Destroy to Save?

I'm really enjoying the new Dylan book. I feel that he's trying to the best of his capabilities to set down what he has experienced. Sure he may change some things to make himself look better, but have you ever tried to write your own autobiography? I have and it's full of, "Do I really want people to know this?" I've already had those questions about this with this blog. I'm trying to put myself in his position when I think about this but, why do we have to doubt him? Why do we have to know all of the small things that dominate him? I don't want to expose myself completely to the world, why should he? I think the book is autobiographical to a point, and, like you mention, he purposefully refuses to talk about certain times in his life. Do you remember that part in the book where he talks about his first wife Sara? He speaks about how much he loved her, and how he thought she was the greatest. I can understand why he doesn't want to talk about "Blood on the Tracks." "Blonde on Blonde" and some of the other earlier albums I expect him to get to in vol. 2. I doubt that he will ever get to BOTT, and if he does it will be some kind of sanitized narrative. I think that some of the greatest contributions of the book are: 1. admitting that his songs are primarily autobiographical 2. giving insight into the way he sees things, his stream of consciousness.

I know I've been slacking

Well, not really. I'm trying to work on this site to get it to look the way I want it to. As you can see I've added a few things. I hope to add a few more soon. Oh yeah, BOSOX SWEEP THE SERIES! Sorry AWG.

More about baseball teams and where my loyalties lie

I've heard it all before, but let me explain my stance. Now that the World Series is in full swing, and the Sox are up by two causing Card fans even more grief, I find that I have to defend myself publicly for the red "B" perched upon my head. They come up to me everywhere, angry Card's fans, yelling about bandwagons. This is a problem that seems to be isolated to only Cardinal's fans, although Morgan likes making a big ado about it, but he's just giving me shit. Understand: 1. I have always considered the Boston Red Sox to be my American League team. I have followed them through two seasons, and watch them whenever they make the national networks. 2. The Boston Red Sox are the sister team to the Cubs, see my prior posts on this subject. 3. As a Cub fan I naturally hate the Cardinals, just as much as I hate the White Sox. Now that I've explained my stance please stop coming up to me, I know you won't, you bastards.

If you see St. Annie...

"Don't put on any airs when your down on rue morgue avenue, they got some hungry women down there and they'll really make a mess out of you."
Yeah, Yeah, I ran into a girl that I didn't want to run into tonight. Sweet Melinda, she made me remember things that I didn't want to remember. I'm getting away from rockford I do believe I've had enough. I just found out that I bounced my rent check, in this place where the radiator just coughs. I gotta go and slap some money down on the barrelhead tomorrow. Thirty is just the same old shit, it's just that you've been through it so many times by this point that you don't know if you can take much more. While the grass is no longer green anywhere, and grey is about as good as your gonna get in the 23rd Psalm, the only thing you get to look forward to is seeing anything change and hating that just as much. God ain't talkin' because he doesn't know what to say. I guess he just figures on staying the course just like Dubya. I'll step on the anthills just to see the commotion. Burn ticks on a pin to make sure they're dead, and leave the explanations to the preachers. My grandfather died four months ago and I just started missing him. Does that make me heartless, or prove that I have a heart?

BOSOX WIN!!!
Well, now that I got that off my chest I just want to spend a few moments outlining an idea I had for a short story based on a story from Frazier's "The Golden Bough" which I read a few months back. I also enrolled in this online novel writing contest. I don't know if I can write that quickly, but the pressure will definately curtail my perfectionist tendencies that I have with my writing. But I'm alos interested in the idea I have at the end of this posting. Co-op writing. Before I bengin I just want to tell everyone that I'm really enjoying this format, and the ability to interact with all of you.

"The Golden Bough" starts off with an interesting story that takes place on the edge of the lake of Nemii, in Greece. The northern edge of this lake was lined by a forest of fir and poplar. Within this forest was a small clearing, inside which existed only two things; a pear tree holding a golden fruit, and a man. This solitary figure clad in nothing but a short linen tunic and holding a short sword, paces back and forth in front of the tree. In the heat of the afternoon he stands under it's boughs, listening to the songbirds, admiring the slow, long circles of the hawk and the eagle. He watches as summer climaxes the trees burst into the autumnal fire of reds and yellows, until it dries up into the sepia tones of late fall. Carefully he gathers leaves of the tree in his cloak. When all of the leaves have fallen and the branches of his tree clatter in the silence of winter, he opens his cloak and lays a small ceremonial ceramic lamp at the base of the tree. He murmers prayers as he empties a small flask of olive oil squeezed from the fruit of the sacred olive tree planted on the Acropolis into the lamp. Lighting the lamp he turns and holds it up to the golden pear. "For Artemidis," he says slowly drawing out the words. Placing the lamp at the base of the tree he draws out his sword and drives it into the soil with two hands. A lark's slow, mournful cry echoes in the forest. Bats fly into the air with the miasmic dying of daylight only to be blown apart by the winds coming off of the lake over the naked forest and into the clearing. As the man burned the leaves he glimpsed the vague forms of nymphs, centaurs, and finally Artemidis herself through the smoke.

