The Loss Adjuster lost his mind...

It's 2010!

2010-01-02T21:21:00.000-08:00

Who saw that one coming? Not me, for sure. It's like I blinked and the aughties were over. Weren't we all just paranoid the computers were going to eat us in 2000? Weren't we all just mourning a terrorist attack in 2001? Didn't Kanye West just embarrass himself on national television? Did anything else happen while I was asleep?

I haven't made any New Year's Resolutions yet. Last year's were a bit of a flop, although I did manage to do quite a few things "jauntily." I don't have any burning issues I especially want to address. I have a job, my cats, semi-realistic expectations, and a handful of self-improvements that I really shouldn't discuss in an open forum (hint: I'm not writing this with a glass of something in hand).

I suppose I want what everyone wants at the beginning of each year. Some happiness. A little less tragedy. A smidgen of security. Perhaps a gift certificate to Best Buy. It's 2010. Nothing special. Maybe we'll all get through it okay. Promise?

The Best Albums Of 2009 #1

2009-12-31T00:52:00.000-08:00

The Horrors-Primary Colours

When The Horrors debuted in 2006, they hit the airwaves amid a frenzy of UK-media hype. They were all black outfits and frizzy hair and Cramps-meets-Bauhaus spaz-outs. They were the goth band for the punk kids, wherever those kids may be. It was pretty heady stuff if you were into that sort of thing, but not a lot of people were. NME made Arctic Monkeys stars. The Horrors were swiftly brushed aside as also-rans.

Three years later, The Horrors returned with a new album and a (slightly) new sound. At first, Primary Colours sounds like an album made by a completely different band. Further listens unwinds the album a bit, however. This is definitely the same dark band; they’ve just wrapped themselves in some gauzy new threads and sounds.

Primary Colours starts with a swirl of bleak electronica that reminisces David Bowie’s Berlin Trilogy. 45 minutes later, the album ends with a full-band flurry that album producer Geoff Barrow borrowed from his band Portishead’s “The Rip.” In between, the touchstones are varied. Joy Division… The Cure… The Jesus And Mary Chain… My Bloody Valentine… Primary Colours is best described as “Gothic Shoegaze,” but even that moniker doesn’t do the album justice. The album is 2009 in a nutshell: it’s loud, nonsensical, and a little on the bleak side.

The Best Albums Of 2009 #2

2009-12-30T11:34:00.000-08:00

Jarvis Cocker-Further Complications

Jarvis, Jarvis, Jarvis… An album about fucking and divorce, eh? You salty middle-aged sexpot, you! Lyrically, Further Complications hit me harder than just about any other album released in 2009. No, I’m not a salty middle-aged sexpot (though I might be salty.). but he just seems to get it and it’s nice to know that there’s another person out there in this big, mean world who does. Whether it’s ruminations on manwhores (“Homewrecker!”) or allegories about older men and dinosaurs (“Leftovers“), Further Complications never fails to deliver one sucker punch to the heart after another. And all these months after its release later, I just have to admit that “Hold Still” pretty much puts me into a panic attack every time I hear it.

The Best Albums Of 2009 #3

2009-12-30T06:13:00.000-08:00

Arctic Monkeys-Humbug

I’ve heard a lot of grousing this year about how the Arctic’s third album is a “disappointment.” About how it’s too sludgy or slow or uncool or whatever. Well, yes, Humbug is sludgy and slow and uncool. It was produced by Queens Of The Stone Age’s Josh Homme. Sludgy and slow and uncool is kind of what he does. Which is why Humbug kind of transcends all trends this year. Arctic Monkeys basically made a low-down, dirty rock record in a year when the hip thing to do in rock music was to be psychedelic, low-fi, or twee (and in some cases, all three!). It took a lot of guts to throw all credibility out the window, but the results are pretty heady.

The Best Albums Of 2009 #4

2009-12-29T22:29:00.000-08:00

Art Brut-Art Brut Vs. Satan

I just might be Art Brut’s Eddie Argos. It seems like every Art Brut song is about unfortunate mishaps with pills, comic books, self-embarrassment, or that band you really, really like. Their third album, the Frank Black-produced Art Brut Vs. Satan, is chock full of new stories that lovingly ape Jonathan Richman while waving the flag of The Replacements. Art Brut is one of those odd bands that continues to be widely ignored while still crafting utterly brilliant and shockingly honest records. So, I guess if my life is going to continue echoing anyone’s, it might as well be Eddie Argos‘, because I could do a hell of a lot worse.

The Best Albums Of 2009 #5

2009-12-29T18:49:00.000-08:00

Franz Ferdinand-Tonight: Franz Ferdinand

You know that feeling you get at 2am when you’ve just been thrown out of the bar onto the cold, dark streets and you’re not really sure where your cell phone is? And you’re pretty sure you left your credit card at the bar, but the bouncer won’t let you back in because, apparently, you called his girlfriend a “crack whore loser?“ And you keep trying to open your car door, but you don’t remember if you drive a Ford Taurus or a Jeep Cherokee? But you know in the back your mind that you are absolutely the most fabulous person about to blow chunks on the street corner? That’s Tonight: Franz Ferdinand.

The Best Albums Of 2009 #6

2009-12-28T10:43:00.000-08:00

The Flaming Lips-Embryonic

I was just about to give up on The Flaming Lips after 2006’s At War With The Mystics. Not that the album was terrible by any stretch of the imagination. It just seemed like a typically flat post-success album. Everyone does it. The Flaming Lips’ return to the mainstream in the early aughties was a joyous celebration of a band that’s been doggedly persistent for the last few decades. So a bit of a letdown was expected. Now that it’s all out of the way, The Flaming Lips have returned with Embryonic, a rather shocking nosedive into psychedelic rock that spans two discs. Embryonic is a dense album that rewards upon multiple listens. It’s hard to find the commercial elements here. Every so often, there’s a “Silver Trembling Hands,” or a “Convinced Of The Hex.” But for the most part, Embryonic is chock-full of stuff no radio station is going to touch. The best part? They save the most commercial track, “Watching The Planets,” for the very last song on the second disc. Sheer brilliance!

The Best Albums Of 2009 #7

2009-12-27T23:55:00.000-08:00

Phoenix-Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

“Hey, it’s that band with that song in that car commercial!” Ugh. Well, Phoenix is a French band that sounds a lot like The Strokes. This is either a really good or really bad thing. With some bands, sounding a lot like The Strokes comes off as a desperate stab at the mainstream. Here comes that car commercial! Thankfully, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix is just a great album of songs that transcend the “Stroke-abees” tag. You’ve probably heard these songs a million times before, but this time around, they’re fun and fresh and 2009. Or 1901. One of the two.

The Best Albums Of 2009 #8

2009-12-26T01:40:00.000-08:00

Animal Collective-Merriweather Post Pavilion

I’m sure a good deal of you heard about this album this year, and probably a few of you bothered to download it. Maybe a few of those few actually listened to it all the way through. And of those few, I’m sure a few of you really got into it. I guess that’s the thing about Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion. Those of us who spent the time getting our heads around the album’s, well, music eccentricities, quickly discovered that it’s Animal Collective’s most “pop” record to date. Which, admittedly, can be like saying that Phillip Glass put out a pop record, but you can catch my drift. There’s something oddly liberating and fun about Merriweather Post Pavilion, which is something I have trouble saying about previous Animal Collective releases. Maybe that’s why so many people are talking about them this year.

The Best Albums Of 2009 #9

2009-12-25T23:24:00.000-08:00

A Place To Bury Strangers-Exploding Head

I just adore how loud and discordant A Place To Bury Strangers’ blend of space-rock and shoegaze is. Their second album, Exploding Head, will positively blow out your eardrums at high volumes. True story: I was listening to the record on my turntable quite loudly a while back and, apparently, missed: an ambulance racing down my street, my phone ringing off the hook, someone yelling at my front door, and my cats meowing at me, wondering why the attention I used to give them is now bestowed on some garage trio from New York.

The Best Albums Of 2009 #10

2009-12-25T22:43:00.000-08:00

Depeche Mode-Sounds Of The Universe

“Oh, hai, Depeche Mode! Still awesome?”

“Yep”

“Okay”

The Best Albums Of 2009 #11

2009-12-22T16:51:00.000-08:00

Fever Ray-Fever Ray

It’s weird to think that brother-sister duo The Knife’s Silent Shout came out in 2006, because it still feels like it happened five seconds ago. Silent Shout is an album so groundbreaking that it’s nearly impossible to put into a box and put away. That we’re in 2009 now and presented with Fever Ray feels like icing on the cake. “I’m still not over Silent Shout and you give me this?!?” Fever Ray is essentially Karin Andersson’s solo debut, and it strips some of the punch and vigor from The Knife in favor of moodiness and quietude. Where The Knife could be creepy at times, Fever Ray is creepy all the time. Andersson’s voice sounds like it’s coming out from under your bed to drag you off to who knows where. Who knew Sweeden was so dark?

The Best Albums Of 2009 #12

2009-12-19T19:20:00.000-08:00

Bear In Heaven-Beast Rest Forth Mouth

Sometimes the best albums just sneak up on you, completely unexpected. I had no clue what I was getting into when I downloaded Bear In Heaven’s “Lovesick Teenagers.” All I was told was that it was brilliant and exactly the sort of thing that someone like me would like (Oh, where have we been burned in that department before?). What I heard was a single that mixed pop, new wave, darkwave, and just about everything else at one point or another. It’s so easy to hear the familiar in Beast Rest Forth Mouth, but difficult to really pinpoint exactly who you’re hearing. There’s definitely some Depeche Mode there. Is that some Nitzer Ebb influence? Can? Possibly some Animal Collective? It’s a pretty enticing mix. Beast Rest Forth Mouth pulls off the neat trick of being comfortable and familiar without sounding like too much of a rip-off.

The Best Albums Of 2009 #13

2009-12-16T12:18:00.000-08:00

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart-The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart

Much like the dozens of other bands the critical music elite have told you to like this year, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart can come off as pretty easy to pass up. Jangly guitars, melancholy lyrics, off key vocals, etc… It‘s the kind of stuff that makes Pitchfork editors drool and just about everyone else say, “Pass.” But there really is something about the band’s self-titled debut. It took just one listen of “This Love Is Fucking Right!” to get me on board (“In a dark room we can do just what we like/You're my sister, and this love is fucking right.”).

The Best Albums Of 2009 #14

2009-12-15T23:30:00.000-08:00

The Raveonettes-In And Out Of Control

In the last two years, The Raveonettes have released three EP’s (Sometimes They Drop By, Beauty Dies, and Wishing You A Rave Christmas) and two long-players, Lust Lust Lust and In And Out Of Control. And, to be perfectly honest, these releases have contained some of the band’s best work. It seems like leaving the majors for an indie label (the polite way of saying “dropped”) has paid off for the Danish duo of Sharin Foo and Sune Rose Wagner. I wasn’t really expecting much out of In And Out Of Control, considering how quickly it came after Lust Lust Lust, but I was pleasantly surprised this time out. The edges are a bit softer and there’s nothing as mind-boggling awesome as “Dead Sound” or “Aly Walk With Me,” but it’s still a damned good album.

The Best Albums Of 2009 #15

2009-12-15T23:16:00.000-08:00

Sonic Youth-The Eternal

I was on a road trip with a co-worker this past summer and I had brought along a handful of CD’s for the ride, one of them being Sonic Youth’s 16th album, The Eternal. As I was driving, my rather young passenger seemed to really be getting into it…

Co-worker: “Who is this?”
Me: “Oh, it’s Sonic Youth.”
Co-worker: “Never heard of them. Are they new?”
Me: “Um, no. They’re a few years away from they’re 30th anniversary.”
Co-worker: “No way! You’re lying!”
Me: “Um…”
Co-worker: “They sound new. They must be new…”

The co-worker started looking through the album art in an attempt to find proof that I was lying, I suppose.

Co-worker: “There’s no way these guys are old…”

Ah, to be Sonic Youth…

The Best Albums Of 2009 #16

2009-12-13T19:40:00.000-08:00

Them Crooked Vultures-Them Crooked Vultures

I suppose a band featuring Queens Of The Stone Age’s Josh Homme, Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl, and Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones isn’t exactly the most far-fetched-sounding thing ever. As far as musical super-groups go, Them Crooked Vultures falls into the “obvious” category. The band sounds like Queens Of The Stone Age acting like a Led Zeppelin cover band, with Grohl left playing catch-up to Jones’ bass hooks. Regardless of whatever it is, it works. Them Crooked Vultures is a highly enjoyable bit of naval gazing.

The Best Albums Of 2009 #17

2009-12-09T21:06:00.000-08:00

…And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead-The Century Of Self

…And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead has been known for years for their live shows, where debauchery and instrument destruction is the norm. Yet, the one time I saw them in LA, back in 2002, they seemed to despise their audience. Perhaps it was because they were feeling somewhat restrained by their record deal with Interscope. Perhaps they’re just dicks. Regardless, it’s been years since those days of Interscope trying to make something palatable out of …Trail Of Dead’s noise. Now freed from major label interference, the band can get back to resurrecting its image. The Century Of Self is a good start. It’s easily their best record since 2002’s Source Tags & Codes…

The Best Albums Of 2009 #18

2009-12-08T13:46:00.000-08:00

Asobi Seksu-Hush

I, for one, have really enjoyed the resurgence of shoegaze and dreampop in popular music the past few years. Asobi Seksu are a band that has sort of veered between the two genres willy-nilly. Their latest, Hush, is a little bit more in the dreampop department, evoking the criminally underrated British group Lush. Hush is a great rainy-day album; something you can put on, curl up by the space heater, and doze to. Very few bands could take pleasure in something like that; a listener falling asleep to your album. But for a dreampop group, it’s high praise indeed.

