memories can't wait.

Erasing selective memories coming closer

One day it'll be a choice. I don't like it. I mean, the flexibility is nice to have -- especially for something traumatic that you just want to get rid of; war, rape etc etc. But part of your job in existence is to be witness and to work through your pain and evolve yourself. And I can see this being used nefariously -- and not just in a paranoid Phillip K. Dick dystopian future kind of way, either.

I had (or have? I dunno. We're still "friends" on facebook) a friend who called me up. Let us call her Agnes. She had broken up with the love of her life because shit happened and anyway, time heals wounds etc etc and several years and a marriage later she gets an email from him out of the blue "i fucked up, you were great, if you're still angry I don't blame you but i just wanted to tell you i know you were great" etc. Long story short, they got back together (and are still,) and as far as I know are deliriously happy together. Which is all well and good -- forgiveness is a nice thing, after all, and happiness is a bitch to find, so you gotta work for it. Except about two months into their newfound love she calls me out of the blue saying "hey how do you permanently delete files from a Mac?". I tell her and hang up and then go "Wait. She doesn't have a Mac." But I know my friend, and on a hunch (I'm usually really good at these) I call back and tell her off for deleting his pictures of his ex from his computer. Quite frankly, I feel a bit used and dirty and I am Seriously Unhappy about this, so perhaps I am less than nice. She gets mad, tells me he's backing up the pictures later (...but she's deleting them now...? just distraction BS...) and anyway I don't know the situation. I tell her that it's hardly fair for her to decide what memories he gets to keep, because they're his memories, after all. She gets mad and repeats that I do not know the circumstances, and I say she's right, mea culpa, if I'm wrong, please forgive me. She says nevermind and it's ok, don't worry about it and since then we haven't spoken. Which leads me to believe that I was right. But enough about that.

So now think of someone demanding this of you, literally of your memories. Or doing it against your will. Note that one of the reasons given for not freeing some of the Guantanamo Bay prisoners is not "they're dangerous terrorists and we can't let them go" but rather "they're totally innocent but they know too much about our information extraction (viz, torture) methods to be let go".

Here, have some sonic yoof "Nevermind (what was it anyway)":


Sleep tight, kids.

a plague for your dowry

xkcd's strip today brings up house of leaves by mark z danielewski. which is a genius book. nightmare-causing, take your breath away reading, for real. some of the writing is not as poetic as say harlan ellison's "speculative fiction" but it's certainly more claustrophobically horrifying. i finished this book at the bar, the day before my last conversation with the woman i thought was the love of my life. still is? i don't know. i stopped thinking about it. she's still the love of my life, but now in the past tense I guess. It's just one of those things where you associate something with what was happening -- e.g. Aphex Twin's "Selected Ambient Works II" 2nd disc is to me an incredibly erotic piece of music, just because of associations -- and House of Leaves is just a picture of a raw gaping wound. It doesn't hurt, but it reminds me that there was a tender part exposed and hurting.

So but what do you do? How do you just drop it? No one I know who's gone through hellfire and brimstone can adequately explain. And it's such a personal, subjective thing. If there's a universal that I have found in this, it's that people tend to pull back, reserve more of themselves and give less away. And that's so horrible, so very sad. But I see it time and again in my friends, and I see it in myself. The nerve numbed, you learn that you don't know what's normal anymore, so you learn to not trust yourself to keep from getting hurt. 

Sterling and I ate sushi, a while ago, and we talked about it, again. Except this time she was sober because of the pregnancy, so this time she remembered it I think. And it boils down to: I know it's not all my fault. But I feel like it is. I blame myself, even though I know it's not like that. The bitch of it is, I am sure she blames me too. Which is galling, especially considering the condescending attitude she gave me when last we spoke. Really, that's how I keep my anger going.

So yeah, this started as "look! comic link to awesome book!" and is now about me me me me. Well it's my blog so fuck you if you don't like it. Get yr own.

Enjoy this amazing and very entertaining speech by Malcom Gladwell on the lessons of happiness, self-knowlege and hidden desires inherent we can learn from spaghetti sauce:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce.html

Here's some awesome music:

Grotus - Brown

Pogo/Faggotron - Alice

I've had a copy of Jah Wobble's Invaders of the Heart's "Take Me To God" for about 5 years. Picked it up used, 5 bucks or so. I listen to it maybe once a year, which on average is kinda high actually. It's like techno world music that your reggae dub DJ friend mixed for you. Here's a song from the album:



Anyway, I saw a used copy again and picked it up for a friend and in the process also picked up a used copy of Jah Wobble's 30 Hz collection and it is indescribably good. How he does that with his fingers is beyond me. Listening to his basslines makes me want to play the bass forever and forget about the guitar. And you gotta give props to a man who quit the music business out of disdain and keeps dropping out of successful bands when they start sucking.