Winter arrives, clothing the tree in diamonds. The fleece that hangs from his shoulders gives him little comfort. His sword, red with rust, hangs limply at his side. He fights with all of his will to remain awake as much as possible. When sleep inevitably comes it is restless, filled only by dreams of lightening stretching across the sky. With winter comes the trials.

Young challengers begin arriving from the surrounding villages. The courageous confront him honorably, stating their intentions openly. With a whisper of a beard on their chins, they fall. Others, thinking themselves to be cunning, rush in during the dead of night, only to be cut down. Their blood warms his hands. Some linger at the edge of the trees, debating whether or not to approach the shivering priest. Some do, and they fall. Some try to talk to him. He responds with a dark grimace, barely visible beneath the dark locks of his matted hair. He knows that the real challengers wouldn't arrive until after the winter solstace.

They come from as far as Ithaca and wait patiently for their chance to face the man beneath the golden pear. With wonder they would watch from the woods as priest would cut down one after another of their number. With time he would fall too and another will take his place for the coming spring.

Just a short outline of a story I'd like to expand upon sometime in the future. As I said at the beginning of this post, this legend is from Frazier's venerated tome, "The Golden Bough". Maybe at some time all of us JBU'ers could get together and write a story online, each of us taking a chapter. Maybe we could do the whole Faulkner thing, with multiple views of the same event... Who knows?

BOSOX WIN!

They are thinking about playing Tim Wakefield tomorrow, the only knuckleballer in the major's. At the beginning of the season The New Yorker had a wonderful four page article on the art of the Knuckleball. Watch tomaorrow. The ball does some wonderful acrobatics, flutters, and breaks incredibly sharp at the plate. I know I'm only speakin' for myself because I don't think that anyone who regularly reads this blog cares much about baseball. I think they heard me all the way down the block when they won tonight. What a great game.

Look at Mr. Business man oh oh oh... it's a wild, wild, life

Well...
This Milwaukee things seems like a pretty good gig. I'd be working from my apartment (in Milwaukee), and traveling around the countryside talking to good blue collar people about their insurance premiums. Something like a wandering insurance minstrel. Milwaukee is a beautiful town, what I saw of it today. They have Summerfest every year, if you don't know what that is it's the biggest music festival in the midwest, and you gotta love the magnificent Pabst brewery right in the middle of town. My sister says that the city constantly smells like beer, but since I'm hard of smelling I wouldn't really know.

BOSOX are up by three in the 8th!

I love the Cubs, but all true Cubs fans love the Red Sox as well. We consider them our sister team. Both of us are perennial losers, with the oldest parks in the majors, with fanatical fans, and both with so called curses. We have the Bartman/goat curse, they have the curse of the Bambino. Damn, I'm going to miss baseball when it's over.

Sitting in a cafe in West Bend, WI

Well, here I am, waiting to interview with an insurance company in about a hour. I got here a little early, so I decided to do some exploring. This was the only coffee shop I've seen in this quaint town. I didn't expect a small place like this, out in the styx (I've always wondered is that spelled right for the context? Does that saying come from the Greek myth or is it sticks... like your out in the woods? I prefer the romantic spelling.) to have wifi access, much less free wifi access. Sometimes you just get lucky. Well, I'm thinking quite a bit about this interview, so don't expect any complex philosophic discussions. Right now I look like I never thought I would. I look like a stiff, a suit, a full fledged yup. I'm depending on my acting skills to get me through this interview. I've observed the behavior and mannerism of the robots around us, and feel that I should be able to get away with it. If I do get this job I will be living in Milwaukee. A good town by all accounts. I plan on stopping in there for a little while after this (if I feel positive about the interview) and scope out some of the neighborhoods. I'll blog what I think later.

