'well Blog, it seems i haven't been here for a while. i almost forgot what this place looks like. Its still the same though, blank and white. but we'll fix that, won't we. Oh i'll fix you good blog. Anyway, I have two topics to discuss. First and foremost being the war. now i'm not here to preach, i have my opinions about this thing, but bigger than that, i have family in this thing. One of whom happens to be my sisters fiance, aka my future brother in law, nice guy, happens to be in the navy. Now this doesn't put him in the most dangerous position in the gulf seeing as he is in the waters and therefore several hundred miles from baghdad, and hopefully out of range of the weapons i am certain saddam will use. The other family member i have is PFC Joe Ackler,aka my cousin Joey. He is a marine, reserve, but a marine nevertheless. And since he is a marine he is slowly nearing the outskirts of Baghdad, Iraq. Hmmm, needless to say i am worried about my cousin, i suppose i need to trust that the soldier next to him is as well trained as i hope my cousin is. And i need to trust in the equipment the U.S. marine corps has issued him. Anyway, blog, i would just like you to say a prayer for my cousin and brother in law, meditate for him, or do whatever the official faith of the blog asks of you. Keep PFC Joe Ackler and Ensign Joe Hooper in your thoughts.
Second, is a response to a recent post of one Mark S. Pierce. I have to attempt to ammend a portion of your musings. I must agree with whoever said that scent, and not love, is the sense most strongly linked to the human memory, and therefore in my opinion the most poweful sense. Tell me you have not been walking around the ol' neighborhood on a nice spring day and suddenly you catch a wiff of something familiar. Instantly, you are an eight year old child running through the hills of wolf trap (<--insert your local state park) on your favorite field trip, spying on the young lasses with your new, antique binoculars that your favorite teacher gave to you. Or when you smell that certain perfume and instantly you are holding that certain girl again and experiencing all that comes with it, the anger, the joy, the peace, the sickness, whatever it may be. Only scent can triggers these emotions. The smell of that hand cream can making you be at her house, not just think you are. The smell of that shampoo can put her in your arms for an instant, with your nose up too her hair even though she may be several hundred miles away. Scent and only scent can do that. Even seeing the things themselves won't always bring on the same intense emotions. Touching her may not always be as real as when your nose tells you you are. And back to your point, i would suggest that love is not even a sense, and i think most would agree. The human senses are a group of active processes by which we recieve and interpret information. I might qualify love as a response to a certain input, but i don't think that would quite nail "love" down, or most other human emotions. Something like human emotions can only be described as a synergy of responses to various inputs, where the end result is greater than the sum of the parts. That is the magic of the inner workings of the human mind, that is why we make no sense, why people are so unpredictable, or interesting people anyway. So in summation, mark is wrong (just kidding) and keep those i know as well as all the rest of the brave young people over seas in your thoughts. good night blog.
Pat

Hello lamp post, whatcha knowing?

Boy oh boy, bored (see above for result) and tired, but with work to do. More snow to slide around on. See you soon.

Bloggy, bloggy, blog...


If one wants to see boobs, all one needs do is ask.

And then ask again.

Friday afternoon it was really nice out but I stayed inside for about an hour to put one of Sauce's old entries to music. I think you can even hear the traffic in some places. So I'm writing this for the second time now and am spacing on the humorous quips I just wrote a couple minutes ago. Congratulations to the new bodos sister and the victor of the Saturday night armwrestle.

And it starts all over again...

Consider yourself blogged...


