leaders of the new school

if i had my choice of early ed curriculum, i would come up with my coloring book of famous failures. we get told how wonderful people are and feel like we can't match up, yo. lincoln was an honest man and then became a president. benjamin franklin did a few experiments and then created a lightbulb. rob lowe just woke up pretty.
what's left out is the fact that people worked, failed, failed, and failed until they got somewhere. my man einstein spent decades on the theory of relativity. yet, my school books used to have him nailin' it out in one page. quick fix society, no wonder we're ready to give up at such an early age. teach failure as an investment strategy. don't invest in failure.

also, give kids free pumas to stop 'em from using those fuckin' wheelie shoes everywhere.

washington, dc, 2007

mr. mark would like to be your next calculator.

put your head out

amazing the fazes we go through in our teens- underground music...lying...vandalism...suicide attempts...

the source, 1992

mr. mark thinks parking garages are an adult way of rekindling that last option.

a song about a friend

nowadays, how do you know who's got your back? it's a rough world out there. who's gonna be the one holdin' your hand when you roll over yet another charming relationship? help get you through weight loss strategies? tell you it's gonna be ok after you pee all over your pants while on a first date to see "when we were kings" and your date is standing outside the bathroom waiting for you and it was really just an accident...just an accident, for real?
we had the mixtape, didn't we? you know that meant a lot. it told you who wanted you in their life for whatever reason. best friends would trade the "hypeness mixes" relaying to the other "when i put toad the wet sprocket next to ned's atomic dustbin it reminds me of the wonderful times we have hitting that glass pipe in your garage." the "i'm into you mix" is a fave, so much time and effort and you really know how well or poorly the bedroom sessions will go based on how many unironic tears for fears, roxette, or broadway ballad entries there are (maybe she's an eastern european drama major?). there are many more, but i liked the "rawness mix." while it shares some qualities with the "hypeness mix," its real goal is to say "when we get into some shit, this'll be playin' while i'm crackin' pool sticks off some skulls." don't know if that ever happened, but when compton's most wanted is on the playlist, you know you got someone down for life.

what's the equivalent today? sharin' a bank account with a loved one doesn't really seem to have the same effect. you don't really find "stoned is the way of the walk" baby bibs on gymboree registries. i'm reachin' out to the young people to give your peers some documentation of your love. make it official with a soundtrack to that person. it gets confusin' later on when you find yourself readin' into the potential soundtrack ellicited from an olive garden gift certificate.

winston-salem, north carolina, 1993

mr. mark would rather a chi chi's gift certificate is all he's sayin'.

the rep grows bigga

what would the romans have done if they had digital cameras? what about genghis khan? leif ericson? what kind of documentation would we have had? age automatically adds something. the vintage pix are all about "crew stylin'." ain't even tryin', just doin'. even when we try to get a rep with the photographic image it can't mess with the posse effect of stone faces and sepia from years back. but who knows, maybe the romans would've inundated us with thousands of pix of them celebrating with their girlfriends over martinis and "oh god...yeah...that one where marci fell down...and oh yeah, the one where we're all in the picture clinking our glasses...and the ones where we're dancing because 'livin' on a prayer' came on"...without even the common decency to edit them before putting them on facebook. fucking romans, yo.

while this pic may not be in my lifetime, fella in the middle was. spawned me in '79 and thank god there ain't no "stylin'" pix of that, son.

puerto rico, 1950

for once, mr. mark would like to be invited to have martinis.