baum boulevard

when a man’s an empty kettle he should be on his mettle

someone once called me robotic.  i think it was a comment on the lengths i go to not waver from my logic-based decisions.  even in the face of overwhelming emotion i try to do what is right and not what any particular urge pulls me toward. 

i hear a beat (thump, thump).  how sweet!

however, giving in to emotions is one of the greatest things about being human and i allow myself to become overwhelmed as often as i can when my actions in this state don’t affect others or have a small probability of negative consequences.

just to register emotion: jealousy, devotion

recently i listened to “evil bee” by menomena, a song about yearning to be a machine.  the amazing bass breakdown and overall musical genius of that song made me yearn instead to be human. i think, however, i got the point quite clearly.

lawrenceville love letters

tender, new amsterdam, cantina, thunderbird.  atmosphere, dive, courtyard, smoke.  time flows differently through the hours of a warm night, weaving in and out of conversations and skipping long stretches like a needle moving perpendicular to the groove.  the boys can’t help but let portions of their tightly guarded happiness reserves escape in the form of smiles.  the warmth makes the dark no longer menacing but womb-like, erecting temporary barriers against reality.

signifcant & sublime

saturday emily and i went to a local art gallery in the basement of a house.  it was the opening for an exhibit featuring regional art teachers’ work.  i was impressed both with some of the pieces and with the open bar.  my favorite piece was ram skull with stripes by josh criswell.  it reminds me of austin, texas.

after art we sat in the car outside emily’s house for about twenty minutes trying to decide which direction the night should take us.  bouts of silence broken with discussion, followed by whispers, then building to crescendo.  imagine the conversation as the spoken word equivalent of “breakers” by local natives.  it was awkward yet perfect, the stuff of larry david situational comedies.  i’m not a sadist so i wouldn’t want to drag out decisions like that all the time but when the perfect storm of factors causes a simple choice to be much more difficult than it ought to be it’s hard not to enjoy it from ten thousand feet.

the black keys

is it sad that the black keys song i’m most into is the tobacco remix of “i got mine”? i don’t think so as it is just as slimy as the original, with attitude dripping down its sides.  it does add, however, that psychedelic and noise mixture that i love from tobacco.  and it has lost any resemblance to the sound of strings being plucked.   

i caught the black keys last night at the consol center.  it is never quite as good to see a band in a huge venue but i liked it. my favorite two songs were “sinister kid” and “everlastinglight”.  “sinister kid” had so much swagger.  the rhythm was sharp but the guitar was warbly and that made for an awesome contrast.  the bass didn’t come through like in the album version so it sounded a lot more like they played it as a twosome (even though a backing band was there).  two huge disco balls and hundreds of beams of light danced around for the falsetto-only “everlasting light”.  it was like prom at the school for the ordinary-challenged.

morning

the loss of a friend is a shock to the system.  you have to learn to breathe again in an unfamiliar environment.  you have to weave duct tape and booze into a barrier to prevent your insides from spilling out of the hole in your chest.  most importantly you can’t give up hope that you will commune with them again. i have and i have and i haven’t.

take me dancing! (boom boom boom boom)

was it apparent to anyone else the major flaw in patton oswalt’s facebook post about humanity and good and evil? it is possible that the post was meant to inspire and in that case it did the trick. the trick, however, is on the reader if they are comforted by his words.  he writes:

“But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago."

it is not in the nature of good to destroy.  good is rather compelled to help and nurture.  because of this and the nature of the world there will always be evil.  and while the good may outnumber that evil it is still no consolation to me.  the reason humanity is still here is because never before in human history did evil have the access to extinction-level technology.  and when the tissue is dead both the virus and the white blood cells die, no matter the ratio. 

wow, that was gloomy.  anyone up for some wham! on vinyl?

to be young and wild and free

a few days ago i went back to college for alumni weekend.  it was warm and full of pollen and the buildings smelled like college.  there were no lack of nametags or mammoth tents and the flagstone paths revealed the way to me whenever my memory failed.  i retraced the dutiful steps of an engineering boy and the wobbly steps of a fraternity boy.  as i listened to smashmouth playing live in the quad i realized both that pop music has regressed in the last decade and that my mindset has stayed relatively the same.  i still love the beauty of logic and routine.  and i still love the beauty of the unknown and chaos.  mathematics in fluorescent light and day-drinking in the sun.  training in the morning and stumbling around with random faces from the past at night.  i don’t find these things a contradiction.  

do not open until

there is music reserved for singing alone

there is music reserved for whispering with a heavy heart

there is music reserved for humming while running

and running and running and running

there is music reserved for projecting with the top down

there is music reserved for chanting with the boys

and then there are the junior boys

and then there are the beach boys

oakland zoo

the greatest thing about experiencing grizzly bear in person is hearing the multi-part vocal harmonies start softly and gradually gain strength until they feel like a subtle but firm shove backward. the second best thing is watching and hearing a flute at a rock and roll show.  i experienced both veins of gold on saturday.  i made sure to angle myself so that the shove pushed me closer to the person i was with.  

dilation

when is a couch not a couch?  when it frames a certain space in which time moves at a different speed than that of the ordinary world.  when four arms and a blanket all intertwine like orange-white strands of molten glass.   when the floor is made of lava and the thought of leaving is so absurd that it is immediately gone with the next breath, like a stray eyelash (but without the wish). 

papercut/lovebug

it rips through the skin so fast the aftermath smells of friction.  the involuntary drawn breath ensures that this smell permeates the nostrils.  several moments free of exhale follow like children.  and the inevitable gravity-influenced tear-shaped crimson drops taste warm and metallic.  it’s always deeper than what seems possible for such a delicate thing. 

rat vs. snake

today i received a reply to a message i sent five years ago.  this made my eyes well just a touch.  obviously i am fond of the written word and these words took some serious time and reflection to create.  it was immediately apparent that they were naked and honest as well.  i read the reply first as my 2013 self and then again as my 2008 self, attempting to determine whether or not i’d changed in that window of time.  i concluded that i had not changed (perhaps due to my own stubborn stance on the concept).  but it was amusing to think of my natural responses to those words as both current-me and five-year-younger-me.  for example, with regard to a statement about a nearly-blinding eye infection my 2008 reflection would have streamed, “eye -- lazy eye -- silversun pickups – music video with that girl with pixie hair – i wonder where she is now?”.  but now my mind goes something like, “eye – aye – bands love it when you yell ‘yar!’ at them – minus the bear – cat’s cradle – girl in the front row – i wonder where she is now?”.  

float

i haven’t gotten a whole lot of sleep in the last week.  i am not, though, compressed to the ground with the weight of missed dreams.  instead i float slightly above the earth as my reality has become blurred with the stuff of reverie.  and during the few hours i do get to rest i have a greater sense of peace as the melancholy sound of knife grazing glass (scraping the bottom of the jar for the remnants of something whose color or consistency i could no longer recall) has faded from my ears.  i can see it again.  it is thick and blood red. 

heart cooks brain

my grandma and your grandma

sitting by the fire

my grandma says to your grandma

i’m gonna set your flag on fire

my heart’s the flag.  
every time i pass a mirror i expect to see burnt orange lick behind my green eyes.  

