This is a first. Blogger is currently working faster than hotmail or gmail, both of which aren't loading at all. I'd write them a letter, but I'd need to open up another e-mail account.
My less boring thoughts lately have mainly been about people greeting people and forming relationships whether or not they care. Yesterday I watched my friend Geoff Hoffman walk through the administration building, going from office to office, chatting people up, asking how they were, listening, responding with sympathy. He would sit down and wait politely for them to get off the phone, and then chat for a few minutes, ask how things were going at the club, whatever. It was genius, it was beautiful, it was inspiring, it was hilarious. He was bumming a cigarette.
If I could ever get to this level of ingenuousness and affability, I would feel a huge load of inadequacy slip off my shoulders. Most of the people here have superb people skills, with varying levels of inauthenticity and shallowness, so I have plenty of models. I would also develop the ability to read people, and would write better characters. So this is all very boogie.
Oh, and a message to Anne: Dylan, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan. This is not me asking you to send Blonde on Blonde. This is me asking you to listen to it. I am reading Infinite Jest, as I said I would. Now it is your turn.
Saturday, August 28, 2004
I am alive. I frequently wake up in the morning and have a cigarette. It tastes like freedom. I have a record player, and records by Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Ramblin Jack Elliott, Cisco Houston, The Velvet Underground, David Bowie, New Order, Van Morrison, The Smiths, Neutral Milk Hotel . . .. Life is reasonably good.
My main source of protein this week has been Taco Bell, which is emerging as the curse of the traveller. This will probably wear off within a month as my mind realizes that I once again live here, and there is real Mexican food if I want it. I can then get back to making milkshakes my main source of protein, even if Denny's is the only diner out here. I don't care. I can get a blender, or an egg beater, or a milkshake machine, or an ice cream truck, or a manservent if I want.
If you're reading this, I miss you viscerally. I think of you and you only for hours before I can fall asleep, and you make it safe to leave the house. I just wich I knew who you were. Leave a comment, why don't you? And tell me what you want to hear, because I'm past my prime of blog writing, and can no longer come up with much of anything on a regular basis.
My main source of protein this week has been Taco Bell, which is emerging as the curse of the traveller. This will probably wear off within a month as my mind realizes that I once again live here, and there is real Mexican food if I want it. I can then get back to making milkshakes my main source of protein, even if Denny's is the only diner out here. I don't care. I can get a blender, or an egg beater, or a milkshake machine, or an ice cream truck, or a manservent if I want.
If you're reading this, I miss you viscerally. I think of you and you only for hours before I can fall asleep, and you make it safe to leave the house. I just wich I knew who you were. Leave a comment, why don't you? And tell me what you want to hear, because I'm past my prime of blog writing, and can no longer come up with much of anything on a regular basis.
Friday, August 20, 2004
Art is grand, but most writers and musicians have forgotten what art is. Saying that art is dead is passé, every generation does that; but it seems every generation is somehow right. Name me a recently written book that has enough passion and innovation to give new reason for living. Try to recall a movie from the last decade that has made you look up and say, "goddamn, no one has ever made anything like this before, and I am jealous!" (Let us think of Evangelion and smile every so often.) Play me a song not written by Jeff Mangum (thank God for Jeff Mangum) that brings some previously unknown part of you to tears. Extra points if the song is not by John Darnielle, or Bob fucking Dylan.
Where is our D. motherfucking H. Lawrence? Our Fyodor grandholyshit Dostoyevsky? Our Franz shitlicking Kafka? (My, what kind of people will find this page through Google?) Our Gustav cocksucking Flaubert? They do not exist! People aren't even named Fyodor, Franz, Gustav, or D.H. anymore! How can we have artists with such mundane names as Chuck, David, or Neal. We can't.
My God, I have just spent an hour looking through reccomendations Amazon has made based on my account, rating stuff, clicking on "I own it" or "Not interrested" . . . how addicting and sad.
Where is our D. motherfucking H. Lawrence? Our Fyodor grandholyshit Dostoyevsky? Our Franz shitlicking Kafka? (My, what kind of people will find this page through Google?) Our Gustav cocksucking Flaubert? They do not exist! People aren't even named Fyodor, Franz, Gustav, or D.H. anymore! How can we have artists with such mundane names as Chuck, David, or Neal. We can't.
My God, I have just spent an hour looking through reccomendations Amazon has made based on my account, rating stuff, clicking on "I own it" or "Not interrested" . . . how addicting and sad.
