Potato Bro

Posted by Nollo on April 6, 2014
Posted in: Uncategorized.

I once wrote about watching a Jerusalem Cricket  being attacked by an army of ants. I was so excited to send it to a friend that I had completely forgotten that I had left my notes for computer language vocabulary at the top. Upon reading it again, I liked it how it sounded. So I left it in.
…

Jerusalem Cricket "Potato Bug" Butt ugly but harmless. Try not to kill them. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jerusalemcricket.jpg

Jerusalem Cricket
“Potato Bug” Butt ugly but harmless. Try not to kill them.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jerusalemcricket.jpg

Value:
An expression which cannot be evaluated any further (a normal form).
Type:
A classification identifying one of various types of data, such as
real-valued, integer or Boolean, that determines the possible values
for that type; the operations that can be done on values of that type;
the meaning of the data; and the way values of that type can be
stored.
variable:
A storage location and an associated symbolic name (an identifier)
which contains some known or unknown quantity or information, a value.
The variable name is the usual way to reference the stored value; this
separation of name and content allows the name to be used
independently of the exact information it represents.

All values in Lua are first-class values. This means that all values
can be stored in variables, passed as arguments to other functions,
and returned as results.
before I forget
i was sitting outside
smoking from a pipe
getting high
enjoying life
when from the corner of me eye
I see
A potato bug
upside down
legs in the air
going help me out bro!
and I laugh
Potato bro
and say
Poor Potato Bug
you’re mostly squished for the crime
“Being Butt Ugly”
and my mind wanders again
me eyes follow
here to there
following a flow of ants
a flow of ants
I figure
fixing for a fight
with the potato bug!

Black Garden Ants eating a grasshopper. Source:http://lasiusniger2009.blogspot.com/2010/06/365-tag.html

Black Garden Ants eating a grasshopper.
Source:http://lasiusniger2009.blogspot.com/2010/06/365-tag.html

at first I couldn’t tell
so I moved closer
and closer
moving the rocking chair
that i had not mentioned
but I had been sitting on it
Anyway, I get a closer look
and indeed, I could not lie
there were ants everywhere!
From here to there.
and I could see what would happen
Potato bro would sit in shade
and he would be swarmed
soldiers everywhere
trying to chip his carapace
with their mandibles
biting bro’s leg’s,
mouth, even his ass!
and  bro would go
GET OVER HERE
and destroy one
with pure
brute
force
but for every one defeated
there are eight more to meet him
and more arrived
and they came
and potato bro
overtaken
would stumble in the
scorching sun
simmering the stings
of his tiny opponents
but I could feel the sun
sitting down on me
putting all of his weight
on his ultraviolet rays
and it burned like hell
(should of worn a hat)
and potato bro felt it too
he dug at the earth for rescue
but only met rock
hot red rock
and he had no choice
but to seek shade
and the soldiers would swarm
and he would be overwhelmed
he would retreat into the open
and the cycle went on and on
“Don’t you see bro!”
I said
“There’s shade and soft earth
right there!”
I can’t see bro
“oh” i said
and his struggle went on
until he was close
so very close
to his saving shade
but he just sat
and sat
and his body
once brown
became covered
in a sea of black
I… did not know what to say
so I told him
“You did good bro
You almost made it
You’re the best”
Thanks bro
and i said
“here buddy
for the pain”
and blew a fatty
and the ants
all ran in anarchy
and retreated
and I thought
“Hmm, now that I think about it… a bunch of smoke would drive any insect away”
and as fast as tidal wave
they faded into the distance
and potato bro got up
and said
Did you see!
Did you see!
I beat them,  for you see,
I… am the best!
“you sure are, man”
he took a couple of steps
but missed the mound
and fell
once again on his backside
I tell him
“go home bro
You’re done”
and he stumbled for a bit
and exited into the dirt
The end.

Coffee Coffee Coffee

Posted by Nollo on March 31, 2014
Posted in: Writings and Poems.

Coffee coffee coffee
Just’a fueling my dreams
Coffee coffee coffee
Can’t live without thee
Coffee coffee coffee
Givin’ strength I need
Coffee coffee coffee
Pushing boundaries
Coffee coffee coffee
You’ll  be the death of me

The Motionless Mollusk

Posted by Nollo on March 26, 2014
Posted in: Writings and Poems.

