Yep

Fuck it. Fuckitty, fuck it. My thoughts, my paranoia, my enthusiasm, my writing. I'm fine with all of this. I am pretty sure I am fine with all of this.

Pay No Mind, I Have No Time

Pay no mind to the aberrations I create.
Only know that I do this because I'm haunted if I don't.
When every person is busy spinning, weaving, and climbing their webs,
I effort to make orderly little formations with the thoughts in my head.

Pithy observances,
So full of excitement and dread,
That I will readily drop once boredom arrives.
Mad little perceptions and curious inspirations.
All-colored threads, they weave through our lives.
I honestly don't know what I'm confined to do.

I can no longer pretend there is a moment coming,
A moment when I will come to know everything.
Everything there is to know about oneself.
I am constant and I am formless,
I am floating and I am fluid,
I am sinew and plasma.
I am translatable only by your tongue,
And I mean nothing for that which I meant.

Bouts of fiction against truth can only be told when they violently collide.
I do not censor my thoughts,
So I must not censor the way they find breath every morning.
The seedlings and the Master made a deal before time began.
You must grow the way you were designed, or forever be damned.

I Pay No Attention To Red Lights

Before I'm even done with my meal, I've decided we're going to pick a fight with one of Austin's favourite sons. Before I even finish my first glass of wine, I already have the melody in my head, and it's anthemic proclamation. They have no idea the tactical assault I'm sketching in the back of my mind, all quiet-like, while we smile and talk of jobs and inane shit; while they fork through their pork tenderloins and gazpacho. I am planning to launch this in the coming months. At worst, it will give me something to do; at best, it will cause some sort of rip in the fabric, no matter how small or insignificant...one that makes people (specific people) take notice. All the great one's need a foil. Marianne Faithful, Sedgwick, Simon, Nico, Joplin, etc. Someone benefited from the back and forth dynamic...the competition. Although, I will admit, the thought of this annoys me...I really don't want to give her the satisfaction. Any of them for that matter...non-deserving sponges of attention. There's no reason to claim reason, but there is a reason for everything, and as it stands, there is a reason for this.

Reason #1: My infinite and incomprehensible sentimentality. It springs from a well that knows no regulation or fears no exhaustion.

I would do this in front of everyone. I would be completely oblivious to their averted scoffs and silent judgements. I would defy all the sound reason that well-adjusted people carry in normal social circumstantial behavior. I would do it if they'd all jettison judgment and just know that I was half-kidding and half-serious, so when it worked or failed, I could conveniently fall to one side of the fence or the other and we could all go on about our normal course. I would do it if I knew I wouldn't be some social pariah because of an excessive show of overt-sentimentality. But I suppose that's a boring concept in some circles. I suppose it's much more riveting to talk about mind-numbing TV shows, temporary jobs, uninteresting movies, shopping, stores, drinks, apartments, houses, condos, parties, parties, parties, drinks, people who aren't here, dear God.

I would throw down my napkin, shuffle around the table, politely excusing myself for inconveniently walking around these boringly sensible people and their delicious meals, and I would put my hands on her face and say, "I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I FUCKING LOVE YOU." Then I would kiss her on the forehead, under her newly red-streaked hair. I would turn and look everyone in the eyes like a wild man from some mountain hut. I would light a cigarette (INSIDE...she hates smoking) and then I would turn and walk out of the door, off into the night, under a streetlamp like some character in a James Dean flick. They would wonder why I didn't pay my check, if I was going to need a ride home, or if I was going to catch a cab. They would wonder if I was simply mad, or just collectively decide that I had gone completely batshit insane. You know...all the things people would concern themselves with if someone actually did what I would do. I would do it without regret. I would do it in a way that only I alone could, and she would see me. Maybe even wonder what it means.

Reason #2: The tendency, I've found, is to push the issue even when it's a dead-end street, on a fruitless plain, underneath a rainless cloud, on a starless night. I should probably find a way to stop this.

Because there's something truly romantic about a tragic, insecure girl. She needs to be "saved," right?! They need to be saved from the dark side of the world and all it's pointed barbs and thievery. Stealing and coaxing them into the dimly-lit back rooms and alleyways of the world. Assholes. They use tempting lures like fame and fortune to get the attention of those who need attention. Crave attention. Need it like oxygen in the lungs. It's amazing. And I need them in the same manner. Or at least I've partly convinced myself of that. Because I am the antithesis. I am the flashlight in the alley, waving my hand, "come this way...we'll get you into the light." I am the antiseptic that pours over the toxic scrape of the viper's fangs. I am the gigantic fucking hug in the middle of the thunderstorm like that uber-gay jewelry commercial. I am the roof over the head. I am the defibrillator in the middle of cardiac arrest. I am the rain in the middle of the desert. Or at least I've partly convinced myself of that.

Oh, of course I can psycho-analyze myself all the way through to the other side of myself. I know what would be said about it. I'm just trying to embrace it. The most important part though, is to keep what you really know about yourself inside. There's always someone willing to take, take, take. There's always someone there to call you crazy. So you're picky about what you show. Because in the end, it's yours. I'll have an outburst of sentimentality, and then withdraw in horror when I realize what I've done. I think people confuse it for being "emotional" or even "melancholy," but I don't think that's entirely accurate either. Everybody has those elements on some level or another. I think maybe it's more of an observational thing...and some are more in tune to it than others. I think it's something akin to how animals can pick up certain scents that we can't. Some of us are just programmed with more sets of sensitivity to certain stimuli than others.

When he's around, he always wins. That's why I'm picking a fight. When he's around, I'm invisible. It's no mystery.

Wankers

Posting political quotes on your Facebook account that you copy and paste off of Google, while at work, does not make you socially-conscious. I don't care how many of your retard friends reinforce your "wisdom" with their comments. Even if they do get into the double-digits. It's about as cool as being the best tracer in third grade.

Everyone That Mattered Went To Bed

And so it is. South By Southwest is LITERALLY efforting (in countless ways) to end me. There's only 15 ways to end a day. I chose one and did it. Yet I still stand, bloody, bruised, dizzy, and supremely happy!!

Walt Whitman, You Are a Friend of Mine

Bad Grammar Kills

It kills deader than dead. Errant and reckless, unchecked and negligent, indolent and hasty...it wrecks sentences. Complete sentences. These are not of my LOT! Fundamental exchanges ruined by shoddy workmanship, like a rusty knife might distribute. It's hard to prove a point with sloppy indignation.

I goddamn drank a whiskey, in genuine and sincere homage, inside the exact bar where Dylan Thomas drank his liver green and died shortly thereafter, because of my superlative reverance for the English language in it's correct and competent form!!!!!



I...........AM A FAN OF PROPER GRAMMAR.




**And apparently tequila, tonight.

One Was Texas Medicine, The Other Was Just Railroad Gin

I've been exhibiting some rather comfortingly incidental behavior as of late. I've made myself a friend of risk. Like a real man should. I've abandoned certain lines of thought in an effort to find grace. I was told I was a "catch" tonight, and simultaneously told why I haven't been "caught." The people who have it all figured out are those I remain leery of. Speculation makes me laugh in the most secretive of ways. Everybody has an agenda.

Black and White and Read All Over

This isn't a subject I've ever really given credence to on this...thing, but since this is the first real incarnation of any press we've received, I think I'll concede and at least give it notice.

THE DAILY TEXAN

By Mary Lingwall
Daily Texan Staff
Published: Thursday, February 11, 2010
Updated: Thursday, February 11, 2010

Usually, it takes a few years for a local band to get notoriety in Austin. However, only about seven months after its first jam session and a few weeks away from recording its debut EP, Guns of Navarone is quickly gaining an enthusiastic, eclectic fan base.

When Guns of Navarone played at The Parlor on North Loop Boulevard a few Fridays ago, I was struck by the diversity of fans at the show. Amid the plaid-clad regulars of the Austin music scene, I also ran into two college students in cowboy boots and quite a few fresh-faced college-aged women.

When Guns of Navarone started playing, I realized why the band’s fan base not only packed The Parlor to capacity, but also drew from diverse music subcultures. By mixing alternative-country aesthetics with detailed and upbeat guitar riffs, and bass lines of a Southern rock flavor with the songwriting and vocal stylings of Americana and folk traditions, Guns of Navarone’s sound fills a unique — and largely vacant — musical niche in Austin.

Guns of Navarone’s sound is the natural product of a collaborative process between Seth Grueneberg on lead guitar, Cory R3inisch on vocals and guitar, Richard Knox on drums and Dustin Meyer on bass guitar. Longtime friends and former roommates, R3inisch and Knox have played music together since college.

“We did mostly covers,” R3inisch said before starting to laugh. “Well, that was a lie, it was all covers. [And] we have been talking ever since we graduated that this was something we wanted to continue and do our own original stuff.”

Oddly enough, R3inisch’s aesthetic — born out of a lifelong attraction to bands like Wilco, Whiskeytown and Uncle Tupelo — caught the attention of Grueneberg, local musician and former guitarist for local punk outfit Consider the Source. After meeting at a happy hour, R3inisch and Grueneberg began talks about putting a band together.

