handball court, community garden, poesy, a french bulldog named stella

I call it whatever I want to call it

2011-12-04T02:07:00.000-08:00

OK, let’s talk about cars. And while about them, let’s talk about how much, with deep and abiding fidelity, I love the Mercedes Benz W123 chassis more than any other car ever made. I’ve been lucky in my life when it comes to cars. I’ve had the normal clunker (JJ will remember my first car more than most—gearing up for homecoming maybe junior year I picked him up at his house, he rolling on his skateboard and holding on the passenger side door with the window down while we drove from his house the two blocks to the high school parking lot where I sped up and subsequently slammed on the breaks, launching him [on his skateboard] toward a yellow wall of school bus in the faculty parking lot as we were supposedly going to go help the student counsel geeks build our junior year float for the parade [was there a parade?] and the ambulance that was called [JJ’s dad was the Assistant Pastor at our church so he didn’t have the health insurance] and his not wanting to go to the hospital because he knew the financial [and physical—meaning his dad would kick the shit out of him for taking an ambulance and the costs it would no doubt incur] and practical sticks in the mud such a [short] trip would cost him), and the all-time standby love, the Toyota pickup truck, which was home to many a road trip and some of the saddest roadmoments of my life (which will be saved, to be certain, for another post), but, then, after all that young stuff (and a brief stint with cars I don’t want to remember owning), I get the car I’d always wanted: a 1981 Mercedes-beige 240d: slow off the line, bulletproof, hand-cranked sunroof, manual windows, matching hubcaps and interior. I loved this car. Biodiesel, class, I felt like The Shit, no matter who was honking at my on the Arizona onramps. I had a Fugazi sticker on the window as my only Modification (just as all my other cars had only a Fugazi sticker—and nothing else—from Stinkweeds on it). At the time I also had a silver 1965 Vespa SuperSprint 150 in the stable, so I was pretty much the pinnacle of King Fucking Shit on Terd Island as far as driveways were concerned. I was working at Lux, which was for all intents and purposes the coolest espresso bar south of Portland in the USA in 200—what? 2? The sound of the door closing. So solid, safe, in control. It was the beginning of my realization that, no matter what, what my mother always said was more correct than I’d ever want to admit: class isn’t a determinant of socio-economic status. (Tho, now, I’m not even sure if she herself understood her posit.) Something about existentialism and the ability to live the life that one chose to live was in there, getting sorted out. I wore cowboy boots to work every day, with a black t-shirt and tight, expensive jeans. I had gone out and purchased glasses that required research, extra work/convincing the optometrist that I had to have, and realized that I didn’t have to be rich to enjoy the Fine Things in life. Driving that car around, I felt like I knew something that my family didn’t understand or like: I bought that car for 1400$ (talking down the guy from 1500$, which was the only way I could purchase the car while still feeling like a Mains) eventhough I knew my dad would be bummed that I bought a German car. (It’s so fucking expensive to fix, parts are so hard to come by, etc.) I’d done my research, tho: this car had the THE best production engine ever made, and, goddamnit, it was smart. I had the car for about three months, didn’t check the oil much (which, if you know these cars, they burn a little, and you have to check the oil), and, one night, driving home from work, late, a line that was Important, popped off, and the engine sized. Not. The. Point. This car was my baby. It was the first car I loved. My boss at Lux (himself a Europhile in the auto department, albeit a different tint of one) approved, and since he was a Mench in all ways I wanted to be a mench, this was important to me—he thought they were sexy and bulletproof—and that was enough in lieu of familial approval. It sat in my driveway (only time I’ve ever had a driveway, btw) as I rode my bike and Vespa around for the next however-long. But this car was—truly—the Deepest Fucking Shit. This car made me realize that I had my own sense of style, my own sense of purpose, and that I knew what I liked, no matter what anyone else said (and by anyone, I, obviously, mostly, mean my dad). When I moved for graduate school, I sold that car, and my Vespa. (I thought I needed the money and that I was impractical.) Graduate school: I landed a job that was probably, to date, the most pimp, fucking radically braggable job I’ve had: full Faculty positioning, doing weird, cutting edge stuff with a guy named Josh who would become one of my closest friends (which is, itself, a strange, wild phenomenon). F/F a bit: it was the credit economic bubble: everyone was buying shit they shouldn’t: condos, whatever. I bought a really sweet top-of-the-line VW Passat stationwagon. Rims, turbocharged, heated seats, all the best shit. It was, truly, in every sense of the word, awesome. While I was at it, tho, I also bought I 1983 Mercedes 300sd as a commuter car. It was gunmetal grey (the Passat was the same), so, all of a sudden, I’m rocking a fucking stable of cars. This 300sd was made of magic. My girlfriend at the time, obviously, loved the Passat—what, with the heated seats and the fancy, brand new-whatevers, but she loved the SD because I loved the SD so much. This car could do anything, and, on road trips, it was smoother and more solid than this Passat that cost, literally, 20x as much. I put nearly 80k miles on this SD, only changing the oil and rotating the tires and all that normal stuff, and then went and sold it for a profit after all that. It was a dream, or at least, the most dreamy that any possession can be a dream. I loved this car. At this time, I realize that I 1) love the W123 chassis, and, 2) want a black W123 coupe with tan interior in my birth year. (NB: maybe I knew this in 2002, but it’s a realization that grows on a body.) F/F again. I sell both gunmetal grey cars and move to Portland, Oregon, with 150$ in my pocket. I buy my ex-wife a car. What does she want? A 1981 black Mercedes 300d. Done. It’s nothing like the smooth 300sd—it’s got problems, it’s hers…. Fuck it. I get to drive it at least once a week (which is great, because I don’t own a car). My daughter loves it because it reminds her of my SD. She totals it. (I keep promising myself that I’ll never believe it’s because of spite.) And I buy her an old Volvo (which is sexy, and solid, and unbelievably cheep). But, by this point in the game, I know I have a dream car: a 1982 (my birth year) Mercedes Benz 300cd (the coupe of the car I’ve loved for so long). They have all the sexy curves, the bulletproof engine, the chrome, all the shit that I now know is my favorite. Then, what happens? (This is tied in to woo-woo bullshit, and the new woman I’m dating, and my new outlook on life, and my beginning to shed the 40+ lbs. I gained when I moved here because I was deeply depressed.) I find, on a hung-over listing on craigslist after coming home from AWP, an ad for just the car. (NB: the W123 coupe was the rarest of all W123s, having only about 6k made of the two million W123 chassis, so imagine not only the rarity of the coupe, but of the black/tan combo, not to mention the make-year being 1982.) No price. I called. Turns out, I know the bastard selling the car, and he’s a Stumptown Friend. I buy the car. Now, for the past year or so, I’m driving around what literally is my Dream Machine. It’s sexy, it’s biodiesel, it’s smooth. I start dating the woman of my dreams. She likes the car enough to say she likes it, which is, certainly, something. I’m, all of a sudden, a Stumptown roaster, professor, and young, who is rocking this fucking Dream Machine all over one of the three coolest cities in the world. Who am I? How does this happen?

No one will ever let you keep anything they know you have.

2011-11-30T23:24:00.000-08:00

Justice is just a bedtime story

2011-10-29T00:05:00.000-07:00

It's embarrassing, mostly. Fifteen years ago if you told me I'd be living in an apartment above what to my pretty punk-seasoned ear is a legit punk band (think Mommy's Little Monster-era Social D) playing below on a sluicy Friday night in a pretty cool city, I'd swing a crooked shit-eating. Now-me? I just went digging around for the earplugs my girlfriend keeps here. (I can't find them so I'm drinking beer which I told myself I wasn't going to drink until I got this one Very Important but Unlikely Job Application nailed down and warbling thru the internetz.) [NB lately my 'z' substitute endings have been a little, o, well, unchecked, but I just have to have them, to the chagrin of, mostly, me.] Not purple mohawk me. Not bleaching-mohawk-in-back-of-friend's-mom's-car-on-the-way-to-show-me. Not even X-ed up hardcore kid me, or--damn, probably not--even philosophy major me. And here's the point (because, well, thank christ it's a little deeper than me facing the complicated yet very real presence of my age directly positively correlating to my hair thickness and negatively correlating to my plant-watering consistency): I want to blame my uptightness on Portland. Something about the herd here being so--is this the word?--ideal is off-putting. (I think the word is b/t/w Portlandian, but that seems a bit self-referential.)

By way of personal delusion/justification: Race: Arizonan (Hassayampan). So, this means, if I may generalize about my people, that, more than anything, this: You don't ever tell me what the fuck to do. See the "Had Enough? Vote Libertarian" signs in every punkrock house in Tucson for more (be)dazzling examples of this. (But, srsly--punkrock houses?...) On some level, it's in every real Arizonan. Whether you're a pistol-under-the-front-seat teabagging conspiracy theorist or a tattooed professor/poet type, Arizona means Don't tread on me more than it means anything else. But if you are a punk kid--or an intellectual kid, or a creative kid--in a place like AZ, on some level your whole identity is oppositional. When you walk in to a coffee shop (and we're talking about the '90s, here, to be sure), you know everyone else there is on the goodguy team. The Tucson coffeeshop called Safe House had its name for a reason. It doesn't matter if you want to curbcrush the wank in Birkenstocks with socks and flowy pants who lets his moustache whiskers grow into his mouth so he can suck on them, you're, while in the coffeeshop in Arizona, on the same team, and you'd stick up for this whisker-sucker if some gooch came in to the place and started shit. (Tho you'd do it begrudgingly and then maybe kick the shit out of the W-S after you kicked the shit out of the G for causing you the trouble.) So, now you have this Arizonan, or punk, self defined by its opposition to normative herd behavior. [NB My friend Kate (Arizonan) and I, when moving up to PDX together in a late-night drive-talk agreed that this definition-by-opposition is the most troubling philosophical component of moving to our adoptive town.] Then you move to a place where the herd acts as you want it to act. Kinda-sorta. Everyone has: degrees, Subarus, Pavement albums, bikes, feelings. Sure, iPhones, too. They read--and we're talking Actual Reading. A 23yr old dropout is reading Russian novels in her free time. This 32yr old douchey guy is learning Portuguese (maybe to finally get laid, but still...). Urban gardens. Smiling at strangers you wouldn't fuck. It's weird, it turns out. OK, so, you're now dealing with a mass culture that is in many of the best ways yours while simultaneously dealing with the throbbing, almost Darwinian, impulse to rebel against the masses which in your new environment is actually the kinda-good-guys. Next thing I know I'm rendered quasi-motionless by conflict. Who am I? Why can't I say yes to the good thing? Well, it turns out--and I now realize I may be, in my not returning or feeling any sort of fedality to my original topic, boldly forging into the tangental and pontificatory--that this city of ideal-herd is the very thing (shock of all being) to turn me, for the first time in my pretty little life, into an Aristotelian. (Writing it both brings me joy/causes me to wince/apologize to Dr. Tim Luther, my political philosophy mentor. He'd suffocate himself on carrots if he ever read this.) It strikes me as a Kafkan type of funny that spending my whole life in a dominantly-conservative place made me feel like, "Man, if we can get these herd folks to see what's happening, we'll totally change their mind," to "Fuck, buddy--these people are fucking dumb and spineless, but at least they listen to me, because I'm smarter than them and know how to manipulate them into getting them to want what I want in a way that would be fun or exciting if it weren't so easy." And, for realz [NB there's the 'z' again...], that feels sick. I don't understand what is happening to me.

So, in a separate but related bit of information that I hope you will connect the dots to so I don't have to, I assigned for my classes this week the DFW essay "The View from Ms. Thompson's" for discussion. (Still, the punk band is so loud....) One of my classes got on the topic of revolution (maybe I instigated by chiding them for knowing nothing of the Occupy Oakland police brutality), and that quickly turning into one of my (maybe?) *star* students quoting, at length, from Capital about the inevitability of violent revolution. They went into whether or not a militia type 2nd Ammendment-type insurrection might come up at some near point in time. This student talked about how 30 years ago we woudn't be having this conversation at a community college in the rural west. He also asked the class how many of them had guns. (+/- 65% said they did.) At one point I had to out myself in a personal, and corrective, way letting them know that A.) I spent every weekend (essentially) of my childhood at gun shows because my dad was a gun dealer, and B.) that I was a member of the junior olympic shooting team during same, in order to both keep certain stupid pupils quiet and establish a continued and pervasive dominance over any and all conversations that could even potentially come up in conversation. They went everywhere--from the EU and China not even letting a violent uprising happen in USA b/c/o global economic ties to how community colleges/off-brand state schools in the middle of nowhere will be the hotbeds of the post-9/11 militia because they're rural, (generally now, more) educated, but still own guns and know how to use them (as opposed to legs...). And, you know, I mostly hate everyone in this class, normally, but this day I felt connected to them like I haven't felt connected to a group since I left Arizona. Again, these are people that I generally distain.

