Take it off quickly...

I met a girl and changed a tire in the rain and befriended a drag queen and missed out on a day of wonderful Iowan insanity and threatened a dead-beat douchebag and kicked some dude out of our store and made vegan chili and watched a bunch of people tap dance to "I'm Afraid of Americans" and became a vegetarian(kind of) and drank gallons upon gallons of beer and bought a bed and started rolling my own cigarettes and got to drive a stickshift for the first time in years and died and drunkenly chopped most of my hair off in the bathtub...all in the last month or so. The Triumvirate needs to reconvene like the world needs to end...it's getting fucking urgent. I need to get crazier again...I enjoyed that insanity so much...I crave it as though the wonderful suckling tit that it came from is be deprived from me eternally. And comfort? Where are you? I'm going to go buy more beer and watch Hellraiser until I fall asleep in hopes that it will help...

Ty

Robby, you are more of a fucking genius than I had previously thought...I'm listening to Current on my headphones for the first time and I can hear so much more...it's amazing...

the boy who had green hair (and sweaters) {HAH, 550, your 450 can suck it}

I went on a walk armed with a cigarette and an Ipod Nano. The Ipod started spitting tunes, and the cigarette started smoking. A song off the first Taproot album came on, and it was one of those songs I like so much because they have cheesy overdramatic pauses. So the Taproot cuts out completely as I'm taking a drag, and I don't notice or think about it, and exactly as I exhale, the drums hit like a gorilla pounding with both fists on my skull. I'm walking down the middle of a dimly lit street in a hooded sweatshirt, and this is the hugest cloud of smoke I've ever emitted, and it starts curling and twirling symmetrically, and blocks out the whole sky, and my entire field of vision, with patterns, like the Spiralator. It was an Eminem/Korn music video or something. I continued to attempt to endow my cigarette smoking with a musical quality, resulting in a record breaking cigarette smoking time and a mild cough. I reached the Deals', and saw a huge two story house where there had been a small cabin the last time I had checked. This confused me not a little. Said confusion was not aided by the encounter with a mailbox shaped like a ginormous bass (the fish), whose mouth was the place where you stuffed the mail. Ate multiple ice cream sandwiches, pissed in the lake (after recognizing the upcoming dock rather belatedly and narrowly adjusting so as not to walk directly into the lake), watched some stars and floodlights and lightning, some Arrested Development, and to sleep. This was so much fun, I had to try again the following night. Similar results. Replace ice cream sangwiches with handfuls of macaroni salad, taken directly from the bowl in the refrigerator in the garage. This was done because of lack of any other food, and without utensils, for fear of entering the house and waking the people I don't like to wear green sweaters with (my family). Handfuls of macaroni are difficult to consume. Little individual macaronis squelch and suirt out, all over the floor. Hands are covered in thick macaroni goop residue. I attempt to pick up a blue cylinder and it flies out like one of those green tube snake things that are filled with jelly stuff and slide out of your hands when you try to grab them. There are no available napkins, and everything I touch on my way back to the bunkhouse is coated with macaroni juice. This is not exactly a low profile. This time instead of Taproot-Jay Zizzle, Kings of Leon and a love song about dancing in Lansing, MI. Pimp my Ride greets me with open arms, and the best episode of all time is on. Some chick really likes snakes. I immediately realize what this means (if you like S'mores X-zibit installs a fire pit in your car, if you like WMDs he puts in a nuke factory) - so if this chick likes snakes, she gonna get some snakes! This idea incapacitates me for several minutes. She gets a terrarium, with a 2 inch TV built into a rock, for her snake's viewing pleasure. This lake isn't so bad. I think I'll frequent it, and someday maybe even get in it.

achewood 5-25-06 = us... We're the juggernauts bitches!

This is a pretty simple post. Its entire purpose is to inform those around me of the power of novel objects that i have recently encountered.

1. X-3 - Comic book fans grimace at the inaccuracy of the plot of this movie. However, I can't help but be moved by a smoking hot Famke who, having seemingly limitless telekinetic power, decides simply to liquify any and everything with her mind. This in combination with a Vinnie Jones who uses his limitless momentum to, among other things, make reference to a ridiculous internet overdub of a children's cartoon. Plus Magneto... enough said.

2. The Raconteurs - It's like someone literally asked me exactly what I'd like in a rock album. Jack White + Backup Vocals + Hazy/Minor ROCK! This album is like finding out you can piss gold, or whatever other valuable substance you might desire.

