i's back.

i took a nap.

substantive entries should return tomorrow.

feeling: exhausted and satisfied
thinking of: older women, again
music: "safe with you" skillet

if i'm not back by sunday

unleash the pitbulls

and call the firetruck.

feeling: terrified
thinking of: everything that could possibly go wrong
music: "combat chuck" five iron frenzy

even now your eyes are courting sleep
i'll stay by your side as i have always been

sleep tonight, may your dreams reveal my love for you
beyond what i must do, do you know my plans for you?

to separate myself from where my treasure lies
then naked in this cold and lonely unforgiving life.

be stripped away of all delusions of the man i'd like to be
at the moment i am broken parts, sure of only weaknesses
with nothing left to show, no illusions left to hide behind.

burning clean has been both agony and absolute release
can i hope to pass this test, is my destiny the wilderness?

the hardest part of letting go, is trusting you with everything
in laying bare my soul is truly seeing who I really am.

Father what is man that You are mindful of him?

can i pass this test? is my destiny this wilderness?

to stand alone
against a life of wretchedness.
impossible to hope and so i plead Your graciousness

show me your glory
may my life reflect your presence
and never again find myself in anything less.

--"acquiesce" stavesacre

ash wednesday

do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
and being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death--
even death on a cross!

philippians 2:5-8

he was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.

but he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
for he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.

isaiah 53:3-5, 12

i have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though i am nothing but dust and ashes.

genesis 18:27

my mother and father are mexican, but. . .

You're Spain!

You like rain on the plain, as well as interesting architecture and
a diverse number of races and religions.  You like to explore a lot, but sailing,
especially in large groups, never really seems to work out for you.  Beware of pirates
and dictators bearing bombs.  And for heavens' sake, stop running around bulls!
 It's just not safe!
Take
the Country Quiz at the href="http://bluepyramid.org">Blue Pyramid

today is sarah's birthday.

i used to live in chicago, in the area anyways and i met a few really neat people while i was there, i met sarah there too :-) we've known each other about four years and she's a friend, a good friend. those that know me know what that means and that it's significant. there's distance now, and that's a bit hard, she's in illinois and i'm out on the fringe of the world known as the west coast, although i'm working really hard to get her out on a visit here sooner than later. she'll come if she knows what's good for her.

i think that all of us have friends in our lives that sort of make us wonder "how'd i get to be friends, and such good friends, with her?" sarah's one of those people for me, don't get me wrong, i love her tons and i think she's awesome, but we're way different, different enough that, like i said, i wonder how we got to be so close. the only think i can think of that really serves as an explanation is that sometimes, certain people are simply thrust into your life and when you look back on the experiences that you've shared with those people, you realize how much richer your life is for it.

me and sarah are like that, because i feel like our friendship grew mostly because of the fact that wherever i went, she was, and wherever she went, i was. that doesn't always make a difference, there are people i've spent tons more time with that i don't feel a fraction of the affection for, but there are certain people whose presence simply makes life better, and when you spend time with them your care and affection for them grows. sarah is one of those people, every time i saw her, i liked her more and more.

what's coolest about that is that she realizes the same thing. one of the things that i value most in the world is a note that she gave me right after i graduated from college and left illinois where she chronicled a lot of the times we spent together and just told me how much they meant to her, and as a result, how much i meant to her. it's on my nightstand right now, in fact. sarah's twenty today, and i don't think i could have let this day go by without mentioning it here and once again remembering how amazing she is and how blessed i am to have her in my life.

happy birthday sarah.

feeling: warm
thinking of: sarah, it's her day
music: "the closest thing" the juliana theory

life is grand,

but if i don't get a nap today,

someone will pay.

feeling: adequate, but just barely
thinking of: summer, for some reason
music: "the la'roi glover song" the fake jerry jones

even in dating, the brave new world is here.

