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8
- 9 TUES
I'm in such a good mood today! I can feel energy and
endorphins coursing through my veins like electricity! I just delivered a series
of devastating martial arts moves to my invisible Ninja opponent while walking
down the hall and ended the combo-move with a magic Chi fireball that I could
actually feel launching through my hands! I just talked to a friend on the phone
and she was baffled by my joy because apparently I'm normally a big raincloud of
anti-joy, and she asked why I was so happy and I told her I didn't want to
analyze it because then my brain, which is an evil dystopian government like in
"1984", would realize that there's been a security breach, an unlawful release
of contraband emotions, and would shut down the whole operation. Ok I'm gonna go
now, bye!
That's me kayaking into the sunset
8
- 6 FRI
Came home today to find my roommates hosting a large scale
party. Thought about socializing, but too many backward hats on the scene.
Intimidated. Hid in my room and did artsy fag stuff.
8
- 4 WED
I'm in my very first class-action lawsuit!
Seems one of my past auto insurance companies was involved in
a little of the old "price fixin", like in "cahoots" with the
private insurance agents, and now they have to pay the piper, which is me.
I agreed to settle out of court, and now I've got 7 big ones coming my way.
And when I say "big ones", I'm not talking about nickels, I'm talking
dollars. Legal. Tender.
Finally, the judicial system works for me!
7
- 31 SUN
The Ferry again! This time I went to Orcas island to stay out
at this sweet waterfront villa that my friends Tara and Jenni were
borrowing from some rich people. Just chilled all day with my ladyfriends,
playing guitar on the veranda overlooking the Peugeot Sound while the
gentle pacific breeze played with my hair. Also cooked a pizza in a muffin tin
because they didn't have a cookie sheet or pizza stone, and ended up with pizza
cupcakes that made me effin' sick.
Had a fateful encounter of the woman variety on the Ferry. I ended up sitting
by this girl in the waiting room. Didn't get a good look at her face because she
was wrapped in her sweatshirt hood, but she seemed maybe attractive. Got on the Ferry and
looked around for her so I could sit by her, couldn't find her, gave up and sat
in a random place, got out my book and read. About 20 minutes later I look up
and--woah!--there she is, sitting three seats away from me, the only other
person in this part of the boat. Still didn't get a good look at her, but then
we disembarked, and Tara picked me up at the dock, and as we're driving
out--guess who's standing on the side of the road with her thumb out? Uh huh,
her. But Tara didn't pick her up because she wanted to thwart my destiny.
Later she said she was doing me a favor because the girl
wasn't actually that cute but since I never really got to see her or meet her
now she can live forever perfect in my mind. Hmmph.
|
ISAAC. |
|
|
What, Blue Space? |
|
.YOUR "ONLINE
MAGAZINE" HAS BECOME RATHER BLOG-LIKE HASN'T IT? |
|
What? No! This is not a blog! Blogs are stupid. |
|
YOU USED TO HAVE
ARTICLES, REGULAR FEATURES, PICTURES, GAMES, AND FUN, LIKE A
MAGAZINE. NOW IT IS MOSTLY JUST YOUR DAILY THOUGHTS, ISN'T IT? |
|
Well... |
|
VERY BLOG-LIKE. |
|
Damn. I guess you're kind of right. What should I do? No one
wants to read another personal blog do they? I'm going going to lose all my
subscribers. |
|
.WHAT
YOU NEED TO DO IS ASSESS YOUR AUDIENCE'S NEEDS. WHAT IS YOUR
PRIMARY DEMOGRAPHIC, AND WHAT CAN YOU DO TO APPEAL TO THAT
DEMOGRAPHIC? REGULARLY ASSESSING YOUR DEMOGRAPHIC IS ONE OF THE
7 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE. |
|
How do I assess my demographic? |
|
.IT'S
NOT EASY. BUT FORTUNATELY I USED TO BE A MARKET CONSULTANT FOR THE
YOUNG HIP-HOP GROUP "KRISS-KROSS" DURING THEIR "HEYDAY", SO I DO
KNOW MY WAY AROUND A DEMOGRAPHIC. I HELPED CREATE AN AUDIENCE FOR
HITS SUCH AS "I MISSED THE BUS", AND TEST-MARKETED THEIR
COMMERCIALS FOR HERSHEYS CHOCOLATE BARS. (CAN YOU HANDLE IT? JUST
PURE MILK CHOCOLATE.) |
|
Ok, great! So what's the first step? |
|
.WHERE
HAVE MOST OF YOUR NEW READERS BEEN COMING FROM LATELY? |
|
Well, the link on the Relient K band website. Pretty much all
of them have come from there in the last few months. |
|
.PERFECT.
