| Evil Hearted You. Corazon de Diablo. |
[May. 25th, 2009|02:32 pm] |
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The Yardbirds are having a RAVE UP!
What's a RAVE UP?
It's the sound of the future--The Yardbirds' sound of the future!
When you hear The Yardbirds' kind of RAVE UP, you'll hear some basic rock 'n' roll and some real old-fashioned blues. You'll hear simple, straightforward Country music played with the big-band drive. And you'll be treated to some inspired improvisation colored with a healthy handful of what can only be described as "oriental" chords--and spice. Put all of these ingredients into an electronic mixer and you're HAVING A RAVE UP WITH THE YARDBIRDS!
An impressive feature of the group is its amazing versatility. Most of the influences in modern music have converged in its distinctive style. Listening to The Yardbirds and you'll hear echoes of Appalachian folk songs which mysteriously and effortlessly blend with a complex "chain-gang" rhthm, leading to driving, pulsating slimaxes.
Certainly one of The Yardbirds' most gratifying gifts is their ability to improvise, a rare talent shared only by other superb musicians. They create a kind of excitement that comes only from inspiration: they surprise, confound, amusic, arouse--and do it all with verve and originality.
In This, their second American album, The Yardbirds display the style which has made them one of England's top performing groups. The impression they create is consistently strong, whether they are sentimental (Still I'm Sad, for instance) or lusty and full-blooded (The Train Kept A-Rollin' and Smokestack Lightning). Whatever they're playing, The Yardbirds perform it with passion, intensity and drive.
By the way, if you still don't what a RAVE UP is, just listen to The Yardbirds' exciting new album and find out! |
-Connie de Nave
The above apparent critique sits on the back cover of the above album, and effectively serves as the album's only liner notes. I'm not sure who Connie de Nave is. I did some research but I got nothing, but I think its obvious that she is, with no equal, one of the greatest marketers to ever work for Epic Records. For accuracy I preserved all emphasis and capitalization that Connie did. It only adds to the mystery anyhow.
Don't get me wrong, this is an amazing album, but when I first held it in my hands at the age of 16, the ridiculous overblown story crafted around this amazing album of covers and singles caught my eye more... it became a running joke between my friends to the point where we were absolutely serious about it.
"DON'T! DON'T! Don't dare to claim you are having a rave up when you are in fact not even approaching a RAVE UP!"
You didn't want to question us, for any situation can be assessed on a scale from 1 to RAVE UP! Rave Up was always in entire caps for no apparent reason.
We would begin to focus on the specifics of the the language. We would ask each other how the Oriental Chords were coming along. "Oh I was so close to a Rave Up but I was able to fit in Lustful but I couldn't seem to get a grasp on sentimentality. Oh... don't get be started on echoes of Appalachian folk. Where do I put that in? It would ruin the RAVE UP. How did The Yardbirds do it?"
My best friend once wrote me a poem while I was in College that read: What is a Rave Up?
It’s the parties you wish you threw
And the parties you wish you went to
The days you spend alone flipping your records
Only to be interrupted by cigarette breaks
It’s the friends you always visit
The ones that have it all figured out
It’s the wet pavement and the dry taste in your mouth
You wish you were out tonight
You still have some time left
It’s a brand new bag filled with brand new swag
Papa’s got a secret
You can open her up
Don’t go outside, stay a little longer
Play some oriental chords
Let loose you rhythm and blues
Cut up the room with your boogie and your shake
Get a little dirty with swim and your swank
Your friends all know it and I do too
We’ve got a Rave Up and so do you See? I could go back to school and complete a dissertation on the absurd.
What is a Rave Up? Hopefully one day the Yardbirds will let me know on this life secret and I can experience a RAVE UP for myself.
For right now I'll take a left turn on the absurd and put on Abbey Road, maybe resting my head on the seabed in the Octopus's garden near a cave.
We'll never know why they let Ringo sing, and we will never know what a Rave Up really is. We can we please get some of our best minds on this? By the way I followed Connie's suggest, and I have listened to the album a lot. I still have no clue how Oriental Chords fit into the perfect RAVE UP.
