y'all can't all be wrong: October 2003

The title is trite -- go figure -- eh -- but here's the real deal: this weekend marks the last of the out of town weekends for me. When I return, subtext (like this) will go into the subtext section and the remainder of ycabw will get more attention (remainder is a current fave word). So, what I learned today:

A) Writing is deeply personal for me. I need alone and sometimes lonely space. I often write on depressants; although on good days, I write on depressants X espresso. I wouldn't blog any of this shit if I really felt anyone was reading.

B) Gigantic U-hauls are not allowed to make gigantic u-turns on big city arterials. Really, unless you're on meth, a U-haul u-turn is never a good idea, regardless of how alliteratively good it sounds.

C) I can wave at lame drivers in lieu of giving them the more deserved middle finger.

D) I need music and space when I write. Not big space or dating space, but my own space or even outer space. Bars over coffee houses; my bedroom over my kitchen; green grass over park benches (and over red-haired grass too).

See y'all on Tuesday, but remain heartened, 'cause even in absences nature paves way to beauty (and if cute phrases don't make the absence bearable, there's always good stuff in my links that are appropriately placed in the [links] section over there to the right -->).

What happens when you're on your way back home -- say on a flight from Milwaukee to Seattle -- and the guy next to you whips out his laptop and watches a triple X Ron Jeremy classic on DVD (can you get Ron Jeremy on DVD?)? How does this scenario slice on the 1st Amendment?

Yeah, I like tipping the bottle,
The one with the hops,
Or the one with the little white pills.
I don't care, either way,
I'm genetically indecisive.
It's all brain chemistry anyway.
And when you are really far away from it,
Say up up in the clouds or in outer space,
Then those mission critical emotions carry no weight.

Here's an mp3 clip from my last gig with Neon Brown (ballyhooing as Punkrock Pink) at Mr. Spot's Chai House in Seattle (I'm playing the distorted bass -- Andrew is on super real bass delivered via [essentially] Stick).

Additionally features Antoinette (violin) and Dave (weird wired things) from Revolving Jugglers.

The drive home tonight reminded me of a drive home a few years ago, a night on which my girlfriend dumped me. It was raining then and it wasn't raining tonight, but the streetlights looked the same -- haloed not by fog, but by the weariness in my eyes. The night I got dumped, my girlfriend kicked me out around 3:00 AM. Dumbfounded, I drove the long drive from where she was housesitting to my downtown Seattle apartment. Two and a half hours later, I drove another long drive to my 6:00 AM yoga class... The things you do under duress...

Oops. One more night of sleeping instead of blogging (zzzing instead of writing). It isn't a letdown for me. I know I am finally on the edge of everything I have worked for my entire life and I am going to need my health for my first steps into this new world. And if that's too much of a regurgitating-pea-green-bowl of optimism for this normally (but very tongue in cheek) brooding blog (see ycabw Vic Ferrari), here's my official first blog post. I wrote it (2002-Dec-15). I hated it (still hate it). The day after I wrote it I gave up on the blog idea (nearly) altogether:

2002-12-15: The first mark is always the hardest. Failure, success, criticism, thrills, procrastination, grammar error worries -- all that shit. It's right there, the blank page before the first letter hits it. For me, that's why nothing gets written. That -- and perhaps some environmental bullshit that was heaped on me long ago. I'm also lazy, so that doesn't help either. Delusions creep in there too. Delusions are the crux of the mufucktaupness of the world. Other than the banal morning-office-small-talk and the chatter of occasional acquaintances on the #5 bus to downtown (which has its own philosophical [ir]relevance), every conversation really boils down to: "dude, you are really fucking delusional if you really believe the stuff that drops out of your mouth." Then, of course, you internally counter on yourself, "yeah I can write, I can read, I can do all that shit, I just don't have the time -- I'm just super busy, I had a bad childhood." See, here we go 'round the insanely delusional Prickly Pear at any o'clock in the morning. The next time your friend or family member, or whomever starts down the rationalize-the-delusional-bs path -- just point blank him/her: "save my time, you're fucking delusional, and, yes, I'M ALSO FUCKING delusional." Then either climb aboard that #5 bus and idly chat to all the over-latté'd eavesdroppers or tell them (in Pabst Blue Ribbon laymen terms) to shut the fuck up. I'm making the statistics up (which is straight from delusional thinking), but 90% of the time, when using laconic approaches to expelling thoughts from the brain, it reduces delusional chatter 10 fold -- or maybe even 20 ('cause it doesn't matter) fold. Of course, some of you aren't delusional -- commendations and Laffy Taffy straight to you and your ilk. (Without sarcasm) I admire; I'm impressed...

