Listen to the things we can hear. Watch the things we can see.

musica-

so among other things i recently received, i just got the new cold war kids ‘loyalty to loyalty’ Their first album was pretty good, it had some strong single tracks, along with some songs that were a bit lack luster. But what they did have when things were working as well as possible, was a great sound that didn’t sound overly orchestrated yet not trendily stripped down to some bare bones. If i had to equate it to something, there was a late sixties sound along the lines of the kinks or the doors. but i don’t. so while they have an old sort of sound underlying a lot of their songs, there is something more contemporary than that. There is a more danceable cadence to it all. So this new album does away with the not so good songs and replaces them with all pretty good quality songs, lots of jangly reverbed guitars, clean tight drumming and a throbbing bass line. The vocals have a whiny quality to them, but don’t let it put you off, it is not at all annoying. I think a lot of that has to do because he seems to know his range and keeps his voice in check and uses it rather adeptly. The songs are catchy and don’t feel like fluff, there is a nice seriousness to the sound that cold war kids have, and i expect them to get better and better with each new release. Keep your ears tuned to this group and give a listen to ‘loyalty to loyalty’ its a good album that crosses a lot of moods and is a success from start to finish.

My Morning Jacket has been a longtime favorite of mine. They always put together interesting albums, ‘Z’ probably being their most popular, although i’m sort of torn between Z and ‘at dawn’. Their new album ‘Evil Urges’ isn’t really a retread of what they do, nor is it a departure. All the things that make the bands albums so good, the vocals, the guitar, the southern inflection, is all intact. Some tracks veer around, but not at all in a bad way, every bit of this album is interesting and fun to listen to. The title track is a great song, it seems to go in a lot of directions but makes everything work. There is a great pacing to their songwriting, long enough to get into, but not enough to lose the listener. maybe highly suspicious is a throw away song, but i think it works in the context of the whole album, just throwing us a curve ball, but it won’t end up on any mixes anytime soon for me.


but even great albums end up with a song or two that aren’t nearly as good as the rest. case in point, Feist’s Sea Lion Woman on her Reminder album is a track worth skipping. And reading other reviews of MMJ’s evil urges, i’m reminded of the reviews of Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky. It’s hard to come out with an album that will be as critically acclaimed and well received as Yankee Foxtrot Hotel, but sky blue sky is great in its own right. And i think MMJ are in a similar territory with this new album.


And in case you didn’t know every album in those last 2 paragraphs need to be in your music collection already. go get them if you don’t have them. and just to clarify there were 6 albums mentioned.




Let’s change the pace a bit. Raphael Saadiq just came out with a fantastic new album ‘The Way I See It’. Saadiq has been making music for a while and was a part of tony toni tone in the 80s and early 90s, and later was a part of lucy pearl along with dawn from en vogue and ali shaheed muhammad form a tribe called quest around 2000. All along the way he had been a solo artist in his own right. A solid singer songwriter who has worked with the top artists in the neo soul/ r&b / hip hop genre. He had a great album with ‘instant vintage’. But oh my god!!! this new one ‘the way i see it’ is so perfect an album. It is everything that music needs to be. This is on par with marvin and al. I cannot tell you enough how good this is. I want so bad to see him perform after this album. I’m a huge fan of the heyday of soul, and i feel that this album is a great thing that has its hands rooted firmly in that sound, making no bones about referring back to it, yet feels way ahead of what R&B has been offering up for the last 10+ years. GO BUY THIS NOW.


and if you liked this go pick up some DAP tone records, notably Sharon Jones and the Dap kings ‘100 days & 100 nights’


And maybe you saw the MTV video awards. at the end of the show Kanye did a new song off his upcoming album ‘808s & heartbreaks’. The song ‘love lockdown’ was great, and will soon suffer from being overplayed, so listen to it now, get sick of it, ditch it, then listen to it in a few years and enjoy it all over again. Kanye, all his antics aside, is a great producer and makes great tracks. He has a good sense of what sounds good and is really honing in on the things that are a part of the time. And i think the most interesting thing about kanye is that he understands that he is less an artist that is recording and documenting culture, and more an artist that is actually creating culture.


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so that’s a bunch of music that hopefully will sound interesting somebody other than me.


Television-


I don’t have cable where i’m at, so that is a real bummer, and i really love TV. I think that it is an infinitely interesting medium. More so than movies at time. TV has to work in the limitations of time frame, censorship, and the need to span 20 or so episodes and multiple seasons. Movies have the grandeur and flash and the ability to not have to keep your attention past the run of the movie. TV shows have to be interesting enough to keep you tuned in to the end, but enough to make you come back next week or next season. and on top of that it has to be accessible for everyone, nothing too esoteric. and since i try to write as much as i can, i think that pursuing writing a television show is in my future at some point . anyway, new fall shows, new fun. by the way, i tape my shows at my cousins and watch them there.


So the office is back and is as good as it ever was. But really, talking about this one and how good it is, is like talking about breathing. there’s really no need to as long everything is happening the way it should, and there is no surprise that anyone is watching it.


I’m super excited about the return of 30 rock. it is one of the best written, zaniest shows ever. It is on the same level as the adventures of pete and pete, the venture brothers, and arrested development. I think that the daringness to push the limitations of what is sane, and present us with some really crazy situations and off the wall comedic riffs, is a hard thing to do right, and 30 rock does it great. everything about this show is made to make us laugh, and it works. where shows like the office tug on the sentiments of being so heartbreakingly realistic, 30 rock goes the other direction and pushes the surreal into a viable TV pacing.


Along with these shows ‘my name is earl’ comes back as well. I really feel that this ship has sailed. It does have it’s funny moments, no denying that, and everyone involved is excellent. But there is something too sappy about the show, and it made itself really evident last season. And i know that the premise of the show is about the guy redeeming himself through being a better person, but it feels too close to an afterschool special and too preachy at times. I find myself skipping this show more often than not.


But then a show like ‘how i met your mother’ in all its predictable-ness is enjoying. Maybe it has to do with the fact that i am the same age as the people that are in the show. I guess i’m a yuppy now. But the key to the show has to be how well everyone works together on that show, and more so, neil patrick harris is amazing on it. It’s not groundbreaking by any means, really just a bit of a friends retread, but it is fun to watch. and the new show ‘worst week’ is off to a fun start, although i don’t know how long i could watch an otherwise likable guy keep messing up in front of the inlaws, it was done pretty successfully in ‘meet the parents’. but i’ll tune in and see how it goes.


And i have yet to watch the new season of ‘the new adventures of old christine’ but that show is always fun to watch.


And another returning show is ‘Life’. The first season was a great watch that took an interesting take on the police style drama. each episode self contained yet expanding on a larger story. It is well written and witty. I’m excited to see this come back, hopefully it will find a groove that it can fit into and will be around for a few seasons. Plus the lead actress, sarah shahi, is beautiful, not that that would be reason enough to watch a show, it’s just nice to see multicultural people in the public eye redefining the ideas of aesthetics.


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libros-


I just picked up Chuck Klosterman’s new novel ‘downtown owl’. And while i haven’t had time to start reading it, it should be good. Klosterman is a great writer that has a natural ease and playfulness to his words. Sex drugs and cocopuffs was great, all the stuff he’s written for spin and esquire was great, in fact i kept all my spins that he had articles in for a long time just so i could reread his essays. So i’m really interested in finding out how he does with writing fiction. as soon as i get around to cracking it open i’ll let you know.


I love taschen art books! ART NOW (volumes 1 & 2) are great surveys of contemporary art, i’m super excited about the upcoming release of art now vol 3. one day i hope i’m in an art book. I’m working on my cool portrait that goes in the corner of the page i’ll be on. haha. But tashcen is great because they often sell a rereleased version of their books for a discounted price (usually 10-15 dollars) I just picked up terryworld and architecture now for super cheap at the local big name bookstore. check out their website and look through what they offer, it’s all top notch stuff. you won’t be disappointed.


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comida-



I have been on an indian and thai kick recently. nothing more to say really, just that it is so good. mmmmm curry, naan, pad see yew, thai iced tea. mango lassi.


and now i’m thinking greek food sounds good


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that’s a bunch of stuff that is hanging out in my life right now. enjoy.

hold it up, you’ve lost enough.

i’m really glad that school is starting back up.


I know that it really never stopped, and that i didn’t get that much time off, but this is the start of a new academic year and there is a palpable level of excitement in the air. There seems to be more life occurring in this place. maybe it’s because i was here when no one else was here, so the difference is noticeable.


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I have a tooth ache. it’s not really in pain, it’s just acting all sensitive, and i’ve never really had that happen before so it is noticeably annoying.


