Brand Recognition

September 28, 2012

March 28th, 2012

October 15, 2011

October 20, 2012

So, I have taken it upon myself to begin a minor form of brand recognition.

In real words, I mean I've started drawing a demented unicorn vomiting stars on all things comedy related. And now that I make the posters I've decided to digitize those unicorns forever!

Because when you see a tweaking unicorn vomiting stars with laughter, I want you to think comedy.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

THE POWER'S GONE OUT!

I'm using these last moments before I turn off my computer to declare:

I REGRET NOTHING!
I'M BURNING ALL THE SECRET ENVELOPES!
MEGA-GOPHERS WERE JUST A LIE TO KEEP THE MASSES UNDER CONTROL!

that is all.

update:

the power came back on like an hour later.

Sleeping S

Um, so, last year there was a hurricane at the beginning of the year and I stayed in an apartment and wrote a poem about it.

This year there's a hurricane again so I guess I better write another poem about it:

Rain like big pigs sucking on the sidewalk,
trying to get to the library and the bus has broken down.
Wet skin, wet bones, wet earth and wet toes,
feeling for a pack of upturned lips.

Maybe we should all groan along inside,
relax the grey away until we're dusted over.
Little baby peacock wants to jump in puddles,
found a broken guitar in my toilet ring.

Muttered puddles break down towered piles
of thought and sand and sticks.
A soggy mash of ideas that stain, run, tear and wrinkle.
Thinking about trying on another person's brain.

If it all shuts down when the sky turns brown
hand in hand with the sound of my...mumbling.
Buy a cat and name him Charlie, something cute.
Sleep in and make pancakes.

We can wait until it's dry to play again.

Eh....it made about as much sense as last year's.

Comedy Review: Kyle Kinane

This is a review I wrote for a student- thing that I write things for.

        Chances are you’ve probably never read a review for a comedy album. Why would you bother? Well, you’re reading one now. You’ve also probably-definitely never heard of Kyle Kinane. You’ve heard his voice though. Next time you’re watching Comedy Central and they cut to a little promo about an upcoming show or episode or special, listen to that rich, resonant voice telling you what time it will air. That’s Kyle Kinane.

        But he’s not a voice actor; he’s a true comedian. And Death of the Party, is a fine, fine stand-up album. Kinane’s material is intellectual and original with a well-crafted and unique delivery. His fluid, lucid speech contrasts with his bushy beard, disheveled appearance, and erratic mood swings to give him the aura of a wizened woodsmen or homeless person.
       
        The material is strung together by the ongoing themes of broken dreams and using delusions to stave off the ever-growing specter of soul-crushing boredom and mediocrity.

        “Oh shit! Just because I’ve been waking up outside naked once a month or so, doesn’t mean that the night before I was a werewolf!”

        As the name of the album suggests, every joke is tinged with a biting undertone of sadness and/or disillusionment.

        “You try to drum up support from you friends, ‘Well it makes sense what with the all the Coors Lights I’ve been drinking. That maybe those were the silver bullets that were used to kill the beast! Rendering me in human form come daybreak!’ They just look at you and say, ‘That’s a tired excuse for your alcoholism.’”

        But Kyle Kinane is not without hope. He accepts his failures. His insight comes from the brutal honesty with which he assess himself and the world’s perception of him.

        “Nobody in here is going to be surprised if you see me about to get in a fist-fight with the night manager of a Red Lobster over whether or not the moon landing was faked.”

        And that honesty comes with an openness to beautiful moments of tenderness, like little rays of sunshine peeking through the clouds. He’s not afraid to appreciate the glory of two rabbits "face-fucking the shit out of each other".

        This album is important for any liberal arts college student, which you (the reader) likely are. He talks about terrible jobs (selling cake-decorations over the phone), he discusses the uselessness of his creative writing degree. He even mocks the very idea of using education as a way to expand your mind rather than “learning skills for life!”

        “I’m 32 years old. I have a fantastic imagination. I have no applicable job skills whatsoever. You know what it’s like to go in a job interview and they say, ‘Are you familiar with Windows-XP-Excell-Spreadsheet-Programs?!’ ‘NO! BUT SOMETIMES I PRETEND I’M A BIRD!”
       
