DRL Echobox

last night got odd. after i blogged and was getting ready for bed, creepy kyle (new in the 'hood - he gets defensive when asked about his past) showed up and wanted to hang. "what are you guys doing? ... oh, that's what i was about to do!" etc. then he starts talking about mushrooms and did we want any and "where's zach?" (who's zach?)

and about 30 seconds later, these kids come in the front door, all wild-eyed, with a big yellow plastic bag full of shrooms. it was seriously past my bedtime, but i let them break up thier bounty (from the fields, that night) on my chessboard. maybe when they are dried out i'll get one.

in the midst of the turmoil that is my life right now, there's been one constant: excitment about my visit to portland. it looks like work is gonna get covered. i've been reading up on my shelly yakus and other engineers. seeing amy after all these months. good beer. intellectual stimulation. greenery.

so then, i heard, and i saw.

most of my day i worked an unexpected double. nothinky. a good break. saw S today, didn't want to talk to her. she's right about the obsession.

it's like i don't even care.

:

the girls from last weekend - here's a photo.

so yesterday mariah came by and returned my sweater and beer nation T. we had a pleasant interaction, but she didn't stick around long. i spent the afternoon sitting with S, who hates her name, and some of her friends down at the spiderhouse, but jack kept clowning my mack. then later S and i talked on the phone for hours, but i think our saturday date is called off. so it goes.

"so, tell me something."

worked ... blah, $, ok. going back in a couple of hours. at least i don't have to think when i'm there. this not being able to record shit is getting O-L-D. need new computer. arg/1!

I believe it is very important that the object of sexual attraction is a particular individual, who transcends the properties that make him attractive. When different persons are attracted to a single person for different reasons: eyes, hair, figure, laugh, intelligence--we feel that the object of thier desire is nevertheless the same, namely that person. There is even an inclination to feel that this is so if the lovers have different sexual aims, if they include both men and women, for example. Different specific attractive characterstics seem to provide enabling conditions for the operation of a single basic feeling, and the different aims all provide expressions of it. We approach the sexual attitude toward the person through the features that we find attractive, but these features are not the objects of that attitude. - Thomas Nagel, "Sexual Perversion" (1969).

more reading. last night S called me, unsure whether our date this weekend was a good idea. i tried not to be too persuasive. it's her call really, but as of yet i am not uninvited. and i'm still excited. i have no idea what to expect, but i know the intense emotional effect this girl has on me, and a longer duration could be like a drug.

i've been thinking about her an awful lot. that, i didn't expect.

small things:
having the door open with no visitors.
keeping my shoes organized.
taking out the trash.
whitening toothpaste.
mystery.
out-of-towners.
musical chairs.
audience participation.
tippers.
animals in disguise.

so claire i think your suggestion is right on. last night i called her and read a couple of poems and got a date to spend the night this weekend. sounds fan-fucking-tastic! (as it were)

i'm thinking maybe putt-putt golf beforehand, then ecstasy and wine. more likely maybe just wine.

today is my mom's birthday and i got her those little clips that hook onto wine glasses, and we had lunch at the restaurant and melissa bought her free dessert and it was yummalicious.

i'm reading real live nude girl which is about the politics of bisexuality. and she (the author) longs for a bisexual community and feels ostrasized from both hetero and homosexual groups. and she also talks about not wanting to categorize, but also wanting to categorize. and i come down hard on the side of not wanting to categorize, because there's more freedom there, but carol queen (the author) wants categories to aid in the fight for freedom. maybe i'm just getting the long end of the stick (as it were) by living in cities and cultures that are pretty welcoming of alternative sexualities. the book is obviously written before the faddishness of girls kissing girls. err, "going wild."

