many things

in a few short hours i will be leaving for los angeles by way of santa fe. i have decided to document the trip on my travel blog, the suitcase.

i haven't used this blog in some time but i have been wanting to, i just keep forgetting every time i go somewhere.

***

i would like to talk now about a new online publication venue called yippee magazine began by my dear e-friend alicia pernell. the submission guidelines are as follows:

We like bicycles, trampolines, rope swings, paper snowflakes, and caterpillars and if you do too, we want to hear from you.

when i read this i became excited even though i did not express this outwardly. if someone had been observing me through a series of televisions in a dark room somewhere as i read about this, they would have been very wrong if they chose 'unexcited'. i feel like online literature needs this kind of 'direction'. everyone is always lonely, sad, and/or bored. i would like to see lots of people submit to this.

***

speaking of online literature: after having read some of the links i sent him my roommate described the tone of the blogs i read as a 'clawing for intimacy'. i felt very excited about this description. when i first heard it i became excited but this time i think my face gesticulated more aggressively and more pointedly than i intended. i remembered thinking that if someone had been observing me through a series of televisions in a dark room somewhere as i heard this description, they might have deduced that i was 'ethereal' which was not the case and which would make them wrong.

***

if you are in the los angeles area on October 4, please come say hello at the rio en medio record release party at spaceland in silver lake. it will cost $8.

Well, honey, I do, too.

Teenage Idol

i have a piece forthcoming in GUSTAF magazine, which is non-profit and based in oslo, norway.

GUSTAF is not-for-profit but if we by any chance happen to make profit, it will be forwarded to charity. you can cast a vote for where you want the profit to be forwarded by sending me an email with your suggestion.

****

this is happening in fayetteville. i live 40 minutes away and have never been to a reading of any kind. now that this somewhat prestigious and free event happens in proximity, i have to be gone.

***
tour dates:

i will be in los angeles the first weekend of october. i hope something good happens. i am trying to be positive. i will also be in new york at the end of the month. as for any of the other dates posted: they've all been cancelled. it seems there was a miscommunication and the tour got overbooked. we will now do something else. i don't know. we have been praciticing this week in my old garage/apartment and the practice space is cozy and we have to play tetris just to get around the room. there is good energy there and we are intentionally filling the space with good things and love. the live shows i think will be constructed around the idea of a play fort where a white canopy will be stretched over us on chairs or something. making music together seems fitting when i get the real sense that we are on an super-evolved playdate.

***
i wrote this last week:

[Ricky Nelson - "Teenage Idol"]


yesterday i worked 11 hours. it kept my mind busy. i came home and drank beer on the terrace in a sleeping bag. i felt like a little glowworm. i kept talking and when i was finished i was very hot in my sleeping bag. i was drunk. i went to sleep.

it is 2 o'clock in the afternoon. i am drinking a beer. my head is resting on the wall as i type this. the window is open. i am listening to this song. i think, ricky nelson probably invented emo.

last night a woman wanted a piece of chocolate cake. i forgot about her. there were many orders. i caught a glimpse of her in the next room staring at an empty place on her table where the cake was supposed to be. she hated me completely with her eyes. i felt very sad for the human race.

'i travel around/from town to lonely town' and then when he says 'i guess i'll always be just a rolling stone', and there's that change from A minor to E minor it makes me drink longer from the beer and close my eyes. the window makes sounds.

i have to go back to work now. i am working 12 hours today. i feel like i am working a factory job. i wonder what will happen today.

from the upanishads

yesterday a shaft of light fell on my bed from the window. i threw myself into it and wiggled around.

last night i came home to see that our neighbors--these 20-something college students in the same complex as us--had baked us brownies. they were delicious. such sweet girls.

i went to the casino yesterday. i have not been in a long time. it felt like coming home. few things are more soothing than the ebbing sound collage of all the machines going off at once.

i saw the trailer for a movie that i have been waiting for for years: synechdoche, new york. i sometimes get that confused with the city schenectady, new york. i still don't know how to pronounce either one.

yesterday morning i had a bath and listened to deerhunter. i am contemplating making 'bathing' a hobby. i already have a 'bath time mix'. then i had breakfast on the terrace. i e-mailed my dad and planned to do something with him. i was on the phone figuring out tour details. i also read some things. this is one of the things i read from the sacred hindu text, the upanishads:

And he said: 'Verily, a husband is not dear, that you may love the husband; but that you may love the Self through the husband, therefore a husband is dear.

