one of the favorites.
09/10/2004 02:54 a.m.
if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.

if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in
you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

:: Bukowski
I am currently Bored
I am listening to shins / one by one all day

Comments (1)

at the show
08/22/2004 04:54 a.m.
so, tonight i went to the dinkytowner to go see the velvet teen, statistics, rescue, and one other band that i didnt stay for. rescue was allright. Statistics blew me away, i thought they rocked. The guy from the band is also a guy from desapreciados (a band that also has conor oberst from bright eyes)- so that was pretty cool. i really liked em alot, i actually bought their cd. The velvet teen was also pretty good... they played stuff mostly from their new album, but they played a few old ones, including 'counting backwards' (the only song from any of the bands that i had ever heard)... so, yeah. groovy. i also got their 'great beast february/comasynthesis' ep's, which are pretty good. so yeah. all in all, a very good concert. just thought i'd share. :)
peace:a
I am currently Good
I am listening to statistics- A Number, Not a Name

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A little thing i whipped up (political content)
08/16/2004 09:02 p.m.
so, after spending an evening trying to avoid seeing AVP, this idea hit me on the forehead. it's posted in the political forums, but i'll post it here as well.


woot.

peace:a
I am currently Bleh
I am listening to ani- as is

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dead flag blues
08/10/2004 09:57 p.m.
so, i finally bit the bullet and took it upon myself to download some godspeed you black emperor. i tend to like this genre of music, but i was always reluctant to gget into godspeed, because
a). i would be very pissed if i tool the time to download a 35 MB file and i didnt like it; and
b.) i had downloaded 'east hastings' because it was in 28 days later, and really wasnt impressed with it much.
but, seeing as 4 of the top 15 slots on my amazon reccomendations list were godspeed, i figured i'd try. and truthfully, i'm digging it. and i like east hastings alot more now that i have it in context. so, yeah groovy. allright.

in other news, i've gotten 1 comment in the last week. and i havent written anything good in a long time. so, yeah. who-de-hoo.
we got the political forum back; i'm just waiting for black friday II. people seem to be fairly respectful so far; everyone seems to be on eggshells. hmm.
my band changed it's name from 'experience' to 'the powers of observation'. i think i mentioned shadowbox project before, i think. anyways. it's been a rough week, personally. i guess it's been worked through, i dont know. i'm waiting for anne to call me so we can talk. yeah. she's been in belize for a week. so yeah, i guess that's it. oh, my franz ferdinand tickets came. whoo-eee.
yep.
peace:a


godspeed you black emperor- the dead flag blues

the car's on fire, and there's no driver at the wheel-
and the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides;
and a dark wind blows.
the government is corrupt,
and we're on so many drugs
with the radio on and the curtains drawn.

we're trapped in the belly of this horrible machine,
and the machine is bleeding to death

the sun has fallen down,
and the billboards are all leering,
and the flags are all dead at the top of their poles.

it went like this:

the buildings tumbled in on themselves.
mothers, clutching babies, picked through the rubble
and pulled out their hair.

the skyline was beautiful on fire,
all twisted metal stretching upwards;
everything washed in a thin orange haze.

i said: "kiss me, you're beautiful-
these are truly the last days"

you grabbed my hand, and we fell into it-
like a daydream, or a fever

we woke up one morning
and fell a little further down-
for sure it's the valley of death.

i open up my wallet,
and it's full of blood.
I am currently Detached
I am listening to godspeed you black emperor- east hastings

Comments (1)

aw darn
08/04/2004 04:59 a.m.
according to my good friends at http://www.punk-n-junk.com/ , thursday are breaking up. darn. i love thrusday.

:(

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written at 2:46 am while falling asleep to the mars volta
07/30/2004 06:48 a.m.
last night i was extremely tired, extremely. and, for one reason or another, i startled awake in the middle of the night, and feltt compelled to start writing. and, this, for better or worse, is what i came up with. i'll try to sift through and reconstruct it later, but for now, this is it. explicit content follows.

a blue light from the toxic smoke surrounds a boy startled from his sleep with the lamentations of war. The moment of open eye r.e.m. cycle is uncomforting as the cadaver casts his final shadow. he walks as a man glows; a caffiene buzz of a lightbulb fillament remembers the disaster as yesterday, when he can only stare in disbelief as his fish flops of the floor, slowly drying out. what am i? not a savior, but not myself, either. where are you, elephant man? watching the two dogs engaged in intercourse? it is all to shocking and unreal to accept- but undeniable as a moth at the flame.

