urkenheuim hotel.

for the first time in what seems like years, but could just be months, i've been able to take multiple days off and call it a 'vacation'. i've known about it for a while, but didn't book a trip anywhere. there were a few concepts i'd had but one of them is nothing but brash begging for disappointment, one was something i'd wanted to save for a friend and i which didn't work out, and the last requires a car for multiple days, something i'm not currently able to acquire. so it's just me and the world here, brooklyn and long island. all the missed and ignored media i've had for months. some writing i've done. some thought lines to unravel. performing, essentially, what the body does during sleep. the kind of maintenance that requires little effort but sets all the pieces into regiments. defragging.

the first day of my 'vacation', though, saw me at a hospital for a decent portion of the day as my mother was having some respiratory issues. she's a heavy smoker, super serious about the addiction, really fairly major part of her character, and it's starting to catch up to her. it's sad to watch all the things you hear about in books and commercials and television and knowledge in general being acted out directly in front of you as opposed to diagnoses and diagrams and stock footage. while she was in with the doctors getting a ton of tests and what not, she told me i could take her car and go do something else, go home, etc.

i went record shopping. picked up the new lupe fiasco, the new get up kids, radiohead's kid a, minus the bear's omni, a record by sunn0))), and liquid swords by GZA. sick pull. a week prior i'd picked up this is hell's weight of the world, the new earth record, glos' harmonium and the recently disbanded depreciation guild's spirit youth. i think i posted last week about wanting to have a collection to be proud of, etc. i guess that's something that constantly changes with your taste and your growth, but these records all seem to be solid solid pulls. i have two boxes of CDs that i have to go through to see what are actually pieces i still want in there. needless to say, i spent a ton of time with all of those. the new lupe record, lasers, is going to be massive. i'm trying to get as many plays through it as i can before it becomes ubiquitous. though lately, i'm very much barred from all of the outside influence. it took me a couple weeks of listening to kanye's track "monster" before someone told me that the single had been played to death. good news, i guess? i'm also starting to take bands a lot less for granted. where at one point, when i'd see a band taking off, i used to kiss them goodbye, sort of like a minor league manager would shake hands with an upcoming ace, knowing full well he'd never be through the system again. now i know i have to see them as much as possible, appreciate them as largely as i can before they disappear. it's becoming almost an epidemic, bands who are doing the right thing, pushing boundaries or at the very least steeping themselves deeply in quality ideas and influences, deciding to call it quits after all of their invested time doesn't yield the same kinds of rewards that they used to. the underground is almost nonexistant. all indie means is it's not completely massive yet. it's a weird industry. but braid has reunited, is doing their thing again and i'm very excited to catch them a few times in their second wind. same with the get up kids, and even glassjaw. important bands are answering the absence. that can't be all, though. can't have the same old stuff on repeat. classics are and always will be classics, waiting on a shelf or on a harddrive for us. but it needs to stay fresh. there needs to be progress. and with lupe's record, i feel that. there's a little more digging that has to occur. but i'm willing to do it. eyes on the liner notes. hungry, always. internet wise, i just saw a new youtube trailer for the lead singer from misery signals' new project called solace which sounds incredible. and the guy who did the song "black and yellow", wiz khalifa has a pretty dope mix tape called kush & orange juice which is somewhat viral right now. with all of my free time, i've had the chance to check it ALL out, in depth, give it solid listens. give it the respect it deserves. very excited. even rediscovered a band called sweek that does the whole russian circles/explosions in the sky thing rather well. their record the unbelievable cinematic crash from '05 is legit!

watched a decent amount of movies as well, so far. mala noche by van sant, mister foe with jamie bell and i just rented four lions, a movie from britain that actually satirizes terrorism. i remember seeing the trailer a while back and it looked great.

finished reading fahrenheit 451, and completed both little big planet 2 and killzone 3.

also, will be printing copies of MMX: THE MOLESKINES starting tomorrow.

off 'til monday.
stoked.

unexpectedly riding a horse.