I keep my refrigerator plugged in and turned on everyday solely to keep my ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard, and beer at a palatable temperature. I think this calls for community refrigerators in the vein of community gardens... In other refrigerator news, bachelors and non-frost-free freezers are a refried-bean, raw-onion, and hoppy-beer combination: I grew a 20-pound block of ice in my freezer during the last two years. A few months ago I emptied the aforementioned contents of my fridge and let the block of freezer ice melt into the provided catch-tray. The tray is designed to catch the water for 1/4 inch coating of ice and not the 6 inches or so that mine had. So, of course, the 20-pound block of ice starts turning into a 2-gallon pond in my catch-tray. I can't empty the tray since it's wedged in by the remaining ice. The solution here is to bail the water out of the tray via a baster, but no good bachelor owns a baster (and if one does, I'd ask questions about it before you use it). As an alternative, I grabbed the letter opener from my bedroom and started hacking out chunks of ice to free the tray and extricate me from comical bachelor hell (contrary to the instructions on the freezer door that explicitly say to not use a sharp-and-pointed object to remove ice). I speak the truth and it feels good. It also explains why my letter opener was once found inside of my refrigerator.

Now, I'm not quite number one for a Google search on y'all, but for a guy who is as Southern as Canada, I'll take #8 on the list (2nd from the bottom) without complaints.

[This post largely inspired by pickle juice and all of the mad Google searches where her page is returned as #1]

Hey, at least there’s still Cheap Trick. From Conan O’Brien (Sex, America, Cheap Trick) to Michael Moore (The Big One) -- Cheap Trick is American as Rockford, Illinois (with or without the S at the end).

I fulfilled my life a few weeks ago -- in Yakima, WA of all places. The event? Cheap Trick live at the Central Washington State Fair. Par for the course of my previous attempts at seeing Cheap Trick live, it almost didn’t happen. My friend got vomit sick as soon as we arrived at the fair. Now, I hail from Wisconsin, and my dad and brother once lived in Rockford (yes, do feel sorry for them living there), and my sister once dated a guy who used to hang with them before their fame, and I own a boatload of their albums, but see them live? Nope, that’s my version of a Cubs or Red Sox World Series win. Even still, I’m a nice guy and I couldn’t subject a vomiting friend to see a loud rock concert (even Cheap Trick). So, instead of seeing the band, my friend and I got some funnel cake, fresh air, and then checked out the chickens and rabbits.

But then, right in the middle of the rabbit barn, “I Want You To Want Me” came blaring through the barn door (this one left open). Apparently, a bunch of electrical shit blew up near the stage causing a significant delay in the concert -- long enough for my friend to recover and for both of us to hit the stage and catch the show. So Cubs fans and Red Sox fans, take heart; it will happen. It may take a little revenue sharing; which, considering baseball’s upper management unintelligence, might not happen until 2080, but it will happen.

“Your mommy’s alright, your daddy’s alright.” But damned if you don’t know it – “they just seem a little weird!”

