Hope and wonder, how it always starts. What’s along the road this go ’round? Some sorta unforeseen joy or terror? More broken lights? More sublime peace? You never know, you hate to predict, and honestly can’t stand when others do either. All you can really do is look at where you are, an’ what led up to this precarious moment.

Kinda all start the same, even this last adventure. There you are, looking down some vast expanse shrouded in black an’ shadow, occasionally glimpsing rifts and sun through bits of imagination. The beginning is always easy, you feel new and it’s so not gonna wear off this time. Or so you tell yourself, and it works a little. Makes the early slogging a bit more tolerable at any rate. It’s a welcome relief after the drama.

You press on, a bit further down. It’s like walkin’ a ridge in the dark at first, you really have no idea where it’s all going, just that it’s this way and you’re really not gonna turn around. Then it throws a chasm at you- somebody leaves, life becomes more than you can bear and all you really wanna do is go home. But you don’t. You don’t because then you’re going backwards and as shitty as forward looks, there’s light ahead and nothing but repetitious fail behind you. You know better- even if it comes in waves, you know better.

Then you catch up with that light that you’ve been starin’ at for months, and fuck if it isn’t glorious. First thing you do is one of most reckless, out of character acts you can, trying once and for all to get out of the goddamn twilight. Maybe you spend a few weeks shittin’ bricks in your head, but you get over it. Hell of a story at any rate. Wasn’t even your tent.

It’s always hard, staying in that light, even when you know it’s better than ever before. You can always see ‘em, off in the distance, these little spots that will damn everything you’re holding onto. Gettin’ caught in one, it goes dark an’ all you want to light the sky back up are the fires of everything burning to the ground. There’s no refuge from it an’ all you can do is hope it passes before you lose your head. Then it does.

Everybody that trips down one of these adventures has a few of these moments in the light. Or maybe I’m just projecting. But sometimes you find yourself, say on an empty mountain highway hauling ass at a sunset with good company and music so appropriate it’d be ridiculous if you weren’t euphoric, and you can’t help but wonder why life can’t be like this all the time. You share that light with so many people, it’s hard to bow out gracefully.

And like that it’s behind you, some distant sunset that really is over when it’s gone. It’s horrible, and the only thing moving your feet for the longest damn time is the hope of getting to the next one faster. But that’s not enough- you can’t move out here in the dark like that, it’s dangerous and this may, in fact, be bat country. Not that you’ll realize that in time.

Then one a’those strikes of light hits. You don’t really notice at first, but everything glows a bit. Like sitting in a black room and slowly finding the walls, the windows. It’s still not light out, but maybe, just maybe, you passed through the real night. You’ve got the hang of traveling like this.

Eventually it’s close enough to the end that you check out early. You stop worryin’ about the earthly stuff ’cause you’ve had your fill and nobody is gonna stop you from quitting at this point.

You’re all in the middle of being done, ready to pack it in and restart at the top, when this thing steps out of the dark. You thought it was dead or gone or somethin’. Useda be here, standin’ here like this all the time. Then it wandered off like some sorta four year old with ADD. And how you yelled after it, in the most biting farewell you could muster. Maybe it left, but the air of it followed you about, dimming everything, however slightly and subconsciously. But here it is again, atoning for that. We’ve all grown up a little it seems, here at the other end.

And that’s really what it comes down to when the path stops. All you can do is look back. Maybe you needa shake it off, tell yourself to do better next time, maybe you can accept how you did this time. But you can’t tell yourself what the future will be, ’cause you’re standing here, looking down some vast expanse shrouded in black an’ shadow, occasionally glimpsing rifts and sun through bits of imagination.

An’ you keep going, into the unknown.

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I’ve spent a solid portion of my existence in particularly large, dark rooms, with a bunch of strangers. Theaters, mind you. And those theaters have contained everything from mind-blowing stories, visual feasts, comedies nearly driving me to tears, and of course, absolute garbage. As a film student, it’s easy to become jaded to what’s out there, what is or definitely is not impressive, etc. So when I first saw a preview of Avatar, I was absolutely unimpressed.

Avatar, at first glance, looked like Fern Gully with space marines. I mean that’s a fantastically amusing idea, but for the last year I’d heard all sorts of whispered hype (growing to a proverbially goddamn roar in the last few months) about how revolutionary it is, how “OMG James Cameron finally decided to make another movie with a budget larger than most third-world countries”, and so on. And then I remember the trailer with these goofy-damned blue people running around. It was an uphill battle. Honestly, if it weren’t for knowing James Cameron’s track record of making solid, huge films, I probably would’ve wrote it off and waited for the DVD.

