I Kan't Spell

 
Charm City
I have spent a good deal of my time around people up here explaining that Baltimore is a kick ass town. I mean everyone that I have had a conversation with now knows that not only am I from Baltimore, but that I love it there. Now I may be fooling myself with this idea because of the big fish, small pond theory, but I am pretty sure I honestly feel that way. Anyway...it will wear off just like most of moods and interests.

I found this Baltimore webblog community. It's rather lame but pretty Baltimore. I would like to revisit and write more about the quirky traits of Bmore and why it is the way it is. Yeah...I really want to do that...

I'll be back with more on it later...
Link posted by JVMM : 7:16 PM

 
Emotional Me
I swear since I have really started to think well again, I'm not only really hyper but I'm really emotional as well. I was just listening to "Upward Over the Mountain" by Iron and Wine and I broke down. I fucking broke, sitting here, in a corporate office. A tear welled in my eyes and dropped autonimously from any thing that I was doing. Scary..In case you are wondering...it was the part about the "pups in the pantry" that got to me...


~~~Addendum - Did I mention that Iron and Wine does a cover of "Waitin for a Superman"...I mean shit...that's like throwing in bucket seats and a cd player to the deal...SOLD!
Link posted by JVMM : 6:41 PM

 
A Concersation at a Cocktail Party
"Where's my water." This little fucking kid, I'd say about 4, in some no name friend's house looks up at me and he thinks I know.

"Where's my water?"
"I don't fucking know?"
"You cursed."
"Yeah."
"I'm telling."
"That's a bad habit."
"What is?"
"Telling on people."
"Well, I'm telling my Dad."
"Who is your dad?"
"Umm..."
"You don't know your dads name? You are fucking dumb."
"Now I'm reeeeaaalllly telling."
"You'll never get your water then."
"Yes, I will"
"No, you won't."
"Yes, I will"
"No, you won’t"
.
.
.
.
"Yes, I will"
"No, you won't"
"Why not?”
"Because I drank all the fucking water."
"You're mean."
"No I'm not."
"Yes, you are"
"No, I'm not"
.
.
.
.
"Yes, you are"
"No, I'm not"
"Why did you curse?"
"Because I can use words to inflict reaction."

The kid looks at me dumbfounded. I looked back and didn't say a word. Then I pushed him to the side with my foot and changed the channel on the TV.

His Dad comes over to me later, not my friend who owns the house coincidentally, and says, "Hey buddy. My son says you cursed and were mean to him."

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that. I guess he shouldn't bother people."
"That's pretty rude."
"Are you a woman? Do you plan on teaching that kid how to be a woman?"
--no response—
"Stop acting like a woman. That's what women are for. To act like women. We are here to act like men, not a watered down version of a man but men."
"Who are you?
"My friends call me Scharf sometimes. You can call me Larry."
"I thought your name was Bret."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Larry will do."


Link posted by JVMM : 12:29 PM

 
Brain
My job has really picked up to the point where I am here for a legit 10 hours a day. I am wracking my dome for that long. So what has this intense pressure done? (side note- still may get fired...so don't be upset...but this place is pretty sink or swim...I'm treading water) This has made me start to feel sharp again. I am reading again. I am bored with people again. I am angry again. I am writing again. I am doing things that are a direct run-off of my own head. I feel really good. Now if I can just start exercising again, Lee Majors and I will go on tour together.
Link posted by JVMM : 10:33 AM

 
"You Son of a Bitch" An Open Letter to Tom Friend

Oh my blood boils. Some Ass Clown named Tom Friend who writes for ESPN Magazine has published an article bashing Baltimore as an unfit sports town. I don't oppose this statement. As of late the prawn sandwiches have been flying around rather heavily in this town. Camden Yards is more of an auto mechanic meet and greet than either an affluent place to enjoy a game or a down and dirty place to slug a beer and yell at an opposing player. Most season ticket holders are rather uninformed, bored, laid back, don't know how to act, suburbanites who would choose to stay home rather thene see the Orioles play the rubber match with the Blue Jays. I don't refute the claim that we stopped being a baseball town years ago. I refute the allegations that we never were and then ceased to be a sports town. I refute the idea that DC is a sportstown. I refute this fuck from breathing.

No town is a true fucking sports town anymore. I dare you to show me one city that regularly sells out games in support of a losing team. Where was Mr. Friend in the mid-late 90's when Orioles tix would only come down on high from your Dad's boss like pennies from heaven. It was a rare treat to go to a game back then, a treat I might add that was both affordable and affluent. Now the good seats are rediculously priced and other than the 5$ game nights where you get to sit in the upper deck nothing around that place is inexpensive. Wild Bill would not be on a dugout in this half assed posh Middle River rich stadium.

And for those of you in the back of your head who are preaching to me about the Yankees selling out every game, I have been to a few yankees games and couldn't imagine it being very difficult to get tix. And on top of that you live in a city with the population of half of fucking Britain. Hopefully you guys can park 50 thousand of your fat bandwagon asses in that place a night.

By the way you'll notice in the article that Mr. Friend's only allegations to us not being a sports town are his own childhood stories from the mid 70's. Well that's just fucking facttastic work there Sherlock. Going by your system of rationalization if I had only seen two movies at the start of my life and both happened to be bad well then I'll just stand out side and picket movie theatres forever. Fucking dip. Try looking up the attendance stats for the o's from 93'-2002. Look at those numbers and compare them with the sellout % of your oh so succesful Wizards and Capitals.

