Essay Rejected by McSweeneys: My New Job (Now Old News)

The bosses are brothers, and they bring their matching-eyed dogs to work. The dogs look like reptiles because of these yellow eyes. It makes them appear confused and ancient. There are two, and they ignore each other. One, a silken monkey food-stealer spaniel thing, barks hysterically at strangers. He lounges in the hallway, looking up with an expression of inexplicable terror. The other is a horse-pill shaped tick of a dog with respiratory problems that causes incessant and periodic honking on the exhale. When one of the bosses introduced her, he said “This is Funny,” in a most un-funny tone of voice. I was looking at the dog, stroking its throat, and I thought my new boss was referring to the sheaf of papers he was holding. Then I realized he too was looking down at his dog. He said it again. “This is Funny.” 

From my desk, in a windowless half-office, I can hear the rhythmic honking rise and fall as Funny lumbers up and down the carpet, searching for someone to smell her breath and comment on her Flying Nun ears. Sometimes she catches a whiff of something interesting and her breathing becomes its own drum fill, a shuffle-ball-change that might be snappy if it happened at regular enough intervals. Snuffly-DOO-snuff-AH! 

The dogs generally keep to themselves, or are ignored. Ignoring the dogs is an athletic act because we have to prove, on a regular basis, that we are in fact ignoring them. Regardless of how severely we ignore, one of the brothers is convinced we are going out of our way to feed his dog our celery or hummus or whatever. “I swear someone is feeding him,” he announced (yelled) a few days ago through a particularly noisy faceful of wasabi peas. Today he banged his sunburned forehead against the wall of my office very slowly, almost a dozen times in a row. DONK. DONK. DONK. I don’t know why, I think it was because I asked about something. His dog is the silky one, always appearing slightly jealous, lurking in doorways waiting for the sound of a spoon against the walls of a single-serving yogurt container. His name is Newman, and I cannot help but think when I look into his brass-button eyes: “New man.” Sometimes I say it aloud. Sometimes, for no apparent reason, someone else will say one of the dog’s names aloud. 

Newman was absent from the company picnic; Funny attended at the end of a length of clothesline. The line stretched from her owner’s belt loop to wherever the closest morsel of barbecued meat might be, which was basically everywhere on everyone’s paper plates. She made new noises, one of which was a snort-honk-grunt combination that actually startled people. We were told, while lying on sheets at the edge of the disc-golf course, that Funny is 75% Beagle with a quarter of indeterminate origin. Her owner had her DNA tested. Newman was submitting to the exact same background check, and the results came back totally Spaniel-free. Smallish shiny completely brown monkey dog wasn’t listed in his chart either: evidently there wasn’t much on his chart due to the complexity and completeness of his genetic emulsification. The afternoon was hazy with the moistness of a nearby hurricane, and yellowjackets hovered around everything.   

Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could harness this listlessness, this hunger for whatever? How much energy could be generated by aimless dogs? A dog gym, a facility of treadmills hooked up to generators, could easily power one house, perhaps two, or a small factory’s lighting needs. Run, little things, run. 

KARI ALTMANN: Zoomed-in View From The Trenches

Kari Altmann's knack for illuminating technology and its psychic imprints is impressive. Her real-time gif collages for Double Dagger drummer Denny Bowen's solo dance/pop mashup project Smart Growth were elaborate and clever without being self-congratulatory -- only the tip of the iceberg. A prolific artist immersed in the narrative possibilities of ephemeral imagery, Altmann DJs as Blackmoth.org, creates videos, and shows her work regularly around the globe. Her epic collection R-U-IN?S highlights the intersection between permanence, obsolescence, and the alluring constructions of the unreal. R-U-IN?S is a testament to its own double meaning as much as it is a challenge; all comers are invited to participate in the catalogue, to submit or remix. Plans are currently underway for a R-U-IN?S kiosk at Shanghai's World Expo. Here, Altmann responds to a question that's been on her mind for some time.

What are you doing the most lately?

