Below are the 17 most recent journal entries recorded in jaymc's LiveJournal:

Monday, November 13th, 2006
1:45 pm	i just found these three poems in a notebook. i think they're from a few months ago: 1. blue-eyed and catholic, with a fluttering skirt, her feet peeked out bird-like, perched upon the afternoon's uncertainty: coffee with an old flame, his sensual tug not yet forgotten, but she would be clear -- letting her slender fingers fall forward to reveal the ring, she'd quietly laugh. 2. economics to the policeman seemed to postulate only so many pressing purchases, and thus he remained a happy pauper. 3. "i'm freaked out about turning twenty-three," the blue-eyed student shouted into her phone, to an irritating girlfriend who never loaned her lip gloss when they met boys at bars, as they'd been doing for nearly two years. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 7th, 2005
10:46 am	two poems 1. "like you're looking for a break from robbing banks," i said. she abruptly buttered me up: "yes, you're the only bank i'd ever rob." i half-smiled and emptied the kettle to ignore the temptation. 2. you'd fall in love if it weren't so easy, fluttering at you like a sewing machine inside your first bedroom, a sweet bloom of electricity you try to deny. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 2nd, 2005
12:15 pm	One of the inevitable liabilities of getting older is developing crushes on married women. :( (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, June 10th, 2005
11:58 am	Woo! My first LJ meme! Top six songs of the moment (from librarynation): Of Montreal, "The Party's Crashing Us" Isolée, "Jelly-Baby/Fish" Moussa Doumbia, "Keleya" Junior Boys, "Teach Me How to Fight" M.I.A., "Bucky Done Gun" (The Claps' NoMeansMaybe remix) The Killers, "Smile Like You Mean It" Now I guess I'm supposed to "pass it on," but I hate making people feel obligated or anything. But if you want to post your own list, please do! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, June 2nd, 2005
11:23 am	"I'm sorry, Bobby, but God is dead." One of this week's National Spelling Bee contestants: Tyler is an aspiring linguist. He enjoys reading, and his favorite book is Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil. He spends his time watching anime, playing video and online games, and surfing the Internet. He also is interested in writing and drawing. In his spare time Tyler likes to play with his dog, Rebel. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 31st, 2005
10:30 am	i forgot to mention i had a dream last night that i was trying to avoid being indoctrinated into a satanic cult. several satanists had invaded my childhood home and were converting people through physical force, sort of like how zombies or vampires operate. in this cult, though, they just had to flick your thumbnail, and you'd turn into a satanist. so you'd have to tuck your thumbs under your fingers. i thought they had gotten to fflaneur, but after i ran like hell out of the house and all the way down langford drive, he was waiting in a car at the end of the block to rescue me. he's a good man. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 11th, 2005
11:17 am	i get bothered easily when i think that someone has misunderstood or misread me. m.p. said the other night in the studio that he didn't think i had an appreciation for cuteness. i said wtf. i said have you seen the women i've dated. he said no, no, i don't mean women. i mean cute things. like puppies and babies and balloons. i said well. there's a point at which cute becomes too much. like precious moments figurines. i said also there are many different kinds of cute. like the japanese cute (kawai). i said i found that kind of cute, for example, compelling. he said the fact that you use the word compelling says something. i presume he meant that it indicated a certain detachment. i didn't know what to say. i have thought many times about how i'm drawn to cuteness. i almost wrote an essay about it a few years ago (more culture-crit than autobiography, though). it felt weird for someone to say that i wasn't into cuteness, that he thought i was the kind of person who rejected all that, who was too adult and intellectual for those things. (i mean, intellectual is one thing, but i rarely feel "adult" ever.) moments like that make me think, well how else must i be misrepresenting myself? (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, May 6th, 2005
