Confession

I wrote this using an on-line program called wordperhect that is basically stupid and unnecessary, but is pretty neat overall, like the coolest stuff on the internet. Check it out if you like, I recommend it.

But anyway I landed on the site and this little bit of prose-like mess sprung to mind. People forcing my to be arty makes me get a little arty.

Translation is as follows:
I'm not sure what it is but every time I see you it makes me crazy. I don't shake or anything, I just lose all the parts of me that make any sense and end up blathering like an idiot at the circus. I don't know what it is about you that makes me react this way or -------As if I can't tell you exactly what I want to say exactly the way I want to say it. My toungue does weird stuff and my mouth gets dry and I think of all these clever things to say that aren't clever at all and so it makes me want to not even try anymore. I don't think about it anymore: I just run away and hide so you can't see me.

Cool photos

I know no one reads this blog, and that's fine. But if someone out there eventually does, check these out, they are neato.

They are color photographs from the 30's and 40's (mostly taken in the midwest United States). That may sound boring to you, but every time I've viewed photos from the 40's they were in black and white (and usually very good, too, Dorothea Lange, anyone?). But these are interesting just because they're just barely color photos: everything has just enough color saturation to make it noticeable; in other words, there's no high-def color blasting going on, they're just simply pictures taken simply for documentation, and mostly depict daily life in small farming towns and ranches.

Unfortunately, some (read: most) are riddled with Flickr tags because some people just can't see something on the internet and imagine that that something couldn't be better with them interacting with it. Honestly, where on the internet can a person just fucking look at a photo and not have some moron writing "LOL This silo looks lk a dildo!!!!!!111!!"?

ANYWAY, I thought these were pretty neat, as far as color photos of stuff we normally see in black and white go. While browsing them I couldn't help but think of Ted Turner and how he wanted to colorize all the old-school movies from the fifties, and this was back when the colorization process usually ended up making the actors turn red and purple on the screen. What Turner wanted to do was make the movies look like these photos, but he was a moron and decided to try to fuck with classics like Casablanca and The Petrified Forest. Wrong Teddy boy. Leave the colorization process to the movies who use film that can actually reflect colored light, as opposed to making all the movies fit your version of shitty colorization.

ANYWAY, check these photos out. They're cool.

What To Do, what to do

I am different from everyone.

I know everybody is different from everybody else and that somehow we are all the same decomposing material and noxious waste. I know how we're all human and alike, but really unique in our own special way, and all we have to do is find our niche.

However, I am slowly coming to the idea that I have no niche, I have no specificity, I am not obsessed over anything, and this just may be my downfall. Especially if I want to be a writer.

Let me explain. I love music. Music is great. Music is something that can get inside your brain and twist it into bows or knots, fold it into an oragami swan or crumple it into a wet ball and toss it in the wastebasket. Music is the one thing that I'd have to say 90% of the world at least can handle on some kind of level. Some people love punk rock, blues, metal, emo, hip-hop, r&b (do they even call it that anymore?), soul, "classic" rock, 80's hair metal, pop, grunge, country, bluegrass, &cetera &cetera &cetera I could go on for fucking days. Some people like one kind of music and THAT'S IT. SOme people have a mixed bag. But me (and a lot of people I know) like ALL KINDS OF MUSIC. And that's where I sit. Somewhere on the gray line between all genres. I like almost everything. Our mixed bags are bigger than most (like those who just like blues, jazz, and swing and big band and...oh sorry), but that doesn't make us any better than those who like trance, house, techno and industrial. We're just different, and I get that.

But here's my problem: can I write about just music? Fuck no. I see what that does to people. Before you know it, I'll hate music. I'll hate the morons who don't listen to the music I've had on heavy rotation the last four months. I'll start looking down my nose at musicians who didn't affect me with their songs when I can't even play a fucking instrument (no hand-eye coordination, and I'm REALLY fucking lazy) .Look at Rollingstone's David Fricke. That guy fucking sucks. There are people out there (me included) who don't believe he EVEN LISTENS TO THE MUSIC HE REVIEWS. I mean, the guy rates an album like Nevermind three stars when it comes out and then retro marks it with five ten years later because he's afraid to look like he didn't know what he was talking about. Of course anyone worth his salt isn't going to Rollingstone's Music-Industry-Spoonfed-Music-"Reviews" anyway, but that 's beside the point. That can't be me. I can't be that egotistical (he said, writing an article about how different he was from everyone). I can't take a job that demands I focus and analyze music as if it was a frog on a rubber plate, it'll kill the whole reason I listen to music: to get away from analysis and get to where I feel good again.

Not only that but I don't know enough. I don't know when Nevermind was released unless I look it up. I don't know how many albums Tool has, I don't know how many bands Jack White is in (3?4?). I don't know my stuff. I can't convince you I know what I'm talking about unless I have that knowledge, and I'm certainly not going to fake it, because then I'm a fraud and have no value whatsoever.

