Rippinest Town Pt II

These Massachusetts fucks out here. Well, not fucks, but I did notice something here which I guess I never picked up on, or maybe I did and that’s why I am moving back. Yeah that makes it sound more interesting. Driving through Salem and Lynn and that kind of area you see people who are trying to cross the street at 11:02 AM and making eye contact with you like they want something from you, and then if you’re walking out and about they are there, arms reaching out at you. The scary guys I’m talking about. You see them all around Lynn or Salem, you see in their eyes that they are really crazy. You see in their eyes if they are truly evil bad people. In California I never felt this. it is a cliche to talk about things being fake etc there which isn’t always the truth. I didn’t hang around places where “fake” people were. But...I never really felt like someone was really fucking crazy, where you have that fear inside you that shoots through you when you make eye contact with one of these people. Out here every once in a while you see one of these people and they scare you. At least me, although I’m kind of a pussy. But, this “real” thing I think...makes me feel more comfortable here. Maybe I thought of some people and situations as “fake” because there are so many actors around trying to be someone else for a day.

Have no idea what I’m talking about really. Wow. Speaking of that though, another difference I have been feeling. So last week I went up to what they call “The Central Coast” of California for a brief trip. The drive up there is breathtaking, not as breathtaking as it gets once you are immediately north of where we were (Grover Beach, San Luis Obispo, etc). Once you hit Big Sur and the cliffs up there on the Pacific Coast Highway all bets are off for where the best place to be at that very moment is. I wish I could have made it up there but it wasn’t in the program money wise or “emotionally-wise”. That whole area of the state from here on out is going to hold this bittersweet memory with me forever. That drive up the coast though from Malibu north is really nice, the mountains on your right of all different colors, green, yellow, brown, etc. If you have the luck of having a crystal clear day it is the best place you could possibly be. So I made sure to drive slow and take it in while I took the ride there and the more somber drive home. Taking pictures anywhere on that road is great but really there isn’t anything like taking the drive and seeing it with your eyes and ears and nose and mouth. Driving on that one day and then driving along the Atlantic Ocean last night and listening to music in the car the ocean felt like a different ocean all together. You notice a difference, but for whatever reason, last night it felt way different. Maybe because I know this coast like the back of my hand, and I love it but it doesn’t have the same feeling as that California one. That one feels real or something.

The other thing different here is how I feel. I’m not going to get into too much heavy personal shit on a public blog like this, but actually forget it.

I feel like my head is racing here in Massachusetts and I'm not making much sense. This trip feels like a blurry little piece of 2010 I will probably soon forget happened.

This place I am staying. It’s definitely haunted. I don’t really believe in shit getting haunted or anything like that but man this place is something creepy. Hearing things out in the rest of the house. When you turn the lights off in this room it’s pitch black. Not a sliver of light makes it through the relatively thin curtains. Here is what the room I’m staying in looks like.





and then there's this thing that stares down at me while I sleep. Please kill me now.

Rippinest Town Pt I

Imagine the worst U2 song you can possibly imagine, multiply that by ten and then have Jack Johnson sing background vocals while wearing six thousand white UMASS baseball hats at once outside of a Starbucks. That is what my third solo album will sound like.

Flew into Boston a few hours ago and as usual, at least the five years or so, I always play Radiohead on the headphones for the last half hour or so. I mysteriously don’t have Kid A on my iPod for whatever reason. I was somehow able to avoid taking them off throughout the whole landing. I mean really, would a person listening to an iPod REALLY mess up a landing, I hate that rule.



Imagine the worst possible Bob Seger song, but sung from the top of the Washington Monument, which is now covered in swastikas and portraits of John McCain. At the end of the song a gigantic bald eagle swoops down over the crowd and vomits the blood of every single Goddamned fucking Iraqi baby all over everyone. This is what I want the music to play right after I kill someone if I ever get to kill a human being at some point. Like if there was an apocalypse or I was attacked, not just a random deal.

Oh yeah so Radiohead on the plane, good times. I spent the majority of the trip listening to Mouth of the Architect who I can’t get enough of right now. I have been in that mopey mood lately and listening to them and Mono, Explosions in the Sky, Mogwai, etc. I think I have had my fill of delay pedals at this point. I also jammed the new Converge, Daughters and...I can’t remember. Oh Interpol. Maybe I should get out more and stop being such a fucking pussy.

Imagine the worst possible Her Space Holiday album cover divided by the pattern on your current girlfriend’s shower curtain multiplied by seven. Now imagine wearing a sweater that looks like that.

So the flight was fine for the most part. I used to bring multiple books and magazines, etc and then realized the best way to make the trip go fast is to not sleep at all the night before and then play music in your head and fall asleep. This works for me, although I did read for a few minutes. Man this book is intense (especially the piece on Billy Eckstine), check it out if you’re a music person, or pop culture person.

Imagine the worst Kanye West song you could ever imagine hearing, which is pretty much any of them, now imagine the song is being played through speakers made of Lady Gaga’s skin, which was just removed in front of a classroom full of Mexican children who have no idea who their father is. This is the type of music I would like to hear right before I jump off a bridge.

I can’t write much more as the battery on this laptop is almost done. I left the power supply at a hotel in Grover Beach, CA over the weekend and am having it Fed Ex’d to here in Massachusetts. I hope it comes tomorrow; I at least need to write a few hours a day, mostly just nothing, to myself, but it makes the day go better. Today on the plane I briefly wrote in the notepad thing on my iPhone and then realized how ridiculous it was and went back to sleep.



I guess I’ll get back to complaining about women or how my Joy Division CD's got scratched or whatever tomorrow.

How Do They Sleep At Night?

One night a long time ago I died for a few minute or something like that. Whatever they said, passed out in the living room. This dude thought I was going to fuck his girlfriend (I was) and well, yeah I died for a couple of minutes.

That whole situation should have been some sort of indication, or what I see in the afternoon here. Early evening dinners in shitty chain restaurants and a husband stares into the distance while his wife eyes around the restaurant wondering how she lives such an empty existence with this man sitting across from here. The guy just ran out of something at one point, just gave up the fight and cashed in his Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders posters and Lone Ranger trading cards. The seven minute drive back to the house he listens to sports radio and she plays Tetris on her cell phone he gave her four years ago.



One night a long time ago I passed out and fell out of a car. Granted the car was parked, but still. I have a scar from this on my nose still. We were sitting in some car outside of a 7-11, probably as high as a kite. Up to nothing really.

