If you haven't heard OK Computer, do yourself a big favor. Ch, ch, ch, check it out. One of the best albums to get under my skin in years. I have to give due credit to Skini P. He told me it would become my favorite Radiohead album before long. How right he was. Last post's lyric quote was from that album, incidentally, a song called Let Down that's beautiful and sad and true.

  Thanksgiving was good. Met some nice folks, had some great food, went out for a drink and bumped into some friends. A nice surprise and a great end to the evening. I'm thankful for low-rise jeans, beer and Radiohead this year. I'm thankful for friends who talk with me on the phone 'til 6:00AM. I'm thankful for the altrustic people I know that poke holes in my thick skin 'till I notice the drops of belief coming out from underneath. I'm thankful that Marcus Aurelius wrote down what he was thinking and didn't just keep it to himself. I'm thankful for the sweet words that come to me from miles away.

   So I had this idea. Two of my roommates live sans cable TV and internet access at home. They're very studious people, though I don't mean to imply that they're boring, far from it, but they're very dedicated to their chosen professions and I find this quality admirable. Probably because it's so very alien to me. I admire it from way, way off, the way you might look at pictures in National Geographic of some indigenous tribe in the Congo and say 'man, that thing they do with the eggshells in their hair is really cool'. So I had this idea. I'd get rid of cable and broadband at home and somehow this lack of ingredients would become the recipe for a life of reading, dedication and all around good living. It worked for a while. I played the bass a lot more, read a few books, bought a violin; it was a very productive time. And then...

Like a crackhead out of rehab after two months, missing a few NA meetings here and there, kidding himself that he isn't jonesin' for hit, I broke. I ordered it all back, it was installed Saturday and I LIKE IT! I stayed home all day yesterday and watched movies. I'd never seen Waterworld, Mad Max or Braveheart and now I have. It was a great cinemabinge. Cable, I love you and I missed you. Can you ever forgive me?

Croutons suck. They're not some fancy addition to a good salad. They're the creation of cheapskate chef's who're unwilling to just throw that stale bread away.

  What are YOU looking at?

  Last night The Luscious Oprhan treated to an extended reading of "The Frog King: A Love Story", by Adam Davies. I find myself on the other side of the old crappy TV movie dilemma: "I watched the first half, and now I just have to see how it ends." I heard the end of this tale and now I just HAVE to know how it all ended up that way. I must say that this is one of the wittiest authors I've come across in quite some time. The dialogues are hilarious and affectionate, there's some very tough subject matter (sexual abuse, orphan children)that's handled deftly and fearlessly, and a whole love story that's tell's the truth without being Hallmarkian. I wish I had the damn thing, I'd include some passages, but I have to buy it first. The Luscious Orphan doesn't lend out her books. Ah well , you can't have your cake and pizza too! Am I coming in clear? Can you hear me now? Is this thing on? Syballynx, Syballynx....

I need some new music to jazz me up. Radiohead is still kicking my ass but they can't be the only serious band out there. My email link is over there to the left. If you want to turn a brother on to some dope shaznique, click that biznatch. I'm wide open, I'm under the net, FEED ME!

  So I walk in to the office of Ms. Lisa Nieves to say hello. Before I can get it out she on about "Wallace I want to go to New York this weekend, I just got to get away, I haven't been there in so long"

I said "Want some company?"

Blam! We're going to New York! I booked a room, we're renting a car and splittin' everything down the middle. I was going to go alone in mid September. I'm so psyched. I haven't ben to NY since 1990. Times Square still had all the peep shows and nudie bookstores. I bought some really good MaryJane there and set off the smoke alarm in the hotel with it. My friend and I couldn't have been any more paranoid than at that moment. "Dude, everyone knows we're WAISTED!!!"

We may take Friday off so we can leave early. I'm telling Lisa she has 3 personal days and like 4 sick days at her disposal and she's agonizing over whether or not to use one. Poor dear, she has a conscience and a work ethic. Que lindo!

  My brain huts from lack of sleep so instead of trying to think, I'll share some quotes from minds better rested than mine.

"Consistency is the last resort of the unimaginative" ~Oscar Wilde

"Politeness is the art of choosing among your thoughts." ~Madame de Stael

"It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not"

"The envious die not once, but as often as the envied win applause." ~Baltasar Gracian

"Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for someone else to die." ~Unknown

"Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire."

