Broken bottles and rusty nails.

If you go to the shore, you could hurt your feet by stepping on broken bottles and rusty nails.

Broken bottles come from drunks and kids who can't resist breaking bottles.

People who's main contribution is a beach front obstacle course of curly green glass shards.

Every day drunks and kids, come out and bust up a new batch of bottles for the rest of us to pick our way through.

And since it's been happening forever, you wonder why the planet isn't a glass carpet by now.

And how is it that we can confidently stride out into the surf, barefoot.

Nature is always knocking stuff around, and pretty soon the glass rolls over and plants the sharp side in the ground, and then it gets busted into smaller and smaller pieces.

Thank you mother nature, someone's got to clean up after these drunks and kids.

But What's the deal with mother nature and rusty nails?

A person lays out the cash and sweat to build the best dock they can, and then mother nature thrashes it all over the shore in the next storm. All these rusty nails poking up through planks, and if they ever flip over, they just flip back again because of the nail. WTF? 

Luckily the drunks and kids burn up the naily wood in their camp fires. 

Drunks, kids, and mother nature working together in harmony.

Like me?

The other day I told Brother Love's neighbor that Love had been killed.
Then she told me what happened to the kids in the squat.
I think we both had thought the other already knew, but we hadn't.
It was kind of like boxing, the double knockout...

We each went on our way, a whole new headful of  death.

I'm not sure where the squat was, but it was near-bye and I'd heard of it before.

The thing is, I probably didn't know any of the 8 people who died in the squat fire.
But I might, I might be like, oh, yeah, that guy, I've seen him on the corner.
And I sure don't know to what extent the chain leads back to me, friends of friends...
Obviously things like this ripple.

There was this night I had my head out the window, jabbering with and throwing oranges to this banjo player and his 2 pals. We were not friends, but it was fun, and they could be burned up, or more likely, just elsewhere, or not, since I probably wouldn't recognize them if I saw them again.

Of course it's always proximity that determines how much impact a tragedy has.

Even if you don't know the victims, you ask yourself, were these people "like" me?
Which is kind of an offensive concept, even if it's pretty universal.

I asked myself if I'm stupid enough to light a fire indoors...
It didn't take long to tally up a list of equally stupid things I've done that good luck saved me from.

Would I choose that lifestyle?
I'd take that before anything that resembled 9-5.
It's pretty much how I was living my first week in New Orleans.

Like me?

Who isn't like me?

One, two, look at my watch.

Ron was loading the smoker with Chicken and stoking the fire with wood chips, while brother Love taught me "one two look at my watch".  It's a deceptively simple greeting.
"How does that go again?"
"One, two, look at my watch"
The one and two are accompanied by sort of, sideways high fives, not really a handshake...
So by the time I get my rhythm right, and I'm able to connect on the slaps, I've forgotten to look at my watch, which is hard to remember cause it doesn't even rhyme or make any sense.

But this kind of stuff can seem really important when you're eating barbecue under a huge faded rainbow mural, in the doorway of a derelict warehouse which was supposedly part of the scenery in "confederacy of dunces".
Pretty soon I'd mastered "one, two, look at my watch", and was fake checking the time like an old pro.

Speaking of old pros, Brother Love was a 50-something golf genius.
I don't know golf, and I'd never seen him play, but the way he and Ron were talking, I believe that Love could put a ball anywhere he wanted from absurd distances.

Brother Love had aspirations of joining the senior golf tour. He and Ron were always talking about it, and I said I'd make a demo video of him driving balls to the edge of the earth.

Brother Love lived in the warehouse, which is weird, because he was a smart talented guy who wasn't crazy or addicted, and he had a nice truck, if that's significant. It was a really leaky damp warehouse.
Anyway, the warehouse is going to be renovated, so he had to move out, and while he was staying temporarily at a friends house, he died of carbon monoxide poisoning.
I got the call from Ron over the holidays.

So I guess no golf video.
It's a little shocking.

The thing about city living, is the friends you make "by accident" people who you get to know, because they are around, more than they are the "type" of person you would get to know.
I'd seen Brother Love around, on and off while I'd been renovating the house across the street, but I'd only recently begun to get to know him, and I was a little disappointed that he was moving.

He was a really good guy. I'm lucky to have known him.

RIP

The dog cleaner.

