5/4

It's a pentagon, dancing a formal waltz, turning at intervals.

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It's so much fun to play because it's so weird and odd. The extra beats make room for all kinds of craziness like ghost notes.

I love ghost notes, especially in a shuffle. But I digress.

Here is the song that got me hooked on jazz and the coolest time signature there is. Also, Joe Morello was a fucking beast on the drums. He knew his rudiments like a carpenter knows wrench sizes. John Bonham was undoubtedly watching.

Debussy

Ahh, the beauty of a liberal arts education!

I was studying for my humanities final last weekend. We're required to memorize several pieces of music and a few keys facts about them. I came across Clair de lune and was stopped dead in my tracks.

Being a fan of classical to begin with, I was familiar with the title but I couldn't place any music with it.

The version was the orchestral arrangement. I'd only ever really heard it on piano. I was smitten. This is what love sounds like...

As well as pretty much every love theme from every movie ever made.

I don't know which arrangement I prefer--the piano or the orchestral. They both have their merits.

But those big, fat romantic chords w/ a full string & woodwind section backing--oh my.

If anyone needs me...

I'll be at Senior Tadpole's getting a margarita made in my mouth with a girl named Krindy from Sacramende.


OT: a preview of coming attractions. I'm working on a blog series about the Lost Art of the Opening Credit Sequence. I thought this was a brilliantly clever idea, if not somewhat lo-fi in its realization

Helplessness Blues

Who wants to rock...sensibly?

You go on your own where ever you go...Reminds me of Huxley's Through the Doors of Perception.

Metaphor

I can't seem to get off this metaphor kick. I think is the one I should have turned in.

The Fox

I was five miles from the nearest house, ten from the nearest road, deep into the quiet whispers of the woods. But still close enough to the place we met that you were preying on my mind. The forest was thick and the trees were clicking with afternoon bugs.

Up ahead, a scratch of path unfurled revealing rich black soil. Sometime not too long ago, wild boar were through here. Every rush of wind was a bear of blinding height with dripping jaws and claws.

I pressed in deeper, along the twisting path, under the towering cypress and the domed oak hammocks, running from the creaking branches and my stimulated imagination, all the while fighting the specter of your taunting smile, promising from just around the next bend.

I went alone into the pine flats, insulated by green explosions of palmetto. Only deer tracks, delicately crossing through the gray sand hinted that the forest breathed life in my absence.

On my back were the things I carried that I thought I would need. Only now was I finding that water was all that mattered. I pulled out the bottle and stopped and what was behind me, what I'd left behind caught up. The memory clung like the remnants of a fever. I rested in the verdant grass and felt the power of my fingers passing over blades and pulling others absently from their holds, panting and remembering your voice, your touch, the memories I'd wanted to make with you.

When it was time to go, I had forgotten. I recited the mnemonic of sympathy that reminds me to move on. And so I lifted my leaden pack once more onto my back and pressed forward, towards a clearing.

As I entered the clearing, a fox crossed my path. I stopped, my eyes drawn from the ground by the sudden flash of smoothed brown fur, reflecting the waning sunlight. She watched me as she sauntered across the trail, her tail close to the ground, pulsing left and right. Our eyes met in the the silence of the forest—I stopped for fear of loosing my step. She approached the edge of the tree-line and sat on the grass, panting, alternating between watching me and scanning the nearby forest. Her legs were black with mud and the tips of the fur on her downy white stomach were covered in matted dirt.

I could think of nothing to do but crouch on one leg and place my hands upon the ancient earth.

A spin of glistening brown and a soft scratch of paws on needles and she was gone, back into the ether of the thicket.

And I, there on the well trodden path, defined through the woods like an explanation of how I could never leave, could never wander from the winding lines of civilization.

I turned and began back the way I'd come.

From your good friends down @ The Food Barn

This is a revision of an Awkward Moment Story I had to write for class. 

It seemed to Carl that discomfort and awkwardness formed a vital aspect of the so-called relationship he was attempting with Carol. 

Even their first meeting was scarred by hideous misfortune—a few months back when he was still a new employee, Carl had come into work a little late one day and was in a rush to use the restroom before his shift started. Being the upstanding, proprietary gentleman that he was, Carl implicitly followed the directions of the nearly scratched off sign on the bathroom mirror: ALL EMPLOYEES MUST WASH HANDS BEFORE RETURNING TO WORK. 

And so he had.