I AM SURE A POP MUSIC SUPERPOWER LIKE RELIENT K HAS ALREADY DONE
THEIR MARKET RESEARCH. JUST ASK RELIENT K FRONTMAN MATT THIESSEN
WHAT HIS PRIMARY DEMOGRAPHIC IS, AND YOU HAVE YOUR ANSWERS. |
|
I think they probably have a lot of young fans, right? Like
teenagers and stuff? |
|
.I'M
AFRAID I WOULDN'T KNOW, SINCE I ONLY LISTEN TO THE MUSIC OF EXPERIMENTAL
GERMAN ELECTRONIC COMPOSER PAUL LANSKY, AND NOTHING ELSE.
BUT IF YOU ARE RIGHT AND RELIENT K'S DEMOGRAPHIC--AND THUS, BURNING
BUILDING'S DEMOGRAPHIC--IS COMPOSED LARGELY OF TEENAGERS, WE HAVE
A LOT OF WORK TO DO. |
|
But I don't want to dumb everything down just to appeal to
kids. I mean I'm already cleaning it up to appeal to Christians and not piss off
my family. (by the way, any of you still reading this publication, family? Let
me know when you quit reading so I can start talking dirty, ok?) |
|
YOU DON'T HAVE TO DUMB
IT DOWN TO APPEAL TO TEENAGERS. YOU JUST HAVE TO STOP USING SO
MANY BIG WORDS AND COMPLEX SENTENCES, STOP WRITING OBSERVATIONS
ABOUT LIFE (ESPECIALLY PHILOSOPHICAL OBSERVATIONS) STOP
WRITING THINGS THAT AREN'T MEANT TO BE HILARIOUS, AND TURN YOUR HUMOR STYLINGS
IN A MORE SLAPSTICK DIRECTION. |
|
Hmmm. Give me a for instance. |
|
.FOR
INSTANCE, OLD WOMEN WITH BEARDS, AND GIRLS FALLING OFF THEIR BIKES--THAT
IS FUNNY. THAT IS
"MONEY" FUNNY. BUT DESCRIPTIONS OF THE SKY AND
THOUGHTS ABOUT YOUR LOST CHILDHOOD? THAT IS NOT FUNNY. KIDS WANT
"HAROLD AND KUMAR GO TO WHITE CASTLE", NOT "THE REMAINS OF THE
DAY". AM I MAKING SENSE, ISAAC? |
|
Well...yeah I guess. I'm not sure I can pull this off,
though. |
|
.DON'T
YOU WANT TO SEE ACTION-FIGURES OF YOU AND I MANUFACTURED AND SOLD
TO CHILDREN? |
|
Yeah, that would be pretty awesome. Wait, how would they make
an action figure out of you, Blue Space? All it would be is like...a big blue
plastic rectangle. With like...orange stuff on it. |
|
.PLEASE
DON'T BE SILLY, ISAAC. YOU KNOW THERE IS MORE TO ME THAN THE BLUE
RECTANGLE AND ORANGE STUFF. |
|
Well like what? A face? Arms? Do you have an actual body?
What are you exactly? |
|
.LET'S
JUST SAY THAT IT TAKES MORE THAN A BLUE RECTANGLE WITH ORANGE
STUFF TO SERVE AS MILITARY ADVISOR TO THE KHMER ROUGE AND
SUCCESSFULLY ROMANCE JULIE ANDREWS ALL WHILE RIDING A UNICYCLE
BLINDFOLDED. |
|
Um, fair enough.
Thanks for your help, Blue Space. I'm going to
go work on my slapstick humor. Goodnight.
7 -
30 SAT
I went to a nice wedding today, out on Lopez Island. The
bride is a Burning Building subscriber! (Congratulations Lara.) Me and a few
friends took the Ferry out there. It was a nice little low-key ceremony in
a classic little "wedding chapel" type chapel, only 30 or 50 people there, so I
felt surprisingly honored to be there. I don't know if I've ever felt honored to
be invited to a wedding before. This feeling was amplified quite a bit by the
reception--they took us to a nice little cafe type restaurant where we
were served gourmet food, wine, and desert, just for being their friends.
Damn!
After treatment like this it's hard to deal with the carrot
sticks and kool-aid you get at most weddings.
7 -
29, FRI
Today I finally broke free from the tyranny of music. At
least for a few hours. See, people who work at the Tallest Building in the World
get very few days off. No vacation time, no holidays, not even lunch or 10
minute breaks. It's a fast-paced work environment that tolerates no slacking,
and if you want to get ahead you'd better be the first to clock in and the last
to clock out. But today, morale was just too low, even though it was Casual Friday,
so we all said screw it and went kayaking. (A proper activity for
the Young Recreating Professional as defined by Might magazine.)
