the trouble with...

I’m wondering…

thetroublewith — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 07:23:12 +0000

why love scenes in movies make me uncomfortable, still.

With Tiny Angels

thetroublewith — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 18:17:47 +0000

I woke up suddenly in an 8-seat passenger jet. The engines were humming loud, desperate dissonance. My chest was heavy and I felt wheezy. I watched the ocean below me because I had been told that sometimes people see schools of whales swim by. If it’s a particularly dark night, the water glows gentle neon blue when living things move inside of it. No one knows why.

Years later, my girlfriend and I were orientation leaders at a small, prestigious, coastal liberal arts college. The second day of school we kidnapped 3 sleeping freshman and drove them to the beach at 2 in the morning. The water was flat and calm. The sky was flat and calm. We all took off our clothes and stepped into the ocean. Our bodies were flat and calm. The same neon blue glowed brightly in small droplets on our slippery skin. My girlfriend kissed me softly and our lips lit up. They stayed that way for a few minutes once we were done swimming and faded as we dried in the moonlight. I wanted to glow like that forever, mostly so I’d feel electric and alive. I hadn’t in years.

On the airplane, I watched the sea, looking for a small pink swim-noodle. My grandfather had just disappeared while his whole family built sandcastles a handful of meters away from him. We realized he was gone by sundown. Drowned probably— he wasn’t all that fit anymore and his heart wasn’t good. My mom thought his mind was going too. I thought he was doing great for 75, but I guess I was wrong. My grandma paced the beach with a carton of orange juice. She was worried about his diabetes. My dad walked, waste deep and fully clothed, out into the ocean with a snorkeling mask until we couldn’t see him

anymore. I ran barefoot down the beach, cutting my feet on conch shells. My sister hid in the closet. She didn’t really understand what was going on.

By the time search planes got there, it was morning. We found his glasses, a book, a pair of sandals, and empty swimming-flipper tracks down to the water, but no grandfather. The diving equipment rental people charged us for the missing gear. My dad stayed behind when we flew home.

I remember my grandfather well. He, for a long time, was the reason I lived. We used to cruise around suburban New York State in the dead of winter, top down, heat on, no seatbelt. He used to buy me toys and then loose the parts when we tried to assemble them. He used to turn the heat up in the swimming pool so we could swim when it rained. I don’t remember the day he died well at all.

I had a panic attack while surfing by myself on a cold blue day in Miami, Florida. The lifeguards dragged me and my short board out of water so calm it looked like glass. I passed out on the beach.

This is my future. Next to me is a line of naked women. They are all pale. They are all twitching slightly, like eager children or uncomfortable teenagers, sort of vibrating like they are electronics that aren’t grounded quite right. They smell like tanning oil and lotion. None of them look at me at all, though I am making it pretty obvious that I am looking at them pretty hard. They are all beautiful and done up just right. Every one of them glows a soft white from within, bubbling with secret promise, smiling sweetly with every tick. At once, all of them pour cold water down their bodies in unison. A synchronized arm raise, the coordinated bend of every delicate wrist, a soft saliva smack as the water and skin connect. I look down as together they unfold their legs and realize that each of them has a snarling monster-mouth where they shouldn’t. The mouths are drinking of the water that has cascaded down naked flesh. The mouths seem very, very thirsty. I realize I am also thirsty, but the mouths are not inviting me to share a sip.

When I come to, I’m surrounded by lifeguards with bulging Speedoes and olive complexions. These are lifeguards whose damp biceps are peppered with sand, whose hair is going sun-bleached blond, and whose noses are white with sunscreen and zinc. I cough up cold, clear, fresh water, which smells like coconut oil and pineapple—definitely not from this ocean, I think. Every single one of them looks oddly like my grandfather when he was a young man. Every single one of them sounds like me. They all move like my father.

Back on the airplane, my head is pressed against the cold plastic window. I can feel the hum of the engine, I can feel the fabric seat through my jeans, and I can feel the weight of the air around me. No one is talking, or even (it seems) breathing. When we land in the Bahamas, it is grey and raining. When we land again, home in Miami, it is black and raining harder.