back to the point. politics and sex. i agree, politics and the mainstream (of non-austin/non-portland places) today do not do justice to the freedom people deserve and the variety of ways they choose to observe that freedom. so anyway - i'm also close to finishing this other book the conquest of cool about how the ad industry in the 60's in some cases prefigured the ideological changes that decade is famous for. does prefigured mean caused? i'm skeptical, but thomas frank argues that point. if he's right, then maybe by going into advertising, i can change the world for the better, so that people no longer have to entrench themselves in identity politics just to fight injustice. trenches can become prisons, and if the battles the LGBT movement is fighting were won (over with, "done and done"), then i doubt many people would find cause to entrench themselves (at least over sexuality).

can i help the war with advertising? can i encourage a shift in the zeitgeist that would make an end run around identity politics and "the culture wars"? maybe not alone, but i think i've found some new intellectual kindling to spark.

so remember when i wished we didn't have to sleep. well, last night elliott, nicki, claire, althea, lo, hayden, anthony, hank and i stayed up till 7 am or so, dancing and singing and talking and carrying on. we got milkshakes when the sun came up, and then we said our goodbyes out front of katz's, which never closes.

i'm gonna miss those girls. hands down the most vibrant, intelligent group of sparkly stars to come through my life in a long time. i had the kind of fun i don't think i've had since the last time my jaded-o-meter clicked its last click to the clockwise. who knew that you could contact improv to "go to (the bottom)" or that it would be so much fun?

i think it might be the season for falling in love, but maybe it's just the company i've been keeping lately. falling in love with any of these girls would be par-for-the-course, but i think i'll fall in love with none of them 'cause it's more eternal that way. and less complicated.

now they are driving back to houston and i'm thinking about arranging a visit...

and if you close the door
we'd never have to see the day again
(once more)

woo hoo!

i've got a record out now! Pure Digital Silence is available for purchase and delivery; the cost - a mere $5. so get out your pay pal account and cough up for your big bloggy daddy. plus i can vouch for the badical nature of this album.

today was a whirlwind. i've been feeling alternately depressed and excited, hungover and sharp, hopeless and loved. elliott is back in town with his crew, four creative and funny girls who sing and play the piano and make up ads for fanciful multi-colored cigarettes, set to the tune of "california dreaming." i wish we could stay awake forever.

but they got tired so i'm home. what else today? 14 person party on my porch, quite unexpected, but better than most such events, in that it was short, and involved chess and brazilian guitar playing. laurel and katie were there, and jeff and anthony and carib and (now i'm just reciting names) robert and robert and another elliot and isaac and more people talking about picking shrooms.

and before that stacey and i had one of our quiet cuddles (or were we making out?), with the deep gazes etc. and she said she doesn't talk to me because she doesn't want to get to like me too much, and i think i'm getting to like her a little. it's almost involuntary. she's a morning person. mysterious. something about her makes me deeply uncomfortable and at the same time totally at ease. proceed with caution.

and now those girls are singing to me from shawn's porch:
all the cigs are purple
and they're yellow too
if you want to smoke one
you know what to do

I'm flying America West!

Depart:  
Austin, TX (AUS) - Mon, May 17 at 8:00pm

Arrive:  
Portland, OR (PDX) - Tue, May 18 at 2:03am

[insert fast-forward montage of various sleep-deprivation / travel related activities, like making records, drinking beer, going to the gorge, etc.]


Depart:  
Portland, OR (PDX) - Mon, May 31 at 5:48am

Arrive:  
Austin, TX (AUS) - Mon, May 31 at 1:19pm

i just got kicked out of my first show ever. i'm a little drunk, but as i recall, i was in a (tame) moshpit, dancing, when some guy got me in a full nelson. i thought "oh just more fun" but he started dragging me toward the exit. i pulled the go limp on the ground maneuver, but he3 didn't let go, after a fe minutes pf wrestling, he had me out the back door, sans girly glasses.

so the bouncer woulsn't let me back in, and my glasses were nowhere to be seen, but it was worth it. i've never been kicked out of a show before, and it was Peaches.

