RUST is a FIRE

PROSPECTIVE PROJECT

2009-12-30T06:46:00.001-08:00

Wow. I have been failing at updating lately! Anyway, I finally forced myself to write something tonight. I wrote it while half asleep, so don't judge. I'm trying to decide if I should continue it and make it a longer story (probably novella-ish in length), or if I should just give up now. I have a few ideas of what to do with the plot, but this is obviously a very rough beginning. I would really appreciate some feedback!

UNTITLED PROSE

It was winter and I was not used to driving in the snow. Horror stories of cars skidding across black ice and careening into trees kept replaying in my mind as I tried to navigate the slippery, winding road through the mountains. I didn’t know what black ice looked like, or if you could even see it, so I was entrusting my life to the four-wheel drive of my rented SUV. Niku was meowing angrily in her carrier and making unpleasant gulping noises every time the car lurched over a bump in the road. I cursed with every fiber of my being whoever decided to build a fucking town up here, and my great aunt for choosing to spend the rest of her days there.

I finally made my way through the canyon and the mountains shortly after darkness had fallen, and the terrain began to flatten out a bit. I was entering Heber City, where my great aunt Dina had been living for the last eleven years. She, for whatever reason, whole-heartedly believed that the mountain air was “rejuvenating,” and chose to stay in Heber City, of all places, long after the rest of our family had moved to California. As it turned out, that mountain air had done nothing to prevent her from getting a cancer that doctors discovered too late to cure.

Niku, who continued to meow incessantly, was relentless. She had done much travelling in her life but never seemed to get used to it. Nevertheless, I wasn’t prepared to spend two and a half months alone with Aunt Dina, who was more or less a stranger and a famously grouchy old lady.

“Sorry Niku. Had to do it,” I said out loud. I sometimes forgot to catch myself before speaking to cats as if they were people.

Not only did Aunt Dina have to live in a small, isolated mountain town, but she apparently had to live on the outskirts of such a place, too. She probably needed to be as close to the mountains as possible, or some other crock of shit like that. After getting slightly lost a few times, I located her cabin at last. From the outside, it looked too big for someone living alone, but it wasn’t enormous either. I remembered the previous and only time I had been there, which had been on a family trip when I was nine. I had liked it then, but probably only because I was allowed to bring my best friend along. This time I only had Niku, who would likely get bored of me as soon as we settled in.

Not wanting to make two trips, I somehow managed to grab hold of my luggage, Niku’s carrier, and my guitar case all at once. I hoped to God I didn’t slip on the ice.

I rang the doorbell and realized for the first time I was nervous.

As I stood on the doorstop for what seemed like an obscenely long time, I watched as my breath turned to fog and my nose and fingers turned to ice. I rang it again just to be sure, but as soon as I did, the door opened.

“Don’t be rude! Jesus, I was right here,” said Aunt Dina, clearly very irritated by my impatience. She looked about as excited to see me as I was to see her. After greeting me (albeit uncongenially), she looked me up and down added gruffly, “Oh, you brought a cat. Make sure it doesn’t piss on my things.”

I assured her that Niku was completely litter box trained, but she was no longer paying attention. “Put your stuff in there,” she said, already halfway down the hall with her arm pointing at what I assumed would be my room. I darted into the bedroom and set everything down, including Niku, who began meowing loudly again as I headed into the kitchen after Aunt Dina.

“This is the kitchen, obviously,” she said once I caught up to her. She moved amazingly fast for someone who walked so slowly (and, as it seemed, half-heartedly). “I have chicken and beef in the fridge, but not much else.”

I chimed in that I was a vegetarian. This seemed to increase her annoyance with me.

“No meat? What about fish?”

“Fish is meat,” I said.

“Oh, well if you change your mind, I have fish, too. And broccoli. Otherwise you can go to the market tomorrow.”

This was a huge let down; I hadn’t eaten all day, but I guess I have a pretty high tolerance for hunger, so I ignored it.

Niku was still meowing in the other room.

“Oh, Niku eats chicken!” I said, realizing she was probably hungry too.

“Who?” Aunt Dina asked.

“My cat.”

Dina rolled her eyes. I hate when people roll their eyes at my cat. I just hate it.

“Go ahead, I made some for lunch today. Give it as much as you want,” she said. She turned away as if to take her leave for the living room, which still had the TV turned on from before she answered the door, but she stopped. “Now, listen. I know your mother sent you here to help me, but as I tried to tell her, I really don’t need any help. All I need is for you to go out to the store every once in a while, fill my prescriptions, maybe do some cleaning up – that kind of stuff. In return I’m supposed to keep an eye on you, which I’m sure you already knew.”

I tried to respond, to end the conversation, but she continued.

“There’s a reason I moved up here: I like my solitude. Just keep that in mind. And I really don’t care much for cats, so just make sure it doesn’t piss on my things. That’s all I ask.”

With that, she headed straight for an armchair positioned comfortably in front of the television and planted herself firmly in it. “Goodnight,” she said over the noise of the TV.

I wanted nothing more than to go right back to the airport, despite all the snow, but instead I just grabbed a plate full of chicken for Niku and went into my room.

The room, like all others in the cabin, had wooden walls, a gray shag carpet, and vaulted ceilings. The bed seemed comfortable enough, for which I was enormously grateful, and there was even a small bathroom attached to the side. It didn’t seem like it would be too difficult to keep to myself in here for the next ten weeks, but I thought I’d better invest in snacks and a small TV just in case. I was fully aware that this was exactly the kind of thing my parents would not want me to spend my quarter off from school doing, but I didn’t care. How dare they tell Aunt Dina to “keep an eye” on me?

I suddenly became enraged at my mother for sending me here. A wave of uncontrollable anger overtook me, making me wish she was there just so I could have someone to yell at. Dina was not nearly as sick as she had made her sound, and I was as unwanted here as I was at home, only fifty times more alone and bored. How was this supposed to be good for me?

I fed Niku, unpacked my things, and laid down in an effort to calm my nerves. I tried to tell myself that this wouldn’t be so bad, and that I just had to be positive, and so on. I tried to remind myself that I was just being stupid, angsty, and self-absorbed.

Nobody had called yet to see if I made it alive, not even my dad, who seemed to call constantly except for when I really needed someone to talk to. Just then, my cell phone buzzed. It was a text message from Arvin.

“God dammit,” I muttered to myself.

If there was anything worse than getting no calls at all, it was getting a text message from Arvin.

It read: “Hey, are you in town tonight? ;)”

I decided not to respond. The last time I had actually seen Arvin was over a year ago. He had insisted that we catch up over coffee, as old high school friends, but I knew something was up, as it always was with Arvin. I didn’t even like him or anything. I guess I was just bored.

We did in fact get coffee, but this was followed immediately by his forcing himself on me and shoving his hands clumsily into my pants. I yelled at him to stop. When he finally did, he gave me a pleading look and said, “Come on, we’re both desperate, aren’t we?”

