Yes! That's right, folks. The reason you haven't seen me here is that I've been elsewhere! I know, I know. In the internet age, we're supposed to be in more than one place at once, right? Not without bots! Or slaves. Or at least employees.

None of which I have right now. Well, I have lots of bots, but none of them do I want posing as me. I don't want any other human (or other being) posing as me either. Just to be clear - and not at all 'lectricist.

Anyway, you can find me here now:

demonbunnymath.blogspot.com

I liked their spot better. A little easier with my mac, a little prettier all around...I like it better. Besides, the only guy who I think has read (and responded) to nearly all of my posts is my wacky friend, sweet guy and fellow writer (this guy can write, folks), Cliff Brooks. You can find him at:

cliffbrooks.blogspot.com

I suggest you do. Find him. ;)

la (and thanks so much for being here with me. It means a lot),

Ian

a video of my clarinet teacher, don cunningham. enjoy!





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hello, o' interverse. ;)

been about a month, and life has been interesting. let's see...it looks like i'm gonna get laid off from my straight job. ah, well. it's been about 4.5 years, which is about 3 times as long as i've held any other job, ever. other than the job of being me, of course. anyway, i'm gonna miss it, if it goes. there's a chance it won't, but we'll just have to see.

i'm doing something special for my dad for his 70th birthday. stick-man! i can't tell you more at the moment; he reads this thing sometimes, and it's a surprise. it's close, though, and i gotsta get my rear in gear. luckily, i'm stoked about it.

my neice just turned 5! i called her for her birthday, but haven't sent her a gift yet. i suck. sigh.

i got another wedding to video. yay! it's definitely alternative, and i really like both the brides. it's their 3rd time getting married, and i'm doing it pro bono - for them, you know. it should be really fun. i like doing that stuff, and i hope to be doing it for money, soon. that means, videoing the show, editing and dvd producing.

about a month ago, i bought a purple clarinet. yeah! that's right, a purple clarinet. it sounds all right, too. i've been fooling around with it, and last week, i hung for a little bit with a clarinet player named Don who plays down in the montgomery street BART station here in sf. it's the station that i get off at for work, so i've seen him a bunch of times. this time, he had a percussionist with him, and i was very interested to hear what was going on. so, while the drummer was setting up, i went over to talk with them. i had one of my wacky hats on, and Don liked it. after a little bit, he asked me what i was into. i said, "believe it or not, i just bought a purple clarinet!" so, to make a longish story shorter, after they played a couple tunes, Don said, "bring your clarinet on by; we'll see what you need." whoa.

well, i wasn't about to pass that up. so, yesterday, I went down to BART at 6 am (argh! I had to get up at 4:30am), because that's when it's slow enough for him to work with me. otherwise, he's workin' on gettin' paid. he wasn't there at first, so I came up topside and played out on the street a little. here you go:




i really like playing. i've always been kinda fascinated by clarinets, but was turned off mostly by the reed-sucking. just not sexy. but, oh, well, i've finally gotten 'sucked' in.

after my impromptu performance, i went back down into BART, and there was Don! so, we worked together for a while, and it was really good. we're gonna do it regular; once a week, thursday mornings at 6am. ugh. and cool!

btw, he's quite a fine player, and has a CD to sell. Stop by, 5-9am down on BART at the end of the montgomery station nearest the embarcadero, and get yourself an earful. and while you're there, drop some money in the case, or pick up a CD.

yay!!

part II - the movie!







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To the Berkeley botanical gardens – I’m there now in fact, It’s lovely up here. I'm here in the gorgeous daytime. Yay! So I could come up and see Odoardo the corpse flower. It bloomed in the evening of the 15th, and was stinky as heck, evidently, on the morning of the 16th (yesterday) when the person who opens the place up came to check it out. The stench is quite mild now; I didn’t become nauseous at all, and it wasn’t even unpleasant. It was mildly rank, like overripe fruit or fish. I don’t think I’m going to talk about it much more, because I really don’t want to puke.

It was beautiful, though; the upthrust pale cream spadix in the middle, with the gorgeous skirt of the spathe spread out around it. The edges of the spathe were curling back, and it had lost quite a bit of luster, although its dramatic maroon color is such a gorgeous contrast to the spadix.