I should have learned then that the more I sit around and don’t do a thing, the less I have to live. I guess I was making myself healthier a tiny bit at a time, but completely failing in every other aspect. Imagine a time when I thought of going out to do things all the time every night. Like maybe 19 years old telling jokes about who knows what. I would have been listening to The Jam or The Specials around that age. The whole world surrounded by rock and roll, no internet and books about dragons or Hitler.



I was rightfully paranoid when I entered the woods. I have been paranoid since I can’t remember when. Everything, nothing supernatural or anything like that. What you see though, on a daily basis. That stuff makes me paranoid and delusional. Any kind of hunch there is something scary and unsavory there, even the slightest little one, I am always right on about it. Even half asleep as they float around my head right before I trail off, I see them.



If this is all actually real and not just some cooked up movie I wrote in five months. If this is all some kind of elaborate plan eventually removed from my brain. If this is how it is from here on out I will truly lose faith in too many things to count on one hand. At least mirrors exist, they make me stronger and they definitely make them weaker. There is no possible way anyone is making eye contact with themselves in 2010.

Vacations

03/11/10 - 4:07 PM

Have some extra time before she gets here to sit around and watch these crackers sitting in Starbucks, along with, me, a fellow cracker. This is the beginning of what will be a few weeks of not standing still. I enjoy this lifestyle better than whatever one I was living in MA before I left and whatever one I was living here for the last few months. Spending a couple of (bittersweet?) days up here on the central coast with her, going back to Boston this coming Tuesday for a week, and then driving out there on the 30th of March, so not much sleeping in a bed that collects dust underneath it. I wonder how slow I can get down to when I get back there. This should be a nice couple of days with her. If not I will be even more sad than ever. There’s no reason why it won’t be anything but good…at least that’s my intention.

Watching and listening to these people. Definitely “Californians”


(and then the next thing you know)
03/12/10 - 3:35 AM

Have no idea how the fuck I am going to do this. I can’t sleep and can’t breathe in this room right now. I’m overwhelmed with this whole situation, per usual. Who does this to themselves? Puts themselves through this?

We walked around downtown at the farmers market. It kind of reminded me of how great it would be to walk around the Topsfield Fair with her all buttoned up in some nice coat. Steam getting laughed out of her face in the cold. Red cheeks and all that good stuff. Fuck.



03/13/10 - 3:48 AM

We had a nice day out today out and about in this area on the water, off the water, etc. The way the mountains line the coast make everything ocean side that much nicer. You have this gigantic wall of earth that you neglect, and then the vast blue ocean and the way the sun hit today and her smile and laugh and the music in the car and taking pictures and eating lunch on the water.

I still can’t really handle that tomorrow I’ll leave here and probably never come back to this place, at least for a long time. My head anyway. I can’t be where I was in September, August, July, all of those months when everything was just a little different. Another night here I’ll never get to sleep, drive off into the distance tomorrow and just wait around twiddling my fingers for days. I’m kind of an asshole and deserve to have shitty things happen to me. This situation though, well. I feel like such a fucking idiotic moron, and who knows, I could have no idea what I am talking about, but really, it doesn’t matter anymore

Keep seeing weird shadows fly around the room here while she sleeps over there. I can’t ever get to sleep at the same time. I have to come here and get something out of me before sleep

It’s warm in here, way too warm to sleep
It’s freezing in here, way too cold to sleep
I doubt I could ever really explain how shitty I feel
I don’t have enough fingers to type it out
I don’t have enough hours left to explain it out
I just know exactly how I feel
I know how I’ve felt, which can’t be wrong
Sometimes I apparently make
(fuck, what the hell am I doing?)



+++++++++++++++++
3/13/10 – late afternoon
That was worse than I thought it would be. Eating lunch and then saying goodbye, no real view of anything in the future; Just walking away and waving and her blowing me a kiss and me driving back down here to “try again” at making myself happy. Nobody is ever going to want to sit around and wait for me to be normal. I feel like I have exhausted any chance at “love” at this point in time. I feel like I should pack it in with these at this point. They are hard to walk away from, and this one has truly been the hardest. In a few weeks I will drive across country by myself, further and further away from her wondering what the hell I just did, or feeling like the happiest guy in the world. Whatever the case or feeling I have that morning I leave here the intensity of this whole thing has proven to be too much for me and I really need that week by myself to let it all sink in, but oh God do I already miss her. I should probably drive home now and play some music loud so I can put my head somewhere else for the day.

Back From There

...? I have these visions when I fall in and out of sleep of me falling to my knees on a beach and someone without a face saying “Oh God, there is light pouring out of your pockets” and then I see it and black out. The person is terrified. I see the light though and it's intense. A big gray rocky beach with menacing cliffs and waves.

Sometimes, I sleepwalk and sometimes sleepwrite.

------------------



“The Minute We Hit Kentucky”

Whatever it is I ever see in them

Whatever it is that ever takes control of me and my head when I am with them

It’s invisible and hopefully gone by the time I am five minutes out of town

I have never wanted to run away from a place and idea more than I do right now

I lie to myself and tell myself I enjoy this and enjoy that

I can yes myself to death when I know every single thing that goes on

I read and spy on these weak ass men and their fat scorned wives home alone every other night weeping into their coffee mug with the horse on it

Broken boned and broken willed

Relying on friends to pick them up and tell them how much he sucks

These poor dumb women have no idea

I sit on roofs and watch them all, sinners and people I should never rub shoulders with

I tempt myself to write songs and letters

I realize I never need any of that

I have eyes, ears, and a nose

I have a steady history of just being too nice for my own good

Getting shit on and whatever else the next morning

I can sit and lie about how I feel

That’s the only thing I can lie about really

I can’t put these elaborate stories together like women do

Well I can, I just don’t

I can tell them all that I am doing well and there’s nothing to worry about but really

I’ll never fully get to sleep tonight

I’m beyond any point of caring if I burn a trillion bridges from here to the next galaxy

I want to go home

Never come back to this fucking place my head is at again

When I truly wish bad luck upon my true enemies

The ones who got in my way

The ones who fucked me up from the other side of the world

When I wish pain with the power of a trillion suns upon them and their loved ones

I hope it comes quick and with a fury so intense they never smile again

Sugar Cookie

I am truly sad.

Explodes in My Head Like Bright Red Fireworks

Comes on every few hours
It has been there for a couple of years now
Making me feel three feet away from my self,
like my shadow is me and I’m just a host waiting to expire.

