Let's Go Get Sushi and Not Pay

My Top Twenty Records of the Year: Number 17:Arctic Monkeys-Suck It And See

2011-12-19T21:28:00.001-08:00

I'm pretty sure the only person left with a MySpace might be Tila Tequila. Poor thing. The Monkeys are far ahead of the MySpace nowadays, well, at least in England. Which is a shame since somewhere between "Brainstorm" and Humbug, Alex Turner has become this generation's answer to Jarvis Cocker. Suck It and See takes the formula from the brilliant "Cornerstone", the highlight of Humbug, and stretches it across eleven songs (I would say twelve but "Brick by Brick" is basically unlistenable). Check out this little nugget: "that's not a skirt girl/that's a sawn off shotgun/and I can only hope that you got it aimed at me." Or how about this one, "do you look in the mirror to remind yourself that you're there/or have someone's goodnight kisses got that covered/Well I'm not being honest, I'll pretend you're just some lover." Or better yet: "I took the batteries out of my mysticism/and put them in my thinking cap." The album bristles with Turner's new found confidence in the pop form. One needs not reinvent the wheel, they only need to excel in it. Tila would agree I think.

My Top Twenty Records of the Year: Number 18: EMA-Past Life Martyed Saints

2011-12-19T21:01:00.000-08:00

This record hurts. This record bleeds. If it wasn't so genuine, one would get the feeling that some junior high schooler is going to be pissed since their life is being ripped off. Under walls of noise, Erika M. Anderson explores the underbellies of resentment: there is the small town gay, the girl who kisses herself with the butterfly knife, the person who was touched and wished that every time would leave a "mark." It's disturbing to hear someone compare their arms to "glass," yet one can't help when they hear "fuck California/you make me boring." It's these extremes that make this record extremely hard to figure out, yet fascinating all the same.

20 Albums of the Year: Number 19- Braids "Native Speaker"

2011-12-09T23:15:00.000-08:00

The thing opens up and you want to hate it. It's so expansive, so expressive, so there that you want to reject it. Who are these kids trying to be? Animal Collective? And you can't blame yourself for shrugging it off. After all, the record opens as "Peacebone's" slightly stable twin. But then the fog comes in. Have you fucked the stray kids yet it calls, we are all just sleeping around it confirms. Your mind is reeling. She claims to only want to love but she keeps hitting you with jabs. Wasn't tribal music so last year? You're grasping for straws. "Plath Heart" should be playing at some Urban Outfitters if things were done right around here. Nice try; you are drowning in the kids pool. It's so above you but it's so childish and so immediate. But then a strange thing happens. You're in a Starbucks or on the train and she starts killing, and I mean killing, the title track and it all makes sense. All is right. You sip your coffee and slightly feel better about letting yourself go. Breathe and exhale with the record.

Top Twenty Records of the Year: Number 20 Iceage:New Brigade

2011-12-04T08:20:00.000-08:00

Sometimes albums take you by surprise. Four teens from Denmark, aged somewhere between 18 and 19, took the internet over for what seemed like an eternity. Who were they? Were their bloody shows any indication of the chaos that would come with them? Was their debut any good? While the verdict is still out of the first two questions (they just played their first American shows), the last is answered with a resounding yes. New Brigade is a fast, loud, twenty-six minute or so blast of Joy Division/Wire inspired hardcore/punk. But what really differentiates the record from the crop of similar sounding records is the hooks. It grabs you by the neck and never lets go. "Broken Bone" starts off like a demented surf rock jam and divulges into angular, spiky territory, the title track has easily the best madolin-sounding breakdown I've ever heard in hardcore, and "Never Return" clocking in a hair over three minutes, slows things enough to show you that these tough teens have a soft side (albeit a noisy one). A band to watch.

2011-02-15T12:02:00.000-08:00

Skip the Youth

Is this all the luster left

of the young heart?

Plugging holes

Looking for transcendence

In odd places

Feeling oddly unsatisfied

Underworked and overtaught

While the grind thaws away

at every artistic part of you

Drinking

Drinking copious amounts

Drowning inside the hops

and barley to search

for a release or a delayed morning

Outdoing and excelling

at miscommunication

Strands constantly missing

Threads lost

Thrown across the floor

Like junk mail

They say that

Arrogance

Invincibility

Youth

Is wasted on the young

But what about hunger?

Satisfaction?

Purpose?

When does the aching stop?

When can one stop fantasizing

And actually pretend to exist?

If these are the spoils of youth

Let me take the nearest exit

To pruned hands and crows feet

The Nowhere

2010-12-20T21:05:00.001-08:00

HUSTLE

Breathe. For a moment let the gridlock rock alongside you, not with you, he managed to make his body think. The pace was exhausting. The up and downs. The roller coaster ride he had been riding. It reminded him not of the expensive, steel roller coasters he had become accustomed to at an older age; it was the wooden, rickety circular one that constantly made his brain hurt and his stomach drop to the point of near vomit.

The stomach pains. They came with the rush as well. Results of the ride, he would make himself believe during the moments of questioning realization. It’s all part of the ride. You can’t expect to ride the ride, go up and down the god damn hills and not expect to get sick. Sure, his stomach was barren, naked at times from the caffeine he had plunged it with; coffee, espresso, energy drinks riddled with sugar when times where especially pressing became aides to get through the haze of fatigue when times where rough. The stomach pains, the constant bleeding through his anus, the dry heaves. They were effects of the struggle. The ride to the top he envisioned for himself ever since he was a tot and now seemed closer than ever to achieving.

It didn’t hurt that he was the youngest editor on the staff. He was the youngest editor they had ever hired. He wasn’t the smartest, no (that had to go to Greg Swanson, who was fluent in three languages, had translated several obscure Italian neo-realist authors before his undergraduate graduation, and could, accurately, name every Pulitzer winner and their eventual offspring creations after winning the award), or the most connected (Doug Manawitz; father once held court at The New Yorker, came from the richest bloodline of Polish Jews on the Eastern coast), but he was definitely the most driven. He was always the first one in the building, often rivaling the morning cleaning crew, and was, at most times, the last one to leave, once again excluding the ever-present janitor. His fingers would blaze over the keyboard, his eyes scarcely ever missed an err, and his taste for simplified language, for the elimination of complicated feeling in others writing, made him a favorite amongst the higher ups. He had, in his mind at least, the common man in mind and wanted the common man, or woman, to enjoy literature as he had, without the common pretensions that came with being well read. Just give me a good goddamn story he found himself chanting whenever the opportunity arrived.

It didn’t hurt that he had talent either. His first published short story, The Funeral, had been published in various dispatches across the greater state of New York. It was a rough story, full of lashed emotion and great declarations (“It was then, at that very moment, when he felt the burden of masculinity, of being his father’s son, be lifted and the clearness, the after the storm leveling, that he finally broke down and found himself crumbled into spasms of emotion. To feel, to let himself be remorse, was something he had disallowed for some time. He was human once again!”) stuck out, but it showed signs of a great budding talent. It took his third published story, The Screw and Everything After, for the New Yorker to take notice, and for Chris Stratton, the young, idealistic writer, to finally get paid for what he believed he had been born to do. To write. With the slight acclaim he had achieved with actually being published in the Holy Grail of discovering new talents, he forced his way into Banbely Publishing, the Holy Grail of publishing new, exciting voices. Sure, it was only an editor position and his struggles to balance creativity with professional responsibilities scared Chris to death that he found himself gasping at times on the subway, eyes bulging, but it was an entrance none the less. He had found a loophole in the ever-impenetrable entrance to literary greatness and he planned to exploit for all he good. Hence, the rush.

Going Nowhere

2010-09-05T16:20:00.000-07:00

There are police sirens blaring outside my window and I begin to wonder if I made the right decision. I’m on the eleventh floor, the Penthouse floor or whatever they want to call it, and the sirens sound like crying babies. I fear for my car. I look out the window, ensure that it’s not on cinder blocks, and fade from the glass. I can’t imagine anyone finding anything of value in the car but the simple, racist things that twitter your heart make you react irrationally when you hear a police siren. Case in point, I think there has to have been a murder.

It’s not like it’s been smooth sailing or anything. The trip here hasn’t gone off without its hitches. Some Cracker Barrel semi almost pile-drived me off the road. The cable in my room decided it doesn’t want to work; my books are all at home. Sam’s new boyfriend, some twit who considers himself the next Charles Schultz, calls to enforce a no-seeing policy. “Sam’s being doing so much better without you in her life, you did some regressive shit to her you know?” He tries the tough act for a spin, I let it slid, for a period, straighten him out when it comes down to it. I play innocent the whole time claiming to not know what he’s talking about, that she’s been the one in contact with me. He asks me what my game is with the situation. I tell him, no game pal, and laugh violently. One has to have a sense of humor about themselves in situations like that.

The room is so quiet. And white. It reminds me of a pysch ward. I half want Jack Nicholson to walk in, be my buddy. I’m not a really ethnic looking guy but I could be his chief, if he would have me. God, if anyone would have me.

There go the sirens again. This time there accustomed with yelling from the street and the scuffle of tennis shoes across pavement. I sink to my bed not even having the strength to gaze out the window. This is going to be a long year, I guess.

****

She makes a little care package before I leave. It’s full of the bare necessities-soap, shampoo, towels, chips, cute little bottle of Jameson. It’s so saccharine it almost makes my teeth hurt. If only I was attracted to her, god, I might find this little gesture beautiful. Girlfriend material, almost. But I look at her, her face, round about the cheeks, white teeth, slant nose, crystal blue eyes (the eyes, jesus, the sex oozing out those eyes) all point to something beautiful and fragile and worth keeping safe, but my heart is just not into it. I feel for her, sure, I’m not that cold-hearted, but that feeling lies somewhere between confusion and admiration for someone to hold onto something that is so obviously dead. One has to have a bit of awe for someone who models their relationships after Custer’s Final Stand. All knowing of the wreck that has become them. Admirable in some strange way.

“Are you going to call me everyday?”

“Of course I am.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

She looks up to me, trying to gaze past the steely look to my inners, to my brain, my heart which is hidden, tucked, away from view. She can look all she wants but she’s not going to get a glance. I’ve done very well hiding it the last year.

I take her hand and bring it to my face. I kiss her warm skin; I hear her heartbeat skip a couple of decibels. Her fingers are short and fat, soft, yes, but very unladylike. Her nails sit like periods on the end of her hand. It’s the errors and faults that make us beautiful or special they say. Well, her hands give her character much like the birthmarks that cross her face and sit above her hips. There’s something to be loved here or learned here but I’m clearly missing it. Bringing her mouth to mine, I feel her tornado swirl around.

“I’m going to miss you babe.”

“I’m going to miss you too. I swear.”

And with that, it’s over. I grab the gift and I leave.

*****

The Youth

2010-07-24T08:57:00.000-07:00

The Youth

Little faces

Little dirty faces

Look up towards me

And I don’t quite know what to do

They are a generation of

Overstimulated

Malnutrioned

Hyperactive

Misdiagnosed

Drugged

Forgotten

Abused

Unloved

Little Soldiers

Line em up

Line the soldiers up

For the slaughter

Some sit blankly

Others shrug

Still some others scream

Flip a desk

Beat their chest

Prove they’re real

But they all receive it

Oversimplified as it is

Perverted as it is

This slop

And they eat it

And I feed it to them

Like Macy’s

It’s a spinning door

Got to keep it moving

Pushing them through the glass

Got to keep the circle going

Till it bores a hole in the ground

No one is special

No one is missed

Their faces won’t be remembered

Those little, dirty, little faces

Your Ghost

2010-06-29T11:20:00.000-07:00

Your Ghost

Your shadow follows me

Hiding in corners

Fingers in my mouth

Whispers through my hair

I threw the dirt on you

I wasn’t ready

I wasn’t ready to

Bury you

But the casket dropped

And your body went along with it

It smells like cinders around here now

Moth balls and regret

The chair you sat on

Molded and eroding

Your last outfit stained on the bed

I tried to eat your memory away

Wash my face of it

But the taste is still there

Stuck in my throat

The things I never got to say

“Heart of Gold” is still on my radio

Your ghost is still here

Lingering

Wishing for me to let go

But my hands are weak

Please assist me

Assist me through the black

That seems to confuse my eyes

I don’t know when you’ll leave

Your fingerprints are filed

In my drawers

Your hair in my locket

All your medals still hang

I should burn it all

But the weight is too great

Sometimes I wish that numbness was

Something I could prescribe to

That blindness was something I had

That way when your ghost would appear

I wouldn’t feel so damn

dead

Imperial Bedrooms Review

2010-06-21T19:27:00.000-07:00

"They had made a movie about us."

Have you ever seen the movie version of Less Than Zero? It's an abomination. Robert Downey gives a great performance as Julian (wonder where he got the inspiration to play a drug addict) but Clay, who in the book was the numb center of the violence, sex, and mayhem that surrounded him, was turned into an after school special who muttered sentiments about saving everyone around him while marbles seemed to drop out of his mouth. It's pathetic. And like most morale stories, Julian, the tortured drug addict with a heart of gold it seems ("I don't want to hurt her man) has to die in order for the rest of the characters to live on. Everyone sing kumbaya for the spoiled California kids. No wonder they were so scared to merge onto the goddamn highway.

But what if the book itself was a fraud? What if Clay was there, he was part of the wallpaper during the chaos, but it was this quite, pale kid who went to College with Clay who actually wrote the book? What if the Clay in the book was actually Bret Easton Ellis, displaced? Imperial Bedrooms wants you to believe that. It's not the first time Ellis has appeared in his work, we do live in a mega-cognitive world, but this type the veil itself seems to be exposed. I get that we're not suppose to believe Clay fully, much like we weren't suppose to believe Ellis, the character, in Lunar Park, but this doesn't explain Clay's role in Zero. Was he a mover or a shaker? Did he sit there on his hands and watch Julian sell his ass or was he the one screwing him? One has to wonder these things. I don't know if it's a clever thing on Ellis' behalf or a lazy one.

