Thursday, January 05, 2006
Away With Words
Oh my God why does everyday in my 9-5 world have to be filled with my horrible verbal blunders? Really in my mind they are nothing, just passing comments meant to pass the dragging time. But when they emerge they are so much more to those around me. I guess I may reserve “The Bird” for “The Man” but I’m still not punk rock because I really don’t wish to offend my fellow co-workers (which largely consists of older women). It’s not like they walk on egg shells for me. Two days ago my goodbye helium comment to a co-worker Janelle (whom I don’t know very well) did little to win her into my good graces. I was walking out with my birthday helium balloon gracefully floating through the air and I gave her my shit eating grin and asked…”Helium?” She looked at me like an unidentified alien version of an ape and said no thanks…as her paces took further and faster strides away from me. I thought I made sweet gesture to help her take dull the demeaning stress of the day’s work load away, I guess she didn’t take it as such. Now my forehead has a sign that says, “Please give me the most awkward look you can give me” stamped right on it seemingly only for her reading pleasure. It would have been so righteous if she would have just snagged the damn balloon from my hand, took a healthy helium hit and talked to me in a delightful chipmunk voice. But that would have been too “Rock n Roll” for the cube world. Then there was today…Weight Watchers came to work and some of the ladies went. In my head I don’t really think of them as being fat or anything but I guess one has to have some self-esteem qualms if they are going to go to such a meeting. So they came back to the office and I asked how everything went. The conversation flowed freely and then I made the much needed comment, “Yeah and I bet there was some of those super skinny people going to the meeting.” Oh my god I froze like a deer in headlights. My ears were beet red and I could feel it. I tried a feeble recovery of, “you know those girls in the 0 dresses.” Let’s say that didn’t seem to work…I just short of shut up. But going back to my previous eggshell comment, they were all sending e-mails around with this comedy central skit. The skit had a girl going to answer her phone in the doctor’s office but she accidentally pulls out a vibrator from her purse instead of her cell phone…Watching that skit with my assistant manager certainly made my day. I guess things can be “Rock n Roll” in the cube world after all.
Oh my God why does everyday in my 9-5 world have to be filled with my horrible verbal blunders? Really in my mind they are nothing, just passing comments meant to pass the dragging time. But when they emerge they are so much more to those around me. I guess I may reserve “The Bird” for “The Man” but I’m still not punk rock because I really don’t wish to offend my fellow co-workers (which largely consists of older women). It’s not like they walk on egg shells for me. Two days ago my goodbye helium comment to a co-worker Janelle (whom I don’t know very well) did little to win her into my good graces. I was walking out with my birthday helium balloon gracefully floating through the air and I gave her my shit eating grin and asked…”Helium?” She looked at me like an unidentified alien version of an ape and said no thanks…as her paces took further and faster strides away from me. I thought I made sweet gesture to help her take dull the demeaning stress of the day’s work load away, I guess she didn’t take it as such. Now my forehead has a sign that says, “Please give me the most awkward look you can give me” stamped right on it seemingly only for her reading pleasure. It would have been so righteous if she would have just snagged the damn balloon from my hand, took a healthy helium hit and talked to me in a delightful chipmunk voice. But that would have been too “Rock n Roll” for the cube world. Then there was today…Weight Watchers came to work and some of the ladies went. In my head I don’t really think of them as being fat or anything but I guess one has to have some self-esteem qualms if they are going to go to such a meeting. So they came back to the office and I asked how everything went. The conversation flowed freely and then I made the much needed comment, “Yeah and I bet there was some of those super skinny people going to the meeting.” Oh my god I froze like a deer in headlights. My ears were beet red and I could feel it. I tried a feeble recovery of, “you know those girls in the 0 dresses.” Let’s say that didn’t seem to work…I just short of shut up. But going back to my previous eggshell comment, they were all sending e-mails around with this comedy central skit. The skit had a girl going to answer her phone in the doctor’s office but she accidentally pulls out a vibrator from her purse instead of her cell phone…Watching that skit with my assistant manager certainly made my day. I guess things can be “Rock n Roll” in the cube world after all.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Two 15 Minute Breaks
