Sunday, December 07, 2008

T-minus-ten days till I graduate. This song is pretty much the extent of where I am right now, going against my mind, going against the grain, going against all doubt. Built to Spill, Going Against My Mind

Monday, November 17, 2008

I don't tell my reasons why.



Discover The Cure!

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Radio is nothing without listeners.

Nic Harcourt steps down from Morning Becomes Eclectic at KCRW, and again I am reminded of where I come from.

Dreams feel so good sometimes, remembering a dream can feel even better, but seeing my dream job become available five weeks prior to my graduation date is a cup of sweet chamomile tea in my aching stomach of nerves.

I haven't applied for the job, and I can't expect the best radio station in America to track me down and request my resume, nor do I feel like I could begin to even attempt at filling the headphones of Nic Harcourt. But I can use this as motovaiton to work hard towards graduation, and as a reminder of how I fell in love with music and radio.

I am where I am today--in love with music, radio, and the connection of an interview, because of KCRW. I was in my university library, sitting there, studying a subject I lost interest in a year prior, stressed, miserable, and searching for "streaming eclectic music" on google when I found Nic Harcourt on Morning Becomes Eclectic. He was interviewing Roseanne Cash on KCRW.com and it was at one in the morning, after listening to that interview, that I changed my entire focus of college. I felt connected again, listening to Harcourt interview Cash, asking about her dad, her music, and the changes in her life and it was KCRW broadcasting the performance of her music-- unedited and real, that reminded me of what was missing in my life, radio.

My roots are at WKNC, where Ben McNeely, Joel Frady and I started a talk show, and then carried it through two years of air time. WKNC is where I found myself in local music, why I went to countless shows at King's on the weekends, where I found my voice in indie music, where I stayed many late nights working in the office, reworking rotation and reviewing CDs, where I brought band after band in for interviews and gave them the opportunity to play their music, live on 25,000 watts of radio. WKNC is where I learned about the music industry and how I want to be a part of it. WKNC is a huge part of who I am, and it is largely because of that night in the library when KCRW gave me music and and a damn good reason to forget about being a chemist, and I could not be more thankful for that.

So, Nic, thank you for your work and your time at KCRW. Although I have been focusing on WKNC for the past twenty months, and not listening to you as much as I did in the beginning of my radio journey, I am truly sad to see you leave. You and KCRW have done so much for the alternative music community, the artists, and most importantly-- the life and rebirth of radio itself. So it is once again, it is you and KCRW giving me inspiration to dream and a reason to continue to work hard.

Thursday, November 06, 2008

take me away,
back to when I found Ginger Envelope on a Saturday night at Kings
back to when the economy was good and my graduation date was still two years away
back to when I didn't know any better
back to the days of hard working and goal making
back to when reality didn't sting
before I read A Portrait of the Artist as A Young Man
before I read The Road
before I figured out how the music industry works
before I learned too much and got my nerves on edge

cradle and encapsulate it all


Monday, October 13, 2008

It is so hard not to worry.

"This is not the time for government to shell out another 150 million dollars," blah blah blah.

Give me another stimulus check. I could use it to purchase some neem oil, or something to soothe my cuticles. My nerves have been racked lately. I am graduating, willing I pass my Spanish class, in less than two months and to be honest, I am feeling the anxiety of the economy. I am a student of middle class parents who had no form of finances to pay for my "higher level of education." Which means I have a nice size of student loan debt left in my book bag after my last round of final exams. I will be entering into the best years of my life with debt and worry. So yes, Almighty "All-knowing" Government, give me that second round of stimulus checks and please, don't forget about the millions of Americans who trusted the government in accepting Stafford student loan money. The debates, on both state and national levels, are chocked full of plans on how to make college education more affordable-- but this is talk for the future, something our leaders are so good at, talk talk talking about the future. But what about the now? So many young adults have trusted the advice that earning a college degree will better prepare them for the the future. But I worry that this is a falsity. I fear that the millions of young Americans who will be paying off their student loans during this period of economic transition will feel the strongest blow of economic uncertainty. Federal Stafford loans are funded by private lenders, such as Citibank, which means the loans granted through Federal program will be handed over to the private sector. The private sector is obviously in a crisis and the possibility of the private sector jacking interest rates even higher than the current 6.8% is a real possibility. Student loan debt is unable to be compensated through bankruptcy, and I am sure the private sector knows this. The loan debt will ALWAYS be there. So the potential for the private sector to take advantage of this is a huge risk to a whole generation. The class of December 2008, and even May 2009, should be scared, pissed, and ready to write congress. If the American Government forgets these people, if they forgo the opportunity to protect the generation that trusted the recommendation of going into debt to earn a higher level of education, then the American Government will be setting America up for failure. There will be a whole generation of young adults that will never be able to live and enjoy life without an economic cloud looming over head. The economic future of the graduating middle class is as real a problem as the current economic turmoil.


