Kaidenblake's Journals

First army project:

I stated that I've taken down the videos from my YouTube channel. It's time to close a chapter and enter a new one. Nearly a year ago, I started working on a documentary project. I've gone through the footage on several different occasions, and I am not satisfied with the end result. Why? It's too contained. Too refined. I live every single day in the moment, truly experiencing and savoring everything around me. To record a documentary in just a few days and have my story relayed as if to confine it is something I am not comfortable with.

I have decided to create video shorts frequently, instead. Taking you through my journey. What is is I'm doing, what I would like to do. Taking you with me. Taking you hand in hand through ART -- not about recognition. I have remained so mute, nearly to the point of becoming faceless.

To all of you who support me, you support ART. You support the sheer possibility of great things to come. It's not about me, it's about this journey together. You are all fascinating beings, and I've developed intimate relationships with each and every one of you over the last year or so.

I have kept so many of my projects under wraps, and many of them have not been able to surface. This is because I have not had the proper support that is required to release them. One person cannot possibly take on ALL aspects of a creative process. Take a singer -- they may be able to sing, perform, create outfits... but what if they cannot sew? What if they cannot produce? What if they don't have the ability to go and handle all of the booking procedures? You see where I'm going....

I tried so hard to create art and impress you all with it. To keep it under wraps, to create it FOR you. I have changed gears. I will not put things on hold any longer. Instead, I will create WITH you.

The first small project I want to introduce with you that you each can have a part in, is the 30 second intro that will play at the beginning of each of my videos.

The first part entails people submitting sound bytes (MP3 files, ideally) on who and what you think I am. All the descriptions should be in 3rd person, not said to me directly. You can say I'm weird, crazy, friendly, say a few short sentences.. it can be positive OR negative. This is about what you genuinely think of me, not some refined image I want to present. Art and people will be perceived differently, and I embrace that.

Below are a few formats which work out well; here are some examples of what people have said and the sound bytes I have so far:

"They say he's _______" Ex: They say he's an alien that came to Earth to change things.
"Kaiden is _______" Ex: Kaiden is someone who isn't like the rest.
"Some people say Kaiden _______" Ex: Some people say Kaiden is really just an actor.
"Nobody has _______" Ex: Nobody has really taken the time to look.
"Who he is is _______" Ex: Who he is is a mystery.

The voice clips can be funny, serious, philosophical -- anything you want.

The second (and most important, since I don't have the knowledge/ability) part that I'll need help on is creating the animation for the video clip. I do not know how to edit videos, aside from the very basic principles. I need someone to create a 30 second animated clip. If you have the ability to do this, I will give you more information and a few examples.

Lastly, many of you have submitted art that I've posted online. If you're interested in creating a new piece of art that will be used in the animated intro, feel free to do so. Any vector images would work best, as sometimes a photo that's scanned doesn't always look very clear, but I am open to anything.

I can't wait to see what you guys come up with!

Please email your voice clips to kaidenarmy(at)yahoo(dot)com.

To the start of something new...

- Kaide

Signed photos for sale.

I've been asked if I'd sell a few signed copies of my recent photos in the last few days. I'm so glad you've all responded so well to the photos I've been posting as of late. Instead of booking a photographer for my last shoot, I decided I wanted something a bit more "spur of the moment." I brought my camera along with me when I was out with my close friends for a few days and finally found the right opportunity to get sneak a few shots in. I spent the time before and after the shoot spinning around in the field, laughing and soaking up the sun. The entire experience satisfied the hippie within me.

To answer the questions of those of you who've asked -- yes, I've decided to sell signed copies of the photos. Included in the selection is a self-taken photo I took a few weeks back. If you're interested in purchasing any of these photos, comment and let me know which number(s) you'd like as well as the quantity. Print size is 8x10 and are $10.00 each. Shipping is available internationally. They will be packaged in "photo mailers" to ensure a safe arrival to your dorstep. ;)

Here's the selection:

I think this selection is the most appropriate to sell right at this point. These were all DIY/self-created, and in a sense they mark off a significant point in this phase of things. I hope you like them and can't wait to share them with you guys. Thank you once again for your constant support and interest -- without you, this journey would not be as liberating.

With love,

Kaiden

Mind Moats.

I cried an ocean to tide my mind over until the shoreline would cease to exist. My eyes brewed the perfect storm, salty on my lips. Lips like mechanical gears on a balance beam, provided with acrobats and rusted limbs. My head is a sailboat, my neck a rope imprisoning me to the dock. Meek minds filled with a mission, hateful hearts with their power trip pulses that seek to control. Hardships are only boats too dense for gravity to propel.

I’ve always dreamed of shaking hands with the horizon. I see the colors change in the sky, bidding me goodnight and welcoming me to each new day as my eyes lift their sails to toast to possibility.

Chance is only a chant, only a reverberating message that is corked inside a bottle. So much desperation filling such a hollow space trapped within transparency. Such heavy words for a vehicle that is thrashed so carelessly amongst relentless waves. I am washed ashore, my ship succumbing to stagnancy, seasick with stillness. It’s a wonder sandbags keep my mind at shore whilst the pebbles beneath my feet offer no resistance.

