The blog in where I try to break down my love with The Magnetic Fields

Really, I remember the day I got to hear 69 Love Songs.

Spring, afternoon, I remember because in Denton the Crepe Myrtle were rubbing their branches together to wake up.
I was walking with Chris, and we were talking about how we both liked Knapsack and Karate, trying to out-obscure indie rock with one another by asking each other if we had it on vinyl or CD, scoffing at the other for not really "owning" the music.
He roomed along with Ktrey and Candace in the one apartment where so much had happened in Denton. George O'Neal getting scurvy, the Pointy Shoe Factory forming (and then later, breaking up) and of course Mikey Sweets' shrinking room.
Due to poor architecture-ing, the farthest room from the street tapered off in the corner, an optical illusion that forced you to have all of your furniture pushed against one wall, uncomfortable for some company, quite alluring for others.

I've digressed.

Yet, background is important when talking about life changing events, and this one still rings out in me.
Reno Dakota was the very first song I heard. Vocals- Claudia Gonson, Music- Stephin Merritt.

Since then I've associated every aspect of my life with Stephin Merritt's music as best as a depraved indie rock schlub can. It's all in there, every emotion that I feel I always connect it with lyrics or a song from the entire catalog.

It's blissful, it's painful, it's full. And tomorrow night I'll finally get a chance to see Stephin Merritt & Co., courtesy of Erin.

You may think you do but don't you?

Nothing but drinking.

Friday for Raven's birthday and then yesterday just because. Erin's friends from when she lived in Dublin. Great apartments on the west side (actually near Rudy's).

Today is laundry/cleaning apartment day. Work doesn't start until 9am now, and I feel like I've been given a golden ticket.

Looks like a roadmap to infection

David Byrne's Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists — and Megastars

Full disclosure: I used to own a record label. That label, Luaka Bop, still exists, though I'm no longer involved in running it. My last record came out through Nonesuch, a subsidiary of the Warner Music Group empire. I have also released music through indie labels like Thrill Jockey, and I have pressed up CDs and sold them on tour. I tour every few years, and I don't see it as simply a loss leader for CD sales. So I have seen this business from both sides. I've made money, and I've been ripped off. I've had creative freedom, and I've been pressured to make hits. I have dealt with diva behavior from crazy musicians, and I have seen genius records by wonderful artists get completely ignored. I love music. I always will. It saved my life, and I bet I'm not the only one who can say that.

What is called the music business today, however, is not the business of producing music. At some point it became the business of selling CDs in plastic cases, and that business will soon be over. But that's not bad news for music, and it's certainly not bad news for musicians. Indeed, with all the ways to reach an audience, there have never been more opportunities for artists.

Where are things going? Well, some people's charts look like this:

Some see this picture as a dire trend. The fact that Radiohead debuted its latest album online and Madonna defected from Warner Bros. to Live Nation, a concert promoter, is held to signal the end of the music business as we know it. Actually, these are just two examples of how musicians are increasingly able to work outside of the traditional label relationship. There is no one single way of doing business these days. There are, in fact, six viable models by my count. That variety is good for artists; it gives them more ways to get paid and make a living. And it's good for audiences, too, who will have more — and more interesting — music to listen to. Let's step back and get some perspective.

What is music?
First, a definition of terms. What is it we're talking about here? What exactly is being bought and sold? In the past, music was something you heard and experienced — it was as much a social event as a purely musical one. Before recording technology existed, you could not separate music from its social context. Epic songs and ballads, troubadours, courtly entertainments, church music, shamanic chants, pub sing-alongs, ceremonial music, military music, dance music — it was pretty much all tied to specific social functions. It was communal and often utilitarian. You couldn't take it home, copy it, sell it as a commodity (except as sheet music, but that's not music), or even hear it again. Music was an experience, intimately married to your life. You could pay to hear music, but after you did, it was over, gone — a memory.

Technology changed all that in the 20th century. Music — or its recorded artifact, at least — became a product, a thing that could be bought, sold, traded, and replayed endlessly in any context. This upended the economics of music, but our human instincts remained intact. I spend plenty of time with buds in my ears listening to recorded music, but I still get out to stand in a crowd with an audience. I sing to myself, and, yes, I play an instrument (not always well).

We'll always want to use music as part of our social fabric: to congregate at concerts and in bars, even if the sound sucks; to pass music from hand to hand (or via the Internet) as a form of social currency; to build temples where only "our kind of people" can hear music (opera houses and symphony halls); to want to know more about our favorite bards — their love lives, their clothes, their political beliefs. This betrays an eternal urge to have a larger context beyond a piece of plastic. One might say this urge is part of our genetic makeup.

All this is what we talk about when we talk about music.

All of it.

What do record companies do?
Or, more precisely, what did they do?

· Fund recording sessions

· Manufacture product

· Distribute product

· Market product

· Loan and advance money for expenses (tours, videos, hair and makeup)

· Advise and guide artists on their careers and recordings

· Handle the accounting

This was the system that evolved over the past century to market the product, which is to say the container — vinyl, tape, or disc — that carried the music. (Calling the product music is like selling a shopping cart and calling it groceries.) But many things have changed in the past decade that reduce the value of these services to artists.

For example:

Recording costs have declined to almost zero. Artists used to need the labels to bankroll their recordings. Most simply didn't have the $15,000 (minimum) necessary to rent a professional studio and pay an engineer and a producer. For many artists — maybe even most — this is no longer the case. Now an album can be made on the same laptop you use to check email.

Manufacturing and distribution costs are approaching zero. There used to be a break-even point below which it was impractical to distribute a recording. With LPs and CDs, there were base manufacturing costs, printing costs, shipping, and so on. It paid — in fact, it was essential — to sell in volume, because that's how many of those costs got amortized. No more: Digital distribution is pretty much free. It's no cheaper per unit to distribute a million copies than a hundred.

Touring is not just promotion. Live performances used to be seen as essentially a way to publicize a new release — a means to an end, not an end in itself. Bands would go into debt in order to tour, anticipating that they'd recover their losses later through increased record sales. This, to be blunt, is all wrong. It's backward. Performing is a thing in itself, a distinct skill, different from making recordings. And for those who can do it, it's a way to make a living.

So with all these changes, what happens to the labels? Some will survive. Nonesuch, where I've done several albums, has thrived under Warner Music Group ownership by operating with a lean staff of 12 and staying focused on talent. "Artists like Wilco, Philip Glass, k.d. lang, and others have sold more here than when they were at so-called major labels," Bob Hurwitz, president of Nonesuch, told me, "even during a time of decline."

But some labels will disappear, as the roles they used to play get chopped up and delivered by more thrifty services. In a recent conversation I had with Brian Eno (who is producing the next Coldplay album and writing with U2), he was enthusiastic about I Think Music — an online network of indie bands, fans, and stores — and pessimistic about the future of traditional labels. "Structurally, they're much too large," Eno said. "And they're entirely on the defensive now. The only idea they have is that they can give you a big advance — which is still attractive to a lot of young bands just starting out. But that's all they represent now: capital."

So where do artists fit into this changing landscape? We find new options, new models.

The six possibilities

Where there was one, now there are six: Six possible music distribution models, ranging from one in which the artist is pretty much hands-off to one where the artist does nearly everything. Not surprisingly, the more involved the artist is, the more he or she can often make per unit sold. The totally DIY model is certainly not for everyone — but that's the point. Now there's choice.

1. At one end of the scale is the 360, or equity, deal, where every aspect of the artist's career is handled by producers, promoters, marketing people, and managers. The idea is that you can achieve wide saturation and sales, boosted by a hardworking machine that stands to benefit from everything you do. The artist becomes a brand, owned and operated by the label, and in theory this gives the company a long-term perspective and interest in nurturing that artist's career.

Pussycat Dolls, Korn, and Robbie Williams have made arrangements like this, selling equity in everything they touch. The T-shirts, the records, the concerts, the videos, the BBQ sauce. The artist often gets a lot of money up front. But I doubt that creative decisions will be left in the artist's hands. As a general rule, as the cash comes in, creative control goes out. The equity partner simply has too much at stake.

This is the kind of deal Madonna just made with Live Nation. For a reported $120 million, the company — which until now has mainly produced and promoted concerts — will get a piece of both her concert revenue and her music sales. I, for one, would not want to be beholden to Live Nation — a spinoff of Clear Channel, the radio conglomerate that turned the US airwaves into pabulum. But Madge is a smart cookie; she's always been adept at controlling her own stuff, so we'll see.

2. Next is what I'll call the standard distribution deal. This is more or less what I lived with for many years as a member of the Talking Heads. The record company bankrolls the recording and handles the manufacturing, distribution, press, and promotion. The artist gets a royalty percentage after all those other costs are repaid. The label, in this scenario, owns the copyright to the recording. Forever.

There's another catch with this kind of arrangement: The typical pop star often lives in debt to their record company and a host of other entities, and if they hit a dry spell they can go broke. Michael Jackson, MC Hammer, TLC — the danger of debt and overextension is an old story.

Obviously, the cost of these services, along with the record company's overhead, accounts for a big part of CD prices. You, the buyer, are paying for all those trucks, those CD plants, those warehouses, and all that plastic. Theoretically, as many of these costs go away, they should no longer be charged to the consumer — or the artist.