He always knew how to make me feel good about myself. Since then, Arvin had continued to send me text messages at random hours of the night and at random intervals of time, seemingly undiscouraged by my continued rejection. He always acted like we had had a very good time together.

I don’t know why I let such pigs continue to talk to me.

With my anger toward my mother slowly diminishing and being redirected to idiot boys like Arvin, I gradually managed to fall asleep under the handmade quilts, dark wooden roofs, and snowy skies of Heber City, Utah.

-----

SOMEDAY SOMEWHERE SOMETHING THE END

2009-07-01T00:42:00.000-07:00

SOMEDAY SOMEWHERE SOMETHING THE END
You are gone and
we will all someday
be gone too like
a Beatle or now
Michael Jackson.

Someday everyone in
this crowd will be –
she, with the man trying
to sell her something, or
he, with the song stuck
in his head, or
you, or
you, with your eyes on me and
your mind somewhere else, or
you with your
postpartum depression and,

you’re off in some
far away place, you,
mother looking
down at her baby saying
fea
fea
fea
over and over again,
despite her
banana split lips and her
cherry pie nose and her
chocolate chip eyes you say
fea
fea
fea
again and again until
it’s true.

You, too will be gone
someday, and your
donut-hole baby too.

And these clocks all
around us which
serve only to warn us
of our impending doom
are, too, reminding themselves:
tick, tock
tick, tock
we will all
soon be just small
components of big
piles of trash somewhere, in
some distant landfill.
Tick, tock
soon, soon.

Tick, tock,
where is your donut-hole baby now?
Did she grow up and
become an actress and
move to California, where
every time you make a
left turn there’s a
palm tree looking over
a bright plastic blue
swimming pool?
Did your hatred for her
pass,
or did it grow and grow
until it became a
festering, cancerous tumor?

And you,
did you ever find
that note I left in your
car, the
one with the secret I
couldn’t say out loud?
And did you read it and
think to yourself,
“My, this isn’t poetic
at all,”
then proceed to check your
watch
and remember you were late
for…
for something, it doesn’t
matter.
Something to distract yourself
from thinking about
the inevitable end to
all this:
going to work
poker games
watching TV
sleeping
eating
dieting
Grandma
getting married
getting around
a new mosquito bite every day of the hot summer
building a life for yourself.

And now you’re
wondering how long it
will take for me to
say it because,
damnit, you don’t have
all the time in the
world! You
only have
76 years, give or take
a few, depending on
your diet and
your health and
do you smoke?
And to this I say:
you could learn a
thing or two from an
abrupt ending.

I WANT YOU BACK

2009-06-26T02:57:00.000-07:00

Michael Jackson passed away today. RIP.

I WANT YOU BACK
When I had you to myself
I didn't want you around
Those pretty faces always made you stand out in a crowd
But someone picked you from the bunch
one glance was all it took
Now it's much too late for me to take a second look

Oh baby give me one more chance
(show you that I love you)
Won't you please let me
(back in your heart)
Oh darlin' I was blind to let you go
(let you go baby)
But now since I see you in his arms
(I want you back)

MP3s:

>I Want You Back - Jackson 5

THIS IS HOW MY HEART BEHAVES

2009-06-24T05:41:00.000-07:00

Haven't written anything in a long time. Here it is!

HEARTBURN
This
old man he
rifles through the phonebook looking
for the number that calls
911.

This
old withered finger presses
slowly on the inward sloping
buttons and enters three numbers,
carefully, softly.

9.
1.
1.

This
old papery set of lips
strains itself, taking
eons to
convolute itself into the
strange shapes that
spell out the words:
“You had better send a
fire truck, because
my heart is on
fire.”

And he waits patiently,
in agony,
fingers folded together like
curled up worms dying in the heat
while the
acid crawls up his esophagus
and burns
and burns
and burns.

Yet he waits, silent
as a stillborn baby,
for that fire truck to
come.

And if worse comes to worst
if push comes to shove
if every last bit of him shrivels up into nothing and
his hairs all fall out one by one and
his liver spots grow to cover his whole face and
gravity pulls his skin down to the floor and
time takes from him his last laugh and last
breath of air
because that damn fire truck never came,
he thinks,
would that be so bad?

Because the horror of it is that
heartburn
is a disease that
doesn’t kill you, just
hurts like hell till you’re
dead.

So this
old man he
sits and he waits
for his insides to burn up and
turn to ash, and
for his wife to come home and
find him dead on that chair and
drop her bags of groceries dramatically and
for his children to grow fat with
inheritance long after he is gone and
for that god damn acid to fall back into
his stomach where it belongs, so
he can finally
get some
sleep.

-----

MP3s:

>How My Heart Behaves - Feist

I WON'T MAKE YOU

2009-05-09T02:18:00.000-07:00

Just, :)

That's all.

MP3s:

>Thirteen - Big Star
>I'm in Love with a Girl - Big Star

WE'RE NOWHERE NEAR

2009-05-07T02:30:00.000-07:00

TOP FOUR ABSOLUTE FAVORITE THINGS OF THE DAY:
1. K.O. at Home. This is a CD Karen O made for her friend from TV on the Radio a few years back. It's all acoustic songs of hers that were posted online when a fan found the CD. It's really interesting. Click here to download the album. So far my favorite is the third track.
2. My eye make-up today. :D I wish I could get a good picture of it.
3. The beautiful, peaceful weather today. And not going to class to enjoy it (:O Tsk, tsk).
4. Having butterflies in my stomach for a good reason, finally.

TOP ABSOLUTE LEAST FAVORITE THING OF THE DAY:
1. Midterms this week in History of Mexico and Art and Architecture of Islam.

TSK TSK

2009-04-19T04:21:00.000-07:00

The picture above is my friend Dale. I did her makeup and photographed her today with one of my housemates' point-and-shoots (which, no offense to her, isn't very good :(). So I'm actually pretty proud of myself for getting a couple of shots that were nice.

I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind again today. It's really interesting to re-watch movies now as a "film student" rather than as just a fan of films. I am so much more impressed with filmmakers now, and so much more doubtful of myself as someone with the potential to be that talented.

Also, I feel kind of bad for not having written anything lately. I just don't know anymore.
P.S. My computer has been very slow lately. Can somebody fix that?

MP3s:

>Peer Pressure (PMM Remix) - Jon Brion [from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind soundtrack]
>Bookstore (PMM Remix) - Jon Brion [from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind soundtrack]

I DON'T WANT TO BE YOUR FRIEND

2009-01-16T02:30:00.000-08:00

I read the first poem at this year's Phoenix Poetry Slam. The second I just wrote. Third item on the agenda is a Radiohead song you've all heard but that I just thought was relevant.

