Before leaving

Today was productive. Cleaned my room for the first time in weeks. Finished up a mix tape for Hannah. Caught up on emails dealing with the new Big Kids LP and European tour. Acid Fast practiced. Earlier in the day I worked on gathering material for a few collages that I'm working on. After Acid Fast practice, Hannah, Matto and I watched Hot Tube Time Machine. I stretched quite a bit today. I do push ups and other excercises though out the day as a matter of routine recently. Things seem to be well on the surface when you look past the financial situation. There is a part of me that is worried about the trip I'm taking in less than 10 days. For the first time since before last Summer I feel good about myself and the path I'm on. The momentum is strong and I'm sort of in love with the life I'm living right now. And now I'm packing up my bags and taking off for 2 months. I hope home is still there when I get back. I hope that who I am still belongs in it. And if I don't I hope I'm still strong enough to keep moving.

It seems like although every tour I've ever done I hold dear to my heart, there is a part of me that also curses the tradition. Every Summer it's the same thing. I say goodbye and come back a different person, usually tired and a little bit heavier.

chistmasish

This morning I woke up and it felt fine. I made coffee and responded to some emails I've been putting off. Was planning on going for a run early, but the rain is putting me off at the moment. Central heating is broken and so the only way to stay warm would be to hang out in my cave downstairs with the space heater on full blast. I sent my dad a text this morning, but he didn't respond.

Ice Cube Rom Com

Last night I sat on the couch in my parent's living room watching Are We There Yet? A rom come where Ice Cube plays a middle aged bachelor that falls in love with a single mother of two. They become friends and she asks him to accompany her children on an trip. The kids are obnoxious, but cute, Ice Cube overcomes all the obstacles, his crush falls in love with him blaha blah blah. It was entertaining and helped dull my loneliness. Earlier in the day, I'd started to work on cleaning out the garage, sifting through boxes of old photographs, cassette tapes, and letters, plastic tubs full of Christmas decorations, blankets, and toys. Old matchbooks that my parents had collected from all the restaurants they used to visit, undeveloped disposable cameras, and the underwear that was issued to me when I was in juvenile hall. Nothing seemed to be organized, but piled together and packed away in an almost chronological order. It was the first day of rain this season and it wasn't drizzling, but pouring down in sheets, flash flooding the street and drumming up a droning rumble on the wooden rooftops.

Wednesday is already 133

Haven't read the old books in a long time. I used to feel more attached and in love with those characters than the real people that loved me in my real life. I miss both of them. Today I woke up at my parents house in the garage. It was almost 1 o'clock when I got to the kitchen. Been 27 for almost 2 months now. Days are getting shorter. Sometimes I'm very happy to be alive. There is music that makes me want to give all of this another go. My mother introduced me to Ludovico Einaudi today. Hearing the chord progressions and melodies, I can imagine the way he writes music, which isn't usually the case for classical compositions if that's what his music is. I can imagine him figuring all of it out note by note as he plays. Every note runs deep from the tips of his fingers to the pain and joy in his hear. It's blood in rosy cheeks, the sun on snow. It's the sound of me waking up with energy as if everything wasn't just going to be alright, but amazing.

My two rotting teeth don't hurt anymore and hopefully won't hurt until I have time to take care of them. It wasn't too long ago that broke the second one and was worried that the pain was going to break while I was on tour. It didn't. Tomorrow morning I'm going to try to wake up in the morning. It's been a few weeks since I've had a full day. This picture was taken the day before I turned 27. We were in Lake Michigan. Today I ran 5 miles. Tomorrow I'll run 5 and a half. Hopefully.

It's the gift that keeps on taking autumn

It's the gift that keeps on taking. Pressed the flesh, barely pulled through the manic. Emotions busting at the seams. Haven't felt this narrow since 2003.

