a complex network

A Short-Term Solution

2009-03-05T07:28:00.000-08:00

You were speaking on how a charity
Sending food to Africa
Only perpetuates the problem
I used to agree with you
I’m not sure anymore

Window in a prison cell
To keep the prisoner
From escaping

Check the word count
I can’t let this end on an even number
I’ve already revised
Spell checked
And deleted

I’ve changed my mistakes
So I have no regrets

And a wonderful view

Mind Numbing Paper Cuts

2009-02-20T13:53:00.001-08:00

I could change too
Swallow the bitter pill
And line up nicely against the wall
Fake the smile until it feels real
Shake hands and pretend to listen
Forget who I am

You must keep moving
Or you fall apart

Not sure where I really am
There is a fog here
And when confusion sets in
I grope around for something to hold onto
But I no longer have hands to grip
No longer have my own thoughts to think

If you no longer care
Could you fake it?

Sappy

2009-02-02T13:28:00.000-08:00

I’ve collected orbs of back pain and put
Them on the shelf next to the baby crying on the monitor

I’ve sifted through the follicles of carpet
for choking hazard treasure

I’ve watched growth become time and time become change
While constantly waiting for something bad to happen

You put the bottle down and share a conversation
With an inanimate object

You make sure everything is clean

You get tired

You feel

Happy

She said to try and relax

2007-09-16T21:17:00.000-07:00

What if I kept perfectly still
Would I cease to exist
Blending in with the furniture,
Carpet, and remotes that make up
My surroundings.

Would I go to a place
Where dreams lay asleep

My world being built in reverse
The walls coming down
Leaving a vacant lot
Where a house once stood

The opposite of neither here
Nor there

An outline surrounding you
When my head begins to ache
A shimmering ghost of your
Movement

The echo of your life
Shining through you
Falling within itself
A mirror facing a mirror

I’m still

Wounds in the Back take longer to heal

2007-09-03T19:01:00.000-07:00

I’ve cleaned my plate
While others piled on
Conversation

I’ve gained weight
While others forgot about stop signs
and using a signal to change lanes

Ordinarily
I wouldn’t comment
But a passerby mentions, “beautiful day”
Age lines sagging his face
He recognizes the panic in mine

I turn and sprint home.

The Autopsy

2007-08-12T21:37:00.000-07:00

I heard a fly buzz
And it was everything to me
Forever after
Is not a storybook ending

I couldn’t see to see
Nothing ever gets to me

I heard a fly buzz
And it was everything to me
Performed the autopsy
To reveal a tumor in society

I couldn’t see to see
Nothing is all I’ll ever be
I couldn’t see to see
We dream an empty dream

Now to admit we were wrong
No longer holds the comfort it once had
Say what you must but I distrust
All that glitters is dust

“Inspired by the work of Emily Dickinson”

Bad Dreams of our Founding Fables

2007-08-06T22:42:00.001-07:00

I’ve been having bad dreams lately. Mostly when it’s just me and my son at night while Jamie is working. It’s the kind of dreams where you can’t tell you ever fell asleep…everything in your room looks exactly the same you don’t even remember closing your eyes. Last night I fell asleep next to my son and I started to feel something cold on the back of my head and I could sense the bedroom door opening but I couldn’t turn around to look. It felt like my consciousness was being sucked out the back of my skull and then the door started to close and the cold went with it and I was able to wake up. I was a little disoriented but was able to get back to sleep again only this time the cold was around me and the sound of the air conditioner was getting louder and louder almost unbearable. I could sense the cold behind me so I was able to turn around this time and I saw a dark shadow outline of an old lady even darker then my lightless room on the wall. I was able to pull out of this one as well but wasn’t able to really get back to sleep until Jamie came home from work. I think it could all be from the anxiety and fear I have of any harm coming to my son...because he’s all I can think about while I’m dreaming…hoping he’s safe.

Sometimes I think all my life to this point is my mind making up a life for me while I’m falling to the floor dead. I think maybe I’m still that teenager with the 4-10 Shotgun in his mouth except this time my finger slipped or the gun went off accidentally and my mind (what’s left of it) is creating this life for me. Like when people die and come back and say they’ve seen heaven or hell. Just there mind easing them into some kind of transition…helping them cope with the loss of themselves…an in-flight movie perhaps. A lifetime in the fraction of a second…what is time…what time is it? It’s what I’m killing right now so I don’t have to have anymore of these crazy dreams.

I can’t stop listening to the new Sally CD Long Live the New Flesh. You can check them out at www.myspace.com/sally It’s one of those rare moments where you feel like someone wrote a record just for you.

“Oh my God you don’t know…the way out of here”

A few odds and ends

2007-07-01T20:33:00.000-07:00

"We look at the world once, in childhood.
The rest is memory."
"NOSTOS" by Louise Gluck

"Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand."
"The Stolen Child" by WB Yeats

"During the second half of his life, after his mother died, the psychologist and philosopher Carl Jung set to work building a stone castle. He built it in Bollingen, on the shore of Lake Zurich in Switzerland. He called it his "confession in stone."
"Stranger Than Fiction" by Chuck Palahniuk

I could write a novel
I could make a movie
I could write music
I could create art
but nothing compares to what I see
when I look into the face of my son.

Nothing comes close.

Where oh Where

2007-06-29T09:00:00.000-07:00

White walls surround me
My fingertips are burning as I press
Them against the wall
Leaving ten charred black spots
I drag my fingers down
Giving these walls new life in stripes
As if a new look could make these walls less confining

And in the distance a falsetto voice was singing
Getting closer,

“And our time is a ticking bomb”

Another day another dollar

2007-06-28T11:09:00.000-07:00

I walk hunched over
Like a great weight is upon me
Many burdens
A cross and a pocket full of nails
I would never nail myself up
But the world is full of suckers
Waiting for
Applause

I forget where I remember to leave it

2007-06-27T20:07:00.000-07:00

I feel a twitch in the muscle of my heart
I can't tell if it's emotional or physical
My thoughts consumed by potential
911 calls and regrets of things
That haven’t happened yet

I wet my tongue
Dry and limp
My left side numb
I think of things that haven’t
Happened yet

Where were those sparks
Anger I once used to spew
Across my consciousness
Inspiring in its ferocity and determination
I feel a twitch

I’ve become emotionally involved in a million
Ideas
I can never finish
I’ve fought myself all along
So a twitch becomes a
Threat
And a death becomes a dream.

