god told me to skin you alive

i recently finished reading a book called Counter-Clock World, a sickly titled sci-fi work by phillip k. dick. it got me thinking about god again. i do this from time to time as i think anyone must. i dont believe in god. but i'm not entirely sure why. i dont need it i guess. i'm fond of making the simplistic argument that i have FAITH in science and reason. i think this ignores something though because people in this century do not merely replace reason with religion (well some do but fuck those people because they are regressive and of no help to me...begone...you are whack to me) in that case i am religious because [i feel like i dont want to admit it but] there is a lot that i do not understand in the workings of my life and i just accept that there are things greater than myself flowing...giving recieving and sythesizing
ooooooh
aaaaaah
these are just action reaction things though i think
i dont think its spiritual or anything
just cause
effect
but on such a grand scale
so complex and convoluted
anyway dick's book talks about all time existing all the time. not a thing which comes and goes but a series of concentric circles of reality. this stuff's fun and i actually read a maddeningly brief article about the nature of time in existence of universes that sort of fits with this. maddening, i say because in all of a 2 page spread this dude attempts to explain why time's movement is arbitrary and the idea of time moving forwards or back is just a way we frame time to percieve it for ourselves. so what? well i dont know and also it had a lot to do with how universes form and entropy and...well it could have used some more explanation but it is still fascinating. and to the the daily orange used to devote at least a 2page spread a year to college kids...Smoking Pot!!! wait! are there publications of greater intellectual merit/integrity than the DAILY ORANGE?!
anyway there are concentric circles of reality in the book and the outter-most equals god. a reality where things are all together. an "absolute reality." the further you are from this the less real and the more "evil" though as a concept there is no "evil" in this. there are not binaries just a sliding scale of reality. whoa
also i have faith in living less capitalist
less sexist
racist
etc
and theres nothing to really indicate that that will ever happen so...
i have faith in shared experience through media (lester bangs said experience is "hippy shit" and that media's how we really live...so true, right?)
i think that god wants me to keep growing my hair...
"hairs are your aerials"
maybe i can get more "real" by extending my hair. i do feel that i am moving outwards in concentric ripples. i FEEL this. my understandings are less and more. less is more, get me? i dont really know much but i know what cannot be known. there are known unknowns and unknown unknowns. thats the ones that worries me but i know that time will reveal that there is
a)nothing there, dont worry...check your local listings
b)too much, like dark matter with low entropy...a universe will soon develop but time may be moving forwards or back...check back in a thousand years
c)lightning struck itself...chiggity-check yourself
ok so
alright now

the other day i watched a commercial for the outback steakhouse and i was all like "this is a pleasant little tuneski yall got to sell yo meat, sound a little of montreal..." well lo
it IS of montreal
i gotta learn to trust my media receptors a little mo
mo money mo problems thats why its all good for vw