Teeth holes cavities infection, crumbling sharp dull failing,

bleeding gums chewing impacted, bite the tongue's muscle, digest the spill

Mess swollen allergic, expensive years

Offensive poverty, hate love die birth bills pills

Prescription therapy, intensive forgetful disease

Missing Teeth

Vacation water, July mountains crowded

With nothing and everything, river old lake young

August gives into Autumn retreats

Magnified naked fresh air peaks view more peaks sometimes cities

Can be vacations too

Manic, consistently unpredictable,

Afternoon is always morning, sometimes no morning at all

No plans, no escape

Haven't felt this empty

Since the first time I recognized my extra skin

Since I grew into it the first time around

Boycott the election year hysteria.

Fashion more sex, gather less war

Catapult the mess down the line

Down the generations ready to receive it

Or never be born at all

Raise lost questions raise lost cities.

Divide the party over and over and over

Collection emptied for more personal identity

Find a steadier path easier to erase all traces

And bury the prints

Last summer woke me up this morning

Covered my body in dream sweat, rolled over in it.

Last chance to walk away left with the season

Too much, Too little

Too tired to stand in the middle

Nothing less than a finishing line

Could anchor this wandering mind

clock smash

Today like most days, I woke up in a state of confusion to my ugly cell phone alarm clock song. After almost falling off of my loft, I put on the same cd that I've been listening to every morning for the past 2 weeks because I'm too indecisive to choose another. When exiting my windowless cave I was hoping to find myself entering a sunny day, and that maybe I had confused the days and it was actually Saturday. I was wrong. Twice. It's not even Wednesday and all of my clothes are all of my clothes have been soaked for the last couple of hours. Now, I'm freaking out about my age and my lack of education or health security and all my friends growing up without me and my parents dying too soon and tooth aches and how am I probably just thinking too much and how self pity is only a road to no where and what I'm going to do when I get off work today and there's nothing to do except prepare for work tomorrow. And so I'm putting it on a social networking site. Real cool. I'm definitely going to regret this impulse.

Stuff happens

Stuff has happened.

On Saturday morning Anna and I said goodbye. Again.

On Tuesday a few labels made an official announcement about the Big Kids LP being released in July.

On Wednesday I discovered that my best friend and next store neighbor from the age of 7-16 works in the same city. He's been practicing law in San Francisco for a year now. I used to delivery packages on daily basis to the building that he works in. I made the discovery while delivering a package to a woman at a graphic design firm. It was his sister, the same sister that drove Boris and I to junior high Monday through Friday 12 years ago.

On Thursday my boss got hit by a car. He's okay, but can't work so I'm running the company by myself. I'll be working 10 hour days until he's back on the road.

Today I wrote my frist blog entry in 2 months.

Last Summer is finally Last Summer

I can't believe last summer is already last summer. I can't believe how the fall made such a guest a appearance of a life. I'm thinking about how sudden my old room was evacuated after summer called it quits. It was filled quickly with a new dream and new art now hangs on the walls that I painted last Spring with my now ex-girlfriend. I live in the basement now where I sleep on a smaller mattress lower to the ground, more like in the first room away from home that I lived in. And I don't mind that my room has no windows or that ceiling directly above my bed is unfinished. You can see some kind of piping through the crack. It hangs above me now as I type this. I don't mind it. What I do mind is that I've been living in this cave for 3 months now and I still haven't gotten around to making it my own. Books and records lay unorganized, unloved on the ground. The walls are barren, except for one Marc Chaggal painting that I've had for years now. Last week I got a new job now with better pay and more tolerable hours, but I still haven't managed to shake my old debts. They've compressed and fill me up with anxiety every night and morning that I don't fall asleep with next Summer on my mind. On a higher note, some friendships have solidified. Some have softened and fallen through the cracks. I only see those folks on party day now. The others have become family. My family is real.

bike to the beach

Friday night consisted of mostly relaxing, I think. After completing my last delivery of the day, I took the train back to Oakland and rode straigt to my house where I met up with Al. Since I didn't get off work in time to stop by the bike shop, I had sent him to pick up a new chain and a front break for the 80 mile ride we were about to embark on. I took a shower, drank a bunch of water, and added the new parts to my bicycle. Afterwards, I went to Anna's house where I watched a movie and spent the night. We also did a little bit of grocery shopping.