When I was growing up, and someone dropped some food on the floor, instead of wiping it up, we'd get the "dog cleaner". Kind of like a vacuum  cleaner, except a dog cleaner laps up the mess, no fuss no muss.

I still use a dog cleaner.

I'm blowing my cover with this post. I don't think my wife knows how portable this dog cleaner is.
Sometimes when I spill food on the table or the stove, I pick up the dog cleaner point its nozzle in the right direction and start cleaning.

Like the Dyson Ball, A dog cleaner never loses suction.

HEAD TO HEAD!

I'm a comma comma comma comma comma chameleon

That's right, I'm a ,,,,,chameleon, because my wife's always criticizing me for using commas in the wrong place.

I always thought that you could put a comma any place that you wanted the reader to take a pause, especially in creative writing, but my wife swears it's not so.

Why can't the Americans teach their children how to write?
I feel like I'm married to Henrietta Higgins.
It's comma, and comma, that keep me in my place, not my wretched clothes and dirty face...

Just you wait Henrietta!

Cause I'm a comma chameleon. I put my commas where I want to, not where the tyranny of grammar dictates.

Like I said, I'm a ,,,,,chameleon.

But then I looked up the real words to the song, to see if they put commas between the list of karmas.
It turns out that sometimes they don't, and sometimes they do...
So I don't know if I'm a ,,,,,chameleon, or a ,,,,,,,,,,chameleon.
Sorry Henrietta, if you want lingual stability, there's always Latin.

Ahm jist sellin' me sculptchas ah am!

Red alert!

Red alert! My wallet portrait project has broken off from "Thoughts and feelings" and formed a subsidiary blog called walletportrait.blogspot.com .

I feel that it is the only way for me to do justice to my conceptual art project, and the most effective way to cultivate a more participatory audience.

Meanwhile, It will be my pleasure to bring to you, more of my thoughts and feelings.
As always, it is a pleasure to serve.
-Adam

Lunches with Farrington episode 8.

I have lunch with my pals and conceptual art patrons in the Lower 9th ward.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lonKmrk7Fs

The data base of concept art patrons.

My deepest gratitude to the following people, who have agreed to carry a wallet portrait of myself, in perpetuity, as part of my conceptual art project.   http://adamernestfarrington.blogspot.com/2010/12/personal-space.html

Blake
other Blake
Laura
Mary Ellen
Kurtiss
and... drum roll...(your name here)

Concessions in concept art.

It has come to my attention that some of you deem your wallet space to be to be too VALUABLE for you to donate a measly wallet-portrait sized portion of it for my concept art, as explained in my post, "personal space".  http://adamernestfarrington.blogspot.com/2010/12/personal-space.html
Because I am a very accommodating concept artist, I have printed some 1/8 of an inch wallet portraits, that you can carry with very little imposition.

If you tend to lose things, the way I do, a dab of glue should keep it from migrating.

How can you resist this face?

Personal space

Some jerks tagged my alley gate.

They're probably getting off on this media coverage.

While it's a universal human urge to say, "See me, I exist", I resent having my personal space commandeered.

It's not as if I wouldn't like to be out there with a can of paint, spraying my identity all over everyone's everything.         In my gut, it's very appealing, but I am hobbled by my respect for private property, and my fear of the law.

Maybe at it's core, existence is one big psychic land grab. Everyone jockeying for position in other people's personal space.

As an artist, I am acutely aware of this possibility, the need for the individual to stake their claim in the collective awareness.

Facebook is evidence of this universal human need to be present in another human beings personal space, even if it is only digital.

This is my Facebook profile picture.

Times 48

I would like for my profile picture to expand beyond these digital horizons. I would be extremely grateful to any of you who would lend some of their personal space, and assist me with this conceptual artwork, by carrying a tiny portrait of myself in their wallet in perpetuity, or until it no longer becomes feasible to do so.

I will mail to anyone who is willing to help me, a grid of 4 wallet pictures. 1 for your wallet, and 3 to pass along to potential collaborators in the future. (makes a great gift)

space tight? don't worry...     http://adamernestfarrington.blogspot.com/2010/12/concessions-in-concept-art.html

It is important that at some point you pull out the wallet portrait and say something about me. 

That we are friends. That we were in the service together. That you found this is in your girlfriends glove compartment, and you feel awkward about asking her about it.

