Wednesday

Oh, Shit!

From Big Dave Wave with more about the Samoan Strangling Incident:

We had two bathrooms in our on-campus apartment. At some point we switched bathrooms - we had problems already - and I started sharing mine with Lua (RJ with Scott, Me with Lua - I have no idea what Ty did).

Well, eventually, there was no toilet paper in that bathroom, and getting more required taking a bus ride in to town. So I was using sheets of paper towels, when necessary, that I was taking from the kitchen. I guess Lua was perplexed (cats perplexed this man-he must have been in koledge on some special program) and was wondering what I was doing in there with no toilet paper, I guess. This obviously was a great concern of his and one day while I was in my room innocently trying to get the world's first computer to work again he comes bursting in (think Kramer style), hair all crazy, eyes gone wild, and he says "You've been wiping your ass with my washcloth!"

I was stunned! I couldn't think why anyone would say something like that! (it wasn't until a bit later I realized the no toilet paper/paper towel connection.) I said "what?!" he said "Yeah, I looked at my washcloth and there were PUBIC HAIRS on it!" I don't remember how I responded, but I'm sure I wasn't too friendly or understanding of his apparent break with reality/psychotic episode (I'm sure I was laughing) and the next thing I knew I was up against the wall on the other side of the room with his giant crazy hand wrapped completely around my neck.

Later a house meeting was called by Judith, the preceptor I think she was called, [before the "house meeting" was called, Juidth apparently assigned Lua the task of notifying the house that there was a meeting. When Lua mumbled about the meeting to Ty, his response was something like, "Meeting? I don't really want to got to an ass wiping meeting -- and of course Ty was tackled by the crazy Samoan too. One second typing, the next clobbered).

Judith, the preceptor naturally took Lua's side on all of this and said to me "I know Lua, and he wouldn't do something like that, he's a very nice person." (later Mr. Lua (which Ty and I obviously pronounced dumbly "A-LOO-Ah") was thrown out of school for beating someone up - no doubt because he found urine on his toast.) So this meeting is totally like the Twilight Zone - this Judith character telling me I need to do this or that or whatever when I just got choked because this idiot thinks he sees pubic hair on his washcloth.

And Ty is making snide and sarcastic comments the whole time and Judith finally tells him to be more helpful or something (I think she says something slow and clinical like, "Ty, why don't you write your thought down and when it's your turn you have them ready) so Ty says OK, he'll take notes and leaves and soon returns with GIANT sheet of paper, like 6 feet of butcher paper you'd wrap fish in or make a banner with. And he sits down with this long scroll at his feet, serious look on his face, with pen poised, ready to take diligent notes.

Judith says "Ty, don't you think you're being a little dramatic?" Ty says, "It was the first paper I could find.'

No wonder I moved in to a single dorm room the next year!

This is MY House!

From Big Dave Wave on how he got the name "Big Dave Wave"

"Mark Reed [Rants & Cigs] at college in Santa Cruz (University of California, Santa Cruz) used to call me "Dave Wave" (I guess because of that clothing store Big Wave Dave's downtown) and Ty's called me that since then, keeping the "big." The next year when Ty was an RA and I was in his dorm he was in charge of putting everyone's name on their doors (which, from what I witnessed, was the job in its entirety). On my door he put "Dave Wave" and I guess people thought that was really my name because almost a year latter McKenzie asked "who's this Dave Blair guy" once and I was surprised he didn't know my name! In that dorm, there was also a "Crazy Dave" for a while and a "Crazy Dave, Jr." We were lousy with Daves.

Once when we were at a hardware store in town I asked Ty for his dorm master key and I brought it up to the key making booth. The woman stared at it for a little bit - I thought she might be contemplating the "DO NOT DUPLICATE - UCSC" imprinted on it and wasn't going to make a copy for me, but apparently she just thought that was a political statement and finally said "hmmm, I think I have a blank for that." People would ask both of us (and later Phil, and maybe McKenzie had a master too) to unlock their doors if they got locked out. That seems strange now. I guess Ty's job was completed once he put up name tags at the beginning of the year.

The year before (my first year, Ty's first there), we shared an on-campus apartment with a guy named "Lua" (a large [crazy] Samoan guy who tried to strangle me and once tackled Ty), "RJ" (who always was yelling at his girlfriend "This is MY house!" and left a sticky spot on the wall by the chair he always sat in - from his Jheri Curl) and "Scott", another freshman who I shared a room with (who, thankfully, was never around because he was always at his girlfriend's place (I feel sorry for her roommates if she had any), and who also had one of the sharpest noses I've ever encountered). Scott, was a blonde haired optimist. Didn't share the sense of humor Ty and I. In fact, I think I'm the only roommate who got the humor to "who drank my fucking orange juice?!" Or, the Whoopie (Goldberg) cave, or the milk crate train, or "greased up coffee cup." There's so much...

