subsomatic
Rage Against the Machine – Know Your Enemy
Mint Royale – My Heart Is Beating Fast
Film Noir World – Sleeping City
Quantic – Trouble from the River
March 25th, 2003 - 12:20 p.m.
yes,
us people are just poems
we're 90% metaphor
with a leanness of meaning
approaching hyper-distillation
and once upon a time
we were moonshine
rushing down the throat of a giraffe
yes, rushing down the long hallway
despite what the p.a. announcement says
yes, rushing down the long stairs
with the whiskey of eternity
fermented and distilled
to eighteen minutes
burning down our throats
down the hall
down the stairs
in a building so tall
that it will always be there
yes, it's part of a pair
there on the bow of Noah's ark
the most prestigious couple
just kickin back parked
against a perfectly blue sky
on a morning beatific
in its Indian summer breeze
on the day that America
fell to its knees
after strutting around for a century
without saying thank you
or please
and the shock was subsonic
and the smoke was deafening
between the setup and the punch line
cuz we were all on time for work that day
we all boarded that plane for to fly
and then while the fires were raging
we all climbed up on the windowsill
and then we all held hands
and jumped into the sky
and every borough looked up when it heard the first blast
and then every dumb action movie was summarily surpassed
and the exodus uptown by foot and motorcar
looked more like war than anything I've seen so far
so far
so far
so fierce and ingenious
a poetic specter so far gone
that every jackass newscaster was struck dumb and stumbling
over 'oh my god' and 'this is unbelievable' and on and on
and I'll tell you what, while we're at it
you can keep the pentagon
keep the propaganda
keep each and every TV
that's been trying to convince me
to participate
in some prep school punk's plan to perpetuate retribution
perpetuate retribution
even as the blue toxic smoke of our lesson in retribution
is still hanging in the air
and there's ash on our shoes
and there's ash in our hair
and there's a fine silt on every mantle
from hell's kitchen to Brooklyn
and the streets are full of stories
sudden twists and near misses
and soon every open bar is crammed to the rafters
with tales of narrowly averted disasters
and the whiskey is flowin
like never before
as all over the country
folks just shake their heads
and pour
so here's a toast to all the folks who live in Palestine
Afghanistan
Iraq
El Salvador
here's a toast to the folks living on the pine ridge reservation
under the stone cold gaze of mt. Rushmore
here's a toast to all those nurses and doctors
who daily provide women with a choice
who stand down a threat the size of Oklahoma City
just to listen to a young woman's voice
here's a toast to all the folks on death row right now
awaiting the executioner's guillotine
who are shackled there with dread and can only escape into their heads
to find peace in the form of a dream
cuz take away our playstations
and we are a third world nation
under the thumb of some blue blood royal son
who stole the oval office and that phony election
I mean
it don't take a weatherman
to look around and see the weather
Jeb said he'd deliver Florida, folks
and boy did he ever
and we hold these truths to be self evident:
#1 George W. Bush is not president
#2 America is not a true democracy
#3 the media is not fooling me
cuz I am a poem heeding hyper-distillation
I've got no room for a lie so verbose
I'm looking out over my whole human family
and I'm raising my glass in a toast
here's to our last drink of fossil fuels
let us vow to get off of this sauce
shoo away the swarms of commuter planes
and find that train ticket we lost
cuz once upon a time the line followed the river
and peeked into all the backyards
and the laundry was waving
the graffiti was teasing us
from brick walls and bridges
we were rolling over ridges
through valleys
under stars
I dream of touring like Duke Ellington
in my own railroad car
I dream of waiting on the tall blonde wooden benches
in a grand station aglow with grace
and then standing out on the platform
and feeling the air on my face
give back the night its distant whistle
give the darkness back its soul
give the big oil companies the finger finally
and relearn how to rock-n-roll
yes, the lessons are all around us and a change is waiting there
so it's time to pick through the rubble, clean the streets
and clear the air
get our government to pull its big dick out of the sand
of someone else's desert
put it back in its pants
and quit the hypocritical chants of
freedom forever
cuz when one lone phone rang
in two thousand and one
at ten after nine
on nine one one
which is the number we all called
when that lone phone rang right off the wall
right off our desk and down the long hall
down the long stairs
in a building so tall
that the whole world turned
just to watch it fall
and while we're at it
remember the first time around?
