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Thursday, May 27th, 2004
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11:56 pm - Going camping
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I'm going camping for a week, starting tomorrow, so I won't be posting for a while. Maybe I'll do some handwritten entries while I'm there, to upload when I return.
In the meantime, here's a little something to remember me by: me singing the old folk song Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair. I recorded it late at night in my apartment, strumming my extremely cheap baritone ukulele. I really need to get a better ukulele.
A technical note: since I don't have a soundcard, I have to hope that the mp3 encoding went off without a hitch. If there's digital crapulation, please let me know and I'll fix it when I get back.
Have a good week, everyone.
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12:48 am - Just hanging there
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I seem to be regaining my energy. Today wasn't bad - I was appropriately tired from insufficient sleep, but it was nothing like yesterday.
Today was the last day of the school year. My students dispersed with their families all over the state, some never to return. Leo J is not coming back. He loves me like few people in my life have. Letting him go, even with my weathered professional's eye for the big picture, was wrenching. I took Mark to Sam's for some serious east-side blackness and barbecue. They loved him and he couldn't have been more at home. We reminisced about things that happened this year - a level of reflection and communication which many people would not have thought him capable of last fall.
The kids leaving, their voices singing on the recordings I made of them, working on a new song at rehearsal tonight, finding a mattress and box spring by the dumpster and half-drunkenly fat-guy stumbling and sweating as I drug them up the stairs (camera in my mind chuckling at the slapstick), laying in the tub staring blankly at the wall, feeling the length of the day like a heavy thing on my chest... I lived too much today and haven't got the will to write about it in the depth it deserves.
It's a good thing that life feels full, but daunting to convey. I guess I'm not a writer in the way I am a musician, or a guy who works with kids. At least not all the time. I'd be up all night trying to get it right. And I have things to do tomorrow morning.
Blackberries, fresh blackberries. I bought them to put in cereal, but I keep pulling them out a couple at a time and eating them. When I was a kid, there was a blackberry tree on the far side of my block - they stained the sidewalk. I remember the strange feeling of being a creature that ate things off trees. And the wonder that they were just there, hanging off the branches.
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| Monday, May 24th, 2004
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1:02 pm - Innocents almost abroad
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Had breakfast with my friend Kal this morning - he's off to China tomorrow for a couple of months. Along with a few friends, we're starting a little email book-discussion group. We're going to read Innocents Abroad by Twain.
Elsewise, I'm still tired and sleeping doesn't help much. Four more days of work before my summer begins! Hope I'm not too tired to enjoy it.
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12:29 am - Apoplexy is a poor bedtime ritual
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Goddammit - I can't find my STUPID FUCKING LITTLE BOX OF SLEEPYTIME TEA. How the hell am I supposed to get to sleep? Not only are Mother Nature's most soothing herbal molecules not coursing through my humours, but I've just wound myself up by getting aggravated at losing the box that has the little bags that have the leafy herbs that have the gentle fucking molecules that are supposed to help me relax.
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| Sunday, May 23rd, 2004
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10:35 pm - Moanin' and groanin'
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I've been fatigued for days, with a flu-like ache that seems to have no source. I'm getting 8-9 hours of sleep a night and I haven't had a drink in several days, so it's not like I'm running myself too hard. Maybe it's just allergies, I dunno, but all I can do is the bare minimum necessary to retain my employment and take in enough calories to keep creaking along.
I don't mean to sound like a hypochondriac, but I don't think of myself as a robustly healthy person. I often marvel at other people's physical stamina. My intuition concurs with the current medical consensus that there's a solid, though dimly understood, physiological underpinning to the sort of life-long depression under which I have labored. I expect it to cost me in the end. I don't expect to be one of those spry old people who push around wheelbarrows full of dirt. If I live past 70, I'll be stunned. I see myself on the relatively healthier end of the melancholic-unwell-artist spectrum. Sort of a Flannery O'Connor Lite.
On a side note, I just doublechecked the spelling of my beloved Flannery's last name and found that the misspelling O'Conner is extraordinarily common: 4,970 Google results (vs. 77,100 for the correct spelling.) There's even a flannery-oconner.com, where they sell "student aid" essays.
When you have no physical energy, you can amuse yourself by googling misspelled words and names. Did you know, for instance, that there are 1,280,000 results for downlaod? Shoot, even LJ's spellchecker catches that one.