And maybe I would have if it weren’t for the fevor of a Cameron fan and fellow film student I know, who, when I told I’d probably just see it in 2D, flipped shit and told me my “head would explode”. Curious, and with the advantage of going somewhere for Christmas break near several metropolitan areas, I looked into what was available. Turned out we had an opportunity not only for 3D (fail, Bozeman, fail), but for IMAX; two technologies that by themselves have always struck me as pretty gimmicky (though I find IMAX more enticing) but together, combined with a true Hollywood film, well… Now I was interested, and made the trip with my brother and my father.

When we were walking out, my dad- who’s typically “meh” about movies- made the comment: “That was the coolest damn thing I’ve ever seen.” Which more or less sums up my feelings. I have never, in my life, sat in a theater and gone “holy shit” in my head with awe so many times.

Before I dive into the visuals, I want to make something abundantly clear: This is not a revolutionary or particularly innovative story and anybody expecting otherwise needs to re-watch the rest of Cameron’s films. None of them are. This is not a Coen Bros. film or a Kaufman script- if you want to be challenged by the plot, seek it elsewhere. That said, it’s engaging, extremely well-paced and well-directed (sans Weaver, who strangely wasn’t all there). That kind of solidness is what you should be expecting from a Cameron story, nothing more.

Now, here’s why people are raving: The visuals are jaw-dropping. Full-blown Mechs with live-action people seamlessly inside, all manner of futuristic technology and weaponry rendered believably right in front of you, dense rainforests- lush green in the day, but sporting an amazing neon color palette during the night, people riding goddamn dragons while shooting flaming arrows, mountains cloaked in mist floating near the fucking stratosphere, and that’s just the beginning. This is a behemoth of science fiction, nothing less, and for two hours and forty minutes, you will BELIEVE all of it. Make no mistake, this is the next evolution of computer-generated technology. From a technical standpoint, books could be written about this film: Green-screen compositing that is fucking flawless, motion capturing that is bar-none the best ever done; every facial expression and (very nearly) every movement is utterly real. You WILL forget that nearly half the characters and locations in front of you do not, in reality, exist.

As I said, I witnessed this in IMAX 3D, and that’s what really pushed this into a whole new realm for me. In terms of IMAX, the wow-factor is very simple: It’s a massive screen, unlike anything I’ve ever been in front of (and allegedly, our screen was smaller than standard IMAX).  In terms of 3D, that’s the other revolution here.

This film goes far beyond a few gimmicky shots that make you think “it’s like I can touch you!”. Hallways and rooms inconsequential to the focus of a scene stretch off into the distance, as though the screen were just a window. Characters pop-out, at times uncanny in their detail; I’m not sure if its a combination of the large-format and 3D, or just 3D, but there were moments that my brain understood the physical presence of something in the film the same way it does in reality. That may sound dull, but it’s exactly that sort of subtlety that sells the effect- most of the 3D is supplemental to the content. However, there are some real jaw-dropping moments purely by way of 3D and they are, of course, the environment. As the camera pans down with someone diving off an enormous waterfall, you feel it. It was enough to instill a (wonderful) moment of vertigo in me, and this is repeated ten fold for sequences with Avatars flying on the backs of pteryodactal-like creatures, as they soar over the landscape and, fantastically, dive straight down for it. Some of it is obviously showy, but you really, really won’t care.

It is somewhat hard to describe in words. In a nutshell though, as witnessed in 3D IMAX, Avatar is a visual experience currently unrivaled by any other piece of cinema. Personally, the only other thing in my life that comes close to touching it was the stage show for Tool’s 10000 Days tour.  It is, however, unfortunate knowing that it’ll be rare for most people to experience Avatar this way, particularly in the northwest where IMAX is almost non-existent and 3D is still somewhat hard to come by. But Avatar’s content, even 3D on a standard screen, is still liable to wow. I worry it’ll lose some luster in 2D, but I’ll reserve judgment until I’ve had the pleasure.

I don’t usually write film reviews, the reason being I usually feel like I’m telling people what movies they should or shouldn’t like. Some simply are not for everyone (most of my personal collection, in fact), and I firmly believe if you want to see something you should, regardless of what anyone else tells you. But in the case of Avatar, I think the sheer force of innovation and eye-candy contained within is enough that almost anyone can enjoy it.

