manufactured consciousness

i find it incredibly frightening that the future of this country is being shaped by politicians that polarize and exploit citizens' fears and insecurities in order to gain favor--chant u.s.a., u.s.a.

everything all of the time.

after three consecutive nights of 10+ hour shifts, i'm going to hop in my car, road trip out to rhode island, and hit up manhattan, jersey, and philadelphia on my way back to chicago. i plan on smoking way too many cigarettes, drinking entirely too much coffee, and loving every waking moment of it.

the silence that the city achieves late, late at night is pretty incredible. last night as i was riding home after having some drinks with coworkers, all i could really hear was the sound of my bike tires against the pavement and the strong wind ringing in my ears. the el broke through the night abrasively and reminded me of the city that we live in. the whole six mile ride home, i don't think more than ten cars passed me by. it was a real nice moment of summer that i shared with myself.

1er juin.

when it all boils down to it, solid friendship and love for your brother is the cornerstone of my being, as lonesome as i try to make myself sometimes.

time

one ticket to a place that is not here.

identity

greek women from the island of Lesbos are trying to get homosexual women to rethink their nomenclature so that their women can identify themselves as "Lesbians" free of the current cultural connotations. this world is straight up craaaaaazayyyy.

oklahoma kid.

i'm just a hack writer who drinks too much and falls in love with girls.

healthcare.

went to the optometrist today for a follow up exam on my new contact lenses. apparently, i have a big 'ol corneal ulcer that she missed during my exam last week. luckily for me, i'm undergoing antibiotic treatment so as not to lose vision in my right eye. i get to go to the office and have bright lights shone in my eye for the next four days! at the nominal fee of only fifty dollars a visit! and the antibiotic eye drops i was prescribed? why, only sixty one dollars for a 3ml bottle. look at that guy.



luckily for me, i have health insurance. the good folks at blue cross and blue shield are endowing unto me a whopping twenty two dollars for the whole ordeal. thank you american healthcare system! what would i DO without you!

you forgot it in people

gimme some of that old soul.

el-low

it's about that time that i thrust myself back into the game of uncertainty and discomfort.  it's all about burning bridges and blazing new trails.  forge a new path for new beginnings and pioneer a future for myself.  no job.  no band.  no school.  all i've got is this little hope burning inside me that has to carry me on to bigger and better things...  and this pair of hazel eyes burned into my mind that maybe someday will look back into mine.  it's time to set things right.

soleá

so i packed a bag, hopped a few planes and trains, and saw another part of the world.

shared some beautiful moments with a beautiful lady.

what a life.

check it out.

(dreaming of) meat is murder.

i dreamt of eating veal cutlets last night. what a bummer.

chicago seemed tired last night

lot's of work lately. keeping my mind and body busy so as not to let them wander and get into shitty situations. i've been thinking about the future in very different terms than i ever have before. there seems to be an unnatural split from my usual pessimism. bob laughed at me and told me i'm still entirely too pessimistic when i told him this, but i feel it's more of a brightly centered and focused realism than an blanket pessimism. there's no way to ignore or deny all of the negativity and let down that goes on in daily life, but i've learned to accept these all and focus on the passing moments of beauty where humanity shines through. it's given me this electric feeling that, no matter what, everything is going to be okay. there will always be good tunes, there will always be good films. the libraries are full and nothing's going to change that. and then, there's always the muse; that single image of fleeting beauty that keeps the fire alive. sunshine creeping through the window after a sleepless night that hit's the hair just right and sets the whole room ablaze with a piercing glow. it's time for travel.

cafe lula

two twenty-something young women seated across from one another, each one not looking at the other, talking on their cellphones and staring out the window.

office space.

i'm getting to the point where i have nightmares about my job every single night. something has to change.

friday night el ride.