I want to talk about a beautiful little device I got for my birthday, and generally on technology and asthetics. I just got a 4th gen 20 gig ipod for my birthday. This thing is so amazing. I have put almost my entire cd collection on it and I have only used up a quarter of it. They also make a 40 gig, and I hear that they are coming out with a 60 gig for Christmas. I thought that I liked music, but someone who can fill up one like mine and also needs another twenty or forty gigs is crazy. I strongly recommend one. They do cost 300 dollars but it really is worth it. I also got this nifty fm transmitter that fits nicely on top of it and lets me play tunes wherever there is a fm radio. I have made the switch my boys, and boy am I happy. I got this here Apple powerbook in July and now with my ipod... well, asthetically, they are both simply beautiful. Apple is showing the world how to produce technology that is not only extremely reliable (my mac has never crashed, I have had about twenty windows up at once and never see any lag) but beautiful to look at and use. Viruses don't exist for this machine. I have a firewall, but, and I've checked this on several websites, virus protection for a mac is a waste of money. The con is the lack of games and other compatibility issues with Microsoft, and of course the price. Still I will never return to the evil empire. God I love the clean lines and attention to detail on both of my Apple products, they are a pleasure to use, and working pieces of art. It's not enough that they design the machines well but the way they package their products is so interesting that it's like getting a christmas present when I open up the box. The only difference is that I'm so careful with opening them, they are so impressive that they are beautiful enough to display as well. Well enough of my spiel, I'll let U2 do the marketing from now on.

Hey I'll talk ta ya'll later, I gotta put on my yuppie face now.

This sounds like it's from The Onion but it's the BBC

Satellite smashes Chinese house
A Chinese satellite has smashed into a villager's house on its return
to earth, the country's media reports.

The satellite destroyed the building in Sichuan province, but officials
say no-one was hurt.

A local newspaper printed a picture of a kettle-shaped capsule which
appeared to be about two metres long, lying amid broken bricks, beams
and roof tiles.

The satellite was part of a space probe to carry out land surveys and
other research, Xinhua news agency said.

"The satellite landed in our home. Maybe this means we'll have good
luck this year," the tenant of the wrecked apartment was quoted as
saying by the newspaper.

John Stewart on Crossfire

Damn, John Stewart is really coming after the Crossfire hosts. Not what I expected, and I can tell that it's not what they expected either. Tucker is being an ass, coming after John for not giving hard questions to Kerry. It's a comedy show, come on. John comes back by saying, "my show comes after a show featuring puppets making prank calls." Wow, it is hard to watch but John is completely right about this, he's saying that Crossfire needs to be more honest and not just puppets of the parties. He's acting for direct debate over the issues, not more rhetoric. OK I gotta go, John just called Tucker a dick!

I just googled, now I see what Jon was trying to do. Check it out
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A16609-2004Jul26?language=printer

Hypocrisy

I just got off the phone with the police. On the corner of two of the major streets in Rockford were a row of anti abortion protesters. These people were holding up large (3ftX4ft) pictures of mutilated babies. One that caught my eye was the head of a decapitated baby between a pair of tongs. Now I believe srongly in their right to protest. However, I have my four year old child in the back of the car and to push those pictures in his and my face I regard as obscene and damaging. The police are going out there to break it up, but this has been going on in this town for over a year. Why hasn't anyone been ticketed, fined, or put in jail. Last year, many of these people were screaming bloody murder during the entire Super Bowl mishap. You tell me, what is more obscene? Lenny Bruce once did a bit about how much people freak out about nudity but say nothing about violence. Nudity is natural, love between two people is beautiful. Violence and these gory kinds of pictures can create many more problems in children than nudity. I was almost moved to violence when I saw those pictures. I wanted to bust the lip of one of those protesters and ask them all to go up and apologize to me and my boy. Help me Obi Wan Kenobi, your my only hope.

Hey Harbs

Hey, this is a response to Harb's comment on my site
1. If life is a cosmic joke...
This is the whole point of me writing this, a general inquiry into the
discussion of the purpose of life. I wasn't saying that I believed that
life was a cosmic joke, rather I was defending the point that
everything has a purpose. My definition of good is completely relative
to my own feelings relating to the balance between chaos and order and
referring to my own intentions to stay on the the side of order... or better put to remain in accord with life, achieve a balance. The idea of good is entirely reliant upon my own insight into the karmic path.
2. How can nature...
Nature is not an entity, I agree with that. What I was talking about was
a more transcendental view of nature as a consciousness. You well know that
Buddhists don't seek to be separate from everything but connected to
everything. The point is not to be an entity, but the exact opposite.
3. According to the Buddhist...
According to the Buddhist philosophy, the effect of suffering is to
purge the soul from it's connection to this reality. It is to spur the
soul to nirvana.
4. If nature put us here....
Matt, come on, it was a metaphor. The devil really doesn't sit at the
end of my bed at night. It relates to my own struggles with these
questions.
5. Does J. Campbell...
It used to make you feel better as well. I enjoy how Campbell, looked
to unite folklore into a common theme. For your second question "What
has it gotten you?" I think my problem is that I simply haven't found
my "bliss" or my natural purpose.

