Midwest tour June 23-July 7 (still need some TX help)!
Yatagarasu is going on a quick midwest tour alongside San Antonio noise rockers Guards from June 23-july 7th! We will have new shirt designs, new releases, and new songs. Also, Yatagarasu now features hard Gameboy kicks and lasers battling the harsh NES squares, courtesy of the mighty and dextrous Crashbarron!
If you're in the midwest, definitely come check out Yatagarasu in its current form as a two piece, 4bit doomsday device! No hope, YES future!!
Also, our Texas shows have been the stickiest to book. If you are interested in helping us get something together in North Texas on the 25th-27th, please get in touch! We would like to see our friends up there.
Here's where everything is going down:
June 23rd - San Antonio
The 1011
1011 San Antonio Street
Yatagarasu, Guards, Infidel, Buho, This Horn of Afrika
$5
June 24th - Austin
Moose Lodge
2103 E M Franklin Ave
Yatagarasu, Guards, Infidel, Flying Scorpion, This Horn of Afrika, How I quit crack
Free! Please donate!
June 25th - Lubbock
TBA
June 26th - Denton, For Worth, Arlington?
TBA, need help!
June 27th - Dallas, Oklahoma City even?
TBA, Needs some of that HELP
June 28th - Tulsa, Oklahoma
Blue Jackelope
306 South Phoenix
Yatagarasu, Guards, More TBA!
June 29th - Columbia, Missouri
Cafe Berlin
220 N 10th St
Yatagarasu, Guards, More TBA!
June 30th - Kansas City, Missouri
The Brick
1727 McGee
Yatagarasu, Guards, Ree-Yees
July 1st - St Louis, Missouri
Lemp Arts (LNAC)
3301 Lemp Ave
Yatagarasu, Guards, Oblive, More TBA!
July 2nd - Chicago, Illinois
Locked Out
3951 Fullerton Avenue
Yatagarasu, Guards More TBA!
July 3rd - Chicago, Illinois
Hottie Biscotti
3545 w. fullerton
Yatagarasu, Guards, Speak Onion, More TBA!
July 4th - South Bend, Indiana
Chris Clean's House
Msg for addy
4th of July!
Yatagarasu, Guards More TBA!
July 5th - Grand Rapids, Michigan
TBA
July 6th - Traverse City, Michigan
TBA
Yatagarasu, Guards, Dental Work, Speak Onion!
July 7th - Lansing, Michigan
Basement 414
414 E. Michigan Ave
Yatagarasu, Guards, Dental Work, Speak Onion, Kessenchu
Long drive Home
At this point, we'll be working on establishing an art/electronics/music space in Austin for the rest of the summer.
On July 9th - 11th, check out Guards opening for Lightning Bolt on the Texas leg of that bands' tour.
Protoculture as a weapon for change, not an escape!
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
The Blasted Heath
I like to venture out at like 4-5 in the morning if I've been up all night. I enjoy a simple driving adventure that ends in donuts. I did this for the first time in Austin the other day, and on the way home I got to see my new neighborhood in an abandoned, street-light illuminated lonesomeness. At one point I had to "flip a pancake", or perform an ill-begotten u-turn, and veered into a parking lot. I was in a shopping center with maybe 5 stores in it. They included a Beauty parlor, a jersey store, a liquor store, and 2 other unrecognizable ones. The cement was cracked, and a row of dead trees lined the eastern border. The western one opened into a byway which connected it to a larger shopping center. Cracked sidewalk and garbage were the order of the day - I could almost see a rat inside a tumbleweed - a blasphemous urban hamster ball. I realized at this time that the area I live in is *kind of* sketchy. It's not really dangerous, it just seems abandoned.
Down the street from my house is an ubiquitous "FOOD MART" (only blocks away from "MAJOR BRAND GAS," no joke). I had visited a couple times to buy soda, or a huge bag of cookies, which costs $1. The last time I went there, there was a small piece of paper taped to the glass door. It was a note, written in the kind of severe boldface that showed the anger of the writer even though a sharpie was used. It read:
"ONLY 2 STUDENTS AT A TIME"
I tried to understand what this could have meant. Was it to prevent shoplifting, by keeping cunning young people from running a 3-man scam? What if the kids weren't students, though? Would a student ID be required to be kicked out of the store? What if you lost your ID? What about general students of knowledge? I really think there is a piece to this puzzle I am missing. Maybe they have a special discount there on high-gravity wine drinks. Any serious student prepares for the SAT with plenty of NIGHT TRAIN. Also homework.
This place would be a Godsend in those small hours when the total understanding of Physics 1 relies on changing modes of consciousness. Cast in the light of the Night Train, one cannot help but vivisect the laws of the universe into hard formulae.
Speed times time equals something. The universe. Matter.
It all comes as fast as a train in the night.
I got through school by killing my mind, to an extent. Not with alcohol, though, with something that was either willpower or a lack of willpower. Where discipline begins and giving up on your aspirations ends is a line I was too busy to worry about crossing. Sometimes the wounds of those years upon my creative capacity neutralizes the money I earned from having a degree. Perhaps if I would have had a store with Night Train near me, I would be different. Wondering doesn't pay, though, and it wouldn't have worked anyway. I had a strict rule in college about entering convenience stores only in groups of 3+.
The "Food Mart" sits in a small parking lot. It's next door to a house, and its other neighbor is a barbed-wire fence which protects, apparently, 50 square yards of grass. Invariably there is a car parked in the middle of the lot, nowhere near a designated space. I've nicknamed this store "The Blasted Heath."
I wish I could stay in this neighborhood past July. I have to leave, again, sell all my stuff and hit the road for an indefinite period. I feel that the apex of existence is to thrive in a community, but in the absence of that, I will take familiar locations and sketched half-landmarks.
