Hitchhikers and Coke-heads

I just finished Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Pretty cool stuff. There's no real plot. It just moves from one scene to the next. I like that. Very easy to read and enjoy. I want to keep reading the series and probably will. What I really dug about it was something that people are gonna think I'm making up. It felt like a laid-back, sci-fi, and positive version of less than zero.

For one, the font was the same

For two, the chapters were short

For three, the details were very surfacy (but still good) no lingering or over description

For four, the scenes were quick and to the point

For five, the plot was not there--just a story floating through "space" (haha)

OK. These are minor and there are a million things that say, "Josh you're crazy, there are so many thing NOT like Less than Zero." But I say, "F. U." I kept thinking about Less than Zero (minus the drugs, rape, and murder, and overall nihilism of that book).

But enough of that. I really enjoyed reading it and thinking about where the books could go. So, I look forward to the next book.

*

I'm in between books right now. I started Blind Assassin but quickly switched to Ishmael. Right now, I'm just in the mood for light reading. I think I'm burnt out on stuff I got to dig into and really think about. I just want things to read that I can enjoy and plow through. You know? I'm saving my Atwoods, Frazen's, Hurston's, Rushdie's and most my poetry for winter time, when there's more dark-time. I think.

*

Mad Men Season 4 just started. If you're not into Mad Men, go rent all three seasons watch them, then check out the new episode on On Demand and start watching. The show is brilliant and Don Draper is the man. My Dad made Old Fashions for the premiere. It was cool.

*

I want to see Tron (The second one).

*

Bye,

Joshua

Inception, Work, and Stuff

First of all, I just want to say, "I had a blast!" Cumi, Chelsea, Matt, Ian, me, and Ben went to see Inception. That film is amazing. I'm still thinking about it, though, it's pretty brilliant. Even it's exposition is fit so well into where it comes that you don't notice that the director is saying, "OK, audience, here's how the world works." Basically, it's the equivalent of reading a textbook, except the text book is so good you can't stop reading it, you can't even look away. Yeah, killer script. And "Mol" is fucking scary! Chelsea leaned over to me after this really tense scene and said, "I thought Ian said this wasn't scary." I said, "Apparently, Ian is a fucking liar." Ian, I do not think you are a liar, but fuck man, that scene was scary. Creepy, tense, and scary. Everything about this film was perfectly tuned. In fact, when it ended I didn't feel like I had been in there for 2.5 hours. Like when I saw Avatar and I kept thinking, "Fuck when is this over." Not with inception, not with anything Nolan has ever made (except Insomnia...no thank you).

*

I got a job. I work the front desk at a hotel in Redmond. It's weird. It was my third day today...so...I also have interviews at itt-tech and U of phoenix coming up--supplementary jobs...YAY!

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I've been writing. Mostly The Story Thief Book Two and We're Not Murderers (the present sections, when the daughter of the murdered family discovers that she is the missing child in articles from 21 years ago, and that her father's are actually the murderers, who kept her for 21 years and raised her as her own. Don't worry. You know this on page one.).

I also get back my editorial comments from Ooligan Press this Monday. I make revision and resubmit the manuscript. Hopefully they like my revisions and they can convince the executive board that my book is worth publishing.

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I'm gonna go for a run now. Or maybe in like 15 minutes. I'm reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I've tried to start four other books and put them down by page two--not cause they're bad, but because I don't feel like working--including, The Satanic Verses and Their Eyes Are Watching God. But I'll pick those up again. My dad is reading Robert Boswells The Heyday of Insensitive Bastards (the first collection of short stories to be picked by Oprah's book club--he also taught at NMSU till halfway through that year). Anyway, my Dad loves it. Check it out. From what I've heard it's his best book, though it's hard to believe he can top his book on writing.

*

OK. I'm gonna hang with Em before my run.

Love

Joshua

One Year in the bag!

So, today is our anniversary. Em and I are just hanging around the house today with Indie. We're gonna go to dinner tonight at a Vegetarian Restaurant called Carmelita. I looks really good. Em always gives me crap about my writing 'cause I write about drugs, and murders, and small towns, and magic (all of which I have no experience with...not really), and I can't seem to right anything decent about her--not even a song (except I have written songs about her...but not till we moved to Cruces and I really, really worked on them). It's hard to write about things I'm close to. The non-fiction book I'm writing about is mostly looking back...it's easier that way. I can look back on myself then and the situation and attack them with objectivity--to some extent. But with writing about Em...it's just hard to write without sounding fucking stupid or lame or done-to-death. But for the last year I've been working on a poem. I finished it this week, though, who knows, I'll probably revise it again. I made a mini-chapbook out of it and gave it to Em.

