Which is, unfortunately, more than I can say for Verano; more on that later.
So! It is almost five in the morning here and for the first time in my life I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to spend the rest of my life. I wish I had paid more attention in class, because one particular instructor gave up all kinds of information on getting your written work published and I largely ignored her. Maybe, if I'm lucky, I wrote some key stuff down and its all stored in a responsible place.
I finished work on another short story today, it's technically the third story I've written, not including On the Situation of the Squirrel. Okay, so that makes four. I can't find a copy of The Sandwich on my computer, which probably means the .doc version is on a flash drive somewhere, and I want to compare the general lengths of each piece. Don't Forget to Program It tops out around 2500 words, and while I feel that I can make it longer, I don't have the patience yet. Maybe let Dad edit it and get his suggestions.
I owe a lot of money.
While he's at work so much I want to charge him with finding places where I can submit what I've got, make him an agent of sorts. I'm sure he'd be up to the challenge, and it'd be a great way to keep us in more regular contact.
There's a playwriting contest and submissions must be in by January 3rd. I have half a play and two weeks to finish it, so that's going to be the new goal. Every entrant receives free feedback, at least, so that's exciting, and if I can tailor it up I might be able to get it circulated in Philadelphia, at least. We're going to go for this.
Verano has me thinking about the future on a level that I haven't yet. A week ago I barely knew her, but I knew that La Playa has a huge crush on her and tried my best to leave well enough alone. Now, I feel like there might be greater forces at work. When I'm with her I feel like there's an old recognition. Did we meet each other, l. each other in a past life? I feel like I've known her for a very long time. It could very well be only the exciting pangs of young l., mistakenly interpreted, as many such feelings are, as something greater. It could be that I'm striking out for a relationship I've already had a few times, and the feelings are familiar because they're a mere repetition of the process. But, I refuse to handicap myself from the outset, and I want a very likely future to unfold without some terminal gloom hanging over it all. She's...amazing. And frighteningly far above me, and I want to raise myself to her level, and it's going to be impossible to do so if I don't start working for myself.
She says Richard and I are kindred souls, and I believe her. She says that the right hand is a reflection of the conscious, the left hand such of the unconscious. Because of Richard both are healing over, with the growth of new skin over my conscious significantly more active.
I think it was all meant to come together like this. In the past week I've quit watching colorful little tetrominoes fall into place, but now I'm manipulating a different set of pieces, and this game promises to be my most important.
Tuesday
Tetris is the Beginning, Middle, and End of the Universe
The game is a masterpiece of entropy: no matter how expertly you organize the pieces, control is slipping farther and farther away from you. You cannot win. You cannot escape your ultimate undoing. So why even bother?
Because manipulating your odds is what it's all about.
Because manipulating your odds is what it's all about.
Monday
A Theory on 4-Quels.
What else do you call it? At the Chain tonight I watched, for the umpteenth time, a commercial promoting the new Shrek boxset, which includes all four movies in one package.
Four movies? Last I checked, stories were told in sets of three. But now there are four Shrek movies (I've only seen the first two), and a fourth Indiana Jones movie, and probably other examples to boot that I can't think of because I'm tired, and a few drinks in (The Terminator, not to mention the television series). This commercial tonight got me thinking about 4-Quels, however, and what they might possibly demonstrate about the changing face of American entertainment, and the more important aesthetics of the structure of modern story telling, which are entirely profit-minded.
Shrek is a good series, there's no denying. The characters and stories are solid, the actors are strong and the jokes are intelligent. Why does this franchise need a fourth installment, besides the fact that there's a willing market for it?
Three is a holy number in some books and a perfect number in mine. Three is the number of Star Wars films, and Lord of the Rings books AND films, the number of original Indiana Jones films, the number of Pirates of the Caribbean films (a fourth is on the way); etc. But, I want to focus attention on the Matrix franchise, which represents three films in what I consider to be the crux of a mythology's three-motion arc trifecta: the cycle of birth, life, and death.
What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs at night? This is the Riddle of the Sphinx, a contained statement that's been around for thousands of years, and really puts a lid on my philosophy of a three-motion arc, that life happens in three stages. We are born, we live, we die. In the most successful three-film franchises this riddle explains the framework of each installment: the character is born into his circumstances in the inaugural film, suffers any and all circumstances in the sequel, and completes his story in the final piece. Think about Star Wars, where in the Part I. Luke discovers he's a Jedi, learns the ways of the force and gains wisdom (through suffering) in Part II., and ultimately defeats the Evil in Part III. (Nerds, leave me alone on the technicalities). I suppose Indiana Jones doesn't quite follow this exact logic, but the third film is still supposed to be the finale, and that's why they blow their budget on bringing Sean Connery in as Indiana's father.
The Matrix is really the best franchise to explore, because in the first film Neo is literally born (that whole scene after he takes the red pill, and the crew picks him out of a sewer; and then Neo discovers who and what he really is, when he starts believing); in the second film Neo lives (an sharp observer might realize that this is the only of the three films which explicitly features SEX); in the third film, many of the characters die (yes, Neo dies), completing the cycle.
I'm just going to come out and say that the Matrix franchise, as a whole, is really underrated. I don't care what you say about the last two films.
But, if we accept the subversion of this time-honored tradition of presenting stories in inherently metaphorical épisodes de trois, what does is say about how we stand as a unified consciousness?
My only solution to this question is that we've reached a point, probably in the last fifteen years or so, where we break our life in half, and break those halves into halves, instead of defining the chronology of our individual lives into three key eras. We no longer are born, live, and die; now, we are born, live, live some more, and then die.
Essentially, adulthood is being broken into three stages instead of two. I propose that the first stage begins around college-age, when you're no longer living under your parents' roof but are still too stupid or young to be a functionable adult; the second stage is between your initial awakening as a functionable adult, and subsequent bloom into the impossibility of adulthood, which seems to be coming later and later to today's youth, although my standards are based on strongly biased observations; the third stage begins with that first trip to the eye doctor, or gynecologist, or proctologist, or whatever. Maybe the third stage begins when you fully realize that you are, "too old."
I could be full of it, but I think that if Hollywood continues to turn against tradition in order to make a few more bills, and keep a few more employees busy, there will be consequences. A restructuring of what is the inherent Western aesthetic. We know, when the third film in a series is released, that the series is finished (making concessions for the clear outliers, like James Bond, and Batman). How are we supposed to accept a franchise's neat conclusion when it's the fourth film? How do we reconcile that?
Perhaps two more Shrek films are on the way, but as a final point, I simply can't take six movies starring that great big oaf and his irritating donkey sidekick. Especially in the span of only so many years. At least these older franchises have history on their side. What burns me the most is this, a studio that knows it can rake in so much cash based on an established franchise, will pursue such a course, with little or no regard for the franchise as tabled, instead of trying to come up with something new and interesting. We like Shrek, but maybe that's because DreamWorks hasn't given us anything new to take our minds off of Shrek, through since it's their budget it's partially their responsibility to manufacture new entertainment material. I can't really argue for the masses, however, one way or the other.
I can't finish this though as completely as I want to, either, but I wanted to get the grease out there, on any other gears that come through here. Maybe someone else has deeper thoughts than I can muster, and would be interested in pursuing them.
I'm going to try waking up at ten tomorrow, and it's not going to happen.
Four movies? Last I checked, stories were told in sets of three. But now there are four Shrek movies (I've only seen the first two), and a fourth Indiana Jones movie, and probably other examples to boot that I can't think of because I'm tired, and a few drinks in (The Terminator, not to mention the television series). This commercial tonight got me thinking about 4-Quels, however, and what they might possibly demonstrate about the changing face of American entertainment, and the more important aesthetics of the structure of modern story telling, which are entirely profit-minded.
Shrek is a good series, there's no denying. The characters and stories are solid, the actors are strong and the jokes are intelligent. Why does this franchise need a fourth installment, besides the fact that there's a willing market for it?
Three is a holy number in some books and a perfect number in mine. Three is the number of Star Wars films, and Lord of the Rings books AND films, the number of original Indiana Jones films, the number of Pirates of the Caribbean films (a fourth is on the way); etc. But, I want to focus attention on the Matrix franchise, which represents three films in what I consider to be the crux of a mythology's three-motion arc trifecta: the cycle of birth, life, and death.
What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs at night? This is the Riddle of the Sphinx, a contained statement that's been around for thousands of years, and really puts a lid on my philosophy of a three-motion arc, that life happens in three stages. We are born, we live, we die. In the most successful three-film franchises this riddle explains the framework of each installment: the character is born into his circumstances in the inaugural film, suffers any and all circumstances in the sequel, and completes his story in the final piece. Think about Star Wars, where in the Part I. Luke discovers he's a Jedi, learns the ways of the force and gains wisdom (through suffering) in Part II., and ultimately defeats the Evil in Part III. (Nerds, leave me alone on the technicalities). I suppose Indiana Jones doesn't quite follow this exact logic, but the third film is still supposed to be the finale, and that's why they blow their budget on bringing Sean Connery in as Indiana's father.
The Matrix is really the best franchise to explore, because in the first film Neo is literally born (that whole scene after he takes the red pill, and the crew picks him out of a sewer; and then Neo discovers who and what he really is, when he starts believing); in the second film Neo lives (an sharp observer might realize that this is the only of the three films which explicitly features SEX); in the third film, many of the characters die (yes, Neo dies), completing the cycle.
I'm just going to come out and say that the Matrix franchise, as a whole, is really underrated. I don't care what you say about the last two films.
But, if we accept the subversion of this time-honored tradition of presenting stories in inherently metaphorical épisodes de trois, what does is say about how we stand as a unified consciousness?
My only solution to this question is that we've reached a point, probably in the last fifteen years or so, where we break our life in half, and break those halves into halves, instead of defining the chronology of our individual lives into three key eras. We no longer are born, live, and die; now, we are born, live, live some more, and then die.
Essentially, adulthood is being broken into three stages instead of two. I propose that the first stage begins around college-age, when you're no longer living under your parents' roof but are still too stupid or young to be a functionable adult; the second stage is between your initial awakening as a functionable adult, and subsequent bloom into the impossibility of adulthood, which seems to be coming later and later to today's youth, although my standards are based on strongly biased observations; the third stage begins with that first trip to the eye doctor, or gynecologist, or proctologist, or whatever. Maybe the third stage begins when you fully realize that you are, "too old."
I could be full of it, but I think that if Hollywood continues to turn against tradition in order to make a few more bills, and keep a few more employees busy, there will be consequences. A restructuring of what is the inherent Western aesthetic. We know, when the third film in a series is released, that the series is finished (making concessions for the clear outliers, like James Bond, and Batman). How are we supposed to accept a franchise's neat conclusion when it's the fourth film? How do we reconcile that?
Perhaps two more Shrek films are on the way, but as a final point, I simply can't take six movies starring that great big oaf and his irritating donkey sidekick. Especially in the span of only so many years. At least these older franchises have history on their side. What burns me the most is this, a studio that knows it can rake in so much cash based on an established franchise, will pursue such a course, with little or no regard for the franchise as tabled, instead of trying to come up with something new and interesting. We like Shrek, but maybe that's because DreamWorks hasn't given us anything new to take our minds off of Shrek, through since it's their budget it's partially their responsibility to manufacture new entertainment material. I can't really argue for the masses, however, one way or the other.
I can't finish this though as completely as I want to, either, but I wanted to get the grease out there, on any other gears that come through here. Maybe someone else has deeper thoughts than I can muster, and would be interested in pursuing them.
I'm going to try waking up at ten tomorrow, and it's not going to happen.
Sunday
The Cunnilingus Pun
This was one of the better ones I've had in a while. After a long shift of throwing out anything made available to me, and most of the material falling flat (though a chorus of groans should count somewhere) the topic of conversation between me and Dapper and all of the lovely ladies came to a connotative comparison of cunnilingus and falatio, and I was the proud owner of the final words when I declared, in a dirty, low-voiced sort of way, that I liked how cunnilingus rolled off the tongue. Pause, as I exit, having walked straight through the passout without missing a beat; and the seconds of silence, as the witnesses put it all together, and realize with low rumbles of approval just what a dirty little ditty I've just layed on them all; and I'm walking away hoping I've impressed Verano, through really I'll take whatever I've gotten. A few nights ago Verano walked off with La Playa, and while I'm happy for one or both of them, Verano's quite the linda, and I'd like to think that the only things standing between her and I are careers and La Playa himself. He's in a bit of a fix, I don't need to step on his toes. I don't want to.
He still hasn't listened to Peace Sells or ...And Out Come the Wolves, though I've insisted he'll like them both. He's been drinking too much instead.
Not that I have much room to talk, but it's not like my habits, in this regard, are controlling me. It's just getting close to, is all. I've learned a degree of control, and La Playa insists he's younger than me.
I was texting with Maow today and I wonder, from the nature of her texts, if Life is draining on her or not. I know what she's like when it's been her and Karfilov for too long. It doesn't help that she's one of the many girls/women that I might be in love with. It depends on how you tip the scales.
Richard has managed to claw up one side of my hand, which will be more of a problem when the Chain busies up again and I'll be handling more citrus. Tonight we shared stale bread and fought over una empanada de la cocinera Aja, and while he didn't lift a paw to aid my dishwashing labors, at least he made it all interesting. Richard doesn't like cigarettes, tequila, or celery, and what's got me is that, after everything he does like, which is generally summed up in the manner of decent food, I'm starting to wonder if the former are emotionally wise choices. Celery included.
I had a strange dream last night that I'm considering turning into a story. I described it to Dapper on the way home so I don't want to describe it again. I'm training Dapper on the bar, even though I don't have the go-ahead. Truth is, he's the best logical choice the Chain has, and I don't want to be around there much longer.
He still hasn't listened to Peace Sells or ...And Out Come the Wolves, though I've insisted he'll like them both. He's been drinking too much instead.
Not that I have much room to talk, but it's not like my habits, in this regard, are controlling me. It's just getting close to, is all. I've learned a degree of control, and La Playa insists he's younger than me.
I was texting with Maow today and I wonder, from the nature of her texts, if Life is draining on her or not. I know what she's like when it's been her and Karfilov for too long. It doesn't help that she's one of the many girls/women that I might be in love with. It depends on how you tip the scales.
Richard has managed to claw up one side of my hand, which will be more of a problem when the Chain busies up again and I'll be handling more citrus. Tonight we shared stale bread and fought over una empanada de la cocinera Aja, and while he didn't lift a paw to aid my dishwashing labors, at least he made it all interesting. Richard doesn't like cigarettes, tequila, or celery, and what's got me is that, after everything he does like, which is generally summed up in the manner of decent food, I'm starting to wonder if the former are emotionally wise choices. Celery included.
I had a strange dream last night that I'm considering turning into a story. I described it to Dapper on the way home so I don't want to describe it again. I'm training Dapper on the bar, even though I don't have the go-ahead. Truth is, he's the best logical choice the Chain has, and I don't want to be around there much longer.
Thursday
Richard
Kansas left Philadelphia for a time when things began to fall apart, and I was sad. She's just like Her, which I recognized right from the off, but not like Her at all, which is an unfair and illogical way to end this sentence.
I don't remember the first time I met Mad, but I remember the first time I met Aja, who was drunk and giggling on the porch at the castle the night Mad brought her over. I now consider Aja a close friend and ally, and while I don't feel attracted to her in the same way that I do many other women, I fully acknowledge and appreciate how powerful and strong a relationship with Aja could be, and chide myself for being so stupidly obstinate about at least any possiblities.
I remember the first time I saw Her, though, and I remember the first time I saw Kansas, who was training at the Chain. They're the same height, share many of the same facial features and expressions and tics and similar attitudes towards life, a sort of surrendered obligation to circumstance with little stabs at living thrown here and there when things are good, or really bad. She stopped by work tonight and had a beer, which was nice. Yesterday she passed along one of her roommate's cats to me, and I've decided his name is Richard.
Richard and I get along, and he's giving me a firmer footing in the real world. Right now he's trying to entertain himself as best he can, with a pretty bland apartment, and I only ask that he not shred the Boston Acoustic covers (we're working on this, I told him the couch is fine) and not tip over any alcohol, and not piss on anything just yet. We both share a love of any food we can get our hands on, paws on, whatever, and for the most part I think we make good companions. Fish isn't exactly impressed, but then, Fish and I never really connected on the such a level.
Mad says she doesn't like Richard, but I know better. Mad has to put up with both of us now, and I think she'll enjoy it. Mad and I are going to Abuela's tomorrow for Thanksgiving, and then I'll do my own little feast here with some amazing garlic turkey from the grocer.
I just tapped a bottle of Jose Cuervo's Black Medallion, and let me tell you, sir: this is an amazing tequila. More body than the only somewhat cheaper Gold Especial, and the burn is welcome. I know tequila is one of the more complex liquors, and Cuervo has a way of putting perfection into a bottle at a very affordable price. Sorry, Patron. I appreciate the finer accents of an expensive silver or reposado, but holy shit, if you haven't tried Black Medallion then get yourself a rocks glass and maybe a modest chaser--glass-bottled coke or orange juice will do just fine--and get ready for the most mellow evening of your life.
I'd let Richard have some but he's really not old enough.
I don't remember the first time I met Mad, but I remember the first time I met Aja, who was drunk and giggling on the porch at the castle the night Mad brought her over. I now consider Aja a close friend and ally, and while I don't feel attracted to her in the same way that I do many other women, I fully acknowledge and appreciate how powerful and strong a relationship with Aja could be, and chide myself for being so stupidly obstinate about at least any possiblities.
I remember the first time I saw Her, though, and I remember the first time I saw Kansas, who was training at the Chain. They're the same height, share many of the same facial features and expressions and tics and similar attitudes towards life, a sort of surrendered obligation to circumstance with little stabs at living thrown here and there when things are good, or really bad. She stopped by work tonight and had a beer, which was nice. Yesterday she passed along one of her roommate's cats to me, and I've decided his name is Richard.
