Dead Letters

Some thoughts on sorbet

2012-01-22T23:52:00.001-05:00

I'm lactose intolerant. It's not a casual, oh-milk-makes-me-a-little-gassy lactose intolerance, more a oh-god-what-did-I-do-I swear-it wasn't-me-who-lit-that-fire kind of thing. This pain does not make for a normal life, so years ago I quit all but the most important form (cheese) of milk and switched to alternatives. (I recently discovered Lactose-free milk, but that's another story. Mostly of me being an idiot for nearly ten years.)

Anyway, sorbet was a magical discovery made. It's delicious sweetness and plausibly-deniable healthiness made it an alternative to ice-cream that was almost the same, except for the whole having more than three flavors thing. I have though, learned to love the berries and the citruses like they were real dessert.

Until I discovered that certain people can even fuck up sorbet.

Sorbet doesn't seem that hard to me. Grind up a bunch of fruit. Add juice. Make it good when frozen. Put it in a tub so I can put it in my face. But there is a reason I have two tubs of sorbet in my fridge right now. And that reason is that you can screw it up.

I like raspberry. So I bought some. I took it home. I opened it up. And I was miserable.

Have you ever eaten so much candy that your tongue is a burnt out hellscape of sensitive useless bumps? We all have, you can admit it. In any case, from the first bite, this sorbet was....well, it was a mouthful of sadness. It was ice, pain, and childhood discomfort in a spoon. It was a crime against dessert-kind. It's continued existence was wrong on many levels.

But it brings me to an interesting place. I can't bring myself to throw out food. What do I do with it? Do I just let it languish in the fridge, getting worse? Do I bite the bullet and eat it?

Any suggestions?

Song of the Day: K. Flay - Nothing at All

2012-01-20T20:01:00.000-05:00

If you're not familiar with K. Flay, don't worry, you will be. Flay is a rapper. An artist. A stanford graduate. And a white woman.

That last part shouldn't be something I have to mention, and I almost wish I hadn't. K. Flay is becoming a force to be reckoned with in the indie rap scene and I feel that in that particularly diverse genre of music, expectations should be left at the door. But she's kicking that door down, pressing it into vinyl and spinning something you haven't heard before.

Today's song, Nothing at All, is reflective of my current state of mind. I'm treading water, and I'm not really happy doing so. While Flay's track is a little more positive on the subject of coasting, it still reflects that depressed apathetic state that we've all been in. More than any generation before us, I think it's become easy to just get by. And we need to get the fuck out of that state of mind. The technology that has put us in that place is just as useful for getting out of there as it was to put us in it in the first place.

That was a disjointed little commentary on what takes place in my own head. Enjoy the song.

Song of the Day: Laura Veirs - Wide-eyed, legless

2012-01-13T17:06:00.000-05:00

Laura Veirs is relatively unknown. That is to say, unknown except by self-righteous Portland Hipsters who likely see her guest appearances with the Decemberists as heresy because any band is better when they're laboring in obscurity.

All sarcasm aside, Veirs' 2010 record, July Flame, is an enjoyable slice of folk. She has a strong voice, and combining this with excellent playing and writing, she hits you with a wide variety of songs over the albums length. Some are slow and country tinged ballads while others choose quick picking and minimal backing instrumentation in favor of a more choral, revival feeling.

My track of the day today is 'Wide-eyed, legless', a song that is best described as ghostly. It feels like something a child playing skipping rope in the cemetery might sing to a departed friend. Or a parent. Or a lover. It hints at all of these possibilities and the sing-song chorus of "No More Looking Back" adds to the ambiguity. A beautiful song.

The Future

2012-01-13T13:45:00.003-05:00

Something I've been very focused on lately is where I'm going with my life. I've been working at the bookstore for four years now and while I love it there, it's not my goal in life. I'm not insulting those who have decided to turn it into a career; it's just not right for me.

But what is?

My days off can be difficult. I find myself treading water. I'll get up, eat something and then disappear into the internet for a few hours. It's a disturbing place, set up to leech attention away from the viable and important. So after I do that, it's hard to get started. And then a day is wasted.

I've got to stop this.

To-do lists are something I do every day. Usually, it consists of pretty plain things: run, grocery shop, guitar, exercise. They are things that need to be done, yes, and they do give a sense of accomplishment. But I think it's a false sense. I'm getting stuff done but it isn't what I need to be doing. It isn't getting me any closer to moving along with my life.

That is what I really need right now.

I need an internship. I need an adventure. I need the outdoors. I need writing. I need something different.

Art Post: Self Portrait

2012-01-10T00:26:00.002-05:00

I got bored and drew a two minute self portrait in the mirror. That is all you get tonight. I need sleep.

Like Ulthar

2012-01-08T23:37:00.000-05:00

When I was a kid, Grandpa sat on the porch every day. We didn't have a very big porch, so if anyone wanted to open the door, he had to get up and sort of squeeze out of the way, but he'd still sit out there. A glass of sun tea (he somehow never got sick), his pipe. And his pistol.

He'd been in the War. Even though my parents didn't like me to, I'd ask him about his time in Europe. Usually, he'd tell me a happy story: coming home, the looks on people's faces at the sight of GIs passing through their town, how he'd rescued a little girl who'd been trapped during shelling. But some days, when he'd added some rum to his glass, or was too tired, or lost in the wind in the trees, he'd tell me other stories. Stories of the war as it really was. Stories of the camps. And my favorite story.

The cat story.

The Parisians, Grandpa said, they really loved their cats. Doubt there was a people since Egypt who loved their cats that much. They didn't worship them or anything silly, but before the war, even far before it, the cats all had a special spot. They walked free on the streets, never run over or kicked. They brought rats to the stoop and were always thanked. They made their way into the Moulin Rouge. Always welcome on stage. Heard the girls had a dance with them.

Mom usually interrupted before he could say anything about that.

Anyway, he'd continue, glaring at my mother, when the Germans rolled in, they'd messed up that city pretty badly. It wasn't the beautiful place it once was. But the cats, they hadn't left, they were still walking around the city, well fed and cared for. Cats aren't bad animals and they aren't the pussies, he laughed, that people think they are. They take care of themselves. The Germans, they saw them as a nuisance and used to shoot at them. Shot them more when they saw how it made the Parisians feel.

Well, those cats didn't like that.

When we rolled into town, liberation and all that, the Parisians were glad to see us. Germans, not so much. And cats, ambivalent. Seemed so anyway. But in the fighting? For every German, two cats would trip it. For every German ambush, a cat's yowling fight in the alley in front of it. And for every dead German, a pack of well-fed cats...

Mom would yell at him before he could finish the sentence. I don't want you telling him these stories, Dad! There's nothing to them and really, the way you go on is disgusting! He'd shake his head at this, and wink at me. He wouldn't finish telling the story though.

After Grandpa died, Mom asked me to get his stuff out of the attic, as it hurt her back to try and get up there. Rooting through old chests, I found a photo album. The dates on the spine put it during the War and I flipped it open. Shot after shot of his friends, his squadmates, himself, sometimes smiling, often relaxing and once or twice crying and shouting. This didn't strike me as odd.

It was that in every photo, there was at least one cat, just sitting nearby.

One suspiciously well-fed cat.

--------

I guess this is just a draft for now. It needs polishing. I just wanted to write something tonight.

Paintset

2012-01-06T15:18:00.002-05:00

Painting 2011

Painted it, and
we all thought it was so
good, immodest maybe,
but I hung it up for at
the door, guests can’t avoid
seeing it now.
Pastime and now, the
brushwork flaws stand
out, a rose-garden of
crossing strokes,
not beautiful, messy
and unclean,
flowerbed brambles.
I leave it hanging though,
bad art to be punished.

Running

2012-01-05T18:52:00.000-05:00

Every travel writer gets started in a different way right? I suppose I should start by going somewhat further afield than down the block, but when your funds are as limited as mine, I'm sure the Rick Steves of the world will forgive my narrow focus.

I ran today, which was a poor decision. For the last two days, my lungs have been burning and what feels like a ball of snot the size of a dogs testicle has been forming in the back of my throat. Today, though, the lizard part of my brain said "You know what will feel good? Putting on skin-tight clothes and straining the muscles you haven't used in a week outside in the cold." Easily led as I am, I listened and jogged down the back stairs to the street.

My neighborhood is pretty nice, as city hoods go. We have a church and an elementary school right across the street and then more churches every block from there out. I'm not kidding; churches stand like gargoyles a two minute walk in any direction. They forgo the bells as a call to prayer, I'm assuming because anyone wishing to worship will just walk until they run into the wall of a house of god. For my run, I usually head south to the main road and then run in the bike lane, moving against traffic and the very occasional biker (Portland, this is not).

I started my run around 4:30 so the traffic was reasonably heavy and the kids were all out of school. One interesting thing about living in a city is the way in which play is changed. I grew up in the country, where every family had a driveway with a garage and basketball hoop, perfectly paved. You'd practice your kick-flips and trick-shots, mom and dad having pulled the car into the garage first. Here, kids play in the street, moving when traffic comes their way, making the rules up as they go. Today, no one was playing, but a hoop was hanging over the curb, indicating that, despite the cold weather, someone had been outside recently. A nice sign in a world where it seems like every kid in suburbia spends more time plugged into a headset than out in the sun or snow.

On Kalamazoo street, I head uphill. It's mostly homes, with an occasional business, and further down, a few liquor stores, barber shops and a manpower incorporated. Here, though, I ran past an apartment complex and under a wire bridge, the chunks of a broken Halloween pumpkin still lingering in the bike-lane. As I pass the park across the street, a biker cuts into the lane, heading the same direction I am, no one knowing the rules of the bike-run-car trinity around here. He's pedaling languidly and glances over his shoulder at the crest of the hill. He gives me a nod when I pass, an indication that despite any differences we have, we all live in the same neighborhood and that's good enough for him. I pass him again later on the way home and get the same nod.

I turn around after a paint spill and at the corner where the drainwork, installed to catch big stuff before it gets into the sewer, has been torn out.

The big chemical company, the one my science-major friends all told each other to avoid applying to, is closing up for the night and I cut off a worker's truck as I run by. Every time I cross an intersection I get a little twinge, thinking that this could be the time that somebody doesn't look in the right direction. However, I just get a wave and then it's the final hill home. I always push this one, and this time of year there isn't anything to slip on, the nuts of the summer gone and we haven't had any snow to speak of in a week.

As I finish up, pushing past another church and the dog who's barking is getting increasingly frantic, rising to a droning whine at the end, I breathe better than I have in days. Of course now, typing this, I'm a burning, phlegm-lunged mess again, but there, running to that last driveway I use as a mile marker, I'll be fucked if you could tell something was wrong.

I hope.

The New Year....That's a song right?

2012-01-01T21:23:00.001-05:00

New Years Day. I suppose I'm due to say something meaningful, but let's start off this year with a little bit of negativity.
I hate New Years Eve.

Granted, I do enjoy a good reason to go out and drink. I'm not as much of a partier as I used to be but I will admit that I can still go pretty hard when it comes down to it. I can't afford it, but you do what you can right? And I fully approve of ending the old year with a bang, celebrating what has gone before and opening up the wonderful possibilities that are coming up. All of that is great.

What I don't like is the tradition of the kiss at midnight. Sure, it's great if you've got someone or you're not afraid to randomly make out with a stranger, but it's kind of a bullshit tradition all the same. People wind up hurt.

Of course there's always the chance that I'm just a gigantic pussy and you shouldn't be reading my blog right now.

Here's a new poem. A prose poem even. I guess you could perform it too, if that takes your fancy. Well, I'd perform it. You keep your hands off of my shit.

It's based on an incident from my neighborhood a few years ago.

Once Again

The street is in celebration, another sadness but violence still not the answer, just the coda before it all starts over again. Celebrating a life that was short, blood on a broken teddy bear while outside a gang war between sewage-fucked rats and pigeons erupts the battlers into drains and phone lines at a single gunshot, while missed targets drop their stash and burst through the door, calling to the family they left behind just long enough to hit the fix that isn’t coming anymore, a vein closed, aorta not pumping blood to a deadened heart. Wake up wake up wake that lasts til the dawn comes and then the street is clear, no rain, no melodrama HBO scene, but a sunny day as the tiny coffin is dwarfed by the hearse, last time to go for a car ride and in a chariot coming. Not there, we stand by, neighbors not knowing, never introducing, just getting pissed if a tricycle wound up in our yard and awkwardly leaving a bouquet on the street corner, cross fading in the next three years, and broken toys that the garbage men eventually take.

Again, before the end of the year

2011-12-30T20:07:00.003-05:00

I am consistently awful with updating this thing. I suppose that should be one of my New Year's Resolutions.

Things are alright. I'm working. But here is a new poem.

Knuckles

When she sits on her hands
it’s not a fear of where they’ve been,
subway handles and the men
she’s been with, a broken
window in her high school and
the rock she held. Instead,
it’s when they move.

They raise themselves, walking
coins on their knuckles and slipping
her arm around his shoulders,
leading to a kiss she didn’t want.
In the morning, they crawl into the
sheet-creased-landscape and, keratin into
cloth, hold on,

a missed alarm
away from losing her job, and
she deadens them in smokers’
gloves, fingerholes freeing them
and her to a normal day.

At least until
she’sback inside, and sitting on them
keeping them dead, isolation,
and pulling one out
to get through her day
five fingers
at a
time.

On Writers Block

2011-10-25T22:29:00.000-04:00

I recently had a mole removed.

Theoretically, it's preparation for a new tattoo, a chest piece I've been planning for a few months, but am nowhere near being able to afford. I have a good idea, but my lack of funds, and the poor management skills with what little I can scrape together indicates that it might be a long ways off. In any case, those were my thoughts going in to get this bugger scraped off.

It's been since August. There is skin over it, but it most resembles Freddy Kreuger's face, an ugly thing like uncooked bacon set into a hole in my chest. It shines slightly when the light hits it correctly, and I hide it as much as I possibly can.

Right now, all of that is going on, but when it's healed, if I'm lucky, maybe the tattoo will work around this scar. If I'm unlucky, the scar will ruin everything for a long time, and nothing can be placed over it.

Writing right now is very similar to this. I've had writer's block for months and, at the same time, an increase in my own depression. It's something that I've dealt with for a while now, and as many of you know, I was getting better. But this was deeper than it had been in a while.

Consider that the scarring.

I'm working through the depression right now, in a variety of ways that aren't really important to this poorly chosen, over-extended metaphor. What is important is that my writing, and my creativity, are on the rise again. Something has to change sometimes. A scar forms over the bad things, and becomes a harder, better part of you. And I'm at a moment of transformation. I need to change. The world is strange.

