Thousands video

I had to take this off of both Youtube and Facebook, so I'm leavin it here. Deal.

two rivers

I see two rivers rolling down
the canyon valley walls
each billowing with silver curls
over rocks and waterfalls
I stand flat-footed, firm aloft
deciding which to brave
knowing the snaking length I choose
will be my teacher, change my ways

My single raft
contrived of tweed and twine and amber glue
remains an unscathed shiny vessel
waiting to be used
The morning sun is glistening
all twinkles in the rivers' tongue,
and time is scarce to idle
there's a river must be run.

So raising up my earthbound boat
I scurry to the shore,
a bank that rests between both rivers
which do I ignore?
Swiveling my head between
the dancing water troughs
it's time to choose a river now
I've minutes to set off.

The safer of the rivers, calmly eddied beckons me
with sweet soft spinning whirlpools
in clean water churning quietly.
The other of the two erupts
in rushing vats of white,
a monster pounding past me
turning quickly out of sight.

The dangerous and risky
or the safe and steady side?
which river to commit myself to
which river should I ride?

BSGYG

B russels
S prouts
G ive
Y ou
G as

Initial Resolutions

For the new year, here's some things I'd like to have accomplished by the end of 2010:

1 - traverse the face of Everest from a helicopter via snowboard

2 - mountain bike the Great Wall of China

3 - learn to kayak

4 - jump off Havasu Falls*

5 - swim the length of the pacific ocean with an ability to deep-sea dive and look at the octupus and/or ride the backs of whales

6 - circumnavigate the world solo in a one-man dinghy with nothing but a bag of rice, beans, beef jerky, and 20 rolls of film with a camera on top.

7 - backpack the Pacific Crest trail from north to south

8 - free-climb the tallest tree in the northeastern Russian

9 - ride a pterodactylesque dinocreature while careening vertically down the walls of hanging mountains in the sky

10 - get more acting jobs

11 - learn to leap 300 yards at a time and cross the US doing so **

12 - get an iPhone.

This is only an initial list. I'll update accordingly.

*I had multiple dreams after our Grand Canyon trip about leaping from the watery tongue of Havasu Falls into the blue green water below
**also a dream. and a cool one.

Rah Rah RAvatar: the List

So, a little behind the times (everyone else saw it opening night at the Arclight and such places) I finally got to behold the event that is Avatar last night, at the El Dorado Hills Regal Cinemas, a ridiculous place, with Hillary Daniel John Candice and Amanda.

So here's my list of thoughts, comments, observations:

#1: People! Wise UP! Do not cut in line else I shall call you OUT and embarrass you in front of your friends. NO cutting. If peeps be waitin' patiently for Avatars n' shit, you don' cut no sneak no shimmy dat ass any closer dan de designated spot-in-cue that you done got assigned while waitin' to buy yor ticket. For SEERS, yo. noneadat.

#2: 3D glasses. I like to call it the Healing Curve, or our ability to adapt quickly to physical environmental changes that we know we're gonna have to put up with for the next 3 hours. (See Also: Burning in Hell for Eternity, and my theory debunking the myth that it is actually an effective form of punishment.)

#3: Movie Theaters are not libraries. You can talk in them before the movie starts. Be mindful of children, but if you have a dirty joke to tell to your friends don't let the old people in the adjacent row with their "SHHHH'S!!" deter you from your mission of utilizing those precious moments before the movie starts to make a scene.

#4: Radvatar. First of all, why are 20-ft blue cat people so sexy? Even Sigourney's hot. Didn't see that one coming. Second, the flying scenes will literally lose you. It's one thing to be in a forest with illuminated petals spotted by raindrops, but flying through the air on a red and yellow pterodactyl never felt so gosh-darned good as it did last night, especially when you're in love with the cat woman on her dinosaur next to you.
Honestly, I'm finally sold on the 3D thing and the CGI thing. Afters years of angst and gagging over the terrible calamity that is CGI to replace puppetry in films, last night I found myself never once having a moment of "that's FAKE." Obviously it's fake, but in it's fakeness it never looks fake! Other films exhibit their CGI like its so cool, and you're like dude the intro to Warcraft II was cooler (see also: Harry Potter movies Suck and/or Star Wars I-III is like eating too much Costco cake). Since I have no f-ing clue how they made this movie, I also have no f-ing clue how they could make this movie any better...I think the critics would agree, and that's why they try to harp on the storyline - because that's the only aspect of the film that they know the slightest bit enough about to discuss. Everything else is so brand spanking new,
and it sells like snowcones in the Sahara.

#5: Indigenous peoples fighting machines with bows and arrows DOESN'T WORK

#6: Moviehopping: yes, it is still a possible and very plausible way to spend the rest of your Saturday night. But I have no idea how people can sit through 5-7 hours of movies. I mean, 2 1/2 hours is aplenty for this boy. I suffer from something called Having Energy, and sitting in 2 or 3 movies at a time is more exhausting than a day of rafting.

#7: And finally, if you are going to get a McDonald's Sundae for $1.09 afterwards, make sure you don't ask someone else to put the peanuts on top while you're driving. You might regret it the next morning.

That is all
FAREWELL

waiting for christmas dinner

drop in!


rouge folds


a vagina


some old maps



battlemech skirmishes





moist


she's plucked


portraiture

my Drunk Poem

on the subject of crescendos, what do you do when the note is too high, the beer too strong and the company too critical? I'll tell you - look for the ONE person in the place who's pointing at you with their eyes raised up in passion and then SING with them! Because if a gathering of angels really did appear above your head, nobody could come close from detracting you from the goal at hand - to Come sail Away for christmas. Seriously. ask josh flasher.
Twas the night before Christmas
and all through the house
everyone went to sleep
except for the migsy.
With presents to wrap and no solid desire
to make them look pretty tonight
he wanders between the state
of wake and tired, maybe too sleepy
to put up a fight.
Poems after drinking are rarely successful,
especially this little gem of a square tune
but if you can take something from this ol' diddy
know that Christmas will be over
before too soon.
Which makes me sad,
which is maybe why
I'm putting wrapping off until morningtime.

that's it. offifically.

And by the way, I have more to say but for now sufficed be you shall. Let's see how this goes - merry christmas 2009. :-) and happy hanukkuh.

Mikie.

just quickly

since there's no one else to say it to at 3:16 in the morning but a blog:
Goodnight.
I love you.


Mikie

ah the crescendo of what the hell

forgive me, I'm drinking. Alone mind you. Disclaimer: None of this is personal so please don't take it so. For Zeus's sake, and my own.

It's a fine rainy night in los Angeles, 3 days before Christmas. I'm a clambake in my house, I dragged the bedspread and pillows into my living room to set up camp so long as Jason is out of town - which is lasting I guess till just before new years.
At some point I have to make the trek up north but this freaking season has my senses all screwed up. I mean, it's Christmastime and apparently there's no place like Los Angeles. Why? I have no clue - like the headless chicken that I prove to be here, running around the city virtually on my own looking for fun and not really accomplishing much but a hike and some walks through the epic shopping centers that adorn Hollywood and Pasadena. It's lovely, but in the end I am sitting on my fancy bedspread, in my fancy apartment that smells like apples toasting myself with glass of wine I kid you not.

I'm wondering if I am the only one who enjoys George Clooney's character more pre-infatuation stage in Up in the Air. he was interesting when he wasn't obsessed with whatsherbutt. Right? I mean, he gives you hope that people can live outside of the doomness of falling in love. Because love is just that - Doom. You either never get what you want, or you kid yourself into thinking you've gotten exactly what you want until you realize that you have nothing and spend the night drinking and convincing your inner-gut that It is wrong and needs to stop feeling that way.
I read something today about the origin of love, written by Aristophanes, that basically said this: all humans want is to be literally sewn and molded back together with one another, and we spend the whole of our lives in this critical pain striving to do so. Well what more truth is there than that! I mean, how many journals can you fill as a kid before you realize all you're doing is venting about how love isn't working out for you. Then you head into college and after, spending the majority of your time working your butt off to avoid the fact that you are ultimately alone and doomed to never really love. How many people actually get it, this whole love thing? Or are they all just compromising and expecting.
I don't know. It's been an odd couple weeks for me. But I am trying to drive my energies towards the right things. I have this burning inside of me that is literally murder and I know that it is Love and the insane lacking that I feel.. It hurts, even right now it's painful. I can sit here, and my freaking brain causes my body pain for lack of love. What IS that! Why can't I convince myself that I have an overwhelming plethura of love, and fill that empty gap with sheer delight? Is it only physical? do I just need the physical fulfillment to douse this scathing flickering flame inside my stomach? Bull crap. I'd give my right nut for physicality all the time but who can have that? who can actually live in an only physical state and still succeed as a human in the social world?

Well, maybe that's what Aristophanes was talking about when he said that the human beings, when conjoined, were becoming greater than the gods themselves. Because they are in the perfect state, a state we can only pretend to achieve by intertwining our bodies and pulling eachother as close as is impossible. But never fully divulging. Never achieving that melted state of serenity that we originally once were.

This makes so much sense. If you believe in Adam, maybe those two were just post-split. And God was Zeus' son whom he said, "hey, watch these guys and make sure they don't do anything stupid". (Which they did thanks to SNAKE!)

Ok. I digress. The point is, love is as passing as a good book. you sit down and read it in spurts. By the time you're in the middle, nothing else exists outside of that book. All you want to do is read more and more of it! So you quicken through the pages, get swept away by the alternative universe, discover the climax and finish the ending! and if the book is good enough you're left wanting more and wait unsatisfied for the next installment.

