend their instruments into perverse balloon animals and then drag them through a manic depressive ballerina's bad dream. It was an interesting display of "far out" classical jazz noise. The cello player was especially fun to watch as he was very cartoonish and several times it seemed that his head was going to explode. I think Anilia was actually terrified by him and is currently seeking therapy to work through this difficult trauma.

We wandered around the village some more and stopped for some coffee then called it a night and drove back to our hotel to be greeted by a bounding bouncy doggie.

Sunday was our actual anniversary and we headed back to NYC for the day, this time opting to take the bus instead of driving in.

We hopped the subway over to Canal street to tool around Chinatown. Somewhere along the way it became Little Italy and we stopped and had lunch in a nice little restaurant which also had very good food and not so bad house red wine. We then proceeded to wander around the city through SOHO and did a little shopping. I got a new pair of sketchers. They are blue and a soccer-bowling combo style. We wandered into some artists studio that was painted all up on the outside and I have to say the painted up outside was the best looking thing in the studio.


We wandered around for a while having no idea where we were and eventually ended up back over near Dave's apartment. We were accosted on the street by a struggling comic who convinced us to come into the basement of a club called the Lantern to watch a free show and drink $3 pints. So we did. It was OK some of the comics were pretty funny, others not so much but none of them sucked. Ok the last fat guy sucked but the rest were pretty good at the jokes. We continued our blind wandering in search of desert and ended up in a little coffee shop called Cafe Vivaldi.. I think. We had excellent Tiramisu. Also there was a quartet of piano, violin, brass clarinet and vocals performing some traditional Russian tunes which was very nice. That about wrapped up our anniversary in NY and we headed on back to our hotel.

Monday we drove back to Baltimore... TO BE CONTINUED.

People in the mall miss the sun.

People in the mall miss the sun.



We don big sunglasses in remembrance of the ball of furry than once simmered the sky above our heads.
Before we built it over with drywall.
Installed odd colored lighting and surround sound intercom dementia.
Dug tunnels underground to parade our silicone parts and wares.
Built digital displays of dysfunctional divas.



On Thursdays we gather round the grand food court to stare up through the glass at the sun.
We wait with tacos and pizza in hand.
We talk loudly into our cell phones.
Asking the sun where it has gone.
Why it has not called us back.
An emo boy checks his LED belt buckle for the weather forecast.
Wipes a greasy hand through tri colored hair and sighs.
A single string of cheese stretches from his hand down to hovering just above the floor.



It wavers back and forth in a dull stale breeze.



People in the mall miss the sun on our thirty minute lunch break.
Some stopped bothering to look a long time ago.
Others still hope, but give into their hunger and look down to eat instead.



Today it has snowed and the glass is smeared over with grey slushy disappointment.
Neman Marcus puts seasonal affective disorder on sale.
Free with the purchase of a single red shoe.
Women crumple their face into a glitzy handbag and trudge into the snow.
One foot in glossy red fashion.
One foot in the grey.
Sexy asses swaying in the icy past.
A mere moment ago.



People in the mall miss the sun as they head home at night.
But the sun has better places to go shopping than you.