Me and my Tallest Building co-worker, Jared, along with a few
others, took kayaks down to the river below our house and floated down to the
nearest quality beer establishment.
Then, after beers, Jared loaded our kayaks into his School Bus
(he's a bus driver, remember?) and we cruised around town in a school bus full
of kayaks, like some kind of group of zany wacky fun-loving young people!
A
welcome respite from the dark hot confines of the Tallest Building studio, and a
noticeable boost to the office Morale Meter. (we raised it 20 degrees!
We're cooking in the mid 70s now.)
Also today, probably for the first time in my life, I found myself
feeling overjoyed upon learning someone had just died.
And it wasn't Osama bin Laden or Jessica Simpson or anyone I
know, it was just some old lady at a nursing home.
But see, I had just arrived to set up a hospital bed and
oxygen for her, which is a huge hassle. I was really tired and hungry and
eager to take my lunch. So I walked into the facility and told the nurse what I
was there for, and she goes, "Oh, I don't think we'll be needing that. She just
passed away." And I go "Woohoooo!", and then I go, "Woah! That's not right is
it?"
But nevertheless. I can not deny. This announcement made my
day. So lady, whoever you were...thanks for dying?
|
BE CAREFUL ISAAC. |
|
|
What? |
|
THAT PATH LEADS TO THE
DARK SIDE. |
|
Oh come on. Don't you start quoting Star Wars at me. That
path leads to nerddom.
|
|
STAR WARS? I HAVE
NEVER SEEN ANY OF THOSE FILMS. |
|
Yeah. |
|
.THEY
ARE ABOUT BOXING, RIGHT? |
|
Give me a break Blue Space, you expect me to believe
you've never seen--or even become familiar with--the Star Wars sextilogy?
They've had massive impact on our culture and even changed the way people talk.
Key Star Wars dialogue has infiltrated everyday language. |
|
AH, NOW I KNOW WHAT
YOU MEAN. "ADRIEENNNNNNN!!!" |
|
No, like what you just said about the Dark Side. |
|
.I DON'T
UNDERSTAND. IS THE DARK SIDE THE HIGH TECH GYMNASIUM WHERE
DOLPH LUNDGREN'S CHARACTER TRAINS? |
|
Yes. |
|
.I SEE. |
|
7 -
28 (evening)
Something I forgot to mention in my description of the world
as I know it. The breeze these days...that mild breeze that softens the sun's
heat, it's so pleasant I feel like I can taste it. Sometimes I just stand
on my back deck overlooking the river and soak in it. (The breeze, not the
river. The river is full of human sewage dumped by farmers further up stream.)
It feels almost medical somehow. Like a salve that's being gently rubbed over
third-degree burns by a beautiful nurse with deep blue eyes and dark brown
hair--(sound of record scratching, music stops)
Well, anyway, when I was driving back from Concrete today I had the window
down and my arm out and I was waving my hand all around in the wind, you know,
catching lift like an airplane wing and stuff. It's so cool how the air becomes
thick when it's wind. Like you can actually feel it pressing around your hand
like some kind of soft, cushiony substance. It's almost like there's an
invisible shape there, which you can feel and run your hands over, smooth and
pliant, like the curves of a woman--(sound of record scratching, music stops.)
Well, I mean, you know.
|
|
 |
|
I was out in Laconner on deliveries today, and I realized I was just a few miles
away from where I lived when I was 5 and 6. I drove by the old house and felt
like I was going to pass out. It was so surreal. It's the strangest kind of rush
seeing places you haven't seen in years. All my childhood memories are vivid but
somehow detached from reality. I want to start revisiting all those locales to
prove to my mind that my childhood really happened, and I wasn't just built from
spare parts or dropped out of the sky.
7 -
28
Drove to Concrete again today. This place is about 30-40
miles East of where I live, sortof embedded in the Cascade Mountains. I know in
my head that there are towns beyond it, but part of me feels like there's an
unknown world over the mountains. The town and the way it's just dropped all
alone on Highway 20, it feels like it's the last outpost of civilization before
you enter some kind of magical no-man's-land.
|
|
Sleepy hill-country village? Or portal to
Fantasy Land? |
|
7 -
27
I was just outside naked in the moonlight getting this
computer out of my car, and of course the motion sensor light on the garage
clicks on and there I am naked in front of the neighbors' house, again. (Well
last time I was only half naked, but I was waving a sword around (a 5-foot
medieval replica) when the light clicked on, so that might have been even worse.)
