I Am Thankful for Rag Mama and crackers

I wish my site had an email link. I just do.

Today is Thanksgiving...technically. I write this at 2:17 in the AM, and I am a tad tired, listening to wierd glitchy Joe Cocker on my tiny pocket radio-walkman. I will go home and eat food and talk and play Excitebike later this day. I am bringing a couple Japanese refugees home with me, so that should be an interesting change. Earlier today I was thinking about all the Japanese students that aren't going anywhere to celebrate Thanksgiving. Even though they normally wouldn't in their native country, it's obvious that they feel left out. They will just stay here in Corvallis and do nothing special. Pilgrims and turkeys and indians and pillaging and blunderbusses have no meaning to them. Hm. Oh well. At least some of them are joining in the festivities. I'm harbouring my friends, and I heard Sekko was going to Detroit for the holiday. Kick out the jams, motherfucker.

A cool song just came on. "Rag, mama, rag....We can lay in my sleepin bag...Dog eat dog, cat eat mouse, you can rag, mama, rag all over my house..." I'm assuming he's saying rag. "Rag your skinny little body back home." Ah, the poetry of 70s blues-rock.

I went to church on Sunday. I needed to visit a worship site for my "Quest for Meaning" religion class, so Nick Masog agreed to take me to his Catholic church. It was pretty churchy, nothing too outrageous. At the end, the (Spanish) priest ate a big cracker and drank a cup of wine. Then people came out and stood in front of him with tupperware containers holding smaller crackers, and there was a guy with a big cup of wine. Then all the attendees stood up and got in line to take some of the food and drink. I declined; people were obligated to say something upon taking the food, and I was afraid saying "thanks for the Jesus" wasn't the password.

I s'pose that's all for now. The word of the day is 'topcoat'. Try to use it sometime today.

My Body's Strange Geography

I apologize for my period of silence. I've been having trouble finding time to spend with my friend Internet. There are a number of things I could write about, but I will choose one for today and write about the others later.

I have a big...thing on my elbow. You might say it is "bulbous". I noticed it yesterday at work, when my coworker Lance said "Dude, what did you do to your elbow?" It's as if the skin on my elbow just decided to grow a little hill. Anyway, everyone who saw it reacted with "oooh" or "eeeek" or "ouuuuch," so I decided to go to the local student health services. It turns out I have cancer. Aa ha! Kidding! Kidding! No, actually, after the nurse said "I've never seen that before. I'd better give you to urgent care," I went to see a jolly old doctor who said it is a simple skin irritation. He gave me a prescription for some skin lotion and I went skipping home, but I didn't actually skip. So that was my little adventure over the past day or two. I am fine, and the little hill on my arm is fine also.

Makiko quote of the day:
"Do you hear my stomach voice? I think it is dangerous." -You got me. We were talking about how skinny I am.

Harlequins in the Night, Story Failure Pistol Light

Tonight I have been taking video footage in the nighttime fog. I think the highlight of the evening was a shot of some football players having a game next to the tennis courts, in the fog, lit from above by the tall court lights. Tiny moisture particles make everything look so....aah, you know.

This morning at 3:10AM I started printing the 19 class copies of my (incomplete) short story. It was around 4:00 when I fell asleep to the bzzz-wzz bzzz-wzz chick-klack of my printer. My alarms went off at 6:45AM, and I woke to find that the printer was out of paper. I refilled it and printed the last few copies, then went to the library to staple each story together. I was only 34 minutes late to fiction writing class, which I hate with a divine burning passion.

My story sucks. Well, not really. I just lost control of it. Normally I would salvage the good ideas and start anew, but this story is for a CLASS, which means I am married to it till death do us part. What the "instructor" wants is more clarification in the story. He wants it to make sense. It can't make sense; it is about random objects talking to a young confused man. Sure, I could throw something into the ending like "it turns out a chemical spill had brought the inanimate objects to life," but that would be stupid, and make the story even worse than it already is. Why can no one just accept the absurd? It was my vision; a toaster speaks to its owner and makes him question his own life. But nooo, that leaves the reader confused. Remember "The Cat In The Hat"? That story would have made no sense at all if there hadn't been those few pages at the end explaining that the cat was actually the result of a genetic experiment conducted in Russia that went terribly wrong sometime in the 60s.

