1) Poured out half a forty last night before going to DJ a mini-party. Was later chastized by roommates for pouring out malt liquor in the absence of dead homies.

2) The future of dance parties at this school is in the good hands of a young sophomore named Chris, who went on before me at the mini-party and then took all that equipment to an after party up north where he was phenomenal. Full respect for playing "99 Problems" off of The Grey Album.

3) This short film about the plight of Mario and the loss of his brother, Luigi, made my fucking day.

ARE YOU FROM MONTEREY, CA?

I'm starting a new fiction project now and about a third of it (probably) will take place in Monterey, California. I have no idea what this place looks like, and I wish someone could tell me about it. Specifically someone who maybe just moved there or someone who left and returned. Or, hell, anyone who has seen the damn place. Is it warm? Is it cheap? Must one own a car? How's the food?

Enlighten me. Tell me about your goddam Monterey weblog and your Monterey friends and your local Monterey beer. Tell me how the music is. Describe Monterey's best two record stores. Tell me about a great documentary you saw one time that has Monterey in it. Send me an online photo album of you and your hip, young friends in different places around the city (is it a city?).

I need you.

If you're in Gambier, OH on saturday you can go. Come down and witness as I play records. It's just like being my friend, only in public.

From now on, I am responding to every chain-email that does not promise to increase my penis size. A year ago I was directed to go here and sign up to get money from the music industry. Having spent many years stealing from/ getting mugged by the man, I had no faith. But no. Today the record companies sent me a check that won't cover the cost of a single high-priced bullshit album.

Last night, I was in the middle of an incredibly boring class with a Booker-Prize winning professor--whom I shall not name here--not for fear of his old-ass figuring out what Google is--but for fear that the suckos in my class with be screwing around on their computers, and look him up under a mistaken search referent--and I really wanted to leave. It's a three hour class and, I guess the thing about winning the Booker Prize is that you can do pretty much whatever the hell you want for the rest of your life. I say this because each week he assigns ten to fifteen pages of classic reading and we discuss it for most of the class. Then at the end he hands out about four pages and we read them in class and discuss.

Anyway, I had a hard time concentrating because I knew I had to meet someone at the bar in a few. Then I realized I needed something to take my mind off of what was taking my mind off of the class. And obviously class wasn't doing it for me. And then, quite suddenly, I could feel my next novel project starting in my head. I could see in my head how the document should look on my computer. I could feel myself starting the next day. I could see the dialogue between the two main characters. I could see how the two main characters won't really meet until the second half of the project. I could see myself getting up early the next morning and getting lost at the keyboard.

Then I woke up this morning at two in the afternoon.

In honor of today's holiday I bring you collectible Jesus:

The 'I Am With You Always' Series (above)
And of course TheJISS Collection: Jesus Inspirational Sports Statues.

English Major's Interlude

In book four, Gulliver explains to the king of the Houyhnhnms the drinking habits of his people:

"Wine was not imported among us from foreign countries, to supply the want of water or other drinks, but because it was a sort of liquid which made us merry by putting us out of our senses, diverted all melancholy thoughts, begat wild extravagant imaginations in the brain, raised our hopes, and banished our fears, suspended every office of reason for a time, and deprived us of the use of our limbs, till we fell into a profound sleep; although it must be confessed, that we always awakened sick and dispirited and that the use of this liquor filled us with diseases, which made out lives uncomfortable and short."

Some tidbits if you don't have good enough taste to like my mix tape:

1) The Beat Box Microphone. Someone sent this out today at school and, if I'm not cool enough to remix Jay-Z albums or draft award-winning novels, I would atleast like to be able to do this.

2) "Guts." This is the new story by Chuck Palahniuk that is supposed to make people pass-out when they read it. Or better yet, when he reads it to you.

3) I don't know if this happens to anybody else, but yesterday my internal monologue was loud. And the worst part was that I didn't have anything interesting to say to myself. All day long I was trying to listen to people but all I could hear was, "WHAT TIME IS IT? FUCK, YOU GOTTA GO TO WORK LATER TONIGHT. WORK, MAN, YOU'RE SO BROKE. WHY CAN'T YOU NEVER SAVE MONEY?" It was the closest I will ever get to knowing what it's like to have me as a friend. And I don't want to be my friend. Especially not if I'm going to talk so fucking loud all the time. Man, that would be awful. It would be like drinking with Samuel L. Jackson.

