russian children

teens: round 2

so real. tell all your friends

in other news, it's the first official day of winter

red ones

my depth perception.
it's at an all time low.
fortunately i have big red boots to get me through the massive mush piles that have accumulated on street corners




today i was waiting at the corner and this blind man is like - let's go across together. we hold arms and i'm like, dude, im gonna take you on a windy, wild path so we don't go through the mush pot, and the blind man is like, girl it's all good, check out these boots!

i look down and in fact he's got the best boots ever.
i wish i wish for blind persons on the east coast, on every coast, to have efficient, water-resistant boots. they rule.


speaking of brass, can anyone else not get enough of this right now?

knives out

this morning this woman dressed all in black who was incongruously nice was offered a seat on the subway because she was carrying a big black heavy bag. she was so exquisitely thankful and kind to the woman who offered her the seat. she kept smiling and making sure the other woman had enough space. she smiled a lot and nodded her head with thanks and radiant love. then a man seated himself next to her, momentarily pulling at her jacket, revealing the shiny black dagger that was tucked into her belt.

new earth

2010, can't even wait

dinner is served

new brunswick nightlife

one time i was stranded in new brunswick new jersey for work. myself and a few other inebriated colleagues spent a night dancing in an emptied out conference room of the hotel - nothing but an ipod, one crucial speaker, and the light of a christmas tree to keep us going. oh and an open bar. when that ran out, we made our way into town, i use the word "town" loosely as this was like main street new brunswick, where anything is possible for one dollar.

at one point we took a weird left and ended up at this punk-rock bar. i use the term "punk rock" loosely as there were a bunch of like purple haired, lip pierced grunge monsters walking around all surly, but after unanimously identifying themselves and their aesthetic as "punk rock" open mic night, these kids got up and started playing sister hazel. im not kidding. like dc 101 in 1998. i was expecting at least a little rank and stank but these kids were raised on a diet of green day and pink. they didn't know chip from dale.

things were getting bleaker in new brunswick. i tried my hand at the fucking family guy-themed pinball machine. lost my laundry quarters. it's close to 2 so the bar is closing, open-mic night nearing it's emo end. "one more act" they announce, lo and behold it's jimmy the bartender, he chugs a little bud lite and throws the dish towel to the bar back. he's a little nervous and i would be too - this man has to play what, some emotional tunes and then head back to crack skulls and herd all these dummies out the door?

jimmy and 2 other dudes step up to the mic - jimmy's on drums, there's a bass and one electric. so far so good. and suddenly. jimmy.is.wailing. drum rolls, pops, scrubulous, magnificent. i wish i remembered what like classic rock led-floydian jam they were banging out, i was busy spilling beer all over my melted face. jimmy got the lead out. after 6 ecstatic minutes they were done, immediately done, pulling plugs and strings and jimmy just leaps up and heads back to the bar. that's it? i ask, ungrateful as a mule. that's it, jimmy says, but you can come back tomorrow for like, vampire karaoke.

no jimmy, i will never come back. but fuck, jimmy, thanks for giving us a show.

good things are everywhere

500th blogpost

there are probably plenty of things that i've done 500 times. used a spoon. peed. RBI's. turkey sandwiches. but none of these things are backed by the digital affirmation that this is truly the 500th. I don't want to make too big a deal out of this, so I'd like to turn it over to my little friend, Hayden Wright. officers said he was wearing a little girl's dress and drinking a beer. crack open a colt with me and hayden, here's to 500 more.

now hear this

news you can really believe in.


in other news, this morning i was dead tired because i stayed up all night learning about the west coast with azad. in other news, on my zombie march to the subway there was a little girl shrieking and crying and wheeling a scooter behind her mom. probably as a parent you develop ear muffs to when there is shrieking and crying, so when i walked by the mom was momentarily roused and was like, "what... uhhh, why are you crying?" and the little girl, through gobs of snot and tears and salt is like, "i'm crying because i'm coooold".

kids are the weirdest. i mean i wanted to cry too, because i was tired and cold, but years of social conditioning have taken away my ability to cry. now i have to rely on syrupy manufactured concoctions from the entertainment industry to find release. like up. jesus, have you seen up? i cried a ton. and it felt so great.