i was talking to one of my girls not too long ago, she's a high school junior, and she mentioned that there was some guy at school who had been text-messaging her to ask her to go out with him, get a date, whatever. i don't remember my exact response, but it was along the lines that if the guy didn't have the guts to ask her face to face, then he's not worth her time and he doesn't deserve hers. i thought about backing off a bit, because when i was that age, i didn't always do that myself, i'd use the phone, which even now, i think is totally reasonable. but then she told me that this same guy, text-message wonder, wouldn't even acknowledge her when he did see her face to face.

it sorta made me wonder, if he had no idea what to say to her whenever he happened to run into her, and was probably even afraid of interaction in that setting, what could he possibly think would happen if she were to say yes, agree to go out on a date with him and have to spend at least a couple of hours with her one on one? it made me think of something my wrestling coach used to say, and i have no idea of the context into which the question was uttered, but he said "that's like a dog chasing a car, what the hell's he gonna do with it if he catches it?!?"

in fairness, at that age especially, dating is harder for guys than it is for girls, not that it's easy for girls or that the issues faced by either gender are the same, or even comparable, but generally, the males are the pursuers. it's the guy who goes out on the limb, and it's the guy who has to come up with the plan, the girl is the one with all the discretion. there's all that and the general rule that guys in high school are pretty much clueless socially.

a dog catching the car he's chasing, that's classic.

feeling: sore in the hamstrings
thinking of: text messaging a girl to ask her out
music: "three biggest lies" david allan coe

i'm fascinated by the ways people identify themselves.

kinda like the a-rod entries, this one doesn't seem to fit the pattern of content or style that i seem to have established for what i write here, but i figured if i spent the time and thought on it, i might as well post it here.

so anyways, identity; i think the whole thing started in a sunday school class when i was in sixth grade, the big discussion question that day was this:

does what you do define who you are, or does who you are define what you do?

the easy answer, of course, is the conditioned response. think about when you introduce someone or when someone introduces you, generally it's name followed by occupation. beyond the first glance, however, it's a tricky and loaded question, and whichever answer you choose is the one that is true, likely because it's one of those questions that gets right to the core of epistemology, it exegetes a presupposition. what i mean is that that question forces a person to contemplate what it is that is truly foundational about their essence.

so anyways, what sparked this whole train of thought here was an article that i read a week or so ago about gay marriage, more specifically gay marriage from the viewpoint of homosexual clergy. to be really honest, i'm fantastically ambivalent about the whole thing, i mean my opinion is what it is and all i'll say here is that i don't support a constitutional amdenment that would define marriage, but how the whole thing is fleshed out is what i'm particularly ambivalent about, at least in the political sense. back to the point, what fascinated me in reading this article is the disparity in the significance of sexual orientation in defining identity between heterosexual people and homosexual people.

orientation, however, is only where the whole thing starts, because in the whole debate, what people are seeking is the right to have behavior, not simply orientation, legitimized and sanctioned by the state. the cultural shift that's paved the way for this is due, in large part, to a couple of particular developments. first, there's the fact that autonomy has been anointed by our culture as chief among the virtues, bascially that means that the validity of actions based on individual personal convictions are, in the vast majority, not to be taken to task. in our culture, infringing on someone's right to make their own decision borders on the unconscionable. there's that, as well as the inflated status that sex has been ascribed in our perceived hierarchy of needs. the train of thought here goes that since sex is an entirely natural act, it should be part of every human being's experience with little to no regard given to context, that it's an urge that needs to be heeded as a prerequisite for healthy survival, kinda like the urges for food or water. basically, the idea that anyone can live without or that anyone should be expected to be able to live without sex is unthinkable.

so based on that, i don't find it curious that secular culture is working with a playbook that puts such a high value on sex, or more specifically, sexual behavior, as a component of identity. i did however, find it curious that Christian theologians would look at the Bible and at theology in a manner that was so skewed to a single aspect of identity. make no mistake, i as much as or more than anyone, realize that when people do theology or interpret scripture they do so with potentially numerous and glaring biases that permeate their efforts, regardless of any attempt to remain "objective," but i was amazed that these "queer" theologians profiled in the article made sex so central to their work.

