This was the headline on September 14, 2008 in the Sunday Times. David Foster Wallace had hung himself at his home in Claremont, CA.
I read David Foster Wallace's (I wish I could call him David) book Infinite Jest. It took me about three months, and I read pretty frequently and some times for long periods of time. Dave Eggers, who writes the forward in the edition I have, said it took him a month to read it. The book is 981 pages long and has 388 footnotes, the footnotes take up 96 pages and one footnote is 15 pages long and itself has 12 footnotes. This is all stuff of myth now, and you have probably heard it before. I read the book before David Foster Wallace committed suicide.
Why read such a monstrosity? Well, i guess, first, it is a huge challenge, something to accomplish. Plus lot's of people told me it was great. Many people I didn't know wrote in some publication or another that it was not to be missed. So that influenced me, too. Hearing about the footnotes thrilled me although I didn't really read them, occasionally, when I really wanted to know something, but certainly not religiously. But anyone who could write an incredibly critically acclaimed book that was 981 pages long and featured 96 pages of footnotes, well I couldn't resist.
So I started into the beast. Immediately it was obvious that this book was different. One reads most books staring straight ahead; this book was written from an odd angle, way off to the left, and it captures the shadows made from this odd angle, and it captures these shadows in such brilliant detail that you don't know they are shadows, a simple shadow of a man's face e.g.; you read for 30 pages and are blown away by the detail and specificity and intellect and have absolutely no idea what's happening. I just want to know what is happening to whom. But it's not clear, so. You learn to let go. Much like getting into a car in Dhaka, Bangladesh, a place I have visited twice (my best friend from college is Bangladeshi). When you get into a car in Dhaka, you must accept that the car will travel much much faster than you would like it to and the car will rocket launch into the road and you will be terrified as the car weaves through lanes filled with large trucks, buses with people riding on top of the buses, other cars, small taxis, motorcycle-powered rickshaws, human-powered rickshaws, all variety of burden beasts, frequently cattle and goats e.g., and so you go forward into the speed and the insanity of the Dhaka street aware that you may not live through the experience. But in putting on your "seat belt" you have come to terms with the universe and it's infinite, hollow, shameless existence. You are one with the bottom of the earth, the center of all things, you are free. This is how I read Infinite Jest, I just said okay, I'm going to read 130 pages and maybe then understand what happened. I learned to let go.
But that's not why the book still resonates deeply, strangely, weirdly for me today. It resonates because of the simplicity. A paradox! When David Foster Wallace finally gets through covering the splinter terrorist group of a splinter terrorist group attempting to free Quebec from Canada's evil grip by getting a hold of a film called "Infinite Jest" made by the father of an up-and-coming-and-yet-still-limited tennis star, a father who committed suicide by sticking his head into a microwave, a movie that once watched compels the watcher to only want to watch the movie again ad infinitum until the watcher either dies from dehydration or some other reason that can be attributed to the watchers inability to do anything other than watch the film; when David Foster Wallace finally gets through the radically overgrown foliage, he brings you to a patch of clear space with finely cut grass, a round clearing where the sun shines down and you can see the radically overgrown foliage all around you, but this a place of such simple and straightforward truth, it's a bit mindblowing.
In one scene, the up-and-coming-and-yet-still-limited tennis star who's about 18 or so, and is having what we might call mental health issues, produced in part by the suicide of his father, and is seeking out "help." He arrives at an elementary school in the evening where a group of men are meeting, a men's group. The young man opens the door and walks into the classroom and sees about 10 men described as basically suburban men in khaki shorts and polo shirts in basic colors. The men are all holding teddy bears. The leader of the group is a very overweight man with a beard and a pony-tail. He is also holding a teddy bear. The young man walks in and sits down at a desk outside the circle and isn't really noticed by the men. The men are seated in a circle, sitting with their legs crossed. One man is clutching his teddy bear vigorously close to his chest and sobbing. He sobs with such vigor, he very quickly falls to his side and proceeds to convulse in masculine-shattering howls. The leader of the group says (I'm paraphrasing to a point of absurdity), "John, you love your parents very much, don't you?" and John whimpers "yes!", and the leader continues, "but when you were a little boy, your parents weren't there for you, were they?" and John continues to whimper no, no, no, they weren't there, ahhhhhhhh!!!!!! and the leader asks John what he would like to say to his parents, and John cries out, " i just want to be hugged!" and continues to slobber and sob and emote savage waves of childhood pain and sorrow.