*

Here it is:

THE RED ELVISES AND A WEDDING ON THE HILL

our narrative snakes and spans—

there are scenes like landmarks along the way.

*

there’s the read elvises already half-way through their set

at the wild buffalo, and you’re already drunk. when you

escape the table to dance, i ask my friend your name, and

all he says is, “she’s taken, dude.” they introduce us, and two

weeks later you meet us at ihop for coffee and pancakes.

*

there’s the black-hole-of-an-apartment always reeking

of stale sweat and old cigarettes, where i get pretty good

at insulting you, and you get pretty good at dishing it back.

you’d come downstairs and join us on that black couch and

we’d pretend we didn’t want to shuck each other’s clothes off.

*

there’s the phone call, you angry, hurt, saying, “why are you so

mean to me?” and me apologizing, telling you i like you, that

i thought it funny—just a joke, that i didn’t mean anything.

*

there’s the horseshoe café two days later and my sweating palms,

and the three pall mall 100s i kill on the walk there. i know it

is friendly—just a cup of coffee and a truce—but i keep picturing

you naked, our bodies meshing, my lips and fingers learning you.

*

there’s the coffee shop where i tell you to leave him

and marry me, but you keep telling me to shut up.

and your face goes soft, then hard—

you are upset. i don’t think you believe me.

*

there’s the walks funneling through the brick of downtown, up

commercial, down cornwall, along holly and railroad, always

with good coffee, and me always answering your claims with,

“it really is.” this becomes a daily thing. i rise and clear my day for it.

*

there’s the corner of chestnut and cornwall. me in my second-hand army

jacket, you in your grey coat, hood down, when i tell you i want to be with you,

and will wait till its over. you just shake your head and say, “ok, josh.”

*

there’s the park bench at boulevard, the sun in our faces,

the waves making beats on the shore, the wind blowing

our hair around, where you tell me it’s over with him. i want

to smile, but you’re hurt, and i say, “i’m sorry, you ok?”

and you say, “it was headed that way for a while, anyway.”

we stand and keep circling the park, talking about other things.

*

there’s the late pickup from campus, where you

drive us in silence to bum-park, blocks from my

apartment, and you’re acting strange, not really

looking at me, just ahead, your body straightened

and focused. you cut straight across the park to

where the creek is and sit us on the bench. “i was

feeling really weird when i went home,” you say

and part of me thinks this is where you kick me

to the curb, but instead you say, “i think you should

kiss me.” and so i do. months later, when i move

into your place, i stand on the balcony and look

down at the bench by the creek.

*

there’s the night after my show, when we drank

till we wanted to be naked and you came home

with me and in the morning i woke and you had left

*

there’s the secret we kept till beers at the beaver

where it split wide open—transparently in love—

and our other friendships turned on us, became

the dark space between hate and decency.

*

there’s the down-sized wedding ending in a backyard

overlooking big lake with our close friends and family,

and our friends band playing songs about being young

and ignorant of responsibility. we were worried about rain,

but the sun reddened our skin and that night in our hotel we

drank champagne colored by skittles we dropped to the bottom.

*

and here’s one year in our belt, where we gathered

a dog, an oncoming baby, and a need for seattle.

so, now we’re back home in the northwest,

waiting for the tail of october to whip around,

and catching what we can of this pacific summer.

****

OK. In other news/things to look at. Check out Uncanny Valley. My friends Mike and Tracy from NMSU have started this journal. They're cool people and have a really interesting taste with writing. Check it out. Read about it. Submit.

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OK. I'm gonna eat some oatmeal.

laters.

Joshua

Boneshaker

No Hipsters. I'm not taking about the bike you wish you could ride around Bellingham with your yellow skinny jeans, green scarf, and purple Member's Only Jacket. No, I'm taking about Boneshaker the novel.

