a review of a sam pink song

SAM PINK - 'THERE IS NO ONE IN MY ROOM'

this song is the score for the final love scene when the comets are crashing into the earth and the dinosaurs and crying and weeping terribly. and there are two dinosaurs in love and they are holding each other and telling each other absolute truth. they are telling each other that they love each other and that, to the most of whatever arbitrary set of moral guidelines they follow, they have assigned the greatest meaning to the other dinosaur, to their lover dinosaur. they have validated their existences of eating smaller animals, chewing leaves, and walking slowly--they have validated this with their beautiful, meaningful love. there is nothing that can hurt them and they are no one because no one can be hurt. no one can die. no one can die.

apropos

watch these videos with the volume down and listening to this:



The Alphabet - by David Lynch



Vincent - by Tim Burton

i will be largely unhappy

inside of my new apartment i feel mostly unailve. it is true: i move around, i pick things up, i touch things and then think about touching them. these things make noises. i have only been here two nights and already i have taken to laying on my bed and staring at the ceiling fan spinning. i try to write things and i try to capture my lethargy. but i am not moved to do so.

i recently read connor o'brien's last post and i thought it was amazing. and i thought 'yes okay, i will write something right now. i will something very true and funny and it will not hurt when it comes out'. and i tried and i thought what i was writing was stupid and i didn't want to finish it and it hurt, everything hurt. i laid down again and stared at the ceiling fan.

earlier this afternoon i drove to my parents and found it empty. i thought i would mow the lawn to give me something to do. when i looked it was already mowed. i felt lost and purposeless. i went back inside and i turned on the television and tried not to feel sad. one channel was frozen on a still image of martin luther king, jr. speaking. i tried for as long as i could to stare at this picture of this good man and feel something good. i tried very much but i was soon bored. he was not moving. he was not speaking. he was dead. i was dead. i was very alone in the house by myself. i changed the channel and watched a movie with a young nick nolte.

i drank a generic bottle of Ensure ("Equate") and imagined that i had eaten an entire dinner. i went back to my house where i just moved 0ut of and found paper and things on the floor. very odd things. i thought about how there will always be odd things laying around a house that someone has just moved out of: bottle caps, taco bell paper, cell phone chargers, nails, markers, loose change. i peeled the bathroom drip mat off the ground and a cockroach skittled away. i sat down and started playing my guitar. i did it energetically like it was serious. i looked at my finger and noticed the battery acid burn i have on my finger. it has a funny scab now.

i went back to the house and tried to check my e-mail. the internet was down. i have to work. i said, i will get things done and then i will go to work. i will organize everything. i cannot function when things are not organized. if my house is unorganized i cannot read or play music or talk on the phone. i must clean first.

i cannot clean anything because it is hot. if i start to clean i will get hot. then i wil be uncomfortable cleaning. then i will not be able to finish cleaning. then i will not be able to get anything real done. then when i go to work, i will be largely unhappy.
i will be largely unhappy.
i will be largely unhappy.
i will be largely unhappy.
i will be largely unhappy.
i will be largely unhappy.
i will be largely unhappy.
i will be largely unhappy.
i will be largely unhappy.
i will be largely unhappy.
i will be largely unhappy.
i will be largely unhappy.
i will be largely unhappy.

dream # 7

me: i had a dream where my cousins were lifeguards and they were very stern and i used to climb up into places were people weren't allowed

Katie: lol

me: i don't know, i guess

me and richard would climb up the side of this building to see the view and sometimes the entire screen would iris in and i could see drowning in the water

Katie: who drowning in the water?

me: someone

Katie: yikes

me: and we would sit up there and watching the ocean and be nervous about getting caught

and i knew bright eyes was going to be playing at this building and we saw them walking up to the building which was at the top of this hill which overlooked the ocean

and we saw them all climbing up to where we were and then i saw a cop entering the building and i started climbing down and it was a really long way down

Sent at 10:25 AM on Friday

me: that's all

i remembered that dream i had when i came back form denver

just the feelings

Katie: what dream was that?

me: when i was yelling about going south or north or west

Katie: oh, yeah?

the one last night was like that one?

me: no that other one

Katie: spell it out for me, i don't get it

me: anyway, then we climbed down and sat on another roof and watched my cousins smoke weed in a minivan with untinted windows, when they saw us they 'froze'. then i woke up this morning singing some song by bright eyes.

fuck that cock shit/i like noah cicero

i have just received in the mail a number of doodled and delightfully obscene business cards from alicia pernell after i asked if she would custom-make them for me. they are wonderful and i am joyful.

***

i often would like to have interesting things to say. i am thinking, particulary, of noah cicero. i feel 'refreshed' after reading his blog because i feel that the purpose of the things he says and knows about and studies are not to get a better grade or be smarter than other people, but to be nice and live a better life. i used to think he was trying to be edgy by hating Bush. then one day i saw this video and i then i thought he was the ultimate. he has many interesting things to say. i imagine that he has things to say and then he writes them on his blog. in that order. but me, i sit and try to find something to say and i think that is stupid and vain and self-righteous. i hate myself and i want to die.

***

i've been reading godel, escher, and bach andit has obssessed me. i read it at work when things are slow. i never thought of myself as an intelligent person but this book is very easy to read and if you just plod along for some parts of it, you will understand it better later. the book deals with philosophy through questions of science, number theory, musical notation, mathematics, paradoxes, and high concept art. i think it has some of the most intelligent philosophical arguments that i've ever read. truly truly mind-blowing things.

