| Back for a moment |
[13 Sep 2008|05:51am] |
When did we first notice and then first stop noticing that paper towel rolls started perforating sheets with doubled frequency for (assumedly) Green's Sake?
When did it never occur to us that inclusuion of Third Party Candidates would actually, ultimately, do a great deal of good for the Democratic/Progressive Party/Movement? I mean, really, it's well known that reality has a Liberal Bias. Wouldn't a more pluralistic process, then, do more good for the progressive movement than harm? And if for no other reason than it's ability to shatter into many smaller fragments, wouldn't it at least help the progressive movement by absolutely forcing fissures in the conservative movement? Hawks, Fiscal Frugalists, Christian Soldiers: what do they have to do with each other beyond a narrative foisted upon the public? Well--natch--other than the fact that the MSM has aided and abetted said narrative for twenty-nine fucking years because, simply, it's an easier narrative than anything else presented. Nationalism + Xenophobia + Eschatology is a pretty simple equation. [ed note: an equation requires an equal sign. we'll let you guess what the sum of those is.]
When did we first realize that merely leaving the town we grew up in was actually a worthless bottle of snake oil and all the disasters we barely dodged practically guaranteed that eventually there'd be a real one. Also, are we still realing considering National F'ing Leaders that are denying this? Cuz maybe it's getting worse?
And when are any of us going to start talking about how the McCain "Maverick" narrative was DOA since he first self-flagellated his way out of the Keating Five Scandal? Look at the voting record. Then look at the apologies and equivocations. Then look at the voting record. Then look at quasi-protestations. Look at the "mavericking". And then look at the f'ing voting record.
And when did we stop listening to The Band?
---UPDATE---
If christastrophe doesn't respond I'll murderize him.
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[06 Dec 2007|04:53pm] |
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| New song/blogged as written/left undone |
[24 Sep 2007|03:36am] |
I could be the best thing in the world for ya
Or you could leave me out.
If you need, I could eat your tortures for ya
Or I could let you down.
All the leaves, all the leaves
All the trees, all your reasons
All the breeze, all your fears
All the weight, all the decent...
...People fall away to show you,
All o' them loved you
But all to make you mine.
All the trees and all the vines
Wrap your arms then wrap 'round mine
The fields are fallow, let's set a fire
And wander to the forest line.
All your wandering has made a
Helpless man turn and stand straight up.
I could be another apparition for you
Like the ones that come to me.
I could be some light along the breakers for you
If you want to see
All the tears, all the tears
All this water, like wasted years
All the breeze, along the shoreline
All the shadow cast on your eyes.
I will fall away to show you
All o' them loved you
But all to make you mine.
All your wandering has made a
Helpless man turn and stand straight up.
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| Intent/Impelled/About a cat/About everything |
[19 Sep 2007|05:26am] |
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All I really wanted to mention tonight was when I stumbled home from an accidental afterhours at a bar I usually hate, hosted by a girl I usually hate and a few other relative strangers that I didn't hate and after a band practice and food and many drinks with people I love and I remembered to pick up catlitter and a few other sundries.
I left the door open so I could see my bags by the hallway light (careful and cautious and considerate of Dru even in my inebriation) and emptied the bags meticulously and opened one of the gallon-style jugs of clumpingcatlitter that I had to go to a second and sorta/kinda/ostensibly nicer bodega to purchase (which, to be fair, also allowed for the purchase of the other hygenicsundries) and poured it over the putrescent usedcatlitter with every intention of cleaning tomorrow. And then, job complete, I closed the door.
And then I went into the bedroom to retire. And looked for my cat.
And I couldn't find my cat.
And I wandered around for a minute knowing fullwell she was hiding somewhere in my room.
And she never appeared.
Panic but justalittle.
She's in here. The door was only open a moment and she's terrified of changeandtheoutsideworld.
(she's even terrified of Dru unless he's deadstill or deadasleep--though if he is moreorless ossified she loves him)
I opened the door. She was in the hallway. She scurried back inside.
Somehow, and I don't know howorwhy yet, I knew this mattered. I knew this meant something.
Or, anyway, I was betting that I had to write this down.
And suddenly a thought came to me that I, inanotherlife, would blog about this.
And then I wrote for a while and a little drunkenly.
And then I wrote what I meant to write.
And I wrote it because I was sure that it would somehow matter.
I did a lovingduty but a little late and she took a chance on rejecting it and then we both realized we fuckedupbad. And then everything was rightwiththeworld. And justlikethat.