Naming the novel Imperial Bedrooms would seem to signify a step in maturity. Less Than Zero was one of Elvis Costello's earlier, punkier songs and Imperial Bedrooms was his step forward into more streamlined R&B and classicism. Clay has showed no signs of growing. In fact, he seems more vicious, his fangs showing the ever more. As he demolishes young wannabe actress after another, one wants to know if the human part of him disappeared a while ago, or even worse, was it even there. He seems to have more in common with the disfigured, almost clownish, Rip, their old drug dealer whose more interested in human traffic now, especially young women, than the "heart of gold" druggie Julian, who is now clean. Sure, Julian has his faults; he sells the flesh of the young now instead of selling himself, but in the world of L.A., he seems like an angel.

This is a major fault/strength of the book. Ellis wants the book to be built like a Raymond Chandler novel, his obsession with fusing popular forms of writing with his style growing, but where is the Marlowe character? The reader is suspended into a myriad of unknown trying to figure out who indeed this Rain girl really is and who indeed is breaking into Clay's apartment and who indeed killed Kelly Montrose only to realize the detective, Clay, is the one we know the least about. Like an onion, as the novel progresses more and more is revealed about Clay only to reveal that he is nothing but a ball of violence, pent up sexual frustration, and alcohol. I'm not saying that Ellis novels should have heros, certainly Patrick Bateman was no saint, but one felt sorry for Sean Bateman, or Victor Ward, or even Patrick since he was so empty that one had the slightest twinge of empathy for him. No dice for Clay. He is the most despicable character Ellis has ever penned. And now it is not L.A. that has changed Clay. He has been gone, returning once again like he did at the beginning of Zero. It is Clay himself. He is "the fear." The insert on the cover would like the reader to believe that Clay comes to terms with his proclivity for "betrayal." I think Ellis is scoffing at that. Clay is pure evil, simply.

"But you're just the writer." Although Clay tries to control his situation, things swirl out of control like most Ellis novels. He is just a writer, one with great skills (dialogue, style, character, mood) and obvious weaknesses (focus, long winded). It's no surprise Ellis would want to revisit his characters of Zero. It is, arguably, his only perfect novel and with each novel he seems to want to espouse an old demon: college, his father, fame, himself. Ellis needs to kill off Julian (no spoiler, I swear, it is revealed early) in order to move forward as a writer. It may not be a perfect step but it is an enjoyable one none the less.

Imperial Bedrooms- 3.75 out of 5

A Young Life Crisis: Part One

2010-06-04T10:10:00.001-07:00

A Young Life Crisis

Part One

Today is my birthday and I feel older than ever. My bones creak as I get up, unhinged and in need of grease. I try to drink the warm milk near my bedside but it tastes sour and chalk-like in my mouth. My nasal passages are blocked with phlegm. Everything hurts-my bones, my neck, my back. If one drinks from the cup of life at a young age, I must be drinking the grinds at the bottom of the stein; my younger life a visage of what I use to be; some phantom whom I don’t quite understand anymore; who’s looks and good luck seem to avoid me. I kick the James Patterson novels that lounge around my floor as I look for my giant, sun-blocking sunglasses to defend myself from the morning which seems to be poking its nose through my blinds. My corneas are so sensitive. And tell that kid next door to turn off that gosh darn devil music! And boy, oh boy, do I love Glenn Beck, let me tell you.

Of course I’m being overtly facetious about all this-cute one might say-about the fact that I’m getting old. I’m still overtly young, twenty three to be exact, but as I remarked to one of my younger brother’s friends, “shit kind of goes down after you turn twenty-one.” And I was being honest. What does one really have to look forward to after that birthday, at least birthday wise? God, I can’t wait till I’m thirty, I mean, really? Does anyone actually say that? I’ve known people who have rushed into adulthood, sometimes with their diapers flapping around their ankles, unprepared for the harsh reality that is about to become THEIR LIFE, but I have not heard anyone say, damn, forty sure sounds sexy. We all want a wife and kids and a house and a little dog that don’t bark to god damn much but does anyone really want the age that actually comes along with it? I remember in my last relationship what scared me the most was not the serious incline it was taking-god I would embrace that if I had it again-it was the fear of me being thirty and bald and with some kid I want to understand, be the cool dad, but he looks at me like the Marlboro Cowboy, all scrunched face and what-not. Would I just be an image of the young man I use to be? Shit use to keep me up at night. But that was nineteen, this is now.

I don’t mean to sound like an Elliot Smith record about all this, even though I love the man, but it’s a question that plagues me this very second as I type my subconscious on the page. This past year I’ve come to understand that success should not be based around other’s expectations because in reality how can one gauge success or modernity or even happiness? It’s impossible. You can be dirt poor, exhausted, in some house that is falling apart; the god damn roof is caving in, man; have someone you appreciate and care about but be confused about how to show it, still be fucking up, but be strangely happy. Your life is going nowhere but you know that it’s going in the right direction. The direction that you picked out for it. Or you could be on the cusp of “starting,” after a year of set backs and strange trips, finally be taken seriously, I mean, when did this start, weird, people shaking your hand all firm and actually listening to what you have to say, and be able to talk about books and art and music without saying it’s “fucking amazing” or “life-changing” or even worse “better than what you got,” be someone of style and grace, be finally leaving that hellhole of a job that wasn’t really a “job” to begin with, start your life according to your degree, be the fabrics of going somewhere, yet feel strangely empty. Like Houdini after he took that punch, my insides feel like they’re about to burst if I don’t do something.

I’m not regretting my life at all. I’m not on the floor, comatose, after taking a fistful of sleeping pills. This is not “Dear God, It’s Me, Jameson.” I’m not walking the razor’s edge. I’m just looking at myself, on my birthday, and wondering is this it? Twenty three, living in my parent’s basement, I swear to God I’m moving out sans September, sleeping on some makeshift futon that kills my back (the back thing before was so not a joke) while some gum plant that my parents left, no, insist stay next to my bed rains foliage upon me during the course of the night. Is this how I pictured myself right now?

Over the course of the last year I spent a lot of them time trying to write, trying to write something. This was my knee-jerk response to the relative failure I was feeling otherwise; this coma-year will be the production of something great. And I have started about five different novels, ideas I have started off very high on, but have scraped them all. Because they suck. They are terrible. I want to write something real and funny and dark and the things I’ve been writing are none of those things. I have achieved levels of poise sometimes though; there are things, poems, which I’m really proud of. And my “Short Term Memory Loss” still makes me crack up even though it’s fucking scary as hell. My wonderments make me question, though, do I have what it takes? Did I ever have the talent or was it just my younger expectations, set sky-high, drunk off the aspect of being in an environment that cultivates this type of growth confuse me or trick me into believing I had anything? I use to scoff at people who tried to write or act, things that came, at least I believed, came easy to me; I use to giggle watching them, god those deranged souls who could not see or their hubris would not allow them to see the inevitable: they did not have what it takes. The amount of Acting Majors or Creative Writing Majors I encountered who, to be frank, were not any good, was staggering. I would view them like amoebas; these small, ghost-like things that populate your existence but one does not stop twice to think about them unless they are interested in examining miniatures.

To me, I had it all. I succeed academically in everything I’ve ever tried (except for science, god damn you Marie Curie) and haven’t really broken a sweat. I could be successful in a professional field, have a good, scratch that, great looking girlfriend and be able to pursue my creative fields (acting, writing) on the side until the success of these creative things, which I really enjoyed, would be able to support me. I would have it all. I really thought I was special, not ordinary special, but tremor-inducing, earth splitting open, ohmygoodnessherehecomesdownthestreet special. I was really a dick to be honest.

There’s a story I like to tell about me auditioning for Even Stevens and how I believed that I would get the role, but previous to auditioning, being warned about this Shia Lebouf kid. “You gotta watch this kid” or “he’s something special, I tell ya” people were telling me. Upon meeting him, this sweaty, nervous, lispy kid, I literally laughed in his face. This is the kid I have to watch out for? Pssh, out of my way, mortal. The humility of the story is that I didn’t get the role, as you probably well know, and that Shia kid has gone on to make out, literally dry hump, Megan Fox on screen and be the next Gordon Gekko in Wall Street Two. Such is life I use to regard.

It’s a made up story, sorry to those who believed it, I was having a lot of fun at your expense-I use to go home and laugh about how many people actually believed the story-but the realness of my lie, if there is such a thing, is staggering. I believed not in the story but that in some ulterior universe this story was probably true. If I actually had the opportunity to audition, the audition might have went the way it did most likely, but I believed, at least part of me did, that I would of probably got the role. This cracked view of myself has choked me for a long time. It might be that my mom patted me on the head too much as a child (she most certainly did not) or that I ate too many Wheaties one morning, but I’ve believed that success is something that was bound to happen to me, not matter how long it took, it was going to happen. Once again the definition of success is brought up, but here, in my mind, it is the most definite. I would be respected and one of the best and “people know me” as Ron Burgundy would say. Whether that field would be writing, acting, or plain fornicating (why not all three?), the field itself was not as important as the result, fame.

Now, I’m not saying that I’m an advocate for celebrity. In fact, I fucking hate celebrities. I literally want to vomit in my mouth when I see the Kardashians on television or read about some MTV Reality “Star,” we have come to use this star word a little too lightly if you ask me, getting her own spin-off. These people contribute nothing to our society yet they are the pillars of what is important or famous. No, I didn’t want any of this. I wanted to be respected in my community by the people who actually mattered; the people who read and wrote religiously, fellow actors, people who create art. I wanted to be “that guy” who people talk about within certain confines yet remains slightly illusive. I would do only pictures I cared about, important plays, write stuff that affected others as it affected me. I did not want to be a popcorn salesman; I wanted to protrude myself in the realm of realness and wade about. In other words, I wanted Ryan Gosling’s career, kidding, but not really though.

Now, where am I going with all this? I don’t know exactly but being not entirely sure is what excites me. I know that this will be an in depth discussion of me: as a person, who I am, where I’m going, what I want, what I want to change, what I can’t change. If art is life, then my life right now must be a Pollack painting, with paint and cigarette buds and human fluids spewn around. I don’t want to be neat and organized, per se, but I want to know me. What has drawn me to this self- realization is exactly what I feared as a young man: old age. It’s creeping up behind me and if I don’t straighten up or discover something about myself, it might overtake me and slump me in a chair that I might never get out of. This is just the beginning, people.

The Man in Drag

2010-05-04T19:05:00.000-07:00

There was a man in drag, dancing on a stage.

His bra was evident, his frilly skirt flapped

like a flag of submission, his lacy underwear a scandal.

He had bells upon his hands.

As he gyrated and pranced, the amused audience

laughed emptily, the sound of a stone plummeting

into the deep depths of the ocean to never be seen again,

their faces stretched beyond belief, all silently judging,

taking mental notes dictated by the decorum

of “modern” behavior, as they saw fit.

The man in drag bothered none and was bothered

none by the audience’s critique. He continued

to shake and stir, holding his head up high, chin

protruding, dancing as if the earth would open

and swallow him whole if he did not.

Single/White/Male

2010-04-29T11:59:00.000-07:00

Single/White/Male

I write poetry in the dark

I stay indoors from the sun

I eat the chocolates from your box

I am a full-bodied American girl

Slipping on a soliloquy

Hoping for a lobotomy

Breaking that cold fever

I’m coming so undone

I laugh out loud on the subway

I dream of unfinished courtships

I got some jagged teeth

I am something short of a miracle

Could you please

Hold my jacket

Hold my hand

Hold my drink

Hold me through this

I got a pair of dice jingling in me

I often find your stare too piercing

I eat my slice of Americana

I’ve got nothing left I haven’t stole

A Killer

2010-04-26T13:55:00.000-07:00

A Killer

Vanity is the crutch of the dissatisfied,

the crows, the Papier Mache, cookie cutouts,

still bourns who parade with arms like balloons.

There’s nothing as sickening as saccharine but

delusion is a close second; lying to oneself is

like slapping one’s own face till beet red;

pleasurable in some regard yet ultimately hopeless

and utterly ignorant when you stop and think about it.

To walk about weathered, blistered, open is

hard. The cuts across your lips get coarse, the

bald spots show more, your knees get skinned.

But to hold one’s head without a prop, ah,

what a revelation! It’s never comfortable but

then again, neither is wearing a corset.

So if you want to self-flagellate, don’t expect me

to watch. I’ve whipped myself enough to

know that blood is just blood and skin grows

back eventually and all that remains is what

actually lies beneath that sneer of yours.

How To Disappear Completely

2010-04-21T15:10:00.000-07:00

How To Disappear Completely

I got a scar, I got a bruise,

from the restaurant race.

It’s purple-blue, but I wish it was gold,

a lightning bolt between my two eyes.

It bleeds, on occasion, on rainy days more

frequently, and the blood rushes to my eyes,

causing my eyes to shutter like blinkers.

I often miss the good things because of it.

Some say the scar gives me character,

the way it seems to wink at others,

understanding their troubles and woes

while simultaneously looking and striving forward.

I’ve gotten use to it, I guess, shrugging my

way and closing my eyes when applicable;

let the damn thing speak for itself.

People ask about it, all the time, more than

they ask about me and I can’t help but smile.

It’s my scar and I’ll never get rid of it.

Reaching Perfection

2010-04-12T20:05:00.000-07:00

Reaching Perfection

I’ve been smoking cigarettes lately

Wearing sunglasses

Working on my cuticles

Trying to hit that ceiling

Baby, perfection is in my sights

Sun shines and white teeth

Picnics that last for hours

Champagne dribbling out of your mouth

Simplicity in its

Simplicity in its finest

Baby, we’ll be fine

I’ve been holding a lot of hands lately

Wearing cuff links and argyle

I’ve been eating a lot of apple pie lately

Running around this city

It’s only a matter of time

I put in the overhaul

It’s only a matter of when, baby

Brain dead is within my reach

I’ve been scrubbing my shoes lately

Tying my tie

Eating with a napkin

I’m getting close to normal

The Procedure

2010-03-29T09:09:00.001-07:00

The Procedure

I guess the surgery is going well

as every little piece of me is cut away

leaving just the pale white skin

and a bruise the color of a plum.

I could see why you want to avoid me,

What with me being cancerous and all,

but part of me finds it hard to be rid of you,

struggling behind nights cuddled up,

sweat boxin with your legs up lookin towards

the mirror, arguments that proceeded with

motherly stares, and long drives past Cracker Barrel.