***

i am moving today. i will be living with three strangers, one of whom i've never even seen.

enrique the conquerer

on the wall
enrique sat
and looked.

the lights
were pretty.

mexico city.

there were many sounds.
enrique thought about his little brother
and their little village.

he jumped down from the wall.

someone called him over
behind the dumpster.

enrique stayed there for a long time.

he thought about swimming
and his mother's bread.

shower

in the shower
i massaged my scalp.
there was dandruff.

'because i am an ever-evolving creature
continuously taking in information
and processing new emotions
of despair, elation, foreboding, and contemplation
i will never accurately and completely
be loved
by anyone
ever.'

i scratched some more

sexistential crisis

hello

hello

you don't feel so 'long lost' now that you have the internet

ha, the power of the internet

it validates our friendship

true, wise words

yes.

what are you doing

oh.
ok
i am sitting in a cafe

very hip

today i was washing a bowl with the hand spray and i suddenly had the impulse to shoot water into the bowl and have it slam back into my face and then open my mouth and have the water drip onto my tongue
i laughed for a very long time thinking about this

did you actually do it, or just think about it

well i am still trying to maintain some grasp of power here since i'm new and all
i didn't think it would help me toward fulfilling my 'agenda'

what agenda do you have?

the agenda to have power
sometimes i think about these kinds of things

you would

i do
yesterday i crushed a mandarin with my bare hand and i watched the juices drip down my hand onto the floor and i closed my eyes and imagined the mandarin crying for mercy

today I took a kittens tail and gripped the bony structure and hoisted the purring creature high into the air to hear it cry and see it shake.

you bent its tail?

no silly

kay good, cuz that would be fucking cruel and i would have to rip your out ovaries with my canines and have the ends of your fallopian tubes flop around in my mouth as i sniff things haunched on all fours with blood on my snout

your gross

hey, you're the cat mutilator

Right now I am looking at rooms for rent, everything is so fucking expensive. I will probably have to sell one of my eggs, after you rip out my ovaries of course.
But seriously, I can get like 5 grand for selling one of those diamonds. You could probably only get 5 bucks for jacking off into a plastic cup using your hand and a sticky magazine

no because i will swallow them and think of all your potential children with your DNA i am breeding inside of my colon and when i poop i will call each poop by name and cry for them quietly in the dark. i don't believe in masturbation, it's a sin against the body

I am pretty sure my body likes it when I stick a vibrating purple rod to myself

when i cum in my hand, my jizz forms a face and it says 'kneel and pray, motherfucker! KNEEL AND PRAY!"
so i generally classify that as a 'sin'

even though your cum is saying that, I bet your penis is saying givamee some more bitch

my penis is usually not around when i masturbate, it is standing in a corner with its arms crossed

that is weird, you must have a really long penis

no my penis knows trick photography it knows how to edit in double exposure, so it gets up and leaves while experiencing existential despair of my hand viciously beating it

5:55 pm
....

don't leave me, do not fucking leave me, i will hate you and write you name on papers over and over thinking to myself 'i will kill this person because she left me once when i was talking to her on the internet, that bitch' and i will mail these papers to myself so that everyday i can remember to write a new letter saying how i hate you and how i will kill you completely and absolutely

Dream #6

In my driveway I sat in my car at night. Suddenly there were lights in my face and a car coming down the driveway. A black man came to my window (I do not remember this dream very well) and he was J.B. Smoove from TV. He was very angry with me because I had stolen something and he was going to 'break my fucking head open'. He pointed at me a lot to intimidate me and it worked. I stayed in my car and didn't say anything. J.B. went back to his posse and they talked it over. He pointed at me and wanted me to do something. I said I would not do it, or maybe I said I would do it. I do not remember this dream very well because there many dreams last night and they piled one over the other. I remember being very afraid and I remember thinking that J.B. was supposed to be funny and that he was very funny as Leon in Curb Your Enthusiasm. He was supposed to be my friend. I think I tried to recite one of his Curb lines to him and he didn't think it was funny. Actually I think it made him madder.

In Dark, There Were Many Fireflies

photo: alicia pernell

I.

My father came in and said they were getting pizza.
I was not hungry; I did not want pizza.
My mother kept offering me bread.
She was always worried about me:
Was I eating enough?
Was I being healthy?
Was I 'sick' again?
It was Saturday night.
I was in my house, alone,
Reading The Sun Also Rises.
They both seemed worried.
I did not want pizza but I said they should get it anyway.

II.

After they left I turned off the light over my desk.
I turned off all the lights in my little house.
I laid on the floor next to my bed.
I listened to ambient rain sounds on my computer.
Outside, there was faint thunder.
I felt dumb.
I tried not to feel dumb
I tried to feel like it was all supposed to mean something.
I tried to feel like there was a something
And that I was going to find it.
But I couldn't decide if this was funny or not
And the ambient rain sounds were still playing on my computer.

III.

I took a cigarette from an envelope on my shelf.
I decided to smoke it.
I got up and felt around through the house.
I pretended I was blind.
I found my shoes and put them on in the dark.
With my hands I turned off the air conditioning and found the door.
I walked out.

IV.