Reading a.aaaarg.org and making a lot of videos, mixes, and tumblrs, it's winter. I spend most of my time emailing and ftp'ing files - I want a long computer hiatus this spring and I want to run away to some facsimile of Ibiza this summer. But today I'm excited about the igloo we're going to build behind our apartment (I'm answering this during Baltimore's "Snowpocalypse 2010")

How does your location (Baltimore) affect what you do and who you are these days?

• Importing what I can't get locally to a city full of empty warehouses.
• It is more convenient to go to Manhattan than to the suburbs.
• Right now I think I attend more events in New York than locally, and I definitely seem to show my art everywhere else but here.
• People think I live in New York.
• I'm just bouncing between here and there, something more artists seem to be doing
• I want the world tour lifestyle that all these musicians have but only my files seem to get it.

http://r-u-ins.org/

I feel really lucky to have moved here in 2004 and witness some magical years, but I'm not in a musical act so the ride on the wave was a little different. Mostly it was a spectacle to learn from - an education. I think of it almost like a research residency on the culture industry: watching things be planted, cultivated, then exported to the world. I actually saw it happen from start to finish, with varying degrees of success. I'd seen a little bit of that before but never with this intimate social intensity. In a place this raw with currents this dark it seems like viruses have the time and space to grow very carefully, in a unique way - so that if they get swept away to other places or hit that exponential dispersion they are almost invincible.

While all this was happening I was at MICA learning critical theory and art history, trying to maintain some kind of perspective on it all but still wanting to participate. It was a tricky balance. After watching people around you deal with fame and self-branding so many times, you really learn what you want and don't want, but more importantly you see new possibilities for yourself. Baltimore has made me understand freedom. It has made me tougher in a different way than New York, by testing what I do with that freedom. Not everyone flourishes under these conditions.

DREAMCAPTCHA #006 from Kari Altmann on Vimeo.

I moved here from Dallas which is the opposite of Baltimore in a lot of ways, so it has always felt like an escape. When I came here I was definitely on the run. At first I took advantage of school loan money and the cheap cost of living and just travelled all over the world every time MICA was on break. The transition was a little rough. Eventually, though, I settled down and got more invested in Baltimore itself, which is when it rewarded me with an ideal quality of life. That tribal experience people fetishize - we actually had it for a minute, with all its ups and downs. I took a net hiatus and spent my time raving and surrounded by people. I didn't care about blogs or a career. It was like the ideal end of college situation amplified by 200 percent.

Now I feel pulled back out of that experience, more zoomed out again. My website went back up. This is a great place to get some projects done, but you basically have to export those products everywhere else once they're finished. It's like MVP/Bolt Bus and Wimax are singlehandedly responsible for more MICA graduates staying and surviving.

ADSPACE (2008) from Kari Altmann on Vimeo.

More importantly though, it's a good place to experience the raw and hidden elements of America, if you can handle it. If you use it to educate yourself you become able to see the things at work behind a lot of the larger forces in the world. If New York gives you eagle-eye vision, Baltimore gives you the zoomed-in view from the trenches. And there are times I still get that dystopian/lost city/end-of-the-world feel from it all which is what seduced me in the first place. People here are creating their own utopias, whether productive or destructive, among the burnout. Those forces keep eachother in balance. These people are part of a network of post-industrial American settlers experimenting with a cultural "next wave" in cities all over the country, with the aid of the internet. Sometimes it's the second wave, sometimes it's the sixth. Since most of the music and art from these cities is accessible via internet, touring, or exportation to New York, you can actually feel the current of a "Post-Millenial American Frontier" which can motivate you. Not to suggest it's only coming from America though, it's happening all over the world and has been, in cycles, for a long time. It's just that the internet is uniting and diversifying it more than ever before. In 2012 my only dream is to have some huge mega-rave that pulls all of these art/music/party initiatives together, to actually feel this current frontier in one place at one time.