The next morning, I got up early around 7am and had a bowl of oatmeal and a bannana. I was back at my house before 7:30

Al and I left on our ride to Santa Cruz around 8 something.

lock yo bike up dood

Yesterday, I almost got arrested on bart. I was also almost hit by an angry lady in a mecredes. I provoked some of her anger, but she was still way out of control. The last and first thing that I heard come out was though her the drivers side window of her car. "Small dick mother fucker" She also held the horn while driving within feet of my back tire for two long city blocks on Mission Street. Yeah.

On Sunday, I shaved off my mustache. Blah.

cats are going to be alright

She used to fetch the jolly rancher candies that my grandmother stored in her purse. She would chase them up and down the stairs, across the living room and into the bathroom. When I was 9 or 10 years old, I caught her bathing in the sun, asleep. I snuck up on her and spooked her in a way that had her jump straight up into the air a good two feet completing a back flip on the way down. I remember when we picked her up from the shelter, a scared kitten, her voice howled through the inside of my mother's car as we drove home. Her paws reached out of the holes of the box that we brought her home in.

On Thursday, my mother had eye surgery. It went well. Before the eye surgery, she brought Misty in to be euthanized. Both procedures were successful

This morning I went to a farewell brunch for Oliver at Nicole's place. There were lots of friends there and it was a good time. Afterwards, Al and I jammed for a while before we rode our bikes out to Berkeley and climbed Grizzly Peak. We descended the hill and rode back to Oakland and we in our house in less than 30 min. I called my mother because I was confused about life. She told me that her surgery and Saturday had gone well and that she was feeling good. My sister is at the house painting for the weekend. My father is relaxing with the dogs. She also told me about how she had to put the cat down. It was sad for both of us. A piece of my youth and our family disappeared with that cat.

remote control alarm clock

I hit the snooze button 5 times this morning before finally rolling out of bed at 7:54. I caught the 8:08 train and was in the city around 8:25, ate a muffin, and downed a double shot of espresso. I was at the office before 8:30.

flower face

It’s on days like this, when the emptiness overwhelms me, that my many faces bring me the most satisfaction. Sitting at the corner of California and Sansome in the financial district of San Francisco, at Fida’s Sandwich Shop, making clown faces and laughing hysterically at passerby’s not because they’re funny, but because the expressions on their face appear to me, even emptier than the thoughts running through my head. Most look away, but sometimes, a smile even wider than my own, will expand across their face. Granted, they could be dreaming of the most amazing scenes or going over the events of a passion filled last night, but to me, they’re just weeds with eyes. Me too. But I wish I was a flower, so I pretend that I am.

My stomach is here.

jungle

I'm on my lunch right now. Today I woke up in the second bed that I've ever learned to love. As a young boy, I used to stare at the shevleves nailed to the walls of my bedroom and imagine them to be crooked and then straight, and myself crooked. Often, I would step back into the reality I had come to except as the truth and wonder about the future without my room, my bed, or the window that I spent so much time gazing through. Sometime I would forget the truth. The walls could cave in at any moment, I believed. Just 6 years old when the 1989 earth quake hit the bay area, it was often that I dreamed about catestrophe. I knew there was no such thing as superman and it scared me. I drew images from the tv about doom and gloom, the cold war propaganda and a nuclear ending to everything around me. It wasn't until I was 14 or 15 years old that I got over my fear of the end and began living without so much anxiety. 5 years later, at the age of 20, I was more scared than I'd ever been. more propaganda, more death, less money, more fear. Fear fear fear. I drank or smoked myself to sleep almost every night.





Now, I'm 24.