maybe it’s true- maybe i just “think too much” and maybe “thinking too much” isn’t as preposterous an assessment as i initially thought. going into today, faced with the task (”task” is too strong a word) of making new years party mix tapes, i fretted about order and selection. but ultimately, who cares that much?, and this attitude is instrumental in the creation of a good mix tape. i mean, not always, but for me anyway. probably. well, we’ll see when abba “mama mia” comes up. i made two tapes, each with dancey dance parts, finger pointy parts, and almost all massive hits. the process of selection was pretty intuitive. there is a slow dance in thai (by za za, the best popband ever sponsered by a soymilk company), and a fist-pounding strutter in okinawan (by shoukichi kina, the best… uh… okinawan fist-pounding-strutter-music-maker). if you put “it’s raining men” on a mix tape, i say you’re doing pretty good. if you put “pop goes the world” on a mix tape, i say your doing great. yesterday i had a lot of things on my mind- complicated things. today, as i believe i have proven conclusively, i’m doing pretty great. incidentally i tried to put only positive songs on. instead of buzzcocks “what do i get?“, i went with buzzcocks “i don’t mind” (which is, in its way, positive). i didn’t put on “superfreak”, which i felt presented a world view i wasn’t fond of. also, i didn’t want people rapping “u can’t touch this” over the top of it. true.

beth dumpsters a goat cheese pizza (among other items both savory and not) and i eat the brunt of it. holmes alerts me to an italian cartoon (l’uomo tigre) based on a japanese manga (tiger mask) about a wrestler who fights, amongst other foes, the Dracula (who appears several times throughout the series, each time in the guise of a different pro wrestler). i work myself up into a nigh-frenzy making a crucial dance mix tape. still, amongst these birdsongs and passing trunk bumps there is always that ubiquitous refrigerator buzzing.

ok, perhaps this is a mite awkward, but i know where the party is in worcester. any worcester heads who don’t know where the party is (and naturally i’m talking about the new year’s party, whose theme is a baby kicking an old man in the butt) e mail me, or leave a message on the fun line with a call back number (insert plug for the fun line here). incidentally, i’m amking the mix tapes for this party, so if you have a song request, get it in quick fast. and sadly, i cannot find the ghostbusters theme.

one person who is unfortunately not coming to the party is number-one-fan-in-contention lizzy may, who appears in this week’s womag to say that she will be streaking through elm park at the stroke of midnight. hooray! lizzy, i stopped by the art supply store some weeks ago to drop off some zines and stuff, only to find that you had been laid off. so boo that.

in other new year’s notes, the synchomaids will be performing this year, at 4:30 and 5:30 at the ymca, featuring heather the dairy haus girl.

oh man. this hreat web archive allows you to search through old web pages. it has lots of old stuff. old = mid-nineties. is 6 years the fastest time for something to become “quaint”? anyway, it has old issues of popshack magazine, a no-longer existant e-rag i wrote for (under several pseudonyms), that willy shakes edited. so drink some jolt cola, put on ok computer, and settle in to some not-super-early-but-pretty-early-internet nostalgia.

ok, i just posted a huge xmas wrap-up that got erased, so you, the reader, lose (as i also lose). oh well. i did have a tolerable nice christmas thank you. as in recent years, i gave to my mom a list of specific cds i want, and stores in which to get them. this year i had her support jelly’s on park ave, the new store that looks like a prison. i recieved the awesome nuggets comp, the first neu! cd (bravo astralwerks for this great re-ish), and the unbelievable albert ayler live in greenwich village double-disk. yow! my mother took a page from my book and so recieved an electric staple gun and 3/8 inch staples. other holiday notes- congradulations go out to nicky revs’ dad s mpaul and stepmom kathy who had a little baby girl some weeks ago (and, indeed, stil have her). i went to see her and nick’s dad let me hold her (and eat cookies). it’s true- stuffed animals are cute, and kittens are adorable, but babies are (in the words of chris willy mays hayes) some other shit. xmas eve day me and nicky screenprinted some special baby duds for her that say “life is ecstatic intercourse between destruction and creation” on the back, with a picture of a girl smashing a cop car windshield with a sledgehammer. in the field of “best gift for an under-one-year-old”, let this be noted as best of the modern age.

i went to see garrison today at the lucky dog. i don’t want to say this, because lots of my friends couldn’t go (on account of it being a 21+ affair) but it was a great show. afterwards, people got invited over my house. i show up at my house, and there is a keg of beer as well (which had been delivered from another party, somewhat mysteriously). this is the tough part of communal living- we did not have consensus to have a party tonight. someone is going to be mad. oh well. i didn’t invite these people.

ed mcnamara of garrison fame is such a great guy. sometimes ed comes to town and i’m afraid to see him- afraid to tell him that i’m not living up to my potential. he always tells me: don’t let the worcester mentality drag you down- worcester has a lot of energy you can use, but you have to stay focused. i feel like ed really has a good understanding of worcester. but it’s hard for me to describe while i’m here, and honestly i don’t anticipate leaving soon.

the new garrison album is great. it’s called “be a criminal”, and that’s
what it’s about- being a criminal. not in a mechanics way (ie, not “how to
hot-wire a car”), but in a psychological way (ie “focus focus focus”,
“commit commit commit”, “don’t feel bad”, “accept what you’ve done, accept
who you are”). it’s a gorgeous sentiment, and well executed. their href="http://www.garrison-kills.com">website has pictures of charlie
chaplin and
henry kissinger. there are pictures of other criminals too, but those two run the spectrum of criminality, as far as i’m concerned. you can buy the album at any store worth its salt (and many that are not), but it probably won’t be on colored vinyl, the way mine is. ha!

