1 0 . 8 . 0 0 adventure was the word to be repeated throughout the experience, a typical road trip to chicago, car full of design students, on their way to a digital film festival or some other excuse to waste the weekend away in the windy city... staying the night at somewhere called "fat johnny's last resort" does wonders for your weirdness tolerance, after watching fat johnny himself dance for my ten dollars a night, very little else seems to even register on the weirdness scale, not even northampstead and its oz-like splendor. i did find a perfect super-8 camera in a thrift store there for a mere twelve dollars, tape still in there, but now i'm scared to develop it for fear that it's three minutes and twelve seconds of 70's gay porn or something... anyway, after fat johnny's performance, we were all treated to an even more impressive song-and-dance routine the following morning, munching on a bagel, the lovely r & b ballad "lady in red" playing over the muzak. off in the corner, a fellow bruncher rises, and walks to the front of the cafe, starting to sway to the rhythm, very uneasy swaying, but swaying nontheless. she starts softly, but within moments she has burst into a rousing duet part with the muzak, in an um, unique style, her swaying/dancing increasing with each line, to the point where it's an almost religious flailing. and that's when we realize that not only is she just singing along to "lady in red", she herself is dressed all in red. a lady in red. her song ended and she walked outside. my head still hurts. 9 . 2 4 . 0 0 i saw poles of steel rising into the sky like the future carrying electric lines and culture i suppose to the midwest wasteland, all the dirty towns i had driven through that day. i wanted to take black and white photos of ninevah indiana and enlarge them as some sort of anti-levittown, undesigned rural commerce appearing across tarred roads like patches of rust, their logos stenciled vernacular. they reminded me of every traffic light town between the interstates out here, always outside my window as i drive between metroplises in air conditioning, the click of power locks as i change the radio to something a little more upbeat. 8 . 2 5 . 0 0 i'm in kinkos at midnight cutting cd labels in the corner when this loud fat man comes in like a car wreck on the side of the road, disgusting but of course i can't look away... well he sits down at one of the complimentary phones that i didn't know kinkos had and starts speaking in odd tones to the other end. by this time i'm really trying hard to concentrate on cutting again and ignore him, but with every breath he gets louder and i'm sure if i were looking he would be getting bigger too and my ears can't help but hear because he's yelling now, yelling in tv preacher tones at the reciever, he's very angry about something and that something happens to be the state fair. oh god, the state fair, and i can smell the french fries and i realise it's him and he's preaching now, preaching in some backwards sort of manner to some guy who seems to be altogether unreceptive on the other end, perhaps because he's being ripped apart as a heathen, nicely of course, in suggestive opening tones til whablam, the evil of the world has revealed itself, and that evil is the state fair's art exhibit, he's standing up now, and pounding his fist against the desk in sweaty indignation at the soulless artist who had the gall to paint jesus and something blather blather i was too busy looking away but it was at the state fair and how bad could that be? blasphemy! horrible blasphemy and the fat man obviously had a sermon written on it, a sermon of hellfire and brimstone, which was flying out of his mouth at a furious pace, along with a great deal of spittle and french fry remnants... and after ten minutes of preaching to the unwashed that would have made cotton mather proud, the sermon reached its glorious climax there in kinkos and no one seemed to be saved but rather making copies, or at best slightly wet. the phone was placed gently back on its cradle and the man left without a copy. i think there was a point to this story but i have completely forgotten it. 6 . 6 . 0 0 i felt like being out of place today.. as people drove and walked by they had to actually think and wonder why on earth that person was walking home down a dirty sidewalk barefoot, shoes in hand, and seemingly not bothered at all... did the shoes break? were they uncomfortable? or was he just making some statement by breaking down the shackles of footwear... the best look was right outside my apartment, and this woman with jogging clothes scowled like I had done something horrible, breaking every law we have with my dirty soles. that's me - the rebel, the barefoot james dean... if the squares can't dig where i'm comin' from, then that's all right - they just can't grasp the swirling ezekialian rythms that surround us, you know, man... they're just not in the scene, where we all sit around coolly, drinking espresso and listening to obscure indie rock and kerouac all day. mogwai, duchamp, dig? yeh, you know it, brotha. actually, they were just new and giving me one heck of a blister. ouch. 5 . 1 6 . 0 0 It was August, the air like burnt toast, the walk to my car a grueling trek between searing gravel and a red hot sun. I was on the freeway before the air conditioning kicked in, mixing with my rolled-down windows to achieve the perfect warm summer breeze, just as the radio began to get good. An old favorite burst onto the airwaves with a flourish, and I reached for the volume, cranking it to a level reserved only for sunny days and afternoon drives. Singing along and bobbing my mirth-filled head to each wondrous beat, I hardly noticed the stop and go rush hour traffic that had begun to surround me. That is, until I carefully glanced to my right, just as the Cabrio-driving angel in the next lane glanced to her left, our heads both bobbing in perfect unison as our gazes met. True love. Our smiling faces mouthing lyrics in perfect sync for a single pristine moment as she quickly fell behind in the waves of traffic. The song faded into a commercial and I drove home with the sun in my eyes, never seeing my soulmate again. Or maybe everyone sings along to "It's the end of the world as we know it" 1 2 . 1 . 9 9 Tonight I turn on the TV in the middle of a "Welcome Back, Kotter" rerun - It's the one where the art teacher falls in love with Kotter - And I watch for a minute or two til I finally figure out what's wrong. Kotter is wearing the exact same pants as I am. Right down to the last stitch, my thrift-store corduroys match his impeccable 70's Brooklyn fashion. I'm not exactly sure what this means, but I've got a sneaky suspicion it's that I'm super cool. Yeah, that must be it. 8 . 6 . 9 9 I went to woodstock. It was hot. My generation sucks. 0 5 . 0 1 . 9 9 Hello. How are you doing today? I'm all right. It's spring in Cincinnati and not quite yet sure what temperature it should be - Freezing cold in the morning, yet warm all afternoon and night. Confused weather makes for uncertain times - so I stay inside, watching MASH reruns and listening to old Dylan MP3s. This sort of lifestyle eventually leads into madness, which explains my recent decision to enter the rap world. Never mind I that I don't own a rap album other than "Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em" and a dubbed copy of Ill Communication. Nope. It's obviously the age of skinny white-boy rappers, with all this Slim Shady crap and the fabulous return of the Beastie Boys. So here I am, trying hard not to laugh as I rap over a Beckish beat, making Coltrane references like only a true poser can. Unfortunately, late this week I had a rash of Ben Folds Five influence from their new album. So, now all my thug harmonyz have a crappy piano solo. Because I also believe I can play piano. Which is not true. However, my ability to pound out random chords is unparalled, especially considering I have no idea what I am doing. And that's been this week. Insomnia and delusions of musical grandeur. I'm on page 11 of Finnegan's Wake, and am starting a screenplay.		. w o r k . . p l a y . . s i n g . . w r i t e . . s l e e p . . h o m e .