Mr. Touchy Too Muchy

If you think that's funny...

Adam Curtis is my favorite documentarian, I guess if you made me pick one. His work centers around historic political and social trends: the invention of Public Relations, the rise of violent religious revolutions and neoconservatism, the fear we have of each other. His style of composition is decidedly subjective and the atmosphere of the editting and narration encourages curiosity and suspicion. Most of his early work had been in the form of 3 part series' for the BBC, most are readily downloadable from this internet.

Here he is interviewed by my second favorite, Errol Morris, the man with giant balls behind the Robert McNamara interview'in "Fog of War".

Please, do yourself a favor and start watching Adam Curtis' "The Power of Nightmares", "The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom", and "The Century of the Self".

Here's 2 segments, part of his involvement in the new BBC series "ScreenWipe"

How'd you get up there?

I've been back in St. Louis for more than a season now, and I'm enamored with the place. Give these fine midwestern folk the chance and they'll surprise you with their generosity and chumwithyness. So that's good.

My friends Eric, Ashley, Tom and I have started a band. It's called Doom Town and it's tremendous if you don't mind my saying. So that's good.

I need to put in some time pouring concrete in my basement. My studio gear is all strewn throughout the house and I haven't done any recording in 5 months. There are a bunch of amazing new bands with wonderful people in this town; I want to spend long hours with them in an underground bunker.

I got a job as a shoe salesman. I just finished a job working for the World Bank in South Africa, making the website of an alternate reality game for tech-school students to get to know each other. The premise was so weird I had to do it. I posited the moral question of working for the World Bank to my boss. It went like this:

Me: Does it concern you that we're working for an organization that makes loans to underprivledged nations?
Boss: Whadja mean?
Me: I mean what if they can't pay. Usually when a poor African country can't pay, and they usually can't, the banks have to recoup their investment someway. That tends to be children having their feet cut off and lowering them into diamond mines. I mean a contract's a contract!
Boss: I dunno, I don't think our website can do that.

So that's good.

This weekend is Buckminster Noodles' first birthday. He's daring and nimble, affectionate and appreciative, all fine qualities a young boy should have. I feel as if I'm raising a brave son who will someday take over my estate.

Attn: Repatriates

Fig. 1: your St. Louis Cardinals.
Moving back is a practice in keeping your eyes in your head. I was twitchy with anticipation before my own return to St. Louis, and I want to reassure the reader those sort of emotions were well founded.

Before the move you might find your thoughts fogged with regret and hope. I promise your current true friendships will remain sound, and a marshmallowy cushion will fill the space that lost time and distance create. You're all going to be alright.

When you come back you will be reacquainted with people you are certain you've never seen before, others you're not sure what impression you left with. Don't take these idiots for granted, some of them grew up and some of them grew teeth. Usually you've guessed wrong.

Still, your instincts will be razor sharp at this turn in your life. Trust them unflinchingly, it's more fun that way. In no time your social dis-ease will melt away. Stay curious.

Go hang out with mom, once every 2 weeks. You really do miss her.

QUICKTIP: When you return, find an unfamiliar part of town that reminds you dearly of the place you just left. Visit on the seasonal days and make phonecalls to the ol' gang. Bring a newspaper and 2 cigarettes.

QUICKTIP: Get the fuck back out of town. Frequent weekend trips anywhere are a staying remidy against snap-judgement cynicism.

You'll need to find a job. Don't be picky, and don't wait too long. Disorientation can accompany major shifts in life, mind that your lifestyle does not protract during this time of transition. You were never that motivated: many hours of the day you need to be told what to do for the sake of your own sanity.

This is a drinking town. Give yourself a couple of weeks of facedown imbibing and then stop. A couple more weeks and then have 2 if you're going out. Your aged softening brain don't bounce like it used to.

Make friends but for godsakes don't touch one. A romantic kerfluffle is not in your cards now. Oh and start a fucking band, like prompt.

It's still the midwest, you'll still make your own fun.

I have begun my summer.

This past week was spent in Austin with a few very close friends. 6 days in a van: chemical'd, exhausted from swimming and sun, danced out from Chaos in Tejas. A great vacation really can fit within a 2 mile radius.