now i've been influenced by our culture sufficiently enough that i won't begrudge nearly anybody his or her choice as far as how they define themselves or what they want out of life. however, i'm savvy enough to understand that the secular culture's premium on autonomy as well as its understanding of sex has permeated the church and i'm feisty enough to consider that unacceptable.

flannery o'connor puts a finer point on it than i ever could saying:

the writer who emphasizes spiritual values is very likely to take the darkest view of all what he sees in this country today. for him, the fact that we are the most powerful and the wealthiest nation in the world doesn't mean a thing in any positive sense. the sharper the light of faith, the more glaring are apt to be the distortions of the life the writer sees around him. my own feeling is that writers who see by the light of their own christian faith will have, in these times, the sharpest eyes for the grotesque, the perverse, the unacceptable. the novelist with christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make these appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural.

o'connor's quote is spot on as far as it goes, what's most unfortunate about it, however, is that it currently doesn't go far enough.

feeling: recovered
thinking of: glutamine
music: "faking life" five iron frenzy

well i was workin on my farm, about 1982
pullin up some corn and a little carrot too
when a low-flyin aeroplane, about a hundred feet high
dropped a buncha bales of somethin, some hit me in the eye.

so i cut a bale open and man was i surprised
a buncha large white baggies and big white rocks inside
so i took a little sample to my crazy brother joe,
he sniffed it up and kicked his heels and said "horton that's some blow!!"

bales of cocaine fallin from low flyin planes
i don't know who done dropped em, but i'll take em just the same
bales of cocaine fallin like a pourin rain
my life changed completely by a low flyin plane.

so i loaded up them bales in my pick-em-up truck
headed west to dallas, where i would try my luck.
i didn't have a notion if i could sell em there,
and thirty minutes later, i was a millionaire.

bales of cocaine fallin from low flyin planes
i don't know who done dropped em, but i'll take em just the same
bales of cocaine fallin like a pourin rain
my life changed completely by a low flyin plane.

and now i am a rich man, but i'm still a farmer too,
but i sold my farm in texas, bought a farm down in peru
and when i get so homesick, i think i'm goin insane,
i travel back to texas in a low-flyin plane.

bales of cocaine fallin from low flyin planes
i don't know who done dropped em, but i'll take em just the same
bales of cocaine fallin like a pourin rain
my life changed completely by a low flyin plane.

--"bales of cocaine" reverend horton heat

pathology strikes in dreams

which are either alarmingly indicative of reality

or a terrifyingly accurate perception of your worst fears.

feeling: jerked around and unappreciated
thinking of: never sleeping again
music: "the warrior is a child" twila paris

second of two, continued from yesterday.

so, like i said, it's a tough time to be a ranger fan.

i mentioned the losing and the mismanagement, and even though the losing's a drag, knowing that the whole thing is being haphazardly and carelessly taken care of makes the whole thing about a million times worse. the funny thing about people in charge of such a public enterprise doing a crappy job is that they don't want anyone to know that they're doing a crappy job, even funnier is that they think no one will know they're doing a crappy job if they just tell everyone they're not.

the way they figured they'd do that is by casting doubt on a-rod's desire to be in texas, making him out to be the one who really wanted out. in all reality, a-rod likely did want out. when he signed his quarter-billion dollar contract management gave him the impression that the team was in position to contend for the playoffs, which, despite the last place finish the year previous, wasn't a huge strecth since they'd been division champions three out of the four years before that; and that they were going to remain commited to having the kind of payroll that would enable them to stay in that position.

so basically what ensues is that a-rod has the rug pulled out from under him because after huckleberry and snaggle puss gave millions to retreads like ken caminiti, andres galarraga, todd van poppel, and jay powell, millions more to guys that end up getting hurt like rusty greer and jeff zimmer man, and still millions more to scrubs that just aren't any good like chan-ho park, the team's losing continues, fans stop coming, huckleberry hicks starts losing money and decides to slash payroll.