I want to be strange.

27

2011-08-31T23:51:00.000-04:00

So what exactly do we use to commemorate another turn around the sun?

Sex would be the standard I guess, or getting so drunk that I can't see anything beyond the glasses which would be perched precariously on the table in front of me. Maybe wake up in a puddle of fear vomit and liquor. Yeah, that'd be right.

I don't do that though. I can't anymore. I probably would physically be able to, but I can't. I'd be disgusted with myself. I'll get drunk, sure. I'll try to push my limits. But it becomes different. It's like I'm playing at something and I'm not even convincing myself. I'm too angry.

I drive through campus lately, and I just get infuriated. We're asleep. I want to fix that.

A story, then bed, as I have an 8 am class tomorrow. Hopefully I haven't been too melancholy for you, but if so, live with it. Life is full of disappointment and there are a lot more disappointing people out there waiting for you.

This story? Kind of sucks. We'll see.

Multiple Choice

Slamming the door, he threw his backpack across the room. It hit the desk and bounced, spilling his pens and pencils in a rattling mess. His roommate didn't even stir.

The test had gone wrong, and what for? He'd studied, prepared and visited office hours multiple times. It hadn't mattered. Professor Twic had stood at the front of the room and it had seemed to him that whenever he glanced up, the professor had a smirk aimed directly at him. Bastard had to have figured out where his poor ratings came from last semester.

He flopped down in his chair and rubbed his face as the computer brought itself from sleep mode. He grabbed his calculator and prepared to log onto the class homework site. At least he could get some extra credit in. He grabbed the mouse but then stopped.

His desktop had changed. It wasn't the photo of two women kissing he had 'ironically' kept up for two years now, but a moving image, a view as if from a security camera. A small hallway led to a locked door, two bolts securing what looked to be an inner city flat. The lights were off but the room was lit in the grainy green of night vision, showing a tiny endtable and a closet, a key rack next to the door.

White text appeared on the bottom of the screen.

'There are no wrong answers'
'Professor Twic lives here'
'True or False'

"What the fuck?"

He typed true. As he hit enter, the bolts slid back and a jiggling at the knob indicated someone was unlocking the door. A man entered and locked it behind him. Turning on the light, he ran a hand back through his thinning hair. It was Professor Twic.

More text.

'Professor Twic has arrived home and needs to get rid of his jacket. Professor Twic's closet is full of:'
'A)Coats'
'B)Women's undergarments'
'C) BDSM equipment'
'D) Pick your own answer'

Confused, he chose A. He didn't know what was going on. It had to be a joke from one of the computer programmers down the hall. This was some weird shit.

Professor Twic opened his closet and hung up his coat next to what looked like dozens of the same one. This was bizarre.

'Twic walks down the hall and into his kitchen. He needs some food since he just got home from a long day of testing students. What is in his refrigerator? Remember. There are no. Wrong. Answers.'
'A)Food'
'B)Dead hookers'
'C)Angry raccoons'
'D)Pornography'

He smiled. This was shaping up to be a pretty decent day after all.

Chemical Engineering

2011-08-20T23:20:00.002-04:00

They told him at the door that they didn't think it was going to work out.

"I mean, realistically, you're not going to fit in here. People come here to relax, and honestly, none of the women are even going to approach you. That, and I can say for sure that I'm a bit uncomfortable and I think the rest of the guys are going to back me up."

"Dude, it's probably best if you just leave."

He was walking towards the bus stop when a vagrant stopped him.

"Kicked you out too, huh? Don't take it too hard, they don't let many in off the street. Swingers, they like it easy and quiet, most don't want anything too strange, and the ones who do? You probably want to avoid them."

The vagrant sat down, handing him a bottle as he did.

"Why wouldn't they let you in?"

And that would be the spot where I'd normally go for a twist. The angel. The serial killer. The vampire. And it would be pointless and stupid and go nowhere. So I'm ending that story there. I don't know where it goes. Maybe he is Bill O'Reilly. Maybe he's a cat wearing human clothes.

I'm in a rut.

I need to just write more.

Cats ruin more writing this way

2011-08-14T23:07:00.002-04:00

I swear. There are some days when you just can't get a break.

Alice is on my lap right now, purring and curled up, the most picturesque cat you've ever seen. You'd think she was a darling if you walked into the room and saw her this way. You'd be mostly right. But for the last five minutes she has been both sweet and a royal pain-in-the-ass.

Let me walk you through my cats' rituals.

First we have Alice. She may be slightly better at being a lap-cat than her brother, but it comes at a higher cost. You have to devote at least the first five minutes of her lap-time to her being in your face. She will get up on your shoulders, paw at your chin, breathe awfulness into your nose and generally make a nuisance of herself. She might settle down eventually but often she will either jump off your lap by then or you'll get sick of her licking you OCD-style in the same spot until your arm is raw.

Cheshire is another story. If you can get him to calm down and stop pulling books off the shelves? He's awesome. But he never stops doing that. It is his reason for existence and possibly the thing he enjoys most in the world.

I set out to write this entry as an example and an excuse: how the cats distract me from writing and why I suck at writing.

Turns out I just needed to write about them.

Sands

2011-08-09T23:42:00.002-04:00

I came up with a story idea while I was walking towards the backroom, past the activity books. We'll see if it bears any fruit, but right now? It's just the tiniest ghost of an idea, guaranteed to be overtaken by the Pac-Man that is my schedule. In any case, it will involve coloring books.

I am forgetting how much drama sucks. It seems like it's been forever since I've had nonsense to deal with. I better cause some problems soon; we wouldn't want my life to get too boring.

I solemnly swear to update this more. We'll see if I can do that.

My Relatively Spoiler-Free review for Transformers: Dark of the Moon

2011-06-30T18:08:00.001-04:00

Pew pew, boom, woosh, Kennedy, Nixon, Girl-Ass, Obama, Job-Montage, Malcovich, gay-joke, Aldrin, Boom, booom, betrayal, pew pew pew, dissolving people, shit, that's Leonard Nimoy!, Explosion BOOOOM, boom, pew pew, OPTIMUS!, boom, betrayal, boom booom, Speech, No sequel.....nah, fuck it, we'll probably do a sequel.

I Won't Back Down

2011-06-29T18:11:00.001-04:00

It's been over a month.

I haven't accomplished much.

I did discover that I am some sort of charming motherfucker. And somehow this realization makes me feel bad.

It came in small doses. A text from someone I hadn't spoken to in a while, an upswing in Facebook popularity, a Y-Chromosome dream sequence made flesh. And I took it all in stride, smiled and continued doing nothing with my life. But what right do I have to do that? And what right do I have for these people to be pinned to me?

Who am I really?

I'm certainly honest and I don't intend for anyone to get hurt by this. I still don't and I'm hoping that nobody will. But I've been in similar situations before and I feel like I could easily lose control here.

Snake-oil? Nah. Just snake.

Short Fiction: Rapture

2011-05-21T19:50:00.003-04:00

He stands on his front lawn, dressed in a pair of shorts and sandals, staring upwards as the setting sun tinges the clouds pink.

It is the evening of May 21, 2011.

And the world hasn't ended.

Inside his house, he has killed his dog, a dose of rat poison hidden in the morning kibble. His wife and children left weeks ago, scared as Daddy gave things away and spent more and more time tuned into a single radio station, maxing out his credit cards and emptying their accounts with checks and donations. They're living states away now, with her parents, trying to finalize the divorce.

He stands on the lawn and stares upward. He is sure his faith will be rewarded.

As night falls, his next-door neighbor drives past, shaking his head and mentioning to his wife how he had always been such a nice guy. A pity, they say.

The next day, he is still standing there looking upward. And the next. He is getting thinner, his skin clinging and burning in the sun. He opens his mouth for the rain on the fourth day, somehow still alive and refreshed by this bounty of his God. He doesn't move otherwise.

It has been a week when the police come and take him to the hospital.

His nurse is named Lucy. She tells him this while he lies in bed. His family doesn't visit and the wind against the window indicates every hour of the day that the world still persists.

He is sure something must be wrong.

After a month, he sits up. There is no wind on the window. It is steamed over.

He stumbles out of bed, tired from sitting so long, muscles weak from their lack of movement. He walks down the hallway, pushing open doors and seeing nothing but empty beds. In one stairwell he finds a cane and leans on it, heading slowly down to the lobby.

The elevators aren't working.

In the lobby, he sees Lucy. She is sitting on the reception counter, smiling at him. He pauses, and then smiles back at her. She hops down and helps him to the door.

She looks at him and says, you got it wrong. She smiles wider. You got it all wrong.

He is sure he sees a wisp of smoke as she says this.

She opens the door and pushes him outside.

Fights

2011-05-15T13:45:00.004-04:00

Have you ever been in a fight?

I have, a few times, and while most of them were over quickly, they're not experiences that I go out of my way to have. But now I feel like I'm stuck in one. Not with a person, but with reality. Reality has a fucker of a boot stomping on my knee and is thoroughly enjoying the feeling of my jawbone cracking as it slams my head against the pavement.

Maybe that's a little extreme.

I'm in a state of flux. I'm planning a return to school. I have no idea what my career path looks like, and more and more it's deepening into a turbulent, hideous spiral. I say science like that covers everything and I look around, eager to barnacle myself to the first person who offers me a concrete way. Never mind that most people would scrape me off, worried such a pustule would carry them downward with it.

So I sit back and I write. I put beautiful words or angry ones or simple, straightforward tone deaf ones out there. I work minimum wage jobs and I come home and I draw and paint or pick through a journal with increasingly short and colorless postings. And when no one pauses, picks up my perfect, lucid sentences, I just go back to disjointed dementia.

What do I do? I love writing, I love art, and I love science. I love the world around me. But every time I turn around, I feel like something is stopping me. And I'm noticing who's fault it is.

It's my own.

I can't blame it on the politicians. They'll fuck up and blow hot air up our asses whether I read it or not. I can't blame it on beautiful women, the internet, video games, comic books, or stupid cartoons with the same deadened fart jokes. It's my fault. I have to accept this.

And fuck, I need to do something about it.

This post has been brought to you by exhaustion, caffeine and reading too much Transmetropolitan this week.

We call that irony kids.

I'll see you tomorrow with a fresh outlook.

Short Fiction: Road

2011-05-09T19:30:00.005-04:00

A man is standing on the edge of the sidewalk. He is standing at the crosswalk waiting for the light to change, cars rushing by in front of him when suddenly the road changes.

It is hot lava.

The man glances around at the people near him, taken aback. None of them give any indication that things have changed. He looks at the cars. They're all driving normally, tires passing through the lava, splashing it slightly.

The light changes.

The cars halt, the lava rocking slightly forward, waves heading down the street. The people near him brush past and into the crosswalk, their feet leaving faint depressions in the hot lava, filling back in as they walk. None of them scream or cry out, no indications that the road has changed to molten rock.

The light changes.

The man remembers being a child, playing hot lava in his living room with his brother and sister. Certain parts of the floor were hot lava; you couldn't touch them or you'd die. They changed according to his oldest brother's whims, happily killing off his siblings until he was the only one left on a safe sofa island, ruler of all that he surveyed.

The man smiles. He must just be remembering things. The road hasn't changed. He is having some sort of heat hallucination. It is unusually hot today, and the weather is unseasonably humid too. And now as he looks, the road seems to be solidifying. It is back to normal. He will call his brother tonight and they'll laugh about this.

The light changes.

***

A woman is standing on the edge of the sidewalk. In front of her a man has just melted into the street, a smile on his face.

Poverty level paycheque, insidious rich-guy dreams

2011-05-07T19:36:00.004-04:00

I've been noticing this worse lately.

I have a build-up of want in me. This has taken many forms over the years, from secret lusting for the girl two lockers down to a desire to buy every new video game that gets a decent review. I used to be able to control this.

Now, judging from the credit card debt incurred, I'm no longer able to.

What changed?

I'm getting older. As I do, and stay mired in minimum wage, just-above-poverty-level jobs, I see the progress of my friends and peers around me. They're getting real jobs, forming lasting relationships with spouses and significant others, and most relevantly, settling down. And in doing this settling down they are putting out money for houses, televisions, amenities.

And I can't.

I shouldn't react in the childish way that I have and I honestly don't think it was conscious, but my sheer consumption has picked up recently. Every new CD that vaguely intrigued me, a Nintendo 3DS, video games, books, all were purchased on mild whims. That's not to say they aren't things I haven't enjoyed thoroughly, just things that I could have lived without.

How do we solve this?

If I were younger, I'd probably say some bullshit about how it wasn't really my fault and that I just had self-control, depression, and anxiety issues. Some of that is still true. But now I have to take responsibility for most of it, and let the other fall on the fuckstorm of a capitalist culture we live in.

I'm Buddhist, mostly. But I'm also an aggressive consumer. And I'm reading 'No Logo' by Naomi Klein. So what do I listen to, the precepts against consumption, my love of media, or the fact that brands and corporations are evil dog-sucking leeches?

Moderation, or to borrow the Buddhist lingo, the middle way. I have to cut back, still enjoy myself, and try to avoid padding the pockets of too many evil tax-dodging owms.

Which is why I'm writing this in the back room at work. Take that society.

Sundaze

2011-04-17T13:42:00.002-04:00

What is it about a Sunday? It may be the fact that I've been up and about since 4:30 am, or it could be the shots of espresso coursing through my veins, causing who knows what damage, but I really had to write something today.

So here we are. I'm sitting at this desk. Above me is a speaker, Fleet Foxes' Robin Pecknold is serenading me, his howling croon rising and falling over pleasant guitars and keyboards. He gives way to the Beatles, singing of socialism and the glory of a fallen country. What takes up most of my view is a rack of picture books, Dora mingling with vaguely Christian bears, Clifford and Scooby Doo spinning over and around one another.

The customers are a mixed bag. An older woman jokes with me about the weather, concluding with the common 'That's Michigan for you' before walking away. A young woman with a British accent goes from flirty to staring at me with some confusion when I ask if she wants her receipt in the bag, answering the question as if I was asking her opinion on whether cat or dog vomit tastes better.

Ah well. Christ, you know it ain't easy.

Yoga

2011-04-13T14:31:00.001-04:00

I must be doing it wrong. I'm in pain today.

That's all. No pithy comments, no attempts to be funny, just genuine aches from being jammed ways that I was not meant to bend.

