Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Yerm Ohm's LiveJournal:

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Friday, May 29th, 2009
2:40 pm	Back in White In some ways, I really don't know where I've been exactly for the last eighteen months. It feels like I just stepped out off stage after vaguely attempting to portray some grandiose tale of triumph, filled with moments of introspective glee, but still focused on an end goal with mixed amounts of promise and monotony awaiting the end of it. But what happens when you look back it all and think that there were fundamental flaws with the whole thing, not that the players and producers, or even observers, would grasp, and ultimately consume the work as a whole, making the ordeal seem necessary to all not in witness of such a wonderful story of retribution and personal accomplishment, but that the sentiment is actually just a whimsical farce, not truly meant for any real person to live through, just a stereotype of what our minds truly believe is right as a reflection of all the mistakes we can, and do, choose to make, other than just a feeling that can only, however inaccurately, be described as bittersweet. It's a crazy thing this whole "real life" deal that we get presented with, but there are certain times that we come to a juxtaposition within it, a crux between all the enduring chunks, that we have to sit back and reflect with all the weighty cliches and sappy overtones that us who aim to be "true artists" so vehemently avoid. I will ask right now, why? May I rant about all of the complexities tied together by routine and expectation in a way that only comes off as virtuously overdone? Nay... I will not be fearsome of the things that come out of this rebirth I'm experiencing or, more importantly, my wayward attempts to express just what it means to me. I can only choose not to dwell on the impact it has on you or your psyche, however slight or, dare I even consider, disappointing. Proof that idle time is not such a poisonous thing for the mind, or even the soul, I carve out a plot in the landscape, raise my flag, and show the entire world, even if I am the only one in it, that there is something to be learned from each individual's beauty and anguish and interpretation thereof. As I told my comrade over a late night tobacco log, a seemingly wasteful portion of one's timeline, that in periods of strife and transition and struggle, one must do everything one can to document the intricacies, allowing the sounds of one's inner voice to be heard, in however a fashion, by the docile onlookers, wishing they could just get swept away by current of emotion unable to be thumbed out from a mental catalog. He took my advice, channeling the dormant hours into a masterpiece of ink on lined paper, some amalgamation of symbols evoking thoughts of chance, morbidity, chaos, and contentment. It really made me smile... again. But what can I say, I sound like a wandering foreigner with a brand new vocabulary chasing a crab on a polluted Carolina beach. Too many incohesive metaphors sloppily strung together in an attempt to reinvigorate myself and shake loose the fruit from the branches that only comes into season during special transitive periods such as these. And this is not a tale about anyone else, just me. Tie it into whatever grand context you wish, if appropriate, but don't say I didn't warn you. Even though I'm sharing, I'm being as selfish as possible. I've never felt so pinched as I do in the Spring and Summer of 2009, like moving through a crowded room, taking a certain path that causes me to strain my body in order to pass between two pockets of empty space. But it helps when all you can think about is love. I feel that even though there have been major missteps and heaps of potential lost along the way, I am truly being rewarded for my optimism. I can watch myself do things that I know are counterproductive, but the overstated sentiment of remaining true to one's own self, one's instincts and natural ways of behavior, is in reality what's driving me to become what I hope turns into a great human being, whatever that may be. Some lives are epic, at least in comparison to the majority, there's no question, and I feel that I may actually be able to obtain this elusive status, elevating to the ranks of other modern demigods, martyred by the those who witness my life as a whole after my time of passing. And it's now the next morning. I wish I could run with the incredible surge of brash expression that I just read from above, but I must dismount. Besides, it's many hours later and I can't keep up. It's so early in the morning that I think my vision is impaired. I know that it feels incomplete, but we can talk about later. Now just doesn't seem like the time, but do enjoy it if you're able. I can hang. -tom (Comment on this)
Sunday, January 4th, 2009
1:32 pm	2009 resolution 1. Think 2. Care 3. Try (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, August 18th, 2008
4:39 pm	remote musings and the thrill of major changes in personal appearance Now. Right now. There is a strong sense transition, a period of change, a passage of old habits not subsiding but merely changing and finding new life by way of gross modification refinement. We choose, in almost all cases, not to tear down the infrastructure all the way to its foundation but to merely refurbish that which is standing, leaving a faintly recognizable image behind a fresh face, ready to serve and eager to please, filled with the vitality of a lost freshman about to have their mind blown and spirit broken, all in simultaneous and righteous fashion, in the name of everything conjectured, left to the wisdom of ages to determine validity, purpose, and, in some cases most importantly, application. But these feelings have their feet firmly planted in the rare but wondrous instances known affectionately as vacation. And what an incredible time it is! I can feel the grease dripping down into the machineworks like raindrops wetting the tips of flourishing evergreens standing alone in a forest of conurbation. It is exactly what they all said I needed. "It's criminal to expect a human being to only get two weeks of the year to themselves," Mr. Chesler recently remarked. Something oddly blue-collar about my mindset leads me to the desire to immediately reject such a selfish opinion, yet this attitude is one I've striven so hard to justify in recent months, that it's all just not that important. Naturally, this is what led me to so impulsively purchase, on credit mind you, the seat on the airplane that allowed for me to be where I exist at this very moment, an overpriced and, as it appears, pretentiously trendy-looking internet cafe in downtown Seattle. Sure, even the release and departure from the monotonous, everyday grind found in one's relatively permanent dwellings of sustainable existence comes with its own set of minor stresses and feelings of self-loathing, but these are the bouts of awful regret that remind you why all the other stuff is so, unfortunately, goddamned important. And I relish that fact; we are products of tragedy, thriving rather simply on the wonderment accompanying true awakening in a world that was once a flawless garment that now has more stains than a painter's trousers. I've been obsessively