6/22/11

Radio Free Albemuth

dear internet,

I have hardly begun Phillip K. Dick's book Radio Free Albemuth, and it is already blowing my mind with it's accuracy and relevance both to life in general and my life currently. I will send his lines out here to you as I trek.

"...a victim of his own determinism" p. 27
"It goes into the unconscious and is stored...I think I'm being programmed." p.33
"No, it would all seem natural, what I'd say and do. I'd think that it was my idea." p. 34
"If he had remained in Berkeley he would have lived and died a partial person, never knowing completeness." p. 35

6/19/11

dammit post

Dear girl who says she likes me but is now in ireland,

Is it okay to say that I wish you were next to me right now? I don't think so--I feel vulnerable and unsure saying these things, but, you know, fuck it!
come back!
god dammit!

ARE MY FEELINGS REAL????????????????????????????????????????????????
HOW LOST AM I???????????? (A: PRETTY FUCKIN LOSTTTTTTTTTTTTT)
IT'LL BE CLEAR IF YOU JUST SIT NEXT TO ME. I'M NOT ASKING,,,,,,,,,,,,
I'M YEL(L/P)ING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

sincerely,

SONUVABITCH




(if I still feel these things in a month, I will transfer these words to paper, and address it to hell! Woohoo!)
I DONT KNOW WHAT IS REAL
be wary of feelings. they are intense and they are surreal.

Jackie Wilson

dear internet,
I've heard it said that Jackie Wilson was one of those one hit wonders. That's not true at all! I recently picked up a 5 dollar record, the jackie wilson story, and it's revived my love for him. Lonely Teardrops live at the copa is so much better than the original.


6/18/11

Playlist of SOUL

Soul.
I speak of it constantly. to the vomit level? yes, surely. the mirror questions me.
but that is irrelevant. The question is...Do I have it? do you?
Soul!

If it was tangible, where would it be? in your chest?
I think it would be in your feet. your arms. your shoulders. Your knees. Your swingin hands!
SOUL!

Uptight - Stevie Wonder
Exceptional - Elridge Gravy and the Court Supreme
Tainted Love - Gloria Jones
Our Love is Getting Stronger - Jason Knight
Soul Galore - Jackie Wilson
Shotgun - Jr. Walker & the All Stars
Tramp - Otis Redding
(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher - Jackie Wilson
Love Really Hurts Without You Billy Ocean
Nothing From Nothing - Billy Preston
Agent Double O Soul - Billy Preston and Ray Charles
Love is Like an Itching in My Heart - The Supremes
Where Did Our Love Go - The Supremes
Sugar Dumpling - Sam Cooke
Time - Edwin Starr
Living A Lie - High Keys
Love on Delivery - Billy Ocean
Twenty Five Miles - Edwin Starr
What - Judy Street
Goodbye (Nothing' To Say) - The Javells
Elevator Song - Killer Crossover
Ain't Too Proud to Beg - The Temptations
Land of a Thousand Dances - Little Richard
Think - James Brown
Say You'll Be Mine - The Rosebuds
Twistin' the Night Away - Sam Cooke
The Snake - Al Wilson
Move on Up - Curtis Mayfield

Oh man. When everyone can become your baby, and you unto everyone. Move like the cosmic dancer. Dance right from the womb. Music here can lead you to that desperate surrender you never knew you wanted. I'm only describing, passion of the sun, and your fear of it's ferocity, intensity, in your ears, your open eyes, your hippie hipster hipping hips. the fear that moves you onwardS!

SOUL

You got your own pair--no one can give it to you, no one can find it for you.

SOUL!
use it!
use it!
use it!
use it!

6/15/11

who beats the shit out of the tom-tom

"Then: Velvet Underground minus Nico but featuring a drummer named Maureen who beats the shit out of the tom-tom and the bass drum. Her heavy, continuous 4/4 outpouring on the drums slams into your bowels and crawls out your asshole. Meanwhile, the rest of the band makes a sound that can only be compared to a railroad shunting yard, metal wheels screeching to a halt on the tracks. It's music to go out of your mind to, if that's your bent."

--Robert Gold, Shrine, Los Angeles Free Press, July 26, 1968

6/6/11

I think this is a tacky post

the greatest love may be simple, the best love is like music:::



More than your words,
I need your space
right next to me
across from me
I could sleep with you there
finally
The sun is breaking through
you step towards me
quiet
I feel more than I know
the earth is steady
and it is moving because it is so
I cannot enter myself
without your breath
stay right there
right here
we'll lie around together
you'll raise me from the drunken floor
tomorrow

Words from a friend

Sometimes (or most of the time), expression is much clearer when helped along through by a friend, through correspondence.


1. Progress has been little to none. I don't understand the word "progress" anymore as I don't see anything worth progressing in. I reread my previous words below, and that man that I was sounds very optimistic. In reading all of pessoa's reflections and in doing my own, it's so interesting to see the ups and downs of attitudes and perspectives. Flippant state of mind. but is there a constant joy that will raise me from the floor every morning?

2. You know, the idea of progress is tricky.

I really think that progress is this weird thing that happens and
doesn't happen. Like you have to "show up" and work at it happening.
And even then, I wonder how much progress is always forward-thinking.
I was out for a walk last night, it was nice and cool up here in St.
Louis Heights, and I thought how we are always revisiting our past,
how in this ultra-connected world, we're supposed to be every part of
ourselves all of the time. It's like if a molting snake had someone
following behind it, always collecting the skin that it had lost,
asking the snake to put back on the skin it had already moved on from,
grown out of. "Love me for the man that I am, not the man that I
was," the Avett Brothers sing.

This morning on the way to school I was reading some of one of
Frederick Buechner's biographical books and I felt more myself than I
had in a long time, like that moment a couple of weeks ago where, for
thirty minutes, I felt genuinely happy again for no real reason. But
something about what I read this morning reminded me that something
about life is very, very good. That books are important and people
are more important and that "everything's lost and everything's found"
all at once, again and again.

Or something like that. There's something about the day to day that
we have to master, that we have to shape and form and guard. You'd
think I'd have that down by now, but I don't. And you'd think more
people would talk about that kind of thing, but they don't. Maybe
that's the curse of being a single guy. But I'm holding out hope for
the summer days where I have less to worry about and more time to
maybe get a little closer to the person I want to be.


3. I feel your words have helped me today more than it would have earlier. I find myself in a hole of invisible terror.

I believe that you are right about having to "show up and work at progress". I've not been doing that, but rather, I've been waiting to have a desire to work at progressing. again, it is the tiredness. and also, perhaps, a fear that if I try, I will fail. an insecurity.

The past. I realize that I am everything of my past, even as I am not thinking of any of it. While at the same time, I am an entirely new person. I hope I am becoming a better version of myself with each step, but I fear the hard times that I will need to pass through in order to reach that bettered self.


I've been dealing with my anxieties with alcohol and the such. It doesn't help. It distracts from progress, it puts off confronting the future for momentary pleasures and sometimes no pleasure at all, it just gives me simple ignorance. But sometimes I see myself clearer, and I see that the inner self is exposed in the drunkenness. Inhibitions drop, and you perhaps turn into an exaggeration of your inner emotion. You laugh longer, cry louder, hug harder. But the mornings are much lower, and I end up wasting hours lying on the floor, feeling sick, wishing and sleeping. I wonder if this depression is purely me, or if it is simply a voice of doubt that the real me must conquer.

I am looking through my journal, I know that I have experienced that happiness you spoke of. and it's strange because I find it amidst these depressing entries. life is good. and though I feel down right now, I look outside, and the sun has just broken through the clouds. I feel a warmth that can't be explained.