stop counterculturalism now

Saturday Looks Good To Me - When the Party Ends

The things that people say don't make no difference
Now we can talk it over or just go to bed
Or we can go to all the places where the money's spent
And buy whatever new distraction that the suits invent
They know the demographic that we represent
Because they heard all of our secrets through the heating vent
So write another song about your discontent
And wax nostalgic for a time less turbulent
With metaphors like closet doors that won't open
And you can use your list of words that rhyme with 'opulent'
Now someone said that you should throw in 'malcontent'
Maybe somebody can tell us where the liquor went
And we can raise our glasses while they raise our rent
And search for a solution that's more permanent
But there isn't any doctor or a medicine
That's gonna make you feel less insignifigent
Another bunch of words that you can soon forget
Another bunch of crooks disguised as gentlemen
Now you wonder why the notes are always bruised and bent
You think that it's your song but it's your instrument

We've got time. It's so easy to panic but we've got time. I've got time to find you and lose you and find you again. Don't you believe me? Have faith. You are my friend, even when you don't call, even when you are far away, even when you struggle, even when you call too much. Hours and days we've got time. Life is demanding, there is so much distaste to swallow, and sometimes we all feel like we are done. Sometimes we choke and sometimes we feel like giving up. Sometimes I want to cry and sometimes I want to protect myself, protect you, and hold on tight to keep you safe from harm. Don't tell me I don't know what I'm talking about and don't stand by and listen to others who say such things. Don't tell me I'm overreacting. Don't stand in my way. Stand with me and stand tall, as bold as love. I know I don't know you and I know I don't know anything. I know I walk and talk like a fool but I feel a sandstorm pushing me away from what I know, from grace, from the silent growing confidence pressing out from inside my chest. I won't stand for it and I won't let it wear me down. When the storms pass you may be gone, you may be different, I may have changed. But we've got time and I have yet to panic. I have yet to stand with you and really know what this all means. I've still got time. We've still got time. We have time to set this right. Hallelujah.

I'd rather dance and talk with you under moonlight towers than meet under a midday summer sun, but I'll find my way to you wherever you are, just in time. I'd rather know much more and feel much more with honesty and fullness than stop my heart and sit in sadness. I know I need to learn how to smile.

I'd rather empty myself of foolishness and spend my idle time writing, painting, emboldened by others who allow life to flow over them and through them. Life is a prayer and a river and love is an ocean. And I've got nothing to prove. I've got time. I've got nothing but time.

You don't have to play
You can follow or lead the way
I want you to join together with the band
We don't know where we're going
But the season's right for knowing
I want you to join together with the band.

It's the singer not the song
That makes the music move along
I want you to join together with the band
This is the biggest band you'll find
It's as deep as it is wide
Come on and join together with the band
- Join Together, the Who

Really interesting article if you are interested in how the internet is changing news and information systems. The article is about Drew Curtis, the guy who started Fark.com. Actually, the wikipedia entry is possibly more interesting because it lists several of the the inside jokes farkers use on the fark comment boards. Fark.com is interesting because it gets about 1.7 million page views every day-- more than almost all (or maybe all, I forget) real newspaper internet sites. When I'm not getting my news from the Daily Show or the New York Times, it's always Fark.

If I could draw, I would let the ink pool in the center of this page. Then, with alarmingly accurate and steady motions, draw the ink from the center to the far corners of the canvas. I would use red and black and drink rain water. The page would shimmer and shine and glisten as if it knew it was on your mind. Each drop of color on the canvas would interact as a part of the cycle of life and rebirth. I would have paint under my fingernails and I would smell like charcoal.

last.fm, which I use to look up music information and to keep track of what I listen to has cool new widgets which tell you what I'm listening to these days. wanna see?


You should all get last.fm and add me so I know what new stuff you're listening to also.

