Just a quick hello…

Ugh, my apologies. It’s been a bit longer than I would like, but I’ve been so busy. Said television network… I am in love. It is the greatest job I have ever had. I can’t tell you how wonderful the place is. I never want to leave. I’m busy dealing with certain clients, so that’s been my only issue. One particular boy band gave me trouble the other day. There are three of them. Brothers. They work for a company that rhymes with Tisney. That’s all.

Anyways, I’d love to recommend some great jazz to you, because I have been on a real kick lately. Check out Coltrane’s song Cousin Mary (I happen to really have one!) and also pick up Wes Montgomery’s A Day In The Life, seen below;

The album was two covers of Beatles songs, as well. These include the title track and Eleanor Rigby. Really fantastic.

Oh, and I picked up a new book recently about a New England prep school. I’m looking forward to reading it… I assume it will be quite nostalgic.

Alright, cheers for now. Next time I write I’ll post some pictures of a recent New York excursion. Hope you’re well.

How could we have known?

Good day, WordPress, good day…

I’ve got a few things on my mind… the first being a personal observation, but… How could we have known? Back in high school, we were fighting what we thought was the good fight. We were tuned into The Beatles and punk bands, we went to local shows, we supported bands, and we always dressed the part. Little did we know we were the front lines of new wave hipsters constructing what is now very certainly the scene. We’re different than other waves, though. When I look at my brother and sister, who both grew up in their own generations you can see the way alternative sub-genres stuck to themselves. Nowadays, we’re all bleeding hearts for the intellectual hip-hop subculture that’s full of white blazers and big sunglasses. We love it. It’s so chic. Yet, we still go see Animal Collective, wear our skinny jeans, and write X’s on our hands. Well, I’ve seen people do that… I would never, of course. We have become this massive transcendental, synthesized culture now. Some things never change, though. We still read Kerouac, we still drink teas, collect vinyl, and dig polaroids.

The other thing I wanted to say is… I had a conversation the other night while I was sitting on my bathroom floor. I was on the bathroom floor simply because it’s where I can get my best thinking done as it is secluded and comfy in a strange way. Anyways, so I end up having this unexpected conversation with an old… friend? She wasn’t even ever really a friend. Just a girl I spent some time with who I really liked, however, I was mixed up in some spiritual quest at the time and all I did was push her away. She is the sweetest thing, and I have thought about her for the last nine months, but the timing was always so wrong. Anyways, so yeah we have this conversation, and it’s weird, and borderline reaches confronting the fact that I fucked her over, and then I say I have to go, and we haven’t spoken since. Well, that’s a lie, we have talked, but we didn’t say anything if you catch my drift. I’m confused.

Art critics, Wes Andersen, and the theory of evolution.

Well, I never been to Spain, but I sure do like the music, and the Spanish girls sure do know how to use it…

…Don’t worry, I’m not about to bring these three topics together, I’m just about to rant. As the Three Dog Night record spins, I’ve got some things on my mind I’ve been mulling over for the past few days. First of all, I was furniture shopping the other day for my new apartment and I started to think about art and music, and my own perspectives on these things. Now, you must understand, furniture shopping is a very nostalgic experience for me. Why? I’m not entirely sure. My theory is that there is such age differences between myself and my siblings that I can remember furniture shopping for their apartments during almost every phase of my life. It’s just a way to clock phases and periods of time. Anyways, I was thinking about how I used to blindly accept and love whatever alternative piece of “art” came my way when I was younger. I am looking back bitterly on it, because I realize most of it sucked or was mass produced. Now, I’m not saying I won’t sometime reject the pieces I love now. That’s how I work. My feelings of affection for anything, be it a painting, song, or a woman, often change in a volatile fashion. What I am saying, though, is no matter what came my way, any painting, any photograph, I could find something to love about it. Sure, this sounds great, but in the end of it I never knew what I actually liked. I think now what justifies art, and what makes it legitimate is if someone fucking hates it. Despises it. Art isn’t something we enjoy, it’s something that challenges us. Now I’m not claiming to know what art is, trust me, I’m not. Here’s what I’m saying;

