broccoli bread & puppets....

playmobil has the freshest toys.

we had a big ol' batch of barbarian battles today.
if you look closely,
you can see a wolf fighting a horse.
i swear had nothing to do with any of this bold berserker bedlam,
i was a conscientious objector.
honest.


we made some delicious broccoli bread.
traditions are something to be appreciated,
at least when everyone agrees on the degree of dopeness therein.
broccoli bread is one of those things.


and we made some all-new, all different, wearable, seriously big heads
throughout the day we worked on two different ones,
for each kid to play in, and with,
all while maintaining the hottness in the woods.

inspiration.
forest spirit guardian druid.
the ears are what really tied it all together.

while jess and harvest herded toads in the tall grass,
me and maple made some moves in the woods.
not every kid is down with gettin' fresh with the big heads and the woodsly goodness.
i am a lucky, lucky man.

i can't tell you how much i appreciate the people i span my time with.
my superb saplings played with me all day.
or at least humored me and posed as pixies in the forest....
i am educating them in the ways of the be-dope valkyrie shield-maidens.
we even watched some lord of the rings,
just so they could see eowyn takin' out the witch king of angmar.


the second, taller and more animal puppet-mask is only partly done,
on account of, that's right,
MORE flippin' rain.
wet weather notwithstanding,
today was a day for big fun and happy family festivities.

i also picked up some epic treats from stan and sandy,
my peoples in whitefield.
the new sr9, ya'll.
18 rounds of 9x19mm speedy deliveries,
thinner and lighter than everything else,
and it's green, ya'll......

doooooooooope.


i make a record of my real life,
never quiet, never soft.......

bread & puppet, part 2.

there was no shortage of the hottness yesterday.
from start to finish, we had an epic adventure.
and we brought snacks.


and wouldn't you know it,
today (again) it's raining.
13 days straight.
the sun managed to stay out until we left vermont yesterday, at least,
and we came through the white mountains watching the lightning leaping from peak to peak.
driving through clouds, kids.
elevated states of being,
literally,
we were up pretty high.
the hot fire was spit all day,
even an extended rainstorm can't put it out.


yeah,
about the bread and puppet museum, ya'll,
there's forty years worth of puppets and projects and paintings and protests,
all crammed into the old livestock bays.
it's awesome.

devils, angels, farmers, washerwomen, spirits of everything,
masks, suits, marionettes, stick puppets, living scenery, banners, streamers, ribbons,
every single awesome object,
all handmade,
all folk artsy as all hell.
just-be-dopeness, taken to eleven.

c'mon. look at all the little guys in the background.


some of this stuff is really nasty.
i mean,
seriously. and nasty.


there are miniature paintings, and dioramas,
and placards, and picket signs all across every beam, plank, and timber.
it is completely overwhelming.


this one is on the ceiling!
it's almost 20 feet long.....


there's a makeshift tribute garden, too.
with little spirit huts for all the puppeteers and performers who have died over the years.
family and friends maintain the ghost village,
and add art and sculptures and logs, and stuff,
for thirty years worth of huts.
it's some heavy soul-type business.
no joke.

the circus wasn't slacking this year either;
the band was huuuuge.
there was a punch and judy show (about the usda, and farming, and vermont)
there was a 'jesus at gitmo' slideshow and guitar sing-a-long,
and that was all before the BIG show at the bus....

brown people of the earth.


olympics boycott protests, tibet awareness,
anti-corporate fervor,
the works.
all stuff white people like....
(buy the book, and realize you are a pretentious crackerface)


the big finale,
as usual,
was the 77-year old peter schumann on stilts dressed as uncle sam....
you need to see this show,
sundays until august 31st...
3-5 p.m.
get on it.

there's a level of just-be-dopeness that must be maintained.
it goes all the way up to eleven.
if your fire isn't hot enough,
stoke those Folk Life flames,
and fan the furnace with barbarian bellows.....
never quiet, never soft...........

bread & puppet, part 1.

this mornin',
we headed to glover, vermont.
the bread and puppet theater farm and performance centers are located in the woods there.
and they are awesome.
really awesome.
holly, and jim came with,
and of course my small ones, too....
(btw, after my exclamations of dry skies, it rained for a while yesterday, and today too....)

we visited the barn/museum,
it has thousands of puppets in it,
and is perpetually being built up, improved, repaired, patched and mended.
the pupets AND the barn.
ya'll can visit the museum anytime, and you really should.
Folk Life, my ninjas.
they gets it in......