How does one fully forget the past?

A mind wash would be nice or a serious

blow to the head. It’s been two years

and I still bring out the ruler when measuring

up others to you. It’s not fair for them or you.

Maybe I’ll just cut it off at the arm, like you,

just be rid of it and spend my days grasping

with one arm or limping around stupidly like

a winged pigeon. Either way, I’m sick of relapsing.

An Odd Feeling

2010-03-26T12:20:00.000-07:00

An Odd Feeling

There are days when I feel reckless,

where I feel like burning the candle

at both ends, skipping through puddles,

making conversation with the cloudy

peoples under the bridge, touching

the bathroom’s handle with my bare hand.

There are days where I feel irrational,

where I look for arguments, stare at those

on the subway with my tongue hanging out

my jaw, feel compelled to throw spare

change in the gutter, want to declare this

world a special place and fly amongst the clouds.

But most days I feel coy and shy,

hiding behind books, excusing myself from

public discussions that turn into executions,

making eyes just to look down, feeling my hands

shake and my ears twitch whenever my voice

is protruded over my bedroom walls.

I guess most days are ordinary anyway

The Pleasure

2010-03-24T08:29:00.000-07:00

The Pleasure

Those Newport Ad’s, did they lie?

Was there really pleasure in it all?

Could life really be nothing but green

and bold white with good friends

and zany outfits and silly sunglasses?

Is this answer to it all?

Could it really be that simple?

Driving by the sign on the 1-95, I wonder

should I drive my car into the divider, softly,

burn the remains, shed my clothes, join a

nudist commune, a multi-cultural one, devise

how to make bongos out of coconuts, and learn

how to whistle and hum in unison with all my

fellow nudists while we raise our hands towards

the sun and pray and cry will the rest of the world

spins around us, so out of control and unknowing

Or maybe should I just drive faster and

leave that stupid sign in my hindsights.

The Mating Ritual

2010-03-09T20:08:00.000-08:00

The Mating Ritual

Everyone I know is a waxy skeleton,

features stretched over gaunt face

with lips protruding, smiling weakly

for someone who holds the camera off

This is our mating ritual

the color tan a mark of retreat for

the hunter who sits sipping his

cocktail unsure when to throw

the spear or just go home, call it

quits, and flog himself into a tissue

It’s crazy I think of such things,

what with my trembling libido &

my morals?, who has morals anymore?,

who ever did is the better qualm, and just

cause I hate you doesn’t mean I won’t

embarrass myself for you, believe me, I will

So plow forward, young men & women,

keep this in mind when the room spins

around you, that the person’s hand you take

is just blood and bone

& probably not much else

2010-03-08T20:07:00.000-08:00

The Seagull

Your sideways glances are getting stale,

the fatigue of guessing your mood is

weighing down my eyes till I just want

to sleep, the mystique you once had now

just a cheap veil to hide some scar you’ll

never let me see, walking a one-way street

can get you blindsided, you know.

I read a poem one time where a writer

said you should let those you love go away

and if they come back then it’s meant to be

and if they just keep flying, just look up and

admire them, those who dare to fly are doomed

to see the plainness beyond the clouds, us regular

folks are better oft here in the mud and concrete.

So I packed your bags and kissed you on

the forehead, I hope you find whatever you’re

looking for, it’s not me, I realize that now, maybe

one day you’ll let me fix your bruised rib but for

now I’ll just admire you from afar and wonder

if those stars are really just bursts of light.

2010-03-03T22:20:00.000-08:00

The Death of the Room

Someone says something dark and hollow

and the room grows deadly, a morgue on

wheels, everyone suddenly becomes

funeral singers; it’s strange; a black puddle

entrances its way upon us, everyone begins

to look at their watches as if there’s

an execution they’re sadly missing, somewhere

else, as if this silence is decomposing the inner

nature of all of us, a corpse of a bird on the side of the road.

They look at me like I have an answer but I’m

all dumb, my teeth jittering in my mouth and my hands

shaking along to the rhythm of the pulsing sun; nodding

I give in, blind spit I guess, and the coolness of indecision

rushes over me like a salty wave, they soon nod too, blazed

out their skull by the passing comment, numb and jaded they

get up and continue with their days, while I’m still here, a

fender bender which for the first time in mankind

no one stops to look at.

A Potrait

2010-03-02T20:29:00.000-08:00

A Portrait

You’re all teeth and blood
and stale coffee breath,
beauty be damned,
walking around penguin-legged
with holes in your stockings
and mascara hidden in your shoes

You talk of the future
as if it’s a graspable thing,
not the indefinite, which I know
it be, but keep the head in the clouds
Hun and maybe one day
you’ll get that Happy Meal

I’m not bitter,
far from it, consider it
removed, my head a cloud
hovering and hailing over
some other wannabe anorexic
girl’s fashion shoot

So keep pursing the lips
and spitting the lies
and maybe one day I’ll
be back to admit I was all
wrong and you’re the
only fuckup I want
to wake up to

A Passing

2010-03-01T21:56:00.000-08:00

A Passing

Our house is a carnival and
I keep shukin and jivin, doin the soft
shoe while the neighbors keep
their barnyards lit

You tell me it’s just a matter of perception
while you retreat to the bathroom
to swallow some more razorblades;
I guess the pain comes and goes
more or less

The windows are dark and
our bathtub is overflowing &
there’s blood everywhere
& I can’t find the goddamn mop

You tell me to hold you through the
night while I quiver and tremor
and wonder where exactly did
this all go so awry

Faces in the Crowd

2010-02-24T19:40:00.000-08:00

Faces in the Rain

Like ghostly apparitions
smudged by the teardrop rain
they walk, without umbrella, against
the elements, the figurines of white and orange,
against themselves, at any point,
ready to throw it all down
and start all over again

They stain my back windows
fog my mirrors

little marching soldiers
all leg and hips
hooded like monks
ready for the slaughter

I pass them and wave
they walk faster
racing
against the puddles
they find themselves lost in

The Strains of Academia

2010-02-16T18:09:00.000-08:00

The Strains of Academia

I often find myself
a head full of helium
a balloon on a string
upon leaving the
classroom
the great works
still red on my tongue

Swinging brazenly
with knuckles out
a chest of airs I
find myself
counting the steps
to my car needing
a cigarette to
calm my jitters

I need to write
the urge overcomes
me like a purple lust
blinding me except
for the keys
and the images
that flutter about
my brain

To be one of them
great and admired
a mystique given
to a select few
young students
scratching their necks
struggling about
my gift

But it all comes
crashing down
burnt to embers
when I actually
crack my knuckles
and fingers about
the words

It’s times like
this I give up
defeated
drown a bottle
And write of you

The Laugh

2010-02-16T11:57:00.000-08:00

Jeff squirmed around his seat like a fish that had been displaced out of water. The seatbelt suddenly felt strange around his chest, itching, causing a rash that he could not yet categorize but knew would hurt later on. His face was flush. Hands sweaty. He felt his heart jump and down the trampoline of his chest cavity.
She just keeps looking, he thought, she just won’t turn away. I have to do something drastic, divert the attention from me to something else neutral.
“So, how’s Denise?”
“She’s fine.”
“Just….fine?”
“Yes, Jeff, just fine.”
Well that didn’t work. There’s got to be something to make her stop looking at me.
“What about your mom?”
He knew what the reaction would be before the words dripped out of his mouth.
“My mom? Why are you asking about my mom?”
“Because she’s your mom. Because you’re related to each other. Because she’s a good woman. Because…I don’t know, she’s your mom?”
“I feel like you’re trying to avoid the issue here.”
Uh-oh. Avoidance. He had shown the Heisman move too quickly. She could smell the desperation ooze out his pores. Foul-smelling, she eyed him, vulture-like, looking for his carcass to fall. An opening.
“What issue?”
He had driven up here to break up with her. He knew what issue she was talking about. He was not dumb, no matter what his kindergarten art teacher had said when he spilt the white paint all over his canvas. Things had been getting weird for him lately. Too close for comfort.
“The issue of you not being able to look me in the eyes right now.”
“I can look you in the eyes.”
“Yeah?”
“Look, I’m looking.”
Jeff opened his eyes to monstrous size and glazed at her in mock defiance. In response, she rolled her eyes and let her tongue curl into the crevice between her two front teeth, letting out the sound of a deflated balloon.
“You know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t.”
He did.
“Don’t be coy.”
“I’m not.”
Jeff began to laugh. He couldn’t help it. It was a nervous reaction of Jeff’s, ever since he was a boy, to laugh nervously when he felt he was being cornered or surrounded. It started that one time in the sandpit when that little bastard Tom thought Jeff had taken his shovel until this very moment.
Such laughter caused others to view Jeff suspiciously. They couldn’t understand that the laughter was not of a victorious or cruel kind, but that it was a primal defensive mechanism, one that he couldn’t shut off, no matter how hard he tried, much like that girl in school who picked her nose and ate it religiously, even after she was continually mocked during class, hey A-man-to-pick-her-nose-and eat it, even after pictures of her picking her nose were put around the school, at the worst possible time too, she had just had her first “real” boyfriend, even after her gym clothes “happened” to disappear and find their way onto the pole that hung the flag, her underwear flapping around like a symbol of surrender, even after she was forced to leave the school for “personal” reasons, some believe it was a breakdown in the music room where she, if it is to be believed, stuck a flute up her rectum and continued to play what the local students liked to call the “brown noise,” even after all of that, it is said, if it is to be believed, that she still can’t stop the habitual nose picking. Imagining her sitting behind a temp desk picking her nose sent shivers down his spine. Still he could not stop the laughter from rising out of him, falling out, and bouncing off the doors of his car like a demented chorus.
His attempts at stopping the laughter made it worse. Closing his mouth, the laughter came out it abbreviated spurts, like he was gasping for breath, as if the motor of his stomach were kicking over, revving itself up. His teeth protruded, his hands grasped tightly at his sides, body rocking back and forth, he had never seemed more giddy.
She looked back at him in horror. How could someone find such levity in someone else's pain? What kind of monster was I dating? This incident, although she didn’t know it at the time, would influence her later interactions with men. Later on, she would find herself staring at the men in her life as they slept, analyzing every wrinkle of the nose, mouth twitch, breath with the utmost contempt. They had to be hiding something, she believed, just like Jeff was, the utter hate and disgust he had from me culminating in the fateful bellow of a laugh. She would come to hate flowers, excursions to private getaways, the way older men would glance at her over the rim of their scotch, wishing to catch her eye, imagining her in sexy, but still classy, lingerie they would buy her on their upcoming anniversary; she would learn to despise any type of affection from the opposite sex.
And as the laugh bounced and echoed and found its way into her subconscious, Jeff knew that it was over. And he didn’t have to even break a sweat.

Ode to the Patron Saint of Doylestown

2010-02-15T21:46:00.000-08:00

Ode to the Patron Saint of Doylestown

I dream often
of you wearing
a crown of thorns
carrying your cross
of my indiscretions

Time has made you
more beautiful
flawless
my guilt erasing all
your faults
your temper
your depression
all that is left
is the red
sores I left on you

Your angelic
soft and snow
bleeding slowly
through your wounds
greater as a martyr
then a lover

I’ll remember you
more this way
hurting and wounded
dying slowly
even though
your probably
smiling now

Superman and Spiderman Settle Whose the Best For Real This Time

2010-02-10T17:45:00.000-08:00

And I believed that my dance moves were sick?

Go, Ninja, Go! Damn, I wish I was this cool. For Realz.

Wandering

2010-02-09T20:22:00.000-08:00

Wandering

There are times when you find yourself wandering, your feet following your toes down a dark hallway, blankly florescent with that green hue associated with elementary learning.

Your mind is wandering, searching, as you pass by, feet thudding on the cold linoleum that gleams from a fresh clean.

The bathrooms all smell of cigarettes and fried food and the cafeteria is strangely clean.

You wander further on, dead laughter bouncing off the walls and you swear you feel someone scurry by your dressing gown. They blow slightly on your ankles and rush off, leaving you in a whirlwind like that broke down Ferris wheel where he held your hand sweating.

When you finally reach the classroom the numbers are scratched off, rudimentary, and the wood chips scatter the floor like an ashen bath. The walls are pea green and in the center of the room lies a broken desk, left behind by time.

This is where you disappear.

I Kept Your Postcard

2010-01-25T10:03:00.000-08:00

It sits alone
stamped FIRST CLASS
FOREVER with a
Liberty Bell
water logged
and creasing at
the corners

Crazy time
in New Orleans
Day of Dead
feet in
Mississippi
River
Our Trip
hanging
Wish You Were Here
Love You
Forever

I don't have the
strength to throw
it away or burn it
to scatter the ashes
around my bed as
a burial of sorts

I don't know if I ever will

2010-01-11T12:20:00.000-08:00

God, I must be repeating myself

The teeth shift

the tongue swells

the breath comes hot and fast

but still it sounds the same

whiny

puny

just grow up man

get your shit together

you’re a adult man

dude

brah

stop thinking

and just let go

This irony must be killing me

strangling

falling over my feet

shoelace untied

banana peel on the floor

flop

splat

help me

I’m drowning in the shallow

end

How many times

can you force

yourself

to believe

you were right

they were wrong

this world’s crazy

and your oh-so

special

a wallflower

amongst the roses

Time to move it

trains leaving

last call

suck it up

big boy

and chin up

Charlie

The times-are-a-changin

and your

left behind

holding

something stupid

Music Review

2010-01-07T08:12:00.000-08:00

Vampire Weekend-Contra

Rating- 3.5 out of 5

When certain people consider the success of Vampire Weekend's debut album, there are certain words used. "Rip-off" is one. "West African aping" is another. "Paul Simon's Graceland's bastard little brother" (ok, I made that one up) could be another. Either way, for a lot of jaded music listeners/bloggers/reviewers the concept of a preppy, poppy, New York take on West African rhythms was too much. You would think the guys released a noise record or a avante-garde record recorded with John Zorn.

