ready set go

hey. i'm writing from the studio that record in. i'll be hopefully finishing "a viking's funeral" tonight (at least the recording part of it). assuming my voice holds up. this song promises to be more demanding than most others and i'm still recovering from something. but i'm going to give it my all. we'll see how it goes.

last night on the subway i saw an old couple sleeping on each other in knit hats and full winter garb. it was like 60 (fahrenheit) in new york last night. they looked so tired. so instead of just practicing looking tough at my reflection in the window like i usually do, i spent the ride trying to imagine their story. came here in search of the american dream from somewhere much warmer, and while they've managed to survive, it certainly hasn't been rags to riches. they don't speak english and their grandkids can barely speak their own native tongue. etc etc. very poetic.

that came out shitty because i'm distracted. i'm going to get to singing now, i guess. i set up the microphone upside down but i'm leaving it that way.

back in action

well, i'm back on track. i spent a few hours tonight recording new guitar tracks for "a viking's funeral" and it always takes a few days of listening to it before i'm sure but i've got a really good feeling about this stuff. i had to transpose the whole song up (not sure if i've mentioned this before) so i could sing it better, and that meant re-recording pretty much everything. tonight was guitars.

tonight was also the first real work i've done towards the record since something like january. and i feel gooooood. here's to hoping i crank out a bunch more before i go cold again.

if i could change one thing about my current situation, it's that i am eating a salad from a bag right now, but what i really want is a mcdonald's double cheeseburger. other than that, i'm a happy guy.

everyone (myself included) is a wimp except my brother

so far i only know one person who actually watched that video, and that is my brother. he's way tougher than me, and even still he admitted that it made him kinda sweaty, he couldn't stop his leg from twitching, and even though he forced himself to watch it all, he did have to minimize it once to catch his breath.

so that's all on that. turns out not even the guy who sent it to me actually watched it. i accidentally clicked on it when i was making sure it posted right and saw about the first second, which was long enough to see how big the mouse was and realize that there was no way in shitty hell that i wanted to see what was to come next.

survey says...potty.

things have been good lately in the watched pots camp (it's really just an apartment in queens). work's been going well, i'm getting over my cold and can sing again, and i'm finally starting to feel like i want to finish recording this record and move on with my life to bigger and better things with louder drums and wicked guitar shredding. of course, it's all just talk until it really happens, but i'll keep you posted.

i haven't got much else to say, i just wanted to put something up here to inch that nightmare down a tad so i wouldn't have to look at it whenever this site loaded. you understand, no?

just when you thought it was safe to sleep

i wish i could just ignore this but i'm compelled to say something, since i know you might only be here out of centipede trauma solidarity. my friend chris, who lived in the same house as me when that song was written, just sent me along this video of an enormous centipede totally fragging a mouse. don't watch if you don't want nightmares.


i guess people keep these things as pets?

in the interest of full disclosure i should admit that i have not even watched it. i simply don't have the stomach for that kind of thing. the preview picture alone is enough to make me sleep in a bee-keeper's suit for the rest of my life. but you know, if you want to watch a massive arthropod kill and eat a mouse, then i guess you are welcome to do it here on my humble site. tell your friends.

i'd also like to include what chris said about the video because i thought it was poignant:

"that motherfucker would chew through your glass from tealuxe like a ritz cracker, fuck your girlfriend, then make you knit him a multilegged sweater. you'd prob have to put argyle patterns on it too."

methinks someone should consider a career in the literary arts.

man, i should have just said "yeah."

i'm fuzzy on the chronology because it was a while ago but i think it must have been winter and i know it must have been one of the first times she stayed over. it was the first time i took a shower while she was over, anyway. and it's not like my place was soundproof, so i shouldn't have been surprised when i came out and she said to me "you blow your nose in the shower." it wasn't a question, just a statement. almost as if to say "you blow your nose in the shower too."

but i was scared she would be grossed out. so, thinking fast: "no. actually i was sniffing in." as if that doesn't make a completely different sound. as if anyone would be fooled.

she just smiled and said "oh," and i went about putting on some clothes or something. it never came up again and in my estimation it was no more of a big deal to her at the time that i fibbed about a gross thing i did than it was to me.

but thinking back now to that moment, and to all the times in my life when i've been given a pass by someone when maybe i didn't deserve it, i...

i don't know. maybe i hoped to draw some sort of poetic conclusion from that. or maybe it's a nice little anecdote on its own. i guess it means something to me, more now than then. that i've been lucky once or twice. maybe that things aren't always as fragile as they seem. maybe.

either way, i smiled to remember.

sugarcane aeroplane clusterfuck scatterbrain

1. the most persistent memories are the ones where things didn't happen, not the ones where things did.
   
