According to some preliminary research, the going rate for being published in a poetry magazine is $6.00 a line... assuming they like it. Poetry does not a living make. However, I find this prose-poem about candy hearts highly entertaining.

My other money-making scheme is to become competent with a graphics program and make t-shirts for Threadless.com. I have a couple of good ideas that are waiting on the competence problem. Meanwhile, "You can't spell Progress without Ogres" is doing surprisingly well as a slogan possibility.

Big poetry site update. Feedback welcome. More on the way soon, I expect.

Also, I may or may not have blacked out for a period on Saturday, which is just a bit disturbing. I blame this on wearing the gold shirt. Seriously, no good has ever come of that thing, vastly entertaining though it may be. Also there may have been alcohol involved, and a profoundly weird emotional state. However, on the whole a fun evening, especially the part that I remember.

I have been putting pentasyllabic slant rhymes into a series of septets. Clearly, I have made it as a poet. I am putting this here so I'm not compelled to bring it up in conversation. Does it count as bragging if one's achievement is clearly esoteric and ridiculous?

I wish I could sleep and also that there was not so much meddlesome Bio homework.

This afternoon the world impressed me with it's playlist:
"No Children" - The Mountain Goats; coming from a laptop in the Reynold's Club
"Get Me Away from Here I'm Dying" - Belle & Sebastian; playing in the 2nd-Floor Coffee Shop
"The Waiting" - Tom Petty; in the food court of Hutch.
All in the span of 15 minutes or so. I was in the right places at the right times in a very small way today.

And speaking of fate, a restless/happy/unconcerned Valentine's to all, as you wish to take it. My poetry class is going to be a lecture on "Poems of Forsaken Love." I've just realized the irony of this, and I don't think any more need be said.

"Tinuviel! Tinuviel!" For those who appreciate fragments of romanticism expressed in Tolkien references.

A Poem:

Microsoft does not recognize the term "dystopia."
It suggests that I might want to replace it with "dustpan."
How about "distopia" with an "i"?
"Isotopic"? No, thank you.

Lack of blogging is indeed a severe problem of late. I have been up to stuff. And junk. Additionally, How 'bout them Bears? There was certainly an excessive amount of hooting and hollering on my part last Sunday. There may even have been some chest-bumping. Although it took about until the last five minutes for me to believe that they might actually pull it off. I will of course be cheering next Sunday with the traditional chant of "Don't Suck! *clap* *clap*", but hey, they weren't supposed to beat the Saints either. Go Bears!

And I appear to be going to a monster truck rally next Saturday... in Peoria. This was not my idea, but I'm the only one with access to a car who's willing to humor this little excursion, and it should be entertaining. Zach conceived this plan, and has recruited three more lunatics. One of them plans to go in drag. There is some expectation this will lead to a fight, or litigation. I, with my love of wandering into large, agitated crowds and attempting to make a scene, fear we may all be killed. But probably nothing will come of it...

Also, I have become addicted to the Dark Tower series by Stephen King, as it is basically a fantasy series featuring Clint Eastwood and much crazy plot-twistiness. I had forgotten just how much I like a good novel. And by "like", I mean " am willing to rip through as though the pages were laced with cocaine". Good stuff.

Must run off and feast on delicious grease products.

I'd just like to point out that the Bears really started to bring it as soon as it began snowing. Maybe Bears Weather isn't a myth after all.

I'm back at school now, which is a strange adjustment. Before I left I saw "Beauty and the Beast" at the Music Box. The old French flick was being shown as part of the Janus film series there. It's certainly a quality piece of cinema, but I started thinking as I was watching it: Sure, it's supposed to be a classic love story that shows the importance of finding the inner goodness in people, but couldn't it also be one of the first documented cases of Stockholm Syndrom? Think about it.

In conclusion, why don't they make books like this anymore?

The blog is languishing. Time to give it some pep.

It snowed today, which is a good thing because I was beginning to wonder whether global warming had driven away the white stuff for good.

And while it snowed, I was hard at work. The past couple days I have been cleaning out the rooms in my old Catholic grade school. The institution closed about two years ago--shut down most unjustly by the archdiocese--though some would say it was only a shell of its former self and that it was time for it to close. Debatable.