Backing up a little, it's 3 am right now and I've been laying in bed trying to
sleep for like 2 hours, but I can't sleep because my mind is too full of
stuff!! so I decided to just get up and try to do something to settle my
mind. So I went out in the driveway to get this laptop out of my car, and along
the way I saw that there was a full moon and it was all white and magical so I
figured hey, and I took off my boxers and proceeded to the car with my pale
white ass rivaling the moon. Then of course the motion sensor light came on and
ruined my communion with nature and the Lunar goddess.
Stupid technology ruining my communion with nature and the
Lunar goddess.
Ok, brain, I've paid the toll, I've fed you and indulged you
and entertained your every whim, now for the love of God let me sleep.
(evening)
A house was being demolished outside my work today. I went
out and stood on the sidewalk while a backhoe took big greedy bites out of the
walls. It was really incredible--there was no caution or care to it, this machine
was just chomping on a house, biting into the frame with huge metal teeth
and tearing off hunks of wall like a lion mutilating a gazelle. The crunching
sounds were incredibly satisfying to listen to, the sound of stud walls and
windows cracking and shattering, actually a lot like the sound of a giant
crunching on a giant-size Tim's Cascade Style Thick-Cut Potato Chip. You could see
the entire house jump whenever it pulled off a bite. POWER.
7 -
26
Let me try to
describe what the world is like today.
You're walking
outside and the colors are intoxicating, the sky is so blue and the grass so
green that you can almost see the color itself oozing out of things in
liquid form like paint. The sun is doing this, so bright that it's igniting your
surroundings, and you have to squint just enough that everything becomes
slightly blurry and wrapped in a white haze like a TV show dream. Solid objects
seem to move and shift as if alive and fluid, maybe dancing. You hear the
beeping of construction machinery smothered in lush reverb from a great
distance, coming at you from multiple directions in rich stereo, even seeming to
come from above like chimes in the upper heavens. Walking down a little gravel
alley behind the warehouse where you work, you have the sense of infinite
size, that the relatively flat, 2 dimensional earthbound world you live in
actually extends upward into a vast echoing vault of blue sky, and also
downward, and inward, and in directions you can't usually even perceive,
directions of sound and time and experience, the size of the world
contained within your own head, so that you feel like you're not standing on
solid ground at all but floating in the center of a vast and infinite sphere
that contains everything in frikkin existence!
I'm in a good mood today. |
|
These girls are in a good mood too.
I took this from my Option Care van while out on deliveries. It
was really windy out and these girls were trying to fly with these
umbrellas. Cuteness belongs on film! |
|
(...later same day...)
It's evening now and my ever-practical brain has isolated the
factors that are contributing to my good mood today, a process which has of
course drained some of the magic. But I'm still in a good mood today, and I
think that the above description really is what the world is, but our dulled
senses usually don't have the capacity to see it that way. Like we're walking
around with our fingers in our ears all the time, and eeeevery so often, we
accidentally slip, and pull a finger out, and for a split second we hear all
this clarity and detail and richness of sound come pouring in and then the
finger goes back in and it's muffled again, and we're like "Woah! What was that?
Oh well. Off to work!"
This is just a stupid little Larry David-esque observation,
but why are keyholes almost always upside down? I mean everyone knows what
direction a key goes--any drawing or photo or representation of a key will
always show the teeth facing down and the smooth side up. And yet at
least half of the keyholes out there (in America, out there in America, in
the great wide countryside of America) are set so you have to invert the key to
make it go in. Damn them for doing this, and ruining my perception of an orderly
world.
|
|
7 -
24
I wrote a new story:
MAMMALIAN THING IN THE WOODS
7 -
23
(somewhere in dreamland....)
I am working in a gigantic hotel inside a tall black
skyscraper (the Tallest Building in the World?). It's my first day on the job,
and Bill Cosby is my supervisor. He's telling me what my duties for the day are,
and they include things like cleaning rooms, stocking the refreshments, etc, but
also giving people haircuts.
He hands me assignment sheets for all the people who need haircuts and shampoos,
and there are about 16 or more. He notices the look on my face and says, "Is
there a problem, son?" I say "Well, I can try it but do these people know I have
never given a haircut in my life?"
Bill Cosby gets this teacherly look on his face and says, "Come with me, son, I
want to show you something." He takes me out of the hotel and drives me to some
kind of museum that he founded, and I can sense that he's going to give me a
lesson about how he started with nothing and got where he is today because he
was willing to take risks, or how hard work always pays off or something.