This little Steampunk novel won the PNWA book award. It takes place in an alternate history where Stonewall Jackson didn't die and the Civil War continues on with the South getting slowly demolished, yet they hang on. Technology has been pushed into dangerous and sometimes amazing directions. Anyway, whatever, you can get all that from the first chapter and reading about the book online. The setting is Seattle, where a wall has been put up around the core of the city. Inside there is a zombie-making gas called "the blight" but as the reader finds out there are non-zombie people living in there, many of them involved with a drug trade (turning the blight gas into a sort of heroin that eventually kills its user). It's cool to read about these old-times, altered, but still somehow accurate about certain things--parts of old-Seattle. Sure, there is a sense that the author Cherie Priest tries a little too hard with her prose (only in a few sections, when she feels the need to over-describe something with metaphor or the use of adjectives), and there are moments of dialogue-exposition that really don't belong (or may have seem needed while writing, but really over explains the science of the gas/world), there's a twist, followed by a decision that really lacks any organic feeling, and really reads like the author was trying to steer the ending into a certain direction (maybe she already had the last chapter written...you'll see what I mean if you read it).

BUT, that said, I couldn't put this book down. I read it fast. Two days, just a couple sittings. And the world is amazing, the story is great, the characters are pretty decent to really great. The twist and turns can seem a little deus ex machina (did I spell that right?), but I turned off my lit-prof brain and read the book as a reader. I was floored on it. In retrospect I look back and see the flaws, but I also see that Cherie Priest is a fine writer with a wonderful imagination, AND if she had written a Saga like Twilight many of us would be sing a different tune. Unfortunately, Twilight was written by a writer who doesn't know how to right real conflict, real emotional content and depth, or real dialogue. (Sorry for this seque-way, I had a very violent reaction the other day to the Saga and that writer. I read them all, but the more distance I put between that final page and me, the more I feel like the writer has no guts, no tact, and no clue how to write! She can entertain, but not even that well. She uses surfaces and familiarity to charge her work, and damn, that makes me mad).

OK. Back to Priest and Boneshaker. The world she created is called the Clockwork Century. Read about it. It's pretty cool stuff. Makes me want to write a Steampunk novel. Makes me want to create a world like that.

With all the things I mentioned, I still think you should pick up a copy of the book and read it. If you like it read the rest of her novels (there are a handful that take place during the Clockwork Century), then tell your friends. For one, she lives in Seattle, thus she is a NW writer. And two, this is a fun read that doesn't point to its craft, instead the focus is merely the story (And even those moments where I think she's trying to hard, I feel like that is my observations AFTER reading, not during), and it draws you in from page one till the end.

Peace out homies.

Joshuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Cinéma vérité

Warning: This is long winded, and maybe veer from my points a little (and focus on me a little), for that I apologize. It just felt so good to be writing about film again. Matt and Chelsea: I envy you and your friends at St. Andrews.

*

So, I had a frustrating conversation with my brother about film--one of many frustrating conversations about mumblecore. I think he's convinced that mumblecore is a lazy genre. What I keep trying to tell him is that mumblecore is a label placed on films of a certain style (lo-fi, no-budget, young kids) and that the filmmakers, like my brother, are just trying to make a film that means something to them. (I'll refer to mumblecore as such, only because it's easier. I hate that this label has been slapped on them, because it seems to suggest a one-note genre. These films are not one-note). These young film makers can't afford to make or rent dollies and lights. They can't afford the time to shoot, and get the performances they want, by using equipment. Some indie filmmakers don't have the time, but make the time to have the equipment--ie my brother and many of our film making friends. And that's great, but some makers don't believe that their films have the place for that, and I think that's wonderful. If every film looked like George Washington, I might get bored with David Gordan Green and his croonies. I also believe that the purpose of many of these "mumblecore" films is to blur the lines between what's documented and what's real (they borrow a lot of rules from Dogme 95s Vow of Chasity). My brother said to me, "Cinema is a visual medium, it should look good." I told him that "looking good" is subjective, and to some filmmakers, artificial and formal cinematography are polluting the purpose of film. Stylized lighting, choreographed stedi-cam shots, framing, all point to the production crew, point to the director, but not in a way that says, "This is cinema." The use of style highlights the authors penmanship--think auteur--and rather than saluting cinema or the act of creating, these choreographed films are highlighting the ego of the persona of the author . Jokingly, maybe that's why my brother loves his stylized shit. He's always saying, "They could light better, they could frame better, they could shoot better." I want to say, "Well, festivals and distributors think they do those things just fine."

