Where My Head's At

So I just got off the phone with my brother, who had some very encouraging, complimentary things to say about my poetry/song blog Bipolar Confessional. He was also a bit miffed that I hadn't put anything new up in Nausea & Bliss in the last several days (in case you don't know, Nausea & Bliss is a bizarre photoblog that I maintain as a creative outlet).
All taken care of now...
He mentioned that he and his wife often check out this blog to "see where (my) head is"...
And it made me wonder if the Listening Room, with it's rotating line-up of goofy titles*, is an accurate representation of "where my head is at".
Though I admit that I did not think too long or too hard about it, I came to the conclusion that NO, it is not a very accurate representation of the location of my head in relation to the stimuli I allow into it. But it is a peek into the outer reaches of what I'm into.

*A few of the goofy titles I've used for this blog:

"Frightened By the Ghost of the Heart"
"It's Okay, Mom, That's Only The Sound of My Dying Ego Screaming"
"There Never Was a Horse Like the Tennessee Stud"
For Future Reference... current title of blog, as this post is being typed: "A Heartbreaking Blog of Staggering Ineptitude"


So, where IS my head at these days?

Well, for the last few days I have immersed myself in two albums. I finally picked up Autechre's most recent offering, Untilted, and to say that I am impressed with it would be a slight understatement. It's one of the best things Booth & Brown have done in years. I can't believe I've made myself wait since April to get this thing. Truth be told, I wasn't expecting it to be this good.

The second is the sophomore release from Sun Kil Moon, the enigmatic Tiny Cities (aka Mark Kozelek's Modest Mouse Reconstruction Project). It took me a couple of listens to get past the fact that it's all Modest Mouse covers with no original Kozelek songs, but eventually I settled into it, realizing that I didn't let the fact that What's Next To The Moon was all Bon Scott-era AC/DC songs keep me from adoring that record.
And it is a lovely record. My current favorite tracks are "Neverending Math Equation", "Space Travel Is Boring", "Four Fingered Fisherman", "Grey Ice Water" and "Ocean Breathes Salty". That's almost half the album, and there were a couple that will probably make the list of favorites after I hear it a few more times (likely suspects: "Trucker's Atlas", "Dramamine" & "Tiny Cities Made of Ashes").
Tiny Cities is a bit short, clocking in at a mere 30 minutes and 35 seconds. But as I pointed out to a friend who was concerned about it's brevity, one would not complain that Nick Drake's Pink Moon was anything less than all it needed to be, and it was even shorter than 30 minutes.



I've been utilyzing some time I have on my job by making some recordings on my brother's 4-track recorder. Roy enjoys helping me with it and it's a good way to kill time (seeing as how Roy would just as soon do absolutely nothing).
I haven't gotten anything definitive down just yet, though a couple of songs are promising.
I have, however, completed an experimental thing in which I have multi-tracked myself reading William Blake's Thel to the accompaniment of an acoustic guitar's frilly finger-plucking and a reading of Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" played backwards. It's a strange collage, but oddly affective.
My productivity with these musical projects is severely affected by the discouragement I feel upon realizing that even though I play a decent guitar, my sense of rhythm really sucks.

Speaking of Thel, I have been reading and re-reading that particular poem, enjoying it immensely. On the flip side of that coin is another poem I have delighted in of late, Charles Baudelaire's grim "To The Reader"...
Check it out:

To the Reader
by Charles Baudelaire


Folly, error, sin, avarice
Occupy our minds and labor our bodies,
And we feed our pleasant remorse
As beggars nourish their vermin.


Our sins are obstinate, our repentance is faint;
We exact a high price for our confessions,
And we gaily return to the miry path,
Believing that base tears wash away all our stains.


On the pillow of evil Satan, Trismegist,
Incessantly lulls our enchanted minds,
And the noble metal of our will
Is wholly vaporized by this wise alchemist.


The Devil holds the strings which move us!
In repugnant things we discover charms;
Every day we descend a step further toward Hell,
Without horror, through gloom that stinks.


Like a penniless rake who with kisses and bites
Tortures the breast of an old prostitute,
We steal as we pass by a clandestine pleasure
That we squeeze very hard like a dried up orange.


Serried, swarming, like a million maggots,
A legion of Demons carouses in our brains,
And when we breathe, Death, that unseen river,
Descends into our lungs with muffled wails.


If rape, poison, daggers, arson
Have not yet embroidered with their pleasing designs
The banal canvas of our pitiable lives,
It is because our souls have not enough boldness.