Verily, a wife is not dear, that you may love the wife; but that you may love the Self through the husband, therefore a wife is dear.

Verily, sons are not dear, that you may love the sons; but that you may love the Self through the sons, therefore sons are dear....

Verily, everything is not dear, that you may love everything; but that you may love the Self through the everything, therefore everything is dear.

everything is good.

dream #10

i was starting shit with dr. dre and method man because they lived down the block. we all lived in the projects. they had been harassing me and my co-workers at lowe's. i went into the store one day to stock up on supplies. i would break into dr. dre and method man's video store and smash all their tapes and DVDs with a baseball bat. dr. dre and method man's video store was down the street from my apartment. it was on the first level of a gigantic apartment block. a co-worker and i went down there at night. we successfully broke in and destroyed many things. but soon we realized that dr. dre and method man's video store had some kind of security lock and we had locked ourselves in waiting dr. dre and method man to come and kill us, no doubt. my co-worker and i started freaking out and tried to find a way out. all of a sudden there was a banging at the front door and dr. dre was slapping his open hand on him, scowling at us and saying something frightening. method man started shooting and my co-worker died. i ran into the back bathroom and broke through a emergency exit door. this led me into a staircase that led up to all the floors. i ran up flights up stairs with dr. dre and method man 'hot on my heels' shooting their guns.

i got the idea to break into a random person's apartment and hide there. there were so many apartments they could never find me. on the 7th floor i burst through a door and closed it behind me dramatically. a few seconds later i could heard dr. dre and method man running by. it was an abandoned apartment and the lights were off. there were cans of paint and warehouse windows overlooking the city. i suddenly felt peaceful. i went into the bathroom to try to calm down. i went to the bathroom and turned on the green light over my head and washed my face in the sink. i tried to calm down. i opened the rectangular window to get some fresh air. i opened the medicine cabinet and when i closed it, method man was behind me in the reflection. he had the wildest, craziest look in his eye and said something terribly demeaning. he started shooting and i jumped through the rectangular window and fell seven stories. i grabbed something and climbed into another bathroom. i could hear someone coming and i hid beneath some dirty clothes on the floor. when the person came in to brush their teeth, they noticed me immediately. the person said, 'what tha fuck dis posta be?' he tore off the dirty clothes and picked me up. it was snoop dogg and he said he would help me.

snoop dogg showed me around his cheap apartment which was suprisingly large for an apartment in the projects. his kid was going to bed. the kid was wearing footies with a rabbit hood. snoop dogg was very nice to me and gave me something to eat. i don't remember what happened next but heard dr. dre and method man came in and shot me. at the end of the dream, when i was dead, i could see police cars outside of dr. dre and method man's video store. there wer too many police cars. like an ocean of police cars. dr. dre and method man went jail but i was dead so i did not care.

this is a picture that alicia pernell drew

she sent it to me and i felt better.

seventy-two words

i am sitting on the terrace and listening to vince guaraldi trio. the air is very clean right now. i am very aware of myself as an organism needing air and clean water. when i sigh, i feel very satisfied that the role of my sighing has completed some real function and purpose within me. my sighing is in place and there is form and order.

some things are not working out for me. i am drinking more.
bleh. whatever. i am exactitude.

i have a series of pieces forthcoming at seventy-two words. together they will compose my first 'micro-essay'. it will be released in five installations.

dream #9

i was at a wedding and i killed the groom's brother or something and everyone hated me and i had to pack up his room into boxes and his entire family watched me do it and his mother kept saying melodramatic things like, 'this is the bookshelf that will carry books that he will never read from again.' and i was feeling very embarrassed and super afraid and she kept saying these things and i exploded and said, 'do you really think that helps me? here, packing up your son's things?' and she gave me this response that made me feel dumb because she was a mother who had just lost her son and i was being rude.

when i killed him we were on a boat or a yacht and i think the wedding was on there, he came out on his car that could float on water, him and his girlfriend. i was with someone on the boat and i had been talking about running away and leaving town because i was fed up with everything. and then we were wrestling with all the groomsmen and suddenly everyone jumped back and started yelling. and underneath there was this guy's body with a broken neck. everyone said that it was my fault and i believed them and i never once tried to defend myself or make any kind of argument against it.

i'll find you and i'll kill you

song and illustration chad vangaalen from his new album soft rotation




***

keery is downstairs drunk and sitting on the couch with the lights off. everyone has gone to bed. i have left him a loaf of bread and a red plastic cup of water. he asked me to turn the lights off when i left.