“Seth kind of lit [the] fire under my ass,” said R3inisch. “I thought he was just bullshitting me, honestly. Until he showed up at my house.”

Even though Grueneberg’s musical background is more in tune with more roguish styles of rock, he has actually become the spearhead of the band’s folksier edge. Guns of Navarone’s occasional mandolin-playing comes straight from Grueneberg’s affinity for the instrument.

“Seth is just such a naturally good musician that he picked [my mandolin] up and started writing these amazing parts with it,” R3inisch said. “When we bring a song in and we feel like it needs something added, we just do whatever feels natural.”

On their way into the studio to cut their first EP later this month, the bandmates are humbly aware of their freshness in such a music-saturated scene.

“Seth has been there with Consider the Source [for all those years],” R3inisch said. “And he has seen bands go up and have their falling. [We know that we] are still so young and new and in the infancy stages.”

But veteran knowledge and green ambitions haven’t given Guns of Navarone a sense of entitlement.

“I just want to play something [like] this,” Grueneberg said matter-of-factly.

“And we’ve got a great guy in our corner with James [Taylor, of Giant Steps Productions],” R3inisch said. “He’s been helping us with shows. And without him, I think that this would have been a much more strenuous process.”

With a full set of songs under its belt, the band is already preparing for a full-length recording this summer. But big plans and growing attention hasn’t changed what these guys really are — a group of friends down for just about anything, from talking about music to offering dating advice.

“You’ll wake up someday, and it will all make sense,” R3inisch said.

But, for some reason, I think his advice is more apt for his story than mine. After toying with his guitar almost his entire life, I think R3inisch is finally onto something.






Rebecca Miller/The Daily Texan

(link to article)

Furiously Active Nucleus

It seems I'm at the center again. The place where the dam broke and became the catalyst for so much introspection and hyper-sensitive decision about how I was going to live out my days and the person I was to become. I've marked that day on my calendar, in blood no less, and use it as a reference point to determine the timeline of my life. Through miles and miles of memory and effort and regret...it was a big bang. One that certainly forced me to become the person I am today, for better or worse. Mostly better. I owe that time in my life a "thank you" note, and at the same time I owe it a shot to the face with fists clenched. I guess I owe it what's fair. To be acknowledged seems fair. To write some dizzying manifesto might do it justice, but I think everything I've touched since has left fingerprints all over the place.

All footnotes and diversions have been washed in bleach and driven away. I just need a handful of evenings to figure out an infinite equation that few have ever solved, much less even attempted. I've cleared all the lanes. I've paid all my debts. I've cleansed the system. Flushed the pipes. I've armed myself, and wiped off the windshield. It's time to process and make some sense of my staggering sentimentality...to see if it's ever justified...because if I can't reconcile it now, I'll never be able to make a case for it in the coming days. More importantly, it's time to project what it means to me moving forward. Two steaming locomotives marching towards collision. It's high-noon and here we are, staring each other in the face again.

Act Nice and Gentle...

...with me. That's all I ask.

I End Up Buying Flowers

For every transgression. As it should be. Nobody should be afraid of nothin'. We're all taken care of in one way or another. As it is, at the end of the day, I'm appeased by a life I'm reverentially grateful for. Quiet. Loud. Quite loud...are the voices in my head. "Quite possibly" couldn't be more possible than any possibility should ever allow. The hours keep tabs as we stumble along. Blissful and naive. As it should be...within reason.

Just nod your head in agreement. We all know our limits.

Happy Birthday Will. It will never cease being a diabolical scheme with you and I. I love you.

Oh The Sweetest Winds, They Blow Across the South

I enjoy the perfect absence of sound, when silence is all there is to be heard, and I'm privy to free-formed movement and thought. No ranting or wild speculation about how things are or how they should be. In fact, I need it. I need it to function and process. How we weather upheaval is something that intrigues and challenges me...in the best of ways. The ever-present ebb and flow of consequence and change moves in us and opens the door for reflection. I feel somewhat compelled to mention that. It's in the perfect absence of static that rationale comes into the fold.

An older family member that I greatly respected passed on and moved into greener pastures today. In the midst of the crowd, he kept, with perfect sweetness, the independence of solitude...in that, his soul wasn't swayed by the incidental or unforeseen. He held his core and he held it tightly no matter what life sent his way. I have the highest respect for that. An unwavering loyalty to yourself, and your ideals, is something I strive to emulate, no matter the consequence. Everything he did was with zeal and empathy. Even if it was something as simple as reading a book, or engaging in menial conversation. That's respectful. This was a man who worked as an engineer in the Navy and helped build the runways for the Enola Gay in the Philippines. He married the love of his life, endured after her passing, raised a wonderful family, and extended his tranquil soul to all those he encountered. He was a sweet man, and he lived a life of virtue and cordiality, employing an unrelenting humor and serenity. He was from the dying breed, and while his part in this story is over, there's a security I feel from having known him. It's a blessing to live a full life. Enriched with every sense of humanity one can encounter. It's a blessing we can all hope for before our own card is pulled. Life is happening all around us. No matter where we wander.

He was one of the good ones. I raise my glass.

Unfailing Loyalist

Everyone within earshot is wondering who's directing this here symphony. Driving down habitual impulses can be a heavy charge. I feel change, and I feel like I should change or be left in the silence. A moment before, where you could see everything luminous and clear has suddenly become a disjointed haze. Something akin to wiping the fog off a window, but the fog won't wipe off. It's on the other side of the glass, it seems. There's some type of metaphorical gun pointing it's shaky crosshairs at my forehead right now and I don't know where it's coming from. The aim is quite unsound. I don't know where to hide or even where to shoot back, or if I should do either. They don't hand out medals for bad behavior. In any case, most courageous acts occur where no one else sees or bears witness, and even the decisive act that leads to it is done somewhere in silence.

I always leave a light on in that window. I don't know why.

I hate to ask you this, but could you sit right there while I settle an old score?

It Sounds So Soothing To Mix a Gin and Sink Into Oblivion

And deal with it then. Patience, you are a valuable ally. One that has profitted me something beneficial. Even among the venerable assembly of characters from the long shadows and uncertain light. I'm thankful for my recent time amongst the pines, figuring all that is to be figured, with those who make the figuring consistent and accurate. At least, from my point of view perspective is everything.* So it goes. I have goals. Wrote them down on a 3X5 notecard and stuck them in my wallet to carry in my back pocket at all times to remind me of effectual perspective. 2010, here I come...I hope you're ready. Degrees of certainty notwithstanding.


*And also, immediately listen to Telekinesis. Songs are Coasts of Carolina and Foreign Room.

Giant Ghosts Of The Winter Drift

You are a friend of man.
And my thoughts are left to picking battles.
Unequivocal discovery,
Finding you in the realm of love.
As words from the old bard,
"What's in a name?
That which we call a rose,
By any other name would smell as sweet."
Your presence is so overtly significant,
These feelings have not yet been named.
Spinning and shining from where things are,
And where they're supposed to be.
What will be,
Never will be.
I can't convince myself you're really there.

Through life's rich pageant,
I dance with you.
If only fleeting and timeless.
A great commission for touch and embrace,
That which you cannot possibly possess.
Scared.
Sacred.
You have my sympathies.
And to whatever devil or saint you accompany,
When you're not roaming unchecked in my own reverie,
I raise my drink to the contenders.
Never will they have faced such an invisible and unconquerable foe.

I only posture when necessary.
I only parade when asked.
Risen,
From the ice world.
Where you've grown oh so cold.
Where you live oh so cold.
Embers only dying now,
From a fire long ago.
With a knife in your belt,
Stabbing for my soul,
You are no friend of man.
Taken,
In the night.
Like an aviator's baby boy.
With no steps through the door,
Levitate across the floor,
With the cold wind in the lunar light.
I tire more expediently than before.
Yet, the mind loses no step.
It is the crime of the century.
Profoundly significant confusion.
I am terrified,
There will be no conclusion.

Why did you find the most sentimental of lovers?
May it haunt you as you haunt me.
So what can you see up there?
Where no one exists.
How does it look up there?
Hovering high above.
On the pedestal where I've placed you.

It Ain't Gonna Save Me

Blood splattered in Pollock-esque brilliance when he split his temple with the business end blade of that black Flying-V guitar.
"Ahhhhh fuck all...here we go..."

Mania, like a tornado, starts picking up alarming velocity in shoulder to shoulder proximity. Beer cans start sailing like Spitfires at the heads of the bandmates as they scurry off stage. It was all out war. Mortar rounds lobbed from the crowd, drumsticks like bayonets, a mic-stand makes an effective mallet, bass guitar like a battering ram, punches thrown...haymakers, sweat, blood, misty breath in the freezing cold, bouncers rush in with veins bulging out of their neanderthal foreheads. Spontaneous fucking chaos. I'd seen it once before in some sanctimonious Nirvana documentary when Cobain splintered the skull of some poor hooligan like he was a Chinaman driving a railroad spike. You drink too much, you embrace anarchy, you get your eyes crossed by a 3-inch-thick plank of glossy wood and nickel-wound strings; swung maliciously by the long-haired shrieking demon you just paid 20 bucks to pound your ass into raw meat, all the while accompanied by a fitting soundtrack. When cornered, wild animals go to great lengths to vacate the situation. Human civility notwithstanding, punk rock musicians are no exception.

