I can still make out "JAKE, JAKE" on my knuckles and the bruises from (being the wildest motherfucker at) con still look painful enough for customers to inquire of their origins (I've been spinning some wild tales of bull fighting and bar brawls down in Mexico). It's hard to heal when I spend all day circling around the record store and my nights working on the projects of life later than I mean to. Tonight though I managed to focus my energies on a most important assignment, listening to 21st Century Breakdown with no distractions (3 days until the rocking). I made it until East Jesus Nowhere when I was prompted to internet stalk John Malkovich, he is after all the shit. And that's when I found this and my love for him grew three sizes this day.

"In a 2002 appearance at the Cambridge Union Society, when asked whom he would most like to "fight to the death," Malkovich replied that he would "rather just shoot" scientologist Tom Cruise, journalist Robert Fisk, and British MP George Galloway.[9] Fisk reacted with outrage.[10] When interviewed by The Observer, Malkovich elaborated on his comments: "I hate somebody who is supposed to be a Middle Eastern expert who thinks Jesus was born in Jerusalem. I hate what I consider his vile anti-semitism. This being said, I apologize to both Fisk and Galloway; they seem like good men but if they make such a heinous mistake again, I will not hesitate to murder them brutally by way of the gallows."

That being said I am going to go listen to my new vinyl of Tommy and write an epic recount of con... and then an edited version for the city college news.

my final week of classes is looming in front of me and let me tell you she is one hideous beast. It's times like this rational people panic. But the freaks, the fiends, we ride the wave and holler all the way to hell like major kong, I even got my gunslinger hat out for the occasion... And so when I stop having time to shower I look old west enough that my fine coat of dirt is almost acceptable.

thank god the weekend was so goddamn beautiful. I will feed off it's glorious spirit all week long. Friday it was obvious from the get go the night was riding high on the vibes of marxism, of the groucho variety. After getting the confirmation from Shawn, Katy and me in all our stoned glory went out to attach a large folding table onto the roof of Hazel, only to discover we'd ingeniously tied the doors shut. Laughing and trying to move fast since we were already late we remedied the situation, got Allin and Luke and headed to our next ridiculous adventure. This time it was drinking Premiums in the car in front of Mikey's house, except it wasn't actually his house, which we discovered later after lurking outside it for twenty minutes. Finally we arrived to the gathering in Mikeys garage, hours late, where we found out we didn't need our table and instead joined immediately into the game of beer pong and rocking.

the rest of the night was spent avoiding wiffleballs which were always a threat to hit you in the head seeing as there were two attached to strings right around the beer pong table. Everyone got a kick out of games of sudo tether ball and occasionally just whipping it at someone who wasn't looking. Premium and pot being too main ingredients in hooliganism. Later we pet Bunny while the most insane Wii game I've ever witnessed took place in the basement.

saturday morning came later than I'd planned, unable to right the hell in my head when I tried getting up around 10:oo. But eventually I drank enough water to drown a small animal and got ready for the ska show at Eclipse Records. An ultimate sort of show with Two Tone Runts and Hardcore Crayons playing in a line up of four bands, two friends from opposite sides of my life combined by a twist of fate, or whoever booked them. Two Tone Runts went first and I knew right away I was in trouble in the best sense, they were great and I was feeling it. Kara, Katy and Me danced our selves stupid and still came back to shake and vibrate to dan and dominic and their drummer whose name I've never know, their sound and the dimensions of it truly impressed me, enthralled me even. And their fan group was some very hardened, burly punk type, my type. When I saw their long hair and mohawks I knew I was home. And when two of them ended the show arms locked and swinging each other in a circle I never wanted to leave.

but eventually we had too. so we left wide eyed and buzzing with adrenaline, the second wave had come. We pulled Lee into our group and headed west to Lyle's and their glorious two for ones. I fulfilled my role as Huckleberry goldenly by having not a dime on me and drinking whatever was passed my way. I tell the jokes, a real funny guy, so it's almost like I'm trading goods and not just being the wild card bum type. After Chris and co had come and left and then Lee too we decided to make our exit. katy, sun burnt and sleep deprived departed when we got to our cars. After kara had been dropped off anne turned towards my house, but only made it half way when I learned Luke was at Maverick's, so we high tailed it back down West River Road to a packed bar where two perfect end seats waited us. There was a man playing his guitar, but generally it was just a noisy, hopping scene, essentially the Cheers of Champlin.

