Dear Stasher: I found your stash.

A few weeks ago, I cleaned out the abandoned darkroom in my basement to prepare it for screen printing. Lately, I’ve been printing in the bathroom. Every time I use a screen I spray it out in the shower. While this method works, in the process I cover myself, the curtains, tub and our rare loofah collection in various hues of toxic ink. This is no bueno.

None of the light fixtures work in the darkroom. I reached up into the ductwork to check one of the connections when, Lo and Behold, I found a stash.

This was no ordinary stash. This was a homemade porn stash. Perhaps the rarest of all stashes in the world of stashing.

This stash even had a title: A Lively Experiment.

At first I was suspicious of the fourteen-year-old boy that lives next door. But he couldn’t possibly draw on this level. I’ve seen him draw and he totally sucks at it. He couldn’t draw a tree for hangman. He would’ve had to hire his little brother to do this caliber of work and, last time I checked, his rate was $34 a page. Even I can’t afford a $136 stash.

What makes this stash the most interesting I’ve ever encountered is that it contains a verse of spanish poetry. Who does this mad stasher think he/she is? Octavio Paz?

My elementary spanish skills are beyond rusty, but here is the best internet assisted translation I can offer:

“when five anuses tapeworm, walk my bicycle.

when fifteen anuses tapeworm, ride with the light trucks.

work in the field with the flames. walk in my yes yes.”

(My dear readers, I know many of you are questioning the integrity of this blog. I swear to all things sacred I cannot make this stuff up.)

After finishing the translation I sat and contemplated in silent shock, but the truth occurs to me now: this is either A.) the lost and misunderstood work of the greatest artistic savant of the 21st century, or B.) a serial killer’s stash.

Right now I’m leaning toward B. Although I’m aware that the line between these two possibilities is mired in gray.

If any of you know who created this art you can either A.) offer me a fair market price for the work, or B.) contact a federal official.

Whatever you decide to do, first take a minute to enjoy the stash.

A Flock of Migrating Business Suits Landed Outside My Window

I was working in my studio today when a formation of SUV’s spiraled into the abandoned parking lot behind my house. A gaggle of business suits gathered in front of my window.

They shook hands and then chided one another. “This is the most beautiful desolate asphalt lot in the world,” I heard one say. Then they each took a turn pointing at the property boundaries and the roof line of my house. I think they came here to build a roost with all the construction equipment they stored away during winter.

While I normally reserve a section of my time for the enjoyment and observation of nature, there is something inherently unattractive about this particular species of migrating bird. They have a habit of building their nests with cheap and gaudy materials and, as far as the animal kingdom is concerned, they are not notable for their architectural abilities. Sitting here right now, I have a view of the trees and rooftops of Ladd’s Addition. I can see the tip of the Portland skyline and the West Hills behind it. When the sun sets it makes a perfect scene.

If the business suit goose moves in to the lot, I will never see this ever again. At least not from this window or any other in my quarters.

When I took their picture, I forgot to turn the flash off. The burst of light startled the clutch and they ran to their cars and drove away in different directions.

Today, I frightened the birds of prey away. Something tells me they will be coming back to breed.

2009: A Very Bad Year for Stay-At-Home Boyfriends

The results from a nationwide study are in, and the projections for stay-at-home boyfriends are at an all-time low for the first quarter of 2009. A sagging economy, rising sales in X-Box 360′s and a growing demographic of women who are refusing to pay their boyfriend’s cell phone bill have all contributed to this unprecedented crisis.

Our report suggests that there are other factors involved as well, like a record number of women who no longer find laziness endearing. As one disgruntled girlfriend put it, “A boyfriend who stays in bed just isn’t any good in bed.”

Stay-At-Home Boyfriends of America have responded to this crisis with a statement defending their lifestyle. Consistently warm beds, reliable mailbox service and codependent companionship were all cited as benefits to stay-at-home boyfriendism.

“Is this really what women want?” said a newly single stay-at-home boyfriend, “To come home to an empty house with food in the refrigerator and no dishes in the sink? These women are going to wake up cold, fat and unfulfilled next winter.”

Women are expected to stick with this new trend and are also set to release a new list of demands for boyfriends this summer. Preliminary data points to higher standards in male life and career planning, the rejection of the term “freelance” as an official employment status and a return to the “male payment” method of dating, shopping and apartment rental.

The John McCain Hummer Buyback Program.