She bought the tickets. She asked me to accompany. She was wide-eyed, hairs on the back of her neck stood up straight. Electric air, charged and fused with hysteria. A bit hypnotized she was, you might say. Pure wonderment and primal fear. I quick-scanned the room, found the easiest exit to usher her out, clinched my fist in my coat pocket, turned my beer bottle upside down (a fitting armament to sink into some wayward animal's jugular, should it come to it), grabbed her arm and ushered her to higher ground as a defensive maneuver.

We are on the Austin360 A-List the next day. We look like we belong there. The first time I saw her, she was dancing in the middle of a brightly colored hoola-hoop, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a wonderful bar, in the middle of warm lights reflecting off the middle of her small brown-haired head.

We walk past two delinquents with their faces smashed and pressed up against the window of the cruiser, being read their rights. Dried blood down the face serves as an unfortunate reminder that you do. not. fuck. with. punk. bands. in. Austin. Texas. She trembles a bit at the two poor rioters and the shape they're in. She puts her arm under mine and rests her head on my shoulder as we walk past the ignorant youthful anarchists. Inconvenienced policeman in 28 degree weather means handcuffs and arrests. Arrested. Arrested and thrown in the clink.

She looks up at me from her scarf and pea coat and tells me she has fun with me. Arrested.

I seem to be arrested.

All is lost. There is no hope for me.

EPIC

I'm fucking epic. I have an epic name. Cory Will. I live an epic life. I live in the raddest city in the whole of civilization. I know the most interesting people. We are collectively observant and effortlessly engineer the best fucking hypothetical scenarios to ever exist. Our conversation is unrivaled and airtight, rhythmic and fluid. Unceasingly thrilled and inspired. I threw the best traveling-road-show-party last night, ever...without any help. A girl made me boob-shaped cupcakes for my birthday. I have tomorrow off. Today is second Saturday. I have a head full of glorious, multi-colored hair. I wear v-neck shirts, and I look fucking amazeballs. I sometimes stare in the mirror at myself and agree to myself that I would make-out with myself. My chest is proportionately streamlined to my waist-line. I'm sweet and I have a good heart, and all the while I can ride a horse, change my own oil, field dress wild game with a pocket knife, roll my own cigarette, and I've never lost a fight I've been in. I'm not apologizing for any of this. I'm a shot of whiskey and a Bible verse. I'm a walking revolver. My momma likes my songs. She says her little boy is the greatest. I've spent the last 30 years being unnecessarily hard on myself. I've listened to other people for too long. I'm not arrogant. Far from it. This is just my "naked rain-dance" phase...to paraphrase a dear friend. If we're going to hold to the theory that we're all unpredictable, complex, multi-faceted beings, well then...I'm owed this. If someone had an intervention with me, I'd say, "I saw this coming."

Is that what you look like now???? Jesus. Herbert. Christ. You age well. Too bad looks don't really mattah anymore. I've been making eyes at you.

The Windmill At Which I've Lowered My Lance

I'm finally to a dedicated point. A plateau where I feel comfortable buying what you're selling. I don't feel like I'm sliding down the shiny edge of a thin razor, nervously looking over each side hoping not to fall, but longing to get off all the while. I am finally beginning to come to understand what I already know. The horses are comfortable in the stables and the need for furious running is only shown in flashes of white-knuckle focus now. Rested and weary, I can reload with efficiency now. You can't stop progress, and you can't deny preparation. I've rattled off long enough, headstrong throughout a vacant southern land, looking for my place at the table. Suddenly, a chair seems pulled out for me and a plate has been set. I am terribly focused right now.

Katy Bar The Door

Ever the vigilant, I know that life can tell me to have a fucking seat at any moment. It's not that I have a morbid sense of impending doom, but I think we do have to carry a circumspect ambition towards most things in life. If nothing else, it allows us to be prepared.

Because of this, or more naturally, in spite of this, I feel strongly compelled to give credence to the way I've been feeling lately and how my environment has been emitting a (very welcomed) nice warm glow.

George Bernard Shaw said, "The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." I like that quote. Not because I'm cynical, but because it recognizes the (what would seem to be an obvious fact) ever present element that life can be downright fucking rotten sometimes; what with human frailty, the presence of pure evil around every corner, death, disease, and good intentions gone awry...and to deny this is ignorance. However, it takes a certain amount of effort to keep from viewing the world this way in totality. The yin, the yang...I suppose. Light, dark.

Screaming non-sequitur: It's why I love the movie No Country For Old Men so much. I was always baffled as to why people didn't understand this movie. "I didn't get it. What was it about? It just ended like that???" The whole movie is about chaos theory and how we can't stop what's coming to us and the total lack of control thereof. There are themes of boredom interspersed with flash storms of violence. Elements that have forever plagued the human condition. But we're equipped with quite possibly the most formidable weapon with which to fight back. Hope. All you need to know about that whole movie and the hypothesis it suggests is to listen very closely to Tommie Lee Jones' monologue at the very end. The Coen brothers give the secret away at the end in, what I'd say is, the most genius of ways. The last minute-and-a-half is exactly what that movie is trying to say.

Point being, there's enough desperation to go around, and desperation is a wanderer. That's why it's so important to take in the freedom of harmony, and allow yourself to accept serenity when we find it.

Gratitude.

I am so thankful for the things I have, the people I know, the people I love, the people I have loved, the experiences I've had, the people who have helped to shape me, and the person I have become...and all that it entails.

I love this wonderful city where I reside. There is no place I would rather be. I think of the many twists and turns my life could've taken if I'd decided one way or another on so many things that seemed oh so important at the time, and I'm so thankful that I'm here, in this city, writing this right now.

I love my friends. The old adage about the measure of a man being found in his friends is true. They're all so unique and different and this entertains and amuses and warms me. But they all share common ground in that they're good people. So many good people.

I love my family. I love my family. I love my family. I love my family. I love my family. I love my family. I love my family. I love my family. I love them in a way that can never be contained by spoken word or harnessed by a thought or communication. I love them so much.

The opportunities I've been afforded are a king's ransom. Like all, I'm guilty of apathy and frustration at times, but I've been provided for by the universe every step of the way. In fact, I've been overcompensated. There's a quiet confidence that is growing in me, and the places I want to be are looking more clearly defined. I want the courage and determination. I want to line my fears up and step into the ring with them.

I've been in love. I've been in love with them, and they've been in love with me.

The older I get the more apparent it is to me that every moment we have here is to be cherished and that we truly are fleeting and fragile and beautiful. I can see it all around, and I can feel it inside. I can think about it, I can sing about it, I can write about it, and I can manifest it. That was given to me for no other reason than for me to have it. That is fascinating.

So I sit here at 30 years old with as much hope as I can ever remember.

-------

This is one of the sweetest songs I have ever heard and I love it.

You Bet, Avett...

RE: Every blessed word as a recipe for my great heart's desire HOT DAMN!!

Things Are Happening

Good things...good things I've wanted for awhile.

Damn, I love Austin.

Will The Circle Be Unbroken?

There ain't no more goddamn frontier. The only untouched places on the high plains of this world with waist-high grass and free-roaming herd animals are those in the unseen depths of our minds. Its within our heads and the veins that envelope our hearts to provide the only vast horizons for our eyes to see nowadays. Choirs sing about it. Congregations sweat over it. Untamed places where cowards cringe and the courageous barely survive are readily available, but traipsed by few. Counterclockwise motions send the bucket down the well with forearms a-pulsin' to ascend with anything it displaces, bringing into the light a drink of fearful madness. From the pits of Hell sometimes. A sin and a thought catching a ride up to the surface. Sometimes it takes a revolver to put down what was brought up, and sometimes it takes a careful set of loving, graceful hands to care for what finds new breath out of the depths. This is my favourite time of year, when those things work their way to the forefront...out of the prairie. Out of the heat. They greet us with a head-nod and a hay-maker shortly thereafter. But they acknowledge you at least. They let you know their purpose. Sometimes they're here to give us our own. Damn them all and all they carry. Some kinda high lonesome sound they sing. Always. Damn them all.

The ending of my relationship with you was a necessary casualty for getting to the place I want to be. To some parties it's difficult, but necessary, to say that my journey with you, at this point, is now over.

In the sky Lord, in the sky...

I Was Young When I Left Home

My daddy loved Dylan, and so do I. That is all.

He hung on every sad word that fell from her mouth.
All the confusion and abandonment denies everything she could possibly ever let out.
So he swaggers on, one foot in front of the other, while the questions in his head mount.
But the muse for which his heart sang and his purpose in the matter left no doubt.

