Letter from Belgium

"Martin calls to say he's sending old electrical equipment.
That's good we can always use some more electrical equipment.

In the cold clear light of day down here
Everyone's a monster
That's cool with all of us
We've been past the point of help since early April

Susan and her notebook
Freehand drawings of Lon Chaney
Blueprints for geodesic domes
Recipes for cake

Yeah we're all here
Chewing our tongues off
Waiting for the fever to break

When we walk out in the sunlight we tell every we know it hurts our eyes
When the real reason we don't like it is that it makes us wonder if we're dying

And Martin's found an old trunk full of stage makeup in the basement
And he's sending it along
We can always use more makeup
Yeah more creams and powders

And Carrie's got the feeling
That the people next door
Will close in like a wolf pack
Should we make one small mistake

Yeah we're all here
Chewing our tongues off
Waiting for the fever to break."

-the mountain goats

Harrison Ford is driving down the road...

...and he looks out his window. Instead of the idyllic small town scene he expects, there is a fucking volkswagen completely ingulfed in flames in a bank parking lot. This scene produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.

Except that I was driving down the road and there was a fucking volkswagen completely ingulfed in flames in a bank parking lot.



Walmart, it turns out, does not have hummus. I searched high and low. I asked. No, Walmart does not have hummus. So I bought my bagels and orange juice and drove down to ingles for hummus. As I neared ingles, I noticed that there was a particularly horrible odor in the air, even for papermill country. And there was an awful lot of smoke blowing across the road.

Some crazy hillbilly no doubt burning trash, I thought, and turned into the parking lot at ingles and fucking christ is that a car on fire?! I parked sideways and ran to cross the street, but the one fireman there wouldn't let that happen.



He couldn't do anything except watch, the fire was uncontainable. The red VW bus was flaming bumper to bumper and just sitting there. There was a tiny car-sized fire extinguisher sitting in the parking lot, obviously used up to no avail. I tried to zoom in, but my camera was shitty. I'd have killed for my canon, but at least I had something.

I called Pete... I had to tell someone. There is a goddamn car on fire! I am watching it!

Glass and metal fell burning to the asphalt spreading debris and making the firemen jump back. I couldn't feel the heat in a physical sense.

How in hell does this even happen?

Finally a truck showed up, and there was more attention paid to extinguishing the van than to a kid running across traffic.

Perhaps I am a horrible person, I didn't even think to ask if there'd been anyone inside until after it was well out. There had been, but they had, after exhausting their fire extinguisher, gotten the hell out and watched it burn.

Go to flickr.

Goddamn.

MUSIC: guided by voices: the finest joke is upon us

"for my heart's a boat in in tow...

fertilizer., originally uploaded by Vocal Shrapnel.

...and I'd give the world to know..." why I signed up for statistics five days a week.

Writing until way past four then getting up at nine for an exam... I took my first nap in at least a decade and woke up hungry and with the odd feeling that I'd dreamt of an easy statistics exam.

That's the first full week behind me, and it only gets better. I get to start eating somewhere other than Brown (though this is the name of the cafeteria, it also describes all the food served in it) and my history class starts up.

My advisor miscounted, so I was set to be ONE HOUR short of graduating this august. The head of the department has given agreed to give me the hour credit for an 8+ page paper in which I assault the historical accuracy of the film Michael Collins and discuss the pitfalls and compromises of history as film.

This is, of course, the Michael Collins who bribed and blew up English people and not the Michael Collins who flew around the moon while Neil and Buzz quipped about stepping on mankind.

(or for... who knows?)

On my deadman's walk to Brown today I saw that the ground had been... colored. I suspect it's fertilizer, but the color suggests it could also be actual paint. Someone did a bad job of matching the colors, but the idea, I surmise, is to cover all those bald patches on the lawn like some giant Ron Popeil commercial. This bottle has also been fertilized.

I was carrying my camera because yesterday the sewer lid had been open and I wanted to get a ninja-turtles-esque picture of that. Alas, it was sealed today.

Everyone and their mom should go to youtube and seach for 'quiet as a mouse.' Find the video for said song by Margot and the Nuclear So and So's and watch it. Oil painting animation has never made cats look like such bastards.

Neil Gaiman's Smoke and Mirrors is probably the best book to keep by your bed, ever.

MUSIC: coco rosie: terrible angels

In lieu of actually getting anything worthwhile done...

...like working on my script, I'm looking at things to try to work into my script that happened on July 24th aside from the near-simultaneous birth of myself and Anna Paquin. After spending a solid hour deciding what the plot of Lost actual is with my stepbrother (hint: dirty hippies) it actually seems close enough to a constructive use of my time that I can probably go to bed.