A Small Heart

2007-02-20T21:18:00.001-08:00

I saw my heart beating on a screen in a dark and chilly hospital room. Laid out on the table being smeared with lubricating jelly…I was having an ultrasound of my heart. It’s a boy.

The Conclusion is that the left side of my heart is on the small side. When telling this to my boss at work she replied, “so you’re like the Grinch.”

The chest pains have not gone away.

It’s been 2 years since Hunter S. Thompson killed himself. Time is crazy. I’m having doubts now that I’ll have enough of it. For what? Not sure.

I have come to the conclusion that the world is spinning faster and that gravity has started to squeeze and pull me down. I want to fight it but at the same time I want to lay down and just let it stick me to the floor like a never stopping Gravitron. I could vomit but it wouldn’t go anywhere. It never goes anywhere…just around and around and around.

My Heart is a Pump

2007-02-20T21:05:00.001-08:00

My Heart is a Pump
Originally uploaded by pants78.

Fourth Shelf from the Bottom

2007-01-15T20:42:00.001-08:00

Many people cannot believe in the possibility of a new revolutionary movement
Politics dominated the dinner table
Consumer Protection Agency investigations, class action suits, the whole bit
Faith in machinery is our besetting danger
She made the fool a duke
Mind you, as a postmodernist, I applaud such behavior.
Give now.

Macaroon comes from the same source
I don’t think you ought to see things like that
She comes to a log she had jumped so easily before
Well, it’s a long story
I know when you are bullshitting me
And the paintings

The force with which they were thrown into the media’s eye was the turning point
With pleasure
Like a hunted animal
He pulled his blanket up around his knees
This is the doorway
That should read prefrontal
She set down her glass
They turned and ran
He was alone and felt rather forlorn
And they were filled with grief and wonder at the tale he told

We do not want trouble
Come on man, do you need a copy of the script to see how this movie goes
You start to feel like part of a tradition
And you, young man, have you a mathematical bent

Don't go where I can't follow

2007-01-15T20:04:00.000-08:00

It’s not a tea party. It seems like there is always dirt in my eye causing them to itch or burn with dryness. It hits you like a punch in the stomach, a memory, youth screaming mad in parents car plowing through friends that you’ll never have again. You realize how much time has passed cruising slowly down a snow wet street listening to sports talk radio. I used to destroy my own image in a mirror and throw empty bottles out the second floor window not even bothering to smile as they became a potential hazard to small children.

I would dream of snakes biting me and leaving me for dead, now I have repeat nightmares of break-ins and debilitating disease. A sour stomach remains but so much more a problem than in the past, can’t just shove it under the mattress in the back of my mind anymore.

I’m always looking for something to inspire me but the only thing that ever has is misery, when a mans only inspiration is misery, he ends up miserable. Shots in the dark on a cold Midwest night and I’m feeling old, my face haggard, hairy and tense. I feel every step I make these days so I step with caution and foresight…two things I never knew I had.

New Years Resolutions

2006-12-27T09:10:00.000-08:00

1.
One of the main things I want to do this year is get back down to my fighting weight of 140 pounds. I'm currently standing at my all time heaviest, 162.5 pounds. I gained a lot of weight while Jamie was pregnant because we were both eating more and not as healthy. So my goal in the new year is to hit the gym at least 3 days a week and just get back into shape.

2.
I'm not going to include things such as being a good father or husband because I'm always going to be striving for that...they are not goals...they just are. So I want to finish completely 3 of my own songs before the year is up. Seems achievable.

3.
I want to get my right arm tattooed from my shoulder down to my elbow. I have the amazing artist Tom burns working on some sketches for me now.

4.
I want to build a halfpipe. I've got permission to build it at Jamie's dads so this spring and summer I may be there quite a bit. I just want to increase my skating ability before I'm 30 and so I don't make a fool of myself at the skate park.

5.
Brush my teeth twice a day. I have never had a cavity or braces but I rarely brush my teeth twice a day...usually just once in the morning. So to be a good example for my son I'm going to start brushing twice a day.

I will probably think of a few more but this is my list so far. I may post some pics of my gut and I may not but I will be posting my weight to see how close I'm getting to my goal and I'll give updates on the other goals.

This will be the greatest year of my life no matter what because of my wife and son...I can't wait to see what adventures we will have.

Let Bygones Bury The Hatchet

2006-12-10T21:53:00.000-08:00

I speak and toss quarters
At God on the Eighth Day of Rest
Crumble
I begin again
To try and peal off
The loose bits
Mouth full of skin
Like the insides of a pumpkin

It slides in and the voice
Muffled
Continues to remind me
Why I like to stay away
It will pass
As all things
Unless
Lodged
In
Permanent residence

Here is shade to rest
A place to hide
Snap clap snap snap
I once danced like formative years
Naked and lonely
My eyes are hard to open
Voice pushed deep
Mumbling emotion

It was a thin piece of glass
Cracked
Like ice
When Breath hits
Shoulder length hair
Shards
of
Forgetfulness

You keep a sordid slippery noose in your pocket
Sometimes intensity is just overacting

"wiseman riff"

2006-12-10T18:50:00.000-08:00

I know I haven't posted in quite sometime, but I've been living and sometimes that takes up a lot of time.