Mr. Friend thinks our beloved Nation's Capital deserves a baseball team. And while I wish he dies of an ingrown Squirell popping out of his cock I tend to agree that he has a point. But, unfortunately this will cause a major dent into not only the Oriole franchise revenues but to the blossoming downtown area. I was in fact shocked to see our own Mayor give his good graces to the idea of a competing team less than 40 miles away.

The Inner Harbor isn't visited by Baltimoreans, and the Inner Harbor is, besides what most locals think, the only nice attraction about this town. (look every town has quirky local bars and good people..but our only true commodity is that puddle of piss called the Chesapeake). Locals stay away from the Harbor like the plague. It's a pool of Asians with cameras and people talking in Germanic slurs wanting to wait in line at the ESPN zone. When the Oriole games cobine with the harbor to take a 15% redux in foot traffic during the summer because Southern Marylanders and DC people decide to spend one of their 3 weekends a summer in their own or another town, that will somehwat cripple our fledging efforts. You will see some stalls and changes in what was starting to become a decent little pearl on the East Coast of the United States.

Oh and as for football. Baltimore is now, because of the Super Bowl championship, Ray Lewis, and important but underrated is the tradition of the old Baltimore Colts and the legacy players staying around to live in Baltimore and support the new franhcise. Johnny Unitas being on the field at Ravens games was like the Godfather being at your wedding. Somehow you knew you were going to be ok. And Mr. Friend we have sold out every game since 98' and have not been blacked out in 6 years. While I know your beloved Redskins are well ahead of this curve, don't be so hasty to denounce the city you claimed to have held your nose closed while passing on your way to NYC.

And as far as your analogy of "We didn't complain when Baltimore got a football team." Football succeeds no matter where it goes in the North East. It will never die again in this town and you should know that because it's companies like the one that signs your checks that keep us all doped up waiting for the next play. If it weren't for the likes of ESPN bringing us sports highlights as if we watching a fucking moonlanding then we would watch a lot less football, probably learn how to read a little more, and more than likely not be such fat fucks.

Look I don't like your city either. The evil people live there. Your roads are fucking stupid. Your food and night life are probably some of the most overrated things I have ever partaken in and your FUCKING MAYOR SMOKED CRACK. I was born in Baltimore. I like my town. I'm sure you like yours. Yeah Baltimore is a little dangerous. Sure it smells in the summer. Yes, our Baseball owner Mr. Angelos is a tad overzealous and money grubby. But I wouldn't trade my city for any other rat's nest. And all cities are fucking rat's nests. Just look at Florida Ave. or that sess pool you call Dupont Circle.

We are sports fans here. We love our teams. We support them when they lose. It is difficult for you to understand that we are a sports town because you are coveting what we currently have and what you have longed for.

Anyway..I fucking hate you. You suck dick. I hope you get a fucking team and it sucks and you lose it just like you did the other two...whoops...did I say that...oh that's right the other two Baseball teams you lost. Not to mention the incredible job that the Caps and Wizards are doing with their attendance. Fucking Joke.

Choke on a dick...Love,
Bret Holmes
Link posted by JVMM : 3:53 PM

 
Poetry Afternoon
I'm declaring the rest of my activities online today are dedicated to Poetry

Here's some nice short stuff flying around.

Robert Frost -
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold,
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only for an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day;
Nothing gold can stay.

I've always liked Robert Frost. Well I guess who doesn't. I like some of his weirder shit, but mostly I like him because he's a huge baseball fan I guess.

Walt Whitman -

To the states or any one of them, or any city of the States, Resist much, obey little,
Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved,
Once fully enslaved, no-nation, state, city of this earth, ever afterward resumes its liberty.

Old crazy uncle Walt. He did a lot of great political poems

DH Lawrence -
I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.

My Fave DH one. I really wish he would have done a political satire or really jumped on the Aldous train. Sons and Lovers is great and so are most of his short stories. I recommend for short stories..umm...Sun, Two Blue Birds, and The Horse Dealers Daughter.

DH Lawrence -
The feelings I don't have, I don't have.
The feelings I don't have, I won't say I have.
The feelings you say you have, you don't have.
The feelings you would like us both to have, we neither of us have.

The feelings people ought to have, they never have.
If people say they've got feelings, you may be pretty sure they haven't got them.

So if you want either of us to feel anything at all
You'd better abandon all idea of feelings altogether.

More Killer DH.

Hart Crane has to be one of my favorite poet deaths stories. He also wrote a great poem called "The Bride". It's about the Brooklyn bridge, I believe, it's been a while since I have read it.

BUT CHECK THIS SHIT OUT!

Here's how Hart Crane died. His father was a rich candy maker in Cleveland. Hart moved to NYC wrote some stuff got around. All on Daddies dime. He wrote The Bridge. Got some fellowships including the Guggenheim joint. Ran into Dylan Thomas. Learned how to drink. Moved to Mexico and then the Great Depression happens. The 30's cause his father to go bankrupt and die. He boozes his face on Mexico and is said to look as though he is 50 when he is 32. He takes a charted boat back to America and on the way, he climbs up to the crows nest and does a FUCKING SWAN DIVE into shark infest waters. He was instantly torn to pieces. Fuckin hot!






Link posted by JVMM : 2:12 PM

 
Guess What?
It's Sunday. I'm at work. IM AT WORK! That makes 6 weekends in a row. I couldn't play baseball today because I showed up at work at 10 am on a SUNDAY! I'm actually not that bitter. I like my job. Plus I eat take-out, play poker online (while stuff processes) and listen to music. So it's sorta just like being at home...except I don't have any options.

