A Sports Conundrum

Sitting down to watch the first half of thursday night football was an experience in itself when confronted with the attention of my two toddler-age children and the lull of pizza and beer. It was the Chargers vs the 49ers from San Diego, CA where both teams needed a win badly. The first half measured up to be quite entertaining with goal line stops and nail biting special team mishaps by the Chargers (as their '10 special teams unit has yet to step up their game, despite both offense and defense being ranking amongst the top it the NFL) and me being the San Diego fellow that I am was highly enthralled... that is until the score got a little to one sided.
Come half time and half closed eye lids I put the children down for their usual bedtime of eight pm. Well my daughter decided to have herself a bit of a fit and bedtime took a bit longer than usual. By the time I had a moment to pour myself a glass of bourbon I checked my Facebook feed on my Motorola Droid and found out the the Chargers were up "31-0 with 12:06 left in the game". From being excited for the second half to reading this message I found myself drawn to watching "Bored To Death" on dvd in the other wing of our abode - poetic... well, now that I type it out, the Jonathan Ames created series did exemplify how I felt about the football game. But that seems to be how it is with football and just football.
I'm no stranger to the sports world and do my best to immerse myself in live sporting events whenever I get the chance. Nothing screams good ol' man fun than cold beer and something involving one team's conquest of another; be that reading the Rise and Fall of Roman Civilization or watching early 1990's Bulls v Blazers NBA Championship on ESPN Classic is situational and both have their blood sweat and tearful merit. Admittedly I'm a baseball man over anything else - my reasoning being null and void to the context of this article but baseball fan through and through. And arguably tenfold the intrigue of football - as is almost any other sport.
Now before you douse your pigskins in gasoline and come pounding at my door hear me out. Football is seemingly the only sport in which once a team gets so far ahead the game is over, no matter the time left on the board. I've seen countless baseball, basketball, hockey, and soccer games, tennis matches, and golf tourneys in which the tide can turn in a single inning, five minute period, or back nine from a huge deficit to a brand new game in the top of the tenth. Once you hit the fourth quarter and the score is 31 to 0... unless your banking on your fantasy players to post some bigger numbers than before - or any numbers, depending - you might as well put on the news and start flossing because the game is done, there is no coming back from that within the matter of fifteen minutes. Whereas in baseball my beloved Padres fell short to LA Dodgers one game in late summer by giving up four consecutive home runs in the ninth inning to take the game to extra innings and eventually dropping another long ball in the eleventh or twelfth to lose it. Tiger Woods, although recently gutted by the media and proclaimed to be in his December - barely arguable at best by the way - is the face of golf, and yet he has dropped a tournament that was basically in the bag in a matter of a few holes. The US soccer team in the last World Cup came back down three goals to nil in the last few minutes of the second half to tie the game. The examples run throughout every sport and what my argument boils down to is interest.
Interest, be it in our savings accounts to our movie choices, is the deciding factor in everything in our lives... duh, where's the interesting statement in that?, you ask. Well - in the column of opinion - football just doesn't spark mine when the odds are insurmountable by three possessions; let alone four in the example of the Chargers game - and that including that the 49ers not only get four touchdowns but get four two point conversions within 12 minutes... ain't gonna happen. And yes, we've all seen that YouTube video of some high school team in Texas which kicked for two or three onsides only to convert those into touchdowns, et cetera, et cetera - and yes, it CAN happen. But the freak occurrence of football versus any other sport bringing to stage that kind of event are about as likely as me willingly shitting my pants during a cocktail function - one could certainly still bet on it, but I wouldn't.
So everything being said and laid out there I'm hoping not to received a helment on a stake aflame in some deep south cross burning fashion in my front yard for ever badmouthing the great tradition of football. I love the game, I'm a die hard Sunday warrior, beer guzzling, bbq'ing, Raider hating fan... but goddamn does the game just act like a wet fart when taken past that point of no return. So I repeat: I love the game, but I love the good game - even when it's my team steamrolling, I reach for the clicker... then you just hit reruns of fucking I Love Raymond...
Maybe there is some curling on ESPN360.com.

retroCamera

Found this great new app on the droid system. retroCamera, gives you some funky options for snapping photos. here's a few I've been playing with.

