Dead Flag Blues

for years, I think since I was in seventh grade and ending last year when I started to receive a certain amount of unexpected female attention, I made a point to avoid looking at myself in mirror. I'd glance at myself momentarily after my morning shower to make sure noting what wildly out of place and then go. don't linger. keep moving. the rest of the day. Why did I do this? because though I was a moron in my younger years I was a rather bright moron and occasionally I'd have some incite. Through the first two grades of middle school I realized that, wile the common assumption is that people look like they act, its generally the opposite: People act how they look.

which is to say if someone looks tall and lanky they'll develop that lanky personality, if they're attractive in a main stream way they'll take to drugs and parties, if they're attractive in a bookish way they'll take to books, if they're not all that attractive in a scrawny way, well, it seems like they'd take to hanging out with me and my friends and ripping on the rest of this well oiled system.

I am ashamed of this but my and my friends even as far as to coin a pseudo-psychological term "ugly girl syndrome" to explain why so many ugly girls (ugly exclusively in a classic sense, not more interesting looking but still ugly girls) had lousy personalities. This happens in greater ratios when the girl is in a group of friends that contains a large amount of attractive girls. The ugly girl feels starved for attention or left out and her personality develops to compensate. Or, an even better explanation, people just treat her like an ugly person. They assume she has the qualities that people who look like her tend to posses and she'll develop these qualities to fit the expectations of those around her.

And similarly, not all tall lanky people have even remotely similar personality, but people from a young age treat them like they do and they conform to these expectations.

another explanation is that they look in the mirror in the morning and impose these expectations on themselves.

so I said fuck that, I am who I am. And when I have no idea what I look like that's not a problem. well, people still treated me like I looked but I was blissfully unaware of why they were treating me that way, and thought them to be crazy.

but that didn't really get me laid.


I got a computer and I told my self that when I got a computer I would start a tumblr. An excuse to engage my purely visual thoughts, and great things I found on the internet, and to generally join the growing community. so here it is: liars.tumblr.com. Unlike the turntable, its meant for mass consumption, I wouldn't mind just anyone finding about about it. In fact, I'd like tons of people to know about it. But its not really for words, at least not in long form, and the turntable will continued to be updated. enjoy.

i said, kiss me you are beautiful - these are truly the last days.

Darts of Plesure

hmm, I don't even care for Firefly all that much, or well, its intreeging but I've only watched about two epesodes and don't care to watch any tv at all right now, but... the theme song for the show is much much better then it has any right to be.

Take my love, take my land
Take me where I cannot stand
I don't care, I'm still free
You can't take the sky from me

Take me out to the black
Tell them I ain't comin' back
Burn the land and boil the sea
You can't take the sky from me

There's no place I can be
Since I found serenity
But you can't take the sky from me.

Jackie used to say her favorite word, I think, was euphoria. I told her mine is serenity. And I thought, all I want in life is serenity. just to be ok with it. and, of course, I don't want that anymore, I want passion. And I guess when it comes down to it all I have is passion, I have no serenity.

Parker was here two weeks ago. We spent a weekend just talking and playing guitar and seeing concerts. It was more or less surreal and amazing. what we talked about mostly was ourselves. music, and culture, and people and girls and ourselves. And when it came down to it... look, we're assholes. the think I remeber the sharpest is when parker said "Its really just because we think we're better then everyone. We do think we're better than everyone. We think our ideas are better, we think how we live our lives are better..." and he's right. we do. We are assholes.

I am an asshole. I will always hate the people around me because... because they like mcdonalds, or because they don't know what fallafel is, or because they listen to kings of leon or becase they like the shins but for the wrong reasons. I hate people because they wait at crosswalks or becasue they won't go into public parks after night or becasue they wear nice clothes or because they don't know who sonic youth is, or even because they know who sonic youth is and think thats a big accomplishment. I AM SUCH AN ASSHOLE. I just smile and lie to all these people and more.

And besides for that I am self obsessed. to the point of narssesism. All I think about is my self and where I got it right and where I am an asshole. all I think about is who I am. All my film ideas are about the person I want to become, which is just a way of making films about an idealized version of my self. all I think about is myself.


