Exacting Change

Print courtesy of Lance 'Wilkes' Booth

Have you ever tried to fix the world's most vexing issues? What do you do about the epic battle of the poor fat kids vs. the gym class heroes? How long can you extend your bedtime? How can you get people to support a cause? What can you do about those who are wrongfully imprisoned for life? How do you increase equality? Why can't we all just get along? Does the world need to be fed? Can you get a disease from a bush?

These were the questions we pondered one night. And then another. Into the wee morning hours of three. Something had to change. That change wasn't a huddle. It wasn't first aid. It wasn't reconstructive surgery. It was new species. People like glowy things. Give them glowy things.

Genius by Lance 'I Should Have Stayed in Utah' Booth

People have been lying in the grass and diving brainlessly through bushes for years. But for a glow stick? For ten? Let's be honest. Shiny things bring more people than free tee shirts. Only Chia Earth could have foreseen the consequences.

Heist. Conquest. Enter the darkness.
Welcome to a new land where all your dreams come true.

Imagery by Lance 'Moose Trump Beavers' Booth

The Red

Photo by Lance 'The Man' Booth

There are times when you go a little over board. I mean you're reaching out to save the tree creatures and come to find that in doing so you make it utterly impossible for the trees to survive. So what are you left with? Wasted uninhabited grass-ed mountain terrain. What is that good for? A couple of pictures at the right time of day and some brush fires? Now don't get me wrong, brush fires are cool. But what ever happened to a forest fire? That's some sweet hot pants pockets!

So how does one save the woodlanders and the woodlands? Easy. You don't. It's like Grover Cleaveland once said, "If you find that everything you did has ruined everything worth doing then don't do anything until what's doable does shows itself, otherwise there'll be nothing left to be done." Joint stock companies! I don't think that was the quote I was looking for.

The moral? Remember that if you try to fix things, they just might fix you. So check yourself.

Listen To Them R2, They're Dying

What do you do when you're bored? I like to cram myself into small spaces that I have to sit in for three hours. Then I like to stretch my legs in the heat of a blistering sun. I think these things are best enjoyed on little food and water. I found some vegetation but found it to be too high in fiber and low in sugar and oil. That's two staples gone. But there was supposedly some little wild horse up the canyon that we could eat. We never got that far. No worries. We found that shade makes everything better. Even if the slot canyon walls are closing in on you. Heck, you can even have members in your group throw rocks at your head and still, in the shade, all's well. Most everything. ...of a sudden one of us marked that brother John caught fire. You see, there was a nuclear blast from a nearby test facility that lit up the sky so we had to make a break for it.
But not before we got a picture. See the determination to keep composer for a picture even as the heat in the sky begins to burn his frame. It was touch and go for a bit there as we tried to escape yet the resident optimist brother John kept on smiling.

We made it to cover at the last and decided to wait for water to come to facilitate a faster escape. So instead of hiking back out we stayed for about eight days till a flash flood came down the slots. It was pretty sweet and floating it was a blast but alas we lost all the pictures as well as little Jimmy. Jimmy, this one's for you.

I Don't Like Confrontation

And I'm thinking here that well maybe I might want a goat or some other kind of milking animal. And he says you can't have one. And I say, well then, can I have two? And he responds that they're not in season. Not in season? Are you joking me Arnold Frieberg? You got men with crazy beanies and you have the nerve to tell me they aren't in season?! Just grab me a fish then and I'll make due! Blast! It's been so long since I met someone who would just come out and give it to me straight. It can't be done. There're more tie fighters out there than you can shake a laser sword at and they're not happy. Not happy bob. ...smartly indeed. ...a bad chinese joke for loser shorts.

Really on a cheerier line (which reminds of eerier) at least there's a choice. Kind of. On the choice. ...and the at least. Oh mer...

Cheery. Right. It rained on the peasants and the peasants styed the course. They didn't hide or drown or catch sight of land. They just kept on doing what they doest bestest. Butter and cane. Let Sam let Wellon Uhfuhl own. Cause Jack Candy if she won't.

So forget your heath bar, there're more on the next page.

