Bees

So as most of you have heard the bees are dying. There have been numerous discussions about this in the media but, nobody really seems too worried. It could be some crazy bee disease, like “bee aids” or a parasite that is spreading through the bee community. Some examinations have been done and no conclusive evidence to the widespread decrease in bee populations is understood. Without bees we can’t have pollination and without pollination we won’t have fruits, flowers, and other foods. .. It could mean the infrastructure of the United States agricultural production could come to a screeching halt and change our lives forever. Just from bees dying. . .

I like bees a lot. They are really fascinating creatures. They create beautiful hives, have complex roles for their society, have a queen, look cool, have stingers, and kill all the male drones every year. There are 1000’s of different species and they create honey, one of the most perfect foods in the world. My grandfather use to have bees. He had some bee boxes and he would go and collect honey. Unfortunately when I was kid I was too young to help take care of the bees and I think he was worried I’d get stung and my dad would get mad. I really wish that he would have given me one of those bee hats and a smoker and sent me to the bee box to help him out. I hope someday I can have bees like he did and maybe I’d let my grandkids get stung by bees and look into a bee hive and gather honey that they’ll eat later that day on a piece of wheat bread.

So what spawned the writing of this post about bees is I’ve seen a couple dying bees recently. In previous posts I’ve mentioned the fact that I make moonshine. A few weeks ago as I was distilling in my backyard I saw a bee kind of hanging around the still and this was at night. From my understanding bees are at home at night sleeping in their cells and taking a break from flying around all day. So a few nights ago a bee showed up again. This one was really fucked up. Like the previous bee he was kind of crawling around on the ground and seemed to be definitely lost or something. This bee I noticed at one point was particularly close to my feet and was kind of rolling on to its back like it couldn’t get on its feet. I tried to flip it over with a leaf but, it just kept rolling back onto its wings. At some point I lost sight of the bee and I don’t know where it ended up.

The next morning I was in the kitchen and I noticed a dead bee on the cutting board. It wasn’t squashed or anything just lying there dead and not moving. Maybe it was sleeping I’m not sure. Either way this could have been the same bee or a new bee that was in a state of death around me. I’m sure you were like most kids and usually when you interacted with a bee it was buzzing around you, somewhat menacing considering the loud stingy sound it makes and you felt this fear. This fear of being stung and maybe instilled in you from Looney Tune cartoons that bees get into formation and chase you forming arrow shapes and you can only escape by diving underwater. Well now this was a new way to interact with this amazing creature. To be around it when it wasn’t in complete control of its airspace. Demanding you to leave it alone just by zig zaging around your head so you could hear its buzz and see its distinctive yellow and black stripes. It was sad to see these bees like this. So I don’t know what’s happening. I hope we’re not killing all the bees like we’re killing so many other things in the world: ice caps, whales, and each other.

Gold!

Yesterday, someone paid me back with a Sacagawea Dollar.

I'm still laughing.

hot cold

It’s finally not hot anymore. We’ve had a little heat wave here in the Los Angeles region of the United States and it’s been very unbearable. I grew up in a very humid and hot place in VA so I was trying to think why the heat here was so much worse. Two reasons. I don’t have my parents AC and they have no “real” trees here. The trees make such a difference. So the sun is setting in the west and my body has this awkward feeling of the skin being a little sticky and tense. It’s a very uncomfortable feeling but, every few seconds a breeze blows across the back of my neck so that keeps me in my skin for a while. It’s been a day off from work and in that day, I got a ton done. Cleaned the parts of the house that I live in, updated my website, organized photos and now it’s more work into the cool eve. Moonshing will begin soon but before then I felt like sharing a rambling thought of life with you all.

