cable, needle, dradle

so our grace period on the introductory comcast offer is over. no more grace. we were getting an amazing deal! of internet and 29 channels for around $55, but now that our grace period is over we're rocking like $64 total. I called to see if we could just ditch cable and only get internet. right now, our bill has internet listed as $45 a month and cable listed as $14 (plus tax plus plus). Well, if you get rid of TV, the price of internet goes up to... EXACTLY the same price as internet + TV.

What the fuck? Why is there an economic incentive to get cable TV? Why are we baited to beam in some bullshit that we never even watch? I think it's totally fucked up that they control the flow of information into our house with discounts. The customer sales rep just said the discount is for signing up for more "services" from comcast. Don't fucking play me like a drooling hamster; set a price for the service and let me choose which ones I want.

at any rate, the cable we receive is ridiculous. we have local channels, 10 spanish channels, and cspan and pbs. Don't get me wrong, I love cspan and cbs, but why are we paying for this? to bump up the the next level ("BASIC PLUS!!!!") would cost us an extra $45. is this normal? does most everyone just pay around $100 for information that should be free? (we're paying for adverts.) I told the rep that youtube and free wi-fi are taking over soon, and companies like his are soon to be a thing of the past and the sooner the better. I wanted him to tell me that my aggression was misplaced so that I could sympathize with his humanity. INstead he just fed me the company line of, "well everything we do is for a reason and our policies are quite fair and bla."

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preparing this weekend for a coworker-based group climbing the needle again. I've achieved a low-level legendary status (i.e. not a legend at all, except in my own mind) amongst my coworkers for completing the needle hike. I didn't think it was too rigorous, and all of my direction was printed off of two websites. Hopefully after this weekend we'll all be legends, but the wind might be a factor on saturday. It has been horrendously windy for the past week, and it's supposed to continue like this through march--seasonal winds as the sailors around here call them. I think the wind will add some grit to our hike, but the coworkers are worried about the wind blowing us off the mountain. I don't think it's physically possible to get blown off a mountain; the wind will only add an element of misery which will further turn us to stone gods, which is what I thought the point of the trip was anyway.

hopefully the day is calm and nobody rolls an ankle at 8500 ft.

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I had a dream about chase last night. chase and I were bopping around the city looking for his brother joel. everything was good old times with him and I, sharing all kinds of memories, except we didn't know where joel was. neither of us wanted to say that he might be dead, so we just traipsed along like normal. I remember how we talked about thai food in the dream and he was driving his bonneville. the cat woke me up by lying directly on my back and licking herself raw.

gavaga

I'm in the wrong
fucking business


the best a potter
can hope to achieve

is to be a
really good potter

I know of maybe two
(more like one) !

genius potter
alone in the mix

changing the face of the place


now, take
a man whose in a band

or a man
whose in a film

if they do well,
they are revered

if they perform
excellance

they will be remember from
generation to generation

as geniusi of the stage

I'm in the wrong fucking/
business!

why not perforM?

that's the place to be.

I knew one
who might'a made it

he's gone now
but he looked good

he talked good
he moved good

all around he pleased my eye
which can be like a pickle

talking on and on
he moved around the room

and grabbed you
in his fix

he's gone now

oscars come like
a bowel movement

what do they know
with their faces which

they didn't work for
nor have they transfixed

but for a moment
I transposed unto that spot

I shimmering hope
a glittering trope

of shit

of hope

it's gone!

gone gone gone
unto the other shore
achieved the other shore

moments lost and necessary
un-retainable

my morning jacket

I love this band. I remember seeing this live on conan back when we lived with chase at 119. Although I think everyone was there that night, on the downstairs couch, except for chase. but these guys are awesome and molly doesn't really let me listen to them. still haven't gotten their most recent record, but the last one is one of my favorites.