"The Graduate" In Gentleman's Form

I feel as though I was seduced by the world and all her cinematic shameless self-promotion. I wonder what it'll be like when I meet the girl of my dreams and everything is fucked? When I was a child I used to think the glittered specks on the ceiling were little holes where Heaven sat in the attic, because light was the saturation of color and it hovered above us. I used to think divinity rested, perched on top of our heads, and the halogen-lighted room was where the angels sang their praise-chorus. It resided above us, and it made sense. And where is my guilt? It's everywhere. I don't know, but I've been told, every little thing's been bought and sold.

Who else feels this raw shit? Am I the only one in my little circle? I'm drunk.

The most effective poets will whine themselves to sleep. Goodnight moon. Just stop talking now.

Couldn't Have Said It Better...

"I have hoped as many hopes and dreamed so many dreams, seen them swept aside by weather, and blown away by men, washed away in my own mistakes, that — I use to wonder if it wouldn't be better just to haul off and quit hoping. Just protect my own inner brain, my own mind and heart, by drawing it up into a hard knot, and not having any more hopes or dreams at all. Pull in my feelings, and call back all of my sentiments — and not let any earthly event move me in either direction, either cause me to hate, to fear, to love, to care, to take sides, to argue the matter at all — and, yet ... there are certain good times, and pleasures that I never can forget, no matter how much I want to, because the pleasures, and the displeasures, the good times and the bad, are really all there is to me. And these pleasures that you cannot ever forget are the yeast that always starts working in your mind again, and it gets in your thoughts again, and in your eyes again, and then, all at once, no matter what has happened to you, you are building a brand new world again, based and built on the mistakes, the wreck, the hard luck and trouble of the old one."

~ Woody Guthrie

Lilly Mae Mathew's Guide To the Over Compensated Life

Straight from the hip I shoot with my best writing taking the air like tender meat. There's always something to be said for vulnerability, but who has the time, much less the desire to throw yourself in a frying pan? I do. And so it is...

It's raining tonight on these streets where it never fucking rains, and there's plenty of piss and shit to be washed away on these brick-lined avenues. Sickly enough, both literally and figuratively. You see, Cinderella's pumpkin turns into a festering gourd here from time to time, but much more infrequent than it did in the paper city just North of the Trinity River...where I lost my mind...in all it's filthy bronze elegance. So I think I can readily take this in stride and somehow manage. Life works in cycles, and we're all in this together, right? Sure.

.22 bullets used to fly like single-file flocks of albatross in the stratoshpere when I was younger. My aim was true out there, back then. Always.

That little town, Rochelle, which burned down in a white hot sunstream when it was up for county seat in the late 1800's. It had the disgrace of not being named after a famous Texas, slave-owning general. It lost because the rail head and locomotives gave Brady (Mister Peter Brady) the jurisprudence to govern the small county in which I was raised (Confederate General Ben McCulloch), but my ancestors pulled for their territory. It was a few votes short (despite 22% living below the Brady poverty line, but who knows that, and more importantly, who seems to care? That's another clothesline for another afternoon).

The Hill Country never looks sweeter than it does between our homeland and San Saba County. Lilly Mae saw it, but she didn't pay much care though...with her French-styled counters and ice-cream offerings for every child-like humanoid that passed through those arched doors. She was there because God, or the universe, or some force of nature told her to be there. 50 cents on the dollar was her standard price, and a smile and handshake was all it took to make a transaction. She was as beautiful as those hills, and her smile was welcoming like the big oak shade trees. Commerce still found her on any day, sunny or overcast. Sodas and nails, soups and flour, cash...no credit...but she held tabs.

I can still pick out the exact trees where my mother used to escape those she was surrounded by and lose herself in Hemingway and Fitzgerald and Dostoevsky. There's a strong "V-split" in a tree about 200 yards South of the ranch house...next to the crumbling livestock barns, where she would sit for hours and educate herself from herself about the world that she hadn't seen. Away from her brothers, and away from the chaos that filled that little rock-lined, hand-made house. Hours she would sit and take the Hill Country, and inspired words, in like a sponge, and she felt free and near God, or something more significant than what she'd seen. It was the same draw from her chest that pulled me to sink a cross made of cedar-posts about three feet deep into the ground where nobody ventures. It's where I thought I might find the most appropriate place to talk to God. He hasn't disagreed with the placement. Not yet anyways.

Someone once stumbled upon it, and questioned it's existence in a way that spoke of inquisitive despondence, but I never gave a fuck about those who inquired about the time I spent on my knees. I pray there when seas get rough. I pray there when skies are blue. I pray there when passing by, and I pray there when I feel inclined. I like to think she did the same in her own place. In fact, I know she did. I know of two trees that hold significance to her that she's never shared with anyone in her family. That is a mother/son conversation...and I inherited my mother's sentimentality. Thank heaven for it all...and damn it all. It's wrecked me and saved me. But mostly saved me.

I remember Mathews Grocery, before they tore it down with the mid-sized wrecking ball. There was a wicked, black 1990 Ford Ranger for sale out front that I coveted a few years before my legal driving age. But they tore her store down after she passed, like the world tears down our history, and consequently our innocence. America shreds it's history like a failed document in a corporate conference room. Ashamedly so. But nothing could've supported the belfry in that building. It was beyond it's time, and heavier than most. Like most everyone I know...myself included.

She used to sit behind the counter, serving sandwiches and smiles like a gypsy, enjoying her time pulled from the killing fields. Sent a couple of her sons over in planes made of bailing wire and super-glue to fight for Europe. Her store sat before our little parcel of land on the highway leading there, and it was always the halftime show during day-long work trips that sat more like dread as mold on wet carpet to a young boy, or glorious afternoons yanking fish out of our ponds with my father and little sister.

I drink whiskey, like my grandfather...like my sister does. It's in our blood.

You try and follow your heart, and if you're serious, you're not disappointed if it leads to complete and utter madness. In fact, you should welcome it if it beckons. The fire burns anything it wants. It's up to you to put it out or fuel it. Nobody else. It's not done for you. I think that's one of the strangest things.

Ahh, Mr. Guthrie, say it ain't so...

There's a black wind blowing through the cotton fields baby. I sit here with my unfortunate old soul, delightfully anachronistic. Sarcastically smiling where nobody understands but me.

Nothing seems to be more important in this life than understanding who you are. Nothing has shown me that it is.

Reset

Our greatest triumph will be that which we overcame. Measurement will tell us so, in due time. There's things that mean everything to me that can't be dulled by the general minutiae of life. "Each wrinkle on your face, I know it at a glance, you cannot run and hide, nor duck nor dodge them. Your carcass and your deeds, will fertilize the seeds of the men that stood to guard my thirty thousand."

I'm reminded of particular direction offered from my father on some sweat-soaked, work-heavy day on our Central Texas ranch, driving fence-posts. "You NEVER hang your head for anybody, but you NEVER place yourself above anybody. We're all in this together." There's a dark wind that blows through the cotton fields, but we weather the storm. In the cellar, or with bloody fingers in the field. Either way, we process that sentiment because of those that came before us in a far and distant time. I wonder?

We are all in this together. Hell, I see you still have his toothbrush in your bathroom. I take that for what it's worth and continue my ceaseless search. Can you blame me? No, you can't. I can't blame you either. I'm proud and deflated by certain things, but as Hemingway said, "A man can be defeated, but never destroyed." And Oscar Wilde said, "Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future." True.

You play every part scripted for you perfectly in my dreams. They are frequent...admittedly so. I also read some book about our star-signs and how compatible we are. The jury's out...

I'd stop the dreams if I could. But I'd never touch them with reality, because there's no way you could fulfill their lofty expecations. So I leave them in a satisfied, hazy memory. It's where you belong, after all. In reality.

Ships With Holes Will Sink

And this has me thinking about my true friendships. You navigate and effort within the best of your abilities to control the dynamic within the parameters of intimate relations, but how much control do we really have? In one of my irrelevant songs I say, "We slide in and out of change, but nobody ever really changes." Time, circumstance, life...it all has infinite elements that shape and mold who we are. We share our experiences like a prescribed personal essay with the people we hold infinitely dear, but what if they don't reciprocate? Or better yet, what if they simply don't want to hear your bullshit, or tire of your presence? Especially when it has a foundation in what previously seemed unshakable. I like to convince myself that the friendships I've cultivated are immune to change, but that's probably myopic on my part. In fact, I know it is. I don't hold anybody to their alleged obligations anymore. Shit, I never really have. People are free to flow in and out of my life. This might be shortsighted on my part, but I have ideals that aren't going to change; no matter who is present or who isn't. I am who I am. While I hold personal expectations for myself (in a perfect world), I won't stop being who I am because of some "potential" construct of personhood that someone has placed on my head. I didn't choose this life, I'm just living it...sometimes poorly, sometimes gracefully. To add to that, I'm not regretful. I choose, and pursue, the things I enjoy, and avoid that which I don't. I'm only participating in the paths that have been laid on my plate on a daily basis like every other person in this world. Potential is a dangerous word. I'll navigate around it in the only way I know how...and I have my blueprint (like everybody else)...I don't need approval. In the end, I only have to answer to myself (and I hold myself to higher standards than anybody in this world, or the next, can possibly hope to impose on me). But I'll deal with the consequences of my decisions, like a man, like the way my father taught me, when it's my time to answer. I once read a great quote, "Let the world know the weight of who you are, and then let the world deal with it." I'm an idealist, so naturally, that's gonna ring true to me. How can I not? Really? My ideals sometimes get me in trouble, though. It's all I know.