The underside of the spathe was a pale green, and deeply ribbed, like it would make a perfect circle if it were detached from the spadix and pressed.

Oh yeah. I touched it, too. At first, without asking, I touched the edge of the spathe. It was wrinkling up and it looked like it was releasing some sort of powder as it curled back. I ran my left index finger along the underside of it in a “come hither” gesture. At first, I could feel the place where it touched, as if I had just caressed a new lover. Then, as I stood back, I realized that I was feeling something beyond the ghost touch – something in the flower was reacting with my skin! A little scary. But it never got bad, and it was kind of exciting, to boot.

Then, I really wanted to touch the spadix, but there were quite a few people there, and the docent had been so helpful, I didn’t want to make trouble for her by encouraging others to touch it. So when I had a moment, I asked her if I could touch it. And she said, quietly, “Probably when no one is looking.” Hee! Meaning, presumably, other people, not her. I soon found out that that was exactly what she’d meant, as the place cleared out of all but one person, and both she and a lovely man who’d come in a bit earlier who knew her (I presume it was her husband) said, “Now’s your chance. Quickly, before more people come in.” So I reached forward, and ran my fingers up and down it. It was knobbly, as it appeared, and somewhat plasticky feeling. It was shiny, but had a kind of sticky resistance to it, like a succulent leaf.

Then I walked around the gardens, and found myself here. The sky is actually blue – paler than I’d like, but blue. There are trees and hills and people and birds and it is really, really lovely up here. If I weren’t carrying so much crap (good crap, but heavy), I might walk around some more. But sitting here is nice. Really, really nice. There are benches everywhere, and lovely handmade things, like a Chinese stone with writing on it, and a kind of art nouveau footbridge, made out of bronze. Lovely place to just lay back and enjoy the sun and the wind. Very hilly, too, which I like.

It was a lovely afternoon.

watching "manufacturing consent," the movie about Naom Chomsky and his take on how we think what we think in this country. basically, that in order for leaders of a democratic country to control the people, they must control what is thought and how decisions are made by the citizenry.

abso*(&^ing-lutely.

the movie was made even before the internet was any serious issue at all (at least, as far as I know). media conglomerates are much bigger now.

i've been reading about water rights, and how major (and some minor) corporations are buying up as many water sources as they possibly can, so that they can sell water to everyone. and it's happening here, right now, in the states.

and we can fight it.

more to come, i imagine.

So there's this wacky guy. His name's Spiritual Bob. And he has this song that talks about what's going on in the world today. Well, he sings it.

Hee-hee!



If you'd like to see more of SB, or his fabulous cohort, travel companion and spiritual maven in her own right, Sophie Rainbowvision, please check out their YouTube channel at:

http://www.youtube.com/user/nemoy10

la!

floods? fire? famine? earthquake?

naaaaaah. florida orange juice commercial.

first of all, someone involved in this little marketing project has obviously seen "harold and kumar go to white castle." remember when they received their quest? they're sitting on the couch, baked out of their minds, discussing where they should go to relieve their massive case of the munchies. kfc, taco hell, mcD's - all go by the wayside.

and then...

from the t.v. comes the sexiest female voice one could imagine, backed by an awesome blues track with guitar. it says, "are you craving the perfect food?" and, of course, they are. well, according to the commercial, it's white castle sliders. so off they go.

now, in the florida orange juice ad, we've got the sexy female voice. we've got the not-so-darned-bad blues track. now, here comes the truly apocalyptic bit. the commercial closes with the female voice saying, "this is the best juice we will ever make."

not the best juice we have ever made, leaving way for a better juice in the future. no. this is the be-all, end-all juice.

why? because the end is nigh, brothers and sisters and transgendered folk. doesn't mean there won't be another beginning right on the other side, or that a beginning isn't happening right now as the end happens. all endings are beginnings too.

but it does mean that madison avenue (or at least whoever wrote, developed and approved this ad) thinks that there ain't much longer. and you better go get your ass-kickin' o.j. right the-hell now.

drink up!

holy s*&^. i've done it. i've finished the first draft of my first story-o-the-month.

i must emphatically point out, this does *not* mean that it is, in fact, finished.

hell, i don't even know if it's any good yet, really. that'll have to wait 2-3 days, when i read it again.

but good golly, i did it. it's in da bag, baby!

yay, me! ;)



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holy finger lickin' good, batman. i - i - i got teary eyed and choked up. just listen and watch. i would go see him in a heartbeat.

he's insane.




i have hope for the future.



