self-port 

7 Bum Pictures

Pics taken in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in the Summer of 2004

One might say I have a pretty crass view on the bums; I don't hate them or anything but I don't really pity them either; usually I genuinely enjoy them . They're a funny, sincere and capricious bunch. I guess I do feel a bit sad when I take the time to realize how fucked over they are by Reservation life and by the harmful hand-outs given to them by the Government.

The guy that moans and howls. 

This guy is deaf or hard-of-hearing, I’m not sure which. He howls like a mad-man in this really long incredible moan. It sounds like he’s in agony, but really I just think he’s out of his mind drunk. I went down and took some pics of him. Then I felt bad and brought him some carrots and a few apples---you know, cuz ever since I was lil I’ve always liked to help strays--- But really, what should I do for him? Maybe ask him up to the apartment where I could give him a bar of soap and a hot shower, wash him up and make him into a fine City of Edmonton employee? He would eat the soap and shit everywhere. That’s the truth most people don't like to talk about.
 

So yeah, the story here is that I was coming home from work at 6am and found this dude on a warm-air vent. There are plenty of shelters for these guys but they realize shelters mean a night of sobriety so they’re compelled to partake of the drink and drugs and all the shit that comes with it--- in this case, it’s a cool Alberta dawn huddled up on a vent.
 

the social message here was not my idea--- at all! But it seems to be there so I won't wish it away. 

These guys are most likely Cree indians. It sounds like a generalization but out of the many aboriginal bums about most of them claimed to be Cree. The picture is on location at "Pony's Point". It's a very regular hangout spot, a place to drink and tell story's and fight and say "Fuuuck YOUU!". I like to go there sometimes when I'm really drunk and hang out with them; show them that I'm an alright fella. I like to talk like them and imitate them. It usually works. When I'm drinking with them--I mean like wasted and talking crazy talk, the distinction that's present during more regular hours rightly disappears.  

Don, the self-proclaimed, "toughest guy in town."

From my window in Edmonton. Everbody's front lawn. Lots of screwin on that lawn. And shittin and spittin'. 

Taiwan Breakfast

This is kinda the Asian equivalent of a McDonald's breakfast. I order the cheese Dan Bing and Iced Coffee. The Dan Bing is like a really thin green-onion cake but it has some scrambled egg and (optional) cheese in it (you can add ham or bacon if you like). The sauce is a mildly sweet fishy or oyster type sauce.I usually get the hot sauce as well. I like it--the TASTSTSTE ...

It's pretty cheap too:

40.00 TWD Taiwan New Dollars

=

1.54249 CAD Canada Dollars

Rob on Guitar.

(photo by Troy H)

Goos mostly with a bit'Owen

(photo by Troy H.)

Goos with favorite prop.

(photo by Troy H.)

Rob as song singer.

(photo by Troy H.)

Owen as drummer.

(photo by Troy H.)

Owen as starer. Bravin' up before the show.

Rob and Goos

(photo by Troy H.)

Foreground: Goos on keyboards. Background: Stink on stinks

(photo by Troy H.)

Goos as drums, Owen as keyboard.

(photo by Troy H.)

Owen Keyboard. Goos drums.

(photo by Troy H.)

Goos keyboard. Owen dums.

(photo by Troy H.)

Goos as heavy metal. 

Geroge W. Bush

I got this pic from a Conan O'brien skit. It's not very funny in this context but the original skit was good.

The Pest I Knowed

The other day I went into the bathroom/shower room--yes, I shower in the same room as I shit—no divider, no curtain. I turned on the shower to get the hot water primed and ready (it takes a while to heat up).While the water warmed I decided to poo, meeting my painful bi-weekly quota. I looked up to the right and in the corner near the 6’8” ceiling, yet still on the wall there stood a cockroach. A very standard, brown-banded cockroach-- he was about 20 days old, healthy and hungry. The shower water started to get hot and naturally enough it caused some steam and condensation to form on the cold, beige, bathroom tiles.

