It was a humid, damp cold, the kind that clings to you. I read a remarkable story by Chekhov this evening: “Big Voldya and Little Volydya”. I keep several collections of short stories and essays near my bed, and tonight I was reading Chekhov. Recently I had been reading Borges, a collection of stories, each one more amazing than the last, but not so with Chekhov.
Alex says short stories are more useful for adults whose lives are taken up with more pressing matters, but this is not always true. Short novels also have their use. Just last night I finished Slaughterhouse Five, a juggernaut of 200 small pocket-paperback sized pages.
I sat half in, half out the door reading Chekhov, smoking a clove, sipping a “fortuitous bottle” of Herbsaint, a refugee of last Tuesday Night, a Tuesday Night I did not attend.
The cold, and the clove remind me of Austin. Everything reminds me of Austin. Everything reminds me of other places.
I imagined for a moment reading and smoking in a damp, humid cold in Alaska. How awesome that must be, at the top of the universe, isolated from the vast balance of the world. The few existants I am aware of in that mysterious northern fantasy-land seem so intriguing.
And I was listening to the Pain Teens: Stimulation Festival.
I first heard about the Pain Teens as a reference to an “internationally regarded noise band” from Houston, Texas. It was in a music review in the sadly missed Industrial Nation. I can’t remember the subject of the original review, but when I came across Stimulation Festival in the Sound Exchange on the drag in Austin, I purchased it feverishly; most likely with my last few dollars.
I purchased everything in Austin with my last few dollars. Perhaps, in some attempt to preserve the heydays of my youth, I am always purchasing things with my last few dollars.
This evening I purchased a wrap of honey mustard chicken. It was delicious.
Thanksgiving is always a lonely time for me, even when surrounded by a heaped high plates of food, and heaped high piles of friends or family. I spent a cold, gray weekend in Austin alone one Thanksgiving. It was by my own choice. I think it must have been a lonely time for me, even then. Why else would I ditch family gatherings and friendly pot-lucks to wander campus alone?
UT, during the holidays, becomes deserted, a ghost ship, drifting through cold, gray winter holiday weekends.
One winter was so cold. Somehow. Somehow. I don’t remember the circumstances, but Brian and I came to be stranded at the frat house of our friend Steve Cunliffe. He was a jovial guy. Surreallity dragged behind him like a tattered cloak precariously attached with an old safety pin. How he ever fit in with a frat is beyond me. Probably beyond any of us, but Steve was never concerned with what may have been within anyone’s grasp, much less his. There is a freedom there.
Ice and maybe snow had shut down the city. That must have been a dry cold. It felt electric. Bundled in South Texas winter coats, we clenched and shivered outside, worn sneakers skating on the ice covered sidewalks. We tried for campus, sliding down gradients we’d never noticed before. We settled for a careful climb back uphill to Ken’s. Fresh, warm donuts on a morning like that are a treasure. I can’t believe I hadn’t remembered them until now.
Nicci drug Stimulation Festival out sometime earlier today. I haven’t listend to that album in what must be years. I used to own everything by them. I still have Beast of Dreams and the double-release of Case Histories and Born in Blood. I also scored their debut self-titled noise thing on vinyl, and a demo tape of random loops and songs. The rest of their discography must’ve been sold when I moved down from Austin. I sold everything I had that wasn’t a collector’s item or rare.
That’s not entirely true. I landed in Houston with Stars of the Lid, Portishead, Pornography, and the Sisters. In my first room here, an oversized closet in my father’s apartment off Memorial, I slept every night to Stars of the Lid’s Lactate’s moment. It’s still the greatest ambient song I’ve ever heard. “Without the tedious intrusion of drums or vocals.”
I used to know Brian McBride from Stars of the Lid. He was on the UT debate team with me, as was Eric Emerson. What ever happened to Eric? I spent several years in Austin living three lives: my life with Eric, his brother, and girlfirend in an apartment on Red River; my life as tangential observer and alcoholic understudy with the Austin goths; and artistic malcontent at the University.
