i'm · here

"I know all of his music but Donuts means the most, because I was there. We had our schedules in the hospital and we’d rotate it around dialysis. It was hard because we’d have to do stuff in the wee hours of the night, with stacks of crates littering the room. We worked double-time and the doctor’s were worried but they ultimately knew that it was necessary to keep his spirits up. It was wonderful to be a part of and it’s special to me. I didn’t even understand the way he arranged things at first. I hadn’t given thought to the arrangement, with the 'last song of the night.’ He knew his time was winding down and that album was his way of letting you know. It’s like being taken along for a ride. Dilla would always say, ‘are you ready for a ride,’ and that was what he felt with that album." (www.passionweiss.com)

the thought of he and his mom working on an album together in the wee hours of a sleeping hospital, her digging through crates for him while he pieces it together? is so funny and strange and endearing and wondrous to me.

"I think Ronald Reagan was the best President of my lifetime."

--Johnny Ramone

got in showered jumped in the car and went to my cousin's rehearsal dinner. tomorrow, meisa, my best friend of childhood, gets married. pretty exciting. i need to get a shirt tomorrow though, to go with my new pimp ass suit. on sunday head to nyc to be followed by watching bomb ass karen finneyfrock deliver a bomb ass feature on monday night at bar 13, featuring at the nyc east coast invitational hosted by urbana at the bowery poetry club on tuesday, and then heading off to munich germany on wednesday night to perform at a bertolt brecht festival (coincidentally the playwright that consumed my life for many a year as i tried to write (or didn't try to write) my master's thesis paper on my performance as azdak in his play the caucasian chalk circle, truly an amazing piece of storytelling. in between hope to see some folks in nyc over the next few days, but if not will be back there on the 21st to spend a week there before heading out to austin followed by madison, wi for the national poetry slam. busy busy.

also just learned my former professor barbara will be in new york this weekend, i really hope i get to see her, that's be rad.

but for now sleep.

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Shannon Sails on Calm Waters

I just wanted to let you all know that Shannon passed away this morning in her sleep. Arrangements are being made for a memorial service at St. Michael's Episcopal Church. As soon as I know the details I will let you know.

Thank you for all of your heart-felt support, encouragement and prayers. Sheila, as you might imagine, is completely devastated as are her parents who are with her in Florida. She is going to need all of our help, love, hugs, and spirit in the coming days. I'll keep you advised.

**********************************
"My drifting ship
I still believe in anchors
my heart
I still believe in God."

-- Shannon Leigh

juno, while i still like it, i still also feel the same problems i had with it before: the overly smartness of parts of it isn't as bad as the first time, but how the characters of mark and vanessa are dealt with is at times frustrating. i feel a lot of over hub bub was made for it, i'm happy for it though.
i do feel that it falls into this new trend of almost pop indie flicks. starting with me and you and everyone we know, there's been a trend of small films that are simple, beautifully shot, funny but filled with pathos, and attempt to carve a bit of humanity into the film market. which i think is awesome, but it also feels like the movies only go so far. beautiful films have been made for decades, but mass audiences don't want to watch them, but these little movies like juno and little miss sunshine pop up with something different then the usual hollywood fanfare but is still coated with some sugar to make the medicine go down. that's why they feel almost poppy. it's like indie pop music. new deathcab for cutie compared to older deathcab for cutie. the shins instead of modest mouse i guess. though all this sounds more cynical then i intend it to and i love all three of those bands (or most of what they've done) and i enjoyed all three of those films i mentioned. i guess more what i have a problem with is that if i take any of the above mentioned films and tell someone i don't love them, i'm the idiot. when in fact, not to sound haughty but, i’ve experienced films that are fuller.

the group gnarls barkley is good but the biggest thing i heard when they came out was how different it was then anything else being done. but taking the sound of hip hop and transposing it with other genres is both the music that i’ve been waist deep in experimenting with for the past five years and the sounds of many other artists i’ve heard do it more affectively than cee-lo and dangermouse, and no one was talking about how much more incredible the work that either of them was doing before. audiences are impressed with what is handed to them and if it’s new and amazing for them then they assume that that must be the case for everyone else around them, when in fact that isn't always the case.

