Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast.

Today, July Ends, 2000

Picture my basement, the dust-coated concrete, boxes and tools, old cabinets and blankets lining the walls. The brown wooden steps are rickety, and the furnace shakes, and the water pump turns on every so often with a loud whir. Last night my brother and my friend David and I were down there, under the part of the ceiling where the insulation is upside down. We have lamps and chairs down there, squeezed in between the old drum kit, the monolithic Sure Vocalmaster, and my old desk. David played my Wasburn, and left-handed Jeremy switched between electric guitar and bass, and I beat on those shitty drums, and we made music that went nowhere: cellar songs, floating out into the rain.

4:29 PM | plink

I'm a far more accomplished listener than I am a musician. But after a brief rant about music and advertising two weeks ago, I received a few messages from people regarding a certain VW advertisment. I replied to my friend Zach with the following message, which I'm reproducing here because I don't have time to rephrase ideas.

I went to see X-Men last week, and before the previews (you know how they're showing ads these days) I saw that VW commercial on the Big Screen, with digital sound. It was beautiful, really. I barely paid attention to what kind of car it was selling, either.

I guess my earlier undirected anger about the Nick Drake song boils down to two basic issues. First, whether it's beautiful or not, the song is still being used to sell something. The lines between advertising and art are blurring to the point where it seems pointless to make any distinction at all, and that disappoints me. Art can barely exist without advertising-- artists need to get paid somehow--but I wish the two worlds could remain separate when it comes to things that I find beautiful. In general, I don't want to associate a song with some product, or even with a short film created to promote that product.

Second, part of me doesn't want a Nick Drake revival at all. If it has to start somewhere, it might as well start from that Cabrio ad. I'm often torn when it comes to musicians that are very talented but not well known: I think they deserve recognition for their brilliance, but at the same time, I want them to remain my little secret that no one knows about. That's exactly how I feel when it comes to Nick Drake.

Someday I'll be wealthy, and I'll have a minstrel in every room of my house.

5:32 PM | plink

Do not be afraid. Sit back and be the Hippo.

10:14 PM | plink

Break of Day.

Saturday, July 29th, 2000

Many people sent good messages to help me feel happy and nice. Isn't it awesome to get mail. I think so. Soon I'll finish when I have time to speak back to all of them, okay? I like Raza, the razor man, he sent me a good buddy picture to make me smiley because we're best friends. If we were living in the same town, later I would take all of you out to get ice cream. Yay, peppermint stick, is the best!

Signal vs Noise I think its real good for blog of the week. You know what's real funny that I found on there is the Conan O'brien speech at Harvard college. Conan, maybe you know he's a T.V. man, and when I see him I laugh a whole lot. I wanna be a T.V. actor so much, to be famous and sit at a desk to talk to many famous peoples on a couch. And I will, I bet, I am so special.

If I threw a big contest about my referrer logs where you could win money for searching for weird stuff, today it would be a three way tie win for whoever the person that looked on my site for patrick warburton hairy, or small blue buttons, or nsync porn. Congratulations, I'm so glad for you, weirdos, but there is no money prize so HA HA HA!

2:44 PM | plink

Also I forgot, I wanted to say that Matt has real good photos that he takes. This one is new it's one of my favorites. Good Job!

4:02 PM | plink

July, She Will

Thursday, July 27th, 2000

It's been gray and wet for two days, and according to the forecast, it's going to be gray and wet for at least five more. My long stride steps are strong, but my old suede Adidias sneaks have a couple of holes here and there. Everything else, I told before. Don't worry, though. Just do me a best friend favor and send me a nice heartwarming message.

9:42 PM | plink

September, I Remember.

Thursday, July 20th, 2000

I decided to wash my car today, in the middle of the blue-skied afternoon. I cleaned the inside and sponged the outside. The twenty-year-old interior absorbed half a spray-bottle of Armor-all. The vinyl top, tan, took in almost as much. It was about 65 degrees in my front yard, and breezes blew through the open doors of my '79 Ford Granada. The weather felt like late September. I kept thinking I should be heading inside to start on my homework. There's no time of year more suggestive than the early stage of autumn. It's been a cool July. Technically, it's still summer, but I feel like it's time to go back to school, somewhere.

What better way to let you know I Love You than with a gun postcard from Springfield Armory. Happiness is a warm note: Bang Bang, Shoot Shoot.

6:44 PM | plink

Hoarse Horse.

Horse, Horse 19th, 2000.

