dead rats and dead people!

hey, i'm reading a new book, it's called "The Plague"...by Albert Camus. I've read one of his books before and this book was given to me by a friend from Texas. Anyway, has any one of you read this book? If you have, give me your opinion on it, but don't spoil it either chumps.

Job

is this a prayer? or blasphemy. it's a Morrissey song, the song is great. listen to it, it's called "I Have Forgiven Jesus"

I was a good kid
I wouldn't do you no harm
I was a nice kid
with a nice paper-round
Forgive me any pain
I may have brung to you
with God's help I know
I'll always be near to you
but Jesus hurt me
when he deserted me / but
I have forgiven Jesus
for all the desire
He placed in me when there's nothing I can do
with this desire

I was a good kid
through hail and snow I'd go
just to moon you
I carried my heart in my hand
do you understand?
do you understand?
Jesus hurt me
when he deserted me, but
I have forgiven Jesus
for all of the love
He placed in me

When there's no-one I can turn to with this love
Monday - humiliation
Tuesday - suffocation
Wednesday - condescension
Thursday - is just pathetic
by Friday - life has killed me
by Friday - life has killed me

Why did you give me
so much desire?
when there is nowhere I can go
to offload this desire
Why did you give me
so much love
in a loveless world
when there is no one I can turn to
to unlock all this love
Why did you stick me in
self-deprecating bones and skin
Jesus - do you hate me?
Why did you stick me in
self-deprecating bones and skin
do you hate me? do you hate me?
do you hate me? do you hate me?

love schlove

is love obvious, or is it discovered? is it black and white, or do the colors emerge through time? is love hard to find and easy to sustain, or does it hit you like a brick and you have to fight to keep it vital? is love fantasy or reality? does it transcend state lines or die on the road north? all of this sh*t is trite. goodnight all.

Swimming thoughts.

I've been reading some Kierkegaard for the past couple of days and I'm lost in it. When I read these passages I feel like I almost understand what he is saying, and at the same time, I feel I'm missing it. Also, sometimes after I read it, I'm not sure if he saying something brilliant, or just relatively bland statements regarding Christianity wrapped up in confusing and intelligent diction and wording. So I've been reading it over and over again, and I'll let you in on some of the excerpts that either represent the most to me, or confuse me the most, or do both. I'd love to hear your thoughts. The section of the book is called "Christ the Offense."

--There is nothing new in Christianity in such a sense that it has not been in the world before. If such were the case, Christianity would be plainly recognizable aesthetically: novelty by novelty--and again everything would be confused.

--for in relation to the eternal a novelty is indeed a paradox. Lumped at random with other novelties, or annulled by the affirmation that among all novelties it is the most remarkable, it is aesthetic.

--Nature is, indeed, the work of God, but only the handiwork is directly present, not God. Is not this to behave, in His relationship to the individual, like an elusive author who nowhere sets down his result in large type, or gives it to the reader beforehand in a preface? And why is God elusive? Precisely because He is the truth, and by being elusive desired to keep men from error.

--Such a man might perhaps even know the system by rote; he might be an inhabitant of a Christian country, and bow his head whenever the name of God was mentioned; he would perhaps also see God in nature when in company of others who saw God; he would be a pleasant society man--and yet he would have been deceived by the direct nature of his relationship to the truth, to the ethical, and to God.

--In relation to the absolute there is only one tense: the present. For him who is not contemporary with the absolute--for him it has no existance. And as Christ is the absolute, it is easy to see that with respect to Him there is only one situation: that of contemporaneousness. The five, the seven, the fifteen, the eighteen hundred years are neither here nor there; they do not change Him, neither do they in any wise reveal who He was, for who He is is revealed only to faith.

--There is a difference between truth and truths, and this difference is made especially evident by the definition of truth as being, or it is evident from the fact that a distinction is drawn between the "way" and the final decision, what is attained at the end, the "result."

--the fact that at a given time there have lived thirty generations which have followed the way alters nothing in the situation of the next generation or every individual in it who much always begin over and over again at the same point at the beginning of the way in order to follow it. So there is no occasion or opportunity for triumphing; for only he who was followed the way to the end could triumph, but he is no longer in this world, he has gone up on high, as Christ also was the way when He ascended up to heaven"

So there you have it. The one thing I do recognize hints at in a couple of these posts is what I was taught when I was in school, about Kierkegaards idea of "the eternal paradox", if I remember correctly. It was the idea that God is a paradox because he is eternal and at the same time he is thought of in a contemporary manner, and his life on earth is thought of in temporal ways. So these passages are thought provoking, and to me. Confusing as shite. I love Kierkegaard exactley for this stuff here.