Only, what if there isn't a next installment? What if that was it, and you've had your fun and that's all you get..

Now THAT's love

Anyway, goodnight

Mikie

Things I really need, Christmastime or not

coffee maker
toaster
iPhone
camera (dad's old one w/ batteries?) or iflip
flip-flops
little garbage basket
trader joe's stuff
snowboard pass
a job, please

back from Texas
I've been up since 4:15am again. for like 4 days in a row.
Last night it was drizzling, and I got pretty wet. I spent 12 hours shooting a very fun 365 with some cast members of TLK yesterday. I never did see the Grand Canyon, but I flew over it twice. I did see the Alamo, and to this day get a little icky feeling inside when people are too patriotic. I spent some time strolling through the Riverwalk in downtown San Antonio. I ate barbecued chicken, mashed potatoes, some lemon alcoholic thing and key lime pie. I rode the tram through the terminals at the Dallas airport (my favorite) and had some wonderful help getting my luggage to the gate..

There's a sear to the quietness that a new memory brings, a quick burn each time it flies through. Echoed from far it comes swinging through your thoughts, violently wiping away practicality, for just a moment, and then is gone into nothing..leaving you a tarnished wreck of emotional desire
I am addicted to the newness of not knowing
It's like a sport with no teams, me volunteering
as expert player and fool
swinging the bat wherever I see an opportunity

dew

I've been up since 4:45. This morning the sun rose pink over the whispy clouds and mountains of Santa Clarita. There I sat, in a school bus, circling the studios' parking lots for a good shot. No lines, two stranger actors, my face and the bright sun.
Tomorrow morning I'll drag a black bag of wardrobe clothes and toiletries through the airport security, where I will remove my shoes and unbuckle my belt. The plane will lift off and my eyes will watch the buildings shrink to squares beneath me. Then I'll press my nose against the plastic to barely see the Grand Canyon. Then I'll sit back in my seat, wait, and smile.
Because it feels so good to risk it all. That's where love sprouts; it's the passion in spur of moments. With pants tucked and shoes tied, I'll leave the house in the morning to dance with the whisps of new morning's dew.

so much love fills my heart

see you in Texas

Words fo' Pictures, yo

Here's some pictures that I haven't taken lately:

enthusiastically pumping fist into a camera, for Budweiser

hundreds of miles of sunset and silhouettes

USC screening room watching tomatoes hit Dan Beckner

midnight, sopping wet, alone, urinating on flowers

Public Storage gate closing just after stepping through it

singing Christmas Carols where James Dean died

Jock Jams Dance Party 2009 in a cramped sedan

stars against orange and purple horizon

sitting in a fake high school hallway

brainstorming a lesbian porn script

Beer server knowing "only 2%" of the beers

train station ceiling beams

stacking little Lunchables sandwiches

city lights like a sparkling Christmas Tree

discussing a two-story KFC over Hoegaardens

oh soft brown towel

running a nude blitzkrieg into the ocean (raaaaahhh!)

almost-empty jug of Sangria

the heavily-perfumed inside of a Mexican Greyhound Bus

empty river camp after dark

grey cold water of late summer between river canyon walls

car not starting at a gas station 'til it smokes

backpacking through the streets of Sacramento

singing across a lake at night

Cinderella's glowing castle

hot pastrami sandwiches and beer

life-size toy soldiers dancing in unison

Richard II crying to the walls of his dungeon cell

Moisture Heat-seeking Venemous Throbbing Python of Love

shattered wine glass and paper towels

Plumber knocking on bedroom door while fast asleep

scummy shower filled dirty water

naked, crouched, scrubbing shower

shiny clean white shower

dancing to Michael Jackson with the cast of The Big Bang Theory

distant Rocky mountains covered in snow

at a pew in Catholic cathedral, looking into Mary's eyes

snow-capped mountains over Pasadena

Minoo, Gil, Dani, Shane, Ryan, Deanna, Dean, amazing.

walking around Paramount Studios lost

soaking wet in tent on the set of Bones

tossing vacuum filter into the air to clean it

smacking vacuum filter on the cement to clean it

car not starting in the rain

unemployment application papers everywhere

Phillipines dancing with colours

young girl pulling fire alarm

slaying eight-eyed spider demon with a rocket

the anticipation and not-knowing

the comfort of being surrounded by thousands of people

That's all for now - chances are there'll be a part 2, 3 and 4

here's a cheesy quote I just made up. MEMORIZE IT

A picture may be worth a 1000 words
but finite in colour and imagery
while one word only, conjuring a thought,
can tap the mind into Infinity

-Migs

Rain

before the silver mountains wet with rain
while in it's standing o'er the boulevard
a green and golden palm sways silently.
The sounds of automobiles hum below,
and low-above the black clowds smother full
what far white Sun this cold December gets.
A line is drawn from eyes to windowsill
across the empty boulevard and then
hitting upon the palm the gaze extends
to farther mountains buried in sky.
All trickled with the spotted dark of trees
and hazy rain like fog blocking the view
the mountain lies groaning in age and waits.

A shadow casts over the desert palm.

The small sun flickers, quickly, then goes out.

A hush falls fast over the concrete streets
And silence precedes nothing but a storm..

Behind the buildings builds a rainy gust
that bellows from the stomach of the storm
with moans of winter's agony it shakes
and fills with leaves and drenching water drops.
Then like a valve brimming to overflow
the dark sky rattles menacingly so,
Then with a crack she opens up her mouth
and spitting, bubbling, sends her fury down!
In sudden downpour carried by the earth
a heavy rain begins to swell the air.
The palm raises its green and whispy shields
as great round drops begin to beat with force
upon her sturdy, pole-like countenance.
And in a rush like silence in the night,
the mountain disappears behind a veil
of sideways glass now falling from the sky.

Behind the windowpane the eyeline blurs
into the flurry of a million silver pebbles.

my faith in Adventure

There's a new Zelda game coming out in less than a month. And it made me think:
where does this fit into the evolutionary food chain?
What part of our body/mind system grew into desiring to "get" a boxed video game? Why do we dare to transplant ourselves into game-overs and the risky adventure of these man-made alternative realities? Is it a sexual thing, like the lust for the fight? or just hunger pangs we feel?
Oh Zelda, you really have taught me to dream big. I get one little glimpse of your silver new box and I'm believing in Hyrule again.
I mean, maybe there really is a Dark World and a Light World.. maybe we should believe in Ganon and the Triforce. Maybe someday you will save the world.
Think of it this way: Cortez was looking for a mythological city that was only in fantasy books. Some native American religions praise spirit creatures that live in the forests and earth and sky. Whose to say those all don't exist, or that the Trickster didn't create the Earth? I might as well believe in Hyrule, because it's really anybody's game. Including Zelda's.
Mike Ryan said it best,
"find something impossible, then try to achieve it.. but you can never achieve the impossible, only get closer to it"

-migs

sweet night in Pasadena

I just ate two burritos and nachos with beans and salsa. Downed with a diet sunkist, and green guacamole. Maybe a stir of sour cream. Tonight I drove to Pasadena and watched a screening of Father of Invention, with Kevin Spacey and Camilla Belle. I ate popcorn and loved the film. Then I walked for an hour around the downtown of Pasadena, admiring the closed shops and looking in on local bars and restaurants. I eventually snuck into the back of a swanky red and black bar that hosted a live band playing some kickin tunes. I sat at the counter and ordered a PBR, learning soon after that they were only $3 for a twenty-four ouncer. (I think some call that a Tall Boy.) Everything smelled the floral cold gustiness of New York. the band sang with such energy, I was clapping and pounding my feet to the riffing violins and electric guitars. the lead singer a girl with butch-cut hair, skinny like a little boy. It was a solid band, tight music and an unusual flare - only, like most bands I could tell they weren't huge. There was, as always is, a little missing from the vocals. Unless you're Johnny Cash, you got to have range.
But I was grinning and clapping and dancing along. Soon my 24 ounces drained to zero, and i skipped out of the back to look at the glimmering stars. Down the road a ways, I was on the telephone to my lovely Betsy, Candice, singing to her and sounding like an original wanker, strolling through the streets of Pasadena. Getting to my car, I kept chatting, munching chocolate chip peanut butter cookies, and steering my rickety purple beast through the streets to the 210 freeway. Onward I trucked and chatted, a nice distraction from my otherwise radioless drive. (If you didn't already know, I traversed 400 miles of the California state last night sans radio, with nothing but my out-loud thoughts and the occasional buzz of a telephone text message. My Grape Vine trip was the best part, the crystal stars and an upset stomach really set the tone for me to arrive in Los Angeles!)
I ventured from the freeway for a cruise by Bell, where a 7-layer burrito, a "fresco" bean burrito and some fresco nachos supreme eased the effects of 24 ounces of Pabst in my belly.
Now I'm in shorts, sitting in the comfortable pale light of Dan's aunt/cousin's daughter's bedroom. I am going to get my own place soon, even if it is a cheap living room. I don't mind. I just need something of my own, something to call my home. I like to cook, I like to clean, and I'd like to have a home to come home to. It's not that hard to do, and it's something that's been missing. I had some homes, but they came and went in their due times. Now it's my turn to seek out another place to live. I love too many things to be boggled down by unnecessaries like feeling homeless and stressed.

