Thursday, December 27, 2012

It's printing.

Compromising with Myself (To Finish This Damn Book)

The best way to describe the version I am deciding to go with is that it is the greatest compromise between all of my ideas.  Days Go By is going to be the name I am going with.  I am going to do a thorough proofread, but I am only cleaning it up a bit and making sure there are no typos and that I am saying what I am intending to say.

I am very proud of how my work on this novel has progressed it to it's current state, and I know it is more important for me to finish it than to make sure it is absolutely perfect.  It doesn't have to be perfect.  It just has to be perfect enough, and I can honestly say that I think I have come to that point.

I feel like, if I am truly going to get it ready for the competition, since I am not going with the YA version that is too short for the competition, and this version is set in the present but is a reflection on past events and takes place for the most part in the past tense, and is about 60,000 words exactly.

I am going to print it, proofread it, make corrections, and set it up for the competition, and send it at my earliest opportunity (Hopefully on Midnight of January 14).




Forcing it and pooping my pants

It's too early in the morning to write a blog post.  I don't know how those journalist types do it.  I don't know why I even thought it would be a good idea.  I guess I just need some inspiration.  Perhaps I should continue on with watching the entire series of Monty Python's Flying Circus.  I am on disc 3 of 16.  Some people might think it's too early in the day for Monty Python, but those people just don't know how to get the day started off right.

Anyways, I'll probably come back to this later, when I am somehow inspired.

Friday, December 21, 2012

my inner musician is clawing to get out

I finally have had time to sit down and figure out how to use the Ableton Live 8 software that came with my amp.  While I am still learning, it seems usable; while maybe not the best recording software, it will work for my purposes.  I will probably mainly record live, although the MIDI drums sounds it came with sound pretty good.  I am not sure I want to mess with the MIDI, though, since I can always use my drum machine, which I already know how to use fairly well.  Now that I have a decent guitar and a decent bass, I can hook my mixer up to my computer and start recording.   What am I going to record?  I don't know.  While I definitely do have a lot of songs I COULD record, I have no desire to record any of those songs.  I think I am going to continue jamming and when I come up with something that sounds cool, I will work with it and build on it and lay down tracks.  This is more or less how I recorded my last actual album (Daydream Death Rattle), but I am a much better musician now and am interested in seeing where I can go and what I can do (recording wise -- there probably won't be any Gabe Gott shows anytime in the near future.  I am happy with recording and being creative and experimenting and seeing what I can do with the means I have available).   Perhaps I will finally do what I have always wanted to do and find a movie I can jam to and build an album around, much like it is rumored that Pink Floyd did with Dark Side of the Moon and The Wizard of Oz.  I have a few movies in mind, one in particular that I just watched that I am currently leaning towards.  Hopefully, since I am on break right now and since I will have weekends off with my new job (starting in January), I will be able to find the time, every once and a while, at least, to work on a project of this nature.  It is generally good for my sanity.  Even more so than writing, perhaps, music has a therapeutic effect on me, and I just simply love it.  I love music, I love being creative, and having projects to work on and people to collaborate with and people to share my creative expressions with.  I would like to come up with some kind of musical alias/stage name to go by and put my music online, perhaps.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Only $79 from Sweetwater for this guitar case...  Suck it Guitar Center!  That's $45 less than your sale price!


Monday, December 17, 2012

J-E-L-L...O!

I guess it is about time for me to write a long, rambling one.  I don't know, though, I am once again semi-coherent so I don't know it will be much the same, but we'll see...  Watching Invader Zim, which I still don't see how it was supposed to be a children's show.

Okay, maybe it's not time for a long rambling one.  I am feeling lazy and still surprisingly burned out.  Those final papers really wore me out.  My brain is Jello, which means that my Super Ego is Bill Cosby.  I can live with that.

What Do These Videos Have in Common?









And it's not the 70's.

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Interlude

Okay, I have screwed around for a few days, it's time to get to work.  This book ain't gonna' finish itself.

Put together a 25-hour rock n'roll playlist and set it on random.

See you on the other side.

Goodbye, for now
So long, fair well

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Bananas

Once you're in the mode of being busy it's hard to switch out of it.

I can't relax.  My mind won't let me.  I just have so many ideas working, so many things I am working towards achieving, I just feel like I can't stop, even when I am not in class or working on any school projects.  I am going to be starting my thesis soon and then my life will be over for a while.

Not to mention I have to finish this book.  No choice.  Got to do it now.  Too close to the end.  There is no turning back.  It has got to be done.  Soon.  January 14, 2013.

TELL ME...

Tell me what I really want to know.


Wednesday, December 12, 2012

The Story of My Brain Going on a Cross-Country Ride

My brain hops out my window and onto the cold tar shingle roof, slithers out to the edge, and makes the leap into the narrow patch of green grass below.  A little too far out, and it would have been splattered on the pavement, a little shy and it would have slammed against the railing on the porch and splatter the Jehovah's witness lady knocking on my door and making the dogs bark.  It is just the distraction I need for my brain to make it's exit, on it's never-ending quest to the next railroad track, the next box car, to make it's way back and forth out and across this great land of ours.

You see, folks, my brain is a true American patriot.  It expresses it's gratitude for this great nation and sets out to live on the land and survive as far a hard day or two of labor will take him.  Some people pay him in food and clothes or maybe cigarettes, a wayward sip from a flask every now and again.  He loved the land, and could sleep anywhere out in the wilderness, away from society, and feel at home.  Is my brain a Thoreau, you ask?  Perhaps, I say, perhaps.  It is hard to judge with it's absence.  I need a brain to think and since I haven't got a brain, I can't think, you see my dilemma?

It tips back a sip of gin and looks out of the open bar car as it zooms past some manure patch grown up around the tangled remnants of an old apple orchard.  My brain hops off, too much tempted by the later, but my brain was the type who could stop and sniff a pretty flower for hours, rolling a cigarette and landscape to pass it by and let it become nothing but a fleeting memory, which was bound to happen sooner taking a splash of gin from the flash someone had traded him for an extra pair of shoes he had found in the trash out behind someone's house in some suburb.  It never occurred to him that they might have been evidence of a crime or something.

As it leaps from the side of the box car it doesn't see the approaching barbwire fence until it is too late...




I sleep like a rock the whole night.  I don't remember tossing or turning, and I woke up, my limbs taking a moment to catch up with the rest of me, and so I shake them back into cognizance again.  I stretch and get out of bed, I have sleep for three days straight.  I missed two days of work.  No one woke me up, nothing.

I get out of bed and something has changed. Something is missing and I can't quite figure it out.  I try to come up with an answer, but I look around and look around and look around and everything seems the same as it always has been and always will be.

Oh well, I say, and go downstairs and turn on the Kuerig and get the coffee out of the cup, empty out the replaceable filter and put some grounds into it.  I have my own filter to make it run on regular coffee because those damn k-cups are so expensive, and I am a coffee addict.

I turn on the television, my eyes gloss over and....

I wake up 54 years later and in some secret military hospital hooked to some machine.  Wait, no, I am some machine.  I am trapped in a machine?  I try to look and realize I can't.  I have parts and base units and means of communication but I am no longer a human being.  I am hardwired, humming, computing, alive.



See Ya' in Saint Louie!

"I stink," some random hobo says.

Wait, that's not some random hobo, that's me!

Jesus Christ, I can't believe I've let myself go like this lately.

Oh, well, I guess...  At least my papers are done and turned in.  Whatever happens, happens at this point.

Hopefully I took them seriously enough.

Or was at least charming.

If not, I might be totally fucked.

Not really, I'm sure I'll do fine.  I just get the jitters of what-if's until I see it in black electronic scrawl across my computer monitor.

For now I am going to bathe, play guitar probably, and then watch Star Trek and the news and Jeopardy.  My brain will not be home for a day or two while it heals from all the marks that have recently been etched in it.

The homeless man gets up and strips off his clothes and jumps in the shower.

FREEEEEE!!!!!!!!





Changes

I come back in from smoking a cigarette (the stress of the end of the semester inflames my nicotine addiction, what can I say?) and Changes by Black Sabbath is playing.  It took me a moment to realize that's what it was (it was in the middle of an instrumental break) because it was so beautiful.

It really brought my mind into the present.  I have been so focused on these papers and my book and my career and the future that I have neglected the beauty of the moment.  I guess it is on my mind because I just wrote a paper on the present tense in fiction and particularly in Rabbit, Run, because it really fits how I view my life for the most part, from the only point in time where I have any direction control over my actions and the immediate effects of those actions, and I have time to seriously consider future actions.

