I received a few e-mails from people wondering why I haven’t been blogging, and there isn’t really a reason.  I’ve been busy with work, I don’t have much to say and I’m in a creative rut.  I don’t enjoy writing about politics because of how absurd the national discourse is right now; it feels a little degrading to write when ‘terror babies‘ and U.N. conspiracies pass for mainstream issues.  If Jack Stuef and Josh Fruhlinger weren’t around, I don’t know how I would make sense of the right wing (Poe’s Law).  I’m in love with Jack Stuef.

Work is busy, though, and the few hours I’m not putting in at the office I am working on a story that’s been in my head for awhile.

I have, however, been keeping my Flickr Creative Commons photostream alive with randomness.  So, to fill the void in my political rants and meaningless observations, I include a few recent uploads.

COLD SPRING NEW YORK WITH SANDY ORDONEZ

If you are an old timer Wikimedian then you will remember the days when the public relations guru Sandra Ordonez was cutting her teeth at the Wikimedia Foundation in St. Petersburg.  Sandy and I have become good friends, and she and her husband José hosted a weekend retreat for various New York artists and intellectuals at their country compound in Cold Spring in the gorgeous Hudson Valley.

The property they rented for the summer has a main house, a four bedroom guest barnhouse, a boat house, and a private pond that you have to traverse by boat to visit the abandoned 19th Century graveyard that contains perhaps 30 graves.  All on their private property.

Above:  The boat house, with the main house in the background.  We were out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees, nature and silence (except for our loud laughs and conversation).

Above:  Dave and Sandy in the abandoned 19th Century graveyard across the pond on the property.  There were about 30 graves there of people lost and long forgotten (until we were there).

Above:  Sandy and Maria laughing late into the night by candlelight.

Above:  The Little Man enjoying the flowers in the country air.

See more Cold Springs photos at my Flickr

FIRE ISLAND BIRTHDAY 2010

I was kind of surprised at how “racy” my sister said she found my Fire Island birthday photos.  Actually, both of my sisters found them…<ahem>…racy.  I asked the one why, because there are no shots of anything salacious like people fucking or doing anything other than dancing and having a good time.  She paused for a moment to think about it, and then she laughed and said, “Yeah, I know, but I guess it’s what I don’t see.  The mind fills in the blanks.”

Ha!  I was a saint and just enjoyed hanging out with my friends.  Here are a few more shots:

Michael Lucas, Nonie, Rafael Alencar, David Shankbone and Ernesto Altamirano at the Hotel Belvedere.

Michael and Nonie at the Belvedere.

I don’t know what we were thinking:  Judas carrying crucified Christ.

Michael, Nonie and Ernesto trying to catch fish on the Great South Bay.

See more of my Fire Island Creative Commons photos at Flickr.

LITTLE MAN & THE PIGEON

Finally, below are two shots of Little Man’s unrequited dream captured on film.  His lifelong goal, since he was little (he’s five and a half now) is to catch a pigeon.  He tries often, and never comes close to succeeding.  Then one morning we leave the building for his morning walk and right outside in our alcove is a pigeon with a broken wing.  Helpless, hapless, flopping about.  Little Man was so excited he could barely contain himself.  Alas, I did not let him realize his dream because it was not a fair fight.

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Eminem has already said that this video is based on his tumultuous relationship with his ex-wife Kim.  But against the backdrop of the abuse at the hands of Chris Brown, the chorus sung by Rihanna to the mini-movie of an abusive couple has many people wondering if it’s not just Eminem singing from experience.

Must be seen:

On July 9th I turned 36 and I was invited to spend it on Fire Island.  It was an amazing birthday full of new and old friends.  I took Ernesto with me, who is also the model I used to illustrates the body on Wikipedia (for example, his well-formed teeth are used as an illustration of human teeth on over 40 Wikimedia pages).

Here are a few shots of my birthday weekend.  It’s great to be 36!

Nonie reading on the deck with swans.

The amazingly talented Shequida.

Good times: Michael, Nonie, Rafael (w/o head), David and Ernesto at the Belvedere for a party.

Ernie, Shequida and Chris at the Hotel Belvedere.

Ernie and Nonie freaking to “Bad Romance”

Michael, Ernie and Rafael

Click here to check out more Fire Island photos on my Flickr.

Last night a good friend of mine scored me a free ticket to see Lady Gaga at Madison Square Garden for the Monster Ball.  I hate to sound trite, but words don’t do Gaga justice so I will just say that it was amazing.

