Igloos For Animals

Per Dave's... uh, idea, I Guess

2007-09-27T16:32:00.000-07:00

The Stick On The Left: (A Study in modern domestics)

Scene 1: (Howard is fiddling with the string which controls the horizontal blinds covering the lone window. Karen enters.)

Howard: What's the deal with these blinds?

Karen: You picked the color, I told you I didn't like it.

Howard: No, I mean the string doesn't make them go up and down.

Karen: Yes it does.

Howard: No like I want it to make them all move at the same time, you know, like... like making the window dimmer or whatever.

Karen: Oh no you use the stick on the left for that.

Howard: The stick?

Karen: Yeah, on the left.

(Curtain)

- - - -

Watching Cricket: (A Study in international relations)

Scene 1: (Chris sits in front of his TV. Nick enters.)

Chris: (flipping through channels) Hey I just got this English channel and I think there's a cricket match on.

Nick: Don't watch cricket, cricket sucks.... oh dude, dude, The Matrix, go back.

(Curtain)

- - - -

After A Car Crash: (A gripping tale of marital tension.)

Scene 1: (Kate arrives at the scene of a car wreck. She pulls Gene from the driver's seat. He is bleeding from a cut on his forehead.)

Kate: Jesus Gene, my car what happened?

Gene: I dunno, I didn't take your car. I just got here.

- - - -

Before A Car Crash: (A 'buddy' play)

Scene 1: (Gene and Max are at a bar)

Gene: I could totally do it.

Max: Bullshit.

Gene: I totally could. Here, I have the keys, do you have the mace on you now?

Max: Yeah.

Gene: Alright lets go. This is gonna be so dope.

- - - -

Fantasy Baseball: (The Girlfriend one)

Scene 1: (Steve and Heather are cooking together.)

Steve: Honey, do you know anything about Fantasy baseball?

Heather: No.

Steve: I guess it's an online thing.

Heather: Yeah, I think you're right.

Steve: I'd really rather it be by phone.

Heather: Oh, well yeah.

(curtain)

- - - -

More of this later, I'm sure. Right now it's chip time.

Well Hello Again

2007-09-26T21:02:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been ages since I've written anything, but here we are again, in front of our computers, me typing, you reading, perusing the Reuters "Oddly Enough" section, looking for an actual rock from the Agrocrag (GUTS), looking at that You're The Man Now Dog website (ytmnd.com) and being confused, disappointed, and confused again, whatever the hell else there is to do with the internet, porno, etc. etc.

Oh my, I have so much to say and yet I really don't want to get into it. Ever feel that way?

Well here's one thing:

I was thinking about eye contact today. Isn't eye contact bizarre? It makes me want to believe in ESP or something. Maybe I just don't fully understand the physiological nature of the ocular nerves or something, but I mean, when I look at my cat is sitting across the room, playing with some neumenon (sp? Is that even a word? Google is telling me that it isn't a word. I thought it was.) and we make eye contact, the animal responds. I guess all animals (and people) respond to subtle physical cues, but eye movement is so evocative that it's terrifying if you think about it too much.

I saw the following people at the Berklee performance center tonight:

Eugene Mirman, Sarah Vowell, Dave Eggers, Rodney Rothman, Via Audio, Mates Of State, Peter and Davy Rothbart, Kevin Barnes, and Brian Poole (BP Helium)

Eugene Mirman is hilarious. As is Flight of The Conchords (HBO), a show he is on. Sarah Vowell's book I have read (The Partly Cloudy Patriot) was also very funny. Dave Eggers was funnier this time. The last time I saw him, he was talking about Sudan, and it wasn't funny at all. Rodney Rothman invented Fresh Step, not the cat litter, the fake boy band, and I strongly suggest you find them on YouTube. Via Audio wasn't that good. Mates of State were fun, and the girl is pregnant, which was sweet, then I started thinking about the possible effects of being in the uterus of a touring rock musician. I suspect they're all awesome. Davy Rothbart edits Found Magazine, which is brilliant because he just publishes notes, funny grocery lists, postcards, receipts, and the like that people find on the street. His brother Peter plays songs about some of the things they find (one classic is about a letter from The King Of Midwestern Nissan Racing to his long lost love). Kevin Barnes and Brian Poole are in Of Montreal.

Funny story about Kevin Barnes burning the bitch three rows in front of me:

As KB and BP are tuning their guitars, Eugene Mirman (EM) comes out to stall a bit. This is what ensued:

EM: So let's have a quiz while I stall... um... Anyone know how you survive a bear attack?
(Crowd Member 1): You play dead.
EM: Actually no, the bear will just eat you.
Bitch Crowd Member: You run into an Outback Steakhouse!
KB: (deathstare)
EM: (oblivious to the reference) Well, I guess maybe if you're counting on doors confusing the animal...

Now, the Outback reference I'm sure wasn't intended as an insult, but it was really insulting. For those of you who are unaware, about a year ago Of Montreal sold a song to be used in an Outback commercial ("Let's pretend we don't exist/ Let's pretend we're in Antarctica" became "Let's get Outback tonight/ something something something something something something), and KB actually wrote a letter and put it online promising to use the money from the commercial to stage an elaborate tour. I saw this tour, and it was ridiculous. At one point, Barnes climbed a ten foot ladder covered in a massive dress and sang a song. More bells and whistles than you can imagine. It was like Queen and David Bowie and Parliament Funkadelic playing for two hours and every single person on stage is on ten drugs you've never heard of. (NB: I actually made that joke when I was at the show, and I think my buddy Dave at uhaulit.blogspot.com may have already credited me with it. It was funny though, and I will milk it for all it's worth.)

Anyway, KB must have been a little bothered by the whole thing. Even if you put the cash you make into your artwork, you've got to feel like you've compromised yourself a little bit, anyone would feel that way. But no one can hold it against the guy, we've all got to make money somehow. In all honesty, my only reaction to it was "Shit, someone at Outback PR is pretty hip."

So this girl makes the comment, Mirman doesn't know what the hell is going on, Barnes is pissed. Everything gets set up, and Of Montreal gets set to play their first song:

KB: Who said that about Outback?
Bitch: (raises hand)
KB: How old are you?
Bitch: Twenty six.
KB: What do you do for a living?
Bitch: (inaudible)
KB: Oh, well good for you.

DAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMNNNNN. Someone just got BURNED. I have to find a funny picture of a cat online and write something like "I'm in ur audience calling u out as an artist who compromises his principles and ur all making me look like the bitch I am."

I mean, the girl probably just wanted to be that person in the crowd who references some obscure thing the band did, making sure everyone can hear so that everyone, including the band can say "Oh, who was that, she's a real fan. I will applaud her, she is the greatest fan ever."

Didn't work out that way.

So let that be a lesson. Don't yell things at the band. God, I know, you're thinking, "But this will be so FUNNY!" It won't, man. It really won't.

That's the end of me, I'm going to bed, but it feels good to be writing here again. I hope you've enjoyed reading it.

Rough Day

2007-05-02T12:06:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to get into the hairy details of my bad day because I wouldn't be able to live with myself knowing that I'd complained about administrative paperwork and Mass Ave traffic and creative quandries. I might as well be a sixth grade girl bitching about the price of Mudd Jeans. Or whatever it is they care about.

For once, I do have to say something relatively serious, and it kind of sucks, but here it is.

I won't be putting anything that I write seriously on here anymore. I have a couple of stories that I've finished up, a lot of poems, and honestly, I like tossing those sorts of things around, and I think my friends enjoy reading them, but the bottom line is that you can't put anything on the internet that you don't want to be ripped off or stolen, and for the second time, that's happened to me.

It's a really weird feeling, I must say, regardless of the context and the details, I always just feel hurt. I'd like to try and tell myself that imitation is the highest form of flattery, but I can't escape the notion that someone just wants to have a laugh at me for whatever reason.

I dunno, if anyone has ever stolen something from you and taken credit in any sense, you know it's really enraging. It's like whispering an answer in class only to have the girl in front of you shout it out. Petty, yeah, and we need to let these things go, but nonetheless, you feel nothing but malice towards that person.

It could be worse. Some asshole stole Dave's entire computer last year and the poor guy lost a novel. I guess that's kind of different though.

Anyway, I'm no longer giving anyone the chance to steal my stuff. I do have a portfolio of a lot of things I have written that is accessible via the Lesley College System, so if you want to look at my serious stuff, just let me know and I'll give you access. Somehow. There will be an intense screening process.

But all that's here from now on is Red Sox banter, funny stories, dreams, and lame jokes.

That's really all anyone likes anyway, so it's not a huge loss.

Cheers.

This Is Useless

2007-05-01T22:27:00.000-07:00

Well, the semester is winding to a close and I'm running around like a crazy person.

Good news is I finished my psychology paper earlier today and I just finished a draft of a story about two friends and a cat called "Exposing Animals." That means all that's left is the poetry portfolio, the Literature paper, and a couple of finals.

And registration, which is kind of like an internet/paperwork version of the final round of Legends Of The Hidden Temple. I've been fumbling with that metaphoric monkey shrine bullshit for like three weeks now.

And I'm not going to even get into the issues I have with Residence Life.

Residence Life calls my house. My mother's house. Looking for me. The people in charge of the place I live in are calling my mother's house looking for me. I mean...

You know that old dating cliche, like, "He/She has to have a sense of humor?" I just realized today that it's like saying, "He/She has to have the body of a model."

There are a LOT of people with TERRIBLE senses of humor out there. And a lot of them seem to go to my college.

Alright, I'm getting snippy. I didn't have my nap today. Wait, yeah I did. Nathan bought me a burrito too. Things are looking up.

This Is Hilarious With Or Without A Context

2007-04-02T23:12:00.000-07:00

From The Boston Globe... or maybe the A.P.:

In that probe, police seized 1,653 pounds of marijuana, 128 pounds of cocaine bricks and a 2004 Cadillac XLT with "PAC-MAN" embroidered in the front seats. The car was not registered to Jones, who then bought the car at a police auction late last year.

Two Alphabet Poems

2007-04-01T22:13:00.000-07:00

I.

A Bentley carries daughters
elegantly, forever
gregarious home-bodies
in Japanese Kimonos, laughing
maniacally, nonchalant,
over perennial quamash.

Recently, Sarah (the unrivaled virgin,
wanton
xenophobe) yawned
zealously.

- - - -

II.

Another boy can dance electric
Faraway guns have imposed justly,
kindly,
lasting months, never
offering Pax
(Qua?) Romana

Stitches too use violent ways
Xylodian yen-- zen.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

2007-03-25T09:40:00.000-07:00

Every Sunday I wake up to some kind of Asian church service at the Episcopal Parish right next to my dorm. It's the most confusing thing you can possibly imagine. Hordes of asian people ( I think they're Chinese) shuffling into the church, back to their cars, speaking in a language that consists, I've come to believe, completely of vowel sounds. I drag myself out of bed and look out the window at them, past the empty wine bottles and the succulent cactus Rachael got me on my windowsill, and there they are. Bowing and muttering and carrying on. Do the Chinese bow? Maybe they're not Chinese. Or maybe they're just super polite Chinese. I don't know, my only point is that it's really weird and I'd like to find a way to make it stop.

Looking at the empty bottles of alcohol on my windowsill now, I'm realizing that as a drinker, I'm kind of bipolar. I mean, there's Domaine des Blagoeurs 2004 Syrah (whatever the hell that means) and then a $14 liter of Viking Fjord vodka. I should note that Dave bought that, I guess, but there's a pattern, and I can't blame him for the Seagrams 7 next to the Salmon Creek Chardonnay...

Wait, yeah I can.

Actually, Rachael and Dave account for like ninety percent of the booze on that windowsill. The only thing I can really claim as my own is the liter of Wild Turkey (delicious, by the way.)

I've got this bump on the inside of my middle finger that feels like an extra bit of bone, and sometimes it itches like hell. If it just hurt, I wouldn't be worried, but why would it itch? What is my body trying to tell me about that thing by making it itchy? It can't be anything good.