I'm going to the MOE. show later. It'll be nice to catch MOE. again. It will be my first, ticket event of the summer. Probably my only one. You would really have to drag me to a headline show these days.
Link posted by JVMM : 1:55 PM

 
Dance to Your Ocean
There is, as always noted by all, an inner peace. There is a calm. There is a deep ocean of ease in all of us. It's found in a laugh, a cry, a meth addiction, an orgasm. It's there twirling around like a big bowl of pudding. It's with you when you smile and look forward to the day or the night or the insertion. It's with you around every turn and every choice. It is a driving factor.

Sway with the slosh of all that you hold as ease. Let yourself eat too much chocolate.Then let yourself throw it up. Feel the fingers in your throat. Feel the life and the blood rush through you. Feel your alone calm that no one else gets to share. Try to dry your eyes. Let people see the tears and then avoid direct contact via mouth or oval. Let your hand tell you where to walk as a watering stick tells you where to dig for the well. Let yourself swim alone out where you never go.

Follow the inner swell as it crests and then crashes. It crests and crashes. But we don't live at that outskirt. We live in the deep swirl. We live our lives in that middle. We live out where it is dark and cold and unforgiving. It is not unforgiving to the whale. It is easy for the jelly fish to navigate the abyss. As it is their home. Same for us. We feel at peace in our abyss. We feel at ease knowing it's our deep. We dance with it like we dance on our Grandmother's toes.


Link posted by JVMM : 7:03 PM

 
Music For Ya
Launch.com and I are gonna party today. Why? Why!? you ask...well because I'm at work and I'm watching little numbers tic by. So this is what my ass clown laptop speakers are pumpin out...

• Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head - I think I said once that I liked this song. Well now...today at least, it sounds forced and contrived to be deeper than it is. War and love and passion. The theme doesn't match the energy. But I can almost feel it.
  
• White Stripes - I Just Don't Know what to do with Myself - Hmm...this has that one big change "LIKE THE SUMMER ROOOSSE!"..other than that this song is assclowntastic.
  
• Damien Rice - Cheers Darlin - This must be a back page song. I love DR but this is kinda painful. It's nice to think of a guy, and actually hear a guy in a bar with clinking glasses, singing about his lost love. DR does that better than just about anyone. This song is mental though.
  
• Pain Killer - Turin Brakes - That first album was a nice novelty thing to bring you down from your hyped love for The Beta Band and Sneaker Pimps. Unfortunately after the party comes the hangover. And my dears...Turin you especially...this is just forced and filthy. She (or he or it whatever the hell it is) does say "Giving me head" and this song is pretty much about having an orgasm.
  
• Lonesome Cowboy Bill - The Velvet Underground - Hmm...nope...this is a little overzealous for this album. It's like the Beachboys did a lot of cocain and then called Willie Nelson and recorded this song over the phone.
  
• One Anrgy Dwarf - Ben Folds Five - YES! YES! This song is great! This is the song that got me interested in BF5. This is a must for any Ipod or MP3 collection. You can't help but smile at this song.
  
• Clint Eastwood - Gorillaz - How did this turd find its way in here? Even by Blur standards this is just rediculous. The most redic part is the rapper. The cartoon rapper with the British accent is just fucking retarded. This song should have been assasinated before it ever made it here. Why is it called Clint Eastwood by the way? How dare they attach this hot bag of shit to a living legend.
  
• Cold Hard Bitch - Jet - What? Huh? So...So what?...No seriously so what? Fucker...no FUCK YOU! I like it allright. Yeah it's good! So don't look at me like that. Dick...Yeah...punk ass...
  
• Wherever I May Roam - Metallica (S&M version) - Hmm...Yeah this is fucking stupid. Legends or not....this is just dumb.
  
• Ordinary World - Duran Duran - The Cure 2 and The Smiths Jr. have released a song that should only be pulled out if you are about to blow your brains out sitting in a penthouse with all your orignal 80's furniture. Then you have my permission to play this. Cherish your past. Pull the trigger. And try to manage to short out the stereo on your way out. Thanks!
  
• Dave Matthews - Satellite - This was a really good tune for it's time. The same way Jefferson Airplane was a good band for it's time. But we all know what happened after that...
  
• Ben Kweller - Hospital Bed - Ok there are kids running around praising this. This isn't that good. It's fucking cheesy. Yeah this is straight fuckin goofy. But hey the rest of the album may be solid.
  
• Tom Petty - To Find a Friend - Lovely just lovely. This is what ass hat weaarer Ben Kweller should strive for..shoot for Tom Petty Benny, not for Ben Folds 5 you jackass.
  
• Cursive - Art is Hard - Well Hello...This is pretty good. It's a little oddly preppy and too fluid for my taste. But it seems to have an honest ingrediant in there. And I like the premise for the song.
  
• All Eyez on Me - 2Pac - Yeah...I don't really like 2Pac too much. I like some of his stuff like Dear Momma and some of his more sexual shit like Girlfriend. But to be honest Hip Hop and the connection to their own ego and money and shit like that is just really a hassle. It's really fucking funny most of the time to see Hip Hop artist with cars that bounce but for the most part I'm just another angry white guy not in charge anymore. I'd like to identify with shiny baubles but I can't. The Roots are pretty good. Wu Tang is pretty straight...there's other stuff...2Pac ain't it though.
  
• Lil John & The East Coast Boyz - Get Low - See this is just like punk rock. Identifiable lyrics and beat that's an extension of your dick. The guy with the deep voice is rather horrible though. I'd like to see more "albums" come out of these artists like with the Roots and OUtkaste. More complete stuff.