When I go to events like this I struggle with whether or not to sneak my good camera in so that I can take some nice Creative Commons photos of one of the most inspiring artists working today.  To bring a clunky DSLR means that I no longer feel like a spectator to the event as much as a documentarian.  I don’t sit back and enjoy the show (or dance in the aisles as I did last night) but instead I’m always on the lookout for crisper photos, better angles.  It can make an event I am in the middle of feel far away.

Since my Creative Commons project is more-or-less officially over (with exceptions), I left the DSLR at home and brought my Samsung cameraphone.  Obviously, the photos aren’t so great, but my own personal experience was so much better without the DSLR.

Me and Brooke with Gaga in the background.  Thank you to the security guard who took this photo and then promptly told us to go back to our seats.

She is actually playing the piano she is on top of in the photo above.

Brett and Brooke having a blast.

You know what bothers me about (otherwise beloved) social media and online personal branding?

The fact that in 99% of the cases they are intentionally stripped of all depth and external complexity (both depth and complexity being intrinsic qualities of a developed human intellect). Primitivism is then sugar-coated as razor-sharp focus.

I don’t like the fact that most targeted messages are just a little bit retarded, literally. It makes me understand with my skin – not just with my head- that the society we live in is covertly and dramatically stratified – the divider being not the social class but the ability to think and live in stereo.

To me, this is physical. And personal: I’ve had a very formal and thorough education back in the USSR; I was systematically, year after year, trained to think, analyze and file data.

When I read my Twitter feed, I have Miklouho-Maclay glasses on. I breathe anthropology.

I notice social media stars. The bright ones: unshakable quality, solid. But I also see a lot of loud&proud naked kings (and queens). The ones who I wouldn’t be hanging out with if I had the honesty of a fifth grader (why? boring). Ironically, their standing in the media is just as impressive, and their sycophants as diabetic. I shake my head.

…Sometimes I meet people on the internet who I genuinely like, even admire – smart, throbbing, bubbly people; – but the things they say on Twitter, God! I cannot in my good taste re-tweet their truisms for brownie points, I have standards (no, really).

…I go back to the time when I was a little kid, and shake my head (again). I am amused. There is a naked king in the room, with a wobbly member, -  and a huge parade, with trumpets and balloons. Did I miss the memo? Am I the only one who is paying attention, or does everybody see the said member and well, am I…naive?

Is it because I have an old fashioned multi-track mind? I think about mysteries of the Universe, masturbation, chocolate, love, heat, comparative anthropology and copulating squirrels all at the same time. In no particular order.

Aren’t you the same way?

But then, Twitter. Don’t get me wrong, I luv my Twitter. But even in 140 characters, it is possible to be a part of nature, no?

And another thing. Most things expressed on the internet are opinions (yes, this one, too). Personal preferences and sales pitches. Mix and match. And it’s fine. Even telephone psychics serve a purpose.

But that’s what they are – opinions. There are no dating experts. Its a myth. There are dating practitioners, trend setters and confusers. Some of them, on some days, have really enlightening things to say. But anybody offering universal truths is either stupid or a liar.

I know, I know – some people who I read regularly are definitely not stupid. They are brighter than Aurora Borealis. But do you seriously expect me to love pictures of ugly chicks just because they have breasts? (I am from Europe and EVERYBODY in Europe has breasts so I am not impressed). Or celebrate every tweet that has the words “sex”, “vagina”, or “social media” in it? Or tolerate the fecal streams of motivational quotes?

Lack of imagination annoys me. And so does slogan-talk, no matter the topic and no matter the intelligence of the narrator.

I suppose, that’s what I get for having ignored microblogging for so long. The cultural shock. May be I shouldn’t be looking for the truth on Twitter and just quietly do what matters to me – meeting Christian singles building my brand.

Probably, genius.

I had a conversation earlier about my cat and her relationship with my boyfriend. It got me wondering about other people’s pets. Do they keep loyal to their owners once there is a significant other in the picture, or do they play favorites?

See, my cat is a total queen. So am I. My cat and I have this on-going rivalry over who has a higher throne. Mind you, she is sitting on my amp in this picture (although in her mind, she is sitting on her scratching post).

I got Koshka from a shelter several years ago. Her personality has always sucked (I know, I know, be nice – kitty-kitty-kitty!)

The kitty hisses, bites, marches around the house and pees on the couch. But wait – here comes the story.

When I just brought her home, she never peed anywhere outside her litter box.