He told me that mumblecore films are about the topic, not the film. I wanted to smack him in the face. He clearly doesn't know he's talking about. I love him to death, but he sounds ignorant (and a little stupid). First of all, cinema is not simply about everything looking cool...if that was the case Micheal Bay will be standing next to Truffaut in heaven watching new Hollywood actions films, and saying, "Look at that shot, look at Chanum Tatting shooting that gun. Marvelously brilliant. Oh, cinema you live on." NO. Truffaut is looking down on cinema going, "WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING!?" OK. Maybe not. Maybe he enjoys them, what do I know. But what I think is that cinema can offer many different things, and just because a film doesn't look like it's well-crafted (according to some) doesn't mean it's not well-thought out or beautiful. In fact, when talking to my brother, I'm appalled that he finds Hannah Takes the Stairs and LOL ugly. The camera in those films is an eye. The camera is well framed and moves fluidly, unnoticed. It doesn't point at things and say LOOK the way a tracking shot might, but it tells the viewer, "There's more outside the frame. We may get to it and we may not. Just watch. Don't worry. There's no director, just window into this world."

Don't get me wrong. There's nothing more pleasing than a wonderfully constructed shot (Think of The Player, Children of Men, Irreversible, Day for Night, every Godard film, Touch of Evil, every PT Anderson film, etc), but there's something to be said of Cinéma vérité, when the camera functions organically rather than orchestrated--not to say that shots of this nature can't be orchestrated, many are, even if loosely orchestrated...but I digress.

Ugly is sloppiness. Ugly means there is no care. But to say that a film like Hannah Takes the Stairs ugly is offensive to any cinephile. My brother made some comment about David Gordon Green's use of handheld. I wanted to point out his predecessors: Killer of Sheep and Medium Cool. I wanted to point out Squid and the Whale and Husbands and Wives. I want to point out every Cassavetes film. No one can tell that his films aren't beautiful, especially the rough hand-held parts that clearly have no plans--just a camera and actors. These films contain a looseness that correlates to the kind of organic energy that comes from the films of Joe Swanberg, Andrew Bujalski, the Duplass Brothers, and Aaron Katz. (The Duplass brothers seem a little more sloppy that the other films. But I like that. I like that their films fumble around, float, look like a couple of kids with a camera, and yet people still watch their films, people still distribute them. That's fucking hopeful.) But what I like most about these types of films is that they come from an honest place of cinema. They aren't lies. They are honest fictions. They are blurring the lines, they are simple, but challenging, they are kids making films about their lives. And they're beautiful--not in their own way, but hands down, good-looking films. And every film gets better looking, because these kids are getting better at it.

True film making is about compromising and not compromising at the same time. If a studio wants you to change things, but by yourself you have 10% of that studio budget...what do you do. Don't worry this isn't going to be a rant about selling-out, though the ghost of Cassavetes is tapping my shoulder like crazy, and screaming, "FUCK HOLLYWOOD, FUCK COMPROMISE!" But Cassavetes was crazy. If you don't know that, read Cassavetes on Cassavetes. The man was a loon! But he was brilliant. And he compromised. He put up his house as collateral. He put shoots on hold to go act for Hollywood. He put his marriage at risk. But he made his films regardless. So, what I'm trying to say is that if you have a choice between 10 hours of shooting with one hour set up and nine hours of scene-work vs. 10 hours of shooting with five for set up and five for shooting...what do you take? Well, first of all you plan the shit out of it, you rehearse and so on. But what about filmmakers that don't want rehearsals, that want that organic feel. Let's say that we're dealing with those kinds of film makers, then what would they choose. I guess, it depends. My feeling is that many young film makers with less-than-shoestring budgets would rather have time for performances than the style.