so once it's clear the teams gonna suck for a while longer, rumors start to float that maybe a-rod's not the happiest to be here, you know because of the losing and that he and the team would both be better off if he and his contract were shipped off to boston or someplace. at that point the seed's planted that a-rod's contract is the sole reason that the team sucks and that they had to get rid of pudge and raffy as well as the reason they're not able to sign any free agents, and as a result fans are pissed at a-rod, telling him not to let the door hit him where the good lord split him, which is just idiocy.

i'm not an a-rod fan, not by any stretch really, but i think it sucks to see him, the best player i've ever seen play the game and a guy who showed up every day and did his job like a professional, leave the team i grew up cheering for. people can piss and moan about him not wanting to be in texas or whatever, but i'll take a guy like him who's doing his job, and doing it exceptionally well, even if he doesn't really want to be here over ten guys who really want to be there and aren't doing their job.

there, i've vented my spleen.

feeling: unburdened
thinking of: stretching
music: "**** with me and find out" wesley willis

first of two

it's a tough time to be a ranger fan.

i don't talk often or much about sports, not here anyways, so i s'pose today will be a bit of a departure from that, mostly because of all the big stuff that's going on with the rangers lately. having grown up in dallas, i've always had a bit of a soft spot for the local teams. even after being out of the area nearly six years, i still follow all the same teams i did when i was a kid, although i don't guess there's anything remarkable about that. the first sport i ever played in life was baseball, i think i was seven when i signed up for t-ball at the Y, and i'm pretty sure a big reason for why i did that was because the summer before i'd discovered the rangers on channel 11.

so i'm still a ranger fan, in fact, out of all the hometown allegiances i've developed, the one i have to the rangers is strongest. not that i'm necessarily fair-weathered as far as the other teams go, i could name nearly every one of the rag-tag bunch of scrubs the mavericks ran out for most of the 90's, which means i can tell you who tim legler is, or mike izzulino, or greg dreiling, or darren morningstar, or bruno sundov, well you get the point. similarly, i followed the cowboys when they were 1-15 and alternately known as troy aikman and a bunch of guys named broderick, back when a loss by less than three touchdowns was considered a good game. those teams would lose, and sometimes they'd lose a lot and i didn't like it, somehow, however, when the rangers were winning i cared just a little bit more and when they lost, it hit me just a little bit harder.

so the last four years have been pretty rough on the team, four straight last-place finishes and the whole thing's been pretty abysmal. what's most maddening about the whole thing is that complete ridiculousness of the level of mismanagement that the team's been subject to, which is to say that they'd be better off with huckleberry hound and snaggle puss at the helm than tom hicks (owner) and john hart (general manager), giving huge guaranteed contracts to guys who have showed up only to absolutely suck and end up, for all intents and purposes, stealing money and letting productive guys go in the name of payroll flexibility.

anyways, over the weeekend they got rid of alex rodriguez which i guess for the past few months has been more a matter of "how" and "when" than it's been a matter of "if." ironically this pretty much more than undid the only sound baseball decision those dopes have made in several years. what's most sickening about it is the near total disregard for the intelligence of the fans who've spent their money supporting the team on the part of hicks and hart. once again, they invoke the payroll flexibility deal, which basically means that since they pretty much screwed the team by giving outrageous contracts to guys who totally blow they subsequently have to get rid of the guy with the biggest contract, who ironically is the only one with a substantial contract who was earning his check.

next year, the proverbial "next year," seems forever away,

feeling: cheated
thinking of: the ghost of charlie hough's knuckleball
music: "guilty by association" steve taylor

more genius from America's favorite radio station

hey lover,
romance is in the air. and you will be too when I shove you out of your office building around noon.
don't be late.

dear person i am starting to fall in love with,
i wanted to give you my heart for valentines day, but will you accept your dog's instead?
sorry i didn't have time to cut the aorta off.

dear person,
i have always thought you had the loveliest legs. that is why i want to cut them off and use them as stilts.

dearest sweatheart,
you + me + axe + plastic bag = friday night.

hey valentines day card recipient,
when you wake up in the bathtub, and your kidneys are missing, and i am five miles away, sweating feverishly behind the wheel of a stolen volvo, will you think of me? probably not because i carved out the memory parts of your brain too. just kidding.

