Gabe Says Go See Ryan Kulp Tonight

Tuesday Night 9pm (THATS TODAY!!!)

2700 Larimer – The Meadowlark Bar.

Ryan Kulp with Abe Abraham

and I’ll be there…

and maybe Walnut Room after…

(BTW 21+)

(And Email, Call or Text me if you’re in, in case plans change)

There’s the sun and I’m up like a f%@$ing Rooster.

I wrote this all yesterday, but didn’t have a chance to post it…

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I don’t really feel like blogging, but I haven’t blogged in forever, and something tells me that I should. And to be honest, now that I’m typing, something tells me that I could go on forever (or at least for longer than you might read)…

I’m sitting at La Dolce Vita, in Olde Town Arvada, with Steve. Free WiFi. The sun is shining and the weather was nice, really nice, up until about twenty minutes ago. Twenty minutes ago when it started blowing, and on a day like today, when you get a reprieve from the cold and snowy winter, I could do without it. Sorry wind, you’re not my friend today.

I’ve felt for a long time that I need to update my wardrobe. I see things that I would like to wear, and other things that I would not like to wear. When I look at styles I see things that seem timeless and other things that seem like they’re only fads. I think an example of fads would be the styles that I see on a lot of kids lately. The offset, rolling leaf-like patterns on tee’s, the split pant ends over untied vans or sketchers, the longer hair on guys (and those emotastic girlybutt pants UGH, you’re MEN!) etc… I think they’ll look back on those like we look back on parachute pants, paint speckles and cuffs, slip-ons and scrunchees. There are things that I see as classic though, and for some reason right now I find those harder to define. I do, however, think that I have an eye for them, I can take one look and know that that’s a contemporary style that’s not going to look stupid in ten years (let alone three). So, for what it’s worth, that’s what I’m looking for. I’ll be at the mall later today, trying to find a balance between contemporary style, classic looks, and non-wallet-busting price. Wish me luck. I just don’t wanna be that guy who’s stuck in the last decade…

Oh, and ladies, if you have the urge to submit ideas, I’ll take ‘em. In fact, I think I’ll hold a contest with submissions and do something cool for the winner. Comment with your thoughts on that idea. Seriously, when else do you get to dress a guy that’s not your significant other?

Time to go shopping…

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I don’t think today is being my day. I left La Dolce Vita just in time to wave at the bus driver who conveniently ignored me, I hate it when they do that, it really pisses me off. So I sat down and waited.Instead of the bus being on a fifteen minute cycle like I thought it was, I had to wait half an hour. Normally I wouldn’t flinch, I’d have headphones, a book, a notebook to write in, SOMETHING to do. But not today, nope, I took my empty backpack because I’m going shopping. Twiddle my thumbs…

The 76 finally comes and I get on and we head down the road for about half a mile, and stop. There’s a train. I sigh, oh well, a little delay. OR NOT! The train slows down, stops and stays stopped, for five, ten, twenty minutes. So I’m sitting on the bus counting my missed connections and dealing with the sound of the hazards, I have no idea why the driver put the hazards on, there wasn’t any need. He finally turns them off.

I start looking around at the other riders, I have always liked people watching and I find it even more interesting in situations where there is something out of the ordinary happening. There’s the man with the radio and headphones stretched over his balding head. There’s the girl who’s attractive and way overdressed for the weather. Theres the two thugwannabes at the back. There’s the young couple at the front. I look at them, observe them. I hear a sound, it’s organic, biological, oh crap. The couple at the front? They have a baby with them. I didn’t even see it concealed in the carrier inside the guys sweatshirt. And, you guessed it, as soon as I see that it’s there, it starts bawling. So now I’m sitting on a bus that is stopped, waiting for a train to get out of the way, and dealing with a crying baby on top of it all. I know babies cry, and I usually don’t mind it, it’s just a fact of life, but throw it on top of everything else…

I want to get off the bus, to walk, get somewhere on my own, away from this, but we’re in a residential neighborhood and there’s really nothing for me to do if I get off now, I can’t go anwhere and I don’t have a book and I don’t have my headphones, shit, I don’t even have a notebook and pen. Thank Zeus I have my laptop, and unlike at the bus stop, I can actually see the screen. I can at least write somewhere, as long as the battery lasts that is…

How frustrating, I don’t even know if I want to continue my plans for the day, I really don’t feel like dealing with this much more. The baby has somewhat calmed down now, and the train has gone, and the bus is moving, but I think I’m out of it, I think I’m done… (Oh, and I think they’re taking my bus out of service now that it’s so far behind. What a mess.)

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I had some further troubles getting to the mall, but had a rather enjoyable experience once there, I enjoyed my shopping and I think I got some style savvy stuff without busting the bank.