The mad man rush of a human who schedules his life in 15 minute intervals can be nauseating. (Did you know that nauseous is something that makes you feel nauseated?) The lead in my eyes is casting an even droopier look today as the four hours of last night rest has only propelled me to 10:23 am. I’m sinking fast on my first 15 minute break here in my cube. I really need to move to a country with a siesta. I was scheduled to grind my nose against the text book as a pre-emptive strike at getting ahead of next semester’s course load…but since the only thing that is organized in my life is black ink comprising nicely organized blocks of time on a paper schedule holder, I don’t have my book in my bag. So here I sit wondering, what the hell do I want from this life? It would be so much easier to just say, “Hey I’ve got a job. I don’t have too much debt, (as of yet) I’m still young, verile and fairly healthy…why don’t I just coast?” It would be so much easier to forget school, forget writing, forget being in a band. I could get a membership at some weightlifting meat market and start injecting creatine directly into my penis. It would be easy to be a typical jock and save up money to live in typical suburban home and be the typical alpha male who chases women, gets restraining orders, drives a Volvo or worse a Jetta and hits on all of my girlfriend’s friends. In less then a minute I realize that that is not the life for me. I’m better off a cube dweller clinging onto his dreams in some barren Wal-Mart land wishing for something more than mediocre. Every time I tell people in my office that I’m majoring in journalism they stare back at me from their soulless eyes like I’m the sick one. They ask, “What are you going to do with that?” I guess it’s difficult to explain to the clones that life is more than the dull passing of time. Even if I don’t become a journalist I hope to live like one. The silliest mundane journalism class assignments forced me the streets of Denver to experience things like The Blossom of Lights at the Botanic Gardens and open discussions about science at the Wynkoop Brewery. Below are the features I wrote:
Denver Botanic Gardens
Cotton-puff clouds conceal the sparkle of stars from Denver this evening.
One doesn’t need a thermometer to tell you the temperature on this Dec. 4 night for the human body has its own scientific explanation for the conditions; it’s cold.
Tonight marks the second evening of the16th annual Blossoms of Light at the Denver Botanic Gardens, which is open every evening 6-9 p.m. from Dec. 3, 2005- Jan. 22, 2006.
The Blossoms of Light impacts Denver by bringing in people from the surrounding cities, according to the woman working at the ticket booth.
“They make a night out of it,” she said. “They come for the Wild Lights (the Denver Zoo exhibit) and the Blossoms.”
While the stars remain tucked behind the clouds of an overcast Denver sky, tonight’s event evokes the thought that somehow those stars are being held captive here as more than one million colorful lights dress the expanse of the 17 acre garden.
All the senses are coerced into interactive play during this outdoor event as one journies through the visual stimulation of nature and light.
“People drive around to see the Christmas lights on houses,” Haaland Wodell a garden patron said. “Here, it’s a winter wonderland stung up for us.”
Strolling through the garden, the eyes of patrons intakes just about every color imaginable, from a golden rain tree decked in light blue pastel and sorbet orange lights to an Iowa crab apple tree dressed with soft yellow and cheery apple red lights.
For $1 a person can buy the garden’s 3-D HoloSpex glasses which turn the prisms of the light into shimmering snowflakes.
“It’s like Alice in Wonderland,” a little boy wearing the 3-D glasses said to his father as they strolled through Shady Lane, a crab apple tree-lined corridor of red lights. “It looks like a snowflake forest.”
The garden’s events usually include music. Tonight the Cantabile Singers caroled throughout the outdoor expanse while Oakhurst, a blue grass band, rocked indoors in The Mitchell Hall.
This evening also included impromptu renditions of White Christmas as enthusiastic patrons spontaneously sang together while walking past the ornamental grasses.
Relief from the winter cold was found at the lobby café which exuding with the seasonal smell of hot apple cider.
“With a hot cider in hand,” Wodell said. “There’s no place I’d rather be freezing my butt off.”
For information and tickets you can call The Denver Botanic Gardens at (720) 865-3500 or visit the website at www.botanicgardens.org.
###
GE Foods
From tobacco plants becoming medicinal to goats milking silk Café Scientifique met Nov.15 in Denver to discuss the possibilities that genetic engineering offers.
The discussion, held at the Wynkoop Brewing Company, also included how this technology is exploding to life faster than guidelines and regulations can be created to govern its use.
Genetic engineering makes it possible for scientists to introduce genes from one organism to another. Recently tobacco plants have been combined with a gene enabling it to produce the breast cancer treatment drug Herceptin.
John Cohen Café Scientifique’s organizer explained that the cost for Herceptin is $10,000-$20,000 to administer to one patient for a year.
Taking the production of Herceptin from the confines of the laboratory into the tobacco plant fields can save breast cancer patients thousands of dollars.