Richard and I get along, and he's giving me a firmer footing in the real world. Right now he's trying to entertain himself as best he can, with a pretty bland apartment, and I only ask that he not shred the Boston Acoustic covers (we're working on this, I told him the couch is fine) and not tip over any alcohol, and not piss on anything just yet. We both share a love of any food we can get our hands on, paws on, whatever, and for the most part I think we make good companions. Fish isn't exactly impressed, but then, Fish and I never really connected on the such a level.
Mad says she doesn't like Richard, but I know better. Mad has to put up with both of us now, and I think she'll enjoy it. Mad and I are going to Abuela's tomorrow for Thanksgiving, and then I'll do my own little feast here with some amazing garlic turkey from the grocer.
I just tapped a bottle of Jose Cuervo's Black Medallion, and let me tell you, sir: this is an amazing tequila. More body than the only somewhat cheaper Gold Especial, and the burn is welcome. I know tequila is one of the more complex liquors, and Cuervo has a way of putting perfection into a bottle at a very affordable price. Sorry, Patron. I appreciate the finer accents of an expensive silver or reposado, but holy shit, if you haven't tried Black Medallion then get yourself a rocks glass and maybe a modest chaser--glass-bottled coke or orange juice will do just fine--and get ready for the most mellow evening of your life.
I'd let Richard have some but he's really not old enough.
Sir Mantlepiece the Well-Intentioned...likes to hyperlink.
I was perusing Something Else's month of May, reading about GERMAN HISTORY, and revisted my old report on the Phillies/Giants series early in the season. I make some crack about not even knowing that San Francisco had a team.
Ate my words this year, didn't I?
Next year, boys. Speaking of the Spoof, you can access my five-year-old stories here. I think I'll try to revive Moby's career, too, he's due to come out of retirement.
Ate my words this year, didn't I?
Next year, boys. Speaking of the Spoof, you can access my five-year-old stories here. I think I'll try to revive Moby's career, too, he's due to come out of retirement.
Minuet - Bach
Reading over the posts I left behind this summer and I can detect a change in my voice, my mind. So many questions from only months ago, possiblities, that I've either answered or altered; or, perhaps most appropriately, simply replaced. A childish mind will turn to noble ambition...Young love will become deep affection...The clear water's surface reflects growth...
When Beatrice and Karfilov visited me at work last week I was in a rotten mood. When Beatrice proceeded to pry into my oyster of a guitar-playing career, I was not a little terse with him. The opportunity to plant a little grain of sand, something to polish into a genuine pearl, has since passed: regardless, I fear most of our relationship will remain dangerously built on an eroding hillside of ifs and somedays. No more, I'm not going to exist in the radius of Beatrice's fantasy anymore. I don't live with him and I'm only obliged to see him when he makes the effort to visit Philadelphia.
He's building a recording studio in his parents' basement, with his parents' money. When he asked how my hand was coming along I told him that it wasn't and that I needed people to play with if I want any chance of improving. He suggested I jump into open-mike night at the Cube; it's a familiar, accomodating location (by virtue of my own labors, not his) and provides an atmosphere for the blossoming performer, especially because, on many Sunday nights, there are more people on stage than there are at the bar. I told him to do the same and his reaction mirrored mine. He attempted a joke at his own playing surpassing mine, and years of let-down feelings finally began to spill out. Beatrice, we had three years and a basement to be something. It means more to me than you, I have no doubt about it.
But, it felt good to finally tell him off for his own time wasting. I've determined that Beatrice will be the same person in five years that he is now, confident of the ends and still struggling to even grasp the realm of the means. Still sure that, some where down the line, he'll launch his attempt on the world, once he's gathered all of the salty pieces to do his dirty work for him. I'm sorry, Beatrice, but I've spent nearly a year and a half on Something Else complaining about you.
And with that, you've been written out. Time for more interesting characters.
I've been in contact with Army, my exgirlfriend whose occupation I've not disguised too cleverly. I would like to see her again, someday, and if I'm reading her messages as she's intended them it may well be a shame that she's married. But we hardly know each other any more, and I'm only beginning to figure myself out, anyhow. I mention this because Verde found me online yesterday while I was indulging in an Evony riff on Facebook (Rojo is playing now, as well); and, I'm getting strong signals from one of the new girls at work (two, as a matter of fact, but the other is young), and I surrender to the fact that La Playa del Cochinero, whom I respect, has an indiscrete crush on her. What's a conscious son-of-a-bitch to do? I thought my days of stabbing friends and equals in the back were over, not merely preambulatory. I'd finish the thought with, "Oh well," but that seems a little preemptive and a little more presumptuous.
I'll admit I was hoping for something introspective or relavatory to come out of today's session and it just isn't happening. I've accomplished almost everything I laid out in the last post, however, so I'll make some new bullets to load up and fire.
The Revolver Method. Might be on to something there.
On a final thought, I was kidnapped Monday night, by aliens, who infiltrated my body in the clever forms of sleeplessness and alcohol; they took me away, performed their tests and procedures, wiped my memory of the whole affair, and returned me to earth within the hour. I know that twenty or thirty minutes lapsed between the kidnapping and my reinstatement, because I remember being at the bar, and then waking up as Aja walked me home: I wasn't drunk (I fried two beautiful eggs as soon as she got me upstairs, perfectly sober). I was very cold, however, and wet, and rewired in such a way that the boot-up process took two blocks' worth of time for me to remember who and what I was, and what everything around me was, the shapes and shadows of dark buildings at one in the morning under the soggy tungsten wash of high street lamps, and where we were, that stretch of avenue that I walk almost every day, but couldn't recognize regardless, and how the rain was and why the cold meant. If a dentist has ever put you under and you wake up without teeth, wondering how you got ten feet down the hall and why you can't feel anything in your mouth, you've probably been kidnapped, too.
When Beatrice and Karfilov visited me at work last week I was in a rotten mood. When Beatrice proceeded to pry into my oyster of a guitar-playing career, I was not a little terse with him. The opportunity to plant a little grain of sand, something to polish into a genuine pearl, has since passed: regardless, I fear most of our relationship will remain dangerously built on an eroding hillside of ifs and somedays. No more, I'm not going to exist in the radius of Beatrice's fantasy anymore. I don't live with him and I'm only obliged to see him when he makes the effort to visit Philadelphia.
He's building a recording studio in his parents' basement, with his parents' money. When he asked how my hand was coming along I told him that it wasn't and that I needed people to play with if I want any chance of improving. He suggested I jump into open-mike night at the Cube; it's a familiar, accomodating location (by virtue of my own labors, not his) and provides an atmosphere for the blossoming performer, especially because, on many Sunday nights, there are more people on stage than there are at the bar. I told him to do the same and his reaction mirrored mine. He attempted a joke at his own playing surpassing mine, and years of let-down feelings finally began to spill out. Beatrice, we had three years and a basement to be something. It means more to me than you, I have no doubt about it.
But, it felt good to finally tell him off for his own time wasting. I've determined that Beatrice will be the same person in five years that he is now, confident of the ends and still struggling to even grasp the realm of the means. Still sure that, some where down the line, he'll launch his attempt on the world, once he's gathered all of the salty pieces to do his dirty work for him. I'm sorry, Beatrice, but I've spent nearly a year and a half on Something Else complaining about you.
And with that, you've been written out. Time for more interesting characters.
I've been in contact with Army, my exgirlfriend whose occupation I've not disguised too cleverly. I would like to see her again, someday, and if I'm reading her messages as she's intended them it may well be a shame that she's married. But we hardly know each other any more, and I'm only beginning to figure myself out, anyhow. I mention this because Verde found me online yesterday while I was indulging in an Evony riff on Facebook (Rojo is playing now, as well); and, I'm getting strong signals from one of the new girls at work (two, as a matter of fact, but the other is young), and I surrender to the fact that La Playa del Cochinero, whom I respect, has an indiscrete crush on her. What's a conscious son-of-a-bitch to do? I thought my days of stabbing friends and equals in the back were over, not merely preambulatory. I'd finish the thought with, "Oh well," but that seems a little preemptive and a little more presumptuous.
I'll admit I was hoping for something introspective or relavatory to come out of today's session and it just isn't happening. I've accomplished almost everything I laid out in the last post, however, so I'll make some new bullets to load up and fire.
The Revolver Method. Might be on to something there.
On a final thought, I was kidnapped Monday night, by aliens, who infiltrated my body in the clever forms of sleeplessness and alcohol; they took me away, performed their tests and procedures, wiped my memory of the whole affair, and returned me to earth within the hour. I know that twenty or thirty minutes lapsed between the kidnapping and my reinstatement, because I remember being at the bar, and then waking up as Aja walked me home: I wasn't drunk (I fried two beautiful eggs as soon as she got me upstairs, perfectly sober). I was very cold, however, and wet, and rewired in such a way that the boot-up process took two blocks' worth of time for me to remember who and what I was, and what everything around me was, the shapes and shadows of dark buildings at one in the morning under the soggy tungsten wash of high street lamps, and where we were, that stretch of avenue that I walk almost every day, but couldn't recognize regardless, and how the rain was and why the cold meant. If a dentist has ever put you under and you wake up without teeth, wondering how you got ten feet down the hall and why you can't feel anything in your mouth, you've probably been kidnapped, too.
Monday
H I A T U S
"Welcome Back!" He claps his self on his shoulder, a difficult gesture that ultimately ends with him in a twisted knot on the floor with bruised knees.
In good fashion, I haven't slept all night. One p.m. is the twenty-four hour mark, and I have work at four. And how have you been?
As he cleans out the coffee pot in preparation for the next four hours of work, he considers everything he MUST set out to do. Write. No, that's not important. So he'll probably do that first. What is important? They agreed, over the weekend, about his agenda. A haircut. A job application. Life needs to move forward. That night at the chain, and each subsequent one, has been nothing but a string of one-man battles against Hell's brigade with neither side giving in. But, one side is relentless, tireless. He's not on that side.
Why all this debt, you might ask? Perhaps that because he's allowed himself to lay down in a muddy rut and let each passing shit-cart tread over him. They don't get bogged down, only push him deeper into the muck, and he doesn't wade up onto his knees or find some unfirm footing that lets him stand up, and doesn't politely ask the burden-bearer to kindly go around, no: And if he keeps this up, the mud gets deeper. Or, he can dig into it and pile it all up around him, so that the driver can't go through; and then, the mud will dry in a castle-cake around him, but finally he'll be able to burst through it, a butterfly out of metamorphosis, and he'll be stronger, and beautiful, and ready to fly.
A haircut, which I was going to walk into, but I'm trying to schedule instead. That's step one. Step two: call the office. Or maybe you want a shower first. Write these all down, mind you. Step three: a new email, step four the business online. Step five, the application, step six the phone call. It's your plan for the next three days. IN THREE DAYS, it will be done, all of it. No excuses this time, not when your life is finally yours and completely on the line.
He did so much to show you you're worth it. Don't disappoint him. It's finally your time to shine.
He told me to make lists, one for the next week, one for the next year. In one year, I hope I have a visitor here.
In good fashion, I haven't slept all night. One p.m. is the twenty-four hour mark, and I have work at four. And how have you been?
As he cleans out the coffee pot in preparation for the next four hours of work, he considers everything he MUST set out to do. Write. No, that's not important. So he'll probably do that first. What is important? They agreed, over the weekend, about his agenda. A haircut. A job application. Life needs to move forward. That night at the chain, and each subsequent one, has been nothing but a string of one-man battles against Hell's brigade with neither side giving in. But, one side is relentless, tireless. He's not on that side.
Why all this debt, you might ask? Perhaps that because he's allowed himself to lay down in a muddy rut and let each passing shit-cart tread over him. They don't get bogged down, only push him deeper into the muck, and he doesn't wade up onto his knees or find some unfirm footing that lets him stand up, and doesn't politely ask the burden-bearer to kindly go around, no: And if he keeps this up, the mud gets deeper. Or, he can dig into it and pile it all up around him, so that the driver can't go through; and then, the mud will dry in a castle-cake around him, but finally he'll be able to burst through it, a butterfly out of metamorphosis, and he'll be stronger, and beautiful, and ready to fly.
A haircut, which I was going to walk into, but I'm trying to schedule instead. That's step one. Step two: call the office. Or maybe you want a shower first. Write these all down, mind you. Step three: a new email, step four the business online. Step five, the application, step six the phone call. It's your plan for the next three days. IN THREE DAYS, it will be done, all of it. No excuses this time, not when your life is finally yours and completely on the line.
He did so much to show you you're worth it. Don't disappoint him. It's finally your time to shine.
He told me to make lists, one for the next week, one for the next year. In one year, I hope I have a visitor here.
Tuesday
Today is June 22
Well, at least it's not June 27. Or thirty-seventh, which is what I typed first.
So much is going on, and nothing is going on at all. Tonight I am away from work, so to speak, so I'm sitting in my apartment with nothing to do.
Because I have taken a leave of absence from my damned muck-up of a school career, finally having made that appointment with my adviser, and honored it ("Well, you seem to like school a lot! Here, fill out these forms and see just what you've been up to." -Thanks for the reminder.), I have secured the summer off. It's time to regroup.
Grades were really awful this time around, an incomplete and a failure, absolutely chiding my procrastination, absent stole, general position in life right now, et. al. Thanks, Grades! I love sarcasm with a healthy dose of symbolism, and stuff, you know, I was ready for another Semiotics Entry. Ah, but the grades are not to blame, they're my own damned fault, let it be. Even if they are glaringly indicative of everything that I don't want to admit.
The Castle is splitting up, and I need to decide if the last six classes are worth the few additional thousands of dollars in students loans that they're going to rack up. Of course they probably are! Married to this decision is the necessity of a new place of dwelling, likely another year-long lease, and all at the expense of the amenities that Karfilov and Beatrice provide--Internet, without which I wouldn't be able to not keep up with Something Else, and, in a pinch, hard liquor--like the other night, when I got jumped by three guys, one of which split my lip wide open. All they took was a lot of blood, all they walked away with was some perverted sense of drunken satisfaction. The West Philadelphia Hyenas, settling for second-hand slop.
On a somewhat related note, thanks go out to the asshole working the Cube on Saturday night, because I'm really glad I wasn't drunk when these guys jumped me.
Also, I think I have to start paying back the student loans I already have, unless I can get those deferred.
A plan would be finding all of this out while seeking out a better job than the one I have, uh, what's that called? Getting on with my life? I'm painfully content right now, too much so, with sitting here, in the miserable heat, and not doing anything. Not spending money, not going out...except that I'm already bored to pathetic tears, and this is only the second night I've spent like this so far. I'm going to need more money, or something to occupy my brain. Alcohol works, other things work too, and those things need to be the better ride. Get on board, the bell is ringing! Read and write...ah, but now we're being forced to take initiative, aren't we! Once that threshold is crossed...but you've got to lift one leg and cross, that threshold isn't going to move under you while your feet stand still.
Karfilov is-
Beatrice is-
Maow is-
Everything. She sat me down last week. The night before Karfilov was to graduate she looked at me and told me to get it all together, and she's right, and I have so much to do, and I blame the motivation that I don't have, or that I've buried, but I'm sure it's all right here, somewhere, under the grease and sweat of the last two years in Philadelphia; there's a boy, a man, a writer, a dreamer, a performer, who can do so much, she said, whose voice can be heard and should be, who has something he needs to accomplish, before...
And she's right, and I owe it to her, and I owe it to many other people. Wake up calls here, there...stories in my brain, characters, screaming to get out, screaming so loudly, so vividly, that they wake me up in the middle of the night, and stay with me all day, when I try to work out their messages. They don't leave me alone.
Maow is-
--not here. I wish she were.
I'm listening to new music on my third Pandora station, "Inner Universe". It's based on a Yoko Kanno composition of the same name (theme song, Ghost in the Shell) and the work of a house band called iiO. Nadia Ali is incredible, and it was her legs on the cover of 2006's Poetica:
...that will entice me to buy the album when I see them in a store somewhere. Until then, I'll have this music thumping on while I work away the summer.
I've got a play to finish, after all.
So much is going on, and nothing is going on at all. Tonight I am away from work, so to speak, so I'm sitting in my apartment with nothing to do.
Because I have taken a leave of absence from my damned muck-up of a school career, finally having made that appointment with my adviser, and honored it ("Well, you seem to like school a lot! Here, fill out these forms and see just what you've been up to." -Thanks for the reminder.), I have secured the summer off. It's time to regroup.
Grades were really awful this time around, an incomplete and a failure, absolutely chiding my procrastination, absent stole, general position in life right now, et. al. Thanks, Grades! I love sarcasm with a healthy dose of symbolism, and stuff, you know, I was ready for another Semiotics Entry. Ah, but the grades are not to blame, they're my own damned fault, let it be. Even if they are glaringly indicative of everything that I don't want to admit.
The Castle is splitting up, and I need to decide if the last six classes are worth the few additional thousands of dollars in students loans that they're going to rack up. Of course they probably are! Married to this decision is the necessity of a new place of dwelling, likely another year-long lease, and all at the expense of the amenities that Karfilov and Beatrice provide--Internet, without which I wouldn't be able to not keep up with Something Else, and, in a pinch, hard liquor--like the other night, when I got jumped by three guys, one of which split my lip wide open. All they took was a lot of blood, all they walked away with was some perverted sense of drunken satisfaction. The West Philadelphia Hyenas, settling for second-hand slop.
On a somewhat related note, thanks go out to the asshole working the Cube on Saturday night, because I'm really glad I wasn't drunk when these guys jumped me.
Also, I think I have to start paying back the student loans I already have, unless I can get those deferred.
A plan would be finding all of this out while seeking out a better job than the one I have, uh, what's that called? Getting on with my life? I'm painfully content right now, too much so, with sitting here, in the miserable heat, and not doing anything. Not spending money, not going out...except that I'm already bored to pathetic tears, and this is only the second night I've spent like this so far. I'm going to need more money, or something to occupy my brain. Alcohol works, other things work too, and those things need to be the better ride. Get on board, the bell is ringing! Read and write...ah, but now we're being forced to take initiative, aren't we! Once that threshold is crossed...but you've got to lift one leg and cross, that threshold isn't going to move under you while your feet stand still.