3. Achewood - 5-25-06 - read it and viz our future, our past, our visit to Chicago, our hallowed weekend.

Stream of unconsciousness

I think that I just watched some retro 50s erotica, and there was some chick named Mrs. Rumperdoodle. She was very frustrated that her photographs were not turning out quite right, and boy did she throw a tantrum. There was also a condom robot and foreign people making racecar sound effects. Oh yeah, and the X-men comandeered the Golden Gate Bridge. Lindsey and I decided that once we mutate, one of our first purchases (although I proposed the argument that with super powers we need not bother with actually paying for any more items) will be Magneto's cape and helmet. Or we might just buy Ian Mckellan if he's up for bidding. We would also like some wings, bitches. Good movie. There were too fucking many of us...we eventually had to split up in twos to find places, and even then we were in the front row. I had to actually move my entire head to look around and see what was happening over on the other side of the screen. Chris and Jennie got drunk from Nalgenes they smuggled in, and I almost vomited buttery popcorn on Lindsey's forehead. (Do not ever get a medium. Ever. It's the size of Rotta's ass. And nobody can eat a Rotta ass full of popcorn. Just nobody.) For some reason we saved the green sweaters for after the movie, but that turned out pleasant enough. I've still barely begun packing or cleaning, after a week of complete lack of responsibility. Tomorrow we ride to the Gorge for the music. Then switch houses, and spwink off to Montana. And then the Midwest. Prepare me my kingdom...and by prepare me my kingdom I mean, you know, pop in a frozen pizza and set up the projector, or something like that.

Will A Soul Ever Glimpse This Update?

This clean white blog is in some sort of bad disrepair... that last post (which was in truth a rather lame, formalistic and ultimately failed attempt to generate more posts) is just hanging there like extremely resilient dry erase marker...

I woke up early to get cracking on my last paper of the semester (a methodological comparison and critique of Hobbes and Rousseau's respective approaches to the development of the social contract) and i'm entirely too excited about this summer to even begin without acknowledging it. Thus, in the spirit of at least some of our previous undertakings, let me proceed with the first list of the summer.

Entitled: Things I Will Enjoy

Reading for Leisure
Walking in the Woods
Driving on Straight Roads
Watching Television From My Computer
Mowing the Lawn
Digging Holes While Listening to Audiobooks
Encountering Mammals
Gaining Deadly Slingshot Accuracy
Working With Wood
Standing Near Water
Constructing Sandwiches
Devising and Creating an Elevated Tree Stronghold
Staring Into the Fire
Sipping Slowly
Generally Meandering
Drinking Milk

Phew! I think that's all for now. I'll go write that paper now and be on my way.

Stella Marathon Under the Hot Iowa Sun

Announcement:
Today I downloaded the complete first season of Stella (10 episodes)... after watching one of these episodes I have come to the conclusion that I cannot possibly find a better audience for this show than, well... you know...
Anyway, based on this conclusion I have decided to hold off on watching even another 10 to fifteen seconds of the series until the triumvirate are once again gathered together around a monitor and sufficiently plugged into the strange semiotic matrix which hangs thick like a cloud and permeates our interactions...

Schedule:
May, June, July or August... special preference should once again be given to "parents go to Wisconsin and give us the chance to get real silly-weekend"

Caveat:
In case the show legitimately sucks enough for us to not watch it regardless of our state of consciousness, I will also possess all the other material that has brought Rufus to a depressingly awesome unused byteage count of no more than ten billion....

Says the beautiful man...

I don't really have anything postworthy for the Triad, but it's been a long time since I have contributed. Let's see...down at The Brown Elephant, I work with a bunch of gay guys, all of which are quite interesting and hilarious(the thrift store where I work exists solely to raise money for Howard Brown Health Center, which, in turn, exists for the purpose of providing health care for the gay and lesbian community who can't get health insurance because of AIDS...or something like that)...I enjoy it...and I've been drinking pretty heavily on my days off, which has also been interesting(by which I mean awesome). Cyndee came up last week...we had a couple beers and watched Secretary...it still seems a little strange to hang out with Cyndee without at least one of you guys around. Umm...other than that...Craigslist thinks that I and ALL of my coworkers are gay...it's closer to half...my thriftPod is all kinds of awesome...though my very brief experimentation with iPodLinux has already taken it's toll in the form of button fatigue (Doom involves a lot of control pad mashing...I don't recommend it)...and on that note, I'd like to give a big thanks to all of the rich people out there who buy iPods for the specific purpose of breaking them in every possible way and then writing about it on the internet...umm, I've ended up watching quite a lot of Project Runway with Meg and Bergen...and that usually involves more drinking...and that's about it...I've been doing everything in my power to keep my my consumption of cooked flesh at an acceptable level...but the occasional tofu makes it's way to my stomach, as well...what can you do? I can't wait for you guys to come visit...and to reciprocate...but I'm pretty sure that Renn Fayre is a no-go...it'll be quite a while before I have vacation time...however, you can be sure that the northwest coast is at the top of my list...

Oh, yeah, there's a shop a couple doors down from where I work that sells Old Peculiar...with which I have been very intrigued since reading about Eric's exploits in London...so I'm going to try it out when I get paid...hooray beer!

Naked is the new clothed

Here we see Minor Triad fufilling two of its main functions simultaneously: procrastination and resurrection. As I tried to write autobiographically, I somehow managed to remember a piece of writing Peter had procrastinated his last high school assignment with, and managed to uncover it in my endless Hotmail archives. I like it even more now that I've had three years removed from the subject matter, particularly the sixth paragraph, which I will be quoting in my paper for tomorrow, mostly unwritten as of yet.

