Back of an Old Man's Stupid Fucking Head

 

For Lease #2

 

I am becoming a realtor. If you need spaces and you're not too choosy, holler at Oooold Lukey!

Pale Bright

 

Grampy Likes The Same

                                                Grampy Likes the Same

Choice. Novelty. Searching for that fresh new dopamine hit. It's none of what it's cracked up to be.

I keep it the same. Same job, same time, same activities. No commercials burrowing into my basal ganglia to exploit my insecurities. To make my buy the thing that will complete me for sure.

Boredom is a blessing.

Sure, you're having fun... Sometimes... A lot of complaints along the way as you sift through the new shit for golden nuggets.

If I'm going to spend my energy spend it on something that matters.

I keep the grass military cut on my lawn. Keep off with your big red galoshes.

Entertainment needn't be that special. Who cares? Podcasts I played decades before, sitcoms I can recite beat for beat. Video games I can finger blindly through motor memories.

If you like this and you'll like that! Nope don't care. It's enough. Nosh the same beef spaghetti with the noodles just as soaked as always.

Those young whipper snappers with their new fangled neon coloured handheld slot machines they bend C shaped to dilate their pupils with. I'll sate myself with stuff that has less of a cling. I'll hold on to my attention span, thank you.

For Lease Series #1

 

Fascinated with these empty spaces. I like finding empty ones in a city. They are my secret areas.

Blue Heat

 

Faint

 

Pokemon Games Suck but I Still Love Them

 

                                   Pokemon Games Suck but I Still Love Them

I like to separate art into four quadrants. On one axis is quality: high on the top, low on the bottom. On the other axis is personal taste: like on the top, I don't like on the bottom. Everything is rated based on it's quality, and whether it fits my personal taste. The Pokemon games are a series I enjoy that is low quality. Pokemon games are not high quality video game art. From a critical standpoint they are pretty average and predictable. I still love them for personal reasons.

                So why do I think they're low quality?

Grindy repetition. A problem that is common to a lot of RPGs, battles are too repetitive, and once you level up enough you can basically beat anything with any party and (almost) any move set. The rock paper scissors aspect of battling helps this only SLIGHTLY as it's really a numbers game. Get bigger numbers and win. There are a lot of random meaningless battles to reach your destinations, though it's possible to skip them with different items, then you might end up underleveled! So, you basically must fight.

The characters are not very interesting. Again, this might be my "first generation" bias but I thought that the characters in the first generation were somewhat interesting. The trouble with later games is they basically reuse a lot of these characters, rather than coming up with ones that are distinct for each series. The narrative arc is also, pretty much the same. Beat the 8 gym leaders, and then beat the Elite Four. Then you go for momma's little boy to a big strong hulking collosus of a man (or woman as an option in later games in the series).

Aesthetic predictability. Most (though not all, see Pokemon Sun and Moon, for example) Pokemon games share a similar art, music and sound effect style. One battle theme. One special battle them. Title theme. Walking theme. Pokemon make their noises when you encounter them. Lots of grass. Always more grass. Does anyone have a riding mower?

               Why do I enjoy them?

Nostalgia. Pokemon Red and Blue came to Canada at the right time in my life. I had just moved from my eleven year home, to a new province and much smaller community. As a youngster I was only allowed to play video games at friends houses but not allowed to have them at home. Until age ten when I got a regular Nintendo (at a time when the Nintendo 64 had been out for a couple of years). A year later we moved, and at that point the Nintendo was broken, so I guilted my mother into getting a Gameboy. Red and Blue were the big games in sixth grade, and after several months of watching the more privileged kids play, I finally got a copy of "Red" for Christmas.

Ease of play. I spend my mental energy on work, school and various creative endeavours. I play video games to relax, even to have something to do with my hands while I listen to a podcast... or "take care of business." I know these games so well, that they require little mental effort. Catch Pokemon. Level them up. Go to gym. Get the HM. Do the little side quest. Go to next town. Repeat. I know there's little variations here and there but the core gameplay is essentially identical, and I'm fine with that.