After a trillion mixed tapes and movies I never wanted to see anyway
After a trillion lies dumped into my head, not even remotely processed
After a trillion drives through the woods and drives to the ocean and drives to my house...their houses
After a trillion haircuts and bad cologne
After a trillion times saying things I most likely never meant
Here I am with horrible lyrics from the 80’s in my head by homosexual men
I end up having to write my own
“oh baby please don’t hurt my soul again”
“oh mama you are so pretty the sky has nothing on your eyes”
“hey sweetheart let your hair down so we can hit the road”
etc

Every few days it happens
I turn into this guy I knew once
Dark blue button down sweater
Head full of ideas of what i thought was best for me
Man I would pay fifteen million dollars for a crystal ball
Go back in time and hand it to myself

After a trillion conversations I should have never had
After a trillion different hairdos and shoes I lied about liking
After a trillion different levels of anger I hit every day
After a trillion different times walking through the snow, the sun, the rain and up hills
After a trillion hours and hours of trying to convince myself I’ve ever made a good decision in my life
I end up with the remnants of the same soul as these gross Los Angeles losers I see
Black sunken in eyes
Still looking for some sort of piece of recognition
Still holding on to that dream, forgetting everyone is selfish
Nobody ever wants to hear you until you start to suffer or feel and look like shit
I see these fucks here every ten minutes out here and then realize how much more I am

Every few months I feel like this
I feel like I need to have some sort of other part of me
I forget how intense everything has been when I see it with my own eyes
They can live vicariously through me, I never learned to share
I certainly don’t feel like it now, fuck them all and the minivans they rode in on

After a trillion phone calls from 1985 through 2009
After a trillion times I can physically feel my head working overtime
After a trillion times wanting to believe everything I see and hear
After a trillion different explanations why I feel like I do from a trillion different non-doctors
After a trillion times I looked into eyes I can’t remember the color of
I arrive here, with the most horrible thoughts a person can have in their head, stuck there
I arrive here with a broken heart, an empty skull and the best TV money can buy
I arrive here with a tan and whatever excuse I can think of for being the biggest pussy in the world

One Million Shitty Husbands and the Women Who Love Them

A million miles to go now, geographically and otherwise. Every other day a new situation comes up just in time to join us for breakfast. I feel like a zombie, no more or less than I have here almost the whole time I’ve been here. Regardless though I will destroy all of it as much as I can and as hard as I can otherwise I will go off somewhere else. I feel like a liar sitting around telling stories all day. I never want to explain anything to anyone so any of these randoms I see, they don’t need to know how anything is going. The rest, I don’t take serious, or believe anything that comes out of their mouths and never fully can or will. Kind of sucks to be this now. At least I'm not xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxxxx and never will be, fuck that noise.

Remember when people would do some shit? I have like six days left here. This new shitty event is making this less of a reality, but we'll see. If I have to delay this any longer I will definitely be in a bad area of life. Anyway, for those six days it should be time to do some shit. Wait, I am just realizing this right now. I should probably go worry about that somewhere else. I really need to not do this typing anymore, or looking at shit I don't need to be looking at. I do make things easier on myself though.

Oh tonight we went to this thing in a theater and fuck do I hate when people talk or whisper in the theater. It does that thing where it you know, bugs you. This gentleman in front of me shushed the shithead next to me who was with what I assume was his woman, and just acting like a total nerd, and then blatantly checking out this really gross fake tits woman that kept walking by. Anyway, this shit would not shut up and thanks to this other guy who also CAN'T FUCKING TAKE YOUR SHIT did something about it. This event was Seth Family Guy dude and some others from the show, hosted by Bill Maher. It was pretty funny and interesting, and I'll miss doing this kind of thing when I go back to Boston, but anyway, good times.

====================================

(2004)

Eddie W. Peachtickets would come to my house in the summer months and bring homemade lemonade; we would sit on the porch and talk about different women we dated, how the Braves were doing, and the railroad. Eddie W. Peachtickets was the kind of guy you could count on. I don’t think he had any enemies, that Eddie W. Peachtickets. I bet Eddie W. Peachtickets is somewhere right now helping someone out with something. A very unselfish man, Eddie W. Peachtickets. The first time I met Eddie W. Peachtickets was in the shop with Darren Hedgehogger, Phyllis Dementia, and Natalie Nightwings. Darren Hedgehogger, Phyllis Dementia, and Natalie Nightwings and I were discussing a recent fight out in front of the firehouse involving Chet Chickarini and Ned Slapadino. Evidently Ned Slapadino called Chet Chickarini’s wife a two-timing piece of trash to Larry Lasagna. Chet Chickarini caught wind of this from a friend and went down to confront Ned Slapadino. Anyway, Darren Hedgehogger, Phyllis Dementia, and Natalie Nightwings and I were discussing this fight in the body shop when Eddie W. Peachtickets walked in and asked if we could help him move a chair into his van that had fallen out when he stepped on the accelerator at a red light on the corner; we happily obliged, and then invited Eddie W. Peachtickets to join us for a cup of coffee and some conversation. Darren Hedgehogger, Phyllis Dementia, and Natalie Nightwings ended up leaving around midnight, and Eddie W. Peachtickets and I sat around talking about boats and Bob Hope movies for a few more hours. Thus began a long friendship with Eddie W. Peachtickets that continues to this day. Albeit it’s via phone, as I’ve since left town, I still consider Eddie W. Peachtickets to be one of best friends in the world.

Sabbra Cadabbra

dream I had one night about eight years ago:

For some reason I like the low energy feeling a xxxxx xxxxxxxxxx feels each day. this is the best way to get yourself dug into the deepest hole you can get yourself dug into. this is the best way to just avoid having to deal with the voices that invade me every night around 2AM. if I could fall asleep before they start talking to me it would be great. having mere music on when you go to sleep is not only soothing, but it blocks out these voices more than anything. I try and keep myself awake until I can’t keep my eyes open anymore. I try to fall asleep standing up each night. I try to get myself back into shape, and it doesn’t work. I’m scarred for life with memories I guess. disgusting fucked up memories that nobody would even want to see in a movie. disgusting haunting images of people and events that have no value except to haunt me. why does this happen to me? I can’t sleep at night for fear I may dream about shitty memories and images. I can’t sleep at night because it’s fucking boring. I drift and drift but I try to pull myself away, as sleeping is going to hinder my following day. sleep is not going to help me out. sleep is not going to do anything for me that I notice. I like feeling like shit every day. I enjoy feeling like I’m going to nod off at 2pm. I like the fact that everyone else is safely in bed, and me and the few others around the world are plotting. I don’t like that I have to explain things to anyone. I will never feel comfortable with that. I won’t ever rely on lies to explain myself like everyone I know seems to do. I won’t make things up like “I care” or “I’ll call you later”. I know you’re not going to call, don’t tell me you are. I don’t need closure. I don’t ever need closure. I have lot’s of open books. I have books I started 5 years ago that I just sort of lost interest in. I have closure issues with people at the end of the night. I can’t stand to have to shake hands and hug and exchange promises of phone calls and e-mails. just go on your way, I’ll go on mine, perhaps we’ll meet again someday on the avenue. (don’t touch that dial!). I wonder what goes through the heads of others around me sometimes. I try as hard as possible to never let anyone know what I’m thinking. I try to not try at all to not let anyone know what I’m thinking at any time. when I want to, I read the introduction to a small class, but most days I want to let people do their own studying. not that there are any people out there that really, really care. I just don’t feel up to anything right now in line with normal everyday actions. I’m trying to talk to more people when I go out. not try to meet them and hang out with them, but talking more to others helps things out. sitting here spouting that I don’t care what people think, and how I hate everyone is stupid in general. I don’t hate anyone, especially people I don’t know. I do have some sort of maturity as far as I know. I just don’t ever meet the right people. I can’t imagine meeting people at a gig, or a bar hanging out. it’s loud, you can’t talk, and it’s a general rule that if you’re talking to a stranger at a bar or club, you most likely have a rock hard cock in your pants, or a soaking wet pussy in your pants. I’m not going to start discussing why I think Hour of the Wolf by Bergman is a scarier movie than anything you and your sweater has ever watched. I’m going to discuss how fucking big my dick is, I’m going to discuss how I am sensitive to the rights of animals, and how I have a sister who I am very close with, or that my cock once fucked some chick for 7 ½ hours straight. that’s not the conversation I want to have, nor do I ever want to have. I want to just talk about something. did you know that you can get an okay mandolin for about 200 bucks? do you even know what the fuck a mandolin is? speaking of mandolins...

Otherwise though, things are going pretty good out here. The weather has been pretty good this week for the most part. I haven't really been upset about a single thing in weeks. I feel this renewed energy I haven't felt in a long time. Looking forward to this trip back to Boston next week for a week, and then the drive across country the week after that. I love road trips and the fun times they bring to your soul. If I didn't have this whole thing planned out I would probably
*********************************************************

I Am Not the Owl
Pt 1 of 6:

When I finally would get around to falling asleep I would see them. A lot of times I would fall asleep on the roof with my head slumped over like a boring husband in front of a TV set. Dreams would show up of the conspiracy and everything I suspected happening. When I would awake in the morning I would reset the machine I carried with me and check it over before finishing the day out. Somedays the machine would have information inside of it that was useless to me but I would look it over anyway. I still have this machine and it works like a charm. Sometimes it does things it is not supposed to do.

My friends all said I was crazy, paranoid. I had too much time on my hands so of course I would invent these stories. I saw these “stories” being written in front of my eyes though! The machine I carried with me everywhere I went, it proved all of this. I could never show anyone this machine though. It was mine and nobody would know how to even read it or tell what the information I was looking at a meant. I had enough information collected now that I could present it to everyone but again, like last time, I didn’t want to look crazy so I held on to it. I always hold on. This kind of information. I will write it down on paper. I will type it out. I will think it out in my head. I will sit there and not move on a chair for hours and meditate on this information. Why I collect it to drive myself insane I have no idea but I do and will continue to do so until I confront them.

We had a party. Man, everyone was there that night. People I knew from high school, college, old jobs around town, ex-girlfriends, members of circles of friends long since broken apart family, everyone. I set up the machine to “peripheral” so I could keep my eyes open and make sure there was nothing suspicious happening. By the end of the night I had a splitting headache from trying to watch them all. Even with the machine running it was impossible to do it all. I decided to turn it off and try to just use the most basic method, my eyes. I even had a routine I set up. I would read lips on certain people if they were closer than ten inches from each other when talking. I would keep a mental note of who was talking to who so I could eventually put the pieces together. I had a piece of paper with all of their names on it and arrows connecting them. I could see who was talking to who and try and figure out why they were talking to that person. Some of these relationships didn’t add up to me. Some of these things I lip read people talking about didn’t make sense. At one point someone would tell me one thing and then I would later find out from my map that it was a lie. The conspiracy was getting a little heavier it seemed.

I set myself up in my car and sat there one night for over six hours. I followed them for a few hours and then sat back in the car for six hours with binoculars, a scalpel and a head full of ideas I knew would have to make sense at some point. My car would start quiet like a Belle and Sebastian a few minutes before the sun turned the sky from black to grey. She was there, he was there. I knew what was up here for the most part. The machine and everything it recorded all made sense. It was raining that night so as clear as it all was, things were kind of blurry as well.

Jaw Broken at Dawn Again?

They come on in the daytime and night time and try to get to me with ideas I have no desire to hear about. I always want to be selfish. I thought this would be glaringly obvious twelve thousand years ago. The only reason I am going to be like this forever is because I have no ability to believe anything they ever say. All of them, there is something behind the smiles and handshakes and figures and numbers and compliments and plans they want to make. There is always something behind the curtain that is a tall tale or another motive. I need to never hear voices like this again.


They want to be open for everyone to see. Why do they do this? Expose themselves to everyone, let everyone know what is happening, exact details of anything good or bad happening in their life. Have no idea where to buy a good mask or how many layers of clothes to put on to hide themselves a little. To make things even slightly vague. Open and closed mouths with exactly what you never want to hear ever. Unsolicited deep problems you now know every detail about. Great, thanks I needed that. Is there a on off switch on you? Nobody, not a single person in the world cares about your tired ass fucking conversations about where you're going drinking tonight or what you drank last night. Get two clues and call me in the morning. Me? There is nothing wrong here. I don’t think I’ve been happier.

They they they they. At one point I never cared about “they” ever, I should try to go back there.

It’s so quiet and serene in the winter. Nobody goes out. They’re all scared of the cold weather. Sure it gets cold as hell there in New England, but it feels very good. You feel alive. The cold weather brings out something in people. Misery mostly, but I like it. I like walking around and seeing the other miserable people walking around. It’s a bit funny. I always complained that it was too cold. The guy walking by me complains that it’s too cold. I think the best things that have happened to me have always happened in the cold weather. I don’t have many good memories of anything important happening to me in the hot weather. Nothing. Lots of fights and arguments in the past. Lots of me getting fed up with everything and everyone around me. I have more energy in the summer though. It’s hot as piss, but it feels almost good to sweat.