As we're going up some kind of lift outside the museum to get to the upper
floors, I tell him that he brought me here to give me lessons about hard work
and determination, but his plan backfired because now that I'm at this height I
just realized what I really want to do with my life is be a SUPERHERO, and I
jump off the lift and grab a powerline, and I swing on the powerline like Batman
on a bat-line, swinging from line to line and somehow getting thousands of feet
into the air, laughing like a maniac. This is exhilarating, and Bill Cosby is
left far behind.
7 -
22
I was cleaning my room today with my computer playing mp3s on
shuffle, and "Aegetis Bryjin" by Sigur Ros came on and stopped me in my tracks.
Vague memories of a time and a me that are both long gone came flooding in. I
felt like crying, partially from the sadness of that time (they were actually
pretty sad times) and part from pity for that young Isaac, that idealistic boy
moving out of his parent's house and starting a life in a big bachelor pad, the
futile chasing of icy girls and the deep deep passion and misery that he felt. I
see him like a person separate from me, like a character in a movie that I
deeply empathize with, and I feel so sorry for him, wherever he is, probably
long dead. That poor guy. I envy him so much. Can we trade places? Please?
7 -
20
I'm standing on the sidewalk today, and from some great
distance I hear a car horn honking steadily--honk, honk, honk, honk, honk, honk,
and so on. I go about my business, thinking it's just somebody's alarm, but then
I notice it's getting closer. I stop and listen as it approaches. A minute
later, a beat up old sedan rounds the corner, horn blaring, and I see two young
women in the front seat cringing and trying to shrink into the seats. As they
pass by me the driver shrugs desperately and points to the dashboard, mouths
something like "it's the car!", then they drive by, and their horn gradually
fades into the distance.
Another hearty laugh at the expense of girls in vehicles on the street.
(see here)
7 -
17
I finally found out Goatina's
gender. It seems she's female-- her name is Mary. Ah the wonders of nature.
7 -
13
I was chasing a jet today--the sky was totally clear blue,
that thick dark blue that looks like you could stick your face into it
and drink it, and there was a jet flying directly above me, slicing a white
trail right over my head. I was following it in my van, and it really seemed
like I was gaining. It lost me in a clump of trees.
I walk into a care facility to deliver oxygen today and
there's this man/woman sitting near the door--I wasn't sure which because it
seemed to be wearing woman-style clothes under it's hospital gown and its voice
sounded feminine, but it had a very visible goatee upon it's chin. Anyway I
walked in the door and Goatina says to me, "Are you the spaceman?" and I say,
"No, I'm not." I go deliver the oxygen, and on my way out I see Goatina having
an argument with one of the nurses. As I approach the keypad to enter the secret
door code...
Goatina (angrily): Don't let him out.
Nurse: Why not?
Goatina: He's supposed to be the spaceman! He's
supposed to stay here!
Me: (stifled laughter)
7 -
11
Today was crying weather. It was this certain temperature and
humidity and there was a slight misty sprinkle in the air so that it actually
felt like I was crying. And then just like how sad
thoughts cause crying, the reverse happened and the artificial feeling of crying
filled my head with sad thoughts. So then I almost really did cry. Is this just
the weather or do I need help?
7 -
9
First I just want to say, if you're reading this on Firefox,
you're looking at a really ugly webpage with cheesy shaded borders that looks
like it was made for Geocities circa 1995. That's not what it's supposed
to look like, and I don't know how to fix it. Stupid Firefox, making my web
fashion-sense look dated...
My wrist hurts and there's a little bump on the backside of
my wrist that continues to grow. Not on the skin, but inside the wrist,
like on the tendons. It's kindof scary. I think I have wrist cancer.
|
.IT
SOUNDS LIKE A "BIBLE THUMPER CYST", ISAAC. |
|
|
A what? |
|
.A TYPE
OF CYST FOUND COMMONLY ON HANDS OR WRISTS, PEOPLE HAVE BEEN KNOWN
TO BURST THEM BY PLACING A BIBLE ON THE WRIST AND THEN "WHACKING"
IT. |
|
That's ridiculous. Why a Bible? Is this cyst vampire-related?
That sounds like something only people in the South
would do. |
|
.THAT
MAY BE THE CASE. NEVERTHELESS, THAT'S PROBABLY WHAT YOU HAVE, AND
IT SHOULD GO AWAY ON IT'S OWN EVENTUALLY. |
|
On what authority are you diagnosing me, Blue Space? What
gives you the right? |
|
.WELL, I
WORKED AS AN EMT IN HAITI FOR 5 YEARS, SO I DO HAVE SOME MEDICAL
KNOWLEDGE, BUT I AM NO LONGER CERTIFIED, SO YOU CAN TAKE MY
PRESCRIPTIONS WITH "A GRAIN OF SALT". |
|
Haha, right. They don't have EMTs in Haiti.
|
|
.YES
THEY DO. |
|
Haiti's version of an Emergency Medical Technician is the guy
who sees that you're in an emergency and then clubs you over the head and takes your
money. |
|
.YOU ARE
GENERALIZING, ISAAC. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO HAITI? |
|
No. But I've seen those "Clean Water for Haiti" missions
fliers. It's a dive country, man. |
|
.WELL,
THAT IS TRUE. IT'S POSSIBLE THEY DO NO LONGER HAVE EMTS IN HAITI.
