The new year is here. “Let’s go to the lake.” Nothing has exactly changed much, the gas prices went up. It’s slightly cold, the air is modern, aggressive. 2009 was such a strange year, rife with shadows and long tear drops over love and loss. I had hoped to not lose anyone so soon…but it happened and death has taken yet again.

The other night: there was a bluemoon. I got hacked to pieces by a machete, and the sparks caught my knuckles as they fell one by one into the fire. I thought I was going to die. I met some friends, we had a firecracker and it blew up, but not before we settled within the champagne; the watery guitar washing through the grape-colored space between millions of conversations.

When we got home, I fell asleep on the bed. My head was all full of winding roads, ticket punchers wearing gray 3-piece suits, a book of birds, and plastic pain. For a mere moment, the side of me that is Night, took over. I was scared and the white reverb in my chest sunk deeper into the abyss. The glow of my thoughts was black and cold, yet secretly smoldering, just warm enough to keep company. I walked back into the fire, and it mysteriously consumed me until I wept. It wasn’t until the bones in my neck cracked and turned, that I realized how majestic the cold orange of dawn could truly be.

I woke up on new year’s morning and touched the body next to mine, it was quite warm and very unconscious. Sitting up, I became attracted to the sounds coming from the kitchen. The cats were moving around, looking for something. The dog was outside, crying in the splinters of an early sunrise. The crystalline drops of dust were just barely settling on the antique keys of a broken piano. I let the dog in and she moved past me clicking upon the wooden floor and into the bedroom, where her master lie, sleeping off the grim darkness.

I wandered the house looking for those ridiculous poetry magnets that belonged solely on the cold squares of refrigerators. But I couldn’t find them. The mossy memories of sleep were being shoved off onto my real-life thoughts, my conscious thoughts. They layered in a nice pattern and in no way disfigured the tendrils of other thoughts coming to and fro in the early morning quietude.

As the time slowly locked onto their world, they woke up. We had brunch and recounted the night before. I caught myself dishing out apologies for whatever reason, we do after all, adorable things to each other in these such short lifetimes of experience. It was a fine afternoon, nonetheless. Throughout the rest of the day, we watched films. It was probably at this time, that the funeral arrangements were being made, while I lay upon the couch wishing for what I could not have.

Her final moments were among many of those sacred privities unknown to the living…I can only try to imagine the fright and the flight, if such things truly exist. Alas, there she is, somewhere in the colossal ether of a billion twinkling galaxies, swimming amongst the rest of our futures, singing through the dark glass that separates our reality from theirs. The cold and jagged claws of gravity can do no more harm to her…

And it’s good, it’s all going to be ok from now on.

“He who has a why to live can bear any how.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

It is with great pleasure that I write to you all…for the time where the schooling is no more (for 1 glorious month). The holidays are upon us, the festivities are bright, and the firepunching whiskey-drinking collar grabbing lip busting couch sleeping has officially – begun.

“Humankind cannot bear very much reality.” – T.S. Eliot

But what does this mean for you, you ask? Well, it means that I can pay more attention to you, to the needs of the community, and meditation chakra healing shit (which is something I’ve been meaning to do but never get around to it because of Netflix-instant-watch). Which brings me to my next point: time management.

“I don’t think my parents liked me. They put a live teddy bear in my crib.” – Woody Allen

After the semester ends, I find myself in a hole of debt, carried over from the issues of October and November respectively. When I smoked cigarettes, I used to put them on my credit card during hard times. But using credit cards…is like drinking out of the clawfist of Satan. Fun, but you pay for it down the road. I’m no Petey Wheatstraw, so I’ll be taking my chances with abject poverty and dreams of when food was aplenty…

“I watched myself put my paw in the bear trap on that one because there was this clause about leaving members.” – Elliott Smith

Make sense Smith, jesus. Christ. Whenever I think of the “Burning Man” phenomenon, I cringe. When I first heard about it back in 2004, I thought to myself, “Awesome! Desert Mayhem, Art, and Drugs.” Then after thinking more about it, desert mayhem, art, and drugs sounded like a redesigned type of hell on earth. People, die. But people die everywhere, and that is the burden of existing, the burden we must as mortals, bear. On a day-to-day basis.

