when put into practice. Via atriosman. For whatever reason this one thing pisses me off bad.
Got into an interesting argument tonight about Michael Moore versus Noam Chomsky.
Who, in YOUR opinion, is doing more for the revolution. The Theorist or the Populist?
(Well, geez, maybe we need both.)
This blog is about many things. The number of things it is about is not innumerable, but it now includes one more. One more hero to my pantheon. Maybe ARon Ralston and the other two are sort of greater in the physical acts they committed, but this guy is an important, crucial crucial prophet. A talisman of a man. I will cling to his ideas.
But my internet connection suddenly got better. I can post again. Even though I'm really tired. My job is a real job. Maybe if you've been reading my blog, you are getting sick of me saying that I have a real job. But it has been years since I have had one. Last one was the stint in a tax-accountant's office in The Hamptons. Tonight the boss made me and my coworker stay until 8--the horror! Simpsons is on at seven, and my commute home is an hour long; do the math. I have remind myself that the end result of what we're doing is good, even though it is all just mind-numbing and at the furthest reaches of my comprehension. (At least I don't feel like it's all totally beyond me. Let me get a beer and continue.) I haven't even got a paycheck yet. But my Dad always said that the best part about getting a job is that you get to complain about it. I know why my boss wanted to get those damn Memorandums of Understanding perfect. But when it's at the end of the day, you just want to go home. Who cares? He just wants to make sure that the other executives in the other non-profits see that we have perfect little Memorandums of Understandings. Not that they need to be perfect. In one week we have to turn in a grant to the Department of Health.
God, this is terrible Blog-fodder.
In better news, I got a return email from Dr. Orrington (see previous post). He sent me a pdf of the plans to his airship. He didn't make any conversation in his email--I was hoping to get a conversation going, and thought maybe I could get Herzog's email. No dice. But I will have to follow-up (and perhaps change my tact in approaching the good, mad doctor.) If you are interested in the plans, email me and I will forward them along.
Before my connection got better I updated my friendster profile, then I started searching for people I knew in High School. Seeing faces aged by 10 years is a sobering experience.
I have something I've been meaning to link to. It's such a great thing that I will start a new post about it.
Haven't been able to blog for two (2) reasons (1) I have a job now and (2) my internet connection at home suddenly went really bad and I can't even log onto blogger anymore.
I saw White Diamond last night and it is so beautiful I wanted to cry. It is not a perfect movie, but it is more perfect than so many other things that it doesn't matter. This period of Herzog (whether it will be deemed Late or Middle depends on whether or not the man dies sooner or later) will probably not be fully appreciated at this moment--if ever. The MAN Herzog kind of gets in the way of his movies. That is not a problem too much because the man is so fascinating, but his movies are so much dominated by his personality that it is hard to know how to gauge them. The man is great, no doubt. In White Diamond he originated the term Dignified Stupidities as opposed to Stupid Stupidities. There are dignified stupidities and stupid stupidities.
Last night I emailed Dr. Graham Orrington, the designer and pilot of the airship featured in the film. I found his email because he posted on a blog that I found by googling White Diamond. He said on the blog that he would mail a pdf explaining his research to anyone who was curious. I hope he gets back to me.
Never hurts to bring myself that closer to the Herzogian epicenter of ecstatic truth.
Job keeps me busy. I am learning how to write grants. I feel completely in over my head. Things that are very sober and precise.
with these people
i can't believe somebody might think I could be useful to them and that they would pay me money.
the mad fools...
(You'll have to excuse me; it's as if I'm new to the internet. Maybe you've all already seen these. Grand Theft Auto they are not.)
Something gratifying about this. Especially the random button.
And this lets you relive a famous scene from a famous movie. Actually, it kind of scares me.
And this looks interesting, but I guess you have to get to it when it's not busy.
For various reasons, I have felt like crap all week. But suddenly tonight, the atmosphere lightened, the air started smelling sweet, I noticed the birds singing...
The whole universed coalesced into purpose and for a few moments I felt like there was reason to live...
I can't quite pinpoint the exact reason...
Just some oppressive force in my life seems to inexplicably fled here at the month's end...
I can breathe easier...
My palpitations aren't as pronounced and bothersome as they have been...
As if I had electric electrodes clamped to various sensitive points upon my body and they have suddenly been graciously, delicately disconnected. I still throb with the memory of the oppression. But it has now gone. It may bother me no more. I know that the future is uncertain, and I will undoubtably face further oppression. But this one particular set of clamps, chisels and miniature whirring saws will no longer torment me on a daily basis.
