2014


[[1]] Stuffing a mattress into a dumpster in the rain (at night)(amber street lights).

[[2]] At the Biddeford 7-11, 12:30 am, a profoundly large man stares at those rotating hot dogs (the ones that seem to be in every 7-11 in the world) while singing along with The Pretenders' "Brass in Pocket" in a gorgeous, pitch perfect falsetto. The whole time there was a woman who didn't appear to work at the store shifting stacks of newspapers around without any apparent aim. A couple argues about what they can and cannot purchase with food stamps. A wild eyed man with a huge grey beard walked around trying to make intense eye contact with everyone and received little to none in return. A man waits patiently to pay for his gas while the cashier waits for the singing man to make a selection, which he only does after having sung every word beautifully. As the song fades away and the profoundly large man shouts "THAT ONE!"

[[3]] A Woman on a train singing a two note melody again and again to her child: "snowflake, snowflake", when she stops, the train shifts and squeaks the same two notes in roughly the same rhythm, followed by relative silence.

[[4]] While feeling completely dejected, jealous and lonely on a too hot summer night, I heard two middle aged guys standing in a dark (so dark as to be almost unseen) shadowy corner of a burrito joint doing a 25-30 minute long rendition of/meditation on a Tom Petty song I'd completely forgotten about, "Face in the Crowd". This they performed with an electric-acoustic guitar and electric fretless bass so slick and shiny plastic sounding that I initially thought I was listening to a CD (more specifically a CDr, possibly made by someone who works there, possibly the manager, possibly recorded and burned in the late 90's),the singers voice could have belonged to so many friends-from-high-schools fathers (who, gee, I am no longer so much younger than), which somehow made it sting all the more. They sang the verses again and again, exchanged solos, then slipped in, mysteriously and incongruously (are the chords the same?), a few verses from Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wildside" before returning to "Face in the Crowd" for another extended stretch. Everything seemed to be moving incredibly slowly. A baseball game was playing on mute the whole time (the Red Sox were losing). When they were done nobody clapped, nobody was talking, there was no sound. When they proceeded with the opening notes of "Wish You Were Here", I abandoned my dinner (which I'd barely touched) and got the fuck out of there.

[[5]] Several loud bhangra recordings playing simultaneously. All colors of beads dangling from the ceiling (so low as to obscure my vision). The smell of hundreds of incenses all for sale. Service offered: burn your favorite mp3s to CDr for a low, low price.

[[6]] ((What song was playing on the radio as)) A friends bag of weed, a bag that I hadn't been aware of until that very moment, ((Was it "Hold On Loosely"?)) tumbled out of the back of the glove compartment into a cops flashlight beam. ((was it "Dust in the Wind"?)) He was kindly trying to help me find my registration and insurance. I had a headlight out, you see. ((was it "It's In The Way That You Use It"?)) Somehow, the officer never seemed to notice the bag sitting there, ((was it "Lay It On The Line"?)) in his flashlight beam throughout the entire duration of my probably minute and a half long search.

[[7]] The hum of the space heater, freezing rain on the sky light, trees scraping against the roof, breathing, in the dark for hours.

[[8]] A parade? Someone is playing pitched percussion. Everyone is dressed colorfully, all wearing masks. Two people are holding up a platform with what looks like an actual lion wearing a mask on it. All of this was seen and heard in a half second as the train sped by. I saw another very similar parade(?), minus the lion, a bit later.

[[9]] A door without a building, opening to nothing, at the top of the staircase.....a set of rusty keys dangle to the right of the door, sounding in the breeze.

[[10]] The plane set off from Sydney a while ago, and I thought for certain I'd see desert out the window by now. Isn't the whole center of Australia a desert? Why do I see only water? It's been an hour or so of just water. I'd ask Joel, but he's asleep, I can hear his sleep breathing. Where's the desert? I was excited to see the desert. And what are those white things in the water? Could those be icebergs? Is the plane going south and not west? Everyone on the plane seems pretty calm, but then again, most of them seem to be asleep. It'd be hours before we saw icebergs wouldn't it? But where's the land? Where's the desert? We couldn't be going south could we? Surely someone other than me would have noticed. I'd ask Joel, but it sounds like he's sleeping quite heavily. Seriously, be rational, there's no way this plane is headed to Antarctica. Someone on this plane, other than you, would have noticed and spoken up. The stewards and stewardesses would seem troubled. I'd be able to read it in their body language. I think? I don't know. Should I say something? No, I'll just sit here until the ice sheet appears.

[[11]] On the 4th of July, a woman in a wheelchair blocked the entrance to the shop so she could sing/scream "Yankee Doodle" and "The Ballad of the Green Beret" (you know, "brave men, who jump and die....") into the store. When she was finished I played "Stars and Stripes Forever" on the turntable at top volume and she started laughing maniacally.

[[12]] In the middle of the night, with light rain outside, striking two different "gongs", one at a time (one a steel pole, one a pot lid, both suspended) and listening to them decay back into silence in the (then nearly empty, now demolished) garage that my Great-Grandfather built. Eventually, I began to think I heard whispers as the notes decayed. When I continued to hear whispering after the decays I stopped striking the gongs and sat and listened to it for a time. Eventually a lone car passed outside (there hadn't been one in about an hour). As the sound of the car faded so too did the whispering.

[[13]] Changing the lyrics of "Smooth Criminal" to be about a pooping puppy.

[[14]] Having finally found food, sitting down to eat, sweat stinging my eyes so badly I can barely keep them open, but not wanting to rub them with my filthy hands, everything in my field of vision blurring. A large lizard climbs up the wall, no one seems perturbed by it, so I, too, ignore it. I hear gamelan music, at first thinking I was imagining it, then thinking it's a recording, then realizing it's too sloppy to be a recording, then following the sound to the source: a school where dozens of kids are learning to play gamelan instruments, all playing different parts of different pieces with different levels of proficiency simultaneously, creating a thick collage of Javanese gamelan. Everyone had to take their shoes off to enter the practice room.

[[15]] Coming to realize that the tissue paper I used to make ear plugs for the harsh noise set to come had been used to wipe up cum the night before (and not caring).