Not My Real Name

bushidobrown @ 2009-11-26T17:22:00

2009-11-26T22:25:41Z

bushidobrown @ 2009-11-17T09:45:00

2009-11-17T14:49:18Z

I spent the night on a mountain for the meteor shower. Just got back 15 minutes ago, exhausted.

It was a good time, I saw a few stars, nature is cool.

But I don't think I should ever go out into the woods with a 30-something person crew again. Being around people who insist on talking while the sky's out is an infuriating experience. As I fell asleep, one of them was talking about positivity and crystals. I mumbled "you're wrong," "that's not accurate," and that sort of thing until falling asleep at late dawn.

When I woke up it was raining on me.

bushidobrown @ 2009-11-13T02:30:00

2009-11-13T07:33:29Z

I've got to stop using the phrase "shitballs" when discussing grant proposals with my colleagues.

bushidobrown @ 2009-11-11T23:58:00

2009-11-12T05:01:28Z

I can't tell you how much I miss so many people right now.

bushidobrown @ 2009-11-10T13:40:00

2009-11-10T19:15:26Z

One of the weird things about being a biker is how casually you begin to accept frequent danger. I don't mean the danger of getting in a crash - that's an understandable danger, something that you can control by biking carefully, taking your lane, keeping your brakes tuned, and wearing bright clothes/lights. It's the uncontrollable dangers that occasionally wake me at night.

Last night, I was biking home from looking at my new place (more on this later). It was dusk, which is a dangerous time to be biking. I was riding fast but carefully. Though I was wearing all black, I had front and back lights on my bike, both with fresh batteries. I was riding south on Memorial, a 5 lane road with a central turning lane. I saw a green light at the intersection ahead. The road was deserted except for a car at the intersection's turn lane waiting to take a left. I was a good two blocks away and they had plenty of time to turn before I arrived at the intersection, but they didn't turn. I got closer and I could see the driver, a young black man* looking at me and joking to his laughing friends. The car remained still, and I preceded through the intersection. I was watching the driver, I saw him shift his hands on the steering wheel, I swerved, he shouted something, I took a fast curve into the opposite side of the road, just barely missing his car as he drove through the intersection aimed at where I had been a half second ago. He shouted after me as his car screeched off. I am absolutely sure he was either trying to hit me or at least force me to jump off my bike.

That's what I was thinking about while I tried to sleep this morning. Biking is not a dangerous mode of transportation. Drivers make it dangerous by throwing drinks at cyclists, merging into our paths to "teach us a lesson," nudging the back wheels of our bikes, honking as they pass us, shooting darts/arrows/bb's at us, and driving full speed through crowds of racers**. You people make me too frightened to sleep. You people make the decision to use a bike as my primary form of transportation a question of survival, rather then one of economic or environmental impact.

That's why I didn't sleep last night.

* I mention the driver's race/age because I've found them to be a lethal combination in Atlanta. The first time I was deliberately knocked from my bike was when a black teenager jumped into the street in front of me and punched my shoulder (when he ran, his friends did stay and help me clean the blood off my hands and shoulders/side). I've had stuff (rocks, full drinks, bags of trash) thrown at me 6 times, and 5 of those times the attackers were young black men. I'm sad that the response I've learned from all this is to be immediately more cautious when I see a black teen driving near me.

A caveat: when the attack is non-physical (being called a faggot, horns honked, told to "get my ass off the road") then chances are it's a young male of any race.

** These are all things that have happened to cyclists. The dart, arrow, and bb gun attacks have happened several times in many states, though I've never been victim of one.

bushidobrown @ 2009-11-06T20:07:00

2009-11-07T01:16:28Z

This is what happens when you ride Halloween critical mass in the rain:

(This photo was taken by Adam Bruneau of Black Lips/The Spooks/Every Single Atlanta Band In The Entire World. I'm not sure if he's really strange or really normal.)

bushidobrown @ 2009-11-06T02:27:00

2009-11-06T06:54:25Z

I'm applying for another one of those "too good to be true" jobs. The last one I got hired for was a research/blog position for a marketing firm, writing stuff like this every month. It's a ridiculous assignment, and I am continually amazed to find a big ol' check in my mailbox every month as a result of a few hundred words worth of babble.

From what I can tell, I'd be producing similar content for this new job... except it's a full time position paying $3000 a month. Currently, in a good month, I make $500. I don't know what I would do with $3000. I COULD FLY TO INDIA WITH THE SAVINGS FROM TWO MONTHS OF WORK AND WHEN I SAY "SAVING" WHAT I MEAN IS CONTINUING TO LIVE LIFE AS NORMAL EXCEPT ALSO SPENDING A LOT OF FREE TIME BATHING IN MONEY.

