MAMMA

I think it was around the Summer of 2002 when I met Matt Ames. I was living in a house behind the old Mills and Nebraska lumber yard. I loved that place. My house, Matt's and the lumber yard were demolished in 2005 or 2006. Condos or something else that Florida doesn't need were supposed to go up. Now there's a huge field. I think it's thirteen acres of construction materials, piles of dirt and no real sign of anything to come. The truck traffic is occasional. I have to admit that kind of thing is my silver lining to a bad economy.

Anyway, when Matt moved into the duplex next door, I was friendly, but made no attempt to be his friend, at least for a couple of weeks. Then I noticed a bumper sticker on the back of his old pick up truck. It said. Philosophy Inc. Where reality is always on sale. I had to investigate. I knew that I had a possible ally.

I knocked on his door and pointed to the back bumper of his pick up truck and said, "we need to talk." I repeated what I'd just read. He smiled and laughed a little. He told me that Philosophy Inc. is his business, selling ideas.

I don't remember exactly what we talked about at first, but we covered plenty of esoteric ground. I remember standing in his front yard. A woman that I had briefly been involved with sped into my driveway. She got out of her car, and walked briskly towards my car. She glanced my way then put an envelope under my windshield wiper.

I said "hey".

She said. "Fuck you Pat Greene!" She got back into her car and sped away.

Matt looked at me and laughed a little and dryly said "She seemed upset, but she was cute."

Matt and I have been friends since that day. I would stop by his house when he got home from work. I worked out of my house at the time. Matt would decompress by watching King Of The Hill. There might be some Derrida or Foucault sitting next to the TV for later or a Soylent Green DVD. His old girlfriend used to refer to Matt's endeavors as genius studies.

Like me and most of my friends, he had all kinds of kooky things around his apartment. One was a small objects tester. It was still in the package. The idea was if you can fit something through the small hole of the Small Objects Tester, it was too small for a child to play with. I think it was made by Ronco or some shady company like that.

I guess I started to call Matt's apartment the Matt Ames Museum Of Modern Art (MAMMA). In the past few years, I've put on art shows at my house. I now call my house (with Matt's permission and encouragement) MAMMA. The location can change at any time. Matt's going to Virginia Tech. He's getting his doctorate in Educational Technology.