Fri. Dec. 8th was the 26th anniversary of John Lennon’s death and I thought it was only fitting to post an excerpt from the book, Demon Box by Ken Kesey. It involves a conversation with Hunter S. Thompson and Ken Kesey. Anyway it’s the only tribute I could think of…

Dobbs and I went carousing this afternoon with ol’ Hunter S. Thompson, who’s up to do one of his Gonzo gigs at the behest of the U of O School of Journalism. We stopped at the Vet’s Club to help him get his wheels turning in preparation for his upcoming lecture-his “wiseman riff” he called it-and we talked of John Lennon, and Patrick the Punk, and his new legion of dangerous disappointeds. Thompson mused that he didn’t understand why it was people like Lennon they seemed to set their sights for, instead of people like him.
“I mean, I’ve pissed off quite a few citizens in my time,” the good doctor let us know.
“But you’ve never disappointed them,” I told him. “You never promised World Peace or Universal Love, did you?”
He admitted he had not. We all admitted it had been quite a while since any of us had heard anybody talk such Pollyanna pie-in-the-sky promises.
“Today’s wiseman,” Hunter claimed, “has too much brains to talk himself out on that kind of dead-end limb.”
“Or not enough balls,” Dobbs allowed.
We ordered another round and mulled awhile on such things, not talking, but I suspected we were all thinking-privately, as we sipped our drinks-that maybe it was time to talk a little of that old sky pie once more, for all the danger of dead ends or cross hairs.

I want to haunt second hand bookshops.

2005-12-14T00:54:00.000-08:00

I wake up you fall asleep make the bed tuck you in beneath

Light to the touch I brush the crumbs off your weight is warm and foggy even though my head is clear early but late morning dark like night water naked to get the smell off sleep sigh slides off the bed I kept my shoes on just In case wait I can’t so tell me each page I have to hold it down to turn it off breathe ordinarily hand over heart still beating.

Lucid and plainly out of sight furnace kicks on I gave you a chance lady were only doing our job.

Chewing his teeth
Conscious of death machines
Perhaps even offering God a cigarette

Having your mind bent

2005-12-03T08:27:00.000-08:00

I throw punches and you snatch them from the air and bring them back to me. Wait for me to throw them again. You’re my best friend.

The outline of rooftops makes a jagged edge and I find you a skating rink where scars won’t heal. Clouds seem less real. You have photo appeal. I want her.

I remember your reflection in the glass high above the streets of Chicago where below the traffic made moving ribbons of light across the landscape. I could see the world but I was focused on your reflection, focused on you.

I strongly suggest exercise and a steady regiment of vitamins and supplements. In order to seem coherent and think one thought at a time. I’ve wished for swarms of bees in the past. I collected them in plastic bags to store in the freezer as experiments when I was a child. The sunlight always brought them back to life and I felt as if I had figured out the secret of creation.

We’ve all tried to put the glue back into the bottle.

2005-10-20T20:17:00.000-07:00

I have found a name for my pain and it is job hunting. I've have learned that in all the years I've spent working I still haven't gained enough experience...fuck it. Tonight I work a show at the Beat Kitchen and it's a good one. Dead Science, Home Recording Project, and Shoemaker Levy. I plan on grabbing a bite to eat their before work and trying my hardest to refrain from summoning any distilled spirits.

On Halloween I turn 27, that's right, I'll be 27. My age is a question I have often avoided from people I don't know well...not sure why exactly...but I did and I'll do it again. Thoughts of sitting on the beach in Florida over 11 years ago after Kurt Cobain killed himself come to mind and I remember thinking that I'll never live past 27. I was 15 naive and selfish. Not a lot has changed but I am changing...it's a process. So maybe it will be the last year of my life expectancy after all but not all deaths are physical and not all of them are bad. I've had growing up to do but it's scary because I'm so much older. At least I have Halloween and friends to share it with...and Jason will be right there with me...the good twin.

6 years ago when I turned 21...Jason, my brother, and I all went to see Thrill Kill Kult at the Metro to celebrate our new found adult hood. Nothing like a night of Satan and dancing girls in tight spandex to make you feel all grown up.

Anyway I won't go all into it yet since I still have over a week to go...but I can't help but feel happy this year. For the first time in a while I'm looking forward to being another year older. Just wish the Lombards were coming down to help celebrate.

Its the same its the same in the whole wide world.

I'm awake, flood.

2005-10-17T19:56:00.000-07:00

I’m awake while you wipe the blood away
Not entirely sure where I am
Sleep has never been my friend
Always threatening to take me away

She sets off small suicide bombers in my head
My kisses bruise her heart
Licking her wounds
I want to heal
Her sighs

Reflection cries in the background
Its not the last time I hurt you
So forget what I said
I don’t know what I’m saying

While I speak to her in tongues
She understands perfectly
How much I need
To hear
And she says, “yes.”

You’re not an ordinary face
So what else can I do?
But let you slip by
A time or two

I breathe deeply
She takes me in
And life is made clear
When lost in her
Flood

I applaud your mistake
In forgetting who I am
And we all find ourselves
Lonely in the end

If you find the door locked do you learn to hate all doors

2005-10-16T16:31:00.000-07:00

Cue REM, I will try not to breathe. Everyone Breathes right? I forget to sometimes and my body in response pulls in a lung full of air and it comes out as a sigh. The volume of the sigh is so loud that it peaks and distorts my train of thought. It's not my train of thought I was waiting on though, it was the Red Line to the Blue Line to the place where I keep my stuff. It's not a home because I don't feel comfortable there. It's just a point on the map that when in need I have a place where I can shut a door and be alone. And that is important at times. I no longer repeat the mantra of "wink wink nudge nudge," but I instead wish everyone happiness and safety as I drift off with legs crossed to find a center somewhere...a place where I don't forget the keys. As I repeat the mantra my body tingles as if in confirmation that I have had a genuine feeling. I still haven't learned though and I leave myself wide open most of the time. I do have some things that are mine and mine alone and as I float through thought I see that I'm on another couch.

:excerpt from a bit of writing I did at 2am this morning:

My bladder is constantly full and I fear for the safety of my erections. I’m not sure why my mind works in the way that it does but I feel confident that it is a reaction exclusive to me and that most people do not experience life in quite the same way that I do. In fact I’m sure the average person doesn’t even look in the mirror the same way I do. My mind plays tricks and it affects me over and over with the same people or places that my mind originally fucked me up with. I can handle it after a time but still my lack of self-control or ability to handle the most mundane of highs in this location is startling and dumbfounding. I’ve stared at a little fake dog named Mr. Coolie and felt an unusual longing to be a father. I left thinking for sure that I just unlocked the door but instead I find it locked on my return. Not so sure why I took all my stuff with me. I guess that would have been convenient. I needed a drink and a cool Gatorade was the ticket. I lay back on a strange bed in the cover of darkness and sleep pretends to not exist. As if it wasn’t something that I was required to do only a suggested daily supplement. As I lay in the darkness I think about my life and little flashes come and go of memory. Playing war on the school ground. My big orange cat Tom who was just that. I’ve lost my train of thought on this one I think I can let it go now. . I think I have forgotten how to communicate verbally. In the darkness there is always light reflecting off something but I’m not always sure of where it’s coming from. The VCR blinks the time signature while the DVD illuminates its own face. I can see another Mac sleeping in the darkness.