Take care Daddy-Os
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| Need to explore. Need to travel. Need out of Boston. |
[Apr. 4th, 2009|07:21 am] |
| [ | music |
| | Ennio Morricone - The Ecstasy of Gold (L'estasi Dell'oro) | ] |
I set out on a trip to Maine in order to get my head back together. While preparing for the journey, I spent more time getting my iPod just how I wanted it than on any other task.
This says way too much about me. |
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| Reading aloud |
[Feb. 9th, 2009|02:40 am] |
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Charles Freck phoned up somebody who he hoped was holding. "Can you lay about ten deaths on me?"
"Christ, I'm entirely out--I'm looking to score myself. Let me know when you find some, I could use some."
"What's wrong with the supply?"
"Some busts, I guess."
Charles Freck hung up and then ran a fantasy number in his head as he slumped dismally back from the pay phone booth--you never used your home phone for a buy call--to his parked Chevy. In his fantasy number he was driving past the Thrifty Drugstore and they had a huge window display; bottles of slow death, cans of slow death, jars and bathtubs and vats and bowls of slow death, millons of caps and tabs and hits of slow death mixed with speed and junk and barbituarates and psychedelics, everything--and a giant sign: YOUR CREDIT IS GOOD HERE. Not to mention: LOW LOW PRICES, LOWEST IN TOWN.
But in actuality the Thrifty usually had a display of nothing: combs, bottles of mineral oil, spray cans of deodorant, always crap like that. But I bet the pharmacy in the back has slow death under lock and key in an unstepped-on pure, unadulterated, uncut form, he thought as he drove from the parking lot onto Harbor Boulevard, into the afternoon traffic. About a fifty-pound bag.
- A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick
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| About living in Boston |
[Sep. 22nd, 2008|07:14 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Sufjan Steven vs. Kanye West. The King of Polo clashes with Butterfly wings | ] |
The one thing that has surprised me is that I have yet to get into a car accident while living here.
And I mean... I've seen how I drive.
Today wasn't the best. Lots of work. Lots and lots. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 1st, 2007|04:25 am] |
So if you are at a street corner and the question is, "hey, are you cool?" The answer is,no matter who you are, "yeah, I'm cool." no matter what the situation.
I don't care if you are a nun on probation after a long dramatic judicial case, that is your answer. |
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| Sentences |
[Jun. 27th, 2007|10:44 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Elvis Perkins... | ] |
We spend Tuesday like every other Tuesday that came before us. I want to say 'Yo, we found a crib close to all our spots to chill man, just chill" but I can't get away with the vernacular. No. It is just a restaurant near all our apartments. We sit, reminisce and talk nonsense. Sometimes I feel like we didn't find this spot, it found us or some other fucking useless literary device. Honestly, we just showed up the first week we were all in town and never bothered to move on. It happens this week like it does every week. I show up first, being as I have the less obligations to my work or perhaps it is more my obligations to nothing. One by one they filter in like an unspoken symphony. Quiet and knowing; we don't even have to make plans anymore. We know that there are no sick days on Tuesdays. There are no weddings and no brothers needing bail. There is nothing but the same ol'.
We are all a little predictable at this point. The drinks come first. Always whiskey drinks or a local beer. See the guy that owns the joint (fuck that we are on a first name basis at this point) makes this Whiskey in a bathtub at the back of the joint. It's some ancient prohibition type tradition his grandfather started and fuck if we four jerks are going to see the end of it. He calls it the 'special' but we just call it Tuesday. Then starts the chatter and it doesn't matter who speaks at this point.
"Do you guys ever talk back to a road sign while driving alone?" I ask, the whiskey feeling warm and the Eggplant Parm on its way. The only response I hear is 'hmm?"
"Like... last night I saw the sign 'Littering is no joke' and I spoke aloud (alone), 'Yeah? Well did you ever hear the one about the donkey and the jester?' or when I see the sign 'Pass with Care' (knowing this is a regional thing) I mutter 'I'll pass who I want and how I want'"
"No, no. I hear ya man. The other week I was traveling to bumsfuck and I saw a sign that read 'Trucks not Allowed in Left Lane' and I literally, and this may or may not have been the first time, said under my breath 'Racist fucking sign...' "
See? We know. The food comes while our inane conversation goes on, only to ensure to each other that our inner-monologue isn't nuts. Our conversation usually revolves around our week and how the food is getting worse. But we will never leave. There is no point to leave. We need this joint, our Tuesdays, as much as the joint needs us. The food, despite our complaints, never changes and our conversations, despite the varying degrees of inane, never wanes. I want to dive deeper but instead it stays to myself.