And then, I married my ex who was deadly allergic to cats. We installed a million air filters in the apartment, and Koshka was denied admission to the bedroom. It was then that she started violating the couch.

To this day, I  have no clue what she really thought of my ex.

He kept telling me that my cat liked him better than me. I am not so sure. But one time, she bit me because he lied to her about me. NB! I am still mad.

He pushed my clumsy animal into an empty box as she was (barely) balancing at the edge of it, and then told he that it was me who did it. To which she reacted by coming out of the box and biting me. I thought it was outrageous, he was beaming.

Today, I forgot all about my ex, but my cat still pees on the couch. I have high hopes for my boyfriend though, may be her love for him will salvage my furniture!

And yes, Koshka clearly prefers him to me. She is a little under-gifted in the strategic department (guess who feeds her most of the time!), or may be, she is just blinded by hormones. When both my boyfriend and I wave our fingers trying to get her royal attention, she comes to him first. Traitor.

My dog Little Man is my best friend and we’ve been through a lot together.  Dogs are incredible, and this one has added a lot of joy to my life.

In January Little Man turned five, and in dog years that makes him 35, which is exactly my age right now. To mark the occasion this month, my friend Billy Name, Andy Warhol’s live-in photographer at The Factory, did some portrait shots at the historic Chelsea Hotel in New York City.

Images with attribution to Billy Name

This is a photo my friend Nate took of Billy photographing:

Billy and me:

Image above licensed Creative Commons 3.0

I feel like in order to succeed, I need to cut off the best parts of my soul, and it is killing me. What is killing me most is that I have plenty of mental ability to do what all those best-selling internet marketers are doing but the prospect of limiting myself to NLP shouts scares the shit out of me. Having the ability without having the desire is an unpleasant paradox. I am not envious, I am tripped out.

Dan Kennedy on “non-consensual selling”:

Brace yourself, but that’s what I want you to do – just reach right into his jacket pocket and take out his wallet, with style and class like a cat burglar in an old movie played by Cary Grant or David Niven (not some street thug). BUT THE CUSTOMER HAS NO CHOICE. And I’ll tell you how to TAKE AWAY HIS CHOICE IN THE MATTER and make his buying decision a foregone conclusion.

I really don’t think that people are that ugly. They are beautiful, throbbing, interesting or not – but even if not – treating them as dough for my pie is so f$%king boring. “Boring” is the word. It’s not immoral because people surrender their intelligence by choice. But so infinitely boring.  Sometimes I understand why God would want company.

I want to give, and I want to give a lot because I was designed for big amounts, small amounts depress me – but I don’t want to force the bliss down anybody’s throat – I have self-respect!

If I woke up one day and found myself in a body of one of those famous (male) gurus, investing their energy into building their empire while they could be, say, singing (okay, you get the idea about me), looking at myself in the mirror with their face and….stop. I would scream of horror.  Oh, I am so happy I am me. Of course, if that thing actually happened, the next thing I would do would be convince myself that it was for the better. But let’s not fool ourselves….

I only have one desire, as far as the external world goes – and it is bigger than the ocean but I don’t know how to fit it into the world as I know it – the world in which language and reality seem to be disconnected. Yes, I want all the money of the world – but I don’t want to pay with my soul for it. Not because I am a rebel, but because I am a spoilt brat. My problem is, I don’t have a set of slogans attached to my desire.

Everybody needs a slogan. People who really, really love money and power chant about strengh (like I do) and are immune to the charming attributes the sheeple. Libertatians resent New World Order (like I do). Hipsters are cooler than every other form of life (except me). Metalheads hate pop. And I just want to be.

I hate this sharpening of your world-facing tip. Today, I am funny. Tomorrow, sad. This week I go to see an opera and next week I goof around the East Village acting retarded. I don’t care about The Scene. Hippies, punks, metalheads, sadists, guitar shredders, office workers, marching whores or politicians. Blacks or whites. I deal with all of them on one by one basis, and it works for me. The moment somebody expects me to pay homage to The Scene, I puke. I have better things to be faithful to. Me.

I want to be left alone when it’s my thinking time. I want to think about how this world came around, I want to work on my voice, I want to talk to trees and stones. It’s not that I don’t like people, it’s just that trees and stones don’t pretend to be zebras and elephants. I am tired of best-selling BS.

When I was little, making life-long friendships was easier than it is now. Nothing changed, it’s just that everybody got busier. Sometimes I meet new soulmate-like people. If we were children, we would probably get excited and spend time talking to each other and exploring the woods or the ruins of an old castle.