Their success (albeit, arguably, undeserved) relied on their ability to write really good pop songs that walked the fine line of absurdity. Much like their often referenced Paul Simon, these are a bunch of ivy league educated white guys, dressed in Polo gear, probably have never even been to Africa, yet still find a way to channel the noise into their sound. Not much has changed this time around. They still have the look, the clever words (Ezra Koenig rhymes "Horchata" with balaclava, aranciata, and masada), the upper-crest influences ("White Sky" mentions architect Richard Serra) and still have an unnerving sense of hooks.

The only problem is this time around is everything is too laid back. Songs pass without much notice. "White Sky" blends into "Holiday" and by the time single "Cousins" comes roaring out with it's scuzzy, hectic guitar line, your practically thanking VW for waking you back up.

The songs are not bad, per se, but they lack the immediate quality of "Oxford Comma" or "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa", the sprint of "A-Punk." "Run" attempts to recapture the glory, stop-starting all over the place with a chorus that is arena-worthy (weird, right?). But for every "Run" there's "White Sky" which never leaves the gate, "Holiday," a weird rip-off of a similarly named Weezer song, and don't even get me started on "California Holiday" which has a centerpiece of auto-tune vocals. Koenig may claim that world music uses auto-tune but maybe that should be left to the professionals, like T-Pain.

Maybe I'm being too hard on the guys. This album is not a step backward, not a step forward, but more a step sideways. They try to include world politics on the record but fall flat. They try to include a sample of M.I.A. (on "Diplomat's Son") but it comes off ghostly and forced. They are trying new things (mostly influenced by multi-instrumentalist Rostam Batmanglij), some of it works, other parts do not. Part of me wishes that they would stick with what they know and do well. Snobbery. Closer "I Think Ur A Contra" is an actual ballad with Koenig chastising that "you wanted good schools/and friends with pools." Instead of the world-view which the band seems to be trying to cultivate, their world lies within the world of the privileged, seen through the headphones of Chelsea Clinton or the bedroom of Ellen Page. They are white guys making music for white people. I wish they could see that. Paul Simon would agree.

Picking Up The Pieces-An Introduction

2010-01-06T11:36:00.001-08:00

Picking Up The Pieces:

An Introduction

I am an ordinary person. Nothing special here.

For a long time I struggled with that. I appeared to be different. Moderately intelligent- probably in the top tenth percentile, decent looking without being too attractive, weird name; I seemed to have the external qualities of a unique person.

Struggles came abound, I had problems truly connecting with anyone, an apathy that at times was convenient yet crippling, a big heart that was caged: these are the things I thought I possessed. Key word: thought. Over the years, I realized how unspectacular these things really were. More importantly, I realized how much of this I faked in order to perceive uniqueness.

Look at my track record. I’ve cheated (numerous times) on the only person I truly loved without much explanation, I drink way too much on certain occasions, can be hardheaded and outspoken, like beer, have said horribly racist things even though I inspire to be fully liberal, want to look good and desirable without my shirt on, find a song/movie relatable to “my life,” base happiness around how well the Jets and Mets are playing; none of these things are special. Sure, they may not be so-called stereotypical, but they fit some sort of mold.

So if I strive to be “outside” the mold, yet strangely find myself stuck in numerous molds, just who the fuck am I? Am I a robot? Am I Haley Joel Osment from A.I? Pinocchio? Am I ever going to be a “real” boy? I don’t know.

These stories are the only things that I know. They are the only things that make me who I am. Some of the stuff is perverse, some of it immature, some of it disgusting, some of it truly heartfelt. I’ll let you decide how you feel about me by the end of it.

That being said, none of this is glorified strictly for glorification purposes. I’m not basking in my shit. I don’t want you to give me high fives when you see me, name stupid keg parties in my honor, I don’t want to be your idol. That’s just stupid. In the same breath, I don’t expect you to feel bad for me or try to rationale my actions. I made my bed and it’s mine to lie in.

For now, I’m content with who I am. Fractured and broken and not quite sure is good enough for now. While I try to pick up my pieces and glue them back together, you might as well join me.

Picking Up The Pieces

2010-01-06T11:32:00.000-08:00

Over the next couple of weeks/months, I will be writing a column called "Picking Up the Pieces." It's a memoir of sorts, based on my life and experiences. Don't get me wrong; some of it is expanded upon while some of it takes a more fiction based stance. It will all be a part of a bigger work. The journey starts now: are you strapped in?

No Name Charger

2010-01-06T10:20:00.000-08:00

No Name Charger

You asked for it

you asked when you

touched her

her weight toppled over

like a strike

holding her purse and camera

like bloody pagan trophies

You fucking asked for it man

pushed you

in between the cars

falling over yourself trying

to grab hold of the grill

deliriously spinning

like a top

pounced on you

like a wildcat

eyes crazy

jibbering something

like Iduntwantanytrouble

but still swinging

box my ear

more like a slap

headlights blinding

as I do my work

rearrange you

till you fit

a little bloody mess

stumble stumble stumble

away

still talking

pussy

faggot

around the corner

until you

disappear

You asked for it

Midnight in a Perfect World

2010-01-05T12:40:00.000-08:00

Midnight in A Perfect World

Consists of walking the stained

ground cracked moon a

lemon meringue pie dripping

hot wine into my mouth lips

drenched blue heart palpitations

breathing waytooquickly your hand

brittle cold but a perfect

fit

step over my mother’s back

someone begging for change

under halogen your face un

blemished by the swirl

cloudy and grim

we saunter march skip

careless

hold onto me

till we get

downtown

Humanity on the 6 Train

2010-01-04T11:48:00.001-08:00

Humanity of the 6 Train

Hot breath coal sparks as

blood drips crimson red out

of your chipped tooth and

broke jaw and just who the fuck do

you think you are talking to?

everyone pulling out camera

phones and laughing dust which

just makes the movement faster

while your breathing through your

jagged nostrils inhaling the witches

brew the swirling hate that glazes the

walls and hangs from the rafters

waiting to get uptown

toe-tapping some primal rhythm

which is ingrained in all of us

and will never, ever, leave

Writer's Block

2009-12-28T10:51:00.000-08:00

Writer’s Block

A coldness, a white, blistering

fury of ice has entered my

brain making it hard to compose

and even harder to pry my

fingers apart to pound on the keys.

I feel lackadaisical; I feel

compromised and uninspired.

I just want to sleep.

My bed becomes my refuge

from the winter sores which

cut my cuticles apart raw

purple and my body clatters

and chimes roughly,

my chestbones like a tribal

drum, and my skin the composition

of ash; times like this make

hibernation severely underrated.

I worry that I’ll never get

out of this cave, this black hole.

I scream and kick at night, looking

upwards and cursing silently at the

smog sky wishing someone would

make the sun come out and allow

my brain to cultivate itself again.

Down the Drain

2009-12-22T11:34:00.001-08:00

Down the Drain

I’m slipping

slipping down the drain

falling fast

faling fast and leaving

that brown crust with it

Catch me

catch me quickly please

bottle me

bottle me up before I

become vapor in your pores

I guess it’s natural

natural is what it is

to feel like nothing

when you let yourself evaporate

Here It Is: My Top Ten Records of The Year

2009-12-21T11:25:00.000-08:00

10. White Denim-Fits

One of the most stale, oversaturated, yet strangely misunderstood and unappreciated forms of music is garage rock. Having existed since the late 50's/early 60's, it is an American tradition along with hating soccer and lying on your taxes. But any hipster with a silly moustache can bang along like Sid Vicious in the comfort of their so-called "garage" (ahem, studio apartment shared by six trust fund kids). To really succeed in the form, one has to have the tunes or the chops to do something really different. White Denim has both.

Able to turn on the dot, Fits, is the work of a group finding it's footing, only to throw it to the side whenever they feel apt (check opener "Radio Milk How Can You Stand It" which changes its arch half-way through the song). What follows in its wake is some of the most psychedelic ("Say What You Want"), in your face, Santana-influenced ("Hard Attack DCWYW"), challenging "garage rock" to come around in ages. They even insert a mid-tempo, dub-influenced number half-way through the record (first single "Mirrored in Reverse").

But the future for this band is what is the most intriguing about this band. The final two numbers ("Regina Holding Hands" and "Syncn") find the band calming their ADD ways to actually write two affecting ballads. "Regina Holding Hands" is especially fantastic, combining what sounds like a Otis Redding outtake with a starry folk ballad. Let this band continue to meddle if the results are going to be this fantastic.

9. Passion Pit-Manners

It seemed like it was the summer of bedroom projects. Everybody was coming out of left-field with these stirring, youth-commiserating groups that seemed to cure the overall down-feeling a lot of college graduates/young peoples who suddenly found themselves unemployed and unwanted were feeling this summer. A lot of these groups relied on warm, fuzzy analog synths and snippets to achieve a "worn-in" sound. Not Passion Pit. Michael Angelakos (and his helium-propelled voice) were shooting for the cheap seats.

Don't believe me? Check out "Little Secrets" which is accompanied by a children's choir chanting "higher and higher" or "Eyes Like Candles" which contains, I kid you not, a serious saxophone solo. Throwing everything into this record including the kitchen sink, Passion Pit is not holding anything back. It's refreshing to see a band go and do something as ballsy as this. There isn't a moment of insincerity or pomp on this record; just like Angelakos' voice, you either will dig it or won't.

But once you stop dancing, what lies at the center of this record is its beating heart. On the show-stopping grandeur of "Moth's Wings", Angelakos proclaims "But you run away from me/and you left me shimmering." Instead of running away from the end of the world, Passion Pit would rather "all my lovers raise their cups" ("Swimming in the Flood") and just lose yourself in the music.

8.Pissed Jeans--King of Jeans

In horror/thriller/suspense movies, the creepiest guy is always the normal-looking guy with bad hair and crappy teeth who seems real awkward and kind of nice until you find out he has ten bodies buried underneath his porch. They always turn out to be the guy who would never do this sort of thing (so the neighbors say) and seemed perfectly innocent. Matt Korvette is that type of singer. Unlike previous noise-moingers The Jesus Lizard or Black Flag, Korvette's group Pissed Jeans is more-intent on turning their anger inward towards themselves, exposing themselves as the weirdoes that they are.

Tightening their sound from Hope for Men, Pissed Jeans' King of Jeans simply smolders. "False Jesii Part 2" opens the record reaching for your throat, the band in torment while Korvette is left screaming about the things he could do, but won't (go to a party, wear a tight black shirt, start a congo line), literally taunting you with his chorus of "la/la/la's". "Dream Smotherer" treads similar territory with the band rocketing forward while Korvette accepts his mundane job as long as you stay away from his dreams.

But the band's greatest strength is their ability, and love, in lying in the filth. On "Lip Ring", Korvette falls for the girl with the bondage pants and wants to get "impaled on your pink nails." On "R-Rated Movie", he gets nervous during the sex scene. But best of all is the slow burn of "Request for Masseuse" which ends with Korvette's yelps and groans of orgasmic pleasure.

King of Jeans is a throwback record, to the late 80's/early 90's, when indie rock was sloppy

and angry. Instead of using the Shins success as a platform to keep things nice and polite and

oh-so-harmonious souding, Pissed Jeans would rather have you suck on their fumes, you mouth-

breather. And I wouldn't want them any other way.

7. Wild Beasts- Two Dancers

It takes a bit of theateratics to pull off the line "this is a booty call/my boot, my boot up your arsehole" only to follow it up with "this is a Freudian slip/my slipper in your bits." It's takes even more gall to do it all with a falsetto. Yet, Wild Beasts still manages to pull it off without sounding too ridiculous. One of the major reasons why Two Dancers is such an interesting listen.

By ditching their cabaret sound for a more grounded art pop one, Wild Beasts songs about the dirty English youth seem to ring more truth this time around. On "We Still Got the Taste on Our Tongues" shimmers about while Thorpe leers alongside, asking "what's wrong with a little fun?" That fun consists of "rattling around town" and "scaring old ladies out of their dressing gowns." On the slow-dance special "This is Our Lot" the young band just wants "to find someone to nuzzle to/and waltz from the room." The needs of the youth.

Their greatest asset, though, was giving Tom Flemming, their baritone, Nick Cave-sounding, bassist more songs. The centerpiece, "Two Dancers/Two Dancers II", deals with the heady subject of gang rape, but it never falls into ridiculous lament or cheesiness. Wild Beasts seemed primed to takeover indie Britain.

6. Animal Collective-"Merriweather Post Pavilion"

Do you remember January last year? I hardly do, having had this year go by so far. But I do remember the hype/confusion surrounding Animal Collective's new offering. After hearing "My Girls" and realizing how poppy sounding it really was, the blogsphere was split in two. Many others where ready to crown it record of the year (it was January, btw), while others had determined that AC had, indeed, sold-out. There were videos made by fifteen year olds claiming that it was the best thing since sliced bread while other fifteen year olds claimed that it sucked (you need to check this out). What was to be made about this strange, intriguing music record that plays with my earbuds so much?

Relax, chief. Too many went too far to claim that this was AC's pop record. While, albeit poppy-sounding and more realized in vision, this is still Animal Collective we are talking about. They are still doing drone-influenced, repetition based songs ("Daily Routine"), still screaming over weird sounding spaghetti-western beats ("Lion in a Coma"). They had gotten rid of their fifteen minute acoustic, campire freakouts and replaced them with slightly shorter Jamacian, precussion-tapping, Come-on-ride-the-acidtrip jams ("Brothersport").

Needless to say, did you hear "Summertime Clothes" played right after Miley Cyrus on pop radio? Did "No More Runnin" replace "Birthday Sex" as the youths favorite slow-motion grind song? No, that didn't happen. "Merriweather Post Pavilion" is the highlight of AC's career because it sacrifices nothing that they do well, yet builds a (alright I'll say it) hook-chorus-hook repeat (ha!) base for their adventures. Don't worry blog world, Animal Collective is still all yours.

5.Japandroids-Post-Nothing

Sometimes the most comforting things in the world are the simplest. Sometimes the most

enjoyable things are the things that defy pretension. Cold beer, nights out with good friends,

Taco Bell, cheesy action films from the eighties: these things, while not cool in the neveau-hipster

chic tradition of the definition, are definite ingredients for a good time. Japandroids are a band

that revel in these things. Post-Nothing is their rallying call.

