Það var fallegt á leiðinni. Við vorum spennt að komast suður!

Úff, hvílíkur staður. Mikil fátækt, allt extra skítugt, ekkert að gera. Öll hótelherbergin hérna voru dýr og skítug – semsagt, ekki gerð fyrir vesturlandabúa. Þetta er fyrsta reynsla okkar af Tamil Nadu og fyrsti þefurinn er ekki góður.

Addi er að stikna út hita…

Kanyakumari er syðsti punkturinn á Indlandi og merkilegur fyrir það að þarna mætast þrjú höf: Arabíska hafið, Bengalflói og Indlandshafið. Okkur fannst það flott og hugsuðum að það mundi líta vel út á kortinu að koma hingað.

Smá vonbrigði!
Þetta er samt örugglega fínn staður, en við vorum bara orðin svo góðu vön í Varkala.

Við komum til Kanyakumari um kvöldmatarleytið og eyddum 2 tímum í að leita að hótelherbergi. við skoðuðum örugglega 15 hótel og á endanum völdum við eitt frekar dýrt (samt ekkert fansí, bara þokkalega hreint) og tókum ódýrasta herbergið í kjallaranum…svona er þetta bara stundum!

Þetta er frekar fína hótelið okkar…

Gangurinn okkar er líka geymsla…alskonar gamalt drasl þarna. Þetta herbergi var tvöfalt dýrara en litla sæta kotið okkar í Varkala

Það var verið að mála hótelið og eins og annars staðar á Indlandi er hér ekki neitt sem heitir öryggis eitthvað….hahaha, svo flippaðir!

Þrátt fyrir þetta létum við okkur hafa það að fara í smá sight-seeing. Við sáum minnisvarða um Mahatma Ghandi og fórum síðan í smá báta-skoðunarferð um höfin þrjú (örugglega) og sáum þar minnisvarða sem var reist á litlu skeri til minningar um mann. Þetta var einhver frægur andlegur maður sem eyddi nokkrum dögum á þessu skeri að hugleiða (rétt fyrir 1900). Í bátsferðinni  sáumvið líka risastór stytta af einhverjum manni. Því miður voru upplýsingarnar í þessari ferð allar á Hindi eða Tamil og svo eitt og eitt brot á ensku, þannig að höfum ekki alveg allar upplýsingarnar á hreinu. Þið getið lesið ykkur til á Wikitravel eða Wikipedia og kannski frætt okkur eitthvað!

Þetta er aðal ferðamanna-aðdráttaraflið og auðvitað höfin þrjú!

Þvílík biðröð í dallinn.

Það voru semsagt bara Indverjar í bátnum…hehe, alltaf eitthvað smá vandræðanlegt við að vera eina hvíta fólkið

Hann er smart þessu með bumbuna…svart pils og viskustykki yfir axlirnar

Addi var að pissa á sig af spenningi…hahaha (hann er að feika það)

Það er svo töff að þeir mála oft á veggina í staðin fyrir að setja upp skilti

Addi og lítill gaur að fyrir utan bókabúðina, Hann keypti sér tvær hugleiðslubækur…Paths of meditation og Meditation, it’s progress, practice and culmination!

Minnisvarðinn, sem er í rauninni hús og ínn í húsinu er stytta af þessum manni en það var bannað að taka myndir inni!

Addi að halda kúlinu

Útsýnið var mjög gott en hvað kom fyrir hárið á Helgu?

Næsta stopp var stóra styttan…við náðum því aldrei hver þetta var skiptir ekki öllu máli! (ekki er hárið neitt betra þarna)

Við löbbuðum upp stiga til þess að komast upp á pallinn til styttunnar og sjá útsýið. Við máttum alls ekki hrækja á leiðinni!

Addi stóðst ekki mátið…

Við, hafið og himininn!

Við tókum mjög margar myndir í þessum bæ….hmmm, samt fannst okkur hann ekkert svo merkilegur. Þetta tvennt helst greinilega ekki í hendur
Það gæti verið að þegar okkur leiðist einhverstaðar (þráðlausa netið okkar var hætt að virka) notum við tímann í að rölta og taka myndir og þegar við höfum það of gott, þá sitjum við í tölvunni eða á kaffhúsi og tökum engar myndir…..interesting!