today (thursday) was the fourth day of consecutive wakings by non-message-leaving answering machine callers. people! the sooner i get this project done the sooner i put song and actual fun stuff up! hmm. perhaps i should get people used to calling the fun line first, then stick them with the semi-interactive bit.

tonight, as a going-away for go go vet beth tubb (the go go is my house where i live, bt is moving out to urbana IL), we had an around the world party. my room had honky tonk piano music, live ukulele action, and the peppermint patty shea, a drink made of peppermint schnapps and chocolate soy milk. i haven’t drank booze-ahol in several months- i’m making it sacred. i feel i am successful in this actiona dn this action is itself successful. tonight was lots of fun. lots of sing alongs. again: if you get drunk with your friends and don’t sing songs, who needs you? not me. tonight i broke out the long-broken booze rules #2 and #3: only drinking drinks containing chocolate milk, and only drinking while wearing the drinking shirt (and if i’m wearing the shirt by gum i’m a-drinkin’). the shirt is a bootleg “berrry the bears” super bowl xx t w/ red ringer sleeves & collar.

prevoius to the party, me and bt went to the little store, where i scored
the album (w/ insert) by rosemary brown, the psychic musician who channeled beethoven liszt, chopin, schubert, brahms, greig and debussey, and through whom they alledgedly wrote new pieces from beyond the veil. i gotta say it was a good day.

to minimize the likelihood of mistaping a marx brothers movie, i have had three different agents tape a different night’s worth of films. still i feel almost certain that on all of them the tape speed setting was wrong. let this be characteristic of my recent unease.

for the third consecutive day i have woken up to someone calling the fun
line, but not leaving a message. let this too be characteristic of my
recent unease. (steve says i haven’t made the phone line
“sexy” enough. well, that’s possible. we’ll see what we can
do. tomorrow.)

today i went over bob’s house to play with his new rc car track (not the
radio control kind, the kind with the metal tracks, and the stiff wire
ribbon on the underside of the car itself). bob wasn’t home, nor was
anyone. with complete awareness that, if bob was to be found entertaining
visitors over this his college break he could have his college housing
revoked, i broke in, played with his toys, hardboiled some eggs (three
eggs) and ate them. also, i washed a whole mess of dirty dishes. let this
not be characteristic of my recent unease, but let it stand as a testament
to life’s ongoing going on. i should add that i was not alone in this
whole b&e scheme and that it was totally worth it- the car racing thing is
super fun ($10 at spag’s i’m told), and the eggs hit the spot (i rarely
get an egg for my
breakfast
even though my work demands infinite eggs to come to birth in
eternity. -allen ginsburg, “death to van gogh’s ear”).

although the date stamp says wednesday, when i say “today”, i mean “tuesday”. ditto for yesterday’s entry (which was not tuesday’s but monday’s). it is two thirty as i write this.

today me and jess and dan and ants mconalog watched horsefeathers, duck soup and night at the opera, and ate candy. the marx brothers are so important to me.

today i finished work on the brion gysin dream machine (undulating mandalas of pure light ahoy!) and made batch number two of my quite-good homemade lemon ginger soda. the secret ingredient (shh!) is this vitamin c supplement powder called “c salts” that somebody dumpstered, which fizzes when added to water (and independantly tastes like metal shit). my special soda has 1666% of your vitamin c for the day, and two big tablespoons of turbinado sugar. woo hoo! so long tired feelings!

dan’s friend rob arrived for a few day visit last night. rob is a fun guy and a great musician but the main reason i mention him here is that i gave him the fine nickname of Ants McOnalog.

if you had something that you thought about all the time and then you started having dreams about it too, and the dreams were somewhat pleasant, you’d think it a good thing, right? well, it’s not. it’s really really not. in the words of the poet, “just as old trees must have creepers and rocks must have moss, [people] must have obsessions.”, but harrison jack schmidt! let me catch my breath once in a while! jeremy would tell me that this is fine and dandy becasue after all everything (yes, everything) is just a dream anyway, but i counter (nb: i am aware that i am responding defensively to fabricated statements): jer, if the world’s such a dream, why can’t you fly? hmmph. i feel like odysseus in that it’s as if i’m being toyed with by multiple sets of gods with different motives. i feel that i am unlike odysseus in that i am resolved not to be a pig headed jerk alpha hero type. or i don’t know, maybe that’s my downfall right there. incidentally i was roused from my slumber to the familiar strains of “kick out the jams” being played into the fujichia answering machine (which, incidentally, is doing a brisk business, for which i’m quite pleased).

tonight turner classic movies begins its marx brothers marathon (arguably a marathon). jess- you volunteered your tv for this a few weeks ago, and as believe i have proven, i am not the sort to forget.

holmes wilson, currently in italy, will be back in good worcestertown soon (the 22nd i hear). holmes, i hate to rain on your potatos, but garrison is playing the lucky dog on the 21st. maybe there’s a xmas eve show too, but i haven’t heard anything about it. they’re playing in boston in early january though (sez bob of phil), so it’s not a total wash. but come on, boston? i mean, worcester. boston?
incidentally some of my friends are going abroad soon (nb: some already are broads). so long ben, kendra, patricia. i expect full reports, with maps & graphs & plastic covers.