Love the lovers, Love the life L-O-V-E Love

mikie

Back in Claremont

I had an interesting drive last night. I started with an every-10-minute fear that my car was going to blow out a spark plug somewhere between Santa Cruz and Los Angeles, a 400-mile stretch; the fear never left until I pulled into the driveway of Dan Beckner's house in Claremont, Ca. Survived it.
Then somewhere along I got hungry and ate a peanut butter cookie. My stereo didn't work the whole time, so I was left with semi-working headphones - the kind that have too much earwax plugged into one side so you get the choice of left ear or right ear listening.
A few hours after that, I was thinking, out loud, to the closed up windows. Wondering, what kind of show could I really put together? Should it be an episodic movie or TV show? I should probably just write a short script and go from there. It doesn't have to be the be-all end-all, but it does need to do justice to the subject matter.
The I thought about The Beach, a great film for the poor saps in my age-range who may be a little wary of joining up in the working world. There's all this exploring and discovering to do, and yet we're only encouraged to take our penniless pockets and commit to a job we may not necessarily have wanted. All this in our early 20s.
Maybe this show could be for a man who's not married yet, a woman who doesn't have the drive to only work but also to hug trees for the good feeling we sometimes get inside being around them. It's a show for a dudebra who doesn't quite follow his friends all the way, or the girl who tried being a cheerleader but knows there more to life and shyly wishes to try. It's for Amanda and Candice, Daniel or Hillary, Dan Beckner, John and Sarah, Lydia, Trevor, even Jose. A show for Peter, given to us by Fred Grote, by Michael Sanchez, Dan Little, and Richard from the Beach. Basically, it explains that while we're finding ourselves we must take the risk to find ourselves. I never thought I'd wake up one morning and love that I smell some smog. But today, I do. Why? Because I took such a massive risk and attempted the journey south down I-5 to LA. And know what? It worked. The risk, which I have taken once more, has seen fruit.

Anyway, hello lovely Los Angeles

Adages?

Good things come to those who wait.

Nice guys finish last.

something like that

Love my life.

I love my life and everybody in it. Sorry I was a downer last time.

Mikie

F my life

e-Pray

Dear e-God,

Thanks for all the online information I glean from your invisible waves each day. Thanks for giving me a friends network that I can occasionally depend upon for encouragement. Thanks for all the fast-streaming music at my fingertips, and for the endless knowledge your Wikipedia provides.
I am having serious trouble finding a place to live in LA. Or a job to work at. Or a true livelihood that I feel proud and honourable about. Craigslist is a bunk way of searching because there's too much muck, and none of my friends are really in the same situation as me and therefore don't have any ideas or need a roommate. If thou couldst help me in finding a way that I can move forward with my life happily via your fruitful waves, I would be forever grateful. Whether it be travel abroad, fulfilling work or education that I have not yet thought of, I need some help. Please help me, for I am at a standstill and there is little direction that I can see.
I thank thee greatly.

In the name of Tom,

E-men.

Albums of the Thousands

I thought I'd take a moment out of my eventfulless day to list the albums which I believe are the top 17 (that I've listened to) since the clocks never stopped post-1999...

17 - Sufjan Stevens, Come Feel the Illinoise
There is no last place, but rather this brilliant collection of songs made it final on my list of first places. This artist celebrates a true magic in his music, making melodies and songs that haunt and provide plenty of listening tunes while driving, waking up to grey winter mornings or walking down a blustery fall afternoon.
When to listen to it: while driving up and down the I-5 corridor in November

16 - Modest Mouse, Good News for People Who Love Bad News
Modest Mouse has a large place in my heart and soul. Too many incredible songs to date. Sometimes I crave a little more consistency in the albums (but never fear, see #15) but I am left in awe and timeless fury when listening to the beastly rompings of these complicated hearts.
When to listen to it: when backing up (not unto police cars) from the parking lot of Macaroni Grill in Folsom, Ca.

15 - Old Crow Medicine Show, O.C.M.S.
Cocaine! A drug I shant try, but an introduction into the hilarious and unlimited world of bluegrass. I now can twiddle my toes on a summer's eve with my pants rolled up and my face brown and wind-beaten, thank you OCMS. You've made me a nasaly, mournful harmonica-loving grassman.
When to listen to it: while driving across the Salt Flats outside SLC, Utahr. wear a flannel shirt.

14 - Ugly Cassanova
No music so properly opened my mind than the clanky acoustic rhythms of this one-time wonder. From the start to finish, you will be lulled and dragged by the true raw chords and bonks that make up the gritty sound project that is Ugly Cassanova.
When to listen to it: Pulling down the dirt roads that connect an abandoned copper mine to the unkempt highways adorning Smith Valley, Nevada.

13 - The Arcade Fire, Funeral
Wake up! woke me up from the moment I heard him sing of lightning bolts. It took listen upon listen to fully grasp the incredulity of his language - nothing made more sense, and no one had said it so eloquently. The music will build up your soul. The album is sporadic and fascinating, and deserves every second you spend trying to sort out which is your favorite song.
When to listen to it: while walking to class between the redwoods and yellow fields of UC Santa Cruz, Ca.

12 - Glassjaw, Worship and Tribute
Nothing sounds so messy, and so damn good. Daryl's voice becomes enchanting, you marvel with googly eyes at the notes and quotes he sweetly violently distributes into your ears through songs ladled with ripping guitars, heavy-hitting bass drumming and heavenly desperation.
When to listen to it: while driving out to Somerset, Ca to go night swimming following by sitting atop a wall while talking, overlook the yellow autumn moon.

11 - Alkaline Trio, Crimson
Admit it, you know every lyric. Why? Because three listens in you've got it memorized. Why? Because that's what catchy music can do to you. And Alkaline Trio has managed to snag your heart and voice while clinging to originality and style. It associates with you. It rocks you out.
When to listen to it: when driving down Cold Springs road in the afternoon to look at White-Water Rafting photographs (Ca).

10 - A, Exit Stage Right (Live)
If you didn't get a chance to hear them, you may never will. A is the music of a generation..and they have sadly dispersed. Unfortunately, that generation remains in England. There are four people in the United States who have ever heard of A, and those four will never be the same again, Thanks to A. A is also the first letter of the alphabet, and therefore you can never successfully find this band on the internet, FOREVER. This album is a Live compilation of the songs that turned out to be my favorites.
When to listen to it: while cleaning the popper in the kitchen of the Movie Theater, daydreaming about snowboarding.

9 - The Living End, Roll On
I hadn't really listened to music that I liked until I heard this album for the first time. Before The Living End, there was only mimicry and force. After The Living End, I knew that I had found my niche and therefore found the future of my musical tastes for the rest of my life. The Living End is more than music, it's a voice and I listened to every frikkin word and riff. This album has been branded into my cranium for eternity.. ride a snowboard lift with me, and I'll brand Uncle Harry into your head too.
When to listen to it: at Kirkwood. Period.

8 - Finch, What it is to Burn
Finch had its heyday, and it was this: before there was Emo there was Screamo, and before there was Screamo there was the unclassifiability of a genre of music that could only be defined by the bands name - Finch was one of those bands. They created something brand new and extremely passionate, and few appreciated what came before the Emo crap that swept our pre-hipster society.
When to listen to it: driving through the fog into the forests surrounding Placerville to take Adam Partain home.

7 - Rx Bandits, ...and the Battle Begun
When I first listened to this disc, I felt a little uncertain. As my first listen came to a close, my bag was mixed with all sorts of feelings...mostly by prematurity. I knew that even 1 full listen in, I hadn't even scratched the surface of what this new and wildly more complicated album has to offer. I wasn't sure what was with any of the songs..in fact I didn't remember one of them after turning it off. After the second listen, I started to understand my plight: the music was planting a seed deep inside of me, and it was going to take my nurturing it to grow. Like an archaeological site full of artifacts, and I had to start digging. And dig I did. I listened to the thing on repeat, again and again and again. and like an oak it grew into an aged, magnificent creature, and I uncovered the secrets of ...and the Battle Begun. When I turn on this album on now I sing every lyric to every song, beginning to end. I pound my hands in off-beat unison. and nothing can stop me!
When to listen to it: driving home from your acting internship, wearing that same flannel

6 - Less Than Jake, Borders and Boundaries
Road trips. Snowboarding and road trips. Santa Cruz and road trips. Nothing sets direction to a wandering soul than the sounds of keys jangling and a car starting, followed by the swift guitars leading to melody and words promising the fulfillment of all your escapist desires! Borders and Boundaries, from open to close is an ode and testament to the great American ditch-society, teaching us that you are not alone, that there's a band out there who's counted the broken white stripes on the highway leading to an endless nowhere! Thank you LTJ, without thee I'd have never left Pville.
Where to listen to it: driving to your third year of Folsom Lake Community College while staring at Mt Diablo and the horizons beyond.

5 - Goldfinger, Goldfinger
Spread too thin, Mabel's the Bomb, and my childhood (or girlfriend's) shower most definitely sucks. How many times do you drive into Los Angeles and not find yourself humming the ever-atonal "F*CK LA"? Honestly, this album rules. RULES. I could play King For A Day 100 times and not get sick of it. I played the Mabel song until it skipped, and even convinced myself that I was going to marry a girl named Mabel someday. I love every second of every song, I worshipped this music.
When to listen to it: while you pull onto Mission from Hwy 1 in Santa Cruz, Ca.

