puppies.
AND MAN THINGS!!
Feb 28, 2008
mel saves the day again, part trois
i just want to reiterate that it is fortunate that there aren't actual girls in the world like mel, because they would inspire strong but mindless cuddling responses that are best reserved for things like puppies.
puppies.
AND MAN THINGS!!
puppies.
AND MAN THINGS!!
TRAVEL JOURNAL - 2/28
(continued from last time):
Andrew grinned, gunned the engine - which started with a sound that could best be described as "self-incredulous" - and we were off.
The road actually gained a bit of altitude for the next few miles, quite the rare feat in western Kansas, so that by the time the rain started sputtering against the windshield we were looking down on fields to our left, long grass whipping in the wind. The rain was hesitant at first, but I'd spent enough time in the plains in the summer to know what was coming - a polite drizzle here, a brief shower there, and then suddenly everything would cut loose at once.
Andrew switched the headlights on.
The first bolt of lightning we saw strike the ground actually hit something. It's hard for me to judge distances when driving somewhere as flat as Kansas, but I'd guess it was 20 miles or so ahead and a bit to our left/south. There was a flash from the sky, and then a thin finger of lightning brushed the ground, and then something - probably a transformer - exploded.
"Huh." At this distance it was more a curiousity than anything else. Ten miles closer and it would have been a spectacle. Ten miles closer still and it might have been life-threatening. Interesting what physical distance will do to your perceptions.
That bolt seemed to set off a frenzy as a few more knifed out of the clouds moments later, a bit further to the north. But still the rain stayed at a sprinkle. It wouldn't have even been heavy enough to be noticeable except for the wind that was blowing it around.
We kept driving. To someone used to Appalachian topography, Kansas storms can be intimidating. What might actually be your standard thunderstorm can look a hell of a lot more threatening when you can see the entirety of the storm cell laid out before you on the prarieland. I hope that was the case here, that things weren't as bad as they looked.
We were headed almost due west at this point, according to the compass dangling from the rearview. The storm would have been mostly coming straight at us, but it was also moving a bit from south to north, which made me think that if we could get past it before the really nasty-looking part crossed the highway we might get off easy.
We covered about five more miles, and by then the edge of the storm was above us instead of in front of us, the wind was howling audibly against the truck's windshield, and still the rain held off. Which was making me more and more nervous.
"There's something weird going about this, man," Andrew said. I nodded, but didn't say anything. We both had a flair for melodrama, being able to take, say, a drive across country and pretend it was some grand adventure. So it wasn't hard to think that maybe Andrew was sort of hoping for a titanic storm to engulf us. I can't say I was entirely adverse to the possibility myself. There is something about being put in a life-threatening situation that instantly gives you purpose. this is attractive to me in general, but on a trip to get away from what I saw at the time as the purposelessness of my day to day routine, it was especially exciting. Trying not to die was just straight-up more interesting than being comfortable.
For better or worse, nature suddenly seemed ready to oblige us in this regard.
Andrew grinned, gunned the engine - which started with a sound that could best be described as "self-incredulous" - and we were off.
The road actually gained a bit of altitude for the next few miles, quite the rare feat in western Kansas, so that by the time the rain started sputtering against the windshield we were looking down on fields to our left, long grass whipping in the wind. The rain was hesitant at first, but I'd spent enough time in the plains in the summer to know what was coming - a polite drizzle here, a brief shower there, and then suddenly everything would cut loose at once.
Andrew switched the headlights on.
The first bolt of lightning we saw strike the ground actually hit something. It's hard for me to judge distances when driving somewhere as flat as Kansas, but I'd guess it was 20 miles or so ahead and a bit to our left/south. There was a flash from the sky, and then a thin finger of lightning brushed the ground, and then something - probably a transformer - exploded.
"Huh." At this distance it was more a curiousity than anything else. Ten miles closer and it would have been a spectacle. Ten miles closer still and it might have been life-threatening. Interesting what physical distance will do to your perceptions.
That bolt seemed to set off a frenzy as a few more knifed out of the clouds moments later, a bit further to the north. But still the rain stayed at a sprinkle. It wouldn't have even been heavy enough to be noticeable except for the wind that was blowing it around.
We kept driving. To someone used to Appalachian topography, Kansas storms can be intimidating. What might actually be your standard thunderstorm can look a hell of a lot more threatening when you can see the entirety of the storm cell laid out before you on the prarieland. I hope that was the case here, that things weren't as bad as they looked.
We were headed almost due west at this point, according to the compass dangling from the rearview. The storm would have been mostly coming straight at us, but it was also moving a bit from south to north, which made me think that if we could get past it before the really nasty-looking part crossed the highway we might get off easy.
We covered about five more miles, and by then the edge of the storm was above us instead of in front of us, the wind was howling audibly against the truck's windshield, and still the rain held off. Which was making me more and more nervous.
"There's something weird going about this, man," Andrew said. I nodded, but didn't say anything. We both had a flair for melodrama, being able to take, say, a drive across country and pretend it was some grand adventure. So it wasn't hard to think that maybe Andrew was sort of hoping for a titanic storm to engulf us. I can't say I was entirely adverse to the possibility myself. There is something about being put in a life-threatening situation that instantly gives you purpose. this is attractive to me in general, but on a trip to get away from what I saw at the time as the purposelessness of my day to day routine, it was especially exciting. Trying not to die was just straight-up more interesting than being comfortable.
For better or worse, nature suddenly seemed ready to oblige us in this regard.
mel saves the day again, part two
i forgot how mel has that uncanny ability to inspire happiness in even the most downtrodden adjunct spirit. but thankfully, my heart was buoyed by this excellent trilogy of videos today. one even features mel playing with puppies. that is more gratifying in literally every way for me than, say, porn. or food. or sleeping.
#1:
#2:
#3:
kristen schaal is a comic genius. i don't care whatcho' mama says.
speaking of shitty white guy adapatations of ghettospeak, check out this blog:
http://www.stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com
'twas forwarded to me by none other than stewbac moebama himself, and it's literally the most funny/clever thing i've seen on the internets for a really long time. and i read tons of culturally-erudite-as-fuck music blogs, so my clevar radar is off da chartz.
i've got to go work a little more today before i can launch a "medal-of-honor"-playing campaign the likes of which the world has never known. read: play medal of honor and starcraft constantly for like three days, sleep in really late, and try to blatantly ignore how bleak my immediate future seems.
i've already lined up three potential candidates (and good ones, methinks) for paper publications. all three are in radically different literature fields, so at least one has a chance to get through. i'm looking into conference ideas for next year, also. i'd look into ideas for right the fuck now but i don't have any money to travel anywhere. literally, none. until i find out if my insurance company actually covered my 600 dollar bill or not. and how decimated my car is. i'm also looking at trying to get a job at the writing center. at least for now my plan is to just try really damn hard to make myself seem as cool as possible for next year's applications. i'm not giving up on this ph.d thing by any means. after a few months of strategizing, i may yet disappear to china for a year or something, but for now my most exciting prospect for a new project is editing chapters of my master's thesis.
which reminds me, if anyone has a good pot connection in the area, email me. i'm gonna need it.
hey-o.
#1:
#2:
#3:
kristen schaal is a comic genius. i don't care whatcho' mama says.
speaking of shitty white guy adapatations of ghettospeak, check out this blog:
http://www.stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com
'twas forwarded to me by none other than stewbac moebama himself, and it's literally the most funny/clever thing i've seen on the internets for a really long time. and i read tons of culturally-erudite-as-fuck music blogs, so my clevar radar is off da chartz.
i've got to go work a little more today before i can launch a "medal-of-honor"-playing campaign the likes of which the world has never known. read: play medal of honor and starcraft constantly for like three days, sleep in really late, and try to blatantly ignore how bleak my immediate future seems.
i've already lined up three potential candidates (and good ones, methinks) for paper publications. all three are in radically different literature fields, so at least one has a chance to get through. i'm looking into conference ideas for next year, also. i'd look into ideas for right the fuck now but i don't have any money to travel anywhere. literally, none. until i find out if my insurance company actually covered my 600 dollar bill or not. and how decimated my car is. i'm also looking at trying to get a job at the writing center. at least for now my plan is to just try really damn hard to make myself seem as cool as possible for next year's applications. i'm not giving up on this ph.d thing by any means. after a few months of strategizing, i may yet disappear to china for a year or something, but for now my most exciting prospect for a new project is editing chapters of my master's thesis.
which reminds me, if anyone has a good pot connection in the area, email me. i'm gonna need it.
hey-o.
Feb 26, 2008
stranger in a strange land
so, as is often the case, i overreached in my excitement, updating my blog a hundred billion times in the first two weeks or so of all the new writing, recording, etc. and then things sort of petered out a bit. i expected this, so if it surprised anyone else, shame on you for not having anticipated my mercurial nature injecting itself into my blog kingdom. actually, it's probably a misnomer to refer to a cancer as "mercurial". the essential meaning of the word fits, but the word itself not so much.
it sounds a hell of a lot better than "moony" though, which is the only cancer-specific adjective i can current summon.
anyway, my "work 10 hours a day and then be super-creative and prolific 8 hours a day" thing lasted like 2 weeks, and then i spent pretty much this entire past weekend playing video games and sleeping 10 hours a night. it was necessary. thinking that i could keep writing 3 songs a day, recording 20-30 hours every weekend, keep up on my travel journal every day, was ridiculous. maybe i could do one of those things regularly in addition to teaching, but not all of them, along with all the normal stuff i have to do like buy groceries, walk everywhere, study up on being a giraffe whisperer, and at least keep decent attendance at my crocheting astronauts club.
so i crashed. as usual. such great heights and all that. blah blah blah.
anyway, it was great to do little to nothing for a few days. i felt guilty at first because i had a whole wide open weekend and i wasn't wailing away on one of my three current recording projects, but the fact is i really can't expect to have time to treat recording like my job when i already have a job. it has to be a hobby, for better or worse. for sanity's sake if nothing else. i mean, even if you have the most interesting, attractive ladyfriend in the world, spending all your free time around her will make you want to kill her (at least if you're me). it's essentially the same principle at work here. i don't derive the meaning of life from any one thing, so to essentially center everything around that one thing will eventually lead to disillusionment. and apparently buying three boxes of instant oatmeal and eating most of them.
well, after my convalescence (sp?) i came back on monday spoiling for a fight and ready to work my ass off on being a super-excellent composition teacher and generally smart person. and then i found out yesterday that i didn't get into WSU's grad program for next year. i'm still dealing with the implications of this (and odds are i will be for awhile yet), so i don't really know what i'm going to do about it. i'm a little in shock at the same time. i would never go so far as to say i thought i was sure to get in, because that would take an assumption of superiority i'm really not capable of, but it really did feel like it was my time in some sort of cosmic sense, like that was what was supposed to happen. as in like "WSU, my density has bought me to you". and it feels really, really strange and really, really bad to have that suddenly yanked out from under me. that, combined a bit with this feeling (similar to last year, but worse) that maybe i've actually reached the pinnacle of my educational accomplishments. like maybe this is as far as it goes. it's frustrating to think that i've spent the last 8 years or so going to school in this sort of assumptive progression of bachelor's > master's > ph.d (or other terminal degree), and now suddenly someone's saying "well hey, you really can't do that". i wish i had known 8 years ago. i could have just gotten a normal job i hate like everyone else and been at least slightly rich by now, and then used the money to stave off the bitterness and cynicism.
i still have a few applications i haven't heard back about, but i'm not holding out much hope. for now the plan is...that there is no plan. i have no car, no job after may, no savings (i should have just enough including my tax refund to evade getting evicted before my lease runs out). unless something shockingly fortuitous happens, i'll probably be trying to grab a shitty job in pullman over the summer, then teaching english somewhere on the globe (maybe here, maybe back east, maybe somewhere overseas where i'll get shot by foreign nationals and be able to write a great story about it) and reapplying for the whole shebang next year.
at the moment, i really just need to sit around for a day or two and mourn the passing of my awesome-as-fuck dissertation at WSU dream. then i'll figure something out, because i always do. and i'll do that thing, and eventually i'll do more things. i'm not giving up on the doctorate thing; i'll keep trying until i'm 50 if i have to, just because i'm annoying like that. but for the moment i have to foster the illusion that there's no hope because the idea of hoping again is frankly a little exhausting.
but i'll get right back on that ASAP. this bag of cookies in my lap should help.
it sounds a hell of a lot better than "moony" though, which is the only cancer-specific adjective i can current summon.
anyway, my "work 10 hours a day and then be super-creative and prolific 8 hours a day" thing lasted like 2 weeks, and then i spent pretty much this entire past weekend playing video games and sleeping 10 hours a night. it was necessary. thinking that i could keep writing 3 songs a day, recording 20-30 hours every weekend, keep up on my travel journal every day, was ridiculous. maybe i could do one of those things regularly in addition to teaching, but not all of them, along with all the normal stuff i have to do like buy groceries, walk everywhere, study up on being a giraffe whisperer, and at least keep decent attendance at my crocheting astronauts club.
so i crashed. as usual. such great heights and all that. blah blah blah.
anyway, it was great to do little to nothing for a few days. i felt guilty at first because i had a whole wide open weekend and i wasn't wailing away on one of my three current recording projects, but the fact is i really can't expect to have time to treat recording like my job when i already have a job. it has to be a hobby, for better or worse. for sanity's sake if nothing else. i mean, even if you have the most interesting, attractive ladyfriend in the world, spending all your free time around her will make you want to kill her (at least if you're me). it's essentially the same principle at work here. i don't derive the meaning of life from any one thing, so to essentially center everything around that one thing will eventually lead to disillusionment. and apparently buying three boxes of instant oatmeal and eating most of them.
well, after my convalescence (sp?) i came back on monday spoiling for a fight and ready to work my ass off on being a super-excellent composition teacher and generally smart person. and then i found out yesterday that i didn't get into WSU's grad program for next year. i'm still dealing with the implications of this (and odds are i will be for awhile yet), so i don't really know what i'm going to do about it. i'm a little in shock at the same time. i would never go so far as to say i thought i was sure to get in, because that would take an assumption of superiority i'm really not capable of, but it really did feel like it was my time in some sort of cosmic sense, like that was what was supposed to happen. as in like "WSU, my density has bought me to you". and it feels really, really strange and really, really bad to have that suddenly yanked out from under me. that, combined a bit with this feeling (similar to last year, but worse) that maybe i've actually reached the pinnacle of my educational accomplishments. like maybe this is as far as it goes. it's frustrating to think that i've spent the last 8 years or so going to school in this sort of assumptive progression of bachelor's > master's > ph.d (or other terminal degree), and now suddenly someone's saying "well hey, you really can't do that". i wish i had known 8 years ago. i could have just gotten a normal job i hate like everyone else and been at least slightly rich by now, and then used the money to stave off the bitterness and cynicism.
i still have a few applications i haven't heard back about, but i'm not holding out much hope. for now the plan is...that there is no plan. i have no car, no job after may, no savings (i should have just enough including my tax refund to evade getting evicted before my lease runs out). unless something shockingly fortuitous happens, i'll probably be trying to grab a shitty job in pullman over the summer, then teaching english somewhere on the globe (maybe here, maybe back east, maybe somewhere overseas where i'll get shot by foreign nationals and be able to write a great story about it) and reapplying for the whole shebang next year.
at the moment, i really just need to sit around for a day or two and mourn the passing of my awesome-as-fuck dissertation at WSU dream. then i'll figure something out, because i always do. and i'll do that thing, and eventually i'll do more things. i'm not giving up on the doctorate thing; i'll keep trying until i'm 50 if i have to, just because i'm annoying like that. but for the moment i have to foster the illusion that there's no hope because the idea of hoping again is frankly a little exhausting.
but i'll get right back on that ASAP. this bag of cookies in my lap should help.