The university was organized into eight colleges at the time, ours, Oakes, had apartments and most people cooked and ate in their kitchens. Ty and I were on the meal plan though (too busy studying to cook), so we both would walk to the Porter College dining hall where we would usually sit alone and drink lots of coffee, spin glasses, and break a spoon or two (once a woman who worked there told Ty he should act his age and he said "Oh, so it's supposed to be an ACT?"). Sometimes we would sit with other Porter students, but they usually would get up for something and mysteriously never return. Once, we video taped our meal. The funny thing is, the following year, there was a standing room crowd at our table (maybe McKenzie was the funny stooge).

Once, back at Porter, we sat next to the "Monk Guy" (although now that I think about it he may have been some kind of Druid). He can be seen in the beginning of the Lost Boys as one of the local town freaks. I think he lived in the woods behind campus. Or taught sociology, I'm not sure. But he dressed like a monk (or Druid?) and could be sighted around campus talking to (?) we don't know who. So he sat at our table one day and we were about to get up and change tables when we both decided to give him a chance, maybe he wasn't really crazy, maybe it would be ok to sit next to him (a consideration the Porter students apparently never gave us). He started talking (loudly) to God I think it was - Ty and I looked at each other and both got up quickly and went to another table. Later I almost knocked him over when jumping off a campus shuttle as he appeared from nowhere when the doors opened and I shrieked and ran off.

The "Color Guy" (and dutiful sidekick) is too hard to describe."

Corey's Day Off














Tuesday

Checkin' In with Corey


A note from the staff at the Middlespace Institute of Enlightenment Studies (MIES):

Corey here, yo! Thanks to everyone for your supportive mails (and, uh, hate mail isn’t cool).

Today when I got in I found my computer on and stuff on my monitor. I guess Ty came in overnight (and my keyboard was surprisingly oily, but I fixed that with paper towels and a lot of Purell – I replaced the mouse – how come he doesn’t use his own shit?)

I’m done, but here’s what I found on my monitor:
“I had a dream. A wildly fucking mad dream, Corey! Here’s what I remember: I was at the Chinese seamstress’ house and the band was in the kitchen. We were getting rehearsal jerseys made. We were all there, me, Stu, Brucker, and the marvelous Furious Floyd. Maybe you were there too.

I remember thinking how COOL Furious was and I remember asking him about his name. He looked like Marcus and Dix fell into a huge blender, but with a beard and a terribly COOL hat. He wore an overcoat and sunglasses. Short dude. We were passin’ the J around at the time even though we probably thought the seamstress and her husband (the tailor) wouldn’t like that.

The name, aww, I’ll let Furious tell it (text from the dream): “Dude, I take a big ass hit from this motherfuckin’ joint…take a step back, blow this shit out and…DAMN! I’m FURIOUS FLOYD!!” We all slapped backs and hands at that point. Made much more sense in the dream.

So the Chinese seamstress and husband come back into the kitchen and there’s all this sweet, sweet, smoke and I decide to head into the garage/sewing shop and look at all the commercial grade sewing and stitching machines. Mostly to avoid the guilt over smoking in their kitchen. I looked back and Floyd was making the seamstress and the tailor laugh hysterically. I felt much better. The machines were cool.”

That’s it! I saved it all to a file (he hadn't saved it at all). Whatever.

I’m Corey! Out to the Nth from the fre-zeke zone!!



[Legend of Furious Floyd tag]

Monday

Corey from MIES

A note from the staff at the Middlespace Institute of Enlightenment Studies (MIES):


Yeah, uh, it’s me. Corey (the intern).

We had a sighting. Something about “Blueberry Boat” being “the best record ever.” We’ve heard that before, but not to this degree in a while. What’s funny is he hasn’t even mentioned Eleanor. She’s Fiery Furnaces’ lead singer and co-collaborator. He’s was all going off about “time to make the masterpiece” and “who would work on this with me?” and such. We all just kept our head down and stared at our monitors. Else, we’d be playing the cowbell on some obscure track.

I came prepared. I dug this out of my rhyme book (lyrics really), just in case I had to do this again (and yesterday’s sucked so bad):

Here goes:

Wheelin’ and dealin’
Got G’s on the ceilin’

Savage in love
Like heaven above

Stealin’ office supplies
While Ty closes his eyes

I’m an intern with broadband
And you don’t got to understand

[this is the part where the beatbox break comes in]

Nevermind…. OK. Maybe I shouldn’t do this anymore.