Einn af miljón minnisvörðum um Mahatma Gandhi

Ég er farin að greiða mér!

Melodious musical centre…virtist vera í notkun, allaveganna voru nýjleg plagöt við innganginn.

Smábátahöfnin, Nauthólsvík og ruslahaugur í einum pakka…hentugt!

Mjög vinarlegur karl afgreiddi okkur…Helga fékk að taka mynd af búðinni hans, hún ætlaði að reyna að ná mynd af risastóru hárbrúskunum sem stóðu út um eyrun en það tókst ekki samt krúttleg mynd!

Fórum eiginlega alltaf á þennan veitingastað…ekkert merkilegt við hann, bara þægilegt að þurfa ekki að ákveða hvar við ættum að borða. Við söknum þess að geta opnað ískápinn og fengið okkur brauð með gúrku.

Sjórinn er ruslakarfa

The first half of these — the ones in black and white – were confirmed fake as the ‘pee’ in question was really apple juice.  The ones in color are the real deal.  Simon also has 2 pee-drinking videos that will be on here as soon as I get the video page finished.

Hermann Nitsch, Viennese Actionist and founder of the Theater of Orgies and Mysteries, was recently featured in the book Blood Orgies: Hermann Nitsch in America.  I got to take a look at the book and watch some videos of his performances and became really excited about his work. These videos were posted by Incubate, a showcase of independant artists and performers in Tilburg, Holland, and show an “action” from 1982. I strongly recommend viewing these full-screen.  This passage from the Saatchi Gallery website gives a good, concise summary of Hermann Nitsch’s work:

Hailed by many as the Pope of Viennese ‘Aktionism’, Hermann Nitsch, together with Günter Brus, Otto Mühl, and Rudolf Schwartzkogler, reformed the face of sixties art, shunning the illusionary confines of traditional painting and sculpture, reinventing an art that exists in real, corporeal, and violent terms.

Hermann Nitsch was celebrated and reviled in equal measure as he took the semblance of a pagan ceremony and incorporated robed processions, symbolic crucifixion, drunken excess, nudity, animal sacrifice, the drinking of blood, and the ritualistic incorporation of viscera and entrails. Even today, his audiences aren’t mere visitors, but active participants in his artistic liturgies.

This is the second half of Simon’s request pictures.

[via]

I min, ibland, överdrivna städiver körde jag Viktor i diskmaskinen. Trodde den var i samma material som Georg.

Det var den inte.

Nu är den alldeles flammig och matt. Förstörd. Och jag är skitledsen. Den har dessutom utgått ur Design House Stockholms sortiment.

En julklapp från mor och far. Fanfanfanfanfanfan!

Någon som har en över och vill sälja?

Today (Wednesday), I will be focusing my thoughts on the ever-growing popular concept of advertising (as evidenced in the latter two “Austin Powers” movies). Specifically, I would like to call attention to some of our nation’s most bizarre forms of ads or, as I like to call it because it sounds clever and witty, “odd-vertising.” This piece will discuss three places I recently saw advertisements that I deemed odd. Keep in mind, however, that there is a fine line between what constitutes an oddly-placed ad and what is simply a desperately-placed ad, just like there is a fine line between quiet sanity and homicidal rage, which I myself am about to cross if the crazy bastard sitting across from me on the train as I write these words doesn’t stop talking to the damn window every ten seconds. For example, people may view an ad placed during the world network premiere of “Alexander” as odd or bizarre, when in all reality it is really nothing more than a desperate and pathetic move. Also, the fact that wireless phone service companies agree to sponsor movie theater messages telling you to silence your cell phones is not odd, but rather just plain stupid.

The first form of odd-vertising I saw was at a local diner, which was a part of my home township until a fire in its kitchen gave the nearby Dennys the upper hand in immediate area restaurants. As you are probably aware, buildings gutted by fire normally have their windows boarded up with large wooden slabs in the days, months, eras, etc. following the inferno. I never understood the point behind this, seeing as how wood is rather flammable and could easily be re-ignited by forgotten smoldering embers that the firefighters overlooked in their rush to quell the blaze so they could get back to drinking at the station. At least, I never understood the point of boarded-up windows until recently: to advertise the wood’s contractor. Seriously. The wooden slabs boarding up the windows of the township’s (former) local diner is prominently stamped with the name and number of a contractor. I’m not exactly sure what audience this contractor is hoping to seize, but, by the same token, it is a pretty ingenious way to show off exactly what he can do. I mean, he won’t get a a lot of calls for, say, building a house thanks to this form of “odd-vertising.”

