Shikow

Mars, the Painting 5 days!!

Only 5 days left for MArs, the Painting at auction. It looks like Jim may be the lucky owner.

of course, i know some of you are waiting for that last minute rush.

just a reminder. 5 days left.

bid on it here.

I have 11minutes and seven seconds to connect with my peeps. This is all I got. No internet. That means I have a dollar a day at the cafemachines. It makes for a nice writing practice. What canI write in, well, 10 minutes. Can I do a comic, an interview, and say something profound. Maybe, a poem. Let's see.

Tonight I fell asleep right after work. Tense day. Power went out over Los Angeles. Streets were filled. Went to the 7 11. They were closing.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"Power's out everywhere," the guy behind the counter said. "All the way to Venice."

"That's funny," I say to my WG crew with me. "Theelectric company was supposed to turn on my electricity today."

Apparently, this is funny. Everyone in the Sev cracks up. They make some jokes, but I don't hear them. I'm looking up at the sky - helicoptors andplanes. Cop cars everywhere.

"Looting," one Sev employee says. "We're closing."

Me and the WG Crew (Loggers United, or Lou for short) walk back to Mama's and Papa's pizza place, that runs on gas. I get a tuna fish and fries. Pizza for everyone else. Fitzy gets chickenpar,. I love that he got chicken parm. I would have got chicken parm, if I had thought about it. I didn't though. Just protein.

Interview.........

Were you scared?

P: Yeah, totally. I mean, who expects that kind of thing. A whole city in the dark. It made me think of terrorism. It made me think about what I could write to say goodbye. That was my first thought.

Whatwas your next?

P: Tuna fish. I wanted fries. I wanted tobasco. I thought about all the beautiful women I wouldn't get too meet.

Did you really?

P: Well, I thought about one. Time is short, you know. AnywayI love you guys. Notmuch time left Got to publish.

A comic........

I stole this image. But here it is.

; > (bird)

;* > (cries)

; > (for itself)

8 (turn this sideways)

A minute here. Okay. Now to say goodbye. Oh, but wait. I am in the new apartment. No furniture. I like it that way. I sleep on the floor. I paint in the big empty living room. I got a refrigertator. My only purchase. $35. Works great. This guy helped me walk it to the apartment ($5). He was real sweet. Told me about his journey to L.A..

It seems no one is from here. They all come through some type of catastrophe, some big dream, a great aching hope that pushes them past rail cars, and Twain's fronteir, to the open-hearted munificene of palm trees and stars. Lots of stars. Blackouts. And time running out. But I'm comfortable. I'm getting cocky. I can do this. I can make it. I have.

I'm alive, folks. This is P to the HY hizzle, signing off in a now electrically restored night. The Sev is back in business. The streets are happy. I think of you all. Here, at the sabe. A cigarette in hand. Thanks for stopping by. I will see you on the flip.

Love,

Pirooz

P.S.

What does the bird think of L.A.?

P: Oh, it likes it. The tears especially. Smiles aren't bad either. I've got him on my shoulder now. Zippedy Doo Da, they say. In my childhood. On the big screen. Out there to you. To this moment. To life. To my last words. Or on going. Going. Peace.

; > -8, turn this sideways! You'll get the bird's first techie smile. Audi

; > )

The Journey Continues: The Persian Rugs

This blog has no title. It's like The White Album. What's up?

First things first, for all of you tennis fans, Agassi beat Blake in a fifth set tiebreak. The Semi's will be aired Saturday (12pm-6pm) on CBS.

Agassi beat Xavier too :)

The above was my first technological smile. It is probably my last. Except when I mention that Jim's Whole Milk will be published by Effing Press :) That was the second.

Now onto a response to Jim's post. Jim said:

"...Blogging is about community. Pirooz believes people are excluded here (maybe he will comment on this), but I see it very differently, I see this place as one of the most inclusive places I have been. How often do you walk up to someone of the same sex and say hello? I don’t do it very often. And honestly, when I am on the street minding my own, I don’t like it when others do it. But here, we can always say hello. I like it when people come over and visit. then I can go and see them and meet their friends. I think the community is getting larger..."