To Jessica Presley Grusin,
who first got me to ask what I wanted to do in life, and then told me to go do it. I can only hope she is doing the same.
-Thanks

STOP EVERYTHING
you are doing.
Stop and take a second.
Instead of blowing
through the leafs of time.
Rake em in and in doing so
take a second
and think about these rhymes.

Suppose you could plunder
the depths of the deep blue sea
and go the the very core.
Well… not to the the very core
but close!

There you will find a key.
Not a physical key by the way.
More of a key to the past.
A mollusk;
A normal mollusk;
A plain normal mollusk.
The same,
unchanged,
for over 500 million years.

Now with mollusk at hand,
You will ask, what now?
Let me tell you, for you seem aloof.
If you took your hand
grabbed a microphone
(make sure it’s waterproof)
You can now ask:
“who are you?”
Perhaps,
in monotone,
you could
and would
hear a response.
…
I am a motionless mollusk.
…
Your stunned for sure!
(I know I would be)
Your mouth begins
to move with worry
but before asking or telling.
The mollusk begins
retelling
his whole life story.
…
I am a motionless mollusk
My father was a mollusk.
His father was a mollusk
His mother was a mollusk
and her father was a conjoined twin mollusk
Thier father was a mollusk
…
and mollusk by mollusk,
the mollusk traced his tree.
On, and on,
and on,
and on,
and on,
and on
he went about mollusk ancestry
until the mollusk came to the beginning.
…
and their father
was one the first mollusk.
That mollusk.
At the beginning,
said to his fellow mollusk
~~
Fellow mollusk!
the world is changing
and with it change
comes to all of us.
I will follow that change
by not changing
For I am the Motionless Mollusk!
~~
and he got all the chicks because of it.
…
The mollusk remains motionless
but melancholy malinger from every pore
and the microphone pitches in a low-frequency.
…
Those were the good times.
…
The mollusk continues on
…
That first mollusk
mastered the art of stillness
and all his children
Made stillness their business
and their children
made that their business
…
and so the mollusk making mukus
on such short topics.
Made a chronological U-turn
and came back around.
…
and he made that my business
So in short, I am
the supreme culmination
of stillness since the start!
…
(at least since the first mollusk you assume)
you ask if he has anything else to say.
He begins.
You hope its short and pray.
…
I am The Motionless Mollusk.
Although I can move;
I choose to stay still
and while the earth moves
I will remain still.
Through thick or thin
I will not move.
Even at death’s door
I will not move.
For even in death.
I can be still.
Thus, I will be resolute.

For I am a motionless mollusk!
My father was a mollusk.
His father was a mollusk.
His mother was a mollusk.
and her father was a conjoined twin mollusk.
Their father was a Mollusk.

…

and so you bid goodbye
and as you begin your busy day
when you haven’t got a second
I hope you’ll think of The Motionless Mollusk
and his motionless ways.

Working Haiku on Bees

Posted by Nollo on March 25, 2014
Posted in: Small Poems.

Hari kari bee,
Loyally ending his life.
A small samurai.

A bee starts to smite.
A prick pulls at his inside.
He is gutted.

Small striped samurai.
Gave up life by becoming
a small annoyance.

Yellow samurai,
Ends existance for himself.
No one laments him.

2,000 Pounds of Dog part 2

Posted by Nollo on March 25, 2014
Posted in: 2PD.

10 years later.

10 long grueling years.

10 houndingly long years.

10 wooefuly long, dog eat dog years.

Dr. D sits in his chair. Surrounded in darkness. Listening to the air currents hum as they are gently brushed off the plane’s wings. Barely holding on, and with life draining out of him him, he considers the past 10 years of his life. He had originally given himself 8 but with devilry and trickery he had delayed his death up until now, and he was content with that. 193 years old was a decent age.
“still…. 200 would have been better…” Dr. D guesses that even in old age, he is still a stickler for even numbers.
His team met all the requirements, 90% biomass 10 % cybernetics, and a mass of no more than 1 short ton, but most of all. He had done what he had wanted to do and that was to elevate the dog.