The Best Albums Of 2009 #19

2009-12-07T22:27:00.000-08:00

Tom Waits-Glitter And Doom

Yeah, I know. It’s a live album. But it’s a live album that evokes an extreme reaction with me. Listening to Glitter And Doom makes me severely pissed off, mostly because it‘s a snapshot of a tour that I‘m positively miserable for missing. Tom Waits played a mere thirteen shows in North America last year, and the closest one to me was in Phoenix. I do not live near Phoenix. Thus, I’m left with Glitter And Doom, a collection primarily culled from the time period between 1992’s Bone Machine and 2004’s Real Gone. The last few decades have shown Waits to be one of the few true artists left from the singer-songwriters of his generation. Glitter And Doom just piles more proof on top of that.

The Best Albums Of 2009 #20

2009-12-07T18:37:00.000-08:00

Julien-K-Death To Analog

I really, really should hate Death To Analog, Julien-K’s first and, likely, only album (I'm only being a snarky asshole. I really don't own a crystal ball). It’s a side-project for Orgy, for Christ’s sake! But for some reason, it didn’t make me throw up the first time I listened to it. Then, a funny thing happened… I actually started to enjoy the album’s KMFDM-meets-Depeche Mode sound. I even wound up seeing them live twice this year. I have lost any shred of indie cred I had with this one. I am going to jail and being flogged by Ian Mackaye until I scream Pavement lyrics. Kim Gordon sends me hate mail now. *sigh*

My 13 Favorite Music Videos Of 2009

2009-12-07T12:11:00.000-08:00

In no particular order…

Fever Ray-”Stranger Than Kindness”

Yeah Yeah Yeahs-”Heads Will Roll”

Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Heads Will Roll"

Yeah Yeah Yeahs | MySpace Music Videos

The Dead Weather-”Treat Me Like Your Mother”

The Saturday Knights-”Count It Off”

Doves-”Kingdom Of Rust”

Doves - Kingdom of Rust

doves | MySpace Music Videos

Kasabian-”Fire”

Depeche Mode-”Wrong”

Depeche Mode - "Wrong" (official music video)

Depeche Mode | MySpace Music Videos

Franz Ferdinand-”Can’t Stop Feeling”

The Flaming Lips-”Watching The Planets” (NSFW!)

Watching The Planets
by paulqaz

Lady GaGa-”Bad Romance”

Mew-”Repeaterbeater”

Jarvis Cocker-”Further Complications”

The Horrors-”Mirror‘s Image”

Instant Happiness

2009-10-23T19:48:00.000-07:00

I deleted my Twitter account today. Admittedly, a year-and-a-half after starting the thing, I was no longer enjoying it. Well, maybe I haven't been enjoying it for a while before that...

I can credit Twitter with introducing me to a fantastic bunch of people, from Betheboy and the Slackmistress to Heather Harris and Michael Holmes, amongst many, many others. But the fun ended a long time ago. Maybe it's entropy? Maybe it's my awkward experiences with "Twitter stalkers?" Maybe it's fatigue from hearing what everyone ate for breakfast?

Who knows? But I feel a certain release from eliminating Twitter from my life. It's just one less thing I have to pretend I care about. It's one less thing to waste time doing when I should be sleeping. You know, like blogging? ;)

Excerpt 19

2009-10-22T21:21:00.000-07:00

She and I don’t talk too terribly much anymore. It’s been nothing but awkward since we fought for that first time. I guess I figured that we’d survive one measly fight, considering how well we got along otherwise. But we didn’t survive that one fight. Any friendship we had appeared to die.

And, of course, it was all over a boy. Oh, not in the way you may think. Did I find myself in the midst of a “bromance?” I think I did. “I love you, bro. You and me mean more than any girl. I’d do anything for you.” Boys lie.

When it happened, he apologized. I accepted. And I essentially told them both, “Do what you will.” I think they both blamed me regardless. I tried to “be the bigger person” and “get over it.” And, honestly, I did. I guess maybe I’ve grown up a little. Maybe I’ve learned that I can’t have what I want.

He’s pretty much out of the picture these days. We’ve all sort of fallen out of touch with each other. When someone mentions him these days, I stifle a little laugh. It’s amazing how much impact two people I’ve barely known can have on my life. And just how quickly those people can slide back out.

When she and I do see each other these days, we talk about the strangest things. We don’t talk about the weather, or movies, or politics. We talk about hair. We talk about bruises. We talk about cats. It’s like we’re still what we once were. Only, a faint memory… not the real thing.

Portland Oregon And Sloe Gin Fizz

2009-10-20T20:25:00.000-07:00

I suppose that if I’d have made a list of things I expected to do in 2009, spending a few days in Portland, Oregon wouldn’t have been on it. Yet, somehow, I found myself in Portland this weekend. That’s just sort of how this year has been for me. I’ve done a lot of things… I’ve been to a lot of unexpected places…

Portland is a pretty cool place. It’s a large city that feels like a small town. There’s no denying that there are a lot of people there. Yet everyone acts as if they know you. It’s so… unassuming.

Admittedly, there is no real story here. I got on a plane. I discovered that Portishead is the best flight soundtrack ever. I went to Portland. I came home. I was not assaulted by a cadre of pistol-wielding nuns. I did not drink a fifth of whiskey and stumble into the mayor's residence to play Twister. I did not feel embraced. I did not feel missed. But I went, nonetheless.

Naptime

2009-10-01T05:47:00.000-07:00

Looking out my bedroom window at this hour, I still can’t see a damned thing. I fell asleep around 6pm last night and woke up just a few minutes ago. This isn’t anything close to a regular sleep schedule for me. It’s just how things go. I sort of thought that moving to overnight work hours would automatically mean I slept during the day, 7 days a week. Well, it doesn’t mean that whatsoever.

And I think the sudden appearance of fall in my neck of the woods has caused me to be even more sleepy. I’m taking lots of naps. I’m sleeping at odd hours. The cooler weather brings back the fun of cuddling with my cats under a load of blankets. I’m missing phone calls, text messages, etc and it’s pissing people off (*poke*).

And, ultimately, I don’t really mind. It seems like the best way to find myself was to absolutely lose myself. I’m living in my own little universe these days. It’s quite fun, actually.

And I’m sure that’ll elicit all sorts of opinion, both good and bad. But it doesn’t really matter. One thing that irritates me about this blog is that it only displays a few facets of my personality. I mean, reading this blog gives someone a 2-D version of what I’m like. Which is often how I wind up with creepy, awful, manatee-like stalkers obsessing over my every move.

Seriously, kids, it’s not worth it.

Go outside. Read a book. Listen to a record.

And enjoy what’s to come…

Fuck You

2009-08-21T20:00:00.000-07:00

I may be a "self-pitying dramaqueen," but at least I'm not an anonymous pussy.

No More August

2009-08-11T16:54:00.000-07:00

...things turned awful today. Fuck August. No more personal growth. No more love. No more nothing. Later...

August 10th

2009-08-10T11:55:00.000-07:00

(For the month of August, I will be posting something every single day that, hopefully, betters my life. Or enriches my experience. Or something new. Or something exciting. And I hope that all of you, my friends, join me on this ride.)

Today is the last day I spend with the patient I’ve had for the last two and a half months. I was his primary rehabilitation assistant his entire stay at my company’s apartments, so we spent more than ample time together. These last few months have been frustrating, hilarious, dangerous, infuriating, difficult, and enriching, to say the least. He’s going home a different person. So am I.

Last night, I took him to a baseball game at the local ballpark. The experience was a microcosm of my days with him. Between cracking inappropriate jokes directed at other patients and freaking out because I referred to his hot dog wiener as, well, a wiener, he spent time arguing with me about the minutiae of the experience and laughing his ass off.

Two and a half months ago, I could never have said that I was going to miss him. But I am. At 11:30 tonight, I’m probably going to be feeling more than a little maudlin. And knowing him, he’s probably going to call me a “dildohead” or a “prick” or a “fucking retard” and scream at me to leave the room at around 11:25. That’s probably the most apropos way to spend our last evening together, too.

August 9th

2009-08-09T00:27:00.000-07:00

August 8th

2009-08-08T12:15:00.000-07:00

(For the month of August, I will be posting something every single day that, hopefully, betters my life. Or enriches my experience. Or something new. Or something exciting. And I hope that all of you, my friends, join me on this ride.)

Yeah, that was a terrible idea. I survived, though. I did not smoke a single cigarette yesterday. Still haven't today. Mostly I missed going through the motions of smoking a cigarette. I didn't quite know what to do with my hands. Especially on a day where I felt completely miserable to begin with. The smoke would have been a comfort, on a day where I needed the hug. Perhaps the key is cutting back, like with my drinking. If I smoke 4-5 a day, instead of a whole pack, I might be able to afford a trip a week to the dollar store. *cough*

Honestly, I don't really have a goal for today. It's hard to come up with stuff on days I'm working. It's hard to get out and do culturally enriching things when I'm working most of the day. So, I think I'll just make things simple. I will make it a good night at work for my patient. I will try to not let the bad of this week get to me. And, hey, maybe it's time to let you guys in on the action.

What exactly do you want to see me do this month? Is there some personally-enriching activity or action you'd like to see me perform? Let me know. I just might do a few of those things...

August 7th

2009-08-07T12:48:00.000-07:00

(For the month of August, I will be posting something every single day that, hopefully, betters my life. Or enriches my experience. Or something new. Or something exciting. And I hope that all of you, my friends, join me on this ride.)

It turns out that I’m terrible at pool. Drinking before I got there wasn’t much help. But I did have fun hanging out and making a fool out of myself. And I wasn’t even the one who fell off a stool!

So what am I up to today? It’s a simple one. I stopped smoking. The plan is to not smoke a single cigarette today and see if I can make it. If I can make it through today, maybe I can make it through tomorrow. And the day after. Then, who knows? Maybe I’ll be President?

Why am I doing this? The things are expensive, pure and simple. I work for peanuts and the local Fastrip doesn’t take peanut shells in exchange for cigarettes. If I took cigarettes out of my budget, I’d be a Dollar Menunaire. Or something.

Today’s adventure is probably a terrible idea. You see, I’ve had to do all sort of stressful things already this morning, spending some time at the local courthouse and finding out that I’m not having my fees waived for the divorce. Suddenly, I have ten days to come up with $355. But I didn’t crack. I might crack at midnight tonight. But I won’t crack today. And who knows? Maybe this will stick.

August 6th

2009-08-06T15:59:00.000-07:00

(For the month of August, I will be posting something every single day that, hopefully, betters my life. Or enriches my experience. Or something new. Or something exciting. And I hope that all of you, my friends, join me on this ride.)

Loma Linda... It kind of reminds me of Bakersfield, but smaller and less impressive. I think that pretty much sums it up. It's in the San Bernardino area, a part of southern California that does next to nothing for me. Ghetto. Mall. Ghetto. Starbucks. Ghetto. Pho. Ghetto. Bigger mall. Oh, and I did see a Vietnamese joint called A Dong Restaurant. Heh. Why leave home? I guess to remind me that home's not so bad. At least I know exactly where to get a stiff drink and some decent Carribbean food. That's what home is to me.

Today's theme is new experiences. Tonight, I will go play pool with some co-workers. Yes, pool. I have never in my life had any desire to "shoot pool." I still don't, to be perfectly honest. But one never knows when something will be fun, and at least this pool hall serves copious amounts of beer. If the pool fails, there's still booze. And I guess the overall idea is to go out and see what the night brings me. Usually, it's nothing but a mild buzz and some people staring at me. Maybe tonight will be different...

August 5th

2009-08-05T00:57:00.000-07:00

(For the month of August, I will be posting something every single day that, hopefully, betters my life. Or enriches my experience. Or something new. Or something exciting. And I hope that all of you, my friends, join me on this ride.)

It went well and you’ll never know. And that’s pretty fun.

The goal for August 5th was somewhat thrust upon me by my job. I was supposed to be off, but instead I’m driving a patient to Loma Linda for a doctor’s appointment and back. So, I guess the goal for today is to travel somewhere new. I’ve never been to Loma Linda. I don’t even really know where it is. I really don’t care. I love going new places, no matter how wondrous or terrible. The important part is to add a piece of vocabulary to my subconscious. By the end of the day, I will have impressions and memories of someplace new. And that’s pretty cool…

August 4th

2009-08-04T10:30:00.000-07:00

(For the month of August, I will be posting something every single day that, hopefully, betters my life. Or enriches my experience. Or something new. Or something exciting. And I hope that all of you, my friends, join me on this ride.)

If I learned anything yesterday, it’s that a lot of people are uncomfortable with totally random compliments. The sheer number of “Um… thanks?” I received probably outnumbered the actually positive responses. I guess maybe I do take people for granted if they’re so surprised that I actually give a crap about them.

So, what’s on the menu for today? Well, I can’t really tell you. It might ruin the surprise. You see, I’m going to do something ridiculously nice for someone. Something that’s going to make their day friggin’ wonderful. And no one’s going to know that I did it. I guess it’s one of those “Random Acts Of Kindness.” Only, I won’t be doing it for attention. I won’t be doing it to make that person owe me emotionally in any way. No one will ever know who did it. And I think that’ll be pretty fun.

August 3rd

2009-08-03T00:29:00.000-07:00

(For the month of August, I will be posting something every single day that, hopefully, betters my life. Or enriches my experience. Or something new. Or something exciting. And I hope that all of you, my friends, join me on this ride.)

