There was (gasp) a shooting in San Antonio last night.
I apologize to those that are suffering.
They are not the reason I'm making note of the 10:PM Tabloid Report.
It's not even the Plasticine Actors that play on the 10:PM Tabloid Report.
It's the girrafix department... This time.
Here is my representation of a background graphic displayed on a (DELAYED BY FOOTBALL!!!) news report from last night...
"FATHER
GUNNED DOWNED"
I don't make this stuff up.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Monday, September 10, 2007
Weirdness...
There are a few 'feel good' posts from today's' Nada but here is one that is just plain weird. It has to do with dreams and the odd nature of them.
Please don't analyze this one.
And, if you do analyze it, don't tell me!!!
From the "Be Careful What You Wish For Dept."
Sleep.
You heard me lament, OK, whine about not being able to sleep.
It stinks!
We take it for granted that at some point every night we will rest our heads. Literally and figuratively.
When it stops coming you begin to miss it pretty quickly.
It doesn't take long to notice the effects either.
Obviously I must have slept some along the way. Otherwise I'd be dead or institutionalized by now. I've avoided both.
Sleep does come in fits and starts. More like restless naps. They punctuate the hours of cursing in the darkness, cursing the night.
Lately the game has changed.
I knew I was getting at least some minimum amount of sleep. I became certain of it when "They" began.
"They" being the vivid technicolor dreams.
Sure, we've all had the dreams that we hated to awake from. The uplifting and exhilarating kind that leaves you wanting more.
I don't seem to get that channel.
Sometimes it's just an image.
Once, the entire screen was filled with writhing snakes.
Another time it was puppies.
The cute little dogs were just as disconcerting as the reptiles. Just from a different emotional place.
Some have been elaborate nocturnal productions from some serious masters of the macabre.
You know those guys. The ones that can push every or any of your buttons at will and delight in doing so.
The most recent shake up of my psyche came and went a little like this...
I was in a dumpy little motel room.
It was for certain a motel as opposed to hotel. Replete with the Dodge parked right out in front of my room.
Where? Why? Who the hell knows.
I found myself being invaded, for lack of a better term.
The leader of the wave of weirdness was someone I hold as a close and dear friend. Only, their demeanor was unlike anything I'd ever seen of them.
Mean spirited, spiteful, hateful. Laying waste to my emotions, much to the delight of the toothless crackers that made up the balance of the invading force.
When I say 'toothless crackers', think of the worst of white trash stereotypes. These guys were the rejects from "Deliverance" casting!
Filthy of mind, body and temperament.
One of them was seriously deformed.
Another was horribly injured, burned all over.
'They' cared for the burned guy on my motel bed as if he was the King of the World.
My friend's demeanor and the behavior of the crackers all fueled my agitation... Which, of course was fuel for the fire so to speak.
You see how this was shaping up.
The more upset I got the more the crackers cackled the more my friend provoked me. The vicious circle.
I know better, in the light of day than so let on when someone bugs me. (21 years on hangar decks, if you don't learn that lesson quickly you will be miserable!)
I was flipping out.
I couldn't understand who these people were or why my friend was so willing to please them and use me to do so.
Then I noticed they had 'redecorated' my place. (By now it was where I lived and not simply a way station.)
They hung sheets on the walls like tapestry's.
Soon, I realized why.
They were covering up things, or the places rather, where they had carted my stuff out of the place.
I walked through a (previously nonexistent) door and into the room of a black couple. They weren't any happier to see me than I was to see the crackers.
I went through a few more rooms in the same manner until I reached the lobby/ office.
I either didn't or couldn't ask for the help I needed. Or maybe was brushed off. I don't recall.
I looked out the window and the cackling crackers had destroyed my Dodge!
I headed out.
I passed a woman that was looking at pictures on a bulletin board.
She seemed nice and the pictures were the most brightly colored and cheery things in the dream.
I tried to stop and inquire about them but by then I had reached the double glass doors at the exit to the lobby.
