What a long weekend; I met up with a million peoples and friends and all that jazz. I bought way too much music again this weekend also. Most importantly I finally picked up that Guided By Voices box set that has been staring me in the face for a couple of weeks now. I came in relatively early tonight after an unnecessary dinner with Annu at Bennigans, which is pretty much average, perhaps a little lower, �American Food�. I got sick, and now I�m here realizing I didn�t write all weekend, here, there or anywhere. Besides one e-mail to Sarah (who is responsible for that photo over on the left in more ways than one, she took it when visiting here in August, and put it on there; her being the only one who has the password to do those kinds of things, so if you do see any nice looking html or otherwise on here in the coming days, it�s courtesy of her), and a couple other ones, that was it. My head has been empty all weekend, sort of �floating around� I guess would be the best way to describe it. No matter how much I want to tell myself I want to be left alone most of the time, I do indeed like being out and about. Watching this video tape of the Guided By Voices documentary �Watch Me Jump Start� today, there was a part where they were interviewing the main guy, Robert Pollard, and he said that he can�t go on tour for more than two weeks. He�s from Dayton, Ohio. He said he needs to be there, he wants to �find my buddies, I just want to go hang out somewhere� I can agree with that. The times I went away over the past few summers I wanted to come home at certain points and just �hang around�, chatting, joking, listening to records, playing pinball, all of that stuff. But I need those weeks away by myself once a year now. They have proven to be healthy for the most part the last three years, so I am going to continue doing them until�I can�t anymore.

