The Way We Sleep All Summer

For fear of making myself even more uninteresting, I haven't bemoaned (on here at least) (God-help-those-around-me I've bemoaned it in-person) this fact: I've slowly been losing my taste this last year. I've come up with grandiloquent theories about how this is my late-twenties rite, to grow up and lose the shackles of loose identity I've used pop-culture to replace. But really, it's mostly because my computer is dying.

It's so full I download to external hard-drives. For some reason since the data still travels through it it acts like I've used up its last bit of its precious memory—until I restart. And its CD burner's been on the fritz this last year. And it won't communicate with not one, but two iPods. In theory, I am, technologically, almost back at the point I was at right before I owned my first CD burner—only I can still download music. So I have no excuse.

And now, after a full year absence, it remains to be seen and is up for public discourse if or not I've regained any taste back:

7/2/09 I'm Baaaaaaack Mix

1. "Old Movies" — Mock Orange (Captain Love)
   
2. "15 Step" (live) — Radiohead and the USC Marching Band (2008 Grammy Awards, February 8, 2009)
   
3. "No Cars Go" (live) — Arcade Fire (BBC2, June 19, 2007)
   
4. "J. Smith" — Travis (Ode to J. Smith)
   
5. "Let's Give This Love a Try" — John Hiatt (Same Old Man)
   
6. "Last Night" — Tom Verlaine (Tom Verlaine)
   
7. "One Wing" — Wilco (Wilco (The Album))
   
8. "Intravenous Agnostic" — Manic Street Preachers (Know Your Enemy)
   
9. "Conjure Me" — The Afghan Whigs (Congregation)
   
10. "See If They Salute" — The Streets (Twitter)
    
11. "Rainin in Paradize" — Manu Chao (La Radiolina)
    
12. "I Was Made to Love Her" (extended) — The Beach Boys (Rarities)
    
13. "Rocket Man" — My Morning Jacket (Chapter 1: The Sandworm Cometh)
    
14. "Unknown Legend" — Tunde Adebimpe (Rachel Getting Married OST)
    
15. "Unguided" — The New Pornographers (Challengers)
    
16. "My Maudlin Career" — Camera Obscura (My Maudlin Career)
    
17. "Sleep All Summer" — St. Vincent and the National (Score! 20 Years of Merge Records: The Covers!)
    
18. "I Google You" (live) — Amanda Palmer (Who Killed Amanda Palmer Bonus, August 5, 2008)
    
19. "We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed" — Los Campesinos! (We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed)

I'll Never Ask You the Truth But You Owe That to Me

When all inspiration fails, post a mid-year best-of film list.

1. (500) Days of Summer
   
2. Star Trek
   
3. Up
   
4. Duplicity
   
5. The Hangover
   
6. The Brothers Bloom
   
7. Drag Me to Hell
   
8. Coraline
   
9. State of Play
   
10. Adventureland

TMI Too Late

Later in the day someone said something that made me remember sometime, where I was on this day of the week a year ago. Earlier in the day I'd distinctly had the thought of how much I've changed in the last year. Part of it was because I read the passage below. It provided one of those epiphanous before/after self-observations. I thought about how I don't read as much, don't think in words as much, don't worship at the altar of articulation anymore.

The below is not where I'm at at all now; but it's where I was for a long time a while back. And I could have used this then.

He recognized his dumb urge to never think about her again even as he failed to stop thinking about her, perhaps because of the energy required to stop those other thoughts. Photography stills in his apartment claimed there had been Eiffel Tower kisses and golden beach sunsets; he hadn't thrown those out yet. He had drawn her portrait a hundred times and shot eight-millimeter video of her and sometimes still watched it when he was home alone and in the mood to mope. When there were animal shows on cable, he would put on the CD of Summer Holiday and mute the TV switching back and forth with the remote, hitting Video Input over and over: Rachel sleeps on her side, her hair fanned out behind her and her arms pushing in front of her, as if she were soaring through the sky; the polar bear rears back and with both fists double-punches straight down through the ice to reach the seal; Rachel bats a dream pest away from her face; the seal is consumed in eight bites; "—I cover the waterfront…"