Doors open and doors close. I'm not in the business of lies, and I'm certainly not in the business of slamming doors shut on those I love and respect. I'm not sure I'm ready for some of those doors to close just yet. But I have no control over certain elements, and I shouldn't be ashamed of that. I won't be. I just wish there was a more efficient means of communicating that unfolding dynamic. But it is what it is. It is what it is. I've had enough life under my belt to understand that I know ships with holes will sink. Sometimes sad, but sometimes unavoidable. It is what it is. As my musical hero Ryan Adams says (and I say this with no arrogance), "I always win in the end." I say that because I hold true to my ideals. I'm not ashamed to lose and let go. One of the most important lessons I've ever learned is to let go. I'm not afraid of this. But maybe that's my problem?

Abandonment issues in their twisted vacuum. Maybe that's the issue? Maybe not.

I promise, I'm not self-involved. Very much the opposite. Don't know how to handle recent developments. But this is how I've chosen, I suppose.

On another, unrelated note, life is good. I have my first "band gig" next Tuesday. I couldn't have picked three better gentlemen to play with, and I'm finally doing it. It's what I moved here for, and it's actually happening. I like our songs, and I hope people like our performance. We'll see.

Someone once told me, "You think too much." I love the person who told me that, like a brother, and I don't ever take it as an insult although I think that was it's original intent. I take that as direct fucking representation of who I am. If you don't like it, I can't change that. I'm sorry.

Faith (in every respect). Patience (in ways that need to be learned). "Heal your vines, you'll heal inside eventually."

Movies

I just watched "500 Days of Summer" and even though I had at least three glasses of wine while doing so, I've come to the conclusion that if I had the talent to write a movie about my 20's, it probably would've been that one. It's great...it made me squirm in my seat...and it's haunting. To me.

I'm tired of being the set of training wheels for girls before they get on their big bikes. But nothing in the prior entries of this blog should lend surprise to that.

Let's Not and Say We Did...or Maybe Not Never Did Do Anything

I've told myself, many times, that some things never change. When they do it's often surprising...the outcome, the motive, those involved, everything. When things don't change you almost get used to it's familiarity. Like that train that picks you up every day at the same time and takes you past the same buildings and drops you off at the same place. That same structured black hole you find yourself inescapably falling down every time. Well today was different.

You see, I've had a problem falling down that black-hole-piss-pot situation for awhile now, and now that she's decided to add recreational drug use to her mantra shouldn't surprise, nor offend. However, the ruse for which it came about is suspiciously strategic, as were other recent moves on her part. I'm pretty sure both of which were aimed at me. That's neither here nor there. Even if the dialogue and movement from either side says otherwise. This is how I deal with it.

For those who deal in extremes (a trait, after trial and error, I've definitively found repulsive) the coming is as easy as the going. I'm not to escape blame...I was buying what she was selling. Literally, and figuratively...ashamedly so. But in spite of the fact that I had to drive home today to sleep some of it off during the middle of the workday, on a Tuesday notwithstanding, I found her proposition had a very different kind of appeal to me today.

To piss on one's tree, one must enjoy that which he is marking, and subsequently hold indignation for those trying to impose their unwelcome presence. Well, I thought about it, because for fuck's sake, here was my chance...

"I'm in self-destruction mode today...are you?"

"Hmmm...I've been avoiding self-destruction mode as of late...but you know I'm no stranger to decadence."

"You wanna go crazy tonight?"

"You KNOW I'll call your bluff on that, maybe."

"Meet me at my house in 30 minutes. Stay with me tonight."

"I hope you're alright."

So I sat, staring at myself in the mirror...getting my haircut, and somewhere not too far down the road there was a girl. And this girl was probably burying her day and her trials under piles of red-stained turbulent devolution. And I'm sure there was a guy next to her. Possibly on the couch, or maybe in her bed. But this time...this time...it wasn't me.

The girl who normally cuts my hair walks by, looks me in the mirror and asks, "Hey, you stayin' outta trouble?!?!"

"I'm trying."

For the first time in awhile, I wasn't lying.

L'Arc-en-Ciel

There's people and places I've seen and heard and felt.
There's signs and pathways that point and travel and fail.
You sit in a dark room long enough you'll go blind.
No need for eyes.
Nothing to hear.
Nothing to feel.
Nobody to be.
Turn the lights on and hear faint buzzing in the bulb.
Feel the warmth of light.
Everything illuminates in the circuit of electricity.
Everything illuminates because of my hyper-sensitivity.
I watch no channels.
I memorize no lines.
I sit and dream up prolific times.
Nothing makes sense and everything is relative.
Bend some laws and stretch most truths.
For a moment there I thought it was you.
Dressed in clothes arched in red and green.
Dancing in a sky soaked blue.
I try not to understand until something gives,
Or the dust flies off and the shine comes through.

Corinthian arrogance is not just a biblical affliction.
It's a novel world; it's a present condition.
It's platinum everyone.
Can't be chained by what seems real or what seems fake.
Everyone hiding behind secret spills and stains.
I've made the strangest mistakes I can't really explain.

Your chromatic spectacle.
Your untouchable mirage.
You are only illusion while mercury is blowing the top out of the thermometer.
So I boil in collusion and add to the confusion.
Battle Hymns of a Modern Man...the devil has a counter on his turnstiles.
God has a welcome mat.
The great folly of life is that nothing is fair.
Yet I stand here, resolute, breathing the mist of a passionate air.

By Way of the Green Line

I watched this again last night. The best scene from one of my favourite movies of all time.

You Can Wake Up Now

Impartial, wasted and free...

The only girl I cozy up to is Austin herself. She makes an interesting partner and bedmate, and she makes this all oh so much fun. Her virtues never fade...only in the North. She just keeps teasing me with the possibilities, and they are numerous. Like krill in a shallow sea. Tell me another place that rivals the personality of my love and I'll call you a liar. She never lets me down.

Desperation is a wanderer around certain parts, and I've carefully observed it with my own eyes. It'll visit my home from time to time, but do what you want cause I won't remember. Just don't call your shot cause it never sticks. Only those who keep from themselves are those who suffer it's fate. And fortitude has nothing to do with it. There's about 5 million caustic items to call to attention. However, they all roll on for reasons that make perfect sense to me. Like a soaring bird of prey, we (each and every one of us) have the opportunity to see things as a small map with pieces moving back and forth, to and fro. They all seem small and insignificant now.

Rubbed wrong, don't mattah...just wave inspiration under my nose and I'll come right round.

I Will Have You

I don't know how, I don't know when, and I don't really know why, but I will have you.


Or one just like you.

Stand It Like a Man

Please Grace...Don't take offense to my nonsense...

I possess a staggering ability to presuppose personality traits that I find attractive and attach them to things that are not so attractive in retrospect.

That's a "me" problem.

Hoo...

Ray...

Don't Be Afraid of What You've Learned

There are two things a person should never be angry at; what they can help and what they cannot."

~ Plato

The French say anger is a bad counselor (le wise!). I say that's probably a fair assessment. Anger can also be sharpened into an efficient utensil. It certainly has its place and its necessity in this world and within our hearts and minds. If it weren't for anger injustice would prevail...at all times. Cruelty and malice would be ever-present. Anger is a useful tool with providence to drive these things back into the woods and let them know that we mean business. That such action and decorum will not be tolerated. But anger is a pretty poison. It beckons with ease, and welcomes during the initial onset. Be that as it may, shame has a wicked ability to rear it's ugly head if anger isn't channeled in proper avenues.

I find myself being less angry. Not necessarily in measurable instances, but moreso in duration. I don't rightly recall a moment in time when I decided this to be the case or convention, but let's call it a "gathering of evidence" over the years. I've found that if something is addressed immediately without an unfortunate festering, resolution always follows shortly thereafter. Any emotion really. Happiness, melancholy, worry, anger, elation, pride, jealousy, guilt, longing, excitement, loneliness, joy, anticipation, optimism, remorse, lust, relief...all these things are what make us truly human, and I'd venture so far to say that without each of these we're probably getting the short end of the stick on this great ride of life. The magic trick seems to be balancing them though.

Mama always told me that in any relationship (any relationship) you should surround yourself with people who have a center line and don't swing erratically from one side of the pendulum to the next without reason or the capacity to find their footing at the center. A "true zero" (for lack of a better term) is a valuable thing to possess, because it allows us a frame of reference. There's always something to return to. Something that allows us to operate within a comfortable degree of certainty that we are who and what we actually convince ourselves we are. A blueprint for reality, if you will...I'll spare you the laborious dive into metaphysical objectivism and leave "reality" up to the brain people.

Some of this newfound comfort with emotion is akin to the wonderful process of aging. As we age, we refine our ability to place emotion into circumstance. 5 years ago, I would write a miniature thesis about conversation that rubbed me wrong till my sleeves were bloody. Now, I just sit and think awhile...assign my emotions where they are most useful, complete their mission, and move on. Trust me...it's not a perfected campaign, but it's showing signs of maturity.