p.s. no I’m not. leave your volvo unlocked.

dear thief of my heart,
valentines day makes me think of three things. the first thing is love. the kind of love that lasts a lifetime and sustains the soul. the other two things are your boobs. now take your shirt off and try to relax.

february 14th person head,
why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near? probably because i tipped them off that your guts will make good eatin.
look out!

hey there plumcakes,
i want to do something special for you tonight. so why don't you come over at 9:30 tonight and bring your sister.

happy singleness awareness day.

feeing: ok
thinking of: some park in grand prairie, texas
music: "valentine" old 97s

sometimes, i'm astounded by my own self-ignorance.

specifically i'm thinking of things that i've learned in the past, and then had to re-learn, and then re-learn, and then re-learn again. the whole thing's been particularly real lately in a couple of ways. i mentioned the other day that i've been frustrated with some stuff and that frustration's led to a real lack of emotional energy. i've also been at a bit of a low-ebb as far as my level of physical energy goes.

anyways, you know how the conventional wisdom goes whenever you're feeling that way. you're so worn out that you don't want to expend any more energy, because given how you're feeling, to do so would seem to be fantastic folly. nothing else is working though, you try going to sleep a bit earlier and it just serves to make you groggy in the morning because it screws with your natural clock. maybe you withdraw a bit from people around you because you lack the energy interaction would require, but that just leads to increased isolation, which drains you even more, and then you're at your wits' end, and in that moment you realize the utter uselessness of holding on to whatever it is you're holding on to.

so anyways, i wrote an email to a friend. it wasn't a long one by any stretch, and to be honest even that was a really hard thing to do, not because i didn't want to or anything like that, but because it was so difficult for me to tear myself away from the idea that i didn't have anything at all to give, even something as easy as writing an email. i get the feeling that we've all been there. there was that and the hour-long cardio workout that i did yesterday. neither of those are things that are revolutionary in as much as i'd done them both before, and there's truly nothing at all spectacular about writing a two or three sentence email or spending an hour with an elevated heart rate.

maddening and rewarding all at the same time was the fact that i knew that making the effort to write that email and taking that hour to workout, despite the threats they posed to my immediate comfort, offered me sources of energy that i wasn't able to easily perceive prior to making that effort. i'm here now in a way better state of mind, and less worn out emotionally, mentally and physically than i was before.

i am a bit sore tho.

feeling: better
thinking of: tiger balm
music: "blank" value pac

it's been rough and rocky travelin, but I'm finally standin upright on the ground.
after taking several readings, i'm surprised to find my mind's still fairly sound,
i thought nashville was the roughest, but i know i said the same about them all,
we received our education in the cities of the nation, me and paul.

almost busted in laredo, but for reasons that i'd rather not disclose,
but if you're stayin in a motel there and leave, just don't leave nothin in your clothes.
and at the airport in milwaukee, they refused to let us board the plane at all.
they said we looked suspicious, but i believe they liked to pick on me and paul.

on a package show in buffalo, with us and kitty wells and charley pride,
the show was long and we was just sitting there, and we'd come to play and not just for the ride,
and we drank a lot of whiskey, so i don't know if we went on that night at all.
but i don't think they even missed us, i guess buffalo ain't geared for me and paul

it's been rough and rocky travelin, but I'm finally standin upright on the ground.
after taking several readings, i'm surprised to find my mind's still fairly sound,
i thought branson was the roughest, but i know i said the same about them all,
we received our education in the cities of the nation, me and paul.