        Yet, Kinane’s strongest material is when he lets his imagination run wild. His Trader Joe’s fantasy on “Writing on the Wall” (none of the track titles are related to the jokes on them but they do provide hints to feelings and moods behind them) will forever change the way you think of Trader Joe’s and its subtle racism.

        The album then takes these imaginative fantasies a step further with the final track discussing his insomnia. It’s a personal look into how this serious problem spurs on, and is a result of, the thoughts he can’t control. One gets the feeling that Kinane can’t help but be funny. It’s the only way he’s been able to meaningfully assemble the fragments of his tumultuous life, riddled with regrets. Comedy is his way of accessing a world that he has never quite fit in to.

        If you want to have a laugh at the terrible consequences of following your dreams and better understand the sources of great comedy. Wash yourself clean of those shitty Disney movies and that other crap you grew up on and listen to Kyle Kinane’s Death of the Party. And, you know what? Screw all that stuff I just said. Listen to the damn thing!

Fast Waves

Bowl of Oatmeal.

A bowl of oatmeal is a beautiful thing. Magical, even.

You've got all these thin, tasteless, insignificant little oat-thingies. How could they ever be edible? They look like flakes of skin. I've peeled things off my toe-callouses that look like this.



But wait, now you've taken the oat-thingies and completely ruined them by pouring in two parts water for every one part oat-thingy. Now they're soggy and the water looks grimy and gross. This looks like the kind of soup they would eat behind the Iron Curtain. Looks more like a dirty puddle in a barren field than a delicious breakfast. 

BUT WAIT AGAIN! Sometimes you don't just have to wait. You have to wait again! 

Because when you add the right amount of heat to those bad boys, the oats LOSE THEIR MINDS! The molecules start bumping and grinding and they start sucking in that puddle-water. And it's a happy breakfast morning time like an 8-bit remix of Sexual Healing.

(seriously, listen to that song while making oatmeal)

THE OFFICIAL ANTHEM OF OATMEAL-MAKING IS THE 8-BIT REMIX OF SEXUAL HEALING!

Anyway, then it comes out of the microwave and you've got this delicious batter stuff that can help reduce cholesterol!

Why are you still reading this? Go listen to that song and make oatmeal!

Also, here are two posters I made for a comedy show.

 

The left is "Modern Rhapsody" and the right is "The Temptation of St.Anthony" because nothing gets people in the mood for comedy like the hallucinatory visions of Salvador Dali!

UPDATE:

So, haha, those posters were not accepted. And I'm not surprised. I completely understand why. But I'd like people's opinions. Would you be more excited about seeing either of the posters above or this poster that was accepted?

Wet Dirt or Why I'm Voting

Why I'm Voting.

There was this guy watching a video of the second presidential debate and whenever Obama would say anything, the guy would produce a loud scoff-ish snort (or perhaps a snort-ish scoff) and say, "What a moron! What an incompetent idiot! That's such crap!"

And I wanted to say to him, "Hey! Hey buddy. Are you saying you're smarter than the president? If so, that's really impressive. Good for you. That's amazing. I mean, Obama graduated from Harvard (let's do a quick check: you're not there) and then lectured for twelve years at the University of Chicago Law School (twelve years ago you were probably just becoming too cool for Power Rangers and making the transition to Pokemon). For you to have surpassed Obama's knowledge of politics and government in such a short period of time is staggering! I am staggered!"

 I'm not saying you have to agree with the President. But don't sit behind a laptop in a dingy college apartment with your stretched-out button up shirt and your husky-boy khaki shorts and call either candidate stupid.

Arrogance, your arrogance, your maniacal self-righteousness is the reason we don't have a direct democracy. You can't be trusted with that much power because you think you know things. And the founders of our nation, the crafters of the Constitution knew perfectly well that YOU KNOW NOTHING! And until you realize that you know nothing you will never stuff another piece of sense into your soft, doughy head.

It's funny that it is somehow acceptable in the context of watching a debate too. I would like to see that guy tell someone at a party, "Oh yeah, the president? He's an idiot compared to me. I'm way smarter than the president."

It's psychotic. Yet watching, spectating, makes us feel like we have power. Like we have control. When, in fact, the very act of spectating proves we are not capable of participating. It should be extremely humbling and demeaning!

And that's why I'm going to participate in this election. To humble myself. To give my meager support to the candidate I believe will best represent the interests I refuse to ever acknowledge or even wonder about myself.

