terminal 2 feels cold and empty. the sliding glass doors are wide open and winter’s chill is filling the room.
an asian man sells cigarettes to travelers needing a quick but costly fix.
an old man stares impatiently at the blinking flight screen.
he’s waiting for her.
she’s been gone too long; he didn’t think he’d miss her this much. but now the laundry is piling up and he has no clean dishes left. he’s tired of microwave dinners and cold cereal. where is she?
so today i was walking from the med center to the accounting office when i noticed this girl lying passed out against a stop sign. an older woman was attending to her and i ran over to find the girl half-conscious with her eyes rolling back in her head. i knelt down next to her and just as i was starting the ABCs (airway, breathing, circulation) a guy ran over and identified himself as a physician.
after about 2 minutes there were no less than 5 med students, a hand full of nurses, and 2 public safety officers standing around the girl waiting to help. we found her some water, waited for her to throw it up, told her it was ok that she threw up and then loaded her up and drove her two blocks to the emergency room.
let this be a lesson to all of you: if you’re going to pass out from dehydration/heat exhaustion, you should always try to do so on a med school campus. doing so ensures that over-eager med students fresh out of second-year will rush to your rescue.
I’m writing this tonight from beautiful downtown Berkeley (thanks again to the tenant above this cafe who is donating his/her WiFi).
On Friday, I met some good friends in San Francisco for a few days/nights of fun. I can’t begin to tell you how much I love this area. Last night, we explored downtown San Francisco and Union Square. We walked up and down the streets and experienced as much of the “real†city as we could. Since we were less interested in tourists spots and more interested in the people of the city, we decided to stop in at no less than six restaurants instead of just limiting ourselves to one. Dining on French food, Bolivian food, Spanish food and Chinese food was much more fun than just stopping in at the typical tourist spots. It was an awesome evening and I can’t wait to do something similar again.
Today, we each did our own thing. For me, I spent the day on the streets of downtown Berkeley. I can’t think of a better way to dive into the culture of a town than by spending time with its people. Armed w/ my trusty guitar, I sat around and “road tested†a few of the new songs we’ve been working on. The people here have been really friendly–more accurately I should say that they are just open to whatever one might be doing. You don’t get the judgemental looks or the crossed-glances that we’ve all experienced in SoCal, and that has made for a nice change. The other thing foreign to this LA-boy is that the people here actually talk to the street merchants and musicians. Everyone one that I’ve observed at bus stops, street corners or BART hubs have been so cool. All just one community of very different people doing very different things in a spirit of harmony.
Tonight’s plans are still a mystery, but tomorrow, we’re headed into the wine country of Sonoma where we will be experiencing the beauty or the wineries, spending the night there w/ friends, and then back home on Monday. You can follow the action LIVE! on my moblog or by driving yourself out to Berkeley and meeting me on Shattuck Aveune. (I’m the kid in the grey shirt, blue jeans and the shiny black guitar.)
The sun is setting quickly now behind the historic buildings dotting the skyline. This place is so perfect for me right now…I’m exactly where I need to be.
so i’m really digging ryan adams’ new album, ‘easy tiger‘.
seems the record company convinced a brother to make a commercially viable product and he responded with songs that will equally please the hard-core-fan and casual-listener alike.
i’m digging the song “two” but i’m not sure if it’s because i like the song or because it sounds like a down-tempo version of “new york, new york” from “gold“.
you, of course, will remember that our band rocks a great version of “ny, ny“.
see how i started this blog post talking about ryan adams and somehow managed to find something to say about “the addicted”? you can’t learn it, you’re just born with it.
today is stonebraker’s birthday. he is my best friend in the whole-wide-world. since he’s too cool to have a blog, you can leave birthday wishes for him in the comments section.
it’s monday and that means it’s time for ‘lonely thoughts’. here’s some of the random shit that rattles around inside my head on a daily basis.
if you’re going to buy your dog one of those leather/spike collars and you’re dogs a male, then you must be sure that the collar is HUGE. if you come home w/ a thin little piece of black leather laden w/ silver spikes then you’re dog’s going to look like a flaming homo. also save your receipt because petsmart gets bitchy about returns.
if you’re a relatively attractive girl wearing skinny black slack a cool thing to do is to wear one of those silver chain belts; however it is not cool if the loose end hangs down to your crotch. we know you have a vagina, we dont need to be hypnotized by a swinging chain while you walk. you’ve already taken care of the hypnotism w/ the skinny black pants.
if the phrase, “…if i could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it…” means anything to you, well then you’re old like me.
if you’re going to spring for hbo because you got hooked on the sopranos in episode 1 and you idolize arie gold from ‘entourage’ then you should spend the extra $8 to get showtime. they’ve got shows like ‘the tudors’, ‘weeds’ and ‘meadowlands’. avoid their movies though, they are the suck.