Bottom line: Go see Avatar.

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09-18-09.

Spokane, WA.

The children… Wow, the children.

Standing in line for an hour and a half (venue set-up time fail is made of fail), it became apparent that we were in the minority of attendees over the age of 21. Significantly over, mind you. I’m not sure how to feel about that- in part it’s kind of disappointing to not look around and see an amalgamation of At the Gates, Dark Tranquillity, Soilwork and other such classic Gothenburg bands plastered onto shirts, but instead a lot of young, clean-shaven chitlins wearing very new looking In Flames apparel. Granted, there were enough respectable newer names (Amon Amarth, Killswitch, etc), but standing in line for a show from one of the original melodic death metal bands, it felt as though their origins were some distant land that the crowd wasn’t aware of. But scenes change. Quite frankly, I’m happy to see a mob of kids into In Flames, regardless of which incarnation it is.

The Faceless takes stage. I haven’t been privy to anything approaching true death metal on stage (or even influenced by it) in a long while, so just the sheer brutality was enough to leave me smiling for the first few minutes. Properly mixed heaviness is something to appreciate: the double-bass wasn’t moving my clothing, but it was enough “oomph” that you knew somebody’s feet were plugging away at lightning speed behind the kit. Guitars that aren’t made of mud, vocals that aren’t under-mixed… Wonderful. But this isn’t generic death metal- despite the vocalist’s Cannibal Corpse shirt. Somewhere between the second or third song I found myself in some sort of trance, alternating between members in admiration. It’s easy to forget how much skill this brand of music requires when it’s not crushing your face from 40 feet in front of you. Playing at hyper-speed, rapidly changing times and tempo (making it look absolutely effortless), yet still maintaining moments of groove and (thankfully) having a vocalist who knew what he was doing with his throat (or rather, not doing). Definitely a proper start to the evening.

240 pounds of man, scuzzy hair down to his shoulders, and a beard scruffy enough to compete with most bums. Denim jacket covered in patches. The sort of man that, very clearly, drinks a lot of beer. Grooving riffage pours out of the amps for the opening song. He opens his mouth. Out comes falsetto. This is 3 Inches of Blood. By all accounts they’re pretty straightforward metal- nothing terribly original, but definitely the sort of group that gets on stage with the intention of having a good time so that, by proximity, you will too. Great fun to watch, and it IS most certainly something to behold- anyone that can pull off Halford-esque falsetto in true form deserves recognition, even if it’s not typically my listening preference.

Five guys wander onto the stage, mostly clean-cut and looking straight off any college campus (mostly; the guitarist in a sleeveless Opeth tee threw things a bit). Set-up takes a little longer than it should considering things are already an hour behind, but soon it gets underway. A thick wall of noise and energy issues forth. Between the Buried & Me. I have to admit, after the first two openers, my ears were starting to disagree that the high-end of the audio spectrum existed anymore, so things got fairly muddy during their set as far as I could tell. Whether that was a set-up issue or my dying hearing, I’m not sure. Either way, as with The Faceless, these are class musicians. I probably spent most of their set in awe of the bassist- very rarely during any sort of metal is the bass doing anything independent of the guitar, but he absolutely kicked that stereotype out the window. Which was to be expected- BTB&M definitely put the prog into progressive death metal, moving not only between various metal genres (death, thrash, metalcore), but also into some strange variation of psychedelic prog-rock, complete with clean vocals (which I thought were on the strained-side; as if over-compensating for being low in the mix). It can be (and for me personally was) very hard to keep up with, considering I don’t know their material very well. And it seemed like it would all be cut short as they announced “this is our last song for the night”, seemingly early in the set. Not true. Fifteen minutes later, they wrap up White Walls to a crowd of screaming In Flames fans, by far one of the standout tracks of the entire evening. It had been awhile since I’d listened to Colors (the album), but having gone back just now to hear it again, as awesome as it is, that build at 7:20 is nothing until you hear it live. Just jaw-dropping, and it was great seeing a sea of young metalheads that agreed.

So all the openers are down, and we all know what’s next. Understandably, it takes In Flames a fair bit longer to set-up, what with being the headliner and having brought their own (blinding) light show. Not that this stops a handful of dunces from chanting the band’s name in moronic feverency; yeah, let’s just skip the sound check, great idea.