I am free.
Friday found us staying in and watching a movie, the latest box office catastrophe perpetrated by Mr. John Woo, Paycheck. A most ironic title for a movie based yet again on a Philip K. Dick story, who himself spent a large part of his life searching for same.
I got a wireless connection at home. So this blog is back in action.
I just gotta figure out what to write about.
What do people on the internet do? I'm really glad I'm not paying for this connection. Otherwise I'd feel like I'd have to use it all the time. I just updated all media information for all of my mp3's. I like having them on the computer because I can put it all on random. My favorite random mix so far is putting all of the "black" music I have, ie., Outkast, Prince, Public Enemy, Funkadelic, Madvillain, Derrick May, Tricky and all of the Metallica Albums, which is all of their early ones. It's a good mix.
All it needs is some Beck.
Warning! This is really disturbing.
it's via atrios via attaturk via kos
Last night I was playing Grand Theft Auto San Andreas fault, letting the inner-psycho go on a rampage, flaming people on the beach underneath a setting sun. (even the beach towels are flammable.) Making a virtual hell on earth. But I guess it's all terribly real.
Hopefully soon I'll have internet at home.
First, when I get a job, I hope I will be having as much as fun as these guys!!!!!
Second, isn't it about time you read THE ULTIMATE BLOG!!!!
jake pissoff gave it a0:i never thought id see the day that system of a down comes out with a shitty cd....ive been into system since their jaw-dropping debut....i was there when they did something unbelievable and actually followed it up amasingly....but this is just horrible....too much deron's shitty voice....too poppy not hard at all anymore....they just barely hang on to some of their old syle with byob, cigaro, and this cocain....but i think that the songs that really kill system of a down are the last 2 songs...."old school hollywood baseball?!?!?" that is not system at all....to all of you new school system fans, i hope your all happy that you killed possibly the greatest and most original bands ever.
Lockne O gave it a10:System of a Down is awesome! This CD doesn't just spew political comments (like the reviewers have put it). It's a very good CD with headbanger songs such as "Violent Pornography" and songs that could mean more if you just "feel the music"...
Nic Har gave it a10:I would have to say that this is, perhaps, System of a Downs most artistic and intelligent album. Whereas Toxicity was pure math/prog metal craziness (with a dash of brains), Mezmerize is quick, thrashy, witty, and something not seen in music: creative and actually smart! I really and truely love every song on this album... but it isnt complete... That's why I'm happy that Hypnotize is due out in the next few months. I'm sure that this up and coming album will complete SOAD's true masterpiece!
Vlad A. gave it an8:its funny how snot nosed "professional" reviewers like john robb from playlouder writes that this album kicks the crap out of indie kids' music like its a west coast east coast rap fewd. good music should be recognized as good music by everyone and it just so happens that there is more good indie music than major label produced music. and we all know theres a good reason for that. anyways, im listenin to mezmerize now and its pretty standard SOAD, which to say is very intriguing stuff. i wonder how it will age tho. i cant listen to toxcitiy anymore.
Mark C gave it a9:Woooow. Plain simply, woow! This album is hypnotising (ironic, isn't it). It really is an early contestant for album of the year. Blast beats (oh yes!), death growls, polka, bizarre chanting, thrash riffs and out of this world melodies, all in one consistent and so damn catchy package that can only make me say: «Damn summer, you'd better be short.»
Chris gave it a9:Great album. As good as anything they've ever done. Can't wait for Hypnotize!
Do you know anything about wireless internet? I am going to buy a pc card wireless for my desktop computer. But I don't know the first thing about the whole deal. The other day a guy came over to look at the room I have for rent and he had his little PDA dealie that he whipped out and he told me that there were at least four unencrypted wireless signals in our apartment. I want to tap onto that. I want to shanghai the internet. How do I do that? Everything's floating out there, you just have to know how to catch it. I want to catch it. Help me.
Angry and sloppy has been and will be on hiatus for a little while. Thank you for your patience. The slate has been cleaned. It's refreshing. But there's nothing to grasp ahold. Build build build.
Lucas, Lucas, use the force! Let go, Lucas.
What happened?
He's turned off his computer.
Lukas? You switch off your effects computer.