Meanwhile, I'm looking out my (awesome, big) apartment window, on the best intersection in town, with the raddest jobs a dude'll ever want in Portland, and pissing about the bleedout of this stupid punk band and wanting to throw beer bottles at them. (Kinda.) There's people my age here that are down at the show. There's people my age that are vegan (still!). And there's people my age that are (surely) not quite as tired as me (but 1/2 as close, I hope--at best) that would be cool with this bullshit. So what does that say about me/this world/me? I'm not camping d/t at Occupy Portland (--for sure!). While I work 85-90hrs/wk, I make plenty of money. I have a big apartment, I'm writing on an expensive computer and drinking expensive beer and I just dropped a lot of money into the continual fix-up of my dream car. I'm in love with the most lovely woman in the world (and she loves me), I have two kids that would make absolutely anyone in the world who wanted kids feel second-tier, and I have an ex-wife who is probably one of my better friends. I'm under 30 and teach at a great college. Shit--I'm even handsome. I'm a Complete Fucking Bastard. Why on earth am I writing about this Social D rip-off-band? Fuck, after a few beers, I'm almost my 15-years-earlier self that loves it, even if I want to go to sleep now. OK: take aways: 1) I'm a lucky bastard--for sure, at least on some level; 2) being an Aristotelian is just like Portland itself: awesome/sucks; 3) being part Mexican/being poor/being the first Mains to go to college is all much less relevant than being from Arizona. Other take aways: it's rainy & cold and my love's 4.5k/mi away is daunting. I don't have a guitar in Portland, or my turntable, or my speakers, or lots of shit, and I'd like to have those things; 4) beer in this town is getting unrealistically expensive, while I'm getting good at local wines, which causes local wines to be almost as cost-effective as beer while making me less fat; 5) if you read this far, you missed your calling of being a professional masturbator.

Milk/Shop

2011-09-29T19:17:00.000-07:00

Friendos: You're going to be hearing more about my new project, Bone Church, soon. For now, know that its home is also the new home to Poor Claudia and Octopus Books and Bad Blood. The space is called Milk/Shop. If you're in Portland, ca'mon, stop on by the Lecheria. We'll crack your beer. We'll crack your heart. You can stay for a little while. Come.

Ancient melodies of the future

2011-09-07T12:06:00.000-07:00

At first, getting old felt like the world knew you had a big dick (and go fuck yourself for wanting to call me on some Freudian chauvinistic bullshit; that’s not how I mean it and you know it). I grew into my strut walking down the avenue, (mostly) stopped fighting—I’m able to be more honest with myself than I’ve ever been—and I care less about stupid shit. Less gossip and negativity, more patience and love.

And, see, here—this is what I wanted to talk about beginning after the first sentence: now getting old bears the stark, unmaskable stain of woowoo. (I’d only ever admit this using my Actual Adult Serious Voice in Real Life to one person in the world, so, unless you’re that person, glaze yr pretty eyes for a paragraph or more.) You there: glaze thine fucking eyes! OK, woowoo: not much to say, right? It’s all piss-stained sheets in the sun in the wind on a clothesline in an over-saturated shot from a flashback in a film. And, since we’re here, it’s time to pour a little out for our Greek and Roman friends: being able to inherit their baseline culture of logic over mysticism has kept me from needing to know my astrological sign until my realization that I wanted to start laying on top of the artist-set. So, now I know I’m an Aquarius, etc., along with a few presidents and best friends. It means I don’t give a fuck about all the shits around me (—and to think, for the longest time I thought it was just because I decided I didn’t give a fuck…). And here I am, on the far side of being over-educated, of having a pretty solid chunk of life experience carved out of the belief that existence precedes essence, and I happen upon vibrations of strings waving throughout the world. I find myself in moments that are so perfect—or at least familiar—that I feel they’ve been in my world, outside of time, waiting (well, they can’t be waiting outside of time, so let’s say resting) for me and then just insert themselves into my consciousness at just the right—wait for it, now…—time. I look into someone’s eyes and felt the sort of preeminence I’ve only ever felt with my self qua self before.

There comes a point like this, here, where I have to take a step back toward the west: I don’t feel this with everyone. I’m not saying I’m fucking benevolent in some zen or JC way. It’s a limited exposure. It’s kind of like feeling more connected to the world—more a part of the world—thru my experience with one single person, which would normally sound woowoo but I’m going to call it an example of duende, slap it on it’s ass, and send it out into the world. See, here’s the, in the self-consciously postmodern parlance of our time, rub: describing this type of shit results only in soggy juicers of cliché or tie-dye.

I also make this point about rubbing: for me, there is a very deep value in choice. I, for example, am very patient with people I love. This isn’t a personality trait. This isn’t because I was born at 10:30 on a Saturday morning. In fact, I’m generally speaking a very impatient person. (As any ex-wife or mother will tell you.) Patience has been a skill I knew I was very bad it, and because I didn’t ever want to be my father, I taught myself how to be good at it. Then I practiced it a bunch. Sometimes I got myself drunk over it, both as a reward and in the way one diverts the pain of getting tattooed into a different part of the body so the piece of skin getting tattooed stays flexible, stable. I’m proud of the work I’ve done in this area of my life. It was a choice, and to my mind to call it anything else diminishes the ethics, work, and intentionality that goes in to each demonstration of that learned skill. (Who am I arguing with here?)

Now, here’s another difficulty: In the face of the inevitability of such a shared connect(ion), the cultivation of this connect(ion), and, really, the cultivation of the circumstances that even allowed for such an eternal consciousness manifesting itself historically is the result of careful planning, confidence, understanding, and iron will, which is to say, choice. I think the work and fidelity that goes into such an act deepens its magnitude. The perfection that tingles in it, however, makes if feel too big for a person (or two) to have created independently in such a large, complex world.

And what about my sign—my fucking sign? Kierkegaard’s probably going to get leaned on a little, here, in saying that astrology is just a system that superimposes meaning post-facto, the same way someone from a church group visiting a rape victim in the hospital might say everything happens for a reason. It’s, on some level, just a way of making the world feel more secure/of making how small we are feel less small. But it’s reductive to dismiss woowoo as a horoscope in the free weekly rag, to be thought of as out-of-date as chip’n dips and fondu and shag carpet—or, by now, even brie and sun-dried tomato (adios, ‘90s). The world is a bit more complicated than that. And what happens when one begins to develop an epistemology that regards systems as heuristic? (But—let’s be clear—not in a woowoo way. We’re not talking about an omni-systemic world, but a world where judgment and action are more critical now than ever.) It seems like I, for one, feel like things are more real, like things matter a little hunk more.

Is that Aquarian of me or what?

Everything you say has water under it

2011-06-21T23:23:00.000-07:00

It's the first day of summer. I went running, it felt awful, and I wanted to walk the last mile. I hadn't eaten since early Sunday, so maybe I should have eaten. Maybe that would have made me feel better. You know how people say that they just forgot to eat and you don't believe them? I feel like that happened to me the last few days. Now, I don't know if it's because I'm older & now pay attention, or if I'm just deteriorating as quickly as I suspect, but I can feel my mind slipping in ways I didn't notice even two years ago.

Two years ago I was slipping out of the things that comforted me in, and about, Arizona. I was running a lot, not really eating, except for these light, cool, desert-y meals I made with my then-girlfriend. I drank tequila all the time. It feels so green & alive in your mouth when it's prohibitively hot out. Most things in my life were destroyed right about then and I didn't really see the value in trying to reassemble them when I was about to move away. I remember pulling my foot up from the asphalt in Arizona as I got in the car to drive to Portland. There was this really stupid moment where I remembered a book I read once on the Potato Famine in Ireland where these boys would sail to the United States because their home couldn't support them any more. Their families would wake for them because they knew it was good bye for good once they stepped on that boat. Pulling my foot into the car, I felt this--a little bit. I felt like I was going into exile. I feel like I'm in exile. I haven't been back--and tho it's only been two years, the pulling up of that foot already feels prophetic in certain ways. I want to go back, but when I think about what I want to do there, it's just hanging around with ghosts that I know live there, seeping out of the walls and bottles and dried ravines where I'd target practice with self-portrait polaroids.

Here, in Portland, it's just as empty. It's almost eerie. I'm in love--frighteningly, uncontrollably--and that is just about the only good thing I've got going. If I didn't know better, I'd ask the gods if life ever stops being an echo of one's failures that keeps getting amplified thru all the feedback. Sometimes it feels less shoegazey: sometimes it's just deja-vu of all the failures I was scared of repeating, and then seeing them repeated.

My first recollection of deja-vu was when I was a sophomore in high school. I was at a swim meet at some pool in Phoenix. I was sitting at the side of the pool by a ladder out of the water. Looking down into the water, seeing the lane lines blurring and shaking from the races reminded me of a time--maybe when I was six, eight--I was sitting in the same place, the same pool, the same blurry ripples. I asked my mom about it later, and it turns out I fell in that same pool and almost drowned when I was six during one of my older sibling's swim meets. She was surprised I remembered (as only my mom could be). But what makes me recall this instance of deja-vu so often now, fifteen years later, is this rippling looming familiar since of the inevitable in my world. Now it doesn't seem as tho it matters whether it was a pool I fell into, or love, or my dreams--or even my body. It's all at the edge of this pool. I've been there before.

oddfellows

2011-05-25T02:59:00.000-07:00

You know, sometimes, and just a very rare, kind, sometimes, old life starts seeping in to the cloudy way life changes. Tonight I watched an episode of Ken Burns' documentary Baseball. Satchel Paige, one remembers, was, maybe, the best pitcher in all of baseball. He was black, and so he never got the shot to pitch against Murders' Alley on the Yanks, which is too bad, because that would have shut their asses down in a way that would have made anyone I know & love happy, 'cos, really, fuck the Yankees, but, anyway, it reminds me of the tiers I exist within. So, what--I google search our past--we can all find memories of ourselves--I found pictures of me guitar in a band that I loved being in with my best friends, of a show in southern California at the end of a very long & hard tour and all that sort of thing. We had traveled from Arizona out to Tennessee and back, had one night in AZ again before hitting the west coast. I stayed that night, after a show & party, at my girlfriend's place. We were 18 or so--like, candles and radiohead and we took a pretty memorable shower together--and we didn't know how our van would make it up the I-5 tomorrow. But, you know, it's a little lucky, and I hate to say it, how the internets allows these things to survive.

The show, in particular, I was able to google image pictures of was at a very special place called Koos Cafe in Santa Ana (do you remember this place from the '90s?). I recall seeing flyers from a show a few nights before still stapled to the phone poles for Forstella Ford, who we had played with three or four times before all over the place. On the porch of Koos there were condoms--some new, some used--and a vegetarian kitchen where the real kitchen of this place used to be in the pre-war state where a family kept a place there. I felt so cool. It was cold for an Arizona boy--probably I had on my dickies jacket--and before the show we hit a Korean doughnut shop that was vegan. The old living room was the main show space. There were fireplaces on either side of the room. It was very long, and full, and there were people standing outside, looking in thru the windows to see us play. I don't remember who we played with, and I don't even remember where we stayed that night. I remember getting stuck in traffic and being on The 5 which I also remember was not the best way to be getting there. It felt like I was doing something special with my life, even though, especially now, I know, it was only cool to about 16 people in the world. Ten, or more, years later, tho, I can look these pictures up on google, I can tell you that the shirt I was wearing I stole from my sister's goodwill finds, my amp and cabnet were from Mike Pinkstaff, the cool punk kid from my high school. I had two tattoos, and felt so cool for having them.

It's been about ten years since that show. It's even been about five years since I started this blog. In that time, I've gotten married, had two kids, got divorced, had two kids, some degrees; I've lived in four or five different cities and gotten a lot more tattoos and maybe even figured out the type of life I'd like to lead--I don't really know, yet. Really, tho, not a lot has changed, and this makes me feel conflicted. As I write this, I hear kids skateboarding outside my apartment. There are some guys drinking and some other guys collecting cans and bottles. On the floor of my apartment I have a pile of clean clothes, and another pile of dirty clothes, I have a few stacks of books, some papers I need to grade, lots of shoes--a bill and a bag of corn chips. Not much has changed. I still feel punk rock, even as I know that punk rock kids would never see me as such. I think I'm fat, I worry about how I'm going to keep my daughter in the yellow dress, I wonder if I've missed my chance to make poetry writing my life. Every night I have nightmares. Some of them are terrible all the way thru. Some of them are only terrors once I wake up. I live in a city I hate, for example, but that I'm tied to, that I know is offering me something during the current economic downturn.