The album is simple; two guys, guitar and drums, both singing anthems about girls, beer,

road trips, and girls. They are not buying into a trend. They just play loud and fast, like their

garage is the Meadowlands. It's so simple yet so comforting, and gosh darn it, so different then

what everyone else is trying to attempt right now.

It's hard to not a get sugar rush on this album. They want to "French kiss some French girls"

("Wet Hair"), they want to stay "Crazy/Forever", and you want to be along with them for the

ride. Instead of trapping themselves in the doom and gloom of the recession, they don't "wanna

talk about dying/I just want the sunshine girls" ("Young Hearts Spark Fire"). Words to live by.

4. Raekwon-"Only Built for Cuban Linx II"

The Wu is back. Nuff' said.

3. Phoenix-Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

"It's time to show it off." So says the refrain from the first cut "Litzomania" from Phoenix's album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix but it might as well been their statement for takeover that occurred in 2009. After appearing on every single late-night talk show, murking the SNL stage (did you see that? Pitch perfect), having their song on a car commercial ("1901"), and appearing on everyone's record of the year list, from hipsters world-wide to your dentist, Phoenix were the indie band.

But why the sudden success? Did that much change from their formula? No, not really. They are still writing great pop songs that have more in common with Hall & Oates then Husker Du. But they abandon the Strokes-like shuffle of their last album (It's Never Been Like That) in favor of a much more electronic dance vibe. And the results work. Phoenix has always seemed like a band that barely broke a sweat when recording, and this album flows along (ten songs, 37 minutes) with no filler.

There's so many good songs it's hard to choose one: the crystalized "Liztomania", the robo-tripping of "1901", the funky Prince-lite of "Fences", New Order via France "Girlfriend." But the real shinning is the five minute instrumental "Love Like a Sunset" which centers the record. Building till a sweet crescendo, this is the only song that sacrifices hooks for muscles. It sounds like the opening credits for an arena band. One can dream.

2. Grizzly Bear-Veckatimest

When asked about their new recording, Ed Droste, singer of Grizzly Bear, replied that the band was spending more time in the studio to make sure everyone exercised what they wanted to achieve on the record. They wanted to embrace a full band sound. It doesn't take long for Veckatimest to confirm this. "Southern Point" tramps in sounding like a marching band has escaped only to break mid-form into this paranoid piano waltz. If there's one thing this record doesn't lack, it's that there's not enough going on.

I could sit here and talk about how good the songs are: "Two Weeks" is the sunniest piece of pop pie to come out this year, the great kiss-off of "While You Wait for the Others", or the simply gut wrenching simplicity of closer "Foreground", but that would be well traveled ground. What I do want to emphasis is how much of a step forward this record was for the group as a group. No longer a solo vision of Droste or guitarist Daniel Rossen (who write all of the songs on the record), Veckatimest shows drummer Chris Bear and bassist Chris Taylor as actual foundations of the group. The biggest impact comes for Bear's increased role: "Cheerleader"'s crowded drumming is a highlight while "Ready,Able" lurches forward because of his constant tom-tom's. Sure many might miss the boundless, yet spare, scope of Yellow House but Veckatimest shows the group as a valid and increasing force in the music world.

1. The Antlers-Hospice

Every group at some point wants to make the "Big Record." A record that absconds sound, leaps traditional views of what music can do, and be relatable to all people, be that one constant in everyone's I-Tunes (this record just speaks to me, man). In short, every musical artist dreams of creating a Where the Wild Things Are or Catcher in the Rye or "Ophelia", something that resonates and stirs within us all.

But relative and conventional knowledge tells us the feat is hard to accomplish. In the last fifteen years, there have been maybe three records to accomplish such: In An Airplane Over the Sea, Kid Computer, and Funeral. For those three, there have been hundreds of failures (including on a lower scale Arcade Fire's follow up, Neon Bible) and their has been one casualty concerning these certain groups (what really happened to Neutral Milk Hotel?). In short, genius is hard to come by and certainly hard to follow up. Just ask Kevin Shields.

But The Antlers' Hospice is such a "big record." Based around the solo recordings of Peter Silberman, Hospice is the story of a man who watches his love one die slowly from cancer. It's told in order; from the man meeting the woman in the hospital, the woman getting better and the two of them building a relationship although dysfunctional outside the ward, and the inevitable conclusion of her falling ill again and having to deal with her death. It invokes Sylvia Plath both in name and spirit. It comes across a whisper soft ("Kettering"), whirl wind crazy ("Sylvia"), and strangely childish jovial ("Bear"). It's a record that has a lot going on and it is worth every minute.

In the "Epilogue" Silberman sings that "you're screaming/and cursing/and angry/and hurting me/and then smiling/and crying/and then apologizing." The record is all of these things. It's the music record of the year for me and I hope Silberman and his group stick around to, by chance, outdo themselves the next time around.

Music Review

2009-12-17T20:30:00.000-08:00

Moonface-Dreamland EP:Marimba and Shit-Drum

Rating-4 out of 5

Spencer Krug must be held up in the studio with Lil Wayne. Dude must be sipping on the Tussin enhanced "purple drink" because his output is strictly ridiculous. Krug is a member of one "major" group (Wolf Parade), has his "side project" (Sunset Rubdown), and another "contributing" project (Swan Lake). Beside Bradford Cox, there isn't a guy who is more prolific and consistently good than Krug.

So it should be no surprise that his new endeavor, Moonface, is on par with his other projects. His first EP, Dreamland: Marimba and Shit Drums, pulls no surprise punches. Supposedly inspired by Spencer's admiration for the marimba, this one-song EP clocks in at an epic twenty minutes. It is based primarily on the marimba and, indeed, contain "shitty" programmed drums to accompany the music. The physical copy of the record will contain Krug's "Dream Journal", his dreams being the lyric foundation for the EP.

But what is so awe-inspiring about the record is the ability it has to avoid redundancy and predictability. At twenty minutes, any song has the chance of becoming stale. Twenty minutes of one instrument can be excruciating. But Krug keeps things fresh, finding the right opportunities to switch tempo and add the so-called shitty drums. The listener is never quite sure where the track will go next and even on the fourth listen in the span of two days, I was still pleasantly surprised by the little details.

But Krug's strongest point has always been his lyrics. Never afraid to lose himself in fantasy in order to express his frustration with normalcy, he has really outdone himself with this one. Building an "Odyssey" like arch, our narrator ventures into a dreamland with his love. But somewhere along the way he betrays her. "I was lying around with chameleons/I was hanging around with bitches" Krug laments, knowing well of his wrongs. Forced away and deemed lost, he has to watch his lover fall victim to countless suitors. But unlike Homer's "Odyssey" where Odysseus winds up slaying the suitors to take back his home and wife, Krug's narrator seems lost forever. He is left to "make hissing noises with my mouth", only allowed to see darkness that he imposed upon himself. Pretty deep stuff for what many would deem a "throwaway record."

Unlike many others who use productivity as a means to keep busy, Krug uses it as a way to expose his personality. This EP is at its prettiest when he allows himself to be himself. "I'll prove how much I love you with this handstand/I can breathe under the water/I can hear your muffled laughter/I can feel you coming through the walls." His devotion, and this EP, is an atonement to what a special character Krug really is.

Physical Copy is available 1/26/09. Digital copy available now: https://scdistribution.com/moonface (donations accepted)

An Autumn Vision

2009-12-17T13:06:00.000-08:00

An Autumn Vision

I had a vision

of you standing in

Central Park during

autumn and the leaves

were blowing around

you, wearing that jacket

I hated so much.

Your face

was censored like a victim

of a hidden camera show,

grey and white pixels

where your cheekbones use

to be, crosses where your eyes

resign and your voice was

underwater and put through

one of those modulation machines.

You took my hand

as the wind swirled

the foliage about and

caused the flaps of your

jacket open, exposing

your bare shins which

are plum and weathered.

I try to mutter something

about covering up but

the words spill out

among the reds and browns

and you nod to express

that all is well.

As you turn to walk

away, I try to grab your

face but my hand slips

through the abyss and

I come up with blood

on my sleeve.

The Lost Manuscript

2009-12-16T13:16:00.000-08:00

The Lost Manuscript

A book lies hidden in the stacks,

passed over by age and favor,

it’s words and pages aged like wine in

a forgotten cellar, smelling of mothballs

and coughing fits, binding of the most

exquisite knock off gold, it lies there

forgotten while the flavors of the month

continually need to be refilled.

Written by young hands, baptized

by fascism, written by a young moralist

whose father would beat him when

he would imbibe too much and mother

was known to hang around corners

in the wee hours.

Written with such ferocity in a society

where the bourgeois could make the

pauper eat their shit out a shoe, the

young writer tried to find the almighty,

where was he, how did he allow this to

happen, the writer turning the pen out-

ward, to his own people, how could we

treat each other this way and be able

to go home and kiss their wife and play

with their kids, although he still felt

an ounce of hope for the people he

related himself with.

But as the years passed, the acclaim

never came, the handshakes grew

cold, and the bed he slept in grew smaller,

the young writer approaching middle

age’s taste for violence grew like a sore

inside of his mouth and he could not

find an antiseptic to cleanse it. His words

became daggers, his characters inhuman,

(god did not exist he was sure of it), his over-

all outlook like the bottom of a shoe that had

been trumped through mud and blood.

He gave up the fight inside some cheap

hostel and hung himself by his own belt,

a fitting end to someone, he thought.

His books, for the most part, remain

untouched, unpublished, (some company

in Venice owning the rights but in no

rush to expose), except for his first,

his first grasp at a higher realm, a futile

but still valiant attempt at change, his first

book lies in the stacks, forgotten, passed over

by fad and demand, and slowly, slowly, his

words disappear like calcium from a bone.

Last Call

2009-12-15T11:40:00.000-08:00

Last Call

It’s getting late as my

eyes roll back into my

skull and my arms lay limp

across the bar top and I ask

you to play something melancholy

on the jukebox and you smile and

take my dollar and proceed to put

on “King of Wishful Thinking.”

You always were a silly bitch.

And as the song winds down and

the ugly lights creep up on us, I

look over to you and you stand

sloped like a gaunt marionette,

you haven eaten right in weeks,

and the bags under your eyes are

just reminders of how un-devout we

have been to our cathedral, our bed.

(I don’t pretend to be a prize either,

my chin is painted with spittle and my

hands shake as the room spins).

As you look back at me and try to

feign a slight smile and wink with

your good eye, I’m reminded of when

we met and how the butterflies use to

fly within me when I would touch your hand

or how my palms would palpate as I skimmed

the inners of your thigh. Everyone shuffles

toward the exit and I grab my coat and scarf

and wait, wait for you, my soulless body

just accumulating warmth.

The Adult Shop of My Mind

2009-12-14T11:19:00.000-08:00

I got perversions, various

positions and provocative propositions

I would like to indulge you with.

If you got the time, hunny, I got

the black mind and the dim lights

and the double post bed if you

catch my drift.

I’m like a Rocket to Russia,

forever lit, ready to blast

at a slight of eye or a slip of

your dress revealing your shoulder

blade which cuts through me and

makes me shudder with contempt.

I believe in beauty and the

Mona Lisa and know a masterpiece

when I see it, but I’d rather see

your mascara run down the sides of

your face while we bark and caw

like two frenzied apes and let

our sweat mix together like a spell.

I’ll probably feel the guilt like

concrete in my stomach in the

morning but right now it all

seems right with me.

My Top Records Cont'd

2009-12-10T22:35:00.000-08:00

Records Number 19-10: Now with sound!!!

19. Bats for Lashes-"Two Suns"

Although Natasha Khan (Bats for Lashes) claims to be from London, she's got to be from some nearby planet that still practices medieval courtship and sequesters pretty ladies in castles. Her music is so other-wordly and so over the top one can't comprehend how she grew up in Wembley. By sprinkling helpings of her idols (a little Kate Bush on "Glass", Bjork on "Sleep Alone", Tori Amos on "Siren Song") Khan has built quite an eclectic taste on her second record Two Suns. But don't be confused; Khan is her own woman. On the aforementioned "Glass," Khan's voice rises and soars over a new-age/metal (?) clangor. On "The Big Sleep" she outduels vocal partner Scott Walker in creepiness, something that is not accomplished very easily. But her strongest moment is "Daniel" in which her voice calmly emotes over a chilly 80's synth line.

Listen to this: "Daniel"

18. Girls-"Album"

I was recently watching a documentary of HBO about the Children of God cult. It was poorly made (albeit by someone without documentary training) but stark in its portrayal of the cult. Separated from the parents from a young age, children in the cult were forced to preform sexual and scarring acts to their nannies/male enforcers, the people left in charge of them. Vocalist and songwriter Christopher Owens of Girls is an escapee of the Children of God cult. Knowing that, it's hard not to hear the lyric "I wish a loving man in my life/I wish I had a father/then maybe I would of turned out right" and not think that the cult in some sort affected him. But the music on Album points to otherwise, from the scuzzed up Beach Boys hoedown of "Big Bad Motherfucker" to the uplifting shoegazy blast of sun "Morning Light." But with all of its Spector inspired fun, lies its emotional core "Hellhole Ratrace" in which the dejected Owens doesn't want to "cry his whole life through/die without shaking a leg or two." Surviving the cult, bad breakups, drug addictions, Girls know that they have to keep a happy face indeed.

Listen to this: "Laura"

17. Jay Reatard- "Watch Me Fall"

Jay Reatard's Watch Me Fall seems amply named. Over the past year, Jay has stormed off numerous stages, had his band quit on him (and join Wavves, who is, to be quite honest, Jay Reatard lite), and most recently, had two drunk fans attack him in Austin. So why does everyone put up with his shenanigans? Because the dude is a powerpop/punk mastermind. Go listen to Blood Visions again and tell me that he isn't the best thing to happen to his genre since the Buzzcocks. I'll wait. Back? Good. On Watch Me Fall, Jay makes gigantic steps forward. From the echoey "I'm Watching You" to the Violent Femmes except sung by a complete lunatic who wants to kick your ass feel of "Wounded." He even ends the record with a genuine ballad "There is No Sun." Not content to stand on his laurels, Watch Me Fall will get Jay more comparisons to Elvis Costello rather than Johnny Lydon. Yeah, Jay Reatard might be a jerk with a chip on his shoulder but when the music is this good, who the hell cares?