***

i want to publish things very badly. i want to be able to link to something and say that this link leads you to my work. i want to comfortable with the term 'my work' and i want to be able to use it in sentences casually so people can know that 'my work' is a casual and normal to my existence as a writer.

i am very aware of my chest as a cavity right now. there is a hole in my belly and all the air is rushing out.

there is something in my skin that is crawling, crawling, crawling. i am typing this from a bare mattress in my room while looking as a fetus holding my knees. i would like to be held and to suckle some unknown teat. please, someone please put a teat in my mouth. i would like an unknown teat in my mouth. this would bring me some kind of motherly comfort.

yesterday i was at a wedding and on the back of a paper i wrote a story about marta floating away on a storm in her apartment in mexico city. when she landed she was on the beach in acapulco. i left it in a bin for the married couple. i hate married things. i don't like marriage. i feel afraid when asked about it.

i feel my balance of power is shifting in life. i feel that the power i claimed before and felt was mine and that defined my identity is changing. there is a certain shedding happening and however feverishly i rant on how it is natural to change, i cringe at how i have dealt with shifts in power before. this is something that has been happening over the course of this week.

i should have some real and constructive things to say.

there is no beer in this house.
i have no way of getting drunk now.
i would like to 'get fucked up'
i would like to join kerry downstairs eating bread in the dark.

october tour dates

Oct 14 2008 8:00P	TBA w/ Gangi	Bloomington, Indiana
Oct 15 2008 8:00P	TBA w/ Gangi	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Oct 16 2008 8:00P	Vasser College w/ Gangi	Poughkeepsie, New York
Oct 17 2008 8:00P	TBA w/ Gangi	Boston, Massachusetts
Oct 18 2008 8:00P	TBA w/ Gangi	Providence, Rhode Island
Oct 19 2008 8:00P	Glasslands w/ Dinowalrus, Hecuba, Gangi	Brooklyn, New York
Oct 21 2008 8:00P	Cakeshop with Ariel Pink/Geneva Jacuzzi, Hecuba	New York City, New York
Oct 22 2008 2:00P	TerrorBird Party	New York City, New York
Oct 23 2008 8:00P	The Windup Space w/ Hecuba and Gangi	Baltimore, Maryland
Oct 24 2008 8:00P	Inciting HQ w/ The PO PO, Hecuba and Gangi	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Oct 26 2008 8:00P	The Triple w/ Gangi	Richmond, Virginia
Oct 28 2008 9:00P	Drunken Unicorn w/ Gangi	Atlanta, Georgia
Oct 30 2008 8:00P	TBA w/ Gangi	Houston, Texas
Oct 31 2008 8:00P	TBA w/ Gangi	Austin, Texas
Nov 2 2008 8:00P	The Process	Sante Fe, New Mexico

other things/things i own: recording 'studio'

this is a picture of what it looks like when i record music.

however, i don't usually use this particular setup. it is more interesting here than usual. this picture was taken when i was recording my wildly imaginative and irreverent record Fwends EP under the moniker GAZEBO. the album is terribly mixed, which is something i think makes it 'lovable'.

i will now explain to you what i own in this picture (from left to right):

white fisher-price electronic keyboard/real sounds piano (# 3810): i found this keyboard at a goodwill store in lincoln, nebraska. i think it cost me $3.99 but actually i know it did because the price sticker is still on it. it says $3.99. this keyboard has record and playback buttons and a 'correct' button that makes editing mistakes 'a snap'.

