#tim barrus photography

[timbarrus]

tim barrus

Take notes. I'm old and ruined. I drive a dirt bike. Fixed for Road Trips. I am autistic. "He's too old to ride a dirt bike." Ghosting is easy. My policy is to only know young people. Anyone can talk the talk. Walking the walk is different. And I can just disappear. I like throwing the Normals out of my life. They have a real passion for Everyone Must Be Like Them. The Finger. Age is probably illegal. You cannot control me. I mask. Tight. As a teacher, my students were the bad ones. Some, recognized the autism right away. Most did not. I've gotten rid of cars, television, the lust for technology. The boss. I have no human empathy. All homo sapiens are evil.

I am exhausted with intolerance projected at me by Normals. I get into bar fights. I live out of one bag. That alone makes them think I must be crazy to not want stuff. I can get on the bike and never see you again. Age and Autism are my second selves. Davis is right. Mental acuity and age are realities you don't want to talk about. It means, You, Too. Right up there with Mental Health. They have no idea how to deal with neurodivergence. Frankly I do not care. What The Children Want. I do not care about what anyone wants. In school, they just wanted to beat the neurodivergence out by slapping my face in class. Other people are the enemy. Aging just makes it spit. The only way I can mask myself from the demanding evil humanity is to live in the woods. You don't age in the woods. You begin to see everything.

[timbarrusart]

Dirt Bike Town is a novel of a road trip. The road trip of road trips. The ocean was taking a great chunk out of the landscape worldwide. The skies were filled with a glowing ash. We moved. Everyone moved. It was time to become far, far more aware than we had ever been. We were the Marginals. They were the Normals. The conflicts between us had caused all of this to happen. No one wanted another war. -- Tim Barrus

[timothybarrus]

Tim Barrus. The Great American Novel

[lesmagnifiquessauvages]

tim barrus

[survivingquarantine]

[timotheebarrus]

Tim Barrus Art

[timbarrus]

i told you that you have to feel your way, that it’s about you and the reality you can do this/ plot it our, leading into the mud/ it’s not about your speech, your roads, this is walking the walk, the Normals never go here/ it’s called stopping to listen to the trees/ you avoid the rabbit in the middle of the field, you make a bee line around him/ it is only gravity that keeps you here/

[timbarrus]

My photography has an element where my friends converge on any project I am doing that involves images that are a role play. My friends take an image of a theme or a social issue or (when they feel safe when discussing something as vulnerable as loneliness), that wraps their issues as the individuals that are playacting into something less than predictable, one brief moment where Miss Candid looks into the mirror. I did this in X-ray form because that is where the inside of all your stuff lives. Tim Barrus

[timbarrus]

Stoked: Our tractor trail meandered through the maples like it had been there forever. My grandfather made the tractor trail, the tractor trail. We never called it a road because it was the tractor trail. I would climb on and hold tight. Hold tight. We swerved into the apple orchard. They would be ripe enough to pick in August.

August summers were the work of an arrant sun. Soaking in sweat. In August, I meet up with Killian and Eavan. Three autistics going to Beach Baby Babylon Buys a surfboard at the Sugar Shack. I loved the farm. But I gotta find that fix of Sugar Shack. Everyone had a surfboard because this tiny strip of land we call the beach, was California kruising, hits the crests of waves, bailing, aerial and flies across the rip currents of the impacted zone.

On the beach again. Killian wants to know how they do it. He brings this up every year. Not unlike a windswell tidal bore of conscience catches a ride pushed by the sun.

How Do They Do It is code for how do normal guys hook up with women. I did and didn’t share their interest. You went for the impact zone, Sport. What is the impact zone. The impact zone is your mama. Every year we crack up at the same jokes. It dates them. Not me. My biggest secret is that I am still seventeen, and very, very stupid.

The last time my dad beat the shit of me was the day I turned fifteen. We are all windswell rip currents. Caught inside the impact zone. The apples will be ripe enough to pick in August. It’s backbreaking work and filthy sweat. The three of us are good at the apple picking, and when the day was glowing past us. Together to smoke weed and drink the apple cider beer that Killian makes in the shed.

Killian gave everyone a flashlight. Then, he took a picture of us twirling the flashlights around and around. Any artist I ever met was mad. They are all quit mad. It’s just you, and a bunch of stuff like horizons. We went into the dark shed. Three new boards. We took them out and pretended, we were currents turned away. “The Indifferent Children of the earth.”

[timbarrus]

There is no fighting back. He won. The rapist will rape anyone he wants.

[timbarrus]

Take notes. Appalachia: I have coffee in the coffee shop on Main Street. We call it Main. The City Fathers arrived to answer questions. There is really only one question: Why did no one show up to help us through a hurricane. You rebuild. Struggling. There used to be mountain people who thought Climate change was a hoax. Great Leader said so. You have to look at education in the South. There is little tolerance for kids who ask too many questions. So you never ask questions. You slink around marginalized. You put adolescent energy into basketball. Sports is your only option. You will Comply. I am the unofficial Secretary of State. I arrive every morning with a long list of the Felon's crimes.