immediately Anne started buying me Summits, I was riding high on a magical third wave by this point. Andy was there, ready to maul me and finally get to the talking like we have always meant to. I heard Gypsy Punk for the first time standing around the truck of a man with gauges in his ear and a insatiable smoking habit. It was fantastic and going on to my list of music to investigate when I someday get money for purchasing music again. Eventually as my beer emptied for the last time Anne took me home where I sat on the old train track cross ties that circle my house and listened to the sounds of a party a few yards over while I tried to make out constellations through the oak trees, resonating with the joy of a golden weekend.



me

My life changed last Wednesday. It came full circle and I felt the course of the beam I've been traveling upon resonating through me. My childhood and my adulthood have all been tied together into an epic and hopefully brilliant package.






Also, ever wonder what the difference between Pixar and Dreamworks is? Here is a helpful ( comic strip ).

Yesterday I was 1/32nd Irish, this morning it was something like a 16th, by 10'oclock tonight I will be telling everyone at the bar my last name is Williams (the Irish in me on my mom's side). So in light of this universally endorsed day of rampant alcohol consumption I've post this little gem;



The best part, other than the lady talking about a crack-head in a tree, that the news casters take this so much more seriously than the folks they interview.

Now to figure out where I can get one of those leprechaun flutes.

And so it goes. Last week was the Big Presentation, a partially empty room on the top floor of MCTC with the Civic Engagement board members and an elderly man who had a wicked sense of style and hair exactly like ?uestlove's, only stark white.

Eight weeks of preparation for this? A partially empty room on the top floor of MCTC. And me in my most adult outfit. That's what I was thinking that morning when I got ready, only now it becomes obvious to me there is no "adulting" me up, I always look a little hippie, a little rocknroll, never like a grown-up. I look down the line at my cohorts and they are just like me. Paint splattered jeans and faded sweaters. But there is something else that sets us apart from the adults, optimism. We actually think what we are doing is going to work. Our wills combined can create a food co-op at MCTC. We can create.

I stare out the window for awhile, watching the IMS building across the highway. Then back into the camera, Professor Polumbo is filming us, to show to President Davies. There is a grant involved in all of this, that is why I tried to put on my "adult" clothes that morning. I feel cheap when I have to dress for something, I've never been much at selling myself. Take me or leave me, it's not my problem.

In this ironed skirt and black sweater I feel like a half rate tijuana whore. That is what I am thinking as Professor Polumbo films me, to show to President Davies later. I avert my eyes to the window behind the camera for the rest of our presentation. What do we think we are doing anyway? We'll never get this, it's a big deal, a lot of work and commitment to start a food co-op. Sure us students believe it's possible, but adults are notoriously realistic. There are seven other groups with seven other ideas competing for this grant.

There are pigeons on the IMS building I think, as I try to ignore my realistic doubts. At least I got to meet ?uestlove's grandfather I am thinking as the presentation ends.


This was last week, today in my email I received this:

Food Coop Group,

Congratulations! The Center for Civic Engagement at MCTC has awarded your group the Reclaiming Democracy grant in the amount of 250$. The members of the Center recognized that you all have done great work. Your final presentation was clear and in line with the mission and vision of the Center. The CCE wants to do as much as possible to support your efforts to start a food coop here at MCTC.

We as the Center hope that your group continues your work. We hope your tabling efforts at the Health Fair, Sustainability Fair and Civic Engagement Block Party are successful. To access your 250$, please contact Matthew Palombo matthew.palombo@minneapolis.edu for more details. You need to spend the 250$ no later than April 30, 2009.

Please contact Matthew Palombo as soon as you can to inform him as to how your group plans to continue its work.

thanks,

Center for Civic Engagement

It's late. Exceedingly so considering the 3 hour nights I've been operating on for the most of last week. In one of my escape attempts from the pile of homework I have in the basement I discovered ( this ) amazing news.

Did I mention Michael Showalter is my god? That might explain the yelp I let out when I happened upon this information. Then again it might just be the sleep deprivation. Either way, the month of July is looking a lot brighter, and not just because of the burning rays of sun in the age of global warming.