friday night, about two in the morning. drunkenly ambling down division with a half-empty case of pabst tucked under one arm, the other draped around mike, telling some story too loudly and laughing while crossing in the middle of the street, forgetting to look both ways. we make our way down the stairwell into the blue line station, hoping that the attendant won't be there and we can hop the turnstile. alas, the attendant diligently mans his post. mike and steve have no cash, so i spring for their fares. even after eleven hours spent on my feet that day, waiting tables to the pseudo-bourgeois ranks suburbanites who like to treat those who serve them like members of an untouchable caste, money still just seems like paper to me. at this moment, lincoln and washington looking up at me from my raw hand forget the middle aged women that sat there on table eighteen for hours, sucking down one iced tea after another, splitting an entree, haggling for a free dessert, and ultimately leaving a sorry excuse for a tip--almost as if, in my eyes, they saw those of all the men that averted their gaze, never retuned a coy smile, and drove them to this: two middle aged hens pushing at the elastic of their waste-bands and drowning their sorrows in the finest unsweetened china black that the world had to offer. but lincoln and washington, they don't remember. they don't begrudge. they're just there to get me home. farecard in, farecard out. six dollars and three clicks of the turnstyle later, we're down in the tube.

it appears we've come at a good time. the station attendant tried to tell me that i couldn't bring the beer down into the train, but i bullshit something or other about the box not being an open container, merely a vessel for a collection of closed containers. either i was extremely witty and clever, or his fatigue and indifference for a job that overworked and underpaid him prevailed, so we made our way down the stairs with nothing more than a heavy sigh and i "well, i ain't seen shit, but don't say i ain't told y'all if the po-lice come on after you," from him. we make it down as a crowd nervously shuffles back and forth, waiting in partial silence for the next train to come. faces all point southbound, eyes transfixed on the tunnel. the tracks follow and vanish into darkness. ears strain to hear the rumble and roar of the oncoming train. toes tap, we're all just waiting. i look around and see faces; a dichotomy of those who have chosen to be out on this brisk night and those who just wish that they were home already. something about a man in soiled work clothes catches me off guard. cloth plastered to his body with dirt and the echoes of hard manual labor seems to droop towards the ground, bringing all of his limbs down in an eerily undead stance. however unwilling his body is to fight gravity, his eyes still maintain a steady, unwavering gaze. watching, waiting for that train. waiting to get home, quietly remove his boots, make sure not to close the door too loudly. maybe he has three children, their makeshift mattresses set up haphazardly about an apartment too small for two. fingers reaching out for their sleeping foreheads, fingers that curl back into the palm. he sheds his skin and washes in the sink. a shower would be too loud, would wake the mother, passed out in a bathrobe and a negligee with a bottle of gordon's keeping vigil over her on the nightstand. he sits in his recliner, the right side sunken in, the foot rest no longer lifts. he sleeps upright, head slightly craned down and to the right, arms rigid at his side.

the train finally comes. we all get on together, but it doesn't feel like it did on the street. all i can think about is those poor kids and that man and his gaze and i don't want to laugh anymore and i don't feel right carrying this case of beer and i can't believe i'm going to fall asleep drunk and happy in a warm bed surrounded by all the fruits of my youthful selfishness. there's nothing i can do. i crack another beer and laugh as steve does a drunken dance, a few passengers laughing, the other weary eyes cast towards the ground.

plans.

while everything as of late seems to have shifted and moved, apparently set upon its head by some force that is far more powerful than even the farthest fringes of my imagination can attempt to grasp, i can't help but let loose a sly smile at the world of possibilities that lay ahead of me. this one.... is going to be a trip.

"and it came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to father time"
-death cab for cutie - "what sarah said"

valse.

so i might be a little crazy but i've got this heart that keeps on beating it goes "ba dump ba dump ba dump dump dump" and keeps on beating keeps repeating keeps me going through the day feeds the blood up to my brain where thoughts flow in then words pour out and maybe here and there a neuron fires a little electricity makes the muscles move makes my arms go up my legs go out makes me go through the motions of a little dance that i like to call life.

lifer.

i got a feelin' it didn't come free / i got a feelin' and then it got to me / when you don't feel it, it shows they tear out your soul / and when you believe, they call it rock and roll.

form follows function.

that last one was an especially good one.  the second i turned over the last page and closed the back cover i took it with both hands and held it close to my face and felt it touch my lips and nose, slightly thumbing the pages to usher their smell to me.  i wondered, what if this had been an old book?  what if the pages were musty and held mysteries within them past the text--coffee stains, dog ears, frayed edges...  what if they hadn't been so fresh, pristine due to my delicate care for them, turning them slightly so as not to disturb their integrity...  as if they were vulnerable vessels for the tale.  what if these pages had been given time to ferment and ripen.  would i have been left with the literary embodiment equivalent to a good chateau margot?  would the story have seemed richer? it seems that the actual body on which the prose is scribed should hold within it some ancient mystical quality.  instead, his matte cover holds the same dull sheen his bookshelf brothers reflected back towards him as he left the sterile and sanctimonious world he was familiar with for one of endless possibilities.  with any luck, this one, too, will have his chance to show his battle scars.