cruces redux

home again home again
jiggedy jig

returning from the twin cities and elk river (the triplet cities, truly), the mind races. what an intense and concentrated form of time we all experienced there this last weekend. the gamut was truly run.

as bad as it all was, I couldn't imagine the memorial going any better. People really came out of themselves to represent Chase Korte. it was such a moving mix of humor and sadness, anger and love, that I was speechless and numb. I've never felt like the way I did going to bed saturday night. thing of it was, waking up on sunday morning, I felt better. the memorial worked.

though in some ways I'm anticipating complications with chase's death. I see closure being something hard to achieve in this event. as close as chase was, as much as I loved him, he was only my friend. and how many friends can we all think of that have simply drifted off--died the death of geographic inconvenience? in other words, how can I make this experience more than just another out of touch friend? also in other words, I think I'm still in denial that chase is dead. it truly does not seem real. even after seeing so many people grieve for him I feel that he is within reach--he still seems real. this is a small part of the tension that has been wedged into our lives. ben and I have talked recently about the many contradictions of death, the impossibility of reconciling our feelings with actual events. From Ben I was surprised to hear this. That such a truly religious man could feel a similar ambivalence about these events, and still be completely in line with his beliefs, was oddly comforting.


hom again home again jiggidy jig.

visitors coming visitors coming

let me hear both sides, let me hear both

visitors coming visitors coming

women and children first!

tomorrow I'm going to be MC of the second annual Alma Open Mic Night, which is not actually open mic but an organized variety show with carefully regimented, non-open mic slots.

goals for me for the school studio--pug mill, new glazing set-up, workable slide booth for portfolio-quality pictures.

I'm organizing another trip to the summit of the organ needle. tentative date is march 17 and the group is mostly my americorps coworkers.

I got my slides in for the juried exhibition to the cruces museum of art, called, "From the Ground Up." I'll find out if I made it by March 16.

happy year of the pig!

Recent Work, musings on Chase, etc.

Here is a new round of slides. I have to choose 4 pics to send to the museum show in May. Which ones do you think are winners, if any?

So we got our tickets and we'll be coming in to mpls. around 4 pm friday. Thanks mucho mucho mucho to Ben for helping us out with the plane deal.

Saturday is the memorial at the high school. I'm not looking forward to this experience, but at the same time I need it and we all need it and it's not going to be easy at all.

In elementary school, Chase and I didn't really hook up until 5th grade (so late!). That was when two heretofore unmeshed groups collided in the glory hole known as Ozabs. Chase, Dwyer, Grupa, myself, and a newcomer with a southern drawl who insisted we call him Pokey. Zack Taylor was definitely in the house. I should also mention Josh Lanto--he was in the mix. Others as well--I don't have the yearbook handy. Comment on people I left out in the 'comments' section.

It seems my most striking impression of chase at this point is his drawing. We were somehow all united by our drawings. Our sketches were both point of pride and socialization. I drew and put out some good sketches, but looking back I must have surely been a fledgeling. Zack Taylor easily took top honors with his inventiveness as well as his deft touch. Chase was close behind him, and what Chase lacked in touch he made up for in originality and characteristic style.

I don't know who figured it would be ok to let us all be in the same class. We were really rowdy, and there were a lot of laughs. Still, Chase and I were in different groups, one of us in 'A' and one of us in 'B,' so we weren't involved together in all late-elementary activities.

Junior High seemed to mark some kind of turning point in our friendship. While we each acquired new members of our social circles, chase and I grew closer during 7-8-9th grades.

god this is dry. This is too dry. I wanted to leave a trace of our lives together, to convey something of the excitement we generated together, and this account is doing neither. I feel like I'm hogging him by relaying things this way--highlighting what I remember of him, what we did him and I. What about all our other friends? What about the tensions, the fights, the push and pull of our actual relationship?