Let's not fight too much, but a spades a spade

Whenever I read or watch a piece of history, I always start to wonder how much I would have been different if I had grown up in this time or that. True, with medical science how it is now it's doubtful if I would've ever even made it to adulthood. I don't want to get into the whole nature vs. nurture scrap, but I think that things would've been much different if I was born one humdred years ago.

I don't know what I would do without distraction, my life principally revolves around avoiding what is the true nature of all things. If I was religious I would have that to fall back on, but I'm not, and I don't think any era could change that part of my nature. The true nature of things, the problem that keeps me awake at nights is one of purpose. Thoreau and Whitman help me out, and a good dose of Joseph Campbell can always make you feel better about the cosmic joke, but none of it really shakes lose this whole feeling that life is a sink full of dishwater. In that I mean that it's all clear and full of purpose when you fill up the sink, but as time goes on and you keep on washing you begin to think, "at what point does the water begin getting the dishes dirty." It may be a bit of a jumbled metaphor, but for me it seems to ring true.

When I was a child I thought like a child. When I was young I thought perhaps I could be some kind of Christ, when I was an adolescent I thought I could change the world, when I grew older for those labels I would've settled for some kind of discipling position, but being a man I know that I cannot be those things and I don't want to be those things. Now I just want to be a good man, even if what I do at the time doesn't seem right. I want to be a good man, even if I don't believe in the right kind of god. Nature all put us on this earth for a purpose, and no matter how much we fuck it up, nature holds us to its purpose. I just don't want to fight it so hard anymore. A principle of Buddhist philosophy is that all life is suffering. In this age we have all kinds of ways of forgetting about that, but it comes back. It comes as the devil sitting on your footboard in the middle of the night, talking so loud that you can't sleep, and you lose interest in doing so. He acts like your friend, makes you laugh at your own condition, and weep at your inability to do something about it. The further you are from distraction the worse it is. In the country there aren't any sirens, no speeding cars, or yuppies on their harleys. Out there you have to face him, and maybe that is what needs to happen.

Bar O' Vision

God, I'm scared of what I'm turning into. I just got finished watching three episodes of "Sex in the City" and I actually enjoyed it. Too much of this big city thinkin' seeping in? I don't know. I have to put some of the blame on my sister and her friend M. They're both actresses, urban centered, and critical of every woman in the city. It doesn't help that they're male friends are all gay too. They got me started on the show. I have to say that I was a bit Shanghai'd. Since I'm looking for a job and have very little money I usually stay in with them at night. They hate it when I watch baseball, so wishing as little confrontation as possible, and trying to make myself a joy to be around I watch their shows: Reverand Oprah, HD, Sex in the City, and Elimidate. At first I remained aloof, laughing at their criticism of what someone was wearing, or the idiocy of some woman for staying in such a self destructive relationship. By the end of the week I was slingin' with the best of them. "What is she thinking wearing that denim jacket with jeans," and shit like that. But it didn't stop there, I continued to think like that after I left the city. I really need to live on my own in the city... But I don't know if that will help too much. I don't really know too many people in Chicago, and when I'm in someplace completely alien I grab on to whatever is somewhat familiar... well, not really, I go to places by myself, the coffee shop, the bar, an occasional movie, but I know that I'd primarily be hanging out with them while I'm there, at least for a few months. So I'm being feminized, I'm frightened that if it gets any worse I might start understanding my ex wife, god forbid. Help me Obi Wan Kenobi, your my only hope.

"Pistol shots rang out in a barroom night." Well, not last night in
Chicago. The city fell silent from the usual cacophony of small arms
fire for a full twenty-four hours. Not a small feat in this 3 million
plus metropolis filled with angry, frustrated people such as myself.
Yes, that's right I am in Chicago proper this morning. Beatin' the
street, hoofin' it, singing the "Back Rent Blues." Sleeping on the
couch, collecting newspapers, "I ain't got a job." Aloof, I stand in
the hallway and listen to my sister's friend talk about rent. I flop on
to the couch, pretend not to be listening and dream as hard as I can
about the best bowl of gumbo I have ever had.

