"What's going on here..!" said the Mountie.

Since I already know, why don't "You" tell me.....

"This is your brain, not mine."

"The rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the rest go to Wal-Mart."

That about sums it up. 

"I'm Herb Ritts, bitch...!"

An early afternoon spent trying out antique hairdos with Gabriel modeling .

"Proud and Prejudiced".

Since I only came to this country when I was fourteen, it stands to reason that I spent the better part of my formative years in the country of my nativity; France namely. The country which gave you the "freedom frie"*, a healthy love of ridicule and what some might contemptuously taunt as, a shallow infatuation with the sumptuous. The later, but a reverence for craftsmanship, and a refined sense of a life well achieved, and by that I do not mean, the incessant pursuit of the feckless riches which we seem to so abundantly revere in this country, but an almost obsessive love of perfection. Because a living, is better appreciated when your hands produce an object of beauty, rather than the blood they once shed over the forced labor, king and country so cruelly expropriated in salt, and tears.

It made for a land greened and rooted in craftsmanship, only to reflect the brilliance of a nation and the humanity contained within; a trait, deeply ingrained into the french psyche. In France, the artisan and the thinker are esteemed and worshiped like no other, save for Japan, may be!

As I was saying, having spent half of these first fourteen years in a Parisian suburb(the rest in a Corsican village), I never, as much as batted an eye when the French Communist party would take to the streets and chant up and down Parisian streets, or strike the country into a stand still. I saw the communists as just another stitch in the fabric of my own birth country, another voice within our politically french cacophony. Consequently, when I first came to New York’s Duchess county, the visceral McCarthyism of these here Yankees, save for a few contrarians, neither here nor there nor yonder, made for some pleasantly stupefying head scratching to this teenage creed.

What was the meaning of these North American dogmatists, these ante-bellish certainties? Communism? How could this mirrored Narcissus, to their own puritanical absolutes, could possibly have been confused for anything else but another one of man’s own self absorbed tyrannies? What was it about the American psyche which demanded a murderous end to the constraints of someone else’s philosophy?

Was it the fear of those nuclear tipped flying machines, or the intellectual fear to compete with another, less fortunate citizenry, trying to brake loose from the tyrants, real and imagined, they had been made to worship; in duchesses and counties, where land wasn’t a plenty and the natives ever so pliably sickened by a battery of ship born diseases? A continent twice the size of the known universe, ripe for the Christian taking, and so it goes, no one to argue with, except the remorse and the guilt, but nothing the confessional couldn’t fix, but not until those well meaning, god fearing Christianialists, came to realize that tilling and claiming such fertility, took more than a plow and crucifixes; it also took a people whose skin came better and more readily accustomed to working, in these sub-tropics.

Did we really, need afore mentioned intestinal rhapsody to introduce the poetic politics of Communism’s favorite opiated lyrics. Probably not, but nevertheless, this chant’s call to equality seems but a sad recall to the principles of our two mutually wounded and competing philosophies. I guess it never hurts to look back at the twentieth century, or the 16th, and remember that human dissonance makes for the inexorable furtherance and pursuit, of life, death, and the murderously brutal persuasions, of the living. Nevertheless, The International “is” a beautiful song, especially when harmonized acoustically.

Here is a link to the lyrics, so that you may sing along, in English or in French, given that, afterall, the tune itself was originally written in the French I first spoke, not the English I seconded, in Duchess county.

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* It is claimed that a belgium born man, by the name of Parmentier, is to be blamed for that culinary epiphany, but who's counting?

"The Pope's Moose Knuckle".

You ain't no Condi, part deux...

To complement the post below as well as announce my intentions of personally redesigning my site, I had just wanted to add a few comments to the post below, to further refine my thoughts. When I tuned in to "A Photo Editor" this morning I was getting a haircut. Knowing full well that the potential for hits and track-backs had been greatly heightened I promptly tore off the stylist's robe and rushed home to post below. The resulting "do" was less than symmetrical but Jennie got a kick out of it, and besides I quickly returned so she could resume and make it just so.

As I was saying the hardest part of survival as a photographer is accepting your work's failure to produce results. You keep repeating to yourself that some day, somehow, they will all come to their senses and finally understand what it is you think you are doing. Unfortunately, we cannot work in a vacuum, divorced from the times and the fashions which so often dictate how we must think and create to earn a living.

All is great under Heaven's banners but financial recognition* rides a very thin line, and the more there are of us, the sharper and razor thin it is.