July 24th:
-Death of Peter Sellers
-Feast day for Christina the Astonishing, patron saint of insanity and mental disorders
-Vanuatu children's day
-Martin Van Buren's death
-Birth of Alexander Dumas, Alfons Mucha, and Gus Van Sant
-first successful treatment with insulin

Last night, as if in communion with Andrew Malcovsky on the eve of his voyage, I decided that half a gallon of Chianti wasn't that much. Perhaps some of my lethargy today is the fault of this decision.

MUSIC: joan of arc: excitement is exciting

This is a bird...

, originally uploaded by Vocal Shrapnel.

...in it's post-eaten state.

I cooked that turkey, and there are pictures of the first weekly monday night party up on flickr.

I dare you.

In the tradition of 'Being John Malkovich' ...

... I have begun to work on a screenplay involving an actual real actor. I have just written the opening of a screenplay which would feature Anna Paquin as herself. This originates with the fact that I have the same birthday as her, and it kind of went crazy following a conversation I had with the other Jef in my screenwriting class.

On a vaguely related note, I really like this little scene for which I stole my stepbrother's name.

INT. BEDROOM -- LATE MORNING

The alarm clock is going off, analog and a decade old and sounding furious. PETER LORENZ -- early 20’s and apparantly lacking in the sleep department -- rolls over and strikes uselessly at his alarm clock.

Opening his eyes he finds a little more success in getting the alarm to shut off, and with a groan he mobilizes. He rolls off the bed and seems to land on his feet only by luck. He drags his sheets behind him for several feet as he makes his way to the door, rubbing his eyes.

INT. KITCHEN -- MOMENTS LATER

Peter walks into the kitchen, yawning and looking scarcely alive. He walks over to the counter and grabs the carafe from the coffee pot. His movements all inertia, really, as if he has no energy of his own, he manages to get the carafe under the faucet in the sink and turns it on.

Once the carafe fills, he fills the coffee pot from it, getting most of it into the machine while making sure the counter top gets a bit of a wash, too.
He opens the filter tray and takes out the removable filter-holder. Taking a step and pivoting, showing an amazing economy of motion, he upends it into the trash can and empties it of grounds and old filter.

Without rinsing, he puts a new filter in and opens the lid of the coffee can.
With the lid off, A WHOLE LOT OF JOKE SPRING SNAKES, shoot out into the air and hit him in the face. Peter falls back.

PETER
What the fuck?!

He lands on the floor amid a spray of spring snakes, trying not to smile, still looking a little shaken. He stands up slowly, a lot more awake, and looks into the can.

Inside is no coffee, but there is a note. The camera zooms in past his shoulder to show what it reads. “Pete, Since we’re out of coffee, I thought I’d try to help you wake up. I’ll pick some up after work. Love, Calvin.”

Peter takes the note out and crumbles it, throwing it at the trashcan, missing, and kicking a spring snake.

MUSIC: tom waits: grapfruit moon

a list

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If you're going to compare fruit...

...the least you can do is compare apples to pears. They're not that dissimilar. So many people seem to enjoy comparing apples to oranges, but that's just silly.

There is no more break, gang.

Exams end on the first friday in May, and I'll have finished my chemistry class by the fourth friday of the month.

I will have a degree in August and I will not know what to do with it.

For the second week in a row I have been given virtually no feedback on my scene for screenwriting class. "This is so good, I had to read it twice before realizing how much information I was getting" is certainly a gratifying thing to hear. Especially from a professional in the field. I hope it indicates that I can make this thing happen.

In the down time in my own little room when I'm not in my two hours of classes a day, I will try to do the actual work that will tell me if that response was a fluke.

"I'm learning to hunt for you."

MUSIC: guided by voices: learning to hunt

"...and I feel just like a television...

...left on in an empty room..."



This picture is the first day of spring in Asheville, NC. It was taken at one p.m. The white spot there in the middle of the windshield... that is ice.

It's supposed to snow friday.

Thanks for nothin', spring.

On another topic all together, the quote is from a Small 23 song called 'empty room' from their Cakes ep. I own this ep, and if I leant it to you, give it back. I really want to hear this song.

Does anyone remember that episode of the critic (I know you do) in which Jay Sherman sets out to win another Pulitzer? Remember the advice that wins it for him?

Let me remind you: "If the movie stinks, just don't go."

I bring this up because of Larry the Cable Guy.

This guy knows what I'm talkin' about.

