The Wee Democracy

Walpurgisnacht

this weekend is going to kick ass and no one is going to stop me.


travel mix

i'm going to austin this weekend, via the hound, and i'm very excited. i'll be reading 'naked' and listening to the latest in josh mixery. because i'm such a generous gerry (that's jerry with a g, because generous jerry doesn't seem as cool to me) i'm gonna share this line up with you guys. you've earned it.

private note to tessa: tessa, this is actually vol. 1 of your three volume cd set. i told you, shit takes time!

1. bjork - hyperballad (live)
2. beck - everybody's gotta learn sometime
3. explosions in the sky - yasmin the light
4. iron and wine - bird stealing bread
5. radiohead - bulletproof
6. modest mouse - baby blue sedan
7. interpol - nyc
8. moby - one of these mornings
9. norah jones - the long day is over
10. the mean corner - dream boy
11. sleater-kinney - one more hour
12. postal service - brand new colony
13. xzibit - paparazzi
14. jeff buckley - lover, you should've come over
15. lou reed - heroin

back to my roots

just for fuck's sake, i went back and read all the entries from october of last year. man, my style's really changed. i don't rant as much, that's for sure, but i kinda liked ranting. ranting allows me to hurl out vulgar phrases that are either underused or original productions by me (eg. fem-cum, or referring to a person as ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag).

i've gotta me true to myself.

batting 1.000

today, i am happy to report, was just one of those days.

-got up, had leisurely tasty mexican breakfast

-watched my soaps, had leisurely american lunch

-showered, made progress on tumor/pimple on my face

-hung out w/ cousin, had good time

-offered new position at work...tempting, but not altogether a good thing

-got two amazing props for my kickass halloween costume (a california sex instrctor). costume includes:
-red california sex instructor t-shirt
-matching set of red, white, blue headband/sweatbands
-blue pumas, red laces
-athletic socks, preferably calf huggers
-whistle

-got new jon stewart book for bus ride

-will absolutely not be stag on saturday

-spaghetti for dinner, aka kryptonite

-lost

-red sox win world series


....somebody up there likes me

song

looking out the door i see the rain fall upon the funeral mourners
parading in a wake of sad relations as their shoes fill up with water
maybe i'm too young to keep good love from going wrong
but tonight you're on my mind so you never know

broken down and hungry for your love with no way to feed it
where are you tonight, child you know how much i need it
too young to hold on and too old to just break free and run

sometimes a man gets carried away, when he feels like he should be having his fun
much too blind to see the damage he's done
sometimes a man must awake to find that really, he has no one

so i'll wait for you... and i'll burn
will I ever see your sweet return
oh will I ever learn

oh lover, you should've come over
cause it's not too late

lonely is the room, the bed is made, the open window lets the rain in
burning in the corner is the only one who dreams he had you with him
my body turns and yearns for a sleep that will never come

it's never over, my kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder
it's never over, all my riches for her smiles when i slept so soft against her
it's never over, all my blood for the sweetness of her laughter
it's never over, she's the tear that hangs inside my soul forever

well but maybe i'm just too young
to keep good love from going wrong

oh... lover, you should've come over
'cause it's not too late

yes, I feel too young to hold on
and i'm much too old to break free and run
too deaf, dumb, and blind to see the damage i've done
sweet lover, you should've come over
oh, love well i'm waiting for you

lover, you should've come over
'cause it's not too late

-jeff buckley

regrets

i never thought i'd say this, but i'm getting pretty damn tired of bono. like, seriously.

steeped in perfection

so i'm sitting in my kitchen last night, or rather in the dining offshoot of it, relaxing and enjoying the first game of the world series. i'm tempted to print a retraction about everything negative i've said about baseball in the past, because i find myself being pretty strongly addicted to this postseason action. sure, the regular season is boring as all hell, except for the rare instance where you're about to catch the end of a really close game, or it looks like someone's gonna beat the yankees. but the postseason...that's some exciting shit.

this is all beside the point. i'm sitting there, and the phone here in the office rings. normally, i don't answer this one, because anyone who really wants to get a hold of me personally can just call my cell phone. but curiosity got the better of me, and i wandered over here to scope out the caller ID.

the name popped up someone whose call i'd least expect on a saturday night, and i picked up. a friend from new orleans, from whom i hadn't heard in quite some time. i had tried to call said person some time ago, when i first got my cell phone and was drunk on the newfound power of frivolous expenses and anytime communication. i left a message or two, but got no response, so i figured, you know, whatever. she can call me if she wants.

so, a mere two months later, bingo bango pick up the phone.