A familiar feeling washes over me. That good old feeling that you just can't understand. Ah, nostalgia. Oh, reminiscence. More than deja vu, but less than a memory. I shut the floodgates, blocking the terrors without. As thick as the blanket of snow that refuses to take "no" for an answer, the feeling washes over me.
I tremble slightly. Can it be? Could the evil return? Surely those "February Blues" cannot be so intricately and decisively linked to the whims of the climate. Like clockwork? Like the waxing and waning of the moon? A fact? A statistic? Tales whispered like gospel from a grandfather's lips?
I deign to wax defensive. To assure myself. I will not accept this. Surely, this cannot be.
It is something more.
A familiar feeling washes over me. The spark of life inside of me can not, will not, be extinguished.
And OH, how the green-ness of the lights blesses all! It burns still! A beacon! A pulse! A goddamned REASON!
Memories flood my mind, like a once-barren tidal pool choking for today's last breath. Images, moments, and honest-to-goodness TRUTH. We breathe! We live! We love! There is hope, and the masks cannot lie to me anymore.
What does all this mean? What is happening to me?
I heard once that our sense of smell has the strongest memory. That the olfactory nerves were somehow more directly linked to our memory schema than any of the other senses. More than touch, taste, hearing, even sight.
THAT, my fellow true-believers, is naught but hogwash. LOVE has the strongest memory. Can we not remember so clearly those moments when we fell in love? When the crush was realized? The leering height of fruition? The dazzling explosion of emotion? The feeling of understanding all? Of finding meaning, sense, a pattern, in the cosmos? The look? The touch? The rush? The cliche?
Nothing can replace those memories. We have love in our lives.
The spark burns brightly, hidden and clouded by that which means not as much as we are lead to believe.
A professor met with me recently to discuss my complete lack of direction in life, and subsequently/consequentially, my inability to complete any schoolwork whatsoever. She asked questions that, in retrospect, were too personal. Yet, undeniably, RIGHT. What am I afraid of? What am I trying to prove? Why can I not let myself fail? Why is my desire to succeed so strong that I paradoxically am afraid to even try?
She was a mirror. I am always looking for what's next. I can feel no happiness in my victories, minor or major. I am sleepwalking. Looking for that which, at least, I cannot find, or, at most, doesn't even exist, and assuredly, that which I cannot make out in the haze of my confusion. But the time is now. We cannot deny the momentary pleasures, nay the momentary fragments of bliss, that dot the rugged landscape of being 21. We are letting it all slip by. We are sleepwalking. Why wait for perfection, when perfection can be realized simply by DOING, FINDING, MAKING? This can happen.
A feeling washes over me. The moments are realized in a blinding flash. We have love in our lives.




A triumphant return.

...and that is when the dream ended.

...In my investigation of the sign I was dumbstruck at the sheer brilliance of whoever wrote this. I looked around and people were happy, not a care in the world for them. As I looked no one moved in the form that I myself wanted to move. I wanted to run, I wanted to shout out, to warn the people of this dismal place. I wanted to shake the next man who walked next to me, to explain to him the importance of his footsteps. "Where are you going? Why are you walking so slow?" Those are questions I wanted to beat into the next man's brain, there was not a soul outside walking the streets worried about the impending doom that this sign foretold. Granted it was just a movie theater and most of the words on the board were foreign to me, well, because they were foreign, the names of movies from France and America, but I could see through them, see what was written underneath the actual words on the board. The Russian words spoke clearly to me...they spoke of the impending doom of the coming apocalypse.

I have lived a full life I imagine. Somewhere in the world lies a man who has achieved greater, but envy does not drag on my soul like men I see on the streets right now. The majority being successful, but they have led a life of ease with rare feelings of strife, only good descriptions like fortitude, executive, and business savvy have been stained into their pores, those words are unwashable from the skin. Congratulations for them! They walk the streets with a full vigor of knowing that their manlihood is safe, tucked into their satchels, into their rucksacks they hide their inner passions, but show their true love of being able to walk down the street and holler beautiful words and salutations because they know they've earned this right, it is enough to be happy. But look at the sign, they are blind to the words that it sees, it is unfortunate. I will not be able to decipher them in time, I cannot save the majority of these people.

The layers of sidewalk stretch for miles and miles before I reach the university. My friend Vasily's son Pavel, I need to find. Despite my own freedom I need to rely on this young man to see that I have enough sustenance to live since he has not been in prison for the last seventeen years. The university is teeming with life, enough people to fill a small factory and keep it working for days on end, a veritable gold mine for surveyors of this area. However, those days are gone, I am a fool. Not even two hours outside I revert back to my days before. I am thinking nonsense, I need to find Pavel. I reach a tan bricked building, which is where he lives on the campus. Strasvuytia I say to him in my most formal tongue. He replies in English, "Hello". This startles me, but I regain my composure quickly and ask him in Russian where to find Pavel Vasilievich Krelov. He looks through a folder, through a stack of papers and then picks up a piece of paper that fell on the ground next to him. He looks up and down the list, apparently his knowledge of the alphabet eludes him at the moment. He looks over at me lazily and tells me to find the fourth floor and its the second door on the right.

