woke at 7:00 a.m.

drove through a massive downpour. stuck in traffic.

an hour outside of town, a recall. my interview to which i am driving has been cancelled. i turn around to go back to dallas. frustrated. annoyed.

went to a movie. went to the museum.

went to dave's. checked email. had drinks with erica.

and...i'm spent.

how's that kids? mmmm... cherry pez.

snapshot:

i believe it was the first and only time i ever went to this swimming pool. i can't really remember who i was with. dorian, jimi, maybe silas. we were 10, maybe 11. i recall there being two pools set perpendicular to each other.
we were swimming on the far end of the pool furthest from the entrance. suddenly there were whistles. lots and lots of whistles. people started scurrying, jumping out of the pool. lifeguards started yelling for everyone to get out of the water. it was chaotic, scary, strange. i had no idea what was happening. people were pointing, staring.

on the edge of the pool, opposite from where we now sat in the warm summer grass, lay the body of a small boy. one lifeguard knelt over him, pumping his chest and cyclicly breathing into his mouth. chills filled my entire body.

murmurs brought what little facts were known. he had dived into too shallow of water. he had hit his head on the bottom. he was unconscious. i don't know how long the lifeguards worked on the boy before the ambulance arrived. likely only a few minutes. paramedics surrounded the lifeless body, obscuring the view from our curious eyes. seconds later the announcement trickled through the crowd, the pool was closed, we had to leave. we were ushered on a route around the edge of the grounds away from the scene to the exit.

i don't know who this boy was. i never even saw his face. but his death that day impacted my life immensely. it was my first reality check of my own mortality.

anyone want to make a quick trip with me to austin tomorrow? down and back...enough time for kerbey lane or las manitas. i'll buy lunch for your company.

no, not your company that you work for.

i think i broke something inside my skull. it's been pounding pain since early sunday morning and my ability to type correctly has faded as has my spelling and grammar.

the evening began with a trip to the hospital.
holding little maggie miller made me think of things that might have been. he/she would have been three years old now. a different path, a different life. but it wasn't to be.

next came a gluttonous visit to the angry dog for a couple of beers and grub. peter from slow roosevelt showed up and sat down with me. we were both heading over to trees to catch my friend and his roommate, mike graff, play with a new band.
the look and feel of trees has changed since i was there last. they've put a curtain on the stage to shield the audience from bands that are setting up or tearing down their gear and they have converted the upstairs pool hall into a lounge area for people that want to hear the music, but don't necessarily want to stand and watch it. they have also now hired a plethora of "staff" that walk around the bar harassing the patrons. drinking a beer and they can't see the stamp on your hand? they'll come up and shine a flashlight in your face and ask to see your i.d. bring a camera? you better have a press pass, buddy. i personally saw three different "staff" members tell peter that he wasn't supposed to have a camera. russ, the sound man, told peter to tell them to just 'fuck off.'
peter did.

next, the plan was to meet javier at the xpo lounge. i arrived, called jav on his phone and found out that they had been unable to find the xpo and had ended up at the inwood lounge. i got within a mile of the place when jav called to say they were leaving; the band was unbearable.

so jav and i headed over to the green elephant. we got there at about 12:30 and the place was dead. we found it quite odd for a saturday night. in the next 45 minutes, however, the place filled to capacity with undergrads from smu. the atmosphere of the green elephant is great for guys like jav and me, but we were definitely out of place by 1:00. it was fun to watch though, as a kind of sociology experiment, the way these scantily clad young ladies and polo sporting frat kings interacted. in fact, it was more like being at a frat party than at a bar, because everyone seemed to know everyone else there and they all looked at us like we had crashed their scene. which is kind of nice because it's helped me come up with a story for fray day.

by the way. art garfunkel was there. his girlfriend was hot.

