These a Beast

on new jersey, your inner nag

j. — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 05:26:26 +0000

i admire people who still look up even when the giant asshole in the sky shits on them. i have to think they were just programmed differently, but shit doesn’t get them down and that’s what i love. me, if i see a shitstorm i do what i consider a normal thing: i run towards open sky. some people stay put because of family or something. some adherence to a code or an ideal i never really understood.

which is why i came back to new jersey in the first place. i thought i was missing something. i told myself there was a reason i popped out of a new jerseyan vagina and that i owed it to myself to figure it out. it’s now been just over a year, and i’m 30 now, and i still don’t know any secrets. i thought i would learn it like at a university so in my mind i always imagined graduating new jersey before i left again. i would figure out the key to happiness here and take it with me wherever i went.

i realized on my october 14 that the secret was just to get out alive.

i realized also that most of my life has been an exercise in muffling my inner nag. when i drink tap water it says “don’t drink that” and when i work a 9-5 desk job it says “go to europe” and when i listen to it i enjoy being alive. i think the real cause of disease is that inner nag. if you ignore it, you’re fucked. if you listen, you’re saved.

the club, and so they played chess

j. — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 05:24:58 +0000

i’m a writer but i believe the best things are impossible to write down. they can only be experienced. how do you describe a mushroom trip? how do you describe a relationship that runs so deep that the only way to explain it to yourself is to shake your head and say something under your breath about a previous life? you don’t, you just have a secret handshake with everyone you know who has gone through it too. for me that’s the best and the worst part. it connects you deeply with those people who get it, but it alienates you from the rest.

the key then is to keep experiencing. the more experiences, the more secret clubs you belong to. and your greatest connection with someone will be something you’ll never talk about, even if you could.

josh’s father passed away. and josh sent around an email, “the bob club”.

Bob believed in relationships and, as opposed to the Buddhist “non-attachment” strategy to life, he believed in really getting attached. Bob thought of himself and everyone else as “club members” and all he had to do to connect with someone was to find their common club. My dad was part of the musician club, the motor cycle club, the Jewish club, the smoking club, the father club, the naked hot tub club, the comedy club, the brownie club, the sweat lodge club, the Epstein club, the sculptor club, the good dog club, the loving partner club, the garage sale club, The shitty gas station coffee club, the amazed by cool shit club, and thousands of other clubs that helped him connect with different people. None of these clubs were exclusive and there was never a dress code. After my dad died, hoards of “club members” came, called, and wrote to grieve, celebrate, share, love, cry, laugh, roast, and connect. I was filled with love like I had never known.

it’s like that scene in the movie version of mother night. a beautiful book and a beautifully faithful movie. george kraft and howard campbell hang out for the first time and kraft gives campbell a knowing look from the couch. both of their wives passed away. they were part of that club. and so they played chess.

oh, mikko

j. — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 06:08:14 +0000

What is an average day like for Mikko Aspa?
Wake up. Start doing e-mails, process orders. Deal with many things related of running mail order, label, and record store. Day ends basically when I go to sleep. But due [to the] flexibility of running your own life, there is plenty of listening to records, sexual activities, nighttime whiskey shots, and urination on female body. I would like to have more time for artistic purposes, but at the moment it is limited.

from this

Bill Hicks – Depressed

j. — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 14:48:45 +0000

Drink up have fun there is no death don’t suffer don’t feel guilty god loves you no matter what you do you are the perfect and holy child of god and as my friend Jimmy Pineapple would say – case fucking closed.

But I get depressed, you think I don’t? You think I’m wearing black in the summertime cuz I’m a fucking ray of sunshine, dude? The fact that we live in a world where John Lennon was murdered, yet Barry Manilow continues to put out albums. Man, if you’re gonna kill somebody have some fucking taste. I’ll drive you to Kenny Rogers’ house. Get in the car I know where Wham! lives.

Bill Hicks – Positive LSD Story

j. — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 14:39:12 +0000

Wouldn’t you like to hear a positive story about LSD on the news, to hear what it’s all about perhaps? Wouldn’t that be interesting, just once? Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there’s no such thing as life, death is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here’s Tom with the weather!

Bill Hicks – Goatboy Will Figure it Out

j. — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 03:19:52 +0000

I’m walking down through the West End one day right, and this busload from Iowa gets off the bus, these big cow people, right, bump into me, and I go flyin’ into this… adult bookstore. And my hands are in my pockets and I took ‘em out and money flew out of my hand, wafted down onto the cash register, and this guy hands me a magazine. How embarrassing. I go home immediately to the hotel, throw it away, towards the garbage, it breaks open, face up, on the bed.

email to jaz

j. — Fri, 06 May 2011 07:55:52 +0000

that gin blossoms record, new miserable experience, it’s so fucking fantastic. the first couple notes and i’m hooked all over again. the guitar riffs for “found out about you”? fucking killer. “hey jealousy”s cred as a top-notch pop song? undeniable. and i’m listening to the lyrics tonight for the first time, you know actually paying attention to them. i’ve sung along to them for years without paying attention.

it’s really depressing shit about alcoholism, losing love and chasing after it once it’s gone. asking psychics if “she’ll” come back again. drinking till things seem new again.

honestly, i’m really resonating with them, and i’m looking for answers anywhere i think i can find them. so i start looking into the singer. is he married? did he ever find love? did he cure his alcoholism? i’m looking for a light at the end of the tunnel, you know? for one of the few people i resonate with to tell me that things are going to be okay. that life gets better.

and i can’t find anything about the singer, but it doesn’t matter because he didn’t write the lyrics. doug hopkins did, and he shot himself in the head shortly after “hey jealousy” went gold.

j.

apparently by amiri baraka

j. — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 01:13:10 +0000

I hear
your voice
down the hall, through the window, above
all those trees, a light
it seems
& you are singing. What song
is that The words
are beautiful.

We Are Champions

j. — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 00:20:19 +0000

Thank you Shelby Cobras for putting it all in perspective:

Yes, I certainly do hate you, Mister Heavenly. But I also kind of love you, for proving one thing: THE CHASM OF FOULNESS THAT THE HUMAN SPIRIT CAN ACHIEVE, WHEN CHALLENGED, IS INFINITE–JUST WHEN YOU THINK YOU’VE FOUND ITS ABSOLUTE BOTTOM, THAT BOTTOM FALLS OUT, REVEALING AND EVER-EXPANDING PIT OF DESPAIR BELOW. THERE IS NO GOD AND NO REDEMPTION. WE ARE ALONE IN THIS LIFE, EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US. BUT AS LONG AS WE CAN LOOK INTO THAT PIT–TO FACE THAT SICK HORROR AND SPIT IN ITS FACE–WE ARE CHAMPIONS.

bringing her back home

j. — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 17:16:51 +0000

i wanted her to leave an almost empty soap bottle behind,
or a sock.
i have
places between
couch cushions for
things like those to get lost in.
she was supposed to misplace them when packing her things.