"i've been meaning to call you forever, but i'm always really busy, and i wanted to be able to have a long conversation. but, you know, finally, i said, i'm gonna call josh, even if its only for five minutes."

that was all fine and dandy, but i found it odd that that's what she said, given what i wrote about either yesterday or the day before, about waiting for something to be perfect before you seek to execute some grand scheme.

she said that she'd sat down a few times to write various peoples emails, but rarely gets one out, because it's usually not as long as she'd like.

what is it that causes this disorder? is it like some variation of OCD? is it the same disease that made me stop writing this entry midsentence to go brush my teeth because i felt like i absolutely had to?

if i'm talking to a girl, just friendly like, shootin' the breeze, i'm really cool. confident, clever, funny, easy going. its when i decide that i like them that all hell breaks loose. i'm so determined to play everything perfectly that that usually puts the kibosh on my pleasant demeanor. when i'm gonna call someone important, be it a girl, or someone in authority, likesay, at a potential job, i will actually write down what i'm going to say, because i need a script so that i don't say "uh" a bajillion times.

yeah.

proceed with caution

prior to my decision (or wussing out, as some may call it) not to leave dallas, it occured to me that i might not have to leave my job, even though i hate it.

i'm pausing here to discuss my work ethic. i've often decried this unit as a particular sad and meager thing, but in a conversation with a friend who lost his job recently, that assessment went under attack, so i'm revising it. i may work hard, and, when given a task to complete, i'll complete it to the best of my ability. or rather, to a degree that can believably pass as the best of my ability. it's not so much that i don't do hard work, it's just that i hate every single second of it. if you tell me to move that ton of bricks from the front yard to the back yard, i'll do it, but i'll curse your name and your children's eyes all the livelong day.

that being cleared up, i decided some weeks ago to explore my options when it came to entering a management position. it's not like i particularly want to make a career out of this gig, but it pays better, and it IS a leadership position.

so i interviewed with a bigwig. this was like, a month ago. i didn't hear back from the whole thing for quite some time until yesterday. keep in mind, this is mainly because i knew that all bigwigs were very busy, and on a seemingly endless vacation loop. one would go, and as soon as he or she got back, another split for a week. so the timing was never right for me to go up and say, hey, what's the deal, buckos?

finally, i went up and spoke to the HR lady, on whom i have a minor crush. this, i suspect, is mainly because of her perfume, which, i'll freely admit is the kind of thing you struggle to come up with a word to describe other than intoxicating, because the aforementioned word, though apropos, is pretty cliche. thems the breaks, i guess. she tells me, basically, that the bigwig that interviewed me said he'd like to see me be a little more aggressive and assertive. i don't say this, but i think to myself i'm a fucking peon, people. i mean, sure i can bark orders and come up with ideas about what to do with the floor, but the bottom line is, i'm the same as everyone else down there, and they're not gonna listen to me. so i nod, and hope that her psychic abilities pick up on that.

this brings me to my current point. i fear that i am too cautious. i may do something that requires a bit of initiative on my part, but when the thing is done, i'm not gonna say, hey look what i did!!

what are they gonna do, pat me on the head and give me a cookie?

i am assertive, just quietly so.

this makes me think about my approach to girls. i usually hem and haw and do whatever i can to stall the asking out process, because i'm waiting for the exact right time to do it, so as to effectively minimize the risk. i'll plan it out in my head, and hope it all goes as planned, and wait. and wait. and wait some more.

yes, i really like you. sure, i know i barely know you, but i want to learn alot more. tragically, the odds are i'll procrastinate and let some leather jacket wearing ne'erdowell come in with his devil may care attitude and his complicated shoes and sweep you off your feet. that, or he's already swept you off your feet, he dropped you, and you're in traction right now, and my advances are most likely unwelcome at this juncture, or your body cast has rendered you unable to consider anything besides full body pain.

yep.

gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em. it's a fucking tightrope, spud.


beck - everybody's gotta learn sometime

friendly reminder

just so you know, it's not all in vain.

you'll be the first one to know

if you work in a place like i do, you're most likely going to run across (and this is said in an air of accuracy with no intention of offense, though some may be taken) the types of people who are not the sharpest knives in the drawer.