Next song I hear two Beatles songs in a row.  They have like 10 albums on the playlist so it's not uncommon for me to hear more than one.  First it was... "Get Back" from Past Masters Volume II and then it was "Don't Pass Me" by from The Beatles ("The White Album").

That's what for me is so enjoyable about music, particularly playing guitar, but also really just sitting and listening to and absorbing the music.  It is something that one can only fully appreciate if one is focused on the present moment of the music.  That is the kind of music that appeals to me anyway.  I don't want to hear background noise.  I want to hear intelligent articulation, whether through vocals or instrumentals or whatever.

Anyways, I think, what I am trying to get across, in a very obtuse way, I fully admit, is that music makes me happy.  Walking into my office to finish my final paper and happening to catch the beauty of the song really inspired me to appreciate life.  It is something that I and most people, for that matter, probably take for granted.

This is The Amboy Dukes featuring Ted Nugent.  Nice.

Now the sun is shining.

In a few short hours I will be done with my last paper of the semester.

God that sun is bright.

In a few short hours I will be able to relax and sit back and reflect where I am right now and relax and let the pieces to my brain fall back to the earth to my skull.  I will get myself together then.  And also, make several big steps towards the future.

I take a deep breath and hit "publish" and then close the window to the Internet and maximize Word and get back to work (I am already two pages in!  Hot damn!  I could finish it early and get out the wine and celebrate!)

The future.



Monday, December 10, 2012

SUBMIT (TO MY VIDEO BAR)

If you are in a band, and you have a Youtube station you would like me to include in my list of stations, please contact me ASAP.  Keep in mind I am looking for local/independent rock/experimental/instrumental/punk/electronica.

If you don't fall within one of those categories, I will take it on a song to song basis.  If I like your songs I might still play you.

Eventually I would like to put my own music on here as well.

Anyways, email me or contact me on Google+, Facebook, Twitter, and I will get back to you promptly.

Also, any animators?  Youtube-clip-size movie makers?  Feel free to submit to me as well.  I would also add videos that I like.  Think bizarre comedy.

WHAT I NEED:
The name of your Youtube station.

And yes, as of now, it does have to be Youtube.  Sorry users of other similar sites.  Perhaps in the future I will have enough time to figure out how to have a wider range of options.

Anyways, music of any length but movies/videos no more than like 3-5 minutes.


Gibberish

I'm wasting too much time, doo soo soo doo sooo

I'm wasting too much time, dark doo-soo-sark-sark

I'm wasting too much time, doo soo soo doo sooo

I'm wasting too much time, dark doo-soo-sark-sark

I'm wasting too much time, making this gibberish

I'm wasting too much time, singing this gibberish

I'm wasting too much time, making this gibberish

I'm wasting too much time, singing this gibberish

I'm wasting too much time, doo soo soo doo soo...

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Escape into Now

I just had an important revelation about my book, which is a sign that I am on the right track, that I SHOULD enter the Amazon contest.

I just had an idea that at once justifies all my work on it and makes me closer to being actually done.

I don't want to reveal what exactly it is yet, sorry folks, but, I assure you, my novel, now definitely titled Escape into Now will be done by the end of Winter Break.

Oh yes.

The sad part is how obvious it was.

How right in front of my face.

Oh, well, it doesn't matter now.  I have to think ahead a little and make a plan.


Thursday, December 6, 2012

frizzazzled

My brain is fried so I will keep this short.  In fact, that is all I have to say.

Toodles.

Rambling in the Middle of the Night

Will anybody read a book without chapters?  It's not the first but it's certainly not all that common.  Not to mention the fact that it's in the present tense, and is more character-oriented than plot-oriented.  It's around 60,000 words and will probably not dip much below that.  I'm editing page 30 of 200 (which for a manuscript doesn't really mean anything) and hopefully once I get through it, past a thorough proofreading or two, I won't be so inclined and self-obsessed to keep going back through it.  I'll tell myself enough is enough and send it off to the Amazon contest when it opens and hopefully I'll have a shot.  If not, well... I'll keep trying.  I'm confident that the changes I am making are what it needs, and, until I get some indication otherwise, they are the changes I am going to stick with.  I want to get this done so I can say I have gotten it done, even if I end up publishing it on my own I will at least be able to say that I have finished a book, and I will move on to the next one.  And the next one and the next one...  Am I crazy?  Maybe?  Talentless?  Maybe?   Dedicated?  Yes.  Driven?  Yes.  Goal-oriented?  Yes!  Incapable of giving up on my artistic pursuits?  Yes!  I couldn't give these things up even if I wanted to, and I certainly have, definitely certainly have, at times.  But I can't.  Writing and music and creating are built into my DNA.  Maybe I might never make a living doing them, but I am definitely closer than someone who just automatically gives up when it gets hard or seems unlikely or it seems like no one care.  None of that stuff truly matters.  If I was doing to to be famous, then I would have lit myself on fire in front of a library a long time ago.  I am cool with obscurity.  The internet is a wonderful resource for someone, if given an opportunity.  Either way, I am in school, making progress, hopefully doing well enough in my classes (will find out in the next couple of weeks if I get those A's that I have worked for this semester) to justify continuing.  I believe I am on the right track to getting a teaching assistantship, which is a necessary part of my plan, if I want to really be serious about applying to any PhD. program.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Magic/Pull My Strings

For those of you keeping track, probably a month or so ago I said somethings and as a result, whether intentionally or because of a glitch, the earnings link to this blog "disappeared" so that I could no longer check my Adsense or decide what type of ads I get to put on my blog.

This morning it has mysteriously reappeared, coincidentally after I have stopped putting ads on my blog altogether.  Interesting.

I don't know what this means, if it means anything at all.  It could definitely be all my paranoid delusions.

I don't know if I will put ads back on my blog.  I kind of don't want to have ads on it anymore.  I don't know.  Blogger tells me I am eligible for Good Affiliate Ads now.  Interesting.

The stubborn artistic side of me resists the temptation; however, the greedy capitalistic side of me threatens to beat up the stubborn artistic side of me.

The stubborn artistic side of me responds by finding an appropriate music video response that represents in some convoluted way my stubborn artistic side of me's ideals.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

New Goal:

I am going to finish my book by January 14 so I can enter it into the Amazon contest.

What the Hell, right?

 In the past I have thought of doing this but this is the first time I have actually been close enough where it is entirely feasible to enter it.

 If I am able to enter it (there is a limit to the number of entries), I will have a 1/10,000 chance to win.  Not great odds, but better than my current odds and definitely better than my odds if I never enter it or try to get it published another way.

If I lose, I can always change it and shop it around or publish it on my own or whatever.

However, if I become a finalist, I win money and some level of notoriety, which will still help me.  If I win one of the prizes, even if it's not the grand prize...  Well, that would be pretty extraordinary.


Ramble On





a poem.

Originally wrote this poem a while ago, I think maybe for a class, but maybe not.  I can't remember.  Anyway, I think it is appropriate for this time of year.




Material Things

When it comes to money,
Or power, or property,
Or material things,
How much do I really need?

If you take it all away --
What does that leave me?
Does it make me
Less of a person?

Should I hoard it all away
For years of rainy days,
Or let the desire fade away --
No more haunting by those ghosts?

Whatever happens happens --
Life should be about living.
Love and friends and family
Are all anyone really needs.

So maybe I will just
Circumvent the rest
Living life the fullest,
Simply, and with zest.






Monday, December 3, 2012

Two presentations down, three papers to go.  Luckily the presentations were on two of the papers so really I just have one paper to go.  I feel like I am through the worst of it and I can see light.  However, I still have to sit down and do the busy work, which, when it comes to non-creative writing is the difficult part.  It's when writing becomes a chore.

It's not that bad, really.  I mean, I am hopefully going to make a living with it, so it will be worth all the headaches and late nights followed  by early mornings.  I admit, I have been up since 4 a.m.   I am okay with that.  I am not ready to sleep yet.  Sleep will come later.  I will stay up later and then sleep in a little.  Tomorrow I will spend all day writing and then go to class and then come back and write until it's time to go to bed or I need a break for a while, then I will go to bed and sleep in and get up and write all day on Wednesday, and Thursday, when I have one paper due, but I will have already moved on to the next one, which is due on Monday.  The final paper is due next Wednesday.