BREAD and puppet, ya'll.
here's the main oven, also known as the bread house.
there're a LOT of small ovens all over the acres and acres of property,
but this big 'un makes all the sourdough rye volkornbrot,
which everybody shares after the circus and the pageant.

i'll say it again:
Folk Life, people.
keep-it-real dudes who just do what they do.
enviable simplicity,
an admirable sense of clear purpose,
hard-working harmonious productivity,
and hairy armpits.
kinda sh!t the bed on the last one,
but overall the feel of the folksy life-livin' flavor is fresh-to-death.
vermont has a real 'community' feeling to the land and the towns.
over our way, here in new hampshire,
we keep it a little more live free (and alone) or die. hard.
it makes for a more adversarial interaction with the spaces between yourself and others.
a five-foot forcefield of fury.
personal space as private property.
i'm looking at my arm's reach as the borders of the berserker barbarian badlands.
generosity and gratitude are the laws of the land, too.
competent communication, and the keepin' it real/rural factor in too.
BUT,
i'm calling for open border crossings with all my battle bards and warrior poets,
a nationwide network of sovereign cells,
acting, reacting, overacting, overreacting, interacting.
life worth living free.
but not alone.
word.


this is how we have fun in the woods, yo.
underwear-hat parties,
and deck-dancing disco delights.


glover, vermont.
mushrooms.
my peoples.
folk art, folk music, and folk lore:
never quiet, never soft......
(to be continued)

13 years...

notice anything odd?
yeah.
it's NOT raining.
i didn't think it possible, but it's true.
to celebrate, these guys made a patio cameo:

word up,
a morning glory in all it's glory.

early morning bloomin',
accompanied by little person risin' and shinin'.
6 a.m. wake up call today, courtesy of cousin cash....
and speaking of morning glories:

we munched some animal-shaped pancakes, thanks to the skillet silhouette stylings of jess,
and are prepared for a fun day with holly, who is keepin' it steady and at the ready.
i get to work today, to represent before we tune up some bread and puppet magic tomorrow.

check this bit of doo-doo buttery lawnside surprise!

nooooooooooooope,
good guess, but
it's NOT a prehistoric bagel,
NOR is it the disembodied devil's butthole,
it is yet another example of mycological woodsly goodness.
i am so flippin' lucky to have the time i have up here.
all my peoples are surrounding me,
and i've got a backyard full of big fun.

13 years ago today.
all the hard hearted haters got a push from the secret universal plan.
and the grateful became the finally.
that's right, hippies.
cry yourself all the way to terrapin station tonight at your candlelight vigils,
but remember this:
jerome john 'jerry' garcia was NOT dope.
13 years, son,
for god's sake,
throw out the steal-your-face crap.
it's weak-sauce.........
remember 'touch of grey'?
all that 'i will survive?'.....well, i guess not.

bringin' the thunder, even when the skies are clear,
never quiet, never soft..........

sunshine?

i swam to work yesterday.....

the rain is so heavy and the groundwater table is super saturated.
baby lakes and impromptu ponds are pooling up from previous puddles.
my phone and computer won't work right at all.
the underground lines are soaked, and shorting out.
all of which means we are isolated and alone,
without capable communication from the rest of the town, state, and nation.
ahhhhh, rural livin'.
erimitic recluse art-makin' isolationists.
we doo-doo that freaky sh!t, son.
the kind of scenario wherein a zombie attack seems probable,
beyond just possible.
i always set my targets at the shootin' range at head height.
just to be prepared, y'heard?
after all,
there's only one way to kill a zombie,
and it works like gangbusters on everything else, too.
hit them in the head, ya'll.

today,
a veritable posse of princesses parades it's way to the woods.
my kids,

harvest

& maple,
my niece cash and her mama mary,
and our friend holly are all headed this way
for a weekend of woodsly goods and wet wizard's walks,
mushroom hunts, broccoli bread & puppets.

i take a few things very seriously.
woodsly goodness is one.
the just-be-dope outlook is another.
we get to choose the way we interact with the world.
weak-sauce waterlogged babyishness shouldn't ever even be considered.
we get to choose, and it should ALWAYS be the wrench.
this week,
i get to infuse the regular level of move-makin' art, music, food, and life,
with the fatherly flavor of fresh-to-death funtime festivities.
any reason to test the threshold of the in-the-red eleven-ness.
i'm working hard at everything.
the time i have been given is not gettin' wasted.
value-added berserker barian battle-beast folk life.
worth every rainwaterlogged minute,
never quiet, never soft.....

seriously, though, MORE rain?

