muscle flex

There are a few distinct tribes of people with whom I have relationships.

The most obvious to me are the ones to which I feel the most commonality, and who have been explored the most consistently during the course of this blog, so it should come as little surprise when I reference them. They come with very little introduction, and often very little cash. They are the ARTY TYPES.

The second group of people sound a bit like some carnival of artists' side project experiment. These subjects are given high likelihood to wrecking havoc, having it drenched upon them, or seek out the worst possible response to a difficulty in order to create future episodes of misery they can weep about in overwrought prose on social media. These are the DRAMATICS.

Then there's the third. It's the place either of these types go when they're done with all of their playing around. They leave behind all of their lofty hopes and dreams, and all of their sleeping around and fucking things up royally for a life of the expected basics, and little hope for the future but the vicarious thrills that come from their crazy friends and so-dubbed precocious spawn as they wax poetic about the old days. These are the SELL-OUTS.

Yeah, I know. This is a brash generalization, but even still, you have been quickly able to pick someone you know who'd fit in one or the other category. What about yourself, though? Why is it that we often know others better than we know ourselves?

Now that I've ferreted my way out of the seventy-five hour work weeks, running a retail mart for a company to whom I have a hate-hate involvement, I can set back to some good ol' soul searching. Getting caught up living someone else's life, even if it's one determined at distance via channels of policy and overly measured purpose overtakes so many parts of your sense of self. At least that's the threat.

Let the type of person you are, and the type of person you want to be act as a gauge for what muscles you work out.

be longing

STATICECLECTICISM is an on-line handle I have been carrying around for some time. I chose it based on the title of this brief bit of free form poetry I wrote to a kindred spirit of mine in November of 1998. I found myself attached to it as a secondary identity, because to me it spoke to a desire to be outside of norms and as a reminder to be ever evolving.

For me, creation sprouts from the culling together of many varied elements, whether dream, experience, memory, experimentation, research, synchronicity, or simply blind luck. Yet to remain static within endless possibilities addresses much larger concepts for me. I find that art without obstacles is rarely created and certainly quickly forgotten.

Boundaries can only be pushed when there is resistance and life is barely lived without challenge.

counter requiem

Lewis Carroll suggested we weave our tale by starting at the beginning. Shifts in narrative taste and the translation of truth into prose offers alternative paths to explore. It is often a better idea to jump into the deep end of the pool rather than talking yourself out of the whole swim knee deep in cold water, still holding onto the railing.

I have not written in here for months. This has hardly been due to a lack of words, which spout from my salivary spigot at a high rate on a daily basis due to necessity of rote oral defecation brought on by maintaining a talking job. Over the years, I have fine tuned my mode of delivery to avoid the robotics of many of my compatriots who have passed on, and those of the nervous newbies who've only recently joined us at the front. But half of what transpires is mindless at best and misleading at worst. The other fifty percent is made up of under-appreciated, under-valued quality information and of course plenty of one liners. My need for psychological exposition has been great. And dammit all, I have been hard pressed for quality creative outlets, or more than the occasional one night stand with the writer in me, because writing the most interesting, eloquent, grammatically correct work-related emails hasn't been cutting it.

My inner photographer hasn't let up, however. My aging companion of a camera travels with me nearly everywhere I go like some ventriloquist's dummy, countering my thoughts and echoing my visions without my needing to say a single word. I have captured thousands of images in a reasonably short time. The barrage of inspiration has been so strong. I have recognized the need and more importantly the ability to never put away the aching artist side of myself. With or without reward or note, it doesn't only have to come out to play on the weekends, but can remain in everything I do.

fail blog.

In November of last year I put myself up to the challenge of posting:

314 posts with 314 photos with 365 days to accomplish it.

This is image 235. I have been posting chronologically since I started, to maintain a semblance of structure even as time passed. I took this at the end of August. I have likely taken the remaining eighty photos that I'd like to share on here, but I don't have the time. Last week I worked seventy-six hours, the week before didn't kid around, and this week won't be much better. There's no way I can find the chance to finish this challenge. Oh, and my computer's monitor is starting to give me seasickness.

On the plus side, I'm gaining lots of material for future creative projects.

(235)

team colors

Pride.

Why so revered? It's a known deadly sin. Without it we seem without purpose, and drive. We want to take pride in our homes, pride in our work, and pride in our relationships. Yet it truly is an ugly animal, mauled over time by connotation and misuse.