Karfilov is-
Beatrice is-
Maow is-
Everything. She sat me down last week. The night before Karfilov was to graduate she looked at me and told me to get it all together, and she's right, and I have so much to do, and I blame the motivation that I don't have, or that I've buried, but I'm sure it's all right here, somewhere, under the grease and sweat of the last two years in Philadelphia; there's a boy, a man, a writer, a dreamer, a performer, who can do so much, she said, whose voice can be heard and should be, who has something he needs to accomplish, before...
And she's right, and I owe it to her, and I owe it to many other people. Wake up calls here, there...stories in my brain, characters, screaming to get out, screaming so loudly, so vividly, that they wake me up in the middle of the night, and stay with me all day, when I try to work out their messages. They don't leave me alone.
Maow is-
--not here. I wish she were.
I'm listening to new music on my third Pandora station, "Inner Universe". It's based on a Yoko Kanno composition of the same name (theme song, Ghost in the Shell) and the work of a house band called iiO. Nadia Ali is incredible, and it was her legs on the cover of 2006's Poetica:
...that will entice me to buy the album when I see them in a store somewhere. Until then, I'll have this music thumping on while I work away the summer.
I've got a play to finish, after all.
Wednesday
Beatrice's Job
Hello, readers! [snort!]. If you've been following this blog for a year tomorrow (HAPPY BIRTHDAY!) then you might have some idea why I haven't written in almost a month. That's right, it's the mid-to-end term slump! Fortunately, I'm in much better shape this term than I have been for the past three, late taxes and unknown school future and miserable job and lousy apartment situation and no money and the pressure of living and general exhaustion aside. Wow, looking back things haven't really changed. I'm listening to music on the television, though, and I've just heard that The Bird's the Word, only the Rivingtons told me, not the Trashmen. To be fair, the Trashmen's bird was a Surfin' Bird.
But enough on that. I can't even begin to recap everything that's happened over the course of May. A night behind the line, Un cochino de ensaladas y nachos ranks pretty high on the list; just getting back from West Virginia:
were I spent a weekend with family and family friends and had an amazing time; wavering between Katharine and Kansas, actually, spending time with Katharine is fun while it lasts, but she'd never go see Just Wright with me, which wasn't the original plan but it's what we did anyway, Kansas and I, and I'll bet she doesn't have a spare VCR in her closet, like Kansas did, that she'd practically throw at me after a freakin' 9:30 staff meeting on a Sunday morning, for the love of God, Kansas, please don't get yourself fired, I wouldn't make it there without you; and then there was the woman, the teacher, I met a few days ago when I was waiting for the train, four hours is a long time to wait for a train, but I showed her and her four-year-old rosy little daughter around town, and we got coffee and she really enjoyed the quaint obscurity of a place she's been visiting for years and never gotten around to knowing; reading Virginia Woolf and feeling intimidated by the possibility of meeting a comrade right there in the pages of her mind; the bikini contest at the Cube the other night, that was fun too, even if I couldn't see a damned thing.
Buying copies of ELO's Greatest Hits, Sly and the Family Stone's Greatest Hits, and, out of left field, The Blueprint 3, because I absolutely can't get these songs out of my head; enjoying my homebrew recipe Queen Bitch so much that I want to make it again; sunburns and cuts; playing a Marshall cabinet that's probably four feet tall, and standing in front of it with the volume all the way up and my pants rattling around my legs and me not even caring at all; catching a two-foot long Drum (I insist it was a Bass, of course) with my screwball brother; the Flyers; laughing at the guys at the Cube who, on dares, chuck baseballs at the tall church roof across the street and of course narrowly miss the large stained-glass windows; upset that one of them used my friend, who is a more beautiful person than he'll ever deserved in ten miserable lifetimes; buying my boss (the hot one) a beer, and finishing it anyway because she left; the weather, which can't make up its mind; starting a play.
Yeah, this is the top of the list. If I remember anything else I'll throw it in there, in red though, so you know it's an edit.
If my May appears exciting and memorable, though, you should hear about Beatrice's month, because it will absolutely validate mine. His has been full of sitting, and occasionally standing, he visited me at the Chain one Monday; reading, a touch of writing, some guitar playing but not much; and doctor's visits, and subscriptions, and pills. Eating, stretching (his latest obsession), and one visit home, for another doctor's appointment, but also because he needs to do laundry and the washing machine is jammed.
For a long time I have wondered what Beatrice would have done in a previous life, because in this one he's not suited to much. He's lazy, a recluse: he wakes up late, with a regular morning routine of television or the internet until sometime in the mid-afternoon, when he takes a shower. Then he reads more, or may occasionally venture out for food or a change of scenery. He's stingy with cash. He talks and is narrow-mindedly opinionated, knowing only what he reads, never what he experiences; he's a fine speaker and performer, when he generates an audience, which he can do but only amoung the congregated unsuspecting. He has dreams and goals but none of them are within his reach, making him a constant, pathetic dreamer. Above and beyond he is celibate, though his sexuality is certainly questionable at this point.
So I says to myself, Self, what kind of job could have possibly existed for this kind of person back in the olden days, back before the Internet?
The answer came swifter than I expected. Beatrice is a Priest.
Lassen wir uns nicht fremden!
But enough on that. I can't even begin to recap everything that's happened over the course of May. A night behind the line, Un cochino de ensaladas y nachos ranks pretty high on the list; just getting back from West Virginia:
were I spent a weekend with family and family friends and had an amazing time; wavering between Katharine and Kansas, actually, spending time with Katharine is fun while it lasts, but she'd never go see Just Wright with me, which wasn't the original plan but it's what we did anyway, Kansas and I, and I'll bet she doesn't have a spare VCR in her closet, like Kansas did, that she'd practically throw at me after a freakin' 9:30 staff meeting on a Sunday morning, for the love of God, Kansas, please don't get yourself fired, I wouldn't make it there without you; and then there was the woman, the teacher, I met a few days ago when I was waiting for the train, four hours is a long time to wait for a train, but I showed her and her four-year-old rosy little daughter around town, and we got coffee and she really enjoyed the quaint obscurity of a place she's been visiting for years and never gotten around to knowing; reading Virginia Woolf and feeling intimidated by the possibility of meeting a comrade right there in the pages of her mind; the bikini contest at the Cube the other night, that was fun too, even if I couldn't see a damned thing.
Buying copies of ELO's Greatest Hits, Sly and the Family Stone's Greatest Hits, and, out of left field, The Blueprint 3, because I absolutely can't get these songs out of my head; enjoying my homebrew recipe Queen Bitch so much that I want to make it again; sunburns and cuts; playing a Marshall cabinet that's probably four feet tall, and standing in front of it with the volume all the way up and my pants rattling around my legs and me not even caring at all; catching a two-foot long Drum (I insist it was a Bass, of course) with my screwball brother; the Flyers; laughing at the guys at the Cube who, on dares, chuck baseballs at the tall church roof across the street and of course narrowly miss the large stained-glass windows; upset that one of them used my friend, who is a more beautiful person than he'll ever deserved in ten miserable lifetimes; buying my boss (the hot one) a beer, and finishing it anyway because she left; the weather, which can't make up its mind; starting a play.
Yeah, this is the top of the list. If I remember anything else I'll throw it in there, in red though, so you know it's an edit.
If my May appears exciting and memorable, though, you should hear about Beatrice's month, because it will absolutely validate mine. His has been full of sitting, and occasionally standing, he visited me at the Chain one Monday; reading, a touch of writing, some guitar playing but not much; and doctor's visits, and subscriptions, and pills. Eating, stretching (his latest obsession), and one visit home, for another doctor's appointment, but also because he needs to do laundry and the washing machine is jammed.
For a long time I have wondered what Beatrice would have done in a previous life, because in this one he's not suited to much. He's lazy, a recluse: he wakes up late, with a regular morning routine of television or the internet until sometime in the mid-afternoon, when he takes a shower. Then he reads more, or may occasionally venture out for food or a change of scenery. He's stingy with cash. He talks and is narrow-mindedly opinionated, knowing only what he reads, never what he experiences; he's a fine speaker and performer, when he generates an audience, which he can do but only amoung the congregated unsuspecting. He has dreams and goals but none of them are within his reach, making him a constant, pathetic dreamer. Above and beyond he is celibate, though his sexuality is certainly questionable at this point.
So I says to myself, Self, what kind of job could have possibly existed for this kind of person back in the olden days, back before the Internet?
The answer came swifter than I expected. Beatrice is a Priest.
Lassen wir uns nicht fremden!
Friday
COLLECT LIKE A SUPERHERO!
I've had a lot of odd images in my dreams the last few nights. For instance: Verde and I and Karfilov and Mao are sitting around, the location isn't clear, it's night, and Verde isn't wearing pants. She tries to hide this at first (She and Karfilov and Mao are not well acquainted in real life) but gets increasingly explicit as we come under the influence of some airborne mellow or other. We might have all been smoking pot. Which is curious, because I don't smoke pot. What if she and Rojo were having sex last night, toking up, and I psychically tapped into the scene somehow? That'd be strange, and an amazing power to have. Too bad I have absolutely no way to validate this without sounding like a creep and/or perv, although she'd laugh if I told her this story. In the dream, she was really stoned.
A guy working construction just down the street asked me yesterday if I have any drug connections, it was tough for him to ask but he took a chance I guess, I told him I'd see what I could do for him, and I haven't done anything yet.
A few nights ago I was dreaming about some kind of family reunion. It was awkward, there was a rainstorm outside and something else significant about it which I can't immediately recall. Later, I was playing pool with my uncle in a basement, but the pool table was floating on a contained bed of water...if that makes any sense...the basement leaked, because of the storm, and it wasn't flooded, or even very wet, but the pool table was definitely floating. It was listing, too, one end sinking, so I shot the cue ball downward in that direction and pocketed a couple of balls, solids mostly, which of course popped out in the ball return on my end of the table (meaning that they traveled upwards somehow).
Not sure where I'm short-circuiting this week, but it's better than nothing, and it could be worse.
I've been tired, of course. Worked Cinco de Mayo and made A LOT of margaritas, measured every ounce of tequila I poured, except for one which I--gasp--freepoured out of desperation. The time I had off last weekend wasn't enough, and now I'm working straight through this weekend too, and most of next week. One night off, a Tuesday, for a-
-Hm. Heh. We'll see about that.
Mad finally did give me my hat back! The first night it sat on the record player while I was at work, so I wasn't wearing it during the game, but it worked its magic all the same and the Phillies won in the tenth inning. Wednesday night was a shutout and last night they won by five, clenching the series 3-1, after I got my hat back. Maybe that nasty streak they had in San Francisco is over...I didn't even know the City had a team until it shut the Phillies out...
The 7-Eleven near campus is running this ad, by the way, "Collect Like a Superhero." I want to know what Superheroes collect. Does Iron Man have all of the novelty cups that Sev has offered over the years? Where does he display them? When I confirm my powers of psychic voyeurism, I will begin to collect these cups as well.
I hate ad campaigns.
Monday
...& Semiotics, {2}: how I invented the metaphor.
I was sitting there in the garden, too, thinking about how that little overgrown yard with its tall and thriving weeds contrasted so sharply to the bed of grass that Lovely and I used to lay on, and realized that I could relate this contrasting relationship to my present circumstances! Was nature giving me a sign, I wondered, or perhaps God?
Well, that depends entirely on your religion. I realized at the same time, however, that if I were living three thousand years ago or so, before, for example, the Enlightenment, or even just before an established literary tradition, I might think that a higher being or spirit with a measure of influence in my life might be sending me some kind of of lesson or message to reflect on. Of course, you have to recognized something that seems meaningful to you as meaningful enough to be more than just a coincidence first. A physical instance, the grass, is made manifest into a mental or emotional response that encourages me in some way. Of course I have to manipulate the sign, or rather, the being that is Me manipulated--interpreted--the sign, if indeed it was one at all, in the way that I am designed [Designed?] to do. I guess, if something is sending me a sign, it probably designed me to interpret it, so we'll just assume this element of the equation works out.
Metaphor, from the Greek, to carry over. I also liked, Meta, "after", "beyond", "with", "adjacent"--a concept which is an abstraction from another concept--and Phorm: put the two together and you have Adjacent Form. I added the M myself.
So I figure, some dudes were sitting around three thousand years ago, bored, like most of them were back then, and they realized that certain physical instances, seemingly arbitrary objects, signs (coincidence?) reflected what was going on in their lives, and translated the sport of semiotics from its practical uses in spirituality to the written page, in essence inventing the metaphor and empowering great auteurs like Russ Meyer in the twentieth century.
I wonder if I would have arrived at the same conclusion if I had been thinking three thousand years ago? It's a mostly discouraging internal monologue (I don't give myself much credit) for another day.
Well, that depends entirely on your religion. I realized at the same time, however, that if I were living three thousand years ago or so, before, for example, the Enlightenment, or even just before an established literary tradition, I might think that a higher being or spirit with a measure of influence in my life might be sending me some kind of of lesson or message to reflect on. Of course, you have to recognized something that seems meaningful to you as meaningful enough to be more than just a coincidence first. A physical instance, the grass, is made manifest into a mental or emotional response that encourages me in some way. Of course I have to manipulate the sign, or rather, the being that is Me manipulated--interpreted--the sign, if indeed it was one at all, in the way that I am designed [Designed?] to do. I guess, if something is sending me a sign, it probably designed me to interpret it, so we'll just assume this element of the equation works out.
Metaphor, from the Greek, to carry over. I also liked, Meta, "after", "beyond", "with", "adjacent"--a concept which is an abstraction from another concept--and Phorm: put the two together and you have Adjacent Form. I added the M myself.
So I figure, some dudes were sitting around three thousand years ago, bored, like most of them were back then, and they realized that certain physical instances, seemingly arbitrary objects, signs (coincidence?) reflected what was going on in their lives, and translated the sport of semiotics from its practical uses in spirituality to the written page, in essence inventing the metaphor and empowering great auteurs like Russ Meyer in the twentieth century.
I wonder if I would have arrived at the same conclusion if I had been thinking three thousand years ago? It's a mostly discouraging internal monologue (I don't give myself much credit) for another day.
Summer Rain
It's a soft drizzle right now, I was expecting bigger storms. Heat lighting flashed in the west and it reminded me of home. The wave of humidity that washed me when I opened the window was just how I imagined it, and I'm sitting in the window dripping sweat with a damp cigarette hanging out of my mouth. On the outside it's the ideal romantic summer. On the inside, though...it was supposed to be out of an old movie, the whistle of a tired fan and the creak of a lopsided iron bed frame and the glow of the single lamp lighting a shithole of a room, maybe a torn poster of an actress on the wall, maybe my typewriter on the desk, an old jazz record cooing on the turntable, or Hendrix, depending on the month. That's the sort of room I lived in three years ago when I cooked it all up in my head. It wasn't supposed to be the [straightened] round living room with the clean red carpet and the two-hundred pound television and the air conditioning that I have to turn off if I throw open that window because I share this apartment with two other guys who don't know the second thing about the discomfort of reality.
*
Babe I'm Gonna Leave You, 25 or 6 to 4, and Brain Stew all seem to rip off the same musical progression. The original song was written by Anne Bredon and covered by Joan Baez, who credited it as a traditional song. That's where Page heard it first, Baez's album, and only began to pay Bredon royalties in the eighties. What of Chicago and Green Day?
*
I was back in the garden today today enjoying myself a little picnic. There's a wooden table next to a gas grill, which is built right into a short stone wall, and a walkway leading around to the front of the house, and a patch of grass that constitutes a yard, I guess. The whole garden is walled in by tall, thick hedges, making for a pleasant, private cove of sorts. Lovely and I used to sit out there at night, under the stars and when the street was quiet, and have the entire world to ourselves--there's nothing like being in love and being outside and being alone, because you're not confined to the privacy of some tight, stale little room, and you can breath and laugh and be happy and feel free.
The yard hasn't been tended to by a gardener since the season turned, which I thought strangely symbolic. It will, of course and probably only in a matter of days, be mowed over, and then it will appear neat and clean and fresh, but for now it's grown tall and wild: forgotten, but not dead.
Saturday night after I got off of work I went down to Riverdeck, a hotspot on the waterfront, and watched Katharine glare and curse her way through her first official shift as a bartender. It's a busy place on the weekend and she was put to work, learning everything in about two hours of mixing and, well, tending, that it's taken me a year to learn at the Chain. She absolutely hated it: the relentless wave of customers, the lure of forbidden liquor at her back, the clouds of mocking cigarette smoke drifting from just outside the bar awning, the noise, the heat, the motion, the attitude, the drunkenness. I sat and watched it all, throwing recipes to her if she needed them, and trying to catch her eye with an encouraging smile, or to share some silent private joke--
She had none of it, she never even really looked up, or around. The second thing you learn as a bartender is how to avoid making visual contact with people until you are ready to help them.
She did a great job and I tried to tell her so. Once in the middle of the shift--she answered with a tart "Fuck you."--once with a text message during the middle of her shift--she didn't get it until later--and then through a line on Facebook after I got home. I like her. I wanted her to know that she did a good job, and managed the work well, especially for a rookie. Nobody else tells you these things: You work at a bar, grind your feet down to the stumps of your legs and strain your voice and your ears and your patience, but you're still only working for drunk people who want to get drunker: end of the line. Their attitudes alone make the job unbearable, and that's just one facet of the job. So many people...and every one of them convinced they've been waiting too long for your attention, too self-involved to consider for a minute the throng of mad scrambling that they've waded through to get to the bar in the first place, too convinced their needs come first now that they've made it, goddamnit, and who cares who else has been waiting longer?
I tried to compliment Katharine, and each time I think I offended her. She deserves to hear good things. She thought I was being sarcastic.