Lights drop, a teaser loop of the very distinct synth from Cloud Connected comes on, band takes the stage, and things kick into full gear from there. Here’s the setlist to the best of my remembrance:

Cloud Connected
Embody the Invisible
Pinball Map
Disconnected
Delight and Angers
The Hive
Alias
Crawl Through Knives
Square Nothing
Leeches
System
Drifter
Come Clarity
Clayman
The Mirror’s Truth
Take This Life
The Quiet Place
Reflect The Storm
My Sweet Shadow

I have to say, the first third of the setlist surprised the living shit out of me (and anyone familiar with the band before 2002 likely was as well). Embody The Invisible? The Hive? I was prepared to hear one, maybe two songs from anything Clayman and before- not this, and especially not within the first half of the set.

…Before pressing on, I’d like to take this moment to air some thoughts on what’s obviously coming here: I love In Flames. Everything from Jester Race through A Sense of Purpose. In metal circles- particularly ones that respect the early Gothenburg scene- that’s tantamount to coming out of the closet. At a bar full of loggers. In rural Montana. I saw it plenty of times on Metal Forums and it usually turned into a flame war. But I realized something at this show: In Flames- in both forms- has colored a huge part of my life since Junior High: Embody the Invisible and Brush the Dust Away were staples of my mp3 collection ever since I started thieving my brother’s music collection, I can’t count the number of times I listened to Clayman while working out (hah) or driving to school- same with Reroute To Remain, which was one of the first real “metal” albums to lyrically impact me as a young teenager. My point is, I could separate In Flames into two different bands if I wanted too, but to me, it’s one band with different qualities, and whether it’s the beautiful dueling solos and seething vocal rage of them in the Colony-era or the grove oriented riffage, vulnerable clean vocals and screams of post-RtR, I enjoy it. Period.

Anyways, as much as I’d like to think everyone is capable of that duality of opinion, it’s just not so. There was the obligatory man behind me that shouted for “Biosphere” (hadurr), very obviously wasn’t going to get his way (three more followed from Come Clarity and Sense of Purpose; I giggle), and left. And most of the folks up front nodded politely along to stuff like Clayman and The Hive, while getting all sorts of into Delight and Angers and Quiet Place. But that’s fine, there were plenty of us pleased with everything.

Also worth mentioning are some Anders-isms:

- Early in the set he was talking to the crowd, stopped mid-sentence and asked a man up front if he was “filming this for YouTube”, told him not to lie, asked for the man’s camera, and pulled it on-stage, panning around the crowd (“say hi to YouTube Spokane”) and back to his face to rapturous applause. Lucky bastard.

- “You guys on the balcony need to kick those old people, get them moving around.”

- “I love you Anders!” – some woman from the balcony. “I love you, and I want to impregnate you.” – Anders

- (introducing Come Clarity) “This one is for all you Scorpions fans, because Scorpions are the greatest band in the world!” as he grinned half at us and half at Bjorn (who shook his head in disgust).

And so things went- they pounded through each song with all the ease of a band that’s been at this for nearly twenty years, clearly still having a blast with every bit of their material. Even Anders, whom I’ve doubted in the past as having a good voice live, hit all his choruses and perfectly balanced his early growling with his newer screaming (something I feel he did on the latest album as well).

They close with My Sweet Shadow. I get lost in Ander’s screams, the band’s enthusiasm for a song that’s always been intense for me. It doesn’t reek of “live closer”, but somehow, it’s fitting: An oddly emotive synth line, start-stop riffing, and a quiet build-up to a soaring chorus. Perfect ender.

So we piled out the door, content (“that was a fucking outstanding show” – some girl, as we were leaving). At least I was, what with my revelation and all. I always thought of In Flames as a band I casually listen to, but for whatever reason I could never admit that wasn’t true. Letting the raw emotion of a live show wash over, it was retardedly obvious just how untrue that is. I’m a fan, no exceptions.

And nothing is more metal than kicking off a three hour drive at 1:30 in the morning, armed with energy drinks and Lee’s “diverse” taste of keep-me-from-hallucinating-shit-while-driving music, then sleeping for a solid (!) two hours on a couch before a full next day (including another 3 hours of driving).

Yeah.

I need more weekends like this.

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See those leaves up there? Bein’ all golden and still under some blue sky? I do. They’re not actually there, and in fact may be some amalgamation of photos and distorted recollections, but I still see them.