a perfect example would be a guy named marcus who got fired several months ago for slacking on the job. seriously, he got fired for "time fraud"; they had him on tape sitting outside and smoking for half an hour or so, and then disappearing into the mall for a sizeable percentage of his shift. he didn't even try to argue against it, he told me. he came downstairs and just shrugged, saying "i got fired", like he'd almost gotten off light. i suppose he'd probably known his was a life on borrowed time, and every day he got paid to watch football or smoke cigarettes was a blessing, so who was he to argue against them for finally cutting off the gravy train? it'd be like being pissed at your parents for cutting off your allowance when you're 24.

perhaps it's not fair to classify marcus as unintelligent simply for getting caught on tape, so much as just non-chalant. does not giving a shit automatically make you stupid? i certainly hope not. but make no mistake, there are a share of dummies running around in the place.

really this story starts earlier in the day, sitting on the train, reading some david sedaris book. i began to contemplate what life would be like as a gay man. i've often wondered if i was, what with my not-so-healthy obsession with fat my body is, or my overabundance of facial cleaning supplies and colognes. i'm very vain about my hair, and i generally try to dress in a fashionable, though not mainstream manner. i tend to be overly sensitive and a teeny bit of a crier at times. i think we could all use one in some circumstances. certainly, it would end questions at family gatherings about my chronic lack of girlfriend, or those odd glances that wonder is he? isn't he?

i am simply not attracted to men, and i've given it some thought. i don't find it gross, but i look at men as being as sexually arousing as tree stumps, or weather balloons. i can see a man as being handsome (young robert redford maybe) but i can't see myself waking up in bed next to him and thinking "this is right", for reasons other than the whole time travel paradox.

well, why don't you have a girlfriend, they ask? cause i'm an introverted emotionally crippled narcissist? that's too complicated for this clan. and it sounds far too grandiose and pompous and stupid, too. so i just usually go with the old standard, "because girls seem to find my rampant crack abuse and genital herpes somewhat unappealing." this response fails to amuse anyone besides myself, but i'll keep using it until that even stops.

david and his boyfriend certainly have an off kilter, though highly enviable romance, and the principles behind it seem fairly appealing to me, even if the body hair and anal sex do not. so once again, i find myself peering to the east at the rising sun and considering my options.

back at my old job, at the call center i knew another marcus, who was really like the negative of this marcus. he was a human dynamo who worked hard, yet played harder, and still got at least three jobs in the time it's taken my to find and maintain one, that i don't even like. marcus was gay, and i think i've mentioned this before, that the moment one met this marcus, the mystery was over. marcus and i got along famously, and i was sad to leave austin cause it would mean no more shitty horror movies that i'd be embarassed to ask any of my other movie-going friends to see, or even to take a date to. no more dinners at chili's and nights of heavy drinking. ah well.

at work, i hang out mostly with troy, another gay fella who was the one who got me reading david sedaris, and talk of tv and things. a while back, this woman who works with his, sandy, we'll call her, pulled me aside and said, "you like girls right?"

i paused, considering whether or not to fuck with her, but answered truthfully instead. "yeah, i like girls."

"maybe you should not be hanging around troy."

"whatthefuckever" it's true, i'm not known for my diplomacy at work. i curse alot to other associates, but the way i figure, i've got enough on everyone there to take them down with me, should they decide to rat me out. (already, i imagine myself throwing down on the HR lady's desk all my notes and documents (none of which i actually have) on the comings and goings and dirty laundry of everyone i work with, and even the upper ups, which causes her to freeze and then gasp out how did you get these terribly compromising photos?" i scoff and demand a huge severance package, which she almost immediately accepts, just to get me and my illicit pictures, of which, i inform her, i've made dozens of copies, out of her office and back to hide in the recess of my now rich abode).

so today, as troy and i finished one of many time wasting brief chats, she waves me over to her, like she's got a secret. arm ar0und my shoulder, she starts "you still like girls, right?"

"yes, i like girls" i say, wondering if my theories about some secret female psychic abilities are in fact true, and that she's discerned my consideration that life as a gay man may be frought with less complications than life as a failed heterosexual.

i stop paying attention for a bit as i consider this secret psychic coven. she's rambling on about some gay friend named derek, but all i can imagine is a miniature version of this woman standing before me approaching her mother on that first day when she's discovered she can hear boys' thoughts and it's kind of scary. "we all can hear dear, but they don't know about it. don't you EVER tell ANYONE about it." she scares the little girl into submission to this diabolical plan, and we're left out in the dark, mental cavemen still flinging our crap at enemies.

"so you do like girls?" she asks again.

"yes!"

