Binary Ghost

I found that Inaugural Ball ticket from 1989 on the ground outside a couple months ago. Looks like whoever had it didn't go. The other thing I posted is a doodle I made on an old calendar page that I am going to use as a bookmark. See, that's what I do nowadays. I have no time or energy to paint, so I make bookmarks and pick stuff up off the ground if it's over 20 years old.
Happy Mother's Day to the very, very slim margin of moms out there who might be reading my blog! This Mother's Day, May 9th, happens to fall on the birthday of my grandmother Lucia who passed away eight years ago. She would be 94 years old by now if she were still with us.
So in honor of my grandma, I am posting this poem that I wrote about my childhood since she was there through all of it.


"Breakfast With Aquaman", a poem in no- verse by Reggie Rachuba

Trio street trees swaying in the streetlight-here an elephant, there a dinosaur.
Running to exhaustion, granny-beads of dirt and sweat.
Maw-maw's front porch, boysenberry jam.
Church bells on the hour.
A yellow teddy made of yarn.
Little Golden Books, an encyclopedia set.
Deep sea divers, dogs in armor, masked stallions.
A pliable Popeye, Superman, Batman, Aquaman.
The patches of green, the placid cows, the bike seat.
Lights on the river at night, the fairy boats, the singing of little fishes.
Show Biz, Billy Bob, flat pizza.
The candles, the saints, the organ, Darth Vader (a baptism).
With my own Millennium Falcon, straining to reach that great Wookie in the Sky .
Every dog a friend.
The small hairs on the elephant's back, the wasp, "Don't you touch them!"
The Saturday mornings with Godzilla and Son.
Black velvet peacock tapestry, classical ruins, the fan in the attic.
Listening to Big Bird but staring at the Moody Blues.
Prehistoric plastic monsters, real dirt, little snails.
Mint in the iced tea.
Listing all of the animals, some of them twice.
Grey moments filled with owls and pines, three paintings of boys I'd never be, a stain on the ceiling.
A cowboy on big wheels, a ray gun, my thieving friends.
Feeding the ducks, stepping too close, my split second as a hippopotamus.
Hospital ice cream, wooden sticks, my dolphin voice.
Sea turtles, blue lizards, Dr. Chin.
"No cookies, no cakes, no pie!"
The last time I saw my dad in the kitchen.
The blue elephant, the vacant sky, a scolding from teacher.

Happy Mother's Day!

Drawing Therapy

For those of you who don't know, I work at a school, and the school year is almost over- thank God! Those of us on the faculty who don't act worse than some of the kids we teach occasionally enjoy having "therapy sessions". In these sessions we help each other cope with certain individuals who make our work environment less friendly. The doodles above were made yesterday during the discussions.
Maybe I'm not such a good visual thinker. Maybe I think with language too much, and maybe that's why I've had artist's block for so long. This was a pretty good stream-of-consciousness exercise, and there's even a bit of observational drawing in the 1982 piece.

Last night I did something I had said I'd never do, which is make a Facebook page. Guess I gave in to peer pressure. Hey, maybe it'll get more people to read this blog, and I can actually start to make posts more often.

I saw my own corpse

He was all dressed in yellow with jaundiced skin. Upon his chest he wore four yellow talismans. One was like a lightning bolt with a spiral on top of it. Another was shaped like Texas. The third looked like a piece of cheese. The final talisman's shape eludes me, but its color had shifted from a deep cadmium to a lemon yellow.
I touched his chest. It felt as if I were his killer and I had no remorse. "Reggie Rachuba is finally dead." And with that thought, the weight of the situation dawned upon me: I would have to dispose of the body somehow. The corpse was going to rot and putrefy. People would notice the stench and they would find me out.
Suddenly, the corpse's facial muscles began to twitch! His eyelids fluttered! The corpse of Reggie Rachuba came awake!

The build-up: Feeling like a miscreant, I walked down a random street in my dream neighborhood. It started to rain. I made my way down to the river. This was not the same Mississippi that I spent most of my life near with all of its filthy refineries and tanks full of toxic chemicals, no. This was the true Mississippi, a river for the people! And there they were, awaiting a celebratory fleet of river boats.
It was like Mardi Gras on the water. The prow of each boat featured the likeness of an artist. The people were jubilant and I was the opposite.
There wasn't much standing room left, only thin poles by the shoreline. There was an open spot among some excited children, and though I was hesitant to be near them, I stood there and beheld the spectacle.
The bystanders were trading with the boats. One crew had furs to trade with the locals. The boys around me began shouting for them. A woman in the crowd responded, "Yes, there are furs for everyone, even for Metairie and Carondelet!", and then I saw some familiar faces in the gathering. They were teachers from the school where I work. I averted my gaze, feeling somehow ashamed of being seen here. I turned to walk away, but the poles in front of me began to look more like a cage.
Finally able to escape, I came upon a boat that was also a house, and therein lay my jaundiced corpse adorned with his four yellow talismans, which I already told you about. Dreams can take you to strange places.

How do we not know that the most dire sin we all commit is neglecting every small miracle we witness while alive? A rainbow after a thunderstorm, with the smell of ozone in the air; a tiny green tree frog leaping into the palm of a small child; an egg sack bursting forth with a hundred infant spiders; best of all, a clear crisp night beneath a full Autumn moon. You might say that none of these compare to healing the blind, walking on water, or multiplying loaves and fishes to feed the multitudes, but when we ignore our lesser miracles we make a grievous error. For these minuscule miracles are symbols of God's love for us.
Dreams are like this. Dreams are small, personal miracles. Being able to fly and to run at high speeds without getting tired; a taste of religious ecstasy in an impossible TV temple; Soaring upon the back of a great turtle above and beneath the world's oceans; all of these are glimpses into a realm of great wonder, held somehow within thick bone and squishy brain fat. The inner eye sees everything. Our dreams complete us.
I saw my own dead body. I saw him open his eyes, and then I opened mine. Am I he, or did some transference take place? Is Reggie Rachuba dead in my mind? Has he been replaced, looking at the world through zombie eyes?
Nonetheless, such dreams are still miraculous. To see yourself truly from the outside is incredible. Not like a mirror or a movie, but standing above your own body while it is dead or sleeping. Thank you, God, for showing me a miracle.

"Magic Bullet Exit Wound"

Digital collage, 2010

2010 is more fun to type than 2009 was. Last night we watched a documentary about the JFK assassination, and I guess that's where this title comes from. You can't say 'assassin' without saying 'ass' twice.

This is my electric onion.

This is my electric onion. Savor it like the taste of a battery on your tongue. Everything is new and updated and electrified. Is this the end of my tricks? No, you're wrong if you think I can't get any more mileage out of this. Doing the same shit over and over again, that's contemporary art, right? Right.

People who like to say, 'think outside the box' really don't.
People who consider themselves to be 'low maintenance' usually aren't.
People are living contradictions.

Writing just to write something

Jeanne and I went out for a pancake breakfast this morning. It was wonderful! Then we bought medicine for some ailing tropical fish (we think it's Ick.), and we got the new Super Mario Wii game, which is fucking fantastic! As if that's not awesome enough, we had pizza for dinner and we watched an episode of a BBC "programme" called "How Art Made The World", which was all about why humans have exaggerated the human figure from The Venus of Willendorf down to The Ranaissance. The general tone of the episode was actually kind of simple-minded and not really from a very artistic point of view, IMHO. Right now I'm doing a post just because I feel like it.