We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed

Jackie posted This Is Just To Say on her blog a little wile ago and goddamn I havn't herd that poem in a wile the first time I herd it was in elementary school and it was just a cute thing and I've read some double you see double you recently because of his connections with the beats and letters of incoragement back and forth with Allen Ginsburg in the back of the eddition on Howl I took out from the library a couple months ago but some how I haden't come across that poem again and I read Jackie's post and its amazing and I didn't know what to say sure its cute still and very funny that he would wright that sure but just so crisp so so I don't know I suck at words to explain art all I say is 'I don't Know' all the time but that poem blew me away so sweet so cold so sweet so

This morning I had about two hours to kill before zero hour for busking and its not enough time to watch a movie and the only book I had out from the library was poetry and I was a bit burt out on poetry cause I've been working my way through Dylan Thomas and... whatever anyway I downloaded the most resent podcast of This American Life because Jackie has talked about it a lot and I read a peice about it in the AV Club and I wanted to check it out and at the end there is the poem again and it again was compleatly sublime and then a bunch of parodys after some of which were also so so brillient this is just to say and I guess thats where Jackie herd it too

Basicly I just miss Jackie. So much. Adrian for some reason I can talk to on the phone and thats ok and I don't miss him and all my other friends are, you know, all my other friends. I would go to hell and back for them but right now I have so much art I don't have time to miss them I guess. Too much to do. But with Jackie talking on the phone sucks. It doesn't suck, I mean I enjoy talking to her, but its not enough because it doesn't for some reason stop me from missing here. I'm so glad she's working at the Cafe again on saturdays because that was my day to come in to sit around and sip tea there.

The fourth paragraph goes like this: I don't usualy write things about events and plans I have with people outside of the ones that read this blog. Which is to say that this is not a diary, its a place for me to record and work through my thoughts. But...

The first thing I am doing when I get home, after eating a burrito, is calling Diana and telling her that she is comming on a date with me at Cafeina the next morning. Because breakfast there on a sunny day is the ideal first date in my mind. And also because I know its now become final that she is not going to New York for college next year which she is upset about but if I can't be with her in a more permanant time period at least I can be with her for just the summer and I don't think I could stand being in the same state with her and being seperate. I am writing this here so if Jackie is working that day (I kind of hope shes not, sory) she isn't just finding out about this. If she were just finding out about it she would get all excited for me and make me turn bright red and I don't want that to happen right then. 

The next day or so I'll go back to Cafeina and ask if they're hiring. 

i hope my heart goes first

Perfume-V

Most of the Mountain Goat's recorded output (and almost everything for the first decade of their existence) is recorded on a standard department store boom box. The point was immediacy, a song was conceived, it was recorded, it never was recorded again. If it wasn't recorded it was forgotten in a few days. I was kind of inspired. I ran the mic from a hand held mini cassette recorder through my standard cassette deck and recorded an acoustic noise version of the Mountain Goats "No Children" (even though thats one of their songs that isn't actually recorded on the boom box) and then I pressed record again and in one take improvised a guitar part, vocal melody, and lyrics to a song. Because I don't know what note I'm going to sing next the vocals are a bit wavery and it probably could be done a bit better if I re-recorded it but I think that would take away the intensity. Anyway, click the links below to hear them.

No Children

Song 1

P.S. Allen Ginsburg is a BEAST

and it makes me feel ok, I don't feel ok

What Jail Is Like

I just had an epiphany. Sort of. Well, it was an sudden break through but about something almost completely inconsequential.

About nine months ago me and Chris Jones had a conversation about bands' fan bases. It came up when he got on Radiohead's case by dissing their fans. ("seriousness is not the same as intelligence no matter what virginal Radiohead fans say") and I said, yeah, I love Radiohead but I don't like most Radiohead fans I meet. The ones twenty five and older tend to be pissed off about kid a, which I don't understand at all. Was kid a really that unsettling? Its seems like a fairly normal album to me. Albeit a good one. The ones younger then twenty five are either hipsters or mainstream music listeners who I have no idea what they're doing around Radiohead or, yes, the virginal ultra-serious type. Of course there are always people I meet who likeRadiohead and are cool but generally I would bet against it. If we were to take guesses on weather I would get along with someone or not based purely on they're list of favorite bands, seeing Radiohead would not be a good sign to me. 