Watch This: "It Ain't Gonna Save Me"

16. The XX- "XX"

British music magazines suck. Everyone knows that. To pick on them would be like picking on Shannon Sharpe for not being able to speak clearly or Spencer Pratt for being the most insufferable human being alive; fun, yes, but already gone over ad nauseam. So when they hype up "The Next Big Thing," one has to look over with skeptical eyes and wondering ears. The XX was "The Next Big Thing" in England at the mid-point of this year. But unlike most bands hyped up overseas that prefer style to substance and seem to lean heavily on their copies of The Kinks and U2, the XX seemed to prefer to remain ambiguous and seemed to liken their sound to American R&B such as Aaliyah and minimalist punk of Young Marble Giants. And it helped that they didn't have one defining song; they had at least five. "Crystalized" skims and beats like a dubstep record while "Basic Space" sounds like vintage Timbaland. But what makes this record work so well is their overall inexperience. Afraid to do to much or too little, the record finds a perfect middleground that can both demand your attention and be background fodder, ideal cool kids make out music. These are songs about sex, plain and simple, and the foibles young kids go to get it. It's going to be hard for these lads to top this on their next record, but let them enjoy their time as "The Big Thing."

Listen to this: "Infinity"

15. Dirty Projectors- "Bitte Orca"

Dirty Projectors have always made music for indie journalists. Frontman Dave Longstreth has a voice that is so dividing that many will turn away before giving it a chance (major kudos points) and his guitar playing can range from "precious" to "running in the beach sand" to Stephen Malkamus "freakout but still deeply in control" in the blink of an eye. It gives the chance for journalists to throw out big words and use that vast vocabulary of theirs when describing the band's art pop. But at times, their music has seemed forced and too, too fragile. Bitte Orca is a record that wants to change all that. Still building on their strengths (check opener "Cannibal Resource" which builds upon Longstreth's guitar line, the girl's connecting harmonies, and mid-song harp) the Projectors show that they have some new tricks up their sleeves. "Useful Chamber" starts off as a Kraftwerk style burner, only to dissolve into a guitar freakout midway, build back up with a Bohemian-like Raspody choral performance from the ladies, only to dissolve once again into an even more circling guitar line. But the strongest part of the record has to be centerpiece "Stillness is the Move." Sounding like the Tom Tom Club and Mariah Carey combined in a SlamChop, the song has major song of the year potential. It's no wonder Solange Knowles (Beyonce's sister) is a big fan of the song; she knows a good pop song when she hears it.

Listen to This: "Stillness is the Move"

14. Cymbals Eat Guitars-"Why There Are Mountains"

Well, at least something good comes from Staten Island (zing!). The Staten Island crew Cymbals Eat Guitars debut Why There Are Mountains is a definite keeper and one of the surprises of the year. Many a comparison to Built to Spill, the foursome build their sound around so-called canyons of sound. For example, opener "And the Hazy Sea" opens mid-scream, only to slow into a calming piano line, only to build up again, only to spread out again into a droning guitar, only to blast off even louder, which then furrows into an epic screeching feedback. End of song. But they are not ready to back themselves into a Explosions in the Sky corner, they cover various ground. For example, "Some Trees" is a short, post-punk song about watching some girl hang herself outside of their window, while "Indiana" starts off with a slow-building echo until it falls into a drunk Elliot Smith on the piano romp. The record takes so many left turns, like driving around a literal mountain, it's hard not to be entertained and wonder what's coming next.

Listen to this: "Wind Phoenix"

13. Bear in Heaven-"Beast Rest Forth Mouth"

Why is no one talking about these guys? They sound like no one really making music right. By mixing in This Heat, Kid A Radiohead, and Rush, setting the blender to puree, and coming out with a pyschedelic/tribal/new wave/synth pop smootie, Bear in Heaven made one of the most exciting records of the year with Beast Rest Forth Mouth. With a definitive sound or pulsing single (although "Lovesick Teenagers" is an absolute banger) the record never falls into a pattern and it's really hard to figure out which way the music is going to go. For example, "Ultimate Satisfaction" jumps out the box sounding like a sped up Phoenix song, only to have "Dust Cloud" follow it with its "I want to kiss your mouth refrain" and ambient shoegaze pulse, only to follow with "Drug a Wheel" which sounds like Dr. Dre and Nick Cave got together and procreated some messed up baby. Just listen to this record, man. Don't let these guys remain an underdog forever.

Listen to this: "Lovesick Teenagers"

12. Future of the Left- "Travels with Myself and Another"

I love Mclusky. Pretty much any record that comes out that sounds like Mclusky or has members of Mclusky in it has an unfair advantage in accordance to how much I'm going to like it. Sounding like the Pixies, except louder, cruder, and more fear-inspiring, Mclusky was one of the bands that I was generally upset when they split up. They had such a good thing going. So when lead singer Andy Falkous and drummer Jack Egglestone formed Future of the Left with new bassist Kelson Louis Matthias, I was all ears. And their sophomore release Travels with Myself and Another builds on everything Mclusky did well. In "I Am Civil Service" Falkous leers that "if I eat what I fuck and I fuck what I eat, am I worthy?" while the band crushes along and "Stand By/Your Manatee" sounds like Vintage Mclusky: speedy noise rock riff, thundering bass, while a man is lamented for having parents that "used plastic forks." But on this record, Falkous and crew seem to actually believe they can write pop songs, as demented as they might be. For example, "Throwing Bricks at Trains" dirties a danceable synth line while "The Hope That House Built" sounds like a barbershop quartet that decided that pub rock was a great way to show off their talents. Mclusky might still be alive when Falkous screams "What kind of orgy leaves a deeper sense of love?" but his new group seems intent on accomplishing something else, pop stardom.

Listen to this: "The Hope That House Built"

11. Sunset Rubdown-"Dragonslayer"

Spencer Krug gets a lot of acclaim in the indie world for being uber-prolific, utterly strange at times, and a lyrical genius. Some of it is well-deserved while some of it borders on over praise (I mean, someone compared him to Bowie). His work on the last Wolf Parade record was scattershot at and his first record with Sunset Rubdown, Random Spirit Lover, had moments of brilliance only to be plugged with pompous overindulgence. But on his second record, Dragonslayer, Krug seems to have re-surfaced. Instead of trying to build some extended strand throughout the record, Krug and Co. let each song stand for themselves and leave open doors for the listener to interpret. And it doesn't hurt that it boasts some of his best songs yet. The beautifully baroque opener "Silver Moons" focuses on growing old, having the parties pass you by, only to have the memories of a woman who might of loved you long ago. "Black Swan" shows the band in full swing and actually might be the closest Krug ever gets to writing a so-called "sex" song (well, it is at least about the subject). Although many journalists want to christen him the new Bowie, Krug has always been a proggy type of guy at heart, living in a fantasy world to escape the heartache of the real world. Dragonslayer perfectly demonstrates that.

Listen to this: "Black Swan"

My Thirty Three and 1/3 Records of the Year

2009-12-10T10:20:00.001-08:00

I'm obsessed with music. Almost as much as I'm obsessed with checking my facebook page, figuring out Tiger Woods approval rate with the general American public, and which member of MTV's "Jersey Shore" will be the first to murder "The Scenario." Needless to say, I surround my self with music. As a younger man, I wish I would of had the gall to actually learn a "real" instrument (no, the recorder does not count). I've learned that my dreams of forming a supergroup are on the decline. Thus, my love for other people's music has grown.

I present you with my top 33 1/3 records of the year. Why 33 1/3, you ask? Well this is the ratio a vinyl spins on a record player. It also forces me to really eliminate certain records I might of enjoyed this year (I listened to something like 115 new records this year). Not to offend anyone, this list is strictly personal so certain records might be placed higher or lower than how you viewed them (or in the case of some of my friends, what the fuck are you listening to exactly?). Without further ado, here's my list.

Records 331/3-20

33 1/3. Dent May and His Magnificent Ukulele-"The Good Feeling Music of Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele"

I actually stumbled across Dent May by accident. While in Philadelphia, a good friend of mine dragged me to the show. Dent May's music is a combination of Beach Boy Harmonies, with a lyrical bent relatable to Stephen Meritt (The Magnetic Fields) or Jens Lekman. Gloriously awkward and heart-felt, his songs are the perfect soundtrack to a loner's attempts at courtship.

Listen to this:

33. The Obits- "I Blame You"

Who will save rock n' roll, cried the overzealous NME magazine, we have chosen many to lead but none have taken the reigns. Swooping in like a sign from little baby Jesus, came Rick Froberg (Drive Like Jehu, Hot Snakes) to save the day. Never one to concern himself with the fads and pretensions of much younger groups, Froberg's new group focuses on rock, plain and simple. One can draw a line from Howlin' Muddy Waters to MC5 to X to The Obits. And don't forget kiddies, Froberg still hates you.

Listen to this: "Two-Headed Coin"

32. Mos Def- "The Ecstatic"

Many probably forget that before Mos Def was a actor, he was one of the most reputable MC's around. After falling off (one can blame that squarely on his Hollywood dreams), Mos Def returned with a fury with "The Ecstatic." To the Mary Poppins influenced opener "Supermagic" (it's a lot cooler than it sounds), to the Iraq-riding on a Hummer flow of "Auditorium" aided by Slick Rick, the record simply bounces from one extreme to the next. His best work since "Black on Both Sides."

Listen to this: "Auditorium"

31. Health- "Get Color"

It's never a good sign when your best song is a remix (Crystal Castles' "Crimewave") that only contains a snippet of the original's vision. A band that showed a lot of potential but lacked, you know, songs, Health's "Get Color" is a step in the right direction. Using their keyboards as abrasive tools, the band sculpts the sound of "The End" (Nice Girls, Eat Flesh) but also as a calming agent (In Violet), the sound after all the bombs have fallen. Plus lead single Die Slow sounds like Stabbing Westerward on steriods, which is never a bad thing.

Listen to this: "Die Slow"

30. Manic Street Preachers-"Journal for Plague Lovers"

Many people forget (0r simply don't know) that the year that Kurt Cobain ended it all, the alternative scene lost another hero in Ritchey James Edwards. Lead singer of the Preachers, Edwards was well-read and angry and the group produced their magnum opus "The Holy Bible" with him. Shortly after it was released, Edwards left his car and his belongings behind and was never found again. The band soldiered on as a threesome but always lacked the punch that they had when Edwards was in the group. The solution? Hire Steve Albini to produce and use Edwards last notebook to inspire their new songs. Instead of being the dire purge that "The Holy Bible" was, "Journal for Plague Lovers" is a swan song of sorts, full of hope and inspiration that would make Edwards proud.

Listen to this: "She Bathed Herself in a Bath of Bleach"

29. The Pains of Being Pure At Heart- "Self-Titled"

It's no secret that being a nerd is hip now. From Flight of the Conchords, ironic wolf sweaters, and smoking pipes, hipsters have fully embraced the geek in all. So with that mind, a revival of late 80's/early 90's twee pop should follow along with it considering that twee was the music for the awkward who cared too much. Signed to Slumberland Records (the American home of twee) and produced by Archie Moore (who also produced Velocity Girl/Black Tambourine), The Pains of Being Pure At Heart had it all going for them. But don't shrug them off as weak or lo-fi. Check out the thundering drums on "Young Adult Friction," the JMC jangle of "Come Saturday," or the noisy guitar bridge during "Stay Alive." This band might be indie pop but they got bite.

Listen to This: "Young Adult Friction"

28. St. Vincent- Actor

A lot can be made about Annie Clark(St. Vincent)'s face. Porcelain white with blue eyes, she looks the part of the ideal hipster girl, someone you might stumble across in the Strand bookstore and swear you need to spend the rest of your life with them just by looking at them. But beyond her face, lies one deranged soul. Her juxtaposition of Disney like strings with sci-fi paranoia (done mostly by her ace guitar playing), St. Vincent's music is confusing. It always starts off lovely but somehow Playboy magazines, domestic fights, spills that cause internal bleeding fight their way in. "Actor" sounds like the movie score of a romance movie directed by David Lynch.

Listen to this: "The Strangers"

27. Bill Callahan-"Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle"

My dad tries to stay hip with the latest music. God bless him. He's always stealing my recordsand giving me his critique on them later. When he stole my copy of Bill Callahan's second record under his real name, Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle, he only commented on how much he hated his voice. It's true. Bill has a deep baritone of a voice that is so majestically him it's hard to get over. It doesn't help that their isn't much to the music either-just his voice, strings, simple percussion, and an acoustic guitar. But that is what makes the record so fantastic. It's so simple. Yet no one other than Bill could of done it.

Listen to this: "Jim Cain"

26. Fuck Buttons-Tarot Sport

To be quite honest, I hated the first Fuck Buttons record. I downloaded the St. Patty's Day and tired to get into it. I couldn't. I listened to it the next day. No avail. I listened to the record five times in the span of one week and I really couldn't dig it. Everyone was drooling over it but to me it sounded like a couple of art school dropouts who rediscovered their Playskool Cassette Player with Microphone. But their second record, Tarot Sport, clicked with me right away. Instead of being a record of noise for noises sake, this is a noisy-dance record. Check out the expanding, swirling, early 90's techno sound of opener "Surf Solar." Or the mid-record highlight "Olympians," which builds into a euphoria-inducing wash-away. Hey who said anything about a sophomore slump?

Listen to this:"Olympians"

25. The Flaming Lips- "Embryonic"

I was starting to wonder what happened to The Flaming Lips. After releasing the masterpiece The Soft Bulletin, the Lips became predictable, releasing record after record of "isn't life so mysterious and precious." These guys use to be an acid rock group man! They released a record that you were supposed to play on four speakers, at the same time! The Lips, sadly, seemed like a group more focused with perfecting their hippie-love fest they called a live show. But then they go and drop a bomb like Embryonic and fuck my shit up (in a good way). Dark, massive, bleak, and sounding like it was recorded on a burnt speaker, the Lips haven't sound this vital in years (ten to be exact). Just check out the charging, paranoid swoon of "Silver Trembling Hands" or the worldisgoingtoendbutscrewit jungle boogie of "Watching the Planets" if you don't believe me. Now the interesting thing is going to be, how is Wayne going to justify writhing around in a gerbil ball onstage to this doom opera?