Lately he watched the animals more and Rachel less and sometimes felt as if all human affairs—but especially his own—could be sufficiently explained by the wily, competing coyotes and babysitting, gnu-gnawing lionesses and fascistic ants. After he was separated from Rachel and returned to the wild, he watched animal channels for hours at a time because they helped him fall asleep. Later, when he was sandbagging the new structures of mind necessary to keep pain from splashing over all his daily activity, when he could consider three years and still go to work, the animals remained. When he was able to think about his past, to consider and not just feel his pain, to calculate how thoroughly Rachel had broken and discarded him, how comprehensively they had misimagined each other, the baboons and orcas offered a certain stabilizing hope for the years ahead, and soon everything seemed explicable by animal behavior. Aggressive Teamsters on a commercial set were expressing threatened alpha status; gallery openings served to tighten group bonds for the protection of like genes. One had to be less heartbroken, since our cousin primates died from emotional trauma or recovered from it quickly. Litters in the wild of almost every species included a certain number of unfeasible offspring, starved by the mother and siblings, or just eaten by them.

Urges that had once driven Julian—to pursue and capture shampoo models, for example—were explained and defused by animal shows. That old behavior was just what countless cheetahs did, spreading seed. More and more of life dripped down beneath him, reduced by the immutable laws and relaxed habits of the animal kingdom. Entire species went extinct; ours would, too, someday, or evolve into something unrecognizable, a higher species that would pay no more attention to our obsessively cataloged feelings than we do to the despairs of Australopithecus, and all of this vain heartbreak that we cling to as important or tragic would one day be revealed—by TV scientists—for what it is: just behavior.

—Arthur Phillips, The Song is You

Nine months ago I would have eaten this shit up.

Adventures in Parkin'

Saturday night I went to Spiderhouse to write (though, mostly, read). Spiderhouse on a Saturday night is a little busy, and their parking is bad, but towards the end of the year it's not hard to find a spot. Still, I parked at my normal spot, catty-cornered from the place at my landlord's office. Now, I've always had a response in the back of my head if I were to get in trouble: "I was dropping off my rent check." I prepared this excuse even while parking in the middle of the month. Tonight I wouldn't have to lie since I was dropping off rent. But I never got that chance to deliver the excuse to anyone; when my car was gone, it was just gone.

So I called J&J Towings, whose number was posted on the sign above where my car should have been.

"I was dropping off rent!" I yelled at the guy.

"That's a long time to drop off rent."

That's when I went over my phonebook and realized that, no matter how many more friends I've gotten in Austin, I still only had two people to call—Scott and Lucas roommate. Neither of them answer. I leave a message with Scott, say a silent fuck you to Lucas, and begin walking. I walked five miles home. (Here's my route.)

A few blocks in a homeless person stopped me as I rushed by. "How's your night?" Shitty, I said. "I hear ya," he said, then added, "Hey, do you know a good place to sleep?"

Two things occurred to me halfway: First, I texted the situation to someone not in town any longer and added, "Fuck this town and all its inhabitants." He then suggested two people (plus my roommates). In both instances, I first thought, I don't want to get them out of bed; then I thought, Neither of them would answer; finally, I thought, fuck them especially. In fact, the way home I went through a laundry list of every person I know and damned them because I didn't feel comfortable calling them in the middle of the night to pick me up.

The second was that I should have just called a cab. But, considering the J&J guy told me I'd have to drop $200 for this, I wasn't wanting to waste money. At about the halfway point I was willing but couldn't find a number. After crossing I-35 I finally scribbled down the number but went ahead anyway, numb feet be damned. (I also had to walk a little extra to avoid Cameron Rd. because I thought that would be the place where they'd steal the laptop I'd been lugging on my shoulder. I finally got home and collapsed about 3:30.

Scott called me around 9:00 the next morning. He's a deep sleeper and he missed both my phone calls. (This actually is legit.) I then have him pick me up around noon and take me to the far ass of the city where this towing place is. His damnation is completely invalidated and more than a little over-reactionary.

I'd called ahead and as opposed to the night before the lady was nice (she called me "honey"), so I was determined not to be a dick. First question when I went to the window: What do I do about contesting this? "Uh, small claims court? I don't know." Second question: How does this work, the two truck sees the car in front of a sign it just picks it up, no questions asked? "I don't know."

Then they come back with the new amount: $220. (I didn't notice this till afterwards, but they picked up my car at 11:50, and I picked it back up at 12:50. And for twelve hours they charged me for two days of storage.) I give them my card (no checks, only cash or debit) and they can't swipe it. "It's not swiping." Can't you just type in my number? It's a perfectly working card, I've never had a problem with it. "No." That's when I lost it; the "fucks" went flying and I kicked their tiny chain-link fence pay-area.