In the world of moral relativism, emotion never really takes allegiance to a side. We often assign it an allegiance to "right or wrong" because we're clouded with whatever overriding sense of humanity seems to be pervading our every thought at the moment. But saying anger is wrong is short-sighted, and conversely saying happiness is good is also myopic. Anger is anger. Happiness is happiness. Carrying guilt for either one is gratuitous. You're human...it's quite alright.

Separating the rational from the emotional, as it turns out, seems to be an exercise in futility...as anyone can tell you. Even so, balance between the two certainly brings clarity. But you have to be careful to give each their fair say. Let them be heard.

Having an emotion means being human.

Controlling that emotion so that it prevents damage is maturity.

Accepting maturity is grace.

And grace is providence...


It gets easier. Even if we don't know why.

Face Control

After 30 years (17 or so of them since the great hurricane of puberty) you'd think it would come as no great surprise that we're all on some basic level just little eating, breathing, pissing, shitting, fuck machines. Doin' what our dicks and ovaries tell us. And some might think after 32 years, with fantastic, fully-developed breasts, she might...she might have a greater idea of her target destination without the use of random shots thrown about the air like a madman on a killing spree.

I think he wonders what it would take to convince her otherwise. If it's even a possibility. His mother says, "Humanity is it's own greatest enemy. Always has been." As if he hasn't been clued-in on this secret. His father once told him as a child on their first of many fishing trips that selection was a preference, and patience and process were the destination. The child desired to keep each and every one of his bounty, but in the father's great wisdom he explained that there was no need to keep everything...that the child should only keep the one that he really desired. Small, rival packs of wolves howled in the distance.

He tells me, very delicately in the wee hours of the morning how years and years of preference and process have allowed him to deny several on the end of his line, and that patience is a weapon even if turned upon himself at times. I heard something about reclamation. "Do anything you want, but just not here." I've never seen such a fall from immediate grace to immediate despair. So I watched him drink and rock back and forth. I could see gears spinning, and flags raising, and boundaries drawn. I could see the green battery acid pumping through his veins, mixing with the alcohol in his skull...pupils opening full-throttle. No sleep for the boy.

I would venture to guess walking around the corner seeing her with his good friend in a drug-induced kiss would probably send him to the bathroom to empty the contents of his stomach. And I can also imagine that it's good business sense to make friendly with the drug dealer...for obvious reasons. And I can imagine the precipitous drop that her stomach took when she looked up and locked eyes with him unexpectedly, exposing her guilt. But I really don't know. I wish I knew. It was all pretty hazy when I got the details. All I really know is it's beneficial to have a familiar face with you when such a thing occurs, because no amount of face control can hide the mortification shared between the few in the party. I know that looking at the familiar (non-threatening face) brings an immediate comfort like an icy river in the middle of a forest fire. No amount of "Fonzie-cool" can mask the nuclear war behind their eyes. I heard something about reclamation. "Do anything you want, but just not here." Jokes aren't quite as funny, and anecdotal stories just seem to go in one ear and out the other when you're flooded with panic; all the while trying to control your face. So I've heard.

As I heard this weekend, and I don't know but I've been told "every little thing's been bought and sold." I suppose nothing really seems sacred. I suppose I've been there. But never really anything as spontaneous before. Relation is nothing altogether new. So all I can really do is wish him the best and keep my nose clean. I want to feel bad for him, but it really shouldn't be that big of a surprise. He was warned. Even by himself.

I'm Braggin'

I'm always in love.

And sleepless. I'm that too.

I'm Worried

I'm always in love.

Highly emotive and just beyond functional rationality. The gates remain closed. Under lock and key and solid pragmatism. A derelict waving his hands into oblivion. I shout this shit out of my system. Busy little bee he is...heart all a-flutter.

Ave! Morituri te Salutant!

We temper the foolish with alcohol in our mouths.
I will not say your name out loud.
For the night says it enough to drown my town.
We bury the gold in the floors,
With the bullet in the open drawer...
Rolls and clinks, calling to be used when its called for.
Forsaken child in a red wagon at sunset,
Sold into this somber regret.
A new brunette occupies my dreams.
I ask, "Do you feel fine?"
She says, "You can't be serious all the time."
But I see her in a white dress and flowers held to her chest.
Open, festering wounds like cuts in the wrist.
She reminds me of my mother at her wedding,
Black and white and formally dressed.
She holds my mind in arrest.
Told to me once, twice, three times to watch her eyes.
That was a sub-par ending to the night.
They tell you all you need to know.
She's in the northeast city surrounded and swallowed, imprisoned by snow.

The youth go numb as they fall in love with a dying nation,
And the golden wheatfields wave goodbye to the passing generations.

Someone once said, "Your heroes are words that don't exist."
Easy to say when they lay them in the grave.
The family holds your place.
A green hill on a horizon far away.
By your grandfather, father; your head and soul shall lay.
Down the vine boy, with your very best.
The night they drove you down.
Release the hands you hold.
You belong to God, below His throne.
When He touched you and broke you.
Broke you in half,
On a blessing while angels laughed at your effort.
You're only fighting yourself when God enters the ring.
So sing.
Sing loud.
Sing now.

The youth lie sleepless as they fall in love with the dying nations,
And the golden wheatfields wave goodbye to the passing generations.

They'll pull the bait-and-switch on you,
When you hit your stride.
And pot shots come at you from every angle.
So much so, there's no place to hide.
As long as they have their self-importance, and your glare in the gleen...
There's not a fast enough moving stream,
To expedite the faces we turn away.
So long to the ordinary.
Fair play to the contrary.
Everything in moderation keeps you from complication.
Orderly and practiced is the name in vain,
And selfish is the self-inflicted pain.
People will speak of bells they hear from far away,
But all I hear are voices throughout my day,
"Before it's over, make sure you have your say."

Sex Reminds Her of Eating Spaghetti

One of the major advantages of working at the premier radio group in the "Live Music Capitol of the World" is the fact that some pretty heavy-hitters will come strolling through for interviews and publicity shows from time to time. I've met Feist, Willie Nelson, Albert Hammond Jr., Robert Earl Keen, Bob Schneider, Lyle Lovett, Ja-Rule, Spoon, Drive-By-Truckers, the Cowboy Junkies; I saw REM and Pete Yorn in the studio and watched Andrew Bird play in our conference room, which was "fucking-A" sweet. Then there was that time I walked right past Ryan Adams one morning as he was checking out the newest issue of the Onion, and laughing to himself like some weirdo cosmonaut with his guitar strapped to his back.

Today I met Ben Kweller. Aside from the fact that I towered above him, there really was nothing too surprising about him. EXCEPT for the fact that he might have been the most friendly and congenial "person of fame" I have ever met. He was so ridiculously nice. I told him I'd been a fan, blah, blah...the same canned awkward bullshit people like him hear five million times in a week. And I really have...been a fan. I liked his first band Radish when I was in high school, and I've always had a soft-spot for his music. This was the same guy who played an entire ACL show with a nose that was bleeding so profusely, he stuck a tampon in his nostrils to keep going. It looked like someone cracked him on the bridge of his nose with a Louisville Slugger before he took the stage...it was bleeding like a sieve. There was blood (his own blood...not some fake-ass red corn syrup like Wayne Coyne spits on everything in sight) all over his guitar, his pants, it was fucking rock-star. His manager forced him to quit playing because he was getting so light-headed and almost passed out half-way through the show. Don't let his diminutive stature fool you...this guy is a straight-up bad-ass with a heart of gold.

He gave me his parking spot after he left (I met him in the parking lot). He literally said, "Hey man...you want this parking spot? I'm about to leave and you can have it."

Ben Kweller gave me his parking spot.

And I give you four tunes of his that I think are pretty damn swell.

Cliff Diving

Right now I'm walking through minefields with steel-toed boots on. A flak jacket above it. I'm focused. Terribly and specifically focused. Like America's New Darlings. Trusted someone else to pack my parachute as I squeezed out the door to catch the plane already headed down the tarmac. Turbines a-blowin'. My sights are peaked and filed down. The hair on the back of my neck stands. I'm lighting wildfires in my mind. Walking up to the front lines with my rifle zeroed in. I feel God hover above...the heat below. I don't need much and I don't need more. I think I've started a new avalanche. Let the horses who beg to run...

Top Fiver

If you know me, you probably know my affinty for music. You know my sometimes...err, eternal elitist attitude towards what is considered credible artistry and inaudible shit. I've always tried to challenge myself to pinpoint a Top Five, and while that task is a veritable "whack-a-mole" (<--promised myself I'd find a place for that reference today), what with my ever-evolving and fluid taste in ALL kinds of music, I've narrowed it down to five songs that I dig pretty heavily and always have. It's no wonder that three songs come from my top three favourite songwriters...and while I will always claim that one particular song is amongst my favourite songs (mostly when drunk), it will usually have a brief stint in the ether only to be replaced by a completely different song (during a completely different booze session).