At that moment, the console lights up bright, and the whole plane shuts off.  The plane’s nose lifts up for a few seconds before it drops and the plane goes into nosedive. The chair’s automatic safety mechanism kicks in and Dr D almost blacks out from the sudden g forces at play. The plane dives into a thunderstorm where it begins to pelted by electricity at all sides, frying the console and sending surges of light through the plane.

There Dr. D understood, this was the end for him.

 

YET THIS WAS NOT THE END.

He still had to ensure the survival of his plans. He had worked to hard to fuck it up now. He was certain that his team would survive the crash without his help, but now he had to seal the deal. He had to make his team psychologically invincible.
He knew now.
That he, had to make history.
With every fiber of his brittle bonely body. With every minutia of blood he pumped harder to move. Thus through force of will and guts alone he he stood for the first time in 5 years.

MY CHILDREN!
SINCE THE BEGINNING OF MANKIND, MAN HAS ALWAYS FOUGHT AGAINST NATURE AND NATURE AGAINST MAN. YET THERE WAS ONE WHO TURNED ITS BACK ON NATURE, AND FOLLOWED MAN. THAT WAS THE WOLF. THE WOLF BECAME OUR EYES AND EARS, IT BECAME OUR WEAPON AND SHIELD. OUR ENTERTAINMENT AND THE BRUNT OF OUR ABUSE. YET THE WOLF REMAINED AND BECAME THE DOG.

Dr. D. started to spit up blood. His voice now came in short burst with blood fighting with air to escape his mouth. It did not matter. He just tried harder to speak.

NOW!
DESCENDANTS OF THE WOLF.
MY TWO THOUSAND POUNDS OF DOG.
I AM DYING.
YET, I AM MAN WITH GOD’S POWER
I TURN TO YOU.
MAN’S BEST FRIEND.
FOR ALL YOUR LOYALTY.
I BESTOW UPON TO YOU.
THE POWER OF MAN.
NOW GO FORTH AND FOLLOW MY WILL.

Dr. D finally started to give in to his death.

“They say”
he struggled
“They say every dog has his day”
With one final push, with eyes bulgin and body breaking, one final testament of life springs from his mouth.
I SAY TO YOU NOW!

MAKE

EVERY DAY

A DOG’S DAY

Although no sound was made every ear in that room listened and understood. Dr. D fell to the floor. Dead. A series of short barks rang out, and as the plane began to come into view of it’s eternal embrace with the ground. They plane suffered an explosion and ten dark figures flew out in different directions.

END OF PART 2

Why I never write.

Posted by Nollo on March 24, 2014
Posted in: Writings and Poems.

TLDR
IT’S HARD AND I’M TERRIBLE AT IT.

Prose is a skill that I never bothered to master or train in.  It’s a tool that I wield haphazardly and with ignorance. I Never like what I write. I always feel like I’m just regurgitating words onto a page or screen. A straight up mishmash of thoughts, ideas, and voices. I struggle to make sense of them. Put them in order and make them clearer, but it never turns out way. My message, which was clear in my mind, turns into a bog. Muddy,  dirty and always disgusting. I am never happy with the outcome.

Add on to that, I have the tendency to repeat words or phrases while typing. I will often write the same word or sentence or word or sentence, which I almost never catch. A stutter. Which I find amusing because, how can you stutter while writing? It makes no sense :l Still causes me to stress. I’m a miner working a stream, I sift through the refuse, over and over again in a futile attempt to make something that resembles the language that we know as English.

And when I’m done. When I am forced to look upon the toils of my trouble. I find an abomination brought onto this plane of existence by my hand. I can only look upon them with hate and rage. For these words are my words borne from within me. They are the sum of skill and self.  My words only remind me of my own mediocrity and the disdain I have for myself.

I take the only sane course. I delete what I write, or better yet. Let the idea die in my head. That is totally fine by me.
Yet…
I’m haunted. These abortion of ideas sit in my head and festering and growing. Until they reach out and choke me to death. They scream
“Tino! You sonofabitch! What are you doing! Why have you abandoned us!?”
I try to escape and they just keep dragging me down and suffocating me.

WHERE'S MY MONEY BITCH! -Marley's ghost talking to Scrooge Source: http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/barnard/xmas/4.html

“WHERE’S MY MONEY BITCH!”
-Marley’s ghost talking to Scrooge
Source:
http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/barnard/xmas/4.html

I wonder why that’s the case…
Perhaps it’s not my ideas, but as George Orwell put it “SHEER EGOISM”, getting in the way.