I have re-created this scene with an obscene lack of regard for David Foster Wallace's text. But it makes the point. David Foster Wallace is aware of how incredibly cliche this scene is; we've all heard this story before, if we haven't ourselves lived through some version of it. But David Foster Wallace also accepts the truth of the pain of childhood and the truth of each of our parents' mistakes no matter how wonderfully they/she/he loved us. The inability of parents to meet all the deep needs of their children. Throughout Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace comes to these moments of clarity and is able to narrate the cliches of childhood loss or addiction or mental illness or 12 step programs or family in a manner that captures the simplicity and beauty of the truth. These are the moments that compel me to discuss the book tonight.
I don't recommend or not recommend reading Infinite Jest. It is your choice. For many, it will not be worth the time and energy and for others it will become a kind of life-guide, a very bizarre life-guide to this very bizarre life.
In 2005 David Foster Wallace gave a Commencement Speech at Kenyon college. I recently learned that Kenyon College is in Ohio and has a rich literary tradition. I do recommend you read the speech published by the Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122178211966454607.html
David Foster Wallace suffered from brutal depression for his whole adult life, as I understand it. It is also clear that his brilliant mind was a bit too much to suffer at times, too much going on, not enough space. Medication helped him participate in the daily activities of a normal life. In the months before he killed himself, he had gone off one of his medications and then gone back on only to find that it had lost its efficacy. He committed suicide on September 12, 2008. He was 46.
with love,
Anthony
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Ghost Years
"If the twenty-first century turns out to be as barbaric as the twentieth, then my voice could just be one voice in a wilderness, wedded to the discourses of democracy that just turned out to be marginal and impotent. If things turn out a bit better than that, then I would want to be a part of the same intellectual chorus as Whitman, Du Bois, Dewey. Fundamental commitments to democracy, of course, but mine is a Christian voice with a Chekhovian tragicomic twist, representing the African Americans' attempt to come to terms with the dark side of modernity."
- Cornel West
It's hard to believe, but this blog is actually serious. This blog is legit. This blog is serious and legit. So is your blog. Your blog is serious and legit. You don't even have to have a blog. Let's just say your text is legit, however you want to define text. Because, because what we're talking about here is not some inconsequential and empty advertisement. We are talking about democracy. Democracy. That word by itself contains so much, implies so much, demands so much. It's something, I think, we as Americans take so much for granted.
From 1941-1945, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party executed 6 million Jews. 6 million, 2/3 of the total population of Jews in Europe. Consider one, just one Jewish man at Auschwitz. He walked into the gas chamber and felt the the terror of suffocation in the moments of his death. What we are talking about is the years that man should have lived. Take those ghost years, the years that man grows old in peace and dies in the comfort of his bed. Those ghost years must animate the living experience of our 21st century democracy; the life that was not lived must, at the very least, serve as a reminder of how easily shit can go sideways.
The foundation of our country begins with European men stuffing black bodies into ships, squished bodies like sardines, swimming, you might say, in their own excrement, and sailing them across the sea to work as slaves in the new world. But the punishment didn't end in the 17th century or the 18th or the 19th or the 20th century. As Mr. West alludes to above, the 20th century, that sunrise of modernity, included the systematic lynching of black men and women, jim crow and separate but equal. Of course the injustice continues today. To say, "we have a black president, so everything is cool," is just as ridiculous as saying, "we have a black president, but nothing has changed." A lot has changed for the better, but a lot hasn't changed for shit.