Lady, you're not 18 anymore

2011-04-09T14:03:00.005-04:00

I work two jobs, both in a suburban shopping mall. Malls like this are an ideal place for people watching. Sitting at the back register today, I've seen a troup of mall goths trying to decide if it's worth attempting to steal manga from right under my nose. I've seen at least one man trapped perpetually in the 80s, unfashionable acid-washed jeans and a beautifully tough girlfriend who looks like she gets out in the deer blind with him.

And I've seen my favorite, the mom-teen.

Let me explain. This is not like the television show, where young women who somehow decided that allowing a tv camera to film an extremely stressful portion of their lives was a good idea air their dirty laundry exploitatively. Notice the reversal of the words, as well as the hyphen. These are both indicative of what you're looking for. These are the women (and occasionally men, though this is far less common) who dress like their kids. They parade in a PINK Victoria's Secret hoodie over a matching tee, with jeans that are more bedazzled than their daughters and a complexion that is giving over to leathery.

Am I being harsh? Yes. But I think it comes more from a feeling of pity than anything else. These people, the mom-teens, the mall goths, the sex-section browsers (I didn't mention them by design, as they often are the most uncomfortable people to watch) are all acting this way because, as I see it, they don't really know themselves. They haven't really found a direction and cling to this 'other' instead.

I'm not the most self-aware person. Let's be honest, going back through this blog and my old livejournal (man, that's embarrassing to read) there are more than a few 'woe is me, I'm alone forever' entries. But with changes in a few things (body-chemistry and medicine being part of it) I'm feeling a lot better, and more human. I've found some stuff to believe in.

And the best part? I don't need to wear bedazzled jeans.

Victim Street

2011-03-31T14:05:00.001-04:00

So it's really hard to make a poem about an anti-choice activist sound like you're not agreeing with their asshole activities, but I think this might work? For the record, I am pro-choice and disagree completely with my protagonist in this poem.

Victim Street

There’s three elementaries

within a block of my apartment, all

getting out, Thursday

afternoon right before spring. The parents,

siblings, steps, all wait, a church parking lot

or idling by the curb. And another kid runs

past where I’ve been sitting, chalk in hand

for the last hour. One of my signs tips to the side, and

I chant as I write another slogan next to the curb.

Most of them ignore me, the photos and writing

just another thing to navigate in the city, but I

get dirty looks from some of the parents, hear

wingnut, asshole, kook, but I just look

at the babies who run by

and the ones in my pictures. Somehow I’m right,

aren’t I?

Somehow these women are all

making the wrong choice, ignoring moral law

and thinking for themselves. I realize what I sound like,

but I’m in too deep now, family gone, and I really

don’t believe it. The church is all I have left, father

giving me a spot to sit and the photos, signs

I prop up.

Another baby runs past and I draw another

outline on the road.

Cats and Zazen

2011-03-19T00:12:00.002-04:00

So I'm sitting zazen in my hallway, staring at the blank wall. Somewhat bored out of my mind, because let's be honest, zazen can be a little boring.

Alice, one of my cats comes down the hallway. This is normal. What isn't normal is seeing me sitting there, completely ignoring her. So she gets curious. She climbs in my lap. She meows in my face, giving me full on nasty barf cat breath in the process. It seriously smells like she ate food made from vomit. This is normal, as she ate her brothers vomit the other day. Then vomited that vomit back up. Classy.

Anyway, this goes on for the remaining ten minutes. When my alarm goes off, she freaks out. Tail-puffed. Eyes wide. Silly me, I go to pick her up. She tears away from me, forgetting that she was begging for affection ten seconds earlier.

Moral of the story? As Zen as cats might seem, they really aren't. Or they've just transcended to another level of Zen.

Or they're just assholes. You choose.

Threads

2011-01-23T12:36:00.002-05:00

I want to believe in something.

I think I've talked about this before in this blog. And I do believe in some things. I believe in love, beauty, science...but I don't have that cushioning of religion. I'm not an atheist; if anything, I guess I'd qualify as an agnostic.

But wouldn't it be nice to believe in something?

However, then I look around. It's Sunday and the store is full of the post-church crowd. They're normal people, and some of them look happy. But they're people and the majority, they, for whatever reason, after a day of worship and hearing messages of love from their God, are pissed off or lazy or stupid and are taking it out on us.

Little things: not cleaning up when their kids make a mess, being rude about bags at the register, making a stink when a product is in stock. I believe in politeness.

So I wait to believe. What should I believe in, if I can't believe that people who are told some deity loves them can pass that love on to others?

New Year, New City?

2011-01-13T15:43:00.006-05:00

So I have a bit of a confession to make.

I'm not always the most organized when it comes to following through on things.

This blog, for example. I was doing so well for most of the year, and then, when I started having problems in my personal life, I shut it down. You might think this is exactly what blogs are made for, airing dirty laundry in the stiff breeze of the internet. However, this is not 2001 and this is not livejournal (though I did have one and looking back at old entries is profoundly embarrassing). So for a few months, I posted ambiguously whiny entries, got a second job, focused on trying to fix what was going wrong, and, failing, let my life devolve into a nasty cycle of self-pity and money spending.

But it's a new year, right? And we should all focus on what is good and nice around us? That's the standard line right?

Well, I can sort of see that. But to even glimpse it, I'm staring through a stained wall of bullshit.

It's a new year, yes. And I'm going to focus, once again, on doing things right. But this does not mean terrible shit didn't happen. If I ignored all the problems I've had these last few months, I wouldn't be learning....hell, I'd be Sarah Palin, ensconced in a bubble of ass-kissers six times deeper than 'The Human Centipede'.

In December, my dad almost died. He didn't, in large thanks to well-trained EMTs and a medical device that we didn't have two decades ago. And now, he's doing his damndest to get back to a normal life. That's what I need. That's why I have to...not ignore the shit around me, but see it, acknowledge it, and use it to be a better person.

This is sounding like a drizzling self-help essay, but there are the rare occasions when those are good. The city that I live in could certainly occasionally use them. I drive past more homeless, more liquor stores, more darkened street lights and broken glass in a week than I ever saw in my whole life before I moved here. I'm not saying that we should ignore that. We shouldn't. But we should see it, and make a goddamn effort to not sit on our asses, say "it's not my problem" and turn on cartoons. I'm going to try that this year.

Where

2010-12-05T18:19:00.003-05:00

I shouldn't update this when I'm in a mood. It doesn't serve any purpose. All the comments I receive are from spambots or people who I want to just stay acquaintances with, avoiding friendship and all the problems with it.

The extra job was a good idea, but I'm pretty sure it's making me sick. Not physically, at least not yet, but I seem more trapped in my head as late, the urge to burst out and rip out the world's collective throat with my teeth or words stranger and stronger.

I need sleep. But I also need a kiss, money, a perfect cat and a moon that isn't falling.

Fuck.

Tide

2010-09-26T13:59:00.004-04:00

I'm working on a short story in an entry that obviously isn't posted yet. I'm still not sure whether it will end up on this site or I'll get arrogant and try to get it published in a contest or something. We'll see. But I am pleased with the way that it's developing.

The last few nights have been ones of debauchery. I've encountered the police on no less than three separate occasions, none of which were due to errors in my judgement but rather stupid people around me, misunderstandings and simple coincidence. The conclusion?

The world is out to get me.

No, not really. I can't even feign a Glenn-Beck-ian persecution complex for an instant. Shit that happens is the fault of the shitter. The illuminati aren't out to get you, and there certainly aren't any crazy lizard people waiting in the wings, trying to bring about humanity's downfall.

Now if you excuse me, I have to go shed my skin.

Vultures

2010-09-15T19:23:00.000-04:00

I notice things about people, little imperfections. It does not make my job as a customer service representative easy. I am constantly having to tell myself, "Don't stare, don't stare, they probably aren't aware of it, don't stare."

Weird day, really.

Occam

2010-09-14T15:15:00.002-04:00

So last night, while writing in my actual, physical journal, I went back and read through some of the poetry in past entries. And damn, I don't remember writing half of it. It's not terrible; some, if I'm allowed to toot my own horn, is pretty good. But I really don't recall the poems, their inspiration, any of it. My best guess is that since I write most of my journal entries at the end of the day, right before I crash, I was just too sleepy when I wrote those pieces.

I'm still trying to get back into writing short fiction, but I'm having trouble. I have a lot of difficulty concentrating when I'm at home, and going back through my old stuff leads to a lot of regrets. I find that it doesn't seem as good now as it did when I was presenting it to a class or having it workshopped. In fact, some of it I'm downright embarrassed about. I have been, and sometimes still am, guilty of that whole "Oh goodness, look how shocking I'm being! Look how much violence and strangeness I'm throwing into this story! But don't you dare call it Science Fiction or Fantasy! I've clearly grounded this in the real world." thing. I want to avoid that. I have no problem with genre fiction. I read a lot of it. Sometimes I set out to write it. But not owning up to the fact that what you're writing is basically genre is a big problem that I've noticed in my peers. No one wants to be that "nerdy, sci-fi guy."

So what have I been doing? I've been starting with some story ideas. The writing group I was involved in is, for all purposes, dead. I'd love to get into another one, as long as it involved actual workshopping and wasn't some kind of egotistical circlejerk. I'm not saying the last one was; for the most part, it was a reasonable group as far as such things go. But I want real concrete help, and I've got to figure out where to go for that.

As for today, I'm working. Then going home, perhaps writing a little and heading to bed early. I have to be up around 6:30 for a dental appointment. Woo.

Tired Eyes

2010-09-08T00:31:00.002-04:00

So yeah. August wasn't so well thought out. We'll try this again.

And the third part of the gym rose up,
those on the treadmills, while
I watched, stretching,
on the stairs. She tipped him over and
he disappeared, shoelace into the elliptical,
and a drawn out sigh like buildings collapsing.

It was just us left now, and maybe our eyes
met, but we only heard our own music, earbuds,
squeal of cables, clack of dropping weights. I went
on later, they were all left on the gym floor,
and she aimed a wink at me as she left.

I Will Do Science to It

2010-08-16T13:39:00.003-04:00

I finally have a plan.

The major part of this plan is to return to university and take some science classes, culminating in a science degree. The second part...is not fully thought out, thus far.

Truth be told, the first part isn't either. I've been meeting with advisors, and I'm planning this grand return, but I have yet to make a decision regarding what I want to major in. There are a few options. I have a large interest in a wide spectrum of science, but some, like robotics aren't feasible. That would essentially be another four year degree, and who knows if at the end of all things I'd be happy.

So what I'm looking at is assorted Zoology degrees, including one that focusses on Ecology and Evolution, and Physics. With these two, and who knows, maybe a masters or doctorate down the road, I think that I am aimed in the right direction.

This isn't to say that I'm giving up on my ambitions of becoming a writer. Hardly. But sometimes, life isn't easy, and it certainly doesn't travel in a straight line. It spirals wildly and then climbs through strange plains.

And on those plains, that's where you build your secret laboratory.

Link: My review of Scott Pilgrim vs The World

2010-08-16T13:36:00.003-04:00

So I wrote a review of Scott Pilgrim vs The World over at Geeking Out About last week, and you should check it out, and then you should check the film out. Easily one of the best of the year.

Lincoln's Movie Night: Scott Pilgrim vs The World

No Filter

2010-08-07T13:55:00.004-04:00

Wow. So I had to take the month of July off as my computer's power supply decided that it had had enough of the whole 'working' thing and clunk-sputtered to death one evening. It was during the heat wave and I think that Comcast's horribly hot and unshielded modem contributed to its death. But in any case, I return today, and discover a huge number of spam-ments. With this in mind, I've changed comment moderation to just users with google accounts. Hopefully, that will cut back on this sort of thing.

Some days I loathe working at the mall. I was just asked by a customer, who I'm not sure if they were just weird, or mentally subnormal, if I was gay. This was literally the first thing out of this woman's mouth. She then proceeded to tell her mother how 'sexy' the polished rocks were. I am not making this up. Thankfully, after asking where to find a God of War book, they were on their way leaving me to ponder what the hell just happened.

However, speaking of GLBT rights, this has been a great couple of months. First, a court in Boston rules that laws infringing on gay marriage are unconstitutional and then a judge out in California overturns Proposition 8, one of the most hateful pieces of legislation in recent years. As a straight guy, you might not think I'd give a damn about such things. I mean, how does it affect me? But that's exactly the point and the reason I support gay marriage. How does it affect me? It doesn't. There is no logical reason that anyone can give, beyond some asinine religious one, against gay marriage. Don't believe me? Go read some of the archives here and check out Judge Walker's ruling, as well as the actual trial transcripts. Olson and Boies ripped the pro-prop-8 side apart.

There is a lot of new music in the air these last couple of weeks. The new Arcade Fire album, The Suburbs, is phenomenal and I may end up doing a review of it either here or over at Geeking Out About. This week, we get both the Scott Pilgrim vs The World soundtrack and score, not to mention the film itself releases on Friday, August 13th. Speaking of Scott Pilgrim, if you haven't read the final volume, I ask you, why not? Check out my review of it here.

I've gotta say, it feels good to be back.

Harder

2010-06-25T22:10:00.003-04:00

I have interesting things that happen in my head. I sleep-dialed this morning. Luckily it was my mother that I called, or it could have been potentially even more embarrassing. I know the call was important to sleeping-Lincoln, but I guess I talked about some dream, a video, and it being too expensive. And that makes no sense to wakeful-Lincoln.

Today was a decent day, but for some reason I feel very over-warm at the moment. I think I possibly got too much sun at the pool, but the work-out difference was worth it. Sometimes you have to change up what you do. And running daily to the gym was getting boring.

I'm going back to school soon.

I was going to write a poem here, but I really can't concentrate tonight.

I owe an apology

2010-06-11T21:44:00.003-04:00

Things are going well on this end. I've been doing a lot of writing over at Geeking Out About, and that's taking up a fair portion of my time. Apart from that, I'm also writing the occasional article for AMP Magazine, and trying desperately to find a second job. So yeah. I'm busy.

I am doing some fun writing right now for this contest. Though to be honest, I don't know that much about either gentleman, I'm just sort of having fun with it. I'm hopefully going to finish it up by next week and get it in. We'll see.

Music I'm listening to:
Janelle Monae - The Archandroid
Sage Francis - Li(f)e

Books I'm reading:
Kraken by China Mieville

Today's poetry break:

There isn't much time,
she said, and threw me out the
stage door, wolves waiting.

Really

2010-05-27T15:09:00.003-04:00

I'm not doing very well this month, writing wise. Between work at the bookstore, and work for the site, I'm not having any ideas of my own that come to anything. It's a bit frustrating.