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So i have had a lot of time to myself. lots of time to think and pretend and wish and hope and sober up to reality and sober up to the fact that what i think and pretend isn’t reality. I’ve been thinking a lot of my situation for the past year or two. I think that because this feels like a new start, the past becomes imbued with a feeling of fiction. Not that i don’t think that it was real, it just feels so make believe. Like it was almost a lifetime ago. suffice to say i have had little contact with anyone involved. maybe the reality is that i have had little contact with anyone that was connected to the last 2 years of my life. It’s like they all stopped existing, but it feels like there is something missing. I miss these people.


and now, now i am in a place that was only worthwhile because of the company, because of the friends i made, and mainly because i felt close to a girl. I wanted to be here to be with her, and now she’s gone and i am trying to understand this place in a way that might allow me some happiness while i am here. And to clarify it isn’t bad, it just isn’t good. So i have a desire for it to become good.


But ini, I don’t know how that ended up. I’m still waiting for the denouement. maybe it’s like people were saying, that this is the sign that i’m looking for, that this is her reaction. i don’t know. i don’t want to be delusional, but i don’t want to give up hope either. I think that at the end of it all, i want to believe that there is the potential for something that can be lasting, not at all a flash in the pan, so i keep that in the back of my head, and i refuse to concede that anything is over, it’s just always in progress.


i want to hear her voice. she speaks so softly and the words pour out of these pretty lips i can’t help but stare at them and connect the two, so as to form a memory that could last forever.




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i got a bunch of new music that i’d like to share with you


from the archives.


i went through some cds of yore and downloaded them onto my computer (which is new, but recent rumblings of a new mac coming out make me want to get a new newnewer one). The first is Leona Naess ‘Comatised’. I dug her up because i saw that she had a new album out on itunes. this disc from 1999 holds up pretty well for being 9 years old. She is a folky rock singer, heavy on the reverbed acoustic guitars, and has a wonderful voice. In the vein of feist and new buffalo, she is a great songwriter and performer. I won’t promise that it will blow your mind, but it’s a nice record and her last one was pretty good too. I think that her newest one has been getting good reviews but i have yet to pick it up. Anyway, comatised shows no signs of being too dated and fits very well in the music landscape right now.



I don’t know if i’ve talked about this one before. Orbital ‘in sides’. I used to be so into electronic music way back when, and this album was awesome, particularly ‘the box’. everything about this song builds and builds and becomes more complex resulting in this catastrophic yet very melodic wall of sound. + it makes use of being recorded in stereo. the entire album plays out this way. there is nothing too difficult about any of the songs, good beats, good breaks, catchy tunes. orbital makes serious music fun, they are much more palatable than the orb, and not as obnoxious as the crystal method or chemical brothers (but they were of different styles so…). I loved this album and would play it all the time. It goes well with a booming sound system or being played a little bit more softly and just chilling out with it.


Next on the wayback machine is Moby ‘Early Underground’. This is a collection of moby’s early house tracks way before he made play and became ultra annoying by talking and being someone people want to hear talk. This dates back to 1993 if that helps any. I remember picking this up brand new. The house and rave scene was at its peak, and these songs were the epitome of getting out there and dancing. A lot of stuff from that time is emberrassing to look at and listen to. This however was alright. It’s been years since i listened to this and it had a lot of memories attached to it, but more objectively the songs were good. try to find this and give it a listen, if you’re old like me this might make you nostalgic, if you’re young it might make you wish that moby was better than people give him credit for now-an-days.



New Stuff


Kings of Leon were on SNL last weekend and did an amazing job. their new album titled ‘Only by the Night’ was just released and they keep with the thing that makes them so amazing, foot stomping and rousing songs. This time around it seems like the songs are soaring a lot more often than previously, maybe it’s a sign of their getting older. This is a great album GO GET IT NOW! KOL needs more listeners and more people into them, i’m hoping to elevate musical tastes, and this is a good one for the cause.


And a new TV on the Radio record ‘Dear Science,’ just came out. They can be a difficult band to get into, but are well worth the listening investment. This album is more of an up tempo album than cookie mountain. a lot easier to get into this one, if you haven’t heard TVOTR start of with dear science and work your way backwards. their first album was some strange doowop prog thing that i enjoyed, but i have to sort of say it like i’m asking myself as much as i am telling you. But this one is coming together pretty nicely and i have listened to it a couple times on some long drives, it keeps me interested and excited throughout the whole album, nothing too wandering or meandering into obscure musical territory.

I have a bunch more music to review, and other stuff as well. next post. + the return of catagories!

we are getting closer to being further

you have the most beautiful eyes. they make me wish i could see the world the way you do. my tired eyes are tired of the way they see the mundane. but the one thing that makes my eyes better than yours is that i can look at you. i get to see you. i get to be amazed and awe-inspired by you.


i believe in you. i have hope in you. and seeing you gives me hope.


hope that this is all worth everything. hope that i’m the right person.


you have the most beautiful smile. sort of perfect due to its flaws (but its flaws are really few). it is the sort of smile that is uncontrollable, better yet it isn’t containable. it unabashedly arrives on your face in a way that permeates the atmosphere and melts hearts. often it is too much to take in, like staring at the sun.


when i met you so long ago, i knew within those first few moments that i was into you. you posses that unquantifiable thing that makes you better than 99.9% of the rest of the world. you have that thing that makes you stand out from everything else. And while the eyes and smile (and really, everything else about you) are all very very enjoyable, it’s this other thing, this unnameable thing that makes me want to be around you. maybe it is you in your totality, or maybe it’s just one thing added on top, whatever it is, for me you are the one that i long to be with.


i know, it sounds crazy. but at the same time it’s completely sane, written down as adroitly as possible in plain english.


by the way my name is mark (but i’ll still go by boreyou).


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i was digging through some old cds and dvds the last time i came home, so here are some things that i’ve brought back with me.


i have a fond spot in heart for Hall & Oates. i don’t really know specifically what album because i have a greatest hits plus 3 cds that i’ve picked up in discount bins at gas stations while out on long drives. But they are such a great band and write such perfect songs. they hold up really well, and i think that is due in part because they don’t really get that passing interest in 80s soft rock like other bands such as journey and chicago. there’s really no irony to listening to their music because it is really straight forward and really good. i could list a bunch of different songs, but really you can’t go wrong with any of them.


i dug up 2 old Brand New Heavies albums, “Brother Sister” and “excursions”. Both of these have NDea Davenport as their singer, and were the albums when they were at their peak. They have released a bunch of albums since then with a few other singers, and recently reunited with NDea to put out a new record. But these 2 are early 90s london funk at its best. And while Jamiroquai (with bassist Stuart Zender) might have been the more popular band associated with the genre, BNH did it right and without being gimmicky. So if you are interested in dance style tracks of the 90s that aren’t too electro or house, this is worth a listen. (but i do have to say that the videos from these albums are sort of cringe inducing, sort of in a Clueless fashion sense)


i’m not sure if i’ve talked about it before but Curb Your Enthusiasm is a fantastic show. it is perfect. and i bring it up because i recently saw that there was an ad for all of the seasons being on sale for 17 dollars each, which is so much better than when i bought them at full price (but well worth it still). anyway it was at bestbuy which i sort of despise but still go to.


and it seems that i like a lot of things that just don’t have any longevity to them like Arrested Development, NewsRadio, Veronica Mars, Cavemen (yes cavemen). And not to be excluded in that list is the always talked about “Freaks and Geeks”. I love that show so much. everything about it was so well done. And it rang so true to life, not ever glossed over or dolled up. it is one of the bests things ever on TV. I think sometimes that it is sort of better to have these shows end the way they do, that it helps maintain their quality and their mystique. i have to hide the dvds of this show because when i start watching i can’t stop. i end up watching all the episodes and disappearing for a few days, which is not good for work.

I just want to know if you’ve got room in your heart.

I just realized that i’m sort of lacking realistic concern towards the future. It feels like i am really set on being in the moment. And i feel that i have to force myself to consider the outcome of my actions and situations in life. And furthermore that having to do this is the root of my over-thinking. I think that that sounds reasonable.


i’m ready for this to happen in the worst way possible. i just want something to occur. And i feel a little tired of instigating or initiating these things in my life. I feel like being lazy and letting it come to me. But then part of me thinks that time stops if i stop trying, that i have to keep on keeping on because no one else will do it for me.

I’m used to this.





on a related but completely divergent tangent, i want to say sexy things. i want to fill your head with the sort of prose that might make you want to kiss me. maybe less the idea that the words are doing anything, and more that you might just want me to shut up for a second. i’m sort of didactic when i say things of this nature (in case any of you were curious).

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one album to talk about right now.