dry clean.

i feel one hundred percent justified in sleeping with all of my clothes on last night.  it's been a long week, damn it.

low

je me sens située au bas de l'oceán 

cornelius.

the most immaculate representation of incredible musicianship doubled with taste a penchant for a/v synchronization, subtract in ear monitors, and send out with flawless execution.

fuck.

progress.

today is day zero.

tomorrow will be day one.

"the haze clears from your eyes on a sunday"

today is day zero.

tomorrow will be day one.

vivre sa vie.

perseverance

sometimes, you just have to look at yourself and say, "do i follow the rhythm, or do i pick up the lead?"


and then you come to realize--the sweetest compromise is the perfect blend of the two.

le collectif.

quitter.

on second thought, fuck the moustache business. i will never be a proper frenchman. vive le clean face.

the beauty of music through the ages.

no country for old men.

i don't think there's anything more heartbreaking than to see a old people crying silently to themselves.  i don't really mind seeing the elderly openly weep or grieve--it's certainly moving to see emotionality coming from people of all makes and shapes regardless of their age.  to see, however, a person that's witnessed so much in the world squash their emotions down to a single tear dripping from a brimming eye without letting out a sound just doesn't seem right.  what horror can keep a mouth sealed tight while the life pours right out?

coming soon to a neighborhood near you

mikey russell in:  40 days and 40 nights.  

running january ninth through february eighteenth, two thousand eight. 

(warning:  performance may not continue for the full tenure.  you will not be refunded your ticket price.)

i get eaten by the worms / weird fishes

for whatever reason, i've always felt this incredible trepidation towards insects.  those small, seemingly harmless i remember a particular scene as a child

l'aventure du moustache commence!

day four.

now, for whatever reason i'm not quite sure, i thought it would be great to start off the new year by trying to grow a moustache (and, yes, i will use the french spelling of it from here on out...  because i feel the "o" adds a certain amount of european arrogance to my stupid little project).  while my facial hair tends to usually come in rather sparse and generally unattractive patches, i have at one point managed to grow a beard, albeit the creation more or less functioned as facsimile for an emaciated ferret glued to my chin and neck.  the bottom line goes as follows:  at twenty one years of age, how can i claim myself any sort of frenchman if i've never sported a proper moustache?  herein, the chronicling commences.  

day four exhibits the beginning phase of the moustache.  upon close inspection of this pale, pale... pale upper lip, one can faintly trace the outline of a blonde-ish follical explosion... like those first triumphant springtime blades of grass that fight their way up through the cold and break through their snowy prison to breathe in the chill, sunny air... or... what?  that doesn't happen.  grass doesn't grow through the snow.  what a horrible attempt at creating an epic metaphor.  regardless--the show is on the road here.  

i'm into it.

three things

1.  after being on tour and taking in little more than a steady diet of cheap tortilla chips and tostidos brand salsa provided by cheap promoters who have a very limited and weak understanding of what a proper vegan meal consists of, what used to be a simple late night snack has now turned into a somewhat maudlin recollection of the glory days.  

2.  walking down the street in the rain this morning, i closed my eyes and transported myself in true tralfamadorian fashion back to june of 2006.  i opened them back up and i was standing at the top of the hill in a small town in france, waiting with my father before the sunrise for the bus to pick us up, to start on yet another journey through the countryside.  everything was so silent and still that the mist in the air just seemed to hang, as if suspended in time.

3.  enjoy your worries; you may never have them again.

the sky is falling.

01.07.08.  64 degrees fahrenheit in chicago with a severe thunderstorm warning in effect.  never in my life did i believe i would be sitting on my front stoop playing guitar in a t-shirt on a chicago winter's day.  it boggles my mind that some people still believe that global warming is some sort of conspiratorial myth.  just now--pouring rain, lightning, and a thunderclap that resonated for what seemed like minutes.