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Saturday, April 30, 2011

The Bravest of Lions, the Smartest of Scarecrows, and the Most Loving Tin-Man To Ever Drown a Healthy Man Begging for Mercy

I Keep Fighting to Keep From Drowning. Somebody Toss Me an Anvil...


Mistakes.
We've all made them. But watching the birth of a mistake that everyone knows will lead to one of those, "Sweet Lord, what have I done" moments fifteen years from now kind of makes me want to vomit. Not because the cute little mistake fetus is covered with error filled after birth, but because that sweet little catastrophe that passes off as adorable while it's screaming and peeing everywhere is going to grow up into a ball of hellish disaster mommy's going to have to face for the rest of her life. Nevertheless, dive in, old friend. In the end it'll only kill you.

//Let's talk about the weather//
I've been in Nashville for a grand total of 15 days now and have been directly hit by two (2 for those who can't read and only visit this blog for the pictures) tornados. The latest of which kicked through my tailgate with the vigor of satan himself. It amazes me that wind can blow hard enough to bend the hinges on two (II if you're a 15AD Roman and only read this blog for the classical Latin references) tailgate doors, toss them carelessly into the bed of my truck, move everything about and flood my (home?) in a matter of seconds. Everything I own got completely soaked. From clothing to guitars, I looked like I'd just finished playing a show on the bed of the Caspian Sea. Dorothy, Dorothy, Dorothy, you have no idea how good you had it landing in a magical faerie-land of singing midgets, witches and flying monkeys. I've been hit twice and am still stuck here in Nashville praying to some day win her Tin-Man heart...
On a dietary note,
as it stands (or sits), I'm currently at an empty Panera with the only other person in the restaurant sitting unbelievably, awkwardly close to me. Apparently I chose the only table in Panera Bread that doesn't inject a crippling, poisonous toxin into your legs when you sit down and my dinner guest enjoys the benefits of walking. I'm not sure how true that assumption is, but it has to be close to accurate considering my current seating predicament. Funny thing is, if he rolls his eyes the slightest bit to the right he'll be able to read this entire blog (quite easily, in fact) and know that I want him to leave...hopefully he can read...extremely well.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Sweet Nostalgia/Tennessee Rose

It's been an eventful week. A series of random happenings leave me wondering what the heck comes next? After heading out of Tampa around 8am, I began my journey to the hills of Tennessee. There's something strangely sobering about an extended drive alone that makes you realize there are still several things you want out of the place you left, and leave you wondering if you'll be able to replace them in the place you're going. I guess I'm just a coward. Anyway, after arriving in Nashville, I forced my tired way through a depressing show and decided to find some random place to sleep. It was about 60 degrees outside and, after (bathing?) in some apparently freezing river of Tennessee, I somehow wound up talking to a Jewish hotel owner who, after haggling with me for 15 minutes, ended up letting me get a room for $20. Since I didn't need a shower anymore, I went to bed and tried to figure out what on earth I was doing in God-forgotten Tennessee.
I awoke the next morning around 6:15 to some random dude waltzing into my room and, after a brief second of awkward glances, he calmly asked if I was checking out at eleven because he had just paid for the room and they had apparently double booked it. He then proceeded to say that, were I checking out, he would simply go get coffee or something for a while and return rather than bother the man at the counter who had given him such a good rate. "Okay." I replied, "there's nothing weird at all about that..."
Deciding I had better give the man his room, I departed and made my way to Madison to meet with a man about a horse (okay it was a job interview...just roll with it). Upon my arrival, I realized that it was actually only 6am and my clocks were still on Eastern Standard Time. Seeing that I had 10 hours before I was supposed to interview, I found an amazing cemetery, parked beneath some pine trees and slept for nine. Thanks to the nutritional supplement I received from some pancakes and the energy boost that came from re-arranging my house truck, the interview went well...although the weather looks gloomy.
Bored and hungry, I headed downtown to figure things out. There was this amazing group of typically cynical, hipster street performers playing outside of a boot store I ended up hanging out with (the hipsters, not the boot store). After throwing around music and so forth, we all ended up at this sweet, little, indie elitist's paradise to play an open show. I love how raspy my voice has been in the two days I've been up here. I want to put my voice in a jar and take it all around the world with me. I met a bunch of people and ended up hanging out with these girls from Illinois and Virginia, discussing time travel and the bizarre relational habits of a nearby couple. When it was all over, we had decided to start a storm chasing company and name our van Stormchaser Carl. The weather looks threatening.
The girls left for wherever and I drove around awhile and found an under construction golf course to park on. It was violently windy and, within 10 minutes, it started to rain. I sat in the back of my truck eating crackers and writing a song about hating things; all the while being amazed at how hard it was raining. 2:30am: I went to sleep. Around 4 am, I woke up to the sound of, what appeared to be, a freight train barreling toward my truck. Except it wasn't a freight train. It was already super windy, but out of nowhere, my entire truck (which was facing west) spun around and was blown about twenty feet from where I had originally parked. Now that I was facing the opposite direction I was previously, I looked out the only window my truck bed provides. Ironically enough, my phone rang with a weather warning to inform me that there was a severe tornado warning within 1 mile of my location. I believed it. Mainly because I could see it. There was a tornado right outside my truck that had just caused me to do a complete 180 and slide 20 feet across the green of the 16th hole. It was strangely loud and, despite the fact that it was dark out side, everything kind of looked greenish for an hour or two. I'm not really sure what happened after that because I went back to bed and thanked God for rain. 5:30am. Headlights. Redlights. 1 Light, 2 Light, Red Light, Blue Light. This one is a little cop, this one says this sleep must stop. Knock knock, knock knock. You're trespassing. Don't you see the sign that says Trespassers Will? That's short for Trespassers William. You have to leave. I was too exhausted to argue and too cold to even really worry the fact that a branch had knocked a huge dent into the side of my truck and was now laying on my hood. Ces la vie I guess. I talked to my dad awhile before crashing in a Wal-Mart parking lot for the next 4 hours. It hasn't stopped raining now for the last two days. For some reason I'm outside of Knoxville tonight. I was thinking a lot and guess I just kept driving after I left the city. It's raining too hard to really know exactly where I am. Judging by the fact that it's unusually cold and mountainous I'd have to say I'm somewhere in the mountains. It's pretty here though. I like the acoustics of playing guitar in a sardine can-esque truck topper in the rain. Something calmingly nostalgic about the whole situation. It's like my primitive roots are being quenched. Living in my aluminum covered wagon, searching for the last pale smile in the west...