  Happy Birthday Amillion!!!!

Friends come and go, but moles on your skin are forever. I live and work with a guy we'll call E-Dog. He's decided to move back to where he hails from, Minnesota. This is what you get for letting yourself get attached to people. They just whimsically fly away. I often think of what to do when I'm meeting someone and the conversation is flowing like lava and I think I like the person. I need a defence system, something to shoot down the Scud missiles of affection and warmth I'm assaulted with. Something like this:

Look, you seem like a nice enough person, really, but the thing is, I just don't have any room in my life for new friends.

I think I saw that in a movie. I've learned everything I know from the movies and a few things from my prison stretch. Anyhoo, I've got to find away to ward off these would-be new friends. Perhaps, when I meet someone new I'll just repeat everything they say. That's pretty annoying. Can't see anyone getting attached to that.

I'm going to miss E-Dog and his misadventures with women, his complaint that food won't just cook itself, his constant striving to make everything in his life more portable. Also, he's an upgrade slave, so it was nice to buy last years models from him at huge discounts while he went out and bought the latest and greatest.It was like living with a crackhead. Eventually, everything is on sale. We had lunch together today and it struck me that this sort of thing will all soon be over. Everything is impermanent.

Life is one big adventure. Sometimes. I went to Pravda 116 last night. I loved it. I danced a lot, talked a lot, drank a lot, laughed a lot. I went with five people and that's the way to do it. Someone always wants to dance, someone always wants to talk, someones always on the way to the bar and asking if you need anything. Good DJ too. Goot times.

Went to Harvard Square today and as soon as I get out of the subway I hear a woman singing beautifully in Spanish. I sat and listened for a while and bought her CD. Marta Gomez is her name and I'll be upping her MP3s soon. Her voice is sweet and airy, a little like Astrud Gilberto. Wrapped up my day with Super 88, love that place, chicken legs 45 cents a pound.

Yo voy a bailar esta noche.

Having a doctor in the 'haaaas' has it's advantages. I've had this sort of mark on my belly for a while that I haven't been able to identify. Somewhere in the dark, damp recesses of my id the idea bloomed that it was a metastatic melanoma (wicked deadly skin cancer) and that I would soon perish for being to lazy to use a sun block. Well, the other night I'm messing with my coiff (pronounce: Kwaff) in the bathroom and Dr. Tom walks by. So I ask him and he takes a look and assures me that it is not a melanoma. Then he goes and grabs this dermatology book he has and shows me several examples of melanoma to assure me further. Nice. Saved me a $10 co-pay at my doctors office and a twenty minute, sweaty palmed anxiety attack it his waiting room. Shouts to Tom, whom I will now refer to as O-Dog. I have a physician and a therapist living with me. So if I O.D. or have a psychotic break, I'm in the best apartment in Brookline. Now all we need is a dentist.

I've been enjoying these last few days immensely, hanging out with The Lucious Orphan, playing guitar and reading. Sometimes it doesn't cost more than ten bucks to have a great time. I'm reading Hannibal and it's sucking wind. I don't think I'll finish it.

I'm still at work at 5:30 and people are filing out, saying good night and it looks as though I'm working my ass to the bone. If you know me then you know why that's funny.

I read this quote on one of my client's wall and I thought it was cool. Sounds like U.S. foreign policy to me. I'll buy a beer for the first person to email me with the author's name.

"I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very, very sorry for him and wish to lighten his load by all possible means- except by getting off his back."

So I was lollygagging around Coolidge Corner as is my habit on the weekends. I pop into the video store and see that Sam I Am is now available. Let me just say that I didn't know what I was doing. I thought I'd have a quiet afternoon with a good movie.

I've never cried so many times in one movie in my life. I didn't expect that. I expected Sean Penn to be good, not impeccable. I didn't expect to fall madly in love with Michelle Pfeiffer. She's enormously beautiful, and an older woman to boot, go figure. Of course it didn't hurt at all that the soundtrack is peppered with Beatles songs that sing to me from my first memories of childhood. My older brothers played Sgt. Pepper and Abbey Road so consistently that I knew every word of every song by the time I was maybe seven. And then there's the little girl. She couldn't possibly have been more adorable, and a really good actress, and infinitely charming.