“Never feed or toss food to a bear.” Safety Tips on Bear Encounters

In a month, I will be back in the academic game, writing papers, studying language history, microbiology, and preparing for SXSW. We played it last year, and it was fun; albeit I did have the flu at the time. Dedication Jimmy. Dedication and hard work. Playing festivals is awesome: free beers, foods, monies, and memories. Free memories.

“I started being really proud of the fact that I was gay even though I wasn’t.”
- K. Cobain

I really have to say, working at a cafe may be the next best thing to working in a cafe. I mean, if I’m there all the time, why not just pick up a shift here and there? Would it be because if I did, that I would acquire obligations/situations where my presence or absence could make/break my job? Would I be ostracized if I couldn’t make it to work? It’s a good line of work, in both situations, but if I had to choose, making coffee and washing dishes may just hush me for a while.

Another thing I’ve tried to occupy the time in between my other time, is all this nonsense about being sad. Who wants to be sad? It’s okay to need to be sad from time to time; you know if you’re feeling creative, vicariously experiencing a piece of real-life drama through a buddy, inundated with a slew of Darren Aronofsky films (back to back). But who wants to be sad? Real sadness is finding out you have pancreatic cancer with 4 weeks to live; real sadness is when your friend dies. No body wants that.

“I have eyes like those of a dead pig.” – M. Brando

Sometimes you have to be awesome. And not like, “Hey guys I just jumped a fence with my BMX, onto a moving truck, and then onto a dinosaur that carried me away to a far away time where I met an Amazonian woman prisoner who I brought back from the past, but she’s getting a manicure…” No. Not like that. Although that’s pretty damn cool, it’s a goddam lie and you know it, we know it.

“Until the contract is signed, nothing is real.” – G. Danzig

I’m talking so awesome that you could say you jumped a fence with your BMX, onto a moving vehicle, onto an animal of the living kind, which in turn took you to a place, findable on google maps — be caught on google maps riding said animal, and then to a person whom will obviously make any mortal man/woman blush — and all the while, we either believe or don’t, but KNOW that you’re telling some very close form of truth.

Although Brando was above-and-beyond full of awesomeness, he was still just a man.. Danzig, whose beat-down video spread through the net like herpes simplex virus 2 through 45 million Americans, is also, just a man, no more no less. And that is the kind of awesomeness that I am trying to depict with these mere words. Tom Waits, although incredibly awesome, is half human – half goat-god. So obviously that does not count.

“Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.”
- Robert Frost

When I was 6 years old the school I was attending at the time was having a talent show, by which all of us dirty kids were supposed to do something gorgeous and fantastic. Blah. I remember thinking, I don’t want to do this. Not that I didn’t think I could, I just didn’t like the onset of faculty eyes, staring at me, and the collective group to which then belonged: children.

To me at that time, life was weird. And it still is.

“Fair is foul, and foul is fair”
- Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 1

So at this show, all of us kids were standing in a line waiting to say something witty/funny/whatever the teacher at the time thought was cute, and to each kid that spoketh, a microphone was therefore handed. This was my first experience of hearing my own voice through speakers. And upon my turn, I remember thinking, “Christ no! That’s me?!”

What’s worse was my part: A song. A song that I have forever burned out of my memory.

Recording at Superpop Records in Austin, TX
April 2009

So these days, I’m singing. More like screaming, with some melodic accompaniments betwixt amplified sounds that go from subsonic to supersonic, but singing nonetheless. Band life is Fun! Don’t get me wrong though, having to haul around all your equipment is an extreme, natural high. Where I used to carry a guitar and pick, these days for heaven’s sakes it’s more like several amps, guitars, and a 90 lb. case of pedals hooked up to other electronic gear. We are cyborgs.

In some ways the most natural and appealing generalization is based on the
exponential function f(x) = e^ax, whose nth derivative is simply aⁿe^ax.
Oh, no shit?

So in reference to this tiny musical memoriam, I’ve resumed by university studies this fall. It’s been moving really fast so far — much faster than I would have anticipated, but I guess that is the manner of such things. At this point in my studies, I’m learning about Gregorian Chant and its gradual evolution into polyphonic textures. Therefore, I’ve been listening to Palestrina on repeat for about 3 hours. I am beginning to feel that being Catholic isn’t as bad as the movies make it out to be…

“Please forgive me. I can control myself. You caught me off guard.
But I’m on my best behavior now.”
- Sparkly Vampire Muppet, Twilight

It’s funny, being back in school and seeing all of these references to things I can’t believe people are excited about… Like this TWILIGHT shit. So many brilliant minds quoting, gloating and talking about the 2 boing-boing-lovers (in life/real life); even the professors are in on it.

