Oh, God, poor New Orleans.

No, I didn't pay that much attention to the tsunami which Hurricane Katrina has been (wrongly) compared to. No, I didn't donate any money or time to help the hundreds of thousands of people fucked over by that particular natural disaster. Shit, I've barely done anything to help the, well, hundreds of thousands of people ruined by Katrina, aside from donate a little money I don't have to the Red Cross.

But.

I am a little ashamed that my humanitarian impulses are not only few, but selective. In this case, I've opted to donate to people I can relate to, even in the most distant sense: fellow Southerners. You know what, though? Fuck it. I dare anyone to tell me, and mean it, that they'd be more willing to help out someone on the other side of the world than someone they have some kind of affinity with.

This has nothing to do with nation or race or politics. It has to do with neighbors, in the broadest sense of the term. I've failed to help out all kinds of people the world over, even here in my own damned city of Houston, but shit, H-Town never got swallowed by water, did it? My point is that this tragedy, in my mind, outweighs anything my "neighbors" have faced in a long time, and for fuck's sake, this time I couldn't sit idly by and do nothing.

As always, I've failed to put my point across properly, but I'm not the focus here. Please, folks, do what you can.

Self vs. Self

At some point between one o'clock and three o'clock this afternoon, I decided to make an effort to curb my addiction to both tobacco and alcohol. The former is much stronger and undeniably physical; I smoke about a pack of cigarettes a day. The latter is almost entirely psychological (as is the smoking, but I can go without booze and not feel physically thrown off); I drink about three or four beers a day. Come my days off, both cigarettes and alcohol are consumed in greater quantity.

I've never planned to quit drinking. Ever. Cut back, yes, and I do so periodically just to ensure that I'm not really a dipsomaniac. Smoking, on the other hand, is one of those things I've told myself I will eventually stop doing completely, though I also tell myself that if I could curb my nicotine intake to about five gaspers a day, I would never actually quit. Needless to say, I've failed to both quit and cut back, until today.

"Today," of course, means nothing. I've smoked seven cigarettes, and will smoke no more until tomorrow, because I purposely left my Luckies at work and am too lazy to go buy more if a nic fit strikes. I've had one tallboy and half a glass of wine, but there are three unopened bottles in the kitchen, so if I want another drink I can have one. I don't want one, though, because I'm trying to make today become tomorrow, in the sense that I've had my daily limit and must wait. It's an exercise in willpower.

And man, do I fuckin' hate exercises in willpower. Not because of any difficulty, per se, but because contemplating my own ambiguity re: my habits irks the shit out of me. I wish I could just say "fuck it, I'm gonna keep smoking, consequences be damned," or "nope, this is it, as of right now," but I can't. Or won't. I can't tell. You can surely see the quandary I'm in. It's not so much about alcohol or tobacco vs. willpower as determination one way or another.

Say I do quit smoking. Then what? Yeah, I get healthier, but I'm missing out on something I genuinely love. (I don't mind being an addict at all, but like all addicts, I can only say that until my fix is no longer available, and the withdrawals kick in.) It's this kind of thing that gets me, and not being able to choose one way or another just makes it even more frustrating.

Fuck it. I don't want to think about this right now. Viva the intellectual cop-out!

So much to say, but so little energy.

I am very, very tired. I can't fuckin' believe the weekend is over already. I do have a couple remarks before I call it a night, however.

-Michael Haaga, formerly of metal band dead horse (yes, no capitals), has had a new band for a while now. I finally saw them tonight, and, well, as Matt put it, they sound like "the soundtrack to a bad indie film." I just wasn't impressed, even by their dead horse cover. The Riverboat Gamblers, on the other hand, put on one hell of a show, and I saw Christian and Danielle, which made my night, so to speak- being with Matt and Holly really did the trick.

-I can't stop listening to Sentenced during the wee hours, which is pathetic because I only own one of their albums and have only a handful of mp3s.