My apartment has two things hanging in it: a painting of Ludwig Wittgenstein, and a painting by my friend and fellow poet, Zach. They kind of face each other in a strange way, like they're asking something of one another. I have a housekey on a nail, a painting on a cross-section of a small pine tree trunk that my daughter made. Above my bedroom, I have the horse shoe from my love's apartment in Arizona to catch any good luck that comes my way. It isn't working in the way I'd like. Some nights, I think it just catches bad memories that I wish would escape with the steam.

The way I thought I'd earn my life, or my ease of life, is not working out. Before, like ten years--maybe--ago, I'd look at me and think that maybe I'm making it, or maybe I'm poor but happy. Now, tho, I'm living it, and I don't think I was right. Sure, I can point to this woman, and I can point to some poems that people have maybe read somewhere, and I can say that I'm a good dad, and maybe even a good person in general. I can check off a list of things I've wanted to accomplish, and that looks better than maybe some folks' lists look. But I'm still very alone, and when I think of myself in the future, I see me alone there, too--save some calls from my daughter, maybe some kind letter from an old friend. But the idea of carving a special arc out of my life feels foreign on some level. Making a difference in someone's life has gone from immediate to in-a-few-years to when-I'm-late-career-in-poetry to nonexistent much more quickly than I'd have liked to fancy.

In the mid-'90s there was a Victory band called Snapcase. They had an album called Progression thru Unlearning. Since it came out, but especially since high school, I've really like that idea. I now see times where the idea was spot-on, and I feel empty, and other times where it really does feel like a proper progression, which is to say that things feel like they're getting more grey, they make less sense, but that allows me to be more forgiving, more kind, and, I can (very luckily) say, more aware and open to the new things I need to learn and to be in my life.

You'll never find love, you know.

2010-11-28T10:51:00.000-08:00

Fall; Minneapolis and a touch of Portland-home.

2010-10-10T23:41:00.000-07:00

Pooptown

2010-09-03T19:32:00.000-07:00

Here My Chappie

2009-02-26T15:43:00.002-08:00

To Live Don's Life: A Film in 15 Creams. Please go read it. Don't be scared. Go. Come back, but go.

To Live Don's Life: A Film in 15 Creams

2009-02-10T22:02:00.001-08:00

That's the name of a chapbook of mine that just got accepted for publication. It will be my first chapbook publication. That feels good.

Yes!

What Makes Paint Smear

2009-02-09T19:05:00.005-08:00

I'm showing you a picture of my desk right now. It's pretty representative of my life right now. This is why I'm showing it to you. Let's see what we got here: it's small, cheap, and a hot mess. The moderately-priced tawny port is empty. (I was very sad to learn this tonight as I sat down to work.) The dvd is on various lost civilizations, and, if my semen are as virulent as the Mains Myth suggests, I am in the process of building and devastating my own personal civilization just this lifetime. I have a few journals in various states of use: still wrapped from Christmas (thanks, Dani), in use (thanks, LAMOMA; my five Sticky Fingers), and done (thanks, Graduate School). Poetry collections by Gerard Manley Hopkins and Eric Baus, a chapbook by Joshua Marie Wilkinson and Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino on the amp behind the desk, where also sits a camerabag and my MFA diploma, still in its cardboard mailer. The candle is from Target, and it smells like linen. It reminds me of the bible and it also reminds me of very sweaty sex on an adobe barbeque in the backyard of a home in Tucson while the rain reanimated the already-dried sheets on the line. The sheets were fancy, and were an excuse to fuck in the rain in the middle of summer. The candle was cheap. Well, I guess I already said it was from Target. Anyway, the point is that the candle-smell feels about right: the real thing is so, so far away, and the fake thing feels cheap and all messed up. You know what I mean. And still, just out of view is the Love Box. The Love Box is a small box that looks just like a soap box, which is probably what it was. Except I wouldn't know what it was because it's wrapped in a swirly orange and purple paper that looks like a three year old made it if the three year old was brilliant and an old soul and deeper than most of the adults I know. It's basically a re-imagined Pollock for 2009. Anyway, Onnavah made it for me, and before she wrapped it up in the Pollock she blew tons of love in it so anytime I was sad I could squeeze it and get a little bit of her love for me. If ever my apartment catches on fire, I will grab the Love Box and my computer. There is no third. The rain is so heavy now.

You know what I mean.

***

Today in class I was giving a little lecture on essay structure. I asked my students for an example of a thesis. Because they don't normally give a shit, or because I'm very funny, they stonewalled me until I pushed. (They know I'll curse if they stonewall me, and they like to hear me curse.) So I ask one of the kids to use me to find a really simple thesis statement. Scotty says, "Professor Mains has spotty facial hair." Scotty entered a world of pain after that. But everyone else had a Good Old Laugh. I wish I had some corn liquor and coke at this point in the morning. They "beardstormed" some supporting elements to their thesis with varying degrees of intellect displayed. One that I liked, but ultimately struck down, because funny alone doesn't cut the mustard, was "It's an aspect of his post-punk aesthetic. He could have a mohawk, but that would be too easy." Another (bad one): "Well, he's trying to be a professor and he thinks you have to have a beard so the other professors take him seriously. He just can't grow one. --I mean, (to me) it looks good and everything--it's pimp--I was just sayin'... ." Almost in spite of their benign attempts at thinking while walking, most of their answers were pretty solid, and I felt great about the day's class. I love teaching, but (and I'm sorry to sound like such a prick) I feel like my potential for teaching exists higher up the food chain. I know that sounds so bad, but I think I'm kind of a natural teacher and know my shit well enough to forget it and have them discover it in front of me. (This sounds even more douchey than I could have possibly imagined. I'm going to stop.)

***

They say it might snow in Tucson tomorrow. I already feel it creeping in.

It's ok. I wouldn't like me, either

2009-02-01T20:51:00.001-08:00

I, too, dislike it.

2009-01-31T18:38:00.002-08:00

Yikes! I gotta tell you out there: 27 doesn't feel too good for me. I think that, for me, the latter 20s will feel very much like legwork for something else. What? I don't know what. Maybe a book (or two), maybe a job as a copywriter at an ad agency, maybe a phd somewhere far, far away, where I know not a soul (one or two souls would be, of course, ok--if souls are real, of course), maybe a t/t job somewhere shockingly similar to the phd description. Twenty-five felt good--I'll give it that.

The one (and by one, two) good thing in my life is being a father to the childrens. They're beautiful, they keep me alive and trying to do things, and they're living 2000 miles away. Of all the bad feelings I've had inside my body before, this is the worst. If you've been, or are, a parent, then you might know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, I doubt you do. Anyway, it's like I'm just passing time.

Two Thousand-'gine

2008-12-31T15:46:00.004-08:00

Friends, many of you will not read this because I don't really post on it any more. I should just give up and retire it, but, probably unfortunately, I don't say die when I should, usually, so it keeps plugging along. What am I going to talk about, anyway? Sex or something? Love? Art? Myself? It's all so blase. I'm not half the man I wish I was. I'm not half the man I wish I was. I'm lucky to have two women who love me more than I ever deserve, as evidenced in the photo above, and, with any luck, I'll at least keep that together. If nothing else, I hope to keep that together.

Good night, my darlings: Until tomorrow.

Anniversary

2008-11-14T21:54:00.002-08:00

What a douchey word. And I'm not talking about love, exactly. Today is the _________ of other things, like the birth of my oldest brother, David. He's 39. He drives a station wagon, like me, but his is silver instead of gray/grey, and it has a roofrack for a bike he doesn't ride while mine doesn't have a roofrack for a bike I do ride (although, as dumb as this is, I ride it a lot less than I would if I didn't wear the jeans I do every day). Those of you who remember/can't forget how fucked up I am will note that my brother used to be my youth pastor. And I was home schooled. Remember? When I tell people this, they say an iteration of this: "O, now I understand...". What does that even mean? That's rhetorical. Anyway, I've spent most of my short life worshiping the ground Dave walked on, because, you know--. Now he's like a Joyce Carol Oates novel except without the single, solitary black guy that the white girl falls in love with like it's Raisin in the Sun all over again but 2008.

One of the other things that happened on this date: My oldest dear friend JJ and I were in our first band together way back when we just learned how to jack off with the jets in the hot tub (we were homeschooled so that means age 16), and on this date, in 1998, we played our first ever proper show. I remember breaking lots of strings on my guitar and thinking it was cool. I also remember trying to dress like a straightedge greaser because that's what Overcome did. (Or something.) I also remember playing thru a JCM800 and thinking it wasn't dirty enough because I was stupid. Very stupid. I also remember my station wagon at the time cost, literally, less than my amp. Seriously--that's what I'm talking about, man: priorities. My car doesn't need to have leather (except that they do), they just need to have a storage compartment that fits perfectly a nice tubeamp. Playing a show with a band was one of those things I'd wanted to do always. I'm lucky that I've gotten to play live with most of my best friends. It's weird to think that 10 years ago today I got in front of people and played songs I helped write (bad as they were/are).

Ah, moving on down the timeline. Six years ago tonight I got drunker than you ever have and smashed to hell: 1. my head on railroad tracks in 17degree weather; 2. my friendship with my dear old friend Brad; 3. my glasses; 4. the motherfuckin' face of a firefighter who was trying to save my life. While I don't remember any of the Stand By Me bullshit on the railroad tracks, and don't remember the last two bars we went to, I do remember waking up the next morning in the hospital--still drunk--wondering who the hell got needles into my arms (I hate needles) and why I was naked in the hospital. Brad came over and said, (for those of you who know him--rubbing his moppy hair awkwardly and making that sucking tick sound with his mouth before holding his hands out in front of his breasts) "Joe, I think you're fucked, man. I think you're getting arrested. You beat the shit out of a firefighter last night." Drunk, I laughed. No. O, yes, my dear dumb bitch, O, yes. In jail that afternoon I realized that I was missing a test and paper-turn-in for my Shakespeare class that would result in my failure of the course. I stopped drinking whiskey, which brings me to my next anniversary on this date.

Last year was my 5-year anniversary of not drinking whiskey (with the exception of drinking whiskey a few times out of pure joie de vivre/wanting to get drunk with a good buddy). Why wait five years to let that sweet Knob Creek pass my lips? Well, after all the drama with biting the hand that feeds (saves) you, as it were, I kept away from the fuck-yeah juice as best as I could considering my forbearers. Plus, if I got caught doing anything crazy, there was still a statute of limitations not-yet-limited, if you know what I mean. I mean, I had to be good. Well, last year, I drove down to Tucson from Tempeasy to get back to school. I had a sledgehammer inside my heart and no place to stay and no home to come home to. So, instead, I went to the Che lounge and had'em poured stiff like my dick, neat like my knife tricks. Whew! The good times are killing me. The good times are killing me. The good times are killing me.

The Problem Perspective

2008-11-09T08:49:00.002-08:00

The times they are a'changing, they say. I don't have a bed to lay my head (mostly), and, you know, life in the Tempeasy is overwrought with history and drama--slightly Shakespearian, one might posit. I think, partially, and partially I think the problem is that the world is (still) made out of people. They get in the way of making so often, and then, when one finds another maker to talk to, they're just as sick of people and fucked up as you are, which, obviously, is both why you want to talk to them and why you are frustrated by them. Me--I want them to understand.

Which is to say (except for the part where it isn't to say because I'm actually now changing the subject), last weekend I went to Austin for a barista competition. I didn't win, but I slept next to a fat naked man on a sleepnumber bed (mine's 45) and walked around much, much less than I would have ever found acceptable in such a beautifully-climate-controlled city. I don't know if you've ever been there, but I've got Austin's number: If Tucson and Portland had sex, their beautiful arty baby would be Austin. It ended up being a pretty exhausting, emotional trip. A barista competition sounds like as good of an idea as it is. It's Best in Show, but with the freak-hippies who dropped out of the ceramics program at StateU their sophomore year to work full-time in the Industry competing. I made it home safe & in time to vote for our new president, which is the first time I've successfully cast my vote for the person who's won.

This weekend I'm in LA visiting Adam. We see eachother much less than is even remotely acceptable, but, you know, when you're young & starting out and don't have trustfunds like you should, you gotta be a worker and climb up the trash heap. We're both doing that right now. Seeing a real, true friend that knows all my bad & meanness and still loves me feels very deep. It also feels light. We hit MOCA out here yesterday and had so much fun seeing the Martin Kippenberger perspective. He's what you would do if you were an MFA trustfund asshole. Or, at least, Adam and I agree it's what we'd do. Louise Bourgeois was rollin' hard there, too, and possibly took the show. It was great. Also, we ate brunch with good old Curdbird and it felt like the best days of Kilnemia practice all over again. I miss that guy, and I miss his laugh, and I wish I saw him more, too. What's that they say? It's like being in a marriage when you're in a band. I'm leaving this morning, and going back to the dramarama in the old 'hood and catching up on all the gossip at Melrose Place (where I live), which should be interesting, because I suspect it's about me this week.