This one is an oldie but goodie. Goldie’s ‘Timeless’ is a great album. it is drum and bass, so that puts it in the category of electronic, but really it is so much more than that. It is gospel and r&b, along the lines of marvin’s ‘what’s going on’, but electronic (and i sort of despise the term electronic or electronica because back then we just called it all techno, and then there were sub genres.). This came out in 1995, and it makes me remeber being a crazy pent up high schooler. i had so much going on inside of me, and i felt that all i needed was the right place to let it all out. It makes me feel the sort of frustration i had back then, but also it gives me the hope i had as well. i don’t know what came over me last night, but i was struck with the feeling to find my copy of it and listen to it again. I think the last time i listened to it was around 2000, before i made the commitment to pursue education more seriously. it has so much going on, it is such a dynamic album. But back in high school i felt like i found a gem in this album. i would be a bit more selfish with my music and have a sense of ownership over records that i felt responsible for. i have this both on tape and on cd (just an aside to how much i like this album).


anyway, this album is a deep album that can get you moving, or just chill out and get into a head nodding sort of mood. Go listen to the album, it’s perfect (and don’t really bother with saturns return, his second album).

i used to think i knew something. now i know better.

there are these long pauses in life. sort of agonizing in their duration. it feels like the moments between when ini and i are within each others’ vicinity seem to be getting larger and larger, while conversely the time we spend is dwindling. you might chalk it up to her not liking me. i might chalk it up to the same thing too. or maybe it is my inaction that is the culprit. but i want to say that i’m trying. i’m trying to do what i feel is needing to be done. and maybe she just doesn’t feel the same way i do.



but then, how exactly do i feel?



i’m fine, thanks for asking.



no really, i’m fine. but how do i feel about everything right now, i suppose is the better question.




i guess everything is the same. i really feel like we need to give this a shot, her and i. at least i feel like it deserves everything i’ve got to throw at it. but these gaps, these ever expanding chasms between us are starting to take their toll on me. not at all dissuading me to keep trying, but making me at least wonder for how long should i go on. do i need to take a hint at this? are these actions, or inactions rather, the things i need to see. or am i looking too far into something that is maybe nothing at all. and i don’t mean that this relationship between her and i, the friendship we have or the romance i want, are nothing. i meant that i’m looking too hard at every nuance that it’s starting to be more destructive then beneficial. but love does that i suppose. it amplifies everything. makes everything bigger and more meaningful, and sometimes that makes the world harder to stomach.


and i think of the future. i think of what do i do if this happens. what do i do if it doesn’t. i have no ideas. and even more so it feels like life is really going to come knocking on my door soon enough. i know that this life that i’ve had, sort of nomadic and free, yet stable enough to participate in, is winding down finally. and i don’t know what’s next. there doesn’t seem to be anything i can be sure of for the future. i have no anchor. and i suppose to continue a nautical metaphor, the wind is blowing in every direction. all i have to do is steer.


but love is a wonderful place to be. sort of scary. it makes my heart race, or rather, she makes my heart race. i’m jonesing for her in the worst way. and maybe it’s better to not see her. so that maybe the inevitable of this thing not happening is less heartbreaking. but the problem with that is that the lack of interaction is equally heartbreaking. i guess there is no winning at this game for me.


but i’m not sad or depressed by any means. i feel good about life. i feel excited by the potential. and part of that has to do with meeting ini in the first place. helping me understand what it was to have this all over again. i wouldn’t have done it without her.


my yearning is related to wanting to share this great thing with a great person.


and the other. what is happening there. nothing. we’re friends. i love her. but we’re not lovers by any means. it compounds its emotional wreckage by having to watch love alter in a way that it makes you feel like love is dying. maybe that doesn’t make sense. and maybe it does. i can’t tell the difference anymore. but i miss her. i miss the way my hand fit over hers. it’s hard to make sense of any of this. it gets more convoluted the longer time goes on, and all of this is just happening in my head. i hear voices (not really, and i’m not any more or less crazy than i am normal) and i have conversations that play out over and over again. sometimes they repeat reality and other times they are conjured out of the ether. and the line between the two is so blurry and crooked. i lack clarity. but then if i think it is it true if i think it is true?

maybe i’m having an existential crisis.


it wouldn’t be the first time.

but the complexities of all of this… it’s so hard to explain everything that is going on. i really am trying. i’m trying to be honest about this situation, but i know that every side has a different story, and i’m eager to listen to those.






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maybe something different to not think about the things we think about when we try not to think.


music. how about some music.


Kon & Amir released another great album “kon & amir present off track volume 2″. it’s available on itunes. they do an amazing job of finding some great tracks of rare soul and funk. this album has even better tracks than the first off track. it gets a little bit more consistently worldly than previous albums. in the past they have included cambodian (?) covers of songs, some dub and dance hall stuff, and other neat tidbits. in this album they dedicated a lot of time to some african inspired soul. really good grooves going on. i drove around town today, taking the scenic route just hanging out with that album.


And in a similar vein, i just got 9 or so albums of Fela Kuti. i’ve had ‘zombie’ for a while, but just recently got a whole slew of albums. Fela Kuti is often touted as africa’s James Brown. His songs have a long groove going on. the albums are lush in their orchestration, and while the jam can go abstract at times, the band is good at bringing it back with a thunder. pick up zombie as a good starting point or check out some youtube videos of him in action. also he has a pretty amazing story, sort of pales other musicians lives.


For a more contemporary sound, check out Omega Love. i have their self titled cd, and they have a new one on the way. Philly seems like the place for great music, and they definitely add to my perception of the city. they sound like… um i don’t know, a bunch of different bands all at the same time. i hear brand new heavies, the cardigans, esthero, and some other stuff as well. i’m excited about their new album because i heard a single off of it. check out their myspace.


and i just picked up Do Make Say Think’s ‘you, you’re a history in rust’. i’ve only listened to it a bit, but i’ve liked their previous albums. they make provocative (mostly) instrumental songs that range from indie pop to avant garde, a la broken social scene (one of my favorite bands ever).



and another i’ve picked up but have not listened to at all is wolf parade’s ‘feed the animals’. i loved their ‘apologies to the queen mary’ album so much, and i will write a review once i let it sink in.


And on a bad note, weezer’s new album (the red one) is verging on really really bad. i’m trying to give them a fair shake, and maybe i just don’t get it anymore or maybe it’s over my head, but this album is lacking in so many ways. the songs are overly simple and lack the complexities of songs like ‘only in dreams’ and ‘i just threw out the love of my dreams’ and ‘tired of sex’. And maybe this is a case of how pinkerton sort of disappointed at first in the shadow of the blue album but slowly became a piece of genius start to finish. The only problem with that thinking is that i’ve been saying that for the last 3 albums and it has yet to happen for any of those, and i sort of doubt it’ll happen with this one. stop doing what you’re doing and start proving me wrong, please!

ladies and gentlemen, i present to you my heartache.

this title makes me think of the Spiritualized album “ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space” and the title song at the beginning of the record. it came out right after high school for me, and it reminds me of the fall of my second year of college. it makes me sad, sort of inflective, over that time. it makes my memories play out like a pensive movie montage, maybe because that is how i thought life was supposed to be back then. i was so directionless, i didn’t understand what i was doing in school, i had no life, i was a failure at love. It makes me feel an achy pain in my chest when i think about that time of my life. but it’s a beautiful album and is just so laden with sentiment and heartbreak that makes it an interesting listen, even in light of the way it makes me feel (actually probably because of the way it makes me feel.) anyway, the title track has a verse that goes ‘all i want in life is a little bit of love to take the pain away.’ is there nothing more perfect than that phrase?


how do we go on when we are heartbroken? it feels so impossible to make pretend gestures that your heart is capable to love again after it has been shattered. but then one day it is all possible. it all starts to happen before you have the chance to realize that anything has changed.


maybe it’s like a friends hair. if you see them everyday, their hair grows at a normal rate, but you normalize its progress and stop noticing any change. but if you only see them sporadically, their hair grows, and as more time passes without interaction, the next time you see them after an extended time apart, their hair will most likely look different(granted that they don’t have it cut the same way.)


but you forget that you were feeling that pain, maybe because you expect it to be there, and at first it’s all you can focus on, but after a while it becomes a part of the daily routine until it just disappears and gets swallowed up by the background.


i have this sinking feeling that ini doesn’t feel at all similarly towards me that i do to towards her. and it makes my heart ache like thinking back to those early college days does. but because this is so current and of the moment, it feels like it’s a more intense sort of feeling. i can feel that acheyness travel out to my elbows, all tingle and electricity running through outstretched arms. i’m tired of imagining all of this. i want this fantasy to become reality. but i’m frightened by the end of it all as well. i’m ready for anything that comes my way. i want to be a part of life. i want to be included in all the fun and excitement.

let’s make a promise to never forget to remember each other.

i’ve been sort of preoccupied the last week to really get in any real thought towards an interesting post. I’ve been at work in the studio and at work, and it feels like my days have been so long and filled. but it’s good to feel busy. to feel like i’m doing stuff. And i’ve been going home for the weekends, so that has been hectic. nice but hectic nonetheless.


at work and in life, i’ve been hanging out with the same people day in and day out. and while they are all fun and interesting, it doesn’t seem like a complete thing either. It sort of feels like prelude to something else. and granted i’m still waiting to hang out with someone else, but having things going on makes the dry spell slightly more bearable. but still i want to hang out with her. but more on that when that happens. haha moron. (sorry, i’m feeling a bit loopy and childish.)