One day I will bathe in the horizon.

Assembly Lines.

Assembly Lines.

A free-write by me. Feel free to share your thoughts and opinions.

The goosebumps on my arm arose like the tips of icebergs, representing separation. My tear ducts are cloned from cacti, hidden from the naked eye, as eyes refuse to bear the conditions that imprison us without proper armor. Water is such a demanding, selfish, oblivious substance. It demands to have its fill, seizing through an entire territory unwarranted. Such destructive desires, and always conquering. Tears are discourteous droplets unequipped with proper etiquette -- orphans, corroding vision without disciplinary action. Even in the best of moments, life is simply a tease, a foreboding empty hope that we can control. Despite gifts that are granted, destinies we attempt to monopolize upon, we are manufactured with blueprints determined to conceal our autopilot system.

How primitive we are to have such mundane necessities. With every bite we could be devouring obstacles, with every ping of drought that surges through our veins we could be quenching our thirst for discovery. I am whittled down to a state of mind that cannot allow for incoming transmissions of kindness, for I feel unworthy. Trained throughout my childhood to remain forever nomadic, I have trekked across my thoughts, plummeted to the depths of my ambitions, survived the thrash of my surroundings, and have only mastered the ability to exalt myself into a vulnerable state in the center of vast vacancies. Cruelty, it is, to feel sadness that chokes and strangles your insides while the individuals that exist around me offer unrequited love. A hateful form of karma, burying you alive in a coffin six feet underneath the very feet that allow us to stand, rewarding sympathy in the form of transplanting you on a glorious perch inside a birdcage. Living like a bird with such sought-after gifts, flying relentlessly against the cool iron bars, eager to see the parting of lips and the strange rows of teeth that smile at me, offering me nutrients that both of us foreign creatures must accept. Such kind gestures for such despair the bird feels, that incredulous, self-centered bird whom exists in a state of purgatory filled with self-pity. That bird who dares to battle water, opposing with such force that can only be analyzed as the intent of victory.

I am irrevocably devoted to a repel that I did not request. Such advancements and executions, I am the fly on a wall in a room hosting a parasitic relationship with a wallflower, forcing me into self-symbiosis. This world with a purpose, while purposefully perilous paths deter from direction, intersecting and overlapping to create a maze built by masterminds. I refuse to romanticize with the belief that, as an infant, I was dispensed onto this land for the purpose of being led to the cracks in the soil like a horse to a stream. The stream, once flourishing, must have succumbed to the exhaustion of overuse, presenting me with poor timing.

Time and goodbyes must conspire in order to keep the assembly line frantically recycling. So much movement for a planet that leads us to believe we're standing still.

It is but a curse to see so much if they choose to see so little. We are rationed very little choice -- perhaps it is pure corruption to loiter between choices and notions. To have thought, to eagerly consume so much, to dream, only to bid farewell to the energy as it goes on to travel with a one-way ticket in hand. I am standing on the platform carrying invisible baggage and inconsiderate water that will emerge from my illusion of a cactus on its own accord. But after the molecules disperse, the furniture croaks a sigh of relief as the fire is extinguished from the painting outside the window. Only 24 hours within the confines of 365 days in a year. Only a small falter in the system, only time shaking hands with goodbyes as you wave the designs on your fingers to the break in the assembly line. Always offering such brilliantly unique designs, fingerprints are no match for the power of that monotonous black belt that conveys such a linear path.

But I am graciously given a lullaby with the melody of honey -- both leftover secretion and sweet -- as the roar of the engines are slowly diffused when sleep kidnaps me.

Girlscout.

Peace out!

Memory Corpse.

Lately vision has been spare
If not for this lattice screen
To savor excuses for visibility
For the imaginary friend
That won't be there

From eyes, to the keys from
Which you use to type
Guilty, too, in this modern
Age -- factoring: After all,
Hotels do let you go

From designer candles, to
Carnations that burn; Dying
Is an illusion, expiring slowly
Like wine fermenting, if only
Occupied by the ability to yearn

Hands reaching from the walls
Bouquets that leave lasting
Impressions: Lead to depressions
If not on shelves, to cells that
Squirm from the varying void

Never Us.

New free-write. This one's pretty personal, so I'd love to hear your thoughts.

I, I, I. You and them. Where is "us?" Where were we? Parasites to dismantle my abilities. Trapdoors without dead-ends, tunnels full of revelations revealing a chain of one way exits all with my name. Where were you? Where was I?

You, you, you. My mind. Your mind, but not ours despite the hours that have passed. Weeks, months, years, decades, centuries - what is time? Calendars are merely calculators for letters that seek redemption.

Just a little stir-crazy. Sanity was a test at birth, thought I'd circle in all the bubbles. No, I came out of the womb tongue-tied. Where was my voice? I'd receive it, but only as an allowance. Vocal chords sitting in the corner, time out. Too much time out. Time in, jab your fingers into the palm of your hand or your fist against my flesh. They're only bruises, though the current cruises. It's been a thousand miles and I'd like a check-up or to check-out. Nobody puts baby in the corner, though childhood corners I cut while I aging. "Only a number" was etched into my slumber until the days and nights had merged. Dark circles under my eyes to match the skies, and my, you were fond of fashion.