Outside, it was dark.
Above me there were many stars.
I stopped walking and looked.
They were all very pretty.
There were many creatures in the forest singing.
The wind was blowing and it was very nice.
The day had been very hot and
Everything smelled like grass now.
I lit my cigarette and started walking.
Over the grass there was mist.
I looked at my feet moving through it
And pretended I was a giant roaming through a foggy meadow.
I tried to imagine how many things I was killing.

V.

Behind me, the sky was clean and black.
I looked at the darkness and felt small.
The clouds lit up from inside themselves.
I could see a dark thunderhead rolling toward me.
Soon the stars would all be covered.
I felt little and unimportant.
It all looked like fireworks and I tried not to think of myself.
I pretended to set off the lightning with my cigarette.
But I just felt dumb.

VI.

I took a long drag of this cigarette
And began to feel silly so that
Suddenly, standing,
With the lightning there,
In the sky,
I felt sick for it,
Beautifully sick for it
And inside of myself
There was something like butterflies for it.
I wanted to eat this light,
I wanted to put into myself
So that the butterflies would stop moving.
I wanted to eat the light
In the darkness
By myself.

VII.

I imagined my insides.
Everything was pulp and mulch
There were fireworks inside of my belly, inside of myself.
There were many gurgling sounds
And a film of cigarette butts on the water.
In the flashes I could see the little butterflies,
And I saw something like a face in the floating cigarette butts.
I could see the firework smoke,
And I followed it up to my throat and watched it blow out of myself.
I felt like God.

VIII.

A fly landed on my face.
When I swatted at it,
My glasses fell off and
I looked for them on my hands and knees
In the dark.

IX.

When I found them I looked at the lightning some more.
I took another long drag from the cigarette
And began to feel even sillier.
Feeling like God again, I walked out of the shadow of the barn
And into the light of a neighbor's flood light.
Immediately, there was regret
And I could not see the lightning so well.
I tried to shield my eyes with my hand and my arm.
And then I was covering the light with my thumb.
It felt like the last line of that Robert Frost poem
Where God says, Put out the light
And it's supposed to mean that the world is over.

X.

With my thumb over the light,
I imagined all the little animals in the back pastures
Holding each other and crying,
And thinking about their achievements in mathematics, and art, and science.
I imagined Ernest Hemingway shooting them
In their faces and laughing.
Then I imagined him seeing the light covered up
And shooting himself in the face.

XI.

I took a longer drag of the cigarette.
I felt my stomach gulp and belch.
Ernest Hemingway was screaming and melting in the goop and bile.
I blew his smoke out through my nose.
Oh Ernest.... I thought.
What a goddamn tourist.
I thought about how important he thought he was.
I thought he was dumb for writing stupid things about himself.
I thought about The Sun Also Rises.
There were fireworks in that book
But I couldn't remember where.
I tried to think if they were supposed to be a metaphor or mean something.
I couldn't remember that either.
I tried to keep setting off the lightning
But I was already bored.
My eyes ached.

XII.

Along the fence there a great blueberry bush growing.
I went behind it and everything was dark and cool again.
I came to a gate and looked out at the darkness.
My sister's horse came out of it to nibble on some grass.
I could only just make her out.
And I thought about the thunderstorm
I wondered what the horse thought of it
And of me,
Coming out there like a tourist,
Covering the light
And smoking my cigarette.
I hope she didn't mind the smoke
But I hated that I cared.
I had the sudden urge to yell.
It went away very quickly.

XIII.

I put my my arm on the gate to keep the cigarette smoke away.
My head was swimming,
I could not think.
This was not a good cigarette.
This was a terrible cigarette.
Sometimes you get those.
I tried not to get any smoke on my clothes.
I didn't want my mother to know
I wasn't being 'healthy'
And that I hadn't been 'healthy' for a long time.
I hated that I cared.

XIV.

I started feeling sicker and sicker,
Just full of shit and grime from the all the fire and bones in my belly.
I kept smoking my cigarette,
And taking longer drags.
I suddenly felt my insides coming up to my mouth
And my chest burning for the bile and acid.
I began to cough and when I opened my hand
I saw a half-digested cigarette butt.
My eyes teared up and I told myself not to cry.

XV.

In the dark, there were many fireflies.
These were not stars and I was very certain of this.
In my eyes, everything became darker.
I began feeling hot and cold at the same time.
I sat down in the grass and put my head between my knees.
I felt myself spinning in place.
I felt I was bobbing in a pool of acid
Inside of myself, floating
With the cigarette butts.
I closed my eyes
But kept seeing fireflies.

XVI.

When I looked up,
Lightning flashed.
There was a face in the clouds.
I felt like Simba.

XVII.

I closed my eyes and rubbed them with my thumbs
And all the animals of the forest were singing again.
I wanted it to be over.
Everything was spinning.
The wind was blowing.
I was cold and miserable.
I had not eaten.
The lightning was closer now and I was very hungry.
I had not eaten.
Everything was terrible.
And I did not enjoy existing.
My general sentiment for life was largely negative.
I was not happy.
Nothing was good.
Everything was wrong.

XVIII.

I blew more smoke through my nose
And felt like a dragon,
A lonely and sick dragon.
I felt like stumbling back to my dragon cave and sleeping.
I felt like laying in a familiar dragon place,
And having my belly rubbed.
I knew I could rub my own belly
But I always felt lonelier afterward.
And it always made me sleepy.
I thought about killing things
And eating them
And not being hungry anymore.