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| Thursday, May 20th, 2004
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1:06 pm - Continued fever abatement
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So, as if to test my proclamation of independence in yesterday's livejournal entry, Norah S. dropped by last night while I was recording a keyboard track at Modge's. The three of us ended up going over to the local watering hole, then to Taco Cabana. We all had a good time and enjoyed each other's company. I wanted to kiss her, like I always do, but... drum roll please... the madness has ended. She's just a person.
There are no shortcuts in life.
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| Wednesday, May 19th, 2004
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5:51 pm - Bachelorhood gettin' clinical
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I realized the other day that I am not in love with anyone. Not Norah S, not Bug, none of my exes, not Judy Davis - no-one. I feel sane. How could I have ever felt so strongly that someone else held the key to my happiness?
I get lonely and long for companionship, snuggles and sex, but I don't believe anymore that a relationship would somehow transform my life. In fact, looking back, I have to say that I'm generally happier (and certainly more creatively productive) when I'm single. The idea of getting involved with someone looms in my headlights about like the prospect of changing jobs or moving. Might be great, but what a hassle.
I hope I never contract that particular brain fever again.
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| Sunday, May 16th, 2004
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2:47 am - Many-Me
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I have a very common name - an internet search will turn up thousands of me. Using google's image searcher, I found over 50 pictures of guys with my name. While sitting around work today, bored (I was pulled from my regular area to do lotsa nothing elsewhere) I created this little animated gif that incorporates all their faces. I even put myself in there, for the hell of it. So here are all the THATs I could find:
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| Tuesday, May 11th, 2004
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4:44 pm - Chuckle, chuckle
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Unbelievable. George Bush Sr. has given the 2003 George Bush Award for Excellence in Public Service to TED KENNEDY. You think he's trying to get Junior's attention?
This is one of many fascinating articles to which you'll find links at The Memory Hole's index of under-reported stories.
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| Monday, May 10th, 2004
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6:05 pm - A little relaxed spell
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What a lovely afternoon off I've had. I dragged the long, comfy blue couch that ![[info]](http://library.vu.edu.pk/cgi-bin/nph-proxy.cgi/000100A/http/web.archive.org/web/20040607074554im_/http:/=2fstat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) johari gave me before he left town out onto my balcony. Stretched out on it, reading the Sunday paper with the cat on my legs, I seem to float in the top of the tree whose branches brush the railing. Squirrels chatter and run along the branches as the breeze ruffles the leaves. It's mighty fine, I'm telling you.
Unfortunately, I can feel the Texas summer beginning to rear up on its haunches. Once or twice, in the late afternoon, I've opened my car door to a blast of air as hot and moist as the steam over a boiling pot. Those days when the steering wheel is too hot to touch are on the way. And I realized yesterday that I'm not going to be able to wear my overalls outdoors much longer - they're just too hot. It gets so I don't care how I look in shorts, I ain't going to suffer like that.
Thank God for weekends; as the school year drags to its end, I'm experiencing what's euphemized in the field of human services as 'compassion fatigue' in relation to one of my students. I've written about her before; she's brain-injured and her behavior is extremely taxing. She's like a Ms. Pac-Man of psychic energy, gobbling up all the attention she can wrangle out of you by any stratagem her damaged mind can concoct. It's never enough, though and every so often, her frustration with the existence of wills other than her own erupts in verbal abuse and (fortunately inept) violence. I have no idea what should be done with or for her, other than strategic containment and humane treatment. Maybe Oliver Sachs could figure her out - I'm just a paraprofessional, working for $11/hour. I wonder, though; the psychologist, psychiatrist and 'behavior specialists' at the School for the Blind haven't had much of use to offer.
I bought a 10-gallon plastic water jug the other day, for use as a hand drum. (I picked that up from some friends I used to play with.) Whenever I pass by the water jugs in the grocery store, I pick up the empty ones and bang on 'em a little bit. When I thumped this baby, I fell instantly in love. It just sounds so fucking great. The cashier couldn't figure out how to charge me the $6 deposit only, so I finally said, "Fine, I'll pay for it as though it had water in it." So I paid $12, which is way too much for a plastic jug, but a great deal on a hand drum.
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| Friday, May 7th, 2004
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2:50 am - Waterbed Highway
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nothing to say about my life - dissolve into impressions - I grind my teeth at night, always have - my neck hurt earlier today but then I forgot about it so it must have stopped - tuna, unlike milk cows, at least live their lives in the wild until they are caught - the wild... just a romantic notion? isn't the city wild? perhaps, but the poultry farm isn't, unless you consider those horrible ants that have slave aphids - mindless mating impulse - rhythm of dotted highway lines...