I can't think of a worse thing than just losing touch i can't think of a worse thing than not using touch i can't think of a worse thing than how i am right now it comes every day it happens late at night in the afternoon it flows out of me now i feel like i'm most likely wrong now and not that i've ever had pride issues but i feel like that right now i am in love well i love i haven't been in love in years now have i? i have no clue what the hell that's like i know what love is though love trust and respect love trust and respect the basis of every good friendship i probably fucked this one up i push i push i push i probably pushed the refrigerator over and knocked down everything on top of it the keys the basket of coupons the fruit etc i probably am wrong yeah i'm wrong i go about things different than everyone what's the big deal a big fucking baby i thought people thought babies were cute and lovable i thought that babies were tickled and held up in the air the only time i've been up in the air lately is when i looked at a picture of her the other day that feeling that feelin of being slayed by eyes that feeling of bliss because of how someones lips wrap around their teeth how you can see a second of someone and know immediately if they are real or fake this happens to me in the book store in the town square in the coffee shop it happens once a week your passion for one thing goes in a complete opposite direction when you're here this place is pretty cool actually it feels white and crazy it feels loud white and crazy crazy things speeding across a chalkboard it feels like they put you in here to teach you a lesson don't fuck with the wongs great line from a great movie i wonder if anyone has even seen that movie i'm the type of guy that likes to roam around etc this place is getting old though it seems like i got on the bus to this place on my way to north carolina no wait a couple days before that my mind has been taking so many photographs lately i wish my camera could do this much i remember the time i did this what i said what i was wearing what they were wearing what direction we were standing i take these pictures and i look at them in the white crazy room the white crazy room is where i look at those pictures i develop the film there and then i throw out the bad ones and keep the good ones well not the bad ones the ones that don't matter the guy in the toyota today the woman with the green pocketbook buying a large eXXXpresso in front of me i remember the persons eyes in the rear view mirror at the drive in though there was a pink panther sticker on your car as well as some other ones i couldn't understand you smoked and wore a wedding band as the girl handed you your iced beverage it was hot today i can't say i blame you why the pink panther though what is that all about does anyone care about the pink panther i think i may check those films out again i saw them when i was a boy peter sellers i throw out the ones that don't matter the ones that matter are the ones that stay in the photo album that i look at in the white crazy room so how pissed was i that i had to listen to 10 minutes of bad acoustic guitar at the coffee house waiting around not that pissed you did well kid you get a metal you never end up cracking under pressure you go across the tightrope wire you pitch a no hitter but you never end up cracking under the pressure it's before the pressure that you crack it's when you are inventing the drama that you crack it's when you start telling yourself you're right every time you never pitch a bad game you never fuck up when you go out on that wire you always do good it's no fault of yours that something fucked up up there in the air the air like in the record store or in the drive through behind peter sellers's sister in law you like the air up there great kevin bacon movie btw you like to retire back to that white crazy room you like when you have to shut the door because there's so much silent noise you have to always drown out the sounds of outside the voices of reason shouting at you and whispering to you you hide behind get up kids records and miles davis ballads who does all of the work not you you sit around and wait for the guy with the basket full of answers to ring your bell like the brown ups man you wait until you feel like an asshole and then you give up you always give up you think you're walking across a tightrope when your actually walking across an 8 lane bridge 8 lanes that just lead to the same old place hey weren't you there 10 years ago oh wait that was 3 years ago oh you were here more than once you come here all the time hey do you come here often what's your sign actually you’d hate me if you really got to know me i mean look at all of this crap all these words vague words about vague people who may or may not exist it doesn’t matter but at the end of the day i may just go silent i would never lie to you ever sweetheart i swear to all of Heaven I would never lie to you but i may go silent i apologize in advance.

Anacin

Some nights here I’ll stay up all night, like until the next morning. Attempt to go to sleep at six in the morning but in some state of mind where I am racing. I feel like that constantly the last few days. Usually this is on an account of her, we have a good night and also a good morning. Those are really the only great times here, with my few friends I made here, some live shows and the thought of driving across the country. I look around here though and the people are gross to me, carrying notebooks and laptops and heads full of horrible ideas around with them. You see through them like Wonder Woman’s airplane.



When I told people I was leaving some asked why I would want to go back to that weather. I can’t imagine ever letting the weather be a deciding factor in my overall happiness. There are far too many more important things that if it’s too cold or too hot. Only people who worry about shit like that would be pussies and women and I don’t see any horns coming out of my head. Wait what is the saying? Steers and queers? Anyway, yeah I don’t mind the weather.

The biggest problem about my actual drive across country is not knowing if the vehicle I am renting has an input for my iPod, plays CD’s or plays mp3 CD’s. The gathering of music for an extended road trip is a very serious project.

(head feels like it can’t think about anything whatsoever. trying to concentrate on anything remotely important is impossible. I can actually feel it physically not working. Anxious and unable to go beyond basic thoughts like “I need to walk over there”, “I am hungry”. A weird version of a headache, inability to concentrate and not being able to adjust my eyes to anything. Surrounded by death and rebirth and love and fighting and arguing and money and cars and just wanting to see her and make her happy and for her to make me happy is taking a toll on me. When I return home I want to retire computers and iPhones and everything else I use to grasp the sky for attention. A simple phone call a day or a nice letter. Remember that? Remember when we never disagreed and it worked like a glove. Late night coast to coast jokes about east coast losers and strangers with haircuts nobody would even think about liking. All of these fresh conversations in my head that will remain there forever. Right now though, completely blanked out. Can’t figure out if I need to eat, sleep or dream. I cant figure out if I need to stay or go or just disappear. Imagine that, hitting some town nobody has ever heard of and never going anywhere else again. New waiters and waitresses to spend time with, same stop sign every morning at 7:18 AM, same routine for eternity and never have to write about it or ask anyone what they think about it)



I have this thing I do where I see someone by themselves sort of like me dining alone every day and night here like that Quicksand song. I see them just over there, and then I imagine them getting killed, or something horrible and depressing happening. Or I imagine them - I have no idea.

The Dark Signal Returns - Shrinebuilder @ the Echo in LA 03/03/10

Man I am going to miss going to see shows out here. I don’t know if I have just handpicked the correct shows to see while living out here, but I have not seen a bad show here yet. I’m only living here for a few more weeks so I should try and see some more...but alas no money to be spending on fun really.



Usually “supergroups” are a failure. Well nowadays they are anyway...obviously CSN & Y, Cream, ELP and Bad Company were pretty solid bands. Okay, Cream were the best of that list, but...some of the later ones in the 80’s like The Firm an Asia were for the most part one hit wonders. I’ll most likely never hear Velvet Revolver or Audioslave, but I’m going to assume they aren’t very good at all.