staring at my own reflected image for the last six hours, but with a strange legitimacy. I chopped off all my hair and gave myself a clean shave, the first time in four years. The effects are oddly cleansing, like a personality douche, letting the next period of activity, the bustling hullabaloo of the fall semester, be its own chapter in my personal history, unaffected by the previous half-decade, no matter how resembling or tragically similar. Let's do this, my new image says to my grimacing, brow-furrowing self staring back at it. Yes, let's, I curtly but unsarcastically reply. It was my determination to, after the completion of my most recently read novel, the sprawlingly long and wonderfully amusing The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, pick up Thompson's Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72. It seemed so appropriate to immerse myself in the outlaw journalist's scathing critique on the arduous and heartless trials of the presidential race during a strange and contemplative leap-year August. Today, while racing through some amazing shelves in one of the best used-book stores I've ever been in, I managed to score, among other things, a copy of Better Than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie. If I can't find the Nixon/McGovern book, than the next best, or even perhaps better, thing would be the Clinton/Bush book. The first 25 pages have treated me wonderfully and I'm looking forward to the literary experience over the next week. Added bonus from Half-Price Books: Generation of Swine. I hate to sound like such a rookie, the aforementioned freshman, but I am loving the Journey through the works of Thompson. There's a lot more, but at .14/min, I'm beyond my means here. Let's call it a day and then I can tell you about hospitals and airports at another day. My guitar chops will be slowly returning it seems. Everything comes at a cost, no matter how intangible. Death to parking meters and patio misters. God bless the muralists of the world. Hello, autumn. -tom (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 13th, 2008
9:56 pm	Singin'... Go get caught in the rain some time. Seriously, try it. Have you recently? No? Dude, I'm telling you... get caught in the monsoon. Do it. So earlier tonight, I was caught in the monsoon. It was incredible to watch, the brutal lightning strikes caught coming over the Catalinas during cigarette breaks at the Boondocks. The cards are slow and increasingly uninteresting. I chugged and sped. On my way to jon, Aunt Ali-can kindly states, "Was the lightning above us? Do you need a ride home soon? It's getting bad out there." Oh Ali-can, don't be such a worrisome Nelly, I think to myself, feeling that its imperative to get to my only-comes-once-an-hour bus since I just closed my tab. Five minutes early is always a good idea, but that was a fucking crazy five minutes. The lightning got visibly closer, the air started swirling with crazy random bursts of hat-stealing energy from the skies, plastic shopping bags (and carts) started spewing out of all the little filthy crevices of the intersection of First and Fort Lowell, even the ever-rotating MoneygramTM sign in front of the cheque-cashing place next to the stop was catching serious competition from the forces, getting caught in random tail-spins in either direction caused by spontaneous resonance with the chaotic currents in the air. Rain was only spat out in short splashes here and there; it was only feet away. I rescued a shopping cart and got on the bus, clearly in a tizzy, looking at all the comfortable well-lit crackheads around me as I collected myself on a hard bench. The patrons at the next stop were quite a bit wetter. When I got to Speedway, there was a cop parked diagonally in the very center of the intersection with Euclid with his lights on. Motorists were clearly stunned by the whole ordeal, but its my stupid chumly-ass that's caught out in the meteorological orgasm because I can't figure out when it's okay NOT to ride the bus - I swear, some of those drops felt like quarters. But ultimately, the experience was amazing. It's always an underlying goal of mine to feel a little bit closer to the bodies around me. That experience definitely brought a lot closer to just a piece of this massive planet, the body of the Sonoran Desert. No you can't go visit it all over again on a Tuesday. But then again, Tuesdays are the days in between all the other days where all the shit happens and what are you left to do but sit around and ponder it. But then again, for the very reason that it's the weekly node it can't be the day to find everything you dropped on the ground. You just have to find it on one of those days where all the dirt gets kicked around and things get bounced up in the air, right in front of your face, don't let it go. There. Go spit your gum out and repeat what you just said. "It's Thursday." -tom (Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 12th, 2008
7:03 pm	Lovely was the sitting bird that told of the age of rain, the time when everyone was filled with gloom but the soil beneath them, that which recycled bodies passed on into the air and the sea, was teeming with the quenched lust for vitality, when the wells overflowed with the gifts of the sky, when fruit was bored from the most insignificant of sources, and when the world simply continued with ever growing monotonous tendencies towards a destination unknown but certainly far beyond the reach of the tenure of an individual. The song spoken about the romanticized era of such overlooked wealth was gloriously melodic, yet slightly out-of-key offering the faintest amount of dissonance to sounds inherently otherwise. It needn't be forgotten that such a piece of nostalgia, in itself, enamored the senses to such a level that the subjectivity of it all, and the stories therein, were rendered meaningless, and thereby infinite, the legend borne out of excessive scrutiny. The tale is perpetuated and embellishments accepted. What if you are your fucking khakis? IDK... JK? -tom Current Music: Kinski (Comment on this)
Saturday, August 2nd, 2008
6:33 pm	meh? Its like my friends all say Don't have to lead the way Because it's all the same We all lose this game Sometimes the nights are long Cause they sang that song That made it all go down We gotta leave this town (for something different) Don't apologize when you are afraid You've made mistakes that have already been made You put your lies on a pedestal You wanna eat but you're already full And if it's all a mess Your claim is just a guess But don't push this out of mind The time is ripe, you are a find You are a find. Current Music: this (Comment on this)