A vision for it has been on my mind lately, as I have tirelessly expended myself attempting to create an atmosphere where pride can live and grow at my tarnished workplace. I have held all of the power, and none of it likewise. When it slips things go to shambles. This was the case when I arrived on the scene two and some months ago. Morale was in the toilet. Energy was held at a whisper. And anger ruled in a slow rumbling, underneath the surface of this place that leans a little to the west into a literal slowly digesting sinkhole.

I have held onto my pride with all my might. I value these things. Home. Work. Connections. I fight till last breath for them. Sometimes it's my own undoing. I don't always seek a tangible pay-off. I find worth in the action itself. I've always enjoyed kicking up dust, so to speak. I am terrible at being stagnant. I react like an animal in a cage, clawing and biting for any alternative.

I have been trapped here for some time, navigating instead through varied travails I've encountered. I didn't expect to be working for this company so long. It was the first shark that bit. Then I fell and fell into what came next. Inadvertent responsibility is tricky. I have invisibly done more than I have with note. I don't enjoy drawing attention to my contributions. But when you're a number, and little more than a dossier, to an amorphous corporate unit such as this, it becomes necessary evil, and a skill I don't have well tailored.

What I see as braggerts and bullshitters, the machine sees as success stories. I have fundamental disagreement with this methodology. It brings to mind a close friend of mine, who is (amongst other things) an actor. He doesn't believe the hype of his own cheerleaders. And he doesn't like to promote himself and network. My experience in the creative industries has shown the colors of these actions to be a self-congratulatory jerk-off cream toned mess. I can fully understand wanting to avoid it at the cost of... dare I say, pride.

(234)

power play

He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.

  ~ Lao Tzu

(228)

blame less

I didn't do it.

I inherited a ship of fools nearly two months ago. Just as personality clashes and mental tensions were becoming unbearable at the Ghetto Shack, I was offered a vaguely spelled-out store manager position at the Brigadoon Shack. Due to its proximity to my home and its distance from all sorts of malicious intent that were urging me postal, I decided to accept. Flight or fight mode was triggered, and I took the leap.

The highers knew I had put in for extended time off for my wedding and honeymoon when I said I'd give the captain's wheel a spin. The first couple weeks were a grand assessment and overhaul period. The longest there had survived the asshole control freak manager and the kickin' back playing games on his phone manager, so my vibe was something new. They were not used to someone who actually worked, got things done, and expected them to as well. But they also were putting up their fight against change.

I left the store like a teacher would leave the place for a substitute teacher, with detailed assignments and expectations. It was a gamble. And unfortunately the dependability of the whole crew as well as the local managers I asked to oversee can easily be questioned. When I arrived back, it barely looked like I had been there in the first place. I checked in with everyone about their progress through their tasks - that they never signed off on, despite my clarity - and fault was thrown around every which way.

(225)

going bananas.

I will have a blushing bride in less than a month.

That sounds like a perfect time to start up a new job, right? Well, the universe seemed to think so. Aspects of the past two months arrive into my memory in a blur. Two months have passed since I was underhandedly demoted from my pseudo-temporary post at my store in the 'hood. Everything there was turned on its head, power struggles ensued, excessive dramas erupted, a mutiny was brewing, and my schedule was in essence flipped.

Now I no longer work there. I bid that old raggedy, stress infested place its due farewell and good riddance yesterday. As of this morning I will be inheriting the trouble on the southwest seas, the S.W. Neglected. In what seems to be likewise surprise attack fashion, I will be taking over the reigns within mere minutes of the lazy, undependable, former manager's forced resignation.

If life were truly a choose your own adventure novel, we'd rarely select the right course of action. Simply following the flow of life as it comes from our hopes, dreams, and prayers, and seeing what doors open and which remain chained, we frequently discover unexpected answers to our problems.

(217)

the grounded

Here's a truck stop instead of St. Peter's
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
~ "Man on the Moon" by R.E.M. (1992)

During the past couple weeks Netflix has been sending my fiancée and I the award winning mini-series From the Earth to the Moon, which neither of us had seen during the fourteen year stretch since its release. What an appropriate time to take a gander at it, since coincidentally Sally Ride recently passed and an SUV of sorts has landed on Mars!

A little known fact: during my sophomore year of college I receieved my highest grade ever (a ridiculously high A) in Astronomy. For one who went from studying elementary education as a paying job fallback for a posited film career to college dropout turned self-taught whoknowswhat, this comes a bit out of left field. But space is facinating! Give me science fact or give me science fiction, especially of the extra-terrestrial variety, and I'm interested.