We move on. It changes from week to week, but we always find a bar where we don't belong. Our conversation mostly revolves around how we don't belong and how we don't like the regulars/locals/college students. It isn't our scene. This city isn't our scene, but seriously what city is? We belong to each other. What keeps us here? Tuesdays keep us here.
"Do you guys ever feel that this city has made you into a pervert without your permission", asks someone. "No Really", he continues without waiting for a response. "I am outside my room smoking a butt and there are probably 40 windows around me and nowhere to look but my feet. It is midnight and a light turns on and I'm the asshole if I glance up and see someone walking into their closet putting on their jammies? Like I look away but if they glance out they can see the glow of my cig. Lose, Lose my friends."
No one says a word. no responses.
I haven't been sleeping. My nights have been occupied by dreams more wild then I thought my mind was capable. Should I share? Dreams are mostly considered boring for all those who aren't involved. No one want to hear "It was so real... I thought I was there" more then once in their life unless it is out of their mouth. But seriously how often in your life does Donald Rumsfeld become a direct enemy to your life and everything you know? I couldn't even begin to explain how obvious they are, in terms of fears, desires, and memories of mine. It would really reveal too much while at the same time boring all. But instead my song comes on the jukebox. A direct contrast to everything that was played earlier by the night's crowd but it is so signature... the same song every week. In my head I can sing every lyric but given the chance I could never write them down. I try to explain this phenomenon and...
"Yes yes! Its like... without prompting something so personal could never be expressed. Its like... You have a blank sheet of paper and you need to write a letter, an essay or a... poem to your friend, relative or lover and it just isn't there. But then, it just comes as a rush and you don't even remember the blank page? It is just filled with words, right? Is that what you mean?"
Yes. They get me. Tuesdays never change. And my dreams (and you don't want to hear this so just phase out for a paragraph) are so real that I just don't know how to deal with life where an encore is expected.
"This morning I saw the most spectacular thing" I said, forgetting all rules for punctuation. "There was a bird trying to deal with the unbearable heat. You know what I heard a meteorologist on the news call the humidity? He said for the next week it would be on the 'oppressive' scale, no shit. Okay, whatever, this bird dug himself into the dirt to avoid the heat (I assumed) and when I walked up it was just throwing dirt onto himself shamelessly... I couldn't even scare it away. You get it? Dig?"
Blank Stares.
"You ever see the movie Naked Lunch?” I'm greeted with three no's and one yes. "Okay, okay", I continue, "how about ice cube trays? You ever think about it? We start with one. But it isn't enough for our needs in this summer heat? Shit, we run out and we have to wait hours before we can have another glass of water. Soon we realize that we need two in order to meet our ice cube needs. You ever think why we don't translate this logic into our lives? How we can't turn ourselves around with the same logic? Stop drinking? Stop smoking? Start exercising and finding ourselves before we find others?"
No, no, no and no I see... How do I express that the problem isn't our Tuesday's but the idea of the same? Tomorrow we will wake up and go to work and yesterday will be 6 days away. But for right now the song I can sing is still on the jukebox, so I will. Under my breath every lyric comes out and I move on. One song at a time. And I think of the bike ride to work. The sidewalk reads, "Who are you?" and "Trust Nothing", spray painted by the river where tourists line to get shots of the cityscape... Ignored by all except those who live there and see it daily. "Do you understand yet?" the sidewalk asks daily, half expecting one day to be answered, "Yes..." |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 11th, 2007|02:12 am] |
I bet that at every beginner Yoga class there is one kid who can already touch his toes without bending his knees and I bet he thinks he is a bad ass because of it.
Every playground has that one kid who thinks, "No one can handle these Monkey Bars like I can handle these Monkey Bars!"
I will bet, no really bet all I have, that every office has a someone who can't do anything right but he will always think to himself, "It is okay. It is the office party where I shine."