But there's no way I'm getting it checked out. I spent a couple of hours in the Emergency Room at Mt. Auburn yesterday with Rachael (she's fine, she just pulled a muscle in her foot or something) and I've had my fill of those places for a long time. I had to fight the urge, several times, to just say matter-of-factly, "She's late." Whenever someone asked "What seems to be the problem." It would have been hilariously inappropriate.

I don't even have a cohesive story here. I had three dreams last night:

In one, I was at my mother's house, and all of our neighbors had rented their houses out to be used to tape porno films.

In another, I was stationed on a river somewhere in the deep south with some kind of turn of the century military regiment. The porno bit kind of bled into that one... then there was a corpse floating down the river and a scorpion kept stinging the dead toe. I thought of the word "Omen."

In another I shot my brother in the face with a bow & arrow. The arrow was yellow. He didn't seem to get hurt, as I shot him several times, and he kept coming at me (there was some kind of battle involved) but I had the sense that I was hurting him.

There was that.

You know, I've been separating my recyclable bottles from my trash since I've been living here, and I sincerely doubt that the guys who take the trash out have any kind of access to recycling. I'm not going to stop separating though.

Jesus, time to take a shower.

Don't Let A Girl Buy The Body Wash

2007-03-17T10:44:00.000-07:00

Last night my girlfriend ended up staying with me in my dorm room because the weather was so bad. I, of course, did not have the following items available:

1) Soap- I ran out a few days ago.
2) Toothpaste- I ran out yesterday.
3) A hairbrush- I haven't owned one in years.

I'm sure that there were more things she would have liked to look "decent," but there were these three key things that needed to be replaced. Even I could admit that.

I'm telling you about this because if you're a man and you live alone and you need to buy body cleaning products, it's imperative that you do it alone. There is no such thing as gender neutral body wash. Bar soap, perhaps, but anyone who's ever lived in a dorm can agree that bar soap is just a terrible idea.

Here's what I have on my hands now:

NEW
Dove
Cream Oil
Body Wash
Ultra Rich
natural oil in
1/4 moisturizing cream
rosewood &
cocoa butter scent

And I'm only on the front of the bottle...

Here's a body wash that moisturizes your skin better than any regular body wash. Dove has embedded skin-loving natural oil in a rich cream- the result is the dreamy-creamy consistency of a cream with the silky-smooth skin feel from an oil.

Intensely moisturizing, but sensationally lathering. Indulging to senses, but nourishing to skin. Rich in oil, but not oily.

What a beautiful contradiction.

I mean, for the love of God. I wish I could find a picture of the bottle because it actually resembles a vagina.

My favorite part of this product: the dreamy-creamy consistency of a cream.

- - - -

Now, Rachael was humoring me a little bit with the first purchase, suggesting that it "smelled" gender neutral (it doesn't) and I just kind of ignored the pink, vaginal bottle.

But let's move on to item number 2:

Aveeno
Baby
PEDIATRICIAN
RECOMMENDED

LAVENDAR & VANILLA
Calming Comfort
Lotion
with Natural Collodial Oatmeal
Dimethicone Skin Protectant
Helps Heal & Protect
Delicate Skin
Moisturizes for 24 Hours
Helps Calm Babies
before Bedtime

I'm not even going to get into what's on the back of this guy.

(NB: I hear that if you shoot Dimethicone , it actually is really relaxing.)

Rachael has, then, effectively moved from women's products to baby products.

I can only find solace in the sleek, masculine form of my INTENSE CREST WHITENING TOOTHPASTE.

We forgot to get the toothbrush, thank God. Just the body wash alone made me want to pull a Buffalo Bill (Silence Of The Lambs) and tuck it in in the shower, and a sparkly hair brush might have sealed the deal.

Did I mention that I carry all of this (along with a bottle of face wash and one of those poofy things) in a purple shower-tote, wrapped in my once white towel that is now a soothing pastel pink because I washed it with a red blanket?

Why does this come to mind:

"I will BEAT the fag out of you, you fairy princess."
-T.D. Sullivan, February, 2000

- - - -

Oh, and a Happy St. Patrick's Day to everyone. If you're ethnically Irish, don't talk about it too much. I mean, I know you think it's cool and everything, you've seen Boondock Saints thirty times, whatever. I'm largely Irish too, you know, so, great, but can we not make a huge deal of it?

Why can't this just be a holiday about hating snakes? I'd rather get drunk and shit talk snakes for a day then listen to someone get drunk and fake an Irish accent in Jamaica Plain.

- - - -

Forget it, Happy Evacuation Day. Everybody hates imperial soldiers, right?

I Am Exhausted

2007-03-01T23:01:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted anything significant in awhile because I've been working on this story, plus reading like nine books at once, so I really haven't had time.

Good news is, at 2:02 AM on 2 March, I finished the initial draft of "Save My Soul, Set Me Free," the short story I've been working on.

I think I've got it mapped out pretty well, the characters are developed okay, but at under 3000 words, it definately needs some editing and additions. I have a few scenes in mind that I'm excited to add, once I edit the first draft a little bit and get the pace right. Right now it kind of speeds up and slows down, some parts feel forced, and the flashbacks, the temporality (that's a word, yeah?) in general feels awkward.

All told, I'm looking at 4500 to 5000 words. No more than 5000 though. If I cross that line, I might as well keep going and make it a book.

- - - -

I finished the story and looked out my window at the Longfellow house. It's just starting to snow. No turning back now.

"Art wants to save from death a living image of our passions and our suffering."
-Albert Camus

- - - -

Did you see Pan's Labyrinth yet? It's way more depressing and violent than you think it is. Great movie, but just be aware of the fact that Spanish Fascists kill a peasant in front of his father by beating his face in with a bottle of wine within the first twenty minutes or so, and it just continues on from there. Really graphic at points.

My mother's going to be upset just reading that. Skip this one, Mama, and I'm sorry.

It's a beautifully executed movie, brilliantly acted, brilliantly shot, but even I get tired of all this suffering. Let's all just watch Little Miss Sunshine again and forget that the Spanish Civil War ever happened.

Best Line In The Movie:

"You aren't the first pig I've gutted."
-Mercedes, (just before tearing the captain's face open from the inside of the cheek outward with a kitchen knife)

Funniest Translation Moment:

"My mother is sick with baby."
-Ofelia (almost-too-appropriately named protagonist)

- - - -

Alright, goodnight.

SWEET DREAMS!

Just So We're All Clear:

2007-02-24T22:28:00.000-08:00

Kevin Barnes gets naked on stage in Las Vegas for world peace.

Well, not entirely naked. He was wearing leggings and a flashy cummerbund. And makeup. The point is, you could see his penis, and I just spellchecked the word "cummerbund."

Go hunt the whole story down on Pitchfork.

I don't have time to get into it.

Do Something Useful With YouTube For Once

2007-02-17T14:20:00.000-08:00

If you're bored sometime and you've watched one too many thirty second videos of tweeners playing with diet pepsi and mentos, search Google Video for a BBC three part documentary called "The Power Of Nightmares."

I just watched the last installment, and it's really interesting and informative.

I did not know, for instance, that Al Qaeda isn't real. Thank you BBC.

I'd put the links here, but you know, I'm tired, so just search yourself.

Goddamn Astronatuts

2007-02-06T06:29:00.001-08:00

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - - (02/06/07)-- A Space Shuttle astronaut is due in court today to face charges stemming from what police believe is a love triangle involving a fellow astronaut.

(That's right-- space-sex.)

Forty-three-year-old Lisa Nowak is jailed in Orlando, Florida, on charges that include attempted kidnapping and battery after a confrontation with a woman that she considered her romantic rival.

(Think Match-Point, but weightless. The woman, incidentally works at Denny's.)

Nowak is a married mother of three who flew to the international space station last July. According to her official NASA biography, she is a U.S. Naval Academy graduate who has a master's degree in aeronautical engineering.

(And a PhD in "being a psychotic bitch." That was too easy.)

Authorities say the object of her affection is Navy Commander William Oefelein, who piloted space shuttle Discovery in December. Oefelein is not married.

(Equipped with a rotating bed and condom machines next to the vacuum that sucks your waste out of the craft, Discovery has long been regarded as the swinginest bachelor shuttle NASA ever built.)

Police say Nowak drove 900 miles from Houston to Orlando, where she confronted the other woman in an airport parking lot. Police say Nowak was dressed in disguise and armed with a B-B gun and pepper spray.

(Nowak was apprehended on the side of the road, as she was forced to abandon her car because several side tiles had fallen off during her initial take-off)

(... Okay, and seriously, a BB gun and pepper spray? You're an astronaut. You have access to weapons, here.)

- - - -

Astro crime is really becoming a problem.

Too Soon?

2007-02-03T10:03:00.000-08:00

I'm going to strap a bunch of Lite-Brite advertisements to my chest and try to rob a bank.

Maybe build an enormous Lite-Brite that looks like a bomb.

BAGHDAD (AP): Insurgents are turning to the home-made, rocket propelled Lite-Brite, which is inaccurate, but powerful.

Roadside Lite-Brites killed three Americans and several civilians yesterday...

Have Some Fun With This

2007-02-03T08:47:00.000-08:00

I normally feel really depressed after taking these online quizzes, but this one is somehow life-affirming. It's only twelve questions, and they're all very strange. (Note the question about "equipment." A bit unnerving.)

And I hear The Secret Language Of Sleep makes a pretty hip Valentine's Day Gift. You can find it on McSweeney's or Amazon.

Take The Quiz, son.

"God Started The Civil Rights Movement."

2007-02-01T09:19:00.000-08:00

I had this dream late last night that honestly made me laugh when I woke up.

The dream had kind of a nice feel to it in the beginning- I was with a group of my friends and we were all going to the beach. We split up into two cars, and started along our way. Everyone was happy, Nathan bought a bunch of Taquitos and they were delicious, all's right with the world.

After a bit of driving however, Rachael tells me that, "It's Sunday, and we have to go to church."

Now immediately, I'm ready to protest because that doesn't make any sense to me, but everyone else in the car kind of agrees silently, like what she said was totally normal, so we all parade into this small church on the side of the road in our bathing attire.

All the ushers look like Lil John, and they're really friendly.

I sit down at a pew, and everyone else I'm with sits behind me. There are these blankets and pillows on the pews, like they're beds, and everyone kind of wraps themselves up while sitting there, despite the fact that it's hot as hell.

I'm getting anxious, I want to go to the damn beach.

Then, a woman with some kind of physical deformity afflicting one of her arms stands up and says "Now, you know that this month is black history month, and I was wondering if I could as you all some questions about civil rights."

Now, first of all, February is black history month, and it's summer wherever the hell I am.

She asks, "Does anyone know who started the civil rights movement?"

A little girl in the front row says, "Nelson Mandella? Marcus Garvey? Malcom X?" (This is verbatim, seriously.)

Then, I look up at the priest, who's smiling smugly and shaking his head, pointing to the light coming through the window directly above and behind him and he says "God started the civil rights movement."

It's at this point that I said "OK," and got up to leave. Pillows went everywhere, hitting the guy sitting next to me, and I weaved my way between a small band playing some hymn that everyone else was just reciting the lyrics to flatly, then past a table of elderly people in hospital johhnie's with IV things, just going "Wmmaaammamwwwwaaammmaa."

When I get outside everyone's laughing again, and one of the ushers is outside smoking weed and listening to a Lil John song play on his cellphone. Nathan and I eat the last two taquitos, which have melted and subsequently congealed a little strangely in the car.

Before the dream ends I'm terrified that I've forgotten to pick my brother up somewhere.

I'm An Idiot

2007-01-31T20:36:00.000-08:00

God, I'm a moron. I'm too stupid for words. But I'll spare you the story, I just wanted you all to know that I'm an idiot, and I deserve to be beaten senseless.