There were four thugs there, shoulder to tattooed shoulder.
At first I thought they weren't going to let me out.
Then it was clear, they were not going to let me stay in the haven of the lobby.
I didn't want to stay in!
I wanted out to salvage my Dodge and whatever I could get from the room and get the hell out of there.
I thought I was just a few doors down from my room...
Only...
The vehicle I had seen was no longer my truck. It was something else.
I wasn't 'a few doors down'.
I was in a bizarre landscape.
I could see the rooms much farther down than I expected and they were fading fast.
A hand.
Someone had sidled up to my right and placed a hand on my left shoulder.
There was no pain or tight grip but there was no place to escape to either. (Believe me, I was looking for a way out.)
This person began to speak.
I didn't hear or understand much of it at all.
I was walked up a dirt burm, farther into the rubble.
The farther up the more form it seemed to take. It was like one of those late (late) night heavy metal techno bars you see on in the movies.
Populated by the freaks that only come out after midnight.
Tattooed with phrases about Hell, in positive terms.
I thought this individual was female but the voice turned very husky. (This cannot be good.)
I turned to look.
She was (is) in fact a she.
Someone I knew long ago and didn't like then or now.
She said something like, "I'm dating a porn star now."
(If you knew her that would come as no surprise.)
Then she turned to one of the pits full of people. (There were shallow pits everywhere and people were seated around the edges drinking something and in, I guess, party mode.)
This pit was full of the same types that met me at the door. Tattooed with pro hell and anti social phrases and marks.
It took two more weird turns before I mercifully awoke.
They looked like the rest but were speaking in very effeminate manners and if that wasn't strange enough, they were speaking knowledgeably about changing cam shafts in small block Chevys!
I awoke with a flinch. Blurry eyed in the darkness, "WTF, Over?!"
I got up and put on the coffee, making certain I wouldn't go back there. At least not that night.
Please don't analyze this one.
And, if you do analyze it, don't tell me!!!
From the "Be Careful What You Wish For Dept."
Sleep.
You heard me lament, OK, whine about not being able to sleep.
It stinks!
We take it for granted that at some point every night we will rest our heads. Literally and figuratively.
When it stops coming you begin to miss it pretty quickly.
It doesn't take long to notice the effects either.
Obviously I must have slept some along the way. Otherwise I'd be dead or institutionalized by now. I've avoided both.
Sleep does come in fits and starts. More like restless naps. They punctuate the hours of cursing in the darkness, cursing the night.
Lately the game has changed.
I knew I was getting at least some minimum amount of sleep. I became certain of it when "They" began.
"They" being the vivid technicolor dreams.
Sure, we've all had the dreams that we hated to awake from. The uplifting and exhilarating kind that leaves you wanting more.
I don't seem to get that channel.
Sometimes it's just an image.
Once, the entire screen was filled with writhing snakes.
Another time it was puppies.
The cute little dogs were just as disconcerting as the reptiles. Just from a different emotional place.
Some have been elaborate nocturnal productions from some serious masters of the macabre.
You know those guys. The ones that can push every or any of your buttons at will and delight in doing so.
The most recent shake up of my psyche came and went a little like this...
I was in a dumpy little motel room.
It was for certain a motel as opposed to hotel. Replete with the Dodge parked right out in front of my room.
Where? Why? Who the hell knows.
I found myself being invaded, for lack of a better term.
The leader of the wave of weirdness was someone I hold as a close and dear friend. Only, their demeanor was unlike anything I'd ever seen of them.
Mean spirited, spiteful, hateful. Laying waste to my emotions, much to the delight of the toothless crackers that made up the balance of the invading force.
When I say 'toothless crackers', think of the worst of white trash stereotypes. These guys were the rejects from "Deliverance" casting!
Filthy of mind, body and temperament.
One of them was seriously deformed.
Another was horribly injured, burned all over.
'They' cared for the burned guy on my motel bed as if he was the King of the World.
