it is impossible to say exactly what i mean! as if some magic lantern threw my nerves in patterns on a screen. there are not few enough words for me to make my point, and the time has already past for it's utility. it's 3 in the a.m. and i'm completely alert, except for the part of me that's lost in august and everything after that is absolutely killing me right now. he always seems to have the words for what he believes. i guess it's some solace to know that duritz is a drugged-out 40+ single. not much solace, because he knows what he's about, or at least projects it, and that's all any of us can really hope for. to know where we're going and be fully convinced that it's the right direction. tomorrow seems so far away, but it's 3am, it's already here, and i have to live it, shorthandedly unprepared as i may be. drunk people see life differently, but appreciate that we're going to play jack's with no cover. i wish i could explain everything i ever wanted anyone to know, then make them forget it the next day. i think those 24 hours of understanding would make life alot less lonely, call me crazy.

posted by paul @ 3:02 AM

i think i might have trouble with words. i get about one good line in per conversation, blog, or paragraph. i've decided that the important thing is to find the good line and half the other stuff, say less but mean more. february is going to kick the towels in my back pockets. money, music, bad grades, 19 years, maybe a little lovin. wallace stevens floats my boat, events justify my in-betweens. it's good to be not be liked by everybody, it means you stand for something, right or wrong. i want to be hated if i am to be disliked. give me real, don't dare give me fake.

posted by paul @ 2:00 AM

i love walmart. k-mart was the kind of place you went to feel good about yourself, pat yourself on the back for finishing high school, be thankful you don't have a favorite flavor of corn nuts. tonight i took a walmart expedish for a few batteries as i need a calculator to cheat on the math test tomorrow, but anyways, they were freaking playing REM - Daysleeper over the PA and i nearly shat myself, cleanup on aisle 6. the new white chocolate reese's are ok if you forget how good the originals are, and the checkout lady and i had a nice chat about the fate of the twenty dollar bill in the pocket of collegiate america. we got booked for our first paying gig today, cactus jack's feb. 19. come if you're in the neighborhood and need your eyes irritated and your ears soothed.

posted by paul @ 11:16 PM

i'm in the mood for the upward slope of life. i'm going to die if this recording session goes anywhere near as planned, start getting your five dollars together now, the "album" should be "out" by the music fest. by album i mean demo and by out i mean copied in my cd-r. i had a lot of pseudo-intelligent sounding bullsh to rant about, but i think i changed my mind about it all, so i guess it wasn't all that important. i really think that i'm living with my most extreme sandpaper person, i'm probably going to have to kill him. i've been so ready for things to start looking up, february, bring it on.

posted by paul @ 12:45 AM

oh my. it's like i'm at that point where you realize you can't go on like this, any day now, the repition and blandness will catch up to you and drive you mad. i don't look forward to that day, i only hope i can come up with something before that something overcomes me. one of the most dangerous things you can ever do (not fightclub speaking) is start thinking you're special. it's better to forget about it and be surprised from time to time than to count on it and be let down. you are entitled to nothing more than you can control, and you can't control a damn thing but how you respond to the uncontrollable. i went and saw a jazz quartet tonight, some of the best live music i've ever heard, on a thousand different levels. mellow. it can be so right so often. it's like i would do anything to just let go, not worry about anything and just naturally accomplish what i should, but my worrying about it is contradictory. what the hell, get me to a bed and hang my roommate with a guitar string.

posted by paul @ 2:50 AM

i can't stand the thought of selling out to xanga. it always represented blogging for the wrong reasons, what a travesty. cakewalk is the mother of all recording software, i love it and i love that i paid nothing for it. this time next week i should be at j-lare's abandoned house making sweet sweet music and laying down track after track of the good stuff. about to soil myself i'm so excited. tonight i played xbox on a screen longer than a fullsized truck, discovered a bizarre red dot on the back of my hand, drank a pair of diet dr. thunders, listened to Seals and Croft's greatest and Who's Next on the turn, made a friend, filled out a card, cast a devious stare, splashed a pot, and wore sandals. tomorrow i will spend no less than 3 hours in the library, see a jazz trio, and finally play zaireeka. the bcm is a guilt fly-trap, it's alright as long as you're prepared. seriously though, ice cream ain't the perscription for a blown engagement, you should wait for a heavier dose.