- - - -

So Dave lent me his copy of Michel Houellebecq's Platform, and after a few chapters, I'm not sure how I feel. The writing is pretty egotistical, and by that I mean (NB: The rest of this post is going to be a little disjointed because my train of thought keeps being run right off the fucking tracks by loud sex somewhere nearby. Nothing like a college dorm room. I should've gone to Jesuit school.) the writer keeps popping through the character... the character himself isn't too likable, typically French, withdrawn and speculative to the precipice of cynicism... I can't seem to find a revealing passage at the moment, and I'm not entirely sure that it isn't intentional. The main character shares a name, for instance, with the author, so I suspect that he may be examining the relationship between the author and the character...

Alright, seriously, I can't take this anymore.

I hear the syph is running rampant around here. Henry Miller called it "the syph," and I will do the same. I didn't actually hear that. I guess I'll start telling people that I did though.

Is Bosnia A Balkan Country?

2007-01-29T16:18:00.000-08:00

I just got a very unnecessary coffee with Rachael in Harvard Square, and I actually didn't tell her this story, which is bizarre, because it's one of those things you tend to tell people. She asked "How was skating?" and I said, "Ok."

Now, I didn't mention any of this:

I'm sitting on the bench by the small rink of sorts at Harvard Law (NB: The rink is frozen over the volleyball court, and I noticed that they actually have the Harvard emblem painted into the ice in the middle. The only time I think I ever skated somewhere with a painted emblem was at the Boston Garden, as a small child, in an extremely hurried affair after my father played a game there. I think I remember him shouting at the zamboni driver, anyway, back to the actual story:) lacing my skates up, and these two women sit down with a pretty cute little kid, and they're all speaking in what sounds like it might be Russian. I wasn't sure, some Balkan tongue. So they start putting skates on this kid, who looks to be about four or five, and they're laughing, the kids skates are women's skates and they're way too big, and he's probably going to hurt himself, but you know, you've been in this situation before- very heavily and proud ethnic people doing something they clearly do not understand. I know you've all seen the Chinese lady with a million shopping bags (all full of scallions, for some reason) trying to operate the Charlie Ticket machine. There are just certain activities that render certain people generally inept. Generally, I'm saying. And the Charlie Ticket is tough even for me, but I mean, come on, lady, I know you can do better than this.

I pissed off a Spanish guy the other day because I paid for my entire train fare in dimes and nickels.

I'm getting way off topic, but it was important that I establish the scene. Racially.

And I don't want to sound like a racist. Put me in any other country in the world and I guarantee I'd have trouble doing at least a few things that the natives do every day.

So to set the tone, these people were clearly missing some critical element when it came to skating. Everyone else at the little pond looked at these guys as if to say, "I don't know how to say this, but you're going to step onto that ice, and I'm going to step onto that ice, and you're not going to be having as much fun as I am."

There was chaos. The kid's already walking out of these skates, he's uncomfortable, the sister (I'm guessing) is getting a little loud, and the mother has this look on her face like "Why did I think this was going to be a good idea?"

Keep in mind it's like less than twenty degrees out. If there is one universal language, it is the language of mothers. Especially when they realize they have made a mistake like this.

If there is one language that is not universal (and there is actually a few of them, like German, French, Spanish, English, and the like) it is whatever these people were speaking. But apparently no one told them that, because the minute they stepped onto the ice, they started speaking to me. Directly to me. In another language.

Now, of course, I didn't realize this for at least five minutes because they weren't speaking English, so I assumed that they were speaking amongst themselves (the kid's falling all over the place, and I'm waiting for him to break an ankle, by the way. The others take no notice of this), but no, I slowly realize, the "EY! EY! EY!" was directed, was always directed, right at this guy.

I figure this out because the daughter (again, assumed) grabs me from behind. At first I think she's falling so (being a fairly adept skater) I spin around to catch her. At first I'm disappointed, because it probably would have been a pretty impressive catch, but instead I'm just stuck staring blankly into the beaming face of a twelve year old, quickly coming to the realization that the catch-move probably left a somewhat contorted grimace of athletic prowess on my own face that is now laughable, given the fact that the situation didn't call for any real athletic movement whatsoever, and then she starts speaking to me.

And, over the course of maybe twenty minutes, all three of these people start talking to me, in whatever language they speak, with absolutely no regard for the fact that I do not speak the language.

By the end, I was just trying to have fun with it, I mean, what else can you do? And remember, we're going around in circles the whole time. It could have been like any one of these:

- - - -

GIRL: Please, you must help us. My brother and I have been in the care of this woman since the war...

ME: What? I'm sorry, I don't speak... uh...

GIRL: She locked Bishnov, that is my brother's name, in the closet once with the chemicals she makes me clean the floors with...

ME: Listen, listen, I can't-

GIRL: Please call the police-

MOTHER: The police will not help you, whore, nor can this very talented and extremely handsome man who skates in front of us!

GIRL: This is not Bosnia! You cannot commandeer us this way under the American Laws! Your sex favors for the secret police will not have the same effect that they once had! I will run away with Bish, my tiny flower!

BISH: The chemicals from the hell closet have rendered me blind and incapable of skating or judging the size of my shoes!

GIRL: The one who skates very well will be my husband here!

ME: Listen, I really don't want to get involved here, uh, I think you might have the wrong guy...

MOTHER: Let's sing a song!

ALL THREE: Let's go to the college, let's go to the rink, the rink that is frozen behind the college. There we will make someone extremely uncomfortable by speaking to him in a language he does not understand, all hail premier Jagushbig, all hail premier Jagushbig

- - - -

GIRL: I like your face! It reminds me of the face of our leader. He has microphones everywhere, and he kills those who speak ill of him.

ME: What? I'm sorry, I don't speak... uh...

GIRL: I am afraid he has placed a microphone in the body of my brother, so I am praising him.

ME: Listen, listen, I can't-

GIRL: With a face like the Premier, I would like to kill your wife and take you for my own.

MOTHER: You are crazy! The Premier has no spies here, on the frozen rink that I do not understand!

GIRL: This is the logic that killed our father and lost Bish's good fitting skates!

BISH: I will wear my punishment skates even in America.

GIRL: You see! So loyal, the man who skates very well and is attractive can see that Bish is one of Premier's spies!

- - - -

I could go on and on with this, but I think I'll just stop right here, before this just turns into an episode of Borat.

Just An Observation

2007-01-22T18:51:00.000-08:00

I live in a dorm, and on my floor there are about thirty rooms, single, double, and triple occupancy. Each of these rooms is pretty spacious, and many are well furnished.

There's also a pretty well stocked lounge downstairs, and a full kitchen.

So what the fuck is everyone doing in the hallway, outside my door, at four in the morning?

Go To School

2007-01-22T06:49:00.000-08:00

It's ten minutes to nine in the morning, and I'm not going to discuss the Patriots at all. I'm just going to sit here and drink espresso on an empty stomach so that my gullet rumbles enough to dent the Richter Scale in my poetry class, thus ostracizing me for the semester.

I had one e-mail in my inbox today, and it was this:

Please join other colleagues today from 3:15 to 4:30 pm in Marran Theater for a presentation and discussion with Dr. Jeffrey Kane, a candidate for President of Lesley University. The session is open to all faculty, administrators, staff and students.

Is that not the most boring shit imaginable? I believe that a good number of you reading this actually attend one of these "Colleges" or "Universities," and let me ask you this: Do you have any idea what the President does? Have you ever wondered? Is there a hair on your head that cares?

The only way I'm going is if the candidate is Dr. Darth Vader.

Because that would kick ass.

- - - -

Man, I can't understand what is wrong with the birds around here. Their morning songs are so unpleasant- they sound earnestly shocked. A normal bird wakes up, stretches a little and says "Oh, how nice, morning! We had one of those earlier, before that night thing, and it was wonderful, and look! Look! It's back!"

These birds just scream like they fear morning: "JESUS CHRIST THE SUN, GOD NO!, OH MY GOD WHERE AM I? WHERE ARE THE KIDS? I DON'T KNOW WHERE I AM. WHAT TREE IS THIS?"

Panic birds.

Alright enough Andrew, you're not funny, you're just exhausted. Go to school.

Reason To Call Me A Daisy Fairy Man No. 965

2007-01-20T21:29:00.000-08:00

I change the channel every time a trailer for The Messengers interrupts Saturday Night Live.

The Last Word On Winter Break

2007-01-19T17:25:00.000-08:00

Taking one last look at my winter break, I try to figure out just what I should do differently next year, which will (hopefully) be the last year that I have a winter break.

1) Get a job.

A job is something that I haven't had since the summer, and I'm beginning to see the benefits. I'll be able to get an apartment, I'll have money to do things that I'd like to do, and I won't spend my days sleeping, picking through the cabinets of my house like a rodent in my underwear, and watching reruns of shows I didn't even know existed on the sci fi channel.

2) Take a class.

Lesley has this mini semseter thing that I feel not enough people take advantage of, and I'm one of them. It's a three credit class I'd be taking (maybe even more than one), I still get a couple of weeks off for the holidays, and I'm guessing that the work isn't that hard. Considering I dropped one of my four classes last semester, it would be a good idea.

3) Join a rec league at Hockeytown.

That's just self-explanatory.

- - - -

I'm sitting at home, on my last Friday night in ye olde Wakefield homestead, watching NESN's college hockey night, and I'm realizing that this is what Wakefield will do to a man. I think I'm pretty much the last of my friends here, and I'm turning, slowly, into a DPW worker. I'm wearing a big flannel shirt, I haven't showered today, I just ate an entire pepperoni pizza out of the box, and I'm fighting an enormous urge to drink beer right now.

At least I'm not at the Dockside. I could be at the dockside. Wearing Timberlands.

- - - -

Rachael comes back from Japan on Monday night, the day that I start classes, so my days of not doing anything are numbered. I should learn to appriciate them.

God DAMMIT am I thirsty. College hockey night and pepperoni pizza makes a man thirsty in a way so few things do.

I think I understand the cat more than I did, after spending a month or two inside with her.

Jesus, I've written enough about this. I'll write when I have something to say.

A Day In The Life

2007-01-16T14:45:00.000-08:00

I woke up last night at about 3:30 in the morning in the midst of a nightmare involving my girlfriend and LaDainian Tomlinson.

I couldn't get back to sleep.

I took a shower a little past 6:00, drove my brother to school, drove my mother to work, and went to the RMV to get my license renewed.

I came home, fell asleep watching Naked Science: Super Volcano, woke up at noon to something about Vietnam and the cat scratching my jeans.

I had to pick my brother up a little after noon, earlier than usual because he had a shortened day of school for some kind of test, so I picked him up, came back home, went to sleep watching the thing about Vietnam again.

I had a dentist appointment at 2:00, so I woke up at 1:30, brushed my teeth and flossed, madly trying to cover up the fact that I don't take care of my teeth well enough, because dentists are judgemental people, and I fear them because they're in my mouth.

I hadn't gone to the dentist in a long time either (two and a half years), so the gore was unbelieveable. I still don't know how she pulled that much bloody pulp out of my face, or just what it had to do with getting my teeth clean.

From there, I returned home to nurse my wounds and pick up my mother at work, then I watched something about The SS, ate a steak bomb, and, at the moment, I'm in the middle of an hour and a half block of Seinfeld.

Do you really want to know what I plan to do from here on out? Because I have no idea.

Massachusetts Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

2007-01-02T13:38:00.000-08:00

After dealing with a few days of boredom, I borrowed my mother's car the other night and watched Platoon (Oliver Stone, 1986) with Rachael and her brother.

I hadn't seen the movie in awhile, and I'd forgotten how good it is. I strongly recommend you see it.

I mean, look at that picture. How bad-ass is that?

The Holidays are over. I spent New Years in Rhode Island. That was fun.

I'm trying to sum up just what this holiday break has been for me, and I must say that it's mostly been marked by boredom, with a few splashes of something strange (Platoon, Tim's absurd fireworks display on New Years Eve, trying to teach Rachael to throw a hip check, etc.).