"ok, will you tell me when you stop?" she asks.

i'm at first considering whether she's assuming i'm a closet case just waiting for the right time to drop the subterfuge, or perhaps that she's just waiting to set me up with her gay friend, who seh thinks would be so good for me.

i don't see it happening, i think. i couldn't date a guy named derek.



beck - everybody's gotta learn sometime

psa

contrary to popular belief, silence is not golden.

those poor bastards

as we speak, those poor bastards in red socks are getting their bostonian shit pushed in by the yankees, those loathable lugs from new york. it's a graphic image, i know, but i can't think of one more apropos. i mean, if you could personify a team into one man, and another team into another man, the red sox would be the seemingly tough guy, like, say, edward norton in american history x, who finds out that he's really just ice cream for freaks when it's fun time in the shower, and that big yankee fuck, someone like glen danzig, wants to tussle. yeah, next thing you know, that norton-boston amalgamation is lying on the shower floor aching and quietly crying knowing know that he's just a guest in this place. it's the bigger guy's house, and if the bear's hungry, by god, he's gonna eat.

but this whole shower analogy really goes deeper than just the red sox being the perennial second fiddle to NY. if you ask me, which i know you wouldn't, i'd tell you that the yankees are a symbol of something equally malevolent and comparably boorish. like say, i dunno, the united states of america.

yeah, i said it. the yankees represent every single thing that is wrong with america. they are a microcosm of the shitty attitude and musclebound dumb luck that seemingly pervades every nook and cranny of this godforsaken crap pit.

think about it.

this all goes back to the colonial times. the yankees versus the red coats. the yankees won that match too, and a guy named george helped them do it. george herman ruth? babe ruth? duh.

i guess you could call the losses to the financially inferior arizona and florida something akin to the vietnam "conflict". a bunch of overpaid dorks getting shellacked by a team with one third their payroll. they were the guerillas of the baseball diamond. randy johnson was like ho chi minh. but, you know, without the mass genocide and communism.

my real beef has now been touched on. payroll. america has been lost amidst the greed that even i've become disgusted with. and i'm pretty greedy. i'll admit it, i love my material possessions. i was deeply troubled when i was going to have to move and i didn't know how i would transport my massive dvd collection. but this is a minor flaw compared to say, spending nearly a quarter of a billion dollars a year to pay players to win championships. and it's not like, wow, the yankees have been so close for so long, that they just need that one lynch pin to finally secure that spot in the world series.

there have been somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 world series' and the yankees have won....not been in...won 27 of them. that averages to more than one championship every four years. it's not that they want something that struggled and struggled to get. it's that they want something and absolutely positively refuse to ever share it. ever.

you'd think steinbrenner was fuckin' golllum, holding his half dozen championship rings and hissing "my precioussss".

now, how does this relate to america? we are the exact same way. if you're not from america, you most likely think america is big dumb stupid and more dangerous than any other country in the world, and you're tired, you're fuckin sick of us throwing our big clumsy ass around the place making sure we always win. new yorkers feel cheated if they're not brought their annual world series parade, because its been four whole goddamn years since they had one!! oh my god, what fucking injustice! how do they cope?

men like george steinbrenner aren't content merely to be good, to win a championship and exit gracefully. they will spend ungodly amounts of money, dirty filthy money to ensure that no one else ever wins, that any time a new weapon is manufactured (and i'm not just extending the metaphor there -- you think bonds is all natural?) he'll be first in line to drown the opposition in money to make sure he attains it.

it's that same kind of money first attitude and win at all costs thinking that has made america into the nation of cowboy presidents and backwards morons barely capable of pissing without wetting the front of their pants it has become.

i hate the current state of america. and goddammit, i hate the yankees.

hmm...

so riqui's quitting the blog business. i must say, i'm not too terribly surprised, but that doesn't make it any less of a dirty tasting pill to swallow. you know what i mean? like um, fuck...what was it called? amoxicyllin. whew... i had to take that in 9th grade cause i had a nasty sinus infection. i mean it, i had headaches that were the worst ones i had ever had, and i haven't had any that bad in the nine years since. that's how bad they were. so i had to that that pill, and it actually tasted like i was putting a mud globule on my toungue every day. i took to holding my nose to keep the nast taste as confined as possible.

that all being said, i'm sad to see him go. he didn't update all that often in latter months, but when he did, it was like getting a letter in the mail, or an unexpected phone call, two things which have been remiss of late from my end of things! damn you!

i can't say that i haven't thought about it. it's pretty tempting at times, to give up trying to put down in words the flashes that barely constitute complete thoughts on the happenstance of your livelong day. most days now, i simply get up, shower up, head to work, work, come home, jerk off, go to bed. it's not terribly interesting and it's hard to try to come up with something worth saying on even a semi daily basis. that's why i need to take breaks from time to time.

