Stadtschnellbahn PDA mit Kicks

Posted on 4April2013 by joeeirwin

this couple sat in the unoccupied bench across from me on the s-bahn. she took off his glasses and they start kissing. not passionately, just pecks. loud pecks. loud pecks because she loves him so much. for them, the rest of the world has ceased to exist. with every twist and turn and flip of her hair, her boots kicked my leg because the rest of the world ceases to exist: i am the ceased world. i reach into my bag, pulled out my camera, and start taking photos. i whisper, “ya that’s good. ja”. they asked what im doing, i gave them a closed-tooth smile and take another.

sometimes i hate love so much. today i didn’t want to get kicked by the couple making-out like virgins

Ibiza on that Guacamole Fiat

Posted on 31May2013 by joeeirwin

i went to ibiza. it was my first time in ibiza. the plane descended as the sun set on the horizon. i don’t know how to say ibiza correctly. i believe there’s a Th sound. luckily i don’t have to say it because this is a written blog. ibiza’s alright. there’s nicer islands but this one has more techno. all the techno.

vlada rented a guacamole-colored fiat and we criss-crossed the island eating fish and chasing sunsets. she’s a spectacular travel companion. she could have a travel show: gypsy travels with vlada (originally called joints and sunsets). she’d show you where to get the best deals on everything and which cafes have wifi to find that next deal.

IRL is the new RPG’s Ibiza ProTips v1
– the tap water’s salt water
– all the internet’s slow / mcdonalds has free wifi
– because it’s siesta that’s why
– Es Vedrà is literature 101 in real life: the sirens almost got odysseus there!

And The Sun Doesn’t Care

Posted on 14September2013 by joeeirwin

spring in berlin’s a joyous time of year. mr blue sky’s in town for the first time since october and everyone starts waking up from their darkness. we all manage to lose track of a lot of time to a lot of fun.

summer is a lot more work. the initial excitement of nice weather sets in and you work to enjoy all the sun you can, while you can. “let’s go outside and enjoy the day!” it’s taxing. staying in working on “art” while the sun bakes your desk through your open window on one of the weeks that it’s actually hot enough to use the term “bakes” or have an open window but you don’t even want to go outside cause the sun rose at 4am and woke you up and it doesn’t care that you went to bed at 1am, or 2am, or 3am, or that you’re just getting home. it’s out and you’re feeling like Day of The Insomnia Zombie in-between sleep and awake but there’s no way out of it because it only lasts a couple of months and you have to enjoy it while you can

and then there’s need for a jacket in early august and it’s like fuck it! i should have done more when it was nice… now the nice is gone. it’s colder now. fuck it. im going to sleep when i want to sleep. im going to wake up when i want to wake up and im going to work on whatever i want to work on, whenever i want to work on it and it doesn’t matter cause it’s grey outside and this is berlin. it’s grimm brothers fairy tale weather. it’s autumn and the turning leaves are the blanket for our after-summer rest.

listening to tales of murder and death’s hallucination of beauty (2012)

Autumn and the Order of Seasonal Clarity

Posted on 23November2013 by joeeirwin

berlin

as if all of us are water particles, we find each other when we’re in the same cloud. and for that time we’re in it together. sometimes we fall together and stay water particles together but water particles in a stream, or a lake, or a puddle, or a sea. eventually different paths part us. this doesn’t mean we won’t rise to a same cloud again but it does mean we won’t be in the same place as we are now.

autumn. the electric colors of the season with new found health and a love of life and spirit that hasn’t been felt since childhood. a phoenix rising off the grid from the ashes of a memory. a personal best in excess igniting a fire-lit path to the palace of wisdom and clarity. a milestone on the larger quest to find who-knows-what all the while learning that losing control is a winsome way to retrieve it. autumn.

listening to terry riley’s persian surgery dervishes performance two (1972)

Wild Promise of

Posted on 30November2013 by joeeirwin

nyc

i left berlin and returned home to st. louis for thanksgiving. a week’s worth of preparations for a meal that, in my house, lasts less than an hour. god love my mom. the next day i left for new york to stay through the holidays with an escapade to dc

listening to the pastel’s leaving this island (1997)

Shopping at the National Mall

Posted on 17December2013 by joeeirwin

national mall, wdc

after europe, returning home to explore america’s capital for the first time was surreal. it felt like walking through a life-sized model. was it even real or had the idea of what it’s “supposed to be” become the reality of what it is? (isn’t this the case for all things?) even after liberating itself from colonization, our founding fathers saw this nation as the new roman republic – i always knew this but seeing it in person was something else entirely. i walked the museums of the national mall to see our artifacts and treasures with my own eyes, though through a layer of gloss so american the experience felt more more like an amusement park than a history lesson. yet somewhere under said gloss, through the bullet-proof glass, and beyond the interactive buttons, one can see a glimmer of light still shining from the enlightenment… before a guard asks for identification anyway.

