april into may

April came and is gone.. The month started out promisingly enough- a job, usually so elusive, just fell into my lap as I was picked up by "Rug and Carpet Caretakers" here in Mankato town. In the nick of time, no less... (My bank account had been steadily dwindling as bank accounts are oft to do.) A friend of mine was the in and I worked closely alongside him in the weeks following my hire. We were in the business of mending horrible and scarring atrocities done to the lawns of our winter snow removal clients. "Like putting a toupee on a whale." I says to Dan. Dan really liked that analogy. By the by work slowed down sumfin' fierce and By the end of the month I was let go. The discontinuation of our business relationship was comparable in many ways to nomadic communities' ceremonial: "crossing raging rivers a few miles up from the bridge so as to leave behind and to their fates all the old people burdening said nomadic communities"

"You basically got a month worth of free money" says Dan. "Eat shit." says I. I'll have to trounce him the next time we play chess. In all seriousness, I enjoyed working alongside the guy. He's a good man and if anyone thinks otherwise, they can just.. save it.

Between then and now there probably a few more milestones and points of interest.. My birthday for instance, it happened again. Now I'm a solid quarter century and life is opening up to me like some really pretty lotus. Morel hunting season came and went as well.. A modest but successful season, it was.

Above: blurry photographic evidence of morel hunting exploits. (photographic evidence tends to be...)


My birthday was a blast for the most part.. At least up until the end of my recollection of it. I opted for the standard overdrinking procedure that comes with the territory.. The best gift I received was from the lovely miss Jenna. A beautiful portrait done in pencil and a gift of watercolor paints and brushes. Thank you Jenna :).

Much of the weekend times this month were back and forths between Minneapolis and Katotown made in the name of love ;) The expensive long distance kind... But we manage, we do :).

One of my favorites city expeditions thus far has been the stone arch tour:
We walked around on a most beautiful afternoon with bellies full and Jenna's massive camera lens... We saw a technicolored segway tour, various city hardened waterfowl, several really adorable dogs... "did you see that one???" And we almost saw a skeleton down by the river. We think the dude was lying to his girlfriend, though..



Let's see.. An excuse for more photo highlights.


Above^ andre gets stuck in a tree on a morel scouting excursion.. He tore his pants, too. :)

Above. carl.. being cute.. the result of a cute cat contest with jenna :)

Above, Jenna being beautiful.

some pretty intertwined flowers^

Me having a snack.

Dave pissed dan off and rode in the back on the way home from a failed morel scouting excursion.. here's dave looking cold and Dan looking satisfied


finally, a bit of deer skeleton me and andre found in a tree.

next issue: may.

So. Dave showed up at my house... I decided to scare him as he came in the door to try to capture his reaction:

He invited me to go to an "ask an atheist" meeting at the college.. There were two awfully rude christians in the front row who weren't there to be open minded or promote productive dialogue... not that that should be expected of fundamentalists, but... anyway, they were just causing a ruckus... I ended up getting pretty pissed off and let my mouth fly a couple times at them..
"yeah but monkeys never waged holy war, either, did they?" was one of my reactions. couldn't conceal it, every argument they made was weak illogical to the point of offense for me.

I'd like to see them hold a panel, i would.. I'd really like to show up and sit in the front row with all my pre-packaged questions and pre-rendered reactions, you know? savages. blergh.. anyway.. before we even made it to the meeting we had a couple tall beers near the observatory cleverly concealed from campus parkinglots or campus cops or what-have you.. basically we found a nice place out of sight (ironic an observatory) and pounded a couple.. which in retrospect is probably the reason i couldn't contain myself at the atheist meeting... heh. anyway.. we parked out near the observatory and saw not one:

not two:
but three deer in the woods nearby.

