I still read things on occasion but I don't really enjoy posting here as much. This last year ended better than it started, but the middle kinda sucked. I've discovered that though i'm not glad i am where i am, i'm glad i'm not where i was. And i think that's enough for now.
To the people that helped me: Thank you. To the people that hurt me: Eh. No blood, no foul. To the people that did a bit of both: You are confusing. Stop.
In my internet absence, there's been a torrent of questions about what I've been up to. Not a day goes by that I don't reread one of the 2 emails I've received over the last month asking "Where are you?" or "Where is the funny stuff?" And just where have I been? What has been taking up all of my time, and what just what has been the focus of my various beer-diminished faculties?
Fearing for my life.
I've recently purchased a 2005 Kawasaki ZZR600, and have subsequently spent the remaining time holding onto the handle-bars for dear fucking life. Here is a picture of my lovely little death-trap, and in the background the '66 Nova and my neighbors bike with training-wheels that should probably be on my own bike.
*Not pictured: the sheer terror experienced while riding.
The bike has some cosmetic damage on the side not shown, which is how I managed to get such a good deal on it. It's actually a lot of fun to ride, and i find it to be extremely soothing, but that might just be some kind of adrenaline-induced euphoria from the required alertness. 18 Comments | Post A Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
Over the last year, I have changed my diet to exclude beef and pork. Partly because they're cute and make silly noises, partly because they could be someone's pet, but largely because they smell like the inside of a waste processing plant. ( Eat my ass. )
I decided to trim my friend list to cut back on the noise. I've had a bit of down-time here at work and was browsing through my friend page when I noticed I had to go back in time about 5 or 6 pages just to get some content that wasn't eye-gougingly uninteresting. I found it a little bit irritating, so I took the opportunity to sift through my several-hundred-friend friend list in the hopes of trimming out some people that have either deleted their blogs or lost touch. I also decided to prune some communities that aren't as interesting to read while sober as they are while drunk. In this process, I made some observations about communities, friends, and the like.
Friends
People are 99% full of shit. This isn't news; We all know this. Every now and then you run into someone that's been holding back long enough and has somehow managed to save up enough wit to make a statement that, at the time, seems so completely clever that you lose all manner of self-control and dignity and, in a fit of wild, drunken flailing, click the "add friend" button.
For me this seems to happen daily. Once you take that leap, you quickly realize that every other entry is either about which groceries they're going to buy or what house-hold chores they're going to do, not to mention the chores they've already done. I guess that would be very interesting if they were going to do them at my house, or maybe if I at least knew where they lived so I could unleash some kind of wild, naked Twinkie-brutality on their fridge.
I had amassed a friend list of well over 200 names, comprised mostly of people I don't know and, while I'm being honest, probably don't want to know. If blogs were done right, the button right next to "add/remove friend" would say "who the fuck are you, again?" to save you the 30 minutes spent reading their back-entries in the hope of finding some familiar event to help you place their name, only to realize you don't know them. THEY LIVE IN FUCKING ARGENTINA, unless of course you live in Argentina, in which case I just removed you.
Communities
You might think that adding a community or subscribing to an RSS feed is a great way to stay informed on topics related to upcoming Oprah book-club events, inane photos of cats, and whatever other lame stuff people like you are interested in, but you'd be sorely mistaken. You start off thinking things like "Pictures of broken stuff? I LOVE BROKEN STUFF!" and about a week into it, you realize you signed up for page after page of huge, high resolution images of some homeless guy with no pants dropping a duke behind some large piece of broken machinery that doesn't work and isn't worth fixing, taken by some 12 year old Russian kid with his extremely hip and moderately low-quality camera on his most recent trip to Richmond, VA.
I'm not posting an image for this one on principle.
Adding a community to your blog is pretty much like contacting the U.S. Air Force to sign up for a propaganda pamphlet bomb so you can sift through each and every shred of the "Join our cult!" hand-outs that landed on your house, just to find the picture of some dog with well-painted green nails. Just the same, page after page of DJ set-list, where they list songs that you've either never heard of or wish you hadn't. Maybe if they posted that BEFORE you wasted 15$, 4 hours, and however much that bar-tab was after you started buying drinks for people in the hopes of making them more interesting, you'd have had time to write some satirical post that only you find funny.