TRAVEL JOURNAL - 2/26
(continued from last time):
"Shall we?" I asked Andrew, gesturing towards the driver's seat with one hand and waggling the keys with the other.
"I suppose I should revoke your driving privileges for the rest of the day, on account of you hitting a turkey and all." Andrew tipped his bandanna back on his head at a jaunty angle and snatched the keys out of my hand.
"He jumped right out in front of me!" I mock-protested.
"You're getting slow, in your old age," he teased. Us being a year apart made my "old age" a constant topic of ridicule.
I made a show of walking sulkily past him, towards the passenger side of the truck, and then, halfway there, spun quickly and punched him in the arm, hard.
"Ow." It seemed an appropriate response.
"Who's too slow now?" I said with the same smile I'd probably had on my face when I broke off the arms of his Ninja Turtles when I was five.
"Get in the truck, old man."
There is something about having a truck that makes you obligated to say "Get in the truck" instead of "Get in the car". No one ever says "Get in the wagon", or "Get in the sedan", or "Get in the SUV", but dammit when you're driving a truck it's important to make a point of referencing the fact that the truck you're driving is in fact a truck, as frequently and as loudly as you possibly can.
I got in the truck, and thunder rumbled again in the wake of my slamming the rusty door closed.
"Shit, dude," Andrew emoted, pointing at the sky ahead of us. In the time it had taken us to stop and donate our hood ornament to the soil, the sky ahead had graduated from a brewing storm to a first-class cauldron of malice.
It was a black wall of clouds, hanging a little too low on the horizon, seemingly always flashing with lightning somewhere along its length, and looking angry about being so full of rain and not being able to find a suitable target to drop it on yet.
"Shit dude, indeed," I said, jabbing an index finger in the general direction of Utah. "Onward!"
"Shall we?" I asked Andrew, gesturing towards the driver's seat with one hand and waggling the keys with the other.
"I suppose I should revoke your driving privileges for the rest of the day, on account of you hitting a turkey and all." Andrew tipped his bandanna back on his head at a jaunty angle and snatched the keys out of my hand.
"He jumped right out in front of me!" I mock-protested.
"You're getting slow, in your old age," he teased. Us being a year apart made my "old age" a constant topic of ridicule.
I made a show of walking sulkily past him, towards the passenger side of the truck, and then, halfway there, spun quickly and punched him in the arm, hard.
"Ow." It seemed an appropriate response.
"Who's too slow now?" I said with the same smile I'd probably had on my face when I broke off the arms of his Ninja Turtles when I was five.
"Get in the truck, old man."
There is something about having a truck that makes you obligated to say "Get in the truck" instead of "Get in the car". No one ever says "Get in the wagon", or "Get in the sedan", or "Get in the SUV", but dammit when you're driving a truck it's important to make a point of referencing the fact that the truck you're driving is in fact a truck, as frequently and as loudly as you possibly can.
I got in the truck, and thunder rumbled again in the wake of my slamming the rusty door closed.
"Shit, dude," Andrew emoted, pointing at the sky ahead of us. In the time it had taken us to stop and donate our hood ornament to the soil, the sky ahead had graduated from a brewing storm to a first-class cauldron of malice.
It was a black wall of clouds, hanging a little too low on the horizon, seemingly always flashing with lightning somewhere along its length, and looking angry about being so full of rain and not being able to find a suitable target to drop it on yet.
"Shit dude, indeed," I said, jabbing an index finger in the general direction of Utah. "Onward!"
Feb 22, 2008
pretty much the best stones album except those other ones
i'll defer to "exile on main street" and possibly "sticky fingers" on this point, but otherwise i think "let it bleed" is probably the best stones album.
i've always liked the stones, but until a year or so ago held the opinion that i also hold (which i know is wrong, don't flame me) towards the beatles. that they're just a decent band who got famous playing lots of pop rock hits when pop rock was still something intelligent music fans listened to. jesus that makes me sound like a huge dick. oh well. it stays.
anyway, my mantra for years had been "the stones are great, but they can't string together an album. every album has 3 excellent tracks and 7 bad/poor ones".
well, i think my mantra was wrong. in looking at the band as a pop music band (which albums like the great, but pop-music skewed "40 licks" tend to reinforce) i was just sort of tossing off the rest of their stuff as insignificant. it turns out that the pop-rock side of the stones, who wrote all those songs you've been hearing on the radio since you were born, are actually pretty much the most boring, least interesting of all stones incarnations. these guys are really a gritty-ass, dirty down-home blues rock band that'll knock your teeth out and then spit in your mouth.
okay, i don't really know what that was supposed to mean.
so now, having wasted oh-so-many years of my life thinking "street fighting man" was the extent of the stones' catalog, i'm on/off the wagon/horse and loving every minute of the dirty, filthy awesomeness that is mick jagger.
so let it bleed rules. i know that saying things "rule" is probably not hip anymore. that's okay; neither am i. i stopped being hip the night i got so drunk i tried to pull a stop sign out of my front yard using my plastic car bumper and a pair of battery cables.
first we've got the title track, "let it bleed", which is just about the best opening track heretofore seen in my collection (although of course i'm partial to ryan adams' "magnolia mountain" too), or the stones' "rocks off". then the excellent cover of Robert Johnson's "love in vain", then "midnight rambler". as far as i'm concerned, the album could end right there. fortunately, it doesn't. then you get "gimme shelter" which is, in terms of studio-recordedness at least, my favorite stones song. and, if you've been involved at all in my occasional dabbling in the idea of making a handheld cam roadtrip film/documentary for the last few years, it's the song i would most love to steal for the intro sequence i've written up. i'm actually so-so on the next two tracks, but then you get "monkey man", which pretty much has the best guitar tone in the galaxy, "country honk" and "you can't always get what you want" as the closer. though i don't see how it really fits with the rest of the album, maybe it's just that i'm not used to hearing it in its original context. either way, it's such a great song that it really doesn't matter what i think.
anyway, listen to this album. i have to go work now.
EDIT: after relistening to "you got the silver" and "live with me", which were the two tracks i blew off above, i really do like "you got the silver" a lot. "live with me" is good, but the opening bass line always makes me think it's going to be "bitch" and when it's not "bitch" i get pissed. also, i forgot to mention "monkey man" has pretty much my favorite guitar tone outside of a cardinals or trey anastasio/phish concert. i especially love the part during the jam where keith goes high for the solo at about 2:46. good times. i can't wait for scorscese's (sp?) stones film to come out. "no direction home" was so good; here's hoping "shine a light" will be better.
i've always liked the stones, but until a year or so ago held the opinion that i also hold (which i know is wrong, don't flame me) towards the beatles. that they're just a decent band who got famous playing lots of pop rock hits when pop rock was still something intelligent music fans listened to. jesus that makes me sound like a huge dick. oh well. it stays.
anyway, my mantra for years had been "the stones are great, but they can't string together an album. every album has 3 excellent tracks and 7 bad/poor ones".
well, i think my mantra was wrong. in looking at the band as a pop music band (which albums like the great, but pop-music skewed "40 licks" tend to reinforce) i was just sort of tossing off the rest of their stuff as insignificant. it turns out that the pop-rock side of the stones, who wrote all those songs you've been hearing on the radio since you were born, are actually pretty much the most boring, least interesting of all stones incarnations. these guys are really a gritty-ass, dirty down-home blues rock band that'll knock your teeth out and then spit in your mouth.
okay, i don't really know what that was supposed to mean.
so now, having wasted oh-so-many years of my life thinking "street fighting man" was the extent of the stones' catalog, i'm on/off the wagon/horse and loving every minute of the dirty, filthy awesomeness that is mick jagger.
so let it bleed rules. i know that saying things "rule" is probably not hip anymore. that's okay; neither am i. i stopped being hip the night i got so drunk i tried to pull a stop sign out of my front yard using my plastic car bumper and a pair of battery cables.
first we've got the title track, "let it bleed", which is just about the best opening track heretofore seen in my collection (although of course i'm partial to ryan adams' "magnolia mountain" too), or the stones' "rocks off". then the excellent cover of Robert Johnson's "love in vain", then "midnight rambler". as far as i'm concerned, the album could end right there. fortunately, it doesn't. then you get "gimme shelter" which is, in terms of studio-recordedness at least, my favorite stones song. and, if you've been involved at all in my occasional dabbling in the idea of making a handheld cam roadtrip film/documentary for the last few years, it's the song i would most love to steal for the intro sequence i've written up. i'm actually so-so on the next two tracks, but then you get "monkey man", which pretty much has the best guitar tone in the galaxy, "country honk" and "you can't always get what you want" as the closer. though i don't see how it really fits with the rest of the album, maybe it's just that i'm not used to hearing it in its original context. either way, it's such a great song that it really doesn't matter what i think.
anyway, listen to this album. i have to go work now.
EDIT: after relistening to "you got the silver" and "live with me", which were the two tracks i blew off above, i really do like "you got the silver" a lot. "live with me" is good, but the opening bass line always makes me think it's going to be "bitch" and when it's not "bitch" i get pissed. also, i forgot to mention "monkey man" has pretty much my favorite guitar tone outside of a cardinals or trey anastasio/phish concert. i especially love the part during the jam where keith goes high for the solo at about 2:46. good times. i can't wait for scorscese's (sp?) stones film to come out. "no direction home" was so good; here's hoping "shine a light" will be better.
Feb 21, 2008
a double dose of absolute fury!
cause #1:
http://gizmodo.com/358648/
cause #2:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/02/21/fear_fear_fear/index.html
i'm too aggravated to write anything in commentary/context that will make any sense and not reflect badly on me as a human being, so i'll let the links i got the videos at speak for me.
also, just as a sidenote: what the fuck is a "piece" of crack? it's not like pepperoni or cheese, you slimeball nuthead. you don't go up to your dealer and say "hey, can i get seven pieces of crack, i'm gonna do two pieces tonight and five tomorrow". *forcibly restrains self from crazy rant*
http://gizmodo.com/358648/
cause #2:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/02/21/fear_fear_fear/index.html
i'm too aggravated to write anything in commentary/context that will make any sense and not reflect badly on me as a human being, so i'll let the links i got the videos at speak for me.
also, just as a sidenote: what the fuck is a "piece" of crack? it's not like pepperoni or cheese, you slimeball nuthead. you don't go up to your dealer and say "hey, can i get seven pieces of crack, i'm gonna do two pieces tonight and five tomorrow". *forcibly restrains self from crazy rant*
Feb 18, 2008
the exciting world of compact discs!
there're a few new album releases coming out extremely soon that i'm pretty excited about. in today's society (confetti falls from the ceiling, peewee's crazy talking chair flips out) of internet advertising and RSS feeds, usually if there's something coming out that i care about, i hear about it six months ahead of time and get all overhyped by cogitating on how awesome it's actually going to be. well, in this case the new mike doughty album completely slipped under the radar. i think in part because in november or so he was talking on his blog about having finished recording and starting the mixing/whatnot process. so being the cynical bastard that i am i assumed that meant we wouldn't see the actual album on shelves until april at the earliest. but no, it's coming tomorrow. and to celebrate, here's a creepy video for the only song off the album i've actually already heard:
also, and even more exciting, they're (i use the ubiquitous "they" because i'm not even sure at this point which record company is printing the damn thing) reissuing "stranger's almanac" (which is right up there with "faithless street", "anodyne", and "no depression" on my alt-country/punk rock/folk/death metal/emo-harmonica hit list) on march 4th.
if you managed to follow that sentence all the way through, i congratulate you.
the way i understand it (and amazon.com seems to back me up), this is a 2-disc rerelease, one disc being the original album, and then a disc of rarities and outtakes from the whiskeytown/adams back catalog. i probably have mp3s of all these extra tracks in some 300 cd wallet underneath my bed or in my closet, but i like the idea of having real, actual, physical versions of them; and besides, then i can give my copy of stranger's almanac away to some lucky person and say "hey, i once went a day and a half without food so that i could afford the five dollars it cost me to buy this album used".
there's also a new neal casal album out on fargo records, but as much as i want it, i'm a bit loathe to pay for the cd AND for shipping, especially considering most of the material is from his last release (live and alternate takes) which was good, but didn't necessarily change the way i look at the world.
anyway, i've got about 30 gb of music on my harddrive and i'm out of cd-rs, so i think my $20 monthly allowance is going to go towards buying cd-rs. which means if you want to buy me something for my birthday in about five months, just bookmark this post and come back to it.