posted by paul @ 12:23 AM

i've never felt so fat. i guess i have a few stories, they're pretty inconsequential, and the happy endings haven't shown up yet, i'm really hungry and headed for bed. look out, shortbread has cakewalk and will EP before lego my ego. what a fabulous post, don't propose before you can legally drink when she drops you.

posted by paul @ 2:28 AM

it hasn't yet hit me that i'm going to be up all night. this week is going to be nick drake and damien rice filling the singer/songwriter spots in my changer, i always loved that song on the cabrio commercial. i would do anything to be driving right now, with a little yankee hotel foxtrot or the bends or this is a long drive for someone with nothing to think about. the second front porch fest is on the books for friday feb 6, it's turning into a heavy show, maybe shortbread can play and i can leave. it's too easy to be negative, what's easy isn't often right, and so i'm gonna not be such a jerk and finish my paper. yeah, my work is cut out for me. blame it on the black star, pink moon is on it's way. i love music.

posted by paul @ 2:09 AM

i can't change you. i don't know who you are, what our relationship contexts are, or why you read this mess, but i know that regardless of my ability, i do not need to change you. you are exactly who you are, and you will be who you want to become; through a series of concious and unconcious decisions about where to go what to wear and who to worry about. somewhere along the line, acquaintences become freinds, people you'd stick up for, take shat for, wait for. the crappy sides of what is me and what is you somehow become softened into something cute, understood, ignored, or constantly forgiven. love who you can, don't hate who you can't love, and get along, for the love of the answering machine. and above all, take it easily.

posted by paul @ 1:03 AM

i am not special, i am an ass, i need to change. and i'm sorry.

posted by paul @ 11:59 PM

top 5 lamest atmospheres. urgency, how unecessary, slow down, king, plan ahead, follow through, do your homework and write your paper before friday. top 5 greatest things to find in your room, a blinking light on your answering machine. i wish my roomie was not asleep, i would check that mess. i might need to make some more music soon, days go better when music is being made. king will now take it slowly, keep the urgency to yourself, paul doesn't really need any.

posted by paul @ 2:14 AM

my goodness.
i'm not sure what or how much of what that that phrase addresses, but it comes in handy when pronounced in a sigh on a barefoot night of singer/songwriters and a ponder-ripe atmosphere. i've been readng wallace stevens alot tonight, trying to pull a thesis from things that seem like they were written to be never understood, like a joke about polar bears in a bathtub. "let be be the finale of seem." all we have is all we have, and i can't spend a life worrying about things that are not at least as real as the cookie dough icecream i'm craving. i love the feeling of hearing an album that i'm supposed to love for the very first time. it's like it's a conversation that wasn't meant to be relived again and again, you catch what you can, believe what you want, throw out what you don't, and thank matt nathanson and richard buckner for sharing themselves so openly and eloquently and for making a lonely night speed up or a perfect night slow down, as the climate demanded. i'm going to read some more stevens, i am not staying up for the dawn today, life's better on the weekends.

posted by paul @ 12:45 AM

life always has a funny way of sneaking up and reminding you of things you forgot. at least i didn't forget this time that things really do have to get better, and they did, just like clockwork. the band practiced for 2 hours today, i really wish i was a better drummer, i feel like i could do so much more for the sound. but i've played more in the past three months than i had the whole last year, so i guess i'm cruising for improvement. we're looking at doing a few intimate practice/shows to get our songs out, even if it's just with 10 friends, bands suck unless you know their music, and that takes time, so we should get to work on that. i guess i wasn't all that pissed off last night, was just sick of things going the ways they shouldn't have and not being able to do anything about it. i love clearing stuff up that i've worried about for a while only to find that the offended party has long since gotten over it, forgiven me, and is possibly even thankful that things turned out the way they did. top 5 greatest feelings, up there with non-chalant sentence completions and secret winks in a crowded room. pete yorn helped me finally finish my paper this morning, john and matt did all they could to keep me from it, but my iron will overcame. i had no idea that you coulld actually light a fart, i thought that was urban legend like the razors in the halloween candy. i've seen it done, wonder no more. only the first three pistachios taste like anything. i got some bottles of parsley at WM today, gonna try to pawn it off as weed, really think dray is gonna believe it, maybe he already thinks i smoke it. maybe he'll move out, maybe i should go to sleep, because i'm obviously not being rational. but i've decided what i want. i want to be love someone who loves me too, i stole it from oasis, but it's really all you could ask for. meet 'em halfway, it isn't worth the wasted time, believe me.