There's a saw that's been going outside of my apartment for a few hours now. I wish I had something to do outside, even if it was just work on the house or yard work or something. And I can't even come up with a coherent thought beyond that.

I guess today is just a bad day.

Knuckleduster

2010-05-22T22:27:00.003-04:00

There wasn't really time for it, she said.
Across the table, she's all split lip and stitches,
a busted cheekbone underscoring the smile
in her eyes.
I picked it up after he hit me again, and
I paid him back.

Her fingerprints are still on the table,
the whorl of the left pinky almost
gone, melted when he held her hand
on the range. Can you tell me
why you did it, I hear myself ask. Except
I know I sound like a cheerleader and
the scoreboard has frozen at 'Tilt'.

There isn't time for that, now is there? a
smile on her teeth and it doesn't reach her
eyes, not this time. Cigarette in
the ashtray and I let her out of the room,
a service piece in her hand as she walks back
to where we left him. I lock the door.
The ashtray goes in the trashcan and her
file follows, smoke biting at the ceiling where
I've already turned off the detectors.

Look through the plexiglass

2010-05-13T16:36:00.002-04:00

"And here you can see the hole she punched, ladies and gentleman. It's a deep one isn't it?"

Well I'm over the illness for the most part. Two days of sitting at home, being cold. Being bored. Books and video games can get old really fast. Sadly, my illness landed at the end of my work week, so it came down to four days of nothing. I suppose I could fix it, go to look for jobs, but I am still a little sick. And even that little bit makes me complacent.

The headaches are gone though. I guess that was one benefit of a sinus infection. The snot and pressure and bullshit just built up in my head, and when it was too much...well I don't know how this illness works. But I'm alive, and the pain in my head wasn't cancer or something else awful. Just those holes we have in our skulls.

I got a letter today, that I really don't understand.

Loving

2010-05-09T19:10:00.004-04:00

I'm getting really bored with this city.

I have a good job, sure, and there are a few people that are probably worth sticking around for, but that number is dwindling. Rapidly. If they aren't moving along with their lives, getting better jobs and getting married, I'm the one on the realization end. I'm the one who is noticing that they're not worth it, boring husks or something that is actually bad for me, candy and cigarettes in a flesh suit. That second one probably comprises more than half the population really, untrustworthy and dangerous.

I try to keep myself away from petty attacks on other people, but there are times when it tests my patience. Humanity, particularly the portion I seem to spend time with, is rather fond of backroom dealing and obnoxious policies. Not sure what I mean? Did you have a childhood bully? They were always so straightforward weren't they? Mean and violent right on the face of it from the day you met them. Bullies continue to exist in the adult world, but they accomplish it through more passive means. Notes. Plans. A smile, even that can be enough to make a decent person seethe with an inner fury at the fact that you'll most likely have to go along with their bullshit.

And we condone it. We encourage it even. Our whole 'survival of the fittest' way of living has put those who are willing to be utter fuckwhistles at the fore of life. They're the ones who are sitting at the best spot in the house, the ones who pull you aside at the party, the ones you can see walking down the street, not even acknowledging their fellow humans, completely at ease behind their shit-eating grins and bluetooth headsets. They're the predators, and those of us who don't have the guts to be evil are their prey.

So what to do?

I say we stand up, and shake their hands. Tell them how good they are at their jobs. Throw all their accomplishments in their face, and let them know how many people they stepped over to get where they are. How many of the bums I see sleeping next to garages on my daily runs are there because of them. Who the drugged out mother down the street from me really is, and how stopping to talk to her when she's having a bad day made her feel so good. Let them know what really matters. Because while I suppose this is their world, we don't just live in it. It is our fucking world. We're the nice ones.

We're finishing first this time.

Jerusalem

2010-05-02T21:52:00.003-04:00

It's funny how they get off the fucking boat, stepping
onto the feet of this giant woman, and everything? It's
supposed to get better. But they don't see the scars; Lady
Liberty has been shooting up between her toes, and the first
time they realize this is in the back
room of a bar on fifth street where they're told how the
world really works.

Lucky ones wash dishes, and I can see the others on
the street corners, or bleeding out in the alleys. I've seen
them vomiting next to me in the mornings outside
my apartment, and the only difference is that I'm headed to an
office; they drink more or try to sell whatever the
exchange is willing to cut off. At the block party,
they're the family huddled in the corner of the yard
and we ignore them, feel better about just giving
the invitation.

They won't last, but more are coming, a
new rite of passage to a country that really
isn't worth it.

Short Fiction: Go Through

2010-04-27T20:11:00.005-04:00

The words to every song you've ever heard, did you know that you absorb them?

At least, that's what my brother told me, years ago, as we listened to the Beatles sing 'Get Back' on his car stereo. You'll hear a song, maybe you won't hear it again for years, and then something will trigger, and you'll be doing something that will make it come pouring out of you. It's like muscle memory, you know, the whole bike riding thing. He laughed.

"Songs are like sleeper agents, man! The musical Russians rising in your brain!"

I was young, and I had no idea what the hell he was talking about. I found my brother to be incredibly cool, a guy at the peak of his game. He'd graduated High School, had decided against college for the time being, and was just bumming around. He wasn't a stoner, not really, and not much of a jock. I guess the best way to describe him now is a just a smart kid who happened to be in really good shape. He worked part time at a friend's father's auto repair shop, cared for the neighbors horses, and spent every spare minute listening to music.

"Listen to this," he'd tell me, "isn't it ridiculous?" He'd hand me a Paula Abdul single, and laugh at how awful it was, but then walk down the hallway, humming the lyrics to himself. I'd get up at night to get a glass of water, and walk past his room to hear The Who blasting at nearly inaudible levels.

"The Who man, no matter what volume you play them at? They're blasting."

This past summer, my brother passed away in his sleep. I just finished up college, and I was doing my level best to find a job. I guess my brother had some effect on me, because I decided to be a bit of an idiot and major in music theory. I thought, hey, I can always find a job as a music teacher in some middle school somewhere, but I didn't really take into consideration the piss-poor state of teaching jobs in the country right now. I was sitting in my car, smoking a cigarette after a particularly disastrous interview at a Catholic school in which I'd clearly given the wrong answer to a question regarding my opinion of rock music, when 'Get Back' came on in the radio in my head. It wasn't the album version either, this was the dramatic video version of the song. The one my brother had shown me of The Beatles just rocking out on the Apple HQ rooftop.

"Isn't that brilliant? Isn't that just the best thing you've ever seen?!" he asked.

I was young. "They're like superheroes! They have their own headquarters and can do whatever they want! They're saving the city through music! Look at all the people looking up at them!"

Sitting in my car, listening to the song playing on the inside of my eardrums, I remembered the look on my brother's face when I said that. At first I thought he was going to laugh at me, tell me what an idiot I was, how stupid and silly my thinking The Beatles were superheroes was. But then he smiled and picked me up in a hug.

"Exactly! Fucking exactly little brother!"

I remembered that moment sitting in my car, remembered how it felt for my brother, cool big brother, to get so excited that he swore at his six year old sibling. He later made me promise not to tell mom, and definitely not to use the word, but I could not have felt more interesting than I did right at that moment.

In my head, Ringo finished the song, a trill on his drums, and it was over. My cell phone rang then, and my mom told me that my brother had died in his sleep, heart failure, no one's fault.

I made sure that The Who blasted at the funeral. His wife slapped me, told me I was being disrespectful.

I just hummed 'Fool on the Hill' and walked out the door.

Boobquake 2010

2010-04-26T11:33:00.000-04:00

Are your boobs a-quaking today?

Meet the 'Patriots'

2010-04-16T17:45:00.003-04:00

Here's a very interesting list of some very crazy people. But they're worth knowing about, because they are really, really crazy. And the right-wing is welcoming of all of them.

Meet the Patriots

YA Literature and the search for more money

2010-04-12T13:52:00.002-04:00

Ugh. I just don't know.

I posted a week or so ago, over on Movie Make-Out, about a book called Dark Life that had been picked up for a film by Disney. The Variety article I originally read the story on stated that while only two books were originally planned, when the novel was picked up for a film, more could be written.

Are you kidding me? Really? Once you get picked up for a movie, you decide to write more books? I guess it makes sense really, and I don't begrudge the author her success, but it does make me cynical. If the story you wanted to tell could be told in two novels, why not leave it at that?

We do live in a capitalist society. But I wish it didn't affect the arts so strongly.

Being Green in Carbon Times

2010-04-12T13:32:00.005-04:00

It's hard to be environmentally conscious.

Since I avoided the Kermit the Frog reference, let me just say that what I'm trying to do lately, is be more green. No matter what the lovely right-wing nutbags in our country say, Global Warming is an issue. So is loss of habitat for assorted flora and fauna. So is coal ash, and unsustainable fuel sources.

There are a lot of issues.

It's hard to be aware of all of these and live with them in mind. I drive a car. It gets decent gas mileage, but it does use gasoline. I can't afford a hybrid, and there aren't any electric vehicles available. So what is the best way to handle this situation? For me, I drive the most environmentally friendly car I can afford, a Ford Focus. Not the best, but it works. And when I have the option, I take the bus, ride my bike, or just walk.

So what do we do? How do we handle it when there is a large portion of the population that just seems downright hostile to the idea of protecting the environment (Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Republicans in general) and fights tooth and nail against anything that might help it out?

Well, we fight back.

I don't mean any sort of nonsense, semi-terrorist ELF crap. I'm in no way endorsing that. However, there is no reason not to call your senators, not to recycle, not to use environmentally friendly products when they're available. Keep yourself in shape, I gurantee it'll make you more open to the idea of eating healthier, using healthy products that (surprise surprise) are often more green than non-healthy ones. Funny how that works.

We're fucking the world up, and the ability to say 'I told you so' is one I'd rather avoid.

However, I'm going to regrow my beard. Shaving? Not sustainable. Or at least that's what I'll tell everyone.

Chip Tunes and Pixels and Synths...oh cliche!

2010-03-29T13:44:00.002-04:00

I really want to write music. I want to perform music. I want to be on stage, while people sing along. The problem is this: I may have a decent voice, but I can't really play guitar.

I suppose I could add the qualifier 'yet' at the end there. I am definitely trying my hardest to learn to play the bloody six-string, but the combination of a lack of free time, a critically divided attention span, and no teacher are uniting against me. I know that's a poor excuse but it's certainly the way I feel, and blaming others for our own shortcomings is certainly the American way.

So how can I make my musical dream easier? Well, I'm writing about the musical prowess of others to start. I have my first interview with a band for a fairly major music publication lined up later this month, and hopefully that will open the door to ask 'what kind of equipment do you prefer?' to more bands in the future. I'm a decent writer, and I can come up with some intriguing questions to ask folks, so hopefully that will help.

I'm also becoming fascinated with the world of chiptunes lately. If you're not familiar, think of all the old Nintendo/Game Boy/Super NES songs you had back in the day, and you're basically there. These bands create music using hacked video game systems, and a lot of it is just as badass and epic as the Mega Man soundtrack was the first time you played that through. I have a nifty little piece of software for my DS that emulates an old school synth. I'm learning slowly on that as well, building up some weird crap, before tearing it all down in a blur of pissed off knob twirling and level adjustment.

Overall, I think I'm just going to stick with the guitar, and maybe get my saxophone out of the closet as well. I am motivated, and my callouses are getting larger on my finger tips. It's satisfying, and who knows? In a few years, it may all pay off and I'll be asking myself all about my equipment.

Homegrown Nutbags

2010-03-29T13:34:00.002-04:00

It's interesting to see how many crazy assholes Michigan seems to produce. We currently have our lovely Attorney General Michael Cox, who decided that he should join the lawsuit against healthcare reform. I gave his office a call today, letting them know I don't think our taxes should be wasted on frivolous lawsuits and that I'd rather our money go to important stuff like, oh I don't know, healthcare?! Anyway, I got a 'You're criticism has been noted. Thank you.' and was hung up upon.

On a whole different level of crazy asshole are these guys.

Wow. I just don't even know what to say. The sad thing is is that these guys probably think they're doing God's work and promoting the peaceful ideals that Jesus stood for. I bet he'd disagree. This leads directly to my problems with organized religion: there are far too many bad things at odds with the good things that they do.

Piece of notebook paper found behind the couch

2010-03-23T11:46:00.003-04:00

...in the northwest corner of the room. I found it sitting there, and it didn't seem threatening, the way Katie had talked about it. When I looked it up online, and compared the number of legs, Wikipedia said that it wasn't poisonous.
So we have one living here. So what? They eat bugs, and as long as we keep an eye on it, make sure nothing shows up in the baby's room, I think we'll be good to go. It's weird though.
I was comparing the markings. From a safe distance of course, since I am nervous about the things, no matter what I might tell Katie. It doesn't really work out. It's not the common house variety, at least not the US kind. Might be something from the Andamans, wherever the hell....

Healthy Lights-Out

2010-03-22T14:42:00.003-04:00

I know next to nothing about the health care bill.

I'm a little ashamed to admit this. I'm a fairly politically astute guy usually. And yep, I'm progressive, so I should be trumpeting this right? Well, I just don't know enough about it.

I do know there isn't a public option, which I think honestly is kind of bullshit. There may be more regulation of the insurance companies but I think (?) we still can't buy health care across state lines so we're forced to shop a fairly limited market. However, employers are required to provide care so that's good right?

I don't really know.

I'll be doing some research on this, but it's irritating that most of the coverage of this up to this point has been about the two sides on the issue, and not on how it affects the every-day American. Dumb.

Now, as for something I do know about and support fully, this coming Saturday, March 27th, is Earth Hour. From 8:30 to 9:30, you should turn off your non-essential lights and other electronics. Let the energy companies know how you feel about global warming.

I do confess myself confused as to why this should just be one day. Why not do it every Saturday for a month? One hour a day is not long. You can do an amazing amount in the dark: play guitar, write a letter by candlelight, relax with family, meditate, or have sex. All things that are fun, and all things that you can do just fine in the dark.

So make sure to turn stuff off this Saturday. You'd be amazed how much extraneous crap the average household has plugged in and drawing electricity at any one time. I've reduced my electric bill a ridiculous amount by just having one (or none) lights on at a time when I'm at home.

So stand up for what you believe in. Help the world survive just a little bit longer, one outlet at a time.

Cathartic

2010-03-18T16:59:00.004-04:00

Hey did you drop this?

You turn around and someone is standing there, and in her hand is your hope.

