a conversation between myself and a post-it

I checked my email, the flickering screen glazed my face extraterrestrial white. No email, though. Not in the last second, anyway. I resolved to check again in a minute or two.

In that moment, the phone didn't ring, either, so I didn't answer it, didn't say, "Oh, it's you...how did you get this number and I suppose you want to talk now?" Didn't cross my arms and harumph and say, "Well it's going to be harder than that, because first of all, you're going to need to admit every time you've ever faulted anyone in your life, and I suppose I'm going to have to mull this over and decide whether or not I forgive you for those things." I didn't soften or smile or take a moment to relish the way in which your voice tap dances through my ear canal and reverberates inside my skull, bouncing back and forth, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

In fact, the spindle of CD-R's next to my phone offered no council, either, and there were no letters to paper clip and file into a folder called, "The Things That Are, The Things That Have Been" and so the box of paper clips next to the CD-R spindle lies unused as well. The cardboard lid shall remain cocked at precisely the same angle as it was five minutes ago, yesterday, and three weeks from now. The only advice I gleaned in that moment was a kindly reminder from the post-it on my monitor, a gruff but wizened tone of voice, saying: Verdana Bold, ten point, CAPS.

It's all so simple, really, and thus emboldened by this idea, I decided to clock out and drive home. Even though I was funneled into an obedient herd of traffic lines, stomping stubbornly onward, snorting and swatting at flies with a flicking tail, I felt a mounting sense of dread. The contents of my head at that moment threatened to spill into the car, threatened to drown the dashboard controls and flood the engine, threatened to drip like battery acid from the grill onto the pavement where the other cattle-cars would likely step in it and find themselves poisoned, dead and dying.

That's why I left work, anyway. The contents of my mind had already seeped into my email, crashed over the internets, waved furiously at at passersby and pop-up windows. But now here it was again, bubbling up as it were even in the heated womb of my car. "Why don't you just admit that everything wrong with the world can somehow be traced back to you?" I'll accept some of the blame, but not all of it, stop pointing the finger, why do you point the finger, I should break that finger.

Anyway, the peaceful seaside didn't seem to mind so much, even as the magma and mirth bubbled and boiled her supple skin, and I drove on, firing questions at every passing powerline "Am I right? Am I right? Am I right? Am I right?" Conversations buzzed over nearby telephone lines, their speakers and listeners paused to consider my side of the story.

"It doesn't really matter, does it?" They said. "What matters is what's for dinner, and do you know where your children are?"

Children. Now there's a scary thought, I thought as I took the keys out of the ignition, home at last, walking fast to the front door. I let myself in, let myself inhale the familiar smell of summertime heat as all my possessions cried out to me, "You're HOME!"

I checked my email. The flickering screen glazed my face extraterrestrial white. No email, though. I resolved to check again in a minute or two.

080507

We drove today, windows down, windows gaping, windows dragging their jaws along the asphalt. We worshipped at Dunn's bright altar of the dashboard. There was music playing, music tumbling from the speakers, filling the car, filling the cupholders, filling the spaces in and between what we wished we could be and the sweet, simple reality. I thought as I gently guided the steering wheel into a sloping 100-degree turn, thought about how it's always going to be like that and how the air smells sweeter from my side of the car, the passenger side, or the driver side, away from the pungent gasp of the sea and its plankton.

The songs we played, the songs we sang, are the songs we heard and silently elected to be the soundtrack for a more important moment. We wished for a cinematic scope of events, the swooping crescendos and the rollicking, roiling second verse. When music and the moment collided and it all seemed more grandiose than the meditative way in which we caught our own reflections in the rear-view mirror and back again, blushing, surprised at our own naked expressions. And how we clothed ourselves then in the chorus, bleating the lyrics, swathing ourselves in distraction.

The things we wished for ourselves instead belonged to trees' leaves and clogged drains beneath our rubber tread as we threaded noiselessly through Tweedy's deep chrome canyons and even louder manhattens, wishing we were staring at each other, windows down, fingertips touching,

instead.

Quick! Quick! One Week Only!

http://senduit.com/ad7c92
(link is only available for one week, so download quickly my musical cherubs)

I already did my civic duty and shared this tidbit with Jessica, but the more i listened to the tunes, the more I realized I had to do my civic duty to the REST of y'all and share, share, share. This is a pick from James' blog, a song by Vampire Weekend (apparently the next shit-hot up and coming NY indie scene thing...which, predictably, makes me wretch a little because you KNOW how I feel about that shit-hot indie scene. Despite, I suppose, being on the fringes of it. But you KNOW WHAT I MEAN).

Aaaaaanyway. James does the best job describing it, really, and he goes right out there to point out that the fanbase of this band are douchbags in the highest order (his description, not mine, lest ye plug yer ears in protest to the terminology), so it was with reservations that I listened to the song myself.

At first I thought, ok, preppy, peppy, and upbeat. That's cool and all but usually those songs end up being very nearly corrosive by the final seconds due to being so vacuous in nature.

But nope.

1:14 utterly and unironically channels every tight-lipped symphony you've ever heard late at night on the classical radio station as a last resort to the kind of drivel being pimped by KROQ, and THEN proceeds to tear it to shreds, staccato bah-bah-bah, with a wicked grin, no less.