A FUNERAL
“Allahu Akbar.”
God is great.
He is mighty, devine.
Has so many names,
yet is Unnamable.

Allahu Akbar
was the sound of
my uncle dying,
and your father being buried.
And the sound of me loudly declaring:
“I am never going to a Muslim funeral again!”
And it is the sound of your sarcastic voice
the day before, saying,
“My dad would laugh at
all this. He was an avowed
Atheist.”
And it is the feeling in my
gut as I watch you and
your sister and your brother
and my mother
scream out in pain,
wanting to slap god
in the face.

God is great,
so, so great,
He does it all for a reason, you know.
Look, look at your father’s
beautiful cold dead body!
Allahu Akbar, look!

But this Allahu Akbar
is all in Arabic, and
it is not in your language or
my language, but
the language of those who
came and took over for a while
and gave us their religion.

They are shouting Allahu Akbar
but you are shouting, in English,
“This isn’t happening, this can’t
be happening,
TELL ME THIS ISN’T HAPPENING.”
And your sister is fainting and
standing and
charging at the hole in the ground where he is
while we
hold her back, in Farsi.

And in Farsi we are all crying,
Ay, Khodah.
Oh, God.
We have no more praise for him
who took away the man we
could not say goodbye to
or at least make some connection with, through
a phone call or an acknowledgement
of each other’s existence.
We just say his name,
Almost a question:
Ay, Khodah.

This death is
not the death we hear about
in the Bible or Koran.
He died alone, divorced, estranged from his children.
Smoking killed him, because
he was walking across a
6 lane street to
the gas station across from
his apartment to
buy a pack of cigarettes.
An airport shuttle,
a god damned airport shuttle,
was coming so fast it
did not stop when it saw him
and it hit him into another lane, where
he was hit by another car and
killed.

He left all he had, which
wasn't much,
to you and no one else.
He died alone writing poetry and
fighting and trying and
living, and living, and just
continuing to live,
and still
loving you.

So don’t stay sad,
and don’t cry “Allahu Akbar” either,
because we both know it’s not true.
You will never find God
in this snow and dirt
where his body is buried or
on this mound of earth
we’ve covered in shredded flowers
and rosewater.

His grave is festooned with
our old traditions and
the ugly things about us
that we buried with him.
And what we took with us is
what some call God
but is really
the microcosm of all our pain and love
and doubt and guilt and faith
that is Mourning.

THESIS ON FEUERBACH XI
2:51 is
56 minutes ahead, but
I’m still not tired.
I can start up clubs and
make things and
read Marx but am
still driven to
sleeplessness by a
stupid, pointless thing.

Sleeplessness and lopsidedness
and maintenance men
and awful poetry
and hidden, scornful glances at the talking idiots
and across-the-room,
never-realized,
eye-to-eye
flirtation
are my AM/PM in its entirety, which
defines, displaces, and designates my
hypocrisy, not hypocrisy, hypocrisy,
pillow, egg, chair,
Denial!

That, or just pure
Lament –
with a kind of parenthetical
(Fortinbras hardly ever showed up,
like most men) –
for all that
reeks of
shit
in the world.

-----

MP3s:

>House of Cards - Radiohead

GAZA -- READ UP ON IT

2009-01-05T02:15:00.000-08:00

Please read this article: Israeli Forces Push Deeper Into Gaza Strip

Summary: Israel, in response to attacks by Hamas, has invaded Palestine and killed 507 people, many of whom were civilians. Men, women, and children. Only 1 Israeli soldier is reported to have been killed. The U.N. is calling this a "humanitarian crisis" and has pushed to pass an immediate ceasefire. The United States has blocked this ceasefire, even though Cheney stated on Sunday that Israel "didn't seek clearance or approval from us."

Why I am posting this: I don't usually post news or make a big deal out of world events, but this is an issue that has really enraged me for years. There is just no arguing with the facts -- IF THIS IS NOT A MASSACRE, THEN I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS. For half a century, Palestinians have been displaced, then forced to live as refugees in what was formerly their own home. Now, I'm not against an Israeli state or anything, because it's too late to abolish the country that has established itself there. What I am against is the BLATANT OPPRESSION of an entire people, and the world's, and in particular the United States', refusal to acknowledge it.

I'm mentioning this event because I think not enough people (especially in my age group) know about this. To me, this isn't a religious or racial issue at all. I'm not horribly pissed off because I hate Jews (which I don't), or because I'm Muslim (which I'm not), or because I identify with Arabs as an Iranian (which, again, I don't). This is a matter of military occupation, a people being forced to live in poor living conditions, and countless civilian deaths over the years. Does this sound like anything familiar? A genocide, perhaps?

MP3s:

>Imagine (John Lennon) vs. Ball of Confusion (the Temptations) vs. Palestine Woman (Jim Morrison) - Team9

ONE MORE TIME -- VOTE PLEASE

2008-12-29T00:40:00.000-08:00

Hello guys! If you wouldn't mind, I'd greatly appreciate it if you could vote on this photo and the one in my previous post.
To vote, you can click on the photo above, or click here, and vote for it at www.jpgmag.com.
Thank you!

ALL I WANT FOR X-MAS

2008-12-25T02:02:00.001-08:00

Happy X-mas to everyone, again.
If you want, you can click on the photo above, or click here, and vote for it at www.jpgmag.com -- as a very special Christmas gift to me.
Thank you!

HAPPY X-MAS

2008-12-25T00:05:00.000-08:00

Let's hope all this consumerism finally pays off and saves our economy. :]

MP3s:

>Happy X-mas (War is Over) - John Lennon
>Someday at Christmas - Jack Johnson

AS LONG AS I'M PROCRASTINATING

2008-12-11T04:24:00.000-08:00

Just a recent poem and an MP3, because I can't start my stupid paper.

A POEM FOR HUSSEINS
You say “anal fissures” like
nobody has them.

-----

1.
Somewhere out there in this
gelatinous medium
floating is something
called an answer we all
think is going to save us and
Herald in a new era of
Garden-of-Edenness,
only this time we won’t
mess it up.

Meanwhile I’m still horribly
sick,
dying, maybe, who knows.
Dying and dying and
so is everyone and no one
remembers anything about the
Mahmouds and the Alis and the Khadijehs and
the Husseins.
Only the Johns and the Katherines and
the Georges and
their own melancholy that
no one seems to know how to
fix

2.
A quick fix, that’s what everyone is dying to
finally and at long last
have.
A Quick Fix like
a drug or
a very skilled plastic surgeon or
a new president who we all know is
inheriting a
disaster.

And is he going to make my fever go away forever?
And ensure that because he, too, is a Hussein –
nobody ever kills me or my
brother or sister or mother or father
or cousins, aunts, and uncles
or says that we are likely to strap
bombs to our torsos and
hi-jack a plane and murder men, women
and children because that’s what terrorists
do that’s what a terrorist is and
god damnit if anybody here’s a
terrorist it’s you because
I AM TERRIFIED OF YOU.
and what you might do to my family
and what you have done to people with more incriminating names than
mine.