So as i was driving i was thinking of something.


people fall in love. people fall out of love. people fall in love again. but between falling out and falling in again, there is nothing more riveting than the pain you feel from falling out. And while you watch your life spiral out of control, watch your heart experience some pain that you feel will be so terrible and permanent, when you find someone new, or someone finds you, always when you least expect it, that pain stops having such a real gravity.


anyway, my point being is that when relationships fall apart, you make a promise to someone or yourself or they to you or whatever, that you will never forget someone. that for what it was worth, for maybe all the bad things or terrible feelings you are going through or have yet to go through, the truth is that you will forget them soon enough. You will soon replace them with someone new, and they will replace you as well. But we want to hang on. we want to know that we will suffer, that we get the chance to experience anguish, that we will know that we tried to do things and didn’t get it right but we got back on that horse. It’s sort of heroic a gesture. one that is slightly self inflicted but still heroic. It gives us reason, purpose.


I want to think that i hang on to those things, that i don’t forget. But i have. i have been trying to remember them, but they are starting to fade. I find that i’m in a mad scramble to try to keep them all. i want to think that i’ll remember this all, but then i feel that i might not, so i suppose this is what i’m writing it for.



that’s about all i’ve got right now. i know it’s not as concise or maybe prose worthy as some other posts. but i’ll be back to my good old self soon enough.




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i’m ready for tuesday. here’s why.


the 15 year old kid that i sometimes act like is looking forward to the release of gr4nd th3ft 4uto 4 (i wrote it that way to not get strange traffic). I don’t play video games all too much anymore, but in my youth i used to wast hours and hours on video games. In fact i still have my original nintendo. I used to spend days and nights in the arcade. And in all honesty i am one of the better street fighter 2 players ever. I am not really making that up either. i’ve won contests and everything. but the new game looks fun and i want to see how it all comes together. I’ve played the last one and it was tons of fun. I’m thinking i might end up getting lost and will never be seen ever again. that’s not true. i hope.



Here’s the real deal. Tuesday is the day of Portishead’s new CD ‘3′ is out. I can not wait. i want want want so bad to have it. i’ve watched a video of a live performance or the new stuff and it’s amazing. They are also playing coachella this weekend. bummed that i can’t go. i’ll write a real review as soon as i hear it first hand.

a slight respite in the middle of the night.

so i made it back to my home away from what was once my home. i made a decision to not battle the sun head on during my journey back, although i did procure an grand pair of old people eye protection that fits over my prescription antiojos. they are kind of cool, lots of funny, but serious business none the less. so under the cover of night i drove back to where i am needed. i had the windows down the whole way, and the semi warm night cut through my sweater in a way that made it the perfect climate to exist in.


i have an affinity towards the cold. it feels better. in my brain, i believe that the cold is better then the heat. let me tell you why.



granted i have never been in one of those situations where the temperature sits at a frigid below zero state for weeks at a time. people, at least initially at the dawn of homo erectus, were not supposed to survive that. Nomads would leave in search of more adequate climates. It is only recently, as people have settled into a state of stationary-ness, that we have had to endure that regularly. Although as i write this, i wonder about pre-western-history inuits, aleutians, and mongolians, did they live through that type of weather. but i do know that mongolians were more nomadic as they still are to this day. but whatever. basically mother nature is telling people to move on because it’s about to get frickin chilly. but i’ve never been in that type of cold. i think the most i’ve gotten to was a week of air in the teens, with wind at about 15-20 miles an hour, plus snow falling down at about a half foot to a foot a day. I think that is pretty adequate in terms of having some experience of some cold weather.



As for heat, i spent my formative years in the desert. summer days were in the 110s no problem, plus smog choking you out of any motivation, plus no means to get to a better place. It was a real feeling of stuck-ed-ness. Nights were no better. still in the 100s, i’d drench a towel in water and use it as a blanket. sort of like some backwards bizzaro-world thing, like reading books to get dumb. it felt sort of ludicrous when i first tried it, and still sounds crazy now, but it has been well integrated into my practice of suburban heat survival skills. so i’m pretty well rounded in that sense as well.



And as far as i’m concerned, there is no difference to a ‘dry’ heat. i detest when people say things like that. a dry heat. ‘at least it’s a dry heat’ . hmph. that was me being indignant to that sort of comment. sure humidity is pretty miserable, but really, when the day is 100 degrees, is it any better. it’s still bad. there’s no consolation in not sweating up an olympic pool. it still feels like crap. everything is sticky. the steering wheel burns your hand. your clothes cling too tightly the place where skin touches skin is like two pieces of tape meeting sticky side to sticky side. so it’s not better. it’s still bad. and as for experience. i’ve been to tropical climates for extended stays. heat over there is just as gross as heat over here.


but back to telling you why the cold is better. it’s pretty simple and a one dimensional answer, so here goes. you can always put on more clothes to get warmer, but you can’t take off more clothes to get cooler. you sort of reach a maximum level of nakedness, then you’re still hot. but you could add another layer, get more woolen items, don a down jacket, cover your head and retain 70 percent of your body heat.


i don’t know, call me crazy, but that seems pretty reasonable a reason to justify the cold over the heat.


so the cold and me are buddies. it lets me wear my collection of sweaters and jackets. the best is when you can wear shorts with a sweater. that’s confusing but makes perfect sense at the same time.


It’s sort of like some fashion contradiction that makes complete sense once you get into it.


i want really bad to take the night and share it with ini. just go out and watch the stars chase the darkness. wait until the sun comes up to make sense of all the craziness that we might be able to endure. i’m not sure that that would be romantic, i mean in my intentions, maybe more just enjoyable for the both of us. maybe something that would make the nights last longer and the days between them that much shorter. i want to have a soundtrack to those nights.





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and maybe part of that soundtrack would be Dr. Who Dat? ‘Beat Journey’. It’s sort of a smallish label release, so it’s a bit hard to come by. But it sounds like 70s spy movies even though it is found under the hip hop section. Sure there are the standard breaks, and it sounds like it’s related to some of the metal fingers stuff. but it’s something i just got and have been listening to. i just can’t stop.


and maybe for something on the opposite side of the spectrum, try out some glam inspired early new romantic (read 80’s) music. I just found Japan’s ‘adolescent sex’. besides the snappy and salacious title, the album is pretty intense. I think the single adolescent sex is such a funky dance track. sort of weird but totally enjoyable. they were inspired by bowie’s stuff, but really who isn’t and if not they should be. you can find a video on youtube somewhere and i’ll add it to my little video player on the right soon.

And if you haven’t heard, portishead is releasing a new album in just a few days. excited? i sure am. i love love love love portishead. their music was the soundtrack to my life. has been the soundtrack to my life. will continue to be the soundtrack to my life. if you get the chance to see them, i’m jealous. but if not, then we’re even. and if you haven’t already seen it they have a video of their concert at roseland ballroom from way back when out ( it came out ages ago). my vhs copy could use some updating, plus the fact i no longer have a vcr. anyway, new album titled simply ‘3′ out soon. pick it up. it sounds different from what they’ve put out before, but after 10+ years you should hope so. but there are tons of people writing about this so i’ll leave it there and just put out my support to one of my favorite bands.

And for LA people there are some great shows coming up. El-P is playing soon, i think at the el rey. Hall & Oates are playing as well. and really unknown Superdrag is playing at the Troubador. I’m excited about that. they had a minor single in the early 90s with ’sucked out’ then they sort of fizzled out commercially, but continued to release albums. I always liked them and have seen them 3 times and thought that they broke up to pursue other things 2 or 3 years ago. But i just saw them on a flyer and got all excited. They put on a great show. especially at the troubador. i’m pretty sure i’m going to go to that.




that’s that for now. see i came back with a better post than the last one. more coherent and more concise, and a whole lot cooler temperature wise.



and just to let you in on something of no real significance, i used every letter of the alphabet at least once (and not in order) to start the titles of the posts on here. ha. fun times.