In the documentry Helvetica theres two main points of view expressed about use of the font. The modernists of the fiftys and sixties thought it was neutral and clear and beautiful. They used it for everything. The eightys and ninetys thought it was bland and meaningless and a corprate simbol. That you needed expressive fonts to say expressive things. The modernests thought these people were just making the world less beautiful. The later artists didn't think aestetic beauty was the end all.

in one of the end scenes they showed a verry resent young artist who used helvetica a lot. he didn't know or care about the debate around it. He wasn't concerned so much about the philosophy of aestetics over all or nihilism over all. He just made good art that he liked. We are the younger generation who grew up fast and our ignorance is setting us free. its alowing us to do the best work.

another case is with political corectness. Two generations ago they are/were verry politicaly incorect. They were racist and sexist and hit their kids in school and all sorts of other things. The generation above us changed the cuture and made a point to be verry politicaly correct (they invented the term). They didn't use red pens in school, they tiptoed around words, they said African American, and all sorts of other horrible things. Our generation is breaking down pollitical correct, but we're not snaping back to our grandparents. We just say what makes sence. No bullshit. We use helvetica to say sunshine.

words are poison

Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space

I have started to make a soundtrack to my own disappearance. Constructing in my head and semi-actively on a tape songs and albums I would take with me when I run away. Not that I plan on disappearing, because I don't. But the thought interests me. My decaying green cd case holds thirty discs. What goes in it? My tape, ninty minnutes. And I think, you know, it has been a wile since the Beatles graced the interior of my opitical drive, the stones, much much longer. These days I trafic in Lighning Bolt and Holy Miranda and Ride, but, they would not make it in. Had I a twelve hour bus trip to a place where once again I knew no one I would revert back to the timeless I think. Arctic Monkeys, Cat Power, The Shins, I think. Music to keep me alive.

Somehow I feel like... I'm at an end. or, more that I'm at The end. That my story is closing. "And after the hardship and the struggle and the unrestrained joy, stuart came to pratt to die."

I don't plan on dying. Its just a feeling.

I don't know why I'm feeling like this right now. I'll snap out of it.

all i want in life

Wake

I have been thinking a bit about the concept of transience. Last saturday (thats how long I've been meaning to write this post. Its been a fucking busy week)...Last saturday I saw so many amazing things, so many incredible little happenings that I experienced one by one by accident. All by my self, without my camera. And I think - I have to tell someone about this. I have to let someone know of all the small magical insignificant moments that occurred. And then I thought that no. How brilliant it is that there is no evidence. How amazing that I would be the only one to experience this day just as I experienced it and it would never happen again. How amazing that these things were here and gone. And if noone else could have the day like I did then why try to give them that experience, knowing that your attempts are futile. And so I didn't talk about it, except to tell people that saturday was good, and I didn't talk about it again, and I didn't talk about it again.

And I think, art, in itself, is a lie. Sure its a lie to tell the truth but why should it hold up next to the unadulterated truth? Yes a photograph can be beautiful, and movies intoxicating, and paintings and sculpture and music and so on. But my eyes see in billions of colors with gigantic resolution and infinite color depth. My ears here crystal clear uncompressed audio in ten thousand point surround sound. My skin feels the wind and the pavement and the rush of this city pulsing through my vains. I am the perfect entertainment system with beautiful experiences displayed through it eighteen hours a day, every day I live, and if I payed a bit more attention to it then I would perfect the art of living.

but that burden's not on you

Girl Afraid

There's a scene in a lot of movies and tv shows and general feel good pulp where an older person is asked about their life and this person says "yes, it was hard, but you know what? If I went back I would do it all again the same. I don't regret anything" and I think bull shit. and I think you know what? if I went back again I would do it all differently I would change every single tiny thing I did. I regret everything. I do. I regret everything.

but really, I don't want to go back. the thought of doing so would keep me up at night. even the good parts were bad and thinking of it any other way I think would be lying to myself. It has all been such a struggle every single goddamn step and though I suppose its turned out alright which is to say thouse struggles made me who I am now and I like who I am, does that make them worth it? If I was stuck back as me as a three year old and told "well, your going to have the next fifteen years as constant struggle, and probably more after that, but it will be worth it becasue at eighteen you'll like the person you are" would I go for it? would I think that was worth it? I don't think so.

but thouse fifteen years are over now and I will never have to repeat them. amen.

i'll never make that mistake again

Stars Of Track And Field

When we used to have to run the mile I used to think damn I wish I was me an hour from now. I will no longer be sweaty and tired and, most importantly, I will no longer be running and I will not have a mile left to do infront of me. I will be done with the work and able to reap the benefit. And you know what? Theres so much we do for Stuart an hour from now, or ourselves next year or in the vauge fucking future and now I thinking Fuck stuart of the future. That jackass benefiting off of my work. Fuck you Stuart looking back on this a year from now thinking how far you've come from this point. How stupid, how imature, stuart of fall 2009 is. Fuck you. You're not even me anymore, your someone else, someone I can't predict.