-I'm working on a new short (and I mean short) fiction piece based on the Finnish suicide pact vignette I posted a few days ago. Once it's done, it'll be posted here, complete with dedication. It's an exercise in sap of the most morbid variety, but God, I love working on it. I've never gotten over the sense of tragic love that was instilled in me (by whom? probably art) years ago.

-Next weekend will be the last one available for non-familial good times for a while, so if you want to hang out, let me know. Forewarning: I will have no money, so either suggest something that requires no cash or be prepared to pony up for beer.

Mixed messages

FOOLISH/HUMOROUS

Last night, after eating at Ming's with Van Cleve, Nicole, and Andy, the three of us went to Helios. I saw Cheyenne for the first time in a while, and also saw Claudia and her boyfriend's band. Folks started getting restless after an hour or so, however, so Eric split and, upon noting how early it was, Andy, Nicole, and I motivated ourselves over to the Proletariat.

Little did we know that trouble was brewing, and not just in the form of a Galaga machine. (I played several games, of course, and did horribly, due to lack of practice and inebriation.) No, the real trouble was that it was karaoke night, and that Andy and I talked ourselves into signing up. He was going to sing "Heartbreak Hotel"; I, "Seasons in the Abyss." As we waited for our turn, I was assaulted by the horrible singing of hipsters doing trendy or kitschy non-hipster songs and a growing sense of dread. What the hell was I thinking? What would I do when I took the stage, aside from talk a lot of shit and wish that I had a death-metal growl?

Thankfully, last call was announced before Andy and I had our chance to make fools of ourselves, and after getting some grub at House of Guys, I came home, watched three episodes of Buffy, and drank some ku ding tea, my dignity still intact.


KILLER

My brother's currently in Norway, and here's an excerpt from an email he just sent me:

Yo dude -

I ran across Matt Pike at Hole in the Sky and mentioned that Lovecraft book,
whereupon he preceded to talk about how kick ass your book was.

This news made my day, since I gave Matt Pike a copy of Axis Mundi Sum the last time I saw High On Fire play, and I wasn't sure if he'd read it or not. Fuckin' A.


Now for the

MISERABLE ADDENDUM

Voivod guitarist Denis D'Amour, AKA Piggy, died Friday night of inoperable colon cancer, which had spread to his liver.

Voivod was one of those bands that nobody I knew growing up listened to, but somehow I heard about them here and there anyway. A few years back, I picked up their Angel Rat record on tape, and never really listened to it. Then, in 2003, they released a new album with the original vocalist, snake, and new bassist Jason Newsted, and I had the chance to go see them play at Numbers. Ever since that spring, I've been a fan of Voivod, and I can say that all the acclaim they earned over the years was well-deserved. It's a shame that Piggy's gone, but at least he left one hell of a legacy.

shitty poem from the bottom of a lazy heart

supermarket
thin anxious crowds
basket full of wine:
3/$9.00.
plus beer, more wine

needle
wax
volume knob
"yeah"

daydream of barstools
Li Po
shining She
smoke and conversation

feet up
toes free
dissolving,
cares:
evanescent

Predawn stasis

It's four AM, and my weekend has begun. Alas, I am currently crippled by an overwhelming desire to do nothing. No, that's not accurate. I want to do something, but I don't know what. About the only thing I can think of that sounds appealing is going over to my brother's place and playing GTA, but since there's a bug in the game, I know I won't be able to complete the only plot-crucial mission available to me right now, so that option ain't so hot. I don't feel like writing. I do feel like drinking, but there's no booze in the house. Read? Maybe. A walk sounds good, at least in theory.

Shit, I guess I'll just smoke some more cigarettes and maybe listen to X. If tonight's like the rest of the nights this week, it'll be dawn before I know it, and then I can occupy myself by walking down to Fiesta and buying beer.

Wait, never mind. The Longest Journey. That should do the trick.