12:37 pm	i'm finding it amusingly perverse that i'm mailing a check to my doctor -- one that was due almost a year ago, except there was a bit of a mix-up because i paid for it in cash a couple weeks later and the receptionist must not have settled the balance properly, but i don't want to bother raising that point because i put the whole thing off for months and now they're about to send a collection agency after me -- anyway, i'm about to mail this check to my doctor with this stamp on the envelope: (Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 3rd, 2005
10:05 am	another day stumbling late into work with sore body parts, spasming muscles, eyes drooping so much i almost fall asleep in the elevator after disconnecting my ipod, lying about my start time on the sign-in sheet. that's my 2005, unfortunately. but this time i stayed up until four a.m. because i downloaded a demo version of traktor dj studio and was having too much fun playing around with it. i can't figure out how to crossfade yet, or really control the volume at all, but right before i went to bed i locked into a mix of "showroom dummies" with "daft punk is playing at my house," just letting the kraftwerk play while looping lcd soundsytem and occasionally letting james murphy shout "got a bus and a trailer at my house" during an instrumental passage. this morning while eating peanut butter on bread i listened to justus köhncke's "elan" and realized it would mix well with the now-classic "galang" by m.i.a. it was difficult for me to not cue 'em up right then, except i still had to take a shower. also last night i went to see the band spoon at the metro. it struck me as a better show than when i'd seen them there approx. a year ago, but i can't tell whether they played better, or whether everything else was more my style: for one, it was a somewhat-secret free show that doubled as a promotional event for jack daniels, so there weren't that many people there and i was able to stand much closer to the stage, with space to move about. also, almost all of canasta was there, plus jeff and jen and edith and elia and neptali, so it was nice to socialize. (i was able to point out that "the two sides of monsieur valentine" sounds like tom petty, and megan and ben were both like, "oh yeah, totally!" i sort of want to listen to tom petty now. and the pretenders. what the hell, man. i should've bought that pretenders singles collection at reckless the other day. maybe i'll just borrow pj harvey's stories from the city, stories from the sea from chinesetwine.) also, thax got all vulgar in his introduction of spoon, but vulgar in a prissy way, calling us all motherfuckers with a limp-wristed hand on his hip. can i write more than two sentences without mentioning music? argh city. i spent the el ride to work today trying to winnow down a list of singles from the last year into my favorite 50, for a stylus writers' poll. i'm going to have a stypod entry up next week, and then toward the end of the month an article on donald fagen's "i.g.y.," a song which interests me for a couple reasons, but mostly the marriage of the song's (ironic?) nostalgia for 1950s optimism with the new, ultra-polished 1980s smooth jazz style. the headache i had all day yesterday, which i pinned on barometric pressure fluctuations, is gone, but periodically muscles around my skull will throb for a second or two. hmmm. okay. back to work. Current Mood: sore (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, April 11th, 2005
12:26 pm	i just posted this on ilx, but i love you guys, too: ( Read more... ) i saw sylvia101 and hypersimulation at that phoenix show, too, but only at the end. kinda wish i'd had more time to talk with them. also: i now have a new driver's license, with half-closed eyes, weird-looking bangs, and not even a smile! phear me! (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, April 8th, 2005
10:45 am	now, if you came home late at night and found your kitchen and bathroom lights both on, and your bathmat disheveled, and the plunger atop your toilet tank, and a pot from your stove on your bathroom sink, wouldn't you expect to find a note somewhere in the apartment, something to ameliorate the perfectly natural fear of finding your apartment in disarray? a note that said something like "sorry, we had to do some routine maintenance, so we entered your apartment, and then we noticed that your bathtub was about to overflow, so we took care of the situation, sorry for the mess"? why do i have to e-mail my landlord to get this scoop? (at least he summoned a plumber to fix my drainage problem, and so i actually showered this morning without water around my ankles for the first time in months. it was amazing!) no one wants to go to sonotheque with me tonight, do they? scott and ryan from pitchfork are spinning, along with several other folks. i might have to take a nap first, though, depending on when they start. Current Mood: tired Current Music: the decemberists, "the engine driver" (Comment on this)
