there’s this place in redlands called charlie jewel’s, and they have one of those fancy-expensive-digital jukeboxes that can download anything off the internets.
So I put in my dollar and played ‘jesus of suburbia’ because that shit’s like 9 minutes long and i’m all about getting my money’s worth.
when the bartender asked what band was playing I told her ‘skid row’ because lying is fun.
i got a haircut today. it looks nothing like this.
so everyone knows what a bitch i am. you don’t have to spend too much time at JCdN to realize that i’m really just a total pain in the ass.
however, if you’ve been deceived by my charms and are not convinced of my bitch-hood, then perhaps i’ll persuade you when i tell you that i’m spending the next 8 days in Maui.
See?
Told ya i was a bitch.
last night i was talking to deborah about how cool my trip to seattle was and she was jealous because she grew up in the northwest and now she’s trapped in socal. i told her all about how i went to the different parts of downtown and i kept screwing up all the names–but she let me slide.
and then i tried to be all cooler-than-you and told her that i didnt go to the space needle because that was too tourist-y. but then she bitch slapped me and told me that the space needle is the coolest thing ever–especially when it spins.
but then again, i dare you to find me one thing that doesnt immediately become cooler if it can spin.
the more we talked, the more her and tim tried to convince me that maybe seattle wasn’t the greatest northern destination because canada is the shit.
i agreed with them, because jeffcarter.net is huge in canada.
huge, baby, huge.
don’t you hate it when you get that killer-impossible-parking spot at school only to completely forget about it when you leave 8 hours later?
and so you walk all the way out to the middle-of-nowhere-parking-lot only to remember that you were parked right by the entrance?
this is why they invented the f-word.
then the whole time you’re back-tracking across campus, the young and old alike are pointing at you and laughing because there’s just no way to look cool in this situation.
i do this. a lot.
so last night, rafa went to an open mic night in riverside and dropped all kinds of new material. i didnt get to go because i was stuck in lab poking cancer cells with a big stick until eleven.
so instead of hanging out at the coffee house with all the cool kids, i walked home and watched “weeds” with mandy and we laughed because drugs really are a laughing matter.
the end.
julia stared out the window as the skyscape screamed past her.
it all felt so familiar.
she was at home with her feelings, surrounded completely by the touch of her clothes and the taste of the air. she closed her eyes and felt her forehead press against the cold passenger-side window.
the whole night had been a blur and that was exactly how she had intended it.
the soft sound of a tune drifting over the car stereo served as a bitter reminder of what once was a dear promise.
the glare from on-coming headlights snapped her back to reality and she was faced with an existence without him. you see, when julia was honest with herself, she knew that she had only recently learned to accept the reality of her situation. in fact, picking herself up from pity and self-loathing had been her greatest achievment.
everyone thought so.
had you known what they had together, you would have congratulated her too.
everyone told her over and over how well she had coped with losing him and congratulated her on being able to get back to “normal”.
a million times a day, julia reassured herself that all was well and that life had moved on nicely and a million times a day she knew how sick it felt to lie to oneself.
as his car slowed alongside her street, she was quick to gather her things and thank him for the platitudes he had showered upon her that night.
“dinner was lovely and so was the company…thank you again,” she replied with a kiss to his cheek.
and with such few words she rushed to the staircase where she had shared her first kiss and it was there she paused until her evening’s nameless companion had safely driven away.
“it’s funny how it felt so familiar”, she smiled.
As she sat on the staircase where they spent so many late-night ascents, she smiled and wished him all the best in life and love.
sleep took hold of her quickly, but it was early when the sun pulled her from rest and once again julia was reminded of how much she hated the morning.
a while ago i was moaning about being lazy and crying about how while my buddy tim was racing around some big-fuck mountain i was at home watching movies.
well tim came home from his 24-hour bike race with stories of a horrific crash that involved him flying off his bike at like 30mph. seems he tweaked his left shoulder pretty bad and consequently had to strap on this rig that circulates ice-cold water through a hose and over his ailing shoulder.
as you can see in this picture, he’s really a glutton for punishment.
the moral of this story?
racing around for 24-hours on some god-forsaken moutain=danger
sitting at home on your ass watching movies=safe
last week my friend Christian spent her vacation helping out the victims of hurricane Katrina because she’s a super-hero.
today my roommate tim is on a 24-hour moutain bike race somewhere in the mountains of socal because he’s crazy.
last night i ate take-out and watched ‘something about mary’ on dvd because i’m a slob.
what the hell happened to me?
amidst rolling thunder and lightning crashes, socal was greeted with it’s first dose of rain this morning.
so if you’re one of those people who gets insanely annoyed when you hear people rejoicing over how much they l-o-v-e the rain, well then i’m afraid you-are-fucked.
however, if you take amusement at watching people scramble for protection under their burberry umbrellas during the most modest of sprinkles, well then today is your lucky day!
horray rain! ok so much for commentary on the weather.
i swear i’m not really a grumpy old man, i just play one on this blog.
so when i was up in seattle the stone introduced me to KEXP radio. i was blown away by their playlists or more specifically their lack of kroq-bullshit-music.
when i got back to socal, i checked out their website and started downloading archived shows and live performances like a man possessed.
today i took it one step further by loading up Pocket Tunes on my handy-dandy Treo and streaming KEXP live over the internets–all while characterizing the adernergic properties of cancer cells of course.