If your résumé possesses errors -- grammatical, logical, or typos (especially typos) -- it doesn't disqualify you, but it does cast a dubious shadow. If you can't QA something as intimate as your résumé, it is a telltale that you are going to trip on something with greater scope and complexity. Really, your QA-centric résumé should state at the top, "OCD Freak," and everything below it should explicitly and implicitly corroborate that you are such a thing.

Especially when I haven't written anything -- especially when I'm not unemployed...

If I sleep for 6.5 - 8.5 hours, I wake up in a mental cloud and possess little motivation to start my day. If I get 4 or less hours of sleep, I'll pop right out of bed and hit the cerebral day running. The problem is that in the latter scenario, my body feels like ass and my immune system gets compromised (my tongue gets all funky too -- on no sleep it goes canker-cantankerous). The mental-alertness--but--physically-feel-like-ass tradeoff is probably worth it, since, as Warren Zevon put it, "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead." Of course, he's dead (and probably sleeping), so perhaps an alternative is looking for me somewhere.

While in the shower today, I realized that when it comes to flying-fucks, most people aren't generous in handing them out. It's a good thing too. I can't imagine a worse way to start a day than to scrape a flying-fuck off a car windshield, or to have one hit me while I am waiting for the bus. So, the next time you hear someone screech, "I don't give a flying-fuck" (about this, that, or the other thing), make sure you thank him/her for making the world a safer place.

[If this post's idea has been previously transcribed, I'm not surprised. I've frequently broached the subject in this blog, but really, blogging is the most effective way of proving that your fresh, clever idea is at best insipid. Then, why post at all? Well, I wouldn't but today I don't give a flying-fuck.]

Jen-be-a-talking about burning down her life ("Watch out you might get what you're after") with an obvious tongue in cheek -- but I'm thinking, hey minimalism -- it's the fountainhead of my philosophy, the ameliorator of my existence. But what? I've got thousands of CDs, 29 forks, $200 shirts, 4 musical instruments (with a 5th on its way), and 2 Green Bay Packer hats. For those of you who knew me before I owned furniture, tell me I was better then. My new version of minimalism is renting a bigger apartment (more space, less clutter), and that's orgasm of Capitalism, but it makes me sad. I'd throw everything away, but, considering everything that I own, I don't possess enough balls to do it.

Now dig this. On the bus ride home last Tuesday afternoon, I clobbered my head on the handrail when I stood to leave my seat. For those of you who are taller than 6 feet and older than 25 years, you know exactly the experience I describe. Perhaps it isn't a bus handrail. Maybe it's an airplane's luggage compartment or a low-hanging lamp in the foyer. The object isn't important. Here's what happens: you see a low-hanging (or low-positioned object) and you say to yourself, "gee, that's a low object, I should make sure I don't clobber my head into it when I stand up." Then, during the time that that thought crosses your mind and the time when you actually stand up (whether it's measured in minutes or seconds), you inevitably forget the warning and crush your skull on a nicely polished handrail. I've done this so many times that I don't get embarrassed and my head never hurts, regardless of the force of collision. It could be lack of intelligence or it could be the wisdom of experience. Of course, my impassive response to bumping my head in public places ended on my bus ride the very next evening. On that ride when I was leaving my seat, the woman next to me audibly and loudly reminded me, "don't bump your head this time." Ha! And you thought that nobody was ever watching when you were picking something you shouldn't have been picking.

Addiction affliction, affliction addiction, I'm going fuck-all insane. I keep looking for things and I can't find them. Not things like keys that generally stay where you last left them. That's easy. I want to find someone who can critically discuss David Coley's story, "The Reach Of Wonder" (republished in Harper's October 2003), and give me insights about his use of overt symbolism juxtaposed with autobiographical-realism. I want to find the god-source of literary knowledge so I can understand the difference between symbolism and metaphor -- so I can actually describe something as autobiographical-realism and have it be something more than personal, cerebral ass smoke.