It doesn't matter what you say or if it's true, as long as it fits the template of wallet portrait banter.

Part of the motivation behind this conceptual art piece, is that nobody has ever carried a portrait of me in their wallet before, and I think it is high time for me to rectify this situation.

Please email me your mailing address, so that you can be included in this work of art.

adammetal3@yahoo.com

Interesting accounts of the wallet portrait project are welcome, but not necessary.
Participators in the wallet picture project will have their first names listed in a special data-base.

A mousse in the house.

My mother is a "no frills" kind of woman. She doesn't put on airs,
and she sure doesn't need no high  falutin' mousse,
 for fluffing up her hairs.

I was in high school when my father discovered hair mousse. My father was a cheapskate, so he brought home this can of generic mousse. It came in a plain white can, with thin red white and blue stripes at the top, and the label read, "No Frills generic hair mousse".  Which is kind of funny, since mousse is a frill.

My father didn't use mousse, my mother was disgusted to even have the stuff in her whole wheat household. My sister may have used it sparingly, if at all.

My father bought another can of No Frills mousse.
My father bought another can of No Frills mousse.

We always had multiple cans of mousse in the bathroom, but nothing in there to read, so while I was having my function, I got in the habit of putting mousse in my hair. It was really low quality mousse, with barely any active ingredients, so I could absorb quite a lot of it with my thick brown hair. I would also put my finger over the nozzle, and spray white foamy ribbons of mousse around the bathroom, while I was on the toilet.
The stuff was all water, so it would just evaporate in a little while.

It seemed like every time my father came home from the grocery store, another can of mousse would come out of the bag.

I kind of felt like it was my responsibility to mousse myself as often as possible, just to get rid of the stuff.
I moussed myself several times a day, combed away what little crunchiness it left behind, and moussed again.

My father must have felt some kind of patriarchal responsibility to keep up with the household mousse demands, because he would just ramp up supplies, and I could never gain on the mousse situation.
I had the silkiest hair.

I have used more mousse than you.

Stepped on drugs, and other issues.

A long time ago, I was living in a car and chilling one night with some hippee riff-raff in a squalid apartment.

I know, MY BAD.

The apartment was so cluttered, it was like wading though an obstacle course.
So I'm trying to pick my way though this guys bongos, cassette tapes, magazines, and what have you...
But I accidentally stepped on his LSD. (teeny ones) Boy was he mad. He was all, "dammit! now we are probably going to have bad trips!" The other hippees kind of defended me a little, but at the same time, were like, "you're a guest in his place, you should really be more careful where you step."
I don't even take drugs, but he made sure I had a bad trip by pointing a sawed off double barreled shotgun at my face...no big whoop! It wasn't loaded!

Then there was this other incident, with the dog dread-lock. I'm in yet another squalid hippee apartment, scratching this gross dog behind the ears, and there's this gross nob of matted hair. So I'm absentmindedly working on it, and it finally comes loose! I'm feeling like a real friend to dogs, but it only lasts a moment, because my hippee hosts get this pitifully crestfallen look, because I've torn off their dogs dread lock.
I'd never felt such shame.


Bonus! My one inspirational hippee story!
This scraggly insane hippee says "come check this out!"
We go outside and he opens up his vw bus.
He pulls out two round rocks. One of them has a very crude face chipped onto it.
"I carved a face, into this rock...With another ROCK!

The egg came first.

It's much better to fry an egg in mayonnaise, instead of butter, because it's easier to dab a little mayonnaise out of a jar, than to get butter on your fingers while you fuss with the waxed paper wrapper.

Also, I don't like cutting butter. It has an unreliable hardness-factor.

My friend Adam told me that it's a good idea to crack an egg on the bottom of the pan, not the edge.
That way you don't get a lot of gooey egg white solidifying on the edge of the pan.

Also, a guy with a speech impediment who worked in a deli once saw my filthy hands, and told me that mayonnaise was a very effective hand cleaner.

I know this post may not be as entertaining as usual, but it is often the mundanely informational, that can have the most impact over the long run. You will thank me when you are older.

no

no

no

NO!!! GET THEE BEHIND ME, SHAPE-SHIFTING BUTTER-JEZEBEL!!!

That's more like it.

Well duh!

don't mind if I do!