Thursday, March 31st, 2005
11:07 am	brief things: 1. the best birthday present i got this year was from glowworm28, who filled a tiny blank book with 26 things she likes about me. it was really sweet and made me happy. it's fun to know how others perceive you, too. 2. music writing: i have my first full-length article up on stylus today! it's about the music in the film morvern callar, and you can read it here. i think it turned out all right. (this reminds me that i need to write gail gr!ff!n, since it's been about a year, and i want to let her know that my writing's been getting some attention. also, i had an odd dream about her a few weeks ago in which she mentioned to me that she was teaching an italian class at "k." figuring it to be a lark, i said, "oh, what, like beginning italian?" to which she said, sort of snottily, "uh, no, john. i've been teaching all levels of italian, even advanced, for years now, including when you were in my classes. you just weren't paying attention.") because of the stylus work, i've been kinda neglecting my tongue-twisterly named blog (seaworthy etc.) so i'm gonna maybe try to report on my favorite singles of 2005 so far, one a day for the next week or two. i might put 'em up as mp3s, too. 3. i'm having dinner with my mom tonight. we're going to ezuli, the nueva-caribbean place on milwaukee ave. which i've been curious about for a long time. (restaurant club went there in early 2000, before i was even around.) anyway, it was one of her new year's resolutions to spend more time with me, and so we've been going out to dinner, just the two of us, about once a month now. it's nice. i wonder if i should call her out about something that bothered me on easter, though. she has this habit, as most moms do, of wanting to champion her kids' achievements in front of the relatives. which is well-intentioned but it's also embarrassing, because then an uncle or aunt might ask me a follow-up question, but i can't tell whether it's just to be polite or what, and so i assume they're not actually interested, and since i hadn't even brought it up in the first place, it's a conversation that no one actually wants to have! also, i'm 26, and i guess i feel like i don't need my mom to trumpet these things for me anymore. oh, and then she gets the details wrong! about a year ago, canasta was named one of the illinois entertainer's best unsigned bands of the year. so my mom tells everyone, "john's band was named the illinois entertainers of the year!" making it sound like we were competing with oprah and kanye. haha. oh well. 4. last week's new yorker profile on antonin scalia was really fascinating. great journalism. i got so wrapped up in it on the train that i had to call r. to tell her about it. i figured that as a law student she had more of an informed opinion about him than i did and would be interested in the article's angle. i mean, i just mostly knew him as the voice of the extreme right on the bench, which meant that i didn't hold him in very high esteem. but now i think i have an odd respect for him. i mean, i still totally disagree with him, but the relish with which he approaches the battles inside and outside the court is kind of awesome (he hires a liberal clerk every year just so he can have a sparring partner!) and he's really shrewd and smart, too. the article also made me consider the value of idealism, which scalia doesn't have much use for, and what kind of responsibilities such a value, which i take for granted, carries with it. not that this led me to any kind of conclusion, though. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, March 25th, 2005
9:43 am	c'mon man, it's my birthday, fuck this wet snow! the weather on my birthday is often quite variable. for every year it's like this, there's another year it's sunny and 70. ah, the vagaries of late march in the midwest. so last night canasta rocked the roof off the double door. mp thinks it was our best show ever, which was a combination of how well we played (pretty flawless, i thought) and the fact that there was a huge crowd there, who seemed more or less receptive. (i had to do the whole leaning-into-the-audience responding-to-a-curious-fan while simultaneously unplugging-my-stuff thing. kinda cool. big audiences are also fun because i can act more like a rock star on stage. i let my mouth hang open a little bit, breathless, and survey the crowd, occasionally nodding my head upward. i go all sexy on my vocals during the chorus of "microphone song," adding little sighs after each monosyllable. i take swigs of my beer during moments when i'm not playing, or