I remember once Chase, Dwyer and I were hanging out at my house in Ramsey. somehow chase and I got into it and started wrestling pretty violently. I don't know what we were fighting about, but Dwyer got kind of nervous and didn't know what to do. As Chase and I circled eachother, looking for weaknesses in the other's defense, Dwyer had quietly gone over to the stereo and put on "(That's why I say) Hey Man Nice Shot" by Filter! That was pretty tense, but it seems really fun now. I guess that's the kind of thing that really builds respect for someone--Dwyer and Chase in this case--sharing the tough times as well as the easy.

fuck

In junior high... maybe around 8th grade? commaford--I know this. Chase and I started kind of scratching our heads why we didn't have any classes together. Our other friends also noticed something odd about this. Eventually we decided it must have been an intentional conspiracy perpetrated by our teacher enemies. We all came up with the name TAJAC--teachers against joe and chase. We confronted commaford about TAJAC. I'm pretty sure she fessed up without missing a beat. apparently we were a handful.

of course they allowed certain outlets for our brand of... energy. We had a weekly? radio show that was performed on the morning announcements to the entire school. Chase wrote one particularly risqu-ay bit (of course in a british accented dialogue) where I was kind of off-color for the entire skit and he interjects about half way through:

"Nigel, you sound a bit under the weather this morning--"

"Yes, I'm hungover!" We both got kind of blasted for that one.

There was also the glorious peace rally--easily one of the funnest things I've ever done in my educational career. What can I say about this? Watch the video. I have to thank chase for that oppurtunity. Even back then I was a bit of a hermit, and Chase had to really cajole me into agreeing to co-write and co-produce that beast. i'm so glad I did agree.

Likewise with the talent show, which got a few kids suspended. Prosser was dressed up as the stay-puffed marshmallow man. You just had to ride Chase's wave sometimes, or you knew you would regret it so much if you missed it, even though to ride would probably induce a slight discomfort.

my memory is shit. there is so much I'm missing. it's hard to narrate something this big. for the sake of blog-clarity I'm wishing Chase wasn't such a good friend. i wish I could related 3 or 4 episodes and come off clean. In my mind it makes more sense--I see how we all related together, not just Chase and I but all of us--I see each of our unique energies contributing to something great.

elementary and junior high were fucking fun.

"now you're all gone, gotchyer make up on/ and you're not coming back (can't you come back?)"

*+*+*+*+*+*

Valentine's day was spent in a cheap mexican restaurant. As molly and I held hands with a mariachi speaker blowing directly behind my head, she said softly, "I don't need no fucking valentine's day." What a girl!

Good chats with many friends these last couple days. ben related the physical pain and exhaustion of this grief. I told him I feel sick, and it's not just the booze or the head cold. He said it comes in waves and sometimes it just hits you in the face like fresh. all true.

then there was a nice drunk dial from andy hurt and ari. Interesting twist thinking about relaying these stories to hurt's infant son: "Frank, you're not gonna believe what your dad told me last night. Something about 'hide the whitesnake.'"

note to self: no more listening to Van Morrison's "Astral Weeks" while at work. Keep it light at work dude!

tomorrow I'm going to take ben and molly's advice and tell my colleagues about chase. I've been holding back because I don't want to burden them and I can't make sense of it (see above). but I need to tell them what he meant to me.

early chase

my first memories of chase I cannot pinpoint. my last memories of him are electronically dated.

back to the first. I think I knew him initially throught cub scouts. we both went to parker so that also might be a lead. but I think it was in cub scouts, which I joined because my brother had joined earlier. Chase was the older brother, a slight difference between us that kept a pleasurable itch of a tension in our relationship. What does joel feel now? I can't imagine, nor for his parents. but cub scouts. we were in the same troop, but different... what were they called? shit. packs? dens? I was in dragon with matt boe, matt kapsner (sidejob), ryan harding, that jim kid with his mom genie, and god I feel guilty for forgetting the rest. I'm drunk and my memory is shit to begin with.

we were the dragons. I don't know chase's group. he was with dwyer, grupa, and others--I always envied their group. we didn't mix except at troop 111 meetings at central luthran. "announcements, announcements, ANNOUNCEMENTS!!!" what I truly remember about chase, firstly, is the cub scout olympics. they usually took place at this "scout camp." I can't remember where it was (rum river?) but I remember what it looked like. Is like a presposition? Can I not end a sentence with that? Point being, I remember CHASE, first and foremost, from this "cub scout" "olympics." AND I Apoligize if i can't name any other lovely people that were there, at this time, then, because this is supposed to be about chase. All of your faces are in my mind.