Down the street from my house is an ubiquitous "FOOD MART" (only blocks away from "MAJOR BRAND GAS," no joke). I had visited a couple times to buy soda, or a huge bag of cookies, which costs $1. The last time I went there, there was a small piece of paper taped to the glass door. It was a note, written in the kind of severe boldface that showed the anger of the writer even though a sharpie was used. It read:
"ONLY 2 STUDENTS AT A TIME"
I tried to understand what this could have meant. Was it to prevent shoplifting, by keeping cunning young people from running a 3-man scam? What if the kids weren't students, though? Would a student ID be required to be kicked out of the store? What if you lost your ID? What about general students of knowledge? I really think there is a piece to this puzzle I am missing. Maybe they have a special discount there on high-gravity wine drinks. Any serious student prepares for the SAT with plenty of NIGHT TRAIN. Also homework.
This place would be a Godsend in those small hours when the total understanding of Physics 1 relies on changing modes of consciousness. Cast in the light of the Night Train, one cannot help but vivisect the laws of the universe into hard formulae.
Speed times time equals something. The universe. Matter.
It all comes as fast as a train in the night.
I got through school by killing my mind, to an extent. Not with alcohol, though, with something that was either willpower or a lack of willpower. Where discipline begins and giving up on your aspirations ends is a line I was too busy to worry about crossing. Sometimes the wounds of those years upon my creative capacity neutralizes the money I earned from having a degree. Perhaps if I would have had a store with Night Train near me, I would be different. Wondering doesn't pay, though, and it wouldn't have worked anyway. I had a strict rule in college about entering convenience stores only in groups of 3+.
The "Food Mart" sits in a small parking lot. It's next door to a house, and its other neighbor is a barbed-wire fence which protects, apparently, 50 square yards of grass. Invariably there is a car parked in the middle of the lot, nowhere near a designated space. I've nicknamed this store "The Blasted Heath."
I wish I could stay in this neighborhood past July. I have to leave, again, sell all my stuff and hit the road for an indefinite period. I feel that the apex of existence is to thrive in a community, but in the absence of that, I will take familiar locations and sketched half-landmarks.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Cleaning out my car
I have another morbid story about an animal. This happened last summer, right before I left Huntsville for the Take Control 2009 Tour with Casey and eventually Bubblegum Octopus. Before I left my apartment and felt the freedom of unattached, constant movement, the universe had one more example of my wretched insignificance to show me.
My car had gotten abhorrently messy. I was cleaning it out - careful to dodge staples and thumb tacks that had lodged themselves into the moldy carpeting and impacted wads of food bags. After clearing swath after swath of hellishly mildewed socks, promotional cd cases and old out-of-state speeding tickets, I turned my attention to the glove box. I popped it open. The owner's manual for my truck fell out onto the floorboard. It landed on the hairy grey interior lining, which had long since been denuded of its rubber mat. I started pulling everything out and onto the ground.
I noticed something falling from the glove box's neighbor. The air conditioning unit had coughed up some mysterious payload. Between the foot-resevoirs of the two front seats, there is a raised area where the stick shift pops out. A small object plopped onto this median. I turned my attention towards it. Before me was a tiny, thinly-furred, barely mobile, infant mouse. I nearly jumped back in horror. I wasn't even sure if its eyes were open - though it looked like it was out of the pink, near-fetal state that tiny mammals are born into. He was kind of wallowing on the gray median. It didn't even look like he could crawl forward. His pitiful face, tiny, plaintive paws and needle-thin tail caused a nearly-painful surge of melancholy. Another adorable animal, who for nothing other than blind chance, would probably die horribly. I grabbed my hand into the air conditioning unit, casting concern aside in the hopes that his family would also fall out. There was nothing. The little guy was all alone in the world. I decided I could not take him on tour with me. I had seen attempts to nurture way-too-young baby animals invariably end in death - The baby bird my mom had given a bath, accidentally freezing him to death even as she continuously layered him against the non-stop shivering - A lizard dying during childbirth, my father patiently on-hand to receive each stillborn creature - The other bird, starving to death as we failed to give it proper nutrients. It sucked too much for every party involved, and I didn't want to put an animal in a situation like that. I couldn't leave it on the street, either. A tiny mouse with barely any locomotive ability would be condemned to starvation, being eaten alive by ants or picked up by any bird - if it was lucky it would be dead when being eaten.
No, the best thing for me to do was to kill it then and there. That was what my ass-brained mind - panicked from this discovery and from the need to evacuate my apartment in mere hours - came up with. I was near a dumpster, in a little brick alcove that a derelict could have easily converted into a home. I found a styrofoam bowl and put the mouse inside. There was a spare cinder block by the dumpster - I hoisted it upward, preparing to crush the mouse in one painless instant. As I watched it squirm pathetically, and finally stumble a couple inches, I realized that I would never be able to crush a baby mouse to death with a huge brick. If staying alive was a worse fate, then I didn't have the pragmatic, worldly strength to deliver ultimate and deadly kindness. A friend of mine once recounted how he had found a salamander trapped in a mousetrap in his garage. It was dying, and he actually went through with his honorable and hellish duty - choking with tears as he literally brought the hammer down. That might have been a little more clear cut than a seemingly viable mouse with no family, but I felt the same terror.
I guess for every insanely colored sunset or incomprehensibly-tall mountain range there is an abandoned baby mouse or gazelle being torn apart. The natural world, and by that I mean every aspect of life, not just trees and shit, is like a haunted house. Except instead of rubber masks extended off of poles from closets, there are things that really can scare you. You know something is
going to pop out, but it's hard to be totally prepared and steeled to the infinite possibilities.
I took my car to the body shop down the street and had them blow out the air conditioning unit and all the other panels. There was nothing - not even nest fragments. The little guy was an orphaned survivor. The next day, he was gone from the spot I had left him. Whether it was living and scrapping on its own, or more likely, was picked off by a bird, I was glad at least it was not being treated like alive carrion by a swarm of some kind. But I can still see him there in that bowl of my misconceived aid - I probably always will - squirming hopelessly amidst a sea of terrors. He was like me, and I should have taken him in.