I'm pretty excited about this opportunity.

Additionally, I have a question for y'all:

1) I am going to be moving out of Fishmarket in late December. My current best living option would be moving in with a lot of girls in a sweet old house. I know many of the girls and I believe we get along okay. However, I've never really lived with girls plural before. Currently we have one female roommate, and when we first moved in to Fishmarket we had one female roommate. But, for some reason, I have a feeling that living in an All Girl house might be different. What do you think internet? Is it different? (also, I would like to hear from girls who have lived in an All Boy house).

2) There's a new hostess at my restaurant. She's pretty, she just graduated in May with a degree in photography, she's a little flirty. (Have you ever met someone and been pretty sure you were going to sleep with them? I'm pretty sure she got that impression when she met me. Which is what I mean by flirty. I mean it's like one of those complicated time riddles - how do you flirt with someone you've already slept with IN THE FUTURE???) Anyway, she says we should get together and geek out about photography some time. Assuming that her offer will either lead to me embarrassing myself by propositioning her OR the two of us happily sleeping together... should we hang out? Or should we stay "professional?"

bushidobrown @ 2009-11-03T12:37:00

2009-11-03T16:44:39Z

So fucked up.

Last thing I remember before passing out, 9 in the morning: we're doing doughnuts in the industrial wasteland where I live, I'm hanging out one end of the car shooting while Hypatia the dog's hanging out the other barking, we get chased down undercarriage screeching at some corner by the landlord who tells us "Quit Horsing Around!" And then we open the last beer of the night, pass around more vodka, keep doing doughnuts, get in an LED fight in the alleyway, get in a sawdust fight at Fishmarket, everything I've ever loved is broken and I need to upload a million cards worth of photos, and Hypatia the dog's in the car.

Now I'm going to work at 4.

bushidobrown @ 2009-10-31T21:01:00

2009-11-01T01:04:32Z

One of my roommates makes puppet shows:

bushidobrown @ 2009-10-30T15:34:00

2009-10-30T19:37:07Z

Literary criticism is going to be really interesting in the next few decades. In the past, critics have examined what books authors are reading and what letters they're writing while working on their masterpieces. Soon, critics may be sifting through millions of emails, or an author's entire web browsing history.

Sex!

2009-10-29T17:46:03Z

One of the nice things about getting older and being with girls who are correspondingly older is how awesome we are at sex. Sometimes I want to go back in time and slap my younger self, be all "What the hell do you think you're doing there? That doesn't feel good to anyone! She's pretending to enjoy herself so she doesn't hurt your feelings!"

Um. Not that that situation happened too often when I was younger. I hope.

Anyway, lately sex has been really good. Like the sort sex that involves losing a lot sleep, and text messages back and forth reading stuff like "my roommate's gone for two hours, can you come over?"

I think lots of sex, combined with finally getting back to biking 25+ miles per day, have put me in a fantastic mood. I feel like I should be throwing little children in the air.

I'm smiling so hard I feel like crying

2009-10-26T05:15:57Z

Last year I hosted a Quebecois couchsurfer for a few days. We had a great time hanging out, and we've been keeping up a little bit through facebook in the months since he moved back to Canada. I just got this message from him a few minutes ago. It means a lot to me, and I think y'all will be inspired by reading it:

Hey! I'm the guy who was couchsurfing at your place a year ago, in case you don't remember some of your facebook friends (something that happens to me often...). I was filming a movie on the elections and the racial problems in the United-States. You invited me to cook some food for the homeless, and the next day, I rode your mother's bike with you through the coolest critical mass ever. These are good memories. The more I think about it, the more I realized that my stay in Atlanta has guided my life for the ending of 2008 and almost all 2009.

After staying at your place, I had a different view of homeless people, having met them in Atlanta. That view was later to be completed by another couch-host that I met later on. But I want to concentrate on some of the details. You told me that getting around the city is way easier on a bike. We arrived late to the critical mass, but yet we went on that crazy chase throught Atlanta to find the mass of cyclists. I was not in shape, I was trying to keep up with you and the other cute girl. When we finally joined the mass, I discovered how cool it was to cycle in the city and I discovered the power of being a cyclist vs driving a car. After, we ended up in that little bar, we met back with the cute girl and some mexican guy, and I had to much to drink. But it was good. At the end, I made it in time for my bus and went to my next destination, Miami, which was boring as hell compared to what I lived in Atlanta.

All the way throught the end of my trip, I kept in mind that a bike was the best way to go around a city. I ended my trip in Vancouver. There, I bought a bike (an old seventies girl's cruiser!), found a job and an appartment and lived some of the best 5 months of my life. I rode in the critical mass over there and it was awesome. It was no surprise that after a month in Vancouver, I decided I was going to ride back home to Ottawa. 4000 kilometers of riding throught mountains, plains (with horrible head wind!), and the hills of Ontario. My goal was to get back home while seeing my country.