So, anyway, I have given up on the artistic element of the story. To me, it is dead, an idea that can live freely in the afterlife and not have to make any sense. But I still have to finish it somehow. Tuesday I will go into class and listen to the students one by one say a variation of the words "I don' git it." Then I will give my two cents about how some things I wanted to do I couldn't do, like scrap the damn thing, and I will ask the class for suggestions on how to make this corpse look handsome. Herr Instructor Lawler will tell me everything he hates about the story, to which I will politely nod, and then he will pause awkwardly and look around the room like a retarded bird before saying "Okay, let's move on to the next story..."

Anyway, I am trying to be in good spirits. I unwittingly scared the living bejesus-shit out of some of my friends earlier tonight, and I'm not very proud of myself for it, but at least I got some nice fog footage. AND I wrote a nice lengthy entry on my website. Everything's coming up 'Brett'!

Fat Cats in the Fog

While walking home from work in the fog, I saw a limosine and a very fat cat.

Prose and Verse

In all truth, I'm only writing this to further distract me from writing my short story. I will write a little bit here and there, but some things just aren't coming together as well as they could be. Actually, I'm not quite as stressed about having it completed when I turn it in for peer critiques as I used to be. Today a girl only had 5 pages of her story completed, and she still had no idea how she was going to end it. I am hoping that the class will be so blown away by my creative writing skills that they will be too busy bleeding from the ears to notice that I still have a lot to write. Thursday morning is zero hour.

I downloaded the first song released from the new Momus album, "Oskar Tennis Champion," set for release in March, 2003. His new record is being remixed/produced by Sir Fashion Flesh, one-half of The Super Madrigal Brothers (the other half of which, Oliver Cabol, I have exchanged emails with). At first I didn't really like the idea of Momus enlisting someone else to reshape his musical compositions. I thought "Folktronic" had stellar production, and I was looking forward to seeing how Momus would further evolve his instrumental and programming skills. But then I realized that this whole "reproducing" idea is something new for Momus, something original, something never done before on any of his albums, and artistic innovation is what Momus is all about. Fashion Flesh is, after all, a very talented young knob-twiddler. So I say throw the songs to the mangler; the results will be framed and put on display in all their glory for everyone to either spit on or cheer for. As far as my thoughts on the song, it is good, not great. It's got the same ol' Momus flavor, with a slightly new taste in the music. But if there is one thing I've learned from Momus's albums it is that no one song can define or predict the sound of the record as a whole. In short; I'm sure the album will be real keen.

I discovered that my older posts are falling into oblivion, which makes me sad, but also adds a sense of urgency into reading this site. It's kind of like the Indiana Jones movie there the Arab doesn't get off the rock-crushing conveyor belt in time and he gets all squished. That's right; my old posts are getting squished in a rock-crushing machine.

Let's see... Not much happened today. Makiko didn't say anything particularly outlandish. I didn't see anybody fall off of their bicycle. Work was pretty boring and short; I wiped tables, ate, wiped tables, talked with Setsuko, wiped tables, stood with a Coke, wiped tables, and left at 7:50.

Can't really think of anything creative to say... The grasshopper rode on his chopper to the Circle K, he bought some beer for the following day, called up Stanley and said "don't you hand me down no hand-me-downs," then they danced around in greens and browns...

Oh, in case you were wondering, Leo Magnus was a character I came up with last year. I always thought about writing a story about him, but I like him better as a solitary concept-character. So he writes me letters.

Leo Magnus

Today I was walking when a letter fell to me from the sky. To my joy, I read on the envelope that it was from my friend Leo Magnus, who holds a minor position on Mount Olympus. Let's read:
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To My Friend Brett,

Geetings! I finally found an ounce of free time to write to you. I've been enjoying the entries on your dubbed "shitty little web site"; as you can imagine, we are blessed with a lightning-fast connection speed here at Olympus, so I am able to browse the furthest reaches of the web at ease.

