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Please check this song out. Powerful is the only word I can think to say.

Jacques Brel-Ne me quitte pas (Eng. Subtitles)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za_6A0XnMyw&feature=player_embedded

When I listen to my favorite music, I sometimes feel sad and old. It never changes, but the world sure does. A myriad of feelings and experiences shared with a generation that has moved on. It feels like its just me now. In truth I am pretty old, and that does make me sad.

I'll love him til I die

I love Skeeter. Such an effortless, natural voice.

I went to New York to visit Laura. It was really overrated I think, but not many people agree. I told my parents that I thought it sucked and they were mad at me. If I'm gonna suffer wanton rudeness and pretension at the hands of strangers I'd rather be in a place with real culture and history (Paris for example).

Willamsburg, Brooklyn... Woof!

I had 3 pizza experiences in 3 different parts of the city, all were pretty bad. That was what I most dreamed about and what really crushed my spirit.

Walking in Central Park on her birthday was fun, and we did get good food at this place called "Good enough to eat", talk about accurate advertising. Riding on the subway made me feel like I was in a video game or anime show every time. I felt this curious urge to jump on the tracks and run into the darkness, but I didn't.

Black Wings, Black Words

Heavy week. Heavy heart.

I long for the arrogant certainty of childhood. I feel 30 looming. It's not going to be pretty.

Skype is one the wonders of the modern world. I made an account finally, patrick.landfair, add me. I'm lonely here, and would love to talk to you, whoever you are.

I've been devouring George R.R. Martin's "A Song Of Ice and Fire" saga. I'm 900 pages into his 4th book of the series, "A Feast For Crows". It's the weakest offering yet, but still pretty good. Too much political intrigue and introspection for me, not enough Direwolves and Dragons and 500,000 man battles. I can't wait to finish it and start on "A Dance Of Dragons", I bought a gigantic hardcover with special maps and stuff, its so much cooler than the paperbacks I'm used to. The way the story is going, this one is set up to be more action packed, at least to start.

My whole family has switched over to E-Readers and can't seem to stop espousing the merits of digital print to me, but I am not sold. I hate the grey screen of the kindle, and the backlit Nook. My eyes just don't feel good looking on them. It's somehow too stimulating, and far too sterile. I hate going one page at a time, it ruins the rhythm I have of skimming both pages quickly and then reading them more deliberately. I can't really explain it, but having two pages to see at a time is really important to me. I much prefer reading analog, and I don't think I'm likely to change my mind.

ahhhh

Le Sighhhh......




Reminds me a bit of this song in spirit. I'm really big on Sebastien Tellier. This is one of the more haunting songs I've heard.




Goodbye
The lion stares high
And all the universe cries
For your memory
I hate I
Oh, could you lead my lips to sigh

Somehow, I smothered rainbows
And all the universe crawls
Farthest ends of me
I'm in now

Homewards, he dealed with scarecrows
And all the universe knows
Wailing finally
I would roar

Oh, could you fail in me
Sin calls

Goodbye
I've wandered 'round isles
And all the universe cries
For your memory
I warned I
Oh, starry are your spheres, delight

I just posted to my livejournal, I feel like I need at least one post a year there. I've had it for ten years I just realized. That makes me feel really sad.

My girlfriend moved to new york, crazy times. I have a lot more time to read right now, I've been loving that. It's too hot to do much else.

I love summer. It's such a celebration of life. And life is the best.

Every day here has a heat index of over 100 and humidity of 90+%. Some days my dog hardly even wants to go for a walk once we get outside. Cicada's sing her to sleep as I scratch her chin. Lazy Junebugs bang against our screen door and sometimes my bedroom window when my lamp is on late at night.

I love smelling the magnolia trees in the shade of those shiny dark leaves.


I love finding Crape Myrtle blossoms in my hair when I get into bed.


I love going to Dixie Cafe my Grandmother and visiting over a plate of fried catfish, fried okra, sweet corn, and turnip greens. She tells me about when she was young, how movies cost a dime and a quarter would get you a ticket, a bag of popcorn, and a box of milkduds. She tells me song lyrics I would really get a kick out of. "Ain't We Got Fun", and some old Cole Porter song which escapes me. We talk about Alien life and Art Bell. She doesn't have much time left, she talks about that sometimes too. I hope she has another decade in her at least, I can't imagine raising children in a world without her.

