head for the hills

top 10 for today:

i stepped out the door and into the sunshine of my day, armed with these songs and a determined will. i came back by moonlight, breathing in the summer evening air, my head lost in wave after wave. up ahead, a new path. and this one looks as though it might actually go somewhere...

do yourself a favor and check these out.


1. Gila by Beach House
2. Young Men Dead by The Black Angels
3. Brown Eyes by Lady Gaga
4. The Season by The Dodos
5. Disco Heaven by Lady Gaga
6. The Authority Song by Jimmy Eat World
7. St. Augustine by Band of Horses
8. Blue in the Face by Alkaline Trio
9. Untitled/The Spoken Word by A.F.I.
10. Inertiatic ESP by The Mars Volta


give a little more than you like
pick apart the past, you're not going back.

run for the hills, pick up your feet and let's go.
head for the hills, pick up steel on your way.

in your brown eyes i was feelin low,
cause they're brown eyes and you never know,
i knew that it was wrong so baby turn the record on
everything could be everything but it's time to say goodbye.

somewhere in between this ocean and mountainside
i have this dream, i think of it still sometimes.
i cross the sand without your hand
i go back to where you and i began
and i was yours and you were mine
things seem so soon to say goodbye.

the ball is turning, 300 mirrors burning
through the hearts of the crowd
in the back hipsters banging the track.

honesty, or mystery?
tell me. i'm not scared anymore.

at the end of the night, we'd all seen better days.

i don't dream since i quit sleeping
and i haven't slept since i met you.

there is poetry in despair,
and we sang with unrivaled beauty,
bitter elegies of savagery and eloquence.

now i'm lost, now i'm lost.
now i'm lost, now i'm lost.

The Forgetting Room

One of the first to inspire me in my pursuit of the arts and an art-filled life was Nick Bantock. Accomplished author of "The Griffin and Sabine Trilogies," "The Venetian's Wife," and "The Forgetting Room," among others, Nick Bantock also illustrates his own works. As an artist, he works with mixed-media, focusing on collage, assemblage, found-object art, photomontage and more. Putting things together in ways opposite to the typical, mixing not only materials, but ideas and styles, his works draw you in. Into the chaos. And the order. And that realm where the two coincide, each dependent upon the other for their very existence.

I have always had a strong appreciation for the things we human beings create. Art. Music. Literature. Theatre. Film. Dance. Architecture. Things born from that ancient and universal need for expression. For communication, for understanding. That hand reaching out for another. That person that sees it, feels it, lives it the way you do. And this partnership of shared experiences and the need to connect, is yet another product birthed from that secret place, somewhere deep. The 'duende' perhaps, that all artists must wrestle with. My sapling interest in the idea of mixed-media art years ago, has grown today, into a full-fledged desire to produce works that bridge any and every type of artistic human creation together. A mix-tape/painting/sculpture/book with working lights and functionality. While I have had more progress in the way of let's say "pre-production and planning," I do have a few finished pieces that will be up for viewing and critique as soon as I can harness the reigns of this devil box. In the mean time, enjoy these works by Nick Bantock from, and inspired by, "The Forgetting Room."

beaten and unable to beat

how ridiculous
to continue in this vein of self-torture
given just enough to cling to,
just enough to seal it shut
knowing he is a fool for the dreams he has,
and dreaming them still

breaking hearts and breaking bottles
broken words from beautiful mouths
starving ears lapping up the poison
that craving that won't be pacified

so seeing the beauty he owns the pain
over and over and over and over
refusing to learn the lesson
just for the chance... for the chance

perfect men and perfect skin
perfect body, perfect smile
passing over something 'blemished'
refusing love
surrendering fulfillment

everything wanted but somehow not enough,
surely there is another who has it all
the pretty bow and the pretty soul
with perfect teeth and perfect beliefs

it would be too easy... so we make it hard
it would feel too good... so we stand alone
it would be too right... so we make it wrong

so then, a piece for you... and for you, and you
and what is left but something beaten and unable to beat
and nothing. nothing for him, and nothing for anyone.
how many fractures before the glue won't hold?

it's a tired game, played by tired men
who want nothing but to hunt for something
that is right in front of them.

welcome mat

so finally, having solved my writing crises - which involved three things consecutively: 1. absence of the necessary tools, 2. an utter lacking in terms of knowledge and understanding of those super-fantastic artificial brains-in-a-box, and, 3. the itch from the dime sized hole in my soul whose void most recently housed, and regretfully expunged, whatever i had left in the way of patience - i see myself fit to begin this journal. fit. so long as the definition you hold for that word includes at least three of the following: experiencing loss of motivation, disinterest, having a strong desire for sleep, a strong-er desire for yet another gloriously selfish and deliciously self-destructing hit, and lastly, the increasing need to urinate.

i'm a perfect 5. so then, yes, by my standards and yours (hopefully), i am in fact, fit. super-fit. famously so. and in being so super-famously-fit i will attempt to explain in excruciating detail (as is my style) just what it is that makes this boy tick. this boy. me. a server with a heart of gold and a fount of emotions that more often resembles a coop of chickens just off the chopping block. me. a lofty head, jam-packed full of dreams, hopes, and the artistic dust and clutter that's been gathering its troops for the past twenty-nine years - always threatening that fatal attack that will unleash the flood and take back those lost countries of song lyrics and painted realities, those cities of hand-made delicacies. me. a gay christian, with a pair of hundred-pound cement shoes.

you see, what i'm trying to do here... what i'm trying to prove, is this... that, on the eve of that ever-impending doom that assigns itself to the ripe old age of thirty, i have something to say. something that will mean something to you. something that will mean something to me. you see, what i am efforting to show is that, yes, i have accomplished things. yes, i have indeed learned... and re-learned. i have experienced. i have lived. i have survived. i have grown-up, matured, and marinated in my own juices enough to write it down. or what i'm really trying to do here is convince myself of these things. maybe i'm just laboring my way up the ladder, rung by splintery rung, heaving my load, trying to make it to that next step, that next purgatorial level of self-fulfillment. and maybe i have nothing to say at all. i guess you can be the judge of that.