Some basement underneath those leaves. School. Smells like paint. Not exactly high-art but hey, it’s the “fun” class. Walked down the street one time- mid-afternoon in September. Inane small-talk with some older kid who listened to vaguely the same sort of irate teenage-angsty metal I was just getting over. Ended up being better friends with his little brother three years later. Weird. But there we were, leaves rattling in the wind across the street while we marked up the side of a hardware store. Six years ago. Still there- ripped off Microsoft Office clipart blown-up on a wall, our names immortalized below them in what could probably be considered copyright infringement. Don’t know how many other bodies even notice it anymore, but I do. Grin and read the names every time I see ‘em.

…There’s a heat to the sun coming off the afternoon sky. It’s apparent after stepping off a bus ripe with the smell of diesel and chitlins tired from school, quiet on their way home. But I step out, onto pavement, and it’s all the same to me. Grass is still green, maybe the tree out front has lost it’s leaves already but, eh. The dogs bark. They’re retarded like that. But we love ‘em. You see ‘em? I see ‘em.

It gets colder. Golden brown lying dead on the ground, under an equally dead sky. Maybe it was growing under that weather, not thinking it was “sad” like art conditions everyone to, but grey skies and cold fall weather feel like home. Feels like waking up early enough that Dad isn’t home from walking his gun yet, playing Tribes in an excited haze all morning because I have the winning ability to wake up before my brother.

Some late evening. It’s dark out, it’s a little early for such tomfoolery but so it is. Clearly the summer is over. There’s no doubt school tomorrow. Same bodies parked in the same chairs, same actions going on on television. It’d be on late, I’d get locked off to bed and then what’s a kid to do? Radio, bitches. Wave of the future. Laying straight up, headphones on, still feeling like I’m “up” and out in the living room. Can you hear it? I still do. If you need a glimpse: Helps Both Ways. Mogwai.  Nostalgia for my American tradition from a group of Brits. Ironic.

Working evenings, you can see it dim outside. Puddles grow in the parking lot outside the florescent cart-corral, gaze out at it on my way to move small colorful objects around a large, colorful building. On some masochistic level one can enjoy it- don’t have to worry about anybody but you, the task is simple enough and… For awhile, there was that one. Didn’t think anyone could be so giddy with half a sentence, it was adorable. And innocent. Leaving early, but not before it’s dark and brisk out- football season, mind you- to find a receipt taped to my window with the proper change amount circled with entirely too many arrows on it. I still see it.

I like to believe, sometimes, that if only the geographical entities that these things occurred in were still legally “home” to me, everything would be alright. Like the other normal kids who can still “go home” in a physical sense. But those things above? They can’t be repeated. It’s hard to accept- and I still don’t half the time- but physically, home “was”.

Home is in a memory. And I can live with that, because I still see it.

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Broken. It’s that feelin’ of wellin’ up like so many irritants inside are tryin’ to rip your mouth open and scream the apocalypse. What would they scream? Hatred, death, somebody help me, a hug? Somethin’. It’s a convolution of shit that’s mostly incomprehensible and it’s easier to just sleep it off than to actually sittaown and deal with it.

I didn’t even know the dude. Really. Sure he hung out at my place, but he mostly said a lot of stupid shit for attention and all we ever did was make fun of him. He was too gooda soul to do anything but shrug it off in real life, though. Only ever saw him snap once at someone and it was rightfully so. Hard to be backwards in a backwards community, that was always a point of respect. But who am I to patronize ‘im? I didn’t even know him. Still affects me.

Somma us like to pretend we’re invincible. It’s really only ever to a point. I can watch ‘em die off in the distance all day long, but as soon as it comes within grasp, there’s a certain pressure attached to it. Can’t shrug it, can’t just say “fuck it, didn’t know him”. ‘Cause the truth is that we did know each other- hell he was aware of one of the biggest plights of my life, more so than any friend I’ve made in the last three years ever will be. But I still didn’t know him.

Existence gettin’ stamped out is no big deal in itself. Your neurons stop shootin’, the brain quits sending signals to the body, physical functions cease, you grow cold, you bloat, you decay. There is nothin’ fantastical about this. It’s the stamping out, that’s the real thing. An active memory turning into a stale re-run. That’s what gets me every time.

I still dream in Troy. It’s the most wonderful thing. It was such a vibrant, familiar part of formative life that there really is no going stale. All this death, it’s somethin’ similiar. These existences that crossed into mine- however briefly in some cases- were tied to my view of reality, and a bit of the world that was otherwise going to continue on for a long while is crumbled up, and tossed out.

