I believe I believe I believe // Everything's out to sea

So I whimsically bought the latest album from the band Blur. It is called 'Think Tank' and let me tell you something it is the cat's pj's. Like the melodies are something you'd hear if you took an African band and locked them in a room with laptops, guitars and drum machines. Which makes sense because I think they went out to Morocco to lay it down. But it has deep soul. Their lead singer/guitarist Damen Albarn sings so calmly, almost like a patient whisper. Behold:

It has very literally been the soundtrack to this recent fraction of my life. Like Wednesday night. Leaving work and 'on the way to the club', by route of song title and literal translation. That 'night before holiday that everyone has off' celebration thing that usually got swept under my sober rug. They should've changed it from 'Sharks Club' to '2001 Waterford Class Reunion'. It was all such a blur (no pun intended) and I was the sober one (again). Many familiar faces and a thankfully deafening environment as to drown out any attempts on the "how is school/work? & smile and nod". But any time blending into the flashing colors and pop music with friends is just fine and dandy like cotton candy. 'Ambulance' on the slow ride back.

This is the theory of our family T-giving/basically any major holiday: There are two types: the firestarters and the firefighters. Lately it has been the mom prodding my brother's girlfriend to the point where my brother throws down. It is much fun to watch, and then later the menfolk gather to put out the flames. I hope you had a very happy holiday.

'Good Song' as I delicately took my lunch in my car with a full, undisturbed shell of snow blanketing me. It has snowed!!! The real thing. And even that wonderful 'Hollywood' kind where it gently falls from the heavens and settles like an ivory sheet of cotton.

Even more so last night. Meeting with my cousin at her place and sharing memories and stories of the ornaments on her first tree in her new home. And driving through the downtown Lake Orion streets and the streams of lights. The retro bowling alley made us smile. This song probably doesn't match said descriptions of the album, but its notes are the words I would use to decipher my heart just then.

(songs)

Sitting here thinkin about yesterday // how we shared a laugh and played

Something has happened. I'm not much a man of science, maybe you are? I'll give you a trace of my steps and perhaps you can deduce what has changed...

Thursday: came down from stressful (!!) few days before, FINALLY watched 'Superman' that Isaacs loaned me something like 4 months ago (Baun: "I don't care how strong he is, nobody can just halt plate tectonics!") and accompanied Raj's girlfriend "Erin with an E" to see Will Hoge in Lansing. I hadn't heard hide or hair of him before then, but he was really good. It was like soul/rock. He was really passionate, singing half of one song standing to the side of the microphone, just yelling it out to the devoted few gathered around. Got back late to the Raj manor, caught Isaacs there, watched a few episodes of 'Da Ali G Show' and went home.

Friday: breezed through a midshift at the 'Greeners. Went back to the Raj home and dove down to the bottom of a bottle of Canadian Mist with Higgins. I clumsily broke my beloved T-Rex shot glass which simultaneously broke me heart. Far too much alcohol one way or the other. I set my phone alarm to wake me at 7:45 so I could make it down to ticketmaster and pick up tickets to Coldplay for my sis for X-mas. Lots of blurred lines regarding heterosexuality. I don't know what it is about this group and alcohol, I think there might be something to be said about being too comfortable with one's sexuality.

Saturday: so of course waking up right on time at 1o:15 I stumble upstairs, pull out my credit card and snap the best available duo off the i-net and again cuddle up with the floor downstairs again. B-fast at 'The Diggity', my eyes are bigger than my stomach as always (which always makes for a nice following day b-fast) & I still feel drunk. I took my last pull at something like 3:3o AM....it is 1:oo PM now...so I get home at like 2:oo-ish and I just lie in bed. I don't sleep (somehow), the tv is on to football but I'm not really watching... I just lie there awake for something like 5 hours thinking/daydreaming. Dizzy. Went out and saw 'Walk the Line'. Joaquin Phoenix was on fire. Took a sleeping pill (diphenhydramine, the ingredient to most otc sleeping pills, also known well by its common name, benadryl) to get as much rest as I could for the sucktitude of a store meeting at 7:oo AM.

Sunday: do the meeting thing, go back and nap, then get dolled up for the 10-6 shift. Go in, all is well.

It must have been 2:oo or so when I felt it. To try and describe it as best as I can, sans poetics, it was like suddenly switching my view to suddenly as if I am seeing everything as always, only as if somehow removed from it. Like I'm watching it live on tv or something. Like you know that feeling when you sort of go into 'autopilot' for a short time? It was like this only continuously. It was like I would function and say things but it only seemed like I was somehow just barely getting the right words together (even though maybe I was and there was no problem...?). I also was having a hard time keeping thoughts inside of my head. Like from what I remember I could think something and still be moving in stride, chewing gum and walking you know? Now it's like I suddenly have to bite down on the thought, catching it in my teeth just as it is trying to escape (??) It literally took me like 2 hours to convince myself that I hadn't had a stroke.