:end:

I'm making schemes and chasing new dreams and I only hope that I can focus long enough to make it a reality. It's a goal though and it's a good change. Not just the goal but my train of thought. And the song has changed and it's playing over the speakers in this little cafe where no one speaks my language, Cue U2, With or Without You.

So it goes

2005-10-03T21:03:00.000-07:00

You were framed in a picture perfect sidewalk landscape
Riding an invisible horse
The train cuts across the sky, faces pressed against the glass
See you hobbling in a cowboy hat
I pass you by on turbines of youth
You never notice the picture I steal of your silhouette
To store in vast catalogs of memory
Where I can change and rearrange the moment
To fit any story

And so on

Last night was the end of the Bottom Lounge. It was stinky and dirty but I loved it. I keep remembering fragments of things that happened last night like John benetti standing in the doorway around 2am with nothing but his boxers on and his nutsack hanging out holding the posters he made to sell for the last night. Seeing the saddest sound guy upstairs alone sitting in the dark smoking a cigarette. Bill the security guy changing costumes frequently. Minnie Lance Vance doing More Human than Human with Rory Lake. Me drunkenly taking money while my boss asks me how it feels to be the only sober one there. Luke and I getting our picture taken for the chicago tribune while we sang motown classics together in perfect harmony. I'm sure more will come back to me later...and it's scary thinking of all the pics that were taken...the shame. Oh yeah...another great moment...John Benetti excitedly showing me the picture he just took of the methadones and the bomb guitarist Pete taking a shit...fun stuff.

Looking forward to seeing everyone again in Feb. but I'll still be working the shows but it won't be quite the same as the Bottom Lounge.

Oh yeah...Frank the sound guy played the Final Countdown all night long when the bands were done playing. It was so fitting it hurt.

so it goes...

a gap between a blank stare and a sardonic grin

2005-07-01T03:33:00.000-07:00

I'm extremely frustrated and confused at the moment and it mostly involves the piece of plastic that I talk into now and then that never seems to bring me what I want. I do love my drama and I'm probably just blowing things completely out of proportion...but I do feel like I'm being treated a bit unfairly considering the sacrifices I've made and the amount of time I've waited...I've done my best not to be inconsiderate...I guess I just expected the same in return.

In other news...the place where I spend most of my time is going to be torn down in around 90 days. The CTA has handed us our walking papers and we must make way for their new and approved tracks...that we'll no doubt have to pay more to travel on. I have no clue what will happen to me or what I will do...but I guess I never have really...guess I'll find out when it gets here.

I have to be at work in six and a half hours...my parents are coming to see me tonight...I'm leaving to play a show in Ohio on Sat. morning. STRESS I just wish there were a few things that I could know for certain...my brain doesn't function completely well sometimes...so pardon me while I go freak out.

some facts of life

2005-06-21T01:37:00.000-07:00

"We can comprehend this world only by contesting it as a whole. . . . The root of the prevailing lack of imagination cannot be grasped unless one is able to imagine what is lacking, that is, what is missing, hidden, forbidden, and yet possible, in modern life."
—Situationist International

I had a dream yesterday that I was driving by the lake and all I could see was fish. Even above the water there were fish swimming in the air. I got out of the car and started to walk into the water when I felt something opening and hurting my feet and suddenly these holograms with Japanese animation started appearing.

I worked a show on Sunday that was a bunch of skinhead oi bands. Not fun in the least. The tension in the club was matched by the tension outside. I went outside to see a huge cloud of black smoke and all I could hear was firetrucks and sirens. A Dominicks was burning down while inside the club in the green room a drunk skinhead was taking a piss. This lead to verbal confrontation with said skinhead where I thought for sure he was going to hit me...but with a little help from his fellow skinheads we got him out the doors...his shitty tattoos matched his sloppy drunkeness.

I'm not a fan of people at the moment and I would be quite content to stay indoors and work on a few of my writing projects but I have a show tonight. I'm not in the mood...I don't want to fuck with it...but I have two weeks until the next one after this...makes it worse though that I have work at 9am today and 8am the next.

Next on the agenda...finding a new home.

The flow of images carries everything before it, and it is always someone else who controls this simplified digest of the perceptible world, who decides where the flow will lead, who programs the rhythm of what is shown into an endless series of arbitrary surprises that leaves no time for reflection . . . . isolating whatever is presented from its context, its past, its intentions and its consequences. . . . It is thus hardly surprising that children are now starting their education with an enthusiastic introduction to the Absolute Knowledge of computer language while becoming increasingly incapable of reading.

it's the same but the meaning keeps changing

2005-06-08T23:35:00.000-07:00

My eyes burn as I type this feeling tired but not wanting to sleep quite yet. I worked a show tonight at the bottom lounge and it was slow...we play tomorrow at the bottom lounge and I've never been more nervous about a show.

I want to get rid of this horrible lead butterfly feeling in my stomach. I would vomit them out if that was a choice...

...I'm restless...

I wish I was truly capable of expressing everything that I felt. I wish I was capable of behaving like a normal human being at times. I wish I didn't feel so horribly alone.

Sound immature right...

don't let capitalism steal your culture and sell it back to you

One day they will have to admit that we reacted very politely

2005-06-08T01:48:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you just feel like running...not looking back...leaving everything else behind and just saying no to any and all forms of responsiblility. It's strange how unsatisfying it can be once you've gotten what you thought you wanted. How many nails do I need to drive in and how hard do I need to hit them? I've been careless and somewhat wreckless in a pursuit of feeling I suppose. The threat of becoming automatic and routine hovers above me and I look up at times just to make sure it's still there...and it is. I've lost track of my mistakes and regrets and I know I'm self-centered and that the world slowly methodically revolves around me. But I keep trying to pick up signals to hear something new...something I can reflect...and things have shifted and changed around me...I thought I had too...but you learn no one really changes...they just think they do. Thanks Todd Solondz.