“So, if you don’t genetically engineer Herceptin there’s thousands of women who will die of breast cancer because they can’t afford the treatment,” Cohen said. “That’s trying to provide a valuable drug that can only be made this way.”
Goats have also been genetically engineered so their milk will produce the protein found in spider’s silk.
Suzanne Wuerthele, a toxicologist and head of the Sierra Club’s Rocky Mountain chapter in genetic engineering explained that there is a demand for large quantities of the spider’s silk to make bullet proof vests.
“Imagine milking the spiders,” Wuerthele said. “You just can’t do it.”Farmer’s are embracing this science because it’s making their labor less intensive as new crops are being developed to be more self sustaining.
“In New Zealand there is some research in getting genes from the African clawed toad which has a toxin in its skin, into potatoes,” Wuerthele said. “So it can be expressed in the potato and it can make its own pesticide.”
“So you can see this is this is only limited by your imagination. This is a very powerful technology.”
The Food and Drug Administration labels genetically engineered foods as substantially equivalent foods, therefore considering them safe for the public. This means that genetically engineered foods don’t have to be labeled and they don’t have to go through special long term toxicity testing.
This lack of regulation is what sparks the concerns in anti-biotechnology activists because little is known about these foods before they are released into the market and contaminations from genetically engineered farms to other farms is spreading.
Wuerthele explained that even though the U.S.D.A. passed something called the Organic Food Production Act in 1990 which asserts that if a food is going to be labeled organic it’s can’t be genetically engineered there is still no regulations formed to protect farms from cross contamination.
“About 7 percent of the organic farms in this country have contamination from other farms of genetically engineered variety,” Wuerthele said.
There is a concern for the unknown with this science still in its infant stage of development the process to create genetically engineered organisms is expensive, inefficient and done by trial-and-error procedures.
Cohen reiterated “the law of unintended consequences” which was a topic of discussion during the previous Café Scientifique.
Green Peace was sailing in the Philippines to protest the possible damage to corral reefs done by global climate change, Cohen said. As they approached the harbor their boat destroyed a patch of corral reef that they were trying to protect.
“They took out 100 square meter area of irreplaceable corral reef. So, that’s the law of unintentional consequences,” said Cohen.
###
I wouldn’t trade those experiences for an accounting degree. I could either cube my life away or I could live my life away from bland burnt coffee and the stalemating grasp of the florescent lights. I can live frozen in cubicle dreams…but I’d rather melt the cube and swim away. God I feel as gay as I sound tonight.
The mad man rush of a human who schedules his life in 15 minute intervals can be nauseating. (Did you know that nauseous is something that makes you feel nauseated?) The lead in my eyes is casting an even droopier look today as the four hours of last night rest has only propelled me to 10:23 am. I’m sinking fast on my first 15 minute break here in my cube. I really need to move to a country with a siesta. I was scheduled to grind my nose against the text book as a pre-emptive strike at getting ahead of next semester’s course load…but since the only thing that is organized in my life is black ink comprising nicely organized blocks of time on a paper schedule holder, I don’t have my book in my bag. So here I sit wondering, what the hell do I want from this life? It would be so much easier to just say, “Hey I’ve got a job. I don’t have too much debt, (as of yet) I’m still young, verile and fairly healthy…why don’t I just coast?” It would be so much easier to forget school, forget writing, forget being in a band. I could get a membership at some weightlifting meat market and start injecting creatine directly into my penis. It would be easy to be a typical jock and save up money to live in typical suburban home and be the typical alpha male who chases women, gets restraining orders, drives a Volvo or worse a Jetta and hits on all of my girlfriend’s friends. In less then a minute I realize that that is not the life for me. I’m better off a cube dweller clinging onto his dreams in some barren Wal-Mart land wishing for something more than mediocre. Every time I tell people in my office that I’m majoring in journalism they stare back at me from their soulless eyes like I’m the sick one. They ask, “What are you going to do with that?” I guess it’s difficult to explain to the clones that life is more than the dull passing of time. Even if I don’t become a journalist I hope to live like one. The silliest mundane journalism class assignments forced me the streets of Denver to experience things like The Blossom of Lights at the Botanic Gardens and open discussions about science at the Wynkoop Brewery. Below are the features I wrote:
Denver Botanic Gardens
Cotton-puff clouds conceal the sparkle of stars from Denver this evening.
One doesn’t need a thermometer to tell you the temperature on this Dec. 4 night for the human body has its own scientific explanation for the conditions; it’s cold.
