Artists Farm

I have been going to craigslist looking for my next home since last February. Its getting very depressing. Either the place doesn’t take cats, or thinks I am going to “operate a commercial enterprise from their residence”, or the rent is so high I will never get any down payment saved up for my own home.

I hate seeing ads that say “New carpeting!” For someone with a commercial sewing machine, thats the last thing you want to read. My current flat’s wood floors were ruined by the previous tenant’s bulldog pissing on it for 13 years, so I couldn’t make it much worse.

I saw one ad that spoke of a nice work shop/garage, only a few miles from my hopyard, just what I need: but they only allow dogs. Which is odd because it was a farm house attached to a large working farm that someone bought to operate, but didn’t want to live in the original house.

My new landlord thought it would be a breeze, finding a new apartment on craigslist. When he handed me a 60-day notice maybe he figured I could be gone in a couple weeks (he wants to start re-habbing the flat). He didn’t know I’d been looking since February.  My failure of a case manager at ARCW also wondered why I am so distraught, as she also said ” there are hundreds of apartments on craigslist!” I told her it wasn’t her job to help me find a new place, rather to help make sure I don’t get illegally tossed out of my current home of 5 years. This little bump seems to have settled out for now, the 60 days is forgotten but in the end, I still need to find my next home. I was lucky the old owner even let me into this space, though he laughed at my slings, saying I should sell some to his proctologist. Of course that was when the first floor tenants actually had “day” jobs, that allowed me to make a little bit of noise upstairs.  The current couple below me sleep in till noon, right underneath my sewing machine. They kind of stretched my definition of “day jobs” when they answered my  craigslist ad for the flat.

I have been finding lots of really excellent looking houses on craigslist, but guess what I get back? Emails from West Africa. I’ve had a couple already.

When I drag myself out of bed in the morning, I feel like the Dunkin Donut guy. Another day full of the same old same old. And not just a little bit of SO,SO: no indeed, every increasing quantities! Recently I had to turn down a local Mongol-style horse-bow dealer who wanted leather finger gloves, because I am so busy making leather for my website as well as 3 others and 2 brick & mortar locations so far (I think, it gets a bit much for one person to track after awhile) He supplied the bows Attila the Hun used in the Ben Stiller Thriller, Night at the Museum.

He forgot his appointment date when we were going to tweak the pattern a bit. In the end, I cannot really design a good archer glove if I am not actually holding a bow. Its just one of those things! Still, a consistent seller, awkward or not.

Today, a Sunday of all days, what do I find myself doing by 10:00 am? Applying edge kote to and burnishing sling corners for 11 slings. I still have to add a few holes, then rivet the D rings into place before I mount them on the sling slabs. If you are really, really bored you can watch my shopcam – during the day its usually on and has my playlist piped in. There are several recorded bits that will start playing if my webcam is OFF at the time.

I just brought up my Sling Track spreadsheet to see where I’m at currently: since January 1st I have made and shipped 208 latigo & canvas slings. Since 2007, 2,105 slings (including latigo, canvas and neoprene)

Its a rare day I don’t make a sling, not to mention a lot of other leather goodies for Fort Troff. Here’s my shout-out to Hawk at Ft Troff: thanks for doing all the advertizing and promotion so I never really had to! I’d never get anything done…

I would say I have taken it upon myself as my “Great Work”, to make as many slings as I possibly can. The experiences guys have in those slings  (well, more than just guys I have to admit but I don’t have the man-power to get into *that* market) carries on a timeless tradition of using sex to expand consciousness. Knowing our bodies intimately and feeling them become almost electric, setting the stage for the next doors of the mind and the universe to open up. Our science suggests we inhabit 4 dimensions out of a total of eleven, including Gravity. String Theory & M-Theory explain things better than a two thousand year old batch of myths handed down by power brokers.

We know that the visible matter in our universe is the smallest fraction of the totality.

