I just needed some sunlight.

I’ve been a grumpy puss the last couple days.  I just wanted to post a quick thing about why today changed that.

So here I am, walking home from the Texan, thinking about work tonight and about homework I’ll have to do after that and about how I hate the weird spiderweb of lanes disguised as a four-way stop at the top of my street

 

That's me in the middle of it all.

 

 

and about how I just remembered that I almost got hit by a guido driving a real sweet tricked out Mustang last night because he blew through a stop sign when I was trying to cross the street to get to the Life and Arts meeting and about blah, blah, blah…

Anyway, I make it past that web of lanes and see the most glorious thing parked outside of apartment:  A USPS truck, with its back open, dispensing goodies like Christmas Eve.  Normally I don’t flip shit at the sight of a postal truck, but I have been waiting since Halloween for the arrival of Ryan Adam’s new PAX-AM pink vinyl single.  It didn’t come yesterday, so obviously it had to have come today.  I rushed to the mail box and opened it to find a note saying “sorry we missed ya bro, see ya next time, live long and prosper” and all that jazz + directions to the post office.

Quickly I snatched up the note and rushed to the truck, which was still parked with the postman sitting on the back of it pretending to do things with the mail.  Clearly he was just waiting for me.  Clearly because he HAD to be a guardian angel.  But he also reminded me of Cheech Marin and I’m 90% sure he was high.  Anyway, there he sat holding an envelope addressed to me.

“I tried to leave it but I couldn’t fold it to put it in your mailbox, man,” he said, seemingly confused.

I took it inside, ripped it open, threw it on the turn table and laid down, forgetting everything I was thinking about just 5 minutes before.

 

Thanks, buddy.

 

 

On black

A quick post before bedtime.

Michael Elliott Baldon contacted me this evening for a Walter Webb photo shoot for his class.  Memories from this summer ran amok in the old/temporary Daily Texan house and this emerged:

 

 

Viewed on black, it is a wonderful photograph.

 

Also, Frankie stopped by for a few drinks and some really great conversation.  Lately I’ve been finding myself more and more thankful for my friends.

Let’s try to make this work

I started this blog over the summer with the intention of it being real.  Not an intention.  A real thing.  The intention of it not being an intention.  You follow?

Me either.

Anyway, let’s try to make this work this time.

Thankfully the clocks have changed once again and the evenings start early, taking their time blossoming into neon and blue, then black.  With a full moon dropping silver all over the street.  But the neon isn’t really neon.  It’s more like if neon were pastel, then this neon would be the non-pastel neon.  Like whiskey-neon.  But neon signs explode against the setting sun.  You follow?

All the roses turn cold and everything is whoa.  But in a good way.  Like a sweet illusion, you follow?

Good.

I recently interviewed Elvis Perkins about pumpkins.  In case you guys hadn’t heard, I am the gourd editor for the Daily Texan.  It’s a rough-and-tumble job but I manage. Anyway, the guy had some real deep thoughts on the topic.  I don’t want to ruin the column (which will run sometime this month), but here is a sample in Q and A form:

Did you know they make pumpkin shampoo?

I don’t doubt it, but I don’t really use shampoo…It seems like man will do just about anything to candy up his brain and his experience and make it a sensory phenomenon — his life.  So sure, pumpkin shampoo, why not?

Would your song “Shampoo” have been any different had you had that knowledge prior to writing it?

It would have been a better song and longer, because there would have to be a verse about pumpkin shampoo.

You know, it’s not too late, you could still add the verse for your live shows…

Yeah, maybe I will for the Austin show.

He also thanked me, saying it was the best interview he’d ever done was an interesting character and quite a nice guy to talk to.  He’ll be playing the Parish November 13 and I plan to attend, if only to see if he actually adds that verse.

In other news, Halloween weekend was E.P.I.C. in every way, shape and form.  I attended the Halloween Eve party in my apartment (NOVA HAUS) as Peter Parker:

And I had a Halloween adventure as a ghost:

It was epic like New Year’s Eve.

That’s about it in my life.  So, I suppose here’s to this blog actually surviving.  And to a wonderful November — it’s such a vivid month, with Autumn in full swing.

oh and also…

I promise a real post before…like the end of the week or something…

this whole blogging thing is gonna take some practice…

a short recommendation before I crashoutforthenight.

I bought that new Wilco concert film, “Ashes of American Flags,” Friday night and have now watched it about 893017589361503713471623857128356 times (except really, like 7 times all the way through).

It’s beautiful.

Stark, simple, elegiac (at times) images of American landscapes provide a backdrop for commentary on a fast-fading communal country ideal and some epically good live cuts of what is probably the band’s best material.

So, if you like Wilco and haven’t seen the thing, check it out.

Like the song for which it’s named, the film offers an artistic expression of patriotism for a country that only ever really existed in the back of some collective unconscious.

…or at least that’s how I take it.

Oh, and it’s been warm to me like whiskey.

so I don’t forget this one

I should probably get a youtube account so I can just favorite videos or whatever. this’ll have to do for now, though.

the first post ever.

this is the first post ever. pretty neat.

we’ll see how long this thing holds up.