Consider the reporter Jacobo Timerman, born in the Ukraine, moved with his family to Argentina in 1928, when he was five. Jacobo Timerman became the publisher and editor of the newspaper La Opinion in 1971. In his articles, he wrote of the basic value of human rights and freedom of the press. In 1977, a military dictatorship in Argentina kidnapped, imprisoned and tortured Jacobo Timerman because he refused to be silenced by a repressive, vindictive government. And for his refulsal he was tortured for thirty months in an Argentian prison. Jacobo Timerman was lucky, he was eventually freed and not "disappeared" for good. I would wager to say Jacobo Timerman has a keen sense of the importance and urgency of democracy. You can read about his life in "Prisoner without a Name, Cell without a Number".
But in all of this misery there is every reason to be hopeful. There are so many things that can be improved in our world and therefore so many different ways to go about improving it. The woman who creates a business focused on selling only locally produced goods. Another woman who works with severely depressed individuals, helping them avoid the landmines of atrophy and suicide. The parents who raise their children in Irvine, teaching them tolerance, and the acceptance of difference, to love people of all backgrounds as long as they prove themselves worthy of love.
I realize that my hopefulness and willingness to embrace many different approaches to solving the problems we face will put me at odds with many who either believe shit is already too fucked up to fix or believe that there are one or two central problems that lie at the bottom of the others. I disagree, I see the planet's possibility in the independent music of San Francisco and Northern Michigan. I believe there are many answers, and we all have to start where we are comfortable.
I tried to bite off more than i could chew tonight. Bare with me as I work all this shit out. As Cornel West says, ""...I'm just trying to make sense of the world and love folks before I die."
Anthony
John Coltrane
(how incredibly fresh is the drummer's jacket? he was wearing that shit in 1963.)
- Cornel West
It's hard to believe, but this blog is actually serious. This blog is legit. This blog is serious and legit. So is your blog. Your blog is serious and legit. You don't even have to have a blog. Let's just say your text is legit, however you want to define text. Because, because what we're talking about here is not some inconsequential and empty advertisement. We are talking about democracy. Democracy. That word by itself contains so much, implies so much, demands so much. It's something, I think, we as Americans take so much for granted.
From 1941-1945, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party executed 6 million Jews. 6 million, 2/3 of the total population of Jews in Europe. Consider one, just one Jewish man at Auschwitz. He walked into the gas chamber and felt the the terror of suffocation in the moments of his death. What we are talking about is the years that man should have lived. Take those ghost years, the years that man grows old in peace and dies in the comfort of his bed. Those ghost years must animate the living experience of our 21st century democracy; the life that was not lived must, at the very least, serve as a reminder of how easily shit can go sideways.
The foundation of our country begins with European men stuffing black bodies into ships, squished bodies like sardines, swimming, you might say, in their own excrement, and sailing them across the sea to work as slaves in the new world. But the punishment didn't end in the 17th century or the 18th or the 19th or the 20th century. As Mr. West alludes to above, the 20th century, that sunrise of modernity, included the systematic lynching of black men and women, jim crow and separate but equal. Of course the injustice continues today. To say, "we have a black president, so everything is cool," is just as ridiculous as saying, "we have a black president, but nothing has changed." A lot has changed for the better, but a lot hasn't changed for shit.
Consider the reporter Jacobo Timerman, born in the Ukraine, moved with his family to Argentina in 1928, when he was five. Jacobo Timerman became the publisher and editor of the newspaper La Opinion in 1971. In his articles, he wrote of the basic value of human rights and freedom of the press. In 1977, a military dictatorship in Argentina kidnapped, imprisoned and tortured Jacobo Timerman because he refused to be silenced by a repressive, vindictive government. And for his refulsal he was tortured for thirty months in an Argentian prison. Jacobo Timerman was lucky, he was eventually freed and not "disappeared" for good. I would wager to say Jacobo Timerman has a keen sense of the importance and urgency of democracy. You can read about his life in "Prisoner without a Name, Cell without a Number".
But in all of this misery there is every reason to be hopeful. There are so many things that can be improved in our world and therefore so many different ways to go about improving it. The woman who creates a business focused on selling only locally produced goods. Another woman who works with severely depressed individuals, helping them avoid the landmines of atrophy and suicide. The parents who raise their children in Irvine, teaching them tolerance, and the acceptance of difference, to love people of all backgrounds as long as they prove themselves worthy of love.