of course knowing ryan adams he'll have 18 new albums out before july.
what do you think of my new haphazard and nonstandard hypertexting of the things i'm writing about? it's a new idea i had and thought might be cool. i'd like to pretend that it's erratic because i'm trying to be artsy or because i'm stoned or something. but it's really just because i'm stupid.
i collected the 120th and final star on super mario 64 last night, collected the last few balloons in diddy kong racing, and then played through THE ENTIRETY of mario kart 64, beating all four levels on all four skill levels, for a grand total of 64 tracks in one night. insomnia sucks balls, but sometimes you can turn it to your advantage. especially when you play mario kart 64 with the sound off for like 5 hours so you can listen to all the new spoon and bright eyes cds you just got. and then you eat frozen pizza with the pepperoni picked off because IGA STOPPED SELLING CHEESE PIZZA!
i tell you, if we're not careful, pretty soon vegetarians won't be allowed to marry. or vote. but i guess that's okay, because we wouldn't be able to drag our weak, malnourished bodies to the voting booth/altar and focus our wandering, hallucinating, underpowered brains on the task at hand long enough before the lack of animal protein holding our cells together caused us to collapse in liquid heaps all over the unforgiving tile floor.
i want sushi. still. fuck.
also, and even more exciting, they're (i use the ubiquitous "they" because i'm not even sure at this point which record company is printing the damn thing) reissuing "stranger's almanac" (which is right up there with "faithless street", "anodyne", and "no depression" on my alt-country/punk rock/folk/death metal/emo-harmonica hit list) on march 4th.
if you managed to follow that sentence all the way through, i congratulate you.
the way i understand it (and amazon.com seems to back me up), this is a 2-disc rerelease, one disc being the original album, and then a disc of rarities and outtakes from the whiskeytown/adams back catalog. i probably have mp3s of all these extra tracks in some 300 cd wallet underneath my bed or in my closet, but i like the idea of having real, actual, physical versions of them; and besides, then i can give my copy of stranger's almanac away to some lucky person and say "hey, i once went a day and a half without food so that i could afford the five dollars it cost me to buy this album used".
there's also a new neal casal album out on fargo records, but as much as i want it, i'm a bit loathe to pay for the cd AND for shipping, especially considering most of the material is from his last release (live and alternate takes) which was good, but didn't necessarily change the way i look at the world.
anyway, i've got about 30 gb of music on my harddrive and i'm out of cd-rs, so i think my $20 monthly allowance is going to go towards buying cd-rs. which means if you want to buy me something for my birthday in about five months, just bookmark this post and come back to it.
of course knowing ryan adams he'll have 18 new albums out before july.
what do you think of my new haphazard and nonstandard hypertexting of the things i'm writing about? it's a new idea i had and thought might be cool. i'd like to pretend that it's erratic because i'm trying to be artsy or because i'm stoned or something. but it's really just because i'm stupid.
i collected the 120th and final star on super mario 64 last night, collected the last few balloons in diddy kong racing, and then played through THE ENTIRETY of mario kart 64, beating all four levels on all four skill levels, for a grand total of 64 tracks in one night. insomnia sucks balls, but sometimes you can turn it to your advantage. especially when you play mario kart 64 with the sound off for like 5 hours so you can listen to all the new spoon and bright eyes cds you just got. and then you eat frozen pizza with the pepperoni picked off because IGA STOPPED SELLING CHEESE PIZZA!
i tell you, if we're not careful, pretty soon vegetarians won't be allowed to marry. or vote. but i guess that's okay, because we wouldn't be able to drag our weak, malnourished bodies to the voting booth/altar and focus our wandering, hallucinating, underpowered brains on the task at hand long enough before the lack of animal protein holding our cells together caused us to collapse in liquid heaps all over the unforgiving tile floor.
i want sushi. still. fuck.
if you like big, crazy-looking guitars
you've got to watch this video. it looks like good ol' RA is taking a cue from jeff tweedy's ridiculously huge gibson hollowbody.
anyway, i just happened upon this video the other day when i was musing about "wharf rat". for me, even after years of listening, the grateful dead's output is generally hit or miss, with a slight advantage to miss. their songs, however, are pretty much all excellently written and conceived, and a lot of the time i'll hear phil and friends or trey or someone do a grateful dead song and it'll click for me, whereas with the original band i just thought it was "meh" at best.
the video itself is from the 2005 jammy awards, and features phil playing with ryan and the then-cardinals (no neal or spacewolf to be found). the song segued into "bird song" after about 12 minutes, but the video cuts off before that. this is probably my favorite grateful dead song, so it's pretty nice to have such a recent video of phil and ryan doing it together. it's also fun as hell to play yourself if you have a fender tube amp in your living room, as i found out this morning.
anyway, i just happened upon this video the other day when i was musing about "wharf rat". for me, even after years of listening, the grateful dead's output is generally hit or miss, with a slight advantage to miss. their songs, however, are pretty much all excellently written and conceived, and a lot of the time i'll hear phil and friends or trey or someone do a grateful dead song and it'll click for me, whereas with the original band i just thought it was "meh" at best.
the video itself is from the 2005 jammy awards, and features phil playing with ryan and the then-cardinals (no neal or spacewolf to be found). the song segued into "bird song" after about 12 minutes, but the video cuts off before that. this is probably my favorite grateful dead song, so it's pretty nice to have such a recent video of phil and ryan doing it together. it's also fun as hell to play yourself if you have a fender tube amp in your living room, as i found out this morning.
Feb 16, 2008
a decade behind the curve (again)
so last year was the year of wilco's "sky blue sky", my 2007 album of the year (as if that means anything), and from the very first time i heard "impossible germany" i suddenly realized that this "wilco" band everyone had been talking about for years was pretty much the best, most interesting band around town (except of course my beloved cardinals, and a few others). i spent most of the rest of 2007 catching up on their work, actually (gasp!) paying for a few albums (though i'm going to rebuy "sky blue sky" to get the DVD once i have money) and basically feeling like an ass for not having "gotten" them sooner. now i'm getting into loose fur and uncle tupelo, and i feel like scrooge mcduck in duck tales when he sits in his vault and pours the money over his head.
anyway, a few months ago, as you might know, a little band named "radiohead" tried a choose-what-you-pay thing with their new album, and i, being the friend of innovation that i am, threw 10 bucks at them to download "in rainbows" (10 bucks? yeah, i think i might have been drunk or something. i meant to pay 5 actually). anyway, i'm not going to go out on a limb yet and call "in rainbows" the album of the year (at least not until i listen to it straight through with the second CD), but i've rounded up a significant portion of radiohead's discography now and am loving it up. they're on my list of bands that i daydream about seeing, right below the cardinals (again), wilco, and trey, and well they're just basically great, and actually interesting (which is rare for music, it seems, and a plus beyond most plusses).
anyway, the first song i heard off of "in rainbows" (because winamp had its shuffle on at the time) was "reckoner", and i absolutely fell in love with it, so much so that it ended up on the monthly mixtape for january. i assumed at some point i would get sick of listening to it, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
so. i just wanted to share some links to "reckoner" and "impossible germany" videos for people because music is cool.
also, the "i'm not there" soundtrack is amazing; and i'm a dylan freak, so if there was something wrong with it i would've noticed. it's gotten me more than a bit interested specifically in stephen malkmus and the hold steady, and it was great to hear mason jennings and glen hansard both take turns on great dylan songs. there's a lot of excellent "highway 61" and "blonde on blonde" material on there, including chan marshall doing an awesome version of...oh shit...something. something something fucking something. i want sushi.
listening to "kid A" right now. how fucking cool is "the national anthem"? a lot. a lot fucking cool. that's how fucking cool.
here's a video of wilco playing "impossible germany" from the "sky blue sky" bonus DVD:
here's a video of radiohead playing "reckoner" from something:
and here's another version of "reckoner" that i don't like quite as much but that features thom yorke in a hoodie, which amuses me:
and here's (oh shit if you haven't seen this and like radiohead) a 52 minute video of them playing (it seems) all of "in rainbows". oh the glory that is youtube:
anyway, a few months ago, as you might know, a little band named "radiohead" tried a choose-what-you-pay thing with their new album, and i, being the friend of innovation that i am, threw 10 bucks at them to download "in rainbows" (10 bucks? yeah, i think i might have been drunk or something. i meant to pay 5 actually). anyway, i'm not going to go out on a limb yet and call "in rainbows" the album of the year (at least not until i listen to it straight through with the second CD), but i've rounded up a significant portion of radiohead's discography now and am loving it up. they're on my list of bands that i daydream about seeing, right below the cardinals (again), wilco, and trey, and well they're just basically great, and actually interesting (which is rare for music, it seems, and a plus beyond most plusses).
anyway, the first song i heard off of "in rainbows" (because winamp had its shuffle on at the time) was "reckoner", and i absolutely fell in love with it, so much so that it ended up on the monthly mixtape for january. i assumed at some point i would get sick of listening to it, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
so. i just wanted to share some links to "reckoner" and "impossible germany" videos for people because music is cool.
also, the "i'm not there" soundtrack is amazing; and i'm a dylan freak, so if there was something wrong with it i would've noticed. it's gotten me more than a bit interested specifically in stephen malkmus and the hold steady, and it was great to hear mason jennings and glen hansard both take turns on great dylan songs. there's a lot of excellent "highway 61" and "blonde on blonde" material on there, including chan marshall doing an awesome version of...oh shit...something. something something fucking something. i want sushi.
listening to "kid A" right now. how fucking cool is "the national anthem"? a lot. a lot fucking cool. that's how fucking cool.
here's a video of wilco playing "impossible germany" from the "sky blue sky" bonus DVD:
here's a video of radiohead playing "reckoner" from something:
and here's another version of "reckoner" that i don't like quite as much but that features thom yorke in a hoodie, which amuses me:
and here's (oh shit if you haven't seen this and like radiohead) a 52 minute video of them playing (it seems) all of "in rainbows". oh the glory that is youtube:
Feb 14, 2008
music news
my new hurricane of writing has had some interesting results. i've meant to just sit down with a notebook and start jotting down ideas for stories, poems, dissertation topics, research ideas, and the like. so i do that for like an hour every day or two, but then what happens is right before i stop i pick out a phrase or word or two i like and then suddenly i spend another hour writing like 4 songs. so things are getting a bit out of control.
i want to finish the EP before the semester ends; nay, dare i say i must finish it. i don't know where i'm moving to or if i'm moving in may, or where the money's coming from or if there'll be money, or if i'll even live anywhere that i can record, or if i can't record at home how i would ever get things moved somewhere where i could record since i don't have a car. so basically i want to at least finish this EP and maybe the aforementioned web concert idea before i run out of room an rent money and stuff that makes me an american.
so here's how that's shaping up. i recorded all last weekend (to the tune of 20-22 hours of guitar playing in 2 days) and have to show for it the final track and a pre-mix version of the first track. bits and pieces of the second track and third track are done, but not much. i am really, really bad at guitar fills. i am also really, really bad at recording vocals over distorted guitar. my MXLs sound too clear. it's like layering john denver vocals over slayer metal guitars. they both sound good apart, but put them together and look out henrietta. i think i might take one of my cheap mics, beat the shit out of it, and then try to record through that. i want this EP to sound grunge as fuck, and it's just not happening on the vocal end. so far, the idea of linking each song together through jams is totally working, though. it might end up sounding a bit like a wank-fest by the time i'm done, but i don't care because it's so fucking fun to have 3-4 minute songs all tied together by these (really improvised, as in i'm making them up as i go) 2-3 minute jams. i'm really happy with it so far. the thing's looking to clock in at like 40-45 minutes, which is retarded because my first full record was something like 52 minutes. anyway, here's the finalized tracklist:
1. Intro (Angry Robot Jam) >
2. Enemy (Asteroids Jam) >
3. Not the One I See (Orientalism Jam) >
4. (Gentle Robot Intro) Sunshine
5. Palace (Sorry About All the Pirates Jam)
6. Autumnsong (Prarie Dog Daydream Jam) >
7. Not California (Prarie Dog Shindig Jam/Angry Robotic Prarie Dog on LSD Jam)
8. Love Song in D ('06 "Not California" Demo Version)
i like naming stuff. especially crazy jams. i like this EP. it is fun for playing. my neighbors probably no like though.
so anyway, while i'm in the process of recording this, and trying to keep things under control writing-wise, i have nonetheless accidentally managed to write bunches of new songs. first of all, i have the original six songs from last summer that are supposed to be for the next record, and i thought "hey, it would be cute conceptually and thematically to have those six songs and then six new songs and sort of split the album in half", so i was thinking 12 songs. now that i've written something like 7 songs in four days, i'm thinking maybe more like 15. so we'll see what happens. but what i've got so far looks like this (not in any particular order):
1. [intro track] - instrumental, has a bit of most of the instruments used on the cd >
2. love song in d - very ambient version that flows out of the intro track
3. millie - straight up old school folk version, maybe with a piano too if i can find a broken one
4. molly - electric funness, sort of a stupid pop rock version
5. back to ohio - ridiculously overdone version with everything i can cram into it in there
6. ways to fly - pretty simple with some electric guitar and piano only
7. the melody - sort of a cross between an acoustic song and an outtake from "farmhouse"
8. just yesterday - sort of half acoustic/half electric, with a neil young sort of vibe
9. wolves - lots of reverb, lots of piano, lots of words (a la "caroline")
10. [another folk-type song]
11. [two more rock-oriented songs similar in tone to some of the EP stuff]
12.[two already written songs might work for these, "parade" and "girl in the flower dress" ]
13. [a song with just piano and nothing else might be a good middle-album track, like a coda or something]
i'm still trying to write words to "lorraine" too, if mike and matt would let me do something with that, eventually. like record it with them. i also wrote a rap song called "close your eyes, not your mouth", but i'm pretty sure that won't end up anywhere.
on top of that, i've managed to write at least four decent blues songs since i recorded that robert johnson song. i don't think blues fits thematically with any of the other stuff, so i'm wondering if maybe i should just do like 5 or 6 of them separately and slap 'em together. good god. then there's the webcast thing...