Listen to this: "Watching the Planets"

24. Handsome Furs-Face Control

It's amazing to me that both singers of Wolf Parade (Spencer Krug and Dan Boeckner) released better solo projects this year than the disappointing At Mount Zoomer last year which combined both of their talents. Up first is Dan with his group Handsome Furs and their sophomore release Face Control. (Very) Loosely based on the process of "Face Control" in Russian night clubs where people get in based solely on their looks, the song cycle is just an excuse for Boeckner to show off his talents. Dan has always been the Springsteen on Wolf Parade and when he says stuff like "Heaven was a place we built out of stone," you tend to believe him. Behind his wife Alexi's gooey synths, Boeckner generally does what he does best, forms great pop/rock songs built on his heart of his sleeve earnestness and his we-are-marching-forward charging guitar playing.

Listen to this: "Radio Kalinigrad"

23. Neon Indian-"Psychic Chasms"

It's amazing to me how caught up music journalists in labeling new music. This was the summer of day-glo/chill wave/bedroom dance/polka extreme (alright, the last one was made up) according to every journalist who wanted to characterize this type of music. By running themselves ragged coming up with terms for the music, they should of just appreciated the music for what it is, head-bopping. Using samples, keyboards, and guitars that seem stuck permanently in the eighties, Neon Indian's "Psychic Chasms" has an supreme cheesiness to it. But it also has a warm, fuzzy feel that reminds one of hot summers by your best friends pool when the only trouble was thinking of which girl you though you liked. And coming in under thirty minutes, it's over much faster than you would want it to, much like those summer romances.

Listen to this: "Deadbeat Summer"

22. The Rural Alberta Advantage-"Hometowns"

Hey, your thinking. Hey, your thinking, this guy sounds a lot like someone I know. Hmmm.....ohmygod this guy sounds like the dude from Neutral Milk Hotel! And it doesn't help that Nils Edenloff writes heart-tugging songs in leu of Jeff Magnum. But while Magnum seems to focus on death and the after-life, The Rural Alberta Advantage seem possessed with what happens after you leave the small-town behind. What happens to your friends, your family, the places you use to hang out, the loves you left behind. Hometowns never stalls in one sound either; there's the Modest Mouse crunch of "The Deadbridge in Lethbridge", the ramshackle oft-kilter pop of "Don't Haunt This Place", or the Cars-like New Wave of "Sleep All Day." A band well worth the hype.

Listen to this: "In the Summertime"

21. Dinosaur Jr.-"Farm"

Dinosaur Jr. seemed like a band that would never re-unite. J. Mascis pretty much called Lou Barlow a prick in a interview after they broke up and Barlow even recorded a song with his new group Sebadoh called "The Freed Pig" inspired by you-know-who. So when the group stormed back with Beyond, which was a return to form, many a critic where left wide-mouthed. Well, they better get use to it because Farm, their second record since re-forming, builds on the successes of Beyond. From it's wacko artwork, Mascis off-the-wall guitar noodling, and aw- shucks songwriting, the band sounds more like its younger version. But along the years, Mascis has grown confident (check out "I Want You To Know" if you don't believe me) and his guitar playing has gotten more ballsy (the loner anthem "Said The People" which clocks in over seven minutes, half of which is a guitar solo). The band (and album) can be sorted out best in "Over It" which quotes the mantra "I use to be weird, I got over it."

Listen to This: "Pieces"

20. Fever Ray-"Self-Titled"

It's really hard to distance oneself as a solo artist when your original group has such a distinct sound to it. Such is the dilemma for Karin Dreijer Anderson. The Knife is one of the most original sounding groups to come out in the 00's and Silent Shout sounds like nothing before/after it. With Fever Ray, Anderson must of thought, well, if you can't beat them, do it even bigger. She uses the voice modulator in almost every song (a staple of her singing in the Knife), the beats are more claustrophobic and clanging, and her on stage persona the ever more dramatic. Even when she's singing about growing up to be an adult and all the fun things she would do (the excellent "When I Grow Up"), there's something macabre about it all. And using the music video as an outlet, her videos are just as memorable as her songs.

It’s Hard to Live

2009-12-10T10:12:00.000-08:00

It’s Hard to Live

When I look back and see

the mental damage one can

inflict on someone else, some-

one they really care about, it’s

hard to smile sheepishly in the

mirror. Every gesture is a fraud,

every lie becomes laced with cyanide.

I’ve become a one-man wrecking machine.

I’m ready to end it. The chair is

planted firmly on the floor, the

car is running, the rope draped

gently over the loveseat. Iggy Pop’s

“The Idiot” is playing, the gun is

in the greenhouse, I’ve swallowed

a handful of uppers/downers/sleeping

pills/Advil/Flintstone chewables, and

the water is overflowing in the bathtub

while the razor gleams ever so brightly.

This is not a cry for help.

It’s a cry for immortality.

My Teenage Blues

2009-12-09T12:01:00.000-08:00

God it hurts

being this awkward,

skin flaky, body oozing

pus and blood and I’m so

gangly that my bones rub

against one another and I swear

I’m like a piece of flint and

I’m combustible and I just

wish these shit would be over.

I just wish I could talk to

you without the light beaming

of my forehead or one of pimples

exploding like a cheap Mexican

firecracker or you seeing my

indented chest, but who am I kidding,

you’d probably just laugh anyway.

These teenage blues are killing me.

I write my poetry in the binds of notebooks

and the cracks of desks, underneath the gum.

For the most part it’s nonsensical but other

times it makes me feel good.

Maybe some future civilization will find it

and cherish me the poet laureate of

the past awkward civilization or maybe

I’ll show it to you when you’re older

and more learned and maybe you’ll like

it or maybe you’ll just pat me on

the head and walk away.

Examining a Car Wreck

2009-12-08T12:30:00.001-08:00

Examining a Car Wreck

All that is left is the husks,

the shell, an ear of corn that has

been plucked, bent, glass sprayed around

the scene like origami, oil slicked, fire-

red mixed with the siren of upcoming tragedy,

while everyone stops by, suddenly feeling

contrite, more like blood hungry, braking,

keepmovingkeepmoving, whistling, look look

look, blowing around like a tumbleweed, the

passenger window, he was probably looking at

you the whole time, pray, where are the

survivors, are there any, I find myself

herding, craning my neck, examining the

car wreck for a sign of blood.

I Use to Wake Up next to You

2009-12-07T10:43:00.000-08:00

I Use to Wake Up next to You

We use to share a bed,

a bed of white sheets, next

to our white walls, and I would

wake up next to you, breathing softly

through your mouth, and I would look

at your porcelain back and blonde

hair and wonder how I got there.

We use to share a bed,

and some nights I would wake up

on top of you, you smelling of soap

and cinnamon, probably from that

shampoo, and I would put my nose in

your armpit and massage my nose on your

slight stubble and breathe you in, deeply.

We use to share a bed,

but I shared that bed with others

sometimes, cheap romps that reeked

of wine and cigarettes, out of pure

self-hatred, nothing more, and I would have

to bleach the sheets and hate myself more

for never being able to make them white again.

We use to share a bed,

a bed you called your mother on and

cried when you found I had lied and I had

no response or explanation for and I sat

there with the crux of your unhappiness

and the stress of your schooling and the

overall disgust you had for me and us and

this fucking house weighing in on my temples.

We use to share a bed,

but it became cold and false and

we barely spoke and rarely acknowledged

each other’s building paranoia and anger

until I got drunk that one night and told you

that you should fly away, from me, like some

lost sparrow who mistook the swamp for the beach.

We use to share a bed,

but that was long ago.

Holly’s High Again

2009-12-07T10:41:00.000-08:00

And she’s all cross-

eyed and delirious and breaks

out in sweats even when she’s

freezing and won’t even return

my phone calls and pretends not

to see me when she’s on the corner.

She still knocks on my door, though,

begging for a bed at inappropriate

hours and I can’t help but resign

myself and put down my arms and let

her in and wrap my legs around her.

Her nails are chipped, her hair

is frayed, and her heart is clearly

broken but I don’t think she’s looked

more beautiful and fragile, and needing

me more than ever, I know that she’s gonna

die-its clearly obvious, I just want to help

her keep her light lit for a couple of more

days so I’ll always let her in and give her

money even though I know where it’s going

and comfort her/me by wrapping my legs

around her cold body and

rocking her to sleep.

The Lady Who Swallows Swords and the Town Drunk

2009-12-04T11:58:00.000-08:00

The Lady Who Swallows Swords and the Town Drunk

You say you’re fragile

and I’m deranged.

I believe you.

I’ve got the scars, the marks,

the creeping, ever-present shallowness

in my big dumb smile.

You’ve got the bruises and

the scarves to cover them.

We’re the perfect pair.

Two freak shows.

Let me be your black widow

and we can devour each other

slowly.

C’mon.

It’s all we got.

Requiem for Someone Else's Ex

2009-12-03T13:05:00.000-08:00

Requiem for Someone Else’s Ex

I had a dream last night

about you, my friend’s, well,

my roommates, ex. It was one

of those dreams where you taste

the colors and

everyone you know is there,

somehow,

and all their faces

are muted and grainy.

Not you.

You were full, vivacious,

all the birthmarks and

dimples still there as I remember.

Your faults made you more beautiful, you know,

and as our eyes met in

movie theater chairs and I

told you I liked you, well

more than “like” (like that one time

I was drunk in your kitchen and

you shrugged it off but I really

meant it I still do) you took

my face in your pearl hands and whispered

I know

and bit my lip.

So I guess I’m a Masochist

2009-12-02T10:47:00.000-08:00

So I guess I’m a Masochist

You spit in my mouth

call it love

Burn a cigarette

in my head

to show I’m yours

You bind me to

the bed to show

our lust

I don’t know

where I start and

you begin

We’re mixed and mashed

together

Like some baby food

But I do know

that I hurt and

you bow and I

like it that way

Poem a Day

2009-12-02T10:45:00.000-08:00

Lately I've been entranced by the form and release of poetry. It's been something I've been ignoring lately and I will spend the next year, from this day on, writing a poem everyday. No matter how tired, how mentally fatigued I appear to be, expect a poem. Hope you enjoy the journey as I will enjoy embarking on it.

Intro

2009-11-23T10:38:00.000-08:00

Intro

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. An early twenties male, well-educated, suffers from an inexplicable disease, a sort of “reverse mid-life crisis,” a “young man’s burden” what-have-you, in which he allows the crux of being grown up and a collapsing economy to actually crush his spirit into mash.

Still have problems envisioning that? Ok…..here’s another angle. Focus on a young man waking up in Batman pajamas. He is red-eyed, hair stands on one side of his head, and hair covers his body resembling a young black bear. His body feels as if it has only slept for four hours. He has problems getting out of bed. With the speed of a sloth, he rises, stretches, and drags ass out of bed. He is up early this morning. It is only eleven o’clock.

He walks into the kitchen and pours himself a cup of coffee. Proceeding to the living room, he turns on the television and watches Sportscenter. For three hours. Nothing changes from hour-to-hour, just the sportcasters. He watches although he already knows the scores by heart. Knowing he should get up and do something but not having the strength, he flips through the channels only to find nothing is on. Back to Sportscenter. God, he can’t stand Hannah Storm.

Zoom in to a shower scene. His body is some-what impressive but not overly “worked” on. The concept of showering for an extended period of time always seems odd to him, so he speeds through his cleaning. He has always felt trapped in the shower, claustrophobic, like a telephone booth that is slowly filling with water. Don’t get it misconstrued; he cleans his body effectively, just the concept of marinating in the shower has always disgusted him.

He gets dressed. Quite the snazzy dresser. Something about dressing up has always been slightly erotic to him. He gets off on it. Italian jeans, Dress shirts, skinny ties: all devices of fornication. Though more often than not, he finds himself dressed to the teeth with nowhere to go. The prom queen that doesn’t have a date. Still, appearance means a lot to him. The clothes make the man and all that jazz.

After dressed, he proceeds to the bathroom. Although he has always had a fancy for finer clothes, his external appearance has always come across as “haphazard.” He wants to appear as though he just woke up. Like he spent no time in front of the mirror. The messy hair, the half-grown in beard; its all a façade to make you believe that he is indeed not that “vain.” He also wants to remain true to his roots, his essence. Inside of him lurks a smug, intelligent, Bukowski-quoting, Klosterman-envying, hipster who is too afraid to show his full appearance. But part of him wants to remain desirable to “attractive” women and hipster women are far from it with their sweaty palms, flat chests, and awful haircuts (except for Zooey Deschanel, but then again, she is the ideal hipster girl). Plus the whole aura of the hipster seems false to him, pretending to not care and be ironic, when it is quite obvious that defense is only kiddie-pool deep. These were the kids who were picked on in high school and know feel like they need to agree and nod in order to fit in with another kind of clique, a clique that “gets them.” The need to be understood yet an individual is something that plagues him on a daily basis. He blames his lack of sleep on it.

He has no one to call. He wants to go out but he knows he will wind up driving around aimlessly if he does. All dressed up with nowhere to go. Ashamed, he retreats to the basement to find some solace in video games. He tries to lose himself amongst the blood and shootouts but finds himself feeling like a dork, wasting time on something that really means squat. There are no life-affirming moments that come from games, just sore thumbs and slipping knowledge of the opposite sex.

The scene fades with him sitting on his bed later at night reading a book. His brow is scrunched, eyes focused on the pages, hands gripping the waxy cover. His demeanor is calm but he seems to be searching for something, eyes staring through the words, the ink, looking for a real meaning behind the author’s trick, the magician’s wand he shakes over his prose to conceal what connects us all together; the human element. He doesn’t mind the cat-and-mouse game, but much like the women in his life, he wishes that they would be open with him. He has spent most of his life confused and tricked by what he believed was right or what he felt was instinctual and natural for a young man to do and now all he wants is a little advice. Someone to tell him what to do. Losing himself in books and music, he hopes one will ultimate reveal his path for transcendence. Or at least get him high, momentarily. His luck has been so-so.