What is puke?

2008-10-04T22:33:00.004-07:00

Ovid's getting bigger, and looking more and more like a human being every day, magically looking less&less like a grandpa turtle. I live in a new apartment that is (in)famous in these parts for a bunch of stuff that no one cares about. Everyone pejoratively calls it Melrose Place. You get the idea. Anyway, it's pretty big & cheap & close to the things one'd want to be close to. The shared playlists of everyone's iTunes at Melrose Place is--and I fuck you not, here--worth the price of rent every month. It's seriously like 2gb of the most hipster shit you ever did hear. And the Wondernet's fast enough for everyone to stream the Colbert Report on their MacBooks at the same time, no problem. I sleep on the floor, and don't have a lick in furnishings.

I miss the academy. I'd like to get a t/t, but with english departments and economics as they are, I have a sick sense that I'll be applying for PhDs sooner rather than later. The problem is that there are really only like five programs I'd be willing to blow five years on, and they're in three disciplines. Four, maybe. Three-and-a-half.

I'm going to participate in, and win, a barista competition in Austin, Texas on the weekend of November 1. If you're in Austin, let me know. If you're name's Katy Chrisler, let me know.

It's book contest season. O, you don't know what that is? O, it's like hunting season when you're homeschooled--you send off your shit (book) and pay an application fee and some son of a bitch takes your $25 and skims your book and steals a few of your best lines and then tosses it in the recycle bin. After about $1000 in entry fees, you win a book contest with a $1000 prize and they publish your book and you're then only one book away from a t/t job offer (maybe).

Next weekend I'm going to be in Tucson (finally). There's a conference on a poet I love and I take things from (not like words but like seepage). I wish I lived in Tucson. I wish I could get a job that's actually good down there. Even to get a bullshit job working with bullshit people down there it pays 30k if you're lucky, and those pastas don't stick if you know what I mean. Up here, though, man--Phoenix is the Balkans of the poet world right now. Tucson is wonderful and I'll be glad to be there and see some friends and hear some decent poetry and hear some semi-decent poets talk about a truly great one. If you've not read him, go find him--he's a good one, especially if you've gone to CBU and weren't exposed to anything past the Beats: he's maybe a good alternate/catch-up/fair-well.

OK, I'm going to go watch Breathless now. You make me want to puke. What? He said you make him want to puke. What is puke?

I'll get you; I'll get you all.

2008-09-19T21:38:00.004-07:00

I've established a blog for Ovid Adam Mains, the person who happens to be my son. It is, after all, 2008. We--none of us--can be bothered with the personal touch of printed pictures, let alone sending individual sets of them tailored to those we care about. It's too much work. And: you always send the wrong people packages and not the right people. I do, at least. So, for those of you and not those of you (if there exist [m]any of the latter), you can look at my son on the internets and feel good or bad for me, depending on how well you know me and how well you know how little sleep people like me get when people like him come swinging his big-ass balls around. Here is where you can go. Go. But always come back. That's the secret of the mother I never had who is a love of mine, as well as my father and mother, Jane Miller.

Mains

2008-09-17T19:27:00.003-07:00

This is my son. He doesn't have a name. He was born today. He's beautiful and perfect and I'm proud of him and I love him.

Bad Men Drink Bad Beer.

2008-07-23T19:33:00.003-07:00

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.

2008-07-14T22:17:00.002-07:00

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

2008-07-11T15:30:00.002-07:00

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

2008-07-09T00:05:00.003-07:00

(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]

2008-07-07T09:16:00.005-07:00

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

A Master of Fine Arse

2008-05-05T11:09:00.004-07:00

It's been so long since I've talked to anyone. I miss you all. Below are some pictures of what I've been doing away from you. This is my book, called Cleave. I'm turning it in to the Graduate College today, completing my MFA in Poetry. I love you all--all of you--and I know that now I'll have much, much more time to be a good friend now. I'm glad & blessed to have friends, and I hope to see everyone soon. We'll catch up, and do all the best things. Endure, as they say.

Please, please, please, please

2008-04-10T19:08:00.001-07:00

Pomo photo stash

2008-01-04T18:47:00.000-08:00

Tonight's my big, and by big I don't actually mean big, art opening. Yes, sir, I've got one of those. It's called "Most at Home in Motels" and it is just a shit ton of polaroids, and by shit ton I don't actually mean shit ton, but about 375. Here's a few photos of the photos.

In other news, someone offered to buy the cowboy boots I'm wearing today right off my feet for $220. I need the money, badly, but I sed suckit ho to him and grabbed my crotch CalBaptist style at him. Just right at him. Boom right at him. It was smooth.

All I can listen to right now is the new Jonny Greenwood soundtrack to There Will Be Blood. I can't wait till the hardcore band called that comes out in 7months.

Nous

2008-01-02T09:46:00.001-08:00

So it's 2008. Dan Mains has been saying it for a while, and it's worth repeating: Sex can wait--2008! Still reluctant to consume the vagina-thing, I can't say that I blame him. They're trouble.

I was kind of wanting to do a best of 2007 thing, but stuff that isn't so over-covered. I haven't been on my game with posting, obviously, so it's no surprise that it hasn't happened. But this is what I've been up to:

I've been slinging 'spro in downtown Phoenis at Royal Coffeebar, I'm reading a lot of the books, I'm super painfully poor, and I'm about to have my first art show, ever, in this the month of January. First Friday opening and all. If you're in town, you should hit me up. It's just a selection of my polaroids that isn't that exciting, but there are probably well over 350 hanging, and if nothing else, I think it might be a decent way to kill a few hours. Most of the six of you reading this are featured, and there are a few other non-readers that have been exposed.

LA Ink is totally killing me. I downloaded the entire first season last week and it's all I can do to keep myself from being glued to watching it 24/7. The worst part, prolly, is that I'd just kind of gotten over the wanting-to-get-tattooed bug. Now it's worse than ever.

I miss you all, my darlings.

christmas coat

2007-12-27T16:36:00.000-08:00

You'll notice the self-hewn tree in the background.

love/hate

2007-12-11T23:10:00.001-08:00

There was not a musical note in sight; the snow came 15 minutes later.

2007-12-11T22:49:00.000-08:00

So, O and I went out to the forest with an axe and a camera for a little father/daughter slaughter. Tree slaughter. This was no BJ#2 backpiece Abraham/Isaac crap. It was about 20 degrees out, damn cold. On the way, she kept saying, "I want a tiny, tiny, tiny, TINY christmas tree, Daddy." Once we were out of the car, though, the story changed. "I want a tree with lots of annual rings," she said. Annual rings? You know, three-year-olds these days, man. Three-year-olds. I convinced her that the 70-foot tall ponderosa wouldn't fit in the car, and that everyone might be most happy with the tiny one. The tree you see in the background is the one that she'll be rockin' the holydays away with. If you ever have a daughter, ever--go take her on special little dates. It's the best-feeling you'll ever have in your entire fucking miserable life.

Phoenix in Flames.

2007-12-03T16:39:00.000-08:00

Finals time. One more semester and I'm out of shit to do. Yeah yeah yeah, join the club: I know most of my friends are gone & done with school and have been for a long time, but it'll be the first time for me. I don't really know what I'm doing after the schoolins. If my dad was a mob boss, I'd teach at Reed College, but my dad's not anything, so I'll be that, too.

I applied for the Wallace Stegner Fellowship last week. I forgot about the deadline until 4pm the day it was due. So I jammed out my statement of purpose and poems and application-thing all in 20 minutes. We'll see how it goes; tell you in March or something.

Today at my job slinging lattes in the heart of the Furnix, at Royal Coffee Bar, I was wanking around and made a free pour Phoenix in Flames, a la Converge, or a la The Phoenician, depending on your taste. Or a Novel by Andy Bryan, again, depending on your taste. I know it's lame to post coffee porn on a blog, but a blog's lame anyway, so I'm not too worried about it.

Lately I've been reading the Blue & Brown books, Letters of Vincent vanGogogo, and have two novellas by Italo Calvino waiting for me at the end of this week. I've really wanted to read a great, longer novel over break. I might read Denis Johnson's new one--it just won the National Book Award. The break's only a month, otherwise I'd read Mason&Dixon--but that might be my almost entire summer reading list. Anyone reading anything interesting in long fiction land?

I love you all, my darlings. All of you I love you.

In Rainbows

2007-11-09T17:40:00.000-08:00

Have you guys been hearing this shit? I'm so into it. So into it.

One day. One day.

2007-11-01T23:16:00.001-07:00

Depressed.

2007-10-28T02:11:00.000-07:00

I've been depressed. I can't stop recording myself singing the traditional fold song East Virginia. I'm not quite sure how to download it, but we'll see if I can't post it.

A picture is a model of reality.

2007-10-03T07:35:00.001-07:00

Taco Fantasy (long)

2007-09-22T16:31:00.000-07:00

I'm writing a paper on Philip Larkin and I can't stop thinking about these new shoes I got today after trading in some older, less exciting shoes. The new ones are beautiful, pointy, black, and killer. They're probably the nicest shoes I've ever owned, and I'm kind of a shoe-slut. My arm is almost healed and set-in, so I'll try and post some pictures in the actual light, you know--where you can see things more clearly. I have to say, and I'm sure Adam and Matt et al will agree: it's nice to have the arms balanced again. I don't really know how to explain it, but something just feels better now that that balance has returned.

I found a wallet today in the street. When I looked at the guy's license, I saw that he was born six months after me, and for some reason that was wierd and really bothered me. There was all his bank account information written down in there, and a picture of him with his daughter or niece or something, and mickey mouse. I also ran into susan mullen yesterday. I saw a picture of her daughter, too--she's almost four now. As I sit here, month by month, carving the arc of my life out from the nothingness, it's sometimes depressing to look at what I've done, and what I do, and see how little all of it matters. I work, I get tattooed when I can, I write poems that I hope will live on while knowing that they won't, I put biodiesel in my new car and it smells like frenchfries, I sleep, I fail at relationsips; the only thing that I do with my life that will live on is what I invest in Onnavah, it seems. No one will remember anything else. For me, I mean--I find lasting meaning in my life: this arc-carving is what means something. --I am what I create and all that sort of stuff. That doesn't change how much I'm into my new shoes, or how excited I am when someone likes what I write, or when I get to daze into my arm and block out the world for a few minutes to see the beauty in it, or in the clouds of the western sky as they darken and a storm decends, and when I close my eyes and feel the vibrations of my guitar against my forearm as I play it quietly & alone. They're fleeting and meaningless, but they're also great to me! Sorry, that's sappy & boring & lame, but--somehow seeing these pictures of those two kids really called my consciousness to this crap.

In other news, the MFA kids here at Arizona are up to the usual: the 1st years are still, as a whole pretty lame and boring. One of the poets is batting out of his league a little bit--twice over! For now the winners/losers shall go unnamed. I am, however, suprised to see the pipe this kid's laying. Bravo! None of the new kids are writing anything interesting yet--maybe it's coming, but so far, it's not. Classes have been mostly lame. My workshop with Jane has been best so far, and that only got a good/bad split of maybe 60/40. My Poetry in Forms class has been a nightmare. The prof is totally out of control/outsmarted in the class, and it's kind of embarassing. My last class is a dumbfuck party that a few of us normal folks somehow got invited to, and I spend most of my time making smart comments to the Jane under my breath that she then makes me iterate at an audible level, which she then asks me to write up on the board, which I then tell one of the (very) few smart 1st years, Zack, the Naked Dude, to write on the board for me. He's not my bitch or anything... he's just closer or something....

Tired of Living with People Who Are Tired of Living

2007-09-14T23:37:00.001-07:00

It's getting there...

Poem for Don

2007-08-28T22:38:00.001-07:00

Donald is unafraid what a dude'll do in a town full of heroes and villains.

No difference:
Donald is the states, the states
across this nation. Don't you
worry 'bout me. I wouldn't worry about me. Donald is cop shoot cop I believe
I believe.

Donald is
the lemon of pink. Well well
well well well well. Donald is
1000 cities. Now the angels killed devils, hung them in the streets
& reveled

in the fires
of the bloodlust & revenge.
"A blue pain will come into
us all," the infant lisped. Soul rhymes with toes, Goethe with sleet. I have blue
gorgeous eyes,

gouged my
socket, with my left eyeball,
interested, I watched him
poke an unfiltered Camel through my blue pain, then smoke the cigarette.
I party at

3 a.m.
--alone, thank God.
Ah, with a valium from the
bride, it's the Devil I love.
The Devil I love & that's as funny as real love & that's as real
as true love.

1982 Mercedes 300SD

2007-08-27T20:36:00.000-07:00

Shit, bitch: I own you!

Ah, yes, this is my new car. Nothing's happened to the old car, but the stable is growing. I love this car.

