3:33 are you kidding me?

There was a band once, that I played bass in. The singer wrote this song that shared the title of this entry. He was up at some apartment that was either full of women, men, or both. He looked at the clock and couldn't believe the time.

This was almost 10 years ago.

I look at the time now and don't even think twice. I'm drunk or high or both. I'm working on finding a bed, finding a couch, or finding my own. Or either. I'm telling stories of lost friends, him, lost ways, mine, and lost hopes, ours.

The clock on the bookshelf is counting away my heartbeats; it's inching me closer to death. I leave and the counting stops. It moves to the next one in the room. Or the bookcase goes to a new apartment, a new room, a new hall. And that things holds books I've never read, from people I will never know, but leaves spots for the books that you gave back.

Those books sit on my counter and I have no space for them; I have no bookcase. But I'll keep them, and find a spot for them.

I got a new bookcase today.

I hope she has room for my books, my life, my shit, and me.

1225 or 7994

I used to fuck this guy. We met outside of this club a mutual friend was dancing at. He had an Altoids tin full of various pills. He told me to take what I wanted; I only took one. I was pretty fucked up on vodka sodas and key bumps. I remember I wouldn't shut up about how I wanted to be a writer. He just listened. At the end of the night we exchanged email address so I could send him some work. Two days later he made me breakfast in bed.

I had just gotten out of this pretty intense thing that I was way to conservative in expressing my opinions about and led to me just getting destroyed. In hindsight I probably overreacted, jumping from barstool to stall to cab to bed, but it was the only thing that felt right. Sometimes I would be floating out of my body, watching and trying to figure out what exactly was happening in these dark corners I was spending so much time. This guy tried his best to pull me out of it. And he did pretty well. I still had some intense self destructive tendencies that would come out. There was a night in his apartment when I cut my feet up pretty bad walking on some wine glasses I had broken in an argument. I bled and bled on his hardwood floor while he begged me to let him help me. I just kept drinking vodka.

He was no boy scout either. He always had pills. All sort of things. Some nights we would pick a color pill based on how well it matched what I was wearing and we'd snort as many of them as we could. Sometimes my entire face would go numb and we would fuck and take shots of irish whiskey till I blacked out or wasn't numb.

And I heard about some of the things he did when I wasn't around. There were always whispers about one of his exes and what they did together when he was supposed to be working. After the third or fourth time I heard this I took one of his friends home to show him that I wasn't waiting around, that I didn't need him.

But I did. I wouldn't hear from him for a day or two and be convinced he was finally gone. Someone else would get his breakfasts. Someone else would get his text messages. Someone else would get him. I would sit around my place with a couple bottles of wine and whatever sad bastard music I could find and just fucking cry.

In the morning he would always show up. Everything was fine. There was work. Or a friend needed him. Or he got to drunk at happy hour after work and took a cab home and left his phone at the bar. I believed him every time.

Until the last time.

He didn't come over.

He didn't give a reason.

He didn't call.

He was gone.

I spent two weeks stuck in my apartment. I would go out for fruit and wine. I had a friend drop off pills. I broke all my light bulbs. I threw out the shirts he had left over. I took bath after bath after bath. I watched war movies and cried the whole time.

Then one morning it hit me. He was just a fuck. He gave me drugs and booze. He bought me dinner. He'd say nice things. But I wasn't the only one. I knew that. So I stopped caring. I stopped giving two shits about running into him, hearing about him at bars or seeing him move on.

That night I went back out. I made out with some nameless stranger in a corner booth. I bought myself shots. I danced with some friends. And I went home alone.

The few times I bother telling time

I know when it is late. I can feel it in my heart.
I know when it is early. I can feel it behind my eyes.

I don't really need a clock. It helps me get to work on time. And it helps me do other things that are dependent on that.

But the only time I look at the time these days are when I'm waiting to hear from you.