if the person you’re dating is uptight enough to get offended by words like fuck, shit or balls then you should know that there’s a lot more under the surface that they are going to be uptight about. you’re an adult, it’s ok to use adult words.
when given the chance, use a semicolon whenever possible; it will only make you look more intelligent.
if you’re feeling sad and want to listen to some appropriate music then there’s nothing better than music from elvis—old-fat-elvis that is. you want to focus on the shit he recorded when he was too sad and drugged out to write his own shit.
if you’re getting married and want to find awesome music for the reception then you should focus on young-skinny-elvis. fucker stole the blues like no other white man before him.
if you’re a girl and you want to look sexy then copy jennifer aniston, she’s perfect. sexy, funny, down-to-earth…oh and yes if given the choice between a life with jen or a night with angelina i would pick jennifer aniston everytime. ladies, the good guys really just want the sexy, funny, smart girl.
dear jennifer aniston, if you’ve googled you’re name and come across my blog my email address is jeff@onelonelysuccess.com
oh yeah stonebraker continues to make life hell with jealousy.
he’s in NYC this week w/ swisher and beth. in continuing efforts to live vicariously through him, you can follow his moblog stylings in the sidebar or just go here.
this week i have had the following crazy-fuck-dreams: thursday night, i was attending a round-table conference with ruth bader ginsburg and stephen breyer. apparently i was invited to give the medstudent’s perspectives on some topic. half-way through the roundtable discussion, justice ginsburg passes me this note with instructions to go across the street and steal a bicycle from the house on the corner.
the note assured me that i wouldnt get in trouble because she was a justice on the supreme court. the p.s. read: dont worry, you’re hot. in the dream sequence i ended up stealing some dude’s bike and remember feeling fuck-awesome because a justice of the supreme court wanted to rock me. i woke up feeling incredibly guilty for stealing some dude’s wheels.
friday night’s dream took a full 6hrs to compose. i literally dreamed all night long. i was living w/ a house full of random girls that i know from school. it was an incredible old house that was like 2 blocks from campus. in the back of the house it had a small apartment that could only be used by the parents of the person renting the house. during my dream i was determined to convince all the girls to move out so that i could have the place to myself.
in order to facilitate this i devised some technique to travel back in time and return w/ gifts that would convince the girls to leave the sweet rental house to me. i picked up all kinds of old antiques and stuff from the turn of the century and used it to buy them off. the non-sense continued until buster began licking my face.
before i opened my eyes, i was battling street gangs outside my new rental house who were smashing big long bongs all over my body. i kept shouting, quit smashing your bongs on me! quit smashing your bongs on me!
so anyone wanna guess what all this craziness is supposed to mean?
at last week’s going away party for chad and melissa, the kids were sporting some crazy-new-camera that looked like something that people who know about photography would be impressed with…hello….you can change the lens on this thing!
so all evening flashes were firing and it was like the event was being covered by the paparazzi—what with paris still being in jail and all.
here are some of melissa’s finest:
here’s some great shots of kim ignoring the distraction-techniques of her opponents. kim is a dedicated lawn bowler—chick didnt even have to put down her beer.
all the guys played croquet. notice how everyone is moving towards the fareway while i am playing from the sand because chad insisted on knocking my ball into the barren sand of the volleyball court.
i’m sure melissa/chad were thinking that this shot would be destined for the mantle place; however, i am a sore loser and insist on being the center of attention. also, now i know that my anger face looks ridiculous.
i was kind of a dork back then….notice the emphasis on “then”.
“Understand the choice” June 15, 2003:
The speech is over and things went well. Yesterday was quite a day. The grad service was awesome and I was honored to be a part of the presidential platform. All of the speakers did very well and I really felt like I owned the moment (thanks to Leanne for the inspirational mantra).
Let me tell you, under TV lights and in front of 3000 people, you’re mind starts to do weird things. I was having to make a physical effort to keep myself focused on the moment and prepared to deliver the speech.
Now that its over, I can actually focus my energies on other projects. So, what’s next?
i remember buying “ok computer” back in the fall of 1997.
i bought it at costco.
it would be a few years until i realized the irony of buying a very non-commercial album—that would become on of the most critically acclaimed albums of the decade—at a warehouse superstore.
i used to listen to the disc over and over again in my aftermarket jvc car stereo.
back then i was still driving to church 3x a week and my only solace was that it gave me an hour to listen to the album.
i would usually switch to “no surprises” as i neared the church.
I’ll take a quiet life…a handshake….some carbon monoxide.
no alarms and no surprises, please.
this is my favorite line of the song.
our church was big on shaking everyone’s hand. in a few hours, i would find myself hearing this line in my head as person-after-person extended their hand in christian love to brother jeff.
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