My best friend is the father of two beautiful girls and I secretly envy him. Little girls make you want to be a hero and they remind you of all the right reasons to be one. It has nothing to do with being cool, tough, rich or clever. It has everything to do with seeing someone so frail and beautiful and hopeful and knowing in your guts that you will never, ever let any harm come to them for as long as you live. I imagine all this from afar. I don't think it's entirely imagination. Some things you just know right in your bones.

I'll add this. You don't need a daughter to know someone so beautiful and lovely that you would endure anything and face any threat to make damn sure that no harm will ever come to them. I think that's at least some small fraction of what love is. It's when someone is more important than your schedule, your logic, your fears and your plans. It's really something.

Oyster crackers. Basically blisters of flour and salt. Nothing more. But. While staring at a bag of them as if it were promised they'd lead to some life altering epiphany, I did notice this. If you were four inches tall, they would look like huge loaves of bread. As it is though, I'm five feet something and they look like Pilsbury Doughboy droppings.

The Stearns Cafe will be undergoing a few rennovations soon and then we will be accepting reservations once again. For after hours soirees, please call two days in advance.

I can juggle and do back flips. Do you know any cool tricks?

Sometimes life can surprise you. You may find yourself heading out, expecting nothing, having a good time with friends, but nothing extraordinary and then, from out of nowhere, it can turn into something wonderful. And beautiful. It helps me maintain a certain reverance for life. Far too often the surprises you get are either simply sucky or downright awful. If you get too many of those, you can grow a thick skin and lose your faith and think of life as something simply to be endured until it's over. I don't know about you but that doesn't sound too appetizing to me. So when those great days come out of nowhere, I don't take them lightly. It's the stuff that keeps me on this side of apathy, despair, and weariness.

Man, can't seem to shake this cold. It's like that feeling I've had since I was sixteen or so, a deep suspicion that the government is tracking my every move, operatives everywhere, some of them my friends, co-workers, the lady at Dunkin Donuts that smiles just a little too long. Funny feeling, just can't shake it. It's like this cold I've had since World Cup final Sunday. I just can't shake it. I'm going in circles. I want my mommy.

I eat my own flesh, how 'bout you? I get these calluses on my thumb from playing bass and I chew the edge off and chew it all up. My philosophy here is that any proteins that I've worked hard enough to assimilate aren't getting away that easy. Do you have any weird habits that you feel you may be alone with but are dying to tell someone? Email me. I'll understand.

Did you notice that the word "weird" breaks the i before e except after c rule?

The first floor of my house is a daycare center and when I get home from work I hear four or five little beans saying "Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii Wallace." It's nice. I hang out for a few minutes, talk to them. Sam finds my job endlessly fascinating. Sam's mom works with me so she tells him when I come by and fix her computer. To a four year old kid that's just one small step away from working for NASA. The great thing is that when I tire of them I can walk away. I didn't sire any of them. Well, I'm not claiming any.

I'm listening to some salsa music and I think I recall someone I know saying they had a salsa CD they weren't crazy about and that I could have it. Am I right about this? I think I'm right.

Don't worry.

Paying off credit card at Structure: $20.00

A few drinks at Limbo: $18.00

Selling my items on ebay: $201.95

Talking to Paul and Alex on the stoop: Priceless

Cheesey? You bet. But who cares.

  Here's some excperpts from Plan B

The easy answer was Lindsey's tempting metaphor. She was too young to settle down and needed to get out and see the world. It was a recurring theme in our breakup and the one I chose to be the party line. A safe, acceptable notion, which didn't point to any serious flaws or deficiencies on on anyone's part. But the assignment of blame was an inevitable component of my increasingly obsessive postmortems, and in my darker moments after she was gone I was haunted by the silent implication in that excuse, that she wouldn't have felt that way if there hadn't been something lacking in me.

"Hey, did I wake you", Jack said.
"Don't worry about it. I had to get up anyway to answer the phone."

  He even has the good taste to quote Kurt Vonnegut. Good book. Finished it last night.

  I am an american and, as such, I'm aloud to be an entertainment junky without fear of the judgement of my peers. Sure, I kick it once in a while, go straight for a few weeks and read non-fiction, socialize and the like. Inevitably though, there's no one to be had on the phone, or you're plum out of expendable scratch, or your sick and don't want to be patient zero among your group of friends. Sometimes, without any excuses, you know you just need a good fix. This was my week for relapse.