I bought Henry Miller's Tropic Of Capricorn because I'm halfway through Dave Eggers' What Is The What, and I don't know how much hip San Francisco writing I can take. No luck locating the Houellebecq book I've been pining for, so Miller will have to do. I've heard this isn't as good as Tropic Of Cancer, but we'll just have to see.

I wish I had a stupid job.

I turn 21 in nine days, and I'm going through the process of renewing my license, which, I am told, cannot be done prior to the exact date that the license expires, on my birthday. I really hope that I get pulled over on my way to the RMV and I get guff for an expired license. It could happen, I know it could, and with my luck, it may very well go down.

Jesus, I never thought I'd say this, but I want to go back to school.

The days of catching up with your friends and feeling good about things in general over the college breaks are kind of over, at least, in terms of this winter break. Summer is an entirely different story, I think, but this season has been a bit of a drag.

I see these people and I no longer know what to think. They're not at all the people they were when I really knew them, and I am no longer the person that they knew, and we try to get around that fact. We talk about what we're doing now. Our boyfriends, our girlfriends, our major, who's going to grad school, what the best plan of action is, the peace corps, who's going to get married- all of it. Why? No one is hanging on to anything any longer. No one is keeping up any kind of an appearance.

I left a friend I hadn't seen in over a year today and said "It was good to see you." She agreed, and I stood on my lawn, fumbling for my keys, overcome with the sort of sadness I feel when I drive past the old toy store my mother and I frequented, the boarded up Purity Supreme supermarket- all those stores are gone- it's an entire place I left behind.

Everything changes, and everything has always changed, but recently, it's changed a lot. Maybe you've felt it, seen it as well.

I sit next to Rachael, in my basement, watching John Cusak do his best Nick Hornby impression, listing off the Top Five Reasons For This Or That, and I think that my eyes are no longer my own. I think of what they've seen in this basement. The other people that have sat in her place, the other things I've seen on this television. I should be able to see the similarities, but I can't. It all feels so new. And it makes me think that maybe all that which happened before was for nothing. It's dead now in a way that only a memory can die- as if it never existed at all.

I know that there is a part of everything that will always stay with me, the part that has shaped me, and that part comes to me in abstract memory; in scents and colors that I've never seem, born on my eyelids when I shut them tight and I'm looking at a certain sky, a certain road, a certain face. I can hear it in a laugh, the cry of a bird in the morning, but I find myself looking away quite often. I don't want to go back there. I know it's waiting to burst forward, to the front of my head, push at my eyes and my mouth and try to free itself

"YOU CANNOT REMEMBER ME, YOU CANNOT REMEMBER I, YOU CANNOT REMEMBER THIS PLACE BECAUSE THERE IS NO NEED. THERE IS NO NEED TO REMEMBER A WORLD YOU NEVER LEFT."

I love my friends, and they transcend this reminiscing. They don't exist in my memories. Memories of them surround me, surround them, tie us together in invisible knots.

It's the pain that really sits in memory, and my memory's good, just as sharp as the sting of it all.

- - - -

I guess I've just got too much idle time. I wish I had a stupid job.

Lame Joke #2

2006-12-23T11:48:00.000-08:00

My girlfriend and I have trust issues. We're both compulsive gamblers and addicted to crack cocaine. There isn't a cent left in the thing.

- - - -

I apologize for these. It's Christmas, and I've been busy.

Lame Joke #1

2006-12-14T18:34:00.000-08:00

It didn't hit me at first, but by the time I was about halfway through my beer I realized the horrible mistake I'd made. The cawing, the flattened roadkill on the menu: This was a crow-bar.

Oh, Vagrants

2006-12-10T20:58:00.000-08:00

I'm waiting in the deli line with Rachael today at Stop & Shop in Dorchester, she's getting a pound of everything: cheese, roast beef, turkey, all pounds. I'm from a half-pound-sliced-thin family, and the pounds look inherently flawed.

One of the women behind the counter looks past me and says "Hey, you gotta get out of here- if a manager sees you, they're gonna throw you out."

I've been spacing out a little bit (sandwich meats have that effect on me), so for a split second I think she's talking to me, then I realize there's this bum hobbling around, asking people for change as only a true bum can: in the bum vernacular that is essentially just sprawling incoherence.

What struck me was the fact that not only was he in a store, he was in a supermarket. Now, the only reason that most people ever give a bum change is if they're sure that they're actually helping a guy out, that meaning, they need some kind of an indication of what the bum intends to purchase.

If you're begging for change in a supermarket, it could go either way. It either seems like this guy is just cutting out the middle man (that being the walk from the corner to the store) or he's just broadening his horizons a bit, and he's going to buy crack.

I figured out, after seeing him walking around eating food off of the shelves, that he was probably going to be buying crack, and I felt like stopping him and explaining the error of his ways.

This guy didn't just steal an apple either, he went to the fucking soup and salad bar and picked out a meal, filled up some tupperware, and continued asking for:

"manadollahhelpamanagotsouthummmininsidethebestkindohohohdatsdawone"

Bum had balls, I'll give him that, but he forgot about one thing: the debit card.

This is, I'll be honest, how I get out of giving bums change. In the days before debit, I had learned to tighten the muscles in my thight so as to muffle any jingling of change coming from my pocket as I passed them.

But with the advent of the debit card, I am useless to a bum.

"Sorry man, no cash on me."

That's it. Game over Jamal.

That's not a racial joke, seriously, I knew a bum named Jamal that used to hang out downtown. He was alright, then I learned he was a heroin addict, and it saddened me a bit. He seemed pretty well put together in a lot of ways. I didn't stop giving him change, he was always smiling.

Probably because all of my change kept him fucked up twenty four hours a day. Whatever.

- - - -

I said earlier in this that people are less willing to give bums change if they feel they'll be buying drugs with the money. I think that's a really terrible way to look at things. If you're gonna give a bum change, just do it. Don't judge the guy, he's living on the street, in his own filth, being judged by everybody walking by him. Cut him some slack. I'm not saying you should give them cash all the time, I hardly ever do it myself, but, when I do, I give it out like it's nothing. Like your buddy needs an extra quarter to get on the train. You're not Mother Theresa. Flip the guy a quarter and maybe give him a nod.

Maybe I'm too much of an idealist, but I think sometimes that it's not too hard to make somebody's day.

- - - -

It'd make my mom's day if I got a decent grade on this paper I'm putting off, so back to that.

King Of Weird Dreams

2006-12-08T10:32:00.000-08:00

I had this dream last night (actually early this morning) that I was shopping with my mother. First off, she was driving like ninety miles an hour all the way to the store, and I was terrified. I think I was actually whimpering because we were going so fast around these tight turns, I was sure we were going to crash. But we didn't. We made it to this bizarre shopping area that I guess was kind of a strip mall. We had to walk through a KB Toys to get anywhere else. Some old woman with a walker said something really cryptic on the way out of KB Toys, but I can't remember what it was.

Walking through the parking lot again (or maybe this happened first, I can't remember the sequence) my mother stops at a mini van with the door open and starts going through all the shit inside of it, which looks like CDs and index cards in a bunch of canvas book bags. I don't know if she's stealing or what, but she starts saying something like "They can't possibly stay organized like this," referring to the index cards, I think. I say, irritated, "Well, maybe they just have another method, would you get out of their car before someone sees?" The the car's owner comes back.

It's a young couple, and the husband seems to be more than happy to explain some kind of organizational method to my mother, but I think he's talking about something other than what she was referencing. As I'm about to say something, I realize how insane this all is and I just start walking away.

Eventually, my mother catches up with me, and we stop in this sandwich place for lunch before we start shopping. The place is dirty. There's a blue countertop, the room is big, but there are no chairs. The guy behind the counter is fat and dirty and he keeps denying our orders, saying that there's no this or no that or they don't make this after one in the afternoon. He's got some kind of southern drawl, his gut is hanging out, and I despise him, but we can't leave. We have to get a sandwich.

My mother finally gets her sandwich with some success, and I ask if they have steak and cheese subs. The guy's face lights up and he says "Of course we do, and here's one right here, already made!" He wraps it messily up in clear plastic. It looks disgusting. Interestingly, the bread is in the shape of a hand. My mother is irritated because I unknowingly ordered the most expensive thing on the menu.

Then my mother goes crazy. She leaves her sandwich at the counter and runs outside. I follow her. She goes back to the minivan. She is laughing and playing with the entire family in the minivan. I think she is embarassing herself, I tell her we have to leave, but the family seems to like her. They think she's funny. They don't understand that she's going crazy. I finally run off feeling defeated, flustered, alone, and I hurl my stupid sandwich at a car and scream "THIS FUCKING WORLD!" at the top of my lungs. As I do, my brother is there, and he says, you ruined a perfectly good ham sandwich. I say "It was a fucking steak and cheese." he replies, laughing, "Oh, jeeze, sorry."

I look down and my sweater is dangling in a small puddle. I'm on my knees. I can see a little bit of my breath, which is weird, because it wasn't cold out. Someone says "Oh my god, look, it's snowing!" and it's Rachael. I stand up and I'm in front of my dorm, walking with her to her car, and it is snowing.

The weird part is that I really did do that last part like an hour before I had the dream.

If I Worked At The Pharmacy

2006-12-05T11:25:00.000-08:00

CRUSH TABLETS UNDER ONE DOLLAR BILL WITH BASE OF LIGHTER, COOK CONTENTS OF TABLET WITH WATER IN TABLESPOON, ABSORB LIQUID FROM SPOON WITH COTTON SWAB, TRANSFER CONTENTS OF SWAB TO HYPODERMIC SERINGE, INJECT CONTENTS OF SERINGE INTO LEFT ARM. MAY CAUSE DROWSINESS. ALCOHOL AND THE VELVET UNDERGROUND MAY INTENSIFY THIS EFFECT.

POUR CONTENTS INTO A SMALL PLASTIC SANDWICH BAG, PLACE SANDWICH BAG OVER MOUTH & NOSE AND INHALE DEEPLY. DEFINATELY OPERATE HEAVY MACHINERY, IT WILL BE FUNNY LATER.

TAKE ONE TABLET BEFORE ENTERING NIGHTCLUB, DRINK THREE GIN & TONICS, LOOK AT YOUR WATCH AND SAY "IT'S NOT WORKING," TAKE TWO MORE TABLETS IN THE BATHROOM, DANCE FOR TEN MINUTES, SMOKE EIGHTY CIGARETTES OUTSIDE AND TALK ABOUT KAFKA FOR THREE HOURS WITH YOUR GIRLFRIEND.

PINCH POWDER FROM SMALL PLASTIC SANDWICH BAG ONTO COMPACT MIRROR, MIRROR REMOVED FROM WALL, GLASS COFFEE TABLE, OR FRANK ZAPPA CD CASE. BREAK POWDER INTO AN EVEN FINER POWDER WITH YOUR DRIVER'S LICENSE, STUDENT ID, OR BARNES & NOBLE GIFT CARD. ROLL A TEN DOLLAR BILL INTO A TIGHT TUBE. SWEAT A LITTLE BIT. INSERT SAID BILL INTO NASAL CAVITY AND INHALE POWDER. WRING HANDS, SWEAT MORE, SMOKE EIGHTY CIGARETTES AND TALK ABOUT KAFKA (OR TUPAC) FOR THREE HOURS WITH YOUR GIRLFRIEND.

I'm Rather Well Cultured, And This Comforts Me.

2006-12-01T01:02:00.000-08:00

Rachael Gammie is going to have anonymous sex in a Japanese Love Hotel and ruin my life.

- - - -

Seriously though, Rachael is going to Japan, and I'm reading this article in Believer magazine about the video artist Laurel Nakadate, who films herself in various sexual positions, alone in a love hotel. I could go on and explain the film's meaning, but the main point is that it momentarily freaked me out... You should just read the article.

I'm Just Going To Jump Right Into This One

2006-11-28T11:49:00.000-08:00

I had this dream last night. I was in a warehouse, not too big, but kind of dark, with maybe thirty other people. A movie was being shot, and I was in the movie, but all we were doing was playing football. With a wedding ring. The ring was the football.