*However, these five songs would be the "gun to head" list I'd make if there were only five songs I could listen to for the rest of my life.

ANYWAYS...in no particular order...

*I couldn't go too obscure because the website didn't have a couple of songs I might've put on there. Maybe I'll make a "Cory's Top Five Greatest Obscure Songs" list next. Or maybe I'll punch your face.

Scorching Both Ends of the Candle in the Crescent City

I used to know my limits. I somehow forgot them on that long dirty highway. It gives you enough time to hallucinate as you dart through the swamps. Some AM station rattling off voodoo-cajun-french-creole-fair.

There are two types of drugs that you should never find yourself tackling in New Orleans. Watch Easy Rider and that'll tell you one of them. Ask me, and I can tell you the other.

Ah, we were killin' old lovers and stuffin' em in boxes. Boxes of booze and pain killers. Driving insanity across state lines. Creole spice and ethanol grade bloody marys. Old world hotels and beautiful dentists on leave from Paraguay. Dilapidated lofts and plant-adorned balconies. Young and hypnotic. Old and mysterious.

Professional sports team owners and young chaps from the South with their Alabama-slide haircuts...they all look the same. Arm and arm with their girlfriends...they all look the same. Drinking for free is always the way to do it, no matter the company you find yourself in. A clever story, a welcome smile, and a helpful accent are useful tools.

I turned down an interview that probably would've been a bad move anyways. My buddy dodges texts that he don't care to read from a girl that he don't care to read. The other scouts the landscape because he doesn't sleep as much. He eats in bed for the nuclear day. Buying art, chasing people, young South American dentists. Buying drinks. Rod Stewart sings and tells me my fortunes...gulps big purple drinks at Phat Tuesdays. Dirty canastas now have my cell phone number and call it when they wanna warm up to something visceral. We're in pictures of people we don't know. We're in pictures we'll hang on our own walls.

New Orleans is the last great city of Old America.

Doscientos (On Every Veiled Word)

Soooooo, there are certainly some elements that you (and your magic book) pointed out that are running a definite parallel with specific entities knocking around in my brain. In all honesty, it’s a little frightening how accessible those things might be just from a dream. The motion of the crowd is definitely career-oriented and probably falls in the arena of “next-step-in-life” projections. What am I doing? Why? To what end? Is it what I want, or is it what someone else wants for me? Of course. The crowd itself obviously would allude to people acting in a sheep-like manner…aimless wandering, thoughtless following, lives void of self-introspection or personal inquiry…certain traits that are all too common in the American social conscious…and to some degree, the idea of removing yourself from that to generate and appreciate your own uniqueness. I gave you the abbreviated version of my dream. An adjunct detail being that I was actually arguing with someone who was in proximate age to me within the crowd. I’m not sure of the reasons for the arguing, but it almost descended into a physical altercation and I just wanted to get away from the whole afflictive spectacle itself. That’s when I noticed you and the house in the hills…further evidence of my desire to exit the current situation. In fact, he followed me up to the house and you wouldn’t allow him access. Of course I can connect the dots to my current career and certain aspirations I have that I may be struggling with as far as standing on a ledge overlooking the possibilities. But the access offered was exclusive and it was for me.

I suppose with any change, a certain amount of apprehension always accompanies it. That’s probably where the dark clouds came from. The white clothes…saints, hero’s, people who have been anointed with a certain amount of freedom or aptitude that I seek? Possibly. I don’t remember it being your house, per se, but you were certainly the one who allowed me entrance and extended the invite. The greenery (trees, new and thriving life) is interesting because with change, a sense of eagerness and hopeful optimism also makes a fitting co-pilot. I think everyone expects (or at least longs for) a possibility of promise when major change is presented.

I think at this point I’m probably just regurgitating everything you brought to light. I think the drugs are probably inane and rather self-explanatory. Unless my subconscious was telling me that my reality was altered...totally nullifying the whole thing! I’m not sure the specific role they played. Do you think Freud enjoyed the occasional mind-bender? I’d be hard-pressed to assume that he didn’t! Wait, don’t you have a psychology degree???

As far as your role, well…that’s more interesting…I suppose. It’s the first time you’ve showed in one of my dreams, and the dream wasn’t fuzzy or scattered. It was definitely linear and very, very specific. I think I spilled enough of my own drunken guts to bypass offering up any explanation that would further put you inside my head or make me blush on several accounts, so I think I’ll leave that in the reserve tank! I mean, obviously, our friendship has been more on the social/breezy/unassuming side, so that probably lends itself to you taking certain footholds in my brain that may or may not be rightfully accurate. But the fact that you were there is most definitely intriguing. As you are pretty goddamn intriguing.

Dreaming Alternate Realities (Sighs of Relief)

There's a few things to consider when you've denied all convention and that singular choice has you standing on the edge of mortality. One being the unfortunate regret that you've allowed most of your life to be ruled by your own cock. It's all very elementary and this tragic end befalls too many of one half of the world's population. Too many tragedies. But that's probably not altogether accurate either...

A tragedy is the contradiction of principles. I have no principles.

When my nose exploded and turned into a warm, runny faucet, I understood why they told me not to stumble and fall between legs that didn't belong to me. Just on the outskirts of Camp Pendleton, the cholos who run drugs for the psychos who haven't yet packed their rifles are easy hires. Soldier's wives are nearly as treacherous as the training their husbands receive. Assassins in their own right. It's no wonder military kids are so fucked up. So as I sat tasting my own metallic liquid insides, tracing blind spots in my vision, with my head swelling up like a balloon, I realized the other thing...

I should never have left Texas for a girl.




johnathan rice we re all stuck out in the desert

A Slender Flame, A Burning Name

So the world is showing evidence of ending in 2012 I'm being told. At least it can surely be confused as preparing itself for this fate. So I run in the mornings to enjoy the finite sunrises we still have in our account and today I took a withdraw and ran early...long before sunrise.

2008 has reached it's end and drew it's last breath (a heavy one, at that) tonight.

While running Town Lake I noticed several things. Mostly visceral observations that were inescapable. My tendons popping in my knee, leaving me lame for the remainder of the day and reminding me of my ascension in age. 37 degree weather probably doesn't help. Two homeless men sleeping hunched over bobbing their heads up and down from sleep deprivation on the benches of the pedestrian bridge remind me how important constant movement and metabolic rate are to warmth. They seem to be losing their battle with the cold and their breath is tangible and in rhythm with their shivering.

In the great opening of Auditorium Shores stands a 30 foot wooden clock. Lighted from all sides in the blackness of night it stands like a spooky pagan idol just under the skyline of downtown. It's being tended to by a handful of workers who almost seem hypnotized and at the behest of it's ordering and directive, almost life-like nature. It's gears turn and grind behind it's oval face, and it's weapon-like hands move frantically over Roman Numerals. There are artful spires and gothic towers surrounding it throughout the neighboring grounds and they tower above me as well. There are little campfires to either side that are surrounded by it's keepers and ultimately it's guardians. You can hear their inaudible conversations in the quiet, still cold. In time, it will be burned down.

I stand alone and while looking through my own breath, I'm a little spooked by it's presence. It's dark, really dark. There are four or five people tending to this clock and it stands there, like a real-world incarnation of the Clock of the Time-Dragon from the novel I'm reading right now. It's alive. Like it jumped out of the pages of the book I'm reading and landed in Austin.

On the news today, people filed into the park to write down their resolutions and fix them to the clock. Everyone is encouraged to do so. 2008 has left scars on the American psyche and I think we are determined to find a suitable send-off for this year. Write your wishes, your fears, your resolutions, your hopes, and dreams. Your lusts, your sleepy boredoms, your lies, your truths, your demons, your saints, write yourself on this clock, because time is ticking down. The TV news told me today that when it does reach it's finality, the whole thing is going up in a ball of flames. This morning, witnessing it's birth in the pre-dawn hours, I have a feeling it won't go easily, and I won't be there to see it.

In the dark morning light it shines brighter than the moon. Like it's trying to outshine the great lunar orb. Almost as if to exact an ancient revenge from some distant and long forgotten time.

It stands there in abject denial of it's existence as a temporary figure amongst the skyline. I don't think it was gently accepting it's fate, and why would it...set ablaze amidst selfish cheers for wishes and desires going up in its smoke and laying lifeless in it's ashes. It bore little resemblance to the phoenix, but I think if hope was animated, it would rise from the night and pour solid magic on those who ooh'd and aah'd.

A few things remain that I would like to throw on that fire before all time finally stands still.

yawny at the apocalypse - andrew bird

Pickin' Battles

I have it on good authority that there's reason to believe she's in possession of certain character flaws that I've stepped in the ring with before. I've really no inclination to take one on the jaw again in that manner. Last time took awhile for the swelling to go down. So I won't go on allowin' my delicate sensiblities to be bruised or maladjusted with this one. I think I'll go on about my own merry way, thank you very much.

Last night, what we talked about...it made so much sense. But now the haze has ascended; it don't make no sense anymore.

No worse for the wear.

And So It Goes...