Swedes Love Their Silver

So I played this game. It was really fun. This was my team. We teamed up. We teamed out. We lost. That was sad. At least we didn't swear or shoot anybody this time.

Ahhh togetherness.

Cheers

You know what I'm talking about. You come into a crowded room, you say a couple of pleasantries to the serfdom and scat your way across the room. It's full but almost completely empty. There's chip and more dip than you could safely swim in. And the good juice runs out by the first hour. By the end of the day you've really done nothing but cross the room. And hopefully you've had the chance to have crossed it twice 'cause otherwise you've got to sleep there for the night, which can be problematic. Of course this could carry on for years but really what you need is more of the things you really shouldn't have jumped without at the first. Now there's the whole pizza pie; sauce and all. Yes, sure, I understand pizza friday only comes but once a week but you can warm that bench with all you got knowing, with satisfaction, that you make it possible for someone else to play. It's not like I have legs anyway.

Take to the Hills

Yaks are cool creatures. They look like small people wound up in very tight shag carpets that are no longer for sale. They are in fact giant sheep. One day when I grow up I would like to run a business of roping so that I could afford to buy a yak. My brother works at a factory where they are made. He says that someday he will make one all by himself and take it to the macy's day parade. I found out that Yaks sometimes get scared if you show them pictures of funyuns. I want to light fireworks all the time. I am hoping my father takes me to see the whales. Some yaks are brown and others sometimes have tusks to kill their prey. Yak is spelled with a K. You can spell it with a Q if you run out of K's. I like cheese.

Appreciate This!

What is the man on the right saying to you? Is he happy? Is he mad? What kind of mad might that be? Why do you think there is a log in the middle of the picture? What does this say about the photographer's feelings concerning deforestation? How does this give context to the picture? What does the tilted horizon tell you about the frame of mind of these chaps? Is that a real smile on Deuteronomy? Why is only one foot showing in the photo? Should there be more value change in the picture? Do you think what is written on the log is all that could be written of their experience? Why did the photographer make the sky blue? How does the man on the left feel about his crazy companion? Are they friends? Is he leading the invalid into the wilderness to die? What is going to happen next? Is the man meaning for a peaceful embrace? Does the story end happily? Will the peasants below know what happened? Will they care?

Do we care?! Mer-fuless buckets of petrified sugar blasted cog nuggets! Some people really know how to ruin a picture!

...no offense Rach. It's been a long day.

Monday Wednesday Friday

After getting up this morning I walked five miles to school in torrential rain that brought rivers of water down the street and up to my knees in depth and reorganized my motives. That actually ended a bit quickerly than I had planned and none too short I found that I didn't have the right tools for the job. If I had wanted to separate the bags from the beans I would have told you so but I didn't and I do. In the latest times we come upon what brings us up to the forefront of technological sophistry. The potato. It's roundish and tastes of starch. It doesn't fly as well as an apple. A yonkel is a young boy. Draw a parallelogram on the space provided. Remember that it is only in doing that we do. And last but not least... Mr. Flemming, I do believe that China, in the fourteenth century, had cows that migrated from the west and brought up copious amounts of agricultural expansion which really is the cause that they lost in the ensuing opium wars.

Mikey, go to bed.

Immobile

You ever had something really weighty on your mind and, yes, for the life of you, you didn't really know what it was? It's like a sickness. It saps your energy and you can't cure it... you just have to live through it. And maybe it'll kill you I suppose. (And you might be asking for it.) You'd even explain it to someone else if you think you could but you haven't the chance. Or maybe they wouldn't understand. I mean how many people really know what it's like to get hit by a car on a motorcycle on the freeway? Really, if you could just put your finger on it you might be able to do something about it. But you can't. ...and you can't. So you're left talking but at the same time saying absolutely nothing.

You know what that's like?

...Cause I sure don't. If you could tell me I'll be sure to try and help you out the next time it comes around.

...Got It.

