lights down

i recently had one of those conversations where everything besides the other person gets its fader dialed way down.  you know the kind.  light, sound, and time cease to exist as physical entities and become abstract notions.  there is beauty in cadence and in unspoken conclusions.  when it ends and time can be measured again you are astonished by the amount that has passed.  you wonder where it went but the hoarseness in your throat partially answers your question and the smile on your face completes it.  and then, of course, the house lights come up.

h3n2

moving through the day like a zombie

no bend to my legs (that requires energy)

motivation seeps in slowly from panda bear and electronic mail conversations

keystrokes swirl the haze around my brain

liquorice, mango, watermelon -- these are markers

smell my whiteboard sketch and then hand erase

see my condition on my palm

hurray for vague

you are an artful concept, balancing on a fence post, losing your majesty with one sturdy breeze. too many details blow hard from the lips of the novice.  too few suck the meaning out like a fan in reverse.  you make poets of the misunderstood and you make fools of the pedantic.  like alunageorge says: “i don’t need you givin’ it straight to me”.

mental filling

i often wonder about people whose paths i crossed for the slightest of duration decades ago.  the less back story i know the better.  perhaps a cross facial expression or a physical contortion frozen in my mind forever are the only image i have to start from.  filling in the time gap with their own personal experiences and trials and jubilation is a kind of stretching for the brain.  it requires both creativity and a pathological adherence to the notion of injustice.  no one’s fate is completely neutral.  it’s difficult for those of us who like our scales balanced but rewarding nonetheless.   when a snapshot-human’s story ends in death i am saddened.  but every once in a while a face from the past will rise above and contribute something beautiful to humanity.  i am, however, disappointed by most of their choices in life.

damaged film

i remember a day in early 2000 where i was watching a girl and she was watching a guy who was not me and he was creating some half-assed acoustic rendition of a filter song that should have been 'take a picture' but may have been from an album not yet released and all i could think about was how stupid i would feel if he turned out to be richard patrick. in hindsight, that would have made perfect sense and would have certainly validated both my comparison and my general displeasure with the scene and i'm now wondering why i didn't force the issue a bit more.

of course, there is no way this is possible - i'm much younger than richard and he's from fucking ohio, of all places. i'd like to think that i've never seen someone from ohio before the hour of 9pm, or at the very least, that i wouldn't remember the occasion.

ambivalence turns me on and turns me off

i’m changing the record every minute.  i can’t get through a song.  dreamy is burst by raw melodic industrial which is shut down by scuzzy dance.  that gives way to jagged guitar over bass-driven riffs with cowbell which yields to baritone guitar delay-pedaled into surf rock.  my turntable reflects my state of mind.  i need something to push me from my perch on the apex of the roof.  pain or pleasure, either one is better than purgatory.

chance

later this year the iconic monopoly iron token will be replaced with a cat.  i’m not sure i like what that says about modern society.  i can think of few greater pleasures than putting on crisply pressed shirtsleeves underneath one’s vest and running a finger over the peaks and valleys of the elbow-adjacent crease.  perhaps this is more about animal family equality than slacks.  cats have always taken a back seat to dogs in human society and maybe this is hasbro’s late answer to the terrier.  the feline lobby is powerful.  i’m loathe to consider any feminist angles on this because even if the iron is taken away the thimble remains.  plus i just don’t see the world in antiquated sex-defined roles.  i have en vogue’s mandate “be gender-blind, don’t be so shallow!” taped in my locker. i guess i’m just glad the robot wasn’t chosen to replace the iron because when artificial intelligence becomes sentient that would be reason number one to use humans as chessboard pieces.

thimble for life.

hand over your heart let’s go home

my cactus has a single flower for the first time four years.  its petals are both deep pink and delicate vanilla-white. they so contrast the utilitarian prickly green spines that it seems an impossible pair.  such beauty delayed for thousands of days is a form of mild torture not unlike waiting desperately for a glance from a crush. the sheer length of anticipation and brevity of the payoff reminded me of “all summer in a day” by ray bradbury.  when i first saw the petals unfold today my eyes welled.  they are dryer now but i still can’t look away.  

new pop sunday

even though i didn’t care much about this year’s superbowl i still tuned in to columbia broadcasting system’s coverage, keeping it in the background throughout the afternoon.  as i was twirling around playing the bass part to the rapture’s “out of the races and onto the tracks” i noticed ray lewis being interviewed by shannon sharpe.  i took five to pay attention and immediately regretted it.  when ray was asked about his involvement in a double murder thirteen years ago his answer was he couldn’t have been involved because he’s had so much success since then – and his god doesn’t allow evil people to be rewarded.  i’m so sick of morons thinking they can understand the motivations of deities.  it’s as annoying and widespread as townies who pronounce the word “color” like “kyeller”.  the game wasn’t much better but at least there were two things that eased its boredom: kaepernick’s rocket arm and the power outage midway through.  really, though, the highlight was the calvin klein seamless underwear advertising campaign featuring matthew terry.  no seam?  i don’t fucking believe it.