i dont understand commercials. has anyone ever seen an advertisement and actually been compelled to invest money in that product? most of the time, theyre just a nuisance. especially when im trying to watch programming. i rarely pay attention to them, out of principle. it makes me wonder, because i know im not alone in this mentality, why these big corporations spend so much time and money in the first place.

i was actually watching the office today, on the internet. an advert popped up. a smooth-talking voice-over calmly reassuring me that my program is brought to me with limited commercial interruption. i like how they had to qualify that statement. first off, limited. its not maximum commercial interruption. its limited. why, apparently is a good thing. otherwise, they wouldnt specify. tbd

verbal punching bag

i don't know what's wrong with me--why i feel so disenchanted lately. i think it may have something to do with an overdose on experimental faulkner. i've immersed myself in a world too brilliant for my eyes. i need sunglasses. painkillers.
it' s the weirdest thing:
i'm driving to work and it's not me making those sharp turns but it's in that narrow maneuvering that i'm aware of my head--metacognition times one million.
work is unbearable. i can't see the words anymore. my mind is a mess. i need a doctor. or better pills than the ones i've been prescribed.
read an excellent editorial by steve albini today dealing with the shady nature of the music business. stuff i'd already kind of suspected but never looked into, for fear my dreams would come crumbling down. alas, they have.
even if we get a contract (which is highly improbable, i know), our projected cut is absurd. in theory, we'll making the business millions while accruing massive debt for ourselves. and that's how it works. unless you're freaking radiohead.
i don't even know why i bother with it at all. there's no market for the kind of music i want to make. even my closest friends hate the songs i write.
i'm just so sick of all the rocknroll cliches--the excess, the stupid formulaic songs, the girls, the drugs, the classic rock tropes which have been exhausted, taken out, bloodied and beaten and bruised, thrown back on the fryer, reconfigured, reprocessed, repackaged and sold to the hipster-centric consumer time and again.
there are about five bands i listen to--all the others are just variations of these bands. if you can't do something innovative, your best bet is to plagiarize the shit out of someone you like. but that's not the kind of music i want to make. i want to make something that people can connect to--something heartfelt and not off-the-cuff rehashing, plug-n-chug indie-pop. i'm so sick of these bands that get recognition simply for sounding like other bands people like. where's the innovation in that? i know people notice because they tell me all the time: dude, you've got to listen to so and so, they sound just like neutral milk hotel! if i want to listen to a band that sounds like neutral milk hotel, i'll listen to fucking neutral milk hotel.
we live in a remake culture.
i wouldn't have a problem with this except that these carbon copies offer nothing new. there's an extent to which you can rip off somebody and still manage to produce your own signature sound and, more importantly, leave room to expand upon or improve the foundation laid down by the original artist--to take what someone else has done and make it better--yet these bands and these artists don't seem to grasp this concept. they simply take what's been done and mimic it, parrot it right back to the idiot public who preys upon this kind of garbage. i just don't get it. i want to say it's wrong--that they're being taking advantage of, but i'm not sure that's the case. and if it is, i'm not sure i really care. it's hard to feel sorry for anyone that retarded.
anyway.
yeah.

caddy

in media res: he is outside or inside a familiar place, prattling on about something near and dear to his very heart--something very specific about a production company and their money-shark hold on the american audience's sensibilities. you're being exploited, he says, in a nutshell, the prophet preaching. he wonders, mid-sentence, if they even care cause he can see them looking away and almost rolling their eyes. he endures, like the stars, because he doesn't know any better.

chompski

they lived in little houses, like humans, except that these houses were carved out in the trees. they never wondered why they were so inclined to mirror the path etched out by us. and i honestly couldn't care less. they had a mouse father, a mouse mother, a mouse baby and a mouse brother. and, sometimes, if you were really sneaky, you could wander through the woods and peep in on them and their fingernail-reality. if you made eye contact, they would reciprocate, pestered, annoyed, irritated. father would resume his newspaper and mother her apple pies, or at least that's how they smelled. baby never cried. but lay there still. they were projections. that much is easy. but why?

can't sleep

his sleep-function is broken
off the charts
we're not getting a good reading
it appears that's he's accessing
foreign chambers
as if re-wired
auto-programmed

someone stop that dog barking
it's interfering with my
frame of mind and besides
barking never drove any storm away
please, kindly illustrate that
there is a barrier
between itself and the raging sea
that violence is intangible
barring no one opens a door
you don't plan on going outside in this
weather, do you?
no, sir.
good.
did you ever think that she may be barking
because she's marooned inside?
don't be trite, lenny. i'll smack that smirk right off
your idiot cheeks.