No, I didn't, I'm sorry, you must be mistaken. That's clearly not mine. Mine would be in much better condition, not so red and blotchy. The umbilical on mine is much cleaner, gone in fact, dropped off years ago, perfect round belly button now. You stumble into silence.

She looks at you, confused. But I'm pretty sure I saw you drop this. Are you sure this isn't yours? You don't want to walk around without it.

I look at her side. Her hope is there, covered in white fur and hiding behind her dress. It peeks out at you, it's big blue eyes just begging, wanting you to say hello, to keep the conversation up. It looks so much more healthy than the scabrous thing she's trying to hand you.

I don't think it's mine, you say. Let me look though just to be sure. You lean in, and your hope smiles up at you. It loves you no matter what, but it's rotten mouth, dead animal breath, they disgust you. Green gathers in the corners of its eyes, and its ribs shine through the diaper that you tied around it this morning.

She looks at you, while you stare, and when you glance up, you can see the pity in her eyes. She knows it's your hope, and she pities both of you. She wants you to take it, but at the same time, she can see how it's been abused. She is wondering, even now, if it would be better if you just let it die off.

Oh goodness, you say, I'm sorry, this is mine after all. Thanks for picking it up for me.

It's not a problem, she says, and smiles, a bright flash of morning dew, a shining peaceful glance at you and your hope, and then she takes her hope's hand and walks away.

You stand there, you and your hope, and as you take it's hand, you notice that the rotten, putrescent umbilical, stuck on for years, has shriveled and dropped.

Minionettes

2010-03-15T13:56:00.004-04:00

I work in music retail in an independent bookstore. I'm pretty good with music, familiar with various artists, but there are still days that I feel like 'Old Man Lincoln.' It's not because of the type of music being produced these days (though I do express incredulity at the existence of crap like 'Brokencyde' or 'Hollywood Undead'), but mostly because of the flippant attitude with which physical media is treated by people.

Primarily, these people are teenagers. They're the ones who come into the store expecting instant gratification in everything. I'll often be shelving in the music section and here someone express the thought that an artist not being available in our listening stations "is bullshit." They then proceed to put the cd wherever they like and continue swearing loudly in public, a fact that bothers me as we're a family store and children are often around.

These are likely the same folks behind the increases in stolen media I've seen recently. The internet has devalued music, telling us that if we look and we're sneaky enough we can find what we want for little to no cost. So people have begun applying this same ethos to stores, finding creative ways to steal DVDs and CDs, hiding the wrappers where they're unlikely to be found, and in some cases figuring out how to remove DVDs that have been put in anti-theft keepers. I'm not implying that shoplifting is something new, but that the age of instant gratification has made it a more attractive option to more people.

However, sometimes it's ok to be 'the old guy.' I think that the music industry is doing a good job of combatting the internet and appealing to my demographic. The resurgence of vinyl and an increase in the number of stores that are carrying it are pushing back against big box stores like Best Buy by filling a niche they can't. Oftentimes vinyl will contain a code to download a digital version of the album. Also, labels have become smarter with their normal releases, making them cheaper and making deluxe editions more attractive, with cheaper pricing and extras that you can't get anywhere else (the recent Gorillaz album comes to mind.) A great comparison I noticed recently is that two very similar bands, Flogging Molly and The Dropkick Murphys, both released live albums. Flogging Molly only released one version, a set including a CD and DVD for 16.99, while The Murphys released two, a CD only retailing at 13.99 and a CD/DVD set for 18.99. While there might not seem to be a significant difference, Flogging Molly making what is basically a 'deluxe' edition for a cheaper price makes it seem a more attractive purchase.

So while teenagers may be assholes, and may have no qualms about stealing their music, I think that the industry is going to be ok. There are a lot of audiophiles out there like myself who own big stacks of cds, who lust after deluxe editions, and who even enjoy the puzzlefuck that it is to get through the shrink wrap into a new album. After all, instant gratification may be instant, but it's just not as much fun.

Everything that is wrong with America

2010-03-15T13:37:00.004-04:00

Two things: How is this news? And how is this woman's mind working?

Woman aiming to be World's fattest.

Ok, so I admire her positivity. She has good body image, and she has a great mental outlook. But seriously. While her daughter is only 3 years old right now, she is already learning from her mom that it's ok to stuff yourself and become a blob that "can only move 20 feet on her own" as long as you do it for money and fame. I can only hope they enroll that kid in sports at a young age instead of something like pie-eating contests.

Our society is pretty messed up.

March Manifesto

2010-03-11T17:41:00.006-05:00

So I am competently terrible at updating this blog with any regularity. I apologize. However, I realize, as the proprietor of this blog, I'm not obligated to answer to you and really should not have just apologized. You don't pay me, and in reality, I'm just doing this for the love of writing.

Which is confusing, really. I find that writing and writers are under a lot of pressure. I look through the writing magazines at work, and see photographs of workshops, interviews with famous folks and think to myself, "Really? You can get famous doing this? You can go to workshops filled with other people who love this too?" and then I think "But are they pretentious?"

Pretentiousness is something I cannot stand and unfortunately, in my line of work, it is something that I have to deal with constantly. I may stand and listen to other writers say that they got in four hours of writing the day before, and I'll nod and pretend to understand, but really, I'm just wondering why the fuck I care, and why the hell it matters? I go for weeks at a time without writing down a single word, and they're bragging about how much they did in one day? Talk like that makes it seem like a chore. You should be writing because you want to be, because you love sitting down, staring at a page filled with words and thinking "I did that." Putting a value, a number on writing makes it something to be dreaded. And I'm not too keen on dreading my love.

That was a bit more verbose and slightly silly than I intended, but I stand by it. That's why I've never been into things like NANOWRIMO. Forcing it, if you'll pardon the crude metaphor, is like forcing a bowel movement. It'll cause you more pain than good, and you'll be nervous next time.

Wow, that was really fucking gross. This time, my apologies are sincere.

Music 2010: Best of February

2010-02-28T13:45:00.004-05:00

So with February ending, I feel I should comment on what has been a pretty great year for music thus far. We've got the new Vampire Weekend, the final(?) Johnny Cash, new Owen Pallett, up-and-comer Nneka, new Charlotte Gainsbourg, and the new, beautifully confessional Corinne Bailey Rae. And things are set to continue, with the Gorillaz returning as well as the second collaboration of M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel as She & Him.

But the album this last month that struck me the strongest was the compilation Preservation. It's a beautifully put together collection, a benefit to help keep alive the famed Preservation Hall in New Orleans, and features a wide variety of artists doing songs alongside the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. You likely have an idea of what to expect if you've ever heard the band perform before, but hearing artists as varied as Ani DiFranco and Louis Armstrong alongside them, you get a whole different view of New Orleans jazz.

The upbeat way New Orleans jazz is performed might not seem a good fit with some of these artists, a line-up that includes the gruff Tom Waits and indie-songwriters Andrew Bird and Yim Yames (My Morning Jacket's Jim James), but each artist makes the music their own. Waits has never sounded more like Louis Armstrong, using his bourbon-soaked vocals to croon 'Tootie Ma was a Fine Big Thing', while Yames sings what will likely be the most polarizing song on the record, singing 'Louisiana Fairytale' through what sounds like a primitive autotuner in the form of an ear trumpet.

Arguably my favorite song on the CD is DiFranco singing 'Freight Train'. She has gotten away from her darker solo work and seems to be channeling a 1920's flapper, beads, fringe, bootlegged booze and all. The song has an upbeat, quick pulse and she pushes, rather than follows, the band to greater heights.

Jazz, particularly New Orleans Jazz, is often dark, though it uses many a brightly colored horn section and tamborine. This album is no exception, featuring songs with overt religious themes and blues about lost loves, but the brightness, and variance in the vocal and musical styles, make it something worth listening to over and over.

A dearth of good people

2010-02-27T23:23:00.002-05:00

I was browsing my usual blogs this morning and came across something interesting over on PZ Myers'. Here's the link to his post:

Shepherd's Hill Farm is a Hellhole

It seems that this is one of those 'troubled teens' Christian camps. You know, the kind where they get you off drugs, help you get in shape, and cure you of being gay. Oh wait. Yeah, this place is a nightmare.

The special meals (a can of beans, one of vegetables, and a chunk of bread) are child abuse, plain and simple. The body needs more than that. And as someone who deals with depression (don't start), I know that this Trace Embry nutjob is putting some dangerous ideas out there. Taking someone off of medication is not a safe move. Especially when some of those taken off their meds were prone to seizures.

Granted, we may not be getting the entire story here, but it seems to me that the evidence for some pretty messed up stuff happening at this camp is strong. And, I don't know, beatings and starving don't seem very, ummm whats the word...CHRISTIAN to me.

Bang!

2010-02-22T14:07:00.003-05:00

So how long do you think it'll be before we hear this:

"I had to shoot it, officer! It was coming right at me! Oh and by the way, since I killed it, do you think I could keep the skin?"

Starting today, it's going to be legal to have a loaded gun with you in our National Parks and Wildlife Refuges. Congress passed a law back in May as an amendment on a credit reform bill. What does this mean? Basically, if the state that you live in allows you to carry a weapon, the Park has no control over whether or not you bring it it. It's still illegal to fire it, but I'm (cynically) betting that some asshole will say a bear attacked him within the next year.

I'm sorry, but is there any reason to have a firearm in a National Park? If you follow the rules, they're one of the safest places to be. The animals, largely due to human encroachment, are going to stay away from you. You're there to see the natural beauty. I just don't get this.

Idiotic.

...

2010-02-17T14:00:00.003-05:00

It can all fall apart in half a moment, a 17 year old born again into something his Christian parents didn't intend. The draw of swimming in the iced over river, he crosses and, crawling into the paramedics' warm embrace, a hovering black dot tells him that he's meant for something more, a step by step death numbered into figure eight enlightenment. Taken to wearing the skins of long dead poets, he haunts coffee houses and is thrown out with garbaged grounds, a back alley bohemian of the pretentious college school. Catcher comingles equally in his brain and one sun-drenched day he screams "phony" at the confused retriever by the back door. Any opening becomes a staring contest and he crawls into the backyard, tweed soaked through by the rain and leather elbow patches shrinking by the second. A cross hung over his door takes a sailing trip down the gutter and each night his mother cries her way through the Lord's prayer, heaven's lack smoking a pipe in his room, ashing on the carpet and carrying a collection of snapped pipestems in a plastic grocery bag.

I don't know. I just felt like writing a prose poem today. I'm not in the best mood. Maybe that helped.

Ice: Sunday fiction

2010-02-14T23:48:00.005-05:00

Have you ever just held a water drop?

They're pretty amazing. In the tub, I lay back and let the water play around the islands of my body. Usually, I read. If I get bored, I may just relax before getting out. I sometimes pick up my bath-time pal, a rubber duck rescued from a garbage can outside the mall's fragrance store.

Always so many drops, I like to stop them before they fall completely. I catch them between the tip of my finger and the rubber duck. I keep them a perfect parabolic pillar, stuck in a moment.

I crawled out of the tub, the drip still stuck in between my finger and the duck. Without dressing, I crept out to the darkened back deck. The cold is bitter, but I don't have to stay out too long. I'll probably be sick when this is over. I know I'm in pain right now. But the drop, iced through, I took back inside.

It melted, naturally, but left a red circle on my fingertip, perfectly shaped and unbroken. Pink, fading to white in the middle.

It's been three days and the circle hasn't disappeared.

Better late than never

2010-02-12T23:25:00.001-05:00

So, as he's my namesake, I suppose I should give a birthday shout-out to Abraham Lincoln too. You changed the world, and made it a far greater place.

Happy Darwin Day

2010-02-12T12:01:00.002-05:00

It's Charles Darwin's Birthday today. Hug a monkey.

Boomdeyada

2010-02-12T00:19:00.003-05:00

I had finished my climb, the weather and wind failing to stop me, but taking their toll just the same. I bent over, breathing heavily, then moved towards the temple I could barely see through the driving snow.

The building was only one room, a raised platform with a reclining Buddha across from me, and seated in front of it, the teacher I had come seeking. He was ignoring me, eyes half open. I had come during Zazen.

"Teacher, I have one question for you."

He blinked. I took encouragement from it. I knew my question was cliche but had to ask anyway.

"Why are we here?"

I received a glance, and the teacher sighed. Standing, he left the room through a door in the back. I sat down and stared at the Buddha. The heavy lidded eyes annoyed me.

I heard a rustling as the teacher came back, snow blowing in around him. I stood up and bowed to him. Ignoring this, he held out his hand. I reached out and he dropped a flower petal and a chess pawn in my hand.

I sighed. I was hoping for something different. I pulled the Les Bauer 1911 from my pocket and shot him twice in the chest. His body I left in front of the Buddha, lain across the floor in a poor parody of its reclining pose.

Heading outside, I skipped to the edge of the mountain, spit and tossed the chess piece out as far as I could. I shouldered my pack and checked the gun in its holster. I looked to the west.

Well, there's always the next mountain.

The perils of boredom

2010-02-08T13:36:00.003-05:00

I'm bored.

It's not for lack of stuff to do. I work at the bookstore five days a week. I write twice weekly for a movie site. I go to the gym as often as I can. But I'm not happy.

This isn't what I want to be doing. I wake up in the morning, and head to my computer, addicted to the impersonal messages I get from across the world. I shower, feed the cats, watch some television, and then I'm out the door. My mornings are wasted time, lost energy. I can't force myself out of bed to run as I'm up too late the night before, watching television, rotting my brain in time with the flickered images.

I eat when this boredom hits. All of my hours sweating on the treadmill or in the pipes and rubber of a weight machine are negated with a few spoonfuls of pasta. I have trouble finding even the energy to put on a video game, the non-involvement of TV-watching more attractive than laying forth any effort at all.

I know that this is textbook depression.

The funny thing is that I don't feel depressed. I just feel lost. I need something, and looking around I can almost figure out what it is.

Is it the martial arts that I miss so much? Is it the friends I used to have that ignore me or have disappeared? Is it a teacher for meditation or Buddhist thought? Is it a weekly game of chess?

I'm not sure. I just know these are the things that are going through my head at the moment, and I need to figure it out.

I did start a good story at our writing group last night and maybe I'll post the beginning (middle, in reality) here later.

Listen: I'm digging this

2010-01-28T16:36:00.004-05:00

So in keeping with my obvious "indie-cred", and you know, my job as music manager at the bookstore, here is the stuff I've been enjoying the last couple of weeks.