I was pretty proud of myself until I realized that I could plug this little bitch into the FM Transmitter in my car and drive around southern california in full-blown aural bliss.
so how’s that for being a nerd? top that one my little snowflakes.
recursive is the most pompous word of all time and if you try to sneak it into everday conversation then you’re just being an ass.
so stop it.
tonight the president addressed the american people and said that the citizens of this great land would unite and rebuild from katrina’s fury powered by “…a faith in God no storm can take away.”
i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, isn’t a category 4 hurricane by definition an act of god?
maybe the believers out there can explain to me why during a time of suffering of historical proportions it would seem appropriate to summon our faith in the god who was in control of this whole mess?
am i the only fucker out there asking this question?
i am confident that it is our love and inherent compassion for humankind that will sustain us through this even the most trying of times.
on saturday night, beth visited mandy and i in newport beach. in an attempt to be snobs went to the 3thirty3 because that’s what you do when you live in “the o.c.”
beth ordered some fancy dish smothered in goat cheese while mandy and i ate freshly made potato chips seasoned with thyme–because we like to keep things real.
when mandy looked up from her menu and asked how to pronounce “thyme”, it gave beth and i the perfect opportunity to break out into a chorus of “scarborough fair” and if you would have been there, it would have brought a tear to your eye.
so as of today, i’ve been dating mandy for 3 months and being with her has been like giving sadness a karate chop to the nuts.
hiiii-yaaa!
P.S. Tim, I owe you big-time for bringing this girl out to j.b.’s and keeping her out way too late on that fateful tuesday night.
“have a good flight, hun,” the middle-aged platinum-haired woman behind the bar retorted.
adam smiled back at her with the confidence that had earned him the envy and respect of his friends. he had never thought of himself as a craftsman of charm but at times he impressed even himself with his competency as a manipulator of the opposite sex.
today was one of those days.
as he tore himself away from the airport bar he smiled at all he was leaving behind and all that was waiting for him at home. he turned up the music blaring through his headphones and laughed at himself for listening to cat stevens in a croweded airport terminal.
listening to “morning has broken” brought him back to when he first learned that the song had its origins as a christian praise song. he remembered feeling betrayed because for too long he had been enjoying a song that really belonged to the religious-right.
“fuck ‘em,” he sneered, “this shit’s ours now.”
Courtesy of matthew good’s site:
Today’s elitist, old conservative white woman award goes to former US first lady Barbara Bush who said of refugees in Houston’s Astrodome…
“And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them.”
As opposed to wealthy victims of the storm, to which such conditions would be entirely unacceptable to the point of traumatizing. Is it just me, or would the United States be a better place were the entire Bush family to move to a different country?
Mandy: so tell me what your last post means
Jeff: i dont know it was just something i wrote about having writer’s block and only being able to write the same damn story over and over and fucking over…it was late when he…blah blah blah.
i guess it was just frustration on a rainy seattle morning.
Mandy: ok…. but it’s about more than just writer’s block…. am i going to have to beat this out of you?
Jeff: …you and my therapist both, eh?
i dont know right now its really about not being able to think of anything else creative and realizing that among so many talented people that i’m really just a hack.
Mandy: but then that in turn gave you a bit of creativity
Jeff: that’s true…but how many times can you use the whole, “i’m not creative boo hoo” bit? i came up here and was just like fuck me, i’ve got to live my life and i guess it was really about a struggle with self to break away from the old and familiar and embrace the new
and exciting
Mandy: and so it wasn’t all her fault… who is ‘her’?
Jeff: i think that’s my freudian device. anytime there’s someone i want to blame or fall back on or cry to or love it’s always a her…i guess her is just life.
Mandy: interesting. i shall now psychoanalyze you for the rest of the day
Jeff: well good! i love that! that way when you pick me up from the airport you’ll know all kinds of stuff about me that i dont even know yet.
Mandy: don’t be a smart ass
Jeff: have you known me to be any other way?
Mandy: yes. there are small glimmers here and there of non-smart-assedness
Jeff: non-smart-assedness is my new favorite word
he only wants someone to want him, but in a fit of insecurity he’s plagued to start each story in the same unmelodic way. this short line of prose haunted him and no matter how hard he tried to begin a new chapter, he couldn’t get past that same cursed opening line.
“it was late when…”
those same words over and over. so maybe he was going crazy or maybe it was so much more.
you see, dear reader, when he stopped and was honest with himself he knew that this really wasn’t all her fault. in fact, they both knew the truth and more and more it seemed that everyone who read his words would know it too.
dear socal,
seattle rawks and i’m never coming home.
love,
jeffcarter.net
my connector flight through san jose was painless. i had an hour layover so i grabbed some choice refreshments while engaging in some people-watching. so now i’m cruising at 30,000ft and the california landscape has quickly become a patchwork of fields. still no sign of the that big line running across the landscape that lets me know when i’ve crossed over into oregon.
seattle or bust!
i’m sitting here trying to be jazzed about my vacation away from reality, but all the while the television is screaming about katrina and its victims. Saying these people have lost everything is an understatement and when they say that there are somethings worse than death, i’m sure they were talking about some of these poor faces.
and so the cable networks have been allowing everyone to chime in with their two cents. robbie kennedy is blaming the environment, foxnews is worried about oil futures and espn cant quitting worrying about how this will impact the nfl season.
meanwhile, i cant help but think that if your the omnipotent then it’s time to step up to the plate and take some responsibility for the shit you’ve unleashed on the unexpecting. like ben harper sang, “…if you’re going to take the praise, then you’re going to have to learn to take the blame.”
am i wrong in reasoning that if i’m supposed to be thankful to you for the blessings in my life, then i’ve every right to be angry at you for the hell you’ve brought down to thousands of innocent souls?
this is the elephant in the room that no one is talking about.
sound rediculous?
you bet it is and therein lies my point. if you’re not going to blame your diety for the world’s pain and suffering then you have no business thanking him for peace and happiness.
word.