It was only a matter of time before a band would form out of some of the bigger more influential contemporary underground heavy bands. When I first heard about this band I was immediately excited to hear it. Scott Kelly from Neurosis, Al Cisneros from Sleep and Om, Dale Crover from The Melvins, Scott “Wino” Weinrich from St Vitus, The Obsessed, The Hidden Hand and pretty much the Godfather of this genre of “stoner”, “doom” and what have you. The reason I assumed this band would be great is the consistency of great music they have all released through the years. There is always a lot of heart and soul put into their music from the artwork and packaging to the music itself of course, and then there is the live performance. Who has ever seen a shitty Melvins show? A bad Neurosis show? If you did it was most likely something else causing it, the bands always give 110%.




I’m not that big of a music snob, but I kind of am. With people I know getting into commercial music like Lady Gaga and that kind of thing I have to question their ears sometimes. As much much as I have music on all day and a good amount of it is indeed background music, I still like to hear something that moves me. Modern “dance” music or whatever it is just doesn’t feel right to me. I like some crap you would call commercial pop. But the new stuff is really painful and insulting to me. I don’t know, you can’t call me an old man as I would much rather hear someone screaming unintelligible words with a microphone shoved halfway down their throat at deafening volumes. Seeing a band like this, or musicians like this remind me that there is still good music that can move you. It doesn’t have to have any kind of message, any kind of statement, be any kind of genre, it just needs to BE. This music definitely IS.




Shrinebuilder’s music is pretty dark, but also pretty pos. The artwork on their record reflects this, light on the outside, and dark on the inside. Aside from Dale Crover who seems to be playing a little more of a traditional rock style (and playing a scaled down set compared to what I’ve seen him play countless times with his full time job in the Melvins), Kelly, Wino and Cisneros all pretty much bring exactly what they are known for to the table, but somehow it works when all put together.



I saw the debut Shrinebuilder show back in November at the Viper Room and it was one of the best shows I saw last year. The show was kind of a warm up show, and they played their set twice in a row which was to say the least, awesome. They did what I could tell was pretty much the same set last night. They definitely sounded a little tighter. My one complaint about their album was there are only four songs on it. The album is still long as the songs are long, but seems like they could have fit one or two more on there. The live set consisted of all of the songs from the record, a couple of others I did not recognize, and a cover of Joy Division’s Twenty-Four Hours which was amazing. One of the “unknown” songs was a bluesy song sung by Scott Kelly that could easily be on one of his solo records, a later Neurosis album or just a new original, Definitely sounds like one of his. This song on the setlist was called “Hell” (I think!). At this show it was sung with such emotion and soul you could almost feel the heat coming off of him. “Pyramid of the Moon” this fucking song is so intense, you want it to never end, and it’s actually one of the shorter songs on the album. Live, it’s a monster. Al’s voice is one of my favorite voices in doom/stoner, so I was happy to see him get some time singing on the record and of course live. I never saw Sleep live and never saw Om, so it was cool to see him play bass as well. He is definitely the most energetic of the the three guys up front. Dale Crover is Dale Crover, a monster to watch behind the kit, but watching Al play bass was great, I never realized how great a player he is.




Openers A Storm of Light were great. I love their new record, saying they sound like Neurosis is kind of a cheap way to describe them, but fronted by Neurosis visual dude Josh Graham there is obviously a big influence there. I think their sound is a little more theatrical and arty if that makes sense. Drummer Vinny Signorelli played with Unsane and the Swans....also played in a band way back called The Dots, and his drum set was apparently used during a Bad Brains recording session, hence "The Black Dots". They were tight as hell, but for whatever reason only played about twenty five minutes, leaving the audience slightly confused as they seemed to end just as they started building some intensity.

I hope they announce a Boston show I can see when i return there next month. They have a tour happening but no New England dates that I have seen. Highly recommended show if you are into any of the members’ respective bands.

Cocaine and Suntan Lotion

Trying to think if anyone thinks anything put in a status message on Facebook should ever be anything but a “joke” or some sort of “bit” you’re doing….or some sort of link to something. Sometimes I feel bad if I put something there and somebody buys it, thinking it’s serious. Maybe they don’t know me well enough, or whatever but suffice to say if I put up “I just did a whole bunch of heroin and now I am going to watch a bunch of Larry-centric episodes of Three’s Company” at least one person might show some sort of concern.

It comes on late at night when I can’t think of anything else to do. I am not doing anything for hours at a time. I put headphones on and have to play music as loud as possible, so no noise can creep in. Truly alone with no outside distractions like people yelling or the wind or cars driving by. I have to listen to the fucking noise they make all day, every day. I get to this place where I can’t take it anymore, the noise they make, throwing things at you nobody ever wanted to hear. (this man next to me, looking over, he is crazy and keeps looking over ready to talk to me. Most of the time I want to talk to every crazy person I see but this guy is drooling all over himself and frankly I am not in the mood for it tonight. Please don’t talk to me. please. please. please. please. please. I have put on my “please don’t talk to me face”I made this face a while back at some guy who was walking up to people and asking them for something in Santa Monica a while back. I was with Gena and really did not want this guy to be in my life at all for fifteen seconds or whatever, especially while I was spending time with her. He came up behind us and I turned around gave him this look and right before he opened his mouth he said “oh forget it, you look mean” or something like that. Heh. I’m not mean, but really sometimes I don’t feel like it) These ones I know though, somedays I don’t want it, I want to be away and left to think about nothing but jokes I can tell later or songs I will never play on the guitar.

I suspect I am surrounded by Jesus people out here, which is fine with me. I don’t have any right to tell people what to think or anything like that. I just keep noticing them more and more lately. I see a guy regularly at Starbucks near me and we have a brief small talk chat every time I see him. The other day I was wearing my Eyehategod shirt and he seemed to take exception to it, telling me basically that “some shit is gonna go down” with God and the earth. Anyway, I ignore this kind of thing for the most part. I thought people out here were either Jewish or only believed in the power of cocaine and suntan lotion. I guess it’s a pretty big state, duh. Anyway, I just never want to talk about religion or politics, not because of any kind of “it’s a personal thing” deal but because I find it all extremely boring, and I guess yeah it is too personal to discuss really. I have to say I enjoy hearing about people finding different degrees of happiness or contentment through religion or some sort of book they read or whatever. You can convince yourself to do certain things and not to do certain things, sometimes you need to be pushed there a little bit, or go where you don't need to go so you can convince yourself even more to go where you need to go.

