Way Up Norf

Reading Dave Sitek

2011-01-13T13:08:00.001-08:00

Producers are to music what editors are to writing. They oversee the totality of a creative project, guiding the cohesive scope of what the artist has in mind. A band comes to a producer with a few kickass trees, and the producer makes them into a kickass forest.

In the same way that you can see a similarity in style between authors who've shared the same editor, you can also listen to music from the same producer and find links. Dave Sitek is one shining example of a producer with a noticeable stylistic earmarks in his work. He's produced bands like Yeah Yeah Yeahs and is a member the insanely inventive TV on the Radio. To read the consistency of his style between artists, we can look at some cool production similarities between tracks on Yeah Yeah Yeah's first album Fever to Tell, and TVOTR's Return to Cookie Mountain.

For the first comparative example, check out these two cuts back-t0-back. Y Control and Playhouses.

It's hard to talk about music you've played to death without slipping too deep into your own subjectivity, so I'll try to be straightforward. To start, notice the noise in both songs. As much as guitars carry the melody, they also provide a palette of distortion that fills out the space of the mix. A good deal of the tracks on both Fever and Cookie Mountain are noisy by their own right, but I picked out these two for their tempo and energy. The soundscape of noise has a similar way of floating on top of the driving, energetic drum track, which is equally relentless in both songs. And while "Playhouses" veers a little more towards the abstract side of things than "Y Control," the percussion pins the noise-nebula down and keeps it from floating too far away.

When I hear both these songs, the sound textures remind me of machines. The opening riff on "Y Control" is akin to an alarm or siren of some kind. When the guitars and drums kick in, its emotional and melodic character changes in the context of the noise-scape. In "Playhoues," the guitar riff at :47 and the following string pads remind me of the noises you hear while driving on a highway. Different textures on the road make different noises as you drive over them. All the road sounds in "Playhouses" would be abrasive if they weren't blended together so smoothly and ingeniously. Is it intentional that sounds we associate with traveling over long distances carry so much melodic weight in the song? I'm not one to suggest any one interpretation, but I think that might be one way in which the melody reinforces the lyrical content.

These next two tracks are also brothers-in-noise, but in a different way:

Whereas "Y Control" and "Playhouses" have a faster tempo and driving percussive energy behind them, "Modern Romance" and "Tonight" show Sitek's use of noise in a more subdued way. The noisescape here is ambient and free-floating in a way that's more suited to a ballad. Notice the similar use of what appear to be instrument samples played backwards (cymbals, chimes). "Modern Romance's," intro is shorter, but it provides a glimpse into the kind of ideas and experimentation that would come about full-circle on Cookie mountain. The two songs are analogous to each other in that sense, since they're both the slowest songs on their respective albums and they're found at the end of the track listing.

What's mindblowing in light of all this is that both Yeah Yeah Yeahs and TVOTR still sound like completely different bands. While Sitek's penchant for noise and texture is apparent on both albums, the bands' respective sounds aren't drowned out by it. More remarkable than the artistic talent of the producer alone is the ability for it to enhance without overwhelming or stifling the talent of the artist. The good producer indeed plants a kickass forest, but the trees are still permitted to grow as they please. And where any artistic medium will attract its share of egotists, it's reassuring to see how the collaborative aspect of artists working together still flourishes as a talent by its own right.

Self-indulgent meta blog post #1

2011-01-03T11:04:00.000-08:00

Man, I can't write anything personal in a blog any more without reading what I just wrote and thinking "Dan you're such a self-indulgent asshole writing about that who cares what the fuck bro fffffff" and then deleting it.

See, even reading that just now made me think that, 'cause that's self-indulgent too. You can't see this probably but I have a special system rigged up so that I can't delete anything in this post, so you're getting a full on blast of unfiltered/unedited words, just like a Henry James novel. Except hopefully it won't make you fall asleep. Unless you like Henry James. If that's the case, then ignore the sentence 1 sentence before this one and substitute it with "Except hopefully you will really enjoy it because Henry James is a good writer."

Alright, so I'm trying to be a good normal internet 21st century person and update regularly again and say insightful things and whatnot and hey. I went back and read my old blog for the first time in a while yesterday. I started it when I was 14 and kept it updated more or less consistently throughout the whole 4 years of high school. Reading it brought back a good deal of memories. It also made me realize what an arrogant little shit I was. Seriously, on behalf of all hormonal angst, I apologize to everyone who knew me at age 14/15/16/17, and probably at scattered moments up into the now as well. I laughed at the stuff I wrote back then, but mostly cringed. Cringed at the whininess, cringed at the dim worldview, cringed at the overtly pompous tone I had in writing damn near everything. Hopefully some of that has changed by now. If not, hopefully it will eventually. And when/if it does, hopefully I will have the objective distance to realize some kind of progress has been made.

DAMN. See, there's the self-indulgence again.

But all cringing aside, I'm kind of glad it's all chronicled there. Even though it burns my eyes, there's still a good deal of life experience preserved there on the interwebs, a lot of which I'm thankful to have a record of - both the good parts and the bad. And I'd like to keep that kind of preservation going right now, although lately I've found that trying to preserve the space-time of your past is kind of pointless, 'cause then it feels like you're trying to quantify the thing itself instead of just enjoy the sensory impression that the thing left.

What else. I just watched the first Hellraiser, something that's been on my to-do list since I first laid eyes on the giant Pinhead cardboard cutout my dad put in our basement. (I was 7 or so, it was kind of traumatizing). The ultra-grotesque demononic mutilation scenes were pretty rad, but there weren't enough of them. It was slow at parts but good wholesome fun otherwise. And It made me be sure to re-evaluate my interest in extreme BDSM before I touch a rubik's cube again anytime soon.

Holy fuck bro.

Leaving for london on the 17th, where a lot of fun will be had. If this turns into a generic "OMG I'm going aBroAd!!1" type blog, you will have permission to shoot me. But hopefully that won't be the case.

Yeeyuh.

Expect semi-regular updates again.

Some Damns.

2010-03-20T20:30:00.000-07:00

I've found a lot of really great new music in the past year or so, but this melted my head in a way not much else has:

Damn. DAMN! OK. I wish this had come out recently so I could give it a proper review, but still. The synth track that kicks in at the start reminds me of some Bela Fleck songs I've heard, where they get a similar sound by putting woodwind instruments through a wawa pedal.

I like this kind of music, but I do not like labeling it as IDM ('intelligent dance music'). Seriously? Please don't take something great and douchify it by adding a label like that. I hope I never have to hear anyone say "I like Intelligent Dance Music" in real-life conversation so I won't have to waste any energy disemboweling them.

Spring break is ending. I read RAY by Barry Hannah. Damn. Started reading Native Son by Richard Wright, also damn so far. Started reading The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh, which is not quite damn, but still pretty good in a different way. Trying to gear up for some papers and other things I need to finish, solidify. Pretty sure I'm going to leave the states after graduation, at least for a few years. I'm going to get certified to teach english as a foreign language soon so this can happen. Seems reliable, because I sure don't want to go to grad school right away, even though I'm looking forward to it. I need some non-school experience first. MFA-land can wait a few years.

De-wintering

2010-03-15T14:56:00.000-07:00

Review of Liars' new album, Sisterworld, up @ 20 Watts.

It's a mighty enjoyable listen. One of my favorite things in music is when a song changes mood/energy level suddenly, in an unexpected way that somehow still works. This album has a lot of that, all of it executed very well. Check it out.

Currently at home, writing papers, hunting for summer jobs that will be low in the 'shame' department. Looked on Craigslist for the hell of it, and found this. Damn. I mean clearly the overall professionalism of the way the ad was written just speaks volumes about how shady this is, but it's still kind of tempting. Good material? Hell yes. I think I could be a pretty competent ghostwriter.

Shit.