Sacred Acquisitions

Today I bought:

-a hair brush (the first one I've actually purchased since I started growing my hair long two years ago)
-some pens
-a sixer of Lone Star longnecks
-the LP of Om's Variations On A Theme, simply because I, and everyone else, deserves to hear it played loudly on wax
-a Sleep t-shirt, which might not sport the Dopesmoker/Jerusalem art or keywords, but is still a fucking Sleep t-shirt
-and Electric Wizard's newest offering, We Live, which I haven't found for sale in a record store since it came out last year.

Money well spent? Fuck yes.
Will I regret it a few days before my next paycheck? Possibly.
Do I care? Not at all.

"Let's give our lives for this love..."

More pseudo-fiction, heavy on the fiction. Juvenile, possibly, but potent in ways I can't explain. Listen to Sentenced, and see this as an extrapolation thereof. Do not think that suicide is in my future; if it was, it would come unbidden, but it won't.

---

If I ever found Her, I'd propose on the shores of a Finnish lake, blood pumping from the open veins of our arms so that when she said (it doesn't matter), our final minutes would be unspeakably significant.

A day or so thereafter, some poor Finn would find two pale bodies on the crimson-stained shore: whether they were clutched in a final embrace, or separated by some unknown (mutual?) hate, the motive would remain a mystery.

Suffice to say that there would be no doubt about the love we shared, emotionally, psychologically, cellularly.

---

At least all this upbeat (yes, really) Finnish gloom has given me some material for Unheimlich.

No better than your average blabbermouth.net poster, but...

FUCK YOU, SHARON OSBOURNE. And fuck you, Ozzy, for letting that cunt rule your life.

And fuck everyone else that apparently tried to disrupt Iron Maiden's set at the San Berdoo Ozzfest. Fuck each and every one of you miserable cunts, and cheers to Maiden to soldiering on.

(Go to bwbk.com or blabbermouth.net and scroll back through a few days' worth of news to see what I'm talking about.)

I'm so very glad that I've got Birgit Zacher's background vocals for Sentenced to keep me company now, since there's nobody and nothing else in the world that could do what they do right now.

This is when I need to be at 19713 Westbridge Lane, going through my brother's CD collection, watching the X-Files, surfing the web, drinking coffee, listening to the AC hum, smoking Luckies in the driveway, basking in a different brand of despair.

"I haven't seen a roll job that good since..."

Random pseudo-coworkers (pseudo because they work for the same company, but not in my department or on my shift) have, on at least three occasions, made drug references to me as I stood out back having a cigarette. Since I've been rolling my own for the last couple months- the best skill I ever learned- it's not uncommon for someone to leave the building and find me in the middle of rolling a cigarette. Back in college, doing this also earned the inevitable "hey, man, is that a joint?" comment, and I've gotten a couple of those lately as well. However, having middle-aged folks start discussing their dope-addled pasts out of the blue is a different story altogether.

I don't mind, of course. Such conversations may be slightly banal and nostalgia-tinged, but they're superior to discussions of actual work, or weather, or any of the other things that come up when two relative strangers feel the need to acknowledge each others' existence.

It's time to write, but before I go, dig this, courtesy of Warren Ellis' site: Unusual Otter Attack Kills Dog. Proof that ferrets and their kin are the earth's finest mammals. ALL HAIL THE ANIMAL TRIUMVIRATE THAT SHALL RULE THE EARTH WHEN MAN RENDERS HIMSELF EXTINCT!

19713

A meandering meditation on memory and place. Incomplete, sloppy, crucial.

---

Hot brick— no, wait, wrong house. A few square feet of indoor/outdoor carpeting, then the concrete walkway that leads to the driveway, also concrete. This is the old place, the one returned to. The concrete’s still hot, no matter where this is. Hot, but not searing, thankfully ribbed here and there with the shadows of pines. The walk to the mailbox isn’t too unpleasant. Nothing there but circulars and a polybagged assortment of coupons.

