Everything is just a big distraction from what you love.

If you were cool in high school
you didn't ask too many questions.
You could tell who'd been to last night's
big metal concert by the new t-shirts in the hallway.
You didn't have to ask
and that's what cool was:
the ability to deduct
to know without asking.
And the pressure to simulate coolness
means not asking when you don't know,
which is why kids grow ever more stupid.


A yearbook's endpages, filled with promises
to stay in touch, stand as proof of the uselessness
of a teenager's promise. Not like I'm dying
for a letter from the class stoner
ten years on but...

Do you remember the way the girls
would call out "love you!"
conveniently leaving out the "I"
as if they didn't want to commit
to their own declarations.

I agree that the "I" is a pretty heavy concept
and hope you won't get uncomfortable
if I should go into some deeper stuff here.

This song is best listened to at 1:30 AM in complete darkness with headphones.

I recorded a song. Just a simple vocal/guitar/harmonica folky arrangement. I've listened to it about 10 times back to back just before writing this post, wondering if I actually want someone to actually listen to it. There are parts where I feel like words are pronounced in the most stupid and weird ways (ie: "Missouri to New Yawrk"). Maybe it's just an inherent problem with songwriters, but I've always been pretty self-conscious about showing my work to others, let alone singing in public or showing someone else a recording of my own voice. That's probably why I'm putting it on this obscure little blog of mine, because I'm sure no one really reads this thing :)

I also want to get some recordings together to send to the local indie station, KDHX. I have nothing to lose. Maybe I'm so eager to do it because I know that, if i ever get any feedback, it can only be positive. Otherwise they just wouldn't respond, I guess. If I send anything in I'd need to get an album cover for everything and burn it to a disk. I have no idea what I'd do for a cover. I have some artistically inclined friends who I might ask to make something. I might try to do something with the header image of the rainbow sheep eating a mushroom.

Now, for the music:

Think of Me

Aw, heck. I'll post the link to the other song. I'm extremely happy with the instrumental arrangement, but I wanna redo the vocals. I sound so bored and flat, methinks. I shudder when I listen to this recording because of the vocals.

Steel Strings

And I'm considering calling the album "Stolen Strings." It was the original title for "Steel Strings" because I felt like I stole the acoustic guitar picking style and the slide guitar idea from Pink Floyd's "A Pillow of Winds."

Radical Face

I broke out Ghost, my newest Radical Face album again. I just need to get this off my chest: this album is the greatest audible piece of artwork since Radiohead's Kid A. I just need to put this out here.

I'm working on another song. It's very heavily inspired by Devendra Banhart's "Lover." I have no idea how it's exactly going to end up or what I'm going to call it, but I might show it to some friends and see what they think. I might be able to record the entire thing on my own in my little studio; all I need to do is borrow a tambourine and a my friend's bass. I'm always so dissatisfied with my lyrics. Everything comes out looking so amateurish to me. Sometimes I wonder if I should just leave songwriting for when I get to college and on, and just focus on developing my technique for now. It amazes me how obscure and spontaneous people like Devendra Banhart can be with their lyrics while keeping such a perfect flow.

I've been a-waiting here

For another day or year

For when I won't need to say

That I know who I am, and that's ok

And I know that I don't cost too much

And with everything I see I think I think too much

I think I think I think and then It's always the same

Another day is lost, and that's ok

Hold on, and show yourself

I want to see you smile and nothing else

There's no question. I am going to get this bass soon. It seems absolutely perfect. Danelectros have always looked so odd and awesome to me:

Danelectro Dead on 58 Longhorn Bass

One of these days, these days will end

I would love to find someone else who can appreciate this song. Everything about it; the vocals, the chords, the lyrics...it's all perfect to me. I was reading about the singer/songwriter's relationship with his father, Richard Berman, who is apparently the food and alcohol industry's weapon of mass destruction, dedicating his entire being to telling the world that obesity and tobacco is not damaging to health. The singer in that song decided to dedicate himself to music and poetry, attempting to fill the world with beauty and art in the wake of destruction left by his father. He has recently retired from music to move to film, with his reasoning being that he would never be able to dent the evil spread by his father; and because of this he feels too ashamed to continue a career in music.

It's an interesting and almost heartbreaking story. He called his father "evil", a "human molestor", an "exploiter", a "scoundrel" and "a world historical motherfucking son of a bitch." He concluded this rant with saying "I am the son of a demon come to make good the damage."

I took a look at David Berman's (the son) poetry. I loved Self-Portrait at 28.