In my quest to find the perfect word or picture to define the cluster-fuck that was the year of 2009, I would like to thank Scott Ramsoomair of VG Cats for unknowingly doing the work for me.

-B
So beautiful and so strange

Sleeper Hit of the Year

Blue October - "Dirt Room"

-B
You think you own me, you should'a known me!

Poetry Corner #3

And now, a little T.S. Eliot for all you nighthawks;
Mistah Kurtz—he dead.

A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

-B
All the pretty ladies go to the city

Mind Eraser, No Chaser

Only the folks at Cracked could come up with the visual aids needed to support my own (and the rest of the sane worlds) opinion that Glenn Beck has managed to lose his fucking mind...more than once. It's as if he lost it, found it in the lost and found box at the Special Olympics, did a lobotomy with his zombie hands (weepng like a little bitch the whole time), cried, made racial remarks over the air, cried some more and became the unofficial spokesperson for Time Cube (viewer beware).

-B
what does it mean when the knife and the hands are your own

Silhouette Serenade

Still one of my all-time favorite songs by one of my favorite bands, who managed to turn into another one of my favorite bands (Sirens Sister). Plus, this song may have the best opening line ever.

-B
The last thing I want to do right now is read your stupid poetry

This time of the year is always hard. The materialistic obsession often resulting in two grown adults going UFC on each other for a fucking Tickle Me Elmo doll or whatever the new fad is, the "war on Christmas" bullshit Fox spews out every hour, and of course, the holiday-lovin' idiots at work that you have to put up with when they hang sparkly shit all over the fucking place; as you may or may not have guessed by now, I hate holidays. However, out of respect for the holiday freaks out there who seem to find joy in a world of misery and try to convince me that happy thoughts will make my personal shit go away, I will instead talk about the 25th Anniversary of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame concert. I have displayed two lists below; one list of artists/bands that couldn't be there, and another that should have but weren't. Here we go:

Bands that couldn't be there:

1. The Beatles
2. The Clash
3. Led Zeppelin
4. Marvin Gaye
5. Michael Jackson

Bands that should have fucking been there, but for some reason, weren't:

1. Aerosmith
2. Pink Floyd
3. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
4. The Rolling Stones
5. Bob Dylan

That's all, feel free to argue or whatever, I don't care. I posted my favorite part of the show (besides Simon & Garfunkel) up above.

Oh, and Happy Holidays!

-B
standing on the corner, suitcase in my hand

The Easy Way

I couldn't have said it better myself.

All Hail Chez!

-B
This is the sound of me wearing thin

Notion

One of the best songs in the past 5 years by one the most under-appreciated bands by th American music industry; particuarly my nemeisis, fucking Pitchfork!

-B
I got a notion that says this doesn't right

Poetry Corner #2

Yes, I enjoy poetry, and no I don't give a shit what people think. I am especially fond of the great writers such as Vidal, Mailer, Singleton, Milton, Homer, Baudelaire, Wilcox, Lao Tzu, Aristotle, Keat, Kipling, Dante, Goethe, Oscar Wilde, T.S. Elliot, Blake, Bukowski, Burgess, Buroughs, Jim Carroll, Victor Hugo, Huxley, Kerouac, Lucretius, Persius, Sylvia Plath, Shakespeare, Mary Shelley, Patti Smith, Updike, and of course my all time favorite, William Butler Yeats. However, since I have already exposed you to my favorite Yeats poem, I shall now introduce you to my favorite poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. However, before I do, if you have any interest in reading some amazing poetry that makes Jewel's poetry look...well even worse, here is a short list of recommendations. And now, I would like you to enter the tragically beautiful mind of Ella Wheeler Wilcox, I hope you enjoy.

For this is wisdom-to love and live,
To take what fate or the gods may give,
To ask no question, to make no prayer,
To kiss the lips and caress the hair,
Speed passion's ebb as we greet its flow,
To have and to hold, and, in time-let go.

-B
It's 4:03 and I can't sleep without you next to me.