I realize that my hopefulness and willingness to embrace many different approaches to solving the problems we face will put me at odds with many who either believe shit is already too fucked up to fix or believe that there are one or two central problems that lie at the bottom of the others. I disagree, I see the planet's possibility in the independent music of San Francisco and Northern Michigan. I believe there are many answers, and we all have to start where we are comfortable.
I tried to bite off more than i could chew tonight. Bare with me as I work all this shit out. As Cornel West says, ""...I'm just trying to make sense of the world and love folks before I die."
Anthony
John Coltrane
(how incredibly fresh is the drummer's jacket? he was wearing that shit in 1963.)
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings
This week I got busy, three postings of which this is the third. So I'll make it short.
Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings are playing this Sunday at the Stern Grove Free Summer Music Festival in San Francisco. Ms. Jones and the Dap Kings bring the soulful Staten Island potato salad to the picnic, with some legit stars from James Brown's cape thrown in for good measure. Take a moment and listen to this:
This Land Is Your Land
and then:
I Learned the Hard Way
You will find me this Sunday morning patiently waiting, sitting cross-legged on a red and white checkered blanket next to a wicker basket in the Stern Grove, tapping the vein on the inside of my elbow, tyin' the elastic band tourniquet around my bicep, firing a 99 cent lighter up underneath a teaspoon full of soul, watchin' it cook in bubbly dissolution, waiting for the injection of spirit and the turning upside down and inside out of all those fucking racist imaginations that still oppress this nation, every one of us, inspired by the music to do something different, maybe change History, maybe shake with some stereo-typcial-authentic-funk, maybe be a better man. The show starts at 2.
much love,
Anthony
Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings are playing this Sunday at the Stern Grove Free Summer Music Festival in San Francisco. Ms. Jones and the Dap Kings bring the soulful Staten Island potato salad to the picnic, with some legit stars from James Brown's cape thrown in for good measure. Take a moment and listen to this:
This Land Is Your Land
and then:
I Learned the Hard Way
You will find me this Sunday morning patiently waiting, sitting cross-legged on a red and white checkered blanket next to a wicker basket in the Stern Grove, tapping the vein on the inside of my elbow, tyin' the elastic band tourniquet around my bicep, firing a 99 cent lighter up underneath a teaspoon full of soul, watchin' it cook in bubbly dissolution, waiting for the injection of spirit and the turning upside down and inside out of all those fucking racist imaginations that still oppress this nation, every one of us, inspired by the music to do something different, maybe change History, maybe shake with some stereo-typcial-authentic-funk, maybe be a better man. The show starts at 2.
much love,
Anthony
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Coincidence
I seriously found the following on a University of Minnesota website:
IV. HUMAN PORCUPINES POP OUR BUBBLES OF ILLUSION
Some people frequently challenge our security-operations.
If we picture each of us encapsulated in a thin security-bubble,
these professional disillusioners are like human porcupines:
They destroy all the security-bubbles that come near—including their own.
Everyone within range feels existentially insecurity.
Such bubble-poppers are very intense people;
they will not allow us to cling to our cultural evasions and escapes;
they undermine our security-operations and pull away our security-blankets.
In the presence of these spiny creatures, we must be serious;
they force us to ask ultimate questions about the meaning of life.
At first we do not appreciate their bubble-popping function,
unless the eruption of our existential insecurity turns us toward Existential Freedom.
Whatever games, techniques, operations, & devices we invent,
these methods will never overcome our existential insecurity.
The measures effective against ordinary perils and threats
simply do not work when applied to our existential precariousness.
Here is the website:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/CY-SAFE.html
Something to consider.
with love andaffectation affection,
Anthony
IV. HUMAN PORCUPINES POP OUR BUBBLES OF ILLUSION
Some people frequently challenge our security-operations.
If we picture each of us encapsulated in a thin security-bubble,
these professional disillusioners are like human porcupines:
They destroy all the security-bubbles that come near—including their own.