At the end of this summer I'm moving back to my hometown of St. Louis, Missouri. It's something I do for a number of reasons. The nicest reason is that I can't remember why I wanted to leave. I like the things I've committed to. For the first time in my life I want to know my family. There is much about leaving Kansas City that I'll be sad about, luckily I'm not a regretful person. But I am wistful, so I'll just have to visit often.

Most of the adventure of going home is involved in fixing up my house, writing new music, making new friends in a place that I have old romantic feelings for. It won't be Springbreak 98, but it will be wonderful.

It takes a fast car, lady.        The Cars - Double Life (MP3 6.3MB)

Wajd

Ecstasy is called Wajd by Sufis: it is especially cultivated among the Chishtis. Sufis generally enjoy Wajd while listening to music called Qawwali, special music producing emotions of love, fear, desire, repentance, etc.

http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Qawwali

Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan:

Push the Button

Excuse me

I love excuses. I can conjour them for any occasion. This morning I had to make one up to tell a mortgage holding company to keep me from working for them, because I'd much rather work for the greeting card company, so I came up with an elaborate and not entirely untrue excuse.

The secret of the excuse, as with all deceptions, is the deep but simple shading of truth. You don't want to pepper an excuse with too much truth, because it's hard enough to remember how real reality should be working, nevermind this marbled fish-story you've layed on this unwitting rube. Lies are blunt and final. but the excuse implies an ongoing relationship, so you have to remember all the line-items in the contract. My grandpa Staufenbiel might have told me once "Keep your tall tales tiny", and I might tell you the same. My grandpa Smith definitely told me that all jews are rats, but I would never tell you that.

I make excuses to visit St. Louis, when really I just want to see my friends, my home, and my mum and dad. I make excuses to put off chores, when really I just wanna listen to these 2 records. I make excuses to put off calling girls, because I'm just really bashful. But still, all of it gets done. I'm just tired of telling myself I need to make excuses.

Gone Missin' !

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_who_have_disappeared

Axing! OR My Time as a Confidence Man

I was included in the decapitation of 8 people at my job, including executives! Good thing I started looking for a new job a week ago. But where to go and what to do? Apparently the dweeb sector isn't hurting as bad as the rest of the planet (we never do, our technocratic grip is tight). This might make for an exciting spring. I could use some vacation and unemployment cash. There are lots of expenses and other things that will need bolting down in the next week though.

Lots to do, and time to do it.

And now, Tommy Cooper jokes:

"Police arrested two kids yesterday, one was drinking battery acid, the other was eating fireworks. They charged one and let the other one off."

"You know, somebody actually complimented me on my driving today. They left a little note on the windscreen, it said 'Parking Fine'. So that was nice."

These ladies are hysterical.

New Feelings that Aren't Your Own

Masculine Manlog pt. 2

After weeks of holidays and shows and very fast times, I've taken a few off in the cave. A series of seven hour sleeps in a CO free home pays off. Today I was up at 7 AM ready to punch the face off the world!

My friend Megan and I are in a new band together, so last night was slouched down trying to muscle through the cadences of some of these songs. I never realized what a challenge it is writing lyrics for someone else, because someone else is always so picky.

It's the first project I've really run in Kansas City, writing a style that I've never attempted. I'm surprising myself. What's sticking hard is conjouring a name that doesn't make everyone at practice frown. I believe in the power of band names, although most of my favorite bands have the dumbest. I now accept it's one of those things that can be good enough.

And now, pictures of pretty ladies:

Sorts in the streets

Thrill seekers

Home coming, Home going

This xmas trip to STL was one of the most romantic I've had in a long time. I don't mean that I touched a girl, I mean betwixt me and the city. Some questionably warm days and nice sit downs with friends. Not one moment spent in bullshit. There was much idle chatter but it was the real kind, and a couple of once-in-a-decade talks with all of my parents.

This year has been trying, probably the hardest of my life. I feel tested. I've had to face down crucial shit that most men go all their lives without confronting. My survival has been dependent on a number of very loving friends, friends whom I owe a long debt of gratitude. I also survived because I'm fucking tough as nails.