Now I live only two lives. Problematic web designer at UH and tangential observer and alcoholic refugee with the Houston goths.
I asked an old friend earlier this week if they remembered when they were young, telling themselves money wasn’t important, they’d just get some job, get by, and live a happy, fulfilling life.
Eric, his girlfriend, and his brother smoked so much goddamned pot. All the time they were smoking. They even lived in some sort of pot dealer collective, a four bedroom they split with Nick, the bull shitter, and crazy Michelle. Pot seeds and leavings littered the counter tops. I spent a lonely Christmas weekend with them. I wore an old rainbow checkered sport coat all the time ‘cause it was cold, and the coat was warmer than my t-shirts. I may wear the coat tomorrow. Just for kicks. I had this horrible acid trip that weekend, but I guess I’ll talk about that later.
I love old school goth rock. I’m not talking the 80s goth and death rock. Much of that is shit. I love it. I have a weakness for the stuff, but when you throw it next to Bauhaus or the Pixies or Bowie or Nirvana (I’m thankful a band in my time could measure up to the greatness of the ages before), it’s all shit.
But I’m not talking about the 80s stuff. I’m talking about the 90s stuff. The stuff we’ve all forgotten. I listened to Love Like Blood, on cassette, in the car today. Three times. I did a lot of driving today. Bought lots of gas with my last few dollars…
My supervisor called me during lunch today wondering where I was and why I hadn’t been at work. I think she thinks I’m not working. Maybe she’s right. I don’t work a lot of time. Maybe I’m young and have other things to work towards. She’s married, has raised two children and seen them married.
Me, I’m reading through short stories and essays in a humid, damp cold at 1:40 AM. I have no regrets that my lifestyle sometimes spills over into my workplace. They should be happy I have more to do in life than correct shitty HTML. Hah.
I’ve never looked like I work much. I’m a thinker. I doodle. And sketch. And figure out ways to make things better. Ways to work better, faster, more efficiently. More perfect. I stare a lot. Off into space. That doesn’t mean I actually work better, faster, more efficently, though I could, but there’s so much space to stare off into, so many places for the mind to be besides here, now.
Like Alaska. Or Austin. Or Prague, or Bucharest.
Bucharest because there are no facts to dispel my illusions. Even their websites are sorely lacking. It’s as if the reality elves haven’t gotten around to Bucharest yet. It’s possible it’s not even there. That the maps feature imagined mountains and towns that no one’s ever seen. Maybe I should go see them. I’ve got a few last dollars…
When people say idealist or dreamer, it’s derogatory. It’s like Christian Death. These divine, perfect concepts have these horridly negative connotations. But I suppose I am an idealist and a dreamer, but an imperfect one at that.
I’ve got a revolution to run, but I’m caught up in unrevolutinary details: designing the website; printing costs for a zine (You hear me Alaska?!? I want your words and pictures.); working the revolution into my work-a-day schedule. Can we throw the imperialist scum to the wall after 6:00 PM? I’ve got a meeting this afternoon.
That makes me laugh.
I used to have this compilation called Stars, Hide Your Fires (It’s a Shakespeare reference), a compilation of 90s goth rock by bands like Forbidden Fire, the Tors of Dartmoor, and other such. The 90s stuff was so great. I probably sold that comp when I moved down from Austin. I used to listen to it all the time when I worked at the State Capitol. I spent a lot of time there not working. And eating lots of reception food, I ate reception food for six months. I became very dexterous. I can hold a drink, balance a precarious plate of eggrolls, cheese, and veggies, eat and gesticulate wildy with my free hand.
I’m great fun at parties. Maybe that’s where I should be now. Maybe the revolution needs a party.
“If it’s not in Houston, it may be in Beaumont. If it’s not in Beaumont, it may be in Lake Charles, Louisianna…”
So, that’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna show up tomorrow, play a bunch of old school goth rock, some Pain Teens, a Danzig song, and then I’m just gonna’ leave. I’ve got places to be. And miles to go before I sleep.