I don't know if I'll stay living here this year - a move is feeling more and more inevitable - but what I've learned in Baltimore, first-person, is invaluable.

What do you think of the future?

Look Up, Look Out

karialtmann.com

blackmoth.org

r-u-ins.org

netmaresnetdreams.net

TOM GREENWOOD: This Infinity Thing

Tom Greenwood was born in South Dakota which accounts for his largeness and blondness. He cut some teeth in Baltimore and upstate New York, did booking for underground clubs before it was cool to do so, and scooted out to Portland OR to settle for good and give his never-ending rotating-cast musical entity Jackie O Motherfucker a place to call home. He's been releasing handmade CDRs, serving residencies, and making exhibitions (including a solo show coming up in March at New York's Cue Foundation) since forever. Most recently, Jackie O Motherfucker's latest release Ballads of the Revolution is now available from Fire Records.



What do you do? What are you doing the most lately?
navigate, document, accumulate and edit. smoke a lot of cigarettes in between...
lately i'm editing... it's the fall, time to bring in the crops, see what's been collected this past year.

How long have you done these things? How have the things changed?
my whole life, at least since i can remember. maybe since 1970 when i was 4.
the territory i travel has gotten larger, the documents more precise, the accumulation- is getting smaller, as the editing gets more fluid... the transitions are smoother.

Why do you do these things? What's it like when you are unable to do these things?
i'm working on my line. something identifiable, to establish it's origin.
there are so many of us on the planet. i just want to work on something peaceful.
we're all very similar collections of cells, yet each of us has a different fingerprint.
it's worthwhile to me exploring this snowflake, infinity thing...


When was That Moment in your life that told you you would become what you are?
i was on top of mt. leconte in the smokey mountains, maybe 1987. i had found this salamander under a rock, it was beautiful, black with very unique spots on it. i think they were orange. i took it with me to the other side of the mountain, and let it go.
later on i looked under the same rock, and there it was again. so, i took it to the other side of the mountain again, and let it go. later i looked under the rock again, and there it was... i did this all day, and it became horrifying. this infinite identity of individuals in space... i guess i was tripping.

How has your life changed to accommodate That Moment's effect on you?
well, that was a very enlightening journey. it was summertime, and i was on the loose, hitch-hiking around. i discovered many things, and the darkness of it all overwhelmed me i guess. when i returned home, i became more politically active, making a lot of audio and film documents of local demonstrations against US activities in central america. i eventually got arrested and jailed for these documents, and many of them were destroyed by the authorities. when i was released, i had to let in some pretty negative allies in order to cope. they stayed with me a long time, maybe 20 years or so... finally i was able to remove them, and i was left with a really beautiful and complex skeleton which was formed at that time.

How has your work affected your life in return?
my work is the ground i walk on... it's given me a way to structure reality, so that i can exist in it. when i was younger i saw no way that i could be a part of all of that i saw around me, and it was scary. so slowly and slowly, i started to accumulate. i worked guided by intuition, objects next to each other create a new entity, and by documenting and editing with intent, you can create narrative, and build your own story...


What do you think of the future?
i feel incredibly blessed to be surrounded by so many creatively evolved, enlightened, and intelligent beings, who are doing their best to better themselves and their communities. for this, i feel hopeful...
however, for greater society, for people who have depended on an imposed structure and placed faith in the actions of dominate social leaders, i am not so hopeful. i don't really know what's in store for them, but i know change is possible, if you want something different.

How does David Lee Roth affect your life?
david who?

all images courtesy Tom Greenwood

JOMF myspace
JOMF WIKI

MICKEY FREELAND: Mo Fresher Than The Produce Section

MICKEY FREELAND aka Mickey Free aka Bow N Arrow is a very talented young man. Lately he's been working in his brother Chris' studio Beat Babies recording, mixing and engineering Baltimore bands like Noble Lake, Sri Aurobindo, and most recently Jana Hunter. Some might say that he is personally responsible for recommending that all of Wham City relocate to Baltimore from SUNY Purchase. He is definitely responsible for running in a Baltimore rap-pack including but not limited to Jones the Rapper, Height, PT Burnem and AK Slaughter, and for mastering a turn of phrase that would embarrass your mother even when his mother is in the audience.