My car had gotten abhorrently messy. I was cleaning it out - careful to dodge staples and thumb tacks that had lodged themselves into the moldy carpeting and impacted wads of food bags. After clearing swath after swath of hellishly mildewed socks, promotional cd cases and old out-of-state speeding tickets, I turned my attention to the glove box. I popped it open. The owner's manual for my truck fell out onto the floorboard. It landed on the hairy grey interior lining, which had long since been denuded of its rubber mat. I started pulling everything out and onto the ground.
I noticed something falling from the glove box's neighbor. The air conditioning unit had coughed up some mysterious payload. Between the foot-resevoirs of the two front seats, there is a raised area where the stick shift pops out. A small object plopped onto this median. I turned my attention towards it. Before me was a tiny, thinly-furred, barely mobile, infant mouse. I nearly jumped back in horror. I wasn't even sure if its eyes were open - though it looked like it was out of the pink, near-fetal state that tiny mammals are born into. He was kind of wallowing on the gray median. It didn't even look like he could crawl forward. His pitiful face, tiny, plaintive paws and needle-thin tail caused a nearly-painful surge of melancholy. Another adorable animal, who for nothing other than blind chance, would probably die horribly. I grabbed my hand into the air conditioning unit, casting concern aside in the hopes that his family would also fall out. There was nothing. The little guy was all alone in the world. I decided I could not take him on tour with me. I had seen attempts to nurture way-too-young baby animals invariably end in death - The baby bird my mom had given a bath, accidentally freezing him to death even as she continuously layered him against the non-stop shivering - A lizard dying during childbirth, my father patiently on-hand to receive each stillborn creature - The other bird, starving to death as we failed to give it proper nutrients. It sucked too much for every party involved, and I didn't want to put an animal in a situation like that. I couldn't leave it on the street, either. A tiny mouse with barely any locomotive ability would be condemned to starvation, being eaten alive by ants or picked up by any bird - if it was lucky it would be dead when being eaten.
No, the best thing for me to do was to kill it then and there. That was what my ass-brained mind - panicked from this discovery and from the need to evacuate my apartment in mere hours - came up with. I was near a dumpster, in a little brick alcove that a derelict could have easily converted into a home. I found a styrofoam bowl and put the mouse inside. There was a spare cinder block by the dumpster - I hoisted it upward, preparing to crush the mouse in one painless instant. As I watched it squirm pathetically, and finally stumble a couple inches, I realized that I would never be able to crush a baby mouse to death with a huge brick. If staying alive was a worse fate, then I didn't have the pragmatic, worldly strength to deliver ultimate and deadly kindness. A friend of mine once recounted how he had found a salamander trapped in a mousetrap in his garage. It was dying, and he actually went through with his honorable and hellish duty - choking with tears as he literally brought the hammer down. That might have been a little more clear cut than a seemingly viable mouse with no family, but I felt the same terror.
I guess for every insanely colored sunset or incomprehensibly-tall mountain range there is an abandoned baby mouse or gazelle being torn apart. The natural world, and by that I mean every aspect of life, not just trees and shit, is like a haunted house. Except instead of rubber masks extended off of poles from closets, there are things that really can scare you. You know something is
going to pop out, but it's hard to be totally prepared and steeled to the infinite possibilities.
I took my car to the body shop down the street and had them blow out the air conditioning unit and all the other panels. There was nothing - not even nest fragments. The little guy was an orphaned survivor. The next day, he was gone from the spot I had left him. Whether it was living and scrapping on its own, or more likely, was picked off by a bird, I was glad at least it was not being treated like alive carrion by a swarm of some kind. But I can still see him there in that bowl of my misconceived aid - I probably always will - squirming hopelessly amidst a sea of terrors. He was like me, and I should have taken him in.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Death of Grackle
On my lawn, I saw a dark bird on its back. He was struggling and kicking, unable to flip over. I felt my stomach rotating. How could this not end horribly? The bird looked extremely filthy, so I grabbed the nearest thing that was long and flat (an auxilary window screen) and gently tried to flip the bird over. After about 10 seconds of him resisting me in every way he could, his feet finally touched the ground. He immediately shuffled forward about a foot. I silently rooted for him, hoping he would take off in a majestic burst of flight.
He tripped, though, and his neck struck the ground. His downward-facing wing winched him up at a 45-degree angle, making his body into an awkward triangle. Grackles always look stupid or terror-stricken due to their constantly open, beady fish-eyes. It was hard for me to not imagine he was actually in fear as he kicked and flitted with his apparently useless appendages. His wing was preternaturally extended and ruffled. It pumped up and down hopelessly. Every now and then the bird would get on its feet, desperately shuffle forward or to the side, and then collapse. It looked like he was drunk. I would have imagined funny music and a Bob Saget voice over if I wasn't sure that the bird was going to die.
I remembered times when I had similarly stumbled forward from injury, how I would physically try my best to stay on my feet and awake, but lose control and hit the ground. The weight of uncertainty and a bright, berzerk need to survive would flash on, inciting a terrifying cycle of wake/pass out. I wondered if he felt that uncertainty along with his desperate need to survive. After a few more bouts of run/fall, he stayed down. I thought I could see him breathe in and out. With his one fish eye facing upward and a slow, pumping breathing, it seemed that he had accepted his situation. He was recounting his life. His life of eating bugs, hopefully mating, and finally meeting his end by slamming against a wall. Did a life of unrelated, difficult experiences form a cogent narrative to him with death coming on? Probably not, it probably wasn't thinking of anything. Its attempts to move were a mechanic of instinct, it's failure to move was a failure of its body. I thought to call the humane society. Maybe they had a machine that they used to humanely kill birds. My roommate suggested we give the it a couple hours, maybe he was just stunned, or something, having hit our door. I pretty much knew it was dying, but I held out a vain hope that if I left and came back, it would be gone. I killed about a half-an-hour jogging, then worked in my room for a couple more hours, finally forgetting about the bird.