And of all my mistakes, this was one I had hoped wouldn't turn out this way. We will see. |
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| stayin' out late, getting rowdy at the bar and lookin' for trouble uptown. |
[May. 8th, 2007|08:28 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | 6 versions of Louie Louie and 3 of Farmer John | ] |
I once knew a man who didn't like music. It wasn't that he was being pretentious and didn't like 'popular music' or he hadn't found his genre yet. He just didn't like music. He wouldn't listen to it when alone. He would drive in silence and fall asleep to a noise machine projecting out rain forest sounds. I couldn't accept this, really. Right now I am listening to Astral Weeks and I can understand if someone told me 'I just don't like Van Morrison. He is just not me.' Granted when I knew this man The Doors was my staple but that was for me then and there. In this sense I am fairly open. Music is personal. It isn't that our tastes match, or that I even respect your song. It is that you have a song that makes you happy/sad/anxious/whatever. It is enough for me that there is a song, which brings you to those moments when you were 16 driving to the beach with your friends singing every verse to a song you haven't listened to in years or there is an opening chord that, when it comes on the radio, reminds you of your first girlfriend. I never got this man until I met his antithesis.
It was the summer I was stranded in Maryland working. By definition he had no individual sense of music or what he liked. He listened to music sure and he had songs he liked. He made mix CDs for his friends and had a favorite radio station but it seemed so (and I don't want to sound pretentious, cause that isn't what I'm going for) shallow. He like the Beastie Boys single that was on the air at the time, but when I insisted he listen to Hello Nasty he 'didn't get it'. I played for him some of the George Harrison Indian psychedelic shit from Sgt. Pepper's and he said it was 'weird'. It wasn't that he didn't like my music; it was that he had no explanation for what he liked or disliked. He couldn't tell me his favorite bands or what he liked to listen to. Just a lot of 'I don't know... music'.
In some sense this was worse then just accepting that music isn't for you. If music is personal, and I believe it is, then how can you claim no personal attachment to it? This man confused me.
In a digression this was the summer where I met two Army twins from Oklahoma who bought 40 cans of tuna fish and 40 packages of ramen apiece and ate them every day for lunch and dinner. The summer I would run 7 miles a day 5 days a week. The summer I would go to all-you-can-eat crab huts where they brought over buckets of crabs and just dump them on your newspaper covered table for two hours until you can't move or they kick you out. It was the summer of cicadas and the summer I ruined a friendship over immaturity and sex. I was separated from friends and family, stuck in a backwoods town with nothing to do. I learned to blow smoke rings from my roommate’s cigars and watched a lot of movies over Chinese take out. This summer had a lot to do with where I am right now, and I haven't thought of it since.
And this is what goes through my head on nights where I listen to Van Morrison. |
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| a song to pass the time |
[Apr. 27th, 2007|03:22 pm] |
So yesterday, while on a 3 hour call, Amber and I had a challange... put our respective music players on shuffle and see who had the more embarrassing results. It helped pass the time...
( The battle... )
I won.
Kai: 10 Embaressing songs
Amber: 12
3 ties for... most embaressing.
Things learned:
I don't do nearly enough work...
Dandy Warhols are less embarrassing then The Breeders only because "I'm a show off".
M. Ward makes Amber cry like a little girl.
I'm not ashamed of my iPod's heavy early ska and reggae shuffles... my iPod does what it wants.
We are both lucky we ended this contest at 25... that is all I'm saying. |
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| was she told when she was young that pain would lead to pleasure? |
[Apr. 16th, 2007|12:12 am] |
| [ | music |
| | John Lennon - Jealous Guy | ] |
Outside in the cold, unrelenting, rain, I came face to face with an all white skunk. It looked at me and I looked at it. We knew. "Just leave me alone. Not today." We went our separate ways. It could see it in my eyes that I didn't want to deal with any of that mickey mouse bullshit (TM).
Good jeans don't last. They rip and tear, leaving you exposed. I think this is all metaphor. There is something appropriate here though. The period when I bought these jeans and when they left me coincide like some post-war commie conspiracy. Fluoridation. This just acts as bookends in this chapter.