Either way, large school building and all its contents were left undisturbed this entire time. Now the parish has found someone to lease the building--a good thing, to be sure. The new leasers will be doing a whole heap of remodeling, which means it's finally time to haul out 60+ years of school-themed junk.

It's strange to haul out bags and bags of either your childhood mementos or someone else's. It's strange to walk the deserted halls you spent 9 years in, where everything still smells the same. On one hand, I would say I'm not the right person for this job, but then again, it's almost like the death of a relative. Who better to clean out the old building than myself? It's almost like a responsibility.

One rarely thinks too hard about dead schools, at least not about their innards. Of course, there are some things you expect to find, like hundreds of small desks:


great old vinyl-covered furniture:


or the remnants of a chess club:


Then there are the more odd items. Things locked away in cabinets for a couple decades. Things such as old educational film-strips with accompanying record:


abandoned girl-scout craft projects:


an old cigar box filled with monopoly money:


or an entire cabinet filled with glass laterns made from ashtrays:


All in all, a lot of memories come back to you, embedded in the hallways and classrooms. There was something eerie about walking into the old boys locker room and instantly remembering where everyone used to stand as we dressed for gym class.


There are melancholy images:


and cheerful ones:


In the end, however, everything has to go to the same place:


May it rest in peace.


Happy 2007, everyone.

The Christmas Season is upon us, and I have returned from Sri Lanka in one piece. I actually got back a week ago, but I've spent that time recovering from jet lag, trimming holiday trees, and clearing out some phlegm.

I've been somewhat out of the media loop for awhile, so I don't have much to report on that front. I did, however, watch "The Illusionist" with Ed Norton and Paul Giamatti on the plane ride home, and it was pretty darned awful--strange considering the personnel involved. I then flipped through the airline media guide to find that Richard Roeper gave the movie a thumbs up, further confirming my suspicion that the film was utter garbage.
I also watched "The Night Listener"--a creepy movie with Robin Williams where, ironically, he doesn't play the creepy character. Instead, he plays a gay late-night radio show host, who comes across a dark novel written by a young boy. No...really...I swear Williams doesn't play the creepy character. Anyway, the film was good, if not a tad disjointed.
Finally, I saw M. Night Shyamalan's "Lady in the Water" (There were some looong plane rides). Though not without its flaws, I simply don't understand why it got panned so badly by critics. It was a nice movie with a nice story, which is what the director said he set out to accomplish from the very beginning. Funnily enough, for all the magic creatures and fairy-tale-ness of the film, I simply couldn't suspend my disbelief during this one scene where Paul Giamatti holds his breath underwater for an exorbitantly long time. Seriously, the man's not in good enough shape to do that; he gets winded from simply speaking in that movie.

Now I've got to catch up on all the movies in theaters now. I haven't even seen the new Bond yet, though they were already selling bootleg copies of the film in Sri Lanka before it came out. The only problem was that the first few minutes were in Russian and then the sound dropped out altogether (and the Thai subtitles weren't very helpful). Really, Sri Lanka's an ideal place to go if you're looking for useless junk--they just sell it on the streets there. You can get anything you want, just so long as it will never actually be helpful to you. For example, there were hoods which had been removed from Columbia rain jackets to be resold for 20 cents a piece. My friend laughed so hard he bought one.

That's all there is to report in this edition. I will leave you with this awesome picture of a record which I can only dream to someday find, because it looks like it would be freaking amazing:




Happy Christmas.

Happy Thanksgiving and such forth, ladies and gents.

I figure with December looming I ought to make an appearance. Also, I am bored.