Sure, many of the services traditionally provided by record labels under the standard deal are now being farmed out. Press and publicity, digital marketing, graphic design — all are often handled by smaller, independent firms. But he who pays the piper calls the tune. If the record company pays the subcontractors, then the record company ultimately decides who or what has priority. If they "don't hear a single," they can tell you your record isn't coming out.

So what happens when online sales eliminate many of these expenses? Look at iTunes: $10 for a "CD" download reflects the cost savings of digital distribution, which seems fair — at first. It's certainly better for consumers. But after Apple takes its 30 percent, the royalty percentage is applied and the artist — surprise! — is no better off.

Not coincidentally, the issues here are similar to those in the recent Hollywood writers' strike. Will recording artists band together and go on strike?

3. The license deal is similar to the standard deal, except in this case the artist retains the copyrights and ownership of the master recording. The right to exploit that property is granted to a label for a limited period of time — usually seven years. After that, the rights to license to TV shows, commercials, and the like revert to the artist. If the members of the Talking Heads held the master rights to our catalog today, we'd earn twice as much in licensing as we do now — and that's where artists like me derive much of our income. If a band has made a record itself and doesn't need creative or financial help, this model is worth looking at. It allows for a little more creative freedom, since you get less interference from the guys in the big suits. The flip side is that because the label doesn't own the master, it may invest less in making the release a success.

But with the right label, the license deal can be a great way to go. This is the relationship Arcade Fire has with Merge Records, an indie label that's done great for its band by avoiding the big-spending, big-label approach. "Part of it is just being realistic and not putting yourself in the hole," Merge cofounder Mac McCaughan says. "The bands we work with, we never recommend that they make videos. I like videos, but they don't sell a lot of records. What really sells records is touring — and artists can actually make money on the tour itself if they keep their budgets down."

4. Then there's the profit-sharing deal. I did something like this with my album Lead Us Not Into Temptation in 2003. I got a minimal advance from the label, Thrill Jockey, since the recording costs were covered by a movie soundtrack budget, and we shared the profits from day one. I retained ownership of the master. Thrill Jockey does some marketing and press. I may or may not have sold as many records as I would have with a larger company, but in the end I took home a greater share of each unit sold.

5. In the manufacturing and distribution deal, the artist does everything except, well, manufacture and distribute the product. Often the companies that do these kinds of deals also offer other services, like marketing. But given the numbers, they don't stand to make as much, so their incentive here is limited. Big record labels traditionally don't make M&D deals.

In this scenario, the artist gets absolute creative control, but it's a bigger gamble. Aimee Mann does this, and it works really well for her. "A lot of artists don't realize how much more money they could make by retaining ownership and licensing directly," Mann's manager, Michael Hausman, told me. "If it's done properly, you get paid quickly, and you get paid again and again. That's a great source of income."

6. Finally, at the far end of the scale, is the self-distribution model, where the music is self-produced, self-written, self-played, and self-marketed. CDs are sold at gigs and through a Web site. Promotion is a MySpace page. The band buys or leases a server to handle download sales. Within the limits of what they can afford, the artists have complete creative control. In practice, especially for emerging artists, that can mean freedom without resources — a pretty abstract sort of independence. For those who plan to take their material on the road and play it live, the financial constraints cut even deeper. Backup orchestras, massive video screens and sets, and weird high tech lights don't come cheap.

Radiohead adopted this DIY model to sell In Rainbows online — and then went a step further by letting fans name their own price for the download. They weren't the first to do this — Issa (formerly known as Jane Siberry) pioneered the pay-what-you-will model a few years ago — but Radiohead's move was much higher profile. It may be less risky for them, but it's a clear sign of real changes afoot. As one of Radiohead's managers, Bryce Edge, told me, "The industry reacted like the end was nigh. They've devalued music, giving it away for nothing.' Which wasn't true: We asked people to value it, which is very different semantics to me."

At this end of the spectrum, the artist stands to receive the largest percentage of income from sales per unit — sales of anything. A larger percentage of fewer sales, most likely, but not always. Artists doing it for themselves can actually make more money than the massive pop star, even though the sales numbers may seem minuscule by comparison. Of course, not everyone is as smart as those nerdy Radiohead boys. Pete Doherty probably should not be handed the steering wheel.

Freedom versus pragmatism
These models are not absolute. They can morph and evolve. Hausman and Mann took the total DIY route at first, getting money orders and sending out CDs in Express Mail envelopes; later on they licensed the records to distributors. And things change over time. In the future, we will see more artists take up these various models or mix and match versions of them. For existing and emerging artists — who read about the music business going down the drain — this is actually a great time, full of options and possibilities. The future of music as a career is wide open.

Many who take the cash up front will never know that long-range thinking might have been wiser. Mega pop artists will still need that mighty push and marketing effort for a new release that only traditional record companies can provide. For others, what we now call a record label could be replaced by a small company that funnels income and invoices from the various entities and keeps the accounts in order. A consortium of midlevel artists could make this model work. United Musicians, the company that Hausman founded, is one such example.

I would personally advise artists to hold on to their publishing rights (well, as much of them as they can). Publishing royalties are how you get paid if someone covers, samples, or licenses your song for a movie or commercial. This, for a songwriter, is your pension plan.

Increasingly, it's possible for artists to hold on to the copyrights for their recordings as well. This guarantees them another lucrative piece of the licensing pie and also gives them the right to exploit their work in mediums to be invented in the future — musical brain implants and the like.

No single model will work for everyone. There's room for all of us. Some artists are the Coke and Pepsi of music, while others are the fine wine — or the funky home-brewed moonshine. And that's fine. I like Rihanna's "Umbrella" and Christina Aguilera's "Ain't No Other Man." Sometimes a corporate soft drink is what you want — just not at the expense of the other thing. In the recent past, it often seemed like all or nothing, but maybe now we won't be forced to choose.

Ultimately, all these scenarios have to satisfy the same human urges: What do we need music to do? How do we visit the land in our head and the place in our heart that music takes us to? Can I get a round-trip ticket?

Really, isn't that what we want to buy, sell, trade, or download?

David Byrne is currently collaborating with Fatboy Slim and Brian Eno. Separately.

Chart Sources: Jupiter Research, Recording Industry Association of America, Almighty Institute of Music Retail, Wired Research



Two things arose from me reading over this:
Do you think that the same thing can be said for writers? Do you think that it eventually could lean to more and more writers going DIY over trying to seek out major publishers?

and...

Brian Eno's real name is Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno.

I don't want to know about it.

Denzel Washington is going to take over Walter Matthau's role as Agent Z and John Travolta will be Mr. Blue.



Plus, hell in the form of snow and rain has descended upon the east coast.

Because He's Living In Some B-Movie

Where the lines are so clearly drawn.

I fell asleep after work earlier, and somehow woke up browsing at Good Records and listening to traffic outside. I remember thinking this is the exact time of day I fell asleep in New York as it is here right now.
Pangs upon waking.
Right now I'm listening to Camper Van Beethoven, something I would do on any long car trip between home and Denton. It was during my stint of learning that I was going to call Denton home more than Big Spring that I feel in love with Key Lime Pie(1989) and Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart(1988).
I pine. I know I do. People around me know I do.

And that makes me think of all the things going on in Denton right now, with Fry Street basically being mowed over and the inevitable waves of commercialism that are rolling in. For a long time Denton was that beaming star of independence, forget Austin. You could buy the same records there, eat at the same restaurants (The Green House) and go to the same parties that were happening down there.
With Alter Ego Vintage becoming the next husk, along with Kharma Cafe, Mr. Chopsticks TJ's, Uncommon Grounds and The Tomato, it seems that my home has left me, not the other way around.
Not to say I wouldn't move back to Denton. It's a thought that pops into my head quite often.
I dunno. It's an off night.

The one where I talk about beer.

Tonight I'm going to my first Brewpub. Now, gone are the days of smoky, standing room only dirty toilet drinkeries, and welcome are the days of soft leather chairs, British delicacies and beer with enough hops that it could kill you.

Wostyntje...

Fantome Saison...

Hansje Drinker Tripel...

These are the new beers that are entering my life. I'm not going to lie, I'm totally ok with Shiner, Kronenburgs and Stella Artois. Especially Stellas. Very cold, crispy Stella Artois (a great memory is sitting in a darkened theater, The Inwood, and watching Stella Artois advertisements).
Now, I will try beers in which I can't pronounce, but taste amazing. This is coupled with Erin and Ryan turning the apartment in Bushwick into a microbrewery so much that the smell lingers. Their beer is very tasty though, and I'd drink a lot of it. Wait, I drink a lot of it anyway. Free beer in NYC? Doesn't matter what it is. FREE BEER.

This is where I am going tonight.

Local Booksellers Union 582

Fucking cold weather. I can't feel my hands as I walk down the street.
I left my gloves somewhere, or they fell out of my pocket in Penn Station, or they're just missing. Fuck.

So, the contest with Erin is holding up well. I've gotten through three novels so far:

Paul Auster- Moon Palace
Upton Sinclair- Oil! (basis for There Will Be Blood- the newest PTA film)
Patrick McCabe- Breakfast on Pluto
and currently reading One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

The roomates are practicing and it sounds fucking amazing. Heartrapers would be jealous.

At work we've been listening to the Dethalbum (Dethklok) nearly everyday, at least twice a day. I think I need to make a grindcore/death metal mix, and I need suggestions.