Tuesday, September 09, 2008

I think today will be a good day. It has to be. I woke up with this song in my head and therefore it has to be a good day. This is a song from Benji Hughes double disk release on New West Records entitled, "A LOVE EXTREME." It's pretty sweet; catchy weird pop rock tunes. Benji is everything you want out of a modern rocker-- sensible yet extreme, a 70's rocker look complete with gorgeous hair, and a damn good song writer. Of course he is awesome, he is from North Carolina.




Represent



Monday, September 08, 2008



“Three months prior to graduation”
K. Reid

it is only salt water
running down my cheeks
nothing more
not a sign of fear
of doubt
or anxiety

my nerves are fine
my nails are always bitten
to the nub
my cuticles are always sore
from tending the weeded
hang nails

I chose to graduate with
a writing degree
I chose not to file myself
in the standard 9 to 5
I chose the alternative

and now, the route
this life of art
freedom
a piercing pursuit
has evoked salt water
running down my cheeks

fuck
I am scared

Sunday, August 10, 2008

I work too much perhaps, but dreams take work.


Future Islands, "Little Dreamer" 11.10.07

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Is that a Keytar?



Yes, yes it is. So watch the vid. Dance. And let the lyrics get stuck in the brain....

And all this love, save it for nothing, I've never felt so blue. And all this love, rainbow stylin.


Life is a Mashup. Here is some Girl Talk with a little bit o digital anthropology comments. Learn ya something now.



Yes Lawrence Lessing, making people pirates is good. Make me a pirate and I will beam musical wattage from inside the city. Give me a standard to live against. Democracy is hungover from the bottle of capitalism and the people are tired of the snooze button.

Michael Wesch is genius.

Friday, July 25, 2008


They sure don't make 'em like they used to. Ricky Nelson, I wish you were still around to teach boys a lesson or two. Chivalry is dead, and common decency is in the intensive care unit. Technology has taken courting and dating to texting and Facebook. It makes me sick. What happened to just asking (in person, face to face) a lady to the movies?

~signed with love, Kelly Lou Reid



Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Music take a dance with me. Whisper in my ear and tell me the future. Tell me what will happen to radio. Does the injection of digitalization become lethal?

Friday, July 18, 2008

I don't usually do this, but after having an exceptional radio show yesterday I wanted to reflect on the play list. Radio is my love. It takes me away from everything. For two hours I lay down all the cds and vinyl. Make a mess. And mix songs. Yesterday I woke up and said to myself, I want to play some Beach Boys and that awesome Lucinda Williams song, that nine minute long song. So I did. I wish I could podcast the set, but I am not that advanced yet, and the truth is that live radio is better than any podcast could be. Enjoyz.


END
Joy Division Shes Lost Control
Jim Noir Ships and Clouds
Little Beirut Acid Wash Soul
Neva Dinova Its Hard to Love You
Andre Williams And The New Orleans Hellh Rosalie
Young Fresh Fellows I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight
The Shys Savior
The dBs Nothing Is Wrong
Beach Boys Don't Worry Baby
Wilco Shot in the Arm
Lonnie Walker Wider Than White
Animal Collective For Reverend Green
The Black Angels You In Color
The Kinks I Gotta Move
The Dry Heathens Just as Well
Jah Wobble Ollie Marland Polly Eltes Voodoo
Violet Vector and the Lovely Lovelies Make My Day
Filthybird Fightsong
Caitlin Cary & Thad Cockrell Second Option
Dr. Dog Uncovering the Old
Man... Or Astroman? Jokers Wild
Okkervil River You Cant Hold The Han Of A Rocknroll Man
Echo And The Bunnymen All That Jazz
Mr. Gnome Pirates
Beck Soul Of A Man
King Khan And The Shrines Burnin Inside
Kings Of Leon Milk
Lucinda Williams Wrap My Head Around That
START