- I’m Corey! Out!

(shout outs to my #1 crew and the lacrosse team!)

Sunday

Note From MIES

A note from the staff at the Middlespace Institute of Enlightenment Studies (MIES):


Hi, I’m Corey, the new intern here and this is my first post. I’ve been told to keep the site up while the rest of the gang figures out what happened to Ty. He, uh, isn’t here right now. He left a Post-it on his monitor that said:

“I am always bitchy. No Fun — for anybody. 40. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax — This won’t hurt. More stories next week…”

Well, we all know who wrote this, most of it anyway. But, maybe it wasn’t a note for us. Maybe it was a research problem. He’s always off on tangents -- doing everyone else’s job (including mine most of the time). I know he's going out to PowderMonkey-West on Wednesday, but WTF, huh?

Uh, I don’t really know poetry or nothing (I just get college credit for making tea here). I guess I could post a picture (see my ID picture -- like i said, WTF, huh?), but that doesn't fulfill my 250 word mandate.

And, um, I don’t really know what to say. Me and my roommates got kind of wrecked last night on Rum and smokes. I was telling them about work and stuff. How weird it is here but how much I think I like it but how I’m not learning anything useful or important.

Okey-dokey, here’s my contribution:

The boss listens to music
Constantly blaring
Time to make more tea
Nobody caring
I went to college for this?
I guess it beats selling fries
I wonder how the world looks
Through Ty’s crazy eyes?

I made it in to work on time…and this is about 250 words! That’s about it I guess. I hope i don't get fired for this.


- I'm Corey, out!

(shout out to Jay, Timmy F., Mikey and Rochelle (kisses!))

Friday

Footnote

Genius article in Salon that half the viewers will miss:

Life: The Disorder

Is it me or has the entire world I know turned into some perverted, underbudgeted version of "American Beauty"?

Ouch!

Middlespace will be closed for a while. Check back week of December 5.

We are picking up some of these pieces that got scattered about. Hey, how'd that get there? See?

Anyway, remember that as bad as Jack Johnson's whinny-ass beggy songs are, there are still some brilliant chord progressions thrown about. So not all sucks in the world if you tune out the noise.

Ouch! As the man once said, "my heart is hurting...gotta detoxify."

Go to Achewood for fun.

Thursday

The Human Condition: Questions

When did our purpose get so convoluted?

Do I have to participate in the superficiality?

When did I grow up?

I'm happy being me, why can't everyone be happy being me?

?

Wednesday

Costs : Benefits

There are no magic formulae
To settle the quivers and shakes
Is that a light at the end of a tunnel?
Or a pit full of snakes?

Happy is as happy does
Brain dead is dead instead
The rolly-coaster is moving
Blood's all gone to the head

Passion possession
The spark of a touch
The hope for the loving
The hazards are much

Tuesday

Haven’t I ever written this down?

[found in an old notebook, probably written in 1998 based on notebook]

Back when I lived in the California south
I took an experiential journey
To meet a man named Ralph

Ralph was a mystic
A god
A genius and three-parts sham

I was a follower a believer
And in some ways
I still am

We shared some wine
Some smoke & notes
And a love of power & domination

A mutual admiration society
We were they say
For more than two revolutions

Until the mind expanded
Uncontrolled egocentric
To become equal if not superior

Desperate was the escape
Hostile was the outcome
Burned were all bridges

Respect and loyalty are
Exclusively mutual
I now know

And I am the worse
And the better
As a result

from Gabe (via Rich):

"I had the wierdest dream last night, the details are sketchy, but I do remember that the focal point was you describing a musical that you and Ty had written and filmed, and the central character was a gay Robin Hood. Regardless, we were dying laughing. It was hilarious."

Resistance is Futile




The state has outlawed "undesirable" thinking.

Monday

By Ben Tolman



Ben Tolman dot com

The Details





Subterfuge

there is a construct called: right
and there is also something called wrong
the scale's anchors of societal expectations

in between right and wrong
is where our journeys to enlightenment lie
a guiding genius -- a muse -- serves as chaperone

it is in these times (of inner turmoil)
and uncareful trampling of eggshells
that we find our senses again wide awake

and it is when the senses rise
do we remember that we are alive
when leading and following become one

Four Poems

#51

Flirtings with disasters ultimate
Following instincts dulled from misuse of time
Finding out how much discipline is mitigated

Stability unstable
Loyalty unable
Living enabled
Voting tabled

Heading off to adventures unknown
Destinations of little hope
Art for art for soul forsaken

