the other night i had this dream where i was standing on a stage with a room full of people. i was dancing around, not knowing what exactly i was dancing to, until, from the back of the room the doors burst open and someone came out.

perhaps i was expecting a ton of people to come out of the door, because i was surprised, but only one person came out and was flying through the doors and running through the seats with her arms spread wide as if she were flying.

at that point, i realize what song is on, and it’s that stupid madonna song on the those goddamned windows xp commercials. i woke up, and the song was still in my head.

the rat cat hogan show tonight was great, although it kept me up late. see? i am still up.

what? you didn’t know there was a show tonight? sorry. short notice and all, but it was worth it. there were quite a few acts, actually, and all were pretty good. herbert scared me when he asked if i was playing tonight, and that i should play something should there be time. thankfully, there was not. even rch’s set was super short, but it was still worth it. rosie thomas played, and did a little comic act, too, which was pretty funny. her voice is unbelievable - she’s collaborated w/ damien jurado on ghost of david and the bruce springsteen tribute badlands. sean nelson and some of his other harvey danger compatriots played, as well as the long winters, whom are coming out with an album in january. stuff sounded good. they’re playing saturday, too at the croc with the actual tigers and the dear john letters (which are damn good, too - feat. robb benson of nevada bachelors. you can hear them on mp3.com.

the later i stay up, the more i want to write. if i had no job, no school, and no life, perhaps i would write more. but, what really would i write about? i would keep a watchful eye on the youths of america from my window, making sure they don’t tip over the neighbor’s motorcycle, even though he suspects us of tipping it over and he rides down the street on his bike blasting sugar ray and his roommate/relative/whateverthefuck-he-is drives a white camaro.

support you local scene!

i think the single most gracious and sincere act i’ve encountered from a customer was yesterday, when a patron at the the theater looked at the 5 employees standing at the ush stand and said, “thanks everyone, for being here today, away from your families so that we could see a movie.”

today was my last day at the metro.

what will happen in the morning, when the world it gets so crowded that you can’t look out the window in the morning?:

jettas can take sharp corners at 35 mph. on damp streets. especially in kirkland. as if to remind me that i am not in charge of other people’s driving, no matter how much i would like to be, nor how much my berating them feels like it does. nor does it guarantee that my doing so will change anything.

on my way to ali’s, i drove up a hill. a van followed, much more closely than i appreciate. going the speed limit is just not enough for more than half the people on the streets these days. as i made my way up the hill, the lights began to bother me, so i flicked the rear view mirror switch, which gets their lights out of my eyes. my recurring headache just wasn’t too keen on having bright lights shined in my eyes.

as i approached the first stop sign at the end of the hill i flicked the switch back, to make sure the guy wasn’t following to closely. without looking exactly at the stop sign, i hit the brakes a bit abruptly, a little before the actual stop. i moved up a little, and proceeded through it.

at the next stop sign, i hit the brakes rather sharply again. partly because i couldn’t really tell where the stop sign was, partly because i wanted the person behind me to be alert to the fact that i didn’t want to be tailed. this didn’t bode well with our friend in the red minivan.

i turned, he turned. he tailed more closely, and switched on his brights. at this point, i wonder if he is old or young. i drive through the neighborhood, and pass ali’s house, because i don’t want to stop. i know this guy is pissed. i get to stop sign, and i turn right. i drive a block and stop at another stop sign. the van pulls up beside me, and i try to move forward. he pulls forward too, so that i can’t turn. i roll my window down.

as cooly and calmly as i can manage, i ask, “do you need something?” the guy gets out of his car and starts marching toward me. he looks about 35, a buzz cut and grayish on the sides. he’s got the glasses that are square and shiny metal frames, with the bridge over the top of them, and he walks like he’s straddling a motorcycle. i can feel his footsteps stamp into the wet concrete as he yells.

“you want your ass kicked motherfucker?!”

my window is open and he tries to grab at it. i reacted more quickly than i could have imagined, and i saw his hands slip on the back window as i peeled out on the wet pavement and rocketed down the street. i shot over two speed bumps at 45 mph, slowed down and took a sharp left onto a bigger street.

i drove down the street a ways, not thinking about where i was going to go, but knowing i was going there fast. i took another left into a side street. i knew it was a dead end, but i pulled in anyway, quickly glancing behind me to see if he had had enough time to get back to his car and give chase. i didn’t see the van.

i pulled into someone’s driveway, turned off all my lights and waited for a moment, blood pulsing through my veins and my heart racing. filled with adrenaline and fear, i could feel my hands shaking. i can still feel it a little, imagining myself sitting there in the dark. i looked in my rear view mirror and planned another escape in case he happened to pull into the court. nothing.

i pull out of the driveway and drive around the neighborhood. nothing.

finally after wandering the streets in my car, i get my bearings straight and head back to ali’s. shaken, but smiling.

i don’t know why i was smiling. perhaps it was out of fear. i couldn’t tell if the man was drunk or it was just that he was livid, but i was worried that he’d come back around looking for trouble. i still can’t help but feel like i should have yelled “fuck you!” at him or at least flipped him off, but i do feel the better man for the lack of having done so.

i didn’t call the cops. i felt a little sorry for him, and wondered if that would be me someday, threatening kids on thanksgiving because they won’t let me tailgate them. then i felt angry that he felt the need to ruin my thanksgiving. i assumed that he probably has a terrible life, or if he did not, that he would soon; because he’s on the karma payment plan.

after my diatribe the other day, i take solace in the fact that karma is indeed, a bitch.

happy thanksgiving, everyone.

boy what a load of horsecrap. it’s probably all a matter of what i’ve been listening to and when. there are few absolutes when opinionating, and perhaps in a few years, i can take all that back. 5 years ago, i probably wouldn’t have liked the stuff that i like now, and 5 years from now, i probably will like something different.