I know you are asleep.
Or you are at a party.
Or work is running late.
Or your car broke down.
Or it is your brother's birthday.
Or you are seeing your ex.
Or you are making a three point turn in a grocery parking lot.
Or you are on your way to see your new home.
Or you are the third car in a funeral procession.
Or you are sitting outside.
Or you are flying over more states then I have stepped foot in.
Or you are taking baby steps to destroy my heart.
Or you are reading this and might be sad that this is what always runs through my mind.
Or you are laying next to me, and that fucking sun is rising too quick.

I still check the time.

Just for you.

When you could be here, you are slipping away...

Football season is almost over. That has to do with this, and it has to do with nothing. I have a heart full of things to say, a mouth full of things to discuss, a soul full of things to be ashamed of, but today is not those day. Today is the day for this...

I passed a funeral procession today. Well, almost.

The Peppers I spend my time these days is a lot like the Pepper's I used to spend my time. The one where I complained about facial hair and bosses and I made mixes to loose my job to. They are remarkably similar, at least in lay out.

Today, just before I got out, the small part of the restaurant was filled with people. They all knew each other, or at least knew of each other. And they all wore black.

There are specifics to this that I do not know. There are rumors about these people that I have heard, but this is neither the time or place to talk about why they were sitting together in an awkward combination at the Pepper's that employs me. I just know that, for the few hours on this Saturday, before the end of football season, they were united by something given to them by a man. He might have been a boy, he might have been a giant. We are all of these things at various times. But whatever this man was: boy, god, fuck-up, lover, cousin or friend; these people all thought it best to remember him on this Saturday. And I too, will remember him, in my own way.

I have been fortunate in not knowing the sting of death, personally, in these years I am stringing together. I feel like I have mentioned this before, in this place, but I am not sure. But this is what I have, for him, the gentlemen who probably left us too soon. The fucked up thing is that we don't know if it was too soon or too late...

30th street east was very close to the house I grew up in. On that street sat two landmarks that I have been thinking about all day, before the bad news, before the funeral, before I got out of bed. They were both places of death. Maybe someone died there, I am not sure, but they were dead. I knew this at seven, when I first walked through the desert to them, to figure out their geography, to make up a history that would suit them, now that they were almost gone. One was a large concrete silo/fireplace and some woodwork. It had to be a house, no, a home. There was a father, he worked to hard, and a mother, who loved to much, and one day it collapsed under its own weight. The same thing happened to my parents, but our house stood up, I saw it the other day. It freaked me out. The other place had a concrete pool that I used to try to skateboard in. There were problems everywhere. One, I was a horrible skateboarder. Two, there was dirt everywhere, and no lip. Some kid told me once that was where they kept their water, they didn't have a well. That seemed insane to me. Evaporation in the desert would have made any effort worthless. I guess it doesn't matter now. Why?

All of those places got torn down. The two I mentioned, the rest I didn't; they are all gone. They got replaced by track homes in the real estate boom. We all know that went bust, now those homes sit empty, and the places of desert life before it was a life are gone. No kid is going to wander out and find the remenants of a home from 90 years previous. Not like I did, but what is the actual difference. The places I held dear didn't mean to me what they meant to the people who lived in my favorite places to visit, and neither my home to them.

There was some point after high school, but before I became the person that I am most days of the week, that my father was in a funeral. It was a guy he worked with. The name escapes me, if I even knew it before he passed, but he is dead. My dad picked me up for something, I couldn't even tell you if I had to, I don't remember what it was. But in the car, a car I would later drive into the ground and get 600 dollars from the state from, was still a sticker in the window that said "procession". It was very strange to me that people had decided that mass producing a sticker for a funeral procession would be a great way to make money, but they did, and they did. This story doesn't seem to make much sense right now, but let me try to tie this all together...

Death doesn't show his face in my life that often. That makes me happy. But everything seems to fall to commerce. I was amazed at the number of people who showed up for this man's funeral. I am sure there were more than who showed up to Peppers, but they all seemed to care. And I think they all cried.

And that is all I want.

A lot of tear stained faces.