And since Netflix is still my best friend forever (sorry Jacob.) This is my current queue:
Prayer of the Rollerboys (1991)
Swampthing (1982)
Freaked (1993)
Critters (1986)
The Gate (1987)
Tapeheads (1988)

It's very Proustian for me to watch these.

Tastes like New York.

As I type this from my penthouse view of Central Park, watching women push strollers down the large, clean sidewalk and the multitude of joggers as they weave in and out of the foot traffic, I think to myself, "How lucky can one guy be?"
I return to my living room, set my tumbler of some expensive scotch I've never even heard of but tastes like paint and admire my TV. So fucking big, and it has channels they don't show in America. Channels where I can watch people compete for household items, or television shows in Moroccan French, about saucy young people who's lives rival mine as they sit and complain about the increasing prices of muffins.
And then I think of my expensive sports car parked somewhere in Midtown, probably between 5th and 6th avenue, and the doorman downstairs that always calls a my favorite cab for me to drive me to my car. Dinner tonight is probably going to be Goat Cheese and Wild Mushroom Blinchiki or Braised Rabbit Pelmeni downed with an expensive glass of Chardonnay as I nonchalantly fall in and out of consciousness with whatever my date is talking about.
Afterwards, I'll return to my penthouse, check my e-mail, my blackberry, my Venus phone and my regular mail that's been presorted into corresponding piles (thank you to Lisa, my personal assistant) before retiring to bed so In the morning I can do 5,000 situps and stare at my thinning hairline.

I bet you're hot to trot to get back to school.

Christmas 2008 in Brooklyn.
Remember when 8 balls were cool? Like, on shirts, and people had 8-ball tattoos and thought that drawing an 8-ball with perfect shading made you awesome?
It's still cool up here.
As well as wearing Looney Tunes shirts. Grown men wearing shirts with Sylvester and graffiti tagged writing at the bottom that says "Bad Cattitude."
Still hot.

Free Williamsburg released there top 25 records of 2007. I'll review them myself.
25. LCD Soundsystem: Sounds of Silver
Dance dance dance music. Where shoes with no socks and ironic t-shirts while trying to bring back the hustle. Oh yeah, hate that you live in Brooklyn, but tell everyone it's the best.
24. Pole- Steingarten
Glitchy dance electronic music. Shave only one side of your head and think about Germany.
23. Phosphorescent- Pride
Along the lines of Will Oldham's alterna-country-rock-depressing-whatever style of music.
22. The Cave Singers- Invitation Songs
No fucking clue. I don't want to know.
21. Deerhoof- Friend Opportunity
I treat Deerhoof like the The Moldy Peaches, like, cool for a second. This album was actually good though. Cheers Williamsburg.
20. Bon Iver- For Emma,Forever Ago- Oh, you shop at that store on the LES too? I paid $80 for this t-shirt that says "glitterfarts." Don't copy me.
19. The Besnard Lakes - Are the Dark Horse- I've always liked The Besnard Lakes. I bought their first album Vol. 1 back in Denton. Yeah I'm that guy that's only heard of them.
18. Papercuts - Can't Go Back- No. Got deleted from my itunes last night actually.
17. Liars - Liars- Fuck yeah. You can't go wrong with Liars. Never ever ever. Fuck yeah. Never.
16. Black Lips - Good Bad Not Evil- I really enjoy Black Lips. Go to youtube and watch their video of the time they spent in Mexico. Jared Swilley's mustache goes a looong way.
15. Iron & Wine - The Shepherd's Dog- I got tired of Iron and Wine after "he" covered The Postal Service's Such Great Heights. Yeah. It's over. Finish with your experimental phase and become the Capt. Beefheart of our generation.
14. Okkervil River - The Stage Names- Great guys. Seeing them at Andy's was great because I snuck in. Sorry, I enjoy the music, but not to pay an $8 cover charge.
13. Explosions in the Sky - All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone- Yeah. It's good.
12. Apples in Stereo - New Magnetic Wonder- Always a fun time with Elephant Six bands. Does anyone else remember seeing Jeff Mangum at that house party on Oak? It was awesome.
11. Wu Tang Clan - 8 Diagrams- So my roommates have been blasting this album nonstop for days. Yes. Listen to the track they do with George Clinton. And to put ODB on the background in like, a viking burial!?
10. Various Artists - After Dark- Glass Candy is awesome.

The rest suck. Except for Band of Horses.

New York: A Third Rate Babylon

St. Martins To Union Square. Union Square to Madison Square Garden. Madison Square Garden to Chelsea. Chelsea back to Union Square. Union Square back to St. Martins.

Christmas Shopping is 75% complete.

Peoples Improv Theater has proved another stage rival to that of Rubber Gloves where those nerds, who instead of standing with arms crossed and cheap beer at there feet glare ahead of them, actually enjoy the comedy.

Comedy nerds are a lot like music nerds: they listen to it first and laugh, then again they listen and think about why it's funny, and the last stage, critique their life, think how they're never going to be as funny and subsequently go back to their normal jobs and think about Bill Murray.

The crowd is usually full of people there to perform as well, with a few onlookers who just like to watch improv. Some of it's great, some of it's lame, but everyone ends up getting drunk together and laughing anyway. Giving false hope to those who aren't funny- God I hope so. We all need something to float our boats.

Reading Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain. He was the writer who left his life of playboy decadence and became a Trappist Monk in Kentucky. I wrote on Thomas Merton's essay No Man Is An Island
where I had a a diagram of Hawaii stapled to the back. I got a C+= the writing was great but I failed to understand the material.
Now I'm watching a documentary of St. Francis Xavier.
It's getting Monk-y around here.

You kill me and I'll see that you never work in this town again.

You're day will come in peace.
It's... Saturday. I only have two days off a week- Wednesday and Saturday- and I find that on these days, like the days I work, I have to get up early so I can jam pack my entire day doing things I need to do. Here time is everything.
I've recently felt the pangs of addiction with the sudden and harsh realization that there is not a single spot in the NYC area (including New Jersey) that serves Shiner. It was swift and alarming, and I found myself searching for tickets on a Chinese bus (notorious for turning over, catching fire, but with reasonably cheap seat fare) to Philadelphia, where a bar somewhere has it on tap. I have designs.

Saturday- I've been drunk since 11am, which isn't uncommon when you're brewing beer with your girlfriend. The glass bottles (the size of pony kegs) sit in the living room, fermenting. There is nothing like the smell of fermenting hops when you open the door, nothing like it. They sit and they stir and wait to be bottled. It will be a great day when they finally get to be poured into the many bottles we've (I've) accumulated with my constant drinking.

On another note: I've joined an Improv team that performs at the People's Improv Theatre on 29th street between 6th ave. and 7th. ave. Comedy galore. I haven't yet perfected my 8 minutes of stand up, and found myself rather enjoying the haphazard and racing feel of improv.

Fuck Brian for not calling me about Zack Galifianakis.

Most people have strange thoughts, but they rationalize them.

Things my neighborhood doesn't have:
Cooking scales
Thermometers
Bags of ice that don't stick together in the freezer
working anything

Things my neighborhood does have:
Puerto Ricans
Broken-down Minivans
Loud music
Bushburg (cheap affordable housing for hipsters?)
Large, sweaty everything

He woke up with egg on his face.

So, I think I committed my first New York sin last night and threw up on the train. The MTA workers were pissed, even after I offered to clean it up. A girl slipped in it with her Ugg boots though.
Snow for the first time today. I'm a bit weary of going out into it.

I could dress in black and read Camus.

It's very very cold.
Heavy jackets for everyone!
Ryan and I have already gone out and purchased ours. We both had settled on H&M winter wear. His is a lot more classy than mine, but I want something more utilitarian. Heavy and thick.
I've been spending my time between Raymond Carver and Dostoevsky. Both great. Erin and I are only going to read Russian authors for winter, which I think is a great idea. It leads me to ask questions: which authors would be good for Spring? or for Fall? I think there are certain feelings music gives you that correspond with the weather and the time of year, literature has to. Anyone have good ideas send them here.
I've been working a lot of overnights at work- shelving, setting up displays, watching homeless people mill around Penn Station- and it makes me think that I'm Andrew McCarthy and I'm in that movie Mannequin. Except the books don't mysteriously come alive and I don't have sex with them. And no Hollywood Montrose.
Last thing. Erin has bought us great seats for the Magnetic Fields show that was already SOLD OUT a week ago. How great is that. I literally shed a tear like a girl. Then I listened to a bunch of Fucked Up and wanted to hate things. But still, greatest gift ever, and it's not even until February.

It would be unfair for me to choose favorites.

At long last it's crashed, it's colossal mass has broken up into bits in my moat.

Everything that seemed to be roaring and flying past my head has settled into a fine lump.
I actually got some shopping done today. After riding to work with Erin, I backtracked over to Union Square and went to The Strand and The Virgin Megastore. I saw Hillary Swank being filmed, thought she looked like a dude still but this time I didn't say it aloud.
Excited that Erin found an apartment down the street from me, not even a ten minute walk. They're opening a new bodega and another Natural store right between our blocks,along with Grand Kingdom and The Wyckoff Starr being so close, I wouldn't want to move from this neighborhood at all.
Two things I have lined up:
Winter with the Russians (All Russian authors all winter long)
and
Getting Lynched by David Lynch (Watching all of David Lynch's movies in a row as well as Twin Peaks)

Far between sundown and midnights broken toe.