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.

windows down

yesterday it was fifty five degrees fahrenheit at midnight.  one of the many times i woke up during that night i walked over to the window.  looking at the moon and sky there was no indication that it was the dead of winter.  it was difficult to fall back unconscious because i couldn’t wait to wake up and drive to the gym windows-down.  i suppose the lullaby music i picked didn’t help as it left my hair wind tousled on the pillow:  “summertime clothes”, “when i’m with you”, and “an ode to maybe”.  everything is better with the windows down.

two dimensional friends

i’ve been spending more time in my music room lately so i decided to do some redecorating.  one set of posters down and a new class of inspirational laminated paper up.  hanging posters always ends up being an all day job.  having guitars within easy reach it becomes quite necessary to christen each poster’s attachment to the wall with at least a few bars from the band imprinted upon it.  inevitably something is not quite right and there is time spent fiddling with dials and throwing falsetto lyrics about.  by the time the adhesive settles all the bands have heard several covers of their own work and i’ve lost hours of my day.  i wonder if things like this help my progression as a musician or if they just help my progression toward a divorce from reality.  my stylist says my hair has been growing faster lately.  it could go either way.

cranberry raspberry

this article discusses the reason why humans remember the third decade of their lives with much better clarity than any other time period (via unfogged). i think the theory of the reminiscence bump coinciding with the period of identity formation has serious credence.  i have another theory, though.  i think that the level of a human’s perceived hope is proportional to the sharpness of their memories. very early on we are incapable of understanding what is beyond our environment.  during childhood we may see what we can’t grasp but we have no immediate hope of attaining it.  however, when the freedom to roam and explore and make bad decisions comes rushing at us like a dam bursting in early adulthood everything is perceived to be at our fingertips.  the immediate hope of something better, something different, something unknown fills us.  we lose that hope slowly as the marrow of our destiny ossifies.

i started drinking diet snapple at nineteen.  i’m not sure there is a clearer memory in my head.

boomerang

the warm virtual embrace of a long lost friend found again is like leaving the snow and stepping into a dark cozy pub where everything has a citrus tint. the smell of wood and slightly stale spirits is easily recognizable and the worn flat wooden chair backs cause a familiar twinge in the spine.  but in relief of the semi-bright areas lie the shadows of unexplored crevasses waiting to be bathed in the light of conversation and anecdotes.  the excitement of the new and the comfort of the familiar blended together and hand rolled.  

the denim room

i have a denim room.  it’s not actually made of denim, of course.  it is painted dark-washed textured blue.  there are also silver dragonflies stenciled over top.  the room existed in this way when i bought the house and i had always planned on changing it, but in a surprisingly human fashion i have become accustomed to it over the years.  it is whimsical and it allows me to break the confines of a self-imposed benjamin moore prison.  i have been spending more and more time there lately, listening to music and watching the walls and ceiling.  i dare not sleep there, though, for fear of the dragonflies coming to life at night.

waiting

“the easiest way to bring the future to you is to forget everything.”

“lose awareness and lose the notion of waiting?”

“something like that, but with an eject button.”

“i’ve always wanted to push one of those.”

“forgetting is never as easy as you’d think.  it’s a game of hide-and-seek and misdirection with the one entity that knows you best.”

            “my go-to place was the neighbor’s shed.  the rats…”

“but when you get it right you wake up one afternoon and future is in front of you and every second in between has not been counted.”

            “i wonder why it takes so long to piss at this club.”

rules change

not as though i needed empirical evidence to support this, but the fact that my immediate reaction to the track recommended by t.price in this post was related entirely to the fact that npr used a service named rdio (pronounced "arrr-dee-ooo") to deliver it speaks volumes about the current state in which i find myself.

are we really going to start referring to the omission of vowels as innovation? have we already reached that point? should i even care? t. price's recommendations are always highly considered, but i'm too worked up to focus on this one. what ever happened to napster and the year 1999?

beach monster

everything about strfkr’s beach monster (it’s the last song at the bottom) screams, or, more accurately, deliberately coos comfort.  the background hum of conversation and the clinking of glasses appeal to the basic human need for social interaction, making the listener feel enveloped by the soft downy padding of vocal static and the occasional laugh.  slide guitar is intrinsically adagio.  it may, of course, become unresolved at some point but it always finds its way back to its root before the song’s end.  the use of delay on the vocals conveys a dreamy half-reality where one can be both in a railroad tunnel and in bed at the same time.  in addition the modulated vocal harmonies recall wholesome radio ads from the nineteen thirties.  most importantly, though, at two minutes in length beach monster fills the gap nicely between swigs of single malt straight from the bottle. pace is the trick.

daily routine

having tried to figure out why i am not more famous through years of deep introspection i can still find no reason.  i thought perhaps a glimpse into hunter thompson’s daily routine would reveal some glaring differences but, alas, no.  we are like two swigs of the same bottle of rum.  the only things i found odd were the amount of orange juice he drinks (clearly embellished) and blended scotch?  don’t make me vomit up my breakfast snow.

bright lights

having spent the last few years enduring the unflinching weather patterns of londontown - omnipresent gloom at its best - there is a feeling of comfort that comes with my first winter back in the southern portion of these united states. i missed the sun and i believe it missed me. 

as to the dynamic nature (not to mention fate) of the wardrobe that i had built to handle those conditions which are now in the past - i continue to keep an open mind when it comes to assessing challenges.

we like to party

            i’m not into beyonce but i’m into caroline.  and i’ve been into kool a.d. ever since that one time i found myself in a taco bell inexplicably after being in that pizza hut.  i was pretty confused since i was actually trying to get to k.f.c. to steal wet-naps.    

            here’s caroline and chairlift with kool a.d. reaching deep down for soul with “party”.  this is absolutely the only band i want to play my wedding.  well them or some drunk guy with an ipod.  

lava rainbows

i think the accompanying sound for sunlight through leaded glass in the morning is a warm acoustic guitar being picked or lightly strummed.  for midday the best match is ethereal synth or human voices in harmonies.  think “gypsy woman (she’s homeless)” or “wouldn’t it be nice”.

my leaded windows splay tens of small rainbows across my floor in the afternoon.  today i hopscotched between them pretending they were lava, singing along with “digital love”.  i didn’t need to hop on the way back in the other direction, of course, because my shadow quenched them before me.  i still sang though.

velocity

i don't listen anymore. 

there is an awareness that sound exists but i'm into simple packaging - demands, acquiescence, objections. these add up to something, i'm sure, but calculating the sum always feels more elusive than assuming the meaning of the parts. 

i need to move faster, think less, consuming only what is necessary. there is a question of whether it was engineered to be this way from the start. the facts seem to point away from the affirmative, which concerns me less than one would think. the speed is intoxicating and i feel anything but obligated to consider alternatives.