I do commend my brother (and myself, haha) and our film making friends who take the time to orchestrate and plan and set up. Because the films always look good. Yeah, I can say that. But looking back on our second film, Afraid to Merge, which we shot on film, and which we had three takes and a lot of set up, I wish that we would've just shot it organically. The film looks really good. The whole style was planned, every shot figured out, and it works--we never leave the POV of Preston (I'm using the POV loosely. We're actually hardly ever acting as him looking, but the camera is attached to him in every scene, in some way). But there were some scenes were we were so worried about our plans that we failed to capture the raw energy in the scene, and many of these came out wooden and lifeless, or more along the lines of bad mumblecore meets good Kevin Smith. The orchestrated shots that do work well are fucking great (if I can say that), but the ones that don't work feel contrived and canned. The use of film was supposed to give us a raw, post-Graduate feel (think 60s and 70s), but wasn't allowed because of our refusal to change and adapt. I think part of the planning was my brothers fear of not directing--he was acting and I was the director. He trusted me, as long as I followed the plan. But at times I didn't want to follow the plan...but he insisted, even to the point where he wouldn't take my direction, and wouldn't change lines in the script, even though they were feeling trite or forced. But I'm not here to bash on how difficult he was to direct. What I here to do is talk about the freedom a director gets when the plan can be scrapped, or if there is no real plan at all. I still believe scripts are sacred and should be learned and known before altered (like a writer learning the rules before he breaks them), but once that has happened, the characters belong to the actors, and the directors job is to allow them room to be those characters. If that means that the director has to get the fucking camera off the dolly and shoot the thing on a tripod, then that's what has to be done. Fuck plans once you're in the production. They're there to guide not to rule.

So, I'm bringing it back to beauty. I think that our old films are beautiful visually, but a lot of the slow pace (or I should say, the crawling pace) is part of the script, but without the energy these scenes are boring and lifeless at time. Without energy, OK acting becomes bad acting. I wish I had the balls to veers from the plans when I felt the energy drain. So, like I said, visually beautiful, but the beauty cannot be enjoyed if the film is not bring energy to the viewers. And while my brother claims that many "mumblecore" films lack beauty, they are charged with he kind of energy needed to propel a film that sifts through the often mudane life of twenty-somethingers that film these films. And what lacks in orchestration is made up in the camera's eyes, producing beautiful images of young people being young. If only my brother and I could've taken a page from the book of Swanberg, I think Afraid to Merge would've been something that would've drawn my family in, rather than have them checking their watches at minute 30.

OK. real quick. This is part promotion and part of my argument. Though, my brother and I agree about cinema half and half, I think my constant insistence about organic film making finally seeped into him--I also insisted this with all my film making friends. The film they just made last year...it's out for festival consideration and will have a premier this summer...was organic from day one. I started writing it during the pre-production of Afraid to Merge. That film was so well-planned and the script was constantly fine-tuned that I wanted to write something that was loose and messy. I wrote Do You See Colors When You Close Your Eyes? in three days. It was done. Over the next couple years, I barely revised, but added on scenes, never forced anything, hardly cut a scene, and changed the sex of one character. It was my baby. But I was not strict, nor did I discipline it. I set it on the road and in Bellingham. It could be made for cheap with young people, and it wouldn't be just a young film...I don't think. I did not direct it (though I get credit), though in meetings with crew and actors I only had a couple rules: 1) The characters belong to the actors ONLY. They make the call, they can change lines, they can make changes. 2) The director has say only over takes and where they shoot...(I'm not sure if these rules stuck, I wasn't on set) 3) This is a collaboration all the way. Every crew member...even assistants have a say! 4) Go easy on the pop songs and montages--Montages and songs co-existed but are only there to show the passing of time...NOT TO "FIX" a scene! (we did that a lot in earlier films and shorts). I don't want this to look like a music video at ANY TIME!

I've seen the film and it's pretty great. I think they stuck to my script and it feels like they stuck to my rules. Watching it, I know that things changed. But the crew and cast had no pre-production time to visit these place and plan the shoot. Most the times, they drove there, got out and shot. Many times, they would be driving and see a rest stop or field or park and Caleb (or one of the crew or cast) would say, "Stop that looks cool!" And it shows. The beauty is in the landscape more than the camera's movement (Though the camera does have it's moments...the film is littered with those moments...in a good way), but the beauty also comes in the fact that many of the scenes seem like they were capture on a whim, when the light was just right, or a setting looked to good to pass up.