Even you, you motherfucker, indeed. Enjoy:

I am about to finish the last assignment that I will ever complete for the Forest City Community School District. It's a 200 word spanish composition. The topic is to review a movie that we watched in class, The Milagro Beanfield War. Why is it that I am sitting here procrastinating? Why do I not crank out the 170 words (probably fewer) that I still need and go to bed? It is, after all, 1:59. I have no idea.

It isn't as though this sort of behavior is particularly new. Senioritis probably set in at least a month ago, a great deal later than most people, I might add. So, what is it? Why do I feel completely content to stare at this screen, albeit through my 3M Easy Clean Filter, and let my contacts dry themselves into plate glass? Why are my fingers most motivated by placing fruitless ramblings into my notepad file, which will probably be lost and erased when I reformat?

I sit here and search for every possible distraction. I check ancient websites that I visited in 1998, and not since, for updates and new pictures of Calvin and Hobbes or some other crap like that. I adjust the volume, now the bass, now the treble of my stereo. No, that isn't quite right. Now, I change the little digitally emulated iTunes EQ. By this time the song has changed, and it's all wrong again. Suck.

I leaf through my little pile of Senior Pictures. Friends from this year, from last year, from the year before. Where are they now? They could tell me what the hell my problem is, and why I can't think of even two more words to describe my feelings on The Milagro Beanfield War. Actually, the only Spanish word I can think of at all right now is chingar, but I couldn't conjugate it well enough to insult or offend even a potato (papa, there's two I suppose). No, they don't know what my problem is either, in fact most of them have it as well, but at least they could distract me for another minute. They can't help.

And then I start to wonder... Maybe I just don't want it all to be over. Maybe it has been nice. And maybe going away and leaving them all, and going to the coast, and living with a bunch of intellectual druggie bisexual hippie weirdo sex freaks will really fuck me up and leave me wanting something that I had, but can never get back. Because it ends tomorrow. Wow, maybe I'm getting somewhere with this? I leaf through the pictures again. It's just one of those "am I just paranoid, am I just stoned?" questions, and I'm really neither.

Why can't we hate and loathe and betray each other and make this easy? Why do I have so much respect for all of you? Even you you motherfucker! You used to point at me in the fourth grade and you wouldn't be my square dancing partner, presumably because I was eloquent and badly dressed and myopic and I thought about you being naked before it was the fashion? And now everything is so different. I'm still myopic, and all of us are badly dressed because it's cool and I'm even more eloquent and so are you and the naked thing is just a given at this point, and we respect each other.

It is good. And it won't ever be this good for "us" again. But, for us it'll just get better. And for some of us it'll get better, or at least stay the same for "you and me", and that's pretty damned good. But for now it's time to go off, even if that's just down the block, and be what we need to be now, poor hippy druggie satan wierdo oversexed intellectual jesus rich blue collar moron genius freaks. I swear to god, I'm going to dog ear these pictures tonight.

This feels really good now, and I'm ready, and tomorrow, and the next day, and Sunday, I'm damned sure going to take notice. I'm going to appreciate you people, you bastards and you saints. For everything that you've been for me and failed to be for me. Some of you I'll talk to, some of us will wave, some will five, some will shake hands. And we'll laugh and talk and read our Senior Warwhoops. Some of you I won't even see, but we'll still know.

I'm going to write it now. I'll probably get a C or at least a B, sort of fitting for a last assignment. Leaving in a blaze of mediocrity. I suppose it is spanish. Anyway, I won't blame myself. I won't even blame Jacobson. It's your fault, all of you.

Massive Reggaeton Overload

So, all of a sudden there are three days left in my south american odyssey. Though they will probably end up being pretty fine days (certain things must be consumed before airline, this is still something to be at least slightly miffed about.
Since arriving here in the southern hemisphere i have done and seen a great many things, travelled relatively far and wide, made extremely poor (not unrewarding mind you, just grammatically retarded) conversation with too many people, eaten all variety of tasty sea morsels (they have a word that effectively means "uncooked seafood grabbag" - Mariscos) and fresh fruits and veggies, paid (around a quarter) to defecate, kissed a million women on the cheek, partied with rich kids, touched a narwhal horn, partied with poor people, partied with old rich people, imbibed an unfortunate amount of "piscola" (there's a definite taste relationship between this substance and its english cognate), sung harmonies to many a guitar-fueled engrish singalong and seen a socialist woman elected president.... phew... it's been a busy break... Hope shit is equally surreal on your respective continents....
Take it easy boys - more on my return!