4 - The Offspring, Ixnay on the Hombre
I didn't know that much about the Offspring before I purchased this used album in downtown Sacramento after the Thanksgiving Day Parade. Two months later, I had an album of anthems that kept me awake after 8 hours of snowboarding, and a slough of new albums to check out and rock out to. Ixnay is chock full of tracks that will stick like putty, with tribal drumming and beautifully-crafted high-octave vocals. Ixnay will leave you throbbing and waiting for skeletons to drag you onto a dirt bike backflipping. It will shake the snow from the grey clouds and shove you off the cliff towards mountains of powder. It will reinvigorate. It will thirst your tongue for wetness. And it will make you sing, "yeah yeah yeah yeah, Yeah!" in your head for the rest of your Gosh Darned life.
Where to listen to it: pulling away from Starbucks at 7 am before driving two hours into the crisp morning air to hit the slopes

3 - Rx Bandits, Progess
It's almost a disservice, what these guys have done to my psyche. I can't really say I've ever been the same since I first listened to Halfway Between Here and There and stood amazed as their secret track rang out through my car speakers with the perfectly-played tune that will serenade my funeral (you know what song I'm talking about). Then they came out with Progress, and I started listening to the lyrics of songs for the first time. I didn't really think a little black mushroom cloud would ever form over Sacramento, but I did see that our society is changing too quickly, and then I heard the magical words that I quote to this day, "Go! Create!" Screams never meant so much to me. And so I obsessed. I watched their concerts because of this album. I promised loyalty because of this album. And I declared love for everything in my life, thanks to the lessons I learned from Progress.
When to listen to it: You must play Infection when pulling into your first snow-blown day of Kirkwood, Ca

2 - Moby, Play
Moby is a significant figure. A sig fig. I give him and this album 2nd place because no other song in history can I fathom that so accurately complements the generation from which I was raised. The backpacking, gypsy, world-traveling, peaceful loving culture that I call my own is defined and represented by Porcelain. And the year that pulled it all together, when so much went down that altered my own personal history, well Moby Play basically has helped me carry my torch since the first listen.
Where to listen to it: while sitting on an exotic beach looking at the stars, hoping you'll get the foreign girl and find some way to be free and see the world before you die

Addendum: I came back, read this a month later and realized I had forgotten something - the tie for first place next to No Use, a little album by a little band called:

1 - Iron and Wine, Shepherd's Dog
This ties with the following (No Use For a Name)...not because its nostalgic but because it's amazing.

1 - No Use For a Name, Hard Rock Bottom
Music passes through generations. Music is a memorial of the time from which it comes. A classic is a song or band that is music you can put back in your stereo every year, turn it up and know that you will be able to listen to that exact-same produced record in the same way for the rest of your life and still like it - even when you're 30, 40, 50, 60, hopefully 90. Hard Rock Bottom is me at 12. It's me at 19. Me at 22. Me at 25, and now in my 27th year it's still me. Not because the lyrics, not because of the melodies, not because of the nostalgia, or the guitars, or that I can sing every word. It's no better than any of these other albums (i can sing every word of Progress or hum every beat of Play). Hard Rock Bottom is the same...except, it's innocent. It rings the most true to me, because it is the most humble. It is the most heartfelt. It wasn't created just to be sold, or for a girl, or for an artist to narcissize over. I don't know why No Use For A Name created the album, or why they create any of their albums, but Hard Rock Bottom does one thing that I never see in most of the industries that America has to offer: It is honest. It is sweet, humble and honest. In addition, it hits your heart with such positivity, such love and sincerity, such freedom and adventure, it is a disc full of anthems for any guy or gal who's lost and needs some kind of direction - because even if you're all alone and totally abandoned, life can still be fun and Hard Rock Bottom sees the awesomeness in that. It still does that for me, every year between the months of October and January. I chose it as my favorite album and that's that.

When to listen to it: whenever you want to remember that everything will be OK in the end and if it's not OK it's not The End.

John Muir says, Mountains are fountains of men

I just have to write!
It's the most beautiful first real day of a season that I have seen in such a long time. The temperature has fallen to chilly, the sky is patchy grey white and low, the air is blowing softly and there's a smell of pine and water in it. I can taste the seasons moving through us, I can feel the energy and electricity that once brimmed up my body with life and vigor. I can taste the nighttime stars so clear in my mouth, like a frozen icicle or blowing powder snow. Stepping through the colours, tossing my short hair afrow, singing to my spirit there truly are Gods living in the wild world, between the breezes and beneath the rocky hills!
Last night I drove home from Heather's house with a fever in my spine for driving..sometihng told me to leave, to turn right at the highway. I imagined a future that changed my path, driving into the deep night and never turning back. I pictured leaving and heading East, the terrible magnificent Eastward journey I have waited too long to pursue..I imagined moving through the night with two flashlights attached to my hood, turning round the mountain bends like a ghost in a tunnel of trees. I imagined driving beyond the California borders and into the wild beyond, fantasizing about my future as a traveler and vagabond with only patched-up car and a head of hair to guide him. I dreamed as I drove, about Utah and Colorado, about New Mexico and the hundreds of thousands of miles I've never seen beyond.
As I approached Echo Summit, the lights of Lake Tahoe twinkled into view. I burrowed down the windy road that takes you down into the valleys. I saw signs for 89, turning South: "Markleeville 29 miles" a black cavernous drive leading away from my Eastward route. I passed the legendary Chevron at the Crossroads, our pit-stopping point between snowboarding days of ancient past.
Eventually I stopped, pulling over in the pitch black star sparkling night. Turning off the engine, I could hear only the wind rushing through canyons, sweeping along rocky peaks. I stepped out and opened my eyes to the sky and noticed with great power the fresh frozen scent of Mountain Air. There is no oxygen like the cold air of the high mountains. Even in summer, when the snow is water and the trees full of green, the air is that same clean and flowing scent of frozen icicles on woody pine. Standing there in that quiet, blowing air I felt a familiar terrifying vastness that I've known since I was young. Standing under the starlit peaks, silhouettes of a monstrous breed black on a blacker horizon, I could hear the distance that never ends, I could feel the creatures in the forest wandering and taste the storms and blizzards, the lonely and lost men of the past, the drifting glaciers and rising peaks carving these mountains and valleys for all the time that had come before then. I can sense it all, and it made me fearful. The only true fear of God, which is the natural world around us that we turn our eyes away from, the world that our bodies are interconnected with, but our minds ignore. This is that world, an empty, wild, merciless and beautiful place. As I run around, the world remains without me.

Getting back into my vehicle, I knew I needed to go no further. So I cranked over the engine, blinked on my flashlights and pulled away to head back West the way I'd come. It wasn't time for me quite yet, to drive indefinitely East. I still have my own life to attend to, and I'm not one to run away from things. So much.

As I walked to the coffee shop through the grey and blowing morning, I realized that I have almost zero complaints about the town that I call home. Everything, to me, makes it a real and desirable place. You have your city and your country, you mountains and fields, tourism and locals, music and art and industry too. There's so much, but yet still not seemingly enough for me. As I perch to leave, I wonder what I'm doing with the rest of my life. I wonder what John Muir was doing, as he left Yosemite, as he left Mt Rainier, Alaska, or any of the National (Natural) Parks that he knew so well. What drove him to leave, and did he ever want to?
I'll leave that question open. What drives you to leave the places you call home?
What's the true reason?

Super Mario Beatty

Here we have Mario, out on a ledge
surrounded by deep blackness, losing
his footing and catching his breath
Here's Mario, trying to laugh with his eyebrows
all crinkled in concentrated fear for
the grey Castle he's just entered
Up ahead looms a monster with fire
for breath and wings on his ribcage
walls wreaking of death
the ceiling is falling so slowly
and coated in spikes, Mario
must waste no time! So he dives
over one wide hole with a leap
landing tough on the concrete and
grounding his feet again- DODGEing in
quickness an arrow of fire, but
not fast enough as a turtle shell
flails towards his legs, he jumps UP
but too late, and is shrunk to a pint-sized
half-hero....so sad so pathetic
but ready to fight Bowser nevertheless (i guess.)
Options looking slimmer
our little Mario follows the path
through the dark dungeon tunnel
avoiding the fireballs, dodging the
ball and chains spinning...above shines a question mark!
floating in awe! Our tiny hero he leaps
the block pings! what's he get?
just one penny, one coin for his pocket
nothing to suit him up stronger against
the monster of scales breathing fire
ahead behind the tunnels of black
Still little red Mario takes his approach
hardly prepared in his mustache and overalls
waves of hot flames licking up to his hat
Here our Mario scrunches his eyebrows in tune
with the chimes of a conquerable but impending doom...

nobody's answering their telephones

A typical night for the Beatty's. No phones are answered, and I know there's a get together somewhere that I was forgotten to be invited to. Phil, you and me shall rue the day!

In other news, The Office is getting se-rious yo.
It's thursday night. I want to be living in LA comfortably. I don't want to worry about other people anymore. According to Trevor its time for me to finally mature into my manhood. Maybe it's not too late. I know it's not. In fact, I'm like a fine cheese, aging and becoming more valuable by the year. Or good wine. Or any other kind of food that we celebrate in its rotting or fermentation.

Honestly, I am starting to feel more manly and like Myself by the day, by the second. There's supposed to be a trip to Los Angeles coming up this weekend, where I will supposedly be renting a place with Dan Beckner and Candice Fox and myself for us to live. I happily have no job, no job prospects, no school, and a soon-to-be loan payment to look forward to. But the nice thing is? I'm free to do whatever I want. Because I love my life. and I'm on a MISSION.