I had this professor last semester. A real asshole. He went on one day about how terrible Wes Andersen was. He said he was trying too hard to be different, or replicate something indie. I love Wes Andersen. I didn’t appreciate this, but it certainly made me question his work, and ultimately realize the things I love about what he does. If we’re not challenged, we become ignorant, and we forget what we’re about, ya dig? Also, this professor, he loved Ingmar Bergman. Now hell, I know Ingmar Bergman is an incredible director. Probably better than Wes Andersen in terms of influence, but I honestly can’t stand his work. I think he sucks. I think he’s boring, and I think he never did anything that Renoir didn’t do before him. My professor liked him because he had some kind of hard on for anything Swedish. Now, although I hate Bergman, and hate him probably even more because this ass liked him, I can still respect him, and can respect my professor for liking him because he was able to justify his obsession with legitimate points. Hating art is great. We keep ourselves in check and we find a little understanding for each other along the way.

As far as evolution goes. I read that Darwin believed in a higher power because, although he could account for many changes and biological responses that humans exhibit, he could never account for why some people like certain things, and others don’t. He knew that a sunset was pretty, but he couldn’t account for why he thought that. He said it was something delivered to us from above our evolutionary status, as opposed to something we brought with us from the bottom. I like that. In fact, I love it. It’s nice to know that we remain complicated and undefined by science.

Side 1 is done. I have a terrible stuffy nose. I have a fever, as well. Things are looking up, though. It turns out my boss at the unnamed, major television network happens to be a beautiful blond in her early twenties. Perhaps I will find some work ethic after all.

It was twenty years ago today…

Haha! I’ve been waiting twenty years to do that! If you get the lyrical reference, I applaud you.

So, I am twenty. I shed my teen years at around 5 am today. I crawled in bed around three, and stared at the ceiling for about two hours wishing that I could fall asleep and wake up back in high school when morning came. When 5 came, though, I decided the last twenty years were great. I’ve gone through a lot with this world. Saw shuttle disasters, watched TRL, and said goodbye to Reagan. That’s beside the point; at around 5, I made a truce with uncertainty and decided that I would start again. I will live my life in increments of 20 years at a time. Reinventing my world every two decades.

That is clearly just what I need. More reinvention. I forgot I had this blog, and just found it again about twenty minutes ago. So much has changed since these earlier entries, but what’s frightening is things actually seem pretty much the same. I’m not sleeping properly. Life can still be boring. I am having trouble expressing myself to the world, due to my perpetual ability to transcend people, images, and states of mind.

I can’t discuss these previous statements because I’ll only get frustrated. For the last nine months I wanted nothing more than the warm summer months to come, and now that they are here all I want is Autumn. I think it’s because summer is such a temporary place to be, especially when you’re from the Northeast. It doesn’t feel like real life, and I really need to do some living right now.

I’d love a rainy, October day right now. A J. Crew sweater, a warm tea, a walk through Boston’s Public Gardens over damp red and orange leaves. Throw a trip to the MFA and a great travel book in there, and it sounds like a good day. Ideally, such a day would be followed by a night of steak au’poivre, a foreign film, and cuddling with a blond stranger in her matching cable knit sweater. A late evening of wine, making love, napping, making love, sleeping, making love, a wonderful brunch and then a permanent goodbye would mean perfection. If she carried some thoughts on Nick Drake, the ocean, and interesting career goals, then the permanent goodbyes could at least be stalled for a few months I’m sure.

Alas, though, we’re months away from that. I’ve got women troubles, as well. No surprises, there. There are several that have me in strange moods, but I just don’t think about any of them. They are all… how do you say? The same.

What else? Summer now means country music, wonderful drives, and hopefully some fishing trips soon. It’s a good life, it is. I miss my friends, and I look forward to the return of some old faces this summer. This will be the first I’m single in… oh, what is it? Four of five years? It just feels good to be free.

I’m starting an internship soon at a certain, major television network which shall remain unnamed. I have… mixed feelings. We’ll see. I don’t start for a couple weeks, though, which feels nice. I need to join a gym at home, and before the week ends I need to get to New York City, to the Village, and take some photos. I just… need to.