See, the only reason I woudl remember (god dammit--'remember' is a hard word to type!) chase at these events is because he was the star. he was 'A' star. I was competitive when I was much younger (I'm still young) (I'm still competitive). I "REMEMBER" being kind of mad at him, because I thought I was going to win those events--all of them. but Chase took Gold--in mostly everything. He must have won at least a youthful fistful of cub scout olympic medals in his cub scout youthful prime--that son of a beeswaxx.

two events--these I remember especially. First, I remember the 50-yard dash. Chase killed in this. I couldn't hope to best him or anyone in this event; i was more of a distance guy, something I still console myself with to this day. Who was his rival in the 50-yard dash? some upstart from some other group, surely. I can't remember. I feel that in Parker Elementary, which was almost--but no quite--the same thing as troop 111 cub scouts, chase would still take the gold, but he would've had to best the likes of Nate Droogma and... fuck! some other fast kid!

The other event--more formative in my mind--was the "softball toss--" a free-form throw of an oversize-baseball into the ether. I didn't have a chance, but someone from my "sector 12-B" did--and his name was Matt Boe. this dude could toss a ball. However, i think, in keeping with my vague accountings of first memories of chase korte, chase could throw slightly further. and further he did throw--he did. I know, on at least one occasion, Chase took the title on the softball throw. this is my first memory of the man, my dear friend, who is now dead.

Why do I recount such a story? Besides hopefully launching nuggets into the electronic ether (a phrase I've turned more than once in this blurred 'eve), I want to impart something central to my understanding of the man that was known as Chase Korte. that thing is this:

he was a specimen.

Chase Korte was a physical specimen to rival any. From his supple calves to his strong shoulders, this was a man to admire--if you were in to anatomy. Sound perverted? well, not really, if you were one like me, who was able to admire him from childhood onward--a genetic narrative played out in the highest linguistic register. (needless to say, for those that are familiar with the bloodline, Joel Korte, his younger brother, was--is!--fuck how death fucks with our tenses!--also a prized specimen of physical acuity--perhaps more so.) God he was strong.

Which makes my first memory of chase all the bitterer. Think of it. I mean really, think of it. He was a strong boy, awarded with medals for his physical acumen, recognized by many as a purveyor of the athletic ideal. He was involved throughout his formative years in any number of athletics, from the organized basketball leagues to the chase-created sledding leagues on his own backyard. Relish his calves, his torso, and his arms--I did and so did many others, much older than me.

I don't want to spell it out for you--I don' t mean to insult your cognitive skills--but I must spell it out for my own peace of mind. He was burned in a fiery explosion. Apparently, from what I can gather through my cell phone, his car was "an inferno." this is so wrong. I've even heard reports of a "fiery explosion--" something out of a sly stone movie.

what the fuck?