Seriously though, when you pay money to see a movie, be it in a theater or to rent it and watch it at home, you are voting. You are voting on the kinds of movies that make money and thereby you are voting for the kinds of movies that will get made.

And there's no mispunched ballots or thrown out votes in the world of cold hard cash. So let's see if we can all do our part, resist the temptation to see Resident Evil 3 or Snakes on a Plane. If you have to see shit, sneak in. Or rent it and watch it with lots of friends. The rental costs the same whether you watch it with a dozen friends or all alone, in the dark, with your shades pulled down, eating hagen dazs.

Encourage Spike Lee and discourage (or kill) Larry the Cable Guy. Choose wisely.

MUSIC: the microphones: the glow

If you know your saints...

...then you know this is actually kind of appropriate. Still, I am deeply, deeply sorry.

"...then we'll chain smoke cigarettes...

"...then we'll chain smoke cigarettes, it doesn't matter...", originally uploaded by Vocal Shrapnel.

...It doesn't matter 'cause we're all gonna die."

Radio Free Brno:

Web in Front: the archers of loaf
Car: built to spill
Just like Heaven (live): the cure
Frontier Psychiatry: the avalanches
I'll Be Gone: tom waits
Lawyers, Guns, and Money: warren zevon
Disarm: smashing pumpkins
Under Sad Stars: crooked fingers
Staralfur: sigur ros
A.M. 180: grandaddy
Oh Canada: geddy lee et al.
Friday I'm in Love (live): the cure
Canned Heat: jamiroquai
Life on Mars: david bowie
Waitin' for Superman: the flaming lips
Under Pressure: david bowie and queen
Mine's Not a Highhorse: the shins
Seeing Other People: belle and sebastian
Enjoy the Silence: depeche mode
We Close Our Eyes (live): oingo boingo

It's a potent and reminiscent mix of rocking and balconies and adventures through europe and a dorm in Brno. I dare you to listen to it and not want to go party all night in Vienna or Prague.

What's that, you already want to party all night in Vienna or Prague? I think I've made my point.

MUSIC: we close our eyes (live): oingo boingo

"If you're gonna spew....

...spew into this."




If Jack Ramshaw looks partied out, he has a good excuse.

MUSIC: pixies: bone machine

This is two-months-from-now-weather,

and I want to spend it on the Vinarska lawn, with champagne and the tragically hip. Sitting Indian Style, cross-legged, wind blowing too-tall grass over discarded butts, balcony shouting, throwing nationalistic stereotypes and cigarette-tricks and bottlecaps... keeping the soccer players at bay with girls desperate to lay claim to the infrequent Czech sunshine.

Andrew, this is Isolation Drills by Guided by Voices.

This is when we decided for the hundredth time that we needed girls.

This is tramspotting.

This is an adventure.

And it will all vanish, I suspect, before my break starts, before I can have even a little of it.

MUSIC: the magnetic fields: the luckiest guy on the lower east side

"each star represents...

...a playmate that I've slept with."

-Abraham Lincoln



These flags are for hatecrimes. It took me a long time to find the sign that told me that.

So February is in its death throes, and another weekend's gone fast and arguably wasted. The more I do what I should, the worse I hurt. This weekend I was on my feet for hours and hours at a time, and I drank more in two nights than I had prior to that all year. So much for clean livin'.

I learned a lot about the butthole surfers, and though I recall not liking much that I learned, I find myself listening to them even now. I also remembered the Sixths today, though, and I can't find it in my heart or my brain to say that I'm enjoying the surfers more than the sixths.

I worry that I don't make any sense a lot of the time.

Spring break is coming, and I will use it to work. I will intend to use it to talk about guerilla asheville with Jack and to make my fourtrack earn it's keep with Malcolm and Laura Marie and Louise and Pete and anyone else willing to make some noise and to clean the room that will be mine and to... probably do a lot of things... but I will not make those promises, because that'll just be one more thing I beat myself up for in two weeks time.

MUSIC: the sixths: in the city in the rain (w/ Lou Barlow)

did you ever feel like...

...you were part of an experiment? I keep wondering when the scientists will come and tell me that I was part of the placebo group.

"Mr. Johnson, we'd like to inform you that you have been taking a placebo all week. As you show no real progress in your recovery from this gouty attack, your results confirm the value of the drug indomethicin. Here are some actual, working pills. And we apologize for mentioning the band 'Placebo.' We understand as you do that they are a vile musical plague who should've been executed for covering the Smiths. We hope you feel better."

Oh, and go do this thing.