We have one woman who the gossips say: She's a Lesbian. Half the people left. Good riddance. Some of us (including me) think that the Felon wants to kill us. We think he will succeed because Americans (this is where you would tobacco spit on the floor, and you catch yourself) are weak. Women serve us. Coffee? Bleached blondes. No high heels. Hospital shoes. Everything comes home. These are men who own tomato fields, cucumber fields. Potato fields. Apple orchards. They need migrants to pick the crops or they go broke fast. Migrant workers arrive in August. Changing your mind is hard stuff, you all. They are slowly coming to realize I am a radical. Not a liberal. We swear. “Language.” The women don't like it. “Language.” In time I will teach them to hate the Felon’s guts. -- tim barrus

[timbarrus]

Take notes. This is the kind of lame response (do not upset the horses in the barn because they will escape and cause a traffic jam). The old huff and puff will throw his tizzy. You do realize, you have elected a mentally challenged felon. Child. Send the baby to his room. The editorial board is talking about just stand up and just say no. Courage. Again. Why are Americans so self-defeating. Just saying no, no, no, it's not your birthday. "I want a present." Can somebody got out and get a present for the President. Will somebody at least tie his shoes. He's going to throw a tizzy. NYT is wild not to be forced into another Pentagon Papers SCOTUS fire sale. You cannot have it both ways. NYT talks the talk. They do not walk the walk. Heaven forbid. It's easier for us swallow the various humiliations than it is to say: Get out of our way. Do they preach Do Not Go To The Inaugural. No. Do they always use an uncivil pejorative to describe demonstrators. Yes. Do they imply: This is not a movement. Yes. Do they support antifelon groups and orgs. No. How dare you call us uncourageous. Resiliency. Stand tall. Stand tall. Be brave and then, run for your life. I took my kids to the airport. I had it all prearranged. I absolutely refuse to allow my children to be ruled by a convicted felon. But, oh, no, don't send your child into safety. The NYT does not know what a parent is. You tell us, "Such moves only reward his abuses and even legitimize them." Prove it. Prove it. Prove it.

[timbarrus]

The novel is now writing itself.

[timbarrus]

[timbarrus]

I was living in NYC when the Mineshaft opened. I am a chronicler of wet people from the rain and soaked, and traveling with you is dangerous but that was when I was dangerous, too. The cab has to be slick, new, and as yellow as Baby Duck Shampoo. The driver did not ask us for our destination. The driver just knew. I do not write about weapons on the subway because I do not write about weapons on the subway. Don’t ask. You walk up a long stairway and prove you were not a cop because the cop room was for cops. I do not like billy clubs anywhere around me.

I wrote the book, Mineshaft in one long snowy night

Even the light was evasive. 

That novel has sold over 100,000 copies. At the top of those stairs, there was the blond door boy. Who really did check you over. Why would I carry drugs, and Mommy taught me drugs are bad. There is no answer to this question. I am asked: What was the Mineshaft. I have to stare at the blond door boy (he needed a pick me up) as he licked my spoon. Hi, blond door boy let us in.

And so he did.

A maze of shadows and fetishes.

Sex is still a political act. Only this time, the Breeders win. It’s called revenge. 

The Mineshaft is the past.

I ran into famous men. Best forgotten. I like living.

The Mineshaft is not forgotten by anyone who sailed past hat place alongside meatpacking loading docks  that smelled like meat. The roof of the Mineshaft took your breath away. It was a light show of instruments and discourse. Deals as to what would happen next were negotiated on the roof just like the rest of us on roofs in the dark and just drink it all in.

Cowboys and spurs. Especially the spurs.

The cold of the spurs flashed blue glinting at a disappearance in less than a second. A flash on hash full fathom five. A neutrino zipping through you eyes of haze and crystal daze, your eyes never knew it was there.

I took notes. Taking notes was another political act. It’s intimidating. But I take them anyway because I’m autistic. Minutia Make Your Point. Most people just watched and none of them were taking notes. -- tim barrus

[timbarrus]

Take notes. If I wanted to read a self help book, I would have bought one. I see self help rhetoric. I am working with people who emulate Antifa and Act Up. I do not throw shade on violence. What I hope for is civil war and let's get this business of finishing the War Between the States. Forever. While the New York Times whines. Resilience is not an American attribute. America is not about being brave. Or defined by self help. The bottom line in America is that free speech has been replaced by moderators whose very existence is fundamentally based in "do not upset the horses in the barn." This from people at the New York Times who obviously do not know what civility really is. This piece puts everything on the reader. It is ridiculous. Self help has this arrogant snobby idea that we are the Little People, and they are the people we need because they care. Please. It's always about following their self help directions as we are so unaware because we are the slow people. Disingenuous. There is nothing substantial about self help. I do not need anyone telling me how to feel. I will resist you and I will do it in public. You don't know anyone who wants a civil war. I'm unique and I get off on that. I am fighting back. Telling me that I need to change my paradigm so that I can be restful and nice is lame. I am not nice. I want a civil war. We are exploring the strategies of Act Up. All that cow blood on walls. It's time. We are back to leaving corpses on institutional steps.