bright ideas

From my pal Mike who dared me to : "Turn on your MP3 player, choose random and listen. Note the first 25 songs."

1. the walkmen - revenge wears no wristwatch
2. stevie wonder - blame it on the sun
3. van halen - why can't this be love?
4. bjork - hunter
5. john lennon - imagine
6. jay-z/dj dangermouse - 99 problems
7. red house painters - golden
8. the decemberists - a cautionary song
9. the pixies - where is my mind?
10. george michael - faith
11. dire straits - brothers in arms
12. queens of the stone age - the lost art of keeping a secret
13. the hollies - the air that i breathe
14. mogwai - 2 rights make 1 wrong
15. tom waits - the heart of saturday night
16. tom waits - i hope that i don't fall in love with you
17. placebo - i'll be yours
18. prince - how come u don't call me anymore
19. liam lynch - happy song
20. harry connick jr. - we are in love
21. the streets - let's push things forward
22. blackalicious - make you feel that way
23. the twilight singers - feathers
24. mos def - love
25. britney spears - toxic

See how I almost made it out of the woods but Britney had rear her evil blonde head at the last minute? What a bummer. Other than that there's nothing I'm partciularly ashamed of. Sure the Harry Connick's strange, but not if you know me for the old softie I really am. Oh... and the Van Halen, but that's a very special song to me. Mike himself fared about as well as me. 

:doug @ 1:59 AM

compromise

I'm going to have to make some dramatic changes around here. In doing so, I may have to cut out or amend certain plans for the near future. If you're one of the people I can't talk to for now, if I let you down or if I make a choice that you don't understand or don't appreciate - I really need you to cut me some slack. Everything's broken and in definite need of repair. I've pretty much put off realizing how my life is in shambles.

Also, if we're estranged friends who haven't talked for a while or at great lengths recently, I'd really love it if you gave me some kind of vague encouragement or cheerleading either by phone, fax, e-mail, IM, carrier pigeon, telegraph, etc. etc. ad nauseum. The kind without questions, curiosity or criticism; just blind faith and complete optimism.

You know I wouldn't ask for this if I didn't need it and you know that I've probably never asked for it before. 

:doug @ 4:22 AM

the lowest of the low

I just watched (NO!, fell victim to) Freddie Prinze Jr. lip-syncing Barry White to Julia Stiles in a candlelit room. I bet there's a layer of hell set aside for the truly unholy where they're forced to watch his horrible romantic comedies over and over and over again, probably all at the same time. And I can see minor devils watching over the tortured mass going "So this one's She's All That and that one's Down to You...?"

"No, no, no, dude. For the last time!... THAT one's Down to You and THAT one's She's All That!"

"Ohhhhhhhhh!"

"Yeah, see? You can tell by the Rachel Leigh Cook."

I also have to wonder why we make today's Message of Love so personal. I would much rather imagine John Ashcroft sending a tear-jerking card to the ACLU with a picture of a puppy on the front that says "Doggone it, I'm sorry!"

For all you happy couples out there enjoying a fancy dinner and face-carresing love making, good luck. I'm going to listen to Pet Sounds and try and fight the urge to call up ex-girlfriends, but more than likely I'll end up drinking at a bar, covered in Axe body spray in a vain attempt to mask the reek of desperation. Stank you very much. 

:doug @ 8:18 PM

facing it

I may not be as smart as I think I am. 

:doug @ 6:28 PM

Loneliness

The not-happening was so sudden
that I stayed there for ever,
without knowing, without their knowing me,
as if I were under a chair,
as if i were lost in the night -
so was that which was not,
and so have I stayed for ever.

I asked the others after,
the women and the man,
what they were doing with such confidence
and how they had learned their living;
they did not actually answer,
they went on dancing and living.

It is what has not happened to one
that determines the silence,
and I don't want to go on speaking
because I stayed there waiting;
in that place and on that day
I haven no idea what happened
but now I am not the same.

- Pablo Neruda 

:doug @ 9:08 AM

professions-

1. novelist
2. independent record label founder
3. bar/club owner
4. therapist
5. high school anthropology teacher 

:doug @ 4:19 AM

there and back again : brooklyn to brooklyn

Tim accquired. that was one of the longer nights of my life, they'll be well over a hundred of them in the coming months. songs heard on the radio by John and I on the trip up in the rental van :

"no sleep til brooklyn" - beastie boys - later used to kick off a thought that certain music creates roads to other musical cities and how mike and adamx2 didn't really carry me to Public Enemy Town, but more to the dirty, Pittsburgh-like AC/DC Ville
"november rain" - g n' r - forcing the creation of a Talking Embargo during the climatic second-half of the song
"sad but true" - metallica - remember way back when they were good?
three various faith hill songs - making John and I construct a long-winded and detailed fantasy of how faith probably makes a killer pot roast and would wear nothing but an apron while doing so, ahhhh chauvenistic tradition... you're so bittersweet...
"radio cure" - wilco - while searching manhattan in vain for the Williamsburg bridge and ending up at the battery tunnel, i'm not the navigator Bret was the last time around
"hot in herre" - nelly - man, i really hate him, but if he's actually writing shit this catchy i'm going to be stuck listening to him for a while

i have to apologize for my lack of blogging. i am the least-busy person in the world, but i've been really trying to practice a lot of powerful silence in preparation for the coming journey. so if i dodge invites to hang out, phone calls or seem a little quiet in person - please don't take it personal.

(though it was quite the opposite during the 12 hour road trip, i ran my mouth constantly and probably annoyed Tim and John, but i was really just trying to keep the conversation going so that the latter didn't nod off behind the wheel or anything crazy. it was a real smash-and-grab-job of a move.) 

:doug @ 3:37 AM