Nina Simone

Oh my God, have you ever listened to Nina Simone? I just received her 1972 album, entitled Nina Simone And Piano, in the mail. Wow. It is just her voice and her piano. She is a classically trained pianist, so the beauty of that was prevalent. But that voice, oh that voice. Every phrase and note are so close and personal, as if she were singing for just me. Her voice lilts on the clouds, hammers in the dust, and plays on the jungle gym. You should check her out.

On another note, I was a bit dissapointed with the new release from Modest Mouse. Way too overproduced, like someone messed with the EQ just a bit too much. And where are the tempo changes and the crescendos and decrescendos that Modest Mouse pulls off so well? There were a few tracks I liked, but all in all a dissapointment.

Rash Hashanah

I just realized that we don't have to go to work tomorrow--it's Rash Hashanah! We get to eat honey covered apples and walk in the river with our pockets turned out.

So I guess because I lived out in the woods for a year and a half, I've been letting the bugs run free in my house. Well . . . I sucked them all up when I did the initial vacuuming of the place. Since I was only borrowing that vacuum, though, I haven't been doing much sucking lately (at least of bugs, he he). The spiders quickly reappeared, taking back their positions in various corners, in that spot behind my toilet, and attaching themselves to new items that have been too long leaning against the wall. I don't mind them so much, the spiders. They're of the not-too-big-or-black-or-juicy household variety, and I figure they're getting rid of other bugs I don't want in my house.

The other day there was this large black beetle who was making a bit of a nuisance of himself--flying around, crashing into the walls--you know the type. He decided to light on my CDs, which I took as a personal affront. So I took the book I was reading, Hotel Du Lac (a good use for this book I decided), and tried to swat him. I was unsuccessful in my first and second attempt, merely wounding him. So I non-chalantly walked to the bathroom and grabbed a piece of toilet tissue, scooped him up, being careful not to crush him, and deposited him into the toilet. He struggled out of the toilet paper and began scrambling up the side of the toilet. Flush. I wasn't sure, but I think he was having fun as he rode the cyclone of water down into the pipes. Maybe he survived, taking over the realm of the underground sewage. Ruling with an iron fist. You never can tell with a beetle.

About 20 minutes later, a cricket decided to jump right up into my body space. I let him live. Crickets aren't that bad. Sometimes they help me sleep at night.

Have guitar . . . will play?

What's up with this shit? I've been working this new job for almost a month now and I've only picked up my guitar 3 or4 times. And even then it was almost out of obligation--realizing that I haven't been playing much. What gives?

I was listening to some MP3s on the Saddle Creek Records website and I realize how much I really just want to be in a band. I want to strap on an electric and start doing some new things. I want to stumble down the sidewalk and run into things. I want to feel the blood pump through my veins and know the vitality of it. I want to write about things that matter and I want people to listen.

But I don't even feel like singing.

And the cursor blinks at me as if expecting something (wink, wink, wink) . . . waiting . . . more patient than I. A technological Buddha.

Oh Christ.

What the $%&!

This confounded thing won't publish. Why won't it publish? Why won't it publish? Why won't it publish?

City Speed Wash

That's the name of the Laundromat where Emily and I did our laundry last night. I haven't done laundry at the laundromat since my fifth year of college. Kind of an interesting place, the laundromat. A public place to do a pretty private thing--cleaning one's soiled garments. Piss, shit, vomit, cum, dirt, grime, grease--the stuff that makes up your everyday life (well hopefully you're not pissing or shitting yourself too often). The result of one's work during the week--wherever your body has been, so have the clothes on it.

And the wait, oh the wait. Black folk, white folk, Mexicans, and an Indian couple--all just looking around at each other twiddling their thumbs while their undergarments go throught the spin cycle. One young man chose to while away the minutes by playing some Samurai arcade game. The frequent pounds on the glass made it apparent that he wasn't much of a Samurai. I read the story in the September issue of Harper's. Emily read one of her books for class. Mostly though, people just sat around, talking softly or looking at their clothes in the dryer go round and round.

I don't know . . . it wasn't so bad. Gave me an excuse to brush shoulders with persons in my community that I might never see otherwise. In fact, maybe I'll go to church next week. Meet some people tryin' to get their souls laundered (that'd be a good devotional in Our Daily Bread, wouldn't it? Oh geez).

Word.

Many know that I tend to be bit ascetic at times. Though this story does not involve any fasting, flagellation, or trips to monasteries.