XIX.

I laid down in the grass, quietly.
Trying to get everything spinning to stop.
I wanted someone to lay quietly in the grass with me
And I wanted it so that nothing was spinning
And we could being laying because we wanted to
And we could stand up straight if we wanted.
I wanted it to be just the two of us,
Being alone and quiet
Together but awake.
I felt like crying and vomiting at the same time.
I felt that if I did either of these things,
I would have liked to do them on my shirt.
I thought that looking at it then would make me feel better.

XX.

More lightning went off.
I forgot about everything.
I watched the clouds pass over my head.
A firefly landed on my shirt
I watched it light up and down.
I felt like it was supposed to mean something.
I was too sick to care.
I got up and began to stumble home.
Nothing was pretty.
I was sick and alone,
Just lonely and sick.
I was not God.
I could not see anything.
Above the barn, there was more lightning.

XXI.

I came home and the house was hot.
I was sweating milk and coughing up cigarette butts.
I wanted to call my mother.
I tried with everything not to throw up.
The computer was playing a song called "Unfamiliar Wind".
I laid on my bed and looked out the window.
There was lightning.

micro-poems

when preston came home
he did not turn on the lights.
he moved around in the dark.

***

ralphie threw up in the snow.
he stumbled home.

***

in the forest, natalia saw a deer.
the deer was beautiful.
there was a waterfall.

***

robert wrote a song.
when he sang it to his mother
she cried,
'we think something is wrong.'

***
iva sat on a hill
in the desert
hugging her knees.
there was a full moon.

***

lester yelled at his family.
he sat on the porch.
he came in and said sorry to everyone.
they had bread.

Total Eclipse (1995)

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

terror

i checked my e-mail. there was an e-mail from Moveon.org. the subject was: President McCain?

i opened the e-mail. there was a video and when i clicked on it i went to a new page. on the page you could pay money. i did not pay any money. i clicked on the video to watch it. it began to load.

i opened another tab. i wanted to listen to my friend's library on last.fm. i clicked back on the video. it was still loading. on last.fm it said the track was being buffered. i saw a picture come up. i could not hear anything. i turned up the volume. i went back to the video. the video was still loading. i went back to last.fm and the picture was of the acid house kings. suddenly, music blared and i jerked violently. at that moment the video began playing and i kept hearing the word 'democrat'. and my friend tat wrote me on gmail: i need to use you.

i made a face that flexed all the muscles in my neck so that my neck looked like a circus tent and my head was the top. the ropes looked like they had been staked into my shoulders. i saw all of this in the reflection of television screen.

dream #5

my friend derek was talking to me. we were downtown siloam. it was nice out.

i was at the democratic convention. it was held in a tiny auditorium. i met my friend dina there. she was in charge of these super models who could vote like real fast. she brought them in and when i saw her i was very happy.

barack obama spoke but i went into the next room to watch him on a television screen.

i was talking to a group of men. we huddled and yelled something together.

i was best friends with the band grizzly bear. ed droste and i kept flirting. i would sneak peeks at his little butt when he bent over in his little white hotpants.

i woke up hearing myself talk. i told someone to 'wait here, don't move. i'll be back'

tatiana, tatiana

i was talking with my friend tat on gchat and she mentioned that she's been writing a lot the past few months. she's come up with something of a short novel composed of her journal posts. when i asked her to describe it, this is what she said:

7:16 PM Tatiana: I had that one guy... and after I dropped him off at his house and he said, "no more, Tatiana... I like you less than other people." I just lost all interest and sex drive. THen I made the wretched mistake of getting involved with someone I work with... and I'm still (after like... 2 months?) trying to end things. And last time XXXX came to visit... we got really drunk.
So... I have had some sex, but I'd like to have none.
7:18 PM my shitty novel is, I guess, about that.

that night i got an e-mail with the subject line: "my shitty novel". i have been reading it over the past few days because it looks a little daunting just sitting in my inbox as one big block of text but once i start reading, i really don't feel like stopping. to me, that is a sign that what i am reading is good. there are certain lines that are packed with so many pretty things. this was my favorite line:

Then you'll say, "This is what I've wanted for so long," and it will all be okay.

i have not read something more beautiful in a very long time. i feel very honored just to know that i'm good friends with someone who can feel this much and write this good.

and then gmail started acting funny and this is happened:

7:23 PM Tatiana: maybe that too

7:24 PM me: have you ever tried methadone?

Tatiana: so how are you doing now?

Sad?

7:25 PM me: can you read this?