  I bought Trainspotting on DVD. If you've seen it then no explanation is necessary. If you haven't then you'r a punter and you should turn off the History channel, stop listening to that gash music you fancy and go out and rent it. It's the story of three heroin addicts and their mates in Scottland, "a country colonized by wankers". It's hilarious, it has a great soundtrack and scenes that will be tatooed into your memory for a long while.

  I also bought Tombstone on VHS. An excellent western about Wyatt Earp and his posse with great performances all around and a truly brilliant bit of work by Val Kilmer. While the other actors are excellent they mainly play themselves with a southern accent. Val Kilmer creates an an entire character, from manner of speech, attitude, a walk, a surly look in the eyes and many memorable lines. It's such a treat to watch someone do something they do extremely well. It always seems to tickle that part of me still believes that anything is possible.

  And finally, for good measure I rented A Beautiful Mind. Much better than I expected. I'm usually weary of big budget Hollywood hash starring big budget actors like Russell Crowe. I have to say that he did a fine job and the movie got me with it's suprises, a few very touching scenes and a good script based on a real person, John Nash. The film is essentially about genius, mental illness and love. I want a wife like he had someday. Not today, but someday.

  I'm taking a break from non-fiction and reading Plan B by Jonathan Tropper. So far it's a thirty someting love story that I usually wouldn't bother with but I find myself falling in love with the girl in the book right along with the main character. Sorry guys, I'm know I'm not supposed to say this sort of thing in public but it's true. There's a scene where they first talk on a park bench in the snow it's the kind of stuff all of us dream about. Unless of course you're already in love (the guy at the buffet rarely complains of hunger) or your DEAD INSIDE and you have thick scar tissue on your soul. Either way you're hopeless.

  I'm dreaming of a lake in Maine. The perfect place to be on a day like this one. Now, if it were only in walking distance...

  OK, I try not to gripe here too often so please indulge me this one time. Here's the list of things I need to bitch about:

I've lost my MP3 player. Hundred twenty bucks in the toilet

We have no one to take our room yet, so I have to pay a 3rd of that room's rent

I've come down with a cold that makes it hard to breathe in normal weather, forget about this soup.

My air conditioner leaks constantly so I can't keep it on too long

I was declined for a loan that would have made my current financial situation MUCH better

I've been trying to sell a computer, real cheap, and so far I've had 0 responses

My feet smell

And other shit

MAN, could I use a break.
  

  The weekend was a blur. Saw Gun Metal Grey Friday night. They're a metal band that Cappy, Paul and Alex have know for years. I have to say that, though they don't resemble anything I listen to regularly, I liked them a lot and had a great time. Cormack was doing his DJ thang in between bands and he's amazing. He's a scratch DJ from Ireland and he's been at it for over ten years. I've never heard anything like it and it made me giddy it's so cool. He also happens to be a hell of a nice guy. After the show we all went back to our after hours joint and played and drank and talked 'till well after the power went out.

  Saturday blurred into Sunday with practice, a pop at the White Horse, and talking to some Irish guys on Paul's stoop waiting for the World Cup final to start. Somewhere in there I took a short nap and Justin disappeared, Sunny ran out of gas and Brazil took the game, as if there was really ever any doubt. And now I'm off to bed. Be good.

  It's not enough to just know what's good for you. You have to actually do it. I'm sure most junkies know that their smack habit isn't really going anywhere promising and it would be good for them to kick it. Knowing that while they're spiking up doesn't really do them much good at all.