I went to La Cucaracha to recuperate and drink, and bum smokes, and then Debbie gave me a ride home.

today for lunch i had a steak sandwich, all cooked rare and served cold. cold and bloody, with green soup. i think it was leftover from some exhibition last night. i'm just glad for a break in the routine. aside from that, work today was blah. i didn't really talk to anyone or hang out, so i didn't mind leaving early. what makes up for it is that Peaches is playing tonight and Debbie and i are planning to go. i hope she's packing.

last time i saw debbie she was wearing an artificial penis in her pants. she even let me touch her package. it was upside down, proof that she's a real lesbian. so i told her she had her dick on backwards, and we had a good laugh. if dennis hopper were a joker, he'd say "How's it hanging?" and debbie would say "hanging?" 'cause that's how much of a lesbian she is.

nothing else is new. i let this girl robin crash on my couch last night, and anthony on the floor, so hopefully tonight the population will be a little lower. i haven't seen mariah in almost a week. i don't think she likes peaches. anyone who calls an album 'fatherfucker' i'm down with. makes me think of george micheal.

I'm violating an important principle in blogging: adding a post when the only person who's read my last post is me, but the occasion warrants such unfashionable maneuvers: Music for Dozens now has Jeff's album Perspectives online and for sale!

links to sound samples from the new release are available via the "Showreel" section of the expanded DRL, accessible through my cover-photo over there --->

leisure on the porch right now, listening to goldfrapp "strict machine". ree and melanie are down on the patio, talking bout coming up. anthony's been chilling in mi casa all day long, after getting out of the tank. gave the towels a bath.

relocating...

now i'm down at the shop with stacey, carneal, and racheal. today was a loonnng day at work, i waited the lunch shift, and stayed last, closing down till 4. the restaurant was mostly slow, but some owners of a bar downtown came in, and tipped nicely. i'm beat, but the ankle is getting better.

i've still got chores to do today, i could probably fill the day with things to do. dishes, straighten up, library, bank, get my phone turned back on... and its threatening to be a longer day of socializing. perhaps i should go on lock-down and read for a little, then do my errands.

this just in from jeff. snoopy on the crucifix, wearing a crown of mulberries.

i got my absence from work cleared more or less with miranda. wore my ripped pants / cowboy jacket ensemble into the eatery.

had a full day, met 5 or 6 new people. party at chris', and then a trip to Austin Java Company, for veggie burger and a latte.

checkmated a guy in 3. he left it open.

i'm here on my parent's back porch in the morning, surrounded by verdant green cedars and purple liliacs and little tiny white flowers and more green and even the air is thick and cool, while i drink my coffee. and two BIG birds just drifted by, i guess the ravine is deep enough to create updrafts that are roughly as high as the house, so the birds can be just over ... there.

i miss the serenity of this backyard scene, after months in the espresso press of the spiderhouse. all i can hear are the birds and the wind and the airplanes. no visitors.

today is secretaries' day... which brings to mind a little outkast dittie, "she lives in my lap" and i don't know why.

last night i came up here for dinner, and dad and i ended up recording some slam poetry to beats that i dropped. far out.


here's dad doing something he wrote, read over a couple of at dusk's songs:

from boing boing:

republicans are inserting campaign propaganda into taxpayer funded websites. gop.com contains the following text in bold, as does a treaury department press release. (both links are google caches, to keep the story from getting scooped by the spooks):

"America has a choice: It can continue to grow the economy and create new jobs as the President's polices are doing; or it can raise taxes on American families and small businesses, hurting economic recovery and future job creation."

cara, shawn, leslie, and me

from hayden's moblog.