help me out

Hey everyone, I recently finished "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" which I highly recommend. Now, what book should I read next?
Either "All Families are Psychotic" by Douglas Coupland (I read "Hey Nostrodamus" and it was great)--or-- "The Plague" by Albert Camus (I read "The Stranger" by Camus and it was a strange book, depressing in an odd way)

Tonight I went to a local show in Norfolk with a friend of mine. The bands were OK I guess, I didn't pay much attention. I sat at the bar and drank two beers while watching tennis on the Bar TV and talking music with my friend. Much of concerned Pearl Jam and what an amazing record "Yield" is, and also we smiled like geeks over the fact that Wilco's next album is going to be released on May 15th--my birthday! Score.

Oh, and another question...Should bands be called out for preaching a cause which they contradict merely be being a band. What happens when a band with a cause and a desire to get their message out to as many people as possible, run into situations which might compromise their cause a little, but at the same time, they will be able to get thier message out to that many more people by using avenues provided by corporations that may go against and practice what they are lashing out against. I saw Rise Against on MTV today, a band who is very politically motivated, and I started thinking about it. Some people might critisize Rise Against, but I think that would be unfair to a degree. Thoughts? I'm reminded of a song quote: "And yes I recognize the irony, the system I oppose affords me the luxury o biting the hand that feeds, and that is exactley why privaledged f*cks like me, should feel obliged to whine and kick and scream till everyone's got everything they need." That is from a band called Propagandhi..I used to love them and they have done an amazing job sticking to their idealogical guns. Bands who are identified by a socio-political cause, lashing out against mindless consumerism, trampsing around on MTV catering to a demographic who mindlessly consumes. I suppose it always becomes and issue, there are always compromises involved when exposing oneself to a larger audience, if you wish to stay in the limelight of that larger audience. Bands who speak against that ever so Machiavellian way of adhering to the financial "bottom line" as merely every major record label does. Hmm...politics is dangerous. (I don't use spell check, who cares)

hmmm.

nothing much to say tonight, i'm kind of bored. i love this band and this song

"Playing things safe is the most popular way to fail"

I got this letter from a close friend of mine right before I quit school to pursue music. I forgot about the letter, I was going through some of my old notebooks from college and I came across it.

"personally, i do not enjoy this decision. but i think that it is because school has always been drilled into me as the most important thing to do. before marriage, before anything. I know that the majority of people who leave school or "take a semester off" never go back, thats just how it works. and a college degree i everything in the job market now. so what if you don't make it? what if you tour around for 2 years making mediocre amounts of money, not enough to save up or get anywhere with. then when one of the guys decides to settle down and get married..your left with nothing. not much money, no college degree, and all your friends will be graduating college and starting thier lives and you'll be stuck. you'll be 23 or 24 when most of your friends will have started their leves and your way behind them because of a childhood dream."

Haha, well, first off, this isn't all of the letter, it goes on to say more and it is a lovely letter from a friend who I was very close with in college and she meant well, she was merely looking out for me..and in a way she was right. When i left school for music, I was in another band and that band did indeed tour for about 2 years and then I quit to go back to school, but then I joined MAE before I ever went back. BUT, if i hadn't left school when I did, I would not be where I am now. This letter made me laugh just now, it pretty much sums up what everyone was saying, except my brother. My brother was always supportive of my decisions and I can't thank him enough for that. I love him to death.
It's funny, quitting school was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Both of my parents worked in public education and the one promise they made me make to them was that I'd finish school. School is the one thing they wanted me to do...but lets face it, timing is everything. So I remember the day I told them, I was in my kitchen and my mom was totally pissed off. My dad took it better than I thought, but it was this very bad vibe. I was touring for about 4 years before I started making money, it was hard. Every cliche story you've heard about sleeping on floors, breaking down, not getting paid, 5 kids showing up, snow storms, value meals, blah blah..all of it is true. I could not of stuck to it if I did not want this more than anything, and I got very lucky. But hey, as I write this blog, I am on MY bed in MY house (that I own) on MY computer listening to MY records with MY car parked in the drive way. I would be lying if I said this wasn't somewhat satisfying. Don't mistake my vindication for cockiness, I have by no means "made it" or any crap like that, and I am still a vulnerable kid. Although, this letter just made me think about the last 10 years of my life and where I would have been if I had listened to others and went the "secure" route. I was watching an interview with Elliott Smith one day and he said this, and it's very very true: "Playing things safe is the most popular way to fail."
I love you dave, mark, jacob, rob and benj--thank you.