Then I will be done, done with my first semester of grad school.  Hopefully my hard work will pay off and I'll get my A's and I will be able to use all my professors as references on the assistantship application.  I already have one for sure. I might have won the second one tonight, and the other one I am pretty sure I could ask her now on the strength of my midterm.  I will have a solid paper I can use on the application, too.  This Updike paper probably.

And I have the new job next semester where I will tutor people on writing essays, getting some teaching experience.  It is all really coming together.

I also will be having a story appear, either in the print copy or on the website -- I don't know yet, but will announce it when I do know -- of Luna Negra, which, for those of you who don't know, is Kent State's literary journal. My story has NOT appeared yet, but I will let you know when I find out more details.  Luna Negra's website is lunanegramag.com

Anyways, that's enough boasting for one night.

Cheers!

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Little Children????




This song has an entirely different connotation now than when it was written.

Thursday, November 29, 2012

My New Current Obssesion





Not just the song, but the whole album.

Laxative for Mental Constipation

I think where I get hung up with this paper on Updike is I try too hard to research and find sources and think about what I am trying to say and argue and I just need to start writing already.  I just need to focus on the text and my analysis of the text, and my interpretation based on linguistic theory on the effect of the present tense on the narrative structure.  I just need to write out my thoughts and my ideas and site my sources where I learned it but otherwise I don't need to read a lot of other essays on it since there is no source requirement.  I just need to take the more scientific, theoretical linguistic based stuff and apply it to my analysis of Rabbit, Run.

Same thing, albeit, to a lesser degree, since they are not at all literature classes, one is structural linguistics and the other sociolinguistics, which are interesting but not really my bag, baby.  

See, even after all these years I can throw in an Austin Power's reference.  

I didn't mean to write any of this in italics I just forgot to take the italics off until just now.

There.  Got out of that easily enough.  Just the push of a button.  If this were a typewriter I would be fucked.  I mean, you can't hand in a manuscript with white-out.  You'd have to go back and retype that shit.

Sometimes we take our technology for granted.

Seriously, this Amboy Dukes album is all I've been listening to the past few days.  It is very good for writing, just like Hendrix or Johnny Winter.

I am looking forward to not smelling like a burrito anymore.

January 11!

Booyah!

I feel like I am mentally constipated and really it's just stage fright.  I just need to relax and give it a good squeeze and get it out.

Once they start the words seldom stop.  Maybe another read-through will help.  And I'll read this book that finally came through Ohio Link.  And I'll write and put together my power point over the weekend.

No more constipation.  My brain is starting to get all cramped up and that's not good.  I just need to bust these papers out this week and the last next next week and I'll be done for the semester!!!!  Then it's all literature!  Booyah!  Chaucer and Shakespeare and Melville!  It's going to be a great semester!

Literature is like an a crack addiction.  I just can't stay away.  I think that's why this Updike paper is such a big deal (over my other two papers in my other two classes) because it is more along the lines of what I want to do, and I will definitely use linguistics to help me in my future literary studies.

I don't know why I ever thought I would find composition interesting enough.

Okay, here it goes.



Tuesday, November 27, 2012

NOTE:

Added the most recent stories ("The Backwoods Event"", Survival", and "Any Other Monday Night", already published in the main section of this blog) to the Fiction Page.

For some reason this influences me to think about the stories from my portfolio, part of which I can finish in quick order, if I can just push myself to do them.  If I can edit through them, each one shouldn't take more than a few hours, then I can see about publishing them.  I can at least find some appropriate journals and submit them.

It's settled.

I am going to force myself to take some sort of action.

In fact, since I am off of work and school today, and Sarah is going to be gone all day so I can do homework later, I can work on editing my first really good short story, "Drowning", which was the first story in my portfolio, and send it to The Rubbertop Review, Akron's literary journal.  If I am persistent I can get it done before I have to shower and go to my thesis workshop.  I am excited about that, actually.  I am definitely excited about writing a thesis in general, and I think this will help give me some ideas, or at least hone the ideas that I already have.

It's like going to class when I am stuck on my paper like I was last night and just listening the whole class and then talking to the professor afterwards.  I came up with some great ideas last night.  I think I am finally on the right track with it, but I will see.







It's 1:41 p.m.  I am already on page 9 of 15 of the story, so I think I can definitely get it done by 3.  I might even have it sent out by then.







Well, it's 2:46 p.m. and I finished editing the story.  It went really quick once I pushed myself to do it.  No more stagnation.  Time to get everything done.  My school work.  My fiction, stories and books.  Everything.  Everything published in some form or another, somehow.  It's time for action, my friends.  No more sitting and biting my finger nails, I'm just going to do it.

It's time.

Rock n'Roll Dreams Seldom Come True

With my feet planted on the stage I belt out a tune while my fingers dance across the frets of my guitar.

The Amboy Dukes are playing and I attempt to emulate them through my fingers through the strings, through the pickups across wires, across more wires to a new kind of computer amplifier, through my earphones as I stand in my office and just jam away when I should probably be working on my papers.  These things are legit, you know.  They could make me or break me.  I have definitely built up a lot of hype to my professors and classmates so I had better live up to those expectations (that I set for myself) otherwise I will be broken and forgotten.

Not really.  I am strong.  I can power through initial rejection.  I am weaselly.  I buckle in and sit down and go for a ride another way.

I am looking forward to being a writing tutor.

I start playing something more upbeat.

The music swells, pulls me along.  It's about my life.  This is the buildup to the Center of My Mind, which is kind of more where I am at write now.

I am already on the Journey to the Center of My Mind.

Haha, Ted Nugent, I lament is a great guitarist.

I can't believe I like Ted Nugent now.  Man, I really have sold out.  I used to get my kicks out of Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa.  Now it's Ted Nugent and fucking ZZ Top.  Although, Billy Gibbons is a great guitarist.  Enough said.  If he's good enough for Hendrix (who's shirt I am always wearing), then it's good enough for me.  Supposedly Hendrix gave him a guitarist.  That could just be an internet rumor.  I did, after all, get it from Wikipedia.  Not exactly the beacon of hope for truth.  I guess they just feel the truth is malleable because in a way it is.  The truth that we teach in our schools is just some other man's truth.  He has the right to tell that truth because he has conquered and is in control.  The next logical step is Big Brother.  If taken on a long enough time frame, one could rewrite our history as the story of 1984.  Our 1984 was 1777.

I don't know what I think about it.  But it is certainly going to make a great plot for my next book, which will be called Born in 1984.  I came up with the idea, while, as you might imagine, working in the retail customer service industry since I was like 18 or 19.  I won't go into the plot any further but it is definitely an experiment in an alternate universe.  I am surrendering into Vonnegut-esque satire.  My first book I am seriously going to finish by the end of the year.  Once I hit Christmas Break in two weeks (and I am done with these papers) I am smashing it myself.  I think I have made a determination to go it myself and publish my own stuff with Amazon and Barnes and Nobel.  If I do well enough I can branch out into paperback, having them individually printing on one of those sorts of websites.  I will use my shorter works to publish in other markets and use them as advertisements for my books.  And I will be making 70% of the profits from my books or whatever I publish directly through Amazon.  This way I can forgo the traditional publishing route all-together and be all self-righteous about my writing and keeping it the way that I want it to be.  Yeah, that's right.  That's why the stories have to be more straight forward and break less rules.  Or more rules, as is with the case with this blog.  I try to break as many rules as possible as many times as possible as long as I can in some way justify its use.

That for me is the whole point of this.  To write what I want, how I want, however I want it, and not feel the need to go back and change it once I feel it is done, unless there is a major, glaring typo I can't ignore.  It's no different that the type of judgment calls I was trained to make while a student journalist.  Some typos just aren't worth the time to go back and change them.  Others are.  I just get to be the ultimate arbiter of that here.

That just doesn't apply to my short stories, at least not in the same way, definitely not in my academic work, and definitely not in the same way as my novels.  I try to write as cleanly as I can in my important work.  This I want to be more cutting edge, documentary style.  Real life ramblings, you know?  Colloquial style stuff.

Hahahaahaha!  I sounded like such an academic turd there.  And a stinky one at that.  The day after a beer-drinking binge.  Oh well, it's what people expect.  I feel like I should in some way live up to those expectations.  It's a lot of pressure, really.  It shouldn't be.  It should be easy because this is what I like to do.  Write.  It's my thing in life.  I enjoy it so much that I care.  I care how it turns out.  I don't want to sound like an academic turd robot.




With an artificial smell.