Scene fades as he closes the book, dims the light, and arches his back on his ever-uncomfortable futon. He rolls around; the bed creaks incessantly as the metal bar digs into his back. Need to buy an eggcrate is etched into his list of things to do but probably not going to happen list. Finding a comfortable spot, his head heavy, he closes his eyes and hopes to dream. Good luck, champ.

*****

This man is me. My name is Max O’Brien. Somewhere along the line, my life turned into a Smiths song.

Time Travel is FOR REAL

2009-11-01T21:29:00.001-08:00

Here are my pictures of my time travel adventure. Enjoy!!

Short Term Memory Loss

2009-10-30T13:53:00.000-07:00

Short Term Memory Loss

The concept of time travel has always fascinated me. I can literally argue for hours about the semantics of the process, the gravitas of being able to achieve such a feat, and how time travel as a whole could greatly change human growth for the positive if achieved.

I have done my research.

I have read H.G Wells’ “The Time Machine.” According to him, one has to be an asshole to time travel.

I have seen the “Back to the Future” movies numerous times (except for the third one, the one with the ridiculous Wild West storyline which really, really sucked). Marty McFly is an idol of mine.

I’ve bought the time machines via EBay and experimented with their time crystals. I have been burnt many a time.

But in all of my extensive research, the one constant seems to be the need for an actual device that allows for time travel. Whether it be lightning, a Delorean, or magic birthday dust which allows one to turn thirty from thirteen overnight, there must be some sort of “control” which allows for the portals of time to be open and allow the traveler to go through. I have spent my life looking for such a device.

Now I’m no scientist or genius or anything of that lot, but I have put in the hours and have found such a device.

Alcohol.

I started experimenting with the concept of time travel and alcohol quite frequently during my time in college-the perfect time for discovery and wonderment. Surprisingly, the effects were positive. I could travel hours into the future, wind up in strange parks or houses. I could wake up entangled with mysterious members of the opposite sex. Who were these strange future peoples? I could only remember bits and pieces of the process but never full memories.

But this form of time traveling had its drawbacks. First of all I could only travel into the future. There was no way I could travel back in time. It had its labors on my body as well. I would constantly wake up dehydrated, head hurting, and this hanging form of shame looming over my head. The shame was expected; Darwin must of felt the same when he took on God full force. I was trying to undress everything He had worked so hard to maintain.

I also always seemed to wake up naked without having a clue where my underwear was. My pants, shoes, and socks would be placed neatly under the bed but my underwear was never to be found. I began to nickname this part of the experiment “Terminator Syndrome.”

To increase my chances of being able to travel into the past, I increased my “control.” I would imbibe more alcohol on a more daily basis. I had time on my hands to experiment and the right vehicle. I would travel back in time.

****

Living in New York City gives one the rare opportunity to experiment with time travel on an almost daily basis. Alcohol is ever present; it’s splattered on the spray-painted walls, sleeping in dark alleyways that smell like piss, nestling in men’s rooms that quote numbers for blowjobs like Bible proverbs. It’s no wonder there’s time travelers like me everywhere.

****

Saturday October 24, 2009

Experiment #3

I get to the bar in good spirits. There is a sprite in my step and my usual assistants are on hand to make sure all goes well. We frequent the usual spots and I ensure that alcohol is imbibed in tremendous amounts. There is no time for standard drinking; every beer must be followed with a shot, every shot with another. I focus my inner energy on an exact date-March 13^th, 1997. The day before my story-telling contest final in New York City. I imagined myself as a favorite but I spent the night awake while my mother drunkenly screamed and caroused around the house. I wound up in fourth.

I tell people of my ambitions. Most scoff, others watch from a distant, while brave others encourage, buying shots for me, kissing me drunkenly on the neck and lips, propelling me forward. The mood was right for exploration. Was this the night for me to make history?

Soon the lights in my head begin to flicker. The colors swoon and swirl together like a Pollack painting. The first signs of time travel. I feel the rush come over my body like an ice bath. I try to grab onto a railing or chair but my body flounders about like a fish out of water. My body was being transported into the next dimension. McFly watch out, here I come!

****

I wake up in a bloody sweat. I’m screaming, chained to a hospital bed, sheets soiled, bleeding profusely. Where was I? I look around and see the vanilla walls of an emergency room. There is chatter, some crackhead outside screams bloody murder. Devices BEEP BEEP BEEP incessantly in my ear. An IV is inserted in my arm. My balls hang out of a pink hospital gown that is ill fitting. The room is chilled like a meat locker. Think, man, think. How did I wind up here?

I had traveled too far! That was it! I woke up in 1992, a hospital room, head split open from when I tried to kamikaze jump off my roof. I set my sights for 1997 but my mind must of mistaken the seven for a two, a common mistake. My mental handwriting has always been an issue.

I must get back to the present. I knew that the only way to travel back into the future was to escape out of the hospital prison and drink. But how was I to escape the clamps they had fastened upon me? I try to bite at the Velcro but the lint gets stuck in my throat. Maybe I could slink my way out. Sliding down the sheets like a wet eel, I kick and kick and try to position myself into a position of power.

It isn’t long till a towering shadow is looming over me.

“Just what in the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

She’s big, frazzled, worn about the eyes. Her scrubs are bloodied and her arms settle on her chest like twin pythons in hibernation. She’s the Nurse Ratched of my nightmares.

“There seems to be some mistake. I seem to have wound up in 1992 when I needed to wind up in 1997. See, I’m a time traveler and I had my eyes set on traveling into the past….”

“Just lay down and relax, buddy. You’ve been a real nightmare since you’ve come in. Kicking and shouting, screaming about time travel. Just relax. You’d think you’d done enough damage to yourself.”

My head pounds and blood oozes it way down from my skull into my mouth.

“What the….oh God, I’m bleeding!”

“No shit you’re bleeding. Doctor Roberts! Doctor Roberts!! His staples opened up and he’s bleeding all over the place again. Hurry! Will someone help me restrain him?!”

A couple of nurses rush over to my bed. Confusion and hysteria sets in. I try to kick and fight my way out of the melee. Just let me go! One nurse elbows me in the crouch. The other pushes all of her weight on my legs. God damn it! Let me go! I’m a fucking academic for Christ sake! I’m doing this for the benefit of all of you!

Doctor Roberts pushes in the curtains briskly and grabs me under my armpits, bringing me to a sitting position. In one hand he holds a syringe, the other a rudimentary stapler. Hold still, he orders. I oblige for the moment. He is obviously in a position of power and I have to surrender. He uncaps the syringe with his teeth while the nurses hold my torso in place. Plugging the syringe into the top of my head, the gel enters my scalp. My brain twitters. Eyes dilate. This is to make sure you relax, the doctor says, to ensure that the next part doesn’t hurt as much as it could. His voice is soothing. I find myself falling backwards into the bed. My eyes close.

****

I wake up in a different room. I’m still wearing the same ridiculous pink nightie but the IV is gone. There are no restraints around my arms.

I try to get up but my head feels like a ton of bricks. There is blood caked in my fingernails and splashed all over my arms. A weird obstruction protrudes out of my head. What the hell is this? I poke at the top of my skull. Is that staples in my head? Why are there staples in my head?

My mind races back to the night before. I was trying to time travel, I remember. We were at some bar, it was dark, and I stepped outside to get some light, a breather, and then….darkness. Blood. People shouting over me. You’re going to be all right. Sirens. Body stiff. Being carted off into the back of a hearse. An orange hearse. Strapped around my arms and neck. Body stiff. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.

“You’re really lucky to be moving around. Quite a mark you got on your head.”

Sunshine in the form of blue scrubs. Blond hair, blue eyes, an angel walks into my room. I’m sure she probably smells of lilacs.

“What year is it?”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes. What year is it?”

“Well, umm, it’s 2009. It’s a Sunday. October 25^th. Are you experiencing any pain? How is your eyesight? Are you able to see clearly?”

“No, I’m fine. How did I……how did I get back to the present? How did I wind up here? Where am I? I….I was trying to time-travel and it went wrong and I….”

“Just relax. Breathe. You’re fine.” She shines a flashlight in my eyes. “Nothing is wrong with you. We ran a Cat scan this morning and their isn’t any brain damage. You’re quite lucky. No harm done up there.”

“Where are my clothes? Are they under the bed?”

“What?”

“Are my clothes under the bed? Are they there? Are my shoes there? And did anyone find my underwear?”

“All of your belongings are in this bag next to your bed. I’m going to have to get you some new clothes from downstairs before you can go. You’re free to leave after that.”

I feebly move my head to the side of the bed and see the white bag containing what use to be my belongings. I say what use to be because they are literally ripped and shattered and bloodied beyond recognition. My cigarettes are the only things not damaged.

“Just relax right here and I’ll be right back with some clothes and your sign out sheets. Your free to go after that.”

The angel leaves my room. I never even got her name.

The man next to me complains about the inconvenience of quail bones and how they can easily get stuck in one’s throat. I lay my head against my bloodied pillow.

Time traveling sucks.

2009-10-20T10:42:00.001-07:00

Preface

I had really bad acne in high school. It’s not something I’m proud of but it was something that I went through during my formative years. I had it everywhere. My back and chest got the worst of it though; they were desecrated by it. I even got the occasional pimple on my thigh, or even worse, on my private area. Those were the worst.

And these were not your normal pimples. They were the huge, tumor-like pimples that leaked blood and pus. Each one had their own separate whitehead, an exclamation point of sorts.

I was lanky too. Not, hey you might want to gain a few pounds to even out that frame of yours lanky, but more like, holy shit I didn’t know they could train skeletons to walk and talk nowadays, technology must be really advancing, huh?

So picture this skinny, chest enclaved, pimple infested teen running up and down the basketball court with no shirt on. This was a common occurrence. Mr. Johnson, my high school basketball coach, made sure of that. Mr. Johnson either a) hated white people as a whole and wanted to make sure the race suffered through my embarrassment of always having to be skins in our pickup games (which I feel horrible even thinking) or b) saw my plight particularly hilarious and wanted to make sure to milk every laugh that could be had (I tend to lean towards this one).

But only the guys, my teammates, knew really how bad my acne was. Don’t get me wrong-you wouldn’t confuse my raccoon scratched face with a smooth piece of alabaster. But I could cover up my pimples. I’m not ashamed to say I wore cover-up (I am ashamed to say that most of the time it was my mother would put it on for me). And I never got caught (well once, and let me tell you, it was fucking embarrassing). I could still pretend I was your normal teenager who had the occasional bad pimple breakout, not the terrible, acne-infested, experiment gone wrong I was without a shirt on.

But that all changed one day during bio lab. I happened to be talking to one of the hottest cheerleaders in school, Judy. Judy was not like the other girls in high school. She was smart (head of the Debate team); funny (her favorite movie was Dumb and Dumber), and actually seem to have a minor interest in me (God knows why). Anyway, we were talking during lab and she was laughing at everything I was saying. She even touched my arm! And it wasn’t just a normal touch, it was practically a loving caress. Needless to say, I must have had this shit eating grin permanently stuck across my face like a badge of honor. Look at me, bio class! The hottest girl in school is talking to me and we’re not even partners!

It was then, when everything seemed to be going so damn well that this sudden throbbing began to pulsate from the center of my forehead. It was one of my friendly pimples, deciding to surface from its hibernation to bid me a good morning.

At this point, I had become a pro at popping my own pimples. It was a self-hatred ritual, one that would be conducted almost everyday after school. I always received a kind of sadistic pleasure from the procedure. Yeah it was painful and sad, but there was this sudden rush of excitement that would come from just popping the things. It’s hard to explain but popping pimples is just fun. I use to have contests to see which pimple would make the biggest explosion or which whitehead I could squeeze the most pus out of. The cleanup and the aftereffects always scarred my self-esteem, put I always took solace in the fact that I controlled my pimples’ lives and deaths. Simple joys, indeed.

Needless to say, this particular pimple was a renegade. It saw the memorandum that explained the procedure concerning the popping of pimples and shit all over it. That pimple decided its time to walk into the light would be during bio lab class.

Throbbing and pushing, the pimple etched its way out of my forehead. My mind was racing. What should I do? Maybe I should go to the bathroom, run out the classroom, I thought. No. That would look stupid. Some crazy man running through the hallways, screaming bloody murder about a pimple? There’s no way I could live that down.

Before my mind could wrap around the situation, the projectile missle shot outward. Like buckshot, the pimple broke into threes, each piece propelling itself forward to its target, Judy’s face.

It took Judy a moment to realize what had just happened to her. Landing smack across her forehead and exploding within her mouth, my pimple had in fact laid jihad upon her. Her eyes began to water. How could you do this to me, she seemed to ask. I was nothing but nice to you and I might of actually liked you, but you had to go and do this to me? I wanted to explain that it wasn’t me; it was my bad chemicals, my bad genes, hundreds and hundreds of years of horrible skin care by my ancestors in Ireland that caused this. I had nothing to do with this. It was the hand I was dealt.

Before I could explain myself or at least hand her a tissue, Judy ran crying out the classroom. The bio class grew solemnly quiet. They didn’t know what had happened and were too scared to ask. All they knew was something life changing had happened. I offered no explanations. I sat in my chair, hands folded, blood oozing out of my forehead.

Not surprisingly, the school soon would find out about the suicide pimple. It might of taken two periods or so but soon the school was buzzing. Did you hear about Judy? People took the story into their own hands too. Well, Jerome, who was in the bio with them, told me that he just had enough of her bull and just popped his pimple all over her.

What was surprising was how positive people were to me about the situation. I guess Judy had built up a lot of resentment and jealousy within the school but people loved that I had “popped” my pimple all over her. Girls who would never have talked to me in a million years suddenly smiled at me. Random guys would come up to me, pat me on the back, and say, man, fuck her dude, she got what she deserved. I became a cult hero. The wall I built around me to protect me from scorn became suddenly mysterious. I was kind of hot. I wound up taking a cheerleader to prom (who wound up hooking up with her ex during the prom) and being voted “most likely to succeed” in my graduation yearbook.

Judy left the school three months before graduation. I don’t even know if she finished high school.