Monthly Archives: September 2018

The writing is going like shit.  Recording is going like shit.  Tech is pissing me off.  All is frustration and misery.  Also, fuck Sundays.

N.P.: “Double Talkin’ Jive” – Guns N’ Roses

Laying low this weekend (unlike most other weekends when I go on headline-grabbing crime sprees (?)).  Writing, catching up with some reading, and trying to learn Notion and integrate it into my workflow.

The book isn’t going as well as I’d like it to.  Or maybe it is.  Hell, I can’t tell anymore.  I think I’m just going to get to certain point and hand the whole weird thing to someone trusted and hope for a no-bullshit assessment of the State of Things.

Yeah, right.  We both know that’s not going to happen.  I’m just going to keep working away in secrecy until I know damn good and well that the thing is done.

Back to it.

N.P.: “Power Struggle” – Sunna

[insert emotion here]

I was passing a car on a 2-lane freeway a couple days ago.  The driver I was passing had demonstrated very quickly in our brief time together that it was either idiotic or perhaps simply clueless.  Which is really not a big deal: pitifully few drivers on American roads are anything approaching what I would call “competent” behind the wheel.   So, no biggie…I just don’t want to be stuck behind such a person for the next 20 miles when there is no one else visible in front of us on the road ahead.   IAmyway, in the not-too-distant distance I saw a rather massive semi truck barreling in my direction at a pretty decent pace.  I had plenty of distance and time to pass the car in front of me.

So I did.  At least I started to.  The idiot that I was passing suddenly started accelerating.  It was as if it had, upon seeing me suddenly passing her on the left, realized that it had been dragging ass with its right-turn indicator erroneously left blinking, and stomped on the gas to correct its previously unacceptable performance, giving no thought that I was trying to pass it and had made the decision to do so based on calculations that did not it including accelerating at the same rate as me.  Dammit.

I think it should go without saying that there was an exactly zero chance of me aborting this operation at this point.  The truck was close enough now that I could tell that is was a massive Peterbilt with a grill that is built such that the driver can simply rinse things like me off of it and be none the worse for wear.  I glanced quickly at the speedometer: 105 mph.

And in that moment, my only thought was. “I should be feeling fear.”  I felt nothing except a pretty significant annoyance at the idiot in the car next to me and a mild curiosity about what was about to happen with regard to my imminent vaporization.  I mean, I knew what was going to happen did not include an accident or anybody being vaporized, but at that moment I wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out that way.  Still, there was no actual fear.  Since I was alone in the car, there was no one around to pretend to be afraid for, so I didn’t.  Which choice was suddenly infinitely more interesting that the outcome of the oncoming traffic situation:  I don’t actually feel fear very much.   If at all.  Not that kind of fear, anyway.  I admittedly spend a lot of time wrestling with a simply vicious, creeping, generalized, existential dread.  But when it comes to street fights or prison riots or those sorts of goings-on…nothing.  I get incredibly focused and hyper-vigilant, but no actual fear.  It’s been pointed out to me many rather awkward times that I have no real startle reflex either: gunshots and explosions don’t really move my needle.  But in those moments that I’m not feeling something i know I’m supposed to feel, I am aware that I’m not feeling something I know I’m supposed to feel and it’s as if there is an “Insert Emotion Here” sign in my psyche, and my mind has becoming unbelievably adept at instantaneously synthesizing something approximating what it thinks is the appropriate emotional response and implements it.  But I don’t actually feel the emotion itself.

It is not only with fear that this happens.

This is what the book is about.

N.P.: “Spoiler” – Hyper

Another rather crap day.  There were, however, significantly more machine guns involved than usual, which made things slightly more spicy, but they ultimately prevented both lunch and writing,  Alas.

N.P,: “Lovesong” – Snake River Conspiracy

What’s crackin’, knowledgeable reader?
I’ll be honest, I was going to write about something here…kind of thought about it all day, but then now that I’m here, I started to write it, I just decided against it.  Not time yet, I guess.  Maybe I’m just not in the right mood.

Anyway, since I’m here, I Just wanted to say hello….hopefully there will be more to say tomorrow.

N.P.: “He Is” – Ghost

Work work work, blah, blah, blah.

I’m angsty lately.  Discontent.  Frustrated.  And not a little bit overwhelmed by everything.  I’ve been bitching about the ludicrous amount of quality television and movies that are being produced these days, and the weird anxiety produced when it’s all you can do to go through the various movies and series released on various media and platforms, sort through the crap and select what you want to put in your To Watch Queue, and then running out of time to actually watch any of the stuff, and the damn Queue just gets longer and longer….