But at least I will participate and be humbled rather than sit back with nauseating, pungent, rotting smugness and spout off in a dark little hole about how I could've done it better.

I may have already posted this but a professor I had last year said, in reference to an undergraduate education, "You are here to be humiliated."

I will try to remember that always, I am here to be humiliated.

Dog

One time there was this dog running down the road in the middle of July. It was a brown, shaggy, mid-sized dog. The Honda Civic of dogs.

It's trotting down the middle of this street in a residential area. It's a nice neighborhood, where folks keep up with their lawns

It's hot out. The sky is clear blue. The dog is staying in the center of the road. No cars are going by. It's too hot for the birds. It's too hot for people. It's too hot for anyone except this scruffy, brown dog.

It's got an easy, measured stride going. It's hair swooshes in a steady rhythm. It's tongue jostles in its open mouth. Everything is still, except for the dog continuing on this straight stretch of road.

Then there is a dripping. Drops are falling, every-so-often, on the shimmering asphalt. Loud drops sizzle and pop behind the bright tail of the dog.

The loose, fluffy coat looks heavier now. The fine shine of the swaying strands start to stick and coalesce. The dog's course stays straight and the pitter-patter of drops follows it close behind.

Blades of grass smear into a glossy sheen. Slabs of white siding intensify and glow while the lines between soften and disappear in the brilliance.

Thick plops slap the street amid the sprinkling. A sinking droop emerges on dog's frame. It's muscles stick and intertwine, pressed and dragged slowly by its growing stickiness.

Viscous and more viscous! Bones melt. Muscle, skin, and hair and teeth and limbs melt. Lowering while whole sloshes of coagulated matter slide off the body and gurgle on the hot road.

Nature and the World saturate and burst with color. Shadows are consumed by pure bright electric light bleeding out of cells of leaves and trees and bumpers on shiny sedans.

The dog is puddling. Pooling. Pumping its legs and lifting its snout to break free of the thickening mess of its own gobs of vibrant goo.

A pile now. A shrinking, sliding pile drained of momentum. A trail of wet debris, a line of mushy matter slowly smoking on the hard black surface. A soft sizzling is heard as particles excite and break away into the air. Back into the sky.

Nottles

I turned in a job application today. I filled it out on the computer and then I said, "Hey! I'm gonna make the extra effort! I'm not just going to email this thing. I'm not going to fling it out into cyberspace and hope it doesn't get buried under a pile of digital junk in some anonymous inbox. "

"I'm gonna print out this application and take it straight to the Human Resources office. I'm going to give this to a PERSON. A real-life human-being with dignity and a job. I'm going to make an interaction-action happen today!"

The office was about four miles away. I could bike there mostly on a bike path, which was nice. And I decided I wanted to look somewhat presentable. Not like I'm ready for a job interview or anything, just a button-up shirt and some nice-ish jeans. It never hurts to trick yourself into believing you're making an effort.

Turns out it was a lot hotter than I expected! And I was so excited I exerted a lot more effort than was necessary.

What happened was my back, which was denied ventilation by the backpack I was wearing, became completely soaked, drenched with sweat. My legs were cooking in my jeans like two tubes of processed pork. I was sweating through everything. I was red in the face. My hair was a mess.

So instead of looking like a respectable young man seeking gainful employment, I looked like a guy that had just wandered out of the woods (and the office was directly adjacent to woods), sweating through his clothes, wide-eyed and exhausted, yet had somehow managed to find a word processor.

"HERE'S THE PAPERS, WHERE'S MY JOB?!"

But I didn't do that. I talked to the very nice lady at the desk, I asked questions and smiled.

And later I was thinking about the idea of "learned industriousness"

It's the most optimistic idea I've learned in psychology so far.

Most things you learn about in psychology are like, "We've found that pigeons would rather peck other pigeons to death than give up old behaviors that used to provide food. Also, everyone is racist."

Learned Industriousness is something psychologists have found that basically proves hard work is its own reward. If you work hard at something, and then get rewarded after. You will come to associate hard work with feeling good. And then you will work hard just because you like working hard.

And maybe that's what I showed today, with my sweaty breathlessness.

If this guy works this hard biking here with this 30-year-old bike just to turn in his application, he must be willing to do anything with vigor! Somebody get him a towel and a W-2!