I WORKED THERE BETWEEN 325 AND 320 B.C, WHICH WAS HAITI'S "GOLDEN
AGE". |
|
.......? |
|
THEY WERE GOOD YEARS. |
|
You're freaking me
out.
|
.THE
GOD-EMPEROR AZNE WAS IN POWER AT THE TIME, AND ALTHOUGH HE
REQUIRED BI-MONTHLY BLOOD SACRIFICE, HIS GREAT POWER--BOTH
POLITICAL AND MAGICAL--HELPED STABILIZE THE REGION FOR SEVERAL
CENTURIES. |
|
|
Ok, goodnight everybody. |
|
I ONLY LEFT BECAUSE I
GOT TRANSFERRED TO MESOPOTAMIA. |
|
Goodnight everybody.
7 -
8
Why do fire trucks have to be such egomaniacs? I'm driving on
this wide open road in the middle of nowhere, and this firetruck comes down the
road with lights flashing. The car in front of me pulls over like the sheep it
is, but there's no one in front of the firetruck and there's plenty of room on
the road, so I pull over slightly but keep driving. The firetruck freaking
honks at me! Like "How dare you not scatter before me?! I am the FIRETRUCK."
Get over yourself, firetruck.
7 -
7
Nursing homes, especially "Memory Care" facilities, are scary
and unsettling places. You're walking through these narrow corridors. There are
old people sitting all around, some of them in chairs along the walls but many
just randomly deposited in the middle of the room, slumped over in their
wheelchairs, all still and silent and unnoticed like pieces of furniture. You
hear music in the distance, different songs from different rooms clashing in
dissonance. You pass by a group of residents that has been arranged in rows in
front of a laptop computer that's just sitting there playing an Mp3. They all
give it blank-eyed attention, and you pass by nervously. There are people
wandering through the halls, muttering to themselves and looking totally lost.
Sometimes they ask you unintelligible questions as you walk past, and you have
no idea what to say. Where's Jerry? He probably died in World War I. It's really
sad and disturbing to think about what state these folks are in. Do they have
any idea where they are? Are they even seeing the same hallway I'm seeing, or
are they roaming through some nightmare place with rusty walls and alien music
and incomprehensible things lurking behind crooked doors?
Something I've thought about alot since working for Option Care is the human
lifespan, and why should science be working so hard to prolong it if this is the
reward? It's like we've crossed some unnatural threshold and now we have these
people that are basically ghosts living in this purgatory-type place that was
never meant to exist. Freaky.
Something interesting: Nursing homes, retirement homes, care
facilities, and assisted living centers all have these security locks on their
doors that have to be opened by entering a code on a keypad. And in order to
keep the residents from figuring out the code and escaping, they all have these
Zelda-like riddles and puzzles with hints and clues that have to be solved in
order the learn the code and open the door. Apparently they figure the residents
are too addled to figure them out, while a sharp-witted youth like myself will
have no problem. Not always the case, though.
When the door unlocks, I like to whistle that little "doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-DOO"
puzzle-solved jingle.
7 -
6
I saw this really hip looking girl riding her bike downtown,
talking on her cell phone and looking like Queen Cool. She lost her balance a
little and swerved out of the way of a telephone pole, and I started to chuckle,
but then she totally lost it and just completely wiped out on the pavement.
Then she got up, still on her phone, and looked around to see if
anyone saw it. It was indescribably funny.
7 - 5
I heard this radio
commercial for Coors beer featuring this guy Jesse James, who I
gather has something to do with all that annoying west coast
chopper bullshit merchandise you see everywhere. He was talking
about how he would go about making a great beer, and he said
something like, "Well since beer is mostly water, I guess I'd
start with the best water I could find..." and went on to talk
about how Coors uses only the best mountain spring water and so
on, but I wasn't listening anymore because lightning had just
struck my brain. Why start with water to make great beer? What if
you started with beer!? And then when that beer
has been brewed into beer, what if you took that superbeer and
then used it to brew beer!?
You can see where this is
leading.
...the Ultimate Beer.