Friday, July 11, 2008



Damn right I am whiner, because I have things to whine about. For one, I have no health insurance and not enough money to take care of my medical needs. If the economy stays upright long enough for my father's insurance to kick in when September 15 rolls around then maybe I will hush, but it's not likely. The problem is real. The economy faltering and thus resulting in my father being laid off is not mental. The lack of a health-care safety net for full time, working students like myself is not mental (Yes there is COBRA, but you have to be able to afford it). My two cavities, wisdom teeth extraction, and recently worsening vertigo issue is not mental. I need to see a doctor, I can't afford it, and I think that is something worth whining about.

While we're on the topic of a "mental recession," last time I checked the millions of factory workers being laid of in America didn't ask for their jobs to be outsourced overseas. All you politicians don't get it. The number of Americans living paycheck to paycheck is rising. Americans need to stop right now and ask themselves this-- if you lost your job, how long would it be till the bank foreclosed on your house or you were evicted because you could not pay rent? How long would it be till your car was repossessed or you were forced to sell it? Till your savings were drained, well if you have one? And don't rely on food stamps or unemployment because it is not that much help and if everyone needs it at once then the system would collapse (I don't know how it hasn't already collapsed but that is another topic). So how long would it be till the mental became reality? Ten months, six months, three months? You know, maybe you are right Phil Gramm, maybe it is mental. Americans have been mentally poisoned to believe that gas prices will always be cheap, there will always be jobs, and products will always be affordable. And now that the tables have turned, now that we have been over promised, over outsourced, and over marketed, we are whining.

What we need is a good, hard slap upside the head. You don't NEED a SUV. You don't NEED a huge house. You don't NEED new clothes every season. We need to conserve, live with in the means to function and live-- our actual means, not the means of interest rates-- and we need to look in the mirror and ask ourselves, "Who is controlling who?"

Now, because music makes everything better, Mates of State with, "Whiners Bio."

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

"Fate has a funny way of coming around,"

The telling piece of advice is tucked away in the the second to last song on Dr. Dog's new album, Fate. And as life will have its funny way, the title of the song is The Beach. So I forget that I am not at the beach. And I remember. I am here in my city of oaks, crashing pools. Sometimes beaches have concrete ledges and chlorine. Sometimes the beach is my bed. Sand pillows and sound waves.

Forecast: the latest album from Dr. Dog is the sound summer makes when you catch the first lightining bug, cupped inside of your hands the music glows when you take a look at the first token of freedom.

There is this dream I've been conjuring up. It involves booking bands, live music, a pirate radio station, some form of a hotel or hostel, and a combination of good drinks and eats--- all in the same location. Add a swimming hole into the mix.

Mr. Tender of the Bar, add a little Strychnine to that drink, will ya?


Monday, June 09, 2008

The Summer of Mash n. Splash

It is one hundred and two degrees. 3 digits of heat in June. I asked for it. During the gray of winter I held on to Loudon Wainwright's The Swimming Song and now-- now I have my summer of mashing pedals, sweating from every inch of skin, feeling the glisten of the wind, riding through the night and then
splash.


If you've been pedaling around downtown Raleigh there is a chance that you may have seen the neon colored signs posted for this week's edition of Local Beer Local Band Night.


The CD Release show for The Proclivities will be this Thursday, June 12-- as in two days after the Mudhoney and Birds of Avalon show at the Cat's cradle. For some it is two days after the frikinREMfrikNationalfrinkinModestwho?frikfrik show.

Frik is my new word.

I needed to define proclivity so I looked it up and found that in context someone may have a proclivity to meticulousness and that a proclivity is similar to a propensity in such the sense that someone may have a propensity to drink too much. Frik is so much eaiser to understand.

Opening this Thursday will be The Young Sons out of Charlotte. So if the propensity for new music and adventure overcomes the proclivity of routine, give in. Give in to the summer of Mash n. Splash. (frik)

Enjoy this footage of The Proclivities. Not much going on for video work here but I think it captures the ambiance generated by Matt Douglas. To hear the new album, Handguns and Dancing Shoes, which was produced, mixed, and recorded by the guitarist for The Proclivities,Chris Boerner, just tune into WKNC 88.1 in the Triangle or worldwide at wknc.org.