And now she's waiting for me to retire.
Inspiration comes in strange ways and fades soon, too. I honestly don't know why I had to document an unusuallyscrambling cat. But I did. And apparently I'm back.
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| Reconciliation or Publicity Stunt or a little of both/future/past/future/Mobius strip |
[19 Sep 2007|04:54am] |
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Interpol |
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The answer is probably somewhere in the lyric or in the fact that I’ll quote the lyric or in the fact that I’m conflicted about posting from/about/cuz this but— Frommynewband—and no, Ghost Runner isn’t kaput even if whatever word to encapsulate the nuances of the activity or lackthereof said band has never been writ no matter how deftly we may dance around the sacred thing—a lyric from my new band, The Gulf of Michigan: And a lyric from a song about feeling too much and being overwhelmed and lashing out and learning to embrace the repercussions, but then this lyric is pulled from the moralist conclusion of the narrative, too: “You never know when this all may end so just count back to the start.” Which, of course is preceded by the murderballadlyric “Sunshower Baby made a man go crazy and they found her ripped apart.” And, well, for what it’s worth, is succeeded by “So bury your curses and bury your fears and bury your evil heart.” Murderballads and moviewesterns are supposed to have clear moral narratives, even if and especially because the characters are amoral and never get to see that moralist narrative. This murderballad is called “99 & 6 and a Rest (A Curse)” which is long but fitting. (Related: don’t waste $11 on the ostensible western 3:10 to Yuma. Everything you ever hated about Russell Crowe is in sharp relief, everything you ever liked about Christian Bale is absent and everything you ever hoped James Mangold had in him as a director is, well, either totally absent or totally abused. If you feel somehow compelled to see this film then please let me know whether you think Mangold is a hack or just botched his swing at a fastballdownthemiddle. And, regardless, the dogma I mentioned moments ago is totallyignored) I hope my amoral posturing serves to point out some unseeable moral for you, dearreaders, whomever of you still stand. And anyway I’m tired of (for once in my life) the pomp and circumstance and the sturm und drang and fucking self-imposed ridiculous rigmarole, poppycock and pageantry (much of which is probablymost certainlyandinarguably in my head and has nothing to do with you, fine readers, whomever is left of you, w/r/t the use of this LJ handle again after so many years) of my own admittedlytwisted sense of internet decorum. (more on internet decorum eventuallyhopefully) (and, to be fair, I understand that writing a re-introduction to this blog does obvs posit and indulge a certain distinct sturm/drang/poppycock/pageantry/etc/evenworse but I just want to make it clear that obvs it’s stupid but also maybe in some ways obvs the abandonment of this handle and the adoption and reformatting of so many others was stupid too butmaybenot but justcuzmaybeitwasnecessary maybe it could still be stupid and fuck it ANYWAY if you’ll forgive the reference to a lyric I wrote myself, and the additional paraphrasing of said lyric, I think it may well be time to count back thesethingswhatevertheyarewhatevertheymean and just start writing again where I started writing the first time.) So here I am again. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) jdanelliott. A crappy handle from the absolutely, positively Paleolithic era of LJ. I want to write again. I want to write short things, I want to write long things, I want to write earnestly and to whomever may still have me counted as a friend. I do miss the underground. I do miss unemployment. I do miss Dru’s basement in astoriaqueens and Alonzo’s living room greenpointbrooklyn and chaos and hope and childishness and hope and delusion and HOPE. I can’t promise to write with any consistency, but I’ve hardly kept up any consistency on any of the new/and/or/secret LJs I’ve spawned in the last three years either. I can promise to wantto. To hopeto. Hope worked so far. I’ve been blessed with strange, lovely people bringing out—whether they know it or not—the very best in me over the last several years. And this year I started over. This year—and this is positively hilarious if you’ve read the bulk of this blog/novel/vomit from years before—I moved to Brooklyn. Well, first I moved to Manhattan, then I made and corrected some errors, then I veered/overcompensated/settled/sighed/explodedlikethefourthofjuly/vanishedandreappearedinbrooklyn and now I’m happier than I’ve ever been. Promise. I finally feel, for the first time, in a bigdamnway, like I belong somewhere. (yeah, even more than @ UT where even when in the places that I felt deadon I still ran away to bigger things from thelabtheatre to themainstagetheatre to thebigaustinscene to, finally, newyorkfuckingcityHERE) I try. Real hard. And trying real hard got real easy this last year here in Brooklyn. Everything started making sense. Music/composing/narrativeandarrangement/harmony/theory/andforgodsakeperformance just sloweddown and became second nature. And everything else fell bythewayside: include big ideas for life and family and any other thing. Thank C. Alonzo and J. Spencer and J. Saad and A. Hutcheson first but also Z. & J. Ozereko and G. Licata and G.M. Sterling and J. Ramirez and all the rest that fell in for this boy, J. Elliott, in the immediate aftermath and gave courage to this/a frail boy. I admire my friends starting families. Courage there, too. More than I have in some ways. Maybe less in others. But certainly where they have more in one way I have less in the other. I have a cat. (more on that in the entry I wanted to write that demanded this initiative missive) Anyway, because I’m still a sucker for the pomp and circumstance and the sturm und drang and fucking self-imposed ridiculous rigmarole, poppycock and pageantry of my own sense of LJ decorum I felt like I had to write this preamble. And, at the same time, I’d like to apologize for indulging in this sturm/drang/fireworks/selfloathing/selfcongratulatorydreck. But, well, fuck: It’s my blog and it always has been.