Zealous chasing means two things. 1. the chaser wants something. 2. the chased does not want to be caught. Am i forever the 1. in life?

Reading over these posts, i have a hard time discerning if the dynamic i have described between myself and ini is in fact the way that i described it. It makes me wonder how much of this is fabricated in my brain. I’m sure, all of it is concocted to a degree, that i am telling or reciting the way that i believe things to be. But like Roshamon, there are so many facets to a single story. But you know what i mean. at least i hope you do.



but then there is the point. what i mean and what actually is, is so subjective. no mystery there i suppose. But then how do we understand truth. how do we comprehend complexity, boil it down into a single line. Something that we can gulp down, stomach for the time being, until further evidence, or greater enlightenment strikes at us like a scion of comprehension.


I love this life.


I love not knowing anything, but yet…


it feels like i know something. it appears that i have my head on straight, and that maybe the world and the situations that it presents to me are crooked.


I forget what it’s like to be like this, because i have no perspective on it. I’m so caught up in it all that i lose sight of the shape. I intended for these writings to help understand the form it takes, to maintain a view of the edges. This is some photographic evidence of what transpired in my mind. these are my thousand words worth. thousands upon thousands of words worth. I wish i could let you all in. let you all see this world that i live in. it’s a wonderful place. it has wonderful people. it took a long time to get here. but here i am.


and really there is no end in sight. falling in love all over again is like falling in love the first time. let’s do this forever.





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i have an affinity for soul music. When i was a young lad, i used to really love reggae and dancehall. My first tape was a dancehall tape that had a bunch of different artists on it (my first album probably predates this and is the soundtrack for Grease). I forget who all was on it, but i remember the cover being black and having pink painted feet on it. i miss that tape. But that led to an interest in hip hop. and the first tape or music i ever bought with my own money was Run DMC’s ‘raising hell’. If you have never heard this, i demand that you listen to it. In the canon of rap, this is the blueprint. To date myself, i bought it brand new. I don’t mean that it wasn’t used, that i purchased it when it was released. I remember wanting to go to the wherehouse to pick it up. i was a little kid back then and my mom thought i was crazy for listening to that crazy music.


And for a long time after that, there wasn’t much else besides hip hop that i listened to. It stayed that way for a good long while, probably up until 1992. then i got interested in electronic music, but that was part of the lifestyle back then. i remember being 14 and going to raves in old buildings or farms. But back then rap started to really go gangster, and that wasn’t that interesting. And while i had a lot of friends in gangs, the thing i was more interested in were all the old-school jams. roger & zapp, malo, tierra, tower of power, brenton wood. all great. and there was a radio show that played on the local channel that broadcasted (still does to this day) ‘Art Laboe’s killer oldies’ every sunday night. I remember listening, hoping in vain that i would get a song dedicated to me from some girl i never knew. I remember trying to work up the nerve to dedicate a song to someone i thought was special. I still get those feelings 16 years later.


but those oldies were the best. They made me think of how times might have been better way back when. But that thought turned into not thinking that it was actually better back then, but maybe it was good to look back fondly and let the songs help define and focus what you feel you remember. And listening to them, i started to notice how samples were used. I could hear an original song and trace it to a sample and vice versa. my musical catalogue was growing, and i could see how everything was drawing from everything. I knew for a long time that hip hop had used samples, that techno used samples, that drum and base used samples, but it took a long time to get to the point of connecting it to its original source.


And slowly my interest in hip hop waned. it had never fully disappeared, but i wasn’t too in to it. What i had become interested in was finding the old r&b and funk songs that were used in hip hop. I became a crate digger. not really for records, but for albums.


and now, i think that there are a lot of interesting things happening in hip hop again. but soul and r&b and funk are really what is getting me going.


For some good hip hop check out Madlib and what he does at StonesThrow records. There are some amazing things being released by them. more on that in the future. Also listen to MF Doom and the metalfingers thing. And maybe before that listen to madlib and mf dooms collaboration Madvillain “madvillainy”. it is great. great beats and strange flow make for an all around interesting album.


Another person to go check out is Ghostface Killah. His last 4 or 5 albums have been all solid. of course his ’supreme clientele’ is always talked about, but the new ones are so so so good. start with ‘the pretty tony album’ then the 2 ‘fish’ albums.


and yet another MC to listen to is El-P. ‘fantastic damage’ is great, ‘collecting the kid’ is great, ‘i
ll sleep when you’re dead’ is great, and ‘the high water lp’ is a great jazz album.


But maybe rap and hip hop is not your thing. maybe you want something a bit different. In that case listen to Kon & Amir. They have a bunch of hard to find albums out, that are all worth tracking down. “the Kings of Diggin” is (i need a better description than great and so good) great and so good. It’s a compilation of rare tracks all mixed together. it’ll cover your entire day. my only qualm is that the tracks are a little too short, but i’m talking 2 minutes instead of full tracks, so it’s really not that big a deal. But then things get way more interesting on “On Track volume 6″. they reach a fever pitch mixing everything so seamlessly. And just recently i picked up ‘Off Track volume 1′ on itunes (so that’ll be easy to get) and i have yet to stop listening to it. They find the greatest songs you’ve never heard and make everything work so well. i’m so jealous that things can be that good. Do not let this pass you by, if you like non stop soul grooves, then this is what you’ve been looking for. There is really nothing better.




And if any of you have anything that might be worth listening to or reading or watching let me know. let us know. thanks.

venture forward, usher in the future. we need you in my life.

I never forgot you.



I’m just waiting to see if you remember me.



but the truth be told, all the waiting and anticipating is agonizing. But i feel that i need to wait for you to tell me what is going on. I feel too needy, too wanting of you, to be productive. It’s been too long it feels.

I know you remember me. but i wonder if you miss me like i miss you. I am genuinely sad that we are apart. This world that i occupy, that you occupy, the one where we are together, is not the same without you.



Is this cloudy enough for you?



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I don’t read as much as i should. I feel well enough versed in the realm of popular culture that i can exempt myself from ‘actually’ doing things that most people do. So for instance, I have never seen the movie titanic. I have no intention of seeing it. But because of everything that has ever been done in reference to it, whether that be spoofs, people acting out scenes, seeing clips, hearing other people talk about it, whatever; I feel that i have a strong comprehension over what takes place in the movie. I can piece it together, like some sort of frankenstein amalgamation of all the information that has transpired. It’s not a bold leap either. From what i can surmise, the movie, like most other things seems divisive, so i know that there is the love triangle, the tragic end, the old lady, a big boat. And this is not an exclusive thing to titanic. This seems to be the case for a lot of stuff in my life. I can sort of figure out what something is about without having to know what it’s about. And in conversation i can just uniformly agree with whomever if i don’t feel up to the task of explaining to them why i have not experienced whatever movie/album/song/thing they are talking about. But that is not to say that i am fake either. I like to see new things, it just takes a long time to get to them.

But i digress. Books. I should read more. and in the vein of my music reviews, i submit a literary review.


‘Homeland’ by Sam Lipsyte. In my effort to read more, this book has come across my plate more than once. I’m not sure if reading it more than once counts as actually reading more, but this book is so good and tight that it deserves perusal on multiple occasions. Do i tell you what it’s about? I guess. It is the story of a loser a decade after high school (do they make any other types of stories?) who writes entries for his high school alumni newsletter. It’s biting and sardonic (there seem to be a plethora of books that are described as biting and/or sardonic, maybe they throw in ‘with a twist’. I think it’s the adroit version of having an edge)… anyway, biting and sardonic in a way that tugs at the way you wish you see yourself. the way that you wish you actually are. Without of course, the loser asshole-ish part. For me, this book resonates in that way. does that reveal too much about my insecurities? I figure this whole blog sort of reveals too much about my insecurities. ‘Homeland’ is a fun light read that, if this blog might be to your liking, then hopefully you will enjoy the novel. I don’t want to give much more away than that, partially because i am rereading it for the umpteenth time, and i like to try to not think about it so it would be a surprise all over again.

But Sam Lipsyte is my writing hero. He has such a knack for the way words work. And maybe i owe some of the way i write to the fact that i have read his books. If, by chance you read that one already, go check out his book ‘the Subject Steve’. Also a good read. It’s the story about a guy who is literally dying of boredom. ha ha. see i do owe a lot to mr. lipsyte. Don’t let him know that though.


And another book that i had just picked up, and have yet to finish, or even get halfway through (i’m a slow reader) is ‘a year of living according to the bible’ by A J Jacobs. And maybe that isn’t the correct title, but it’s close enough, and maybe that isn’t how you spell Jacobs but that too is close enough. Like the title says, it is about a guy who lives according to the bible for a year. This isn’t a pro or anti religious book, not yet at least, it just is about a guy who wanted to see what religion was all about. And he’s a smart enough writer to tackle the task, and still be honest that a year may not be enough. It has been really interesting so far, and i have liked his other writings before (Jacobs is a writer for esquire magazine).