Back in the house, advertising dumped in the trash can that’s only ever seen lint and dryer sheets and unwanted mail. Don’t even have to turn on the light in the tiny laundry room to know where to chuck the mail. Close the door behind— room’s almost as hot as the garage it opens onto— down the short hall. Three doors, four if you count the one at the end of the hall, but that feels odd since it’s not to one side or another. So four doors— no, five, laundry— four framed paintings and pieces of needlework. Watercolors, harborscapes, a century and a lifetime old. The needlepoints are only as old as the memories of them and all the walls they’ve hung on. Above the wall hangings, a grate breathes cold air.

The door nearest the laundry room is always closed. The next one on that side of the hall, currently the left, tends toward ajar, an almost-reflection of the door directly across from it: open, allowing the sight of porcelain and glass. The bathroom, where another needlepoint hangs, soaking up steam with invisible decay-inducing frequency.

Why back here?

About-face, across the dust-textured linoleum foyer. Brush against the antique sewing machine, which appeared— when? It wasn’t in all the other old places. The living room opens up, ceiling way up there giving comfortable space. Carpet’s clean enough to see the vacuum tracks, but there’s a handful of VHS tapes scattered on the floor by the TV. Not, thankfully, in the slotted light coming in from the right. Only a rattan, bamboo, wicker, no, it’s bamboo, or cane, chair gets to bask in the sun. Dust motes float in and out of the light, presumably. The recliner earns attention now: an upholstered throne, relaxing just to look at. Flanked by books, two, on the floor, and a properly coastered, sweating can of soda on an end table, the recliner emits a siren song, beckoning with the sweet voice of comfort.

No, move on, but grab the soda on the way to the kitchen, through the informal dining room. The linoleum’s cleaner, one stretch of countertop bouldered with crumbs. The breadbox, closed, admits no guilt, but the box of Swiss cake rolls in the cabinet does, although of a different sort. Outside the valanced window the backyard bakes, grass and cracked wood thirsting for water and varnish. But it’s not that bad, not today. The sky isn’t so severely blue that it hurts to lean over the sink and look up at the shreds of clouds overhead.

Turn to the wood-paneled cabinets, drawers. The fridge, badged with almost nothing. Ice from the built-in dispenser, drop into a glass freckled with dried water spots, resuscitate the soda. Open the pantry, minimally inhabited, and drop the empty can— no, wait, the recycling bin’s in the garage. It can wait.

Why back here?

The memories have to be pasted over with nostalgia. Have to be. But they’re not. The thoughtfulness of now happened then, too, right here, leaning against a kitchen counter, on the alcoved toilet of the master bathroom, key in the front door lock. No, it isn’t nostalgia alone holding this return together. The memories hold true— but the question still remains valid. Why back here?

Why not the one east of here, fifteen minutes’ walk in the unglazed sun, home more sharply definitive weeks and months? Why not the dorm rooms in two different states, or the apartments in two countries that grow more foreign every time they’re thought of?

Night now. Coffee and yellow lamplight and the blessed exhalation so high up the wall. The living room, living, spilling proof of its vitality through the closed blinds. The recliner has won the battle of comfort, though there is grave, furious competition from the sofa (armed with pillows and a familiar blue blanket) and even the floor, where the carpet stull looks freshly vacuumed. The floor promises expanse, unbounded horizontal mobility.

The lamp’s shade either came in that hue or bathed in cigarette smoke long ago, before this thenthere herenow. Cigarettes are a rarity in this place, but the living room is not a complete stranger to small glass ashtrays and shanghaied glassed and cups. The driveway, out there in the dark, is where the ashes are usually scattered, and the bushes by the door are a graveyard of uncounted butts. The lamp, back to the lamp, pseudo-wood and brass, ponderous, well-traveled, an old welcome friend.

Midbrain hum of the television conspires with the last sips of cooling coffee and the blanket— wrested from the exhausted couch— to push away more questions. At last:

“Mulder, it’s me.”

votethroneswherethehellisthatcartridge?

I'm considering voting for Kinky Friedman for Governor of Texas next year. He's a legitimate human being, and while I have no real faith in the political systems of this state, country, or world, it would be a massive leap forward for the Lone Star State to have someone in office that's not a soulless piece of shit.