I'm like an eXtreme sPorts guy, but instead of basejumping, I'm into eXtreme tRagedy. I'm going to get a cat just so I can look forward to the day when it's found lifeless under the basement stairs! EYYYEAH!

Oh cheese, I forgot to tell the blog that I've been increasingly poisoned by my home for the past 2 years. The doctor says it's been slowly constricting my perception of reality that entire time, to the point of near suffocation. It'll work it's way out of my nervous system in the next 5 weeks. So, call me then when my third eye has reopened. We'll go get a slice of pie, and have our own chat.

Aptitude

Dehnadi and Bornat's thesis is that the single biggest predictor of likely aptitude for programming is a deep comfort with meaninglessness:

To write a computer program you have to come to terms with this, to accept that whatever you might want the program to mean, the machine will blindly follow its meaningless rules and come to some meaningless conclusion. In the test the consistent group showed a pre-acceptance of this fact: they are capable of seeing mathematical calculation problems in terms of rules, and can follow those rules wheresoever they may lead. The inconsistent group, on the other hand, looks for meaning where it is not. The blank group knows that it is looking at meaninglessness, and refuses to deal with it.

Dehnadi and Bornat's programming aptitude research

I like it: Il Conformiste

The past few mondays, before the radio show, I'll make myself a fancy dinner and watch something sophisticated. This week Jesse and I watched Il Conformiste, a movie about a secret-policeman within Mussolini's crumbling government. He has no stomach for his job, his friends, his wife. It's funny and grim. It may be the most carefully composed film I've ever seen.

Grown Grump: my Papa

It's weird being an adult and having to spend thanksgiving yelling at your father. I thought that was a trick I got done with 10 years ago. No I wasn't yelling at Cancer Dad (who's doing fine, thx). It's my boyhood dad who caught it last Thursday, during an otherwise spectacular trip home. 

My father's got troubles. Every 3 years, right around the holidays, he loses his shit. It's right on schedule. 

Most times he makes sure that every bridge gets burned. Usually it's of the I'll Buy-a-Jeep with KC-Lights, Start-Selling-Drugs, and Fight-3-Cops in a Golf-Course-Parking-Lot variety. This time it's spookier, but not as threatening, I hope.

The frustration and fear of dealing with these episodes is part of the reason I left STL. My dad is now 60. There's this irking pang that I can't write this certified nutjob off forever. So I get turned up between my sweet-n-tender side that wants to somehow help the poor jerk, and the righteous side that knows everyone you love deserves to fuck up all on their own. 

It's hard to stop people with bombs strapped to their chests. 

Masculine Manlog pt. 1

I'm getting a lot of crushes.

Last night I watched the french film The King of Hearts. I fell in love with Coquelicot, played by the actress Genevieve Bujold. Having a crush is easier when the girl is whimsical fiction, not living just on the other side of town.

This weekend's other crush: the Baader Brains' LP

http://www.mediafire.com/?3hy7mkjhtmg

Yes I am 29

RUNDOWN:

Justin got me La Piovra's "Disastro Sonoro" 7 inch. I smashed his gokart into a wall.

My dad, with half his throat missing and breathing through a tracheotemy, tells me:

"You've been taking life too seriously for too long."

So, read that again, but imagine a robot talking with a mouthful of mud.

I love my family, not to slight any STL crew who read this(IMISSU), but they're the thing I miss the most about the fatherland. I was afraid I'd have to move back about a month ago, but that was just THE PANIC easing in. My dad is deep in the throws of chemo treatment now, my mom asked if I could get her a connection if the Marinol doesn't do the trick. That lady's gonna learn to simmer weed butter. What a country.

The job has been capital shitter this week. Every computer I touch turns to dust.

I'm sure the internet is wondering: the ladies? Sure, I'm known to charm. Bah, I am pleased being single, and they talk to me, and we make acquaintance, but for now I mostly keep my distance. There's fish to fry before I get all tangled up again.

Beasley's here now, shirtless and hairy on my couch each morning. He's taken to this town beautifully, most nights of the week I hardly see him. He's already got a job busting heads down at The Record Bar, and he may have landed a job as a tax man at the IRS. We ran around on election night and he's befriending every friendful face. I took him to The Ship last night, this vrrry nice speakeasy in the west bottoms, a fine imbibing.