If that doesn’t tell you how day two’s experiment went, I don’t know what will. I had a headache all day. I felt tired and miserable. I had mild shakes. Yikes, you’d think I’d quit something really important. Anyway, I got through it without ripping too many people’s heads off. I’m looking forward to a gigantic iced coffee tomorrow. Like, seriously gigantic. I’m going to fill a bathtub with coffee and swim in it.

So, what to do for August 3rd? The plan is to spend the day letting everyone in my life know exactly what they mean to me. I think we (and by we, I mean me especially... remember, I'm selfish) tend to take our loved ones for granted, so I’m going to break that cycle and send a little love around the globe. In other words, expect gushy Michael tomorrow. Ew…

August 2nd

2009-08-02T00:17:00.000-07:00

(For the month of August, I will be posting something every single day that, hopefully, betters my life. Or enriches my experience. Or something new. Or something exciting. And I hope that all of you, my friends, join me on this ride.)

In terms of yesterday’s goal of culturally enriching my life, I think I pretty much succeeded. It was a pretty important experience for my patient and I really think I got a better appreciation for the local gay community. Even if I did feel at times like I was an interloper.

I even got a spiffy “Marriage Equality USA” sticker to wear for the rest of the day:

Not surprisingly, I spent the rest of the night at work fielding the ever-present, “Are you gay?” questions. The answer is, “No.” That’s tough for some people to rationalize. I’m a lot of things. Eccentric. Hairy. Mischievous. One thing I am not? Attracted to men. Sorry.

I also got to go bowling, something I haven’t done since I was a little kid. So, go me!

So what’s on tap for August 2nd? Well, one thing I noticed about today was that I barely ate anything. Instead, I existed on a toxic diet of coffee and cigarettes. Oddly enough, I felt sharp and energized all day. Er, maybe that’s not so odd.

But it got me thinking about my addiction to caffeine. I could spend an entire day drinking coffee and diet Pepsi and be pretty pleased with myself. But what would happen if I didn’t get my caffeine? Would I turn into a cave troll, eating innocents who happen to stumble into my proximity? Or would I somehow survive? I guess I’ll just have to try it and see what happens.

August 1st

2009-08-01T09:37:00.000-07:00

(For the month of August, I will be posting something every single day that, hopefully, betters my life. Or enriches my experience. Or something new. Or something exciting. And I hope that all of you, my friends, join me on this ride.)

I think I've managed to make it pretty apparent here and elsewhere that I support gay causes. Equal rights for everyone is probably my biggest concern on a social level, so I tend to run my mouth every time I get a chance about it.

So, with that in mind, I'll be doing something rather special today at work. I will be going along with one of my bosses to take one of my patients to see a documentary on the Stonewall Riots.

This patient, who shall remain nameless, is, in effect, closeted. Despite his family and friends being in the know about his sexuality, he still refuses to actually admit that he's gay.

That's his choice and I respect that. But the hope today is that maybe he'll learn something from watching the documentary. Living in fear, to me, means you're not living. I hope today helps him somewhat. Or, at the very least, feel comfortable being in a room with like-minded individuals for a few hours.

I Hate July. Let's Make This About August.

2009-07-31T22:39:00.000-07:00

Okay, so, where the fuck have I been lately? My blog is starting to resemble a haunted mansion, filled with cobwebs and homeless drunks. Oh, er, wait a minute. That’s what my blog was this entire time.

What have we missed?

Well, I have actually managed to make some improvements in my life the last 31 days, in spite of some rather harsh personal setbacks. Some so harsh that I don’t really want to get into them in detail. What about the good?

* I’ve managed to return to being a casual drinker. I only drank 8 days out of the month, which is huge, considering that I normally would have drank 25-31 days out the month. That’s not to say that I was a drunk every single one of those days, but it did get to the point where I would need at least one drink a day to get through. I’ve always been really good when I have my son with me, either not drinking at all or making do with one beer with dinner or something. But I do realize that I was heading down a really ugly path, drinking my crazy away. Drinking doesn’t make my depression go away. It just delays the inevitable. I’ve been lucky in that I haven’t done anything that’s harmed anyone other than myself. And even in that case, I haven’t harmed myself in any great way. If anything, I’ve just embarrassed myself a few times too many (Sorry, pretty girl from Wasco. Really. Sorry.). So, the goal is be a casual drinker again. A social drinker. I’m not quitting altogether. Just trying to be responsible or something.

* I saw Jarvis Cocker in LA! I know that doesn’t mean anything to most of you, but seeing Jarvis Cocker again was like getting a handjob and going to church, all at once. Really. It’s something I won’t soon forget.

* I’ve worked a ridiculous amount this month. So much so that people are starting to take notice. As I’ve mentioned, I was named Employee Of The Month. And, well, there’s other news soon, if you can wait.

* I filed divorce papers. It was completely exhilarating and I have no real idea why. It just felt right. I left the courthouse laughing. There are still a lot of hoops to jump through. Additional papers to be filed. Hearings to be heard. But I’m on my way to something different. Something new. We’ll see what that something is.

So, where does that leave me? The month of August looms large on the calendar. It’s going to be a long, hot, humid month. But it’s also a month wherein I want to improve myself personally. I want it to be the best month ever. I want it to me the month where I shine. The month where I matter.

And I plan on documenting as much as I can.

So, starting tomorrow, I will be posting every single day for the rest of August. I will do something every day that better my life. Or enriches my experience. Or something new. Or something exciting. And I hope that all of you, my friends, join me on this ride.

No excuses. No looking back.

I'm Special

2009-07-15T10:53:00.000-07:00

Obviously, I Can't Sleep

2009-07-14T01:02:00.000-07:00

Plans

2009-07-13T14:11:00.000-07:00

* I'm starting on my divorce papers and filing them sometime this week.

* I've decided on a tattoo. I don't know when I'm going to get it. But I'm going to get it.

* I'm toying with the idea of quitting smoking.

* I'm working on not drinking every day.

* I'm clinging to the people who've loved and supported me for ages and rejecting those who don't. Or who can't.

* I'm getting health insurance for the first time in ages, starting August 1st.

* I am going to survive.

Good Fortune

2009-07-08T11:01:00.000-07:00

I went out for Chinese food with a friend for her birthday recently. After gorging on General Tso's chicken and making fun of waiters for an hour, we got our fortune cookies. Hers was pretty bland. Mine was something else entirely.

O_O

Excerpt 18

2009-07-08T10:58:00.000-07:00

As awful as the last year and a half has been for me, there have been a small handful of shining moments that have gotten me through. My time with you definitely counts amongst those shining moments.

I really haven’t been able to put my finger on it. There’s just something about being around you that lifts my spirits. I have fun with you. I get those butterflies in my stomach that little kids get when they have their first crush. You actually make me happy.

But there is no chance of ever being with you. You were pretty upfront about that. What you wanted out of me was perhaps something I wasn’t ready for. Okay, yeah, I can probably admit that “perhaps” should read “definitely.”

You said that you weren’t ready for a relationship at the moment. And that you couldn’t really see yourself dating me anyway.

But still, we went out. Things got heated, every time. The last time, things didn’t go so well. I had been drinking a lot. I failed in the bedroom. It’s not something any guy really wants to admit, but it’s true. I can blame it on the alcohol. I can blame in something in my subconscious. Whatever the reason, I don’t know for sure.

But it was embarrassing. I felt terrible about it. You were cool about everything, though. But things are certainly different between us now.

I never really understood how someone as astonishingly beautiful as you could want to spend time around me. You said that I turned you on. You don’t really say much of anything to me anymore.

There’s a new guy in your life. You’re happy, which I love seeing. But there’s a huge chunk of my heart that just aches when I hear about it. I know that guy could never have been me. I’m not good enough for you. You said that wasn’t true. But a self-fulfilling prophesy is what I am. Where are you now? And where am I? The truth always comes out in the end.

None Too Subtle Seething

2009-06-30T15:31:00.000-07:00

* Stop calling me. Stop texting me. I don't want to know you anymore. Everytime my life falls apart, you disappear. Frankly, I can't do this anymore.

* That goes for you, too.

* You don't own me. You never did. And you never wanted to accept what I had to offer, so stop getting all pissy any time I talk about a girl who isn't you. I'm allowed to move on. I'm allowed to go with other women. And to be perfectly honest, we never had a relationship in the first place, so what are you so butt-hurt about?

* Stop following me everywhere I go. Because of you, I had to privatize my Brightkite account. Thanks a lot, you crazy bitch.

* I don't care that you know people. No one does. So stop perseverating on how many times you fucked so and so and how you ran into so and so at whatever stupid fucking function you were at. No one is impressed.

* Stop being a creepy pervert, you creepy pervert. Memory lapses are not an excuse!

* Could you, in the future, please refrain from winking at me every five seconds? It's, ah, disconcerting.

* Why are you so terrified of commitment? I have to walk on eggshells every time I'm around you, lest you get freaked out and never talk to me again. And you wonder why I'm so timid about "making a move?"

* What's with all the falling for butt-ugly guys who are as interesting as Saw V and ignoring everyone else in your life? It's getting old and you're too fucking beautiful for that.

* Are you into me or not? These occasional bouts of flirting and subversive wordplay have me utterly confused. I've liked you for a long time. Show me the real you. Please.

I Swear...

2009-06-28T00:35:00.000-07:00

...to the big, fluffy, white cat in the sky that I haven't forgotten about this blog.

My computer is still dead. I'm currently working on resurrecting it using my mad zombie skillz.

The Lodger In Us All

2009-06-18T11:47:00.000-07:00

(My computer is currently busted for unknown reasons, so I've been using my old tower for the last few days. In the process, I've found a replication of an old David Bowie website I used to run on Geocities. I ran the site, Repetition, for several years until a lack of contributions and interest sent it into the web graveyard. Over the next week or so, I'm going to be reprinting some of my articles from that site. I hope you enjoy!)

David Bowie's 1979 album, Lodger, was his third and final "Berlin" collaboration (the trio of albums recorded in Berlin) with Roxy Music's Brian Eno. It was also an album whose "eclecticism and experimentation" (Buckley, David, p. 69-70) made it an artistic success, but a commercial failure. Bowie's returning lust for fame ultimately clashed with Eno's ideologies and Lodger wound up sounding like two different albums playing at the same time, which was probably why the album was so original. Muddled somewhere in the layers of sound was a message, however. For those who listened closely, Lodger is actually an amazing commentary on the human condition.

Longtime Bowie watcher David Buckley noted a few important conceptual ideas about the first half of Lodger (p. 70). Bowie uses his own experiences in life to cover a subject understood by many on "Move On." The idea that "somewhere, someone's calling me" is one that many people have throughout their lives. In fictionalized form, Bowie describes the adventures of "a traveling man," possibly commenting on his own desire to travel around the world. However, closer inspection reveals that wanderlust was only half the story of Lodger. "Fantastic Voyage" makes a few expressions about the roles of men in society in the lines "it's a moving world, but that's no reason to shoot some of those missiles. Think of us as fatherless scum; it won't be forgotten. 'Cause we'll never say anything nice again, will we?" Bowie continues in that vein, commenting on how women feel around men when he states "we're learning to live with somebody's depression." Through this, Bowie tries to reach out to a female audience that had been alienated by the forbidding timbres of the first two "Berlin" albums (Low and "Heroes"). A few females weren't the only ones alienated by Bowie in the late 70s, unfortunately.

Further into side one, a stance against racism (one that was surprising to some, given the accusations of racism that forced him into hiding in Berlin in the late 70s) can be seen in the Burroughsian cut and paste lines of "Red Sails" ("do you remember we another person, green and black and red and so scared. Graffiti on the wall keep us all in tune; bringing us all back home.") It isn't quite certain why Bowie would want to hide such a statement, especially with the press after him for being a racist. Bowie's fan base had dwindled due to careless acts on his part and it would have made perfect sense to bring those he had alienated previously back into the fold. Whatever the reason, the statement is still there and visible for those who look for it. Lodger's second side, however, alters those statements towards the gloomy for a much darker look at life.

Side two of Lodger reveals what Buckley called a critique on "Anglo-American consumer society" (p. 70); the songs prove that he's not far off. "Red Money" has a very obvious analytical spin to it ("project canceled, tumbling central, red money"), but it's narrow scope doesn't mean much to most people. Some of the songs, however, are universal in their scope. Jon Savage called "D.J." an "amusing and sharp look at the fear of instant obsolescence that runs through all media" (p. 161). Using sharp characterization, Bowie lets "D.J.'s" protagonist speak his mind about his reasons for not being fired ("I am a D.J., I am what I play. I got believers, believing me."). A few songs later, however, the commentary turns much more pessimistic.

Bowie reaffirms "Fantastic Voyage's" theme of the roles that men play later in the album (this time with a blue-collar twist) on "Repetition," a droning, but focused review of a wife-beating worker ("well Johnny is a man and he's bigger than her. I guess the bruises won't show if she wears long sleeves."). Bowie is at his most direct here, playing a sort of detached observer callously reviewing the sadness of Johnny and how he takes it out on his wife; occasionally he breaks his silence and cautions, "don't hit her." In fact, it would be rather valid to theorize that the singer could be a detached form of either Johnny or his wife. "Repetition" is one of the few instances in Lodger where Bowie's hidden messages are overtly evident. Another is the "seedy angel of death" in "Look Back In Anger" that makes a case against the trivialization of religion and the fear that people have of leaving things undone in this world (Buckley, David. p. 71). Both "Repetition" and "Look Back In Anger" shine due to their bluntness, but the album as a whole doesn't make things as clear.