my brain is splintering. but in a good way. writing is fun. it keeps me up at night, but it also keeps the demons at bay. of course, since the demons are generally under my bed, this turns out to be an efficient use of my time.
bang!
i want to finish the EP before the semester ends; nay, dare i say i must finish it. i don't know where i'm moving to or if i'm moving in may, or where the money's coming from or if there'll be money, or if i'll even live anywhere that i can record, or if i can't record at home how i would ever get things moved somewhere where i could record since i don't have a car. so basically i want to at least finish this EP and maybe the aforementioned web concert idea before i run out of room an rent money and stuff that makes me an american.
so here's how that's shaping up. i recorded all last weekend (to the tune of 20-22 hours of guitar playing in 2 days) and have to show for it the final track and a pre-mix version of the first track. bits and pieces of the second track and third track are done, but not much. i am really, really bad at guitar fills. i am also really, really bad at recording vocals over distorted guitar. my MXLs sound too clear. it's like layering john denver vocals over slayer metal guitars. they both sound good apart, but put them together and look out henrietta. i think i might take one of my cheap mics, beat the shit out of it, and then try to record through that. i want this EP to sound grunge as fuck, and it's just not happening on the vocal end. so far, the idea of linking each song together through jams is totally working, though. it might end up sounding a bit like a wank-fest by the time i'm done, but i don't care because it's so fucking fun to have 3-4 minute songs all tied together by these (really improvised, as in i'm making them up as i go) 2-3 minute jams. i'm really happy with it so far. the thing's looking to clock in at like 40-45 minutes, which is retarded because my first full record was something like 52 minutes. anyway, here's the finalized tracklist:
1. Intro (Angry Robot Jam) >
2. Enemy (Asteroids Jam) >
3. Not the One I See (Orientalism Jam) >
4. (Gentle Robot Intro) Sunshine
5. Palace (Sorry About All the Pirates Jam)
6. Autumnsong (Prarie Dog Daydream Jam) >
7. Not California (Prarie Dog Shindig Jam/Angry Robotic Prarie Dog on LSD Jam)
8. Love Song in D ('06 "Not California" Demo Version)
i like naming stuff. especially crazy jams. i like this EP. it is fun for playing. my neighbors probably no like though.
so anyway, while i'm in the process of recording this, and trying to keep things under control writing-wise, i have nonetheless accidentally managed to write bunches of new songs. first of all, i have the original six songs from last summer that are supposed to be for the next record, and i thought "hey, it would be cute conceptually and thematically to have those six songs and then six new songs and sort of split the album in half", so i was thinking 12 songs. now that i've written something like 7 songs in four days, i'm thinking maybe more like 15. so we'll see what happens. but what i've got so far looks like this (not in any particular order):
1. [intro track] - instrumental, has a bit of most of the instruments used on the cd >
2. love song in d - very ambient version that flows out of the intro track
3. millie - straight up old school folk version, maybe with a piano too if i can find a broken one
4. molly - electric funness, sort of a stupid pop rock version
5. back to ohio - ridiculously overdone version with everything i can cram into it in there
6. ways to fly - pretty simple with some electric guitar and piano only
7. the melody - sort of a cross between an acoustic song and an outtake from "farmhouse"
8. just yesterday - sort of half acoustic/half electric, with a neil young sort of vibe
9. wolves - lots of reverb, lots of piano, lots of words (a la "caroline")
10. [another folk-type song]
11. [two more rock-oriented songs similar in tone to some of the EP stuff]
12.[two already written songs might work for these, "parade" and "girl in the flower dress" ]
13. [a song with just piano and nothing else might be a good middle-album track, like a coda or something]
i'm still trying to write words to "lorraine" too, if mike and matt would let me do something with that, eventually. like record it with them. i also wrote a rap song called "close your eyes, not your mouth", but i'm pretty sure that won't end up anywhere.
on top of that, i've managed to write at least four decent blues songs since i recorded that robert johnson song. i don't think blues fits thematically with any of the other stuff, so i'm wondering if maybe i should just do like 5 or 6 of them separately and slap 'em together. good god. then there's the webcast thing...
my brain is splintering. but in a good way. writing is fun. it keeps me up at night, but it also keeps the demons at bay. of course, since the demons are generally under my bed, this turns out to be an efficient use of my time.
bang!
saint valentine's day massacre part neuf
today, i find myself longing for the safety and security of the deep sea. i would prefer being wrapped in supportive emotions by someone i love, yet i may have to be assertive now to get what i want. but i shouldn't bury my intentions behind a wall of fear; showing my vulnerability could prove to be a gambit worth playing.
okay, actually that's just my horoscope.
i just wanted to take a moment to pause and reflect on valentine's day. i've made the tired old arguments about how stupid it is often enough in the past, so this year let's try something different.
hanging out with someone and expressing positive feelings for them is something that people don't do enough (myself included) in a not stupid, cliched way. this is not necessarily an argument for or an indictment of valentine's day. it's just an observation. valentine's day frustrates me not because of the idea that you're "supposed to" make some huge, magnanimous gesture towards someone you love, and if you don't you're an ass. i've surpassed that idea. if i was dating someone that insisted on such grand gestures on certain days of the year to reinforce the stability of our relationship, i would stop dating them, most likely, soon after finding this out. that's my personal preference, and i don't want to judge people who are into different things than i. especially since my relationship track record isn't necessarily grand-master status.
my gripe is this: too many people i know are using the grand-gesture + society validates this grand gesture as evidence of love = i'm off the hook equation. and it sucks. i can remember many, many times i bought a girl flowers or something similar, or spent a day cooking her dinner, etc. not because i wanted to make her happy, but because i thought i had to prove that i liked her, and that it was easier to prove this by being dramatic than by simply sitting down and saying something as simple as "i like you and i'm glad we're together". and i think that's a serious fucking problem. not just with me, but with lots and lots and lots of people. so that's why valentine's day gets to me. everybody out on the mall hugging and doing cutesy couple things is actually awesome, but if there's nothing more honest behind the display than the labels and the pageantry themselves, then fuck it.
i don't want to talk myself up, but this salem and seattle mixtape is awesome. go download it, if you haven't already.
okay, actually that's just my horoscope.
i just wanted to take a moment to pause and reflect on valentine's day. i've made the tired old arguments about how stupid it is often enough in the past, so this year let's try something different.
hanging out with someone and expressing positive feelings for them is something that people don't do enough (myself included) in a not stupid, cliched way. this is not necessarily an argument for or an indictment of valentine's day. it's just an observation. valentine's day frustrates me not because of the idea that you're "supposed to" make some huge, magnanimous gesture towards someone you love, and if you don't you're an ass. i've surpassed that idea. if i was dating someone that insisted on such grand gestures on certain days of the year to reinforce the stability of our relationship, i would stop dating them, most likely, soon after finding this out. that's my personal preference, and i don't want to judge people who are into different things than i. especially since my relationship track record isn't necessarily grand-master status.
my gripe is this: too many people i know are using the grand-gesture + society validates this grand gesture as evidence of love = i'm off the hook equation. and it sucks. i can remember many, many times i bought a girl flowers or something similar, or spent a day cooking her dinner, etc. not because i wanted to make her happy, but because i thought i had to prove that i liked her, and that it was easier to prove this by being dramatic than by simply sitting down and saying something as simple as "i like you and i'm glad we're together". and i think that's a serious fucking problem. not just with me, but with lots and lots and lots of people. so that's why valentine's day gets to me. everybody out on the mall hugging and doing cutesy couple things is actually awesome, but if there's nothing more honest behind the display than the labels and the pageantry themselves, then fuck it.
i don't want to talk myself up, but this salem and seattle mixtape is awesome. go download it, if you haven't already.
TRAVEL JOURNAL - 2/14
We had only the loosest of plans, but so far we'd gone through Chicago, up through Minnesota, and cut over to the Dakotas. We'd camped for awhile on the fringe of the Badlands, and when it got too hot we ran south into the plains. It wasn't any cooler in Kansas, but at least it rained occasionally.
There was no real point to this trip other than the pointlessness of it. It was like an extended meditation - if we hung ourselves out in space long enough our brains could start working outside the box.
That thought brought me back to Andrew's tool-using ability and the task at hand. "You, sir," I said to him as I dropped into a crouch in front of our bird, "are a better monkey than I."
He just grinned, and slid his bandana a bit further up on his head to keep the hair out of his eyes.
It was actually short - though disgusting - work to take our new truck-grill crowbar and use it to pry loose the other half of the grill tine, the half that had impaled the bird. From there I slid the bird off the tine. It felt like a boulder made of flesh - cold flesh - and it slid off the tine with a sucking sound that was a little drier than I'd imagined it would be.
With the bird carcass loose and on the ground, we broke the rest of the offending tine off completely using a combination of Andrew's rock and my crowbar, then we popped the trunk and checked for any more damage. Fortunately, there didn't seem to be any.
There was dusty-brown blood splattered on the windshield and on the hood, and some little feather-covered somethings that I wasn't too keen to clean off by hand. The front of the truck, with its mashed-up grill, seemed to be grinning at the road ahead with a tremulant smile. But we were largely getting off easy. Thunder rumbled again, closer this time.
There was no real point to this trip other than the pointlessness of it. It was like an extended meditation - if we hung ourselves out in space long enough our brains could start working outside the box.
That thought brought me back to Andrew's tool-using ability and the task at hand. "You, sir," I said to him as I dropped into a crouch in front of our bird, "are a better monkey than I."
He just grinned, and slid his bandana a bit further up on his head to keep the hair out of his eyes.
It was actually short - though disgusting - work to take our new truck-grill crowbar and use it to pry loose the other half of the grill tine, the half that had impaled the bird. From there I slid the bird off the tine. It felt like a boulder made of flesh - cold flesh - and it slid off the tine with a sucking sound that was a little drier than I'd imagined it would be.
With the bird carcass loose and on the ground, we broke the rest of the offending tine off completely using a combination of Andrew's rock and my crowbar, then we popped the trunk and checked for any more damage. Fortunately, there didn't seem to be any.
There was dusty-brown blood splattered on the windshield and on the hood, and some little feather-covered somethings that I wasn't too keen to clean off by hand. The front of the truck, with its mashed-up grill, seemed to be grinning at the road ahead with a tremulant smile. But we were largely getting off easy. Thunder rumbled again, closer this time.
Feb 13, 2008
sidebar updatez
i use the "z" so as to imply that the updatez are in fact cool and worth looking into even if you're too internet-savvy to spell like people in the real world spell.
i added a few things. let me know if it seems cluttered, stupid, masturbatory, etc.
all i really want is to be who everyone else thinks i should be!
i added a few things. let me know if it seems cluttered, stupid, masturbatory, etc.
all i really want is to be who everyone else thinks i should be!
Feb 12, 2008
nirvana?
as a result of a 30 minute technological meditation session this evening, i figured out how to simultaneously:
a) type on google talk with my keyboard
b) use my logitech gamepad to play n64 (in 1024 x 768 windowed mode)
there's pretty much no way my life could possibly become more blissful and perfect, ergo...wait, what happens when you die and you don't need to be reincarnated anymore? i think you turn into a donut and eat yourself.
a) type on google talk with my keyboard
b) use my logitech gamepad to play n64 (in 1024 x 768 windowed mode)
there's pretty much no way my life could possibly become more blissful and perfect, ergo...wait, what happens when you die and you don't need to be reincarnated anymore? i think you turn into a donut and eat yourself.
Feb 11, 2008
TRAVEL JOURNAL - 2/11
(continued from 2/8):
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew is actually not an idiot. He is probably the smartest guy I know. He graduated from Ohio State University at the same time that I did, just over two years ago, with the same degree: English Literature. We had seen a lot of each other in the department, but had stayed largely apart socially - for the first eighteen years of our lives we'd been inseperable, and by the time college rolled around it wasn't that we were sick of each other, but that we were both excited to try new things. For Andrew that meant slam poetry, pot, and jazz guitar. For me, it had mostly meant a few over-intense relationships, lots of travelling, and what some might call an obsession with my work.
It was partially that "obsession" which had landed both Andrew and I in the class of '05 together. He was a year younger than me, started at OSU a year later, but I'd spent a fifth year taking extra credits and writing an undergraduate thesis, while he had breezed through the curriculum in four years.
That thesis was shit. It looked good on paper, which is probably why I got an assistantship at the University of Washington the following year, but secretly it was shit. As much as people - mostly family - liked to categorize Andrew as the "hippie" one and me as the "clean" one, the fact is we overlap a lot more than those simplifications might imply, and while archetyping might help a family function, the truth is that despite my tidy demeanor I had - gasp! - fancied Kerouac more than a bit in college.
This is so stereotypical in retrospect that it irks me to admit it, but at the time I was, in my mind, on the knifepoint of a road-tripping literature revolution from inside my dorm room. So I spent a year traveling off and on, taking grand adventures never a day or two's drive away from home and writing a paraphrase of "On the Road" about them.
There was a contingent on the faculty of aging hippies that lapped it all up, and this mutual admiration society spawned in me the sort of affected man-of-the-world cockiness that can only be achieved by an overprivileged liberal arts major. This attitude was completely destroyed the second day out of my move across the country to Seattle for graduate school nine months after my graduation from OSU. Sleeping in your car at a rest stop wasn't the depths of privation; neither was acting homeless in Boston for a week, mostly because it was just that - an act. I had a safety net, but I pretended like I didn't. Which threw into question the validity of anything I might have to say on the subject of travel-as-discovery. By the time I got to Seattle, I was confused in a very deep way concerning how I could write anything of value from such a high position of privilege. It seemed ridiculous, suddenly.
I think Andrew had known this about himself all along, but neglected to share, and because I saw his Deadhead-like shenanigans as a sign of an obsession with pleasure over "Truth" I never asked. He lasted a semester in graduate school at Penn State, then dropped off the academic radar, started writing music and working odd jobs to stay afloat. I decided to try to change the "system" from the inside, or at least stay at my comparatively cushy TA position until I figured out what I actually wanted to change.
