during my punk teen years i took lots of
photos of slightly destroyed bilboards.
i loved it especially when a storm would plough
through town and the paper would get torn
down. i thought it was a collaberation
between natural process and humans trying desperately
to sell shit.

to some kids safety pins were "punk"
i never understood that. they are "safety" pins
they are designed to not hurt or come undone.
that seemed so un-punk to me.
i liked arrows and decayed signs.

i was never told what to do by my parents. my dad was pretty much non exsistant and
my mom was in another state. i made my own bed time. therefore the idea of road signs telling
you what to do, especially advertising and directional arrows were funny. blatantly un dignified.
they were ridiculing humans. the same johnny rotten sneer could be heard coming from
a one way sign, or a perfume scarf blowing in the air billboard.



the ones that were decaying were
just plain good looking.
they were like a reclaiming by the wind and rain
they are the best in public art.

obviously nature will win however, this is
an on going demonstration of the twain.

i don't even see it as a struggle. more so a
process taking a lie and showing a truth.


just out of my teens i moved to berkeley
to go to collage. i moved into barrington
hall where the "punks" lived. the guy i hung
out with mostly was named shawn.
he was an african- american physics student.
he loved chess. i don't. he loved physics. i don't.
i gravitated to shawn because he was just so
real, he was awkwardly earnest and very eager
about the things he was passionate about
even if others weren't.

Shawn drew a comic with colored pencils depicting first a coffee cup. then a cup
with i cow in the distant back ground. eventually
page by page the cow approached the coffee cup untill the frame was just the cows face overtaking the cup. i loved it and asked him repeatedly for a copy of the zine. eventually
he made me one. literally made it. he re-drew each colored picture page by page because he
couldn't opperate a color copy machine and besides its cheaper to draw it. this same thing
happened to me by a guy named daniel johnston who re recorded on a tape player all the songs
he wrote at my piano in barrington for me when i asked for a "copy"

today (20 years later) shawn "the wiz" cant really communicate as well. he lives outdoors mostly and
occasionally he will be found sleeping in one of my vehicles. he carries all his bags of crap with
him and will get on a tirade about one thing or another getting him kicked out of his hosts place
in cycles. over and over i find him every half year or so. then some one realises that he leaves
bags of shit. actual shit.
like, he shits in bags... and he gets kicked out.
explaining this
he told my friend dave once when dave told him to just come inside and use the bathroom that
...."no, I am a REAL man"....