So, in a sense, I want my brother to look at his own film making and ask himself if this beauty really came from a camera...or if it came organically. He'll probably tell you it came from him (and with some help from his crew), but I know it came from the freedom of not over planning, not over rehearsing, and just making the film. So, my brother, go back and watch these films you claim aren't that well-shot and see how beautiful the framing is, and how beautiful the film comes together...wholly, not in pieces and cool shots, but wholly.

*

Here's a trailer to watch of Colors:

Do You See Colors When You Close Your Eyes? from caleb young on Vimeo.

A Single Man and Writing

Watch this film. It's really great. There's some really interesting use of the frame and some great editing (except for the scene where Juliane Moore and Colin Firth have dinner...the editing in that scene is absolutely awful. It's trying to do the Hollywood thing, but fails miserably. It looks like a film student cut it. OK. Film nerds, remember Suture? This is so NOT that. It constantly reminds the viewer--not that they're watching a film, which I wouldn't've minded--that these shots are coverage. The director should've just stayed on the wide two-shot. One of the most well-lit, beautifully framed shots in the whole film.,.when you see it, you'll know what I'm taking about). There's a moment early in the film, where Firth's character, Geo, learns about the death of his longtime boyfriend (that scene is sad on so many levels) and he runs through the rain to his friend, Moore's character. The only sound is the rain pouring, and though they're speaking, crying, screaming, the viewer can't hear a thing. Just the rain. Aww. It's such a great scene. The filmmaker also does this really interesting thing with POV. He'll show Geo looking closely at someone, then cut to weirdly focused shots...and when Geo stares off into space, he'll cut into flashbacks. Really great. But that's enough of that. Go rent it. Warning: It's fucking sad, but its ironic ending is beautifully touching and actually surprising perfect for the film. The filmmaker made tough choices that a lesser writer/filmmaker may have not seen. You'll know what I mean.

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I've been writing a lot of poems lately, which is nice because I've been working on The Story Thief for a while now. It's also good, because I'm getting some editorial comments for one of my manuscripts in two weeks or so. Then I have to revise.

*

I know I got a million freaking projects, but I've been thinking a lot about this story I wrote years ago (actually the catalyst for Bumping), and my friend Chris Swanson, me, and Caleb worked on a screenplay for it for a long time. We put it away to focus on other things, but I've been thinking about it, and thinking about how it could become a short novel about three days in east LA. We'll see. I wrote a page. I like it, but we'll see. I also revisited a story I wrote for my workshop this spring (based on a play/screenplay I wrote at Western) called "We're Not Murderers." It's too short to be a novella and too long to be a short story (plus I have pages upon pages of transcript-like dialogue and long silent stretches where people are trying to free themselves from being tied up and gagged), but I came up with an idea about a young woman recalling her father's past through a discovery she makes in his thirties about how the man she called her father is, and who her real parents are (and what happened to them--it's fucked up). I don't think I'll really work on that for a while, but I wrote two pages today and was pretty stoked. I might just tinker around with an outline, and voice, and let it stew for a bit. But again, we'll see. We'll see.

*

Mad Men Season 4 starts soon. Inception comes out soon. Shit is getting real.

Love,

Joshua

Baseball and Iranian Cinema

Since moving back to town, there are a few things I've been thinking about.

Last night, after seeing this picture:

I explained the film Close Up by Abbas Kiarostami, which focuses on an incident concerning Mohsen Makhmalbaf (gentleman on the right). So now its on my dad and Dairne's queue, which is great 'cause I'll get to watch it again. Then they asked me about the ending of Taste of Cherry. Which I tried to explain (first of all, I wrote a paper about Kiarostami for Kaveh's Iranian Cinema class and I sent it to my dad to read...he didn't get what I was talking about...so I explained Kiarostami's desperate need to insert himself into his art. He's constantly putting his presence into the film--think about The Taste of Cherry. In every single shot (expect to epilogue) he is on the other side of the camera, feeding the actor lines. He is the great manipulator--Godard did this too, that French bastard--and his films are great because of his presence. The viewer is sucked into the world of the film, but they are also constantly aware that they are viewing artifce--this is a film. Anyway, I thought about my paper, and I think I might revise it and send it out again. I looked at in in Cruces and thought it was one of my best papers. I'm doing that with my Almodovar paper too. Good times.