sanyo m9903k stereo radio cassette: i also found this baby at the goodwill store. i think it cost me $4.oo. it has a built in microphone (of low quality) and a quarter-inch plug which is how i was able to transfer tape recordings onto my computer. i sometimes listen to npr on it. i wish i liked coffee and was grumpy a lot. this way i could drink coffee, be grumpy, and listen to talk radio on it. i would be then be my friend zach schroeder (see 'song 4 oliver').

radioShack MD-981 keyboard: the maker of all beats. this keyboard has over 80 rhythms and beats, 80 songs, and 99 tones. there are so many fun things on this keyboard. i bought this keyboard from my father's church for $20.

mac powerbook g4 with garageband: i got this laptop for free by going to a no-name, understaffed, under-facilitated, terrifically academically impoverished university which shall go unnamed. they were giving away laptops like the kid at school who bought toys just so kids could come over to play with him after schoo. they were doing some kind of promotion to attract more students. you had to get a 3.3 in a semester and come back from two consecutive ones. needless to say, i got it and left. in any case, garageband is the recording program i use even though it is elementary and i feel cramped using it, i have become very comfortable with it. i have thought about downloading pro tools but i don't want to feel helpless and stupid and overwhelmed by it.

there you have it. i spent $28 dollars for everything. add cables and input adapters: maybe $30. you too can also make your own record with terrible mixing quality and obscene lyrics for $30. there is very little to it. it does not have to be 'good'. no one has to like it. you can make an ass of yourself and give it to someone as a present. there is nothing stopping you.

*****

blake butler's post on crispin glover's film what is it? a few weeks ago really piqued my interest in glover. in googling and searching i found this clip from willard. i can't explain it but i really want to cry every time i see crispin glover and his rodent friend being hoisted into the air away from each other. i feel similary when glover speak-sings: 'i used to say/i and me/now it's us/now it's we.'

****

i like this by will ratblood. i also like eyeshot.net. i think everyone should submit there. they accept only flash fiction and short stories. i think maybe that is good. to me poetry is mostly ejaculatory. i get tired of that. i am speaking to myself mostly.

i also think it is a good idea to let each other know of places where we can publish. i feel like the things i write are 13-year old awkward tweens shuffling around in their jnco jeans and jc penney-type clothing. does anyone know a good after-school newsletter i can submit to? i would be willing to insert clip art into the margins from the clip art file if i could just insert a haiku.

***

today i re-read the opening lines of ginsberg's HOWL and felt something very different. to be honest i never quite 'got' ginsberg. or much poetry for that. i still don't. it feels good being let in on everyone's secret (not that ginsberg is a secret) but it feels good honestly feeling the way that a lot of people feel. maybe one day i will even start to like radio head. i feel like i am 'maturing'. after reading it, i said 'holy shit....':

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,

angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,

who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz ...

holy shit....

Roller City

Leandro, in the fourth grade, small and missing his front teeth, was not invited to Jana's birthday party at Roller City. The Hernandez brothers were invited. David Lancaster, David Perry, and David Stanley were invited. Leandro was not. He could not understand it. Leandro was friends with Jana. He thought he was. Everyone had been talking about the roller skating party all day, even Amanda the jerk.

The students every day 15 minutes before school ended helped clean up the classroom. In 15 minutes all the students would head to Roller City after class. Leandro took a piece of paper from his desk. On his way to the bathroom he threw it under Jana's desk so she would have to clean it.

It had her name on it.

When he came out she asked him, Did you throw this note under my desk, wishing me a birthday even if I didn't invite you to my birthday party?

No.

Jana looked at Leandro in a funny way.

Yes, you did, said Amanda. I saw you do it.

Leandro hesitated and tried to think of something to say.

Jana took the paper and showed it to Amanda. They examined the paper together. Leandro's best friend Curtis came up behind.

That's his handwriting, Curtis said.

See! said Amanda. I knew you wrote it. I caught you! I caught you, you little shit! I fucking caught you! You tried to lie to us and tell us that you did not put this note under Jana's desk but we found out the truth and the truth is that you did put this note under Jana's desk and that you are a lying sack of shit! And that no one will ever love you! Nothing good will happen to you and when you die, no one will notice! You will be a disgusting smear on a wall in a homeless shelter one day and no one will notice you because you are in a homeless shelter and there are thousands upon thousands of disgusting smears on the wall at a homeless shelter! Understand this now and plan out your days as such, when nothing will be gentle to you and nothing will be soft again!