But seriously, …where were you when Charlie fuckin’ Brewster (Fright Night 2) needed a helping hand as Regina (that vampiric bitch) was hell bent on fuckin’ his shit up with that hot mess Alex Young? I can thank my father for introducing horror films to me at such an impressionable age.

My homework this week: show innocuous-looking blondies how to operate deadly weapons. This should be interesting…

I know what you’re all thinking, “How could this guy we we vaguely, but sort of know, leave us hanging for so long?” I know how this must appear, and it isn’t good. It’s not good for me, and it’s not good for the reader. But here’s the honest, complete truth without any confusion: I was fuckin’ murdered bro.

“Yeah right, get real” – Liam Lynch

So, the truth is, I was murdered. At my house, making some dinner (garlic stuffed mashed potatoes with fish stuffed salmon cakes), when I hear this knock on my door. Naturally, I answer it. But guess what — not my friend. No, not my friend at all.

It’s at this point in time, that I’d like to introduce you to Mr. Espionage Asshole (I can say that now, he murdered me), who came into my life and ended it because ‘someone told him to’:

Whatever.

I am being such a jerk. I mean, he was actually pretty nice about the whole thing, had the paperwork, even said I could finish dinner. Although I was pretty upset, he helped do the dishes and clean up the table. We had coffee, talked about what it’s like to be Jewish, and then smoked cigars.

But, that’s when I launched my cigar into his face and ran into the kitchen. And…then. Well, then I just stopped and put my hands in my pockets, took one last look at my motorcycle, and there he was. A little ash on his chin, heavy on the breath. I looked at him calmly, “Hey man, sorry about that, just…Jesus, I don’t know what I was thinking.” He said it was fine, and we shook hands.

Perhaps in another life, we could have been perfect friends. Protected only by our word and esteem of the other. Or maybe we would have inevitably turned against one another, only to be guided by the rage of cyclical regret built over centuries of reincarnations. Something that neither of would ever want for the other.

BFFF

But I digress. He got me this time, but there’s always the next life. And indeed, he will pay. In fact, if I can find out where he’ll be this time in the next life, I will gladly be as gentlemanly as he; however, my methodology of revenge has always been more calculated, and not nearly as cool as his own. Again, I digress. Oh shit, I almost forgot — guess who I met in the afterlife:

An amazingly batshit-crazy lady all strung out on meth! Don’t be deceived — she tried to rob me the second I stepped foot inside the tunnel of light. I was like, ‘bro, really? you really wanna go now, I fuckin’ just got shot lady, here. Here’s some cash, I don’t fuckin’ need it I guess!” She grabbed it out of my hand and then scurried off into the distance. I don’t even think she was dead!

But it made me think. If she’s not dead, and she’s not alive…wtf is she? As I was walking, I realized something — zombies! I can easily integrate back into the ‘real world’. Shit, I still gotta job, no one’s seen me dead yet. Yeah, there will be some trade-offs, but what life doesn’t have trade-offs. And that’s when I saw this little angel girl at the end of the tunnel, winking at me:

Duly noted!

I’m out! And with that, ran back to the kitchen where it all ended. When I woke up, I was staring at the cracked ceiling. I could feel a weird buzzing in the back of my head, and my face felt like clay. Eh, like being on DXM. Not so bad. I even had that weird robot-walk while I was getting up. For a second, I thought it was all in my head, and this was just a weird DXM trip. But, then I looked in the mirror:

Well there must have been some kind of mix-up in the heavenly body / zombie transfer, because I went from being sickly looking — to somewhat smooth looking… maybe this bio-transfer spirit switch got the decades all messed up? Eh, no harm no foul. I guess this means I can start smoking Dunhill menthol’s again, wearing fancy suspenders, and keeping a box full of Bangkok cocaine in my pocket like I used to when I lived down in Bushwick, Brooklyn!!

So now you all know, what’s been going on. And although being murdered is a formidable excuse – partying on rooftops, treetops, and hilltops, isn’t. More to come, more to come…