I got to see Melissa in the flesh after work (! x 72.8) which was almost predictably wonderful. She helped sew me back together about a few things and as always I for some reason make up for all the words I don't say because of shyness around everyone else by just unconsciously monopolizing all airspace together. Even then it was like I was like in this weird state. Like... (random/strange reference) you know that scene at the end of 'The Matrix' when 'I know kung fu' gets knocked off and then comes back and he suddenly is changed (but not really) and he starts blocking the Agents attacks like it is nothing? Like it feels like my 'trying apparatus' has a malfunction, so I'm not necessarily having some sort of intellectual breakthrough, but... I don't know !!

It's driving me crazy trying to describe! It was the same today. I went to sleep expecting it to be some sort of cosmic hangover but I wake up and go to work and it's the same. Like I almost feel afraid because it feels like I'm sleepwalking, yet I get everything correct that I would normally do correctly. As if it is all a dream that I perfectly remember. The thing is I like it.

Time goes by so slowly for those who wait // no time to hesitate

Glory! It is snowing outside. Well ever so lightly, that sort of raindrop snow that blows in on a frosty gust and that doesn't accumulate on the ground whatsoever. BUT it still counts as the first snow in this part of the year.

It was a very welcome exclamation point to this day as I have been awake for all but 3 hours of it. I've worked and schooled almost double the hours I've slept the last 2 days. Double-plus ungood. But don't cry for me Argentina, I snuck in another viewing of 'Me and You and Everyone We Know' for a midnight snack. I really cannot describe my care for this film. If someone walked up to me on the street (or perhaps just let the biting wind blow them over to me at this point) and asked "how would you describe this film?" I would probably say that is a film version of a poem.

So does anyone have an opinion on Madonna?

I see myspace giving her the push and I clicked on it to hear her new song that I hear blends ABBA into it. And it has been playing for like 40 min straight now (!!) It has more hooks than your x-mas tree full of ornaments (only 39 away....) Amazing that she can keep releasing songs that make you stand in attention/dance uncontrollably. And how she reinvents not only her musical path, but her total style (some for the better, others maybe overreaching her grasp) and leaving the video on the repeat at the moment makes me believe a.) it will be a long time before anyone choreographs greater dances in videos, but probably never will her dancing be surpassed b.) there may not be another more seductive pop musician who uses every psychical (those mysterious sneers...), emotional and psychological trait she possess or 3.) no female pop star will push as many buttons and strive for "the new" like her. No matter what hot tabloid story comes out I will respect her for at least those 3 reasons.

Her new incarnation as "80's new disco vixen" is pretty sharp. But does it damage her to go back to the image that she basically created at the start? Or is it the circle completing itself? Either way it seems like even to argue over it gives her another victory for yet again 'stirring the pot'. She still knows what she's doing out there though. How her voice delivers that line in the middle 'I can't keep on waiting for you // I know that you're still hesitating // Don't cry for me 'cause I'll find my way // you'll wake up one day, but it'll be too late' is right perfect.

I'm not sure where this hidden fixation is buried or how it surfaces like this. To put myself on the couch and analyze it, I'm almost sure it is one of those few things that I'm afraid to say I inherited from my ma. As kids we actually had a tape of her singing karaoke 'True Blue' that was our "clean up song" for downstairs. But then she took it away.

I got my feet on the ground and I don't go to sleep to dream

Wow what an irresponsible/cliché thing to have done. And as hard as it is to abide to the first rule of 'blog club' (never delete an entry after the fact), looking now it feels like I caught the essence of my feelings at that moment very well. And without the 700 or so words that I usually smother it with.

I'll add some garments of details: since meeting this lady who worked at Walgreens for summer cash and being casual friends througout, we've talked online at good length and depth the last month or so. She goes to Western Michigan University now. I'd actually accidentally mentioned that I would be passing Western by on my trip to Chicago just minutes before embarking, joking to her that I'd "wave to her" as I went past, to which she insisted I visit, going so far as to give me her phone number with nary a badgering. This fell through, but weeks later (and days ago) I casually mentioned a possible trip out there and the possibility of a lunch meeting on Friday to a kind reaction.

Friday comes and we talk, I mention it again and she agrees, casually adding "but I have to take my boyfriend someplace at 5:15". So after I pick myself up off the floor I respond in stride "sounds fine, I'm out the door in 10 min" to which she replies "sounds good, give me a call when you get here".

So I put air in my tires and top off my tank with an extra $5 and I go out there. I just go. I mean what else could I do? I'm devoted, and anything less than keeping my word shows her that I'm scared off easily and that I can't commit, even if I only see her for a fleeting moment. And besides, I wasn't riding in on a white horse (white car actually) expecting to drive a wedge into anything, I really just wanted to see her. I'd had inklings of the boyfriend being a fictional character anyway, but no good would come from that route of thought either way.

