28 February 2014

Twenty-Eight Days in February

Catch up on this project of mine at the links below if you're new to the blog.  This is the scheduled last one in the series (but I'm sure I will find a way to subvert that shortsighted rule.)

Thirty-One Days in March (Part 1)

Saturday – 01 February 2014


I think this one's a little too cheery, no?  


Sunday – 02 February 2014



Sweet Belle turned (6) years old today. 
  

Monday – 03 February 2014



Random ATL: 1180 Peachtree    


Tuesday – 04 February 2014



I had a site visit down in Montgomery, Alabama today.  The project is coming along better than expected but I could barely concentrate on why I was there due to the preponderance of trains passing by the property.  You know that wide-eyed wonder that little boys have about trains?  I still have it and man I hope it never goes away.    


Wednesday – 05 February 2014




Random ATL: Hill Street at MLK    


Thursday – 06 February 2014



My obsessive daily bridge construction distraction continues unabated.  Rebar cages make me happy...takes me to my way back, I suppose.    


Friday – 07 February 2014



Best studio meeting on record.  Read more here.    


Saturday – 08 February 2014



Out and about wandering this afternoon, I happened upon this dusty jewel at Moreland and Memorial.  I'm not typically moved by rat-rods but this bad boy had a Cadillac engine, so there's that.   


Sunday – 09 February 2014



Today marks the 50th anniversary of The Beatles first arrival in the states and subsequent appearance on the Ed Sullivan show – for no particular reason I commemorated this historical fact with roast beast, ten-dollar wine and '90s grunge.


Monday – 10 February 2014 


With the threat of a catastrophic winter weather event, some people rush out to buy milk and bread...others do not.  


Tuesday – 11 February 2014



Perchance the ATL learned it's lesson last month – the downtown connector was nearly deserted at 6:00 this evening.  That's an unexpected welcomed first for me.        


Wednesday – 12 February 2014




The snow finally came, so I worked from home today.  Maybe it was the uncommon view from the dining room table, maybe it was the sleeping dog at my feet, maybe it was pure happenstance but today was by far the most productive day I've had this year.  (I should get to work on my value of telecommuting speech to the bosses.)

Song of the Day: Lil' Tico - Big Ass Truck

Thursday – 13 February 2014




Belle and I had a helluva lot of fun in the backyard this morning before the big thaw forced me begrudgingly back into the office this afternoon.

Song of the Day: Shambala - Three Dog Night

Friday – 14 February 2014




A while back, years ago probably, I thought it would be cool to have a ukulele.  A few days ago I pulled the trigger finally and ordered the damn thing.  It arrived today and I promptly set about fumbling through Somewhere Over The Rainbow.  It's important to keep your brain active and engaged, right?  I can't think of a better way to do that than teaching myself how to play a new instrument.  


Saturday – 15 February 2014




Flogging Molly at The Tabernacle – epic as always.   


Sunday – 16 February 2014



I like it.  I'll call it Sunset Behind The Weeds if I still like it in the morning.      

Song of the Day: New Madrid - Uncle Tupelo

Monday – 17 February 2014




Random ATL: 191 Peachtree.    


Tuesday – 18 February 2014




I had a 7:00 breakfast meeting at the W in midtown this morning.  It wouldn't have been cool even if it was as impressive as it sounds but what it did afford me was a perfect view of 1st Presbyterian against a flawless blue morning sky.     


Wednesday – 19 February 2014



Random ATL: Georgia State Archives.  This has been one of my favorite buildings since day one in the A – there's just something about travertine, right?  It exists in no-mans-land, unconcerned between (2) freeways and I've never thought to try to experience it up close.  I see it every morning from MLK and I see it every night from I-20 in a different light and that's exactly how I'm suppose to.    

Thursday – 20 February 2014



I stepped way outside of my comfort zone this morning and went to a local elementary school to teach 2nd graders about art.  Faced with an empty canvas, the first little girl asked, what am I supposed to do?  I replied in the only way that I knew, whatever you feel like.  I don't have kids of my own, but I can imagine the satisfaction a parent feels must be tenfold what I felt when I saw the light go on and she and her classmates embraced the moment.  Today proved my life thesis that everyone has art inside of them just waiting to get out.       


Friday – 21 February 2014



I won my category in the 1st Annual Chili Cook-Off at the office today!    