I might be an American aquarium drinker. I'm not quite sure yet, but I've been feeling this way as of late.

When you've found yourself in the arena of moral relativism, nobody carries a yardstick, so don't count your steps in or out. And just because you find yourself looking coyly down your nose at me while sipping your drink doesn't mean I'm going to melt away into the gutters.

I hang my head in dutiful reverence for your task at hand.

The Western skies are full of blue. My chest is full of pressure. Tangible pressure. Self-administered pressure.

You try to cradle humility in your voice, when everyone is telling you to speak your mind. But I hold off, because harmony and balance were etched into my psyche and personality when I was a formative child, and they found a welcome, warm home.

I have a loud voice, audibly. It's easy to hear me. I say what I want when I want. I've no problem broadcasting my thoughts. But it's usually reserved for those who can only hear what I have to say...and what I have to say is usually drowned in an effort towards tactfulness.

I was burned for my tact tonite. Like the way she burns through cigarettes and glances throughout the room. Tall and long, dark hair and eyes. "Cory Will...just say what you have to say." It's that easy, huh? It's not that easy. The world preaches self-interest. That's unfortunate.

JUST BE WHO YOU ARE. LET THE WORLD KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!! WE CARE!! BECAUSE IT'S IMPORTANT.

Really...it's not.

It's self-masturbation (<--redundancy, but I don't police grammar anymore). Self-control is admirable. Nobody fucking cares what you say in the end, or for any longer than measurable time allows. Nobody here anyways. It's my admiration that's reserved to those who have restraint when it's needed.

You cross lines, I'll tell you what you need to know. But I won't tell you my every thought to cripple your knees. The modern world preaches self-promotion and self-interest. Your words plummet in value when it's a constant stream of meaninglessness and you've flooded the market with them. You should know that.

It's as easy as Everest. There's no oxygen up there, and when nobody can breathe, they don't care what you have to say. There's more pressing issues, and you should know this at lower elevations. It's elementary.

It's easy for everyone else. It's a projection theory. Saying everything and putting it out into the atmosphere just to see what comes back. Just a bit of tactical preparation, or strategic patience is worth looking into, if for nothing more than an exercise in veneration.

Someone telling me something they don't like about me when what they mean is themselves. That's why mirrors exist. If you'll look across the room, you'll see one hanging in the back of this old dirty hall. They tell you stories that you need to know about yourself. This one's no different. It'll do that here and now for you on this cold night. For that I can offer no excuse...especially on her part. How can I? Your thoughts are not mine. I have my own. You don't need to project them onto me.

I hang my head in dutiful reverence for your task at hand.

I'll handle what I have to handle, and I won't make apologies for that. My ears have been filled with ethereal plans that people have. My ears are pinned back to confront those things that threaten me, but yet, my ears somehow find themselves devoid of harvest. None to my surprise. I just say what I mean, and mean what I say. Sell myself short at times? Sure. But who isn't guilty of that? I know what's within reach. Grand dreams are going down a waterfall in a barrel. Don't come down on me for things that you can't deliver. It's not my fault that you can't find the strength.

Coming from the burning side of the building, it's hard to ask for water when you struck the match on all of us.

So I've spoken. So let it be written.

Write your own pitiful story before you write mine.

Dammit.

Optimistic Voices - The Wizard of OZ

Meh...

I tossed the first torpedo in the water, after all.

Sorta.

Either way it's probably just deserts.

BAM!

Please Grace...You're Making Difficulty of My Sensibilities...

Your middle name is Grace, and I'm trying so hard not to fall in love with you.

30

Ostensibly 30...

Hemingway once said, "There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed." Well consider me in need of a tourniquet.

I guess everything one day converges in a blossom of all that's come before. I'm the third generation of calloused hands, but mine aren't near as rugged as those who've come before me. Not to say that I don't know how to lift my weight, but comparatively this world laid me on a pillow, like it did with most of my generation. I will say this, I'm a good mix of what's come before. Mom's side was of English descent and the man fought over the skies of Germany, toppling the "Thousand Year Reich", spent two years in a Statlag Luft Nazi prison camp, came back and built our ranch with his own bare hands, and virtually controlled what could very well have been a mess of a situation when he returned. The old folks in my hometown still tell me how much I look, talk, and move like him. 5'10" stature and an iron jaw...dark eyebrows. The other, of German descent, worked the land in all it's harshness in the unforgiving North Texas plains and drank too much. He fathered my own father and his two sisters and left the world before he was probably meant to. I feel the same weaknesses in my blood that drove him off the road. He was hard, and he was hard on my father, which made my own father hard. My father and mother, because of their own intricate lifelines were both humbled and gracious for the life they were given. They gave life to me, and in my blood rests their lessons.

Quiet and loud. It's always been quiet and loud. In my head.

I was born on the same day as the Jonestown massacre and I think maybe God works on a balance. Like He did after the war...and all wars. Maybe I took a place that was vacated that day. Not too many people have that aesthetic on their day of birth, but I do. Not that it means anything, but not that it doesn't. My father bought me a gun on the day of my birth. November 18, 1978. 10:10 pm...lucky, "make a wish" baby.

When the smoke clears and I feel the rabid animal calm down that has been running through my internal systems for as long as I can remember, can I see where I've come from. I think something snaps and focus floods the view. I've forever been a pack animal, running with the moon's cycles (alone and sometimes with the fleet-footed), and I've had my "dark night of the soul." My own la noche oscura del alma...then humbled by some sort of light from the places we can't see in this life. Not too sure if I'll have another, but I do know what I know because of it.

I have no tattoos. Only scars that I earned, and I like it that way. I'll be as clean going out as I was coming in. Sometimes I find myself turned inside out like a dumpster, opening to the world the ugliness and repulsive things that I don't like, and others I'm too goddamn charming for my own good. I've been in love three times in my time...or what most people would consider as such. But only one almost broke me. They all had their significance, sure...but there's only one that I can't seem to shake. There's only one that haunts me and leaves me incensed. Couldn't navigate it the way I wanted, and it felt helpless. So ridiculously helpless.

I've been blessed. Blessed in the way a desert sees rain, or a farmer reaps a harvest. I've been blinded and ungrateful at times...disregarding these blessings, but they always seem to unearth themselves in a manner that makes me feel like I'm living a movie outside of reality. All I have to do is look around. My life has never bored, and when this gift of life was passed to us by the powers that be, isn't that all you can really ask for? Boredom is humanity's greatest enemy (a fitting co-pilot to pride), and I've done a bang-up job of keeping it at bay. Even in this post-modern world. But I could bleed on that over wars and wars of nothing and nothingness. There were times when I felt my innocence was raped in a red light. When a dark alley felt like the best place to call home. I could turn a nuclear war on it's head behind my eyes, and it's come close, but I duck it somehow. I think God gives us the grace to forget that which causes us to give up. At some point you get reeled in from the depths, like showered convalescence from a nurse. Even if by a shoestring.

I knew at a young age that things were going to hit me hard, and that I would feel more than maybe I should, like a slender skiff caught in a gulf storm, but that's what makes me who I am and I don't make apologies for that. None whatsoever. I have found that the fates place lighthouses in your view. Angels on Earth who walk amongst us. They hand us swords and scrolls to navigate this mess, and I am resigned to believing that EVERYONE has them. It's our own choice to pay attention to these signposts. To breathe their message and let it nourish us...to ignore or take heed. It's also my belief that we are given the opportunity to play that role. To impart, and advise. It's the way the universe perpetuates it's existence. If we didn't know our way, or have those who tell us the way, it would collapse on itself. Luckily, enough of us have decided to take heed and allow the pillars to hold us above sea level. It's how we're all connected even when we don't have the slightest fucking clue as to why we're here. It really is the universe's great secret...told to us in all its magnificence. In it's simplest form. Each other. That's the secret. It's hard to understand and simultaneously, to ignore. We go wayward, but we're always pointed back.

I've been told to share my gifts. I've been told to express what comes to light. I've been told that if you have a story, then open up your mouth and say it. But I've tried to avoid sanctimonious self-promotion. In an effort to avoid the dirty underside of all that I've seen in myself. Life isn't always pretty and neither are we. Like a foghorn blowing through the night exposing our whereabouts when we try to keep them hidden. Everybody turns their head and we shy away.

I've had a trying test of patience, and I think that is the great lesson that whoever is running this show is trying to teach me. Gratefulness and patience. I think that is the singular lesson that I'm meant to learn. Because it goes against every instinct that I naturally have. I think it's the nail that will be driven in my chest when my heart stops beating. Because it's so hard to resign to it...it's what I need to learn about my life. It's my great teaching. My personlity is one big whiskey-soaked, shit-stomping song that breaks beer bottles on the bar and waves them in your face. It's been told to calm down and let cooler heads prevail, but it's awfully painful sincerity has carried it this far, and I won't shake it without a fight. Trouble has been a good friend of mine...no doubt.

But the world gave me a big hug on my thirtieth...and it told me, point blank, that I still have a few laps to run in this big race. No matter what I've convinced myself of, or doubted in that time.

I hope and pray that someone out there is burning a candle for me.