It's been an exciting month. For the first time in my life, I went to Soldier Field and saw a Bears game. It was fantastic up until the point where it turned into a Dolphins game. ouch. But the inside of Soldier Filed is quite nice these days, great view of the field. I went with Zach, who purchased a ticket for his dad, who was unfortunately unable to make it up to Chicago. Tragically, Zach is a Dolphins fan, so much so that he was willing to strap his Dolphins wall-clock to his chest when he couldn't find a jersey (The city was utterly devoid of Miami gear). I was wearing a newly-purchased Bernard Berrian jersey; Berrian was of course injured on his first catch of the day. Nevertheless, it was overall a good day. Consider this wisdom from Zach: "A screwdriver is a breakfast drink; it's got orange juice"

Additionally, I will get around to posting more poetry eventually, but in theory it should be somewhat less embarassing, as most of it has been run through the gauntlet of CRWR 130: Intermediate Poetry Workshop. This has been great, because it's pretty much the only class I have where I can talk to people, and the only class I have that, under the right circumstances, consumes 4 bottles of wine among 9 people. Anyway, I wrote a sonnet (sort of) that's mainly about designer drugs ("I think we called it nuclear wintergreen"), although I don't know how that's been received yet.

I seem to have retained some vague skill at fencing, despite not going for a year; being tall and semi-gangly is a significant advantage though, as is being left-handed (woo!). I probably should have stuck with baseball too, but then again, Little League was boring as all hell. That aside, I went 4-2 in our intrateam tournament the other week, so there's hope yet.

Man, there are a lot of Bond movies on TV right now. Which reminds me: I've seen Casino Royale twice already, and I quite like the new direction Bond is headed. For once, a svage beating to the testicles is a good omen.

LIVE FROM SRI LANKA:

So I've just returned from two weeks living with priests in a remote farming village in Sri Lanka and here's what I have to say for myself (I apologize if the thoughts seem scattered or uninteresting):

I stayed at St. Anthony's National Shrine in Wahakotte, in the Benedictan mission house attached to the church. Despite being in a poor farming village, my accomodations were quite comfortable and the food was always delicious and in plenty (though I did suffer a 24 hour bout of food poisoning, but that's to be expected). Almost everyone in Wahakotte is a paddy farmer, and the village is set in the picturesque part of the island bordering the hill country and dry zone. The Catholicism is marked by an extremely strong devotion to St Anthony, whom they pray to for just about everything. Some are of the opionion that he's bigger than Jesus. Fr. Eugene said, "He's like Arnold Schwarzenegger to these people."

The four priests who run the parish--Fr. Hilarion, Fr. Eugene, Fr. Soosai, and Fr. Valentine--were overwhelmingly hospitable and always willing to sit down and give me lots of good quotes about Wahakotte. Fr. Eugene and Fr. Soosai were particularly entertaining, as they're from a younger generation of clergy and therefore a bit skeptical about Wahakotte's conservative tendencies. I enjoyed having long conversations with Fr. Eugene on all sorts of topics, as he might be one of the most informed and well-read people I've ever met.

Aside from the priests, I also spoke with a handful of villagers. Everyday I would take a leisurely walk along the dusty rural roads lined with small houses and coconut palms, and the extremely friendly residents of the village would be so curious about my presence that they'd be more than happy to speak with me, if only to find out what the heck a white person was doing so far out in the boonies. I can't count the number of times I was invited into a stranger's house for tea.

I got my best information from the older villagers (generally the only ones who still speak fluent English). Like old people in the U.S., all you have to do is give them a forum and they'll talk your ear off. Most Wahakotte villagers have very strong opinions on just about everything and one wouldn't believe the gossip and passive-aggressive in-fighting that goes on in that village. (It drove Fr. Eugene mad. He'l leaving next year and vows never to accept another assignment at Wahakotte).

Relations with the other religious groups in the surrounding villages are very good and there's been sizable amount of Sinhala-Buddhist inculturation within the Catholic rituals.

Wahakotte was at times enlightening, frustrating, hilarious, boring, and thrilling, and I'm incredibly satisfied with my independent study. Now if that 15-20 page paper would just write itself...

I hope everyone is healthy and happy back in the states and gearing up for a lovely Thanksgiving. The ISLE students will be having our own version of the holiday, but the celebration will be delayed until the end of the month. Still, there'll be turkey.

Take Care,
Alex

LIVE FROM SRI LANKA:

So this may end up being a post-post of Pat, but, as much as I hate the practice, I figure it'll probably be another week before I make it to the internet again, so I should probably say something now. Besides, it's already the 25th here, so that should count for something.