only playing with my left hand, when i'm not even thirsty, because i'm in a rock band and i'm having fun.) then, twenty minutes after midnight, i realized it was my birthday and went around telling everyone i knew that it was my birthday, including everyone in the changes, whom i barely know. i bummed a marlboro ultra-light from their drummer johnny (who earlier told me a story about how the band recorded a song with dummy lyrics from a blender article about hilary duff, posted it on their website for a couple of days, and somehow the mp3 found its way to ultragrrl (the ex-spin writer), who then forwarded it to miss duff herself -- to which my third reaction (after 1. wow that's cool and 2. i'm jealous) was canasta desperately needs to write a song about lindsay lohan) and i danced to "don't stop til you get enough" and i had a good drunken conversation with glowworm28 that made me assert several times, later in the night, that she is one of my favorite people on earth. and then, probably against my better judgment, i went back to mp's apartment with him and djl, who came to the show from madison unannounced. i like hanging out with him. he's a good egg and a smart cookie. so now i'm sleep-deprived (although not hungover, thankfully), but i get to leave work at 1:30, so there will almost assuredly be a nap in my future. i was supposed to renew my driver's license today, but i forgot to bring a proof of address. kinda sucks, because it would've been a perfect day to do it. so i'm going to maybe buy a dvd player on my way home from work and then take a nap and if i have time i'll watch part of morvern callar. otherwise, on to the restaurant club anniversary party and then slint at the metro! yeah. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, March 24th, 2005
11:40 am	i "called" in "sick" today (e-mailed) (not really sick) because i stupidly stayed up until 4 am. my body has been letting me down lately (the main symptom is frequent muscle spasms), which i think is a result of not enough rest, so i figured i shouldn't push it. also, canasta is playing tonight at the double door, and i want to play an awesome show. and then maybe, too, i can get some things done in the next six hours, like laundry. or renting a copy of morvern callar that won't sit like a weight inside my computer's stomach, refusing to be spit out unless i open firmware. (what does that even mean? it works, though. and i get to feel all programmery.) oh, i keep forgetting something else i need to do: renew my driver's license, which expires tomorrow. i don't have a car right now, but i'm inheriting my mom's car in a couple weeks when she gets a new one. i'm kinda stupidly excited about having a car cd player for the first time ever. although at the same time, i'm also looking forward to listening to top 40 radio more regularly again. i'm feeling out of the loop. all these 50 cent singles that are taking over the charts i've only heard like once or twice. what will my driver's license photo look like for the next five years, i wonder? there are some other things i want to write about -- just as a reminder myself: "independence" -- but i should also make good on my attempt to "get stuff done" today. so off to the shower. (can i just say, though, that this new out hud album i bought yesterday is really quite good, and the first few tracks at least are impeccably sequenced. great!) Current Mood: awake Current Music: Out Hud, Let Us Never Speak Of It Again (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 23rd, 2005
10:08 am	so i'm bummed out because i found out last night that canasta is doing some recording this saturday, and i'd been hoping to have a relaxing saturday to myself, especially after being away for the last two weekends. and because it's my birthday weekend. (i turn 26 on friday.) and because i have no idea now when i'm ever going to get anything done. morvern callar won't play on my computer, which is the only dvd player i have, and i have to watch it sometime before my article is due on sunday! okay, i do have only a half-day of work on friday, i just discovered, so maybe that will work. it just makes me anxious. i ran into rob b. (the eminence glowworm28 calls "the comedian") this morning on the way to the el. he was standing outside dunkin donuts. we chatted briefly and discovered we were both copyeditors. he said he enjoys the work: "it's like a crossword puzzle." heh. i was perhaps not as friendly as i could have been because my eyes were crying from the wind and i was self-conscious that my still-wet hair looked dopey and i was already late (as usual) and also i guess one of the things i like about my commute is that it's a retreat from