My time is ticking down slowly here. I told some people what is going on, and I guess the rest will just find out soon enough. I am excited though. That first sentence sounds like something you would write had you just found out you were dying. Nothing like that though. ‘I AM EXCITED TO FINALLY GET TO HEAVEN”. Really though, I feel like every day has forty-six hours in it. I have been trying to sleep more as I think less when I sleep. I still end up getting up ultra early though. With all that is happening around me I can’t wait until I am there with nobody but my eyes and ears and head for a week. Looking at all too familiar places and hearing all too familiar songs. I get sick to my stomach when I think about

-(fuck this)I’m out

Scream - @The Echo, Los Angeles, CA 02/28/10

Tonight in Los Angeles was a reunion show I half stumbled upon a couple of weeks ago. I saw “Scream” and just assumed it was some stupid LA hard rock band. Once I finally looked at it I realized it was the same band I knew and loved since I was 14 years old. Awesome news.



When I got into hardcore, most of it was pretty straight forward, loud, fast, screaming dudes…at least the stuff I liked. Scream’s debut, Still Screaming, is probably my favorite hardcore/punk/whatever album of all time, or at least in the top three. The album came out on Dischord and it was actually the first “album”, or full length, as Dischord was putting out mostly EP’s and singles. Filled with ultra fast speed at some points, catchy as hell melodies, acoustic guitars (!), reggae, funk and straight ahead rock, and of course Pete Stahl. Something about his voice, it fits perfect with this music and, once you see him perform you realize how much soul he has. I always kind of thought of him as a Tom Waits type of guy, he has that kind of vibe.



When I was sixteen years old and doing my hardcore fanzine in Boston, Scream came to town and played with UK’s The Subhumans at the Paradise on Commonwealth Ave, which is where a number of great shows had been taking place that year. It would be my first time seeing either band, both favorites of mine at the time, and to this day. They both were completely amazing, especially Scream who were just merciless, song after song of their high energy rock, and the manic Peter Stahl stalking the stage, flailing around and putting every ounce of soul he had into the performance. Before the show I approached him and asked if I could interview him, he obliged and we met up after the show and he spent an hour or so with me talking about whatever I asked him. He was generally nice and down to earth and I thought to myself how your musical idols can sometimes be cool guys, you didn’t have to be scared that they would let you down.



A few years later, my hardcore band opened for them at TT the Bear’s in Cambridge, along with the underrated Kingface. The club was sold out, and Scream were now bolstered by another guitar player and a new drummer, a young kid around my age, Dave Grohl. At the end of the night, we were in the backstage area and Peter, who had remembered me from a couple years previous and drummer Dave talking. They asked us how much money the club had paid us, we told them we got out measly $25. Both of them thought this was shitty, and took $75 of their money and gave it to us. This was one of the coolest moments I remember from being in that band, and was the epitome of how that scene worked at the time.



That would be the last time I saw Scream. Years later Pete Stahl and his brother Franz (who also played in Scream) would come out with a new band called Wool, a great rock band from the LA area. I saw them one time in Boston with the Melvins, and approached Peter who again remembered me from years previous. That band broke up and Pete moved on to doom/stoner band Goatsnake. He can also be “heard” singing backup vocals on “The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret” by Queens of the Stone Age, who
I think he managed or worked in some capacity for.



So after reading that tonight’s show would be the original lineup I was pretty psyched. Although I originally read bass player Skeeter Thompson would not be there, he was in the lineup along with Franz Stahl on guitar and Kent Stax on drums. One thing I will miss about Los Angeles shows is that people really do get into the music out here. I was pleasantly surprised at this…maybe because of the types of shows I go to, I rarely see what we sometimes call “hipsters” back east. Growing up around the hardcore scene in Boston, every weekend when you went to these shows you would sometimes see musicians from your favorite bands mingling around, contemporaries of you and your friends. Bands would come to town and that same vibe would be there. There was no real “vibe” about anyone really aside from maybe the real big ones like Rollins, Danzig and Jello. Most of the time they were just normal dudes who you didn’t feel like you couldn’t approach. Tonight I got there right before the first band played and who do I see come out of the back area but Dave Grohl. A few minutes later I see Buzz Osbourne from the Melvins come in, he is standing near me with that hairdo of his, he is shorter than I remember him being. A little while later I spot Pat Smear, Dale Crover from the Melvins and Shrinebuilder. Scott Kelley from Neurosis and Shrinebuilder is also there. Shrinebuilder are here this week so I assume that’s why the two of them are in town. I also see Brant Bjork from Kyuss/Fu Manchu. I guess being in LA this is the kind of thing you see all the time, but obviously in the context of this scene it’s awesome, not like seeing like Jay-Z at a Lady Gaga show hanging out behind a roped off area. All of those musicians are huge in my world, guys who have created songs I have listened to hundreds of times throughout my life. So I was a little star struck, but not enough where I approached any of them. I mean how often do you get to look to your left and see four people talking to each other who wrote or played on Nirvana – Nevermind, Melvins – Houdini and Neurosis – Times of Grace...and then near them a guy from the Germs. Never!



Once the band came out I made my way to the side of the stage so I could take some pictures. The band was as tight as they were when I saw them over twenty years ago. The energy in the place was intense and I forgot how great of a front man Peter Stahl really is. I got some good shots of him, but he was hard to get since he moves around so much. They played just about all of that first record, some from the second album and a few new songs.



On my way out, it could have just been my senses being overloaded, but I swore I saw actor Gary Cole, who played Bill Lumberg in Office Space and Mr Brady in the Brady Bunch movies but I could be wrong. That would have pushed the night over the edge if so, but it was good enough up to there anyway.

Who's this dude?

To Catch a Thief

I wrote this a long time ago, updated it where it needed to be updated. I always wonder if this dude is still out there.