No doubt most of you have already heard (or maybe you haven't, since most of you are in college bubbles) about the recent flare of violence in the country, beginning with a large suicide attack in the North and followed by a naval base attack in Galle, which led to some communal rioting down south. The fact that both these attacks occured in what's considered the "safe zone" is the most troubling piece of it. Right now, the country's a bit on edge and everyone's holding their breath for the peace talks in Geneva coming up this weekend.

The ramifications for the ISLE program aren't too serious. The board of directors met recently and decided not to cancel the program. The individual universities also agreed not to pull their students. In return, the ISLE program has restricted our travel to the greater Kandy area. Nobody was allowed to travel last weekend and that rule also applies to this coming weekend. After that, all that's left of the program is our independent studies, which are now being modified, since most of the people planned to go to the south for at least of portion of the project. I'll still be allowed to go to the small village of Wahakotte (where I plan to study interesting Catholic people), but sadly I won't be able to meet back up with my excellent contact in Galle. Everyone is bummed about the changes, but we agree that it's better than going home.

Some students, however, have decided to go home due to their parents' wishes. Right now, two people, one from Bates and one from Holy Cross, have confirmed that they'll be flying home after this session of classes ends on November 6th. The program is working very hard to accomodate those who wish to go home because of the recent events, and the students will get full credit. Naturally, I don't plan to pull out so soon. The only way I'm leaving is if things get bad enough for the U.S. military to take us away in helicopters, with myself dangling 100 feet in the air from a rope ladder.

Of course, the mood around the ISLE center has been a bit dazed and sullen of late, but we're trying to make the best of the situation. Last weekened I had time to hang around with my family, which was a relaxing break from constantly having large amounts of work or travel to do. This weekend we're going to try and take advantage of all the things in Kandy we haven't seen yet, like the enourmous botanical garden near the University campus. Plus, we'll also be occupied with the end of term papers and independent study proposals that we have to write. Aside from the restrictions imposed by the program, life in Kandy really hasn't changed at all. Contrary to the fiery personalities of the southern people, those in the hill country are too laid back to get worked up over the types of things that Sri Lanka has been dealing with for the past 30 years.

I hope everyone is healthy and happy back home. We're having a Halloween part at the ISLE center here. I'm going as a cricketer.

Take Care,
Alex

I’m here today to talk to you about two bands, both of which many of you should already know and love:

First off, Boys and Girls in America is spectacular. Craig Finn is unstoppable. They have an acoustic song; it is stunning (“Citrus”). The opening trio of “Stuck Between Stations”, “Chips Ahoy!”, and “Hot Soft Light” start off strong and grow on you with time… In general, there’s maybe a little more of a Springsteen-type influence spread through this, compared to Separation Sunday, a little straighter of a throwback overall, but it’s still all unmistakably Hold Steady, down to the “new direction” (whoa-ho oh-oh oh-oh-oh) on the backing vocals that we heard on “Massive Nights” at Lolla, which is even better on “Chips Ahoy!” And if I wanted to quote great lyrics at you, I would be here all day. So get the album. I’m going to see them on Thursday.

Now, that’s a tough act to follow, but I’m still going to mention that I’m linking to the one, the only Con Amor Siempre. For starters, the fact that they did a cover of “Sugar High” from Empire Records has really endeared them to me (because clearly, I hated Maciej before now). Also, I kept getting “Allen Bean” stuck in my head this summer, and more recently, “Ballroom Dancing Saved My Life”. If you happen to not already know Maciej, then seriously, just look at that song title, and follow that link.

I was bitten by a spider a few weeks ago. I’ll keep you posted on any incipient superpowers.

Also, I am an evil poet -- really unspeakably evil. Oh man, but that was fun. I really hesitate to submit a poem to my workshop class that includes

“A tiny dancer
And Tony Danza
Debate on a napkin
For twenty stanzas”

And other things in that vein. Or maybe the fact that incredibly silly rhymes fill me with maniacal giggling should be more of a concern. Damned if I know.

LIVE FROM SRI LANKA:

So our streak of at least one post every month has been broken. Really there's no one to blame for this but Pat, since he is not in Sri Lanka right now. But since I'm posting this, he'll probably get all inspired to make a post of his own, much in the same way that if you give a mouse a cookie, he'll probably ask for a glass of milk to go with it. Anyway, on to the update.