Collecting. Even though, at a certain point it becomes busywork, I enjoyed the collecting aspect of these games. I had to catch them all. I even got a link cable, and eventually got all original 150 monsters. Beyond the first 150 (1) or 250, that was enough for me. Past that point every dog, cat and toaster oven idea for a monster had been creatively exhausted.

Pokemon games are not high quality video game art. From a critical standpoint they are pretty average and predictable. I still love them for personal reasons. The original rival, modelled after the anime series' Gary Oak, hit the right level of annoyingness and slightly badassness. "Smell ya later!"

Cave Mouth

Annoyance Doesn't Matter

                                      Annoyance Doesn't Matter

People are ticks burrowing into your sweltering backside. Someone is jamming the keys on the board into their sockets like hammering a chisel into stonemasonry. Birds won't shut up and squawk too fast with a strident timbre. Those who you're engaged in conversation with cut you off to excitedly welcome with other people, treating you like the lowest rung on the social ladder they're grasping desperately to ascend. The constant use of default phrases and language overused since time immemorial (is this just vexing to writers?). This does not make them evil, they are just annoying.

Annoyance is a mental distraction from what you really should be focusing on that you find challenging. Perhaps you are the asshole for being the one who is annoyed. The others don't seem to be bothered by this behaviour, why should you? Fuck your feelings, they're not really important.

It doesn't matter.

People have different personalities (brilliant insight). Adjusting to a bunch of different human energies in rapid succession is exhausting. You are much better focusing on one person for a while, than a group of people coming and going. The latter is superficial and crappy. Better to have relationships that are deeper than numerous.

There is a certain kaleidoscope of multiculturalism we are subject to more than ever across the globe. Whether you look at that as a good or an ill, is up to your perspective, and it probably is some form of awkward jumbled foreign tasting bouillabaisse. But it is a thing.

Fall not for the charismatic or aesthetically repulsive speaker attribution. Do not attribute positive qualities to those whose morals we share, and negative to those you agree with. Or wait, actually it's more the reverse. Do not attribute high morals to those people you find likeable, and low morals to those who we find irritating. It's cathartic to find other's that share your particular personality perturbments to vent to. You are probably annoying to someone else, too. I irk myself constantly. Even my own friends and family vex my at times, but I keep them around because they are good people.

Just because people are irritating does not make them bad people.

Tolerate those who you find bug you if they are part of a community you are a member of. Don't just torture yourself for no reason. And it's fine to bitch to your friends about it. It's not that important. Control what you can within your own life. Worry not about the aesthetic choices of others.

Which Aisle is the Mustard in Again

 

Savage Supermarket

Published in Paragraph Planet

Shoe Laces

 Shoe Laces

Lets see

Pull the laces to tighten them

They feel so strange and ropey

Then I cross them...

Left over right?

No that doesn't work...

Right over left

Okay now we're getting somewhere

What do I do now?

Wait don't tell me

Then the right lace goes under...

And around the other one

And then I pull them together down to the shoe

Kyaaaaa!

Like I'm crushing my shoe

Take THAT shoe!

Then I loop the left and then the other one

And um...

The right loop goes under

Ya I did it!

All that for a nickel...

What a jip!

Megamize

 Megamize

I'm not micro, I'm not fiction

I am not little, not small

I don't need to take a little steal a bit

I own it all

Screw your language your posture

Stand tall with your belief

Slink away like a shallow silhouette sleek

I stomp the ground give me a radius

My energy travels beyond the form you can gaze refracting the Sun

I come in peace

But it's a powerful one

I refuse to play humble

I do the work and I'm proud

Though I may stumble

No excuse me I stay loud

I am no Woody Allen

I look upon you and smile

No need to gaze at metatarsals

You don't have to like it that's just my face's guile

I breathe fully big belly and all

Not trying to restrain to reach a standard

No girdle I'm natural

So hurdles I jump actual incredible

Yeah, I protect the weak

And I deserve mine too

I bellow like a swallow I don't squeak

I'm the big beautiful burlesque humoured ball of gas that outshines you

My nostrils were the black holes that sucked in the World

My song exhaled the Universe's curves

This goldfish overgrew it's bowl

Poured the leviathan out to the seas

Don't you put me in my place

Don't you minimize me

Walking On A Lonely Path

Walking on a Lonely Path (song)