Patrick Swayze was on my team, but he was really annoying me, so I punched the shit out of him. I mean, I really did damage. He wouldn't stop talking shit.

So in the middle of this, they're rolling cameras, lights and all this stuff, I'm beating up Swayze, and Deion Sanders comes up with the ring and starts running on me and Swayze's side.

So I tell Swayze to start blocking for him, but he's still being a jerk, so I drag him up the field and use his body to block, punching him in the face occassionally for good measure.

Deion gets to the endzone, which is a rubber mat, maybe six feet long by three feet deep, but he realizes he lost the ring in the process. It's on the ground, I see, and I recover it, hand it to Deion, and we score.

Then I woke up.

The Great Nintendo Conquest

2006-11-21T11:36:00.000-08:00

I wanted to wait a little while to talk about this, to let things settle in a bit before I made any attempt at expressing myself, because telling a story is never that easy when you really want to do it right, and it gets a lot harder when your story is about waiting in line at a Target in Saugus at five o'clock in the morning to be one of the blessed souls to whom the fine people at Nintendo will entrust a "Wii" entertainment system.

My brother and I were number 54 in a group of 60.

The story really starts around seven pm Saturday night, when Rachael and I got back to my house in Wakefield and watched Elf in it's entirety on cable television before meeting Zach and Sarah, making a brief pitstop at the Bridge's household, then going to Salem. Once we were in Salem, Zach and Sarah shared a gallon of red wine and Rachael and I had a few Heineken's while we watched Lucky Number Slevin, which was actually pretty cool, believe it or not. Rachael dropped me off in Wakefield around 2:30 in the morning, and I went in the house, put on pyjamas, and drank a glass of eggnog.

So that should set the tone. That's the end of the first part of the story. To recap:
Rachael, Home, Movie #1, Zach & Sarah, Mr. Bridges, Wine, Heineken, Salem, Movie #2, Home, PJs, Eggnog.

Now I can start the second part of the story. I lay down and fall asleep for maybe fifteen minutes, then I hear my brother wake up. We go downstairs together, and we go to amazon.com, where we intend to spend the next couple of hours refreshing the order page, because, Matt's guessing, The Holy Wii is going to be released online at 3:00 EST (midnight PST). This, of course, doesn't happen, and so I put on a pot of coffee (which I immediately forget about) and tell my brother I'm going back to bed.

Since we can't get the thing on amazon, we're going to have to go to Target. So I get to sleep until like 5:00 am, then we leave.

I take some coffee with me, but I think I totally screwed up the bean-to-water ratio, and it tastes horrible.

Now if anyone ever wanted to have a nerd genocide, what they would do is make up a really kick ass video game and release it at Targets and wal-Marts across the nation, then about an hour before the slated release date, they'd just gas the line. I was actually worried that this might actually happen for awhile. There was a street cleaning device circling the parking lot that looked highly suspect.

The nerds looked like junkies. My brother and I really didn't fit in. I should clarify something- my brother's a nerd, yes, but he's a very tolerable and likeable nerd- and all in all, he'sno nerdier than I am, it's just that I'm a nerd with books and music, and he's a nerd with video games. His interest in video games has the same depth and understanding that my interest in books and music does. Does that make sense? And the kid reads too, he's not... he's just not like the rest of them.

These kids in line look desperate. Matt looks a little tired, maybe excited, just a bit, but nowhere near desperate. One guy in front of me is in line waiting to buy one for his twenty seven year old son, who is himself waiting in line at another store. A pack of smaller kids wait with their mothers behind us. The kids all have diamond earrings and call their respective mothers "Ma."

We call our mother "Mama" (MUM-ah). "Ma," before the age of twenty five is totally unacceptable if you're living north of the Mason-Dixon line. A Northern "Ma" is senile.

(NB: Rachael switches between variations on "Mom." This is also acceptable. When the maternal figure in question is directly addressed, it's often "Mum," as in, "Mum, I told you I'd be back late, I'll clean the bathroom tomorrow." "Mom" is more frequently used by the male members of the household.)

Anyway, one of these little bastards tried to cut my brother in line. Before we even got out of the car to stand in this line, I reiterated several times over that if we did not leave this sad place with a Nintendo Wii (I still don't even know how to pronounce that), we would leave with our dignity.

We were leaving with whatever dignity we could muster.

That being said, I still wanted to throttle this little son of a bitch, or maybe just rip one of his earrings out and tell "Ma" to save her two hundred and fifty bucks for a plane ticket to England, where the whole family could learn the definition and purpose of a cue.

My brother stepped up and said "Excuse me, I think my brother and I were behind him." before I had a chance to shed blood.

They finally hand out the tickets, and we get to wait in our car for another hour until the store opens. I turn on the radio and we listen to the latest news from Iraq, seagulls start to grow in numbers as the smell of fried food drifts across the street from Kelly's. The sun's coming up, but the sky is so grey that nothing really changes, and no one notices when the streetlights go off.

They let us in the store and I'm waiting in line again, reading a David Sedaris book for awhile, but I start getting dizzy, so I just stand there until our number is called, Matt forks over three hundred and fourteen dollars for the system and a game called "Medal Of Honor."

When I get home, it feels like christmas, and I'm six years old.

- - - -

So that's the story of how The McDonald Brothers got their hands on a Nintendo Wii on the release date. To celebrate my triumph, Rachael and I went out to a nice restaurant and ate shrimp scampi last night. Kelly's felt really far away. I don't think Rachael was celebrating much of anything (except maybe a free meal), but had I voiced the fact that I was celebrating the Great Nintendo/Target Conquest Of November, 2006, she would have called me a dork, one thing would have led to another, and there would have been tears.

Now it's almost Thanksgiving, and I have to pack up some clothes for the long weekend at home. Zach's death-wagon is on it's way.

Just another freak in the freak kingdom.

Lyrics

2006-11-12T22:03:00.000-08:00

Daddy, please hear this song that I sing,
in your heart there's a spark that just screams
for a lover to bring
a child to your chest
that could lay as you sleep,
and love all you have left
like your boy used to be, long ago,
wrapped in sheets warm and wet.

Blister, please, with those wings in your spine,
love to be with a brother of mine,
how he'd love to find your tongue in his teeth
in a struggle to find
secret songs that you keep
wrapped in boxes so tight,
sounding only at night as you sleep.

And in my dreams you're alive and you're crying,
as your mouth moves in mine, soft and sweet,
rings of flowers round your eyes
and Ill love you for the rest of your life (when youre ready)

Brother see we are one and the same,
and you left with your head filled with flames
and you watched as your brains
fell out through your teeth,
push the pieces in place
make your smile sweet to see,
dont you take this away
Im still wanting my face on your cheek.

And when we break
well wait for our miracle,
God is a place where some holy spectacle lies.
And when we break
well wait for our miracle,
God is a place you will wait for the rest of your life.

Two-headed boy,
she is all you could need,
she will feed you tomatoes
and radio wire,
and retire to sheets safe and clean,
but don't hate her when she gets up to leave.

-Neutral Milk Hotel, "Two Headed Boy Part II"

We're Like Sigfreid & Roy Without The Tigers And The Sex

2006-11-06T18:47:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, Dave (of Uhaul fame) and I were talking about writing in a Wendy's on Mass Ave in Central Square. A strange place to have such a conversation, yeah, but perhaps, in some strange way, it was staggeringly appropriate.

Two guys went into the bathrooom together and didn't come out until we left, and I don't think I've ever felt whiter in my life. I ate a cheeseburger with coke and fries- Dave had a frosty, and we talked about books we liked, books we didn't like, books we didn't get, etc etc, then tossed around a couple of ideas involving some actual publication.

At the time, I wasn't writing very much, but now that I'm back in the swing of things, I think it's somewhat feasible, so, if we can get our pennies together or barder sexual favors for the fine people over at Gnomon Copy, hopefully we'll have some kind of paper thing with our words on it, you know, the sort of thing you can hold in your hand, leave on your coffeetable so you can tell chicks you know writers, whatever.

I'm sure that this is at the very least, several weeks away from production, but Dave and I will be sure to keep all (three) of you readers informed of our progress.

Jagshemash!

2006-11-06T10:02:00.000-08:00

I've got that song "Come On Eilleen" stuck in my head, and I don't have any idea why. I haven't heard that song in years, and I'm not even sure I've got the melody right.

What a bizarre couple of weeks. Everyone I know is in some kind of weird transitional phase, everyone's feathers are ruffled, they're rubbing the sleep out of their eyes, trying to force themselves awake- how can I explain this?

You know that feeling you get when you walk into a room in a daze and someone asks you a question that you immediately know the answer to (e.g. Where are the coffee filters?), but for some strange reason, you just don't want to answer it? You know, you're really irritated by it, but you don't know why because there's absolutely no reason. I don't know if you understand what I'm talking about, but I'm going to move on anyway.

That's just the state that everyone seems to be in.

I was sitting in a cafe with Rachael a couple of days ago after seeing the Borat movie (nine thumbs way up), and we're sandwiched in between a few economically marginal people shouting in Russian over dirty chess sets and these two Harvard kids. Rachael had soup, I had a sandwich and some kind of latte.

I'd like to point out that Rachael tasted said latte and feigned indifference about the beverage, but quietly ended up drinking more than half of it. It was a well played move, because if she had said something like "Ooh, that's good!" I would have guarded the drink more carefully.

Anyway, the Russians kind of created a tension (the one closest to me smelled like urine and had more hair in his ears than I have ever seen on a biped), but the Harvard kids took the cake.

One kept talking, as only Harvard kids can, about his classes and how disenchanted he was, while maintaining that he really liked the classes "where you just think." I guess he was talking about a math class. This kid went on and on, and Rachael and I couldn't help but share the occassional glance of rage and desperation that said "I can't believe these people exist."

Trying to hold any sort of conversation between the two of us was futile, and then something amazing happened.

Well, amazing if you know Rachael.

Solidifying my assumption that these kids were homosexuals, the more talkative one said "So, do you want to come back and see my dorm room?"

Then, in a voice that I swear was not her own, and with a light in her eyes sent by something either much higher or much lower than man, Rachael hissed "He's gonna get railed."

This terrified the two of us, and we left the cafe hurriedly. Why she said that is still a topic of debate, but if we come to any conclusions, I'll be sure to let everyone know.

- - - -

In other news, I'm writing again, with mild success, and I bought a sausage from a street vendor in front of a dorm at BC at three in the morning this past Saturday.

Maybe that sort of thing contributes to the surreal quality of life we seem to all be sharing.

What's Halloween Without Ghosts, Wiccans, Drunkenness, And Gang Violence?

2006-11-01T21:11:00.000-08:00

I was, in fact, in Salem for Halloween, but I didn't see any of this, I just find it hilarious. Actually, I don't know why I was in Salem for Halloween. I just went to a party at Zach's. I didn't sacrifice anything, I didn't even use the word "wiccan," I didn't see any haunted houses, and I wasn't there to stab anyone, so there wasn't any significance, really.

Zach was wearing a bathrobe and a tie, with no shirt. That was his costume. A pretty half-assed Halloween, in some respects. Rachael went to great lengths with her costume (a homeless woman), so to the point that her hair has yet to be de-tangled. She might consider just keeping it that way from on, now that she knows hair madness and general filth is extremely attractive to forty eight year old closet homosexuals (I'm pretty sure).

Don't even ask me to explain that. It was extremely uncomfortable for everyone involved but Zach, who cannot ever be uncomfortable. I seriously think it goes against physics.

If you're not uncomfortable in a bathrobe and a tie while your forty eight year old neighbor is hitting on your friend's friend from work at your party, I don't think too much can phase you. So kudos to Zach.