Regardless, when that first summer rolled around, I was sick of reading freshman writing and Andrew was sick of rolling burritos for five bucks an hour, so we took off for a few weeks. I took I-90 from Seattle, met him after a whirlwind 3-day drive to Cleveland, and we turned my ridiculous pickup truck back towards the west and hit the road.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew is actually not an idiot. He is probably the smartest guy I know. He graduated from Ohio State University at the same time that I did, just over two years ago, with the same degree: English Literature. We had seen a lot of each other in the department, but had stayed largely apart socially - for the first eighteen years of our lives we'd been inseperable, and by the time college rolled around it wasn't that we were sick of each other, but that we were both excited to try new things. For Andrew that meant slam poetry, pot, and jazz guitar. For me, it had mostly meant a few over-intense relationships, lots of travelling, and what some might call an obsession with my work.
It was partially that "obsession" which had landed both Andrew and I in the class of '05 together. He was a year younger than me, started at OSU a year later, but I'd spent a fifth year taking extra credits and writing an undergraduate thesis, while he had breezed through the curriculum in four years.
That thesis was shit. It looked good on paper, which is probably why I got an assistantship at the University of Washington the following year, but secretly it was shit. As much as people - mostly family - liked to categorize Andrew as the "hippie" one and me as the "clean" one, the fact is we overlap a lot more than those simplifications might imply, and while archetyping might help a family function, the truth is that despite my tidy demeanor I had - gasp! - fancied Kerouac more than a bit in college.
This is so stereotypical in retrospect that it irks me to admit it, but at the time I was, in my mind, on the knifepoint of a road-tripping literature revolution from inside my dorm room. So I spent a year traveling off and on, taking grand adventures never a day or two's drive away from home and writing a paraphrase of "On the Road" about them.
There was a contingent on the faculty of aging hippies that lapped it all up, and this mutual admiration society spawned in me the sort of affected man-of-the-world cockiness that can only be achieved by an overprivileged liberal arts major. This attitude was completely destroyed the second day out of my move across the country to Seattle for graduate school nine months after my graduation from OSU. Sleeping in your car at a rest stop wasn't the depths of privation; neither was acting homeless in Boston for a week, mostly because it was just that - an act. I had a safety net, but I pretended like I didn't. Which threw into question the validity of anything I might have to say on the subject of travel-as-discovery. By the time I got to Seattle, I was confused in a very deep way concerning how I could write anything of value from such a high position of privilege. It seemed ridiculous, suddenly.
I think Andrew had known this about himself all along, but neglected to share, and because I saw his Deadhead-like shenanigans as a sign of an obsession with pleasure over "Truth" I never asked. He lasted a semester in graduate school at Penn State, then dropped off the academic radar, started writing music and working odd jobs to stay afloat. I decided to try to change the "system" from the inside, or at least stay at my comparatively cushy TA position until I figured out what I actually wanted to change.
Regardless, when that first summer rolled around, I was sick of reading freshman writing and Andrew was sick of rolling burritos for five bucks an hour, so we took off for a few weeks. I took I-90 from Seattle, met him after a whirlwind 3-day drive to Cleveland, and we turned my ridiculous pickup truck back towards the west and hit the road.
MADDEN - 2/11
the dolphins finally took a step towards evening the score, as they upset the niners in the super bowl on a last-second field goal, 27-24.
there are no screenshots, as i was busy trying to win the entire game.
the niners played pretty much like garbage for the entire first half, missing a field goal, racking up 60 penalty yards, and failing to convert on almost all first downs. bowes continued to be largely ineffective, forcing the QB to throw while under pressure, which resulted in a lot of incomplete passes. thanks to great play by the defense, though, and a sudden scoring drive late in the half, it was 10-10 at halftime.
the dolphins scored twice in quick succession late in the third quarter after the teams punted back and forth a few times, and then the niners scored once at the opening of the fourth quarter to make it 24-17. the niners would score again with about six minutes left on the clock to tie things up, and then the two teams battled back and forth at midfield until about the :30 mark, when the niners got down to the dolphin 35. needing just a few yards to set up the game-winning field goal, the QB threw a screen pass for bowes, but it was picked off and run back into field goal range for the dolphins, setting up the game-winning field goal in a stunning display of idiocy and incompetence.
anyway, a disappointing end for sure, but a great season considering the new difficulty level this year. i sorted out the draft/resigning/trades/etc. for next season, cranked up the difficulty the rest of the way (making the AI basically unstoppable), and then put the game CD back in its box until next september or so. sadly, the last image we'll all have of the niners until then is bunting laying on his back on the field after throwing away a game that looked to be literally five yards away from won. but that's fake sports for you, folks.
now back to real life. and things like music. and...witches. i can finally get back to important things on my "to-do" list like "finish starcraft expansion pack". seriously. i started playing starcraft in 1999, and have logged an absurd number of hours on it since then. now, 9 years later, i've finally gotten good enough to get within 3 levels of finishing all 60-some levels. so it's time for the big push. it's on like my coat is on when i go outside and it's cold outside.
this is why i don't have a girlfriend.
there are no screenshots, as i was busy trying to win the entire game.
the niners played pretty much like garbage for the entire first half, missing a field goal, racking up 60 penalty yards, and failing to convert on almost all first downs. bowes continued to be largely ineffective, forcing the QB to throw while under pressure, which resulted in a lot of incomplete passes. thanks to great play by the defense, though, and a sudden scoring drive late in the half, it was 10-10 at halftime.
the dolphins scored twice in quick succession late in the third quarter after the teams punted back and forth a few times, and then the niners scored once at the opening of the fourth quarter to make it 24-17. the niners would score again with about six minutes left on the clock to tie things up, and then the two teams battled back and forth at midfield until about the :30 mark, when the niners got down to the dolphin 35. needing just a few yards to set up the game-winning field goal, the QB threw a screen pass for bowes, but it was picked off and run back into field goal range for the dolphins, setting up the game-winning field goal in a stunning display of idiocy and incompetence.
anyway, a disappointing end for sure, but a great season considering the new difficulty level this year. i sorted out the draft/resigning/trades/etc. for next season, cranked up the difficulty the rest of the way (making the AI basically unstoppable), and then put the game CD back in its box until next september or so. sadly, the last image we'll all have of the niners until then is bunting laying on his back on the field after throwing away a game that looked to be literally five yards away from won. but that's fake sports for you, folks.
now back to real life. and things like music. and...witches. i can finally get back to important things on my "to-do" list like "finish starcraft expansion pack". seriously. i started playing starcraft in 1999, and have logged an absurd number of hours on it since then. now, 9 years later, i've finally gotten good enough to get within 3 levels of finishing all 60-some levels. so it's time for the big push. it's on like my coat is on when i go outside and it's cold outside.
this is why i don't have a girlfriend.
Feb 10, 2008
NEW (SORT OF) MUSIC - 2/10
so i'm in the midst of working on this new EP (finally), and the idea has sort of become to make it seven tracks that run sequentially without interruption. so far it's going very well, though it's taking a really long time. i'm nearly finished with 2 of the 7 tracks, and it's taking about 20 hours of my weekend. the good news is it'll probably sound pretty good when i'm done with it.
as a little bonus to the EP, i wanted to add the one "b-side" from "Not California" to the end of it; mostly because it doesn't fit with the rest of the EP, and i'm all about chaos. anyway, this song, which you've already heard a million times if you've listened to anything i've been recording the last few years, was first recorded using my friend andrea's guitar, a shitty, broken harmonica, and some shitty vocal cords. that was sometime in 2005. i decided, when it came time to put "Not California" together, to keep it off the CD because it didn't seem to fit with anything else on there. eventually i ended up retooling it into a sort of weird, ambient electric sort of jam for the LP i'm going to be starting work on in a few months, but i still have a spot in my heart for this version. so i rerecorded the vocals this weekend, rerecorded the original harmonica (which is now the harmonica riff for "Back To Ohio", but whatever) and here you go.
i don't know if this will be the final mix or not, so any mix-related comments, or comments in general, please for the clicking on the box below to make them.
i probably won't post anything from the EP until i'm done with the whole thing because honestly its so fucking dirty and grungy and awesome right now that i don't want to spoil the fun early. i'm playing bass on it too. and there's an egg shaker at one point. but mostly just lots of guitars.
as a little bonus to the EP, i wanted to add the one "b-side" from "Not California" to the end of it; mostly because it doesn't fit with the rest of the EP, and i'm all about chaos. anyway, this song, which you've already heard a million times if you've listened to anything i've been recording the last few years, was first recorded using my friend andrea's guitar, a shitty, broken harmonica, and some shitty vocal cords. that was sometime in 2005. i decided, when it came time to put "Not California" together, to keep it off the CD because it didn't seem to fit with anything else on there. eventually i ended up retooling it into a sort of weird, ambient electric sort of jam for the LP i'm going to be starting work on in a few months, but i still have a spot in my heart for this version. so i rerecorded the vocals this weekend, rerecorded the original harmonica (which is now the harmonica riff for "Back To Ohio", but whatever) and here you go.
i don't know if this will be the final mix or not, so any mix-related comments, or comments in general, please for the clicking on the box below to make them.
i probably won't post anything from the EP until i'm done with the whole thing because honestly its so fucking dirty and grungy and awesome right now that i don't want to spoil the fun early. i'm playing bass on it too. and there's an egg shaker at one point. but mostly just lots of guitars.
MADDEN 2/10
for the fourth time in six years, it's time for the SUPER BORE!
the niners finally faced off against arch nemesis new orleans in the divisional playoffs, and ended up winning possibly the craziest game in six years of madden football. the niners came ready to play:
but the saints shut them down for the first quarter and a half, netting three field goals themselves (the niner defense refused to let them into the end zone) to take a 9-0 lead. bunting threw an interception, stewart missed a 36 yard field goal, and things were looking grim. prewett finally broke off on a 66 yard touchdown catch right before halftime to close the lead to 9-7. then things got funky.
the niners scored right out of the gate in the second half on (what else?) a bowes run, and then converted a surprise 2-point try to make it 15-9.
the saints kept coming, but still couldn't get in the end zone. they got another field goal to makeit 15-12. both teams traded possessions, and on the ensuing punt, the niners got trapped at their own 5. the next play was a sack for a safety. 15-14. the niners held the saints on the safety punt, got the ball back and go another field goal to make it 18-14 with nine minutes left. with no choice but to finally get into the end zone, the saints did just that, and with 3:40 left made it 21-18.
never one to be satisfied with a tie, the niners drove back down the field and made up significant yardage quickly, especially on a 4th and 10 prewett catch on the sideline that had to be overturned with a challenge; if it hadn't, the season would've been over. the niners punched it in with just over a minute left to take the lead 25-21.
of course a minute was entirely too much time for aaron brooks, who drove the saints to the fifty with one timeout left, and then with 20 seconds on the clock threw a pass that was caught 49 yards downfield by a diving dante stallworth, who literally rolled to a stop at the one yard line and was, luckily, marked down. with twelve seconds on the clock and the ball on the end zone line, brooks was sacked by mark taylor during a botched handoff attempt. amazingly, brooks managed to no-huddle one last pass play as time expired, but taylor sacked him AGAIN to seal the deal.
by comparison, the NFC championship was lame. it was 17-0 niners at halftime, and while the eagles closed the gap to 17-10 early in the third quarter, it was all niners after that, and in a flurry of scoring prompted by three donovan mcnabb interceptions:
and the absolute failure of the entire eagles team to cover raymond scholl at all:
the final was 41-17. big surprise: we're playing the dolphins again in the super bowl.
my fake NFL has become almost like the real MLB; the AFC either sends the dolphins or the patriots to the super bowl every year, and the NFC always send the niners or the rams. it's actually sort of depressing.
the niners finally faced off against arch nemesis new orleans in the divisional playoffs, and ended up winning possibly the craziest game in six years of madden football. the niners came ready to play:
but the saints shut them down for the first quarter and a half, netting three field goals themselves (the niner defense refused to let them into the end zone) to take a 9-0 lead. bunting threw an interception, stewart missed a 36 yard field goal, and things were looking grim. prewett finally broke off on a 66 yard touchdown catch right before halftime to close the lead to 9-7. then things got funky.
the niners scored right out of the gate in the second half on (what else?) a bowes run, and then converted a surprise 2-point try to make it 15-9.
the saints kept coming, but still couldn't get in the end zone. they got another field goal to makeit 15-12. both teams traded possessions, and on the ensuing punt, the niners got trapped at their own 5. the next play was a sack for a safety. 15-14. the niners held the saints on the safety punt, got the ball back and go another field goal to make it 18-14 with nine minutes left. with no choice but to finally get into the end zone, the saints did just that, and with 3:40 left made it 21-18.
never one to be satisfied with a tie, the niners drove back down the field and made up significant yardage quickly, especially on a 4th and 10 prewett catch on the sideline that had to be overturned with a challenge; if it hadn't, the season would've been over. the niners punched it in with just over a minute left to take the lead 25-21.
of course a minute was entirely too much time for aaron brooks, who drove the saints to the fifty with one timeout left, and then with 20 seconds on the clock threw a pass that was caught 49 yards downfield by a diving dante stallworth, who literally rolled to a stop at the one yard line and was, luckily, marked down. with twelve seconds on the clock and the ball on the end zone line, brooks was sacked by mark taylor during a botched handoff attempt. amazingly, brooks managed to no-huddle one last pass play as time expired, but taylor sacked him AGAIN to seal the deal.
by comparison, the NFC championship was lame. it was 17-0 niners at halftime, and while the eagles closed the gap to 17-10 early in the third quarter, it was all niners after that, and in a flurry of scoring prompted by three donovan mcnabb interceptions:
and the absolute failure of the entire eagles team to cover raymond scholl at all:
the final was 41-17. big surprise: we're playing the dolphins again in the super bowl.
my fake NFL has become almost like the real MLB; the AFC either sends the dolphins or the patriots to the super bowl every year, and the NFC always send the niners or the rams. it's actually sort of depressing.