The next day, I woke up to the sound of someone mowing the lawn. I forgot that my roommate had hired someone to do that. I ran outside.
Me: Hey man, there might be a bird somewhere on the lawn, you might want to watch out for him.
Guy: Black bird? You don't have to worry about him.
Me: Oh..
Guy: He got chopped up! Crunched up by the mower! Hahaha!
He tripped, though, and his neck struck the ground. His downward-facing wing winched him up at a 45-degree angle, making his body into an awkward triangle. Grackles always look stupid or terror-stricken due to their constantly open, beady fish-eyes. It was hard for me to not imagine he was actually in fear as he kicked and flitted with his apparently useless appendages. His wing was preternaturally extended and ruffled. It pumped up and down hopelessly. Every now and then the bird would get on its feet, desperately shuffle forward or to the side, and then collapse. It looked like he was drunk. I would have imagined funny music and a Bob Saget voice over if I wasn't sure that the bird was going to die.
I remembered times when I had similarly stumbled forward from injury, how I would physically try my best to stay on my feet and awake, but lose control and hit the ground. The weight of uncertainty and a bright, berzerk need to survive would flash on, inciting a terrifying cycle of wake/pass out. I wondered if he felt that uncertainty along with his desperate need to survive. After a few more bouts of run/fall, he stayed down. I thought I could see him breathe in and out. With his one fish eye facing upward and a slow, pumping breathing, it seemed that he had accepted his situation. He was recounting his life. His life of eating bugs, hopefully mating, and finally meeting his end by slamming against a wall. Did a life of unrelated, difficult experiences form a cogent narrative to him with death coming on? Probably not, it probably wasn't thinking of anything. Its attempts to move were a mechanic of instinct, it's failure to move was a failure of its body. I thought to call the humane society. Maybe they had a machine that they used to humanely kill birds. My roommate suggested we give the it a couple hours, maybe he was just stunned, or something, having hit our door. I pretty much knew it was dying, but I held out a vain hope that if I left and came back, it would be gone. I killed about a half-an-hour jogging, then worked in my room for a couple more hours, finally forgetting about the bird.
The next day, I woke up to the sound of someone mowing the lawn. I forgot that my roommate had hired someone to do that. I ran outside.
Me: Hey man, there might be a bird somewhere on the lawn, you might want to watch out for him.
Guy: Black bird? You don't have to worry about him.
Me: Oh..
Guy: He got chopped up! Crunched up by the mower! Hahaha!
Monday, April 26, 2010
I almost passed out
I spent this afternoon booking tour (read: writing emails). My posture was not great. That, combined with months worth of sleeping on the floor, gave me an insane nerve-cluster in the southeastern portion of my neck.
I thought I would try an old chiropracter's trick.
As I was once instructed to do by a certified chiro, I stood, squared my shoulders, and slowly moved my head back to look directly at the ceiling. By moving my neck in this fashion, I did not alleviate my neck pain. I invited waves of delirium. Have you ever consciously forced yourself to not pass out? It doesn't usually work. Muddled sensations and half-heard whispers fly past you, enter you, and ultimately overwhelm your senses and crush you to the ground. You don't know what happened until you wake up.
This time, however, I stood strong. I wish I had let that calming wash of endorphins overtake me. For what I have seen and felt - I can't forget. Bombarded by waves of red calm, I forced myself to remain lucid, thinking hard about the pain in my neck and allowing myself to experience it fully. In remaining awake in this state, I was transported - I thought I was standing on a plateau or platform. My body was floating. I was listing downward in a black, misty land towards a kind of temple. Its irregular stone corinces filled me with an unnameable dread and odd antipathy. All at once I was standing on the roof of the temple. Below me was a huge opening. A gateway to an indescribable, cosmic void. The dark space seemed to contain moving creatures or shadows.
I began to feel myself inexorably pulled towards that great, dark gap. At first I resisted - but that yawning void seemed to beckon me with a power I couldn't understand. I was swallowed utterly. Translucent, multi-segmented bodies with gelatinous, writhing tentacles brushed passed me. As they passed I did not feel a cold, slimey touch as I thought I might. Indeed, I did feel a freezing sensation as the abominable land-fish passed me, but there was no touch. The multi-segmented forms were passing THROUGH me. My terror would have been complete, had I not heard a kind of booming pulse from ahead of me. It wasn't quite musical, nor was it like a natural sound or engine. It was like someone playing loud bass music a mile away. Except it still retained its nonmusical, sub-audibal quality as it came nearer, feeling stronger but never getting louder. I FELT it coming closer. I knew it was the dirge-like herald of some mammoth and blasphemous entity. As this terrifying pulse approached me, the multi-segmented things scattered away. It finally reached a titanic level of power wherein the tone pushed my body back. I did my best to resist being knocked into the unknown reaches of the temple, but my flailing, groping hands could find no solid brace. The tentacled creatures employed some form
of psychic locomotion that I did not. It's just as well - for the tone stopped utterly - causing me to fall forward in the blackness as the pressure on my body alleviated. To my horror, I was falling forward into what I believed was the embrace of the entity which had caused that sound. I was glad for the near-total darkness. The hellish, black silence held for a terrible moment before it was broken by cuttingly clear words that I have not been able to forget. I completely lost control of my nerves and screamed.
The landscape about me was sucked away as my scream tore through whatever gateway I had accidentally created. I was back in my bedroom, looking up at the ceiling. A sharp pain wracked my neck. I collapsed to my knees.
I have not been able to forget those words from the booming entity, spoken in a disturbingly clear english in a land of half-senses and clustered imagery: "Your pain is inescapable as sound! You can't afford chiropractic care."
I thought I would try an old chiropracter's trick.
As I was once instructed to do by a certified chiro, I stood, squared my shoulders, and slowly moved my head back to look directly at the ceiling. By moving my neck in this fashion, I did not alleviate my neck pain. I invited waves of delirium. Have you ever consciously forced yourself to not pass out? It doesn't usually work. Muddled sensations and half-heard whispers fly past you, enter you, and ultimately overwhelm your senses and crush you to the ground. You don't know what happened until you wake up.