Repost from last year…

When I’ve had a girlfriend on V-Day…
(it’s happened a couple times)
I’ve made an effort to make her feel particularly special on that day…
(because regular special isn’t good enough for 02.14.yyyy)
When I don’t have one…
(this year being a prime example)
I declare the thing Hallmark/FTD Cash Cow Day…
(and blow it up with a big bomb)

(or an arrow, whatever…)

No, No, No, There’s 27 of ‘em, Twenty Seven.

I bought a new copy of Firefly yesterday. It’s something like my fifth or sixth copy, I’ve kinda lost count. Just as I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen the episodes. Todd was home sick and we watched half of the series, eight episodes straight. (Perfect record by the way, every single person I’ve introduced the show to has liked it.) Then he suggested we watch Ep. IV, so the Firefly came out and Star Wars went in. After that, he took his tired self and went to bed. Next thing I know, Tony’s digging through his movies. He puts on Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, a movie that I’ve never gotten around to seeing, so I watched it with him, it’s pretty good. I can’t remember the last time I spent eleven hours in front of the TV. It was actually kind of nice to do. I don’t think it is the kind of thing that could or should be done on any kind of basis, but it was nice to have a lazy day with some of my favorite Sci-Fi (and a new movie).

"I can either hurt now, or hurt later."

The Sunday Short is posted just below this post, read it if you like.
———- ———- ———- ———- ———-

Simple by The Violet Archers on The End of Part One

I blogged about this song last week, or at least I mentioned it. I mentioned in the context of it playing on Pandora and me not being able to find the lyrics anywhere online. I decided that the next time I heard it, I would transcribe it. I missed it once as it played as I was falling asleep, but just now I caught it and got the words down.

Funny thing was, as I finished, I had this uber-brilliant idea to go see if they had a ’space (yeah, I can be that slow {buh-lock}) and believe it or not, they do. So, for a limited time, you’ll find the song Simple playing on my page, or you can just go check out The Violet Archers page. (They still didn’t have the lyrics, so my transcription was worthwhile and will be submitted to Songmeanings.net)

If you’re wondering why I’m spending so much time on a song, I’ll tell you why.
This song makes me cry.
Not just tear up a wee-bit.
No, my cheeks are sticky and I had to take my glasses off kind of crying.
Seeing the words pieced together made it all that more powerful.
Enough sappy sentimentality, and on with the song.
Open a new tab and listen, read along if you will…

Simple things are waiting
For the one who wants it so
You bet your bottom dollar
It’ll cost less than you know

Blue hearts blue tears
Blue ‘n’ bruised ‘n’ sore
Blue skies waiting
On the other shore

A simple life’s no mystery
Confusion lies without
Get washed in the water
Feel your light pour out

Do I know how
How will I know
Cast the ropes that bind you
Get in that boat and row

Forsake not what’s around you
For simple is close at hand
You might get tossed on water
But keep your heart peeled for land

Blue hearts blue tears
Blue ‘n’ bruised ‘n’ sore
Blue skies and blossoms
On the other shore

The Sunday Short: Volume 2, Issue 5

Last week while IMming Kath, I asked for a topic for a short story, and she dropped two that at first glance I thought would be cake. Then I started thinking about them, and it really became more of a challenge in my head to see if I could even find a story that I could justify as worthy of the deep ideas that were there. I got overwhelmed with thought (seems like a common occurrence lately) and caved, I couldn’t think of something for the life of me, and it almost kept me off the boards for two weeks. No blame to be had here, just chaos of the mind in the best kind of way, but I couldn’t let the short go another week without something. So here it comes…

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I sat with my legs crossed, toes twitching, off and against the dirt-laden flip flop that flailed from my left foot. The breeze touched the leaves and their shade faltered. I squinted again, still nothing.
I switched legs, shifted my stiff joints, too sore to sit, to tired to stand. The breeze let in the wind, and she brought with her the clouds, and being that it was still only spring, it got damn cold, damn fast.
I looked, this time without squinting, down the stretch of pavement, toward the rising hill, and over it’s false horizon. Three, five maybe, miles of painful black to that horizon, and ninety-odd behind me.
What was this bench doing here anyway? Nothing else is around. I noticed something. I’d been sitting there for at least half an hour and it’s the first time I heard it. Water, flowing water.
The brook was colder than Lake Ontario, and I had to wait to drink out of it. I had to wait because there was an old newspaper lying half in and half out of it, and I had kicked it, and then the water was muddy for a minute or two. Throat swelling, I watched the dirt clear.
As I knelt the ground assaulted my hands, knees, and the tops of my feet. The ache that was became the ache that is, from bad to good. Satiation. I felt the collapse coming. I leaned into the grass and found rest in the itchy green wild.
I woke to an engine, wheels on pavement, I stirred in time to see taillights, and I fell into rest again.
I don’t remember the cabin being there. But it was, and now I walked toward it. There was a car out front. The hood was warm. Someone was there. I knocked. A man, with arms of support, and again I found rest, this time in the soft white serenity.
I woke again, stiffly leaving the bed I hunted water. Water.
“Water” I croaked.
He merely pointed.
I devoured it, I spilled it, he said “No matter.” and I kept drinking.
He had gas in a can, he could take me to town, whatever I wanted.
I sat and said what I could. I strained my body back toward the bed.
Two days later I rode with him back to my car.
It wasn’t there.
The other way to town.
It wasn’t there.
He shrugged “Sorry ’bout that son.”
I sighed.
He looked at me “You any good at swinging an axe? I can’t do it no more.”
And so I chopped wood for room and board.
And never once did another car pass.
And the road faded from existence.
In reality and in my mind.
Simultaneously.