the bomb?
the Ryder truck?
the parking garage?
the princess that didn't even feel the pea?
remember joking around in our apartment on avenue D?
can you imagine how many paper coffee cups would have to change their design
following a fantastical reversal of the New York skyline?!
it was a joke, of course
it was a joke
at the time
and that was just a few years ago
so let the record show
that the FBI was all over that case
that the plot was obvious and in everybody's face
and scoping that scene
religiously
the CIA
or is it KGB?
committing countless crimes against humanity
with this kind of eventuality
as its excuse
for abuse after expensive abuse
and it didn't have a clue
look, another window to see through
way up here
on the 104th floor
look
another key
another door
10% literal
90% metaphor
3000 some poems disguised as people
on an almost too perfect day
should be more than pawns
in some asshole's passion play
so now it's your job
and it's my job
to make it that way
to make sure they didn't die in vain
sshhhhhh....
baby listen
hear the train?
- Self Evident - Ani DiFranco
March 21st, 2003 - 12:09 p.m.
So we're at war. Well, technically we are not at war, living in Canada and all, but war is happenning. Somewhat repulsive. Glad to be Canadian, though, and for any American that can't figure out why we're not backing in US on this one - well, 1) it's an illegal war and 2) yes, I'm sure you would back us if Canada ever got in a situation like this, but the chances of Canada getting in a situation like this are slim to nil. I think that covers most of the counter arguments.
I decided to "turn off the war" last night and watch Good Will Hunting. It's almost an ironic feeling be able to "turn off a war" by simply switching the channel when those involved have to live it 24 hours a day.
I don't think I have much more to say on the topic right now. I'm sure you can imagine how I feel.
March 19th, 2003 - 7:54 p.m.
Holy day of confusion batman. My day has been a jumble of emotions and thought concerning every aspect of life. Luke and I had a three hours conversation about world events today; the war that's about to begin, the causes of that war, and the reprocussions that inevitably going to result from this attack - moreover, what next. I mean, obviously no one can stop what's about to happen - there have been protests all over the world. The reasons for this "war" are transparently jaded, but it doesn't seem like anyone in power feels like detering from their initiative...so...my concern is there - but the question remains - what next? Iraq gets bombed to shit. The UN does its best to clean up after it's been destroyed, but other than that? I can see these events morphing into a drawn out, full scale battle by the US. Who's next?
Just some thoughts. If you've got anything to say concerning the topic, I've got a brand spanking new message board which had absolutely no content on it, but I check it anyway, so feel free to post.
March 18th, 2003 - 2:32 a.m.
New site is up.
March 18th, 2003 - 12:14 a.m.
Here's my St. Paddy's Day greeting to all.
Lately, it seems as though time is flying by but nothing is really happening. For instance, I didn't go to school today - so I didn't do anything productive, per say (drove car back to Cambridge, signed new lease, made chocolate chip cookies), but my day flew by. I was even up at 9:00 a.m. I guess I cleaned a lot, too.
Maybe it's just a giant period of procrastination. Oops. Speaking of procrastination, I've got an online quiz thingy due tomorrow - gotta run.
March 15th, 2003 - 7:55 p.m.
Quick update.
We found a house, signing the lease tomorrow. Better than other house we lost. Working on new site - more about that when I get the layout done. Ummmm....I think that's all for now. Busy day today and tomorrow. I'll try and get to this internet stuff when I have some free time (As if that actually exists - they should just call it procrastination time). Yes. That is all for now. Happy almost St. Patrick's Day.
March 12th, 2003 - 12:07 p.m.
Arg. It's very difficult to have a conversation with someone in a language that you don't know. We're looking at this new house, and everything seems to be in order. I was supposed to put down a deposit on it today (equating to last months rent - I think) so I call up the guy to tell him when I'm coming. Not so easy though. Our future landlord is a very friendly, big, older Italian man, whose english is EXTREMELY broken. Craig and I had a hard time understanding if the house was even available the first time we went to see it. He calls every girl "Bella" and can speak in four different languages, english being the worst of those four.