Somedays my alarm goes off
I just want to let it ring and turn over
I've been working myself for what reason
To stiffen my neck and my shoulders

I keep on marching, marching on
Like an insane soldier
My wallet is empty
All I've got is just a little older

Walking on a lonely path
You can walk beside me, but I'm still alone
Walking on a lonely path
You can't talk to the voices in my head

Walking on a lonely path
I appreciate you trying, but you can't relate
Walking on a lonely path
Your shoes are yours these shoes are mine

I work the night shift like a mole-man
My bloodshot eyes open when the world sleeps
Somethings missing I'm only part of a whole man
I pound on walls angrily I'm still missing a piece

I can't say for sure what keeps me moving on
Keeps me trying keeps me showing up
I must be fully stark raving
Because partially doesn't really describe it enough

Walking on a lonely path
You can walk beside me, but I'm still alone
Walking on a lonely path
You can't talk to the voices in my head

Walking on a lonely path
I appreciate you trying, but you can't relate
Walking on a lonely path
Your shoes are yours these shoes are mine

Walking
These shoes are mine alone
Walking
These shoes are mine alone

Walking
These shoes are mine alone
Walking
These shoes are mine alone

Walking on a lonely path
You can walk beside me, but I'm still alone
Walking on a lonely path
You can't talk to the voices in my head

Walking on a lonely path
I appreciate you trying, but you can't relate
Walking on a lonely path
Your shoes are yours these shoes are mine

Let The Rain Fall

 Let The Rain Fall

Man I love the sound of the rain
It cools me off
Some days I get way too hot
From life's strain

I love that thunder nature's power
It humbles me in a way nothing else can
I love the wind how it rattles cans
How it teases and threatens towers

So let the rain fall
I love the rain I really do
Let the rain fall
I'm jumping in any puddle I choose

I'm the only one out
Walking around sitting in  the park
I'm chilling relaxing
I helps me clear my thoughts
I can't sleep
I've got insomnia
I wouldn't say beyond belief
Because you probably have it to

So let the rain fall
I love the rain I really do
Let the rain fall
I'm jumping in any puddle I choose

So let the rain fall
I love the rain I really do
Let the rain fall
I'm jumping in any puddle I choose

So let the rain fall
I love the rain I really do
Let the rain fall
I'm jumping in any puddle I choose

So let the rain fall
I love the rain I really do
Let the rain fall
I'm jumping in any puddle I choose

Fade

 

The Why Tree

                                                                 The Why Tree

    There is a part of my brain that overthinks to a ridiculous degree. It pokes holes, as miniscule and meaningless as they are, to distract me from getting things done. This is one of those over-thoughts.

    When you write an argumentative essay you have a conclusion or main point to the piece called a thesis. You support your thesis with sub-arguments often in the form of "topic sentences" which you then support further with a paragraph or two of reasons. The why.

    How do you know when you've gone deep enough with your whys? Can't there always be more reasons? Eventually we stop at reasons that seem self-evident (to us and hopefully our readers) so that after we start writing we get to stop at some point.

    Have you ever noticed a child asking "why?" over and over again their parent scrambling for answers they feel compelled to provide? 

    "Why do we feed Scruffy dog food?" "Because it's healthier for him than human food." "Why?" "Because dogs have different nutritional requirements from humans." "Why?" "Because dogs evolved different digestive systems than humans when they branched off from us on the evolutionary tree." "Wh-" "Shut it, junior!"

    I imagine something out of "Jack and The Beanstalk". A tree that just keeps climbing with no end into the vanishing point. It's roots sprawling out the other end of the planet like someone with excessive hair caressing a Van de Graaff generator.