Tomorrow is my 1st workshop packet in Jane's class. Normally one gives the class 5-10 pages of po-crap to sift through, but I gave 14. My hope isn't to win the Pissing Contest, just to flop enough material on them so as to keep the 1st years from using my work as a soapbox for their horsecrap pet peeves. At this point in the game, all I want to hear is Yes, this works generally, or No, burn this. I know what I'm doing, I just don't know what people think of it--you know? Don't tell me what to create as an artist, just tell me it sucks/doesn't suck.

I don't know why, but I'm so, so tired.

Psychic pain, monsoon rain, school again, Joe fucking Mains

2007-08-22T10:30:00.000-07:00

Back to school. All the first years seem to be, in order of % of population: a.) pussies; b.) assholes; c.) fat. There's a Quaker-tattooed-slam poet, a clogging skinny white guy (for those of us not from the south, I understand clogging to be tapdancing but more involved/more exciting), a kid who has the family name Life (I hope to god he's a posi-core kid), a kid from western Mass that by all accounts appears to be a sexual predator of fat chicks, and a fat chick (et al). I don't think anyone will be catching what I'm throwing, poetically, and personally, I plan to keep my head down and let the shit fly overhead.

The monsoon is my favorite time of year in Arizona. It's better down here in Tucson.

I miss you all. ("all" sounds so much better than "five dudes.") I've been not-dealing with some psychic pain recently, and that's really blown the keeping-in-touch thing (which I'm not so hot at anyway).

Soon soon.

Love

summer summer winter spring

2007-08-12T16:30:00.000-07:00

Man, I'm ready for school to start, kind of. The new UA Poetry Center is opening this semester, and I'm really, really excited to slay in it. Right now, I'm trying to write poems around this lady's paintings, Julie Hefernan. You'll find one, above.

There have been a lot of days lately--this summer--when I've felt like I'm a waste of skin for being a poet and getting my MFA. Today, however, I feel very lucky: I get to read some of the most beautiful, life-changing books around, and then write about the meaning of life and all that crap. What could be better than being a visionary, even if no one's paying attention/you're a fake visionary?

I live here

2007-08-07T10:34:00.000-07:00

Liz Ku was in Flagstaff to help Matt move a few weeks ago, and some christian kid asked her what she's doing in Turkey, giving her the opportunity to pull some imperialistic bullshit if she wanted to--score some Private Christian College Points--but she said, perfectly, "I live there." I like that so much. One neednt move somewhere to exploit the benefits/impose one's ideas on another place--they can actually (!) become invested in the place that they live. I've never really been intentional about that in the places I've moved, sadly. I think my circumstances in life traditionally kind of dictate that when I move somewhere I actually have to invest on some level, school, work, kid, but my moves have always been easy: other parts of Arizona or California. If I went to law school in Boston or art school in Providence or New Haven, would I actually get involved or would I just be putting in my three years until I got my degree and be out? (I think this is the sort of blog post that I'd hate to read.)

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.

2007-07-31T22:11:00.001-07:00

My sin, my soul.

Life's been hard, dear reader[(s) I don't even know if it's singular anymore...]. Luckily, there's always O. and getting more ink slung. I hate moving, I hate feeling like a bastard--and I really hate how insecure I am. For those of you I haven't talked to in a piece, this schoolyear will be very different than the last, and (to continue on in the vague vein) much better/happier/more healthy. You'll all know soon enough, by voice or other sensory contact with yrs-in-the-flesh, properly. As one of my Writing School Buddies has told me over Sonora Review submissions over cheep beer (but still in a glass bottle), "Mr. Mains, you're life's like three Camus novels all at once!" I concur, dear Knuffle Bunny. Twofold.

After years of being around the cult of Aaron Coleman tattooing, I've finally waited my turn and and sat off to the left as one enters Immaculate. Yes, indeed: the inkins. Like sexual partners, you gotta keep track of how many folks have yr momma's baby's flesh (6), and finally, someone who doesn't smoke. I can't tell you how excellent this was for me: no more smokebreaks after the transfer, then after the drawing on with marker, then the setting up, then the one- two- three-hour marks, etc. Just two quick stops to hit the smartwater and my arm's lined. Boy--it's worth the wait and dough. I'll bring the proper pictures when they heal, but for now, this is what I got.

love.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

2007-06-26T01:12:00.000-07:00

This post doesn't have anything to do with him, but if you haven't yet, you sould see the biopic on him. Talked to Adam today; it was very nice and much needed. I haven't been able to do anything lately--the weight. I'm so tired.

Peanut skinny molotov cocktail

2007-06-17T23:11:00.000-07:00

I think I broke my computer. I got home tonight, weary with today's eating and such (my mom was in town to wish me a happy Father's Day, etc), and plugged in my 'puter and sure as the pure driven snow, it froze up on me. So, obviously, I went to the Sonora House to get online and try and figure out what to do. Between the ipod (pictures), and usb sticks I think that most of the most important crap is backed up, so at worst it means a new macbook (pro?) but I have not the time or energy for that crap right now. And by energy of course I mean money. I don't have the money for that crap. You see, I'm quitting my job at the end of this fiscal year, which just goes to prove that it's my first grown up job. Who says "I'm quitting my job at the end of this fiscal year" these days? Wankers, that's who. So, anyway, I'm quitting my job at the end of this fiscal year, and don't have another one until mid-August. I'm hoping (like an asshole) that my vacay/sick will take care of the rest, but I don't think it will--my excellent nephew Andrew is getting married in July and that boy's going to need money. I also happen to be starting my other arm on July 26, and that's going to cost, too. We'll see, but I've been waiting on my tattoo date for six months now, and I'm not too down to cancel. I won't have another one until September, and that will work out just fine. So, all that's to say that right now I'm sitting at Sonora, typing on a dell keyboard, a... drink, trading in some submissions that I've read at home for some unread submissions of poetry. When I got here the air was on (freezing--good to know!) and the lights were on inside and out. I expected Don to be in here ordering cactus or something, but, sure enough, nothing doing. It's nice to be an editor for something--you get to impose and censor according to your very own taste. It does make me wish that I'd find someone like me to publish my own poems, but the poems that people want to publish of mine are crap, and the ones I'm excited about get blown off by The Man. I feel pretty stupid for being a poet right now--and this whole past week, actually. I feel like I should have paid more attention in school, like I'm just a fucker that's sneaking under the radar, and once everyone finds out that I suck I'll get kicked out of school and go sling lattes for the rest of my life. I don't know what I wasn't born in Modernism--I feel so misunderstood and isolated. Like I mentioned before, my mom was in town and we had the Same Old Fight while we were all walking to Time Market to buy Onnavah a Clementine-flavored soda. My whole family thinks I'm either a joke or a Total Fucking Bastard. And, you know, for the longest time I just thought that's how life is--you struggle to pay the bills and people hate you and then something else bad happens and then you blow your brains out when you find out you have cancer. But now I'm thinking that there's something to the idea of trying to be happy. I think that for the past few years I've shied away from an existentialist practice of life. For good or ill, I've felt less in control of things, etc. I don't want to get down on being a father because O. has probably kept me from offing myself more than twice. She's the light of my life. But, I do think that she has made it more difficult to act freely. This makes me wonder if any of those existential thinkers had kids--Kierkegaard didn't, obviously: Nietzsche: no way. I think not for Camus--no to Sartre. I can't think of any of them having kids right now. This is the first time I've thought about this, but that strikes me as important. Being a father is really weird and heavy. I'll have to get back to you on this. Also, Mark Thorsby's a dad now. I miss him, and miss talking philosophy with him on walks in Flagstaff and over a wheatgrass at the hippie grocery he used to work at. I've been writing too long.

I covered my arm in orchid juice.

2007-06-12T11:44:00.000-07:00

I've been reading a bit more lately. Well, I've been reading less, actually--I should say that I've been reading more diverse books lately. Book that I want to read. I picked up some some Camus and Marcuse at the used bookstore yesterday, and I'm excited about having time to read philosophy that doesn't have 1800 buzz phrases attached to it in the English Department mail room right now. I'm reading House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski, which is a novel with multiple narrators about a house that is larger on the inside than the outside and a tattooer who's in love with a stripper that has "happiest place on earth" tattooed right at the tip top of her pussy. Her name is Thumper. One of the fiction MFAs here said that while he was reading House, he would get too scared to get up and pee. I haven't got to that part yet, but I'm hopeful. I'm also taking the time to revisit my favorite poets I've read over the past year: Frank Bidart and GM Hopkins. They're both slayers, and if you want to take a crack at some poesy, I wholeheartedly endorce either of the two. Finally, I'm reading that book about the dramatic surroundings of the creation of the OED. I can't remember what it's called, but I've wanted to read it since it came out and simply haven't had the will to spend full price for something that's not artistically-bent or canonical. (I know that's really stupid.) I found a used, tight copy last night for six dollars, and that seemed about right. It's perfect--it's nearly impossible to find an interesting, smart, easy read that one can just pick up and put down and not slip away from the narrative. And there's crazy people and murder in it. It can't be all bad. If anyone has an extra copy of the blue and brown books, please send them my way, by the way--that's on my list for the summer but I don't want to buy new. Something about reading a used philosophy book makes me feel good, especially if there's no notes.

Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset.

2007-06-02T04:49:00.000-07:00

I haven't been able to sleep tonight. Nightmares. I can see the definintion of the trees outside now. An hour ago I was walking around in complete night in yellow-tighties around the block. If there was an indie coffeehouse open right now I'd go there for a bad sugary pastery and some coffee. 18 Starbucks are opening just down the street in about one minute. But they'll be playing, godforsakenly, mid-'60s Dylan and that will make everything feel just that much more wrong. I miss this time of morning in Phoenis--it reminds me of the summer just after I graduated H.S. JJ and Adam and Tbird and I would be finishing a game of Tony Hawk at his parents house right at this time and we'd be heading to Dunkin' Donuts for a mess of chocolate longjonhs, strawberry frosted, et al, and then go to bed or build a block wall with Jens for little money and Jack in the Box breakfast sandwitches that we couldn't eat (meat). The coldest part of the day/night is just after the sun rises. Is that common knowledge? I remember driving down Scottsdale Road just after the sun came up, listening to Lonesome Crowded West in my old truck, with my shirt off, and having my nipples be a little cold and me being suprised by that fact. I also remember coming home at 4am. My dad would always be getting in the shower and I'd go downstairs into my bedroom and take off my clothes and putting on boardshorts (our house was always hot and that's all I wore in the summer months) and going back up to the kitchen to talk to him as he fed Sid a little kibble and put on his work boots. He'd say he was worried about me and I'd say I thought I'd be ok and he'd refill his coffee and head to work. I'd go back downstairs and light some candles (my room smelled like boy/poetic lighting) and punch out some shit on my typewriter until I felt tired. I always felt really close to him on those mornings when it was still twilight out. There was something about seeing him in that light that made me know that we both understood what darkness was. The way he laced up his workboots and looked at the dead grass in the yard and the way his hand heavy on my back as he left for work.

It don't matter to Jesus

2007-05-28T19:23:00.000-07:00

Hit Flagstaff this weekend: Matt and the gang. Worked on fixed gears, talked about 3-d space time, "feeling" in poetry, guitar tones we like/don't like (like: son volt; don't like: anything on the radio), and about how Cap'n Jazz had three amazing (truly amazing) guitar players in the band--and only one was a guitar player. Another snippet from Falstaff:

Sitting downtown at Late for the Train (where I used to be a barista) Bianca, Matt, and I looked out the window as we downed espresso. Across the street walked a few lame-ass faux hipster kids with the dirty white canvas shoes and slouchy shoulders. I said Hey you can't be a hipster asshole and get away with it in Flagstaff--what are those kids doing... they look like they're trying to be The Strokes or something...

...next morning I look in the free weekly Flag. rag to see that one of the guitar players from The Strokes had played in town the night before. The picture above the story positively ID'd the bastards in question as the same from the day before in downtown. Son of a bitch, I say. Son. of. a. bitch.

TBird's birdpiece: 2yearold-style

2007-05-25T01:01:00.000-07:00

I keep wanting to post to this guy and then I'll end up feeling guilty for not answering an email for work or something and I'll bail. By the time I remember that I'd wanted to post, I'm taking a crap or driving down St. Mary's or walking down the road hoping that the three womans-is giggling behind me aren't laughing at some sort of ass-sweat that's somehow soaked thru my ti-tight jeans without the mental comfort of the absorbing power of the springtime-color'd undergutchies. They're probably just laughting at something else. But maybe they aren't.