And I am terrified of waking up
in the morning
and seeing on TV images of Tehran
up in flames and smoke
and I am terrified, I am just scared
of being here with you people
Because you’re scared of my father who
is probably the kindest man alive and
tells me stories about:
“Ven I vas young I used to turn deh volume
on deh record player all deh vay up and
listen to deh Beatles, just like you do.”
So I don’t know where to go from here.

I don’t know if in this
wide, wide Universe,
and if in all the years past and
years to come,
and if in this vast expanse of
seemingly empty fluid
there exists that thing you said was an
answer
or a tactic to make the war stop
or a way to let Joe keep his business
or a reason why I’m always sick

3.
But circles and
lines and
planes and
grapes and
toes, they
will always exist and maybe
that’s what is the answer and
will never be Hope or
Change or
Something We Can Believe in
but will at least tell us
that things will always and never
remain in a constant
spiral
motion.

-----

MP3s:

>Uncle Albert-Admiral Halsey - Paul & Linda McCartney

WE DID AND DIDN'T DO MANY THINGS

2008-11-05T22:38:00.000-08:00

Last night was crazy. The world is crazy.

"But when the will of the majority is discrimination against a minority group, the courts have a legal and moral obligation to step in to protect fundamental rights." - SF Chronicle Editorial

A POEM OF THE DEBATE IN THE STYLE OF CHARLES BUKOWSKI
he said to me,
this old,
tired man
“Boy, I’m talking about the
economy and
Joe the Plummer.”

I didn’t give half a damn who
Joe the Plummer was unless
Joe the Plummer was that guy
down at the racetrack I met
two, maybe three
weeks ago.

he told me to settle for the 6 horse
and he was right
so I invited him back to my place
for a beer.
but I think that guy was an electrician.

so I told that dirty old man
I don’t care about
Joe the Plummer or
Congressman Lewis because
neither of them are going to buy me
some cigarettes or
some coffee or
some beer.

or, at least I
tried to tell him
but he cut me off
like breakfast on
a workday.
or like my old man
or like Jane

and when he finally let me talk
I told him everyone’s a cynic
and Christ was one too.
everyone is just searching their mailboxes
in a kind of
disbelief long after the mind has
given up.

-----

MP3s:

>Dirt Off Your Shoulders (Bittersweet Symphony) - Jay-Z vs the Verve
>Touch the Sky - Kanye West feat. Lupe Fiasco

"GET A ROOM" HE YELLED

2008-10-25T04:29:00.000-07:00

"GET A ROOM" he yelled
Without being asked,
a man from downtown tonight said:
1 to try every drug once but no more than 5 times
2 to take all the fun classes
3 to maybe stay on for an extra year
4 to scrape your knees a lot
5 to go hiking often
6 to fuck as many people as you can

and never:
to hitchhike

-----

THIS DEED SHALL NOT GO UNPUNISHED

2008-10-12T03:00:00.000-07:00

I am just horrified. Who allowed this to happen? (See MP3 below).

-----

MP3s:

>Live Your Life - T.I. feat. Rihanna

BEVERLY HILLS CHIHUAHUA

2008-10-08T01:08:00.000-07:00

Beverly Hills Chihuahua is currently the number one film in the Box Office, having earned nearly 30 million dollars. Eugh :/

-----

ONE MORE THING

2008-09-16T11:45:00.000-07:00

One moreeeee. Tell me what you think I guess.

UNTITLED 09.15
I assume you're the good boy
with a good mother, too,
who never left you behind and
loves you well enough and
cooks your food and
even cuts it up for you on your plate and
feeds it to you in
delicious
little
mor-
sels.

And you will probably look back,
fondly,
with memories of her telling you
stories that lulled you to sleep.

So what if you do?
So what.
I can cook my own damn food.

-----

SUMMER MONTAGE

2008-09-16T03:35:00.000-07:00

Most of the poems (mediocre to very very bad) I've written lately in chronological order. Also a list of movies I watched this summer that I greatly enjoyed.

UNTITLED 03.7
Milk in a straw is
stuck
between two places –
choices being:
up or down.
If you could call it a choice.

And if the garbage man
came tomorrow,
what would I throw away,
and
what would I keep?
This old, fat, ugly pen
that we got for free from
“STOCKTON BAIL BONDS.”
This is a good pen.
I’d keep this pen,
and that old
straw, too.

I am a pack rat who
Packs everything but the
good stuff.

UNTITLED 03.9
There must be a God
For who else could have made
Two people so perfect for each other
Who could somehow find one another
In this wide, wide, world?

UNTITLED 04.19
She tried to mop up but the
bodies of dead and alive ants were
strewn across,
everywhere.
Millions of little dots of
mindless obedience,
following a chemical trail,
had been massacred here.

She thought there should be a little
statue-memorial with the words:
“HERE LIE THE GRAVES OF
MANY BRAVE SOLDIER-ANTS
WHO SUFFERED AT THE HANDS OF
CHEMICAL WARFARE.”

her throat was sore
her whole body ached,
The decrepit old woman.

She knelt down before the corpses
and wept, for
she had sprayed them.

UNTITLED 04.28
her back like a rod,
the skinny olive-skinned girl
sat there,
moving her thin tapeworm lips
in the shape of:
“You. No mother’s son
would ever love
you.
You who can’t tell
right from wrong,
You who changed clothes
in front of an open window
and didn’t care if people could see.
You who stopped believing in God.
You awful, ugly girl!”

A tear—
“a sinner’s tear!”
—rolled down her cheek
like a watery boulder
being pushed uphill.

She wanted to repent but
her heart felt no shame.

TONIGHT WE ALL CRIED ON MY COUCH (AND THINGS ARE NO BETTER)
Our lives now
are full of
Yes dears and
There must have been a time
when we were
truly fond of each other.
But now
we grow close to the
Day of Parting,—
When God will judge us
and bestow upon us
whatever
gifts
or
curses
He deems fit—
and we can’t wait
to forget these faces.

LATE-NIGHT MIRRORS
She says she wants a
tattoo and she won’t
shut up about it.

She thinks she’s
really something
with her
avant-garde ways
and her good grammar
and her superior schooling
and her so-called knowledge of the world.
She really thinks she’s something.

We all are
not concerned with her
incessant
pounding
on our
eardrums,
but merely out of
inevitable worry,
we stop and think to ourselves,
“Who is this girl
we met centuries ago,
who used to
rhyme like thyme
and be thin and pretty
and be someone to talk to
when troubles were around?
What did she become,
and why doesn’t she fix our
grammar errors no more?
And what happened to her
music and
meter and
this-that-ratatat
dancing around like some cool cat.
Her potential greatness?