I had to heavily made up girls tramp (verb) into the store today, look around, and ask if J.Lo and Marc Antony were going to perform upstairs or downstairs.

So tomorrow I have my interview with Skuawk. I haven't done much research, but it seems legit. I think I'm going to focus my time right now getting back into music journalism. It was a medium that I found myself very comfortable with, and it doesn't feel like work. Check and check. Now if I can never leave my apartment, I'll be set.

Drew's drunkenly messaging me from some Karaoke place in K-town. Nice.

And with all that to worry about, birthday gifts and job interviews, postage and what to eat (or to eat) on a daily basis, I have to move at the end of the month again. The lease is up on this apartment, and my roommates have decided they would rather leave Neil and I with it as they trek across town to Greenpoint. So, I have the option of staying in a cheap four bedroom apartment and finding people to fill the two empty rooms, or begin to sell my self online again. I'm just going to title all my postings: Not a Murderer: friends are alive and can vouch. I'm not to terribly afraid of my circumstances, not yet at least.

I started The Giver by Lois Lowry. I never really read it when it was all popular.

I've had the pleasure of seeing both Scout Niblett and Will Oldham at Rubber Gloves on seperate occasions. Come to think of it, I saw Niblett this summer.
It's a very quiet day in Brooklyn. Jamie is in the living room, we talked about a soap making workshop and the screen printing workshop their having at Ad Hoc down the street. I'm doing research on Harlequin Romance novels because the accept unsolicited manuscripts, and of course if you throw in enough "manroot" and "dashing" in your story, they'll pay you.
I thought I'd also share a playlist.

Devendra Barnhart- The Body Breaks
T. Rex- Spaceball Ricochet
Akron/Family- Suchness
Sigur Ros- #8
Okkervil River- Our Life Is Not A Movie, Or Maybe
All The Time Me- Batter Charger
Jesus Love Me- CoCoRosie
Can't Do That- Forrest Gray
Gardenhead/Leave Me Alone- Neutral Milk Hotel

well, what I have listened to in the last half hour.

All I really want to do is baby be friends with you.

So, tomorrow I'm going to scout furniture out.
I live in a house that has no rules,save for one. No furniture off the street. This makes it extremely hard when you walk past a table or a chair and think of how good it will look next to your iron heater or your mobile clothes rack. Or your Ikea bed.
So, day 3 of missing Ipod as well. Only today did I panic and think it not being here or in the living room. I noticed how much it's really saved me from having to listen to people on the train.
Finished Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Right now I'm reading the essays that Pilsig had written about it's success when no one wanted it. How the counterculture of the 1960's wanted nothing to do with it and everyone else paid no attention to it. The Swedish term kulturbarur translates into the English culture-bearer, which had been what the early critics called this book. Pilsig's only reply that was books aren't written for the weight of culture to be placed on them, that they're only strong enough to carry it.
Still have to finish The Game. I think next will be Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. Then the Russians. I have a plan.
Other things, great and small:
- Jamaican Beef Patties- fucking great. Tastes like biscuits and spicy sausage with every bite, and eating them will kill you. They're only $2 every where, and with coco bread, you might as well never eat anything else.
- AM News- free newspaper that you get slapped with when you leave Penn Station, or anywhere near 34th Street. It's like Dallas' Quick.
-Cool Weather- Sweater weather. No more of the insane humidity that makes normal people smell homeless all the time.
-Rapping Homeless people- Give them money. Even a penny. This talent can't be surpassed. Oh, and the homeless stand up comics. Those guys are even better.

Work in the morning. I did some internet housecleaning as well. I need to sign up for a zipcar account so I can zip over to Target and pick things up.
Oh. and apparently the largest rooftop party in Brooklyn happened a street over, and I didn't wake up for it.

Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.

A beautiful day in Brooklyn. All of NYC I'm sure.
Early morning, coffee, the L to the Q allll the way down to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens.
Anyway, it was a real picaresque day with the sun and the breeze. The Gardens are huge, we didn't even get to see some of it. Maybe another day.
Going to schedule more days just to see things. I know most of the time on my days
off I don't want to get out of bed, but there's really too much to see here. I think the next trek out maybe to the MOMA again.
Right now trying to order these two gems.This
and this.

Maybe not having time to think is not having the wish to think.

The BBQ on Troutman (Heralded as "the" place to be on a Thursday evening) was a success. In echoing much of days spent in college there was a lot of cheap beer, pita, hummus and hot dogs. A lot of people showed up, music was played and people sat around the fire trying to tell the best ghost story in all of Brooklyn. Whoever won was awarded with free coffee coupons to Oslo.
Listening to: Paul Simon. I had his album Graceland for years and years, and somehow through all of everything it slipped through the cracks. I heard a snippet of Mother and Child Reunion the other day from one of the Bodegas on Central Ave. and it was a very Proustian moment. Gems: Kodachrome, 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, Rene and George-Magritte With Their Dog After The War.
Reading: The Game- Neil Strauss and Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance- Robert Pirsig. The Game... it's gotten a lot of heat over the past few months. It's basically a social look at this underground group of men who use basic psychology to pick up women. They have techniques and styles they apply to get a number from random girls wherever they are. A lot of customers (dude customers) treat it as a guide book though, wanting to learn the secret art of wooing a woman. I think there is a pretty high success rate of some of the men in the book, but still, it's like watching that documentary on people who prefer the love of a rubber doll than that of a real person. Some people I talk with say the methods really work, some just laugh it off.
Zen and The Art... It's great. I've never read a lot of philosophy (outside of Kant and Wittgenstein) but it's actually very captivating. Pirsig retells his tenure as one of the radical professors at Bozeman during the 1960's, and the philosophy that he was teaching. He ties it in to motorcycle maintenance simply by analogy- two types of people, one who works on their motorcycles themselves, and the others take it to a mechanic. Classical though and Romantic thought.

I was really hungry a minute ago, I almost made a kimchi sandwich.

'Tis as human a little story as paper could well carry.

I always knew about catching your second wind whenever you're tired and you're out of energy, but I think I catch my fourth or fifth wind nearly everyday.
I noticed about after a week living here that standing on the 9th-Smith Street platform that every time I breathed in it felt like sharp, heavy air. And I panicked- this was the air that I breathe all the time. It was a split second of panic, and then I thought about the air here- how people have to get adjusted to it. I don't think I've ever lived anywhere you had to get adjusted to breathing the air. A coworker, Heather- mentioned the fact that although we do live here with the garbage and the dirty air, people in NYC live for a very long time.
I have a lot of photos to upload, but the camera and the Windows Vista don't get along so well.
I just got an e-mail titled "We found your baby in the dumpster."

Dictated. Not read. The management.

Days off are few and far between.
Sleeping has become a luxury since moving here, and the more chance you get to sleep the better. Amy was right, you have to plan your days out, almost to the tiniest moments of where to catch the train or how fast it takes to walk from this corner to that corner.
Last night after leaving Amy & Ryan's, I got back to my stop and there was guy in the turnstiles (the cage-like turnstile not the bar type) and he was stuck. He had his bicycle wedged in between the metal, and he couldn't go backwards or forwards. He told me he'd been there for around 15 minutes (the exit I take is a very dingy building. Everyone goes out the other side). He was really fucking drunk, and he promised that if me and this girl helped him he would give us his address and make us dinner. So I pushed against the metal and she pulled the bike and he just sorta stood there dazed. We got the bike out and went out the emergency exit.
As soon as we got out he hoped on the bike and sped away yelling "so long suckers!" and adding a drunk cackle.
Lateral shrugging.

Tonight is Modest Mouse, this afternoon is Talib Kweli down the street. For fucking free.

Valhalla is where Vikings go when they die.

...and Bushwick is where you go when you want good Puerto Rican food.

Day two on Troutman street. The neighborhood is jagged, streets cutting into each other with a plethora of hipsters, Hasids and Puerto Rican families. There are PR flags everywhere, and the infamous "NYRICAN" t-shirts are 10 for $3 down the street at Willy's.
The neighborhood is recently and often described as East Williamsburg, but that's because of places like, Goodbye Blue Monday, Brooklyn Natural Foods, Life Cafe 983 and The Archive Coffee and Independent Video Store. I've only popped into a couple of them.
In other news: I realized how close I work to the Empire State building and have never even bothered to look at it. It's big, and I thought it was bigger... Amy and I talked about how New York looks amazing and grandeur when you don't live here.
Rilo Kiley's Under The Blacklight is a good album.

So you think you're in the middle of the ocean?

They're re-painting the new digs so I'm still at Amy's. The walls which were gold and spattered with purple (Maxx colors) are now the standard white that come with any new place. Smells like paint. Noxious.

1. Do you believe in love? Why or why not? I do. But it's fleeting. I think that it ebbs and flows with everyone.
2. What is beauty? Something that makes you think. You can see the beauty in a rubik's cube, or a line from Gabriel Garcia Lorca.
3. Where did you grow up? Do you think that environment significantly influenced who you are today? How and why? Midland/Odessa area. Yes, in some ways I feel it influenced me. When I moved to the Dallas area, I was astounded by having trees and narrow streets and huge houses. I think where I grew up I learned to appreciate the small things.
4. Describe your most memorable dream (night dream, not aspiration). What, if anything, do you think it means? Watching a parade. I don't have any clue, it was really long and really colorful, and people were smiling and laughing. It was a very surprising dream.
5. What are the top five things you need to be happy/content? to be content? I've always been envious of the guy from the Twilight Zone that survived the apocalypse and was left with all the books...until his glasses broke. There's always been a part of me that would just be content to be surrounded by books. As for the other four, I could give a stock answer (friends, chocolate, sunlight) but I just feel that the happiest I could be is just spending an enormous amount of time reading.