The cockroach was worried cuz his legs were losing grip on the smooth tile surface on account of the newly acquired moisture. I watched him as he slowly waved his front legs about up and down a few times, but it wasn’t helping much. I was still shitting when he fell. He never hit the floor. Somehow when he fell he hit the metal hand-rail deal about halfway down.

He ran back and forth on the horizontal bar, all the while being belted by remarkably hot shots of water from above. He seemed panicked. Eventually after some frantic wandering he found a somewhat safer spot directly under the horizontal hand-rail and the vertical portion of it that attaches it to the wall. He hung on there with his head facing the floor; the water looked a lot like huge, stressed, sweat-beads rolling from the tip of his face and splashing with terrible might onto the wine-red floor below. He thought how, God he wished he had more time and about how he was gonna die and about how the world seemed so radical. The Roach regretted never having a chance to have kids, or how he would never be able and warn them about the Universe’s infinite traps and futility.

I flushed the toilet and walked under the showerhead, I adjusted the heat a little bit so I could tolerate it. The water from the showerhead was powerful, it hit me and a thick cloud of steam poured up and outward from my considerably oblong head and back-leaning torso. The water streamed over my body and redirected itself to my limbs. The flood eventually ran out of limbs to flow down; portions of it shot down my arms and hit my elbow. From my elbow sporadic jets splashed while more united streams cascaded from my joints and onto the frightened cockroach. The roach was soaked--still staring at the floor and wrapped tightly to the metal rod. The pressure eventually took him. A surge of water from my elbow combined with some splash from my head you see, and lil Roachy, try as he might, he was unable to hold on. In a blink he instantly fell four feet to the solid ground below.

The Roach landed on his back-- hard. He thought, ‘Fuck Man!’ and ‘Oh Fuck!’ but he couldn’t breath so he couldn’t say it, even though he wanted to—he was frenzied and hurting, I mean, you know how it is to have the wind knocked out you, well combine that with the mass confusion of a flood and harmful fall. The Roach lay on his back for a while drowning from a huge dollop of water about the size of his head that covered his face. His legs and arms writhed and waved with mad energy. His underside was exposed, still he tried his best to crawl; he crawled and crawled and crawled, unfortunately he went nowhere because of the existent physics of friction. Eventually he got a break—I stood out, away from the shower-stream and lathered my body with a mucousy bar of Ivory soap, giving him just enough time to tuck his left shoulder from his first arm in and roll himself back to right. The Roach was exhausted. He shifted about the floor incoherently for 10 seconds and then finally, like a cast-away pulling himself onto dry land from the merciless Sea, he dragged himself towards the toilet.

The roach found the underside of a toilet scrub-brush holder. And he waited and panted and collapsed under his own weight, only, being a roach you couldn’t really tell so much that he had collapsed, you know, his tummy—it’s normal to be on the floor. But I knew, and so did he.

Two days later I saw the same Roach, I could tell, believe me, and he seemed spunky and filled with joy; justly revived even. The Roach as it turns out had actually done a lot of soul-searching in the 48 hours right after his near-death experience and was indeed filled with a love for life and a feeling of purpose that is very uncommon to the species. He even had a girlfriend and was considering kids.

Anyway, I was watching TV and I saw the Roach. I got to thinkin', ‘Hey, I bet all the food in our sink is helping these Roaches out; their procreation and feasting. Well, I don't really want too many Roaches so I think I'll throw this one outside and let him enjoy life out there like nature intended.’ I grabbed a partially unfolded map of the City of Taipei that was already near the Roach and coaxed the Roach onto it. Only the Roach looked up at me and screamed “YOU!?! --NO!” and he ran, he ran as fast as he could, right off of the map and onto the floor. I have to admit I was a little bit freaked out. I instantly dropped the map on top of the Roach and with a clenched right fist I began to pound; I pounded the area where I thought the Roach would be. I pounded 14 times. Fast. I lifted the map up and saw part of him stuck to the floor—it was like his back-wing/armor deal, I mean, I know he can’t fly but you know, that part that looks like half of his back, well, that was stuck to the floor with what looked like part of an inside-out raisin acting like the brown glue. I didn’t check the underside of the map to see if the other part of the Roach was there, I just couldn’t, you know?

