Bo's Request (an Art Thread)

[pan]

Been writing cover letters for job applications (two submitted yesterday). More of a movement artist than a wordsmith but, to get things started, here is something I wrote for Migrant, my section in Train.

Where is home?

Moved twelve times in the last 16 years. The transient in transit. Pierce Transit runs through it. Before I came here I was in Rush Limbaugh’s home town before I was surrounded by corn fed Norwegian bred Lutherans singing praise in perfect four part harmony to that Home on the Plain before I’m taken Home – Praise Jesus. I grew up in Iowa, Little Town on the Prairie an island afloat in the ocean of corn. Lived in SoCal, in the Desert where golf and plastic surgery reigns, might have the grit to stay in rainy Tacoma, but, I always say I’m from San Francisco - though I rarely visit anymore.

Home, where is home?

Home is where you are. Correction, home is where you and the two cats are.

What is home? That safe place. That place with love. I love that old car, it always brought me home. The ’75 Westphalia could be home. Or rather, the place that used to be home. Too old, too unreliable to be trusted anymore. Baling wire and duct tape. Just like the U-Haul I drive to the next place, hoping for home.

Searching for home. Migrants with heavy furniture. U-haul. Our orange travois with wheels keeps getting bigger. Full of stuff. Heavy Stuff. Stuff that anchors us. To a home of nostalgia. Anchors to a home that never really existed. That place. This is the place! Well bully for you Brigham Young. Bring ‘em young. Not young anymore, with more stuff each move to stuff in the moving van and every move leaves behind anchors that are mourned in passing.

A house burns down and the anchors are cremated and the past has passed on.

The bubble is burst. The house is on the market. The anchor is weighed. The trees we planted are left behind. Do the new owners love that Japanese Maple we planted as our 10th anniversary gift to our dream of home? Have they maintained the landscaping? Have any of the plants, the dreams, the love we planted been cared for in our absence? Or have they been torn up by the roots to make room for the next owners’ dream of home?

Where are the anchors? Is there a home port? Adrift. Without a home. Drift wood is picked up for beach fires to warm the beach rats without a home. Their shacks have been bulldozed like West Bank ancestral olive groves to make room for more condos and home-loving dreamers blowing a bubble. Pop!

[BO]

Because, christian.

Already tired of 'The Lesser Evil' shit the 'left' always promotes during US elections. Seems they've already eliminated Birdie as a possible candidate. 

Might have to vote for Trump to hasten the end game. OK, I'm too moral for that. But it amazes me that Democrats are thinking 'The Lesser Evil' strategy is going to work yet again. Not sure it will considering how many people hate the Clinton crime family. 

Not sure Hillary can contain her sociopathy throughout the election cycle. Her rant at the Green Peace lady was one for the books. I think there's some better stuff yet to come.

[pan]

The snark from Clinton and her minions at those who dare not support the coronation is rather telling.

[BO]

We already knew this but, the graphs are worth a look.

Higher Education Is Morally and Financially Bankrupt

"A system that piles debt on students in exchange for a marginal or even zero-return on their investment is morally and financially bankrupt."

[pan]

And it turns out that the "business model" that has been ballyhooed since the 80s was just another version of Shock Economics - use economic downturns as a rationale for cutting programs, benefits to faculty and raising tuition in order to pay for upper administration's exponentially higher costs.

[BO]

Wait. Our higher ed insty tutions are actually doing some good. Homeless tent cities going up on campuses (campi?) all over Seattle. Ironic?

http://komonews.com/news/local/uw-considers-hosting-homeless-camp-f...

Maybe it's a new incentive program.

[pan]

Maybe its university housing for adjunct faculty.

[pan]

Two new things - perhaps the last I get to do with uni students, depending on how things work out.

Not surprisingly they are both rather dark.

[waldopaper]

Lines standing muskets leveled grim choreography.  think of mimes in uniforms doing that whole linear thing,  and the musket hand jive might have legs.   and how do you do the smoke.  

mebbe it's that thar circular thang ye got goin there...  

 

[waldopaper]

another bitchy adjunct HERE.  Article is kinda blathery... but the comments are good.  

"Building sexy gyms and luxury apartment-style dorms for students, plus the grotesque proliferation of overpaid administrators."    

And there's the ass-kissing factor.  Going to meetings committees etc. not pissing anybody off, et al.  Just like any part-time shit-job at any company.  So when i got my last pointy-haired dilbert boss and Petunia ran away to her kanoodle pad in town... it was time for a big dose of Fuckitalles.  So i lived upstairs alone for two years... well except for all the kids and animals she left there.  But the last 90 days in the turret has been some kinda fun tell ye what.  