The mini-series had its aesthetic failings, primarily minor directorial choices, but it was quite in depth. Separate some added trivia for the noggin one of the things that really stood out is the realization that everything great truly happens at a snail's pace. A million tiny steps, circuits, and moments of time move us from big point A to bigger point B.

(213)

opportunity knocks.

We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.
~ Charles R. Swindoll

There are so many succinct expressions that have become commonplace in our language that come out to play when they are least useful: you can't teach an old dog new tricks, live and learn, what goes around comes around. I hear them or variations of them on a semi-regular basis, especially given the spread of drama that seems to disseminate through my friend and acquaintance collective. And as additional drama has recently arisen within my workplace on a daily basis, I have seen the blob similarly extend in that direction.

The running theme of these issues seem to encapsulate each idiom quite well. The older we get the more we become inclined to carry around a small stack of three by five cards with contigency plans for each situation we encounter. We presume them to be tried and true, and certainly the ones that have gotten us by up to this point. This is why reactions are quick and predictable.

Each plays out stereotypes: jilted women undermine all men, blueballed men don't respect women, and on and on. Those who've lost jobs or relationships due to extreme personality clashes are quick to get on their high horse about how flawless they truly are. Blame is placed externally. How can the world be so rife with victims? I see so many playing the victim or, more notably, the martyr of whatever war they've been waging. And even before seeking answers inward, attempting perhaps to remedy personal failings, they throw the issue off to karma, move on, and do it all over again.

(202)

attention whore

Babies don't know any better. Everything is new and scary to them, so they make the three noises that they've figured out at the two distinct volumes they've discovered. It's not their fault when their voice shows up in the middle of a movie, or a flight they shouldn't be on, or from the corner of a low-toned dining room.

Children who develop a scene in the checkout line between a irritable sibling or because of a wanton candybar haven't been shown a better resolution to their seemingly serious issues. These temper tantrums are normal, at least for a short while. Eventually we're supposed to grow out of this phase. The drive to push at the boundaries until the punishment in return is extreme enough that we stop is supposed to end.

Some adults simply don't let it. In the movies, they are often the show-offs, they are the people who sing their praises louder than everyone else, they are the people who need to prove something. They are the character we love to hate.

In real life, though, they are often two faced folk, full of sordid excuses for their failings. These weaknesses, whether directly noted or not, are always the fault of other people: parents, exes, siblings, friends, the government, or the cops. Someone else was always in the wrong, whereas they just sat there and took the beating in peaceful response like the perfect specimen that they are. After all they are never ever doing harm unto others.

The emotional environment and dramatic tone of any given place is always altered for their display. These big babies overfill their messy diapers with discontent and call for attention and admiration. The are overactors who need to have all eyes on them. They demand it, not command it. It's not since they're all that special. It's because they're twirling around that proverbial idiot glowstick in the middle of a darkened venue. And for some reason we're supposed to give them a pass.

(184)

in(visible) touch

I'm being punished for making my job look easy.
~Roger Sterling (Mad Men ep.3.6)

The shake-up at work has burdened my mind lately.

Let's get a few things out of the way, though. Initially I only applied to work there as a last resort. I hesitated accepting my first position. And I am loathe to working for a large corporate entity whose interest in their employees well-being and morale is a sixteenth afterthought.

This is not my calling. This is not where I belong long term, but I am still insulted that I wasn't given the respect of even a professional thanks for my temporary store management. And to add insult to injury, it has become continually necessary to translate the way I do things into trainable terminology for the old hag who took over my role.

That's the most peculiar of all. I remember in grade school having to explain the procedure of doing something simple, such as making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It was an exercise in communication. Some of its impact comes from recognizing how much we internalize.

The way we do things doesn't necessary flow into words. Maybe we've found a ritual or a quick and easy system that makes sense to us, but when spoken doesn't have a logical flow. There's an underlying current to our every motion that can't be taught. I deem it impossible and impractical to demonstrate to someone else how to be us. Consider for a moment an actor developing a character from a real life person.

My workplace is continually looking for best practices in terms of dealing with customers. It's one of the reasons most of the sales world irritates the piss out of me. It's kind of like dating. In theory everyone has a line. It's just not as discernible coming from a smaller percentage of people. The rest of them sound like disingenuous, smarmy robots.

(180)

over cooked.

a song that makes you hungry

Hunger Strike

That old standby expression reads too many cooks will spoil the broth.