Vampire Weekend - Contra
The band deals with a lot of hatred. Like any band, they have the rabid Pitchforkers who won't hear anything said against them, and because of this there are a lot of people who dismiss them out of hand.. But they're simple, fun, happy tunes. I find myself stuck with Horchata or the falsetto warble of White Sky stuck in my head for hours at a time.

Los Campesinos! - Romance is Boring
Toning down from 2008's We are Beautiful, We Are Doomed the band takes a more thoughtful route on this album. From the sort-of-gross album art to the lyrics to the visuals of the video for the first single, everything evokes a skewed, sad childhood. And it's better for the fact that you're not being forced to live through it. But it's not all sad. The band takes their brand of electric pop to some good places. Check it.

Zeus - Say Us
Had never heard of the band until Arts & Crafts popped me a promo the other day. They're a lot of fun. Think indie rock meets country, but not in the way you're used to. Might be comparable to the Old 97s.

Owen Pallett - Heartland
This album is probably getting the most play at the moment, and while I'd love to share it with the world, the lyrics aren't work appropriate. Pallett (formerly Final Fantasy) blends beautifully arranged strings with his relatively simple voice for a sound that's...well I suck at comparing musicians to other musicians anyway. Haven't ever gotten that one down. Just check it out.

Weezer - Raditude
There is almost some part of me that's ashamed how much I'm enjoying this album, but there's a part that doesn't give a damn. This is the stuff high-school was made of. This is the kind of album for playing on a summer break while you drive around your dinky-ass home town with nothing to do. The band is by no means making serious, thoughtful music, but if you can take it for what it is (and you're not on a high horse) you'll have a good time.

One other quick thing, non-music related. Bayou. We got the first volume of the graphic novel in at the store, but it started as webcomic, and you can read it all online. It's brilliant stuff, taking on the mythology of the South as well as the trauma of the Jim Crow-era.

I have turned comments back on, unmoderated, so let the vitriol spewing begin!

Coded Messages

2010-01-28T15:07:00.002-05:00

I admit to feeling a little brainless today.

Apparently, most of my writing is designed to get me into the pants of "indie" girls. I disagree with this assumption, but if it's true, then why the hell isn't it working? If linking to the Huffington Post and writing about why opposition to gay marriage is wrong are the ways to attract women, why am I not having sex constantly?

Of course, I suppose it could be because, you know, I'm actually not using writing as a tool to get laid, or that I don't have a low regard for women, but some of you out there, clearly know me better than I know myself.

In any case, it's lovely here in Michigan today. The sun is shining and I took a walk down to the zoo this morning. I didn't actually go in, as I'm a bit short on funds at the moment, but it was nice to get outside and do some exercise for once as opposed to constant gym trips.

The trip to Colorado to see my sister was nice. We got in two days of skiing, one at Keystone and one at Breckenridge. It was probably a bad decision to go to Keystone first, as the hills seemed harder and I wasn't as used to mountain skiing as hills. But Breck was a lot of fun, and we tried quite a lot of moguls. Stressful, and I feel a couple of times, but fun.

Kathleen's roommate works at the Denver Zoo, so I got to go behind the scenes a little. I was allowed to feed mealworms to a Tamandua, which may be one of the cutest animals on the planet. A tree anteater, she just stuck her snout in my hand and slurped the worms out with her tongue. Messy though.

In any case, I'm going to call it a day. I'm going to write an article for the site, and then spend my non-existent money by going to see The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus.

So kind regards, and have a good day.

RIP Howard Zinn

2010-01-28T01:43:00.001-05:00

The guy told it how it is. He'll be missed.

Hug everyone, it won't hurt

2010-01-18T14:06:00.005-05:00

Before I start talking about what Dr. King's birthday means to me, I'd like to address the stresses of yesterday. Some of you may not be aware, but I own two cats, one of whom is a chronic chewer. Well, yesterday, Alice was puking and lethargic in the extreme. So I took her to the vet, and it turned out that she had a blockage in her intestine.

This meant surgery.

Obviously, I love my cat dearly, so there was no question. The problem is that I was planning on leaving for vacation on Tuesday the 19th. And thanks to awesome vets, the help of some friends and my beloved parents, I still am. Alice pulled through her surgery just fine, and is apparently asking the vets and techs to pet her stomach, something they obviously can't do. But she's ok. And I'm still leaving for Colorado tomorrow morning.

Insert one week break here.

So I started writing this blog last monday, and I was going to talk about what Dr. King's birthday meant to me. I'm still going to do that, and save holding forth on my vacation for a different entry. First however, Alice is home, and she is fine.

So Dr. King had a dream, and there are some of you out there who say we've achieved that dream. I call bullshit on you for saying that. We still live in a country, in a world where some of us are treated as lower than others. The trial going on in California is evidence of that. People find something inherently terrifying about allowing Homosexual people to marry, and I honestly can't see why. Just because someone loves a different person than you do, you're going to take away one of their rights? Bizarre.

The world over, poor folks can't get the medical care to take care of simple diseases. They die from them. We won't allow certain people medical care unless they convert to our religion, or because of our religion, depending on who we are. Wars are fought for the most dangerous and stupid reasons.

Even in Haiti, where massive amounts of people are going to help, there are issues with the bizarre and the downright evil. Pat Robertson says they made a deal with the devil. Scientologists go and take up space, not really helping in any discernible way. And religious organizations send bibles when medicine and doctors are what are needed.

So yes, Dr. King. We acknowledge you and your dream, for at least the day that we celebrate it. But after that, we go back to our petty, asinine, manipulative selves. I hope you're not surprised.

I wish I was.

OK Go does it again

2010-01-18T10:23:00.002-05:00

I was a bit skeptical regarding OK Go's new album, Of the Blue Colour of the Sky, especially since it came out the same week as new albums by heavy-hitters Vampire Weekend and Owen Pallett. But after watching this video, I've gotta say, they've still got it.

'This too shall pass'

It's fun for me too, as a former marching band geek.

Day 3 of the Prop. 8 Trial in California

2010-01-13T14:13:00.005-05:00

No commentary or smart remarks on this one, just have to say that this is one of the most important trials in recent memory for those of us who believe in equal rights.

'Gays and Lesbians have been a despised category' historian says at Prop. 8 Trial

Live-blogged coverage here

Let's hope things work out the way they should in a just world.

Cthulhu is rising on Mars...Or at least his tentacles are.

2010-01-12T23:20:00.004-05:00

Welcome to Mars' North Pole. Home of the Starspawn.

These images are courtesy of the HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Phil over at Discover Magazine explains what the hell we're looking at.

"But what are those weird tendril thingies?

In the Martian winter, carbon dioxide freezes out of the air (and you thought it was cold where you are). In the summer, that CO₂ sublimates; that is, turns directly from a solid to a gas. When that happens the sand gets disturbed, and falls down the slopes in little channels, which spreads out when it hits the bottom. But this disturbs the red dust, too, which flows with the sand. When it’s all done, you get those feathery tendrils. Note that at the tendril tips, you see blotches of red; that’s probably from the lighter dust billowing a bit before settling down.

Now, you might think I’m making this all up. How do we know this stuff is flowing downhill like that? Ah, because in this picture we’ve caught it in the act! In this image, a closeup of a region just to the left of center of the big image, you can actually see the cloud of dust from an avalanche as it occurs.

Oh, baby. The cloud is only a few dozen meters across, and can’t be more than a few seconds old.

I love stuff like this. I tend to think of Mars as a stiff, still, unchanging place, but then HiRISE goes and slaps me in the face with something like this. Mind you, this is an avalanche. On another planet. Caught as it happened.

Awe. Some."

I'm inclined to agree.

Space is the Place

2010-01-12T15:20:00.003-05:00

I'm in an odd mood today.

On some level, I'm a fuggen grump. Customers have become an inconvenience, and I feel a bit bad about that. I get jumpy and irritated when I see someone heading my direction. That's not what my New Year's resolution, for lack of a better term, was all about. (Confused? See the January 5th, 2010 entry, True-Believers!)

I'm also worried about money. Big surprise. Moving along.

On a tertiary level, I'm just in a strange mood lately. Every entry in my physical journal (yep, I keep one. I feel like I should be shopping at Hot Topic) has been accompanied by some sort of art. I think maybe reading about Leonardo Da Vinci is rubbing off on me. A lot of the artistic endeavors are sketches of people who are important to me (I don't think they'd be flattered, they're mostly terrible) or short poems I write on the spot.

I think I just miss art and free time.

For now though, I'm going to get through the rest of the day, and the sounds of Holst's Planets are kicking it off fairly well.

It's not easy being halfway down the stairs under the rainbow connection

2010-01-11T14:35:00.005-05:00

A quick bit of musical news.

I'm a huge fan of Jim Henson and the Muppets, and ever since their inception, the music has been brilliant. Well on February 16th of this year, we're getting a full album of classic muppet tunes covered by current artists.

Artists and songs will include:

Rainbow Connection by Weezer
Mahna Mahna by The Fray
It's Not Easy Being Green by Andrew Bird
Our World by My Morning Jacket
Halfway Down the Stairs by Amy Lee
The Muppet Show Theme by Ok Go

I think I'll go home tonight and watch some green horse things do ballet while Gonzo eats a tire.

Keep up that ego strokin', Fox

2010-01-11T14:03:00.002-05:00

So it's official. We all knew it was going to happen. Sarah has her own show in the offing.

Am I surprised? Not really. Most networks like to stroke the egos of the people who agree with them, and Sarah has one bigger than most. I just can't wait to see her sign off with a wink, a 'you betcha' and a make-out session with the first dude.

Fair and balanced, my ass.

"I didn't come from no damn monkey"

2010-01-10T21:44:00.004-05:00

So PZ Myers deserves another fist bump on this one, as does my friend Jon, who first turned me onto his blog. Jon also had to order a copy of Ray Comfort's version of 'Origin of the Species' for a customer today, so please keep him in your thoughts.

But ever try to argue with an extremely staunch creationist? Bet it went something like this.

A reason never to touch anyone else's keyboard, ever.

2010-01-10T13:52:00.003-05:00

Sex sells.

We know this. The 'world's oldest profession' is still going strong, despite stigmas (including legality) attached to both those who practice, and pay for, it. And now, it's moved into the virtual world.

Electronic Porn has been around for a long time. I recall ads in gaming magazines from the 80's for some rather risque games, things I didn't understand until years later. And now, I'm shocked by what was ok to run in everyday magazines. Life before the ESRB, eh?

With the advent of affordable internet, it's moved into the mainstream. Adult magazines, oftentimes, glorify the perfect and unattainable. With internet pornography, the popular is the person you might see on the street every day.

I realized this a few years ago when I found out an ex of mine was doing hardcore porn. She's moved on to other things now, so no, I'm not going to give her porn name, but at the time it surprised the hell out of me. May have been a little naive, thinking that "real ladies" don't do this sort of thing.

Now however, with friends who work night jobs as cam-girls and friends who regularly pose nude (no pornstars, currently) I'm realizing that sex is more mainstream than ever. People in their sixties browse the sex books with no embarrassment. The girls I know on cam-sites revel in their sexual power.

And you know what? All of this is a good thing.

Denying our biology leads to problems. Religion in particular tends to stifle our impulses, both through its persecution of theories like evolution, and by attaching stigmas to sexual activity. We've become incredibly prudish, and honestly, we have no reason to be.

Sex is beautiful.

But please, wash your hands.

Maybe I should write textbooks...

2010-01-05T23:57:00.004-05:00

A fist bump to PZ Myers for bringing this to my attention. If you're a parent of young children or an educator, you should be terrified.

“Evolution is hooey.” This bled into a rant about American history. “The secular humanists may argue that we are a secular nation,” McLeroy said, jabbing his finger in the air for emphasis. “But we are a Christian nation founded on Christian principles. The way I evaluate history textbooks is first I see how they cover Christianity and Israel. Then I see how they treat Ronald Reagan—he needs to get credit for saving the world from communism and for the good economy over the last twenty years because he lowered taxes.”

Read the whole article. It's frightening.

I'm really going to bed now. Gonna read 'The Science of Leonardo'. Good stuff.

Are you sure?

2010-01-05T23:37:00.004-05:00

So it's a new year. A new start. A new beginning.

Or at least that's what the gym commercials and magazine covers are telling me. Really, we just made another trip around the sun, and I'm a bit older. Not to mention, significantly more bearded.

The holiday season is barely over and people are already being rude again. We had a woman yell at us for about five minutes over something that was an easy fix. Which partially explains my resolution for the coming year, and hopefully, forever.

I'm a fairly godless dude, but I do think that religions got that whole golden rule thing right. And when I was home over break, watching 'A Christmas Carol' with my family, I took some of Ebenezer Scrooge's words to heart. I need to live the whole year round like Christians supposedly do during the holiday season. So this coming year will be a more positive, friendly, helpful Lincoln (but not a doormat). I'm going to go out of my way to donate my time and volunteer to help those that need it.

And I'm seriously considering the Peace Corps.

That's really all for the night, but here's a brief story, written here at my desk in the last five minutes.

'Bushman'

There were three of them, hunting it. His first shot had taken it in the shoulder, and the trail of blood was starting to get stronger, the exertions of the last hour speeding its heart, weakening it. His brothers, they fell behind, deferring to him as the killer this time and spreading out into the dark in case it bolted.

A rustling ahead. It had fallen. He sped up, his steps losing stealth in the detritus the ground bathed in.

The bang of tin as the garbage can lid fell to the ground, prey leaned against it. As he raised his weapon, its frightened face loomed, pale with blood loss and the thoughts of failed escape. He crouched over it.

"Tag."

2009 is almost over, and I've still got that pellet in my leg

2009-12-28T18:12:00.006-05:00

So 2009. Pretty good year I guess. I read a lot, I saw a bunch of movies, I wrote...with somewhat less frequency than I'd like. And I think that things turned out ok.

So here are a few things that made this year good. Not neces
sarily a 'Best of' list but things I enjoyed, including a few ideas for stories that I'm going to start working on in the new year.

Films

District 9: Simply one of the strongest, most original science-fiction movies I've seen in a while. Blomkamp was able to expand on his short (something hard to do sometimes, see (the animated) 9) and work within a limited budget, albeit with a huge-name producer, and come out with something wonderful.

Watchmen: Nerd pleasure here. I enjoyed it, if only for it's attention to detail and obvious love of the source material.

Where the Wild Things Are: A fun yet dark art-house kids film. Beautifully realized and something apart from the original picture book. The giant wild things are some of the greatest puppets since Jim Henson first sewed felt onto two halves of a whiffle ball (I don't know if that's how it happened, but it looks like it, yeah?)

