Monday and Tuesday were not of note - I mostly did schoolwork and regular work. I watched Indiana Jones – Raiders of the Lost Ark and Temple of the Doom. I think Temple of Doom may be my favorite, just due to my memories of playing the Lego Game based on the Temple of Doom. At some point on Tuesday I made this pretty cool collage out of a math fraction test I had to do:
On Wednesday I watched the Last Crusade which was pretty good. I listened to Good Old Neon, specifically the Pallettown narration. I’ve linked that narration here. Good Ol Neon is my favorite short story of all time – I cried the first time I actually read that story. I thought it was so tragic how DFW could articulate all those things that meant so much to so many people but in the end, he couldn’t save himself. Upon this listening, I really confronted that idea of the bounds of conscience and the second person narration towards the final paragraphs of the story. DFW pondering the circumstances of Neil’s death is a similar circumstance that I have found myself in a few times whilst growing up and some of the more tragic anecdotes of people I grew up with. I understand that this isn’t the point of Good Ol Neon and the story has more to do with Paradoxes and the Bounds of Conscience, and I don’t want to ruminate of other’s misery – there’s just a lot of stories I’d like to tell in Beckley and hopefully one day I will refine my lyrical storytelling capabilities enough to do those stories justice.
On Thursday, I had band practice. I began listening to Pallettown’s narration of DFW’s The Soul is Not A Smithy, which is a James Joyce reference. I’ve linked that narration here. I’ve listened to that story probably 10 times. Once I arrived at Silverdale, I set up all of the deaththreads equipment. Caleb and Dave arrived shortly after 5:30 and we had a really good practice. I sold Dave a Whammy Pedal which is currently having some kind of calibration issue (I hope), Dave gave me a hard time about it, which is most likely deserved but was in infinite jest – Whammy pedals can be tricky and I didn’t know they needed to be calibrated prior to researching. I did say that the pedal had been finicky, which was most likely a poor choice of words – Hopefully recalibrating the pedal will fix any sort of problems.
From here we had good practice and then Dave invited me to the studio, which I was very glad about. I love Dave and I always try to make time to show up when he invites me somewhere. Anyway I went up to his studio (and parked rather poorly in his parking lot), where I hung out with Dave, Tyler, Chris Oxley, and Hank from the Heavy Set Paw Paws. It was very good and they let me tell all sorts of lame stories and it was a good time. At some point I mentioned Michael Haneke, which me and Chris talked about all sorts of MH’s movies and I felt proud of myself to accurately talk about films that I thought were so complex a couple months ago. My buddy Tyler thought I said Michael Danica instead of Michael Haneke, which he replied with Michael Danica Patrick referring to the NASCAR driver. This resulted in the me and Tyler conceptualizing the portmanteau “Michael Haneke Patrick,” which would be an amazing name for a Split album or an EP or a band. Shortly after about 8:45 PM, I left Dave’s studio and headed home.
On Friday, I worked a whole day (which I was rather proud of, I’ve been making sure to get to work at a decent time). Upon getting home, I made this cool collage based on the portmanteau “Michael Haneke Patrick,” I’ve pasted it below:
I drank a little whilst playing Minecraft and watched this episode of “Into The Night” with Harmony Korine and Gaspar Noe, where Korine and Gaspar walk around rural Nashville – it’s a rather funny video. I’m a huge fan of Harmony Korine’s older work and I’m not that interested in Gaspar Noe – I think some of his movies are important within the broader cinematic context but they’re not for me. I have a friend named De who loves Gaspar’s movies – she’s very smart and has read all the books I have plus more, watched all the movies I have plus more, and listened to more music than I have plus more – She’s very intelligent and is going to become a lawyer however, she has a rough understanding of punctuality and has had a history of overlooking red flags. She currently has a girlfriend, and I wish them the best. I had dinner around 9PM and watched a little bit of the Rob Schneider Movie Big Stan with my mom and Stepdad. My stepdad made some really good pork chops and baked potatoes. From here, I slept on the couch and I occasionally awoke to various different parts of different Seinfeld episodes plus my 4 cats stepping on plastic.