Nothing changes inside nowadays. Nothing but the same old challenges, same question and answer sessions taking place night to night, and putting me in the place every weekend. I could sit here and talk about it and the history and the weather all night if you really wanted, but I�ll spare myself the torture. The best way to get around it all is to just walk around with a smile on your face ready to shake hands with your enemy all day long. I figured it out though, I figured it all out today at 4:22PM EST. You have red hair, you�re automatically better. It does it to me every time. Regardless of who it is. I can�t go on about it without sounding to much like a psycho. Kids with big fat pants and pierced cocks staring at my shoes wondering who the fuck I am. I�m not the singer of your favorite rock band. You are the singer of your favorite rock band though. You look just as good on stage as you do in front of that mirror. You look just as good with a girl attached to your arm as you do with a guy attached to your waste. It sometimes makes me want to throw up when I see the people around here falling into deep holes filled with jagged edges and spikes ready to take them out at any moment. It makes me laugh at the same time. It�s over, it�s just over now. I don�t have the energy to even pretend I�m having a good time flirting with the waitress that�s going to wrap my Toyota around a tree with James Brown in the back seat getting up and getting down. The reason, the whole truth of the matter is I acted like a silly boy from time to time, just sitting there lying like a dog on the porch listening to us pour lemonade. I wonder where it all could have got me? I wonder where the hell I would have been tonight. Lost on the highway wondering if I should pull over and take the chains out of my trunk for a tractor, or if I should just go home and retire with an espresso and twenty pages of Keats. I come home every night and need to escape from the last night by thinking about the next night. The night is always the same, yet I put a different touch on it each time by singing a different song, tuning my guitar differently, or writing from someone else�s head. I like going in and out of all the characters. Exorcist baby. This week, well, the week that follows will see and important discovery. The next couple of weeks will be another series of experiments. How many squares can you fit into a circle? How many times can you take a sheep and walk it around it circles? How many times can you take a sheep and talk it around in circles? How many times can you take your clothes off and wonder where it is the pain is? How wany times can you trick someone into thinking you�re a believer. I look at girls standing around breathing steam with baseball hats on and I want to get home and smash my head against a wall. There�s ones in black jackets that look like Elvis Presley in the seventies, and then there�s ones that look like they came out of the Molly Ringwald school of modeling. They fool me with discussions about underground political activists, and radical African American writers from the seventies. What an oxymoron it all is when you look at them at face value. What is it a one way ticket to whereverville, or a drive up the coast of Maine without sunglasses and a small night out with expensive seafood, and long nights of fucking multiple times (one of the better weekends we had, and I made it to work the next day). I need to just take the jacket off and stay a little while longer to see what happens. Whenever I put my shoes on, or my running sneakers (trainers, Sarah) I need to take them back off and just wait a few minutes. Well, I need to do this, but I never do. I can sit here and look at letters that were written with the help of Duran Duran and laugh for three or four hours. It seems like everyone is here to amuse my in some way. It seems like I can�t care less about what does happen next week. I want to avoid last week, but I plan out next week. What am I thinking half the time? I�m thinking that I need another trip far away for a weekend. A three day weekend of nonstop drinking milk and vitamins. I weekend of shopping for warm sweaters and long jackets to hide my legs as well as my neck. Can�t let the vampires get a view of it. Can�t let a vampire or succubus get me in a corner. They come up after a week and surprise me with movements that would cause an epileptic to convulse. Why do they do that to me? They get me in a corner. Someone help me out here. Call me up, here�s the number 9383999871-18417-9199788536900*8*12*8*7*8*`1-`9-9*8*4hdlahsih that�s my phone number, someone call it up and tell me where I turned down the road to nowhere. She told me I had the correct exit. She came in drunk and yelling about club shows and lesbian folk singers and then gave me the thumbs up. Gave us the thumbs up. Okay already. She makes me laugh�in a good way, not at her. She makes me glad I know her though. She witnessed things first hand and it bugs me a little bit, and then again. I can�t help thinking what I could have done to take it from a different approach. The same place I got drunk with her and ate pizza and talked about blow jobs was also the place the guy tried to place all his money on one horse. This is the horse, it�s called �Lucky Seventeen�. I�ll have a diet soda with that, no sense in getting fat, especially the day before I�m not going to be able to eat for a long time. It�s easier to drink on an empty stomach than it is to eat on a broken heart they say. I don�t think truer words have been spoken. This one goes out to Benjamin Orr of the Cars who passed away quietly last week. He was an integral part of the Cars, and the music world has lost another �good guy�. I remember passing him on Newbury Street about fifteen years ago, and saying �Hello, just thought I�d say I�m a big fan�. He thanked me and shook my hand and asked my name and whatnot. Cool guy. We have this little fan club we started. This little snotty elitsit club we started. If you don�t like it, shut up and off you go. Yeah, truer words have never been spoken. I can�t say I enjoyed the feeling of emptiness in my stomach the last time I had my heart broken. You really can�t eat, and you feel like you just have cigarettes and Tom Waits. What a farce it is. It always ends like that. Someone goes hungry, the other one eats in style. A new beginning. I got rid of them, what a load off my back. What a fucking relief they�re out of my hair. And now we fuck. Now we fuck everyone in sight. We fuck friends, bar sluts, people in the bars, they�re all sluts. All those girls with lipstick ready to give my chin a new shade of red. All those guys hopped up on Jack Daniels and Viagra cocktails. Is that a cock in your pants, or are you just glad to see me? I just want the coffee to be on time in the morning, and I want one moment a day when you tell me that I�m going to be okay when you let me fall of the building. Just give me that much, and I�ll never play hopscotch again.

gold star for robot boy

if i waited for you

to signify the moves that i should make

i'll be on the take

gold star for robot boy

well then that's ok

if i waited for you

to show me all the actions i should take

would i get my break?

gold star for robot boy

and it's one thing

and it's something to do

the robot boy yeah

if i waited for lessons

in true confessions that could take all day

but i'm here to stay

gold star for robot boy

well then that's my move

well then that's my move

well then that's my move

but it's one thing

yeah it's something to do

the robot boy yeah

if i waited for you

to signify the moves that i should make

i'll be on the take

gold star for robot bo

well then that's okay

-Guided By Voices

before & after