Jah Wobble (and Sinead O'Connor and Boy George) interviewed: http://youtube.com/watch?v=N425-qsKGQ8

you and me, what does that mean? forever, what does that mean?

it means we'll manage, I'll master your language.

Vignettes:
my favorite part of dogs is that they cannot help showing your their emotions -- if a dog is happy or excited, the tail will wag, no problem. A confused dog will be quizzical, a scared dog will be scared, a happy dog will wag his tail. it's so honest, it's fucking gorgeous.

I have a headache, so this entry will be refreshingly content-full and thought-free.

I've been listening to a lot of Tricky recently:

"Karmacoma", Massive Attack featuring Tricky:



Tricky's version of the song:



Christiansands, live:


Let me backtrack, I've been listening to JWZ's mixtapes a lot recently and one of the songs on one of the mixes (13 i think? coulda been 20) was "Bad Dream" from Pre-millenium Tension. So it reminded me of how awesome Tricky's music is and I had to ...acquire... "Ruff Guide" to sort out in the car. But it was missing some stuff I felt it needed (e.g., his covers of "Lovecats", "Dear God" and "Something In The Way"). So I wound up digging out my old CDs anyway and reburning a new comp.

I still have a headache from last night, going to finish watching Sweeney Todd and maybe a nap.

I'm a little pimp with my hair slicked back

"willie the pimp" from Zappa's "Hot Rats" album, which I first bought in DC when I lived there with my dad. I loved the feeling of walking down the streets with the cherry blossoms still gleaming white and the heat coming down hard. Awesome guitar solo and Captain Beefheart singing. HOT BEEF! HOT RATS! WOO-WOO-WOOT!

that bell's been ringing now for years. it sounds like needles in my ears.

Low. Mormons from Minnesota -- home of Garrison Keillor and other very white folks -- write glacially slow minimalist music. Except lately they haven't. It's strange, but the last few albums have had a decidedly wider sound to them. Which is good, but strange -- more instruments, more complex songs, but they still sound harrowingly bare, austere and distant. Even the painful songs are just...far away. Removed.

So but see their video for "Breaker": QuickTime, from their website (or here if you prefer YouTube). It's homey, but creepy.

I saw them live with Dr Robert, professional guitarist/lawyer person thing, and they are just as chill-inducing in person. (aside: Mimi Parker is achingly pretty in person. Very tall and with a kind face, but with that way that really nice people have about them that you just know if you actually manage to piss 'em off you might as well just kill yourself then and there.)



Here's more Low for you:
Dinosaur Act: http://youtube.com/watch?v=kTGghNXgxnk
Because You Stood Still: http://youtube.com/watch?v=QPFDix37UZw
Whore: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ArPQvYGrM_w (live)
(That's How You Sing) Amazing Grace: http://youtube.com/watch?v=y2Res0JMuI4 (live but such excellent quality. Very spacey.)

when i broke, i became normal?

staggolee Stagger Lee Stack-A-Lee Stacker Lee

The Stagger Lee Files, about the different versions of the song.

The Annotated "Stagger Lee", about the Grateful Dead version specifically but also includes some history. ...and the actual Stag Lee story that inspired the song(s).

I really love how it's this one mutating story that moves from musician to musician and it's the same thing, but always a bit different, for example, check out the lyrics to Nick Cave's surprisingly filthy version and then compare Dylan's.

Versions:
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds: Album version, and live.
Grateful Dead, live.
Isley Brothers.
Lloyd Price.
RL Burnside.
Samuel L. Jackson.
Mississippi John Hurt.
Tony Furtado.

I'm still looking for the James Brown and Bob Dylan versions.

probably come to die in this town

brutal music:

Big Black's "Kerosene", live. Steve Albini, one of the most antagonistic and principled people in the music business. Check the credits in your record collection, I bet you've got something he's producedrecorded.


My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult's "A Daisy Chain 4 Satan", live. I recently found the MLWTTKK website again and now it's got PDF's of the lyrics. Whoa, I've been singing this song wrong for ~10 years now. I like my version better, even if the only lyric I could make out was, in fact, wrong. (I keep singing "dream war" instead of "dream why").