Because they will take EVERYTHING else away from us.

Everything.

The second day of school

The second day of school had exactly 27 minutes of class.

I've met three of my four professors so far. It is going to be the semester of the drunk.

• One talks about getting drunk.
• One sounds like and looks drunk.
• One has the I haven't had a drink yet shakes.

It is going to be a good semester.
I think I am going to fit right in.

the one about ripping of titles of friends episodes

Isn't that how they used to title episodes of friends? "The one about (insert thing that probably isn't very funny, or explain much about the episode, so if you were looking through an online database of Friends episodes and you wanted to watch your favorite episode, which happened entirely in the coffee shop, and looked for "the one about not leaving the coffee shop" but it was actually called "the one where Nietzsche has nothing on Ross" you would be totally fucked, which would make you hate that episode and in turn hate Friends.)"

Right?

That's how they did it, isn't it?

Is Friends secretly responsible for my inability to name song titles appropriately?

Something I was kind of thinking about. I'm working on starting this story idea I have in my head. It might be too long though. So, I don't know, I'll figure it out.


At some point when I was taking English 102 about, fuck, I don't know, 7 years ago, I was obsessed with making this little short film. All it was about was this women smoking cigarettes while this guy walked out of the bathroom in a towel, put on his clothes, and left without saying good bye. He did open to door after leaving to say "Oh, you left your lights on" and then it faded to black. I wanted the girl to be a bleach blond with lots of roots and lipstick in quantities to match. A girl who was in my English 102 class could have played the woman perfectly. She also had an extremely sexy/mostly cute Texan accent. Too bad all she did in the film was smoke a cigarette. I also wanted her to be sitting on a bed with lots of shitty wood paneling on the walls. The apartments I live in have that paneling, well, not my apartment, but most of the others, and I walked past an open window today and saw it and it suddenly reminded me of that film I wanted to make.

I'm curious as to what the story was behind that film. It showed up fully developed one day. Just shit itself into my brain. I'm sure there is some exciting back story having to do with a woman who broke my heart, but I don't know what that is, not anymore.

I'm going to get back to starting that story I have bouncing around in my head. Have a good fathers day.

P.S. - I'm going to major in creative writing at CSUN. It's is going to go swimmingly.

monday morning, 1:46 am

I'm listening to old mixes, looking at old photos. thinking old thoughts, waiting for phone calls that I didn't even know I was waiting for. I may sound sad, but I am really happy. I'm just putting x's on calendars for the next 5 days. It feels right to say it, life is good.

our (almost)hero returns from abroad

I've been back in California a few days. Halloween came and went with much less then a mild yawn. Spending four days in a row seeing some of the best bands ever, drinking some of the best beer and singing and shouting with some of your best friends will make you forget about halloween.


So, about this announcement. Yes, I decided where I am moving to. I am very excited. Very. Excited. I'm looking forward to not driving and going to more shows and not slanging peppers' margaritas and hopefully sitting next to a fire place.

Chicago, here I come.

My expected departure date from California is December 23rd. Mark your calenders.

I am walking to the liquor store. We will speak again soon.

phil muthafuckin collins

Phil Collins watched a man drown, right? Actually, I'm pretty sure he didn't. I just needed a title...

I've never seen anyone drown. I've seen some people almost drown. I've almost drown myself. Not intentionally. I'm just not very skilled in the art of floating.

But I think I am watching a friend or two drown, figuratively.

Someone is spending most nights in a home that doesn't want them as much as they don't want it. I can see it in their eyes. Arms flailing in a see of money, family and youthful ambition.

Someone has a hard time saying what they are feeling, if there is anything left there anymore. I can see them running and running, talking out of both sides of their mouths, being torn in 7 directions of happiness, and getting none.

Someone is burning their bridges and turning off the porch lights. The inside lights are off too. No one is home, they don't want you to know they wished you still showed up unannounced.

Someone struggles with loyalty to people with faces and names to loyalty to faceless names.

Me?

I'm a little bit of all of them.