I couldn’t get into the studio today because, the heat would have made art making terrible and frustrating. I got some time to get things done so I’m not too worried about it. Just like life you have to avoid those tense moments in the studio. I feel like life is full of all these moments of restraint and understanding and I’ve been seeing that I am not always what I want to be. But, then what is it that I want to be? Right? Do you ask yourself this? Every morning are you questioning what you’re doing and where you’re heading and in the evening an uncertain sadness might creep into you. I’ve seen this happen to people I love and myself. What can give us a constant state of insurance? Like my bro. . .over on the other blog we wonder when we can trust others and when we can trust ourselves. In the work place it’s one thing and in our life and relationships it’s another. This struggle for understanding and happiness will go on and on I guess and I’m just embracing the riddles and troubles and going for a ride. I’ve known this for a really long time it’s just nice to remind myself that it’s way easier than it seems sometimes. You have to follow you heart. Toward people, work, art, everything and then that feeling of doubt doesn’t really appear so often..

Sometimes the front of my head hurts and the back of my neck tingles. Especially if I’m drinking a smoothie and it’s super hot out and also when I miss the people I love and it feels like they’ve disappeared. What is that? What is so powerful about loving those around us that we feel immediate pain and wonder all consumed in us at once? We’ve shed tears, shouted, and been angry, wanted to run away, forget who we are and do something we would have never dreamed of 1 minute earlier. We can destroy these connections that exist between us with a few words or gestures. With almost nothing at all everything that is here and there between us can vaporize and we’re left with those roots inside us burning for the life they once had outside of us and in another.

The heat kind of tests these things. It makes us not ourselves and if we can just relax and hopefully have cool water to cover ourselves in then we can make it through it without catching on fire. The cool water of our thoughts and feelings. Maybe I’m delirious but I want you to know I’m out here and I love you. Where ever you are. Is this why the middle east is in so much suffering? I know many reasons are apparent but, isn’t it strange how a lot of suffering in the world occurs in hot dry places and the peaceful countries are in cold dark places?

moonshine

Yesterday was a strange day. The moon has been acting funny and it made me feel a rather distant yet familiar side of myself come awake and walk around me. The night before I was working on this batch of absinthe. It’s a mixture of moonshine, water, and pounds of herbs. The herbs soak in the shine and water and for the distilling process I needed to squeeze out all of the juices. So that’s what I did in the moonshine for a few hours. Squeezed by hand pounds and pounds of herbs. It was rather relaxing but, I think I absorbed most of its herbal power into my body. The next day I woke up like normal but, then once my body began moving things felt different. My pee smelled peculiar and then the rest of the day was rather strange and a cloudy vision seemed to fill me. On my way to work I decided to take a different route than usual. Could this be from an inherent chemical boost in creativity? I got to work faster than normal and felt like things were going well. Then my thoughts became dreamy and hopeful. Reality seemed tinged with beauty and far off yet closeness. This strange feeling of being here and no where at the same time. I felt stress. I hated being in my cubical and it was sending me into negative spaces. Those caves inside full of stalagmites and stalactites that have formed over the years with droplets of your fear and anger. I said things I didn’t need to say and I didn’t know why. I let the bats fly out of that cave and now I’m sitting at the edge of the cave shaking my head and thinking that the squeezing of wormwood and anise could be to blame for my tangled thoughts.
Well nothing is too blame. It’s just the way things seem to go sometimes. We are always looking for something in this world to hold on to and to feel confident will always be there with us. Part of that thing inside me that I carry around is my art even though it’s a crazy 20 headed monster that is hard to tame and is constantly digging into my soul for little things to call its own. Then it’s other people. Those people we love and care for. We make our lives fit together. Sometimes really well other times some pieces are missing or different turns are taken. We all need space to grow by ourselves and with each other. One morning will be perfect and you want to relive that moment over and over. Life feels wonderful and like everything you see is breathing and trying to talk to you. Other times the sunshine is empty and you just don’t feel like anything around you is real. Currently the smog laden city of Los Angeles is causing my hands to sink into the tar. The black boiling sea that surrounds me, hundreds of rivers all smoothed together with all these holes and places to navigate around. We’ll see what the next mornings bring and if this absinthe works out. . .