And, well, fuck: There’s probably twoyearoldentries way worse than this. Thankyou and Imsorry and both equally. And maybe can I get a tinywelcomeback?
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| Critical Mass/Death to jdanelliott!/Time capsule |
[10 Dec 2004|04:31pm] |
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mood |
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my morning jacket |
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It has become too difficult to be truthful to myself and to the readers of jdanelliott in recent months, perhaps longer. I think jdanelliott actually probably ended upon the move to Manhattan.
The novel was called, after all, Down and Out in Brooklyn and Queens. The novel ended, after all, when jdanelliott moved to Hell's Kitchen.
To commemorate what would be tomorrow's anniversary of jdanelliott, I am posting the "Lost Entry," an essay in a familiar but embryonic tone that inspired my interest in a public diary. This was written Dec. 8th, 2003 as an exercise for the (still) work-in-progress theatrical collaboration between myself and Andrew Donelan, Letters From Here.
And with that, I suppose, the circle can be closed.
Death to jdanelliott!
December 8 2003
I’m awake. Or am I still awake? Both, kind of. This girl’s cat is a pain. Why is it so loud? My cat isn’t this loud. My cat likes to sleep. Why can’t I sleep?
Oh, right, guilt.
Guilt and the cat.
I don’t think I’ve ever slept in Brooklyn before, have I? When would I have? Maybe it’s Brooklyn that’s the problem.
She’s beautiful. Is she awake? Probably, but she’s playing nice. There’re rules to these things. You pretend to be asleep even when you aren’t. I should at least close my eyes. I wonder what she’s thinking about. My contacts hurt. I knew I’d wind up staying here, why didn’t I bring my contact lenses’ case? I’d put in some drops but I’d have to reach over her to get them from my pants. It’s not even 8:00 in the morning. I hate this hour. There’s no reason to get up at this hour, nothing fun happens before noon and if I’m still awake at this hour I must have been doing drugs and I really ought to be trying harder to stay clean. This should help. She should help.
The alarm’s gotta go off pretty soon, she said she had to get up early today. Why’d she invite me to stay if she had to get up so early? She must have really wanted me to stay. That’s sweet.
Sabrina never wants me to stay, really, she just kind of humors me. But I guess that’s why I’m breaking up with her. Or…can you break up with someone you’re in an open relationship with? Are we in an open relationship or is that just shit you say when you yourself have fear of commitment? Either way she brought this on herself. So why do I feel guilty about it?
This girl is fucking gorgeous. And she wanted me to stay over.
Finally, the fucking alarm. The ruse can be put to bed. Yeah, we’re awake. I’m gonna stare at a wall now for about half and hour while she walks around naked getting ready to go to her movement class. She seems taller from a distance, over there by the bathroom.
I hate the morning. I hate it even more when there’re mounds of filthy fucking snow piled next to the sidewalks, melting sludge into my path. I’m gonna fucking bite it one of these days. Why not today, right here in Brooklyn? Right in front of this girl I barely know who if I didn’t know better I’d say has already fallen in love with me.
Get that fucking thought out of your head right now.
No girls, no girls. Need to think, need to breathe. Why am I cursed to only have one quarter in my pocket? I wanted to buy the Daily News. I hate the Post. And it’s Monday. The Daily News has that great Sports Section on Mondays about all the games and the Post…well, I guess I could count the typos. I gotta wait until Union Square before I can read it anyway and start listening to music. Are you getting on or off the train, you crazy old bag? What’s the matter with your brain? Stop! There’s another train behind us, just go!
