FCK MTHR FCK!!!

"All ya'll can squat on your thumbs for all I care!"

So last day at work before I go on vacation... if it stinks, it's hittin' a fan.

Nothing but pure cut frustration as at least eight hours worth of work is getting thrown at me to be done in four as my boss steps out the door. "Going to lunch."

Yeah... I'll stay here and do all of this work you've been "saving" for me and then go take care of the other things too. (Rather, I think I'll post a whine&moan rant. That'll show you.)

That story about the haunted house will have to wait. I've got to throw some clothes into a bag and make sure I've got enough money to get to the airport tomorrow.

After that, "All ya'll can squat..."

Suspense, it'll kill you...

You know I'm doing this just to drag it out right. I could have written this damn story a while ago... but I did scribble out a rough draft on my lunch break. I'll get it finished tonight (maybe) but definitely before I head off to Big Sky Country.

In the "mean"time I will leave this transcribed excerpt from the book I started reading today. The View From Nowhere

"The question of how to combine the external view of this embarrassing but unavoidable activity with the view from inside is just another instance of our ubiquitous problem. Even those who regard philosophy as real and important know that they are at a particular and, we may hope, early stage of its development, limited by their own primitive intellectual capacities and relying on the partial insights of a few great figures from the past. As we judge their results to be mistaken in fundamental ways, so we must assume that even the best efforts of our own time will come to seem blind eventually. This lack of confidence should be an integral part of the enterprise, not something that it needs a historical argument to produce. We also have to recognize that philosophical ideas are acutely sensitive to individual temperament, and to wishes. Where the evidence and the arguments are too meager to determine a result, the slack tends to be taken up by other factors. The personal flavor and motivation of each great philosopher's version of reality is unmistakable, and the same is true of many lesser efforts."

Susan and I have had discussions about the current state of philosophy. She contemplated working on her Ph.D. in philosophy but decided that it was just too dead. Rather, she chose something relating to Medieval History. So... yeah... but I understand her reasoning. But finding this book and getting into it, with the prospect of grad school darkening the western skies, helps keep me interested in philosophy as more than just a major I chose out of interest over market employability. (damn "punk rock" ethic. Why couldn't I have settled on a nice sell-out degree?)

There were other lines that stood out to me. I don't have the free time to indulge here. Work duties supposedly call. And if that didn't engage you, I wrote some crap last night...

The post about the trucks

I've FINALLY put up my ad for my Dodge. I got the replacement title (the clean one) from the state of Montana Dept. of Justice Motor Vehicles Division in the mail about a 1.5 weeks ago. After that, it was just one thing after another that kept me from doing it.

$600. You want it?





You can have it. It needs a new alternator and some electronic deal-ie replaced. I didn't really pay much attention to it after I found out the price tag for the repairs. (Forget it, I'm selling it.) It'll need two tires before winter as well.

Just as Ol' Green was acting up, I (on a whim) applied for an auto loan from my bank. They approved the amount I asked for and said it would be available for 30 days while I found a vehicle to purchase. In about a two weeks time, I was driving this thing around.


Notice the stylish similarity in color. Coincidence. All I was looking for was a manual pickup with 4 wheel drive. It's a nice ride. More room in the cab. A topper and a liner with the bed. 4 doors. All around it's not a bad upgrade (until I have to put in a new clutch.) And the money from the Dodge is going to pay for new tires. It'll be too much fun to drive around once it starts snowing if I keep the old ones (even with the 4wd. Not enough tread, and I think they may be undersized.)

And these pictures were taken with my new camera that I bought for my upcoming trip. Four more days. I really can't wait.

And I'm still working on the haunted house story. (By working on it I mean not working on that, but rather doing other shit.)

UPDATE: 10/24/07 - Apparently someone can see these pictures. I wasn't able to. I think it had something to do with some post editing and stuff... deleted them on accident... I don't know. Anyway. I reinserted them. Blogspot rules!!!