George Orwell at his desk. Source: http://orwelldiaries.wordpress.com/biography/

George Orwell at his desk. Source: http://orwelldiaries.wordpress.com/biography/

Either way, it sucks. Thus, like Sisyphus, I continue the ever painful process of writing in hopes that I atone for crimes which I will never be absolved of.

"REMEMBER THE MILK NEXT TIME DUMBASS" -Sisyphus being nagged before work. Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nekyia_Staatliche_Antikensammlungen_1494_n2.jpg

“REMEMBER THE MILK NEXT TIME DUMB-ASS”
-Sisyphus being nagged before work.
Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nekyia_Staatliche_Antikensammlungen_1494_n2.jpg

Yet…
Now, sitting here, typing, getting this post ready to publish about nothing. As my muscles strain at the very peak of the boulder’s climb. A boulder that I have been pushing agonizingly slow this whole time. My mind gets ready for the blow back that is the realization that I must do it all over again. In this one moment. I notice a tiny pebble. smaller than a fingernails width. It falls off, as the boulder is pulled down again. I begin to walk down head held high at least with some weight and gravitas.

Anyway here’s a poem:

Rotting
I lay down and stare at nothing
A bellow pumps smoke out
Puff puff like a wooden stove
As the smoke closes my eyes

My third eye opens
Projecting the past
Punching the present
And foreseeing the future
Seeing the Alpha and the Omega
Crossed

My third eye begins
Staring at electricity
Switching levers on and off
Turning into numbers
Zeros and ones
Turning into images
Images from bytes
Staring at images
Images being pumped full of life
At 60 Kilohearst a second

There my wretched creation
Cacophony of life and limbs
My abomination
Walks a few steps
And dies

And the wind continues to blow
I am no Frankenstein
But still binded
still forlorned
Still condemned nonetheless
To be forever haunted with endless repense

A poem about Street Fighter and tenacity

Posted by Nollo on March 15, 2014
Posted in: Street Fighter, Writings and Poems.

I remember a couple of years back. I was sitting on dilapidated but otherwise fine yard chair at the Placer House. It was very green. Sitting in that chair, looking at the stars as the Dream Land stage music booms in the background. I begin to remember back to an even earlier time, to a fighting game tournament in LA. Back when Level-Up was still holding their events at the Proudbird. A “rustic” restaurant and dinning hall, a couple of miles away from LAX. It was the morning and  I was sitting outside the hotel, smoking with friends or waiting for the car or something. I don’t remember, but there was a Filipino Champ, still somewhat of an unknown at the time, waiting for his ride.

I chat with him a bit and eventually ask
“So how do you think you will do in the tournament? ”
He looked at me and smiled
“I’m gonna win it all.”
At that moment, perhaps because it was early in the morning, or maybe because I was out of shape and out of breath from standing up so fast 5 minutes ago, but in that moment. I saw a gleam in his eye, and most importantly, that smile, wasn’t conveying assurance at victory.
It looked like the smile of hunger about to fill the void.

And wouldn’t you know it. He placed first in that tournament.

So, if you remember back to the Placer Home where I was sitting on a outside chair, having remembered that moment then said
“huh”
and so I cobbled this poem together in 20 min, put it on my phone and forgot about it.

UNTIL NOW

Anyway, here you go, to champ, who is now a chump.

Hunger

Filipino Champ

You’re Dhalsim is like water

Freeflowing, the rubber master

Stop

He’s like volcanic rain!

Drops fist and kicks like change

You cannot enter.

You will not pass.

You will get creamed

By Filipino Champ’s Dhalsim.

2000 Pounds of Dog Part 1

Posted by Nollo on March 15, 2014
Posted in: 2PD.

After all was said and done.
After all the carnage and rage.
After all the whimpers and cries.

One lone figure
walks back.

Dr. D looks at the scoreboard. The monitor blips on the final tally. His frown drops to it’s lowest point of the night and along with it, two words also drop.

“A massacre…”
Molly, slow like moving lumber approaches Dr. D and licks his face.

“Come along Molly” says Dr. D. with a sigh. “I’ve got to start all over.”