Soup is simple, though. All of the heart of it comes from being able to see what compliments what and to which degree. It's like creating a party guest list. It's not really cooking at all, but event planning. It's waiting for intuition to be either proven right or horribly wrong. There's no middle ground.

That's what work has become. There are too many cooks in the place. There is she who cooks with too much vinegar and little ol' me who uses a lot of secret ingredients.

Know Your Chicken

Respect comes at a hard price. It ages like a good wine. You can't force it. And you certainly can't make people distribute it in your direction.

• I have known far too many know-it-alls in my time.
• I have run across far too many folks with superiority complexes shoved so eloquently up their assholes, they can barely pinch out a smile without spitting vile.
• I have known from condescension, overactive judgment.
• I have found people with heavy-handed disregard, who could truly care less what others think, so long as gratitude and glowing praise continues to be bestowed upon them as they take credit for other's efforts.
• I have come across hypocrites, dying to secretly exploit in one area while wearing the mask of a saint.

Unfortunately the caricature that should come about from the totality of these descriptions is the new chef to my sous at my place of business. To that I remand myself the better cook.

So I am caught in the quandary. Should I let the rice burn or help make it right, keeping clear conscience and maintaining earshot of my ethical core? Do I let her die, or let myself bleed, so to speak?

Hungry Eyes

So, what does this have to do with musical appetizers?

Life and food link fingers at every turn. As a baby we discover our need for sustenance, which comes not just in a bottle or from a tit, but from connection, safety, comfort, and care. We continue to seek out the things that ensure we thrive. We have to listen for those moments when our soul growls for more of those things that fuel it, that drive it forward. And we must also listen out for when our soul begins to hurl.

testing. testing.

We've removed the ability to reason from the people who are supposed to be in charge. ~ Adam Carolla

Sometimes the best thing to do is take life as it comes. Life is after all a particularly specialized form of live theatre. The heat of the lights are always on you, someone is always watching, and that mistake may turn out to be a happy accident. But there's no need to beat yourself up over that missed cue. Move along. There are more interesting things coming up.

That said, I haven't written here in some time. In fact, I have barely posted anything during the last several months. I have simply been too busy with work to have a moment to bother with it. I'm only now having the chance to breathe, to collect my thoughts.

Here's a little story. Some of it will be familiar. Some of it won't.

I work for a big, steadily failing ninety year old corporation. Let's call them the Loathe Shack. They've got a piss poor reputation, and when I first applied I was surprised they were still around. Of course I get hired there. For some reason every other place in town has passed me by on multiple occasions, but this joint scoops me up on first go. I figure it'll be a good bridge out of my fascist previous job and toward whatever the universe promotes next.

I counted wrong. I'm still there. And I've watched as floor slave after sales sucker has come and gone. And I've watched as manager after manager leaves either with a jumbo grab bag of filched items or within a moment's reach of insanity. It's kind of a sucky place to work.

But I'm a writer and an observer and I have a bit of a masochistic streak in me. I also happen to be terribly good at it. I'm not trying to be immodest. It's just an underpaid job with an ever expanding job description, overwhelming demands and expectations, and very little reward, but I work really well under such pressures and constraints. Plus I just happen to work at the store wherein a reality show could easily take place. And I don't mean the fabricated kind. I mean the pseudo-documentary sort. The lunatics, nimrods, and characters who cycle through make it worth the commute. I do have a love-hate relationship with the whole mess. And I get bored at jobs that keep me chained to doing two or three different things and only those, conveyor belt style.

So, what should happen when yet another manager's head explodes? Well, since I was already doing half of their job anyway, I stepped up to the plate, dusted off my distaste and said I'd watch over the place until someone else was hired. No one else was going to fix the situation, after all. It didn't take long for the whole thing to start fitting quite well. It became clear to the higher ups that I meant business, and that this guy isn't the usual fly by night slacker they usual stock their ranks with. They were listening! And receptive and open to offering me the store.

For the last three months I have overseen our little shack through a bevy of tidal waves and morale quicksand. I inherited a completely messed up lil' shop that soon swelled up with every problem under the sun, but I helped pull the place through it all.

So, what thanks do I get? I get the left field surprise return of the store manager who hired me, who has a fused temper the size of flaccid rubber and who I distinctly recall being forced to resign in lieu of actually being fired. This woman has bounced between a handful of jobs in the meanwhile. (Let go from each, by the way.) And now I am given the unpleasant task of teaching her how to do the job I have been doing so I can play second fiddle while I theoretically wait for another store to open up.