I want to find new blogs to link to -- blogs that give me essays, implicit philosophy, and impetus for me to reach for my Holt Handbook. I don't want to find another blog that talks about last Tuesday's bus ride. But, if you want a paradox, a conundrum, a fucking mystification, try escaping Insipid's grasp. I think that's why God invented Man and in turn Man created drugs. In essay form: that is why God created Man and Man created drugs -- is that more convincing? It's also why hookahs have more than one valve. But, for sanity I'll forego the insipid thing for the remainder of this essay (vocabulary and experience are codependents, so my recurring infatuation with the word insipid makes me wonder if one of my feet [I believe that is grammatically correct, but holy shit does it sound weird] is in a very dull grave?). Anyway, the static of the blog world is worse than watching a 1975 Zenith TV when your roommate is vacuuming, and I just pissssed away my entire night looking for a blog that has the ability to reach into a tomato sack and hurl one at my middle American face and rock-star hair and make me soil myself for all my wannabe aspirations, land-of-make-believe philosophy, and cream-of-cornstarch delusions that I sell to myself and to others all the time. Ah, this reminds me of two words that I've impressively used, but have since forgotten: abrogate and abscond. For those who don't possess WMDs or a disposable battalion, but do possess the need for unlimited ego fulfillment (for unknown reasons, Ron Jeremy's organ on W's silver platter comes to mind) -- you can be mighty imperialistic by vocab and vocab alone. So, I didn’t find any links, but I am linking to waxy.org -- 'cause every fifth idea of Andy's usually hits me in a musing way and because of his link to a Todd Rundgren article (and fuck Todd Rundgren, but you know, it's a rock-and-roll thing). I'm also linking to waxy 'cause I think if he and I met, we'd be diametric totally (in an intellectual, valley-girl type inflection). Or maybe not. I similarly wonder about my other links (picklejuice and bjg) -- who I now refer to as my font and electron friends, but would they be corner-bar-friends, or goto-the-game friends? I'm also linking to Bookslut, 'cause the site came up on a search for literary blogs (although, I should have been searching for opium-tinged-essay-blogs, but I wasn't fast enough), and 'cause I might actually learn something from Bookslut content. Which reminds me...

I also want to find someone that will tell me, "hey TQ, you'd be a lot better writer if you tried X," or, "your musical abilities would improve if you did Y," or, "your career wouldn't be so sideways if you just Z'd." We hide behind euphemisms like Saddam hid his WMDs and somehow we have managed to taboo all personal critical analysis (which I think is different than critique; which is different than critique). Just fucking tell me -- tell me not to swear, tell me I'm going to hell. But start a dialogue, aim for dyadic embodiment. And why the hell not -- if you can't find anyone to listen -- I'll fill those shoes.

I also want to talk to the person who's been reading Hesse on the #5 Seattle bus 'cause I'm convinced that Hesse should never be read alone (attained by 2 years of being a loner Hesse reader).

A few times throughout the day, the leading edge of my consciousness (which you can think of as the infinitesimally small division between future and past) and my id are in complete harmony (I'd-like-to-buy-the-world-a-fucking-Coke-too) with a fact (or quite possibly the fact) that my life isn't a video game, or happy-meal, or John Hughes mid-life-adolescent-wet-dream. I hate those moments and I hate admitting that I hate those moments. I can act all Yoga and do that om shit, or I can take-it-to-the-streets and release my inner Jesus freak, but I'm almost happiest perpetually pretending, forgetting that I'm momentarily exhausted, forgetting that I'm eternally exhausted, forgetting that I'm embarrassingly privileged. Saviors are much too easy and demons are a little bit too complex. Purgatory is an Atari 2600, 4 game cartridges (one, of course is Combat), and two joysticks -- one of which has a sticky fire button. Bleep bleep bleep bleep pkohhhhr... Ah, there's a Neil Young debate in Pop culture: whether it's better to burn out than to fade away. Neil says burnout; I say fade away. Is there any better performance art than rat-a-tat-tatting 77 years of life straight down a drain? I mean, each one of us can thoroughly Happy and Biff ourselves into nothingness, but at least we tried, at least we knowingly took a sinking ship and rode it all the way to the bottom. "Thy rod and thy staff and thy really fucking big hole in the bottom of the boat" ... well, I can't say they comfort me, but if that's what your giving me, why don't you throw in some myrrh and unleavened bread and I'll see what I can come up with.