This time, however, I stood strong. I wish I had let that calming wash of endorphins overtake me. For what I have seen and felt - I can't forget. Bombarded by waves of red calm, I forced myself to remain lucid, thinking hard about the pain in my neck and allowing myself to experience it fully. In remaining awake in this state, I was transported - I thought I was standing on a plateau or platform. My body was floating. I was listing downward in a black, misty land towards a kind of temple. Its irregular stone corinces filled me with an unnameable dread and odd antipathy. All at once I was standing on the roof of the temple. Below me was a huge opening. A gateway to an indescribable, cosmic void. The dark space seemed to contain moving creatures or shadows.
I began to feel myself inexorably pulled towards that great, dark gap. At first I resisted - but that yawning void seemed to beckon me with a power I couldn't understand. I was swallowed utterly. Translucent, multi-segmented bodies with gelatinous, writhing tentacles brushed passed me. As they passed I did not feel a cold, slimey touch as I thought I might. Indeed, I did feel a freezing sensation as the abominable land-fish passed me, but there was no touch. The multi-segmented forms were passing THROUGH me. My terror would have been complete, had I not heard a kind of booming pulse from ahead of me. It wasn't quite musical, nor was it like a natural sound or engine. It was like someone playing loud bass music a mile away. Except it still retained its nonmusical, sub-audibal quality as it came nearer, feeling stronger but never getting louder. I FELT it coming closer. I knew it was the dirge-like herald of some mammoth and blasphemous entity. As this terrifying pulse approached me, the multi-segmented things scattered away. It finally reached a titanic level of power wherein the tone pushed my body back. I did my best to resist being knocked into the unknown reaches of the temple, but my flailing, groping hands could find no solid brace. The tentacled creatures employed some form
of psychic locomotion that I did not. It's just as well - for the tone stopped utterly - causing me to fall forward in the blackness as the pressure on my body alleviated. To my horror, I was falling forward into what I believed was the embrace of the entity which had caused that sound. I was glad for the near-total darkness. The hellish, black silence held for a terrible moment before it was broken by cuttingly clear words that I have not been able to forget. I completely lost control of my nerves and screamed.
The landscape about me was sucked away as my scream tore through whatever gateway I had accidentally created. I was back in my bedroom, looking up at the ceiling. A sharp pain wracked my neck. I collapsed to my knees.
I have not been able to forget those words from the booming entity, spoken in a disturbingly clear english in a land of half-senses and clustered imagery: "Your pain is inescapable as sound! You can't afford chiropractic care."
Monday, April 19, 2010
Weekend of Terror
I remembered the threat. As he was driving away from our house, he yelled the address. High on klonopin and mushrooms. A backpack full of more drugs. Shirt too big for him. Wielding a knife. An absolute MONSTER of sketch was driving away from our house, yelling our address. Why did I dismiss it as an idle threat? Why didn't I camp out on my lawn for a full day, complete with a double-barreled shotgun, overalls and a straw hat? I dismissed it. I went to sleep.
A conflagration of breaking glass awoke me on Friday morning. The unexpected, unnatural sound seemed to give the air an evil electricity. I crawled out of my room - making sure not to cross the line of sight of the now-broken window. My roommate later explained that I had done this all the way into the hall. It was not a conscious act at all. That was apparently my mind's basest way to deal with an attack. Not to identify the attacker, but to shimmy on the ground as if we were under siege from catapults.
"Dieter! Hey! Dieter!"
I saw my roommate stepping out of his room, and explained what had happened, even as I processed the information myself. Someone had strait-up attacked us. A cinder block had flown through my window, landing 12 feet northwest of my feet. The block had bounced clear of all my music equipment. If it had veered 1 foot to the left, my customized, irreplaceable electronics would have been bashed beyond repair. The only piece remotely damaged was a Roland MKs80. The magical 1980s synth absorbed the blow in its rugged metal case. It allowed only a 1" dent, colored a tell-tale grey from the block. If the granite slab had been thrown through the side window, above where I sleep, I would have had more problems than just a dented synthesizer.
I would have had the problem of looking like a zombie due to my crushed nose. Or the problem of not understanding math or language for the rest of my life. Or I would have been saddled with absolutely unpayable hospital bills and shattered ancilary bones.
My naked foot absorbed a splinter of glass. No bleeding, just frustration over a pain that I shouldn't have been feeling. Why did I have to suffer this annoyance? And why, when I had done nothing wrong, did I have to deal with abject terror and lingering fear? Well, I knew why. It sucked, but it made sense. I began to see the attack as a logical conclusion to the events of the night before. It had the simplicity of falling dominoes and the dynamics of fine music. That I was asleep beneath the last domino didn't distract me from understanding the reason behind the whole mess, and from appreciating its cloying beauty.
There had been a party. Sorry, "A couple friends over." I didn't begrudge the understatement when I was told. New house, new people, new shenanigans! A chance to step aside from screaming and pedal-mashing in my room all day. I could know more sounds than just my own - loud conversation, bombastic rap deadpanning, and if things took a turn for the typical, sirens with their inclement cop cars.*
People started showing up at about 10:00. Alot of people. I enjoyed instant credibility - at least 3 people said "well, it's your house," in deference to me. There's something about being a tenant at the building you're at that makes it so much easier to hang out. You're not just a dude, you are a fixture. The negative side to it being "Your house" is that it is your house.
Anyway - I talked to people in a small group, and watched the larger group become drunker and dancier. I assumed there would be a fight, as everyone got louder and started making more funny-enthic-voices jokes. But when things started dying down at midnight, I took heart. I went back to my room.
Alone now, and separate from the party, I was slightly uneased by the murmurring voices from all around me. From the backyard, from the living room, from the front porch. I just repeated to myself that my car would be safe, and everyone would leave eventually. Then the screaming started. It was a man's screaming. "DON'T YOU EVER PULL A KNIFE ON MY FRIEND!" There was a mass of people flowing to the front door, creating a human inside-outside hourglass. Based on where everyone was going, and what I had heard, I figured out what happened. I stayed out in the street for a minute to make sure this lightly armed offender left for good. He yelled at us ominously and drove off.