2:33 pm	What is me, where is you, why is they Pity this! Nothing to stare at, just dull hum-drummings, poking that last little bit of air in the balloon, trapped as necessary by the volume in which it is produced. Every Saturday, the day I finally took back for my own, withering out of the intoxicated womb of the night before, leaving questions, comments, and downright criticism towards the motives inherent in the wobbling line towards obscurity and mixed indications of humbling failure. An artist of sorts, trapped by the ever mounting insecurity incessantly fueled by the continual validation of others wanting to break the meniscus in order to bathe their fingertips in the jostled sea of undiscovered expression, only to be greeted with a strangely warm sense of disappointment. Why I do this to myself, I must! This is part of the package, a reflux of existential meltdown brought on by the environment which is insisted upon as the only way to live in this era. Nobody should have such a self-destructive attitude; it seems that such curmudgeonly wavelengths are wholly unjustifiable. However, shortly thereafter, as an indication of the eye of such a storm, the prospect of further beers, burritos, and blowjobs lends an odd sort of solace. The chase continues, and once again the other self is reawoken in the bleachers, only to shake his head and sigh, and softly giggle at the observation that each lap brings no closer the finish line but simply elongates the struggle and wears at the participant until not even the face can be recognized. Oh, fuck me. But there is something that I can't get out of my head, a leftover from last night's buffet. That look. O sweet reminiscence, that look. That look! That look alone could have me on a plane to Bumfuck, Anywhere. I am so smitten, and I have no way to act upon it, no strategy, a situation that does not lend itself peacefully to such indulgences - too many distractions, complications, and auxiliary whathaveyous and not enough pure asset. I just really like her. I don't want to fall for it, the same slight-of-hand that has taken down nations and left me for broke at numerous occasions, but the curiosity pounds out of me the reasons why it is there. How can I get there? Will I be let in when I arrive? Can I rest my thoughts simply on the prospect and let the reality lie vacant in waiting? "I can only be defeated if I never try," so spoke the voice that has embedded itself through sheer proximity, reminding that the biggest loss is the game that is never played. But then again, maybe sheer desire is enough for me to fall asleep to. And as always, the thought ends with a simply defeated concession of "One day this will all make sense." This is true only because it isn't. One day I will call her. Oh God! You seriously documented that for all the world to see? Could you just not help it? *~ Dude, I just want to figure it out, shake the wrinkles out of my pants. *~ Alright, fine, but be that as it may, don't blame the messenger when the masses come knocking at your door bearing pricetags and other unpleasantries. *~ Go have another slice of schadenfreud. I know that I know that I don't know what I don't know, but what I don't know is exactly what it is that I know, outside of course what I know that I know. Oh, I don't know..... fuck it. Cocktail party tonight? I believe so. Ring the bell on this one. -tom (Comment on this)
Thursday, July 31st, 2008
12:28 am	Stolen from the Book of _____&____ 7 At first, it was just taking pictures of themselves at bars; but, oh no! That wasn't enough, prettying themselves up to look like fancy people looking at fancy people looking at other fancy people, sporting the new media around their wrists, posing like a fifth grader every they take a shot. Eventually, there had to be an upgrade. They made it outside, out in a place where pictures are meant to smell like fresh oxygen. There's khaki shorts and boot-sneaker hybrid footwear and recycled fecal matter and natural extermination happening all around, captured in a flash, cellular ready and halfway to a face-book. Lovely how it all falls together like that, but others have to (or choose to) rely on the power of the eye, no matter how battered, jaded, or intoxicated it might be, to bring these places home, back inside of the vault of anecdotal excrement and had-to-be-there moments. Nothing stays pretty when it's outside of a lens that doesn't have a DEL button on it. But, FYizzle, they certainly do look beautiful. Don't forget that. It makes it even easier to laugh at. Have fun with your parcel, I hope it lasts you through winter, you freezing son-of-a-poe. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 16th, 2008
12:46 am	The filth is crawling up the walls. It's rank, but it's real. The environment is reaching out her hand and saying "We're here. You live with us or you die with us." Or at least that's what I think she's saying - I don't want poison near my water, and my water is on the ground all around me. But in the meanwhile it's "bug season", and us lazy folk (we call ourselves "Buddhists" when it's convenient or showy in an appropriate way) get a nice dose of pestilence injected into our everyday lives. My favorite site so far, not receiving much competition from the massive palm roaches that crawl out of my bathtub drain or the crazy-huge black beetles that sit around in that rotting prickly pear all day fucking, has been watching the the black ants that have taken over my driveway tear to pieces this crazy flying roach-from-another-dimension just for kicks on a buzzing Monday afternoon just before dusk. "Natural extermination!" I caught myself exclaiming two or three times in the company of my brohat Californian neighbors who express their animosity towards those scary insects with large, black aerosol cans. Reincarnation feels like a ridiculous belief to me, but if you can imagine the insect population of the planet in real terms next to the population boom of the last century, you don't have such a hard time coping with the fact that a large majority of us just came from being cockroaches. Or other insects, I agree, but still a fuckton of roaches, all the cool ones wishing they were ants. Free booze! Free booze and air conditioning and cable! My neighbor's gone! He left me his keys! Free booze! Free booze and air conditioning and cable! That's why I'm up so late! Give me my chicken for the last time! Grandma's Boy really is a TERRIBLE movie. I know, for its ridiculous off-the-wall Kevin Nealon and Co. value, it really capitalizes upon many strengths. Plus, it expresses a realization of a legitimate fantasy for MANY people, BUT! I find it extremely degrading, on a truly personal level, of a particular demographic that I happen to be a proud part of. Call me a liberationist, but I feel firm and serious about my position on marijuana and the way it and its users should be portrayed in the media and accepted in the public eye. Okay, let me step out of the character and talk a bit more directly to the audience and put out a challenge to all of them, writers in their own regard, we are all sure of. Can anyone please write an intelligent, perhaps dark, stoner comedy? Can we uncomfortably revel in the awkward heaviness that can be associated with pothead culture? Am I the only one who gets less hungry and more activated/agitated when I'm high? Is anyone out there? I don't laugh at that image of what I connect my behavior too because it's fucking juvenile and does not demand respect for itself in any way. There's never been some scathing Solondz-esque actual-pain-from-laugh inducing "stoner comedy" and there fucking could be. There are so many of us that actually wake up to something from it, rather than tune out with it. I'm just tired. I'm tired of it's bumbling image and I'm tired of this purely escapist mindset that's attached to it. Get rid of it. Throw it away. No but seriously, it's a movie for kids to whack off to. Seriously. I like to THINK a little bit when I'm wasting my time. Thank you. Now I can go back to my oh-everyone-look-at-me novel. And then that stupid piece of shit fell of his bike and had to tell everyone about it. What a dipshit. Lost half his income from it, and for the duration of his healing his main hobby. What a fucking asshat. Ok, I kinda like watching the nerd-uber-fantasy female character. That's why I didn't stop watching, NOT because I was hyperanalyzing all the commercials. Whatever, no one really "wins" anyways. Go eat a sandwich. -me (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 14th, 2008