A more perfect metaphor for this condition might be better explained by drawing upon a non too subtle parallel with the Amazon: As you may know, there are no "large" predators in the Amazon as the diversity and abundance of rain forest life can only survive and thrive if, and only if, it becomes, over eons, smaller and more specialized. The Amazon is a desert full of life and only those who can reduce their size survive: There are only a few large predators in the Amazon because the ecosystem cannot sustain them, as a result, random selection favored smaller, more nimble predators. These are well know facts to biologists and zoologists but little observed by artists and other such parasites.

So, until you somehow manage to become the creative primate's equivalent of "The Jaguar", you will have to learn how to stay small, nimble and specialized. Those skills will come in handy when self doubt, failure, life, death and the Santa Anas burned down you little piggy's house. Until you manage to reach the top of the food chain, you will need to feed on the canopy's lower terraces. The trick is to accept failure promptly and adjust to the never ebbing cultural tsunami that is "Sparta". May be some day you'll make waves of your own but in the meantime you will need to be able to run for the hills and distill your moonshine with no other company but your own.

As stated below, I have no intention of stopping the work I am presently doing but I need to find alternate ways to fund it. A new, more "visually acceptable" and "a propos", body of work is a good way to do so, as long as it let's others in, on the festivities. Car jacking will have to wait until I am good and ready.

I have put considerable amounts of thought into this in the past few months and have come up with a plan to rescue this faltering financial house. If I stick to it, I'll be fine, but that might be the hardest part of this upcoming trip. Staying happy in this business is learning to dance the very fine line between the ideal and the mundane, insults and promises.

* There are other forms as we know but without capital there is little chance of continuation, especially as a photographer. This ain't no cheap profession.

You ain't no Condoleezza Rice....

Overseen in San Francisco: On Castro and Market, a homeless man pulled out his member in front of "Pottery Barn" and tried spraying the crowd with a perfectly formed jet of urine. All the while screaming: "You ain't no Condoleezza Rice, motherfuckin' bitch...!". This gives new meaning to Colin Powel's famously adage to W: "You break it, you buy it".So, "Condi", I guess that means, in a cosmic sort of way, " that if the man tries to piss on your diplomacy, you 'd better get out of its way"; but it seems that you probably already knew this.

In other news: A gratuitous and graphic image to complement above post. NOT AT WORK...! I just thought it had some, how to say, psychic similitudes to the afore mentioned scenics. I'll have to admit, I collect ridiculous images like these. Upon viewing, please reverse roles immediately to appreciate as it is truly meant to be. I just couldn't find a similarly graphic image where the sexes had been flipped to illustrate my point appropriately.

Mixed Greens.

This essay was written and is being used by permission. Father Ignacio Kotsakis, pictured above (not a pseudonym), is the author of the treatise you are about to read–:

Begin transcript:

“I am a cold war baby and for what it’s worth the Soviet Union used to be an altogether appropriate and useful reflection of our collective imaginations; kinda made you wipe your nose on the curtains more carefully, so to speak…. Some may say, that it’s still the case, that nothing has changed, but they would have to prove it and show me these are not simply more opiated promises. From my vantage point as an abbot, this country and most of its western approaches have become much more socially and religiously conservative; and I don’t mean it compared to the sixties, or in response to its excesses. It is not, as they meekly proclaim, the other arc of the pendulum’s swing, a spasmodic twitch, a reappraising of the consequences.

I won’t use the current administration to bolster my pieces, since so many have already made very good cases against these new century national polices, but simply put, these times are not, as they pretend to claim, a counterpoint to an overly liberal society; but a long standing need which man seems to indulge in, and often recklessly; to approach reason and humanists from an irrationally privileged and entitled need to dominate our fellow bedmates.

In the case of the United States, this was brought on by race and the perceived abuse of the concessions the majority felt they had made in good faith . Loosing some of their hard fought cultural, economic and political prizes reduced them to these great seething and consumptive masses. Law abidingly, they relented, because it had thankfully been civically ingrained, but they only did so because they intuitively sensed that the anger and hatred, of their formerly enslaved roommates, needed to be peaceably moderated. The possible consequences of these continued inequities might just be too eminently catastrophic and brutish, to be confused for more of the same. The rapid growth and economic prosperity of the 50s and 60s were about to be wiped clean, concessions had to be made, but not without consequences. Legions sat bitterly and passively waiting for a lovable and popular Moses, to deliver them from the compromises they felt they had been forced to make. And It came, ever so cleverly disguised as an enlightened sheep, in economically lupine clothes; but best of all it was sincere, self convinced and soothingly reassuring to these fatherless masses.