This reality of mine, of yours, it’s all there is. And it exists only as long as those who partake in it stand within it as well. But one by one, it will disintegrate out of memory. And after this place is over-run by the next one, nobody will recollect it.

It’s really a bizarre concept to blame these consequences, this welling of emotion, on somebody I didn’t really “know”, but whom I knew. And it prolly wasn’t even proper to do so today. Somethin’ of a lie really.

‘Cause today was a mishmash of wrongs, not just the one. You get to a certain point- all these things you don’t wanna be doing, but that you feel you “have to” do for people you tell yourself you care about but really, you don’t. Obscure childlike crushes and high school-ish jealously? A class whose politics and idiocy has shockingly spilled over and encompassed your every free moment and you don’t even LIKE the point of it? It’s like being forced to paint a really shitty picture with half a brush.

I realized today that there’s was no why for all of this. The “how”- the too distraught with life to even speak to an old-friend I never see in person these days, the mental collapse shortly thereafter, being within five seconds of grabbing my shit and leaving town, the wasting of two hours on a beautiful afternoon doing shit for a doomed project and another four in some half-cognitive sleep-like state trying to forget the whole affair- is just foolish. I find myself in the “golden age” of my life, doing this. This.

Broken. That’s what it came down to. It wasn’t workin’, so I stopped the bleeding. Maybe there’s consequences for all this, academic/social ones for this micro-reality I call school. But maintaining sanity and peace-of-mind is larger than that, and sacrificing either for anything so unsubstantial is an utter waste of life.

Eight. Eight bits of my reality severed and tossed out with uniform speed. That’s the thing with all this death… Makes you wanna live. Sounds a little cliche, sure- but when I look ’round and see these walls, these politics, these uncaring minds…

I can’t help but wonder what I could find elsewhere.

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Have to go to nowhere. Why? ‘Cause it’s dark an’ I can. Specks up there in the black hangin’ above the cold air with a crescent night-light. There’s a sense of warmth right now- love, even. For anything an’ everything. Lotta people don’t get that on their own, but I’m not a lotta people. And it’s not satiated by other folk, but by an aimless wander into the dark. Me, a bright yellow strip, some post, the specks above, and a bit of gas.

Useda have to answer to somebody when I did this. Sneak it ’round, pretend I was over-worked. Nah. Maybe it began with after-hours, I dunno. Iron Creek. Freeman. Lake Creek. Home. Then it became a contemplation of her… And then just a ride into the sunset, or a dead-of-night excuse to listen to something beautiful in the middle of awe.

Some folks call it nowhere, like they’d rather be somewhere. I don’t understand that. It took a good 15 minutes, but I finally got out here to nowhere, outside lookin’ in. Golden ants. Buncha dots herded around an even bigger dot, way out here on a part of our big dot that everyone forgot. Most of ‘em down there have no desire to wander up and look down. Even fewer would be grinning like an idiot while they did it. I’m not most of ‘em, though.

Iron Creek. Freeman. Lake Creek. Home. That’s where it used to be. The specks in the sky were innumerable back there. You look at ‘em and you can’t really think of your spot in it all, just that there’s so many. So many things you haven’t explored. And it’s wonderful.

Houses, lotta them dark. A few lit, mostly dim. Families inside, prolly calmly watching somethin’ together. Seven years ago maybe- a truck, a CD of bands I’d never heard the likes of then, and the ability to use a credit card, but they’re still like mirrors, those houses. I see a kid in military fatigues hanging out in the back, standing on the wet grass looking up at the stars with some airsoft and a camera in his hands, askin’ “what’s next?” and talkin’ about life with the most unlikeliest of best friends. That’s really how I came to be out here, in nowhere.

But in the journey here, there was a road that played out like this one looks: kinda patchy and dark an’ lots of potential for a furry innocent creature to completely ruin the trip. I wasn’t looking at the sky- well, maybe at first I was, ’cause that’s where I saw it all going. Layin’ there with Of The Room and letting it wash over… But my eyes got tripped down. That’s when that loop became an after-hours release for the head. Autumn to Ashes. Nothing peaceful. Lotta people do horrible things to ‘em selves in those times, out there in the dark starin’ at the road with nothin’ for you but some headlights, and I coulda. But I didn’t. Music, it seems, was self-flagellating enough.