Tatiana: I just got "can you read this" and before that "I thought you mean mentally"

that's all

me: this is bullshit

teenage tragedy #1

i am sitting with eddie and we are high. we are talking about how canadians say the letter Z. they say it 'zed'. eddie says they call the car the z-24, the zed-24.

i call kathy on the phone. i keep up a 10 minute bit on how i'm high/how i'm not high. every time i act sober she tells me that she really believed that I was high for a while. and then when i start giggling and i tell her that i am high and she totally believes again.

i come to points in my highness wherei am very aware of myself as stoned. the moments of clarity cut through the clouds of my thought. i remember to tell my future sober self to remember to look at the mirror shards of these moments of clarity and not worry about the small stuff.

it suddenly occurs to me that i am being very selfish with my high and thinking about silly things and laughing at them and not thinking about good things that will help me in the future. i think of devin and her boyfriend chris. chris would know what to do then, he would do things correctly. he would be spiritual and paint his face before the ceremony.

daniel calls me like 3 times and i don't answer. when i answer i pretend that i couldn't find my phone. he wants to play a song he wrote for me. i was worried someone died because he kept calling me so often.

eddie is playing metal that he thinks i will like. it sounds like complete shit. i hate this fucking cum-ridden cunt shit. i am not as mad as i may perceive to be.

daniel talks to me and shows me his song. then my friend emma calls and i forget about daniel. she is traveling around the country and i get a little sad because she is living active and leaving in the country in a month (please, jesus don't let her die) and i am just high with eddie in suburban bentonville. she tells me about her boyfriend and how they love each other and how they want to hitchhike together. i tell her that he is very lucky and i mean it. i am jealous of him, whoever he is, for conquering emma's beautiful heart. the phone call ends and i have hung up on daniel. he calls again and complains because i tell him we ran out of reception and i hadn't called him back immediately. he plays me his song and i listen to it and type this paragraph. i tell the song is good and i struggle to say something sensical. i tell him where i am and he says he will call me back later. i hope he doesn't.


I think that's why we're going to space so we can find a new place to inhabit.

My thought is a floating aborted baby carcass in a sewer draining into the deepest sea where the sludge touches to the bottom.

eddie's roommate tries to convince me that george bush was a good president. the whole night i'm he's trying to talk religion to me. he tells me about jesus and about the religious right and then subtley trying tries convince me of his position.

'abortion is just sick, i just can't stand it, that's just me. '

i tell him that i don't want to talk politics with him because I don't know him. He is quiet a little longer and then brings up something else that he liked about George Bush. I ignore him and play with the dog.

eddie always loses at things.

What would you do if your life you were invisible?

eddie's roommate talking about a Texas catheter. He says he would come on girl's faces if were invisible. He would give them white necklaces.

Death upon your family.

*****

Hasta la pasta. Furiously they slather.

dream #4

brandon scott gorrell published a children's book and i illustrated it. there were many squiggly lines but no real pictures. i had the feeling he said he liked it just to be nice.

ky gentry louis huber

this is a picture of my roommate on friday night. he was singing 'cry me a river' by justin timberlake at a bar. he left yesterday. he is moving to live with his parents in indiana. i am strangely numb about it. he is one of my best friends and i am thrilled to see him every few months. i am pretty sure we will see each other again.

here are the greatest hits that ky and richard and i had during his three-week 'visit':

• swimming at the creek and ky's trembling squat before he dove off the dam
• ky and i drunkenly dancing at some club in the middle of a cat fight laughing
• sharing cigarettes
• talking in the dark
• hearing him complain about my mother's cooking ("fucking fried bananas, man!")
• watching him two-step
• watching him two-step drunk
• his getting lost and ending up in missouri after following a sign for sulpher springs for 30 miles
• drinking and smoking under the bridge downtown
• biking through the city at night and drinking tall boys
• talking at the abandoned drive-in
  
• his dropping and spilling some of a bottle of whiskey in a small public place
• hearing him use strange idioms i'v never heard of

the boy will be dearly missed.

Dream #3

i was very lonely and doing many drugs in my dorm room. i ate ramen noodles very often. my roommate came in and I said something to him. i went outside and i was not wearing a shirt. i was not wearing shoes. it was night and saturday. it was saturday night. i saw an illuminated window in another dormitory. i began to climb the dormitory like king kong. there was a full moon and when i reached the window I decided not to knock on it. Instead, I climbed the the bell tower. there were many pigeons inside and i could see the full moon from there. i felt that the drugs were not doing me very good. i was very scared of climbing down and i started crying because i knew i would have to knock on the illuminated window so they could let me in and so that i could go down the stairs. I climbed over to the window and looked inside. there was loud music and a small party. it was a group of friends partying and having a good time.

i was very lonely so i decided i would find myself a girlfriend. i lived in the science building, i think. i lived in the ornithology observation room. the walls were made of tinted glass. i was sitting on my bed with a pretty girl and i was telling her that she was beautiful. i think we may have had sex. i can't remember. i just remember people using the door adjacent to the ornithology observation room. i could see them walk away through the glass.

there was a wedding and we were all sitting in a great feast hall. we were sitting together: me, richard, washington, and some other people. we were congratulating the couple by eating their food. i had been talking to this girl in a room for a very long time and we had missed much of the festivities. when it was over i saw my sister in a white dress and it she was going to have an engagement party. she is 12 but i did not think it was weird. we were going to tulsa for her party. she was driving. a car. it was a mustang. i never saw her fiance. she drove her car and all of our family was going to follow her. i was sitting a car with richard and washo and i was looking at the stars and wondering if i would ever get married. washington, who has been divorced, was in the driver's seat. i asked him what he thought of getting married again. he said he didn't know. i said, me neither.

love googles

i have googled your name and i have written down every URL hit onto a napkin.
i have taken this napkin and i have mailed it to myself.
this napkin will be the copyrighted proof for the poem that i will write about the time i googled your name and made a poem about every URL i found.