  Justin, the drummer in our nameless band, just dropped me off. The night of playing, drinking, seeing James and Meganomics at the White Ho ended at Redneck's with a political discussion. I'd previously thought that Justin's political views were so right wing that we'd never arrive at anything more that a superficial crowing at each other from very distant barns. I have to confess I was reading Daniel Quinn's "The Story of B" and Noam Chaomsky's "The Common Good" the last time we talked about anything political, so my views at the time were a bit soaked in the left side of the schoolyard. Having recovered from that immersion, forgetting nothing, I can see that we're really not so far away from each other. We both loathe the Oprah Winfried apologists who won't say anything they really think unless it's already been stamped as acceptable by the people who's live's are devoted to examining our contemporary newspeak, political correctness. Paul was there and as has always been his way he chimed in here and there but stayed out of it a great deal. I wonder if he's resigned himself to the futility of political discussions among people who, aside from the power to vote, are otherwise politically impotent ( no PAC money to wield, no fathers with huge pull in any form of legislature or industry). Then I wonder if he's just a little bit wiser than me. Maybe he won't pretend to any huge convictions that he doesn't feel strongly about just for the sake of a spicy conversation. I find this aspect of his personality lamentable and admirable at the same time. I think maybe he plays it safe and I'd like to hear more about his take on things. Then again, maybe he's smart enough to know what he doesn't know. If the latter is the case, my hat is off. I'm rarely smart enought to know, and then admit, what I don't know. I've often found myself in a perpetual state of adolescence, thinking 'well, NOW I've got it figured out'. I can't imagine how I could maintain such a ludicrous notion when my own life continually knocks me upside the head and says:

"Yeah, you've figured a few things out, but you've got a long way to go."

I sincerely crave the humility to say that I don't have a clue.

  So, my new plan is to find some disablility that can get me an extended leave of abscence but does not prevent me from swimming in a lake. I'm thinking some sort of mental illness is just the ticket. I could try the Klinger thing from M*A*S*H and come to work in flower print dresses and big hats. Then again, I work at a university where they're always stressing tolerance and diversity. They'd probably just call me Daisy and tell me to keep stepping.

  No, something a little more frightening is needed here I think. Something edgy. If someone comes up to me and asks:
"Wallace, did you do that file transfer for Dr. Shitzengiggles yet?"
"Why bother? It's all going to end. All of it...ALL OF IT!"
Then I could mumble some Beatles lyrics to myself, something cryptic like "one two three four five six seven, all good children go to heaven", over and over again as I rub the back of my head. Yeah, that's the ticket. That'd make ME nervous.

6.24.02 4:59pm
Children's Hospital is looking for volunteers in the fall.

6.24.02 3:02pm
   Lunch today at the Chinese meals-on-wheels. $2.95. Allow me to explain. There's this vehicle that looks like a swollen ice cream truck that parks just outside my office from about 10:30am to 3:00pm. Of course they have one of those jet engines in there somewhere that blows the smell of searing chicken wings and garlicky goodness for a quarter mile radius. That's more effective than serving the food topless in my opinion. Today I got the chicken wings on a bed of fried rice.
   Now here's my gripe. I don't know if this is true for everyone, but in my home town fried rice was a dark, greasy, kind of dirty looking affair. It stuck to your ribs and you could definately tell it was fried in the fat of some unfortunate beast. The rice on this truck is nothing more than plain white rice that seems to be 'tinted' with some sort of tanning agent. It's not greasy. There's no egg beat up into it. There's no pieces of bergundy colored pork in it. Instead, it's light and fluffy and has carrots and peas and is about as flavorful as wet sawdust. It doesn't have anything in it that came from any animals. I dont know about you, but it always makes me feel a little kingly to know that several beasts made the ultimate sacrifice for me when I sit down to lunch. I asked for fried rice and I get Buddha's Guiltless Karma Free rice instead. Where are the irreverant cretans that make rice for men?

   Had lunch with Yen and one of his napkins took off on a wind gust for points south. Yen's a conscietious chap so he takes of at a half jog to retrieve it. Of course (i'm sure you can see this already) as soon as he get's close enough to put a paw on it the thing leaps up and does it's erratic butterfly pattern for another meter or two, and on and on. All the while I can hear this napkin in the tiniest of voices singing: "Na na na na nah nah, you ca-an't get me." Yen finally tackles his prey and comes back to sit down, sweat now beading off of his forehead like Albert Brooks in Broadcast news. He says, "Man, I felt like Rocky when he was trying to catch the chicken." Damn that's funny.

  Here's a cool line from Hocus Pocus by Kurt Vonnegut. The main character was an officer in Viet Nam who's wife and mother's minds were boobytrapped with a gene that makes them go insane around middle age. He's talking to one of his many romantic conquests:

"You know what you should tell the next girl that's dumb enough to fall in love with you?"

"What?"

"Welcome to Viet Nam."