september was pretty sparse, and i caught a little flak from some friends, but it had to be done. and though i don't know the reason why riqui's bailing now, i'm sure it's a pretty valid one. i'mn feel sorry mainly for you guys who don't know him, and for whom, the blog is your main source of riquitude. you get words on a screen. i get the real thing.

i just don't fuckin get it

how does bush have ANY support? the man is a minstrel.

god, kobe sucks

see? even phil jackson says he sucks.

i can fake it if i need to

it came up a while back. i sorta got into it with a friend when she told me her folks were getting divorced, and i didn't appear all that concerned. nothing ever came of it, the apparent split, and we're still friends and all. but she got mad that my response was merely an "oh....that sucks".

now, i don't mean to be callous about certain things. i've heard friends tell me they've broken up with so-and-so, or that so-and-so and so-and-so broke up, and i've done what i can to be supportive of who ever's side i've taken...and i take sides...but my reactions generally consist of "oh.". there was once where i thrust a fist into the air and yelled out "thank the fuck christ", but that was only once.

i hate doing it, but i'm gonna quote the matrix here, when morpheus first meets neo, and tells him "you have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he is expecting to wake up" no, i don't think i'm living in some fucked up alternareality. you can just see certain things coming. and generally, the more you accept the fucked-upness, the easier it gets to accept the really fucked up.

case in point. a couple of years ago, i was on a campus shuttle bus that hit a girl. now, at first i was very shocked, and sorta discombobulated. after a while, i just thought to myself "well, she looks ok...i better catch the next bus. then, earlier this year, i was on a street in nyc, and i saw a woman get hit by a taxi, or rather her lying in the street, having already been hit. i looked for a minute, and then turned away. she was probably ok, and even if she wasn't, my shock isn't going to make a difference in her potential recovery.

man, having read that makes me seem like a dick. i should probably delete it. nah. it's an extreme example. i mean, 9/11 shook me up pretty badly, and i've seen new york obliterated in films at least half a dozen times.

so, bad example. um, when my friend nicole told me she was getting married, i was like "oh. cool." i mean, what am i supposed to do? scream and jump up and down? i knew they were gonna get married eventually. everyone did. but because they make it official, i have to show excitement?

now, if someone came up to me and said "josh, i'm pregnant," THEN i might show a little emotion.

but breakups, people (especially guys) revealing either unrequited love or that they are complete and total assholes...that stuff doesn't shock me anymore. i've seen it. usually, i can spot it a mile away. so girls, my point is, i have a tendency not to get too excited about certain revelations. and while that may sound like a bad thing, it is coupled with a pretty accurate bastard detector. so, bring your dudes to me, and i'll tell you whether or not to ditch 'em.

that was totally not the point i set out to make.


duran duran - girls on film

fragmented angry rants

don't you hate it when you think that you're getting to know someone cool and then bam! they turn out to be really actually quite superlame? yeah, i'm talking about you. you know who you are.

don't hate it when ALL your teams lose in the same weekend? on some occasions, even twice!

don't you hate it when you write an email to a friend, and then you come back and you've got a 1 or a 2 by your inbox and you like your chances, but they're both just from hotmail staff or some bastard insulting your penis' size? i do.

don't you hate it when you miss desperate housewives because you have to work?

don't you hate pathetic misty rain that is not near cinematic enough to be fun or sexy but merely just gets you wet and cold and fucks up your hair?

don't you hate george w. bush? don't you hate the assholes who put those W04 stickers on their back windshields? don't you want to break their shit? i said it friday, if that bastard winked at me, i'd punch him in the face.

don't you hate being 24 and still dealing with breakouts?

don't you hate when you're waiting for that girl from work to ask YOU to lunch and then you're interrupted by customers and then when you return to finish the conversation, she's switched it around, and makes it sound like you asked her to lunch, thereby eliminating any hand you were about to get. tricksy!!!

yeah. i hate all that shit, too.

shout

i'm not going anywhere. at least not for a while. oh come on, don't sound so surprised. i've been writing here for over a year, and have i ever once come across as particularly courageous? yes, you could say, now is a good time to start. and yes, now would be one. but i'm not going to do it.

i could explain in detail how this decision was turned around, and i could explain all the attached feelings, all good, bad and terribly confusing that came with it, but i'm not going to. partly because i haven't figured them all out for myself yet. but mainly because i just don't want to.