nightmare on 143rd st.

as a kid i would have this recurring nightmare. i was driving a car on a dark road, no other cars in sight and woods to either side. and behind me was a man with a bloody axe, chasing me, screaming at me. and no matter how fast i drove, however many corners i took at breakneck speeds, he could run just as fast. and i knew that eventually i would crash, or run out of gas, and he would get me.

the best way i can describe him is this: think of how you thought god looked when you were a kid. with the white hair and the flowy beard. then put him in a red and black flannel shirt and some bloody jeans, and hand him an axe. and illuminate him with only your tail lights. that's what i used to wake up from in a cold sweat.

i guess as we grow up, so do our nightmares. i have them four or five times a week these days, and i wake up so upset over them that i can't fall back asleep. which is why i'm posting this right now after 3am on a work night. but now there is no car. no axe. no crazy man. there is only a couch.

and i sit on the couch, and people come and talk to me. people from the past, people from the present, people i've never met. it doesn't really matter who they are. what matters is that they all know my deepest insecurities. and it's all they want to talk about.

in the waking hours, you can run and hide all you want. they all know where to find you while you sleep.

if heaven and hell decide that they both are satisfied...

i've had death cab for cutie's "i will follow you into the dark" on repeat for about thirty minutes now. and then i was just watching house m.d. on tv and it closed with jeff buckley's "hallelujah." christ.

you hear songs like those two, and you think about the songs you write. and how they're not beautiful. maybe they say something. maybe they'll make someone smile, or tap their foot, or reach over and turn the volume up.

but you hear songs like that, and you know you are not worthy. and it only makes you want to try harder. but you think when these songs were written, they just came. they sound so effortless. and therein lies your insecurity. you have been writing songs and writing songs and after a number of years you have only written a few you think are any good. you think the harder you really try the further you're getting from the place you need to be to write like that. is that a cop-out? or laziness? or just reality?

this might be what it feels like to play minor league baseball until you're forty years old and never really get a shot at the big time. but you do it for the love of the game. but the game doesn't love you back. and then all you have are a few homerun balls and a dusty mit and your whiskey-scented glory day stories.

expect a record in the springtime.

sundays are for moving slow

i've often said that it's not a good weekend unless somebody gets violently ill on some cedar mulch wood chips. but don't even worry about that man, because it's taken care of. i rule.

also. remember when i told you i was done with a song? well i listened to it today and it needs to be re-equalized. but it's still pretty much done. this is a mark of my maturity in not rushing things out anymore when they aren't ready to be. we'll see how long it lasts.

i am going to spend some time today messing around with watchedpots.com because i have time to.

congratulations to mike and katie who were married this weekend. it was lovely.

one in the bag

i'm finished with one song. for the record i've been talking about. for now i'm just going to sit on it though. but i thought you should know i don't just fart around all day thinking about stupid shit to type on here. i am working on songs for real.

also today i bought the fountains of wayne record out of state plates which is a collection of b-sides and rarities and it's great. and it has little stories about each song. just like i said i was going to do! so yeah. now i'm definitely going to do it.

there are more italicized words in this post than in any other post i've ever done i bet.

another day another dollop

nathan's of coney island. a beacon of light to all those whose desire for immediate umami (umamory? umamatory? umamological?) satisfaction far outweighs their aversion to the resulting gastrointestinal anomalies and (on a longer timeline) hardening of the arteries.

i'll have a large chili cheese fries and a classic dog with sauteed onions and sauerkraut. better make that to go. see you in the bathroom and in the hospital. this was so worth it.

some news that doesn't matter:

i've made a few hardly noticeable changes to the layout of this site. basically to make blog syndication work more smoothly. who cares, right? well, me. i care. which is why i did it. and i guess if you're one of the few people who syndicate this with a reader, you care too. so i did it for me and you, bucko.

also, keep your eye on the song lyrics, i'm thinking about adding a little anecdote under each one to clear up some confusion about where i was at when i wrote each one. in reality this will probably only create more confusion. i am really only doing it to have something to do.

baptism by fire

last night i ceremoniously burned all the leftover checks from my old sovereign bank checking account. that's the bank i used to use in providence. i had just reordered checks before i moved to nyc, so i had hundreds.

don't ask me why i waited a whole year to dispose of those...i'm sure i've got older and even more useless things sitting in drawers in my apartment somewhere. and besides, why i waited isn't really the point.

it felt like a bittersweet farewell to the fair city of providence.

wow. overdramatic? yeah probably. it's not like i'm never going back there. it's also not like i really have any hard feelings. i guess what i'm getting at is that it felt like reclaiming a small part of myself that never really left providence. which was at once quite liberating and minorly wrenching.

but really i just burned a bunch of books of useless checks.

the only thing we have to fear is fear itself

yo. remember when this happened? potty.

anyway, just today i got around to replacing that thing. only before what i had was one of those body scrubby scrunchie things. this time i bought a real loofa. and i just exfoliated the shit out of myself. the real thing is a whole new ballgame.

three posts in one day. put me in front of a firing squad.

and your long weekend begins...now.

happy labor day weekend. i will do a lot of things. none of them, however, will even resemble labor. some may resemble alcoholism. some may seem foolish. many will probably seem slightly pyromaniacal. but fear not, oh ye faithful. i am none of these things. i'm just a squirrel trying to get a nut. (hey, that sounds like a good song lyric. i should try to remember that.)

the weekend starts right about now. tonight it's out to dinner, then to see the fabulous zox at the knitting factory. where to after that? wherever the winds of fate should choose to sweep me away too. but there's a good chance it'll be my apartment. where there was a cockroach in my bed last night. that i was not fast enough to kill.

party on wayne.

do it

www.redcross.org

bon voyage, my friend

whoa. i just found out james, schnoodler extraordinaire and original member of watched pots, is heading to switzerland to teach math and physics for a year in the alps. god damn. they grow up so fast.

while this temporarily puts the kaibosh on a wp reunion stadium tour, it is not out of the question when he returns (and i've finished a record).

good luck buddy. godspeed.