In this context, it seems like I'm against blogging. That is not the case. I am not against anyone connecting with people. No, what I was commenting on, specifically, was the literary world, and, on a much broader sense, the exclusion present in all artistic genres.

What do I mean?

Well, I'll tell you. It's about language, baby. Language. For me, language is the key to any situation. In a job, if you got JobSpeak down, you get the job. You got WhopperTalk flowing, you talk Whoppers. If there's some HeartSpeak on the dash, well then dash that out. Right on. Straight up now tell me...

Now my issue, and this is my thing, so take it or leave it, is that my language, my writing language is funky and fresh. It likes to take a dip in uncharted territories. It likes a good car wash. It doesn't mind giving a shout out to Eskimo Pies or Transformers. In short, I dig writing aka language that connects to me and my crew. Mainly, me, so far, and you, my crew, who are reading this.

Now when I go visit other blogs, other circles, if you will, most won't respond to anything I say. They're like, "What is he saying?" My complete guess on this is that I write like I'm doing here. If you've visited this site once, you know I can delve into various voices. Some are a bit more WHACK than other, or like Michelangelo says, "you talk like a little kid and someone stuck in the 50's."

Now you take this G money fake sound chink the change roll busting, and throw that mustard jargon onto an uninformed, or better yet, strange environment, and people tend to dismiss certain comments. They're like, "Hmmm. He is from South Pole. Most abort. Must take sequence A to square root of major silliness."

This judgment factor, which is a fact of reality, has got me thinking about language in general. That maybe, the true unifier for our country lies not in race, religion, etc., but in language. That if we were all given an equal chance at adopting a certain level of language, we would be less inclined to turn certain people off, because they like to sing, "Nothing but a G thang, baby. Two loped out niggaz goin crazy. Death Row is the label that pays me."

Or, better still, have an artistic community that is open to language outside the traditional poetic discourse. That can jam it sideways with a hammer on the porch of goodness. That will say, "I just didn't like the poem. It was too cotton mothball which way wild on the freeloader."

In other words, or Shortspeak:

Wouldn't it be great if I could write a query or memo that starts with Yo? Wouldn't it be easier to write a poem without deciphering astericks marks and back slashes, and just have a line like, "I like milk. Whole milk." It's that simple for me.

I am calling out to the world with my simplicity. I am not excluding anyone. There is nothing wrong with poetic discourse. I simply wonder how change is possible with language. That the true change in our political framework is in direct relation to how we view language within certain settings (academic, government, corporate), and our willingness to subvert old modes of political correctness/propriety/and unwritten laws for the mustard inside all our hearts i.e.

Memo 201.673
Re: This Poem

Yo! Frank

You get my memo? I gave it to Susie. I made it into a Chinese star. You can throw it and everything. I bet it could go through a window. It's sharp. I used cardboard. Well, hopefully, you got it. We got that board meeting at 3. Jim wanted you to use his poem for the presentation. He says if they don't get what you're saying just throw it at Fillmore. His numbers have been slipping. It will send a message.

Anyway, hope it goes well. Let me know if you need another poem. This one took a long time to write. I might use an envelope next time. I think I can use the metal clasp. It will make the Chinese Star that much better.

I'll see you at the meeting, P.

Mars, the Painting

The latest painting. It moves me very much. The script is Japanese and Korean on the side. They say beautiful things. "Samurai" things like that. Anyway, I am going to be finishing Mars or Bust soon. This may be the cover for it. So if you but this painting, take a quality picture for me. The auction ends in 10 days. Bidding starts at $200.

Moksha-- if you want it, make a bid.

Jim--This is in regards to the post I deleted. I am not upset. Just sending a shout to the world. I will do that on occasion. The academy is not my concern though. I think about my family, friends, you, my new apartment...

That's right, folks. New apartment. After moving to L.A. in July, and living on a couch until now, I will finally have a place of my own. Of course, I have no furniture. I also have no money. I am selling this painting to provide me with a bed and desk to write on. If there's any left over, I might get a refrigerator.

Anyway, love to you all. I will post a comic later tonight. For those that visit me during the wee hours (M-'just a wee bit), it's Mars or Bust, baby. Mars or Bust.