... since 1984."

i'm thinking of kill bill 2 tonight. had an aborted mission at bouldin, ended up hiking in the woods and having a 'leveler' - espresso and chocolate guiness. now i'll just read my adman book and try to stretch.

i saw paris hilton again the other day at marley fest. only i'm sure it's not actually her, but still the same girl who was at sculpture falls a couple of weeks ago. always sitting just out of shouting distance, and then disappearing. the staring contests are a draw. i seriously doubt she reads this, but just in case:

i saw u:
you were at the falls, blonde braids, hot-shit glasses, red tank top, in the crowd with the guitar. camo. i think you saw me too, (orange shirt, girl-shades.) weeks later, at auditorium shores, same story, different glasses and no braids. and that same look in your eye. limo ride?

today i worked on a version of i dunno what. some guitar. i tried singing "oh bury me not" over it, but the chords were nowhere right. working on something with long, idiosyncratic acoustic loops. and a muted house track. maybe i'll remix it forever until it is only a shard or fragment of its current form.

worked sunday night, got a compliment from someone who seemed to know my name, but i don't know why. came in and complimented me to the manager, while i was standing there. who was it? decent tip.

more money would be even better. money rules!

thinking about going into advertising. street team me. somebody get me a blowjob.

my posture has been absolutely horrible lately. i mean worst ever. need to get back in good habits.

good night.

i'm taking back red white and blue, it means nothing.

addendum: erm, it didn't look so hot, so now you're getting this other new look.

just watched a dvd nova episode, about the structural engineers charged with examining the wtc collapse and its antecedents. a close look at this story is something i think i've been avoiding. its just so hard to reconcile my expectations as per the flag crowd, and my feelings, which are vauge, that is, unstudied and unsettling. quiet saturday night. i've been ignoring knocks at my door.

the buildings were largely evacuated by the time of the collapse, with the exception of people in and above the crash zones, who were "already lost" in the words of one fireman, and emergency workers themselves, who were still there when no one else could have been saved. but it is that moment, which haunts. the buildings fell so fast.

is our interest in the collapse a reaction to failure of human ingenuity - mortal towers? or do we project our subjectivity into the people left on floors which "pancaked"? the collapse means something more than the attack alone, perhaps it is symbolic of defeat.

wondering would i have jumped from above the impact site, or stayed inside with the fire... i hope that decision would never have to come to me; i'd hope to be in the core, running down burning stairs, trying to get out.

i wanted to blog so bad this morning, but no bones. instead i went to bouldin and bob marley fest and ruby's BBQ. hours of things taking too long or going nowhere, although ruby's turned out a blessing. i was agitating for a quick solution at the coffee shop, but everyone decided to drive together, to marley-fest, even though we ended up parking blocks apart.

had some communiques today. text with laurel. phone with cary. blog from amy. on the otherside of all these communions, a friend. haven't heard from some people in a while.

at dusk is continually surprising me, anytime i make an assumption about their working methods, they trancend the concepts i've applied. cary's doing sound, will's making full stops, greg's producing a record.

quack's. i should go? can i walk?

marian really has a way with words, doesn't she? so i sent my sister a link to my blog and then i posted the waterbondage.com link and i guess now that could be a cause for feeling akward (google asks, "did you mean: awkward"), but i'm a good soldier and i left my awkward at my last meeting with stacey, who makes it feel so good to be strangely out of place.

drove my taxes in last night at midnight, trunk flapping in the wind. insurance company is still dragging its feet.

i haven't seen my friend hank in ages, i hope he hopped a train to dallas or something, instead of getting arrested or freezing to death. life on the streets would be tough, i imagine, although maybe not quite as tough as in the jungles of vietnam.

talked with william, my new downstairs neighbor. he just got out of a divorce, and is thinking of going back to school for paleontology. it's amazing that people don't realize that if you're older, and thinking of school, and poor, all you have to do is manage the academic aspects (that is, getting accepted) and then most schools / the government will love to give you a free ride (or a cheap one) and plenty of loans.

and a bit of housekeeping... my travel plans for my brother's graduation are:

Wednesday, May 12 - Austin(AUS) 8:15 am to Nashville(BNA)
Saturday, May 15 - Nashville(BNA) to Austin(AUS) 3:40 pm

so today Mr. Corn did pay me to do something, just not his taxes. and i'm going to get mine done also. alls i have to left to do is get to the post office before midnight.