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so, i don't know if it's that the guy i made this story-a-month deal with is a horror writer - but i'm barely into this story and somebody's killed somebody already! i mean, who knows if he's gonna stay dead - either i might go back and change it, or he might come back to life - but whew!

and heh.

i'm taking this agreement-challenge with my friend seriously to write these short stories. i've wanted to do this for a long time, and i really want to live up to this.

so i shall!

and part of that is swallowing my pride. sometimes, i just want to know it all now. i want to have always known it, and i never want to have to learn anything new.

lazy. and arrogant. and fearful.

soooo...

i decided to suck it up and do some research. google: "how to write a short story." holy crap! there's a lot of pages out there.

most useful thing i've found so far (from http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/creative/shortstory/): "Start as close to the conclusion as possible." yeah, okay. a short story isn't supposed to be a squished novel (for instance), just a smaller slice of life. only it has to be a complete story as well. tougher.

little boats!



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so, if you read the longer post i made yesterday - and you were paying particularly close attention - you may have noticed that i have committed to writing a short story every month from now until the end of 2008. that's 7 stories because we're counting june.

i say "we," because it's an agreement i made with a friend who is a fellow writer. he's a really neat guy, and very sweet. he's been very supportive of helping me create a career out of my writing, and helping me be realistic about the whole thing. and what's more realistic than "write!"

so, the truth is, i'm a long-form guy. mostly novels so far. i like to spread out - "don't fence me in!" except that means that i haven't written many short stories. and the truth is, i really don't want to be a one-form-wonder. besides, there's an interesting metaphor here. evidently, when the sailors who race in the america's cup feel they've lost their touch, their connection with their big, glorious boat has dulled, they go small. in order to fine tune their skills and their feel, they go back to racing - or just sailing in - dinghies. fourteen foot boats, one person, one sail, almost instant responsiveness. it puts them right again.

now, while i'm not saying i'm "wrong" (ahem), i do want to say this: brevity is key. and i *know* that if i can accomplish an ass-kickin' story in 30 pages, i can sure as hell do it in 300.

wish me luck! and if you feel like it, let me know what your creative journeys are like.



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dennis (our faboo kitty - see below for previous posts about him) accidently got his head caught in a loop of a handle on a paper bag and, well, let's just say that he didn't like that - at all.

now, this is a cat with three legs who can jump up on the counter just as easy as sneezing, and we have never seen him move this fast or this crazily. he just wanted to *get away from the bag.*

thank goodness the handle broke soon after, because i don't know how we would have caught him (blanket, maybe), and things were starting to get destroyed.

all is better now. he's up in the kitty tree, grooming.

oh! and he and missy have been licking each other! joy!



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there is a wind generation device and there is poo, and the twain have met, oh yes, the twain have met with a kiss and a crushing embrace that is enough to shake the very roots of power.

oy. it's 5:30am. i really don't need to be up. but i am.

dreamt last night that i had bought something on ebay, and then i received a call from the seller 3 hours later saying because i hadn't payed up, i would be reported and i couldn't have the item. we argued. it wasn't fun. cosmically funny, but not fun.

and then i woke up and couldn't get back to sleep.

a 'wake up call' you might say.

went to see a pretty wonderful show last night, "The BrEaST of Sherri Glaser." A wonderful, one-gale-force-woman show. now, i've been fairly interested in, and occasionally very active in, alternative politics. but for some reason, her show last night really kicked my tuchas.

maybe it's the fact that my friend (who's *very* smart and capable) is dismayed by the job searching prospects, maybe it's the $4.5/gal gas, maybe it's the freakin' fingers-of-the-gods tornadoes everywhere (or hell, maybe it's the fact that i just committed to writing a short story/month for the rest of the year - yipes! yay! yipes!), but i got up this morning and knew, very quickly, that i wasn't going to be getting back to sleep any time real soon.