8:27 pm	Nutbusting on someone else's dime: can we learn nothing from true viscerality? I have it teeming from every pore. I have it oozing from every thought and every wish that is conjured by my cranial apparatus. I walk around all day with pieces of sonic energy playing to only my waking fantasies. I need to put it out there, or else I'll die with a lump of deadweight that could have brought someone, even just one other person, that much closer to the cosmos. Last night, I was able to step into a toy store and smell the smell I once knew as a child opening a fresh pack of trading cards. There was noise and there was structure. I get wobbly. I lose my ability to speak with clarity, or at all. Just the idea, the sheer minuscule piece of reassurance that it's possible is all I need to keep moving about my hamster ball, knowing that one day I can hope to crack the eggshell and give birth to all those wandering snippets in the form of coherence and constitution. It is here, and one day it will be there. Simply put, it's enough to get one out of one's bed. I understand there is some need for clarity. I'm having trouble conjuring it in a way that I feel is just to what I believe. Let's just say I have a strong sense of individuality and responsibility about me these days, emotions that spring more from my reaction to my faults and mistakes rather than my assets and accomplishments and most importantly my inherited environment. My choice is not to make the bed, because it's just going to get unmade every night, except of course when I fall asleep on the couch or perhaps when I "get lucky", to use the vernacular. I feel genuinely ashamed for all the vegetables that I've let rot. Guns don't kill people, soldiers do. There's a reason my birthday isn't April 29, 1981. One time, I got a ticket for crossing the street. Keep your eyes open except for when you pray (or chant or meditate or trip out or whatever, just go with it). Isolate yourself in order to release your fears. Wear a rubber or cut it off, or don't complain when Christmas comes early. You'd have made a great faggot, you know. Yes, I know. -tom (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 13th, 2008
11:09 pm	I'm afraid to say it, but.... Finishing school? Or finishing a crossword? That's the question for today's initial roll call. Present! I have a question for the young man in the overall's: could you help me fix my transportation implement? Home schooling for everyone! Let's all just go bowling for lunch, who cares. Fly me to Switzerland, Uncle Buster. Is it warmer than you expected? I'm sure that someone is to blame, but until I lose a cat in a tornado, I will never sign your divorce papers. My chair is too comfy. And THAT'S when we all get a free refill. I think I may be willing to admit it now. Ok, yes. I AM A CONSERVATIVE. There. It's out. I don't know what that says exactly about my own personal actions, that's always been kind of loose, but I guess it means that I don't like the imposed guilt I feel from having the false need to justify everything. I am a conservative, a true conservative at heart, and not akin to what I see certain bumper stickers claiming. There's principle and class to every good idea and always a bunch fuck-ups and a bunch of dicks. My need to be decent and respectful should be a personal one. No one needs to apply any extra bodies of higher power to help me maintain an even and peaceful path. That's all. You see, it also comes from a strong distrust of everyone in power and wealth and a distaste for the state of things around me. Everyone feels that of course, but how can one look at these truly awful human acts being perpetrated on such a mass scale and decide to make the government bigger and more powerful? Government should have very little place in the economy, and should definitely not be owned by it. Why would you want to put more hands in the dough? People have to learn how to be ethical either way. Just let go of everything, live peacefully. Turn your lights out because it's a good idea, not because the television tube said to. Everyone's just a fucking cartoon. It seems that the founding documents have become this bible-like monolith, a dated scripture that should no longer hold such relevance. And I see it like that. Humans have evolved rapidly since the inception of these two particular documents and thus they should be put to rest in order to allow for a new set of ideas to come in. But like the bible, the constitution, in spite of the true character of its authors, has some really good tenets, or at least positive and valid interpretations. I don't think it should be so awful to cite either when trying to make an argument for good, sound principles. And I'm not trying to make a direct connection regarding the influence of one on the other, I'm just making an analogy. But of course, you knew that. Dude, have you seen that new video game? It's totally simulating man. Pass me another bagel. More quantification when I have the energy. -tom (Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 6th, 2008
3:14 am	The Musician's Dilemma Sometimes it's just the perfect wave of buzz. Sometimes it connects, while others it doesn't; but still! O, how it tells you when it's here. It won't allow what your id is telling you to do right now, no. This is something that's bigger than that, bigger than any conversation you could be having or pretending to hear. This is the big one. The one that tells you to put it all down, far out of sight, and pay only attention to it. Nothing can turn this on but it. But why? Who knows what combination of endorphins, natural or pure, mixed with some bizarre hybrid of intoxicants and pheromones, laced with strict aroma and assorted pulmonary congestants, succeeding a waking period producing varying levels of achievement, could possibly create such an undeniable, uncannily available stir of enlightenment, only asking for birth to come from its rude awakening? I know something just happened to me, and I know I've felt it before, but I crave the intuition that helps me inspire it willfully, not having to resort to cheap encounters and convenience store substances to grope around blindly, wishing for serendipity to intervene and let this evening be exactly what the perfect fiction said it should be. No, there's no room in your novel for this fine piece of dirt. The only one who captured it was the fly on the wall, and he doesn't take very good notes; gossip is no gift, but quite the contrary. And how to relate the details is certainly the hardest part. It doesn't matter how fast your body moves, but where is the rhythm of your heartbeat, and how does it sync with the mantra that you've subscribed