one day you will be googling your name
and you will find this poem and think i am weird.
you will read it and try to remember all the things i ever said that were weird.
then i will be behind you when you are reading it and i will say something that under normal circumstances would be okay but when taken in the context of my having creeped up behind you when you weren't looking, it will not be so normal and you will be scared and toss whatever is in your hand into the air because of the sheer amount of shock.

one morning i will walk into the forest outside your window, naked
i will take twigs and mud and make a hut.
i will google your name on my iPhone
i will pull up a picture of you and save it as a screensaver
and then i will sleep with it next to me in my hut in the forest.
i will kill things and eat them and not shave my face.
every morning i will stand at the mouth of the forest
so that you can see me and realize how long i have actually been living in the forest by the size of my beard and the length of my hair and it will be shocking because there will be something physical and concrete to point to the abstract and you will realize that this is love and that this is the only time you have ever been loved and that you deserved to be loved, that you deserve to be loved by me, naked, in the forest, and googling your name on my iPhone.

how to care less

lifehack.org has an article about how to care less. the article is called 'selective apathy frees you to care more'. it is written by a certain torley. torley says in the article: Be cool. Let apathy be the frosting on your “caring cake”.

torley seems to be very 'cool'. he does not care about hair or about saying intelligent things to everyone he meets. he is not worried about saying dumb things because he knows that he is intelligent and he knows that the people who matter, know this. torley is the kind of guy who pulls his pants completely down to pee and he's okay when someone walks in on him. he invites them in. he says, i don't need to care about this. this is not worth caring about. and then he begins to whistle. torley is a triumph of the human spirit. torley recognizes goodness in midst of all the wrongness. he is a fucking champion. torley weiner is probably the size of a newborn baby. torley never gets depressed and torley's computer battery life outlasts most other competitive battery lives. torley would never look at pornography when he is lonely and he would not be sad when thinking about the death of an acquaitance and stay up late nights thinking about it. this is something torley would not do.

Dream #2

i was in New York City on an elevated train and it was in the future. i wanted to steal something from someone or do something bad that is mostly regarded as illegal. i was wearing a leather jacket and when I did what I wanted to do, there was a ruckus. the train stopped and i jumped out of the window. The train was going through a tunnel. I don't understand this. I went back inside and I said sorry to everyone. Everyone said it was okay. I walked out with my head hung low.

Later I was outside of a hotel. I was flirting with Brad Pitt on the phone. He was in a hotel a few streets up. We were teasing each other and saying things that only we knew about. A big RV drove by and then I saw him at the window and he waved.

Heath Ledger was dead. I was so sad. I was very sad. We were standing around his body and he was laying on the floor of his apartment naked. There was a hushed murmur about how young he was, how talented he was, and what a shame that his ass would not belong to someone more alive.

I was going to see HEALTH for the third time. It was at a venue that I've been to before but it was New York City. They were loud and it was funny because the guys kept making jokes. Later that day my friends and all drank tea out of little cups at my house which was nice and not on my parent's property. The next day I heard a ruckus. I walked down to the venue and saw that HEALTH was playing two nights, except there were police officers everywhere. i went inside and the band was playing and everyone was squeezed in. where were the police officers? i wondered this. i went inside. the band was playing. it was cool. i was sad for heath ledger. i wondered if heath would've liked HEALTH. i called brad pitt on the phone and squatted on the sidewalk and cried. brad pitt consoled me. he said he and george clooney were having drinks at the mariott and that i should come. i sniffled and said okay.

for the birds: II (a drunken poem)

sometimes there is a baby bird in my throat.
i can't talk.
i only chirp.
i make chirping sounds
people think i am making a joke.

i sometimes laugh with them.
the baby bird in my throat is funny.
he is a joke.
oh baby bird, oh sweet baby bird, you're so silly!
and sometimes it doesn't chirp.
i really don't like talking about the bird in my throat.
please don't ask me about the baby bird chirping from my throat.
i did not eat it.
i did not eat the baby bird.
the baby bird was there from the beginning.

i am going to write the first lines of my absurdist novel now.
i am thinking of the opening lines.
when i think of an opening line
i will stop typing and go to bed.
then i will come back to that line the next day
and pretend that my high school english teacher has given me a creative writing assignment
and the assignment is to begin a creative story with the opening line i wrote yesterday.
this is my opening line:

in the beginning there was a baby bird...

(EDITOR'S NOTE: i feel like i am trying to be chaim potak because he has a book that begins with 'in the beginning'.' when i read it, i felt like it was 'seamless' because he was taking me places and i did not realize what he was doing. when i think about it now, i feel like a fourth grade boy who followed a stranger to the back of his van. the stranger is chaim potak. this is not a metaphor. i am not trying to be chaim potak. i like him but i hear he is an asshole. a professor of mine interviewed him some years ago and said that, that chaim potak is an asshole and i believe my professor. i have read some of chaim potak's work, i read most of 'my name is asher lev' and i felt sleepy so i didn't finish it. i felt sleepy and stupid, like asher lev. asher lev did not know anything. his parents never told him anything. my name is israel but i do not care for the country of israel. i keep getting hits on my statcounter by IP addresses in tel aviv. i feel embarassed for saying i have a statcounter mostly because i know that the hits on this site are very low. i hope i can make friends in tel aviv.)

