What the shit! What. The. Shit. 5.15AM and a Brooklyn firetruck is driving down wide-ass 4th Ave towards the Brooklyn Tower of HSBC I believe it is, and making full use of the horns. What the shit. I can't sleep that well these days, I got to bed early sometimes and then wake up all cockeyed at some WhatTheShit hour.
My feet have sharp callouses and there is a war on in my shoes. The agents of aging for a young man's feet who tends to run and if walk, walk competitively even when there is no place to hurry to. I guess that's the result of being constantly tormented by people who are shit-free just freaking SLOW!
Wednesday, January 30, 2002
Monday, January 28, 2002
I never take the time out to make myself sane. I zip like a roach from under one canopy to the next. I am no longer sane or whole. My interactions at work are consistently steeped in contempt. With a sort of feeling that the future has been decided and that I will most certainly be leaving this present Park Slope and Work routine, I'm a lot less tolerant of all the bullshit. Oh, and it most certainly is bullshit. My life seems like it's so easy, that things should be so easy. It's like one of those trick challenges to eat six saltines in a minute or something. It SHOULD be cake, and I should be the happiest little fucker I know. I most certainly am not, though.
Wednesday, January 23, 2002
Trumpet
Further and further I push it along. I say what I feel lately, and it's been making people unhappy. Last night on the rooftop I met Stewart from across the hall. I was trying to get a good sound out of my trumpet. I have felt for a long time that I have lots of music in my head. If I can train myself to be able to extend that part of my psyche through an instrument, I will be able to learn something about myself. I will see parts of life from a different perspective, as well.. music is a very magical ritual that people conduct. Different cultures independently develop their own musical systems. It's a sort of communion of society. Isn't it strange though that it's almost instinctive? Depending on how you want to define music, I would suspect that some animals also use music in their experiences to communicate or do whatever it is that music does to a being.
Some say that Drum and Bass makes corn grow faster. I choose to believe that it has more to do with the heavy bass lines and vibration stimulating cellulose fibers and loosening them up to move and expand more easily rather than believe the notion that the corn is really into the syrupy matrices of percussion in good Drum and Bass.
Several times I have been struck with the curiosity to know what the oldest known written music in the world is. For some reason, I never remembered to find out. It seems there are some 3,400 year old tablets that some weirdo in Berkeley was playing with contain notation for music. I had a listen to the MIDI and have a feeling that it may not have sounded quite like the linked file.
Coincidentally, I was watching the Twilight Zone while killing time yesterday, and there was a chapter where this guy, Joe C---- something.. well, he was a trumpet player and he had been playing for a long time. Things weren't going his way though, and he had begun drinking. He drank because he was a nobody and he lived in a one-room apt. with dirty walls and cracked pipes, and because he didn't have a girlfriend and because he was a nobody. He said that when he drank he didn't see the dirt on the walls, and that he didn't care about anything. He wanted to play with one of his old pals, but he was horrible when he was on the sauce, so they told him no way.
Joe went on about heaven and how Gabriel has a trumpet made out of gold, and how Joe would play the trumpet so that beauty came out of it, the smell of summer flowers, just absolute acoustic beauty. After that dialogue, Joe went to the pawn shop and sold his trumpet for 8 and a half dollars. (This was like 1960 I think) The pawnbroker put the trumpet in the window for 25 dollars, and Joe felt beat. Then he sort of died, walking away from the window he got hit by a truck. After establishing that he was dead, he met up with Gabriel, who let him have a play on his trumpet. I love the twilight zone. Then Gabriel sort of encouraged him to appreciate life and his music a bit more. Joe went back, and made it.. and bought his trumpet back. Then he was playing on a rooftop in NYC and somehow (I stopped paying attention for a minute) a girl ended up on the roof. He was getting excited about going to go see jazz somewhere.
Some say that Drum and Bass makes corn grow faster. I choose to believe that it has more to do with the heavy bass lines and vibration stimulating cellulose fibers and loosening them up to move and expand more easily rather than believe the notion that the corn is really into the syrupy matrices of percussion in good Drum and Bass.
Several times I have been struck with the curiosity to know what the oldest known written music in the world is. For some reason, I never remembered to find out. It seems there are some 3,400 year old tablets that some weirdo in Berkeley was playing with contain notation for music. I had a listen to the MIDI and have a feeling that it may not have sounded quite like the linked file.
Coincidentally, I was watching the Twilight Zone while killing time yesterday, and there was a chapter where this guy, Joe C---- something.. well, he was a trumpet player and he had been playing for a long time. Things weren't going his way though, and he had begun drinking. He drank because he was a nobody and he lived in a one-room apt. with dirty walls and cracked pipes, and because he didn't have a girlfriend and because he was a nobody. He said that when he drank he didn't see the dirt on the walls, and that he didn't care about anything. He wanted to play with one of his old pals, but he was horrible when he was on the sauce, so they told him no way.
Joe went on about heaven and how Gabriel has a trumpet made out of gold, and how Joe would play the trumpet so that beauty came out of it, the smell of summer flowers, just absolute acoustic beauty. After that dialogue, Joe went to the pawn shop and sold his trumpet for 8 and a half dollars. (This was like 1960 I think) The pawnbroker put the trumpet in the window for 25 dollars, and Joe felt beat. Then he sort of died, walking away from the window he got hit by a truck. After establishing that he was dead, he met up with Gabriel, who let him have a play on his trumpet. I love the twilight zone. Then Gabriel sort of encouraged him to appreciate life and his music a bit more. Joe went back, and made it.. and bought his trumpet back. Then he was playing on a rooftop in NYC and somehow (I stopped paying attention for a minute) a girl ended up on the roof. He was getting excited about going to go see jazz somewhere.