Hold me closer Tony Danza

Hooray for the first Minor Triad post from another country! Hopefully we'll get a South American one soon as well. Apparently there has been a livejournal site created for my three friends and I so if you desire more in depth news about London and us feel free to take a look. The username is effed_up_four. I think I'm going to spend a lot of money on beer because the Guinness is amazing and there is something called Old Peculier that is unbelievably good. The best thing I have ever tasted that is alcoholic. Also, they give you more of it, and it is stronger than in the United States. One of our proffesors will be taking us on a Pub Crawl on Friday. I'm out.

you fellas are... well.... gross...

Thanks for having the presence of mind to email this to me ERIC OF THE PAST!


From: "Eric Thompson"
Subject: bullcrap
Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 04:16:31

Eric says:
i be back
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
si, señor...
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
would you like to guess the average amount of unused ram I have at any given moment?
Eric says:
damn you like those tilts don't ya?
Eric says:
no i would not
Eric says:
but you'd like to tell me
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
si, señor...
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
why not, it's fun... ...not to mention funny...
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
and fairly sad...
Eric says:
hehe
Eric says:
3 megs
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
of my glorious(and pathetic) 32mb of ram, I usually have around 20kb free at any given point in time... ...and yes, I said kb... ...and I meant kb...
Eric says:
hehe
Eric says:
very impressive
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
DUDE!! 56KB!!!!
Eric says:
shit yo!!! you do rule
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
rock on, I can fucking... ...look at a picture or something...
Eric says:
hahahahahahahahahahaha
Eric says:
yes, well i can always fucking look at a picture
Eric says:
hahaha
Eric says:
or 700
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
fuck... ...you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you... ...oh, and you in the back, fuck you too...
Eric says:
me too?
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
yeah, you in the chair, fuck you... ...yes, you, you right there typing on the keyboard, I'm talking to you...
Eric says:
oh man
Eric says:
i don't even know how!!!
Eric says:
do i need string cheese?
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
yes, and lots of it... ...it's the standard tool for foreplay... ...everyone know's that string cheese is the #1 sexual aid known to man...
Eric says:
they do?!!!
Eric says:
GOD! i'm such an idiot!
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
yeah, where the hell have you been?!
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
oh, wait, you're Pakistani, aren't you?
Eric says:
i thought wrenches were still #1
Eric says:
well......yeah
Eric says:
yeah!!! here comes my favorite part
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
you guys aren't allowed to even talk about string cheese, I forgot... ...it's against section four of your constitution... ...you're really going out on a limb asking me about it...
Eric says:
YOU'RE NO BETTER THAN ME!!!!!!
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
aren't you afraid that "big brother" is watching?
Eric says:
dude, it's section 5!
Eric says:
what are you, jewish?
Eric says:
section 4 says that any female who is over 27 years old and has a brother named Al may be punished by being beaten with a blunt piece of cheese
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
oh, well, sorry, I'm not exactly a scholar in Pakistani history... ...and no, I'm no damn jewish yutz... ...I'm from the fucking People's Front of Judea...
Eric says:
sweet yo
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
ok, well, now I know...
Eric says:
yes you do
Eric says:
keep 4 and 5 straight man
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
sorry...
Eric says:
thanks, i forgive you
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
ok...
Eric says:
want me to give you some sexual forgiveness favors?
Eric says:
YOU LIED TO ME!!!!!!!!
Eric says:
FOLLOW ME!!!
Eric says:
FOLLOW ME!
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
you'd better be forgiving me, you damned porkless, chocolate snorting, FIGGY PUDDING PACKER!!!!
Eric says:
son of a bitch!!!!!!!
Eric says:
how'd you know that????!!!!
Eric says:
i'm gonna beat the fuck out of whoever told you i was porkless!!!
Eric says:
damitt that was a secret
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
yeah, you'd better be givin' me some damn good sexual forgiveness favors 'er I'll be reporting you to your superior...
Eric says:
who's that?
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
WHAT?!
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
you don't know who your fucking superior is?!
Eric says:
umm....my mom?
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
you're dumber than I though, you fuckin' rock fucker...
Eric says:
oh yeah?????
Eric says:
well you know what?
Eric says:
i can play any damn fuckin heavy metal song on the whole fuckin planet shit fuck
Eric says:
so suck on that you self-mutilating, pig pleasuring, shit head
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
yer mom?! what a joke... ...fuckin' Kevin Costner, you stupid polar bear raper!!
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
ist, I mean...
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
rapist...
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
and there's fuckin' nothing wrong with self-mutilation!! So FUCK OFF!!1
Eric says:
BASTARD!!! don't you even bring my cousin into this!
Eric says:
jeff did nothing to you!!!!! i don't deserve this
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
yeah, 'im and 'is damn black skin!!
Eric says:
i'm just so sick and tired of this bullshit day after day after day
Eric says:
don't be surprised in one day you come home from work and i'm gone
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
shave all that bastard's white hair off and he'd be black as a fucking asshole...
Eric says:
just gone, and you're left with nobody to make you cum like orgasmatron on overdrive
Eric says:
you won't be screaming your passionate song of fucking love any more
Eric says:
and someday.....someday....i shall burn it
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
right...
Eric says:
i'll just chop it off and throw it on the fire like a log
Eric says:
a very tiny log......
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
dude, don't refer to my severed dick as a log...
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
please?
Eric says:
FUC....well i suppose i could do you that one bit of dignity
Eric says:
i'll throw it on the fire like a twig
Eric says:
a thin brittle twig......
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
that's better, thank you...
Eric says:
you're welcome
Eric says:
i just can't do this anymore, doug
Eric says:
i'm tired of arguing
Eric says:
maybe you should just go to bed and never wake up now
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
ok...
Eric says:
alright
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
si, señor...
Eric says:
man that drained me
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
me too... ...I haven't a thought left in my head...
Molitov Cocktail Party says:
hey, did you finish that crossword thing for World?
Eric says:
hell no