Frik.


Sunday, June 08, 2008

Oh-- NPR
tell me you are not a level of capitalism underneath the dark blanket of corporatization that covers America,
tell me there is still a opportunity for what is
real.
Tell me my last resort is not pirate radio. Someone tell me the movement of music will not be consumed by the technology of mongers.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

The guitar is the new defibrillator.


I find myself watching these videos compulsively in order to get myself through the week. Drooling over the sound of the guitar. The raw, in your face, realism of local music. I let the sound shock me into gear because the harder I work, the harder I can play. And seriously, where else in the Triangle of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill can you check out TWO awesome local bands for FREE?


Only a few days away, THIS THURSDAY June 5th at Tir Na Nog for WKNC's Local Beer Local Band night..... so excited about

Lonnie Walker




and opening the night will be Grass Widow




Friday is now shadowed by the almighty power Thursday night's of WKNC's Local Beer Local Band night.

And it rained rock and rock n' roll.

Monday, May 05, 2008

Tomorrow [revision] TODAY is the day--- the day to vote for your presidential candidate in the primaries. So, North Carolina please VOTE!


and enjoy this music video from Fourth of July, "In Debt"



because I'm in debt like my country

and time has a way to make you forget how good or bad things went-- but your vote never forgets. America should know that after eight years.

Thursday, May 01, 2008

Bonnaroo-schmannaroo-poo

Why would I go stand in the middle of huge crowd of sweaty formulites on a dusty hill to barely see a band I don't even like when I can drink cold beer, see better music, not pay near as much money and rock the hell out?

So I am passing on Manchestter TN and going for Chattanooga.

Chattanooga Punk Fest

Click here for the line up with active links to the bands' myspace sites.

Do Ya Hear We - 2008

Monday, April 28, 2008

Need to take a minute and write. Currently in the last arm of the storm. Lying in the ditch, holding onto the milk cow, boy I hope they fed her good n' plenty--those winds are fierce. EXAM WEEK.

I've been thinking about the Peace Corps a lot lately. It is something I want to do but have inhibitions about. There are stories of females being raped while serving. I would think that each case is situational but it still makes me question the perception of Americans in other countries.

There are some things I am going to do this summer.

-read Ulysses and some McCarthy
-learn how to do a hand stand
-make a music video/short film



I enjoy this one. Obvious college student but the music is good and I enjoy the attempt at mystique.


A lil something to go with that milk cow.


And I am trying so damn hard to throw a house party for these guys (actual band not shown in video). A FAULTY CHROMOSOME ----------->

Monday, April 21, 2008

Somewhere in between writing a paper, Spanish homework, and waiting tables I had a birthday. I never felt that special birthday ting, but I do feel another year older.

24

What to do with the year of twenty-four? Define, deliver, demand.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

John Hillcoat, please use Avey Tare and Panda Bear of Animal Collective in the soundtrack for the upcoming film adaptation of McCarthy's THE ROAD. Please. I can only imagine what eerie sounds they could produce for the film. It would work well.


One of up my friends who tends to disagree with me on musical things also disagreed with me on this choice. He had good points- they don't make soundtrack music and they have never made a record that would fit the sound of the book; generally their music has an underlying tone of happiness. His points were valid, but too formulaic. For me it was the timing.

I told him that it kind of happened like this: I read the book, then two weeks later post-McCarthy upset and doomed feeling, I listen to some Panda Bear, and could hear them drawing out the suspense of a "lost human" noise through out the book and then at the end,
with the glimpse of green color
and the survival of the boy
the music breaks,
with a sliver of hope,
the passing of the fire;
the knowledge that inside humans are men, people, a fire
and somehow humanity survives.

This music and creative writing mixture of study just might work for me.

Thursday, April 03, 2008

Sometimes I find myself tired. Well, too often I am tired. Revision: exhausted. Beyond physical and into the mental. A brain that is worn down to a nub. A stump of emotion. Lacking a refuge. Even music is beyond a repairing tool. But then, I find a reason to dance, to twirl, to let my hair down and catch a glimpse of my smile in the mirror.




