Posts tagged ‘“rufus mangrove”’
When I was younger, some of the lessons I learned from my father still stick with me today. Here are some of them, in no particular order:
-Avoid touching anything with your hands in a public bathroom. If for some stupid reason you have to poop in a public toilet, use your foot to flush. If you’re at a urinal, use your elbow, or just leave the damn thing unflushed and walk away quickly;
-There is absolutely no reason to talk with a stranger while at a public urinal. In fact, there’s no reason to talk with anyone in a public restroom or to make eye contact with anyone. Get in and get the fuck out as quickly as possible;
-You should always look both ways when crossing the street, even when you’re in the crosswalk. In an argument with a car, you will always lose. No point being right if you’re dead;
-If a woman tells you you’re “mysterious looking,” it means that she either thinks you’re good-looking or she’s just trying to tell you you’re ugly in a polite way. And there’s no way to tell the difference, even if she’s smiling;
-Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, look into a woman’s purse without her express permission. And even then, avoid it at all costs. It’s a trap.
“In one or more parallel universes, there is a a plastic trash can version of myself in a suburban granola crunching enclave of Maryland. I receive messages from it daily, but I don’t fully understand what it’s trying to tell me. Every message starts with, ‘Tomorrow is the day.” And then after that, it repeats a whole string of numbers, starting with 63 and ending in 2,351.”
Admiral Ving Ving
The Spaceship Diaries of Admiral Ving Ving
“As my Uncle Bobby used to say, “Everybody has earwax!” It took me until the early 2000’s to fully appreciate and understand his advice.
Everybody has earwax.
It couldn’t be any simpler. But that maxim has been distorted. People everywhere are trying to get earwax out of their ear, but only when no one is looking. They use a Q-tip, their finger, or a pen cap to remove the wax. This kind of behavior, while seemingly satisfying, is short-lived, unproductive, and a little vegetarian. Maybe, with a little bit of luck, a person can get something out of their ear with a fingernail or a Q-tip. But when that stuff is really analyzed by scientists in North America, it’s been shown time and time again that most of that’s just dirt or bread crust, but not the magical fairy holy supreme inner earwax that ear pickers seek day in and day out for the rest of their lives. This wax is dark orange or black and when extracted, looks a bit like a crushed up and flattened raisin, and tastes like old wet cardboard. That’s the stuff that makes an ear itch.”
-Chris Tuckbee, “My life on the inside,” Page 32, Reprinted with permission from the National Podiatry Chronicles of Luther Valley, MD.
There are different kinds of scary. And if I had to choose what kind of scary I like to be, it would definitely be raccoon scary. I know some of you might think that if I had to be scary, why would I waste it on raccoon scary as opposed to something more popular, like zombie scary or rabid bear scary or mountain lion scary. Don’t get me wrong, I did think about those possibilities. But I felt that aiming for raccoon scary was a little more attainable, with the right attitude and frame of mind of course.
It was a lot easier to be raccoon scary than I was led to believe. I show up in other people’s kitchens after midnight and ruffle through all their shit. I love going through canned goods, searching for crisp apples in the refrigerator, and it’s always a treat to find those rare, sweet figs that are like nine dollars each at the food co-op. The other day I went into a kitchen and broke open the flour and threw rice and dry pasta all over the ground. I don’t know why I did it. It varies from night to night.
The one thing that does give me a hang up from time to time is if I’m confronted and questioned about my presence in “their” kitchen. It doesn’t often end well. I give my, “This is my place!” speech but that often fails. I’m asked to leave, I’m yelled at, I approach slowly, they threaten to call the police, and then I jump at them out of nowhere and ruffle my hands through their hair and clothes while they flail and scream. That’s the part I could do without.
I get these thoughts that the years have not been kind to me at all.
Was I there by the grace of chance or was she?
What I find interesting is that the most vitriolic of critics against Taylor Swift are the same ones who love the acoustic youtube covers of her songs. You can spot them pretty easily on youtube. They’ll say things like:
“This song would be so AWESOME if you sang this . . .”
“I don’t know how Taylor Swift is famous and you’re not . . .”
“I first heard this song before I heard the Taylor Swift version of it . . .”
“You sing it the way this song is supposed to be sang . . .”
But before you think I’m defending Taylor Swift and her perfect makeup and carved out of plastic look, I should make it clear that I like her in the same way that I like a road cactus or the Flying J on I-90 . . . they’re just there and part of America. You can make your own value judgments on what that says about our shared culture.
The thing is, even when you acousticize her songs with a creative cover on youtube, they’re still fucking Taylor Swift songs, no matter how good they sound.
When I was in high school, getting a car of my own was like a temporary pass to adulthood. As long as I was in the car, I was free of the nagging and all the other host of real and imagined teenage obligations and expectations. But as I got older, the car was a means to an end, a necessary bill so that I could get groceries from Costco, avoid the rain and snow on the walk to the metro, or to avoid Delta Airlines so that I could drive eight hours to see family. But sometimes all that noise goes to the wayside when I’m not driving, just sitting in the back, looking out the window, with neither obligation or duty to talk to anyone. That’s my temporary pass to childhood.
Ellsworth Drive.
#Maryland365 – Silver Spring, MD.
Follow the project here: https://www.facebook.com/Maryland365
We interrupt our normally scheduled programming to bring you this message that no one will read
05/04/2014
Rufus Mangrove
We interrupt our normally scheduled programming to bring you this message
I don’t have an official name for this project yet. For now, it’s called #Maryland365. No, I’m not taking a picture everyday or something.
For the “categorizers” and lovers of dictionaries, this line of work would likely be called “street portraits.” That is . . . close up portraits, taken on the street, with permission. I’m going to agree with the recent posts by the one and only Charlie Kirk that this project should not be labeled as “street photography.”
The pictures in this project will include a location and, as it stands, the #Maryland365. As of now, I’m focusing on Takoma Park and the surrounding area. I haven’t yet figured out what to do if I end up in DC, which is only a few minutes away. I’ll cross that bridge another day, as finding the correct hashtag doesn’t really keep me up at night. So, welcome to the first post in several. And, no, I do not approve of the ads below. I could pay wordpress to get rid of them, but as of now, I’m going to spend that money on an ND filter.
University Blvd.
Langley Park, Maryland.
#Maryland365
e v e r y d a y aperture 