Only to his extreme disagreement, the paper-towel dispenser was absent of its namesake and Carl was left with no choice but to hurriedly dry his sopping hands on the front of the new khaki trousers he'd been required to purchase as a condition of employment at The Food Barn. And of course the pattern of the water on his crotch was glaringly obvious and seemed indicative of some-sort of gross misfortune on his part. Carl tried desperately to smooth the stain but he really only ended up spreading it around and increasing his overall appearance of slovenliness.

It shouldn't have surprised Carl at all that he should encounter Carol coming out of the break-room as he went back to punch-in. As of course this was the first time they'd met, Carl saw that he really only had two choices: be a dick and ignore her or stop and introduce himself.

And he probably would have gotten away scott-free too had he not inexplicably felt the urge to bring attention to his trouser stain by looking at it, shuffling about, and trying to non-chalantly cover his crotch region with his hand. 

For her part, Carol was intrigued by the shuffling, stuttering mess of a man before her. “How do you like The Food Barn so far?”

“Oh—it's great! I love it here! I mean—I love having a job, you know. Money is important. Plus it's nice to—you know, have something to do all the time. It took me forever just to get this one. Like five months almost. It was awful...”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“Well...”

“I better punch in, I'm almost late.”

“Right, see you later Gary.”

“Um, it's actually Carl.”

“Right! Sorry.”

“No your fine...I think I like Gary better anyways. Haha!”

This economy of language bullshit is for the birds, man.

The Florida Review and The Southwest Review are accepting submits.

I think I might also try and get something published in Thread but I'm not sure what. Everything that I have that is worth a damn is too long.

I'm so self-conscious of my short stories. I'm a long form man. Give me a solid 400 pages to set up a story arc and characters and back story and rising action, etc.. I can't competently express my ideas in 6000 words or less. That would be like trying to explain the plot of the Matrix Trilogy under water. I guess I just have a lot to say...or write, as it were. 

Paradiddle

Played drums last night with my band for the first time since the August going-away-party. It really is just like riding a bike.

It made me wonder where we would be as a group if I'd stayed behind...would we still be playing shitty festivals and local events for free beer and groupies or would that contact at Rolling Stone have finally passed our demo on to someone who could give us $20000 to record the greatest album ever...?

The world may never know.

Also, grapefruit juice for hangovers.

Warpaint

Pretty girls playing hypnotic music, distracting me from my homework. The part between 2:51 and 3:42 is melting my face onto the floor, repeatedly.

I wanna jam with that funky ass drummer.

Signifying nothing

You wouldn't remember because you weren't there. But I do.

I was worn out from working all morning under the summer sun. I went to CVS after work to use their bathroom, gripped in sweat and anticipation, trying to freshen myself up as best as I could.

We were supposed to meet at your mom's flower shop for lunch. Remember? Of course not.

I got there and dicked around by the rhododendrons, feigning interest in a display. I saw your mom instantly--she looked pretty just like you, with a few extra years on her back.

I waited thirty minutes and when the staff started looking at me like I was a shoplifter, I approached your mom and asked about you.

You were sick, she said. In bed all day. You weren't going to show up--I must have turned bright red. If only you'd told me that BEFORE I drove twenty miles out of the way, just to see you.

I flirted with your mom for a while and asked her how much a single rose was and whether or not she could give it to you with a message to "feel better soon."

I drove home with nothing on my mind but you.

I think you liked to say yes just to see what I would do. If only I'd been wise enough to stop asking.

I waited around so long just to hear you tell me that I'd wasted everything. That I'd taken the blind plunge, assuming you'd catch me. Nothing but spikes and dragons waited at the bottom.

God I hate still having to carry all that around.

I've found it!

I feel like I've been waiting my whole life to hear this song. Soooo much class, so much funk. It's like a slice of butter, melting on top of a big ol' pile of flapjacks...yeaah.

Perfection

The high-water mark of musical expression is in the first three minutes. 

Imagine being deaf and hearing this in your head. It would almost be okay.

Almost. 

 

 

Future Folds

I have this weird habit.

I like to get to class early and write shit on the board.

Today I got to my lit class an hour and four minutes early.

I have no life.

School is my life.

I've been thinking a lot about life after school.

Jobs. More school.

I've been thinking a lot about law school.

When I got to lit class an hour and four minutes early, I wrote an LSAT question on the board:

True or False: This sentence is false.

Believe it or not, this question has an answer. I just can't remember what it is. That's my problem.

The teacher pulled the projector screen over the question before anyone else got there.