paper

my favorite part about books is their static nature.  they are outside time. they are fluid, free to be followed backwards, forwards, or in random discrete jumps.  find the sentence you last read before the end of the world and be welcomed back without bias.  with a few flicks of the finger and a flutter of air the scene can be replayed.  it is an amazing feeling when you realize you can trick the universe and replay sections of your life again in real time, finding that same happiness that existed chapters ago.  of course this is only possible under the right conditions and it is ever so delicate.  i’m going to savor mine until i lose balance.

when you take a sip you buzz like a hornet

restringing a guitar is probably the most calming repetitive task i know.   the smell of spanish cypress compels me to hug my guitar’s body warmly.  the feel of the peaks and valleys of the wound bronze strings running across skin provides a sharp contrast to the smooth wood.  the chirping of skin sliding over the strings recalls the sound of sneakers against the floor of a gymnasium.  the first pluck of the new string produces a buzz that is felt in that one place deep in the chest.  you know the one.  i find it impossible to be upset by the time the last string is in place.  

now i'm gold

while hanging upside down recently in an attempt to dorian-ize myself against any further aging a thought occurred to me.  am i actually, despite my desperate longing for something more, happy at present?  on first analysis i couldn’t remember the last time i’d clapped and that obviously sways toward the negative.  i mean, my ruddy cheeks surely were more a product of being inverted than my humor.  however i soon recalled listening to rilo kiley’s “silver lining” recently and it’s sign of a cold black soul to not clap along to that.  and of course my nightly “private eyes” dance-along also contradicts my initial thought.  i suppose subconsciously i could be happy.

i still, however, long for more.

you breathe and eat and grow. And that is how you know

hear muffled sounds in the distance.  it’s always the ears first.  feel a slight breeze on your bare neck.  your hairs dance like they just don’t care.  open your eyes a crack.  take note of the blurry silhouettes around.  they will be sharp in time.  run your tongue over the adhesive on the roof of your mouth and wince briefly.  open your mouth.  take a deep breath.  leave no air in the room.  exhale.  you’re the victim.

this is a mess

i have to spit out this story, late as it is, because i haven’t got the ability to resist. mike stumbled in formal dress, late to the assembly of welsh nobility off in the distance. i like jumbled messes that modulate and assemble themselves gradually until they are crisp. soggy cereal gets me twenty-first chromosome down. i can only get up again when the cheerio in my heart is filled. at long last it has come in apple cinnamon, no citrus. my dreams are not spicy but sweet.

blueberry, i hardly knew thee

i was sniffing my dry erase markers today and found that blueberry wasn’t as crisp as she was before. part of her tip had been separated from the rest and had been peeled back like the scalp of a native’s enemy. i tried to fix her until i was blue in the hands but there was nothing i could do. now i am stuck with this guilty conscience and intermittent hypothermia on my fingers, both of which will endure as i mourn my loss.

historically swearing politely

i watched some of the united states inaugural proceedings today in an attempt to be stirred for the first time ever by witnessing history first hand. after president obama’s speech my insides felt noticeably better. i don’t think it was the content of his words that moved my stomach to unclench but rather his honest eyes. throughout his abbreviated history lesson and his rough sketch of the hard road ahead he consistently looked like believed his message of hope. and that is a good thing since hope is contagious but rare. i was quite moved when he mentioned nonbelievers in his laundry list of religions as i can’t remember any other president including that group of people before (although my memory only goes back to the end of reagan).

i was a little freaked out when mr. obama botched the oath of office twice, but i was told that in fact he doesn’t need to wait four years to do it over again and become president for real. all the same, it’s going to take a lot of horseshoes, salt, magpies, and bells to break this hex. and, luckily, i have three of those four hex-breakers right now for just such an occasion. i’ll pick up some salt on the way home.



UPDATE: the president has taken the oath again. i'm not sure what this means for my hex cure. i wonder if it will now re-hex the united states, causing a plague of horrible luck to rain down on our purple mountains. one thing is certain: justice roberts should leave the freestlye oath-ad-libbing to the bass from boyz ii men.

listening to landscapes

i watched a documentary about a man with severe synesthesia who sees numbers as three dimensional images with associated feelings. He sees the answers to complex mathematical problems as landscapes, and this helps him to solve these problems in unbelievably short periods of time. while i envy this ability, i think i would rather see sounds. i love numbers like i love the summertime but colorful music would be much more fun. it’s selfish, i know. i can just imagine seeing sigur ros’ “svefn-g-englar” and tearing up even as i smile. it would be worth the nightmare i’d see in diminished chords and the endless merry-go-round that pop radio would appear to be. i do wonder, though, if would have to stop listening to music as i fall asleep.

a whistling chill over my feeble flame

in an interview with harper’s arthur krystal restates that he simply cannot enjoy contemporary poetry, prose, or literary criticism because it does not have the ability to make him change the way he views the world. in essence, those art forms have run their course:

one has to be a genius, a veritable genius, these days to write an original and historically significant poem or novel. The same applies to painting and classical music. And by “significant,” I mean something that will not only astonish but will change forever how we regard the form. And as you know, I don’t think this is possible anymore. And this, too, is a function of age, the world’s age. When an art form is just emerging, when an aesthetic movement is still developing, genius isn’t necessary to create memorable works. Talent and knowledge are sufficient. Geniuses arise, of course: Beethoven, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Vermeer, Picasso, Joyce, but you’ll also find a great number of tillers in the field who do interesting work by virtue of the fact that such work hadn’t been done before.

i have not progressed to the muted, sepia-toned world arthur krystal must live in, but only because i am ignorant of many works of genius that, over the years, i have set aside for later consumption. krystal’s problem is a scary one, and his philosophy is depressing for anyone who fancies themselves a writer. does it make sense to try to fly with a four-foot ceiling? i suppose it does, but only if the few people lying on their backs looking up are enough. if you like the crisp air at a thousand feet then you have been doomed, once again, by the concept of time.

michael finnegan

repetition in life is inevitable. it only gets dangerous when it causes a person to pay less attention to (and eventually ignore) their daily lives. in this fashion huge blocks of time can be lost. relationships can be eroded. red flames can be cooled so gradually that their color appears not to change at all. whenever i feel time slipping like that i try to do something original. if i do something i’ve never done before i am sure to remember it. and if i remember things vividly then they can no longer be part of a slushy chunk of time lost in the past. most recently i conceived a short play in which none of the interesting characters were ever on stage and most of the monologues were poorly veiled advertisements for info-mercial products. here is part of act one:

GENEVIEVE: [sitting in a train car, sings] Look at these grizzled nine-to-five-ers! I am just the same. My hair is flat, my stomach fat, my taste in music lame. If only there were a d.v.d. to take me where I want to be… Oh wait! There is. It’s “Hip Hop Abs” created by Shaun T.!

i am hoping for a limited run off broadway.