Peace out yo's. I sound like a boy tied to a chair in a straight jacket trying to think his way out of it. Maybe I have a very very powerful mind. If only Justin or Daniel would move with me.. then I wouldn't feel so much like I'm leaving all my lifelines behind

I just decided, I'm gonna play Doom on Dad's computer. Good idea.

Peace

The Sugary Collapse

We hear them all the time. Sitting in a local coffee shop, strolling through Wal-mart, flipping through channels on the radio, in the office building, from tiny stages with shoddy equipment, at free concerts, between hip-hop verses, in operatic esteem at your mother's house, drumming into your brain over and over and over again the monotony of the one-hit, timelessly reproduceable and forever subpar Cover Song.
When bands cover songs, I guess they do them for one of three reasons:
First, and likely most common, the players are still learning the craft of their instruments and need something familiar to rehearse with.
Second, the players have not come up with enough original ideas to deviate from their rehearsal songs,
and
Third, the musician actually believes that his or her rendition of the song is better than the original version.

Surely there's more reasons than this, but I'm not here to do an anthropological study of Cover Songs. I'm not here to analyze the limitations that cover songs slather upon their musicians. I don't with to disclose any opinions about the matter either, about how independently reproducing a cover song or sample in order to make one's own sum of money from the original idea is a rook and rob and disrespect to the creator and what they deserve. I don't want to tell you how an industry of entertainment (cover songs/cover films/ cover shows/cover of cover of covers) is spinning itself into a whirlpool of banal, waxless candle wicks. I don't believe it's necessary to point out that 5 Harry Potter films is 4 unnecessary Harry Potter Films, or that an entire hip-hop generation is grounded in samples of songs that existed as classics before many of the creators, were even born, or that Brave New World and 1984 will never be read by future generations because there are too many slightly-more-relevant-but-exactly-the-same storylines littering the shelves of bookstore and movie theaters.
I don't want to do any hating on who I believe to be the true Haters: the copiers. Or better yet, the thieves. These dark robin hoods who have stolen something that once was beautiful and successful and copied and pasted it into a mish-mash, modernized, slapped-together mess.. a sculpture built from cheap ice cream. With new labels but unoriginal ideas, these candy-coated ideas will melt so quickly and everybody involved who only have a taste for sweet will fail early, while the rest of us continue to remember the truths of the past and build longevity and not suffer under the temporary sugars of an evaporating dreams.

But we all copy..don't we? yes. Every day we copy. Since we were babies. But as children we also learn that no two circumstances are exactly the same, no matter what science likes to tell us. No two people will have the same interests, no twins ever match. As children we learn to copy with grace, we steal words and attempt to use them when the circumstances are fit. Often we'll fail and have our hands slapped. As children we steal movements and show our friends..and eventually incorporate them into everyday life or toss them from our repertoires entirely. As children, we learn what others Love or find Beautiful and why, and wonder at what Love and Beauty is or if it even exists. We copy, as children. And the routine begins to get very complex...so that by the time we are young adults every impulse and action, stir of our legs is the culmination of billions of little reflexes of mimicry from times past. Our original intentions are lost in the myst of living, the first time you sipped alcohol, the first time you kissed your lover, the first time you heard a song that made tears come to your eyes and why that is. We lose sight of what we copied, and why it was ever important, and with integrated efficiency all those mimicked movements and subtleties have slopped together into the organic soup of a human soul - and we live through that soul's eyes every day of our lives.
But as children, we stole every one of those impulses from a place of total curiosity. We looked up to our elders as teachers, we looked to society as teachers, we looked to the television and the radio and the movie screens and the actors and the authors and friends and parents all as teachers, and we learned and tried and failed and got hurt, and got back up and tried again until we were tired.

Human entertainment, something I LOVE the idea of so much, is stuck in its tweens. It's copying and pasting ideas permanently, because the creators are so fickle and disorganized. There's little originality to look to for inspiration except the ideas of the generations past. Creators today have dwindled in their abilities to create New things, and instead only rehash old ideas again and again. It's like 35-year-old surfer who still dresses in baggy clothes and tilted hats - so heavily invested in good times of his specific youth that he forgot to look in the mirror and see who he was becoming all these years.

Social entertainment needs to look in the biggestest, brilliantest, most silverist Mirror of all Time. We're not 16 anymore, and we can't keep neglecting our run-down car or it'll finally burst its head gasket.
If there's anything new for us to make, let's look for it.

Stay Don't Go

What happens when you stay and don't go during the summer in Santa Cruz, California.

dare I say

The buzz of whipping cutters hum along
the foreign boys and ladies' language song
In sunny shadow sitting sallow I
reflect upon an earlier summer's sky:
When fairy whispers freckled up with dew
parted my squeezing eyelashes in two,
the wet and frosty morning fret with gold
delivered me to rivers' current bulge.
When high over the hues of purple lay
I humming silently about the day
imagine love affairs with fairy nymphs
while staring down upon the cliffed rims
When walking through thick heated humid breath
the skies alight in frolick Godly mess,
and fearing pleasure, full of food and life
I tore down heated waterfalls at night.

Now sitting waiting to enjoy a stroll
I wonder back beyond, and smile full.

narcissism at the beach!

and the winner is.....




I call this one: Solohomoeroticismic. AKA: Self-gay


the end

Hoping and dreaming

To jump up a ladder? Impossible.
by Mikie Beatty. Written July 29th, 2006

You hope, and you dream, but you never believe that something's gonna happen for you.
Not like it does in the movies.
And when it actually happens, you expect it to feel more visceral, more real.
-The Beach (Leo's character)

Hoping and dreaming is never believing. You have to know, not hope. Because when you know, you don't need to doubt - because in knowing you realize the truth and realities of a dream. A dream is a perfect fantasy, where every piece of the pretty world is under your control, in your mind. To hope is to long for that perfect world you've materialized into your "dream" (be it consciously or no). But to know, you take that dream and apply it to the reality of your life.
What's incredible to me is how much hoping and knowing cross paths based on the choices we make. But only based on those choices. What doesn't surprise me is when hoping vs. knowing rarely-to-never cross paths when the circumstances are left up to chance and luck. Because honestly, luck exists not in this world. To get what we want, we have to get what we want. We can't live our lives waiting for a hand to feed us our dreams - the hope and dream of it all is only the prologue into the first of many long steps towards happiness. I have had my share, my damn lot share of hopes and dreams. And you know when I finally have felt like I'm getting anywhere in my life? When I've gave up on them, on those hopes I've had. As my yearnings drifted away, my conscious self (having been trained by Me since a child to always keep manipulation and control in the back of one's mind) allowed the reality of things to take over. And once I realized my true path, and the true true truth behind where I might actually stand in light of those hopes, I knew two things: 1 - that if I ever wanted to really get on top of my dreams and realize them it was going to be a lot of bloody exhausting "smiling" difficult work, and 2 - that I actually for the first time in my life see a windy twisty treacherous pathway on which I might really have a chance to get what I've hoped for. Like the bastard says, "and glut my pleasure that till now has starved."

To be frank, I don't know exactly what I'm talking about here. But I guess what has brought these things to my mind is that I've been living for the past 2 years in and around people who have hopes, dreams, and a lot less discipline than anyone I knew even back home. It's funny how college can either make or break a person, and in the end it really shows as to who's the dreamers and who's the makers. Well I gave up on dreaming, because you know what? All my dreams are right in front of my face - there's no other dream than the sweet real life we're all living every day. So what we get bitch measly parts in our shows? It's because in order to be the best, you have to start out knowing you're the bloody worst. There's no way to jump up a ladder; you have to climb and climb, especially if that ladder is filled with people all sharing your hopes and dreams. It's a meticulous road, and graceful art, to be Honest in this world. And if there's one best possible tool to ever accomplishing anything - most notably, to ever achieve any sort of goal, dream, hope or otherwise in our lives - it's the majestic powerful demonic tool of Honesty. It will get you your dreams, tear up your lives, and sew a sweet precious unshaking future for all of us.
Happy Saturday all,
Live, love and be honest. Here's to you hopes, dreams, and realities.
*mikie

Whatsit

In its dull reddish glow the coffee sits
alongside light white marble rectangles.
My dad walks in, a smiling happy sight
and takes me from my wiley angst and slump

I was about to write a thoughtful tune
regarding all the pompous poop and doom
that littering my poor unfortunate soul
has taken me to th'deepest dark despair.

Well fortunately my father's sweet voice
brings into light the darker side of me
surrounded by a random older bunch
of coffee drinkers, friends and employees.

Now on his telephone, I sit and wait
within my thoughts of plain and simple, gross
and skinny, dry and salty sweet, the thoughts
that prick against my heart and sour me.

some people leave and other people stay

I keep finding myself at a crossroads.