As I get to the elevator a young man in a workman's outfit is fixing the elevator. Astonished at the poor man's face and how young it looks I stop myself from saying anything as he turns to look at me. A handsome boy, barely eighteen years old he stares at me devilishly. It frightens me and I turn and walk off to find a stairwell. Startled again by the drab look to this basic architecture I turn at an opening where I would think a stairwell could be found, but instead of stairs I find an odd-shaped hold in the wall. They look like garbage shoots. As I look closer I see men working in a small, cramped room below with thousands of papers. There are literally two dozen men working in a space that could only fit maybe ten of them, its surreal, and all of them are dressed in the same khaki pants and white dress shirts. Some of them have hats, but most of them let their curly hair drift over their eyes as they study the sheets in front of them. One comes over to one of the shoots in which I am looking and puts an envelope through the shoot and closes the small door behind it. It hits me that I am staring into their dormitory's mail room. It feels strange to me, I have never seen so much paper and so much mail in my life. The men that live in this building must be an important lot to be receiving such mail. Another man comes over to me and as he puts the piece of mail in the slot and shuts the door he looks at me and cleverly slips a note in with the piece of mail and stares at me. I take the note and it explains who they are and why they are doing what they are down in this cramped mail room. It takes me a few times to read and fully understand what he is talking about, but he shoots me another look, this one harsher than before and tells me 'he knows'. Knows what I do not, but I have a feeling that within this note I will find out. He walks back to the desk in which he was working and another man comes up to me. He tells me to worry about finding Pavel later and to first listen to him. He explains everything to me. Apparently all of these men are 'brothers' I assume in the fraternity sense, but that they control and protect everything in the school and the city. They protect the masses from their ignorance, they seemed to have written the words that I read in the sign. They are both protecting and killing the city at the same time. Their cause is lost on me, in fact, they have no cause. Their actions seem to be pointless and yet they work like drones, busily feeding mail into envelopes and putting them in the boxes of their respective owners. But they seem to all be noble gentleman and if the words written in the theater sign are true listening to these 'boys' is the only thing I can do...

...I finally did it, after seventeen years of incarceration I was let go, jail life was no longer for me. Its been so long in those dark, cold dungeon sewer prisons for me to even remember why I was there in the first place. Even though I do remember, my heart is too weak to pursue it now, the establishment is not what it used to be, the regime before is now decimated, and the struggling republic now stands, they are why I am out of jail, but I have no qualms anymore, it doesn't matter who let me out or when, I am still not man enough to face any of it. I have been weakened, although I would hope my mind has stayed clear and sharp throughout this ordeal and able to allow me to function again out in the real world.

The city streets are now lined with lights and shapes of my imagination. But something is troubling me, off in the distance there is a sign that catches my attention. I am clearly several hundred feet down the red brick road. The brown underneath my feet looks like dirt, but the bricks in between suffocate the dirt around it allowing my foot to walk smoothly as I traipse lightly hoping not to disturb anything crawling underneath the bricks. I have no destination. I am supposed to meet with an old friends eldest son who goes to the local city university, in my youth I despised university "boys" as we called them, they were always lower than us, they did not know what it was like to work at eh age of fifteen in a factory for fourteen hours a day sometimes and still have time for elementary education. They had their fun, I know they did, I can see it in the way they walk, the gentleman and ladies that drape themselves over them. Times do not change, despite the better education out there, I grew up in a time that did not have such luxuries, but I guess albeit for the better. I somehow knew that I would be out of that horrible place sooner than most. It definitely makes you tougher, my father did not have to show me the ropes when it came to life. I worked the mills and factories until my unlawful arrest and punishment, and for what? Under the government's eyes I was just another drone, my words could not incite anything, not even a conversation back in the day. I thought I was a genius, but no one wanted to hear what I had to say except for, 'yes' and 'I'm on it' and 'see ya tomorrow'. No explanation, no further inquiry into something made better by a fellow co-worker, nothing.

Unfortunately, I seem to have lost a little bit of the language when I was 'away' because I look at this sign less than a few feet in front of me and have trouble reading some of the words. I am definitely in Moscow, I know the language since I grew up speaking it, but it changes, other people's influence on the language hurts my throat to read sometimes. These words I can barely make out, they look familiar but slightly altered, it is amazing that I am trying to figure this out. People walk past me not knowing who I am and slighting me my true self, acknowledging me as a poor beggar because of my out of style clothes and confused demeanor. If I was walking this street twenty years ago I would have looked like one of those university 'boys', all bundled up in the furriest coat, with a stylish hair and short trimmed beard. Apparently the jailers hadn't realized the change in times either, since they gave me this look. I etch out a smile from my lips, it feels foreign to me but I'm sure I have been doing it for awhile now since the only facial expression I have been doing for about one hundred yards is a dumbfounded one, there is a smile hidden somewhere in an expression such as that.