Everyone within range feels existentially insecurity.
Such bubble-poppers are very intense people;
they will not allow us to cling to our cultural evasions and escapes;
they undermine our security-operations and pull away our security-blankets.
In the presence of these spiny creatures, we must be serious;
they force us to ask ultimate questions about the meaning of life.
At first we do not appreciate their bubble-popping function,
unless the eruption of our existential insecurity turns us toward Existential Freedom.
Whatever games, techniques, operations, & devices we invent,
these methods will never overcome our existential insecurity.
The measures effective against ordinary perils and threats
simply do not work when applied to our existential precariousness.
Here is the website:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/CY-SAFE.html
Something to consider.
with love and
Anthony
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
San Francisco
I walked though the Tenderloin last night with happy feet, moving quickly. With my buddy Nicolas at my side. Crept up a side street to visit an alley at the end of which an ex-girlfriend used to live. Herb Caen on my brain. On the Main Street of Geary, passing a bar where I got absolutely shit faced in 2001 drinking beer and Jack Daniels after winning the San Francisco Class III Amateur Soccer League Championship with the Academy of Art Soccer Team. Oh beer googles and the mistakes we make that end up being mistakes also when we wake up in the outerrichmond. Oh to the clarity of good decision making. Asking the question, what is San Francisco? A geographic area, 49 square miles, north of San Mateo County and South of the Golden Gate Bridge, yes. But also the idea, what is San Francisco? Where does it exist in your imagination? To simplify, what do you think of when you think of San Francisco? I've been asking this question a lot, not just of San Francisco, other cities too, like Vegas. Maps, Tenderloin, poverty, the Fairmont, gold.
A friend of mine refers to men who hit on her (and others) as baseball cards. Although I don't completely understand her usage of this term, I deem it brilliant. In the last 20 years, the world has been changed by technology. You look at screens more than you look at the world. This was not the case in 1215, the year the Magna Carta was signed into law. Now our identity is understood, in part, by what we post on facebook. Our identity is, in part, 2 dimensional, it exists on screens. I like x movie, this communicates something about my identity. I watch the San Francisco Giants on a tv screen. I posted a video of me on youtube. I'm crying because my Italian cousin was killed in a motorcycle accident. In the youtube video I'm sobbing. You will consider this, too, in your brain when you think of me, and if someone asked you to describe me, you would consider this video while you explain who I am. And so, men that hit on my friend are baseball cards, twitter posts, facebook pages, youtube videos, big-screen-legitimate-$300-million-in-the-first-weekend-movies. The man takes his family to Disneyworld and walks through Disneyworld looking at a the moveable screen of his video camera, watching his son and daughter get into a tiff and then sort if out, laughing, on the screen of his video camera.
But the topic of this posting is San Francisco. And I want to know what you know. What do you know about San Francisco? Where do the black people live? Is that a different place than the white people? Do the rich people live in a different place? than the poor people? What, if anything, is important about San Francisco? Can you answer these questions by looking at the same computer screen you are looking at now? Or do you have to walk through the Tenderloin with Nicolas and happy feet, passing an old apartment that once mattered a great deal and a bar where you ended up doing funny things? Tonight, in the grand tradition of working your shit out through Opera, I leave you with this:
Puccini
I love all of you,
Anthony
A friend of mine refers to men who hit on her (and others) as baseball cards. Although I don't completely understand her usage of this term, I deem it brilliant. In the last 20 years, the world has been changed by technology. You look at screens more than you look at the world. This was not the case in 1215, the year the Magna Carta was signed into law. Now our identity is understood, in part, by what we post on facebook. Our identity is, in part, 2 dimensional, it exists on screens. I like x movie, this communicates something about my identity. I watch the San Francisco Giants on a tv screen. I posted a video of me on youtube. I'm crying because my Italian cousin was killed in a motorcycle accident. In the youtube video I'm sobbing. You will consider this, too, in your brain when you think of me, and if someone asked you to describe me, you would consider this video while you explain who I am. And so, men that hit on my friend are baseball cards, twitter posts, facebook pages, youtube videos, big-screen-legitimate-$300-million-in-the-first-weekend-movies. The man takes his family to Disneyworld and walks through Disneyworld looking at a the moveable screen of his video camera, watching his son and daughter get into a tiff and then sort if out, laughing, on the screen of his video camera.