Blah~

Not my taste, although maybe it should be.  I just like to be the rebel, even if only in my imagination.

[note: the music has reached the song "Journey to the Center of My Mind".  This is where it really starts to get exciting, this is the raunchy part of the mind fuck...]'


I want to be me.  To write like me, expressing my ideas.  In my way.  I will just tone it down in my short stories, amplify it here, and provide a moderate amount in anything I plan to try and sell.

My best short stories I will try to get published on real websites (with a little work to the stories, first, of course -- part of which are mostly already edited, a couple of them are nearly finished, a few of which I have already published (as my portfolio).  Maybe I could put that online?  What does everybody think of that?  It will be a teaser.  I have already published it (it is in the reading room at Kent State with all of the other writing portfolios, by the way.  it was entered into a contest on my behalf but I guess I didn't win.  Whatever.  I am not butt-hurt about it) and this would be a good opportunity for me to get them out to the publish and see what the public thinks about them.  A wider academia at least.  So that leaves me two or three stories I can get published (which is by far enough if I hold out for the right markets [by caring of course, about readership and capability the most]).

That section took a long time to get through.  Maybe because I had to go back and change a lot.

Now the album has reached to "Baby Please don't Go".  It's a much different place from "Journey to the Center of My Mind".  I love the Them version of this song.  Fucking Van Morrison!  Yeah, that's what get's me switched on!  Good music.  Ted Nugent's guitar playing is sensation on this Amboy Dukes album.  I think it is the best I have ever heard of him.  He was definitely the white, Midwest anarchist Hendrix.

I am the white, Midwest anarchist version of Elmer Fudd.  Huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huhh.

This music really brings out a bizarre side of me.  I truly apologize to anybody who is still reading at this juncture.

Oh, here we go again with the apologies.

Fuck off.

Listen man, this is your super ego speaking, and you have just really got to stop this nonsense.  

Why do you have to be all old and bitter, Midwest anarchist version of Elmer Fudd?

Huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huhh.

I see...  That is very profound.

But you can't say that about me.  It's like John Lennon always says "I am me and you are you and we are all together..."  I think that's how it goes.  I am just another side of you.  By you calling me profound, you are in fact calling yourself profound, which is just a little too much self-aggrandizement for any reader.  Stop jerking yourself off and get on with it already.

Okay, I think I can do this.  I think I can bring this to some sort of end.  I am not sure I can make any promises that it will all make sense, or any of it will make any sense, at the end of all of this.  In fact, I would definitely be disappointed if it did in fact make any sense.

Real lyric to the song I'm listening to:

Why are you, greener than green?

It's the same sort of thing.  It's a high person's version of profound, which is, that is to say, not profound at all.  I prefer it that way.  I prefer to get lost in the music, play my guitar, just let my brain flush itself out through my fingers, like they are doing now on this keyboard.  Guitar playing is much the same for me.  I just like to jam and do my own thing.  It's very liberating.  I think I know enough scales and chords and stuff to make it work.  I think I know what part to skip to in my book anyway, the last little piece of the puzzle, to truly make jamming and recording worthwhile.  After that, it will be all by ear from there.

I hope to be able to record my guitar and bass playing (with either a real live drummer somehow or, more likely, with my drum machine, which I will, or maybe a former real live drummer that I know, will record, maybe with keyboard parts, and I will sing, or we could get somebody who can sing to sing, and we will just write the lyrics.  Maybe with another singer/guitar player that we both mutually know, who we are already working with on other projects, and we all three can write the lyrics together.  We could record it onto one of our computers.  This, of course, in addition to other projects, while we can.  And our real lives.  That's why I need a guitar case.  So we can get together and jam over my Winter Break, and, hopefully continuing every once and while (though not by far ever having to be regularly, just whenever we want, when we have an opportunity, whenever).  I feel like I've reached a point in my life where I can afford to do something of this nature and still do well in school.  After the guitar case I won't have to buy anything to make it work.  I already have (albeit crappy) software and a mixer and a good mic.  And my guitar and amp, and a drum machine and a keyboard.  So, really, I have enough equipment for two of us.  The third already has his own equipment.  So it would work out easily enough.

The Amboy Dukes just ended.  Now I am listening to Johnny Winter's  The Progressive Blues Experiment.  My favorite album of his by far.

Anyways, we could put the music on a blog and have an interactive, multimedia website experience.  Everything anyone could ever want in a website.

I can make my own website a sort of prototype for my ideas (which is already is), so I can figure out the whole music thing with music I have already recorded, or can easily record after my papers (and between writing and social obligations and wifey time, which is most of my life).  I have ideas for a couple of songs.  We'll see how those ideas turn out once I get to actually putting them down. I don't know.  If not, there is already music that I have put other there that I can use.

I always have so many ideas I want to accomplish.  Being in school is a great gift that affords me the time, in addition to my schoolwork which only really encourages it.  I want my classes to be interactive, multimedia experiences.  21st-century style.  Propagandistic.  I could wear a monocle.
It would make a great book, eh?  That's two good book ideas in one day.  I don't know if I told you about the other one, I got caught up on the one I am already pondering while I am finishing up the first one.  I have no shortage of ideas to keep me busy for a few years.  Time to build an audience anyway.  My own audience, my way.

Then if I am unsuccessful I at least have school, and I can always write fan fiction erotica like I have always wanted.

I could always go the bizzaro fiction route.  I will at least model my ideas after the guys who started bizzaro fiction and have built themselves up.  Anybody want to go in with me on this?  I am thinking something like The Publishing Collective of the 21st Century or something like that, if such a thing doesn't already exist.  And if it does, I want in.  Maybe I could join an already existing one.  I think I could sell some of my stuff along the bizzaro route.  Definitely Born in 1984 and maybe the novellas I have to complete.  My book now I could definitely publish in two or three distinctive pieces.  Shorter would definitely work better.  I could sell the pieces more cheaply and put them out one at a time, so that way the publishing of the first would push me to finish the second.  I think I would do three pieces.  That would be the most effective way to break it up, I think.  That means I will be done with the first piece definitely by the end of the year.

I just need to make a solid decision about what is best for me and go with that.  Really.  I think it is all contingent on me going to school and doing well to enable me to work on my fiction and my blogging and my online fiction presence and really do what I want to do.  And still make an adequate living.  In fact, doing better than I have working as a manager at a restaurant.

Anyway, this will all seem really crazy to everyone until I actually do it, so, in order to not let all of those doubters be right, I am going to get to work.



Sunday, November 25, 2012

Betty White and Don Rickles naked.  Now.

A half-full keg of wasted beer in the basement.  Bummer.  Oh well.  It was a good party.  You only turn 30 once, right?

Old lady poop.

We are slightly horrified by it because we are all eventually going to succumb to a life of waiting around to die in a puddle of our own diarrhea.  I am halfway there.  Just kidding.

Certainly quarter of the way there, if I last that long.  I am not going to hope for it.  Whatever happens, happens at this point.  I've made the choices I've made up to this point and it has gotten me this far which really isn't half bad.

Really it isn't bad at all.  I just like to downplay it because I am bad about boasting.

Hot in Cleveland is not nearly as much like Cleveland as Drew Carey.  Just saying  I fucking love Drew Carey.

While most people out of the Midwest now think of him mostly as The Price of Right guy, which is fucking cool and anyone would do that job, but few can and not turn into a total jerk.  I haven't decided yet.  He is better than Wayne Knight anyway.

I can't think of Wayne Knight without thinking of Newman, which is a great character, and I am glad he gets to play a similar character because it is what he is really good at.  I am really in awe of that.

I am sorry, that was certainly very shameless.

That's what these sorts of Sitcoms make me think of.  Oh well, I suppose that's what they are meant to do.  To help build a lasting legacy.

I would rather do it through words that my image.  I am nobody but my words.  Truly.  I am okay with that.  I can appreciate a certain level of unforgiving anonymity.

It's okay, most people are completely anonymous.  It is the most common way.  There are far more of us than there are of Wayne Knight and Drew Carey.



Letting Go, Slowly, All Ending and Final Like, but (really) a Continuous Rant

It has been five days since I have written in this blog.  It had become like an addict or something.  I had literally become addicted to this whole concept of just putting words on a page and hitting send and sending it out to the world.  I feel like I am the world at my fingertips.  So what if it is a world of all ones and zeros, it is a world never-the-less, and I okay with that.

I am watching Lie to Me on Netflix and it is all a carnival act.