Babies are Small

Real quick.

I've noticed lately that baby strollers are eclipsing Hummers in stature, footprint, standard features, and eco-destruction. To the manufacturers of these Multiple Big Gulp conveyances, these rolling tailgate parties, aisle hogging parade floats for overindulged babies, FUCK YOU.

That's all.

waking up in a mango colored tent

The perfect sunlight of sound
everything felt like it should and can’t not be

The touch breaths lucid eyes
dreams real all there for the taking

Slow movements before that cup of coffee
not too strong not too weak

Look at pictures read about people
hear stories see the color of your eyes

Just wanting it all to start over again
relive it again and again

Tortured happiness.
burn that bridge when we come to it

Being left on an island
stranded forever together

Making tree houses with all the parts no one wanted
little steps for little feet

Then the words came from the sweaters
people had visions while walking to the store

Everything tasted sweeter more alive
all those things we ever said and did were nothing

Living in this perfect nothing and then doing everything
right again over and over

So many wrong turns taken
when the cellar door was left open

All those dark parts came rolling out
we picked them up one by one and then let them go

Free in the green forest we’ve never been in
sleeping together in a mango colored tent

Things feel crazy today. ..

The news. . .WTF??? So many people dying in Iraq. All around the world. Why does it make me sad? Why do I feel connected to photographs of rumble, human suffering, all that stuff. It must be the connection to humanity. That acceptance of wanting to feel love and kindness for my fellow humans.

It’s going to be like this for a long time I feel like. This world doesn’t seem like it’s looking any better and maybe in 50 years bombs will be going off here and blowing up our landscape. . .This blog will be like a joke. It’ll be a memory. . We’ll talk about how we use to have the internet and cell phones and food. . .

Could it be possible? Yes. That’s what has happened to all those people in Iraq. Their lives use to be just like ours if not better. Different but, the same. Now it’s an apocalypse. Everyday you can read a new article about the war. Woman widows becoming prostitutes to buy food for their children. Families selling their virgin daughters to the wealthy. Bombs blowing up everyday, everywhere! This is real, people!!!!

I woke up this morning and watched some rap videos. Obviously as the afore posting indicates I love rap music. But, these videos are what you would stereotypically expect from the commercial rap community. Dude with his shirt off, tats, baseball hat, big bootie girl, money, cars, blah, blah, blah. . .It’s so U.S.A. it’s unbelievable. The object based nature of our lives. My life is very far from this world. I think about 99.9997% of people’s lives are. Even the people in these fantasy songs and videos. They know it’s a joke. We know it’s a joke. But, still it’s entertaining, it’s fun to think about being in that world. And most people want to be or think that world could actually be real and try to live it everyday. I’m in LA so I see this constantly. . .

I feel that’s what people are doing in the U.S.A. our lives are like those crazy blingtastic videos for real! Compared to the rest of the world we have our shirts off, giant cars, food, women, wealth, awesome teeth. It’s probably even crazier once you start breaking down how much we have and get and how easy it is to just be a citizen here. Michael Moore can criticize the government and so can I but, it’s what the American people believe in that’s what you need to think about.A balance is here between the people, government, companies, and everything else that is finely tuned and unbelievable that it’s all working. The markets are starting to go down so maybe it’s over. Think about Ralphs, the freeways, the internet. Everyone can get that stuff and have it as a part of their lives. Everyone reading this has these elements in their lives and uses them. I try not too but, millions of others do everyday in Los Angeles. But, it’s not that easy. I feel like crap about it all. I make things. I’m materialistic. I exist in this world that I don’t believe in and it’s all insane.

Life is beautiful and amazingly unpredictable. I love that. I feel like some truths do exist out there. Love, nature, and yourself. It’s nice to have all those things. . .So go back to reading NYtimes.com. Forget my preaching. Go back to trying to understand how we exist in this whole thing called Earth. Have fun and feel happiness and sadness. It’s all we have.