back to the G-O-D
one time i was fishing in a bracingly cold river in montana. i was up to my thighs in the cold rush. clouds obscured the light and i was meandering about kind of aimlessly not catching a thing. then the sun broke through above a large hill all covered in pines. the light shone down about me warming my face and making shimmery mercurial brilliance of the river. i looked up and half expected to be greeted by god. i was thinking this is it, no one else around and me just standing here awaiting some higher power to say "how they biting?" but nothing happened. and of course everything happened...har har har
once as a boy i was swimming in a lake and i swam very far out and i had a snorkel and i dove to the bottom of the lake because i must have seen something down there. as i resurfaced i did not properly clear the snorkel and began to choke on some water. i began to thrash and sputter and do all the things youre not supposed to do if you get into some trouble in water over your head. no one responded to me because they thought i was just some kid playing around. i thought i would die. my dad saved me after some time. again i did not see or commune with god and since thats the closest i've come to having my life threatened i think maybe i should have.
of course these are just stupid anecdotes which prove nothing except that by myself i have some stupid thoughts. but they are amusing illustrations of a desire to have things put into perspective by something outside of oneself. this type of shit happens alla the time, you gotta get yours...
see i think as we get older we look for it in simpler stuff because life is not threatened daily (for middle class americans...i wonder if folks in iraq see god all the time and are just as sick of it as the american preseance...) or maybe we get all smartened up like. a couple times at what i made into important times i hear 'like a rolling stone' on the radio and i was all like "nice little movie soundtrack move random media intervention on my dome-piece!" but thats all it is. its nothing, and its everything so this comes around to where i want to be...
my religion is rock n roll
get me
it is silly exclusivity and macho posturing but it can be a beautiful and democratic space right? i think sometimes so. it is imperfect but my mom goes to the catholic church and WHOA...talk about imperfect...dont get me started DONT GET ME STARTED
see in some really nice little times music has been the most nice and connective thing for me. i'd like to provide examples but mostly i think folks would laugh at my pseudo philosophy
the [maybe sad] truth is that the best understandings i have of communication and its prime importance in making sense of one's existence come from music, from pop music
i mean goddamn, is that so much sillier than readin on a bible and taking those words for TRUTH with the CAPS LOCK t?
or the constitution? or the davinci code? or me and you and everyone we know? mr narrator this is bob dylan to me
i can get into a whack list of meta-rocking songs and i'd love to if you were hear with me to just spiel it out but lets ignore it for the piece. what i'm thinking to say is its all just words and thems a fickle fickle bunch. its just something that means only to the individual and i get lost in trying to recruit to my side but only because i want to speak and on some level be heard. i dont mean to be a prick i just want a reaction, sometimes. its all just a lot of words and while i know them to be ofetn as nothing they are also about the best thing we got...if imperfect...like church...like rock...like dan brown. we gotta use something and everybody's gotta think they've got something they can work on getting better. or so says i. so thinks i and not too damn sure at that.
its just that in all that i know...pretend to...were looking to put it into categories or perspective wherever we find it. where it finds it and like a body meet a body...
i'm sometimes ashamed because its so cliche
but i'm trying to slough off most shame because aside from self-awareness it is kind of useless
stay self aware (i'm an idiot who inarticulately makes meaning out of rock concerts and records...i refrained from bringing up the mars volta OH TICK!) people have said it better probably but i dont care. people have blogged it better (deebs) but i will continue if only for my own sake. any expression is for primarily my own sake and at the same time an act of love for the human race
cha-ching
you're welcome

at least i can write about rocking a guit-piece

WORD the fuck UP
my ambling rock n roll ramblings have paid off in a style
www.drownedinsound.com
has seen fit to post my review of the new Yo La Tengo album
this constitutes, in my mind, being published
go ahead, give it a peep. i admit it is not one of my strongest pieces but its something and its a little more for real. i'm letting this go to my head. i wish i could go celebrate at chuck's.
keep on rocking
keep the faith

vw

Get Happy!

i sleep a ton
i read a little less
i wrote two poems
or 3 if you count this


inhaling turbulence
sweaters touching grace and infinity
skies of devine suggestion
deliberate plumes mount as abrasions
delicate hypotheses are soon subsumed in all that is understood
hands, fingers tremble in uncertain accusation
eyes sting and clamor for release
which is not granted which is forever denied
internal understandings, the new religion
on the surface selfish and callous
oh
you slay me/i am complicit
i am complex and idiotic





sand about pockets and fingers
my bed is uninhabitable
the sun is rotund
all girls are vegetarians
all ghosts are reactionaries
the latest and lithe philosophy
if you are pleasant in comport there will be no trouble in your employ
if you reverse the set things/people you know will
a) mirror with no discernable difference
b) behave in jerky, unintelligible playback
c) appear as swimmers
d) glisten about the corners of your perception
sad about pockets and matchbooks
the future is unattainable
the moon is standard
all sets are reversing
all matter expanding



they are sort of dumb but not really any more than reviewing the rapture's album for no one.
i've done some good summer reading. i'd like a discussion group to outline this and trade ideas. and maybe the same for summer vids
standouts are
a confederacy of dunces
the unbearable lightness of being
whit stillman
some excellent music docs (sex pistols, capt. beefheart, minutemen, townes vanzandt)
russ meyer (i watched faster pussycat kill kill, this could go with ms. 45 and baise moi in a study of femininity and violence over time. how have perceptions and attitudes changed? i have some interesting ideas and i'd like to share them. what place does femininity have in the revenge fantasy? obviously a solid and lasting one...how does it change? does it evolve?)
the moviegoer (this can go with confederacy in understanding fake new orleans with vlad wormwood)
essays by joan didion (this goes with walker percy in the halting steps by which vlad wormwood increases his vocabulary in a presentation i call "stepping up yo literary game: smart authors and dictionary.com")

