I Kan't Spell

 
Chapter 13 - Baltimore

I haven't completed it yet - and I also - since it'll only be published on the Internet - want to paid a song with every chapter... I mean - why not use the new medium like it's supposed to be used. Hell, my friend Tim does whole stories with JUST pictures... and they aren't like cartoons - they are just pictures... anyway


I haven't decided how I want to juxtapose this chapter and I want to work it - like really work it...

I'll be using this song -

Throughout my life Baltimore has been a constant - from the lower middle class suburbs where I grew up - to my exploring adult youth - Baltimore has been my muse and mistress and heartbreaker and all around playground. It ain't pretty but it's home - and you don't really get two of them. Even if I moved... Baltimore would always be there and I will always know it.
Link posted by JVMM : 11:16 AM

 
Chapter 12 - "Good I want to sit outside"

As I get older I look back and see how little I have actually changed. There is a strange part of my persona that ALWAYS feels as though it doesn't belong. Or as though it doesn't deserve what is currently happening. It always feels that it is on the outside while people on the inside are showing that true love and friendship that is echoed in movie. Life tends to always feels like a lie.

It's not a sharp feeling and it doesn't extend to Erin or my Mother. It does however, extend to my friends and other relatives. It always feels like it's just a little off... as though I'm an imposter or phoney just trying to fit in. I don't identify with Holden but... I can see where he comes from... plus he was way cooler than I was... and probably wouldn't hang out with me...

Anyway - this chapter was a bit flat... it's a funny story about me in the 4th grade where I had to sit OUTSIDE the classroom, outside the school in a study carol for a week. And when I was told that this was my punishment I said the Chapter title line.

I tie that into how I've always acted this way... I've always wanted it to be hard. The harder you make it for me - it seems the more I enjoy it once I succeed. I don't like things to be easy. I like them to be hard... it makes the victory twice as sweet and validates my efforts. I always want to be different and known for that. However, what happens is that my efforts there just make me more like everyone else. I often acquiesce to people's opinions of me and have major self-confidence issues in social settings.

Either way - I tried to tie all that into that one story and the path it has beaten to my door today... but it never really go there.

We are headed to Chicago for a few days to hang out with our dear friends... should be a good time. Eating at Rick Bayless' restaurant...and seeing my aunt for the first time in 15 years.

Have a great weekend - hopefully we'll get some renfest in next weekend.
Link posted by JVMM : 9:18 AM

 
Upcoming "large" shows --

Saturday 7 November
Travis - Joes Pub, New York, NY, US
An Evening with Fran Healy & Andy Dunlop

* a good time to get back up to NYC

Ted Leo
Washington, DC - Thursday - 12/03/2009 @ The Black Cat | Doors: 8PM. $15. All Ages.

*love Ted leo

Ottobar
10/10 Blitzen Trapper and Wye Oak (rightfully voted Baltimore's best band... but... sadly... that doesn't really mean anything... lol - Dan Deacon burned the CITY DOWN - nobody is getting out alive)
10/15 The Raveonettes -
10/16 Doug Stanhope - stand up - HILARIOUS!
10/22 - Dr. Dog
11/14 Art Brut

Sonar -
11/12 - PEACHES W/ MEN (mem of LE TIGRE),
11/13 DAN AUERBACH (of THE BLACK KEYS) with JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE
11/16 MATISYAHU (lol just kidding - but... ya never know he could have a strong following)

930 -
10/13 Daniel Johnston
10/15 Lucero
10/17 Built to Spill
11/4 Wolfmother - (everyone should see this band once... it's as close as you get to... well... sorta Led Zeppelin.)

--- BTW - For the first time ever on http://www.sidebartavern.com/shows.html I did not know one band.

LOL - this list of music would have read pretty cool back in 2004... but now... I can't be arsed most of the time. Hopefully I'll go see Doug Stanhope...
Link posted by JVMM : 4:09 PM

 
Chapter 11 - 6 Foot Fences Make Good Neighbors

This chapter came out pretty well - it was about my pets as a kid but then it turned into more about how we never had guests at my house growing up. We never had family there or family friends after the time I was 6 or 7. We didn't know our neighbors. I didn't have any friends or go to the same school with people who lived closely around me.

It wasn't until I was 12 or 13 that I developed relationships with other kids in my neighborhood. Up until then - my dog was pretty much my best friend. I think it's why I wanted him... but then I was mean to him... I have always been mean to animals. It's a very scary thing to recollect that you used to hit your dog and smack him for chewing things and ruining furniture... but - I did. I can't deny that. Good thing he was a Rottweiler... he could take it. So the chapter goes a little dark in the middle but... as I got older I became a much more loving pet owner and a more loving person.