Find an idea and hold tight onto it. The sun. The exuberant heat. And the pool. Sweating next to the pool. Drinking. Reading. Swimming. The refuge of summer, and its perfect nights.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Hey Beverly Purdue, I will trade you your many sets of pearls for my wisdom teeth hurting; they still need to be extracted and I still don't have health insurance. Or, how about that boat that your sons crashed while gallivanting on the Trent River with ladies, after drinking. Yeah, that boat was probably equivalent to the costs of my college education at North Carolina State University. Of course they didn't get into trouble with mommy on their side:

The Associated Press State & Local Wire October 25, 2007 Thursday 6:15 PM GMT

Perdue brothers cleared of responsibility in boating accident
NEW BERN N.C.

A federal judge says the sons of Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue were not responsible
for a boating accident on the Trent River in 2003.

Chief U.S. District Court Judge W. Earl Britt blamed the crash on the other
boater, Phillip Amerson, who had no lights illuminating his boat when he was
struck by the boat of Emmett and Garrett Perdue.

The judge says Amerson saw the other boat but did nothing to avoid the
collision. Amerson will now have to pay the medical bills for three women
injured in the collision.

Beverly Perdue is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor.

LOAD-DATE: October 26, 2007
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newswire Copyright 2007 Associated Press All Rights Reserved


Perdue stop trying. You are not a coal miner's daughter. You are a coal mine OWNER'S daughter.

I am the daughter of a truck driver, a man who has returned to driving trucks after Bruce Wunner and other people at Refuel America (part of NewGen Technologies) failed to pay him for months of work, failed to make payment on health insurance, failed to notify my father of possible problems with paying him, and STILL owe him money. I imagine that these people at ReFuel and NewGen are driving their lovely expensive cars, going on vacations, seeing their dentists and doctors, and not worrying a bit about how their inadequate business planning has effected my family. Try being that daughter Perdue.

So Perdue, you should just stop, because you are not getting my vote.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

I need stickers that look like this:



so I can paste them on the backs of the college kids around my university. Seriously though, it is 8:30 in the morning and I am continually nauseated by crap smells. Do you really need to douse yourself in a overbearing BAD cologne/perfume for class? It is class. Freakin class. Not the club. Not the keg party. Not the student center. And the wrong-doers are everywhere too. The computer lab. The bathroom. The hall way. These kids are reminding me why I need to get out of college. I try to sip my coffee and all I smell is cheap department-store stank. Grow up. Get some taste. Let me enjoy the mornings.

Sheesh.

I've been playing catch up this week. I cranked out a short story on Monday and to my surprise it has received good response for my professors and peers. I will try to edit and clean it up so that there is something to read for the weekend. SXSW was pretty intense. I do have some good pics to post and a story or two to tell. I saw the best rock show of my life while I was down there. Actually, it was more a conglomeration of shows to make it the best rock n' roll experience of my life. I will expand soon. But I will tell you this, Volcom knows how to throw down.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

...no more college tries




shut up and count some sheep

Sunday, February 24, 2008

scrapping the books, calling off the study session, leaving the library, and taking my self to the movies

Atonement, by Ian McEwan, was one of the novels I have read this semester for my contemporary literature class and I feel like going to see the film

what better way to procrastinate and simultaneously remember that I suck at relationships/love?

and it only costs me a few dollars

a few measly dollars






Friday night, i bought three donuts, a cup of coffee with cream, and a pack of smokes
drove around Raleigh
just drove
eating donuts, drinking coffee, driving, and not thinking
a mental vacation-- complete with sugar, caffeine, and nicotine
solo, of course
Thank you John Darnielle. Thank you for the music.


Saturday, February 16, 2008

Bruce Wunner is on my shit list. He and his accomplices will answer. They will pay my dad, and they will know what they did to me. It is only a matter of time. This is my project for spring break. No beaches for me; only law books and legal documents.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Dreams, they are needed to fuel actions.




Saturday, February 09, 2008

Someone go to work for me, wait on the tables, and bring me the cash. Please. I want to saturate my brain in the sunlight and read. It is a reoccurring theme-- me not wanting to work. It is not that I do not want to work, but simply that I rather be doing something else, like writing. Yet I want to go to SXSW and New York and Mexico. I need my wisdom teeth out and a Mac. So I work, and do my best to save. I do my best not to get upset. Forget about the mental restraints colored on me by the necessities of modern life. And find a song.