This is…

thetroublewith — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 21:05:32 +0000

…the way it was. I was always small, dark, and serious. I guess was and always don’t really emphasize how small, how dark, and/or how serious I always was. I was never not small, dark, and serious. For example, I slept only a couple hours out of the night, but that sleep was always deep. In my dreams I was always plotting and learning. I’d leave a pen and paper by my pillow at night and when I woke, it was always covered in small, dark, serious writing.
By the time I was in the Third grade, my mom thought I had a problem. She asked everyone we knew what my problem was. “What’s his problem?” I’d hear her ask in the hallway after school and on the telephone. Sometimes, I’d hear her ask it over and over in her sleep. No one seemed to know. “He’s just young,” they’d always reply “some day he’ll grow up and learn to have fun.”
One day, a small, dark, and very serious box was sitting on our front porch when I got home from school. It was addressed to my mom, which I didn’t mind at all. “What’s this?” I asked myself in my tiniest, deepest, most business-like voice. No one said anything because no one else was there.
After organizing the mail into three piles (fun, junk, and bills), eating a snack (celery and peanut butter), and scanning the front page of The New York Times, I decided to open the box up. Inside was a pocket sized, grey electronic dictionary. “Oh, boy!” I said. “Oh! Boy,” I said again, making sure to rearrange the spoken accents so anyone who heard would understand I had moved the exclamation point. No one said anything because no one else was there.
By the time my mom got home, I had already worked up through the word commove which I told her meant, “to move violently”. She smiled, but I could tell it was a fake smile because her nose wrinkled up a little. I felt it was an astute observation, and so I said, “This is a very astute observation. You’re smiling a fake smile.” She laughed, said I could keep the dictionary, and got herself a bowl of ice cream with chocolate syrup and almonds. It looked delicious, which was also an astute observation, but this time I didn’t tell her because I couldn’t think of a better word for delicious.
We ate dinner while watching the news, which was my idea. I thought about the dictionary the whole time. I could feel it in my pocket. It felt warm and electric against my leg, even though it was turned off. Every few minutes, I’d forget about it and then move to grab some bread or shovel some fish into my mouth and there it’d be in my pocket, heavy as lead. I was in love.
That night, I dreamt I was older, larger, paler, and just slightly more jovial. The dictionary and I lived in a petite, brown, practical house on top of a hill. There was a fireplace, a guest bedroom, and a pantry. My vocabulary, as it would be assumed, was ridiculous. My dream self kept saying these short, dismal, serious words that I didn’t understand and drinking cups of black espresso. The dictionary just sat there, across the table from dream-me, looking slightly less shiny. “I’m aware I’m content!” dream me said aloud. He said it again, with more anticipation “I’m aware, I’m content,” making sure to shift the accents in a way I knew all too well. No one said anything because no one else was there.

My New Sun

thetroublewith — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 22:37:59 +0000