What do you do? What are you doing the most lately?
I'm a producer/rapper/mix engineer. But the most fulfilling thing I do is waiting tables. I'm just now finishing up producing/mixing the new Height record.

How long have you done these things?
About 12 years.

Why do you do them? How does it make you feel?
Well, I don't really want to do anything else, and aside from making people laugh, there's not much else that I'm naturally very good at. I'm not stupid; I'm sure I could do other things, but i have actual nightmares about going back to school, you know? This is the the thing for me.

When was That Moment in your life that told you you would become what you are? What happened?
Actually, I kind of had that recently. Last fall I had kind of a nervous breakdown after my first big music "break" fell through. It tour me up and I thought I was gonna be a failure. I was on some "....and I never even graduated COLLEGE!!!" type shit, real miserable, defeated and scared. Anyway, I started to come out of it, and started playing more shows again. I played an awesome show at the Zodiac in spring I guess, and the crowd reaction was just great. I got off stage and I had that glowing feeling. I was watching the next group ( I believe it was AK Slaughter), and they were great, and I felt great, and I just thought, "THIS is what I do. It's really all I'm gonna do (music in general, that is)". And that felt fine. I mean, I'm still scared about the future all the time, but now I feel like I'm just going with my DNA, you know?

How has your life changed or not changed to accommodate that moment's effect on you?
I'm REALLY trying to worry less about the future and just do what I feel like I have to do. if I feel like I'm loosing steam, I'll try to remember that we only get ONE shot at this life thing. Thats really amazing (and scary) if you think about it. So you have to make a big attempt, you know, even if it ands up as a big failure. It's pretty good just to try in a lot of ways.



How has your work affected your life in return?
It's a double edged sword. The more I focus and get done, the better i feel about what I'm doing and the path I'm on. But the stakes get higher, too. The more you believe in yourself, the more it hurts if your dreams get dashed.

Can you tell me a little more about your relationship to rap music?
I started rapping at about 11 as a joke, cause my brother Chris began a novelty rap group and I said "that stuff is so dumb, any one could do it" he said "prove it" and I came up with this: "I'm running for Rapper, in the next election, cause I'm mo fresher than the produce section". he was impressed and I joined the group. With in a few years myself, my brother and my best friends Dan Keech, Bob Sherin and Mike Romano had all begun listening to rap seriously and started rapping seriously. I guess because we were already music geeks we appreciated rap for how great it was a bit earlier than some of these other white motherfuckers in the game of life.

Is it how you started making music in the first place?
In a way yes, but I started playing guitar soon after and that was my main instrument until the end of high school. I was in a couple rock bands with my brother and the rest of those previously mentioned dudes. We were actually all in the band SUPER BASS QUAD which in ways was a precursor to Oxes, my brothers popular math rock band. He played drums in SBQ.


How does rapping make you feel? Do you find you are able to say things that you couldn't otherwise?
Well, I tend to say whatever it is I'm thinking most of the time anyway. But lately in particular, I'm finding that I like to put even more of my own thoughts and opinions into my tracks. Rap is a great medium for putting your own strange take on things out into the world, because it follows a pretty rigid structure in general, but the subtleties you bring to the table are what really sets you apart. For a long time I just focused on flow and snappy lines, but now I'm really making an effort to put as many of my own personality quarks into a track as possible. I was/am scared to do this, cause the things I think about the most are Race, Sex, Depression, Comedy, History... topics that are either controversial, disgusting or just plain boring. But I think I can maybe say a lot with a little, which is what you're trying to do in a rap verse. So instead of just finding different ways to say I'm awesome, I'm hoping that if i put enough honesty into my rhymes, even if people are put off by the subject matter, they'll be able to dig where I'm coming from cause the format/delivery is inherently entertaining. Hopefully.