But among the jackals, the panthers, the bitch hounds,
The apes, the scorpions, the vultures, the serpents,
The yelping, howling, growling, crawling monsters,
In the filthy menagerie of our vices,


There is one more ugly, more wicked, more filthy!
Although he makes neither great gestures nor great cries,
He would willingly make of the earth a shambles
And, in a yawn, swallow the world;


He is Ennui! — His eye watery as though with tears,
He dreams of scaffolds as he smokes his hookah pipe.
You know him reader, that refined monster,
— Hypocritish reader, — my fellow, — my brother!


This is actually a different translation than the one I've been digging into, but it looks to be a good one.

So that's more or less where my head is at these past few days. I've been tired. I've eaten a lot of chili (oh, God, you can't believe how much I love Frito chili pie)...I bought a couple of Little Ceaser's pizzas for Roy and I (he asked for deep dish jalapeno and I got the regular pepperoni).
Speaking of jalapenos, I have developed a real taste for spicy, hot foods. I have always tolerated fairly hot vittles, but I'm getting to where I like it when my tongue starts burning, knowing that it will pass. My wife tells me that peppers and other very hot foods act as a stress-reliever, because the body can experience what should be a stressful stimuli (pain from the heat) all the while knowing that no harm will come and that it will pass. Somehow this translates into a reduction of stress. So it's probably a good thing that I've been eating so many peppers, seeing as how there are times when working with Roy becomes stressful.

And speaking of Roy, I had a few extra "Roy-isms" that I hadn't posted, and this is as good a place as any...

~~~"I hope we get bowling ball-sized hail."

~~~"I'm playing my Iranian trumpet."

~~~"I wanna chase people with a chainsaw on Halloween."

~~~"I'm gonna pass gas in the Synagogue."

~~~"I'm eatin' bugs."

~~~"CHOCOLATE BRICK!"

~~~"I'm gonna make my bed in a chocolate cake."

~~~"I DON'T GET PAID FOR THIS!"

That last one is just so funny...it's what he says every time I ask him to do something that he doesn't really want to do (and that would include just about everything). He winds up doing what he's asked, but he moans and complains, "Ahhh, I don't get paid for this shit", with the volume of his voice rising to a crescendo by the time the last word is out of his mouth.
I can envision this becoming a nationwide catch phrase, with people everywhere bemoaning, "I don't get paid for this"...sort of the modern day equivalent of Freddie Prinze's old line, "Eez Not My Chob!"
Roy's eyesight is faulty, and I often wonder just how blind he is. He misplaced a pack of cigarettes the other day and thought he'd lost them. More precisely, he thought someone had stolen them from him, and he bellowed, "Some crack head done pimped me!"
I found this to be absolutely hilarious, just as I find amusing much of the time that Roy and I spend together. I mean, it can get tedious at times, but for the most part it's pretty cool to get paid just for being a friend to a guy who is as entertaining, unusual and interesting as Roy.
I'm thinking of starting a regular feature here in which Roy and I will listen to selected CDs from my vast collection and will do a Siskel and Ebert number on 'em. I really think that his insights will make for enjoyable reading, along with my own well-established views. Look for it in the near future, transcribed directly from the master tapes.
But DON'T wait for the Fellowship Students interview I teased you with a few days ago. Not that the guys renigged, but I never got around to sending the questionairres out to them (that was how the interview was to be done, by their answering memes & pre-written questions via e-mail...okay, okay, so it's a lame idea...I didn't do it, are you happy now?)...

Let's see...where else has my head been?
Reading Esquire magazine from cover-to-cover. Subscribed to it a couple of months ago.
My son Bryan, who will be 11 next month, decided he was too old to go trick-or-treating on Halloween last year, but he still enjoys dressing up and handing candy to the kids. Here he is, shrouded by darkness in his Phantom of the Opera get-up.
Amazing kid, my son. He is currently obsessed with Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera, having seen the DVD more than once and since I gave him a copy of the soundtrack on cassette. He shuts himself up in his room and sings along...I'm sure he puts on full-scale productions of the musical in there with himself in the leading role.
His other musical fixations at the moment are the Beatles (he now has all their albums on CD and can sing along to practically every one of their songs) and They Might Be Giants (quickly absorbing their 2 CD "Best of" collection, Dial-a-Song). Other than that he still listens to the classical station every night as he goes to bed.
I'm glad he's into music to the extent that he is. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but you know how kids are these days, with so many leisure activities bidding for time. He loves his Playstation 2 (Sly Cooper is his favorite game) and he enjoys his DVD collection (all 3 Harry Potter movies and a whole lot more), but thankfully he has given music a prominent place in his tally of interests.

And now I need to shut this computer down and pick up where I left off doing whatever it was I was doing when I decided that getting on the computer and blogging was more important...