The political shift began to swing from a society where the individual pretended to be prized and adulate for questioning the state, to elevating him for his ability to beat it, cash it and love it. In short order, opportunists, gurus and self anointed abbots began the oft mentioned and inevitable process of ridiculing the very ideas, they had espoused with such evangelistic and vigorous zeal. They began to espouse commercial incentivistic as a better and more patriotic way. From idealism to embracing “The Prince” in less than 30 days. Injecting religiosity into the brand, to transform it into a new form of political thinking, I might venture to name: “National Social Narcissism”.

A political ideology based on speculatory enthusiasm, religious persuasions, self evasion; and on the religiously implicit acceptance, of an eminently pliable and disinterested populace; geographically gated and isolated, and continuously marinated in a mildly anxious chemical haze, masquerading as change.”

PS: I also found this while surfing.

"On a bag of frozen peas".

I had originally posted this poem last June about my friend Steve, who I assure you, is nothing but an entirely fictionally character and in no way bares any resemblance to himself or anyone else. I had appropriate his name and relative likeness to allow me to post the original poem below, which had been crafted to reflect my uninformed and entirely fictional views and opinions of the Art World; of which I am not a bona fide, plenipotentiary and recognizably known member. Nevertheless, since it was one of my best poems "ever", it really needed to be re-posted in its original form, devoid of potentially and offensively injurious references meant to humiliate, denigrate or disparage Steve's character, honor or person.

I shall post it first, before the perniciously ironic rant directly following this short, yet lyrical narrative epic sonnet(!). Furthermore, should you decamp and choose to browse greener, less obscure pastures, I shan't blame it entirely on you, but rather on the interminably long vituperations which follows this decidedly and purposely rank poetic odyssey. It is, I admit, long and tortuous even to those of you who might have by now become better accustomed to my professional and personal sense for self-ridicule. Those of you who may not have taken the time to ease into these mindful peregrinations might find it pretentious, offensive and bitterly pompous :

The Poem:

The Art World ; it’s like….

It’s like snatch; but sweeter It’s got swatch; but sooner It’s got stash; but bigger

It’s like smack but stronger It’s like you; but better It’s like Yak; but butter

It’s like; nice but later…. It’s got racks; like “Hooters” It’s got back; like looters

It’s like grass and fiddlers… It’s like ass, and fingers It’s like mass but longer….

Next:

I decide to remove the second part of this entry and will probably not be reposting it. I am a big fan of my own ramblings but finally decided against it.

What's that sound in your eye?

# Since all we get these days are data files and images, is it too much to ask to get to know what Mars sounds like....?

Like any self respecting fan of all things celestial, I take great pleasure in reveling in the facts that no matter how self-obsessed or delusional I may get, there is always a place, far from where I dwell, where I can go and marvel at the unmentionable vastness of the known universe.

A few weeks back, in early July, I went camping in the Sierra Nevadas where, as luck would have it, this god fearing, prostate packing, 42 year old's tool, made him get up and take a mid-summer's night piss on the closest evergreen he could see. Not too close to my tent as one might suffer the consequences..... le lendemain.....but not too far either, as to not fall, and off that precipitous cliff he might have imagined. Being that it was the middle of a dark and moonless night, it seemed reasonable to assume that a precipice might be harder to anticipate if your neck is cranked way back, looking up and away.

I like to wonder as much as the next guey**, but plunging to my death while relieving myself, is a stunt I'd rather wait to taste just before I finally take my last steps and kiss The Little Prince's cape...... But when I do, we'll kiss and greet on both cheeks, and I'll finally get to piss on that snake, the one that looks like those hats men used to wear, before JFK caught a bullet with the back of his head (if he had worn a hat, that fateful day in Dallas, instead of baring his head to an assassin's rifled gaze, he might have lived out a more lead free and prosperous presidency).

There's nothing like looking up at the sky and pissing on the ground beneath it. There's still nothing like reminding the forest and the beasts that a man will pay twenty bucks to stay the night, eat a steak and drive home the next day. It's not every day that he gets to piss on a stump beneath the Milky way......Just another way to further remind this here Universe, that free will and a tank of gasoline brought me here, while 'they', will spend the rest of their natural living days trying to open garbage pales or chase down four legged protein shakes....... At the very least, not bothering to treck on over to the latrines, at three o'clock in the morning, feels better than splitting open my chin on the bathroom sink.......and it's good way to keep my feminine side humming.........since whatever estrogen I have coursing through my veins needs as much tending, as the peaches in Voltaire's silk breeches; those same treatises where Buddha meets Plato meets Rousseau meets snow globes or the cold wet steel of a French Guillotine (I have a hard time believing that Voltaire did much gardening and will presume that he meant it metaphorically).