of course, it could also have been sheri's fabulous political movement, "breasts not bombs." basically, going topless to protest war and promote peace. also, let's face it, she has magnificent breasts.

sheri's show really energized me and got me proud to be me and excited to make silly, lasting change. and it was very, very funny. i love laughing that hard. it's a good thing.

okay, people! time to take care of business! time to be responsible and make good on our promise. our promises to ourselves. the promise of our selves. although that feels a bit directive, a bit pushy. and although i respect the hell out of some folks who are being pushy for peace - for instance - i don't think that's for me. i gots fibro myalgia. constantly pushing things ain't good for me.

and promises, shmomises! there's so many broken every day, by so many people, what do they mean any more? well, they mean something to some. and it's my life. it's my life, and i get to do with it what i wish. bottom line; end of the end of the road. which, i think, is either the beginning of the road, or at least the continuation of it. there's this book, "Futureland" by Walter Mosley. it's a set of loosely connected short stories about the near future and its bleakness (within which is hope). at the very end of the book, after a plague calculated to kill all persons with at least 50% recent African blood (regardless of skin color) misfires and kills everyone *without* at least 50% recent African blood in them, one character (with dark brown skin) is being chased by a bunch of racist toughs (with pink skin), and as he races off into the forest, eluding his pursuers (at least for now), he thinks, "It looks like the world's started up again." (paraphrase)

beginning, middle, end
before, during, after

where are we in all that? in more than one place at one time, that's for damn sure.

love who you love and by all the gods in all their heavens - and in all their hells - do it now. who knows what time we've got.

love.



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and there's the main character, Nancy Botwin, and she's a suburban mom turned minor weed dealer (to make ends meet) turned drug lord.

i was thinking, "she's in over her head."

but who isn't?

are all around us.

barking madness,
hold and trounce us.

it's friday night
aglay, sky, aglay!

which way, ray?

which way.


good night.

this morning, at the gym, the power went out. I was pumpin' away on the eliptical, and bam! out go the lights. no major deal, especially since it seems that the machines have their own power supplies (presumably for just such an instance. you're on the treadmill, the lights to out, and it stops suddenly - umm, ow).

One of the folks behind the counter asked if everyone was all right - not sure how she'd know without walking the floor, but still. Those of us on the machines kept at it.

And this guy I'd heard earlier kept at it too. He had been singing, loudly, badly, but the racket of the machines had drowned him out. No more, such bliss. Without any sense of pitch, but plenty of gusto, he walked by me singing Stevie Wonder's "Part Time Lover." Occasionally, he would hold a note, like so: "Loveeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrr!" It was more a chant than a note, however, as if he were a monk intoning the universal adoration of a god who only came around occasionally, and then just for a little while.

They kicked us all out soon. Evidently the desk person had checked in with her manager, who almost certainly said, "Get them off the machines! If one of them falls off, insurance will kill us!" On the way out the door, the crooner loudly stated, "I got my workout in! I got my workout in!"

Me too, my tuneless friend. Me too.

omg. omg! i decided a while ago that when I sell my first novel, i would buy myself a real, custom corset (most likely from dark garden (darkgarden.com). well, it's not going to be my first corset any more. my sweetest, dearest, bestest friend (with the gorgeous exception of my wife) gave me one for my birthday. see?





and here...





oh! so happy am I!

now all i need are many different colored silk ties...mmmm....

It's my birthday! Well, my birthday season, anyway. But last Saturday was my birthday celebration day, and that's the good sh*t, right there.

Went to see Iron Man. *Awesome* movie. Funny, action packed, makes a (sort of) a statement. Also, I've got somewhere between 30-50 straight issues of the Iron Man comic book that are - well, I guess they're more than 20 years old now. Ahem.

Anyway, geek fest of happiness yesterday. I'm not going to talk about the details, except to say that Tony Stark's relationships with a few robot arms he built is really beautiful.

I was kind of a d*ck yesterday in the theater. There were these noisy kids (that evidently none of my friends could hear - they weren't that noisy, it's true) and I asked them to be quiet - kind of brusquely - and they didn't. So I turned to them and, loudly, said, "I will ask for you to be removed." and at that moment, I realized (partly because I just felt bad) that I was being rude. My wife turned to me after that and said, "You're being more disruptive than they are." And she was right.