Chocolate Makes You Happy

2010-02-21T14:05:00.000-08:00

First thing, I got a story coming out in the next issue of Neon, which makes me excited. This is the first piece of fiction I've actually managed to sell, (only have had poems before), so it's good to know somebody digs it. I'm slowly getting past the learning curve of finding out which places to submit to. It took a while to stumble on the right home for this piece, although most of the rejections I got were personal and pretty human about the reasons it didn't work for the publication. Hopefully this is the start of many goods to come. Keeps the motivation high.

Second thing: Lo. Holy shit. This is a movie that is severely under-talked about. Mind-eatingly innovative, but very simple at the same time. It is a textbook example of the way a low budget can really make an awesome story even better, in the same way that lo-fi recording is sometimes beneficial to the atmosphere of a certain style of music. I think it is also a testament to how meta-fiction can live on in new, surprising forms. Some of the awesome things this movie includes are:

- Main exposition told via a demon rock band, singing a corny pop song

- Monsters from hell using the phrase, "You kids crack my shit up," and making it work.

- A married couple in hell, bickering about who gets tortured worse

- Stage plays within stage plays

Getting in depth about it any more would give away the things that make it great, so all I can say is, SEE IT. If you have netflix, stream it. It is not a typical horror/supernatural movie, it's something else. And it straddles the line between humor/terrifying with serious expertise. I hope more comes out from the same people.

Third - The band Xiu Xiu's new album "Dear God, I Hate Myself," is brilliant. For a while I was skeptical about Xiu Xiu, I had the feeling that they more or less were just trying to be weird for weird's sake, e.g., trying to ride the coattails of Beefheart. But damn, this album is something, and feels more polished than some of the other stuff I've heard by them. Here's the best way I can describe it: It takes the 'feel good' essence of today's party/dance music and replaces it with a hysterical sense of human misery. I have a full review of it coming out at 20 Watts in a couple days. Listen to this:

Maybe I am reading too much into these guys, but I think it's pretty awesome. I guess the bottom line is, I'm glad that someone is doing what they're doing musically.

Otherwise, winter is wintery. Gonna go read some more classic hebrew fiction now.

Airwaves, brah

2010-02-15T08:53:00.000-08:00

The first broadcast went smoothly. I had a steady number of 8-10 listeners the whole time, which is pretty good for AM college radio. I read some of the segments about depression from Infinite Jest and played music that aimed to fit in with the reading thematically, i.e., sad without being sappy or overbearing. Here's the full depression playlist:

Roads – Portishead
El Manana – Gorillaz
(These two compliment each other well, since they're in the same key and have pretty like chord structures. They made for a good introduction to the mood of the show.)
The Stranger Song – Leonard Cohen
(Hot damn, nobody writes lyrics like this anymore. All that irreverent Judeo-Christian wordplay. I think the old recording quality adds to the song's impact also. It's dark, but not pitch black.)
Drom Hardt (Requiem Pt. 1) – Kaizers Orchestra
(This could very well be pitch black, if not for the fact that the lyrics are in Norwegian and thus harder to understand. If this had been sung in English, I wouldn't have played it, as the translation shows some seriously heavy misery. It has a really nice string arrangement at the end that worked well as background music.)
Dirt in the Ground – Tom Waits
(Appropriately somber Waits, full of his trademark vocal howlin' without being too cooky about it.)
Volcano – Beck
Mad World – Michael Andrews
(These two paired nicely together, and although that version of 'Mad World' has been severely overplayed, it's still a damn good cover. Much preferred to the original.)
28 Ghosts IV – Nine Inch Nails
(The list needed something ambiguous and instrumental in order to make the transition to the more hopeful songs at the end. This is probably my favorite track off of the Ghosts album. Brooding.)
Little Person – Jon Brion & Deanna Story
(From the Synecdoche, NY soundtrack. Gorgeous, and it still hits sadness-ground-zero for me just as hard as it did the first time I heard it. This song is a great example of the way a melody can really bring out the power of really simple, straightforward lyrics.)
Tables and Chairs – Andrew Bird
(I had to close with something that was happy without being stupid about it, i.e., positive, but not Walkin' On Sunshine positive. I think this fit the ticket alright, Bird is a solid songwriter, with an ear for clever lyrics without being too self-consciously “clever” about them.)

Next week's show will be about bigotry. I'll be doing a dramatic reading of an incredibly tasteless column that was published in the student newspaper last year, amongst other goods.

Eh. February is a real Satan-month.

It's official now, yo:

2010-02-05T07:42:00.001-08:00

Click here to listen. Official first broadcast will be next week or the week after, depending on how fast I learn not to fail at using the studio. Score!

PS: The artwork here is by the brain-eatingly awesome Mia Makila.

"..."

2010-01-23T11:14:00.001-08:00

An internet writing exercise I just thought of:

-Go to WikiQuote
-Click "random page"
-Paste the first quote on each page into a blank document, get about 3 or so
-Imagine the subject matter/story of the novel that these quotes could be an epigraph for.

Here are the ones that just came up for me:

"I got soul but I'm not a soldier "
- The Killers

"The limit to our growth is our ability to get the best talent on the planet and get them working on the toughest computing problems around."
-Wayne Rosing, Former Google VP of Engineering

"Wondering at your good fortune that all your children look like me?"
-Lancelot, King Arthur (2004)

So far as I can tell, this book would involve adultery, cockiness, overcoming cowardice, the internet, business expansion, trying to do really hard stuff. Maybe some cyberpunk would get mixed up in there too, I get the feeling that the novel would be like Neuromancer + Meet Bill. Sounds promising. I'll sell the idea to an agent and get a 99999999$ advance + movie tie-in rights, then start the much-awaited sequel, Son of Virtual Accountant Family Man Hero. Maybe make it a trilogy or quadrilogy.

Rhyming is not evil.

2010-01-21T19:35:00.001-08:00

Crazy artists get the press
Lazy artists get to rest
Cheesy artists silver spoon
Sleazy artists paint the poon

Tortured artists drink the beers
Nurtured artists thank the peers
Weepy artists hark despair
Creepy artists grease the hair

Pomo artists hate the term
Homo artists get the perm
Prison artists poke the skin
Jizm artists get too thin

Healthy artists quite uncouth,
Wealthy artists ain't the truth
Modest artists play the fool
Every artist boasts the cool

Some thoughts on taste, Infinite Jest, and being wowed.

2010-01-15T21:27:00.000-08:00

Been getting quite a few rejections lately, which is alright. I'm pretty sure it builds character. I sent out a load of submissions at the end of the semester that I'm still waiting to hear back on. Haven't been writing or editing daily as much as I should be. Damn being home, it's so great/lethargic. I think being at Syracuse is better for my productivity. There's just a greater sense of urgency about getting stuff done, both schoolwise and funwise. At home, I just want to walk around in the woods or vegetate.

Wandering around in the woods for a while is a great thing to do after finishing a book. If you've never done it, try sometime. Helps to create equilibrium, I think, balancing the mental voyage with a physical one. Bonus points if the book itself involves wandering and/or the woods and nature, etc. McCarthy is good for this.

My radio show, which has been in the works for a while, will initialize pretty soon, either at the end of this month or the beginning of next month. There'll be more word on that once the official times and dates are figured out, but I've been spending many hours getting together a tentative programming schedule for the spring, and it looks pretty sweet. I'm kind of anxious but mostly excited to see how it'll play out, and I'm hopeful that it will work in the creative interests of everyone involved with it.

More on that soon.

I started Hyperion by Dan Simmons the other day, which felt kind of typical sci-fi-ish at the very beginning, but grew into something surprising and entertaining a little ways in. It's not as language-oriented as all the other stuff I've been reading lately, which is alright, I think its important to of cleanse your mental reading-palate book by book so you're not careening headfirst through a clusterfuck of language that puts you at risk of burning out your literary fuse. Kind of like how they serve a palate-cleansing dish at fancy dinners. The same thing goes for books.

