Tavern Lore
In chemistry, out of the corner of my tired eye, I thought I spied a "rod." You know those not-so-paranormal "rod" things? I recall watching a special about them on the FX channel when I was in high school. I wonder if the FX channel still around; a quick google search reveals that FX is still alive. After observing the tiled floor in the lecture hall I concluded that the "rod" was a thread that had been pushed across the floor by someone setting their heavily loaded (North Face) backpack down. Life isn't exciting enough for that kind of thing right now.."rods" I mean.
Things drift along at a steady pace. If this life experience is akin to a boat full of mostly insane people sailing about on a neverending ocean with no sense of direction, then the boat is, at the moment, treading water languidly with no fear of stormy weather. In keeping with this analogy, I'm at the stern..on deck, looking out towards the ocean while the bulk of the ship's passengers are in the dance hall or sitting at the bar. This is how I feel most of the time but thankfully I enjoy being here, looking back at the horizon line with the noise of the dance hall buried beneath the sounds of sloshing water.
Recently, hunched over the guardrail with arms crossed, I've been pondering this idea that battle is built into this life experience.
It is not so much from the evolutionary/selfish perspective that I began pondering this but rather from reading about food allergies. The idea that protein particles from a consumed peanut are mistook for enemy combatants and thereby attacked by antibodies. Such thinking does not change my feelings towards macro-level war between humans, but it does get me ruminating on the idea that human beings may not be likely to ever transcend pointless warfare. I sometimes get fed up listening to alternative reality podcasts because they harp on this idea of humans suddenly transcending everything shitty about humanity. I have wished, probably within the confines of this journal, for such a transcendence to happen, and at some points felt as if such a thing were possible given the potential of the human imagination and the human ability to "make real" intangible thoughts. But I lose faith in humans more each and every day and feel that we are definitely some kind of cruel joke. When we think we are of the stars (something special), we are reminded of our beast-like nature through our actions, and when we fully embrace our beast-like nature, our consciousness reminds us that we are "something more." Stuck between the two we are, and have been since recorded history despite technological "advances." It seems we must straddle this imaginary line if we are to learn anything during our sessions on earth. This is assuming earth is a school and not a farm.
Most of the time I lean towards reincarnation but on certain days I change my mind. Perhaps it would be really terrible if it were true, but it cannot be as terrible as Hell. If an extremely needy and wasteful person had their soul reincarnated into a printer in a college computer lab they might be tortured, but they'd learn something. However, if the same person went to Hell, they would simply be tortured. Now I hardly ever kill intruding insects because they are amazing little machines that, on most occasions, need not be destroyed. I don't save them because I believe them to be houses for former human souls. It just seems stupid to break magnificent machines these days..sans my own machine of body of course, which I'm now filling with warming alcoholic beverages. The goddamn weather lords have been disappointing me however..little, if any snow this winter. Still, temperatures are rather low and the night comes on fast - solo celebrations repel the demonic forces leading crowds of cackling college girls around the courtyard below my window.
NEWS BULLETINS:
For starters, I highly recommend my newest publication, courtesy of Éditions du Livre. It's a very small book with 96 pages, a magnificent binding and an interesting little dust jacket. I think that I should make even smaller drawings now, but my patience is growing thinner as I age. http://www.editionsdulivre.com/book-zines/back-to-the-bronze-age/
Secondly, in homage to my extremely early April Fools entry from early January, I've compiled a nice list of every imaginary band that I've ever been apart of. You'll notice that there are quite a lot, and I'm likely missing a few. Imaginary bands do not seem strange to me because I've been joining them since I was 13 years old. I'm in one right now, a one-man outfit obviously. I did record something just the other day but I am unsure as to how I can proceed since recording vocals in this room means that everyone in the apartment will hear me.
***
*nine inch nails band rip-off band..cannot remember the name..actually had a few songs so it shouldn't be on here, technically.
*BRUTAL-a death metal band featuring me and my imaginary girlfriend & two other guys from my school, both of whom I pretty much mythologized.
*Crown of Thorns-gothic black metal band conceived to rip off Cradle of Filth.
*B.R.U.T.A.L. -detestable nu-metal Slayer mixed with Prodigy and Korn.. I made it while riding in the car to Florida. I'm glad Anthony never got on board with this.
*Techno band I made with Tyler in 9th grade with chapters from Slaughterhouse Five acting as song titles. Cannot remember the name or if it even had one.
