Greetings from Sunny West Orange, New Jersey! Yes, it IS the home of Thomas A. Edison!
Actually, I got back on Friday night. They don't have much on the internet out that way.

Through much elation concerning food, high regards to a Pecan Pie and only one missed train, Thanksgiving came to a close in good cheer. Kudos to everyone who showed, or didn't show, but was thinking about it somewhere else. Thanksgiving is one of the holidays, in my opinion, isn't very biased on religion or belief.
I've never heard anyone that didn't celebrate Thanksgiving on based on a certain lifestyle or religion. Maybe because it's so generalized? It's not associated with anything? I guess it's more like President's Day but with a lot of family and food.

They've been playing Christmas music non-stop over the past two weeks on the radio.

For that special Bowie fan out there:

I may need to do a stake-out over the weekend.

Blip Festival 2008: The Promo from Richard Alexander Caraballo on Vimeo.

I see murals in the radio static and on your blue jeans.

Day.... 3? Day 3 in the throes of West Texas.

A gallant homecoming if anything. I touched down in DFW Friday night, Brian patiently waiting the 1 1/2 hour lateness of my flight. Delta, why do you shun thee? As he said in his e-mail, and once again in person "word is bond."
We sped through the night to get to Denton, where it was nothing but shots and free Shiner abound at RGRS with the skeleton crew of RGRS.
After that I headed out, thouroghly buzzed and using the train tracks as landmarks to get to Lucky Lou's to meet up with everyone else.
Went to a part that was DJ'd by two guys with laptops sitting next to a bonfire.

I met up with Ian the next day for an impromptu session, getting more ink on my arm. It's pretty much finished all the way to my wrist now, so I'm pretty happy. I took a long walk around Denton. There's a lot that's gone, there's a lot that's stayed the same. Most everyone I knew has either relocated to NYC or Portland, Oregon. There's a handful of diehard's left, the music scene has changed considerably (let's give up Centro-matic for bands like Bat Castle).
It was good though. It made me realize why I left and why I don't think I'm ready, if at all, to come back. My life is so on the razor's edge most of the time, merely a gust of wind and I'm gone somewhere else. I moved to NYC on the whim of Amy telling me how great it was and my new luggage. Now coming back, I know that I'd do it again.
What a great respite it is to come from NYC back to...nowhere. Driving along the highway, it really is a vastness that I haven't thought about in some time. The first sip of Shiner is my petite madeline a la Proust.
On seeing the big picture: True, people do look at the big picture only when they're feeling up or down. I think if you're constantly looking at the big picture it'd be hard to live your, or any life. Always having to see everything. It's unfair to the moment, especially when someone else is down in that valley with you or high on that peak. Time and space don't allow you to really always look at the big picture either. If that were true, than everyone would probably be level headed individuals. But that's not being alive should be about. It's about selfishness, time gained, time lost, happiness, love (what is love?) and everything in between. We are not rational creatures, and if we had everything down to a science, there'd be no room for art.
It's been a good break so far. There's definitely a line drawn in the sand in regards to my life.

Brilliantly restrained.

Topsy-Turvy, right?

Last night I went to the Film Forum to see Mijke de Jong's Stages.

Have you ever seen the appropriate movie or heard the appropriate song to fit whatever's happening at that moment? This is was pretty much it. I equate breaking up to reincarnation; or how just have to handle to the world from another viewpoint. I mean, let's say an animal, dog/cat/hamster or whatever sharing the same apartment with a human or another animal. You experience the same surroundings but through a different view. What's big to someone is small to the other. What's black and white is in color. Right now, I'm having to look at things the big picture.
That's what I feel right now, I'm going to be in the same set of circumstances, yet I'm having to look at it from a different point of view. Stages is very relevant to the situation. It's shades of life with two divorced people sharing a son that can't or won't connect with them. It's really a series of peaks and valleys of two peoples emotional states: you want to love or hate this person, you have a hard time distinguishing that. It's a quiet film, at that. De Jong drops the sound a few times to focus on the visual, which is something I wish American filmmakers would use.

I leave for Texas next week, next Friday to be exact. It couldn't come at a better time.
The guy at the lower left hand corner of this picture looks like Devandra Barnhart.

ASTEROIDS (assorted prices, unimportant)

These will be the topics in the following posts:

-The Fruit-basket
-"I AM THE MAN"
-drugs and my friends
-chemistry blunder
-music and lit references

It's not really essay format. I lied. It's sort of a challenge to try and recall each of these topics and correlate it with your life. Some easy ("I AM THE MAN") some harder (The Fruit-basket) but it gives me something better to write. Rather this that write about how I finally threw away that shark fin soup I had in the fridge.

Hey, here's a trivia question: Why would I wanna do that?

\
So, I missed the debate again.