I came across Example #2 while urinating…meaning not only did I earn another form of odd-vertising to enhance my point, but also earned the “Most Disgusting Sentence Beginning” Award, which was formerly held by the writer of the screenplay for “American Beauty,” which, if you have seen the Oscar-winning flick, has as its first sentence of dialogue “There I was, masturbating in the shower.” Nevertheless, the odd form of advertising in this instance was located on, seriously, a urinal pad. It wasn’t for a product but rather was the bland 1980s-era public service message “Say No To Drugs” followed by a 1-800 number in case, I don’t know, someone who the pisser knows says “yes” to drugs. No (further) offense, but if you take suggestions and phone numbers from a urinal pad, you have definitely got to be on SOMETHING not made from legal substances. Besides, doesn’t the mere fact that you’re literally pissing on the slogan pretty much kill the intent of the message?

The final form of odd-vertising that I can currently think of caught my eye at South Philadelphia’s Wachovia Spectrum several years back. I was there finishing up my self-guided walk-through tour of Lynton Harris’ “Nightmares on Broad Street” Halloween attraction which had used the sporting arena as its home base for most of October 2004. Striding quickly past the “Nightmares on Broad Street” souvenir vendors lining the Spectrum’s concourse (where the tour coincidentally ended), I spotted a rather oddly-colored turnstile, which is of course that revolving three-pronged object seen at the gates of most high-crowd places. Closer inspection revealed that the turnstile’s three prongs were actually covered with “Philadelphia Inquirer” and “Philadelphia Daily News” logos; these are obviously two large newspapers here in the City of Brotherly Love that apparently feel the need to corner the turnstile-passing-through market. I cannot recall any instance wherein I or anything human made their choice of newspaper based upon what they observed on the oversized counter granting them access to their overpriced sporting event.

In conclusion, I invite everyone, living and dead, to share with me any and all forms of oddly-placed ads you have come across while strolling around town or urinating. Sell-out nation that we are, I honestly doubt that advertisers did not stop at simply turnstiles, urinal pads, and boarded-up windows.

Jag tycker det är creepy när jag hör grannen ovanpå gråta i timmar.

Eller när hundarna ylar.

Nu låter det igen och jag kan inte avgöra om det är högljudd sex eller en förtvivlad människa.

Fan.

Sånt här vill jag inte veta eller fundera över.

Hur ska jag kunna sova nu?

There used to be a smell I identified with Madrid- a vaguely unpleasant, smothering smell that made me happy. There were many years, after my intial sojourn in the late eighties, when I returned only sporadically to the city, to touch base, and to watch it shape-shifting, coping with change after change. But the smell stayed the same. It was the smell of the underground. As you descended the steps into the mouth of the metro the odour would waft up into your face: a kind of hot drainy smell reminiscent of bad plumbing, heat, and mysterious urban filth. I loved it. As soon as my nostrils filled with this hot, noxious metro-breath, I knew I was back in Madrid.

Now the smell of the metro is gone, there is ventillation and good plumbing, and there are armies of cleaners keeping the place hygeinic. Like the city, the underground has cleaned up its act. Madrid has de-toxed from the inside, undergone a kind of colonic irrigation. But things on the surface are not quite so clean and orderly. There is a new odour in the air, one which you can find on street corners, down little alleyways, next to Municipal flower pots, lamp-posts, in doorways and the stairwells leading down to the metro. I am not talking about the ubiquitous smell of cigarette smoke, I am talking about the smell of pee.

Free-style pissing seems to have become a city sport, so I can absolutely see why it appears in the Lavapies Olympics shortlist. People here- oh all right, men here (you don’t see many women dropping their knickers and squatting) have no problem whipping it out and marking the neighbourhood as their territory. Madrileños are known as ‘gatos’ (cats) so I suppose they are only behaving true to form, like stinky, strutting tomcats. Next time some pisshead who has come down to Lavapies from his clean, crime-free, safe, tidy middle-class barrio (neighbourhood) and decides to piss outside my front door, I will be very tempted to ask ‘Excuse me young man, would you do that at home?’ I would be tempted to believe that all this street weeing is a symbolic symptom of the locals not having a pot to piss in, but generally it isn’t the locals, whatever nationality. We live here, we don’t piss on our own doorstep.

