I am honored that my proposal to hide a planet for the "Infinity Project" was accepted last week. Woo-hoo! Just 2 weeks before the artist will be in Atlanta.

The artist, Josh Simpson, started the project in the late 70's. He gives his (glass) planets to people to place all over the world in part, to confuse the heck out of future archaeologists.

I shall be placing an inhabited planet somewhere at the Kennesaw National Battlefield. This is the location of the heaviest fighting during the Atlanta Campaign in the Civil War, with earth works still intact and tunnels that the confederate army dug to escape their demise. It is also home to the Cherokee Indians until the “Trail of Tears". History from the mid-1700’s and late 1800’s - I figure this is a great place to further confuse the heck out of archaeologists or whatever life form may be around in thousands of years.

Check out his site if you have the chance. 

Infinity Project

The Bodies Exhibit will be in Atlanta in a couple of weeks and I am curious about different views on this...not a debate but truly interested. I seem to be in the .23% (and that is not 23 but point23) of the population in my beliefs on humans (dead or alive) and I have never really had a discussion about other views. Please know that what I post below is not based on any expertise....this is me reading and researching and depending on the credibility of others.

I will say that donating your body to science (in this country) does not give you or any family the right to decide how your body will be used. If you are one of those out there who would consider donating, it would be nice to know that your brain will be sent to Harvard and studied....but that just may not happen.

Cadavers are used for (of course) medical research but there are several other uses a cadaver has; and you don't get to pick.

Car crash dummies - Side impact testing. Front and back are pretty cut and dry scenarios - which is why all cars have front airbags and added safety. We are just now starting to see side-impact safety. Why so far behind? They are not cut and dry scenarios and quite frankly, the little plastic dudes don't break quite like the human ones. A bunch of hoopla over the way uncle bob will be used may have a lot to do with it.

Forensic science department at a (probably "the") university in Knoxville- they place the bodies in various situations where they watch and record the process of rotting. Gross? Yes. Want that job? No. But this research has advanced us to knowing what happened to a dead person without having to ask them. Crime solved.

My least favorite is military ballistics testing. Yes, propping granny up at the end of the field and filling her with bullets from the coolest, newest government issued war gun/bullet to see just how bad it will damage (the enemies') human body. I have read that casts filled with liquid gelatin and formed into human parts are beginning to replace the human cadavers.

Many times when the body is purchased for a "less than desirable" cause, the purchasing company will attempt to locate family and notify them (in general terms) where Auntie Jane is going. Of course, due to the number of law suits in previous history.

And for the record: I do not have any disrespect for the dead or how someone chooses to deal with them self after it's all over.

So I will make my only opinion here. Would you protest the new mini van with side impact air bags because that company may have used uncle bob to develop the technology? The Bodies Exhibit does not sell the items nor are individual pieces displayed in art museums (that I know of). It is a traveling exhibit of science. Yes, he may have taken it a bit over the top with the way the bodies are displayed and some people may have expected their brain to go to Harvard but (I feel) he is doing the general population a big favor.

The controversy over prisoners, baby parts stolen or whatever...it is going to happen with a controversial display. I will clarify that the stolen stuff is only speculation- he maintains that all parts were legal purchases on his part. Hell, look at modern man. We are desecrating the graves of the ancient Egyptians for study. They went through some serious shit to make sure their loved ones had the means to make it to the after-life and treated the dead body with the utmost respect. Then we come along and dig it up...for study? Yes. But it also goes on a tour and display in museums around the world. Did these archaeologists look up Auntie Jane to see if she was okay with it? A grave robber is a grave robber

For The Bodies Exhibit, the scientist (which he is- invented a process that replaces all water molecules with a plastine product, preserving the body forever. This process of 1 body takes approximately 12 months and 30k us dollars) is offering a little lesson on this vehicle you travel in - beyond "I know my heart is on the left. I learned that when doing the pledge of allegiance in first grade."

Most people will not get excited that the "Gray's Anatomy" book is on sale at Borders and actually learn (in such a boring fashion) about the human body. Guess that’s why I got my anatomy books at such a great discount and I will be contributing my 20 bucks to see the exhibit.

Those who know me...NO I am not traveling with any of the serial killer or dead body books - I am beyond the paranoia of potential serial killers all around me - or at least I thought.

Okay, 3 nights I have walked out of my hotel room for some food and a beer to the same brass-rail "thing" bar across the parking lot.

First two nights a potential serial killer sat at the end of the bar. Came in at the same time and ordered the same thing- brandy and a beer. He knows everyone working there but sits alone and maintained some seriously shifty eyes. Thank god he was not there tonight, I can walk across the parking lot and no need to heist my dinner steak knife to get "home" safely.

