Pogo

Last night, I saw this Alice in Wonderland remix music video. I’ve watched it over and over and realize how much I miss old-style cell animation.

The guy who makes these calls himself Pogo, and takes mostly sounds from movies and mixes/loops them to make songs.

There’s people all over youtube remixing stuff, but I think this is one of my favorites.

His channel has some movie remixes like Terminator 2, Hook, The Secret Garden, and I feel like I’ve had a moving cinematic over-dose with each one.

Will Is Now Riley

Will has decided to move to Austin for good. I guess there was a moment where I didn’t think he’d go back, because, you know, artists and stuff.

Tonight, I went to Dustin’s house to hang out with them for one last Will session. He’s going to Louisiana for a month first. That’s where his family is, and everybody there calls him Riley. He’s pretty sure it’s going to stick this time.

As for the future of Coma? Dios mio…

The things you own end up owning you.

That’s not my car, or my photo. But my car is definitely having lots of problems. Today it failed emissions, and I can’t renew the registration until it passes. If I get pulled over, not only would I be unable to roll down my window to hand the cop my license and registration, but the registration is overdue. In addition, those chaps at Jiffy Lube always try to upsell me with hundreds of dollars-worth of multiple parts I don’t need. Even after deflecting all of the Jiffy Lube kid’s incessant “special-offers”, it was still $38 for an oil change, and $30 for an emissions test. These moments can make one very irritated with overzealous, adolescent grease monkeys at Jiffy Lube, when really, one just wants to get along with others.

My choice to be less-educated about cars is coming with a high price, feeding the car-maintenance corporate machine that preys on the naïveté of American consumers. But hey! It’s great for the economy, we know that much! “Sign me up for overtime, Boss! I gots a car to git fickst!”

My DNA misses the forest, wearing animal skins, and hunting with a club.

Collecting Bottle Caps

Josh has a collection of beer bottle caps that he’s been keeping for I don’t know how long. His new apartment has thickly spackled ceiling, so he got the brilliant idea of sticking all of them to a small, square section outside his bedroom. I joined him in the process of pressing bottle caps deep into the plaster. It seemed like we had enough to cover the entire square, but this is about as far as we got with 544 bottle caps.

After about an hour of engaging in this impulse-project, Josh remembered that his apartment was going to be inspected the next day and had to take all of them down.

Working For My Brothers

I don’t take too kindly to not having a job. Technically I do have a job (masonry labor/block tossing), but “work” is coming in the unforseen future.

The state of not having a job is actually quite enjoyable to me. I like the free time and doing what I want. I don’t get bored. But when I see my bank account depleting every single day, getting closer and closer to zero, the pressure is on to go job hunting. So, a bunch of time is wasted as I apply for jobs where people who are as confused as I am about work are reluctant to hire me.

There’s very few things I abhor; job hunting is one of them. Thankfully, my brother Jeremy who used to be my brother Josh’s landlord provided me with a one-day job of cleaning up Josh’s neglected unit.

I’ve done this type of thing before, and had forgotten about the universal enigma of discovering pubes in the refrigerator.

Coke, Beef, Beer, Existence.

Last night, Kevin and I had a session with Rum ‘n coke. While I reached a delightful level of buzz, Kevin had to stay the night; no hope for driving. I woke up today and he was sprawled on my floor, feet on the couch, pillow on the space heater.

Later, Tommy and I met up to rock… him on drums, me on bass.

It felt kinda weird at first. Sometimes you’re in the mood, sometimes you’re not.

I’ve been suffering from insomnia lately. It’s been a new thing, ever since tour ended. Normally I can go to sleep on command.

So, I was kind of reserved to rock. We started by playing slow stoner riffs. Then it sort of escalated into this 30 minute massive jam out that cleansed and integrated the shadows of my psyche.

After that, I reunited with Joel and waxed philosophical in a beer and burgers kind of way.

Childs Pose

Today I helped Josh and Erin move from their small apartment to a new one that’s 2-3 times its size.

After that, I went to yoga for the first time in about a month. Tommy met me there. He left early. Maybe I should have too, because I had to spend a good portion of the session in this pose.

Pumping Iron

Today I was admiring my own body in the mirror, then remembered it had been a while since I had pumped iron.

In order to keep my beautiful, robust shape, I went to the gym. I haven’t actually lifted weights in years. You may remember that I’ve been a block tosser since October. During the last few months, I was getting a decent workout. Because of tour, and the slow winter season, I am not quite as active.

Anyway, to preserve the wonderful piece of bodily art I’ve become, I greased down my body, slapped on a pair of red super-man briefs, and headed to the gym. Just for the hell of it, I let my car run out of gas on the way there. I manually pushed it 5 miles, while imagining scenes of my hero Arnold Schwarzenegger machine-gunning foes in Commando. When I arrived, I pushed through all the posers in the parking lot, kicked open the door, lunged at the front desk kid and demanded that he played “Break Stuff” from my Limp Bizkit mix over the gym’s speaker system. Then I removed the clothes pins from my erect nipples and started pumping with estrogen-shattering, vein-popping shouts that forced worms out of the earth and sent birds into the sea.

If you need an explanation, it’s past midnight and I can’t sleep.

Fun With Windows

A couple of days ago, my car window got stuck in the position that you see here. It’s kind of a bummer, because it’s cold driving at night. So, today I went to Roadrunner Auto Mart where Erin and her Dad Brad helped me diagnose the problem.

The window’s motor and regulator need to be replaced. So, like a monkey working on a car for the first time, I haphazardly unscrewed every bolt I saw to get the window loose, then Brad helped me wedge some pieces of wood into the door to hold the glass in the up-position until my part comes in.

Now, if I get pulled over, I won’t be able to roll down my window to hand the police officer my license and registration. I suppose I would have to shrug at him and kindly drive away. I’m sure he’d understand.

UFO Hoax

Today I played Wii bowling and Super Mario Bros. with my Frick Bros.

I have a bunch of yet-to-be-inflated 17″ balloons at my house that were to be used for a UFO I was going to launch.

A few months ago, I had this plan to send up a UFO over the Albuquerque skies. It contained lights and everything. Oddly enough, the stupid “balloon boy” thing appeared on the news while I was making the thing. Minus the setback for looking slightly unoriginal, I also discovered that the balloons and amount of helium required to lift my UFO was outrageously expensive.

My friend Kevin got super excited about the idea, so we calculated the cubic footage of helium required to lift the thing. It was only after he bought a bunch of balloons that we discovered they wouldn’t do the job.

In reality, we would need over fifty 17 inch balloons to lift my UFO… or around ten 36 inch balloons, or just one 6 foot balloon. It was to cost around $100 for the helium and balloons we needed, and I had already spent about $50 on lights, tape, and batteries for the UFO itself.

I used the Tape Man technique to make the UFO. Without lights/batteries, it weighed only 3 pounds. Then it was probably 8 pounds with lights and batteries. It’s crazy how much helium is required to lift only one pound.

It actually looked quite good with lights. It’s a clear shell, so the inside lit up pretty well. Unfortunately it’s a Hoax that needs investors, because now is the time of year where block laying season has come to a halt.