Horse horse horse, horse horsey horse. Horse? Horse. Horace Horse hears her horsey-horse, tub her horse house has whores. Horse, horse hairs horse. How horse has horsey-horse heard her Hearse? Hueres, horse hueres. Har har har, horse. Here's hares hast hard horst, horsy horse. Her horse house hears hoarse Horace Horse. Horse, horse horse!

6:33 PM | plink

In the Tall Grass, Thinkin' Nothing.

Tuesday, July 18th, 2000

Apparently, I was born again on October 20th, 1994.

By now you've probably heard about iToke, the marijuana delivery service promising to change the stigma surrounding smoking through sleek Starbucks-esque sensibilities and startup smarts. The press release outlines their current plan:

On September 1, 2000 the streets of Amsterdam will be dotted with green and white iToke.® courier bicycles. The bicycle fleet will respond with a 30-minute guarantee to orders placed for iToke.® product by phone, fax, and most significantly, WAP enabled mobile phones.

Mike Tucker, co-founder of the company, sent me a scan of the beta WAP that will be running in Amsterdam come September. Welcome to the future, my friends. I always imagined flying cars, but I never expected pot ordering software for use on wireless phones. I also never expected to receive emails from the people who came up with these ideas. Damn, look at that picture... it almost looks like a doctored image, some kind of satire. But I'm convinced that this company will be instrumental in the movement toward legalization of marijuana in the U.S.

4:27 PM | plink

Way to Blue Skies, Blue Eyes..

Monday, July 17th, 2000

Happy birthday to my dear sister Alyssa, pictured above, who turned 15 on Saturday. She's going to continue celebrating her birthday all week, the way only a girl with lots of friends can. My sister sure seems smart and sweel and swell. When I turned 15, I couldn't even color, let alone read. I wanted to get her something fun and original, but I didn't have any good ideas, so I gave her 20 bucks and a Hallmark card that said "All Right! You're a Three Year Old Boy!" Indeed, it takes a special creativity to make store-bought cards meaningful. Besides, she's going to the N*SYNC concert on Sunday, and no gift of mine could compete with that.

I'm getting sick and tired and bedridden of discovering my favorite songs used as background music for television advertisements. I can't take it anymore. Hearing Moby's Body Rock in that car commercial is pretty annoying, but not nearly as annoying as Beck's Mixed Bizness used in a flash promotion for the Fox network. I've also seen advertisments with Sleater-Kinney and Stereolab songs in the background. Remember the golden years of the 1980s, when advertisers couldn't afford to use brand new songs, they just sucked the life out of oldie classics? Perhaps you recall these gems:

"I can't help myself... it's Duncan Hines and nobody else."

"Me and you, and you and me, together eatin' Golden Grahams, so happily...

"R-E-S-P-E-C-T, that's what Speedy means to me!"

And there's that "Like a Rock" song used in Chevy ads, though I don't really care about that one. But now that I think of it, why would I want a truck that was "like a rock" in the first place.? I mean, rocks don't move very fast. Plate techtonics make for pretty inefficient transportation in our modern world of horseless carriages and air-o-planes.

Anyway, the mid-nineties series of Gap ads featuring artists like Junior Brown and Luscious Jackson weren't so bad. I suppose bands need to earn money somehow. The crazy straw that broke the camel's needle for me, however, is the Nick Drake song used in the Volkwagen Bug advertisement that's been running for a few months. I can't stand to see corporate appropriation of such pure, flawless music. Ironically, the ad has spawned a new interest in Nick Drake. Twenty-five years after the death of a genius, people are finally paying attention. Ugghh.

In a barely related story, EMI Gets Down with Downloads, announcing today that they are putting 200 singles and 100 full length albums from their back catolog up for sale on the web. Dope.

10:01 PM | plink

Dripping Pitch and Made of Wood.

Thursday, July 13th, 2000

Last night I went to see George Carlin perform at the South Shore Music Circus with my brother, my father, and some friends. He ran the gamut from hilarious and insightful to freaky, dirty old man. I enjoyed most of it, particularly his commentary on the importance of saftey, cleanliness, and children in America these days. Some of it was such dead-on accurate critique that my laughter would occassionally wane into a bemused sigh.

Jared understands exactly how I'm feeling, and I won't water down the cedar-chipped clarity of his language by rephrasing his words here. Besides, I'm too busy racing monster trucks, writing a novel, kissing pageant winners, teaching English in Haiti, frog-hunting, counting grass, sky-diving, fighting jellyfish, cooking fancy meals, flipping o'er my trampoline, making epic home movies, stealing hovercrafts and trying to grok the pap out of the post-modern music-video drama that has come to characterize the last few weeks of my waking hours. I need a beer, a book, a bagel, and a good game of Pictionary.