Weekends always bring out the beast in me. This past one was no exception. It was a blur from GO when Allin picked me up on her way down from St. Cloud. Jumpy like coke fiends we headed towards Kat9y's, a trail of smoke and Jim Morrison in our wake. From there we navigated the twists and turns of 35W to Mortimer's where cheap Grainbelt and foosball awaited us.

The plan was a massive convergence of all our friends and resources, an uprising in the best sense of the word, with America in our hearts and liquor in our veins. By 11 o'clock there was madness in every direction. We held down a table near the jutebox, pounding our fists on the fake wood and singing the songs other people played for us. At some point When the man comes around was played and that's when I was sure we were in the right place.

None of our other cohorts ever showed, but that seemed to be right. Just the ka-tet to rock on our friday night. The core of the being in the center of the beast, a great burning column reaching into the western horizon, perhaps.

Saturday morning came. And went. I slept late to avoid that feeling of still being drunk and woke up in the afternoon refreshed and ready for the next adventure. There was talk of a dance party some where but in the end Kat9y and me headed into Dayton to Tracy's house and her endless liquor cabinet. It is something like Mary Poppin's bag, limitless and surprising. We drank strange concoctions until we'd all reached the edge so we headed off to the American Legion #600 where much to our delight a band was playing and Grainbelt is served on tap.

We sat at the most central table we could and eyed the drunken lizards around us until I want to be sedated was played. Then we were on our feet and bopping around the dance floor without a care that even the drunkards thought we were odd. Real freaks with their hearts on their sleeves. It couldn't get any better. And then it did, the band played Roadhouse Blues for their encore and everyone pumped their fists high. Since legions, for some godawful reason, close at 1:00 we quickly headed off to Billies with Paul and my family + Ryan B who had shown up. They didn't stay long in the chaos of Billies, but we just went into our most primal roles and started making friends with anyone who was willing. I got a leinenkugel from the amazing bartender who looks like Steve Buscemi and I am in love with and headed into the karaoke room where Paul, Tracy and Kat9y had found a table. It was dark strange scene in there with groups of girls singing sad country songs and a older man we'd befriended earlier in our drunken haze lurking behind our table so we raced off down the street to the next bar.

12th Street Grill usually caters to the biker type, but apparently on Saturdays all the young folks conquer the place and make it into a strange scene with people grinding in front of a DJ and everyone from your past floating past your eyes. After Kat9y and me finished off an American Spirit (buzzing like speed freaks from the nicotine) Tracy came and told us Matt Kroulik was there, so naturally we went to seek him out. And low and behold, in the midst of conversation with the man himself we discovered some old friends we had known through Bfro were sitting at the table next to him. I did a double take remembering nights in the blonde man's van driving around Elk River with a transistor radio and our hearts bent on mayhem. But alas, the bar was closing, so we said our goodbyes, dropped Tracy back in Dayton and returned to my house for one last adventure.

A week ago Chris and Nikki moved from Kat9y's old house. I hadn't set foot in there since The Smiths moved out but Kat9y had heard tales of it's sad state and we had our ka to consider so we decided to break in. There was unfinished business in that house. It was kind of like a surreal funeral, walking from room to room, surveying the damage Chris and his devil woman had caused and remembering our lives. An acid trip comes to mind.

So we pulled some chairs into the living room and smoked some grass where the rocking chair and side table use to sit. Afterward we said our goodbyes to the place standing by the red oaks in the front yard and then headed back through the fence to my house and it's familiar smells and sight.

"A very Christmas card,
Kesey's new place near La Honda.
A log house, a mountain creek, a little wooden bridge
Fifteen miles from Palo Alto beyond
Cahill Ridge where Route 84
Cuts through a redwood forest gorge-
A redwood forest for a yard!
A very Christmas card."

The results are in, the facts have been taken into account and all signs point to one overwhelming fact, we live in a police state. All this seemed so very important those days between August 4th and November 4th, after which it was easy to let the wonderful distraction of hope and optimism push aside a fact that still remains true.

So please, if you are looking to distract yourself from finals (the doc is in 4 convenient parts) or pass the overwhelming amount of free time that comes so suddenly when they are all done, watch this documentary and tell me we are as free as we think.


http://www.terrorizingdissent.org/

it's all here.

My immediate reaction to seeing this trailer, "Thank you god." Or perhaps I should say, thank you Norway, but I don't want to anger Moondoggy since I know she hates those Norwegians.





Dead Snow, the greatest zombie film ever?