Awaiting trial

So hold your breath fair reader (I'm referring to the other person who reads this blog besides myself (that's right, I re-read my work and bask in my self-perceived inter-galactical "awesomeness."))

I am actually working out a post in word rather than my usual seat-of-the-wrinkled-trousers approach because it's an involved story and I really want to do it justice. It has to do with the last two email exchanges that served as placeholders for real posts earlier this week. I don't want to do that thing that bad comedians do and say, "Okay, this is going to be really funny." However, I will say that I don't think I've ever laughed as much, or as hard, in a 36 hour period as I did in the last 36 hours.

I swear it'll be done by tomorrow. (sure)

In the interim ("Interim Principal") I will leave you with something from one of my newer projects.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

currently untitled (1st draft)

The well, well, well's run dry, dry, dry. We need more words
for "bitter". That would make things easier. Easier for
phrasing and pleasing. And I ain't been pleased by the current state
of progress. Years ahead of the curve, years behind in the
bend. Take the dividing curtain and split it from
floor to ceiling. Then take out the ceiling.
Never served a goddamn purpose nohow anyways.

No one. No where. Pinches. Punches. Pincers. Lance-ettes.
Sly spots. Perforation in the shape of this soft pulsing.
"I could raise more cats on this farm if the city didn't
have that asinine law."

But it's alright for everyone to skate to their places
of business on sheets of glass. It's all a gas, gassed out,
too many motorcycle hill climb rallies with burly, barrel-chested
women and scantily clad men.

SOLID FUCKING GOLD! (Shouts "Gold!", fires finger-
pistols in the air erstwhile making gunshot sound effects with
his bristly-beard-surrounded, tooth-missing mouth.)


"Yokels," uttered in disgust.

Re: Take the "unit" out

(((Travis' Initial Message)))

--- Travis wrote:
> sorry i was a bit out of it and texting so much at
> the end of evening...didn't intend to be rude...some
> of it was just that "supernatural" comedown...good
> times.
>
> later
> the "13"
>

(((My Reply)))

Travis,

I had no problems with the way last night wound down. Did you hear how much I was shouting at the Tee Vay? I was enjoying myself watching the Based Balls game. "Boring, Boring! (wind up for pitch) Oh, here comes some action! (after the pitch) Boring." I find it funny so everyone else should too. Besides, I wasn't expecting you to entertain me the way Stas does on a normal Thursday night. That would cross several lines too many. And I'm not talking about state lines either.

I was thinking about the whole Supernatural progression from season one to season three. Was season one as x-files/buffy as the episode we watched last night. Maybe I haven't seen enough of the show to really get a good feel for it all. The intuitive flow of the story. I didn't much like the introduction of the new (potentially re-occuring) character AFTER they brought in the chick with the knife AND the guy in prison from last season's finale. I thought the show was about the brothers... (I mean really, who are they? Ehhh?) ((I forgot to mention the Demon who gave the soul deal from the end of last season))

Danny J's email about the hotmail debacle is top notch funny. Haywired jackhammer of des-something-or-other. I laughed pretty hard at his frustration.

No news on the birthday get-down-from-there from Steve or Leah. Steve suggested it may be just a roommates and significant others gathering (how rude! after all I don't even bother to do for them?) So whatever. Maybe tonight would be a great night to get plastered (to a tour bus) and car surf all the way to Toronto. You can slam dance the whole way there.

I still owe you money for the 7th. I remembered it again this morning as I was walking to work. I have the funds available today. I should just give you the scratch for next 7th as well.

The experiments are going smoothly. Like we thought, straw does indeed burn, but not the way we thought it would.

Nothing else as of yet.

Z-bot

(((Travis' Inevitiable Reply to My Reply)))

Travis wrote----

> last night was a 'lil bit goofier (with the pratfalls and all...)
> then it normally is...sometimes the episodes are a bit darker...
> last season especially...i thought last night was funny in spots...
> and the idea of them being hunted by another "hunter" (though
> a little annoying, i don't doubt they're gonna go places with
> him being a religious man) is intriguing... besides, they killed
> off the seasons 1 and 2 villan last season, so they have a dire
> need for recurring antagonists...as do i.