I hear that slow kick drum starting...a hum somewhere in the background...and voices played in reverse. I have that ache again in my right ear...a sore left knee...and a bruised ego. I feel backed into a corner and being the scorpion horse...I'll either sting myself...or trample everyone on my way out.

I am a cliche...I am nothing...and should be everything.

In the inevitable period of decomposition, those forms devised to transform the world turn in upon themselves and implode. The form , once world-historical, becomes its own subject. History stops; action is replaced by and endless series of repetitions.

this machine will not communicate

2005-06-02T01:10:00.000-07:00

Jason and I just got back from making a late night run to Meijer in search of fake money. It was a long shot and the mission although accomplished...was still a failure. I spent most of my day today making skull stickers to attach to japanese flags and then Jason and I went to Fantasy Costumes and picked up some Bowlers for the band. So much I still would like to do...today is my last day of school...I plan on getting the rest of my shit done by next week. I have to make a cardboard Mayor Daley mask and a scale model of Chicago low-income housing as well as a scale model of Middle to upper class housing with Condo's and Starfucks...The Walt Daley dream city and pretty soon he'll get his no fly zone over Chicago just like Disneyland and Disneyworld.

Today while waiting on a bus on the corner of Western/Foster...and elderly gentleman pulled up in front of me and asked if I wanted a ride. I think his exact words were, "I'm going down to North Ave. I would enjoy the company if you need a ride." I said no thanks and he drove off...this is like the 3rd time something of this nature has happened to me. It's not like I look like a little boy or something. Maybe I've talked to the next Gacy.

I was told today by my acting teacher that he wanted me to work on my self confidence over the summer...he told me to go to parties and try to be the center of attention...try to make Lance bigger...he doesn't know me well. I am shy in class though...not sure why...plus I'm usually really tired and irritated.

Big show tonight at the Double Door...I can't wait until it's finally over and I can just relax...it will be fun.

My back is killing me and I'm extremely tired...so...exactly

Would you move if I were to push you

2005-06-01T02:20:00.000-07:00

"'Nice' is the worst insult you could ever pay anybody. It means you are utterly without threat, without values. Nice is a cup of tea."
-John Lydon

Another late night.
I can hear movement throughout the house but I haven't seen anyone in hours. My final acting class is today in less than 9 hours and I have to say I'm glad to be done with it. I'm tired of trying to pretend like I care about it and so I'll repeat the memorized lines and say them with mock feeling. My heart just isn't in it.

I like to have conversations with people but I really don't like to listen.

It is now the first of June...I can't help but think back to a year ago and I can't believe how long it feels. This was not a year that flew by...it dragged. My 26th June...
I have a selective and short memory but every once in a while the trains make it to the station and I'm taken on a trip down memory lane of things I had forgot...and of things I wish to remain forgotten.

I'm anticipating the arrival of lightning bugs...and hoping this summer I'll make it out more...that I'll say fuck it and take those late night bike rides along the lake...find a place where the stars sneak through the glare of the city...and remember whiffle ball bats, canoe trips, campfires, skinny dipping in lake holiday, playing freeze tag in the park, slushyville run, the drive-in, hot and sticky sex, the smell of fireworks, tornados, car wash dryers with the windows down, downtown rooftops, amusement parks, road trips, outdoor concerts, and so much laughter. Times where all else is forgotten and you've found yourself completely in the moment...and you wish you could just stretch it out a little longer...keep it from becoming just another memory. There are people I miss so much it hurts but that memory isn't who they are anymore. We've all changed.

I hope to create that feeling once again this summer...a sense of impending danger and adventure...new friends...new experiences...and new memories.

It's just to bad nothing lasts.

Heat rises girl take a bow
hair clogging the drain
steam forming thoughts on the mirror
I had a dream of déjà vu

I'm awake

2005-05-31T02:45:00.000-07:00

This is my last week of school for the semester and quite possibly for good. You would think by now I would be able to make up my mind about such things as school and what direction I want to go in my life. nope.
I have my final presentation for Visual Audio in about 7 hours. I have prepared a clip from the movie Jacobs Ladder that I feel does a good job of reinforcing the story with audio.
I took a long bike ride today...I stopped by a tea house near Belmont/Clark and had a glass of incredible Ice Green Tea...I'll be back for more soon. Found out that my little bike tool I bought really does come in handy...many things still needed tightening on my bike while on my ride.
I took the bike trail along the lake down to Grand Ave. then went to Virgin Megastore to pick up the latest Negativland CD/Book. Virgin seems to be the only store in Chicago carrying it at the moment. I then took off back to the bike trail and rode to the planetarium and found a nice place on a grassy hill to lay down my bike and read. It was an incredible view and a perfect day for just such a thing. Laying down in the grass looking over the lake. Turns out the Negativland book is an extremely good and interesting read.
After finally deciding that I had lounged around long enough I sadly left the planetarium and road the bike trail to Fullerton where I decided to ride through the parks and zoo area. I finally got on Lincoln and made my way to Got Pizza on Lincoln/Ashland/Belmont...they have amazing slices of veggie pizza.

Now I'm home...or this space...that has all my stuff. My mind is a complex network of worms waiting to go out in the rain and fuck. Harking back to the dead is pointless — a new generation has taken charge.

sol·ip·sism n. Philosophy
The theory that the self is the only thing that can be known and verified.
The theory or view that the self is the only reality.

well...I guess I'll try and get some sleep...I'll leave you with a poem I wrote for an old aquaintance...

A broken heart pulled the trigger in an ancient gesture
of jealousy and fallen kingdoms

Calvin Dowell told me how he laughed when he saw the classmate
pointing a gun at him in the high school cafeteria.
It sounded like a cap gun going off, didn’t even realize he had been shot until
he saw the blood and people screaming.

He awoke in the hospital freezing cold from the fresh out of the cooler blood the doctors transfused into him. A scar covered his neck like a handprint where the bullet entered.
I looked in childish envy at his hand covered with metal pins where the bullet had exited like a wrecking ball traveling down his arm.