Finished Infinite Jest a few weeks ago. Damn,

The most rewarding part of Infinite Jest, after a month and a half of working through it, was the moment right after I read the last sentence and I sat and just stared at my fireplace for about half an hour, semi-catatonic with the sensation of having just finished a very long, exciting voyage that had stranded me at an unfamiliar location that was unsettling and astounding at the same time.

I would compare my state of mind after finishing Infinite Jest to the face that Dave from 2001 makes after traveling BEYOND THE INFINITE. (no bad pun intended).

My dad told me something hilarious after watching Inglourious Basterds for the second time. He had watched it on his laptop, with a media player that, unknown to him then, could alter the speed of the video playback. He told me he had loved the ending after the first time he watched it, but the second time, he wasn't as impressed and was confused – because the ending played at its normal speed. As it turned out, he had accidentally set the playback speed to half its normal rate during the climax of the movie. Everything that happened, from the theater scene until the end of the film, happened at half the speed it was meant to happen. The building burned down in slow motion. All character dialogue was completely incomprehensible in its comically monster-like lowness. He said that at the time, he had seriously thought Tarantino had made the ballsy choice to render the entire ending sequence of his film in slow motion. It wasn't until he watched it a second time that he realized he had seen it wrong. Guess which ending he was more blown away by.

He told me he had known, even before the ending had happened, that he would find the finale amazing. The combination of critics talking about the ending, friends and colleagues talking about how great it was, and hell, just the enjoyable buildup of the movie itself, created a scenario: He would not simply enjoy the ending – he would refuse to let himself be disappointed by it. How many times have you read something by an author you're enjoyed before and given him benefit-of-the doubt for doing something that you would mock and criticize any other author for doing? There's really no such thing as uniquely individual taste, because everyone's taste is somehow influenced by outside forces, and while the things we love or hate do partially come from our own inner being, they are also just as much, if not more, influenced by the outside environmental factors that shape our tastes as well as our person in general.

All this made me think pretty intensely about books and movie I had been blown away by, but more importantly, things that I had been told in advance I would be blown away by, where there was maybe some subconscious incentive to be blown away sheerly because of the recommendation. This tends to be a pretty universal issue for anyone - the issue of how much of your taste is really your own individual taste, and how much of it is influenced by cultural tips that have potential to hotwire the way you come to be wowed by something.

This is especially easy to see in the information age, where an infinite sprawl of criticism sites, blogs, and all manner of arts journals have the potential to create tons of micro-niches in which any recommendation will be heeded by its audience as the absolute truth. Look at the latest series of albums that Pitchfork Media is harking as the Best New Music, then look at the Itunes page for each of those albums. If Pitchfork is recommending the most po-thuggin' hip-hop release alongside the whiniest indie-pop album, then iTunes will recommend the two albums alongside each other as if they shared an identical genre, all because a dedicated readership has aligned their own taste with anything Pitchfork recommends. We're all able to relate to this pattern in some way, and pretty much everyone is guilty of liking something largely because we were told to like it, or because we heard that we would like it. That's not to say we're all mindless sheep, we're just people, and in varying degrees, people can be influenced, some easier than others.

Pierre Bourdieu talksa bout all this on this in his essay The Aristocracy of Culture, talking about the role that taste plays in 'cultural capital,' that the discerning sensibility that a person acquires in distinguishing between 'good and bad art' is almost entirely based around environmental factors, and that class and the economic conditions of one's upbringing are perhaps the greatest influential factors on the types of taste a person acquires. The difference between your well-to-do friend making a thoughtful comment on the novel he just read and the maintenance guy telling you about the fine-ass titties he saw in Titanic has very little to do with a person's own personal preference, but rather with the conditions that created that preference.

If you find this interesting, I highly recommend reading the Aristocracy of Culture in its entirety. The translated prose is mighty dense and kind of hard to slog through at times, but it's worth it for the points Bourdieu makes. Hey, maybe you're like me and enjoy the challenge of a good slog.

Getting back to Infinite Jest now. Parts of the book hit me on a particularly personal level because I could relate to the situation of going to the same school that your family ran – my dad was head of the english dept. at my high school. There were a few points where I really connected with Hal because of that. But the fact that I had been born into a family in which this situation existed was completely beyond my control – hence, an outside factor that affected how I related to the work. Not to mention, being born into a family that's inherently prone to literature-devouring was also key to enjoying the book.

The factors that influence how you 'get into' something, how one particular thing piques your interests or how you discover what you enjoy doing, are owed in part to your own actions, temperament, etc. but they are also outside your control in a lot of ways. Has anyone, from childhood, consciously sought out a particular thing that will largely inspire the direction of what you do in life? Have you ever sat down and thought, “I am going find a random catalyst of an event that will unexpectedly inspire me to do things and pursue a thread of life I would be completely ignorant of otherwise?” Sure, you can consciously put yourself in a setting that may affect an aspect of your person, but who knows what completely random turn of events you may be missing by doing that? What bag of money falling from the sky did Thoreau dodge by going to write Walden out in the middle of nowhere?

This probably isn't the most original subject to post about, but hey, it's the information age. I'm also making up for all the posting I haven't been doing lately.

Old Stuff

2009-12-21T18:49:00.000-08:00

As a result of a fun little digital attic-browsing adventure, I found “The Dead Man's Burden”, the first full length short story I ever wrote (after I had first seriously started 'writing stuff.'), and have since been going back over it. There's really not much that's made me cringe so far, since being 17 wasn't really that long ago, and the more uber-adolescent, fantasy-fulfillment type stories I had already written had been expunged via writing fanfiction (Shh, dark secret). Not that I'm in awe of it either, it's still full of the same issues that plague my current fiction writing, but still, reading it has been great fun, and I think I might try to go for the task of giving it a long overdue revision. Wouldn't the 17 year old me - who left junior prom early to finish writing the first draft of it - be proud? No, probably just horny.

At the time of the story's writing, I was still pretty fanatical about my two earliest influences - China Mieville and George R.R. Martin – and I hadn't really read much outside of them. I was more or less balls-to-the-wall set on writing speculative fiction. I had written a few things outside of that story, early chapters of a novel set in the same universe, a few miscellaneous short stories, and an endless volume of notes on the world I wanted to create. Really, it was Mieville and Martin's skill in shaping their own universes that really got me into writing. They weren't worlds that I fantasized about or worlds that I wanted to escape into, they were worlds that were boundless in their imagination but still confined within a very real, comprehensive sort of internal logic. The fact that a person could do something that convincingly with language, and not be confined to making a halfassed Tolkein-ripoff, was what really melted my brain with amazement, and got me into the idea that I might actually want to create the same sort of thing.

Speculative fiction truly rules. It's my old flame, I guess. I'd still like to write that novel I first started someday, if I ever get a grip on world-creation, which is a hell of a skill.

Getting back to the story itself, what's interesting to me is that I've found the same problems in both it and my more recent work. The one universal issue I've been having is fleshing out the characters, making them actual relatable humans instead of bland mechanisms that are just an excuse for the plot to happen. I realize that my thinking process about new stories tends to be more plot oriented, I get more excited about what happens or how to describe what happens, instead of who it happens to.

I'll amend that problem eventually, by jebus.

Guess I'll get to working on it. It's a lot longer than anything I've written recently, around 4200 words or so. The long haul. Bring it.

Learning to learn

2009-12-06T21:59:00.001-08:00

I logged about 6 hours of work today in the library, getting waist-deep into research for a paper about Robert Browning and the emergence of the dramatic monologue, which made for an interesting romp with analysis. While slogging through various academic tomes, a cool point that stuck out to me was this whole notion of personal internal division in monologues – the dramatic monologue is considered to be the first notable example of psychological, character-driven fiction. One scholar wrote about how authors of these monologues created them by taking elements from both lyrical poetry and stage plays. And how the synthesis of these two forms was well suited to expressing characters torn between multiple, contradicting states of mind.

So basically, different modes of creative expression harmonize well in a way that better communicates a sense of disharmony. Headfuck, huh?

