I have been having a difficult time winning a chess game against my friend brad lately. Used to be, he would mention that he has played some, break out his simpson chess set, and I would have little problems in defeating him. But time appears to have changed. I played my best chess 4-5 years ago when I would often play after work with a guy I worked with. He was so much better than me that a close game was all I was after usually. We played with a clock, and sometimes I was able to beat him on time, but usually we would finish those games as well and we was just a few moves from getting me. I do remember maybe three times actually beating him. Such a profound joy to experience, after working so hard for it. That is probably what you are supposed to do in life: work towards something. I freely admit to copping out on that in many instances of my life. The joys are never as sweet.
Maybe I need a running goal? It would be nice if I could view running like chess. I was going to try to run a half marathon in april with my brother and his family. Really looking forward to that I had the rug pulled out from under me when i realized I could take zero vacation days for a year: welcome to real life.
Which reminds me: real life sucks.
I miss sitting around chris's dingy little apartment doing nothing. Complaining about fake issues and generally just enjoying the slothlyness of existence. Those were fun.
Miss chris.
THis blog sucks. I think thats why I haven't posted in a bit. Have not felt creative.

1972

Bill Withers wakes in a sweat. His record "Just As I Am," has been released for a year now. Its not selling that well. At 33, he knows that he needs a big break. Installing toilet seats on airplanes can only bring him so much fulfillment. It does offer him the time to write though, which makes him feel good. In 6 hours he will perform for British T.V. He has been thinking about wearing his orange turtle neck that he bought from a catalog last month. He feels that it looks good with his hair and his pants. He wonders if he is too old worry about style. "I am not David Bowie," he says to the ceiling. He remembers his dream:
Walking down a corridor built of polished metal. His reflection one both sides trailing off forever in an arc, as if the metal is not exactly level, so that he can see the bend of his reflection. Ignoring the frightening view of himself forever, and the feeling of infinity that has kept him awake such childhood (Mother, if we die, and go to heaven, and its infinite, what do we do? Do we get bored?) And that mind numbing feeling of infinitely sitting on a white cloud laughing, which is fun, but for ever? Ever Ever? God, it hurts to think about it.
So he walks forward, eventually the corridor opens into a lush green field, with a small pond in the middle. Next to the pond is a live oak. Its heavy branches dragging the ground, some of the thicker branches held in place by metal "Y" shaped pieces of metal.
Bill approaches the tree and notices his mother and father, together for the first time since their divorce when he was three. "M-M-Mother?" he stutters. A small group of children approach and start making fun of his stutter. He had cured that..."I had fixed that stutter," he thought. Suddenly his breathing slowed, his throat constricted. His childhood asthma choking back his breath. Running, turning, Bill looks frantically for the door out of.

He awakes.
Hours later, dressed in his orange sweater, the cameras rolling, Bill says,
"Men have problems admitting to losing things, I think women are much better at that. . . . So, once in my life, I wanted to forgo my own male ego and admit to losing something, so I came up with—"
and launches into "Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone," the B side to "Harlem." He goes on to win a grammy, the record goes gold.

I notice they sprinkle the fields here with green chemicals. This helps them grow sugarcane, which helps some I suppose grow wealthy. There are also some pretty major plants lining the river as far as the eye can see when you cross of the veterans memorial bridge, watching the Mississippi curve southward going east, and north going west. Plants. While traveling west down 3127, after crossing the bridge, four miles south of the river, you can still see the tops of smoke stacks and grain elevators. While on the bridge itself, if you look northwest, you see giant mountains of rock, bi products of some kind of chemical, god knows what.

You can also see the sickness in the people who walk in and out of these buildings. You hear tales of bone cancer, skin cancer. You are sold cancer insurance, a first for me to be sure. "I'm not getting cancer, why would I get cancer insurance?" Just wait. Just wait and be the one person without it, hawking your clothes for a shot of more chemicals to fight a disease brought on by chemicals used to make some people rich. People who only come through once a year or so, to stroll around in suits and white hard hats. Laughing, driving up to watch LSU in luxury suites.

Even driving down I-10 sometimes. You start to wonder, "are these clouds, or something else?" It sure seems like it when you drive by and entire regions are engulfed, seemingly, in thick black "clouds." Clouds? And when you pass you want to roll up your window and put a sock over your mouth and nose. the smell sometimes lingers.

So,
Just Lick the Black Wall,
Focus,
Bring out your dead.

older: sugar cane field after storm

Nation of Corruption

I keep my gmail tidy. It is a cream color. When people pop in to chat a burnt orange color comes out. I believe the theme setting is "dusk." So there you go. That is a Friday.

I was explaining to my girlfriend Lauren that I have written three songs: Toxic Waste, Leonard Nimoy, and a new one called "Toby Lauren." The first two songs were written for a short lived project called Nation of Corruption. This band started when my cousin luke and I would go over to our friend Mark's house after high school and fuck around on his brother's guitar and drum set. Jump a year in the future and we had somehow procured a gig at this place called the alternative restaurant in midtown memphis. I do not really know how this gig was booked, but the band didn't really exist so we had to put together some song and a band. Luckily he had friends. We called up aaron and Leh, or they called us, or maybe they called me! I don't even know, maybe it was their band and i wasn't even there. I don't remember. But I do remember ending up at Aaron's parents house in cordova and putting together a set. One song had this weird little jazzy part in the middle of a noisy deal. We thought that was funny. I think we called it "funny" part, or used derogatory slang meant for homosexuals. we were 18. I apologize for that now.
So each song would be like "1,2,1,2, "funny part," etc...
I don't remember the days between that one practice and the show, i think it was actually the next night. So, after practice I more than likely went home to my parents house, snooped around in the liquor cabinet, made a stiff drink and dicked around on the internet. Or watched david letterman or mtv.
The next night we arrived at the place to play. I was pretty hammered, and so was at least Leh. I remember this only because while setting up i looked over at leh and he dropped a cymbol and had this shit eating grin on his face. The grin that leh reserves for moments of brilliant stupidity. kinda a "fuck, did i just drop my cymbal? What the hell is going on? this is crazy, are we about to play? whats this band?" The show seemed to go off without a hitch. I remember aaron being lifted to the ceiling, and leonard nimoy and toxic waste sounded like you would imagine a song with those titles sounding.