(((and My Reply to Travis the Second Time)))

T-Dawgg

I did like the religious man "hunter" being used by the dude in jail. The dude in jail isn't on the 'good' side anymore, right? So the go-go-God hunter is being played like a fiddle by a Jamacian Devil.

I did forgot to mention the other character they introduced the end of last season in the woman/demon that gave they younger brother (Sam?) back his soul for the older brother's (Dean?).

There's too goddamn much going on in that show for me to keep track without having watched it as much as other people have...

Did you catch Danny's reference to Alpo as his canned food item he's going to bring to the haunted house tonight? He's got your cans of broth beat... sure it's food but I'd rather just go hungry. With the broth, at least you can crack it open and be fairly certain that it's fit for human consumption.

I think I'm just going to pay the three dollars. If those fuckers want me to do the leg work for their food pantry donation, they've got another think coming. I already gave one of the homeless guys outside the men's shelter a spare square (Not but five minutes after I was thinking about how in college I used to tell people bumming smokes from me on campus that I didn't smoke, as smoke was pouring out my mouth with the words. I would give them one anyway but I couln't help myself.) I did contemplate pulling that routine on the guy but he's not a college student with at least enough rationality to get into a state school.

I was also thinking about Halloween in general, and more specifically, my general disinterest in the whole affair. I think in the end, I'm just not that into it because it wasn't ever a magical night for me as a kid (being raised to believe that it was the Devil's Holiday) and growing up in mostly rural settings didn't afford for a whole lot of loot grabbing. Couple that with all those fucking packets of bullshit sweettarts and you've got some sour grapes for memories. As I've gotten older, I have begun to see it as another escapist endeavor. (Just scan-check the college co-ed costumes downtown to get a sense of what I'm getting at here. There goes a sexy nurse, there goes a sexy playboy bunny, there goes a sexy bee, (since when is a bee ever sexy? Oh yeah. When the european colonists brought over the European Honeybee which gave them a significant crop growing edge over the indigenous peoples they were uprooting for their venture capital projects. Sexy!!!)

Seriously though, I think I have some work I need to get done. Fucking Miami Subpoena came in on the Fax-o-ma-phone. Gotta find a professor...

In deep thought/shit,
(BuzZ)ach

(((and the Final Return!!!)))
>
> you could be right about your roots in halloween...you
> see, halloween was a magical time of year for young
> travis...cool costumes, candy, my mother went all out
> decorating, it was an event...my parents would take me
> into town to trick-or-treat with my cousins...good times.
>
> i feel you on the costume scene, though...why do i think
> i wear a sheet labeled "ghost" with holes cut into it? pure
> parody, and the wankers don't even know it's going about
> right under their merry noses...ooooohhhh a sexy pirate,
> a sexy vampire/nurse, a sexy astronaut...get real and then
> get bent, posers...
>

As the day "drug" on...

Most days I normally have a book or two, a daily crossword, or some sort of writing that needs editing in my backpack waiting for when things die down at work.

Most days in October seem to be without down time, so I didn't have anything cued up in my stash last week when there was a moment or two for just sitting with a mug of coffee... So I pulled some paper and made these...

So go ahead and say whatever...

MC Chris is coming to your town tonight...

So I wrote out this nice long post about the show Monday night to subsequently lose it. Nice. It was the best post I've ever written (likely story.)

First off, he's much taller than I had hoped and it seems like he's lost weight. Good for him.

I finished up at work around 9pm and drove over the The Annex to see a group of kids, most of them in black hoodies, standing around the door, smoking cigarettes. That meant that I had missed the opening act, Rob DZ (local Madison Hip Hop Celeb.) but that I was wearing the correct attire. Since it was an 18+ show, I figured I may be in the upper end of the age range there that night... and I was. Best to at least look the part.

I walk in and there's rap music being spun by a DJ and more people milling around. I spot Rob DZ at the bar, sitting there talking to some guy. I got a beer and stood in the crowd listening to the music and waited for MC Chris to take the stage. As it turns out he was stalling since he didn't have all of his music so he didn't go on for roughly an hour.