I've already described the suspect , but I'll go into more detail. He was white, and a somewhat gangly 5'11". He wore glasses and had blonde, short hair, I think. Big shirts, big pants. 150 pounds. Maybe 25.
There was a whir of conversation in the kitchen at that point. For a solid 20 minutes, the remaining guests (most had been driven off by the crushing realness that had occurred) boisterously rehashed every detail of how they ran this dude off into the night. I learned there had been some tension between the suspect and one of the other guests. The gangly perpetrator had pulled a knife. From there the other guests had forced him off the premises en masse.
When I asked how it was that someone like this was at our house, I was told that he was brought by a legitimate guest named Marky's girlfriend. She had attempted to clear his coming by mentioning to my roommate that she was bringing "some of her girlfriends." My roommate failed to interperet that language as meaning "my dangerous, armed, vengeful drug dealerfriends."
Disturbingly - Marky continues to defend this guy, for the sake of his girl. His claims venture far outside of the realms of sanity as he tells us the suspect is a "good guy." This was utterly baffling at first whif. But given the moral, empathic, and social bankruptcy of his preferred company, I am not surprised at the sentiment.
The next day, after the block incident, I did even more research into the knife threat. Based on different accounts I took (including one from the suspect himself. The pain of that conversation and the utter ignobility I came to know of his character need not be immortalized herein), I have an even deeper understanding about what happened. Since it is part of an ongoing investigation I should not go into too much detail. A police report was filed. One for the cinder block, one for the knife (given by one of the party attendees). I should make an adaptation of Clue based on this limitless horror. Except instead of Colonel Mustard et al, there would just be this one guy and a bunch of weapons.
As in Clue, there will be legal retrobution - breaking a potential cycle of violence and hopefully preventing further attacks on me. No threats though. Just the cold, grinding machinery of the law, set in motion against him like a creaking robot.
*is it normal that every party, show or other social gathering in my life has had this as a constant risk? I guess that is the nature of the beast when your job could be misconstrued as being paid by the police to cause noise complaint tickets. Strangely, I was the one calling the cops this time.
A conflagration of breaking glass awoke me on Friday morning. The unexpected, unnatural sound seemed to give the air an evil electricity. I crawled out of my room - making sure not to cross the line of sight of the now-broken window. My roommate later explained that I had done this all the way into the hall. It was not a conscious act at all. That was apparently my mind's basest way to deal with an attack. Not to identify the attacker, but to shimmy on the ground as if we were under siege from catapults.
"Dieter! Hey! Dieter!"
I saw my roommate stepping out of his room, and explained what had happened, even as I processed the information myself. Someone had strait-up attacked us. A cinder block had flown through my window, landing 12 feet northwest of my feet. The block had bounced clear of all my music equipment. If it had veered 1 foot to the left, my customized, irreplaceable electronics would have been bashed beyond repair. The only piece remotely damaged was a Roland MKs80. The magical 1980s synth absorbed the blow in its rugged metal case. It allowed only a 1" dent, colored a tell-tale grey from the block. If the granite slab had been thrown through the side window, above where I sleep, I would have had more problems than just a dented synthesizer.
I would have had the problem of looking like a zombie due to my crushed nose. Or the problem of not understanding math or language for the rest of my life. Or I would have been saddled with absolutely unpayable hospital bills and shattered ancilary bones.
My naked foot absorbed a splinter of glass. No bleeding, just frustration over a pain that I shouldn't have been feeling. Why did I have to suffer this annoyance? And why, when I had done nothing wrong, did I have to deal with abject terror and lingering fear? Well, I knew why. It sucked, but it made sense. I began to see the attack as a logical conclusion to the events of the night before. It had the simplicity of falling dominoes and the dynamics of fine music. That I was asleep beneath the last domino didn't distract me from understanding the reason behind the whole mess, and from appreciating its cloying beauty.
There had been a party. Sorry, "A couple friends over." I didn't begrudge the understatement when I was told. New house, new people, new shenanigans! A chance to step aside from screaming and pedal-mashing in my room all day. I could know more sounds than just my own - loud conversation, bombastic rap deadpanning, and if things took a turn for the typical, sirens with their inclement cop cars.*
People started showing up at about 10:00. Alot of people. I enjoyed instant credibility - at least 3 people said "well, it's your house," in deference to me. There's something about being a tenant at the building you're at that makes it so much easier to hang out. You're not just a dude, you are a fixture. The negative side to it being "Your house" is that it is your house.
Anyway - I talked to people in a small group, and watched the larger group become drunker and dancier. I assumed there would be a fight, as everyone got louder and started making more funny-enthic-voices jokes. But when things started dying down at midnight, I took heart. I went back to my room.
Alone now, and separate from the party, I was slightly uneased by the murmurring voices from all around me. From the backyard, from the living room, from the front porch. I just repeated to myself that my car would be safe, and everyone would leave eventually. Then the screaming started. It was a man's screaming. "DON'T YOU EVER PULL A KNIFE ON MY FRIEND!" There was a mass of people flowing to the front door, creating a human inside-outside hourglass. Based on where everyone was going, and what I had heard, I figured out what happened. I stayed out in the street for a minute to make sure this lightly armed offender left for good. He yelled at us ominously and drove off.
I've already described the suspect , but I'll go into more detail. He was white, and a somewhat gangly 5'11". He wore glasses and had blonde, short hair, I think. Big shirts, big pants. 150 pounds. Maybe 25.
There was a whir of conversation in the kitchen at that point. For a solid 20 minutes, the remaining guests (most had been driven off by the crushing realness that had occurred) boisterously rehashed every detail of how they ran this dude off into the night. I learned there had been some tension between the suspect and one of the other guests. The gangly perpetrator had pulled a knife. From there the other guests had forced him off the premises en masse.