I've been re-working some lyrics from an early Beck song, trying to make myself more comfortable because I'm still alive and that's what we do when we're faced with something as horrific as what we now know of Chase Korte's death. Is this not something that I should publish for the few friends and family and strangers who come across these drunkin ramblings? I don't know. I only know that I am purging myself of 'Chase in the realm of the living' and it hurts.

such a beautiful body/ such a beautiful body
such a beautiful body/ such a beautiful body
and they burned it lord--all the way

yeah they burned it lord--all the way

he was my brother/ he was my brother
he was my brother/ he was my brother
all the way lord--all the way'
all the way lord--all the way

I hope he didn't die screaming/ I hope he didn't die screaming
I hope he didn't die screaming/ I hope he didn't die screaming
sleep quck lay down--all the way
lay him down lord--all the way

he chase the mountains/ he chase the waters
he chase the mountains/ he chase the waters
he chase the heavens, lord--all the way

he chase the heavens lord--all the way

I miss Chase.

why is Chase Korte dead?

it is so wrong. I want it to make sense, so I say things to myself that don't make sense. Perhaps he was bound for this? He was an accelerated spiritual seeker--more ardent than most in matters of truth. He burned a littler hotter than most. I want these facts to add up to a reason. But I cannot accept any justification for this senseless event.

I want him back. I don't want him to be dead anymore. I want him to live and make it big, to get a big break in a small film, recognized by a select but important few, and then to move into a bigger game, to get something on the national radar, a red carpet, an oscar nod.

I want to have new memories with him and not have to conjure up old ones as my only way of making him come alive. But now it can only be memories that I shared with Chase, no possibility of making new ones. that is so bad.

chase was a brother to me. our feelings for eachother were deep, mutual, and tacitly realized with each new interaction. I never imagined growing old with him because we never felt old when we were together--old wasn't something we dabbled in.

I feel sick and angry. My mind is a punching bag filled with dead leaves and wet dirt.

the man was so ambitious. he was joyous. he was strong and confident. he had many faces, and at the core of each one lie an earnest center of sincerity and good will. he was humble. he was funny. he was beat. he was brilliant.

dreams

before i go, here are some dreams that I actually remember:

the earlier one takes place in a trailer park type neighborhood in a desert scenario--probably somewhere in cruces. what is happening is that I've just secured a job at the local trailer park mcdonalds. I've got to work the drive thru register and do things like pour drive thru drinks and condiments. I'm actually worried about how I'm performing on the job and if I'll be able to cut it. in the back of my dream mind I'm thinking about fast food nation and how they said that a job at mcdonalds is supposed to be self-explanatory--"no training"--so that low-english immigrants can jump right in. In the front of my dream mind I'm thinking that if I can't cut it here I'll just go across the street to the trailer park burger king.

dream two, two nights ago, I'm in a gym with many other people, most of them younger than me and I'm playing 1 on 1 basketball with a growth-challenged young boy modeled after my cousin mark. except it's more of a freaky man-child than mark. also, he's my "little brother" like big bros. big sisters. he's beating me. every time I get past him, I know that he let me get past him, but that he wants me to get past him so I can perform a "graceful lay-up." I don't know if I'm missing the lay-ups on purpose, but they're sure not going in! wtf?

also, molly had terrible allergies two nights ago--yes, people at work and molly are getting bad allergies in february!--and she was sneezing up a storm! so anyways, she was weezing like a kazoo all night and I kept rolling her over to open up new temporary air ways. (this is all real, btw way, not dream land.) next day she says in her dream she was "weezing at a ween concert."

ha!

blooming february

sunny, 75, no wind, no clouds, beautiful sunsets, smells good, looks good, and trees are starting to get small buds on them. we have turned off the heater after only 2 months of intermittent use. other complaints aside, this climate is very nice. I keep telling myself to brace for the "warmth" (read: hellfire), but I think that'll be fine too. now if we can just avoid getting bit by a rattler or god ferbit a god damn black widder hoo!

I got a jazz guitar primer--a thin manual thick on esoteric jazzma. I am but an initiate, but the ways of the sus4 (and 2!), the dom7flat5th, and the aug7--these are within my reach. I can strum Desafinado, Satin Doll, and a pretty cool little bossa nova ditty. my goal is to be proficient in the bossa nova. It is a music I have enjoyed from time to time. Reminds me of my lost childhood in Bahia.

