Thursday, March 20, 2008

Day eighty...Serving suggestion.

This is Chico.

He can see right through you.

If you are in the midst of planning an act of impropriety, he knows.

If you just opened a jar of Classico four cheese pasta sauce to find out that a fifth cheese has been born atop the red landscape, and you threw it in the trash rather than rinsing it out and recycling it, he knows.

But Chico does not judge. No, that is not his desire nor is it his predisposition.

He just wants to lick your hand. Maybe, if things go alright, and he feels completely at ease, Chico will allow you to admire the texture and fine fiber with which his sweater was made. Go ahead, scratch it. Scratch his back. Feel him pull away yet come closer. You cannot resist. What good would that do?

Just keep in mind, when you start thinking about how no one will notice when you take the last brownie and conveniently forget to soak the baking dish, that you are being watched from 7 inches above the linoleum.


Chico knows.


I played with my band, Drunk Stuntmen, over the weekend at a place called the Dutch Treat. It's in Franconia, New Hampshire and it happened on a Monday, on St. Patricks Day, with a bunch of freaky folk who like to rock out. How's about that.

That's where we know Chico from. He lives with Joe and Tony at the Mojo music studio located nearby. They set up a massive P.A. for us as well as recording the whole thing to 24 track. You can check out their link at the bottom of this page.

Our friend and 6th Stuntman, Pablo, will be writing all about the adventurous 24 hours we spent together after not having a show for two and a half months. You can read all about it soon over at our website. That much is certain.

But I wanted to introduce you to Chico, because he is one of the many subjects I take pictures of. Not all of them make the grade and are worthy of an upload, but I know you're going to scroll back and take another look at him before this is all over. I know I will.




Something else I found interesting enough to photograph and present to the public is something I found right here in Northampton.


Why was I inspired to take this photo of a schmaltzy left over Valentine's Day display?

Because it's ridiculous.

"Honey, I bought you something to keep your ear piercing spacers in...isn't it cute?"

"Oh Corbin, it's beautiful, and it's got one of your initials right on the top. You shouldn't have."

"I know, but I wanted to show you that I'm initially yours"

"What do you mean sweetie?"

"Well, I just want to be honest and say that I kind of want to keep my options open in case I meet someone next week with even more tattoos of movie monsters. So, I'm just saying that I'm initially yours with an option to re-negotiate at an unspecified date."

"Awww honey...that is so honest. I wish all of my relationships had started like this."




Leave it to the advertising geniuses at Ganz to promote a product using the most literal interpretation of the English language.

I have a feeling they work in conjunction with the fortune cookie people.

I have an old fortune taped to my monitor stand which reads: "You try, you fail. You fail, you try. So where is success?"

Wow. Someone at the cookie factory was on a philosophical tear. Possibly fresh off a promotion rejection.

I got one the other day which read: "All your hard work will soon be paid off."

This one is a bit more subtle. If you just read it quickly it would seem like one of the many predictions of a prosperous life which is accelerated by the consumption of Chinese food.

But it is not saying anything about the outcome of your efforts in the future in relation to how much toil and trouble you implement now. No. It is simply implying that if you have done any work which was completed and not paid in full, just wait a few days before sending out the repo man. The check's in the mail.

And my all time favorite; one that I have framed and hanging on my wall for anyone who does not believe me when I mention it (you'd be surprised how easy it is to slip it into a conversation).

Drum roll please...

"Ignore previous cookie."

Like I said, I have it framed for those who don't believe me.

I think that this little strip of paper says so much in three simple words.

Ignore. Previous. Cookie.

I think what it's trying to say is to not let appearances fool you; that just because it was foretold in words which we understand, doesn't mean that it is bound to happen.

And I'm not saying that the cute tradition at the end of a nice Chinese lunch special holds any real water. It's usually just a throwaway, overused, presage with lucky numbers inscribed on the back.

But it is a tradition and it is a fun part of the meal for someone like me who is a bit superstitious.

I mean, I just can't leave it on the table. I can't, with a clean conscience, walk away from the table, passing up the opportunity for a new and almost always entertaining experience in the form of a two inch by one half inch piece of paper.

That feeling transcends cookies. That feeling permeates my whole being. It is my essence.

It is me.

And it used to be a pretty tricky catch when I was doing all the wrong things.

I'd play the averages. I'd focus only on the positives while letting the negatives sluice through to the furthest reaches of my mind. I would rationalize everything I could and not learn from my mistakes.

I would ignore previous cookie.

Forget what they tell you about some how cultural exchanges sometimes end up getting lost in translation. Inflections speak louder than comprehension.

I travel down south a lot with my band. We play in places that are loud and dark, and when I'm talking to someone with a drawl as thick as marmalade I sometimes have to rely on inflection.

We laugh sometimes because we understand the meaning in the timbre of speech rather than the semantics of sentence composition, distilling the actual meaning a short time later when our brain is a little less overloaded.

We see text in advertising which on the surface looks perfectly acceptable and we make impulse buys neglecting the deeper meaning of the combined letters.

It doesn't matter if it's at the supermarket as you're walking by the beer cooler, or at the pharmacy where you get distracted by the little silver initialed heart shaped boxes. We all sometimes get fooled by how something's presented and forget what we came in for. We all sometimes let our lack of focus outwit our experience.

We all sometimes ignore previous cookie.


I think next time I can't scrape up the cash to send in to my dentist I'll just send the receptionist a note that says:

"Please be sure to inform Dr. ______ that all his hard work will soon be paid off."

In the meantime I'll just take the bill I got in the mail and chuck it in the trash. I mean, who has time to recycle these days?







Well, maybe not. I think someone's watching.


Thanks for reading.

F.A.J.


PS: Happy first day of Spring. Open your windows for christ sake.

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