Kudos also to Dave for ranting about nothing on the porch. I don't even think I can do it justice. It went something like this:

"Hey, man, I just got out of jail. They gave me a bible to read and I didn't want to read the fuckin Bible so I just sat on it. They took it away and gave me a smaller one- Hey guys, I'm here to watch your kids, WOO! You guys got any ice cream, kids love ice cream, hey... hey you got a pool back there... cool man, can we go in the pool?"

And so on and so forth. I was right, I can't do it justice.

I'm going to end with this bit from a Salem newspaper, because it's hilarious.

Meanwhile the sun gradually set, the sky turning from pink to a dark, deep blue. "Look at the sky, suddenly it's being beautiful for us," a woman in the procession said.
The group convened in a circle around a table crowded with lit candles. A steady, slow dream beat set the mood. At one point people held hands and walked in a circle. Then they listened to prayers and clapped along to music.
"One year now ends and another begins," said a leader of the ceremony. "Blessed be," the group responded in unison.
The celebrants were from all over. Linda McRee has come from Biddeford, Maine, for the last five years. "It has a peaceful energy," she said of the ceremony.
The peace was temporarily interrupted by an onlooker who began shouting. Police arrived and took the man into custody.

Did I Mention That I Moved?

2006-10-31T09:17:00.000-08:00

I think, a few posts ago, I mentioned that I was moving to Lawrence Hall, on Brattle Street in Cambridge. Here's a photo:

Lesley tells people that they acquired the dorm from the Episcopal Divinity School because they had an overflow of students and the Episcopals were kind of lacking, but in reality, it's a school for mutants and all the real shit goes down underground.

Ask Me About My Thousand Yard Stare. It Didn't Sell On E-Bay, So I've Still Got It, And I Think We Should Talk About It.

2006-10-31T08:53:00.000-08:00

So you guy's see the Patriots rape the Vikings last night? How sweet was that?

I went to a Halloween Party at my friend Steve's apartment this past Saturday, and it was a good time, all in all, but the one thing that I do want to make a note of is this costume that blew everyone else's out of the water.

There was a kid who went as MySpace, which was pretty good, but nothing beat the kid who went as a robot that should shoot fireworks out of his enormous robot penis.

I'm not kidding. Just picture this set of black spray painted boxes wandering awkwardly through the streets of Allston, shooting rockets out of a massive tube attached to the groin. It was amazing.

Tonight actually is the real Halloween, and from what I've heard, the wiccans are especially excited because this brand of Halloween only comes once every twenty years.

That could easily be a lie, someone just told me that (something about goats turning into huge bats the size of goats, killing other animals, but then we drink their blood), but whether or not it's true doesn't really matter, because even if it's got some kind of merit, we're still talking about wiccan's here, and they're completely out of their minds.

Their dark, small, minds.

You really want a good scare for Halloween? You know how it's always scary walking through cemetaries and shit? Try waiting until like 11 and then walking from Mass Ave to Forest Hills along the orange line path. The ghosts in the cemetary are really just your eyes playing tricks on you, but the insane drug addicts at Stony Brook are very, very real.

Uhhhhh! OOOOHHHHH! Boo! Giiiiivvvveeee Meeeeee YYooooouuuuurrr Sneeeeaaaakkkkeeerrsssss!!!

- - - -

I have a lot of aspirations. I'd like to win an award for something one day. I realized last night, lying in my bed, staring at the ceiling, that I actually wouldn't want to win a Tony Award. Don't ask me why, I just don't find them appealing. I've got nothing against theater, it's just something about the Tony Award.

You Should Buy This Album, And Know This Story

2006-10-26T09:29:00.000-07:00

The Walkemen's newest release, Pussy Cats Starring The Walkmen, is a remake of John Lennon And Harry Nilsson's original release. If you've never heard of the album, here's a bit from Wikipedia:

1974 found Nilsson back in California, and when John Lennon moved there during his separation from Yoko Ono, the two musicians rekindled their earlier friendship. Lennon was intent upon producing Nilsson's next album, much to Nilsson's delight. However, their time together in California became known much more for heavy drinking and drug use than it did for musical collaboration. In a widely publicized incident, they were ejected from the Troubadour nightclub in West Hollywood for drunken heckling of the Smothers Brothers. Both also caused property damage during binges, with Lennon trashing a bedroom in Lou Adler's house, and Nilsson throwing a bottle through a thirty-foot hotel window.
To make matters worse, Nilsson ruptured a vocal cord during the sessions for this album, but he hid the injury due to fear that Lennon would call a halt to the production. The resulting album, Pussy Cats, which may charitably be described as "uneven", was a shock for listeners who knew Nilsson as one of the best singers of his generation.

If that doesn't make you want to head out right now and buy both albums, I don't know what will.

Here's to rock and roll.

I'm So Out Of Here

2006-10-25T15:47:00.000-07:00

I got a call on my cellphone today from the director of my dorm (oddly named Matt McDonald, my brother's name) and found out that I'm slated to move into Lawrence Hall at the Episcopal Divinity School in Harvard Square, about a half mile from Lesley's main campus and maybe a mile from the Porter Exchange building, where all of my classes are.

Lawrence is the dorm I was supposed to move into when I first got here, but I've been living in the freshman-designated White Hall since September.

I was excited about this move, because I'll finally be surrounded with people my own age, and when you're twenty, living with eighteen year olds can be a trying experience. Take this, for example:

Now keep in mind, this is my last day in this room.

I'm reading in my bed (Marisha Pessl's Special Topics In Calamity Physics, a great book, by the way.) and someone knocks on the door.

"It's open."
"..."
"Come in, it's open."
WHAM WHAM WHAM
"I said it's open man, jus-"
WHAM WHAM WHAM
"Hold on, hold on..."
WHAM WHAM WHAM

I open the door and it's Duke, an illegal ex-roommate with a grill that says "PIMP" across the four front teeth. He pushes his way into the room.

"Yo Where's Brian?"
"Brian's not here."
"Where he at?"
"I think he's at practice."
"When he get back?"
"I have no idea."
"You take a picture with your computer?"
"What?"
"Your computer take pictures?"
"No."
"Yo take my picture with this money."
"What?"
"Take my picture with this money, Ima show these motheafuckin faggots wassup."

So Duke hands me a disposable camera and pulls what looks to be about twelve hundred dollars and change out of his wallet, then poses, first giving me the middle finger and sneering, then throwing a gang sign (an OK sign turned ninety degrees, exposing the pinky, ring, and middle fingers, which vaguely look like an E, for East Coast, I'm guessing.)

After I take the pictures he alludes to a "faggot that's been sayin' shit to [his] girl" and leaves the room.

Five or so minutes later, my roommate of the last four days, Bryon, is thrown through the door and into his chair. It's Duke again, "Take my picture with the computer bitch."

So after a bit of manhandling, Duke manages to get Bryon to take several photos of him (again, with the money) and proceeds to post them on MySpace.

Alright, yeah, the drug money, the gang signs, the middle finger, the grill, that's pretty gangsta. The photos? Well, that's a little vain, but I guess even gangstas need documentation, but MySpace?

I wasn't aware of the fact that street cred had hit the international circuit via online social networking websites.

Did I mention that I'm headed about a half mile down the road on Friday? The only thing I know about this new hall is that a girl named Lindsay from my Modern Drama class lives there. She says very little in class, is extremely nordic looking, my height, wears a lot of North Face clothing, and has a boyfriend who I am sure is not Duke.

I'm going to listen to Spoon and go watch Sophie Innerfield make her live debut at All Asia.

White people music, you dig?

Another Conversation With My Mother

2006-10-24T11:11:00.000-07:00

beebeworkerbee: just faxed the request to remove your exclusion on the lincoln. welcome to my driving world.
colonial wankers: haha
beebeworkerbee: you will notice how nice I keep the inside of my car right?
colonial wankers: im gonna race it on 128 while youre away
colonial wankers: 2 fast 2 furious
beebeworkerbee: you do know how important that car is to me Mr. Fast?
colonial wankers: TOKYO DRIFT
beebeworkerbee I am almost 50 and it's the first car I've ever owned.
beebeworkerbee: Even with total insurance, I would not be able to replace that, right? you know where I am on this?
colonial wankers: it's worth it's weight in chicks!
beebeworkerbee: It certainly is when I'm in it.

Piebald

2006-10-24T08:14:00.000-07:00

So I'm walking down Mass Ave. late last night, and no one's around. In the distance, I see this guy walking towards me. As I get closer, I realize it's Andrew Bonner, the bass player in Piebald. The weird thing is, I'm listening to Piebald's "100% Good," so not only am I listening to his band, I'm listening to his killer bass line on my iPod. He was listening to his iPod too, and, for a moment, I thought that we were both going to turn into black silhouettes and dance (to Piebald) while waving our respective iPod's around ourselves, making crazy light ribbons or something.

Didn't happen though. Maybe next time.

Conversation With My Mother

2006-10-17T12:43:00.000-07:00

beebeworkerbee (3:33:00 PM): He thinks he has figured out how they constructed Stonehenge. Oh, you got a McSweeney's magazine in the mail. Believer.
colonial wankers (3:34:26 PM): oh, good
beebeworkerbee (3:41:06 PM): Oh. Question. why do you have a bag full of camel boxes?
colonial wankers (3:41:57 PM): im saving those for a collage
colonial wankers (3:42:30 PM): there is other refuse in there as well. im beginning to think it is a doomed project.
beebeworkerbee (3:45:24 PM): in my mind it is
beebeworkerbee (3:46:54 PM): the car is just a nightmare. Maybe it could be an art "installation". Fill the car with trash, not just the backpack. oh, not trash, refuse. Such a nice word.
beebeworkerbee (3:47:38 PM): Have any idea where the title to that car is?
colonial wankers (3:48:06 PM): not the faintest.
colonial wankers (3:48:21 PM): it could be in the glove box with the registration
colonial wankers (3:48:29 PM): theres a binder thing in there
beebeworkerbee (3:50:04 PM): no. the binder thing was on the floor of the way-back.
beebeworkerbee (3:50:26 PM): the glove box contained something growing and several camel boxes
colonial wankers (3:50:33 PM): growing?
beebeworkerbee (3:50:35 PM): as well as a native american cigarette box
colonial wankers (3:50:39 PM): maybe it is an art installation
beebeworkerbee (3:50:41 PM): yes, growing.
beebeworkerbee (3:50:46 PM): it was waving at me
beebeworkerbee (3:50:53 PM): it was soft and squooshy
colonial wankers (3:51:05 PM): maybe super cigarettes will grow out of it
beebeworkerbee (3:51:07 PM): it was also found attached to loose change
beebeworkerbee (3:51:22 PM): like barnacles, but more sewage -y
beebeworkerbee (3:52:44 PM): I thought I was going to have to use goo gone on my hands after being in the car. I don't think I've ever encountered that kind of dirt before. The steering wheel actually gave me the dry heaves.
beebeworkerbee (3:53:40 PM): I only hope WGBH will take it.