I'm all right. I want to make good movies. Like the old Lukas did. With likable characters, and mythic storytelling. I want my effects covered in the blood sweat and tears of a commune of hippie geniuses. I'll hire somebody who knows how to write a good script. I'll hire a brilliant director--not necessarily young. I'll fire John William's staff and put a virus in his pro-tools and make him write in all the little dots like he did for the original movies. I'll forget this mad affair with 90's video game philosophy--it's bunk. I'll tear down The Starbucks on the ranch. You get one chance with your movie. You don't get to go back to it. Now, only at the end, do I understand. You make it good the first time. Like I used to. I know I'll never make another A New Hope, much less an Empire Strikes Back. Those movies were products of their times, infused with the ambiguous post-nuclear energy of the waning cold war years. We watched Star Wars and voted for Reagan. Obi wan or Darth Vader--choose your pick. RoTJ--that's all anyone was asking for. Computers suck. Costumes and models are cool. Duh. That's why we don't believe in the new movies. Computers worked for The Matrix because the movie was telling us that none of it was real. Well, WEE-HAA. IT'S NOT FLIPPING REAL, WE CARE A LOT, YES WE A-FLIPPING WEE-HAA DO. (I'm a worse criminal than you know what Jackson for molesting my own movies.) NOTHING'S REAL. WHOA. WIPPITY WEE HAA WEE HAA WEE HAA HAA. JAR JAR'S NOT JAR-WEE-HAH-REAL. Yahoo. Weehaa. WELL FLIPPING WEE-HAA DAMN-IT--AIN'T THAT A BROWN DONIE? Star Wars is REAL to some of us. The OLD ONE. WITH THE DIRTY MATTES. WITHOUT EXTRA DINOSAURS OR BOBA-WHO THE FLIPPING WEE HAA CARES-FETT. OLD ONE.
Wasn't RoTJ about man conquering technology? Is not form married to content? Guess what happens in the old movies--all those beautiful models they made--THEY GET ENTHUSIASTICALLY BLOWN-UP. MAN makes Pretty Things Man Blows em UP.
Now Movies?
MAN PLAYS PRETTY VIDEO GAME.
Old: Make pretty model.
Blow it up.
You get to blow it up. ONCE.
IT BLOWS UP RANDOMLY.
If it (organic) doesn't blow up (organic) like you thought it would (organic), all the better (organic.) Every (kid) likes to see things blown up. Every(one) likes to see things blown up. REAL THINGS.
Nothing but pixels blow up in NEW. I can do that at home. In my mind.
(As Dave the artist from Kansas said once in only a slightly different context, Where's the religion in that?)
Actually, how's this for symbolism.
This keayboard is making lots of aaa´s. AI´m in Madrid. No time. The Prado is closed todaya anda tomorrow soa IA can´t go in. Luckily Ia went in last month. No goyas thias time...
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh
a
What is GW doing about terroriasts,, in Texas or MAontana or Russia or the Middle easta keaepainag them from gettainag aanuclear weapons...a.
huhaa¿?A
I don´t want atoa ablow up!!!
I am so excited about getting my hands on this that I can hardly stand it.
Also, I'm kind of excited about the Hitchhiker's Guide movie. The TV series was just great. Perfectly cast and executed with great music. Pitch perfect, as they say. The movie has a lot to live up to.
And, uh, I'm having trouble with this particular computer connecting to the ftp site, so I don't know when I can share the experience of...well, I like you to experience it first hand...but let's just say that it has something to do with...
Snaillllsssss....
This is cool.
It reminds me of something I met to talk about earlier on, about the medical data chip. You know, the thing where a doctor can scan you and know your entire history. Maybe it has your religious affiliations and any mental problems, like anxiety or Judaism. I think that's a great idea. It would be really really really really really really really handy.
This is a heads up, because when I get back to the states this blog will regress back to its former state. That being composed of digressive rants about Werner Herzog and Hiking Related Amputations. And of the man who mailed himself. And possibly beer. Because I won't be getting no more of that Spanish wine.
Check the comments section of the previous post for an explanation of the world of hip hop bootleggers. Though it raises as many questions as it answers. Nonetheless, it is appreciated.
I am in Leslie's office right now. There is a bird chirping outside that has just the most beautiful birdsong. Echoing in the university courtyard. Yes, indeed, I will miss Spain. Last year I fell in love with Italy in about a month. It took me more than two months to decide that I loved Spain. But I do. Italy, Spain, and maybe France seem like primary colors of experience. That's a heinously (one might say grottily) western euro-centric, and pompous and basically racist thing to say. But I feel that at some level it must be true. Angry and Sloppy is not about avoiding controversy.
