Here's a quick rundown of the past 24 hours (mind you its been emotional):

Yesterday around this time I was sitting with my dad on his couch while he was at the grill with chicken marinated in a garlic and lime sauce. I was reading the Free Press and watching MSNBC stock lines running across the bottom. My dad walks in and starts talking about stocks that catch his eye, especially Google, which rose past 300 and everyone's excited because in August he said they will add it to Standard & Poor's 500, causing it to "have arrived" in monies exchange speak I imagine. Then we started on the NBA draft and after that it was time for dinner. So we ate green beans and rice with the grilled chicken and chatted some more. Then we sat down and chatted some more while Richard Pryor's 1981 classic Bustin' Loose played on the television. I left around 9:15. It was emotional. Since I am leaving Michigan for a good while, my dad felt the need hug me for an undisclosed amount of time. I didn't mind. Then I left and drove back home.

When I got home my mother was there. She had been up north for two days and just got back around the time I was at my father's watching television and eating. I went into the kitchen after saying hello and saw a letter from Syracuse University. Huh. Well, apparently I can not receive my diploma. They are saying I am missing a class for my basic liberal arts core. Damn! What?!?!? Since when. I thought that was taken care of back in the fall when I had my degree check. Apparently not. Also, they brought up my missing grade from a summer internship, which I know for a fact was taken care of by the records people at Newhouse. I guess no one communicates between schools. Bummer! I thought I played a good middleman, but apparently I had scouted the wrong player. Too bad I couldn't speak Japanese. Why is there a Japanese basketball player playing in Spain anyway. Geez. No breaks eh?

This morning I woke up, ate breakfast because I did not want to call the Syracuse records office on an empty stomach. She wasn't there. She will be back in her office tomorrow. Try emailing her. Okay. Done. Its 5 o'clock and I am going to meet my mother for dinner in an hour, but I have to run to CVS first, so I should leave in a few minutes. I just checked my email. Empty. A message from the CDC actually. I don't care. They advertise internships in NY for advertising and PR firms. That doesn't work. I already checked mandy.com and craigslist and the two Lauren suggested. A nice help. Soon I will be in LA. But an online course in social sciences might be in the future soon as well. I just wish I would have known of this earlier. I could have taken a summer course right now. Damn! Another reason why I cannot stay. I need to make a quick $2000 to pay for another 3 gosh darn credits to receive my diploma. I graduated with 134! What happened! Am I out of my mind.

"I think we all know the answer: forced prayer in schools." -David Cross

Also, a women in a jaguar wearing sunglasses and holding a small dog in her lap with one hand and driving with the other raced me off the line at the light today. That was humorous, but now I think of what a terrible person she was because she knew she had to merge in twenty feet. Silly people do a lot of silly things with silly monies.

Bill, what's your address in Philadelphia. Lauren told me to ask you so I can mapquest it and get directions. Word.

Chris, you almost got a contextual message from me tonight. I thought it would be funny if you received it where you are, seeing as I would be writing it three hours in the future. It was going to read: I am staring down Jim James. He's all wrapped up in a bottle of Jim Newman's wine.

You are probably the only person, at least whom I know, that would find that remotely humorous. If I wasn't so caught up in the moment, I probably would've crafted a more clever way of combining the two Jim's. But yeah, I saw My Morning Jacket and Wilco tonight outdoors and it was great. Like I said, I stopped myself from writing or calling anyone because I have this vivid memory of some Sunday night when I was between eight and ten. I was getting ready for bed when my father received a phone call from his old college roommate Mark Williams, who was seeing Bruce Springsteen play at the Meadowlands and hoping to share his opening song with Dad. Thinking back, this had to have been in the early age of cell phones. Oh how it must've been uncomfortable to carry in a pair of jeans. Mark is a pretty crazy character, too. When I was younger he would crash at our house on trips to DC from his home in New Hampshire. One morning I remember we watched Bingo on cable.

The whole thing just made me think of how it's really not too hip to call people from concerts. But that was almost me. No matter how amazing it was when MMJ played the slowest song of all-time for six minutes until it crescendoed into the prettiest/heaviest head-nodder this side of a grain silo. Or when I thought Aaron Lachant would really want to hear "Kingpin" because it reminded me of welcoming 2005 with him on a 70 degree night in New York City. I restrained myself and I'm proud.

"For a year now I have walked around with a secret, a secret I chose to keep. But now I want you to be among the first to know that I have made plans to renew and revive The Smashing Pumpkins. I want my band back, and my songs, and my dreams."


Wow. I really didn't see this coming. I've been trying to keep up with Billy's so-called "Confessions" on his website (a project I think he really enjoys working on, not just for his fans but for his own notion of autobiography), and I have noticed a good deal of nostalgia regarding his Pumpkins days. I wonder if James and D'arcy have been contacted, or if this was a preemptive strike of sorts.