Maybe in another life I’ve moved out west to pan the proverbial gold that is a music career in the “City of Angels”. Maybe I’m fit and happy, with sleek foreign friends who have funny names and accents. Maybe we all drink espresso mid-morning, and talk crap about anything we come into contact with, real euro-trash style. I could be playing in a pop band right now, some gorgeously tan girl waiting for me just off stage left, smiling shyly. I had this dream about a me that wasn’t me. He was just like I am, except he was everything else and not much at all. Actually, we didn’t have a lot to talk about. Actually, I’m pretty sure that somewhere he exists. Actually, I’m not completely sure it was a dream.
At my acupuncturist’s office, I read about parallel universes in Popular Science magazine. Dr. Robert scoffs while telling me the Buddhists had known it all along and I don’t doubt him for a second. Then he lies me down on the couch and rearranges my body. “Three needles” he tells me “that’s all you need”. He opens my heart charka and it burns a hell of a lot. My shirt has a new hole in it now, and he goes to get some Neosporin for what will soon be a pretty little wound on my chest. I start counting my breaths– in and out, 1, in and out, 2, etc. In the next room, his assistant, Michael, practices changing into different animals and moves things with out touching them at all. I know this because the needles tell me so. They’ve got so many answers if you just ask the right questions, if you let your body move out to the tips, let it taste the static metal tinted fresh air. I drift off into a faux-meditation, a sort of mental ebb and flow, bobbing along to the cheesy new age Shakuhatchi recordings. My arms fold quietly over my stomach.
Once, I worked in this office, mixing herbs. I was impressed when I learned that the Chinese use ground cockroaches and coral to dissolve tumors. “It tastes terrible, so you have to put a lot of licorice in” Dr. Robert told me, “but be careful, licorice really gets ladies going, if you know what I mean.” In my experience, it doesn’t.
I worked mixing herbs around the same time that my grandmother was dying of colon cancer. She was living with us in Florida because Colorado was “too damn cold”. Florida (unfortunately, since I love the winter) is never “too damn cold,” but it rains a lot, so we still have something to complain about. Every week while my grandmother lived with us, I would stay home from high school and watch this skeleton that had once bore my mother struggling to open tea bags for our afternoon sun tea. It was depressing but also sort of beautiful.
I used to take my grandmother on long walks in the afternoon. There were many reasons why we did this, but the main two were: 1, my grandmother wanted to work on her tan, and 2, it was often beautiful outside. On one of these walks, I almost pushed my grandmother’s wheel chair in front of a Ford F-350 truck because it felt like she would suffer less in death by three-ton squashing then by slowly becoming a living corpse. This was just after she had insisted we turn back towards home because a black cat had crossed our path. My grandmother was very superstitious.
I’ve kind of come back to reality, but I’m no longer in the doctor’s office. I am, in fact, now driving my car. It is now late, late, late at night and the sky is that sort of pale grey-black cloudy tropical color, which is oppressive and always feels like morning but never actually is. I’m on a highway in the middle of the Everglades (a sweet smelling swampy river which covers most of south Florida and where, as a child, I watched an alligator crush a boy just a little bit older then I was with his mousetrap quick jaws). All of a sudden I am scared. I’ve killed people tonight, and not just one. I’ve done horrible things to their bodies as they died. The police are coming, fast. They’re practically on my heels. I don’t know this for a fact, but I can feel it in my gut—it’s like that other me I dreamed about is whispering it in my ear. I’m tired as hell. It’s way fucking late.
I start toying with the idea of pulling over and letting fate decide my future. The cops will most definitely get me, and then quickly lock me up in seclusion on death row. I’ll be lonely and unhappy for the rest of my life, but I’ll be fed, I’ll be clothed, and I’ll be able to see my parents and little sister. The other available option is I can keep driving. I’ll be alone for a while, but at least there is possibility— the chance I’ll make it to Canada, or Alaska, or something. That would mean I could have a future of love affairs and happiness, a future of trying to forget what I’ve done—which right now I don’t even remember. I start to realize that I’m leaning towards giving up and it terrifies me that I’m losing faith in my own future. It terrifies me that I have so little trust in my ability to provide me with simple human happiness. I’m scared because right then, it seems so overwhelmingly hard, so pointless, and so unnecessary to live. Are the rewards really worth all the suffering? At that moment, I’d rather be caged.
I pull over to wait for my future and from the passenger seat, the dream me starts singing one of his songs– “and, despite my best intentions and against your worst inventions / I keep finding myself at family interventions / and a candle’s just a candle until it’s a bomb / so throw me up that dynamite, I’ve been here too long.” I watch the sun start to rise. It’s orangey pink, and full of fire. “There’s my new life.” I think. “That’s my new sun,” I think. And, all of a sudden it very much is.

Its own sweetness.

thetroublewith — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 22:35:06 +0000