A Birthday Card...

Today Carol saved my afternoon...

I got a call last night from Eric that ended with a reassurance that it was alright if I didn't get back to him right away.

"...cause today has been like the worst day of my life..."

The statement tripped me up for a second... possibly because I was, by this point in the evening, quite nicely dosed, but more probably because prior to eruption of birthday festivities in my honor I had been feeling something very much akin to the anxiousness I heard in Eric's words. Finals are upon us once again... like a heavy cloud of noxious gas that forces you into a corner and demands that you cough up everything everything you posess in the vain hopes that it will eventually dissipate.

This morning I woke up. Twenty-One. Blip. Now my brief reprieve had gone and I was thrust suddenly back into the cloud.

Class is never a helpful activity once one has become firmly confined to the cloud. The goals are clear, the topics have all been covered, further learning is at a virtual standstill. The date printed on the plane ticket in the back of your mind has begun to correspond to the dates at the distant margin of the extended weather forecast. If one could simply hop into a cocoon for what will look in a week and a half like the latest tick mark on an endless list of indistinguishable weeks of academic discomfort then everything would certainly pan out.

The clock strikes one, Peanut and I collect our things and exit our temporary cell for the march back to one of several available prisons.

"Library..." He mumbles, and I nod acknowledgment mumble something that vaguely resembles "Dorm". We gesture and part, telling our respective selves that if work goes well this afternoon we'll all get together in the evening and distract one another.

Now my mind drifts, and I only catch up with myself to notice that I'm not really walking toward the dorm, but toward the mailroom. I reach inside the slot and grasp the thick, precisely folded paper of a greeting card. I pull out my knife and open the purple envelope. There will be money; there's no time given to questions concerning currency. It's the guts that count, the loopy scrawl of one Thompson parent or the other bringing words of encouragement, idiom, cynicism, cliché, nostalgia.

The colorful exterior, containing a joke about college and its implications in the new world of public drinking, gives way to a tundra-like emptiness of the thick paper, punctuated only by the words "Happy 21st Birthday" in a monospaced Courier.

Beneath this lettering Carol's note reads:

Let the Happy Hour Begin!
Eric and I started without you but I have a beer with your name on it, so I am expecting a visit sometime over Christmas. It has been quite dull drinking alone but now we can really make Steve pout!
No Grilled Cheese this year -- I figured you could use some moola for whatever -- $21 of course because my "Doris Jr. OC" disorder is surfacing!
Hope you are surviving finals and papers. See you soon.
Love,
The Thompson Clan


Things will change this Christmas. Things have already changed. I am renewed. Maybe this year "home" will bring us something more fulfilling than the gentle back-and-forth rocking of displeasure that compels us to leave and then once more to return. I feel good. I feel hungry.

The cloud will squeeze and I will swelter, pouring my essence onto paper, draining so many bullet points out on to the cumulative outline of "achievement". And then I'll dry off and come home to the place where change and stagnation meet each other in comforting equilibrium.

Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall...and many more...

Hooray for today, the day when we are all three of age for the legal consumption of alcomahol. Take that, world...

don't cheese grater your floor popsicle

Tonight's lesson is not to ever wear a shopping cart full of green sweaters when there are going to be a much bigger unrealistically sized shopping cart of people in your house. Especially when some of them are in Halloween costumes. My costume tonight was "green sweater crazy and freaking out man." Sufjan Stevens is calming me down a bit now...too bad I don't have him in a bottle like those ships in a bottle, so they would have had to build the bottle around Sufjan Stevens, but now he's in there and intact....maybe we could even give him a ship to sail while he was stuck in there and bored. Sailling on a heart shaped watermelon in a sea of broccoli colored, asparagus covered beans.

nuggets from the past...

So, tonight I've been doing a little hard drive cleaning and i came across one of our archival plans... i'm glad we make these..

P.S. i have no fucking idea when we did this...