Again, she hated the job, she never smiled once the whole night she was back there. But, the money was good, and it made the night, I guess--strange way about certain things. I want to take Katharine out, even though she's leagues above me, but I'm worried about something else. I actually like this girl, and I'm afraid that, as it's happened a few times already, pursuing her will only make the future miserable for one or both of us.
That grass grows a little taller with each summer rain. But you're not in the room you want to be in, are you? You're where you are, hearing the rain and feeling it all the same.
*
Babe I'm Gonna Leave You, 25 or 6 to 4, and Brain Stew all seem to rip off the same musical progression. The original song was written by Anne Bredon and covered by Joan Baez, who credited it as a traditional song. That's where Page heard it first, Baez's album, and only began to pay Bredon royalties in the eighties. What of Chicago and Green Day?
*
I was back in the garden today today enjoying myself a little picnic. There's a wooden table next to a gas grill, which is built right into a short stone wall, and a walkway leading around to the front of the house, and a patch of grass that constitutes a yard, I guess. The whole garden is walled in by tall, thick hedges, making for a pleasant, private cove of sorts. Lovely and I used to sit out there at night, under the stars and when the street was quiet, and have the entire world to ourselves--there's nothing like being in love and being outside and being alone, because you're not confined to the privacy of some tight, stale little room, and you can breath and laugh and be happy and feel free.
The yard hasn't been tended to by a gardener since the season turned, which I thought strangely symbolic. It will, of course and probably only in a matter of days, be mowed over, and then it will appear neat and clean and fresh, but for now it's grown tall and wild: forgotten, but not dead.
Saturday night after I got off of work I went down to Riverdeck, a hotspot on the waterfront, and watched Katharine glare and curse her way through her first official shift as a bartender. It's a busy place on the weekend and she was put to work, learning everything in about two hours of mixing and, well, tending, that it's taken me a year to learn at the Chain. She absolutely hated it: the relentless wave of customers, the lure of forbidden liquor at her back, the clouds of mocking cigarette smoke drifting from just outside the bar awning, the noise, the heat, the motion, the attitude, the drunkenness. I sat and watched it all, throwing recipes to her if she needed them, and trying to catch her eye with an encouraging smile, or to share some silent private joke--
She had none of it, she never even really looked up, or around. The second thing you learn as a bartender is how to avoid making visual contact with people until you are ready to help them.
She did a great job and I tried to tell her so. Once in the middle of the shift--she answered with a tart "Fuck you."--once with a text message during the middle of her shift--she didn't get it until later--and then through a line on Facebook after I got home. I like her. I wanted her to know that she did a good job, and managed the work well, especially for a rookie. Nobody else tells you these things: You work at a bar, grind your feet down to the stumps of your legs and strain your voice and your ears and your patience, but you're still only working for drunk people who want to get drunker: end of the line. Their attitudes alone make the job unbearable, and that's just one facet of the job. So many people...and every one of them convinced they've been waiting too long for your attention, too self-involved to consider for a minute the throng of mad scrambling that they've waded through to get to the bar in the first place, too convinced their needs come first now that they've made it, goddamnit, and who cares who else has been waiting longer?
I tried to compliment Katharine, and each time I think I offended her. She deserves to hear good things. She thought I was being sarcastic.
Again, she hated the job, she never smiled once the whole night she was back there. But, the money was good, and it made the night, I guess--strange way about certain things. I want to take Katharine out, even though she's leagues above me, but I'm worried about something else. I actually like this girl, and I'm afraid that, as it's happened a few times already, pursuing her will only make the future miserable for one or both of us.
That grass grows a little taller with each summer rain. But you're not in the room you want to be in, are you? You're where you are, hearing the rain and feeling it all the same.
Wednesday
About Last Night
Swimming
To dream that you are swimming, suggests that you are exploring aspects of your unconscious mind and emotions. The dream may be a sign that you are seeking some sort of emotional support. It is a common dream image for people going through therapy.
To dream that you are swimming underwater, suggests that you are completely submerged in your own feelings. You are forcing yourself to deal with your emotional difficulties.
City
To see a city in your dream, signifies a sense of community and your social environment. If you dream of a big city, then it suggests that you need to develop closer ties and relationships. You are feeling alienated and alone. To dream that you are in a deserted city, indicates that you feel rejected by those around you.
To dream of a city in ruins, denotes that you are neglecting your social relationships and allowing them to deteriorate.
To dream of an underground or underwater city, represents your unconscious and how through deeper understanding of yourself, you find commonality and shared experiences with others.
It was the most beautiful city I've ever seen, sparkling glass rising from an expanse of crystal blue water, and I was swimming around it, the most serene swim I've ever swum.
To dream that you are swimming, suggests that you are exploring aspects of your unconscious mind and emotions. The dream may be a sign that you are seeking some sort of emotional support. It is a common dream image for people going through therapy.
To dream that you are swimming underwater, suggests that you are completely submerged in your own feelings. You are forcing yourself to deal with your emotional difficulties.
City
To see a city in your dream, signifies a sense of community and your social environment. If you dream of a big city, then it suggests that you need to develop closer ties and relationships. You are feeling alienated and alone. To dream that you are in a deserted city, indicates that you feel rejected by those around you.
To dream of a city in ruins, denotes that you are neglecting your social relationships and allowing them to deteriorate.
To dream of an underground or underwater city, represents your unconscious and how through deeper understanding of yourself, you find commonality and shared experiences with others.
It was the most beautiful city I've ever seen, sparkling glass rising from an expanse of crystal blue water, and I was swimming around it, the most serene swim I've ever swum.
Tuesday
i'm bleeding from somewhere
Choosing two images from Berger’s Ways of Seeing is difficult because, as Berger points out, “the relationship between what we see and what we know is never settled.” I believe he emphasizes his claim by condensing some of humanity’s greatest works of art into his cramped, black-and-white reader, which I find frustrating. Recalling Walter Benjamin’s discussion in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, the ritual with which one approaches Manet’s Olympia (1832-1833), for example, is greatly reduced when one finds it tucked away on page 63 of Ways of Seeing. If beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder, and Kant might say it is, then even the great nude traditions, which are thoroughly represented here among Berger’s discussion of the objectification of women, cannot compete with and indeed I think are less beautiful than works which are complemented, instead of restricted, by the book’s format. The assignment is to select two images from Ways of Seeing: does this mean two images that I find beautiful within the context of the page, or am I to select two images that are only being represented by Berger, with the full knowledge of, say, the actual presence of Manet’s Le dejeuner sur l’herbe (1832-1833)?
Kant says that the Beautiful pleases universally, so maybe these greater works so subjected to reproduction may be called ‘beautiful’ simply by virtue of their enduring popularity. If that’s the case then one could argue that the Christian works included in Ways of Seeing, many of which predate Manet’s work by several hundred years, are more beautiful, because we’ve kept them around longer. But, perhaps there is something about Manet’s expression that makes his work more instantly recognizable than, for example, the Italian painter Cimabue (1240-1302).
I’m not particularly drawn to most of the images in Ways of Seeing because I find the format discouraging. How can anyone decide if these small, murky images deserve to be called beautiful? If I’d never seen a proper representation of a Manet or a Rembrandt then I would have trouble accepting Berger’s arguments. However, Berger’s subtle manipulation of the book’s layout has produced one notable piece (as Kant might say, notable to me at least), Peasant Boy Leaning on Sill, by Bartolome Murillo (1617-82).
I can’t exactly describe what is beautiful about this portrait. There is an innocence to this child, certainly, which Berger is absolutely intent on transcribing to his readers; otherwise, this picture wouldn’t be so large. In the earlier chapters, which concern the objectification of women, neither the timeless classic paintings or paralleled, contemporary advertisements are treated with this degree of reverence—Berger doesn’t even cite the picture of the peasant boy, because he might distract his reader. The black-and-white also compliment this portrait of a human being, a child whose face, unlike the other portraits in this chapter, isn’t wrinkled or scarred by the degradation of knowledge, experience, and the general stresses of adulthood.
Opposite this painting Berger includes a photograph of a young girl (Sarah Burge, 1883, Dr Barnardo’s Homes, Unknown Photographer). His emphasis here, in a chapter about art and the ranks of the real and common, is on children—children, like empty canvases, are unspoiled and pure. In a discussion about the beautiful, and the imitation of the beautiful, artists can always try to capture and manufacture what they believe is a beautiful image, but as soon as paint touches the white surface the illusion of possibilities is gone; the canvas is marred by a brush stroke.
Maybe the Beautiful is about possibilities, and not certainties.
Kant says that the Beautiful pleases universally, so maybe these greater works so subjected to reproduction may be called ‘beautiful’ simply by virtue of their enduring popularity. If that’s the case then one could argue that the Christian works included in Ways of Seeing, many of which predate Manet’s work by several hundred years, are more beautiful, because we’ve kept them around longer. But, perhaps there is something about Manet’s expression that makes his work more instantly recognizable than, for example, the Italian painter Cimabue (1240-1302).
I’m not particularly drawn to most of the images in Ways of Seeing because I find the format discouraging. How can anyone decide if these small, murky images deserve to be called beautiful? If I’d never seen a proper representation of a Manet or a Rembrandt then I would have trouble accepting Berger’s arguments. However, Berger’s subtle manipulation of the book’s layout has produced one notable piece (as Kant might say, notable to me at least), Peasant Boy Leaning on Sill, by Bartolome Murillo (1617-82).
I can’t exactly describe what is beautiful about this portrait. There is an innocence to this child, certainly, which Berger is absolutely intent on transcribing to his readers; otherwise, this picture wouldn’t be so large. In the earlier chapters, which concern the objectification of women, neither the timeless classic paintings or paralleled, contemporary advertisements are treated with this degree of reverence—Berger doesn’t even cite the picture of the peasant boy, because he might distract his reader. The black-and-white also compliment this portrait of a human being, a child whose face, unlike the other portraits in this chapter, isn’t wrinkled or scarred by the degradation of knowledge, experience, and the general stresses of adulthood.
Opposite this painting Berger includes a photograph of a young girl (Sarah Burge, 1883, Dr Barnardo’s Homes, Unknown Photographer). His emphasis here, in a chapter about art and the ranks of the real and common, is on children—children, like empty canvases, are unspoiled and pure. In a discussion about the beautiful, and the imitation of the beautiful, artists can always try to capture and manufacture what they believe is a beautiful image, but as soon as paint touches the white surface the illusion of possibilities is gone; the canvas is marred by a brush stroke.
Maybe the Beautiful is about possibilities, and not certainties.
Monday
That reminds me...
Beatrice is playing Pokemon now. His levels of pure inactivity and insatiable boredom have probably reached an all-time low.
I'd be angrier about it if I weren't jealous.
I'd be angrier about it if I weren't jealous.
NATIONALIST ASSOCIATION: "William I, regent since 1857, may we borrow your army to defeat the Austrians in a battle and finally establish the se...."
"...cond Reich?"
"But I want to modernize the Prussian army!"
"Please?"
"First, Prussian Parliament, may I have money in order to modernize my Prussian army?"
"Only if you earn it."
"Rats."
*
I'm taking a German history class to pad my credits this term. While I find it to be absolutely *fascinating*, the room is a little hot and the professor is not exactly the most engaging. So I've taken to taking my notes in singing cartoons and short dialogues. Read:
"Hey, it's 1870 and those Austrians are negotiating with France for an alliance against Prussia and the northern German states!"
"Let's kick France's ass first. Punks."
And so begins a beautiful friendship. I had a dark realization during class, though, that the German states spent the nineteenth century fighting for political, economic, and social stability in the guise of unification, only to have the dream stripped away in the 1940s and finally, fully realized in 1989...can you imagine over a hundred and fifty years striving for the unity of you and your kind? Granted, the Germans did get a little sidetracked, but still...I realized for the first time just how significant the fall of the Berlin Wall really must have been.
Mad's taken my hat and if I don't get it back the Phillies may never win again. During their last three losses I did not have it, and the scores for the last two games, after she had already kidnapped it, were bad enough for me to suspect I have a measure of psychic influence over the team's performance. Must get it back now, must. I wish she wasn't so pissed at me, again.
What else, not much? Um...nope. Ciao.
¡Mi lavaplatos me deja, ah cómo el corazón rompe!
"But I want to modernize the Prussian army!"
"Please?"
"First, Prussian Parliament, may I have money in order to modernize my Prussian army?"
"Only if you earn it."
"Rats."
*
I'm taking a German history class to pad my credits this term. While I find it to be absolutely *fascinating*, the room is a little hot and the professor is not exactly the most engaging. So I've taken to taking my notes in singing cartoons and short dialogues. Read:
"Hey, it's 1870 and those Austrians are negotiating with France for an alliance against Prussia and the northern German states!"
"Let's kick France's ass first. Punks."
And so begins a beautiful friendship. I had a dark realization during class, though, that the German states spent the nineteenth century fighting for political, economic, and social stability in the guise of unification, only to have the dream stripped away in the 1940s and finally, fully realized in 1989...can you imagine over a hundred and fifty years striving for the unity of you and your kind? Granted, the Germans did get a little sidetracked, but still...I realized for the first time just how significant the fall of the Berlin Wall really must have been.
Mad's taken my hat and if I don't get it back the Phillies may never win again. During their last three losses I did not have it, and the scores for the last two games, after she had already kidnapped it, were bad enough for me to suspect I have a measure of psychic influence over the team's performance. Must get it back now, must. I wish she wasn't so pissed at me, again.
What else, not much? Um...nope. Ciao.
¡Mi lavaplatos me deja, ah cómo el corazón rompe!
Sunday
mad's back in town and it's cold here.
I started to write this a few days ago, thinking she was asleep, but she happened in on me so I shut it down. Want Something Else to be a secret as long as I can keep it one.
I don't remember what I was trying to write about that night, must have been a Saturday, but I was strained for inspiration. Sunday, however, was a great night. I opened the bar and made forty dollars, quite unremarkable, but I followed my nose to a nearby bar to help see off an old workfriend, who's leaving Philadelphia for the last time. Her name is Colts, and she had a bad habit of working at the Chain whenever she was in town studying. Colts, her roommate, and B and I hopped from one bar to the next while the Flyers secured a playoff seat. We ended up at Scarlett's, which has a great deal on Yuengling pitchers and had an open pool table, which we put to use for three hours, playing doubles. I spent every dollar I made that morning on beer that night, and had one of the more memorable sunny afternoons I've had in a long time. Colts and I agree that the table we occupied, right next to the pool table, with warm, gentle breezes blowing in from the tall, old-fashioned windows, is one of the best seats this side of the river on a Sunday afternoon.
I played myself sober later that night in a game of tackle football with B and a few of his sporty companions. I'm still sore two days later, and it feels great. He's a big guy, though I think I impressed him. B taught me a few of his tricks when I started serving, and now I'm watching my trainer slide behind the bar to join me in the great ranks of the beer tap-handlers.
The lesson for today is that an afternoon shooting shit, and then a little sweat, can relax a lingering sore throat right out of you. I'm so glad I finally got away from the rigors of a static evening in front of the damned television, mired in the throes of my roommates' insatiable want to pass the time.
We asked a question in class today, one I want to ponder on and maybe try to answer in a later post: Where are all the great women artists?
I don't remember what I was trying to write about that night, must have been a Saturday, but I was strained for inspiration. Sunday, however, was a great night. I opened the bar and made forty dollars, quite unremarkable, but I followed my nose to a nearby bar to help see off an old workfriend, who's leaving Philadelphia for the last time. Her name is Colts, and she had a bad habit of working at the Chain whenever she was in town studying. Colts, her roommate, and B and I hopped from one bar to the next while the Flyers secured a playoff seat. We ended up at Scarlett's, which has a great deal on Yuengling pitchers and had an open pool table, which we put to use for three hours, playing doubles. I spent every dollar I made that morning on beer that night, and had one of the more memorable sunny afternoons I've had in a long time. Colts and I agree that the table we occupied, right next to the pool table, with warm, gentle breezes blowing in from the tall, old-fashioned windows, is one of the best seats this side of the river on a Sunday afternoon.
I played myself sober later that night in a game of tackle football with B and a few of his sporty companions. I'm still sore two days later, and it feels great. He's a big guy, though I think I impressed him. B taught me a few of his tricks when I started serving, and now I'm watching my trainer slide behind the bar to join me in the great ranks of the beer tap-handlers.
The lesson for today is that an afternoon shooting shit, and then a little sweat, can relax a lingering sore throat right out of you. I'm so glad I finally got away from the rigors of a static evening in front of the damned television, mired in the throes of my roommates' insatiable want to pass the time.
We asked a question in class today, one I want to ponder on and maybe try to answer in a later post: Where are all the great women artists?
Friday
Rise
PiL is going to be in Atlantic City within the next two months and I'm torn over whether it's worth the effort to see Mr. Lydon in person. I don't like Rise, which is the only PiL song I've ever heard, but I also don't dislike it. Of course I won't see them, Atlantic City is so far away and the tickets will be expensive. Still, it would be something to etch my eyes into the ranks of Mr. Lydon's live audience. Especially after an eighteen-year hiatus. No, the tickets will be too expensive.
The Buzzcocks play here, too, halfway through May, and they're probably a better show. Speaking of, the Psychedelic Furs are playing at the Cube in the coming weeks. It's really a tiny little venue for such a reputable act and I'm not sure how the show is going to play out. The Cube may actually be in for it this time. I'm more worried that they won't let me in after I get off of work, I suspect security will be pretty tight. We'll just have to walk a block or so more to get to another bar...
Baseball season started again, let's go, let's go. Phillies are up two games and down one, the sons of bitches. It's only the Nationals!
I want to write something smart or insightful now, something inspired, to get away from the dumb problems that affect my life, the same problems you have, and give somebody a real reason to check this page every few days. That's what we all want, though, isn't it? Validation...
In class last term, The Philosophy of Sex and Love, one of the concepts that we discussed that I've become quite taken by is the idea of existential crisis, call it Soble's Existential Crisis; the idea that we are more than comfortably aware of how fragile our mortality is becoming. We live day-to-day, sure, but in the shadow of this naggy little feeling somewhere in our head that the present is tainted by the terminal of the future. That's one thing I've really come to hate about college, is how irrelevant the process seems to be becoming, and how expensive it's finally going to be. It's an STD.