jesse is the kind of obnoxious asshole that can piss off a priest. he's actually probably a nice fellow when he's not drinking, but i've never seen him not drinking. you will often see him walk in and sit down with a pitcher of jack and coke. he drinks right out of the pitcher. the more he drinks, the more ornery he becomes.
it's very frustrating to be around him. he obviously has a lot of problems. we've heard him talk about being beaten up by his father, and from a recent tune he sang, it sounds as if he was made to live in the attic where all of the family heirlooms were stored. he is actually a pretty good songwriter; but he can't carry a tune when he's drunk and, well, he's always drunk.
he wears these old leather sandals and has really nasty swollen feet that are deformed and dirty.

he seems to like picking on j.w. the most. anytime j.w. starts a song, jesse lays into him relentlessly, cursing and mocking his music. j.w., while easily the youngest player there, is also probably the best songwriter of the group. the slander from jesse is completely unwarranted. the other night, i was moments away from ripping into jesse for continually interrupting j.w. as he tried to start a song. james has said that on occasion, he has been on the verge of laying into jesse with a swift fist just to get him to shut up.
j.w. believes that jesse would probably cower and run if someone were to actually challenge his verbal threats. i wonder if he's right.

i think what irritates me most about jesse is his habit of trying to add harmony to others' songs in the form of loud, off-key howls. these people are here to share their music and jesse, the majority of the time, ruins the experience for me. it was bad enough this week that i left after only being there for a little over an hour.

i'm glad that i was raised to respect other people and treat them with the courtesy that i would expect in return. it is very frustrating, however, when people around me don't have the same amount of maturity. i'm sure one day i will be pushed to the point that i will say something to jesse.

i hope he doesn't kick my ass.

i'd like to announce the arrival of maggie miller who came into our world at 8:31 pm on friday, august 24th, weighing in at 8lbs10ozs. mom is very tired, but well. father is not nearly as exhausted as he will be for the next two years.
congratulations james and kara! time you guys had a few stiff ones.

cheers

what is wrong with this lady in front of me? she keeps swerving in her lane, speeding up, slowing down. what is she doing? she's swatting at something. it looks like maybe there is a bee in her car. how strange. she keeps swatting. that must really suck to have a bee buzzing around you while you're driving on the freeway.
i'm going to go around her, i don't feel safe behind her.
hmmm. nope, it looks like she was just doing something with her hair.

how strange.

i met some other local bloggers this evening at happy hour. leia kind of arranged the whole thing (i think) and i actually found out about it at the last minute. unfortunately josh and i had to take off early, so i didn't get to chat with too many people. but we talked briefly with matt about his sites and current job 'sitchashun'. looks like i'll be heading to austin sept 7th and 8th for fray day.

which is nice.

occasionally i have dreams about bad things happening to people i haven't talked to in a while. it always worries me that it might be some type of omen and perhaps i should call that person and warn them about impending doom. but then i'd look like an idiot if they weren't really in danger; or maybe by warning them i have averted the catastrophe. but then i'll feel even worse if it in fact turns out to be some type of prophetic vision and i know that i might have been able to prevent it. true paranoia for sure.

in my dream last night, i was attending the wake of spencer and stacy's mother. it was a kind of karnival, with midgets, bearded ladies, and firebreathers. i believe spencer spoke first and stacy after. it was quite sad. after the friends and family had finished paying their respects, we were all ushered out and the wake was turned over to the elite of hollywood. i imagine they knew the deceased and had come to grieve, but they came with the papparazzi, red carpets, and limos that normally accompany a big hollywood event. one particular celeb, i believe it was adam rich, who played 'nicholas' on eight is enough, stood next to me while i held the door and insisted that we had gone to school together. i assured him that this could not have been the case as i went to a private school in houston and he was in california.
he was quite insistent.

quite insistent

what do you think it means?