Saturday – 22 February 2014



I had a peaceful nap with Belle this morning after a ton of ball time and a hot bath.  She left this afternoon for the last time to go live with her mom.  She's off on a new adventure now and I suppose I should do the same.  We had a long talk last night and she knows what's what.  I sure am gonna miss that crazy dog, but we'll both be fine. 


Sunday – 23 February 2014



Enjoying the beautiful weather and the Sunday paper on the front steps this morning I noticed that the Chrysanthemums I planted last fall are starting to wake up and peek through.  That's a wonderful hopeful thing right there.     

Song of the Day: Atlantic City - The Band

Monday – 24 February 2014



I took a right instead of a left on the way home from work tonight.   


Tuesday – 25 February 2014



I punched one of our data center projects in D.C. this morning – I think these guys are as ready for a new season as I am.  


Wednesday – 26 February 2014



It looks like Spring may in fact be right around the corner.   

Song of the Day: My Old School - Steely Dan

Thursday – 27 February 2014



A yellow house on a hill.   


Friday – 28 February 2014



Sunrise #365.     

Song of the Day: 25 Or 6 To 4 - Chicago



23 February 2014

Up From…

I woke up this morning to an amazing sunrise.  I walked outside to get the Sunday paper and the birds were chirping; squirrels were digging up the lawn looking for last year’s nut or whatever – there was a perfect chaotic stillness all around that I too often sleep through or forget to appreciate.  It was damn near a Disney movie.  I sat down on the hood of my truck to watch the final threads of amber dawn spill through the naked backyard trees and realized that all I was required to do today had already been done.

I settled in to the morning paper bullshit on the front stoop and was pleasantly shocked to see that last November’s Chrysanthemums were peeking through the dirt having apparently survived the winter.  As I celebrated that win, I heard my down the street neighbor Hanoi Will say, Hey!  Did you know I served with Ulysses S. Grant?  I replied, Damn Will, that’s a new one.  Hanoi Will is a Vietnam veteran and every conversation I ever have with him starts with a similar question but always ends with his pontific explanation of Michael Jackson’s Man in the Mirror.

Will is a late middle-aged, middle-class African-American fellow and I’d call him a friend of mine.  For the record, he has also served with William T. Sherman, George S. Patton, Douglas Big Chief MacArthur, William Westmoreland – effectively anyone who is anyone in the annals of U.S. Military history; it just depends on the day I suppose.  Aside from the Michael Jackson constant, his other go-to story is his plight as a black man in a white man’s army, fighting as he puts it, the white man’s war.  I won’t condescend and say I have any real understanding of what he is ever talking about but some days I get it more than others.  What I always know is that he’s a good man and as far as I can see, the country he fought and damn near died for could care less.

It wasn’t quite 9:00 in the AM and as I was still reeling from yet another manic conversation with Hanoi Will, I determined to read a book that’s been collecting dust on my shelves for years, Up From Slavery.  I won’t break it down for you entirely because I think you have to come to it on your own terms.  If you don’t know, it is Booker T. Washington’s autobiography; published in 1901.  If I’m honest, it is one of those books that almost all liberals own (have never read) and display prominently on their most public bookshelf for the entire world to see.  I regrettably fell into that category until after this morning.  It’s a quick read and should be required for all Americans.  It’s not even (150) pages but it’s packed with information about what it means…what it should mean to be an American.  I’m coming at this from a middle-class white boy perspective – I can’t imagine what it must mean to the African-American community.

I will admit that BTW’s humility and deference to others is off-putting to my 20th century punk rock understanding of individualism.  I recognize however that it was the only way that a black voice would have even been mildly palatable to a society that had been trained to believe that all black men were wild animals and their only motivation was to ravage white women – what an unfortunate commentary on the values of this Christian nation, right?  That said I can’t deny the power of the story.  I want him to be a bad-ass and kick the shit out of whomever, whatever, but he never does – he never even speaks ill of his oppressors.  It’s a lesson in how to resist from a positive place.  Not only to resist, but to overcome that which is keeping you down.  Can you imagine being a f*@$ing slave?  A slave?  Just let that sink in for a minute.   