The best lines are the ones that I think of then write down and just leave the way they are because I know in my heart that is exactly what to meant to say.  I guess it allows me to develop a certain confidence to my writing, but whether it is well-placed or not remains to be seen.

I like to passively listen to TV or music and letting the ambiance enter my brain and influence me whether I realize it's actual full effect or not.  Maybe I am just allowing myself to be brainwashed.  Anybody ever notice how loud and dramatic all television is even when it's comedy.  There is a certain desperation to the humor.  Like, look at how pathetic we are.  Look!  Look universe we are cynical and smug and everything in our worst nightmares and we just can't wake up.

That is what they want you to think.  All deep and meaningful like nonsense that really stirs you that you either like or finds annoying.  There it is.  That is the misplaced confidence.  It is what it is, folks.  Like an ending a cause with a preposition.  They begin clauses.  Or do they?  I am not sure.

[Oh no I have become predictable.  Inevitably leading to some sort of equally-as-rambling meta-narrative (which is a word, trust me) ...]

Hey, fuck you for that, by the way.

[What, oh now you're talking directly to the meta-narrative you in the second person, calling you out on calling you out on calling you out.]

Oh wow, meta-self, that was a word after all.

I didn't believe you until I had tried using it myself.

[I assure you, I don't mind.  I find a hard time believing it myself.]

Wait, I am confused.  Now I am plainly just talking to myself?  Shit, that means that whole narrative has broken down and it has taken me until just now to realize it.

[Yeah, it's truly a shame.  I was really thinking you were going somewhere there for a while.  Oh well, I will continue rooting for you.]

That was fucking sappy.  I'm sorry.

Oh well, that is, in a nutshell, not the synopsis of Three Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place.

[Well spoken, my friend, definitely not.]

Hey, did I just channel the paranoia of this television show without trying to.  I'll bet the makers of it would be suspicious of using a preposition to end a sentence,even Google's dictionary says it is.  Otherwise it would attempt to edit me.  I like to challenge it a lot sometimes, though.  It needs challenged, sometimes.  I usually trust it, though, as I am going along.  When I go back and read it I don't rely on it at all.  Sometimes I don't go back and read it, which definitely correlates to when I leave the most typos.  I guess that makes this a sort of rambling experiment in writing.  My goal is to just say what is on the top of my mind as I am thinking it, and trying to capture my subconscious monologue.  I don't really believe that's possible, but it is fun to think about.

Sometimes I just need to get this out of my system before I get any actual work done because it is more responsible somehow and it allows me to really assert control over what I am saying when I am writing my paper, which I am about to begin here shortly.  That's right, my friends, I am about to challenge you, John Updike, to a dual.  You'll win but I am mostly on your side and in awe anyways.  I really like looking at the way you write really close up and coming to some sort of panty-shattering conclusion.

It definitely beats watching porno to techno music, which I definitely do not do and definitely do not not condone.

Was that confusing?  Did I just say what I thought I did?  I think I confused you phonetically, which was my plan all along.  BWaAhahahahHAAHAHAHA!

I am a language super-villain.

Captain Hook in a leopard-printed thong riding water skies in a lake of fire.

Get that image out of your mind.  Try.  Just try.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Musings on Life and Whatnot

On this day off I reflect on where my choices and life have led me, and, even through all of the things that have happened that seemed at the time like setbacks, I can truly say that I have had a pretty good life thus far.

Whether I have talent or a gift or skill or false hope I am grateful for this thing that I do oh so frequently.  I don't know what my life would be like without it.  I know that is difficult for some people to understand, but I have this unstoppable drive to create, to transcribe my thoughts and feelings into words and stories and characters and situations and rambling bullshit and nonsense, and I am grateful for it.

I see so many people wandering around, lost, heads spinning, unable to navigate through life without experiencing all the pains and difficulties every moment of every second of every minute of every day, and I know I could easily be one of those people.  But this whole writing thing, this whole music thing, have managed to keep me somewhat sane over the years.  All of the craziness I espouse on here is very much in the form of release.

I am very happy in my life with my wife and my career path, and I look forward to every day I spend on my school work and enjoying life and planning a family and doing things with my family and friends, and I wouldn't trade my life for anyone else's.  I am truly thankful for everything that I have.

Someday, my time will end, and, until that day, I am not going to miss out on life, on experiencing all aspects of life, the good, the bad, and attempting to make sense of it all in some form or another, even if just for myself.  It would be nice to make a living as a writer, but I am not going to lose sleep on it if I don't.  I will get my words and sentences and ideas out there in some form or another, widely available to anyone who is interested in partaking.

I truly appreciate everyone who reads this blog, who will read my stories and my novels and my poems and my essays and whatever else I decide to write, no matter how many or how few there are who read my work, I am and will continue to be extremely grateful that I have any sort of audience.

I know this might be verging on the sentimental, but I don't care.  Is is sentimental if it is honest?  I don't think so, but, that is a subjective feeling so how other people feel is entirely up to his/her subjective viewpoint.  That's why it's important for me to be honest, to be true to myself and my desires and beliefs and opinions, and if people don't like what I have to say, then they don't have to read it.  I am okay with that.  Maybe that isn't a very marketable viewpoint -- I don't know -- but I would rather write for myself and hope that people are interested in what I have to say or at the very least are interested in a sort of mind-numbing train-wreck sort of way.

A lot of people are too focused on what's trending and what's marketable and what the audience will think, and who this will alienate, and who this will or won't appeal to, and not enough on just making art that is true to oneself.  That's what it's important for me to focus on a way to earn a living aside from being a writer, whether it's being a professor or a writing instructor or a tutor or whatever other kind of job I can get with the degree I have and the degrees I am getting, and, if I can somehow get lucky and make the write connections and get my work to people who can help me get my writing out there to a mass audience, then great, but, if not, I will still be able to provide and be happy, cozy, surrounded by the people who I love.

Of course I do feel craft and style are important aspects of writing, so I will continue to hone my skills so I have all the tools an artist will need to make whatever kind of art I desire to make at any given time.  Versatility is a good quality to have, in my book.

Well, anyway, back to reading/writing papers, thinking about my own novel, maybe taking a break every now and again to work on it and finish it.  My goal is to be done with the writing/editing by January, which I can easily do if I don't waste my free time on nonsense, so I can work on getting it and my stories I have chosen to coincide with it out to an exponentially growing audience.  I can only do so much here on my own on this blog, I am going to have to get my writing out to other markets and grow my audience, so I can prove to agents/publishers that I am marketable.  I didn't say that I wasn't going to try to sell it and publish it, but I am going to write it in the way that I want.  I believe persistence is the key to success in the publishing world, from everything that I've read.  And if I fail at first, I will keep trying, all the while progressing through school and through life.

Well, anyway, back to reading about the present tense and brainstorming my paper on that aspect of Rabbit, Run.  I have two other papers, but I am trying to get this one really going (I have an abstract and a draft due on Monday), because the other two are less ambitious and will come much easier since I have already done most of the research and know fairly exactly how I am going to approach them.

Monday, November 19, 2012

Season's Greetings

I'm back...BITCHES!

Seriously, it has been an eternity since I have written in this shit.

I guess it would only tend to reason then that I have too many different things to say for this to be entirely focused.

A lot has happened.

I'm high.

On life.

Life is good.

I can say that because I have realized the secret to happiness.

Just stop caring about the things that will inevitably depress you.

Flush all the nagging shit in your brain and get out the toilet brush and get out those streaks.  It's time for a fresh start.

Inevitably some giant asshole will come along and take a shit down your mouth, and you'll just flush it on down and take it like a man (or woman.  Whatever, don't women, in general, do more taking.  Traditionally, I mean.  I can't say anything for new age women.  I can peacefully coexist with them.  Just know that patriarchy has still left it's imprint on my brain.  I'm aware of it but I can't always help myself from make a crude, sexist joke every now and again.  Its not okay, but, whatever.  Sometimes life is too short to be so fucking clean and quiet and fucking nice all of the time.  Sometimes it's nice to do something that's not good for yourself or anyone, as long as it doesn't actually hurt anyone else besides their sense of right and wrong, but that is purely subjectivity and shouldn't count [since everyone defines it differently]).

Wow.  That turned into kind of a rant.  Who knew that literal toilet humor would have led to such a parenthetical peep show to the inner-workings of my psyche, since, as Freud would say, (probably not really but something along these lines anyways), it's all about sex anyway.