i don't like hummus. i never have. chances are never will. something about its texture is simply gross to me. however, in 2001 when westerners discovered pita bread with hummus, all of sudden i was looked in strange disbelief for not liking something that since it was suddenly introduced to a larger body of people, i must naturally like it as well. and it's one level of ignorance to dismiss another person's opinion when it's different from one's own, but a whole other level of stupidity to dismiss their intelligence because you believe they are simply not open to new things. hummus was not new to me. true it was introduced to me when i was a lot less forgiving with food, but i'm not sheltered, nor am i an idiot that can't think for himself. if i have problems with a film, it's not because most everyone doesn't; it's because there are issues with it's story and how the story is told that i feel could have been made better.

i don't like peanut sauce either.

apparently danny mcbride appeared as fred simmons on an episode of conan o'brian with will ferrell, completely in character and being a complete asshole-jerk-douchbag that sucks at taekwondo, confusing many the populace as to whether this was a bit or not. this was in february. how this alluded my nerd sense--i don't know. but it did. and any clip of it on youtube has long since been pulled.

if anyone knows where to see a clip of said episode, or comes across it in their internet travelings, would they please contact me immediately? this is of the utmost importance.

wanted to watch 2001

there was some romantic comedy with paul rudd and michelle pheiffer and i wanted to watch the paul rudd parts but it looked like michelle pheiffer had like this angel imaginary friend played by tracy ullman, seemed lame

anyway
got down a young man named chung was waiting for me and we hopped on the bus to head to the city. passed the hotel i stayed in when i had my seven hour layover en route to china 5 years ago. there's a casino on it now. i spent that night jet lagged without sleep and watching Korean television and that fantasy movie with the kid and the martial arts kangaroos.

got to the hotel around 11pm didn't sleep much. i'm immediately reminded of my trip to china. a lot of hustle and bustle and again greeted with an alphabet carrying no recognition for me. though more english here.

*for more see following post

and who was it that decided that all noir films made after the film noir era ended. would have a score based on the notes of the slow trumpet. jazz does not necessarily equate 1930-40s crime. and when are filmmakers going to learn that if you want to make a section of your movie look like it was shot on old shitty film, then SHOOT IT ON OLD SHITTY FILM.

don't covert it to black and white and add grainy scratched-up-negative special effects to it.

(and as a side note of bitching over idiotic practices made by contemporary idiot filmmakers, if you don't shoot for slow motion then don't convert it to such. strobe affect does not make your movie look cool, it makes if look like intro to video.)

Mr. Brian DePalma. please cut melodrama off of your palette and learn to use a storytelling effect other than copious amounts of slow motion and over the top scoring.

The Spirit and the Soul
BY JACK GILBERT

It should have been the family that lasted.
Should have been my sister and my peasant mother.
But it was not. They were the affection,
not the journey. It could have been my father,
but he died too soon. Gelmetti and Gregg
and Nogami lasted. It was the newness of me,
and the newness after that, and newness again.
It was the important love and the serious lust.
It was Pittsburgh that lasted. The iron and fog
and sooty brick houses. Not Aunt Mince and Pearl,
but the black-and-white winters with their girth
and geological length of cold. Streets ripped
apart by ice and emerging like wounded beasts when
the snow finally left in April. Freight trains
with their steam locomotives working at night.
Summers the size of crusades. When I was a boy,
I saw downtown a large camera standing in front
of the William Pitt Hotel or pointed at Kaufmann’s
Department Store. Usually around midnight,
but the people still going by. The camera set
slow enough that cars and people left no trace.
The crowds in Rome and Tokyo and Manhattan
did not last. But the empty streets of Perugia,
my two bowls of bean soup on Kos, and Pimpaporn
Charionpanith lasted. The plain nakedness of Anna
in Denmark remains in me forever. The wet lilacs
on Highland Avenue when I was fourteen. Carrying
Michiko dead in my arms. It is not about the spirit.
The spirit dances, comes and goes. But the soul
is nailed to us like lentils and fatty bacon lodged
under the ribs. What lasted is what the soul ate.
The way a child knows the world by putting it
part by part into his mouth. As I tried to gnaw
my way into the Lord, working to put my heart
against that heart. Lying in the wheat at night,
letting the rain after all the dry months have me.