But for the sky, there are no fences facing - March 8th, 2006

(If you haven't read part 1, scroll down and get to it...NOW!)

I've had quite a few people drooling over a series of my photographs...er..digitally enhanced...er digitally screwed with images lately. They consist of fairly mundane digital photos of this and that which have had very basic photoshop functions applied to them. In two examples I turned this rather dull sunset picture

into this somewhat less dull sunset picture

and this kinda cool skyscraper picture
into this somewhat cooler skyscraper picture

A friend who has been extremely complimentary suggested recently that I apply the technique to some pictures of Seattle's oft photographed Space Needle. I said, "Ah, just what the world needs, more pictures of the Space Needle."

"I'm not sure if the world needs any more pictures of the Space Needle," she replied with a smirk, "but I would sure like to see your pictures of the Space Needle."

Well.....my heart may belong to millapants, but I still endeavour to give the rest of the ladies what they want, especially since they never ask for anything Mills wouldn't approve of:) So, as I continued my leisurely stroll towards the psychologists chair, I snapped a few pics of the Space Needle with the trusty Vivitar 3650, the best digital camera 40 dollars can buy. The momentarily cloudless day made it pretty tough to see in the tiny review screen if I got anything worthwhile, but the best thing about digital photography is you don't have to pay to have the shitty ones developed.

My destination turned out to be slightly farther south than anticipated, and I arrived a scant 10 minutes early... plenty of leeway for a dinner reservation, but since the amount of time a doctor makes you wait seems to multiply in direct reverse proportion to being anything less than 30 minutes early, I was doing a bit of powerwalking for the last couple blocks. My brow had cracked a sweat and I was breathing just a tad heavily as a somewhat blank stare greeted me at the receptionist counter. The stare became even less imbued with comprehension as I stated my name and the time of my appointment.

"Um...and whom was your appointment with?"

"I have no clue, I was sent here by DSHS."

"Oh," the receptionist said, her eyes beginning to exhibit some possible signs of understanding the situation she was dealing with, "and who is your social worker?"(At least she knew whom from who)

(My social worker shares a name with a celebrity, which I have changed to protect the intelligence of the celebrity)"Felicia Rashad"

"Aha, well no wonder", came the receptionists suddenly all knowing reply, "she screws this up all the time. I'm sorry, you do not have an appointment today, as a matter of fact, we don't even have a therapist in the office today."

I briefly considered a number of witty remarks before my brain spoke up internally, Um, Boss...you're here for a psychological examination, you might want to project an illusion of sanity to the receptionist, and save the insanity for the shrink.

Good point.

"Hmmm, interesting. Well, could you schedule me for a appointment."

"No, that has to be done by your social worker."

"The one who screws it up all the time?"

"Yes, that's correct"

"Ok...thanks", I said deadpan. I smiled and turned to leave. Then, before my brain could stop me I turned quickly back and asked, "Do you ever think you might be on the wrong side of the window?" Alas, the blank stare had returned, so I simply winked and left the building.


Hey readers, have you ever noticed how part two of a trilogy often has little or nothing to do with the main premise of the story? Well, you should have. And since part 2 of my story of the Serendipitous life of Laptop Bob has now reached 650 words without a mention of serendipity, let's just consider it a bridge between the serendipitous situation in part one-semantically circumspect as it was to some-and the sure to be serendipitous scenario to be spewed in part three. See y'all soon.

(If you haven't read parts 1 & 2, scroll down and do so now...c'mon...yer not doing anything important)

My social worker had neglected to properly schedule my psychological evaluation, so I had just spent the first half of the day in preparation and travel to an appointment that didn't exist. Stuff like this drives most people nuts, but since I pulled my car into the crazy campground years ago, I was only mildly pissed. The worst thing about my social workers stupidity was that it scuttled a chance to see my brother and sister in law, who were in Seattle for a short stay. It was about 12:45 when I walked out of the office into the bright, cold day. I was sad I had missed my brother, but happy that it was not April and the clocks were going to strike one, not 13, at the top of the hour(name that reference!). I recalled a conversation I had earlier in the week withmillapants. I had been bitching about one thing or another and she had suggested that it might be a good time to make lemonade. I had not been in the mood for metaphor or lemonade, especially condescended lemonade, as I figured I was enough of a sourpuss without it. I remembered what being a sourpuss to my gf felt like as I wondered what to do with the rest of my day, post non existent appointment. I decided to make lemonade in her honor-though not her image-as any citrus made in her image would undoubtedely be a far too pulpy false goddess. I ducked into a shaded spot to see how the space needle pictures had come out. They were ok at best, so I headed back to Seattle Center to take another crack at the Needle. After a short but educational visit to the "Center House", where I learned from a well presented exhibition about eating disorders that anorexia was the most deadly of all mental disorders, and that an anatomically correct Barbie would be over 7 feet tall with breasts that would drag on the ground in front of her, I went back to shoot some more photographs of the Space Needle. I was much closer to my subject than I had been the for the first set of photos, and before long I found myself flat on my back, peering up at the Needle through various trees and bushes. The results were much better, and while I can't really call them serendipitous, I will take this opportunity to show off the one I like the best, in untouched, enhanced, and doubleplus enhanced versions.