Later, when I went to the bathroom, I stopped and said to the mother and father, "I'm sorry, I was a bit rude. My apologies." Which felt much better. (Okay, I think I was more than a bit rude, but it's what came out, and I think - and hope - it sufficed)Then, after the show, a small, but stocky and compact (could clearly handle himself - would have probably kicked my ass, fast, if it had come to that) man came up to me and said, intensely but not rudely, "Hey, I'd like to ask you a question. Who told you it was okay to talk to kids like that?" And I said, "You're right. I overdid it, and I apologized to the father." (I didn't mention the mother because, when I apologized to her, I don't think she understood me - not much English). The man was taken aback; he started away, defused. I held out my hand, and we shook.

I wish I'd said to him, "Thank you for saying something; you are right to do so." Really acknowledge him for it.

But it worked out. I screwed up, and then made it right.

After the movie, three of us went to one of my favorite places of everywhere I've ever been. (I haven't been a lot of places, but I've been around a little.) It's up on top of a hill, and it's so very, very beautiful.

I discovered it when I was working at Genentech as an architectural plan photocopyer. I walked up the hill at the center of "town" (they have a lot of buildings out there) and ate my lunch on a ridge. Gorgeous view, warm and the wind was blowing. I ate and still had like 40 minutes left on my lunch, so I started to head further up the hill. (I like high places and getting to them on my own two feet.)

And then I started to hear this weird sound. It was like blowing across the top of a bottle...only bigger.

So I started to follow the sound instead of the incline, but they ended up taking me in the same direction. It kept getting louder and louder, and then I came around the corner of this one building, and above me, about 40 feet up a ridge, stood a hundred foot tall sculpture, a rich red where the sun hit it, and dark in shadow.

The sound was...incredible. In a few moments, I felt it blow everything that wasn't essential right out the back of me.

It's 92 feet tall. There are four vertical posts that are made out of what appears to be a bunch of "I" beams crushed together at the top of the "I". They are oriented towards the cardinal directions, and go from about 60 feet tall, up to 92. In between each of the pylons, and across one diagonal, there are hyperbola. In between the two arches of each hyperbola, there are vertical "U" beams of varying lengths and distances from each other.

And when the wind blows - as it does quite often on the bald hill above this cradle of new life - Wind Harp tones. That's it's name: "Wind Harp." When it blows really hard, it tones multiple pitches. When it blows really, really hard, it tones multiple pitches, reaches a resonant frequency, and begins to hum. It's so loud, sometimes, that it's difficult to hear yourself speak.

It's totally frakkin' cool. I took some vid. Not sure if you can really hear it hum - my apologies for the vid and aud quality; I need to get a better lug-around camera.

The entire structure is made out of a steel that's designed to rust in such a way that the rust protects the structure itself. And - here it is. A 360 oner:



Interesting note about Genentech: When I worked there, lo, those many years ago, it was a much more casual affair. There is this parking lot at the end of the road you must ascend to reach Wind Harp. The last time I went to WH - about 3 years ago, probably - this lot was still open (especially in non-work hours, which this was). Now, each space is marked, "Security Vehicles Only." There were about 5 big white vans, and two other rides. One was clearly a private Genentech ambulance. The other was a really big truck (the kind that carries all sorts of crazy kit - or a mobile taqueria) that had "First Response Unit" stamped in not-too-big letters on the side.

These guys are totally expecting a sub-grey goo incident! Or hoping for one, anyway, as if the truck is totemic magic, trying to inhibit the level of potential disaster. I mean, on the grey goo level, that truck would just be mush like everything else. It struck me as hubris, at the very least.

Perhaps needless to say, we didn't park in one of those spots. We parked across the street.

After Wind Harp, we all went home and partied until - well, not the wee hours, but certainly the "Wheeee!" hours.

Sunday was about a lot of good vid (the latest Battlestar and Dr. Who, etc.) and taking a walk in the neighborhood with my honey. And I found a little alleyway (I love little alleyways and I'm halfway decent at finding them) that I'd never seen before, and it was 5 blocks from my house.

Well, it was a killer weekend for my birthday. Next year, 40! Big parties time. For now, a more relaxed state of head.

la.