When he finally got on stage, he came out and did a remix version of some song I'm completely forgetting right now. I was mostly just amazed that his voice sounded the way it did live. Almost like a munchkin. Mesmerizing. He performed most of the songs I really like, Evergreen, Ratz, W33D, The Creep, Geek, a truncated version of I Want Candy, a rough version of 'Tussin, and a rousing chorus of The Gambler. Fett's Vett was his closer, naturally but he shut off his music partway through the song and did it a Capella. Nice touch. It was disappointing that he didn't play as many songs but he explained that he had lost most of his music when his hard drive crashed a few weeks ago. He did get a replacement external hard drive but then he knocked it off the table at a show and that was ruined too. So he didn't have a whole lot of music to rap over.

During his first set break, he brought to our attention a gentleman standing at the front of the stage and informed us that this same gentleman had walked into the bathroom earlier that evening and walked into the stall he was shitting in and said, "uh... are you MC Chris?" The guy was acting like he was all cool for being called out for his egregious actions. It's one of those situations where he didn't realize that he was in a bad place for being a jackass. You don't do something like that and then stand at the front of the stage. At some point in his tirade about the whole ordeal about privacy and taking a dump, MC Chris said, "When a man is taking a shit you tiptoe around that motherfucker!" At the end of his rant, he was telling the douche to get to the back of the room or he was going to have security called to have him removed. The guy didn't get his point until security was actually moving for him. Too funny. Towards the end of the rant, we were all shouting for him to get to the back so the show could continue.

This happened a second time but with a different person. This time it was a blond chick standing up front with her boyfriend. During his first set break, he said something to her along the lines of, "if that guy's your boyfriend, you better stop making those fuck me eyes at me." Sure enough, during a pause in songs later in the evening, he sent her to the back of the room. She knew that he was serious so she left without much of a fight but when she got to the back, she ended up standing next to me in front of the mixing board. I heard her shout something about how he's ugly. She didn't even mention his short stature or a resemblance to a troll/gnome/goblin. So uncreative.

After it was all said and done, I bought a t-shirt and had him sign it. When I was standing in the autograph line, some skank pissed him off. It was a classic, "I'm so hot for you Mr. Celebrity" "Get out of here you skank." "You're an untalented, ugly shit!" exchange. Worth the price of admission.

All in all it was an alright show. I didn't expect the crowd to show it's appreciation as is the case with most 18+ shows. Kids just don't know how to have a good time at a live show these days, it seems. Maybe I see it a little differently since I had a few beers and they were only stoned. (Maybe that's why they were so sedated. Hmm...)

So yeah. Take that, second attempt at a post that was the best post ever.

And that white spot on his face that picture is some rain that got on the lens of my camera which he asked if I got in Poland. I told him it was Vintage Chinese.

Re: this is getting annoying...

***** Travis' Message *****

--- Travis wrote:
> does chicken broth count as a "canned food" item?
> if it does, i have my (and a couple fortunate
> friends') tickets into the haunted dealie this
> Friday...
>
> i guess you could say i have the "fright"
> stuff...that's never going to get old...
>

***** MY Reply *****

Travis! (Spoken like your mother would say it.)

I don't think that it doesn't count but you (and your friends) look like a real jerk(s) if you show up with Chicken Broth.

(Shaking head)

(shrugs shoulders)

But who am I to judge? Maybe there's some needy people who visit the food pantry to get broth because they can't keep down solid foods... because they're alcoholics and whatever. I don't know.

(sighs)

I slept like crap last night again. I'm starting to get tired of not sleeping well (get it, tired. Ha!) Even crashed out on the couch with Deano wasn't that good of a nap. Perhaps I just don't have the "night moves" to get things done in the sleep dept. anymore. I'll just resign myself to a waking life and eventually end up in a sleep study at the university, trying to raise enough money for a DVD player. After I buy the swords.