FORT LOWELL RECORDS: 4th ANNUAL VINYL REVIVAL RECORD FAIR

FORT LOWELL RECORDS: 4th ANNUAL VINYL REVIVAL RECORD FAIR: " Saturday, September 4 Hotel Congress presents... 9am-3pm - Vinyl Revival Record Fair 11am-3pm - Fort Lowell Records Showcase - Live perform..."

I'll totally be here. Check it out on FB or foursquare.

a warm guitar

What do we look for in the loves of our lives? Something warm to cuddle up to and relax with. These aspects sanctify the marriage between myself and alcohol, cigarettes, alcohol, my pipe, marijuana, and my guitar. Looking through the guitar center catalog today I was searching for one word: WARM.

In none of the descriptions could I find this wonderful adjective. A warm tone, a warm sound, producing warm chords, and easy - slippery warm riffs that blaze to the wind in warm sound waves, alive like the fire from a match - heating whatever little possible it can touch.

But alas. None. When my Epiphone Fat Boy body, Phoebe, snapped her neck I made the desperation "on the road" buy of a thinner, hard word takamine that couldn't even hold a match to the noise of that Epiphone. Haven't found a steel string that can match my original strap... kind of makes me nostalgic for a number of past lives.

Time and Time away.

For as much time as I spend at the computer, I don't want to admit I spend as much time at the computer. School is starting back up again at the middle of this month, which means I'll basically be at this screen from when the kids go to be til the time I pass out. Which means I'll get a lot of work done, but it also means that I'll fuck around a lot more doing nothing but searching out comical lists on Cracked.com, or trying to figure out something meaningful to write about on blogger.

I was reading a piece to my wife a few months ago, frankly one of the last things that I've written. I'm about halfway through what I've written, which I thought was inspirational and opening new paths in my thought to paper process, etc. and I just get this look from her that basically speaks of a being listening to the most contrived bullshit they've ever listened to. Upon my query I pretty much got that answer. But she said to me: whenever you write, it sounds like you want to be the next Rimbauld or Ginsberg. I thought about it and frankly... well, frankly I thought why the fuck wouldn't I want to be the next great influential thing. I know that I'm not and no where even close (let's be honest here, I'm no where even close to being published) but why wouldn't I want to write flowery words which span the space of emotion from cheer to gloom? What's so wrong with that? No artist has ever done what they've done in the purity of art to please the people around them. No one should have to censor the medium because of they way it speaks. If the poem speaks of great Gawain-ish features and long flourishing lines of etc etc etc... why not?

Now, publishing is a different story indeed. Do you know how man

y edits it took for Kerouac's On The Road to be accepted by the publisher? That original scroll edition is no joke. So the editing process is fine tuned based on the necessities of the audience, or paying stage, if you will; but frankly, the original pulp of the words that flow stem from the purest thought process that we all have. This blog, your blog, if it is a spew of information and thought, mish mashed or not, there is a certain purity and beauty about it... a personalization that major edits fall short of, a ying yang of both careful contemplation and complete disregard of word for word.

I don't know. Just a thought. Kind of out of gas on the issue.

But, and I come back to it way to fucking often (it is tattooed on my goddamn arm), as old Chuck says: as the spirit wanes the form appears.

Don't let the form appear, at least not until you see a check dangling in front of your face.

Cheers.

test.

test of the droid blog.

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1st Tattoo and dreams of Chicago

Getting my first tattoo tomorrow. Must admit that I'm a tad nervous. I guess it's like any situation that you're not familiar with; tattoo, job interview, diving competition, what ever. But that tattoo that I'm going to get is going to be on my right bicep/forearm. It is Charles Bukowski's ART:

as the

spirit

wanes

the

form

appears.

I found a really cool font online called Last Words (I'm sure it is googlable... hmmm) which seems appropriate since it is one of the last things that Bukowski wrote. Son of a bitch was a drunk crazy man who knew just what he wanted out of it all. To Bukowski the poem was a description of his own fall in to the "form" of poetry, a sort of unwilling sojourn from his own original thoughts on paper towards the use of poetic tools; in a sense, towards death. So as Chuck's spirit was flowing out of him he found nothing better but to fall into the forms of poetry that he'd scoffed so plainly at in so many lines before.