But, about the terminal of the future. Of course, this has really always been a problem with the human condition, but the technology of our age has done two things to complicate how we console ourselves each and every one, both mentally and emotionally. Hence, a short list of generalized solutions to cope with EXISTENTIAL ANGST. A thousand years ago, with the golden age of human civilization swept well under a thick rug of strict monotheism, certain widespread mortal crises like, I dunno, Feudalism, and the Plague, were most simply countered theocratically, which is why all of the art from the time is such a drag. Religion was one self-definition that made the mortal coil tolerable. I'd say that the Military was another, which explains a lot arbitrary war decisions made at the time--seriously, the Crusades?
Of course, in the last three hundred years the Enlightenment has made short work of spirituality, and now it takes a certain mentality to put so much unemaciated faith into a singular, greater power. For some people, religion still works.
One modern complication on the crisis of Existential Angst is the lack of any relative manifestation. Plague is plague: you're surrounded by it, your friends and family are falling to it, and either you are or you aren't. You rely on your God to spare you or hightail it away to somewhere else, likely following a trail of enlistment papers, assuming your government and culture consider you of a proper genealogy to fight. Since the fifties, we haven't been able to keep such a close watch on the things that threaten to end our lives HERE and NOW: the Bomb, particularly, but AIDS too, remain distant and/or microscopic. An exception, maybe, is the FOX news network.
Another complication is the future we don't really seem to have. Between Soylent Green and Idiocracy there are a number of imaginatively stark portrayals of a time-to-be where ignorance and inactivity have pigeonholed the human race into a bleak, meaningless existence. Soble cited Rachel Carson's work, which ignited a race of environmental activists who were just as irritating then as they are now. Of course, they're right in what they do, and we ignore them because we simply don't enjoy being reminded of how irresponsible we're being. And, we don't need to worry about the future now because people years from now will have plenty of time to do it then, and all the more need. The American Forefathers, as they were drafting the Constitution, decided to sidestep the issue of Slavey and Slave Ownership--we all know how cleanly and nonconfrontationally the deciding generation handled that. Philosophers Stone and Parker treat the idea well in their chapter on "Goobacks".
Essentially, we wander about our days waiting for an unexpected nuclear attack to completely annihilate life as we know it, so we don't worry so much about the future, which is also shaping up to suck pretty royally. We want a shoulder to cry on, but the consolatory methods of religion and militarism have become archaic compared to the accessibility of what's available NOW: Drugs and Sex. And, these feel much better compared to the flagellations of the former. Thank you, '67. But, drugs and sex render irresponsible followers (read: most of them) quite useless, for reasons that should be pretty clear.
In class we also discussed Love as a reaction to Existential Angst and this of course made all kinds of sense. The discussion is deep, complicated, and philosophical, and can be tied up on one end as the pursuit of immortality. There are a lot of different ends, of course.
Immortality is achieved, most literally, in the conception of offspring, which carry your blood through the generations. For some Lovers this is not a biologically viable option, but the Greeks were creative: they endorsed art for just the occasion.
I'm reading Please Kill Me, an oral history of the World's most misunderstood Pop movement, and Ron Asheton, the recently-deceased Stooge, quite accurately sums up the Artist's condition: he's a lazy son-of-a-bitch who doesn't want to do anything. Of course, he's got to make his way through the world, which he does, like all successful artists, by convincing every body else that his contributions possess meaning. Meaning which deserves financial reward, naturally.
*
This post is scatterbrained and loaded. In the last month I've been home, done this and that. I'm flirting dangerously with my school status. I want to quit, but know damned well if I do that I'll regret it sometime in the next two to twenty years.
But, bitching about my life when I want to be taken seriously is no way to convince the rest of you that my contributions possess meaning, is it? I'm facing my own Existential Crisis, though--To be or not to be--
I remember this exchange every time I don't want to want direction, it's a few of my favorite lines ever written:
"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where –" said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"– so long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."
Just keep walking, I guess.
V'had loads of great dreams, so those will be up here pretty soon. Let's start with that.
The Buzzcocks play here, too, halfway through May, and they're probably a better show. Speaking of, the Psychedelic Furs are playing at the Cube in the coming weeks. It's really a tiny little venue for such a reputable act and I'm not sure how the show is going to play out. The Cube may actually be in for it this time. I'm more worried that they won't let me in after I get off of work, I suspect security will be pretty tight. We'll just have to walk a block or so more to get to another bar...
Baseball season started again, let's go, let's go. Phillies are up two games and down one, the sons of bitches. It's only the Nationals!
I want to write something smart or insightful now, something inspired, to get away from the dumb problems that affect my life, the same problems you have, and give somebody a real reason to check this page every few days. That's what we all want, though, isn't it? Validation...
In class last term, The Philosophy of Sex and Love, one of the concepts that we discussed that I've become quite taken by is the idea of existential crisis, call it Soble's Existential Crisis; the idea that we are more than comfortably aware of how fragile our mortality is becoming. We live day-to-day, sure, but in the shadow of this naggy little feeling somewhere in our head that the present is tainted by the terminal of the future. That's one thing I've really come to hate about college, is how irrelevant the process seems to be becoming, and how expensive it's finally going to be. It's an STD.
But, about the terminal of the future. Of course, this has really always been a problem with the human condition, but the technology of our age has done two things to complicate how we console ourselves each and every one, both mentally and emotionally. Hence, a short list of generalized solutions to cope with EXISTENTIAL ANGST. A thousand years ago, with the golden age of human civilization swept well under a thick rug of strict monotheism, certain widespread mortal crises like, I dunno, Feudalism, and the Plague, were most simply countered theocratically, which is why all of the art from the time is such a drag. Religion was one self-definition that made the mortal coil tolerable. I'd say that the Military was another, which explains a lot arbitrary war decisions made at the time--seriously, the Crusades?
Of course, in the last three hundred years the Enlightenment has made short work of spirituality, and now it takes a certain mentality to put so much unemaciated faith into a singular, greater power. For some people, religion still works.
One modern complication on the crisis of Existential Angst is the lack of any relative manifestation. Plague is plague: you're surrounded by it, your friends and family are falling to it, and either you are or you aren't. You rely on your God to spare you or hightail it away to somewhere else, likely following a trail of enlistment papers, assuming your government and culture consider you of a proper genealogy to fight. Since the fifties, we haven't been able to keep such a close watch on the things that threaten to end our lives HERE and NOW: the Bomb, particularly, but AIDS too, remain distant and/or microscopic. An exception, maybe, is the FOX news network.
Another complication is the future we don't really seem to have. Between Soylent Green and Idiocracy there are a number of imaginatively stark portrayals of a time-to-be where ignorance and inactivity have pigeonholed the human race into a bleak, meaningless existence. Soble cited Rachel Carson's work, which ignited a race of environmental activists who were just as irritating then as they are now. Of course, they're right in what they do, and we ignore them because we simply don't enjoy being reminded of how irresponsible we're being. And, we don't need to worry about the future now because people years from now will have plenty of time to do it then, and all the more need. The American Forefathers, as they were drafting the Constitution, decided to sidestep the issue of Slavey and Slave Ownership--we all know how cleanly and nonconfrontationally the deciding generation handled that. Philosophers Stone and Parker treat the idea well in their chapter on "Goobacks".
Essentially, we wander about our days waiting for an unexpected nuclear attack to completely annihilate life as we know it, so we don't worry so much about the future, which is also shaping up to suck pretty royally. We want a shoulder to cry on, but the consolatory methods of religion and militarism have become archaic compared to the accessibility of what's available NOW: Drugs and Sex. And, these feel much better compared to the flagellations of the former. Thank you, '67. But, drugs and sex render irresponsible followers (read: most of them) quite useless, for reasons that should be pretty clear.
In class we also discussed Love as a reaction to Existential Angst and this of course made all kinds of sense. The discussion is deep, complicated, and philosophical, and can be tied up on one end as the pursuit of immortality. There are a lot of different ends, of course.
Immortality is achieved, most literally, in the conception of offspring, which carry your blood through the generations. For some Lovers this is not a biologically viable option, but the Greeks were creative: they endorsed art for just the occasion.
I'm reading Please Kill Me, an oral history of the World's most misunderstood Pop movement, and Ron Asheton, the recently-deceased Stooge, quite accurately sums up the Artist's condition: he's a lazy son-of-a-bitch who doesn't want to do anything. Of course, he's got to make his way through the world, which he does, like all successful artists, by convincing every body else that his contributions possess meaning. Meaning which deserves financial reward, naturally.
*
This post is scatterbrained and loaded. In the last month I've been home, done this and that. I'm flirting dangerously with my school status. I want to quit, but know damned well if I do that I'll regret it sometime in the next two to twenty years.
But, bitching about my life when I want to be taken seriously is no way to convince the rest of you that my contributions possess meaning, is it? I'm facing my own Existential Crisis, though--To be or not to be--
I remember this exchange every time I don't want to want direction, it's a few of my favorite lines ever written:
"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where –" said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"– so long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."
Just keep walking, I guess.
V'had loads of great dreams, so those will be up here pretty soon. Let's start with that.
Monday
Of Tender Years
Rojo quit last night.
That's inaccurate. He quit about sixteen days ago, maybe eighteen. Days, not shifts. Last night was his last night. Boston's having a kid, too. We all stood outside under a awning after work last night while Rojo sucked down a joint and we shivered in the rain. It's been a while since I felt that tight, anywhere. Boston took off before I could buy him a drink, but I think he was in a hurry to get home and embrace the news. Chippendale stayed, complete in vest, tie and gin&tonic, and pretty much outdrank me. I swallowed too fast though, and nothing on my stomach. Still made it home and didn't heave, although I snoozed for a while in the bathroom. I need to cool it. Glad I didn't have to flush anything, though, because the chain broke again yesterday and we have to fiddle with the valve now in order for the tank to fill up.
The headache hit halfway through Spanish this morning, but for all I know that was the classroom and not the whiskey. La Profesora thinks I should seek out a conselor, and she's probably right. I'm not going to.
Two bottles of Queen Bitch Amber are in the fridge. We brewed it, I don't remember if that was in December or early Feburary, though the date is stamped in marker on the side of the bucket we used. It's been bottled for almost two weeks and I should wait just a little longer, but I'm excited to taste it. Monday night, isn't it? We're getting all of our new shows tonight and I have muchos horas de tarea de español para hacer.
Did some writing this morning, and some aided reminiscing. Started a lyric, then revisted my cache of old ideas and thoughts spread across the notebooks I've kept from the last four years. I don't know why I pulled those out of the closet, except that I've just started a fresh book, it's red, and I like to see the record of my progression opened and accessible in black and white in front of me. Who doesn't? That's why I write here, too. I wonder if I'll ever settle well enough to look back over the last few years and laugh at how I thought they were miserable and tumultuous.
I think I get to go home the week after this, fingers crossed. Mis vacaciones numero dos!
That's inaccurate. He quit about sixteen days ago, maybe eighteen. Days, not shifts. Last night was his last night. Boston's having a kid, too. We all stood outside under a awning after work last night while Rojo sucked down a joint and we shivered in the rain. It's been a while since I felt that tight, anywhere. Boston took off before I could buy him a drink, but I think he was in a hurry to get home and embrace the news. Chippendale stayed, complete in vest, tie and gin&tonic, and pretty much outdrank me. I swallowed too fast though, and nothing on my stomach. Still made it home and didn't heave, although I snoozed for a while in the bathroom. I need to cool it. Glad I didn't have to flush anything, though, because the chain broke again yesterday and we have to fiddle with the valve now in order for the tank to fill up.
The headache hit halfway through Spanish this morning, but for all I know that was the classroom and not the whiskey. La Profesora thinks I should seek out a conselor, and she's probably right. I'm not going to.
Two bottles of Queen Bitch Amber are in the fridge. We brewed it, I don't remember if that was in December or early Feburary, though the date is stamped in marker on the side of the bucket we used. It's been bottled for almost two weeks and I should wait just a little longer, but I'm excited to taste it. Monday night, isn't it? We're getting all of our new shows tonight and I have muchos horas de tarea de español para hacer.
Did some writing this morning, and some aided reminiscing. Started a lyric, then revisted my cache of old ideas and thoughts spread across the notebooks I've kept from the last four years. I don't know why I pulled those out of the closet, except that I've just started a fresh book, it's red, and I like to see the record of my progression opened and accessible in black and white in front of me. Who doesn't? That's why I write here, too. I wonder if I'll ever settle well enough to look back over the last few years and laugh at how I thought they were miserable and tumultuous.
I think I get to go home the week after this, fingers crossed. Mis vacaciones numero dos!
Thursday
what happened to february?
Beatrice started a guitaring blog in January and wrote three detailed, passionate, and somewhat naive/arrogant posts for a player at his level.
Was it really over a month ago that I remember him being so excited about it? As he looked up at me from his chair and I could hear a little motivation in the back of his throat?
"The sun is rising."
He hasn't written a thing since then.
Was it really over a month ago that I remember him being so excited about it? As he looked up at me from his chair and I could hear a little motivation in the back of his throat?
"The sun is rising."
He hasn't written a thing since then.
today's tip.
I finally worked up the courage to go to Spanish class today. I'd missed six classes in a row on account of exhaustion and sickness, and I hadn't contacted the teacher about any of it. Tuesday I basically didn't go because I was afraid of all the classes I'd missed. It's a theme I've got going, avoiding the problem while it festers. I never signed up for my oral test, and I have no idea what's been due or what dates are when. My participation grade is most certainly dead in the water. I'm probably going to fail the class now; a week ago I still had a shot.
My heart beat with anticipation this morning as I walked out of the library--I had to print out final drafts of the compositions that were due two weeks ago--and made my way to the main building. My eyes instinctively flitted to the big clock in the grand hall as I passed in front of it, delighted that I was on time. Two flights of stairs and a well-traveled maze of hallways later, I was stopped just outside of the wing were my class is, by a official in front of a curtain. Some kind of event, a lot of classes moved. Since I never got the memo, I headed to la oficina de la profesora.
I was even more nervous now, but confident too, because at least the one-on-one setting would spare me the embarrassment of explaining myself during class, and getting the Indian burn I deserve, too. I sat outside of the building for five minutes reviewing my lessons, in the event that she'd invite me to do an impromptu, unplanned oral exam--a true test. I finally made my way to the second floor, hesitated outside of her office, and elbowed my way in.
Nothing, she wasn't there. And, there was no word to a fellow teacher about whether the class this morning was canceled, or just moved. I went back outside and smoked a cigarette.
I practiced piano at Mao's this morning for the first time ever, while she took a shower. I'm not sure why I decided to ask her, but it felt good. I promised to write la profesora an email before I left for work, so I'd have some kind of instruction.
Instead, I fell asleep and missed my alarm. I finally got to work, a half hour late and looking all the worse for the wear.
Erin Express is this weekend, and I finally, officially join the great ranks of the maddened barkeeps. Unless the rain dampens the festivities. I laugh in spite of myself, because Katharine avoided me tonight, which she does now if she's infatuated with someone else. Last weekend she got pissy when I showed up to the Cube after work with Mewtwo for a drink: Katharine had been in and out of bars all that night, so she was quite drunk, but I know jealously when I see it. It's a shame too, we could have had a little fun. I know we both need it.
So much, so much. Busy, busy, as that one Bokononist says, and I hope he's right. I've been particularly sober the last few days, which is good, I think. I hope it's the exhaustion, and not some thick ooze of disinterest that feels like it's replacing my blood.
Oh, today's tip: Don't try separating steel wool with your bare hands, especially if they are wet, or soft from the dishwater they're always in when you're bar-tending. On top of that, don't separate steel wool with your bare hands if you're going to be anywhere near a lime, or some other squeezable, citrus fruit.
I'm making it up as I go along...
My heart beat with anticipation this morning as I walked out of the library--I had to print out final drafts of the compositions that were due two weeks ago--and made my way to the main building. My eyes instinctively flitted to the big clock in the grand hall as I passed in front of it, delighted that I was on time. Two flights of stairs and a well-traveled maze of hallways later, I was stopped just outside of the wing were my class is, by a official in front of a curtain. Some kind of event, a lot of classes moved. Since I never got the memo, I headed to la oficina de la profesora.
I was even more nervous now, but confident too, because at least the one-on-one setting would spare me the embarrassment of explaining myself during class, and getting the Indian burn I deserve, too. I sat outside of the building for five minutes reviewing my lessons, in the event that she'd invite me to do an impromptu, unplanned oral exam--a true test. I finally made my way to the second floor, hesitated outside of her office, and elbowed my way in.
Nothing, she wasn't there. And, there was no word to a fellow teacher about whether the class this morning was canceled, or just moved. I went back outside and smoked a cigarette.
I practiced piano at Mao's this morning for the first time ever, while she took a shower. I'm not sure why I decided to ask her, but it felt good. I promised to write la profesora an email before I left for work, so I'd have some kind of instruction.
Instead, I fell asleep and missed my alarm. I finally got to work, a half hour late and looking all the worse for the wear.
Erin Express is this weekend, and I finally, officially join the great ranks of the maddened barkeeps. Unless the rain dampens the festivities. I laugh in spite of myself, because Katharine avoided me tonight, which she does now if she's infatuated with someone else. Last weekend she got pissy when I showed up to the Cube after work with Mewtwo for a drink: Katharine had been in and out of bars all that night, so she was quite drunk, but I know jealously when I see it. It's a shame too, we could have had a little fun. I know we both need it.
So much, so much. Busy, busy, as that one Bokononist says, and I hope he's right. I've been particularly sober the last few days, which is good, I think. I hope it's the exhaustion, and not some thick ooze of disinterest that feels like it's replacing my blood.