2. let's please be adults about this.
3. i just burned the shit out of my mouth on leftover pizza.
4. i don't like the way you're looking at me.
5. i let you think you had me fooled but trust me you didn't. i know everything.
   
6. every single thing anyone does means something to someone.
7. it's bound to happen sooner or later.
8. you know what i mean.
9. it might finally be time for a haircut.
   
10. i think i'm getting sick. i will not let it affect my plans.
11. you better think long and hard about what people are going to think about that.
12. or drink long and hard.
    
13. i have no plans.
14. i wish i had bigger muscles.
    
15. i met a guy in california who stepped on a rake and it hit him so hard in the forhead that he went deaf in one ear.
16. everybody i meet has badder-ass stories than me. i cut my thumb really bad one time. i broke my wrist roller skating.
    
17. it still hurts. no, not my wrist. but that still hurts sometimes too.
18. actually there was that one time i took a baseball bat to my nose. that was kinda badass.
19. i am still angry.
20. i am still sorry.
21. i am still nowhere.
22. i've been stung by bees a lot of times.
23. even more times by birds.
    

gasoline

i got gas all over my hands today filling up the ol' wheels, and pretty much since then i haven't done much other than sit here sniffing my fingers. not consciously (obviously) but every time i stop concentrating on not doing it i catch myself. you just can't wash that damn smell off. like lady macbeth, kinda. that whore.

in other news, i suppose i should confess to you that i'm a huge dork and bought some video games recently. and um...something to play them on. it's been a long time since i've allowed myself to get into a video game. they made me kinda emo for a while. long story. not telling. but i've just cracked open syphon filter: dark mirror for the psp (after i laid a whupping down on megaman: maverick hunter x), and i think for a few days it'll be a good distraction from all my other distractions. whatever. this is totally irrelevant.

at work today i spent a lot of time working on rss syndication and all this web stuff and i learned some things out of necessity that maybe i'll apply to this website if i ever get sick of tasering terrorists.

i just smelled my fingers again.

what was normal in the evening by the morning seems insane

i always feel the need to apologize in the morning when i post something incoherent the night before.


this morning on the way to work i saw a state trooper who had pulled someone over hock a loogie (not sure i've ever spelled that out before) so big that i could see it clearly from about 20 feet away travelling at 60 mph. i only hope that someday i can be as badass as that, even if only for a moment. willickers.

grab your glocks when you see tupac

so it's all a game, right? everyone knows it. but the rules...what are the rules? therein lies the mystery. i'd like to say i'm smarter now than i was then. i'd love to say that i've learned a thing or two, that a scar is a lesson and not just a story. but if truth be told, i think i'm dumber now than i was in high school. and whether i'm dumber or smarter, i'm definitely less lucky.

i bet you think this is about girls. well, not really. kinda. no. it's not. it's about life. and sometimes when i'm sitting here in my apartment by myself and i check the same 5 websites over and over again and i listen to the same songs on repeat and i say the same things on the phone to the same people i think that i've gotten myself into something that i can't get out of.

am i in a rut? can i think my way out of it? can i work my way out of it? or will i just distract myself deeper into it. i haven't recorded any music lately. lately it terrifies me. because i'm close to done, i guess. and when you finish it and you put it out there then it's gone and it'll never be back. and you have to do more. do i have more? sometimes i think so. sometimes i don't and i panic and i think right now i might be panicking.

ride it out. something will happen. something has to happen. you can't go on forever without anything happening.

did you know the big bang happened in one trillion-trillionth of a second? do you know how many big bangs i've wasted sitting at this desk typing on this keyboard to god knows who where what? a lot.

i don't want you to think i'm not happy. in fact, i think this is because i've been feeling happy lately. and comfortable. and holy shit am i afraid of comfort. because i think i've trained myself to believe that comfort means you're giving in. or you're not doing something you're supposed to. or you're not working hard enough. if you've been to the top and then you're not anymore you can kid yourself all you want but you know that you won't be really happy until you're there again. so don't get comfortable. or you won't be the best. i've been the best a few times. not right now though. but i am not that different a fish than i used to be. i am, however, swimming in a huge fucking pond these days. i think i just put my finger on what i haven't been able to put my finger on. and it was slimy and scaly. like a fish. or a snake. in a plane. (cough cough.)