Now it’s just
her tattoo is gonna be so sweet.
and should she buy this thong or is this one hotter?
and so-and-so won’t stop calling.
and various other things we couldn’t
give a damn about.

Sometimes, we are surprised
we still give one about
this girl.

-----

MOVIES:

- Rushmore
- Bottle Rocket
- Reign Over Me
- The Graduate
- The Big Lebowski
- Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
- Pom Poko
- Grave of the Fireflies
- Iron Giant
- Requiem for a Dream
- The Dark Knight
- The Prestige
- House of Sand
- Broken Flowers

-----

MP3s:

>The Boxer - Simon & Garfunkel

PASSAGE

2008-08-28T03:54:00.000-07:00

He stepped out into the brilliant sunlight and squinted. His stomach full of microwaved burrito and chocolate milk, he stared across this new frontier; hundreds of other children his age were running at top speed and screaming at the highest of decibels possible, all having as much fun as one would expect children during recess to have. It was intimidating, all this customary play. Nonetheless, Michel longed to join the rest in their display of pure and frantic energy.

The hot rays were beating down upon him as he felt the refried beans churn in his stomach. He began to sweat.

“I must be brave,” Michel told himself as he took a deep breath and stepped forward onto the blacktop.

When, contrary to what he expected, nothing terrible happened, he ventured several more steps and immediately a giant red ball slammed into his stomach, producing a huge echoing noise as it did so; he had mistakenly treaded on an area of the blacktop where there were four connected yellow squares painted on the ground. Michel had to do all he could to prevent himself from throwing up his burrito in front of all the other children, but he nearly failed when the apparent leader of the four-square group approached him.

He was a chubby boy with an orange buzz-cut, braces, very beady little eyes, and a disgruntled-looking folded pair of arms. As he stepped in front of Michel, his colossal height caused him to block out the sun so that all the smaller boy could see was a terrifying silhouette.

After staring him down for a few moments, the red-headed boy finally spat, “Who are you?”

Michel was petrified, but he did not look down from where he imagined the eyes of this corpulent creature were. His knees shook as he wondered how he was supposed to respond to this question.

“Well?!” growled the boy.

He managed to stammer the word “Michel” audibly enough after several failed attempts and instantly heard snickers sprout up around the group after the pronunciation of his name.

The bully kept a straight face, as if considering carefully what he had just heard. After a long pause, he said “Michelle? That… that’s a girl’s name.”

As if now given permission to do so, all the surrounding kids released their giggles, and a few of them jeered sentiments similar to those of the red-head.

Michel tried to say that in France, his name was a boy’s name, and it was the same as “Michael,” and that four-square seemed like a stupid game anyway, but he was drowned out by the laughter of his fellow students.

Enraged and humiliated, he stormed off the four-square court in the direction of a friendly-looking tree, but shouts of “I like your nail polish, Michelle!” followed him for a dozen yards.

Hot, sweaty, and irate, Michel had nearly reached his destination (the cool shade of the tree) when he heard someone behind him calling.

It was a girl. She’s pretty, Michel thought. And she was; though it was a blisteringly hot and blindingly sunny day, she showed no trace of it. Michel was sure she had come from another world; nobody like this could have come from this God-forsaken playground.

“Hi!” she said jovially. “Your name’s Michelle too?”

-----

Years later, he is sitting in a dimly lit bar, for lack of anything else to do. Just sitting, watching, but not really listening. A very bad song is playing in the background, but it ends, and the Beatles’ “Michelle” begins to play. He lifts his head slightly, and now he is listening.

Michelle, ma belle. These are words that go together well, my Michelle.

She had said her parents named her after this song, and that she’d read somewhere that Paul McCartney never even knew a girl named Michelle. He’d just wanted something that sounded French.

Michel recalled following the girl throughout his childhood, and how she had sometimes followed him too. But she was so easily distracted and sometimes grew annoyed of his bashfulness. Then they didn’t talk, then there was high school, the age of many hormones, and they had dated briefly. Everyone had remarked how cute it was that they had the same name. But she was still annoyed of his bashfulness.

I love you, I love you, I love you!

He had always loved her, he tried to tell her. But they graduated and rarely spoke after that.

He’d been with other women. He had convinced himself that yes, he had lived his life, just passively. Occasionally he would hear this song or someone would comment on how his name was a girl’s name, and he would think of her.

The song ends, and he finally stands up. He pays for his drinks and runs his fingers through his hair. Coughing slightly from the smoke in the room, Michel walks across to the door and is about to step out into the brilliant light of the outside world when he notices a woman standing before the jukebox. He assumes she’s the one who chose the song, and he waits to hear her next selection. It’s a song he’s never heard before, but he likes it. It’s upbeat yet soulfully beautiful at the same time.

Michel hesitates for a moment, thinking about how he only has a minute or so left in the parking meter. Finally he closes the door, shaking his head. He has never tried to pick up a girl in a bar and is convinced he’s crazy. He makes his way over to her and taps her on the shoulder. She turns around; Michel sees her face, and is immediately glad he decided to stay in the bar. Not because of her beauty (though her looks are exceptional), but because she seems to radiate warmth and kindness and wit and courage and spontaneity and everything else Michel desires but most people lack. This was not the type of girl he expected to find in a bar. He stands there looking at her for several seconds, forgetting why he was there and causing a look of confusion to form on the woman’s face.

“Yes?” she asks awkwardly.

“Oh. Sorry, I was just wondering, what song is this?” Michel says.

“Mr. Blue Sky by E.L.O…. that’s Electric Light Orchestra,” she replies with a smile. Encouraged, Michel charges forth.

“Ah, it’s great… I—I didn’t catch your name.”

“It’s Jean,” she says, and before he can respond she adds hurriedly, “J-E-A-N, not John. It’s French. What’s yours?”

“Michel,” he mutters.

He suddenly has the urge to ask this girl to go rock climbing or sky diving or on a trip to Chile with him, and he doesn’t care if she says no. He doesn’t care what she thinks of his name or if she has a boyfriend or if she laughs in his face.

She might say yes, if he asks.

MATT & PEGAH SHOW

2008-07-16T03:14:00.001-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--VQ9cEIRxQ

SEX & DRUGS & ROCK & ROLL

2008-07-13T23:28:00.000-07:00

I had my birthday and such things. Friends made me a cake with cigarette candles and covered in crabs and a pair of handcuffs. Good stuff. Oh summer.
-----

MP3s:

> She's Only 18 - The Red Hot Chili Peppers
> Barely Legal - The Strokes

I MET THE WALRUS

2008-07-05T14:54:00.001-07:00

SOME I SOME I SOME I MURDER.