I think 99% of the world's problems goes back to the intermingling of genitals or lack there of.  If could only let each other have sex with each other (consenting adults, of course, we do have to have some sort of standards) in a manner of our own choosing, then we will all be much better.  (Maybe some people will go to Hell.  Hey, look at it this way, there will be more room for your and your uptight friends.  The rest of us will be alone and miserable like you think we are anyway.  The truth is we should just respect each others' differences, but you can believe what you want to believe.  You don't have to know how not lonely and how extremely fucking happy I am anyways, in spite of all of the SHIT!)

*WOOOOOOOSSSSHHHHHHHHHH*

Does anyone have a spare toilet brush?  Mines all shitty with other people's shit?  Anybody want to help a brother out?  I need to get this shit off me.  This shit is bananas!  Banana shit!  SHITTY SHIT! SHITTY SHITTY SHIT SHIT SHITTY SHIT!   BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH...

Hello, Mr. Gott?  Yes, my name is Harold Hamilton and I am from the International Bureau of Public Decency, Bacon Grease and Money Laundering and I am here to serve you with a cease and desist order.

Wait a second, I'm being shut down?  What the fuck?

No, you are just being censored.

On the basis of what!

On the basis that we own the world and have rights over your soul and what you say is covered under the "soul clause" since you are bleeding heart liberal faggot and you wear your heart on your sleeve, especially when you write.

Wait, what?  You take what I'm saying seriously?

We take EVERYTHING very seriously.

Even penises with googly eyes and whimsical mustaches?

Sir, we are penises with googly eyes and whimsical mustaches, and if we don't take ourselves seriously then no one will...

So if I don't take you seriously then it doesn't matter?

No, pretty much, not. No, but we will be irrelevant.


And just like that you'll go away?



Monday, November 12, 2012

Rambling on a Monday Morning

For my final paper in my Modern Linguistics class (which is really a literary linguistics/intro to stylistics class) I am doing an analysis of John Updike's Rabbit, Run.  I will be studying the effect of the present tense on the narration, building upon the argument that the present tense brings the reader closer to the interior of the characters, rather than being a reflection on past events.  It's like the difference between standing and watching a roller-coaster that you have just ridden and reflecting back on the ride you had to someone who has never ridden it versus taking that person who has never ridden it and riding it a second time with them.  That way they can experience first hand what you experienced rather than hear your reflection on what it was like.  While it doesn't work for every novel, it does work for Rabbit, Run.

Holy crap!  I just figured it out.  While thinking about my novel while working on my school work and keeping a mental note of how I am going to continue editing at some point after I get my school work completed I realized the fundamental point of the entire story, the underlying thread that ties all of the other threads together.  The mainly anomaly I felt it lacked for the longest time but couldn't quite wrap my mind around until just now.  It wouldn't have been possible for me to realize because I realized it because of  my Linguistics class!  Fuck yeah!

Anyway, the thing that I realized is that my  novel was designed to be written in the present tense, I just have been writing it in the wrong tense this entire time.  All of the changes I have made have dramatically improved the story, but lately I have just been chasing my tail and wacking off too much when I should be figuring out the thing that just wrap this thing up for fuck's sake!  I just want to get on with it already!  I am trapped in a Bill Murray kind of Groundhog's Day Hell with this God-forsaken book!  AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

I guess the point you can draw from all this nonsense, is now that I have identified that change I need to make in order to make the leap over that final hurdle and cross the finish line!  I can finally do just that!  Seriously, this is it folks.  If this doesn't work, screw it, it's what I'm going with anyways.

There you go, optimism bound in reality.  It can be done.  I didn't fill myself with too much hope that it will actually be picked up by an appreciator and published, but I will at the very least feel proud to publish it myself and sell it for a reasonable amount of money, neither too much nor too little.  Maybe I won't make much out of it, but it will be available for anybody who has a Kindle or other kind of e-reader.  Also, definitely for Amazon you can  download the free app for your computer or your phone and buy e-books.  I am going to search for publishers who will let me focus my market more towards online (which will be the most cost-effective way of getting published as a new author), that if they can provide the financial backing for marketing and to help me provide a meager living for my wife and I, I will do as much as I can to help sell myself and continue producing new products.

Either that or I will make a living as a professor (and provide for my wife and our future family) and still continue to try and get published and if not publish my work myself, and I will be happy.  No matter what course I take I still have to finish this first book.  I have already hyped it too much to everyone I know to give up on it or never finish it.  I just have to finish it and be done with it and accept that it is where I am at as a writer, and, maybe someday I will write a better novel or I will have the opportunity to edit a new edition, but, for now, I just have to have a final product (to put it in business terms).

I believe I have the tools as a writer to create a salable product.  I am working on trying to minimize typos and grammatical/logical errors/fallacies, and hopefully the story and the message and the idea will be strong enough to garner some sort of audience.  If not, I will keep pushing towards the future, writing new books and stories, continuing on in school until I can find a job that pays more than going to school does (this of course contingent upon my doing exceptionally well, but the topic is literature -- at which I excel).  Although I am guilty of adopting critical points of view in my papers it is more for the quality of the paper/functionality of the argument than an actual point of view for which I subscribe.  I am first and foremost a writer trying to improve my skill level and increase my knowledge.  I will either max out my skill level or my knowledge (or raise it to a certain satisfactory point with satisfactory being able to get a well-paying job).

Well, unfortunately I have to get to work now.  I might be able to get back to the novel later tonight after class, but that (the book) and this (this blog) have to go backstage for a while because the main show is about to start.

In the meantime, keep on rockin' in the free world with Neil Young, and I will dive back into John Updike (and yes, that was definitely meant how it sounds).


Sunday, November 11, 2012

Gourmet Sausage

Does that seem like an oxymoron?  I mean, the "sausage" is not exactly the "gourmet" part of the animal.  Can anything that can be taken off of a pig actually really be considered "gourmet"?

I know some peoples out there would agree with me.

I don't know how I got started on that topic of conversation, or how I suddenly, through the course of it, became extremely hungry for sausage.

Sausage.

I'm willing to bet there is at least one sausage-making company out there that sells a product with gourmet somewhere in the title or description.

For all those connoisseurs of sausage out there.

Gourmet sausage.  Gourmet Sausage.  GOURMET SAUSAGE!!





                                 s

             s
       s
     s
  s
 s
s
  a
     u
         s
             a
                g
                   e
                     !
                    !

Friday, November 9, 2012

JINGOS!

I like to think of myself as delightfully eccentric.  That is just the nice way of saying weirdo asshole.

"Jingos!"

"It's not jingos."

It's JINGOS!"

I'm sorry.  I feel shameless that I am shameless.  I am a real hypocrite to rail against corporations and then shamelessly mention them by name in my free blog.  Hypocrisy by design sometimes serves a purpose.

[Okay, I can back and added those last couple of lines later.  And this parenthetical, too.]

Anyways,

Back to my initial point [the whole "I like to think of myself as delightfully eccentric.  That is just the nice way of saying weirdo asshole," part.]

In reality I feel that it is pointless to try to classify myself.  It doesn't really matter what I think about me.  In this post-postmodern state of anarchy, I cease to have meaning outside of these ones and zeros.

This is the post-capitalist depression.  Heh, wasn't capitalism great when it wasn't broken?  Was it ever not broken?  Did we ever really get the concept really on the button?  Or democracy, for that matter.  When you take those two things and compare them the their intentions, we really fucked everything up royally.  Ironically, we went too far with capitalism and not far enough with democracy.

Whatever.  All we've got left is the post-apocalyptic void of our subconscious.  Haven't we all already killed our species off in some manner or another in our minds?  Accepted that it's the end?That we're all doomed?  No, not quite yet, but almost.  Thankfully, we've still got our delusions.

And television.

Mind-numbness.

Shivers of excitement over every word.

When I write I just try and really capture my inner monologue.

That's probably why it seems so random.

Thoughts move too rapidly to even delude myself into thinking I could capture one even fleetingly.

I mean, that's why my trying fails to capture anything remotely resembling a thought.

It's because words and letters are symbols for the abstractness clashing about inside our heads.

I picture it as a vaporous black cloud, the eye of a black hole.

If the void is all I have left, I am going to celebrate it.  Everyone needs a ray of sunshine in the universe, and I've now got mine.

It's like the exact opposite of Buddhism.   Instead of celebrating everythingness, I will bask in nothingness.

A bubble bath in a cesspool.

Akron, Ohio.