Here is my most favorite "quotable" line from Madame Bovary so far:
Human language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, when all the time we are longing to move the stars to pity.
"The trouble with you is that you don't know how to relax."
"And what's the best way of doing that?"
"If I were you I should invest in a lathe."
"But I don't know how to work a lathe."
"I hadn't thought of that," said the other, stroking his chin with a mingled air of contempt and satisfaction.
In the grotty youth hostel in Salamanca I talked to a guy from Saudi Arabia, and he wanted to know if I liked Tupac Shakir. Sure, I said. And so he had his stereo set up and his buds from Morocco and Algeria grooved to Tupac Shakir. And they had me come over and sit on the bunk with them listening to their music. They asked if I liked n----r music. Excuse me? I asked. You know, n----r music, and the Saudi Arabian guy, who told me to call him Nas, did a hip hop maneuver with his hands. We don´t use that word in the US, I said. We also call it Negro music, he said. That´s better, I said. Then they played me a song they said was Eminem. It was a guy rapping about Slim Shady, but I couldn´t quite recognize the voice. Then they played Hey Ya by Outkast, but the guy singing Hey Ya wasn´t the guy from Outkast, it was just some guy singing. And the background music didn´t quite match the original. I tried to explain to him that these weren´t the original tunes, but his English wasn´t very good and my Spanish is worthless, and so I think I may have just offended him. But where the hell does this music come from? Who makes this music? Is there some basement in Kuala Lampur where second-rate rappers migrate to to make third-rate knock offs of rap hits from the United States? Do they sell these in Arabic countries? Why not just sell bootleg copies of the originals? Or is there some vast bootlegged infastructure, whereby a copier of Eminem can pass his music off as the original, and then tour and promote his copied self from the United Emirates to Jordan to Egypt and who knows where else? I can´t wrap my mind around it. Has anyone else heard of this?
If you know of anyone who is looking for a room or two in Astoria, have them email me: meltmaster@aol.com
533 not including electricity. At the end of the N train in Ditmars. Second floor, access to roof.
I was, but I´m okay now. It was just an irrational fuming. I had already called this blhloag angry and sloppy, and so it was just there ready for me and my anger.
I am in Salamanca and it is utterly beautiful. It is definitely one of the highlights of my viaje. Unfortunately I left my camera in Burgos. So I will just have to make pictures out of words:
BIG PRETTY CATHEDRAL; OLD and small (ROMANESQUE)
BIG PRETTY CATHEDRAL; NEW AND BIG (LATE GOTHIC)
EVERYTHING TAN AND OLD LOOKING
WET COLD AND RAINY
GIANT PLAZA WITH 88 ARCHES AND FOUNTAINS
INTRICATE FILAGREE/WALLS/SCALLOP FILAGREE
UNIVERSITY, OLD; SPRAWLED EPICITY AND PRETTINESS
ANCIENT/MODERNIZED LIBRARY/STREAMING LIGHT
My travel haiku:
GROTTY HOSTEL
ONE MAN SNORING I realize
IS ME
I am so very angry.
Very, very angry.
So angry, there´s no room for sloppy.
So angry. So angry. So angry.
Very angry.
Anger. So precise. Not sloppy.
Not because of this.
Though that is reason enough to be angry.
I wish my anger was not so personal. I wish my anger was not so petty. I wish my anger was not ridiculous. But I cannot control it. I can recognize it as anger. And it must fume on its own. There is nothing I can do but be angry.
It is a black time. But there is a world of sunlight waiting for me. I know. It is beyond these malignant hills.
I am officially looking for work, now. If you hear of anything, let me know. I have worked as a steward in a Himalayan brothel, a card shark in Algiers, and a sous chef in for a secret pseudo-cannibalistic Zoroastriani restaurant in Uzbekistan. Seriously, though, I need a freakin´ job.
Guermantes Way was one of the best books I´ve ever read. It was so much better than Swann´s Way or In a Budding Grove. I hate to say it, but I think it outdoes Tolstoy, even though I think Tolstoy is still the best. I am looking forward to however many couple of thousand more pages I have to go in Remembrance of Things Past.
I´m sick of all the CD´s I brought. Mostly.
Also, congrats to Jason, my roommate back in Queens. He won the Slipstream Poetry Chapbook contest.
