I'm seeing a girl in Little Rock. I met her because she's in a play with my littlest sister, Julia. I asked her to dinner and its been really intense every day since. She's so pretty and sweet, and we believe the same things mostly which is really significant to me. She's more simple than I am, and I don't mean that in a dismissive or condescending way, I admire it a lot. We couldn't be more different in a lot of ways; she is so southern, has probably never heard a quarter of the music that I love, she was a cheerleader in high school and I was punk, she was in a sorority and stuff, I've toured around the country in creepy vans and slept in cat piss soaked squats. Maybe that's not getting the point across, I'm just trying to say that to me its an unlikely pairing of people. There are a lot of mixed emotions involved because neither of us wants to do a long distance thing. I really want to go back to Seattle, she really wants me to stay. Plus she's moving to Manhattan in July to do more theatre.

I have only known her for a week, but its complicating my plans a lot. I have a ticket back to Seattle for Jan 6th. I could delay the flight to a later date, and then what? She would just end up in New York before either of us know it. I don't want it to just fizzle out, I seriously don't like anyone ever and this is special to me. I feel differently about it a bunch of times every day. What should I do? I just can't say...

Smog

I think I relate to the lyrics of this song more than anything I've heard in the last, say, 5 years. There is a steady rain outside, I hear it against the windows when the wind picks up. I hear our drainpipes gurgling. Autumn leaves are almost all gone. I just turned out all the lights, and Lucy is snoring at my feet. My jacket smells like smoke from the fireplace. Posting in the hopes that this will jog my memory, this specific one, some day in the distant future



Winter weather is not my soul

But the biding for spring...

Why's everybody lookin' at me

Like there's something fundamentally wrong?

Like I'm a Southern bird

That stayed North too long.

Winter exposes the nest

And I'm gone.

Alanis Morrisette's album, Jagged Little Pill, is so incredibly good. It was the first pop album I bought with my own money. I still think about those songs almost daily. I was sort of in love with her as an 11 year old, her and Gwen Stefani. I should make a post about Tragic Kingdom, but I digress...

1995 was a big year for me, we got cable and I watched MTV obsessively, back when all they played was music videos (besides Beavis and Butthead, The State, The Real World and The Max). Pretty much everything on MTV in that era was amazing. 120 minutes, headbangers ball, even Yo! Mtv Raps. No, ESPECIALLY Yo! Mtv Raps.

The music video for Ironic is one of my all time Fav's, it takes me to a really happy place. Here is the link to the official video, I can't embed it, thanks WMG!


The song itself is so well written, and the vocals have a strong Cocteu Twins vibe on the "Life has a funny way" bridge. The lyrics are dumb, whatever, I don't care about lyrics though.



Here is a Weird Al spoof which is made up of about 3/4 the original video. I was obsessed with Weird Al from age 9 to 17. If I'm ever famous or rich I really want to hang out with him.

You don't have to be a baby to cry

My friend Eric just broke me off, I can't say how much I enjoy this song.



It's so cold today! I walked to Fremont, had the most unpleasant time with the wind and my runny nose, its a miracle I ever leave the house at all these days. My big thing recently is listening to audio books while I walk. Right now it is The Once And Future King by T.H. White, an all time favorite of mine. I think I have never related to a character more than I did to Lancelot as a kid. Of course I wasn't freakishly strong or handsome, but the whole self loathing, unloved, fatal flaw thing was something I could understand, even in my pre-pubescent state. I dream of one day finding love, but like Lancelot I think its always going to be the bad kind, I just don't like hardly anyone. People that like me are generally suspicious/absurd or genius. People who don't are either idiots or immensely attractive. At least I haven't knocked anyone up like he did, or slept with a married woman.

2 days until I go home. I'm basically killing time until then. I really have only a handful of friends. I know these things go in cycles, its low tide though and I'm a little bit frightened. One day you pull your mind out of that all pervading self obsession and realize everyone else has moved on while you're still childish and alone as ever.

I will end on my favorite recent phrase that I listened to (read?) today on my walk. "seraphic smile". That is all.

If this doesn't give you goosebumps, you're just dead.

2 things

I've come to post two things. The first thing is that I went to sleep at midnight and woke up at 6:30 a.m. the past two nights, and I feel so much better than I usually do. I've talked with Danielle about starting a sleep log, maybe this is the beginning of that. To the handful of people that have somehow chanced up upon this "blog", I'm sorry, it doesn't get more inane than this.

The second thing is that I love country music, and I really wish I were back in Dixie. In one week from today I will be back home, I am just trying to fast forward each day until then. I wish I could ride my old horse, Blue. He was a good boy, we had some really good times. I miss the way he would meet me at the gate every day, the way he smelled, the way it felt when he ate carrots and sugar out of my hand.