Excerpts from Nothing To Be Frightened Of by Julian Barnes as taken from Michael Dirda's article in The Washington Post and my reaction to them

[source]

"As Phillip Larkin said in his mortality-haunted poem, 'Aubade,' 'Most things may never happen: This one will.'"

:(

"'For me, death is the one appalling fact which defines life; unless you are constantly aware of it, you cannot begin to understand what life is about; unless you know and feel that the days of wine and roses are limited, that the wine will madeirize and the roses turn brown in their stinking water before all are thrown out for ever--including the jug--there is not context to such pleasures and interests as come your way on the road to the grave.'"

i showed this quote to a few friends and they all brought up the argument that in keeping an awareness of your mortality, you will ruin your enjoyment of life waiting for death. i could not disagree more. a western mind set creates distinctions in the order of things in order to assess things as concrete or abstract. so we have dark vs. light, joy vs. sorrow, planet vs. industry. our physical and conceptual environments consist only of conflict. but i think an more eastern --and not necessarily buddhist, but also hebrew and islamic-- accepts the duality of forms in the sense that often both concepts dovetail each other, essentially completing each other. how is death vs. life different from joy vs. sorrow? how can something die if it does not exist? for some reason, humans refuse to accept the terms of this particular dichotomy. i feel that accepting it and moving on will give someone power.

"'I don't believe in God, but I miss him.'"

i miss feeling good and nice about god.

"'Bumper stickers and fridge magnets remind us that Life Is Not a Rehearsal. We encourage one another towards the secular modern heaven of self-fulfillment: the development of the personality, the relationships which help define us, the status-giving job, the material goods, the ownership of property, the foreign holidays, the acquisition of savings, the accumulation of sexual exploits, the visits to the gym, the consumption of culture. It all adds up to happiness, doesn't it -- doesn't it? This is our chosen myth, and almost as much of a delusion as the myth that insisted on fulfillment and rapture when the last trump sounded and the graves were flung open, when the healed and perfected souls joined in the community of saints and angels. But if life is viewed as a rehearsal, or a preparation, or an anteroom, or whichever metaphor we choose, but at any rate as something contingent, something dependent on a greater reality elsewhere, then it becomes at the same time less valuable and more serious.'"

i am mostly interested here by the words 'chosen' and also 'myth'. the word 'delusion' is a difficult word to grasp only because of how violent it is here.

"Barnes notes with approval Somerset Maugham's view that 'the best frame of mind in which to conduct life' is that of 'humorous resignation.'"

i feel like this is the kind of frame that a lot of internet writers i read write from, or at least from a struggle to reach this frame. from the top of my head i think sam pink, noah cicero, brandon scott gorrell. noah cicero wrote something a few days ago here: "I am powerless and will never have power. That is why I am able to write these things, because I know and view myself as a nothing, and in that nothingness I can objectively kind of look at things." i think a person saying they are powerless is funny. it is funny to me because there is a social tendency to keep up with the jonses, to build yourself up pretty, to constantly search for power. but when you say 'i don't give a fuck and i'm just going to laugh', then you are free and no one can hurt you.

"'A few hours before dying in a Naples hospital,' the Flaubert scholar Francis Steegmuller 'said (presumably in Italian) to a male nurse who was cranking up his bed, "You have beautiful hands." ' Barnes calls this 'a last, admirable catching at a moment of pleasure in observing the world, even as you are leaving it.' Similarly, the poet and classicist 'A.E. Housman's last words were to the doctor giving him a final -- and perhaps knowingly sufficient -- morphine injection: "Beautifully done." '"

i have nothing to add.