I'm increasingly excited by the prospect of driving to New York, even more than I am by my trip to Scotland. I'm going to see that little shit-heap called Monticello, Arkansas, where my sister was born and I lived from 1967-69; where I heard all those nigger jokes, where I was pushed into the gravel of the schoolyard - the Appalachians... all that highway with no-one to answer to...
Hot, cruel America, laid out like a tired whore on a Vegas hotel waterbed. It looms in my mind in increasing strangeness. I've got triple-A and a job to come back to - what could happen to me, out there in the hinterland of the First World?
current music: Krzysztof Penderecki - Symphony #5
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| Tuesday, May 4th, 2004
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6:08 pm
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| Sunday, May 2nd, 2004
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3:55 am - Continental Drift
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When I first wake up, I have the feeling of having returned from an odyssey on a strange continent. Last night I was subjected to a fundamental erasure of my memory/identity by an alien race. Somehow, miraculously, my real memories began to bleed through, but I had to hide every slight evidence of my re-emergent awareness. (This is a very common theme in my dreams.) My only confidant was a mouse, with whom I could communicate telepathically. He had to scurry into a hole in the wall to avoid being discovered and I was terrified that I would never see him again.
Civ is fucking killing me at darts.
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| Saturday, May 1st, 2004
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6:16 am - No bacon, no ham, no eye contact, please.
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Man, the people working at Denny's at 4:00 in the morning; their hollow eyes, their plastic cordurouy shells... very unsettling.
Should have worn something other than $2 flip-flops on my poor feet at work today; I ended up pushing a kid in a wheelchair all over the damn city. Nasty little blisters abound.
A front has just blown in - cold, heavy raindrops cut through the bracing darkness, making me happy beyond all delineation. Thunder, streets that glisten under electric light... my kind of night-time weather. Conditions that shear off suffocating self-analysis.
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| Wednesday, April 28th, 2004
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3:19 am - Never Let Me Down
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Holy shit - Bowie was amazing. He played for two solid hours, covering a great mix of material from throughout his 35-year career. He was relaxed and funny between songs, but the performances themselves were intense. The musicianship and sound were, of course, impeccable.
My sister, Modge and I, all true believers, discarded all pretense of cool and bounced up and down, singing, crying, laughing and waving our arms in the air. reymon, less familiar with Bowie's work, hung back a bit and analyzed the sound. He had a great time, too, but it was less of a Dionysian catharsis for him.
Favorite moments:
- a stark rendition of The Luckiest Guy.
- a moment in I'm afraid of Americans when, during the final, terrifying refrain "God is an American," he stretched out his arms like Christ on the cross, but smacked his gum, looking spoiled and bored.
- his goofy banter about Austin's famous Congress Ave. Bridge bats.
-singing along to All the Young Dudes with my sister.
- too many musical moments to list.
Oh, I'm such a happy little fan. Wish I was going to Houston tomorrow. I'm now crawling into bed, tired and perfectly contented. I wish everyone could have had as much fun as I did tonight.
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| Monday, April 26th, 2004
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2:26 am - Today I...
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... called in sick. I knew I was too tired to be much good and I was so sick of certain shit at work that I squelched my conscience by noting that I did go in last Wednesday, even though I was still sick from food poisoning.
...paid $50 to a smokin' jazz saxophonist to lay down a track on the Modge & Co. album. You see, a friend of ours put one down, but it wasn't so good. I said, "Hey - I'm going to live with this album the rest of my life and if it doesn't sound good good enough now, it's not going to get better with time." Since I was paying him, I took the liberty of playing producer and telling him what to do. The song being about Laika, the poor little dog the Soviets shot into space, I told him to make a noise like a capsule falling out of orbit. "What's the longest, slowest decaying elide you can play?" I asked him. He did it. "Okay," I told him, "now open the valve more slowly and blow harder." It was fun being Brian Eno for an hour. We got a smokin' track that everyone's happy with.
...played wah-wah pedal for the first time, recording a jam with Modge and the boys.
...sang a bizarre 3-part backing vocal (with Sit and Modge) through a pitch shifter for one of my songs on the album. We had a hard time singing for laughing so hard.
...schmoozed some club people about gigs.
...watched a pro-Zapatista propaganda film at a lefty coffeehouse in South Austin. Very affecting, (particularly the footage of displaced peasants) despite its crudity. Also smoked a skanky cigar there that I couldn't finish.
...felt guilty about calling in.
...took Mickey in a laundry bag over to Modge's place, where she held court and was adored, as is proper.
...introduced Modge to the greatest animated film of all time: The Secret Adventures of Tomb Thumb. My 10th viewing was remarkably rewarding.