i just got back from veggie heaven, yummalicious - well almost. now i'm sleepy as a november bear.

the library rocks my socks. i checked out stevie wonder's songs in the key of life, a nova exposé of the structural failings of the twin towers on dvd, the conquest of cool about 60's advertising, and riggledy rawking rosetta stone: german. i love the library.

and amy called me, and maybe she'll visit, and i talked to sidney from papa haydn's, and brezny says i should be a trifle less wild this week. if my belly stays full like this, he's got a deal. otherwise, all bets are off.

oh, and to the noble reader who suggested i am a perv, how about a link to my favorite naked lady website. definitely not worksafe.

i dreamed last night that i was being paid to do mr. corn's taxes. it was exceptionally easy. the wierd part is, mr. corn, a regular at the restaurant, is a tax accountant with an office next door. so like, he's totally capable of doing is own taxes, and probably mine too. weird, considering i've never done anyone's taxes. he and his crew (they always come in for lunch) were all over at this tall house, and then i went upstairs, and mariah was there, and she had a friend on the porch outside the sliding door, and he turned out to be a ZOMBIE!

and then for the rest of the dream it was all zombie-dodging and car crashing. rad. i drove this underpowered ford van through a crowd of zombies who all wanted to eat me, and then i had to race it on the highway, and crash into zombies and cars that zombies were trying to use to stop me. fuck yeah! so i'm crashing this van all around, smashing the undead like popcorn, and then all the sudden i'm at this circus / haunted house thing. only it is staffed entirely by roughly 5th graders, and almost all the attendees are even younger. so i'm dodging zombies in this circus tent full of children dressed in gory halloween costumes, and older kiddos pretending to be dead and stuff. wow. then i got out of the circus, and was jogging back to that tall house, to finish the tax job, and being chased by dogs, who were scared of me whenever i looked them in the eye, but when i went back to running, they chased me again.

eventually i realized this dream would have no logical conclusion, and i wasn't likely to see titties, so i woke myself up, got halfway across the room to get water for the hangover, and realized i was stark naked. (damn, i'm just totally cruising on awesomeness right now.) i wish i could be the guy who doesn't care if my landlord, the neighbors, the guys out back of the laundromat, and the coffee-drinkers see my bare ass and cock balls in the morning, but i'm not that cool, so i stopped, dropped, and rolled back over to where i could put some shorts on, drank a 1/2 gallon of emergen-C, crawled back in bed, and bemoaned my fate as a person with itchy feet until the alarm went off.

now i'm naked again and sitting on my couch which is (mostly) out of view of the window. i wonder how long i can stare at this girl doing chem homework at the spiderhouse before she notices me...

drank. played pool with my boss. there is audible seduction going on downstairs. time for sleep.

i hope my recent message is received well.

"ok guys, let's play restaurant!" jason calls out, clapping like tinkerbell. thus starts another day at the granite cafe. this playing, this stage-acting, it's strange 'cause it's real.

so today this lady called in a to go order, and i told her 15-20 minutes, so she shows up in ten, and melissa's all "rargh rargh rargh" at me, not cause she thinks i should do my job better, but because it is our job as restauranteurs to make it look like i'm in trouble cause her salad's not packed up and ready to go instantaneously. imagine the consequences if melissa had tried to tell the lady the real deal. lies lubricate the wheels of commerce. but are they lies if we're in character?

anthony writes "My name is Chris, I suck! There's nothing in the world better than licking a pig's ass, I think."

got a disc in the mail from At Dusk. practice space recordings of the band playing new songs. just hearing that stuff took me right back to the glory days of the summer of promises kept and the blizzard of forgotten hope. between parts, i can hear Greg say "sorry" about what i don't know, probably an early change or something, but hearing a band in a room through a little compression... mmrm! its almost like being there. maybe we should just release the super-rough's as a record.