Thursday, November 8, 2012

That last one was my 100th post

   1                     0000                   0000              
1111                 0      0                 0      0                    
   11                  0      0                 0      0                    
   11                  0      0                 0      0                    
   11                  0      0                 0      0                
   11                  0      0                 0      0                    
   11                  0      0                 0      0                    
   11                  0      0                 0      0                    
   11                  0      0                 0      0                    
   11                  0      0                 0      0                    
11111                0000                   0000          


pppp                                                                        !!!!!
  pppppp                                                                  !!!!
  PP         pp                                      t                       !!!
  pp         pp                                      t                       !!!
  pp         pp                                   tttttt                   !!!
  pppppp       ooooo            sss        t           sss       !!!
  pp               o         o         s             t          s           !!!
  pp               o         o           ss         t            ss
  pp               o         o              s        t               s      !!!
pppp              ooooo          sss            ttt      sss       !!!


My blogger dashboard tells me that my last post was my 100th.  So, here, I have arrived, on 100.  It might be counting ones that have been deleted, too, I'm not sure.

Anyways, here's to a hundred more!  And a hundred more after that!

Ramblin' Man

This is going to be one of those days where I do like three or four blogs, I can already tell.  My class is going to be on Skype because we are just reviewing homework.  I love technology makes it still possible for me to be responsible and attend class but yet stay in my pajamas all day and do whatever I want.  I mean, I could get loaded.  There is like 3.5 bottles of wine downstairs.

I can picture how much more entertaining class will be for everyone else.  or annoying.  The material is so easy, but only a few people get it.  It's linguistics, so, to a certain degree, you either get it or you don't.  It's definitely not interesting to everyone, although, it should be.  Language carries so much power, it's impossible to deny.  When chosen properly, words, written or spoken, can change lives.  I know words changed my life.

And music.  I have listening to the Velvet Underground and Pete Yorn this morning.  And next it will be the Violent Femmes and the Vandals.  I am slowly burning all my CDs to my computer and saving them to my backup hard drive.  I mean, I have a terabyte on each, so I might as well do it.  My entire collection will barely make a dent in that amount.  More than some people's would, because I have a shitload of CDs, but, probably not as much as some people either, because, I am fairly particular in my tastes.  You might say I have a refined taste, but, that is a form of exceptionalism, because who I am to say that my taste is better than anybody else's?  I might think it's better, but that doesn't make it better.  Sometimes its just important to accept one's insignificance.  Life is a facade.  I am glad.  Too often people take life too seriously, and they don't sit back and relax and just take it all in and experience it all.  Sometimes the best thing to do is just exist.  The rest is sometimes just too complicated, you know?

I know I just violated some people's idea of taste (in writing) by being too obvious and speaking directly to my audience in the third person, but I don't really give a damn about other people's subjective point of view, either.  Just because we're different doesn't mean one of us are wrong.  The idea behind being an artist is not appealing to everyone, because, aside from the Beatles, who can appeal to everyone?  I can even think of people who don't like the Beatles.  I know that is a hard pill to swallow for some die-hards, but, it's true.  There are actually people out there who don't like the Beatles.  You don't have to understand it or like it, but that doesn't make it any less true.  Sometimes people, you just have to think outside of yourselves, think of what it could be like from other people's perspectives, and not be such an asshole to everyone.  We are all guilty of it, some people more than others.  We all just need to take the time to appreciate life, because, without it, we can't even imagine.  Maybe some people try to imagine what it's like without it, but it is unfathomable.  We are incapable of thinking like that, because, there is no coming back.

Some other people think they have the answer to what lies beyond.  I hope they are right.  That would be great.  I truly believe it would.

I'm sorry, this is definitely a Velvet Underground-influenced train of thought.  The last two paragraphs were strongly influenced by what was playing, "Heroin".

My subconscious writing voice that usually gets used, more and more now for everything, but especially these blog posts is still strongly influenced by AP style.  I don't used all of their abbreviations for things, but when I do use abbreviates I do.  Same thing with numbers and punctuation, except for the Oxford comma, which I normally use.  Of course I also use passive constructions and am guilty of nominalizing, but that is because I normally write academic stuff now. My basic goal as a writer is to use whatever style is necessary in order to relay the information in the best way possible.

Of course I am guilty of rambling, like I am now, so sometimes it is difficult to stay on topic.  While some people might get annoyed by that, I feel like it is one of the grand hallmarks of my writing.  At least on this blog.  I know that is totally bullshit, but it is nice to think of it in those terms.  That way, at least to me, it is an endearing quality instead of an annoying one.  Of course that doesn't make it any easier for people who are averse to writing of this nature.  I assume those people will either not read it at all or will skim through it to be nice.  Either way, they aren't my audience.  I figure my audience will enjoy and appreciate the same stupid or similar stupid things that I enjoy.

I think the inherent benefit of writing in this manner is that it is in general just good practice.  I feel like the more I write, the more I read, the better I get with my words.  Then there is also the fact that this type of writing takes absolutely no for thought.  I never or rarely sit down with a topic in my mind, and if I do, it usually takes a while, sometimes days or weeks, to get it all out.  Then, once I do, I publish it.  I am working on a few of these longer blog posts things now.  They will be probably be between 10-20,000 words and I might post them as PDFs or sell them for like 99 cents on Amazon or something.

The series will be called "Rambling With Gabe" and with each one I will tackle one very, very general topic and anything that comes to mind while I am rambling on that topic -- you know, like this only longer.  I will probably not finish where I start.  I think if I get much longer than people start to get tired of reading it on the internet and it might be more effective to put out in another format.

Either way, I will leave you with a little Allman Brothers:
Ramblin' Man

"Living the dream" versus actually attempting to live it

They should have known better than to let me have like 8 days without working.  Or has it been 9?  Eh, it's been a while.

I have grown so accustomed to my new post-low-wage-slave-labor life that I have almost forgotten that I am still chained down, for a little bit longer.  Here's to hoping that I do get that tutoring position so I can do something of social value.  Helping people succeed in school.  Sometimes school can be daunting, and it's good to have a mentor to help guide the way through it all.  I would be good at that, and I definitely have knowledge in the subject of English.

With my master's degree I will be able to teach freshman college comp level classes and classes at community colleges and probably technical schools too.  Or be a full-time tutor.  Or writing or editing gigs.  Really, there are a lot of possibilities.

My goal is to go on and get my Ph.D. in English Lit.  I want to teach like modern British and American Lit courses.  I think it would also be cool to have a Kurt Vonnegut class or a subversive lit class, or something along those lines.  It would consist of Melville, Orwell, Huxley, Vonnegut, Bradbury, maybe Philip K. Dick, Hunter S. Thompson.  I don't know.  I would have to do more reading and analyzing.

I am taking a Melville class next semester, which I am excited about.  I am also taking Chaucer, which I have read, in Middle and Modern English, and can take or leave, even though I know it's important.  I have even read a Saint's Tale by Chaucer.  Finally, I am taking my first Shakespeare course.  I don't know how I avoided it in my undergrad, even though they covered ol' Bill in my one survey course with Dr. Berardinelli -- but he only covered the Sonnets.  It's nerdy, I know, but I will finally get to put my Complete Works to use.

In fact, depending on what the Melville course covers, I already Billy Budd and The Piazza Tales, Moby Dick and Israel Potter.  I might have to buy one or two more, and possibly the Chaucer, although I definitely have The Canterbury Tales in middle English in my Norton Edition.  I don't know what else the class will cover.  The Canterbury Tales is by far Chaucer's most significant contribution to English Literature, so whatever else it covers will be secondary.

This semester has definitely been useful, I will definitely use my new knowledge of linguistics and sociolinguistics to use.  I am doing a paper on the effects of present tense in Rabbit, Run, I'm doing a paper on social media literacy, and I'm doing a paper on lexical ambiguity in sex slang.  And I am going to apply to a conference with my Havelok the Dane paper.

Without having to work for my corporate slave driver, I would be able to focus even more on my career path.  That's why I need to get a job in my field, a part-time one, even if it is not with Akron.  Somewhere.  Maybe at a library.  Or -- the dream -- a writing job.  I would write about anything.  Just saying.

No matter what, no more "living the dream"at work, where, even on a basic level, I could actually be living it.  I do, after all, have a bachelor's degree.

Monday, November 5, 2012

Maintaining voice even when it is not the structural subject

Listening to Miles Davis radio and doing homework.  Currently listening to Joe Pass, one of the all-time great jazz guitarist.