Lodger hides its commentary for obvious reasons. Most people don't like having a mirror put up to their own personalities. These themes of personal alienation and social fanaticism are likely reasons why the album is titled Lodger. We are all lodgers in some way or another in our lives. Be it at work or at home, everyone has a certain level of fear of being alienated. Bowie's Lodger obliquely shows that that fear is what makes us so alienated in the first place.
Works cited:

Buckley, David. The Complete Guide To The Music Of David Bowie. New York: Omnibus Press, 1996.

Thomson, Elizabeth and Gutman, David, Editors. The Bowie Companion. New York: Da Capo Press, 1996.

© Feb 5, 1998 Michael A. Liebel

Broken

2009-06-13T21:56:00.000-07:00

I came to grips with the fact that I’m going to be alone for the rest of my life quite a long time ago. Yeah, every once in a while I forget and I hold out hope for something good in my life for five minutes, but then reality slaps me in the face and I remember.

I’m broken. And girls can smell that a mile away.

I don’t write this as a way to get attention. There’s really nothing than can be said to comfort me at this point. Those of you who know me well know just how little I believe it when I’m complimented. I’m just not built that way. I really just write this as a way of reminding myself of how things are.

A little over a year ago, I realized that there was no possible way of moving on with my life. Pretty much any chance I had of starting over was eliminated because of my own stupidity, my own follies.

Things have changed since then, don’t get me wrong. I have a different job, my outlook is certainly different. I look different than before. I act a bit different. All in all, I’m a better person now than I’ve ever been in the past. There’s an honesty to me that wasn’t there before. An openness, too. People who’ve met me in the last year or so think I’m a really nice guy (Except for that one crazy girl, but who cares what she thinks? She‘s crazier than I am!). You couldn’t always say that before.

Yet, I’m still stuck at square one. There’s really nowhere else to go beyond square one. I’m ruined financially and emotionally; my sanity is questionable at best. There’s literally no way of getting out of it. There’s no plan. I’m just existing at this point. I look towards the next vodka tonic. The next concert. The next day off to spend with my son.

I can throw whatever blame I want at a certain ex of mine, but the majority of it really does lie at my feet. I did this to myself. And I allowed myself to be hurt. So, I really don’t expect anyone to feel sorry for me. I just don’t deserve that.

So, I’m alone for the long haul. I stink of failure and vodka and cigarettes. And even if someone manages to get past those things and wants to be with me, they’ll figure out just how stuck I am in short order. I’m never moving from square one. This is my fate. This is the punishment I deserve.

Dancing To The Coral

2009-06-12T13:44:00.000-07:00

I’ve just been relaxing for the most part today, listening to LP’s on my record player. When I put on The Coral earlier, Sebastian ran into the room and started dancing. He never really stopped. I had no idea he was so into The Coral.

Regardless, I caught a little clip of him dancing to “Jacqueline” and attempting to sing along…

Sebastian Dancing To The Coral

True Story, Swear To God

2009-06-11T13:45:00.000-07:00

Last weekend. The scene: my bedroom. Simon is sprawled out on my bed. Sebastian enters the room, approaches Simon, and says…

“Hello, Simon! What you doing, cat?”

Later, I hear squealing coming from Sebastian’s room. I check up on him. He holds up his stuffed Bobcat and says…

“Not me! Bob!”

Toddlers are bomb.

Excerpt 17 (June 24th, 2008. A Death Star So Long Ago)

2009-06-09T10:05:00.000-07:00

I was drunk last night. And there were images flickering in my head. It was M, and she was over me, naked and lustful. She’s growling, clawing at my chest. Our hips grind together. She continues to growl. I fucking love it. These were times when the rest of the world didn‘t matter…

The sad part of everything is that I do fully understand my dual nature. 75% of the time, I understand my feelings. I don’t want to die. I realize that not everything is about me. I understand that there is more going on. He/she didn’t hurt me because he/she directly wanted to hurt me. I get that there are layers to that. It’s the other 25% of the time when my emotions take over and I want to kill myself because she left me or she never wants to be with me or he’s hurting me again. During those times, I can’t rationalize my behavior. I’m taken over by the pure feeling of it all. They’ve hurt me, and now I want to hurt myself.

When I’m rational, I apologize. I know for a fact that S can attest to that. She’s done nothing wrong to me. Over the years, she’s been such a good friend. She’s put up with a lot of my bullshit. And I take so much personally with her. If I don’t hear from her, I agonize over it because I’m an idiot. I’ve begged at her feet. I’ve screamed at her. I’ve ignored her. I really have no idea how she puts up with someone like me. I swear, someone with a dartboard could do as good a job dealing with my crap. I’m all over the place. No wonder my relationships end so badly.

I hid so much of this from M. She really has no idea. She says I’m crazy, but it’s not that I’m crazy. I just FEEL so much. I’m an emotional person by nature. And I let it get to me. I think that she oversimplified me. She had no idea what kind of impact leaving would have on me. Not that I think things would be any better had she actually known. In fact, she might have treated me worse.

She left me on April Fool’s Day. Very apropos. You know the story. What you don’t know is what I did a week later. I guess that’s the idea. Trying to drown myself in a pool wasn’t a cry for attention. It’s why I never mentioned it before. In fact, I’m a little embarrassed for failing. I can’t even do that right. One week after M left me, I got drunk. I had a lot of rum lying around to finish. I really shouldn’t have been drinking that much.

I was still confused. I still am, I guess. I didn’t understand why she left. Why she had hurt me. Why she still seems to gain self-satisfaction in watching me tumble and twirl to the floor. Drunk, I finished off half a bottle of sleeping pills and passed out in the living room, thankful that my life was all over. I woke up in a pile of my own vomit. My overindulgences had saved me.

After this attempt, and the attempt at the pool party, I was ashamed of myself. I understood how stupid it was to try and kill myself. I just didn’t know at the time I was swallowing pill after pill. And it goes in that cycle. I can spend most of the day just fine. And then two hours at night will send me over the edge. Sometimes all it takes is a flickering image in my head.

I'll Tumbl For Ya

2009-06-08T11:00:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year, I started a Tumblr account that I barely use these days, seeing as how I need to focus most of my energies on working and drinking copious amounts of alcohol. The other day, I got an e-mail from Tumblr tech support, regarding a copyright issue. The tech guy who contacted me actually forwarded the e-mail he got from the photographer.

Hi Marc,

I am contacting you to inform you that one of your members, http://thelossadjuster.tumblr.com/, is using and allowing downloads of a photograph of Ute Lemper that I own the copyright to without giving me credit. The press page for Ute Lemper's site where he downloaded the image requires the user to credit the photographer Please contact this individual to ask him to post my credit ©franjanik.com or remove the image from his page. Please find atttached a copy of the image that I had downloaded from his page today. Thank you for your assistance

Fran Janik

This is all fine and good. Artists need to protect their work and I fully understand that. What got me is that this photographer is so out-of-work/bored that he was trolling the internet for illegal use of his photos. Apparently, there aren’t enough weddings to shoot in Vermont at the moment.

And, I’m apparently bored enough to complain about it.

"Using and allowing downloads?" Yes, how insidious of me. That free trade of information that is the internet is my medium for profiting on the hard work of unsuspecting photographers. Remind me to credit Mr. Hankey next time I go to the bathroom. I want to make sure his intellectual properties are preserved.

The Crazies

2009-06-07T17:52:00.000-07:00

I abhor nights like this one. It’s one of those nights where the thoughts swirling around in my head are threatening to take over and push me over the edge. It’s like a panic attack mixed with depression, served with a side of paranoia. I’m sure someone with far more in the way of qualifications has a proper term for it. I usually just call it “the crazies.”

When I’m alone and having “the crazies,” I tend to drink a lot, which isn’t exactly the answer to my problems. But it does have the effect of keeping me from doing something really stupid. And if you can think of things that are really stupid beyond drunk dialing, texting, driving, getting kicked out of bars for “bringing the place down” or whatnot, then you’ve probably got a good idea of what I’m like when I have “the crazies” and aren’t drinking.

It’s like the drinking curbs the really, really bad stuff. Which, again, probably isn’t the best thing in the world. But, hey, I’m still alive right? Maybe the alcohol renders me relatively inert. That’s what I’m going to continue to keep believing.

I never really know what’s going to set “the crazies” off. My last bout was Monday. I remember going to a meeting at work, hitting the bank right after, and driving to the bar. A few bar-hops and a dozen or so drinks later, I’d been kicked out of a bar, I’d infuriated a good number of my friends, and I was no closer to happiness than I was the day before. But why did it happen? What set me off? I have no idea.

Normally, I can keep “the crazies” at bay if I’m in some sort of enforced busyness, like work. And, in fact, the first few months of my new job did a great job of keeping my brain on the straight and narrow. But now it seems like I’m having “the crazies” a couple of times a week again, which is not helpful. It makes me feel like I’m stagnating, or maybe even regressing. And I tend to be the sort of person who doesn’t think very highly of myself in the first place, so the feeling that I’m backpedaling tightens the knot in my stomach even further.

So, in a little bit, I’m going to take a good, long shower. Then, I’m going to make myself a cocktail. I might do some stupid things that stem from that drink, or the drink after, or the drink after. I might even text you to tell you I love you. Or that I hate you. Maybe I’ll do something really stupid. Or maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow morning, feeling just fine, only slightly embarrassed for opening up about my fragile psyche.

Tomorrow might be the best thing in the world. Maybe I’ll figure out some techniques at work that’ll expedite the socialization process for my current patient. Maybe I’ll meet the girl of my dreams, and maybe she‘ll think I‘m the boy of her dreams. Maybe I’ll discover something that makes me so happy that none of this will ever matter again. Or maybe I’ll have “the crazies” again, and I’ll have to explain to everyone why I’m acting so very strange.

Excerpt 16

2009-06-04T10:18:00.000-07:00

I’m listening to Chris Connelly’s new album this morning on vinyl. Listening to Chris Connelly has always made me think of you, despite the years and distance. This new album, in particular, brings thoughts of you flooding to the forefront of my mind. Pentland Firth Howl is a song cycle about Connelly’s childhood in Scotland, so it’s obvious…

We met back in high school at a writer’s conference. I guess I would say that I was just coming into my own as an official “man slut” (or so they say), and when I heard your lilting accent from across the designated meeting place, I knew you had to be mine.

You had driven down from Portland for this conference; who knows why? You’d lived in the States for a few years, so you were used to useless American bastards like me. But still, you talked to me, and we established quite a rapport.

I asked for your name and you gave it freely. It’s so classically Scottish that I nearly choked on the terrible buffet spread. I’m sure I was smitten. Or maybe it’s just the hazy memory.

We talked about James Joyce and Lou Reed and Leonard Cohen and Edith Wharton and everything we ever wanted to do and everything we were going to do and how utterly fabulous we must be for just being there, that very day. It was glorious. And it was oh-so brief.

By the end of the conference, we were holding hands. You gave me your address, and I gave you mine. And we did exchange letters for a year or so. But we never met again.

I never figured out why. I guess some distances are never meant to be crossed. I don’t belong in Scotland. And maybe you don’t belong in America.

But I still remember that day.

Snapshots Of My Morning

2009-06-03T11:24:00.000-07:00

Twitter Can Suck A Fuck

2009-06-02T10:12:00.000-07:00

Twitter is frustrating and I hate it.

There, I said it.

There’s nothing quite like having your own personal Texts From Last Night to greet you every morning after a night of bar-hopping, heavy drinking, and stupid decisions. “Thanks, Twitter, I really needed to be reminded that I was a train-wreck the night before.”

Yes, I did a solo pub-crawl after work last night. I got rejected by a girl, slammed by a friend who thinks I’m an asshole, and kicked out of a country dive bar for being too “drunk and depressing.”

So, yeah, it was a night.

I’m reminded of Art Brut’s “Alcoholics Unanimous” this morning, as I am so many mornings. I was up all night, making mistakes. And I certainly wasn’t handling things as well as I thought I was. I apologized by group text. Unsurprisingly, few of the apologies were accepted.

I guess that’s my life in a nutshell.

Listening To The Cure On Vinyl And Staring At The Monitor

2009-05-31T13:10:00.001-07:00

Some weeks, I don’t feel like looking at my computer. This week has been one of those weeks. I mean, beyond the fact that I’ve been at work pretty much constantly, I just haven’t felt like getting online much. And that means a lack of new blogs lately.

Oh, I’ve had ideas. I was going to write about my love affair with Jarvis Cocker and Pulp, to celebrate Jarvis’ new album. Or maybe something about my experience at Bakersfield’s slightly ghetto new Peruvian restaurant, The Happy Rooster. Or maybe any of the other dozens of bizarre things that seem to happen to me on a daily basis.

But I’m just not feeling it. And by not feeling it, I mean that I’m currently floating in that hazy area between numb and depressed. I’m not depressed in that way that causes me to write great gobs of new material and I’m too numb to care one way or the other.

Why?

Plenty of reasons. Work is always stressful, but this week has been particularly so. I knew I was slipping when two of the bigwigs at the company asked me if something was wrong yesterday. I’m usually much better at checking myself at the door, but I guess I wasn’t doing as good a job masking how I normally feel at work.

And, of course, there’s other, more personal things. It’s the usual garbage I’m going on about here. None of it really matters, though. I’m pretty much giving up on a couple of people in my life. I don’t matter to them, so why should they matter to me?

But saying that is easier than doing that. And I’m sure the next few weeks will be quite terrible.

Basically, I’m broken. And it appears that I’ve run out of glue.

Regret

2009-05-26T10:26:00.000-07:00

I tend to remember everything I do when I’m drunk. Although, it’s not like my personality shifts very much when I’m drinking. I tend to be the same ridiculous dork when I’m half a bottle into the night as I am when I’m stone sober.