to? Nobody said you had to be precisely what your brain thought you were supposed to be, back before it knows what it does now. That was all a faint mirage in the distant landscape of the future tense. And for gosh sakes, be careful how you handle it. You're not supposed to live the story, just read it, stupid. Earlier, there were humans over here. I once again tried to act the man, you know, the one I mentioned before. And I assure you, part of why this is funny is because it's not, so bear with. I told Josh earlier, when he was relating to me about all the wonderful things he'd played to an audience of no one, that the best pieces of music are played and heard only by their sole creators and that they were never meant for the sensation of others. This, of course, is the musician's dilemma. How can anything ever be as good as when you heard it all by yourself? When the only audience was the giant cave of anticipation and wonder and regret and spite and appreciation and premonition and apathy and introspective analysis and outward jubilation and sheer love for every single thing that you can possibly feel in any conceivable fashion, the entire world disappeared around you and you were only living inside of your creation and all the wonderful personalized images that came with it. NOTHING can possibly document that for anyone else, period. And this is the musician's dilemma. Why can't I wear what I think. This is the writer's dilemma. Why can't I tell what I hear. This is the musician's dilemma. Why can't I feel what I taste. This is the chef's heartache. Why can't I mold what I must have. This is the puppetmaster's dilemma. Why can't I see what I love. This is the impatient pseudoromantic's dilemma. Why can't I wear what I think. Why can't I play what I take in. Why can't they be here when it happens. Why can't I be like this. Why can't I scream. Why can't I ever know what everyone else knows. This is my dilemma. And naturally, he remained, not in practice, but trapped in hypothesis, the strange purgatory between reality and fiction, all-knowing but never revealing his true form, only digging through archives of pictorials and fragmented olfactory remains, sifting through the meaningless and coming to form only once the truth has been forgotten and the memory holds exclusive sway. I'll post what I have, in text and in audio, just to be consistent: +++++++++++++++ What was it that I tried to say When you were not Here, in a minute I'll be There on the front Porch with my sad Grin watch the sun Bake all together in the Fall if I don't Leave this train will Wreck out in the Street crashin with the many Others if I sur Vive all my faults Too don't you be Lieve all that you can fathom Now When ever you Say that you're all In I bet you Don't feel like you'll Win but that's O K if you say So it's all a Game when it's on the river Bank all of your Trust in what you Sow it's all you've Got at the end of all the Trouble find your path How you want to Move in with the Herd crashing through the rubble Now That's how we live That's how we give That's why we don't mind If you take what you find +++++++++++++++ It never happens on trash night, and it has something to do with eleven pm, but other than that, it will never be known why or how, just when! And that's okay, currently. We'll see how the income develops. I'll keep you posted. Don't let the whatever-it-is-they-call-ems-these-days bite. See you after tomorrow's story. Current Music: you know it dawg! (Pandora) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, April 20th, 2008
7:30 pm	Haven't you had enough? Have I ever told you how I feel about the common phrase "no offense"? I have? Well, if I may, let's rehash old arguments and allow me to tell you how to live once again. There is nothing one can say to me that I'm more easily put off by than the phrase "no offense". I take severe issue with the ease with which some people are able to toss out this apparent immunity from viscous speech. It's this nullifier, this exemption, this permission to let fly anything out of one's mouth and pointed directly at another without carrying the implications that what is being uttered should in any way affect the accordance between the parties involved. "I like you just the same, but..." or "I can't be blamed for how I make you feel..." or "Please don't hit me." I know how you feel. You haven't shown me your cards, but I already know what your holding. Please just take a chance and speak frankly, that's all I ask. Understand that everyone has a right to feel how they're going to feel and the truth is a barbed blossom. You can tell me how you feel at any point in time, and I hope to follow in a promise to act the man about it. Just please don't use the phrase "no offense". So I act the man. Or probably not. What exactly does that mean? What does it take to be a man? The question has been asked so many times it has weight any more, no pondering to bear, just a banal quip without a reaction save the subtle wisdom of The Dude. But sometimes, those types of questions are the ones that most deserve a revisitation of actual thought. What does it mean to be a "man"? Come to think of it, I'm not sure I actually no any men, and it's very possible that the closest thing I know to a man is actually a female. I know so many children, so many distilled embryos littering the landscape wishing to hatch into the next phase of entitlement, confined to an existence of simplicity and error, never reaching the high plateau of maturation, simply conferring every attitude, every fault, every misdirected step to the ears of one who may possibly produce validation and comfort, but never an actual "man". What is a man? He's a fairy tale, plain and simple. He's a ghost from our pasts, resurrected to perfection in the pages of fiction, the last known story of our ancestral antebellum, the one who selflessly produced, yet never squandered or begged, who was always cautious but never worried, who took but never borrowed from his precedents and virtues. Is that a man? If so, I'd like to meet him. Not be him, just make his acquaintance and tell him that I care, tell him that I adore his creation and loathe what has happened to it, give thanks and a handshake, and walk away. Far away. There will never be a time for this person to reemerge, except when opening the door to the next eternity. No offense, but you can never and will never be a man. Not until you die. Only the living can continue to grow. But that's just it. You brain, chemically, has reached capacity. You didn't acknowledge it. Hell, you can't even remember where you were, nay, who you were. You just rode down the gravy train of broken ambition, bitterness turned fertile in private hedonism - you were loving not loving yourself and using birth control all the while. But it's okay, there's still (pn) more years of kicks, unfinished parlor games and acts of simple vanity. No one is here to judge, but they love watching anywho. Just console yourself in the fact that you made it this far. You can still write as many letters and take as many pictures as you want, whatever you need to put it all back under your hat so as not to let it vanish or lose it's impression. But seriously though. No offense, but you've missed your last chance. Now it's only autopilot in a plane