Yesterday was an important day for me. It marked the "last" day of the rafting season for 2009 at River Runners. The staff was a skeleton crew of Peter, Fred, Myself and the Lulla's who visited. The rafters/customers were a wonderful couple of groups: some from LA with a bunch of singing, happy youth and an additional brave couple from San Jose (on my boat) who were married and seeking a little thrill before the fall begins to drop its coloured petals. The day was important because it rang with such honesty through every beating vein of my existence. The cool autumn air and empty river bends spoke to me of all the quiet and eerie realities that hide behind any location sans human interaction. At night, when the camp is at a usual bustle of voices and campfires, there were only Peter and Fred and myselfcleaning the last of the dishes and turning off the awning bulbs before the dark. There was a moment where Peter and Fred had both left, and our camp was mostly vacant under the stars and the glowing moon. I looked around in the early at the dark fire pit, the empty benches, the black kitchen, and a sadness swept over me that I've felt before.
When I was 16, my brother Matt left to attend BYU in Utah. I lived at home, with my parents and Joey, having my own room in the back. I remember one fall morning Matt was packing to leave in his Renegade truck to take the journey across the states to Utah for his career as a student at BYU. He gathered all his things, packed his truck, and with my two parents and myself standing on the edge of the driveway Matt waved goodbye and drove away down the steep hill Roosevelt Street. Mom and Dad walked back into the house, but I jogged out to the center of the street to look after him. I saw as his truck reached the stop sign, turned on its left blinker, and in seconds veered left and disappeared from my sight.
That night at the camp, I realized a similar experience: I was alone. Everyone I loved so much was gone. The adventures of the summer, the excitement and the warmth and the sweet freedom, was over. And as that fireplace lay in it's black ashes with the benches waiting quietly under the clouded yellow moon, I felt alone again.
Two months ago I was sitting in an outhouse along the riverbank of the Tuolomne River. Looking around while doing my business, I could see old rolls of toilet paper and scratched up cement walls. I had this thought about how this particular outhouse, a place I had never seen until that very moment, had been waiting alone through all the storms, winds and howling wilderness for the day that it would finally make itself my very temporary home. The outhouse had been right there, on the bank of this wild river, at the bottom of that steep cannyon, all alone. It had seen every night, every storm, every early morning that I had seen this last year. And, like me, that outhouse had withstood it all too. It had weathered the storms, slept through the nights, braced against every wind on every day that I too was weathering, bracing and sleeping through. And in a moment, I could see that all across the world, every rock and every single other thing is similarly alone.
Watching my brother's truck turn the corner filled me with a sadness that I hadn't felt yet in my life until that moment. My chest began to clench with a welling loneliness, knowing that as Matt, a brother I admired and looked up to so much in my life, was leaving and I was going to stay. I felt the sadness of difference, knowing that I could not bring back the love and lessons and experiences that we had had together and that he was going to simply be gone and I was going to simply be staying. I, in Placerville, alone. And he, on the road to Utah, alone. The difference between us was that he had a goal he was searching to achieve, and I had nothing but the silent home that stood, empty, behind me.
The River Runners camp is my home. And 3/4 of the year it is quiet and empty. Beaten by the freezing winds and pouring rain and swelling river. That Outhouse by the Tuolomne is also my home. It stands firm against the treacherous wild in its lonley hole by the river. Santa Cruz is my home, and as soon as college was over it was a place that was as empty and as lonely as the street on the day my brother left for Utah in his Renegade.
I am at a crossroads again, much like that day my brother left for college. When he had gone, I stood there on the street looking after his empty image. Tears filled my eyes. Here, I told myself I was never going to let myself be alone again. I was going to follow the people in my life so that I didn't get left behind again. I was going to search for a future where I was the one leaving while other people were staying. I committed to myself to never be truly alone.
At the crossroads now, I don't quite know what to do. I've been left behind, but not by everybody. I feel hopeful about a lot of things. I have goals I've created for myself, and I feel like I'm still going somewhere. But I'm scared that me leaving could lead me to a new place where I'll face another new loneliness.
I don't quite know where the next River camp is, and I'm hoping it finds me soon.

Nikki's right

Daniel's right. Joey's right. Candice's right. Dad's right. Andy's right. Shawn's right. Christy's right. Danny's right. Peter's right. Justin's right. Mom's right. Adie's right. Matt's right. Heather's right. Jarom's right. Pambert's right. Go Green Girl's right.
everybody's right.
even I'm right
but I still don't know what's right.

my mind is so full and there's no output
there is no slow flow over, only pregnant desires
my wires firing, singing in light at night the opals
bite my subconscious in drunken dreams of otherworldly things
I want to live in a mountainous place
I want to swim through fountainous lakes
I want to slide sweetly down the slopes of white mountainbacks
I want to feel fruit in the winter's dry cold
I want to supercharge my undersides
and never be old.

From the moment I'm awake at night
I watch the day break into light
the purples of a burning moon
illuminate th'approaching dawn
I cannot seize the consciousness
that life is so much more than this
what calling I am said to find
if make-believe, shakes up my mind
in wonder about the Everything
that I still have never seen
in the morning do I feel
the most impressionable.

Once heavy in the wet black cold
through sheets of ice and silver gold
a white and lofty precious mould
begins to drift along.
Along the rooftops of the rocks
atop the pitch of pine cone locks
in fuzzy white around the fox
that snow begins to fall.
Quietly the storm begins
softly touching nature's skin
breathing foggy from a chin
and stopping time from deep within

...

from months away with less to say,
and nothing that I know to do
the stories ringing through
my eyes wishing in me for so much

...about the Rx Bandits

Rx Bandits

I thoroughly will forever dig this tireless, timeless band. They have put together some of the most influential and incredible music to have graced my ears and brain. For the third time in my life, I watched them play this past weekend - at the El Rey Theatre in Miracle Mile of L.A.
A few things. First, they came in after two bands who had already rocked the scene and set the bar pretty high. Obviously, though, I was under no impression that the pharmaceutical boys would do anything less than blow the openers out of the water. And in a way, they almost did.
Here's my number one: the band is no longer quite the same. They used to consist of all the same players, plus horns. A huge part of the influence comes from a ska-ish punkish style, and the horns are an imperative part of that sound. If the music on the records heavily includes these unique instruments, you'd think the live performance would also (automatically, even) include them too...nope. No horns. In fact, the highlight of the actual "band" on stage wasn't Matt, nor the keyboardist nor bassis, but the drummer. Now, his drumming is something unmatchable and I recognize the complexity and freedom in his talent. He has created the backbone for all these songs, and keeps the Bandits' universe glued into rhythmic reality. Unfortunately, the drumming is not what highlights the music on the records. It's a part of it for sure, but not the priority for listening to the tracks.
Matt's singing, however, is a major highlight of their music. Matt's lyrics and signature voice make up a major part of the enjoyment factor for these guys. He swings and slings his words in a poetic tonal beauty. He creates lyrical images that he raps and rhymes to with a struggling beautiful flow that you can't help but dance to his beats. Based by the records, you feel like he's leading band rather than the band leading him.
Live now, and also somewhat on the new record, the band no longer backs up his songs but rather he seems to share a lot of his prowess with the others. There's more instrumental and far less singing in both his new record and the live show. I understand, since he clearly believes in equalities - especially among musicians - but it takes a toll on the listenability of both the record and the live performance. I missed him actually singing. Sure, he played along and watched his brothers rock too, but he sang maybe 25% of the time. The rest was spent not singing his lyrics by letting the audience sing them, or jamming through the verses and choruses with the other players, neglecting the lyrics. This total venture away from the recorded shows me either they no enjoy playing their songs, or they have just forgotten them, and it kinda pissed me off. The boys and girls who wish so avidly to participate in the music are now listening to totally new (which can be cool) and totally foreign unmixed jargon boiling through the PA system in blips and blurry guitar riffs that are surely fun to play but much less easy to listen to. Highlighting the drummer is good only in that it distracts you from the unbearable blaring of a crappy soundsystem. At least on the record you can differentiate by ear the keyboards from the guitars.
I'm getting a little off-topic. Don't get me wrong, they ROCKED. But for a $50 show and a professional band, I was slightly disappointed that the hornplayers were not present at all (I know the trombone quit, but still, NOBODY?) and that Matt hardly sang any of his own lyrics..something I love their music for.
The good parts:
I loved the drumming. I found the mixture of Americana and tribal ritual a perfect way to connect our modernity with the roots of a more primitive and simply way of life. I loved the jamming. I think it's great that a band can feel that communal understanding in their talents, feeling the thoughts and rhythms of eachother in sound and movement. I enjoy watching it mostly because their music have been so influential for me as a person, so to watch them create in a semi-structured environment fills me with a tad bit of wonder.
Unfortunately, I fear that Matt may have lost some of his sway in my mind. I appreciate their harkening back to the 60's and the free-loving, pot-smoking jamming of the times. But they have completely converted to that style, while playing Rx Bandits music. It's a little weird, to be honest. I used to look up to these guys as leaders in the popular world, sacrificing some of themselves so that they can be heard and accepted on a larger scale. Nowadays, I feel much more distance. I don't see their relevance as much. It's like, they found their niche and now they're enjoying it. A good thing to realize one's self..but our world moves to fast and I worry they may get buried. I hope they stay relevant, that's all. They are still for me, because I remember who they used to be so clearly. I still feel the intentions in Matt's lyrics and the band's ideals. I still completely agree with almost everything they stand for and talk about. I still completely love the Rx Bandits.

That's all.