NO. Tonight there was a potential- maybe in training - serial killer who is really eager to talk with me - even though I tried to make it clear that serial killers just don't do it for me. He looks normal enough but makes some less than appropriate comments to the bartender, he goes out to smoke and she (the bartender) gets the familiar - "he is a freak" - look on her face LONG before she reaches my end of the bar to say, "that guy is a freak!" I figured this shit out when I walked in the door. It sucks that I have this weird ability (wrong or right) to read people's energy, especially when people have something to hide. Good, bad or private, it just seems to seep through their skin and clothes. Sometimes I would just like to BE there...a possible serial killer to the person next to me!

Serial killer returns and tells me about a baby on the way and how he started smoking at 5 and drank a 1/2 bottle of cold duck at 4. Lots of less than sane laughter coming out of his pie hole, too. Now I realize there is no killing going on but there is a serial issue happening.

This real world, brass-rail in the suburbs shit is already getting to my head....everyone looks like a damn serial killer!

I'm ready to come home and be the rich whitie with helicopters scoping the 'hood, drug deals and a possible knock on my door with a request for bus money.

Petty theft happens in Edgewood Estates, sometimes more than that but we have avoided gunpoint robberies. Of course it seems only those that play tennis in the park up the street get robbed at gunpoint...and well, I gave up tennis 'cuz I couldn't hold my beer, cigarette and that racquet thing. So I attest that bad habits will save me from armed robbery. About time they started to pay off!

So the lawn bags. We cleaned our yard; nice and tidy and placed the 6 full bags of leaves on the curb for pick up. The city only picks up yard bags once per month (and I never know when that is) so they sit for weeks and I notice one day we are down to only 5 bags.

What the hell? Did they only pick up one bag. I go to investigate. NOPE! Someone dumped our leaves out of the bag, back on our lawn and stole the bag....a $.50 bag (and that is probably on the high side).

My potted flowers on the porch were a hot commodity last summer. Had 4 or 5 taken and I know how this gig works - they get resold to other unsuspecting whities for a great price...I drove the 'hood hoping to steal them back but no luck!

Fed up, I start looking for a camera system that we can hook up to our computer and I can monitor our house via a website (back when I had a real job and didn't spend my days at home)....but Marc has a better and cheaper solution...(which worked for him). Give Butch the impression we already have a camera and word spreads like wildfire.....KABAM. Petty theft stops.

So how am I going to do this?.....LIE with a straight face and have a story believable enough. I believe that Karma will not kick my bootie for this type of lie, and if it does...so be it. Besides, I think my Karma is doing okay so I can do a slip or two now and again.

I invite Butch up on the porch for a beer and cig and ask if he has seen my shit around the hood. "You see", I begin, "this shitty camera system we have on our porch didn't get a clear enough picture to prove who stole my plants, but I have a good idea who it was. So I had to go buy new new spy cameras that work in the dark". . I even went so far as to get the ladder out and fart around on the porch one afternoon to make it a bit more believable.

Today I have some added entertainment (to Butch's already crazy presence); watching him scope out the porch looking for the rich whitie hidden cameras while rambling about my shortcomings and mooching smokes and beers.

AHHH yes. Nothing else stolen from my porch and I have yet to be hit by a bus for my little lie. ~MISSION ACCOMPLISHED~

Found someone on the stream today... OldDylanFan. (yes Rob...I am working, too!)

Read his profile and most recent post (couldn't read more cuz yes - I am working, Rob)....he quoted Tom Waits. Oh my! And lived in NM...the coolest, hippiest people on the planet. Colorado is full of Trustafarians so this state does not count - in the hippie dept. Taos and the art, Albuquerque and the hot air balloon races. Yum.

And the people who plant themselves in New Mexico.! Can't go into much detail about the people I have met there ...But will say that I miss that part of the country!

So I sit here listening to my all time favorite artist on CD. Tom Waits. "Someone stole my record player, well howdya' like that?"

Got to see him perform live, Tom Waits, that is. WOW. Like William S. Burroughs a generation later and doing music instead. Mason thank you so much for going to the show!!!!

So here I shall post my musical favorites. Guess the'hood is quiet again

1. (given) Tom Waits
2. Iggy Pop (with and without the Stooges)
3. Ani DiFranco
4. Pixies - can die happy now that I saw them live
5. Beatles (later years)
6. Soulive
7. Miles Davis
8. Peter Gabriel- brilliant he is
9. Ben Harper. Add a bunch of hippie banDs on the tour in Steamboat Springs...talk about a tent-pitching on the side of the slopes, throw down smoke fest, tubing down the river later in the day and the kegerator and well...put the little sunglasses guy right here. Whew. Hey, Mason! It seems that was your doing again. thanks
10. Social D
11. David Byrne. He puts on an amazing show and keeps pushing the boundaries of music.

Now I have a full evening of listening so i shall stop here.