You live your life like Love's on ration: where's the passion?

Jesus, I want this so badly: New drug to erase traumatic memories

Title from Fad Gadget's "I Discover Love", but I can't find that on the web, so you get Fad Gadget's video for "Collapsing New People". I'm kind of surprised that Marylin Manson hasn't covered FG yet.

Le petit morte

My Bloody Valentine's "Loveless" is the most intense music to have sex to, ever. 4 days later and I still have a headache. I can't describe it more than to say it's a lot of overwhelming, and it made me feel every single moment in slow motion. Beats Acid Mother Temple's "La Novia" and Miles' "Kind of Blue" hands-down. The tantric breathing might have helped, though. cf: convo w/ lisbert w/r/t the french calling the orgasm "the little death" circa 97? before our big falling out ages ago.

I saved my cousin Veronica's life when I was 9 and she was i want to say 5; pulled her out of the pool by her hair. Hans, Tio Mel's Shepherd, just standing there, Michelle confused and screaming. Tio Mel going WTFWTF and he pulled her out of the water. I don't know why summer reminds me of that.

Dream: 8jun07 high school classrooms, the hall next to the band room, one of the piano labs is now a business office and ex-co-workers are there telling me how much they miss my company¹. Leave and into hallway B walks fast and pointedly does not make eye contact with me; i can feel the fury in her movements. Amusingly everyone is dressed in Victorian clothing. There's something about cars -- a trans am? something like that -- and a double bass is involved somewhere. Something weird about geometry in the dream, spatial relationships -- walls, floors, hallways etc -- keep shifting. It's off-putting. I wake confused.

Birthdays past and birthdays coming up...must remember to remember. Or something.

Segue: Nikola Tesla, synesthete, genius and all around weirdo has been on my mind of late.<sup>2

1</sup> Actually this is correct. Vij has lamented to me how it's no fun anymore, whereas most everyone else is all "so things are better without D around, eh?" No one really appreciates the curative powers of levity; my main function those last weeks was keeping V from hating the job as much as I did.

² That's a snippet from some show. Full show is here: pt. 1 pt. 2 pt. 3 pt. 4

little trouble girl

sonic youth vid in honor of new friend apparently. litl troubl grl, seems a conglomerate of dee, bee, sun, ces, maybe a bit of reven. whoa havent thought of her in ages. also briefly remembered RA from 7thh grade? funny i remember edgar mocking because she was so annoying and i was crushing and all i remember about that is feeling bad. tht's not true but i don't want to remember any more details. the past a different country etc

dream: haiti, lines in travel queues waiting to get in, driving around, rose w/ me then stace, inside a bodega looking place the trouble starts -- zombies, well, it's haiti, what do you expect -- and in a building next to the shack we're sheltering in, above & looking down from a party, b is dancing and laughing and i'm in it to my neck and it's no picnic but i feel pity for her, and i don't know if i'm forcing myself or not but there's knifework to be done so the unexamined life prevails. i get us out, but we lose stuff. i shrug. stuff is easy to replace.

god i'm drunk now. red red wine stay cloes to me.

today is naming of parts

Whoa, Lisbert had a baby girl. And so will Stacy. And like two others are tick tick ticking hardcore. i wouldn't mind, but alas, alas. Broken and all fall down as the song says. I don't know anymore. Mixed signals and I don't know, I just want to play music with people but it's always a let down. I miss how things were but I'm glad they're not like that anymore, I guess. Like, Deadline Poet, so much fun. But I wouldn't play music with Mo again for love or money. I do miss playing with Capt'n Winkler, though -- he's another that's got progeny on order -- in retrospect, we were such weird kids. I mean, jazz, blues and metal, with intermissions for a game of pool and discussing religion and philosophy. Not that I was particularly good at any of those things, but still. and in a way, i'm sad i never got that bee tat when i wanted it, cos now i can't get it, but then again, easier to forget i guess. wipe that memory lie away. i've been daydreaming about 1, after a week of daydreaming about 3, who has me all sorts of confused, and 2, who has me just sad. I just realized after like an hour of daydreaming: never in a million years. i mean, i took two lessons away last independence day: don't trust anyone and to turn the phrase around, lo que es pa' mi, nadie lo quiere. (the actual phrase mills informs me is "lo que es pa' ti nadie te lo quita").

at least i finally stopped listening to depressing music. more or less.

speaking of music, get down w/ the Black President doing "Army Arrangement":


and from the same performance, "Teacher, Don't Teach Me Nonsense":


The more I learn about Fela, the more I think he was a fucking genius. So you say you were arrested by the government because you wrote an album/song called "Zombie" that critized the government, so they came to your house, beat you up, planted weed on you, arrested you when you ate it so they could wait for you to shit it out, so you had to haggle with other prisoners for their shit so you wouldn't get busted, but the government had to let you go.