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
I may drive over to Scott's house just to use his stereo. My old stereo, a clunky three-disc changer with pretty good speakers, is in the dump because it started eating Bob Dylan CDs. I respect its taste, but it wasn't asking my permission first. The CDs would slide under the plastic case that was supposed to hold them up, and I could hear the player licking them and getting closer to Bob Dylan than any machine has a right to get. It hasn't been reliably reading CDs for years now, anyway, and both of its tape players were broken. The radio never got good reception, either.
Jeff's old stereo had been on the porch for two years, since the last summer Eric stayed here. He would sit out there at night listening to Ella Fitzgerald and jamming with the cats. He's long gone, to bigger and brighter porches where the spiders don't go and the people all know "Howl" by heart; the CD player was nearly unused. I took it into my room. For a while it was great. Though it was built in 1994, it read burned discs, self-released discs, slightly scratched discs, and Smiths CDs, all things that confused and angered my old CD player. For several days, however, the disc drive has revolted and refuses to open, and I am very sad. The player seems to have rejected my taste in music, and is holding out for the good old days of swing. Now no one is appreciating Bob Dylan.
I think it would be pretty sad to go to Severna Park just to listen to music and maybe use the swing set, but tonight I may do exactly that.
Jeff's old stereo had been on the porch for two years, since the last summer Eric stayed here. He would sit out there at night listening to Ella Fitzgerald and jamming with the cats. He's long gone, to bigger and brighter porches where the spiders don't go and the people all know "Howl" by heart; the CD player was nearly unused. I took it into my room. For a while it was great. Though it was built in 1994, it read burned discs, self-released discs, slightly scratched discs, and Smiths CDs, all things that confused and angered my old CD player. For several days, however, the disc drive has revolted and refuses to open, and I am very sad. The player seems to have rejected my taste in music, and is holding out for the good old days of swing. Now no one is appreciating Bob Dylan.
I think it would be pretty sad to go to Severna Park just to listen to music and maybe use the swing set, but tonight I may do exactly that.
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
A message to Blake, who does not, as far as I know, read my blog:
You shouldn't have told my cat that you wanted to kick him. He hasn't left the spot by the porch door where you drunkenly brayed at him that you hated him, and swung your leg unsuccessfully in his direction. You thought he was an ordinary cat, I'm sure. If he were an ordinary cat, no harm would have been done. But this was Mulder you insulted. He has been fuming for more than a day now. He's collected some dead bugs and formed them into a makeshift Blake pincushion, and he's been swiping at it and muttering, "Who do you think you are, kick at Mulder, don't even live here, I will eat you, meat, meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeat! You goddamn puny bastard, you, I am bigger than you, I am huge, and you are going down, kill kill kill kill" etc.
Well, Blake, you've made my life pretty miserable. I can't sleep now because I hear Mulder. You've gotten the Japanese all in a tizzy. They're expecting an attack, and they didn't send the last check. They seem to think we've let Mulder out, and based on the chatter they're picking up, I can't blame them. You had better come back here and apologize. Japan has been investigating uranium enrichment, and we all know how dedicated the Japanese can be once they have a project.
You shouldn't have told my cat that you wanted to kick him. He hasn't left the spot by the porch door where you drunkenly brayed at him that you hated him, and swung your leg unsuccessfully in his direction. You thought he was an ordinary cat, I'm sure. If he were an ordinary cat, no harm would have been done. But this was Mulder you insulted. He has been fuming for more than a day now. He's collected some dead bugs and formed them into a makeshift Blake pincushion, and he's been swiping at it and muttering, "Who do you think you are, kick at Mulder, don't even live here, I will eat you, meat, meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeat! You goddamn puny bastard, you, I am bigger than you, I am huge, and you are going down, kill kill kill kill" etc.
Well, Blake, you've made my life pretty miserable. I can't sleep now because I hear Mulder. You've gotten the Japanese all in a tizzy. They're expecting an attack, and they didn't send the last check. They seem to think we've let Mulder out, and based on the chatter they're picking up, I can't blame them. You had better come back here and apologize. Japan has been investigating uranium enrichment, and we all know how dedicated the Japanese can be once they have a project.
Thursday, August 05, 2004
I am starting an over-ambitious novel, which I have done three times before. This time, however, I am plotting and working out characters beforehand. The story was inspired by a dream, and the attempt is inspired by the song "Novelty". It will be awesome or, at worst, incomplete. I will see if I am capable of any sort of poetic narrative, which has been generally absent from my writing. I can attribute this to lack of trying, because this is my podium and I can say whatever I want.