But the topic of this posting is San Francisco. And I want to know what you know. What do you know about San Francisco? Where do the black people live? Is that a different place than the white people? Do the rich people live in a different place? than the poor people? What, if anything, is important about San Francisco? Can you answer these questions by looking at the same computer screen you are looking at now? Or do you have to walk through the Tenderloin with Nicolas and happy feet, passing an old apartment that once mattered a great deal and a bar where you ended up doing funny things? Tonight, in the grand tradition of working your shit out through Opera, I leave you with this:
Puccini
I love all of you,
Anthony
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Corch
This week I had three separate ideas for a blog entry. I will use bullet points to help emphasize and clarify the differences:
- A recap of the three concerts I went to in the last week
- Revisiting the water buffalo in the garden (an idea from a previous posting)
- Palestine
So because of the similarity of the three subjects, I've decided to cover all of them.
No, actually, I've decided against that idea. I would prefer to tell you about my friend Corch.
My friend Corch is a concept design artist. He works mostly on video games. He is famous. Well, I think he is famous. A few video-game-concept-art-bloggers (yes, they are out there, too) think he's the shit. So he's famous. Here's a link to his work:
http://josephacross.com (the a is for Arlen)
and here is the link to his blog:
I actually recommend starting with his blog. It's fucking cool (bart/muni inspiration!), and you get to see why he's famous.
Corch came up with a great idea. He is going to send me good musics. I am going to listen to good musics and review on my blog. Right now, I'm listening to Co La, which is fantastic/brilliant. But instead of writing about it, just check it out:
I hope everyone is feeling good, loving at least part of your life. If you have some musics that you want me to listen to or you think I might like, please send it along. If that makes part of your life more full of love.
I'm writing a short story. It takes place in Vegas. I'm going to Vegas soon to write the story better. That's all I can say now.
love to all/that shit is important,
Anthony
ps - Co La album cover art:
ps - Co La album cover art:
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Across the Loch (I found sadness)
This next week I will be going to three shows. Tonight, Breathe Owl Breathe at the Bottom of the Hill. Saturday night, Stornoway at the Independent. And Tuesday night, a little known band out of Ireland, U2 at the Oracle Arena. It's a solid lineup. I'm pretty excited about Breathe Owl Breathe. They are from East Jordan, Michigan, which is apparently near the top of Michigan, close to one of those big lakes. My guess is that this is a forested area or if not forested then close to a forrest. Their sound is forresty -- mellow, folksy, melodic but with enough electronic additions to make it contemporary and "cutting edge." It's actually not at all "cutting edge" because that term is stupid. But they do that thing where they sound retro and new at the same time. They have this one song, "Across the Loch." A loch is a Scottish word for lake, which makes sense given that Breathe Owl Breathe come from "lake country" although they may or may not be Scottish, I don't know, but would be willing to bet something insignificant not.
(Quick aside: as I'm writing this I'm eating a bag of Jolly Time Healthy Pop Popcorn which is getting all over my fingers and all over the keyboard. The whole bag is only 3 Weight Watchers points. I know this because "I'm fat." Of course I'm not fat. I weigh 213 pounds and I'm a 6'1 dude, but I'm one of those dudes who thinks he's fat. Jesus, how pathetic -- I think that makes me a metrosexual. Seriously, I could definitely loose 20 punds (ha!), my sister keeps telling me that men with bellies (me) have heart attacks and die all the time. But I know I'm not fat. That's crazy! Abbey won't let me say "I'm fat" because it is detrimental to my self-image, it makes me depressed and then I eat more fat.)
