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Dolores Park, San Francisco, 3.23.07

Today was the kind of day that exists for the sole purpose of changing everything. Words only indulge approximations, plagiarizing the experience, threatening to abduct its residence. Tonight, I am an unsentimental believer. I am resucitated. I am in unanimty. I am at home.

This is the trailer for the Showtime transfer of NPR's incomporably brilliant radio program "This American Life". The thought struck me originally as completely impossible and atrocious. But watching this clip has converted me into a believer that this could possibly turn out to be, like, the best thing ever.

And it's THAT GIRL FROM THE WEINER CIRCLE!!!! (Anyone from Chicago will know what I'm talking about.)

--

EDIT: Sorry that I haven't actually posted substantial update these days. Things in my life have been all-consuming and in various states of metamorphasis. Trust me. Wait for a later date. There will be plenty to tell.

1. When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was the first thing you thought?
"Young alcoholics need the sun."

2. How much cash do you have on you?
Probably around $15-20.

3. What's a word that rhymes with "DOOR?"
Oriental sore.

4. Favorite planet?
Mars -- planet of fire and fertility.

5. Who is the 4th person on your missed call list on your cell phone?
Forrest, sometime earlier yesterday morning.

6. What is your favorite ring on your phone?
"Black Satin" by Miles Davis.

7. What shirt are you wearing?
Grey/red polyester zip-up from the bargain bin at Sears.

8. Do you "label" yourself?
I deconstruct. Labels would make life easier, though. So would Jesus.

9. Name the brand of your shoes you're currently wearing?
No shoes! No pants either!

10. Bright or Dark Room?
Bright.

11. What do you think about the person who took this survey before you?
Jenny is always first place.

13. What were you doing at midnight last night?
Actually? Sleeping. I know. Wow.

14. What did your last text message you received on your cell say?
"Your GMail Code is: 253@$%"

15. Where is your nearest 7-11?
Somewhere on Factoria Boulevard.

16. What's a word that you say a lot?
More like a concessive repair. I mean is used pretty frequently.

17. Who told you he/she loved you last?
Probably my mother.

18. Last furry thing you touched?
Bubba, my black pomeranian.

19. How many drugs have you done in the last three days?
None, unless you count certain medications.

20. How many rolls of film do you need developed?
I don't take pictures. I rely on theoretical memory.

21. Favorite age you have been so far?
Twenty.

22. Your worst enemy?
El Duce/The Prince of Panic/Me, Myself and I.

23. What is your current desktop picture?
A Dystopian sex propaganda from second world war.

24. What was the last thing you said to someone?
"I can't believe it's not butter. No, I really can't believe it's not butter."

25. If you had to choose between a million bucks or to be able to fly what would it be?
I'd blow through million dollars so fast that Lindsay Lohan would shit herself. Flying would definitely be convinient. I really can't handle sitting in traffic.

26. Do you like someone?
Not at the moment, unfortunately.

27. The last song you listened to?
"Is You Is Or Isn't You My Baby" by Anita O'Day

Answering to the Countdown

2006 = Waking up from the nightmare that was 2005. It took awhile, but the light is back on. And I have faith in 2007. Let's go.

TOP 10 FILMS
1) House of Sand
2) Dreamgirls
3) Pan's Labyrinth
4) Volver
5) Little Miss Sunshine
6) Shortbus
7) Cache
8) Borat
9) Children of Men / V for Vendetta
10) Stranger Than Fiction

TOP 10 ALBUMS
1) Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury
2) Bob Dylan - Modern Times
3) Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere
4) Yo La Tengo - I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass
5) Viva Voce - Get Yr Blood Sucked Out
6) Original Soundtrack to "Dreamgirls"
7) The Knife - Self-Titled
8) The Twilight Singers - Powder Burns
9) Asobi Sesku - Citrus
10) The Decemberists - The Crane Wife 3

TOP 10 MOMENTS
1) Doing the Locomotion Under the Brooklyn Bridge at Dusk
2) My Last Night In Chicago With Adam / Protest At Millenium Park
3) Opera Date With The Window Dresser
4) 22nd Birthday Dinner in New York
5) Blaring Trumpet Out of Front Window of Car on Clark St.
6) Singing "Lust for Life" At Howl at the Moon
7) Taking Down The Parking Lot Gate With Bare Hands At 4 AM
8) Winning $150 Singing Kareoke At Louie's Pub
9) Acid Trip On Alkai Beach
10) Caught By The Cops With My Pants Down On Halloween

NEW YEARS RESOLUTION
Greatly reduce my use of the word like.