--"me and paul" willie nelson

"how's your soul?" he would ask.

that was the first thing lyle dorsett ever asked me. well maybe not ever, but the first time i sat in his office to talk with him one-on-one, before i was fully in the chair, those three words rang, somewhat startlingly, in my ears. i didn't know what to make of that question, i mean who starts a conversation like that? his way was so disarming though, and on top of that he exuded such a sense of authority that it didn't really matter what he was asking, he was the kind of guy whose question you simply had to answer.

it seemed as though he had the ability to convey in his asking of that question, or any question, the sense that he wasn't asking to put you on the spot as much as he was asking because the answer you'd give really mattered to him. come to find out that question wasn't a sort of one-time engagement, he asked it everytime i sat down to talk with him. i don't remember what i told him that first time, but i know that that he asked me that question frequently enough to get a pretty wide variety of responses.

no one's asked me that in a while, and i really feel like i'm worse off for it. to be really honest, i'm not sure there's anybody in my life that's close at hand that i feel would have the kind of authority and care and relationship for that question to go as far now as it did then. i guess that part of growing up is making the sort of adjustments that minimize the absence of a presence like that.

sooner or later though, you notice.

feeling: the need for a release of endorphins
thinking of: second floor, billy graham center
music: "ball and chain" social distortion

i like my first name.

i s'pose i should clarify, i like the easy nickname that my first name lends itself to, and i guess i owe that to my given first name. the name i was born with is "enrique," but nobody's called me that since before i knew how to tie my shoes. when i moved out here, there were some people who used it; some who were simply uninformed and the misguided souls who thought that since it was on my birth certificate it's what i should be called. people would say it, and i wouldn't even know to look up.

anyways, the name i dig is "riqui," that might not be my "name," but whether it is or not, i feel like it's the most adequate one word description of me. my mom is to thank for the spelling, which cuts both ways, there are people who have known me for a while who still struggle with the spelling, as well as the complication of having to spell it for the uninitiated.

the cool thing about it is that i can sign something with just my first name and people know exactly who it is.

feeling: like a broken bone with a solid splint
thinking of: office conversation with drs dorsett and kang, and how much i could use one of those now
music: "beautiful day" U2

i stay crunchy in milk.

feeling: drained, unbelievably conflicted and like i'm cheating myself
thinking of: galatians 6:9
music: "standard lines" dashboard confessional, "fist vs. tact" MxPx

soundtrack for today, or lately, whatever:

1. "cheating at solitaire" mike ness
2. "in your wildest dreams" reverend horton heat
3. "old friend" rancid
4. "ballad of a lonely man" mike ness
5. "go with your friends" reverend horton heat
6. "jagged" old 97s
7. "me and paul" willie nelson
8. "tropical london" rancid
9. "hey jealousy" gin blossoms
10. "make sure i'm out screwing up" wesley willis
11. "personal Jesus" johnny cash
12. "much too young to feel this damn old" garth brooks
13. "bastards on parade" dropkick murphys
14. "just don't want coffee" caedmon's call

the phone rang at six this morning.

you know how it is, you're thinking to yourself: "this must be a dream," because to anybody who cares anything at all about you, calling at that hour is unthinkable and borders on unconscionable. the confusion was compounded by the fact that the focal point of the dream that i had last night was a ringing phone. even stranger than all that is the fact that i rarely, and i mean rarely wake up with even the slightest recollection of having dreamt.

while i was out running some errands today, there was a phrase that stuck out in my mind. it kept repeating itself over and over again, it was significant, significant enough that i wrote it down. basically the thought was that there are a lot of things in my life that aren't what i want them to be.

that doesn't bug me so much, anybody'd be hard-pressed to recall a time when everything in life was what they wanted it to be. i'm not sure really what else i want to say. i'm not at all sure why i remembered dreaming last night. i've been pretty frustrated with some stuff lately and though that's not the most fun, it's not the frustration that's really bothering me as much as the feeling that i get that i'm not dealing with it in the most effective way does. the whole dream thing was more or less me searching for someone to hold responsible for all that i perceive to be lacking in my life, and not even searching so much as assigning.

maybe it is totally someone else's fault and i'm just a sucker.