I was thinking of these things as my mom told me on the phone that Calvin had just died in a car accident, just a month after getting married. I was disappointed in the only thing that I could manage to say,
“…that’s so unfair.”

conversations overheard

2005-03-16T00:10:00.000-08:00

While looking through books of poetry at Myopic waiting for the Double Door to unlock it's doors...I overheard this, "Do you want to hear something crazy? Somebody took a shit in the back of the store." I couldn't help but smile and giggle fiendishly to myself with thoughts in my head of how to further alienate myself from everyone. I did pick up a random book of poetry, The Love Suicide At Sonezaki by Siri Von Reis. A couple of examples of her work:

Available Soon In Stores, Judy,

the country's very first pregnant
doll, wears a denim maternity dress,

white tennis shoes and a wedding
ring. Even clever toddlers will be able

to help the ft. -high Mommy-to-Be
deliver an anatomically correct boy or

girl, with movable parts. Judy's
abdomen lifts off to pop the new baby

out, then flattens immediately.
(Little girls often stuff things into their

own underclothes or try to make
regular dolls look pregnant and pretend

smaller ones are their babies.)
Judy, though, has been called bizarre,

and a spokesperson for NOW now
says she conveys the distorted view

that women can look beautiful
and have babies all at the same time.

and one more that I love is:

A Composer Not Concerned with Melody,

harmony, rhythm, or timbre, Alvin Lucier
creates environments from feedback.

He holds a bowl over a microphone, or tapes
a familiar song and plays it in a teapot

while varying the sounds by lifting the lid.
Lucier has written for magnets and

ostrich eggs and once persuaded brain-waves,
amplified by electrodes, to make tones

that activated accelerating tapes, causing
percussion instruments to vibrate.

In one performance piece, Lucier records
his description of a work, then plays

the recording while re-recording the reading
with its acoustical reflections, which

thus grow in ever more resonating sequence.
Though his extended, imperceptibly

transforming music can irritate listeners,
Lucier insists that, when he elevates

tiny effects into celebrations of inner
workings, sound and space entwine

and the physical world sings.

My friends band URSA played at the Double Door tonight...nice to be finally on someone's guestlist and not having to put people on a guestlist. It felt weird just watching a show and not having to do something...almost uncomfortable. The whole night felt uncomfortable as I kept staring at my cellphone waiting for a phone call that never comes. I want to shoot holes in the moon...and tear the very fabric of space and time. I'm at a crossroads...decisions are having to be made...and I don't want to make them...wish someone else could make them for me. I feel the knots in my stomach like tiny baby fists...everything is coming to a head. It's going to overflow...and I'm thinking of clean slates...fresh starts...and a suprise twist in the story line.

I'm prepared for a long night...with no one to talk to...and a lot on my mind.

The Inescapable Art of Growing Up

2005-03-10T00:27:00.000-08:00

I recall my mother lifting her shirt,
showing me the stretch marks spread across her stomach,
like lightning across a cloud, a road map of dead ends.
She said,

“it’s your fault I’m ugly.”

I recall my father splintering the bedroom door,
fist packed full of regrets and insecurity. My mothers
screams transforming him into a child, crying for his mom,
dad nearly beat her to death.
He asked,

“do you want him as a father?”

I recall Paul making a mess of his head
with a twelve-gauge shotgun. At thirteen and even now
I can’t understand. My friends and I buried our childhood
with him.
They said,

“it’s going to be ok.”

Carry guilt like a fallen comrade, can’t let it go
dead weight dragging you down. I’ve awoke at night to
the sound of screams and gunpowder on my breath. We all
make mistakes, we all make mistakes, we all grow up.
I said,

“forgive.”

You're #2 on my memory dial but #1 in my heart

2005-03-09T12:13:00.000-08:00

Things get complicated. You think things are going to be so easy...that you don't see all the obstacles you're tripping over. Sometimes these obstacles come out of nowhere and sometimes they're right there in front of your face. If someone were to ask me if I thought I was a good person...I would have to say I'm not sure how to answer that...I've tried to be. Not always succeeding. The last 6 months have been a lifetime of a blur and I've made mistakes and I've tried to learn from them and keep moving. I would like to say that I've figured a lot of stuff out now about myself and life in general from the experience I've had...but I haven't. Underneath it all I'm still me, maybe just a little older and deeper in what? Debt? Yeah, but that's not what I was going to say...I'm deeper in doubt.

My life thus far has been quite interesting...but tomorrow I go to the clinic to pick up some results of tests I've put off taken for a long time. I would like to say that I'm going to be fine...but I really don't know...I definitely don't deserve to be fine. My first memory I can recall is one of extreme guilt and I guess guilt is what I'm feeling right now. Guilt and a faint pinch of regret. There are a lot of people I've loved, hated, used, and a few have just really let me down. I know there are people out there right now who feel the same way about me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for not knowing how to just let things go and I'm sorry for sometimes having no self-control.

I apologize to my friends. I'm just exhausted and I'm sick. I don't understand why it's so hard sometimes to just be a man. It's all been a good show...I was born into a world where it hurts to breathe sometimes. I guess the word "understand" is what's troubling me...because I just don't seem to. I don't understand any of this...I don't understand me. I don't understand going from point A to point B. I doubt any of you really understand what I'm trying to say...that's ok...I don't need you to.

Why do we listen to music? Is it because sometimes it speaks to you? I'm listening to Peach, Plum, Pear for the 6th time today and I feel like she's speaking to me. Kind of like when people pick up a bible and say they truly understand for the first time.
She said..."you've changed some"

I've been dreaming of snakes and crocodiles that bite, I've been waking up with the taste of gunpowder in my mouth, but I don't remember you in my dreams, although I felt you there. I just want to wake up happy sometime and feeling like I actually had some kind of rest. It's mostly my fault...I've abused myself for a long time...but most of it are seeds that were sown when I was a very small boy. You learn two of the most horrible things in humanity are a tongue and hands. My self-esteem so shattered that any one could have me for a smile and some attention.