there is no auntie ann’s at the national mall | pointing at the white house and asking others what it is is fun | there are no guns allowed at the lincoln memorial | the national galleries of art have signs reading “do not touch the art” obviously because people were touching the art enough to necessitate the signs | dc metro trains are beat up and ugly. our visiting dignitaries ride above ground in limousines with police escorts and don’t have to see the real shit | asians sleep in museums | monica lewinsky’s dress is not part of the smithsonian’s permanent collection

special thanks to lindsay and max for the incredible hospitality

listening to bjm’s and this is our music (2003)

Makin’ Lemonade in Michigan

Posted on 22June2015 by joeeirwin

western edge
lower peninsula, michgian

who brakes for tropical storms? well, i do, or at least i did. the organic blossoming of a road trip into ozark country and crystal bridges museum of american art, a serendipitous year in the making, was canceled at last minute due to flooding and torrential rainfall from tropical storm bill. and so a journey north into michigan seemed a more serene and less-personally-traveled option for myself and this trip’s attorney. this is a simple reminder for how to make lemonade.

the ad campaigns and after party ramblings of the unparalleled beauty of michigan’s coast was always a bit forgettable. lots of places have beauty, how’smichigan any different? well, damn.

we traveled on whim and chatted with everyone- an ever growing game of happenstance all while avoiding the interstate: despite an early blowout and a mid-trip scrap with harmless’ angels

pure michigan.

listening to marika hackman’s before i sleep (2015)

the phoenix thing

Posted on 3July2015 by joeeirwin

this was difficult to write about, especially at the time
it’s backdated with the gift of hindsight. thanks hindsight

one foot in front of the other. i start with 10 minutes of exercise. im out of shape and constantly checking my pulse. i got fat. not super-fat but fat enough – fat enough that in my ultramarathon of over-thinking my beating heart means “heart attack”. i haven’t moved like this in years, outside of a dance floor anyway. i stick with it and grow with it. a daily routine. my blood flows; i exit stasis

i need more and find meditation impossible with the whole over-thinking ultramarathon thing, i start my yoga practice. my first classes suck: the misery of being lost in a matted sea of others with no idea where we’re at or what we’re doing and i can’t stop thinking: how much longer is this class. this person next to me… wtf. wtf. wahhh my ego. then class is over and i feel satisfaction in its completion. the next day i show back up for the same fight. and the next day and the next and the next and the next. i start understanding the physical: the flows. the poses. the breath. i stretch a little further than before and for brief moments it’s as if time stops and i think of nothing – which is everything

the second month of my practice my studio holds a month-long challenge: do yoga everyday. i stop counting classes after sixty – im figuring out the breath and feeling the connection of the mind and the body; what yoga’s really about. my mood lifts and life is becoming better / more magical: serendipitous, synchronicitous, calml

before the first footing i was an ultramarathon of over-thinking. depressed. near the bottom – in the darkness. some time ago i soared the skies of possibility. i was up: a glimpse of love, purpose, spirit but now nothing. it was a year since up and my ego wouldn’t surrender; the only part of me staying in a fight: a useless fight over tough decisions i know were already decided. finally, i let go. the walls, which were keeping me from starting over, crumble. at last in pieces. i build again. first one foot

everything [this site, this journey] has led me to this point – i understand that what i was doing took me to this rebirth. i had a vision of what’s possible when i was up, but have to do the work to get there. infinite paths infinite times would still lead to this: life’s boot camp and it takes as long as it takes. yada yada yada im a phoenix

not everyone knows what it’s like to soar the sky. to travel. to be. to feel. heights so high there are no higher. to see all. to feel all. to be all. and thankfully not everyone knows how deep the depths can get. where light is blocked by the walls of the abyss. where the abyss becomes everything. where everything is nothing.

the highs make the depths ever deeper and the depths make the highs ever sweeter. especially when looking at light after so long in darkness. the short-term key is to stay self-aware; to not travel from one extreme to the other too quickly, too swiftly – doing so will always lead to anxiety, paranoia, fear…one must find balance. the long-term goal is to keep soaring without looking down, growing ever higher with each lesson learned…until it’s real

this phoenix thing only works if one works to stay a phoenix. if not, it’s back to the ashes. back to the abyss…until that one foot. at the time of this writing, im a phoenix and im working hard to stay a phoenix, but this is life and one day in this life i may run this emotional saṃsāra again – but with a set of tools more powerful than any i’ve had before

pulled over with the saints

Posted on 14August2015 by joeeirwin

at target. they’re climbing on everything. i’m buying a lamp, seems like a good idea: more light. we see each other, “you’re awesomeeee”– they pull the headphones out for a listen: Spaceman 3 and they approve. the saints: olivia, jackie, and gg. a cosmic collision for the few days gg and jackie set olivia up for school in saint louis.

that evening they’re at drinks. jackie’s texting how hungry she is, i haven’t eaten all day: though i bought a lamp. it’s 1:44a and we walk into to one of the diner institutions on the south side but it’s cold (physically and metaphorically) and there’s not enough room for us, who seem to need it all.

a bumper sticker on the institution warns: eat rite or don’t eat at all – we have 15 minutes before my favorite spot closes, “or don’t eat at all?” challenge accepted. i drive as fast as i can to get there in time. but when olivia asks about speeding cameras and i brag that this stretch of road’s not patrolled – then we get pulled over. clock’s ticking.