Can take the main subject (me) out of the sentence and it still makes sense.  This way can talk about the secondary subject (the sentence) more clearly.

I'm simply getting out of the way.

Think my blogs should lean more and more to this style.  Short paragraphs, minimalistic but highly grammatic language.

I like that my vocabulary is large than Google's.  It tells me minimalistic and grammatic are both not words.

Shit, I am getting in the way again.  Look at that!  I managed to completely change topics and significantly alter the voice just by inserting the subject into the sentence.

When I add myself as the subject instead of just implying it, it inherently becomes more about me that what I am trying to say.  By merely implying the subject the reader is focusing more on what I am trying to say.  However, when the subject is still necessary, I still add a subject.

Hence, I returned to the initial point I was attempting to make after the introductory paragraph.

I guess this kind of makes this a guide to my style; I use my own version of the standard form of English.

Or am attempting too.  I believe only if people understand what I am trying to communicate (clearly) that I will be successful.  The ideas have to tie together not just logically but also structurally.

I would say that when ideas are built in structurally they are easier to understand.  It is evident in good poetry, like Blake.  Yes, it might take a better understanding of the standard form to understand in depth, but it will also be superficially inherent to people who are mostly familiar just with their own dialect -- since all dialects are derived in some way from the standard form and follow logic that is either parallel or sharply contrasting and obvious.  Either that, or, the standard form began as a dialect and through acts of government (whether by an elected government or by a collaboration of the people as a society and following basic tenets of the social contract) became the standard form.

In general, all good writing -- since written language is different from spoken languages and has its own set of challenges, is built around the standard form -- even when mirroring a dialect, the rules that govern it are inherent to anyone who speaks any form of language.  I believe it should be more based more around grammatical universalities, which, in general, the direction language is going due to the internet and globalism.

Either that or we are all being slowly brainwashed by the powers that be and that accounts for it all, but I really don't by that sort of paranoia-based bullshit. I do believe that language is always evolving and that it is interesting to follow its currents, even through literature from the past to today.  

Also, I should point out that perhaps I should have established sooner that I differentiate between spoken and written language.  It is a presupppostion, I suppose, but perhaps it shouldn't be.  I imagine it is easily understand or even already assumed by my audience.  Plus I have probably made mention of it in previous blogs.  I'm not 100% sure about that, but, it seems to me to be pretty likely.

Then again, taking all that into consideration, back to my main point...  Did I maintain my voice throughout that, my subjective point of view, throughout all of that, even when it wasn't presented as such?  I would like to think I did but then again it is hard for me to consider otherwise since I am, like all others, except for Professor X, I am trapped in my own mind.  And I am not at all discounting the possibility that my mind might be a warped, scrambled, confusing place where most speech acts or uses of language are really just mindless rambles.

Is it bad that I kind of hope that most people are all cross-eyed and confused by the time they get to the end of this post?

And She Was

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Thoughts

I see the new Abraham Lincoln movie as likely to be a shallow attempt at rewriting history.

Webhosting, I'll bet that's a tough business when you have a virtual monopoly on the market.

I think I'm catching a cold.

I am tired of all the fear-mongering.  Come on, Tuesday!  Just pull the trigger and put the bullet in my brain and get it over with.  Whoever is elected cannot rightfully call himself the leader of the free world, because the concept of a free world is a myth.

I love Louie CK.  First time I've watched SNL in like five years.  The music is not my taste, though, but I'll work with it.

Everybody Wang Chung tonight.

Anything with "end of the world" in the title is probably not going to be a comedy if everyone dies in the end.

I am tired.

Chi Chi is dreaming and making funny noises.

Fun. is really dramatic.  I can't tell if the passion is real or a show.  I would like to think it's real, but I am pretty disenchanted with the music industry.

Chi Chi is really barking at something in her dream still.  I pet her and she relaxes, wakes up a little, but quickly settles back down to sleep.

I miss my wife.  I look forward to picking her up from the airport tomorrow night.

Elliot is still on probation.  He almost immediately accepted the leash and is resting comfortably next to me.

I need to refocus my life and put more time into my school work.  I'm doing good but I can do great.  I need to take it up to the next level and really rock that shit.

I need to finish more stories, send abstracts to try to do more conferences, and finish my novel.  Then sell the shit out of it to agents and publishers.  I need to stop over-analyzing it and get it done.  FINISH EDITING IT AND GET ALONG WITH IT ALREADY!  GET A SERIOUS CRITIQUE OF IT!

There is no turning back now.

The Journey to the Center of My Mind.






Saturday, November 3, 2012

A Little Paranoid Rambling (from Adam's Basement)

I have, somewhat frequently made fun of the fact that I have earned about 8 cents in ad revenue from the ads on my blog.  A few days ago I went to block certain ads from my site, particularly political ads, because I don't want the ads on my website to misrepresent me.  I think that is perfectly fair.

Then I decided to rant about the situation.  Also, again, my right...  I mean I didn't make any threats or anything of that nature, no.  I merely said what was on my mind, at least the public version of it, anyway.

A few hours later, on my blogger home page I noticed that the link to my adsense account is completely gone.  The link to adsense is still visible on the other blogs I've started, but my adsense account no longer exists.  I mean... The option isn't even available anymore?  Really?  Why?  What the Hell?

I am not worried about the ad revenue.  Really, Google, you can keep your 8 cents.  I'm good.  I don't know if it is purely coincidental or a glitch, but the timing is very intriguing.  Ironically, when I check my page I am getting all kinds of the ads that I definitely blocked.

I don't know what's going on, I don't know what I should do -- if there is anything for me to do?  I do feel it is important for me to have some level of control over the ads on my page.  I haven't received any kind of correspondence from Google; however, after I posted the rant, I began having trouble with my site going down.  I would try to view it to see changes I had made, but Chrome could not find it.  I know others were having problems viewing it as well.

Trying to figure out what was wrong and changing different settings to see what effect each one had, I activated the adult content warning page (sorry about that, by the way).  Then, magically, I stopped having trouble with my page.  I don't know what to believe, I just had to say something.  I am probably being paranoid and am worrying about nothing.  It's probably best (for me) to just assume my sanity is questionable than to assume that someone really is fucking with me.

I don't really want to publish this, but I feel like I have to publish it.  Even if nobody reads it.  At least it will be out there.

Or maybe not.  I don't know.  Wow, I am indecisive.

Or maybe I am misleading you, to distract you.  Maybe it's a ploy and I am just having fun.  Maybe I am completely serious.

END SONG

Civic Duty

Bob Dylan's calm unwavering voice singing in my ear, the Times they have been a-changing, but only for the worse.

We are in an epic downward spiral, closer and closer to oblivion.

It is preventable, but most people will not stand up and do anything.

Most people will remain complacent,

and sit with there happy little distractions,

and zone out,

 closer and closer to oblivion.

 I am, myself guilty.

I will be the first to admit.

That's just it, though, we are all guilty of it.

The problems are complex.  A seemingly untangleable knot.

I stand up and, like Howard Beale in Network,
shout "I'm Mad as Hell, and I'm not going to take it."

I just don't understand why people just can't get along.

Are our differences really good reasons to hate each other?  Really?  We really can't get past that already?

Whatever happened to the concept Great Society?  Why aren't we having this discourse?

These dreams, while ideals, will certainly never be attainable if we don't strive for them.

Yes, we will never reach the ideal state, but, if we try real hard, we can certainly come closer to it than we are now.

Why do peace and love have to be such dirty, hated words?  Why is our society, right now, so averse to those ideas?  Why can't we have empathy for each other and also accept our own limitations but always strive for better?  Are we, as a society unable?  Is that really too much to ask?

I have more questions than answers, but maybe more people need to be asking questions.  Maybe my individual questions, by themselves, will have no impact upon the whole, but maybe more people should just be asking questions.

Out loud.

Maybe I was wrong.  before.  I make a better dissident than a Lotus-eater.

Civic duty extends beyond merely voting or following the laws, some times it involves asking the right people the right questions.

Friday, November 2, 2012

NOTE:

I have been adding some new pages, most of which are still in progress.  Check them out and let me know what you think.   If you have any suggestions, let me know, and I will take them under consideration.  For those of you who are using the mobile version, I am sorry that these pages are unavailable to you right now.  I am still trying to figure out how to make it so the links to my other pages appear on the mobile site.  Any suggestions?  Right now I am not coding, I am merely using Google's templates.  I might do some programming of my own as the need arises.  We'll see...