When getting genuinely excited about stuff like this, I have a semi-joking fear that I'm somehow selling my soul to a geeky satan who's welcoming me into insular academic hell. When you're young and a veteran of compulsory education, there seems to be a sense of minor shame towards educational enthusiasm. But in wondering on this whole tangent, and about the teachers and professors I've had who've made or broken my educational experience in the past, I find myself thinking about what exactly makes a good teacher, especially when being taught is something that many people are involuntarily taught by routine to dislike.

A good teacher can make you genuinely enjoy something you're used to hating. Maybe the teacher knows how to navigate an assigned essay within the boundaries of your own interests, or put an interesting flare on lecture material, even when the ideas involved seem dull on their own. A good teacher more or less gets you enthused about learning, or tricks you into learning something even if you're resistant to it. Because a truly good teacher realizes that learning is not force-feeding freeze dried ideas for the singular purpose of a grade. Because part of learning is figuring out what kind of things you want to learn, the areas of knowledge that get you excited, and maybe, jokingly questioning whether it's a bad thing to be excited about.

Freshmaker

2009-11-21T14:46:00.001-08:00

A guy screamed
“The whole world's gone chiah
all of it, it's too late
if you spill water on any surface it'll
sprout a green fro of foliage, but
there's no stone animal beneath it, or no
stone head beneath it, the hair thing
won't be implied or funny, it'll just be a plant, fuck.”
The newspaper man grunted while petting his dog
He said “I lived through worse.
When the whole world was Wooly Willy,
When everything was magnetized
and the iron filings stuck to it all
like evil fur. The beard image wasn't funny,
even the few surfaces
with the image of a face on it
lost their novelty.” And the newspaper man
looked down for a second,
his dog was drooling asleep,
with the drool making greens grow
from the sidewalk right there
The guy who yelled at first said,
“Well, there's a pet right there.
And you could technically shave the plant off the sidewalk
and put it on his head or something
and it'd look relevant.
An actual pet
for the chiah.
Hehe.”
Reply: “Don't gimme that shit.”

Some Place Went To

2009-07-25T21:07:00.000-07:00

You can drive this old truck outside.
There are a lot of roads, but not all are paved
And not all are roads.
The door opens like it's exhausted of doing so.
It has a voice, like all the other parts in there.
You can sit in the seat that's the shredded victim of decades
High above what you're used to in your regular car.
You can see out the window past a single windshield wiper
Into a fence, but what more through?

This truck will drive through a field
A field that would normally cut or mist your bare legs
You would normally hear 1000 horny insects in that field
But the truck is old, and the engine is large, and loud
So you only hear the antique roar on the wind.
But those cicadas are still hollering.
And there are probably other things hollering there too.
And maybe someone else is at a distance, and they can hear all that
plus the muffled distance of your truck.
They might think that you're disrupting nature
Or they might think the sounds go nice together, layered.
Or they might think nothing about it at all
Because they're horny themselves, and maybe they're even doing the deed, right then and there, in the middle of a field.
And you may see this from the cab of your truck,
or you may not.

While gears shift inside the truck and make it work.
A person shifts inside the truck and moves with it.
Wind hits the truck, or does the truck hit the wind first?
The truck shifts inside the open air it tramples through smoothly
Not young, but not finished.
And it's days are numbered in miles.

Beast

2009-07-25T14:34:00.001-07:00

This cat's ear flinches with dream
He knows he can claw the quietude
And be mesmerized into a curl of rest
By no sound but the house buzz of air conditioning
Restrained warmth through fans and vents
And restrained light through screens

This cat is old.
When he walks to his food, he walks with a different time signature.
It once was the 4/4 of youth , now limping
punctuated with an extra beat
The same stumble for every destination
Food downstairs, drink upstairs, sleep anywhere.
But this cat can sleep in a picture window
Where some kind of light moves in different places at once
and can flicker with his thoughts
Whatever plunks on the surface from outside is at mind's reach
A hummingbird on the pane doesn't know he's in a phantom chase
with the beast behind glass.
And this cat is still old
But somewhere, he is moving.

Sandra's Magnetism

2009-07-19T19:53:00.000-07:00

Sandra's magnetic orgasm made her piercings stretch in her skin, and
all the metal stuff in the room hurled towards us.
My watch stopped, although I didn't notice it at the time, and her
high school trophies fell off the bookshelf, the lights fluxed,
I think maybe even the iron in my blood
was caught up in it? (X-Men style) Now I know
why she doesn't keep her computer in her room.
After it was over, Sandra said, “That's nothing.
Last time I used a vibrator,
my grandfather with the titanium hip got stuck against the wall, and
my dad's car crashed into the house. It was a huge scene.”

“Well, in that case I'm glad I'm not the Terminator,” I joked.
It seemed pretty clever to me, until she sighed,
“Every guy makes that joke. Or something like it.
It's always,'hasta la vista baby,” or 'pity the guy with the prince albert' or 'magneto would be proud.' (I was actually thinking that one too, damn.) “It was cute the first few times,” she said. “Now it's just like small talk to me.” She sounded dissapointed.
Small talk. How weird it must be for something like that to become a boring old phrase, the proverbial “How was school today?”
“Is that the price you pay for sleeping around a lot?” I asked, immediately feeling bad, it came out a little too harsh.
“I mean, do you regret
that it's commonplace? That telling people
about the magnetism, and the crazy stuff,
is just another detail?” It's strange to me, at least
that it's not not personal for her. Maybe the first time
that she told someone it was personal. Unless it still is?
“It doesn't bother me,” she said, holding my hand and tracing
her fingers over it; the language of dainty friction. “I'm just
used to it.” She bent down. Way down. I fumbled to adjust angles.

She put an ear up against to me
“Your ass sounds like an airport”
Which part?
“The main one.”
Concourse A?
Funny.
Your ass sounds like a washing machine.
Thanks.
It's bigger than one, anyway.
What kind?
Any kind.
Some models are bigger. They're industrial sized, or made for handling particular types of fabric, or they may be a smaller kind suited for small house with one person, or have energy saver preferences.
Ok.
Noise would also factor in. Between the different kinds of machines. So which one does mine sound like?
The main one.
You need to be specific.
You weren't specific with me
You didn't ask me to be. You made the concourse joke and then changed the subject.
Well would you have elaborated?
On what?
On what “the main part” of the airport is so I could know what it sounds like.
Probably.
Cool.
Now what kind of washing machine is my ass?
It's a Whirlpool. 3200 series.
Fuck you.
That's the only model I know by heart.
Fuck you.
What's for breakfast?
Your translucent dick.
It's translucent now?
Yeah. I cut it off and replaced it with an x-ray fish while you were sleeping.
Wow.
Have fun with it.
I will. I was always kind of curious what that'd be like.
Glad I could help.
How do we have sex now, though?
We don't.
We don't?
That's kind of the point.
I can make money in a freakshow this way.
Yeah you can.
I'm going to.
Get on out there.
I am.
Good night.
.

2009-07-13T16:07:00.001-07:00

I can pee out of my eyes.

dHarMa

2009-07-03T19:42:00.001-07:00

Slam it on son with you beerslopped appeal
Coppin' the senses for cravin' a feel
Icewicket Baby, bodacious tangle
I too once crooned for the hairy dangle

Ten-Assed Summer

2009-07-03T07:15:00.000-07:00

when I was a young'n not yet growed
I had lemonade in my veins err'vy summer
I hadda vortex gullet like a cockpine barber handle
old sludge tits here
took 'em into the dusty mason jar, behind a nostalgia log
burly treesap crustin' gramma
stumbling out from behind the pollenated trellis
arms like windsocks, the flab tethered love worms
“It smells like honeysuckle here,” she crooned
wheezerasped with laughter
a half eaten toblerone sticking out of a shirt pocket
oh shit, diatoms
----
Tenacity, n: The state of possessing ten asses.

Beerthought

2009-06-22T06:26:00.001-07:00

Forced compound words involving 'beer' have been amusing to me lately.