I'm also just a pretty sweaty person in general...

the Eighth

I think we're too hard on ourselves. As a people. We expect too much and praise too little.

Anyone can criticize. Anyone can say what should have been done better. Anyone can hold up flaws. Even small children. They're excellent at it.

But the world isn't going anywhere. I mean, physically, the world--planet Earth. It's not going anywhere. It's moving really fast but it's just going in a big ol' circle. It's going to be in the exact same spot a year from now.

And every morning, when the sun rises again, someone is waking up and saying to themselves, "What's the point? Why ruin this comfort? What could I possibly do today that is better than the warm arms of my post-sleep blankets?"

That's happening all the time. So shouldn't we all be a little more thankful when we see someone making an effort?

No.

Not while I'm still at the bottom of the food chain. That's a competitor!

All I think about is how at least I'm gonna leap out of bed and crush that lazy guy into the ground. This is the real world, boy! You gotta play to win!

"The early bird gets the worm" is a terrifying phrase. Do you know what happens to those birds that sleep in? Do you?

They get no worm! They starve! The landscape is desolate and barren in the mid-day sun and the birds that took the time to ponder the futility of their daily efforts become coyote-lunch. Coyote Lunchables!

Get out of that bed! I don't care what you do but do it fast and do it now!

Harchly

I ate pancakes this morning. I helped make them. It was wonderful. I used a spa-tula.

One thing I realized though about cooking is that I was raised in a house where there were always leftovers. My mom would always prepare food as if there were five of us or we were all ravenously hungry. And I think that's why I like dining halls so much, because you can never eat all the food.

Whenever I help prepare food or eat a meal outside my house and the meal is over when there is no more food, I always kinda have this weird empty feeling. Like, I could've eaten more. There is no way that the food could run out at the precise moment I stopped eating.

And when I was thinking about that, it reminded me of the time when I learned that you can't eat all the food.

That was when little seven-year-old Andy thew up his fourth full plate of spaghetti. It wasn't violent though. It was a very leisurely vomit. Like I was doing that Houdini trick where you hide things in your throat. But I did it with about a pound of spaghetti. I'm pretty sure the ball of noodles was almost perfectly intact. It barely went in before it all came right back out.

My mom wasn't even impressed. I remember no look of concern on her face. I don't think I was upset either. I just threw up on my plate and then we stared at and thought, "Well I guess you're done eating now."

So on that day my bar for fullness went from, all-of-the-food to 'leaving enough room to breathe'.

Good job little me. Being a kid is fun.
_________________________________________________________________________

Machinations

My goal for this October is to write like I NEED to say something.

Because it might be desperate and messy but at least it grabs you by the shoulders for a second and says, "LOOK AT ME GO!" I'm existing in this moment right now and using it to convey words to you over the internet which I can't even begin to understand but the whole point is that you're sort of reading my mind RIGHT NOW!

Except when I stop writing this and go on to think other things but right now we are sharing this thought process as you read this. And later I'll get up and go run and probably still be thinking about what I wrote and how you might be reading it. So you're kind of reading my mind right now about what my future mind will be thinking except this current present for you will be my past!

THAT'S CRAZY!

I like to think about dinosaurs and wizards a lot. Mostly about wizards because magic is awesome. But not Harry Potter wizards. Not Harry Potter wizards at all. I'm talking about the outcasts from society who live in the middle of the creepy woods and there are always weird smells and colors that can be seen and smelled from the edge of the forest and maybe you're a curious young kid and you venture in one day and see all this stuff happening and it blows your mind and for the rest of your life you're like "WHO NEEDS ALGEBRA!? MAGIC IS REAL!"

But I think wizards are important because there is so much that we interact with now that is boring to us but if really pressed we would have NO IDEA how it works. So in that way wizards are really relevant and a lot of fun but mundane at the same time. And mundane weirdness is probably the best kind of weirdness. maybe.

This probably isn't very readable because this immediate writing doesn't last for very long but I will leave you with this thought:

I was running with my running team yesterday and moving at a pretty solid pace and then this freshman starts sprinting and so I started sprinting with him and then when we got near the end of the run he was really sprinting!! Like, all-out sprinting.

And the idea of him sprinting as hard as he could and me not being able to catch him and us weaving in between cars and people who are going about their day and about to crush all the scared squirrels was so funny to me that I had to slow down to a jog because I was laughing too hard.