thankfully I didn’t know HOW to inhale…

often I sit here at the ‘create’ page of blogger and stare at the beige-bordered field that begs for words. there are times like this evening when there is so much going on in and around my head that I don’t know where to start, or if I can even start. sometimes I don’t.

I’ve been looking forward to seeing Joshua Radin for a while now, and though the tiny Trilogy was sold out, and Tony and I had to wait to get in (and miss Schuyler Fisk) it was worth it. While we waited we went to BJ’s and Tony had the Hefe and I had a blend of the Tatonka Stout and a berry somethingorother (can’t remember it’s real name and can’t find it on the site). The bill was a pleasent surprise as we’d unknowingly landed there during happy hour. But the show was the most interesting part of the evening. I had told Tony that I thought he would like Josh’s sound, and when we got in it took about ten seconds before he says to me “I already like him” then Josh goes and covers a Ben Harper tune and Tony ‘just ’bout flipped’. It was really cool to be able to share something with someone and have it go over well (how it can hurt when it doesn’t). I was surprised by how glad I was to be there, even though we were late and still paid full price, it only took two songs for me to feel like it was worth it.

There’s a lot more bouncing around in this head of mine, but that’s all I’ve got for now.

words…

mine
is fine
though not divine
goes well with wine
and is only sometimes benign

Sometimes…

Sometimes things go another way,
And you really don’t know what to say,
And you’re wanting back your yesterday.

And sometimes it’s just really late, and you have plans for your day off and you should be sleeping but instead you’re sitting at the keyboard staring at old NFL news and listening to Joshua Radin on Pandora and wishing that Amazon had a better recommendations engine, while thinking about The Violet Archers and trying to decide how much you like FRWY coffee house in Canada and wondering if you’ll get slapped at the border if you say ‘eh’ to the mountie and if it will be a mountie at all and how does that work anyway.

And you stop because you’re writing run-ons and starting sentences with ‘and’ and doing things that generally would send your spell/grammar checker into a tizzy. But then you realize that you don’t really care. So you go on being grammatically deplorable and decide that it would be nice to use a word like aplomb in your blog somewhere so you do, and you do it with aplomb and then ‘Simple’ comes on (by the previously mentioned Violet Archers) and you stop to listen. The song ends and you want to copy/paste the lyrics in hopes that someone else will see their beauty and credit you with their having found the band. Then you hit a dead end, and the lyrics are nowhere to be found online and Pandora has moved on so you can’t go back at the moment and transcribe it. So you move on.

You say hello to Laila, and ask Steph how the book’s coming or if she’s even started it yet.

You wonder who you might have asked at the last minute to go to the show with you – but didn’t – and you pause, because you really DO know who it was that you didn’t ask.
Damn yourself.
Stop using that weird perspective as though you’re writing about someone else.
But you sometimes feel like you ARE someone else.

and time is short now
and the faces wane like phases
so you ask if someone knows how
to save the sacred places

Thanks for your patience with this rambling-odd-perspective-stream-of-consciousness-thing of a blog. Sorry I haven’t been around (digitally and physically) but you know…
Sometimes things go another way,
And you really don’t know what to say,
And you’re wanting back your yesterday.

Feed Starred Items List

On the right side over there now you can see all the stuff I’ve starred in Google Reader.

These are things I wanted to remember for some reason, or haven’t gotten to yet but don’t want to forget.

Lemme know if you like any of it…

What happens when.

just to get it off my shoulder…

words…

I really felt like being here
would patch some putty holes
I didn’t mind the scars it’d leave
for character on these walls
but when the words that you repeat
come down like hammer blows
I find myself retreating fast
and creeping on tiptoes

the very thoughts that set me free
by opening the cage
turn hunters now on mighty steeds
and waste no dog or horn
as I tremble now in wild weeds
lost in a world unknown
wishing for the prior safety
of the cage I called my home

———-
Thanks to Cuyler for the chat and the laughter, I needed them,
also thanks to K.B. for being ears when I needed them.
The two of you were fresh breaths this evening.