Category: Uncategorized

let’s get to the new posts first.

i posted the no. series tonight, a project i had been hoping to complete for around two months.  it is complete, as you can see. perhaps you should read the link entitled “about the no. series” either first or last.  i’d recommend last; it would make the viewing of the images much more fun. that’s why i put the link last.

i also posted a new overgrowth image, overgrowth (five).  there is no “about overgrowth” for that project…if you don’t get it you’re stupid.

so, those are some exciting posts, yes? i’d like to think so.  on to other news: today i took a final for an english class.  it was the first time i was embarassed to turn in an essay.  it was completely horrible, not because i am incompetent at writing essays, actually i usually get rather good grades on essays, but because of the incredibly moronic essay prompt. this prompt basically answered itself, so left me to repeat what it stated five times in five different ways in five paragraphs.

then, i received my accounting final test grade: 57.  yes, the test i studied the most for out of the entire semester received a failing grade of 57.0.  this brought my grade down to a D, to 68.1.  though this is depressing, it does mean i passed, and it also means that i will never have to take such a useless and miserable class again.  this is the only fact that brings me joy.

on a side note: i am very angry that i did not create the title to the book i am reading.

on another side note: cigars are very nice. you should try a good a. fuente robusto.

i posted a new story last night: sunset.  and i’m working on another one, longer, better, softer, about a pig and mined ore bank. also i wrote one that i may have lost called footskin.  i don’t know…we’ll see if i can find it today. it must be somewhere on campus…i shall check the dumpsters first.

i am here!  i am not dead!  i post again!

i have updated my site…triumph!  if you do not know the address…i forgive you! it is www.noconversation.com, an address you should never forget!  the update is a questionnaire of great importance, please fill it out and send it to me.

the questionnaire came to me in the seconds before sleep, so i had to wrench myself away from my warm bed and write write write it in my journal.  necessity! triomphe!

two tests today, both awful, vomitous, wretched…and this is the aftermath, les detruisez.  tout est damne!!

sometimes i get that ‘not so fresh’ feeling.

last night laura and i went to see smog play at emo’s in austin.  i guess i go to see a lot of shows, with great irregularity, and all the shows i go to aren’t necessarily essentials–that is, in deciding to go, it wasn’t a do-or-die situation.  going to see smog, however, was very much do-or-die, whether sick and vomiting or covered in boils, kind of thing.  i’ve never met someone who didn’t hear of them through me (or through those from whom i learned of smog) so anyone who reads this will probably not have ever heard of him.  it’s okay, we can do this.

this show was played inside emo’s.  emo’s has an outdoor stage and an indoor.  the indoor is significantly smaller, and usually, as far as i know, local bands play in there a lot.  hearing the news that smog was playing in these cramped quarters led me to believe that the fact that no one has heard of them did not come from the fact that i have very little interaction with very many people, but rather that people have, indeed, never heard of him.  which is a strange fact, because he’s been releasing albums since 1990.  this enigma was cleared up when they stepped on stage to play.

bill callahan is the creator of smog.  on his early albums that he recorded on his own, he was the only musician.  i think this has changed, but he’s still the highest entity in smog.  as he stepped on stage, he made me realize that i am no where close to being a man.  he wore sharp but rugged cowboy boots, brown pants, a button up white shirt (which was buttoned down to the point where, had it been one button lower, i’m sorry–that would have been too much), and a nice brown jacket.  he had a martin acoustic slung over his shoulders, pulled up a little awkwardly high.

as they started playing, and bill made no comments whatsoever, it became clear why they aren’t widely known: bill just doesn’t give a damn.  don’t take this the wrong way.  he loves music, you can tell.  and he loves to play his music.  but if you don’t like it, well…to quote a song he played, fuck you all.

he played about 8 songs i had never heard.  i thought this was simply because of the fact that of the 11 albums he has, i only have 6, until a rather rude drunk shouted out, “play something you actually recorded.” the drummer and bassist looked up at bill.  he must have heard it, everyone in the building must have heard it, but there was no sign that it registered, and he immediately started playing another song.  you see, bill doesn’t give a damn.  he didn’t even have any merchandise to sell.  i don’t think bill buys into this whole music-for-money crap.

the drummer was very fun to watch.  at least…not he himself, just his drumming.  his shirt, unlike bill’s, was unbottoned much too far so that his garden of chest hair blossomed out and dripped sweat.  however, i have found that the best drummers are hard to look at.  he looked and played like he belonged in a jazz band.  a real jazz band…not that soft jazz garbage. the bassist was a frail looking woman who sat in a chair in the shadows.

he played about 6 songs that i knew for certain were his–including ‘dress sexy at my funeral,’ ‘vessel in vain,’ and, the song which i guess he’s most known for, ‘cold blooded old times’ (you know it from the movie high fidelity). really great ending, where bill and the drummer went crazy. so did the kid in front of me, who was going into violent convulsions as the song sped up.  we knew this to be his last song–he had been playing for over an hour and a half, with breaks lasting no more than 10 seconds (and no banter other than “thank you” or “this song is…” and even those were rare) and was told he could play 2 more songs (to which he replied “one.”)  when he finished, the crowd parted and the band walked through this new hallway.  it was understood that there would be no encore, and it wasn’t even a disappointment. even if it was, bill didn’t give a damn.