I only get excited when the conversation is particularly interesting to me. I only get chatty when the subject turns to something I know a lot about. If anything, I just lose some of my inhibitions. But if I do something, it means that I really wanted to do that thing in the first place. I’m just more likely to forget that I suck and go through with whatever it is that I’m doing.

And this is why I tend to have no regrets about anything I do when I’m drunk. Maybe the timing was off or maybe I wouldn’t have done it when I was sober, but I truly wanted to do it in the first place. It was already in my heart. So, why feel bad about it?

The problem is that the people I do these things with have a tendency to either not remember what they did the night before or completely regret their actions. It’s frustrating to see my friends freak out over expressing parts of their personalities, their hearts.

The last time I really got so drunk I couldn’t properly remember what I did was in Santa Barbara last year. I was drinking pretty heavily on a trip to visit my friends Kim and Ricky and I was sipping from a flask in the car ride there whilst Amberlee drove. I pretty much drank straight through the weekend.

Apparently, I had to be assisted to and from a sushi restaurant because I was pretty much out of it. And, apparently, I had an argument with a tree. This place has trees dotting the street, decorated with strings of light, and I argued with the trees about being fake-ass Christmas trees.

Mostly, they thought it was funny. Then again, it wasn’t exactly a shining moment in my drinking career. But I don’t regret it.

And I certainly don’t regret the things I’ve been doing lately. Truth be told, I really wanted to do those things. I guess I’m will tell if anyone else has regrets.

How To Properly Eat A Cupcake

2009-05-25T10:35:00.000-07:00

Step One: Examine the cupcake.

Step Two: Sniff the cupcake.

Step Three: Nom the cupcake.

Step Four: Admire your handiwork.

Click

2009-05-24T11:22:00.000-07:00

The phone rings at work, I answer…

Me: “Hello, this is apartment 311, Michael speaking.”

Trainer: “Michael, when are you doing your last four tests?”

Me: “How much time do I have?”

Trainer: “Now.”

Me: “Huh?”

Trainer: “You’re doing them now. When are your next days off?”

Me: “Monday and Tuesday?”

Trainer: “Have you done Pro-Act yet?”

Me: “Yeah.”

Trainer: “You’re coming in Tuesday at 2:30 and finishing your tests.”

Me: “Um, okay…”

The other end of the line goes *click*.

I checked when I got home. I actually had until June 10th to finish my probationary tests at work, but apparently they want them done posthaste. I guess they’re sick of not knowing until the last minute whether their assorted employees will still be with them after their first three months. So, I lose a day off this week, but at least I’ll be done with all of this nonsense probationary garbage.

Plans

2009-05-22T13:56:00.000-07:00

Admittedly, I never have much of a plan. I just sort of do what it is I’m supposed to do at any given moment and just cross my fingers that things will go well. And if they don’t go well, I just try to smile and move on.

Lately, there just doesn’t seem to be much of a chance to move on. I start to walk away and I get pulled right back to where I started. Because sometimes people just don’t want you to leave.

And I suppose that should make me feel good. Like it’s some kind of personal validation. “Maybe she does want me around. Maybe she does think I’m worth the trouble.”

It doesn’t always have that effect, though. Generally, it just confuses the fuck out of me. And that’s where I am at the moment. Confused, maybe even a little lost.

* You’re trapped by an ex. Maybe an ex. Maybe not. Who knows if you’ll be ready, or if I’ll be the one. But you like me. Maybe. I’d like to find out and not get hurt in the process.

* You’re trapped by your own depression. You don’t know how cool you are. And you plus me might be a trainwreck waiting to happen. You’ve said it yourself. It’s a terrible idea. So why does it keep coming up?

* And you? You’re just simply too pretty and have way too much going for yourself to waste your time with me. On the general scale of things, you’re lowering yourself to my level. That’s going to be bad for you in the end.

Random

2009-05-22T01:06:00.000-07:00

* I was convinced as a child that Bauhaus’ Burning From The Inside was Burning From The Inside Out. I have no idea why. I guess it just sounded better to me.

* I am presently covered in scrapes, cuts, bumps, and bruises. And I’m sore as fuck. Some of it is from work and some, not so much.

* I can’t quite express how happy I was to find a purple polo shirt to wear to work. You know how hard it is for guys to find purple rather than lavender?

* The subject of one of my “excerpt” pieces has re-appeared in my life suddenly. I don’t know how I feel about that.

* I’m way behind on both exercise and writing because I’m sleeping a lot. And when I’m not sleeping, I’m working. And when I’m not sleeping or working, I’m spinning LP’s. And when I’m not sleeping, working, or spinning LP’s, I’m drinking. Typically, these four things don’t overlap much.

* Apparently, my son has been registered for a speech therapy class. I don’t have all the details, since I was at work when I found out. We’ll see…

* And speaking of work, it’s been all over the place lately. I’ve been with different patients nearly every day, which was explained to me as being a matter of them trusting that they can put me anywhere and not have to worry about me. It’s a compliment, but it’s also frustrating as hell.

* I don’t know where any of this is going.

Collapsing New Buildings

2009-05-19T09:59:00.000-07:00

If I could be permitted, I’d like to re-dub May as the month of You’ve Got To Be Fucking Kidding Me. Frankly, it’s a bit more appropriate than May. I may not do much of anything. I’m simply not permitted. But I can have lots of stuff rain down on my head.

Basically, this month has been ridiculously frustrating for me. And there’s really no way to talk about any of it with alienating certain people, or starting wars with others. I just don’t have anyone to talk to about any of this stuff. I can’t even talk about it in the vaguest of ways.

I sort of feel things slipping away again and there’s no one to turn to.

Oh, well.

Radiohead

2009-05-15T10:15:00.000-07:00

I spent way too much money at Best Buy last night, but I don’t really feel bad about it. Frankly, I haven’t bought any useless crap in ages, so the idea of buying some DVD’s really appealed to me. And even though Radiohead told me not to, I bought the video collection EMI released without their input last year.

I wound up watching most of it whilst Susannah worked on a puzzle. It was really a trip down memory lane, since I hadn’t watched any Radiohead videos in ages. It got me thinking about early 1993, when I first heard them. “Creep” was getting airplay and I quite liked the song, so I bought Pablo Honey and absorbed it in short order.

Creep - Radiohead

All these years later, Pablo Honey is a pretty iffy record. It’s been eclipsed a hundredfold by just about everything else Radiohead had put out since. But at the time, it was a revelation to me. But I didn’t know very many people who were actually into them. To most people, they were a one-hit wonder in the making. So, I continued on, by myself. My Iron Lung. The Bends. Oh, yeah, then they got famous.

Of course, Susannah had to point a few things out. Firstly, that she was watching Sesame Street when Pablo Honey was released. I’d never really considered that Radiohead is actually an old band when put into the grand scheme of things. They really have been around a long time, but they still seem so new and fresh to me. Yeah, I was a kid when their first album came out. Then again, so was I back in 1989 when Nine Inch Nails released Pretty Hate Machine and I was a weird little 6th grader listening to that instead of New Kids On The Block.

Secondly, she pointed out just how exceptionally depressing Radiohead is. Again, that’s something I never really thought much about. I just know how much the songs affect me. How much they mean to me on a personal level. Radiohead has gotten me through some really tough shit. They did it again last year. I couldn’t help but well up a bit when “Fake Plastic Trees” came on. Some wounds never heal.

Fake Plastic Trees - Radiohead

I guess everyone has those bands. Those bands that hit you right in the heart, no matter when they’re played. Unfortunately for me, I have hundreds of those bands. But last summer, when my world felt like it was coming to an end, Radiohead came to my rescue again. The usual songs did it for me. “Exit Music (For A Film).” “True Love Waits.” “Pyramid Song.” “Myxomatosis.” And this was when their last album, In Rainbows, started to really impact me.

All I Need - Radiohead

I guess I owe Radiohead more than they’ll ever know.

Asshole From Texas

2009-05-13T22:08:00.000-07:00

I’m convinced that Vons and I have a problem. And Texas. Texas, too.

I had just finished grocery shopping and was heading towards my car when I saw a man leaning against the rear of my car, his shopping bags placed haphazardly on my trunk. Of course, he was on his cellphone, yammering away in a thick, incomprehensible, subhuman drawl.

I approached the man and said, “Hey, man, that’s my car. Could you please remove your bags so I can put my groceries away?”

The man turned to me, pulled the phone away from his ear, and said, “Does this piss you off?”

The conversation followed:

Me: “Um, a little. You’re being rather rude, actually.”
Asshole From Texas (just try to imagine Larry The Cable Guy, but more brain-damaged): “You let birds shit and dogs piss all over your car, and you get mad over some plastic?”
Me: “Yes, well, you’re supposed to be higher functioning than the birds and the dogs, so…”
Asshole from Texas: “Where you from, boy?”
Me: “Here”
Asshole from Texas: “Yeah, well, where I come from, we take care of our problems like men.”

Asshole From Texas moves to within a foot of me.

Me: “And in California, that attitude is likely to get you sucker punched, stabbed, or shot.”

At this point, Asshole From Texas starts to back away.

Asshole From Texas: “Yeah? You’d better be careful, boy.”
Me: “I’ll do that. Thank you, Sir.”

Asshole From Texas gets in his truckasaurus at this point and drives away, “Don’t Mess With Texas” bumper sticker and Texas plates mocking me in his wake.

Yeah. Gotta love Texas.

Seven Inches

2009-05-13T15:20:00.000-07:00

Why My Job Matters To Me

2009-05-13T09:45:00.000-07:00

We’ve been getting a bunch of new patients at work the last couple of weeks and we’re getting close to capacity again, which means we’re both short on staff and the margin for error has been narrowing.

Monday, we got three new guys. Two of them were placed in an apartment that was otherwise empty and myself and another RA were assigned to that room as our new rotation.

When new patients arrive, you get a pre-admit form which goes over basic medical and psycho-social information, as prepared by one of our company’s roving evaluators. These things have the bare bones information about a patient. What’s missing is the color.

In other words, you really don’t know what to expect when these new patients are dropped off.

The two new guys under my care are absolute stunners. One doesn’t seem quite so bad. He’s a mellow, friendly sort who just has problems with occasional memory and lapses in judgment. Usually, after cooling down after an incident, he realizes what he did was wrong and expresses confusion as to why he acted that way in the first place.

In other words, we’ll be able to rehabilitate him in short order. The right mix of meds, rehab, and counseling should get him on the right track.

The other guy is going to be a bit of work.

You see, in two nights, I’ve been kicked, pinched, spat at, had my shirt stretched out, and punched repeatedly by this guy. He wants to exit his apartment, or anywhere he is at any given time, because he’s confused and thinks he needs to be at his job, car, hotel room, hospital room, etc. And he can’t properly verbalize these needs or understand what exactly he needs at any given time.

He’s going to be a massive project. His family sent him to us in an effort to try and bring him back to the person he was before, or at least an approximation of who he was before. They obviously love him very much. They’re very involved with his rehabilitation and were actually trying to do it from home before they sent him to us.

Thus far, it’s been a case of trying to figure out exactly how to start helping a person who constantly wants to leave, hitting everyone he can on the way out. When it takes three people to bathe someone, you know you’re going to have difficulties.

Last night, the other RA and I were experimenting with control and freedom. We would actually give him time periods where we’d leave him alone and let him make full decisions on his own. I would guard the door (he can’t move me and he hasn’t really injured me yet, so…) and the other RA would roam around in case he got too aggressive.

Generally, the patient would try to leave the apartment by pushing me or hitting me or pinching me or attempting to bite me. But sometimes, he’d go off to the bathroom, or sit on the couch and stare at the TV for awhile. Then, a few minutes later, he’d return to trying to kick my ass.

That freedom, at one point, actually led to a fall by the patient, so both myself and the other RA got drug tested (which is company policy when it comes to patient accidents). The patient barely noticed the small wound on the back of his head and continued to try and bite everyone in sight, including the nurse.

But there’s no giving up. The other RA and I have taken it upon ourselves to help this guy get better, no matter what the cost. We’ve seen occasional flashes of what he can be. The calm version of this man puts his hand on your knee and gently pets it. The calm version of this man smiles at you. We want to make those flashes the norm.

And we’ll take a punch or fifty every evening to make it happen.

Excerpt 15

2009-05-12T10:10:00.000-07:00

I learned how to make cheap candle holders when I was 12. I’d take empty aluminum cans and cut the tops off. Then I’d puncture holes near the bottom to promote air flow, but not so near the bottom that wax would dribble out. Then I’d acquire as many cheap candles as possible from dollar stores and burn through them on a nightly basis.

Manufactured light was my enemy. Somehow, things just felt better if I had my room lit by candles. Nothing really improved on a night of Bauhaus records like a scattering of wax on my table, a handful of small cuts and scratches from the aluminum cans, and black smoke smudges on my ceiling.

Usually this was the time I’d get time on the phone and call my friends. I’m pretty sure my little circle of friends at the time had the most frustrated parents in the world. We all got suspended together, did wildly inappropriate things together, and talked for hours and hours when we really should have been doing homework.

So, we were like everyone else that age. And our parents were just normal. But we thought we were special.

It was around this time that I had my first experiences with “crazy girls.” It’s no joke that I tend to attract the crazy, being that I’m a bit crazy myself (although I prefer to think of myself as quirky).

I’d had crushes and the like before, but this one was different. For one, she seemed a lot older than she really was, even though she was in my class. And her life seemed immeasurably different than mine. I’d never known anyone my age to have the sort of freedom she had. It was why we’d get out of school every day, walk to her house, and make out behind the bushes that lined the corner where she lived.