If nothing else it’s a lesson in how to overcome, right?  It’s almost an American ideal at this point in time to be disappointed in your life, to feel disenfranchised at some level.  It is true that if you are not pissed off, you are not paying attention because we have made a mockery of what were the founding fathers hopes.  There is nothing that is fair about the free United States of America and having read this book it is clear that there never was.  I can assure you though, that whatever hardship you perceive as insurmountable pales in comparison to what Booker faced.  The mechanisms that you feel are keeping you from realizing your truth are miniscule when compared to the absolute machine that was in place to hold post-Civil War Negroes down.

We all have bad days.  We all feel at times that the circumstances of our lives are conspiring against us, that the world is pissing down our back.  Those days almost always pass, but the next time you feel like you’re having one of those days, I implore you to read Up From Slavery.  It will fill you with understanding of personal responsibility, the value of hard work.  It might not change anything for you but you’ll begin to understand the subtlety and power of race, of what society thinks is fair, even still.  You’ll learn how to advance your agenda against all costs, how to affect a society you’d be proud to be a part of. 

If you’re determined to be pissed off about your lot in life, don’t read this book and don’t listen to a word I’ve said.  It will only teach you how to work positively with and understand other people, people that you disagree with on every level.  It will only show you how to pick yourself up from whatever it is…up from your dipshit boss, up from your lunatic husband or wife, up from the shitty neighborhood you grew up in, up from poverty, up from whatever.  It’s imperative to understand that the most successful people on earth didn’t do it all by themselves.  No matter what you’ve heard, everyone has needed and has accepted a hand up.

I don’t think I ever understood…I damn sure never wanted to accept that reality until I read Up From Slavery.  No matter what you’ve heard, everyone has needed a hand up – no one has ever done anything completely on their own, but it always starts with you.  You can’t be helped if you’re not willing to see that you need it.


I walked outside just now and watched the timid sun retreat beyond points westward.  The birds are still chirping, the squirrels are still digging and it remains perfectly chaotically still.




07 February 2014

The Act is the Reward

Architecture, if practiced as a business only will kill a creative soul.  Conversely, a creative soul without a business mind will fail as an architect.  That’s one of the many knocks on architects, right?  If you’re an architect or even remotely affiliated with the construction industry in any sense you’ve seen this unfortunate phenomenon firsthand.  By our very nature we are idealistic creatures – otherwise we wouldn’t have chosen this career.  We get tangled in the idea and forget the budget or any number of similar scenarios.  I’ve become the opposite.  Over the last however long, I’ve concerned myself more with profit margins than I have with vision.  I’ve admittedly forgotten the art of architecture.

I’m likely not alone in that realization but the most hardened jaded architect still (if only secretly) believes that a good design can change the world.  Too often, we – and when I say we I regrettably mean I – become consumed with the business aspect of practice; we fall into the perfect trap of staying in business and fail to recognize that we are not selling a commodity.  Yes, staying in business has recently proven to be an art and a skill unto itself that many couldn’t manage and those firms and individuals did not survive the recession.  As distressing as that fact might be, I choose to see it as a Darwinian cleansing of the job.  Almost as a stubborn coalition, we have continued to give the client what they want, not what they need.  My firm isn’t immune to this reality and we are tops, unequaled actually in our market niche, but complacency is the mortal enemy of all things good.  Art should always win the day.

It’s almost unavoidable though that the art and discipline of pure design is forced to take a backseat in a market driven economy, but that shouldn’t make it acceptable.  Yes, there is truth in the futility of reinventing the wheel but if we do not adapt and advance our significance, we are in the death throws of our last days not only as a vocation, but more importantly as a moral standard against which all professionals are judged.  The shitty bit is that it will be a death bed of our own making. 

A friend recently asked me if I still loved what I do.  I instinctually gave her the stock answer, Of course I do.  Though that is indeed true, I was compelled to follow with, but my passion lies elsewhere.  I don’t think that I had given any real thought to my level of satisfaction with my work prior to that exchange in a long time.  It’s just what I do for a living, right?  The avalanche of canvases filling my walls and spilling out of my studio should have been an indicator of this prickly reality – that which I love isn’t fulfilling my creative desires.