Feb 9, 2008
MADDEN - 2/8
UNBELIEVABOWES!
hey, here's a big surprise. we destroyed the cardinals. 35-16. at one point they led 3-0, but then mike stewart got an interception and ran it back to the 2 yard line to set up a touchdown:
from there on out, the cardinals continued to pass effectively, but were completely unable to score touchdowns. they were stopped a total of four times with first and goals inside the niner ten; three of those went for field goals, one was a turnover. at one point it was 14-9, but then the niners broke away and the cardinals' last 7 came late in the game.
aside from the defense, the story of the game was bowes, who scored all 35 of the niners points by himself, getting 4 touchdowns on the ground and one through the air.
with a 15-1 record, we bypassed the wildcard and will play the absolutely infuriating saints in the divisional playoffs.
hey, here's a big surprise. we destroyed the cardinals. 35-16. at one point they led 3-0, but then mike stewart got an interception and ran it back to the 2 yard line to set up a touchdown:
from there on out, the cardinals continued to pass effectively, but were completely unable to score touchdowns. they were stopped a total of four times with first and goals inside the niner ten; three of those went for field goals, one was a turnover. at one point it was 14-9, but then the niners broke away and the cardinals' last 7 came late in the game.
aside from the defense, the story of the game was bowes, who scored all 35 of the niners points by himself, getting 4 touchdowns on the ground and one through the air.
with a 15-1 record, we bypassed the wildcard and will play the absolutely infuriating saints in the divisional playoffs.
TRAVEL JOURNAL - 2/8
(continued from whatever last time was):
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Fortunately, the reason the bird had busted through the grill tines in the first place was because they were apocalyptically rusted from winter upon winter of getting Ohio road salt slathered over then by heavy interstate traffic. A solution presented itself almost immediately. I reared back and kicked the bent tine as hard as I could. It bent more, but the angle was awkward and I couldn't put the full force of my leg behind the kick. It didn't snap.
Thunder rumbled dully in the distance, but it was still sunny directly overhead. In July in a state where you could readily see fifty miles in every direction, it was always thundering somewhere. I commenced kicking the shit out of the front of the truck.
I went at it for maybe five minutes before I was interrupted by a shuffle of Tevas behind me. Andrew was standing there, smiling lopsidedly. "Dude," he said, extending his hand. "Rocks."
In his hand was a particularly weighty rock, which tapered into an almost spear-like point on one side. I felt like an idiot. "Thanks," I said sheepishly, taking the rock from him.
I gave the grill one measured blow from the rock and the tine snapped off, falling onto the ground in a puff of dust.
"Stone Age wins again!" Andrew yelled triumphantly, both arms in the air.
"You're an idiot," I said, clapping him on the shoulder.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Fortunately, the reason the bird had busted through the grill tines in the first place was because they were apocalyptically rusted from winter upon winter of getting Ohio road salt slathered over then by heavy interstate traffic. A solution presented itself almost immediately. I reared back and kicked the bent tine as hard as I could. It bent more, but the angle was awkward and I couldn't put the full force of my leg behind the kick. It didn't snap.
Thunder rumbled dully in the distance, but it was still sunny directly overhead. In July in a state where you could readily see fifty miles in every direction, it was always thundering somewhere. I commenced kicking the shit out of the front of the truck.
I went at it for maybe five minutes before I was interrupted by a shuffle of Tevas behind me. Andrew was standing there, smiling lopsidedly. "Dude," he said, extending his hand. "Rocks."
In his hand was a particularly weighty rock, which tapered into an almost spear-like point on one side. I felt like an idiot. "Thanks," I said sheepishly, taking the rock from him.
I gave the grill one measured blow from the rock and the tine snapped off, falling onto the ground in a puff of dust.
"Stone Age wins again!" Andrew yelled triumphantly, both arms in the air.
"You're an idiot," I said, clapping him on the shoulder.
Feb 8, 2008
this is neither hot nor ready!
a random anecdote, and then i'll post the travel journal entry for the day.
so up until a few years back, i was very prone to pretty serious bouts of depression. i've gotten a lot better lately than i once was, but i still occasionally fall into these sort of episodes for a few days here and there. my experience with them dictates that the best response is to sort of ride them out, just believe that they'll eventually resolve themselves, and they do. they're usually really caused by nothing, and go away as a result of nothing. trying to "fix" them is just as useless as fighting the air, because there's literally nothing really there to fix.
anyway, the last few days have been pretty rough in this regard, leading to me sleeping 2 or so hours a day for four straight days, barely getting through classes yesterday and going to bed at 9:30, and ending up with me staying in bed until 2 this afternoon based on the reasoning that there wasn't anything ever worth getting up for. well, eventually this resolved itself and i got up and around, and feel at least a bit better.
the point of the story is that i usually buy a frozen pizza or something similar on friday nights, to take back to my place and eat as a celebratory gesture for the end of the week, since i have no social life or romantic life to speak of or partake in instead. so tonight, i didn't even get home from work until 11pm or so, after having walked home in a miserable-ish sideway-blowing ice storm. i decided it was ridiculous considering how hungry i was to even think about cooking real food, so i headed down to IGA to grab some fake food and some groceries for next week. lo and behold, jesus had phone IGA ahead of time and made them sell out of all nine brands of frozen cheese pizza (but not any of the other varieties of those brands, including Meat Trio, Sausage Piledriver, Pepperoni Tornado, Bacon-cane, and Steakopalypse). absolutely flummoxed at my bad luck, and in a very bad temper at this point, i ran screaming out of IGA with the rest of my groceries without paying (okay, part of that is exaggerated).
on my sulking way back to my apartment, once again in the icy rain, i saw some fratboy douche who had a little caesar's pizza box in his hands crossing the street. i had no idea little caesar's was open so late, but sweet inhalable oxygen it was on the way home and has "cheap" six dollar pizzas already made. so i ran in and asked the guy if they had any cheese pizzas left, and damned if they didn't have one left, cold and most definitely not ready, on the "hot and ready" shelf. so i shelled out the cash (sometimes debt is better than crazy) and got the pizza and it was then, as i was standing there dripping wet, holding two sodden bags of groceries, having a terrible haircut and beard, looking really scary with five days of depression behind me and desperately grabbing the pizza from this guy, that a really cheesy version of bob marley's "no woman no cry" came on the overhead speaker. i laughed and laughed and laughed and probably scared the fucking shit out of the counter guy.
anyway, it was great and i wanted to share.
guess you had to be there.
so up until a few years back, i was very prone to pretty serious bouts of depression. i've gotten a lot better lately than i once was, but i still occasionally fall into these sort of episodes for a few days here and there. my experience with them dictates that the best response is to sort of ride them out, just believe that they'll eventually resolve themselves, and they do. they're usually really caused by nothing, and go away as a result of nothing. trying to "fix" them is just as useless as fighting the air, because there's literally nothing really there to fix.
anyway, the last few days have been pretty rough in this regard, leading to me sleeping 2 or so hours a day for four straight days, barely getting through classes yesterday and going to bed at 9:30, and ending up with me staying in bed until 2 this afternoon based on the reasoning that there wasn't anything ever worth getting up for. well, eventually this resolved itself and i got up and around, and feel at least a bit better.
the point of the story is that i usually buy a frozen pizza or something similar on friday nights, to take back to my place and eat as a celebratory gesture for the end of the week, since i have no social life or romantic life to speak of or partake in instead. so tonight, i didn't even get home from work until 11pm or so, after having walked home in a miserable-ish sideway-blowing ice storm. i decided it was ridiculous considering how hungry i was to even think about cooking real food, so i headed down to IGA to grab some fake food and some groceries for next week. lo and behold, jesus had phone IGA ahead of time and made them sell out of all nine brands of frozen cheese pizza (but not any of the other varieties of those brands, including Meat Trio, Sausage Piledriver, Pepperoni Tornado, Bacon-cane, and Steakopalypse). absolutely flummoxed at my bad luck, and in a very bad temper at this point, i ran screaming out of IGA with the rest of my groceries without paying (okay, part of that is exaggerated).
on my sulking way back to my apartment, once again in the icy rain, i saw some fratboy douche who had a little caesar's pizza box in his hands crossing the street. i had no idea little caesar's was open so late, but sweet inhalable oxygen it was on the way home and has "cheap" six dollar pizzas already made. so i ran in and asked the guy if they had any cheese pizzas left, and damned if they didn't have one left, cold and most definitely not ready, on the "hot and ready" shelf. so i shelled out the cash (sometimes debt is better than crazy) and got the pizza and it was then, as i was standing there dripping wet, holding two sodden bags of groceries, having a terrible haircut and beard, looking really scary with five days of depression behind me and desperately grabbing the pizza from this guy, that a really cheesy version of bob marley's "no woman no cry" came on the overhead speaker. i laughed and laughed and laughed and probably scared the fucking shit out of the counter guy.
anyway, it was great and i wanted to share.
guess you had to be there.
Feb 7, 2008
MADDEN - 2/7
two more close victories and the niners tie up home field advantage for the playoffs. there's still one game left, against the 2-13 cardinals, but the niners managed to beat both their arch-nemesis rams and the seahawks in outrageous fashion to advance to 14-1.
the rams pretty much owned everything for the first half, holding the niners to under 50 yards. thanks to a few ram turnovers:
it was "only" 24-14 at halftime. the niners managed to (in really ugly fashion) tack on 10 more points while holding the rams to a field goal, and then holding them again to get the ball back with 2 minutes left. they drove down into field goal range easily, but decided to chance a touchdown (mostly because i'm an idiot) on third down with nine seconds left and no timeouts, trailing 27-24 instead of tying it with a field goal (which i was planning to do on the next down). however, the rams blitzed, the QB got the pass off just as he was hit, and somehow ernie game up with this catch in the end zone to win the game:
The Seattle game was a little more underwhelming. the niners scored on their first four drives and were unstoppable in the first half, leading 21-6 at halftime after this ridiculous shovel pass (ernie's developed quite the set of hands in the last few games):
it was 24-9 late, but the seahawks mounted a comeback that ended up tying it 24-24 with 7 minutes left. then came possibly the best moment of the season where the niners drove down the field, precisely milking the clock and running bowes for over 40 yards, eviscerating the seattle defense and kicking a field goal with 2 seconds left to win. good times.
now off to destroy the cardinals and return peace to the GALAXY.
the rams pretty much owned everything for the first half, holding the niners to under 50 yards. thanks to a few ram turnovers:
it was "only" 24-14 at halftime. the niners managed to (in really ugly fashion) tack on 10 more points while holding the rams to a field goal, and then holding them again to get the ball back with 2 minutes left. they drove down into field goal range easily, but decided to chance a touchdown (mostly because i'm an idiot) on third down with nine seconds left and no timeouts, trailing 27-24 instead of tying it with a field goal (which i was planning to do on the next down). however, the rams blitzed, the QB got the pass off just as he was hit, and somehow ernie game up with this catch in the end zone to win the game:
The Seattle game was a little more underwhelming. the niners scored on their first four drives and were unstoppable in the first half, leading 21-6 at halftime after this ridiculous shovel pass (ernie's developed quite the set of hands in the last few games):
it was 24-9 late, but the seahawks mounted a comeback that ended up tying it 24-24 with 7 minutes left. then came possibly the best moment of the season where the niners drove down the field, precisely milking the clock and running bowes for over 40 yards, eviscerating the seattle defense and kicking a field goal with 2 seconds left to win. good times.
now off to destroy the cardinals and return peace to the GALAXY.
TRAVEL JOURNAL - 2/7
(continued from 2/2):
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It didn't look as bad as it had felt.
Okay, that's not entirely true. It looked horrible, but just for the bird, not for the truck. The truck's grill looked like it had been smashed in by a giant fist and then the fist had been left there as a decoration, still trailing gory ligaments that had once attached it to a giant arm. I knew it had once been a bird, but now it just looked like a hunk of meat occasionally decorated by feathers or spatters of blood which were already turning paste-brown in the blowing dust.
"Shit. How are we even going to get it out?" I posted my fists on my hips petulantly and scowled at the once-a-bird. On close inspection I noticed that at least one of the grill tines had snapped, and impaled the bird from one side. I hoped it had already been dead when that happened.
When I turned around to find Andrew, I saw that he had already climbed down off the shoulder and was poking around in the scrubby grassland that ran along the road. "Looking for a crowbar?" I shouted to him. He gave me the finger. I suppose it was my fault for assuming I wasn't going to have to solve our bird problem alone.
I turned back to the front of the truck just in time to catch a huge mouthful of dirt thrown by a sudden gust of wind. This gust was more violent than the ones that had thrown our food all over the rest stop thirty minutes earlier; an open slap instead of a playful shove. And colder. I looked ahead of us, to the west. The wall of clouds was roiling and angry-looking, but didn't look any closer. It was biding its time, waiting to strike. I took off my glasses and clipped them to my t-shirt collar. They were getting so dirty it was pointless to wear them if I wasn't going to be driving.
"Hey!" Andrew yelled, "Rocks!" He was still nosing around in the dust, blue bandana barely holding back his dirty blond hair, the tail of it snapping in the wind like a pennant.
As amazing as the discovery of rocks in Kansas was, I had a dead bird to deal with. The way I saw it, I had two choices. One was to try to get to the next town without getting pulled over for having an oversized poultry hood ornament, and then pay someone to extract said ornament from my truck. The other option was to cannabalize parts of my truck in an attempt to remove said bird myself. The second option was free, so it won by default.
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It didn't look as bad as it had felt.
Okay, that's not entirely true. It looked horrible, but just for the bird, not for the truck. The truck's grill looked like it had been smashed in by a giant fist and then the fist had been left there as a decoration, still trailing gory ligaments that had once attached it to a giant arm. I knew it had once been a bird, but now it just looked like a hunk of meat occasionally decorated by feathers or spatters of blood which were already turning paste-brown in the blowing dust.
"Shit. How are we even going to get it out?" I posted my fists on my hips petulantly and scowled at the once-a-bird. On close inspection I noticed that at least one of the grill tines had snapped, and impaled the bird from one side. I hoped it had already been dead when that happened.