Sub point to my second thing:
This song made me cry today. I am a little emotional this morning and I guess it just set me over the edge, but the sentiment is so powerful and relevant for me and for all of us. Who's gonna fill their shoes? Who today can tear my heart out when they sing? Who today has a direct tie (not imagined like a lot of terrific and mediocre artists i.e. the white stripes, the sadies, all the saddle creek junk, Ryan Adams) to the rich history of the south as it once was, the grand ole opry, the wabash cannonball, etc? What singer is larger than life in the force of nature way Johnny Cash was? Crickets... That just makes me want to cry, and so I let myself do just that for a brief moment. First time I've had tears on my cheeks in I don't know how long. Also, the chord progression is really moving, that was definitely part of it.

I wish

I wish this look was more fashionable. Judge me if you must, but I have always been fond of Mod girls. A lot of these are over the top, but then that is sort of the point.


http://digilander.libero.it/guido_1953/pics/miniskirts/miniskirts-girls.htm


If I had more money I would be markedly more Mod-ish. Time to watch Quadrophenia again.


Recently found out that these guys shared a manager with The Stones. Love The Small Faces. Hell of a song.




They're looking SOOOO sharp here. It's a shame that they're so famous for Tommy, they sucked by then...

le sigh

It's so easy to laugh, it's so easy to hate, it takes strength to be gentle and kind

Conviction is such a blessing. I'm grateful, without it I would just keep being evil. Every good thing in me is there because Jesus put it there.

Sing Your Life

Ah, that itch to write. Bring my blog, I feel to scratch it.

Now I've started, but now what? Its been so long. A lifetime of experiences have come and gone in the time between blogging. I'm still not used to that word, and I hope that I never am. "Blog". Nope, I still hate it.


I guess a brief chronicle of my summer so far might be useful to my future self. Turns out my memory is horrible so these things are really nice

First: I quit my job sometime in the middle of June. I gave my two week notice and everything. I could go deeper but that job is one thing I wouldn't mind forgetting.

3 or 4 days after I was done there, I flew to Chicago (Geneva/St. Charles to be precise) for my Cousin Lila's wedding. *This is painful to write, it feels like a school project. I will persevere.* My uncle Morley was really lit up (he's bipolar you see). He believed he had been struck by lightning and that it had activated his entire consciousness. Really its just that his oldest daughter was getting married and it triggered a serious manic episode. It was really fun and funny at first as it always is. Luckily I stayed away for much of the fallout afterward. He ended up being arrested and hospitalized. He was fine after 3 weeks, which is great for him. The last time he was this high he lived in a wigwam for 6 months (no, really). Well I stayed there for about a week because I missed my flight back to Little Rock. I drove back down with my alcoholic aunt and my brother, who was feverish at the time. I drove straight there in something like 12 hours.

I stayed in Arkansas for about a month. Not much to tell, I watched a lot of TV and ate like a king. My grandpa bought me this old 1990 Dodge ram 15 passenger van for $800. I love it. On my last night in Little Rock I had the Honeycutters play at my house, it was a smashing success. I drove all the way from Little Rock to Seattle by myself. Along the way I broke down in Twin Falls and stayed with the Thompsons in Boise for two days.

Now I'm back in Seattle. Its so mild here, I really like it. Today its raining. I'm feeling a little blue. Not much to look forward to. Disconnected from some of the people I care about. Disappointed in some others. Angry at my lazy self. Pretty normal stuff.

Oh yeah, day before yesterday I went to the Seattle Art Museum and saw their Andy Warhol exhibit. It inspired me. Especially the 16mm screen tests they were showing. There was one especially, this girl Anne Buchanon. Over the course of 2-3 minutes her eyes welled up and big tears rolled down her face. She was very pretty, her hair was the best part. She kept the same impassive expression throughout though, thats the remarkable thing. I keep wondering what it was that made her cry. Or maybe she was just showcasing her ability to cry on command? I'll probably never know, but I hope I can remember her face.

I have to go

Writing on my blog, being hip.

I'm not sure what the word "hipster" means. Lots of people sure do though. The only kind of personal titles I'm interested in are the ones people give themselves.

I guess this is all to say that any form of hipster stereotyping (which is really hype right now) really irritates me, because its either making fun of something super obvious and which is not really funny, or it is its own form of elitism, which is self defeating (in the enterprise of making fun of elitists). The "hipster" and the critic are both operating on different paradigms, each seeing their own approach to life as normative. For you philosophy people I am mostly referring here to Thomas Kuhn's seminal work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Anyway, these dialogs are sort of like high school all over again, and one trip through that was enough for me.

