the plot thickens

I went back to the hills this morning to draw but the fog lay so thick I could not see a thing. Though I appreciate mystery in life, this lack of view and my curiosity about the events in the woods the other day led me back to test their realness.

So I went under the barbed wire fence again and the first thing I saw was the black swan with its long curvy neck swim off with the other ducks under the low branches. REAL. then I went up the ridge and saw the pool where the vultures had been. there were no vultures but in their absence was the stripped carcass of the deer. REAL. I got close enough to see it's empty insides swarmed with little maggots. SICK. I went on to the next pool, skeptical but hoping, and saw again the two swans. REAL. they were still doing their odd circling and stick-lifting routines.

I decided to follow the path a bit further and see what i saw. After a little, I started noticing some signs of human life. a few old building materials left to rot and rust, some buckets covered in dirt, a stack of bee keeping boxes, and then this creepy greenhouse that was most clearly not abandoned. keep in mind the foggy quality of the day was adding greatly to my sense of being in a horror movie. I walked into this clearing where I noticed a stone wall and the strange roof top of some kind of a compound. Sitting on the wall was a large peacock. I walked a bit toward the unknown building to get a closer look at the peacock and it jumped to the ground and ran into the woods away from me. Then all of a sudden the trees to my left erupted with the hooting and whooping of some animals that sounded like monkeys. Feeling like my presence might have caused this disturbance, I jumped behind a bush. I waited a second and looked up to see this older man with a grey beard and pony tail, in sweatpants, work books and a ragged sweater walk towards the trees where the sound was coming from, leave my sight, and do something to make the animals stop. I decided to be bold and perhaps talk to this man and learn the secrets of this place, so I stepped out and stood by the wall. He came back from the woods and started to walk towards me without looking at me, talking to himself. For a second I thought he might walk right by me without even acknowledging me, but he stopped about 4 feet before and looked at me with a surprised and pissed off expression that quickly made it clear that this man was going to be sharing no secrets with me. He asked what i was doing, I told him I must have wandered onto his property from the woods. He told me that was true and that I better wonder back where I came. I tried to ask him what this place was, he just looked at me with more confusion and piss and said that he lives here. I apologized and said I would leave him be, but as a last effort to ease into secret I asked if he cared for animals. he said yes. then told me to leave. so i left, and he stood their watching me walk away until I was gone.

who is this man with animals? i want to know but I'm afraid of him and his army of birds. But i think everyone should know that their is a an Isle of Dr. Moreau situation in the Richmond hills. I ALMOST DIED.

Fable Day

some days have their stories...my yesterday became a parable.

here's what happened:

first of all, this is me david, frank is with his family on the east coast for a moment (love to the lyon). So, I went up to the spot in the Richmond hills yesterday morning before work to keep working on this drawing I've been drawing up there. Pretty chill, whatever. After a few hours of sitting, I got up to take a walk and eat my tuna fish sandwich. I headed down this hill where I hadn't been yet, and as I approached the edge of the woods, down the hill, I noticed a strange light. As I drew closer to the woods edge, I looked through the curtain of eucalyptus and realized that there was some small body of water in the woods, which was a shock as the richmond hills are dry creatures. Or so I thought.

Here's where the symbolism goes crazy. So in my dreamy curiosity, I passed under the barbwire fence that contained the woods, and walked towards the dappled green light reflecting off the water. It was a small pool of water in which 6 Ducks were following each other round in winding course. I watched them with warmth, then looked to my right and realized that over the next little ridge was what appeared to be another clearing. I walked up and saw a SECOND pool of water, also murky, but with bright bright sun soaking over it, and on the far edge of the water, the were 6 gigantic Vultures sunning themselves in a pack (one had its back to me, wings spead in all of their vast dark glory). I was startled seeing such huge mean birds, so I walked a wide loop only to find, get this, a THIRD pool of water, this one murkier and darker than the first two, and in this pool 2 immense Swans (what!) were floating. At this point I needed to sit down. What were swans doing in this nowhere pool of water? I ate my tuna sandwich watching them as they went about their strange routine. One of them stayed in the water, circling from one edge to the other, and then doing these sweeping half flight/half swoop sprints across the length of this 50yd long pool. It was so white but the water was so brown, each low flight I cold see the water stains on its underbelly. The other swan spent this whole time standing on the edge of the water, lifting stick after stick up with its beak and moving each one from left to right, not with any seeming purpose. David Lynch eat your heart out. I finished my sandwich and apple and looked up and realized 3 of the vultures were sitting like huge stones in the trees above. I figured I better complete my visits and go over to the vulture pool. As I approached the pool, the vultures all of a sudden started swooping every which way, leaving behind the body of a massive deer on the sun soaked bank of the pool. I took in just a minute of its grand antlered head and the gaping whole in its belly before the sound of the vultures over head and the sound of flies made me run with my hands over my head away back toward the first pool. When I got back to the first pool, the ducks were gone, and there was just 1 small black swan bird that instantly darted away from me under the cover of the trees on the shaded side of the pool. I sat for a moment in waves of wonder before crawling back under the barb wire fence and starting to walk back because I had to get to work.