In the same trip to Barnes and Nobluh, fuel'd by ample gift certifs, I did pick up the new norman mailer novel, _The Castle and the Forest_. This was finished quickly, and I would recommend it highly to anyone who is interested in Hitler and does not shy away from disturbing bodily function descriptions--perhaps nurses or perverts. Norman Mailer seems preternaturally predisposed to speculations on the young Adolf Hitler's oral, anal, and genital fixations. However, beyond its sometimes comic visceral allegations, the novel is a brilliant work of art that plays on many levels including narrator's voice, history vs. narrative, supernaturalia, and authorship.

Also finished that Nabokov--whew! That's my 2nd Nabokov, after Lolita, and I would maybe think now I should've put down a couple others before that one... but it was pretty fun. It wasn't much of a story, but it was like just getting to sit down with a crazy genius and hearing him rap for 48 hours straight. If you like the genius flow, you'll finish it; if not, you'll not make it past part 1, and you won't be missing out.

"Also, today, something happened which I hope to understand in two or three days..." I participated in my first fully fledged (no partial fledgings here) sale of my own ceramics. It was a complete dud. Please, allow me to explain. The event was called "for the love of Art!" and it took place in the Mesilla plaza. I was hitching on to the Alma d'Arte-chartered booth, to which admission was waved. Woe be the artists that had to pay their way in! Expecting a plaza ringed with art booths, I was instead greeted by 5--five!--booths spread like beggars around the perimeter. apparently there was no advertising and no promoting to get actual artists here... so no sellers and no buyers. I guess it was, then, only partially fledged. On the plus side, I did end up selling two pieces--a mug for $12 and a large bowl for $40 = $52 which I mostly and promptly spent on beer and onion rings. Those were the only two pieces sold at our proud booth during this shameful day. So my art career--or artreer--has yet to blast forth from yon launch pad. But I did taste a smidgering of wits-based success. It tasted like fried onions.

what else what else what else

oh yeah I'm a teacher! or "AmeriCorps Artist." That's mostly going fine. I think I'm getting a little too chummy with the kids. The other night, as I removed my arm from around the waist of one of the girl students, to retrieve the bottle of wine that was being passed to me by one of the boy students, another student said, "dude, your [sic] our teacher!" and they all cracked up in my face. "Surely you jest!" Of course, nothing of the sort transpired here or there at this time or anytime. But work levels are low and laugh levels are high, which probably means that I've got to put the pedal down a little bit and start "disciplining" the younglings. Quarter-term grades are upon us and hopefully those will provide the needed kick--more on all this later.

Kitty says hi.

Molly says hi.

Kitty says molly. Molly kitty hi. says hi Kit. mol sakitty aysolly. moiayes ittys ll hiom. hoim llitty aysy.

Amy Simpson's husband is some kind of naturalist. we had drinks and laundry over there the other night and glen--as he's called--regaled us with tales of owl spottings that he's partak'd in recently 'round town. Glen and owls are each, in their own different ways, very interesting creatures. Glen goes for walks late at night when Amy puts their young daughter, and then herself, to bed. Due to some unexplained naturalist training, he's able to track owls by things such as nests and pellets. Pellets are owl vomit nuggets that contain mice skulls and other exotic items. Find pellets and you're close to owls. Tonite I got a call from Amy inviting me to a confirmed Burrowing Owls' burrow, near the edge of NMSU campus. Sure enough Glen struck gold again and I found myself not 8 feet away from two burrowing owls in a burrow, the male with a "CF" tag on his left leg. Fun little 20 minute field trip.

Well that's most likely it for now. We're looking forward to simultaneous trips from Ben and Alex--the former from New York, NY and the latter from mpls--in mid-late march. We are also hoping that tax return money and fortuitous timing can propel us to san diego to view young franklin (and perhaps the wily Bar-Lev). I'm also assembling some choice jpegs for submission to a juried ceramics show at the cruces art museum.

ta!