SAP
This is for a product that I dreamed up to serve as a non-alcoholic alternative. I imagine it for people who, like me, enjoy obscure and dynamic flavor combinations.
One of the best flavors I came up with when prototyping this product was Yuzu Rosemary.

Made for the flavor-promiscuous

At SAP, we like to mess around with flavor, and nothing is off-limits.
We think some of the best adventures start with your mouth
and we want to take those taste buds of yours for a ride.

Here’s the deal
Get a glass that you love to drink from and add a pump of SAP.
Then add club soda. Taste.
Not enough? Add another pump.
You’re smart, fun, great looking…
you get the picture.

Chirp
This was the voice-over for an animation that i made as part of my Motion Graphics MFA thesis at Savannah College of Art and Design.
This animation, as you will see, is about teaching children to gain control of and quiet their thoughts, or “birds” as I analogize.
My hope is this video will help children, between the ages of 7 and 12, learn how to meditate in an approachable way.

On a day just like today
in a brain, very much like yours, there were 3 birds.

There was the Nervous Bird who trembled and said things like: “But what if I fall?” “But what if I get a bad grade?”
There was the Bully Bird who said things like: “You don’t deserve that, you’ll just embarrass yourself”
And there was the Wise Bird who was kind and encouraging and said things like: “Don’t be nervous, just try your best. You’ve got it in the bag!”

The problem was that the Wise Bird spoke in a whisper and the other birds were very loud.
This meant that the brain couldn’t hear the Wise Bird

Until one very cold day, when the loud birds were too cold to squawk, and the wise bird whispered something very important to the brain.
“Did you know you can train us?”
The brain thought and thought and thought, just like your brain does.
And the brain asked, “How?”
“Would you like to know how?”

To hear the rest and see the video, please click here.

These are two poems that I wrote many years ago when I was studying Creative Writing in undergrad.

Rusting Clowns

Off Tamiami Trail there's a town
where people call each other
honey and talk about plumbing

over grayish meatloaf and watery
ketchup.  "Those energy-
savin' toilets are great until somebody's

gotta take a poop."  "Yeah, twice
a week now, we gotta get someone
to come auger out the damn pipes—"

In Gibsonton, Florida, Gibtown as
It's called, rare is typical.
Normal homes, regular people, usual

lives, tethered animals—there aren't any;
and this is where we re-met.  We re-met
among injured camels roaming free

and rusting clowns—clowns,
which, until now, I always considered more
circus than carnival—.  We re-met among

men covered in scales, clusters of trailers,
and woman with dirty nails and mouths
who find it easier to understand what

you don't say, than what you do.
--I must confess, I wish I was
one of those women.

We re-met in Gibsonton,
which is where all the broken things
go—You, thin as usual,

a pouty bottom lip, sharp wit, clenching
a pale beer in a plastic mug.
Me, guzzling tap water from a

cracked cup while using the
waitress' chatter—Ranch,
French, Thousand Island…

to look at your profile
through the Plexiglas room-
divider—a reflection of our past.

I can remember the way
we used to talk—revealed and raw—
which was all wrong for that world.

Now—refined and concealed—
wrong for this one.  You and I both
know, this isn't the way things

would be if we were alone—but
how do you make privacy
among friends?

If it was only the two of us in some trailer
with the smell of elephant wafting
through, you could pull your hands from your

pockets and show me your secret: that Lobster Boy
was your great great uncle, but that you've
dreamed of being Bubble Boy.

On the way home, as we passed
both new and old Tilt-a-Whirls and
then parted at a Shining-new

Ferris Wheel—you, Heading north
—I slipped south and your taillights
made me wonder:  What happens to

the men with the scales when they
leave Gibsonton?
Do they turn as wild and

ravenous as crocodiles?
Is that what will happen to me
when I go back to gated-

communities and well-bred puppy dogs?
I can't help but wonder what our lives
would be if we became

part of this—the rides, the funnel
cakes.  We could winter in Gibsonton
and travel the world headlining—

The Lobster-Clawed Bubble Boy,
and The Three-Eyed Fortune Telling Wonder—.

Chagall’s Kyoto

It amazed me to see my first Chagall stashed
on the seventh floor of Isetan Department Store,
Kyoto. After 6 floors of dizzying escalators and


suited, powered women in hats—bowing as if birds
dipping their beaks into a coy-filled pond,
I mazed my way through the children’s section:


Anpanman (translated as bread man and popular
among four-year olds) on my left, and Deka
Ranger and USA Hana straight ahead.


As I brushed against a wrack heaving with Kitty-chan
Rain-jackets, I realized I had arrived. It was a small
Space, with walls masked in paintings and paintings


Interrupted by slow wandering people—except for three
They weren’t wandering at all.
It is little known that the grandmothers of Japan

Only occasionally have grey hair. Many prefer
Lavender, Azalea, or Hydrangea blue. And so,

Before a canvas of acrobats and beneath a spot-
light, they stood. Side-to-side, 3 tufts of cotton candy.

Faking It

“All you little interns get your fancy degrees and come in here and try to learn what we do.  Three months from now you won’t know a thing about this business—you won’t even remember us”, said Ken.  “That may be true, but that isn’t because I haven’t tried.  I try to get in there and learn.  I’ve asked tons of questions.  I’ve even tried to work on a machine and when I did I was yelled at and told it was a safety hazard.  You guys don’t want to invest your time in teaching us, and in a lot of ways, I don’t blame you.  You’re wrong, though, if you think I haven’t tried.  And, I’ve gotta tell you, I will remember you guys.  I can name all the guys I worked with on the other shift when I started—Steve, Todd, Bruce…”  “Yeah, but you don’t talk to them,” Ken spouted back.  “Actually, I just emailed Steve yesterday.”  Butterbean looked uncomfortable.

Until now our exchange was typical.  I learned early on that part of my survival here would be taking crap from the guys I was working with, and then dishing it right back.  That’s part of the culture out here and part of my job, whether it was specifically expressed to me or not, is to gain an understanding of this culture.  After three and a half months of working here, I get it.  

I know that the one of the reasons they want trainees on the floor is to feel what twelve hours on your feet is like, to experience what it’s like to get home at 8am and to try to sleep through your neighbor’s comings and goings.  What this company doesn’t seem to understand is that we, the trainees, are not them, the factory workers, and as long as we stay down here, watching and asking, we won’t ever be.  

The men—and almost everyone in the factory, except for a few single mothers, are men—have jobs that make a difference.  They work hard and their work creates a product and that is the whole reason this company can exist.  For a variety of reasons: our safety, company productivity, the workers’ lack of desire to teach us, we are quietly banned from taking part in the work that is this company.   As we stand watching people do their jobs, the very gap the company is trying to use us to fill is broadening.  From the moment we arrive on the floor everyone resents us—the rich, oblivious college kids.