Then moment 2:52 arrives like a white horse, those strings hitting every beat with the precision reserved only for the most spastic all-body-dancing, and BAM, 3:13, just when you think it's going to be over, those keys start their joyously rushing descent, shimmering down each octave and back again without the vaguest hint of the kind of douchbaggery that begat Vampire Weekend's self-titled LP. Well, I can't help but get caught up in the maelstrom and do some pretty serious hair shaking.

I'm just sayin'.

coquered desert pt. II

To preface, this post is long. Really long. And this is a preface, not an apology.

...

"The detonation of adulthood has left a toxic fallout where not even plants survive. It's just me, a lone cockroach in a post-apocalyptic landscape, shuffling over the ashes of my WASTED YOUTH!"

Making wild, post-apocalyptic claims before noon is a sure symptom of the mid-summer, mid-week, quarter-life doldrums. Case in point? The precision with which I utterly annihilated the algorithms of small talk by hoisting out my soap box o' hyperboles and declared the above to a friend. Over iChat. While discussing houseplants.

Oy vey. If you made it through the above paragraph, I applaud you, Oh Stalwart Reader. My erstwhile claim that my mental mid-levels don’t occasionally get tweaked beyond acceptable freak-out highs and lows would be rendered null if only by that statement alone.

But I digress. Is it just me, or is this summer smacking with the taint of disappointment? Perhaps I expected way too much out of such a season, and anything that fails to live up to my Babel-onian expectations simply plummets into the pits of disappointment. But really...am I so bored that I must resort to pithy references to roaches n’ nukes to somehow spice things up?

The only cure I can think of for such an affliction is a road trip. The venerable dark horse of the poverty jet-set, there’s nothing quite like getting outta dodge in time to catch the sun setting someplace other than just west of the evening work-to-home commute.

Starting from my proverbial Point A (Los Angeles), here is a tried-and-true roadmap to give Bored Over-exaggerators a weekend they won’t have to embellish (though references to fallout and Douglas Coupland may still sneakily decorate even the most engagingly 'true' stories).



:: Los Angeles to The Promised Land ::

The Salton Sea is somewhat of a geographical anomaly; birthed from an agricultural accident, developers wasted no time in dressing Miss Salton up all purty and parading her to the wealthy denizens Hollywood as the new vacation destination. However, intervening events have left the Sea in a mighty desperate state (dare I say, with her knickers showing?). I’ll let you research the cause-effect stories on your own, but until you’ve walked on a beach made entirely of ground fish bones, well, y’all haven’t lived.

From the 10 East, take hwy 86 until it intersects with hwy 111. Wind along the north shore of the sea on hwy 111, or stay on hwy 86 to explore the southern shores (undiscovered territory, at least not discovered by yours truly). From hwy 111, swing by the Salton Sea State Recreation Area and chat with the local guides for a quick brush up on the Sea’s history, as well as pointers on where to stay, what to see, and what to avoid. The trip will unfold from that point, but you’d be remiss not to spend a large amount of time exploring Bombay Beach (and puh-leaze, if you do nothing else while you're there, go to the Ski Inn and shoot some pool while knocking back a cold one. Do it for me).



Continue along hwy 111 until it curves inland from the Salton Sea. At Slab City, be on the lookout for Main St (If you hit 3rd, you’ve gone too far). Taking a left on Main, follow the road through Slab City until it curves into Beal Road. Put the pedal to the metal and fly over the desert floor, winding along Beal Road until you reach your second destination: Salvation Mountain.



I’m purposely leaving explanations here slim, as the appeal of a roadtrip is in the element of discovery. But if you’re one of those (dreadful) “I don’t like surprises” types, then your internet sleuthing abilities will no doubt suck all the joy right out of your weekend (and undoubtedly right out of anyone who has the unfortunate pleasure of your company). Er, but if you want to do more research, be my guest (curmudgeon). (Additional note--since I can't seem to see the forest for the parenthesis--I'd surely suggest a little Soulsavers aural action during this part of the trip. Trust me on this one.)

I'll leave you with a suggested playlist for your journey, but get thee to a grocery store, my dears. Buy at least three gallons of water, and get on the road! Something worth exaggerating over awaits you, and I wouldn’t want you to miss a single second. Not even for nuclear explosion.

1. Way Out West - Andrew Bird
2. Stand (Larry Levan Mix) - Celestial Choir
3. Revival - Soulsavers
4. Overture - Patrick Wolf
5. No Cars Go - The Arcade Fire
6. Do You Remember The Riots (orchestral version) - Jens Lekman
7. Introduction - Voxtrot
8. Grandma Airplane - Black Lipstick
9. Only One Thing Is Needed - Electrelane
10. Let My Burden Be - Golden Shoulders
11. Staring At The Sun - TV on the Radio
12. Sunlight Bathes Our Home - Clinic
13. Magic Hands - Black Fiction

Or...69 Love Songs by Magnetic Fields. Or Godspeed You! Black Emperor's EXCELLENT "Storm: Lift Yr Skinny Fists..." from start to finish.


Happy Trails...