i shoot guns on wednesdays,
but unless i want to shoot at fish,
i'm not shooting anywhere around here today.
a hard rain, ya'll.
it's a-fallin'
i just checked the 10 day forecast.
hilarious.
all rain, all day, all the time.
friday my sparkle-magic saplings,
the spit-hot-fire sisters, harvest skye and maple star are comin' up.
my kamikaze kids are gonna go batsh!t if it rains every day they're here.
maybe i'll get a kickass tarp and make a trench-warfare bivouac fort,
and we'll burn stuff to ward off the damp.....
wwI style.
heck,
could be we'll even make some soy hot cocoa in an old helmet or something.....

what else can i do?
get butt naked, and get wet, son.
it's been dark for so many days that it's even almost cold outside.
ridiculous.

this type of year, with so much of this type of weather,
with a lot of early heavy snow, and late rain,
leads to serious ramifications for the woodsly goodness.
more water means more mosquitoes,
which means more bats.
happier trees means excess acorns, ya'll.
i'm talkin' about a total turned-up to eleven tonnage increase.
which means more mice and squirrels, and therefore more coyotes and owls....
watery root systems and rich grassy soil nutients also mean brighter fall foliage.
which means more tourist-trapped leaf-peeping toms looking at the brightness of the woodland.
which in turn means more movie-check makin' madness all fall, ya'll.....
interconnected activities, people.
silver linings to all these open wounds in the sky.
like my homegirl, ann peebles, sings, my ninjas:
'i can't stand the rain.'
(i'm supa dupa fly, b!tches)
google THAT sh!t, a.s.a.p.
bringin' back sweet memories....


i have one of ^these^ comin' my way someday soon, ya'll.
ruger's 454 casull super redhawk alaskan.
deep discounts displayed, and definite deal-delving dopeness dominated....
my man greg d. has the serious hook -up.
and he is helping your favorite battle-beast be better at barbarian berserking.
he's got it goin' on like that green alder tree.
generosity, y'heard?
my modern-age myth making is certainly abetted by my berserker barbarian buddies.
i'm sayin',
without my peoples, keepin' it viking-style would be waaaaay harder.
especially using axes exclusively.
and these bullets, kids, are mutha-flippin' BIG.
you already know i'm super excited to blast-off some wrist-destroying cannon fire.
if it ever stops raining.
never quiet, never soft, never dry.......

40 day forecast.....

what's the weather like here?
still raining.
naturally.
it's great!
(but not really.)

speaking of great...
my homeboy, ro-ro,
sent me THIS. weak sauce, ya'll. check it out.
word.


yellow-bellied jelly.
not for sweet-type rolls.
wet woods make for weird science.
i mean, who needs a translucent blob posse?

these little guys are teeny tiny, too.
from my head height, they look like frog-egg marmalade,
and of course, due to the wide-open skies,
everything looks like an alien movie,
all glossy and wet and sh!t...
honestly,
there's a certain filthiness to glistening gooey woodland wonders.


these are the smelliest mushrooms out there.
strong scented and savage stenched stinkbomb spores.
steaky-undertoned aromas make for nostril stinging whiffage.

if horseshoe crabs and scrubbing bubbles had a batch of babies, it'd be these guys.
i can NOT stress how pungent they are.
stank-ass steaks, ninja.
take a whiff, i dare you.


i know, i KNOW.
i'm obsessed with mushroom spotting.
but i'm just sayin',
my backyard is a bountiful barbarian bouquet of budding button-tops.
cut me some slack off, son.
it rains all day.
everything is damp.
so,
i'm making the most of the one thing that thrives in this waterlogged water-baby wonderland.

spongy.
inside those airy red biscuits is fluffy yellow cake.
i'm gonna eat one and see what happens....


cuchulainn was an ill mythical irish warrior-poet.
he would get so crazed with blood-lusty battle-boner bulging that he would get stewed in three successive cauldrons of ice water.
he would boil the first one 'til it was steamed empty,
boil up the second one to a scalding frenzy,
and be cooled off enough by the third that you could still cook pasta in it......
i was reading about him all last night.....
the battle bard be-dopeness of the pre-christian british isles has got it goin' ON.....
you should read up on those dudes.....
knowledge, my ninjas,
of the past, present, and future.
a shining stone of wisdom.
never quiet, never soft....

overworked, over-the-top, overcoming....

smurfs and sh!t, ya'll.....
and check out that lil' stranger movin' in on my photo opportunity.
obviously, he's buggin'.
hilarious.