"A friend once summed up Julian Barnes's own daily existence: 'Got up. . . . Wrote book. Went out, bought bottle of wine. Came home, cooked dinner. Drank wine.' Some might say: Not much of a life. Yet the philosopher Epicurus maintained that quiet routines like this offer our best response to death: Work hard at what you care about and enjoy moderate pleasures. It's really very good advice, but probably just a little too sensible for the unruly human heart."

i think it's interesting that barnes's routine is something you could read on zachary german's blog, for instance. just minutia that was never validated in patriarchal literature before. but with the perspective of life as absurd and with the 'humorous resignation', meaning can be assigned to almost anything and i find value in this.

this 'unruliness' of the human heart is learned and developed instinctively. it is also dumb and stupid.

i have been very attracted to epicurus since a college professor who i secretly admired but was too shy to approach, spoke on his philosopy in class once. basically, epicurus says 'enjoy good things and good people and be happy with yourself and your family and friends and take care of things. but remember that this is it, there is nothing more.' when i heard this i was struggling very much with myself as a human being in relation to the metaphysical. i'm not completley sold on epicurus, but i feel like it is something i can hold onto at least for now.

9 hours

i have laid in my bed today
for 9 hours.
i have not left my bed once.
i have filled two bottles
of a generic nutritional supplement drink
with my own urine.
i have not left my bed once.

yes i have.
i went downstairs
there was no one.
i was in my underwear.
i raised my arms
in the living room.

i deleted you today
from my AIM Buddy list
i felt power in deleting you.

when i left my bed
i played a song on my computer
i made a parade through the house.
there was liberation.

i have masturbated four times today.
each time i fantasized about a different person.
you were never one.
when you crept in
i stopped you by the throat.

it felt good to do this
it felt good to pin you to the wall.
it felt good to expel you
into two bottles
of a generic nutritional supplement drink.

october tour/i like connor o'brien

this week i confirmed a tour for most of october. i will be helping out my friend danielle in rio en medio with visual and ambient effects and we will also be traveling with rainbow arabia through the midwest and east coast and south and texas. we will be playing at the CMJ Festival in new york so if you are in the area, i would like to meet you. as a matter of fact, i would like to meet anyone and everyone that i can. this includes you. i am very excited about this and everything is falling into place for it.

****

last summer i traveled around the country and there were many great and good things. there are moments i remember being in the car and feeling like a sponge, and soaking in the earth and the moutains and not being able to stand it and yelling and whooping. sometimes i can recreate these moments in my mind and sometimes i need help. for instance, if i sit in my car and listen to a specific animal collective song i can see the tetons and wyoming through the windshield exactly. i kind of felt this way when i read butterflies on a wheel by anthony doerr. it gets a little flowery at times, even for me but i felt like something somewhere fell together for him and helped him and suddenly he could remember everything he saw and felt. it felt good to read that. this is why i like it. i think when i become a better writer i will be able to do this at command.

***

a few months ago i sent an e-mail to connor o'brien demanding that he interview me. i said "i am not famous nor do i know anyone famous. i would like to be interviewed. you said you would interview anyone and i am anyone." connor IM'd me one day and i happened to be drunk and alone at 3 in the morning. we talked and it was the interview. i remember feeling very self-conscious.

i mentioned this before, but i read one of his stories recently and was very much blown away. it is called i am holding you and you are holding me and we are holding one another and it feels nice. it has a very tired angst that really has no rush to be anywhere. it was an experience to read it. as much despair as i felt reading it, i also felt a kind of peace. i thought 'okay then, this is how it is and i have been feeling this way and it happens here too so this is how it is.' connor is very intelligent and knows things. one time i said something about b.f. skinner and connor said 'yes'. this is why the story is good. he notices things.

i think i will start interviewing people now. anyone. i will just start asking people in their comments. if you would like to be interviewed, i would like to interview you. you don't have to be interesting or unique or special. this will be something like a little portrait of what you look like. then people will know you and you will be famous.

things i own: tenderheart bear

this is a picture of a care bear that i took when i was completely alone in an abandoned train station in fort morgan, colorado. when i took this picture there was a heavy sand storm outside and the metallic sign that read FORT MORGAN had lost two bolts so it would slap against the building for the wind and make the scariest sound and i just felt like crying.

i have found out that this care bear's name is tenderheart bear.

wikipedia says that "tenderheart bear helps everyone show and express their feelings and helps his fellow Care Bears be the most caring they can be."