Tonight marks the second evening of the16th annual Blossoms of Light at the Denver Botanic Gardens, which is open every evening 6-9 p.m. from Dec. 3, 2005- Jan. 22, 2006.
The Blossoms of Light impacts Denver by bringing in people from the surrounding cities, according to the woman working at the ticket booth.
“They make a night out of it,” she said. “They come for the Wild Lights (the Denver Zoo exhibit) and the Blossoms.”
While the stars remain tucked behind the clouds of an overcast Denver sky, tonight’s event evokes the thought that somehow those stars are being held captive here as more than one million colorful lights dress the expanse of the 17 acre garden.
All the senses are coerced into interactive play during this outdoor event as one journies through the visual stimulation of nature and light.
“People drive around to see the Christmas lights on houses,” Haaland Wodell a garden patron said. “Here, it’s a winter wonderland stung up for us.”
Strolling through the garden, the eyes of patrons intakes just about every color imaginable, from a golden rain tree decked in light blue pastel and sorbet orange lights to an Iowa crab apple tree dressed with soft yellow and cheery apple red lights.
For $1 a person can buy the garden’s 3-D HoloSpex glasses which turn the prisms of the light into shimmering snowflakes.
“It’s like Alice in Wonderland,” a little boy wearing the 3-D glasses said to his father as they strolled through Shady Lane, a crab apple tree-lined corridor of red lights. “It looks like a snowflake forest.”
The garden’s events usually include music. Tonight the Cantabile Singers caroled throughout the outdoor expanse while Oakhurst, a blue grass band, rocked indoors in The Mitchell Hall.
This evening also included impromptu renditions of White Christmas as enthusiastic patrons spontaneously sang together while walking past the ornamental grasses.
Relief from the winter cold was found at the lobby café which exuding with the seasonal smell of hot apple cider.
“With a hot cider in hand,” Wodell said. “There’s no place I’d rather be freezing my butt off.”
For information and tickets you can call The Denver Botanic Gardens at (720) 865-3500 or visit the website at www.botanicgardens.org.
###
GE Foods
From tobacco plants becoming medicinal to goats milking silk Café Scientifique met Nov.15 in Denver to discuss the possibilities that genetic engineering offers.
The discussion, held at the Wynkoop Brewing Company, also included how this technology is exploding to life faster than guidelines and regulations can be created to govern its use.
Genetic engineering makes it possible for scientists to introduce genes from one organism to another. Recently tobacco plants have been combined with a gene enabling it to produce the breast cancer treatment drug Herceptin.
John Cohen Café Scientifique’s organizer explained that the cost for Herceptin is $10,000-$20,000 to administer to one patient for a year.
Taking the production of Herceptin from the confines of the laboratory into the tobacco plant fields can save breast cancer patients thousands of dollars.
“So, if you don’t genetically engineer Herceptin there’s thousands of women who will die of breast cancer because they can’t afford the treatment,” Cohen said. “That’s trying to provide a valuable drug that can only be made this way.”
Goats have also been genetically engineered so their milk will produce the protein found in spider’s silk.
Suzanne Wuerthele, a toxicologist and head of the Sierra Club’s Rocky Mountain chapter in genetic engineering explained that there is a demand for large quantities of the spider’s silk to make bullet proof vests.
“Imagine milking the spiders,” Wuerthele said. “You just can’t do it.”Farmer’s are embracing this science because it’s making their labor less intensive as new crops are being developed to be more self sustaining.
“In New Zealand there is some research in getting genes from the African clawed toad which has a toxin in its skin, into potatoes,” Wuerthele said. “So it can be expressed in the potato and it can make its own pesticide.”
“So you can see this is this is only limited by your imagination. This is a very powerful technology.”
The Food and Drug Administration labels genetically engineered foods as substantially equivalent foods, therefore considering them safe for the public. This means that genetically engineered foods don’t have to be labeled and they don’t have to go through special long term toxicity testing.
This lack of regulation is what sparks the concerns in anti-biotechnology activists because little is known about these foods before they are released into the market and contaminations from genetically engineered farms to other farms is spreading.
Wuerthele explained that even though the U.S.D.A. passed something called the Organic Food Production Act in 1990 which asserts that if a food is going to be labeled organic it’s can’t be genetically engineered there is still no regulations formed to protect farms from cross contamination.
“About 7 percent of the organic farms in this country have contamination from other farms of genetically engineered variety,” Wuerthele said.