We trucked it out to the Zombie Hut in Gowanus. They had too many distractions: Deluxe Scrabble, $2 PBR's and this thing here on the right, the Scorpion Bowl.

So, in my with my Indiana Jones like furor that I scour NYC for the best Mexican food (many people say you have to head to New Jersey) Owen, Kerrie and I hit up El Cantinero last Saturday. Pricey, yes, good, alright. I had the Burrito and Enchilida Suiza. The rice was killer. Like, killed-me-and-forged-a-suicide-note-and-threw-me-in-The East River-type-killed.

I need a certain list of topics to essay all on.
Give them to me.

They don't have nothin', it's like a flea market threw up in there.

Thank you new Deerhoof album. You've made my week.

Right now I'm listening to Will Sheff (Okkervil River)run through a 44 minute DJ set. I've never really listened to Okkervil River but I've always considered them.

Hey, Sunday morning is not the time to be upset with two homeless guys.
Unless they're digging through the garbage right outside your window and making a mess of the staircase.
Not cool homeless guy with red gloves. Not cool homeless guy with dreadlock in your goatee.

Pitchfork is releasing The Pitchfork 500. The 500 top songs of all time. Pre-order from Insound.

Npr released a
list of recommended books. Some of them I read. I'd really like to read Consider the Lobster.

I'll be your lucky star at the Cafe Wah

One of my favorite novelists, Danica Novgorodoff has a new book coming out,Slow Storm. Right on.

Right now I'm sitting on the floor in my living room watching the sky get darker. I always like fall- the oncoming weather makes me feel more productive. Something Pavlovian? Not sure.

Last night I went to Lobo for $3 crispy iced out Stellas and to watch a couple of guys jab at each other politically. John McCain and Barack Obama. I don't really rely on politics for anything, to me it's like gravity. It's there, I know it's there, I don't really worry about it. I grew up with a photo of Ronald Reagan hanging in the hallway. So, I gave it a shot.
...for about ten minutes. There was an older woman at the bar who ruined the whole thing. Scratch that. Ruined the whole thing for everyone.
Yes, okay, I get it. No one likes McCain or Palin. Good. Great. She's creepy and he's creepy and that baby Trigger is creepy. McCain is like your slow uncle with that far off gaze like he's in the parking lot of Wal-Mart and can't remember where he parked his car. But old lady at the bar, let me hear what he fucking has to say.
Every time he started to speak she would yell "Yeah Right!" and "You're a liar!" and if she had nothing intelligent such as those quips she would just exclaim "ha!" real loud. She would shush everyone while Obama was speaking. I'm sorry. I just can't take ignorance to the opposition. Just let us hear what he has to say. I don't care if you agree or not.

Anyway, Top Blog Secret: I didn't vote in the last election. I admit it. I also admit I get uncomfortable when people turn to me and want me to agree to criticize President Bush with them. I didn't vote, so I don't feel that camaraderie that a lot of people feel.
1: Hey, Bush is doing a bad job! He's a moron!
2: I didn't vote for him!
1: Me neither!
2: Awesome. Let's celeberate!
(high five or reassuring chuckle coupled with head nod)

With all of this I do throw my lot in with Obama. He makes sense.

Why Must I Cry?

Yes. Thanks, now I have this song stuck in my head 24/7.
I finally got around to getting furniture at IKEA. The trek that you have to endure in moving furniture without a car- man, mean city living. I just said screw it and got a car service to car us back. But now I'm surprisingly more productive!

Friday night met up with Kerrie and Cindy at Bedford and headed in to see Chris at Terra Blues. We had seen TMBG right across the street a week before. The place was chill- older, more jazzy (in two ways).
After there I finally went to a Hookah bar. The Luxor Cafe. It just happened to be across from an awesome falafel spot, so we ended up there smoking some tutti-frutti through a pipe that made me feel all regal.

Band practice today. I have to learn 12 songs in about an hour and a half.

Choke on this you dance-a-teria types!

Oh. Yeah. This is a thing. Please make it a thing in your life.

Last night Cindy and I caught A Man for All Seasons at American Airlines Theatre. First off, George Morfogen who played Bob Rebadow on Oz played Thomas Cramner, Archbishop of Canterbury. Anyway, Thomas More was a humanist scholar, head advisor to Henry the VIII during the time he was divorcing Catherine of Aragon and hooking up with Anne Boleyn, wanting to make her the new Queen. Thomas More didn't stand behind it, because of the whole reason of forming the new Church of England. He was still loyal to the Church and was friends with Catherine of Aragon. Instead of protesting it, he just kept quiet. Not answering to any of the allegations brought against him, he was forced to resign and burned at the stake for high treason. He knew it was wrong, and instead of joining up with the rest of the advisors and blindly supporting the King, he was punished for what he felt was right.
It really made me think how many times I've blindly followed when I leaned the other way.