Sonya, that’s with a “Y” not an “I” and certainly not an “Ñ”, she’s not Spanish, which is what we call anyone from a Latin American country or the Caribbean in New York but never people from Spain. That’d be confusing and there really aren’t that many people from Spain here, though I did date one, that weird slut, and so we just call them People From Spain on the rare chance we have to reference one. Sonya is leaning on me and I’m leaning on the door of the L train. I kiss her forehead and realize no one’s ever been affectionate with me like this on a train before. Ever. Especially at this hour. (because of the hour? In spite of the hour?) I’m taken aback a little bit. I kiss her on the forehead again and try to remember how I got here.
She saw my band playing night before last and asked around if the bassist had a girlfriend and I’m thankful that my personal life is either (at best) mysterious or (at worst) a total shambles enough that the answer given was apparently “No”. Which is only half true but I didn’t correct her. Sabrina flaked on a gig for the second time and maybe I’ve got a vengeful streak. Plus she was one of the first girls on the dance floor and she never left. She was dancing in front of me the whole time and I caught her eye once or twice but I figured it was some kind of fluke, I mean I play bass. Of course I am the most sexually viable guy in this band, the lead singer’s girlfriend is here, the rhythm guitarist is, like, not particularly tall, and our drummer looks like he’s fucking twelve.
She was supposed to come home with me that night but it didn’t work out. She gave me her number and I asked when I should call her. I don’t have time for one sort-of-girlfriend, why should I be getting digits at a gig? Because Sort-Of told me to? I think she was kidding but you don’t say that sort of shit for no reason. I wasn’t going to call her, I really wasn’t, except she totally surprised me with something. I said “Okay, when should I call you?” Because I don’t feel like even thinking about any of that stupid how-long-do-you-wait-to-call horseshit so I would have seriously probably just lost the card in my drawer of condoms, loose change, and business cards but then she said “Tomorrow.”
That was unexpected. And I decided then and there that I would in fact call her the next day and set myself on a path of…not self-destruction by any means. But something. It won’t be fun whatever it is. But I won’t be bored.
That’s what my horoscope said the other day. “Things may seem calm right now but it’s just the eye of the storm. Professional life, personal life…yadda yadda, upheaval. But at least you won’t be bored.” What kind of fucking horoscope is that? It’s Sabrina’s horoscope, too. I told her that the night before I met Sonya at the gig when we shoveled her sidewalk, ate some Ecstasy and pretended that we were still having fun.
Shit, Union Square, I gotta transfer, I thought the exit was on my side of the car, I hope these people are all getting out, too, because I don’t know where the fuck the L goes after this stop, but apparently Sonya takes it that way.
“This is me.”
“Have a good band practice.”
“I’ll call you later.”
Did I tell her to have a good day? I don’t remember. I meant to. I think I did, right before that “this is me” line. Who fuckin’ says that, anyway “this is me”. That’s stupid. Maybe I didn’t say that, though I really think I probably did.
I wave at her as I walk to the stairs and the doors close on the L, whisking her westward underneath 14th Street.
The N/W train is upstairs and I get a seat immediately, I think, though that seems pretty weird for rush hour at Union Square. My mind is elsewhere. Why did I feel so bad? Sabrina called at like 1:30 in the morning last night and left a message that I only checked a few minutes ago, while Sonya was in the shower. It didn’t say much, just to call her. At 1:30 in the morning? I don’t know. I’m not gonna. Not at this hour. I don’t want to tell her what I did, going on a fucking date behind her back. I don’t know if she’d care about me fucking this girl, but I think the date thing might bother her. Not that she ever wants to go on dates…or even can.
I hate the fucking New York Post, look, you can’t afford the going rates for a top notch copy editor, fine, I’ll do it. $400 per week plus I want some fucking benefits. You ain’t gonna find anything cheaper, guys. No, that isn’t how you spell that, and might I recommend you invest in some punctuation marks. Fuckin’ fascists. At least I don’t speak Spanish. Those poor fucks only have one newspaper and it’s called “Hoy”. And pretty much the only thing on the cover of that paper ever is, like, a Dominican baseball player or an earthquake or something. The Post is kind of like the Fox News of New York newspapers if Fox News had that fuck O’Reilly just yelling all the day’s events at you like how old people yell simple information at foreigners like they’re hard of hearing, not from some place where they don’t speak “Old Man”.
