Broken Home, Broken Heart

I have, I think, sympathy till the end of the earth. I did. at least I did. the other day I was walking with Ulysses and he was telling me about a friend who has died. or not a friend but a girl in his studio, who he knew, a kind aquantance, viewd highly. she was dead. and hes shaken. and he wanted to come to brooklyn to be with people who didn't know her and didn't know what happened. to have a good time and a fun time and not think about it for a little bit and be at peace. and we're walking around the block and hes telling me this. and I don't care. I don't feel sympathetic. and thats fucked up. and I mean he didn't really know her. and then he was talking about his aunt who died when he was seven. the only other major death in his life.

and I am empathetic. I am. I want very much to feel for him. this is a major loss to the guy. the biggest he's ever had. and someone our age. and it does remind that it's possible. we are not invincible. one thing and then you're dead and thats it. that's it.

but all I'm thinking is how cheesey everything he's saying is. and all I'm thinking is how horrible I am for thinking this. and how detached I have become. I really want to care but I don't care. I used to care even when I didn't want to.

and maybe it's because it's so minor. maybe it's because I wanted to shake him and say You want an epifany? Than Have The Fucking Guts To Have An Epiphany Before An Excuse Like Your Friend Dying Comes Along. maybe because I wanted to tell him I didn't give a fuck about his aunt dying, and some girl he kinda sorta knew. My dad is dead I wanted to tell him. My dad is dead for ten years. For half my life. this goddamn month. I don't know the day. I hate that I don't know the day. it could be today. it could be ten years today my dad is fucking dead. I wanted to tell him to go fuck himself my dad is dead.

but really I wanted to have sympathy. for my ailing friend I wanted to have honest sympathy. I think he knew it wasn't honest. I used to have sympathy. I didn't mention my dad at all. that would be rude pulling of focus. I hate when people do that.

cry yourself to sleep at night

I Walked

remember middle school? When we all realized how awful the pack system was? When individuality was the biggest goal, to swim upstream, to be true to yourself. when not caring about what anyone thought was the ultimate goal? and everyone else was against us. And suddenly we go to art school and film school and when all the people who always thought this are together we all become little socialists. we become so concerned with relating to other people, with avoiding pretentiousness and being down to earth and on level with the masses. So fuck it. If this is pretentiousness than I am pretentious. Because I like what I like and don't like what I don't like. Because I don't take how manny people like something into account. I still hate the structure of social interactions, the politics, the game. I still hate people as much as ever. I know I can't relate to anyone anymore. I can't find anyway to relate to anyone anymore. I still just want to be myself. and unfortunately I am still an outsider for it. and don't ever be mistaken, there is nothing glamourous or cool or fun about being an outsider.

that it's me, it's my fault

Runaway

on running.

I'm trying to explain to her that I don't look down on people with tastes other than mine, that I almost admire them. that who am I to think less of someone because they like to be entertained by their entertainment? that they like their films and music to work with their life not for their life to work for their music and films and books. that they like to have fun and not worry about anything other than the mass of things they already have to worry about. How can I think less of them?

its just -

I am not them. did I used to want to be them? maybe briefly. middle school was hard you know. I still envey them. but I like my life. I like how I live. theres nothing wrong with it. I am not going to try to be them.

and its just -

if I seem begrudged its because there is only one of me and many of them. and because I came to new york and to art school to try to find more people like me. because traditionally thats where you went to find them. and shit its cool that art school is no longer full of pretentious pricks I guess but - - Where do I look now? whats my next option? there are no artists in the art scene. there are no artists in the underground music scene. there are no artists in the film scene. the art scene resents artists. independant music and independant film now resents artists. where am I suppossed to look?

I walk into a fruit store and the halls are filled with vegtables. I look dissatisfied. The clerk scoffs at me, angry, righteous. What, do I have a problem with vegitabels? What the fuck is wrong with me? Why is it that I find fruit so supirior?

No, i wave my arms in the air trying to explain. No! I love vegtables! They are amazing! without them all my favorite food would be gone! Its just - I was looking for fruit right now! I haven't had any in a while! And if the fruit store no longer sells any than where am I supposed to go? Where am I supposed to look! Will I never taste fruit again!

not that she believes me. or cares. keep running.

at least you know that's what i'm good at

Whiskey Bottle

I had an odd relization that came from me quitting pot.

you see, it wasn't working for me. it wasn't. though I quite enjoy it, it just doesn't effect me the way it seems to do for the people who can function with it. I like movies less high, I like music less high. I Like Music Less high. thats something. on top of that it gives me heavy lithargic hangovers and made it harder to concentrait in my sober life, made me less productive, less ambitious, more content. the worst think is it seems to have stifled my emotions. I don't go crazy when I'm somking even semi regularly. I need to go crazy. I need to feel.

All this is not the point though, because you can't say pot is a bad thing. so many people I know, primary of which is Jackie and Mike Martinez, smoke every day as much as they can and don't suffer from ANY of this. any of it. in fact they like everything more when their high, they can function, they can feel, they can pay attention.

so many people I know hate pot because they don't believe this. They think jackie or mike are lying, that pot always has these heavy negative side effects.

so many stoners I know hate these straight laced people, they think pot is harmless and largly without these bad results.

and it all comes from the assumption that how it affects me is how it will effect other people. HOW THEIR MIND WORKS IS THE SAME AS HOW MY MIND WORKS. how it affects me is exactly how it effects everyone.