seizure tv: the Ugly Spirit

his name had become synonymous
though never explicitly acknowledged
with the theory of dreams
the myth and the mighty
the familiar spirit entangling
ensnaring
earth's gravitational pull
he came from somewhere vague
and void of time
his pallid face
a white of a different kind
he crept into my room
every night to talk with me
and sat by my side and
in exchange for travels
i gave up dreams
to know just what my
fantasies could not confirm
there is no validation in his
studied speech
his out and out
bold-faced lies
he tells me angels never
think to react
that we are idiot children
orphaned by our misconceptions
and the vagaries we construct
all violent and vulgar
in their very nature
though we're quick to
turn our heads
this is all you see he says
and all you see is wrong
this is all you see he says
and what you see is wrong

an attempt at a start

i've taken three separate tests within the past two years all confirming that i am an INFJ personality. if you don't know what an INFJ personality is, look it up. it's part of the Myers Briggs Personality Test--too lengthy to get into here.

basically, though, what i find so astonishing about this phenomenon is that, despite my frustration over the years in trying to understand myself, the computer can reduce me to four little letters in less than ten-minutes and thereby provide me with a more definitive solution than i could ever hope to achieve through meticulous introspection and soul-searching. i know it's probably bullshit, but...i've taken three of these things. and they all say the same thing. that's gotta mean something right?

anyway, this whole ordeal has prompted me, though it may seem somewhat counter-intuitive, given the information i just provided you with, to re-examine and define exactly what it is i want (out of life, out of love, etc.) and sort of meld this together into a more comprehensive understanding of who i am.

first, i need to look at why i'm so lonely. why i so often desperately seek the approval and acceptance of others. what am i looking for and i can i provide this for myself?

i've always complained about being single, but i think the problem is that i don't know what or who it is i'm after or chasing. is it some sort of ideal? a specific type of person? do i want highly passionate albeit fleeting romances and flings or something with a little security?

the truth is, i don't know. at this point, i'd be up for anything. when i fill out questionnaires on dating sites, most of my responses are "unsure" or "i don't know." i don't want to speak prematurely. i don't want to settle for something without entertaining every possibility. it's not that i'm indecisive. i just don't know that i want anything definite and i figure if i give off the impression that i'm a person of convictions, this is what i'll end up with. maybe i just want someone as clueless as myself--someone with the same "what happens, happens" mentality. but i'm not sure of that. i mean, am i after someone just like myself? or do i need contrast to be happy? i don't know. i've dated girls with similar tastes and values as myself, but i've never dated my opposite or my twin. so, i have no clue what that's like. and i think a lot of it has to do with never taking the time to really think it out and assess what it is i'm looking for or what fundamental qualities i find attractive--most of this, i feel, has been determined by friends or society. i'm such a people-pleaser, that i'll often go out of my way, betray myself, just to find acceptance. in this way, i compromise a lot of valuable insights into my true self--what jung calls the shadow. then again, maybe that is my true self--everyone else. maybe that is who i am--a reflection or a mirroring of my peers' sensibilities. i just wonder if there are others like me out there, because i've always felt sort of alone in that aspect.

it seems that i tend to gravitate towards people who make it easy for me to just sit there and listen--and not have to give anything of myself. sometimes, it's irritating. i just want to lash out, freak out and blurt every last little jumbled mess of head confetti swimming around in my skull. most of the time, though, i don't mind. i like listening to people. it's oddly mesmerizing, like watching television. i love people that like to talk, domineering personalities. i'm not an assertive or vocal person, so these people make my life a whole hell of a lot easier. i know i'm being used, as an audience. but i don't mind. the less they know, the more they love me. actually, i don't know that "love" is the right word--but something bordering on love--lust, maybe.

knowing this, being fully aware of this dynamic, i really have no reason to be upset when my so-called friends inevitably sell me out or turn their backs on me. it always happens. and i always get upset, feel betrayed, but, really, i'm asking for it by refusing to advertise the person inside of my head vs. the person everyone else sees, the shy, reserved, easy-going art-fag (or whatever it is that they think).

i believe in cooley's construction of identity--the looking glass self. i believe in it whole-heartedly. and that's what makes the struggle to realize myself that much harder. my identity is so tightly entangled in how others see me and how that affects the persona i project, that it's nearly impossible to get back at square 1--where it all begins. if, of course, that truly is where it begins. it could be a case of the chicken and the egg. for all we know, they arrived at the same time. or, it's all relative. or, blah blah blah. basically, i just want to find out who i am because that's something i feel like i missed out on in high school and even now. i know, it's kind of a typical twenty-something thing to do: to feel directionless and lost and wonder where to go to next, but i am a twenty-something. forgive me.

oh well.

i don't know that i've clarified anything tonight. but i've at least made an attempt at a start.