feeling: in urgent need of advice
thinking of: why teresa strasser quit "while you were out"
music: "white days" the juliana theory

alceste1103: man, if i had a pimped out bachelor pad
alceste1103: with a fuckin asteroids video game machine - the big kind
alceste1103: and my fiance called oprah to fix it up
alceste1103: i'd dump her
ricv56: that's not just grounds for dismissa
ricv56: l
alceste1103: that calls for a beating
ricv56: that's wading into justifiable homicide country
alceste1103: she threw away his beer can collection
ricv56: immanently justifiable
alceste1103: and
alceste1103: filled the living room with orange floors, white shag carpeting and several glass tables
alceste1103: not everyone has faggoty tastes, you [******] faggot redesigner
ricv56: i'm down with shag carpeting

feeling: let's call it "afterglow"
thinking of: nothing good
music: "U.P.S. my heart to you" mojo nixon

hold on honey i'd like to say
i'm bustin out and breakin away
i'm letting you go like a hot horseshoe
i can't take another heartache from you.

think about how it's gonna be
when you start back to needin me
when your dancin shoes have lost their shine
i'm gonna be gone in mine.

i'm leavin now,
i'm leavin now.
get outta my face
get outta my place
i'm leavin now,
adios
i'm leavin now.

and the time'd come when you'd trim the fat
feed the kitchen scraps to the front seat cat
bye bye baby when the bills come due
you might have to give up a jewel or two.
eat your heart out anyway,
it's hard as your head and it's cold as clay
it's all over now you won't have me,
your sugar daddy or your money tree.

i'm leavin now,
i'm leavin now.
get outta my face
get outta my place
i'm leavin now,
adios
i'm leavin now.

pull up the collar on that travelin coat
sell that miserable pleasure boat
i wouldn't trade a nickel for another buck,
i'm livin on muscle with guts and luck.

if anybody asks where did i go
tell em i went where the wild goose go.
i won't even have me an area code
don't need a number
don't need a road.

i'm leavin now,
i'm leavin now.
get outta my face
get outta my place
i'm leavin now,
adios
i'm leavin now.

--"i'm leavin now" johnny cash and merle haggard

i used to move furniture.

i've done a lot of crappy jobs, by crappy i mean that the moving job was just one of several that i've had that are really just the kind that a person does during high school and college to make a bit of extra money. none of them are at all anything that you want to do, you do them because you'd rather not choose between putting gas in the car or going grocery shopping or you just don't want to bug your parents for money. when i say "done" a lot of crappy jobs, i mean worked at, although i'm sure that i've done lots of work that could be qualitatively described as "crappy," my grades in high school can attest to that. i don't guess that that's either here or there, but maybe if i'd made better grades then i could have scored an internship or something a bit less menial.

to be really honest, even though i'm describing them as crappy jobs, i quite enjoyed all of them, but then maybe that's because they fall victim to a sort of enhanced and romanticized memory syndrome. there was the maintenance man deal that i did during the summers in high school making five bucks an hour. it was rough, and some days it was ridiculous, like the day we had to dig an eighty yard trench in 105 degree heat, but i think if i hadn't spent those summers doing that, me and dunx probably wouldn't be the friends that we are. i delivered pizza which was cool, which basically entailed me getting paid to drive my car, the hours were crappy, but the money was really good, i'd never make less than twelve bucks an hour and on a good night i'd clear twenty an hour easily. other that that, there was the summer i worked at 7-11, not behind the counter, that woulda been sweet, but their corporate headquarters is in dallas, so i worked in the office there, sorting and filing, it was postitively mind-numbing.

so then there was the moving. it wasn't like any of the other ones, mostly because i wasn't locked in to a schedule with it. i knew a guy who had a truck and whenever he had a job and needed help, he'd give me a call. there was that and the fact that he paid fifteen bucks an hour and in cash, which, even though he was kind of a jerk, made him my favorite person quite frequently. one job that i did for him was a two day job, in which the first day was twelve hours and the second day was another four hours. i made nearly three hundred dollars on that job, most of which could be used discretionarily, so i decided to put a cd player in my car. given my pretty soild distaste for pretty much anything on the radio, which on my somewhat frequent dallas to chicago trips would be compounded by the fact that the airwaves for the duration of the trip were filled with little more than third rate country music, i figured that it would be a pretty reasonalble expense.