They aren't. And now I've been swimming consistantly for the first time in a few years. As a native Phonician I'm supposed to shun sunscreen (foolishly)--like it's a mark of belonging to the desert to not neet that crap. But, you know, you gotta slather that stuff on the inks and all, so I've been rolling thru it like crazy these days. Esp. in the sunny sun at the pool--if I don't put it on I become too freaked out to actually swim, like Jesus' face will somehow blot out before I get back to the locker room. And the locker room: I feel like there are some pretty standard rules that govern that world, unwritten from Roman times up until the early 1990s when the TV show Seinfield went public with them or something: you don't see anyone else in the locker room or talk to them unless the two of you are doing the same thing, i.e. both changing, both pissing, both counding the rolls on the belly. If one dude's changing and another dude's texting on a cellphone--no talking.

Well, the other day I'm changing after the old swim-thing and this dude comes up and is like, Dude, what's all that shit on your back? Is that a tat?
Yes
A real one?
Yes
Who is it?
Jesus and Judas
(To other clothed dude) Hey man, come over here and look at this dude's tat.
(Clothed Dude knows he's breaching the rule; face looking away mostly) Yeah. Cool
Did you draw that?
No
...
...
(I get tapped on the shoulder by 1st clothed guy) Hey man, nice tattoo. --the guy then reaches over to shake my hand and I'm still standing there naked.

I don't like this sort of thing.

The World means You to me

2007-04-26T20:30:00.000-07:00

Adrian is graduating college: nice job! CalBap won't be the same, nor should it be, without you. I miss you, and will try and make it out asap.

Coocher-chella is going down. I'm over it--sounds like a bunch of lame crap this year anyway. Sorry to the fans of Arctic Monkees and Bratmobile or whoever's playing. Yeah, Bjork's played-out, too, so skratch that one. What music is good anymore? I'm probably too old to know, but I have to say that many things mid-'90s were fine, fine musically. I've been thinking about this, about why this is, and I've narrowed it down to something. (I think what I'm about to say is one of my main looked-for things in music now that I've nailed it down.) I don't really think I like music that's ironic. That's why I was so into hardcore and all that midwest indierock from back then. That's probably why I've been less into the northwest music, traditionally: it had a bead on the culture, and the culture was ironic. For a long time I thought that my mid-'90s faves were looking back to non-ironic times, but now I'm beginning to see that they were really avant-garde in their tone. It's too bad that they all tired to court the mall-punk clique and had to pay the morgage with fluff. My favorite Joan of Arc stuff isn't the weirdest, or most normal-sounding: I can trace my favorite to least-favorite directly through the levels of irony in each album. Maybe that's a lie. Offically, this post marks my irrevokable foray into the land of has-beens (or never-wases). Sad day, sad day.

I know a woman (who loves me).

2007-04-23T22:45:00.000-07:00

Ah, the postmodern fractured self. Polaroid had it down in '67.

One of the dudes in my program is having a story published in Playboy here pretty soon, and he wants to tell you all about it, all the time. The program has a listserv and he ab/uses that crap to the death! I've taken the only contra-measure possible: listserving insults back his way. I'm not alone; a funny/tuff chick in the program recently photoshopped his face onto some gay porn alligator wrestler and sent it 'round. Man, I like that.

For the first time in my life I feel like I'm openly trying to deny feelings I have. It doesn't feel good. That's probably both contradictary and obvious, but if you can't be honest for the swiftly dwindling readership of your obscure blog, then who can you be honest with. At least I'm abiding by the Baptist rule of thumb: if you're being honest, be sure that you're as vague as possible. Cliche: I feel like the knuckles that have "love" and "hate" tattooed on them are pummeling my head.

I'm really getting more and more into the polaroids these weeks. When you've got a daughter that's damn cute and (don't) have a love that's damn into polaroids, that always helps. "You're ready for a flickr account." Eh, I'd rather be ready for you, you.

"How do you want to motivate that in terms of speaker?"

2007-04-18T16:12:00.000-07:00

Man, the ovester's almost over. While Paul Chapman has been lamenting AIMS because he's a teacher, and that test is really a test he takes twice-removed through his students, the same test keeps me out of schools, giving me a (semi-)break. It's, like, totally that ying-yang thing or something.

I've started swimming laps again. And by swim laps I mean try not to embarass myself in front of the unreasonable amount of attractive college gals with only one of two strings tied to their bikini top who happen to be greased down and blondie by the pool at school. I think the farmer tan and tattoos end up working against that purpose, unfortunately.

Polaroids: they're making a revival in Josephland. Onnavah is a good model, and magic hour in spring proves condusive to my schedule, so thus and thus it goes. There's some nature crap I've been taking, too, but that's because Tucson's pretty pretty. It never stops killing me how much different Tucson is from Phoenis. The cooling at night-thing that most deserts do so well is in effect here, and I can't believe how much more beautiful that makes the desert. Even when it's asphalt-hot during the day (especially in my uniform: black t-shirts--deep v-neck granted--), at night it's still jacket time. And there's something to be said for feeling hot-in-the-cowboy boots and cool wind in the hair at sunset while looking at the--whatever gay shit I was about to say...--those hot girls at the pool.

I can't wait for school to be out. I'm dying in there.

There's no 666 in outer space

2007-04-12T23:07:00.001-07:00

Greetings from the underside:
Saw Hella play last night. I am suprised and saddened to report back to home base that the show sucked: they sounded unlike two-person Hella that I've come to love; they sounded unlike five-person Hella (which is to say 2nd rate Mars Volta, or Mars Volta with jobs (maybe that's 1st rate Mars Volta and Mars Volta's been Volta'd)). Instead of any of those acceptable outcomes from their expensive amps and mutilated drums, I got crappy sound and a bunch of small-town American Apparel employees leaning tuff against the wall trying to figure out why just because everything '80s is new again doesn't mean you dress as though you're actually still live in the '80s. (Hate those guys.)
I'm dying to get tattooed again. The me in the crow's nest spots some dates in late July for a new sleeve, but I don't think I can wait that long. It's too long, right?
It's been so long since I've posted on here. I bet my readership of four has dwindled to me checking back on my own blog to see if anything's happened since I've been away. Sadly, nothing usually does.
I bet Matt Salusky has had a kid by now. Mark Thorsby, too. Drop me a line, anyone, if you've got a minute between term papers and doinkin' that special someone.

J

Instrumental Post

2007-03-13T14:00:00.000-07:00

Bodies give way but spirit does not give way.

2007-03-03T22:53:00.000-08:00

It's been quite some time. I'm not doing that well, I hear. I saw Deerhoof tonight, which was awesome. Find them if you haven't yet. I'm supposed to be in Atlanta for a conference right now, but I'm not, and that sucks. At the show two things happened: 1. I almost fought some asshole who tried making fun of me for my chestpiece and v-neck tshirt; 2. the girl next to him asked me if I was at the show all alone. I didn't have anything super witty to say to the asshole except for grabbing his arm and shaking my head in a threatening way that would probably be more threatening coming from someone who didn't have curly black hair and a pink deep v-neck and big glasses, but to the girl who asked me if I was all alone at the show I said, Baby, I'm a poet; I'm alone no matter what. I think that made her want to have my indie baby, but it also made her shut up so I could hear the show. People, man. They're just f ing everywhere.

Color Me Blood Red

2007-02-12T20:49:00.000-08:00

"Love's just a word to get into people's panties."
"I should know, I've committed it in my heart."

My greatest ambition in life is to become immortal, and then die.

2007-02-08T10:11:00.000-08:00

Well, it seems like only snow and being sick slows me enough to post these days. It's 75 and sunny, so you know what that means. Haven't had much good to post lately, and it seems like a lot of people (meaning 3 of the 5) that usually look my way have been out of comission, too. Still been watching a lot of Godard films. I've tried making it thru Weekend (1967) about nine times now, but haven't seen the end once. Bridget Bardot is really hot in Contempt, and that's a good one, anyway. One word of advise: if you're into cars, you won't be into Godard--if anyone dies in his movies, there's a car involved: no two ways about it. Nothing else doing. Just dying, in the Sylvia Plath Tibettan philosophy sort of way. Nothing. Existed.

Sno Day!

2007-01-22T08:41:00.000-08:00

After a meager amount of sleep last night, after a late night of work, I woke, freezing my little nads off, took a shower, got dressed for work, button-up style, grabbed a coffee and heard on the news that the schools I was supposed to visit today were closed for a snow day. Good job, God!

My Life To Live (1962)

2007-01-13T13:09:00.000-08:00

Anyone ever seen this film? I don't know why I never had before, but it's probably going to be in my all-time top five after I watch is eight more times. If you're at all into cool films, find it sometime. To be fair, I've been in a '60s French Film mood lately, so if you're not up for that sort of thing on a normal day, wait until you're in a '60s French Film mood yourself. I will also point, again, expressly, to my firm belief that it's good enough to not have to wait for said mood to arise, so-maybe this weekend!

My tattoo guy isn't working at a tattoo shop anymore. I don't have all the inside scoop, but for now, it looks like there's only two tattooers at the old standby, Immaculate. I actually do like Rick's stuff, up in Cottonwood, and his black&grey in particular, but I feel like I have specific expectations that might not mesh that well with the way he seems to express himself with artistic whims: I just want to be a little more in control than I'd feel with him. Maybe I'm wrong-do tell.

School has begun, I'm exhausted: got tons of cool books assigned this semester, paid more than I wanted to pay for all those cool books, so hopefully I'll read every page of them, getting my money's worth. Lately, as in the past three months, I've been so into the poetry of Frank Bidart that nothing else matters. That's an overstatement, but for all you boys and girls who shy away from poetry but like the deep crap, his book Star Dust is the most moving book I've read since The Unbearable Lightness of Being, in December of 2000. No shit. Now, sure, I've read more amazing books in the past six years, but nothing has pointedly changed my life in such a way as Star Dust. Impress you friends and lovers by buying a book of poetry that's actually good.

It's cold, but my heater's working. It's cold, but I like it.

I want to see you weak / as I am

2007-01-07T19:44:00.000-08:00

I don't have anything to say. It's cold. I've been reading Jay's blog a lot lately, and if you out there haven't been reading it, you should. For Christmas I got all black slip on vans and a wine magazine. Lately, it's been neck tattoos for me. I don't really think I'll have the brass for the side-necker, but maybe someday...

I don't do too much talkin' these days. These days.

2007-01-06T11:36:00.000-08:00

The coffee at my house isn't all that great these days. These days, I hate to say it, but the crappy hookah/espresso lounge where you're most likely to hear six different languages in 30 minutes in Tucson actually pulls the best espresso in town. Don't get me wrong, they don't have anywhere near the best coffee beans or drip coffee or anything else, they just know how to pull a proper espresso. Actually, I'm pretty sure they use some vaccum-drum Itallian crap that's not Lavazza or Illy--which is nice, since Lavazza is way too winey for me, and Illy just isn't my thing at all. Still, though, these days, I'd like to be able to go somewhere low-key, without euro dance music playing and jocks puffing on the hookah. School and work start offically on Monday and Wednesday, respectively. I'm not ready. I'd like a few days of not talking to anyone, riding the bicycle out on the town to the park and espresso bar and what ever. It's cool out, but the sun is bright and, with a sweater on, it's enough to cook your insides just enough to keep you out in the beautiful Sonoran January. Also, unfortunately, I've lost my tattoo artist, at least for now, so if you've got a good one and want to see me, shoot me an email and maybe I can visit. These days,

I like seeing you cold like that.

Today's a Perfect Day for a Bananafish

2007-01-04T07:56:00.000-08:00

I go back to work on Monday, and School starts Wednesday: the winter reading list is looking pretty shabby, I'm looking pretty shabby--to say nothing of how I feel, but it's a crisp 39 degrees outside right now, with the sun bright as bloody hell. I think I'll go for a bike ride that has a midpoint stop at a coffee shop. It's cold enough to where, when you're working hard, your breathing gets little sharp lacerations down your windpipe when you suck in air. Really dry feeling. I kind of like that feeling. It reminds me of what one of the teachers here at writing school said to another student the other day. He said: I like seeing you cold like that. You know, for me, that's really deep. I've been writing it over and over in my journals and on scraps of paper that miracle themselves into my periphery. Also, it's just cold enough to where you start working up a pretty nice sweat, but as soon as you stop riding--by the time the bike's locked up twice over, proper-style--you've stopped sweating. At least I stop, those sweaters out there, you know, the ones you hope never get a job in the kitchen of your favorite place to eat because they'll be concentrating on making your grilled cheese just so, then, just as it's plated, they feel the huge bead of sweat on their forehead that they've been wanting to wipe but couldn't because they were touching your food, they feel its gravity abandon the world of their head, plunging toward the pull of the earth. That would normally be fine, but it just so happens that between the earth and the sweat is your perfectly plated grilled cheese, and bam: that shit's going in your mouth, whether you will ever taste it or not. Yeah, those guys probably don't stop sweating as quickly.

I like seeing you cold like that.