"Pump up the blog."
- Mark S. Pierce (the 'S' stands for Satchel Page)

Haven't seen him 'round these parts lately.
Sauce just faceplanted in downtown Syracuse. Everyone survived all right with minor cuts and giggles, so don't worry too much. I really just wanted to say thank you for everyone who makes me laugh throughout the course of a day. I read a depressing statistic the other day about how the average adult laughs 3 times a day. "Horrendous," I say, "that can't be!" Keep up the good work, Planeteers. Earth, Fire, Wind, Water, Heart!

Listening to Godspeed. Writing a research proposal. Printing it out in the AM, my man. Good night.

Dear James family,

I've considered writing to you several times this semester, however most of my early drafts ended up crumpled at the foot of my trash can full of good intentions but with no clear message or point. Tonight my so-called journey took me to the city of Rochester where I enjoyed the eclectic stylings of The Fire Theft, a band that I do not feel foolish wondrously gaping in awe at. I try not to end my sentences with a preposition, but I do feel I'm running out of time.

You can be my Mr. Henshaw when I feel embarrassed about addressing the public domain with my insecurities and inside jokes. I know this place gets dusty on occassion but I must stress that everything I write holds true and is not a work of fiction. Don't get me wrong, because I want to write some fiction at some point and enjoy the thought of a family (5 sisters, 1 oldest brother) that tends to fall into wacky and sometimes-predictable adventures.

My glasses are filthy right now, so that might again hinder this letter's potential and guarantee it a spot on the floor next to the trash can. Maybe it would explain the difficulty I have with writing a simple message in a birthday card. Do you ever feel like you know what you want to say but don't know what the best sequence is? Maybe we can put our heads together someday and make a belated birthday better. Start from scratch?

Lastly, I know it's unrealistic but I'll throw this out there to be polite: The Planet 505 will be hosting an entertaining evening of music this coming Tuesday, the 25th of March. Janet Drive (ex-Driving Jon's Bronco) will most likely have some teaser CDs with these suckers on them, as well as some other goodies and good company. Enjoy your meal, I know I'll cherish the Faygo.

fondly,
wcm

Ode On a Rose Petal:
Let me love your beautiful satin skin
Let me caress such silky fabric with
downtrodden hands
Let me sing to you
To keep you smiling and alive
Full of life and happiness
Let me sense the sweet smell of your scent
Let me take it in, slowly, passionately
as if to truly love it
Let me whisper to you
Words of love to make you blush
Despite your already red cheeks
Let me bathe you with divine water
Let the divine water flow down
flowing down from your center of gravity
Let me listen to you
When the sun comes up and sustenance brings life
And into you breathes fresh, spring air
Let me love you
Love is what I can provide
Beauty in every inch
Let me love all of it

Dogs live a few hours later. Yeah, they live a few hours later than cats do, at least that is my feeling on the subject. Forget about death and destruction, war and pestilence, forget about all that. Just remember when dying to love the things around you, they will forever be imprinted in your brain, in your mind, in your soul. Do not worry about when death comes, when the grim reaper comes, try challenging him to a game of chess (we all know how he loves chess [and yes I am calling him a he because only males can be cruel and take life away from another creature so easily and without reason]) or he might just play the sly card of death and chop down your tree with you in it after you already pretended to be dead, c'mon, like that -ish works with Death or Charon or Anubis or anyone of those fun-loving guys who just want to party like they remembered it back in their respective eras. I cannot wait until the new guy arrives. I wonder if black is still going to be in? Or if gold might make a comeback? Maybe he'll fly, wow, what a neat-o trick that will be when he swoops down on some magic and sweeps the life out of your ears and eyes, but then leaves your heart and mind and soul to hug and kiss those next to you. What a cool dude. Some day people will want to be just like him and dying will become a thing of the past. Let's not forget the happiness love brings. So if dogs can live a few hours later, then humans should figure out their style to confront their Death with because whatever he does for them, jeez, let me tell you, I would love a piece of how that works, a small piece, whatever the man can provide.

Let us personify personification: the dog was too taken aback of what it had to say that it forgot to speak on the matter. But then again, since when have dogs ever commented on the weathering forces that provide sediment from mountain streams and forge new paths while making rivers meander and walls shake. Plus never have I heard any dog, or cat for that matter, comment on the snow settling into its home at night. I've seen the snow at night try and reach the light after reading in bed, but instead having to get up and walk over to the other side of the room to step into the fridge before the light melts away into oblivion. But again it is such a beautiful sight to watch a loved one sleep in angel's wings and shower her with careful light. It is a wonderful feeling. As he said before, dogs live...