  The moon was beautiful tonight. It had a few thin clouds streaming across the face of it as if some giant cat had become annoyed with it and had scraped it with it's claw.

  I'm wondering what my friend Sam might be up to right at this moment. He's in Amsterdam and I keep imagining him surrounded by blonde girls who love the way those Americans talk. I know that's a very typical fantasy but I hope I'm not too far off for his sake. And I hope he's taking lot's of pictures.

  Here's a new shitty development. We had this girl ready to take the room we have for rent on July 1st. So we've had several more calls about it and we just say the room's taken. So this girl calls tonight to say her grandmother's ill and she has to fly to Budapest right away and won't be able to take the room. BIATCH! Now each of us has to cover 1/3 of another room's rent if we can't sell that shaz by July first. This is a huge pile of suck. This is a fuckall sandwich with extra suck sauce. I'm going to have to get a second job. My bills always seem to rise to meet my income and lately, exceed it. SUCK!

Well.... I'm back at it. Looks like I have another commissioned portrait in the works. Dr. Krakauer in social medicine popped in on me while I was working and said that he really liked my drawings and asked if I sold them. We hashed it out. He has a girlfriend he's quite fond of and her birthday is coming up. Nice guy. Spends most of his time traveling in asia doing research. He told me about all the best places to go if you happen to be in Viet Nam or China.

  I'm reading Kurt Vonnegut again and it's like hearing from an old friend. He was one of my favorite authors early on and I've come back to find he's still as witty, warm and insightful as I remembered. He has an enormous affection for the human race coupled with an uncanny appreciation for it's pathos. To hold those two attitudes simultaneously is and admirable thing.

  Perpective is such a beautiful thing and, I've found, if you just catch your breath and slow down a bit, it comes quite naturally. What once seemed like a dire emergency can suddenly take it's rightful place in the events of your life. When you're very young and you fall down and smash your knee on a rock you cry and it seems as if the pain will never stop. A few of these bumps and you dont cry anymore. You know that the pain will soon be gone. Perspective.

  Another thing. Emotions, if you don't cling to them and keep prodding at them over and over in your mind, will pass through like a thundershower in June. The Buddha said that a long time ago but I'm slow to cath on.

  Played music with Cappy, Paul and Mark tonight. Justin didn't come. He showed up last Saturday and no one was there so he wasn't making that mistake again, by cracky. I've seen my friends touch true greatness when I play with them. It's very inspriring. I know some truly remarkable people. And they keep me laughing and that's about as good as it gets. I played a song I recently wrote and it's quite an experience to hear it with a full band. It's a keeper.

  Paul, I'm thinking Italy sounds good. How 'bout we shoot for October?

  Here's a bit of a song we played tonight that I had the pleasure of singing. It always reminds me of my brother Lawrence. He led a tumltuous life filled with more heartache than any one person should have to bear. I'll say this about him. He was always very good to me. He also wrote some beautiful songs. I'll always walk a bit in his shadow. He taught me my very first song on the guitar, Rocky Raccoon, and he did it with the patience of a saint. I was quite young at the time and my fingers could barely stretch far enough to make the open G7 chord. There are some people in my life that I will sorely miss for the rest of my days. I wish everyone I know now could meet my dad. He was one of the kindest, gentlest souls I've ever known. I know most people think their dad is cooler than your dad but if the friends I have now could meet him I think they'd have to hand it to me. There are some things you just can't do a fucking thing about. Anyway, here's the song.

Here's something VK said about his girlfriend, Kim. I hope he doesn't mind me posting it.

"I'd consider myself blessed to spend the rest of my life with her."

That's just about the nicest thing I've heard anyone say about his/her mate in a long time.