Link posted by JVMM : 3:43 PM

 
Jesus the Mexican Boy - Iron and Wine
This whole song is just immense -


Jesus the Mexican boy
born in a truck on the fourth of July
gave me a card with a lady naked on the back
Barefoot at night on the road
Fireworks blooming above in the sky
I never knew I was given the best one from the deck

He never wanted nothing I remember
Maybe a broken bottle if I had two
Hanging behind his holy even temper
Hiding the more unholy things I do

Jesus the Mexican boy
 Gave me a ride on the back of his bike
Out to the fair though I welched on a $5 bet
Drunk on Calliope songs
We met a home-wrecking carnival girl
He's never asked for a favor or the money yet

Jesus the Mexican boy
Born in a truck on the 4th of July
I fell in love with his sister unrepentantly
Fearing he wouldn't approve
We made a lie that was feeble at best
Boarded a train bound for Vegas and married secretly

I never gave him nothing I remember
Maybe a broken bottle if I had two
Hanging behind his holy even temper
Hiding the more unholy things I do

Jesus the Mexican boy
Wearing a long desert trip on his tie
Lo and behold he was standing under the welcome sign
Naked the Judas in me
Fell by the tracks but he lifted me high
Kissing my head like a brother and never asking why




Link posted by JVMM : 3:13 PM

 
Dream Ranch
I used to breath my wishes and actions through the filter of your body. Both you and my family. You mattered more. I would whisper them to you softer than one would talk to a tree.

I laid my dreams on your eyes like a mother leaves a child on a doorstep. She cries, kisses two of her fingers and touches the forgotten souls forehead as she dashes off. So too was I this way. So too was I wanting to leave my dreams in your care. I wanted  you to decide what was best.

Now I carry my destiny with me. I guard it as a mother wolf guards her cubs. I travel on the roads looking for any place that I can settle down  and give my love milk and honey.

I breath nothing through any instrument now. I play my own voice in the pitch of day. I drop coins to the peasants that once carried my combination. I trust you do the same. I trust the keeper of once sacred things has matriculated to pastures of fragmented wisdom. There is a nursery here where we try and make our dreams viable enough to be enrolled. It is more beautiful than anything you have ever seen. Join us.

Link posted by JVMM : 4:33 PM

 
Copper and Scotch
*This is just really nice original song writing...Iron and Wine of course...this years Eels

mother don't worry, i killed the last snake that lived in the creek bed
mother don't worry, i've got some money i save for the weekend
 mother remember being so stern with that girl who was with me?
mother remember the blink of an eye when i breathed through your body?

so may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten
sons are like birds flying upward over the mountain

mother i made it up from the bruise of a floor of this prison
mother i lost it, all of the fear of the Lord i was given
mother forget me now that the creek drank the cradle you sang to
mother forgive me, i sold your car for the shoes that i gave you

so may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten
sons are like birds flying upward over the

mountain mother don't worry, i've got a coat & some friends on the corner
mother don't worry, she's got a garden we're planting together
mother remember the night that the dog had her pups in the pantry?

blood on the floor & the fleas on their paws and you cried 'til the morning
so may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten
sons are like birds flying upward over the mountain

Link posted by JVMM : 2:55 PM

 
Steel and Gin
On Your Wings by Iron and Wine may be my favorite song of 04'.


Link posted by JVMM : 6:57 PM

 
Rocks with Holes
He came home on acid I was holding his shotgun

I was dressed like Tina Turner in Beyond Thunderdome

He said Don't shoot I said i won't I love you you're my friend

I handed him my wig and shot myself in the head

I stuffed a box of tissues in the hole in my skull

I got in my Mazda and I drove to the mall

I bought a big Johnson shirt and some silicone tits

When I pulled out the tissues they were covered with shit

And the beer I had for breakfast was a box of cheap white wine

And the boom box on my shoulder was a box of clementines

I ate every single one without noticing the mould

He said you're gross my darling

I said No I'm rock and roll!!

Even though I'd never ever been in a band

I got coolest as black ice tattoed on my hand

And the Christians gave me comic books as if I would be scared

Of burning in hell

Well I was already there

And the beer I had for breakfast was silver bullet to the brain

And the beer I had for lunch was a bottle of night train

And the beer i had for dinner was my crazy neighbours pills

We had to sit down on skateboards just to make it down the hill

Then I peed my pants and you stole the groom's cigar

And some old man made me watch him masturbate locked in his car

I got back to the apartment you were face down on the floor

You said don't go to bed yet let's go get a 64

And the beer i had for breakfast was a pint of Jim Beam and a fifth of peach schnapps and some warm sunny D

And you said bottoms up just as i bottomed down

I tried to scream Fuck You but blood was pouring out my mouth

Evan Dando never planned on telling you the truth

And your Leonardo ID card is your fountain of youth

You can be a teenager for your whole fucking life

Just find some pretty sucker and make that bitch your wife

And i guess by now you all know my friend Danny broke his neck

He was driving home from sirens when he got into a wreck

First I cried for him and then I cried for me

Haunted by the ghost of the girl I used to be

But the rocks with holes are warm in my hand and I bury my toes in the hot hot sand

And the silver pink pony kisses me and says You've come a long long way and you deserve to be really happy


Link posted by JVMM : 2:56 PM

 
FL

I stood up and I said, yeah!
I stood up and I said, yeah!
I stood up and I said, hey! Yeah!