The program here is more than halfway over and we're settling into our second round of classes. I'm taking a Mahayana Buddhism class taught by an ex-monk who may or may not have been thrown out of the order for doing too many drugs. I'm also taking an Environmental Studies course, which took a field trip last week to Nuwara Eliya, a city located south of Kandy higher in the hills.

The temperature there is much cooler than Kandy, cool enough to have to wear a jacket, which was a nice change for us. The landscape is absolutely gorgeous. Bright green hills covered in neat rows of tea plants that periodically disappear into rolling misty clouds. We visited a tea factory as well as vegetable farms in the hills. Though human agricultural use of the land may be beautiful, it's also encroaching on the supposedly protected forest land and destroying the soil. Much of the weekend was spent debating whether or not Environmentalism and Development have to be at odds.

We also visited a hydro-electric project, the damn of which will result in the loss of a waterfall and the relocation of 500 families. The project was a hot political topic here, but compromises were eventually made. The original plan called for the destruction of several waterfalls, but that was brought down to just the one. The people are being moved farther up the hill and having brand new houses built for them, which they will have complete ownership over. This is very expensive land that they could not otherwise afford and it's predicted that many families will choose to sell their new homes after a couple years and move elsewhere.

Sri Lanka is actually leading all Asian countries in terms of environmental programs. They have a very large amount of land set aside as wildlife reserves and they are paying particular attention to watersheds, realizing that such a small country has little room for error when it comes to water pollution. In fact, the massive hydropower development project that began 20 years ago has actually resulted in more land being set aside for wildlife reserve than for development. Sri Lanka currently gets 50% of it's power from hydroelectric sources. Once the newest dam is complete, it will be 65%.

While in the hill country, we traveled to World's End, located 7500 ft. above sea level. It's so named because there's a sheer drop at the edge of about 1000ft, but also because the entire country is laid out before you. One can mark the transition from rainy hills, to arid plains, and (on a clear day) can even see the shimmering of the Indian Ocean (keep in mind that Nuwara Eliya is almost in the center of the country). From that point onwards, there's no more land until Antarctica. Perhaps the most fascinating thing about Sri Lanka is that it has so much environmental variation packed into an area about the size of West Virginia.

That's about all I have to report for now. I suppose that if you don't much care about the environment, this update was a tad dry. I'll try to get possessed by a demon or something this week.

Take Care,
Alex

[Alex just posted, btw, folks. He doesn't like it when I post-post him, so keep scrolling down and everyone will be happy]

I keep thinking I‘m going to write one of these, but then I get distracted by little things like getting up before 5AM, two consecutive weekends of non-stop music, moving a god-awful large bed, inexplicably finding myself in an outlet mall, and grillbeasts. I’m probably forgetting a few things. I’ll get back to them… or I will brush over them, as they are not entertaining and/or make me look lazier. Anyway…

I guess this is simultaneously a Facebook note, because the internet is now a race between Facebook and Google to combine all features of the internet into one stalkeriffic blob. Also, this means I have subsumed Alex’s identity into mine for Facebook purposes. He is my son, after all [/in-joke from 3 years ago]. In retrospect, the decision to import this blog may be silly, what with it being linked to in my profile. Bah. The blog is clearly the superior experience, what with its links and soothing blue color scheme. Also it is slightly faster.

Let the bullet points begin!
*King-Kong vs. Godzilla is not as good a movie as you would think. Snakes on a Plane is as good a movie as you would think, and most likely better.

*Sometimes, you just have to break down and buy the pants.

*Driving around Chicago aimlessly at night, despite the effectiveness of grid system for keeping one’s bearings, is not a good way to find anything to do. This city needs to stay open later, or I need to be 21.

*Why on earth would anyone think it was a good idea to replace a ceiling-fan blade with a blade that was much larger and heavier than its neighbors? Answer: in hopes of killing the next person to turn the fan on.

*If you have not already seen the following bands live, do so at your earliest opportunity: The Go! Team, The Hold Steady. I cannot emphasize this enough. Especially the Go! Team. and especially The Hold Steady.