Walking in the rain

Last night was chilly, it got back into the 60's. Around 2 am there was another lovely thunderstorm. All day I've been thinking of that Ronnettes song, "Walking In The Rain".



I can't get enough of girl groups. I've been listening to Northern Soul singers more lately too, or U.S. hits that only made it big in The UK. If English people like a pop hit, it probably rules, they are NOT playing.

I'm happy in Little Rock, but I'm lonesome without my friends. I've never been lonesome in this way before, its strange. I really love my time I have with my family and my girlfriend, but I miss having friends to be with. The only person in my world right now that has similar cultural sensibilities is my mom. She's not chopped liver, but I wish I had a friend here that wanted to watch a foreign film, or share snobby opinions on music and pop culture.

Richard St. John's 8 secrets of success | Video on TED.com

Richard St. John's 8 secrets of success | Video on TED.com

I don't have the patience for self help books, so this was nice.
For future reference.

It's good to touch the green green grass of home.

I can't sleep, but it just so happens there is an incredibly powerful thunderstorm happening right now so its not all bad. I'm missing my friends. As I'm typing a crack of thunder shook the windows and made me jump. And now, after only a few minutes, the storm is rolling past. The rain is mostly gone now, although I can see lightning in the distance, and the drain outside is chugging along just the same.

I'm missing my friends. Missing the levity and simplicity of youth. My life has changed significantly in the last 4 months. It's all progress, I don't doubt that, but its hard sometimes. I don't want to grow up. I guess thats why I'm still not a grown up.

Spring is here. It's the season that makes life worth anything, the time when I feel good just being alive. There will never be enough good poems about it, its awe inspiring. Its my first southern Spring in 14 years and I'm a fool for it, I don't want it to ever end.

I really love Laura. Seeing her is the best part of my day. I feel like I can be myself completely with her, something I've never been able to say before with a girl. Tomorrow she starts production on Hairspray, I think her character is named Amber? She's the blond mean girl in the play in any case. Anyway, we won't see each other much between now and May 8th. She's free in the day and I'm free at night, what an inversion!
Oh, I meant to write about this when it happened, but last weekend we went to Brinkley to meet her family. I think it was a hit, her dad gave me an Elvis pillow and told me I had a workers hands. Her mom made me cheese grits, it was pretty cool. The next day I went to Graceland with Laura, and I think its safe to say that it was a life changing experience for me. I don't want to overstate anything, but I will say this: the night before we left I played "Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain" for Laura, and on the tour we learned that Elvis actually played that on his piano for friends just hours before he died. Coincidence, or spiritual kinship?

I want to read Hesiod next. Writing this on here so I don't forget.

I'm so sad that Japan is getting hit so hard. Like so many nerdy men in the world I love Japan, it is dear to my heart. I think we all should intercede for all the sweet, scared people there. Prayer seems so futile in the face of something like this, but I know it isn't. I'm breaking my Lenten fast to stay up and watch CNN, I guess I'll do better tomorrow...

Before I sleep:
I HATE WHEN MAJOR MEDIA OUTLET NEWS PROGRAMS QUOTE TWITTER IN BREAKING NEWS. I CANNOT EMPHASIZE THIS ENOUGH. IT IS SO INANE AND CORNY. BROADCASTERS ARE PAID TO INFORM US WITH PROFESSIONAL SOURCES, NOT READ THEIR TWITTER FEED OVER LIVE TV.

This is no ordinary love

Being in love is fun. I don't know how we're going to make it work but I know there is a happy ending for us.




I spent the past four days in New Orleans with my brother, James, and my dad. It was a trip for the ages, practically every moment just felt soaked in fate. I had the best talks with my brother of my life thus far, and my dad was so happy the whole time. Bourbon St. in full revelry was scary and exciting. Seeing the French Quarter in an alcohol haze, walking to the swung beats of dixieland bands, eating beignets with James at midnight at Cafe Du Monde, talking in our rooftop hot tub til well after sunrise, the roar of the superdome, and the thick swampy fog of lake ponchetrain... all of these memories I will hold close for as long as I'm able. My beloved Hogs lost a close and hard fought game, but I'm still proud of them and my fellow statesmen for taking New Orleans by storm and turning The Big Easy into The Pig Easy for a week. We may have lost the game, but we sure as hell won the party.

A video my brother took right before The Sugar Bowl.

"If you don't fuck wit' me, then I don't fuck witchu"

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