can someone help me cry? im ready for a good one.

in other news, jessie and i are ready to learn about austin. i heard there are breakfast tacos there. TACOS. for breakfast. in other news, we're all in the process of dying, chemical compounds are infiltrating our genetic make-up as we speak. so. what are you wearing? i'm wearing a sweater dress. it's warm like a sweater but cold like a dress.

what are you working on? i just applied to blog for the Smithsonian. a job for dreamers. rumors abound. getting paid to blog? like the first time you hear about waffles with syrup. what vitamins are you taking? im working on vitamins B and D. they make your pee an exquisite color that would seem to violate nature but in fact it's just right.

what are you cooking tonight? me, i say risotto or a BLT.

finally, this is detroit

i just called serbia

they hung up on me

1934

eight and a half hours in maryland

yearly drive, through the muck, with cereal



i only took 2 pictures this weekend.



this one is of jessie eating potato salad and a cream cheese bagel bite on 95 south.

what's better than a sunday.




Jessie: at one point in response to someone's question about how my weekend was

Jessie: i said look at my face

think about it

celebration day

the woman that lives underneath me is having a next level argument with her kid - i can't tell if its a boy or a girl, just high pitched and prone to draw out syllables like "maaaaaaham!"

just another reminder that being in your 20's is without parallel, hands-down so fucking good. when i was little my mom and i fought a ton, in retrospect it had everything to do with her making me an equal way early, and me freaking out whenever i got treated like a kid again.

right now im wrapping up presents to see a handful of my closest friends in the world. in the meantime i might get coffee or smoke a bowl or eat one of the brownies that are cooling on top of my oven. i can't think of anything nicer than being 25.

within this space are elephants and rocking chairs

paralysis as a result of awkward encounters, and the fetishizing of said encounters, is dumb

that being said, the sting of something awkward can be revisited to maximum physical effect for so long after said event

that being said, there is awkward shit all around and defeating the tendency towards it is liberating and essential to becoming a fully formed person

that being said, i cannot wait to find a space that is truly my own

muhtouring hormones

"no matter how you feel, you have to live with people"

it would be a lie to say i'm not learning

dansecubicle friday

you're the book that i have opened




i first encountered this song on the sliver soundtrack. sliver, i suspect, is one of those movies that was super sexy at age 7 but is still sexy by twenty-ten standards as it starred sharon stone and a baldwin brother, which one i cannot recollect.

this song has, among other things, been identified by wikipedia as one of the greatest ever. case closed.

i've had this one mingling with massive attack for the past 2 days, for obvious reasons



i dare you not to get twirly over the opening bass line. i wish that i could turn on mtv and see this video with all these filthy british kids kickin it against wild CGs.

also, this is the product of Staton's collaboration with Will Oldham. gadzooks. seriously try it out.

jesse!

i've been trying for years to remember the name of the sega game that my brother and i used to waste hours on in my dad's basement. one level is underground, and if you kill the right dude you turn into a fuzzy blue bear. MAGICAL!

it literally just occurred to me to ask my brother. within 2 texts he was like, fuck yes, altered beast. ALTERED BEAST. just like my brother. amazing.

jon moses

within this heaping moss bowl
i battle on



dreaming of you
and this giant electric heart






are we not warriors?

so

rumor has it that new years in san fransisco is so great that it makes you shit your face off. seriously that's what i heard.

what the what

why do we treat criminals that are rich like small children? let's acknowledge some elephants. you are some criminals. pay that shit back. you had to anyway you jackals. the middle class is over. i have $100 in the bank. enough.

wednesday

red red panda

come to me

some news

examination of fossilized dung fungus has caused scientists to reconsider extinction theories - dung don't lie!



young hemingway. nice.

he participated as an ambulance driver / journalist in 4 different wars. he lived through the shit. then he grew a beard and shot himself. what a world.




once there was such a thing as bone crushing wolves with broad skulls that accommodated enormous, jagged, bone-crushing fangs. they could take down mammoths.



female common side-blotched lizards can vary the levels of the hormone estradiol they give their eggs to affect their offspring's back pattern. they choose their babies colors!