I don´t think it includes his Bar in Hell poem. We´ll have to wait for his first book of poetry. I see it now: ¨The Bar in Hell¨ new and selected poems by Jason Irwin.
I taught Leslie´s class about communism today. I feel bad because I think I was too harsh on Marxism in general. But it is just too damn easy to find faults. During my lecture I announced the section ¨What is Marxism good for?¨ And then I went into how the line of inquiry that Marxism began, that is the critique of Capitalism and the status quo in general that would not have otherwise existed. This is what makes Marxism vital. Karl Popper said, something to the effect of, Marx asked all the right questions, just had all the wrong answers. And in the middle of my spiel, one of the students, who actually was interested in the validity of Marxism and communism, interrupted me to say ask, "I´m sorry, I think I must have missed it, but you were going to speak about What is Marxism is good for?" So my commie grandparents will haunt me for not giving the party-line.
When Leslie was gone for vacation one of her students lived in her apartment with me. She had gotten pneuomonia and had been in the hospital, and was to convalesce in our place. She was 18. I think she hated me. All I did was write on Leslie´s laptop in the kitchen while listening to my weird music. I made her dinner a couple of times; she thanked me only once, and never offered to help pay for the cost of food. When she made peanut butter sandwiches she inadvertently squirted the jelly everywhere, like on the cutting board, and didn´t clean it up. She was very messy. I felt like I was taking care of a 12 year old. I hope I wasn´t like that when I was 18. When she left a note for Leslie she thanked her for the use of the apartment, but there was not a word to me. It was a good experience for me. The only people I was angry at were her parents, for raising such a spoiled brat. It felt good because I felt my age, and my age felt good.
The best and worst things in Spain:
Spanish TV
Spanish couples ostensibly in love.
Extremely drunk singing and yelling Spaniards
The best things in Spain:
Spanish Women
The Museums in Madrid
Barcelona
Tapas, especially in Granada (free)
The worst things in Spain:
Accordian music
Tourists
Waiters or Bartenders who wouldn´t serve me for some reason
Hostel Scrod/Grottiness
Losing one of my sandals
Foot/let pain from walking
Farting people on long-distance buses
More favorites:
The time Cher called David Letterman an asshole
Spanish Women
Muttering old men or women
40 year-old women with 25-year old butts
Hash
More least favorites:
Euro versus American Dollar
Germans who don´t know Can or Werner Herzog (All of them.)
The canadian girl I tried to hook-up with but ditched me for the dude from California.
Favorites:
Missing the NY winter
My Roommate
Whiskey-flavored Ice-cream
The Bunuel exhibition at the Reina-Sofia
Doner Kabab for 3 euros (when it doesn´t make you sick)
Least favorites:
Young Americans who make me cringe with their spine-twinging, unabashed ignorance and eager, dumbly ostentatious manner. Evil.
Jerks in Hostels who tried to steal my money.
The jerk with the stick up his ass who went ballistic on the Spanish Kid; the kid was raging drunk and couldn´t stop moaning loudly "Maria es Muerte!"
The strange middle-aged brit in the San Sebastian hostel.
are gone, obviously. I will get them back on-line in a week or two. They have been moved to a new server and I have to go in and copy and paste the new web address. Unless there´s a faster way to do it.
So my blog is a lot less exciting now. The pictures felt like clothing. Without them I´m naked.
Naked words. Nothing here but just naked words.
I still have another month in Spain. I will go to Salamanca in a week or so; other than that it´s just Burgos Burgos Burgos. I have been investigating the limits of this little city. It´s quite beautiful. And the other parts that aren´t so beautiful remind me in a melancholickly, nostalgic way of Aurora and other places I have lived and visited.
Guermantes Way is a much better and easier read than Swann´s Way and In a Budding Grove, just so you know.
I saw there was a comment about my sudden boredom with Picasso. I have to say, after seeing the Barcelona Picasso museum, I´ve reversed my opinion. I relent, he´s amazing, genius, etc. His copies of Las Menininas were pretty invigorating. And, yes, his erotic work is spicy. I really like his pottery, too.
While we wait for more pictures, maybe we could have a discussion about the state of fiction. Is fiction still a valid art form? I am not saying that it necessarily is. As a sub-investigation of this question, what is your opinion of meta-fiction? I submit to the investigators that all fiction is meta-fiction; what I mean by this is that every author in writing his or her fiction must decide¨"what" his or fiction is, and therefore his or her fiction is unavoidably a statement about what fiction is, therefore it is¨"meta."