Went to the ATM and, sure enough, insufficient funds. That's because I haven't deposited my tax refund check. Which is in my car.

I ended up OKing some direct deposit advance and getting the car back quickly. I double checked the receipt and it has clear instructions on how to contest—plus, it also states that my landlord gave a blanket authorization for towing. I called them today, and they said they'd write me a letter stating I was conducting business. Actually, I'm duly impressed with my landlord:

His vehicle should not have been towed because he was dropping off rent at the time. Please release his vehicle and drop all fees.

Then she went on to chastise the company for towing without authorization. All previous landlord bitching is now moot.

More than anything I'm held it against a shitload of people, thinking, They don't answer the phone when I casually call. Why would they now? But mostly I imagined them picking me up only hear is my step-dad in my head chastising me for irresponsibility the same way he always did when he picked me up during a car snafu. Which, of course, only helped project more undeserved passive-aggression.

Sure enough, over the next few days I freely volunteered the story to people I'd been determined to never utter the story to. This exchange happened more than once:

"Why didn't you call me?!"

"It was two in the morning."

"Oh, OK. Then I wouldn't have answered."

Dead Man on Dunbury

This morning, at about 2:35 a.m., I was sitting on my bed, Indian-style, watching my fingers shake, being spoken at by my roommate, who stood in my doorway, trying to explain why it was OK for him to play his band's CD full blast to a lure a new one-night-stand, that it really was an ulterior motive to get me out of my wallflower-shell, despite no invite having come my way from him in months, and despite it being the first time that night we'd seen each other. In reply, I finally mustered to mutter with utter conviction: "I'm going to stab you in your sleep."

Adventures in Automobilin'

As much as I want this to be a story about an Austin DoucheBag, I'll be honest: it isn't (necessarily). That it did happen on Red River, one block from what I consider ADB Ground Zero, is probably its only justification. That and it involves a jolly homeless guy butting in, something I justifiably identify with this city.

Amidst the SXSW Music (First Day's) Eve, traffic was bad. Around Red River and 10th I hit a red light, behind a truck carting a trailer. It creeped forward, getting ready to turn right on a red. I creeped forward following. Then regrets must have come about, because I saw his white reverse-lights light up.

I honked. He was inches away from my bumper. He stopped.

Then he kept going. I honked again. Fewer inches away from my bumper. He stopped.

Then he kept going. Honked longer. Fewer inches. He stopped.

Then he had one last try. Laid on the horn. Almost there. His reverse-lights turned off, his car went into park, and he got out ready to kick my ass.

"CAN'T YOU FUCKING BACKUP JUST A LITTLE BIT?" he said to me.

"NO I FUCKING CAN'T," and then I thumbed back to the car behind me. Which was on my tail.

Even though he could have recreated a famous LA riot moment right then and there, he immediately got embarrassed. I seethed. As my eyeline followed him back to his car it kept moving on to a homeless guy, beside my passenger side window, looking at me, then pleading with me, using his full-body force of his arms to show me how to shove down the bad vibes, finally advising deeply:

"CALM THE ROADRAGE. Calm the roadrage."

Thread Quote/Exchange of the Week: 3/13/09

Quote:

Adam: So, a friend of mine got this in her facebook inbox. Apparently Tanya is a person she went to high school with and is a face book friend of. Apparently somebody is pretty pissed at Tanya and sent his message out to all of Tanya's facebook friends:

Tanya,
I know you fucked my husband in the back seat of his car on Sunday night in a cracker Barrel parking lot on your way home from the Greenville CVS.. I know exactly what time it was there was a break in the phone messages between 6:30'ish' and 7:45. I hope you are satisfied with what your 20 minutes got you! Apparently you weren't that good you couldn't even make my husband finish. You are nothing but a white trash whore who will burn in hell. I hope your 3yr old daughter finds out what kind of person you are! You are a very classy lady to be fucking someone's husband and betraying your own husband and little girl, not to mention the backseat of a car in a cracker barrel parking lot! WOW! It would be in your best interest to never come in contact with me! I will be sending the pictures you sent to my husband a long with the phone records and the leather I cut out of his back seat that has your skanky ass on it, maybe you can make a belt or something with it? I strongly suggest if you have not confessed to your husband that you do before all this information reaches him. You are one hell of a woman to lie to me and not have the guts to admit your wrong doing. One thing about me is I ALWAYS win!!
Have a great life!