And always liked to say what are they gonna do- shave yer head and send ya to Nam?  Back in the day that was a joke among grunts with shaved heads who already were  in Nam.  And i thot i got all that shit out of my system.  Guess not. Had to get shitty.  Didn't do anything illegal and nobody got hurt.  After doing two years of the springer show downstairs and winter quarter on bread on water in Turret 9... it was STAND AND DELIVER time.  

Ask any performing artist.  Nobody gives a fuck about your feelings.  Hit the mark or die.  And if you kill em they get mad at you.  Gotten real bad over the last decade.  Never met so many inconsiderate fucks worried about their fucking feelings.  You ran over the dog you fuckhead.  Wah name-calling.  It was when you were screaming at me because i never clean out the cat box asshole.  Now kindly hand over that poke bag twat-face and nobody has to bleed.  

Hillbillies with Master's Degrees.  Worked with plenty of them.  Didn't realize i was living with em too.  Well C'mon.  I'm Jeb from fucking Indiana USA.  Waldo Von Cornpone, M.A.  But long before i went back to school i learned wit die old beatniks and outlaw bikers... and that was "class."  Sometimes hipness is what it aint.  Lots of school.  No class.  Took lumps in the schoolyard because if anybody called me shorty i would hit them.  Class was not doing that.  

So now to stand accused of bullying is kinda weird being the shortest kid in the class.  And i got my short jacket on see?  So short you cant see me.  Throw me that poke bag now cinderella and go fling your dinks  buy your own dam selfish and someday your prints will crumb.  Gives my horn to nephew titi and doesn't ask me about or shit except she always went to marching band with her sissy ugler and years later brings back a case full of junk hasn't been played in years.  

And tries to Murphy me some pos school band mouthpiece instead of my Dukoff.  Fucking Egyptian queen.  Dont that sound kinda mean?  Don wanna know.  You give me my chips and i go.  Just an errand boy.  Sent by clerks.  On a mission now.  Called Archangel.  World of hurt comin down now.  Gotta get away from ground zero.  Revelation on john disclosure columns.  No time to be a hero.  Driving them guns steal bawl mule  whip dust clouds.  

Off about a mile or so.  

 

[BO]

Wow. That was the supreme rant. A rant for the gods. Loved every juicy morsel.

I've never encountered another soul who can write like you can, Waldo. You've got the tragedy vs comedy thing down better than Shakespeare. And, more fun than reading a stack of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers.

Damn. Turret 9. Now there's a play waiting to happen.

[pan]

Every once in awhile you get something out of it. Moments like these are the reason why I keep doing it.

One of my cast posted this to facebook:

I believe there comes a time in every dancer's career when they need to be reminded why they commit so much of themselves to dance. I had reached that point this semester. I didn't need a choreographer to tell me how to hold my core for a better turn or to remember to use my plié when landing a jump. I needed someone to teach me life lessons away from a textbook and relight the fire in me that makes me want to perform. I found that in Paul Zmolek. Every time I left a rehearsal, I walked away a stronger artist. I learned things about myself and my cast members that I wouldn't have otherwise known. I'm so thankful and honored to have worked with Paul for Spring Dance 2016. I'm proud of the piece that we presented last weekend but the process of story telling and lessons learned that we experienced to get to that point is what I will really cherish moving forward. Thank you, Paul, for everything.

[waldopaper]

Ja boys.  Dats der reason we all do it.  Pay too bad for a mercenary.  Glory too short for a fool.  It takes a sojer to do it.  You don't learn that kind of shit in any kinda verdampten school.  I tell you boys it takes a sojer.  Keep machen ja even if aber it hurts.  All der oldt sojers vill tell you boys.  Even book-learned sojers like my cameramen Carl under shirts.  

Dam boys dat no circus but opera.  Cant you hear der calliope piping behind dem trees.  You see dem elephants is artillery.  Trump.  Trump.  Jesus it starting to scare the horses.  Willie lump-lump and der oil bourses he endorses. Trump. Whee pop buzz wheeze.  Nein dem aint no bullet boys.  Dem is only honey bees.  

Himmel now here come the dancers.  Dancing with whirling devil smoke on the field.  Tell yew wot- that big fucking two-ton heavy curtain goin up will kill my brittle old ass if it falls now.  So i gotta wait for the fat lady to sing and get outta here.  Heading for my mark.  Gotta stand and hope nothin hits me.  Decree down buzz bank whee.  Trump.  Trump.  Sissy boom.

DOOM-bah.  rah, rah, rah.