Michael's Texas Embrace

Well, Andrew is headed homeward, and I have been doing homework for three hours, so the glorious sloth-like state that is thanksgiving is over. Well, not sloth-like, since we did a crapload of stuff while Andrew was here. Why, we drank around 50 beers, maybe a little more counting the beers at the drafthouse. We watched every episode of Firefly, a whole bunch of Ren and Stimpy, played a lot of cards (Texas Hold 'Em was kind of dumb, but Bullshit ruled as always), played Rummikub, ate a ton of food (we cooked enough food for three times as many people as we were. Rock). We watched a Turkish version of Wizard of Oz from the 70s, with live music and dubbing right in the theater (that's Foleyvision!) and that was freaking hysterical...why did those little midget soldier guys keep appearing and disappearing? Andrew cracked open a beer everyday by noon I think, and we all cracked open beers at noon on thanksgiving, and gave thanks for beer. So it was a class-A thanksgiving. Of course, it would have been nice to have more family, but it was the best damn three-person thanksgiving ever.

A custom seems to be establishing itself that people who visit make a song with me, so me and Andrew made a song. It's thanksgiving themed! I mean, it's about how the bums are stealing thanksgiving from the proper working-class via the government and general theft, I guess. It's offensive and stupid, full of sudden changes and bad singing...and it is totally awesome. I don't know if it's more offensive than me and Murf's hurricane song, but it's pretty rough (see Murf's page for the Hurricane song. Be warned, it has dying babies and cannibalism in it, and is 20 minutes long.) For some reason, I didn't expect collaborating with Andrew to turn out a song like this. Composition-wise I mean. I guess I had imagined Andrew inspiring some weird, complex arrangements, but we ended up making a song that's really sort of like an attention-deficit, tight and lean little rock combo, changing channels. That is, not too many instruments and lots of punchy bass and organ playing. And rock drums. Anyway, it's got urinating and random violence in it, and a killer bit of four-part harmony. And really, what more could a rock song ask for?

Hobo Thanksgiving

Credits:

Andrew: vocals, Bass(most of it), keyboard, moog (the long, cool solo in the penultimate section), drums, wailing and clapping
Michael: vocals, guitar (acoustic, electric), bass (only in one part), moog (only the crappy first moog part), drums, programmed beats, clapping and moaning.

Music by Andrew and Michael, and pretty evenly I'd say. And Andrew can sure tweak a weak chord progression into a good one! Lyrics by Michael, Andrew, and Maggie (!!--she helped with a couple of lines, some of the best ones, too...) Produced by the dudes and recorded at Michael's Octopoidland Studio, Austin TX. All apologies to homeless people, we don't really think you're just lazy and we do think you deserve thanksgiving too. It's a joke, man, ease on up.

Well, let's see. Maggie got a promotion! She's the head teller now, and she gets a pretty good raise. Michael stands to get a promotion since the cafe supervisor position is opening up and the store manager (Matt--an idiot) wants me to be the new sup. But the position is way lame. The cafe supervisor is hardly ever in the cafe, and thus never has any idea what's going on and does not get tips. I mean, I get a raise, but I think it comes out to less than what I make it tips, so why would I want more responsibility and stress for less money? I ask you. I mean, really.

I have a new song. It's a country song (maybe) about working at the dollar store with a monster who smokes cigarettes. Why? I don't know. It just sort of happened. But the abstract thing the other day is the spacey slide guitar from the first section of this song processed, layered, and filtered A LOT.

Monster At The Five-And-Dime

Oh, if you haven't done so, go over to 1000 Square Feet and vote on Murf's bathroom tile pattern. Only you can save his bathroom!

I feel like I go through phases of art. By art I suppose I mean my art, which is writing and music, and it goes through phases. I went through this long phase of being silly where I wrote a story based on the "Bad Dudes" nintendo game and wrote a crapload of really stupid songs (See: The Sweetness and all things related.) Now all of the sudden I just want to make weird things that aren't funny or touching or anything. Just weird. For the sake of it.

