jervo

1.  After I read "On The Road" in college, I started getting obsessed with the idea of the road novel, and desperately wanted to drive cross-country.  I never ended up actually making the trip, but I still was into the idea as a fiction, and eventually came up with a scenario where a twenty-something guy, disillusioned and aimless, decides to get in his car with nothing more than a carton of cigarettes and a quarter.  He flips the quarter at every intersection, and wherever he is when he runs out of cigarettes is where "fate" has destined him to be, to figure out his purpose, or whatever.  I never actually wrote a word of this, other than talking about the idea in my various journals, and I think the only ending I ever came up with was that the guy wound up stranded in the desert, starving to death.  Anyway, that's not the point; the point is that this book has already been written.

2.  I found out about this book through this Stereogum thread about Beck's lyrics.  There's a comment there that reads:  "Of course the lyrics are great:  aleatoric verse = the new ontology."  Since I'm in a bit of a lyrical drought (as is always the case), and since I'm supposedly working on recording an album this month and lyrics would come in handy at some point, I started looking around to see what I could learn about Aleatoricism.  At this point, I feel like it would be just as productive for me to simply take a random page out of a random book, photocopy it, cut out all the words and rearrange them.  Getting back to the point - I've always admired people who can make nonsense sound cool - Beck's always been able to do it, as has Stephen Malkmus, and I've never been able to do it.  I have a hard enough time putting words together that are supposed to mean something, and when I've tried being abstract and surreal, I sound fucking retarded. 

3.  That said, I am actually writing lyrics again, this time for that Neu-ish song I was working on the other day (which now sounds a bit too close to Wilco's "Spiders/Kidsmoke", goddammit).  A friend of mine took herself off of Myspace without telling anyone, and I got a random email from a friend of hers wondering if she'd died.  My friend wrote a poem about it, and as it happens, I'm also writing lyrics about it; I'm sure someone will now tell me that there's already a song called "You Were A Ghost".

4.  Speaking of the album I'm supposedly making this month, I guess I have to come up with a new name, since M42 is probably a little too close to M83.  Son of a bitch.  I can't even be deliberately obscure without committing plagiarism.  Have I mentioned that the greatest lyric I ever wrote - a lyric which is based on something that actually happened to me - is also the name of a band (which I'd never heard of), and is also a lyric in a Replacements song (which I'd also never heard of)?  Maybe I should stick with instrumentals.

5.  So tired.  Was out last night doing a meet-and-greet with another prospective guitarist/songwriter for my friend Joe's recording project; we  were booked into the smallest rehearsal room I've ever seen.  Cramped quarters aside, I had a blast - this guy is really, really good, and he has one of the most beautiful Fender Strats I've ever seen (green, with matching headstock!), and is a super nice guy and I'd like to think we'll play rather nicely together.   The only bummer about the evening was that I got incredibly self-conscious as the night went along - this guy is rather good looking, and I felt like a total schlub.  I've gotta lose some weight.  And see a stylist and get some new clothes.

And yet, for all this whining, I'm actually in a good mood today.