...ate some cheese, but no meat.
..came home and typed this. Night night.
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| Saturday, April 24th, 2004
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1:04 am - Refrigerator ethics
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I'm finally feeling not-sick. Still kind of low-energy but that's OK. Haven't eaten any meat or dairy since I was poisoned by that corporate death-dog the other night.
Here's why I have to quit eating that stuff: every time I do, I know I'm doing something that goes against my personal ethical code. And I know I'm doing it only because the suffering of the animals is invisible to me. If the pens, slaughterhouses and feedlots were in my neighborhood, I'd be horrified.
I'm not trying to convince anyone else - I've had the most terrible time modifying just my own behavior. I just don't want to eat animals anymore, feeling the way I do about the cruelty and waste in the way they are farmed. And that's not to mention my serious unease over eating other meat-creatures at all, considering that's what me and all my friends are.
So I bought a bunch of vegetarian burritos from Taco Cabana and put them in my fridge. Well, gotta start somehwere.
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| Friday, April 23rd, 2004
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3:27 am - Nausea, Freedom of Information
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Still feeling the lingering effects of Tuesday night's food poisoning. My sense of taste is unbearably acute and everything makes me nauseous. Even beer is unappealing. Headaches, insomnia, fatigue. Oh Thank Heaven for 7-11!
Found a fascinating website: The Memory Hole. This guy archives any information of which the government has sought to stifle the release. It's an absolutely huge undertaking; gigs and gigs of data. I'm currently downloading the 9.5 MB final report of some 1987 congressional hearings on narco-trafficking (including that by U.S. intelligence agencies) chaired by Sen. John Kerry.
Well, it's the middle of the night and I can't sleep, dammit.
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| Wednesday, April 21st, 2004
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7:05 am - Unwell in America
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Ugh. I can't sleep. I have a headache and I feel nauseous. Whenever I get sick, I can't help but see death yawning at the end of it all. All my worldly ambitions hang on health.
Pause...
OK - I just went and threw up that 7-11 chili dog. I deserve to get sick and die for eating that evil shit.
Consistent reports of horrendous, inhumane treatment are coming from detainees released from the Army's sinisterly named Camp X-Ray, in Guantanamo Bay. Beatings, sleep deprivation, long-term exposure to cold, 24-hour bright lights, injections of psychotropic drugs... all the old Soviet gulag shit. And human rights groups are reporting that suspects picked up in the War On Terror are routinely being transferred to facilities in countries where torture is routine. American 'advisors' are present during interrogations, just like they were in El Salvador in the 80's. In this country, Ashcroft's Justice Dept. is pressing at every chance to detain non-citizens without charge, counsel or any time limit. I think they're focusing on non-citizens as the best foot in the door. It also creates acceptance of an alien 'them' in our midst, a troublesome weed that must be rooted out. It lays a...
Excuse me... (more throwing up.)
...foundation for the attitude they want to foster - a climate of suspicion and fear.
This administration really does want a police state. I think quite a few Americans think they would be safer living in one, even though they wouldn't call it by its real name. It's so much easier to understand, isn't it? Who was it that said "History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake?"* It's a nightmare of the recurring type.
And this polarization has a ring of familiarity to it, as well. It's a rumbling of the collective id, the same impulse that caused Hutus to kill their neighbors, friends and coworkers, who happened to be Tutsis, because the radio said they were enemies of the state. Hutus and Tutsis are indistinguishable even to one another, by the way. Language, custom, dress... it's probably easier to tell at a glance whether an American is a Republican than whether a Rwandan is a Tutsi.
Well, here's hoping they don't find an excuse for martial law before the elections, or, if they lose, before the transfer of power next January. Go ahead, call me paranoid. But I have never seen anything like this in America during my lifetime, even under Reagan, who I despised.
Excuse me while I go throw up some more.
(*It was Stephan Dedalus, in Ulysses by James Joyce.)
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2:12 am - Letter to my kid sister..
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... written in response to an email she might not want me to reproduce...
Sis,
What a great ( lyric! )
I'll have to check out Stevie Smith. There's an old Kinks song where he keeps saying "I'm not like everybody else." Ever notice all those pigeons on the highway embankment? They all look identical, but they each have their own lives. And ants, too - I wonder about their individual experiences. Either we are all part of the incomprehensibly beautiful mind of God dreaming itself or this little interstice in oblivion is just a cruel joke, as some atheist say. Hell, I don't know - I'm just a hedonistic musician.
Love,
THAT
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