two bitter kids from a bunch of sour grapes

i'm a little bit angry with pitchforkmedia's assessment of the new rapture album and the new mars volta. for the volta they are predictably smug and snarky, oh well. as for the rapture they are goddamn creamin their jeans over this unremarkable, indistinguishable dance-punk pap. damnski...
so to level my 2 cents i'm going to here publish MY review of the Rapture's new album, Pieces of the People we Love. and i think its clear how i feel about the volta. complaints and comments are welcome and encouraged as i should be called on my shit (thats a big part of why i am doing this blog thang) maybe i'm wy off base, it has happened before, and maybe highly derivative dance music is more valuable than crazy indulgent psycho latin flavored prog-metal punk. i dont know, could be
here it is

I want to like the new album by the Rapture. Pieces of the People We Love is funky and danceable and pretty much catchy as the Bloc Party is long. But that’s about all the praise I can muster. I think my complaints can be best summed up in the title of one of the new songs, Whoo! Alright-Yeah…Uh-Huh. I didn’t add the exclamation. The problem with the Rapture’s funky good-times is they all come off about that forced.
The upbeat movers, and there are almost an exhaustive number, are competently executed. Everything sounds pristinely placed and compressed and if the texture is pretty uniform its pleasant anyway. The opening track, Don Gon Do It, immediately calls to mind Duran Duran and is only the first example of the drummer’s lead fist at the cowbell. Then the chorus is a little too closely cut from a Parliament hit. Pastiche is a tough game for the nouveau new-wavers and all the quotation on this record should have endnotes.
The single, Get Myself Into It, has a bass line unfortunately similar to Your Cover’s Blown, Belle & Sebastian’s vastly superior excursion into disco-funk. That band tossed off a tasteful b-side experiment with plenty of pop savvy. The Rapture plods through stilted verse delivery only to repeat the title a lot over a dreadfully honking sax. This is not the only swipe at Squeeze or Orange Juice flavored pop but it is indicative of the success elsewhere.
Lyrically the whole thing’s pretty much a disaster. Even in the very forgiving realm of rock music Luke Jenner (is he still the singer?) sounds about as sharp as a pencil eraser. You’ll cringe when he rhymes blunt with cunt but only because it’s such an obvious attempt at sass. When he brags about his “mustang Ford” or doing the “milkshake shimmy” it’s a little too much. Does the latter reference the Kelis hit? Do we need to further that song’s tepid appeal? You half expect First Gear to describe a doomed cruise around Dead Man’s Curve, but that would constitute joking self-consciousness and would render the bravado so much more forgivable. Clocking in at over six minutes the track could use some levity, or any lyrical dynamic at all.
Certainly a facet of the trouble for Pieces comes from its attempt at rock credibility. The album does not want to be confined to the dance-floor and thus the clumsiest moments are the couple times the band reins in its swagger. Callin Me should be coupled with Jet’s Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is for their shameless and awkward biting of Jack White’s upper register. An ironic moment occurs in the mellow closer Live In Sunshine, which has the band reminiscing the melody of the Butthole Surfers’ Pepper. The Rapture’s take is nowhere near as lyrically interesting and the synthesizer’s appeals finally just sound grating. Even through the repetitions of “live in sunshine” this sounds pretty dismal.
The Rapture is not cool in an original sense. They are sort of like the Fonz of the new-wave revival, and frankly Happy Days may be an accurate way to frame this album’s importance. It is a bizarre homage to a decade we are not yet far enough removed from to really assess but desperately nostalgic for. It’s silly and cliché and a lot of people are going to love it. To me it seems that for dance music to be truly enjoyable outside of a club setting it requires an effortless self-awareness. It needs endless hooks and enchanting rhythms. But it also needs as much tongue in its cheek as spring in its step. With a more balanced approach I think Pieces of the People We Love could have been a solid album. As it is I’m just realizing how right those other dance-punk dandies were when they told us we could have it so much better.