I can think of no line of thinking that has caused more resentment or wrongdoing. I used to hate other kids becasue my mind worked in straight lines and easy logic and it was so easy I didn't understand why theres didn't aswel. other kids used to hate and look down on me because they didn't understand why I couldn't write, why I had trouble making fucking marks on paper. cultures clash because we have different deffinitons of good and bad, of scary and calm, of what good tasting food is we think "thats oviously bad to me so it must be oviously bad to everyone, why do these people like such bad things?"

we are much less alike than we think we are. we are all at a base level seperait. WE ARE NOT THE SAME you and i. basically alone. and if we realize that we will be able to better come together.

not forever but for now

Limit To Your Love

when was it? I guess crystal castles played here in march, josane wanted me to go with her i didn't have the money, i didn't listen to them then but i think they played since though its hard to tell as it always seems to be at terminal 5, the same venue, but lets just say it was august. August crystal castles played terminal 5 in hells kitchen and pictures went up on brooklyn vegan (a good site if you live in the city despite its obnoxious name) and alice glass wnt crazy and gave people death looks and i think hit one person and screamed bloody hell and drank jack daniels wiskey out of the bottle on stage and it was all quite violent except it was lost on the crowd of people who seemed mostly around sixteen, female, yeah i'm sexist too, high on weed maybe exticy, dancing, there for the bro-step dub-step as fuck openers and to general party.

yes i am bitter, everyones bitter, youre bitter too but all of this is not important.

I was not there. I just saw the pictures on brooklyn vegan. whats important is the internet trolls. all of them. who said 'her schtick is such a joke' they made sarcastic comments they rolled their eyes. And it got me thinking.

What is the nature of reality?

not bullshit, thats what I thought.

When is something someone does real or not?

Lets break it down. Nirvana's angst, we can all asume, was real. Why? Because as far as they were concerned there was nothing to be gained from it. The only thing they thought their violence would ern them is being kicked out home and ostracized from the comunity. for girls at clubs to look at them and say get some money and a unripped pair of pants and maybe I'll get back to you. They had everything to loose, social, politicaly, finacialy, from their violence but they did it anyway. that they were succseful from it was a fluke of couse, they never understood it themselves.

Now, Audioslave's violence we can asume to be false. They at the time had everything to gain from it. They could do it without anyone outcasting them, they could make tons of money from it, they could look cool. The could do it and look cool as all hell. So they followed the formula: distorted guitar + angsty lyrics + ripped clothes = violence. its just something they did. it took no corage.

But now, in essance, everything is ok, at least in our imploding hipster brooklyn. if you do something crazy people will asume you're more artistic than them so they will pretend its ok so they can seem more artistic than you. No one is going to get shit for anything. So anything can be faked. And we don't know whats real and whats fake anymore.

Alice Glass Could Be Fake. which is to say I could have gotten up there, yelled, and drank Jack out of a bottle, theres an easy formula. She didn't have to be angry and see the bottle sitting there and say FUCK EVERYONE and just go drink it on stage. because saying fuck everyone implys that someone wouldn't want you to do that, when its exactly what all the people in the audience and all the record exects wanted her to do.

but on the flip side it means everyones twice afraid of doing anything real, because now not only will half the world not understand and kick you out for it, the other half now will say your a phony, pandering. so now the real artistic of us, or at least the potential artistic in us, walk around with our heads down trying not to do anthing out of the orenary because if we do now we won't only hear crys of "YOUR A FUCKING WERDO" we'll aslo hear crys from our piers of "OH THATS SO FUCKING OUT OF THE ORDINARY ISN'T IT? YOU MUST BE SO FUCKING PROUD OF YOURSELF. I GUESS YOUR SO FUCKING ARTISTIC/BADDASS."

for the record I think Alice Glass is telling the truth. And as much as we can say that authenticity shouldn't matter in music, that its a rockist sentiment, it does matter. It does. It matters in music because it matters in real life, more than anything I can think of right now. tell the truth. don't sell yourself short. fuck them all. they can fucking die.

so carelessly there

Oh

In regard to many aspects of my life, my point of view and plan of attack seems to stem from that fact that my mother is a hack at what she does. That is, I think she's a hack, and have always thought that shes a hack. Don't get me wrong, she's an amazing person and the best mother a kid could ask for a great at a lot of things and all that, but at her chosen profession she is really not very good at all. And yet. And yet for a huge number of years she was employed in this field, and not only employed but making serious money, for a while over 100k a year. Now she hasn't been able to find a job around that since the dot com bubble burst in 2001, but still, that's ridiculous. But I always knew she was a hack and its always bugged me. And she has always urged me to learn to self-promote, to pitch myself and so on in order to get ahead.

So I went the other way and determined that if I get ahead it will be because I'm the best, to work on improving my skills instead of improving my means to convince people of these skills. And to work towards this not only in myself but to demand it of all things. To buy the product that is better made, not the one with the best marketing campaign, to always try to know which one this is. To find the best movies, not the easiest ones. To work hard to know the difference between something good and something bad. This is whats important to me.

Like Adrian I have somehow been able to work harder towards my goals recently, I don't know why. In that past month I've improved at guitar at speeds which are stunning to me. I've been able to keep up an extreemeley consistant workout routine, I've been teaching myself to cook good food everyday, from ingredients bought at discount, so I don't have to choose between decent health and buying music anymore. I've watched a lot of movies, got a job, a girlfriend.

That being said, I've been able to do all this with what feels like only a marginal amount of work. I can only imagine what I can do with further effort, but whatever it is I need to do it. Now is the time to get ahead not just by being surprisingly good, but by being the best. By working the hardest. And I intend to do it.

and if there is a god he still loves you

Maybes

my head is in patterns that have started to get choppy, its rearranging, and I'm hoping its getting my life somewhere new.

yes no