7. Who is your favorite author? Douglas Coupland with a bullet. Michael Chabon, Johnathan Lethem, John Steinbeck, Bret Easton Ellis. The writers which I can connect with.
8. What material possessions would you have the hardest time giving up? My Hahoe mask. I've carried it from Denton, to Big Spring to NYC.
9. Do you think prostitution is immoral/wrong? Why or why not? No. I don't feel that it's wrong. People make their own choices regardless of society or religious constraints. I think those choices are their's alone, and I wouldn't feel right passing judgment.
10. Which do you feel is more important - art or science? Science. I feel that science is the proof in the pudding. Art inspires emotion, but I feel that science is what really drives civilization forward.
11. What constitutes a work of art? Anything and everything that provokes you on more than one level. Amoebas under a microscope could be seen as art.
12. Who is your favorite artist? Rene Magritte. Surrealism always wins me over.
13. What do you tell yourself to make yourself feel better when you're bummed? Everything always gets better.
14. Describe your most satisfying sexual experience (not limited to intercourse).
Being with someone that you know that you love.
15. Is living by a code of ethics important to you? If so, what are those ethics? I do. Don't ask me why. I have a certain system set up in my brain.
16. Do you think evil exists? If so, what constitutes evil? Evil is the root of everything. Just like science, the passion to commit crimes and murder and take candy from children is another thing that drives society forward. Native Son- Richard Wright is a prime example.
17. What is the best gift you've ever received? Why was it so perfect? I still say Hahoe mask. Because it's the sentiment behind it. It's like a real turning point in my life having it around.

19. What are you most afraid of? Thinking that I'll be 40 years old and still trying to get dates. I call it at that age.
20. Are you religious? If so, what religion do you subscribe to, and why? If not, what religion do you feel is most similar to your beliefs?Ha, subscribe to. I still feel that Judaism is probably the most satisfying (to me) to relate to the Western idea of God. Christianity has watered itself down to t-shirt sales and lines of people wanting to stand near Joel Olsteen. No thanks.
21. What are you most ashamed of? Shying away from opportunities.
22. If you could erase one event from your past, what would it be, and why? Nothing. I think it's all important.
23. What does it mean to be "pure"? Innocence.
24. What are your favorite websites? nytimes.com, gothamist.com, wikipedia.org, achewood.com
25. What story do you tell the most often? Tell me. How I moved to Denton on a whim. Putting your finger on a map and just moving is gratifying. I had no clue about North Texas, no idea where Denton or what Denton was even. I just hauled all my stuff into a minivan and the next day I'm in Denton.
27. What relatively obscure thing do you know EVERYTHING (or almost everything) about, and why does it interest you? Music history. I have a knack for knowing dates, people- anything to do with music. It just clicks with me.
28. How do you feel about pornography? What separates porn from "erotica"? Erotica is what you do when you try to make pornography into art. When you want to provoke another emotion besides lust.
29. What is the most disturbing thing you've ever seen on film? Amy brought this up the other day- Silent Hill. Her and Jane kept their eyes covered while I watched the horror. It was graphic. Needlessly graphic.
30. Is ignorance bliss? Absolutely.

I saw the Statue of Liberty from a very long distance. I know it usually equates freedom, but all I could think about was Ghostbusters.

I've finally gotten a close concept of the train layout.
I'm no expert or scientist like Ryan and Amy when it comes to catching them in the perfect place and hoisting themselves from one case of stairs to the next in order for a shorter ride, but I can get from Williamsburg to Madison Square Garden in about 30 min.
My new place isn't too far, only two or three more stops from Amy/Ryan's place on the L. It's in a rent controlled building on the first floor. Share with some Rutgers students -one, a painter who studies organic chemistry, another Chinese acrobat who at the time is in China with her family and performing, and last an experimental musician with a ton of electronic drum kits. They're all really nice, a bit granola around the edges, but still great people. We're actually having a bbq (the place has a backyard) when everything gets a bit mellow after school starts and people find their way.
Work is work. Border's is like this social experiment -take a bunch of people not from NYC and let them sell books to a lot of other people not from NYC. We do a lot of tourists and students, mostly from Europe. It's actually a time that I really like my job.
Rundown on what I've learned:
drink (beer)= $6
single mixed drink = $12
double mixed drink = never will know.
cab ride anywhere = $10-$30
Craigslist = Everyone uses it for everything.
hot dog- $2.00
part-time job = everyone has one, no matter what profession. Accountant/Dog Groomer. It happens.
iced coffee @ Gimme! Coffee= $1.95.
VitaminWater = Hell of all sorts of popular.
boogers = you don't know what's in your nose, ever.
shoes = buy trainers. No one cares if they match anything, buy fucking bright ass white Nikes and wear dark suits all the time.
homeless people = don't bother you really.
thugged out dudes = don't bother you really.

Got to stand next to Brian Posehn as a clueless bill handler handed him a show bill for a comedy show that was happening at the same time he was taping the Comedy Central show. Priceless.

Excuse me, your friend is throwing up. You need to do something about it.

Man.
Some guy took a shit in a bag on the train, or shat in the bag and then carried it onto the train, or just had a bag of shit with him just in case, but man, I've never seen a car empty so quick. He was looking around all sad eyed, thinking outside of the box.
"I'm not a slave to the toilet like you rich coffee drinking scum. No. I shit in this big yellow bag, because I'm not a conformist."

I have another appointment to see an apartment tomorrow morning, not too far from Amy (which is the ideal setup) but I'm ready just to say okay, let's just do this. It doesn't sound like a bad place at all, within price range, utilities, etc. I spend most of my time at work, I have no furniture. I only know a handful of people (except I ran into a guy checking out at work today who was in Baird's Dylan class) so it's not like I'm going to get things on a lot.

People wonder why I don't have an accent when they find out I'm from Texas.

Big City Nights

I stepped in what I think was sewer water. Probably not, because a guy let his schnauzer drink from it, but still there was something that floated by.

Already viewed two places to move into. One is real close to Amy and Ryan- and really really close to the J train. Like, near enough that it rattles things sitting near the window. It was a one bedroom that I'd have to share with TWO OTHER DUDES. No. Can't. Plus, we sort of all agree for the price that he wanted I'd be paying his rent too. Shady.

The second place was in Prospect Park, near Park Slope and the brownstones that looked as if Theo was walking out and into the street to eat a Popsicle. It's also the neighborhood they used for early SNL backdrops. Fourth floor, great space- but I'm just a candidate. There were other people there to see the room as well. I'll hear back tomorrow.

Work starts on Friday so I'm sort of in limbo. Just riding the trains and walking to
gimme! coffee in the mornings. It's only a few blocks up.

I need directions to the hospital.

Denton, you made me remember that I have a drinking problem. Not so much as a problem, but one of those everything-happens-at-once-and-it's-almost-too-much-to handle problems.

I've been in Denton since Thursday afternoon, and it's a bit like that scene in What Dreams May Come when Robin William's realizes everything that surrounds him right then are memories and things from his past life. It's a homecoming. I feel great about little d in ways I still can't feel about where I grew up. Someone once told me that they couldn't see me living anywhere else but Denton, and sometimes I wonder how much truth is in that.
I miss a lot about being here, but at the same time, I'm moving to NYC tomorrow morning.

After graduation and having to take 1,000,000 photos with professors ( both Armintor, Cheliah, Simpkins, Baird) and getting my letters of recommendation from them I realized that out of the entire College of Arts- English graduating class, Christian and I were the only two Creative Writing majors. That seemed strange to me.

I don't feel like I've made a lot of bad decisions in my life. I was telling Brian at Lou's when I started playing music it was because of Motley' Crue's Girls, Girls, Girls video, and we seriously had to laugh, and then cry, and then drink.
I know that the heaviest things are happening right now though. It's been a summer that has really defined things to come. I try not to think about how people move to escape things. I only think about moving forward, not backward. I'm not escaping to NYC, I think I'm trying to break back into a life that I once lived, but try to do it better this time.

New York now leads the world's great cities in the number of people around whom you shouldn't make a sudden move.

I have exactly a week before my plane touches ground again at LaGuardia, and I'm packing like crazy.
What to take? I know that my parents will send a number of boxes of random things over the next few months, but what do I need now?
Drew is somewhat of a help. Steena just tells me it's too humid to think about questions. Amy, God bless Amy Kessler. That's all I can say about her.

I've been searching around for blogs about people moving to NYC for the first, time, how it went, what to expect etc. Metafilter has helped a lot.
But I mean, it doesn't go into too much detail. I think maybe I should start one. I mean an offshoot of this one. Thoughts?

That's what you call a saucy banana.

Just changing the attitude towards AIDS from being "Eww AIDSy" to more like "Oh! Fun monkey disease!

I have a week and a few days left in Big Spring.
I'll be spending the last bit of my time before NYC in Denton, hopefully trying to think how much I've had to drink and swatting at Jacob.