*Ted Leo has regained his passion for the music, but has lost a lot of blood (See D3 for photographic evidence)

*There are certain people whom, through no real fault of their own, I will have no choice to vomit on when I meet them – Well, not necessarily on, but in their vicinity – on account of certain disturbing episodes I know about. It will most likely go something like “Hi! Nice to meet you! I’ve heard so much about y – Oh God my eyes BLAAUHLGHCHL!”… And that’s all I want to say about that.

LIVE FROM SRI LANKA:

Hey look! I can get to the internet from the university here! It's slow!

Sri Lanka's great, everyone, and Pat's a bum for not posting since I left. He better not let the blasted blog die while I'm away.

The climate in the hills of Kandy is gorgeous. It's the perfect temperature all year round with fantastic sceneary everywhere you look. There are lots of troublesome monkeys and stray dogs about. I'm learning Sinhala, which isn't as hard as you might think, since it's an Indo-European language. Reading it, on the other hand...

We went on a tour of the historic ruins in the northern section of the island, which was fantastic, but now I have to write a paper on it, which is not fantastic. The family I'm living with is hilarious and my little brothers keep me on my toes.

I hope everyone has a rip-roaring start to their schoolyear, or in Pat's case, I hope you relax for a month before your rip-roaring start to the schoolyear.

Keep it real.

So, I know I haven't posted all summer and I apologize for that, but I'm just dropping in now to tell you that I may not be posting for the next 4.5 months, depending on how my internet access goes. You see, I'm heading off to Sri Lanka today for a semester abroad. I'll try to stay alive. In case anyone needs to send me anything here's my address (no firearms or narcotics, please):

Alex McKinley
The ISLE Center
75 Dangolla Road
Kandy, Sri Lanka


Have a great rest of the summer and fall semester, everyone.

What a weird summer. Too much time to think, not enough time to do things. But things keep happening anyway. Still most weekdays I work, I practice guitar, and I write; it's very self-contained. I'm going to hit the school year with a lot of strange pent-up energy, I think. I actually caught myself wanting to write a paper today... I mean, not, you know, a random paper on something that doesn't interest me, but I was looking at taking a poetry class, what with poetry/songwriting being my attempted calling. You know: read, listen, absorb, experience. Let it all percolate, and then express it.

It kind of surprised me lately to realize that I, in effect, hang out with a bunch of artists -- musicians, film-makers, photographers, even the odd architect. Although someone else recently summed it up as "the music nerds, " which is also accurate. But hey, it's only a matter of time until I know some rock stars, so I've got that going for me.

You'd think I would have noticed that trend earlier, but then I've never been very perceptive; I'm working on that too.

In vaguely practical matters, I saw Pirates 2 (or rather, PotC:DMC, as the is no official numeral) this week, and I was vastly entertained. Somewhere very early on that movie went from being a cliche summer blockbuster to busting one's block with gusto and enthusiasm. Certainly by the time the Atlasphere tribute came around. Visual spectacle, rollicking (and often rolling) good time. I give it 3 and a half dubloons.

also in practical matters, I am highly sleep deprived. See y'all when the weekend hits.

and finally, a quote out of context:
"If Jerry Garcia went around delivering presents, Christmas would be a lot stranger."
-Casey

oof. I hate Mondays (note that I am neither on fire nor being sodomized... so things could be worse). For anyone who's horribly disturbed by that sentence, I swear it's a reference. Anyway...

Good weekend. Friday is oddly hazy, although I'm going to blame that on sleep deprivation and the manic pace of weekends, as I do remember quite a few details. Horrifying details. Oh dear lord. Fun though; my introduction to the wonders of the Friday-night Kelly Boyle's tradition.

Saturday was one of those nights that confirm everything I believe in. Sometimes, chaos works better than a plan. Went up to Evanston to trespass on abeach, scouting party found it was an apocalypse of insects, regrouped, wound up on the North Side at a random party by UIUC connection (which we were somewhat cliquish at, but meh. next time). That led to walking out to Belmont harbor. And... it was transcendent. The moon was out over the relatively calm lake water, which was... gleaming? shimmering? sparkling? in sort of a soft trail from the horizon toward us. So we just stared at that for a while. Only second time in my life I remember seeing the moon over the lake like that, and both times it's been literally stunning. A thing of epic beauty. And then you turn around and there the Chicago skyline. I was kinda loopy for the rest of the night, and that was only on one drink (although I suppose it could have been heat stroke too...). And Alex was there, in an unusual occurrence (which is probably my fault as much as anything, as I've gotten used to unconnected social circles).