Maybe I’ll get some breakfast. Maybe a croissant or something. I’m so hungry I think my stomach is eating itself, or it was earlier. Now I just feel faint and I really shouldn’t be listening to post-hardcore at this hour, it can’t be good for you.
The guy at the coffee shop recommended this cinnamon thing and even though I kind of hate cinnamon I just don’t have the energy to ask for a second opinion. The coffee should do me a world of good, though. Dark or light roast? I don’t know. Just some coffee, hippie. Light, I guess. I’m gonna put a bunch of milk in it anyway, no sense in wasting a good dark roast, whatever that is.
Maybe I’ll read for a while. Maybe I’ll jerk off, but for some reason that doesn’t sound like any fun. Maybe I’ll take a nap.
That dream was really weird, I should call my mom. Why would I have two dreams within six hours about my mom driving a car? I’m gonna tell her not to go anywhere today. She’ll appreciate the call anyway, and talking to her always makes me feel better because it’s always so mundane and I don’t have to explain all the shit that I think is wrong with me. And when I try to explain it to her I take this tone like “it’s not really bothering me, nothing ever does, remember?” and I kind of believe my own hype for a minute.
We’re going to Jersey! Dru’s prescription came in the mail today and we’re going to Jersey to get it filled! The only good thing about Jersey is that’s where Dru has to go to get his doctor recommended amphetamines, which is good for me because then he gives me some and I’m really fucking tired and distracted and I have band practice tonight and I’m gonna need some help focusing, I think, which is sad that I have to take my friend’s meds to do that but whatever works, right?
I’m late to practice and Chris is playing on this gorgeous Yamaha piano, a real one, made out of wood and the song sounds like a requiem for my previous 48 hours. I tune up and play along and realize that it’s actually pretty much the same as the chorus to a song we wrote a few weeks ago so maybe we’ll do, like, a Part II to the song like those old prog-rock bands.
We’re working on this new jokey blues song I wrote called “Mentholated Baby” which I don’t even really remember writing but I guess it was this morning right after I finished my cinnamon thing and gave up on the Post. The song sounds great with the guitar part Chris is working on and the chorus is the funniest thing I ever wrote, a lyric that goes “If I didn’t get ahead of myself I’d never get no place at all,” which might actually be a lot more sad than it is funny seeing as it’s true. Either way the song rocks your face off, mostly, and that’s the important thing.
I’m just going to go straight to Dru’s when I get off this train, I don’t feel like walking a block to my house and then three more over to Dru’s just to drop off my bass. I’ll just walk home with it when I’m half drunk and kind of strung out from the 10 more milligrams of amphetamine salts that I’m gonna take so we can do some collaborative writing.
Dru’s distracted and stoned and can’t seem to type right so I’m just taking over this thing now, this little sketch, this little play, because I think I know where it’s going and Dru wants it to be funny and I just don’t have it in me right now. How many times have I listened to this album tonight? What time is it? I’ve been working on this forever. Dru’s roommate, Leigh, is home and they’re pretending to have the mental capacity and motor skills necessary right now to organize a bunch of papers Dru found. Which is hilarious, because they’re stoned and just reading things, not filing a damn thing as far as I can tell which isn’t far because this script is just pouring out of me and it isn’t funny, or won’t be funny to them but I think it’s hilarious because it’s true.
I’m fucking wired, what time is it, I need to just start chugging those cans of Bud in the fridge if I’m ever gonna fall asleep tonight.
What am I talking about?
I think I’m drunk. Why am I so emotional right now? Is it the speed or the booze. Or the fucking exhaustion? Probably all three, it’s usually some combination of things that really gets you.
I didn’t talk to either of the girls tonight. That’s good. I don’t want to. I don’t want to talk to either of them ever again. That isn’t true, of course, I want to talk to both of them but I don’t know what I would say to either one, even though I know exactly what I should say. Maybe tomorrow.
I think I’ll be able to sleep if I go home. I hope my roommate is up, I’d like to talk to him about all of this, I think he’d understand more than everyone else does. I think everyone acts kind of indifferent to the fact that my personal life is a perpetual mess because they think that I’m indifferent to it, which I promise I’m not. They laugh like they’re laughing with me and I laugh too because it is funny in a way and I guess I can get defensive when people display a genuine concern like, am I gonna be okay? Of course I’m gonna be okay, but it still sucks and do you have any actual insight into this or am I just to be written off like an amusement since that’s how I’m acting.