I do miss Denton. A lot actually. I didn't think I'd miss it near as much, but it was my home for the last seven years. I know it better than I do this place. Living here is an everyday reminder of why I left. It's where I grew up, but at the same time, it's not. I didn't really come to know anything until I struck out to DFW, and that's where I feel that I actually became a 100% person.
Best times are had walking home drunk from Lou's to the apartment on Central or the house on Sycamore and knowing that everything feels alright, like, everything is in place for a split second.
I guess things are finally hitting me.
This has probably been the most eventful summer for me. The summer of changes. For the better? For the worse? It's those things that I constantly think about. I think some things had to happen for lives to be kept living. A solution to a problem. I've never been pissed about it, or wanted to write things off, but melancholy, I know thy feeling. I can't bring myself to be angry with the situation, although people tell me I will be. I'm not. I wasn't.
I know everyone's met a person that strikes a chord within you that you can't write things off, no matter what the situation. That's how I feel. I can't stop thinking of how affected I was by the whole relationship. It was a great thing.
I know that the next year, the entire first year of NYC, will probably be the hardest year of my life. I've never done anything as demanding of character as this. It's like Mad Max and the Thunderdome, although this Thunderdome has public transportation and museums.
I never write to many personal things on here, huh?

Rockin the gold tooth and lettin loose.

It's still strange to me to see how Michael Jackson has fallen in this country, yet he's still revered in others.
Speaking of other countries, I wonder what kind of impact the Harry Potter series has. I know that they're calling J.K. Rowling the reason the youth of America has returned to reading and that it's a cultural phenomenon.

Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless.

On my playlist at work I seem to have this song listed more than three times. It's all in my brain matter. All the time.

You are also right to be angry that your college newspaper is not publicizing your works more aggressively.

It's like a mini mall.



Plus got a call back from the MLA, notifying me that I've in the run in the narrow margin of 20 other applicants for the same assistant position.

Go read my review of Elijah Wood. Not only on his movies, but his entire life.
"Radio Flyer" = Sadness.
"Forever Young" = Go fuck yourself.
"The Good Son" = Pansy.
"North" = Fecal matter.
"The Lord of The Rings" Trilogy = Loooong.
"Everything is Illuminated" = Jonathan Safran Foer can spin a good Holocaust yarn. Wood can't destroy it in less than 2 hours.
Sin City = Actually, I liked seeing him as a twisted sociopath a la Christian Bale.
"Green Street Hooligans" = Just because you grow a goatee does not make you tough.

I didn't see any of his other movies, but trust me, out of these that you do see, keep in mind that the goal of my small existence on the face of the planet is to denounce Elijah Wood.

I am Mount Svengali. You will do as I say.

I leave for New York City in exactly a month tomorrow.

Freedom is just chaos with better lighting.

Woke up at 6:30 am on my day off. Listened to Charlotte Gainsbourg. Played Katamari. Watched The Twilight Zone marathon for a couple hours. Phone calls from Steena. Ordered new glasses.

The Fourth of July is awfully boring.

People like blood sausage, too. People are morons.

Man. When you get something wrong at work, are you just gently reminded by your boss or are you called 17 times by the people in your city, telling you how bad of a person you are?
For anyone that cares, July Fourth is Wednesday, not Thursday, as it was printed in today's edition.
I didn't even write the goddamn story! I was busy messing with the fucking chuckleheaded police records to even think about July Fourth!
Mrs. Kinney, whoever you are, eat some dick. Don't call me anymore.

Listen, you'll have to excuse me. I have a lunch meeting with Cliff Huxtable at the Four Seasons in 20 minutes.

I was supposed to be in Denton this weekend, somehow ended up in Odessa.

Rather than going to the Last of The Interceptors show ( in this case I dismiss the Riverboat Gamblers) I stayed in Odessa to watch bands named Seven Screams of Silence, Hand Over Fist and Dead Bang Go. It's very reminiscent of the days we spent in El Paso. Very very reminiscent. Floppy dyed black hair, screaming and the occasional melody.

How did I become a part time nanny (I've heard the term 'manny' thrown loosely around) for a six year old girl?

Because my cousin and her husband are such a hip young couple barely into their 30's and still like to be scene and be seen, they feel that I have as much influence on their young daughter equal to their style of upbringing. They don't have a certain bed time for the little lady, don't like to make "rules" that would stiffen this age of enlightenment. The only super strict thing is what she eats, but that's really the one thing that I throw away.
Right now while the parents are chatting aways with my parents about TLC programs I'm letting her look at an old copy of The Believer while I write and listen to Paul Westerberg.

Honestly, I think Patton Oswalt had it right talking about people with hippie no establishment parents. That while they're young they live in this environment of no boundaries they grow up and freak out and become straight-edged civil engineers with deadlines and tee times. It's the whole rebellious attitude they take on.

But on the other hand I have to hand it to the little girl. She's from D.C. lived here for only a year, and has managed to slingshot her way into the lead ballerina at her school's ballet program. I'm impressed.

This week I interviewed Terry Webb on his new book, The Phoenix Gene. And although it's not a work of groundbreaking literature, it's a situational comedy about zombies. It's on the new releases at Barnes and Noble if you want to snag a copy, or just read my review in next weeks Diversions.

Yes it's sad to say you will romanticize everything you've known before.

Tuesday.

I'd reviewed Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel No Country For Old Men but failed to score an interview with McCarthy, getting only so far as to an associate of his publicist. He's only given two interviews in the past ten years, and sadly, The Big Spring Herald a name that appears on people's doorsteps daily.

I spent the weekend in the company of a six year old girl who thinks bulls are cute, people are strange all over and that dancing in the street is a crime. Somehow I became her charge and carted her all over the countryside trying to find exciting things to show a six year old that I take for granted. Highlights:
We went to the Rodeo.
We went on top of the mountain with a cheesy telescope to look at stars.
She bought a butterfly net at a gardening store.
We ate sloppy joes.

I think these are things that six year olds like to do, and apparently there were no complaints, only a thank you and being singled out as the favorite among my brothers.
Actually, it wasn't hard it all. You just have to keep in mind that their train of thought is in constant motion and that you have to learn to not think about anything but what's happening at the moment.

Other thing to note:
Myspace surveys. I fill them out due to complete boredom. Do people really care if I have a scar and can remember it or what my favorite fast food place is? No. I don't really think so. I don't think you can really know a person through their internet personas. I still think there are two different people at work there, one physical and one mental. I don't think meeting people you talk to online is the same as meeting someone face to face.

Just keep saying to yourself "I'm adequate."

Working in the newspaper is getting me 60 hour weeks and damn Dirty Laundry (Don Henley) all stuck up in my brain matter.
I need to get up to Denton at least on the 30th to see Last of The Interceptors along with The Riverboat Gamblers and The Arrival. I can't find the flyer so I can't post it right now.

Whatever happened to the kinds of bands that drank too much and were open about their drug abuse? The kind of guys that you were like, "Man, if this guy wasn't in a video or on stage every night, he'd be dead."
A major part of me still wants to see Slash standing on a curvy road, mountainside, watching the car as it crashes below.
I want to see Robbin Crosby of Ratt still burping Vodka bubbles and telling everyone "It's not really a problem, because this can happen"- breaks into a blistering solo and still continues to drink, no hands, bottle tilted above his head.
I still want every night that I was in a band to be like Motley Crue's video for "Girls Girls Girls."

When I was young, I thought that was what it was all about. Not having to apology for the way you felt, and you did whatever you wanted to do on a daily basis. No matter how crass, no matter how wrong, you were a musician and things happened like that.

Plus the whole Patton Oswalt dirge on actually changing the physical property of an object just with your music. That's something else that I want.

I say all this as I listen to Bloc Party, mind you.

Then why is he? Is that the only way you can make this a dream, to put a dwarf in it?

I spent the entire weekend watching movies.


三更


Living In Oblivion


The Way Home


เรื่องรัก น้อยนิด มหาศาล (Last Life in the Universe)


The Motel


The Rage In Lake Placid



A lot of other stuff happened (involving a puppy) but I worked 12 hours today and it sucked.

There's nothing more tragic than a war in an Eskimo village.

I think it'd be really easy to get sucked back into having a life here.

I've been seeing a lot of old friends that I didn't really keep in touch with. It's like I left them right where they were, in the halls of the state hospital, the oil stained garages, in rows of cubicles staring at computer screens.
Same haircuts. Same skin problems. People sleeping with people that you never expected. Some people married, divorced, kids, but keeping the same pace like they were seven years ago.

I don't even have to wonder anymore. I know my life would be different had I stayed. Hindsight is great when you know you made the right decision. I decided to move, and in less than two weeks I was already in Denton. That was it. Everyone here talks about leaving, it's just they never do. It's not sad.
I'm not sad.

Don't watch Ghostrider. I wish I could review films for work, because I'd use 'ghastly' over and over and over.
Warm and Scratchy

Asobi Seksu is the new sex-u.

Imaginations run riot in these paper thin walls.

While both my laptops are out of commision (the PC having a faulty ac adaptor replaced and the macbook being, well, a mac and needing to constant upgrades) I have to use my brother's computer. Seth's walls are covered in polaroids of blonde girls that seem enamored with having their photo taken. Most of them are covered in glittery ink that say luv you!