Paths crossing dangerously close
Orbits into the middlespaces of lives
Train and plane wrecks focus our collective attention

Decisions good or bad or without consequence
Choices nonetheless
Knots stomach muscles of sequoias, indeed

Satisfaction remiss
A whimsical kiss
Kingdoms for bliss
Fall in the abyss

Forever is a long fucking time


Muse Rabbits

Impressions of impressions
Of allusions of wonderment
Factorial fantasies

Old cranky men
Floating above clouds
Of wasteland memories

The slower we go the more we see
Invisible to everyone save self

When the throttle is open
And the rudder broke
Closing our eyes is no longer an option


Safe

Driving ourselves crazy
Finding our places in the big, big world
Overly complicating situations
That are already overly complicated
Due to no (all) effort(s) on our part
Inwardly focused infatuations
Stroking egos fragile
Afraid of shadows – afraid of light

The only question is why
Must it take a tragedy to find sanity?
Cannot we protect the innocents?

Time alone will tell all the stories

Inspiration comes in many forms


-3-

The sharing of each other’s
Worlds – for better or worse –
Investigations and explorations designed
To aid in “the learning” and edification

But how can this heist actually
Be pulled off? As amoral as it is?

Believe me – this hurts my brain too
High stakes gambling consequences
Are, if not pure pain, the
Seeds of angst and paranoia

On Being Naive

"There's something about being naive.... Really interesting things come because you don't know what the rules are, what you can and cannot do. I have to be careful I don't fall into a place were you take fewer risks."

Steve Buscemi

Saturday

Two Important Things - Combo Platter

Hey kids, it's time to mark your calendars. It's crossroads time again.

1) 11.19.05 - I go to the store to get some San Pelligrino for my aching head and the goddamn lady from the goddamn Salvation Army is already wearing that goddamn santa hat and RINGING THAT GODDAMN BELL. To top that, some sucker gives her money and she says -- here it comes -- "god bless you." I hear my own voice saying, "There is no god!"

2) I am at my artistic best when I'm totally fucked up over something (and I don't mean that goddamn bell above). Most of you know this. For the record: I am totally fucked up over something right now.

And, it must be a doozy since given my baggage, it would take a lot.

Shalom.

The Black Time Travel Machine (by Rickey Powell)

Unedited and without customary notes (file under: the shit my friends send for me):

[This Movie Treatment Royally Copyrighted by Rich]
We see a black guy who’s like totally street but also non-threatening (think white audiences) talking to his girlfriend who’s like way better looking than what he would date in real life (what is it about black dudes dating fat black chicks? I see that on the subway all the time) and she’s like not liking him right now, he’s fucked up for the last time and she’s mad so she leaves and he’s all sad so he goes home to his empty apartment and [some kind of humorous pet-like a monkey but something a black dude would have] and oh yeah, some homeless dude gives him like drugs or a contraption or something and when he gets home he decides to use it or forgets to turn it off or something and he falls asleep and smoke comes out of it and he time travels to Oldy Times where there were only white people with funny accents. And his pet goes too but does funny things like go “Uh oh” and hide his face when shits about to happen.

He wakes up and it’s Europe and people have on puffy clothes and he’s like non-believing it so he thinks it’s a dream and gets in trouble because he doesn’t believe it’s real. So he gets taken to a dungeon but not before seeing the princess who, even though everyone is white, she’s like ambiguously racial like Lisa Bonet or Mariah Carey (make it believable!!!). And the prince doesn’t like that they see each other because he’s going to marry the princess and it’s all arranged and the big wedding is next week. (The prince is TOTALLY white. Like stick up the butt and all.)

So the black guy breaks out of the dungeon with the help of some medieval nerds who lack self esteem (get a nearly famous comedian to play one of them or maybe two) and his pet who brings him the keys from some guard who is sleeping. They go back to a barn or something and the black guy has some funny musical montages learning to use medieval stuff like bows and arrows and axes and joust poles and stuff and he dresses in renaissance puffy clothes but keeps it street (like everything’s Bob Marley colors and he has a big gold chain and poses with his arms crossed).

So then he breaks into the castle and the princess and he fall in love in her bedroom but then he has to run out early in the morning and the way he gets out of the castle is funny (falls in a hedgerow or something) and he barely makes it out but then he knows he has to stop the wedding.