I'm calling off falls from Grace

2007-01-01T20:13:00.000-08:00

Alright. 2007, huh? Mens, I don't know how this year will go, but I hope to see all of you in it. We've been in the Phoenis up until today. It was intense, it was warmer than Tucson--by a lot, actually--and, more than anything, I'm glad that I'll be sleeping in my own bed tonight: that's been too long, too. We drove in to town today and the sun was so bright and warming.

I'd like to find a good turtleneck sweater that's, obviously, black. If any of you have seen one lately, let me know where to look.

love_

Ho Ho Hoes: I like them.

2006-12-24T17:37:00.000-08:00

Happi Holidaze, folks. The good time will come, I hear.

Easier to drink on an empty stomach than eat on a hroken beart

2006-12-21T16:56:00.000-08:00

Been playing drums for the past hour with Onnavah. Pretty cool. It's cold in Arizona. I warmed up a tortilla and ate it the other morning and the whole time it was just steaming like a bastard. So much steam. It had a lot of seamin. Speaking of, it's been a while since I've shaved my balls; I need to get on that. I haven't shaved my face in a while, either. I'd been doing a lot of shaving recently, but I'm taking a break until, I think, January 3rd or 4th or so. The problem with the skinny jeans being hip is that you can't really wear cowboy boots well. What, you can put the jeans into the boots, but you'd better have the fancy kind then. You could maybe just pull them over the boots, but that would be retarded. You could cuff them really high, but still a little over the boot, and that's worst of all. On top of it, the only dude who I've seen come even close to pulling off skinny jeans while still looking like a man is Adam, but his were Nudies, and they were probably straight legs, and they were so cool you're allowed to do anything you want while you wear them. It's Thursday so it's free day at the Art Museum. I'm hittin' that, so I'll see you all later.

Blood Orange Review 1.5

2006-12-17T16:24:00.000-08:00

find a poem of mine online: go here http://www.bloodorangereview.com/v1-5/mains_jesus.htm

I ain't never been the type to show off in the club...

2006-12-14T08:36:00.000-08:00

I'm going to Jerome, Arizona today to drink espresso. On the way I think I'll hit the Pita Jungle for the eats and the old times' sake. This is a picture of a few kids from writing school down here in Tucson. I miss all you guys the tons, and if any of you feel like I might not have your post address, please email it to me: I'm getting ready to send out the holiday cards, and the six of you here are the six people I want to be sending cards to, so hop on that crap!

love

I want the quiet moments of a party girl

2006-12-09T15:26:00.000-08:00

The fam is out of town, so I'm living the solo life. I watched my nephew at a gymnastics compition this morning. It was at school, and I got to walk him there, so I pointed out where I work and everything. It was probably pretty boring, but you never know what little dudes will remember when they get older, so I figure you do what you can. I've been riding my bike around a lot, and eating those awesome prepackaged Indian dishes that you just heat up and eat. Well, that and tortillas and fried eggs and tons of peppers.

Over on Lovato's blog he's got this thing. Since I'm a bookslut, I did it, eventhough I don't normall do that sort of thing.
The rules are:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next four sentences on your blog, along with these instructions.
5. Don’t you dare dig for that “cool” or “intellectual” book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest!

Fortunately for me, I'm in the grad school, too, so I've got a sweet book of poetry literally sitting on my lap right now--I'm trying to memorize a section from it. Book title: Paradise Lost. Author: Milton. Here we go.

O Adam, one Almighty is, from whom
all things proceed, and up to him return,
if not deprav'd from good, created all
such to perfection, one first matter all

The budding bard

2006-12-05T21:33:00.000-08:00

Man, my number one goal for the Baby Jesus Birthday Break is to take a crazy daytrip to the best espresso machine in Arizona. And when I step up and in to the Flat Iron Cafe in Jerome, I'll slap down a 20 spot, order an espresso, and say, "Keep 'um coming, man." If I go, I'll take the 89 the back way, through Prescott and up and over the mountain to the other side, descending into Jerome. The first time I drove to Jerome without my dad (i.e. the first time I really remember Jerome) was in December, and it was really depressing and awesome. I think I'll listen to the sad shit on the radio (read: Starflyer 59, the gold album), and make the drive silently and alone. That's when all the slop comes back from the years...

cars-R-coffins

2006-12-02T16:10:00.000-08:00

I'm thinking of a word that begins with U.

2006-11-30T16:47:00.000-08:00

Just turned in my big paper for the semester on quantum physics blah blah blah. Haven't slept much in the past few days. Can't wait for winter vacation. Bought a car yesterday in Chandler. Our old car's clutch went out on the way back to Tucson: good timing. Almost enough to prove the existence of God. Almost.
I get the darking feeling that I'm going to be the asshole that washes his car every Saturday now. This fact is balanced for me by the fact that I'm also going to be the asshole that can buy his family a car that won't crap the sack or get them killed in any accident. Such is the torrent!

Mates of State

2006-11-27T10:08:00.000-08:00

Saw 'um last night. It was only a few songs--I got tied up and was late to the show--but those few songs had value. I don't own any of their records because I'm not The Gay, but I've seen them live more than twice, and each time I love it. I hate to sound so old, but they totally rock and roll when they play live, and since their sound is reasonably thin--I mean, only two people bangin' on things at a time--it makes the rock factor even more fun for me. And they both really belt out their words, which I'm a sucker for. The next show I'm excited to see might be Some Girls. Don't have any of their stuff either, but their "ex-members of" credit are more than worth the cost of admission.
Here's a picture of my clavicle. Eventually it may be just a little more fancy, but I'm going to give it some time before I decide for sure. With the way I've been going, though, "some time" pretty much means "once this heals, I've already scheduled an appointment." Not the best picture, but it says, "Grace grows in winter," which is from Strongarm's second album, Advent of A Miracle. This was probably the best sitting I've ever had with Jason, and I think it came out really, really nicely.
Thanksgiving was a holiday I went to this past week. It's over now.
Onnavah turns two tomorrow. She thinks she's pretty cool for it. She's got me convinced.
Go for it!

The difference between a hand raising and a hand raised

2006-11-20T07:41:00.000-08:00

Because, obviously, a sleeve isn't enough, I'm getting some script on my chest (sorry Adam!) tomorrow, and getting the rest of my arm finished. We'll be running around for Turkey Genocide Day, and the week surrounding it, but we hope to be in Phoenis long enough to drop in on the friends, so, hopefully you'll be there--all of you. It's going to be in the high 80s today in Tucson; I hope, at least, the weather in all our hearts is dank and darking.

Until you fall dark asleep.

2006-11-18T11:42:00.000-08:00

Men and Women--music has been so exciting to me lately. I'm writing from the sofa in our living room, and, sitting here, it occurs to me that it's the first time I've sat down here since I went to Brooklyn. It's not like our house is big, it's not like there are tons of places to sit, I just haven't sat down here. That's, maybe, a silly detail to write about, but this Saturday feels like a good day to be sitting on a sofa. It's not too hot, it's bright cheery all over, O. is taking a nap, L. is shopping, I'm spinnin' the hardcore jams--and I just saw this awesome video on youtube of the University of Arizona marching band covering Radiohead for their halftime show.
Yesterday I had some amazing goat cheese, green chile scones, bahari dates, and a persimmon all at once. I'll be damned if hell tastes anything like that. For now, the farmers' market on Fridays at school is as close to hell as I can get away with, eventhough I've been wearing quite a bit of black clothing lately. Yes, yesterday was a sexy day, it was.

Employee #666

2006-11-15T15:49:00.000-08:00

It's been too long.

2006-11-14T15:39:00.000-08:00

Still recovering from New York--yesterday was a long one: woke up at 5am (AZ time) and didn't sleep till 3.45am, then was back crackin' at 7.30 this morning. I had a great, great time, and want to give the shout to Adam and Jay--I love you dudes, and it (as my mom would say) did my heart so well to see you. Yeah, maybe you guys have me convinced (without even trying at all) to try and start a band with you out there, but you also made me feel like I can make it through the semester out in Tucson. I loved every second of it. You're awesome.

A little made-up town with its own topography.

2006-11-12T19:24:00.000-08:00

I keep going back and forth: would it be capital A amazing to be a poet in New York, or would it be a crusher? Obviously, its the center of the literary world, so that's a vote in the right direction, but I'm not so sure I'd love it. There's stimuli up the cornhole out here; way too many excuses to write. A visit is good, though: you don't have enough time to get hard, but it reminds you that there's hard things and people out there, and you get exposed to a little of that, and that's good. Adam and Jay's neck of the old woods, in particular, is exceptional. I'd give away one of my nuts to live here if they weren't already spread and promised a little too thin as it is. I'm really, really glad to be able to visit them, though. And, also, it will be really nice to be back in Tucson. Ah, crap--I really said that, didn't I? Man, I hate to admit it, but Tucson is getting more of me than I've been prepared to give. Our own little spot out there is really, really nice, and I love that I can walk about anywhere I want to go (except I'm too lazy to walk to my office--you gotta draw the line). Sure, you can't find a vintage pin-striped YSL jacket at the corner vintage store for 15$, but that's why you make sure one of your best friends lives in an orgasmic city, right? OK, I'm going to go pretend to try to write some poesy.

Food is gross.

2006-11-11T16:29:00.000-08:00

Rocked a pretty nice walk through the city today with Adam, Jay, and Heather. Adam and I each picked up some fake Rolex action on Canal, chewed the fat, which was nice, and then walked back over the Williamsburg Bridge into Brooklyn. My legs are tired and all; I think I'm going to size my watch and hit a movie or something. Good day, good day.

Your pretty voice and green my eyes.

2006-11-10T13:18:00.000-08:00

This will have to be a quicky. Sorry to pull yet another poor lyrical quote, but last night my air taxi was late late late; when I got on my feet couldn't awake and a fat man kept a knee in my back until the sun rose of Sharon. As they say: No sleep till Brooklyn. I'm trying to hit a quick dognap, but this bitch, Stella, the French bulldog, is nothing if not a shitstorm in the sac. Men and Women: she snores worse than Brad Rhoades. I say again, She snores worse than Brad Rhoades.

Explain water to the fish.

2006-11-09T22:56:00.000-08:00

Sitting in the airport, I just finished a paper idea for a class, tried to get tickets to see one of my professors read this weekend in NYC (in point of fact, the same professor my paper idea is for), and decided that there's another stupid job I'm probably going to apply for.
My arm is tattooed and almost healed. After she lent rolls all the scabbies off the bed and all I'll show you the nearly-finished result.
I really wish that Converge would have put the vocals a little higher in the old mix on this new one. While they're at it, I wouldn't mind being able to hear them on You Fail Me, too. I don't know... maybe I'm just becoming deaf.

From the top of the parking garage to the making of The Soup.

2006-11-07T20:08:00.000-08:00

I've been spinnin' this new Tom Yorke album a lot the past two days, and I'm stoked about that crap. I kind of hoping that music will keep my mind off life for a few weeks, until I can stop caring or stop being a breathing, sucking piece of crap. So far, so good!
Also, I hit the photography museum here at school today. It was a bunch of b/w portraits of these working poor in the West from like '79-82. Everyone had really haunting eyes in the photos. I felt like some of them were entering my consciousness, peering into my spirit, and I felt a little afraid that they'd tell someone what they saw. Good thing they're all probably dead by now!
Also, last night was beautiful. I had green tea while the sun set and it got a little cold, and I tried to find words to say what I was thinking, but all I could do was laugh. The ripple of the setting light is still bothering me tonight.

We neither hide nor seek.

2006-11-06T19:39:00.000-08:00

Ah, shit, friends... the world is a heavy place. When I took my first tattoo, I got "more weight" put on me, in a way, to kind of paraphrase a line I really love by the Florida hardcore band from the 90s called New Day Rising--"ca'mon motherf'er, bring on the pain..." but more poetic, etc. Sure, I thought, I can handle anything! I'm an existentialist! Bring it! Well, I still really, really love my little inky-poos, but who would ever *ask* for all that crap? Dude, an 18 year-old--that's who.
By the by, though, I almost got my arm finished last night. As you may or may not know, there will exist some red highlights on the old sleeve, and we didn't get those done, but all the rest is finished. I'll be sure to post some photos once everything smoothes out and heals up. Man, I'm tired. I hope everyone out there is hanging in there. I'm hitting the NY this weekend, so lock up the china and hide yr virgins! Has anyone heard the new Converge? I just picked it up and am stoked to take it for a spin.