Saturday, January 19, 2002
Where do I live?
I don't know what neighborhood I live in. Could be Park Slope, could be Boerum Hill, could be "Gowanus"? What I do know, or at least think, is that I'm going to San Francisco tomorrow. Maybe more precisely I'm going to Berkeley. Then again, my contact suggested that we'll leaving right from the airport. Seems he hasn't given the old William Tell routine a shot yet. I wouldn't consider him an expert marksman, by ay means, so the W.T. seems to be a perfect remedy.
As this particular agent is assigned or has taken up the assignment of leading the way in the arts of auto-medicine, it seems the prescription of a benzodiazepine has been overlooked in his palate of self-treatment options.
We're looking for the Hot Springs I think. Hopefully we can steam the demons out.
As this particular agent is assigned or has taken up the assignment of leading the way in the arts of auto-medicine, it seems the prescription of a benzodiazepine has been overlooked in his palate of self-treatment options.
We're looking for the Hot Springs I think. Hopefully we can steam the demons out.
Winter 2001
Tonight I see two immense columns of light in lower Manhattan as a tribute to the destroyed WTC. I've been doing nothing except wallowing in confusion and trying to go back to sleep for days on end. I'm looking forward to leaving this city and dedicating my complete energy to accumulating as much money as possible through as much work as necessary. I am fortunate to have people that care about me and have opened their doors to help me through what has been a particularly difficult time. In exchange I hope to offer a hand and my technology experience for a program dedicated to assisting people with successfully adjusting to life after incarceration. Whether or not I needed a favor, I realize the importance of this work and have wanted to participate but have been preoccupied with life in NYC.
I've had a look at classifieds on the internet at iAgora.com for rooms and apartments in Barcelona and found reassuring prices and evidence of viability in creating a life for myself in this city. I don't need or want to be here anymore and know that it is time to go. If I can pack my things tonight and take care of a few errands tomorrow, there is a great chance that I can be out of here by week's end.
As the most important function of keeping a record like this, I need to note the degree of despair and depression I'm suffocating in. While my dreams and plans that I'm holding on to like a piece of wood in the middle of the ocean are terrifyingly unsure, they are the only thing that I have to keep me going until I see relief. I forget how real life is when it's not going your way. When you're cruising along in a routine which doesn't require very intensive thought or feeling, the calendar can flip through years without any significant landmark or milestones. Life is so much more beautiful when I'm confused and confronted with all that goes with the reality that within a few days, minutes, or seconds, everything that is serving as the foundation for your existence can evaporate, shift, invert, or explode leaving you with what you have always had and the only thing you are fairly certain to have for your term of existence. Yourself. Most of your body.
Thank you NYC, thank you friends. Dear God, please stop the warring, please emphasize that we're all humans and that the solutions for our problems don't lie in weapons and force.
Thinking of those in US society which have committed acts which were examined by other humans in an office of the Judiciary system of our government and deemed to be wrong and punishable by moving the human into buildings with bars and disease, stale air and treated without dignity, I am drained of strength. Not many people know the way which people treat other people in the name of law. Police are sometimes the most cruel, diseased, and unjust people imaginable. It has become hard for me to feel sympathetic when I hear of an officer injured while upholding justice. These people often don't care about the citizens they take into custody or how they are treated. They are racist, sexist, they are bullies, they are cowards, and they wear an air of arrogant superiority that in my eyes practically awards them the deserve of any harm they encounter. I say practically because I would not want them to be harmed. It just twists me up when I see how they behave and seem to think.
I've had a look at classifieds on the internet at iAgora.com for rooms and apartments in Barcelona and found reassuring prices and evidence of viability in creating a life for myself in this city. I don't need or want to be here anymore and know that it is time to go. If I can pack my things tonight and take care of a few errands tomorrow, there is a great chance that I can be out of here by week's end.
As the most important function of keeping a record like this, I need to note the degree of despair and depression I'm suffocating in. While my dreams and plans that I'm holding on to like a piece of wood in the middle of the ocean are terrifyingly unsure, they are the only thing that I have to keep me going until I see relief. I forget how real life is when it's not going your way. When you're cruising along in a routine which doesn't require very intensive thought or feeling, the calendar can flip through years without any significant landmark or milestones. Life is so much more beautiful when I'm confused and confronted with all that goes with the reality that within a few days, minutes, or seconds, everything that is serving as the foundation for your existence can evaporate, shift, invert, or explode leaving you with what you have always had and the only thing you are fairly certain to have for your term of existence. Yourself. Most of your body.
Thank you NYC, thank you friends. Dear God, please stop the warring, please emphasize that we're all humans and that the solutions for our problems don't lie in weapons and force.
Thinking of those in US society which have committed acts which were examined by other humans in an office of the Judiciary system of our government and deemed to be wrong and punishable by moving the human into buildings with bars and disease, stale air and treated without dignity, I am drained of strength. Not many people know the way which people treat other people in the name of law. Police are sometimes the most cruel, diseased, and unjust people imaginable. It has become hard for me to feel sympathetic when I hear of an officer injured while upholding justice. These people often don't care about the citizens they take into custody or how they are treated. They are racist, sexist, they are bullies, they are cowards, and they wear an air of arrogant superiority that in my eyes practically awards them the deserve of any harm they encounter. I say practically because I would not want them to be harmed. It just twists me up when I see how they behave and seem to think.
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