Sparowes. Red ones. I don’t really even care for the album but this song fits the mood. A plodding sense of wonder at 45 miles an hour, yeah. I miss her. I really do. All that miserableness passed- not as long ago as I woulda hoped and it’s still a lil’ bit of a ghost wound, but I can live with that. There’s a coupla white bags sittin’ there in the side now, but there’s still snow outside. Maybe it wasn’t dark and it was a few months earlier in the season, but insteada my sustenance for the week sittin’ there it was an adorable thing trying to get out the door with her seatbelt on. Mosta those memories- the stalkin’, the crack-addled convos, the floor sittin’- get overshadowed by the latter halfa the road, but they’re still there. Thankfully.

It got past all that eventually, drivin’ about in the dark. Or maybe it never really changed and I just got used to it, saw the beauty in solitude. Iron Creek. Freeman. Lake Creek. Home. There’s no golden ant-farm out in the distance, no endless valley before you; just trees, imposing mountains- the occasional rabbit with down syndrome- and a few random dark residents (save that crazy big property at the bottom of Freeman and everyone’s favorite Rankin plot). I’m not saying what it is now is bad, just that the old road felt more welcoming, like a piece of family. You know where you can and can’t go, what has guns and what’s an empty frame built by rural whores, and so on. It’s like sittin’ in the dark after the shows over and starin’ at the last coupla burning embers in the fire at the side of the living room. You’re never lost there.

It all starts to look the same when the geography is made of vanilla. I certainly wasn’t trying, but I got lost. Gigglin’ at it. Like I said, most people wanna be “somewhere”, but I’m content to explore nowhere. I don’t recognize these hills, this pavement or these turns an’ it’s a little unnerving since I wasn’t trying to get here, but nothin’ to get desperate over. Happenstances like this are worth pursuing, and maybe my greatest fault is turnin’ around like so. Used to do that outta fear, but tonight… Nah. A grinning nod. I’ll come back, ’cause I don’t know the whole path, maybe never will, but one night I’ll take it as far as possible just ’cause I can. But I got things to contemplate, and a monster-high to work off. Next time, lad.

I still revisit the old roads, wander down ‘em and try to see ‘em anew. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Mostly an excercise in nostalgia, which can be maddeningly sad. I ‘member drivin’ up that driveway to hang out in a pack-rat living room, ‘member when that kid lived in their trailer closer to the road with a batshit crazy sister, ‘member sleddin’ down that hill with a formerly straight-A and sober friend, ‘member the jaw-droppingly gorgeous (older) girl that lived down that hill an’ sat quietly on the bus for years. Strange is wishing these things would go on, stay there and never bugger off into the recesses of my mind. But what’s life if it just stays the same? Would these memories mean anythin’ without time and distance between them and I?

So I turns around. Steps with Christmas as a Christmas gift bangs outta the speakers like it did after Dead Winter day and a few days before the first of many disappointing run-ins with a certain midget. But I’ve had my turn of grinnin’ like a kid at the moon and stars with Laura from the speakers, Sparowes, Esmerine. I coulda kept goin’- maybe I should have (and I certainly wish I had now, but that’s the come-down talkin’ I think)- but I’d had my share and I wasn’t feelin’ greedy. I’ll explore that road in good time. I got the sense that there’s plenty left.

I derive inspiration from this. Don’t needa companion for it- another presence and especially a talking one would ruin it. As it is, the only ruiner is that out here- next to a big golden ant-farm- you can’t stop an’ chill, look up at the skies like that kid in the fatigues in his backyard, ’cause somebody will bother you with misguided philanthropy. Yeah, I’m fine, no, I don’t need assistance; get back in your 4×4 diesel and keep ignorin’ those stars up there in the cold night sky, those things that make some-a us understand how beautifully small we are and how wonderfully long the road out ahead is.

…You know, I useda sit here like this, in the glow with them stereo-phones playin’ something calming, talkin’ into this box with inspiration for revolution and ire, or just contemplation, like here an’ now. It’s a wonderful return to a road I kinda forget sometimes- one that has all sortsa off-ramps to other ones. One of those ramps was a handful of poor words that I stomped into a retreat, then a few months later those words weren’t so poor, an’ I started to listen to ‘em. Already talked about that road, though.

Thing is, all of ‘em are intertwined like that. Lotta folks call it nowhere out here, above the dots and in the black, lookin’ backwards and upwards all at once. But I can’t help smilin’ at all this. It’s somewhere to me.

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The pulse-pounding conclusion.