one of the fun facts to know and tell about me is my one-time involvement with a band called sixpence none the richer back when i was dj-ing for ktsb student radio at the university of texas at austin.
matt was 'interning' with me at the time. he asked if i would be interested in playing guitar for a project he had started. i listened to the demo tape and loved it. he already had a drummer, bass player and leigh, and i joined the rehearsals immediately. within a month, we were playing a couple of local gigs. i would work with matt at his apartment writing guitar parts for songs and putting them to four-track. i still have a tape we put together for me to rehearse to with matt singing leigh's parts. it would probably fetch a little money on ebay, you think? i'll wait for the e! true hollywood story staff to contact me.

one of our first big gigs was for a party held at the house i was living in at the time. only a couple of months later, we were part of the 'flat earth festival' in dallas as one of the headlining acts. less than two months later, i would be eliminated from the group along with the bass player and drummer.
we had been picked up by r.e.x. records and were to record our first album with them that summer. matt explained to us that he felt it would be best to use studio musicians for the record and we were all relieved of our positions.
i carried quite a lot of bitterness for many years. then i started hearing them on the radio...everywhere i went. it started to feel as if i were being laughed at. "see what you might have been a part of?"

now...i feel happy for the way things went. mostly because of where i am and what i've done, not because of what i might have missed. i'm sure matt is quite happy with his success. i've heard through mutual friends that he asks about me from time to time. i imagine, if given the opportunity, it would be nice to sit down and talk with him again.

so...anyone want to buy some sixpence ntr demo tapes or promotional material from the early days?

plug
andy and i went to sugarbomb last night. in my opinion, they are the best band in dallas right now. and, since they have just signed to rca records, they probably won't be in dallas much longer. if you are in dallas, you should go see them the first chance you get. if you don't live in dallas, keep an eye out for them in your city and definately go buy their music.
/plug

it's sick....

it's wrong....

it's marketing....

it's chim chim's chums, the only place you can show your ability to buy into the corporate machine that is chim chim.

check it out. it's a hoot.

woke to the sound of spattering water on the ground outside shadowed by the low rumble of thunder.

i like thunderstorms. especially when it has been so dry around here. it is definately a welcome rain.

this girl at the saucer tonight was wearing this spaghetti-string top that kind of sagged in the middle. stylistically, mind you. the reason that i noticed was because she placed her hand on her chest every 20-30 seconds in fear that she was flashing everyone else at the bar. honestly, i wasn't checking her out to catch a glimpse of cleavage. actually, she wasn't particularly well-endowed....

it doesn't matter. i shouldn't be back-peddling.

my point is, and i noticed this on many occasions, that young women... and i'm generalizing here, i realize... young women in our day and age often wear fashion that is uncomfortable or ridiculously unseasonable just to make an impression on men.
i remember many times in austin seeing girls in december and january on sixth street wearing mini-skirts and tank tops, obviously freezing their asses off. sure, they looked great, but personally, i think sweaters are pretty sexy too. summer is for skin...if you want to show it.
this girl at the saucer clearly was not the type that wanted to show her chest off to the other patrons. so why wear something that makes you constantly check yourself? i say, throw it out! get a top that clings, baby!

men...again, i am generalizing here, folks...wear what's comfortable. guys don't walk around in speedos and wife-beaters in the middle of winter. at least as far as i've seen. style should fluctuate with the seasons. that's why the baby boomers invented the gap, kids.

likewise, these people that find it fashionable to wear black long-sleeve shirts and black pants with a black trench-coat in deep ellum on a balmy august night...clue in. it's hot. wear cut-offs and your marilyn manson shirt for godsake.

that is all.....

i dreamed last night that i missed her. it was really strange. you know how your dreams can seem real even though when you wake, you realize how rediculous they actually are? that's what is strange about this dream. i was in a house with her and we were moving out. i didn't want to leave the house and i didn't want her to leave either. i was sad and frustrated. next i went to some lavish house owned by this lonely forty-something homosexual man that was dating one of my ex-bosses. the house was built to mesmerize and confuse those who entered it by disquising which way was up. (you had to dream there, i guess) i was in this house, and i was missing her. badly.