More Kundera

Hey everyone, I've been reading a Milan Kundera book of late called, "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting." I was introduced to him by a wise friend of mine whom with I share a desire of lunatic skygazing and whimsical story telling. I remember the first contact I had with her was simply a picture I saw of her and I quickly asked a friend who she was and she turned out to be smart and engaging like a well written book which catches your attention with a cheap catch right from the start, and the following chapters only get better. Anyway, speaking of Kundera, I strongly recommend "The Unberable Lightness of Being." Anyway, when I read, I often wonder why certain things stick out to me. I wonder why, even if I don't agree with what is being said (many times I don't), I find certain paragraphs engaging. I'll sit there and re read them over and over again trying to identify what connection I had made with it, and many times I can't. So anyway, here is another excpert that stuck out to me.

"Laughter, on the other hand, " Petrarch went on, "is an explosion that tears us away from the world and throws us back into our own cold solitude. Joking is a barrier between man and the world. Joking is the enemy of love and poetry. That's why I tell you yet again, and you want to keep in mind: Boccaccio doesn't understand love. Love can never be laughable. Love has nothing in common with laughter."

Right now, as I wake up way to early and go to bed way to late, love is definately not laughable. It's something that evokes the most pathetic of actions and self evaluations. Engages hysteria, irrational and impressive scenarios created by one's ownself to manifest some short coming, some problem. Love requitted is unexplainably euphoric; love unrequitted is an enemy of rational thought, provoking some fantastical breakdown which always seems outlandishly embarrassing in hindsight.

graphomania

"Someone who writes books is either everything (a unique universe in himself and to all others) or nothing. And because it will never be given to anyone to be everything, all of us who write books are nothing. We are unrecongized, jealous, embittered, and we wish the others dead. In that we are all equals: Banaka, Bibi, I, and Goethe.

The irrisistible profliferation of graphomania among politcians, taxi drivers, childbearers, lovers, murderers, thieves, prositutes, officials, doctors, and patients shows me that everyone without exception bears a potential writer within him, so that the entire human species has good reason to go down into the streets and shout: "We are all writers!"

For everyone is pained by the thought of disappearing, unheard, and unseen, into an indifferent universe, and because of that everyohne wants, whild there is still time, to turn himself into a universe of words.

One morning (and it will be soon), when everyone wakes up as a writer, the age of universal deafness and incomprehension will have arrived"

Milan Kundera-The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

you know you're right.

grains of salt.

This is just a short post to comment on some stuff I've been reading about Mae lately. We have a fan, and while we appreciate all of our fans very much, he does post information that is not entirely true, sometimes it is completely untrue. The only reason I am posting this now is because I was looking at some posts from Absolutepunk that were linked from our messageboard, and I was suprised to see a post that gave a preview of "lyrics" from the next record. I can tell you that the words posted are not lyrics on the next record. So, I just wanted use this example to let those of you who read this know that what you read on messageboards as "fact", is rarely fact at all. Thanks. Also, speaking of the record...it is not done yet, we are stil working on it.

"what books have you been reading, cause I'm worried about you"

"Your church is lonesome, bland and discreet. Tucked away in corners of some unforgiving southern heat wave, or maybe in the mountains of history books, way up high where it's hard to breathe. Closest to You, far away from a affluent communities and academic chins held up high so that they can't see where they walk. Your church is dust ridden and forgotten, dull and deeply rooted in the hills, grasping so tightly to the earth. I think I forgot how to worship you, I spend my time merely thinking about you and how everyone else has it wrong. You must know by now that we've forgotten you, we've just stolen your influence. "

I myself have had a hard time walking around, I can't see because of these two huge effing planks in my eyes :-)

happy new blah.

Jehovah buried, Satan dead,
do fearers worship Much and Quick;
badness not being felt as bad,
itself thinks goodness what is meek;
obey says toc,submit says tic,
Eternity's a Five Year Plan:
if Joy with Pain shall hang in hock
who dares to call himself a man?

go dreamless knaves on shadows fed,
your Harry's Tom,your Tom is Dick;
while gadgets murder squawk and add,
the cult of Same is all the chic,
by instruments,both span and spic,
are justly measured Spic and Span:
to kiss the mike if Jew turn kike
who dares to call himself a man?

loudly for Truth have liars pled,
their heels for Freedom slaves will click;
where Boobs are holy,poets mad,
illustrious punks of Progress shriek;
when Souls are outlawed,Hearts are sick,
Hearts being sick,Minds nothing can:
if Hate's a game and Love's a fuck
who dares to call himself a man?

King Christ,this world is all aleak;
and lifepreservers there are none:
and waves which only He may walk
Who dares to call himself a man.--e.e. cummings