2008-06-28T16:02:00.000-07:00

So all my friends except a couple are gone. It sucks. I've been so bored/had so much time on my hands that I've started a diary/journal thing and airbrushed a picture of my eyes that Irene took. And that's only the tip of the ice burg. Also, I saw Wall-E yesterday, and it was really really good! Everybody should go see it. :]

Sun rises early, Sets late
She said
I feel as if I have been on
summer vacation my whole life,
as if waiting.
Waiting for the mosquitoes to stop biting.
Waiting for the sun to rise later in the day.
Waiting to wear long pants again.

She asked me why
do they make us choose now?
(as if I knew).
I don't want to wake up
years later and realize
I never wanted this.

Or why she has to wait her turn
to do anything.
To get a drink of water,
or an education,
or a job,
or to wake up in the morning.

Waiting always,
"for the Beatles to get back together,
or something. You know?"
I knew, but not answers.

So she just passed the time
with the daily masturbation
that is life;
sleeping, eating, watching movies,
making love, playing games.

At the end of it all,
she wished she had something poetic to say,
but it never came.
-----

MP3s:

> NONE THIS TIME :(

GET PAID GET LAID

2008-05-25T17:02:00.000-07:00

So angsty, haha... reading Catcher in the Rye, and Houlden Caulfield needs to calm down.

bagoverhead poem
My eyes are blackened
like a raccoon's
to please you people.
I can barely see,
and the gunk won't come off.

[...]

You people!
I hate my face!
I cover it with goo and
sticky and
smelly stuff,
so you will tolerate the site of me.
And I smell like pretty things,
so I will remind you of something that is not a
sweaty, living human being.

I save my money
and walk around,
searching endlessly
for the perfect outfit;
one that will hide my body from you.
I sign my name and vomit cash,
so you will all be my whores.
-----

MP3s:

>More, More, More - Andrea True Connection

DAYDREAM

2008-05-11T17:49:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a long time... school and stuff, you know. Phoenix is coming out soon! Andddd, I heard the song "Daydreaming" by Lupe Fiasco on a commercial (ughhh, how sad :/), and found some other good songs along the way (at the bottom). That's that.

voices to voices, lip to lip... (XXXIII)
by e.e. cummings
voices to voices,lip to lip
i swear(to noone everyone)constitutes
undying;or whatever this and that petal confutes...
to exist being a peculiar form of sleep

what's beyond logic happens beneath will;
nor can these moments be translated:i say
that even after April
by God there is no excuse for May

-bring forth your flowers and machinery:sculpture and prose
flowers guess and miss
machinery is the more accurate, yes
it delivers the goods,Heaven knows

(yet are we mindful,though not as yet awake,
of ourselves which shout and cling,being
for a little while and which easily break
in spite of the best overseeing)

i mean that the blond abscence of any program
except last and always and first to live
makes unimportant what i and you believe;
not for philosophy does this rose give a damn...

bring on your fireworks,which are a mixed
splendor of piston and of pistil;very well
provided an instant may be fixed
so that it will not rub,like any other pastel.

(While you and i have lips and voices which
are for kissing and to sing with
who cares if some oneyed son for a bitch
invents an instrument to measure Spring with?

each dream nascitur,is not made...)
why then to Hell with that:the other;this,
since the thing perhaps is
to eat flower and not to be afraid.

-----

MP3s:

>Daydreaming - Lupe Fiasco ft. Jill Scott
>Daydream - Smashing Pumpkins
>Daydream - The Lovin' Spoonful

WE'RE TOO YOUNG TO SEE

2008-02-04T15:00:00.000-08:00

LYRICS: Blackout by Muse
Don't kid yourself
And don't fool yourself
This love's too good to last
And I'm too old to dream

Don't grow up too fast
And don't embrace the past
This life's too good to last
And I'm too young to care

Don't kid yourself
And don't fool yourself
This life could be the last
And we're too young to see

-----

MP3s:

>Blackout by Muse

HORSE RACE

2008-02-03T22:32:00.000-08:00

Two movies I saw this weekend: El Orfanato (top) and There Will Be Blood (bottom). El Orfanato was produced by Guillermo Del Toro, who also directed Pan's Labyrinth, and IT SCARED THE BEJEESUS OUT OF ME. I couldn't sleep till 4 AM after I saw it. Nonetheless, it was a REALLY good movie, and you should see it if you don't get scared too easily.

There Will Be Blood was also a great movie and one of the few that was actually worthy of an Oscar nomination this year. The score was written by Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead, and everyone has been going wild over it (it's been nominated for tons of crap). I wasn't too fond of it, though -- it created WAY more suspense than was necessary and didn't really fit with the mood of the film. Ah well.

Also, I got a new journal! It's pree goo, and I've written in it already, though not very well. I thought I'd post the poem anyway, seeing as how it takes up the first page and is thus somewhat important.

And they're off
It's all by chance,
that old horse race,
says Old Buk.

I have a picture of him, somewhere
smoking a cigar and
I almost bought
another one of his books today
but thought
better of it.

I thought
I'd learned the
tricks of the trade,
and knew which horse
to pick but
as it
turns
out,
I've just
broken the harness.

-----

MP3s:

>The Horse You Ride by Department of Eagles
>Great Salt Lake by Band of Horses

TWO DEAD MEN

2008-01-27T02:25:00.000-08:00

-----

MP3s:

>Bodysnatchers by Radiohead

WHO AM I SUPPOSED TO BE?

2008-01-26T13:59:00.000-08:00

MP3s:

>LOOK AT ME by JOHN LENNON

THE RACE IS ON

2008-01-21T19:44:00.000-08:00

AND THERE ARE STANZAS NEVER MEANT TO RHYME

2008-01-15T21:48:00.000-08:00

I can't wait for all of this to be over! And if you're reading this, you should really listen to the MP3s that I post! Seriously. Good stuff. Down at the bottom. DO IT.

UNTITLED 11
And we are all just strangers
who fell from the sky
under the impression that we were
somehow important,
like a sailor’s tune
that flew from his mouth
to God’s ears.

For He, you, and I know
that underneath our clothes,
we are all naked,

and most of us ugly,

all of us at least a little

unclean.

-----

MP3s:

>I am Trying to Break Your Heart by Wilco
>Sphagnum Esplanade by the Shins

SATIRE PROJECT

2008-01-11T01:05:00.000-08:00

GOD IS...

2008-01-05T01:57:00.000-08:00

I really have nothing to say, except that I am agnostic, so don't take this post the wrong way...
[And for future reference, if I post a poem and it doesn't say the author's name, that means it's by me.]

UNTITLED 10
When will God realize?
We all just a bunch of
Squares sitting in a circle,
each of us loving someone
who will never love us back.

God and his giant Circle called:
Life.
We sit and ponder about him—
Some say it's not a circle,
it's a triangle.
or a trapezoid.
or it's not a shape at all.
or there is no god.

They argue,
They kill each other,
and this is Life.

Still, we sit.
Still, they will never love us back.
Still, some search for that impossible answer.

And this is Life;
What God, or someone,
(or no one)
made for us.
This is what we get.