“I want to do it to that British girl.”
That was my mantra, so to speak, that whole year. It wasn’t a very good mantra, but it was something, which is what I needed. I had been desperately searching for some sort of meaning in my life since the future became now, since they banned public television and radio, since Hollywood had taken over.
My life had become the stuff of post apocalyptic distopian awareness, but nothing exciting had actually happened. No nuclear bombs had wiped out the big-apple, no epidemic diseases had forced humanity into any sort of careful interactive subtlety, no reason to move underground yet. That British girl was more of a living figment, imagined from some interpreted experience I’d had with an exchange student who had charmed me with her wit and then promptly disappeared into a hazy glamorous Neu-American fashion scheme, full of colors and aggressive sexuality. But, those two minutes, when we had talked about the tragic meandering of the plot in some book I had been trying to read or a song I was obsessed with (I actually don’t remember), had stuck with me. It had been my only real interaction with anything tender and feminine in years.
I’ve never been a very funny person. This accounts for my terrible luck with the ladies. I think if I had been able to turn up the silly and turn on the charm, maybe I’d have been able to stop her from getting all herped up and cavorting with the scantly clad pretty-boys I’d recently seen her exploiting, full swing Neu-American rock star.
At this point, most of my old friends had acquired their fair share of S.T.D.s, which scooted them gently up into the upper echelon of society. It was because of this that I was still living in an old, semi-broken, pink house in a segregated post-resort community with a naked face and an empty ego.
This was a fair amount of time after Justin Timberlake had publicly announced that he finally had AIDS to a crowd of screaming pre-teens and post-adolescent sexy-males. Winnona Ryder was loosing it to Syphilis. Most of my friends had only been able to afford Herpes. The few that had the wit and charisma enough to end up with something stronger were drinking Champaign and Whiskey Sours atop The Standard Hotel while their Valet parked cars shined, newly waxed.
I hadn’t been born to survive in this sort of ultra charged sexual climate. Anyway, even though that British girl was pretty much my last hope, I don’t know why I held on to her as an object of affection so long after she went and got all cool. But I did it. And I did it. I did it while sitting at Starbucks, one of the few glamorous locations that still didn’t require S.T. ID or proof of infection. I did while shopping for groceries. I did during the lambent silence just before bed. I spent most of my time imagining she’d show up at one of these places, drop pretense just enough to say “hi”. I imagined that maybe she remembered what we had talked about, so I’d have to pretend I still did. There wasn’t much chance left of that.
“I hear she writes charming pop songs and drives her car aggressively.” Jasmin had said on my birthday, a windy May Day spent moping yet again, at Starbucks. He was my only compatriot left. He had a moustache, which kept him out of high-society, though he was classy enough to be whisked right up. He loved his moustache. He loved it enough that he was still stuck downstairs with me, while the boozing and schmoozing kept itself happy, up on the top floor.
“I hear she likes cats and isn’t afraid to die.” He’d continued.
“I hear she lies compulsively and reads philosophy for fun.” He was killing me softly, probably for his own entertainment.
“Do you still dream in black and white?” I asked, mostly to change the subject.
Jasmin had a rare disease that I’d actually been trying, unsuccessfully, to catch. For a while he had been physically unable to experience color in his dreams. We shared sips of coffee and sometimes I took tentative drags off of his cigarettes, just so I’d have a chance at perversely infecting myself. I thought it was poetic and sort of oddly romantic, our compulsive friendship, my life with the man with the ladies name. Oh, and I was tired of color.
I had been dreaming of nothing but my own vivid death for years.
“Mmhmm.” He seemed somewhat exasperated. “Every night.”
That’s how it had become. I was tired of bright. I was tired of excitement. I wanted Sunday service and pumpkin pie. I fulfilled small but ever-present companionship issues by finding helpless replacements.
When I was a child, my future was full of flying cars and robot wives. I’d sing myself little robot love songs during gym class. I always wanted to dance. Now, my future is now and it isn’t what I was expecting.
Oddly enough, the British girl did end up at Starbucks—imagine that! Birds were singing. There were probably butterflies. She walked right by us, pretending not to notice we existed. I looked at Jasmin, who had stopped mid sentence. He raised his coffee cup, as if to cheers me and said sweetly, “To heartaches and bad tomorrows.”
We had found my new mantra.

Eat Your Denny Denny Breakfast

thetroublewith — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 22:32:49 +0000

From the CATABLOG.

I met Bob Ladue in a recording class at CalArts, where he is currently acquiring his MFA degree in percussion performance and music composition. During the first class, while playing one of those cheesy “What’s-Your-Name-and-Where-are-you-From?” games, I discovered that Bob, who prefers his music persona be known as Denny Denny Breakfast, and I had played a number of shows together in the greater Miami-Dade area- Bob on drums for Miami’s dance-rock kings Awesome New Republic and myself on open-the-show duty as my electronic hip-hop persona, Wake. Upon hearing Bob’s first recording project for the class (a roughly 3 minute marimba centric minimal math rock epic I have not yet reencountered) I realized there was something very special about this blond, southern dude in the ripped cargo pants, down winter vest, and monogrammed off-black backpack.