virgin readers of chuck klosterman's work more than likely begin their reviews exactly the same. whether it be spoken, or written, they will tell you that they "rarely laugh out loud at books, but this time, it was different."

klosterman is a regular writer for esquire, gq, spin, the new york times, the washington post, and even espn. you may also recognize him as the writer of the more popular book, sex, drugs, and cocoa puffs. what this means is, the man has a way with words that's appreciated in many, many circles. in no small way, this other chuck has made me a fan and follower of his writing simply by talking about what he's thinking exactly when and how he is thinking it.

this book is a blog on paper.

within these particular pages, we're with klosterman on a nationwide journey in which he is visiting the places of death of rock icons such as the allman brothers, kurt cobain, robert johnson, and layne staley, amongst others. and while we do hear about these locales in some way or fashion, mostly what we're reading about is how he relates just about every single facet of his life with pop culture references, psychoses, and rock bands. most of the internal dialogue we'll hear from him is, actually, about the women who are or were, in some shape or another, in his life.

if you were to go on livejournal.com, blogspot.com, or some other popular freeblog site, you might actually find other accounts very similar to the ones found in this book. but, unless the blogger is as charismatic, savvy, trivia infused, and likeable as this guy, you won't come anywhere near the enjoyment i received from this book. and while it was borrowed, i will definitely, at some point, be adding this (and his others) to my collection.

sucking in a smoke screen.

i just finished reading this book somewhere around 3:30. it took me forever to get through the damn thing. it wasn't so much for the length, i guess, though it was pretty tightly packed text, small size. around four hundred twenty some odd pages. i just have had a job. i love reading, and now that i have all these books, i figured i should get my ass in gear and try to at least whittle down the number to single digits. it won't happen. but it's worth putting effort into.

a lot of times, the title doesn't ring a bell, but the author does. and it's for hilarious reasons. this guy and this book is the one that went on the oprah-coaster. first, she puts it on her list, and it gets insane acclaim, and then the book ends up being debunked, leaving oprah sort of discredited.

now, if i were following this whole thing a little bit more as it happened, i might be able to fine tune this story a little bit more but as i understand it, this book is supposedly a memoir which isn't entirely true. some of it is embellished, and some of it may not have happened at all. now, for a nation of middle aged women, maybe that bothers them. but me, i'm a fiction reader. so even if this entire thing is ENTIRELY false, i'm still down with it. but some of it, there's no way it didn't happen to him on some scale. some of it is just too fierce.

i didn't underline any quotes or any passages to really pass along to you guys as a guide. it's written in a chuck-esque tone, but without those one liners that tear you down. it's just honest, and brutal. it's actually one of those books that makes sense to describe as 'raw.' this guy has no writing background, and it shows. he's just recounting his experience. and it works. the entire book just works. which is another reason i don't think it's entirely made up. things don't all wrap up nicely, and things don't really end SO badly... the experience just gets tied up. in fact, the most climactic moment in the entire book, in my experience, comes after the actual narrative is completed.

-

sometimes i just want to strip my entire album collection down to just albums that need to be heard front to back. maybe just put the rest into storage. that kind of thing.

-

i haven't been sleeping as well as i was.
i also stopped writing as much as i was.
i wonder if there is a direct relation.

an attachment.

i can't wait for september.
i can't wait for you.

i went bookshopping at three different places tonight. there's always that endless need for more and more words. i have a queue very literally twenty two books deep. oh, lord. this is definitely something i need to start focusing on, because none of them are books that i just happened upon. each of these are ones that i have a genuine interest in and i am psyched to dive into.

i was trying to explain today how i don't even know what i do with my time. i get home from work, maybe eat dinner, head up here, and then it's a blur. i spend SOME time on the internet, but i'm not abusing it. i'm not myspacing out. it's really not that big of a deal. i'd know. i don't watch tv. i haven't played ncaa. it's been insane. i haven't even been talking on the phone that much. it's just constant kinetics. and i just want to settle down.

there's some decent music coming out lately. the new portugal was great, the emmure is insane. common's album came out today, and i'm so iffy about even listening to it. the last album, Be, was perfection. and since, common has been in movies, has guest spotted on a bunch of albums. it's worrisome to see what this guy has been up to for a couple years. i've just hit play on the record, and we'll see where it leaves me at the end of it.

