reflections

it reverses as we get older, doesn't it? i don't know how many younga pictures of me i grabbed and threw in a drawer whenever i had a tenderoni over during my teen years. actually not too many since i didn't have many honeys come over during my teen years...but i practiced.

regard to the less, mom spent much of my childhood with a camera locked on me. must not have been too different from your youth. i don't know why the look of a child in a bathtub doesn't disturb parents...they just keep snappin' away. collections and collections of me. not that i ain't flattered, but when the sausage starts out as a slice of salami, you don't need a visual recollection of the journey.

nowadays, the parents are the kids. you take care of 'em and there you are with the camera clickin' away.

mom cookin' thanksgiving feast. -snap-
mom playin' with grandkids. -snap-
mom asleep in waiting room while elderly hubby is operated on. -snap-

wait. gettin' old's kinda sad and scary. maybe she don't want that recollected to her.

washington hospital center, 2008

mr. mark will never get old 'cause goonies don't die.

leaders of the new school

any education past kindergarten should make us proud. our ancestors worked their tiny little fingers to the bone when they got the prime working age of five, shoveling our coal, tending the fields, and sewing buttons. and if you're shoppin' at walmart you're still supportin' that.

regardless, treat yourself right for gettin' some serious triple r's in your noggin past the days old workin' age of five.

you should pull my finger because it releases the alphabet, yo.

potomac, md, 1985

sdrawkcab eman sih daer nac kram .rm.

Episode 8- Rebel Without a T-Shirt

Hip Hop From Mom's Basement- Rebel Without a T-Shirt from Mr. Mark on Vimeo.

are you allowed to wear your own image?

retrospective for life

one of the toughest things about bein' a parent has got to be your own sense of failure with your kids. your kids screw up, that gets forged into you screwing up. i don't blame too many people for not wantin' them. we're so messy as human beings, i can't imagine having to raise someone in my image. unless you're really cool. if you're tony hawk, toni morrison, or tony the tiger, that's an image that would be pristine to be under. and if you're tony the tiger's son, what's the legacy you create? frosted flaked drink?

now i'm just confusing everything. maybe some of us should remain abstinent.

gaithersburg, md, 2006

mr. mark would know every tactic that his kids would pull to sneak into the house.

peaceful journey

i finally figured out that kids are a way of acceptin' death. i mean, it's the one way to ensure your legacy and feel like you left somethin' behind. and there's an ethereal quality in knowin' that.

i would, however, have my kids sign contracts to ensure that they don't fuck up my legacy. like, no branch davidian style theatrics, no franchises developed that sell burgers, yogurt, or tacos that have zany spanglish names, and absolutely no pictures of them in tevas or birkenstocks. unless i have jesus as a child. and as a latin, that may be a possibility.

brooklyn, ny, 2003

mr. mark would like to talk to bruni about what disco smelled like.

case of the pta

woody allen and groucho marx always bringin' up "never wantin' to belong to a club that would have 'em for a member." i'm thinkin' i wouldn't wanna belong to any club that would have me as a teacher. you don't have to be in a classroom to pass on guidance and whatever wisdom you possess. these kids out there...they're sneaky, yo and they grab any nuggets of info they can out of you. five of 'em will come at you with questions to which you have no answer. what are they trying to do? would i really know what the size of a white dwarf is? i don't know how to stop an epileptic fit. will i marry your grandmother? not without a picture first, dog.

it's called entrapment and kids mess will fuck with you time and time again.

washington, dc, 2008

mr. mark is waiting for any former students to come out of the darkness one day with their autobiography "nonsense: how mr. mark lied to me."

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.

the illest

they say that physical sickness can be cured by your mental capabilities. isn't that wild, dog? we can fix ourselves. now, i don't know that i'd try that with a 9mm chest wound, but a sniffle and some rawness in the throat might be countered with positive thoughts and some optimism. sometimes, we need an extra hand there. i'd keep the people in your life that can do that. even if you have to call a 7-year-old to give your stamina a boost in the midst of a flu like onset or heartbreak.

kids are wise or somethin'. maybe they're ghosts.

washington, dc, 2007

mr. mark saves his co-pay 'cause his niece has got mad jungian skillz.

all my love

it takes the insight of an 8-year-old to define the status of your adult relationships.

washington, d.c., 2007

mr. mark is also weerd while she is so so so so so so pritty.

falln'

encourage broken bones and bruises in your young men. it makes 'em less likely to buy a corvette, put their balding coif in a pony tail, and hit on employees of cosi and panera bread past the age of 40.

children eat danger for breakfast, yo.

puno, perú, 2006

mr. mark ain't never met a slide he couldn't tackle.

microphone friend

it's so easy to convince kids to do anything. it's called bargaining, yo.

copacabana, bolivia, 2006

mr. mark trades garbage pail kids to get his car washed.

knowledge reigns supreme over nearly everybody

i aim to learn. use this thing called google a lot. but a lot of my information comes from kids. they pick things up and pass them on to you. kids are the real google, yo.

i knocked my arm months back while i was teaching. funny bone tinglin'...lost my concentration. dc youngin' says, "funny bone, right?"

"what about it?"

"give it a few seconds. that sensation happens because your bone is moving and it keeps it from breaking."

i will never trust information from the internet again.

kids are lil' scholars, yo.

washington, d.c., 2008

mr. mark stops 4th graders to ask how to stop hiccups.

papá large

offspring, pupil, or kidnappee, we all want someone who relies on us for wisdom (of sunlight). as the youngest and only male in the house, i was reeling for youthful admiration. occasionally, as an adult i've found it. however, when the moment is sealed, it is often me who looks like the pupil.

kids are life lesson givers, yo.

santiago de chile, 2006

mr. mark wants to be like mike, too. his dramatic work in dirty rotten scoundrels was mad underrated.

3 tha hard way

best pic eva. 'nuff said.

children remind me of my childhood, son.

colegio anakena, santiago de chile, 2005

yo, mr. mark would like to add "adorable" to his description.