that can never land. Fly somewhere pretty at least. The season is changing, this is obvious. It's funny how easily we forget just what precise transitions are typical, and simultaneously accept new flourishings as things that are part of the world we already know. There are a few things I begin to notice that change with the months, and some are certainly more pleasant than others. Climate doesn't do much around here for these transitional months but the days are certainly elongating. In my urban environment, there's really not much nature to observe anywho. And I'm sure I've told you this, but my apartment lies very close to an underground sewage main. There were some issues with it about a year ago, some stoppage due to aging infrastructure, and when it was fixed, there was an incredibly heightened presence of cockroaches living amongst my quarters. The landlord was notified by Jason and I and in response, he gave us a number of different extermination tools with varying degrees of effect. I'm not sure what it was that actually worked, but after some time, they just stopped coming around so often. They never actually went away completely, they just sort of subsided a bit. Well, come back around to this part of the solar revolution and I'm seeing them all over again. As you know, these little fuckers only really show up when they're dead. Why they chose to crawl out into the middle of my kitchen floor to die I will surely never know, but occasionally I catch sight of a live one. There's one that I've seen a few times in the last week, and I'm convinced is the same one each time, that is startlingly big. He crawls faster than it looks like he should be able to and he's got wings to boot. I'm not one to hoot and holler over insects, but the mere sight of this thing would make most jump out of their skin. The other day I was talking on the telephone, preparing for another night of debauchery, when I walked into my bathroom and saw the bastard crawling up the wall. Kate kept talking, but all of the sudden, I was no longer listening to a word she said. I soon broke conversation and told what I was watching, the biggest cockroach I've ever seen walking up the inside of my shower. I had to consider killing it. I always consider it, but I guess it rarely happens. This is the kind of bug that leaves a nasty pile of guts behind when you squash it, and I had no desire to touch it in any way. Truth be told, I don't normally kill insects if they're not doing something directly harmful like sucking blood from my veins or occasionally shitting on my food. "You're such a Buddhist!" Brian once told me, a "man" who ducks and runs from anything that stings. Well it just so happened I was speaking with a Buddhist at the time. Kate told me that the person she usually practices with has told her that she will chant "Nam MyoHo Renge Kyo" right before she kills a bug. A worthy practice I suppose, but an approach I'm reluctant to take. With me, I think it's just more apathy than anything else. That's the best I can say to justify why I would allow this object of pestilence to continue infecting the place where I live. I mean, one must imagine that in the T Roach Motel's family tree, this guy is the root. Would it affect their morale if he was eliminated? Behead the king and the empire will crumble? Naturally, that's all bullshit. Like I said, I just don't care, and my laziness is certainly not commendable in this measure, because like I said, this creature one of filth. But then again, a chant is not going to make his death any less than simply that, the death of a being. If I chant these simple, rhythmic words, I give him a greater opportunity to come back as some higher being. To me though, ultimately, it only feels like I would be saying "No offense, but your life is worth nothing, and now I'm going to end it." The fucker should know where we stand, but still, why patronize? (Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008
11:43 am	Great Job! Plagued by hunger and driven by thirst I watch as every tide washes in a new brand of excrement that I'm kindly requested to accept as precious, the new ilk of creativity, the glowing center of modern expression, knowingly replaced by the next arbitrary wave of polluted opinions and cookie-cutter faces. Click refresh if it don't suit your fancy! That's what the pollster apparently said when he called someone, but not me; I don't believe in cable news, or for that matter anything else I don't want to hear. Meanwhile, all I can think to do about the situation is complain. Your set of problems is not as big as my set of problems is not as big as your set of problems is not as big as my set of problems is not as big as GOD never told me I had to be here, She only gave me the option. How's that for being vengeful? One of these days I'm going to have a sit down chat about the vanity through which I observe my own life. Good looks are a curse and a blessing and a curse. Do you ever hate it when stupid assholes go out of their way to make conversation? I do too, but then I also love it, but I fucking hate it too. The only benefit is getting ridiculous anecdotes that no one wants to hear, but who wants to hear anyone any more except the sound of their own voice telling them what to do, but only when it's fun stuff like "drink", "fuck", or "clock-out early". We talk about wanting things to be provided for us, and who shouldn't want such a world; it's only natural, but it's not either. Most people have to work their fucking asses off before they can sit on them comfortably and old money rots. Let's make a mockery of the world and a triumph of ourselves in the process. If you want to make an omelet, you have to break a few legs. Stop looking at the bulge in your own pants and start making a commitment to the freedom that you are given as an individual. You've been told over and over that nothing's easy and it's never free. And trust me, cutting your own hair is not that difficult. The hardest part is getting yourself to do it. If I ever get to make an acceptance speech, the first and perhaps only person I will thank is the Hadley House. Who needs locks and guns when you've got kegs and varmints. I hate trying to go to sleep. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, March 22nd, 2008