posted by paul @ 2:51 AM

this could be the least interesting and most pissedoff blog maybe ever, but i'll spare you, i'm not busking for pity. i'm just gonna leave learn to fly on repeat until i realize that i can't quite make it alone. i got a call from pineville tonight, two weeks of non-contact doesn't void a sympathetic ear. i have an insane ability for hurting the people i love, some of the things i do shouldn't be allowed. i guess i'm into telling people how i feel, and i usually feel pretty strongly, so i reckon i tell them pretty strongly. i love it how one phrase or mis-step can nullify thousands of thoughtfulnesses and phone calls from payphones in other states and stick-up-fors that they didn't even know about. i'm into the benifit of the doubt, and i see now how i take it for granted with the guys, there really isn't anything unforgiveable or past talking out with them. i guess now i have to clean up my act, because not everyone is into it, i find out, and it isn't something you can buy at sam goody.

posted by paul @ 1:35 AM

you can say what you mean, but it won't change a sin, i'm sick of the secrets. stood on a ledge, tied to a noose, but you came along and you cut me loose.

i don't want to philosophise, i don't want to recount my day, i don't want to type my paper, i don't want to do my math homework or study for the upcoming test, i don't want to change faces when i change crowds, i don't want to have to walk across the hall to the urinal, i don't want this matchbox 20 album to end, i don't wish i was anywhere but cott 203 latech ruston louisiana, i don't want you to fit unless you fit, i want to be a lion and somebody just a little more funky.

posted by paul @ 8:12 PM

what do you type to your brother who's somewhere in laos reading your mail in a dirty internet cafe surrounded by people who he could never connect with on any other level than "where's the urinal?" draw my blank. yeah, it was an oldschool guster night, Happier declaring itself the theme of the evening. my last night in the port city for maybe a month, and i'm feeling like garb in a house of people i really don't want to talk to. just get me on that road. can't be too much to ask. it's been great seeing the guys, everything seems to fall right back to how it used to be, jokes about mommas, gang tackles, music reviews, feels like summer again. i'm pretty sure that there isn't much i wouldn't do for the magnificent seven, even if it meant slamming some guy i'd never met to settle my boy's mind about a girl he still feels for. i really need to stop this mess, addicted for sure. at least wendy's gets my orders straight. got that going for me.

posted by paul @ 10:25 PM

not even sure if i can keep my eyes open for this. after a day of things going the way they shouldn't have, my dates cancelled and party poker was feeling stingy about who it let into the rooms, namely, not me. i've listened to smashing pumpkins and wilco and belle/sebastian, didn't really do anything but cement me into this crappy mood. on the bright side, i spent about 17 bucks more at best buy and got a 12 disc changer instead of a plain cd deck. i really hope that works out. i need a boost, years aren't supposed to start off this badly, and some poker would be really nice, and maybe a back rub. i wish people obeyed the kiss-the-nearest-person-when-the-ball-drops rule. i had my winterfresh ready and everything. camping redefined such words as "rancid," "stench," "pyromania," "discomfort," and "balls-cold." there are no stories, so i won't tell any, and don't ask to see any pictures. my goodness, listen to bob dyaln, the man knows exactly what he's talking about, and it all sounds better on a turntable. i saw johnny cash's last music video the other day, just about had a tear coming on, we are all a lost generation, give me more of old guys who know what to say and feel what they write. who the hell signed nickleback? it's artistry, not an industry. quoth, me.

posted by paul @ 10:52 PM