never seen you lookin so bad my funky one

i sat in a car very recently comtemplating the contemporary scene of leaders/heroes/figures of note. like anything i was sick about it and i was unhappy in the brilliant sun. this is ones way if one has the predictable maladies of finding the despair in any and all things. but i was just working in a field i knew would depress. this is, however hard to avoid. or rather i'm lazy, i'm unoriginal, i'm no scientist, i'm no inventor. i'm watching a crowd sleeping without dreams and these are the folks that constitute my present state. they are sullen and old. ah, aw, ack the state that i am in.
i and some likeminded individuals should create a wildly popular figure to have a better and more healthy influence on public discourse. one who reminds us once in a time to dream whilst abed. and our dreams to be textured and colorful and whatnot. one who can wield these unconscious reigns and crack the whip of the somnambulist! ahoy! full steam ahead! a functional thinker with the particular credibilty of the anti-hero's gaze. a xylophone virtuoso with style to spare. a robot-talker with a steely stare. a symphonic cricket burning like a flare with flowing hair.
i have no ideas but i do not like what i see. its sad sickening but where is john lennon? who is standing on their platform to just say fuck this platform and fuck you ignorant bastards for fawning about. and yet i'm so disgusted with my mind for even wondering this...
how is my mind like a TV commercial? well that metaphor is riddled with cliche. and it passes into oblivion before i can almost be depressed.
pictures of the things we'll never experience, lurid and exploitive. exploitative? exploitational? exceptional exploitation! expolitic expational expatient with me...please indulge this expassionate
halting steps in the wrong line of work

ok remember sept the 11, 2001? well i was commenting a little recently on how i was so surprised that no one seemed to be shamelessly/pornographically invoking this tragedy for the 5 year anniversary. boy was i just not looking in the right place. today i was perusing the NYTimes book review, as is my wont with a cup of coffee and a cigarette if my parents aren't home... ANYWHOOOO i come across ads for (you may not fucking believe this but its fo realz)

Dog Heroes of September 11th
yep its about dogs and their heroics. the Book of the Month Club arrogantly guarentees that this book will "choke you up." now on the one hand i'll bet they're right, and if i perused the actual book i bet i'd cry like a little bitch with a skinned knee but that aint quite the point to me right here right now. my point might be best summed up with a wtf? what the shit do we want so bad to masturbate our collective grief to a friggin puppies that perished shameful climax for? fucking country. i am so depressed by the fact that there is money out there for this and that people are going to buy this by the dozens, maybe hundreds or thou. imagine all the patriotism of blubbering yourself to sleep with a box of oreos and your copy of Dog Heroes. "oh those brave puppies...blub blub...oh those valiant poochies...oh how we lost our innocence...the world changed on sept 11th...at least all dogs go to heaven...right?"
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

but thats not all...it gets worse...or better

the 9/11 comission report was a bestseller back in '04 but somebody's trottin it back out...with the ILLUSTRATED 9/11 comission report. in case you thought this might not be done tastefully its brought to you by the brilliant minds behind Richie Rich and CASPER THE FRIENDLY GHOST!!! YEAH, those guys are still alive and still relevent as fuck. Obvi!
GOD BLESS AMERICA
GOD BLESS AMERICA
USA
USA
someday
somewhere
today's empires
tomorrow's ashes

i am the horse's ass

so after all my wannabe mature discussion of music and my relationship to i had a strange dream. in this i encountered two girls from high school and naturally i started discussing popular music. specifically that yeah yeah yeahs EP on itunes where they cover sonic youth and do some show your bones stuff acoustic. real life vlad loves it, dream vlad as well. then these girls were laughing at me, mocking my taste. i tried to reason but it was lost.
also i had trouble with gravity, i kept floating around and trying to stay put. this is actually a very common malady in my dreams and especially in dreams where i use drugs...oops there goes the gravity. its like laughing in mary poppins.
it had been awhile since i had such a vivid or directly related to my dome dream CRAZY