As I stood there, I thought about the fact that there are millions of great images of Mars, Saturn and the Moon***, but that galactic sound files are not that easily found or downloaded on the information super highway. I understand, but regret that because there are no molecules for sound waves to travel within the vacuum of space, that there is no sweet celestial music for us to hear. Nevertheless, Mars has an atmosphere and that ought to be worth at least an MP3.

The only space recording I have ever heard came from what the Cassini/Huygens probe sent back and recorded while descending into Titan's atmosphere. That was sweet... but in the future, can I please listen to other atmospheres.

In other news, landslide and meteor strikes; how on earth are we supposed to get out of the way if there is not a sound to be heard on either side of the Moon.

* Multi-year mission to Saturn and it's moons. ** Guey. That would loosely translate as "dude", in Spanish. *** Hell, as we speak, they are sending a giant camera to Pluto which will reach the icy body in a little more than a decade. # Also commonly known as the Red Eye nebula.

"Post-Jungian empirical naming conventions and cultural appropriations in French Canadian contemporary Photography".

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I am currently in the process of writing and editing a white paper for submission in the "Dawson City, Boeuf/Meyer/Ju'dGazon, Neo-pictorialist Ontological Filipo-Acadist journal and foundation"; an on-line, bilingual, Canadian bimonthly publication and society, dedicated to the advancement and promotion of contemporary post-Jungian cross-gender boundaries in French Canadian neo-pictorialists. Here are a few excerpts in lieu of a preview.....

In other notes, I originally delivered a 'pre-print' version of this paper, in lecture form, to the Supreme First-Nation Tribal Gerontology Leadership Council for the Preservation and Advancement of Pre-Columbian Lingual Atrabilism and Gender Representation in Sub-Arctic Agrarian Atavistic societies.*1

Synopsis:

"Post-Jungian empirical naming conventions and cultural appropriations in French Canadian contemporary Photography". Authorship by Olivier Laude, 'Proboscis Annum' Post Doctoral recipient of the Judith Butler Gender Prognosis Honorary academic medal, awarded yearly to an outstanding post-doctoral candidate involved in the promotion and dissemination of academic excellence in the fields of Lingual Atrabilism and Pre-Columbian gender representation in sub-arctic neo-agrarian consanguineous societies.

Begin excerpt*2:

Post-Jungian literary critics have only recently started dissecting the contemporary ontology of sub-arctic still-pictorialists and are presently adopting interdisciplinary gender-branding polities to deconstruct social and cultural post-reconstructivist cross-gender appropriation theories in urban and pre-urban socio-representative agrarian societies. Once the exclusive neo-conformist stomping grounds of post-modern gender theorists these institutionalized social constructions, or "artifacts", have recently been adopted by Acadians, who, ten to twelve years ago started using the pictorial representation of their "non de plume" as boundary cannons; itself a revolutionary and transformative ontological construct designed to outline the regenerative nature of perceived cultural exploitations at the hand of filipo-lingual deconstructivists..............Unwittingly, subsequent generations of Acadian pictorialists quantified these empirical and cultural appropriative naming conventions within the same socialized interpretative and anti-deterministic "artifacts" as their filipo-lingual theoritical nemesis..........More recently, an ethno-political fracas over the abuse and overt use of Antonio Gramsci's theory of hegemony has both prefigured and enriched the current social and resulting filipo-Acadian discourse by injecting much needed Durkeimian dialectics between Filipo-lingual pictorialists and Filipo-Acadists........... Might we be living in a time when these feuding and long standing epistemological rifts between Filipo-pictorialists and Filipo-Acadists are to be resolved once and for all ? We shall see......

In the meantime, I am looking forward to seeing you all next spring at the 53rd annual convention of the "Dawson City, Boeuf/Meyer/Ju'dGazon, Neo-pictorialist Ontological Filipo-Acadist foundation", in Dawson City.

*1-I understand this method is unorthodox but 'in the text' annotations were deemed necessary to these pre-journaled intrusions . *2-Courtesy of the "Dawson City, Boeuf/Meyer/Ju'dGazon, Neo-pictorialist Ontological Filipo-Acadist foundation".

Dredging canals.