being social: i'm alone in my thoughts, listening to my ipod or writing or reading. i love having that time to myself, so maybe it was just jarring to have that interrupted. but speaking of reading on the train: oh man, am i loving jonathan lethem's girl in landscape right now. i read his fortress of solitude about a year and a half ago and quite enjoyed it: it fit comfortably within the whole genre of epic, semi-autobiographical novels about families but also teeming with cultural history that i'd developed a fondness for in the past few years (cf. white teeth, middlesex, the corrections). and i knew he had other books, but i'd gotten the impression they were just trifles, just genre exercises without much depth. and so it wasn't until a couple months ago when invisiblecrutch talked up motherless brooklyn that i decided to delve into the rest of the dude's ouevre. and so far he's three-for-four with me. motherless brooklyn was fantastic, and she climbed across the table was kinda lame (too empty and jokey), but girl in landscape, a sort of sci-fi coming-of-age tale, is totally enchanting. yeah for reading! reports say that barry bonds may be out for half the season. guess who had already drafted him for his fantasy baseball team? so i picked up matt stairs, a kc royal who's bummed around but played for the cubs a couple years back (he seemed like sort of a poor man's john kruk), on waivers, to have an extra outfielder. i'm now realizing this was a bad move, since i dropped a blue jays third baseman to make room for him, and now i don't have any backups on the left side of the infield. what i should've done is put my dh craig monroe in the outfield and made jt snow my dh. i'm still new at this game! (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 22nd, 2005
9:50 am	it's nice to feel welcome! (hi mark, chris, mike, kelsey, and sylvia.) i just got an apologetic e-mail from a.p., the cute-as-hell village voice writer who was supposed to meet up with me at sxsw but never called (yeah, i'd given her my digits and everything). she said it was a crazy few days for her. i understood: in her blog, she talked about going to, like, the spin cocktail party at a house in the hills. i'm glad she wasn't just blowing me off. but i have to say, the whole afternoon of our show on saturday, i kept looking expectantly at the door as if it were a production of waiting for a.p. did i mention she's cute? (a sobering quote from someone on ilm, once upon a time: "does the idea of a female pitchfork writer make you horny? like a girl who knows and loves music AND writes about it. but she's a girl. and maybe she's pretty. and female. and maybe she knows more than you do. and she's got boobies.") speaking of which (the "waiting for..." bit), m.p. reminded me of a line in waiting for guffman that i vaguely recall but which never really stood out and thus i never realized its full comedic punch. it's when lloyd tells the cast of red, white, and blaine that corky has left the show and that he, lloyd, will be taking over as director. and amidst the hubbub ("what, corky's dropped out of the show?" etc.) ron albertson says, exasperatedly, "now this is all very strange." i don't know why, but that's been making me giggle a lot lately. anyway, i'm a bit frustrated with myself. my three goals last night were to go grocery shopping, do a load of laundry, and watch morvern callar because i'm writing an article about it for stylus that's due on sunday. i only accomplished the first one, because my first impulse as soon as i walk in the door is to sit down at the computer, and i have a terrible habit of being online way too long and way too late. it wouldn't be a big deal, except my next five nights are all booked up, so it would've been nice to have taken advantage of a few free hours, for once. i need to clean, too. my place is a mess. yikes. (Comment on this)
Monday, March 21st, 2005
5:24 pm	i wonder what would happen if i actually started posting here. well, let's see. lowercase is key. if i go uppercase, i will fret about making it perfect. and that's not why i want to post here. so: beautiful lowercase. i have a theory about why i like to write poetry in lowercase (that is, when i actually write poetry, which is almost never these days -- the last time was an attempt to harness a pot buzz into something creative), and that theory has nothing to do with an affection for e.e. cummings or a desire to be humble, but because i like to put all my words on the same level playing field, to see them as collections of letters bumping up against one another, democratically. hello, friends. Current Mood: pensive Current Music: Mutant Disco (10 Comments |Comment on this)