1:59 PM | plink

you know i even think that she stared like you.

5:28 PM | plink

Your heart felt good,
it was drippin pitch and made of wood.
And your hands and knees
felt cold and wet on the grass to me.
Outside naked, shiverin lookin blue,
from the cold sunlight that's reflected off the moon.
Baby cum angels fly around you, reminding you
we used to be three and not just two.

And that's how the world began.
And that's how the world will end.

-- Modest Mouse, 3rd Planet.

11:51 PM | plink

Buildin' Big Ships and Boats.

Monday, Manic 10th, 2047

Very few Tall Ships sailed through the Cape Cod Canal on Saturday while I was down there. However, I did happen pay a visit to the large Russian vessel with the name I couldn't pronounce that was docked at Mass. Maritime Academy. I don't trust Soviets, and I never have, so I didn't go on the boat. Sadly, there were too many people around for my family to ride our bicycles. That's a crying shame, because my Rock Hopper and I could use a work out.

Today's special Sixfoot6 Visitor Award goes to the individual who found my site through the following awkwardly constructed Yahoo search string:

being+able+to+see+people+on+webcams+
having+sex+24+hours+a+day,+without+
having+to+be+a+member+to+see+it.

The fourth Radiohead album, Kid A, will be in stores October 3rd. That's a pretty damn long ways away. According to the band, "it sounds a lot like O.K. Computer, but we like it anyway". The lyrics certainly seem similar. I'm glad to see that they decided to include one of my favorite songs, Motion Picture Soundtrack.

Also, please follow Thom and Bono's lead and visit Drop The Debt.org. Do something pretty while you can.

11:52 AM | plink

I hate music, but I'm in love with Tanya Headon.

12:07 PM | plink

I have been alive for 22 years. Those years have been pretty consistently comfortable and challenging. I have dreams, but I frequently feel like I've alreedy missed my chance to achieve them. This whole game seems more and more absurd every minute. Very soon, I think, I will need to take a risk, change my point of view, and find an entirely new way to play the game. I'm never sure when that point will come, or how it's all going to work. But I constantly look ahead with a patient focus, cradling the sun-kissed past and present in my aspiring hands, waiting for just the right moment to bust out and start whipping a lot of ass. I've been thinking that way for sometime now. And nothing much has happened yet.

4:14 PM | plink

The Sheer Face of Love.

First July Friday

I'm house sitting for a family friend for the next two weeks. The house is a century and a half old, perched at the front of a deep yard out in the chlorophylled country. There is a dog, a cat, and a bunny rabbit for me to take care of. Last night, after talking to a girl, I fell asleep next to Gus the cat, listening to Mouse on Mars, and with the 6 A.M. singing of a Mickey Mouse alarm clock I woke up feeling very alone and empty. I'm not used to that sort of thing, you know.

Moments ago I stepped out of the office for a few minutes, tromping down the stairs, outside, and across the street to get some coffee from the local coffee shop. I stretched my legs, shook out my carple tunnel hands, and started fidgeting with the edge of my white tee-shirt. Then I thought, Damn, it's nice and cool out today. Kinda feels like spring. In three seconds, I was at the street corner waiting for the Don't Walk signal to change. While I stood in place, staring sightless at a blue sedan, a double take overtook me. Wait...what? Wasn't it just spring a few days ago? Is it July? How now have I slid through such mad months, playing and waiting for something, never paying strict attention to my life's direction? Where does time go? Wake up, Wake up. Sleep, sleep, sleepy-head. I looked up, squinted, and crossed the road, paying just enough attention to be sure that no cars would hit me. In the shop, my last dollar bought a small coffee, cream only. I wandered out onto the street again, trying to figure out what I was trying to figure out. I zoned out looking at nothing, wondering, What the hell do I really want?

And when I snapped out of it, I laughed out loud. I realized that directly in my line of vision, stenciled to the side of an electric box, was the crisp green image of Bob Dobbs. The wrinkled irony of it all was so thick you could have cut it with a pipe.

10:53 AM | plink

And the subsequent pass it as I was a little girl this evening, pleading and begging until my parents wanted me. My driver's license reminded me of much hurt. When I was 12 my mom was afraid walking home in the middle section of the street, having given up the family car long ago after borrowing a little bicycle. Her bike was getting on and how the wheels had wobbled. And as it did she was riding and she struggled badly but I couldn't let one of my parents get too just. Amazingly, I eventually passed 16 without training myself to look at the incident. I'd get in the store asking about one bike; I'd have a bike I still wouldn't peddle.