When I turned around to find Andrew, I saw that he had already climbed down off the shoulder and was poking around in the scrubby grassland that ran along the road. "Looking for a crowbar?" I shouted to him. He gave me the finger. I suppose it was my fault for assuming I wasn't going to have to solve our bird problem alone.
I turned back to the front of the truck just in time to catch a huge mouthful of dirt thrown by a sudden gust of wind. This gust was more violent than the ones that had thrown our food all over the rest stop thirty minutes earlier; an open slap instead of a playful shove. And colder. I looked ahead of us, to the west. The wall of clouds was roiling and angry-looking, but didn't look any closer. It was biding its time, waiting to strike. I took off my glasses and clipped them to my t-shirt collar. They were getting so dirty it was pointless to wear them if I wasn't going to be driving.
"Hey!" Andrew yelled, "Rocks!" He was still nosing around in the dust, blue bandana barely holding back his dirty blond hair, the tail of it snapping in the wind like a pennant.
As amazing as the discovery of rocks in Kansas was, I had a dead bird to deal with. The way I saw it, I had two choices. One was to try to get to the next town without getting pulled over for having an oversized poultry hood ornament, and then pay someone to extract said ornament from my truck. The other option was to cannabalize parts of my truck in an attempt to remove said bird myself. The second option was free, so it won by default.
Feb 6, 2008
random thought from blogland
i ran across this today and liked it. i'm not really a "favorite quotes" kind of guy, but anyway:
"'To be young, really young, takes a very long time,' said Picasso. I agree. It's not easy to hone your ability to see the world fresh over and over again. You've got to work for years to immunize yourself against the millions of people who think they're got everything figured out. To cultivate an ingenious and fully awakened innocence, you have to continually shed your temptation to rely on habitual responses, never ceasing from the effort to greet every experience with a beginner's mind. This playful approach to life goes against the grain of every religious teaching, every political system, and every ideology, which means that only the fiercest individualists with a highly developed sense of self can summon the courage to do it."
"'To be young, really young, takes a very long time,' said Picasso. I agree. It's not easy to hone your ability to see the world fresh over and over again. You've got to work for years to immunize yourself against the millions of people who think they're got everything figured out. To cultivate an ingenious and fully awakened innocence, you have to continually shed your temptation to rely on habitual responses, never ceasing from the effort to greet every experience with a beginner's mind. This playful approach to life goes against the grain of every religious teaching, every political system, and every ideology, which means that only the fiercest individualists with a highly developed sense of self can summon the courage to do it."
MADDEN - 2/5
all good things must come to an end. and alas, the niners' perfect season dreams came to an end not at the culmination of the super bowl, but instead last night in week 14 against the saints.
after beating the bears 24-21 in spectacular fashion (driving 70 yards in one minute with no timeouts to kick the winning field goal as time expired), the niners simultaneously blew and were pwned by the saints, who led by as much as 18 at one point. the game was close for awhile, and the niners actually led 17-14, but late in the first half the saints scored on a 75 yard TD run and then shortly after ran a kick back 81 yards to the niners 10 yardline, and from there things got out of control. bunting tried to bring the niners back in the second half, but he was knocked out of the game with bruised ribs after throwing 3 interceptions and being sacked a number of times. bowes was largely ineffective on the ground, and then when wesley jordan came in at QB (to replace bunting), he strung together a touchdown drive to make it 35-24 before leaving the game with a broken thumb. the third-string QB managed to get it to 35-30, but then the saints got a field goal, and despite having three chances to score the last 8 points thanks to some great defense, the niners just couldn't get into the end zone. they ended the game with 5 turnovers and a record of 12-1.
they're still a clinch for the NFC west title, and will next be facing off against their OTHER deadly rivals, the rams, whom they beat 35-9 earlier in the season. then it's the cardinals and the seahawks and the playoffs beyond that.
after beating the bears 24-21 in spectacular fashion (driving 70 yards in one minute with no timeouts to kick the winning field goal as time expired), the niners simultaneously blew and were pwned by the saints, who led by as much as 18 at one point. the game was close for awhile, and the niners actually led 17-14, but late in the first half the saints scored on a 75 yard TD run and then shortly after ran a kick back 81 yards to the niners 10 yardline, and from there things got out of control. bunting tried to bring the niners back in the second half, but he was knocked out of the game with bruised ribs after throwing 3 interceptions and being sacked a number of times. bowes was largely ineffective on the ground, and then when wesley jordan came in at QB (to replace bunting), he strung together a touchdown drive to make it 35-24 before leaving the game with a broken thumb. the third-string QB managed to get it to 35-30, but then the saints got a field goal, and despite having three chances to score the last 8 points thanks to some great defense, the niners just couldn't get into the end zone. they ended the game with 5 turnovers and a record of 12-1.
they're still a clinch for the NFC west title, and will next be facing off against their OTHER deadly rivals, the rams, whom they beat 35-9 earlier in the season. then it's the cardinals and the seahawks and the playoffs beyond that.
Feb 3, 2008
MADDEN - 2/3
the niners move on to 11-0 after a bit of controversy. i played the chiefs for the first time two days ago, and they put up a hell of a fight for a 2-8 team. they were actually on the verge of upsetting us when we mounted a comeback late in the fourth quarter and, down 30-22, scored on a 38 yard touchdown pass on THE LAST PLAY OF THE GAME, then with no time on the clock got the 2 point conversion to send it into overtime. the chiefs got the ball first, and our defense stopped them, and then we drove down to midfield, and on first and ten ran a pass play...that was interrupted mid-play by an IM window popping up on my computer. yeah. so the pass was intercepted and ran back for a touchdown by the time i could alt-tab back to the game.
so i faced a bit of a conundrum. what to do to resolve the game in a fair fashion? i had a save point at the beginning of overtime i could roll back to, but then that would be giving the chiefs the ball again and forcing me to stop them before having the chance to win, which i likely (but not certainly) would have done had i not been IM-tercepted. well, before i get all Kafkaesque on this, let's just say i decided in the interest of best preserving the integrity of what might be the niners' first ever perfect season, i would just restart the game entirely. so last night i replayed it. mostly to my benefit.
the niners rolled to victory, 29-10. mostly on account of the fact that the chiefs were pretty much unable to pick up any yards in the first half. then there was the 250 rushing yards gained by the niners, including 160 yards by bowes and a 75 yard touchdown run by me, THE QUARTERBACK.
sparks had three interceptions, which is, i think, more than he had the entire last season. it was largely pretty disgusting. i'm not sure what happened to the chiefs between the first version of the game and the second, but it wasn't flattering to them.
so i faced a bit of a conundrum. what to do to resolve the game in a fair fashion? i had a save point at the beginning of overtime i could roll back to, but then that would be giving the chiefs the ball again and forcing me to stop them before having the chance to win, which i likely (but not certainly) would have done had i not been IM-tercepted. well, before i get all Kafkaesque on this, let's just say i decided in the interest of best preserving the integrity of what might be the niners' first ever perfect season, i would just restart the game entirely. so last night i replayed it. mostly to my benefit.
the niners rolled to victory, 29-10. mostly on account of the fact that the chiefs were pretty much unable to pick up any yards in the first half. then there was the 250 rushing yards gained by the niners, including 160 yards by bowes and a 75 yard touchdown run by me, THE QUARTERBACK.
sparks had three interceptions, which is, i think, more than he had the entire last season. it was largely pretty disgusting. i'm not sure what happened to the chiefs between the first version of the game and the second, but it wasn't flattering to them.
Feb 2, 2008
entropy...never came my way...
so, when i was a kid, there was this book...and it was either Madeline L'Engle's "wrinkle in time" or the trilogy of awesome time-traveling dolphin-riding kid-witches books by Diane Duane...that had a character or concept in it called "Entropy". this was my first experience with the word, and the idea of this evil Sauron-type darkness that wanted to destroy everything in the universe made quite an impression.
EDIT: found the book on wiki...here you go:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Wizards#The_Powers_That_Be
needless to say, by the time i spent some time studying quantum physics and theoretical mathematics in college, my idea of entropy had changed a bit, but i was still also intrigued with my original idea as well.
ultimately, it's a pretty realistic portrayal. despite your spiritual beliefs, etc., at least on a material level the universe tends towards nothingness...just like there's no way to build a perpetual motion machine, eventually the energy that created us will run out. and since we don't know how everything started, maybe there's a chance it'll start over again, but this run, such as it is, will eventually be over. it's as true on a personal level as it is on a "universe" level. everybody's going to eventually die, and it's nice to think that at least for awhile the memories of individual people will continue on, but ultimately that's not really how things work.
anyway, i'm getting at something. i'm not trying to be depressing because i don't think it IS depressing. if there wasn't that definite end to demarcate when we'll stop being around, combined with the randomness and the possibility of that end coming today or 70 years from now, i for one would honestly find it difficult to have any reason to get up in the morning. why not put off what you can do today if you can always do it tomorrow?
but without getting too far into my paradox-laden and yet perfectly functional belief system, here's my point for the moment. it seems this week the topic du jour (yeah, that's wrong, but i forget the french for "week"...topic du semaine?) is micromanaging one's life/appearance/health, etc. i've been talking to a few people this particular semaine about this, and i just don't get it. i mean, i'll admit at one point in my life i used to treat my health/body/spirituality/social life/etc. the same way i treat my kitchen, in the sense that when one thing's out of place in the kitchen and i feel like cleaning it up, suddenly everything else that's out of order in the house gets cast into sharp relief and i can't stop cleaning until everything is perfect. so many people seem to treat the more metaphysical aspects of their lives this way, but to me it just seems pointless. i mean, ultimately, the endpoint of our lives (at least on earth, depending on what you believe) is to die and turn into dirt. whoo-hoo! i mean, that's pretty humbling. so i guess i just don't get the point in trying to project this image that you're the perfect person, or that you don't have issues, or that you've managed to defeat entropy, because you haven't. and it's just wasting a lot of your time you could be using to actually enjoy the time you have in your own idiosyncratic ways.
sure, i mean, you could look at a heroin user or something and say "well there's a guy/girl who's not concerned about being perfect and look what it's doing to them". but there are extreme examples of any type of behavior, and that's not what i'm talking about here. i'm talking about people who are afraid to admit the fact that there can be darkness and you can still get up every day and do something that matters even if you don't have that darkness completely under control. because you won't ever have it completely under control, at least not until you die, and then it doesn't really do you any good. :)
one of the great qualities of humanity is the ability to carry on as if death isn't staring you right in the face all the time, but forcefully ignoring death just because you live in a culture that allows you to be affluent enough to pretend it doesn't exist is just stupid. so chill the fuck out and hit the streets for some disco and a burger. peace.
EDIT: found the book on wiki...here you go:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Wizards#The_Powers_That_Be
needless to say, by the time i spent some time studying quantum physics and theoretical mathematics in college, my idea of entropy had changed a bit, but i was still also intrigued with my original idea as well.
ultimately, it's a pretty realistic portrayal. despite your spiritual beliefs, etc., at least on a material level the universe tends towards nothingness...just like there's no way to build a perpetual motion machine, eventually the energy that created us will run out. and since we don't know how everything started, maybe there's a chance it'll start over again, but this run, such as it is, will eventually be over. it's as true on a personal level as it is on a "universe" level. everybody's going to eventually die, and it's nice to think that at least for awhile the memories of individual people will continue on, but ultimately that's not really how things work.
anyway, i'm getting at something. i'm not trying to be depressing because i don't think it IS depressing. if there wasn't that definite end to demarcate when we'll stop being around, combined with the randomness and the possibility of that end coming today or 70 years from now, i for one would honestly find it difficult to have any reason to get up in the morning. why not put off what you can do today if you can always do it tomorrow?
but without getting too far into my paradox-laden and yet perfectly functional belief system, here's my point for the moment. it seems this week the topic du jour (yeah, that's wrong, but i forget the french for "week"...topic du semaine?) is micromanaging one's life/appearance/health, etc. i've been talking to a few people this particular semaine about this, and i just don't get it. i mean, i'll admit at one point in my life i used to treat my health/body/spirituality/social life/etc. the same way i treat my kitchen, in the sense that when one thing's out of place in the kitchen and i feel like cleaning it up, suddenly everything else that's out of order in the house gets cast into sharp relief and i can't stop cleaning until everything is perfect. so many people seem to treat the more metaphysical aspects of their lives this way, but to me it just seems pointless. i mean, ultimately, the endpoint of our lives (at least on earth, depending on what you believe) is to die and turn into dirt. whoo-hoo! i mean, that's pretty humbling. so i guess i just don't get the point in trying to project this image that you're the perfect person, or that you don't have issues, or that you've managed to defeat entropy, because you haven't. and it's just wasting a lot of your time you could be using to actually enjoy the time you have in your own idiosyncratic ways.
sure, i mean, you could look at a heroin user or something and say "well there's a guy/girl who's not concerned about being perfect and look what it's doing to them". but there are extreme examples of any type of behavior, and that's not what i'm talking about here. i'm talking about people who are afraid to admit the fact that there can be darkness and you can still get up every day and do something that matters even if you don't have that darkness completely under control. because you won't ever have it completely under control, at least not until you die, and then it doesn't really do you any good. :)
one of the great qualities of humanity is the ability to carry on as if death isn't staring you right in the face all the time, but forcefully ignoring death just because you live in a culture that allows you to be affluent enough to pretend it doesn't exist is just stupid. so chill the fuck out and hit the streets for some disco and a burger. peace.
TRAVEL JOURNAL - 2/2
here's something new i just started the other day. it's more semi-fiction. i'm not sure where it's going. but there's going to be a tornado involved, so it's gotta be badass.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The bird, which I had originally mistaken for a tumbleweed, froze at the sight of our rusty blue GMC pickup bearing down on it. It had almost completely crossed the road from right to left, but in a perfect Darwinian moment, it turned and sprinted back in the direction it had come from - back in front of the truck. To this day I still don't know what kind of bird it was: maybe a foot long from head to tail, brown on the back, white on the belly, with a bit of a red crest on its head, chubby looking with spindly legs and wings much too small for its body.