in the beginning there was a baby bird. the baby bird was lonely and cold.
he looked into the heavens and cried out because he did not believe in god anymore.
the baby bird did not belive in god and he was angry with god for not existing.
he felt lonely. he felt alone because there was no god and the baby bird knew he did not have a free will.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: when i woke up there were flashing lights and my friend was outside the car talking to a police officer. i was laying in the back seat, very drunk. the police officer opened the door and started talking to me. i did not understand him. he kept talking and suddenly i heard my friend say that i was driving. i had not been driving. i had been sleeping in the back seat. my friend had been driving. the police officer told me to get out of the backseat. i heard my friend tell the police officer that i had been driving and that i had jumped in the back seat when we got pulled over. i knew this was not the truth. i was very angry. i told my friend to tell the truth and to stop lying. i started to say something that would define my friend and i's friendship, something that would define if i showed up at his wedding or if i ever took care of his wife after he died. he looked at me and i knew he was sad. i was sad too. i could not finish what i was saying. the baby bird in my throat would not let me finish what i was saying. the police officer shined a light in my eyes. when he turned around the cruiser headlights lit up his face and i saw that he was chaim potak. he was very angry with the two of us. i think his brother was killed in a drunk driving incident. he was out for 'vengeance'.)

the baby bird hovered over the vast of the waters.
he cried and filled up the ocean with salty tears.
this is why the ocean is salty.
the baby bird messed up.
something he did not was not perfect
and he wanted this thing to perfect.
he wanted everything to be clean.
the baby bird wanted to sit in a white and sterile room
and count numbers all day.
the baby bird tried to find something 'right' in all the wrongness.
the baby bird knew that it was not good enough
and that if he were cinematic score, he would be dropping down
into minor chords right now.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Chaim Potak handcuffed me. i tried to talk but only squeaky chirps came out. my mouth was gaping and there was a line of saliva reaching for the grass. when chaim potak led me to the back of the cruiser, the saliva line swayed with how i moved. my friend was standing in red lights from the back of the cruiser with his hands on his head and his hip sticking out. he was trying to hide how sad he was. he was trying to be a liar but he could not. he was very sad and when chaim potak put me in the cruiser, i put my lips up the partially-opened window and yelled at my friend. he could not see my face, only my bare teeth and my mouth. i kept screaming at him but only chirps came out.)

the baby bird crawled in a hole
and he tried to act like a snake.
the hole was in a tree and he tried
to be an owl.
he tried to be a snake and an owl
and he wanted to kill everything.
a woman came to the tree and the baby bird
bit her in the neck.
the baby bird was very sad
and he felt like it was the beginning of everything again
and fuck man, he did not want anything to begin to again.
he wanted it all to end. everything to end.
he was sad and he chirped and chirped and cried
and fell asleep chirping.

dream: #1

last night i dreamt i was a preacher and i was sitting inside my car and it was raining outside and it was night and i was about to go inside a church and preach. i was very nervous because I didn't know how I was going to preach. i knew what it was going to be but i didn't know how i was going to do it.

i walked in and the church was dark. i walked though a hallway and there was light under some doors. some doors were open. i kept walking. inside of the doors were packed rooms, sitting and listening to a speaker. the rooms were so packed there were people standing. there was another room and a hundred people were watching a giant screen projection. there was a lecturer with a pointing stick and he was talking. i kept walking down the hallway and every time i saw people i knew they would all look at and feel worried.

i went into the sanctuary and everyone was sitting and listening to someone else talk. i sat in the back and pretended to listen. i was still nervous about what i was going to preach. when the time came i stood up and everyone followed me. everyone got up and followed me to another room. inside this room there were hanging ceilings and only one light was working and it was over my head. the rest of the lights were flickering.

when everyone was settled i began talking but then my voice became the narrator and i was inside of dream. i was in a cramped duplex and the blinds over the window were pulled and glowing blue because of the sun outside. there was a television and a woman was sitting on a recliner watching it. she was curled up like a fetus biting her fingernails and spitting them out. the television was showing a television judge show. i knew that she was my wife.

later, my wife was doing cocaine on a wooden cutting board and i was waiting for her to finish. i said something nice to her and she laughed with her head leaned back and touching her nose with an upturned pinky. i leaned over and did cocaine off of the wooden cutting board.

i found my wife at the casino. i walked in and knew that she was there. i started looking for her. i was drunk. i looked up and everything was like wal-mart. i kept ordering whiskey shots. it was not the casino that i knew. it was a different casino and it was beautiful. it had fountains and green plants. the staff were dressed in white shirts red with red vests. i think maybe my wife worked there. i was very upset. i was very upset but i was trying not to show it. i don't know what my wife was doing at the casino.

i walked to the back of the casino and there was shelf and my wife was on it and behind some kind of glass encasement. we began talking and she was telling me things that i did not want to hear. i kept drink more and more whiskey. i started yelling and my wife looked embarrassed. security guards came over and asked if everything was alright. we said that everything was and they left. later i started screaming and i threw my whiskey glass on the floor and all the gamblers around me were scared. i was crying and screaming and swearing. i began kicking wildly at this glass encasement and at boxes and all the glass shattered and cut my arms and my face but i could not feel it. i did not want to hurt my wife, i just wanted to scare her. i destroyed everything around her, but not her.