Everyone can't stand her. Our vibes live in different countries. No one has any idea how this egotistical show-off who was previously running the place into the ground could have been the better choice, but there it is. This job isn't my calling. I am terrific at being in charge of complex efforts. I suppose this is not really one I want that badly. I could do with a bit more respect than I've been shown, but it is what it is.

The universe clearly has other plans. Therefore, I play along.

(166)

pragmatic me

There is a negative connotation to being opportunistic. I have certainly had troubled dealings with the sort who would attempt calculated positioning like the sad, chessboard bishop, sliding predictably here and there in the hopes of getting a leg up on the competition. I have seen it a lot from both highly competitive fields I have worked: sales and the arts.

Certainly, there's a value in bettering or challenging oneself, and of holding expectations for yourself and others to a high mark. But then there's the key phrase I have heard abused of late, in too many misguided ways: seeing the opportunity and taking it. At the extreme, this is a breeding ground for corruption and rape. Me. I think of myself as pragmatic. I am often better at making the best of a bad situation than at being the sort who would dive into the deep end of a pool they don't belong.

I work at the appropriately named $hack out on Main Street where the ghetto meets the smelly indie kids. It's an old delapidated, outmoded store built in 1974 that shows signs of age, neglect, and reeks of constant overturn. In management and on the floor this company can not hold more than a handful of people, as one peek at the addictive site glassdoor reveals.

Now I'm acting itinerant captain of this ship of fools.

It's a comedy of sorts. And not unlike Hard Core Pawn given the stranger than fiction oddballs, idiots, and eccentrics who step through the door. This aspect is the primary reason I haven't been a part of the turnover, or a transfer to the dull location three minutes from my home.

But here I am, in charge of the whole damn thing. It's a few fingers shy of a perfect fit. I don't want a career with these people. The problem is that I'm really good at it, to quote others, and my own recognition of the situation.

Ah, shucks.

(158)

home movies

This is what a customer was looking to create from parts in our store the other week.

So they say.

(140)

mission: A.M.

(135)

undercover boss

Piss or get off the pot . . .

It just hangs there like something anti-climactically scrolled across a bathroom wall. Common expressions tend to be that way. One moment they are idle phrases and suddenly their truth reveals itself loud and clear.

There's a curse to being born with an artistic drive and another to being but a weekend voyager in the game. As time has worn, I have found that one can play both hands. Over the years I have found myself friend, confident, comrade, and simply linked to one artistically inclined person after another. For a long while I traveled almost exclusively in the circles that would harness this subculture, whether amongst my collegiate brethren, my writer's circles, or while passing through set after production set.

Passion can be a fickle foe or it can be a forgetful friend. Some have left the craft behind for the professionals while others have forged ahead, finding money to be made from their art. I have rattled around somewhere in between, like that metal ball that lives inside a spray paint container, occasionally making a stir but rarely being seen as a force behind the end result.

Holding back has little place in this life.

(110)

system failure

When the power goes out, the world comes to a standstill. People become powerless. So much of our existence is contingent upon the grid. Show me a stoplight outage and I'll show you awkward, infantile hesitance and unnecessary fender bending. Our attachment to our technological imperatives can be downright startling.

Work ceases when the system crashes. Cut off that worldwide feeding tube and those daily conveniences and our knowledge dwindles at unbelievable rates. Much like our food left in stasis in our silenced Frigidaire, we quickly melt down, becoming useless, lifeless fudge pop sludge. We are limp without a back up. We have raised a culture of electronic co-dependents.

That much I wrote while watching the public scurry around logic when key aspects of the network crashed at the DMV a couple weeks back. They were promptly turned into big babies, gripping for that teet that suited them alone. It was fascinating to watch the interplay between the desk jockeys and the urgent masses.

But then before I knew it, I found myself with a home computer on an out of control booting up loop. I wasn't particularly surprised, given its relative old age by technology's standards. It slowly purred itself to sleep, puttering out after a long journey through energetically rough terrain. It has served it's purpose for a fair stretch, but it's time had simply come.

It wasn't done yet, however. After a couple days of disconnect I resuscitated the beast back to its newborn glory. As it opened its eyes upon the room, restored and recovered, physically present but mentally stuck essentially back in 2006. Suddenly the six years since were suddenly evaporated, and bridged . . .

(103)

quality control.

(102)