I'm on my way to financial ruin. I can't stop going out at night. I'm going to need a time lock device to chain myself to my radiator after 6:00pm. So I'm sitting at home last night with the very best intentions of staying in, practicing the bass and maybe painting my room. Skini P (one of Satan's minions) calls me to tell me VK wants to meet him at Aqua. I've never been there. My plans for a quiet night are starting to unravel, but I hold on. I tell P that I'm not sure, call me when you're ready to head out. I remind myself that my credit card balances are swelling up like Sylvester Stallone's eyelids in Rocky. Meganomics calls (she checked with Satan first for a status on my resolve to avoid debauchery) and says she's all dressed up and no place to go. She's got a car. Flit, shzzz, flit flit, the fabric of my intent coming apart with a quickness now. And it's gone. We head to Aqua and are turned away at the door like Jehova's witnesses because Skini P is wearing sneakers. I hear the music coming out of Aqua and I'm actually relieved. Sounds like the shit you'd hear in some suburban 'hot spot', jammin 94 shaznique. I suggest Felt. I also suggest that Skini P buy a pair of ten dollar shoes ASAP. Felt is nice. The music's much better, we all get to yammering and VK joins us after about 45 min. I'm feeling really toasty by now and all of my friends are beautiful. I'm about to suggest a group hug when Skini P in his clairvoyance flashes me a bit of the ole stink-eye. Never really liked him. Last call comes WAY too early and I'm cursing the Pilgrims for staining our little colony with their fear of drunkeness and the gyration of the flesh. If the Pilgrims had been Vikings instead, I might be telling a very different story here. Ah well, VK and Paul want to get back to watch the World Cup. Good times, good times.

Went to Wonderbar tonight. I set myself up front row. I watch this guy play piano. Never looks at the keys. Really good. Fair enough. Then, as the set breaks, he gets up on the upright bass. Plays beautifully, never looks at the neck. Now I'm saying WTF?. How many lives has this guy live to play both so well. So I asked him. He says;

Practice. Eighteen years of practice.

If that's not enough, check this out. They take a ten minute break and in the interim I fantasize about jumping in on the bass. I'm thinking 'what if I just jumped on the bass and started playing "So What", the first track off "Kind of Blue" '. I swim in this reverie for a few minutes and make my way to the men's room. On the way out the band starts up again. I'll give you $2 if You can guess what song they played. Synchronicity, mental magnetism, happenstance? I don't know. Did it bring a fat smile to my face? Yes it did. You can go swimming in jazz.

My lyrical quotes are no longer in italics and I don't know why. Wish I knew a good web designer.

The drawing of Sam and Mook is lookin' good. Almost ready for delivery

Jared is a funny bastard.

VK is smarter than the average bear.

I think the BC idea was a good one. All those in favor say aye.

It's like Ice said, 'I got to say it was a good day'.

Playing music with guys you'd hang out with anyway beats just about anything I can think of. Almost anything. Dez and Cormack stopped in and Meganomics popped in later. Onward we we went after the Heinekens were exhausted. Onward to the White Horse with Skini P., Justin and Megan. I have the luxury of hanging out with some very funny people. Sam called me in a state of delirious extatica because he's been chosen for this modeling gig he tried out for. I understand his glee. I passed an audition for a TV commercial once and there's no escaping that delight when you realize "they picked me". Makes you feel a little special. Way to go Sam, I told you you were a handsome mother scratcher.

I want to go out into the woods with a big tent, My Tent, and a monkey and lots of canned food and chill for about a month. I will take my discolored comforter that held my dirty ragamuffin frame for longer than any self-respecting fabric would. I want to dig a hole just for the hell of it. I want to make a pile of rocks, my own little contribution to the monuments of the world. I want a sense of something sacred. My life just keeps blowing my mind. I'm thirty-four and I feel a long, long way from old. I have a sense of awe and wonder like I did when I was twelve. That tickle you get in your mind when you're young and you look up at the sky and first ponder that idea that it just goes on and on forever. I have something else as well that I haven't had in any significant supply since I was about twelve. Faith. I am a very lucky man. I've done precious little to deserve my good fortune. I find myself wanting for very little. More patience perhaps, but little else.

Day one.

I think accepting life exactly as it is is essential to achieving any wisdom or lasting happiness, however far that reality may sway from our own notions of a perfect world.

None of us is guaranteed even one more day on earth. The time we spend with people we love and care about is a precious, precious thing indeed. It's funny how realizing nothing is permanent can lead to a feeling of reverence rather than dejection. It can also lead to a true sense of detachment, of not clinging to what is no longer or what we'd prefer. I suspect that this is the detachment that Buddhists speak of, a true sense of surrender to what is real. In my younger days I used religion and detachment to withdraw emotionally from the less palatable, more painful aspects of life. It was really nothing more that denial shaped into a mask of piety. This is a far cry from letting go. I once heard a quote that struck me as rather wise when I was dabbling, at times seriously, with religion.