But I guess when it comes down to the inner meaning for me it means that I can't ever let that fire die... which seems to have been a theme of this blog from the beginning. (All the little that is written of it.) To me it means to keep striving, to never let that fire burn out, don't let my spirit fade and fall into the forms, the molds, rather, that society has put up for whatever form of sociology that I'm categorized in.

Look at that silly mother fucker up there with a ashtray full of butts, forty ounce, naked woman half his age seemingly blasted on something that isn't affecting Bukowski... Not saying this is what I want, but look at the power; he's right where he wants to be.

Secondly I'm grooving on the second run through of the night to Alkaline Trio's "Goddamnit" on vinyl. Memoirs of Chicago and Carbondale respectively groove on my membrane. Much love to those who brought me into cultures I only knew from hallway passings in high school.

Peace and Carrots.

Creative Sparks

So I'm sitting here listening to Tom Waits and drooling, fawning, and pawing away at those creative ashes that were once some kind of roaring blaze. Seems all to often that I write something like this on some scrap of paper or some internet nonsense somewhere... but I need to scoop whatever heat is left and blow on it like I was trying to save my life.

In those respects I've written a few things:

Dan Druff Cliffs

Feels like I'm reeling

and reeling and reeling

hitting ledge after ledge

through an ever darkening crevice

with cracked and bloody

peeling nails

scratching at every dying

foothold

breaking away

like a dry scalp

soft and flaky

pedals twirling

toward the abyss.

-april '10

Pretty damn dark, right? Well, no worries, there is some pretty positive stuff too. Got some kitchy pop-trying-to-be-blues songs that I've been kicking around but can drum up a chorus that won't light up other blacker fires. But I also have this little piece I wrote one afternoon chilling out with Arlo in the living room:

Untitled

This soft Tucson light

fading through the window.

Just hot enough to where you don't want

to go outside

but it'll get a lot worse, friend.

Arlo cruises the floor

relishing the nuances of floral carpet

and the dead soft wax wails

through with bass and life.

This type of afternoon makes

your voice raise high

hitting all those notes, jack.

Beautiful, like glass bubbles

melt hot on dangerous fire.

-march '10

See that's not so bad depressing high school style poetry, now is it? I've also written a few drunken poems railing away against Allen Ginsberg which I won't submit, or subject, rather, to anyone who might peruse this.

Love, rockets, and rhythm; Peace and Carrots.

formspring.me

More questions... I hunger!!! http://formspring.me/phillyb81

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keep that shit comin' http://formspring.me/phillyb81

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oh, word? http://formspring.me/phillyb81

Homework and babies.

So yeah.

Just from the title: It doesn't happen much!

But I did get some done... but now I hear them on the monitor... waiting to arise and ALIENS out this house again.

formspring.me

this ish is pretty interesting. thanks dylan for turning me on to it! come ask me question! open and honest answers to follow: http://formspring.me/phillyb81

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Ask me anything http://formspring.me/phillyb81

Roller Derby and way too many drinks!

Went to the roller derby last night with Jill. Considering the fact that it took me the entire first half to understand what was going on, or at least get a simple grasp on the concept of the game, I had a blast! Got some cool shots:

I was wholly surprised at how packed it was.

I dig this action shot.

Afterwards we ended up going to the Surly Wench Bar on 4th for the after party. Not the greatest idea. I got pretty wasted and ended up saying somethings I probably shouldn't; shame (or maybe not so much) that I don't even really remember what I said. But water under the bridge.

I also bought the tickets today... yeah, it's a hint since you're the only one who reads this.

presents for my mom

I never know what to get my Mom for her birthday, or christmas, or mother's day. This has been a running theme throughout my life and usually culminates in the purchase of a book or picture frame featuring some kind of creative element thrown in to make it look personal.

This year I need to outdo myself. But for the life of me I am falling back into my old stride and can't think of a damn thing yet.