*

OK baseball. I couldn't find a cooler picture to throw up--my perfect picture would be a short shop diving for a ground ball in the hole between third and second. But this'll do, even though I wasn't a big fan of hitting, and though I was OK at it, I wasn't that great.

Being back in town, talking about old times, is bringing back memories of baseball, and reminding me that if I would've stuck it out in high school, I probably still wouldn't've even played college ball. Pretty awesome. I didn't grow till after high school and our sophomore year, when the JV coach though Caleb and I would be the middle infield, he was pretty appalled to see that we were barely pushing 5'4. We were small, but polished. But enough of that, I don't to write about how we could've made it if given the chance. We could've played and played well, but we were too small to really go anywhere. The games I did play on JV before I quit, were frustrating, as I wasn't the player the coach wanted me to be, and honestly, my heart wasn't in it. I wanted to wrestle and stay in shape--sure I wanted to play ball, but I wanted to have fun, and by the half-way point, I was tired of the bullshit. So, I just stopped playing.

I miss it. I miss taking infield and batting practice. I miss the games. I miss that feeling of diving for a ground ball and getting up to throw the batter out. I miss slamming a double into the right center gap. I miss throwing a dime across the infield. I miss turning a double play. It doesn't help that I'm (Still) reading the Brothers K and that book is focused on baseball.

Sometimes, I have dreams about playing ball. But I always forget my cup and that terrifies me. I forgot my cup once at a game and borrowed one of the guys on the benches cup. It barely stayed put, but it got the job done. I took a grounder off a rock, into my junk. I was lucky I borrowed that cup.

Though, I knew I was a dime a dozen, though I knew I wasn't good enough, I tricked myself to believe that if i just kept pushing myself and getting more polished, and finessing the shit out of the game I could make it...at least up to the minors. That was way off, and though, our mentor was a scout, a college coach, and a degenerate gambler, he didn't have the heart to tell us this. He liked the way we played and believed, and though he was mean to everyone else about their chances, he seemed to believe that we could make it--maybe he thought we were gonna be that dime that the dozen gets to see make it. The twin middle-infield that people talked about. Hell, I doubt he realized that our growing wouldn't happen till after graduation.

I need to track down my glove--I let someone borrow it before I left and now I can't remember how--and play some catch. Dave would you like to play catch soon? I would. And maybe when I get back to my graduate studies, if the fellow MFAers are starting a softball league, I may join. maybe not, but maybe I'll grab my glove and play some catch.

Later dudes and dude-girls

Joshua

Yeah, it's hot

But I'm not complaining. Apparently, in New Mexico it's burning holes in the earth. I don't even want to think about how hot our apartment would've been mid-day during the summer. We moved there in July-ish and it was unbearable. In fact, till October I was dripping sweat on my walks to work. So, yeah, it's hot here, but I'm not complaining. I can handle this. I love that when I run it's hot, but not deadly.

*

My dad and Dairne have a robotic vacuum that we let loose once a day. It just moves around and acts as though it doesn't know where it should clean...it's constantly turning around, probably thinking I don't know, did I already clean here? I thought I did. It still looks dirty. Oooh, what about way over there? That looks dusty. Here I go. I imaging that this little robot is capable of thinking like this. It's cute, actually. I'm gonna try to hook her up with some of my friends. I got one in mind who might really like her.

*

OK. I'm taking forever to read THE BROTHERS K. But it's so good. I'm just tinkering with other things (writing and revising), submitting, and watching TV. I know I should be reading more, but I HAD to finish MAD MEN season 3. Season 4 starts in like two weeks. Speaking of things coming up. Em and Me have an anniversary coming up. Woo-hoo! A year!

*

Question: What TV Series should we get into? Trueblood? Hung? Mad Love? Breaking Bad? Any Suggestions. I know that I need to catch up on Fringe. That's my bad. I got halfway through season two and just stopped. Maybe I'll start catching up. We'll see.

*

I have a stack of books next to our bed of books I will read this summer. I have to read them all, because I have to. And that's that. There are so many books in this house that I haven't read and I think I picked the cream of the crop. Plus. I've got a lot of books I need to read so finish some of my projects: From Old Notebooks, Drop City, Desert Gothic, A Carnage in the Love Trees, Six Characters in Search of an Author, The Pearl of Kuwait, Corpus Christi, and more.