i don't miss her now, when i'm awake. in fact i'm bothered by the fact that i missed her in my dream. as if there is some sort of weakness buried in my sub-conscience that is leaking out. throughout my entire series of dreams last night, no matter what the situation, i was always inferior to those around me.

someone put a water tap into my back. yeah, i thought it was pretty strange too. but i accepted it. some guy wanted water. he came up to me and grabbed my back.
"hey, man, what are you doing?"
"i'm getting some water."
"oh, yeah, go ahead."
so i let the guy fill his cup from the spring water reservoir nestled somewhere along my spine. only, the guy wasn't paying attention and he let the cup spill over. the water tap is in the middle of my back, so i can't reach around and turn it off. the water soaked me. i...was...ahem...a wet back.

ohhh. i'm sorry. that was awful. but i'm leaving it in.
after the water incident, which, by the way, was at a very large bar mitzvah attended by my ex-boss that was dating the rich forty-something (i should note here, in the extremely rare chance my ex-boss might read my blog, that he is not - to my knowledge - gay), anyway, after my water tap was left on, i found myself in a limo with her and some of her friends. they were attempting to smoke weed using those light papers that they wrap shirts in when they put them in a gift box. i've never tried to light that type of paper, but in my dream, and i imagine in real life, they burned extremely fast. they were also rather bulky, since they were using an entire sheet of this paper for each time they rolled a joint. so it looked like a big corsage that was sucked on from the stem, which is strange.

but not nearly as strange as me missing her. man that was weird.

well, i've uploaded all the images to the ::: what i see ::: section. it seems as though all that's left now is tweeking bugs and adding little bits of text here and there. i'll be adding a couple of images to the ::: who i am ::: area later to balance it out, and a comments area is on the way. now i can go back to posting strange information about women i may or may not have crushes on. "per usual"

with the unfrustratable help of dsaint, the transition to the new and improved chimchim is well underway. it seems as though i have eliminated most of the problems i was having before, but feel free to let me know if you find something broken.

getting this done has really lifted my spirits. i'm glad to be back on track.

matt seems to have conquered his commenting system, so those should be on the way soon with the transfer to xml.

hunger strikes....

design...design...design...design...

i figured out a lot of things about this current design that don't work, so in the next couple of weeks it will be redesigned to work more effeciently and be a little bit prettier. i think i will keep the overall look and feel of the site, with a few exceptions, but i am going to implement some different technologies to make it smooth.

oh, and matt and andy are going to help me. but they don't know that yet. well, now they do.

sometimes...therapy will come in the most unexpected prescriptions at the most random of doses.

i had a wonderful time hanging out with andy tonight. we had some great laughs. sure, we spent more money than we should have. but we had a genuine good time. we talked a bit about what's been going on in my head. it was really cool.

we went to the elbow room to see an old friend. it's always nice to catch up, you know?

after. we headed to the saucer and had some good convo with jessica. and plenty more laughs. really, i think the highlight of the evening was....

"you know, randy...he's a real dumb-shit."

well said.

well said.

praise and honor to friendships. thank you slick, i had a good evening. thank you josh and carly, cyndi lauper said it best.

oh, yeah, and welcome to my world.

you.

i think it started on tuesday, right after my interview. the chemicals in my brain stopped pumping the correct amount or something. triggered initially by a less than enthusiastic interviewer showing no emotion while looking at my portfolio. this week has been all downhill from there. just on an emotional level. i realized yesterday how deep it was actually getting, and now i know it's the worst it's been in a long while. i've shrugged some responsibilities and concerned friends.

my troughs of depression are tight downwardly spiraling states that tend to alienate me from friends. i haven't yet figured out how to stop them. the various prescriptions i've loaded up on in the past have only served to create new health problems due to side-effects, having little or no effect on the haze in my brain.

yes, i have a brain cloud.