Beerscum
Beersmut
Beerdangle
Beergasm
etc.

It seems like fusing the word 'beer' to the beginning of a dirty or potentially raunchy word enhances the raunch factor considerably. I think it has good potential for a drunken stream o' consciousness scene.

Maybe? Maybe?

Ah well, drunken stream o' consciousness has probably been done about 99999 times already.

I've been keeping up with that big ol' Lamination Colony contest, and I must say, the winning piece is pretty rockin'. I'll be looking forward to seeing the rest of the entries, as well as more of Mr. Alter's fresh-ass prose. Congrats to all. I probably should have entered that.

I'm watching one of those game shows right now where they pit one team against the other, and the teams represent two distinct social groups. (You know, like, accountants versus gymnasts, or something.) They need to get more absurd with the topics. Something like. “Chronic Masturbators vs. The French.”

Fuck, dude, I've been assaulted by the Transformers II trailer many times today. I don't want to get desensitized to hyperbolic robot rupturing yet.

I forgot how to write a worthwhile blog post.

Fuck the Cop

2009-06-21T19:47:00.001-07:00

I remember one time in third grade I was talking to this kid on the playground about video games. During the conversation, he started telling me about a game he wanted to make some day, entitled "Bloody Shit." The premise of Bloody Shit was that the main character was a cop whose parents neglected him as a child, so much to the point that they didn't name him and allowed him to choose his own name when he was old enough. He named himself Fuck. I don't remember what else the game was about. The kid later grew up to become a redneck, which is weird, because he was pretty unsouthern growing up, and he was reared by staunchly unsouthern parents. Can cultural osmosis be that extreme?

The memory of Bloody Shit and its respective protagonist have gotten me thinking on a tangent: is there a yet unexplored way to use profanity experimentally in writing? Sure, the first person narrator can say "It was fuckin' crazy man," but what about a third person voice? No, I'm being serious. Could one effectively use phrases like "A storm had washed through I-75, and the sky was fucking dark." in the third person? I feel like there is a way in which it could be pulled off, the content would have to fit the voice though, somehow, so it wouldn't just be an interesting but unnecessary detail.

I started writing something this weekend that experiments in this department a little bit, although not with third person. It's a first person narration of a summer cookout, but all the characters' first names are swear words, the narrator is a guy who is pathologically uninvolved and hyperobservant of all social interraction, which ain't all that original. (Doesn't every writer feel they wear the orifice-like badge of social displacement/isolation?) But it's fun. I haven't laughed so hard working on a story since middle school, so who cares, maybe this piece is just for my leisure. Maybe not. Regardless, I hope the damn exploration of profanity in fiction turns out to be fucking worthwhile in some way.

What if I was remembered by that? Famously. "He's the guy who uses swear words in the third person." aw shiiiiiiiiit.

2009-06-14T12:59:00.000-07:00

TVOTR/GB at the Tabernacle was sufficiently badass. Grizzly Bear is one of the busiest bands I've ever seen on stage, holy shit, the vocal harmonies and the instrumental multitasking was incredible.

There was also a Taylor Swift concert down the road at The Fox, and the polarity between the different types of fans was awesome. I was craving a gang-war between the polo-and-cowboy-boots UGA soristitutes and the skinny-jeans-and-flannel indietards, but I settled for the mutually awkward stares that communicated, from both demographics, “I'm the one with taste.”

Kyp Malone's hair/beard is the stuff of legend:

Vandertron

2009-05-25T15:26:00.000-07:00

I'm going to partially rescind the Vander-Bash I had in the last post, because after finishing the book, I realize he does have some strengths in his storytelling ability. However, I still have a problem with his language, as in pretty much every sentence, he's goes just far enough over the line between eloquent and flowery to where it cements his mediocrity as a writer: if he just pruned his metaphors a little bit, his stuff would be much more tolerable. And while the faux-academic pieces like A Brief History of Ambergris are fun and entertaining (not to mention, suited to his voice,) they get kinda old after a while, I think you have to be a hardcore fan of the VanderMeer universe to really appreciate them.

BUT. But but but. He's damn good at establishing mood, I'll give him that. And he seems to favor protagonists that are one or both of the following: a) arrogant as hell, or, b) insecure and uncertain. (in terms of personality, the two pretty much go together). So, since he's good at writing that character, he's also very good at establishing dread, anxiety and paranoia on a really self-directed, personal level. This is most apparent in 'The Cage,' a story in which an enterprising merchant gets devoured by fungus (pretty sweet imagery too).

Since CoSM is the only book I've read by VanderMeer, I don't really know whether his favoring of the above mentioned elements reflects any limited singularity for him as a writer, but I think this combination of moods/characters says something greater about the city he's created in the work (a bustling, westernized metropolis whose original native inhabitants were historically killed off by its current residents), in that the selfish, arrogant character reflects the conquistador persona, while the guilt, insecurity, and fucked up situations that his characters end up in reflect some kind of karmatic justice, or at least on a personal level, the collective guilt of a nation that's killed off a people it didn't fully understand, while at the same time, pompously embracing its own history.

Maybe I'm just fulla shit. In other news, summer is looking pretty fine this year:

This was at the Nine Inch Nails/Jane's Addiction concert a few weeks ago, which was spectacular. There was actually a pretty varied age group, as opposed to when I saw them in August, which was brimming with the young'uns, and the most extreme minority of light-haired people I have ever seen in the south.

I hope you're all memorializing well.

hueg @zz

2009-05-23T19:55:00.000-07:00

Seeing TVOTR and Grizzly Bear next month, which I'm immensely stoked about. I've really been enjoying TVOTR's earlier stuff, where you can hear their sound still in the experimental, embryonic phases of what would later morph into face-melting awesomeness on Return to Cookie Mountain. I think what I like the most is how they use the sustained guitar/strings/sample stuff to kind of emulate the tonalities of heavy machinery – the instant in which the ambient drone of a dishwasher or a car on the highway reveals its noiseless, completely musical potential.

But right now I'm listening to Tom Waits. It's a Tom Waits kind of evening.

Today, I kept trying to write and getting stuck, I had to angrily type the phrase WHERE DA FLAVA at least 10 times before anything started flowing.

I'm angry that I trusted the reccomendation of reading Jeff VanderMeer, goddamn, what a verbose bastard. I don't mind complex-ass writing as long as you know how to do it (e.g., Mieville), but with Vandermeer it's just so damn self-concsious and full of itself, maybe suited to another time period, but just as hard to enjoy either way. I think the problem VanderMeer has is that he likes the sound of his own voice too much, you can look at pretty much any passage in City of Saints and Madmen and think, “Wow, this must have been a lot of fun for HIM to WRITE.” And really, his setting doesn't make up for it. Ambergris doesn't feel fleshed out or original, it just feels like London with a lot of Squid and Mushrooms. Maybe I'm being harsh, but I'll need a good purge book for when I'm done with CoSM.

B&N sucks now. I never see anyone I know there any more. I walk around and think about all the book titles I wish I could see on display. Not real ones. I hope someone writes a memoir one day called “Prom Was Balls.”

I ain't too enthused to be writin' right now.

'night

"Anger is a precious gift not to be squandered on assholes."

2009-04-26T20:00:00.000-07:00

So says my dad, with whom I talked with for a while on the phone today. It was the first real fulfilling phone conversation with the 'folks in a while, I think that's due to the fact that the stress is starting to recede or get more manageable. The downside is I haven't been able to write much outside of class, but the things I've been required to write have been pretty enjoyable lately.

I was up at 9 on Saturday, which most certainly breaks some kind of college law of physics. Friday night was the first night I didn't out in a while, and damn it was refreshing. I got a big chunk of work done on one of my final projects and managed to enjoy myself in the process, I really hope that by the time I go back home I'll be sick of socializing so that the lack of things to do in Georgia will seem peaceful, not like a burden.