*

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

XO,

Trystan

Young@Heart sing Sonic Youth's "Schizophrenia".

The Please Catalogue, December 2006

I’M READING...


Watchmen
by Alan Moore


I Feel Bad About My Neck
by Nora Ephron


Underground
by Haruki Murakami


Special Topics In Calamity Physics
by Marisha Pessl


I’M LISTENING TO...


Clipse
Hell Hath No Fury


Camille Saint-Saents
Carnival des Animaux


The Knife
Deep Cuts



I’M WATCHING...



Strangers With Candy


Lady Vengeance


Army of Shadows

Calling Collect from the Holiday Inn

UN. The weather currently being experienced in Seattle is like one of those amazing pie pranks where you get hit with the first, laugh, get hit with another, laugh some more, then start wondering what you did to get the person mad at you. It has long passed the realm of being absolutely hilarious, and now all anyone really wants out of life is to get home without stitches, eat greasy Oriental leftovers and watch Lo-Definition episodes of ‘Lost’. I’m speaking only for myself, of course – although I hope not. I can’t do this anymore. Sit here like some paraplegic in some retirement community far from the baits of civilization. I don’t have four-wheel drive and I need to get down my fucking hill.

DEUX. Due to Thanksgiving, the weather psychoses and the instructor’s perpetual series of ‘girl troubles’, the original schedule for bartending school has been nipped-and-tucked to the point where I don’t know which day is Christmas. (Just for the record, I wouldn't in any other circumstance either) Anyhow, I should have my certificate in the next two weeks. I still haven’t decided what kind of bartender I should be. I mean, the people who make the best tips tend to have very unambiguous personas like ‘Rob the Hot Ex-Marine” or ‘Nina the Tattoo Nymph’ or ‘Jeremy the Guy Who Can’t Do Math But Who Can Make My Grey Goose Martini Out Of This Five Dollar Bill". If you can help me make any specific choices as to what bartender I should be, I would appreciate it very much.

TROIS. Okay, I’m sure I’m not the only one to notice, Foo'ZZ, it’s already December! (Well, a day away from it, but really, what’s the difference?) God-oh-God-oh-God. How the hell did this happen? Where am I? Why am I not rich and having recurring three-way sex with Fredric Michalak and his Belgian waffleboy? And why is my hairline all the way back there? (REPEAT X 12)

QUATRE. I would have liked to have finished at least one substantial project this year. Like Woody Allen. (Who manages to pull it off successfully by being Woody Allen, even when the rest of us say: “Stop making movies where you lie in bed with girls that you'll never get to spread in a hundred years.”) But I mean, going back as far as childhood, I could always trust myself to meet certain goals at the end of each year. Goals that gave something to show for the passing of time. A year well spent. Whether it was a popsicle-stick fortress or a forged attempt at heterosexuality or reading a three-decker volume of poetry that I only pretended to understand, I finished it. Yes, back then, my ass had ambition! (It still does, I think. It just doesn’t like to look in the mirror.) So when the ball drops, we will call 2006 by its name: The Year of Attempted Wisdom and Other Inconveniences. Until then, we still have thirty-one days to go.

CINQ. Well, at the beginning of next year, I begin recording a song cycle I started back in April called Blind Bastard’s Banquet. As it stands, the songs I have finished thus far contain, I think, some of the most musically and lyrically successful work I’ve ever done. The songs are radical, introspective, funny, chromatic, sexy, social, subterranean, etc. I am very proud of what I’ve done and it’ll be very excited to see what comes of this. The objective, ultimately, is to perform them either as a standard ten-song repertoire or with an incidental character-driven narrative. I’m performing these songs on my own, or with a band, should the opportunity present itself. Now as I write this, I just realize how incongruous this is with the paragraph that came before. I should really stop undermining the work that I put into the things that are supposed to give my life any value. In fact, I should stop undermining any of the other attempts I have made this year with the purest of intentions. This will be my new half-baked New Years Resolution. To stop this. Or at the very least, cut back. Because when all the hair is finally pulled out, you realize that the undermining is a strategy to stop moving. My insurance won’t cover its victory.

It’s 3:52 and I’m so feeling the crowding of wishes and static.