As a child I was a born mix-tape-maker. I could start, fade, switch song songs mid-track. I would spend hours on a notepad, working out times and timing, making sure I didn't have to flip the tape in the middle of a song. I miss those tapes and I wish I had them today, but the fact is, there was one tape for four years and everytime I got into new music, I would record over the old shit.

So, in honor of fallen tapes, I bring you:

The Crap I'm Listening To This Week/ Make-Your-Own Mix Tape Vol. 1

The Elected-Don't Blow It
Eels-Love of the Loveless
The Uniform Tragedy-Sleepy Sunset
Ryan Adams-Wonderwall
Xiu Xiu-I Love the Valley OH!

1) This morning when I awoke, I found a button in my sheets. When I came home from a party, I fell asleep and had really annoying dreams. In each one, I was on a couch talking to someone at a party and I'm convinced that dreaming that I was still awake and needed to go to bed somehow ruined any chance I had of waking up rested. Then I made my bed this morning and found two more buttons on the floor and the top of my pajamas no longer functions as shirt. Yet I do not recall any dreams involving myself as The Incredible Hulk.

2) Prison Tourism Update: Also last night was my big return to work. The restaurant was annoyingly slow and a lot of the staff I had known were not present because they had to be in jail. I then found out that everyone who works in the kitchen there has been in jail atleast twice. This came out via the following accomodations review: "Aww, shit, Bob's up in Licking County? Man, that's Phat. That place's got TVs in every room and, like, chill comfy couches. They treat you nice, dude. Each cell has its own lock and only you and your cellmate gots the key. You know? It's nice. But it's, like seventeen bucks a day. Our jail ain't bad, but it's like fifteen bucks a night. And it's not even that much better than Horace County, but that shit's free. Dude, if you're gonna fuck up, do it up in Horace."

Normally, and I'm the first to admit this, Ohio blows. The winters are weak. Cold, usually windy, but without any of the snow that makes winter worthwhile at home. But then there's today. It's February and I'm having my first iced-coffee of the season, sitting outside in the sunshine and learning the Irish language.

Ta an ghrian ag thaiteamh, agus ta se samhrata. Te Connechegutt hiannis.- The sun is shining, and it is summery. Connecticut is desparately bad.

Something I think is cool and wish I could do:

DJ Danger Mouse remixed Jay-Z's The Black Album with music sampled from The Beatles White Album.

The Grey Album

01- Public Service Announcement
02- What More Can I Say
03- Encore
04- December 4th
05- 99 Problems
06- Dirt Off Your Shoulder
07- Moment of Clarity
08- Change Clothes
09- Allure
10- Justify My Thug
11- Interlude
12- My 1st Song

Today to aid a friend in a photo project, three of us broke into the old Middle School in downtown Mount Vernon. It's an old Back to the Future style school, built by the WPA. I have no idea when it closed. But the final entry on the sole remaining plaque in the trophy case lists the last winner of the Talent Show as Trent Rockwell in 1984.

My roomate found it on his way to the dump one day and looked inside to scout it out and found a crazy guy living there with nine pumpies. The whole building is gutted, and you can't tell exactly what was a classroom and what was an office. The windows give clues, as does the marks from whatever they pulled out of the walls. You can tell what was a blackboard or what was once some lockers. And the linoleum on the floor is extremely public high school. We're going back soon. Photos to follow.

In the mean-time we're switching over to Weblog Classic. This is partially for Emily, who does not read the stories that were written before she met me.

Two Stories About Places That Don't Have People in Them Anymore

Formerly Centralia, PA- The town that burned from underneath.

Middletown, CT- The abandoned mini-golf course.

1) DJ'ed at Fandango on friday, which is one of the many events you go to your senior year at Kenyon so you can pretend to be an adult and therefore imagine yourself as an adult who gives money to the school. Everyone's dressed all biz-caz, professors come--specifically young professors who are just there for the free booze. I therefore played a junior high-centric set. "Blister in the Sun", "I Want You Back" J5, "Take On Me," etc. There came a point quite suddenly where they ran out of alcohol, I was getting tired, and everyone I cared to play music for was leaving, so I put on Elastica's "Connection" and watched them head for the door and left soon after.