So how do you sleep at night? I panic when it gets to that point of dozing off and try to fight to stay awake. I don't even know why anymore...what does it matter. My captain is anxiety. I can pretend it's all getting better but it's so hard to sleep at night and it's so hard to interact with other people like a normal person. My boss said it looks like I'm going to cry all the time...funny...that's how I feel. I've tried to open myself up more and expose myself so maybe I can heal. Maybe I care too much.

I do care...as much as I don't show it...
The people I love know who they are...thanks for making me feel real sometimes...
Thanks for dealing with me
And thanks for caring about me too

My heart is a pump...

I'm an empty dream

2005-03-07T23:38:00.000-08:00

I'm sore as hell after spending the night battling kids again at the Bottom Lounge. I've never had to kick out so many people at a show before. Mostly drugs but a few for trying to get into fights with me when I told them to settle down. I'm small but don't fuck with me. The fun part was when I dragged this kid out who took a swing at me and shoved me...as I pushed him out the door...there were two plains clothes cops waiting and they grabbed him and started patting him down...sucks to be you asshole.

I broke down today and bought the Joanna Newsom CD, The Milk Eyed Mender. She deserves my money for making my brain feel all fuzzy when she sings...and her lyrics are great.

Peach, Plum, Pear
by Joanna Newsom

We speak in the store
I'm a sensitive bore
and you're markedly more
and I'm oozing surprise

But it's late in the day
and you're well on your way
what was golden went gray
and I'm suddenly shy

And the gathering floozies
afford to be choosy
and all sneezing darkly
in the dimming divide

And I have read the right books
to interpret your looks
you were knocking me down
with the palm of your eye

This was unlike the story
it was written to be
I was riding its back
when it used to ride me

And we were galloping manic
to the mouth of the source
we were swallowing panic
in the face of its force

I was blue and unwell,
made me bolt like a horse.

Now it's done.
Watch it go.
And you've changed some.
Water run from the snow.

Am I so dear?
Do I run rare?
And you've changed some:
peach, plum, pear

I also bought a dvd called Off The Charts about the weird world of the song-poem culture. Sounded interesting to me...I'll let you know.

I have class at 9am...so I must hit the hay while listening to my new CD. I was going to make a promise to update this more often...but fuck that...I'll get to it when I can.

good night...and dream empty dreams.

The Atrocity of J.G. Ballard

2005-03-03T00:25:00.000-08:00

I was trying to post a new poem I wrote about J.G. Ballard on here but it won't let me publish it in the way I want to. So screw it. I was reading how J.G. Ballard writes everything on a typewriter still and inspired me to write a poem about him. Anyway...I'm tired and I have class in the morning...and now I'm all pissed.
Make sure you read the labels when you're buying new underwear...because sometimes you get something you weren't expecting. Just be careful.

I saw a pigeon...and I swear it was the reincarnation of this homeless guy I used to see all the time...it kept going around picking at cigarette butts.

She Sleeps In Detroit

2005-02-25T00:22:00.000-08:00

“You sigh a lot.”
“Really? I never noticed.”
The fingers of the projector light
Caressing her face.
Walk up and stab me,
I wouldn’t have a clue.

Like she didn’t at Bygones,
After the band played,
A decade ago she smiled at me.
Lost in a fog of attraction,
I shyly watched her with curiosity.

Ridiculous the idea seems, absurd
To try and make something out of these circumstances
I am often ridiculous and absurd
So maybe it will just come naturally.

The shape of her face enamors me
Her body seems to compliment my own
Like a conundrum being solved
I could stay awake a lifetime
Exploring her.

words

2005-02-22T21:59:00.000-08:00

Have you ever missed someone so much that when you get something like a simple letter from them...it's like I have to be careful with it or it might turn to dust. I spent a good amount of time just feeling the imprint like brail on the back of the pages...thinking maybe I could find a hidden message there. No hidden messages...all I needed to hear was written before me...if only I could find a way to write a kiss in such a way that she could feel it...I'll give it my best shot.

Words...sometimes you really don't have to say anything...

Jesus Hates Bald Pussy

2005-02-21T20:39:00.000-08:00

Jesus Hated Bald Pussy

Let's face it- the yo-yo president of the U.S.A. knows nothing. He is a dunce. He does what he is told to do- says what he is told to say- poses the way he is told to pose. He is a Fool.

This is never an easy thing for the voters of this country to accept.

No. Nonsense. The president cannot be a Fool. Not at this moment in time- when the last living vestiges of the American Dream are on the line. This is not the time to have a bogus rich kid in charge of the White House.

Which is, after all, our house. That is our headquarters- it is where the heart of America lives. So if the president lies and acts giddy about other people's lives- if he wantonly and stupidly endorses mass murder as a logical plan to make sure we are still Number One- he is a Jackass by definition- a loud and meaningless animal with no functional intelligence and no balls.

To say that this goofy child president is looking more and more like Richard Nixon in the summer of 1974 would be a flagrant insult to Nixon.

Whoops! Did I say that? Is it even vaguely possible that some New Age Republican whore-beast of a false president could actually make Richard Nixon look like a Liberal?

The capacity of these vicious assholes we elected to be in charge of our lives for four years to commit terminal damage to our lives and our souls and our loved ones is far beyond Nixon's. Shit! Nixon was the creator of many of the once-proud historical landmarks that these dumb bastards are savagely destroying now: the Clean Air Act of 1970; Campaign Finance Reform; the endangered species act; opening a Real Politik dialogue with China; and on and on.

The prevailing quality of life in America- by any accepted methods of measuring- was inarguably freer and more politically open under Nixon than it is in this evil year of Our Lord 2002.

The Boss was a certified monster who deserved to be impeached and banished. He was a truthless creature of former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover- a foul human monument to corruption and depravity on a scale that dwarfs any other public official in American history. But Nixon was at least smart enough to understand why so many honorable patriotic U.S. citizens despised him. He was a Liar. The truth was not in him.

Nixon believed- as he said many times- that if the president of the United States does it, it can't be illegal. But Nixon never understood the much higher and meaner truth of Bob Dylan's warning that "To live outside the law you must be honest."

The difference between an outlaw and a war criminal is the difference between a pedophile and a Pederast: The pedophile is a person who thinks about sexual behavior with children, and the Pederast does these things. He lays hands on innocent children- he penetrates them and changes their lives forever.