So he goes back to the barn and draws on all his 2005 street knowledge and he teaches his renaissance friends some street stuff and they get self-esteem and they go to the wedding and one graffitis on the wall and everyone at the wedding is like WHAAA??? because no one has ever done that in history before and another one distracts the guards by dribbling a basketball (made out of medieval materials) and the black guy comes in on a low rider mule all pimped out (check with animal people about cutting mules legs off – cruel?). Then he gets in a duel with the prince and the prince tries to cheat but the black guy wins because all the guards are smoking medieval weed that the black guy collected back at the barn. And his pet gets in a fight with the princes’s parrot and wins too and we all hate the parrot because he’s been a prick the whole movie.

Then he and the princess kiss but he falls and hits his head and then he’s back in the present day and his real 2005 girlfriend is yelling at him and he leaves and he’s sad and sad music is playing and he goes to Kentucky Fried Chicken on the corner and the chick at the drive thru is TOTALLY THE PRINCESS!!!!!! So he orders like gruel or something totally Oldy Timey. And she doesn’t know she’s the princess but she’s all cool and we’re like, okay, maybe it happened or maybe it didn’t, we don’t know but we do know that black guy is going to be totally tapping that ass for like years to come so what does it matter?

And then the medieval nerds show up too but like as janitors or something or well-meaning bums, like it’s the Wizard of Oz. Maybe we saw a little of them at the beginning of the movie too.

Friday

Long Ago

Mark Reed journal entry from '97:

Five Days At Anne & Ty's

Blind Spot Fuck Up

So, although I fancy myself an excellent driver (and in the company of a few excellent drivers), I have noticed that I'm making a potentially fatal error on a recurring basis.

When changing lanes at speed, I'm missing the vehicle immediately to the right or left. I check the mirrors and give the cursory glance right or left to check the lane the blind spot car, but upon executing, I've noticed -- several times of late -- I've cut cars off. I'm bemused that I'm missing these cars in the sequence.

I replay the situations in my head and, at first, I thought the other cars were just going so fast that they were catching up. But, no. I'm fucking up. Tired or rested. Heavy or moderate traffic. I'm never on the phone. Just fucking up.

I have to fix this or someone's gonna get hurt.

Nightmare


I had this really intense nightmare that the non-Bush presidential candidate did this really stupid opening schtick at his convention where he actually saluted the crowd and the dozen or so people watching on the TeeVee and said something really stupid like "I'm ____ _____ and I'm reporting for duty."

Whew! It was all just a terrible, horrible, really bad, awful dream.



"I'm John Kerry and I'm reporting for duty."

Tuesday

My Travel Companion




Human Performance

"Everything seemed more formal, and at the same time more personal, then. There were no escalators in the stores in the early 30s (at least none in the tri-cities), so there were only elevators (and, of course, stairs). But the elevators themselves were not self-service. There was always a person - almost always a woman, I think - who was the "elevator operator. The people in the elevator would call out the number of the floor they wanted - "five, please", "seven please", etc. And in the operator would call out the number of each floor as it was reached, and also run through a list of the departments included on that floor: "Seven! Women's ready - to - wear, hats, girl's dresses - watch your step!" The "watch your step" would be because the operator wouldn't always be able to line the floor of the elevator up exactly with the floor of the building. Sometimes the operator would jiggle the elevator up and down until she got a pretty good alignment. That's an example of what I mean by things being more personal. In a way, things were taken more seriously then because more reliance was place on actual human performance instead of on machines."

-Dave's Dad

Wednesday

Trick or Whatever

Jesus, Mark.

You nailed it. Exactly how I feel. Hate it!

As I call it: Halloween--The Newest Christmas.

Fucking fall festival and drunk parents...lights? WTF?

When did I die and go to [pirate] hell?

Mark's Halloween Rant

Four Poems

I.

You have to stop caring about
Personal consequences
In order to push forward
Agendas of personal consequence

In zest and zeal
Mistakes are made
Bridges burned and
Allies thrown into chaos

But begging and dealing
Are as unbecoming as
Lying and stealing
Dignity equals freedom

Vision aligns with the future
Of companies and countries
Ideally we utilize or strengths
Unless those strengths are overly frightening

Know your enemies
As you know your self
And ever remember that
Respect given is respect earned

II.

We are dragged into
Banal battles of others
Kicking and thrashing

III.

There are those waiting
For the story

There are some content
With the content to date

But I'll give you
What I'll give you
When I'm ready
When it's time

IV.

Declaration of the Great Psychological War

We understand the differences
between attitudes and behaviors

Perfectly understandable I suppose when differences irreconcilable
degenerate into pettiness and bickering

But when the level of disgust reaches threshold lows...
...it is occasion for wars unstoppable

At least until the enemy is vanquished

Once enemies are declared it becomes easy to treat the animals
as much worse – victims become statistical anomalies