2) Have you heard these guys called the Killers? Somehow they sold out Bowery Ballroom last month. It's amazing when something takes hold without warning like that. Four guys in man-makeup decked out in guyliner are going to play with The Stills?

An interaction to remember:

Last night I saw You Got Served, which was a tremendous film if your criterion for excellence is a twenty-minute dance scene at the ending. When I got back to school my friends were already at a party at the Hillel house. Took a walk down there and stepped into the living room where they were playing "Hey Ya" on the DVD player. Never seen such little movement combined with so much casual conversation while that song played.

I look around the room and the person closest to me in the living room walks up to me. My glasses have fogged up a bit, but when I wipe them I realize that I have never met this girl before, nor have I even seen her enough to remember her. So three seconds in the door she says, "Hey, uhm, your crew is in the kitchen."

The one piece of information I wanted at the moment fell into my lap and I had to spend the next five minutes making up bullshit to talk about so that she couldn't feel like she won.

As of yesterday at breakfast I had been forewarned of the arrival of a girl who visited a friend of mine freshman year. To say that I fell instantly in love of her four years ago would be to understate the situation. Everyone falls in love with this girl.

Charity--that's her name--hasn't visited since then because she has been in prison. She's been in prison because she cross the line in the sand at Fort Benning Georgia protesting the school of the America's last year. Her visit was pure enjoyment for myself, because she brought her boyfriend--I'm sorry, in the slammer he became a born again christian, which is to say that he's her fiance now. A significant other in the situation makes things easier on my, as they did when Amanda and I were together abroad, because you can talk to anyone without them assuming that sex is a motivating factor.

In prison her boyfriend was among Ken Lay types--white collar weiners who aren't looking for trouble--as well as some non-violent first time offenders and those with good behavior in their other facilities. He taught me a number of valuable rules for prison, which I feel duty-bound to pass on.

1) You mind your own shit. Don't touch anyone, don't sit on their bed until you ask, don't move their stuff, and don't even fucking think about finishing their dinner.

2) Respect everyone. Especially if like him and like myself, you can easily prove yourself to be the Omega Male.

3) Don't even think gay. Phrases to avoid: "You'd probably love it if you raped me up the ass. Maybe I would love that too." "Honey." As well as any reference to art or culture in general. He said that if I know I'm going to have to go in, I should get some tougher glasses. Plastic will break in the first fight.

4) It's okay to fight and run. It's also acceptable to go down in the first punch. But when you go down, he demonstrated this to me in the bar--an environment quite like this weblog in that for all some people know, I get in fights and that's what I do--anyway if you go down, he might kick you when you're down, so you gotta curl up into a ball and then explode shoulder-first and bring him down. Then you run.

5) You can't talk to the guards. If you get hit in the face you have to hide the bruises. Even if you say, Hey, how're you doing? You'll get your ass beat. If it looks like you're talking to the guards, you're dead. Charity, a prisoner of conscience as it were, even said that if she heard that some people were going to beat up a snitch, she wouldn't even have to think about looking the other way. One time a woman was talking to a guard and she said, Hey, I notice you have two pillows in your room. And the girl said, Yeah, well we all have two pillows around here. They put a padlock in a sock and beat her in the shower.

Now, Charity spent six months with women who were in there essentially because they lived with drug dealers or they were once dating a guy and she introduced him to this other guy and then they both got arrested years later. One woman went to prison because her son sold drugs to a DEA agent and she gave him change for one of the marked twenties.

So while inside she had a seminar about prisoner self-advocacy and planned on talking to twenty or thirty women. A third of the prison showed up and she spoke for an hour and a half about legislation and letter writing and the law. The women wondered whom they should send these letters to and whom that person should send the letters on to. She told them that this was one case where the stamp of US Corrections would help them. Legislaters who are working on laws want them to know whom these laws will affect, she said. Everyday until she left she had women coming up to her with drafts of letters and by the time she left, three hundred prisoners had drafted eight-hundred-and-seventy-nine-fucking-letters to arrive by February 14th so that they could weigh in on a law that, if changed, could get some of them out sooner.