Let me save you some time:
Family
Heaven forbid your mother find your blog. Jesus Christ. Maybe she's 30 or maybe she's 60, but no matter how worldly she is, unless she's a participant she probably has no idea what to do with the midget porn bloopers video that your friend linked from redtube.com - Midget Porn Bloopers! when you were passed-out drunk last night and forgot to log out. All the pervs that just clicked that link have been added back to my friend list (including my mom.) FYI.
I travel to Roanoke quite a bit these days, usually once per week. I know I say that i'm going to Roanoke when i leave, but i don't really think of it that way. I don't really do anything in Roanoke really. I leave to see lithiumcrimson, and everything else is simply part of what goes on when i do this. It's one of the best parts of my week. Every week. So when i say "thoughts on Roanoke," I'm not really talking about Roanoke either, i guess.
Leaving her is easily one of the worst possible things I've ever known. She is everything, and it leaves me with nothing. I know it's only for a night, or a day, or a week, just too much. As a day dreamer, I spend my days with her even when we're apart. I spend the smallest hours of my nights with her in complex and intimate, abstract conversations long after we've hung up the phone.
I wake to the lightness of heart, much as i do when she greets me at the door, or when i hear the very distinct sounds of her car in the driveway, fresh from the long drive into town.
It's one of those things I would put into lyric or song, but it seems to be an art all its own, loving her.
So, even in this I'm still just the artist. Tongue-tied by the complexity of emotion.
This one isn't funny or about how much I rock. Its not sad or whiny. Its just a bit about my life.
Last night, I put my headphones in the washing machine.
I have never, in all my years of tearing down huge amounts of audio equipment on stage, ever been witness to such insanity. Who would have thought that 2 feet of cable could be so cruel, so knotted. So confusing.
The past few weeks have been fairly crazy here. Roommates moving out, changes in the band, changes at work. There's been a lot of creative effort spent trying to make things go smoothly, and not a lot of good down-time. I've been spending most of my recent free time jumping between H. P. Lovecraft short stories and quick games of nethack. They're surprisingly fun ways to kill a handful of minutes here and there, but they're not really helpful in decompressing.
Luckily for me, I'll be in Roanoke tomorrow afternoon and spending time with lithiumcrimson! It's a much needed piece of time. I find find it both relaxing and engaging at the same time. The area there appears to be on fire which is probably just natures way of channeling my raw emotion, like Nikola Tesla harnessing electricity. Not that my feelings for her would burn down cities, but perhaps if combined with the appropriate catalyst it could be turned into some kind of intense Electrical Death-ray of Love. I'm not sure what kind of death-ray that is or how it works, but it sounds impressive and that's really the point.
We're fucking electric, baby!
That's actually pretty much it. Tomorrow is going to be awesome.
It's said that "celebrity" can be defined as being known for being known. I generally think that's true, though some days it's more obvious than others.
This weekend, I had the honor of officially being inducted into the local, underground organization C.M.H. with an honorary role of something-military-sounding. It was some kind of celebrity related honor, complete with badge of honor and token of esteem. The impromptu ceremony where they presented an official C.M.H. Cthulu t-shirt involved lots of yelling and drinking cheap beer out of a red plastic cup as quickly as possible. Normally, the gait at which i consume alcohol isn't abnormally quick, but using the ancient Chinese technique of "醉酒快" I was able to channel many inhuman abilities, most of which went unused.
I could draw a picture, but it would be terrifying. The children that weren't devoured, literally fled in fear, though luckily not many got away. I'm a family guy and do not believe we should waste our youth so frivolously.
This weekend also saw the release of a new version of firmware for my iPhone. clearly, Apple had been tracking my movements as I hacked my phone and installed lots of great apps that should have already been on it. Aside from doing the important things, like downloading porn and playing Gameboy Advance games on my iPhone, i also have some time-wasters like ssh, term emulator with ksh, and that little app that makes my iPhone fart.
What's that, Apple? No farting app in this update? For shame. I'll wait for the cracked update.
There's a couple of new tracks in the works with The Band. We haven't met with the new drummer yet, but this is coming, as The Lemmy-In-My-Head Doesn't Lie.
Today, I sought out my Rock Guru to find some enlightenment on several events that have come to pass. I spent an evening in the meditative arms of Rock and Roll.The night was spent in deep meditative conversation about my recent sleep-deprivation induced vision of Lemmy Kilmister, the recent frustrations with band practice reminiscent of a bad VH1 Behind The Music special, and an epiphany of events very near on the horizon.