There is a concern for the unknown with this science still in its infant stage of development the process to create genetically engineered organisms is expensive, inefficient and done by trial-and-error procedures.
Cohen reiterated “the law of unintended consequences” which was a topic of discussion during the previous Café Scientifique.
Green Peace was sailing in the Philippines to protest the possible damage to corral reefs done by global climate change, Cohen said. As they approached the harbor their boat destroyed a patch of corral reef that they were trying to protect.
“They took out 100 square meter area of irreplaceable corral reef. So, that’s the law of unintentional consequences,” said Cohen.
###
I wouldn’t trade those experiences for an accounting degree. I could either cube my life away or I could live my life away from bland burnt coffee and the stalemating grasp of the florescent lights. I can live frozen in cubicle dreams…but I’d rather melt the cube and swim away. God I feel as gay as I sound tonight.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Stroke This
While attempting to burn music I purchased at the I-Tunes store the burning process stops and the phrase, “Cancel disc burn” appears in the I-Tunes’ window. Then after a minute I receive an error message that reads, “The attempt to burn a disc failed. An unknown error occurred (4251).” I have already tried restarting my computer but this error persists. This is my first attempt at burning CDs since I downloaded the most recent version of I-Tunes.
Regards,
Above was my email in its entirety…the pulse wrenching words I had to scribe to the overly paid fellows at I-Tunes. I pre-ordered the new Strokes album First Impressions of Earth from the lovely I-Tunes store so I could get the two free songs they were slapping on with the bill. Along with the many Weezer music career comparisons I’ve read in reviews, I keep hearing how these guys really change up their sound for this record so I was interested in slathering up my balls to some good ole’ pansy boy New Your music, while drinking white zinfandel and indulging in some William Faulkner. I got home and downloaded the songs in about 2 ½ hours on my blazing wireless internet Ricochet connection. The CD burning process began. Just as soon as the lotion reached room temperature and I assumed the position my 4x speed external burner spit out the metallic plate known as a partially inscribed CDR and an error message sat plastered on my computer screen. My night was ruined. What was I supposed to do??? I went into the I-Tunes help section and sent them a diagnostic of my computer. What the hell is a diagnostic anyway? I just wanted my tunes on a CD and the rhythm of the night to take hold. I tried rebooting my computer with no Stroke of luck. Finally, I resorted to the lame ass email above. I’ve given the album a slight listen so far, while attached to my computer secretly hidden in a worn down and tattered shack built with nothing but rusted nails and manifesto agendas. It’s lonely here in the winter woodlands of Colorado and if I can’t have my Strokes then I will have to STROKE without them….wait I’m over sharing again…SORRY.
While attempting to burn music I purchased at the I-Tunes store the burning process stops and the phrase, “Cancel disc burn” appears in the I-Tunes’ window. Then after a minute I receive an error message that reads, “The attempt to burn a disc failed. An unknown error occurred (4251).” I have already tried restarting my computer but this error persists. This is my first attempt at burning CDs since I downloaded the most recent version of I-Tunes.
Regards,
Above was my email in its entirety…the pulse wrenching words I had to scribe to the overly paid fellows at I-Tunes. I pre-ordered the new Strokes album First Impressions of Earth from the lovely I-Tunes store so I could get the two free songs they were slapping on with the bill. Along with the many Weezer music career comparisons I’ve read in reviews, I keep hearing how these guys really change up their sound for this record so I was interested in slathering up my balls to some good ole’ pansy boy New Your music, while drinking white zinfandel and indulging in some William Faulkner. I got home and downloaded the songs in about 2 ½ hours on my blazing wireless internet Ricochet connection. The CD burning process began. Just as soon as the lotion reached room temperature and I assumed the position my 4x speed external burner spit out the metallic plate known as a partially inscribed CDR and an error message sat plastered on my computer screen. My night was ruined. What was I supposed to do??? I went into the I-Tunes help section and sent them a diagnostic of my computer. What the hell is a diagnostic anyway? I just wanted my tunes on a CD and the rhythm of the night to take hold. I tried rebooting my computer with no Stroke of luck. Finally, I resorted to the lame ass email above. I’ve given the album a slight listen so far, while attached to my computer secretly hidden in a worn down and tattered shack built with nothing but rusted nails and manifesto agendas. It’s lonely here in the winter woodlands of Colorado and if I can’t have my Strokes then I will have to STROKE without them….wait I’m over sharing again…SORRY.