And then there was the Ricin scare and now all the letters are in a barrel somewhere in Maryland.

Last night I got in the fight that I think we were always looking for in high school. A friend of mine had a party and I guess it is important to know that we are semi-ironic friends, given that she is a sorority girl, and we both take pleasure in eachothers otherness. So towards the end of a long conversation, I said to this friend something along the lines of, "I would never fucking touch her." Perhaps in response to someone she propositioned to me, but I'm not sure. And some girl turns around and says, "What'd you say?"

"Nothing."

"You just said you'd never fuck her," she points to her friend.

"No, sorry."

Some steak-necked asshole steps into the situation. What? What'd he say? Yo, I think you better apologize, dude. And I'm thinkin' you need to leave. Yeah. Why don't you just get the fuck out of here? Dudes gonna get his ass beat tonight. Don't think I won't

I noted to the gentleman that he had nothing to gain by hitting me. You are in fact two to three times my size and it is quite obvious that you could really hurt me if you wanted to. In addition to which, you, not me, will get thrown out of school when I go down in one punch, and I cannot say that I am worth it.

He then wondered, The fuck he say to me? Mostly because he wasn't listening. He shook his big white-hatted head and scowled. We were in the basement of some apartment--and this is the problem with a keg, the only reason I even have to talk to these people is because there was a beer-line; cans, people, that's what they're there for--so I just stepped out the back door and walked back around front and into the party upstairs. Same apartment.

Everyone who loved me was upstairs. There were several people who requested that I would dance more intensely, and with them. Others wished to express their appreciation for my Karaoke-born remix of "In Da Club", which I performed earlier. I was dancing with a friend, Channy, when steak-neck returns.

Asshole displays his bewilderment at my continued existence. Somewhere in his A1 soaked brain, he realized that he couldn't remember what we fought about downstairs, so he just starts making shit up. Now all of the sudden I was yelling at girls and touching them innappropriately. Now, of course I did not touch anyone. Nor did I touch anyone innappopriately. This is by far the stupidest fight I've ever been in. However it had three things that we would have looked for in high school:

1) He was willing to throw the first punch. All I had to do to pursue the fight and remain innocent was stand there.
2) He represented a social dynamic wherein he perceived himself as above me. One time Ben's house was going to get egged by a pack of sports-car owning dicks in high school. We pulled up and I got out of the car and they all tore off. "Egging his house?" I shouted, running after them "That is our thing, you hear? You stick to your intimidation bullshit, and we'll do this." In essence, he represents the variety of person wherein even at lunch you think, Man, it would be great if one less of these assholes were around.
3) We were arguing about semantics and misread context. So if we're going to start punching about such things, I will remain right throughout and this will make me feel better later when my nose is broken for the fourth time.

Channy gets in there and this is when we all developed attrocious accents. She's from northern Deleware, but all of the sudden she has this West Philly thing going on and suddenly there is more New England in me than ever before. She says he needs to calm the fuck down. I'll handle this. We don't need your dumbass to ruin the party. Lemme talk to him.

Channy and I go outside and I relate to her the story which I have just told you. I express my bewilderment that it has continued this far and that this guy is willing to waste time on a guaranteed win. This is when I realize that I can be the winner by leaving. If I stay and I get hit, it will hurt, someone'll call security, the party will be over and I'll have to go to meetings about alcohol abuse--if you fall, need a band-aid, or get sick on a weekend night here at school, you pretty much have to go into therapy. Some friends of mine have left for the bar, so I decide to adjourn.

Now, those of you who have been my brother know that I am not going to walk away. Channy gets my coat, I apologize for bringing her into it, and I express my wishes that the rest of her night is better. When there is a four-foot tall brick wall between us, I turn to steak-neck and say, "Look, maybe someday you'll grow up and realize that this was all a dumb misunderstanding. The fact of the matter is that I'm only leaving because you're bigger than me. And I would love to see you get thrown out of school, but it's not worth breaking my glasses over."

"The fuck does this kid think he is?" He begins to walk around to my side of the wall and so I walk.