Jasper Drunks

(click to enlarge--fuzzy jpeg-like)

to help remove a bit of the 'homesick and missing-that blues' I find that looking at pics helps; pics of loved-ones, people, places, dogs and certain paths, see--remedy. Foolin' with them pics in photoshop is fun and works along the same lines --memory lane jauntING--

the font sucks and the lines are off, not to mention the white line in the middle ain't right, but having said that, I had fun doing it so piss and piss.

The pics originally are from a trip in late Summer 2004 to Jasper, Alberta. NatS and I were drunk and in such a way---OOOOOO he's pointing at me and I giggled and smelly. I wanted to try to emphasize the fact that our relative perspectives in the pics are genuine--close even. Did it work? No, but like I says to the guy, "I had fun doing it so..."

READ THIS WORD
by Vito Acconci


READ THIS WORD THEN READ THIS WORD READ THIS WORD NEXT READ THIS WORD NOW SEE ONE WORD SEE ONE WORD NEXT SEE ONE WORD NOW AND THEN SEE ONE WORD AGAIN LOOK AT THREE WORDS HERE LOOK AT THREE WORDS NOW LOOK AT THREE WORDS NOW TOO TAKE IN FIVE WORDS AGAIN TAKE IN FIVE WORDS SO TAKE IN FIVE WORDS DO IT NOW SEE THESE WORDS AT A GLANCE SEE THESE WORDS AT THIS GLANCE AT THIS GLANCE HOLD THIS LINE IN VIEW HOLD THIS LINE IN ANOTHER VIEW AND IN A THIRD VIEW SPOT SEVEN LINES AT ONCE THEN TWICE THEN THRICE THEN A FOURTH TIME A FIFTH A SIXTH A SEVENTH AN EIGHTH

Homeless couple. 

The Jaw Bone

Once

I’m verily Ashamed
And rather Saddened.
Barely Conquering.

Now to laugh or cry
At the preposterousness
Of we sweet, skipping,
Teen-chance, former hopes
How they’ve dried---
Withered--
Shy the light of
Spite’s exacting honesty
(some penetrating prudence
of time.)

A real love ideal lost forever,
Replaced—
By I don’t know yet --
Thoughtless
Cowardice and avoidance,
Perhaps.

Now
You:
Swollen worry lips,
A frightening smile,
Cancer of the scrimp and save,
Self-rectifying,
Jaw-Bone.
Tits in the
Air-born asses--receptive till the very end;
Inviting all and every,
“Hey baby!”
Drunk and bald
then
the bar cunts with exclusively big biceps
-hair-product.
about
Deep friends of mine
Kisses and Pulls
now
Old Cabbies
“M-mean and sc-scary.”
Still
better than the sham of hateful youth,
Indeed.

Are we still Virginal?—
no to no
No to No.

Now, whose eyes are these?--colorless and languid.
And, whose breath is this?—bulimic-foul and powder-toothed.

Gosh, this is what love is?
This, this is what love turns into
We past messes it up;
Repugnancy and blame.
And no more fucking apologies.

An Unforthcoming Thomas Train and the Miserable Conversation.

( An unforthcoming 'Thomas Train')

A One-Act Screen Play.

Characters:
Aida Airplane: A girl Airplane with a human face. She has a crush on Thomas Train.
Brewster Bus: A boy Bus with a human face. A tall bus but not a double-decker.
Thomas Train: A boy Train with a human face. He'’s the star.
Station Master Ringo Starr: Ex-Beatle now a Station Master/ Train Engineer.

Setting: A dimly lit train yard in some magic place where all the fucking crafts, ships, ferries, cars, trains, airplanes, buses, and general-mobiles can talk and are usually friendly. It’s a bit chilly--about 12*C and the Sun is down. Station Master Ringo Starr is sitting in the security booth watching the Tom Hanks movie, “"Big"”.