We’ll, I’m bad at commitments, but maybe I’ll keep this up… Hope you’re well.

don’t say i didn’t warn you.

okay, kids… here goes. i’ll tell you about my life. lately i can’t sleep. i can’t sleep at all. i’m running on about, oh, i’d say 3 hours of sleep per day. essentially i try and sleep, but when i lay there i start to go crazy. all of these ideas kind of flow over me and they happen so fast that my head starts to hurt. i’ll write poetry in my head and i’ll need to get up and write it down, or i’ll think of something to draw and i will need to do it right then. it’s terrible actually. last night instead of trying to sleep and undergoing this insane restlessness, i stayed up all night and watched movies, because when i’m watching a good film my body and mind are perfectly content to just be still. i’ve just been thinking so much. i have found a purpose, though. i know something i must do. it is find joel gion, the tambourine player for the old brian jonestown massacre and make a film about him. as of 2005 he was working for ameoba records on haight street in san francisco. also, he fronts a new band now called the dilletantes. (real good stuff. you should check them out.) anyways… i need to make this film. i need to interview him. the movie is really shaping up in my head, actually. i need to find joel gion: 

why did elliott smith have to die?

the question. the question. i am full of them. i am full of apathy and bitterness and boredom. i feel like i haven’t been honest with you. you’re reading this because… well, god knows why, but you’re reading this and i’m writing this so i may as well give you something great to read. no, but really… you’ve caught me on a bad day. all i can tell you is that life is fucking mundane, man. it’s the same thing over and over. the same people with different faces, the same feelings as they keep fleeting, and the same streets in different towns. i’m not just going to bitch, though. sometimes life needs to remind you that it doesn’t suck. today i didn’t wake up until 2. i skipped class, and i stayed in bed for as long as i could. why did i do this? am i struggling with depression? i don’t think so. i just didn’t want to get up because i knew it would all be the same. the same as yesterday, and the same as tomorrow. i have no purpose in life. that’s just the truth. i’m okay with that. anyways, today should have been boring, and it was for the most part. everything that was supposed to happen did. that’s what i hate about life. you can expect what’s coming next. it was all how it was supposed to be until very late in the game. i was waiting for my train and someone appeared. naturally people appear all the time, so why does this matter? this mattered because this person was a piece of something. i feel lately like i’m drawing a map and i’m missing pieces and they reveal themselves sometimes. so this person appears and they aren’t anyone i know, but they’re not a stranger and… it was the way it was supposed to be, but it was unexpected and it was necessary and beautiful. so much for revealing anything. i’m sorry. keep reading. i promise it will get good! 

Looking at life through a black bag

Before I was destroyed. Before the war, and before my personal deconstruction I was on a path to identity and knowingness in which I was conscious of love between friends and soul mates. I knew how to dress myself, what I should listen to, and what I needed to say. I knew how to present myself, and most importantly I knew what I wanted to be. Before my world began to crack, and before the sledge of time came down upon my skies smashing every possibility open and letting the reality of life pour into my unadulterated soul, I was happy. At the time, the cast of characters was so limited. I was the protagonist.

Preconceptions

This is a rare moment of self exposure for some of us. I am unaware as to how often you read or write in blogs, but in my adult life, I have been limited mainly to the chairs in the audience. I have become rather cynical of the internet in recent times, and am attempting to ignore this hypocritical gesture on my part.  That said… Here is my piece of internet real estate. I suppose you could say I’m renting. For free.Currently I’m learning French. I just started tonight, and it feels good to be finally doing it. It’s been on my list of things to do before I die for sometime. I’m already practically fluent… Bonjour! Ca va? Je suis fatigue. Merci. Oui. There you see? A French man, no? I’ll keep you informed on my progress. Today was a cold day in Boston. It started with coffee and pumpkin bread while I watched “A Hard Day’s Night.” The temperature rose a bit from 38 to 45 and as numbers escalated, so did I to beef stew, Spanish olives, and English breakfast tea. As the traditional apathy and bitterness of winter approaches, it’s good to look up to our European friends and see how they cope with things like Mistral winds that sweep across the continent from Siberia bringing temperatures down to below zero. The solution: Eat, eat, eat!  Besides this new found tactic to battle the cold, today brought a conversation with one of my good friends regarding the inability to understand an ex-girlfriend’s recent, and all too clingy, actions. Furthermore, I’ve done a lot of thinking in regards to relationships, and some minor things I’m currently mixed up in, but more on that later. Right now I’m going to go read A Year In Provence by Peter Mayle.  Of course, I wish you well, and stay warm.