So free-style pissing got my vote as one of the top sports in the Lavapies Olympics. The Incredible Ponce agrees with me in part, as he has been known to say things like ‘Ah, the smell of Spain- garlic… and sometimes piss. And deep fried food. No hang on, deep fried air, that’s the smell of Spain for me. Deep fried air.’ Like Posh Spice he has no qualms about expressing his distate, but he has a valid excuse, he’s Italian. Incidentally, I was told that after Mrs Beckham’s infamous ‘it smells of garlic here’ gaffe, she found it very difficult to order food in many of the city’s top restaurants. According to rumour, each dish she requested, waiters and waitresses would advise her very politely ‘I’m terribly sorry, Madam, but I don’t think you would like that dish. It is prepared with garlic.’ The charade continued often right through the menu, racked up to ridiculous proportions, so that she couldn’t even order a simple salad or dessert without being warned that it contained garlic.

So there you have it, the smell of new Madrid- for some it’s pee, for others it’s garlic, or fatty fried food. Lavapies, like a Third World enclave, is an oasis of gritty, unadulterated smells. Of course, statistically you are bound to come up with some good pongs as well as bad. Between my house and the plaza, for example, in just half a block, I regularly smell Turkish kebabs from the Kurdish cafe with its service window onto the street, incense from the Egyptian bazaar, Lebanese food and shisha smoke, the heavy sweet cologne of pomaded arabs and Indians, Patchouli oil trailing from some urban hippy, the fresh sharp sting of the desert air with a hint of mountains, traffic fumes, the rich stink of rubbish bins not cleaned out properly, flowers from window-boxes, the occasional overpowering stench of good weed, and of course, fresh and not so fresh pee.

Terry smiled happily for the photograph, showing everyone her own port-a-potty …

This merry bunch have the right idea, next stop Brannigans!

I think I’m going to die.  Took yesterday off from work because of this wicked bad sore throat.  Most of the time I can deal with what ever ailments I have to continue to go into work so I don’t need to burn a sick day.  Have a cold?  Just pop some pills until it clears up.  Hacking rough Cough?  They make cough drops in every flavor of the Willy Wonka candy rainbow.  Clogged up sinus?  Tylenol makes a hell of a good sinus with headache combo to treat that.  Flaming diarrhea?  A bottle of pepto and a wadded up piece of toilet paper clenched between the cheeks to catch any excess run off will fix that messy problem.  See?  Any ill feeling I have a solution for.  Just not a quick fix for a sore throat.

A aching scratchy throat is the one thing that I’ll break down and take a sick day for.  Mostly because there’s no quick easy Walgreen’s inspired cure.  Sure there’s the throat sprays and drops but those have never worked that well for me.  The lozenges that numb that back of your wind pipe work some what but the direction says not to use more that six throat drops in a 24 hour period and here I am downing six every fifteen minutes.  When your meals consist of throat lozenges for breakfast, a sensible lunch, more lozenges for dinner and hit of sore throat relief spray for dessert the farts you lay down are amazingly potent.  I made the mistake of “beefing” in the car driving home from work Thursday and almost rear ending a pickup while I was gagging.

Yesterday on the “Eric Get Well Tour” I did three things.  Sleep, drink liquids, and Piss.  Sometimes all at once.  No, I didn’t wet the bed.  I almost fell asleep filling the great  porcelain temple with golden holy water.  Seemed as if I was standing there for hours going….and going…………and going and going some more.  Guess when you choose drinking liquids to quell your burning throat over traditional medicine your bladder will suffer.  My urination has turned into such mammoth proportion I was going to take a ”should I” pee and end up sending a ropey jet of urine that almost over flowed the bowl.

For those that don’t speak Eric a “should I” pee is when you think you might have to take a small leak just because you don’t want to be in the middle of something later when the urge to go strikes you.  You might not even have to go that bad but just do it to clear the tank. A mercy piss.  Here, let me use it in a sentence.  “I’m going to play my video game for the next few hour but Should I go to the bathroom now so I don’t have to go later thus interrupting my gaming session?”  A more common application for a “Should I” pee is on a long road trip when you stop at a dirty rest stop.  You’ll hold your breath bearing the brunt of the stinky urinal because you don’t want piss pangs a few hours down the interstate when there’s no way to relive them except filling a empty gatorade bottle with the latest sports drink flavor……Urethra thunder.