But now, we have careers to tend to and important connections to maintain. Laziness. Not that I am any saintlier.

In the last several weeks my thoughts come back to this girl, I made several attempts to befriend her to no avail. It doesn’t bother me, plus, I am straight (well for all practical purposes anyway). But it amuses me because her brain and mine are almost identical. I totally dig everything she writes (well everything that I read that she writes). Funny. She is really smart.

And I am very free-falling. I am in one of those phases where I really don’t care about what anybody thinks. I feel like a baby in the jungle and that about sums it up. But being a baby in the jungle is not a bad thing. I like tigers.

Disclaimer: all I am about to write here is just something that occurred to me as I was lying in bed and thinking about my friend’s blog post.

See, in my opinion David Shade is a genius. But there is one thing I disagree with. I don’t think women abandon “nice guys” because they look for a mightier penis. I think women abandon nice guys because they are generally bored – and in perfect accordance with Mother Nature, a bored mind needs a thrill.

According to that same logic,  the only reason why women are reluctant to leave “bad boys” is because their minds are too preoccupied with the havoc the players create. Not without  women’s permission!

Girls who get temporarily stuck with bad boys simply don’t give themselves a chance to think clearly. Of course, players make sure to install addiction before they install havoc; nobody in their right mind would go for drama in Chapter One. Drama is only effective when it is perceived as a mistake.

But, I am not a scientist. I was merely thinking out loud as I was lying in bed and whispering a review of everything in my head.

See, they are saying there is a problem of infidelity. They are saying there is a problem of high divorce rate. I think we are looking at wrong problems. I think what lies underneath is using wrong language.

Here is what I honestly think, and by the way, I honestly think that I am *righter* than the entire legion of relationship counselors who teach  people how to do okay while living a lie. I don’t insist on swaying around in a lotus but I do have an opinion.

Personally, I am really thrilled with the fact that I haven’t salvaged any of my past relationships because if I did, I wouldn’t be in the relationship with my awesome boyfriend now. Given, I don’t know the future, given, neither he or I feel good when things stop growing, I praise gods every day for having met a man who is compatible with my crazy-ass personality. I have been waiting for a long time.

Had only I, – or my exes, – felt one bit less fickle or one bit more stationary, I would might still be stuck in some kind of bullshit now. Horror. I say, thank God for their adieus! Thank God!

And honestly, even though I have had several decent relationships in my life, I have never had one that would be so close my soul’s ideal. How can I not thank my exes for their adieus? That’s, like, easy!

Going back to the giant whales of public opinion and family values…

I say, if somebody wants to cheat – let them cheat, and deal with consequences. Not the mass media and neighbors kind of consequences, but whatever happens in their lives, their free personal lives. Freedom costs, that I know. What I despise, however, is people who want to cheat but don’t want to leave. They say they feel sorry for their partner. Bullshit! They feel sorry for themselves and want to have the thrills of the unknown but also somebody who has their back. I am not in the position to judge anybody but this behavior feels like cowardice to me.

On the other hand if somebody wants to be faithful – let them be faithful, and deal with the consequences as well. If it is familiarity and lack of thrill, it is theirs to bear. If it is joy of having a soulmate to share confusions and victories with, it is theirs to smile about.

If somebody wants to pretend that “everything is okay” (oh crap, my hand halts because I am all too familiar with the relationship pretense – luckily I am talking about the past)….if somebody want to use make-up for the soul….oh, crap. Isn’t it exactly what mass culture is going for.

I believe that people are smarter and wiser than what the society is trying to make them believe. Somehow, my heart is very much against the idea of keeping anybody around who is not super enthusiastic about me. And I let it be known. Many times in my life, I blamed myself for screwing up yet another relationship by yelling at the lad and insinuating that his feelings for me were not strong enough to keep me around. Every time, after the lad in question legitimitly bugged off, I scratched my head and said: “F%&k!”

But now I think I was right.  And all couples in love make me smile (even – a scary confession – somebody who I used to love quite sincerely, and his girlfriend – they are so cute on their Facebook that sugar drips off the page). And all couples making out in my hood. And old couples holding hands as if they are in Europe. Hooray to good things, hooray to happy breathing!

The Time 100 red carpet posed some interesting challenges.  It was crowded, and with people who are changing the world but whose faces you may have never seen, it can be difficult to spot the subject you need.