So there I am, stoned. How many stories can I tell that start like that? Every one that’s how many. So there I am stoned, approaching the Charlie Parker section when out of the corner of my eye I see him. “Shit” I say to myself, there’s no way that guy will recognize me at this point, it was….over 15 years ago now. “Fuck, he’s listening to jazz now?” Perhaps he always was though. I would assume that he would only listen to Led Zeppelin and Ozzy if he was doing what he was doing when I first encountered him. Looks like he gained a little weight. Has the glasses on, looks sort of like a computer programmer, or maybe someone who works at Radio Shack ( let me just say that Radio Shack is the worst thing in the history of things that have existed in the world. You go in there and first of all, they don’t have anything good whatsoever. There is not one good thing. And if you say they are different now like Sears, because they carry all these top name products now, I’ll tell you to shove a box of 9 volt [my favorite member of the battery family] batteries up your ass, as Radio Shack is not good now. I don’t care who they have doing their television ads now, I don’t care if the logo is hip now. I don’t care if when you think of Radio Shack you think of Radiohead. It’s 2 things that stink Radio’s and Shack’s. When I think of the radio I think of noisy static and shittier music. When I think of a shack, I think of an old run down fucking shack, not somewhere I want to buy stereo equipment. Anyone who buys anything from Radio Shack other than a fucking LED light or something is an asshole, and should not be allowed to listen to music or use anything electronic. You go in there to buy something, and first off they ask you for all this shit…name, address, phone number, social security number, the last time you listened to Vampire Weekend{this obviously is probably more often than not answered “yes” in the Radio Shack environment if you catch my drift}, mothers maiden name, all to buy a fucking fuse for 29 cents. Fuck that, I’ll take my business elsewhere.) or some geek like that. So I quickly make my way out of the jazz section, as the guy is there, and secondly, there’s nothing there I need right now anyway. I guess I should back up a little.

So years ago when I had a skateboard and my prom would be a couple years later where we would hear all sorts of 80’s songs because it was the 80’s, not because it was an “80’s themed prom” (I tell you, being in junior high, and high school in the 80’s was not fun. It wasn’t like those John Hughes movies. It wasn’t like Saved By the Bell, it sucked. The clothes people wore were so god-awful it wasn’t even funny. Ronald Reagan was in office, there were no punk rockers around where I lived, the pot wasn’t what it is today, if you hooked up with a girl you spent half the time trying to figure out if something was a strap or a ribbon or a belt or whatever, and then of course you were fifteen so when you did finally get the baggy outfit off you had no idea what to even do with the “stuff” So when you start thinking that you want to go back to the 80’s because it seemed cool, think again, as it really wasn’t that great of a time for anyone. Let’s let it rest.). I looked like a dork, I was a teenage punk rock kid with a skateboard, how original.

My friend Peter and I used to hang out at this shopping mall literally every day of our lives. It was a small shopping mall with maybe a dozen stores, anchored by a big pharmacy (pharmacies are out of fucking control nowadays, people don’t think about it, but you go into a pharmacy and the days of just getting a prescription and a card for your sister are long fucking gone now you can get anything you want in there…at any time of the day. They have 24 hour pharmacies here, perfect for a guy like myself who sometimes will wake up in the middle of the night and go out to the car to take a ride and cool myself down. Sometimes I need a bag of licorice in the middle of the night, and sometimes I need to buy a box of blank DVD’s, or maybe I am coming back from a keg party on a golf course at like 4 million o’clock in the morning and I need a copy of the new Michael Crichton novel [paperback edition], either way, it’s now all there. Pharmacies do not get the much deserved respect they have built over the past few years now), and a department store. The details of this are sketchy at this point, but from what I remember Peter may have said some bad words about some girl. For a week or so after that we kept seeing these two sort of scary looking guys in the mall. We thought they were after us for saying what we did. So one night, I’m sitting in the mall leaning against this wall with my skateboard, I have a clear view of one of the entrances (I can still picture the big brick pillars outside at each entrance), so anyone pulling up in a car, you can see. This would be where you waited in the winter for your mother to pick you up after a long day of mall shopping, if you weren’t a nerd like me who just hung out there. So I’m sitting there, presumably waiting for my friend to get out of work when I see this motorcycle pull up, okay, well a “chopper”. I notice it’s our two friends who we thought were going to kick our ass, they look a little different though. The taller, blonde one is wearing mirrored sunglasses, and a bandana on his head, and overalls; he gets off the chopper and enters the mall. The shorter dark haired one stays on the chopper and is looking in at me. I’m thinking he’s going to come in and kick my ass. I hadn’t had much experience with getting my ass kicked at this point (although, a few years before or so, I was down at the movie theatre and there was this nerdy “new kid” eating a sandwich, for some reason I decided I wanted to eat the sandwich, so I took it away from him. Me and my long hair, and my Ozzy Diary of a Madman tour shirt [which was the first concert my mother let my brother and I go to without parental guidance, and I was right after all these years with the date thanks to the new reissue of this classic record which shows a flyer which indicates Ozzy would be in the New York are on April 4th, 5th of 1982. I always remembered the show being April 2nd, 1982. Which now that I think of it, me buying the reissue of Diary of a Madman back in 2002 was the 20th anniversary of that gig. Shit. Fuck. I wish I knew, I would have celebrated by going to the Boston Garden that night, or rather where the Garden was. UFO opened for Ozzy at that show, without Michael Schenker, who had already started making waves with his solo career, we also missed Randy Rhoads who was killed right before the gig, instead we got that guy Brad Gillis who ended up on the underrated Speak of the Devil live record, and eventually to Night Ranger] took the poor kids dinner away from him. Big mistake, it turned out the kid was the younger brother of “that black belt crazy kid Bill Ward {we’ll call him Bill Ward for the sake of anonymity}” So now the rumors were that Bill Ward wanted to fight me. I couldn’t fight him however; I was a long-haired freak who couldn’t hurt a fly. I avoided Bill Ward for weeks when finally he caught up with me. He was definitely the Mike Tyson of the town, not really a big guy, just crazy, and could fight and knew karate and loved ninjas and shit. So one day, I’m leaving school, about to cut through some backyards when he runs up. Mind you, he’s running, not walking. “Let’s go man, why’d you fuck with my brother??!?” “I didn’t know it was your brother” “Well, you have to fight me” “Bill Ward, I’m not gonna fight you” He then says “Then I have to hit you”, and he punches me in the face and says “Don’t fuck with my brother”.), so I was getting more or less ready to run away from the crazy biker guys who wanted to kick my ass for having a skateboard and gallivanting around with the kid that said that shit about his sister. (Un)Fortunately, it wasn’t that at all, as while I was standing there with my skateboard and punk rockness I heard this door being flung open loudly and a woman yelling. The tall blonde mirrored sunglasses and bandana guy was running out with a box in his hand, coming from the jewelry store. He hopped on to the motorcycle, or chopper rather, and they drove off into the sunset. The police came down and I gave them a report.

A month later, I get on a bus and look in the back, and there’s mister tall blonde guy with the bandana and mirrored sunglasses, this time he’s wearing a baseball hat though. I avoided eye contact with him and hid my face for the bus ride.
So now, years later I see the guy at the record shop looking through the jazz and blues CD’s, before I disappeared from his sight I wanted to see what he was buying. BB King – Live at Cook County Jail. Ha (?)

Okay I'll go back to writing about how miserable I am and that kind of thing later on. This was fun for a minute.