C:\Users\Ryan\My_Documents\Ryan's_Stuff\Misc

The Bus Driver

On the weekends I opened, so I would get there at 8 and she'd already be there. She was enormous and dark as asphalt. I never learned her name. She was there for the QuickDraw. She was there to stare at the blue screen and the white lines, hoping for the 3D ball to land on her numbers. It was a liquor store, but really it was sustained by the QuickDraw worshipers and the scratch off ticket junkies. At first I found it odd that she spent so much time there but over time I became acclimated to her presence as though she was a velvet painting or some ornate lightswitch cover. I would watch her thick fingers scratching in her numbers with the plastic halfpencils. I found myself staring at the huge mole on her cheek. The mole was darker still, achieving true black, and it hung from her skin like a marble attached with a dab of epoxy, like it might break off and roll away any moment. She never brought anything to eat or drink and I don't recall her ever using the tiny bathroom with its woodpanel wallpaper. Harvey let her run her own cards into the machine. This was the same man that checked my bag every time I closed, trying to act as if it was more of a joke than an accusation. She worked longer hours I did considering I at least got two days off. In the lot outside would rest her little yellow school bus. What kids call the short bus or in more extreme cases, the tart cart. I asked my boss Tom one day what he thought she would do if she hit all her numbers and found herself a millionaire. He said, it's better if you don't think about such things.

Screen Grabs: The Hit

Little boy rocks out at Union Square!

design.plot

New video I edited for the girls at Domestic Construction for their crazy new endeavor, design.plot. Check it out!

Watch this fight scene!

An advertisement for nothing

I don’t fit in this world
I’m confused by it
I look around and I see things that make sense
but at the same time don’t make any sense to me
I look up at the sky and can’t see a single star from my rooftop
I look at the freeway
and just see a stretch of cars fading into blinking lights
as they pass the many high poles
and I know this will never end
One strip white as they approach
one strip red as they retreat
all going to different places
all important
all unique
all busy

In one direction I see the city that I have to work in every day
a mass, stacked circuit board of people in a rush
that are getting in my way
kindness stands out in the city
it is the exception to the rule
and when it’s viewed in passing it is a miraculous thing
look to the children when you are in the city, if you want to see real people
because everyone else is just too busy
or homeless

In the other direction I have what people from the country might consider a city
low lying stretch of yellow lights
blocked out by the occasional square, unimportant building
sometimes topped by a small tower that no one will ever shoot a rifle from

This rooftop is my sanctuary
it’s my escape from the box, inside of the box
it’s where I smoke my mostly cigarettes
it’s where I record myself speaking into my phone
and it’s where I breathe the freshest air I can get
as it swirls in from that busy city and mixes with the air from the BQE
I look down at the windows
the many rows of parallel glowing rectangles
all with their own colors
some with patterns
and I rarely see any people
and if I do
they are either doing the dishes
or setting their alarm for the next morning

In the distance there’s a billboard
A tall suspended white rectangle
there’s no advertising on it
there’s nothing on it
it’s just a white rectangle
It’s an advertisement for what I'm talking about
Nothing
The nothing that used to occur on long trips with horse drawn buggies
the nothing of a day
the nothing of fishing
and of listening to insects
the nothing of a sunset
or laying in the grass and looking at the stars
the nothing of a day without spoken words
the nothing of a life lived normally and naturally
this advertisement goes unnoticed by both the white strip of lights and the red
and soon it will be covered in a poster for a 3D movie
and before long that advertisement will be in 3D
and after that maybe they’ll send up artificial lights
to compensate for the thick smog that obscures our stars

Altered Subway Advertisements

Book Covers: Leviathan

Book Covres: All My Friends are Dead

Screen Grabs: Yojimbo

Screen Grabs: Duck, You Sucker

Pestilence on his way to work

You are looking at a Chinese man in his forties. Half of his face is black in a way that at first looks like a bruise. His clothes are plain and tan and unassuming. He wears a watch. His eye is red on the black side. This man's name is PESTILENCE and he has a job to do just like the rest of us. As the subway doors open you lose him in the crowd and that affords a small fleeting relief.

Randomnessness

THE BOY IN THIS PHOTO IS A FAMOUS MAN WITH THE INITIALS CW

Stitch of my rooftop mouth art

Victor!

HR Giger ring as worn by a badass old German woman I met

Inside the American Brothel

I recently interviewed Marc McAndrews for Working Class magazine. Check it out:
CLICK HERE TO READ ARTICLE

Screen Grabs: The Producers

Screen Grabs: Ren & Stimpy

Cowdog

@ LIFE:CURATED

Altered Subway Advertisements