when i got tenderheart bear, i was in denver. i was at a bar with my friend chrissy. the night began as such. the bartender approached us with four double shot glasses and poured us a mixed drink with 4 different kinds of vodka. chrissy and i were sitting at a table alone talking. the bar was mostly empty. there was one very annoying women who had too much to fit into her jeans. she and her boyfriend fucked in the bathroom and when i went to use it afterward, the sink was hanging from the wall.

we were getting very drunk and it was very fun. we went to sit at the bar. the bartender told us about everything. his seven-year old daughter, his stolen record collection, and the birthday party he had a few weeks ago where his girlfriend took pictures of everyone pushing their nose up like piggies and you could see the cocaine in everyone's nose hairs. i told him about how i had hitched from lincoln to denver and how i had met chrissy last summer passing through denver on tour. we were just delightfully happy to know him and it felt reciprocated and there was love between us.

the bartender and me and chrissy became very close and he kept bringing us beer and liquor. we laughed at everything and he kept kissing chrissy. i was very happy to know him. he smiled at me often. he took my hand and said that he wanted me to have something. and he turned around and gave me the care bear and said that i would keep me safe in my travels.

i went outside to use the telephone. i called many people and told them that i loved them. i called one friend and told her that she was a tile on the floor i was looking at and that i would keep it in my pocket forever. i lost the tile that night and i laughed. then i saw the bartender outside. he was on the phone. then he started crying. he sat down with me and we were both drunk and he was crying and i held him and he said that a friend of his had just gotten into a bicycle accident and that her brain was swelling too big for her head and that she might die. i was very sad and i didn't know what to say. i told him about my friend devin who had died in a bicycle accident. i tried to empathize. we went inside and he kept working. i felt very sad for him. i thought about devin. when he brought us our bill, it was only $8 and he wouldn't accept a tip.

when the night ended chrissy and i stumbled back to her apartment and i threw up a lot in the toilet. because of the altitude in denver, someone unaccustomed to it will become sicker faster with alcohol.

a few days later i was trying to hitch back to lincoln. there was no success. i was trapped in a gas station 20 miles out of denver and i was thinking i would never get back. i spent 8 hours outside at various gas stations and truck stops within various distance from each other. i got kicked off the property and i went under a bridge to cry. i saw trout fish swimming upstream and they were sad to me. i cried even harder and felt the weakest ever, ever. a friend's dad picked me up and took me to fort morgan which was three hours out of his way round trip. in fort morgan i had a beer and cried over my asian food. it felt so good to have somewhere to belong.

at night in the train station i was very lonely and by myself at the station. there were these customer log books and people were saying that the train had been late for more than 6 hours once. i did not want wait for 6 hours. i began to sing to myself in the echoey room and i took out the carebear and looked at it and tried to think of the bartender and his goodness. i thought about chrissy who i loved and i thought about denver and i sang some songs and felt better. when i rolled into lincoln the next morning the clouds were pink and i felt beautiful.

Dream #8

there was a compound, most likely a former prison or university with jagged-stone buildings. it looked like it was undergoing some kind of renovation and half of it was still crumbling and the other half had this posh postmodern-utilitarian log cabin motif. i had the distinct feeling that this was the future. there were many people and i was with a girl who i thought was very pretty and i knew her personally but i can't remember her face. there were so many people. it looked like everyone lived there. we were all in a cafeteria talking. we all lived in this compound.

at the cafeteria we were told to leave. a throng of people moved to the coffee shop corner of the cafeteria so they could get a coffee before they left. my creative writing professor was serving drinks and making tip-worthy conversation. i said hello and we talked and he smiled a lot, as usual.

outside there was a main street lined by shops and above them, apartments in moroccan and french architecture. i strolled through it with my friend and suddenly began to feel insane. i could not put words together and i could not think anything correctly. i felt as if i were literally going insane and i could feel all my memories and thoughts melting and pouring into some black hole. i don't remember what happened after this but i managed to feel better. i saw an alley of canopies where other people sold fruit and vegetables. a little further downthere was a farmer's market where middle-classed families haggled for prices. there was a piano shop.