Now that old man winter is getting his ass out of the door, it's easier to look outside and feel introspective in a way that isn't depressing. Yesterday I rode the bus to the mall with Kenton and Jeff, and I did a lot of city watching – I forgot what cities look like when they're sunny and thawed out. I imagine the south this summer will be a pleasant change for a few weeks and then I'll go back to hating the scorch, but whatever. I sat out on the quad yesterday while it was sunny and got a little toasted by the sun. In Syracuse, you say? It's more likely than you think.

The last couple of weeks have been filled with a lot of generic college debauchery, resulting in a lot of babysitting drunk friends, amongst other things.. (I accidentally used the phrase 'going out with a bang socially' on the phone with my mom the other day and when she responded, I could hear the eternal maternal worry jittering beneath her laughter.) I think that candid facebook photos will be the downfall of our generation, I can't wait to see what our grandkids will think of our disregard for discretion, and I also wonder what stupid things they'll do to top it. Fuckups in space? The apocalypse?

Whatever they do, I hope I'm alive to blog about it.

Enjoy the season.

Optimisery

2009-03-31T01:05:00.000-07:00

Today, I talked with my adviser about getting the hell out of the Communications and Rhetorical Studies department, to which he responded, "So you couldn't find a home here?" I appreciated the joke, but at the same time it made me a little depressed, maybe because he said it in his perpetually saddened eastern-European "sounds-like-a-refugee" accent, and he had some solemn classical music playing in his office the whole time.

I want to try to write something based on that scene at some point, and frame it with the same emotions: 90% funny and 10% partially sad, with the 10% sadness causing you to question whether you need to lighten up and be less sensitive or if the sadness is genuinely warranted. Is that too personal? I sure hope so.

All pseudo-sadness aside, I'm fleeing CRS and never looking back, that's final. It wasn't a particularly bad experience, but I'm pretty sure it's not for me. July will tell whether I'm going to be in Television/Radio/Film or English for the rest of my undergraduate career, I think regardless of what happens I'll find some kind of enjoyment in doing something.

April is national "school kills your existence" month, but if I navigate successfully through the hellmonth I'll have the excitement of a new China Mieville book to look forward to in May, which better be good. I expect something totally awesome from the writer who made me take writing seriously in the first place.

I'm continuing to work on the airport piece, the direction of which is kind of nebulous and unclear right now. Still, it's good to have something to work on consistently, even if it isn't really about anything. I'll find something worthwhile to extract from the drabble, by god.

Also, started a new thing this weekend which I'm somewhat stoked about, tentatively titled Dad's Rage Box. It's my attempt at screwing with form in a way I haven't before, which is challening and loads o' fun. More updates on that once it materializes.

Sleepin' now.

Spring?

2009-03-18T17:57:00.000-07:00

I met another person today who has the same writing instructor as I do and harbors the same feelings of ultrarage about her airheaded midwestern-soccer mom demeanor, I'm hoping I could eventually organize enough people to launch a formal complaint against the school's writing program and its respective worthlessness.

I lamented to my mother about this several times. She told me not to be too hard on the course, because she teaches the same stuff and knows how students tend to approach the tedium of such required classes. Then I told her that the instructor required us to write a full 10 page draft of an essay without a thesis, and achieved maximum persuasion.

It's weird that I look back on having my dad as an English teacher as a sort of academic golden age, it's also weird that my final research project in that class was about a writer whose books are largely concerned with golden ages and the characters who experience their aftermath.

Oh damn, I suddenly love my Rhetoric class, though. It's the only class I have where the papers are graded on your ability to make a good argument and not on your ability to regurgitate the fact-rodents that were puked into your gullet by the institutional mamabird.

I think my sudden love for intensely biological metaphors (like the one above) are a side-effect of reading Lara Glenum's poetry, which is one of my favorite things right now.

The Intergroup Dialogue class continues to speed along at maximum tedium, but it's given me some creative ideas. I'm going to write a parody of some of the readings they've been giving us, amongst other things.

I'm trying fiction again after a long poetry-filled break from it, I'm also trying to re-enforce my fiction voice with some of the syntactical learnings I picked up from writing/reading an assload of poetry. It's hard. I feel like I'm having trouble “breathing life” into my fiction, I always think it sounds empty and bland, and that there's no intrigue or anything to support it.

Here's an excerpt from a little something-something that I started in the airport as I was flying home for spring break:

I needed to climb out of my seat, but my co-passenger was still slumbering. We were the last ones on the plane, so I figured I should wake him up. I said, “Hey,” then shook his shoulder a little. Then I raised my voice.

“Did we pass it already?” he said.

“Did we pass what?”

“The landscape,” he said. I couldn't tell whether his tone was serious or not.

“Yep,” I said. “It's pretty much all behind us now.” I inner-cringed at my own pun, but he didn't make any sneers, mental or otherwise.

“Fuck!” he said. Several flight attendants looked over at us. “Fuck!” He actually yelled this time. The loudness was scary but somehow refreshing.

“What, were you eager to see it or something?”

“I had to see it,” he yelled, turning red and giving off some fresh dectectable agitation. “There's a fuckin', fuck, see, you can see the outline of a neighborhood on the ground from this flight route that looks like a cock. I was supposed to get a picture of it. I'm a photographer. Fuck. Magazine photography.”

“I saw it!” I said, my words came out too excitedly for me not to hate myself for sounding that way. “I remember specifically when we flew over it.”

“Shit! Why didn't you wake me up?”

“I didn't know it was so important to you! How many random strangers would take kindly to me saying, 'Hey, that neighborhood down their kind of looks like the outline of a dick, doesn't it?' How was I supposed to know?” My response was probably over-explained and it was. But it seemed important to talk longer so not to appear meek.

He paused, then unbuckled his seatbelt. “You should've assumed it anyway.” He promptly got up and grabbed his bags.On the side of one bag, a sticker read “PROPERTY OF THE UNIVERSE: Scorch Magazine” At that time I wished I had owned a cigarette lighter and that he had grown a beard so I could have set it on fire. His walk down the aisle was brief and I could taste the arrogance, and I imagined the least decrepit flight attendants in the fuselage assaulting him and tackling him to the floor like so many women had probably done to him in their minds.

And other ways to Waltkellify language

2009-03-12T11:46:00.000-07:00

I think that the "coming-of-age" subject needs to be treated more absurdly. My favorite coming of age story that I've seen so far is a 6-episode anime series called FLCL, which most people don't really look at seriously because of how bizarre it is. It's a short but pretty thorough exploration of the tectonic shifts of puberty, covering all the classic topics such as sex, parental alienation, and the sudden impending pressures of adult life. The story itself is fairly cool on its own, even without the adolescent overtones, but the show's unusually hyperactive way of describing action/interaction tends to get defaulted to the category of being "on drugs," which is dissapointing. I wish more people would realize that while narcotics can be a source of creativity, they are not THE source of ALL creativity. (this problem will get an entire post/rant dedicated to it sometime later on.)

I've been thinking about making up my own personal vocabulary lately, y'know, just little everyday terms that can be used for everyday things. For example, winter coats tend to have dark colors for the most part, so they're somewhat solemn. A pile of winter coats could be called, a "solemnheap." However, if someone had a bright, vibrantly yellow winter coat, and they threw it on the pile, you could say, "Someone canaried the solemnheap."

etc.

Here's the 1st draft of a poem I started last night, which got me started on the whole coming-of-age train o' thought:

The new aging is a young, flimsy mountain
plugging the earth's hot hernia, to stifle but not
stop completely, something overtly inevitable, a boy's
testosterone-laden granitic magma, ready to make a hellacious
stew of the whole deal.

The town below is doomed docile, living out a tropical finity:
the ground shakes but they are still in their beach clothes, tossing balls that will eventually deflate, cooking steaks that'll decay creatively in their stomachs. As the fresh earth pops with
ash and gas, bleeding its future self into the habitus, the creeping
gummy heat is still hypnotic, and they stand outside, unable not to be in awe of it even as their
dream homes sink into a flaming bolus of the earth.