and i was telling this to the people sitting in chairs listening to me. i told them that i did not make good choices and in the front row i could see my sister crying. then i said how the security guards came again and grabbed me. i didn't resist because i knew i had been bad. i kept crying and screaming and feeling sorry for myself. i kept yelling for my wife and she was behind and they were taking her out too. i hoped she wasn't hurt. i knew that i deserved what was happening. i kept thinking: sorry, i'm sorry. i shouldn't have done that. i shouldn't have drank so much. i drank too much just then. i did not make good choices. I'm sorry.

then my dad woke me up to help him get the lawnmower out of a hole.

things i saw today/i like sam pink

at the river today i swam beneath the waterfall and watched the all the foaming over my head. i saw something white and i grabbed it. it was a dead fish. it took a few tries to bring it ashore but when i did, i threw it at ky and it felt like something my brother would do. i squatted on the rocks and poked at the fish with a stick. i found little fish skeletons in its mouth. i pulled them out with a stick. his stomach was mushy because i guess dead fish throw up everything before they die. they give up their 'proto-lifeblood' and die. when i was finished with the fish i threw it into the bushes. a boy was walking by and i did not see him. the fish flew across his range of vision. i imagine it flew by his face and he became afraid. the fish hit a rock and bounced into the grass. when i saw it later, it looked like a huge eel coming from the earth. i thought about that ride home from fayetteville when i laid in the back seat and thought about cylinders coming through circular shapes.

***

i am afraid that i have nothing good to say. this is something important to look at. this means something. my face looks funny. i think this is an important thing to say. i have a difficult time writing things like i want them to be.

***

an old post of short plays by sam pink made me dry laugh in under 2. 5 seconds. i also wish i were depressed and violent or maybe some other concotion of neurons so that I could write something like this. the plays are both very funny and very sad, sometimes at the same time. i have a kind of life philosophy that is about choosing to laugh instead of crying and how that typifies the act of embracing absurdity over melodrama. i think maybe sam pink knows what i mean. like in this one:

IX.

The same room, later on.
Man: (offering bag of chips to Other Man) Want some chips man?
Other Man: (still looking at screen) One-Up bitch! What kind of chips are they?
Man: Doritos.
Other Man: Yeah, I’ll take some.
He takes the bag from his friend and eats a few. Then he wipes his hand on his leg.
Other Man: Man, the best part about having so much leg hair, is that it’s like having a little napkin with you all the time.
Man: Tomorrow I’m going to look for a job.

aside from this, i was very attracted to his calling these dialogues "plays" because there is so much goodness condensed into them. i am reading Too Loud A Solitude and have been very interested in the concept of compacting high concepts and/or real emotions into tiny, tiny things. i like sam pink. he reminds me of lewis carroll on an LSD picnic.

***
i am listening to sun ra and feeling like i am in the twilight zone.

***

i have talked about 'micro-novels' before. i don't know if it is a legit classification. i don't know if it has already been tried. i don't know if it has been tried the way i am trying it. i kind of don't want to know because then i would feel cheap and then one day if someone said i was doing it wrong, i could still claim ignorance.

***

i have an idea of documenting all my dreams here, unedited.

The name of this post is: myroommateisafucking.dick.becauseiamstrandedonthesideoftheroadandheistooself-involvedtoleavethebarsihavebeenherefor3hours

.

drunken interview

there is an drunken interview with me on rhombus trapezoid disaster who is run by a certain connor o'brien who i think i would generally classify as a good person.

there is a middle-aged woman in the cafe wearing a halter top and hair pulled to the side. she looks young and resilient. she looks divorced. she is old and she has 'hangy' skin but her nose is sharp and her smile is simple and warm. i am typing this and looking at her in order to describe her better. i just looked up at her and she smiled at me and i felt like a beautiful sickness in my stomach. if i were middle-aged and divorced and jaded, i feel that i would be strongly attracted to her physique. i don't know what my physique would look like. i want my physique to look like the kind of physique she would want my physique to look like. i feel strangely attracted to her fulfilling a role of mother/lover. i would very much enjoy cuddling/coddling after sex and i'm sorry if that is garish.

***

virtual bubble wrap.

***

there is a certain post that a certain blake butler wrote about certain writers who only submit and complain but never work to make connections or try to promote other writers. i feel like i fall into this category sometimes. granted, i have a hard time validating my stories on my own. this is even before sending them out. i seem to apply this general principle to most things. in any case, i must learn to be less shy.

***

the idea of recording an EP in my little house is becoming a reality. i am talking with a local artist named ian mcloud about doing the album art for it. the main theme will be the stories of five women from the bible and how the men in their lives were in love with them. i came up with the idea for the EP a few years ago but have since forgotten about it and kind of felt like it wasn't something i was interested in anymore. however, this summer has been all about a theme of "returning". going back to denver, getting back on the road, coming back home, remember little things. i have become interested in the idea again and i feel that it's 'right' to do it now. since i plan to produce legitimate physical CDs in printed cardboard sleeves, i might have to sell this one just to pay the illustrator and the printing expenses. i don't like doing this but being unemployed, in effect, demands it.

***

my friend harmony just came up to my table at the coffee shop and offered me organic tomatoes which are growing just outside the window next to me. she said i could have a little bag for them if i wanted. she runs the cafe. i think i will pluck them from the vine and eat them while riding my bicycle. then i will go home, mow the lawn and take a dip in the river.