I don't know if it realized it couldn't fly, because it tried. Then it disappeared below the windshield and a split second later there was a sickening thud and a shudder that rattled low in the body of the truck.
I've rear-ended an SUV before, and this was mostly the same sensation. I winced, thinking of possible body damage to the truck in the context of the 20 days of driving we still had left. I felt a bit guilty for the lack of sympathy I had for the bird, but images of trying to find a mechanic in the middle of western kansas that wouldn't charge an arm and a leg to pick parts of the truck's grill out of the drive belt were foremost in my thoughts.
My brother was not nearly as concerned. He leapt up as far out of his seat as his seatbelt would allow, and pumped his fist into the air as high as he could without punching the roof of the truck. "Oh my God!" he yelled rapturously, "you fucking owned him!"
I didn't bother to respond, though it was hard not to crack a smile. I checked the side mirror and signaled right. Nobody was behind us, which wasn't much of a surprise considering the wall of black disaster-movie clouds looming a few miles ahead. I drove the truck onto the dirt shoulder a little too quickly and as a result bounced my head off the roof for the umpteenth time in the last 800 miles.
This was the first time I'd driven a truck through the midwest, and it was much different than, say, the wagon or sedans I'd driven before; there was something about the high center of gravity and the girth of the truck's body that made me want to take ridiculous chances.
We rolled to a stop just as I registered surprise that the car was still working at all, and I dropped the transmission into neutral, slipped the parking brake into place and turned off the engine. It sputtered angrily as it turned off, and I wondered for a moment if I should have left it on, especially with the storm bearing down on us.
The doorframe on the driver's side was slightly warped from a previous owner's traffic interpretation error, and so I gave the door a single well-placed kick and it creaked open on hinges coated in rust and dust from the Badlands. Bypassing the running boards and dropping directly to the dirt, I squinted for a moment in the direction of the sun that was still gamely shining in the face of the oncoming storm and then with a mixture of resignation and frustration, walked around the front of the truck to see how far the bird had managed to kill itself into the engine block.
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The bird, which I had originally mistaken for a tumbleweed, froze at the sight of our rusty blue GMC pickup bearing down on it. It had almost completely crossed the road from right to left, but in a perfect Darwinian moment, it turned and sprinted back in the direction it had come from - back in front of the truck. To this day I still don't know what kind of bird it was: maybe a foot long from head to tail, brown on the back, white on the belly, with a bit of a red crest on its head, chubby looking with spindly legs and wings much too small for its body.
I don't know if it realized it couldn't fly, because it tried. Then it disappeared below the windshield and a split second later there was a sickening thud and a shudder that rattled low in the body of the truck.
I've rear-ended an SUV before, and this was mostly the same sensation. I winced, thinking of possible body damage to the truck in the context of the 20 days of driving we still had left. I felt a bit guilty for the lack of sympathy I had for the bird, but images of trying to find a mechanic in the middle of western kansas that wouldn't charge an arm and a leg to pick parts of the truck's grill out of the drive belt were foremost in my thoughts.
My brother was not nearly as concerned. He leapt up as far out of his seat as his seatbelt would allow, and pumped his fist into the air as high as he could without punching the roof of the truck. "Oh my God!" he yelled rapturously, "you fucking owned him!"
I didn't bother to respond, though it was hard not to crack a smile. I checked the side mirror and signaled right. Nobody was behind us, which wasn't much of a surprise considering the wall of black disaster-movie clouds looming a few miles ahead. I drove the truck onto the dirt shoulder a little too quickly and as a result bounced my head off the roof for the umpteenth time in the last 800 miles.
This was the first time I'd driven a truck through the midwest, and it was much different than, say, the wagon or sedans I'd driven before; there was something about the high center of gravity and the girth of the truck's body that made me want to take ridiculous chances.
We rolled to a stop just as I registered surprise that the car was still working at all, and I dropped the transmission into neutral, slipped the parking brake into place and turned off the engine. It sputtered angrily as it turned off, and I wondered for a moment if I should have left it on, especially with the storm bearing down on us.
The doorframe on the driver's side was slightly warped from a previous owner's traffic interpretation error, and so I gave the door a single well-placed kick and it creaked open on hinges coated in rust and dust from the Badlands. Bypassing the running boards and dropping directly to the dirt, I squinted for a moment in the direction of the sun that was still gamely shining in the face of the oncoming storm and then with a mixture of resignation and frustration, walked around the front of the truck to see how far the bird had managed to kill itself into the engine block.
Feb 1, 2008
NEW MUSIC - Susan's 12.29.07 (mp3 format)
Mike and I (mostly Mike) did an impromptu recording of the Susan's show over Christmas break because there were going to be a lot of people who wanted to see who weren't going to be able to make it. So I finally sat down and mixed the whole thing to the point that I'm pretty happy with it, and thought I'd post it up for anybody who might be interested. I have a lossless version too, but I didn't think too many people would prefer the ~500 mb file size...but if you want it, ask, and I'll set something up.
Anyway, this is exciting in that it's the first show I've ever played with other people, and excellent musicians at that. Imagine what they could have done had I given them more than 2 days to learn 28 songs.
Sorry especially to Justin who tore the crap out of the drums and then ended up so low in the recording mix...
Here's the setlist. It's all notated and whatnot (the zipped mp3s you can download include a text file with recording info...I'm a detail freak), so you'll know what's going on. I decided, sort of on my own, to call our band The Ricochets. I think it's appropriate for a lot of reasons and it's also the tentative title of the record I'm working on after I finish the California EP. Also it's the name of a rock band from the 60s, apparently. This might surprise you, but this recording is NOT OF THAT BAND.
Disc 1 (Acoustic Set)
1. Intro (2:36)
2. Angel From Montgomery (John Prine) (3:54)
3. Autumnsong (5:17) *
4. Hey Sue (Do You Miss Me Now?) (3:57)
5. My Winding Wheel (Ryan Adams) (4:16) *%
6. Millie (5:57) *%
7. Back To Ohio (7:18) *#^
8. California Stars (Wilco/Billy Bragg) (4:02) *@
9. Lady Gray (3:14) *#
10. I Still Miss Someone (Johnny Cash) (2:44) #
11. Dusty Roads (4:55) *
12. Friend of the Devil (Grateful Dead) (4:45) *^@
Total Time Disc 1: 52:18
Disc 2 (Electric Set)
1. Intro (1:59)
2. Enemy (5:34)
3. Dreamed I Was God (2:48)
4. Palace (4:18)
5. Not The One I See (4:22)
6. The Melody (4:10)
7. Love Song In D (4:31)
8. Molly (5:20)
9. Sunshine (3:22)
10. Sample In A Jar (Phish) (4:32)
11. Not California (4:16) ^
Total Time Disc 2: 45:08
Total Show Time: 97:26
Band Line-Up:
Ben Bunting - Vocals, Acoustic Guitar (first set), Electric Guitar (second set), Harmonica
Mike Prewett - Backup Vocals, Acoustic Guitar (first set, except where noted), Electric Guitar (second set), Bass Guitar (where noted)
Justin Bunting - Percussion, Hand Drums (first set, where noted), Drum Kit (second set)
* Justin on Hand Drums/Percussion
# Mike on Bass Guitar
% Mike on Electric Guitar
^ Andrea Bussinger on Backup Vocals
@ Andrea Bussinger on Violin
Thanks again to everyone who helped/played/recorded/thought about/donated food to this!
As always, if the links expire, let me know and I'll re-up them.
Acoustic Set mp3s
Electric Set mp3s
Also, apparently I'm capitalizing things today. Weird.
Anyway, this is exciting in that it's the first show I've ever played with other people, and excellent musicians at that. Imagine what they could have done had I given them more than 2 days to learn 28 songs.
Sorry especially to Justin who tore the crap out of the drums and then ended up so low in the recording mix...
Here's the setlist. It's all notated and whatnot (the zipped mp3s you can download include a text file with recording info...I'm a detail freak), so you'll know what's going on. I decided, sort of on my own, to call our band The Ricochets. I think it's appropriate for a lot of reasons and it's also the tentative title of the record I'm working on after I finish the California EP. Also it's the name of a rock band from the 60s, apparently. This might surprise you, but this recording is NOT OF THAT BAND.
Disc 1 (Acoustic Set)
1. Intro (2:36)
2. Angel From Montgomery (John Prine) (3:54)
3. Autumnsong (5:17) *
4. Hey Sue (Do You Miss Me Now?) (3:57)
5. My Winding Wheel (Ryan Adams) (4:16) *%
6. Millie (5:57) *%
7. Back To Ohio (7:18) *#^
8. California Stars (Wilco/Billy Bragg) (4:02) *@
9. Lady Gray (3:14) *#
10. I Still Miss Someone (Johnny Cash) (2:44) #
11. Dusty Roads (4:55) *
12. Friend of the Devil (Grateful Dead) (4:45) *^@
Total Time Disc 1: 52:18
Disc 2 (Electric Set)
1. Intro (1:59)
2. Enemy (5:34)
3. Dreamed I Was God (2:48)
4. Palace (4:18)
5. Not The One I See (4:22)
6. The Melody (4:10)
7. Love Song In D (4:31)
8. Molly (5:20)
9. Sunshine (3:22)
10. Sample In A Jar (Phish) (4:32)
11. Not California (4:16) ^
Total Time Disc 2: 45:08
Total Show Time: 97:26
Band Line-Up:
Ben Bunting - Vocals, Acoustic Guitar (first set), Electric Guitar (second set), Harmonica
Mike Prewett - Backup Vocals, Acoustic Guitar (first set, except where noted), Electric Guitar (second set), Bass Guitar (where noted)
Justin Bunting - Percussion, Hand Drums (first set, where noted), Drum Kit (second set)
* Justin on Hand Drums/Percussion
# Mike on Bass Guitar
% Mike on Electric Guitar
^ Andrea Bussinger on Backup Vocals
@ Andrea Bussinger on Violin
Thanks again to everyone who helped/played/recorded/thought about/donated food to this!
As always, if the links expire, let me know and I'll re-up them.
Acoustic Set mp3s
Electric Set mp3s
Also, apparently I'm capitalizing things today. Weird.
TRAVEL JOURNAL - 2/1
Someone asked me not too long ago what poetry is. I've always written poetry, but it's been heavily influenced by beat poets and British WW2 poetry - so in other words, it's really straightforward, no rhyme scheme (usually), no fancy stylistic distinctions. Then I ran across this quote on my homepage this morning and thought it was appropriate:
"A prose writer gets tired of writing prose, and wants to be a poet. So he begins every line with a capital letter, and keeps on writing prose." -Samuel McChord Crothers
Anybody who reads this that used to go to Brady's in Kent will probably share the same laugh I had when I read it a bit ago. So in honor of Mr. Crothers and Brady's here's some "prosetry" from last spring.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
the night alternates between
hard stillness, blank quiet
and laughter: soft, warm, maybe a little drunk.
dirt rubbed into hands, knees, shoes
and now my face as i absentmindedly scratch my chin
some joke, some history
of some railroad.
this one time, in high school
you remember, what was that dude's name?
he was a tool, but his sister
oh, shit. that's right. that dude.
it's getting cold. to the point that it's hard to ignore.
trudging around on the hillside isn't much fun.
there're trees but
they're boxed in by barbed wire
a weird thing to cordon off, trees.
ground's too cold to sit
feet too cold to crouch
snow's too cold to stand
contemplative silence, like a blanket
over all of us at once.
for a moment, we're anywhere
next to the CSX line in ravenna, 2007
next to the CSX line in akron, 2005
the hill next to the reservoir, somewhere, 1999
western russia, 1952
silence is cut
circumstance is located in time and space
the whistle slices the air
breaks the calm
suddenly the air is palpitating
the ground vibrating
unsubstantiated muck is defined
by a single ghost light
pushing through
there's no violence
just nothing becoming something
we scramble for cover
wedge into the frozen earth
excitement working like a space heater
breathing vapor
murk transforming
into liquid light
dancing
the sound and light
simultaneously crescendo
the wall of air hammers by
then still
cars pulled behind the engine rattle along
squeaking, snarling, whining
sound is harsh, but now unlike
the violence of that first, breaking moment
grins on all faces
then the last car rumbles by
red light flashing
signals the tail of the comet
night covers light
silence covers sound
cold covers heat
we settle in to wait.
"A prose writer gets tired of writing prose, and wants to be a poet. So he begins every line with a capital letter, and keeps on writing prose." -Samuel McChord Crothers
Anybody who reads this that used to go to Brady's in Kent will probably share the same laugh I had when I read it a bit ago. So in honor of Mr. Crothers and Brady's here's some "prosetry" from last spring.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
the night alternates between
hard stillness, blank quiet
and laughter: soft, warm, maybe a little drunk.
dirt rubbed into hands, knees, shoes
and now my face as i absentmindedly scratch my chin
some joke, some history
of some railroad.
this one time, in high school
you remember, what was that dude's name?
he was a tool, but his sister
oh, shit. that's right. that dude.
it's getting cold. to the point that it's hard to ignore.
trudging around on the hillside isn't much fun.
there're trees but
they're boxed in by barbed wire
a weird thing to cordon off, trees.
ground's too cold to sit
feet too cold to crouch
snow's too cold to stand
contemplative silence, like a blanket
over all of us at once.
for a moment, we're anywhere
next to the CSX line in ravenna, 2007
next to the CSX line in akron, 2005
the hill next to the reservoir, somewhere, 1999
western russia, 1952
silence is cut
circumstance is located in time and space
the whistle slices the air
breaks the calm
suddenly the air is palpitating
the ground vibrating
unsubstantiated muck is defined
by a single ghost light
pushing through
there's no violence
just nothing becoming something
we scramble for cover
wedge into the frozen earth
excitement working like a space heater
breathing vapor
murk transforming
into liquid light
dancing
the sound and light
simultaneously crescendo
the wall of air hammers by
then still
cars pulled behind the engine rattle along
squeaking, snarling, whining
sound is harsh, but now unlike
the violence of that first, breaking moment
grins on all faces
then the last car rumbles by
red light flashing
signals the tail of the comet
night covers light
silence covers sound
cold covers heat
we settle in to wait.
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