My goal today is drink enough icy cold ginger ale so when I used the bathroom to relive my aching bladder I can belt out the entire classic hit Young MC’s Bust a Move from start to finish before I’m doing peeing.  Lofty goals I know but someone has to set the bar high. 

Wish me luck.

You guys need to know something about me: I loooove animals. Animals are a part of my family and I love each one of them dearly. I’ve had all kinds of animals including dogs, cats, birds, hamsters, turtles, degus, lizards, frogs, etc.

I had a really bad day today.

I’ve been having problems with my cat, Kitty. She’s never actually learned how to use the litter box, so there’s constantly a pile of shit on our floor and more recently, she started pissing on the floor.

She’s not allowed in Hubby’s room (this is the room we spend all our time in because the TV and computers are in there) because she chews up wires. We’ve lost speakers, Hubby’s special sound thingy, camera USB cords, etc. And Hubby doesn’t allow animals in our bedroom (his rule, definitely not mine). Well, Kitty will stand at the door scratching and meowing. Not just a little meow, but she will sit there and wail until I open the door. It’s gotten worse the past week and I’m not sure why because she still hasn’t been allowed in that room.

To make matters worse, after putting her outside, she went and got stuck in a tree. Again. I was out at 3 in the morning climbing a tree because I couldn’t sleep due to being worried about her.

I was sick with a migraine yesterday and couldn’t even throw up in peace because the cat wouldn’t leave me alone. And I need complete silence when I have one of my headaches, but the cat just didn’t seem to grasp this idea at all.

So today… let me go ahead and warn you, my depression is back WITH A VENGEANCE (and for once I actually don’t feel like discussing it, it’s that bad), and something in me snapped. I came home to a big pile of shit, a puddle of piss, and a meowing cat.

So in a stupid impulse decision, Kitty has been taken to the local shelter.

I’m devastated and can’t believe I even did this. Sure. I’ve given rats away, a degu, and my parents have my two old cats, but I gave Kitty up just like that.

And I feel so guilty. I’m sitting here wondering if anyone will adopt her, take care of her, is she’s lonely, if she knows I gave up on her… I just feel like shit, plain and simple. And with my current mood, I can’t handle feeling this way. I’ve cried all day. I never thought I would give up an animal just like that.

This past weekend I had made plans to visit Mt. Auburn Cemetery, a necropolis best known as a victim of vandalism and neglect.  In anticipation, I was searching for an old Baltimore City Paper article about the place when I stumbled upon another article that described a whole slew of interesting cemeteries.  So I decided to visit St. Vincent de Paul Cemetery, or the remains thereof, as well.

I found out that St. Vincent’s was the target of desecration for a period spanning three decades, starting in the 1950’s.  An area gang subjected its initiates to the gruesome task of exhuming a body from the graveyard or one of the mausoleums lining the edge and spend the night in the looted resting place.  Later, bodies were burned.  On one occasion, a ressurectionist dug up a freshly interred infant.

Between disposing of the bodies, selling the property and stopping the vandals, neither the church nor the city could come to a solution.  Finally, as the article linked above says, “the church got the authority to tear down the mausolea, bury the bodies, and stockpile the gravestones so vandals and thieves wouldn’t know where to dig.”  According to the City Paper, the gravestones were deposited behind a 19th century pony barn somewhere nearby.  With a city map in hand, a companion and I were able to locate what was left of the markers, eight years since the article was written and roughly three decades since the headstones were placed there.  The first four photos show the remains of St. Vincent de Paul Cemetery, or as Jane Bromley Wilson calls the place, a “vanished cemetery,” in her book, The Very Quiet Baltimoreans: A Guide to the Historic Cemeteries and Burial Sites of Baltimore.