I hope these days find you well. The winter days grow gloomy and bite with a bitter chill, but do not let it get you down, my friend! In response to your question, we usually abstain from Christmas celebrations here, but every once and a while we might indulge in a little good humor and set up a tree, and in such instances light gift-giving doth ensue. Last year I presented Zeus with a hat by Bernhard Willhelm, but I'm afraid it was ill-recieved (a little too modern for his likes).

Most every night Bacchus (Dionysus, as you folks know him) holds a grand party at his house, and it is rare a morning when he, Komos and I cannot be seen stumbling throught he streets with spilling goblets. And, yes, Bacchus is a Heineken man.

I'm glad to hear about your new employment. It doesn't sound that unlike my own. I, too, mop floors and clean tables, but I would imagine it is on a much grander scale than that of your workplace. Refilling fruit bowls from the garden is always a delight; those grapes you've heard and read about really are as good as they say. On my free time I most often hangeth out with Apollo. He is certainly a charming young chap, and he plays a mean guitar.

I enjoyed your writings about music. It's good to hear Momus has made a name for himself in your favor; I personally think "The Poison Boyfriend" is his best. Lately I have been listening to the likes of Kid 606. His records may be sparse, but you should give his work a listen if the chance such emerges.

Well, I will cease my pen for now. A nimph has gone taken my latte. Such tricky little bastards, they! I will write again once I find something more to write about.

Sincerely,
Leo Magnus
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Well, how about that. Heineken.

Oh, the Gullywhumper

Now that I've written all that bullshit about music, I can get back to writing about absurdities and nonsense.

Tonight I made a movie using the G.I.Joes that Andy gave to me for my birthday. The story went something like this: Snake Eyes and Wetsuit are up against The Big Red Rascals, a trio of villains who wear red and speak in very awkward prose. Meanwhile, Roadblock and his partner (who wears a mask and thinks he is African-American) are on a mission to destroy an evil Frenchman who spends all of his time in his lair with Proffesor X, listening to French music and talking to the camera. I just made it for the hell of it. The ending makes no sense at all.

The other day I was thrilled to find this site. It's gotta be one of the funniest damn places on the web. You should also check out the gallery section for some of the very best photographs you will ever see in your life. ..Heh. Really.

The Science of Song, part 2: Okay, Bad Example...

There was another little point that I didn't make in yesterday's rant about music, so I will make it now.

Within the past year I had the revelation that all music is relative, and that there truly isn't such a thing as definitive "good" music and "bad" music. People tend to think that the reason why some bands become famous while other bands remain nameless has to do with how talented each band is. This is not true. It all depends on how many people like the music. If you compare Alien Ant Farm to The Walkmen, it's easy to say that the latter group has truckloads more musical talent and creativity than the former. But ask someone on the street who they like better (excluding the city of Eugene) and most will probably say "AAF rocks! Duuuraahruuuuiuurruu!!" ...Well, they may or may not make the retard noise, but my point stands: personally I consider The Walkmen as writing good music while Alien Ant Farm writes crap, but The Walkmen just aren't as popular. Alien Ant Farm happened to appeal to more people's tastes.

I recall quotes from two great philosophers: Alexio Wiseman once said "There is a market for anything. It doesn' matter what kind of shit you make, someone will listen to it." Nick Curry has a quote that says "Everyone is famous for fifteen people." Two different wordings that basically say the same thing; everyone has differnt tastes, and no matter what you make as far as art goes, someone will think it is genius. Exactly how many people think it is genius- from 10 to 10,000 -is usually completely up to fate unless you have a specific group you are catering to, LIKE STARTING A FUCKING BOY BAND JUST BECAUSE YOU KNOW IT WILL MAKE MONEY OFF OF THE AMOEBA-MINDED FEMALE YOUTH OF AMERICA.