(pauses, stares out the window at the blacktop while a fly lands on his arm.)

I really hate my jobs. All of them. I think I would best be served by hanging up the guitar, the photocopy skills, and the "congratulations, you're being sued" party patrol, and moving to a new city with a graduate program that suits my needs. But it's only Monday. We'll see how I feel after the MC Chris show tonight. "MC Chris is coming to your town tonight."

(thinks through the chorus to the song, mostly the music. the lyrics are just a jumble. Music is almost the same thing as the "Uh-Oh" music from Sea Lab 2021. Huh...)

(Contemplates purchasing a gun this evening, quickly hides that idea.)

I've got some things to do... or something. Lots of backlog Affidavits, Invoices, Document Requests, and I'm just sitting here. Wasting away in margarit... nevermind. Stupid parrotheads!

Z

***** Travis' Response to My Reply *****

> Subject: Flushing Meadows
>
> so you think the broth may be bad form, 'eh...
>
> just curious...i don't want to be "that guy"...it's not like it's
> old broth or anything; i can vagely remember buying it,
> although i'm sort of at a loss as to why i bought it...but i
> digress...somebody out there has got to be on a liquid
> diet or hankerin' to make some chicken soup and perhaps
> my most generous contribution will help turn a fanciful
> afternoon's daydream into a lush, steaming, delicious reality...
>
> which is the only kind of reality i'd waste my time
> showing up for.
>
> i mean, i have both chicken and beef varieties...one
> of the cans of chicken may even be "low fat"...charity
> can be "health-conscious"...
>
> leaving my mark on society, one can at a time...
>
> the "13"

Ripe, ripped from the headlines

As I was running around Friday from "Health and Family" to "Federal Court" to FedexKinkos to the dank pits I work in, supposedly called "office" (whatever the hell that means), I kept seeing the cover o' the Wisco State Journal in those little newspaper dispenser boxes. (I want that job! Standing in one place for years, taking change and giving out crosswords and horrorscopes.)

Headline went something like, "LOOKIE HERE! DUDE SHOT PEOPLE, GA-HILK!!! NOW READ THE 911 TRANSCRIPTS, HERE, FIRST!!!!!!!!!!!" (assuming you know how to read)

I don't want this to come across as another post where I almost spill my dirty secret that I don't think death is as big a deal as we all are supposed to act/believe/feel whatever. I don't like to explain that to people. It's taken years of hard work to build up these kinds of callouses. Alright.

Okay, so a guy shot his ex and some kids at a party... and he killed them and they were all pretty much kids, and it's a small town, it's terribly tragic (and I do emphasize that it is tragic) in the sense that it was needless and pointless and irrational to a fault. But what bothered me was the way in which the headline and the front page "picture" seemed like a gratuitous attempt to get me to buy the paper because it had excerpts of the emergency phone calls in a larger type... "he's shooting to kill, he shot at my head, etc." (Not the actual quotes.)

What I'm getting at is this. (Attention: point. (none?)more like question posed, accusations thrown, fingers pointed, self critically analyzed/scrutinized(check the half-baked ideas section of the index.))

At what point does my standing, gawking a-gape, rubbernecking become not so much a social concern for the community I live in and instead turn into just another passing story like so much of an lazy afterknoon serial?

This is a dark well to tread water in... Or as if it's a two week shoot of baboons during the drought season and they're desperate enough to drink water from the river that's full of large predatory reptiles. When one of 'em gets snapped, the rest sit and chatter and squawk, in groups of convenient comfort.

Or maybe I'm just repulsed by my own morbid curiosity of the details...

Rather that, Here's something more enjoyable to read, lovingly crafted by Joey Vochich

* * * * * * * * *

10/11/07...
lookingforward to it...
to what?...

(to the chaos and structure of tomorrow...)

ummmmmm.....

we will make eye contact with humans...and then hide...
(hide and move on...)

and i see
and you
and me
and us...
the same humans...but only sometimes.

us?

(U.S.A....U.S.A....U.S.A.!!!!!!!!!!!)