So, after i finished staring at the wall and thinking highly of myself, the divine power of rock and roll and selfish introspection illuminated these things.
Lemmy Kilmister spoke to me, through his life-sized Tia Carrere cardboard cut-out, delivering a message of the future. He thanked me for my efforts in the War of Rock and Roll, and chastised me for my lack of financial success. He presented a message to me. He offered me insight into my own personal artistic contribution to not only our community and culture, but also universe as a whole. At least, I suspect he would have, had I not been awakened by the 8am ringing of the phone. So really, I'm not sure what the message is, but that's not the point. The point is that there IS a message. Loud and clear, Kilmister. I hear not what you say, but that you say it.
Recent Frustrations involving music have left me kind of melancholy about my work as both an artist contributing to a larger project, but also as a Commandant on the fields of Rock and Roll Armageddon. I have found, through my meditation, that a change is needed. I'm not sure what the change is, but it is needed. I suspect that perhaps Lemmy had some piece of wisdom on this but Carrere's incoherent babble and the untimely phone call clouded the message. I take comfort in the fact that there is a divine solution, though I probably wasn't paying attention when the discovery was made.
Rock's Fruitful Winds bring the strangest of gifts. It seems we have located a new drummer. New to us, not the world, as drummers are the sluttiest of band members and this one has been in circulation more than most American mint.
Ages ago I owned a 2 disc set of the various works of Marc Bolan. It was a great compilation full of rarities and b-sides as well as pop hits and classics. While i was doing DJ work at 91.9 WNRN I had a large collection of my music stolen, including the 2 disc set. While I still have a few songs here and there on my computer, I didn't have a lot of the older, more obscure songs that i had really loved.
This xmas, i received a 4 disc set import of original recordings of his music. Including different versions of some really hard-to-find tracks. I've been listening to that since last night and have thoroughly enjoyed it. It's kind of like in Super Mario Bros. where you discover that certain blocks can be struck multiple times and you're like "OMFG I JUST GOT A BILLION 1UPS AND SHIT THAT IS AWESOME OMG ANOTHER MUSHROOM."
I just leveled up. My girlfriend is freaking awesome.
As part of the ongoing rock-star experience, I constantly practice the ancient Chinese martial art of 道路戳昂贵物品，直到他们玩音乐 which basically translates to "poking expensive things until they play rock and roll." It's not a direct translation, there probably isn't one.
As part of this, i decided to purchase an iPod Touch. It seemed to meet my base criteria:
1) Pokeable. It has one of the better (though not entirely "new") interfaces out there. You touch it, it plays music. Like me.
2) Expensive. The price tag puts it roughly at the top of it's bracket. Like me.
3) Gadget. It tends to fall into the category of sexy gadget because, in short, it is approx. 4.2oz of pure, uncut sex. Again, like me.
4) Rock. Capable of rocking out in a way that could only be improved if it sprouted arms and a guitar and played an endless loop of the entire Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars album at deafening volume.
So basically, it's ME in gadget form, and for only 3-400$... that's a steal. Hands off, ladies; I am taken.
After looking at the price tag, and experiencing lots of frustration with my local phone provider, i decided it would actually be MORE rock efficient to switch my phone service to a company that supports GSM phones. Because lets face it: This local company cannot meet the needs of an international rock sensation, such as myself.
Today, I awoke early in a good mood, and not at all tired. I queued up one of my (recently acquired, very rare) Marc Bolan albums, and gave myself a tea-tree oil masque.
All rock stars have proper mornings and when at all possible mine begin with glam and pampering as expected for someone so deeply entrenched in the War of Rock and Roll.
I tried a new shaving cream, which is way too decadent for my otherwise rock-weathered skin. Anthony Logistics makes some pretty nice stuff, it seems. This Christmas, i was given a gift of the shaving cream to compliment the facial masque by the same company. Probably one of the best gifts ever.
There's a warning label for people like me on the front. In the "strategy" section (that's "directions," for you uninspired, rock-less ninnies) it says that it has hops in it, but that i should avoid drinking it. Everything i touch should be made at least 80% of win. and 20% hops.
It was an excellent morning, and now it's time to shake some hands and sign some checks.
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