but there has to be some sort of constant in there, and perhaps on my deathbed, i’ll think about the bands that have constantly remained in my “good” category.

that’s a little morbid.

a while ago, perhaps it was a few years ago, i sat around a table with a few of my friends somewhere. i’m not sure where, but most likely stella’s (where we’re usually gathered at night, because it’s the only alternative to ihop and denny’s in the u-district). i think we started talking about contemporary bands that lose it after a few albums (i think 3 was the key number) save for a few exceptions. my contention was that built to spill and superchunk were those exceptions. i’m sure a number of other bands could easily fit the bill, but for the sake of (my) argument, let’s ignore them. it came to my attention that built to spill may have lost that exception.

built to spill, released 7(?) albums, one of which is a compilation of older tracks, one a live album. they also released a handful of eps, (5 or so, i believe). at the fourth album (perfect from now on, unless you don’t count the normal years, which would make it the third, but i will since the songs were probably written and recorded before pfno), in my opinion, they hit their stride. keep it like a secret was a good album, and felt like it was squeezing out the genius left over from pfno (you can hear left over influences from that album, longer songs and more complex song structures. the guitar sound even bleeds into the first track of the halo benders’ album the rebel’s not in.) ancient melodies…, though, is getting a little boring.

fine, fine, bring in sam coomes again, have some guitar hooks and self-indulgent solos. that’s all fine. but the type of epic madness and exploration, the frustration and energy that’s gone into perfect…, that’s the kind of hard working doug we know. i can’t help but think that the static line-up has something to do with it, or that warner bros., has made him lazier, but i feel like the train is slowing to a stop.

now, this does not at all change the fact that they are indeed a good fucking band. now, you see, i had to use an expletive, because i really think they are that good. and i’m not saying that the album is devoid of good songs. i happen to love strange and a couple of other songs on the album, but i do believe that this has put them in my frame of mind, into a strange predicament. i have not, as of yet, seen a band that has collapsed into drudgery and become stagnate be able to uproot itself out of that (although if i thought hard enough, i probably could say i have).

what the hell, this is all arbitrary anyway.

i haven’t yet been able to get a copy of here’s to shutting up, so i can’t inflict my opinion of that upon you.

part of my new found problem with driving is the placeless anger i have with other drivers. i’m frustrated with the frustration that i experience whenever i see someone else out there driving like a maniac. i’m sure that half the dirvers out there don’t deserve the tirades that i give but i continue regardless. i am guilty myself of perpretating the kinds of evils that i condemn on the roads, hell, just last night i almost got into an accident near my house because i didn’t see a car coming around the corner.

and this is what i mean. last night, i could only fault the other driver, thinking that they were driving too fast in the dark and rainy night so that i couldn’t really even see them. kind of funny how that works.

i finished a personal matter, and am starting to read the book of laughter and forgetting again. the former struck me with much more force than the first time i read it, maybe because i was paying more attention this time around. eventually i’ll get around to telling you what i really thought about it, hopefully before my opinion fades, as most of mine do unless they have reason to continually reoccur in my life.

team rocket is so funny.

sometimes during winter in seattle, we go through long day after long day of darkness. i mean, the sun comes up, sure. it’s nothing like alaska, where it’s dark for weeks at a time. but to wake up, look outside, and see the light only fall upon things with a thin mask of illumination and never shine like it does in the summer, it’s strange. strange in the same manner when you wake up at 6 at night, after having taken a nap at 4, and you sleep longer than you had planned. you wake up at 6, and look outside and it’s dark already, and you can’t tell if you slept through the entire night, or only slept for a couple of hours.

and that grey is just so staid, everything is simply so unexcited that you can barely get yourself to move in the morning, or in the middle of the day, or around 430, when it starts to get dark and you know you have to get something to eat or you’ll die of starvation because you haven’t had anything to eat all day. but even then, it’s stoic, because you could still not move. you could just sleep.

but thank goodness there’s rain, because it’s cold. shivering cold. walking in it with everyone else, getting wet and feeling ambivalent about it, glad that it gets you to move, but not so much that it’s making you wet and uncomfortable. but no, i like rain, it gives me an excuse to look out the window and watch the raindrops race each other down the glass.

this morning, i was driving to school and i laid on my horn for a while. james yelled at me, “don’t do that!” while i sat astonished at the incomparable idiocy of the driver in front of me. when i’m in cars with other people now, i can’t help but tell them the “right” way to go. i can’t just sit calmly and watch the people around me drive and not use their turn signals, or when i let them into my lane and don’t give me a wave. i swear and curse at them, audibly, and i enunciate, so that if they happen to see me in their rear view mirror, they can see my mouth moving: “fu-ck-ing di-ck-head” or “ass-hole” i see them haul ass and weave through traffic, and wish to myself that there’s a cop right around the corner to pull them over and give them a ticket, haul them off to jail, or give them a cavity search.

and i sit and listen to john in the morning play king of all of the world and i watch the rain fall in buckets onto cracked streets and long stretches of jet black highway. i run my windshield wipers which have not one decent speed in mild rain, and i dodge rainbow filled puddles in potholes and yell at crazy drivers and see them zoom down empty freeways and at least once, every time i’m in the car, i wish i wasn’t driving, i wish i had just stayed at home.

i missed the price is right.

at certain times of the day, when the mood is right (or absolutely wrong, depending on the situation), it is amazing how 3 minutes can change your perception. this morning, death cab came to the rescue during a grouchy 4 hours of sleep morning. it’s the best when you’re driving, and something comes on that you didn’t expect to hear on the radio, and it brings you somewhere you didn’t expect to go.

too bad that turn wasn’t permanent. stupid traffic.