it's really difficult for me to try and explain this to other people. imagine being really thirsty; across the table from you is a double-tall stoli vanilla and coke (or your favorite beverage of choice); between you and this beverage is a four inch thick piece of crystal-clear plexi-glass. you know that you want the beverage, you know that you need to hydrate yourself to avoid passing out, and you certainly know how to drink a beverage. but you don't know how to get to the beverage. you can take things to make you less thirsty, but they don't quench. what you really need is something that will remove that plexi-glass. the denial starts and you turn your back on the beverage and convince yourself that you are better off just accepting your thirst.

i decided to neglect a commitment i had made a couple of weeks ago. depression isn't a good excuse, but i just decided that i no longer felt it was going to work for me. i've upset a dear friend in the process and i feel a great amount of grief over this. i can only apologize for what happened and move on. i can't change it.

can you relate?

yesterday, while driving to the new apple store, i saw her driving up 75. she was calling someone on her cell phone. i turned my head so she wouldn't recognize me. she's never seen the black hair, she won't know if she doesn't see my face.

it's been two years. i truly believe that i've completely gone past it. i don't want to see her. i don't want to talk to her. i'm fine. i'm fine.

really. i am.

but, still, i found myself turning away to avoid recognition on her part. here i was, eight feet from her driver's side window. what would i have done had she seen me? i would have had to wave, or smile, or something. then dave and matt would have asked, "hey, mark, who is that?"

"oh, her? she's the reason i moved to dallas. she's the one that convinced me to leave a job and a city i loved to be here for two months before she broke off our engagement."

really, i am fine. as long as i don't see her or have to talk to her, i have no problems. even then, it's more like having one of those itches on the bottom of your foot that cannot be relieved with any amount of scratching. if you could avoid that itch in your foot simply by slouching in the passenger seat and turning away, you'd do it too. she's an itch.

hmm.hm. that's funny.

i've tried three times to write the story of jessica at the flying saucer with no success. i've realized that, although i felt my version was more realistic and maintained contextual integrity, dave's recollection of the evening's events is much more interesting and glorifying to my character.

suffice to say, i chatted up (with the help of dave and josh) our beautiful waitress and gained her interest in our artistic endeavors. the rest, i'll have to let dave tell you.

sorry.

ever had a really strange dream? do you like to tell your dreams to all your friends?

well, so does paul. his dreams are really weird, and usually quite funny. well, now he's decided to join the throng (or is that "thong"?) and jot them all down in his own little blog.

maybe he'll tell you the one about the girl with the red g-string and his white guyabera. oh...wait...that wasn't a dream.

tonight at martini ranch a girl bought me a drink.

to my recollection, with the exception of women i already knew, i've never had a girl buy me a drink. but here it was. a drink. vanilla stoli and coke. payed for by the girl at the bar with the pig-tails. hmmm.

paul:"so what's the etiquette on this type of thing?"
me:"i don't know. should i go over there? i guess i could just give her the drink raise and mouth 'thank you.' her friend is really cute."

after several minutes of contemplation, and after the two very bulky guys that were talking to them wandered to another set of women, i stood up and approached them at the bar.

me:"hi. i wanted to thank you for the drink."
pig-tails:"oh, you're welcome. i told the waitress not to tell you who it was from."
me:"well that was very nice. i'm mark. "
pig-tails:"i'm c."
cute friend:"i'm k."
me: "nice to meet you both."
cute friend:"so what are you drinking?"
me:"stoli vanilla and coke'
cute friend:"mmm. that's a great drink"
me: smiling big
pig-tails: silent
cute friend:"she wanted to meet you."

silence.

look, people. there's no great letter-to-penthouse ending to this. i was a doofus and, after thanking her again and expressing my pleasure in meeting them, sauntered back to the table where paul waited, and sat back down.

moments later, i was struck with the brilliant idea to actually invite them over to our table to sit and chat. moments too late, however. they were now surrounded by four uptown gentlemen who, unlike myself, had mastered the art of not being a dork around pretty women.

well, pig-tails, i'm sorry that i didn't take more initiative.

can i get your cute friend's phone number?