Bonnie quotes

Life isn't so bad. I mean, here are a few quotes from Bonnie Gillespie (author of a book I've been reading on-and-off for the past few months) that I think are really valuable with regards to what we're all doing here:

"bring something new to your abilites"
"I'm a firm believer that it's never too late to get started in something you truly believe in" (Denise Winsor)
"only compare yourself to you"
"To me the word 'maybe' means just that: It may be! Not: It may not be"
"There is no virtue in pessimism"
"Friends are not so into results"
"There are two types of people: those who live their dreams, and those who watch others living their dreams and feel resentment and jealousy over the fact that they can't do the same"
"Focus your energy on deep, true friendships that withstand all manner of career checkerboard jumps"
"Sure, dreams come true. But usually, they do so as the result of buttloads of legitimate hard work"
"I had an unquenchable case of wanderlust" (Pam Newlands)
"allow yourself the luxury of acclimating to not only the weather but to the pace of life, the food, the local culture, the traffic, and the currency" (Pam)
"It's all a matter of staying focused and enjoying the journey, wherever it takes you" (Pam)


These are but few. I'll write more later.

our demon

She is a beast with many tails, shining eyes, meticulous stirs, and a thousand mouths of fire. Her skin is full of worms, and long fingers twist over her colorful body. She is smothered in dirt and vegetation. She has pure black blood. Her belly is a maelstrom of watery salt, roiling with currents, tearing through her innards like an unstoppable liquid wind. Beneath her skin boils the fury of an ancient fire, churning in massive bubbles of burning nausea. Across her surface races layers of torrential pressure, shoving moisture up and around in billowing mushrooms of white and grey. Her backbones rip up through the dirt and stagger towering mightily over the flats of her shoulder blades. Heavy snow and ice pelt her silver skeleton, gathering in drifts between her vertebrae. She lies in a breathing silence.
Our demon's body moves slowly as we scramble like blind rats across her skin. With tiny fists, we shake her to waking. As she breaths, we sigh. As she snores, we wonder. As she coughs, we worry. As she vomits, we cry with fear. As she dies, we die.
We are the fair-weathered human race, saddled firm, gripping riding crop and planting leathery chokes. With a wide grin we turn our demon into a freak show, monopolizing her luxurious body for money. We defecate in her mouth and pores.
We spit in her veins. We drill her spine for fresh marrow. We gorge our guts with her fatty flesh. We violate her beautiful body for our pleasures. She suffocates in our soot. She retches in our trash. She cries in our sour rain. We look to live forever while she slowly dies. She is our demon, and she is our only demon.

Piling up

I have been doing a great many things lately, and writing none of them down on here. But never fear, for I am writing them down! I've been keeping a journal of my ideas and notes and thoughts that I'm pretty proud of. Basically, it's a place for me to reopen and explore that creative side that always haunts my late nights and early mornings.
It's funny to me that yesterday I was driving through the deeply gouged Feather River Canyon for miles and miles, gazing into rolling, steep and forested foothills that I had never seen in my life until then. Today I had the pleasure of commanding a raft of seven strangers through the American River canyon, and like being at home I am never done being pleased just watching the waters roll and roll around the rocks and between trees. I think river canyons might be the most magical places I've found yet. There is a mystery and significance looming behind the shadowy cliffs and deep beneath the rocks. Histories for every chipped stone or exploded gully fill my wandering thoughts with the fantasy of lives that could have been.
I enjoy being totally frightened.. and heading into the solid blackness of the unknown. It makes me feel alive. And once you've passed through the great beyonds, you find yourself return and enlightened, a place for which there is no better.

Probably the best feeling a human body is capable of feeling is the "lost and found"
feeling: when you can't find something important until you finally do, and your mind can rest at ease. This manifests itself in so many different ways. I love that feeling.

Now I should go to sleep. Maybe I'll write more about my other outdoors ventures of late, like Yosemite, Tuolomne, Mt. Lassen, Lake Almanor, rafting, romping and the loving of summer. For now I need sleep. Goodnight

TRIP ANNOUNCEMENT

Glacier Meeting

When: Thursday, July 30th 2009
Where: Heather's House
Time: 10:00pm
Who: Everyone from California who's coming
What: Discussion of the logistics of the trip, including (but not limited to) the following -

*Van and Nissan Gas $$ Pooling
*Who's riding in what vehicle
*Food, and the subject of pooling for food
*Trip Itinerary to the hour, for every day
*Mikie's Orlando Insanity
*Possibility of Motel stops if necessary
*Adrienne's Greyhound Ride from CA to MT
*The return trip, and what exactly is going on
*Any additional topics in need of discussion

If you feel you have some information that would be helpful to bring to the table in this meeting, please be prepared to talk about it. Joey if you could put together an in-park itinerary that would be wonderful. Adie, could you work on figuring out gas prices for each vehicle? Matt and Amy, consider yourselves the lucky ones :-)

Be there or be a melted glacier!

work = play

I had a fantastic conversation with trevor at Clavey Falls the other day about what to do with my professional life. He told me I should still do what I wanted to do a year ago and haven't yet: produce as well as act. And he's right, I want to. I've had some ideas lately that I think could be pretty sweet, I'm just stuck behind the crutch of not having production equipment nor experience. (Nor can I kayak, which would aid in my personal journey for one of the projects.) But that's another thing he said, that I need to have my own journey while doing it.
We'll make it happen. It'll happen. I just need a solid jumping off point.
Additionally, I decided last night that a job I would never cease to enjoy is the management of River Runners. That would be a dream job worth committing to. Seriously.
That's it. I have to poop.

...

and in addition - yesterday, I watched and realized something I might consider a very important part of what I want to do with my life: include. There's no better feeling than to watch a person go from being an outsider to feeling included and welcome, and what that does to the person. Our society is so chalk full of segments and bubbles and cliques, and I don't believe in not including people. So to watch someone from the outside make their way in, and be accepted as part of the group to the point that they feel welcome enough to participate without judgment, well that's maybe just about my favorite feeling in the whole wide world. It makes me smile very fully to see it.
Include everyone. The world needs a Fiddle Faddle Bodyguard.

dusk to night

green and dry grasses drift behind the dark evening. trees blacken against the dusk. magenta hues scatter across the sky. water clings to your skin. wet shorts warm in the wind. wrinkled fingers climb over the metal rim. coldness rushes into hands. standing balanced on the metal beam you stare. the glassy water shimmers in surreal rolls. one foot steps out over. the illusion shatters. the water bursts in violent black and silver. warm breaks to cool and the night begins.

pressing your belly into the paddle you feel a smooth and forceful churn. behind you the bend of lake is whisped by spits of wind and gusts from the murky decay. on your left a pile of rotting cars lie crumpled in toy-like heaps. to the right a canyon wall decorated with rocks and shrubs rises vertically from the tan water. in the distance a yellow blot barely moves. paddles stir the lake in synchronized heaves. the sun sets behind the canyon walls. you can just make out magenta hues scattering across the sky.

a white tower with red crosses watches over the vast lands below. swirly trees in black brush the yellow landscape and fade into the haze. hot cement cools in the dusk. two lovers lay back on a car's hood. silent invisible kisses. the white tower stands witness. dusk wears on. the sun drifts behind the range beyond the valley. slow-motion flash. the sky lights up in thick yellow fire. mountains turn black. buildings twinkle. the tower is lit. the lovers illuminated. then the light is cut and the night begins.

two boys play in the snow. sliding between apple trees. dancing the season's cold ditty. sleds in hand they recur the same slope with vigor. the brisk wind whisks their cheeks. green blades from late Fall poke up through fresh-fallen white. the boys help one another climb the treacherous route to safety atop the slope. Woosh! one is gone. the second watches the first fly. stepping up to the edge he peers over. measures gradient. wind velocity. the other's a visible pinprick. no guts to muster. he places his tube on the snow. sitting down he shoves off the cliff. the light changes. darkness covers the sky. the two boys meet again. joining hands they climb back up the slopes to the house. cold breaks to warmth and the night begins.

The Religion of Work

Last night was awesome. I worked my last day at Rosie's for the next month, and it made me remember all the jobs I've had and the people I've worked with over the years. Working has come to be my sort of religion, my church practice for the past several years. We all do it, and many of us complain. But secretly, we are all heroes in this.
Let's find out...

Babysitting. First paid work for me. Hourly, lucrative, fun; I was 12 years old. Tyler Compton knows, who now lives in LA with his acting life.

Fudge Factory. Mom got me this job when I was 15. I ate too many sweets while working at this lovely Apple Hill farm for two seasons. Here I learned the great ways of the cash register. And the meaning of "Lavese ses Manos".

Signature Theaters 8. 15.5 years old. Dad said, "Mikie it's time you get a job," and I remember getting dropped off there to turn in my application. Then I walked the several miles to Jaime Jensen's house down Cold Springs Road. Weird day, but for some reason I was hired and so begins my independence in America: getting a real job for the first time. Welcome to Life.
That theater job gave me my first taste for corporate cynicism. We were minimum-wage workers meandering around a big empty business that provides expensive services for the community (movies), I made very good friends, learned from my seniors to do things I shouldn't have (like exploding full soda boxes, stealing candy, climbing on the roof from pipes in the back, playing indoor hockey and laser tag in the theaters, sneaking many friends into movies) and had some of the happiest moments of my life.

Safeway. From the best job comes the worst. Corporate terror. Worst hours, jerkiest management, tightest strictest rules. I applied there because I wanted a job that paid better (7.10/hr, way above minimum wage at the time) Little did I know how bad a good job can be. So I "quit" Christmas Eve after 6 months of misery (cleaning parking lots at 6 am, scrubbing floorboards at 4 am, bagging groceries for rude old ladies, thanking every frikking community member by their last name). I took my few saved bucks and went on a dual-state road trip up Highway 1 into Oregon.

Mimi's Cafe. I kept hearing that being a server makes a lot of money. $$$ So I started looking for a server job. Problem is, nobody wants to hire a server who's never served. The good thing about my first restaurant job is that they were opening a new, freshly-incorporated location and so they trained me to be a server. And like all job trainings, I learned little more than how to hold a plate. if that. I worked there from January thru June of 2001, and quit with no particular incentive except to stop wasting my time only making money and commuting. The job was fun, but felt too forced and fake. I realized for the first time how dirty restaurants really are.

