the rad one

my friend andrew posted some pictures of me on his website.  here is a sample.

theradone.wordpress.com

untitled and it's ours

weather, the great equalizer, moves over us

I get some strange pleasure in watching the tallest peak in town

Reach up and touch the clouds for me

It’s nothing really, just what happens,

But then so are a lot of things.

 

I thank God for the goods the earth he created yields.

There is a tree out my bedroom window.

Her hair is up in her leafless branches of winter

And her dress is the stately green and black of her mossy bark.

She dances for me with admirable freedom and faithfulness.

 

When fires burn in the town square and the children laugh,

Ice skating, holiday market, and delicious sweet things to eat,

I feel a peace and I want to sing.  So I do.

You feel what you feel and you do what do,

Because He is king and He is all we need.

by Dallas Clayton

ENDLESS

You should learn to skateboard.
It is cheap and fun.
It is something you can do when you are alone
or with friends.
Once you learn, you can hang out late at night in parking lots for hours and hours
(and you don’t even have to be high).
Also you can talk to others about skateboarding
and it will make them think you are cool
and they will give you things
like free stickers, or invitations to parties
with lots of guys at them.

If you get good
you can jump over all sorts of things
like cars, and European streets, and statues, and off small buildings.
and people will take pictures of you
which is nice (for later, to show your kids).

If you get really good,
maybe someone will pay you
to take pictures, and make videos of you jumping off all sorts of crap
and they will put you on billboards
and benches where homeless people sleep
and your name will be on thousands of pairs of shoes.
Maybe you will have a video game with you in it
or a TV show where you shoot your friends with weapons.

Or maybe not.

Maybe you will just keep doing it and no one will really care how good you are
and you will just use your skateboard to ride down the street
to buy some beer
when your “old lady” takes off with the car.

It’s up to you I guess.
Like anything else.

But you should definitely learn.
It will be worth it
in the long run.

I promise.

dinner with friends is like a warm hug with food

(My) “Quotes”

 

I have never been in that situation, myself,

But I would imagine it is something like camping

Out in the North Woods and suddenly

Coming Awake in your tent around midnight

To the horrible snarling and screaming sounds

of a werewolf killing your guard dog

somewhere out in the trees beyond the camp fire.

 

I rode the absent-minded wave for four nebulous years,

Whistling and waving my way through educational anarchy.

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners

Of whom I am the worst.

So what can I tell you this morning?

 

There is no serious candidate in (our) party this year

who couldn’t pass for the executive vice-

president for mortgage loans

in any hometown bank

from Bangor to San Diego.

 

 

-H. Thompson

-Sufjans Stevens

-Saint Paul

-Unknown

-H. Thompson

--Arranged by Joshua Hancock

Happy Sinterklaas Day!

yes, today is the Dutch version of Christmas.  it is a weird holiday because it has a blatantly racist character, "Black Pete" involved.   he is the one who actually gives out gifts.  so there are lots of people walking around with their faces painted black.  that shit would not fly back home.  o well, what can you do?  there is a huge tree in the city center and i thing this weekend they are putting in a little ice rink.  all the americans are doing like a secret santa think and making or buying little gifts.  i am, as you all know, scandalously cheap and am just giving away a drawing i did awhile ago along with very short poem i wrote.  i am just excited that i can eat all the chocolate dutch goodies i want today without any condemnation or judgementation (i don't want any comments about that word). 

this weekend will be my last here, and i will be spending tomorrow at my friend's vacation house by the beach.  we will be biking there tomorrow and playing music into the wee-hours of the night.  sounds to me like a great way to end it.  

i will be back in st. louis thursday night.  so i'll run into you all soon.

trip on this!

i read about Stephen in the book of Act.  this is what he said to the people who falsely accused him of lying about God immediately after giving a very descriptive and insightful historical account of the Jewish nation and it's relationship with Sovereign God.  after saying these things they murdered him by throwing rocks at him.

"...as the prophet says,

'"Heaven is my throne,

and the earth is my footstool.

What kind of house will you build for me,    

says the Lord, 

or what is the place of my rest?

Did no my hand make all these things?'

(now this is Stephen speaking his own mind.)

"YOu stiff-necked, necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you will always resist the Holy Spirit.  As your fathers did, so do you.  Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute?  And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it."

then the killed him.

think about it and roll it over.  it's in chapter 7 if you want to read the whole account for yourself.  i recommend reading it out loud.  that always makes things sink in better for me.

now let's relax a bit.  here are the lyrics to a Woody Guthrie songs i listened to today and thought was pretty funny.  it also speaks timeless truths i think about our country.  enjoy.

--Talking Columbia--

Well, down along the river just a-sittin' on a rock
I'm a-lookin' at the boats in the Bonneville lock.
Gate swings open, the boat sails in,
Toot that whistle, she's gone again.
Gasoline goin' up. Wheat comin' down.