Same thing with movies. I can't review movies, because I have little to no interest in telling people about a movie before they go see it. A preview is enough, but personally I think I'd be a much better person if I didn't even watch them before I walk into a movie. Previews ruin things, they ruin the magic before the movie--they build expectation (which can lead to disappointment) and kill the idea of honest intake. How many times have you watched a preview or read a review that a) gave away key plot points that would have been better left out or b) looked so stupid that you would never see it in a million years or c) got you chomping at the bits to go see that movie only to have you walk out of the theater twenty minutes into the film?

There's no way to solve this, really. Without promotion you can't have movies but that's why I can't review movies: I don't want to give away major plot points and I certainly don't want to take four thousand words and trash something I found no value in that you might really like. Everyone is different. Transformers 2 did really well at the box office, but the movie had no artistic or asthetic value. Yet it made billions (and I saw it in the theater, don't ask). But the key problme I have in reviewing movies is the same as music: I don't know my stuff. I like movies, but that doesn't give me the right to talk about them in anything but vague, compromised terms. I can talk about the thematic elements of The Dark Knight, but the only people who want to read that are decent film teachers and friends who don't mind listening to me ramble at length about morality plays when they really need to take a shit. I can't write a forty-thousand word review and submit that shit to the Times.

Many authors try to stick to one genre of writing: something that they're really good at or know a lot about; Stephen King is versatile, but he watched a ton of movies when he was a kid, mostly the badly made sci-fi/horror flicks made in the fifties and sixties. Dude obsessed over those, hitchhiking back and forth from a neigboring town to watch film versions of penny-dreadfuls. Crichton was a medical student obsessed with technology and the weird relationships of it's advancement and nature and how humans and technology really mean terrible things for each other. John Grisham worked in a law firm and knows his shit when it comes to law. He loves it, and he loves to show the morality between the decisions people make and the law that represents them. He's a beast. Clancy does military stories, Anne Rice does Vampires, Mark Twain did rural South in the 1800's, Fitzgerald did the rich youth of the twenties (well, the white ones anyway), and Steinbeck did the Depression-Era common man. These people all know their stuff and so their art drove them in that direction, they wrote what they knew and they knew what it was about their lives that was interesting.

My thing is, I don't know what I'm into. I know a lot of trivial information about books and movies and music. I don't have a career to use for material. Plus what I do know is boring: I know how to paint a garage and play video games and put off writing a paper. I know how to eat too much and play too hard and how to roll my ankle on a porch step and limp for a week. But is that enough to try and write and sell stories on? Is what I have that churns in me enough to live on so I don't have to worry about stupid shit anymore (something I know too much about)?

I guess I'll just have to do what I can with what I have and hope for the best. I suppose it's something I'll have to learn to do, just like everything else.

Hallowe'en

Home again Home again, jiggity jog
And I've noticed this morning that Halloween is little more than a reason to get annihilated on a college campus. I thought long and hard about ditching this particular event, just simply because it held so little for me: a bunch of random strangers drinking at my cousins across the street, swaying to bad music while I sat alone in a corner watching them, wishing that I had the stones to talk to that really cute girl in the fishnet stockings, the one with the really nice pair of legs that pounce upon the brain like kagaroos in a sick and twisted fervor, looking for blood.

But in the end it was a good scene, which, in college-townese means no cops, no fights, and maybe just enough cute tail to flirt with, but maybe not enough to take home, but that's fine with me. Can you imagine? The young, sweet smiles of Elise, Anna, and the girl dressed as Cleopatra whos name I forget, but she was so attractive I suddenly wished I was dressed as Marc Anthony, just to have more to discuss.

While the people downstairs danced to thick beats provided by whatever iPod was stuck into the amp, I hung upstairs and tried my best with a cute pirate from Wherever. It doesnt' matter. She took the last train out of my sight, gone to the wind and the dying leaves that flutter about her gold-embraced head and her swinging beads, but it was okay.

Maybe if I had talked just a little more, more about the fall of Rome or the encroaching barbarians, maybe a little smatter of speech about the Egyptian front, and I would have had her in the bag, her eyes fluttering up at me like sparkling stars, reflecting only the darkest space and the sharpest, brightest twinklings that we behold in the night sky. Maybe. But I digress. What do you want to hear about, dear sister, dear brother with your eager eyes and emblazoned shield stuck upon your chest like a knight who glued his best defense upon his chest?

PerhAps you want to hear about the couple (there's always one) that stayed on the ugly couch the fuck couch, the one that no one ever uses except to look at and wonder what the hell it's doing there, all night, only to neck and make out, only to suffer the indignity of my macking it to some poor girl dressed in gold and try my hardest not to fail.