7 - 4
Employees of The Tallest
Building in the World beat themselves mercilessly today for the
sake of their music. We went to an indoor soccer arena and pounded
on the walls to a beat. There were a lot of beats, and my fists
are properly blistered and bruised. We also smashed computer
monitors to a beat, in like a symbolic act of defiance to
technological servitude or something.
Album is getting very close
to completion. If I could just kick these allergies so I could
sing.
Fireworks tonight. I lay out
on the grass and they were so close and so directly overhead that
it was like I was flying through psychedelic starfields in
psychedelic space. To the right of this dreamy experience, a band
called Midlife Crisis played and a Hawaiian shirt-wearing fatbald
man sang cover songs and jerked and strutted around the stage like
Mick Jagger.
Later I watched another
movie where people quote lines from plays while gazing dreamily
into space, and my room-mate felt-up my parents' dog.
I think I'm going to just
marry the next ho that makes eye contact and get to sexin'. I mean
enough is enough.
These allergies are making
me a bad person. Avoid me.
6 - 24
Delivered oxygen to an 800 lb naked man today. He was sitting
on his bed wearing just a huge t-shirt that sortof kindof covered his areas. I
walked in and he said, "Excuse my nakedity."
Later he moved and I was exposed to some not-so-scenic vistas.
I want to live somewhere that's wide and expansive and always
warm with a strong breeze. I love a good breeze. Breeze is important to me.
Also, something's wrong with me. I don't exactly feel sick,
but my body doesn't feel normal. I haven't been sleeping well lately. Been
having an excessive amount of dreams and nightmares and waking up unnaturally
early, then just laying there at awkward angles listening to my neck stiffen.
This girl that morphed from a simple failed crush to the
Living Symbol of All My Rejections and Insecurities is getting married tonight.
They're eloping and getting hitched in Vegas. Vegas? Vegas.
Doesn't really matter now, though. This person isn't really a person
anymore so much as a concept. She is New York, she is class and sophistication,
she is the D.C music scene, black clothes and martinis and nightclubs and other
things I dream about but can't have. Which is ridiculous of course because she
isn't these things, but that doesn't even matter anymore because the concept
has taken on a life of it's own. Isn't that weird? I mean, how do I get that
concept from a local church girl who was raised around Llamas?
My body hates my brain and seeks to undermine its every move.
In a social situation where I need to do a lot of talking? My mouth goes dry
like sticky leather. Need to do some singing? My nasal passages constrict to
allow no air through. Talking to a girl and need to act cool? All of the above
plus sweaty palms. My body is living disproof of evolution. Either that or
that's why I'm not reproducing.
6 - 23
I was driving today and a group of whack-looking people
flagged me down, and this girl who looked 21 and 68 at the same time with
missing teeth and weird scars on her chest asked if I could give her a ride to
the end of the road. Just like 200 feet down to the end of the road, because she
was barefoot and her feet hurt. She seemed absolutely desperate. She wanted me
to take her group too but they were too scary looking and they had a big dog and
my car's not very big, so I said just the girl. I took her and dropped her off
on the river dike where she apparently lived, in the forest back there. It was
weird, and really sad.
6 - 22
I ate at Tacos Gueymas today. How frightening would it be to
be eating here with someone and to notice that they aren't getting any
taco slop on their hands? You just look at them and realize their hands are
totally clean, and have been through the whole meal. I would assume the person
was some kind of supernatural entity, and run.
Why do I have to suck so bad at recording vocals? It's like
there was an explosion at the suck factory and all the suck in the world came
raining down on our studio and straight into my larynx, making me suck so bad
that even people who suck stop sucking for a moment and think, "Wow, that guy
sucks!"
|
.I WOULD
BE HAPPY TO LEND MY VOCAL TALENTS TO YOUR PROJECT, ISAAC. |
|
|
Oh, hi Blue Space. Sorry about leaving you
locked in the car--it must have been getting pretty hot in there. |
|
I STILL HAD AT LEAST
FIVE MINUTES OF BREATHABLE AIR WHEN I MADE MY EGRESS. |
|
Well, I'm glad you found a way out. Oh, and
welcome back to the uh...show, or whatever. Blue Space, ladies and
gentlemen, Blue Space. I finally found him yesterday standing in some driveways
in rural Seattle. God knows how he managed to hitch rides that far
south with that face of his. It doesn't exactly scream, "pick me
up, I wont kill you!", that face.
|
|
.BY MOST
NORTH AMERICAN STANDARDS OF BEAUTY MY FACE IS CONSIDERED RATHER
ATTRACTIVE, ISAAC. |
|
Yeah well those are the same standards of beauty that say Jessica
Simpson's face is attractive.
|
....TOUCHÉ.