My friend's demeanor and the behavior of the crackers all fueled my agitation... Which, of course was fuel for the fire so to speak.
You see how this was shaping up.
The more upset I got the more the crackers cackled the more my friend provoked me. The vicious circle.
I know better, in the light of day than so let on when someone bugs me. (21 years on hangar decks, if you don't learn that lesson quickly you will be miserable!)
I was flipping out.
I couldn't understand who these people were or why my friend was so willing to please them and use me to do so.
Then I noticed they had 'redecorated' my place. (By now it was where I lived and not simply a way station.)
They hung sheets on the walls like tapestry's.
Soon, I realized why.
They were covering up things, or the places rather, where they had carted my stuff out of the place.
I walked through a (previously nonexistent) door and into the room of a black couple. They weren't any happier to see me than I was to see the crackers.
I went through a few more rooms in the same manner until I reached the lobby/ office.
I either didn't or couldn't ask for the help I needed. Or maybe was brushed off. I don't recall.
I looked out the window and the cackling crackers had destroyed my Dodge!
I headed out.
I passed a woman that was looking at pictures on a bulletin board.
She seemed nice and the pictures were the most brightly colored and cheery things in the dream.
I tried to stop and inquire about them but by then I had reached the double glass doors at the exit to the lobby.
There were four thugs there, shoulder to tattooed shoulder.
At first I thought they weren't going to let me out.
Then it was clear, they were not going to let me stay in the haven of the lobby.
I didn't want to stay in!
I wanted out to salvage my Dodge and whatever I could get from the room and get the hell out of there.
I thought I was just a few doors down from my room...
Only...
The vehicle I had seen was no longer my truck. It was something else.
I wasn't 'a few doors down'.
I was in a bizarre landscape.
I could see the rooms much farther down than I expected and they were fading fast.
A hand.
Someone had sidled up to my right and placed a hand on my left shoulder.
There was no pain or tight grip but there was no place to escape to either. (Believe me, I was looking for a way out.)
This person began to speak.
I didn't hear or understand much of it at all.
I was walked up a dirt burm, farther into the rubble.
The farther up the more form it seemed to take. It was like one of those late (late) night heavy metal techno bars you see on in the movies.
Populated by the freaks that only come out after midnight.
Tattooed with phrases about Hell, in positive terms.
I thought this individual was female but the voice turned very husky. (This cannot be good.)
I turned to look.
She was (is) in fact a she.
Someone I knew long ago and didn't like then or now.
She said something like, "I'm dating a porn star now."
(If you knew her that would come as no surprise.)
Then she turned to one of the pits full of people. (There were shallow pits everywhere and people were seated around the edges drinking something and in, I guess, party mode.)
This pit was full of the same types that met me at the door. Tattooed with pro hell and anti social phrases and marks.
It took two more weird turns before I mercifully awoke.
They looked like the rest but were speaking in very effeminate manners and if that wasn't strange enough, they were speaking knowledgeably about changing cam shafts in small block Chevys!
I awoke with a flinch. Blurry eyed in the darkness, "WTF, Over?!"
I got up and put on the coffee, making certain I wouldn't go back there. At least not that night.
The Nada is proud to present...
"Brightledge" and "Archimedia"
Both the home (pictured) and the architecture practice are products of one of my 'Little' Brothers.
In this case, Andy.
Andy has built a practice over many years, paying dues from Cameron College to The University of Oklahoma and all over South Texas.
His portfolio has even more facets than the home he and "T" built.
From the church house to the jail house to schools to medical clinics.
His efforts have been published in architecture and trade magazines as well as local newspapers.
From my unique position, I have watched since he was eight years old constantly thinking, reading, studying and exploring.
Always alert to better, more sustainable practices.
Andy looks not only towards future methods and technology but to history in the pursuit of what works best in a given application AND in a changing world.
He is an astute business man, a helluva artist and an all round great guy.
I'm adding a link here to the ARCHIMEDIA website.
Have a look!
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