I used to want to have two heads and four eyes. I've tried it before, but it's never worked out exactly how I've imagined it could.
There are too many ways and times you can have the same conversation, and too many times I can sneeze. The couch is fighting me with some dust or mold or mildew that lives inside it, and I am on the verge of bummed. Jayson says that people in the military don't have allergies, and that I should join. Dallas says that it's time that I got an intern, and also that I should sell compact discs in the street. Most everyone else says that I should shave, and the heat says they're probably right. I'd be as happy a man as possible if all it took was carrot juice and rhythmic speech. No lie. Stranded. Carrot Juice, talk: perfect.
This is actually not a bad conclusion to come to, because speech-related insomnia has been visiting me for weeks, and the beta-carotene is supposedly sharpening my night vision. This makes dodging the skunks and coyotes much easier while wandering around the neighborhood. I've been meaning to get a laser gun in case i get attacked.
I sorely miss anthony lowe and his bookbag full of spraypaint and cigarettes and wine. Not to be overlooked are his long and thoughtful opinions on the way things are, mixed in with truly unpretentious quotes from literature and perverse versions of southern aphorisms. He's truly a dude that makes the good life good.
So yeah. Two heads, four eyes. I figure, if I'm watching out behind you, and you're watching out behind me, we can see the whole picture. Pretty crazy.
your boy.
27.6.06
24.6.06
at the most
I think that really we get it wrong thinking that joy is the only way to feel freedom. In this pickle, we miss plenty of both. There's something about dreading the future that makes today seem pretty sweet.
Today I sat in indirect sunlight, drank pilsener and ate someone else's potato pancakes with sour cream and cranberry dressing. There was something comfortable and digestive in it. My very good friend has poison oak on her arm and was uncomfortable and making faces that I liked to watch but didn't like to imagine how it felt to want to look that way. Her bandage looks like a soft gauntlet.
Jayson Poole is in town, and he's the only reason at all that I even make music in the way that I do. He doesn't know how long he'll be here and arrived at the downtown Grayhound station at eight this evening. The future for us all is wide open. Right now he's comparing the serbian rapper Sin to the RZA, based on a common speech impediment. Get with it. Ichat is the new phone caking, but neither really work once you no longer live with your parents.
good night.
Today I sat in indirect sunlight, drank pilsener and ate someone else's potato pancakes with sour cream and cranberry dressing. There was something comfortable and digestive in it. My very good friend has poison oak on her arm and was uncomfortable and making faces that I liked to watch but didn't like to imagine how it felt to want to look that way. Her bandage looks like a soft gauntlet.
Jayson Poole is in town, and he's the only reason at all that I even make music in the way that I do. He doesn't know how long he'll be here and arrived at the downtown Grayhound station at eight this evening. The future for us all is wide open. Right now he's comparing the serbian rapper Sin to the RZA, based on a common speech impediment. Get with it. Ichat is the new phone caking, but neither really work once you no longer live with your parents.
good night.
22.6.06
school
I imagine that in hell there is much more human story. Perhaps in going there you could learn a bit more about things. Maybe you could win your way out. But then would you want to leave?
I tend to take my time, and also take myself too seriously, and have slept on concrete and in a car respectively for the past two nights. Tonight it is back to California and to bed. This morning I woke up in the unofficial city of bicycles and thieves, and I walked where we used to hide with the spoils from the police. The night before I ate with the new wolves that have taken our place. They’ve done wonderful things with the lives we unknowingly passed on to them. At the venue we played the good parts of our songs that we normally skip at big shows and parties, the crowd was small and attentive. Outside an unrelated shirtless yelling match broke out between a very large man and a very large woman, and then we went to Jan’s for tea and breakfast.
June parked the car at a grocery store—our friend who had offered us his home had fallen asleep—and we reclined and opened the windows. My sleep was short and fruitless, so I walked around the adjacent neighborhood listening to Giant and imagining my own melodies. It’s impossible to describe the pride that is felt when people we know make truly good music, all on their own, and in their own way. We spend so much time fretting over our own work and our own lives that a week like this one really crashes into an unsuspecting blind side. And everyone from North Carolina has a peculiar kind of identification with the place and the people there that to others must look like chauvinism, but honestly we are just used to looking out for one another, and aren’t spoiled by the kind of saturation of fame that turns a thing into industry. Permit me this, it’s been a good week. We knew all along that we represent North Carolina. Now we know that North Carolina represents us.
A walk in Greensboro is the beginning of a good idea. In the air there, contrivances vanish. For me, there is also a chorus of ghosts, but I am not troubled by that past at all.
I tend to take my time, and also take myself too seriously, and have slept on concrete and in a car respectively for the past two nights. Tonight it is back to California and to bed. This morning I woke up in the unofficial city of bicycles and thieves, and I walked where we used to hide with the spoils from the police. The night before I ate with the new wolves that have taken our place. They’ve done wonderful things with the lives we unknowingly passed on to them. At the venue we played the good parts of our songs that we normally skip at big shows and parties, the crowd was small and attentive. Outside an unrelated shirtless yelling match broke out between a very large man and a very large woman, and then we went to Jan’s for tea and breakfast.