Due to a failure of the world credit markets, increasing prices for fuel and commodities, and the possibility of a global recession, Americans are facing the foreclosure of their homes in record numbers this year. McCain and Obama have both introduced plans to alleviate the concerns of homeowners, but McCain has taken this plan one step further.

“A lot of politicians are focusing on the Americans who are unable to make their mortgage payment this month,” McCain said, “but no one is talking about the Americans who can’t afford to make their Hummer payment or to fill their Hummer’s gas tank. These are my constituents, greedy hard-working American assholes, and I am here to help these scumbags.”

Under McCain’s ambitious new plan, the treasury would buy all of the Hummers in the United States at full blue book value. “We are going to get this awful burden off of the American people’s shoulders,” McCain said, “And while I am at it, I am going to use these Hummers to fight the Wars on Terror in Iraq, Afghanistan, and to initiate my planned invasion of Iran in 2009.”

“Not only will our troops have the best vehicles to exterminate terrorists and insurgents with, they will also have some great new features in their combat battallions, such as leather seats, CD player with iPod compatibility, air conditioning, 25-inch chrome wheels with spinny disks, and TV sets in the headrests,” McCain said.”Our troops will be better equipped on the ground and will be better prepared to wage the most comfortable, luxurious never-ending wars in World history.”

Mail Is Holy (All Hail Mail).

I met a man named Michael S. Gardner on my neighbor’s porch last year. He had a handbound book with an anthology of the zine that he edits/publishes called Burnside Represent. I looked at it and asked if it was for sale and he seemed really surprised. “Yes! Yes it is!” he said. I gave him twenty bucks on the spot and went on my merry way.

Little did I know that I had signed a deal with the devil. Now, every two weeks, Michael sends me a copy of his newest publication. Rain, sleet, dark of hangover, the newest Burnside Represent hits my mailbox. I have a back log of issues in my bathroom waiting for perusal.

Keeping in mind that I have now met Michael twice, it is both miraculous and sad that he is my #1 mail sender.

In honor of Michael, I am asking the world to do one thing and one thing only: START MAILING MORE CRAP.

Mail is a beautiful thing. Let me get all of you up to date on proper mailing technique. Basically, you put something in a box or envelope, put some colored money (stamps) on it, put that into a blue box on the corner and… Voila! some dude with burly, hairy calf muscles picks up that envelope or box and walks it straight over to your friends house!

Think of it like email, but with out the “e” part. Imagine the possibilities: instead of sending someone an impersonal email forward of a funny cat hat, you could send them an actual hat for their cat! Now, what do you think of that?!

Bottom Line: Mail is totally the most awesome genius invention ever. Why didn’t I think of mail? I’m always late on the good ideas.

I have set up a makeshift mail station in my home. Please send me your address (or email me) and I promise to mail you some awesome garbage from my awesome mail station. All that I ask in return is that you also construct a postage center in your dining room and mail me something random or valuable.

Timothy Herby Belrose

1539 SE 21st Ave.

Portland Oregon 97214

See you in my mailbox.

Meet the Dreadnecks.

lucien heatherstone

On a recent anthropological survey of the Rogue River valley of southern Oregon, I discovered an unknown culture living in the native vegetative structure. The Dreadnecks, rumored to be among the lost tribe of Judah, were sent into exile after the Assyrians totally maimed the kingdom of Isreal back in the dizzay BC.

Bama

They have been living right outside Grants Pass untouched by the outside world for millennia. As an observer of their annual Solstice Festival, I noted many aspects of their culture.

Immediately visible was their self-sustaining organic gardens, meditation temples and feral children. But it was their true nature revealed when the chainsaws, monster trucks, epic wooden waterslides, drunken skateboarding and debauchery began.

One thing was obvious: these Natty Dreadlocks were total Rednecks. Before I met the Dreadnecks, a grafting of two cultures so incongruent, and often hostile to one another, seemed impossible. The Dreadlock stands for everything the Redneck detests, and vice-versa.

What I’ve learned is that a culture left on its own can mutate and change in ways unfathomable. This is mainly for survival, but also for the enjoyment/destruction of nature, the conservation/depletion of resources, and the pure thrill of good old fashioned Hippie/Redneckery.

Eric Von Prizen

Go Somewhere.

If there is one thing I know for sure it’s that you just can’t travel enough. I think of world travel as my civic responsibility. I also have this constant, nagging feeling that there is something really important I need to find and I’m not going to find it unless I keep looking in places REALLY FAR AWAY.