Maybe the light is wrong, but methinks that maybe the real reason for tonight was to dress up and be someone else for a few hours, to pretend that the car, the house, the school work you left in your bag wasn't calling to you and begging to be done, maybe the night was to forget who you are for just those minutes, those fleeting seconds that tick off the clock and into the ether. Maybe the point of Halloween is to pretend that your problems are infinitesimal and ridiculous, stupid in the light of something new and golden and dressed like Cleopatra. Maybe Haloween is so popular because life is a set of token digits that mean nothing unless every now and again you can break free and visit someone else's life for awhile, just to get away. A four hour vacation from the worries of home and bills and school, from the evils of overdoing it and the bone-crushing loneliness you feel day per day. Maybe Halloween is for those who wish for something better and fantastic that you can never have.

All I know is that Cleopatra was cute, cuter than most/all, and I somehow missed my oppurtunity to let her know that. Maybe if I'd gotten a hold of her earlier or somehow better, I wouldn't be punching letters here alone and kind of drunk, trying to figure out why tonight was so great. Thank you cleopatra, Prisoner, Female Jason Vorhees and even that cutish girl in the living room who danced all night: you made my evening, despite not knowing enough about you to even recognize you in the light of day. Somehow you made it special. And that's exactly what I needed.

Interlude [i]

"I saw her today at the reception, a glass of wine in her hand. I knew she was gonna meet her connection, at her feet was a footloose man."--The Rolling Stones

She stood against the bar, running her finger on the brim of her glass, eyeing herself in the mirror behind the bottles. The dress was a black one, ending right above her knee so I could chase her calves down to the matching black shoes that almost disappeared against the black oak floorboards.

Her hair was loose, but in the sexy way only true brunettes can accomplish, framing her dark eyes and her pink lips and waiting until under her jaw line to start the inner march over the breasts. Her waist begged for me to wrap my hand around and pull her toward me, and I knew that I could do it, hell, had done it, long long ago. Memory flitted through my mind like dropped polaroids: her on the balcony looking back over her shoulder bathed in sunlight, her smoking a cigarette in the tub and the look of anguish when she dropped it, her crying as I pulled out of the driveway.

She was not there for me. Henry and Laura were finally taking the plunge, and they had invited the two of us before they knew that we weren't us anymore. She had gotten the letter, as she still lived at the house, and she had politely called me and told me that she didn't have to go. After all, they were my friends. Of course I insisted, because what else could I do? I could be the bastard and hurt her more than I already had, or I could be a man and fess up that everything I had done was wrong and that she was still important to me and that now that I had my own house and my own sheets and my own ashtrays I didn't sleep anymore and I smoked too much.

Instead I landed somewhere in between and told her she was invited too and that it would be foolish to refuse free food and drinks from friends.

I didn't realize she would bring a date. He seemed like a friendly guy, too much hair on top, like he was building a tower that smelled of Brylcreem. He smiled at me with lots of teeth when we met, crushing my hand when he shook it to mark his territory. "I'd like to punch you in the face just to show the little lady that I like her bunches," is what his beady eyes told me as he smiled and introduced himself. His name is Hank. I nearly laughed and sprayed white russian all over his fancy car-salesman tie. Hank. Like a cartoon character.

I had come alone.

I roamed the reception after the deed was done and while most folks were still choking down their dinners and before the dancing started. The bartender didn't seem to mind, I apparently tipped him well enough to actually give me a little alcohol now and again. Eventually I found the Bride and Groom yucking it up and I made a few of the appropriate jokes. She asked me how I was doing, and he told me he was sorry, he didn't know she would bring someone. Her eyes were sad for me, his the traditional "I'd feel for you if I hadn't just gotten married" look I'm sure everyone gets after time. I felt awkward, after all, it was their day, not my pity party, so I told them I was fine, that I didn't mind that someone great who's life I had crushed like an insect was here and the only thing stopping me from getting on my knees and begging for forgiveness was a giant lunkhead of fat Elvis proportions who thought bone-crushing handshakes were the epitome of success with the ladies. I told them I was fine and carried on.

The dancing started, and I roamed over to the bar, and I saw her. I saw her there, waiting for someone else, and I felt my heart ache the slow, hurting ache of the dead. Her man was tearing the carpet up with a nameless blonde from the Groom's side, and it did look like they were enjoying each others company.

As I watched, she bought another glass of wine and stared at it for a long time, still rubbing her finger on the brim, waiting for someone who wasn't me.

I held my breath, and went anyway.

Losing the Muse

Alright. I'm not gonna be happy unless I write something on this blasted thing, am I?