That's cool, I'll be having my fill of egg soon anyway!

I am conflicted.

Lunches with Farrington episode 7

Once again, Adam Farrington leads the way with an industry fist!
I give to you, "LWF, the feminine edition!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp0CdrmRbg8

I should have played the new game.

I used to have this sporadic nickname back in the day...
Adam-bomb.
My friends call me Adam, for short.

When I was 13 my parents sent me to YMCA camp. I didn't want to go. Last time I went to a camp I had to stand by like a dumb-ass, while they pelted the retarded kid with wet toilet paper.  I was well aware that camp can be a haven for sociopaths.

But they said I had to go, and the best I could do to salvage a bad situation, was to choose which session to attend.

There were different themes. Choosing was a delicate balancing act. I wanted to avoid the psychos, but the safest end of the spectrum wasn't for me either. I'm talking about "New Games" week. I  really didn't want to push around the old earth-ball, puff up the tie-dyed parachute, or have to play "head to head", a game where the leader yells out, "head to head!" and you stick your head to the other kids head.  I wanted to avoid any blatant brutality, but complete pussification was too high of a price.

no thank you!

none for me!

Trying to find a middle ground, I settled on "woodsman week". I figured it would be a fun and educational week of learning how to build shelters from pine boughs, using a compass, and foraging for wild greens.

I was disappointed to learn that woodsman week was really a week of playing war games in the woods.

You know that summer in the 80s when every kid had a rambo-knife dangling from his belt?
I'm not saying that columbine was a good thing, but at least no more kids have to go through the awkwardness of making new friends at a summer-camp where every kid is armed with their own dagger.

So there I was, playing war games. It was an adaptation of Stratego, where everyone took the identity of a game piece, and we ran around in the woods "attacking" each other.

Remember the bomb?  It can't attack anyone, but anyone who attacks the bomb get's killed?

The counselor deemed the bomb as being such an important role that it couldn't go to just anyone, so he held interviews, where you got your chance to explain exactly why you were the man for the mission.

I said I'd like to be a bomb, and when it was my turn to have an interview, I conjured my most ernest demeanor.  "Ever since I was a very small boy, I've always wanted to be a bomb."
I got the role on the spot and spent the rest of the day blundering around, blowing people up.

I endured camp.  The last day came. Bored kids passed the time by throwing Jarts at one another.
Finally it was my turn to get on the big yellow bus.

and jart-o was his name-o!

Flashlight fun.

that's my name...

don't wear it out!

blinded by the light!

wrapped up like a douche-

another runner in the night...

RUN!!!

Art I did when I was little.

This is a self portrait I did of myself when I was in nursery school.
I only did it because they forced us to.
I had a terrible sense of foreboding about the project because at that time I had no formal training in the arts.

I was so mad about painting through my arm, and disgusted about my lopsided body.
When I got back from school my father asked me, as usual, "what did you do in school today?"
As usual, I said "nothing". (It was bad enough to have to waste all that time going to school, I sure didn't want to talk about it afterwards.)

He was so proud of my self portrait, that he framed it, and hung it in the hall forever.
I'm glad I have it now, since I've gotten attached to it over time. But back then, I don't know...

The Photograph tucked in the corner is me, when I got to New Orleans in '95. I was welding a sculpture under a deck that was outside of my basement room. Nobody was forcing me to paint self portraits.


This picture was a collaboration between my father, Ray Johnson, and myself when I was 3.
I didn't know that Ray was an artist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Johnson I was was just impressed because he was the only bald person I'd ever seen. My father did the car, Ray did the guy saying "And Ray", and I did the rest.

NO HAIR!

Strangely hypnotic success guru videos

I don't know what it is about Elaine Love...
It's not about this one video, it's more of a cumulative effect.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMgPjbogDEs&list=UL4fdvr0on0OQ&playnext=9

Paper towels

I bought some paper towels.

They were "Bounty, extra suave"

I gave them to my wife, but not before expressing my disappointment in her, for her unsophisticated previous choices in  paper goods.

One...singular sensation!

Many thanks to my neighbor, Gothic Hangman, for the use of his top hat.

http://gothichangmanstudios.com/
update!
After I'd finished shooting the pictures, Gothic Hangman suggested a little moustache.
Hooray! Look! These towels already had one!