Link posted by JVMM : 11:32 AM

 
89 seconds
Who stops for the beating of the fucking heart anymore? Chase around your tail that smells of urine. Chase it around until your heart stops and you can't look at your self in the mirror anymore. Keep running after nothing in hopes of finding something that can make nothing seem really interesting. Trade in all that you have in order to hitch anything you've ever dreamed of doing to someone else's life.

Come back to what you love in the innocence of all that you know now you hate. Bring back your life to the brink of not being life and then you can beat out your footsteps with an abandoned defeat. You can drop the yoke of social restraints and worship dirty feet the same as hundred dollar bills falling from naked goddesses.

You are not average. You are not like anyone else. You are exactly like everyone else. Your heart and your body make it that way. Your soul is being corralled into a chasm. It's slowly and then swiftly being pushed into a new realm of not you and you at the same time. You'll be so confused by the time it's all done that confusion won't even mean anything to you. There will just be the hum a coke machine and the clicker of Friends re-runs surrounding you like embryonic fluid.


Why not be different? Why not hate everything about being the same?Because, everyone's heart beats close to the same rhythm. The pumping muscle draws us out into the universal dance floor in order to look each other over like a baby looks in the mirror. The song that plays us onto life plays for all. The desire to smile and ejaculate and wrestle and raise children lurks everywhere. You eat just like everyone eats.
Link posted by JVMM : 4:08 PM

 
Update

The funeral and everything was rather strange. I'm not going to write about it.

Badly Drawn Boy's new CD comes out today. I'm excited about that!

That's all..

And I
Was busy finding answers while you just got on with real life
Always hoped you'd be my wife
But I never found the time
For the question to arrive
I just disguised it in a song

Link posted by JVMM : 9:24 AM

 
Great Grandma Kern

My Great Grandmother passed this morning. I don't quite know how old she was. My Great Grandfather died on Xmas about 10 years prior. She is probably the first relative I have lost that I have been close to. I'll guess that she was probably late 80's. That is quite young I guess for being the GGM of a 24 year old. I don't relaly get choked up over death. I really do think it's some sort of transition and unless a life is tragically taken in the prime of it's existance then I find myself simply wishing it a good trip as opposed to weeping for what we have lost.
 
I loved my GGMa. She was really nice to me throughout my entire life. As people get older they don't have the energy to keep up with the youngins and they become a bit needy in their need to be around youth. But GGMa was full of life. She played Hide and Seek with me and Monopoly and a good bit of a dutch game called Carem (sp?). No doubt you've seen Carem boards on the walls of the standard Northern European household.  She also baked the best Lemon Sponge cakes in the world and the only real Xmas's I have ever had with the huge family gathered around multiple table were always at her house. I loved my Great Grandma. She died in her sleep today at around 4 am. She is survived by so many people it is difficult to count but an esitimate, and I hope relatives don't get mad at me, would be 3 children, 9 grand children, and 17 Great Grand chlidren. All these lives are in direct responsibility to her own She will be held in our hearts forever. Rest in Peace.



Link posted by JVMM : 11:49 AM

 
Music Update

Every morning before my day starts I go and collect my "listenings". I always check the largeheartedboy site and donewaiting first and they usually send me off on a 15 minute tear looking for new tunes.

This morning I found some stuff worth sharing and it also spawned me to write about some stuff I have been listening to in addition to what I found this morning.

My journey started here (you can find the next 5 artist available for DL there) -

M. Ward - This is a really earthy song that makes me want to investigate his album. They call it a concept album but that never really resonates with me because the concept always escapes me. Shit, OK Computer still escapes me. Anyway it's good in the same vain like Nick Drake was singing with Sam from Iron and Wine (is I+W a band...ot just one dude...one dude I think).

Joli Holland - This is just what everyone needs at some point. You can use this when you are cooking pasta or walking around in your socks wanting to be some sort of Latin woman. It's really back door perfection as if it were being test driven for a smoky jazz bar after hours.


Sam Phillips - This is the wife of the famed producer T Bone Burnett (best known for executive producing the soundtracks that make it ok to buy soundtracks such as Big Lebowski, O Brother Where Art Thou...he also did Elvis Costello, played guitar with Dylan and...to me personally his most prized and acclaimed peice of work...Producing August and Everything After) Although being a huge Jesus freak, both him and his wife, whom I have really neglected to mention, have churned out what sounds like Cheryl Crow (sp?) at age 50. Don't sleep on old Ms Crow. You'll be wishing you knew her better in 20 years same as our parents wished they knew Patti Smith better.

Johnny Vanderslice - Yeah you've heard his name getting kicked around for about 2 years. This guy is the owner of tiny telephone...you'll see him in the liner notes of DCFC and Sun Kill Moon...It's a little annoying because you'll think your speakers are blown but it's gotta a great voice beat to it. Downbeats and syllables are in chime and it makes things much more bareable than they should be. I'll probably give this album go my next trip to the cd store based solely that this is so good even though it tries to be horrible that the pop tunes laying in the album are probably just amazing.

Circulatory System - This is friendly and easy to you. Polyphonic Spree meets Guided by Voices. It's not really anything to stumble over but if you could imagine the beatles playing country rock that was low-level produced that would be close to this. It's pretty sweet...like corn sweet.

Mountain Goats - I've been hearing about this band for months. The mp3's I have are rather annoying but the lyrics are so fucked up that I like it. The song on the link above is rather pop friendly for them. It reminds me of the band that should open a Hedwig and the Angry Inch show. It's worth the download...you can make your own decision after that.

This site also has a Iron and Wine dl. But I won't write about it..if you don't already have 30 songs DL'd and the latest LP you should be killed. Wait no...scarred. Wait...maybe killed...definitly have a limb broken.