Anyway, before I once again lose track of what I am talking about, I will say this: Marc Bolan wrote the lyrics "I ain't no square in my corkscrew hair", and he is considered to be one of the greats in the history of rock 'n' roll artistry.

Makiko quote of the day:
"I am not a good student, so today I fell down." (She confused the word 'fell' with the word 'feel'.)

"There's Sometimes a Buggy", and the Science of Song

First, a little about my job today, told backwards: All during work I was remembering that conversation in "Mulhulland Drive" between the director and the cowboy, and it kept a smile on my face. While walking to work, I saw a student crash his bike and fall in some mud. He got up and rode off, and while I was still laughing to myself another student rode past me and I could hear him making some kind of "bike-riding techno music" with his mouth, and this made me laugh even harder. Before leaving for work I locked myself out of my apartment and ran around in the rain looking for Chad.

Now, about music:
I decided today that knowing a lot about the concept of music itself does not gaurantee musical talent. Case in point: eating lunch at a friend's place today, I caught part of a show on OPB which featured a middle aged woman talking about music. She was saying something about how music is a series of waves, sound waves that oscillate and fluctuate while travelling through the air before meeting your ear. Then she said, "and I try to incorporate all these facts and concepts into my music, so a lot of my songs are about science..." Then it showed a clip of her performing. Imagine a middle-aged yuppie woman wailing lyrics about sound waves and science over the worst early-90s dance-pop you've ever heard. Then place her in front of a screen with projections of stock science experiment footage through green and blue filters, and some lazer effects to make it...I don't know..."funky." Needless to say, it was all laughably terrible. Here is a woman who literally has music "down to a science", yet it is still awful.

I am currently taking a fundamentals of music class, and I will tell you right now, I don't understand anything we are being taught. The signatures, the rhythms, the relative minors, the sharps and flats, the scales... none of it makes a lick of sense to me on a page. But while I am sitting in class confused I can think up a melody and drum pattern, write down some wierd little diagrams in the margins to help me remember it, come home, and compose it on the Music Generator in 5 minutes. What does this all mean? I'm not saying I have talent; maybe what I make on the Playstation really isn't that good, and my friends are just humoring me. What I AM trying to point out is that, in a literal sense, I don't know shit about music. I don't know about the science or the fundamentals. But I can make it. I can think it up and play it. I can listen to a pop song on the radio, figure out how to play it on guitar, and then write a better one.

I'm kind of losing track of what I'm talking about, but I will move on to my next point anyway. Talkin 'bout music!

Take my two favorite musical acts at the moment. On one hand you have Momus, a man who knows the ins and outs of music. He knows the fundamentals, the sciences, the history, the rhythms, the themes, the styles... He can compose an intricate boroque symphony on a casio keyboard, and then find a way to make it sound like (the forementioned) early-90s dance-pop. He can also play guitar like a sonovabitch. Now, look at Liars. This band makes noise. The guitarist plays chords that don't exist. The singer doesn't sing, he yells stuff. When I saw them live, the bassist took out some kind of device and "played" the same electronic note through an entire song. But Liars make music, no doubts there. I am pretty sure they don't write sheet music for each song, and they certainly don't wrack their brains over relative keys or how many sharps are in the key of C minor, but their music is good, to me anyway. Like Momus, their music is creative in its own way.

I guess the closest thing to a consistent idea in all of this is that creativity makes music, not necessarily knowledge. It's not what you know, it's what you hear in your head.

The Villain

First I feel I should point out that the last entry was actually yesterday's, but I didn't post it until 12:00, so...