Similar things happen with technology…especially software.  I am sent new apps all the time that are really good at what they do, but I’m already neck-deep in another app that I’ve been using for that particular purpose for 2-3 years, and was hoping to keep using.  But then something always happens with that app, and I end up having to look around at replacement programs, picking the one that’s going to function best for me and my seemingly ever-developing workflow.  This process involves some basic internet research, reading of reviews, and usually watching several different tutorial videos to see how the thing really works before drinking the proverbial Kool-Aid on that particular app.  And then once that is done, I have to learn the ins and outs of that app,   Which is, of course, something that I’m having to deal with now.

I guess I’m just annoyed by change.  And the fact that it seems to take a prohibitively long time to set things up to do whatever it is you’re doing, such that once you actually get things set up, the amount of productive time is pretty minimal, and just when you get into a groove, everything has to be changed again.

Sorry…this is boring.  I have written some decent stuff in the last four days, but it’s all going in the book.  The book…it’s weird as hell, dear reader.  I don’t even know how well it’s going, if I’m honest.  I think it will be extreme, one way or another: either a total flop or a revolutionarily big deal.  It’s either going to change everything, or nothing at all.  Whatever that means.

N.P.: “Natural One” – Shearwater

I’ve always been interested in “smart drugs,” and the smart drugs that have been en vogue for the last several years are nootropics.  I know you have Google, dear reader, so you can look that up if you want to know more.

Yesterday, I was talking with a friend from the Netherlands who happened to be selling bottles of a nootropic energy drink.  He did warn me: “In this country, you guys have 5-hour energy drinks…this one is a 5-DAY energy drink.  If you drink this on Friday, you better be ready to party Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and maybe Tuesday you think about sleeping.”

I don’t know about you, dearest reader, but whenever I find myself talking to anybody from the Netherlands about drugs, I feel the need to knock them down a few steps, just because they usually have that smug, “I’m from Holland where they invented drugs, so try to keep up if you can, but you Yanks are light years behind what we do everyday back home.” sort of attitude.  So I handed him a few dollars.  “Give me that,” I scoffed as I took the small white bottle from him.  I held the bottle up to my face to try to read the ingredients on the label, but the print was ridiculously small and I suspect also Dutch, so I rolled my eyes and unscrewed the cap.

“Hey, if you haven’t taken these before, you’re only supposed to drink half… the… bottle.”  He almost didn’t bother finishing his silly sentence since I had already downed the entire thing.  “Fuck you,” I said not so much to by Hollandic friend as to the universe in general, just to sort of summarize the general state of things.  This viscous liquid tasted like slightly expired cough syrup, but pleasant.  I felt the stuff kick start my heart immediately, just like Motley Crue.  A glance at my watch let me know my heart rate was suddenly somewhere in the triple digits, and I had the nearly overwhelming urge to call the governor and share some of my ideas on how exactly this state should be run.

“I have to go,” I told my friend.  “You weird Dutch fucker.”  No idea why I said that, but it seemed like an obvious thing to say.  My respiration rate had increased, my pupils dilated, and  as I was crossing the street to my car, I could feel both of my middle fingers involuntarily contracting and then become erect as the other fingers knelt down next to them, forcing me to flip off all of the cars in the intersection.  A few of them honked and yelled, but I interpreted that simply as the peasants recognizing greatness.

The rest of the day is a rather ghastly blur, thankfully.  I know I ended up back here sometime after sunset, pacing around in a circle with my shirt pulled up over my head, reciting trivia about the Manson family to family of gypsies that I had hallucinated.  That went on for some time until I decided that something had to be done to take the edge off, so I drank a large pitcher of grappa for dinner.  That helped, and I managed to nap on the marble floor of the kitchen for a couple of hours.

And now it’s time for Night Number Two.  There is a 20-foot purple penguin standing in the backyard, staring in my window.  He seems like the sort of purple penguin who really wants to hear trivia about the Manson family, so this might work out for both of us.

N.P,: “Immigrant Song” – Led Zeppelin

Go to work.  Get married.  Have some kids.  Pay your taxes.  Pay your bills.  Watch your TV.  Follow fashion.  Act normally.  Obey the Law.  Keep repeating: “I am free.”

N.P.: “Hounds of Hell” – Dead Soul