Drag the River - It's the country Soledad Brothers. It's good. They have dl's on the website. You should grab some.

Death in Vegas - If they had good PR here you would know them. But alas be the first kids on your subbruban East coast block to have a Death in Vegas Mp3. You won't be dissapointed. It's like Radiohead had a set of cojones again.



Link posted by JVMM : 12:24 PM

 
Men's Dreams Dashed
I had a dream last night about a bossy, overbearing woman running my life. This is what I need in my life, as most men do. We all look for some weird extension of our mother's to take care of us etc...but that's not what this is about. This is about the loss of dreams and life amongst men as they grow older and involved with women.

The saddest sight in the world to a single adolescent male is that of a married or involved adolescent male. We all know the flip side of the coin is to be alone, and given our choice on any teary night when we bemoan about being alone, we would choose the woman to be in our lives. But alas it still does not allow this man escape from observation.

In more patriarchal times of breeding and affluent mistresses, men were taken back by assertive women. In today's age I find women being taken back by assertive men. I have noticed that men are merely ornaments. If not succesful or confident with their own lives, men settle, much like most women, for anything that will pay attention to them. Men in these kinds of relationships are sad, especially my generation. My generation grew up on women's lib and political correctness and all sort of confusing crazy shit that made us guinny pigs for the up and coming adjusted sugar free generation.

In the depths of each man is the desire to be a rogue. There is a desire to be a leader, in charge, passionate, a horse among a team. There is a want if not a need to feel as though, in small doses we still embody the animalistic attributes of our patriarchal forefathers. The current status of men and women wound this idea if not completely kill it. The desire for attention and righteousness that women request from their men is overbearing and boring. It is childish and rude to expect a man, a creature of instinctive mass breeding testosterone filled habits, to cow-tow to the emotions and needs of a woman on a full time basis.

Unfortunately, what I see these days are a slew of men raised by their mothers (which is the way it has always been) but without the guild of their father's. I.e. - The father takes no active role in their childs life because they are part of a system of nothings. They are not proud. They change jobs and lives and houses and friends more frequently making it impossible to create an ilk for which to show the young colt how and whom to trot with. It takes a village to raise a child, and the village in our culture has long since been replaced by the mother and father and the lack of sustance.

My generation was raised in a big mixing bowl of options. We were given freedoms to explore and then fail and then be coddled by women. This trend is in it's second generation. The father's of today were beginning this trend in the 70's and 60's. The father's of today and the previous generation lost their way by losing the strength of their father's. Father's today are weak and pathetic.

All this weird psychosis leads us back to present day males and their inability to be just that, males. Men are constantly rolled and played by women.

When a woman gets upset because you get drunk or buy a new fishing rod. She's not upset out of care for you, she's upset out of loss for herself. She can see the look in her own friends rolled eyes as the reflection of you has a bobbed drunken noggin and slurred words. She is identified with you and is consequently embarrassed.

When you purchase something expensive or spend a good bit of money in Atlantic city it is not your bank account that she is worried about, it is her own future which she finds threatened. Women can have all the liberation they want over the past 50 years but it will take ions of generations to get the protector and protected gene out of their system.

This post never really went where I wanted it to. I was saying it out loud as I was walking to work and seemed much better. I thought I would give it a shot though. I've really been thinking a lot lately about the celebration of life and the human spirit and how everything that I see around me is meant to crush that. Everything from marked up holidays in scheduled increments to shiny shoes.

Link posted by JVMM : 10:17 AM

 
Franz Ferdinand Blows Live
Sorry it's been a while since I've written but I've been busy. I'll probably write about some poker things later in the week as that is my current hobby.

Anyway...Franz Ferdinan sucks live. I'm watching mpegs of him last night and I just wanted to throw my newly purchased vinyl of the self-titled debut out the window in hopes that it would shatter.

I'd like to have some free time soon to trot around town or maybe go to the Ocean or DC. Let me know if you are interested. But alone is just as good to be honest. At this point...I kind of like being alone. It's rather refreshing to see how well I can keep myself entertained.
Link posted by JVMM : 1:33 PM

 
Observations from Match.com
So I have been thinking a good bit lately about the Internet, Youth, Marketable Drugs, and ways to get rich. So I went to old match.com to sign up for an account. Everyday this thing sends me a list of people and their pictures and the most horrible, pointless, apathetic, soulless drivel I have ever read (next to my own). It was a hilarious exercise and it has brought me minutes upon minutes of entertainment.

So here's why I'm mad.

Why don't girls just come out and say it. "I WANT TO BE RICH. I WANT TO BE IN CHARGE. I WANT EVERYONE TO KNOW IT."

I have no problem with this premise. I agree totally that people should breed accordingly. You should mate with your own ilk. If you think you are too good for your clan, then prove it. If you want to fuck a super model, here's some advice. No one is that smart. No one is that clever. There are gray differentials between all of us sure, but for the most part relationships, fucking, whatever all boils down to chemistry and timing. You have little pheromones and hormones running around and sometimes they match up. But to sustain a lifelong process you have to raise your game beyond your best polo shirt and too much cologne. Stop working at fucking Payless. Go get a scholarship from an in state school. Study really fucking hard and get A's. Go to grad school and become a lawyer. Start learning how to use all the utensils at a table. Learn to chew with your mouth closed. Be able to spend 10% of your income on fashionable attire. Then go bang something worthy of a photo.

Else...stay in Dundalk. Be happy.