As I strayed further and further away from a home where I had no friends or family I found that I was much more accepting, funny, patient, and loving. And that's what made the chapter good... it showed an evolution of kindness with increased contact with people.


~~~~~
Tomorrow is my Mother's birthday. She is my hero and I love her.

Nick's wedding was really great and it was awesome to see everyone for... what may be the last time for a long time for many of those people. It was a special evening and one of my best friends is now married. May blessings rain down on their house.
Link posted by JVMM : 4:13 PM

 
Chapter 10 - Friends: The Dream Theater of the Setting Sun

I love male friendships. I really do. I find that they not only have filled a void in my lack of family life but they have also given me rigor, stability, and a code by which to live by.

Unfortunately, most friendships are 100% bullshit.

Most of the time I find that the people you are friends with - are just people that you happened to be in close proximity to and not really anyone that you can call a friend.

I have seen this also in Family. I never bought into the "unconditional love" aspect of Family. It seemed to me that that statement was always used as a ploy by people who kept fucking up their lives and mine. So - there's no real reason for me to take stock in it.

I have great friends - I think. I know I am a very loyal and generous person. That sounds rather boarish to boast - but I feel like I am a pretty genuine, often brash and ignorant but lovable in a tragic and funny way. I feel like I have many qualities that I would like in someone else and thus know that I like me... it's a strange circle.

However, as the ebb and flow of life goes... so go friends. Those who work at it and try to build small bonds of trust and bright memories - stay close. Those who get lost in women, kids, jobs, or their own depression or even self-absortion fade away. It's a shame for someone like me - since those relationship often mean the most to me... having loose ties to any family member and no brother or sisters of my own... I have built a small network of those who I have shared experiences with... and as those die off in your late 20's you tend to feel both more at ease with that being o.k. and also saddened to know that you'll never have friends like that again...
Link posted by JVMM : 11:16 AM

 
Chapter 9 - Work

Work has always been a large part of my life.

There have been two main paradigms of thought when it came to work...

My Mother a Puritan Quakeresque worker with limited but honest and deep emotions.

My Father with hippiesque wastefulness of talent followed up by a shallow and wide river of constant emotion steeped in knowledge for which to hinder those from seeing the true depths.

Work has been how I have defined myself since I was 14. Before that I really thought I was special... I thought I was my Father in a lot of ways. I thought I was smarter than everyone and that it would all come so very easily. I understood work to be for the "other people" or the "stupid people".

When I reached High School and my special talents were minimal and pigeon holed I realized that sometimes it's more about work than it is about being unique or an individual... maybe if I was TRULY gifted I could have overcome work... but thankfully my Mother's genes kicked in and although it took me through High School and into my early 20's I developed a sense of worth by ALWAYS being employed and by outpacing those my own age.

I always thought to myself "He's 23, and I'm 23 and I make way more money than he does..." that was my narrow definition of success. It wasn't correct then and it still isn't. The definition came to me in my mid 20's and was honed and polished even up until today about what is important. For me - it's my future and a family and being the positive influence on life that I never really got to see from my own Father. It really boils down to being a good man. Eventually it will boil down to a need for something more - but for now... "Good man" is a good goal...especially given who I have always been.

Work has lead me down that path. It's taught me rules - dumb ones, good ones, rules you can break and bend, and rules that you can snub your nose at... but it's taught me the game and it's rules pretty fast. Playing by and taking advantage of the rules is 95A% of getting ahead and not being a "why me?" person.

I know people that don't work all that often or haven't found anything they are good at... they hop from job to job and they cope with drugs or alcohol and pretend they are artists and live vicariously through some sad side show that is only lit by the failed taking advantage of the other failed (encouragement from other failures is hardly encouragement... it's just an excuse to keep going in that direction)... they try to find their place in life and I'm sure at some point it will come but... learning to work is hard for most people.

This chapter was written in 3rd person as I observed the habits of 2 real and 2 fictional characters. 2 of them liked to work and 2 of them didn't. And then I wrote abotu a page on how that shaped their lives... and then we halved them again and had 1 that liked to work and 1 that didn't like it - both succeed while the other 2 didn't. It's a play on the randomness and natural cruelty that goes on in the world... anyway... I mean - just because you work hard doesn't really mean shit... but it definitely makes you feel better when you fail... and the social ring of trust does not go unbroken for those justly screwed...


Anywho....

Wedding planning is insane! But, you know... fun. If anyone knows a band that can cover Otis Redding and the Stones... hit me up -- that's my section of the day/night... we have a date and a place and hope to see all those I love having a good time a little less than a year from now.

Take care - and enjoy the fall!!
B
Link posted by JVMM : 9:56 PM