And like the man says... "It doesn't matter what you call yourself, its how you carry yourself". I suppose by extension it doesn't matter what you call someone else, its how they carry themselves.

I'm back

California was so perfect, I wish I were still there, sleeping on our boat and hanging out with my family. I was there for four days this weekend, my sister got married and I was a groomsman.

I love my sister Emily so much, and the raw emotion on her face was overwhelming to watch during the ceremony. I could feel waves of sobs being choked back in the congregation behind me all service. I'm not saying I could hear them, because they were being choked back of course. I could feel them though. You understand.

She really has what she always has wanted, and to see her so happy makes me unspeakably pleased and grateful. Some people suffer, some people prosper. I won't pretend that I understand it or that I'm not endlessly troubled by it, but when God is so good to my family time and time again all I can feel is gratitude. We've really come a long way, and no one really understands the extent of it but us seven people.

I'd like to write more now, but I just worked all night and I have to work again tonight. I hate my job, must quit it.

Just wasted most of the day to go mix in northgate, we didn't get much done at all. Phil said we'd be done after a half day, now he wants to start all over on 4 out of 5 songs. The bus is not as charming as it was before I started using it everyday. This mix failure made me kind of down on doing the band, this recording seems like it will never end.

Pretty depressed. Don't have much to look forward to. "Another Day Of Nothing".

When I got back home, my roommates band was practicing. They are so horrible, the kind of horrible that makes you feel embarrassed for them. That's just at first though, then you get really mad that it won't stop. You fantasize about throwing water balloons downstairs on them, and telling them off. You could say "you're the worst band I've ever heard", but how can you even quantify such a thing? It probably wouldn't be true. You could tell them that they are in a "metal" band and yet they have never listened Slayer, but they wouldn't hear your meek voice over the PBR belches. You wish the neighbors would call the cops. Its really pathetic being this passive.

My 3 day break is over, Taylor is driving me to work tonight, he really is a good friend to me.

I think of the song "Suzanne" a lot. I need to tell this girl that shes wasting her time on me, that I "have no love to give her". But maybe she'll get me on her wavelength once I do. Its a funny thought. I really can't feel anything for any girl, there's something busted inside me. Sure I find different ones attractive, I'm still alive after all. I enjoy being wanted, and telling myself I want something. But once it starts getting deep, I can't go any farther. I'm not really sure what my deal is. I don't know if I really want anything.

I really like being encouraging, I don't want to bring anyone down. Its a good thing only a handful of people ever see stuff like this then. Sometimes in life I just have to close my eyes and hold on and wait for things to get better. They always do, but its hard to believe it all the time.

I hate this job and this vampire schedule. I don't have much of a social life any more. I can't go to the church I like. I'm having insane mood swings. I feel really really old. I feel tired.

Flipside: I've lost a bunch of weight and started getting stronger. I've been listening to lots of music, almost too much really. But this has given me a chance to reassess my Tom Waits aversion. The jury is still sort of out, but I really appreciate the jazz standardyness of some songs and his melodies are really memorable at times, as are the lyrics. I guess I'm at a point where I can say I appreciate him as a song writer. The whole white boy Louis Armstrong thing still grates on me, but not to the point of red hot rage like it once did.

I had a dream about my friend that stopped being a Christian recently. Then the dream changed and I was in my old room in California with my little brother. He was asleep and I was trying to sleep. I went to our closet which turned out to be huge. I turned on the light and looked around, seemed like a boat house or something. When I came back in our room James was up and playing video games. Then he started telling me how he doesn't believe in Jesus anymore. Then my whole family woke up and started hanging out, laughing about how weird we are. I woke up feeling really sad.

In My Eyes

Being a drug free adult is really isolating sometimes, but I have never regretted it for a second. Drinking and smoking are still dumb to me, but its even more dumb that people need me to drink with them in order to feel comfortable. I feel seriously insulted by it. I know its not something to get hung up about, and that its not really on this or that person, its just a system we're all caught up in, but I won't be sucked into that world. If we're gonna have a human connection, its gotta be analog, baby. I won't accept anything less than reality. Its something I rarely talk about for a number of reasons but its something I'm pretty fired up about all the same, just as much as I was at 17.

I love being straight edge and I wish I had more friends that felt the way that I feel. Its such a positive thing, and in my mind terribly romantic, in that reality is so much wilder and more unruly and challenging than the alternative. I don't need a ton of people to feel the same, but it deflates me a little from time to time knowing that something I see so clearly is not important to anyone else.

Through the darkness of futures past, the magician longs to see. One chance out between two worlds; fire walk with me.