Farmface: From the Dirt

The first day:

There’s a good piece of land by the green house. The road runs past. The lights are off but for one light on the left side of the house if you’re looking from the road. It’s a dim light, flickers like a fire light. It possibly is. It fades soon after midnight. Then there’s no light. Maybe moonlight. Depends what kind of night. Some nights there're all stars. They are far away but look close to each other. They look small but they’re not small at all. Just far away from the green house.

Come morning:

[Pick it up. Where is it?] [Pic k it up. Where is it?] [Pick i t up. Where is it?] It’s there! [Pick it up. Where is it?] [Pick it up. Where is it?] [P ic k it u p. Wh ere is it?] It’s there! [Pick it up. Where is it?] [Pick it u p. Wher e is it?] [P ick it up. Where is it?] It’s there! [Pic k it u p. Where is it?] [Pi ck it up. Where is it?] [Pick it u p. W he re is i t?] It’s there! [Pi ck it up. Wh ere is it?] [Pi ck it u p. Whe re i s it?] [Pi ck it up. W here is it?] It’s there! [Pi ck it up. W here is it?] [Pick i t up. Wh er e is it?] [Pick it up. Wher e i s it?] It’s there! [Pick it up. Where is it?] [Pick i t up. W he re i s it?] [Pic k it u p. W here is i t?] P ic k i t u p!

(Music by Marc Ribot without permission.)

Another day:

If you find this box I hope you like it. Please dont sell it. This box has never been sold. My grandfather made it and gave it to my dad and my dad gave it to me. You can give it to someone but please don’t sell it. It is meant to be a gift. Though you might be tempted to sell it. Please dont. I put it on the street cause I can’t think of anyone I know that would not sell it. Everybody is selling everything. Please dont sell this box.

Last Day:

A lady with cloudy hair sold me a sack of candy. I emptied it in the dirt for the orphans.

The blue moon chuckles. A red crab collects what little is left behind while the orphans digest and the bells rest. I leave them in the night so I can walk alone. I sleep on an out-of-tune piano. The orphans gather around me in the morning. They’ve returned to my side and make me promise never to leave them again. I climb down from the piano. Toes tap a little tune. Look for my hat but remember Uncle Dust. Not since the accident. The orphans found me a new hat. It fits a little big still just fine. When it’s time to go I go. The orphans follow. Only the dirt can say who follows the orphans.

Words by Brian Wask and videos by Gabriel Comrie Pepin.

Blogging 101: Nothing Much Going On Again

I’m reading some books I really like. By authors I’ve never heard of.

I’m writing a book I kind of like. It’s by me.

It will be published soon, I guess. By me or someone else.

In the meantime I have a job. I didn’t always have a job.

Ask Milinda.

I should check Facebook. Someone might be “Tired.” Or maybe someone I know is “Swimming.”

Summer is very hot in New York and I don’t really love the park in the summer so I spend most of my time inside. I don’t use an air-conditioner because it’s loud (and the energy is expensive). So it’s always hot inside.

My neighbor above is loud. I know he’s a fool and probably a sociopath. I’ve had words with him about it but he thinks he’s entitled because this is New York and the city is loud. That’s mostly true.

Maybe I need to find a new town. I’d like to stay in New York but I’m afraid it’s not for me anymore. It is loud. And it’s fake. And everyone is so self-aware you can’t walk done the street without someone drilling your eyes, trying to figure out what your wearing and why you’re wearing it. I used to walk down the street oblivious. Now I feel trapped, like I’m being interviewed.

I’m a writer in New York City. That’s cliché. I should be a writer in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Even Cleveland would be better. I guess I should’ve figured this out years ago but it’s not so bad I figured it out now.

There are a lot of great minds in New York. I’m confident I’m not one of them.

Confidence is okay.

The books I’m reading are called fiction, and I’m sure they are, though they capture some form of reality. I think that’s important to understand. There is not one reality. There are several realities.

Some people can write things down exactly the way they happened. But they leave out the nonsense. That’s what makes it good.

History is not a certain reality.

Some people say New York City used to be shitty. Other people say it used be the shit.

Here is a picture of me with nothing much going on:

I used the camera on my computer to take that picture. I make funny faces when I write and I often worry someone is watching me through the camera on the computer.

The rivers around Manhattan are starting to feel like the Pacific around Alcatraz. Manhattan would make a great prison. Perhaps it is a prison. If I didn’t know what a prison was like I would say something like, “Sometimes it feels like a prison.”

I feel bad for most of the people in prison. Some of them are killers and rapists and I don’t feel bad for them. But I do feel bad for most of them.

I heard

that

California builds more prisons than schools.

and

Several other states are doing the same.

That sounds like a great idea.

Maybe I should blog about it.

7.27.2010

Noah Cicero Is Here To Save the World

BY BRIAN WASK

Amazon.com recommended Noah Cicero.

Thank you Amazon.com. While I’m at it thank you internet, the web, Jobs, internet inventors, truck drivers, Gore, teachers.

I don’t know what Noah Cicero is like in real life, but his show is the real thing.