As usual, I've spent some of my last-few-days-before-payday funds on albums. I picked up Bad Brains' first album, Thrones' Day Late, Dollar Short, which I enjoy a lot more than Sperm Whale, and Ginnungagap's contribution to the Latitudes series that Southern Records is releasing. Of these three albums, the only one I can recommend to just about anyone would be the Bad Brains album. Thrones aren't something that folks who don't like one-man heavy (but not necessarily metal) drum machine/distorted bass/outre electronic weirdness would dig, though I'd be happy to be proved wrong. Ginnungagap might strike fans of folk/acoustic/drone/etc. the right way, but I suspect your average listener wouldn't be down for a quartet of long songs with no vocals.

Somewhere in this house is the replacement cartridge for my turntable, as well as the large-hole adapter for 45s. I remember almost leaving them at the old place, only to put them in a box at the last minute. Which box? Good question.

I hope my brother's having fun in Europe.

Gimme fried chicken and a volume of Coleridge!

Oh, how meaningful! The Corpse speaks for the first time from his new tomb. Naturally, I feel like there's nothing much to say, although for anyone who's stuck keeping up with me via this site might argue otherwise. For their sake, and my own, because I feel the need to write but don't want to work on Unheimlich, which I updated a couple days ago with twenty pages of new stuff.

Life with Dave has been pretty much as I expected it: quiet and pleasant. I... shit, I don't feel like doing this right now. I'm going to go buy beer and listen to some more Deep Purple. Pardon the lack of insight into my daily life, but hey, beer and records are the most important parts thereof, right?

Si, yo vivo.

Brief update from my brother's computer, since I still have no internet access at the new place. I am now living six blocks down W. Alabama with Dave Mann, and that's going well. I turned twenty-six this past Sunday, and celebrated the event with a minimum of fanfare. I received beer, cigarettes, a cherry pie, and a copy of China Mieville's The Scar, courtesy of Tracey, my brother, Sara, and Andy, respectively. The Scientist also burned me a couple choice albums, which I'm grateful for. I bought myself a couple albums and books too- having Half Price Books pretty much around the corner is gonna be great.

Very little else going on, naturally, but I can say I've gotten more writing done in the past long weekend than I have in weeks. Still not a lot, but it's an improvement, and I like what I'm doing. Oddly enough, while Unheimlich is taking me forever to write, I suspect it'll be the shortest novel I've written thus far.

I'll see y'all when I get back online permanently. Take it easy.

Yep.

The Mann rolled into town last night and I showed him our new digs. He seemed pleased, so all is well. We took care of the oven door and key problems, so now I'm taking my spare twenty minutes to write this and have a beer and a cigarette before I go buy ferret-related goods, pay my phone bill, and acquire a fine sheen of mid-day Houston sweat.

I think I'll name my daughter "Indolence Lassitudia."

Should I ever have one, and should whatever poor female bears the child acquiece, which won't happen.

Anyway, I spent the day before work eating Indian food and shopping for books with Cheyenne. Three for three. Because I got some birthday money from my parents the other day, I did the proper thing and spent almost half of it on books: David Foster Wallace's Everything and More, which I already know I'm completely unqualified to read, John Banville's Shroud, Peter Ackroyd's London: The Biography, which I've been eyeing for some time, and, most pleasantly of all, How To Be Idle by Tom Hodgkinson. While I've never gotten my hands on a copy of the magazine he edits, the Idler, I've read everything available on the website, and through it I've discovered all manners of people and things that share and expound my love for, well, idleness. How To Be Idle is an excellent read, both thematically and stylistically; Mr. Hodgkinson really knows how to convey the humanity of the idler's position, and without resorting to drunken swearing, as I'm prone to doing.

Now I'm waiting around for the Mann to arrive from Florida so I can show him our new apartment. It's been a good day, all in all, if you don't count that ten-hour stretch of work that wedged its way in there.

Exeunt foresight.