I'm certainly not pleased with my options

2006-11-03T23:00:00.000-08:00

Well, tonight I read my long poem at Casa Libre (see link to right), and it was weird. I haven't really ever put into words exactly why I'm trying to write this poem, but it's kind of coming from an emotional (suprise!) place, I guess. While I was kind of introducing what I thought the poem was about it just kind of occured to me how little I've dealt with JJ and our history. So, before I even had a chance to hit them with the poem, I was hitting them with the ultra-emo introduction to the poem, which, for tonight, was called, A Portable Model of How Memory Works. For you non-Joan of Arc fags out there, that's basically me ripping off the title of their first concept album(s) and calling it my own. I think it's ok to rip that crap, and it's almost definately working for the poem, etc. So I actually think the reading went ok or whatever. I mean, I didn't kill myself or anything, and that's supposed to be a good sign, right?
I have recorded the reading of the poem, so if I can figure out how to post it or send it to anyone who may want a copy, I'll do that. If you're really interested, I'll email you a copy of the poem with a cd of my reading it, if you want. It's just under fifteen minutes on iTunes, etc. Spellcheck is gone again--sorry. --j

So many people seem to know about money; why is it these same people can't understand Christ?

2006-10-31T20:25:00.000-08:00

...Straight from the new Joan of Arc album. Cutting, insightful, funny, brilliant. I had my workshop for this long poem I'm working on today. I'm never sure how those things go at first, but I'm slowly learning how little these workshops matter in the larger scope of things. And, interestingly, the term "workshop" that we use to call our classes in writing school comes from Michelangelo, when he'd gather together a small group of his best students and they'd just make shit out of iron together, talk about eachother's crap, and maybe support eachother a bit. I guess that's what we do here, but I don't like the name "workshop" and I calling it "writing school" is funny, but inaccurate--they don't teach you writing at all. They just put you with other writers at varying levels and let you hash it out with everyone, let you read a lot, and let you feel sheltered by the academy so you can work to develop your art and experiment. That being the case, today I proprosed to another MFAer here that the program simply be called "buddy time." Because that's really the point: hang out with other wanna-be writers and make up stupid stories while you screw eachother in the student lounge and at the library, tell crappy grammatical jokes, and drop names of critical theory bastards, etc.
So, yeah, buddy time is the best thing ever!

Happy 1984 and 2006

2006-10-29T10:05:00.000-08:00

Ah, it's Sunday, I'm tired, everyone else is napping. I've got the Arizona Cardinals game (really?) on mute on the tv, I'm hitting the homework, and rocking Cowboy Junkies (really?) on the headphones. It's overcast and the air is kind of thick, like when you're right near the ocean, and it smells like rosemary and honeybees around our house.

Thin kids get a skinny neck hex (heads hang heavy)

2006-10-27T09:47:00.000-07:00

This will be my first weekend in Tucson in a month, and it will be another month before I get a weekend here again. There are all the parties and crap this weekend for halloween, and I was planning on dressing up like one of the kids here in the program, but I'm now going to have to purchase Crocs for the thing--thought I'd be able to borrow a pair--and cut my hair into a bad, two-tone fauxhawk to pull it off. I think I'm just tired enough that a little trip to the Target for those shoes is enough to deter any funny stuff. By the way, sorry I've been subjecting everyone to all these near-naked shots of myself lately; I don't know what that's about.

Who's Afraid of Elizabeth Taylor?

2006-10-25T10:46:00.000-07:00

The wife and kid are rocking the Phx today and tomorrow, and I'd like to think that translates into sleeping in, being able to work quietly at home, et al, but in reality it only means that I won't feel bad for being gone all day doing crap. It's only been an hour or two and I'm already 116 pages into a book that I'm presenting on tomorrow that I should have finished a week ago. Now, this is more to fulfill some stupid fantasy than for a real practical purpose, but I'm half-seriously considering spending the night in the library with a thermos of coffee, a laptop, and maybe--just to make it even more poetic and grad. school--some booze in the coffee or something. Yes, that would be all the college I can be.

I hope to get my arm finished on November 4. If that happens I'll post pictures after it heals. I'm ready for it to be finished. I can see The End of The Semester Light at the end of the tunnel. The fam. will be hitting the Oregon Trail to visit while I have finals week. This will be excellent--I'll get all my crap done without distraction and won't have to feel bad about the Laugherys being skipped over this holiday season. Jeez. Everything's just so easy in the abstract!

Let's Wrestle

2006-10-23T19:38:00.000-07:00

Man o man o. I've been really into all this super sloppy early Joan of Arc crap, and American Football, and, please don't tell anyone, that Bright Eyes drivel, too, a little bit. Because I'm a vage, I think that I'll attribute it to the season Fall. Every fall, man, same five or six albums, just looping over eachother. Bring on the v-neck sweaters, bring on the bottles of wine and the typewriter!

On a non-emo note (so feel free to check out if you need to at this point--it might get quasi-polotical, here, for a moment), I went around touring the schools that I will be working at for my new jobie job. There are five of them, all featuring, prominantly, at-risk students that Len Munsil doesn't even know exist, and if he did, he's dig up some Agent Orange and spray it on the mashed potatoes for their lunch. These kids are pretty much societial throw-aways, and my new job is to go in to their schools and teach them how to write, and, more imporntantly, to let them know that college is something real, and tangable, and something that they can realistically make their own. In one of the schools we visited today, the three of us (our guide, me, the other dude that has my job) spoke spanish exclusively while at the school. And, you know, you're not supposed to speak spanish to the kids because they are there to learn english and all, but, damn, what the hell do you do when they seriously don't speak a lick? Well, you say, Screw this noise, and speak to them in spanish and find out that they're really sweet kids and you help them figure out how to use the Shortcut for Save As on Word so they can back up their story on disk. I'm pretty excited about trying to make a difference with some of these kids--just when I felt I had broken free from Idealism and embraced the darking dark of nothingness, I end up being the chick teacher in Dangerous Minds or whatever, trying to make a difference in the face of the gears of the killing machine (keep turning keep turning).

OK, back to sap-rock, mid-90s style. You got such a pretty voice, but you gotta get so/fucked up to-o sing...

When I was in prison, you bought me cigarettes every day.

2006-10-21T07:04:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I'm up right now. It feels so, so early, but it's probably the latest I've slept in this week. Last night I went to a poetry reading for school (as in, students from my school read their crap) at Casa Libre (which you can check out on the links). Afterward a few people stayed on to hang out with the couple who own/run the place, most of them drinking drinks and complaining about the cold. I have the distinct feeling that drinking around most of the people in the program will get me in a world of dramatic, lame, pain--and I'm getting tattooed today--so I keep the water with bubbles in green glass around most of the time. There was a fat cat that only sits on the laps of people whom are allergic to cats, and I found myself brushing her off me more than once. People kept coming to the back, where we were, that we didn't know, but knew the runners of the place, and when they started stripping down to hop in the spa, we knew our time had come.

Off to Club Congress, where like 1/2 the program was drinking and complaining about their girlfriends, who were about fifteen feet away from them, laughing about how they have their boyfriends dialed in to the point where they almost, almost, feel bad. One of the boyfriends said that a random girl at the place was so hot, and had legs so long, blah blah blah, and just gave her the long drunk stare until I gave him a great pickup line: "Dude, go up to her and say, 'you know why the yankees always win? because of the pinstripes'" and then you can talk about how her legs are winners for their pinstripes, too. Surprisingly, he went right over and did this. Not surprisingly, it didn't work at all, his girlfriend saw, and he had to go home while she stayed out with The Girls.

The point of all this was to say that I had to walk around for an hour and a half after I had wanted to get home because I was supposed to get a ride from someone and it ended up being a little more involved than anyone wants a ride home to be. Keys lost, dramatic drunk people, a cellphone turned off--standard Friday night fare. I'm home safely, thankyou, and tired. The coffee should be done brewing, and that's my cue.

(me) plural

2006-10-19T23:55:00.000-07:00

For better or (most likely) worse, I bought a denim jacket yesterday while out shopping for secondhand sportcoats for my new jobie-job. I've always wanted, but had better sense than, to rock the denim suit with the black crap underneath--you know, shoes, shirt, etc., but I'm probably not a hard-enough man for it. Eh, I'm doing it, and it's Tucson, so it can't really matter that much anyway.

For the longest time I've been a prude about buying records--I think it's actually called having a family--but things have come out and I've hit the listening station or whatever and that's been the end of that. It's probably like having a subscription to Maxim or some crap and being married: sure you can look and be whatever it is you want to be, but it's not going to help you in any meaningful way. You can't donk the plastic chicks, and you can't get it in limited-edition, colored vinyl (unless you're BJ#2 and vinyl just miracles itself to you--sometimes, man, sometimes...). Speaking of that guy, man, he's got a class down here on Mondays but I haven't seen him yet. I don't know what getting a PhD is like, so I'm definitely not complaining that he hasn't returned my calls, but I'm kind of complaining, too. And by calls I'm pretty sure I mean I called him once and didn't try again because I hate the telephone more than stepdads hate the proverbial red-headed one of the bunch.

What I'm trying to say is that I'm excited to buy the new Make Believe album this weekend. Then I'm excited to see them play on November 5th. I know there are a bunch of other records I'm really excited about getting, but when you open up the first Maxim in a long time, you gotta just sort of start out slow--a few pages at a time--working your way up to the really really hot one at the very back or something. If you don't, you just go on overload and the album never has time to unfold its potential. Man, I can't believe I wrote this much. For some reason when I get this tired an odd reserve of energy comes on just as I settle in to home. It's probably just the life of a jean-jacket wearing mothafucka.

Steinway and Hemingbeck

2006-10-18T07:37:00.000-07:00

I've been, for the past week, taking a picture of my face every day. I want to keep this up for a month at least, and see if I can learn anything about myself by looking into my spirit or whatever. I've always wanted to take a close-up polaroid of all of my close friends where they just look in to the camera and expose themselves. I think it's kind scary and sexy--that might be pretty lame or sick-sounding.

Right now I'm reading a book called Animals in Translation, about this retarded chick that can talk to dogs. The book as a concept is pretty crazy interesting, but the chick writes like she couldn't care less. I don't think you have to be "a writer" to write well--it's probably just the opposite most of the time. If you have personality, you're probably worth reading; but if all you do is talk with dogs it's probably a let down to have to spell it all out for us humans.

How can I love you if you don't lay down?

2006-10-16T07:08:00.000-07:00

I spent the majority of the weekend in Flagstaff with my brother, Daniel, and it was pretty nice. We stopped by my dad's place the first day, shot the crap, walked the woods, then his new wife Phyllis (Phyl for short) fried up some squirrels for dinner. Dan tried to steal the two boca burgers I had on my plate, but that silly idea was roundly squished with no hesitation. I spent the rest of the weekend talking with Matt about philosophy. It was very interesting and challenging, but not very uplifting at all. We've actually been dreading some of the same problems, but from different approaches, and it was wierd to see where we diverged. Suprisingly enough, the past two weeks have been the first time that I've ever really been taking my own, original, philosophical notes in a journal. I'm pretty positive they're worthless, but it's nice to pretend, I guess.

In other news, the literary journal Blood Orange Review has taken one of my poems for publication. It's an online journal, so I'll link that crap up when the time comes. It's a small journal, but this early in the game it's almost impossible to get out of the slushpile, and having more publication credits will help that in the future. This is a start. Spellcheck isn't working, hmmm.

Post Coitus Rock

2006-10-12T12:21:00.000-07:00

I have a new, grownup, job. I don't know much about it--I get to kind of make it up as I go--but it should be interesting and rewarding. Man, you go from being a jobless, sonofabitch grad student who drinks coffee and doodles in a notebook all day to wearing a tie and having the money for all the tattoos you want in a day. It doesn't cover up existential crisis, but it's nice to know that rent's covered. I'll tell you more as I learn more.

Grace grows in winter.

2006-10-10T21:25:00.000-07:00

Five bucks to the first person to comment on where the subject line comes from (if you have their lyrics tattooed on your body, you're disqualified--even if they're hidden under monster-flesh on your back!). I'll send check, or well-hidden cash, your choice.

I've been feeling the weight of existence lately. I think that's a good thing, but, without trying to sound dramatic, I'm hoping that it will lead to a greater understanding of how to live life. That still sounds dramatic, but, really, I think I'm just being challenged emotionally and artistically. We all do it at different times in life, and when it comes to me, I gotta say I hit the mid-90s hardcore that we all know and love, go for a run and pretend that I'm jumping over Brad Rhoades and pointing along to an Overcome show or something. A test, a trial...

NYC--yeah you know me!

2006-10-07T08:05:00.000-07:00

alright guys, i'm excited to see you. i'm going to new york.

Back in black, saggy sack, boy that's wack

2006-10-06T17:13:00.000-07:00

Ah, weekend. It feels so damn good. Put on the cowboy boots, light a cigar, go for a walk--but never too far.

Xanadu--so can you!

2006-10-05T07:27:00.000-07:00

Man, having a kid can be pretty cool. Sure, sometimes they crap their pants, but you get over that quickly. Just keep them away from the vinyl--you know, love can only extend to cover so many things...