She was also the first girl to break up with me. I was devastated, of course, and she used that fact to string me along. Which is, as we all know by this point, is another recurring theme in my life.

The funny thing is, I don’t even really remember what I saw in her. I’m not nostalgic for her; I’m nostalgic for the situation. I have no idea what happened to her. She sort of fell off the face of the planet during high school. She probably moved away and forgot her old life. But from time to time, those memories creep back to me.

5 Monday Music Thoughts

2009-05-11T13:22:00.000-07:00

Eh, I found time.

* Admittedly, I didn’t know much about St. Vincent before I heard her latest single, “Actor Out Of Work.” All I knew was that the song stuck in my head something fierce and I was instantly in love. When I found out that St. Vincent is actually former Polyphonic Spree member Annie Clark, I smacked myself on the forehead. Her new album, Actor, is full of wonderfully disjointed pop songs like “Actor Out Of Work” and is a great early-summer find.

* There’s a new U2 video out, this one for the second single from No Line On The Horizon, “Magnificent.” I’m still on the fence about the new album. It’s not bad, but it does seem particularly boring. I sort of figured it would be a grower, but thus far, I’ve had no real desire to give it repeated spins. Has anyone figured out yet how to be in love with this record?

Magnificent - U2

* New. Placebo. Video. Album. Coming. June. Need I say more?

* I’ve been waiting around the last few months for people to start noticing Vancouver’s Japandroids. Their debut album, Post-Nothing, is a fun blend of pop and garage that just seems tailor-made for indie rock festivals and coffee shop arguments. And I have to give props to a band that decided to only release their album on vinyl and digital formats. CD’s are dead, yo.

* The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart have a new video for the ultra-poppy “Young Adult Friction.” My hope is that you’ll be sick of hearing about them before the end of this year.

On The Theme Of Updates

2009-05-11T10:02:00.000-07:00

* I didn't fly to Paris, but I did get tickets to see Jarvis Cocker in July with Discotrash.

* Bromance boy got the axe. Let's just say that he did something really, really stupid to get fired.

* The reason 5 Monday Music Thoughts has disappeared lately is that it's really, really hard to find time to do it when I've got my son on weekends, work, and a seemingly endless supply of shit to do. Today? Editing a friend's grad school letter. There goes 5 Monday Music Thoughts.

* I still have Cadbury Creme Eggs left.

* I'm seeing Julien-K again this Friday in town.

* Lord Bob has been sleeping under my car lately. I haven't been able to snap a picture, though. He's getting more and more comfortable with my presence.

* I think it's time for another entry into the Excerpt series. This one will be the vaguest of all!

A Typical Monday Morning

2009-05-11T09:57:00.000-07:00

Sebastian, clean your room!

Sebastian, clean the living room!

No? Yeah, I figured.

I Read That As "Cupcakes And Beer."

2009-05-09T00:47:00.000-07:00

The beautiful and wonderful Runaway Train tagged me with the Cupcake Deer award, simply because I've gone missing. I swear, I didn't exactly mean to. Things have been tough lately, and I've been trying to get through things on my own. I can be a little too reliant on other people to tell me I'm doing okay and I think the strain of constantly reaffirming me has gotten to some people. So, I gave everyone an inadvertent vacation. Go me!

Anyway...

Rules: respond and rework. Answer the questions on your blog, replace one question you dislike with a question of your own invention, add one other question.

What is your current obsession?:
The Horrors' Primary Colours. I need it on vinyl. It's that good.

What are you wearing now?:
Blue swim trunks and a cookie monster t-shirt. I'm that sexy.

Do you nap a lot?:
No, but I really should start. Oddly enough, I tend to nap the most when I'm really depressed. That's a big sign.

What would you like to learn to do?
Speak fluent German. It would make sense, really.

What's for dinner?:
I had fajitas many, many hours ago. I'm hungry, but I'm not going to eat anything.

What's one thing you're looking forward to?:
This vague idea in my head of flying somewhere later this year. I tend to be a California person and get all twitchy at the idea of leaving my beloved state. I've been tossing around the idea of flying somewhere in the US I've never been (Seattle? North Carolina? Maine?), even if it's by myself.

Who was your childhood crush?:
Oh, we don't talk about that anymore...

What is your current favorite Song?
I'm going to take this as "What song is currently stuck in your head all the time?" I'd have to go with "Caucasian Blues" by Jarvis Cocker.

What would you like to get rid of?
This sense of impending doom...

What in life are you waiting on?
True love. It has to find me sometime, right?

What is your favorite thing to do on a weekend night?
Well, usually I'm working. But when I'm off, it's all about the drinking. I love dive bars so much, so it comes as no surprise that I can be found lurking in them whenever I get the chance.

Have you heard the good word about Ceiling Cat?
Yes. Yes I have.

And, no, I'm not tagging anyone, once again. That always gets me in trouble! :)

How could you not adore Jarvis Cocker?

2009-05-01T14:08:00.000-07:00

I mean, really. The guy's a genius, and now he's pulling this stunt?

Anyone want to pay to fly me to Paris?

We'll Make It, Even If We Have To Fake It

2009-04-30T09:03:00.000-07:00

Working on developing your self-confidence can have some rather surprising side-effects. For instance, my recent work in attempting to boost my own sense of self-worth has resulted in a lack of things to blog about.

You see, I commonly fill the days in between the silly things that happen in my life with stories of past loves lost. And, frankly, those stories tend to be pretty depressing. That’s a big part of my personality. I am that sad little boy who just yearns for someone (who is not batshit crazy) to love me as much as I love them.

I’ll let you know if that ever works out for me.

But in my attempts to force the world into thinking I’m okay, I’ve been avoiding writing about those assorted incidents and chance encounters. And it’s making my blog boring. Frankly, I can’t fill an entire blog with stories about how one of my brain-injured patients destroyed my ass at Uno last night. It’s funny, but not that funny (Btw, the final score was something like 16-1 in his favor.).

I guess the key lies in figuring out a way to write about those feelings I have without making myself sound like a complete wreck. Because I really am trying to recover. I really am trying to be a better person. I’ve had more than a few people tell me lately that the only thing they dislike about me is my crippling lack of self-confidence.

So, even if I have to fake it, I’m working on it.

Even if I have to fake it.

Whining

2009-04-29T12:29:00.000-07:00

So, just about everyone at work was teasing me over the last few weeks about my PRO-ACT training, saying that the second I completed it, they’d change my rotation and put me in with the worst behavioral patients.

Well, go figure. The second I finish my PRO-ACT training yesterday, I get back to the apartments and find out that my rotation had changed. It really shouldn’t be that big a deal, but I was really getting used to the patients I’d worked with the last four weeks. I’d learned their programs and what I should do when they had certain behaviors, etc.

They didn’t throw me in with “the worst behavioral patients,” though. I got an apartment with three guys who are all pretty much independent. So independent, in fact, that I barely have to be there. Consequently, I’m basically a giant floater. I give people breaks, collect paperwork and keys, handle odd little tasks here and there. I’m not sure if this is a permanent thing, but it feels weird. At least it makes the shift go by really fast. I have a lot to do.

I just never understand the rationale for this sort of thing. Two of the supervisors have already told me that they wished I were still in my old apartment. They said that they never had to worry about that apartment when I was in there, which is a cool compliment. Unfortunately, they don’t make the decisions on assignments.

So, why have I been moved? Who knows? I don’t really know if it’s a promotion or a demotion. I’m no longer changing Depends and showering and doing every little thing for my patients, but I’m being called on to run around the apartments and handle various situations. It’s physically draining (especially since one of my patients demands an hour walk every evening), but it’s mental pie compared to what I was doing.

For all I know, they shuffled the cards in the deck and I was a leftover card from another deck. I just sort of got stuck in one of the leftover roles. That’s kind of how it feels.

Moobies

2009-04-28T10:24:00.000-07:00

The most awesome and excellent Bon Don has challenged her BBF’s to continue this meme with a list of 10 of my favorite film characters (Not favorite movies!) and why I think they are cool. Then I am to tag 5 other bloggers to do the same.

So, um, I takes my shots…

Rupert Cadell (James Stewart)

Rupert is the classic intellectual in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (coincidentally, my favorite film). He theorizes on why he, as an intellectual, is better than everyone else. When two of his students take his theories too far, it’s up to him to unveil them as the common scum of the earth. After the dinner party from hell, he tears down the killers for blurring the line between intellectualism and barbarism.

John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell)

How could you not love a man with no real memories? Dark City is a pretty fucked up film, and John Murdoch is the anchor that holds it all together. We see every confusing little detail through his eyes.

Thomas Jerome Newton (David Bowie)

If there’s any real patter in the movie characters I love, it’s the feeling of disconnection from their environment. Thomas is an alien sent to Earth to find a solution for the drought killing his dying planet in The Man Who Fell To Earth. Instead, he is suckered, twisted, and fully absorbed by our world’s pop culture and vices.

Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy)

Admittedly, the Scarecrow is my all-time favorite bat-villain, so it was a thrill to see one of my favorite actors play him in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. One of these days, I’m going to be the Scarecrow for Halloween. A really fat Scarecrow.

Rob Gordon (John Cusack)

I had to include Rob from High Fidelity, simply because I’ve had a good half million people tell me that I remind them of him. And I sort of agree, only I don’t have the commitment issues he does.

I only did five, simply because I don’t think anyone has all day to read this. And I’m most certainly not tagging anyone. I appreciate keeping my kidneys intact!

5 Monday Music Thoughts

2009-04-27T08:00:00.000-07:00

* Jarvis Cocker’s new album, Further Complications, hits stores on May 19th, but like everything else, has leaked to the internet early. I don’t think I really need to explain just how much Jarvis means to me. He’s pretty much who I’d like to be, if the world were ideal. Further Complications is a brilliant album, with shades of T-Rex, early Bowie, and Iggy Pop’s The Idiot. Did I mention that it was produced in Chicago by Steve Albini? It’s unusual territory for Jarvis, for sure, but it’s surprising how well it works. I’ve listened to the album at least 30 times in the last week and I love every inch of it. I recommend that everybody buys a copy. I’ve got it preordered on vinyl myself. Below is one of my favorite tracks from the album, along with a lengthy video of Jarvis spelling his name. I could watch Jarvis spell his name for hours. And I have. *sigh*

I Never Said I Was Deep - Jarvis Cocker

* I know I’ve made fun of Silversun Pickups in the past, but their new album, Swoon, is a shining example of the new guard of shoegaze. Sure, they sound a bit much like The Smashing Pumpkins… but they’re not embarrassing themselves like Billy Corgan has been the last several album. Silversun Pickups are on the more commercial end of the modern shoegaze spectrum. No one’s going to mistake them for Autolux or The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. But if they get more people into the sound, it’s not a terrible thing.

* Admittedly, I didn’t expect The Breeders to release anything so soon after their last album, 2008’s Mountain Battles. Their new EP, Fate To Fatal, is very reminiscent of their first album, 1990’s Pod. The Breeders have always suffered from the problem of essentially being a Pixies side-project and Fate To Fatal certainly isn’t going to change many minds about that fact. But it is refreshing to see Kim Deal writing and singing independently of Frank Black, without being any less a musician than him.

* Datarock’s second album, Red, is finally close to release, and the songs trickling out of it are making me shake my ass something fierce. The first single, “Give It Up,” has a Michael Jackson-inspired video that’s fun and goes quite well with the mood of the song. Datarock’s post-punk-meets-Daft Punk style is fairly obvious at times, but they’ve got crossover potential written all over them.

* I’m not exactly the biggest Atmosphere fan in the universe. I mean, generally, I don’t really get them, and their fans certainly terrify me a bit, in the same way fans of, say, Sublime or Weezer do. But there’s something about their latest single, “Your Glasshouse,” that really hits me. I don’t know exactly what it is. Maybe it’s the downbeat nature of the song. Maybe it’s the cute girl in the video. Beats me. I just can’t stop listening to the thing.

Social Networking, Bromances, & Me Being Gay For Kele Okereke

2009-04-26T18:33:00.000-07:00

* Facebook is fun, especially when people who hated you in high school attempt to friend you. Or, even better, when people who hated you in high school attempt to friend you using one of their friends’ accounts so they can spy on you without you knowing it. I can save you guys the time. I got fat. I had a kid. I‘m not a doctor or a lawyer or an astronaut. I really don’t care what you’re doing these days. I don’t care if you got fat or had 50 kids or went to Koozbania on a fact-finding mission or invented a time-machine so you could go back in time and take credit for Rocky Road ice cream. I still hate you. That should suffice.

* A guy at work offered to have a “bromance” with me the other day. I say “offered” like it was something simple and easy and kindly, like the offering of a cookie or a ride to the park. Nope. This guy followed me around for two days, wanting to talk incessantly about movies and comic books and telling everyone he could tell that we met on eHarmony.com. It’s not that I felt a flush of shame or anything like that. It’s more that I was annoyed as fuck to have this boring little man following me around, wanting to talk about Deadpool or the films of Dario Argento. It felt like I was back at my old job, surrounded by nerds who wanted to make me their nerd king. I just don’t do straight guys very well. I have something like two straight male friends (not counting male partners of my female friends) in the whole world and I’m pretty satisfied with that total.