A Statement From Deval Patrick

2006-10-13T16:36:00.000-07:00

This is already on Deval Patrick's website, but I'm recreating it here. Again, I don't like to write about anything political unless I'm making fun of it, but I followed the race for govenor a little bit this week, and what is going on is utterly disgusting. Disgusting. So here's this:

STATEMENT FROM DEVAL PATRICK

BOSTON—Friday, October 13, 2006—The following is a statement from Deval Patrick.
“For nineteen months now, I have answered every one of your questions. Today I just need to speak my mind.
Thirteen years ago, while living in San Diego, California, my sister Rhonda was the victim of a sexual assault. I have not made her experience a subject of this campaign, because I believe it serves no victim to have to relive such a thing in the public eye. But the media today has tried to take that option from me.
The assailant was her husband Bernie. He plead guilty to the charge and served a short time in jail in California.
In 1995, about a year after my sister moved to Milton, she and her husband reconciled. They took a personal crisis and rebuilt a life. They have raised two wonderful children. They are deacons in their church and live a deeply religious faith. They celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary this past summer with a recommitment ceremony. They now counsel troubled couples.
Their lives are about redemption, forgiveness and grace. I am proud of their turnaround and I love them both.
I got into this race with no illusions. In a world where negative campaigns are commonplace, I expected to have my own accomplishments trivialized, my own judgments questioned, my life choices challenged. I haven’t always liked it, but I knew it was a price I would have to pay to be an agent of change -- not just in our policies, but in our politics.
And I took the time to prepare my family for what I thought would be coming.
My sister and her husband went through a difficult time, and through hard work and prayer, they repaired their relationship and their lives. Now they and their children -- who knew nothing of this -- have had their family history laid out on the pages of a newspaper. Why? For no other reason than that they had the bad luck to have a relative who is running for governor. It’s pathetic and it’s wrong. By no rules of common decency should their private struggles become a public issue. But this is the politics of Kerry Healey. It disgusts me. And it must be stopped.
Kerry Healey has never offered a single reason why she should be governor that doesn’t depend on tearing me down. She has no vision, no plan, no positive agenda, and no leadership experience. Her record on jobs and the economy, on health care, on higher education, on crime has been one of shortcuts, gimmicks and failure. And so rather than deal with that, she has done everything she can to change the subject.
Well, my message to the Healey campaign is that I will not let you run from your record any longer. You can try all you want to change the subject and shift the blame, but we are going to expose for all just how your failed policies and your failed politics are the reason so many people are stuck and struggling and losing hope. The garbage peddlers who shopped this story around town are part of that failed politics, too.
We are going to ask the people to choose whether the politics of fear, division and personal destruction is what they want or whether we’re better than that and are ready to finally throw out those who dump this trash in the public square.
We need a change. Gimmicks, slogans and dirty politics is no substitute for progress. The politics of fear is no acceptable alternative to the politics of hope. That’s the change we need. And if anybody in the Healey campaign or in the public thinks I am unwilling to fight for that, you have badly underestimated me.”

A Poem, Unedited, Written On (And About) The Train

2006-10-12T23:34:00.000-07:00

Red Line

The Braintree train rolls in two directions,
in and out, in and
out, the
old hell bassinet, filled to the brim
with the suds of infants. The Braintree

train is a black and tan-
more of a black and white- like spit up,
their skin, on the black of mother's sweater.

Every girl has a destination.

Every snake has a two way tongue, every train has a roar
and a tone, like they're
paging mother in Macy's- can you hear it?
The bassinet is rocking
wildly, giving birth to planets

The womb is in the river.

Crushed Bugs!

2006-10-11T10:58:00.000-07:00

I don't know if you saw today's "Get Fuzzy" or not (I read it every day, along with F-Minus, and I'm not ashamed of that at all.), but here it is, for those of you who didn't see it:

(Ha, and yeah, that's probably a massive copyright infringement. Sorry Darby. I really like your comic, and I promise I'll buy your new book to balance things out.)

Anyway, someone (namely me) actually did "google it," and that someone found this in BusinessWeek:

"When you dig into a strawberry Yoplait yogurt, take a moment to contemplate where the beautiful pink color comes from. Strawberries? Think again. It comes from crushed bugs. Specifically, from the female cochineal beetles and their eggs. And it's not just yogurt. The bugs are also used to give red coloring to Hershey Good & Plenty candies, Tropicana grapefruit juice, and other common foods."

Yeah, they're being real with it. Cochineal Extract is actually crushed bugs.

This is something everyone else already knew, but I was totally unaware, and it blew my mind.

That isn't to say that I'm going to change my yogurt diet in any way whatsoever, but just think. Crushed bugs!

Fear Of Sleep

2006-10-05T00:17:00.000-07:00

Alright, it's three o'clock in the morning and I can't sleep, and I'm wearing the headphones, and the headphones are plugged into my computer, and there isn't any music playing. I'm just going to sit here and wear the headphones. If there's a better time to write, you tell me when it is. If you can describe to me a better physical and environmental situation, well, we'll really have something going here.

I've been trying to start this play, that story, etc etc, and I'm telling you, I can't write anything. I can't write anything, and I can't sleep. I don't have a single good idea floating around in my head. I'm not making connections. I think it has something to do with the fact that I'm dividing my reading time between Edmund Spenser, Anton Chekov, Oscar Wilde, Franz Kafka, and William S Burroughs.

So I'm thinking of starting something called "THE COSMIC ADVENTURES OF LUNCHBOX AND OTTOMAN: A ONE ACT PLAY OF SEXUAL ENCOUNTERS IN SPACE."

Big in Japan. I can feel it.

But how can I dig myself out of this rut? I've been trying these Vitamin C tablets, but they haven't been helping much. (NB: I probably should have bronchitis, seeing as I've been exposed to a lot of it, I never sleep, and I happen to live in a dorm, but the Vitamin C has been saving me.)

This has gone absurd enough. I'm going to listen to Sunset Rubdown, and I suggest that you all do the same.

If I sleep at all I'd better have some Michel Gondry dreams.

Let's All Burn Out Together

2006-10-02T13:55:00.000-07:00

I am inspired by August Strindberg's The Ghost Sonata, and I think that I am going to try to write a play.

I like Strindberg because he's so miserable. And because he hated Ibsen. And because (I suspect) he hated women.

Anyway, read The Ghost Sonata and dig what I am digging. It is bizarre and wonderful, and I don't want to subject it to too much deconstructive criticism because once you get something, it's dead in a lot of ways. This, I think, is especially true with theater.

My other lit class begs to differ, but fuck it. There's a distinct difference between modernism and Edmund Spenser.

Speaking of Spenser, I'll be spending the night with him.

I'll leave you with this:

MUMMY. But I can stop time in its course. I can wipe out the past and undo what is done. but not with bribes, not with threats-- only through suffering and repentance. (She goes up to the old man) We are miserable human beings, that we know. We have erred and we have sinned, we like all the rest. We are not what we seem, because at the bottom we are better than ourselves, since we detest our sins.

Red Sox Wrap Up

2006-10-02T08:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, some guy I never heard of pitched five perfect innings before a rain out and the Red Sox beat the Orioles 9-0. It was a disappointing year for the Sox, and this offseason promises to be even more tumultuous than the last, what with the Manny Ramirez question, the probable departure of Trot Nixon, the announced move of Jonathan Papelbon to the starting rotation, Keith Foulke's retirement "threats," etc.

I dodn't write much about the Red Sox this year, mostly because, like everyone else, I smelled the smoke when Josh Beckett started giving up more home runs than anyone in the history of the world. The Globe put out an analysis of each player, and I'm going to kind of do the same thing, just to put some closure on this shit.

I like Kevin Youkilis. I think a lot of people like Kevin Youkilis. He plays like a Red Sox guy that everyone would like. He's versatile, and he gets pissed really easily, and I like that.

Mark Loretta is like the new John Olerud. He's quiet, and when you read his stats, you think "Jesus, he's doing that well?" His defense is stellar, and he hit better than Youkilis on the year at .285, which, you know, I really don't have a problem with. A consistent .285 hitter is just as good if not better than someone hitting .330 and then occasionally going on a 2 for 65 streak because it's a certain month. (cough, Manny Ramirez, cough).

When it comes to Alex Gonzalez's glove, I'm sold. That's all I'll say on the subject.

Mike Lowell surprised us all by being consistent (putting up numbers almost exactly like Loretta), and more of an impact than Josh Beckett, the guy that was supposed to lead us to the World Series. I can't take any issue with the infield.

Everyone loves Alex Cora, but can he play every day? We said that about Kevin Youkilis, and we were wrong, but we're going to be right eventually. I'm a little wary.

Who the hell is Dustin Pedroia? New prospect, top of the line, ship shape- 1 for 40 in his first 40 at bats. Fuck him, I've been nice to everyone else.

Jason Varitek is clearly a huge part of the pitching aspect, and he struggled with injuries, but he's also a dick, I learned this summer.

Doug Mirabelli doesn't wear batting gloves.

Manny Ramirez is a sociopath. A sociopath who hits .320.

Coco Crisp played hurt for most of the season, but you can't make too many excuses- the guy was supposed to be a lot better than he was. He didn't reach our expectations.

Eric Hinske isn't even going to be mentioned.

I'm not going to say anything bad about Wily Mo Pena because he's a monster and I think he knows who I am.

It doesn't matter what I think of Trot Nixon. He was a cool guy, he'll be gone soon, and he totally does steroids. I mean, his muscle seperated from the bone while he was swinging the bat.

Gabe Kapler gets an A regardless of his performance.

David Ortiz.

Josh Beckett was beyond disappointing, but keep in mind that he's moving to the toughest division in baseball, and he's a hothead. He'll calm down, I think.

Matt Clement's injuries will end his career.

Manny Delcarmen is going to be good.

What the hell is the deal with Keith Foulke's rebound in September?

Hansen is young, and he's going to get shelled for awhile.

I love Jon Lester, but it appears that he has cancer. I don't know what the deal is with that. I hope he's okay.

Javier Lopez was supposed to strike out lefties. Lefties hit .250, righties hit .200.

Jonathan Papelbon should be rookie of the year.

Curt Schilling is too religious.

Further evidence that Rudy Seanez is the living dead:

There is no way in hell that you're interested in what I think of Kyle Snyder.

Julian Tavarez can start and punch Carl Crawford, but he can't pitch relief.

Mike Timlin is old, but I'll bet he has a good year next year. I have a feeling.

Tim Wakefield can pitch until he's 50 if he wants to.

I used to hate David Wells, now I love him.

- - - -

As a total wrap, not much can be said for pitching and hitting, which were both terrible if you look at the numbers, but, on the bright and noble side, the Globe did have this to say:

The Red Sox committed only 66 errors on the season. No other team in baseball committed less than 80, while the Nationals committed almost twice as many (131). Sox shortstop Alex Gonzalez and third baseman Mike Lowell could sweep the Gold Gloves for the left side of the infield, while Kevin Youkilis and Mark Loretta both had solid defensive years.

That's something.

I've got to take a nap before class.

Absurd.

2006-10-01T16:52:00.000-07:00

I was sitting in my room today, watching the Jets/Colts game in my poncho, eating pepperoni pizza and drinking a two liter bottle Cherry Pepsi (straight from the bottle, mind you) and there's a knock at the door.

I get up, brush some peanut crumbs off of my chest (because I was eating peanuts as well), burp, and open the door. A hallway neighbor, Scott, is there, with his parents. I'm introduced to them, they seem really nice, and then Scott says, "So do you mind if my Dad cuts my hair in here?"

"Uh, no, not at all."

So Scott's dad cuts his hair, Scott's mom sweeps it up, they go out to dinner, and we all move on with our lives.

- - - -

That's all I have to say. Read this.

Something To Get Excited About

2006-09-30T17:58:00.000-07:00

I took this directly from the Swan Lake website, and after seeing Sunset Rubdown and listening extensively to Destroyer and Frog Eyes (I like Frog Eyes a little more than I like Destroyer, and Tim likes Destroyer a little more than he likes Frog Eyes. I also think Sunset Rubdown is better than both of those bands combined (a startling and controversial admission, yes) but the bottom line is this:

SWAN LAKE
Beast Moans CD / LP (JAG098, released: 11/21/06)
Swan Lake is the new band featuring Daniel Bejar (Destroyer, New Pornographers), Spencer Krug (Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown) and Carey Mercer (Frog Eyes).

Beast Moans is their debut record featuring, among other things, beast moans, starling voices, cobra hi hats and arpeggiating pianos. The songs are great weaves, showcasing the famous and very distinctive songwriting styles of Bejar, Krug and Mercer. The sum is definitely greater than the parts, and at distinct points on the record a new "combined" style emerges that throws whole heaps of magic into the air, sounding like nothing else.

When the three "come together" (as if stuck in a sea-storm, in a sinking boat, forced to bail together), we first glean some grudging camaraderie. But, like rugged individualists after the storm, parting at dry crossroads, their work on Beast Moans can still be the sounds of each individual muttering under his breath, and not the chorus of exclamation and supplication to the raging maelstrom that is the hallmark of "collaboration". It's good either way.