So check out those books if you are at all interested. I have a copy of ‘catcher in the rye’ my younger cousin gave me that i have never read. I’m not sure what it’s actually about, but i do know that it is a seminal story in the canon of restless young adulthood. maybe i’ll get to it one day.

MUSIC.



The RAH Band is great. get their greatest hits on itunes, or wherever you may find it. They had a series of low level hits, like ‘Clouds across the moon’ and ‘the crunch’ and ‘messages from the stars’ in the early 80s. I don’t really think that it’s too new wave. it’s more like electro dance club meets new wave post disco. the RAH band is actually a project by richard anthony hewson, hence RAH, that had his wife singing most of the time. It is an amazing thing. I love love love it.



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Ini where did you go? I want so bad to call you, but i know that i should wait. give you some space. I figure that it’ll all come around.




I probably won’t wait.

unless you can’t, halt yourself from trying to love the idea of love.

I wonder when it is that i will stop. I wonder when i will stop wanting what i want, wanting to feel a certain way. when will those things change? but maybe i need clarity to what it is i want.

it feels like a long time ago, but i met a girl, and we fell for each other. it was an amazing thing. i am no jilted lover, i am no unrequited piner, i am a person who acts openly and honestly and meaningfully. Would it have been better to have let it all go when she wanted to leave. instead i gave her a reason to stay, i showed her the person i truly am capable of being, and she knew that she wanted to be with me. so where did that love go after it had left and came back? when did it change after it had stopped being love and turned back into it? Where is it now, now that my life is different, now that i’m not holding on so dearly, so tightly. i was willing to let go once, after i realized i could not force someone to love me back, but that feeling never left. that fear i had of losing love was so strong, but to let that go was liberating, to be no longer a victim of the way the heart pulls at its own strings, the way that it sways your life like a tiny toy boat in the ocean, it wasn’t the boss of me. I finally felt like i was in control. but i was wrong. it still tugs and sways and turns me over. now, i’m just more willing to let go, knowing that i’ll be alive at the end, knowing that i’ll survive, and that no matter the severity of the scars that remain, i’ll come back able to use my heart, able to feel, willing to love again.

And in a moment, a split second of my life, i meet someone else, someone other than my other. Ini, her name that i gave her here, became something. someone to hope for, someone to cloud my dreams and occupy my thoughts. i knew that i was heading towards these feelings, but what could i do to stop them. it had felt that the trajectory was set, that i was going to feel the way i feel, no matter what i had done. And i was frightened. i was afraid of forcing a moment, losing a friend, overstepping my boundaries, being a cad, hurting feelings, bruising my ego, diminishing my pride, and there are many others i could list. but the one thing i wasn’t afraid of, but maybe i should have been cautious of, was falling in love. and that is what happened. i could tell you all the reasons that she was worthwhile to fall for, but that is mine, that is for me and her to know.

i fell for a girl in a moment, when on the other side of my world i was falling out with another. but none of that had solidity, had any foundations. It was all, and still is a fluid thing. this life is not static, nor is it set in stone. it has no path, it will go where it goes, i can try to steer it, try to divert it, but i am at its mercy.

and i told ini, i told her how i felt, how i was willing to risk all that i was afraid of for her. and in return she said things that were reasonable and understandable. she spoke with clarity and grace, and it made my actions feel brash and misguided. but they aren’t, they weren’t. I try to mean what i say and say what i mean, i prescribe to an economy of words (although that may not be apparent here) and try to be sincere with utmost sincerity. But the things she said, i’m not sure what it means, because in my mind, as it races and retraces the syllables hitting my ear, i dig in deep into semantics and context. The conversation we had had takes on nuances that may or may not have existed, that may or may not have been concocted in my head. And i am yearning for simplicity, and completely mortified of it. A ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ feels so decisive and permanent. Where are the grey areas? But the truth is it is those grey areas are what mess me up. It makes me make up hunches, it lets me play with the permutations, and lets me make hypotheses that probably would never occur.

So where does it end. Where did it even begin. I have such strong feelings for ini, but there are so many circumstances that could prevent reciprocation. And i think that at the top of my list i play with the idea of how she ultimately feels about me. is she as conflicted as i am, albeit not for the same reasons but conflicted nonetheless, or is this easy. I like to think that i am not so crazy as to think that she has something stirring inside of her for me. that there is some sort of mutual desire towards one another, and that i am not so me strange person who over reads a situation, who misunderstood simple friendliness as something more. i want to believe that she cares for me, that she might even like me, might even want me.

Maybe i am that misunderstanding guy, and if that were the case, i’m not sure that that would be all that bad. i am capable of hoping that i could have something grand, even if that were so unfathomable. what do we have if we have no hope.

But then where does it end. Wanting her. wanting to be with her. that might be moot. that might not ever be in the cards. when do i give up hope. hoping that this might be amazing if we ever get to the point of letting it be more amazing than it already has been. and it has been amazing. i want to amplify that to some ultimate proportions. And in my head, one of those hypotheses, is the idea that maybe it’s not right right now. maybe somewhere down the road, in some future tense, we will be amazing together.


and i wonder if that is a problem. because when does hope give up. if not now, if with the prospect of maybe later, when? do i even need hope to give up? i don’t want to think that this is some sort of feeling that i can quit. because it isn’t. she is

would it be easier to know that she won’t ever love me?



i have nothing to say about that.











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so something new to listen to, maybe not new to you, not even new to me, but new in terms of me writing it down here, and hopefully you maybe reading it.


ZZ Hill ‘that aint the way you make love’ is a great song. it was used on madvillian’s ‘fancy clown’ and Kon&Amir ‘off track 6′, which are both amazing amazing things to listen to if you haven’t heard them. But the original is a hard plea to make things better. And listening to it makes me think of Marvin Gayes’ ‘Save the Children-God is Love-Mercy Mercy Me’ trilogy off of the What’s Going On album. But Hill has a good simple voice that recalls redding and bobby womack. And since i’m on a roll, listen to Bobby Womack’s “the womack live/safety zone” album (you can get it on itunes). I found this tape in my garage, the womack live one, way back in 94, it must have been my dad’s or my uncle’s from the 70s, and it changed my world. For anyone that is into performers, this album is a tight lesson in how to work the crowd. I would have loved to have been in that new orleans hall back in 197(?). The safety zone part is ok, but the live one makes this worth buying. I still have the tape, although i’ve had to change the plastic casing twice. That’s how good it is, and i don’t even have a working tape player anymore.



I like to think that i might know what an interesting image is. I am an art teacher after all. Although in my experience, being an art teacher does not always mean a person is qualified at knowing what is good or bad. But that being said, i enjoy photography, although i am not at all skilled in it, so my efforts tend to be more haphazard. But here are some images that i have taken.

lithe and fluid, we press forward.

So i finished writing this post, and then reread it, and realized that it was really inconsistent. I was thinking of deleting it, but then decided that it might be worth keeping, i should just put a disclaimer on it. I was going to add that at the end, but that feels like a trick, so up to the front it goes. to make up for the patchiness of it i have a music recommendation.

Go listen to Jason Collett ‘here’s to being here’. The BSSer channels the Band, the good songs of Wings, and the Traveling Willburries. It’s a tight album that makes you wish that you had a 1986 ford crown victoria, your friends, perpetual 3 o’clock spring sunlight, an old road map with no destination in mind. It makes you think of the days that love feels right, that moment while it’s still new.


I’ve been listening to Tegan and Sara ‘the con’, which in it’s own right is an album worth checking out, but it plays through and the next album on my itunes is That Dog ‘Retreat from the sun’. Anna Waronker’s mid 90s indy pop band. I loved this album right after high school. it makes me think of the time i spent languishing in community college. Waronker worked with weezer on ‘i just threw out the love of my dreams’. Anyway, fun songs, great harmonies, plus violin. She has a knack of singing ‘you’ and ‘me’ in a way that makes you wish it was about you. Another thing from that time period is ‘Mission Hill’ the cartoon series. definitely worth a look.


And something a little different musically. Amnesty’s ‘Free your mind’. the bands only full length recording from 1973. It is a funky exploration into the groove. It never feels rushed, it just builds and builds. It is, without a doubt, a complete album worth listening to in its entirety, although you may have heard the title track on the ‘cold heat’ compilation from a couple years back. If you like ozomatli (they have great live shows) this will be right up your alley, this is how it was done. near perfect.



so here’s the original post.