When I asked how it was that someone like this was at our house, I was told that he was brought by a legitimate guest named Marky's girlfriend. She had attempted to clear his coming by mentioning to my roommate that she was bringing "some of her girlfriends." My roommate failed to interperet that language as meaning "my dangerous, armed, vengeful drug dealerfriends."
Disturbingly - Marky continues to defend this guy, for the sake of his girl. His claims venture far outside of the realms of sanity as he tells us the suspect is a "good guy." This was utterly baffling at first whif. But given the moral, empathic, and social bankruptcy of his preferred company, I am not surprised at the sentiment.
The next day, after the block incident, I did even more research into the knife threat. Based on different accounts I took (including one from the suspect himself. The pain of that conversation and the utter ignobility I came to know of his character need not be immortalized herein), I have an even deeper understanding about what happened. Since it is part of an ongoing investigation I should not go into too much detail. A police report was filed. One for the cinder block, one for the knife (given by one of the party attendees). I should make an adaptation of Clue based on this limitless horror. Except instead of Colonel Mustard et al, there would just be this one guy and a bunch of weapons.
As in Clue, there will be legal retrobution - breaking a potential cycle of violence and hopefully preventing further attacks on me. No threats though. Just the cold, grinding machinery of the law, set in motion against him like a creaking robot.
*is it normal that every party, show or other social gathering in my life has had this as a constant risk? I guess that is the nature of the beast when your job could be misconstrued as being paid by the police to cause noise complaint tickets. Strangely, I was the one calling the cops this time.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Eating some meager-ass food
I finally broke down and ordered a pizza. After a week and a half of nothing but rice, spaghetti, and vegetables (and a couple of T-cab tacos), I spent money to have someone bring baked, oiled cheese pie to my house. And in the place of constant drip coffee, I drank some fizzy, nasty de-greaser. I'm talking about that drink that I have convinced myself is better for me than alcohol - Diet C (diet coke).
Despite this turn, I do enjoy eating healthy, random, meager crap. It's an awesome power to be able to change how you look and feel by eating certain things. Since I just moved to a new city, I have had the impetus to change my eating habits. Here's some of the healthy foods I have been cooking and eating (healthy, in this case, means I didn't get it from the rack at a gas station or pizza oven. Up until spring that's almost all I ate):
-Brown Rice (cooked without butter, eaten plain or with canned black beans)
-Celery (Sometimes with cream cheese or peanut butter, usually plain)
-Carrots and only carrots (CARROTS UNTIL FUCKING DEATH!! CARROTS FOREVER AND EVER!)
-Hommus (I spelled it like this because I want to meet someone who spells it like this)
-Pinneaple Chunks
-Constant Drip Coffee
-"Economy" Spaghetti w/ Safeway Marinara sauce
Pretty grim. It's a FOOD CHOICE.
So I ordered a pizza from Dominoes. I had been working all day on my terrible recording rig and was in a sort of food-frenzy. Like when you want someone so bad that you knock your entire unstapled thesis paper off of your bed to make room to go at it. That was how bad I wanted this pizza. Except I did not write a thesis, and I don't own a bed. Also, the pizza-sex joke has already been made on the internet.
So I won't go into too much detail (I pretty much ordered a single pizza, and argued civilly with the delivery person about what I actually ordered), but I'll say this much. It was good food to eat and I ate it with my mouth. I ate a pizza, and my roommate criticized the toppings. As if you have room to talk, BRYAN.
Despite this turn, I do enjoy eating healthy, random, meager crap. It's an awesome power to be able to change how you look and feel by eating certain things. Since I just moved to a new city, I have had the impetus to change my eating habits. Here's some of the healthy foods I have been cooking and eating (healthy, in this case, means I didn't get it from the rack at a gas station or pizza oven. Up until spring that's almost all I ate):
-Brown Rice (cooked without butter, eaten plain or with canned black beans)
-Celery (Sometimes with cream cheese or peanut butter, usually plain)
-Carrots and only carrots (CARROTS UNTIL FUCKING DEATH!! CARROTS FOREVER AND EVER!)
-Hommus (I spelled it like this because I want to meet someone who spells it like this)
-Pinneaple Chunks
-Constant Drip Coffee
-"Economy" Spaghetti w/ Safeway Marinara sauce
Pretty grim. It's a FOOD CHOICE.
So I ordered a pizza from Dominoes. I had been working all day on my terrible recording rig and was in a sort of food-frenzy. Like when you want someone so bad that you knock your entire unstapled thesis paper off of your bed to make room to go at it. That was how bad I wanted this pizza. Except I did not write a thesis, and I don't own a bed. Also, the pizza-sex joke has already been made on the internet.
So I won't go into too much detail (I pretty much ordered a single pizza, and argued civilly with the delivery person about what I actually ordered), but I'll say this much. It was good food to eat and I ate it with my mouth. I ate a pizza, and my roommate criticized the toppings. As if you have room to talk, BRYAN.
I looked at someone in a car
(From April 5th)
Last night I accidentally looked at someone's face at an intersection. I guess my gaze conferred something that I didn't intend - because the person started honking like crazy. When I made the mistake of looking back, a stocky man in a small white sedan with a shaved head was jerking his neck rapidly at me. He moved in a violent, stuttering nod.
I am really interested in learning how to not become scared when things like this happen. My best idea so far is to try and imagine what this guy's life is like. I am trying to humanize someone in defiance of my first reaction, which was fantasizing about flooding his car with a foul lawn mulch, crushing him.