Monday, January 02, 2006
A Quarter of a Century
Intro, A, B, A, C, Ending
Intro- Following my girlfriend’s much tried and true game plan of absolute procrastination and applying it to the events of my birthday party yesterday; things were absolutely chaotic but went extremely well. At one time there were 31 people in this tiny duplex pit in the heart of Denver. It was a difficult feat to accomplish as the first person arrived (my wonderful cousin) at 4pm which was the party’s starting time and I still had an hour and a half more set up to do!
A- Some of the great things that transpire are those of utmost surprises. People like to get birthday presents on the day of their celebration. People make sweet things for others at times but I can’t really recall many DIY gifts that stand out. Yesterday, my friends Erika and her fiancé made me the coolest card that was so much better than anything store bought. She’s known me for so many years that she put many an incriminating middle school and high school picture in the card. Just opening up the thing brought back so many memories. The many gifts I got, all the money, cds, DVDs and trips to The Mountain “oh my!” Proves how spoiled I truly am…but more importantly it shows how generous everyone was. Just people showing up like my girl friend’s Aunt and Uncle and her friends, was a big surprise birthday gift in and of itself.
B- One of the disappointments in the evening was the fact not one of my fellow co-workers showed up. I probably invited 30 of them and I thought I was close to a few of them but this is just proof to the pudding…I’m not. I went to all of their b-day parties and various gatherings…but no, not one of them showed up for mine. It’s weird to think after working in the same place for 3 ½ years, I have truly made no human impact on anyone of those fucks…so fuck’em. When I work in my cube it does feel like 2 Pac’s “Me against the world” but I have to accept that fact. That’s the real world. It rings the bell of my mom’s pessimistic advice of, “Your co-workers are you’re co-workers. They aren’t your friends. Don’t ever confuse them for such.” Being in my 20’s with my ideals still intact I often blew off my mom’s maudlin thoughts labeling her Mrs. Ani-positive but as I’ve strolled around the corporate block a couple of times the dust is starting to clear. I can see the reality of my mother’s words. It’s a slightly depressing thought for me. I’m such a people person and I thrive on that human element. All it really means is that I don’t and won’t get it from work. This idea is really nothing negative per say. It’s just how it is. When I read my guitar music and I come to the accidentals and I get all huffy like, “Why are there so many accidentals in this piece?” My guitar teacher quickly rebuttals, “that just how the composer wrote it.” So is life…filled with all these unexpected accidentals already interwoven into the melody of its song. I just have to read them in time to allow for their note to sound without missing a beat. I guess I missed the beat when I ignored my mother’s words but I still do believe there are better pieces of music for me to be playing. I can’t hold myself back in the third grade superficial rhythms and melodies of where I work now. I know where I want to be and where I have to go…but for now I still have a few more songs to learn before I move on.
A- The Gouts also had their debut live performance. We rocked the house with:
1987A
Atomic Theory Bicycles
Help! (Beatles cover)
62
Conventional Girl
The Gouts (you gotta have it)
Jimmy Jones
James and I switched off bass, guitar and vocals…man we should have charged an admission.
C- After tearing down with house with our stadium rock musical anthems it was time for cake. My dad’s side of the family has this tradition of the birthday person cutting the cake and deciding who gets the pieces in what order. I always hate doing that. It makes me feel guilty. Like my family and friends get a gage on how much I love them by how I pass out the cake. This time I came up with a different strategy. I had a guest book at my party so I passed out the cake in order of when each person signed my guest book. My new motto…So, you’re fashionably late. Then wait for cake.
Ending- Holiday’s are silly. We have holidays for the stupidest things…(national goat hopping day???”) As I get older and my stomach gets sick from the centrifugal force of the rat race I realize how much we really need them. It’s so arbitrary to say, “It’s the 1st of the year, time for a fresh start.” But I really can’t think of a better approach. Why not wipe off the burden of your regrets or your guilt or whatever held you back last year and try from the this day forward to create a better year? I’m looking forward to 2006 and I’m going to work hard to read the accidentals as they pop up…without missing a beat.
Intro, A, B, A, C, Ending
Intro- Following my girlfriend’s much tried and true game plan of absolute procrastination and applying it to the events of my birthday party yesterday; things were absolutely chaotic but went extremely well. At one time there were 31 people in this tiny duplex pit in the heart of Denver. It was a difficult feat to accomplish as the first person arrived (my wonderful cousin) at 4pm which was the party’s starting time and I still had an hour and a half more set up to do!
