Friday, April 22, 2005

college drop-out friend And here's something I don't think I ever told Matt: When it looked like I was definitely going to flunk out of FSU my first semester of college (way back in 1988), I remember I thought right away to call Matt Simmons from Tallahassee. For some reason, I figured Matt would be a good college drop-out friend.  I figured he would commiserate with me about how stupid college was anyway. And I was right. 11:13:20 PM    comment [] nicole gold! I think it was about 1992, and I was 22 years old when I was riding my bike downtown and I looked up and saw this giant billboard looming overhead that said, "NICOLE GOLD!!!" That billboard referred to Nicole Haislett, a girl from here in St. Pete that took a gold medal in swimming in the 1992 Olympics. That billboard had quite an impact on me for a couple of reasons. 1) One reason was that I actually was on the community swimteam with Nicole when we were little kids.  I considered myself a pretty good swimmerback then, and I won a few ribbons.  But by highschool I was getting blown away by much better athletes, and without ribbons and medals to stoke my self-esteem, I soon dropped out. 2) The other reason that the billboard had such an impact on me was that, for a 22 year old, I couldn't have been much more the opposite of a gold-medal winner.  I was like a lead medal winner.  The bicycle I was riding on (underneath the billboard) wasn't my "mountain bike" for excercising that I put on the back of my SUV.  It was, in fact, my only transportation. I used that bike to get back and forth between my $200 a month apartment, and my $5 per hour Subway Sandwich job.  I had no girlfriend at the time and I beat-off incessantly. To feel mysterious and important, I would scribble thoughts and ideas into composition notebooks.  Whenever I could, I got drunk and high. 11:06:52 PM    comment [] sign-chronicity *Rachel called a friend of hers in Orlando to see if he was available to help install the sign on Saturday.  (She remembered him as a big strapping, guy who would be useful in such a situation).  But it turns out he's committed to help somebody move. The guy's girlfriend, however, was psyched about coming along.  As it turns out, she works for an ad agency that manages billboards in the Orlando area.  She has access to a database that tells her who all the signs belong to, when they get serviced, etc.  How's that for a coincidence? *For the past three nights, all I've dreamt about is climbing up onto that billboard structure and installing my art.  In last night's dream, when I climbed up to the sign catwalk, it turned out to be in the middle of some sort of Mexican factory, with Mexican dudes walking all around me in hard hats, etc.  They didn't seem to be bothered by me.  The suspense kept building as I got closer and closer to completion.  But of course, before I was done, I woke up. *The paper says that there's a cold front moving through the area on Saturday afternoon, with showers by the PM.  Strong winds would make the installation almost impossible, probably vey comical, and possiby disasterous. 7:54:37 AM    comment []

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