---

Aida Airplane: What age where you when you first made a trip?

Brewster Bus: You mean like full-trip, round-trip? All the way? I was-- I’'m not sure---,I think, I mean, I don'’t even think I can remember my first round-trip, I---

Aida Airplane: No, I mean just a basic trip not a full-trip, not a round-trip, just you know, leaving the depot or port or whatever applies. Were you under fourteen days or over fourteen days?

Brewster Bus: Oh, well just leaving the depot, that’'s kid’s stuff we’re talking about, uh, hmm, I must’'ve been. Hmm, I was under fourteen days, I think. Wait, I was fourteen days. Nope I was thirteen days old and it was a British Columbia depot. I was with my cousin Tyler Bus-yeah I know, what a strange name!

Brewster Bus: Wait, how new were you Aida Airplane?

Aida Airplane: I was 20 days when I left the hanger.

Brewster Bus: Wow, that’'s---is that normal for Airplanes?

Aida Airplane: No I was late. I was later.

Brewster Bus: Ah, you’'re a frigid one, you must…

Aida Airplane (looks confused): what is frig---

Brewster Bus: Afraid of trips, of going on trips.


Thomas Train enters station (toot-toot!)


Station Master Ringo Star: 'Ello Thomas Train, welcome back, things 'aven't been the same without you!

Thomas Train: Yeah?

Brewster Bus: Hey Thomas Train, how new were you when you made your first trip, I mean, when you just left the station for the first time?

Thomas Train: I’'ve had this conversation with both of you before and I’m not going to have it again.

Brewster Bus: What? I don’'t remember ever having this conversation with you before.

Thomas Train: I’'m sure---I’'m sure I’'ve had this conversation with both of you before.

Brewster Bus: Well, I don’'t think we have-- but anyway, since I honestly don'’t know how new you were, just pretend you never told me. So, how new were you when you left the station for the first time?

Thomas Train: Forget it; I’'m not going to tell you.

Brewster Bus: What do you mean?

Thomas Train (no longer looking at Brewster Bus or Aida Airplane but instead focusing on his choo-choo parts): I don’t feel like telling you, I don’t want to-- it’s not a big deal.

Brewster Bus: Well, it’s pretty simple, just tell us a number, fuck, anything, 'twelve', 'thirteen', 'sixteen', it's not that hard. How hard is it to say a number? To say how many days?

Thomas Train: It’'s not a big deal; I just don’t want to tell you. I don’'t feel like it.

Brewster Bus: I really don'’t understand, how hard is it for you, I mean, I can see if your first trip was with your 'Grandpa Tony Train' but I’'m sure it was just a regular departure, right?

Thomas Train: Forget it!

Brewster Bus (growing agitated he starts backing up from Thomas Train and starts to leave the station): I just think it'’s such a simple little thing to answer. I mean, I think it’'s fucking lame that you couldn’'t answer. You refuse for some unknown reason!

Thomas Train: It’'s not a big deal. If someone doesn'’t want to tell something he shouldn'’t have to-- it'’s not a big dea--

Brewster Bus (now very annoyed, in first-gear, driving back towards Thomas Train): Exactly! It’'s not a big deal at all-but you'’re making it a bigger deal by not telling how many days new you were, it’'s pretty easy, just say a number! Is it seriously that hard to just say 'fourteen' or to say 'thirteen days new'-- your first trip?!

Thomas Train: It’'s not a big deal and I think it’'s predictable of you to think it is!

Brewster Bus: “Predictable”? I couldn’t care less if you think it’'s "predictable." That’'s not the point--- At all.

Thomas Train: Good, just like I care less what you think about me---

Brewster Bus (sarcastically): Yeah, ok. That’'s good then, ‘"good pals"’ we are, now we know. We like to share.



THE END

New Year's Eve Spectacular!

Meredith, Goos and Owen: Dead and Frozen to the floor at 4:40 am, January 1, 2005.