I was going to edit Pat's most recent post because I think it makes him look bad, but I think I'd rather just irk him.

Being a CompSci major and all, working with Unix machines, I've built up a decent amount of goodwill towards Macs. We have nice ones in the lab, and they're usually useful. Fairly well-designed OS, even.

But dear God, their latest advertising is doing a good job of destroying it. I don't need some smarmy jackass shoving straw man arguments down my throat and telling me that Macs are some unstoppable race of supercomputers. Macs crash and have issues too. They have their shortcomings, their software shortages, burnt-out logic processors, their spinning-color-wheel-of-death moments. But the main thing is, I find their spokesman unbelievably irritating. Really, I find their entire corporate philosophy irritating; they seem to go out of their way to be pretentious and smug at every turn. So I'll probably just have to start running Linux at some point. Linux folks are smug from time to time too, but all the software is open-source.

Pet peeves aside, all goes well. I had my face melted Tuesday, by the one and only Javier and the Bear. Somebody needs to get these gentlmen some decent gigs, seriously. They get better every time I see them, and they were pretty much an unstoppable force already musically. Now they have advanced to Stage Presence. Most of them actually look like Rock Stars, although the more stylistically-minded can elaborate further. If anyone here hasn't heard Javier and the Bear, shame on you, you poor deprived child. Here is a band with firepower, and one need only look at Joe "the Fro" O'Connor's shattered cymbal to understand just how hard these guys rock. fast and loud, sure, but fast, loud, and tight, with that epic thunder-and-lightning classic rock sound that melts faces, shatters eardrums, and will surely make women swoon if they can just get an audience (although this is the first time I've paid to see them in any fashion, so that's a step up). Also, some entertaining-to-awesome original songs. The show was reportedly recorded, so we'll see if some decent mp3's show up.

And, for the sake of maintining this procedure, new poetry up, you should be able to spot it by now. I do date everything as it's published, after all.

Time to make some belated additions to the link section, both hailing from the U of C:

-Meredith is off in Japan, to learn or something, but primarily to have wacky cross-cultural hijinx and be mistaken for Godzilla (tall-ish, she is, though to be fair, significantly less lizard-like).

-Louis the Pig is a rather entertaining webcomic by some folks I know. Currently on hiatus, but poke around the archives. A depressed pig can be surprisingly funny.

You know, I really like bluegrass. It’s folk (or country) music on speed. Even the saddest bluegrass song is full of manic banjo-picking goodness. Happy bluegrass is joy in a bottle. And I’ve been listening to it since yesterday. Thank you, Pandora. And especially the Dillards, who, among other things, covered “I’ve Just Seen a Face” and turned it into a bluegrass staple.

Anyway:
Diary of the Proletariat, Day 8:
-Overtime! Two extra hours today because of a safety seminar (don’t get hit by forklifts, kids! I'm sorry, industrial lifting trucks). Sadly, no German forklift safety video.

-Brilliantly, sandblasting equipment features gaps whereby certain smallish parts may fall into the sand reservoir. That was an adventure.

-Felt poetic for a while. That was fun. I also realized I haven’t read much good poetry, or prose for that matter, in quite a while. The poetry part is being remedied by a book I picked of the Reg’s “free books” pile at the end of the year.

-In general, did a lot of thinking (what else am I going to do?). Mostly about poetry, songwriting, and considerations related thereto. I also realized my philosophical side has been heavily suppressed, probably because of the general air of pretension that seems to surround such things at the U of C. Still, it’s much easier to succeed as a poet when you have thoughts and feelings about things. Although even calling myself a poet feels a bit pretentious. There’s this cultural tradition wherein poet is a half-step from prophet, fire on the mountaintop, wisdom from on high. Inspiration is likened to the voice of God. But I write poetry; I am a poet. Any act of expression or creation, in at least a small way, is a proclamation: “My thoughts are worth writing down! My observations are worthwhile!” But this is the blog generation; we should all be used to that feeling by now. Heck, blogging and poetry have a lot in common. Certainly, the intersection of bad blogging and bad poetry is the heart of many a livejournal. And this is why, as a last measure of protection, I keep my poetry on a separate page. And, er…

“Food for thought… Though from food!”