Technorati : Wilcox, poetry, yeats

A Momentary Lapse Of Reason

Main Entry: in·sane

Pronunciation: \(ˌ)in-ˈsān\

Function: adjective

Etymology: Latin insanus, from in- + sanus sane

Date: circa 1550

1. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

My train of thought, as well as my life it seems has been nothing but the above definition; insane. I have spent my whole life putting others before myself, and I always get the same result. Almost thirty years of fighting for a life a meager peasant would wish upon his cruel master. Where once I saw a clear path, I now see fog on the windiest of roads. It sometimes seems like nothing more than pure luck that I have not driven (or been driven) over the side of the road, tumbling towards my inevitable bottomless pit of failures and disappointments. I used to think that I was a good person; I would do anything for anyone, and break my back for those I barely considered acquaintances, much less those I truly cared about. Now I can't seem to care about anything. This is nothing new; those who knew me throughout the yesteryears have seen this behavior slowly un-bottle itself, every year seemingly getting worse and worse. Like most children, I dreamed of gold but awoke with rust. I am not sure of the exact moment I began this downward spiral of disappointment and disenchantment, but it seems to have happened long before my memory developed. I can't remember a single period of my life where I have been happy. Maybe I never have. My eyes saw Alexander while the mirror reflected Amory; failing upwards for so long that you begin to feel like you have actually accomplished something until the moment arises where the mirror's reflection finally overcomes your eyes' own overblown perception of failure masked as success and joy. Nothing I do ever seems to be good enough for anybody, and quite frankly, I fear I am done with it. This town, this life is nothing more than a redundant video game that you cannot win, but there is no reset button. I fear I am rather done with this life. There is nothing I can improve, and all I seem to do is fail. So maybe it is time to move on...find another road to travel in another place where no one has any predispositions of my past or predictions of my future. Sorry California, but I am done with you. The next few somber months shall be spent trying to find another place to lay my head, for I fear I have overstayed my welcome here. Sometimes, when you know that you just can't win, you have no choice but to face the fact that you have lost.

-B
And I hold you close in the back of my mind, and raise my glass 'cause either way I'm dead. Neither of you really help me to sleep anymore; One breaks my body and the other breaks my soul.

Goodnight Unknown

For those few who know me personally but were unaware of this, Lou Barlow is one of my favorite musicians. He is ranked in my top 5 somewhere between Tom Waits and Eddie Vedder. So imagine how happy I was when I heard that Lou Barlow has a new solo record out titled Goodnight Unknown. Before I give my personal take on the record, allow me to acclimate you with his previous work; he was the original bass player for Dinosaur Jr., still one of the greatest alternative bands around that manages to continually get better. He was also the man behind the very underappreciated Folk Implosion and my favorite of all his work, Sebadoh, who I was lucky to see live at Old Ironsides in downtown Sacramento in 2004. He has also released two solo albums, along with a handful on EP's under the moniker Sentridoh. He has played a very large role in the late 80's to early 90's music scene, and continues to be the Paul Westerberg of my generation (in my own humble opinion.). The song "On Fire" off of Sebadoh's 1996 release Harmacy is still listed in my top 10 favorite tracks of all time.

As for his new record Goodnight Unknown, I would rank this as some of his best solo work. Where his first solo album Emoh was a mostly acoustic, soft haze of melodic tunes, Goodnight Unknown hit's just a smidge harder. It is a little cleaner sounding than Emoh, but still carries his lo-fi fashion. "Don't Apologize" may sound a little like it was ripped from Sebadoh's later releases, which is not a bad thing at all, but most of the record is standard Barlow acoustic style with occasional electric fuzz. The opening track "Sharing" starts the record off with a mid-tempo garage rock feel, but it smoothes itself out by the last track, "One Note Tone". For those who just could not get into Sebadoh and thought Dinosaur Jr. was a little too indy-grunge for them, Goodnight Unknown is a perfect starting point to jump into his catalog, and then just work your way back. Trust me, you can't go wrong with a single release that carries his name (which happens to be a lot), but this is a great introduction into his lo-fi world.

-B
My mind is open, not my arms. Half the world ago is locked out; I led you on, you did no harm; this story ended when you walked out.

Technorati : dinosaur jr., folk implosion, goodnight unknow, lou barlow, sebadoh, sentridoh

Sad, But True

-B