Anyway, the two questions I asked said atheists were as follows: "how old were each of you when you realized or decided you were atheist... how old where you when you were certain?" most of them said early twenties.. the only girl on the board said 16.. a couple dudes said 18 roughly. I figured it was interesting enough to know that across the board they were all just becoming adults when they 'converted'. Secondly I asked them something like this: "Is there anything of any religion that you have taken to heart outside its context? I for one appreciate the taoist sense of balance and duality.. I resent that religious people can't accept what's good in outside religions-- In the gospel of thomas, and i know a lot of christians don't recognize that gospel, jesus said "drink from my mouth and become as i am". This to me is an incredibly revolutionary thing to say.. It is basically saying 'keep the dialogue open'. its saying we share our existence and by sharing it become one-- what examples of good in other religions have you as atheists recognized?"

The answers were weak and later we figured the christian antogonist prickwads attacked them into a defensive state already and it was hopeless to expect any compromise on their part.

sad world, it is sometimes.

Later we went to the "brother ali" show on campus. It was rather up in the air whether or not I was going to be able to get in.. Student I.D.s were required for free entry, otherwise the cost at door was something like 6 bucks... Wayyyy too much for me. I borrowed dave's brother's i.d. and was nearly barred entry when the ticket guy said "this definitely isn't you... I know this guy" Shortly after he looked me in the eyes and asked "is he going to be coming tonight?" we said "no" and he let us in... Was too packed to get very close for any decent pictures, but here's what i managed to capture.
^above, brother ali.
^brother ali's hype man who made it clear that he was a "full band"
Brother Ali addressing his apt pupils.said pupils appreciating their teacher.
this is our leaving campus.


Later on dave and i went downtown... I was pretty drunk by that point and no longer had my camera with me. Walking down the streets near the 'bar-muda' triangle, I saw a couple harley's parked next to one another and thought I'd try to jump them... "hey dave, check this out" and i ran up to them-- at the last second I decided i was going to veer off and jump to the side.. i didn't get the most ideal approach to the jump-- Well my loafters begged to differ and my feet slid out from under me resulting in a crushing slam of shin and exhaust pipe.. Embarassed, I lay on the ground for a few seconds hoping nobody saw me.. I got up and tried to hobble away saying to dave "let's get out of here before anyone notices what happened"

just my luck a big ol motherfucker from across the street comes running over and shouts in his manliest voice: "hey.. hey you! what's going on here?" etc etc... I tell him I just slipped into the tailpipe and everything was alright... and you can see for yourself and so on and so forth, but he grabs me by the arm, pinching my skin underneath my coat and drags me inside the nearest bar: the aptly named "choppers". "HEY TONY" he says in his most dramatic voice. A dude at the bar wearing nothing but denim and leather looks over at us. "THIS GUY WANTS TO HAVE A TALK WITH YOU" I tell the guy to let go of my arm.. "i'm perfectly capable of being mature about this" i said.... already embarassed enough as i was... The guy in denim walks over... "I caught him snooping in your "random jargon I don't remember for the little leather bags that hang off the back of big ol' motorcycles"".

I told him that was bullshit- "i just slipped and bumped your tailpipe, you can see for yourself its not damaged". the big dude in denim tells the other guy off and under his breath mutters something like "pff.. making something out of nothing". I was glad the drama was over.. we ended up going to a house party nearby... I realized i was bleeding pretty heavily from the leg.. Some kids at the party poured whiskey on my leg and their dog cleaned my wound thereafter.. I felt pretty badass.. Later the dog and I made out uncontrollably in the basement.. was pretty hot.

All kidding aside, I love dogs.. they are so tentative.. so sensitive and emotionally intelligent.. its incredable... they take care of their own better than we do these days, you know?

ahh.. anyway. have a good night all.

on said hip hop show

well.. i didn't feel like taking pictures of said hip hop show.. turns out everyone was celebrating the weed-smokers holiday 4/20. a.k.a. hitler's birthday.. didn't want to enhance their paranoia.. the camera brought too much attention on me so i left it in a buddy's car. hip hop was alright though.. I did however take pictures on the walk down.

here they are:





this egg nearly fell on me as i walked by... i looked up almost expecting to see some ruffian kids laughing.. but it was a robin's egg that fell from the bas relief sign of "holiday inn".. i thought the moment was rare so i shot it.