Here are samples keyphrases internauts have used on popular search engines to find me. I harvested these by accessing my very own web statistics. I'll have to plug them in myself and see what transpires as some of them seem rather unorthodox. Some keyphrases are mundane and to be expected while a few others appear to be the figment of sleep walking incidents. olivier laude, fifi abdou, olivier laude blog, filles des mers du sud, laude, www.olivierlaude.com, filles des mere du sud, tippler pigeon video, boris yeltsin, loretta lux, ky michaelson, oliver laude, weatherford cliff notes khan, monkey train dot, 206, photographer people, shakespeare candle maker, photography sf olivier, dear diary introductions, taryn simon philosophy, taryn simon philosophy, damien hirst, small old, the edge of insanity, alec soth, play the oculist, fairy grandparents, candle makers shakespeare, les filles des mers du sud, magma ghandi, forbes magazine photographer, jeff wall hedge fund, grass waffen-ss new yorker, my trip to kabul, images des mers du sud, fuck, millbrook new york, video archives dear leader, cipro, easy manner, dear diary intro, raining rats, tahiti images, 105, loretta lux scope, what would trotsky do, blog/olivierlaude.com, tight ass, has anthropology influenced weatherford s view khan, nexium, filles de bora bora, leader fuck, loretta lux curriculum vitae, dear leader olivier, how i spent the war grass, jeff wall photographic tableau, tenuate, up magma com laude history.

Photography is a beautiful lady.

For the past fifteen years, I have had the pleasure of seeing the photography industry transformed into more of the same. One thing by now is certain, it's that, if anything, necessity is the mother of invention and invention is the bastard chump of imitation. Consequently, and if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery it might just so happen that flattery is to photography what imitation is to its means of production.Categorizing is by no means one of my strongest points. Generally, any attempts at organizing my thoughts rapidly lead to roam. So, if you, out of boredom, have decided to read on, you will surely come across my inner curmudgeons. No need to point them out, they are already known. I was born with an extra helping of curmudgeon; making any agreement to provisionally suspend judgement, in exchange for the promise of entertainment; a cantankerous proposition . So here it is, Photography as I see it, it's all the buzz, and yet, I can barely hear it:

1- Nombrilism (fancy for navel gazing):

Historically speaking, these folks would have done well in the British Navy, given their love of uniforms, square meals and the sea's deep blue immensity. Practitioners of this dark and thoughtful art are beloved, the world over, by sadists, MTV and non-profits. Naturally, they generally remain unseen when your cabin needs a good sweeping.

2- Fetishism:

Itself a great sin, Fetishism is undergoing a revival of sorts as an offshoot of afore mentioned category. Modern Fetishism is a daftly concocted reduction designed to cleverly shift attention from the navel gazer and his/her reflection to the relationship between them and their material possessions. This is the cult of the "Casual observation". It is devised to bring attention to the everyday travails of inanimate objects.

Casuallity, as it is also known, is defined as the relationship between one object (the casual) and another object (the casualette); itself the consequence of the first object casually informing, suffice it to say, the narrative* tension of their respective and repetitive daily usage. In other words, if said "Casual" cannot be easily defined by its relationship with its afore mention "Casualette", an observation may become delightfully and casually complex. Nevertheless, should such an unfortunate object occur, quickly turn lone object North North West and chant: " I don't know you that way".

To be continued....maybe...! * I'll get to that later.

Dear Diary. Let me begin with an introduction.

Born:In France, in Lille, France, October 2nd, 1964. Wild ass is slaughtered and turned into sausage to celebrate afore mentioned nativity. Quadruped's name withheld from public records. I shared this date, but not the sausage, with Mahatma Ghandi, Sting, Charlie Chaplin and umpteen other bitches.

Important dates: Summer 1970: Buggers first goat as rite of passage in Milaria; a leper colony bathed several hundred nautical miles in the Mediterranean sea. Goat is subsequently butchered and polished off by villagers in bacchanalian feast reminiscent of Pliny the Elder: A roman historian whose claim to fame was his pyroclastic entombment in Pompei; not to be confused by the " Pyro-Classics", Virgil's first poem -a four books lyrical odyssey, ostensibly about farming, which he wrote during the terrible civil war following Julius Caesar's untimely death in the BC (that's hip hop, for Before Christ).

1968 to 1979: Suffers the wrath of God in numerous Jesuit schools but survives with personality cult intact, besides his being easily medicated and plagued by minor neuroses. Psychosis avoided by vacationing with fairy grandparents, herds of Bovidae, honey bees and like minded urchins; in pastoral mountainous ranges.