And exchange:

Elliot: A friend of mine growing up owned a spider monkey. They thought it was cool, at first, but they never trained it and it got a little rambunctious, so they tied it up in the backyard and pretty much neglected it. Any time you would walk in their backyard, you'd get pegged with precision-thrown acorns hard enough to leave a welt. Those fuckers are accurate.

Dustin: Did it masturbate?

Elliot: Not that I saw, but I'm sure it did. Everything masturbates!

Dustin: I remember that kids book.

Me: My dog used to masturbate with his dog bowl. Even though I still don't understand the physics of it.

Dustin: The physics of masturbation? There is a kids book I want you to read.

Me: He humped the dog bowl. The edges were sharp. You explain to me how that doesn't hurt or how it works. Hell, find an illustrator if you think that'll help.

Dustin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O09x9sT5Ks8 [Ed. Note: Video title: "Dog humps his food."]

Kurt: One of the greatest videos I've ever seen.

Elliot: Did you just google "Masturbating Dog" at work?

Me: He's humping air!

Look, I understand that animals, in particular dogs, do hump motions onto inanimate objects. Hell, I'll concede that it might even work from time to time, or for more than I'm giving credit. But I refuse to believe my dog ever got off humping his sharp, worn, plastic dog bowl! If I had to bet, I'd put more money on him cutting his penis rather than coming.

Alexandria: hahah that statement is very amusing to me. good job shane.

Elliot: Haven't you ever heard of "fidomasochism?"

Me: I'm friends with Dustin. I'm sure it's been brought up before.

Dustin: Look. There's only one way to solve this. We need to get a dog bowl and hump it. Maybe Mythbusters has a stipend for this sort of thing.

Kurt: "Hi, I'm Dustin L[.], and this is dog bowl humping!"

Dustin: Mythbusters, not Jackass, you....err... jackass.

I want the bowl to explode when I'm done.

Me: Why stop there. I'm pretty sure Huggy's buried with his bowl. Why not exhume the body, Geraldo?

Dustin: i don't understand. You want me to hump the bowl or you want Huggy to hump the bowl?

Me: I think I resoundingly speak for the thread and all of humanity in saying that I'd rather you hump the bowl than the dead remains of my childhood dog.

Plus, you humping a bowl? Priceless.

Kurt: I'm just saying, you've got a way better shot of getting on the air on Jackass.

Dustin: I've humped worse.

Me: Thread,

One time in high school I'd left a t-shirt in Dustin's car for some reason. His girlfriend used it for clean-up, and they didn't tell me about it till months after. I'd worn it many times.

Explained? More?

Dustin: I forgot about that. That story always makes me laugh.

We always had a private little joke everytime we saw shane wear that shirt.

Kurt: Dustin, I'd like to request a list of inanimate objects you have humped. This is for research in preparing the bowl project.

And yes, sleeping roommates count.

Me: I want to do a thread poll of what worse objects you think he's humped.

I'll start. A pole.

Elliot: Cactus? No flaps, though...

Me: Good! OK, here:

The upper back of a sleeping retarded girl on the back of the bus.

Kurt: I'm gonna guess...a Tear 'n' Share bag of M&Ms. Probably peanut. Possibly peanut butter.

Dustin: Here is a short list:

able, achieve, acoustics, action, activity, aftermath, afternoon, afterthought, apparel, appliance, beginner, believe, bomb, border, boundary, breakfast, cabbage, cable, calculator, calendar, caption, carpenter, cemetery, channel, circle, creator, creature, education, faucet, feather, friction, fruit, fuel, galley, guide, guitar, health, heart, idea, kitten, laborer, language, lawyer, linen, locket, lumber, magic, minister, mitten, money, mountain, music, partner, passenger, pickle, picture, plantation, plastic, pleasure, pocket, police, pollution, railway, recess, reward, route, scene, scent, squirrel, stranger, suit, sweater, temper, territory, texture, thread, treatment, veil, vein, volcano, wealth, weather, wilderness, wren, wrist, writer