I imagine a life for him where he had to overcome his fear of talking to a girl that he liked. How this turned into a relationship that brought his confidence up to stellar levels - finally peaking with him no longer needing her. He is unable to break it off, relying on her presence for domestic stability and regular sex. I think he must have been on his way to a bar or house to drink with his male crew. His only moments of liberation in a life he feels is suffocating must be when he opens that third beer and gets into a cycle of joking with the guys. There is one guy in particular who he always hopes to impress, more than the others. This one guy's sense of humor is more sophisticated. The man who honked at me gauges his own wit, and ultimately his effectiveness as a person, to the reactions of his uber-friend. And upon driving to see his uber-friend and the other lesser friends some jackoff DARES to look at him, and then look away. Like a whipped dog. What would uber friend do? Would he let it pass, falling into that same fallow camp as this dude in a crappy 2-tone pickup truck?
No. He would be a man - not just a man - THE ONLY MAN. For the sake of his friends, his best friend, his girlfriend, and his family, he had to show that he was better and stronger than this shifty eyed "college" creep.
The bad part is that I can't defeat this person, ever. Without my imagination and inference, his actions prove him about 2.5 steps up from walking with paws and a tail. He wins just by being the way he is. My compassion is not so much cutting the gordian knot as it is throwing a dart through a noose. Right now, I truly hate that guy. It's an ugly emotion and I'm not proud of it. I would like to learn more about how to react to these kinds of situations without internalizing them. I'd like to think that I can feel real compassion for anyone. But I know that my emotions will not lie to me at a desolate intersection at 2:00am - flanked by the personification of fight-or-flight.
Last night I accidentally looked at someone's face at an intersection. I guess my gaze conferred something that I didn't intend - because the person started honking like crazy. When I made the mistake of looking back, a stocky man in a small white sedan with a shaved head was jerking his neck rapidly at me. He moved in a violent, stuttering nod.
I am really interested in learning how to not become scared when things like this happen. My best idea so far is to try and imagine what this guy's life is like. I am trying to humanize someone in defiance of my first reaction, which was fantasizing about flooding his car with a foul lawn mulch, crushing him.
I imagine a life for him where he had to overcome his fear of talking to a girl that he liked. How this turned into a relationship that brought his confidence up to stellar levels - finally peaking with him no longer needing her. He is unable to break it off, relying on her presence for domestic stability and regular sex. I think he must have been on his way to a bar or house to drink with his male crew. His only moments of liberation in a life he feels is suffocating must be when he opens that third beer and gets into a cycle of joking with the guys. There is one guy in particular who he always hopes to impress, more than the others. This one guy's sense of humor is more sophisticated. The man who honked at me gauges his own wit, and ultimately his effectiveness as a person, to the reactions of his uber-friend. And upon driving to see his uber-friend and the other lesser friends some jackoff DARES to look at him, and then look away. Like a whipped dog. What would uber friend do? Would he let it pass, falling into that same fallow camp as this dude in a crappy 2-tone pickup truck?
No. He would be a man - not just a man - THE ONLY MAN. For the sake of his friends, his best friend, his girlfriend, and his family, he had to show that he was better and stronger than this shifty eyed "college" creep.
The bad part is that I can't defeat this person, ever. Without my imagination and inference, his actions prove him about 2.5 steps up from walking with paws and a tail. He wins just by being the way he is. My compassion is not so much cutting the gordian knot as it is throwing a dart through a noose. Right now, I truly hate that guy. It's an ugly emotion and I'm not proud of it. I would like to learn more about how to react to these kinds of situations without internalizing them. I'd like to think that I can feel real compassion for anyone. But I know that my emotions will not lie to me at a desolate intersection at 2:00am - flanked by the personification of fight-or-flight.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Taco Cabana is Awesome
$1.09 gets you a taco in a soft, thick tortilla. This admission price also covers your voyage to the salsa bar. Once you get past the fact that this stuff sits in the open all day (I got past this immediately. Stuff like that doesn't bother me), a world of possibilities opens up. Actually, just one possibility - that of filling your taco until it explodes with jalepenos, cilantro, and upwards of 3 salsas. My favorite is the creamy one. It doesn't really count as a salsa probably. The roasted reddish-brown one is my favorite real salsa. The salsa verde will kill you. Almost all the salsas are pretty much winners. The light red one looks a little weak, and the pineapple chipotle just seems too trendy for me to take seriously.
Another item: They have this thing called the Cabana Bowl that is a little more expenisve and extreme. It is 3.50, and is a large, crispy shell filled with cheese, beans, rice, guacamole, sour cream, and pico de gallo. It's ways too much food for one sitting, actually. This does not stop me from eating it in one sitting. I avoid ordering this particular item when I can help it - just because pushing the tare weight of my intestines to two full pounds is probably unhealthy. I can pretty much rationalize tacos (vegetables, black beans, rice - pretty sound, not counting the crisco-cured tortilla). But the Cabana Bowl is a fried, edible, 7" bucket that houses a mean cast of unhealthy characters. Sour cream should not be allowed near this dish. The shell should break off comunication with the sour cream. But they always end up seing eachother at some party, and talking about what went wrong on the porch. One thing leads to another. Pretty soon I am eating a delicious cabana bowl. I will clarify that I never feel guilty or anything after eating one. I feel awesome. My decision to avoid them is objective, not some anti-texmex, gastro-religious backlash.
Another item: They have this thing called the Cabana Bowl that is a little more expenisve and extreme. It is 3.50, and is a large, crispy shell filled with cheese, beans, rice, guacamole, sour cream, and pico de gallo. It's ways too much food for one sitting, actually. This does not stop me from eating it in one sitting. I avoid ordering this particular item when I can help it - just because pushing the tare weight of my intestines to two full pounds is probably unhealthy. I can pretty much rationalize tacos (vegetables, black beans, rice - pretty sound, not counting the crisco-cured tortilla). But the Cabana Bowl is a fried, edible, 7" bucket that houses a mean cast of unhealthy characters. Sour cream should not be allowed near this dish. The shell should break off comunication with the sour cream. But they always end up seing eachother at some party, and talking about what went wrong on the porch. One thing leads to another. Pretty soon I am eating a delicious cabana bowl. I will clarify that I never feel guilty or anything after eating one. I feel awesome. My decision to avoid them is objective, not some anti-texmex, gastro-religious backlash.
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