Bob is a prolific composer. Actually, that might be an understatement, let me rephrase… Bob is a beyond prolific composer, and (when asked) has compared his own musical output to that of post food poisoning bowel movements. It seems that to him, the creation of pop gems is as easy as the rapid expulsion of spoiled milk, and when I, somewhat jealously probed him for advice on how to achieve that type productive diarrhea, his only tip was “I’ve been doing this a lot longer then you have”. While this might not have provided me with the secret to Bob’s musical regularity, I find it a hopeful statement, both for me and for Bob. It seems that the father or co-father (as it is in some cases) of Denny Denny Breakfast, The Great Big Oh-No, and Van Allen (with Ehvi Jena) believes that anyone so inclined and focused, could eventually be worthy of even just a tiny suckle of creative milk of magnesia from the elusive but great harmonic teat.

Bob’s music is spontaneous and intelligent. He regularly stuffs guitar-monized, lengthy solos through your ear-holes. He isn’t afraid to be funky. Sometimes he raps and sometimes he rocks. Sometimes the music is humorous (if not down right silly) but often it is not. His music is always mature – even when it doesn’t seem like it wants to be. It is rare I hear someone with the ability to infuse a simple “nah nah na nah nah nah nah” with so much meaning and sensibility.

Not to be too verbose or didactic, but Bob could be the king of indie lo-fi pop. Then again, he could be an obscure math rock drummer who plays zombie drums over distorted video game chip tunes. Alternately, he could be the new hope for Zappa influenced classical music. Bob could, very well should, and probably will be any and every one of these things.
-MH

mp3

thetroublewith — Tue, 15 May 2007 09:40:17 +0000

Here is some music I like a lot right now:

The Life Force Trio – Space Flowers/Carousel
“The Life Force Trio was conceived and founded by Carlos Nino (Ammoncontact, Build An Ark, Hu Vibrational, The Sound Of L.A. . . .) when he started production on celebrated soul-jazz singer Dwight Trible’s Love Is The Answer in Summer of 2003. Enlisting multi-instrumentalist/songwriter and fellow Aquarian Dexter Story to be his partner in the project, Nino set out to create a progressive new sound. Many have asked who the third member of the trio is and Nino’s answer is always the same, ‘the third member is floating.’”– Plug Research Records

Caural – Summer on Cassette

“Better known as Caural, Chicago bred musician Zachary Mastoon has established a production voice that bridges cutting edge electronics with left-field hip-hop. His releases for Chocolate Industries and expert remix work for a number of cutting edge indie labels bend beat-based Eastern, Western, live, and electronic music to his own rules. His elaborate compositions are built from the drums up, adding tiny samples of disjointed sounds and live instruments to create compositions that are both structured and organic. An accomplished performer, Caural utilizes drum and music triggers, turntables, samplers, and a sea of effects to recreate his compositions live. The tight beats, deliberate sequencing, heavy bass, and subtle jazz touches that are instrumental to his work are similar to those of Four Tet, Prefuse 73, and Daedelus, but distinct enough to have established Caural as a producer with a signature sound.” — Mush Records

Tycho – Sunrise Projector (Nautilis Remix)
“His name is Skyler McGlothlin and he’s from Texas. His music kicks. I first heard his stuff on the Leafcutter John remix competition and was pretty impressed. His first release is due any minute on Systorm and I have high hopes for him. You may have heard his remix of Coldcut on the b-side of re:volution 7″ which was a great piece of funk, or his bogdan remix, whatever. “– Planet Mu Records.

max patch progress: computer generated glitch-hop

thetroublewith — Tue, 15 May 2007 00:29:48 +0000

Here is how I sound

thetroublewith — Fri, 11 May 2007 00:49:16 +0000

I’m a happy puppy. Yes ma’am, I’m a goofy gus. I like to puppy around with my big floppy feet and woof woof at birds and lizards. I like lizards because they are wiggly and don’t do that thing birds do. Birds do that thing where they laugh at you while you try to kill them because they think you’ll never get them. “We fly” they say, as if I couldn’t do that if I ran fast fast. Soon, I’ll fly with some birds and crunch crunch crunch them with my happy mouth. I really like crunch. Dee-licious, yum yum yum, I like that. Lizards are fast, but I am fast fast. I like how lizards pop and squiggle. I think a bird would crunch crunch better though. Lizards are totally small. I’m so big. lizards see me– how big I am– and they are freaking out and trying to run fast fast.

interesting:

thetroublewith — Tue, 08 May 2007 02:03:42 +0000

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.05/laptop.html?pg=2