i have no idea what the hell was going on in my head.

and no, i was not on drugs at that moment. so, yeah. can anyone interperet this?
I am currently Clueless
I am listening to modest mouse- grey ice water

Comments (1)

andrew goes to white castle.
07/29/2004 07:10 p.m.
so, i've been reading reviews (actually, stupid message board posts on imdb) about 'harold and kumar go to white castle', and i've decided i really want some white castles... lol. the end,

peace:a
I am listening to brother ali- blah blah blah (feat. slug)

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shadowbox project
07/29/2004 04:50 a.m.
so, after being frustrated that our band was doing absolutely nothing at the moment, me and brian (bassist) decided to start something called the 'shadowbox project', which is basically a freelance jazz type of thing. really simple beatnik-ish type stuff. he plays bass, i read poetry over what he plays. it's pretty cool. right now our site sucks, but i've been workin on it for a few hours.

http://www.hotspringsrecords.com/sbp

so yeah. all that's up are the main page and the music box, which features three atrociously mixed mp3's. check it out.

i be out, suckas.

peace:a
I am currently Bored
I am listening to ted leo + the pharmacists- stove by a whale

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hi.
07/10/2004 07:05 a.m.
it's been a while. holy shit, it has. anyways. i was spotlight last month, and i think i dissapeared. i'm not even sure i left any comments or ratings. i'm a terrible citizen here; my incoming comments are 5x my outgoing; and i'm just so lazy about it. i try to be in depth when i do comment, and that sometimes makes it hard for me to do it alot, just cos it's alot of work to actually critique a poem. and i feel like i'm being so cheap when i just say something inane like 'nice' or 'good imagery' or whatever. so yeah, sorry about that.
i guess i've launched the biggest thread ever in the forums. it's been there for almost a month now, and 325+ replies and 2000+ hits.

i was going to go to modest mouse (they were about the only enticing thing this summer, coming on short notice due to lollapalooza's cancellation)- but i was too slow. i was actually too fast, thinking that the tickets went on sale earlier than they actually did. by the time i figured out my mistake (several hours later), they were sold out. that would have been a good show- modest mouse, broken social scene and the walkmen. yeah. the minneapolis music scene hasnt had anything coming through for quite some time. i think the polyphonic spree are coming sometime soon. if it's not to expensive, i might go, just because i hear their live shows are really weird.

i hit 30,000 reads about a week ago, so yay me. granted, about 8000 of those are from when POTD counted every hit on the homepage as a read... but still. anyways.
so, yeah. iunno what else there is to say. um, albums i'm reccomending, currently:

explosions in the sky- the earth is not a cold, dead place
metric- old world underground, where are you now?
bela fleck and the flecktones- little worlds
belle and sebastian- dear catastrophe waitress
modest mouse- good news for people who love bad news
the shins- oh, inverted world/ chutes too narrow
sigur ros- agaetis byrjun (i prefer it to "( )" )
snow patrol- final straw

check em out.

peace:a
I am currently Bleh
I am listening to modestmouse- tundra/desert

Comments (1)

my computer, i love ye...
06/19/2004 06:30 a.m.
so, yeah. sad then happy news.
my grandma (who is currently housing us) took a fall today off our front steps and fractured her hip. so, she's in the hospital, and i'm worried as hell, et cetera. she's the coolest lady anyone is ever bound to meet.
besides that, my girlfriend has some shit going on that sucks for her, too. so, i feel bad abouts that.

but, gotta keep positive. with that, i bring you news that i have two new songs up on the website. they were created on my computer (garageband and easy beat are two insanely helpful tools to have)- but they sound pretty good. go check em out.

http://www.hotspringsrecords.com/experience/
click enter, click media on the bottom of the newspage.
personally, i like 'wander' better than 'isolate', but you be the judge.

in the poetry department, my writing is just becoming terrible. like, horribly bad. it doesnt make sense. it's alot of non-sequetirs (sp?). it''s a bunch of rubbish, and if i've fooled you into thinking i'm just being postmodern or abstract or whatever... well, it isnt really over your head, trust me. i dont get it either.
heh.

allright, gonna go.
peace:a
I am currently Detached
I am listening to atmosphere- my songs

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