To answer the first part of your question, rapping makes me feel pretty great. I struggle alot over lyrics, but once I'm satisfied and I'm actually performing it's the shit. I guess you kind of feel like you're a bard that happens to be rocking the fuck out of the king's court while telling a cool story (that totally made sense so just keep reading). Plus if I perform well I might get to blaze sex with an impressed female.

Tell me about your relationship with your brother Chris Freeland and what you've been up to with him lately.
Chris is the milkman's son. He's four years older. He is absolutely, 100% the person most responsible for getting me into music and developing my own sense of humor, which is how me and him first became close. Around the time that I was in middle school, I think he saw that I was finally smart enough to have a not-totally retarded sense of humor, and also to appreciate music for the first time. It was like a project for him. He took me to shows and let me hang out with his cool friends, who are now my cool friends. Since then I think we've really both been sounding boards for each other. We're closer than ever right now, in large part due to the studio that chris has started. We've both been into mixing and recording our own music for a while now, but since Chris got a Pro Tools rig 2 years ago, that aspect of his creativity has really taken off. At this point, he's basically recording bands full time. I began assisting him this past year, after learning some of the basics interning at Lord Baltimore Studios. I believe us working together in his studio (called Beat Babies) is really opening up a whole new chapter for us creatively. I never really learned music theory, but I know what sounds good. Me and Chris come from the same perspective that way; we just love production. We both kind of see it as a part of the creative process to mix/engineer/produce an artist. It makes me feel like I'm in the band for a few days, offering what I can. I get a HUGE thrill being able to help someone get the sound they have in their head to come out of the speakers. It's great. I'm just impatient with myself and I always want to be better than I am. But I guess that's good? Anyway, Chris and I really work well together because we see eye to eye on music; we hear a song and in many ways we already know how it should sound, and often times we're thinking the same thing. He is also insanely diplomatic in a recording situation, which is fucking crucial.


What does humor mean to you? What does humor mean?
Sometimes I wonder, if I could only be funny, or only make music, which would I choose? And I think in a way I'd rather be funny. If I couldn't joke around I'd go nuts. There are people I know and admire for whom making music is like breathing; they can't help themselves, their understanding of melody and song structure is that strong. Jenn and Andy from Wye Oak, Dave Heumann from Arboretum, Cass McCombs. I look at them and wonder where that comes from. I never felt like I had that. I've got a basic feel for music that I've built upon, but it didn't really come that naturally. Humor is different for me. This sounds big-headed I guess, but since I was fairly young I just felt like I knew what was funny about a situation. Something happens and my brain just says "say this, it'll be awkward as hell!". I guess I just see how every situation, no matter how mundane, is totally ridiculous on some level, so why not have fun with it, you know?

A sense of humor is so important to me because I think it's really a window into someone, and society in general. By sharing a joke, or observing one's reaction to an off-color comment, you learn a lot. You learn what their hang-ups are, you may learn what their turn-ons are, you can tell what their politics are or if they're practical or a dreamer. I love to make leap-of-logic, abstract kind of comments and see who picks up what I'm putting down. Usually it's one of my best friends who's on my page already. Humor is like mortar to a friendship, at least with my friendships. It's what makes my brother and I so close. When we were young, The Simpsons molded us and made us realize that comedy is high art. I think if you can joke about something, it's like the easiest way in the world to find out how you really feel about it, and that is invaluable. Plus, it's easier than reading a dumb book.

First ten words that come to your mind when you think of David Lee Roth. Don't think, just write. David Lee Roth: GO
Paramedic. Blond. Sunglasses. Leopard. Hair. Hot. Wild. Happy. Strong. Satisfied.