Imagine a perfect world. Good. Now imagine that God, in his infinite wisdom, has imagined it a little better than you just did.

Even if you have no religious disposition and you're a die-hard rationalist reality is still the 'truth' that philosophers seek and it is worthy of reverence, however uncomfortable that may be at times. Anything other than the acceptance of truth sets you swimming against a mighty river. It's futility is embarrassing. Though you may make a few yards against the current, you will eventually become exhausted and be swept swiftly down stream, against your will. Much better to surrender, float, and enjoy the adventure the best you can. You might just find yourself someplace much better than where you thought you belonged. That's what I think anyway.

I read reviews of Tom Waits and Elvis Costello's newest records in the Phoenix today. These guys are two heavyweights in the songwriting field and I've been transfixed by them for years. The point is that I'll be heading down to the Virgin Megaplex to pick up some CeeDees. I'll let you know what I think of them soon, after I swoon, sometime in June.

Sometimes shit just happens. I've been playing music with my droogs for about a year and a half, off and on. We have a practice space that we use as a juke joint, hang out, drink beer, invite friends over to hang out and drink beer and, occasionally play some music. Enter Alex Charalambides. He's been mining his scull and writing poetry for awhile and one day he pops in and tears into one of his pieces. I heard a distinct tempo for it so I laid out a simple bass line. Cappy joined in and Alex Lumb laid down a nice thick beat. And shamazamadooda, we had a song.

Since then we've repeated this experiment with some shaznoogie that Paul and Cappy have written. Then Paul got his Boomerang and all hell broke loose. So our friend B-verb is studying at Emmerson and invites us in to record. We through down three tracks. I never gave any of this much thought, it just happened as time went by. We practiced last night and got a lot done. Today, I come home a tad early from work and throw a mix in of our songs. And suddenly, I'm impressed. It sounds good, really good. If you've ever endeavored into anything artistic before and your a bit like me then you've probably oscillated between feeling genuinely talented and feeling like a complete fraud, a poser, a charlatan. Listening to the recording went a long way in dispelling this hobgoblin of self doubt. I'm listening, I'm liking the songs, digging the band and hey, what do you know, there's a bass line on every track. If I didn't know better I'd say the guy sounds like he knows what he's doing and now I find myself unable to say what I've said for about a year and a half, 'I'm not really a bass player, I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

This realization extends to every member of the band. I used to tell people 'well, I'm not really in a band, I just hang out with a few friends and we noodle around a bit, it's fun'. Nope, not so. We are a band, replete with instruments, a front man, guitars and drums. And it all happened while I wasn't really paying attention, while I was busy making other plans. I feel a bit like a character in a Talking Heads song.

You may find yourself
Strapped to a Washburn bass
You may find yourself
Singing at three AM
In a dirty hole
In the Fenway
And loving it
You may ask yourself, well
How did I get here?

Maybe it's true, half of life is just showing up. That's all I did. OK, I practiced a little and bought a lot of beers for those guys so they wouldn't turn me out like a two dollah hozack. Shit just happens sometimes.

This is the end of my vacation. I took a much needed week off from work and now it's just about over. I don't think I'm ready to go back. I didn't travel, just hung out with some old friends and some new ones. A quick shout to Sam, Meganomics, Skini P, Sunny, Joedy, Mook, Albert and Amillion, the hottest girl I've ever known (you know who you are). Albert is moving to New York today and I'm a bit jealous to be honest. He's going to be living in Soho and paying less in rent than I'm paying to live in the People's Republic of Brookline. Smoking is prohibited in any commercial establishment and, though I'm not proud of it, I'm a smoker. This law has the effect of saying we don't want YOUR kind round these parts. While I'm bitchin', there's no nightlife in Brookline at all, no jazz lounges, no record stores, no clubs where scantily clad college hotties lurk. What a waste of valuable real estate. Here's some things you can find a-plenty in Brookline. Thai food, bookstores, fine Judaica, a kosher Chinese resteraunt, Starbucks and it's clones, and two CVS pharmacies a block away from each other on the same street. What a gas! I'm hoping Albert gets lonely, calls me up and says 'hey, why don't you come down to the big apple this weekend. You can crash at my place'. I think I'll send him some books that will enhance his sense of isolation.