actor, airplane, airport, army, baseball, beef, birthday, boy, brush, bushes, butter, cast, cave, cent, cherries, cherry, cobweb, coil, cracker, dinner, eggnog, elbow, face, fireman, flavor, gate, glove, glue, goldfish, goose, grain, hair, haircut, hobbies, holiday, hot, jellyfish, ladybug, mailbox, number, oatmeal, pail, pancake, pear, pest, popcorn, queen, quicksand, quiet, quilt, rainstorm, scarecrow, scarf, stream, street, sugar, throne, toothpaste, twig, volleyball, wood, wrench

advice, anger, answer, apple, arithmetic, badge, basket, basketball, battle, beast, beetle, beggar, brain, branch, bubble, bucket, cactus, cannon, cattle, celery, cellar, cloth, coach, coast, crate, cream, daughter, donkey, drug, earthquake, feast, fifth, finger, flock, frame, furniture, geese, ghost, giraffe, governor, honey, hope, hydrant, icicle, income, island, jeans, judge, lace, lamp, lettuce, marble, month, north, ocean, patch, plane, playground, poison, riddle, rifle, scale, seashore, sheet, sidewalk, skate, slave, sleet, smoke, stage, station, thrill, throat, throne, title, toothbrush, turkey, underwear, vacation, vegetable, visitor, voyage, year

alarm, animal, aunt, bait, balloon, bath, bead, beam, bean, bedroom, boot, bread, brick, brother, camp, chicken, children, crook, deer, dock, doctor, downtown, drum, dust, eye, family, father, fight, flesh, food, frog, goose, grade, grandfather, grandmother, grape, grass, hook, horse, jail, jam, kiss, kitten, light, loaf, lock, lunch, lunchroom, meal, mother, notebook, owl, pail, parent, park, plot, rabbit, rake, robin, sack, sail, scale, sea, sister, soap, song, spark, space, spoon, spot, spy, summer, tiger, toad, town, trail, tramp, tray, trick, trip, uncle, vase, winter, water
week, wheel, wish, wool, yard, zebr

apple, arm, banana, bike, bird, book, chin, clam, class, clover, club, corn, crayon, crow, crown, crowd, crib, desk, dime, dirt, dress, fang, field, flag, flower, fog, game, heat, hill, home, horn, hose, joke, juice, kite, lake, maid, mask, mice, milk, mint, meal, meat, moon, mother, morning, name, nest, nose, pear, pen, pencil, plant, rain, river, road, rock, room, rose, seed, shape, shoe, shop, show, sink, snail, snake, snow, soda, sofa, star, step, stew, stove, straw, string, summer, swing, table, tank, team, tent, test, toes, tree, vest, water, wing, winter, woman, women

ball, bat, bed, book, boy, bun, can, cake, cap, car, cat, cow, cub, cup, dad, day, dog, doll, dust, fan, feet, girl, gun, hall, hat, hen, jar, kite, man, map, men, mom, pan, pet, pie, pig, pot, rat, son, sun, toe, tub, van

also, 4 of these 6 items:

http://www.cracked.com/article_17098_6-strangest-objects-people-were-caught-having-sex-with.html

Kurt: Hang on...I saw woman on that list...

Elliot: Fleshlight?

Me: Seriously dude. "Mom"?

Dustin: Your mom!

Me: It wasn't "other person's mom"; it was just "mom."

Dustin: Dustin Humps the Aftermath is my new band name.

Kurt: Does Dustin Humps the Aftermath need a sax player?

Me: No, but it can use the sax. Just don't be around when they empty the spit-valve.

Elliot: You should change it to "Dustin Humps the Aftershock." Who wouldn't want to hump an earthquake!?!?!

Me: Very zen. Do you hump the earth, or does the earth hump you?

Dustin: More things I humped:

A safety pin, a row of button batteries, a car key, A fork, Montana, bed springs, magnetic pieces of a block, a 10-Pound Hairball, Live Frogs and Rats, 20 cobblestones, A Plane, a Bike

Me: See, now, a safety pin? A fork? We come full circle -- how do you not cut yourself? And is it worth it?

Dustin: Dude. It's a SAFETY pin. and a fork, not a knife. I know how to be careful.

Dustin: the Brave Little Toaster

Dustin: Sam's Air Mattress

Me: OK, that's a loaded answer, and I am, for the first time in this conversation, disgusted.

Dustin: http://s5.tinypic.com/28bsnqh.jpg [Ed. Description: giant camel face.]

Kurt: And how exactly do you go about humping that?

Me: With gumption and hope.

Dustin: A step ladder, which luckily I had on hand from an experiment earlier in the day.