These are some photos from some of my favorite expeditions. Go ahead and click on them to make them bigger. My kickass friend Chainsaw Chad Cheeney took the photo of me playing Putt Putt. All were taken on various trips to California, Oregon and Nicaragua.

I found a REALLY COOL SHIRT in Nicaragua. See, travel pays.

A Flock of Migrating Business Suits (Continued…)

The last time I saw the business suits, they packed their flock into the SUV and disappeared toward the sunset. The vacant lot sat silent for weeks on end. I began to believe that perhaps it was all just a trick of the imagination. Maybe the flock of suits wasn’t real after all? Maybe they just landed to rest and drink from the asphalt pond on their way to some other development?

I stopped thinking about the scavenging birds. When the weather got nice this Summer I spent many days staring out my back window. In the evening the trees swayed in the breeze and dropped their offspring into the wind. Flowering bulbs popped up from every median and corner of the lot and shot color in every direction from here to infinity. When the sun fell into the West Hills and blankets of red and orange ran to the opposite horizon, my vacant lot was no longer vacant. Its emptiness was full of beauty.

Monday morning a band of weasels snuck into the lot and erected a chain link fence around it. They are the only animals I have ever seen who will trap themselves inside a cage. Once they secured their new territory I heard the gargle of diesel engines pull through the metal gate at the end of the property.

Like an act of God, the machines that the business suits had stored away last winter awoke loud and hungry. They set immediately to work by eating the old church. The machines had to fight the weasels for the pieces that fell to the ground. The weasels wrestled away bits and pieces and put them into boxes to send home to their families.

We Can Do It.

In the documentary bearing his surname, illustrator Robert Crumb admits that he copies snapshots of the urban pandemonium of power lines, buildings, streets and other infrastructure in his drawings. “You just can’t possibly make this stuff up,” he says.

It’s true. It takes thousands of people working for decades to make the disastrous mess we call our urban landscape. While some approach with aesthetics in mind, others are just trying to move resources, people and communications down the line on the public’s dime. What we urbanites end up with are areas of impeccable taste, function and order, and also places that are unforgiveable architectural and planning catastrophes. No one with any reasonable talent could ever imagine something as brutal, ugly and commonplace as the modern strip-mall.

Using Portland, Oregon as an example, my neighborhood, Lower Hawthorne, is an enclave rich in density. There are apartments, houses, movie theaters, parks, and cafes all around me. The area south of me, Ladd’s Addition, is built on a European grid, with rose gardens in the intersections and an overwhelming sense of composure.

82^nd Street, on the other side of town, is a polluted wasteland. An endless promenade of used car lots, prostitutes, tweakers, and Wal-Marts is all you will find there. I would not send anyone to 82^nd Street for any reason on earth except to use the drive-thru at Don Pedro’s #9 to get me a carnitas burrito, two crunchy asada tacos and an horchata. Folks in the know have told me that the city of Portland has accepted that 82^nd is a necessary and incurable sacrifice zone; the last place where a CEO can build a Home Depot without facing a mob of angry, educated and organized NIMBYs.

Ode to a Bar-B-Que

The sun has burned through the clouds of this woody Pacific metropolis after six months of sub-tropical rain. My neighbors and I dry out our wintered bodies on the scraps of grass and sidewalk outside of our apartments. This is our plantation. The sun is warmer than last October’s, the grass is greener, and the mesquite charcoal has taken more fluid to light than I first applied. My bar-be-que pit is black, the only logical color for a kettle style pit. All other colors are lame and superfluous; they will all blacken in time, or else they die lonely, cold and ornamental.

The moment to reflect is rare. The folks across the street in the Victorian mansion have given me a service table from the demolished Hilton Hotel. Stainless steel and weathered chrome, it rolled and creaked through a million black tie dinners. It has come home with me to bar-b-que. It, too, will blacken to match.

It is quiet when I start the pork ribs. Three racks laid side-by-side one another look bony and Paleolithic. The popping and sizzling starts. Urban man steps backward in time to meet his mother fire. He tastes his first warmed kill. The populous has amassed steel and brick all around him but he is the one whom still thanks the flame.

The tribe has come to share. Dogs show their teeth and tear at scraps of meat. A man arrives on a black motorcycle. He is tattooed with stalks of wheat, cannons and a rabbit. He hands me a bag of poultry, lime, cilantro and serrano peppers. The ribs boil in the kitchen where the flesh begins to drip off the bone. The air, smoked and sweet, lures.

Women arrive with drink. Children run and laugh. The sun does not get low, it hovers. Voices gather speed and inflection. The world is welcome on my doorstep.