gay marriage poll from usa today

a quiet night at home is not so quiet when buffy the vampire slayer is on a 20ft screen outside your window. i'll slay you, biatch! you and your hordes of devoted fans. fans who laugh together, die together.

i walked with $60 tonight. not bad. saw Mr. McGee, Mrs. Watson, and Señor Dickey at dinner tonight with gaggle of other St. Andrew's teachers at my big top. everyone wanted to know about my brother... what has he been up to? did you know i saw him just a couple of years ago? etc. big man on campus.

i wanna go visit Shawn's place, but i think he and Leslie might want to be alone. i'm so sick of the smell of cigarette smoke. the tickle in my throat has spread to my ears. is it really only tuesday?

my mind has been mostly empty the last few days, and my blog too. but not my tummy.

exception: last night as i was falling asleep i had a pretty good historical accounting and perspectivizing session, where i've been, where i'm going, that sort of thing. once again, i'm thinking it would be nice to talk to anova, cause she's always full of wisdom and stuff. maybe i'll call her one of these days.

where i'm going: hopefully into the studio, soon. arghgghgh. how else do i find bands but by word of mouth and posts on craigslist? i've decided that telling my friends to start a band so i can record them isn't the most surefire way to go about it. now that i've got my mac fixed... reason all the time. working on 'just like heaven'.

my toilet is in tip-top shape, but the plumber handled my dishes. weird.

cooked dinner for myself tonight. pasta with fresh veggies. mmmm. i spent $50 at the grocery store tonight, which is more than i'm used to spending, but now i have some money at all, so cool. supplies like emergen-C and razor blades don't come cheap. i even splurged on a reed's spiced cider.

just finished the fisher king. lots of little stories in there. jeff bridges before the dude. happy ending.

it kind of killed the mood when i read about the sari stampede which took 21 lives in india. rough. total party foul.

hungry... about to go to work...

work was work. i wish the owner, who's been around a lot ever since the thursday grandparent's day debacle, would just RE-LAX. talked to amy after work, yea! now i'm at the parent's for easter bunny day. grandma's here, looking at pictures of her newly discovered granddaughter, my cousin lisa, who was given up for adoption by my aunt holly in the 60s. white wine. deviled eggs.

thinking about 'spotless mind' some more. what i really appreciate about that movie is that most films which try to do something philosophical, fail miserably, err, almost all. usually those lapses in plot-logic are offset by the coolness of some kind of explosion or ghost or whatever, but 'eternal sunshine' didn't have those lapses. it's just so satisfying, like a full bite of cheesecake. the closest thing to a problem was clem's sentience in the dream / erasure process. was she there? did her erasure dream have some overlapping moments? can we chalk it up to the power of love?

today, stormy, windy, i woke to the noise. 3 pm. i walked out to my porch and spotted carneal and stacey, and invited them up from the rain. stacey's company had the effect of increasing my thoughtfulness level. she's very quiet, but when she speaks, asks hard questions. she won't play trivial pursuit. why do i appreciate her? she's a morning person, one of the rare.

later, dinner with mariah at dirty's, the local burger joint. she insisted on driving because of the rain. the car came in handy afterward at the taco bell drivethrough. we had an extended lay, and then she kicked my ass at chess.

now i'm doing the blog thing, just another way to prevent me from averting my eyes from the screen.

there is a degree to which 'eternal sunshine' has altered my perceptual reality. moments seem sharper, somehow. especially in the bathroom.

earlier today, isaac proposed a new term: 'assbowl', for the toilet. he'd been talking shit all night. and about his mother.

concert on the porch, it's called improvation. dinner at mesa hills cafe. hosts, etc. a taste of my own medicine.

texpresso coffee. a museum machine. chillum in the car. eternal pacing.

that movie was well paced. mary is alone, then clem reacts to what she's done. themes - the music, entrancing. it felt like a dream.