Oh, today's tip: Don't try separating steel wool with your bare hands, especially if they are wet, or soft from the dishwater they're always in when you're bar-tending. On top of that, don't separate steel wool with your bare hands if you're going to be anywhere near a lime, or some other squeezable, citrus fruit.
I'm making it up as I go along...
Tuesday
Semiotics, a continuing Storree. {1}
...I was practicing guitar earlier and threw a bunch of stuff on the player, to see if anything would trigger a little fingerinspiration...
...tried the Grateful Dead, only have the one album and I haven't listened to it in years. Moved along to the Doors, and Peace Frog, which didn't do much, but was still good to hear, because it's been a while, and it's one of the best songs they ever wrote.
...and it's on the Internet radio now. I'm hearing it twice in a day when I haven't heard it for, well, a considerable amount of time, given how much I really do enjoy the song.
And, thus begins my narrative. Introducing Semiotics: Look for the Sign. Some of it will be anecdotes of the past, on slow news days; some of it anecdotes yet to be. You decide whether there's any meaning to it. Sidenote: Pandora's mix favors one of the two stereo channels over the other. Either that, or a speaker on this computer is out.
...tried the Grateful Dead, only have the one album and I haven't listened to it in years. Moved along to the Doors, and Peace Frog, which didn't do much, but was still good to hear, because it's been a while, and it's one of the best songs they ever wrote.
...and it's on the Internet radio now. I'm hearing it twice in a day when I haven't heard it for, well, a considerable amount of time, given how much I really do enjoy the song.
And, thus begins my narrative. Introducing Semiotics: Look for the Sign. Some of it will be anecdotes of the past, on slow news days; some of it anecdotes yet to be. You decide whether there's any meaning to it. Sidenote: Pandora's mix favors one of the two stereo channels over the other. Either that, or a speaker on this computer is out.
The Restaurant Rag
I'm finally starting to feel better. I've been exhausted, literally EXHAUSTED, for the last two weeks. I didn't even sleep much last night, and my cough is hoarser, and I'm still blowing a lot of snot. But, I'm finally starting to feel better. Of course, I've been saying that for a few days now.
I'm actually going to class today, and then I'll get that email to my teacher, and then the term will be over, but not before not changing my major...
Alice In Chains
Bob Marley
Booker T. & The MG's
Buddy Rich
David Bowie
Duke Ellington
Evanescence
Fleetwood Mac
Flogging Molly
Heart
Jane's Addiction
Jeff Beck
Joni Mitchell
Led Zeppelin
Lou Reed
Ludwig van Beethoven
MC5
Milla Jovovich
Muse
Neil Young
Neko Case
Nirvana
No Doubt
Patti Smith
Pixies
Radiohead
Robert Johnson
Rod Stewart
Sex Pistols
Sly & The Family Stone
Squeeze
Steely Dan
The Allman Brothers Band
The B-52's
The Clash
The Seatbelts
The Velvet Underground
The Yardbirds
Todd Rundgren
Tom Petty
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
These are the big changes I've made to my Artist Seed so far, but they don't necessarily reflect my favorite songs. I'm trying to round out the list of influences and genres. I took out a lot of the careers that I don't follow, ex. The Clash, because I only like London Calling and Combat Rock. I still haven't listened to the debut album. However, I threw my favorite Clash songs into the Song Seed, and I think the effect is better. Booker T. and Bob Marley were an even more significant cut, because I'm really not very intimate with either of them, even though I seriously dig their big hits. I'm still testing all this, but Brown Sugar and Fat Bottomed Girls kicked off today's logon, so we're getting closer. My Song Seeds are rock-heavy, but maybe if they play enough variety I'll be able to trim that list up too, or at least balance it out. I'm not hearing a lot of new stuff yet.
...another Queen song. Not sure I'm in the mood for the Bohemian Rhapsody.
Guess what? I'm PUBLISHED! That's right, I submitted my work to somebody on the Internet and he posted it on his site.
Now that I am Published, of course, I can finally begin to enjoy distinction and respect for my talents, and reap the benefits of the credit my work certainly deserves. Because, being Published means somebody else recognizes the value of my unique voice and experiences.
The Internet is a great shitcart, you know.
I'm actually going to class today, and then I'll get that email to my teacher, and then the term will be over, but not before not changing my major...
Bob Marley
Booker T. & The MG's
Buddy Rich
David Bowie
Duke Ellington
Evanescence
Fleetwood Mac
Heart
Jeff Beck
Joni Mitchell
Led Zeppelin
Ludwig van Beethoven
MC5
Milla Jovovich
Neil Young
Neko Case
Nirvana
No Doubt
Patti Smith
Pixies
Robert Johnson
Sex Pistols
Sly & The Family Stone
Steely Dan
The Allman Brothers Band
The Clash
The Seatbelts
The Velvet Underground
The Yardbirds
Todd Rundgren
Tom Petty
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
These are the big changes I've made to my Artist Seed so far, but they don't necessarily reflect my favorite songs. I'm trying to round out the list of influences and genres. I took out a lot of the careers that I don't follow, ex. The Clash, because I only like London Calling and Combat Rock. I still haven't listened to the debut album. However, I threw my favorite Clash songs into the Song Seed, and I think the effect is better. Booker T. and Bob Marley were an even more significant cut, because I'm really not very intimate with either of them, even though I seriously dig their big hits. I'm still testing all this, but Brown Sugar and Fat Bottomed Girls kicked off today's logon, so we're getting closer. My Song Seeds are rock-heavy, but maybe if they play enough variety I'll be able to trim that list up too, or at least balance it out. I'm not hearing a lot of new stuff yet.
...another Queen song. Not sure I'm in the mood for the Bohemian Rhapsody.
Guess what? I'm PUBLISHED! That's right, I submitted my work to somebody on the Internet and he posted it on his site.
Now that I am Published, of course, I can finally begin to enjoy distinction and respect for my talents, and reap the benefits of the credit my work certainly deserves. Because, being Published means somebody else recognizes the value of my unique voice and experiences.
The Internet is a great shitcart, you know.
Thursday
Come On, Come On (Demo) by: Cheap Trick [I titled lastly]
...i dunno. the randomizer seems to cling to whatever particular genre I've been editing. I assumed that, given any input, they'd be able to generate a stream that compliments the user's unique musical tastes. but I just dropped a few sixties songs in the mixer with everything else and it's all I'm getting back. Like a fruit salad with kiwi and pineapple and grapes and cantaloupe, but all you taste is strawberry. Dick & Dee Dee sound like Henry Crun and Minnie Bannister, by the way. Look it up, kids.
& this is another Byrds song, after the Eight Miles High remix. If I close up and log back on, will it just pick a new genre and stick to that, too? I wanted variety of the sort that I've never heard! I don't know if I'm upset, or just hasty.
I suppose, I guess, that you're supposed to make different radios for every genre you want, which makes the job easier on them, the lazy bastards. I thought I'd really discover some new stuff, music by guys that listen to everything like I do...wait! We have a punk song!...
Paul Weller?
Sigh. Maybe I shouldn't have the Mamas and the Papas on a playlist with Megadeth if I'm expecting the life-changing to happen. It was worth a try, though.
My head is destroying me.
& this is another Byrds song, after the Eight Miles High remix. If I close up and log back on, will it just pick a new genre and stick to that, too? I wanted variety of the sort that I've never heard! I don't know if I'm upset, or just hasty.
I suppose, I guess, that you're supposed to make different radios for every genre you want, which makes the job easier on them, the lazy bastards. I thought I'd really discover some new stuff, music by guys that listen to everything like I do...wait! We have a punk song!...
Paul Weller?
Sigh. Maybe I shouldn't have the Mamas and the Papas on a playlist with Megadeth if I'm expecting the life-changing to happen. It was worth a try, though.
My head is destroying me.
Pandorum
sick and tired because I've been up all night screwing around, wondering whether I should skip classes again today. They start in an hour.
Dropped a station on Pandora, here. I'll be perfecting the input over the next few days or weeks, to get the response I want...already killed some of the bigger bands, like Aerosmith and KISS, because the hits were too predictable. I'm trying to send the website into a tailspin, but it's just me being prideful of my musical tastes:
Alice In Chains
Bob Marley
Booker T. & The MG' S
Buddy Rich
David Bowie
Duke Ellington
Evanescence
Fleetwood Mac
Flogging Molly
Heart
Jane's Addiction
Joni Mitchell
Led Zeppelin
Lou Reed
Ludwig van Beethoven
MC5
Milla Jovovich
Muse
Neko Case
Nirvana
No Doubt
Patti Smith
Pixies
Radiohead
Robert Johnson
Rod Stewart
Sex Pistols
Sly & The Family Stone
Squeeze
Steely Dan
The Allman Brothers Band
The B-52's
The Clash
The Seatbelts
The Velvet Underground
The Yardbirds
Todd Rundgren
Tom Petty
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
These are the artist seeds, so far. I'll probably end up scratching more and more of these off in favor of song seeds, until I get a station I'm happy with. It'll help get rid of the commercial taste, too, which I don't mind, but I have CDs, you know?
A work in progress, a work in progress. It's called The Horse Radio because I was looking for a file of "The Horse" by Cliff Nobles & Co. Did you know that Misirlou is a traditional Turkish or Greek song with a title that translates to, "The Egyptian"? Dick Dale grew up hearing it--his father was Lebanese-American.
Dropped a station on Pandora, here. I'll be perfecting the input over the next few days or weeks, to get the response I want...already killed some of the bigger bands, like Aerosmith and KISS, because the hits were too predictable. I'm trying to send the website into a tailspin, but it's just me being prideful of my musical tastes:
Alice In Chains
Bob Marley
Booker T. & The MG' S
Buddy Rich
David Bowie
Duke Ellington
Evanescence
Fleetwood Mac
Flogging Molly
Heart
Jane's Addiction
Joni Mitchell
Led Zeppelin
Lou Reed
Ludwig van Beethoven
MC5
Milla Jovovich
Muse
Neko Case
Nirvana
No Doubt
Patti Smith
Pixies
Radiohead
Robert Johnson
Rod Stewart
Sex Pistols
Sly & The Family Stone
Squeeze
Steely Dan
The Allman Brothers Band
The B-52's
The Clash
The Seatbelts
The Velvet Underground
The Yardbirds
Todd Rundgren
Tom Petty
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
These are the artist seeds, so far. I'll probably end up scratching more and more of these off in favor of song seeds, until I get a station I'm happy with. It'll help get rid of the commercial taste, too, which I don't mind, but I have CDs, you know?
A work in progress, a work in progress. It's called The Horse Radio because I was looking for a file of "The Horse" by Cliff Nobles & Co. Did you know that Misirlou is a traditional Turkish or Greek song with a title that translates to, "The Egyptian"? Dick Dale grew up hearing it--his father was Lebanese-American.
Tuesday
od d rea ding ab out the su mme r in mar c h
Playing about with the title here, but I just read the first post I wrote on something else and it's odd sitting on the exact same couch reading about how the weather will be four to five months from now. Warm, the windows open and a cool breeze tickling my arm; sunny, sticky, late nights not so damned cold, the wind a blessing, no ice, and I don't have to wear a coat every where or come in and try to remember my toes; when it rains I can run around and get soaked and smile and dry off later, and the storms will be things to breathe in. I like the cold, but I like the hot better, I think. I like the comfortable the best, and the cold is no where near the comfortable.
"Your hard work certainly get result." Maow's reading part of a letter that her Chinese-oriented professor wrote to her. My physics TA freshman year was Asian...why does our school have ESL teachers trying to explain complicated mathematics? I've wondered this for, well, four years, at least. On that note, our kitchen is almost entirely Hispanic, and the dishwasher doesn't speak a word of English. So I'm trying to learn, yo estudio, and we'll see what happens with that.
"Your hard work certainly get result." Maow's reading part of a letter that her Chinese-oriented professor wrote to her. My physics TA freshman year was Asian...why does our school have ESL teachers trying to explain complicated mathematics? I've wondered this for, well, four years, at least. On that note, our kitchen is almost entirely Hispanic, and the dishwasher doesn't speak a word of English. So I'm trying to learn, yo estudio, and we'll see what happens with that.
Five for March!
March is going to be a long month. I have two weeks left of class, a week of exams, and a week of break before starting another term. Hopefully, anyway.
I'm exhausted today. I've been putting out to much at work, somehow I'm walking out with seventy or eighty dollars a night but it's not enough emotionally. My service is efficient but there's no smile anymore, I'm not putting any extra effort where it's going to be an absolute waste. I don't have enough in me to even go to class today, I'm going to finish my assignments, mail them off, sleep, wake up, and do more assignments. I need a day to rest.
Erin Express and March Madness coming up are going to make the next three weeks on the bar some of the toughest shifts I've had, Valentine's Day makes for a nice bookend, that. In two weeks if I don't get a break I'm going to quit. Rojo put in his two weeks as per his parents' stipulation. Verde thinks I hate her, and I don't, but working with her doesn't make the place any brighter anymore, and I've decided she can live with that. There isn't a soul there that brightens the place up right now, not even Katharine (I'll know when she's done seeing this new guy, but it won't matter) or You II (which is the best name I can think of--too bad you have kids). I need to cut back on the bar visits afterwards or cease them altogether, for now...something/anything? to feel a little less dizzy all the time.
I'm exhausted today. I've been putting out to much at work, somehow I'm walking out with seventy or eighty dollars a night but it's not enough emotionally. My service is efficient but there's no smile anymore, I'm not putting any extra effort where it's going to be an absolute waste. I don't have enough in me to even go to class today, I'm going to finish my assignments, mail them off, sleep, wake up, and do more assignments. I need a day to rest.
Erin Express and March Madness coming up are going to make the next three weeks on the bar some of the toughest shifts I've had, Valentine's Day makes for a nice bookend, that. In two weeks if I don't get a break I'm going to quit. Rojo put in his two weeks as per his parents' stipulation. Verde thinks I hate her, and I don't, but working with her doesn't make the place any brighter anymore, and I've decided she can live with that. There isn't a soul there that brightens the place up right now, not even Katharine (I'll know when she's done seeing this new guy, but it won't matter) or You II (which is the best name I can think of--too bad you have kids). I need to cut back on the bar visits afterwards or cease them altogether, for now...something/anything? to feel a little less dizzy all the time.
Someday, someone will read this.
X X, the regional manager in charge of several Philadelphia-area CHAIN, has been in the service industry for most of his life, just like our general manager, X X X, who is handing us each a small packet. It’s the summer of 2009, and half of the serving staff is gathered in the front of the empty dining room to hear the managers’ “pep talk”. X X’s a busy man and his message is straightforward. In the face of recession economics, food deals and meal specials aren’t going to be enough: customer service will be what makes the difference. Both men have seen the ebb and flow of the economy and the effect it has on restaurants, and both are serious about the changes our staff is going to make. I glance at the few pages of bulleted lists in my hand, which are all things we’re supposed to do anyway. Greet the guest within thirty seconds. Check that the guests’ food is hot and satisfactory within two minutes. Automatically refill any cup that’s half empty. Thank them for coming in and invite them to come back. Of course, on a busy night all of these things are hard to do. But, X X emphasizes that the extra service will go a long way, both for the reputation of the establishment and more importantly for our tips. He goes on to warn us of a zero-tolerance policy that will take effect in favor of guest complaints: if the service is bad, you’re losing your job. I glance at James, a Temple student who lives three blocks up the street, and Nam, who graduated last year but commutes here from Fourth and South five nights a week. We all get a little nervous.
This is at the debut of the chain’s “SUPERDUPER” insert, its first foray into wallet-saving specials that have become staples of every casual-dining ad for the last six months. The draw of a more moderately priced entrée, despite its reduced portion size, attracts some attention from our regular customer base, which is happier with the price than it is with the selection available to it. Business is business. In the summer of ‘09, BIGAZZ COMPANY, which operates CHAIN in addition to ANOTHER CHAIN and ANOTHER CHAIN, began tampering with the hardy but somewhat bland menu to give it more appeal: a new look here, as with the CHICKEN MENU ITEM; a new taste there with the OTHER MENU ITEM, which was just the old MENU ITEM sans A PARTICULAR THING. The serving staff, meanwhile, some twenty strong at our establishment, and the Back-of-House, the fifteen cooks, struggle as one to learn the corporation’s experimental menu changes in a timely fashion. On a busy Friday night the line can get just about any ticket out in twenty minutes or less, but tonight there are quality standards that bog the cooks down as they constantly cite the guidelines for each new setup. And of course, since it’s new, they have a lot of these dishes to make.
Our waiters aren’t faring much better. While we are consciously improving our service the availability of food at a cheaper price makes for smaller checks, and customers certainly aren’t saving money so they can leave bigger tips. It’s disheartening to an individual who already struggles with the ingratiating nature of an otherwise convenient job.
A bartender with one ear constantly tuned to the television, I’m aware of only a few major news pieces that distract the nation’s talking heads from the reality of our economic recession, and Michael Jackson’s death only lasts for a week on CNN before being displaced with morbidly daily updates on massive layoffs and clinching foreclosures. Traffic at our location crawls to a stop; this is common in the summer, when GODDAMNED SCHOOL and the GOSHDARNED SCHOOL shut down and our greater customer base flocks away from the campuses. But X X and X X X are restlessly aware of the fact that, in order to cling to what little business we still claim, we need to step up our efforts. X X is giving this talk to every CHAIN staff he is responsible for: across the nation, in thousands of restaurants, servers just like James and Nam and I are getting the same lecture.
CHAIN is not the only casual dining chain that has felt the pressure of tight personal budgeting take business away from its doors, and is not the only company that struggles internally with the burden of high food and labor costs. An unprecedented wave of uneasy menu specials has descended as the general response to declining customer inclinations. CHAIN, CHAIN, and CHAIN itself have been groveling to television viewers with some variation on a two-or-three meal course for $20, and stoic, higher-end establishments like EXPENSIVE CHAIN, EXPENSIVE CHAIN and EXPENSIVE CHAIN have gotten in on the deals, too.