sorry i had to take you along for this ride. although i suppose you could have jumped ship anytime.

also, i was going to embed this video of barney that someone cut up so it's sort of choreographed to a tupac song but then i decided just to link to it because it's got fuckwords in it and i figured i'd let you watch at your own discretion. but it sure made me laugh to beat the band.

just another rider burned to the ground

so the mustache. it's gone because as the novelty wore off i started to realize it was just making me really insecure whenever met someone new. and i was at a conference for work meeting tons of new people and feeling even more sheepish than i usually do. the booth next to mine at this thing was full of girls in bikinis handing out beer and talking about buying and selling used network equipment. it really just had to go.

the counting crows. they were amazing and completely renewed my interest in their first two records. and maybe a few songs on their third. it's funny because august and everything after is one of the records i look back on and think that when my mom gave me that record for christmas she really set me going in the right direction. and then recovering the satellites came along, and it wasn't as accessible, it was a rock record for the most part, and i felt like i belonged to something when i got to know it better. so they're old news now maybe, but they've contributed some fantastic songs to the world and i guess that shouldn't be forgotten. i snapped a picture but it's not great because you can't quite tell how portly adam is:

i didn't do any real writing in california like i thought i might be able to. i was just too tired and even though my hotel room had a separate shower and bathtub it was missing any kind of writing utensil. i did a lot of thinking though. i'm always doing a lot of that. maybe someday it'll get me somewhere.

yesterday morning when i got home from the airport and tried to sleep for a while i had a dream that i worked at home depot or something and a girl i used to know asked me if i could get her a discount on some carpeting or something. the details are fuzzy. and i remember i didn't really want to give it to her but i said "yeah, sure." then this guy comes out of nowhere and said "i need you to do that for me, too." and i guess he was supposed to be her new boyfriend or something so we got in a fistfight and i lost. there are very few things more emo than losing a fistfight over a girl. good thing it only happened in a dream. another way to look at this, if you're into talking about dreams, is that if you are losing fistfights in your own dreams then you are pretty lame. but i'm choosing not to look at it that way.

i ended up sleeping on the floor at my friend's girlfriend's apartment last night with a bunch of other people like a slumber party only for people in their mid 20's. so that was pretty weird and i woke up feeling pretty crappy in my back. still do. and i'm so goddamn tired.

tonight i'm shooting for some really awesome sleep. we'll see how it goes.

i've missed you.

i just landed at 6am or so. there is a lot to say about my trip but i guess i probably won't getting around to saying most of it. it was cold and rainy the whole time i was in san jose. i stayed in a hotel i could never afford on my own, saw a lot of "brand ambassadors" (which is what they call half-naked babes that lure potty guys into booths at trade shows), got a lot of business cards, and saw counting crows play (actually i might write more about that later). also i shaved that fucking stupid mustache off. i'll almost definitely write more on that later.

i have a lot on my mind. i'm going to try to sleep most of it off.

the stale taste of recycled air

when i put a t-shirt on, i usually don't bother to fix it if it's inside out. so i guess about half the time, it is. today it is. and there's a string hanging off the right shoulder and it keep catching my eye while i wander around my apartment today, so i keep turning expecting to see someone standing behind me. it freaked me out pretty bad while i was cooking breakfast. bad enough to sit down and write about it, but not bad enough to cut it off.

i leave tomorrow for san jose, where i'll be working until i fly home on the red-eye on friday night. i'm too old-school (read: too poor) to have a laptop, so i doubt i'll be posting from there very often. maybe i'll try to jump on and give you an update if something super-rad happens. but considering what i'll be doing there, the chances of that are slim to none. i do hope to do some writing while i'm there though, since at night i'll be in a hotel room all by myself without much to distract me other than television. so we'll see if that pans out. i wish i could bring my guitar.

although this isn't my first business trip (more like my 2nd or 3rd) i still find myself a little uncomfortable with the fact that i am a guy who goes on business trips and gets cash advances and hands in expense reports and stays in hotels i could never afford on my own and sits in middle seats on red-eye flights. i just never imagined being that guy. i don't know what i imagined. i don't even have anywhere to go with this, i just wanted to put it out there. i accumulate frequent flier miles. i sit in 22c. i eat my pretzel nubs and i like them. i have a box of business cards and i pass them out with a smile and a handshake. and i try to remember that there's more.