Bill

Bill is a regular customer at our store. Bill is not homeless; he has some kind of residence, but it is unknown if it is a home, apartment, halfway house, VA, abandoned house, etc. Sometimes he has money and sometimes he does not; sometimes we comp him drinks and sometimes we do not. But despite the lack of funds Bill is always around. I don't know if it's just because he has nothing better to do or if it is a bit of the dementia that is an obvious cloud around his head. Sometimes Bill gives us 70 page notebooks full of writing as payment for his drinks; of which, he seems to have an endless supply of and never requests them back. Inside are lines and lines of prose and poetry outlining the thoughts of isolation and partial madness. The poems are unorganized and seem to span themes from page to page and line to line but it lacks cohesiveness. That being said his writing is brilliant and often times heartfelt:

11 o'clock

Time after time

she would love

company.

But what does she

need

but fire in

love.

I don't want to

break her heart

to pieces.

-

heroes, well everyone

loves one.

I wonder if

you will die this

very day.

O' the things that

people are up to

And I really

aint' like it.

No titles, sometimes illegible, often times no separation of pieces; just thoughts, delicately brutal, feverishly scrawled. I imagine Bill waving off some kind of demon(s), imbibing whatever he needs to sterilize the world around him.

Bill has disappeared in the last few weeks. Towards that leave he got crazier and crazier each time he came in the store: leading imaginary donkeys around by an imaginary rope; telling us to google search mesquite mental health and find out all about his past (when googled an asylum in New Mexico pops up); informing us that his sister wanted to have him committed again and how he was going to buy a pistol in defense of such; telling us how tired he was from defending Tucson from the indians who shy back to the hills at night to leave him at peace; and finally on the last day we saw him, telling us he won the war.

Bill's brother has since shown up looking for him. He's given us his contact information if we happen to stumble across old Bill, or vice versa. As I've only been around this character in snippets I can't even fathom where he is. Maybe on the road on some kind of insane ode to Kerouac. Maybe he is hole up under a bridge somewhere. Maybe he's dead.

In any case I have a few of his spiral notebooks, and would like to buy him a cup of coffee if he ever shows up again.

We weren't on time

which made me sad.

Sad that the

train left without

us.

Lookin' back at

was 1/2 mile up

the grade

and

the whistle blew

Sad O' Sad to miss

the train.

The World Tends To Balance Itself.

Hitting rock bottom is never a great feeling. The stress involved with financial woes can drain one's energy, appetite, and inspirations to climb the walls of the hole. But every once in a while the world decides to drop a bit of rope ladder down to give a boost.

I am at rock bottom and am scraping every last little bit of couch change and remaining credit to float myself before my tax returns come in (which should be any time now... ... ...any time now) and was starting to break cold sweats. Hell, I ha

d to raid my daughter's piggy bank in order to buy her cough medicine; lifetime movie of the week waiting to happen. But checking the mail after taking out the garbage I was given a rung.

Earlier this year I thought I'd gotten all of my federal pell grant (a grant given to students for financial aid alternatives to loans) in the mail and promptly spent it on necessities. I guess that wasn't the whole bank though. 15 minutes ago I popped

open a check for around five hundred dollars, enoug

h to pay my cable bill, buy my books, and get some diapers. Thank you universe, whatever I did to please the gods of weights and balances I hope I can keep it up.

New Year's Resolutions Going Dry and I like the library.

A few notes:

So I made a new years resolution to be nicer to the customers that I serve at a certain green aproned coffee chain which shall remain nameless; but I find myself falling in to the same judgmental mindset that spawned the resolution in the first place.

Its the little things that really cheese me, such as: I call out a drink with all the details and the name of the person written on the cup and no more than a few seconds later that person will come up and ask if it is their drink; or along those same lines someone will ask "is this mine?" to which my robotic response has become "I have no idea what your drink is sir/madam." Becoming more and more sarcastic as the time rolls on though. There are countless other examples like cell phone at the register, a woman who returns her drink over and over because we can never get it right for some reason, the two guys who come in and get two espresso shots in a large cup of ice and fill it with milk at the condiment bar, aka "the ghetto latte"; but we won't get into the gritty details of those.

So the long and short of it is that despite my efforts in positivity all of these little things are once again riding along my shoulders. Not as much as I am practicing quite a bit getting into my own barista mantras and flowing physics of the job, as well as remembering to breathe ever so deeply when I feel the rush of anger bubble at the back of my neck.