I know how each slab of sidewalk on my street is laid down because for the longest time I had to ride my bike on it and not out in the road. Some patches have been redone since the olden days, and they are a brighter color of concrete. Other sections of sidewalk are very uneven and just asking to be jumped over with a pop wheelie. It's favorable or unfavorable topography, depending on who you ask. In the years between training wheels and drivers ed I remember being pretty content but sometimes bored with being home, where on a summer afternoon the farthest you could get away was as far as you could pedal. I also remember something involving driving range golf balls and a gold aluminum baseball bat, which is now far too small for me but at the time made a great PING sound in little league games and also at the foot of my driveway. I'm not really sure why I did it, because I never got the balls back, and it's not like I was trying to destroy private property. My best guess is that it felt good, hearing the sharp ping and seeing the sucker fly down the hill (whose elevation appears to have become less steep every year until I stopped growing and finished at six foot three-and-a-half). Where am I going with all this...

It's late. I just drove home through backroads, crossing state lines because I can. It wasn't done for nostalgia's sake, but it might as well have. Meeting up with pals at one spot, organizing a motorcade elsewhere, watch bad movies/delight in multiplayer video games/strum a guitar missing its high-E string. Of course, there are many variations on this theme, some of which have very rewarding and memorable results. It's these memories I'm afraid to lose and afraid to keep creating... here. Not there... I'm not worried about there, because that's taken care of. So much potential exists there that everything can completely change in a matter of days, hours, minutes and I could never see it coming... of course, the wonderful thing is that I don't have to see it coming. Regressing to the late night driving imagery, I think it's comparable to driving on a twisting two lane road in a fog or a light rain. You're just keeping your left tires parallel to that double yellow line, and with your remaining energy following those headlights ahead of you or watching out for heedless deer (you just miss the big one). I'm no good at getting lost either... I'll rephrase that: I'm no good at dealing with getting lost. However, I think those become the most memorable times and after some practice I got good at telling myself, "you're going to wake up in your bed tomorrow morning after sleeping no less than 8 hours, refreshed and ready to get all sorts of lost again."

I also wanted to talk about legos, forgetting songs on the piano, and UN resolutions. Here's to reminders.

wcm springbreak spins

hot hot heat - make up the breakdown
joan of arc - so much staying alive and lovelessness
desaparecidos - read music/speak spanish
death cab - photo album
zwan - mary star of the sea
bob nanna mix cd
cursive - the ugly organ
ted leo/pharmacists - hearts of oak
whiskeytown - faithless street
minus the bear - highly refined pirates
aloha - sugar

Blog it where it counts...

Alberto, I agree. I like both songs quite a bit. I just sat and let Salt Eats Cars sink in. Strangely, the lyrics mean more to me now than when I wrote them. When I wrote them, or dreamt them up really, I didn't really know what I was saying. But now, they really seem to address how I feel about a lot that seems to be happening (or not happening, as it were) in my life.

Some choice bits:
"Grab the wheel for a second. Can you steer? Stop the car." ---- I never really understood that line. But it means something to me now. I love the contradiction, the confusion, the powerlessness of the speaker. Seems to fit.

"Avalanche on flat ground." ---- This could mean a lot of things...but it means more now than ever before. And I know from our previous discussions and blogs, that I'm not the only one that feels like I've been blind-sided with a blanket of blah as of late.

I must say that I'm pretty proud of some of the vocals at the end of the song. I've been happy with some of our recordings before...But I feel like I got to show off a little with Salt Eats Cars.

So keep listening...Feel free to share something about the words therein. I'm interested to hear what others think.

PS...Why didn't anybody tell me that the new Cursive cd comes out today??? Looks like I'm going to Soundgarden.

ok so ive taken it upon myslef to brag and boast a bit about the new Janet Drive recordings...
i just finished a shitty painting and the clock is slowly creeping towards the 4:00 marker, but i cant help but sit here and listen to salt eats cars for the 5th time.. personally i believe this to be a well spent 38.75 minutes, its like e magical journey each listen. i just cant get enough, and pretty enough is damn solid too, (though i do worry about volume). but noththeless im extremely pleased and as i start to listen to salt eats cars for the 6th time i bid you farewell, and good night.


(don't throw cars)