9:20 pm	dangerous metaphors ahead And then there's the old fellow you ran into on the way to circle K. It didn't seem like much of an encounter at the time, but that boy went on to make some great things of himself not long after you tossed him that John Adams dollar coin. You see, sometimes the reflection one sees in the wading pool before diving in, in all it's wavy inaccuracies, can create enough momentum to drive the consciousness into the perfect balance between acknowledgment of love and ignorance of peril where only the right things seem to start happening in your immediate surroundings. It's when that pursuit releases its deathgrip on the mind that the body makes self-sustaining, rational, and virtually automatic movements towards the center. And why not accept the variance in behavior. You may just run into the very person you wish to be en route to discovering GOD. (pardon the euphimism) So why did I meet her then? It's just too frustratingly perfect in its vast amount of tiny little imperfections. Why does she have "it"? It's too strange, too thrilling, too mischievous, and too morbidly pleasant to ignore, even for another second of my rapid aging process. If I hadn't met her, then would this high have come in another form? Almost certainly. Would it take the same effect, create the same level of waking life experience? Almost impossible to tell. But then again, why not just shelve it in the same place it was before? Oh, no. Not there. No, that is becoming a dangerously large and disorganized pile of fading memories; the more that topples from it, the more of a mess becomes the floor of my living room where I have all my important projects set up and in motion, in the process of conquering my personal world. No, can't have that kind of confusion mucking up the old focus train. Of course, I can only take so much with me when I go. Most things will have to get the ax, but some things certainly deserve to come along, and it only makes so many stops. I just wish I knew everything. Every day of breathing life brings a new variety of love, and some are so FUCKING hard to swallow. Good thing there's always mainstays like "tranquility outdoors" and "improvising an amazing piece of music" among others to chase those tough ones down with. But I love them all. I love them so much I can hardly fucking stand it. Everyone deserves to feel this way and I take it on keen powers of observation that they do. I just hate to see those close to me choke. Just remember not to try too hard. That's the best route to failure. See you all in the future. -tom Current Mood: breaking through, slowly (Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 20th, 2008
12:46 am	Pardon me while I burst into flames... of laughter. I pick my nose in public. There, I said it. Yes I know, I have a problem, but I just can't help it. Especially, come to think of it almost exclusively, when I get off a shift on the line. I usually ride the bus, but sometimes I'm in someone's car. For whatever reason, my nose gets all dried out on the line and all I want to do is pick at the dried linings of my nasal cavities. I usually land a pretty good one on the first dig and yank out a monster string of gooey discharge, adhering to itself like cum or honey, pulling an entire inch or so before detaching from my nostril hairs (which are getting longer by the day now) right as I gawk at what I've made in disbelief and simultaneously wake up to the fact that I'm on the bus and awkwardly try to make sure I wasn't caught and rub it under the bottom of some tagged-up, hard plastic Suntran bench. I figure that admission should hold you. It's not something most people own up to, but it's probably not near the worst thing I could choose to confess. If I could have my way, I would just play all the parts, but I don't have the energy. Only one microphone. The keyboard don't even have 88. I need to put more air in my tubes. Did you hear what he said? Hah, that was the greatest. Say it again, Tom. He said, "I can scramble you an egg!" Hah, Tom your the greatest. That shit is great. Go head, scramble Brian up an egg real quick there, Tom. Real quick. Pan's right there. Butter's in the fridge. Just go for it. Fuckin shit, dude. I can't recite to you the words from Jumpin' Jack Flash. I don't know who invented disinfectant. I never learned a different language that wasn't gibberish. I don't run around as much as I should. But there's one thing I can tell you that I assure you is meaningful. It was either scratched into a lecture hall desk, scribbled on a bathroom wall, or improvised in an internet blog somewhere, but it goes like this. "Life is like a piece of paper. Every time you fold up twice and cut a corner, you end up with a really big hole." That other guy didn't really get it either... but you know what, fuck it. Just go with it, man. "What is it you fear most?" the curious female converser queried. "Panic," he said without hesitation. "Panic is the only thing I absolutely fear more than anything. I fear, worse than being hit by a car or audited by the IRS that one day I will be walking around in public or be sitting somewhere, eating or working or reading, thinking about everything that I've done and everything that I have to do and I will react to my own reality out loud and in person in such a way that I will lose myself in a predictable gridwork with maps and gas station attendants placed all over. I will snap, much like I know how to do when only my best friends are around, or even more so when I'm just by myself, and all the tightly-knit strangers in my ball of yarn will play witness to another victim of institution straying from his moré-guided pattern of behavior. 'Don't stare at the tanktops for too long! Pay your bills! Stop drooling on yourself!' Why do I have to put up with it? I just need to write a fucking song about it or something. Goddammit, why can't meet a drummer who can just.." "Do you have a light?" she quickly interrupted as she pinched a P-funk between her labia. "Yeah, right here." He lit the P-funk. "Uhhmmm," she muttered in a thank-you/goodbye hybird mumble as she looked down, pulling her first drag, turning to catch up with a group of people that had just strolled by as if they had no earthly idea who she was. -tom Current Music: Pandora. Thumbs up, guy! (Comment on this)
Monday, February 11th, 2008
1:28 am	What... have I done? Tomorrow, I will pay the bills. I promise. I have the money, I just don't want to lose it, but I promise, tomorrow is a day reserved for staying ahead. Today.. well today I was burying my head in some mathematical conundrums, taking intermittent breaks of course for tobacco, half-lyrics, DVDs, and bus rides, but NOT answering my phone. Yesterday was spent in a high school classroom, trying to be attentive and observant and all around active in the discourse of a regular algebra lesson but really concentrating on all the girls in my life, the ones I've screwed, the ones I want to screw, the ones I've screwed over, and the ones who have screwed over me in a desperate attempt to free my mind from urges to eye-fuck the blossoming minors sharing my company in vast abundance. The day before that was productive, but only in the virtual world conquering dungeons inside of a box with an X on it, ignoring my pseudo-wife in the real world who wants nothing more than to make sure that everything I need at this moment is provided for, but only by the most accessible means. The preceding day was spent in a locked bedroom caressing a wad of green cloth, a liquid $800 and a ticket to some unknown destination, while outside the door hedonists in hemp clothing make transactions involving powdery substances over a backdrop of a blaring sonic jungle at an hour that is late for them but definitely early for the rest of the world. The day before that was spent in bed with a raging headache induced by alcohol and a heart shattered by a female fresh out of her nest recovering from an emotionally traumatic vehicular collision while some grad student at an awkwardly quiet discussion section marks a big 0 inside of a box lined up with my full given birth name. So I guess that means that the day before that occurred inside of a dormitory somewhere distributing either fungus or plastic cups to mild acquaintances while recollecting what psychedelic visuals manifested