I wasn't really planning on shelling out $40 to see Corgan on his summer solo tour, but a Pumpkins reunion, genuine or not, may be a bit more enticing.

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Thank you Al for letting me use your computer while you are away. I miss you though. I wish you were here. Surprisingly, a lot of old thoughts were laid out on the coffee table tonight. Events that happened that now seemed unavoidable. 'Tis a shame, some of them, yet others are still wonderful and will remain wonderful. Reflections of the moonlit hill overstretching the boundaries face enormous facets larger than any one man can even begin to deify. Moments in time frozen like any other frozen moments in time--suspended animation, like cells of your favorite cartoons growing up.

Let's rejoice, let us...puust nashi many things...drink to loved ones...sing to lost ones...pretend an ancient human race came storming up the beachfront. What could you do to stop them? Give up?

I sent my loved one a kiss tonight. She devoured it whole. I sent my loved one a smile. She kissed my cheek. I sent my loved one a letter. She spoke softly and gave me another kiss on the cheek.

Plenty lives are won and lost in the cosmic shuffle. Its a Las Vegas-esque vaudeville act humoring all the penny pinchers and whistle swallowers. Junkies eat rice and burn flowers. College books are torn to shreds by carrion ingested warmongers. The shiftless face uses his throat to warn of a passing ship. Not everyone knows where to sleep, or on which railroad to tie.

Whoa. Whoa. Whoa!!

Sauce is rolling over in his Sherman Oaks couch.
There is a Midwest Product song, "Swamp" I think, in a newish Hummer H3 commercial. They will be eating well tonight and for many more, I do hope.


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Everyone is abuzz. Work has momentarily ceased and streaming radio and video are talking into both of my ears. Michael Jackson. Aruba. Would you change religions to date Tom Cruise?

Wasn't there some Mr. Show quote that roughly went, "entertainment news is neither entertainment nor news." My sentiments exactly, but I (maybe) see the fascination.

It's getting late just for any old Tuesday night. So I'm drinking vodka and multi-fruit and vitamin Trader Joe's juice to get sleepier. I wish I were in New Zealand. Maybe I'd complain about the frequent rain, and be curious about how the kiwi birds deal with it all. I mean, I'd have shelter and books and hopefully my ipod.

Perhaps I'd be listening to the new Billy Corgan album. You must understand, this man was once my guitar-songwriting-postgrungewhatever HERO. And when I was fourteen I would likely buy just about anything with his name or farts on it. Now, well, I will download it before it's officially released. TheFutureEmbrace is a kind of a pretentious title, no? And some of the songs are pretty god-awful, but there is this Bee Gee's cover, a song I maybe had heard once or twice before called "To Love Somebody," that I think is amazing. It reminds me so much of some things on the highly underrated Adore album and also features Robert Smith on background vocals. A pleasant surprise.

The summer weekmode is beginning, I think. I've seen (i.e. read) Sauce here and there and I know he is leaving Michigan for a spell for LAX and futuristic things that the last four years have prepared him for. Keep us up to date.

I have an idea for a fun project next week. It would require five consecutive days of blogging so we'll see. ok. It worked. Sleeping some and waking up before my alarm and hearing baby Charlie downstairs. Night.

I'm burned out...

When I am 42 on the eve of my first heart attack, a week long vacation from a busy year is all I think I will need. I spent almost a week away from my home traveling to East Lansing, Chicago, and Kalamazoo and by the end I cannot remember a time I have been so worn out by traveling and constant companionship. Also, a drink or multiple per night does not help in the cause of staying afloat. My body can only hold so much laughter until it gets tired because I am an old man who does not have the stamina for good times anymore. It is my chance to grow old and morbidly bitter, while turning my loved possessions into thoughtless caricatures in a box.

Don't be afraid...

Written in several different languages. The only ones I understood were the various spanish and slavic phrases. A simple phrase spoken inside a lounged clam shell with as few as one word. The essense of language causes my desire to study linguistics or at least look into a grad program somewhere in my futurist self to study russian language. Why not? I am already half-way there, why not go the extra mile at some point in my life. Although I cannot run it, I can always catch up after I take a break, get myself back in shape and run again.

Two friends drunk on different nights singing the haze...

A long time ago I wondered what it would be like walking into a bar eating a graham cracker with marshmallow on it. A song would play about tripping mushrooms and I would sense a haze of walkabout naturists. iTunes shuffle would play three sixtoo songs in less than a half hour. My friends and I would be there rooting on several teams in a bar made of televisions where the screen in front of you reflected the game behind you so you could not make out anything going on in either game. Charming! Send for a cab! Okay, we'll walk.

Rap songs...

Who did I get into a conversation about this? It was Shaw I think. Remember when they used to be playful. It brings back memories of the people mentioned above. All of them. A time in my life where I sat in the backseat everyday. Here is a picture.

Bill send for me when the time comes.