seen at a ballard bus stop

more vacay

En route to a baseball game, we spied graffiti and stopped to take some pictures. The middle 3 are by 84 pages, a Colorado artist. Dunno who created the first and last but they're lovely.

recovering

Recovering from a bad fall. It happened after a night out, a few whiskys and some fine-ass 420, so I can only conclude that it was mostly self-inflicted.
Today is day three holed up with Advil, bandages and ice packs.
A faint and a visit to the ER.
Cautions about confusion.
Drinking iced coffee through a straw.
Binge netflixing.
And, it's a June heat-wave.
I'm ready for a break in the weather, internal and ex.
*
Graffiti from lower QA.

danielle is a hottie

Seen on the wall at the College Inn ladies.' I wonder if anyone's studied the graffiti on the women's bathroom walls in dive bars. It's always an entertaining and emotional narrative.
*
Illing this week. Hoping to be healthy again soon.

life live it up

Graffiti from the UD.

7811

Thought for the day week life:
--is it true
--is it necessary
--is it kind

the contagion of smug

 
A rainy Sunday with coffee, a breakfast sammy and some Wesley Holmes house mix yes please.
AWP was this week in Seattle and I skipped all of it except a friend's party at the Alibi Room for the Mineral School. I'm not a joiner but that wasn't it, this time. I've been getting published the past couple of years--so why don't I feel like a part of the writing community?
A clue: I gave up my subscription to the New Yorker because the fiction annoyed me so much. Each week it read like inside baseball, writing for writers, the MFA club featuring meta little tales of constipated white people or super self-conscious morality tales, instead of a ripping good story that also happens to be brilliantly-written. I'm sure I could have learned something but I was too scared of coming into contact with smug--it's contagious! run away!
So my protest is what--a silent boycott?
AWP won't miss me. Neither has or will the New Yorker. I feel like there's a way to be both successful and not take it all so seriously.
Here are more pictures snapped around the neighborhood.

drip tag

So it seems this is a tag, it's the 2nd set of carefully articulated drips I've noticed in LQA (see last week's post).

yeah!

Lots of failure in my life, as you know, but finally, a few successes too.
<----- I figured out who this guy is (recall my obsession) and saw some of his work on a random bridge column and at Trabant, in the U-district.
I had a "yes, definitely yes" on a story I submitted to this fine journal.
Still.
I'm one-for-twenty this year with submissions. The recording project is on life support. A blog idea died prematurely.
It's just way too many no's for my taste.
Am I being greedy?
Hell yeah. Oh hell yeah.

June--make that July--graffiti

Shoot, I meant to post this a week or so ago...as seen around town.

206 up and comers

so much freshness to share:
*new-to-me GMK's "Up Up Down Down Left Left"


*keep up with the hip hop haps in the 206 at Raindrophustla

*and peep this graffiti short by local filmmaker Jesse Lomax

Getting Over from Jesse Lomax on Vimeo.

I keep on trying

The reality is I haven't gotten a single story accepted yet this year.
Partly because I've sunk dozens of hours into this recording project, which is a slap and a holler away from being born.
Partly because getting a story published is a matter of timing.
And partly because I've lost my focus. I've been distracted and self-destructive.
I'm losing myself again. I know it. Well, now we all know it. It's not a good feeling. And yet I can't seem to find my stride anywhere else.

i am you are

More graffiti conversations, from August 2010.

paint can conversating

The graffiti conversation continues around and under the University Bridge.
*
I haven't been posting much. I've been crazy busy, busier than usual, which for me is saying something. I've been taking chances and saying yes more but also sometimes no and not only has the world not ended, it's spun a little faster. More risk means more hurt. I know this. The higher the jump, the harder the landing. And yet, it's worth it, I think. Better pain than regret.
*
The other night I looked at my clock and it was 3 a.m. and I still had shizz to do, not to mention getting myself to work in 6 hours. It's only sleep, I thought. Now can't wait.

Some days

Some days, this sums it all up.

Art Walk All Stars

Boy did I geek out last night at the Greenwood Art Walk.
There was a ridiculous number of cool young artists out and about and I got to meet a bunch of them:

• Solace (and here) -- rocked the coolest hair of the night; his painting "I Know You Are But What Am I?" is up on the wall at my place
• Narboo sweetly handed me a Priority Mail sticker with a bird on it
  
• Starheadboy gave me a fistful of stickers after I confessed like a blushing fanboy that I'd been taking pictures of them all year
• Xavier Lopez, Jr set up shop in the basement of a house on Phinney, mistook my friend for a dealer and filled us in on his obsession with teeth
  
• Henry!
• Mantisart paints on photographs
• And Matt Spinney, busy wrangling a very nice but drunk lady, whose glass buddhas and balinese masks are lovely
  

There's a follow-up shindig with more art, artists, music and TBD I guess, tonight on Phinney, peep this for details.

Fall down 7

I've resisted taking a photo of this chalked-up graffito near where I work. It's so corny!
But I couldn't stop thinking about it and the other day I finally snapped a picture.
*
Fall Down 7 Times Stand Up 8
*
Last night a friend--at 80 a sprightly, joyous raconteur--declared his motto for 2011: have more fun.
It seems like a worthy goal.

Precious munchees

I haven't posted much graffiti here lately. Here are two I snapped recently with my phone so please excuse the poor quality.

>tAY we got the munchees
>Don't be so precious about it

Too much heavy thinking and I'm ready for an IV hookup of bloody marys so for today, smile at the smartass tags and let all the other stuff go.
Because it's just stuff and it's all just a ride.

"Your wrong"

I snapped this from the Mercer tunnel wall under I-5.

"I think this world is a perfect world"
Your wrong
~~~~~~~~Sky the infitnite"

What can I add? This is nearly perfect: immediate, direct, misspelled, smudgy, random. A chicory blend of confidence, hedging and starry-eyed obliviousness.

LetGo

If you live in Seattle you've seen this tag:
LetGo
I try not to get crazy about reading too much into street messages but sometimes I think about what this means.
LetGo
As a full-on Capricorn my life has been all about running the trains on time. I'm the Bundesbahn in a world dominated by Amtrak.
Or so I thought.
I thought I was doing pretty well with the old LetGo, until recently, when I realized nope, I'm still holding on pretty damn tight. That a lot of the time, I'm white-knuckled and trying to jump the light.
So what happens if I let go? If I'm not in charge?
I wonder if I can do it.
LetGo.