I'm a mess. There is so much I can't say. I hope tonight I sleep. I hope these dreams stop. |
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| Did you have that strangest dream before you woke? |
[Apr. 4th, 2007|12:09 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Daedelus - Cadavre Exquis (Avec TTC) | ] |
Welcome to the sardine can. Take a look around, for those around you will be sharing this experience for the next hour. The First step is to choose a soundtrack. Be careful. This is important. Don't let others see your choices. Next, survey the crowd; take note of what they are reading and who they are with. I noticed a man reading Catch-22 and I had to fight all urges to steal the book from him and find every highlighted passage.
To my right sits a beautiful business woman, dressed in her most powerful suit ready to show the world and conquer the office. To my left sits a student writting notes and drafts of a paper for who knows what class. On his paper, seemingly unrelated notes are scribbled: "What Gore is proposing is..." "What do plants do? What do humans do? The unrelenting need for development. Is there such a thing as a state of perfection? Music/Science -> Are they necessary? The key word you are missing is strength. The cause of Hitler's..." I believe the title of his paper is "Tangential Reasoning on the Environment". Hitler? HITLER! Can we really blame him for the current state of the world and relate that to Al Gore's quest to end global warming? Sure, why not. Hitler must be used to being hated by now, what’s one more global disaster.
One man in his early 20's, in a way-too-expensive-to-be-riding-the-train suit, is reading a book titled 'From the Founder's Lips', which chronicles the rise of Big Business from the words of the bastards in charge themselves. Chapter 1: Max Levchin, Co-founder of paypal. Across from him, standing, a man studies for the business school entrance exam. Today I choose the business car. I'd better get used to this new world. But I just sigh when I notice that the defeated woman across from me is highlighting sections of "The Secret".
Look at the ads splashed on the walls. "Do you feel depressed? Have trouble sleeping do to anxiety?" This is too depressing; look elsewhere. "Learn English!" Ugh, look back. On closer inspection Harvard will pay someone to be depressed and take their magic pills. Finally, gloominess can be a career for more then musicians and movie critics.
I'm feeling, though the day has barely begun, optimistic. My coffee was brewed just right, home felt like home, and even the threat of snow doesn't shake me. As I fill my travel-mug, I think of the girl working at the Pete's Coffee who sold me this perfect pound of Colombian Dark Roast. I fell for her immediately. I brew at home so I haven't seen her since but this pound is feeling kind of light; Soon, my dear, soon.
My playlist goes as follows: 13 floor elevators to energize and move me out the door, a particularly fuzz and noise driven Beatles song for the early moments of fuzzy dreaming as the doors to the train close, one of the Black Key's slower, bittersweet, passionate numbers to help bring me back and facilitate falling in love.
A Cut Chemist melody kicks in and probably puts me in this mood. I can't explain this, but the first time I heard the Brain Freeze tracks I thought I had died and gone to a funkier place. And as if by sheer will alone, or a higher power (or just ridiculousness), the power goes out in the train at the same moment the beat drops and my world is abruptly brought into silence.
The Clash for luck, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club for introspection and an obligatory Margot and the Nuclear So and So's tune to remind me of the dichotomy of beauty and sadness. Next to the girl solving her life's problems through the help of the secret, (Note: To be said in a hushed, eerie tone to stress the book's mystical properties) I catch today's headlines in The Boston Metro over someone's shoulder. The Metro is the finest free newspaper handed out by MBTA employees, which liters floors, seats, streets, and minds. "Snort me up!" it says in big bold letters with the first full page spread Keith Richards has gotten in years (large picture in which Richards looks almost corpselike included). This is why the Metro is the best free Boston Subway newspaper. Last week I saw a headline titled "Child Rapist Accused of Murder. That is a headline most journalists wait their entire careers for.
My new love is Elvis Perkins. Something about being the son of Anthony Perkins (star of both Psycho and Catch-22's film adaptation), who died tragically of AIDs, and Berry Berenson, who died on the one of the 9/11 flights, has inspired young Elvis to pick up the guitar. His music is both tragic and jubilant. He commands the stage, looking like Bob Dylan, and is backed by bunch of crazy musicians playing mountain music while prancing and acting out all their LSD fantasies. Listening to this album feels like hearing Neutral Milk Hotel or Sufjan Stevens for the first time. This is the perfect soundtrack for all smoke breaks.