*

Alright, I'm gonna go buy some underwear and food.

Joshua

Music and shit.

Dave Woods just reminded me of this band: RACETRACK. A true Bellingham band. I had seen them so many times before they broke up, Autumn Poetry had played with them a lot (our second show in B'ham was with them), and I have tow of their records. I recommend both of them. Some of my friends weren't fans--I have snobby friends. But I loved their stuff. I went to see them play, not because they were my friends, but because I loved to watch them play. There have been a handful of bands who I loved because they were my friends (Shoes for Imelda--sorry Dave, Atari Champ, Spencer--sorry boys, and Last Great Liar), then there are my friends band whom I can't get enough of, though I have my criticisms, I will always listen them because they are good. Though, if I hated them, I'd still support them, but if they weren't good, you wouldn't find them on my iPod. Bands who are my friends how I love because they are good: Racetrack, Rooftops, In Praise of Folly, Keaton Collective (Los, Wash, Bill), Bryn Lumsden. There are more, but theses are the bands I still listen too. Sorry, Mon Frere you didn't make it. Why? Oh, I love your songs, but your singer is a douche who gets credit from a scene who loves her simply because she's a douche who is part of the scene. Hey you! Fuck off! I used to have people listen to Mon Frere and I'd point out the part in the record where I was doing the hand-claps with the band. "Hear those hand-claps," I'd say. "That's me."

*

Back to Racetrack, but only for a second. When I was hanging with Dave on the 4th, I played him a song or two from the new Phoenix record and he played me a song or two from the Lemuria record. He said, "You'll dig this. It reminds me of Racetrack."

I agree, but I also hear That Dog. If you have not heard That Dog, please, Please, PLEASE, listen to their record: RETREAT FROM THE SUN. It's dripping with nostalgia and I listen the shit out of that record in my early twenties. I went back to it last year, while working at that soap company. I found that I still loved it. Though, during that time, a lot of the records I had pulled out of my collection, dusted off, and attempted to love again I found unlovable. I appreciated those records for they meant to me at the time, but now... Examples? The Blood Brothers (entire catalog), Thursday (entire catalog), Dashboard Confessional(Their big record is still OK, but the lyrics are atrocious, the others are unlistenable), Talking Back Sunday (Yeah...uh, were they ever listenable?).

*

Anyway. here's the list: Check out Racetrack, Lemuria, and That Dog. If you don't I will be disappointed in you. Seriously.

*

OK. I'm gonna watch Top Chef.

*

Love,

Joshua

Weekend of the 4th

Well, well, well.

Yesterday was the 4th. Em, Me, and Dave Woods sat around with Indie and watched BLACK DYNAMITE and FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS. The night before Em and I drove up to Mount Vernon for a 3rd of July bash. I had a beer or two, ate some food, and watched some fireworks. Indie was fine till the people at the party started lighting off their own--they were loud. Indie got a little freaked. Instead of crashing there, we drove back home. The 3rd bash was at the same place we were married. It's always cool to go back and there. It's beautiful there. The party, however, felt like a high school party. Most of the kid were 20s and there were a few adults. Emily's cousins are 19 and 16, and their Dad, Doug, let all their friends come over. There was some major beer pong going on. Sidenote: I have never played beer pong. So, that was weird, but not in a bad way.

*

We're on season three of MAD MEN. We're probably gonna watch another episode or so tonight. I'm reading the Brother's K really slowly and not because it's hard, but because I've been writing a lot. Poems mostly, though I wrote a couple scenes for THE STORY THIEF BOOK TWO.

*

I have a job interview for a bank this Wednesday. I have to go borrow some clothes from my little brother (who had a real job with working clothes). I think I'm going to wear a tie. Whattcha think. Yeah, it's not an ideal job--it's not teaching or writing--but it's something to bring in some money.

*

Anyway, it had been a couple days and I hadn't posted anything, so here's a little bit. I'll do something less self-focused for the next few posts...maybe some more pictures and whatnot.

We'll see.

Later,

Joshua

What I am doing...

I am applying for jobs

and reading:

and listening to:

and doing this a lot more than I used to (which isn't that much, but still...):

I've also been doing a lot of this:

and this:

OK. back to applying for jobs.

Love,

Joshua