So me and CJ started thinking, what would be a good sign? A band who's fan base was cool more often then not. I couldn't think of anything. Chris mentioned the Velvet Underground and I guess that's pretty accurate. In the months in between then and now this question has stuck in the back of my mind and I've pulled a few others out. Cap'n Jazz, Owls, Dirty Projectors, its a little bit hard for me to imagine too many idiots like these bands but still all of these still didn't quite do it for me and so the question still hung around the back of my mind. 

Today I came up with a solution. Nirvana. Perhaps it was just in Albany but Nirvana is stuck in a weird place. They were so intensely popular with the generation directly preceding us and they strike a chord with almost every middle schooler to the extent that they become the epitome of uncool to the casual fan. As per the intense fan, they're hard enough that the indie pop crowd sees it as testosterone fueled bull shit and they're soft enough that the metal and punk crowd sees everything post-Bleach as commercialized sentimental crap. Which leaves the only people who would openly declare a love for Nirvana as being ones who didn't care about all that crap, and who could see Nirvana's unquestionable brilliance, and who didn't mind being considered the definition of uncool by all parties involved. I guess it also leaves the middle school crowd... and those still have not broken free of the middle school state of mind... but still. Its hard for me to imagine anyone over 15 with a unapologetic love for Nirvana being someone I couldn't respect. 

You see? This is an epiphany to me these days. Its fucking meaningless.

lonely? maybe. or maybe not it all depends

Favorite Thing

my favorite cd player broke in december. the one I use now has a weeker preamp. my headphones have lower then standard sensitivity. I like siting on the floor of my apartment listening to music because its the only way I can turn it up until my ears hurt.

bar nothing

No Pussy Blues

yesterday, or maybe the day before, or maybe the day before that. It could have been anytime really... I couldn't sleep but I was really trying but I had this song lyric that shot into my head and I opened my eyes to find they had ajusted enough so I could see what I was writing just by the pail light that came from the street lamps coming in through the crack between the end of my curtain and the end of the window. and in a daze I stumble for a pen and my notebook and I scribble it down and then I stop dead. The light glansing off the edge of the paper and spilling on to my hand as if it was water was... it was the most beautiful thing I've seen in a long time. and I just sit there. and I look at it. and I look and my camera it just out of arms reach. and it has no film in it anyway. and there was not enough light to begin with. and if I used the flash it would ruin it all. so that meant the moment I moved my hand or my body this would be gone. I will be the only one who ever sees this. and the once I moved I would never see it again. and I liked that somehow. and I sat there for a half hour staring at the edge of the paper and my hand holding it. and then I got up to get a glass of water. and no one will ever see that again.

that I must above all things love myself/that I must above all things love myself/that I must above all things love myself

No Children

yes I am going to continue to write posts about music in specifics until my blood shot eyes obssesiveness dies down. Right now I hope it never dies down. But I Think it will. just what I think

I barly know the Manic Street Preachers for music. This is because cheep used copies of either Generation Terrorists and The Holy Bible in the United States are, as far as I'm concerned, non-existant. But I love them. Mostly for their concepts. Relese one record. Pakage it in a sandpaper sleave. Sell more copies then Apitite For Destruction. Through it all away. One album. Then brake up the band. The sandpaper will destroy not only the records stored next to it, but also the record inside the sleaves. If everything went corectly they would gain a mass folowing and in a years time there would be no trace of their existance at all. 

They were lieing. It was always kind of the point. Don't you get it? That was always kind of the point. 