51 weeks later

the very least that can happen in a year is nothing, give or take some expanding and contracting of the diaphragm. my least, however, expands upon this definition with bouts of worrying over aging and frequent recitations of passages from bret easton ellis. and even while i feared the least i dreamed of the most. but i never expected such a year as 2008. there were high wires and low tides but the sweet, chewy middles were something altogether different and special. i felt far away early in the year and yet so very close at the end. i met someone whom i love and i unmet lots of other people. i can only wish such a year upon you 2009.

after a year hiatus phlox loves arthur is back. it is genuinely sorry for any harm caused by its absence, and has already begun rosary penance. things to look forward to in the new year:

• new contributors
  
• thematic postings
  
• hangovers from overdosing on wit
  
• nudity
  

hold on to your wristbands everyone.

happy smurf day

this year will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the smurfs. smurfs, of course, are those loveable sexless creatures whose message is one of understanding, camaraderie, and love. i have a special place in my heart for these blue sentient beings due in part to hours spent watching their exploits on television and also various childhood dreams about smurfette. their lore is deep and their vocabulary flexible. i’ve even used “smurf” as a verb several times this past year, mostly in the following context: “that is fucking re-smurf-ulous. stop being such a smurf.”

upstream

i think about free will frequently. thinking about this leads me to think about the incomprehensible randomness of the technically finite-state machine of the universe. i mean, just a hair’s edge one way or the other at one time can lead to the difference between ketel one and five o’clock vodkas. this leads me to think about that big wheel people spin on the price is right, since it’s impossible to watch that show sober. there are so many applications to the close-but-don’t-exceed methodology. while blackjack is the most notable follower, i’d like to propose certain aspects of every day life also follow this rule. take consumption, for example. the game is to drink as much as one can without tipping over. at work, the goal is to take as many paperclips from the bin as possible without being noticed. the tipping point is also the balance point. and that is the most beautiful thing anything can be: a delicate balance.

fax machine anthems

the real difference between the good old days and today is not the times themselves. it is us as the observer. we were more easily impressed back then. by definition we were less experienced, so things seemed fresher. in the late eighties i knew nothing of drugs and sex and was content with snap bracelets and schoolyard tomfoolery. a decade later i spent my time being impressed by alcohol and girls who could chug tequila, but i knew nothing of freedom. now that i am free i sometimes long for the good old days when i wasn’t. but only because i remember being happier in my ignorance. of course, there are always the other times when one craves licking absinthe off of a hooker’s navel. and then i thank lord xenu i’m an american.

no jacket required

“no jacket required” was yesterday’s theme. luckily i had purchased that phil collins album at a record shop in doylestown recently and i listened to “susudio” on the hi-fi at home. it was also a spot of luck that i didn’t bring a jacket to work or i’d have tied it around my waist like it was nineteen eighty nine. i still do that when no one is looking. but nineteen degrees centigrade leaving the gym in january was as close to heaven as i can imagine. it will probably be a once-in-a-lifetime experience that i look back upon in my senility with fond remembrance. yes, the day i dead-lifted three hundred pounds and lost my virginity to the spinning instructor was a warm one. in january!

the last weeks

i have returned from my tour of the eastern caribbean. actually, i returned a week ago. i decided that during last week both ripping down all signs of the holidays and laying on the ground face-up were more important than writing. i was also fighting off some sort of disease i most likely picked up on some island somewhere. it made me feel tired and crave rum. i did make it to a party for the new year at a nice house in shadyside. three stories high, this place had a college-like first floor with pool, beirut, and shuffleboard tables, as well as a wooden bar. the second floor was clean and furnished, with another kitchen like it was a separate apartment. the third floor consisted of a long multipurpose room and a catwalk that overlooked the second floor. it was impressive. i spent most of the night drinking champagne from the bottle and playing beirut. it appears i still have the skills i acquired in college. the blurriness of the late evening attests to that.

the vacation was relaxing and tame. i caught up on my reading and sudoku puzzles. i stared at the ocean for hours listening to michael mcdonald and the mary jane girls. i visited some islands and learned about the general history of tourism. i also saw the hospital where anna nicole smith’s son died. i wished a native happy holidays. i laid on a beach in a bay where i could collect my thoughts. i listened to jazz at night in a faux-ivory room. i found the elusive balance between winning and losing in the casino. i can’t help but think that this may be the last family vacation i attend.

over the sea

as i write this i am in a boat on the atlantic. the outside temperature is seventy-eight degrees f. some northern swells are rocking the boat more than i like, although some boat-rocking is undeniably good. i have seen the bahamas. i did absolutely nothing today, laughing at coordinated events. i don't want anything coordinated, except my trip back home. on the eve of christmas i have slightly overdosed on sun, giving my skin a holiday sienna coloring.

the middle

post-reading music: southern-space-chamber group japancakes – in memory of honey (thanks swanfungus)

as i prepare for my journey south to the tropics i reflect upon past year-end times. i wonder if i really do whatever i want or if i just do what is easiest, and that in turn becomes what i want. two toothbrushes, one razor. do i have the fortitude to turn my shoulder on people who are easily offended? the longer i wait the more i see this must be done. i’m wearing my sunglasses in the morning, but the future isn’t bright. i see i need to cut the cord to have any chance. greatness and middle-management are antonyms.

h,b,f,s

this video of an a capella group has already made my week. i am not sure where the group is from but it’s clear they are talented. i developed a love for a capella music during college. the lack of instruments is a very interesting constraint and, when done well, vocal harmonies are one of the greatest things about human music. thus, i get excited when i hear pop music covered by these types of groups. and it just so happens everyone likes daft punk. it appears good music may actually be seeping slowly into public consciousness.

wobbly post

without ale i consistently find gatherings to be a bore. so i travel lightly, making sure to complicate everything with spirits. when my spirits are low i just remember an old nursery rhyme, “liquor is quicker”, and then my glass is half full again. trees just reinforce the need for gin, and models the need for vodka. it’s too bad all my drinks are martinis these days. these days…

value at pi/2

in the endless sine-wave functions that make up my life the social wave and the music wave are exactly out of phase. i am quite alone but i have been making out with great music all week. just yesterday i saw this string of music videos on the gym screens: “chicken payback” by band of bees, “so much trouble” by matt pond pa, “pachuca sunrise” by minus the bear, and “maneater” by hall & oates. i bought “alive 2007”, daft punk’s live set recorded in france which mixes together songs from different eras dj-style. and i became aware of oh astro, a project that mixes and changes samples to create totally great tracks. their latest album champions of wonder is so good it may become my favorite of the year. if you don’t like “hello fuji boy” there is something wrong with you (it splices lionel ritchie’s “hello”, fujiya and miyagi’s “collarbone”, and hot chip’s “a boy from school”). i just wish i had someone other than my holiday tree to listen with. he’s such a rube.