Arrgh...the rest of this tale deserves it's own part....hey...remember when these multipart entries had days in between? So chill...enjoy....part four will be ready faster than you can say serendipity.

HEY! No cheating! Scoll down and start with part one!

When I wrote the subject line of this four parter, it was envisioned as a single entry. Honestly, I was thrilled to feel like I had enough of a story for one decent entry. I've had the worst case of writers block I've ever known. There have been plenty of 8 month periods where I've written less... hell I've had entire years that I didn't write at all... but this was different. I wanted to write. I wanted desperately to write. I had things to write about. I knew I should be writing. It just wasn't there. If I start analyzing where the writers block came from or why it was so severe, this will be a 6 part entry, and I don't want to further slight the guy who put the sledgehammer to the Hoover Dam blocking my Lake Mead of metaphor. But I will tell you when I knew I had broken through it... it was back in part one of this 4 part entry. I felt the first meaningful crack when I typed this into my lj client-(substituting asterisks for the angle brackets used in html code)... *font color="lime"* *B* STOP */font* */b*. I felt creative stuff start to spill out the next time I used the code, *font color="lime"* *B* But...but they might have a copy of "The Man Who Folded Himself".*/font* */b* The third time I used the code, I felt a great disturbance in the force... *font color="lime"* *b* Your bag, Dummy.*/font* */b* It was as if a million voices once silenced had returned and spoke as one. Yup. My friends, she's come home.

And trust me kids...he'll never mix Star Wars and Star Trek metaphors again.

My dear, sweet muse in the lime green tunic, Rapunzel, has returned.

DEAR? SWEET? Honey they said you had writers block, not Alzheimers.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.....WA BA BALOO BOP BA LA BAM BOOM, MY MUSE RAPUNZEL IS IN THE HOUSE...ER...KITCHEN...ER....BACKSEAT

Dear god....try "ROOM" you rhymeless twit

Yes...yes...ROOM...Rapunzel is in the room...back from the muse-oleum, busted out of her tomb, her tunic is made by fruit of the loom...if she puts on the black dress she's muse of doom, with her guidance I can write a pantoum...she's come back, and not a moment to soom..

Oy, I can see already the first thing we have to do is get you back your poetic license...no, scratch that Boss...HEY...NOT THAT, WISEASS!

Whoops, sorry.

Screw the poetic license, we gotta finish this lj entry before we do anything else. Tell me about how you met Alexander, and boss.... this better be serendipitous.

You got it hon. Welcome home, Rapunzel.

Thanks Boss. Now get to work.


Where the hell was I...oh yeah. After taking a dozen or so shots of the Space Needle I walked west through the grounds of Seattle Center. I always get a strange feeling there. Some of my oldest real memories are of my first walk on those grounds in 1962, at the Seattle World's Fair. I was 5 years old. Looking back just now at excerpts from the official program of the "Century 21 Exposition" I'm quite fascinated by the possibility that these grounds may have been where much of my idealism was born, and where much of my feeling that something has gone horribly wrong with America during my lifetime are rooted..but that's another entry after a lot more research. I soon came upon the Seattle Center Mural Amphitheater. The pool of water that had been in front of the mural originally is long since gone, replaced by a stage that has been graced by the likes of Pearl Jam, Mudhoney, and Johnny Winter, as well as scores of local bands and numerous speakers. The Amphitheater was empty, but a quick perusal revealed an unlocked panel with numerous electrical outets. As I sat down on the edge of the stage two thoughts struck me...First, that this would be a cool opportunity for me to shoot a bit of video of myself reading some poetry or perhaps ad-libbing some sort of rant with my webcam that with some basic editing could be made to look lke a crazed poet vagabond shrieking to thousands, and secondly, that the Seattle Bicycle Police just beyond the opposite end of the stage might not take to kindly to some of my more radical poetry. I was trying to make lemonade, not get arrested. But since I no longer have reasons like the constant pungent cloud of pot smoke around me to avoid the Police, I just walked over to where they were, politely excused myself for intruding, and asked if it was ok if I plugged my laptop in to one of the outlets and shot a bit of video. They very casually replied that they didn't see any problem with that. I thanked them and proceeded to set up my gear.