I once listened to "Across the Loch" 35 times in a row. I'm not totally sure about that 35 number, but it was damn close, and it makes the damn point. It's this amazing song that makes you feel like you are underwater and you have special perceptive receptors in your brain, and your brain is open and the music from the song goes through the water directly into the synapse between your most sensitive and intelligent neurons. The song has this repetitive (a difficult word to spell) guitar riff and then some shakers and one chorus that goes, "I was afraid of loosing you, I was afraid of loosing you," which is genuinely sad. I'm sad right now listening to the song again. I don't know if listening to a song 35 times in a row is a good thing. But sometimes I feel like I want to feel sad, which sounds weird but is also true, and weird.
Let me just say that I'm not a big fan of the name "Breathe Owl Breathe." I mean I like breathing, I love breathing, and I'm also a fan of owls. But it's so self-aware that it's a bit trite in my opinion. But I think if you make really great music, your band name isn't that important. I mean it's important but not that important. Jesus, there's a topic for further discussion. Oh, by the way, all 20 of you that I'm forcing to read this should feel free to email me your thoughts, disappointments, angers, suggestions for improvements at my email or for those of you reading who don't know me, you can email existentialporcupine@gmail.com.
So tonight Breathe Owl Breathe at the Bottom of the Hill. Frankly, I hope it's good. (That's a horrible use of frankly that is wrong, but I read someone write a good frankly yesterday i think and it sounded so smart, so I'm smart! because frankly, i use frankly.)
love to all, spread it around, seriously, man! (exasperation)
Anthony
ps - oh shit the link!: http://g-rad.org/breatheowlbreathe/ this is a blog in the year 2011, not providing a link is just classless. (mudge, if you read this far, you are funny, but not for reading this far, just in general. : )
(Quick aside: as I'm writing this I'm eating a bag of Jolly Time Healthy Pop Popcorn which is getting all over my fingers and all over the keyboard. The whole bag is only 3 Weight Watchers points. I know this because "I'm fat." Of course I'm not fat. I weigh 213 pounds and I'm a 6'1 dude, but I'm one of those dudes who thinks he's fat. Jesus, how pathetic -- I think that makes me a metrosexual. Seriously, I could definitely loose 20 punds (ha!), my sister keeps telling me that men with bellies (me) have heart attacks and die all the time. But I know I'm not fat. That's crazy! Abbey won't let me say "I'm fat" because it is detrimental to my self-image, it makes me depressed and then I eat more fat.)
I once listened to "Across the Loch" 35 times in a row. I'm not totally sure about that 35 number, but it was damn close, and it makes the damn point. It's this amazing song that makes you feel like you are underwater and you have special perceptive receptors in your brain, and your brain is open and the music from the song goes through the water directly into the synapse between your most sensitive and intelligent neurons. The song has this repetitive (a difficult word to spell) guitar riff and then some shakers and one chorus that goes, "I was afraid of loosing you, I was afraid of loosing you," which is genuinely sad. I'm sad right now listening to the song again. I don't know if listening to a song 35 times in a row is a good thing. But sometimes I feel like I want to feel sad, which sounds weird but is also true, and weird.
Let me just say that I'm not a big fan of the name "Breathe Owl Breathe." I mean I like breathing, I love breathing, and I'm also a fan of owls. But it's so self-aware that it's a bit trite in my opinion. But I think if you make really great music, your band name isn't that important. I mean it's important but not that important. Jesus, there's a topic for further discussion. Oh, by the way, all 20 of you that I'm forcing to read this should feel free to email me your thoughts, disappointments, angers, suggestions for improvements at my email or for those of you reading who don't know me, you can email existentialporcupine@gmail.com.
So tonight Breathe Owl Breathe at the Bottom of the Hill. Frankly, I hope it's good. (That's a horrible use of frankly that is wrong, but I read someone write a good frankly yesterday i think and it sounded so smart, so I'm smart! because frankly, i use frankly.)
love to all, spread it around, seriously, man! (exasperation)
Anthony
ps - oh shit the link!: http://g-rad.org/breatheowlbreathe/ this is a blog in the year 2011, not providing a link is just classless. (mudge, if you read this far, you are funny, but not for reading this far, just in general. : )
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