slick and i went to k and r's house last night to have dinner and play some music. we had spent the better part of the afternoon moving large pieces of furniture from one temporary location to another and the heat index of 113 degrees had worn us both down to 'barely functional.'
k expressed her frustration with being corrected the night before for using 'office' as a verb while at the same time we talked about going home and 'blogging.' she is still quite skeptical that this whole 'blog' thing is a good use of internet bandwidth. i've encouraged her to visit a few and see if maybe she will understand the point.
josh and carly showed up a little later with ant'ny and we played some music and drank the crown that i got kicked out of a liquor store trying to acquire. incidentally, i owe k $25 for the crown. thanks k, it was worth the strange trip.
josh, carly, and ant'ny left, but slick and i were determined to wear out our welcome and went for a brief swim. by 3a.m., k pointed out that, due to my impending job as airport chauffer for hyla in a mere 2 hours, we ought to just stay there and not worry about trying to get two hours of sleep. we did, and ended up leaving at 5:15.
hyla called at 5:25. her flight was in exactly an hour and it was obvious things were not running smoothly for her this morning. i had volunteered to drive hyla because of her generosity in providing me with a temporary home while i search for new digs. little did i know that i would become hyla's mercernary.
after dropping hyla off (she missed her flight, but was able to get on standby for a second leaving an hour later) i proceeded to execute some easy errands that she was unable to accomplish because of her hurried state. mentally, they were extremely challenging because of my extremely fatigued state, but i was able to finish all three and made it to bed at 7:45 this morning.

whew. we should do this again sometime.

"i want to lick your belly."

well, of course i didn't actually say it. but that's what i was thinking. some strange impulse brought on by alcohol or fatigue. i'm not sure. i've never really recognized in myself the need to lick a belly before, but there it was. "i want to lick your belly." now that i think back on it, it seems extremely screwed up. you're supposed to say things like "i'd really like to kiss you" or "your eyes look really beautiful." not "i want to lick your belly." certainly the belly licking would be a lead-in to other things, but it's not the correct way to break into that. but i never said it, i just thought it.
no harm. no foul.

i'm in the process of moving most of my possessions into a storage building. my phone line is gone, my dsl service is gone, tomorrow, i too will be gone. i'll be freeloading for a while with josh's parents and then, who knows.
"things are definitely going to start happening for me now!"

several months ago i received an email from someone in austin. this person had pulled my address off a compilation cd that had just been released with two songs i recorded a few years ago. the sender commented that he had been a huge fan of the band for quite a while and had been unable to aquire a copy of our first cd after his was stolen last year. this person offered to pay me to tape a copy of the cd in order to once again be able to listen to this music proclaiming it "timeless music for the ages..."

it's always good to have your head enlarged with praise when you're feeling down otherwise. i don't know this person. i could never pick them out in a sparsely populated room unless everyone else present was a good friend of mine. but this person knows me and my music and appreciates it to a great degree. just as another gentleman in the carolinas did when he asked me to come out to their college town and play.

last year i 'discovered' a band from boston called Jim's Big Ego. i thought, and still do, that they are making truthful and fun music. i hold the band's namesake, jim infantino, in high order. i listened to his music, watched his homemade flash videos, and found myself in awe. so i emailed jim to tell him what i thought. i was surprised when he wrote back to thank me for my enthusiasm. wow! this guy actually answers each and every email that comes his way from people all over the world. but this isn't any different from what i did for m. that was in need of new cds. it's that personal interaction with the people that enjoy my creations that makes it all worth the effort for me. that's why i do it. i think that's why jim does it too.

i find that some people don't respond in like fashion when you show appreciation for their creations. maybe they're afraid that you are some fanatical freak trying to stalk them or rub shoulders. maybe they don't want to be appreciated. maybe they figure, since they don't know who you are, that they don't owe you anything.

embrace those that appreciate you. a simple "thank you" will suffice.

thank you m. i hope you enjoy the cds.