But I don't know exactly why I was laughing. Something about the sprinting was completely ridiculous. Maybe it was a reaction out of fear? Of not being able to catch someone? But I usually am afraid of the things I fear. Maybe I was really excited that he was beating me. Because for a long time now I've felt really fit and haven't had the experience of training with someone who is genuinely faster than me. That's really exciting to train with someone who can kick your butt! I can leech off their fast and make it my own!

RUNNING!

WHY WAS I LAUGHING!?

Also, luckily there was a junior who kept with the freshman so he didn't completely embarrass everyone.

I need to go for a walk

Yeah, that'll do the trick. Go for a walk in my pajama pants. Maybe I'll see a guy I know and be like, "hey! It's thursday! Go get me something hot and spicy!"

And he'll be like, "what?"

And I'll be like, "Dinosaurs confuse me. What about hot chocolate wizards?"

And then I'll be flying through the sky and six-year-old me will be so jealous of now-year-old me. He'll toss his cookies with anger.

Oh man! I just remember Cookie Day. The Fridays when my elementary school would sell cookies for rock-bottom prices to tiny children.

I was once a tiny children. Now I'm a big sweaty adult. I might have been a sweaty child. Do children sweat? Oh wait, yeah, they do. I remember cuz I worked with them this summer.

I'd be like, "You want some juice?"

And they'd be like, "Give it!"

And then I'd walk away like I was the coolest guy in the room! Children are the future but I also think robots are the future and if there was a fight between the two of them I know where I'd place my bets.

Planets are scary to think about. Those other planets are probably judging our Planet right now. Making it feel bad about it the size of its atmosphere. Look, we can't all have airy, thin atmospheres like that Mars character. She's like the Kate Moss of planets.

Shame on Mars. Earth needs a positively role model like the full-bodied Jupiter or the elegant Saturn. But instead we have our sister Mars to deal with. Don't you worry Planet Earth, I'm gonna...buy..paint a...go for a walk!

Yeah, that's it! I'm gonna go for a walk in my pajama pants.

PEACE!

Oblio

Pull a string and see how far it goes. See how close it can get you back to the center. See the way it winds and twists and curves and knots. The mind is made of strings. Bodies are made of string.

I can't figure out what's important to me. That's the problem. That's the first step. Find something important. 

The idea of evil was important to me this spring. That brought anonymous. 

Maybe I'll just pick something. Maybe I'll just pick something to be important and that'll make it important. Because I picked it.

Alligators wearing diapers and riding on antique bicycles are important, world! Just the other day I was putting sour cream on a bowling ball and this alligator wearing a diaper and riding on an antique bicycle, the kind of the with the really big front wheel and the really tiny little wheel, came rolling up to me and was like, "Hey! I'm out of gold. I need you to go dig up some bodies so I can build a raft."

I said, "Listen, you be-diapered reptile, maybe I don't have time to go rob graves today. And what do you need a raft for? I thought you were magic."

And he said, "No, I'm allergic to magic. I need a raft to start up a business. It'll be a bakery that will travel down the Mississippi river. But really the bakery is a front to smuggle slaves and impressionable children into the South so they can learn about growing up."

I said, "First of all! A bakery is a terrible business to start on a raft. Where's the oven gonna go?"

And he said, "No--wait. I'm not going to actually bake things. I'm going to buy muffins in bulk and then cover them with plain-flavored icing and sell them at exorbitant prices to establish myself as a premium brand."

I said, "I don't think that even qualifies as a business so much as a scheme or a regular old terrible idea."

The alligator twitched its tail.

I said, "Secondly, slaves and impressionable children were respectively wiped out by Abraham Lincoln and the Internet. If you think you can return to some bygone Romantic frontier notion of America, where the vast new continent represents the potential for growth of the human spirit, you are one naive anthropomorphic alligator riding a bicycle. I haven't even gotten to the part about how you certainly won't achieve this by becoming a purveyor of pirated baked goods funded by auctioning off the belongings of corpses in the rich-people cemetary. Good day, sir."