It’s not their fault.
Mike is staying at his girlfriend’s tonight, the one he decided to be with. After all of it he decided to stick with the first one because she’s more “right” for him and what he wants and where he wants to be and the parallel is pretty obvious and so of course I want to talk to him because I think it’s strange that the girl I was with first is the one I never had any desire to be with for any significant time. She’s like a drug, you know, so it’s appropriate we did so many, because that’s what she is: a time-killer that you just get too involved with. But Mike’s not here. Maybe I should pick up my mess from breakfast.
I’m gonna read that novel that Dru’s friend from high school wrote and had published and she’s my age. It’s full of typos, too, but this is a little indie publishing company and I can see how maybe they can’t afford a proofreader, though that seems like something you’d want to make sure you have if you’re in the business of the written word.
I’m gonna play that Steve Earle album I haven’t listened to in forever. I’m just going to put “Fort Worth Blues” on repeat until I pass out and I’m gonna dream about being somewhere far away, back in Texas on somebody’s porch, drinking a beer in the afternoon and enjoying clear skies and highs in the mid 70s.
My radiator is hissing and I think I hear somebody starting to shovel snow outside.
Excerpt from Been Tired, a short play by me:
GUY
I’ve been really tired lately. I’ve been really tired of waiting for the inevitable and now I’m even more tired of wondering if there even can be such a thing anymore. I’m tired of being awake, and I’m tired of wishing I could fall asleep because then I’d stop thinking these thoughts, except I’m tired of when I do finally fall asleep I dream of inexplicable but meaningful things that only make me even more tired when I wake up with a start. I’m tired of basing my sense of self worth on whether or not a girl is coming over to my apartment, I’m tired of girls coming to my apartment, but not as tired as I am of going to their apartments. I’m tired of being told they want to sleep by themselves tonight and I’m tired of not being able to sleep when they make me stay over. I’m tired of being oversexed and I’m tired of being terrified of being undersexed. I’m tired of my friends making good while I’m sitting here tired of trying to figure out how I’m gonna make good. I’m tired of options and I’m fucking exhausted with worry over which one it’s gonna be. I’m tired of trying to pursue anything and I’m tired of the unexpected. I’m tired of your concern but not as tired as I am of giving cause for it. I’m tired of being moody because it’s a tiring thing to be. I’m tired of girls asking me what I’m thinking about and I’m tired of being unwilling to answer. I’m tired of saying “nothing”. I’m tired of saying “I’m just tired is all”. Mostly, though, I’m tired of trying to remember what it even was that I wanted to be inevitable in the first place.
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[09 Dec 2004|01:07pm] |
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I fucking hate being backed into a corner.
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| Lucy, I'm home/Postus Interruptus/Nostalgia Spiral f. Snowstorm/Query |
[08 Dec 2004|06:44am] |
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the decemberists |
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I had an epiphany re: marketing the band. I had to write an email. I am wide awake. I made my rent (somehow).
I just forgot...
She's in my bed. And I look forward to meeting her there, but on my own schedule.
Unless she meets me on hers.
Which was just now.
She is fully dressed.
"I have to pee."
Oh. Huh. That was weird.
Okay, let's try something else now.
Yeah, I know I'm owed a million dollars, but I'll get it when I'm damn good and ready.
...
[whistling]
...
Damn.
Okay, anyway, I think I was about to say something meaningful. Something about space and intimacy. Something about my time and her time and our time and "synching up" as I recall christastrophe short-handing (read: "potentially dangerously over-simplifying") the concept. I mean, any ridiculously intimate interpersonal exchange governed by weather, the moon, hormones, cycles of self-doubt, happenstance, luck, money, booze and drugs is really probably not wisely truncated into a phrase that promptly calls to mind a late 90's Boy Band ("Backstreet Boys" notwithstanding). Regardless, I admire the trust on her part to stay over on a night that isn't "one of our nights." And I maybe admire my own sense of surprised satisfaction that she would feel compelled to do so.
She's a sweet girl. And I adore her immensely. And I feel a Great Terror suspecting that I'll not, in the end, be right for her nor her for me. And she'll join the rest. And that will be that. Another chapter, another one educated in the ways of strange degenerate men.
And maybe I don't mean Degenerate Men vis-a-vis The Degenerate Movement but rather "1.) Having declined, as in function or nature, from a former or original state. 2.) Having fallen to an inferior or undesirable state, especially in mental or moral qualities."