Please read Part I and Part II first.

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Make sure and read Part I first.

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In honor of the holidays, I could post some sort of long, detailed rant about why Christmas is a load of nonsense- how it was Christianity trying to compete with the Pagan holiday season, how it has absolutely nothing to do with Jesus, and all the other fun stuff that religious folk try to ignore. Or I could do something that hasn’t already been done better (here), and write a three-part script about the holiday spirit as seen through the eyes of a young chitlin named Jake. I personally liked the latter idea more.

I’m postin’ this using Scrippets, so it reads down like the actual script. It might be foreign-looking for some, but I think the lot of you will get it.

Anyways, I give you Santa God. Part I.

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“Hairy beast!”
“You killed my cattle!”
“All Bigfoots are terrorists!”
“Lesser-evolved apelike thing!”

These are just a few of the things I hear people shoutin’ at Obama, and I’d like to take a moment to sit down and tell you all something very important:

Barack Obama isn’t Bigfoot.

It’s typical right-wing propaganda: Just one big ol’ pack of lies being sold to the masses- albeit the illiterate, borderline retarded and probably-sufferin’-from-ADD masses, but the masses nonetheless. And since I’ve never been one to stand by idly while people get all mixed up over simple things like this, I thought I’d take a moment to demonstrate just how, exactly, Mr. Obama is not Bigfoot.

First, there’s geography. Bigfoot typically roams the mountainous region of the Pacific Northwest, eatin’ berries and cattle, but also sometimes lurkin’ in random dells in Oklahoma (sorta like the Unibomber). He’s fond of snowy weather, deep forests, and the dark of night. Barack Obama, however, spent most of his childhood roaming the tropical-forests of Hawaii, eatin’ people food and genearlly hanging out with non-bigfoots. He’s fond of nice people an’ warm places, and tends to favor daylight.

Next there’s his upbringing. Bigfoots are usually reared to one father and half a dozen mothers, and are taught from birth how to avoid detection an’ make people- via telepathy- use digital zoom and no tripod when they’re on camera. They’re also, as a species, vehemently opposed to the consumption of alcohol, as it tends to send them into blind rages resulting in massacres only slightly more destructive than nuclear war (Bigfoots are a peaceful people and wish to avoid this). Obama, on the other hand, was reared by his birth mother and a monogamist father-figure. Barack Obama has also always encouraged crisp, clear video footage of himself, leaving little doubt that he actually exists.

And Finally, Mr. Obama’s stated beliefs. Bigfoots spends five times a day praying to the Badger, an omnipotent being that exists mostly in the fourth dimension (but who we occasionally see as a furry, angry little creature wandering the forest and decimating all opposition). If you wanna ask a Bigfoot how they feel about the whole God thing, you’ll hafta draw a diagram ’cause they don’t really understand English so well. And if you draw a diagram of a Badger, you’ll prolly get eaten. Bigfoots don’t like blasphemy. Barack Obama, however, won’t eat you if you show him a picture of a badger, or even one of a big scary man in the clouds. That’s right: Barack Obama has stated many a time that he prays to an invisible man living in the sky just like 77% of all Americans. Sillier than praying to a Badger? Maybe. But he’s definitely not Bigfoot.

But now I have to ask a question that demands an answer: What if- and I say this knowing full well that he’s not- but what if, Obama was indeed Bigfoot? I honestly don’t see the problem. Oooh maybe he doesn’t speak English, ooh maybe he’ll eat you if you go drawing badgers, oooh maybe the news media will have to stop using tripods. But so what? Just because he’s Bigfoot means he’s a less viable option for President?

That’s just elitist, ’cause the only people that I hear whining about it are zombie worshippers. And I’m sorry, but you’re no better Mr. “ooh I laugh at Bruce Campbell movies but still expect people to take my religion seriously” person. Zombie defense missions, hypocrisy against the Great Zombie’s Rules, and even disagreement on how to believe in zombies. Oh sure, Bigfoot has had his share of massacres and terrorist strikes in the name of the Badger, but that just means he’s on equal footing with you. No better, no worse.

And that’s what I’m really getting at here. Even if Mr. Obama were Bigfoot- and he most certainly is not- saying he is like it’s a character flaw is just silly. Just ’cause Bigfoot is typically found in the woods, prayin’ to a badger, doesn’t mean he doesn’t have spaceships and flying cities and digital watches just like everyone else.

And saying otherwise is plain ignorant.

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