    For adult skeptics one might present evidence to convince them. Then the next question from the skeptic might be: "why do you believe that?" And there are reasons to doubt, it's not unreasonable. Can it be that easy to defeat any argument? I guess the natural counter to the skeptic would be: do you have an alternative with better evidence? If we can't always get all the way deep we can at least compare, and try to figure out what is most likely, rather than definitively true.

    Imagine a child asking you how you know the Earth is round, and you running out of answers. Slipping down while climbing on the why tree. Imagine some adults in the place of that child. How many people can go deep on that answer off the top of their head? I've studied it for a while but I would have to refer to my notes!

Love Is

 Love Is

Love is something that comes from
Growing together
Watching each other change
Not to be confused with the lust
That sparks instantly
That fizzles out in a windstorm

Love is shared experience
Shared pain
Mutual pleasure enjoyed together
Love brings you back together
Love swallows your pride
When you know you've made mistakes
Empowers you to take that step back
And apologize to the one you stepped on

Love is a personal connection
You can love a group of people
But only after you love them as individuals
Love is acceptance
For all animals including humans are flawed
Controlling their baser urges to greater or lesser degree

Love is awesome
It really fills in the colouring book of your days
With bright, vibrant shades
It is the Sun that warms the winter of your loneliness
To have someone not just care
But empathize with what you're going through
And have gone there or be going there too

House Fries

 

Glass

 

Alike a Library

                                                                     Alike a Library

An empty chapel. The Prairies don't read. The Prairies don't art. My own individual special place with arcane idols no one else appreciates. They keep me company, can't move when the lights on. Not dead they're taking hypothermic soapstone siestas. Back then the acceptable term was native art. You can change your terms but not the echoes.

Close Proximity

Close Proximity

Oh who the fuck is this douche
With this cocky smirk on his face
Look at him up on stage
Acting like he's wooing all the ladies
Like he's God's gift to hymens

So then he grabs a seat
To accompany his beer
Right next to me
He starts telling me his random story
And we shoot the shit
He even offers to buy
But I'm staying sober it's all good

So we crack crass humour to each other
Making jokes as the other open mic'ers play
Laughing at the "tuning" song
And when it's a Britney Spears cover
We sing along

What a chill dude
Down to earth
Self-depreciating and humble as they come
In close proximity

Something In My Eye

 

Desert Thumb

Desert Thumb

Blistered feet wander the desert
The hard air surrounds him
He's stuck in a cloud of dust
And sand
Dreams of winning the odds left behind
In his tracks
He turns and gestures out
A sunburnt thumb

All he receives is a light breeze
Air conditioning in the context
And he sips his canteen
In-between slitted lips
He presses on

A nomad with sweat hardened rags
Adorned with faded bands of the past
Holes in jean shorts he earned
Not manufactured
His dirty hair now a clean blonde
Ray bleached

He doesn't mind it out here
On the range
Where the deer and the antelope's
Dry bones stay
He's not alone
He's just avoiding the noisy crowds
The calm sound of vultures cry away

He can taste the chalk of the dry earth
Mother Nature needs a bath

Bazoo

 

Guts

Backside

 

Old Man Politician

 

Mosaic

Snacks

                                                                                 Snacks

I work at an internet cafe (yes, they still exist!)

A coworker tells me they're having issues turning on a computer but they want me to give it a try before they call a technician.

So I go take a gander.

It's making a strange beeping metallic noise, like something is trying to happen over and over again but is being prevented. A bird running into a window over and over.

I hold down the power button, and it lights up fluorescent yellow-green and that familiar logo shows up on the monitor. It is powering up successfully.

The strange metallic noise continues...

I notice some brown and tan bits of what appears to be a food product sticking out the sides of the disc drive like the edges of a toddler's mouth mid mealtime.

So I press the open button. The noise intensifies but the tray stays closed.

I press a couple more times. I am a persistent romantic.

I pull it open, gently of course...

Someone had jammed a crumbled peanut butter and chocolate snack in there. I can guess the brand but I didn't taste it to be sure.