during a performance of loose musical wanderings attended by sweaty vagrants and future suburban housewives. On the previous day, I earned approximately $12 for making a fool of myself on a stage butchering Pennywise covers for a mostly empty room of teenagers using the venue as an excuse to find the only trouble they can think to make up, all the while stuck on the image of some girl's tits that I only got to see because of some empty pledge that I made and was planning to dishonor. The day before that ended in a public park in a wealthy white-bred town, fleeing from overweight constables and a paper bag filled with half-consumed, skunked forties of Red Dog. Before that is not exactly clear, but I believe the week preceding was filled mostly with extremely awkward and unsuccessful attempts to impress people that would only mock me anyways for the benefit of their own social status as well as vain attempts to discover a way to make something other than urine come out of my peehole. But tomorrow, that is the day that I will rule this world, this world, the one that exists in the narrow scope of my peripheral vision containing all of my material acquisitions and things I refuse to throw away. Tomorrow, the day when I finally earn the recognition required to keep me from having to display a plastic card for the chance to waste another night in the presence of people that I don't know yet but intend to get the phone numbers of and never call. Tomorrow, the day that I manage to find myself in a car bound for a place that looks completely different from anywhere I've been but is inhabited entirely with people that I've met countless times before. Tomorrow, the day when I receive a degree of higher education in my mind and race to see how many individual servings of inebriating fluid I can consume before I create another painful memory. Maybe I'll read, write, watch, hear, play, or fuck. Maybe I'll die, maybe I'll live. Tomorrow, the day that will always be the best day of my life, no matter what day it is right now. Tomorrow, the shortest day of my life, every single time. Tomorrow, the perpetual last chance, and first sign of hope in a world so dry of meaning. -tom Current Music: Piano jazz! That's right, I read books! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, January 14th, 2008
1:22 pm	I've haven't got time for more time. It's a horrible little bubble to be confined in and it's sure to be burst by some major shift in event some time in the very near future, but I'm afraid at the thought of when that frail little exoskeleton of solitude does indeed collapse, if at an inopportune juncture, the flesh inside dissolves to reveal a pathetic little pile of bagels, tobacco, crossword puzzles, and cartoon images stored while briefly waking on a couch to a lit television set. The most that can come out of it is an organized home. Will it happen? We'll see what this pot of coffee brings. One time on the bus, I was riding during the middle of the day on a really random route and there weren't too many people on, and there was this one guy, nerdy-looking fat guy with glasses and a really tight t-shirt, wearing headphones that were blasting Linkin Park, the first album if my senses are keen enough, just sortof looking forward jamming out to himself. He was bobbing his head and mouthing the words and looking straight ahead of him but not focusing on anything. I was across from him and down a bench, reading or doing whatever, noticing him in my peripheral vision. The bus continued on its route, not really picking anyone up, just letting a few people off. Eventually, as the bus continued to empty out, the nerdy guy was getting more and more into his music. I continued to watch without watching as he started nearly jumping out of his seat as he lunged back and forth to the music, with his lips beginning to make whispered half-utterances with his accidental slips out of lip-sync mode. When I eventually did muster the courage to take a good look at this guy while he was doing this, I caught his eyes still plunged straight forward, but with a very intense look in them, almost like he was looking into an invisible camera, right before his eyes briefly and uncomfortably shot an acknowledging glance my way, all the time keeping his every other movement steady with the rocking grooves played quietly over the entire vehicle through some cheap headphones over his ears. I think he was still doing that shit when I got off. I've been thinking about politics a lot recently. .. That's it. That's all I've got on that. -tom (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, January 10th, 2008
12:27 am	Buy a better cell phone. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, November 19th, 2007
10:40 pm	Isn't it a nice night for snipe hunting? How can I be expected to save the entire world, even if by no one other than my self? What kind of a challenge is that? Is it inherent in everyone's psyche, just a little bit, somewhere in the "DON'T KILL" and "WIPE, THEN FLUSH" area of the cranial file cabinet, to want to rescue the lot of being that inhabits the known universe? You'd think the world would reflect a greater prevalence of that attitude if it were truly so, but perhaps the proportion of awakened consciousness in the world that attempts to answer the true humanistic call of salvation for all that is/was/ever will be alive is representative of what we carry around with us on our routine duties and pleasures. As with the ratio of all that exists, most of the time we just feel like truck drivers or bean counters or diseased flesh or horny gophers or sand crabs or old-growth redwoods or frozen kelp or Wall Street bankers or aging greyhounds or thirsty cave-dwelling cougars. I guess I can go with everyone being a ten-millionth messiah, and the rest just idle. I'll keep playing the lottery though. You used to have to watch the teevee or read the paper to get the numbers, but the internet has made everything SO much easier. Let me read you some more of my memoir poetry... The nearest thing to the present that we can understand is the moment that has just passed and is accumulating in that little pool of short-term memory. That's where all the decisions come from. Quite literally, you're living in the past; understand? It's not an easy mission to go forward with the future, but people manage to somehow do it with regularity. A marvel these humans are, barely able to recognize what it is that has happened and what it is that there mind has told them might happen, and still they muster the gall to accept the challenge of making sure one foot goes in front of the other until their creation is a reality. And by the time it is a real thing, no one knows what happened in the past, in your other version of events where there was a little more subtlety in the onset and a little more chocolate and sex in the reception. But then again, who needs it. The course of history is changed, slightly, by the fabrication of this ingenious object which took to life the constructs of your instantial memories. Bravo. Now you can go to fucking sleep please. Thank you. Are we done yet? I think the music stopped playing and the coffeepots empty. Dude, you HAVE to do those assignments at some point. Why do this to yourself? -drowning in shit (paperwork) (Comment on this)