As I was testing camera angles and lighting, I noticed a guy was standing in front of the stage with what I could see right away was a pretty spiffy camera. The days events had left me in a space somewhere in between gregarious and antagonistic... or maybe it was just a combination of both, so I looked in the young man's direction and asked if he was planning to take a picture of me shooting video of myself. He smiled. According to his weblog account of the moment, his reply was, "sure, if you don't mind." Frankly, once our eyes met and he smiled, he could have said about anything. Sometimes....dammit...I look in the eyes of a lot of people every day. This stuff about me being a studied observer of human behavior, body language, and facial expression is not something I made up to fit my bio as a vagabond poet. And sometimes I look into the eyes of another human and know immediately in a Heinlein-esque grokking sense that this is someone I would be privileged to know for the rest of my life. Such was the case with Alexander Wishkoski. I felt the obnoxiousness fly away from me, which left me gregarious...and also still quite wound up. I moved down towards the front of the stage where Alex was standing and we started talking...well...I started talking and Alex started listening.

Those of you who know me know that if you give me an ear I'll talk it off and once I get going you better be paying attention because I tend to jump tracks pretty quickly and in some fairly odd directions. In the old days when I'd get going it was known as "Chaosian", and only a storied few like Timbo, Ravdoss, and Kaplaghfinewhatever-now better known as normaltrouble would even try to follow my incoherent babbling. Thankfully the meds and time away from street drugs have helped me decrease the babbling and I actually finish a thought as often as I leave one hanging. One thing I was able to explain to Alex early on in the conversation is that I am NOT camera shy. I will admit that his presence kinda took me away from the hard edged ad-libbed rant I might have done if left to my own devices, but that was likely a good thing since the men in blue were still within earshot. I told him about the cable access show I'm taping the 25th of March and invited him to stop by Bop Street Records in Ballard that afternoon to see some of the taping. Then I took a shot at doing a couple of my poems from memory. I really suck at memorizing my own stuff, but he clicked away as I fumbled through parts of poems. Finally, exasperated with myself, I asked him if he was a hardcore fundamentalist christian. I was pretty sure he wasn't, and when he said I didn't have to worry about offending him on that level, I launched into the one poem of mine I have pretty well memorized, the ever popular, "Your God Hates You". I find it hard to believe I wrote that poem almost 2 years ago.

After that we talked about poetry. He said he wrote poetry but it sucked. I told him I didn't buy that because if poetry contains two things-passion and intimate personal emotion-it cannot suck. We talked about writing in general and photography. And then it was time for both of us to go on with our days and walk our separate paths. We exchanged web addresses...well actually he gave me his business card and I gave him my livejournal and gmail address. He assured me he would send me digital copies of some of the photos he had taken. We shook hands... I hope my smile felt as warm and sincere to him as his did to me, and he walked off towards the "Center House". I sat down and shot 20 minutes of video...I found some poems on my hard drive to read and sang a bit. If my damn audio port wasn't still FUBAR I would have edited some of it by now...but its gonna have to wait till I can solve this audio thing.

When I got back to Tullys early that evening, I looked at his company's website and was intrigued, but soon found myself typing his name into google search. From there I easily found his personal website, www.wishkoski.com Go there if you've got a few minutes...or a day...the site is full of my two favorite things, truth and beauty. Oh, and currently there's a picture of my ugly mug and a very nice-and much more concise-account of our meeting at Seattle Center, right there on the opening page.

I got the first of the pictures Alex has sent me later the same night. I don't know what more I can say about it than this...When my first book gets published, this will be the photo on the back cover.



My fingers and my brain are tired. Thanks Alex....The Mural Amphitheater is hereby renamed "Serendipity Central" in my world.