You have some random woman milling about in front of you who you assume is just Nick Cannon’s publicist, but who you later learn was the woman who saved 5,000 Chinese peasants from a collapsed mine and then turned them all into millionaires with a clever business model that only required a cell phone and fifty cents to get started. Is that Vivienne Tam’s date, or is it David Chang?

Such is the mix of people on the Time 100 red carpet.  Below are portraits of some of the most influential people in the world, all licensed Creative Commons Attribution:

Tim Westergren, engineer.  “If Pandora, the service that allows users to create their own Internet radio stations, is the little music search engine that could, then founder Tim Westergren, 44, is its quixotic engineer. A former rock and jazz musician, Westergren had a big idea in 1999: the Music Genome Project, a typology for categorizing any piece of music according to nearly 2,000 traits identified by Pandora’s experts. As a user, you start with, say, a Brian Eno song, then receive a stream of ‘genetically’ related music — Four Tet, Harold Budd and other artists you’ll probably like.” – Kurt Andersen

Deborah Gist, educator.  “When Deborah Gist became commissioner of Rhode Island schools in 2009, she pledged to make every decision in the best interests of children — something we’ve heard before and rarely seen happen. Then she started doing it.

At first, no one outside Rhode Island noticed. Gist, 43, announced that staffing decisions would be based on teacher qualifications, not seniority. She also launched a new evaluation system in which teachers get annual reviews — an idea practiced in only 15 other states. When she learned that Rhode Island’s teacher-training programs had one of the lowest test-score requirements for entrance, she found out which state set the bar the highest — then raised Rhode Island’s one point above it.” — Amanda Ripley

Chief Master Seargent Tony Travis.  “When chief master sergeant Antonio ‘Tony’ Travis arrived at the Port-au-Prince airport shortly after January’s earthquake, there was only one usable runway, the air-traffic-control tower was structurally unsafe, and 42 aircraft were grounded in a space designed for 12….In only 28 minutes, Chief Travis set up a makeshift air-traffic-control operation located midfield. Working from a card table, often standing on chairs, he and his team deftly took control of the arrivals and departures. Under his leadership, planes were able to take off and land every five minutes, bringing in 4 million lb. of supplies. For Haitians unable to get to the capital, his team surveyed and controlled four remote drop zones, providing 150,000 bottles of water and 75,000 packaged meals to people who had no other means of survival.”  – Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger

David Chang, chef.  “When Chang, 32, opened Momofuku in New York in 2004, he reinvented the casual restaurant and changed the game. Turning his back on the high-end kitchens in which he had been working, he started off with a bare-bones place his peers could afford. At first he offered a few simple dishes — pork buns so soft they practically swallowed themselves and memorable ramen made with organic ingredients — but Chang soon began pushing the boundaries, combining a passion for Asian food with his classic European training and serving the kind of challenging dishes once relegated to expensive establishments. He trusted his customers — who trusted him.” –Ruth Reichl

Kathleen Merrigan, Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  “She wants a community garden in every neighborhood, doesn’t she? She does. Supports farmers’ markets and local food? Check. She practically wrote the book on organic. (Actually, she did. See the 1990 Organic Foods Production Act.) And though her charge as Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture is to represent all factions — whatever decision she’s making, as one Washington insider told me, she ‘walks between raindrops’ — you think, She’s one of us.

“Then you learn that she supports conventional farmers, refuses to vilify biotech and relishes above all else a good steak. ‘I displease pleasingly,’ she’ll say, and you respect her all the more.

“If you’ve ever wondered who in government shoulders the complexities of moving an agenda forward in a fractured time and pushes on without getting soaked, here is your answer.” – Dan Barber

P. Namperumalsamy, surgeon.  “In less time than it takes to read this magazine, a simple surgery can give a blind person her eyesight back.

“A miracle? Absolutely. But Dr. Perumalsamy Namperumalsamy, 70, and his army of cataract fixers at India’s Aravind Eye Care Hospitals make it look easy. The surgery has been around for decades, but the chairman of Aravind — which was founded in 1976 with the goal of bringing assembly-line efficiency to health care — figured out how to replace cataracts safely and quickly: 3.6 million surgeries to date, a new one every 15 minutes.

“Equally brilliant is the business model: the 30% of patients who can afford to pay subsidize free or low-cost care for the 70% who are poor.” – Brian Mullaney

And though she was not a Time 100 person, here is designer Vivienne Tam, looking fantastic arriving for the dinner and gala to celebrate the people above:

Click here to see my Time 100 Creative Commons portraits at Flickr.

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