MUSIC: pixies: wave of mutilation

The reasons...

...to not go to one's first class are myriad. Perhaps one is sleepy. One could have a hangover or perhaps one has not done ones homework. Rarely does one skip class because every time one takes a step and transfers ones, granted rather substantial, weight to ones left foot they inhale sharply and have the distinct desire to collapse to the floor and then, perhaps, cut off one's left foot.

This is the kind of pain that convinced me in Brno that my foot was broken. And as bad as it was there with trams and miles of cobbled street to walk, there is a substantial difference. There, I had a balcony and grand books and music right at hand. There I could prop up the offending foot, relax, and watch the sun move across the sky, drinking wine because I knew no better, using the inhalations brought by pain to drag on cigarettes and do further harm to my body.

Most importantly, then and there I had Jesse and Andrew. There I had others, Jess Michael and Richard and every one else. As bad as my foot hurts right now, it's not entirely unpleasant. It reminds me of KFC brought from the middle of town, carried back tramwise and cooling because standing made me want to cry. I remember wrapping my foot with toilet paper to keep the packing tape from sticking to my foot, making an ace bandage from whatever was handy, all so I could get my foot into a shoe and hobble into town for fourteen degree beer.

Lots of time on hand, among all this, to read.

I don't think it's adverdant (is that a word?) that Jesse keeps giving me books with characters that take pictures of people who do things I aspire to do, but that's how it is. The Ground Beneath her Feet (which he didn't really give me, but he definitely got me to read it, and provided the copy I used) is about a photographer who takes pictures of the other main characters, incredible Indian rock stars. I have a four track, now, by the way.

Mao II is about a photographer who travels the world to take pictures of writers (among other things, of course). It makes me wish I were a better photographer, it makes me wish I were a better rock star, it makes me wish I were a better writer. It feels like all this is some subtle kind of encouragement from Jesse, and I know he bought me that KFC, too.

And Andrew carried it. And as horrible as the idea of KFC seems now, it's the thought that counts. Happy 2 weeks through the six weeks of winter predicted by the groundhog. It's sixty degrees and NYC stole my blizzard. I need more indomethicin.

MUSIC: sorry about dresden: somewhere there's snow

"Untie me, I've said no vows...

...the train is getting way too loud;
I gotta leave here, my girl,
get on with my lonely life.

Just leave the ring on the rail
for the wheels to nullify.

Until this turn in my head
I let you stay and you paid no rent.
I spent twelve long months on the lam.

That's enough sitting on the fence
for the fear of breaking dams.

I find a fatal flaw
in the logic of love,
and go out of my head.

You love a sinking stone
that'll never elope,
So get used to the lonesome,
girl, you must atone some.
Don't leave me no phone number there

It took me all of a year
to put the poison pill to your ear,
but now I stand on honest ground...
on honest ground.

You want to fight for this love,
but honey you cannot wrestle a dove,
so baby it's clear.

You want to jump and dance,
but you sat on your hands,
And lost your only chance.

Go back to your hometown.
Get your feet on the ground,
and stop floating around.

I find a fatal flaw
in the logic of love,
and go out of my head.

You love a sinking stone
that'll never elope
so get used to the lonesome,
girl, you must atone some.
Don't leave me no phone number there.

-The Shins.

Happy Valentines Day.

We don't negotiate...

...with terrorists. And by we I mean me and by terrorists I mean chain e-mails.

I think I'm cursed with something like 90 years of bad luck by now for not having forwarded any of the many, many chainletters I receive. I should also probably be dead, and will definitely not have my wish come true in my age minutes.

Andrew may recall that when he asked if he should make plans for a roadtrip when I told him I was graduating. Well, no roadtrip is necessary for the event itself, but post event it sure would be nice to share a bottle of red or five.

More to come on that front.

The College Foundation loan people, incidentally, think I graduated in December, and so expect three hundred bucks from me by wednesday. I called them and very politely informed them that I was, in fact, taking 18 hours this semester and have definitely not graduated. I'm not sure they buy it.

MUSIC: radiohead: the bends

*GACG: You look like Brad Pitt in this picture.

Me: Bullshit!
GACG: (beat) I was lookin' at it sideways.
Me: That's better.

* indicates Guy At College Grocery

Substantially more flattering than Paul Giamatti.

MUSIC: the cure: jumping someone else's train

pete on christmas

pete on christmas, originally uploaded by Vocal Shrapnel.

is he excited or incredibly sleepy? If I could photoshop I'd put his head on a goat's body or something. This guy knows what I'm talking about.

MUSIC: pavement: major leagues