Do you have anything you'd like to ask me?
Do you think success makes people like us, artist types, happy? Do you think most creative people feel they need recognition to be validated?
I think the thing that makes creative people truly happy is the freedom, time and space to achieve their desired ends, with true success as a measure of how much of this type of freedom one is able to sample within their lifetime. Success is completing a project to your own satisfaction: you feel happy because you were able to do it your way, and maybe sharing it with others brings happiness. Sometimes not. Happiness is not always the thing to shoot for; speaking for myself, these days I'm happiest doing a crossword puzzle or listening to people talk about Huey Lewis & The News. Sometimes happiness feels like something else entirely, like nausea or vertigo. As for validation, some people want to be acknowledged elaborately, some people would rather just do their thing and wear sunglasses and not make a scene, and some people won't show the world their gifts until they've penetrated the veil. Its a matter of taste as well as a matter of survival; whatever it takes to get you through the month. The good news (slash bad news) is that, these days, recognition of things and people is at an all-time high.

ALESSANDRO BOSETTI: Smurfs as Emblems

ALESSANDRO BOSETTI, born 1973, calls Milan Italy, Baltimore Maryland, and Berlin Germany home. His work in sound, text and experimental music has taken him to Sardinia, Toscana, The Canary Islands, and Africa in addition to tours in Taiwan, Japan, China, Europe, UK and the US. Bosetti seems to truly cherish the gaps where communication absolves itself of meaning and something else must occur; although his work and ideas are elaborated extensively on his personal website, the very soul of his projects seeks to commune with the unspeakable and to draw out the unanswerable using a wide variety of creative questioning. While many of his experiments are often complex (Mask/ Mirror's max/msp-midi processing interface, The Pool and the Soup's specific set of rules), the results are accessible, humorous and playfully musical. Storytelling, performance, the meaninglessness of meaning, objecthood, comprehension, and above all, genuine engagement with humanity are all hallmarks of Bosetti's inquisitive oeuvre.

What do you do? What are you doing the most lately?
I sleep. I try to sleep. I try to move from a lacanian state of interpassivity to a state of genuine passivity. I am the moon. I am the hanging man. I wait for judgment. I just entered a dark room with the window open. Outside it rains. Its pitch black. The rain is sucking every sound from the room. The dark is sucking out the room from the room. I sleep beside things and people. Try to dream of them. I idolize corrado costa that once said : "i do nothing but i do it slowly". I slept beside chillida sculptures in a sculpture park. I thought about the minigolf nearby. I thought about the smurfs. Smurfs as emblems of political minorities. I listen to smurfs and visitors of the sculpture park. I listen to people i never met just in order to be missing them. I pose in a pose of longing. I wear a dress of nostalgia. I desire. I try to sing. Not much comes out. I repeat phrases. Over and over. Until i can fall asleep. I try to fall asleep on stage. I stage. I stand between my mouth and my voice. I say. I sleep.

How long have you done these things?
Maybe a month from now.

Why do you do them? How does it make you feel?

Drowsy.

When was That Moment in your life that told you you would become what you are? What happened?

I wasn't there. It was my mom getting on a cab. Smiling in beauty. It must have been a sunny day. I own the pictures of that day. I owe everything to that day.

How has your life changed or not changed to accommodate that moment's effect on you?
I started working. Every day my aura fell down as the dry skin of an avocado. I started holding my breath and grinding my teeth. I wept in despair. I walked on land that wasn't there right before putting my foot down. I created geography. I loved women. I went on working without knowing i was. I read Dune and the Never Ending Story. Ive been a fighter and a coward. Ive been solitary. I ruled my kingdom in a magnanimous way. A center extremist. I grew into being a bourgeois. I did put stuff inside my body.

How has your work affected your life in return?

It gave me some money and gave me fun. It gave me honey and made me run. It killed my pony without a gun. It made me sleep right under the sun. I like my job.

What does David Lee Roth mean to you?

LA

Alessandro's website is
www.melgun.net
these are his favorites:
roberto bolano : the wild detectives , Wg Sebald : Austerlitz or After nature (in the last two hours, in the next two hours) sokurov : any movie (in the last two hours, in the next two hours) every dog (all my life ) no cats please (all my life)

www.eduardo-chillida.com/