snipe hunt

i think the satisfaction of tracking down an errant piece of code floating in one of thousands of files must be similar to that of a sniper connecting on his or her target. it gives a brief feeling of purpose to one swimming in their own entropic mess. many people try to make their lives a ceaseless string of these kinds of mini-projects so that they can consume meaning in small portions steadily. i don’t believe in this practice, however, as it intentionally leaves no time for stepping back and gazing. while i like the entropic mess i do wish to find some greater purpose or truth. but i don’t think it can be found in a life full of focus. i think my time is better spent blurring my vision and trying to see the invisible. this has led to a number of half-finished projects and a mediocre life on paper, but i haven’t given up.

snow day, snow day

last night was the first significant snow of the fall. while the snow was falling i was putting candy canes on branches of my holiday tree when i thought that perhaps i’d drink some holiday cheer in the form of a vodka shot with a candy cane chaser. since the only light in the house was my holiday tree i had a great view out from the sliding glass doors in the kitchen. to my surprise i saw that the back yard was not covered in the black of night but illuminated in a white glow as if it were dusk (it was ten p.m.). intrigued, i finished my holiday cheer and then put on a hat and mittens to see what was going on. not only was my back yard lit up, but the whole sky was bright. i can only assume that either angels were shining flashlights down from heaven or the moonlight was getting reflected by the cloud cover. i made some snowballs in the driveway and threw them at my house thinking, “this is what alaska must be like in the summer.”

getting back to my roots

friday night was the most fun i've had in a long time. a friend of mine was playing a show at the brillobox. she plays drums for my other friend, an indie-pop music group that makes liberal use of the violin. i must say that i enjoyed all three bands, though, and two of them were from pittsburgh. donora was up first, employing a minimal three-piece lineup. fronted by a girl with a great voice, they set the tone for the night (and i was not upset with the tone at all). ben hardt played second with a string section in addition to drum and bass. the songs had a lot of gravity as well as pretty arrangements. even with the strings, though, they are more rock-with-strings than chamber pop. which makes them a little less appealing to me. i had a very nice conversation with tara from mof during his set. it was also during this time that i started drinking straub beer and night began to fuzz over. i do remember it taking a while for my other friend to start their set, but when it began it was pretty. somehow i managed to get one girl's number and also apparently i agreed to tutor a different girl regarding music. such is my life.

back from black friday

after an extended absence i have returned. the widely speculated rumors of my rehab stint are overblown and less than thirty per cent true. i did hit the amaretto liqueur hard over the u.s. thanksgiving extended holiday but only for the purposes of getting drunk. my house was basically a revolving door of people with one objective: grabbing a piece of t.price. hopefully i satisfied everyone by being as aloof as possible and using the phrase “may or may not” hundreds of times. i am also hard at work on a project that could be even grander than phlox loves arthur and does not directly involve consuming liquor. my christmas gift this year is a ticket for a cruise, and perhaps this is the year i will finally see a palm tree decorated with lights, which has been one of my lifelong goals. if that happens, all i’ll have left is to end world hunger and see stevie nicks naked.

michelle and tina

i’ve been wondering if it means anything that i like the version of santana’s “the game of love” with michelle branch’s vocals better than the one with tina turner’s vocals. don’t get me wrong, i’d do whatever either of the two women told me to do if i ever met them. including, but not limited to eating a jelly doughnut (i’ve been jelly-free since nineteen ninety-four). but in this case the high range of branch’s voice outweighs the gritty funk of turner’s. now you may be wondering, “but doesn’t liking that piece of music intrinsically mean something? like that you suck?”. and to that i would reply, “everyone needs some pop in their lives. it may as well come from a living legend selling out his credibility.” and it’s also more exciting because it’s so wrong.

the inevitable, the universal

by now many of you may think you have a pretty good idea who the enigma t.price is. you may think that i could be your best friend. perhaps you think i am an excellent conversationalist. maybe you detest my mixture of northern sense and southern sensibility. in any case, if you don’t envision this in my future then you are quite a ways off. it has become clear to me that my future is a funnel, swirling inevitably toward hairspray addiction:

When White confronted him, he noted the man appeared to be under the influence of alcohol. The man admitted drinking two bottles of spray. He also told White that he is “a hard-core alcoholic,” who drinks the spray for the alcohol in it.

The man had $15 in his pocket at the time. White asked him why he didn’t just go to a liquor store and buy a bottle of liquor.
“The temptation was too great" in the store, the man replied. He also admitted to being in Wal-Mart on previous occasions and drinking hair spray.

drunk elephants and paris

this is the first sentence of an associated press article:

Paris Hilton is being praised by conservationists for highlighting the problem of binge-drinking elephants in northeastern India.

i think i may speak from the heart here, as this is an honest, shirtsleeve-wearing, god-fearing blog. drunk elephants are absolutely the single most important concern in india at the moment. during my time over there this summer the number of drunk elephants i encountered far outnumbered the rail-thin homeless, starving people i saw. as a matter of fact, one pissed elephant stole all the liquor i had on my person, leaving me none to give to the poor indians. i love paris.

f.y.i.

this information about women is all news to me. this is why i watch tyra. tyra and katie couric only for all my news. i just wish they’d do a “what’s down there?” day for men. i haven’t really ever looked down there while naked. i use the bathroom looking straight ahead and whenever i’m hooking up with someone i just take off my clothes and say, “showtime synergy!”. then some stuff happens.

ten gallon whiskey

so where have all the cowboys gone? you may think that the answer to that question involves the themes of chivalry, chaps, and cultural norms. but you’d be wrong. the one-word answer is “pennsylvania”. i’d be lying if i said i didn’t enjoy drinking whiskey on the porch and walking slowly. but i never really understood the need to wear dirty clothes and use dim speech. and don’t get me started on the horrible, simplistic music. so i am proposing a new “modern” kind of cowboy that embraces the slow lifestyle but doesn’t need the hat or truck. he can drink all day and play the guitar, but his songs won’t make you want to spur him in the groin. perhaps there is little difference between my modern cowboy and an alcoholic. although the former could use the noun “pard” un-ironically.

weekend in nc, yeah you know me

the making of a good road trip is a very subtle art. you don’t want to take too many people along with you or else logistics become a nightmare. however, too few participants in each others’ presence for too long can lead to feelings of hate and murderous rage. my trip this past weekend to north carolina was an example of a well executed road trip. even though it included a thick fourteen hours of driving in three days, no one was killed, arrested, broken, or maimed.

the drive south was dreary but our spirits were high. it was myself, three other men in their twenties, and a female preacher. i’m pretty sure there is a joke that starts out that way and i think it ends with “…that wasn’t my bellini!”. i made a mix tape for the journey with lots of current stuff on it (if you want a copy you can get one by contacting me). the scenery was about as good as it gets, with multi-colored trees and exotic nude dancing house billboards around every corner. the times when we couldn’t see a car length in any direction because of the rain were magical, like we were floating in a cloud unseen by anyone.