Except humor lives no matter what, so you write the whole experience down as another album designed to piss people off, called "Expensive Shit", so this time, when they come knocking, they beat you up and throw your mother out the window, which causes injuries that eventually kill her...

Except still, because you're a genius and you can still laugh and cry at the same time and you're STILL angry, you have her coffin delivered to the nearest Army barracks and write about it as "Coffin For Head Of State"....

is that what's bothering you, fella? or Fela?

How can the angels sleep when the devil leaves his porch light on all night?

Robert Anton Wilson, co-author of the Illuminatus! trilogy (among other things), psychonaut, geniune pope and all-around good guy dedicated to improving the lot of the human race, has shuffled off this mortal coil.





Tom Waits, "God's Away On Business"

27 heaven

Yeah, kurt/burt sang in a raspy bluesy voice, which hey, I like Tom Waits, I can't knock a raspy voice, but that wasn't kurt's modus operandi. jimi rapping? no. jim and janis rapping together? again, no, please god no. And the whole "sly" references to the musicians' work -- the jim character singing about "the snake" instead of a lizard, jimi playing a harpocaster (technical aside, if you're going to have a jimi character, do try to tell your guitarist to try to play stylistically -- even if your point is to transcend idol worship or whatever, jimi's sound is his sound for a fucking reason; even if his point is that you need your own sound, he's not going to throw his own away. It's not like you can anyway.)

Otherwise, not so bad. Good company (heretofore referred to as "The Good Witch") made it bareable, though I wish I'd had wine. If only I hadn't been driving. As a gesture, Tai-tai came through in spades, she's a fucking gem of a person.

Also, although I've always been into really disparate sounds, low low low basses and high trebles, playing The Good Witch's guitar with the missing strings really drove that home and made me think about re-fingering chords differently. In standard tuning it was hard to tie both the bass and the high strings, but maybe in vestapol or open G tuning it'd work better. I really must try this. It sounded kinda like a banjo and I had totally forgotten how much fun a nylon string guitar can be, even if they sound like shit with a slide.

and I know I won't shut up about 'em, but there's a video for "Sing" by the Dresden Dolls:

xiu xiu

"Loneliness isn't being alone, it's when someone loves you/ And you don't have it in you to love them back." Xiu Xiu, "The Wig Master"

Except I couldn't find a video or other streaming for "The Wig Master", so you get other Xiu Xiu. They're a bit emo and melodramatic, but they do have a streak of cheap comedy in 'em, as evidenced by this interview with Pitchfork:

Pitchfork: Are you currently dating anyone?

Xiu Xiu: I am the mayor of shyberg when it comes to the first move. It's a wonder I've ever dated anyone. I am so single. Please give my number to anyone you know.

Xiu Xiu: Boy Soprano, probably my most recent favourite.


Xiu Xiu: Muppet Face


Xiu Xiu: Clowne Towne (live)

Back at the ranch

The quick and dirty version: dad might lose a kidney, loneliness is my new best friend, sunny's leaving, i am writing songs much easier than before but am weirdly having problems with lyrics now, naples was boring but calming, mills is back in my life which is cool, i have new friends that are kind and loving and surprising, thanksgiving sucked but i have a lot to be thankful for. I wanted to go to Alabama w/ Dad & Miriam but the prospect of a 12-hour drive with them did not fill me with a burning desire to go. I still have to write that industrial song for Xristophr ("she'll bring you down to your face" quote unquote).

This week's postsecret includes a bit about meeting people anonymously by going to the movies alone with a white hat. The idea that you might meet, if not a familiar stranger, but someone who is emotionally analogous to a familiar stranger is neat.

I got weirdly emotional and forgiving and sappy during the holidays, but I wound up just going to sleep instead of making phone calls that will lead to nothing but grief and heartache.

Shell smashed, juices flowing. Don't get sentimental, it always ends up drivel:

One day, I am going to grow wings, a chemical reaction.

And last night, Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me:

Take me anywhere, i don't care, i don't care

A ukelele rendition of "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out"



So unbelievably pretty that I can't say anything more.