But I wait for the next train to come. I think of the day I stood at this very spot (the same spot every morning. We are creatures of habit) and the subway platform absolutely shook to the echoes of a single guitar and a man singing the song 'Brazil' in Spanish. At that moment I felt like I was in a dream, as that song does, and now I always will when I stand in this spot. The music is so loud in my ears it silences the world around me. I hardly notice the train speed past me, as I stand as close to the incoming red blur as possible. Feel the familiar gust of warm air and stare into the windows. I am fascinated in watching my cold reflection zip over the faces of the commuting dead. When the train stops, and the doors open, my relative position to the nearest door is the only Horoscope I need. Today the train stops and the doors open right in front of me. Today will be good. Though I never really bought into astrology, I trust in trains. |
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| Milk and cereal. A is for apple. J is for Jack. Step on a crack break your mother's back |
[Mar. 20th, 2007|10:38 pm] |
First of all it was all kind of perfect. I slept on a air mattress with a leak in it at my friend Evy and Javier's place (they are getting married in Decemember, mark your calendar). They are good people and will always make me smile. Probably the two most capable and smartest people I'll ever meet. I spent most of my social time with my friend KC, his girl friend Porsha and my friend Craig Vanis.
To be fair my friend KC is most likely the most centered person I know. He reads intellectually stimulating books, listens to good music and always engages in stimulating conversation. He is kind and reads books that stimulate me; all while working at a burrito stand to support his school while he lives in an efficiency apartment. He remains silent and when he talks it is well thought through and perfect. And yet he is absolutely spontaneous like he has spent so much time contemplating who he is, he just knows. His sense of self is so absolved that he is ready to be free and act. Every action is himself because he is comfortable and centered.
His girlfriend, Porsha, is absolutely perfect for him. She is small, cute and nice. She cares about others and their feelings. Her friends and their need occupy her mind. She is the kind of girl men have no choice but to fall in love with. KC and Porsha are the perfect match. Hopefully in time they will become a Buddhist couple spreading the love of Zen among the people one at a time.
( South by South West ) |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 12th, 2007|02:53 pm] |
People I miss in no Particular order:
Amber Royal
Travis Bourassa
Ian Rasmussen
Maura M. Maura
Anna Flemke
Alice Shin
Rachel Robillard
Matthew Haag
AKA get back into my life. Oh shit. I've named names.
Right now I'm in Texas. Feels very much like home. Can't think... very little sleep... tired...
SXSW 2007. Excited. Can't even list all the bands I want to see. http://2007.sxsw.com/music/
Maybe you can give me some suggestions?
need a nap,
-Kai |
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| From brighton to brixton... praise jah |
[Mar. 9th, 2007|12:53 am] |
| [ | music |
| | The Clash - Guns of Brixton | ] |
Questions he hasn't thought of in years come into his head.
First off, he has always wondered about the usefulness of cabs. Why can't he just walk into the nearest Dominoes and order a delivery pizza to his house and ride with? He bets that at least he has something to eat on the ride home... What draws him to yard sales? He is safe with the knowledge that he will only buy items that make annoying sounds and spend time gathering dust at his parent's house. 'Where is she right now, and what is she up to?' is up at the top of the list. Maybe she can explain man's obsession with coffee served with milk. Espresso Latte never appealed to his sensibilities.
He is a man who realizes that all third party accounts are part fabricated, part gossip and part personal interest, which is why he doesn't watch the news.
Standing tall he knows the evils in his life and knows not how to exorcise them. They persist like gum on your sole. He has started even questioning the purchase of his brand of vitamin water. Most sentences he utters are complete with double negatives and hanging participles. Noam Chomsky couldn't program a grammar to explain this lifestyle. And so the life goes... uninterpretable.
Despite pizza on his mind, burritos have occupied 8 of his last 12 meals; burritos to go even. It provides comfort but fails to hide the uncertainty.