I have wanted to visit Mt. Auburn Cemetery for quite some time.  The place looks abandoned for the most part, and large areas are so overgrown you can’t even penetrate them let alone see graves.  The ”nice” part, in the northeast quadrant of the grounds, is populated by roughly hacked out overgrowth revealing overturned headstones, flooded tombs and garbage.  Towards the south, I found a small path maintained by foot traffic leading to a grave no longer marked by a headstone, with only a recently placed cross to signify that whoever is interred there is remembered by some one.  Beyond that is an area to which I could only reach the very edge, only to find grave markers, tires and refrigerator parts strewn about.  There is a dilapidated mausoleum or shed standing less-than-proudly to the west.  Near the entrance, as we noted on the way out, is the grave of  a Masonic woman whose status is marked by the pentagram and the letters “F.A.T.A.L” adorning its facade.  In this forbidding decor, the letters of the word “fatal” actually stand for “fairest among thousands, altogether lovely.”  And of course, there is the caretaker’s shed with a sign remorselessly revealing how this cemetery fell into such a state as it is now.

More Photos

I thought I’ve heard it all…

Here’s an in-progress shot of the art Isaac is working on for the cover of REST IN PISS. It’s obviously in a very early stage, but it looks awesome so far and I can’t wait to see how it comes along!

Its not very often you hear about the things that as a slave/sub/bottom you just couldn’t do. More often than not I think we all like to focus more on what we do do (hehe yes I laughed!) than the times we find ourselves struggling or unable with tasks. So I’d like to buck up,  step up to the challenge and tell you about the one task/command I just could not bring myself to do then and still cannot do now. That’s not to say there is and only ever will be the one, gods know I haven’t even brushed the surface of possible tasks I could endure/enjoy for my Master’s sake. Since I am quick to admit I am not super slave, I guess its time for my confession:

Barking. Yeah, you read that right. I cannot bark. I very nearly refuse to bark. Its strange really because a deep core inside of me wants to do it because Master told me to but another part of me refuses to because…well…I’m not a fucking dog! Not to mention I don’t really care for dogs, I’m very much a cat person through and through.

I remember one day, shortly after Master has gotten back in contact with me, we were in a discussion. I wouldn’t call it an argument but He was not happy with me and ended our skype phone call, signed offline and would not respond to any of my attempts to get a hold of Him. I remember being on my knees in front of the computer, crying and begging Him to talk to me, to not leave again, to just tell me why He wouldn’t talk to me! Of course He couldn’t hear me but I was in such a desperate state, His displeasure to the point of cutting off contact was something that has only happened maybe 4 times total.

He came back online later that day and I was still there, waiting and miserable. He called me on skype so He could see me with webcam and asked me what I was willing to do to prove my submission, to prove that this is what I wanted. I told Him, “Anything!” which in retrospect was probably a poor choice of words. He ordered me back on the floor, face down into the carpet and then said those awful words…”Bark for me.” I laid on the floor and cried again because I could not force it past my lips.

I can’t speak for Master but I know I was disappointed in myself. In theory I want to be able to do anything He asks of me but in practice it was shocking finding something so simple was beyond my capabilities. I mean, I’ve been ordered to piss in a cup and drink it for punishment before and as hard as that was, I still managed it. Barking however seems to be a sort of breaking point for me and I’m not sure I could ever manage it.

That was one of the most emotionally stressful part of my long distance submission but there are things from that time I do miss though, strangely. The position Master would order me into from time to time, if I was waiting for Him to return, if I had pegs strategically placed on my body and He didn’t want me fidgeting and so on. Back straight, head and neck held high with my fingers interlaced behind my head with my elbows straight out. After about 10mins it became uncomfortable at best and after 15 it was downright painful but I miss the control. That act along could put me in a submissive head space and I loved it.

The other one was meditation. My brain likes to run rampant pretty much day and night which is where my difficulties sleeping come in. I’ve tried meditating on my own and it just does not work because I can’t shut my own brain off. We discovered that if I get into a comfortable position (usually indian style on the floor with my back against a wall and my hands behind my back) and blindfold myself, I can tune out to the sound of Master’s voice and shortly afterward just the comfort of His presence keeps my mind pleasantly blank for any length of time.

It just never ceases to amaze me the things I thought would be the easiest and silliest that I just cannot do and the horrid nasty things, while I struggle with them, are still doable. The little things that you don’t think much about tend to be the ones you miss the most and the oddest moments can change so much about you. I’ve a long way to go in my slave journey but I’m learning and Master’s patient brand of re-training is doing me a world of good.