"Look, honey, I'm not worth it. Alright?"

Somehow that, above all else, was his button. In his steak-necked world, men do not have sweeteners-of-endearment for one another.

"Don't call me Honey, faggot. I don't see what the fuck you'r still doing here unless you're looking to get your ass pushed in." I am really far away now and so he yells just to make sure I can hear him: "Get out and stay out, You Fucking Faggot."

"Hey." I stop, turn around, and begin to point my finger and pose as if I have a chance and reduce four years of political linguistics and Women's Studies into: "Hey, why don't you watch who the fuck you're calling a faggot." So he starts charging at me. I'm going to estimate he was 270 pounds. This is the part where I ran, full speed and considered ducking into someone's house along the way. I think he forgot who he was running after and turned around.

Aftermath: The rest of his frat boys discussed, at the expense of an otherwise fun party, what to do about this strange homosexual who touches girls and yet, obviously, wants to suck all their dicks.

Pretty much everyone I knew at the party ended up with me at the bar. They affirmed to me that he was an asshole, that he had been kicked out once for plagiarism, that I should not worry about it. But there were others who didn't talk to me and who maybe thought that I was infact this hands-across-america homosexual who picks fights. And that's why I went home early.

This review pretty much details my restaurant, the confines of its culture, and why I look forward to finding a new one in Chicago.

The servers are friendly and the food is delivered hot. The server also supplies diners with hot French rolls when they are first seated, giving the customers something to munch on as they wait for their meals.
The meals are so spectacularly displayed that your mouth waters when the plate is set before you. For instance, the mozzarella sticks are served with carrots, celery, and both marinara and ranch dipping sauces.
The servings are also very satisfying. All entrees are served with some sort of potato — mashed, baked, or french-fried. Salads, however, are a la carte.
I had the filet mignon, as did my guest. It was so tender and juicy my mouth was salivating before I even tasted it.

Labels: Chicago

Now, I respect everyone's right to be done with The Postal Service. There are plenty of bands that do what they do, some even better. (I'll go ahead and namedrop Zero Zero and The Uniform Tragedy, which I cannot recommend highly enough). Their appearance last spring was magical and not only because even normal girls liked to hear it, but because for a few months, they really had us. I think of songs like "Clark Gable" and how much they've been ingrained on me: first it was because I missed England, then because I was in love, then it was about heartbreak. In my piece of shit car, I have no left audio track, and instead have two rights. This means that when I am at home, "Such Great Heights" going on a stereo reminds me of last years senior class and the ensuing revelry. But when I hear it in my car, with only half of the blips and notes, it takes me back to Deleware, with Amanda. Somehow I feel like we're doing something fun. (side report: We're going to move into a new phase and think of my recent break up as the end of a nice thing, which I can only now begin to remember fondly.)

But the fact is: Jenny Lewis from Rilo Kiley is smoking hot, and it is reason enough to watch this NPR video of The Postal Service Live, if only to rekindle. Jimmy Tamborello has his iBook plugged in directly, so the left/right action is excellent. And I also never realized how ugly Ben Gibbard is.

It should be noted that a beautiful thing happened last weekend here at my school and that I fucking missed it. No one had anything to do on saturday night, pretty much across campus. Friday had been fun, last weekend had a dance party, etc. Also, I DJ'd in the cove on thursday, but that is inconsequential (didn't wanna blow up the set of the guy after me, so I only played 45's of Chuck Berry, Patsy Cline, and The Platters, plus the whole Howard Dean Scream Speech. And the remix). But saturday night I stayed south for a long time. Meanwhile back north, my friends were the leaders of Party Patrol--a mob of fifty students going hall to hall, smoking, openning containers, and recruiting. This went on until two when someone said, We could just go over to my apartment. And within three minutes, reportedly, the boombox was ontop of the fridge, and cubes of fashionable beer were distributed. All of the remaining pictures are like Sasquatch Shots. There's always someone in the way or a busted flash or there weren't enough people in the shot. Everyone had fun. Me? Missed every minute of it while sticking around down south in some lame party with some lame people. It's not the party I missed, but I want that kind of magic in my life. Sure, it will come around again. But it'll just be Woodstock 99.