June parked the car at a grocery store—our friend who had offered us his home had fallen asleep—and we reclined and opened the windows. My sleep was short and fruitless, so I walked around the adjacent neighborhood listening to Giant and imagining my own melodies. It’s impossible to describe the pride that is felt when people we know make truly good music, all on their own, and in their own way. We spend so much time fretting over our own work and our own lives that a week like this one really crashes into an unsuspecting blind side. And everyone from North Carolina has a peculiar kind of identification with the place and the people there that to others must look like chauvinism, but honestly we are just used to looking out for one another, and aren’t spoiled by the kind of saturation of fame that turns a thing into industry. Permit me this, it’s been a good week. We knew all along that we represent North Carolina. Now we know that North Carolina represents us.
A walk in Greensboro is the beginning of a good idea. In the air there, contrivances vanish. For me, there is also a chorus of ghosts, but I am not troubled by that past at all.
18.6.06
home
There is no such thing as writer's block. Only genre problems. A lack of inspiration is only a matter of not knowing which details to pluck.
My friends live in a splendid place. It has old concrete floors and a meat locker. And whatever's available always turns out to be enough. At five and again at seven they sleep through the phone ringing for half an hour at a time. Anthony and I didn't. We made the night turn into the morning by making allusions to software functionality and drinking a bottle of wine at Old Salem. I told him to read a book that another good friend has lent me, and he wrote it down. We stole some iced coffee and whatever food wasn't locked up from the shop downstairs, and then i think that i chewed his ear up a bit too much and it was time to leave.
Winston-Salem may be the only city I've ever been in with salon culture. Here the quality of the talk is like the quality of bread in old countries. Every day it may be the same old thing: bleached flour, water. But everyday it is fresh, and if you came here you would tell your friends about it when you got home. It is important to have a place in the daytime where people know to go to see people they know that is made out of very old wood and has many windows. There also should be plenty of sunlight, but only at the right times of day. Under these conditions people can really enjoy each other in a way that is free and simple. Plants and books help, but the latter is less necessary than you think, and good seating is almost always incidental to good conversation. Maybe just something to lean on once in a while is enough. Also, I admit (somewhat begrudgingly) that smoking can also help make good talk. And people still smoke in Winston-Salem. Inside.
i feel like smoking is a crucial randomizer; because it creates one-on-one talk that doesn't normally happen. if you're in a circle with a stranger who is going to smoke without a partner, you can join them, it's customary
if the stranger is a she and she strikes your fancy--provided that she's are your bag--it's a perfect chance. It's gallant to join her, and it can alert her of your interest in a way that is not at all conspicuous. Regardless of the outcome, you've had something nice and rare: a few seconds with a relative stranger, and often you will do this with them or talk to them again. At the very least you will remember their name.
Now, after eight, listening to my stomach and others' and wine-snores i need to go home. And I can't help but thinking that poison is a sweet way to die.
good day.
james.
My friends live in a splendid place. It has old concrete floors and a meat locker. And whatever's available always turns out to be enough. At five and again at seven they sleep through the phone ringing for half an hour at a time. Anthony and I didn't. We made the night turn into the morning by making allusions to software functionality and drinking a bottle of wine at Old Salem. I told him to read a book that another good friend has lent me, and he wrote it down. We stole some iced coffee and whatever food wasn't locked up from the shop downstairs, and then i think that i chewed his ear up a bit too much and it was time to leave.
Winston-Salem may be the only city I've ever been in with salon culture. Here the quality of the talk is like the quality of bread in old countries. Every day it may be the same old thing: bleached flour, water. But everyday it is fresh, and if you came here you would tell your friends about it when you got home. It is important to have a place in the daytime where people know to go to see people they know that is made out of very old wood and has many windows. There also should be plenty of sunlight, but only at the right times of day. Under these conditions people can really enjoy each other in a way that is free and simple. Plants and books help, but the latter is less necessary than you think, and good seating is almost always incidental to good conversation. Maybe just something to lean on once in a while is enough. Also, I admit (somewhat begrudgingly) that smoking can also help make good talk. And people still smoke in Winston-Salem. Inside.
i feel like smoking is a crucial randomizer; because it creates one-on-one talk that doesn't normally happen. if you're in a circle with a stranger who is going to smoke without a partner, you can join them, it's customary
if the stranger is a she and she strikes your fancy--provided that she's are your bag--it's a perfect chance. It's gallant to join her, and it can alert her of your interest in a way that is not at all conspicuous. Regardless of the outcome, you've had something nice and rare: a few seconds with a relative stranger, and often you will do this with them or talk to them again. At the very least you will remember their name.
Now, after eight, listening to my stomach and others' and wine-snores i need to go home. And I can't help but thinking that poison is a sweet way to die.
good day.
james.
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