Sometimes he looks at a simple word like "stop" S*T*O*P and sees four letters strung together in an absolute foreign way. Those four letters have never been organized together in such a fashion before. It is unnatural and wrong. So he waits and waits and waits. The jukebox will play his songs in a few minutes.
There can't be too many songs ahead of his (or so he says). |
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| and the complications you could do without |
[Feb. 23rd, 2007|09:53 am] |
| [ | music |
| | Sister Ray (and viva voce. always viva voce) | ] |
Waiting waiting waiting for the train to come. Reading a copy of The Losers' Club which is basically about someone who thinks and acts exactly like me but make him a Bukowski idolizing struggling artist living in the East Village. Anyways, I'm reading, waiting and getting into a moving crescendo of noise in a particularly fuzz-driven Velvet Underground track. An old man gets off a train and walks slowly but directly to me and says something with quiet, understanding eyes. I take off my headphones in time only to hear, "... on this platform. Especially you." I barely manage to mutter "I'm sorry, can you repeat?" but he is already walking calmly and collected away. I watch as he drops a quarter into a guitar case and he is gone.
and while the fuzz is rolling from ear to ear with no particular rhythm or method my mind is racing, filling the first half of that sentence with everything that could be appropriate. This level of self-reflection is not appropriate before your first cup of coffee. Not now, and not after I spent the morning reading about my own frustrations living as a 26 year old inspiring writer/shipping clerk in 1980's New York City.
This week has been bad.
But today, right now (from where I'm standing) the city is beautiful. They clouds just cleared, the sun is out and the river is sparkling. That isn't even a metaphor, just true for now.
And on the elevator ride up to the top floor, it occurs to me. He must have said, "Everyone is lost in their own little world on this platform. Especially you." He is right. I was and I am. |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 22nd, 2007|10:54 am] |
| [ | music |
| | Sufjan Stevens - Jacksonville | ] |
Looking back at old emails make me smile. This was an email I received when I ordered a used paperback copy of The Rules of Attraction on Amazon:
Subject: RE:RULES OF SOMETHIN OR OTHER....
MS KAI - I SENT YR BK OUT TODAY - MEDIA MAIL WILL TAKE A WHILE TO REACH
YOU....MAYBE ELLIS SHOULD HAVE CALLED THIS BK "RULES OF ADDICTION"- I MUST CONFESS-
EVEN AT MY ADVANCED STATE OF DECOMPOSITION-I MYSELF NEVER GOT IT RIGHT...LaRRY W
If I am buying a book, you can at least spell it book and not BK.
But mostly, today, I feel like a jerk. Every time I say "I'm not usually like this" is just a set-up for the next time I am. I'm staying in from now on with the door locked. Leave my meals at the entrance. This might be the only way to avoid my personal version of Fellini's Roma, Italia and an advanced state of decomposition.
-MS KAI, YR BDDY |
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| Anna's Taqueria: Burritos &Tacos to Go |
[Feb. 20th, 2007|11:00 pm] |
"And this will be our most romantic war. Neither side will wait, and neither side will face the demons of humility. Our troops will be secured with only the freshest of Lucky Strikes and the heartiest of generic Spams. Our enemies will be broken when the sounds of our loudspeakers. The few moments of Wagner will break their spirits just before Jagger breaks in and promises our boys some Brown Sugar. This will be our most romantic war but John Wayne will not star. He'll be watching from the sidelines, with thumb in ass, thinking, "I always knew it'd be like this." "
-Travis Bourassa
( An open letter ) |
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| You bored me then and you bore me now. |
[Feb. 8th, 2007|01:29 am] |
| [ | music |
| | The Kills - I Hate the Way You Love | ] |
And I always said that I enjoy my times driving long distances. "It gives me time to think and to listen to good music", I would always say. But, today I found my thoughts aren't worth being alone with. I have crazy thoughts like "I prefer interstates because their exit numbers match the mile number". It is the only time that I get angry at both people who wont get out of my way and at people who I am in the way of.
I am briefly tempted by signs to stop for the Trucker Museum. While I am pondering to pull over for this stop, I pause. How come none of the trucks driving by stop? Don't they wish to experience their heritage: Learn and experience everything that makes trucking wonderful? The only vehicle I see take the exit is a SUV, the 16-wheeler want-to-be, and it's (possibly) trucker enthusiast driver. And I immediately feel old when signs like "Watertown Amusement Theme Park Next Exit" don't excite me.