Up: Pixar does it again. One of the most emotional experiences I've had at the movies in recent history.

Video Games

Batman: Arkham Asylum: You ARE Batman. You get to do everything you've always dreamed of, hanging upside down from gargoyles, striking fear...all of it. And the inclusion of voice actors from the classic 90s Animated series along with a plot by Paul Dini make this feel like a reunion. Wonderful.

Professor Layton and Diabolical Box: If you like puzzles, Sherlock Holmes, Studio Ghibli, and charming Victorian storytelling, you need this game and it's predecessor. They're a great, often frustrating, time and with the downloadable challenges, they last a fair amount of time.

Scribblenauts: Just buy it. You will have a blast. My favorite thing that I summoned thus far is... well no, the fun of this game is the ability to find stuff out for yourself.

Books

And Another Thing... by Eoin Colfer: I really dug this continuation of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's books. I reviewed it here, so just scroll back if you want a fuller take on it.

The City and the City by China Mieville: Same deal here. Reviewed earlier this month. Great stuff.

The Red Wolf Conspiracy by Robert Reddick: I read this as a galley and it was a case of getting to the end and hating the fact that it ended on a "To be continued" note. A fantastic debut swashbuckler featuring a setting as interesting as anything Mieville or Gaiman has come up with.

I seem to read a lot of science fiction don't I? Hm. There are a ton of other great books that have come out this year, but I've been catching up on older stuff that's still brilliant. So I assure you, I've read other genres this year, they are just books that didn't debut in 2009.

Music

Blakroc: The Black Keys teamed up with a variety of rappers, including Mos Def, Jim Jones, Billy Danze, Ludacris, ODB and more, to produce one of the greatest stoner-rap-rock albums in recent memory. An amazingly laid back rap album, it's worth tracking down.

St. Vincent - Actor: St Vincent's smooth pop and dynamic lyrics are conveyed well here, resulting in a treat for the ears. Has some bizarre moments, but nothing too dischordant.

Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest: You need to own this. Beautiful, ambient chamber pop. These are compositions you can sink into, where you'll float on the almost-too-quiet vocals while your brain tries to figure out which way the instrumentation is going to turn next. A convoluted way of saying how great this is, but this record deserves it.

Japandroids - Post Nothing: Lo-fi, yelled vocals on top of a guitar and drum kit. The charm and earnestness of songs that really only have maybe five different lines repeated over and over again keeps these guys in my head.

Chuck Ragan - Gold Country: An underrated folk artist, Ragan used to head up Hot Water Music before moving on to his solo project. The album has a working class mining/logging/railroad charm that is present in classic folk music, but has been missing for a while. Check him out.

I could keep going on all day. I'm just going to list 10 more that I thought were great this last year.

Neko Case - Middle Cyclone
K. Flay - Mashed Potatoes
MC Lars - This Gigantic Robot Kills
Tom Waits - Glitter and Doom Live
Bob Dylan - Together Through Life
The Mountain Goats - Life of the World to Come
Bat for Lashes - Two Suns
Matt and Kim - Grand
Mastodon - Crack the Skye
Karen O and the Kids - Where the Wild Things Are OST

So there you go. For lack of a better term, that's my best of 2009 list. It's a lot of great stuff, and you should check it out.

As for my story ideas, I've got two. And as soon as I type them here, someone will come out with a book based around that idea. Or someone will point out that it's been done before. So yep. That in mind.

The first came from a conversation I was having with a co-worker about history books. We were basically talking/wondering what certain historical figures were like, Jesus primary among them. And the thought that sprang to mind was: What if Time Travel was invented? Would laws be enacted to make sure that we didn't check up on facts? Like to make sure Jesus existed? So there's a story there and I'm going to start working on it tonight.

The second is a more general idea brought on by the title of a book I walked past in the young adult section today. It goes this way. What if all of the world leaders were assassinated on one day? What would happen? Would the world fall apart? Those are probably words I shouldn't type on the internet in this day and age, but it's just a short story idea that seems compelling to me. We'll see.

For now, I hope that those that celebrate them had a wonderful Christmas or Channukah, and those that didn't are filled with love and joy in general. We need to be, anymore.

The world has a lot of problems; let's stop creating them for one another.

Extra-Short Story

2009-12-23T00:16:00.003-05:00

I hitch-hiked across the country last week, a 22 pistol in my backpack cuddled up next to a book on tattoos. I only had to draw it once, a bar in Idaho, where a man with a guitar tried to punch the woman he was with. After he drove off, she and I went into the parking lot and fucked on the hood of a station-wagon. She dropped me off next to the Oregon border and I watched her tail-lights from the visitors' center as the rain turned the forest into green mud.

3 days later, I woke up in Michigan, fourteen dollars in my wallet and two shots fired. I ditched the gun in Lake Huron.

It's been a good Christmas.

I think my feet are bloody nubs but I am too afraid to look...

2009-12-20T19:16:00.002-05:00

(Theoretically existing maybe) Lord, deliver me from retail.

I love my job. But I am sick of the Beach Boys' Christmas album. I am sick of saying that we're out of the Lego Star Wars Visual Dictionary. I am sick of telling people to put their socks back on. And I am really sick of the Beach Boys' Christmas album.

On the plus side, science never takes a holiday. We might have found some dark matter. Which is awesome. Or maybe portends the end of the world. Whichever:
Come out of the dark, jerk.

Alright I'm headed back out on the floor now after a break. Pray to that same theoretical deity as before that I survive this holiday season.

Seasonal Affective Blogorder

2009-12-15T11:55:00.003-05:00

I feel I should apologize for the lack of posts lately. The combination of late hours at work due to the holiday season and my general lack of sleeping at normal hours have combined to create a Frankenstein's monster of laziness.

The holiday season is kind of a downer for a lot of people. Folks who don't have family around, people who are lonely, those who don't celebrate... these are the ones who are left out in the cold this time of year. It doesn't help that this is the time when Seasonal Affective Disorder fucks with the minds of a fair number of people out there.

With that in mind, I want to share this smile-making video from the good folks over at Improv Everywhere. They picked a Salvation Army bellringer (ignore the controversy about the organization, this was just about the one person here) and brightened his, and a lot of New Yorkers' evenings.

I don't like to use emoticons, but really there's one way to sum that up:

:)

The Christmas Music, It is unusual.

2009-12-10T23:50:00.002-05:00

So this holiday season has resulted in some unusual releases, including the 'Aqua Teen Hunger Force Christmas Album' and a couple of fun ones this last week.

First among these is experimental hardcore group, Fucked Up's version of (usually terrible to listen to song) 'Do They Know It's Christmas?' featuring Andrew W.K., Tegan and Sara, David Cross, Bob Mould, The GZA, Yo La Tengo, and more. You can pick it up here and best of all, your 99 cents goes to a good cause.

Second, we've got a song that is less about Christmas, and more about what a particular rapper wants for Christmas. That rapper is Sage Francis and the song is called 'Gimme Dat', produced by Buck 65, and available for free here for a limited time.

So there you go. Two Christmas Jams from people who probably aren't huge Christmas fans, but will at least put something a little different in your ears this holiday season.

Review: The City and The City

2009-12-10T14:59:00.003-05:00

There are weird places in the world. The Antarctic, unbroken vistas of ice and snow. Madagascar, an island of creatures found nowhere else. And somewhere in Europe, or Asia, or far more likely, in between, exist the twin countries and cities of Beszel and Ul Qoma.

Occupying the same space at the same time, Beszel and Ul Qoma have a strange symbiotic relationship. The citizenry of each are trained to un-see the other, not acknowledging it even when they might almost be run down by a car that to them, isn't there. Doing otherwise is to risk breaching, and a run in with the secret police of the same name. However, there is a rumor of a third city, hidden between the two. And when a brutal murder is committed, Beszel Police Inspector Tyador Borlu begins to suspect that agents of this other place may be behind it.

That is the basic premise behind China Mieville's latest novel. Released this past May, I had for whatever reason not touched my advance copy until this last week, despite having loved his previous work. Maybe it was the distancing from straight-up steampunk/fantasy to a more crime-procedural format, but The City and The City stayed off my radar for far too long. And having read it, it seems that turning his typical style on its ear was just what he needed to stay fresh and continue to be one of the most unique voices out there.

The novel is brilliantly structured, a slow build into the idea of these two cities that occupy the same geographical and temporal space, the first five chapters getting us used to the idea. At the same time, he manages to make what could be a cheap gimmick into something functional. Unseeing a person that is right next to you is accomplished not through some strange technological gadget but by the cooperative denial of citizenry of both places. And coordinating a murder investigation across both cities lends itself a whole new group of issues.

The characterization is well done. Much like in Mieville's modern classic, Perdido Street Station, the main character is an ordinary person who, being pushed to extraordinary lengths, becomes someone we're interested in. His characterizations are almost uniformly beautiful, though a few of the secondaries suffer. A third act resurrection of a minor personage had me flipping back to earlier pages to refresh myself. Overall though, the citizenry of Beszel and Ul Qoma are living breathing people.

A hallmark of Mieville's novels are the settings. He has a knack for creating a fascinating location and stories to populate them. Once more, perhaps the most major character in this story is/are the city/ies. Through the everyday occurrences of traffic accidents and children playing in the park, we're able to understand more about this world than anything Inspector Borlu tells us. Something as minor as a person bending over to pick up some litter becomes insight into the way this world functions. Mieville is a visual artist working with words.

The book is a triumph. As mentioned before, it could slip into cliche or gimmickry but never does. He manages to build a believable world, a fantasy that exists. The novel itself is a parallel of its story, its events taking place in the world we currently operate within, a world of worry for terrorism and liberal/conservative head-butting. We see these things paralleling our every action, and un-see them as alien or frightening. Mieville doesn't. He stares them down and puts them on the page for all of us. Because of this, he remains one of the most unique and intelligent young writers operating today.

The Coney Island Effect

2009-12-07T17:57:00.003-05:00

I stink.

My sister works for Victoria's Secret out in Denver. Apparently there is some kind of employee sale going on at the moment, so she called me.

"Lincoln, go try on the colognes and let me know which one you like the best."

Nevermind that there are 600 different colognes/perfumes and the 3 male ones aren't set aside in their own spot. Nevermind that apparently our mall's VS is understaffed. Nevermind that this store is relatively undiscovered country for me, a single male.

So after a lovely young lady took pity on me and helped me find the men's colognes and I spritzed my wrists with the two that smelled the least like my current stock of colognes (a wide stable of 2 scents) I went back to work. I am making my female co-workers smell me. Or my wrists rather, the other statement sounding decidedly inapropriate.

Thus far I'm a bit undecided. I like them both, but the combination of the two is swirling and creating in my nostrils the scent of, for lack of a better term, douchebag. So we'll see. I'm leaning to my right wrist, which I think was called Vertical.

I've decided something about the whole Susan Boyle phenomenon. If you don't know who that is then...I can't even say you're old or live in a cave or anything because the young generation knows how to use youtube, while the oldsters are who her music is aimed at. In any case, she is a good example, with her 701,000 albums sold the first week, of something that I am going to call the Coney Island effect.

I'm not belittling her or her story. Far from it. I think that it's extremely inspiring that we live in an age where someone can come forth fairly humbly and become a sensation. No, what bothers me is people reacting to her.

A conversation at the register the other day:
"What cd is that? Oh, is that the ugly woman?"

I feel like this is a lot of the buzz around her. Sure she has a nice voice, and yes, her story is inspirational, but would a beautiful, younger woman who had come out of nowhere have generated the same buzz?

Taylor Swift says no. Or at least her initial cd sales do.

So what does this say about human society as a whole? I'm not sure. I'm not an anthropologist, a psychologist, or a host of other words that end with -ologist who might be able to shed light on this. But I don't feel good about it. How much of this is genuine admiration and how much is hearkening back to Coney Island freak shows, sitting in awe of the dumpy single woman with the pretty voice?

Gabba Gabba.

Katamari theme, over and over, says Lincoln's brain

2009-12-02T18:51:00.005-05:00

So the start of another month, the last month of the year, in fact, and we still have no snow. A lot of my co-workers are excited about this fact, praising the ease with which they get to work. I'm a skier, so thats my first problem with our lack of snow, but a more troubling one is the whole global-warming issue. But wait! We know that doesn't exist now right? I mean, what with climategate and all.

All I have to say on the subject can be summarized here: Just what is in a “political agreement”? (Hat tip to Charles at LGF.) When even the climate change advisor at SHELL says you're a bunch of moronic criminals, then you probably are.

"I think that the science now tells us more than enough to warrant action. Certainly there remain uncertainties, but not on the issue as a whole.
With regards the private e-mails posted on the internet, I think the story is a simple one and it could apply to any one of us. Think of all the e-mails you have written over the past 10 years. Now imagine that someone criminally breaks into your e-mail account and downloads all of them, handpicks a few and posts them on the internet to cast you in a particular light. We could all be shown to be saints or sinners or anything in between.
Now look at what has happened with these scientists going about their work in much the same way anyone of us might attend to our job. Enough said."

I think he sums it up pretty succinctly. I mean, the whole thing was illegal, and if you go through anyone's e-mails you're going to find some stuff that can be misinterpreted.

Today was a pretty laid-back mess. Quiet enough that while sitting at the back register, I caught myself humming video game themes to myself. Katamari Damacy dominated the bizarre mixtape in my head.

And now a brief amount of fiction word-salad. Might not make sense, but fun to write anyway.

'Bulbs'

Stranger days have happened. I woke up to a goose standing on my back step once, hissing as I tried to edge past him. Work was a man down that day. There was the morning of the wind that blew in from all directions, my door shattering closed with each gust, locust leaves across the fake hardwood.

This morning though I woke up to every light turned off.

It wasn't just my apartment. Or my block. Or my city. I could tell. We'd all gone dark.

Even the sun.

In the night of 9 am, before my phone died and my watch was no longer wound correctly, I could see no lights in any direction. My neighbor across the street was on his front lawn and asked if I knew what had happened. When I shrugged, laughed, pointed at the church, he smiled and went back inside, the loud click of a bolt thrown after him.

The lights didn't come back on though. We're not really sure when they will. I flip the switch, and lean close to the bulb, and I can hear it humming, but no light is given off. I contacted a professor at the University, and he said they're still detecting the correct wavelengths from the darkened bulbs, they just aren't lighting. Or they are, just not so we could see them.

I look at the church more and more. I was never a religious man. But it's a church.

And I'm out of candles.

Goodnight.