Well, I filled up my hat brim, drunk a little taste,
Thought about a river just a-goin' to waste;
Thought about the dust, an' thought about the sand,
Thought about the people, an' thought about the land.
Folks runnin' round all over creation,

Lookin' for some kind of little place.

Well, I pulled out my pencil, scribbled this song,
Figured all them salmon just couldn't be wrong;
Them salmon fish is mighty shrewd,
They got senators and politicians, too.
Just about like the president. They run every four years.

You just watch this river, though, pretty soon
Everybody's gonna be changin' their tune;
The big Grand Coulee and the Bonneville dams
Run a thousand factories for Uncle Sam.
And everybody else in the world. Turnin' out
Everything from fertilizers to sewing machines,
And atomic bedrooms and plastic --
Everything's gonna be plastic.

Uncle Sam (folks) need houses and stuff to eat,
Uncle Sam (folks) needs wool, and Uncle Sam needs wheat,
Uncle Sam (folks) needs water and power dams,
Uncle Sam  (folks) needs people, and the people need land.
'Course I don't like dictators none myself,
but then I think the whole country had ought to be run by
e-lec-trici-ty.

-------

oh yeah.  i almost forgot.  i got sick today from eating too many chocolate chip cookies.  i took a self-portrait right after puking for some reason and i think it's pretty funny.  check it out.

September on Jessore Road

Millions of babies watching the skies Bellies swollen, with big round eyes On Jessore Road--long bamboo huts Noplace to shit but sand channel ruts Millions of fathers in rain Millions of mothers in pain Millions of brothers in woe Millions of sisters nowhere to go One Million aunts are dying for bread One Million uncles lamenting the dead Grandfather millions homeless and sad Grandmother millions silently mad Millions of daughters walk in the mud Millions of children wash in the flood A Million girls vomit & groan Millions of families hopeless alone Millions of souls nineteenseventyone homeless on Jessore road under grey sun A million are dead, the million who can Walk toward Calcutta from East Pakistan Taxi September along Jessore Road Oxcart skeletons drag charcoal load past watery fields thru rain flood ruts Dung cakes on treetrunks, plastic-roof huts Wet processions Families walk Stunted boys big heads don't talk Look bony skulls & silent round eyes Starving black angels in human disguise Mother squats weeping & points to her sons Standing thin legged like elderly nuns small bodied hands to their mouths in prayer Five months small food since they settled there on one floor mat with small empty pot Father lifts up his hands at their lot Tears come to their mother's eye Pain makes mother Maya cry Two children together in palmroof shade Stare at me no word is said Rice ration, lentils one time a week Milk powder for warweary infants meek No vegetable money or work for the man Rice lasts four days eat while they can Then children starve three days in a row and vomit their next food unless they eat slow. On Jessore road Mother wept at my knees Bengali tongue cried mister Please Identity card torn up on the floor Husband still waits at the camp office door Baby at play I was washing the flood Now they won't give us any more food The pieces are here in my celluloid purse Innocent baby play our death curse  Two policemen surrounded by thousands of boys Crowded waiting their daily bread joys Carry big whistles & long bamboo sticks to whack them in line They play hungry tricks Breaking the line and jumping in front  Into the circle sneaks one skinny runt Two brothers dance forward on the mud stage Teh gaurds blow their whistles & chase them in rage Why are these infants massed in this place Laughing in play & pushing for space Why do they wait here so cheerful & dread Why this is the House where they give children bread The man in the bread door Cries & comes out Thousands of boys and girls Take up his shout Is it joy? is it prayer? "No more bread today" Thousands of Children at once scream "Hooray!" Run home to tents where elders await Messenger children with bread from the state No bread more today! & and no place to squat Painful baby, sick shit he has got. Malnutrition skulls thousands for months Dysentery drains bowels all at once Nurse shows disease card Enterostrep Suspension is wanting or else chlorostrep Refugee camps in hospital shacks Newborn lay naked on mother's thin laps Monkeysized week old Rheumatic babe eye Gastoenteritis Blood Poison thousands must die September Jessore Road rickshaw 50,000 souls in one camp I saw Rows of bamboo huts in the flood  Open drains, & wet families waiting for food Border trucks flooded, food cant get past, American Angel machine please come fast! Where is Ambassador Bunker today? Are his Helios machinegunning children at play? Where are the helicopters of U.S. AID? Smuggling dope in Bangkok's green shade. Where is America's Air Force of Light? Bombing North Laos all day and all night? Where are the President's Armies of Gold? Billionaire Navies merciful Bold? Bringing us medicine food and relief? Napalming North Viet Nam and causing more grief? Where are our tears? Who weeps for the pain? Where can these families go in the rain? Jessore Road's children close their big eyes Where will we sleep when Our Father dies? Whom shall we pray to for rice and for care? Who can bring bread to this shit flood foul'd lair? Millions of children alone in the rain! Millions of children weeping in pain! Ring O ye tongues of the world for their woe Ring out ye voices for Love we don't know Ring out ye bells of electrical pain Ring in the conscious of America brain How many children are we who are lost Whose are these daughters we see turn to ghost? What are our souls that we have lost care? Ring out ye musics and weep if you dare-- Cries in the mud by the thatch'd house sand drain Sleeps in huge pipes in the wet shit-field rain waits by the pump well, Woe to the world! whose children still starve in their mother's arms curled. Is this what I did to myself in the past? What shall I do Sunil Poet I asked? Move on and leave them without any coins? What should I care for the love of my loins? What should we care for our cities and cars? What shall we buy with our Food Stamps on Mars? How many millions sit down in New York & sup this night's table on bone & roast pork? How many millions of beer cans are tossed in Oceans of Mother? How much does She cost? Cigar gasolines and asphalt car dreams Stinking the world and dimming star beams-- Finish the war in your breast with a sigh Come tast the tears in your own Human eye Pity us millions of phantoms you see Starved in Samsara on planet TV How many millions of children die more before our Good Mothers perceive the Great Lord? How many good fathers pay tax to rebuild  Armed forces that boast the children they've killed? How many souls walk through Maya in pain How many babes in illusory pain? How many families hollow eyed lost? How many grandmothers turning to ghost? How many loves who never get bread? How many Aunts with holes in their head? How many sisters skulls on the ground? How many grandfathers make no more sound? How many fathers in woe How many sons nowhere to go? How many daughters nothing to eat? How many uncles with swollen sick feet? Millions of babies in pain Millions of mothers in rain Millions of brothers in woe Millions of children nowhere to go  Allen Ginsberg