I drive west towards New York and see signs like "New Britain, Plainville, Exit XXX" and ponder over why I should not head off my course and make a home in New Britain. Obviously Plainville is out. You have me. I guess the obvious decision to make your city popular is to place it right next to Plainville.
but I drive on and later, heading west I see a sign for South Britain. Oh road oh road... You couldn't get me off for the amusement park, Watertown, Plainville, or New Britain. Why do you expect me to pull over for the duller, older, more western, South Britain?
I am sarcastic in my inner-monologue. Who does that? Seriously. I need company next time I travel. I need real human contact again. |
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| I knew I would be listening to Abbey Road as I wrote this |
[Feb. 3rd, 2007|03:39 am] |
| [ | music |
| | Her Space Holiday - Something to do with my Hands | ] |
It was early january. The lake wasn't frozen over and we threw large rocks from the dock to see if they would break through. They didn't and to this day they sit. A frozen monument to our childishness. A circle on that lake that future generations will ponder over. What does it mean?
And it doesn't matter.
I compose in my mind a letter for those who matter. The letter is well composed and contains a sense of wit I leave for personal correspondence. It must wait. I'm not in a mood where singular clarity will do. I require multiple eyes. See, believe, discuss.
It is just another footnote in a diary of drama. Just another "oh yeah, let me tell you about". It is just another page in which Tom Waits warned me about. Its cold out there. Ain't getting any warmer.
But the reference is lost. Float over the head right past the thoughts of what happened today and the new stories to tell. Stories of who did what to whom. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club teaches me the lessons I need so these new ones are just introduction courses. I am a 400 level for these types of games. Back off and let me lecture a class or two. No powerpoint slides, I swear. I only provide straight presentation because I am that dedicated and knowledgeable in this honors subject... I am a living social science master's thesis. Living Charlie Brown. How often does that occur? The only thing going for this subject is his absolute ability to choose the right song for the moment despite the occasion.
And the dreams I've been having haven't helped. I'll refer to these as false hope wrapped around disturbing realizations of anxiety, experiences and reality.
I admit. I’ve relied too much on James Brown’s music and not enough on his message. The fact that today I got in both an argument about people behind the Boston Bomb Scare in a greek pizzeria and got into multiple conversations in a wine shop about my name, its spelling, and what it means, means nothing. I wasn’t able to back up my opinion to scare off three opinionated angry men, though I was able to talk about my name to five people who might actually share my opinions in something. And the same woman who makes a large deal about my name in a wine store says, "I hope it is not to forward but where do you live? my friend collects records. Beatles, Rolling Stones and all of that scene", but I'm not sure she understands this ablum or this song.
... this song. And I think Ian would. Of course he would.
Does this mean anything? Maybe those who can carry on intelligent conversations choose not to, while those who try seem like fools.
It is a shame because I had the entire personal correspondences planed out. Because of events it will never occur… Well perhaps it will but not as it should have been. I am done with this. Game over. Time to throw my hat into a different circus.
Excuse the mixed metaphors.
yup. Except I am 6, you are 4 and I don't date younger women.
A new place, a new style and a new dance. Soon, soon, soon.
soon. |
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| By a quick show of hands, lets see who understands |
[Jan. 17th, 2007|11:36 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | whatever the jukebox will play | ] |
And of everything, it is the stars I miss the most.
So I sit. I sit outside on my front porch and watch the people walk by. I don't think of me, or the connections I have with these people. There might be no connection with these people, who must walk past my home on a daily basis. My thoughts are with what I can't see from that stoop. Daily I chase impossible dreams and run from the attainable.
So I drink red Zinfandel wine produced and bottled by a family friend in California, a friend who never liked kids and therefore never respected me or my brother. I watch a 1960's french new wave movie, Jean-Luc Godard to be exact, and it fits a mood exactly. I can't express enough how much this movie pleased me.
Franz thinks of everything and nothing. He wonders if the world is becoming a dream or if the dream is becoming the world.
Or so the translation goes... |
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kaiapopolis's journal