Michael
Sometimes I think
that God made each of us
Someone to hate.
Someone who was born just
to be hated by us.

The poor guy;
he never did much
to us,
maybe,
But we hate him.

He is a cockroach!
we spit.
We hate him for everything,
for being born.
for having a name.

We hate his parents,
who hate him too,
for conceiving him.

And he hates us
for being so blind with
rage at
Him, for he is a
son of
God.

-----

MP3s:

>The Stars are Projectors - Modest Mouse
>God - John Lennon

APPS/PROCRASTINATION ARE KILLING ME

2007-12-31T03:55:00.001-08:00

Really. They really are killing me. I can't answer these stupid questions, I don't know why. I'm afraid of sounding generic, so I won't let myself just write. And stupid distractions! Augh. Well enjoy the poem and songs. They're all (sort of) about how my life sucks, as far as men/love go.
I'm off to sleep, I hope.

Men
by Maya Angelou
When I was young, I used to
Watch behind the curtains
As men walked up and down the street. Wino men, old men.
Young men sharp as mustard.
See them. Men are always
Going somewhere.
They knew I was there. Fifteen
Years old and starving for them.
Under my window, they would pauses,
Their shoulders high like the
Breasts of a young girl,
Jacket tails slapping over
Those behinds,
Men.

One day they hold you in the
Palms of their hands, gentle, as if you
Were the last raw egg in the world. Then
They tighten up. Just a little. The
First squeeze is nice. A quick hug.
Soft into your defenselessness. A little
More. The hurt begins. Wrench out a
Smile that slides around the fear. When the
Air disappears,
Your mind pops, exploding fiercely, briefly,
Like the head of a kitchen match. Shattered.
It is your juice
That runs down their legs. Staining their shoes.
When the earth rights itself again,
And taste tries to return to the tongue,
Your body has slammed shut. Forever.
No keys exist.

Then the window draws full upon
Your mind. There, just beyond
The sway of curtains, men walk.
Knowing something.
Going someplace.
But this time, I will simply
Stand and watch.

Maybe.

-----

MP3s:

>Anyone Else But You - Moldy Peaches
>Jimmy - MIA

HEY THERE, MISTER

2007-12-28T22:37:00.000-08:00

I need a mister.

Just kidding. Maybe.

Buffalo Bill's/defunct
by E.E. Cummings
Buffalo Bill's
       defunct
             who used to
             ride a watersmooth-silver
                   stallion
       and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
                     Jesus
       he was a handsome man
                 and what i want to know is
       how do you like your blueeyed boy
       Mister Death

-----

MP3s:

>Mr. Blue Sky - Electric Light Orchestra
>Mr. Bellamy - Paul McCartney

DARLIN' UKULELE

2007-12-26T02:50:00.000-08:00

This was a pretty cute Christmas. I got a ukulele and an Urban Decay eye shadow palette. Also had quite a lot of fun hanging out with my family and friends -- we all went and saw Golden Compass (it sucked). And yes I know, I'm posting MORE ARCADE FIRE AND JOLIE HOLLAND SONGS, but they're relevant and good, I promise!

my sweet old etcetera
by E.E. Cummings
my sweet old etcetera
aunt lucy during the recent

war could and what
is more did tell you just
what everybody was fighting

for,
my sister

isabel created hundreds
(and
hundreds)of socks not to
mention shirts fleaproof earwarmers

etcetera wristers etcetera, my
mother hoped that

i would die etcetera
bravely of course my father used
to become hoarse talking about how it was
a privilege and if only he
could meanwhile my

self etcetera lay quietly
in the deep mud et

cetera
(dreaming,
et
cetera, of
Your smile
eyes knees and of your Etcetera)

-----

MP3s:

>Darlin' Ukulele - Jolie Holland
>In the Backseat [live, "Christmas version"] - the Arcade Fire

A MAN SUBMIT TO ECSTASY

2007-12-15T01:50:00.000-08:00

I'm illin'. Took the above photo at San Diego Zoo. Below are a poem I wrote/recited at the Poetry Slam and some songs I'm really into right now.

UNTITLED 9
They all scurry along,
busy, bustling, business to take care of!
But he: he strolls! Saunters,
always arrives to where he wants to be
fashionably late.

Yes, he strolls in his shiny shoes
And he woos all the women
All of the time.
But once, one day
a voice gently coos
in his ear.
So soft he can barely hear
Oh, the gentle voice—
like the sound of sand moving
between your toes.

It was a rata-tat-tat,
and a boom, and a bang!
It was a swift hand moving
up and down those
Black and White keys.
It was a sweet strum on those
steely strings,
and a pluck and a breath too.

It was a woman’s voice,
and it cooed,
“Come closer,
come!
Come away with me—
away, a ways away
from this bored, busy world
to a place where there are only:
Clouds and
My Voice.”

Her voice!
It felt so good as it
caressed his eardrum—
he’d do anything for that
voice,
to hear it all day like
smoke clouding his vision.

And yes, it was
for her voice
that he stood for a moment in his
Shiny shoes, listening to her
Sweet, gentle coos,
then took a deep breath.
A hit.

-----

MP3s:

>Half a Million Miles From Home - Diane Cluck
>Sascha - Jolie Holland

SORRY

2007-12-05T16:41:00.000-08:00

Please don't
The tinkling of bells.
Faint.
He said,
“Achilles and Patroclus;
all they did was have
ass-sex all the time—hot.”
The tinkling turned
into flashing lights.
They began to melt like
Wet wallpaper slipping
off the walls.
like
a cig killed in a pile of
wax.
It went missing.

Bang bang!
Warm static
Hot static, and
a pulse.
“Please give—
it to me.”

And the gargling
sound of singing
underwater. She
practices caesura and
suddenly it touches her;
DEUS EX MACHINA!

New static.

-----

MP3s:

>Blue Jay Way by the Beatles
>Bang Bang by Nancy Sinatra

BOOM DAH DAH

2007-09-02T23:04:00.001-07:00

Lately I can't stop listening to Dr. Dog's cover of the Architecture in Helsinki song, "Heart it Races." It's off their newest album, "Places Like This," and I must say this is one of the rare occasions on which a cover is actually better than the original. For your listening pleasure I have uploaded not only the Dr. Dog cover that I am so very fond of, but the original song AND a remix! You're just lucky to have me.