My bobby-pin-in-the-electrical-socket paroxysm netted a bit of dialogue, which, in turn yielded a few literary links for me to drive around the block: Ftrain.com, {fray}, and Girls Are Pretty (be prepared to punch yourself if you read Girls Are Pretty)... Words are no longer enough for my midnight masochism...

-----Original Message-----
From: TQ
Sent: Monday, November 08, 1999 11:41 AM
To: C.F.
Subject: gotta quit drinking

"who burned cigarette holes in their arms protesting the narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism" -- Allen Ginsberg

once you get so far out, there's never a place to turn around. the funny thing is the whole ebb starts way before you can ever imagine. long before you can self-analyze about how second person writing isn't great for persuasion, or how nouns and verbs and clauses all fit together for some kind of fucked up meaning. most likely in high school, say 10th grade, when you were sitting there, trying to figure out why your girlfriend was eating yogurt with a fork. or when you were sitting there proclaiming all these cool things 'cause you heard someone else say they were cool. or when you found things you really believed in, but you denied them because you never really thought you believed in them. twenty years later you finally discovered it was a fork in the road, and not a fork in the yogurt. and you aligned with socialism, at least below the surface, and now you are getting steamrolled by maybe Capitalism. but there's no going back, there's no way of callousing the sympathetic heart. so you sit here with these useless sparring matches of the mind. realizing all along that the real scholars say nothing, and the real heroes are unknown, but this is meaningless 'cause you aren't in the arena of compassion. -- tqb

You can't transcribe tears. Tim Cahill describes effective writing as writing that can provoke laughter and tears in the same story, but what if the story *is* tears? Where do you go with that? You can't be literal (nobody will care) and you can't be metaphorical (nobody will really care).

I've posted the preceding quote before, but it's my mantra when cold truth fingerpaints my face.

Well, I wake up each day needing a tranquilizer shot in the ass. The fear is enervating, but bearable. The problem is when other people start absorbing my fear-for-no-reason vibes. I can drive friends and family away simply by sitting in a room and having my adrenal glands go nucking-futs and then have people absorb those nerves empathetically. Being Jennifer Garrett talked about this in her post "Off my game." Well, I can easily throw people off their game. Just give me a room and two chairs and have them sit next to me. It's just not fucking funny anymore. I come across as a stoic and aloof and a nutcase and impetuous all in one. And yes, that's me, but there's a lot of warmth and altruism underneath that manifests itself in weird ways. I was a geek in Middle School; the one who wore blue velour shirts with brown corduroys and who would get busted standing in the lunch line with my fly accidentally open. You can't escape stuff like that.

And so I run -- I run from the "too-huge world", run from my adrenal glands, run from everything that I can't comprehend. I am running now because you can't transcribe tears, and the only solace I have is that "next crazy venture beneath the skies." And almost more assured than death, the venture will come.

Is it incredibly egocentric and wallow-istic to want to return intelligence to your maker (or to banish it if you have no maker)? What does intelligence get you? It nets you the ability to perceive and comprehend how fucked you are. If ignorance is bliss, stupidity is crème brûlée and a snifter of cognac. What's needed is a temporary suicide -- kind of like a Christ thing -- you get to go away for two or three days, check out hell and heaven (maybe do a little angelical ass kicking), and then return to earth if the post life accommodations aren't too hot. But no big commitments to offing yourself, no Steppenwolf sized dilemmas -- just a total easy way out *and* easy way in, just like America should be.

[note: check out all the different meanings for wallow. In my pedestrian life I've only heard definition #5]