AnnaCatherine came by The Hoek tonight before and after her birthday celebration at some French--I mean "Freedom"--Restaurant in Manhattan. We briefly joked about how I "made out" with (read: "briefly-and-I-mean-briefly-dated") her friend Sonya at her party last year (A Band Named Sue played the show and we knew the current drummer was not made of Good Stuff when, for some reason, free-flowing booze and tempting vixens didn't stir his blood). And then, a few days later, I started this journal.
Which I spoke of earlier.
But seriously that was a really great couple of weeks. Seriously.
And she reminded me that it was snowing like a bitch last year at this time. And I was single last year at this time, at least mostly. And more fun conversations with Marley and Vinnie from The Cave. And talks about drugs and talks about promiscuity and talks about where we were in the past and...
And at some point AnnaCatherine's friend had said "Oh, you're that Justin."
And she and AC smiled. And looked at me with warm eyes. And said, "Good things, she's always said good things."
And I, clearly, believed them. And I refuse to not believe them. Because it was good things. And not a day goes by where I'm not chuckled at derisively for being So Young so I don't know why I'd expect a perfectly good relationship not to derail a week-and-a-half in for that reason.
"Good things."
A year ago.
Nostalgia is a killer. And most every year I'm nostalgic for the previous year. So how does that work? Will I really be nostalgic for this a year from now? Does that mean it was all better in the womb and it's all continuously downhill from here? Or from there? Forever? Probably, I guess. The womb does sound pretty nice. Especially right now.
I'm thinking about starting a new livejournal account to commemorate my anniversary. What do you think?
By the way, the Sleazy Song of the Week is "Grace Cathedral Hill."
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| Maelstrom/Nostradamus I ain't/...toward Bethlehem to be born/Meta-wank |
[07 Dec 2004|02:10pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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contemplative |
] |
| [ |
music |
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the walkmen |
] |
Like an angel when she sleeps, a child when she wants.
Spending too much energy trying to remember how I did this.
Like a savior when you're lost, and a cross when you doubt.
And like a drug when you're alone.
It's been a strange few months and a strange few years. I just celebrated my two year anniversary in New York a little while back and I'm coming up on my one year anniversary of this journal. I looked at one of the last entries of 2003 (in ref: Guardian Angels vis-a-vis Carrie) and was reminded that I predicted 2004 was gonna be pretty great. In hindsight I see the unintentional reference to Dazed and Confused, the scene at the end where the predict how great the 80's are gonna be.
2004 was not a bad year, but it certainly was a trying one. I don't know about you, but I'm fucking exhausted. From one extreme to the other and back again a few times for good measure. Love, loss, love, loss, round and round.
Ashes, ashes...
Friday's degeneratism has begun to take on mythic status (Bug and I were reminded last night at the Electric Banana Bar that our circle of friends has a tendency to give fucking everything a mythic status. The time that Dru, Chris and I sat around and threw pickled ginger at the wall while drunk by 2pm has taken on a mythic status for fuck's sake. "I solved for x!"). Regardless, I think it's fair to say that it was quite a night and more than it stands as a turning point in our collective narrative, I think it stands as a harbinger of something far uglier and far sweatier. We've been dancing around this sort of thing for a while now, a few of us, but I think the beast is stirring in its lair and we'd be unwise to dismiss it. The fucker's after us, like it or not.
The Arlene's gig promises debauchery in spades and if the after-party is as wild as the gig promises to be, I think we're all in for a treat. Plus it'll be the exact one year anniversary jdanelliott and if this thing synchs up we're fuckin' toast. I'll probably also publish the "lost" entry to commemorate the occasion. Donelan, a year ago right around now, asked me to write a detailed description of my day as a kind of writing exercise for a project we briefly toyed with working on, Letters From Here. Ultimately we may return to the project, a play with music, but its most immediate result has been this journal. And that was a pretty good little entry, even as it maybe lacks the more cohesive style I developed in the rest of my early and mid-period work.
Because I think we all know that my entries lately have been pretty hit or miss. And I feel like an asshole for that. I feel like I've lost my voice, maybe. I certainly know I'm living as interesting a life as ever. So why is it so hard? Perhaps it's the scrutiny, the community that's developed in this thing. There was a time when everyone was anonymous. And now it's basically become the FLATPlex Community Bulletin Board. Which is nice, but I get a lot more performance anxiety now than when I was the only guy we knew using this thing.
God, I'm self-involved.
Enjoy the sleet. And tread lightly. See you at the after-party.