I haven't written anything here for a little while because, well, let's be honest. I don't know. Yesterday I started two separate articles and decided I couldn't back them--they were stupid and mean-spirited and after writing one for twenty minutes I decided I hated it and it was total bullshit anyway (it was about hipsters, and why I find them so fucking annoying [it's mainly the ones who are totally insincere that bother me, the ones who dress like hipsters but have no convictions about anything. We get it, man. You've taken the "I'm so cool, I don't care" thing and turned it into a style. The only thing you forgot was that your "not caring" just shows that you actually care the most, and just want to be accepted by anybody who doesn't have the balls to challenge you. Fail.]) and made me feel like I was treading water verbally, instead of just coming out and saying what I wanted.

That's my biggest problem with writing, and writing while in school. In my writing, I write to please me. Whatever works. If it's a sappy story about the nerd falling in love with the cheerleader and her shooting him down, but then realizing he's great, so be it. If it's a science fiction story about robots or a horror about rats in an attic or a fucking two pager about bed bugs, so fucking be it. I don't need anyone else to look at it to know I like it, because it's for me. Writing stories and poetry and all that jazz is selfish as hell. Yay for selfishness (sometimes), it gave us great works like East of Eden, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Great Gatsby. Stories like American Gods and Misery and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Those were written for the author and them alone. They weren't staying up late for deadlines and money, they were writing because they needed to get it on the page.

But with school, it's a whole different ball game. With school you write for another person. The whole fucking time. You can't just say "Book A is useless and boring and sucked six ways to Sunday," you have to say "Book A is considered to be one of the greatest books of all time. Joe Shmoe from Cocamo praised it winningly, stating, 'it is as lovely as the smell of my own farts on a windy summer's day (Shmoe 98)." Half the time what you really think of the book is lost in useless rhetoric that you have to use simply because if you are too direct, you might be plagerizing someone you don't even know about. In acedemia, there's no room for your opinion unless other people back it, so the only way to have any type of opinion is to have someone else's opinion. And then, even if your ideas are valid, your prof might fuck you just because they disagree. There's no way to tell.

So, I'm having a hard time writing. Could you tell?

I bitch, therefore I am

There are things I don't do that I think everyone does, and there are things that I do that I don't think anyone does. I can't tell if that means I'm crazy or if it means that the world is going to shit. For example:

• I don't understand why when there is a set of double doors and a crowd of people, why everyone squeezes through one door. What the hell? Open up the second door and then we can all leave at once and not cram single-file into/out of the building.

• When standing at the deli counter with more than one person, and the clerk doesn't know who's next, no one speaks up. I've been on both sides of the counter for this, and I tell you it's never any less aggrevating (although when you're the clerk, you get to laugh about it later). Everyone stands there, too nervous to say "I'm next."

• People don't say "thank you," but will apologize for everything arbitrarily, even when they aren't sorry at all. I think the worst is when people start sentences off with "I'm sorry, but..." because whatever is coming up you know it's going to be insulting. Nobody ever says "I'm sorry, but you've just won a million dollars" or "I'm sorry, but you just dropped this twenty on the ground" or "I'm sorry, but this super hot actress is going to have to give you a blowjob." Those are the kind of apologies I need. No more of this "I'm sorry, but after dating you I've decided to just go with girls now." I'm sorry, Sheila!

• Why is it when people call you to ask you for something, they always start off with inane chit-chat with long pauses? "Hey how you doing, Brad? ...Yeah, it's been a long time....Yeah, remember that time at the mattress factory where we found Napoleans hairpiece? ....Oh that wasn't you? ...Oh. Well the reason I called was, well, can I borrow $6,000?"

• Sometimes people call me and I can't talk. Maybe I'm urinating, maybe I'm in the middle of a purchase, maybe my hands are stuck together with glue. The part that pisses me off is I can call these people back twenty seconds later (true story), and they don't answer their phone. You just fucking called me! What could you possibly have done during the twenty seconds it took for me to finish peeing? It's not like you decided to call me twenty seconds before driving a flaming bus into a crowd of pedestrians and now you're too busy wiping blood and entrails off the windshield. In the time it took you to put the phone back into your pocket and cross the street, I've called you back. So unless you've gotten hit by a flaming bus, I expect you to answer.

• How about when the same homeless guy hits you up for money two days in a row with two different stories? I felt like punching him in the face, but didn't because I'm weak and afraid, but Jesus Christ, man, I gave you ten fucking dollars yesterday! Now I just feel stupid and hate every homeless guy that begs for money. (actually, I did confront him on the third day, and the motherfucker denied he knew me. So I guess he's got his gig down pretty good.)

• People who make lists of things they hate when they have a roof over their heads and a pretty good life, in general. Especially insipid college students who live on borrowed money and time, staving off the horrors of reality while looking down their nose at the people who have to work for a living. Those guys are fucking douchebags.

So yeah, that's it. I don't know why I chose today to be a dick to strangers remotely on a blog no one reads anyway (not even my family), but hey, what the hell.