This turns into this:
The Rope- a project I've been working on. Slightly inspired by the Gowns song. Images in no particular order
One obsession for every year of cognitive recognition
1985: My sister’s room and the porcelain harlequin masks on her wall with the ribbons running down the sides.
1986: Grease, the movie. Summer nights.
1987: Going to my neighbor Alicia’s house with the Kool-aid plastic cups in the sink and the cars in the yard and the shades always drawn and the waterbed with the leak and the porn all over the floor. Her dad was a trucker and he let us smoke cigarettes. I smoked casually when I was seven because her dad thought it was funny. They were really kind people and I loved them very much. They watched out for me when my hypocrite family was out to lunch. We soon moved. I didn’t smoke another cigarette until the 90’s. Probably 1995.
1988: The song Brass Monkey. My entire school spent that entire year on the playground trying to figure out how to dance to it. This was my last year in public school. Also, Harry and the Henderson’s.
1989: I don’t remember being nine.
1990: My dog Triskit.
1991: Joey Molina. First crush on a human being. He was in my class and HOT for an 11 year old. Memorizing the words to Home Alone. I saw that shit in the theatres like, five times. First time I remember laughing during a movie so hard I cried. Also the first time I remember UNDERSTANDING the entire movie. This was big moment for me. Previous to this I always remember there being jokes in movies I didn’t get, or that were for adults only. This movie made sense to me and grown ups were laughing too. I can’t stress how much of a big deal this was for me. I understood that language was powerful if you had the secret code.
1992: Dark Wing Duck. For real.
1993: Television. Anything on television I ate drank breathed pissed shat television. People have asked me if I read a lot of books as a kid, and I did, but not more than any other latchkey kid and nothing overly intellectual or articulate, R.L Stine, Babysitters Club. My writing and my wanting to be a writer I am convinced is from watching tons of TV shows and movies when I was young. I use a lot of dialogue in my fiction.
1994: RIP Parader, Heavy Metal Magazine. Use your Illusion. The Crow. Hole. A lot happened this year.
1995: Soundgarden, Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor.
1996: My first journal.
1997: My zine, I Do Not Have Penis Breath. Ian Hawke, the 17-year-old punk kid in my high school who lived alone and was a vegetarian and smoked and drank and was just cool as shit. I hear he lives in Portland now. This was the first person I ever fell in love with and we never even kissed. We were friends though.
1998: WEEED DEMON. As in I became one. It went from casual to daily maintenance. Dood it was fuuuun. I don’t smoke anymore but I still forget the word for ‘spoon’ every now and then or sit at stop signs waiting for them to turn green. Ask Katie Herzog, she’s witnessed this in person.
1999: Um, my apartment and living ALONE. So in other words, getting FACED 24/7.
Lester Bangs. Johnny Thunders.
2000: Skater daaaaaaater. Seriously I had pro skater dater fever. I think I got hit on the head with a brick and zonked out that year. I don’t know wtf I was thinking. J-m G---o had me by the nuts. Droogs all the time.
2001: SWANG PARTY TIME.
2002: SWANG PARTY TIME.
2003: Brooklyn. Laura, Athena, Buddy, Michelle, Lisa, Busy, shit everyone. That was a RAD year. Going to shows, falling in love with Heather.
2003 part deux: Charlotte.
2004: College, actually. I got really into school and was on the Deans List. First attempt at getting sober, started going to Blue Stalkings alot and helping Ann Snitow my professor. Becoming friends with people from different backgrounds and lifestyles and class brackets. Hanging out and doing things in the city with Aaron, Blair, Rachel, Capri and Alex. College friends I still know and love.
Reading Ellen Willis on the L. My head exploded. Still putting it back on in awe.
2005: Falling in love for the first time. Real love, not kid love. I will die for you have your baby if you want me to love. No time for that shit now, it’s CONSUMING. I’ve got things to do. Get back to me in a year or two.
2006: Sobes. I wasn’t really obsessed with this but it became the all driving force in my life and pretty much the focus of that entire year.
2007: LA Record.
2008: Moving across the country. Putting my head back on.
2009: I’m currently obsessed with getting shit done.