eventually we arrived at our destination, the homestead of i am not victor ward. it was a modern home with high ceilings and loads of stairs. spacious and clean-lined, it was a great place to host a party. friday night we went out to a bar with some horrible cover band. there were quite a few people dressed in costumes. somehow the people i was with found people they knew. i don’t know how that always happens. for whatever reason my old girlfriend’s cousin was there. so when the cover band quit it became a pretty fun night. i talked to a bunch of people who never asked my name. when we got back to the house we turned up the music so loud that they said it was shaking two floors above us and we hung out on the front stoop, just like i used to do when i lived in the south. there’s really nothing like it.

saturday was a long day. after being awoken by distant voices after a few hours of sleep i lay in a stupor for a while and came to the realization that i had twelve hours to kill before the party. i basically spent the day watching “america’s most smartest model” reruns and college football and by the end had had just about enough of men in tight pants (although is can you ever have too much?). as a break during the middle of the day my friends and i took a tour of the city. we ate some north carolina barbeque at a biker bar. later on the box social began and i made the playlist for the first floor of the house. people trickled in during the early going, glanced at me huddled over the laptop, corona light in hand, and passed by. the party started so early that by ten o’clock i was already fuzzy. i kept asking people who they were supposed to be even if they weren’t in costume. i met some nice young ladies and fellows. a couple friends of mine from high school showed up and we talked for a while. later in the night we sang songs of our youth in drunken disharmony. after about eleven hours of party, i finally passed out.

the drive back was hard to bear because of the total of 6 hours of sleep in two days. but i’d do it again, if only to see the looks on everyone’s faces when i claimed, without hint of sarcasm, that “yes, r.kelly is on the playlist. and please don’t touch the laptop.” congratulations to i am not victor whose party was definitely victor-esque.

impatience

i am a patient person. not only is that a becoming quality but it allows for a less stressful life, which is important since anti-aging cream has its limits. the problem with patience is that it can slowly bleed out ambition until it is pale and weak. do i need less patience? is it poor form for me to complain about the state of things? do i even care to be remembered? i am not sure. but i think i will try something new.

some impatient music: "hummer" by foals (via product shop nyc)

la lanne

i bought some v8 fusion this week because it was half price. i can’t stand v8 regular, but i like the word “fusion”. i also like “synergy”. the fusion was pretty good for something containing vegetable juice, but it made me think of something one of my heroes jack la lanne once said: “if it tastes good, spit it out." that is one of the rules i live by, along with “never start a land war in asia.” so i may not end up finishing all six gallons of the fusion. if, by some chance, jack la lanne is not one of your heroes then check out these facts from wikipedia:

He designed the first leg extension machines, pulley machines using cables, and weight selectors which are now standard in the fitness industry. He was the original inventor of the Smith machine

LaLanne admits that as a child he was addicted to sugar and junk foods. He was very troubled and prone to rages, which led to his attempting to burn down his family's house, as well as chasing his brother with an axe.

1954 (age 40): Jack swam the entire length of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco

1956 (age 42): Jack set a world record of 1,033 push ups in 23 minutes on You Asked for It, a television program with Art Baker

negatory

it is a seventy-seven degree (f) day in mid october. my jack-o-lantern is wilting quickly and i don’t even mind. he will look scarier with concavity by hallow’s eve. life is dreamy at this point in autumn. i am traversing south in a week and a half for a housewarming party. i have a number of projects in the works, not the least of which is self-actualization. i hope to be there by early two thousand eight.

soundtrack for this post how deep is your love by the bird and the bee

halloween heat

…however, the main issue is temperature. it has dropped twelve degrees (c) in midday temperature from monday to thursday. this is an unacceptable way to end my indian summer. i can now use that term in a politically conscious way since i have been to india in the summer. of course, that was nothing like this. we have real Indian summers in the states. during autumn, of course. i had decided to give the halloween kids sparklers like those used on independence day since the weather was july-like. now, however, i will have to resort to something with high-fructose corn syrup in it. i don’t like fattening americas sons and daughters. i think i was being far more responsible with the fireworks idea.

fragments of the weekend

saturday night. discussing the role of genetics in calf size. someone spins ghostland observatory. well, i don’t come from the city, i came here on the train. is the south really the south? can a city further north be more southern? go to sleep in a chair, wake up in a different chair. sunday morning, early because of the tailgate. drinking mimosas in the sun. the game is an anti-climax. getting ready to start at square one again.

matt pond speaks what is on everyone's mind

no, matt pond does not ask why more people aren’t doing “hip hop abs” (from the info-mercial – that shit works, dude). he has apparently been fielding a lot of complaints from fans about the direction of his great mppa project. specifically, they seem to be the same points i was making a couple months ago when i first heard some tracks off the new album, last light. these points go something like, “why did you ditch the ‘chamber’ part of chamber pop?” and, “strings are the things, man. where’s the cello?”. i really like the guy, and i totally agree with his statement. he can do whatever he wants, and thoughts get stale sometimes. however, i maintain that regardless of the instrumentation, the product is just not having the same effect on me. the new album is good, but not emblems good or green fury good in my opinion. here is how matt addresses this (from his band's blog):

Years ago, I thought it could be worthwhile to stick strings into
writing music. Not relegated to fluttery washed out pads -- by making
them an integral part. The intent was for them to be as important as
anything else.

And there were people like Jim Hostetter and Eve Miller... They
pushed. We fought. In the right ways. And we somehow came up with
albums we all agreed upon.

But people drift. And so do ideas. (Man, is it beautiful -- miniature
deaths inside life. Where nobody dies...I still speak to Jim. I still
speak to Eve)

Speaking is all we need anymore. Because. What we did then is not what
we're doing now.

Now I'm playing with a group of people I'd trust until the edges -- to
where we can see our dust raise and roll down the sides. Losing
control on the gravel until slipping and flying through the darkness.
The trust to apply a tourniquet around my head. (DO IT!) To stop the
flow of misinformed mumbled criticisms (A bloody brook will always
babble badly). About who we are and what we're supposed to be doing.

minus the bear: round six

minus the bear was in town saturday night with subtle (i’d never heard of them either). they don’t fit into any descriptive category so i’ll just say they mix hip-hop with cello, drum machines, recorders, saxophones, percussion, guitar, bass, harmonica, and plastic forks. the first thing i noticed about them was the worst thing about their sound: the spoken-word (rap) vocals. well, that and their lead rapper/singer adam drucker appeared to be less than sane (in a good way). but everything else got better from there, and in a few instrumental/singing parts i really thought the music was great. i'm still unsure but i left with a good feeling about them.

m.t.b. was outstanding as usual, the only noticeable difference being jake’s longer hair. however, my relative ambivalence toward their new album broke up the pure joy of the occasion. they did play some old classics as well as about half of the new album, though, and i had a great friend with me who enjoyed the moment as much as i did. plus i met two new friends, so it was one of the better shows in recent memory. pirates say yarrr!