(not a recent photo.  just, leave me alone.)

i went to the delgados show last night by myself.  laura had to study for a test, troy ditched me rather callously, laura’s roommate had prior engagements, and anyone else who might have enjoyed the show that i know i meet in class and don’t have their phone numbers.  so, after hearing on an online radio show that the show should not be missed, i decided to go.

from the look of it, most people turned up for the two opening acts, ‘what made milwauke famous’ and ‘crooked fingers.’  the girl i met, i forget her name…maybe delaina…it was an odd name…had never heard of the delgados.  when they finally got onstage the room was about half empty.  this show was at emo’s, and every other time i’ve been at emo’s it’s been packed for the headlining act.

this didn’t seem to distract the band, which i really think is cool of them.  i’ve been to shows where everyone leaves when the band is playing, and they get all pouty and get off the stage as soon as possible to sulk backstage.  the delgados didn’t…even though there was not a huge group of fans, we were still loyal fans and the band seemed to really enjoy themselves.  they even came back for a brief encore.  the female singer is short, and her guitar sometimes looks too big for her when she’s rocking on it.  i can’t help myself, that’s so cute.  she really has a beautiful voice.

for the opening acts i was sitting on a car seat in the back, one of those big ones from a van, by myself, when delaina came up and sat by me.  then charlie came over, a very happy drunk who had an odd habit of staring at me for an awkward amount of time after he said something, which made me look away, then look back, and he was still staring at me.  we angered a guy bootlegging the show because he was blocking our view and we asked him to move.  he didn’t seem too happy about it.  sigh.  all these indie losers.  are these the people i have things in common with??

anyway, i hope that the leaving of  people doesn’t keep the delgados away…i want to see them every time they come through town, and you should too.

 
 as i parked and walked to the club a crackhead came up and told me he was a published author and poet, and then spliced several different poems randomly together and recited it for me…it wasn’t even all poetry.  i think he quoted some of the talking asshole from naked lunch in there somewhere.  i gave him a dollar to go away, and as he took the dollar he looked at my shirt, a neutral milk hotel shirt, and started talking about aboriginees.  i walked away and he danced off down the street, singing of australia and funny hats.

i got a piece of mail in my mailbox that wasn’t mine, it was my neighbor’s.  he’s this guy who is about 40 years old.  he hardly ever talks when i see him and he keeps to himself.  anyway, the addressee on the piece of mail was “Kathy” something.  his name is not kathy.  maybe he murdered her.  maybe her body is rotting away under his bed, or on his bed.  maybe he has post mortem sex with her body.  maybe he stuffed her in the freezer and is eating her slowly.  no, that couldn’t be, the freezers are tiny.  but it has to be along these lines.  well, this will have to be investigated further.

when soldering with lead solder, is it bad that your lungs feel funny when you breathe? they don’t hurt…it feels very clean.  maybe this is the first stage of dying.  i soldered my speaker wires together, because i was extending them, and i burned the tip of my middle finger in the process.  maybe my wits are shot because i’m dying.

i’m buying bob dylan’s cds in order.  the times they are a-changin’ is his third.  i did cheat through the course of my life, and i have about four other cds from here and there, but i’m trying to stay on course.  it takes me about 3-6 months before i get the next one.  also, i get his bootleg series as they come out.  maybe compulsive collecting is a first sign of dying.

okay, i was going to wait to post this til at least midnight, so it was tomorrow, but oh well. who cares. so i posted the giant thumb. i struggled with the title. first it was just “giant thumb,” then “a giant thumb,” then “bread pudding thumbnail crumbs,” then to what you see now, “the giant thumb.”

this story sits very strangely with me.  i want to laugh hysterically whenever i read it (in fact, i was typing it in a computer lab and i kept bursting out in laughter as i typed it.  people gave me dirty looks. but i’m in the computer science computer lab, and people in this lab tend to be indians, from india, who don’t always speak english well.  can you imagine how difficult reading one of my stories would be to a student who was somewhat learning english? so anyway, i didn’t tell them why i was laughing.  instead, i grabbed the keyboard and mouse and glared at them, as if they were trying to steal them.)

the summer after my 8th grade year, i started making friends that were upperclass high school students (you see, i never had any good friends throughout junior high, so i tried to look to high school for friends.  i was very sad.).  i hoped that they would start calling me “thumbs” because i wanted a nickname, so i stuck my thumbs out a lot. i’d practice sticking them out while doing lots of things: walking, playing guitar, writing, anything.  this is a true story, and they never called me “thumbs,” and, thankfully, i don’t think i ever told them i wanted them to. 

i’m really sick of talking about thumbs now.

i just posted cleaning. this is the story which i am afraid will become reality.  let us hope it does not, for hope is all we have left.

i wrote another story yesterday about a giant thumb but i have yet to type it. actually, i did type it, but my computer had another massive hemorrhage again before i could save it, so i’m going to have to type it again.  laura thinks the story is funny, but i find it rather traumatizing.

i have a new story to post on the site. i might do it tonight…but i am genuinely afraid that the posting of this specific story will turn it into reality and that the horrible tragedy that occurs within it will really happen and i will be left, after having gone insane, having to clean up the…

well, i don’t want to spoil it for you.

also, life has mimicked online life.  i don’t call people back when they call me, because i am a bad person and forget almost everything that occurs from day to day.  in such a way, i am very bad about leaving comments on other people’s xangas when they have left one on mine, which i consider a very rude thing to do but sometimes i just forget, though i always read their xangas.  sigh.  if this is you, i appologize for my inherent rudeness.