I should never have packed, and subsequently moved, my favorite H.P. Lovecraft volume. Thankfully, I do have Thomas Mann's utterly awesome The Magic Mountain at hand, as well as plenty of soy milk, toast, and black currant jam, so going to bed will be no trouble.

Good night, everyone. The next time you realize you'll be going to bed within the hour, find a good book, a good beverage, and admire the yellow lamplight. I will consider such thoughtful responses to domesticity my birthday present from you.

Should you choose to be grotesquely generous, you can help me buy a certain house in the suburbs when the time comes, and then leave me alone 80% of the time once I've moved in, barring extensions of cameraderie on my part.

19713.

Ceaselessly heavy these days.

Stop being Philistines. Buy the records I tell you to buy.

New and old stuff. No descriptions. It's all up to you. Wade knee deep in my world.

Hate Eternal- I, Monarch

Nile- Annihilation of the Wicked

The Moors- self-titled

Celtic Frost- Morbid Tales

Fates Warning- Awaken the Guardian

Cathedral- Supernatural Birth Machine

Metallica- Kill 'Em All

Darkthrone- Panzerfaust

Clutch- Clutch

Lorena McKennitt- The Book of Secrets

Elastica- Elastica

Sepultura- Chaos A.D.

Jucifer- War Bird

Sunn O)))- White1

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds- Henry's Dream

Thin Lizzy- Jailbreak

Emperor- Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk

Ulver- Perdition City

Catatonia- Equally Cursed and Blessed

Opeth- My Arms, Your Hearse

Current 93- Calling For Vanished Faces

High On Fire- Blessed Black Wings

Jack Rose- Raag Manifestos

Borknagar- Quintessence

Nest- Woodsmoke

Katatonia- Viva Emptiness

Negura Bunget- N'Crugu Bradului

Agalloch- The Mantle

...and so many, many more.

The gospel of FUCK IT!

You know what I love? Not giving a fuck. Every week, it seems, I run into one thing or another that should shove me into the oozy, worm-ridden pit of (usually temporary) depression, but I'm pretty good at either sidestepping the shoving force or, in less successful instances, merely ending up knee-deep in depression.

"How do you do it, Dave?" you ask. Simple, dude-brethren and dudette-sistren: I just say FUCK IT. Fuck it, man; it works for just about anything except legitimately heavy events, like deaths of loved ones or a really traumatic break-up or a scathing, painfully true review of your art or an alien abduction or whatever. (You know heavy when it hits you.) However, when you're dealing with just about anything else, saying "fuck it" really can get you back to where you belong, which, in my case, is cruisin' through life in the 1970 GTO Judge of my mind and soul.

Say it, brethren and sistren: FUCK IT!

-Just saw the chick or dude you've got a crush on kissin' someone else? Fuck it! People do what they do, and you'll find someone else soon enough.

-Can't find your car keys? Fuck it! You didn't need to be at work on time anyway.

-Soaked in sweat the minute you step outside? Fuck it! The summer's meant to be hot.

-Out of coffee? Fuck it! Folgers is shitty.

-Spent a few hundred bucks at the local Scientology center, only to find out you've been screwed? Fuck it! Now you know better.

-Woke up with a mysterious bruise or three? Fuck it! Next time you'll drink that sixer sitting down.

-Can't make heads or tails of that Heidegger book you're reading for class? Fuck it! Read it again when it's not four hours before the exam.


And so on. Basically, brethren and sistren, I've found that not taking yourself too seriously really does wonders for your life. Keep it casual, have a laugh at your own expense, and don't sweat anything that doesn't ontologically demand it, and you'll be all right. And I mean "all right," not just "all right."

Of course, I'm not Tony "holy shit, I suckered Trey Azagthoth" Robbins, so there are no guarantees, but on the other hand, you're gettin' this pseudo-philosophical fried gold for free, so fuck it!

This attempt at humorous honesty brought to you by a completely sober (!), but sweat-drenched, D.A. Smith. Y'all take it easy, have a good one, and remember that "yesterday's for mice and gods."