The Plan...
by Tyler and Peter

Objectives (decided first)
1. pete tongues the pen (15?)
2. make the fire us will...
3. levon sells cartoon balloons...
4. call friends to hear answering machines...
5. write a movie...
6. include this plan and much dialogue in the movie...
7. call bart farkus...
8. defeat mephisto, the commies, and the moops...
9. listen to weird old records...
10. razorface, ooh, amazin grace...!
11. ride bikes
12. buy, sell, ingest, transport, deal, and eventually be arrested for posession of... well... something...
13. author a bill which changes the legal spelling of the word banana to banaña... maybe even bañaña.
14. watch a movie, possibly the one we watch...
51. go ape
62. whip it good
73.2.end objectives
PLAN OF ACTION
LIKE THE SONG ABOUT SAMSON FROM MIDDLE SCHOOL CHURCH CHOIR
YOU KNOW, THE ONE THAT SAM MISSAL WAS OBSESSED WITH THAT WENT LIKE, “SOMETIMES I’M SAMSON, WITH THE STRENGTH TO CONQUER ANYTHING....”

Wesn’s, in the year 2002, will will (yeah, that’s right gerkass) (yeah, i bloody well know that jerk isn’t spelled with a g) commence the activities needed to carry out objective #4, upon receiving a negative result from objective 4 we will will continue by making sweet love to a gerbil of my choosing, this shall henceforth be referred to as objective #cl4236, and shall be done quietly and stealthily. then after that, we uhh, go to kansas? (he he, very nice) after we get to kansas we will realize that there are already certain objectives that have already been already completed... already! at which point the elves should have already arrived with the punch, so we’ll get the dants to come up and monitor that while we slip out into the approaching darkness, ride bikes, hop on pop, and make the required pyrotarded mystakes. then, after all has been forgived, one of two things will happen, we will either get a movie, or we will not, and then we shall make the diablisticizions late into the somnambulance...

letters to pedro...

Hi Peter, How are you doing. I think of you often, but decided to send a quick note. It was a busy day at Waldorf I am sure you mom told you about the inauguration, dedication of Library , play and it was a beautiful day so all got to transpire on time in the right place without having to rum for shelter. to keep warm that was another story the sun was out, but if you were in the shade it was cool.
I think I see your friend Tyler around town. sometimes sitting on one of the benches uptown . Is he going to Waldorf? He, if it is him, looks sort of lonelyl Is he ok??? I hope so. I know he has had a time with school so hope all is well.
Welll I have rambled enough// Good night, God Bless Love
Gra'ma H.

Okay, so i didn't preface that at all, but that's the point of this blog anyway right? You fuckers already know what's what.

That's not a fair test, that joke's hi-larious...

Haha...I spent the night hanging out with all three of your guys' sisters! It was...actually, I lot of fun...we spent most of the night reminiscing about you two and now I miss you both...you bastards...

Oh, yeah, and at the risk of sounding like a racist/opportunist...I am so totally dating a twenty-five year old black girl...how studly is that? She's absolutely delightful in so many ways...though, I don't look forward to the day that we discuss religion...

And I've made an effort to cut off all ties from My Meteoric Rise to Mediocrity and Eating Out With Us to this blog...purely so I never have to think "Should I be writing this? What if (Insert Name of Highschooler Here) ever stumbles across it?"...but, alas, a connection made is hard to break...fucking Google...and Technorati...though, the connections are VERY hard to find...

Does CSOI do house calls?

The house has been great, but something just wasn't right. It hasn't quite been "home" this whole month + and I couldn't put my finger on it until tonight. The problem was that we hadn't done severe, ridonkulous damage to it yet. I feel more comfy already. Tonight during a quick round of Mattress (the game which consisits of grasping an air mattress, holding it in front of you, and running screaming across the house directly into a person) I was hurled completely through our wall like a bowling ball through a giant graham cracker. It looks likes Wile Coyote took a detour through our hallway and that sneaky Roadrunner did some real quick-like dry-walling to trip him up. It's all good though, because Chris and Josh are going to pay their boss some drugs to patch it up. Good fun. Man, when I stop breaking shit on a semi-regular basis, it's all over. Put me to fucking sleep. What's the point?

Call it fate, call it luck, call it karma...

So, here's some right fucked up news, presented with the hopes that it will catalyze activity hereabouts... Sure, it's a cop-out in terms of its "reality tv" nature, but it's pertinent triumvirate business.

A Conversation Between Me and the Carpenter:


keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (8:53:35 PM)
   what's new

Santiago, Jan 1-19... says: (8:54:18 PM)
   oh, not too much... i'm back at school... i'm going to chile over winter break...

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (8:54:35 PM)
   cool

Santiago, Jan 1-19... says: (8:54:36 PM)
   ireland is a swell place to visit...

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (8:54:52 PM)
   yeah, kayla wants to go there sometime

Santiago, Jan 1-19... says: (8:55:29 PM)
   well, if you were thinking of visiting county ciarrai, i could tell you all about it...

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (8:56:21 PM)
   you never made it down here

Santiago, Jan 1-19... says: (8:57:33 PM)
   i know, i was really bummed about it, but we ended up just running out of free weekends...