Anyway, I have these next three days off. I'm trying to make the best of things by applying ton of burn cream on my bandaged hands and making Autumn mixtapes. I was supposed to go to Rockaway Beach today, but I had laundry to do.

Anybody want to go to this with me?

Picture opposite..ancestry..shipwreck free.

Le Poisson Rouge is hosting They Might Be Giants for a residency for the next few months. Every last Saturday of the month until January.
Last night opened with a cacaphony of French, sweetly whispered over violin and banjo ukelele in the form of Les Chauds Lapins. Brilliant layered French pop from a lazy day next to a river or something. I just started to like crêpes, so the music was even better.

Someone once bought me an accordian, and for a long time between classes I would practice in our apartment along with the Amélie soundtrack. I only learned two songs ("Soir de fête" and "Sur le fil"), but I don't consider myself well versed in the ways of the accordion. I wish I had it here, because there are many times I'd like to squeeze a lonely E minor out.

Right now I'm listening to and Art Garfunkle recording an epilogue of his time with Simon and Garfunkle. It's sort of a joke- Art in the recording booth referring as himself to his full name, Arthur Ira Garfunkel, and giving a very grave a dire diatribe about their splitting up. Halfway through he keeps getting interrupted by Paul Simon in on the board, telling him that he's not serious enough, that he has to be more dark for people to truly believe that they're no longer. He just keeps painting this bleak world where "Some people follow their God's, some people can't handle the split" with Paul Simon cracking up on the other end.

Being in a band is like dating three or four other people all at the same time. I feel like I dated Camella and Jacob for way too long, way long after the relationship was gone. Through the last three months of the band, we were seriously going through the motions. The last tour- the Midwest tour- lines were already drawn. Camella was going to move to Portland and start playing with Tex Winters and Brian, Jacob, Cam and I had something in the works for a while that eventually became Heartrapers.

All I can really remember about it is lugging a heavy Ampeg bass amp to the roof of the Fox and Hound with Jacob pushing and Camella carrying her snare up the metal fire escape(yeah, the BACK ENTRANCE) and explaining to her that we both wanted to quit.
Funny, that was probably the best we played during that whole tour, probably because Shea (old guitarist from the first tour) filled in for Brian (who ended up refusing to play anymore shows, anyway).
That night Shea and I drove back to Denton, a Morrissey poster for Jane and free of any responsibility to The Pebble That Saved The World.
After being on a week and half long tour of non-stop driving, I went watched Little Miss Sunshine, which, is a movie about being on a roadtrip.

Terrific. I'm about to get killed a million miles fron nowhere with a gung-ho iguana who tells me to relax.

I know it's going to be debuting at the Atlanta Film Festival in Halifax, Nova Scotia next Tuesday, but fuck. America needs this movie.

This week has been one sliding scale of doom. I burned my wrist pretty bad and now I have to keep it wrapped. Cindy let me borrow a Puma sweatband, so know I look like a guy who wears a sweatband around my wrist. It makes me think, if I were to sweat so much that I had to wear a band around my arm to soak it up, I need to cut a lot of salt our something out of my diet. Or I just play sports and this is a normal thing people do.

There's a lot of other stuff, but it's not really worth troubling with it all. I got to eat some Shark Fin soup and some Peking Duck, but that was pretty much all I got out of a fancy dinner. Now I can retire and eat duck and shark and feel like a millionaire instead of a three dollaraire (that's the norm).

Supposedly there's talk of Lonnie B. and karaoke tonight.

It's a fuck you Friday.

If I see you at The Charleston today, I will buy you a beer. Limited offer only.

My shadow sits down in the snow and shakes his head from side to side.

If you ever get a chance, go to Woorijip. It's really cheap and crowded most of the time, but it's worth it.

So, I think I've mentioned Achewood a thousand times on this thing. Why is that? Do I only check my gmail and discuss Achewood comic strips when I'm online? Would that make me some sort of internet geek? Probably. And yes I do. Between downloading music and google mapping the world to see how far things really are.
Anyway, Achewood is provided me with many a distraction (Yes, work right now is slow) so I had to order this. There has never been a photo of Chris Onsadt, the creator of my diversion to the grave, until now.
He looks a lot like the only professor I really gave a damn about at UNT, Marshall Armintor. This all makes me think in 10 more years, that's what I'm going to look like. t-e-n.

And if you like the sort of stuff that I like (or want to be like me) order things from drawn and quarterly.

Cindy and I have set in motion our trip to Amsterdam. We are accepting donations.

It's a nuclear show and the stars are gone.

I really like that feeling when you actually know where you're and where you're going in NYC without having to look at a map. You automatically become the navigator of the group, knowing cross streets and addresses and good bars and horrible restaurants. You become a regular Phlegyas of the greater metro area.