crapulous

this post is really just an excuse to put up a picture of my mustache in action. drinking a 40, even. i wonder what they say in heaven when they want to say "a match made in heaven." because that fantastical, mysterious utterance, whatever it may be, is the only combination of words that could do justice to my mustached self firmly grasping an olde english "800". in the language i speak, anyway. sometimes i wish i knew chinese because i bet they just have a symbol for that shit and it'd be problem solved.

i came very close to buying a bass today. which would've been a terribly stupid thing for me to do since i am poor, which is why i didn't do it. until i come into some money, and then i can tell some douchebag at guitar center or something that i'm feeling "saucy" and make sure to call him "my good man." don't be an asshole to waiters because they can fuck with your food, but sometimes i think it's fine to be a bit of an asshole to music store guys because most of them would rather pee in your hair than help you and they probably talk shit about you when you're out of earshot. like that thing that happened to me that time at sam ash. sons of a bitch.

if you're wondering at the title of this post, it's the word of the day over at dictionary.com. i check that sometimes when i'm bored, and i thought it was radically appropriate today, because while last night started out innocently enough, it got a teensy bit out of control and i spent most of the morning feeling mightily crapulous. that's a good word. i'm going to try really hard to remember it. because when you say it people will be pretty sure you're just making it up but then you can link them here and then you pretty much dominate them for all time.

if you're wondering when i'm going to get over this shitty mustache thing, umm... i guess i am too. but it's not today.

mustache update

i was leaning against my car this morning pumping gas and looking rad in my $5 aviators even though it was cloudy, when my mean machine lurched underneath me. seems a taxicab totally fragged me whilst backing in to fill up. play it cool boy.

the guy gets out and is looking frazzled. i am still leaning against the car, still pumping gas. cool as a cucumber in the crisper box. i amble over to meet him in the middle and have a look, like generals might meet in the middle of the battlefield to discuss terms before sending their willing troops into battle in the wars of old. no damage done to me (which i had known would be the case) but my car made a nice little scratch on his bumper (atta girl). one look at my sweet 'stache and the guy totally forgot how to speak english. don't sweat it, bro. you are free to go, taxi-man.

as i predicted, all the ladies in the office hate it. that's ok, it was part of the plan. there aren't enough dudes here for a fair sampling, but the one who i've seen so far gave me a knowing look and kept his mouth shut. he knows what we men all know intrinsically, as men. that mustaches are sweet, and words need not crash the pristine silence simply to fall short with their clumsy attempts to define the divine.

sweet mustache! willickers!

so i spent the last week and a half or so growing what might have become a badass beard, only to cut it down in its prime tonight. but fear not, reader. for like a phoenix from the ashes, a totally sweet mustache now crouches menacingly on my upper lip, ready to attack.

i don't know how long it'll last. i'm guessing not long. but i'm determined not to lose my nerve tomorrow morning and shave it before work, so i will wear it publicly for at least one day. i'm just going to tell everyone who asks that it's a dare and my idiot friends are going to give me $100 or something. they'll believe me because i'm the kind of guy that might have the kind of friends who would do that kind of thing.

i'm ready for my close-up.


in other news (not that anything else matters, not really, not when there's a mustache around), i almost went nuts and plopped a bunch of chicklet links over on the right side there to try and drum up some traffic. but then i guess i decided not to for now, because everyone fucking hates those things. so maybe you could just tell your friends to stop by or something. and then i could maintain a shred of e-dignity. (hah.)

i miss providence

it's been a good month for providence bands. a few weeks ago zox announced that they've signed with sideonedummy, and now today monty announced their new deal with stolen transmission. kinda makes me miss that town. in new york bands get signed all the time and it's no big deal. what's happened in providence recently is huge, and it couldn't have happened to two bands who deserve it more.

ok, i'm done gushing.

all day today i planned to go see jaymay on the lower east side. i even dressed cooler than usual (i know, i didn't think it was possible either). but then i got stuck a little late at work and then a little bit in traffic and she was going on early and by the time i got home i would've missed half her set so now i'm sitting here in my pajamas.

my little brother's been sending me demos lately of some songs he's been writing and they sound pretty good. i don't want to get ahead of myself (or his self) but if he can get his shit together and move to new york a band of brothers might form; the likes of which has never been seen. sure, there have been lots of great bands featuring siblings before. i'm just saying we'd be better than all of them. you calling me a liar? (fun fact: my great uncle's stepson was in band of brothers. i have no idea what i would call him. step-2nd-cousin-once-removed? whatever. he's a nice guy. not that i've spoken to him in years.)

please please treat me bad. i'll treat you good.