El Dorado Center, Cosumnes River College. Ahh, my college job. The first true love-hate relationship of my life. I despised the hours and the boringness, and couldn't get enough of it. In a crash course of a month I learned everything there is to know about the Financial Aid programs for College. Interestingly, I also knew nearly nothing about "college" except that I didn't want to go to it, nor did I think I was cut out for it. I was 19. Working at a college seemed kinda like a big practical joke to me, so when I'd go to work I'd get really serious. I'd listen to people and consider their problems and treated students like friends and not numbers (unlike most in the college world who just want to filter students through with no regards to their personal issues). I took the time to listen, and for the first time in my life I felt what it felt like to make a difference in someone's life. Here I met Hillary and Daniel. I was finally making money doing something that was for a cause greater than making money. It was crazy to have a job where you don't really know how much you're making an hour but it doesn't matter because you're so financially covered that you can focus on the job itself. For once I was my own boss, and my coworkers not only trusted me but respected me greatly. Looking back, I see how much this screwed me for every job I'd get in the future.

Borders. 1 month of try-out. I worked at the cafe, learned how to enter books into the system, remembered what it was like to have a "Manager", did too many dishes for my own good, hated the smells of 6 am in that place, made up an excuse about moving to LA and quit. Summer 2002.

Macaroni Grill. In my attempt to step outside the life of the College job and try to still have a 20's lifestyle, I applied at Macaroni Grill to see if I could get another job. I wanted to work at the restaurant and maybe phase my way out of the school job..because let's be honest: i got tired of the routine of the school job. It started to get monotonous, and I didn't always feel like it was for me. I wanted to be free! I was too young to be confined to the shackles of a 9-5, Mon-Fri. (and since, I've learned that everybody is too young for that schedule). At 21, I tried Macaroni Grill, and remembered yet again how terrible a Management system and a corporation can be. After 1 1/2 months, I was gone. I quickly quit and decided to play out one more year at my college job while taking classes. In brief, Macaroni Grill SUCKED.
-Then I graduated college and finished my college job on May 25, 2004. Last day, said my goodbyes, looked to the west, and left -

River Runners / RMA. That summer I worked for River Runners, rafting boats really for the first time. It was maybe the scariest job proposition I'd ever taken, and I learned how to conquer fears while still doing what I loved. River Runners is another example of an employer that allows you to be your own boss while paying you and respecting you all at once. That's why I still work for them.

UC Santa Cruz. For a short month, I worked as a techy for Porter College. I trained to work the soundboard and equilizer in the Porter auditorium, and helped set up and take down equipment. But I didn't like it..something was amiss. There was that weird corporate vibe again, like I'd felt in Safeway and Macaroni Grill and I wasn't into it. So I kindly bowed out and looked around for other work with the college. I tried their financial aid office, and again was disillusioned by their cold staff and short patience. No job there.

Pizza My Heart. Josh Flasher came with my in my first attempt to get off the UC Santa Cruz campus after about 6 months of being secluded up there. Together we went downtown to search for some kind of job I could get in order to make a little more money than I was getting from financial aid. We tried a few places, including the movie theater (although Justin steered me clear of that place...sorry Joey I should have warned you) and finally I went into Pizza My Heart with a shrug on my face and a smile in my heart, knowing I was probably overqualified for working there as it was. Geoff, the manager, gave me an application, took me in the back, had me fill it out and hired me virtually on the spot. For what? Delivering Pizzas. I was like, "huh? Delivering pizzas? well...sure I could try it out." I didn't really know what to expect and definitely hadn't anticipated what this job became: the TMNT pizza guy from 2006, owning the streets while pumping the Rx Bandits and the Offspring. For the next few months I learned the ins and outs of every corner of Santa Cruz, while delivering hot steamy cheesy greasy pizzas to the stoned residents of a town I barely understood. Then I quit because summer can into the air I wanted to leave SC for a spell, before school started again.

College. College is a job that you pay to go to. In essence, you work for somebody else and learn the whole time. You perform monotonous tasks and learn about the world and science and people and nature and art, and in the end you get a degree to prove you've been working (and learning) and then you're laid off. What I learned most in college was an invaluable piece of destructive information that I have been unable to unlearn since: everything is arbitrary. Grades, money, education, everything. By the time I finished college, I had stuck my sword right through it. I had conquered the infallible Beast of College. Like the true Hero I've always wanted to be, I had walked up to the doors of a Leviathan with sword and shield in hand, and in a battle that took two and a half years in the making I had grown and finally bested the monster that had once stood before me, now me swinging my sword in glittering triumph. Not only had I beaten him, I had smashed him and smothered him and doused him with such sweltering liquid force that as I resheathed my sword, all I could do was smile and ask the world for more. Come again, beasts! Come again! I'm ready for more! So the value of over-preparing yourself for the fight of your life, when the truth is it won't be as difficult as you ever expected and so shall you rue the day in such glory that your breath will be in golden heaves and blows.

Shakespeare Santa Cruz. In the end of my time at the UC, I was finally hired to be an actor. For the first real time in my life, I was getting paid to do something that was completely my own work. There's no better feeling. Over 2 months i performed 48 shows of The Tempest, and made 30 bucks a show. It felt amazing to work as an actor.

Beckmanns. I avoided working after College. Who wants to step into a minor skirmish after winning triumphant over the Battle of the Ages. I tried not to work anywhere and live as I wanted to, free and true. I galavanted the roads of the world, seeing what sights I could, searching for a new adventure. Yet after a few months, there came a time when my victory had run dry and I needed to return to some place temporarily. It was then that I placed a call to Beckmann's. Scott Ryan, the nicest bossman I know, hired me right away. For a season following, I was driving large trucks packed with bread at 6 in the morning to cold, foggy, rainy locations throughout the bay area. From San Jose to Marin I sold bread to the locals. Cool job, and then it ended after too many disputes with the ladyfriend, and I needed to leave SC yet again.

The Mouse. Acting-hosting in front of a camera. Strange new destinations. Major television network. Interviewing celebrities. Where the HECK did this job come from?!? I wasn't sure I'd ever face a bigger demon than College..and then I auditioned for Andy. Talk about a life-changing event. My path took a 45-degree turn, and in three months I was living in Los Angeles.

NYPD Pizza. Like the Majora's Mask of reality, I was suddenly thrust into a new world of complete strangeness. New sights, smells, people, things. And Zelda was this strange princess of an idea: to get more acting jobs. So I ventured out and found an agent and a manager quickly...but needed some other kind of work in the meantime. NYPD Pizza was like Pizza My Heart, but nicer, less frantic and far less stoney. I got to both serve and deliver pizzas, to some very rich people. Burbank was my new favorite place - a Santa Cruz amidst the bustle of LA - and I came into my own quickly there. I worked for NYPD between February and June of 2008, then my car broke down and I was left with no choice but to go home to Placerville for a little while and refigure a few things out.

A Relationship. This kind of work is difficult because it changes every day. It's a job that doesn't pay any money. And that's all I'm about to say about that. :-)

Drunk Monkeys. I didn't know what the heck I was doing back in wet tiny Santa Cruz, but after a while I knew I needed to find some kind of job. Problem was, I hated every line of work the city had to offer; and nothing was for me. Everything felt like a Safeway or Macaroni Grill or Borders, and nobody was welcoming. Still, I'd lazed around waiting for too long, and I needed to be doing something in the meantime. So I applied to this little restaurant randomly, another skirmish miles from any behemoths. I got the job, worked a couple months and was virtually laid off when the business ran out of business. A fine-dining waiting experience that I hardly invested any emotion into. No big deal. Nice people though, and a very small and sort-of fun place to work. I have extremely neutral feelings about this place.

Rosie McCann's. And so this brings me up to date with the Now. Rosie's was my look back into the world of Work, the religion I'd abandoned without hope. The world that I never really cared for but was coerced into joining in the first place. Rosie's is the Mimi's, the Safeway, the Borders, the Shakespeare Santa Cruz, the Beckmanns, the NYPD Pizza, and Mouse, and on very very rare occasions, the College job, all mixed into one. I made good money, and wittled my time away . I didn't really have a next chapter to start living, so I just worked quietly and waited. I had no battles to fight, just a couple tables to serve. I felt no beliefs, just polished and rolled silverware. ...and yesterday I worked my last day at Rosie's. I didn't say goodbye because I didn't need to: I had said goodbye when I walked in looking for a job. Rosie's didn't hide my monster, it just reminded me every day that I could be doing something else. Like Jill Deutsch once told me about delivering pizzas, "It's when you dream the hardest."
I know what I'm cut out for, and like a dog on a leash there's a slab of meat just across the street and I'm ravenous.
I love to work. I've done a lot of work. I know what it's like to feel and breath and experience the fulfillment of a real life. and I could shatter a mountain with the energy I've been containing.

Somewhere in the fog of my future there is a monster, breathing quietly, like behind the walls of a dungeon room when you are not too far away. I have a sword that's rusted from the ocean's breeze, I have a shield that lies beneath a pile of clothes in a closet, I have a raft that's in pieces under a bed, and I have a heavy heart that's beating, deep and slow.
What happens to the great warrior now?
Stay tuned.

And so, that's my working life; my religion, of sorts. It sums up a lot of the things we all do with our time, and for me that's been many jobs: little treaties that are upheld or broken. So now, as I get ready to try something new again, I am still ready for the biggest battle of my life.. I just don't know what that is yet. Here I come.