I’m not so naïve as to assume that anything I do or say will have a measurable affect on anyone or anything but that’s no reason not to try, right?  To that end, I decided a few weeks ago to stage an internal design competition in my studio.  I created a fictitious client with fictitious parameters, a fictitious deadline.  I filled the program with useless information and gave clear, if cryptic, instruction on the client’s expectations.  I saw an opportunity not only to reignite my own creative vigor towards my chosen path but to set sails more directionally toward the firm I want to be a part of and to ultimately own, my firm.  I use the term my firm loosely, by the way.  It’s not mine in any financial or legal sense, but I most definitely have an interest in the consequence of its future.  I cut my teeth here – these gents gave me an opportunity when most firms didn’t, wouldn’t dream of doing so, so yeah I’m loyal.  I’ve been vocal about my intent on ownership since day one and I’ve been emotionally and psychologically invested from that day to this. 

Back to the competition, I must admit that my expectations for my studio’s performance were next to nil.  There was a lot of bitching and moaning prior to and we have been slammed the last couple of weeks.  Truthfully, I had been preparing myself all week for the holier than though heavy I would have to lay on them about their personal commitment to their professional development and the value of the opportunity and the significance of being an architect and why I’ve been so pissed off about everything lately and on and on and on.  I had epic material prepared, but as they so often do, they surprised me.  They all brought really good, outside the box design to the table.

It was a tiny moment in the grand scheme of all things, but I sat down this afternoon with some friends around a table and talked about architecture; end of list. You just can’t know what that means to me.  Of course it was tempered with budget and client need and constructability but the crux of the conversation was about what it is that we do.  It was personal.  It was specific.  It was about the implication of and veracity of thoughtful design.  It was exactly what I needed. 

In a selfish effort not to be an asshole, I offered my own design up for critique based on the same parameters as the rest of the cadre.  I hadn’t produced an actual design in too many days to count.  I knew as soon as I put pencil to paper that the root of my distress lay not in the quality of my work product, but more so in the absence of my embracing of the work.  As my pulse quickened, I was reminded of why I am who I am and it was as validating an experience as I can remember.  It dawned on me that the reward isn’t the final product.  It’s not the accolades one might acquire.  It’s not that my design will necessarily change anything.  It’s not that I will be able to pay the mortgage this month.  The reward isn’t that I might be regarded as a decent architect.  It’s not that we will stay in business or even that we will get repeat clients on the strength of my performance and grow the business.  The reward is wholly embodied in the act of creating the design.  I’ve known this about art forever, but it never occurred to me to apply it to my career.  The reward is not selling the piece – the reward is the act of painting it.

The act is the reward.  I said this to my studio this afternoon and you could almost feel the gravity in the room shift due to the collective impulsive rolling of eyes.  It’s a hard sell, especially to Millennials but it’s a valid statement and I stand behind it.  The act is the reward.

That singular narcotic moment of creative bliss may only come once a decade, but when it hits, Holy Toledo you know you are alive.  

03 February 2014

The Day the Music Died

In the early morning hours of 3 February 1959, an inexperienced pilot lost the horizon and unintentionally crashed a single engine Beechcraft into a snow covered corn field near Clear Lake, Iowa killing all four souls on board, including himself.  If you know anything about anything, you know that this fateful event ended the lives of three musicians – J.P. Richardson, Ritchie Valens and Buddy Holly.  If you know even less than that, you likely know that this day has come to be known as the day the music died as coined and memorialized in Don McLean’s early 1970s hit American Pie

J.P. Richardson was a Beaumont, Texas DJ, an Army veteran, and by all accounts a loving husband and doting father.  Musically, he was effectively a novelty act however and if not for the ill-fated events mentioned above you would probably not know his name (and might not anyway in all reality).  His death, though tragic in every conceivable way is not the stuff a legend makes.

Ritchie Valens was / is an icon in the Latino rock ‘n’ roll community.  He influenced and has been covered by artists as obvious as Carlos Santana and as diverse as the Ramones and MxPx.  I want to be careful not to negate that legacy, but be honest; if you hadn’t watched that shitty Lou Diamond Phillips movie in the late ‘80s would you know his name?  Valens should be celebrated because he gave hope to a still marginalized segment of the American population, not because he won a coin flip with Waylon Jennings and died in a corn field as a result.

Buddy was by far, the most prominent of the three.  I won’t bore you right now with the particulars of his life or music because quite honestly you should already have them committed to memory.  Suffice to say that his significance in the lexicon of rock ‘n’ roll is of a singular and unequaled fashion.  His shadow is indeed long.