“Don’t try.” - Bukowski

Cicero knows his shit. A little. No one knows a lot.

He can never sell out. He could fool everyone with something commercial. The President and Oprah would never know. Ellen too. He can only pretend to sell out.

Noah Cicero trashes New York for all the right reasons. Too bad he doesn’t see it like I do. He needs better New York friends. I’m sure the ones he has are nice but that doesn’t mean they don’t suck. Maybe they like clubs more than homes. A lot of New Yorkers are like that. They suck. He should visit better people.

New York is cliché and predictable. That’s redundant. New York is not redundant. It is predictable.

The Human War by this Noah Cicero guy is the shit. I should burn it and cook over it. We should eat its flames. That’s not literal. It’s culinary. This book is literal.

It hard to write about Noah Cicero without sounding fake. He sounds so real. I’ve never seen anyone say so little and blow the page up like Cicero. Sometimes I think the world is going to blow up when I finish reading Noah Cicero. It just seems like the perfect time for the world to explode. Just when I’m like “Huh” it can explode but I’ll find a place to land.

A short story in the back of The Human War sounds like a small recorder left behind and found by a sweeper in overalls. The story is called Little Flowers. I don’t believe it happened exactly the way Noah Cicero says, but I trust he thinks it did. And I hope it could.

Noah Cicero tells the truth.

Bastard.

Failure.

Hero.

Writer.

Pervert.

Noah Cicero makes all the other writers punch the sky.

Faulkner’s jaw would drop.

Hemmingway’s drink would spill.

Kerouac’s hiccups would reveal all his insecurities.

Enough praise. Now for some harsh judgment: Noah Cicero, Don’t try harder. You’re fucked. You nailed it and now you have to carry it. Leave it to us hacks to suck on the masses. You need to write for History.

Leave it to they people to suck on the masses:

Dan Aurebach

Chuck Palinknuk

Michale Chabon

Brian Wask

Ryan Gossling

The guy from How I Met Your Mother

Football player

(Notice there are no woman listed. This is because they’re not fucking up like men. We top them is the fucking shit up category so much they have there own category, but it doesn’t even compare to the men’s so it’s not included.)

In closing, thanks Noah Cicero for reminding me about the truth. You are a true piece of shit. I don’t pass that title out often.

Next step: Read his other books. He better not piss me off. I’m optimistic.

Noah Cicero, in the mean time, don’t kill yourself. I’m expecting a resurrection with your name all over it.

7.12.2011

We Should Build a Mountain

By Brain Wask

They should forget about building a tower at Ground Zero. It’s not going to say much besides we’re good at making buildings. That’s obvious if you look around.

They should make a mountain.

I’d like to see it from Midtown, like we used to see the Towers.

Downtown.

If they made a mountain we could climb it and grow trees on it. Even let animals live on it. Not bears. Maybe condors instead. They might like it here. They don’t have it so good where they live. When they eat they get too heavy to fly and that’s when they’re vulnerable to hunters. But we can hunt them here too. Somewhere around the Bowery. Just so they remember they’re condors.

Ultimately, I think there should be a river passing through the mountain. It doesn’t have to be right away.

Everybody wants to do things right away because they think the Earth was made in six days. I don’t think it was so I’m not in such a hurry.

Another tower is the obvious idea for a replacement. That’s why we’re making a tower. It will be a building. But a boring one with boring jobs and more fancy New York gastro pubs. Boring. We have enough of both in New York. A mountain would not be so boring, and it would be better for the environment. And it would look awesome from Midtown. All the tourists in Times Square could look up from the violent and sexual billboards and see the mountain.

I think a mountain would secure more jobs as well, and a whole new way of doing things in New York, maybe even the Sates.

I feel like most of the United Sates would like to see New York City sink. Some would like to see it bombed. I don’t think any Liberals would like to see it bombed, but I do think there is a small fraction of Conservatives that do (Maybe a big one, you tell me). They believe in the John Birch Society and follow Glenn Beck. And he’s a nut. I don’t think his crying is anything but self-indulgent. He’s also a fool and I’m pretty sure he’s knows it.

Imagine you could see the mountain from Brooklyn and Jersey City. That would make an interesting skyline. There would be no other like it.

If it’s possible we should do it.

The greatest accomplishments remain after the chaos has settled.

Some people believe life is better when stability prevails.

Conflict is good.

Structure is not as good.

Violence applies to both.

The mountain could also be used to collect water, or maybe energy. I’m sure mountains benefit people more than buildings. It would take just as many people to build a mountain than it would a building, so no loss on jobs there. The cost of maintaining the mountain would be covered by tourism revenue. There is really no reason why we shouldn’t make a mountain except we can’t.

Somebody built an archipelago in Dubai.

People could argue there will be more mosquitoes and more rodents because of the mountain. But I don’t have anything to say about that.

Kids growing up in the city would be better off with a mountain around. Because it’s a city doesn’t mean it can’t have a mountain in it. It didn’t always have buildings. The island was mostly beavers at some point.

The idea mountains don’t belong in Manhattan is limited.

Limited is simple.

Maybe New York City is Limited.

I don’t care.