Being the object of a pedophile's warped affections is a Routine feature of growing up in America- and being a victim of a Pederast's crazed "love" is part of dying. Innocence is no longer an option. Once penetrated, the child becomes a Queer in his own mind, and that is not much different than murder.

Richard Nixon crossed that line when he began murdering foreigners in the name of "family values"- and George Bush crossed it when he sneaked into office and began killing brown-skinned children in the name of Jesus and the American people.

When Muhammad Ali declined to be drafted and forced to kill "gooks" in Vietnam he said, "I ain't got nothin' against them Viet Cong. No Cong ever called me Nigger."

I agreed with him, according to my own personal ethics and values. He was Right.

If we all had a dash of Muhammad Ali's eloquent courage, this country and the world would be a better place today because of it.

Okay. That's it for now. Read it and weep.... See you tomorrow, folks. You haven't heard the last of me. I am the one who speaks for the spirit of freedom and decency in you. Shit. Somebody has to do it.

We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world- a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us.... No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you.

Well, shit on that dumbness. George W. Bush does not speak for me or my son or my mother or my friends or the people I respect in this world. We didn't vote for these cheap, greedy little killers who speak for America today- and we will not vote for them again in 2002. Or 2004. Or ever.

Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush?

They are the same ones who wanted Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us- they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis.

And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them.

Hunter S. Thompson, 2002

My spine is a snake

2005-02-21T14:46:00.000-08:00

Last night I worked the High On Fire, Planes Mistaken For Stars, Kylesa, and Sweet Cobra show. I got there around 8pm and didn't have the bands all loaded out and on there way until 3am. Great show however...I'm not a big fan of metal unless it's done really well and these guys all did it well. Special thanks to High On Fire and Sweet Cobra for the CD's!

I got home around 3:30am and decided I better print out a news article that I'm supposed to bring in for class. Going to the BBC website I was shocked to find Hunter S. Thompson had killed himself. It was a little harder to go to sleep after reading that...if you haven't read Kingdom Of Fear by Mr. Thompson yet I highly urge you to do so...even if it's just for the anti-Bush essay called, Jesus Hates Bald Pussy.

For me every day is a very intimate kind of personal freedom fight. If I lose then I know that in some profound sense I'm a goner, a drone, hardly living anymore.

-Twenty-five percent of people in developed and developing countries will experience at least one psychological disorder in their lives.
-By 2020, depression will become the second-leading global cause of death and disability, after heart disease.
-People from traditional cultures increase their risk for psychological problems, including schizophrenia, by up to six times when immigrating to developed countries.
-Adbusters

Hunter S. Thompson is Dead

2005-02-21T08:47:00.000-08:00

...long live Hunter S. Thompson.

The month I hate the most is February

2005-02-19T13:54:00.000-08:00

I woke up and after watching Constatine last night decided to dig out my Hellblazer: Dangerous Habits graphic novel. The ending however brought me down with a quote from The Pogues song, Rainy Night In Soho,
We watched our friends grow up together
And we watched them as they fell
Some fell into heaven
Some of them fell into hell

I started to think of all the friends I've had and how few of them I still have any contact with. It's a lonely day and sitting here listening to the clock tick on the wall isn't helping anything. Maybe I just need my friends a little more than I let on or maybe it's just the day.

These two jokes cheered me up a bit:
A drunk stammers out of a bar and runs right into two priests. He says, "I'm Jesus Christ." The first priest says, "No, son, you're not." So the drunk says it to the second priest. The second priest says, "No, son, you're not." The drunk says, "Look, I can prove it." He walks back into the bar with the two priests. The bartender takes one look at the drunk and exclaims, "Jesus Christ, you're here again?"

A little guy walks into a bar and slips on some vomit. Minutes later a tough guy walks into the bar and slips on the vomit as well. The little guy says, "I just did that." The big guy then beats the little guy up.

My day on a whim

2005-02-19T00:42:00.000-08:00

After leaving work today I decided quite suddenly to jump on a train to Evanston to see the movie Constatine. The Centure Cinema in Evanston has a piano bar and I got quite sauced before ever getting into the movie. A movie review may not be such a good idea...If your a fan of the comics please forget about them while watching the movie...this is not Hellblazer. If you think of this as a rip off of Hellblazer kind of like the first Matrix film was a rip off of The Invisibles...well then the movie isn't so bad. I kind of liked it.

I also stumbled into a Borders looking for a gift that yet again no one seems to have in stock. I did pick one book of poetry by J. Tarin Towers called Sorry We're Close. Never read her stuff before but the first poem got me and I'm still deciding on the rest of her stuff...but some very good lines throughout the whole book. The first poem I read was called Apocalypso #1 and here it is:

He kissed me
Right on the apocalypse,

and said, "Never, ever
forget me."

"I won't," I said.
"I can't," I said.

The world is ending,
and I will never forget anything

again.

A few other good lines from her poems I liked:
"I will unbutton your ribcage and insert a homing device-you'll come back to me like a carrier pigeon."

"My phantom limb.
I swear sometimes I can almost feel you there;
I swear sometimes you almost have feelings."

"I have a pulse.
I have a problem.
I have a pornographic memory,
and a penchant for putting penises
in my scrapbook."

and my fave line so far: Your shadow hovers nearby, bodiless, like a kite that shouldn't fly on a windless day; Like a moth that never noticed the lights are out.

I have no time for this

2005-02-17T23:52:00.000-08:00

...but what the hell. I just got back from working security for a really lame show. The kids don't know how to mosh right anymore...it's ridiculous. It's more like watching a bad martial arts demonstration, lots of spin kicks and punching the floor. I'm glad I'm not a kid anymore...
Anyway...i'm tired...so I'm going to go to bed and actually write with a pen in a notebook...it's called a letter and I'm going to send it through the mail. I know it's confusing...I don't have time to explain and it has nothing to do with my father working for the post office.

A few lines about myself:
Gun shooting from a needle that's breathing in a colorless heart storm.
I'm in a considerately cold long distance face.
I'm unfortunately falling with my eye at the hurt.

"Young lovers wherever you are. Come back and remember and go away and come back. Attendance mandatory but not required" -Ken Kesey