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| Blah, blah, blah, meditation on commitment, aloofness, loneliness, struggle, ultimate satisfaction |
[06 Dec 2004|06:09am] |
Well happy birthday Max, anyway. The rest of it, well, was just about totally appropriate.
Blah, blah, blah, she's all over me.
Blah, blah, blah, well of course she is.
Blah, blah, blah, look someone is breaking into the building next door.
Blah, blah, blah, I guess I should call the cops.
Blah, blah, blah, jaws unhinged.
Blah, blah, blah, if you've been there you know what I mean.
Blah, blah, blah, 911 is a joke.
Blah, blah, blah, how do any crimes get solved in this city?
Blah, blah, blah, what a lively weekend.
Blah, blah, blah, I'm glad to have my lady, as much as I'm a bastard.
Blah, blah, blah, the talk and the talk about the first talk and the talk during the talk about all the talks.
Blah, blah, blah, I hate going to bed alone on nights like this.
Blah, blah, blah, I hate feeling distant and/or inadequate on nights unlike this.
Blah, blah, blah, or nights maybe very much like this.
Blah, blah, blah, I'm a good man and she's a good woman and maybe we make a good couple and blah, blah, blah it's hard work, sometimes, remembering how I used to do this.
Blah, blah, blah, goodnight.
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|
[05 Dec 2004|05:23am] |
Well, that was predictable.
You know, 'cuz I predicted it. All of it. And I'm okay with that.
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| Here's the story as told by the back panel of a wonderful gift: |
[04 Dec 2004|01:22am] |
| [ |
music |
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whiskey sharks |
] |
Part 3 in our series. You are about to see some of the wildest, sexiest, and hottest brawling babes ever.
This fighting would normally not be allowed in most places, and is definitely too hot for the networks.
These beautiful talented and eager fighting machines pay their dues and are determined to beat their opponens with their bone cracking, eye popping, and perfect bodies being sacrificied.
This film is not just for wrestling fighting or martial arts fans, but also for the average guy or girl who wants to see awesome babes kicking each others booties in public backyards indoors, gyms and any where else they feel like doing it!
[all content errors s.i.c.]
So you see what I'm contending with here. It only gets scarier every day. Like tempting fates. Dude. Look around.
What?!
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| C-Note. 8:00pm. Ghost Runner. Tonight! |
[03 Dec 2004|04:43pm] |
Deep breath...
And here we go.
Everyone's on edge and tonight rock and roll will bathe them, evaporating all of their doubts and fears and anxieties.
The rock and roll</a> or the whiskey. One of the two, anyway.
And then we're all gonna sleep like little angels.
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[02 Dec 2004|11:44am] |
| [ |
mood |
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 anxious |
] |
Ugh.
I think I woke up on the wrong side of my brain. Regret. Loneliness. Terror.
If this is what happens when you go to bed before two am and get up before noon, in the future please count me out.
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[01 Dec 2004|04:25pm] |
You ever feel like there're a million things going on that you need to work on and then you try to make a list of them and you realize you have no idea what you're really supposed to be doing and maybe it's all just a waiting game and then you start to panic because you're not even sure what you're waiting for?
It's kinda like that.
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| Scenes from the FLATplex |
[29 Nov 2004|04:37pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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 good |
] |
| [ |
music |
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the strokes |
] |
SLEAZY: I want to do some writing but I'm in a...not too good but a good mood right now. Too good to work on either of my current projects.
DRU: Well why don't you break up with your girlfriend? That always seems to do the trick.
SLEAZY: "Carrie, it's over! At least for a few hours!"
DRU: There you go.
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| "He" |
[29 Nov 2004|04:56am] |
Confession in a bedroom to the music of a party. And the party was barely a party and the confession was barely a confession but doors were opened and points were made.
Frommars made a comment about "people in love" that both surprised and frightened him. And then there was tension and neurosis and too much history to not run from.
And then there he was, propped up on one elbow, muttering and almost near-coherent.
He needs space, he needs to sleep soundly sometimes. He has intimacy issues and the grass is always greener. He cannot stand to be alone. He needs adventure every bit as much as he needs comfort. He needs a stranger as much as he needs his mother.
He is aloof and he is completely mad. He is smitten and he is vehemently contented.
He wants to hold something warm, she wants to consume him.
He is a million years old. He is tired.
She is lovely. And she makes him happy.
And he needs his space. And he needs her around.
Why is this nonsense still so mysterious? In his million years he should have figured it out by now.
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