Curisve The Sunks

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

A sonnet I had to write for my poetry class

Routine Measures

At night, I will sit down in the shower
Tilt back and hold my feet up in the air
The soles awake from the water's power
Eyes closed, steaming away all care

Lights out, only a blur from the window
Wash, scrub, cleanse and melt the day down the drain
A bar of soap with no scent helps the skin grow
Condition the shell and deflect all pain

Try not to question why some people depart
Consider another option to try
Buy a vitamin to strengthen the heart
Plate it with metal to protect from a lie

A non corrosive alloy works the best
Still able to sit in the shower and rest

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Quote of the day. Taken from Looking Backward 2000-1887, a Utopian fiction by Edward Bellamy, written in 1887.

It appears to me, Miss Leete, that if we could have devised an arrangement for providing everybody with music in their homes, perfect in quality, unlimited in quantity, suited to every mood, and beginning and ceasing at will, we should have considered the limit of human felicity already attained, and ceased to strive for further improvements.

If he only knew.

Monday, February 04, 2008

Riddle of the day:

What walks on four legs through the internet, two legs through television, and three legs through radio?

Sunday, February 03, 2008

Thank you Mr. Bob Lefsetz for sending ANOTHER email about the music industry and thus delaying my trip to the library and my start of the monstrous load of school work I have accumulated.

In his email, The Death Of Cool?, Lefsetz says that the Vampire Weekend show on Letterman was "awful." And denounces their album as just internet hype. He also declares to be satisfied with himself for not falling into the whirlpool of hype,

"Vampire Weekend's album might be better than their live show. But last night on Letterman, I just saw more white boys playing thin rock. I laughed to myself, wondering why everybody was wasting so much time on this evanescent act. I switched the channel." -Lefsetz

Alright. I am taking the backside view of all this.

There is a simple reason why influences like Lefsetz, bloggers (mind you I do not include myself in this podge; I just write about my miscelleanous life), and other crtics don't like this album--- and why I DO like the album. I ignore buzz, I don't lurch on the claims of other publications, and I don't rely on a performance at a major network television channel to decide whether or not I like a band.

I caught a few songs from Vampire Weekend during CMJ. In the cramped basement of the Cake Shop on the lower east side, these guys packed the people and pumped the pop. I stored this moment in my memory and then waited for the album to drop. When their self titled debut came into the WKNC studio I listened and was quite pleased. It is indie pop-rock at its most colorful moment. They are four college grads that have written songs about being young and having fun. And that is exactly what the sound of the album is.

[Visual Moment] It is late spring time, and the temperatures are pushing into summer. The sun is warm yet not blistering. On a simple wooden stage, only three feet off the ground, is Vampire Weekend. In front of them dances an audience- barefoot and skipping, hopping, bouncing on the grass. There is lemonade, Pabst Blue Ribbon, and not a care in the world--- just music. [Smile]

Vampire Weekend's debut is a simple optimistic glimpse of what it is to be young and searching for fun.

I come back to a main point I have declared in the past. It is about the music, and music is about emotion. It is about finding a connection to the songs. The voices in the industry are always trying to catch that latest, say it first, and set the standards--- and it is killing the music. I understand the marketing and A&R aspects of the industry. I know how the voices of opinion can kill or create a band, and sometimes I wish I could bundle all of the mess up and wrap it in duck tape. Toss it in the trash can. You are not going to get the gist of a band by watching them on Letterman. [Not to mention that Letterman was a terrible choice. Conan's audience is much more receptive to alternative music. Duh.]

As far as being cool is concerned. There is no emotion in being cool. I gave up on being cool. I do what I do because I love music, and experiencing live music. Try it. It is working well for me.

So, Vampire Weekend, if you want to come down to Raleigh in April or May and play an outdoor show, let me know. We will make it a grand ole' time and give Lefsetz something to absorb.

Cue "Walcott" by Vampire Weekend and let the school work begin.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Why would you trade your heart for one that is not beating anymore?

Because it is strictly a deal

-Avetts

Thursday, January 24, 2008

I am going to SXSW this year. I have to. It is on my to-do list.
Mid-January bleakness. Skies are a heavy gray that fold down on the mind. I am a cyclist. Not pedaling, rather pushing through a shade I don't understand. Can't comprehend. Don't Care.