*Oh shit..-band covering Steve Perry's "Oh Sherry" in different musical styles
*Fuck You-Stevie Ray Vaughn covers done with straws
*Shhh!-Kiss cover band with acoustic guitars and whisper vocals
*Devitocore-grindcore band with Zach/Anthony..every song was to start with a Danny Devito sample
*Caged Bird-Zach/Anthony/my grindcore band with Maya Angelou lyrics
*Chick Korea-my big idea: recruit 4 Korean girls to play garage rock songs
*SNORLAX-the biggest, baddest imaginary band boasting a prolific discography full of concept albums, guest members, and rock operas.
*B.R.O.S. (aka Black Rectum of Satan)-Anthony/Avery/my black metal noise band modeled after *Enbilulugugal. We did have one practice so it shouldn't really be on here and Avery's then-girlfriend had to endure it..sadly enough.
*Puppy Prince-the transformation of my one-man "drone outfit," Puppy Prints are Everywhere, into some blatant Ariel Pink wannabe. Thank the gods this didn't materialize.
*Celine Tavares & the Bats-death rock band w/ drum machine
*TJ & Jeremy's Ultimate Dance Party-karaoke band that Anthony and I concocted. We were to sing over slightly sped up or slowed down versions of songs (not really karaoke I suppose).
*Victorious 80's music band with Anthony in which we were to play instrumental 80's music normally accompanying scenes of success, triumph, hitting a home run, etc.
*Lock & Davis-me and Anthony Davis making solid soft rock singles in our 40's, down in the Florida Keys.
*Iron Curtain-Zach and myself, along with a Russian guitar shredder, a fantastic singer, and an obese drummer named Dan Weyerbacher were to make melancholic power metal EP's with historic lyrics (no albums).
*Outrager-Zach and myself were rather obsessed with this for awhile. It is a deliciously technical death metal with a concept album about a man-made bug, the Tickwasp, utilized to kill off the human race.
*Füülz Gambit-me and Zach..80's party metal..made up while playing Scrabble
*Prestige-one-man, extreme progressive metal band with a few songs..doomy mostly, made one gigantic song last winter, never recorded anything and I've forgotten nearly all the riffs.
*Thuy Pop-me and Lisa's imaginary Vietnamese twee pop band which will never happen because Lisa won't sing.
*Hoarding Girls-Anthony and myself dreamed this up while high. We will change our sound to follow every new hip trend: started with drone doom, transformed into harsh noise, went into faux new-age drone, now putting out hypnagogic pop/chillwave cassettes with a slight Witch House bent to them. All based on a polaroid photo.
Things drift along at a steady pace. If this life experience is akin to a boat full of mostly insane people sailing about on a neverending ocean with no sense of direction, then the boat is, at the moment, treading water languidly with no fear of stormy weather. In keeping with this analogy, I'm at the stern..on deck, looking out towards the ocean while the bulk of the ship's passengers are in the dance hall or sitting at the bar. This is how I feel most of the time but thankfully I enjoy being here, looking back at the horizon line with the noise of the dance hall buried beneath the sounds of sloshing water.
Recently, hunched over the guardrail with arms crossed, I've been pondering this idea that battle is built into this life experience.
It is not so much from the evolutionary/selfish perspective that I began pondering this but rather from reading about food allergies. The idea that protein particles from a consumed peanut are mistook for enemy combatants and thereby attacked by antibodies. Such thinking does not change my feelings towards macro-level war between humans, but it does get me ruminating on the idea that human beings may not be likely to ever transcend pointless warfare. I sometimes get fed up listening to alternative reality podcasts because they harp on this idea of humans suddenly transcending everything shitty about humanity. I have wished, probably within the confines of this journal, for such a transcendence to happen, and at some points felt as if such a thing were possible given the potential of the human imagination and the human ability to "make real" intangible thoughts. But I lose faith in humans more each and every day and feel that we are definitely some kind of cruel joke. When we think we are of the stars (something special), we are reminded of our beast-like nature through our actions, and when we fully embrace our beast-like nature, our consciousness reminds us that we are "something more." Stuck between the two we are, and have been since recorded history despite technological "advances." It seems we must straddle this imaginary line if we are to learn anything during our sessions on earth. This is assuming earth is a school and not a farm.