1979: Ships to the United states as wretched human cargo in container ship from Le Havre, France, to Brooklyn shipyards; escapes from said metal box with mini blow torch, like creme brulee, but harder. High School in Millbrook, New York. Enjoyed Physics, Biology and rearranging ice flows on frozen Hudson in failed attempts to communicate with clouds that looked like hamsters. Became very cross country runner, masturbation a must. Great loss of DNA. English language mastered; further DNA disbanded.

Education: Skidmore College BS in Art History Class of 1986. Graduated Magma Cum Laude in Art History, but dem bitches did not award a prize for that, so no cigar for this record. Magma cum MaryJane. I'd like to thank the Otis elevator company for providing me with a safe and secure place to smoke between classes. Je voudrai m'excuser aupres des handicapes. Failed philosophy twice, some photography classes.... Graduate with a 1.7 GPA; I tried to do better but my subsequent corporate sponsorship with the Otis elevator company conflicted with regularly scheduled classes. Ate large amounts of cream of wheat; cause: no money. It's nutritious and nourishious. Bring water to a boil, dump in stomach size lump of cream of wheat, cook until good enough to consummate, flavor with glucose heaps, eat 3 times a day. Ruminate. Lived in the woods in turquoise 1978 VW van but sometimes parked on school property. Showered irregularly.

Employment:

1986-1993

Managing Editor.

Ax Grinding Quarterly: A Journal dedicated to the use of hand-held implements used for felling trees or chopping wood.

1993-1993 and a half: Publius Ovidius Naso biannual festival coordinator and CEO:

Duties included discussing Ebonics with or without Bernard Henry Lévy, french philosopher and noted intellectual. Often referred today as BHL, Lévy was born in Béni-Saf, Algeria on 5 November 1949. He became part of a group of French intellectuals who were disenchanted with communist and socialist responses to the near revolutionary upheavals in the France of May 1968. It articulated a fierce and uncompromising moral critique of Marxist and socialist dogmas years prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Frequent and often epistemological arguments lead to a palace coup and to his forced removal as Chairman and CEO of Publius Ovidius Naso. Publius Ovidius Naso filed for bankruptcy in 1994 under a cloud of suspicious financial wrong doings, money laundering, and naive realism; itself a phenomenalist aberration rooted in empirical relativism.

1993 and a half- 1995

Special economic adviser and compliant side kick to his Majesty King Taufa'ahau™ (since 1965). The Friendly Republic of Tonga™.

Duties included shouting down Samoans, berating Tahitians and belittling those fools on Easter Island. Could have gone as far as deriding the "Good People of the Galapagos"™ but there is some kind of sanctuary there, crawling with leaf eaters. Adroitly advised the King to stick to bipeds, a euphemism, of course. My position was terminated after a vicious, all out, tropical food and flotsam fight during Sunday service at " Our Lady of Perpetual Desalination". I was mercilessly set adrift on a jute raft from Nuku'alofa as punishment for my crimes but was picked up by a drunken Russian freighter plying the Cook Islands, trawling for signs of desperation. Due to their severe inhibriation I was mistakenly identified for a wahine but once again managed to escape their advances by leaping onto a nearby Korean shrimp farmer. Those years with the traveling circus finally paid off as I became their favorite pet monkey; a perfect leap into the unknown but a brilliant career move.

1995-2001

Executive Pet Monkey to the Korean Ship farmer " Atlantic Platypus", a semi-aquatic bottom trawler with Liberian plates.

Duties included, pretending to be a coconut, peeling plantains, curling both lips to reveal a set of comedic brown teeth, massaging a wary crew with fish oil, collecting algae for the tender, which housed a magnificent exclusive spa and retreat. Other duties included translating "in screeches"™ what the lookout thought he was spotting, far off on the horizon, as well as delivering much needed supplies to Afghan refugees marooned on Christmas island (unfortunately, the irony was lost on our mostly Buddhist Kampuchean crew).

2001-Present

Managing Editor: " Punjabi Represent"™,The Cole Valley Middle Aged Men's Secret Society Magazine.

Duties include: Mixing bleach with ammonia, befriending pigeons to further my communication skills, shouting liftoff to my avian friends all the while encouraging them to reach for the sky, trampling underfoot and marching with penguins.

Special Skills: Using agricultural metaphors in political speeches for the advancement of the hard of hearing and the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian and Transgender community. Making life deliberately hard for friends and family, so that they can redeem themselves through labor. Legal latin. Try this at home: "Ab Initio, it should be said that there is a good prima facie case for my decision to forgo this curriculum vitae".