alright first things first: i'm clearly still alive. and seeing as well as i was yesterday before my new adventures in green-fi. i did have some intensely vivid dreams that i woke up from pretty delirious, but that could be unrelated.

i did not end up recording any vocals like i said i was going to. there's a good reason that i don't want to bother explaining, so let's just say my shit wasn't as together as i thought it was. i'm getting antsy about the whole thing though, so it'll happen soon. i give myself my word. a man is only as good as his (s)word.

i did write a new song today. it's the first song i've ever written that's actually structured like a pop song; verse chorus verse chorus bridge chorus. i'm proud of myself for that. and each section has different chords, which i'm practically beside myself about. that just doesn't usually happen around here. it's called "please please" and it's not very heavy (maybe even a little funny), and it clocks in right at 2 minutes. it even has 8 bars for an instrumental solo built in.

in which i am an idiot

tonight for dinner i had 4 leftover hormel frozen spicy breakfast sausages and a slice of cake. then when my evening plans didn't really pan out, i decided to do something about the small flask of absinthe that's been staring at me from the top of my fridge for months and months that my friend john brought back from the czech republic for me last summer. i followed the instructions i found on wikipedia with sugar and lighting shit on fire and adding water and the whole nine yards. it still tasted unholy. i took a picture of every sip. here're some highlights:
there has never been a worse face. in the world.

tomorrow, assuming i can still see when i wake up, i'll be recording some vocals for the new version of "a viking's funeral." wish me luck.

honey get your carpetbaggers off my back

i might have written about this before but i can't remember and i can't be bothered to go back and look. (note to self: figure out how to integrate a search into this thing.) but springsteen's concert from the hammersmith odeon in london that came in dvd form with the born to run 30th anniversary edition is now available seperately as a 2cd record. listening isn't quite as magical as watching, but i'm glad they did it because i can't be bothered to sit down in front of my tv for 2 hours very often.

i've had "for you" on repeat from that show for the past 45 mins or so. it's a rocker on the original record. he played it solo on piano in this show. walks out for the encore all alone, and sits down in front of the piano where he hasn't been all night. who knew he could even do that? nobody in london, i'll bet. and i can't back this up with any stats but i'm going to guess that more songs have been written about heartbreak than most other things. i'm going to say this is one of the all-time best.

because it's about the kind of heartbreak you really only have once or twice in your life. after that you just don't have the energy. the kind where you keep coming back, you keep running yourself through the grinder over and over. and you're too young to know better and she's too young too.

nobody over the age of 23 could've written this song. and the lyrics don't even make that much sense when you read them, but when you hear them they are gospel truth.

it's like being one of those silver balls that people have on their desks that click-clack into eachother ad nauseum. how far can you get away before you swing on back? how many times to you have to get hit before you finally come to rest right where you started? and when can you finally untether?

and the tables turn in this song. there is responsibility and irresponsibility and irrationality. i'm sorry and you're sorry and neither of us know what else to do so we just do this until we both collapse and i love you but i'm going to hit you where it hurts because you deserve it. because i can't help it. and i'm sorry. and i'm sorry.

"i came for you, for you, i came for you. but you did not need my urgency."

and you live and learn and grow and maybe you have a scar or two to show for it. and maybe, if you're springsteen, you write one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

a fool and his money

ticketmaster is a dirty son of a bitch and i just ended up paying $62 for 2 tickets that are $22 a piece. that is $18 worth of secret ingredients. secret ingreedients. how funny am i?

do you play minigolf ever? sometimes you can get so engrossed in a game, you stop really paying attention to the score. because you know it'll be close but you're convinced you'll win. and then after the 18th hole where you fire that ball at the bullseye and you don't win a free game (because let's face it, that's fucking impossible) you tally up the score to find that you lost by a stroke. and then you go back and tally again in disbelief. 3 or 4 times.

how long does it usually take for it to sink into your head? that you had victory at your fingertips but somehow let it slip away? how long before you are able to forget it ever happened? does it stain your next game? do you find yourself staring down the 6th fairway, putter in hand, having a long, wistful sigh before you let rip?

this is clumsy because i'm rushing. i don't feel much like a writer these days. i can't find the patience to do it right.

i guess i've always had this problem. when i've got something to be melancholy about i can write and write and sing and play and it seems like i never run out. when things are mostly good my writing mostly sucks.

that's something to work on. you know, since when you really break it down i'd like to be happy more often than sad in the future. but i'd also like to be writing even more regularly than i force myself to do now.

can you push a button and change your muse? i want to wake up and be inspired to write about flora and fauna and hot tubs and saunas.