This doesn't mean people can't find happiness. Oh no no no. The poor fuck. Well the non-religious poor anyway. That's what the poor have, I believe it was Bukowski who wrote that once, when he stayed in a shack next to a poor couple who just banged all night long. Poor people are good at living, they smile a lot, they cry a lot, and they fight a lot. Their emotions are what they have the most of. Their emotions are genuine because when you are poor nobody gives a fuck if you are nice to them. You're poor! You can be whatever you want. It's one of the coolest things about being poor and realizing it. You get to say FUCK YOU to everyone and mean it. They have emotions and hopes of success for their children but that's about it. Else they pretty much get to float from one stressful situation requiring fuck relief to another. (This thesis unfortunately does not include drug addicts, Gov't dependant lazy bastards, or psychological wastes. Unfortunately that demographic grows more everyday.)

So on match.com I come across these girls. You know which one's I like? The one's who specify how much money their date should make. The one's that name drop and say that they go wine tasting even though they wouldn't know a good bottle of wine from their own piss. It shows that they have a set of balls on them. It shows me that they know what they want. The rest of them specify (and I'm serious here...I mean all of them) that they could either go clubbing, or just 'chill' on the couch. More than likely these soon-t-be Cheeto crushing factories always chill on the couch and are a complete fucking waste. You don't go clubbing, you go get drunk because it's easier that sitting on the couch. And then you become some slam pig for a guy with greasy hair and a tight t-shirt.

Seriously, ladies that are on here, get your shit together. I mean I'm not on this thing. I think dating via the Internet is a brutal idea. The connection will happen naturally. This is just a wasteland for the vapid and pointless or for foreign girls who want a green card. But if you are gonna be on here then damnit...damnit sweety be something. Be anything other than you. Trap someone. Get married and then get fat and pump two semi-retarded kids out to be just like you. Let the cycle continue. But don't bullshit people on here. The guys on here are just as sad, either they walk around with 24 hour hard ons and can't use them or they are so deformed or old and lonely that they couldn't get laid in Thailand.

Wait maybe that is your catch. Maybe you are trying to be some guys easy fantasy of comfort just to trap him. But do you know what that does to men...well at least me...Once we smell a hint, even a hint, the slightest fucking whiff of change in your personality we will drop you like a hot bag of shit. At least I do. So when you say shit like "Oh I'm really laid back and I like to just walk around in pajamas and maybe watch baseball." That's fucked up. Because one day you aren't going to be that way. And the second we sense a lie, we bolt.

Get your shit together women. Have pride in your ass.

Link posted by JVMM : 5:30 PM

 
Observations from a Roof Deck on July 4th

I was watching a movie. Yeah that's how it started. No wait it was before that. I was watching poker on TV feeling sorry for myself. That's when my day was wasted. All balled up and thrown away like some piece of foil after the hot dog has been digested. A waste of a day. What a pity for a 24 year old male in the swing of all things wonderful to have feelings of lament and sorrow.

I waddled around for the afternoon. Made some country ham given to me by my grandfather. It was good. Salty and exactly what I needed. It was almost as if my grandfather were standing there in the kitchen making it with me. His stern and honest person watching me cook what he had nourished me on for so many years.

The day rolled on.

It came to dusk. I put in a movie I had purchased the day before and watched it in my roommate's room as my room is hot and the DVD player is often not working. I lay in there watching this trying to laugh. Attempting to be merry on a day when everyone was away. On a day when once again I wanted a family. I wanted a reason.

It grew to late evening and I perched myself up to light a cigarette and consider whether to go out onto the rented house's roof deck to watch the fire works from the Inner Harbor. After slight deliberation I decided to do that.

I grabbed the bottle of scotch that Craig had bought me for my birthday. Weeks earlier he had come into my room and remarked on it and I said that I myself had purchased it not long ago. He corrected me and yet again I had one more barometer fixture for which to align my failures with.

I climbed the stairs swinging the bottle. I grabbed the few cigarettes I had left that the bartender the night before had given me. I don't feel remorse about my nights anymore. I feel the same way about these evening as a moth would about becoming a butterfly. It's all a part of the metamorphosis. One cannot change without first experiencing what he hates, loving that source of hatred, and then casting it out into nothing.

I could see all the little neighborhoods that surrounded the city. Catonsville and Brooklyn were shooting off their town fair fireworks from what I could only assume was the local highschool multipurpose athletic fields. I let the bottle swing over the side and took a strong pull. I put it back down and decided that it wasn't what I wanted.

I looked over and saw a family of three with their little boy climbing on top of the roof next to me. They were without roof deck. It rained today. They seemed unprepared to sit and watch the fireworks. They looked at me with a stare that said, "Can we please come over there?" I pondered the imaginary question and broke eye contact with the mother with a slight sarcastic chuckle and a sneer.

I looked down on the street and saw families, college kids, drunken rogues, imaginary hookers, and local thugs walking. They were all loud and wild. I looked at the cars. I saw how they were all the same. I looked at the gated off garden that belonged to the house next door. It was beautiful to see one shining piece of self-respect in this recycled part of town.

I saw other people on roof decks having parties. They were lighting fire works and standing in groups trying to explain their lives and rekindle whatever they may have had once to gain them a ticket to this event. They were once intrigued with each other enough to allow the invite and now they were simply trying to fold back into that feeling. It failed most of the time. Cosmically, most people are not aligned to be friends. They are quite apt to be civil.

I heard the little boy from the adjacent roof ask his father, "When Daddy? When? I want to see fireworks." I though about my father. I looked at the bottle that was 4/5 full and poured it out into the gutter. I laughed at myself. I laughed at thoughts of my father. I took a huge breath in and tried to spit onto one of the cars across the street.