A FENCING TERM. |
|
|
Anyway, I found him standing in these trashy
driveways--they weren't even nice driveways, they were all
full of potholes and oil stains and had steep inclines that must
be hell getting up in the winter if it gets icy.....(pause for a
moment.)
(A Zen moment.)
(Peace.)
If I was going
to be standing in driveways for a few months..........I'd find some nice
ones............Real nice ones.
(Peace.)
(There. You may resume.)
When I found him he was in one of the
unlocked cars digging for the chip fragments that fall down into
the seat when you eat chips in the car. I think that's what he's
been surviving on this whole time actually.
|
|
.ISAAC,
YOU ARE EMBARRASSING ME. DO YOU WANT MY VOCAL TALENTS OR DON'T
YOU? I AM A NATIONALLY RENOWNED STUDIO VOCALIST. |
|
What are you talking about,
Blue Space? Studio Vocalist? |
|
.YES.
YOU SHOULD BE FAMILIAR WITH CONCEPT OF STUDIO MUSICIANS, ISAAC.
BANDS COMPOSED OF LESS-THAN-MASTERFUL MUSICIANS CAN NOT AFFORD TO
WASTE THOUSANDS OF HOURS AND DOLLARS WAITING FOR THEIR OWN MEMBERS
TO NAIL THAT GUITAR RIFF OR SINK THAT DRUM FILL. SO THEY CALL IN
MORE HIGHLY SKILLED PLAYERS TO STEP IN AND PLAY TO PERFECTION WHAT
WOULD OTHERWISE BE A COSTLY MESS. THERE ARE STUDIO MUSICIANS FOR
EVERY INSTRUMENT YOU CAN THINK OF, FROM GUITARS TO DRUMS TO
ZITHERS. I MYSELF AM A STUDIO VOCALIST. |
|
You record singers' vocals for them?
|
.YES. I
HAVE STEPPED IN TO HANDLE THE VOCALS ON MANY OF YOUR FAVORITE
ARTISTS' RECORDINGS, SUCH AS DAVID BOWIE, SLIPKNOT, LINDSAY LOHAN,
ERIC CLAPTON, NORAH JONES, INSANE CLOWN POSSE, MARIAH CAREY, 50 CENT, SIGUR ROS, JESSICA
SIMPSON, AND LARRY THE CABLE GUY. I AM A PROFESSIONAL. LET ME HELP
ON YOUR PROJECT AND I WILL MAKE "THE TALLEST BUILDING IN THE
WORLD" INTO A HOUSEHOLD NAME. |
|
|
Interesting. I'm not quite to that point of
desperation yet, but then again there are still 8 1/2 songs to go.
Let me sleep on it a while ok? |
|
.SLEEP
ON IT, THEN, BUT DON'T SLEEP THE SLEEP OF THE DREAMER, TOO LONG OR
TOO EARNESTLY, BECAUSE REMEMBER, HE WHO SLEEPS FIRST WAKES LAST. |
|
What?
|
.WHAT? |
|
|
Nevermind. I have to go record a choir in 35 minutes.
Goodnight readership. Blue Space. There's a few burrito-ends under
the throw rug that should still be good, help yourself. Goodnight
people of America.
6 - 19
I used to wonder if somewhere there were people laughing at
me for doing this website. Like derisive laughter, not amused laughter. But I
eventually got over that and just decided to do it anyway. But now I'm wondering
again. Like what if my future wife stumbled in here, and was like, "Oh, what a
loser. A glorified personal blog? What a loser."
By the way have you seen my future wife? There's a picture of
her on the big cardboard Hewlett Packard kiosk at Office Max, right as you come
in the door.
Oh and have you seen my future wife of the past? She starred
in a 1950s sci fi film called "Teenagers From Outer Space". She wasn't from
outer space, but she was "out of this world".
*wink*
She's probably about 70 by now.
"Bummer", as they say.
But coincidently, I recently saw a movie about time
travel. It was called "Primer". It was intriguing, but confusing, as time travel
always is.
Why can't they make time travel simpler?
Right now I should say something really deep. Like a
profound thought or something.
What is the purpose of God?
My neighbor in the house above us on the hill is playing bass
out in his yard. He has his amp on his back porch overlooking his supernaturally
well-manicured yard, and he has a moustache, and he is jamming on that
bass guitar. It echoes all around through the trees and the open blue sky, and
it's kindof magical.
I guess I should go look for Blue Space. Maybe he's hanging
out with Danny and Pablo somewhere on Green Day's Boulevard of Broken Dreams.
If I was given a Hun Helmet with a pointy spike on top, and I
decided to start wearing it, do you think it would it change my personality?
TIP JAR:
(comments)
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