It was in New Orleans, 1996, I was sent on a mission by a couple of my
partners in crime to find an apartment in New Orleans. I knew the city
pretty well, Uptown to the Quarter, Garden District to Meterie. That
doesn't mean that me and the city had any kind of congenial
relationship, quite the contrary... Let me put it this way, New Orleans,
as anyone who has been there, is a lady, sophisticated with just enough
dirt under the nails to make her even more mysterious. I was more like
a doting suitor that just wouldn't take a hint, not until the
authorities had gotten involved and warned me not to come anywhere
near her for at least thirty days (another story but I'll leave that
for another time). Well, I was head over heels in love with her and she
treated me like most women do when a man just won't take a hint, with
contempt. I floated through her streets, my feet never touching the
ground.

My friends were sending me upwards of six hundred dollars a week, a
large sum for someone who has absolutely no overhead, and to my credit,
I didn't spend any of it frivolously, at least not at the beginning.
That's yet another story and I'm trying to get to the gumbo. I had
saved all of the money and was trying to find a good apartment Uptown,
hopefully next to my favorite bar, Snake and Jake's Christmas Bar, on
Oak Street. Unfortunately, my timing was wrong. Three weeks to Mardi
Gras, a 22 year old kid without a job (this is a recurring theme), with
a lot of money coming from questionable means (note to self look up the
statute of limitations for, you know). In New Orleans neighborhoods are
very patchy, in some places the street right behind all of the
magnificent homes on St. Charles St. can compare to many of the worst
places in most big cities. True, in relation to New Orleans you could
do a whole lot worse. Anyway, I was looking for a slightly posh spot up
near Tulane University, and no one wanted to rent to me due to the
reasons stated above.

While looking for an apartment I was also looking for a straight job. I
had a lead on a doorman position at the Hyatt Regency in the Quarter.
While not particularly thrilled by the prospect of opening the door for
a bunch of drunken yuppies, I wasn't really in the place to decline
anything. I talked to the manager, who seemed very interested in giving
me a chance at the gig. I took a shower, put on my bests, and headed
downtown to the interview. I was crossing Basin Street when a group of
old graying black men with broad smiles stationed in a small concrete
gazebo on the boulevard called me over. They slapped me on the back and
threw a jug of Carlo Rossi wine into my hands. I had a little time to
spare and some fresh gum in my pocket, I figured, "what the hell? How
often does a chance like this come around?" The rest of the afternoon
is pretty much a blur, all that I remember is singin' "Basin Street
Blues" with these guys and pestering tourists with wine all down the
front of my Sunday's bests and a purple grin just as wide as the other
fellas.
Basin Street is the street,
Where all the white and the black boys meet,
Oh down in New Orleans,
Land of dreams
That night one of the guys took me back to his ramshackle apartment,
built on the bulldozed Storyville. The steps into the building were
clean and freshly swept though slanted hazardously. We ran up the
slanted steps into the building, and through a door at the end on a
dimly lit hall. All of my anxiety drowned in jug wine I entered without
any fear. He sat me down at the kitchen table to yell at his wife that
he had a guest.

I know y'all want to know what happened, or maybe ya don't but you'll
just have to wait until tomorrow. I got to look for some jobs right
now.

Another Morning

Mornings when you unemployed are a lot like being young your dreamy, motivated, and full of hope. I wake up, make lists of things to do, shower, shave, and dress well enough to remind myself that I'm a professional. I go out and get a collection of the local papers; the Register Star, Chicago Tribune, and Chicago Sun Times. Feeling confident that my $1.50 may hold the promise of employment I leave the gas station and return home.

I gave up smoking about three years ago but I have been smoking for the past month. Not just one here or there, but a pack, pack and a half a day. Being unemployed is some weird conundrum, it's boring anxiety, a lazy unease, it's sitting on the tarmack not knowing whether your going to take off or return to the gate.

By noon most of my work is done. I try to find things to do but I'm sick of everything. I don't want to talk to my friends and leaving the house just seems like a waste of time. I watch CNN and relate to Mt. St. Helens, a smoking heap of rock and ash. I question my qualifications, every answer I give in interviews, revise my resume for the twentieth time, visit craigslist and monster. Nothing, the hope from the morning fades and is quickly followed by a depression that is in full swing by four o'clock. That's when I start drinking. Everyday is the same, people come and people go, I sit here and rot.

Unemployed, undersexed, drunk and cynical in Rockford, IL

This keyboard doesn't quite have the spine cracking snap of my good old remington, instead it's this soft tapping. It's not quite honest, it whispers and reminds me of my grandmothers bridge club. Maybe this is what this small rhythm will eventually lead me to, more gossip than a sewing circle. I'm not above it, nor will I avoid it... So it goes with most things in life. When your unemployed the days just fade away. I wake up trying to be industrious but all ambition fades by noon.