The following is something I wrote last week, during a very dark period that I'm not quite out of yet. I just felt like posting it:

Today wasn�t very good. It just wasn�t. I worked for a while this evening and was able to forget about my troubles for a couple of hours, but now I am back at home, alone with my painful thoughts again.
I wish it was my own pain. I am used to having my own problems, petty laments that are quarantined within my own head, unknown and inconsequential to everyone else. But this time it is the pain of someone else, one of my close friends, that burns. I can�t control it or deafen it because it isn�t mine. It is constant. It is the thought that at any given moment one of my friends is experiencing the worst kind of sadness, and it is my fault. I drove the cold, sharp sword of truth into my friend�s hopeful heart, and now I am unable to let go or remove it; I am linked to her through the blade, through the truth with which I stabbed her, and I can only plead that she accepts and endures the pain so that we can both feel release.
These days are numb. Voices are muffled, details are fuzzy, concentration is impossible. Every now and then someone will enquire about what happened and I will attempt to explain, but I am never able to properly convey or justify my feelings. It seems like no one understands, and everyone leaves me thinking �he�s a selfish monster.� All I can say with sincerity and clarity is that I�m sorry, but no one accepts that. No one cares. I am the villain now, and I must deal with it. I have no excuses to feel sorry for myself, because I am the villain. I shouldn�t expect anyone to understand, because I am the villain. Why? Because I told the truth? In the words of one of my friends, �Sometimes you shouldn�t tell the truth because it hurts people.� But I already told the truth, and now I am selfish. I am selfish because I didn�t lie to make someone happy, because I was unable to set aside my own feelings. I should have lied.--


A few days later I thought things were getting better, that the darkness was lifting and wounds were healing. Now it seems I was wrong. Anyway, next time I will try to write about music, which I have been meaning to do for some time. That's all for today.

As an assignment in my fiction writing class, I am writing critiques for some other students' stories-in-progress. While I have to put on a fake smile for the end product and give "constructive criticism", this site now features my REAL critiques of these stories:

James Roberts: Your story is like a David Lynch film; well-written, elegant, and mysterious, because I don't know what the hell is going on. What exactly happens when they almost hit that truck? Or do they hit it and pass through it? Is it some kind of "ghost truck"? Are you really writing a story about "ghost trucks"?? Needs work, Jimmy.

Toby Kawamura: This is a good little pointless story. I like the inconsequential plot, but I doubt the teacher will. I hate that guy. I think the reason his class is so hard is because a strap-on broke off in his ass and now he shits through a straw. You've seen the way he walks. Anyway, good story, except for that part at the end: "Instead of bright white, it was shaded bright pink." I am guessing the now-red light is symbolic for something, but I really don't know what, and I really don't care. For all I know it could represent the red of Jesus's balls; the point is that it confuses the reader, i.e. me. But still pretty good.

Cassandra Ben: Your story is terrible crap. Just because you like horses doesn't mean anybody else wants to read about them. Horses are boring. The people who ride them are also boring. The peoples' stories about finding the previous owners of their current horses are painfully boring. This is the kind of stuff that I was forced to read in the 3rd grade just because it had won a goddamn Newberry award. The only pleasure derived from reading your pile of words was the line "Some horses poked their heads out of their doorways and greeted the two women with nickers and neighs." Haw haw!! At least I know I can read your story if I want to fall asleep chuckling.

--Okay, seriously, the stories weren't all that bad. Well, the horse one was.

Makiko quote of the day:
"My head is hard. You wanna try?" (I think she meant... Actually I have no idea what she meant.)

Oh yeah; Jesus is a microwave.

One of those days

I read in a psychology report once that if someone cannot have a meaningful, serious, satisfying relationship by the time they are 19, that person will be emotionally underdeveloped and have difficulty with relationships for the rest of his or her life.

I wish I'd never read that.

...Hey, this kind of reminds me of that Robyn Hitchcock song. You know the one, Joel, you know the one!

Wisdom of Makiko

"I can pick up my meat!!" -her reasoning for needing to excercise.

"I only have one face. It is a serious face." -denying that she makes various facial expressions.

"You are nihilistic. Does it make sense? You are a dandy." -your guess is as good as mine. Apparently she meant it as a compliment.