LYRICS: Heart it Races
And we're slow to acknowledge the knots in the laces
Heart it races
And we go back to where we moved out to the places
Heart it races
I bought it in a can and stirred it with my fingers singing

Boom dah dah dah dah dah
Boom dah dah dah dah
Threw it out the window
And lately you been tanned, suspicious for the winter with your
Boom dah dah dah dah dah
Boom dah dah dah dah
Legs like little splinters

And we're slow to acknowledge the knots in the laces
Heart it races
And we go back to where we moved out to the places
Heart it races
I sold it to a man and threw him out the window
He went
Boom dah dah dah dah dah
Boom dah dah dah dah
Made his wife a widow

Boom dah dah dah dah dah
Boom dah dah dah dah
-----

MP3s:

>Heart it Races by Architecture in Helsinki
>Heart it Races by Dr. Dog
>Heart it Races [Trizzy's Rusty Tin Can Mix] by Architecture in Helsinki

QUAGMIRE WHAT

2007-08-23T01:37:00.000-07:00

Mr. Vice President back in 1994...

And don't you worry, I WILL find you all a clip from today's episode of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. It related to this. It was good.

CHARLES BUKOWSKI

2007-08-06T01:23:00.000-07:00

Charles Bukowski. 1920 - 1994. A Beat generation poet who lived much of his life in Los Angeles, CA.

I recently bought Run With the Hunted: A Charles Bukowski Reader (using a gift certificate my sister gave me for my birthday, thanks!). The book is a chronological collection of Bukowski's best work -- a very good read, and I highly recommend it.

My interest in Bukowski was sparked several years ago, when I got Modest Mouse's album, Good News for People Who Love Bad News. The track "Bukowski" describes the poet as an asshole, but a "pretty good read," and he is. Bukowski is difficult to describe. He can be humorous, cynical, vulgar, or thoughtful, and he's capable of evoking nearly every emotion imaginable. Mostly though, he's just depressing. Ah well, such is the world. I will leave you with one of his works, a parody, the "Bukowski" mp3, and "Long Distance Drunk," which is also the title of one of old Buk's short stories.

This one sort of exemplifies Bukowski's work, and it's one of my all-time favorite poems:

The Blackbirds are Rough Today
lonely as a dry and used orchard
spread over the earth
for use and surrender.

shot down like an ex-pug selling
dailies on the corner.

taken by tears like
an aging chorus girl
who has gotten her last check.

a hanky is in order your lord your
worship.

the blackbirds are rough today
like
ingrown toenails
in an overnight
jail---
wine wine whine,
the blackbirds run around and
fly around
harping about
Spanish melodies and bones.

and everywhere is
nowhere---
the dream is as bad as
flapjacks and flat tires:

why do we go on
with our minds and
pockets full of
dust
like a bad boy just out of
school---
you tell
me,
you who were a hero in some
revolution
you who teach children
you who drink with calmness
you who own large homes
and walk in gardens
you who have killed a man and own a
beautiful wife
you tell me
why I am on fire like old dry
garbage.

we might surely have some interesting
correspondence.
it will keep the mailman busy.
and the butterflies and ants and bridges and
cemeteries
the rocket-makers and dogs and garage mechanics
will still go on a
while
until we run out of stamps
and/or
ideas.

don't be ashamed of
anything; I guess God meant it all
like
locks on
doors.
-----

And this one; it's a piece from "Peanuts," which can be found here. It's a parody of Peanuts, written in Bukowski's style. VERY funny, especially if you're familiar with Bukowski's typical work.

Lucy
It began as a mistake.

The first time that Charles Branaski met Lucy Van Pelt, she was holding a football. He didn’t care for the game, baseball was his thing. Still, she held out that old football.

“Just kick the fucking thing,” she said.

“Listen, babe. You just hold that thing steady and I’ll kick the shit out of it.”

She threw her head back and laughed. She laughed long and hard and propped up the football. Charlie took a running start and he reared back his leg and kicked as hard as he could. Lucy was laughing too hard to hold the ball steady and it slipped out of her hand. Charlie missed the ball and flew straight up in the air and landed flat on his back.

“AUUUGGGGHHH,” he said.

“You should have seen your face, Charlie Branaski,” she said. Then she laughed twice as hard.

“Listen, you crazy bitch. I think I broke my ass. Jesus Christ!”

She helped him up. “Look, I’m sorry about that. You try it again and I’ll hold it real steady this time.”

“O.K., Lucy. I’ll do it on more time, but that’s it. You hold it this time, got it?”

“I promise,” she said.

He dusted himself off. God o mighty, his ass ached! He walked a little ways away and Lucy set up the old football again. He took a deep breath and a running start. He could see she was holding it tight. He was really going to kick the shit out of that old football! He threw his leg forward with all his might and Lucy yanked the football away just as he kicked at it. He landed on his ass again.

“AUUUGGGGHHH,” he said again.

Lucy laughed and laughed and left with the football. Charlie laid there and groaned. Good grief, he thought. What a cunt.
-----

MP3s:

>Bukowski by Modest Mouse
>Bukowski (Congleton/Godbey Remix) by Modest Mouse
>Long Distance Drunk by Modest Mouse

NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!

2007-07-24T01:07:00.000-07:00

[from potterpuffs.]

Most quoted line from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Mrs. Weasley is amazing.

At first I didn't know what to think of the book. It made me feel this odd mixture of happiness, sadness, and numbness all at the same time; sadness because of those who died and because it's over, happiness because of the ending, and numbness because... well, I don't really know. But all in all, I've come to the conclusion that J.K. Rowling has got to be one of the most amazing writers in all of history. Now, many learned readers of classic novels may argue, but who else has been able to spark a love of reading in millions of people, cause them to line up by the hundreds at midnight for the release of the next book, cut themselves off from society until they finish reading it, and in an extreme case, commit suicide?

J.K. Rowling's seventh book sold 8.3 million copies in its first twenty-four hours (in America alone, and other sources say that it has now increased to 72.1 million worldwide), and "Americans spent $166 million for the book in one day," says the New York Times. Read the whole article here -- the numbers are INCREDIBLE.

Also, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is the eighth best-selling novel of all time, coming shortly after the Book of Mormon (the Bible is number one, and Mao Tse-Tung's Quotations from Chairman Mao is number two).

So, what is it I'm trying to say here? In short, Harry Potter is absolutely, completely, BEYOND amazing, and it's the reason I ever became interested in reading and the English language. Thank you, J.K. Rowling.

MP3s:

>My Dad is Rich by Draco and the Malfoys
>Do the Hippogriff by the Weird Sisters

ARCADE FIRE

2007-07-08T17:53:00.000-07:00

[photos from 6/2/07 show in Berkeley]

I know you've all heard too much about Arcade Fire. But despite the fact that they are over-blogged, the Arcade Fire is a truly great band and is worth being the subject of my first blog. Recently [about a month ago], I went to their show in Berkeley, and I was blown away; I was lucky enough to be very close to the stage and was able to witness their unique talents close-up.

I'll not say too much more, as I'm sure you already know it all. I will just leave you with some of their which you may or may not have already heard.

MP3s:

>Brazil by Arcade Fire
>Cold Wind by Arcade Fire
>Rebellion (Lies) [String Quartet Version]

*All photos and video are copyright ME, I took them. If you would like to see more that I took at the show, you may request them.