What these specials represent is the particular restaurant’s capacity to sell its regular fare at a deceivingly low price. CHAIN'S popular (and recently discontinued) SUPERDUPER option made available to the customer a small FOOD, two select FOOD, and a FOOD, for the total cost of $--.-- (includes tax, but not drinks). This same check, sans the special price, averages a minimum of $--, meaning that for each meal deal the restaurant wheels it is not making the additional ten dollars that once barely covered the inherent food and labor costs in the first place.
The situation is lose-win. The irresistibility of familiar food at such a value is a draw to customers, without which it doesn’t really matter how much the restaurant isn’t making. Some chains, EXPENSIVE CHAIN notably among them, figured out early in the recession that compression is key to turning a profit during tough times: at our CHAIN this is already a regular practice, particularly during the dry season. Waiters bus their own tables nightly and take-out is handled at the bar; more often than not the host, which sucks up seven or eight dollars per hour, is asked to go home, her duties covered by the manager in lieu of any available server. An expeditor hasn’t worked the line here in almost a year.
But, for the sake of saving face, how far is going too far? If there is no one to run food when the servers are stretched thin over so many duties, the $-- -deal courses stack up under the heat lamps and reach the table dry or hardened. At this particular CHAIN the waitstaff has experience handling so much at once, where its summer model has laid groundwork for recession-minded politics. In other chains, a cut expo here, or a busser less there, makes a deeper impact in the FOH’s ability to operate smoothly and efficiently. A mid-week visit to a restaurant as confident as EXPENSIVE CHAIN reveals twenty-minute waits on beer and lingering ticket times as the server struggles to manage a few extras duties at once.
This isn’t to say that our own cost-cutting efficiencies are perfected, either. The stress placed on both the serving staff and kitchen to ensure a pleasant experience for all guests is a tough burden to carry, especially on the employees who already carry a lot of weight. James and Nam have both been serving at this CHAIN for over two years apiece, and in lighter times the occasional complaint raised against one or the other was treated strictly, but with a degree of understanding. In the months following X X’s talk, both are going be fired, on separate occasions: James for being named offhand in a letter that reaches the corporate office, and Nam for a difficult customer’s unavoidably bad experience.
CHAIN, and its peers and competitions, are by virtue of their branding seemingly affixed venues of our times and culture. But, each unit is still an individualized part of the whole. You can—and should—expect decent food and good service from any one of these places that becomes your evening’s destination. Bear in mind, however, that the familiar logo and inviting color scheme of your local chain restaurant is not immunized by some respective corporate vaccine. We are trying our best, but this level we are all in this together. Appreciate that your patronage is being goaded with an enticing, if limited meal special; understand that no self-respecting restaurant might be so understaffed for a legitimate reason; enjoy the time you’re spending off your feet while somebody else is working for you. Servers and cooks have bills too, and at $2.85 an hour, any given server is not exactly looking to discourage a tip. Especially in this economy.
This is at the debut of the chain’s “SUPERDUPER” insert, its first foray into wallet-saving specials that have become staples of every casual-dining ad for the last six months. The draw of a more moderately priced entrée, despite its reduced portion size, attracts some attention from our regular customer base, which is happier with the price than it is with the selection available to it. Business is business. In the summer of ‘09, BIGAZZ COMPANY, which operates CHAIN in addition to ANOTHER CHAIN and ANOTHER CHAIN, began tampering with the hardy but somewhat bland menu to give it more appeal: a new look here, as with the CHICKEN MENU ITEM; a new taste there with the OTHER MENU ITEM, which was just the old MENU ITEM sans A PARTICULAR THING. The serving staff, meanwhile, some twenty strong at our establishment, and the Back-of-House, the fifteen cooks, struggle as one to learn the corporation’s experimental menu changes in a timely fashion. On a busy Friday night the line can get just about any ticket out in twenty minutes or less, but tonight there are quality standards that bog the cooks down as they constantly cite the guidelines for each new setup. And of course, since it’s new, they have a lot of these dishes to make.
Our waiters aren’t faring much better. While we are consciously improving our service the availability of food at a cheaper price makes for smaller checks, and customers certainly aren’t saving money so they can leave bigger tips. It’s disheartening to an individual who already struggles with the ingratiating nature of an otherwise convenient job.
A bartender with one ear constantly tuned to the television, I’m aware of only a few major news pieces that distract the nation’s talking heads from the reality of our economic recession, and Michael Jackson’s death only lasts for a week on CNN before being displaced with morbidly daily updates on massive layoffs and clinching foreclosures. Traffic at our location crawls to a stop; this is common in the summer, when GODDAMNED SCHOOL and the GOSHDARNED SCHOOL shut down and our greater customer base flocks away from the campuses. But X X and X X X are restlessly aware of the fact that, in order to cling to what little business we still claim, we need to step up our efforts. X X is giving this talk to every CHAIN staff he is responsible for: across the nation, in thousands of restaurants, servers just like James and Nam and I are getting the same lecture.
CHAIN is not the only casual dining chain that has felt the pressure of tight personal budgeting take business away from its doors, and is not the only company that struggles internally with the burden of high food and labor costs. An unprecedented wave of uneasy menu specials has descended as the general response to declining customer inclinations. CHAIN, CHAIN, and CHAIN itself have been groveling to television viewers with some variation on a two-or-three meal course for $20, and stoic, higher-end establishments like EXPENSIVE CHAIN, EXPENSIVE CHAIN and EXPENSIVE CHAIN have gotten in on the deals, too.
What these specials represent is the particular restaurant’s capacity to sell its regular fare at a deceivingly low price. CHAIN'S popular (and recently discontinued) SUPERDUPER option made available to the customer a small FOOD, two select FOOD, and a FOOD, for the total cost of $--.-- (includes tax, but not drinks). This same check, sans the special price, averages a minimum of $--, meaning that for each meal deal the restaurant wheels it is not making the additional ten dollars that once barely covered the inherent food and labor costs in the first place.
The situation is lose-win. The irresistibility of familiar food at such a value is a draw to customers, without which it doesn’t really matter how much the restaurant isn’t making. Some chains, EXPENSIVE CHAIN notably among them, figured out early in the recession that compression is key to turning a profit during tough times: at our CHAIN this is already a regular practice, particularly during the dry season. Waiters bus their own tables nightly and take-out is handled at the bar; more often than not the host, which sucks up seven or eight dollars per hour, is asked to go home, her duties covered by the manager in lieu of any available server. An expeditor hasn’t worked the line here in almost a year.
But, for the sake of saving face, how far is going too far? If there is no one to run food when the servers are stretched thin over so many duties, the $-- -deal courses stack up under the heat lamps and reach the table dry or hardened. At this particular CHAIN the waitstaff has experience handling so much at once, where its summer model has laid groundwork for recession-minded politics. In other chains, a cut expo here, or a busser less there, makes a deeper impact in the FOH’s ability to operate smoothly and efficiently. A mid-week visit to a restaurant as confident as EXPENSIVE CHAIN reveals twenty-minute waits on beer and lingering ticket times as the server struggles to manage a few extras duties at once.
This isn’t to say that our own cost-cutting efficiencies are perfected, either. The stress placed on both the serving staff and kitchen to ensure a pleasant experience for all guests is a tough burden to carry, especially on the employees who already carry a lot of weight. James and Nam have both been serving at this CHAIN for over two years apiece, and in lighter times the occasional complaint raised against one or the other was treated strictly, but with a degree of understanding. In the months following X X’s talk, both are going be fired, on separate occasions: James for being named offhand in a letter that reaches the corporate office, and Nam for a difficult customer’s unavoidably bad experience.
CHAIN, and its peers and competitions, are by virtue of their branding seemingly affixed venues of our times and culture. But, each unit is still an individualized part of the whole. You can—and should—expect decent food and good service from any one of these places that becomes your evening’s destination. Bear in mind, however, that the familiar logo and inviting color scheme of your local chain restaurant is not immunized by some respective corporate vaccine. We are trying our best, but this level we are all in this together. Appreciate that your patronage is being goaded with an enticing, if limited meal special; understand that no self-respecting restaurant might be so understaffed for a legitimate reason; enjoy the time you’re spending off your feet while somebody else is working for you. Servers and cooks have bills too, and at $2.85 an hour, any given server is not exactly looking to discourage a tip. Especially in this economy.
the postscript
In what is fast becoming my tradition, I'm going to waste a few more minutes and beef up my post numbers with a postscript.
I've just come from Beatrice's blog, the one I had tagged for a while, if you ever clicked that link, before I decided that he might trace the tag here to something else and learn all kinds of things about himself that I simply can't say to his face. And then, things would get awkward, like last night, when I think he squeezed a nut off when he thought I was asleep. I'm only going off of the sounds I heard, though, so I could be wrong. If he wasn't doing that, I have absolutely no clue as to what was going on. Unless he swallows a lot of spit.
Anyway, Let's Go, Rancid's second album, has just come around again, we're on tracknumberfour, "Salvation". I like this music better than Karfilov's ska stuff, but it's the little punk in me talking, who thinks thinks brass players are pretty much just a great big waste of stage space. Hard to hop around and throw fits when you're squeezing six other guys up there, give me a drum kit over bones any day. If you blow I'm not harping on you, too much, but I think a fundamental of punk music is the ability to be punk, and I'm sorry but certain instrumentation is just too damned inappropriate. Get me started on the Clash, I dare you.
Ska is clean punk, I guess. Accessible. Punk is not about options.
Anyway, Beatrice posted his "Get Psyched Mix." We're suckers for HIMYM here, and Beatrice spent days perfecting his take on Barney Stinson's royalty-pumped menagerie.
I have no idea what's going on my Get Psyched Mix because I don't have that much free time. Off the top of my head, T. Rex's Twentieth Century Boy and something from the a-side of Jane's Addiction's Nothing Shocking. But, I'm thinking a slot titled, "Any Rancid Song" would fit quite nicely onto this list. Except for Salvation. It's simply too damned slow.
I've just come from Beatrice's blog, the one I had tagged for a while, if you ever clicked that link, before I decided that he might trace the tag here to something else and learn all kinds of things about himself that I simply can't say to his face. And then, things would get awkward, like last night, when I think he squeezed a nut off when he thought I was asleep. I'm only going off of the sounds I heard, though, so I could be wrong. If he wasn't doing that, I have absolutely no clue as to what was going on. Unless he swallows a lot of spit.
Anyway, Let's Go, Rancid's second album, has just come around again, we're on tracknumberfour, "Salvation". I like this music better than Karfilov's ska stuff, but it's the little punk in me talking, who thinks thinks brass players are pretty much just a great big waste of stage space. Hard to hop around and throw fits when you're squeezing six other guys up there, give me a drum kit over bones any day. If you blow I'm not harping on you, too much, but I think a fundamental of punk music is the ability to be punk, and I'm sorry but certain instrumentation is just too damned inappropriate. Get me started on the Clash, I dare you.
Ska is clean punk, I guess. Accessible. Punk is not about options.
Anyway, Beatrice posted his "Get Psyched Mix." We're suckers for HIMYM here, and Beatrice spent days perfecting his take on Barney Stinson's royalty-pumped menagerie.
I have no idea what's going on my Get Psyched Mix because I don't have that much free time. Off the top of my head, T. Rex's Twentieth Century Boy and something from the a-side of Jane's Addiction's Nothing Shocking. But, I'm thinking a slot titled, "Any Rancid Song" would fit quite nicely onto this list. Except for Salvation. It's simply too damned slow.
another february entry.
I listened to Rancid's first album one and a half times before I realized I was hearing songs I had already heard. I think Tim Armstrong sang along to Bollocks one too many times, but Matt Freeman's fingering is absolutely sick. He's probably using a pick, but this doesn't do much to the reality that a bass string is damned hard to play, and this kid can do it.
I don't know the first thing about Green Day, so I don't know who sounds like who, but it's there somewhere.
Now I'm listening to Rancid's second album, peddling time away. I have a lot to do, of course.
Rain washes away the last of the terminal relaxation of our all-too-brief winter's cap. Water on water, rinsing the tarred filth of Philadelphia's record snowfall back into the drains and sewers that the city is built upon. It's back to tight back muscles and strained eye sockets and I haven't even had a chance to stop yet. This was a lot more poetic two hours ago, as I put it together on the walk home. I write better when I'm not actually writing.
Let's hope it's not a constant affliction, because I have a lot of it to get to, tonight, and I'd like some fluidity for once. Last week's bar binge is over and the Christmas drama of Verde and Rojo is wrapped up neatly into a package that (hopefully) stays nestled under the brown boughs of a dry, discarded tree. What a strange analogy. Needless to say, I find it ironic that, while sitting in mi clase de filosofie de amor I considered with some delightful sick feeling whether or not I would be falling in love, only to have that same wondering unreciprocated. Which is fine, I'm more fortunate for it then Rojo, I think, who's in deep, so to speak. If he goes any deeper they'll be mated for life, I think. Someday, I will never meet the amazing children I'm dreadfully certain he's in for.
So we pass over another life lesson gleaned through the watchful eye of whoever has better things in store for me. Every body explains his existence on this planet differently; every body wants to believe that he is where he is when he is for a reason that would inform a greater purpose, if only he could understand it. This is the aching paradox, of course: if he did understand it, would he then choose to be where he needs to be in the first place?
We are the sum of our experiences. I take away a little piece of this one and tuck it neatly into my Puzzle. The picture isn't much clearer of course, but there is a little more color, or some line is more developed. The funny thing, if you find it funny, is that there's no box to look off of, and I won't know what the damned thing looks like until all the pieces are in place, which is to say, when I quit adding pieces, which is to say, when I'm dead, and can look back on it all, if that kind of afterlife is available to me. Because life stops when there are no more pieces. Are you five, twenty-five, one-hundred, one-thousand? Five-thousand?
Three-dimensional? Etc.,...
I'm getting my bearings back. They were stolen for a little while. So, I need to find some new curious pursuit to get my head back in the clouds.
I have so many dreams I need to post. There was one--a semiotic masterpiece, I'd like to say--about Rojo, and what's he's saved me from, or doomed me to. It woke me up in a way that no dream has quite yet, starting, but not afraid. I'll post that soon.
I don't know the first thing about Green Day, so I don't know who sounds like who, but it's there somewhere.
Now I'm listening to Rancid's second album, peddling time away. I have a lot to do, of course.
Rain washes away the last of the terminal relaxation of our all-too-brief winter's cap. Water on water, rinsing the tarred filth of Philadelphia's record snowfall back into the drains and sewers that the city is built upon. It's back to tight back muscles and strained eye sockets and I haven't even had a chance to stop yet. This was a lot more poetic two hours ago, as I put it together on the walk home. I write better when I'm not actually writing.
Let's hope it's not a constant affliction, because I have a lot of it to get to, tonight, and I'd like some fluidity for once. Last week's bar binge is over and the Christmas drama of Verde and Rojo is wrapped up neatly into a package that (hopefully) stays nestled under the brown boughs of a dry, discarded tree. What a strange analogy. Needless to say, I find it ironic that, while sitting in mi clase de filosofie de amor I considered with some delightful sick feeling whether or not I would be falling in love, only to have that same wondering unreciprocated. Which is fine, I'm more fortunate for it then Rojo, I think, who's in deep, so to speak. If he goes any deeper they'll be mated for life, I think. Someday, I will never meet the amazing children I'm dreadfully certain he's in for.
So we pass over another life lesson gleaned through the watchful eye of whoever has better things in store for me. Every body explains his existence on this planet differently; every body wants to believe that he is where he is when he is for a reason that would inform a greater purpose, if only he could understand it. This is the aching paradox, of course: if he did understand it, would he then choose to be where he needs to be in the first place?
We are the sum of our experiences. I take away a little piece of this one and tuck it neatly into my Puzzle. The picture isn't much clearer of course, but there is a little more color, or some line is more developed. The funny thing, if you find it funny, is that there's no box to look off of, and I won't know what the damned thing looks like until all the pieces are in place, which is to say, when I quit adding pieces, which is to say, when I'm dead, and can look back on it all, if that kind of afterlife is available to me. Because life stops when there are no more pieces. Are you five, twenty-five, one-hundred, one-thousand? Five-thousand?
Three-dimensional? Etc.,...
I'm getting my bearings back. They were stolen for a little while. So, I need to find some new curious pursuit to get my head back in the clouds.
I have so many dreams I need to post. There was one--a semiotic masterpiece, I'd like to say--about Rojo, and what's he's saved me from, or doomed me to. It woke me up in a way that no dream has quite yet, starting, but not afraid. I'll post that soon.
Thursday
can you...?
Online, we all have the option of choosing user names to represent us, in email addresses, social networking sites and, more appropriately for this particular stream, places like discussion forums and blogs.
I wonder if any psychological information can be extracted from the particular letters that form any given user name--because there's an aesthetic to, for instance, a name with a 'k' and two 'r's in it, right? And what does that say about the person who chose that name?
I'm not talking about the user name itself, which is usually derivative of some aspect of the user's life. I'm talking about the aesthetic of the combination of letters as a reason for settling on that name--and what that combination means. It's like wearing a shirt, maybe. I chose a red shirt for a particular reason: I like to wear red or I want to stand out in a crowd or I'm wearing red because it's the only clean shirt I have left. But any of these reasons inform an aspect of my character--red triggers some kind of emotional response in my brain, which is why I like it, or I want to be clearly separated from the throng of strangers I am about to throw myself into so that I receive their lingering attention, or I don't have the time or motivation or ability to clean any other laundry. Right, so is a red shirt like having an 'r' in your user name? Can you attach a similar psychological weight to the individual letters that make up any given moniker? And if you can, what are the semiotic implications of one particular letter over another?
Does an 'x' or 'v', for instance, create a more aggressive reaction in users viewing others' names autonomously? I think there's something to this. When I see an 'x' or a 'z' in somebody else's user name I think it's cool, or edgy, or even sexy, or a number of other appropriate adjectives. It's this way for any letter, of course, but the letters I see or use less commonly are immediately more intriguing. I use the letters in a user name, then, to build a little profile of the person those letters represent, which is why I wonder if there isn't some foundation for my proposition. If each letter in a user name somehow reflects a mental or emotional aspect of the user then it is legitimate to analyze each symbol and come up with any number of intriguing/telling conclusions.