Whitey was a proud, grand sheep. He had award-winning wool, and was quite a celebrity throughout the barnyard community. Farmer Carl always made sure that Whitey was well taken care of, giving him the best grain and home-grown vegetables to keep him strong and healthy. But while Whitey was proud and grand, he had a dark secret. All his life, whitey had been hopelessley attracted to Buster, a strong, masculine ram. Whenever Buster was around, Whitey was unable turn his wierd, squinty eyes away. Whitey could never express his homosexual sheep-feelings; what would the other animals say? What would happen to his carreer in livestock showing if eveyone knew he was queer? --------

So I read an article in the school paper today about the whole "nerves determining the sexual preferences of sheep" thing, and I laughed out loud every time I saw the phrase "homosexual sheep" printed on the page. Maybe I'm just immature. But this whole idea got me thinkin; if sheep can be gay, does that mean other animals can be gay? Can there be gay cats? Can there be gay bears? Gay birds? Gay elephants? Gay fish? Gay BUGS?? Heh. Now THERE'S a picture to put on the front page. Two male bees humping each other. Now I want a t-shirt that says "gay bees".

Alright, this is getting out of hand, and I'm not really making any kind of point. I'd better stop now.

Okay, think of the 70s. What if there was, like, this disco guy back in the 70s who tried really hard to become famous using his dance moves, and he tried to be in movies and TV shows and stuff? And what if the guy just ended up playing an extra in, like, a whole bunch of crappy shows and a couple crappy movies? And then, after his whole career just crashed before ever taking off, what if his wife ran off with their kids? And what if this guy is so crazy now that he built an extensive website completely out of his bitterness? Wouldn't it be funny and sad if there was really a guy like that? Yeah...


Waitaminit...what's THIS?? www.johnnydisco.com

Today I've been trying to ignore my depression by thinking about and looking at art. I've been having more ideas for my "comics"(I wish I could post them on this site...damn). I've also been using the internet to dig up some of my favorite names:

Futura 2000 is a grafitti-turned-fine artist, and was one of my idols throughout high school. And he's got a crazy site.

Bosch has always fascinated me. Sometimes I wish could go outside and see a fish/ass/man sticking a pitchfork into a giant orange.

Takashi Murakami is a Japanese artist who, along with his entire Hiropon Factory posse, is making some of the coolest damn stuff I've ever seen.



-wounds heal with time-

wrong, friend, sad, cold, suffocate, confusion, words, assumptions, romantic, want, apology, forgiveness, silence, burn, pain, rejection, asshole, fucker, selfish, bastard, inevitable, sorry, useless, irritate, depression, dead, futility, hopeless, me, you, alcohol, decision, hurt, lose, hurt, lose, hurt, lose, hurt, lose, hate, lose, hurt, lose, hate, lose



Maybe next time I will be able to write about all of this better. But right now I can't do anything.

So when asked who's best, Y'all should say...

Thanks for the music, man.

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Yesterday was much better than the day before. The Japanese dialogue went perfectly; I was e-mailed my lines in the morning and memorized them by 2:00. So that's all copacetic. I turned in my idiot-forms, and my boss turned in a payment request form, so I should get paid in about a week. And I was able to sit at my table yesterday and study. Good for me.

So Holloween happened. A friend and I noticed during the day that only old and fat people dress-up around the campus, and these people are always good for a laugh. It's a shame that Holloween kind of dies once you hit college. It seems that if you aren't invited to some exclusive frat party in the evening, you don't get to celebrate. Then there are the people who don't even have a chance to celebrate because they have papers to write(Cody & Tristan... uh... mad props to you). So what did I do on Hollow's Eve? First I went to a going-away party for a friend's roomate. I guess it was fun, because everyone else was having a grand ol' time. Once that party seemed like it didn't need me anymore, I went to Jose's place and hung out with a handful of guys from around the world. When I look back on this year's Holloween, I will probably remember eating painfully-spicy curry rice, drinking a Budweiser and discussing what a foreigner can do in Taiwan with 50 bucks. My point? I have no point. I just thought I'd ramble about Holloween. Yeah, I had fun last night, but I didn't have to get fat and dress up like a vampire to do so.