Straight guys seem to come in two distinct groups: the “bros” who are total dicks, but girls think aren’t on the inside and the geeks who girls think aren’t total dicks, but actually are. This guy is sort of combination of both. He thinks he’s a cool “bro,” but he’s actually a geek. And both sides of him reek of dick. I tend to choose my straight male friends from the ranks of straight males who aren’t either of those stereotypes. Essentially, the 1%. Rusty and Ricky made the cut. There are other wonderful straight guys out there that I consider to be great people, like Discotrash’s boofriend and Will Betheboy. And that Mikey H! I tell you, that’s a great guy. But they’re the Oingo Boingo LP’s trapped in the box full of $1 used Candlebox cassettes. I’m sure they’re around somewhere, but you have to really, really, really look for them.

* Speaking of the sausage, the Bloc Party show I went to with the aforementioned Discotrash last weekend was a total sausage festival. Frankly, I didn’t know meaty frat boys were that into a British band who mostly write songs about failed relationships in a Gang Of Four-raping-Depeche Mode sort of way. Disco had a panic attack, which is not surprising, considering the amount of processed meat product and man-stink being foisted upon her senses from every direction. At least I’m tall enough to avoid it. The show itself was phenomenal. Bloc Party play with this restrained energy that’s a joy to behold. They’re great at building a crowd up and then tearing them down. Oh, and I touched Kele Okereke. My life may be complete.

* I’m close to deleting my Twitter account. I’m just fucking sick of it and even more sick of hearing about it. It’s been a little over a year since I started using Twitter and, at this point, I can barely stand logging into it. I think The Soup pretty much sums up how I feel:

Gah!

2009-04-23T07:34:00.000-07:00

It’s been a hectic week and a half of so in the life of yours truly. I’ve barely had time to breathe, much less write. It’s getting worse over the next two days, as I meld PRO-ACT training into my regular schedule. The result? Working from 9am until about midnight today and tomorrow.

Um, yay?

A Stroll Through Bell Mansion Corridors

2009-04-21T10:52:00.000-07:00

Would you like a tour? I'll be your doorman.

There be destruction!

And a Discotrash!

And a vinyl orgy that hurt my credit card, but soothed my soul...

Things To Know

2009-04-20T10:50:00.000-07:00

* I am not dead. Things just sort of spiraled at the end of last week for me, so I really didn't feel like posting anything. Things are okay, though. Rejection sucks, but hey, we all have to deal with it, right? I'm sure there's someone out there that will appreciate me for me, and if there's not, than whatever.

* There won't be a 5 Monday Music Thoughts this week, because I'm not home and just don't have the time to do it from here. I might do a special edition later this week when I get back to Bakersfield.

* And where am I? Avila Beach, of course, hanging out with Discotrash. We saw Bloc Party at the SLO Vets Hall last night and they were amazing. I could gush for days over how awesome a show it was. I'm sure I probably will at some point. Oh, and we drank half the central coast. We're going to start on the other half this afternoon. I work tomorrow, right?

Cold Wind, Cold Heart

2009-04-16T10:25:00.000-07:00

It’s almost five in the afternoon and I’m on my dinner break. I forgot my “dinner” at home and it’s too early to eat anyway, so I stay at the apartments to smoke on the break-room patio and bask in the few remaining minutes of sunlight.

There’s a cold wind blowing through town, but it’s not stopping spring in its tracks. The flowers are still blooming and the town smells better than usual. Directly across from the break-room patio is a pool with several tables. On one particular table, I’m watching a battle for supremacy.

There are three sparrows on the table, two males and one female. The males are fighting over the female, squawking and flapping their wings at each other. Every so often, one of the males will get an advantage and peck at the other bird’s neck or chest. The losing bird will flap off for a few minutes, giving the winning bird a moment or two to take his prize.

Shortly thereafter, the losing bird returns and the struggle continues anew.

This continues for a good 20 minutes and I watch, smoking and feeling numb. Drawing a parallel to my life is far too easy. And far too banal. So, I just observe. I never act. I just observe. Eventually the birds are chased off by a larger bird, a raven checking in to see if the sparrows had found something interesting.

Again, the parallels are far too easy.

This week has been painful enough to get over certain things in my life. Which, admittedly, is a good thing for all parties involved. But those kinds of realizations are usually enough to send me into a cold, miserable state.

In a few days, or weeks, or whatever, I’ll emerge better for it. And I’m sure I’ll find all sorts of new things to make me miserable. But at least I won’t be miserable over these particular people or situations. It’s a bit like freeing yourself from a trap and then looking back at it and wondering, “Now, what the hell did I do that for?”

(2) Reasons Yesterday Was Win

2009-04-14T23:10:00.000-07:00

(In other news, I got another jump-start this morning and drove to Sears. Sears told me they had my battery and it would take 30 minutes to install. 45 minutes later, a rather dim mechanic found me and told me they didn't have a battery for my car. "Can you at least give me a jump so I can go somewhere that does?" "Uh, yeah, I guess." A few maneuvers around the swarms of mouth-breathing Sears employees later, I found myself at Pep Boys, where I got a new battery and an oil change for $70 less than what Sears was quoting. Fuck Sears. Fuck them in their big, hairy earholes. Anyway, I just barely made it to my work "staff meeting." I got a $10 Jack In The Box gift card for attending. Life is strange, sometimes.)

Reasons Yesterday Was Fail

2009-04-14T10:02:00.000-07:00

Some days, nothing goes as planned. Or even as desired. Naturally, yesterday was one of those days…

There were missed connections. There’s a friend from Sacramento that I keep trying to meet, and it just never pans out. Lost opportunities. I could have worked an extra shift. Embarrassments. I could go into detail about those, but why bother? Did I get rejected? Yeah. A few times. It’s the usual stuff. It’s the usual assortment of reasons that I suck as a person.

What compounded those failures was my adventure around town with Susannah. All we were doing was shopping out of boredom. Anything to distract myself from the fact that I can’t do anything right. Nothing special. So, of course, my car battery dies in the Petco parking lot. The rest of the day had been one giant fail, so why not my car, too?

Normally, this isn’t a big deal. I have roadside assistance. I can call and get a jump start. We played a board game whose name I can’t remember in the car while we waited for the tow truck. The guy came after about 45 minutes and gave me a jump start.

We drove around town another half an hour or so to charge my battery and went back to her place. It was getting late and she had school in the morning, so I headed home. Only, my battery was still dead. It’s dead-dead now. No amount of charging would save it. No warnings. Nothing.

I called Susannah and she came and got me and took me to Walmart, since it was late and they sell car batteries. Walking through the aisles, I told her, “I really should be more upset. I mean, this is the sort of day where there’s a hiccup in everything I do. I should be freaking out, but I’m not. What does that say about me?”

I should have kept my mouth shut. Walmart was out of the battery my car needs. I bought some jumper cables and we drove back. We couldn‘t even jump my car. The battery was that dead. Admittedly, the dejection finally sunk in. I was done. Still am, really. I called roadside assistance again. Susannah went back to her apartment. She came out a few minutes later to tell me that one of her turtles died while we were out.

I got home just before one in the morning. Around five, my Dad woke me up to jump start my car. I pretty much figured no one would be open to sell me a battery, but whatever. I’ll just sleep in the parking lot. He couldn’t jump start my car either. So, I have to call roadside assistance again today. And get a new battery. And hope that the fail of yesterday doesn’t bleed too much into today.

5 Monday Music... Er...

2009-04-13T15:09:00.000-07:00

In lieu of my usual “5 Monday Music Thoughts,” I thought I’d shake things up and let you guys have some input. I love making mixtapes, which if you know me in real life, means you probably have one or fifty of the things.

And I especially love making long, intricate iTunes/iPod mixes with different themes to them. One I’ve been considering working on lately is simply based around the theme of anger. Normally, I’m not a very angry guy. But every huge once in a while, I feel the need to vent.

So, this is where you guys come in. Being the “not so angry” sort, I have no idea what to put on this thing. Feel free to throw out your suggestions for an angry mix that would kick all sorts of booty.

To get you started, here are two of my favorite “angry” songs:

Burning Inside - Ministry

Angry Chair - Alice In Chains

Your Easter Is My West

2009-04-12T11:46:00.000-07:00

This message has been brought to you with deep disapproval by Simon "Puss Puss" LeBon. Simon dislikes shenanigans. Easter is full of shenanigans.

Excerpt 14

2009-04-11T00:10:00.000-07:00

You make me never want to fall in love again. Because every time it ends badly. And it’s always because of something I did. Or didn’t do. You make me feel like an asshole, all the time. I don’t even have to mean anything by the things I do. I don’t have to mean anything by the things I say. No matter what, it always comes out wrong with you.

And I’m tired of feeling worse and worse about myself because of you. It’s okay that you don’t love me. It really is. But false hope is worse than no hope whatsoever. You’re not the first one to do this to me. To make me feel that warm glimmer of hope. But I hope you’re the last. I hope that I’m going to be stronger.

The reality is that there is no one for me. The few people who really, genuinely understand me can’t do a thing to help me. Their hands are tied. Or clasped gently by another. I’m going to be alone because I’m not enough, or I’m too much. It’s always something. I want it to be nothing. If there is no one in the world who appreciates and loves me for who I am, I want nothing. I’d rather be alone than lie. I’d rather die young than suffer until I’m old.

Because you make me never want to fall in love again.

Destroying Los Angeles

2009-04-09T13:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a very long day for yours truly and the legendary Discotrash. We started with an in-studio performance by Unwritten Law at the Clear Channel building in Burbank, ate surprisingly terrible macrobiotic food, drank our way through Sunset Strip, saw Julien-K at the Roxy, and closed the night with awesome Thai food at 3 in the morning.

Along the way, I met some interesting people, was introduced to a small army of "guys in bands," and spotted the lead singer of Puddle Of Mudd at the Rainbow. No, I did not hit him. And, at some point, a picture was taken of me under a Ryan Seacrest sign. I hope it never surfaces.

There are all sorts of crappy YouTube videos of the Julien-K show up already. Here's one:

I got home around 5 in the morning, to the puzzled expressions of my cats. They don't get it, but that's okay...

More Reasons To Love Franz Ferdinand

2009-04-08T09:32:00.000-07:00

Bar Time Happy Fun Hour(s)

2009-04-08T08:49:00.000-07:00

On my way to the bar... I should have shaved...

Oh, hai, beer!

Hey, look, kids! It's Susannah!

I really do look asshat tonight.

Could be the vodka.

Discotrash and Das Todd are not stunned because I'm taking their picture. They're stunned over who had just walked through the door. Here's a hint: think of sea mammals.

The world famous Mr. Mike!

A Late-Night Call

2009-04-07T13:26:00.000-07:00

After a long night of work with a smidge of overtime, I was heading home in my car, listening to Blur and thinking of the delicious sleep awaiting me on the other end of town. It had been a long week and I had two days off coming, so I was fairly jazzed to be in my car without a worry in the world.

A friend of mine called early in the drive because she was having a problem. Normally, she wouldn’t call me at midnight, since she gets up a the butt-crack of dawn to go to work on weekdays. But she was having a problem with a boy we both knew in high school.

Not to get into too many details, but he’s recently come back into her life under strange circumstances and has made some especially awkward advances towards her. Like, the kind that would absolutely freak any normal person out. But since he’s an old friend, she doesn’t really know what to do.

So, naturally, she called me, since I’m absolutely win at dealing with strange relationships. Okay, seriously, she really just called to commiserate, and that’s fine. We talked about her situation and some of the stuff I’ve gone through over my life to sort of compare and contrast. And we figured something out about me in the process.

I can’t take complements. I’m not sure if any of you have figured this out (though, probably), but I have absolutely zero self-confidence. I always think I’m an awful, ugly, fat, stupid, rude, thoughtless, bastard of a person and no amount of love or friendship makes that go away.

I was telling her about something that happened the other day at work. One of my co-workers was giving me the “20 Questions” treatment before a change-of-shift meeting. There’s nothing unusual about that; plenty of my co-workers have asked me about who I am and my past. I guess I’m just approachable in that way.

But after the questioning about me, she asked me if my eyes were green or blue, because she couldn’t tell. I told her they were green, even though they’re more of a greenish-brown. And she followed up by telling me how pretty my eyes are and how she wished she had green eyes.

It’s a fairly simple complement, and not the kind of thing that would make most people blush and want to hide under a table. But that’s exactly what it made me want to do. I can’t stand the attention. I can’t stand the implication that there’s some iota of personal detail about myself that doesn’t completely and utterly suck.

So, maybe I am crazy. I mean, I know it’s not normal and it’s not like I do anything to myself to compensate. Unless you count the drinking. And if you count the drinking, stop being an asshole. Booze is good. But I don’t cut myself or anything like that. I just don’t like myself and no amount of self-improvement changes that outlook.

We wrapped up the conversation a few hours later, after I managed to get the conversation off of why I don’t suck (in her opinion, not mine) and onto stuff going on at work. I guess we all have our little problems. This boy from high school has sexual issues. The friend who called me doesn’t trust anyone. And I just think I’m awful. Oh, well.

5 Monday Music Thoughts

2009-04-06T12:13:00.000-07:00

* It’s been about four years since the last Doves record hit shelves. In the interim, it might have been easy to forget why Doves is such a great band. They’re from the same school of musical thought as Travis, or even Radiohead. But what separates Doves is their orchestral scope, which makes them feel at times like a British Sigur Rós. The new album, Kingdom Of Rust, is worth the long wait, if the first single is any indication.

* I know I’ve prattled on about …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead’s new album, The Century Of Self, enough in the past, but what has me excited today is that there is a new video for my favorite song from it, “Isis Unveiled.” The video cuts down the track by a few minutes, but the core of what makes it such a brilliant song is still there. Is the video the best ever? No, but the song is.