Where is my mind

this weekend has been one of my favorites since i have been here.  friday i spent the whole day hanging out with and getting to know two other kids studying here.  it was awesome.  we painted, talked literature, etc. and ended the day with a fantastic dinner and an intense pool tournament.  saturday i went to Masstricht which is where i almost studied.  it was a pretty city with old castles and stuff but it was super cold and even snowed on and off throughout the day.  today it snowed again.  so the day was spent doing homework and watching movies of books that i am supposed to be reading.  i would feel bad, but who wants to read a french novel when they can watch John Malkovich act out the story for them?   i also cruised around town and took some photos.  here they are for your enjoyment.

No Shave November

Masstricht (i have no idea how to spell it)

The Times They Are A Changin'

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'

Tunisia

i went to Tunis-Carthage for a little R&R.  i had delusions of grandeur about being James Bond in some swank hotel.  I stayed at a 5 star hotel and felt out of place the whole time.  nonetheless i tried my best to act the part by ordering room service and swimming in all of the four pools.  i reclined on my private beach and drank complimentary dr. pepper pretty much the whole time i was there.  it was a short trip but i was in euphoria the entire time; wrapped up in my imagination about being among african war-chiefs and Algerian Opium lords.

i was completely awe struck by the sunset and wish it would never fade, but alas that is the nature of beauty, it is always fading so that i may be reborn another day.

saturday night they played James Bond movies all night.  i felt a kindship to ol' 007.

i walked at least 10 miles up the beach.  it reminded me of when i was a kid and my parents took us camping or on vacation.  my dad would always lead up on crazy explorations of the area.  he would have loved this.

beach=road

i can't believe they let me in this place.

self portrait

how much to i look like my dad in this last picture?  remarkable. 

week of nothing much going on.

photos from this week

hi, my name is josh.  this is what i did this week...

stared directly into the sun,

went to amsterdam,

saw the Van Gogh Museum,

and the church around the corner from the house Ann Frank used to live in.

This week i also dedicated myself to learning to draw.  as a result of all the practice comes little doodles filling down times from serious concentration.  here are some from the other night.

\

gotta stay healthy.

and this is my office.  somewhat less impressive than k-bones.  personally i think he is trying to make some sort of statement.

the bold and the beautiful in barcelona (is that too egocentric?)

self-portrait after climbing a mountain outside Barcelona.  i think this pictures shows how i felt at the moment, pretty much ruling it.

road bikes to the beach.

keeping it emo

when this is finished in 30 years i'll be able to tell my kids i was there when it was being built.

i was rocking the mustache the whole trip just laughs.  i was so excited that my slayer t-shirt arrived in the mail by the time i got home.

a little Gaudi don't you think?

should i get in?

yes!

here is a couple famous skate spots with nice colors and angles.

this the view i had to deal with at night from my hostel.

i love this one of the old man reclining.

jacob's stairwell.

this photo could have been taken by anyone in the last 70 years.

chillin' on the board-walk on my last day in barcelona and just enjoying it.


i hope all of you regular views click on these photos to see them in full quality.