A- Some of the great things that transpire are those of utmost surprises. People like to get birthday presents on the day of their celebration. People make sweet things for others at times but I can’t really recall many DIY gifts that stand out. Yesterday, my friends Erika and her fiancé made me the coolest card that was so much better than anything store bought. She’s known me for so many years that she put many an incriminating middle school and high school picture in the card. Just opening up the thing brought back so many memories. The many gifts I got, all the money, cds, DVDs and trips to The Mountain “oh my!” Proves how spoiled I truly am…but more importantly it shows how generous everyone was. Just people showing up like my girl friend’s Aunt and Uncle and her friends, was a big surprise birthday gift in and of itself.
B- One of the disappointments in the evening was the fact not one of my fellow co-workers showed up. I probably invited 30 of them and I thought I was close to a few of them but this is just proof to the pudding…I’m not. I went to all of their b-day parties and various gatherings…but no, not one of them showed up for mine. It’s weird to think after working in the same place for 3 ½ years, I have truly made no human impact on anyone of those fucks…so fuck’em. When I work in my cube it does feel like 2 Pac’s “Me against the world” but I have to accept that fact. That’s the real world. It rings the bell of my mom’s pessimistic advice of, “Your co-workers are you’re co-workers. They aren’t your friends. Don’t ever confuse them for such.” Being in my 20’s with my ideals still intact I often blew off my mom’s maudlin thoughts labeling her Mrs. Ani-positive but as I’ve strolled around the corporate block a couple of times the dust is starting to clear. I can see the reality of my mother’s words. It’s a slightly depressing thought for me. I’m such a people person and I thrive on that human element. All it really means is that I don’t and won’t get it from work. This idea is really nothing negative per say. It’s just how it is. When I read my guitar music and I come to the accidentals and I get all huffy like, “Why are there so many accidentals in this piece?” My guitar teacher quickly rebuttals, “that just how the composer wrote it.” So is life…filled with all these unexpected accidentals already interwoven into the melody of its song. I just have to read them in time to allow for their note to sound without missing a beat. I guess I missed the beat when I ignored my mother’s words but I still do believe there are better pieces of music for me to be playing. I can’t hold myself back in the third grade superficial rhythms and melodies of where I work now. I know where I want to be and where I have to go…but for now I still have a few more songs to learn before I move on.
A- The Gouts also had their debut live performance. We rocked the house with:
1987A
Atomic Theory Bicycles
Help! (Beatles cover)
62
Conventional Girl
The Gouts (you gotta have it)
Jimmy Jones
James and I switched off bass, guitar and vocals…man we should have charged an admission.
C- After tearing down with house with our stadium rock musical anthems it was time for cake. My dad’s side of the family has this tradition of the birthday person cutting the cake and deciding who gets the pieces in what order. I always hate doing that. It makes me feel guilty. Like my family and friends get a gage on how much I love them by how I pass out the cake. This time I came up with a different strategy. I had a guest book at my party so I passed out the cake in order of when each person signed my guest book. My new motto…So, you’re fashionably late. Then wait for cake.
Ending- Holiday’s are silly. We have holidays for the stupidest things…(national goat hopping day???”) As I get older and my stomach gets sick from the centrifugal force of the rat race I realize how much we really need them. It’s so arbitrary to say, “It’s the 1st of the year, time for a fresh start.” But I really can’t think of a better approach. Why not wipe off the burden of your regrets or your guilt or whatever held you back last year and try from the this day forward to create a better year? I’m looking forward to 2006 and I’m going to work hard to read the accidentals as they pop up…without missing a beat.
Sunday, January 01, 2006
A- Ahhh 25…Here I am. Last night was gala. My mom and step-dad took me and my girlfriend to Black Hawk (Colorado’s very own mountain gambling land A.K.A “The Mountain.”) We all won good amount and we all lost a good amount more…except for my girlfriend. She is one lucky girl…other than the fact she has to put up with my bullshit.
B- The Velvet Underground is playing in the background right now and it’s just making me feel good. They are the taste of beer…I didn’t like the taste until I was more mature, perhaps a little more desperate.
A- So yes, losing sort of sucked, especially after winning about $300.00 but it was fun. I really wouldn’t recommend the Mountain to anyone who wants to ring in the New Year. They really don’t do anything festive or special for the evening. We mainly stuck around Fitzgerald’s because that place felt a little luckier then the other casinos. The only amenity there was was women in green skimpy outfits and I’m not even sure if that was special to New Year’s events? That alone might be enough to keep many an older dirty man there longer but it really didn’t cream my Twinkie. One of the highlights of the night was ditching an absolutely long and ridiculous line at the Isle of Capri’s buffet for a swift walk across the street to the Riviera to find a more delectable and cheaper buffet without a line. I’m a sucker for “all you can eat” crab legs…Although it is a sure fire way to get gout.