Gah. I've been spending most of my days in the office, listening to Mondo Bongo and The Fine Art of Surfacing, two recent purchases put out by Bob Geldolf and his Boomtown Rats. Both the albums are fairly decent listens, just with them crying their new wave hearts over hand claps.

Tomorrow I begin dividing up my things, what I really need to take to NYC and what I need to leave behind. It's not like I can't have my parents send me things I need, but I need to make sure things fit well.

You look like Babe Ruth's gay brother, Gabe Ruth

This is mostly for Jane. And Amy.
Why does myspace keep thinking I'm British? I don't make pounds, I make dollar bills.

Plus tomorrow: The Tuesday edition of The Big Spring Herald will have my invigorating interview with a woman named Glenna where in which we discuss the mysterious acts of the Vatican via the Sacred Heart Catholic Church Summer Festival. There will be fry bread and a dunk tank.

Strong finger on the trigger like it's dwarf's hands

DNTN.
How I already miss this place.

I spent most of the day driving. I can't wait to not have a car anymore, but then again I wonder if I'll miss it. Public transportation is almost like a wet dream. No responsibility but just being able to breath, walk, and have a metrocard.

Somehow I got an entire entry about me on wemadeoutonce.com. More debauchery tonight I'm sure.

Right now I'm sunburned, full of vodka and listening to some New Order remix...I think by Hot Chip. I have a story to write before Monday morning. I have all of it saved on the macbook and my digital tape recorder, although I sound like a shy stuttering fool on there during most of the interview.

Doing all this makes me wonder about the lives of people that we see everyday. Like, the superintendant of a school district, a teacher, a post office worker... all these people in our society that are so stereotyped and pigeonholed. It's very Half-Nelson. A double life. When I put on the tie monday morining and my slacks, do I tuck this life back in a drawer or do I carry a part of with me?

Oh yeah. Go watch A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints. It's like The Basketball Diaries.

She blinked up out of her avid shameclosing eyes, mewing plaintively and long, showing him her milkwhite teeth.

There's a tree that grows right outside my window, and it's a huge tree with all the things a tree has.
I played on it growing up, playing the game of 'how high can you climb?' but as a 10 year old I didn't fully realize my impending acrophobia, and would make it about half way before getting dizzy. Later, I realized that my biggest fear was not falling down, but in somehow someway the world would be turned upside down and I'd fall into space. I still worry sometimes and try to devise plans to anchor myself to the ground or just spend a life living in an intricate system of tunnels.

Amy's package finally arrived containing:

• Paul Auster's The Brooklyn Follies


• NFW- Not For Tourists Guide to NEW YORK CITY


• Arthur B. Klyber's Once A Jew
• 
  
• Bloom's Literary Guide to NEW YORK


• A Potato Gun


• Older Pete pin (since she's decidedly younger Pete, the cards are already dealt)


• Actual police tape from a gritty crime scene in which the grizzled detective rubs his jaw and wonders if his wife loves him, or if he needs to stop smoking so much and "get on the damn patch."

All in all, fun stuff. I got my business cards today, and will be handing them out at the thesethingsarenow/wemadeoutonce party this weekend in Denton, Austin (hopefully) and San Angelo.

Desperately hungover. I have 12 new messages on my phone, and three of them I have no idea who they are. Someone inviting me to a show in Dallas and then one of them is a 212 area code...Manhattan?

Anyone in Denton remember this girl? I think she stayed in West.

# This is the last of Earth! I am content.

Go listen to Chromeo.

I finally FINALLY bought my ticket to NYC today. After I had finished all my work I decided I might as well get it done, since I had been putting it off for such a long time. I had waited so long to actually figure out what was happening, but now it's all good. Total :117.23 I leave Monday August 13th straight out of DFW. I need a ride at 11am. I need one dearly.

This museum is a torpedo moving through time.

Today at work:
Escaped mental patient terrorizes elderly couple and steals only a two liter bottle of Diet Coke from the refrigerator before returned to the hospital.

At Hangar 23 they had drills for WMD's but realized that it was too hot, called it off.

I wrote a story about volunteers for at the VA Hospital. Check Wednesday's paper, page 2.

I just sent off for a viewbook and application for The New School. Steena made it sound so appealing. Plus I think I'd like to get my M.F.A now that I've learned that my loan is pushed back even further. I might as well use it. It'll some time before I'm actually able to attend, at least a year so I don't have to pay out of state tuition.

Work on the website is slow. If you have myspace:These Things Are Now you can be my friend. Or you can be my friend in real life and I'll just tell you what I post about while I treat you to spinach quesadillas.

What is this that frees me so in storms?

So far I've sold most of my stuff, given it away to Jacob or Micah, and now I live in the back of house that's supposedly haunted.
Good thing is that I have a great job, a new Macbook Pro, and work at the number two credited newspaper in West Texas. We're like the New York Post.

Things could be a lot better though. Tons.

I wonder how many vagina's are on the internet?

I passed statistics. I guess statistically if you study in the basement of Willis Library for mind numbing hours it pays off.

Now I'm packing up my stuff. Steena called today and said they found an apt in Harlem? I said Brooklyn, but if I get to live in Manhattan that'd be alright with me too. She's calling back tomorrow with the details.

Holla at ya boy.

How many times can you laugh at that cat getting hit by the moon?

Coachella Festival.

I see all the ads that you can watch it online, but I can't find a direct link. Tons of mirrors that don't work, or connect you to ads ABOUT Coachella, but never the direct stream.BrooklynVegan is suffice coverage. Bustos's is there right now after driving since Monday. Who knows when he'll be back?

The rival festival, Denton Jazz and Arts Festival , is going on this weekend also. I really want to get some roasted corn and watch the Bulldog Competition.

Remember 5 weeks? I leave in two weeks now. May 12 will be my last day as a Dentonite. I'll have a temporary address before NYC, so anybody sending me anything(!) I'll let you know.

Plus. I don't find Amy Winehouse appealing at all.

.......

This must be where pies go when they die.

Where's my car?
Stuck at the Family Dollar between Elm and Locust. Not stuck, but forced to be abandoned. It's in the parking lot though, and I'll pick it up eventually.

Every major street in Denton has been closed since around 5pm today. I was in Willis Library all day, deep in the basement, no laptop or cellphone, and I come out to the End of Days type weather. Needless to say the one test that separates me from the rest of the world I know has been postponed. I'll see my professor at Lou's or something tonight and see what's going down.

So I can't upload any photos right now, but I've been taking a lot. More of Undoing of David Wright and Chief, The Anti-Valentine's Day show. Vista won't accept my software and Hp will send me updated disks when they get around to it. Bah.

Oh snap! I just finally realized what a Columbian Necktie is!

I want to cut off your skin and wear it to my birthday.

Yeah, the title makes sense. It's 3:30am, I'm still slightly drunk, and I'm listening to Q. Lazzarus ( from the scene in Silence of The Lambs were Buffalo Bill is dancing in front of the mirror).

Okay. Maybe I just creeped myself out about it. I should probably change the music.

I'm in an alcoholic daze for two things. I sold my computer (my desktop) for a couple of hundred dollars and that Jacob's out of jail. Yeah, his time was short but taxing. He's a champ.

Spent a night with sipping spirits with Lars and Aaron, deciding whether or not to either go argue with a Pita Pit employee or hang out at the IOOF cemetery. We ended up cruising around in his minivan and eating breakfast tacos from Taco Cabana. We drove around some more listening to My Life With The Thrill Kill Cult. Stomachs full of chorizo and egg, we ended up at Hailey's during
http://www.myspace.com/wildinthestreets set. It was great, especially when Mikey Minywoki threw up some Bronksi Beat like he knew I was there to enjoy it.

I gave $20 to Theresia tonight so she can go to Mongolia to build a house. For reasons known to at least one person who reads this blog, you would understand why I would give so much to the Mongolian people. Marcus said I was trying to make my peace with Ghengis Khan.

I want to cut off your skin and wear it to my birthday, like I'm 15 and listening to Bahaus and I hate my parents.

Do you really want to go and live in that hotel for the winter?

I've notified both jobs when I'll be leaving, already paid my bills and rent for this month, paid for the few days I'll be here in May, paid off the credit card bill (Who knew if you paid in a lump sum they erase it from your record?) and closed my bank accounts. Furniture is slowly migrating out of my room.
I guess because it's so close it feels unreal that this will change a lot of things. Denton is home.

Apparently two tornadoes touched down in Dallas and in Ft. Worth. Unseasonably cold weather, 48 degrees for how much longer?


Good news: Instead of the WTMHMR job I was planning on taking, I'm taking a lesser paying much but rewarding job at the Big Spring Herald.
They have a position for fact checking, which is just more along the lines of handling resources and following up on people's stories. I'll probably involve a lot of livestock stories, maybe a few power lines being down. Someone seeing that Ghost Crane that plagued Big Spring when I was a kid (More on that later).

Handed out heartrapers pins last night at the bar/ Undoing of David Wright show. Why weren't people so emphatic about TPTSTW?

There was another life that I might have had, but I am having this one.

About to watch Stranger Than Fiction. Everyone I talk to has mixed feelings about it, but I think I'll like it. The premise seems enchanting enough.

There's a protest, or was a protest at my old school. I got the newspaper clippings in the mail today. I miss going to school there, I miss a lot of the people I knew. Haven't kept up really with each other. I know that a few live in the D.C. area going to Gallaudet and a few friends live in Boston.