And that was that. Typical talking alligator riding a bicycle while wearing a diaper. I don't care if it sounds offensive, they all look the same to me. Always drifting about with tired plans of recreating modern versions of literary classics under the guise of a dubious and ill-thought out small business. The other day I heard one of them call another one a "Trash-Bulge" And I was like, "That's our word for you! Don't try to claim it!"

_______________________________________

So basically...what we learned from that is when I tried to pick something to be important...I chose fictional racism.

We're All Nauseous!

I apologize for the terrible quality. But this is about a month's worth of doodling on a roughly 3'x2' piece of paper that I hung on my living room wall. 

If anyone would like to purchase this masterpiece I'll sell it to you for about 17 dollars. If you need me I'll be making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich using bread I smuggled out of the dining hall in a paper coffee cup. I'll be doing this for approximately ten hours.

College. Sometimes you get so in the thick of it that it feels like an endless cycle of input-output. A positive feedback loop of College that you can't stop. You take in college and you crap out college again and again and again.

But I'm gonna grow, world! I need to find a direction after this. And by that I don't mean anything constructive, necessarily. I just mean that right now when I imagine myself graduating I'm just going to be "ex-student". That will be my title.

So I've been working on some new titles that have a little more purpose to them:

Expert Bathroom Finder.

Sheep Slave. I'll be a slave to sheep. Not in a weird way though.

Just Ate An Entire Bag of Walnuts Guy. That way when people see me and say, "He looks terrible" I'll be like yeah, well, in my defense I just ate an entire bag of walnuts. So, reserve judgement. Also I'm bisexual now. That means you have to treat me special.

Bookmark. I'll be a freelance bookmark for stupidly rich people. When they're finished reading I'll just stick my finger in the pages to hold the spot and then rob them blind.

Killed by a Russian Satellite full of Rice-A-Roni: The San Francisco Treat

Mail Order Pizza Maker. I'll arrive in a box at your front door and make you a pizza in your own kitchen. 

Me. I'm just gonna be me. BUT WITH NO BED TIME! HahaHA! 

Haftober Anlop

I have to run some errands today. I don't have any classes so I need to find other ways to be productive. Today I made a poster for a comedian coming to campus. Then instead of doing something else I made an anti-poster for said comedian. The premise was that some crazed fan existed and was posting these things around school. The campus-events-programming organization told me the poster was too violent to be affiliated with them and since the poster is not affiliated they can't use their money to print them. Way to bust my McChops...

Some crazed Rob Gleeson fan is out to spread the good word. But not this day!

Anyway I need to buy a new notebook and some almond milk. Pretty important errands.
_______________________________________________________________________

Some body please tell me why it's so hard to stare at the sun! I don't get it. I thought the sun was supposed to be our friend. I thought the sun was a happy enormous ball of gas that exists to fill our world with plants and solar-powered calculators. Well you know what I'm starting to believe?! That the sun is just an enormous ball of gas that we happen to be close enough to support life. How terrible is that?

That means we're like cats that sleep under the wheel-wells of trucks in the winter. We think it's a safe place to spend our days and then one morning we get flattened into a slab of driveway.

I don't want to think that though.  The sun has good intentions! Maybe if we all baked cookies and went outside and threw them up to the sun it would appreciate us more and let us look at it. Everyone who is reading this should make some oatmeal cookies and run outside and throw them into the sky. Or rather, take them to my apartment and leave them outside my door. Then go away. My face is itchy. We need to help the sun!

PRat faBRAToj!

Fall is a special time of year. A time when all across the land people are reminded of the sacrifices of our forefathers and how turkeys can look so weird but taste so delicious. If we learn anything from Fall it is that someday we will lose our rich green color and turn yellow and orange and red and then fall out of a tree and rot on the ground.

Fall is a smelly time. It is a time of pies and rotting organic matter. It is a time of gorging for the harsh winter to come. It is a time for watching sports and maybe looking out of your window in the morning and saying, "Hey World! You better get ready because I'm coming at you like a box of flaming chickens."

I remember this one time in Fall my friend threw a whole bunch of rotting pumpkins at the front of our school. You know, it takes a special type of lover of the seasons to do that.

Some people like to call Fall, Autumn. I can only assume it's because those people are part of some weird cult like Scientology or Presbyterianism. I ate oatmeal this morning.

This is beautiful times, people! You gotta make the effort, but not much of one! Get psyched because getting old and grey just get romantic again! I'm gonna buy some dentures and musk up.