One of my goals for my new house was to eliminate the distractions of television and the internet. The idea being that without those distractions I would be able to do things that I really want to do, like read, write music, and keep my house clean and orderly. You see, I have a bit of an addictive personality when it comes to the tube. I can sit for hours on end, watching movies (sometimes even good movies), MTV, the news, etc. and convince myself that I just need to relax because I am stressed or some shit like that. The internet is not as much of a distraction, I just have an addictive personality when it comes to thousands of pictures of nude women at my finger tips. Giving into these distractions has been a source of much self-loathing.

So the first few days at my house were great. I was getting stuff organized, reading some theology, some articles in Harper's, some Spiderman comics. Good stuff. Then I was over at Emily's apartment and she was watching a DVD on her laptop computer. Suddenly the light went on. I have a DVD player on my computer too!

The next day I go to Wal-Mart and purchase some Dolby Surround Sound speakers for my desktop. I go to Blockbuster and purchase the unlimited movie rental plan. And for the next three days I am in sitting in my bedroom, eyes glued to my 17" computer screen, eating canned soup and potatoe chips and drinking 40 ounce bottles of Schlitz malt liquor.

After watching Wild Things 2, I knew something was wrong. The Holy Spirit came upon me and asked, "Jason, what the hell are you doing to yourself? Wild Things 2?" And in a heart-pounding fit of spiritual fervor, I pushed the eject button on my DVD drive and snapped the whole thing off.

I hadn't even been drinking.

So last night I went to Wal-Mart and returned the Dolby Surround Sound speakers. I went to the grocery section, bought four peaches, a loaf of 9-grain bread, a bag of sunflower nuts and trailmix, some Nutella and some crunchy peanut butter, a bag of mesquite BBQ baked lays, a box of white cheddar Cheeze-its and a pack of Camel Lights. I don't have a fridge yet, so I was focusing on non-perishables. Back to my apartment--toast the 9-grain bread, spread Nutella and peanut butter, sprinkle with sunflower seeds, bag of chips, glass of water, read Harper's and listen to Gillian Welch, play a little guitar, turn on NPR, clean house.

The demons have been excorcised.

Cheers.

I am slowly falling into the routine of an eight to fiver. The house I am renting is pre 1930 and has it's own set of quarks and faults. I like it just for that fact. My neighbor across the street is named Thomas Vaughn. He often sits on his porch in his cut off blue-jean shorts and bare chest looking bewildered. I have talked to him a couple of times--he has no teeth and perhaps some sort of speech impediment, so I understand about 10% of what he is saying. He sure does like to talk though. I nod and grunt as if I know exactly what he is talking about.

It reminds me of when I was in Russia trying to communicate with the native speakers. You knew they were saying something and could catch a word you knew every now and again, but most of it sounded like jibberish. We got by though, relying on non-verbals, and the exchange that passes between humans that goes beyond words. I remember searching for a bookstore in Nizhny Novgorod. We just kept saying, "Gde dom knigi?" (where is the house of books?). And the questionee would point and say something. We would walk in the motioned to direction for a time and then ask another bundled up Russian, "Gde dom knigi?" It was an effective way of locating our destination.

Anyhow, Mr. Vaughn interests me. It seems he has a lot to say and no one to listen to him. He has spent the last two days on his front porch working on a broken lawn mower. He'll sit and stare at it for a while, scrarch his head, adjust something, then try to crank her up. It sputters for a while and then dies. He did have it running for about 20 minutes yesterday, but it didn't sound like the engine was rotating fast enough to cut much grass.

Tom's sister and her husband live to the left of me. Their names are Bob and Lu. I met them them my first night there when Tom led me over to their house. Apparently Bob needed some Efferdent because whenever he talked, his dentures kept falling down from the roof of his mouth making a strange sucking sound. He proceeded to tell me about all of the people that live on my street. There is the black family that live to my right. They're pretty nice, he says, for black folk. Even his grandson plays with the little black girl. And Lu's sister lives right next door to Tom. Then there's the single woman that lives on the corner with her three kids--from three different men. Don't get involved with her, she'll tear you up. "Bob!" pipes in Lu, "you don' need to be telling everyone's business!" Then the Mexican family that lives down the street. They're pretty quiet, for Mexicans. They don't bother anyone.

I guess my neighborhood is much like my house--with it's own quarks and faults. I think I'm going to like where I live.

Damn.