As I walked back and my head returned to my neck, 2 things happened. First, I found a small dead bird with grey wings and a bright yellow breast. When I bent to inspect, I realized that it was perfectly intact except that both of its eyes were gouged out. I sometimes collect things like this to study in my amateur naturalist way (above is a humming bird that I have in a jar), but I recently had an incident where I found a baby rattlesnake that was dead with a mouse half-way digested still in its belly, which I thought about leaving or taking or taking or leaving. After some doubt, I decided it was too rad to leave behind, I wanted it. so I took it. Not 20 minutes after I put the snake in a bag and stowed it in my guitar case, I fell about 15ft out of a tree while getting ready to film a song with Frank while Sam was here. The first thing that came to mind as I lay on the ground below the tree was the snake. After I mananaged to get up, I removed it from my guitar case and buried in hopes of doing the right thing. Still feeling the soreness from that fall, I brought the bird off the path and put it in the ground. Second thing that happened. As I got nearly back to the main path, I saw the first people all morning, these highschool lovers who had skipped out on school to come up to the hills (I loved them). They asked me where the path goes, and I said something about how it just keeps going, and then a snake with a yellow stripe on it back darted right between us all! The girl screamed, I gave a mini leap, and the guy started laughing.

That all happened to me yesterday! I was in a parallel parable universe. Any interpretations of these events would be much appreciated, I would love to know what my life means.

seed change

been getting inside fruits lately. been looking at seeds. each a new design of container and miracle.

holding a seed in your hand for long enough can make you cry.

just whisper it,

seed.

whoa.

Backlog pt.2

sam is back in new york, frank and I have much tree singing under our belts, and now we rest, until we don't, which is never too long since we're the virgo-est worker bees the queens ever seen....back to drawing every morning in the hills for me (i sat in the rain drawing for the first time in a long while this morning, soggy pants soggy paper, beautiful light), and we're getting ourselves together for a show on sunday at Triple Base Gallery that our dear Drew Bennet curated. We get to play with Lucky Dragons (hooray!), who has been blissfully rocking our world for some months now, we loves hims.

and here are more older file photos, all from a day of playful discovery and childhood-channeling with our amazing friend Tim Dutcher when he visited from middletown CT. we were crafting all together in frank's back yard after an hour of Tim leading us through the experimental theatre/body movement class that he teaches to preschoolers....amazing stuff.

chasin the muff around

namaste.

first off I think it's fair to mention that as I form my thoughts into a blogpost I'm watching the criterion release of Dazed and Confused so it might slip into my literature a bit...actually, instead of writing this i wish i could just show you all the rad potleaf designing I'm sketching out for my next tattoo.

so frank and I have the pleasure of hosting our dear friend Sam Fleischner (seen above at his last west coast visit and in NY absorbing the sounds of our other dear friends Andrew and Ben, MGMT, as they warmed up to record their new record for COLUMBIA records, just before meeting with sir Rick Rubin, and going on tour with Of Montreal, they are rad and worth knowing about, watching them break the into the realm of popular music is quite wonderful for me).

God I love Aerosmith.

anyway, Sam is here from NY to lend his film skills to our master plan for our upcoming show at the Eleanor Harwood Gallery in January...not to give too much away, but I almost saw frank fall out a 100 foot high pine tree that we had climbed to sing one of songs for sam. Sam brings it out of us, that's why we asked him to help us. we still have 4 more days of shooting and getting messy.

anyone's parents going out of town anytime soon?

here's frank doing some more treehugs, training for the TreeVD.




anyway, the point is, don't be surprised if the next time you see me I'm carry a paddle and looking for freshman to spank.

i said a broom sweep-a broom

I said a broom sweep-a mop-a sweep-a mop-a sweep-a broom

uh huh

alright

one more time now...

OKAY
SHIP
BEATBEAT WHISPER

at the Hotel Utah, on thursday, as hannah's elegant flyer states, we'll all be singing in ways that child, grandfolk, and cool youth alike are welcome to enjoy.

don't diss, just come. or if you can't it's cool too.