That was probably the most challenging feat I have done in my entire life. The mountains where terrible, the head wind was nasty but the worst were those rainy days in the hills of the north of Lake Superior. All in all, I arrived in time for my mother's birthday on the 29th of july, and everybody was very happy.

I am now studiying in cinematography in Montreal. I ride my bike everyday. I even became a bike courrier for a week, but decided to quit. Not that it was hard, on the contrary : it was too easy and they were not giving me enough calls, so it wasn't paying much at all. But I'm gonna keep biking all through the "terrible" Canadian winter. I also have plans to finish my trip across Canada with my father next summer. Since me and my father were not very close in the pass few years, this could help to bring back a good and more intimate relationship between the two of us.

And it all started with your intervention. It's amazing how people can just set your life on a new course. Perhaps you had no idea of all this, and you think you didn't do much, but Atlanta was the beginning. I want to thank you for what you have done.

Xavier

P.S. By the way, I'm in an awesome shape right now. I could take you on anytime :P
P.S.S. Whenever you feel like visiting your north neighbour and freezing your ass off, give me a sign, my door will always be open.

Addendum: I've been looking through my livejournal history for stuff I wrote about Xavier's visit, but the only entry I can find is this one.

I went to the fair:

2009-10-22T21:31:44Z

bushidobrown @ 2009-10-21T11:56:00

2009-10-21T16:01:39Z

Charleston roadtrip this weekend. Maybe. There's a bike race I want to be in, but my bike's a little F'ed up the A right now. And I haven't really been riding since I've been sick. So definitely maybe.

bushidobrown @ 2009-10-07T17:00:00

2009-10-07T21:03:32Z

I took pictures of Beverly modeling Monica's fort for a contest.

My website still isn't up. I still cough when I stand or sit at my accustomed speed. I can't handle this stress.

bushidobrown @ 2009-10-06T19:57:00

2009-10-06T23:59:23Z

That's what my photos look like when they're "framed."

This gets my goat:

2009-10-06T05:26:38Z

"I'm a guy - a straight guy - who dresses like a guy. That is my choice. However, your right to dress in a way that expresses you - even if not conformist to society standards - is a right that I believe should not be refused. It is part of yo...ur freedom of speech and expression.

Recently, a Cobb County school effectively ended the high school career of an up and coming student - a student who prefers to dress and express himself as a female. "Dress like a guy", they told him, or don't come back. This is after he cleared his style with administrators - who then reversed. All because a couple other students could not accept a peers' freedom.

Several of Jonathan's classmates are rallying support - and I think you should too! The next generation of the world is continuing to be taught that you shall have no right to express yourself freely."

It's good that students are supporting this kid. But it's pretty fucked up that the objective of the Facebook petition is primarily to assert the signees own hetrosexuality, and only secondarily to support the student's right to dress and act the way he wants.

bushidobrown @ 2009-10-01T01:55:00

2009-10-01T06:10:00Z

I love the internet.

Over the last few weeks, I've reviewed two local visual artists. One review was positive, one was negative. Within days of posting my reviews, both of them contacted me online. In both cases, we chatted for a looong time about where we disagreed and agreed.

I love how the internet removes these barriers.

New Business Cards

2009-09-29T20:27:48Z

I know, it doesn't say "Yes" on one side. But I've been told a good business card should not be hand spray-painted, and I'm going to go with that advice for this set of cards.

Also, the bengrad.com site won't go up until sometime next week.

Here's the front:

And the back:

Hopefully Pamela won't be angry when I hand her a business card with her knees pasted all over one side.

Atlanta, I Want to Hug You

2009-09-29T01:24:21Z

bushidobrown @ 2009-09-25T11:28:00

2009-09-25T15:45:37Z

You can download most of V/VM's albums here.

bushidobrown @ 2009-09-25T01:58:00

2009-09-25T06:03:40Z

Watching season one of Mad Men is really terrible for my love life.

I happen to be dating a girl who is way in favor of giving me home-cooked meals and blowjobs. I'm sure you can see the conundrum.

(for the record, I am trying desperately to learn to cook better than her. I want to make her soup which is delightful enough that she eats it before it's been in the refrigerator 12 hours.)

Some good ones from during and after The Books show last night

2009-09-23T20:27:29Z

Saturday Night Portraits

2009-09-21T17:39:51Z

This is what I spent the night taking pictures of:

Here's how it turned out:

Tonight:

2009-09-19T08:42:51Z

Lights and more lights.