So yeah, I call him today and he tells me that his book keep (which I think is his son), has gone on March break, so he'd prefer to wait until Monday to sign forms, etc. I'm itching to get this money out of my account. I don't like having large sums in there. So the argument ensues. I ask him why we need to wait for his son. He spurts something out, sounding very flustered. From there on, I was just confused. He tried to tell me that I should be moving in downstairs and that he would show that to us tonight. I assured him that we wanted to live upstairs, and that we'd meet next Monday.
In other news, that break down wasn't because of anyone. I don't want anyone thinking that.
March 9th, 2003 - 3:38 a.m.
I had a break down right before work. I don't know why, exactly. I think it was a lot of things. I think I need to talk to somebody totally exempt (is that the right world) from all aspects of my life. I miss Ryan. I'm feeling much better now, though.
In other news, I laughed my ass off reading this. Go read now. Very funny. Goodnight.
March 8th, 2003 - 4:52 a.m.
Woof. Man, I'm tired. I wanted to get this new layout up though. I'm happy with it. Powerful, I suppose. Craig didn't like the war theme, but I think that's a response to current events. Ignore it. "I want nothing to do with it so I'm going to pretend it's not happening" kind of thing. I have the same kind of attitude, but the web is where I express those things that I don't want to talk about, right?
New section up. The material is a little long winded, but take a look if you feel like reading. I think everything else is pretty much the same.
10 days until they decide if we're going to war. Scary shit.
I'm off to bed.
March 7th, 2003 - 1:58 p.m.
Do you know what's going on in the world today? I mean, do you REALLY know? I never really claimed to, I'm not a big CNN watcher. Actually, I don't really watch TV much and I rarely read newspapers unless there's one sitting in front of me and I'm waiting for something. And even if I did watch the news or read the newspaper, would that really give me the ability to say that I know what's going on?
I'm not talking about the potential war on Iraq. I've got a million and two things that I could say about that, but I do not (and never will) think that it's good material to post on the internet. I'm not talking about any given event that you'll hear about from your activist friends. I'm talking about everything. I'm talking about all those wars that are going on every day - oppression and exploitation in all it's glory. It's happening all over the world at every second of the day. The sheer magnitude of it all is overwhelming me over the last little while.
Everyone in the world is uneducated about all of it. No one really knows even a sliver of it. It kind of boggles my mind to think about it. News only gives us a fragmented perspective of what's going on and there's no access to alternative information for the masses.
I wish I had the capacity to throw all this out in the open. I wish someone had the capacity to do it. I know the world is a huge place and you can never reach even a part of one society with true information about any given event. That kind of information just isn't accessible. So many questions unanswered.
I've been doing a lot of reading about all this lately. It seems as though there's a giant bubble surrounding the first world nations and only a selected few get to move through that bubble. I'm not talking about a "physical" bubble, but a perceptual one. Anyone (given the right circumstances) can travel almost anywhere they want to, but they travel with a little peice of that bubble surrounding them that makes them unaware of where they actually are. We depend on those who can break through their little first world bubble to report back to us all the events that occuring in the outside world. Unfortunately, all those non-bubble people seem to have their own agendas, so we never really get the big picture, the whole story of any given event.The masses never really get educated. Every angle of the story that's reported back to us is tainted or jaded or just plain wrong. Perspective screw things up. Everyone seems to have an equal argument about why something is right or why it's wrong. But these arguments are so strong - how can people have such strong opposing feelings, especially when they involve other people's lives.
Arg. Now I'm just rambling. I'm going to go attempt to educate myself.
March 5th, 2003 - 12:05 a.m.
This is me, a year ago today.
Tee hee.
March 4th, 2003 - 11:04 p.m.
So I've royally fucked up my back. I have no idea what this is, but I woke up this morning and counting move my neck. I've had a knot in there since last week, figured it had to do with school stress. I don't know anymore. It feels like I've pinched a nerve. Sucks ass.
School's finally settling down a little bit. Down to a midterm a week. I'll archive tomorrow.