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (8:57:58 PM)
   yeah, i had a pretty crazy summer

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (8:58:15 PM)
   lots of weddings, including brad's

Santiago, Jan 1-19... says: (8:58:50 PM)
   cool, cool... how's married life treating bradley?

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (8:59:05 PM)
   so far so good

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (8:59:16 PM)
   from what i can tell anyways

Santiago, Jan 1-19... says: (9:00:06 PM)
   that's good to hear...

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:00:18 PM)
   yeah

Santiago, Jan 1-19... says: (9:00:46 PM)
   so, are you still carpentering away?

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:00:58 PM)
   you bet

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:01:37 PM)
   well, actually right now we are doing a lot of concrete work while they're finding another place for me and another guy to go

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:02:05 PM)
   two carpenters working with a bunch of concrete guys isn't a good mix

Santiago, Jan 1-19... says: (9:02:21 PM)
   i suppose not...

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:02:47 PM)
   you still seeing that one girl you mentioned to me a while back

Santiago, Jan 1-19... says: (9:03:48 PM)
   sure am... i'm going to chile with her...

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:03:54 PM)
   ok

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:04:04 PM)
   good for you

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:04:14 PM)
   i'll have to meet her sometime

Santiago, Jan 1-19... says: (9:05:25 PM)
   i agree, i'm sure you'd think she was "my type"... though i don't think i can explain why...

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:05:52 PM)
   well, that gives me kind of an idea

Santiago, Jan 1-19... says: (9:07:08 PM)
   ha ha... good, good...

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:08:14 PM)
   yeah, i justs spent more money than i have on kayla

Santiago, Jan 1-19... says: (9:08:52 PM)
   how'd you manage that?

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:09:03 PM)
   rings cost a lot

Santiago, Jan 1-19... says: (9:09:09 PM)
   yowzas!

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:09:15 PM)
   more than a carpenter makes

Santiago, Jan 1-19... says: (9:09:34 PM)
   well, besides jesus... 

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:09:43 PM)
   right right

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:09:47 PM)
   of course

Santiago, Jan 1-19... says: (9:11:08 PM)
   so, is this like a very important ring ryan? are you telling me that my boyhood chum is hitchin' up his wagon to one of the gendered others and driving off into the marital sunset?

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:11:42 PM)
   yeah, i would say that you pretty well pinpointed it

Santiago, Jan 1-19... says: (9:12:02 PM)
   WOOT! that's some crazy shit man, but congrats for sure...!

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:12:14 PM)
   thanks

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:13:03 PM)
   now you need to just hurry up

Santiago, Jan 1-19... says: (9:13:31 PM)
   ha ha... umm yeah, fuck that... at least for several more years...

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:13:43 PM)
   i suppose

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:14:11 PM)
   kayla and i have been together for four years and she was pushing for it being it is her senior year

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:14:36 PM)
   so i gave in and now all the decisions can be made by her

Santiago, Jan 1-19... says: (9:15:01 PM)
   ha ha... atta boy... i'm really stoked for you man...

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:15:31 PM)
   well, thank, i appreciate it

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:15:47 PM)
   you'll have to let the other guys know, i can never seem to get ahold of em

Santiago, Jan 1-19... says: (9:16:14 PM)
   i can and will do that... of course... so, like, is there a date?

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:16:29 PM)
   no, not as of yet

Santiago, Jan 1-19... says: (9:16:38 PM)
   i guess more importantly, are we invited?

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:16:40 PM)
   maybe a year from now or so

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:16:51 PM)
   damn right you're envited

Santiago, Jan 1-19... says: (9:17:46 PM)
   alright, all i can say to that is drop me a line as soon as you know and i'll do my damnedest to be there...

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:18:04 PM)
   cool, thanks man

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:18:25 PM)
   it just wouldn't be right without the crew there

Santiago, Jan 1-19... says: (9:19:15 PM)
   fer sher... i mean joel & brent are essential to provide the baseline laughter at any event...

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:19:27 PM)
   that's right

Santiago, Jan 1-19... says: (9:19:41 PM)
   and eric is getting progressively wierder looking... so that's awesome...

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:19:48 PM)
   great

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:20:04 PM)
   wierdness is always good

Santiago, Jan 1-19... says: (9:20:26 PM)
   especially when it comes from that strange little fellow...

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:20:46 PM)
   yep, man i haven't seen any of you for way too long

Santiago, Jan 1-19... says: (9:21:16 PM)
   it's a sad state of affairs...