And I think how much stuart of winter 2008 was and idiot, and I think of how stuart of summer 2001 would hate me and be ashamed of his association if we ever met, and I guess I don't care. They don't exist any more.

This heart ache is worse then I though it would be. Its been four weeks. I should be over this. I Need to be over this. I don't want to feel this way any longer.

make a new cult every day to suit your affairs

Stadiums and Shrines II

Amelie is one of my favorite movies. Just want to get that out there before I start.

Its set in the summer of '97 (is that corect? I can't remeber right now) right after Princes Diana died. This has nothing at all to do with the plot. And yet it hovers there in the background, because (and I do remember that point in time) at that moment news of Diana was everywhere, unavoidable, even though it didn't fit in with the plot of our own individual lives.

In June, as you may have herd, Michael Jackson died. As a result, for the enire summer every single store you walked into instead of playing their own shit the usual elivator crap they played Michael Jackson. Every single goddamn store.

I want to set a movie in the summer of '09.

This among other things gave the summer a sort of... well not magical,... but detached feel. It felt unrealistic, removed from real life. It was really really unsettling to me. I mentioned to Diana once this summer (not the princes) that every time I go to new york in a week my entire life in California seems...unreal. seems like something I dreamed up in high feavor, and yet every time I come back new york seems sureal, a dream. I told her I know that when I return to the east that the entire summer will fall apart in my mind and I didn't want that to happen. It has. This summer has become incredibly difficult for me to believe, its something that happoned to someone else, something I made up. And yet... I can't let go of it. I stay up thinking of it at night, destracts me during class. I want this summer back. I was melencholy and detatched and restless through the whole thing but, It was magical. I can't believe it. Did that happen? Am I asleep?

Today is 9/9/09. The Beatles remasters were reliesed today. Every store I walked into had them playing on the radio. Am I asleep?

A FANTASY

by Stuart Solomon
(forgive me, I have forgoten proper scrip format. In my defence when I took that class I never thought I would ever wright a script. Just direct.)

No establishing shot.

First angle is a medium shot slightly over the sholder of BOY who is sitting on a squat marble (or other stone) wall, eating penne with maranera out of a plastic container. His eyes are just slightly bloodshot or iritated.

After a moment GIRL enters the screen from the left side of the frame carying a notebook and a relatively thing textbook.

Girl (smiles): Hey!

Boy (looks up): Hey. What you up to?

Girl (stops walking for a moment): Um... Not much, heading in.

Boy: Um (he takes a small bite and chews for a beat)... Do you want to go somewhere?

Girl: Um...where?

Boy (puts his plastic fork down): Um... I don't know. We could, uh, jump in the fountain at Rockefeller Center or like a dinner downtown. (he looks strained) The.. or, the promenade, uh, Brooklyn Hights, that's always nice.

Girl: Um, well din't you say earlyer...

Boy: Yeah, uh, I have homework. I'll,...like...stay up all night or something...

Girl: Ummmm, alright. But, uh... why?

Boy (shrugs and looks up at her): I'm just in, like, one of those moods.

Girl (bights lower lip softly and looks around): could I... just run and put my stuff down?

Boy: no. Thats not how it works.

Girl: I think... No, I don't, I don't think so. (makes a kind of apologetic face) Sorry!

Jump cut to camera on dolly swiftly circleing to the left. After under a half second cut to the exact same shot that was shown several seconds before (a kind of rewind)

Girl: I think... um, ok. sure.

Boy stands up. They walk twords the campas exit, boy with left hand in his pocket. He throughs away the container of pasta along the way.



This is a fantasy. Why? Because I don't have the corage to ask a girl. Or maybe I do. I think I could pull that together easy I guess if I was indeed in that kind of mood. Why else is it a fantasy? Because no girl would say yes. or even if they did it wouldn't be the same. Nothing goes to scrip. No matter how good of a writer you are, how realisit, nothing goes to scrip. Its all a fantasy. This is not going to happen. I will not jump a subway with some unsuspecting girl and go do something crazy and meaningless and amazing. its just a fucking feel good fantasy.

you see something to cheer about, i'll tell you that its mine.