So we're working on that.

Secondly:

I like the library! Listening to a ripped copy of Tom Waits "Raindogs," which I checked out yesterday along with 2001: A Space Odyssey, a bunch of kids books for my daughter and other handy media materials.

Thirdly:

Put an offer down on a house in the central part of Tucson, pretty much next door neighbor to where we are living now. Will know by monday that status of such.

ohm-arlo-sleep (repeat)/bringing it all back home

Tonight I got mad at my five month old son again because my frustration clouded my perception of the situation enough to convince me of some air that little baby Arlo was crying and fussing on purpose... to take time away from me; after I've done what I can for the day and just want to unwind; after I've put down two year old Tieg to bed and just want to flop on the couch or play guitar or attempt yoga, or something.

And I think terrible things in my head. Now, pause the worst case scenario line of thinking, in no way would I ever hurt my child but I think things like 'well, good job, you dropped your binky, that's your fault,' which I immediately feel like a dick for thinking. But the same kind of pride that comes into play in an argument with my wife rears its horned skull here as well: even though I know I'm being an asshole I can't back down. With my wife... well, we could fight all night, which sucks, and I'm working on that too; with Arlo I calm myself down rather quickly... given 30 seconds or so and I'm over it... but I feel like I've wronged the little guy, and I have. I know that he won't remember it whatsoever, but the feelings that were emoted are still there, they still hang like a cloud. I need to will those fuckers away... push and push and breath deeply, blowing out good vibrations.

He's asleep now... in his buzzer. I cooed at him and tickled his cheek as he sucked down a couple ounces of 'comfort' formula. He is beautiful, and I know every parent gets to this point... at least all those that I've consoled with. But I can't help but feel awful and awful and awful. I don't know how to control the red emotions such as anger and frustration and the underlying aspects of such like pride and guilt.

-

I worked up a sweat today at the job. Went above and beyond my usual behavior and fell into the routine that we all should be keeping up with at work (by we, I mean all the individuals at my store). It felt good, it felt like I was contributing to the greater cause; even if that cause is monetary and I see a miniscule portion of those effects. I always like creating things; be it music, words, pictures, or food, plating something (if you will) and serving it up for mental or physical repast satisfies me... especially when the satisfaction is mutual. I guess that's why I like working at Starbucks. I enjoy creating lattes and such. I take great pride in each drink that I serve out; which sometimes has a negative effect on the dynamics between my other partners and during a large rush in the morning as I feel it necessary to control all aspects of my production line, as it were. But I never liked working in groups in grade school either.

Lately I haven't been creating elsewhere. I cook for my family and it is wonderful to create those moments of feast and digestive afterglow. But, the creativity I knew but two or three years ago involving songwriting, poetry, and social excavation have all but seem to cracked and peeled away.

Was it all a farce? Sticking with the decrepit paint theory have I revealed the bare bones that were housed inside this beautiful vibrant skin? Can I repaint it? Can I throw up some wallpaper for a quick fix?

I've decided that I can't let the inspiration come to me as I used to let it happen before. I'm so fucking tired after everything these days that even if it does come I usually push it away; pat it's head, say 'good boy, here's a treat, go lie in the corner...' I'll be with you in thirty years or so.

Charles Bukowski wrote:

as the

spirit

wanes

the

form

appears.

My spirit has fallen into shadow. And my frame is bending from the elements. I cannot fall. I cannot let the provisions of spirit that shaped and molded my life before recent subside. I must light this fire and let it burn, burn, burn... I can be a tan faced child. I can run with the hunted. I can nail my demands to the heavy oak doors of the church.

I will burn Chuck into my arm, signifying something like the catalyst to those prior thoughts, kick starting whatever demon died inside of me.

I will not let myself die.

who are you?

So I guess it is celebrity doppelganger week and I tried a few of the online recognition machines that process through thousands of celebrity photos but couldn't come up with anything that I liked. So my wife Jillian threw out a name I haven't thought about in months as I haven't been mistaken for sometime for him.

When I worked at Borders bookstore I was recognized as Brian Posehn about twice a week. It's a bit uncanny.

You be the judge.