somebody is trying to put out the hot fire, ninjas.
that's the only conclusion that makes any sense.
why else would we be getting a world-record rainy season?
monsoon-type wetness-drenched business is being conducted in the woods.
like, a rain forest, instead of a mixed deciduous new growth forest, is where i am living.
what else is a battle-beast to do,
when the new wettness replaces the new hottness?......
work.
hard.
the wetness is harshing the woodsly wizard walking i normally enjoy,
so instead, i go to work.
i worked before the shop opened.
then,
i worked all day long,
and then,
i worked some more.
then we munched up indian food at shalimar.
the peoples who work there know how to represent, yo.
i love samosas. i'm just sayin'.
and vegetable pakoras?
you already know.
it's so wet, even the papadums were less crispy.
now that's wet, y'heard?
the destructive dampness has forced us to buy a new dehumidifier.
wetness and ammunition do NOT mix.
so, in the interest of keeping my powder dry, we need to dehumidify.
the firstish floor was getting a little clammy, so we had to make moves.
(we also keep our art near the bullets, c'mon, i'm not a TOTAL compound-dwelling survivalist)


lately, the way the woods looks,
i'm waiting for ewoks and stormtroopers to battle for the shield generator.
i mean,
a speederbike fight could probably happen here,
i'm just sayin'.....

nature is even starting to care about all this rain.
4 people have been eaten up by the river.
and the bodies haven't been found yet.
the current is too intense.
animals are out in the open,
because their dens are flooded.
and mushrooms are so abundant, you can smell 'em.
in fact,
the woods smells of urine soaked parking garage stairwell,
with all the super-soaked slug-smeared rot they bring.
'shrooms only last a few days before they turn into brown slime, y'know.
that's why they are so dope.
they show up,
they look cool,
and then they leave the place trashed.
rock stars, son.
wild mushrooms go to eleven.
 




look, i KNOW i take a lot of mushroom pictures,
but they're spore fruits, with gills, ya'll.
and these ones are purple.
c'mon.

i am performing a duet with the thunderstorm clouds overhead,
a lightning, thunder, and deluge drumbreak,
the battle-beat-box percussive heart rythym of the woods.
a rainy reign of righteous representing,
by a sopping soaking spark-spitting sovereign.
two-by-two, son,
animals are walking past the house to a big-ass boat....
never quiet, never soft.....

sunday, sunday, sunday.

me and my girlie-girl make art together.
she makes fresh to death paintings and illustrations,
& i make hand puppets.
make sure to get tattoed by us in boston in september.
you need some of that hot fire.
and don't forget:
you can check out (and BUY!) my art until september 15th at halcyon, in brooklyn.

sunday.
sun day.
sure it is.....
naturally,
the sun is not shining this sunday.
irony. ma nature's specialty...

i tattooed my friend glen, a.k.a. 'the weiner guy' today.
seriously,
he has a fully sleeved weiner.
admittedly, it's like a sleeved baby's arm, but still, it's NOT an arm, y'know???
from soup to nuts, ya'll;
even a little bit on the inside, sucka!
i get to do certain things, ya'll,
things that regular folks just don't.
it's those things that make all the difference.
an extraordinary, and extra-large life worth living.
with a few extra weiners thrown in for good measure.
sometimes it's volume, and sometimes it's inches,
but it's always all the way to eleven.
word.


talisman fever is raging.
104 luscious degrees.
never quiet, never soft....

lightning stikes and wet days.

it mostly just rains now.
every day.
it's like i moved to seattle.
which we all know is lame.
(*ahem* right, shawn?)

so,
the beowulf translation i'm reading right now has more critical interpretative essays than it has poem.
this guy, seamus heaney, has the freshest and most def version i've ever read.
check this:

'it is always better
to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning.
For every one of us, living in this world
means waiting for our end. Let whoever can
win glory before death. When a warrior is gone
that will be his best and only bulwark.'

how dope is THAT?!
imagine if the battle-bards got ahold of the text?
a modern philological trans-urban translation.
something, maybe, like this:

'it's always more fresh
to bring the thunder than to wallow in weak-sauce.
recognize, son, life is trying to kill you,
i mean, c'mon. all my ninjas
better try to just be dope. when the dust settles,
that is the hottness that doo-doos that freaky sh!t.'

warrior poetry at it's finest.
i jacked the meter a little,
but, c'mon;  i mean,
i only know one real poet anyway,
and she'll probably let it slide.....

late night working, and rainy day clouds, ya'll.
never sunny, never dry.....