wondering what's next...

i just got a box in the mail. it's full of cd's from at dusk, and promo letters, too. my mission: disseminate this stuff just right, so that at dusk has a chance to play a big 'ol show in austin in july. hurray, july!

i was walking home from the post office, when i picked this flower. so pretty and it reminded me of childhood. but it wilted on the way home. i stuck it in water anyway, but i don't think it's gonna do the whole grow roots and magically become a flowering shrub thing.

some days i just want to erase my whole blog and crawl in a hole. i just saw laurel, and was a total dork, and now i'm up in the crib pretending to ignore the beautiful people. i guess that's what i get for failing to nap earlier. my phone has been ringing and i guess that's ok, but i don't really feel like talking. i'm a little hungry but i don't want to cook. i should pay bills, but instead i invited brandon and evan out to the strip club. oh did i tell you he's in austin now? chess ... titties ... beer

http://www.subservientchicken.com/

damn today at the granite was like a truckload of bricks dropped on my ass. and everyone else's. apparently it was grandparent's day today at my alma mater St. Andrew's Episcopal School, so the kids got out early and everyone came to the restaurant all dressed up and antsy and hungry and rich. and then the owner came in with her parents and kids, unannounced, and expected me to turn over a reserved table to them. and didn't pay for their meal.

nor did i. the best food from the restaurant i've had was the pasta special today, free with my shift, and i walked with about $40 in tips left over from last night. so i got a sixer of full-sail summerfest on the way home, which really drives home what i truly want / miss right now, beverage-wise, i'm sure you can relate:

1) Blue Heron
2) Mirror Pond - please ... i miss my mediocre beer friend.
3) Kombucha
4) Mac and Jack's African Amber
5) Stumptown (this is a cry for help)

and food-wise: Boccone Dolce and Cassatta

and friend-wise: Greg, Will, Cary, Amy, Lindsay, Anova, Tewin, Hal, Armand, Paige, and of course Cliggledy.

Although if i could only have the company of one of the above right now, it would likely be Mirror Pond. yeah so its obvious i should get my ass back up to portland soon. got paid, we'll see.

do you ever think you feel your cellphone beginning to vibrate in your pocket, only to realize that it something else entirely, that is, nothing? mariah just called to say she'll be here soon, that was after i typed the last sentence. sometimes precognition comes in trickles.

working a double today. don told me i was the best host they'd ever had at the granite. that was nice to hear, especially because things seemed out of my control today, with people seating themselves and wanting water no ice and all.

yesterday isaac and i were driving to pick up a copy of cubase from tyler, when, about a block from my apartment, the driver's side window exploded, raining glass all over me. some nicks and cuts, and mission aborted, but mostly an exciting surprise. (i still wish i got that sound on tape.) i suppose something was wrong with the window from the wreck. the insurance company is sure taking its sweet time.

this morning about 7:30 i was awakened by the sound of some sort of tropical storm happening outside, buckets of rain, thunder and hail. today's been sunny.

after work we made music, a couple of jams on the AKAI, and a beat and some chords on isaac's newly acquired old iMac. now i'm thinking of how to get to my parents' house on the bus, rather than in the glassy wet broken car. clean clothes are in short supply.

Columbia Spectator Online - From MP3 to MFDZ: A New Way to Buy Music

so greg and jem got some journalistic noteriety, hehheh.

Music For Dozens

and there's more: The Elusive Monkey Washing A Cat video

media saturation enforces a phenomenology. as our lives have been put in front of the screen, each of us has had greater occasion to ask, "is this real?" questions like those lead inevitably towards skepticism, a memetic state which calls attention to the subjective view, which view itself leads to media production: memento, the matrix, trading spaces, and teenage angst-rock, among others, are examples of media manifesting subjectivities.