I slept nearly 12 hours today. I feel asleep listening to Yaz's Upstairs at Eric's. I was half asleep and thinking about how much I loved MAD Magazine as a kid. I would always buy the magazines, but my Dad had a stack from the 1970-1975 Al Jaffee era, the ones where every single strip was funny even to a 10 year old. My favorite was always Spy vs. Spy, because I always thought it'd be funny to see someone really do that, really get blown out of a cannon or slapped by a huge flyswatter- my humor still mainly consists of thinking of people in Spy vs. Spy situations. Although I had an appreciation for the comic my younger brother Dereck (who only appreciates literature spanning between The Dirtbike Kid The Catcher in the Rye and nothing else) took a black marker and elegantly filled in all of the white spies garb in most of the comics. I was really pissed.

Jacob went to jail today and he'll be alright becuase he said they have a Playstation.

Who's that down at the bottom of the garden? Who's that hiding under the sofa?

I turned my two week notice for Border's yesterday. No more discounts, no more towers of boxes or stripped covers, no more annoying customers and no more people asking me if I work there. Because after two weeks I don't, and you can find the Travel section yourself (it's under the sign that says TRAVEL).

Saw Grindhouse last night with Jacob and Co. Robert Rodriguez is still, and always, one of my favorite writers and directors. His contribution double-feature was Planet Terror, which I have a deep felt affection in my heart when people say Texas on the screen. It was the better of the two. Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof was good as well, but I'm a bit sick of the dialog he uses in his movies. It's not as bad as me never watching another Kevin Smith film, but it's nearing. Kurt Russel was amazing in Overboard.

Hailey's last night provided me meeting a model from Oakland (Nick's girlfriend?) and seeing Cletis Blackfoot and Liquid Bounce. I thought that Cletis Blackfoot was....alright. It was like a parade of Dallas MC's backed by UNT hippie Jazz majors. Liquid Bounce has sort of a brothers-in-arms relationship with Heartrapers. They're always at our shows, they support us, they always advertise our shows on their site and their personal site. It's a strange alliance between a hip hop/jazz group and whatever Heartrapers can be called.

Tonight:

He's remembering the skin of an apple, bursting with nebulae, a look into curved reddening space.

I turned 26 last night while watching Elvis Costello videos on Youtube.


Friday Brian and I went to Dallas for an AFI event which White Drugs and The Kansas City Faggots played afterward. We were in that hellfire and brimstone apocalyptic rain that somehow has destroyed all of Texas and we remained unharmed. Hung out with a girl who proclaimed "I'm not that racist, just y'know, I'm racist but not that bad."

Cameron's gone. He went back to Longview. Heartrapers played with Chief Death Rage and Drink To Victory. It was a full show. I think someone named Lil Tedly or Teabag Tommy or something was supposed to play, but everyone sorta left after us and went to Albert's place. I drunkenly agreed to be in a comedy bit with James (Sarah Reddington) and Marcus (www.weight.nu). It's called the Three Worst Elements of Comedy. I think it's becuse we're not funny.


Today...no plans. Sleep/watch the rest of Babel/homework. I'm having dinner with Ms. Kim and Judy and Derek. Judy and Derek takes to long to write...I need something like a "Bennifer" device for them. Judrek. Derdy. Durdy. I dunno.

I've become increasingly interested in my neighbor's house. I live in the part of Denton where all the houses are a throwback to the plantation style, and they have these grand arches and turrents. Most owners of these houses pride themselves with the maintenance and the history of these house. But not my neighbor. He has the same style of house yet has decided to go with a "whataburger coffee cup" motif.


Tad says he's an antique collector with an ailing wife. She never comes out, but you see her at the front window upstairs smoking cigarettes and looking out onto the street some evenings. More photos to follow.

There's nothing at the center of what we do.

Bored.

That's what's happening. When I was a kid and staying at my grandparent's house in Big Spring (we lived far far far away in Big Lake at that time) if we said we were bored we'd have to shell pecans.
Shelling pecans is some odd combination between child labor and torture. Bits of pecans get underneath your fingernails, skin becomes dry and cracked and starts to bleed. We had electric machines that could smash the shells and keep the meat intact, but those if we even looked at we'd break them. So we had to pick the shells apart with our tiny hands, tiny spots of blood on our Ocean Pacific t-shirts.

So, pecan death aside, I'm bored.

After I dropped my Mom off in Grand Prairie last night, I drove around for awhile. I didn't feel like going back home. Everything between Dallas and Ft. Worth seems to bleed into one another and at night everything looks the same.

Saturday we're playing at J&J's with Chief Death Rage and Little Teddly. There's a new split between Eat Avery's Bones and Koji Kondo. Great things.

The girl in front of me keeps writing the words "Why Anal Sex is Wrong" in big bold letters on an open text document. Then she plays Tetris for a few seconds, goes back, deletes the text, changes the style of font, the size, and types it again. Then back to Tetris.

I'm attending Passover next week at the synagogue I've been loosely attending,Congregation Kol Ami. This is the first holiday I've attended there and I'm anxious. Often times Passover services are extended to people that aren't Jewish (me) and I wonder how many non-Jews will be there. I've become increasingly more interested in Judaism due to class. I have certain views on religion, and although I've been raised as a Christian, I don't feel that connected to it. I feel as if I were raised more in fear of God rather than how most Christian homes were held. It wasn't quite Fire-and-Brimstone-You're-Going-to-Hell-Regardless, but more like if you do this, you'll got to hell. That's it, and the rules always changed from parent to parent (If you don't help you parents clean the garage, Jesus doesn't like that). Stuff like that. So, outside of a very late religious crisis, it almost feels like I'm actually discovering religion for the first time.

The sun burned every day. It burned Time.

How many movies this month have I watched when someone cuts their own tongue out?
Oh. I guess 2. Oldboy and Ichi The Killer.

Overcast. Rain. Cam's porch sale probably went south pretty quick. He had some decent DVD's, Ben showed up, stumbled around, bought all the Bukowski books. Seems fit.

Here are some links to keep you preocupied:
Acceptable TV
0tv
We Got Shows
All Of TV
Giant Peach
All Things Go

Plus I think somehow through the phone lines Jane gave me a sore throat. Ha. I've been drinking hot apple juice and ginseng all day. We've recorded two *new* songs, hopefully they'll be up by the end of this week.

You ain't nobody tell somebody kills you

Fuck today.

Work sucked. ESW (Educators Something Something) started today, and the store was full of people. Not like, "Hey-can-you-help-me-find-a-book-people" but like "Hey-why-don't-you-have-this-book-this-store-is-overpriced-and-horrible) the same woman who said that last bit actually ended up spending another hour there, rolling her eyes and complaining loudly, then bought a stack of books. We have trivia questions at work now that you can win stuff out of Amy D.W.'s office. Between Cole and I we got two of the questions right, but we had to stop and give everyone else a chance. We didn't get to pick out our stuff though. I think it's just a bunch of DVD's that we couldn't move or that are damaged for some reason.

But today was inspirational. After stocking romance I had a great plot for a romance novel I could write. Title: Big Baby Takes the Cake. There's a hot mom, an overweight baby, a drastic doctor, and the love interest, a model turned birthday party clown. I think it'll be hot on the shelves, and women will love clowns and then in turn the clowns will get respect.

Work takes place at the Radisson Hotel tomorrow, some kind of convention that I'll sit at a table all day and say, "Hey?! Don't want to take care of your special needs kids?! Consider DCMHMR!?" and give a pamphlet out. I'll have my laptop, my short stories to be edited, and unlimited cups of coffee.

Spring Break: BBQ's, Beer, Friends from NYC, two guys that looked like Gene and Dean Ween who cooked me chicken, A trunk full of women's clothing and a scrabble competition with Julie and Will.

Has anyone seen This? These two guys made this video, then they signed up with a Chinese cellphone company and Pepsi for a 5 year contract of them doing the same thing, but wearing the companies logo.

How can you do the moonwalk and ask a woman to dance. "Hey baby lets dance...cya later

"Brian's obligatory Christmas card to the ladies. He just signs the back Yours, Crowbar."

The Duncan Hills will wake you-From a thousand deaths-A cup of Blackened Blood

Spent the weekend listening to people scream "Dude! Spring Break!" Like they own the week. Someone sold this week to college students so they could walk around and remind people, Hey, Spring Break ( This all took place at the Minimart as Shawn rang up a couple "Bra's." They were pointing fingers and spending cash on pony kegs).

Besides Spring Break, and SXSW, there's really nothing happening. To me at least. I spent all morning with parents shopping for luggage, going through bills, what I have to pay off before I leave and what I need to pay on. There's a big problem. I might have to mull some of my options over.
Punk Bunny Christian Teenage Runaway are tonight at Haileys. Oh yeah, we'll be playing before them in all our bloody goodness. Come tonight. With Cam and I moving, who knows when we'll play again?

these things are now.

Things I Appreciate in Life:
1. Sandwiches
2. The Descendents never sucking.
3. Jane
4. Space Heaters
5. Clell Tickle: Indie Marketing Guru


Still working on the music blog name. I finally broke down and got some space bought up. Boogerbear sucked. I think it sucks now. Sorry I mentioned it to you Brian. But, you suck, so they cancelled each other out. These Things Are Now is currently numbero uno.