————————————————————————-

Life is life. it is an astounding thing that makes the world interesting. My life as of late has been interesting at points, boringly tedious at others. It makes for a dynamic experience.

Most of my days have been spent at school. In fact i am hard pressed to think of the last time that i wasn’t at school, even briefly. It’s hard to avoid it when it is the only thing that i have in my life up here, away from my life down there(somewhere else). All the people i know, all the things that i do, stem from the academic system i am integrated with. So i am, and have been, at school every single day, since god knows when, probably the last 3 or 4 weeks. That is until i leave. So the year so far has been either me not being anywhere for more than 3 days in a row, to me being only one place for far too long. That, i suppose, is some balance. Sort of like staying up for 3 days in a row, then sleeping for 18 hours. however, what i want instead is maybe the weekends off, the time to go be me where i need that to happen. Like a normal 8 hour sleeping pattern (i will never have a normal sleeping pattern, at least not as far as i can tell, but i did want to finish the analogy to life and sleeping that i started).


But for as tired (read: exasperated) as i am with being in this situation, I’m not sure that i’d do it differently. I get nervous excitement from having this ridiculous life. Waking up, teaching, art, trying to figure out love, everything. I feel like i never want to close my eyes, because even in the still quiet moments, I might miss something.


i want to talk about a lot of different things, but i keep talking about love, about falling in like with someone, about how that permeates the everything of everything i know. But right now, it feels like it has frozen. Not gone cold, just not moved from any point noteworthy to write about. And maybe that is something to write about. I have not seen or interacted in a meaningful way with either my other or with ini. Scratch that, there just haven’t been that many in such a seemingly long amount of time. My days are filled with other people and other things, activities that feel repetitive. I truly believe that i painted a door, the same door, 5 days in a row. I have been to home depot more than 3 times a week for the last 4 weeks. I am dulled. All the days have bled together and it takes a surprisingly large amount of thought to figure out what day of the week it is. Blah! I just bored myself.


So that is sort of the point, I want to start to alter the direction of some of the posts, so as not to get stiff and repetitive. But i am almost certain that they will all end up back to the original thrust in some round about way.


And with that, something new.


I believe in retail therapy. It makes me happy to buy something and enjoy it and figure out how to make it a part of my daily life. So i recently bought an ipod touch. It’s fun. i can go online if i can get a signal. It has enough space for me to listen to what i need to listen to. it’s fancy in a way that the normal ipod isn’t, i think due in part to the ubiquitous existence of the normal ipod. and it let’s me check my email. I was going to wait it out until they added some sort of camera option, but i found a great deal on it, and i had sold some art, and i figured that the camera would be crappy and i’d have to carry a higher quality camera anyway, that i bought it. It’s pretty awesome. But it renders my other one useless. so now i have too many things that are overlapping in their functional usefulness to me. I have some redundancies. It seems like i do this a lot. I have more cameras than i know what to do with. And to top it off i take lots and lots of bad pictures. I am going to buy a new computer, even though my current one works really well (i am still thinking this over and have yet to commit). I used to have 3 of the same backpack, albeit different years. And i thought to myself that having 3 backpacks was ridiculous, so i gave my 2 older ones to people that needed them. But there is a pattern there.


I leave this place i’m at in 5 days, and they are going by like some torturous trickle. I have never been on a vacation before that did not require me to do anything. I tend to take vacations that make me work harder. I like that, it makes me feel good, it makes me feel like i am accomplishing something. I am going on a trip where all my time will be leisure time, and i’m not sure how well i will do with that. i have this bold plan to bring books and read as much as possible, but the thought of that makes my skin crawl. To me that seems like closing my eyes. I want them open, i want to not miss anything.

go forward in bold steps that satisfy your desire for progress

Dreams often escape me. I have no way of knowing they happen. and they are gone as soon as i know they might have occurred.


but i just dreamt of you. of her. of her and i. I dreamt that she rested her head against my back, and asked to stay there, to not move. And she fell asleep. not in my arms. my arms couldn’t stretch in that direction. but her arms were around me. Standing upright with our feet in sand and the sun setting causing the amber wash to turn everything a warm tan. All my hands could do were help secure your arms to my body, ensure adhesion.


There was more to the dream. The act of getting to this place. No one knew us, we had stolen away northwards with no plan or destination, and we stopped for a moment. And in that moment we realized that we had made it far enough.





Then i woke. calmly pulled out of sleep. Peacefully. not the way life is disjointed when the huge split between deep sleep and awake come crashing in to one another. but more like the moment of a nap when you become bored of sleep and roll up in one motion to awake. it’s a good feeling. It makes me wish i dreamt more often.


Something specific about something else. music.


In the rolling moment from dream to real life that just occurred, I was met with the album “Ramda” by Mice Parade. Specifically track 2 “Distant”. This album is a sprawling melodic encounter. It meanders in ways that makes you want to take the long way home, maybe hoping to never get there. It lulls you as much as it excites. Listen to it.


But lately, in fully awake mode i’ve been switching back and forth between a couple MF Doom albums “mmm food” and “operation doomsday”, Vampire Weekend’s eponymous album, Feist “monarch”, and the last Electrelane album we will ever hear “No shouts no calls”



I want to describe them to you. I want to tell you to go listen and have them. Is listing them enough. Do you trust my musical tastes? Do i have to convince you. I prescribe to Ellington’s belief of two types of music, good and bad. I try my hardest to stay on one side of that line.


I remember being younger, investing myself into music. Continually searching for something obscure or new, so i could lay some ownership over it. So i could claim that it was mine. I would covet what i found, I wouldn’t share. Partly because I didn’t feel people deserved it because I had worked so hard to get there, to that point. But also because I didn’t want people to use this thing i shared as leverage on other people. I didn’t want to let people lord over it, because they knew it and someone else didn’t. It doesn’t make you cool that you can point out someone that’s not hip to what’s what. However, now is different. I want the world to hear what i hear, maybe up the ante on people’s expectations. And visual art is no different. Ini’s mom said it in a letter to me, “art is supposed to be shared”.


I had long taken the same stance, just in a more clumsy worded way. It involved equating art made for yourself as being frivolous for me to engage in, so why show it off. Why not keep it in your closet and pull it out when you need to feel good about yourself. We make these things so people can see them, we make things to disseminate them out into the world for public consumption. Sure this has more to do with reception theory than with sharing music, but the musician and the artist are the same. We all try to scramble to put ourselves out there. And i think as an artist I’m trying to alter the visual landscape. I’m trying to make it better. More enjoyable.


Same thing with this writing. Put it out in the world for people to get behind. I have no high hopes, but i like to think that i’m doing something you can believe in.



so whatever, go listen to what i listen to. give it a shot.

Scratch the surface in order to tame the itch of what it is like to be alive.

I cut myself on a piece of chicken wire. I slid my hand over a seemingly innocuous edge, and was sliced down the length of my pinky finger. It bled a thin blood that i am used to. this crimson water flowed out of 3 half inch thin fissures. One each for the segments of my small finger. The two closest to my palm are not deep, revealing the direction of the cut. My hand travelled forward and the tip section cut through the deepest because i flinched and pulled my hand up away from the danger. So those two cuts, the lower ones, are fine. I see them and know that they are there, but i don’t feel them. The one on the end of my digit, the deep one, which in all honesty is not that deep, is still making me know that it’s there. when my finger curls under itself, the cut splits open, the upper dermal layer drifting apart, exposing fresh flesh to the world. Then the parts come back together and try to fuse themselves together. I can feel it. And all i can do is bring myself to curl my finger so i can feel that split. so i can feel the world open up. the wound open up. i try keep it as fresh as possible for as long as possible. It feels like it’s alive. it feels like it’s trying. and i appreciate that.

My back aches from… just being alive. just being in this place of feeling outstretched. i feel life pulling away from me and trying hard to reach out to pull it back. But it aches from work too. It has been stressful. I feel responsible to everyone, to help them become better and confident in the things they do, the things they try to achieve. But it becomes difficult when my own confidence wanes from lack of using it. I’m sure of myself in some respect, however there are moments when it all feels like too much. But i try, i try my hardest to make this happen, to make the world turn, and i see it happen, but the toll it’s been taking is slightly arduous. But i wouldn’t trade it for anything. I wouldn’t ever give this up. I am nervously excited everyday, waiting to figure it out. But I’m not young anymore, and i feel this shift to a new decade looming on the horizon.