(there is a lizard turning green on my porch)

these reflections struck me yesterday as i was listening to proto-angsters Bush sing hits like "Glycerine" and "I don't wanna come back down from this cloud." the mood and content of these sort of songs is an example of an internalization that has come over the popular discourse. in my mind, the stereotypical angst-rock lyric goes something like "i wonder why / i die / you cry / i sigh". the vocalization style has been named "yarling". the combination is a music which is largely lacking in artistic spirit, and which oftentimes even fails at its primary goal of sounding like nirvana (or coldplay (or whatever)). the common denominator (aside from liberal use of Autotune) is a lyrical focus on the innerlife; what makes this genre different from older examples of media subjectivity (think of Billie Holiday singing "Solitude") is its overwhelming musical suckitude - derivitive, and not even of good stuff.

so we've established 1) that angst-rock sucks, and 2) it has introspective lyrics. so what? doesn't everyone already know that? well, my argument is that media exerts a kind of hegemony over the way we think. these popular songs - focus group tested and computer honed - and movies like the matrix series, all single out the interior life for depiction and examination. the inner life is made outer, especially through that most bleeding edge of mediation, the first-person shoot-em-up game. the visual field is mapped to the computer screen, bringing attention to both, and putting them both in the background, as it were, while the action of the game takes place inside the screen, inside the visual field.

so our games, our movies, our music - they reinforce in content, the same sorts of thoughts the medium(s) themselves bring upon us. "is this real?" "is it virtual?" "what is this sound inside my head(phones)?"

--- part two if it ever occurs (in reverse order) will further compare old songs and shit to new ones ---

ok, and if any of my learned readership can point in a direction that is helpful to go, like, as in what to read so i'm not talking so much out of my ass, i'll give you a sucker.

paris hilton has been stalking me the last few days. the last time i saw her, she was chasing the sun across the rocks down at sculpture falls. before that, she was on my front porch, or rather, down on the stage at the spiderhouse. at the time i had no idea what was happening, just that another camera crew was filming, and that the production-director-type seemed a little more uptight than usual. they're always filming shit down there. i guess my only regret is that if i'd known it was her, i could have run my mack program, and by now i might be a bona fide trash tv star.

last night the crew drank and played 'shuffleboard' at the hole in the wall, and then watched chicago and ghost in the shell which is a great movie. and lost an hour of sleep to the legislature. tonight is my first shift as a waiter at ye olde granite cafe.

my aches and pains from the crash have mostly subsided, save for a dull swolleness at the front of my neck. i hope that's not from the vampires. apparently, the boy in front of me is filing a claim against me, or more accurately, my godfather's insurance. i'm supposed to give a recorded interview later this afternoon on the matter. clearly i have no responsibility for the accident, the driver behind me admitted it was his fault immediately, he's also a nice guy. his agent already came by and estimated on my car.

working a split shift today. fine by me, but i wish i was waiting. soon, young jedi.

what do you like best, licorice or cinnamon?

that’s right, you.

i piloted the junker crosstown and back today with anthony, stopping occasionally to retie the trunk shut. we pulled up in front of a bunch of vatos while a-town hopped out and fiddled with the cord, so i put on middle age white blues radio to let them know he wouldn’t be coming back up with a shotgun. destination, suburban studentia, and dealer named dan.

after trial and tribulation, we returned and smoked our bounty with tane, jack, elliott, matt, leslie, and karen with the incisive mind. i joined up with the drunkboys, playing drums and harmonica, and singing while they hammered away. now I’m offline in bed, curled up around my blog.

APRIL FOOLS played jeff hard. 102.3, the classic rock station, had a gathering with free ‘ritas and beer, and the promise of Jimmy Page in the house. so i picked up the chessboard, jeff took his guitar, and we headed down there. after the belly dancers, a twenty-something black dude got up on the stage wearing a shirt saying “Jimmy Page.” it is his real name. jeff took all evening to get over it.

yesterday’s revelation: billy is hot. today: the night air is hot. resist... air conditioning.