2:03 PM | plink

Take a Ride on a Token Brain.

Thursday, July 6th, 2000

Photography? I've been fiddling around for eight years with my classic Pentax K1000 fully manual SLR. That is, I had been fiddling around for eight years. I haven't touched that thing, bought film or paid for developing since I received a digital camera for X-mas, and considering my present economic-water-treading, I'd like to keep it that way. Someday I'll have the ducats to buy a digital SLR, but until then I'll be stop-bath drooling over the golden years, when I had control over depth of field in my images. With the aperture control on my 35mm camera, I can control which elements of a scene will appear in focus in the final image. With my digital camera, every person I take a picture of inevitabley has a tree growing out of their head. Because of this limitation, I think my strongest digital photographs operate in a flat plane, relying on structure, compositional elements, and color, just as an abstract painting might.

But with my manual, monochromatic darkroom days on the brain, I've been poking around looking for images by my favorite photographers. I think Minor White created truly beautiful images, subtle and detailed photographs that not only capture the subjects, but present the viewer with an equivalent emotional message. There is a spiritual drama in White's work that asks for more than just a casual view. His photographs focus on the power of beauty, and I find them diffucult to discuss in specific terms. Perhaps that's frequently a sign of great art.

I enjoy Robert Frank's critical explorations of prejudiced 1950s America, particularly his classic Route 66 series, images which, according to Jack Kerouac, "sucked a sad, sweet, poem out of America". If you've ever driven Route 66, you can imagine. I never feel that Frank is artificially boxing his subject matter into a corner, but occasionally his photographs seem to have too palpable a design upon me.

Diane Arbus continually unearthed a secretly grotesque America in the dark portraits she snapped. Her photographs confuse and intrigue me, and I always want to see more of them This remarkable biography of Arbus includes a few.

I came upon the work of Lee Freidlander about a year ago, and I'm pretty sure he's my favorite. His photographs don't shove anything in your face; they're casual, but manage to comment on the complexities and absurdities of life in this big old country. His ecclectic images often have a gentle humor about them, which I find very appealing. Perhaps I just identify with his point of view. His suburban landscapes seem to say "Eh? Eh." That's not an easy sentiment to capture on film, but our Modern America would seem to insist that Friedlander try anyway.

10:40 AM | plink

More Than a Weekend.

Wednesday, July 5th, 2000

What a crazy dope-ass long weekend.
It's kinda nice to be back in the office.

When the independence of the nation is at hand, I recommend that you celebrate with a gentle blending of the following all-American ingredients: limited sleep; repeated rambling waterfront walks; eyes more interested in the crowd than in the parade; silly string; free juice from the new Cranberry World; energetic friends, old and new; one hour spent drawing an orange flower together; a long group swim, in the rain, to the island and back; ice cream on the sunburned town wharf, fishermen all about; frisbee; margaritas and Harpoon Summer Brew; handstands and laughter; a few rounds of Boggle; burgers, dogs, corn, and potato salad; steady movement across streets flooded with teenagers and families, heads held high; amplified classical music; the multi-colored flash of baby-booming fireworks; a bowl of cherries on a familliar patio, surrounded by tikki torches, sweetened with a couple of Thrill Jockey albums.

10:07 AM | plink

Can we all agree that the word "shwag", as in "Be the ninth caller, and you'll win a bunch of free shwag!" is spelled S-H-W-A-G? Not S-W-A-G, because that's pronounced differently. I don't wanna see any hard consonant letter C thrown in there anywhere, either. Shwag. Shwag. Easy enough.

1:14 PM | plink

Without a doubt, Atlas Magazine is pretty and fun to explore. But be warned: Log Buddha produces some rather uneven prose.

2:31 PM | plink

While trying to figure out how a yahoo search for the words "pornografic boys" turned up in my referer logs, I discovered something interesting. Remember a few months ago, when Don't Blow.com declared my site the most "unremarkable site on the internet"? Well, it turns out that I called them unremarkable first. Strange, eh? So that page makes a bit more sense as an act of retaliation.

In the meantime, Don't Blow, thanks for all the traffic you've been sending me. I'd send a thank you note, but I'm too busy exploring the intelligent, well-written and offensive shit over at Stile Sucks.com, a very remarkable site.

3:26 PM | plink

I've been piping up in a Metafilter discussion about the issues surrounding Bryant Gumbel's recent offensive on-air comment directed toward Robert Knight, leader of the conservative Family Research Council who appeared on The Early Show to defend the recent court ruling concerning homosexuals in Boy Scouts.

4:59 PM | plink