happiness controls you

The buddhist idea that desire is suffering always made sense to me, but I don't know if I believe that the way to nirvana is by getting rid of desire. Might be my inner catholic, but reining desire in and putting it towards constructive use makes more sense than subjugating it or denying it or what-have-you.

I mean, hummingbirds don't know that they burn through calories and need high amounts of sugar to keep their inner reactors going. They just know that the sweet stuff in plants is mmmmm mmmmm good. Draw your own parallels with sex, drugs, rock and roll, whatever gets you off. That they get pollen on 'em and fulfill their raison d'etre is well beyond what they know. This bullshit self-awareness and torture makes us special, different.

Then again, the idea is not to kill desire, but to move beyond it, accept things the way they are. Nam myoho renge kyo.

So are you a slave to your desires? Does your happiness control you? Are you a slave to yourself?

well, at least i didn't spend all day in a bar...

man...errands & responsibilities... and i was supposed to go to a poker game, but let down lisbert & willy. again.

Ran across Church #9's post on Capt Beefheart...now there's a dude who had shit to say and did it, and when he finished, he finished. I don't know, I don't think I could just give up music, but then again, it's a not a job for me. And I'm not that good a painter. I wonder what beefheart's paintings look like. If it's anything like his music, it's eschaton with whipped cream and chocolate entrails on it.

the ballad of too little too late

wrote a new song yesterday. or finished cannibalizing an old one? new one's "when medussa saw your heart". showed jms, the gtrist, some old songs and he was all about recording them next week. finally get to put "curio shop", "mr millipede" and "sioni bod da" away, and I hope also "your faithful serpent". I don't know though. That song scares me.

low end theory

so, bass. yeah. haven't played in a rock band in so long, it feels really nice. they are indeed a good group. we are a good group. very individual each of us, likeable and worth knowing. the songs have some very specific parts but are in general kind of open -- just basic "these are the chords, this is the melody...321GO". Show on friday which I was going to have to miss due to Orlando, but now maybe I can play on Friday...things are still up in the air vis-a-vis that. i find myself thinking of my conversation with johann hz about the bass and the deepness of it. i love that one really low note with it's overtones, just fills out a room, harmonically. My A-string was weak on the open note, I don't know if that was the pickups on the P-bass fucking up (they are 20 years old...) or the amp's EQ cutting that A440 out.

Found out who the CD is dedicated to; friend of Davis' who went into a coma and died. Reminded me of Injun Joe; Eden told me after Joe got into his coma from getting hit by the semi on his motorcycle that his girlfriend at the time tried to talk to him and stuff -- he was in a coma for like 2 years -- and he would cry when she put headphones on him and played him his fave song by Dead Can Dance. Such a good kid. Death at random is just...I don't know, kind of insulting. I mean, it really drives home the point that you're just another animal alive at the whim of chance and on the sufferance of circumstance.

mightier than the sword, at any rate...

Bill:
"No man or woman is ever worth your tears, and the one that is will never make you cry."

What utter bullshit.

Pat:
Sounds like good (general) advice to me. By the time it stopped being relevant you wouldn't be taking general relationship advice anyway.

Steven:
No, it's terrible advice. There are only two types of people who can make you cry—those that are completely worthless pieces of shit and those who make a true connection with you. I guess it's possible for one person to be both types at once, but the second type is the type that you should want to make a relationship with even if they break your heart once or twice along the way.

'Struth. Still haven't had leaky eyes. I don't know if that means I'm broken or that I'm not.

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

God used me as a hammer, boys, to pound his weary drum

Outstanding new Indian w/ H, excellent conversation. Must go back there soonish. Also have to find out where the other place is that Pika mentioned to Vij is. Had to stop by Med again to hand in old stuff -- cel, laptop, shirts, etc -- and everything's just STRESS left and right. I kind of miss it, because they're doing so much fun stuff, but not enough to really feel bad about leaving. There's a lot to learn and do here, and I'm just starting to get into it.

edit: conversation w/ H @ dinnar w/r/t how friendships and trust are something you gain over time has not left me yet. I think I'm going to lauderdale to get another guitar.

30 years old, redux.

Let's recap:

broke a heart, prevented a suicide, fucked up a relationshit, had piece of art dedicated to me, got a new car, got sold out on a hike, had my heart broken and jumped up and down on, got chosen over a bad friend, lost all faith in pretty much all of humanity as a whole¹, my old man hit the hospital twice, my mom once, one brother is an asshole (house issues), one brother also had heart broken plus legal problems, i think i broke another heart but i'm not sure, quit smoking, got a new bass, joined a band, wrote an album, started a book, have read a buncha books², found a bunch od really great new music³, started drinking again, made a bunch of new friends who rock, shipped a friend off to Texas, will ship a friend to Tennessee, learned to cook Indian and Greek, said hello to Tai-tai's brand-new baby girl, became a master seducer, totally failed at women, totally rocked at women, got a new job, my sister got married, am learning how to be at peace around others without withdrawing, picked up a bunch of new work skillsets, lost weight, gained weight, lost weight again, worried a bunch, stopped caring, hated more intensely than I really thought possible⁴, got my kink on, got my vanilla on, learned to be an appropriately sweet person, shocked myself with my venom*, and am still -- right now, actually -- putting the idea of karma to practice, started to learn Portuguese (really have to practice more before I bust that out tho).