tigercity

although their name is like the result of a madlib gone horribly wrong, new york band tigercity has quickly monopolized my head-speakers. they were in the city last night and i sample tracks from pretty much everyone who comes through (for completeness and o.c.d.’s sake). they are a glorious cross between lite-f.m. and synth-pop genius. imagine if darryl hall had sex with a cloud and their cloud-child got caught in a breeze and flew though the sunlight over a backyard where the bee-gees were having a barbeque with the french band phoenix. and everyone was drinking bartles & jaymes. that is what these guys sound like. man, i love descriptive writing. it kicks expository writing’s ass.

summer in cincinnati

i spent the weekend in cincinnati listening to people chant “o-h” and others answer “i-o” it was probably the best weekend of the year to be in that city seeing as it was sunny and hot and oktoberfest was in full swing. there is apparently a large german contingent in the greater cincinnati area and its oktoberfest celebration is well known. six blocks are closed right in the middle of the city and booths, stages, and lederhosen are scattered about amid the sea of people. we noticed some people drinking from half gallon jugs while we were watching the accordion band and decided that those were necessary. so we bought glass jugs of beer and drank them in the middle of the street. the dubious legality of that was somewhat offset by the crowds of people and our power to “look normal” while drinking from jugs like hillbillies.

boozetown, usa

i was returning some videotapes yesterday and since the liquor store is right next to the video store, i stopped in to do some browsing. i started in a clear aisle but i wasn’t in the mood for a party-ish liquor. i was looking for something with substance and the flavored vodkas were only mocking me. as is so often the case i wound up in the whisky aisle. i may need to explain to some that when i see whisky i feel compelled to buy it. i can’t remember the last time i’ve walked past a scotch shelf and have not involuntarily reached out my hand. i suppose it is like how some people need to purchase copies of monets or feel compelled to acquire every pez dispenser ever made. anyway, i bought some blanton’s, which is now sitting at home, having made friends with my other bottles. i don’t drink fast enough to keep up with my purchases so my collection is growing. every once in a while, however, the population of boozetown is dealt a mighty blow.

feist live

feist and rogue wave played the carnegie music hall in oakland last night. i had never been before so i was pleasantly surprised by the set up. the hall is classy and well decorated, like a milder version of heinz hall. they had a significant cash bar (including scotch) set up in the lobby area. the performance area was great. it was small enough to be intimate, but roomy enough to accommodate a mid size crowd (two balconies). there was really not a bad seat in the place. rogue wave opened with a forty-five minute set including new stuff from asleep at heaven’s gate. zach’s voice rang out in its unique, mellow way during their warm glow of an act, and the setting of a music hall suited them well. leslie feist got a huge ovation when she emerged onstage for the main act and it was obvious that she could have done two hours of spoken word and everyone in the crowd (but me) would’ve been rapt. but luckily she played her own unique brand of indefinable pop/unpop music, with the help of voice loops and about twelve different instruments. it was very emotional and i was glad to let myself get sucked in. she played most of the tracks from the reminder, some from let it die, and some covers as well. she ended with an especially bluesy version of “let it die”, which was awesome. i’m pretty sure she was with broken social scene when they came to town last, so i think this is the second time i’ve seen her in person. i consider myself lucky.

rogue wave – “like i needed” (thanks to frozenblog)

feist

in honor of leslie feist coming to town tomorrow here is a clip of her performing “1 2 3 4” on letterman august twenty-seventh:



if you have a good eye, you may notice members of mates of state, the new pornographers, grizzly bear, the national, and broken social scene in the background all clad in white and sparkles. this is basically what i dream about on odd numbered days, except feist has less clothing on and i’m playing the trumpet. i’m not sure a chorus with more indie cred has ever been assembled, and they played like school children (not talent-wise but wide-eyed-like and fun).

pyt

the mtv video music awards on sunday night were the most enjoyable in ten years. they experimented with a hostless format and long cuts to a few of the many simultaneous live performances scattered about. aside from their poor choice in music (looking at you, fall out boy, linkin park) the awards show was great. right off the top we got to see a fat middle-aged woman who looked like britney spears move a total of four feet while pretending to sing a generic pop song. justin timberlake’s party looked like the best, although kanye west’s party’s girls looked the hottest/drunkest. normally i don’t like west’s music, but his new single “the good life”(thanks t-sides) samples “p.y.t.”, which i love. in fact, i was just listening to thriller last week and replayed that song over and over. coincidences like that are what cause me to believe in the myth of hip hop.

long week

so much has happened in the last week and also so little has changed. i fought a war with insects in my circuit breaker room. the verdict is still out. i caught some cloud-free sun and watched part of every televised tennis match of the u.s. open. i strained my neck muscle and couldn’t look back. or down. i turned twenty-seven, the pinnacle age of any young man’s life. i feel old and have less hope for the future. it is all downhill. i can now look backwards, and all i see is smiles. perhaps this track from the hood internet will better convey my emotional state right now: stereolab’s “miss modular” vs.edan’s “fumbling over words that rhyme”. i think if i had to be reincarnated, i’d choose to come back as stereolab.

dan deacon all weekend

the greatest thing about dan deacon’s music (listen to the crystal cat)is that he chooses lyrics for his human parts phonetically, without regard for literal meaning. bands use cadence and alliteration all the time but it’s such a breath of fresh air to make up your own meaning for strings of syllables. i like the unpretentiousness of assuming the human voice is no better or worse than any other instrument. no, i am not seeing red these days. i’m just kind of fed up with everyone’s self-importance. but deacon gives off none of that and the more i keep hearing from the baltimore scene (jones, etc.) the more i like. here’s an excerpt from a great interview:

Anyway, another thing I was interested in was your transition to pop music from more free form experimental stuff. What is it that interests you about pop?

I grew up listening to the Beatles and Kinks and Led Zeppelin and stuff like that. I think pop is the music of our century and I think it would be foolish to shy away from it. It's just the most fun, and my last couple albums were a much more diverse mix of arrhythmic noise pieces mixed with strange pop pieces, and after I started touring I began enjoying the more rhythmic stuff and I sort of went into it head first and that's what I've been focusing on for a while. I mean, a band like Arab on the Radar is like a pop band but they're extremely musically violent and dissonant, even though the root of their stuff is pop, same thing as Lightning Bolt. I think that is the most innovative music can be, taking something that isn't very accessible and making it accessible, I think that's really important.

It's interesting that you say that because if you compare a Lightning Bolt show to a Shins show, for example, people move and react at a Lightning Bolt show in a way that is both more utilitarian and primal, and it's as if people have a much stronger and more important reaction and connection to stuff like Lightning Bolt, even though it's much more strange and unpredictable than a Shins show, where people don't seem to care as much.