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:21:21 PM)
   that it is

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:22:10 PM)
   well bud, it is going to be one hell of a long day pouring crete tomorrow so i should probably head off

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:22:30 PM)
   keep in touch man, it's been to long

Santiago, Jan 1-19... says: (9:23:36 PM)
   indeed, i'll talk to you again soon, have a good night and congrats again!

keep track of your fingers while swinging a hammer!!! 515-460-2682 says: (9:24:35 PM)
   i will talk to you laters

brockhon, eat your heart out

1. Opening
a. heaven quote on black
b. us slumped in chair, watching movie
2. Most people hear “heaven” the loudest…I hear “no.” Later, when I thought back to it, I found those famous lines about Iowa odd. I’ll write about Iowa, but I don’t have to be kind. I don’t have to politely compliment the place like a dinner guest does a meal.
{open to book with picture of heaven; dimly lit dinner}
3. {pan from dinner to garage; stop on garage, showing Eric walking out door, splice in party shots, hoedown music} Walking out, the faces of the people in the garage blur as I move quickly past them, until they settle into the image of one representative face, like a composite sketch, which hovers in my mind as we are assaulted by the Iowa winter air. The face looks suspiciously like Dustin or Justin, but then again I suppose that is appropriate. They all look very much like him—at least to me. I can’t really tell the difference, or rather don’t want to put in the effort. {eric walking on road, shot from ladder, lights approach}
4. {eric gets in car, car leaves; narration over car pan, then walking shots}

***
fence climbing, jump below camera, tilt down, panting (gelatinous silence); wind turbine to field of turbines; school hill; synchronized waldorf lot parking, pick up peter; lund garage; pond; soda machines, hot sheet; long main street shot; store (movies America) with closed sign
***
The best time to experience Forest City, Iowa, is after midnight. Everything has stopped by that time, everything that was ever going in the first place. We used to go on endless walks, epic walks, across the entirety of the barren city. The silence was gelatinous, like a glacier of vaseline slowly sliding over the town, smothering all life and sound and awareness out of it. Except for us. We were impervious. We were aware.
We would walk down the middle of Main Street, the street that my house was on. We would own that street, because there were no cars and no other sentient beings about to challenge our authority {empty street shots, wind sounds}
If it was summer it would be humid. Not “slightly moist humid.” We’d walk side by side—the two or three or four or five of us— as wide as we wanted, presenting the appearance of a force to be reckoned with.
***
“being a father is aard vark. Don’t overvark yourself.”
***
We would head towards “town,” which meant the courthouse and the few blocks of small shops and businesses that surrounded it. we would weave and wind our way towards the epicenter, sweat forging a bond between our clothing and our flesh, But sometimes it was winter. The smell of Iowa winter was pure, unadulterated, natural cold. The cold prickled in your nostrils like menthol, blasting open your sinuses and reddening your nose. If it was winter there was snow—that was one thing you could count on that town to provide.
Everything there used to be something else. The shops go out of business eventually, leaving an empty storefront or another business that will mark time until it too runs out of customers and money. The movie rental place used to be the Dollar Store, which used to be a store for children’s clothing. The bookstore used to be something else, and at one point there was a bakery, but I’m not sure where that went. Who can keep track?
Later, after the house had been sold, we had to reverse our route. No longer having a central location to base our travels from, we had to park my car in a random lot in the middle of town and make our way back towards my former home. This was after having all gone away to college and learned new things, become new people. We would occasionally share a single cigarette between us. None of us really smoked, but it reminded us of college friends, it comforted us, it made us feel important. We found it supremely ironic and amusing to sit and talk on my front steps, the steps where we had played as toddlers, the steps that my family no longer owned, the steps that were now owned by sleeping strangers a few feet away, the steps where we were now doing our adult things. We let the smoke we exhaled mix with the memories that already hung thick and visible in the air. {CHC song, FC map graphic wes Anderson, separate activity shots}
That place was too small,{pause on frame of person exhaling smoke, rewind footage, increasing speed and snap back to the map shot} too Iowa. You had to leave. But you had to come back. { collapse back onto person exhaling smoke, continue action where left off} You had to come back—you only realized that after you left. You had to come back, if only to go on these late-night walks with this place and the people who hadn’t left it yet. {walking off curb under streetlight, camera follows}


5. Vignettes
a. Renn Fayre — {shoot something in Oregon}
b. If I had grown up… — {badly photoshopped pictures in the different locations} leave in Greeley sentence, unexplained4
c. Interview {off camera voice questions us, split shot facing the camera, answer one at a time; digital camera interview footage; windturbines?}
Laura: “What advice would you give me about whether to attend college in Iowa or on the West Coast?”
Eric: “You should stay in Iowa if you don’t like mountains or trees or the ocean or culture.”
Peter: “I miss the wind. You’ll probably miss the wind if you leave.”

The End
a. It doesn’t matter what the place is like. For instance, I may have no desire to return to Iowa to make my own home. Fireflies can’t obscure cornfields and stars can’t ease claustrophobia. But as soon as I discard it from my history, I sense that I will feel a faint ache in the cavernous place where it had resided. Should I banish my hometown from my brain and wipe its residue off of my skin, I will feel a chasm inside. Iowa is something to me that new places and people and experiences can only coat with a thin layer. It’s like trying to paint over thick black with watery white—a hint of the original color will always remain. {narration starts over last walking shot; then succession of photos, stills of the three of us, polaroids, camera video clips, fade to credits}