Yes, no. No, yes. You see? You don't see. See. See me. Me see, or I see - another rule to follow. Another slap across the face, what's left to deface? Age like wine while left to whine. It was only a number, even with 20 years of separation lending itself to desperation. I was merely an obstacle when you entered the course, oh intercourse, just another hurdle for you to climb and claim the prize. Tantalize. Contending for a contest without consent. I saw through hat full of paper slips, despite your slips. Slip-ups are inevitable when all entries are identical. I called a silent jury and clumsily dropped the case, inefficient to stop you from the chase. Denial summoned more memories to the trial, all the while time became senile.

Kitchen appliances aren't proper dwelling areas for body parts to lounge, though my brain's recipe was critical to your wiring. Tourniquets short-circuiting long after the power is out. Sparks invisible to inspectors like metaphors schemed by grand directors. A silent film with voices dubbed over, compliments to the audience. Disservice is service if only to add sound to a moving mouth. Violent verbalization.

Me, me, half. Two halves not fitting a whole; a hole. Architecture influenced by the demeanor of quicksand for a more naturalistic approach. Afloat, but only treading. Desirable dreading. Smile to please, please. Proper etiquette for mourning. Coping in the form of table manners. Every individual poised with impeccable symmetry while each is served a different meal. Eat up when you're full, hunger isn't forgiving while your insides tug and pull.

I, me, you, they, he, she, it. Not us.

Never us.

Infinity: Hysteria.

New free-write:

The gravel and sky had befriended one another. After concluding the regular patrol duty rotation, I found myself walking on air. I was seven years old, and a simple blue sky had meant more to me at that ripe age than it dare mean to me now. Clear skies were always level playing fields; no interruptions in my train of thought, no obstruction to point my finger at. Literal and figurative meanings had meshed into one, resuming the role of adaptation. Life demands a constant casting call for the role of the fittest; dramas dripping with dopamine, warding away the fiend.

I suppose I never thought I would exist during the same moment lions had begun to tame their masters. A circus is meant to be filled with gallant atrocities waiting for a flesh-filled audience to devour them with their eyes and vocal chords. Nowadays, the stands are used as balance beams while contractors scream infidelities from tightropes. From outside the tent, all living creatures are the same species yearning to relinquish their plastic confines.

A circus tent is similar to that of a ward. Padded walls and pin-stripes to offer a diversion. A separation. Though the division is successful at mockery, it is merely a fool beneath another layer of separation.

My tantrums had caused rainstorms, and I quickly learned nearly everything in life comes full-circle.

Custom made brooches now for sale!

Custom made brooches now for sale!

Several people have been bugging me for awhile to release items for sale, so I now bring you custom made brooches! For those who aren't familiar with the term, they're "pins" to wear as an accessory. I'm inspired by the 80's and 90's, so I wanted to release something fun and funky as a throwback to style.

All the brooches are custom hand-made, and are one of a kind. I included some of my favorites in the photo above. This is a limited run, so buy them while you can!

They're available to purchase at my etsy account here.

http://www.kaidenblake.etsy.com

Hope you guys enjoy them!

xo

Monkey see monkey do.

Though I'd much rather be posting a journal containing a new free-write, I thought it's finally time for me to start addressing certain issues and stop playing the dumb blue-headed card. I apologize for the writing quality -- I'm beyond delirious at the moment from lack of sleep. Someone needs to come put me in a straitjacket and escort me to the bed. I'm too stubborn.

I very rarely address dramatic issues, however I find this particular situation a bit comical.

For the last several months, a certain someone has added me on every single one of my social networking sites, and has attempted to add everyone on my friends lists. This includes my personal friends whom I communicate with via phone, etc. I've been confronted about this person on several occasions, saying how they repeatedly try to send a friend request every time they're denied.

All this while, this individual comments me with compliments, until one day I am accused of copying this person. I laughed this off, as there was no possible way I was "copying," due to my hair style being the same way it is now since July of '08. I did not pursue this issue whatsoever, however I noticed a few days later that I was deleted off this person's friends list. Interesting. I sent friend request with a friendly message. I get added back, and though a friend sent me this person's link today, I was again unable to visit their page because I was removed from their friend's list.

Furthermore, I am periodically google alerted with sites claiming this individual is me by writing my name in the caption. To try to befriend the same people I talk to is one issue, but claiming my photos/identity as yours is another issue entirely. I really don't appreciate you doing this, and I am requesting that you put an end to this abruptly. You know who you are, and you'll obviously be seeing this as you lurk my page.

I will not ever claim my style, hair, or accessories as "unique," as trends are so clearly recycled and regurgitated over time. The only time I have ever been truly upset is when someone makes a copyright infringement on my writing. When you steal someone's writing verbatim, you are not creating something with your own words and thoughts or individual interpretation - you are stealing. Regardless of this, I urge you to follow your heart with your own style. I have seen you specifically in photos with the same poses on the same furniture with the same props used in other well-known images. People DO take note of this, and in my opinion, it will only deter from your success, if that's what you're striving for.

Cheers

Kaiden
xo