That is a lie. I care. Sometimes at least.

My state is not that disheveled, rather I am just frustrated. I want so badly not to work. Just to quit my job and live. Write whenever I want to. There are so many things that I have been wanting to write. When I walk down the street I see scenes, clips of of the day, that are phrases; sections of stories. Ideas that I have to neglect in order to pay the bills and get my assignments done. When I graduate maybe I will just escape, move away, find a radio station out west to DJ at, a mindless waitress job, an apartment with the bare bones, and write--- just write.

Omaha perhaps.

I've been digging Centipede E'est and their song "Mirrors" lately. It is a solid, well written, modern psychedelic-rock track that taps into the reservoirs of energy. I believe it to be about rear-view mirrors and driving on the highway, but (in honor of my 8:30AM poetry class) "the message the piece is trying to deliver is deeper than that." It is trying to convey the idea that even if you check both side mirrors and use a blinker before switching lanes life can still bite you in the ass; luckily I inherited my mom's ass.

Clink.

Monday, January 21, 2008

This is why I love my job.
Trying a new title. Don't know if I like it. I guess I will take it for a test run. See how it does. Let the headache wear off. Uh, my head.


Why do people leave?

Monday, January 14, 2008

I had to go back and look at the last thing I posted, to try and get a bearing on everything. Because right now it feels like I am at the laundry mat, standing with heavy shoulders, my arms long and lifeless tacked on to my torso, drone eyes starring at the over sized dryer, watching the clothes tumble. Dingy t-shirts fall on top of worn towels, the button on a pair of jeans builds a tempo--- clink, __________ , clink, __________ , clink, _________ --- under garments exposed for all to see, around and around and around and around. Clothes are no longer clean once they leave the dryer.

This semester is going to be intense. I have a history class, the third level of Spanish, a poetry writing class (at 8:30 in the morning), contemporary literature with a reading list consisting of eight substantial novels, and an advanced fiction writing class. I am still waiting tables and holding my duties as music director for WKNC. I will do it. I have to. It will be good for me; my last semester with no chemistry classes. Combining a fiction writing class in the same semester as a poetry writing class all while reading novels that have been published from 1999 through 2007 should force me to really write. I will find out better who I am, who I am not, my fears, my weaknesses, my strengths, and my voice.

Letter to a Young Writer, by Richard Bausch is one of the first assignments for my fiction writing class. I read it last night and I felt a minor sense of encouragement. Bausch's most permeating advice was the simplest and romantic of all-

"Do not think. Dream. Dream the story up. Make it up. Be fanciful. Follow what comes to you to say and try not to worry about whether or not it's smart or shows your sensitive nature in the best light or delivers the matters of living that you think you have learned. Just dream it up and let the thing play itself out as it seems to want to."

This should be applied to all things in life.

There were however two things I wanted to add to his list of Ten Commandments for young writers. Two very important things.

1. Do not drink. Do not let alcohol consume who you are or how you act. Do not let it get in the way of what you want to do. It is a potent substance that will dull the mind and harden the soul.

2. Love someone. Try, at least try, to experience love. Don't try too hard. Don't fabricate it. Let it find you, and don't be scared when it does. There is power in the connection between two human beings [Or at least that is what I want to believe].

So for right now, those are the two things I have on my mind; keeping of course the intents to find authenticity and live deliberately.

Also debating changing the blog title.


Bobby Conn brightens the day. Mr. Conn, how do your clothes stay so bright?

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

A new year. Is it not just a number?

Plant the ass in the seat, and write.

I am ready for school, which will mean much less drinking. My liver needs a rest. Funny how when school isn't in, I am letting my brain relax and putting the liver to the test.

Syntax. Look at that sentence structure. Tisk, Tisk.

Authenticity is what I want for 2008. I told someone that and they didn't get it. Silly boy. Can't you see? Authenticity is an extension of living deliberately, a way of keeping the mind from becoming lazy, self exposure.

Authentic with others, self, and the cultures. Authentic sounds. Music.

Wes Anderson meet Devendra Banhart, please.

Clean the desk. Look at the bank account, a few bills. Think about the grocery store. Stretch. Don't drink,,,,,,