So I get there at about 5:30, and I decide to wait until near 6:00 before giving her a ring to allow enough time to go past. And I do but I get her voice mail. I say "hey I'm in town, give me a call if you still want to do something, maybe grab a bite." I walk to the neighboring video store/coffee shop to pass the time. Minutes melt away and it is 7:00 with no call. I pack up and head home. I get lost on the way. I find my path. I make it to Rajala's house with the gang, get completely sauced and stumble to the laptop.

That brings everything to now, but everything after now is, as always, the mystery. I don't know what I'll say when I talk to her again. Maybe she put something on my away message over the night, my power went out at home and I missed everything/anything from that frame of time. I don't know. I think what makes me angry is just being tired of 'not knowing'. I just wish for once I could understand something and 'know' where to go and what to do and what to say. I feel like I have the desire and passion to construct something special but just not the tools. We keep trying.

D R u nK

preface friends dont let friends drink + blog

emm

i drove all the way out to Kalamazoo and back just for the chance of talking to a girl that i think i might fancy for a fe w minutes, but she didnt feel like doing that

so props to driving 2.5 hrs and then 1 hr later driving 2.5 hrs back. ahwell

id do it again, form now on i'm going for broke... if i feel something special with someone i'm going for broke, i mean if you're broke already what s the difference huh ?

even though i think i took the exact route that Melissa and I got lost on a while ago on the way back it was ok. & not a total loss i got to listen to the new Sigur Ros all the way through which was just amazing.imagine icecicles melting over like 40 minutes and winter evolving into warmth.

i really thought that this might work between us, but she had a b/f or so she says. before i would have thought that this was a very clever alibi to shake someone like i from their coattails but now maybe im believing it is truth. is this progress? i'm not sure yet.

what i am sure about is i must find a couch or some sort of comfortable surface to rest my head. i' m ready to fade to sleep....i

Upon the rooftops in dead of night // You’ll hear me cry, I’ll shake you from your sleep

Nellie McKay's record label's site put up a new picture of her! Observe:

And also they have the artwork for her album coming 27 December!:

I think the font is just delightful! It all just screams 1960's. And it looks like she's wearing the same red longsleeve that she wore on her first one, though no 'bright, cheerful demeanor clashing perfectly (intentionally?) with the parental advisory sticker on the corner'. I am giddy. (sigh) More showtune piano/instrumentation layered with satirical, cute/murderous wit.

I'm very obsessed with the wonders of the world wide web. It seems like more often than not I am setting down the school books and picking up the board to surf this infinite source of everything (I just tried to work in a Weezer 'You take your car to work, I'll take my board' reference, but it didn't work). I'm really fascinated with 'generators'. Those online programs that take variable data and configure it into some sort of misleading output.

Like this one, where you can tool around and create something like:

Good fun. Other random ones like the job haiku generator offers me the following floetry:

Love Jack and Coke
It's not smart on a weeknight
Work sucks sober too

Moving. Simply a word gets you a journal entry. I'll have to remember that one if the day should come where I 'phone one in' over here. Or get your Nostradamus Quatrains on. Or optical illusions (they are not spinning my friend). Or paint on a virtual canvas. The internet is so bizarre. But I'm going to go. Need my 40 winks. Something extraordinary might just happen tomorrow....

Oh as those starry skies // As they swiftly fall

Question: Can something really be too good? 'Shawshank' was on late/early a few mornings ago and it reminded me of hearing somebody declaring that 'Shawshank' was "played out and "just overrated". I mean is that not crazy? I mean this is probably subjective (though about as close to objective as art comes), but it got me to thinking that can something be too good or fit too well so as to cause almost a backlash or resistance against it?

Another thought from the paranoid cranium of patient Justin Bentley: If I live to be 66 years old (which I'm definatly shooting for and beyond, I'm still on the 'healthy eating' waggon, though at times dragging behind and holding grip for dear life, I don't smoke and I've only recently found myself socially drinking. If anything my head will come unravled, but I'm still banking on a good 65-70 years of fuel in the tank) and by mathematically assuming that I have and continue to sleep 8 hours a day I would be asleep for 22 years, aka my whole existance on Earth to this point. That is creepy. Like 'Driving-past-a-graveyard-at-night-and-seeing-only-illuminated,-colored-candles-lit-in-the-dark' creepy.

More questions:

~Why don't schoolbusses have seatbelts? Those things can fly and every wreck I've heard about that involved one seemed to have a collosual number of injuries

~If you are working the graveyard shift on daylight savings, do you get gyped out of that hour? Like do you work 9 but only get 8 on the punchcard?