In retrospect, I wound up with better people in my life overall, as opposed to a false friend. Which is better, but I still feel used, thrown away. I don't know if that was a really fair trade. But I've heard that the way you know when a deal is really fair is if both sides walk away feeling ripped off. I really wish I could have learned that lesson some other way, but when even asking doesn't get you basic decency.... My lot in life has improved and I got stronger. Overall, I would say progress. I'm certainly not happier, per se. I'm less trusting, less open. Maybe that's safer. I don't know. I care a little less.

Happy birthday to me.

¹ You know how I don't have any male best friends? Now I don't have any female best friends either. Thanks. ² David Foster Wallace's "A History of Infinity", Bill Bryson's "Made In America", Norah Vincent's "Self-made Man", Neil Gaiman's "Anansi Boys" all top the list. ³ well, new to me at any rate: Depeche Mode, Iron & Wine, Of Montreal, Klaxons, Daft Punk, Graham Parsons, Neutral Milk Hotel, Belle & Sebastian, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Arcade Fire, a bunch of other stuff. And I got back into afrobeat: FELA! Also, I kinda learned to dance. That could just be vodka though. I don't know yet. ⁴ see note ¹ above, but also: "seeing red", not just an expression. you can become so angry that it hurts you.

weekend, redux

The short version:


my sister got married

and i have a new office along with my new job:



I had a migraine and woke up with a bump on my throat. Also, I slept like 12 hours yesterday.

"Be faithful to that which exists within yourself."

i have the best friends in the whole world. i wish i could really tell them how much i love them. tai-tai's all kinds of back to normal more or less after the kid. kinda hiding how happy and giddy she is, she's so loving mommy-hood. dutchie's gonna be a moron for daddy's little girl, it's so funny. sun's all whoa between law school and the new boy. sterling is so much harder to read, and fuck knows i'm so bad at that anyway, but she's got this devil-may-care attitude about everything that's kind of surprising because she never struck me as the kind of person to be so laissez-fare (i want to spell that faire but firefox says no, it's "fare". whatever.) about life. H comes & goes. Mill's is rushing headlong into romance and tennessee but is so much better with this guy that it's all i can do not to cheer her on. mel's getting married tomorrow (well, the party, anyway, she's been hitched for a while). he's such a good kid and she needs that.



tai-tai and sun saved my life, and i don't really know how to put that into words. tai-tai's never really needed any help, except her relationshit stuff and that was all minor-league stuff or the baby's bed and that was just a money thing so pfft. sun's weather freak-outs are kinda silly to me but i know what it's like to wig out over shit no-one else feels, so i can't do anything except try to talk her away from the wigging-out. i'm just about all angry-song'd out, maybe i could write them something nice. i wonder whatever happened to that drywall i painted and snapped into rough trypic-pieces held together with yellow nylon rope.

mon petit vulcan

So. I have a band now. Or maybe this band has a bassist now? I don't know how "in" I am, but I liked them and they appeared to like me, and the drummer called back same day saying 'ok, yr in'. I emailed them via cragislist and they hit me back with their myspace and I hit them back with old music of mine own and we agree to meet. So I learned their songs from their myspace (admittedly I learned one of them wrong because I was in the wrong tuning, but whatever, transposition is not hard) and that coupled with my odd tastes ("Seriously, who plays Bjork on the bass?" -- hell son, I'm the playa that tabbed that bitch out -- and that was in what, 98? -- for ye olde OLGA archives at nevada.edu) got me in. I would roughly describe them as Black Heart Procession with heavy Joy Division leanings. They all seem amicable, good guys. There was another guy jamming with them that weekend, first time playing guitar in a band but supposedly knows keys and drums, and I do dig multi-instrumentalists. Maybe I'll get to do a full-band version of "Your Faithful Serpent" ? That would be nice.



Had sushi with H (whose sunburn I peeled), then V (whose picture I took), then M (whose fiance I just met) last week. I'm about sushi'd out. Last two days at the Med school coming up, and then Law. I'm a bit nervous. Kinda sucks in that we just tripled the network size (from 10K to 30K!) AND I was just starting to learn the Checkpoint (in addition to the Netscreens and Cisco). Checkpoint's a goddamned PITA, but the amount of granular control is fucking godlike. At least I'm not leaving Vij or Frank in the lurch. Wish I'd been able to go to the crashcourse for the CCNA or CISSP, but them's the breaks. I'll see if law ponies up the beaucoup bux for 'em.

I was a lover before this war.

Found a band whose online demo I didn't hate from the word go. Time to whore myself again and see if we get on, I guess. I miss playing music. We'll see how it goes.

Enjoy the somewhat artsy fartsy fan made video for "I Was A Lover" by TV On The Radio: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPyp92pExAg

round hole, square peg indeed.

ouch.

You know, postsecret is a truly genius idea. It fulfills a certain voyeuristic thrill at seeing others' secrets, it encourages art and beauty in the world, it works as a release valve for those holding secrets in and those viewing them as well, and finally, it holds a mirror up to those viewing them. That's a lot of spinning plates.

I saw the exhibit and it was moving, and then it was Sunday and I saw the updated page and the postcard here, and for the first time ever since then, I felt like that again. It is heartbreakingly sad and beautiful and it took my words away.

I love that bridge postcard. I wish I'd sent it in.

I sent mine in. It's the photo of us smiling at the Days' Inn, playing pool.

I went to the postsecret exhibit in the Design District in Miami today. Lots of very moving postcards, some more than others.



It was really neat seeing a whole bunch lined up, the handwriting on them, so beautiful and sad and happy.