On some summers, after the rock is solid enough to have eroded,
you can still smell the old young rock
blowing on in from the crevices where a remainder
was left to be savored smoldering.
The former town residents are exiles/fossils, now still furnishing their follicles
for more obliged destructions.

Potentiality Batter

2009-03-04T23:24:00.000-08:00

Leafy Lad looks over, finds
a pamphlet on a coffee table,
labeled “Profound Inspiration”
The first page reads: “The road
to roadliness is self-persevering,
paved with self perseverance in
its most solid form!”
The next page reads:
“Girl, you know Imma gon'
do all kindsa nasty things 2ya
once I get outta dis jail” (learn
to profit from this), a footnote reads.
the next pages aren't real, the back
cover isn't of much help either,
it's just covered with ad copy
for the Jet Fuel IceCream diet.
Noticing the clamminess of the paper
L. Lad tries to shake his hands of the thing,
only to find fins on the end of his arms. Seven months
later, after the surgery, L. Lad asks if he will still
be able to type. The IV stand bends over and adjusts its
bow tie, says: “DON'T TRY TO TRICK ME WITH THAT GOD DAMN
'I COULDN'T BEFORE' PIANO-WHATEVER FUCK JOKE, YOU
MONGOLOID.” Panting, it laughs, damn uncomfortably,
then rephrases: “Haha, just kidding. But seriously, please
don't make that joke, I've heard it like, 50 times today.”

March done started real good like

2009-03-01T17:46:00.000-08:00

It actually did, though. Today was my first real productive day in a long time, and it was productive on both fronts (creative and obligatory.) I think I'll survive this semester, even after the annual February decline in academic success (I used to fight it, now I welcome it with open arms in the hopes that it'll get out of my house faster.)

Friday I fly home, which'll be a funfest. Family, friends, freedom, etc. Possibly some extended Atlanta-related excursions. Oh, and warm weather, which I have a newfound appreciation for.

Talking about the weather at Syracuse is so universal that I think it might be enforced by some secret brainwave device; I think people who don't talk about the weather enough have to "withdraw" or "go back home." I can't tell you the number of conversations I've had that begin, "It's so cold right now." The weather is a massive small-talk resevoir that everyone dips into way too much.

Top College Smalltalk Topics
1. Weather
2. Grades
3. Stress
4. Class
5. What you did this weekend

I realize that bitching about smalltalk is so commonplace that it rivals smalltalk itself, still, I think it's necessary if we are to ultimately reform it. The hell am I talking about?

Oh well. Back to dat homework.

Industrial Litgriculture

2009-02-24T18:16:00.000-08:00

Syracuse's required academic writing classes are like the USDA of writing: all they care about is form, not content. Much like the department of agriculture doesn't give a damn about how your meat looks and tastes as long as you irradiate/freeze the fuck out of it, so also does the Writing Program not care how bland your essays are as long as you adhere to their unnecessarily byzantine structure of how the "creative" process should go.

USDA policies are tailored to the messy mass production that produces our food. A big university isn't too different from a factory, come to think of it.

I'd petition SU's ass for a redress of grievances, but there ain't no time for that.

aorta gitton upf thurr

2009-02-22T19:24:00.000-08:00

mm hmm oh that's great
suckle more pitas
suckle as much as it permits
oh and yes I am fond of quite yes fond of that
m yes you should mm I know how that is
hmm I wonder oh yes is yes that's good
yeah I am oh sorry meant to say yes
oh revamping is a must oh yes it is oh yes it is
goodness yes it shall would be must yes oh great

GAVE ME A CHANCE TO REFEEL SOCIERTY
GURVE ME A GOOD GOLLY DONE GOOD GANDER ATT'ER
DONE DURLVED INTO DEM DIRTY POORZ WIF FRESH'NIN PRODUCT
PURT HER ON A REEL PERT PERK FOR 'PEARANCES

mentalrectal

2009-02-22T19:10:00.000-08:00

OH BOY
COMPOPOONDS
BULBOUS BUMBLING BASTARDS ROLLING ON LARDLACED WHEELS
OVER GREEN EARTHLUMPS WITH TIRE TRACK SCARS
THE AIR REEKIN' OF YESTERYEAR'S METEOROLOGY
THE AIR CONVULSING WITH LANGUAGE FROM THE WORLD'S LUNGS

MEANWHILE, A VULVA SHAPED LAKE UNDER THE GROUND INFESTED WITH COOTS
RED EYES ALL LEERING AND SHITTING THE SAME NEUROSIS
OBSERVED FROM A STONY CORNER OF THE INHABITUS
A FROZEN BOY UNABLE TO WRESTLE THE FEAR FROM HIS SLEEP
THE TIDAL THUD SURGING BETWEEN THE EARS
THE TIDAL THUD SURGING BETWEEN THE EARS

boy's etiquette kit

2009-02-17T21:24:00.000-08:00

One day, while walking into the dining
hall I'll bypass the trays and civilization-prongs and
go straight for the vats of the gloppiest shit and just grab it
with my hands and carry it back to the table, on the way
there I'll stick my head under the soda fountain and my mouth'll
look like Old Glory with all the fizz and shit overflowing, then back at the table I'll just slam the shit down it'll splatter I'll be like, “what”

turbululence

2009-02-12T22:52:00.000-08:00

I had to the had for five
when eight twelve poppin' lads were white
I had to drink twelvingtimes for the foreigner
when I ate twelve, three returned
I re-mused on the subjectivater
when eight minds crinkling in the snow
snowfrun for the fun hypo-gun
twelve of us eight with the flow/

likeness to the fifteenth numbers of seats
I oranged on her came hair
twelve of us were forresting the red faucet
I nine'd the niner and five'd the friendermolester
but no one had to be overt with the recievery
I spat spitters for spitting at myself
when I whited' eighty he spankied the forfirifter
I forfeited most of our gods
I ate twelve of yours
when when thanksed I grindered with the meatgirldance
hatie was fun that worldnight.

Cig Break

2009-02-01T12:15:00.000-08:00

In a juicy haze of summer, they
returned again. Sipping their pity-funded brews and
stumbling to the chords for “Don't Stop Believin'.” “We
are the music makers,” they spurted. “No you're not,
you're just a couple of noisy assholes. Now get
the fuck out, you're scaring the customers.” Jasper's fans
were more overweight and twelve years old than usual.
They scattered or loitered less obviously. Billy's brother bummed
a bourbon offa Big Bass. They smoked and talked about
self improvement regimens for the new year. A wheezy laugh
and an fun ol' painful slap on the back, the aggressive friendship
of a fuckup. “But hypocrisy is a survival skill, actually!” I reckoned.

Alpha Mailman

2009-01-29T08:50:00.000-08:00

Todd's great. At Chile's
last night, Todd and his girlfriend Sarah -
she's great too – filter fed compliments. He ejaculated
wit on the waitress. He dropped anvils on us. We snickered like
we were comfortable. He grabbed more handfuls of
the conversation and put some more margaritas in him.
Later, I thanked him for the evening. He swerved off the road
and made it a great story. He intimidated his boss
and made it a great story. Tomorrow he's going to
take his mom out to Waffle House for breakfast. He's
going to sit with her at the best booth and give the
stink eye to those suspicious Mexicans at the bar.

Agxshley

2009-01-27T08:24:00.000-08:00

Vegan godess is a veguss

I want to throw her Whole Foods shopping cart to the ground
and make love to the hummus. I know she'll
eat it off disdainfully.
I get off on the thought of her trying to rationalize it.
DON'T WASTE FOOD
THE AVERAGE AMERICAN WASTES A POUND OF FOOD A DAY
I throw dead cows into the dumpster
It's starting
I go to the nearest Jimbo's, buy all the pasta I can carry, and
dump it all into the hot springs
Nature's orifice froths culinarily
I dump tomatoes in and whatever else is red and familiar enough in
I bathe in it until the smell gets to be an acquaintance

She would approve
I hotwire her lie lifestyle.
I defuse her reluctance
she cries because I am successful at it
But she cries her tears into a brita filter
Later I'll lick the salt off.
Later I'll fill her sustainable living room with lard froth and hamburger dolls

Grow right or don't grow at all.
Do you ever partake in survival sentiment?
I want to vomit like a real living mammal.
I want to burn her tofu effigies.