-

knuckleduster.

murderfucking on an expensive italian leather couch in an enormous living room. every corner fixed with an industrial vice. hallucinogen chandeliers hanging every ten feet, disco ball light colonies recurring a thousand times on the two inch thick carpet. your singing voice gone to complete waste, your face buried in my hands. i think there are systems in place to prevent this from happening. i think there are drugs in this place to enchance this fleshparty. just shut up already so i can make you someone else. and you didn't wear the boots like i told you to, and you left the gasmask upstairs like i knew you would. god i'm learning to hate you, so don't you fucking stop. i don't even know why you bothered walking through that door in the first place. think about the wars being fought, and think about small loving families who will never get out of abject poverty. no, you're not going to drown here, baby. i've got way too much in mind for tonight. there's life in these walls yet.

-

new steps.

i have this weird thing with sneakers. i will wear a pair until i find the next one. i think this must be how the life of a snail works. but, yeah, i was rocking the asics for a minute. and i was fond of them. i was definitely digging them. but i started daydreaming up NEW asics that i would have to create on my own. and they were urban inspired.

i went to the mall today.

i always stop in shoe stores, just to look at what's out there. and i found a pair that is my new shell. it's also my first pair of converse all stars. check them out.



the brooklyn bridge


the inside; a map of brooklyn


the tongue; brooklyn


okay, so i'm not from brooklyn. so i've only been there once. but i love the idea of what brooklyn USED to be. what it's become... eh, not so much. but believe it has that urban feel that i was sort've going for. it's hard to really touch on what i'd really love. i'd probably be better at photoshopping the pair than actually making them.

maybe i will.

-

tonight, i got reminded of the power of trees.

of course, me and my modern thinker sensibilities led me to the cross between infrastructure and nature.




i would love to drive through a tree in california. this particular one is located 185 miles north of San Francisco, in the city of Leggett in Mendocino County.



the reason trees even came up is because i was going on (and on and on and on) about where i would love to travel by the end of my youth. i could say by the end of my life, but that's not true. i can never trust the nature of a genuine nature, not even my own. i want the ME i am now to see this.

the very last thing that i want to see before i die is the sphinx of gaza. i have always loved it, and the story behind it.





humans built this.

while the idea that the great tsunami, and insane earthquakes, and hurricanes, and gravity would happen, regardless of whether we are here or not, there are just some things that humanity have accomplished (modern or ancient) that have stolen me.

-

i bought more books. someone stop me.
(1. 2. 3. 4.)

-


this sort've devotion, and willpower to partake in self-immolation in protest of a war is the thing of legend. few have the conviction to even voice themselves against a particular cause. this man's death is a landmark. this image is the reminder that allowed it to touch me the way it has. i can't even give credit to the photographer here. i would have paid to witness this.

this is my favorite burning man.
but i have a feeling that might change.

a dead epic.

World War Z

brian (resident zombie aficionado; writer) brought this to my attention. zombies are a concept that many people take on in many different forms. you can be a fan of the running zombie, the walking zombie, or the spooky zombie, or the voodoo zombie, and none of them are right.

that is, not until the day comes.

i've read most of the walking dead series. i've been playing dead rising. i am a fan of the walking zombies amidst real situations. running zombies bring to me the same kind've terror as riots and terrorism. even though they're dead, it still feels, to me, that they're alive. it almost eliminates the zombie from the wake of destruction. it feels like it could be anything.

this is a book i'm definitely looking forward to.
however, i have several, still, that i'm trying to get through.
nothing wrong with building a queue.
---
also, if you haven't yet noticed, i've included an image on the right of the page to my last.fm which gives you a heads up on what i'm listening to over the past week. just in case you're curious. you can click that image, and it'll take you to a few more charts as well, including most listened to overall, and recently listened tracks.

stratow!