that's pretty much exactly what it's turned out to be. it's played my cds for going on five years now, sparing me the chore of wading through cruddy radio station after cruddy radio station in search of a song that doesn't absolutely suck, and ensuring that i would the only radio i'd listen to would be from America's favorite radio station which i can only do in the car in dallas anyway. here lately though, it's not been cooperating with me, and it's been arbitrarily spitting my cds back out on arbitrary, but consistent occasions. i've tried the lens cleaner and everything like that, and nothing's worked. i don't really want to replace it, but i'm at a loss as to what else will get it to work.

at least i don't have to move furniture to get a new one.

feeling: strained
thinking of: ashley
music: "bob" NOFX

big brother is watching

feeling: like i need better circulation
thinking of: ned lud
music: "tender the sky" 100 Portraits

i'm not a prude.

that seems like an awfully curious statement to make to start a blog entry, especially for me. it seems pretty defensive like i'm getting ready to tell you why i'm not a prude. that'll come later, or it may not, i haven't decided yet. anyways, there was a football game on yesterday, the first twenty minutes or so was giving me flashbacks to those baylor-rice debacles i spent my saturday mornings watching as a youngster. no reason to worry though, because it actually turned out to be a hell of a game, the first one i watched from start to finish this year, in fact.

that's not what caused all the buzz around the game, the event, whatever, this morning because the general public decided that a tit, er a breast, was so fascinating so as to detract from the reason everyone was paying attention in the first place. i actually wasn't around for the halftime show, out of all the times i've watched the super bowl, i think i've seen the halftime show exactly one time, the one with U2 where bono was wearing that jacket lined with the american flag, so i didn't see the whole thing.

the whole thing's unfortunate really, a pity, because like i said, the game was tip-top. it's more than a pity actually, it's all pretty ridiculous, the people who are the most pissed about it, because it was indecent or whatever, are just calling more attention to it by complaining. but even they're not as irritating as the milquetoast "progressive" types who crow about it just being a body part. the point that they miss is context, because here's the thing, if i want to see a tit, i know where to look to find one. it doesn't particularly bother me that justin timberlake essentially took off janet jackson's shirt, but there are people who most definitely don't appreciate something like that and i can see how they would be pissed because of the fact that they don't expect to see stuff like that in that particular context. the people complaining are entirely justified in doing so, the only thing they don't realize is that no one cares what they think and people care even less the louder they get.

the one thing the most strident members of both groups have in common is that they've likely never seen one in real life without having to exchange currency for the experience.

feeling: shafted
thinking of: older women
music: "baddest mother f*cker" david allan coe

a sports fan was sitting in the top row at the super bowl, barely able to see the field.

he noticed a vacant seat about 3 rows back on the 50-yard line. it was still vacant when the second quarter started, so he went down and asked the man seated next to it if anyone was sitting there.

the man said "no, have a seat." a few minutes later he asked the man if he knew whose seat this was and why they weren't here at such an important event. the man said that for ten years it had been his wife's seat but that she had passed away.

feeling sorry for the nice man, the fan asked if he didn't have a friend or family member that he could have offered the seat to instead of just leaving it vacant.

the man said "no, they're all at the funeral."

*****

john madden was in charlotte to announce a football game when he noticed a special telephone near the panthers bench. he asked jake delhomme what it was used for and was told it was a hotline to God. john asked if he could use it. jake told him, "sure, but it will cost you $100." john scratched his head, then thought, "hey, I could use some help picking games." he pulled out his wallet and paid $100. john's picks were perfect that week.

the next week john was in st louis when he noticed that same kind of phone on the rams bench. he asked what the telephone was for and marc bulger told him, "it's a hotline to God. if you want to use it, it will cost you $500." recalling the previous week, john pulled out his wallet and made the call. john's picks were perfect again that week.

the next weekend john was in dallas when he noticed the same kind of telephone by the cowboys bench. he asked quincy carter "is that the hotline to God?" quincy said, "yes, and if you want to use it, it will cost you 35 cents." john looked incredulously at quincy and said, "wait a second, i just paid $100 in charlotte and $500 in st louis to use the same phone to God! why do the cowboys only charge 35 cents?" quincy looked at john and replied, "in texas, it's a local call."