Dear LHC

2009-11-30T15:08:00.003-05:00

Will you please adopt me? I will be your high energy, particle-colliding child. I would love to set world records with you.

Bananas: We accept you, one of us

2009-11-28T14:32:00.005-05:00

So if you're not familiar with the children's show 'Yo Gabba Gabba!', it can be summed up thusly: Sesame Street meets Japanese Cosplay for the hipster-parent generation. Started by the MC Bat Commander of Aquabats fame, the show fuses edutainmental bits with an indie rock aesthetic that can be enjoyed by both children and their parents. But the high point is the music. Guests have included The Roots, The Ting Tings, Jimmy Eat World, The Aquabats (of course) and the Aggrolites, of all people, who originally performed the song that Dinosaur Jr. rocks in this video of the live 'Yo Gabba Gabba' show.

So yep. Must be bizarre to play for a roomful of kids when you're used to playing for a bunch of drunken college-mops, but they look like they're having a blast, after getting through that tentative, deer-in-the-headlights "Hi Kids."

Black Friday is disgusting. We didn't have any doorbusters or the nonsense that major chains had, but we do now have the only coffee shop in the mall, so our store was pretty ridiculous. I just don't understand the greed that we as Americans seem to have hard-wired. I'd like to say that I'm not part of it, but to be honest, I'm pretty messed up with it. I have constant envy of things that I don't own, when I haven't finished all of the ones that I do. Stupid, but I shouldn't look down on myself. Black Friday, with children complaining that they want every toy in the store, people attempting to negotiate for better deals and my sister getting yelled at because they ran out of the tote her store advertised, is a pretty horrible symptom. I need to fix it in myself before I can avoid it outside of my body.

Shoot the moon.

Place

2009-11-28T00:00:00.002-05:00

This is a placeholder, but let me just say that I'm disgusted by the greed shown on black friday.
Night.

Roombas and Guitar Strings

2009-11-22T23:06:00.003-05:00

So why is it that people such as myself can never be satisfied? Everyone my age wants to be famous. We want to have everyone know our name. They need to know our music, our writing, our art. But really, we're just feeling lazy and entitled.

Since this is my blog, we'll use me as the fr'instance. I have high hopes for my writing. Anyone who is reading this right now can probably puzzle that one together. But my identity is made up of a bunch of different things. In elementary school, I was the kid who broke at least one backpack a year. I would fill them, to the point where the zipper seams tore, with books.

There was no way that I could read all of these books in school. We had classes, recess, never mind that elementary school was a more social time. But I simply liked the feeling of having these books around me, even if they were never opened. They ran the gamut of science texts to fantasy novels, and really just provided a safety net.

Whatever it might be, that safety net disappears as we grow older. In junior high and high school, the number of 'fun' texts I could carry dwindled, and in college, my non-school reading dropped to near zero. I really had nothing holding me up anymore.

It's scary, not being able to rely on something you've always had before. There are ways around it obviously; drugs, alcohol. You fill the gap with something powerful and life changing. Many of us can't find a way to do that, and almost delude ourselves into seeking new identities. We become sure that we'll be famous.

The punchline here is that that is unlikely.

I sit down some days and strum my guitar casually. I'm not very good yet, and in my head there's a voice telling me that I should be. I've had this guitar four years, I should be a performing singer-songwriter with his own backing band. My poems should be recited in high school classrooms as exemplary works. I should be making my way through the money with a shovel for my fiction.

Life doesn't work that way. It gets in your way, changes the game. You can catch yourself saying that this is bad.

Or you can strum the guitar. Hammer out one more chord before you go to bed. Learn something new.

Thursday Afternoon Short Story

2009-11-19T16:48:00.001-05:00

"I'm sorry, but I can't do this anymore. There's just a monotone to your voice.. and it's there all the time. Even when we talk about shit like this. I'm sorry. I can't...I'm sorry."

She hung up.

Into the silence, he said "At the sound of your rejection, the time will be 3:30 pm EST."

Mother of Mindfuck!

2009-11-19T16:42:00.004-05:00

So Pitchfork posted this yesterday, and I felt that it's general strangeness was worth commenting on here. Beck and actress/singer Charlotte Gainsbourg are putting out an album together. The first single 'Heaven can Wait' is available at the iTunes store, and I dig it, but the music video is the weirdest combination of imagery I've seen in a while. Check it.

Charlotte Gainsbourg and Beck - Heaven Can Wait

Amphibians

2009-11-19T16:37:00.002-05:00

A poem I'm working on right now. It still needs work.

In nature camp, we’d turn
over logs, roll them back into
the patches of poison ivy that
seemed to thrive around them.
We were looking for worms, insects,
anything that thrived in the dark
and wet,
the real joy coming with a log tipped
and that glossy back, spots
of yellow or red, and the slow flashing tail
of the salamander.

We’d pick him up, careful not to
break, fragile limbs with sticky hands.
Tigers, spotted, toxicity needed to stop
exactly this groping, drying hands, as we roll
them over and see the pale, non-hiding
underside.

Luckiest
are dropped into a tank of peat, worms,
plastic plants and a classroom filled with
six year olds, end up dehydrated husks.
Tipped back under a log as burial.
Then
swollen with new moisture, they find
a grub who hasn’t seen them before
and swallow it whole.

Still waiting

2009-11-19T16:15:00.000-05:00

Who wants to go get some grass stains?

More mythology for your buck

2009-11-19T16:02:00.004-05:00

So odds are you've seen the trailer for Clash of the Titans the remake of the 70s original that made Ray Harryhausen a bit of a household name.

Well, now we've got that same movie for the Harry Potter set.

The third trailer for Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief went up and I've gotta say, it looks like it'll be a lot of fun. Christopher Columbus, the guy who directed the first two Harry Potter films is behind the camera, and I think we'll be getting a similar feeling out of this one.

Check it out.

Who poured mercury in my ear?

2009-11-16T21:55:00.003-05:00

So my head feels like it's exploding, and this is going to be a short post because of that, but I still have a couple of things to say.

My friend Lauren pointed me to this video, and I think it's excellent. It really sums up what needs to happen in the world, and in the schools, to keep us going and possibly to push the economy back to where it belongs. We're stagnant.
Ken Robinson at TED

Also, I'd like to share a little humor with you folks out there. Some folks might be aware of Ray "Banana" Comfort and his revisionist 'Origin of the Species' that will be passed out November 22nd at college campuses. Well, the National Council for Science Education had a bit of a silly rebuttal on the subject.

Finally, if you're able, the annual Leonid meteor shower, as we pass through the tail of the Tempel-Tuttle comet, reaches its peak tonight, with 20 to 30 meteors estimated to be visible each hour, starting at midnight and most significant at 3 am on the 17th. However, if you're in, or closer to, Asia (I'm looking at you, Christopher, Katie and AV) then you'll be getting 200 to 300 an hour. So please, take photos and share with us.

I'm going to see if I can find Hephaestus and fix this headache.

Nighty Nighty: Day off Photo

2009-11-15T00:50:00.003-05:00

Relaxing cliche tree photo I took for you to look at overnight.

Sweet dreams.

Soda Culture: Nerdcore, Cartoons, and Why Those Pants Don't Fit Anymore

2009-11-14T23:21:00.006-05:00

Let me start the day off with this statement. I'm pretty sure I've figured out the country's obesity crisis. It's people shopping while hungry. Or maybe you fatsos should exercise more. Either way.

"A beard is no substitute for a jawline, no matter how you trim it."

Adult Swim is a pretty well known brand in the world of cartoons for the adult (surprising, I know) consumer. But while I've discussed this show before, I still find that there are a lot of people out there who aren't aware of the glory that is 'The Venture Brothers'.

Now in the early stages of the fourth season, 'The Venture Bros' was conceived and created by Jackson Publick, aka Christopher McCulloch, one of the main writers on 'The Tick' animated series. Originally to be a comic book, he decided to instead do it as an animated series after realizing he had a larger story to tell. The show was picked up in 2002 and began airing the first season in 2004.

Alright, now that we've got the boring stuff out of the way, why is this show so great? Simply put, it's a show for everyone who grew up in the 80's and 90's. Dr. Venture, a pill-popping scientist with two moronic sons and a hulking be-mulleted bodyguard directly recalls Dr. Quest from the old 'Jonny Quest' tv show (and the stupid relaunch). The Monarch, a butterfly-themed super-villain traveling in a flying cocoon is a Bond bad guy crossed with the Batman rogues' gallery. The show throws in the pop-culture left and right, including David Bowie in a significant role, the Scooby gang re-imagined as famous serial killers and victims, and a GI Joe-esque montage that gets really over the top, really quickly.

So if this show is as awesome as I say it is, why isn't it more popular? A couple of reasons, I think. The time slot, 12 am on a Sunday is pretty much shit for anyone outside the college set. Yes, I manage to stay up and watch it, but I crash immediately after, having to work the next day. I think the biggest factor is, oddly enough, the humor. People aren't smart. I hate to say that, but a large portion of the population can't wrap their head around anything more sophisticated than a 'Family Guy' joke, where you're given the set-up, and then the punchline is handed to you through imagery. A show like 'The Venture Brothers', where the referential material flies fast and furious without even a second to explain it is going to get lost on some people. When Edgar Allen Poe says that a sacred object is hidden under his floorboards, I snorted with laughter, seeing a quick "Telltale Heart" joke, while the person next to me just looked confused. A brilliant Exodus 21:24 joke in the last episode flew right over my head, a more Biblically educated friend pointing it out to me. So while the show is enjoyable for everyone, it's sort of the same situation 'Futurama' found itself in, except that instead of the science nerd, the hipster pop-culture (excuse me, Soda Culture) geek is going to find himself king of the couch with this show.

"Technologies. That's gangstas with computers, y'all."

I'm not embarrassed to admit that I dig rap. I have a few friends who hate the entire genre based on some preconceived notions about the way it presents itself. There are others I've met who think that every rapper who does some moronic thing is God himself, and there's of course no way he actually did the stupid shit there are six witnesses to.

I fall somewhere in the middle.

I hate to say it, but I'm a bit of a hipster, even in my rap choices. I listen to a lot of indie stuff: Aesop Rock, Sage Francis, Atmosphere, El-P, Doom, De La Soul...kind of the who's who of semi-underground, lyrically intelligent rap artists. Also in the play rotation are the precursors: Run-DMC, the Beastie Boys...the things you listened to as a kid that your parents and Tipper Gore didn't want you to. This probably makes me pretentious. Hopefully, this next bit will fix that.

Ever listen to Nerdcore?

The genre came out of the uterus back in 2000, birthed by balding father-figure MC Frontalot and his self-publish, DIY ethic. The songs tend to deal with nerdy (durr) topics, ranging from computer games to DNA, the nineties ska scene to unrequited love for goth girls. Since he first came up with the term, many other rappers have defined themselves as such.

My personal favorite is probably MC Lars. A graduate of Stanford's English program, his nerdy references walk happily hand in hand with classical literature. In fact, he's adapted several classics into ridiculously catchy rap tunes, including Moby Dick, The Raven, and Hamlet. Self-reference being a large part of nerdcore, Lars also writes about Guitar Hero derangement syndrome (the idea that being good at Guitar-Hero means you are somehow a musical genius), the cliched hipsters of Williamsburg, and the oft-ridiculous green movement. However, he also can write a damn good serious rap-tune, teaming up with nerd MCs YTCracker, K.Flay and the Former Fat Boys for a defense of the genre on one of the best tracks off his most recent album, 'We have Arrived'.

While some say Nerdcore is dead, I think the genre is not only going to hang on, but evolve. Artists like Jonathan Coulton, while not nerdcore, are making it cool to be a Nerd again in a way it hasn't been since Peter Parker had a clone. And I know there are a lot of us out there. Playing Munchkin with friends two weeks in a row is proof of that.

So sit up. Get out your synth. Sing a song about LISP and Visual Basic. And kick it.

Beards for Breakfast

2009-11-11T23:05:00.005-05:00

Look at this, you lucky people. You get two posts in the same day. I know, I probably spoil you.

A couple of days ago, I discussed some comic books that are pretty awesome, and the movies coming out based on them. Well today, my dreams...aspirations...well, we finally got a look at Kick-Ass, the movie based on the Mark Millar comic of the same name. Thanks to Gordon over at Movie Make-out for the link.

Really, it looks pretty awesome. The opening shot is a really obvious set-up for a more obvious joke, but overall, we're looking at a movie that is a pretty interesting, unique, and probably hilarious take on the 'What would superheroes in the real world be like?' question that Watchmen and Batman have addressed most recently. Not Oscar-Fodder, the way upcoming genre films like The Road, Avatar, and The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus will be, but still, a good reason to head to the cinema.

The Flaming Lips video I posted earlier is strangely not the only pornographic music video to surface recently. A few weeks ago new wunderband, Girls, came out with a video for their song 'Lust for Life' from the album, 'Album' (hurr) that at moments approaches laugh out loud gay porn. Girls - Lust for Life (Extremely NSFW). Worth watching, and the song is tits, but those same tits and penis abound, so heads up.

On to much more serious matters.

Today was an important day, really, the world over. Here in the US, it's the day that we celebrate our veterans and the service they gave to their country. My father was in the Navy during the Korean war, working on a Minesweeper. He was lucky enough to not be rotated into the waters around Korea before the war ended, but there are many families of soldiers out there who can't say the same. We need to remember, not just today, but in some way every day how much these people give to us.

Much of the rest of the world also celebrates and remembers today. Armistice Day. November 11th is the day when a treaty was signed between the Allies of World War 1 and Germany. While things did get bad in that area of the world again relatively quickly, globally speaking, we should remember that Peace is possible. I mean, the amount of hatred and anger in the US is staggering to me. The news is full of rape, mass murder and war on a daily basis. It's depressing and if there is a God, I think he'd be pretty disappointed with how people use him to justify all of this. The Westboro Baptist church. Anti-Abortion bombers. The 9/11 attacks. Really, what the fuck is wrong with humanity?

I'll get off my soapbox and end by posting a somewhat humorous holiday that is also celebrated today. If you're like me, you love corduroy. You love the way it feels. You love the noises it makes. You generally think that corduroy is rad. Well, there is a group of people out there who feel the same as you. The Corduroy Club uses November 11th as their celebration of all things corduroy, including speakers and a gathering. This year's speaker (who will already have spoken as of this writing) was writer Sloane Crosley. A humorist, I'm sure her speech was a lot of fun.

I always have trouble wrapping these entries up. No idea what to say. So I'll end with what was my word of the day, at least until general anxiety set in.

Beard.

Thank you and goodnight.