* I know I could quite possibly lose credibility by admitting just how into electroclash I was back in the day. Miss Kittin? Felix Da Housecat? Ladytron? I simply couldn’t get enough of them. And at the very top was Fischerspooner, the most over-hyped band to never sell a record. Their third album, Entertainment, is being released independently quite soon, and it’s a nice pickup for fans of Depeche Mode or anything fey and electronic. Yes, that is a high recommendation, coming from me.

* Phoenix is one of those indie bands you’ve probably heard of, but likely haven’t actually heard. That’s starting to change suddenly with the release of their fourth album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. They’re getting more than the usual good press; they’re getting exposure! Take this appearance on Saturday Night Live this past weekend, for instance. Is Phoenix about to be huge?

* Oh, Camera Obscura, how you make me weep! These Glasgowegians are very reminiscent of Belle & Sebastian and their songwriting is pretty up to par. Their fourth album, My Maudlin Career, is in stores in a few weeks. The leadoff single, “French Navy,” isn’t as tear-jerking as 2006’s “Lloyd, I’m Ready To Be Heartbroken,” but it’s still pretty keen.

FNG

2009-04-05T11:04:00.000-07:00

I’ve been working at this new job for close to a month now and if I’ve learned anything, it’s that few people stick around for very long. I went from feeing like “the new guy” to just one of the many, many, many “new guys.”

People leave this job for many reasons. Some quit because they can’t cut it; others get fired for making surprisingly huge mistakes with their patients. And then there are others who get fired for actually cheating.

You see, the first three months of employment at my job come with a lot of hurdles to jump. There are the basics, from CPR and First Aid training, to more advanced courses like PRO-ACT (basically, how to take down a physically-aggressive patient without hurting them or yourself).

In addition, there are a series of eight tests that cover advanced techniques for dealing with people with brain injuries. So far, I’ve taken and passed two of the tests. I need to get the other six completed over the next two months. But, apparently, there are a number of people who just can’t handle these tests.

So, they cheat. And they get caught. And fired, naturally. I can’t even begin to estimate how many people have departed in the short month I’ve been at this place. Some days, I come in and it seems like a dozen employee boxes are missing. Usually around this point, I’m asked by a supervisor to work a double shift.

Maybe it’s a maturity issue. A large percentage of the people hired by my company are under the age of 23. Maybe these people are looking for a quick summer job. Maybe they’re looking for some fast cash while they’re in school. Either way, the job is far more demanding than they expected.

I mean, I know how I was at that age. I’m at least 1000% more calm and patient than I was in those days. Life experience makes me appreciate what I have, even if some days it doesn’t seem like a lot.

As for my time there, I’m doing the best I can. The job is tough at times, but I’m enjoying it. If anything, I’ve been worried about making a mistake I’m not sure I’m making. I mean, you really never know.

Frankly, no one in a position of power in the company had told me one thing or another about how I’m doing. I could be doing just fine, or I could be screwing up royally. I wouldn’t know, aside from the fact that I’m still employed.

But yesterday, I finally got some feedback. One of the programmers was working in the apartment I was in, helping a patient straighten up his room. I was working with my usual patient and going about my normal routine with him.

As she was leaving, she pulled me aside and told me that I’m “really good” with that patient and thanked me for my hard work. I can’t even begin to tell you how great it felt to finally get some sort of feedback. And the fact that it was positive feedback? Even better…

I don’t know what the future holds. I’d like to continue working at this place, but that’s contingent on a lot of elements. I need to complete my training and get out of my probationary period without screwing up. Who knows, maybe I’ll make it?

Did I Just Get Herpes From Watching Television?

2009-04-03T13:46:00.000-07:00

I guess I never realized just how much bad television people watch. I’ll admit, I watch some pretty crappy things. I mean, no one should watch Survivor. Really, no one. But working in an environment where there are televisions everywhere, I’m getting a real taste for just how bad things are.

For whatever reason, the people at my job have an intense fascination with the terrible reality shows on MTV and VH1. I can’t even begin to describe the atrocities I’ve been forced to witness in the last month.

For example, VH1 has this show called For The Love Of Ray J. I’m not entirely sure who Ray J is. I honestly don’t care. Maybe he’s a rapper. Maybe he’s a pimp. Maybe he’s a pizza delivery guy. Regardless, there appear to be an awful lot of under-educated, over-indulged young women who want to get in his pants. And they all have names like Caviar and Unique.

Or how about MTV’s Girls Of Hedsor Hall? A show where, um, sluts go to England and engage in such stereotypical British things as, um, eating Spotted Dick? Oh, yeah, make me watch more of that.

Another one of my break room favorites is anything on the Lifetime Movie Network. I’m not sure who loves LMN so damned much, but somebody at my work does, because it’s constantly on in the break room. I guess LMN is where all the really bad Lifetime movies are put to pasture.

Does it get any better? Well, yeah, if you consider SciFi original movies and pro wrestling better. There’s really nothing I can do about it, though. I could put on a Law & Order: Criminal Intent rerun, but the channel would be changed pretty much immediately to Rock Of Love Bus. I always wondered why these shows kept getting put on the air and I guess I understand now. People in the medical field have to watch something, right?

Excerpt 13

2009-04-02T23:31:00.000-07:00

I have never once in my life relayed a conversation I’ve had with you to anyone else. I don’t know why, though. I mean, I tend to open my mouth at every twist and turn of life and blurt everything out. I’m not so much a gossip as a lovesick asshole with diarrhea of the mouth. We don’t even share that many friends. It’s unlikely that what I say will get back to you.

But for some reason, I’m reluctant to talk to anyone about what we talk about. It just feels so fucking special when we speak. Like, somehow, I’ve won the lottery just by being able to talk to you. And if you knew I felt that way, you’d probably tell me to knock it off and just be happy with my ridiculous little life. That our conversations aren’t special. That they just exist.

So, for those reasons and many others, you have no idea how I really feel about you. Oh, don’t worry, it’s all good stuff. All of that sappy, gooey crap you have no interest in. I just sort of swoon a bit while I’m around you. I keep my mouth clamped shut when we’re together with other people. What if they figured it out? What would they say? How much would they laugh at me?

I know you haven’t figured it out. I’m pretty sure you would have said something by now if you had. Regardless of your feelings on the subject, you’re pretty brutally honest with me. It’s one of the aspects of your personality that I find so alluring. You lack the tact to pretend that what you say will impact negatively on those around you. You just assume that those people will just get it.

I guess that’s pretty fucking cool. I know I’m not nearly that self-confident. I could never do that. And I guess that’s probably part of why things would never work with us. I lack the ability to roll my eyes and walk away and not care. I can listen to an entire Can album without flinching. I love Ingmar Bergman. I’ve watched every episode of Lost without complaining that it “doesn’t make any sense.”

But I can’t make life seem as easy and effortless as you do. I’m not wired that way. I’m more comfortable second-guessing myself and worrying about things I can’t control and longing for the infinite than just living my life and letting the detritus fall where it may. I could learn a lot from you, if I just shut my eyes, relaxed, and stopped being madly in love with you.

Tweetup, Art Brut, Bloc Party, Booze, And Sad

2009-04-02T14:12:00.000-07:00

* I’ll be at the Los Angeles Tweetup at The Studio Bar Wednesday, along with Discotrash, Cinchy, Tattooed Pepper, and an assortment pack of your favorite and, um, possibly less favorite, Twitter personalities. Before that, I’ll be at a radio station, quite surprisingly. After the Tweetup, I’ll be at the Roxy. If anyone has a hit out on me in LA, you’ll have ample opportunities to complete the contract Wednesday.

* I’ve been listening to a disturbing amount of Art Brut the past few days. It makes me feel better. You see, I really wish I were Jarvis Cocker, but I’m actually more Eddie Argos. That’s not a bad thing. It’s just not as sexy. Art Brut Vs. Satan is amazing, by the way… Is it coming out on vinyl? I might need that.

* Thanks to the awesomeness that is Tristan, I will be at the Bloc Party show in San Luis Obispo on the 19th. See you there?

* I’m drinking at my sister’s house tonight, but she won’t be. You see, she’s been having some health problems over the last year and her doctor has recommended not drinking for a month to see if that helps her situation. Though, as she told me this morning, “If this doesn’t work, there will be blood.”

* Yesterday was, ah, yesterday. Thank you, though, for all the kind words. My liver appreciates them.

April Fool

2009-04-01T00:24:00.000-07:00

Exactly one year ago, on April Fool’s Day, it felt like my life ended. It might as well have.

I couldn’t breathe anymore. I called anyone who would listen. Some did. Some didn’t. I panicked. I opened a bottle of rum and drank the whole thing that night. I did other things. I regret a few of them…

Full disclosure: My family put me on suicide watch for a few days (And that’s about as much detail as you get on that. Some things just can’t be said.). I packed up the charred remnants of my existence and tried to start over. Why?

Because 11 years of my life evaporated in one night and I became an April Fool.

It sounds melodramatic, I know, but 11 years counts for a third of my life. A full third of my life was rendered meaningless, overnight.

I get that things end. I really do. I understand that sometimes love makes no sense and sometimes it really ends terribly. It’s just that I never expected something like this to ever happen to me. I never saw it coming.

I was in love. She was not. And so she hurt me terribly. This is how things go.

It took a long time to even attempt to move on. I knew things were over. That wasn’t the issue. I had no intention or desire to try to fix what couldn’t be fixed. You can’t fix what’s no longer there.

My problem was that I didn’t know if I even wanted to start over. Most of the time, I didn’t.

It’s been a whole year. My attitudes have changed. But every once in awhile, it still gets to me. I hear a song on my iPod, or a stumble upon an old picture. And it hits me. Today is April Fool’s Day and thinking about it is unavoidable.

So, I’m gonna go to sleep in a little bit. And when I wake up, I’m hitting the bar. Am I celebrating? Commiserating? Wallowing? Time will tell. But I’ve got ten bucks to put in the jukebox in your honor. I’ve got a lot of drinking to do, all for you.

And then after all of that is done, your memory goes back into bank. I keep moving forward. And I’ll forget about you. Eventually.

Go To Sleep

2009-03-31T10:31:00.000-07:00

Last night, I worked my first double shift. I got to work at 2:45pm and clocked out at 4:30am. I fell asleep around 5:00am. I woke up at 9:30am. I have to be back at work at 2:45pm. There’s just too much stuff running through my head right now to sleep. Life, love, lobsters, etc. Things that’ll never happen and things that did happen. It’s all keeping me awake right now.

I’m gonna be loopy tonight, I swear…

5 Monday Music Thoughts

2009-03-30T10:12:00.000-07:00

* Ireland’s Therapy? has been quietly plugging away for almost 20 years now. Their 12th album, Crooked Timber, has just hit stores and it’s a doozy. Their blend of buzzsaw guitars, post-punk rhythms, and alcohol-fueled aggression has brought them some minor acclaim in Europe, but next to nothing in the US. In fact, they haven’t even toured here in over a decade. It’s a shame, though, because they’re just the sort of band that could find an audience here, if enough people had the opportunity to hear them.

* Jeremy Jay is an LA-based singer-songwriter with his feet planted firmly in a different decade. His second album, Slow Dance, is a lo-fi masterpiece that hearkens back to the new wave pop and post-punk of the 80s, with a touch of garage rock to complete the package. He’s sort of like a new wave-y version of Jay Reatard, which is a really, really good thing.

Gallop - Jeremy Jay

* Oh, hey, Frank Black and his wife, Violet Clark, have a band now and it’s pretty good! Grand Duchy’s debut album, Petits Fours, is out in a few weeks and it just has to piss Kim Deal off. I mean, could Frank Black have been any more hesitant during his Pixies years to let a girl sing? Violet Clark is all over Petits Fours and it’s a good thing. There’s just something pleasing about a female voice singing over Frank Blacks melodies.

Lovesick - Grand Duchy

* Depeche Mode’s Sounds Of The Universe leaked last week and, well, it’s totally awesome. I always found the hoopla surrounding new Depeche Mode albums to be interesting. For a segment of the audience, every new album is hailed as “the best Depeche Mode album since…” Then there’s that segment that immediately declares it the worst album of all time and thinks the band should crawl under a rock and die. I guess you can’t please everybody.

* Bloc Party was on Letterman last week. They’re coming to San Luis Obispo in a few weeks. If the stars align and a certain friend can get me a ticket, I’ll be there. I heart Bloc Party.

Sunday Afternoon

2009-03-29T12:49:00.000-07:00

It’s Sunday afternoon and I go to work in a little over an hour. Last night we were a tad shorthanded, so the going was a bit rough. I’m still tired. My window is open, so I can see the backyard from my computer. My son is running around in circles, playing with a variety of balls and Frisbees and sidewalk chalks.

My son has this ceaseless desire to throw rocks over the fence at the yappy dog who constantly “yip-yip-yips” his way up and down the length of his territory. I really understand how he feels. His grandmother, on the other hand, does not, and chides him for this behavior. I just try to hide my amusement from them both.

I trimmed my goatee this morning and I hate the way it looks. It’s too short. I always inevitably trim it too short, so it looks awful for a week or so. I don’t know why I complain about. I generally don’t like the way I look anyway, so complaining about something so miniscule is like tilting at a windmill.

Life seems to be in a holding pattern right now. If time flows at all, it inches forward. There are things coming up. Anniversaries, good and bad. Easter. Concerts. Work, work, work, pub, club, sleep. I’m using these things to distract myself right now. I don’t want to think. I don’t want to care.

So, I listen to the dog “yip-yip-yip.” I hide my amusement as my son “misbehaves.” I avoid thinking about things out of my grasp. I avoid thinking about where things are going. The words elude me. I just feel them.