You see dear friend, i grew up during the Cold War.
With trick el down economy and darkness...
and thank god (god damn it!)
(for the sheen of pop).

with BOOM boxes and breakin 2 electric boogaloo...

yes, here we are...at the cusp of another christmas and another city winter

of patterns and local news and
disgusting!
just give me the weather forcast god damn it!!!
...and the score of the game...

the big game...

("the future cannot and will not be predicted...")

this is all i know...
this is all i want to know...

let go let go let go...

LETS GO!!!!!

(these words are not just for me...they are for you as well)

HEAVY DUDE...HEAVY!!

(and the clerk at the coffee house had the kind of eye contact that slows you down and forces you to
acknowledge the existence of suffering)...heavy....
"ummm...i'll take a large coffee."
"for here or to go?"
"ummm....to go."
"room for cream?"
"ummmm..."

"what does eric clapton and coffee have in common?"
"they both suck without cream."

"i like my coffee the way i like my men...strong and black."

(that's not funny.)

through discipline and dedication to what's for the best...

i lie to myself at least ten times a day...20+ on the weekends...
especially when i'm....

yeah yeah yeah...
god damn it...fuck...fuck it!
the clouds are rolling in....

shivering in the am, now that the earth is tilting
the other way

BlueBlockers ready...with made in china and american belly/baby fat

phlegm release almost complete...
for another this and another that

another yes and no and maybe...asapasapasapasap...

(whispering now...voice cracking...u.s.a...u.s.a...)

with moments of losing and winning and not caring...
this is it...

another 15minutes of you and me and whatever...

Thank you for reading.

If you just sneezed, well then god bless you child.

If you just yawned, you should go to sleep or drink some water.

Love,

Joe

* * * * * * * * *

Will do. Think I need both. Can't sleep. Two days now.

Storm brewing in the back of my skull, right behind the pounding headache that started towards the end of rehearsal today. First time back as the full band since August. Too Long. But we worked on our rendition of Bjork's Bachelorette
to the point of having a sense that we can at some point pull it off live, in front of people.

It's a great song. Off a great album. I consider it the perfect soundtrack to a solo day on Lone Peak with a Burton Frontier 170.

Alright. Kristin, you complained that my posts weren't as involved as they used to be. Here's a masterwork of cutting, pasting, and "researching" in the wee hour o' tha' morn'. Madden's calling and there's much studio work to do tomorrow (don't worry, it's all bass tracks. I can sleep through most of it, then veto it on final listen through and make "Thirteen" do it again.)

(and I keep trying to put apostrophes where they don't belong. Time to stop typing.)

Stutter-Butter Tastes Better

It's been forever since I've put any time in on the internets. I guess you could accuse me of not GIVING A DAMN!

Yeah.

Bitter, angry, moody, general piss-ed-off-ish-ness floating round today like a quick drink of water. Where do I want to eat tonight? Probably a restaurant, probably by myself. Fiesty doesn't go well with others.

Two weeks till I leave the Wisco for a week and then it'll be three weeks and I'll be back here sitting in this office that reeks of smoke, feeling bored/angry/malaise. Crack a bottle. Crack a grin across your back.

I have been writing though, not here, not at the other one (decanterbury tales) but I've been scribbling words on paper in my free time and then transmogifying them into files that I can print out and edit and edit. I found an interesting Buh-cow-ski quip, something about how reading your own writing shouldn't bore you because if it does, you can be sure that it will be boring to others who read it. (subtext: why are you still reading my blog?)

That said, I'm still kicking around the idea of putting together a self-published chapbook. Not a huge run, available by request, madcap poetry (if you dare call it that) more words slapped together like spaghetti noodles and broken glass, called art in the name of all that is literalarily holy.

Ugh.

Stumbled onto a site that I'm not going to link to that reminded me of a nightmare I once had. That's really what's kicking me in the nuts right now.

Three weeks, pictures, maybe not here, link to pictures from an excursion... we'll see.

Keep faith and all... yeah yeah yeah./