Thus, Dr. D and Molly start their long walk towards the exit. The deafening cries of the crowd and the flashing lights of the cameras are left unseen. One could say that he isn’t even there at all. Just a frail old man; shuffling along. Lost deep in thought, already trying to counter the problems he faced today, but one thing is clear in his mind.

“Never again will I lose…”

On aboard his plane, Molly sleeps at the doctors feet while Dr D., still in deep calculation is at in-pass. He knows what the problem is. He is always able to get far. He is after all, Dr. D.: THE SAVANT OF SCIENCE. Even now, in the new order his name is still know. So, how could he, one of the most brilliant men on the earth, be losing at dog fighting. Sure, he had only been at it for 20 years , and they had only started to allow genetic manipulation 15 years ago,

“These…” his voice began to rise.  His decrepit body pumping with blood and that blood pumping with fury began rising him out of his chair.

“THESE…” His rage at the tipping point. He is so livid that the words are dammed up behind his mouth, but the rage pushes and pushes and cracks begins to show until finally the dam breaks.
“THESE FUCKING SHITHEADS ARE BEATING ME!? WHAT THEY ARE DOING ISN’T EVEN DOG TRAINING OR SCIENCE! THEY JUST SLING THEIR GE GE… GENETIC SHITS ON THE WALL  AND WHATEVERSTANDS UP AND KILLS! THEY CALL A DOG! ”

Molly begins to wag her tail.  A cadence starts up and and stone begins banging against floor. Dr. D slumps down into his chair.

“You think so too, huh Molly?” He pats Molly softly on her head.  He had created molly to be the perfect defense and distraction. Her hair modified tortoise DNA to give her a hard outer shell that when struck hardens. Underneath, rhino skin for added defense. Even with modification she was largely and genetically still a St. Bernard. A grey rocky 500 pound St. Bernard, but still a dog. Truly a work of art.

He slumps even lower. He knows all of his work was flawed. For all of his creations were brought into this world with compassion. They lacked the genetic chaos and madness of the other creatures and Dr. D knew that’s why he would always lose. Yet, that was the fate that was given to him because ultimately, he was a purist. As a scientist and a dog lover and would never create such a mindless brute.
Dr. D thought stops.

He utters “mindless brute…”  and it clicks. He knows now, what he has to do.

END OF PART 1

A Little Green tree – Redux

Posted by Nollo on March 13, 2014
Posted in: Ed Wood, Revisions, Small Poems.

Unless you’re John Keats, or some other kind of savant. If you want to get good at something, you practice, learn and put effort into it. You work at it, tinker with it, and sometimes fuck it up entirely. Ultimately,

“The main idea is to keep writing. No matter what it is. Keep at it because even if your story gets worse, you will be getting better. You’ll sit and dream most of the time, but you must first conquer the big white glob with the typewriter imprints.”
-Ed Wood

Ed Wood in that last sentence is talking about using white out to clean up a mistake on a typewriter. In an era were the home computer had yet still been introduced. He would of probably killed to have even a janky 80’s computer. Never mind anything from today.

The IBM 5100 Released September 1975 Still better than a typewriter. source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IBM_5100_-_MfK_Bern.jpg

The IBM 5100
Released September 1975
Still better than a typewriter.
source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IBM_5100_-_MfK_Bern.jpg

Sure, the movies he made were not the best, but the man had heart, and determination to get things done no matter what. That is because he cared and had a passion for what he did, and that’s why we still know him and his movies.  A man who was put under the most extremes of movie making and instead of crumbling, shat out a movie.

Thanks for everything Ed.

Perhaps if I continue to follow his advice, some of that tenacity will rub off on me too.

Anyway, here’s a revision of A Little Green tree

A Little Green tree

looking fine and dry.
snip, snip
there goes a Bit of branch.
snip snip, Bye!
there goes a Bit of another.
snip snip, crunch!
pruning fore-Goes until there is just
A skeleton.
Long green bleached bones

they come alive
and the Way
they hit the ground
it’s as if the weight

1 million pounds!

they turn to me

and say

THESE NAKED BONES
THESE TEN BARE CAPITOLS
DID YOU AT LEAST CAPITALIZE

ON WHAT I HAD TO SAY?