The band dissolved after that. We changed drummers and eventually i was even replaced. I was a loser at 18. I preferred nothing.

Now i just reminisce.

how this silly little ap makes picture

these are tests.

Yesterday I starting to write about this great run I was going to have, and I was attempting to salt my language with all of these positive metaphors. Work found me sidetracked, and now, 24 hours later I am full of none of that positive energy.

For some reason I am not drinking coffee, maybe its that. Maybe my body is filled with this sick toxins that is making me inept to reason right now, or sanity. Maybe its more.

I am shaking and upset, unhappy and unkind. Unsettling restlessness. I am back to waking up at 6, like an invisible hammer has been laid to my psyche. Six, BAM! like fucking clock work. cue fucking annoying bird outside my window making his "Tsk Tsk" noises over and over. Its better than monday, were I woke up at 2, then 3, then 4, then 5. I remember 2 because that is a time I almost never wake up at. Three sure, 4? Who doesnt wake up in the middle of the night for some reason or another. But never two. I actually just stared at the clock for a spell. "Two?, fucking two?" It was enough to make me stare at the ceiling a little bit more.

Hi ceiling, dark shadow of a ceiling, though I had made the unfortunate mistake of removing all the material that I had been using to cover the windows, trusting that the blinds themselves would hold make the artificial light that somehow finds itself flooding out of god knows were at two oclock in the morning.

Probably fucking Wick, my weird ass coke head neighbor. Yea, he is out there digging a hole, "making a pond man, yea, making a pond." Or perhaps he is furthering along the disassembling of his gf's house that he is "turning around. Yea man, I can make 150,000 like that. I have sold several houses." Really? How come before you came along she had a big screen tv, and less weird shit in the back yard, and perhaps appeared a little less depressed, (cue to her, in sweats, stained, alone with her dogs, sitting on the back stoop smoking, again, weight gain noticeable, hair unkempt.)

Her dogs are taking over. You can watch as they piss and shit were they like: our yard, neighbors yard, a house ten houses a way, wherever they damn well please. Oreo: the leader. Black and white, short body, big head. Sometimes a blackened with dirt sweater. Bars when he damn well please. Abby: the dumb follower. Brown dirty hair matted. over fed, second to oreo, but still master of the house. and then another dog. One i never see, but i feel its presence.
These dogs are called at all hours, all times. Seven A.M. is late for these dogs to be out and about. More like three, four, when the fuck ever. And there our neighbor is, yelling at them, "abby, oreo!!" in a cadence so recognizable by my girlfriend and I that we say it in our sleep, "abby...grump...oreo hmph" and roll back over. When i can, but right now, oh now.
PHONES RINGING!!!!!

Winter certainly is not

Drinking cheap mexican beer with a lime, grilling. It can not be wearing a bathing suite, showing off my pasty body in the sun on a beach. And there is NO FUCKING WAY winter is me playing guitar with all the windows open and Lauren napping.

The reverb on my amp is noisy. So I can not use it. I have been playing my guitar some, almost once a day. Though sometimes its nothing more than strumming the same chord over and over. I guess that makes me happy though. I don't know if I could ever record something. I don't know if i care. I could maybe record music that was simple, and possibly pretty. I just don't know. I can't find a band down here. I don't know if I would want to if I could.

I still would like to own a real expensive acoustic guitar though. Not sure why. It has something to capitalism to be sure.

a small, brief, off the cuff poem, ahem:

I learned yesterday that the red leaved trees that line my drive,
from interstate 10 all the way down to St. James Parish,
are called Red Swamp Maple trees:
Acer Rubrum.


Dotted every 40 yards are so, between dark green cypress

It was rough last night brother. Fell from one cold hardened steel black drop to another: Ice. Flailing my arms frantically, finding nothing to grip to. In other news I grilled two nice big ny strip steaks yesterday and a Habanero Red chilli pepper sausage: christ all mighty, amazing. Each bite more delicious than the last.

Every year I start thinking about vegetarianism. I think for the most part this is a diet remedy, something to keep my weight at a certain point. I don't eat a ton of meat to be sure, but when it hits, that hunger, it hits. And nothing really tempers that craving like sausage.

I bought a knife randomly. A utility knife that I can put in my pocket. with a clip.
This blog is uninspired.

I miss reading gary snyder on University Lakes. It was probably a year ago, or actually, fuck, two years ago. (I have been here over two years? I simply can not believe that. Part of me misses memphis so hard while another part of me wonders if I could ever live there again). Gary was talking some crazy shit about nature and the hills of northern california. I was able to set the book down and just watch as egrets poured out of their favorite tree, wings skipping along the water, casually landing, walking around like little white dinosaurs.
These birds are everywhere down here. Their little funny steps, awkwardly, esp. when they are hunting for a tiny fish. The unsurpassed attention to detailing the quite...tiny....steps.

I sometimes think "winter star" would have been a cooler title, or "winters are" anyway. It was warmer this last weekend, and thought I did not take a run for some reason, I did get outside.