Thoughts While Birdwatching

2008-01-22T19:39:00.000-08:00

Red-winged blackbird
How do you fair?
With green-eyed envy
or black-eyed susan?
The spring is a coming
and you'll soon be choosin'

Old black vulture
swarms in the eve
Not blind like the turkey
but they perch like brothers
whilst filching the carrion
off of each other.

Great blue heron
Are you so high?
stalking the reeds
for a prey lies in wait
for your majesty's neck curve
and first lady's gait.

American Coot
as you swim by our van
the children are cold
for the wind's below twenty
your plumage is pretty
but your kind is a-plenty

O great bald eagle
all over the sky
you're not such a diamond
more common than not
but a herd of young ducklings
is bound to get caught.

Blue-grey puffball
Hops on a twig
Watchers admire
and the cold dawn is breezin'
Winter will starve you
for the gnats are a freezin'

American Bittern
is one with the grass.
O. Kinney wants pictures
but nature is shy
it feareth the filmstrip
but not watchful eyes.

Japantardation

2007-12-02T20:01:00.000-08:00

The start of a short story set in the not to distant future, concerning a district of Atlanta where people pay to pretend they're Japanese. Protagonist is an actual, Japanese person who gets paid to sit in a restaurant and attract customers with his asianness. The story was inspired by reading Neuromancer and watching Tokyo Drift in the same weekend.

2007-11-08T16:13:00.000-08:00

Shit's fuckin' scary
I shat fuckin' bricks
Shit's fuckin' scary
This shit makes me sick

Something I heard in a dream

2007-11-06T19:34:00.001-08:00

When He met she
Upon She meeting he
he proposed to the Devil
and the devil replied,
"Do not be late!"
"Caution awaits!"

Something I heard in a dream

2007-11-06T19:34:00.000-08:00

When He met she
Upon She meeting he
he proposed to the Devil
and the devil replied,
"Do not be late!"
"Caution awaits!"

Cockroach Villanelle

2007-11-06T11:50:00.000-08:00

I lay on my back, flicking my head
You kicked me aside on your way up the stair
Hey man, I'm trying to be dead

Once, your girlfriend found me in your bed
She screamed bloody murder and washed her hair
I lay on my back, flicking my head

You could have squashed me, but I sit here instead
for three days now, flailing my legs in the air
Hey man, I'm trying to be dead

I'll still be here when you humans are dead
After you've poisoned the last clean air
I lay on my back, flicking my head.

You went to the kitchen to get some bread
And kicked me again, way over there
I lay on my back, flicking my head
Hey man, I'm trying to be dead.

2007-11-04T09:56:00.000-08:00

Redo

2007-11-03T18:20:00.000-07:00

The yearning
for a do-over,
the need to repeat things
the right way
is not nearly as entertaining
as the want
to do it again
even wronger than before

Saying the right words
can't compare to the immediate
satisfaction
of the wrong actions
if I've already screwed up in the past
who's to keep my correction
from going all out with it?

I see the face of my interviewer
not entirely recallable, but distinctly describable
Shrunk
Dolled
Icy
Blonde
Indifferent

I see the face of my interviewer
upset from her routine, as the day would have it
To busy to get a line of coke off the toilet seats

Letter

2007-10-30T13:24:00.000-07:00

Karl

Sheila should have given this to you. If she didn't, and you just now found this after salvaging my pawnable belongings from the house, fire her. We couldn't afford a housekeeper when you were growing up, and that was even before we couldn't afford the healthcare that kept me dangling these past few days (months?)
Where was my wisdom, Karl? Where is it now? I can't say anything profound or wise about death, about whether or not I fear it, about riding the decline to incapacitation. I realize that my error in being unable to do this in my last days is the error I have made throughout my entire life. Was I not just the tunnel, arched and idle as the train of life rushed beneath me, never looking or responding except to support myself and the necessities of life above? Probably. What didn't I share with you? I shared little wisdom with you. That is because I had little wisdom to share. When you get (got) to be my age, the most inane statements can come off to some people as your own unique brand of wisdom. Perhaps you got that from someone else. Perhaps you got it from me? I never felt as though I had any to offer, even when masking what would be an ordinary statement (or understatement) as 'wisdom'. I would have been wiser for you, Karl, if I could go back, encounter several more decades that I could safely make up my mind about. But what then? Would my wisdom have the same effect on you? I'll never know what you really gleaned from my old age. When you were reading me "The Devil's Dictionary" some time ago, I began writing my own definitions, things that I'm sure Bierce would have put in (and said better). But I came up with my own for aging. Aging: The process of exchanging appearance and vigor for wisdom. I never fulfilled my own definition. Or I did. Nevertheless, I'd go back and fix it anyway, for your sake, and I hope you understand that it would be purely for your sake and not for mine.

Do you remember that day, one of your high school spring breaks, when you, your brother and I went to the park? You said, somewhat critically, that 'this will be a day to remember when the apocalypse happens' I've remembered that day ever since, and more for your words than for the scenery, or the way the sun streaked the fog rising off the lake. I don't (didn't) fully disagree with what you said, the world didn't end (in my lifetime, anyway, no guarentees!) But I thought about the apocalypse not in terms of the world, but in terms of myself? Perhaps that is selfish. What I mean is, it is a day to savor for your own personal apocalypse. But if I remember it for what you said, and you said that for remembering something else (the pretty day), then am I remembering the wisdom that you gave to me? Or was it wise of me to take your comment (possibly forgotten by you by now) and look at it in that objective sense that made it stand out in my imagination as wisdom? Am I losing you? The mind wobbles.

2007-10-24T18:44:00.000-07:00

The next line is about penguins
They're flightless birds
and the next one's about cars
don't get run over by one
I'm not sure what the next line's about
because aoawifh[q308fhq[938fhq3
but the one thing I would really hate
would be if my grandmother died
and I ended the statement
with dramatic ellipsis
...

fuck

Caveman Love Lament

2007-10-22T19:30:00.000-07:00

she a one who don't do right
me a fool think she alright
she no like to think of me
me try hard to make her me

me make tools for she have home
she take all leave me alone
me no like her go away
me try get her anyway

me try yelling in the din
me make clothes from leopard skin
she no care what I do most
she go sunbathe on the coast

she say see me later then
she run off with hunting men
she come back three day or more
she no get the meat from boar

me watch she no see a lot
she stay home and eat a lot
me like party, me go wild
she like party, she have child

she no nice to look at now
me no like to want her now
me no like her do her deeds
me have life now, she have breed

2007-10-16T06:38:00.000-07:00

The sing

Her step

has

Turned to

drawl

--------

The wing

her step

has

Turned to

crawl

----

I shit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all opressions and shame

It's 2 AM. Do you know where your muse is?

2007-09-29T22:59:00.000-07:00

I am made of sticks of wheat
My ass is made of grain
I fell upon the cookie sheet
with poultry in my brain.

The cuckoo bird was half past X
The dancing in the streets
was hailed by subtle genuflects
and draped with merry meat

In time the fickle mind did cede
without a friend or bone
So nuns shall now forever breed
My name is Al Capone.

Pictures

2007-09-24T20:06:00.000-07:00

More sleepthoughts

2007-09-16T14:57:00.000-07:00

I fell asleep while reading Portait of the Artist and I dreamt that I was writing a country song about James Joyce. Here's the two lines I remember:

"He came in last in the 5k race
cause he was too busy staring at mother nature's face"

I think the title of the song was "young aesthetician"

2007-09-12T19:12:00.000-07:00

Enjoy the view
she said, she said

that beach down there
is the air ahead

where this condo home
is a spider web

you can watch the tide
but you can also dread