later i went back to the place where i felt crazy and i suddenly heard a noise that i remembered i had heard before the last time i had gone crazy. and then i started feeling crazy again. i looked up at the apartments and there was an old arabic man with a turban sitting on the terrace, looking at me passively. he had made the noise that had made me feel terrible. i knew it. i was with the pretty girl and we left. my brother was very angry and he wanted to fight the old man. instead, we went to the airport and picked up bradford cox.

outside of the cafeteria, there was a great wall covered in ivy overlooking a poorly chalked baseball field. i was with a male friend whose face i can't remember, the pretty girl who i can't remember but who is my friend, and bradford cox. we all started making out in a room overlooking the baseball field. i dry-humped bradford cox and he laughed at me because i forgot he didn't have a vagina. i felt very dumb.

national geographic, vol. 186 #2 1994

dima lives in kiev
in an orphanage
for mentally retarded children.

dima is always very happy.
he rocks on his haunches
and plays in the sand.

every morning
dima tells the nurse
his dreams of the night before.
the nurse rubs ointment
into his sores
and dima stares at her tits.

dima has dreamt of america.
in his dream
dima was not hungry.
dima was beautiful
his dick was long,
to his feet.
it dragged in the sand.

dima says:
"i love america;
i will go there
and become president."

torley: god's dick

torley has done it again, that asian enigma!

you may remember a previous post about a certain 'torley' who wrote an article on how to care less over at lifehack.com. i benefited from it greatly and decided to become an internet blogger and eat cheetos in my bedroom by myself. torley's article gave me a kind of power which allowed me to rise above ordinary existence and be selective on what i choose to care about, such as animals and death.

torley's latest article covers the chasm of loneliness and misery. the article is called 'how to love yourself, even if no one else does.' suprisingly, torley denies the fact that no one loves you and says 'you are not looking hard enough'.

highlights from torley's article:

• others have cared about me before, and they will again. And perhaps most importantly, by realizing this, I care about myself.
  
• you are a burning building. If you could rush into yourself and save only a handful of things to take to a new you, what will they be?
• Find something new worth fighting for -- By “fight”, I refer not to violence....The “fight” here is versus adversity. Your cause may be a charity that improves others’ lives, or even a campaign to save a TV show...A couple examples from my experiences: when I felt snobs were scaring away novices from enjoying electronic music, I spoke up against them, serving as a pillar of light for new fans. I wrote reviews and guides, increasing techno music’s accessibility. The adulation felt awesome
• All of us are humans and subject to emotions. By consequence, all of us have problems — but some of us deal with them more effectively than others. We are all variations on a common theme.
• Be brave about what you really like--I used to get dirty faces when I opined how much I liked Britney Spears’ song, “Toxic“. I’m fond of the slick music video coupled with the angular strings and slammin’ beats. Britney’s voice wasn’t bad, either. I don’t approve of her recent lifestyle choices, but true to my heart, that song was a masterpiece!
• Here’s the problem: so many of us, even those who are no longer teens or in college, live under the specter of “peer pressure”. We’re afraid we “won’t fit in” if we speak to the contrary. And especially if we dig something that’s popular, we’ll be subjected to redundant reminders like “Just because it’s popular doesn’t mean it’s good”.
• Be a little more selfish - My wife once shared her meat story with me, which is a delicious, terse tale about feeding yourself, and being careful who you give your “meat” (yourself, essentially) to.
• Write a guide helping others--sharing experiences is valuable. If you have a blog, or even make a comment on someone else’s blog, you may help others. And they may let you know — I hope so!
• there’ve been times where I was sure everyone hated me, but then I realized (with increasing strength over the years) that this was just a temporal lie, my fallible emotions playing a nasty trick.

torley seems to have experienced loss and depression. torley is strong. torley knows things and when he tells them to people he can look at his feet and earnestly know he will be with jesus one day. torley likes being around positive people and if you are negative and hanging out with torley, torley will probably say something like 'dick off, assmilk!' and that would mean for you to stop being so negative around him. and his friends would all come up from behind him menacingly and one of them would put their hand on his shoulder. and then i would go and watch like, Becker or something and feel better. torley also loves meat. his wife says so. meat is good and torley is being brave about what he likes --meat.

thank you torley, you've set a fire under this blogger. i'm going to love of myself and look at porn now. thanks torley! this one's for you!