I finally finished all of Arrested Development. Three seasons in one week. Not since Oz have I watched a DVDTV series so adamantly. I for one though, am against a movie. I don't think it would work. I like how it ended (and so does Michael Cera) so I think it would ruin the whole ambiance. They pretty much wrapped up everything in the end, so what would the movie even be about?

Spent my two days off basically bouncing back and forth. Friday night we went out to
Mr. Biggs all the way in Midtown and then shot down to the LES for Darkroom. Darkroom is pretty chill- cheap drinks in what I think at one point had to be a fallout shelter. Saturday was watching Cindy kill some people at the Knickerbocker courts while trying to edit. It's bad- when I write I can go out every night and stay up and do whatever, but editing I shut myself away. But I rocked the supportive other and clenched my fist when something was going awry.
Gettin' Gussied- Sounds classy right? That has to be the title of blog or an adult movie or a magazine about night life. First off, big downs to Spitzer's Corner for always being crowded and having beers that are like straight from Spuyten Duyvil but without the atmosphere. I think I saw a line of iphones in dangerous lieu of getting beer spilled across them. Anyway, we headed off to Boss Tweed's which is right next to the Delancy-Essex stop and near a McDonald's. What an absolute awesome piece of real estate for a bar. They must make a ton of scrilla.
The big events that all lead up to this was going to Cindy's sister's birthday. She rented out Planet Thailand 212 for the night. I walked around in a daze for a bit because I think I spent my last birthday in a tent or something (reality: in an apartment with blueberry cheesecake) but it was probably the best use of recycled materials put all up in the Srivijaya pagoda style. Green glass bottles and wine glasses all cemented and glue in the right places to make a person feel all in the right mind to eat some Larb Kai and Vegetable rolls without having to think that's 24th street right out there.

This week: Ikea for a desk, what happens when I think about baking my own bread, trying to tell you about how nice it is to run in Prospect Park (mildly) and a guy named Scott who makes all sorts of jellies and jams.

Everyone had something for 9/11 yesterday.

Telephones are ringing in a land called PBS

Drunk and Dead

It's true- I haven't posted anything since the Siren Music Festival. I think I can mentally run down things:
- I started a torrid love affair with a dish called Juk. Rock it with some sliced Century egg and you got yourself something beautiful that a grown man (who is also a tough logger) would cry some.
- Bought Human Highway's Moody Motorcycle. It's that good pop stuff. I really dig Islands, so it's a win-win situation.
- Started to play with some ex-members of Against Me! out in Brooklyn. Our first show was last Thursday. We got paid in pastries and iced coffee.
- Went to my neighborhood Bank of America. Stood in line behind Todd Barry. He seemed okay.

I started the whole applying for Grad School yesterday.

I don't need no car

Thanks to Albert, I know what a Scraper Bike is.

Those guys look so happy about their bicycles.

When she appears blithely unaware of the Dostoyevskian pall of death hanging over New York City, he compliments her on her legs.

It's a good thing I tan and not burn. I have that farmers tan thing because I'm the guy who wears the polo shirt to the beach.
Yesterday we trucked it out to Coney Island for the Siren Music Festival. We trucked it out of the city around 1:30, not really caring to see the first half of the acts. I know it sounds, bad, but I just couldn't hear Parts and Labor or Dragons of Zynth anymore. We stopped by my apartment and thought it'd be nice to actually walk through my neighborhood to the next stop over. The houses there are real nice, set back from the street with huge front yards and wrap around porches. It didn't feel very much like the Brooklyn I was living in. It was very...quiet.
Anyway, we spent some time at the beach. It was the first time I'd ever been to Coney Island, so it was surreal for me. Tons of people. Very very crowded. But now that I live so close I can head down any time I want.
We caught Beach House, Broken Social Scene, Islands(which was awesome when they played Jellybones and I Was Born a Unicorn)and parts of Stephen Malkmus.
I have to spend the rest of today drinking a lot of water and heading to band practice uptown around 4:30. After that I have to finish my Twilight Zone Marathon.

There's still a list of things I need for the new apartment.

The world is quieter now. We just have to listen.

I finally got around to watching I Am Legend. For my love of all things post-apocalyptic, I have to say this was the worst. I mean, the book was great because it dealt more with the fact that Robert Neville was the only survivor, and it was a bit Shaun of the Dead-ish. The movie though was just CGI'd straight to hell. But I did like Will Smith's acting.
My next two days off I'm going to spend watching The Twilight Zone and John Adams.

Moving has been sort of stressful, having to downsize and buy all new things. It's a bit cathartic though, getting rid of all of my things. Starting over with new stuff.

This weekend is The Siren Music Festival. I think I may just show up for the tail end.