[The following section is from Sunday at 9:45 AM]
Yesterday was Saturday, I was aware it would be some what of a busy and interesting day. I woke up and practiced guitar for a little bit. From here I went to my grandpas at about 1:24 PM. I love my grandpa and me and his relationship is too complicated to detail here. What I will say is my grandpa is essentially existing at this point – once my grandma died, their house has stayed in place – unchanged since July 24th, 2020. It’s very difficult for me to go over there but I should go there more. There’s just way too much going on inside my head over there that I can stay for long – I think my dad is aware of this, which he has his own interpersonal relationship related to my grandpa (his dad) that I don’t really know anything about so we all just have to combat these negative feelings with familial love and hope for the best. Given the circumstances, it’s really the only we can do. Anyways, it is difficult for me to see his overgrown garden that has shrunk by 5x since my grandmother was alive – my mom let my dad’s garden grow over when they divorce, but rather than a symbolic act of rebellion, my grandfather’s overgrown garden is a meditation on getting old. Respice finem.
I left about 2:24 PM, staying for exactly one hour. I came home and did some glue work for my Jazzmaster Partscaster – essentially my guitar and two cracks where the body joins together (it’s a three body) however I did a pretty good job at gluing the pieces together. I carved the words “Out Getting Ribs JM” onto the back of the guitar – a quote from Jean-Michel Basquit quote left after Andy Warhol’s death. It seemed like a fitting quote. I’ve linked some pictures here. I’m hoping to do the clear coat tomorrow while it’s warm.
From here, I went to my buddy Erik’s house. Me and him recorded three scratch tracks, which I am excited to record with both him and Dave. One song is a real nice song that is based on two creepypastas, All the Papers Lied Tonight and My Dead Girlfriend Keeps Messaging Me On Facebook. They’re both feelspastas, which are sad creepypastas and they’re very good stories. The other song went very smoothly as well. The last song we recorded may need recorded again, it’s recorded on an acoustic bass and the song is very hard to play – I have an idea to try and use Dave’s Uke Bass but we shall see. Recording with Erik is great, he uses an analog mixer which sounds really good and has this nice warmth that I think will be helpful to the dynamics of the laid back songs. I really want to use Dave’s piano to record some stuff and have the piano pretty far away from the microphone so it sounds more spacey and disjointed. Overall, I’m excited for the singer songwriter feel of this album. I talked to Erik for a good bit, he’s one of the most genuine people I’ve met – he speaks with a genuine want to communicate true feelings of friendship that I know all too well, he mentioned a couple of times how excited and grateful he was to record and see me. I returned this sentiment, we’re good buddies – it’s also good to know someone else has those same feelings in relation to articulation and friendship, I have a habit of sending sentimental after hanging out with my friends. I will text Erik later today.
I spent the night with K after hanging out with Erik. She bought me this JTK Original Image Necklace by banishedusa, I’ve linked it here. It was very sweet of her to do that and I hope she didn’t break the bank with that purchase, I’m going to start wearing that necklace. Me and her had a good night, we went to cookout, watched some YouTube and we went to bed. I slept very good at her house. K is a very sweet girl and I like her a lot.
I woke up this morning at about 6:15 AM and I had to leave K’s house. Me and her had a sweet little conversation and then I headed home. I listened to some of my music I recorded yesterday and I headed home. My mom is going to Florida, and I will watch my dog this week and I’m very glad to spend time with my puppy dog. I will hopefully see Seth this afternoon. I have some schoolwork I will do on Monday but today I am going to try to relax. I have a test coming up on Thursday that hopefully I will do okay on. I am going to try and nap in a little bit, I am also going to watch the new Blameitonjorge video, which I’ve linked here.
life is a collective impossibility