I was thinking that maybe i was going through some 1/3 life crisis. I’m not sure i will live to be 90, but it seems like that might be a number i could hit. I sort of feel like i am going a little crazy and being a bit rambunctious to the status quo. I don’t know if that is a life crisis so much as it is a life. I have this feeling that i am finally this thing i had set out to be, and now i want to do something with it. I want to use this crazy thing i just made before it feels like it’ll leave me or that it’ll be time to be more steady. I have no crisis with this, but a person rarely can see the situation they are in while being embroiled in it. They need distance. And i don’t have any of that. 30 is a real number. an age when my dad already had one child and another quickly on the way. a job. a house. all real things. For me they seem so far off in the distance. so not of my world. not right now. and feeling that makes me wonder what i have been doing and why have i been doing what it is i am doing. But maybe this is normal. maybe this is the way it needs to be.


I feel like i’ve been brash. i’ve been so forward with my feelings because in this old age i know that the worst thing i could do is hold them in as secrets for myself. In a situation where i cannot win in any direction, but that lack of winning does not exclude the potential for losing, all i can do is put myself out there. put my thoughts and feelings out there, in light of losing face or having my pride and ego bruised, and my heart being hurt, because the pain of keeping it in is more than i could bare, i have no choice. my chest feels stretched in a way that makes me feel like there is not enough room for my heart in there. that it is banging around and is now achy and in need of some rest. It makes me short of breath and my hands go numb. These sensations are so real and so present, and my awareness is so keen, everything is heightened.


I could talk ad nauseum about what is going on in me for you. But i’ve scared you off. i’ve put you away from this, from wanting to know this. All it seems like it’s done is make you feel like this might be something to deal with, like a chore, rather than being natural and easy. My head swims in it’s own murky waters.

happy valentine’s day.

My eyes are heavy. One day the things i think will be different than what i think now. I wonder when it’ll be. i don’t want to rush to that point.

The sensation of perfect music is the most amazing thing. it makes me know that the world is right, that the things i’m trying to do are right because i feel that it can’t be any other way. That in the face of adversity and defeat, that the things i do are worth doing because there are other people that need me as much as i might need them.

I’m rambling and not making sense because rest is what i need.

This one will know how far that we’ll go.

i used to be younger. a lot of the time i feel like i haven’t really aged all too much since my early 20s. I just saw some pictures of myself and my other when we first started our romantic endeavor. It really was a long time ago. We were quite young, quite inexperienced at each other, quite experienced in other things, quite damaged, quite looking to find a way to repair that damage. That time, looking back from 5 or so years later, seemed so drastic. Not just her and i, but everything felt amazing. I had the entire world out there and i had the desire to prove to it that i was this person i am now. Now i feel like i am at this point where i am who i set out to be, at least in the short term. i am intelligent about things i knew nothing about but wanted to know back then, i achieved my trajectory and goal, insofar as the realistic non-chance goal. i still have that to strive for, but the real thing i’ve done. But i was a lot younger back then. so wide eyed and so willing to go a bit crazy and try extra hard to convince everyone, especially myself, that the things i was setting out to do were worthwhile endeavors.


i don’t have that same level of riskiness. I don’t think i miss it, i like knowing more, feeling like i am at a superior place than where i started out at. That’s progress yes?


I am finally feeling better. i feel strength coming back, and i feel muscles aching, no more numb dullness over my body. my body wants to stretch itself out. i’m excited that i don’t feel like crap any longer. i want to lay in my bed with a purpose other than misery. i want to throw my arms around someone and get warm and cozy. i want to fill my silent nights with the sound of someone else existing in the same space.

Thinking back to those early moments, the tenderness, the way we wanted to be in each other’s embrace. It made the days go by. too fast for my liking, not long enough to enjoy the single solitary moments. But there was always the prospect of the next day with a new activity or thing to engage in. But i never wanted to leave those moments. Sometimes it is still perfect like that. Not nearly often enough. Even when we’re together we live different lives.

I am sort of exhausted on this topic. I feel like i am in a moment of static, where a lot of things happened just a few days or weeks ago, and a lot of things are about to happen in the next few days or weeks. But right now, i am in a holding pattern. I have a lot of things to do, but i don’t want to do them just yet, i want to get this life that i jumped back to, started and going. Maybe it’s idiotic to put parts of it on hold until it starts up. In fact it is. But i want to talk to a girl. i want to not think about things by myself. i want to hear what she has to say. in reality it was only a few weeks, but it really felt like such a long time. And thinking about it as i write this, because i sometimes try to think about what i’m writing, i’m not even thinking about talking about me and her, feelings and all that stuff, that’s still there, but i just want to know how she is. it’s funny. i just want to hear how her christmas was, how her new years was. Not funny ha ha, the other one. strange. i suppose that that is the effect of friendliness and friendship. i am not the type of person who has lots of friends, rather i have only a few who are very close.


and in a change, a turn of attitude and a bit of a breath to take a moment and rediscover my direction, i will share with you a playlist i was working on. ini asked me to make her a c.d. to help her associate these moments with the songs that i was playing, the only thing was that all of the c.d.s i played were already mixes i made thinking of her. All those c.d.s were yours. every song was thought of with her in the back of my head, and here is another one or five. sorry to make the page long.

Keep You Around Dominic Castillo
Intuition version 2 Feist
Hey, Hermano TV shows- Arrested Development
WOMAN Toru & Kojima
The Rah band – Clouds across the moo Freestyle
Parentheses The Blow
Polite Dance Song The Bird & The Bee
We Walk The Same Line Everything But The Girl
Justine, Beckoning Apostle Of Hustle
Heretics Andrew Bird
The Weakest Part Yo La Tengo
Winter On Victoria Street The Clientele
Flight of the Conchords – If Youre Into It Flight of the Conchords
Sing Me Spanish Techno The New Pornographers
Track 03 Broken Social Scene
Evil Interpol
Dear Sons And Daughters Of Hungry Ghosts Wolf Parade
Banged And Blown Through Saul Williams
Good (Featuring Trife Da God & Mr. Maygreen) Ghostface Killah
Museum Pick Up Picking Up Girls Made Easy!
song 4 Carrie and fred
Wie A Glockn Marianne Mendt
Bookshop Casanova The Clientele
voku0161 Killdahype
bleep_mountain(the-op.com) TV shows- Arrested Development
Sensual Seduction (Dirty) Snoop Dogg
Tram 21 Electrelane
Black History Month Death From Above 1979
Kiss Kiss Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Unknown Title Unknown Artist
Little Babies Sleater-Kinney
All My Friends Broken Social Scene
Her Pretty Face The Apples in Stereo
Oh Yoko John Lennon
Track 06 Jason Collett
Rich Girl Hall & Oates
Cut And Run Electrelane
My Favourite Book Stars
The Men Who Live Upstairs The Most Serene Republic
My Skies Were Black (But You Made Them Grey) Jeffrey Bland
Music For Children’s Activities Sound 8
Burnt Rubber Ruby Short and his Dragsters
Smokestack Lightning ‘68 Howlin’ Wolf
Aynotchesh Yererfu The Budos Band
1976 RJD2
Phonometrics Isotope 217
All I Do Is Think of You Jackson 5
Holla Ghostface Killah
Sexual Chocolates Coming To America
Wet Blanket Metric
The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Skip to the End The Futureheads
You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb Spoon
Breakin’ Up Rilo Kiley
High Tide The Apples in Stereo
Track09 that dog
This Is A Song The Magic Numbers
Diggin in the Carpet Jason Collett
Trampoline Calamine
The Good Times Are Killing Me Modest Mouse
is there a ghost Band of horses
More Than This Bill Murray
Carnival On 7th Street The Clientele
It’s Cool to Love Your Family Feist
Love You Inside Out The Bee Gees
Say It Isn’t So Hall & Oates
Little Red Corvette Prince
Too Young Phoenix
Track09 RJD2
17 tamaki hirooki – new rhythm various
Breath and Start Blockheads
06 Track 6 Radiohead
Fake Empire The National
Romulus Sufjan Stevens
These Eyes The Guess Who
Feel Like Making Love Rosemary Bailey
Making Days Longer RJD2
What Me Worry St. Vincent
Track 07 Apostle Of Hustle
I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever) Stevie Wonder
Big Love Broken Social Scene Presents Kevin Drew
Mea Bloanasir Sigur Ros
Tbtf Broken Social Scene Presents Kevin Drew
Gigantic Pixies
Track 06 kings of leon
Love Me Like You The Magic Numbers
Track03 that dog
When Your Man Is Wild Craig Wedren And Rashida Jones
Something Special for the Ladies Flight of the Conchords
Needles And Pins Johnny Arthey Orchestra
Amen Brother The Winstons
Trick Bag The Artesians
The Overly Dramatic Truth El-P
Let Me Ride Dr. Dre
Track08 mos def
It Could Be Sweet Portishead
Darkest Light Dusty Fingers
so so def bass allstars – my boo So So Def Bass Allstars
PIzza Party Tom Goes to the Mayor
Much Love Toru & Kojima