I know I am not the only one whose mind’s eye has ridden the wormholes of that space you only manage to get into with significant personal effort, quite often in a sling and additives like yohimbe tea, along with the myriad other regular party additives.

Our science describes nano-tubules in the brain’s neurons, an inner, open space across that most complex inter-connectivity , just large enough for a pattern of energy quanta to develop.

We know that energy is never destroyed, however energy patterns can fade away. Myself, I’d rather Not Fade Away.

We are pretty sure the cold (blue) spots of the WMAP image of the background microwave radiation are where our space is pushing against another universe or two

Road trip anyone?

Anyone who manages to hold their mind together in this universe for the next 20-odd billion years until the Big Rip is going to find themselves in a cold, lonely space.  That space might once have been filled with bodies hermeticists   call “egregores” which are the psychic manifestation of all the various thought streams throughout SpaceTime. Non-physical forms manifested entirely of intent, worship, prayer, whatever you wish to call it. Accumulations of Purpose. An example of an egregore is a church congregation, and the combined focus of intent all those joined minds create. There are old ones as well as new, strong ones and weaker ones that are fading away from neglect; one very strong current we name Catholicism.  Its been generating itself for almost a couple thousand years now,  and is only getting stronger. I’d have to suggest the Mormon heaven is making steady inroads into Catholic Heaven, each pushes each other aside, thus increasing the space between our galaxies. I suggest that Dark Energy may have something to do with the accumulated layers of consciousnesses over time, almost like scale forming in a water pipe.  Accretions of intent. I think of them as group homes for those not quite prepared for the real journey, and accept the dogma handed to them. Everyone gets their own heaven, I think. Its painfully obvious that no two people’s version of heaven will ever be similar, so I suspect you just sequester yourself away from the rest of us, by falling for the temptation of that “loving tunnel of white light” so many near-death experiences recount. This smacks of a “honey-pot”, a dream that lasts through all eternity in which your mind plays itself out, utterly disconnected from any other “heaven” around you.  The Dark Energy pushing our universe apart is, to my mind, the backyards of everyone’s personal heaven butting up against each other. A place of your own to slowly fade away.

I choose to be a free agent.

twice now I have been shut out of potential rent-to-own situations, I suspect because the owners look at my Madison Leathersmith website and follow the link over to this website.

Then their brains freeze up.

I am being shoved out of my apartment of 5 years, time is short.

Yesterday my new building owner stopped by (without the usual 24 hours notice, by the way) and handed me a 60 day eviction notice. I had been trying to find a new rental since last February, knowing my building was being sold and my second floor flat needs a lot of work, like new windows, linoleum floors, bath tub, and sand the wood floors. Attend to twenty years of neglect by the previous owner. I don’t want my leather around when the floor is sanded, thats for sure.

However finding a new home for me & my little leather workshop is proving difficult.  The grey house a couple of posts below this post was a rent-to-own, with 7 acres of fresh electric fence for a horse pasture and a few acres of woods (always a plus), not far from Madison. I found the rental on craigslist and replied to the management company handling the property. They sent my information to the owner out in Las Vegas, and he apparently looked at my email address domain, went to my website and clicked the link over to this website where he read something about how I think it’d be fun to have a llama or two.

He asked me, over the phone from Las Vegas, “What do you boys intend to be doing with these alpacas?” Mind you, I did not ask him if he was into bestiality, if that was why he put in the electric fence, but thats right where his mind went when it came to an HIV+ man living in the country.

Another potential landlord told me “Its obvious you intend to operate a commercial enterprise from my residence, which is not zoned for such”. Another one told me “Well, if you are running a business, I will have to charge you more for rent”

I’ve had my at-home business in 3 states, always registered as an S-corp, and because I have no foot traffic, there are no zoning issues.