C- Yesterday, I did my quick run down of the year in review…That generic prototype is cliché way to end a New Year but a damn good way to bring in the New Year would be to cross my fingers really tight and type up all the things that I hope will happen for the year to come.
In no particular order…
I hope to average 7 hrs of sleep a night
I hope to win a full ride scholarship
I hope to win a new car
I hope to find intact vintage guitars in this old house’s attic
I hope to gas prices drop
I hope to win the powerball which means I could render 2-5 null-and-void
I hope to cut my teeth as a journalist with Metro’s school paper
I hope to kick my creatine snortin habit
I hope to win Playboy’s college fiction writer award….gerr baby very gerr
I hope the Gout’s (my new band of two so far) grow musically together
I hope my work cube life becomes less cube like
I hope to take all aspects of my art to the next level
I hope to maintain my New Year’s resolution??? Have to make it first
I hope to learn some piano
I hope my family get their shit together
I hope for a year better health…maybe I will start injecting Gatorade directly into my penis
I hope to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony
I hope the Gout’s will be able to get gigs twice a month…half of which are paid
I hope to read 25 book….I usually do
I hope to make cool new friends
I hope to win some all expense paid trip to somewhere
I hope to learn the art of drum machine joy
I hope to get organized
I hope to get a new computer/laptop
“I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish I was a balla, I wish I had a rabbit in a hat…” You know the rest!!!
So next 2006’s year in review better have all of those “I hope” accomplished or I would consider myself a raging failure!!! A failure!!!
B- In other news…My sister Roxann just called me to wish me a happy birthday….that was very sweet.
B- The Velvet Underground is playing in the background right now and it’s just making me feel good. They are the taste of beer…I didn’t like the taste until I was more mature, perhaps a little more desperate.
A- So yes, losing sort of sucked, especially after winning about $300.00 but it was fun. I really wouldn’t recommend the Mountain to anyone who wants to ring in the New Year. They really don’t do anything festive or special for the evening. We mainly stuck around Fitzgerald’s because that place felt a little luckier then the other casinos. The only amenity there was was women in green skimpy outfits and I’m not even sure if that was special to New Year’s events? That alone might be enough to keep many an older dirty man there longer but it really didn’t cream my Twinkie. One of the highlights of the night was ditching an absolutely long and ridiculous line at the Isle of Capri’s buffet for a swift walk across the street to the Riviera to find a more delectable and cheaper buffet without a line. I’m a sucker for “all you can eat” crab legs…Although it is a sure fire way to get gout.
C- Yesterday, I did my quick run down of the year in review…That generic prototype is cliché way to end a New Year but a damn good way to bring in the New Year would be to cross my fingers really tight and type up all the things that I hope will happen for the year to come.
In no particular order…
I hope to average 7 hrs of sleep a night
I hope to win a full ride scholarship
I hope to win a new car
I hope to find intact vintage guitars in this old house’s attic
I hope to gas prices drop
I hope to win the powerball which means I could render 2-5 null-and-void
I hope to cut my teeth as a journalist with Metro’s school paper
I hope to kick my creatine snortin habit
I hope to win Playboy’s college fiction writer award….gerr baby very gerr
I hope the Gout’s (my new band of two so far) grow musically together
I hope my work cube life becomes less cube like
I hope to take all aspects of my art to the next level
I hope to maintain my New Year’s resolution??? Have to make it first
I hope to learn some piano
I hope my family get their shit together
I hope for a year better health…maybe I will start injecting Gatorade directly into my penis
I hope to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony
I hope the Gout’s will be able to get gigs twice a month…half of which are paid
I hope to read 25 book….I usually do
I hope to make cool new friends
I hope to win some all expense paid trip to somewhere
I hope to learn the art of drum machine joy
I hope to get organized
I hope to get a new computer/laptop
“I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish I was a balla, I wish I had a rabbit in a hat…” You know the rest!!!
So next 2006’s year in review better have all of those “I hope” accomplished or I would consider myself a raging failure!!! A failure!!!
B- In other news…My sister Roxann just called me to wish me a happy birthday….that was very sweet.