Don McLean’s song has never been fully explained and nobody really knows for sure what the artist truly intended and that is entirely by his design.  I’ve always imagined it as a metaphor for what he saw his country going through at the time, during his life.  As much as I’m capable of, I get it.  The 1950s, at least from a white, middle class perspective were apparently a helluva lot of bubble gum and sock hop nonsense or whatever and this calamity was the first that forced the collective to acknowledge an actual reality.  Intellectuals have debated AP’s cryptic lyrics for years and even in the least progressive of circles, the song is regarded as little more than a vehicle to carry McLean’s thesis of America’s lost innocence to a deaf ear.

In his magnum opus, McLean refers to them as the three men I admired most, the father, son and the Holy Ghost

I can’t put myself in his mental state at the time he wrote those or any other words, nor can I know what it felt like to be his precursor self; a thirteen year old paperboy folding newspapers in New Rochelle, New York and seeing a headline recounting the night before plane crash.  Between those two points in time however – barely a decade, American life had certainly taken a well documented turn.  The bubble gum and sock hops of his youth, the American ideal as it were had been replaced with unprecedented social unrest and body counts from an increasingly unpopular war in Southeast Asia on the evening news.  That must have sucked, but to reference their passing as comparable to that of the Christian Holy Trinity?  Come on, bro.

That he chose to use this tragic event as the first domino of what he saw as America’s stumble, though artistically valid and possibly dead on point has always irritated me.  He’s yet to come clean about his intent and that feels cheap.

The truth of the matter, at least as I have always viewed it is this.  In no uncertain terms, the events that precipitated the writing of American Pie are heartbreaking but at this point in time, all involved are better off because of it.  Forgive my impertinence, but Richardson was never going to be more than a local celebrity, a footnote in history at best without this.  Yes, I’m sure that fact is of little condolence to his surviving family.  Valens may not have been given his earned and public due as a pioneer of Chicano music and culture if not for that Midwestern night.  Again, there is no comfort for his family in that statement.  Buddy was a star, but there were indications that even his star was waning rapidly.  His widow could care less what I think, but I’m almost glad Buddy died that night.  He was supposed to die then…they all were.  That's harsh perchance, but fifty-five years have passed from that day to this though and I’m okay saying it.

Rationally, Buddy’s best music was behind him most likely.  He had already disbanded The Crickets and begun experimenting with un-rock ‘n’ roll orchestral arrangements.  Lubbock was in his distant rear view and the naïve purity with which he insisted those early records were formed and recorded was a secluded recollection.  His aspirations reportedly were steering him away from music all together and more toward a hopeful career in Hollywood.  He had recently fallen in love with and married a beautiful Puerto Rican girl named Maria Elena, and was only on tour because of a legal dispute with his dipshit manager who was siphoning nearly all earnings away from the Holly’s.  Maria miscarried their first child upon hearing the news of his death.

American Pie is a predictable metaphor and in my opinion should in no way be viewed as anything more than that.  It's a helluva good song, but the hell of it is that this wasn’t even nearly Don McLean’s best song.  His are some of the most insightful lyrical words and music you will never hear.  There are amazing lyrics buried in the grooves of his records that most people have sadly missed.  In spite of the fact that I view him perhaps unfairly as a lecherous douche bag in a business model, I dig that he said what he felt.  Even in the aforementioned mania, this jewel is buried…I was a lonely teenage broncing buck, with a pink carnation and a pickup truck… Who hasn’t felt that way in their life, right?

Did he choose the wrong metaphor?  In my opinion, yes.  His presumed intent was to celebrate, but he ultimately only trivialized all three men AND didn't even mention the pilot.  I’m still a little pissed off about it, but I feel better after writing it all incompletely down – maybe that’s the way Don felt too.  Maybe we would know if he wasn’t so immaturely consumed with and protective of his own art.  As much as you insist that it is, 3 February is not about you Don McLean.

Regardless,

Rest in Peace:

Roger Arthur Peterson

Jiles Perry, J.P. The Big Bopper Richardson

Richard Steven Ritchie Valens Valenzuela

Charles Hardin Buddy Holley (Holly).


You were all good people, and the music has most definitely not died.