Yeah, I also think there are obviously many different backgrounds in the audience of the independent music scene these days, and mostly it comes out of punk, ska and indie. And I think the hardcore punk and ska crowd got used to going to shows when they were kids in high school and freaking out, and I think that generation is now in this realm of discovering a new type of pop. That's the scene I came up in. I grew up on Long Island and all that was there were shows in Churches and VFW halls and kids would go just to go as crazy as they could, and then those kids went to college and saw kids just standing around at shows and it was boring as fuck. Why would anyone want to go to shows like this? Then you started seeing more weird rock bands that came through and had that dance element incorporated into them, like early Rapture back when they were much more weird and a lot less slick. Then you see a band like the Locust and Lightning Bolt, and for the live atmosphere, audience is such an important part of the show. If the audience sucks, then the show sucks.

east weekend

this past weekend was spent in the east. that is, of course, relative only to where i usually lay my head. for others it would be north. for a select few, perhaps, it would be purgatory. it was thirty six degrees (c) with what i can only describe as tea-kettle-like humidity, but the town wore it well. it was most pleasant long after the sun set and it was warm well into the darkness. i sat outside at places with fountains and string lights and vegetation. i mixed sweet drinks with bitter ones. during the day i bought a lamp made of cow skin and a couple records at a great store. i even found phil collins’ no jacket required for four dollars. it is a shame that i am not victor ward now lives in the land of spittoons and confederate flags because one of his old dwellings was pretty close to where i was. it would have been fun to hang out. if he could’ve gotten permission, of course.

lasting

this feels strange, though not in the way you would imagine. while i have essentially assumed a guest role in an arena previously (and much more prominently) occupied by my very same person, there is another issue with much more at stake. it's nice to be here.

for the first time, and at a point that coincided with the writing of this post, i viewed myself through a very incorrect vantage point. think misinterpretation meets re-evaluation, or better yet...the unfamiliar world of lacking information. i saw a person completely changed by a specific series of events, a level of interest manipulated by more than time, and the fear of consequence that follows. i thought to myself, "change, damn it, change." revert back. cycle through. rise above or duck below. but perception fades with truth, doesn't it? don't we all learn to accept the here, the now, the never will be? the scene has not influenced the protagonist. i'm three steps ahead, and that fits the script as well.

the south is nice, and by nice i mean overly heated. certain aspects of my life can currently be categorized as approximations, but i lack the time to adjust. my decisions may now be labeled as joint, but the outcomes have remained largely unchanged. i bought the very best television on the market a few weeks ago, just because i could. large amounts of humidity have the ability to change lives. i'm thinking of unsubscribing to what it's accomplishing, baby. price wrote a piece that referenced his own marriage. unsuspecting fiction is the new storytelling.

we'll talk soon. >ciao<

newman's wedding

this new york magazine article about a.c. newman and the new pornographers is short and good. so read the whole thing. however, i just wanted to comment on how newman, who is one of my indirect heroes (he is looked up to by matt pond, whom i look up to), has stolen my wedding idea. not that i ever really discussed this idea out loud or with another human, but i’d always wanted to have mates of state play at the fictional event. doesn’t a married indie rock couple seem like the perfect wedding band? not only is their aesthetic vibe right, they have both slow and fast-tempo songs (a must). and they probably don’t play poultry dance songs in which people make arm-wings. that’s a huge concern as well.

minus the bear: planet of ice

planet of ice is more of the same from the boys. that is not to say it is tired or sub-par. i was just kind of hoping for a revival of the sound from the this is what i know about being gigantic and highly refined pirates era. perhaps i’m just nostalgic for college, but i find the new album sonically very similar to their last album rather than the early stuff. they’ve always had dreamy, atmospheric vibes mixed in with their flawless technical precision, but i think the overall tempo of the last two albums has slowed down. i’d like to hear more walkmen-like drumming and quick staccato guitar instead of dreamy-long wailing. of course, though i may sound like a petulant child, i assure you i already like the album and have been spinning it nonstop since i got it. standout tracks after a couple listens are “ice monster”(thanks themilklounge!) and “throwing shapes”. the former’s chorus is just spectacular and the latter’s theme and pacing recalls “pachuca sunrise” and the best yacht-wine-stars rock of pirates.

the new real o.c.

mtv hit black gold with newport beach, the new california-based scripted reality. not only did they find kids who seem to be more at ease in front of the camera than the laguna has-beens, but they also found a better looking overall cast. the narrator is chrissy, a blondish girl with julia roberts-like teeth and overprotective parents. the way she says “daddy” every two seconds on the phone is downright hypnotic. then there are clay, grant, chase, allie, and taylor. all of them look pretty good so i wouldn’t be surprised to see any two of them together. in the first episode we actually get to see rich high school kids not look bored all the time. this show kind of makes me feel like i might have wasted my high school days solving differential equations instead of lifting every day and partying every night.

cassette

my recent reminiscing about junior high school days led me to rediscover some old cassette tapes that had been gathering dust in my attic for a while. most are compilation tapes (some dating back to 1989) containing white rap, electronic dance, and phil collins. the later tapes have some alt-rock and metal from the age of flannel. but i also found a few tapes of comedic observations that were put together in the nineties. after burning them, i reflected back on the joy of recording within the medium of the audio cassette tape. it was much more time-consuming and fun to make a compilation tape back then than it is to drag and drop and burn a mix today. it took skills to get the volume, timing, and dubbing just right. i lamented that the cassette was quickly vanishing into pop history. but then i noticed this article and took heart; it seems the tape will be around for some years to come. due to the library of congress (books on tape for the blind) and religious nuts (sermons on tape) it appears the minute current demand won’t be fading soon. and that’s’ good news for people who want to stay relevant but still listen to black box tracks on magnetic tape.

boh in pgh

band of horses, that mostly mellow, sometimes-piercing band from south carolina made their first appearance in pittsburgh last night. even though the show started late i was happy. besides, it gave me more time to down budweisers on the balcony at diesel. the crowd was not-too-big and not-too-small all at once. it was loud enough to be polite to the bands but sparse enough that i wasn’t forced to smell anyone’s back. love as laughter opened. they were mediocre as a straightforward rock trio. i must confess i didn’t listen to most of the set, as i was too busy having a discussion about old friends and drug use in philadelphia. band of horses lost no time getting into their set. they played a couple new songs from the upcoming album and a couple covers, but mostly songs from everything all the time. ben’s voice live is just like it is on the record. at times it was scary how much the band sounded like my morning jacket. i was delighted when they played “na”, which is my favorite boh song. it sounded like floating down a river. with a straw hat. and it was nice.

kavalier and clay

i finished reading the amazing adventures of kavalier and clay yesterday. it is a well-written historical fiction novel in which michael chabon, the author, deals with themes prevalent in his earlier works. loss, sexual identity, and estrangement were corners in the foundation for wonderboys and the mysteries of pittsburgh as well. i had trouble getting through the last section. it read like a horror story to me. the call of duty, routine above freedom is, in my mind, one of the stages of hell. needless to say the story affected me and i consider that to be the mark of a great novel. the writing style is familiar to any chabon reader but, in my opinion, the run on sentences and liberal use of the comma and hyphen detracted from the book, which, i think -- nay i know – was not as good as mysteries. yes, this novel won the pulitzer prize and mysteries is considered a poor-man’s catcher in the rye. but both the sentences themselves and their content are sharper and fresher in the latter. when i win the pulitzer i shall set this straight during my speech.