Of course, I only wonder this because I was just looking at Beatrice's user name, which he's had since high school. It's a name he made up, an alternate identity he created for himself to use in many places: online, certainly, but for video game profiles and probably table-top games, too. Which is why I think that each of the letters he's chosen reflect an aspect of his aesthetic, what he deems appropriate to represent him, when he steps out of his reality, among friends and strangers alike.
I wonder if any psychological information can be extracted from the particular letters that form any given user name--because there's an aesthetic to, for instance, a name with a 'k' and two 'r's in it, right? And what does that say about the person who chose that name?
I'm not talking about the user name itself, which is usually derivative of some aspect of the user's life. I'm talking about the aesthetic of the combination of letters as a reason for settling on that name--and what that combination means. It's like wearing a shirt, maybe. I chose a red shirt for a particular reason: I like to wear red or I want to stand out in a crowd or I'm wearing red because it's the only clean shirt I have left. But any of these reasons inform an aspect of my character--red triggers some kind of emotional response in my brain, which is why I like it, or I want to be clearly separated from the throng of strangers I am about to throw myself into so that I receive their lingering attention, or I don't have the time or motivation or ability to clean any other laundry. Right, so is a red shirt like having an 'r' in your user name? Can you attach a similar psychological weight to the individual letters that make up any given moniker? And if you can, what are the semiotic implications of one particular letter over another?
Does an 'x' or 'v', for instance, create a more aggressive reaction in users viewing others' names autonomously? I think there's something to this. When I see an 'x' or a 'z' in somebody else's user name I think it's cool, or edgy, or even sexy, or a number of other appropriate adjectives. It's this way for any letter, of course, but the letters I see or use less commonly are immediately more intriguing. I use the letters in a user name, then, to build a little profile of the person those letters represent, which is why I wonder if there isn't some foundation for my proposition. If each letter in a user name somehow reflects a mental or emotional aspect of the user then it is legitimate to analyze each symbol and come up with any number of intriguing/telling conclusions.
Of course, I only wonder this because I was just looking at Beatrice's user name, which he's had since high school. It's a name he made up, an alternate identity he created for himself to use in many places: online, certainly, but for video game profiles and probably table-top games, too. Which is why I think that each of the letters he's chosen reflect an aspect of his aesthetic, what he deems appropriate to represent him, when he steps out of his reality, among friends and strangers alike.
The East Coast is Covered in Snow
Just in case you live under...well, no, if it were a rock you'd probably notice the two-three feet of snow that's just fallen on top of the rock.
I love that our blizzard is news. News! Turn on the television and all they talk about is the blizzard. Just in case, you know, you can't look out your window and see it happening, or something like that. I guess it's nice to know how much snow has fallen, to know that this is record-setting, etc. I don't need the television to know that it is snowing, is my point, I guess.
The coldest winter in fourteen years...
I'm listening to HEAD by the Monkees. For the third time in a row--like, nonstop for the last two hours. I don't really know what my problem is. Actually, I don't know if I have one. I did the same thing when I found Sgt. Pepper, and even Their Satanic Majesties Request...I just can't look away. Can you dig it?
So much has happened in a month and I want to write a huge play-by-play but I don't want to write about any of it at the same time. I need a record somewhere, because in time I won't be able to remember so much. I really like this song, "As We Go Along." It was written by Carole King instead of the Monkees, which is typical, I guess, but it reminds me of Neko Case and Middle Cyclone.
What do snowmen represent? I tried engaging my roommates in a philosophical discussion about the meaning of the snowman and nobody was having it. Why build a man out of snow? Is there some inherent meaning in the construction of a crude representation of ourself out of nature's most tangible damning element? Do we build snowmen out of a mocking defiance of the cold and wet? Or are we fascinated by a reminder of our fragile mortality, represented both in the act of fabrication amidst life-numbing conditions, and nature's subsequently slow, gradual dissolution of the little statue from the face of the earth?
For these reasons, do snowmen deserve the same status as mankind's greatest architectural works? Or does the temporarity of the canvas make instead for a fleeting piece of art? Regardless, I stand by my resolution that the snowman is a declaration of humanity in the face of its own stubborn mortality.
I wonder why neither Karfilov or Beatrice wanted to run with this idea. Beatrice was hungry; Karfilov was playing with Mao.
HEAD is interesting, definitely not the kind of thing you expect the Monkees to be a part of, or Jack Nicholson to be attached to. Unless this is the first time you're hearing the Monkees, in which case, everything else they do will probably disappoint you. Assuming you dig this, of course. Maybe you don't like this but like their polished act, because the head trip isn't your groove. I do feel like they try too hard to sound like the Beatles and the Beach Boys and even the Stones, but there's certainly some talent locked away on this album. I'd like to see the movie. I had something else I was thinking about, but I don't remember what that is.
Verde blogs now, and she doesn't know that I know. I don't know now, I was really starting to like her.
I love that our blizzard is news. News! Turn on the television and all they talk about is the blizzard. Just in case, you know, you can't look out your window and see it happening, or something like that. I guess it's nice to know how much snow has fallen, to know that this is record-setting, etc. I don't need the television to know that it is snowing, is my point, I guess.
The coldest winter in fourteen years...
I'm listening to HEAD by the Monkees. For the third time in a row--like, nonstop for the last two hours. I don't really know what my problem is. Actually, I don't know if I have one. I did the same thing when I found Sgt. Pepper, and even Their Satanic Majesties Request...I just can't look away. Can you dig it?
So much has happened in a month and I want to write a huge play-by-play but I don't want to write about any of it at the same time. I need a record somewhere, because in time I won't be able to remember so much. I really like this song, "As We Go Along." It was written by Carole King instead of the Monkees, which is typical, I guess, but it reminds me of Neko Case and Middle Cyclone.
What do snowmen represent? I tried engaging my roommates in a philosophical discussion about the meaning of the snowman and nobody was having it. Why build a man out of snow? Is there some inherent meaning in the construction of a crude representation of ourself out of nature's most tangible damning element? Do we build snowmen out of a mocking defiance of the cold and wet? Or are we fascinated by a reminder of our fragile mortality, represented both in the act of fabrication amidst life-numbing conditions, and nature's subsequently slow, gradual dissolution of the little statue from the face of the earth?
For these reasons, do snowmen deserve the same status as mankind's greatest architectural works? Or does the temporarity of the canvas make instead for a fleeting piece of art? Regardless, I stand by my resolution that the snowman is a declaration of humanity in the face of its own stubborn mortality.
I wonder why neither Karfilov or Beatrice wanted to run with this idea. Beatrice was hungry; Karfilov was playing with Mao.
HEAD is interesting, definitely not the kind of thing you expect the Monkees to be a part of, or Jack Nicholson to be attached to. Unless this is the first time you're hearing the Monkees, in which case, everything else they do will probably disappoint you. Assuming you dig this, of course. Maybe you don't like this but like their polished act, because the head trip isn't your groove. I do feel like they try too hard to sound like the Beatles and the Beach Boys and even the Stones, but there's certainly some talent locked away on this album. I'd like to see the movie. I had something else I was thinking about, but I don't remember what that is.
Verde blogs now, and she doesn't know that I know. I don't know now, I was really starting to like her.
Why do unnatural disasters only happen here?
I almost cried when I read about Haiti today. It happened yesterday and I only found out today. I feel guilty of something, but I'm not sure of what. Of being somewhere else?
I almost cheered when I watched Keith Olbermann tear into a pair of calloused, blithering excuses for human beings, as many talking heads are. At the same time, I don't want his reaction to other peoples' stupidity to be mine, not without witnessing their foolishness first-hand. Which I'm not going to do.
What I hate is watching people, particularly on television, who have no right to be there, excepting that they are the greasiest cogs in the machine, which lets them stand out. Jon Stewart hates this too, I guess, but all he does is point and laugh. Many of us are just as content to do the same thing, and it's come to the point, it seems, where leaders can say or do anything--once it's out we are entertained (by virtue of inundation, too) by the ridiculously embarrassing situation that somebody has to publicly deal with. Thank God it's him and not me, right? Along with everything else, we've turned politics into a reality show.
Which means we don't take it seriously. I mean, I know we don't, that's what I've been saying. But I try to think of it like this. You listen to music, right? Do you ever think of the human element in the song you're listening to--that it was conceived and perfected (it must have been perfect to some one) by another person, recorded; that it reflects a single perfect instance, or a delicately polished collection of perfect instances, if it's a good mix; that so much creativity and willpower went into whatever's tickling your earbud. Never think of it? Take it for granted? You're not going to meet these people, anyway, right? Even if you see them live, are you thinking, "Gee, those are the guys that WROTE it? I wonder what inspired them? I wonder what the minutes, the hours that went into that song were actually like? I wonder what they were thinking, or doing, at the exact moment this song came into being?"
If I had to guess, odds are you don't really want to know, or won't care. "Yes, I wrote it, but kinda offhand, while I was drinking, or was I watching me soaps? Maybe both. Anyway, me mate wrote the lyrics in the shower while he girlfrien' blew 'em. It was pretty much done the next week, we didn't think much of it then. People seem to dig it now." The course of history is mind boggling--can you imagine what it must be to watch something, say, something marginal that you've written, as it goes from being a little draft in your hands to an insatiable best-seller? Something you've struggled with for months or years, a physical extension of yourself torn from your gut, is now out among people, who are convinced by your talent that you're worth something in the world. And then, of course, you're changed by your success, because those little elements of struggle that kept you up while your poured your undiscovered soul into your work are no longer with you. I guess that's why so many bands fall off after four or fives albums. More time spent touring and promoting then actually just playing.
Because practicing his how you get the good stuff. Sitting around and just doing it. Not overthinking it. Complex simplicity. Like the Beatles. Not great musicians, really, but the greatest song-making machine we've had so far, because their material is so simple at its face, and so complicated when you look closely. Writing is the same way--don't construct it, just let it come out. And, for Zadie Smith's sake, edit. Carefully.
The complexity is an afterthought. The more critical we are of a song, or story, or movie, or play--the more we read into a piece of work, interpret it--the more we are inspired. That's why Shakespeare's so sacred, I think. We've had four hundred years for thousands of scholarly-types to tear his body of work apart, and synthesize SO many conclusions. A few good observations are bound to come out of it. Shakespeare was so prolific, though; there's no way he gave second thought to what he was writing, he didn't have Word, he had a quill and friggin' ink. He was attuned to his self, though, his wiring, and he could let it right out, and the rest is history.
What if Shakespeare was only subpar? Imagine that, over the course of the next few hundred years, KISS is the only band any one listens to, because other recorded music has been lost or destroyed. Our descendants will no doubt build intellectual metropolises of Gene Simmons' basslines, and, God forbid, his lyrics.
Assuming this isn't the case, Shakespeare had something going on. I wish TV heads were that way. Conscious, I mean. Turns out they're not, they're pretty much the common ignorant, with personality, I guess, which probably translates to enough asshole in them to command attention (a confused sense of respect), and, importantly, they're beautiful. So they get seated down in front of a camera with a few other people just like them and they're aired to the world. I wonder if they realize they get paid to spew shit. I fear they don't. They lucky fuckers, though, the rest of us gotta do it for free.
There are people out there that deserve credit and never get it. We don't give it to them because it's an extra effort--money use to make up the difference, and now even that's endangered etiquette. Have we forgotten our hospitality, our mortality? We watch, or listen, judge, with no regard to the manpower that crafted that movie I just didn't like. And, on that note, there's no fear of God anymore: We eat without considering for a moment what's in the food, pop pills without considering if we should; bind ourselves to the efficiency of machines, and contractual sedentary lifestyle, forcing us to make time for healthy, natural releases that we used to get during the course of an average day anyway.
Why are 100,000 possibly dead in the Western Hemisphere's poorest country? Why are comment boards on CNN and USA Today fueled by people who advise prayer, but not money, and people who advise money, but criticize prayer?
Because let's face it. We're back to a pagan society: We worship the God McDonald, and Starbucks, and Windows, and Google, among others. And uniting them all, their king, is the God US Dollar. If you're going to pray for the misfortuned, that's fine, as long as that's all you've got. If you can't spare money, you're probably not much better off than they are--with room for translation, of course. If you want to make a difference, psychic suggestion, in a world where we forsake God by forsaking each other, won't go nearly as far as a few bucks.
I do wonder if, back in the day, when religious arguments were settled with a club or sword, if we weren't more pragmatic then, than we assume ourselves to be in our civilized ways are now.
*
He did see a shooting star last night. Her message is "Defying Gravity," by Idina Menzel. Defying Gravity.
Now what?
I almost cheered when I watched Keith Olbermann tear into a pair of calloused, blithering excuses for human beings, as many talking heads are. At the same time, I don't want his reaction to other peoples' stupidity to be mine, not without witnessing their foolishness first-hand. Which I'm not going to do.
What I hate is watching people, particularly on television, who have no right to be there, excepting that they are the greasiest cogs in the machine, which lets them stand out. Jon Stewart hates this too, I guess, but all he does is point and laugh. Many of us are just as content to do the same thing, and it's come to the point, it seems, where leaders can say or do anything--once it's out we are entertained (by virtue of inundation, too) by the ridiculously embarrassing situation that somebody has to publicly deal with. Thank God it's him and not me, right? Along with everything else, we've turned politics into a reality show.
Which means we don't take it seriously. I mean, I know we don't, that's what I've been saying. But I try to think of it like this. You listen to music, right? Do you ever think of the human element in the song you're listening to--that it was conceived and perfected (it must have been perfect to some one) by another person, recorded; that it reflects a single perfect instance, or a delicately polished collection of perfect instances, if it's a good mix; that so much creativity and willpower went into whatever's tickling your earbud. Never think of it? Take it for granted? You're not going to meet these people, anyway, right? Even if you see them live, are you thinking, "Gee, those are the guys that WROTE it? I wonder what inspired them? I wonder what the minutes, the hours that went into that song were actually like? I wonder what they were thinking, or doing, at the exact moment this song came into being?"
If I had to guess, odds are you don't really want to know, or won't care. "Yes, I wrote it, but kinda offhand, while I was drinking, or was I watching me soaps? Maybe both. Anyway, me mate wrote the lyrics in the shower while he girlfrien' blew 'em. It was pretty much done the next week, we didn't think much of it then. People seem to dig it now." The course of history is mind boggling--can you imagine what it must be to watch something, say, something marginal that you've written, as it goes from being a little draft in your hands to an insatiable best-seller? Something you've struggled with for months or years, a physical extension of yourself torn from your gut, is now out among people, who are convinced by your talent that you're worth something in the world. And then, of course, you're changed by your success, because those little elements of struggle that kept you up while your poured your undiscovered soul into your work are no longer with you. I guess that's why so many bands fall off after four or fives albums. More time spent touring and promoting then actually just playing.
Because practicing his how you get the good stuff. Sitting around and just doing it. Not overthinking it. Complex simplicity. Like the Beatles. Not great musicians, really, but the greatest song-making machine we've had so far, because their material is so simple at its face, and so complicated when you look closely. Writing is the same way--don't construct it, just let it come out. And, for Zadie Smith's sake, edit. Carefully.
The complexity is an afterthought. The more critical we are of a song, or story, or movie, or play--the more we read into a piece of work, interpret it--the more we are inspired. That's why Shakespeare's so sacred, I think. We've had four hundred years for thousands of scholarly-types to tear his body of work apart, and synthesize SO many conclusions. A few good observations are bound to come out of it. Shakespeare was so prolific, though; there's no way he gave second thought to what he was writing, he didn't have Word, he had a quill and friggin' ink. He was attuned to his self, though, his wiring, and he could let it right out, and the rest is history.
What if Shakespeare was only subpar? Imagine that, over the course of the next few hundred years, KISS is the only band any one listens to, because other recorded music has been lost or destroyed. Our descendants will no doubt build intellectual metropolises of Gene Simmons' basslines, and, God forbid, his lyrics.
Assuming this isn't the case, Shakespeare had something going on. I wish TV heads were that way. Conscious, I mean. Turns out they're not, they're pretty much the common ignorant, with personality, I guess, which probably translates to enough asshole in them to command attention (a confused sense of respect), and, importantly, they're beautiful. So they get seated down in front of a camera with a few other people just like them and they're aired to the world. I wonder if they realize they get paid to spew shit. I fear they don't. They lucky fuckers, though, the rest of us gotta do it for free.
There are people out there that deserve credit and never get it. We don't give it to them because it's an extra effort--money use to make up the difference, and now even that's endangered etiquette. Have we forgotten our hospitality, our mortality? We watch, or listen, judge, with no regard to the manpower that crafted that movie I just didn't like. And, on that note, there's no fear of God anymore: We eat without considering for a moment what's in the food, pop pills without considering if we should; bind ourselves to the efficiency of machines, and contractual sedentary lifestyle, forcing us to make time for healthy, natural releases that we used to get during the course of an average day anyway.
Why are 100,000 possibly dead in the Western Hemisphere's poorest country? Why are comment boards on CNN and USA Today fueled by people who advise prayer, but not money, and people who advise money, but criticize prayer?
Because let's face it. We're back to a pagan society: We worship the God McDonald, and Starbucks, and Windows, and Google, among others. And uniting them all, their king, is the God US Dollar. If you're going to pray for the misfortuned, that's fine, as long as that's all you've got. If you can't spare money, you're probably not much better off than they are--with room for translation, of course. If you want to make a difference, psychic suggestion, in a world where we forsake God by forsaking each other, won't go nearly as far as a few bucks.
I do wonder if, back in the day, when religious arguments were settled with a club or sword, if we weren't more pragmatic then, than we assume ourselves to be in our civilized ways are now.
*
He did see a shooting star last night. Her message is "Defying Gravity," by Idina Menzel. Defying Gravity.
Now what?
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