STW

I'd like to write a song that serves as an anthem to dishwashers across the world. I love my job, find moments of Zen and inspiration within it. There are so many of us, head bowed in the dish pit, listening to whatever is playing through our headphones, secretly hoping for that satisfying splash of broken glass, a plate or cup that never belonged to us in the first place. Most of us don't make enough in an hour to buy the entrees that we're scraping into the trash can.

We work patiently and diligently, knowing that as soon as that final load of dishes is ran we can emerge out onto the street, breathe in air unpolluted by steam, grease, bleach, second-hand pot smoke. Then we go home and play guitars, go to bars and drink until we puke, climb on stage and sing our motherfucking hearts out. The kitchen and the dish pit are a life away. Dreams and dreams.

If They knew the thoughts running through the heads of dishwashers across America, They would have us all marched out back by the dumpster and executed.

Soak the World.

April 21st.

I think my brain is pickled. I have arthritis in my hands. I will be twenty-four in June. Almost a quarter of a century with nothing to show for it save some bad tattoos, a few country songs, and a collection of scars. I have a toothache.

I used to have a Xanga account, and I would write in it regularly. I still have the account, I suppose, but no one reads Xanga anymore. Not that anyone reads this blog.

Anyhow, looking back on some of my old Xanga posts, I'm amazed at some of the insights and witticisms that I was able to convey. Nowadays, it seems, I can't come close to the font of wisdom I somehow tapped into in my past. This flowery bullshit pales in comparison. Pale, flowery bullshit.

For the life of me, I cannot figure out how to properly insert pictures into my posts. They always appear at the very top of the text, and I have to awkwardly drag them around while they displace text and margins.

It's almost as frustrating as this toothache.

Punk Rock Weekend.

I wrote this a week or two ago. I'm going to leave it as I wrote it, unedited, a muddy snapshot of a somber evening after a long punk rock weekend. A mouse just ran by and scared the shit out of me.

"It has been said that drink is the curse of the working class. It has also been said that work is the curse of the drinking class." - Charlie Leduff

Long weekends stretch even longer than expected when you miss the sunshine you need most. Everything reminds me of you, but everything always did. Listening to Gillian Welch doesn't help. You're somewhere in the South, trampling your footprints over my own size-11's that only appeared to be washed away with each crashing wave. I left long, sad echos up and down those beaches, early early mornings and late late nights, and now you're there.

Monday was a late wakeup. Pancakes and French toast. Feeling like one of those fish with the suction cups on the top of their skulls. Ramoras? Wandering around grocery stores in a daze at 1 in the morning.

Easter was a rainy, snowy day in St. Louis, driving around listening to Sun Kil Moon and eating too much Del Taco. Drinking Stag and Hennessey, fighting with friends, sexual tension and frying chicken. Laughing at Danny's poetry until I wept. Just wanting to go home, or at least be in the same state as you. I wanted to sit quietly in the corner, read Matt Grant's art books and eat Easter chocolate. No one would let me. I wouldn't let me.

Saturday was spent in a makeshift incubation chamber, throwing up pretzels and water all over my shirt and Matt's front porch. Eating shitty Chinese food, listening to college radio. Battling an awful hangover with Bloody Marys and espresso martinis.

Friday took Columbia by storm. Old friends are now into the Army and cocaine. New friends are into old friends. Angry Middle Easterners. Getting our sound cut off. Getting our beer cut off. Driving Matt home and singing along to Dear You but not remembering any of the words. Driving a girl home and singing along to the Cure but not remembering her name. "Will you at least give me a hug?" Yeah, sure, I guess.

The song was "Friday I'm in Love". Or maybe "Just Like Heaven". I called you, but you didn't answer, so I went back to Matt's house, pulled Derrick's head out of the bowl of vomit he had passed out in, and passed out watching Circle Jerks videos.

We're cleaning out 625 this week, as we're moving out next week. The rule of thumb seems to be; When in doubt, fuck it. Throw it away. We have bags and boxes and bags of complete and utterly unnecessary shit. Trash, that at one time served some purpose in our lives. Throw it all away, burn it. An entire life dedicated to being resourceful, avoiding wastefulness, rendered moot by a single evening of cathartic cleaning and purification. Jeeploads of garbage bags, plywood, old turntables, couch cushions. We drove around Springfield and listened to Facedowninshit and left our trash in various dumpsters or trashcans foolishly left empty and unattended by some poor domestic soul.

I haven't showered since Saturday, and now our bathtub is full of dirty dishes and mouse shit, but I can't remember why. So I'm still filthy, wearing a mantle of a weekend of punk rock excess, long drives with too much to think about but not enough energy to put any of my thoughts into any concrete form.

Saturday night I could barely muster the focus to finger meager chords. Squinting through the pain of a punishing headache, I stomped ferociously on that little orange distortion pedal and tried to make every squealing, crashing note somehow evoke what I hadn't the energy to convey. No emotion? No energy? A lame performance? Fuck you. Start your own band.

On that note, I watched "We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen" tonight. It made me greatful to be in a punk rock band. Punk rock as freedom, freedom as religion. D. Boon is dead, long live D. Boon.