Thursday, April 7, 2011

The Truth Behind Lying

Love. You feel it? There's something strangely nostalgic about walking through a crowded shopping center and watching the love-struck, invincible duo, weeks away from implementing the knowledge gained from that book on nautical rope-works that your sea-faring grandfather left on your diner table years ago and tying the knot way later in the sentence than the punch-line should have been.  Like the 3 musketeers after that one guy died and the other guy who replaced him got electrocuted by an eel, they parade through the isle armed with I Want This Guns, blasting everything with their registry lasers, everyone with their smiles and every career dream with their hopes of getting married. Her shimmering dumbbell that some call a ring blinds all who pass as their smiles explode like hand grenades; forcing obnoxious amounts of happiness-shrapnel into everyone's faces. It's spring; and more than the rosy cheeks and escalating flowers prove such. In the spring of their love, romance blooms like tiny flowers pushing up through the dust, held together by the confidence that his arms will be the blanket that keeps her warm through the winter years...that and the blanket she just laser beamed with her buy me this cannon. Plants need fertilizer...so does love...so fertilize her...and fill the world with tiny little babies and other little human, baby-human things. Hope it works out for you, overly happy, cheezy-joke telling, hyper jock guy and smoking hot despite your incredibly unrealistic height but your perky smile and charming personality make up for it girl. I miss your joy. Treat her like a queen, good sir. Trust with all you have, pray to God she's honest and treat her like a queen regardless...forever...  

Honesty. Remember it? It's that age-old, ancient practice of telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth; so help me God, I feel like this behavior is far from prevalent in our society. While we all smile at the nostalgic tales of chopping trees, *happy sigh* walking miles to deliver change, *proud grin* and the inability to tell a lie *uproarious clapping*, our daily actions leave these stories seeming more like mere works of fiction rather than depictions of true human behavior. In a way, I guess they are. After a rigorous counting exercise, I discovered there are a grand total of zero cherry trees at Mt Vernon. Meaning...either ol' George went to freaking town with his Paul Bunion-esque lumbering tendencies or the whole story is contrived around myth and is complete and utter BS; thus proving this entire work of literary genius correct. In truth, however, through experience and simple observation it appears that our principle goal in nearly everything is simply self furtherance and the fulfillment of whatever the underlying motive may be. Whether the ulterior goal is to further a career, learn the interior, molecular structure of the Atlantic Blue Whale or become the leading synthetic goat skin manufacturer in the greater south-eastern region, our motives motivate us to stay motivated for our true goal; us. What happened to selflessness? Who jumped sacrifice and left her bleeding and lifeless, floating face down in the estuary? Who shot decency through the heart and replaced his nobility with shameless self-promotion? It saddens me that, through an endless list of contacts, I have more clean shaven, middle eastern friends than I do those I would trust with even the lightest of situations. We've allowed ourselves to slip into a world where fear drives us and a lack of trust sustains us to the point that honesty and openness scare the living death out of our very being. Locked away in shells like clams, we hide from the truth behind our quarantine signs in attempt to protect ourselves from the world outside; all the while spreading the disease and and feeding the rampant outbreak by doing so. An epidemic of deceit. A widespread plague with a cure that we all possess.    

Fetus. Push. Despite our endless attempts to conceal it, we're all hiding from something. We all lie about something. Whether it be to ourselves or to the world, we all play pirate. We each bury our emotions on deserted islands, conceal them with X's and construct a means of recovering them we never will reveal. We sort out our fears with the parrot hanging over our shoulder as we wave our pointed hooks at those we fear and turn our blinded, eye-patched eye on the flaws of those we love. Don't believe me? Trust me...I'm lying too. Regardless, there's still trust in the world; just ask the swooning, moonstruck lovers and you'll find hope, dependency and purity in that single, unfaltering emotion we call love. There's still honesty; just don't ask any politician or televangelist. There's still self-sacrifice; just look at the endless bags of lifelessness delivered to the homes of mourning families while war rages on forever. For the rest of us, there's birth. We're so locked away in our routine insecurity and terrified of feeling things that we need to be reborn. Kick through that cozy little shell, break through the walls of conformity, hack off the umbilical chord and fetus plunge face first into the world that we're supposed to be living in and truly live. Rebirth trust. Rebirth honesty. Rebirth life.
Strength to change. define it...