He'd wanted so to soar mid clouds
And catch another wind
To float up there so high above
Whilst 'low the wor-ld spinned

And pass a bird aside its flight
And hear its startled calls
Then glide along with mouth awide
To drink rain 'fore it falls

Then with a blink do flips in air
And twist in every sort
Then earn for it a 10 point 0
In tumble-diving's sport

Then up he'd stand and take a bow
To-ward the camera'd man
Then disappear with arms outstretched
Yes, that would be his plan

And so his plan it was for long
He'd waited for it now
For what had seemed an hundred years
To him and Bessy's cow

But chance it came upon the lad
And grabbed him by the shirt
Protesting that he now must come
And rise up from the dirt

His time to fly was here at last
At least so said the chap
Who came with flyers and brochures
And threw them in his lap

Your time is come so youngful jib!
Avast! Arise make haste!
Your time has come and won't last long
Let not good's fortune waste!

Then flooding back as fast as nails
Are pounded by a sledge
Came his once dream to mind, he ran
And jumping cleared the hedge

He ran t'ward town and then beyond
Till had run a league
And didn't stop for drink or breath
Not even for fatigue

Then over one last hill he passed
And there he caught first sight
An air balloon tied to a pole
Where he would bag his flight

And so he payed there in a box
A fee of sixty eight
Then shimmied quickly up the pole
Hot dog! He could not wait!

Release the rope. and, Stoke the fire.
Read orders two and one
Upon a placard titled with
Tumble-Divings' Fun!

That done the dirig lifted up
And soon he felt no need
To take a care of anything
Nor further on to read

He knew the way to get up high
He'd learned since he was small
And now my friends he'd come aloft
Of everything and all

Then as a gauge laud counted out
His height above the green
He prepped himself and ran his mind
Through boyhood's dive routine

The one he'd played a thousand times
That now he could display
To all the world in black and white
And many shades of gray

"Ceiling reached." The gauge rang out
His hands they grabbed the ride
Then heaved himself in somersaults
Up o'er the balloon's side

He started gaining heavy speed
And knew the time was in
But first things first
A bird, then rain. yes. now he could begin

He twirl-ed and he twisted round
And gave the perfect ten
But where on earth, then said his mind
Are all the camera men?

No matter, I will stay the course
To-ward the landing tee
But our young lad had never read
Instruction number three

"Use caution" read the card itself
As now he gave salute
"For camera's aren't invented yet
Alas nor is a 'chute"





That's horrid. What's the point you say?
A moral? No there's not
And you, like I, might well agree
The author should be shot

Independence Indeed

You know very well that we celebrate this day. The problem is that you really don't know what for. There's more in that bottle than you think there is. It's more than just US. The sun my friend. Yes I'll be honest it's been uncharacteristically kind thus far this summer. No. Maybe that's giving credit where credit is not due. The clouds have been doing a great job. Once again water beats fire like paper beats rock. Of course none of these ramblings are the point. And you ask is there really any point? Fine. Be a cynic. But I will have you know that we ought to celebrate, for this day the sun is farther away than it has been for an entire year. Maybe it's not the clouds and those extra 3 million miles are actually helping this time around. Like a great solar Independence Day. ...sort of...

Ahhh yes.... Don't you wish you were 3 million miles? You would be large.

So celebrate the day and blow something up. Everyone else is doing it.

The Face of the Devil

There is something about this picture. I'm not really sure what it is. Maybe it's that the whole picture is so dark. Maybe it's the site of the impassable avalanche falls on the mountain. Maybe it's that the storm seems to be gathering all its power in a single hydrant. Maybe it's that the storm clouds are nearly at eye level. Maybe it's the contrast between the black clouds and the white torrent coming from it. Maybe it's the feeling of claustrophobia being caught between a very large rock and an increasingly violent atmosphere. Maybe it's that there is absolutely nowhere on this peak to hide from it. It could be that none of what's there is rain, it's torrential hail. It could be that I now know just what it looks like for lighting to strike from your level instead of to your level. Possibly it's that I know there is another one just like it coming from the east of the picture. Maybe it's not what the picture looks like but what it sounds like. Maybe it's the frightening knowledge that as the storm descends cloud to cloud lightning becomes the same thing as cloud to ground lightning. It could be a lot of things. Maybe it's that I know exactly how terrifying it looks when it's in your face and not 400 pixels wide. There is something chilling about this picture.


Maybe it's just me.