SO in the wake of Murf's visit, I have recorded a really weird country-ish thing (which I will post in a day or two) and then I took the slide guitar part from the beginning of that and stretched it, warped it, filtered it, etc, etc, and layered it forwards backwards and sideways, and I think it sounds cool. How many people are interested in purely weird abstract sound recordings? Not many I bet! Nonetheless, I'm interested, and this is my blog, so I'm posting it. Listen if this sounds like your thing. If not, I wouldn't bother.

Monster's Tune

A REAL mystery of life...

Um, so today I was at work, bored, standing around wishing I was one of those peppy people with get-up-and-go in the morning. But the morning is so, so stupid. I decided to see what was in my pockets. When you wear the same pair of pants four days in a row (at least...) you tend to accumulate stuff. There were several receipts in my pocket. Funny thing, they weren't mine. Or Maggie's. They seem to belong to a North Austin resident.

So: if you or someone you know purchased a large veggie sub from thundercloud subs on October 29 at 11:23 and paid cash and spent $5.40 on a visa card (check card, maybe) at Jason's Deli 10225 Research on October 27, I have your receipts.

I am wondering: how did I get the receipts of another? I suppose I could have picked them up and put them in my pocket for reasons that are unclear to me, and then promptly forgotten that I had done so. Or, in a more sinister vein, someone could have put them in my pocket. Most likely while I was wearing the pants. Someone is trying to get into my pants! And the vehicle they chose were receipts! But this makes little sense also. What could the motivation be for me picking up receipts or for someone slipping them into my front left pocket? I do not know. I am mystified.

There is, of course, a third possibility. A ghost did it. A ghost put someone else's receipts in my pocket. Ghosts' actions and reasons are surely murky and most difficult for the living to interpret. What outcomes are hoped and plotted towards within their unkowable minds? What strange machinations are set in motion in their wake? To what end do these phantasmagorical masterminds strive? What plot? What purpose? What drive? I, in the land of the living, with my non-ectoplasmic form and mind, cannot say. To the automatic writing device! Let us speak plainly to the dead and pray they speak the same to us! There! Near the window! An ethereal hand that hovers, wavers by some unfelt breeze! In its fingers are receipts for purchase we did not make! Will we tally the payments and find our checkbooks unbalanced? On the floor, calculator, pencil, scrap-paper, checkbook scattered about, tallying the totals and totaling the tally over and over, trying to figure out where the money went. What is this discrepancy? It seems about the price of two sandwiches, but I cannot be sure...

The spectral vision aside, if you have any information about these receipts, please let me know. I am haunted; I am mad. I must know!

Well, halloween is over, and it was pretty good! Me and Maggie went to a party dressed up, and looked rad. Maggie was Samara from "The Ring" and I was Kenshin from "Rurouni Kenshin."








Maggie made the costumes from sheets and a curtain (for my pants) and I'd say they looked pretty rocking for homemade sheet costumes. We expertly stained Maggie's dress with coffee and dirt. It smelled like a dirty coffee pot up close, but it was worth it.

And my costume got the ultimate anime-based costume compliment! An Asian girl carrying a huge sword yelled "Hey Kenshin, let me take your picture" while me and Murf were on sixth street dressed up. I mean, if you get the vote from the girls-with-giant-swords population, you win the election.

6th street on halloween was interesting. Most of the girls' costumes seemed to be "slut" in one form or another. There were angel sluts and pirate sluts and cop sluts and devil sluts and cowgirl sluts. Even a bankrobber slut. No slutty smurfette, though.

Me and Murf made a 20-minute long song about the hurricanes, and it is bad-ass sweet. And probably terribly offensive. There are screaming baby sound effects during the country ballad, for example. During the cannibalistic mom section. Umm...it's definately not for most people, I dare say. But it sounds way rad. I'd post it, but it's 20 minutes long, so, you know... You'll get to hear it, don't worry. Me and murf need a band name! What should we be? Hmmm...