Beast Moans was recorded in a summer cottage town in Canada, and in Victoria, in a house where Krug and Mercer are familiar with and Bejar feels comfortable enough. It was "self-produced."

- - - -

Looks like it's coming out in early November.

Also, Dave has a copy of the not-so-soon-to-be-released Of Montreal album, and I don't understand why we are not ransacking his apartment like it's a meth lab. And we're either meth addicts or people who hate meth.

Alright, we're meth addicts and we know there's not going to be meth around until like January, but Dave somehow got his hands on some.

Let me start over.

I just want to burn the fucking CD.

- - - -

PS: Lesley University doesn't get Frog Eyes

Maybe You're Right

2006-09-30T13:36:00.000-07:00

Did you ever have one of these days:

You're too tired to take a shower.
You're too dirty to go out.
You pour all the change out of your change thing, then decide not to count it because there's too much, so you put it all back
You watch Notre Dame beat Purdue, but you don't give a shit.

And all the while, it's that interminable hour of the day. So and so gets out of work at 7:00, and it's quarter to five now.

What the hell am I supposed to do with myself?

Humans As Ornaments

2006-09-19T22:01:00.000-07:00

The plan was to lay on my bed in the dark, have a glass of wine, and listen to the new Mars Volta album in its entirety. It would have been a night for the ages. What could go wrong?

I'll tell you what could go wrong: I live in a dorm, my room has the only television, and Nip/Tuck is on. (NB: I don't know if the "/" is part of the title, but if it isn't FX television is missing out on some prime graphic appeal.)

So instead of Cedric Bixler Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (and I have to mention Jon Theodore... and I guess Flea... etc. etc. et. al. sui generis quid pro quo) I got an edgy blend of sex and violence coupled thrown against the composite backdrop of Lesley undergraduate life, which is sort of like a pre-sex all girls sleepover scene in a cheap lesbian porno.

I'm sorry, I must seem a bit tense. I start getting vulgar when I'm feeling tense. I'll drown my angst in Chaucer and Ibsen tomorrow, and I promise, I'll have sweeter things to say. Things that will make you wet down there, because I'm that good with words.

See, there's the vulgarity again. What a pig.

Goodnight.

Late Night French Kick

2006-09-18T22:20:00.000-07:00

So here we are at 1:20 in the morning, and I can't sleep because I've decided that I really like post-meal naps during the day and espresso late at night. The fact that Starbucks is even open past 9:00 pm is really a mistake. I should really be reading Chaucer, but let me reiterate: it's past one o'clock in the morning, and I'm reeling from coffee. Medieval literature doesn't bode well. Two knights are ankle deep in blood fighting over someone named Emily at the moment, and that's all I know. If I have to, I can talk about the motif of the idyllic female in Chaucer, and the role of wives, which I think is completely different. I couldn't go on about it for very long, but as long as I start the conversation, I don't really have to.

Dave wrote a new story, so you should check out Uhaul if you haven't already.

I can't seem to come up with a good idea. I've thought about illegal Mexican immigrant stories, something involving a magic elephant, and that long lost massive project of turning Weezer's blue album into a play, but nothing is really sticking.

I finally finished Tropic Of Cancer, but I'm still confused about the ending. If you've ever read it, you'd know that it ends with a lot of running around Paris with a large amount of money, trying to get away from some woman, weighing a return to the United States. If you haven't read it, I'm not really ruining anything by giving that away, because the book consists almost entirely of running around Paris, though usually without money, and they're generally chasing women. Maybe that's it. Maybe the big picture is one ironic joke. Miller and his cohorts spend an entire novel chasing women penniless, then when they finally con their way into a large amount of cash, it is used largely to avoid a woman.

I don't know if that was a concern. I think Henry Miller just drank and did his thing, and novels were born. Some people drink and do their thing and, as a result, windows are broken and things are lost. Others produce works of art. Things are the same, things are different.

I don't have anything else to say. Look for a new story soon, sometime after I digest Woyzeck, A Doll's House, The Canterbury Tales, and all this genetics crap for my psychology class.

I'm not even mentioning my ecology class. That deserves closer analysis. I'll talk about that when I understand just what the hell the goal is.

NOTES ON A CLASS CALLED "URBAN ECOLOGY OF CAMBRIDGE:"

-Parakeet acoustics
-The Tree Of Heaven
-Community service
-Books to buy: Peterson's Field Guide, Plants Alive!

- - - -

I'm as confused as you are.

Big Nothing

2006-09-03T01:50:00.000-07:00

When I came home Amy was on my couch sleeping. She was drooling a little bit, and it looked like she had drank about half of a bottle of wine because there was half a bottle of wine sitting next to the couch where Amy was sleeping. When I woke her up she apologized and said that wine always puts her to sleep. Wine puts everyone to sleep. I don't know why people always have to say that wine puts them to sleep like it's something out of the ordinary.

Oh, really? Wine puts you to sleep? I've never in my life heard anything so ridiculous, and it is because of this that I can agree to forgive any and all wrongdoing on your part. You may have crashed drunkenly through half of my apartment, ruining carpets and breaking valuable china, but I mean, if the shit puts you to sleep, well, what can be done?

Amy hadn't done any of that though. She had come over to clean my apartment because today was my birthday, and she thought that a completely clean apartment would be a nice gift.

Amy didn't have any money, and she didn't have a job, so it was, one could say, the only gift she could possibly give me. I could give Amy lots of gifts. I have lots of money. I invented a special piece of plastic that adheres to the tip of a whipped cream can. It makes the cream more whipped and prevents curious pre-teenagers from sucking all of the gas out.

Amy likes thunderstorms. Amy likes to lie in my bed and watch the thunderstorms through the skylight. Amy makes me want to tear the roof off of my building and replace everything with skylights. She makes me want to build some kind of bomb that will fuck with the atmosphere and make it rain for a year. I want everything to be beds and rain and Amy and skylights.

I have a pet hamster that I named Sylvia, after Sylvia Plath. I discovered several weeks after naming her that the animal was actually a male, but I couldn't bring myself to change the name. Amy can't sleep in the same room as Sylvia because he crashes around in his wheel all night, so when Amy sleeps here, with me, I either have to put Sylvia's cage in the kitchen or Amy has to jam a foreign object somewhere in the wheel. I find this to be a little cruel, but am extremely attracted to the way Amy laughs when she does it.

Amy says it's kind of weird that a twenty three year old guy who lives alone has a pet hamster. I say that rodents are the barometers of the human. Amy doesn't say anything.

Amy says "I want to go to Iceland with you. I want to see that city, and those crazy ass rocks. And I want to get drunk and make out with Bjork." I don't say anything. I'm reading a magazine article entitled "Highly Verbal Psychic Real Estate Writing."

A year ago, I kissed Amy, dramatically, for the first time. The next morning I got on a train to go to work, and for the entire train ride, I replayed a daydream in my head. In the daydream, Amy was standing on the platform of whatever station the train was arriving at. She was with a man, and as the train stopped, she would kiss him, and they would smile, and she would board the train, sit across from me, and look shocked as she realized what I had seen.

In the daydream my eyes met hers and my eyes said "I have seen you in his bed and I have known for so long now that you would drive this so deep into my chest. I can hear you laughing moaning crying in his arms holding him wondering if your grip is tighter or if you are closer than when you are with me. You can be closer to no one but me because I am everything and I am all around you and I am always whispering much louder than I am speaking."

Each time I went through this, there were minor changes that didn't really matter. What mattered was the pain I felt. It hurt so terribly I could barely walk. I didn't want to walk. I loved her and I wanted to die.

Amy's father was born in the Caribbean. He is the son of two french citizens who went on vacation and never returned to France. I think that "Amy" is the most un-French name I have ever heard, and I once wondered if they had thought the same thing when they named her. I wondered if they thought about their home and cursed it quietly with that name, the three letters they adhere to what would be their only progeny- an A for the sand, M for the waves and the wind in the trees at night, a Y for the blue color that seemed to leak from the water and the sky into her eyes.

Today Amy will not finish cleaning my apartment, and I will not finish cleaning it tomorrow. We will lay on my sofa and watch re-runs of The Real World until two o'clock in the morning. Amy will talk some more about Iceland, and I will not think of her with anyone else. We will fall asleep until quarter to five, when the patter of rain will wake us and we will watch the thunderstorm in a dream, half awake, silent.

Actual Sponsored Ads By Google

2006-08-29T06:12:00.000-07:00

Are you familiar with Google's Sponsored Ads? I use GMail, and every time I send an email to someone, these sponsored ads pop up on the sidebar. What they do (or what the're supposed to do) is pick out key words or repeated phrases in the email and integrate an appropriate advertisement. So, if I'm writing a lot about cars, maybe Ernie Boch's link will pop up.

Something like that.

The only problem is the fact that it doesn't work especially well. Or maybe that it works too well.

Here are actual sponsored ads by google that popped up in a couple of emails:

The Changes That Have Taken Place Are Of Extreme Significance

2006-08-28T19:30:00.000-07:00

Well, I've given up entirely on trying to figure out this issue with Blogger and Beta and Google and whatever the hell else the internet has decided to rape, so the URL for the original "Igloos For Animals" is now http://igloosforanimals2006.blogspot.com

Of course, you know that because you're here, but now you've been vindicated in some way.

- - - -

I saw Body Worlds at The Museum of Science today, and it was cool, but I don't have much to say about it. It's pretty much exactly what I expected.

There's a section that includes a pregnant woman and various fetuses- the walls are covered in red velvet curtains and they play soothing music. It's kind of tucked out of the way, and there's this note in the makeshift corridor leading into the room that ambiguously seeks to pacify those who may take offense to unborn babies being "plastinated." I was walking past a row of embryos and a black guy came up with a stroller and said "Do you know how I get out of here? They told me to come this way, and there's no exit." He was on the verge of panic, gesturing wildly at a locked emergency door and his son had wandered off a ways and was gaping in horror at a fetus that looked like a prop from Alien.

Some of the bodies kind of twitched as people walked by. That was pretty unnerving. Almost as unnerving as the large, creepy, german portrait of the guy who invented the process which creates these things.

If you do decide to see the exhibit, I strongly suggest walking through the exhibit halls afterwards and calming yourself down a bit with frightening mathematics, not-so-frightening dinosaurs, taxidermied animals that look like they belong in an indie film, and the ever confusing "Science In The Park."

I didn't understand any of "Science In The Park," but the fake thunderstorm room was cool.

The highlight of the museum has to be the guy who dissects pigs all day in the animal section.

He was in his seventies, and twitched like so many old people do. I listened to his whole story about the pig, but was amazed most by this:

In pigs as well as in humans, blood isn't necessary in the lungs until after birth because the organism isn't breathing, so the blood that normally goes there is sent (mostly) through these two special glands that bypass the lungs and go straight to the heart and some other very important organ I can't remember. Maybe the liver. Anyway, when you're born, there's this chain reaction set off partially by your lungs filling with air and partially by something in your brain. The opening in your heart shuts, and the other one goes into a spasm and closes as well.

So, if you've heard of babies being born with holes in their heart, that's what they're talking about. We all have this hole, but sometimes it doesn't close, and that's where the problem lies. I guess the one in the heart is kind of a flap, so when the blood flow slows down and more blood goes to the lungs, the flap shuts and seals itself. The other valve goes into a spasm, the guy said, and ties itself into some kind of fucked up knot.

I think that's amazing.

So I learned more about the body from this guy than I did from old Gunther, though Gunther's exhibit was pretty amazing.

You know what else the human body can do? It can eat like four pounds of Taco Bell. I learned that all on my own at the food court of the Cambridgeside Galleria.

- - - -

One last note: Congrats to my pal Steph for scoring some gig with Newcastle and SPIN. She's the official music blogger for Newcastle Brown Ale now, and she's given me hope.

You can read her posts at www.newcastlebrown.com and www.spin.com

Cheers.