Bad Men Drink Bad Beer.

Lately, I've been thinking of band names. Mostly because I don't have to go to school any more, and that means that I can let my little mind wonder when it comes to banding it. I'd probably never play in a band again unless it was with people I cared about, so it probably won't ever happen, but I'm practicing just in case. I don't think I used to like the band name The Gloria Record, but I like it right now, and I've been listening to them early, early in the morning when I'm drinking Stumptown coffee out of the best stovetop "espresso" machine in the entire world.

I've now been at my job for 1.5 weeks. It's long enough to know that I could be good at this job thing if I wanted to. It's also long enough to know that my calling is probably professorial. For now, I think that I should give working hard and getting serious and real with myself a shot for a piece of time. Going back to school, whenever I end up applying, will be welcome & glorious. I'll promise to remember what a fortunate thing it is to become over-educated. For now, tho, it's back to sharpening pencils tomorrow morning. Casual Friday has always been some sort of sick joke to I who had no access to how truly glorious it feels to sport one's denims to the jobsite. I'm the first Mains man to do a job one doesn't wear their denims to, and this "casual Friday" event keeps me in touch with my humble beginnings. So does not having any money or a/c in my car and living with my mom, but, you know, the preverbal shit happens, I guess.

One thing gradschool taught me is a deep and abiding appreciation for cheap, midwestern beer. Christians don't get drunk, so they drink beer they can taste. It makes sense, and, plus, if you get called out at small group for being a satanic alcoholic you can appeal to the authority of Luther (if you're a douchebag), or foodies (if you're fat). That's what's great about cheap beer. You still don't have to get drunk off it, but there's no saving you from just being a person that is ready to drink some drinks. Another good thing about cheap beer is it's made out of ridge-y potato chips, so you can't have just one. Plus, I think it looks cool to sometimes drink beer out of the bottle, and there's no way I'm going to waste a Rogue by not being able to taste hardly any of it out of the bottle. That shit's made for a glass! No--High Life only tastes good from the bottle. Waylon & Willie sound better that way, too. Have you ever listened to "Mommas, don't let your babies grow up to be poets" with a Boddington's in your hand? No, you haven't. Good beer still is, and tastes, better than bad beer, but bad beer tastes good, too. It's what bad men drink. In fact, I'm going to change my post title. It initially said The Gloria Record. And, finally, the coolest bar in Tucson, The Che, has PBR cans for 1.25. Know what that spells? M.F.A.

Nice tie, cubicle bitch.

I don't have a cubicle, by the way.

I started my first Day Job today. (Working for the university system, if you've ever done it you'll know, obviously doesn't count.) What time did I get there? 9. What time did I leave? 5. Did I earn vacation time? lil bit. Did anyone see my tattoos? No--but when we all get free rooms at the Pointe South Mountain next Saturday on "The Company" they might catch me'n Jesus & all my buddies floatin' down the Lazy River and then they'll probably stop talking to me like they think I'm... I don't really know what: whatever it is, tho, it's odd. Like I'm sweet & innocent instead of the guy who lost Cal Baptist's Presidential Race, 2004. Mr. Gore, I, too, was robbed. I feel your pain. // Really tho, so far my job's been two hours of passwords written down and six hours of a crash course in Labor & Immigration law.

I'm reading Bolano's The Savage Detectives and it's slaughtering me so far--I forgot some novels are actually worth reading. Between poetry, philosophy, and nonfiction, tho, I have to admit to the novel's second-tier status in my heart. Bolano wouldn't mind my saying so. It's the same for him.

Bad Dad

I know it, but didn't at the time, eventho I'm just fine with it, too, by the way. You get tattoos, you get kids. If you're a good dad, your kids, at least prepubescently, your kids will probably love you. I have one that does. I have another on the way (I bet you didn't know about that, huh?--I've been bad lately. We'll leave it at that), and I think he'll love me, too. Anyway, some kids of parents like videogames because their douchebag dads do nothing but play videogames. (Tho some like videogames because they're fun.) Some kids like painting (like mine) because they're good at it & they get encouragement. Well, when daddy has a big fat dead Jesus head on his elbow, well, then sweet little Onna is going to want something to let the kids at Scottsdale Fashion Square know she's not with the crocs-wearing dad that lost his nuts thru the ventholes of those stupid things, or the greasy business suit dad, or the fake-GQ-cal baptist worship-leader dad. She's with the dad-you-should-keep-your-moms-away-from-dad. (Or something.) Bottom line is, Ana Parker had it right ten years before the rest: platinum punk. No more flannel, she said: it's going to be gucci and tattoos and all the rest. That was like 1996. Now, 2008, we still have our black & grey sleeves (or whatever), but they're holding vintage gucci attaches instead of dickies messenger bags. No more doc martins--it's dolce & gabbana laceups. That said, it's no wonder Onna has taken to the knuckle tattoos. But I tell her like I tell everyone else: you get too much ink and you'll be like the middle ages (or America ca. 2009): no middle class: you're a badass lawyer, business owner, or mfa-trustfund-asshole on the LES--or you're rollin' deep on tour or rollin' deep in the kitchen of some place. There's no shame it it: but those are the options. Onna's thinkin' (I can already tell)--dad, these dichotomies are so passe: being a tattooer is a solid middle-class lifestyle.

Well, it's good to know you're raised them, if with nothing else, with some critical thinking skills.

Tho my knees become weak I cause my foot another step to carry the task

(strains my hands. But they are kept. Remembrance breaks me down.)




^this is one of the "Onnavahs" she's been tattooing on me lately.



I had other images, but Booger didn't want to upload them. Adam Groves: I fucking miss you buddy. I love you!

Doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore? [Confusion Is Sex]

It's been forever since I've had a proper post on this thing. I think about posting stuff on here fairly often, but mostly that means I'm thinking about you, friends, wishing I were talking to you over a beer at my apartment at Captist or while wrapping up cords in the office of the boy's dorms or, you know, at the bar where it's just loud enough to be able to say any secret to you without telling the whole bar but where you'll hear (tho probably I have to say it twice). All that's to say I miss you, and haven't talked to anyone as much as I wish I had.

I'm done with school. For now. I've only been out right at two months, here, and I'm already ready to go back. I was offered, and took, a job in a snobby part of the Phoenix area at a law firm researching and writing things about corporate immigration stuffs and dressing nicely. I start on the 14th. I'm going to be moving into an apartment in Tempe, near ASU, and right in the middle of the Hipster Olympic Village. It's not like other Hipster Olympic Villages in other, hipper, towns. Here it's more like the Village where it's been the hipster place forever, but now it mostly just has a hipster hangover. It's the only (only!) place in Phoenix where you can walk to: the grocery store, The Bar, a great library, two bookstores, a crappy library, a great record store, the best coffee bar in (non-Tucson--which is a class of its own) Arizona (sadly, now, including Flagstaff), and, when you need to put on your Thursday night best, Urban Outiftters & American Apparel. I feel kind of happy to have this place. I've felt like I spent the last 18 months virtually homebaseless, and I'll have a home base again.

People, come visit me if you can--starting August 1. If you can't, well, I'll finally have a job where I can come visit you, and will.

xoxo