Most of the time I lean towards reincarnation but on certain days I change my mind. Perhaps it would be really terrible if it were true, but it cannot be as terrible as Hell. If an extremely needy and wasteful person had their soul reincarnated into a printer in a college computer lab they might be tortured, but they'd learn something. However, if the same person went to Hell, they would simply be tortured. Now I hardly ever kill intruding insects because they are amazing little machines that, on most occasions, need not be destroyed. I don't save them because I believe them to be houses for former human souls. It just seems stupid to break magnificent machines these days..sans my own machine of body of course, which I'm now filling with warming alcoholic beverages. The goddamn weather lords have been disappointing me however..little, if any snow this winter. Still, temperatures are rather low and the night comes on fast - solo celebrations repel the demonic forces leading crowds of cackling college girls around the courtyard below my window.
NEWS BULLETINS:
For starters, I highly recommend my newest publication, courtesy of Éditions du Livre. It's a very small book with 96 pages, a magnificent binding and an interesting little dust jacket. I think that I should make even smaller drawings now, but my patience is growing thinner as I age. http://www.editionsdulivre.com/book-zines/back-to-the-bronze-age/
Secondly, in homage to my extremely early April Fools entry from early January, I've compiled a nice list of every imaginary band that I've ever been apart of. You'll notice that there are quite a lot, and I'm likely missing a few. Imaginary bands do not seem strange to me because I've been joining them since I was 13 years old. I'm in one right now, a one-man outfit obviously. I did record something just the other day but I am unsure as to how I can proceed since recording vocals in this room means that everyone in the apartment will hear me.
***
*nine inch nails band rip-off band..cannot remember the name..actually had a few songs so it shouldn't be on here, technically.
*BRUTAL-a death metal band featuring me and my imaginary girlfriend & two other guys from my school, both of whom I pretty much mythologized.
*Crown of Thorns-gothic black metal band conceived to rip off Cradle of Filth.
*B.R.U.T.A.L. -detestable nu-metal Slayer mixed with Prodigy and Korn.. I made it while riding in the car to Florida. I'm glad Anthony never got on board with this.
*Techno band I made with Tyler in 9th grade with chapters from Slaughterhouse Five acting as song titles. Cannot remember the name or if it even had one.
*Oh shit..-band covering Steve Perry's "Oh Sherry" in different musical styles
*Fuck You-Stevie Ray Vaughn covers done with straws
*Shhh!-Kiss cover band with acoustic guitars and whisper vocals
*Devitocore-grindcore band with Zach/Anthony..every song was to start with a Danny Devito sample
*Caged Bird-Zach/Anthony/my grindcore band with Maya Angelou lyrics
*Chick Korea-my big idea: recruit 4 Korean girls to play garage rock songs
*SNORLAX-the biggest, baddest imaginary band boasting a prolific discography full of concept albums, guest members, and rock operas.
*B.R.O.S. (aka Black Rectum of Satan)-Anthony/Avery/my black metal noise band modeled after *Enbilulugugal. We did have one practice so it shouldn't really be on here and Avery's then-girlfriend had to endure it..sadly enough.
*Puppy Prince-the transformation of my one-man "drone outfit," Puppy Prints are Everywhere, into some blatant Ariel Pink wannabe. Thank the gods this didn't materialize.
*Celine Tavares & the Bats-death rock band w/ drum machine
*TJ & Jeremy's Ultimate Dance Party-karaoke band that Anthony and I concocted. We were to sing over slightly sped up or slowed down versions of songs (not really karaoke I suppose).
*Victorious 80's music band with Anthony in which we were to play instrumental 80's music normally accompanying scenes of success, triumph, hitting a home run, etc.
*Lock & Davis-me and Anthony Davis making solid soft rock singles in our 40's, down in the Florida Keys.
*Iron Curtain-Zach and myself, along with a Russian guitar shredder, a fantastic singer, and an obese drummer named Dan Weyerbacher were to make melancholic power metal EP's with historic lyrics (no albums).
*Outrager-Zach and myself were rather obsessed with this for awhile. It is a deliciously technical death metal with a concept album about a man-made bug, the Tickwasp, utilized to kill off the human race.
*Füülz Gambit-me and Zach..80's party metal..made up while playing Scrabble
*Prestige-one-man, extreme progressive metal band with a few songs..doomy mostly, made one gigantic song last winter, never recorded anything and I've forgotten nearly all the riffs.
*Thuy Pop-me and Lisa's imaginary Vietnamese twee pop band which will never happen because Lisa won't sing.
*Hoarding Girls-Anthony and myself dreamed this up while high. We will change our sound to follow every new hip trend: started with drone doom, transformed into harsh noise, went into faux new-age drone, now putting out hypnagogic pop/chillwave cassettes with a slight Witch House bent to them. All based on a polaroid photo.