I’ve been in my current apartment for five years now. I conducted the dozen or so tours of potential buyers over the last several months (even leaving a little notch above my door for each tour.) I even had to step up for the building inspection as my property management company guy claimed he was sick that day and would I mind doing his job? I did not get a slice of the commission.

I have been mowing the yard here ever since my previous owner’s adult son moved out of dad’s basement, and my lawn stopped getting mowed. I even bought my own lawn mower, against the day I actually get my own lawn.

I was here a couple years back when the building was re-insulated and a new space-age $10,000.00 boiler was installed in the basement. If I had not been here, this 2 flat house would have only one thermostat, instead of one for each floor. Now we have zone pumps.

I really enjoy taking care of the houses I live in. My new building owner wants me out so he can let his unemployed nephew move in, do the renovations and maybe move out in time for Madison Wisconsin’s annual Moving Day, when all the university students change party houses. My new owner seems to think that is the best time for him to find someone “who wants a home.” The fact it has been my home for five years meant nothing to him. My original lease date,  from five years ago, ran from November to October and had nothing to do with Madison Moving Day. Moving Day is a great way to destroy your investment property. That property manager guy was complaining to me once about how hard his job is, managing 400 properties. Well, I guess if you hinge all the move-out dates to the ebb & flow of students, you have to handle 400 new leases all in one month, instead of spread across 12.

My “notification of lease non-renewal” appears totally legal, too, as my wunderkind property manager had written into the sales agreement a clause allowing me to give 30 days notice, “For your protection” he said. Now that same clause is being used by my new owner to easily get me out of the way. Its not like I don’t want to leave, I do. I really really do.  But in my own good time, when the right house comes along.

AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin tells me if its legal, I gotta go. Legal, yes: Right, no.

It is my hope that I can find a new home for my leather shop very soon, a home big enough to allow a couple adults to live comfortably together, cooperatively. I am desperate for an apprentice: I trudge out of bed in the morning muttering “time to make the slings” like the Dunkin Donut guy. Less than 10 years ago I was living out of my 2 door Grand Am, and now I have developed a business that grosses in excess of $70,000 annually. Also, I hate cooking for one. While my credit score is probably better than most, I have not sequestered a down payment from my normal operating cash-flow. I’m a year away from buying which is too bad, as the housing market will only get stronger.

Sometimes I feel like I have created a monster and it is consuming me. Honestly, my business can keep three people busy, and if I can’t move into that new phase of operations living out of my van looks better and better. I literally have not had a vacation since I moved out of my car in Florida.

All in all, a predictably depressing situation. If my efforts to get word out about Artists Farm during IML fall flat,  well, I guess that’s that. If there is someplace I can find an HIV+ guy who really likes leather, its IML. Maybe not any of the guys attending, but maybe they know someone back home who wants to work with leather and has no job. Gotta be a couple of those out there. I’m about over Wisconsin too, by the way. I have had my leather workshop in 3 states now, and I must say the HIV treatment here in Wisconsin leaves a lot to be desired. Attitudinal problems like the dental hygienist at AIDS Network scolding me when I complained of acid reflux “You should shut up because you are getting this for free”. She’s gone (of course), but the sentiment remains.  Or my so-called HIV “specialist ” at the UW Hospital Immunology Clinic shrugging his shoulders when I present a box of Celestial Seasoning Detox A.M. tea, containing echinacea and warning to not drink if you have AIDS/HIV right there on the label. I had been telling that doctor for years that occasionally I take some echinacea, and for all those years Immunology had no trouble with it. But somehow, Celestial Seasonings knows something to the degree they print a warning right on the box. The specialist shrugged his shoulders and started muttering something about St Johns wort. I got up and walked out, with no follow-up appointment. I fired them. (Partly because that same specialist refused to write me a script for zoloft but as soon as my primary care physician did, the specialist criticized the dosage level)

I figure the best kind of room mates to share my troubles with are people in the same boat I am: managing their HIV and refusing to give in, give up.

Namaste

Patrick Brumm