never been kissed

fennec fox on the prowl

resolved

the pixies, live in technicolor

DAR Constitution Hall has seats the color of presidential navy, spangled with aging stars in a kind of yellow. I watched my brother graduate from high school there, and in fact this is the reference point that most burb residents gave when i said i would be seeing the pixies there monday night. waiting impatiently for the "m's" to be called on a sweltering dc summer afternoon in 1999 is a little different than waiting for jay reatard to get off stage - for one thing, i spent this musical evening being expressively drunk, drunk enough so that this morning in the mirror i caught a large and unsightly ketchup stain down the front of my sweatshirt, and cannot recall why exactly there might be a ketchup stain but i am hoping that tater tots were involved.

the pixies take the stage to great applause, they, like the crowd, are a little on the sweaty, fuller-faced side of cool - frank black looks like an out and out troll doll that your little sister shaved while you were away at college. his pot-belly and turned out hips-waddle give a fester adams kind of vibe, until he opens his mouth, and then it's just vibe.
"we're playing b-sides first" kim deal explains, after chanting "weird at my school" with the rest of the band.

nostalgia was in fact the order of the evening as the band played the entirety of "doolittle" - their first international release from 1989. back when rolling stone magazine was physically (culturally?) bigger and had the perplexing smell of perfumed mold i read an interview with kurt cobain citing the pixies as a huge influence, and i promptly joined one of those pyramid scam music clearing houses and ordered this album and like Violater. sorry, dad.

the cd sat in a pile of jewel cases until i was 14. the first time i heard the opening bass line to "debaser" i was lying on the floor in a pile of dirty clothes, probably thinking about kissing boys or something. it blew my face off, and then frank black starts scream-talking about slicing up eyeballs, which i used to think was "bibles" and in any case, both are blasphemous and a little sticky.

to see this live electrified my 14-year old self, and generally everyone at DAR, though the married couple in the row directly in front spent the evening huddled together with their pinky fingers in thoughtful repose. the gurgled screams of "tame" and the bass heavy boy talk / girl coo of "i bleed" felt like being new to high school - small and angsty and sweaty and angry at most but not all and loving everything until your heart gets sore. which is why it momentarily blew my mind when my dude andrew recently commented on the pixies vibe being dirty/pretty. i associate them with being punky and innocent and violent all at once but kind of in these separate bubbles, but thinking of them as dirty/pretty together like the breeders or like, david bowie feels sort of new. it's like a lot of people describe them as "surreal" or whatever but to me the pixies feel like trying to get your dick in the right place or really liking grosse point blank ... awkward and throbby and comedic and super fun. and i guess that's all of it dirty/pretty.

there was a ton of buzz on the nerd about how frank black and kim deal stand on opposite ends of the stage and hate on one another, but amid deal's cheery crowd-love, her and black make expressive faces and hip shakes at one another - consummate punk professionals. and here's the thing about seeing old(er) people play punk music 20 years after releasing it, best summed up for the duration of "gouge away" - the sick conclusion to doolittle. the violence of asking "sacred questions" in your youth most likely (?) fades with age ... just like the "3 day parties" and the urge to "break the walls / kill us all" that black shrieks about. it's so wild to see these 30 something punks, people that wore their teeth and claws down on the gouge, but who are inevitably now contributing to the smooth resurfacing of these marks, in one way or another. you know, myself included. i'm definitely done gouging for a bit, my most forceful scooping is all about the scooped like pick-up from the metro. i recently saw the dirty projectors and for all their dirty/pretty eye-jaded hyped dramatic tension, they are definitely putting on the gouge. the pixies are riding the wave, which is why, although it was SUPERfun to see them, it all felt kind of masturbatory. but, you know, that's what being 14 is all about.

i'd like to thank the WPA

last night i went to bed drunk in silver spring.
this morning i woke up to coffee and almonds in new york city.

jessie, for instance

here are some inexplicable costumes




my favorite it dressing up like a bee and then standing really close to your horse, whom, while also dressed in black and yellow stripes, doesn't really have anything to do with a bee, and never will, and so you're just dressed as a bumble bee, killin it.