Also in the 'Am I too old? (checks in mirror for distinguished grey in the mop)' category, would somebody please tell me who the following people/groups/things are:

~Dane Cook
~Mischa Barton
~The Pussycat Dolls
~The 'Cha-Cha' dance

I'm not mad about it, just completely baffled. Like Dane Cook. Heard about him from sea to shining sea. Seems to be in every 5th profile of friends I have in myspace. Never seen him in the flesh on the tv or anyplace before. Ever. 'I guess I just wasn't made for these times'.

Everything she say I was thinking anyway

Anyway Friday after just a massacre of work at Walnuts, I was revived by time spent with my most lovable cousin 'Doshi'. She called me the day before and said she had gotten box seats for a religious/motivational speaker named Joel Osteem at the Palace. I sensed a plot to convert a "lost soul", but I never get to see her since she moved out with her hub so I was game. We got there late (fam. tradition), and hungrily gobbled all free popcorn and pop (fam. tradition) within sight. Contrary to popular opinion, food does taste better with no price tag attached. We were then seated and treated to Joel Osteem and his wife, where they, almost in fierce competition, tried to one up each other in the category of 'I am the perkiest person in the history of Earth'. Also there was a CCM band that was entwined with each fragment of speech. I thought it was very odd indeed that I'd seen another Religious band only days before in the same building. Though I must say I prefer U2 by an incalculable margin, this other band, fronted by a female that my cousin quite adores, did restore some 'faith' in the genre. Where a thought of CCM would make me think of Sesame Street, now it seemed to carrry a message out to the sold out (!!, I'd never heard of this guy before now) crowd. More than you can say for a lot of stuff you hear on that machine with the antenna coming out the back anyway.

Anyway, we sat in the box listening, talked to one of her co-workers that had a 'Daria'-esque attitude about it all, and when it was over, left to get a bite at Applebee's to share drinks and food (I say share not just because we both had food, but also because of her tradition, and perhaps it is a tradition for all of the female of the species I do not yet know, of not finishing her food and counting on her 'Dussi' to assist.) We went back and she helped me dye my hair black for my halloween costume and did what all kids our age do on a Friday night which was to watch 'Snow White' until 2:00 AM. So interesting how scary it is, "Put the heart of Snow White in this box!" but still just as wonderful as my heart remembered.

Saturday Isaacs, Ashley and myself met up with Rowland and his amigos for a costume party at a club someplace far away. We were to hop onto a schoolbus which would then allow people to drink to, during and back from this place. Oh no. It was a rowdy evening. I dressed like Charlie Chaplin, or as at least 3 people declared "Hail Hitler!". Sigh. I was sitting next to Isaacs when they started playing NIN 'Closer' and I leaned in and said "watch, this is going to be the 50 Cent remix" just as a fellow started yelling out the lyrics that were never to come for just then there was a great "Go Go Go shawty...." followed by the biggest "stomach punch" face you ever saw from our poor chap. How we laughed.

So we get on this bus at like 12:00 AM after a long night there and suddenly this bus is full beyond belief and as loud as my Mom and just as ridiculous. I mean this bus has probably drank enough alcohol to possibly fill a Great Lake. I'm sitting opposite of Isaacs in the front seat, Ashley next to him and suddenly this guy, dressed as of all things a Reverend, starts putting his hand in a guy's face, slurring something loud at him. So after he steps off the bus and they get their fisticuffs on (breaking the bus door glass and someone's nose) we are suddenly speeding away "avoid arrest". Of course that lasts for about 78 seconds as we are pulled over and cops don't see the kid with the broken nose only because the blood compliments his costume. Nice. But the thing is that Rev. has something to say about another gent's lady. Which erupts as a fight on the moving bus right behind Isaacs. "Fuck this bus!" was the Rowland call from behind as somebody broke one of the seats out near the back. Just chaos.

The costume ball at Molly's the next night on 'Angel's Night' (what a euphemism if there ever was one) was a bit lower key. More laughs and fewer 'manslaps'. The pictures to prove it all.


(click to enlarge)Isaacs + Ashley at the club

Isaacs and meself at the club. (sigh) I look drunk as can be, yet I did not drink thankfully

Isaacs and Ashley sharing a playfull dance.

Higgy (invisible man costume post-'wardrobe malfunction') and Misty at Mad Molly's. Misty as April O'Neill....and hells yes that is from Ninja Turtles.

Isaacs and Raj minutes into an Executive/Judicial branch discussion.

Aaron and Erin (and yes that is still funny all these months later) 2k5 Bonnie + Clyde

D and me just minutes before he subdued me and the cameraman with a combo of nunchucks and hand-to-hand tactics.

(Deep breath...)(L-R) D, Brent, Eric, Chris, me, Mistals, Clarkston, Isaacs, Higgo, Raj, Erin with an E, Jovial Joe, Molly (blonde drag queen in back, not in real life) Gen Owen

and the Tramp.