I love them because Richey James Edwards probably did nothing musicaly for the band exept write some of the lyrics and pretend to play guitar, or other times not even pretend to play guitar. I love that when a reporter questioned their authenticity he took a knife and carved 4real into his arm and had to be rushed to the hospital. I love that richey was the messia to a lot of people. I love "We will always hate Slowdive more than Hitler". I love everything about their ideals and the fact that they were never going to stick by them and the fact that they knew that from day one. I love how one day Richey left or killed himself because it seems like that was the only apropriate thing for him to do. 

Keiron Gillen said to just go buy a copy of "No Children" and listen to it 40 times a day 80 times a day if your at the terminal point in a rellation ship. But Keiron Gillen says a lot of things. I mean, ok, he is the reason I know about the Manics in the first place and, yes, I do bace my music jornalist aproach on a manefesto for video game jornalism of all things he wrote a few years ago and, sure, the whole reason I'm in this obssesive state can be tacked back to being all his fault. But still. There is nothing redeaming about Take That and Radiohead is brillient any way you slice it. But...

I listened to "No Children" 40 times today.

I'm going to listen to it 40 times tomorrow probably.

and maybe the next day.

do you self a favor. or maybe it might not be a favor but whatever. Listen to it. It should start playing when you load this page. scroll up on the playlist and play it again.

I hope you die! I hope we both die! 

I want to shout that from the mountain tops. I want that to be the words on my toumb stone. I this song to narrorate my life for ever. I want to shout that from the mountain tops! I HOPE YOU DIE! I HOPE WE BOTH DIE! Goddamn!

just listen to the fucking lyrics of that song please.

in my life I hope I lie and tell everyone that you were a good wife

Live Forever

I am obssesed with britpop. Not obssesed like... well I use that word a lot. Usualy I use it to mean I'm passionate about something. I am obssesed with the hitchhikers guide to the galexy, that kind of thing. With Jack Keroack's On The Road, with Portishead's most resent. But I'm obssesed with this actualy. Like I was for two weeks about easter island in fourth grade, like with The Beatles for a month in eighth. Like I stay up at night because I'm thinking about movents in pop music culture. About voids and bands filling it. About Dionysus and Apollo the pros and cons of narcissism, radiohead or blur or suede or oasis. About weather to be what Nirvana wanted to be or what he became and why he killed himself. About "John and I littearly used to sit down and say, 'Now, let's write a swimming pool.'" About movements like watter in the underground and the mainstreem. About no one likes the Arcade Fire about how no one takes the Shins seriously. About Jarvis Cocker who is not Jesus but has the same initials and seems like the only actual human in the whole fucking world

I am a man of Apollo. I've always taken pride in that but its not something I created. Its my base instinct. Its what I snap back to in times of stress no matter what. My older sister is basicly of Dionysus in the same way. Thats why I have chosen the underground over the world of pop why I have chosen post-punk over new wave over metal bangers not anthems blur over oasis pulp over all. Individual over comunity. Grunge over Britpop. And all I've wanted to be for these years was an undergrond sucsess. I wanted to be Pere Ubu, not The Clash. I wanted to be The Velvet Underground, not The Rolling Stones. I wanted to be Bob Dylan, not the Beatles. 

But now I want to be better then the Beatles. 

Now I want to be Suede, I want to be Oasis. I want to live for today and delude myself that today is what there is. I want to love myself and the people around me because they're good enough so I'm gonna goddamn pretend we are perfect. I want to ware two thoulsand dollar suits and smash my guitar into my amp every goddamn nice. I want to take it as far as I can and make sure I end with enough money to buy a good pair of shoes for my funeral. I want music you get caught up in compleatly. I want to set fire to the graves of every band that ever played a note of progressive rock. Because this is my life man, this is MY LIFE. This is all I have. I don't get to look back after I've gone and say 'well that man did a good job of sticking to his pricipals and is a good example for the next generation'. I don't give a fuck about the next generation. If the world falls apart a year after I passed, well, its sure as hell better then it falling apart a year before I go. I want to look out across manhattan as I cross that bridge and I know that it is my kingdom. I want to fucking live forever. I want TO FUCKING LIVE FOREVER. 

maybe i just want to breath maybe i just dont believe