From April 2004. I don't write like this anymore. I wonder how that happened. I wonder about change. I wonder about now, what is now, and what is coming tomorrow. I wonder about eye-contact and what it's all about. I wonder what it would be like to wonder again about the things in my mind on April of 2004.

a bell rings
slow stalker vibe girl
whispers
amidst other suspense
and entangling word play

a scuffling of shoes
and obscured tangential
encounters
encompassing everything
like yellow cake
on chocolate icing

It is raining in Austin. I am in my office, looking out the window. My office mate has left and the walls are white and bare, though there is still one sticker left as a reminder of how much she was into bicycling. I've done about two hours of paperwork, including printing out my ACL music festival tickets and my travel information for later in the summer. It is strange to be back in Austin after being away for a week. At this time of year it feels like it's always the weekend, even when raining. Here is my summer plan:

1) Wake up at a reasonable hour several days a week (9 or 10am seems reasonable to me)
2) Go learn something (Gottman couples therapy, assessment strategies, etc.), do something productive about internships, or finally look at some of that dissertation data
3) Finish up being productive and take some time to be outside (volleyball?, swimmin'?) or inside (racquetball?, bowlin'?)
4) Avoid over-thinking and over-thinkers; seek out smiling faces
5) Enjoy the rainy days too

My legs are sore today, but my toes are soft. Now, in search of food, I am going to walk around in the rain. Good day, friends.

Braums has the best ice-cream in Oklahoma. In elementary school we took a field-trip to the production facility where they make the ice-cream. We saw the cows, the milk, the steel contraptions that make ice-cream possible. My mother drove many of my classmates there, and I rode in the back of her Station Wagon in these special plastic seats that were hidden under the smelly carpet until folded up. There was an opening for a small key in case you wanted to lock something valuable down there, but I can't recall us ever using a key.

I remember feeling special that my mother was driving.

Today my brother and I went to Braums. Waffle cone, two scoops: Black Walnut (not so great) over Cookies 'n Cream (super good). I couldn't wait to get past the Black Walnut so I warned my brother, took a spoon, watched him back away and dance a little, and then I flung a half scoop onto his sandals. I told him it was to make the trip more memorable.

The old commercials for Coke intoned, "I'd like to buy the world a Coke"... but ice-cream would work better. Or Gelato. I want to buy you ice-cream. I want to wander around and feel special. Then I want to listen to Blonde Redhead or Badly Drawn Boy or some other band that begins with a B and, for some tangential reason that I'll forget when you ask, pretend to be more southern than I am.

I want to know if ice-cream changes the colors reflected in your eyes. I want to end war and poverty. Today was filled with gentleness and color. Are you smiling yet?

In Tao the only motion is returning;
The only useful quality, weakness.
For though all creatures under heaven are the products of Being,
Being itself is the product of Not-being.
-- Tao Te Ching

I've been thinking lately and writing things I (mostly) am not going to share. It seems like everyone is concerned with doing things, with ambition, and with being Useful. I don't want to be useful. I just want to be kind. I want to be weak and to share my weaknesses with others.

Why should we not become experts at crunching soft ice between our teeth or placing our feet, breathlessly, into freezing summer waters? Most true things I feel I know experientially through creativity and metaphor, through long organic conversations with good friends. Someone email me and tell me a secret. (I need to get out of Oklahoma soon!)

Sad. Very sad. In the midst of delays averaging 177 days in getting benefits to injured veterans and only months after miscalculated health costs for returning Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans led to a $1 billion shortfall in their budget... senior VA officials received huge bonuses. I understand the need to keep hardworking people. But if executive bonuses are designed to increase accountability in government by tying raises more closely to performance... maybe they should use that money for something else this year (like increasing the usability of VA services). (yahoo news link)

Responding to Bush's assertion that congressional Democrats were seeking to replace the judgment of generals in Iraq, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the bill was an effort to substitute "our judgment for your judgment 16 blocks away down at the White House." (link)

Nice comeback.

So, I am having a week of bad timing and worse luck. Last night I used my Kryptonite bike lock when I parked at the last meeting of the last class I'll ever take, and left it there overnight because we all went out afterwards for a pint at the Dog and Duck pub here in Austin. This is the only time I've ever not parked it at my house or at work. As you can guess it was stolen. And, according to google, the UT police department is 0.7 miles away or two minutes driving.

Here's a photo for you of the route from the theft to UTPD. This post should help me process my frustration, in theory.

"A timeless conversation is nothing like math and everything like physics."