-NEXT TIME: The exciting world of jury duty, in which I try to figure out why the hell I have been assigned to the courthouse in Rolling Meadows!

Diary of the Proletariat, Day 7.
-Oh god, it's morning again. 4:30 alarms are brutal. I will fiercely hate the world until I down a Pepsi five minutes before the shift starts.

- Very few things in a factory fail to produce some ungodly mess. For example, sand-blasting leaks sand all over the gorram place, and that's one of the cleaner operations. Today I was on the drill press, and let me tell you, when you drill 2,464 holes (616 pieces, 4 holes each) through brass hinge-dealies, you get a metric fuckton of brass shavings... possibly just an actual metric ton. I kept finding bits of brass in my hair. Other than that, running a drill press pretty much just involves putting things in and hitting buttons, so it's not a bad deal.

- Speaking of drills, a drill ate one of my gloves. It was a little alarming. Hooray for tear-away rubber gloves. The real bitch was peeling the thing off (rubber gloves, while required for safety, catch on everything).

- When I'm caffeinated enough, I apparently start trying to write bluegrass songs. I'll see where that goes. I'm seeing songwriting as the best shot I have at mental productivity here, especially as no one else will actually hear me if I try to sing my way through it. I myself should probably wear earplugs if they put me on the drill again. Not much in a factory is quiet either.

-And a thought from my drive home: "Hey! that police car just made a left turn without signalling! That bastard!"

Oh, weekends. Working on an Intonation review, but the gist of it will likely be how awesome Jon Brion is. But speaking on working, time to get ready for bed. Goddamn 6AM shift at the switch factory. Gotta start writing down me "Diary of the Proletariat" too (there's not a lot to do mentally in a factory besides self-narrate). Early conclusions: Sand-blasting is more fun than buffing. Keep that in mind.

Alright, the good news is I'm going to Pitchfork. And that will be thoroughly awesome. Also, the Mountain Goats are fantastic.

And the bad news is... ha! you thought there would be bad news, didn't you? Well, serves you right for expecting cliches to be fulfilled. I have nothing but good news this time around.

The good news is that my job is starting tomorrow, and I will begin earning cash monies. Now, some would point to the 6 AM start time (not tomorrow, but all my other days of work) as bad news, but I'm going to disregard that and consider it a fantastic opportunity to see more sunrises than usual.

The other good news is that a housewarming party is in the works for my apartment sometime in July. Yes, of course you're invited! I mean, assuming I know you. Anyway, it's sure to be fantabulous. Details once I figure them out etc.

The other other good news is that we were not hit by a tornado earlier today at the Altier lake house. Although rain during our attempted boating expedition was a mixed blessing, at best. And man, does small-town America love Jesus, but the ice cream makes up for it. Not that I don't love Jesus and all.

Also, U-S-A! U-S-A!

Also, he who is not jumping is not Slovak.

Finally, for those interested, I am still writing poetry/songs. "Memories" is up in the archive.

Right... long delay. Much intermittent goodness/wackiness.

We won ScavHunt. I was personally an affront to God, country, and all human decency. And that's not even counting what I did with that cigar. I'll tell you later.

Right now:
-I am surrounded by twenty-some quietly humming Linux machines.
-I'm running on 4 hours of sleep, with no plans for further sleep until after noon tomorrow
-I am wearing my last clean shirt, which is Italian and comically small.
-I have one bottle of Pepsi, two bags of pretzels, three scoopfuls of Runts, and enough Fourier transforms to choke a small, periodic, horse.
-I am cursing the fact that my TA wrote a really potentially helpful program which WILL NOT COMPILE.
-By God, this computer will produce recognizable vowels in a mathematically sound way by 10:30am.

I'll see you all after I finish this goddamned project and die horribly.

For Scav Purposes

3536 S Lowe

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