I thought about people in my life and wondered where they were right now. I thought about Craig in Hoboken possibly watching the NYC fireworks from outside the PATH tube. Maybe he was with his girlfriend at the beach. I thought about Blake. He moved to New York this weekend. I wondered if anything bad had happened in the world. I hoped Blake was with my other friends, Theresa and Lauren. I thought about Jennings and how much he had come back to sensibility and what a wonderful person he had become since isolating himself for so long. I wondered if I would ever go back to New York for anything other than business or to see friends. I considered leaving tonight to move there. I didn't call my own bluff.

I though about Tim in Canada. I thought about how funny it would be to see Tim dance. I thought about how he had a rather steep learning curve thrown into his education in the last 3 years and how it has benefited him. It is wonderful to really start life at 21. He did that. He has a much purer concentration of things to enjoy and experience then most. Unjaded eyes see things clearer. I wondered if Doug was working or with his new girlfriend. I became disappointed that they never went cross country. I felt warm thinking about their futures. I became proud to think that they were the last friends that I ever made. It showed promise.

I thought about Michael at some kids in Harford county. Sitting there being Mike. Not yet drinking enough to be out of line. Instead playing his usual role amongst his child hood friends. He was most likely sitting around a table eating or standing in an open lot of land having a solo conversation with someone kindly nodding his head and giving advice in an honest self-fulfilling stream. I thought about Watts and his new girlfriend. It was nice knowing Watts. For some reason I thought about my other roommate at a deck less than 300 yards away. I had no feelings when I thought about the numerous deck tragedies that happen every year from too many people being on top of a house stomping around.

I knew my Mother was happy. I smiled.

I wondered if Mirel was downtown. I wondered why she never returned my phone call from a few days ago. I can only assume she has started over again and is afraid to confront me, maybe analyzing too much. She's probably thinking that I would be angry or jealous. I just wanted to talk to the person that, at one time, I was closest to in my life. I remember that she knew my address. I went downstairs to lock the door and turn off the lights. I wished for no visitors.

I thought about a mistake known as Yana. I thought about other mistakes. I squirmed a little and lit another cigarette. I thought about Su Yeon and how it was her birthday and I was going to send nothing. I didn't feel ashamed but I was not far from it.

I envisioned the people at my office gathered at the southern window that overlooked the harbor. I thought about going to work tomorrow and being good at my job.

I was going to read another white paper or configuration document before I went to bed.

I thought about other people just as an exercise. Noting rang clear.

The fireworks started from Locust Point. Under Armour must have bent the city's ear to allow the fireworks from their corporate center. I remember reading that Advertising.com just got bought for half a billion dollars. I adjusted my thesis to include them.

The fireworks slowly started to become louder and brighter. I heard the little boy scream in joy. I saw his parents put their arms around each other and push the sides of their heads together.

I thought about writing everything down and I started to speak aloud to myself. It was clearer and more concise than this. It was poetic to me. My monologue reminded me of a movie I had seen weeks before about a kid in Europe taking lots of drugs, and fucking. Mine seemed better.

I theorized about older people. Holidays aren't special when you are really living. They only become extensions of your missed opportunities as you get older. People dress up and dress things up 5 or 6 times a year because they don't live anymore. This is their human dump. This is the way to allow for the missed nights of euphoria that they once had. This is now their outlet. They organize parties and invite dwindling friends over to get moderately unsober. They walk around trying not to offend or be odd. They simply watch fireworks, talk about their kids and jobs, and try not to appear closer to falling apart. They have nothing anymore. They only have what they created and that is not what they had intended. The days of wanting to eat ice cream for breakfast and pizza every night is childhood foolishness. The days of whimsical drives to Atlantic city on a is now teenage foolishness and the idea of having sex on top of a laundry machine in somebody's house while spilling their shots of Jack Daniels is all but a distant memory.

The fireworks speed up.

There was a good bit of pink for a while. It was annoying. The there was a lot of blues and some fizzled gold after that. I half smiled thinking about my father making fun of people who watched fireworks.

"OK. ready? Ooooh Ahhhhh. There you go. You just watched fireworks."
"But I didn't see any fireworks Dad."
"Fireworks are for lazy people who couldn't think of anything better to do."

I looked over at the roof deck to my left and saw my neighbors, about 12 of them, fresh college kids, standing around drinking out of plastic cups. There was a young man making gestures as though he were trying to explain fireworks. His hand motions were a combination of a conductor conducting an orchestra and a grand mother motioning for her grand children to return in doors. He looked ridiculous. They looked at me. "Hey. Bret right? Where's your friends? Why don't you come over here?" I gave them a fake salute and pretended to take a large pull off my now empty bottle. I said nothing and looked back to the horizon.

The finale was just starting. It was rather entertaining. It was loud and colorful. The people at the harbor must have been upset that the attraction was not set off from Federal Hill. They had to look around the turkey neck bend in the Harbor to see them. How many boyfriends were embarrassed that they shuffled all this way to merely get a slanted view? A few guffed girlfriends from Long Island and Loyola college were meant to pout this evening.

The little boy made a sound that came out like "Weeeeeeeeee!".

I smiled again. I smiled again at how many times I had smiled.

The fireworks ended. Anti-climatic shouts of "Happy New Year" came from other roof decks. The locals less then a block away were lighting off bottle rockets. The parties went on. I picked up the bottle and thought about throwing it into the street. I had no audience. I lit another cigarette, gathered my trash and went back inside to finish the movie. I decided not to write anything because it wasn't stenographed and couldn't possible be recaptured.


Link posted by JVMM : 1:16 AM