Thank you, Thank You Mart

Currently listening to "A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left" by the amazing Andrew Bird. He sings, he whistles, he gives me music-gasms. Concert July 10 at the Greek Theater, see you there?

I would like to dedicate this post to Thank You Mart, the greatest vintage store in Los Angeles. I am head over maroon-painted toes for this place. Thank You Mart is a smoky little Beatles-playing thrift shop, plucked from some grass bath in mid-1960's San Francisco and strategically placed in the beating heart of modern Los Angeles. Its clothing selection is delightfully eccentric and conveniently eclectic -- messy blouses, worn-out lumber jackets, psychadelic trinkets, humdrum scarves, floral aprons, and so on. There are these quirky tees with half-coherent, engrish-esque phrases that I especially enjoy, mostly because I find the thought process people go through trying to decipher a meaningless piece of cotton quite humorous. It bothers me when people try to assign meaning to everything. Meaning shouldn't have to be a precursor to a choice; if anything, labelling something with a determined purpose restricts its potential to be something greater. Understanding is not necessary for enjoyment, and clothes are definitely no exception!

Thank you, Thank You Mart.

Tactfully,
T.J.

Disaster in construction

Currently listening to Cake's "Short Skirt/Long Jacket". I've been listening to them non-stop recently. Their style of music is a perfectly unbalanced conglomeration of singing and speaking, also known as sprechgesang. If the human circulatory system could be as syncopated as their beats, life would be swell.

I thought about this in whatever language we use when we think, and being me, decided to take an ignorant whack at Old English. In prose, of course, iambic pentameter should be left to Ol' William.

Blessed memories, why dost thou love and despise me so? Thou art a mother's hand, caressing my longing cheek, only to be betrayed with a sharp stake to the heart, reminding me of what has come and will not come again. The mind is a terrible invention. It haunts and thinks too much -- easily saturated with unspoken desires and enigmatic thoughts. I recite, only in moderation doth wonder bequeath contentment. And here I contradict myself. The mind is an irreproducibly majestic invention. Only in a confusion of good, bad, love, hate, yes, no can one discover not just contentment, but also greatness. Without the sharp stake, what is the mother's hand? The mother's hand is the sharp stake. 'Tis a truth that moderated minds beget moderated potential, and imbued minds beget imbued potential. The flower will not bloom unless inebriated with water.

What the universe has made a curse, the man hath made a treasure.

Tactfully,

T.J.

The Human Paradox

Responsibility -
so often shunned as a heavy burden.
Overlooked,
underappreciated,
merely an extension of free will,
of autonomy and power.

You claim you worship,
not God,
but Will.
You take responsibility for your great songs.
But what do you do when things go wrong?

You neglect responsibility -
Cut all ties
Make up lies
Close your eyes
As she cries
Desperately hoping for its Demise

You think:
if you can forget, so can the world
but when it does, you cannot.
Previously powerful,
now pitifully powerless.

Cold and alone,
you realize:
if embraced, Responsibility
is really a blessing in disguise.

The Mosaic Maker

The mosaic maker is the ultimate paradigm of the living. He begins with meaningless fragments of experiences, slowly piecing them together to reveal a grand montage, a greater truth. What he believed to be a mélange of cryptic, incomprehensible events he has rendered into a fathomable masterpiece.

I dream of witches

Currently listening to "Into the Ocean" by Blue October. Subtlety at its finest.

Last night I had an epic moment while asleep. At about 4 a.m. in the morning, I began to reach for and grab at the witch puppet I have hanging over my bed. With my eyes wide open, I repeatedly mumbled, "Where is it? Where is it? I can't find it.." or some other mumbojumbo that defines this universal human enigma. My roommates say it went on for a solid minute. I don't recall a second of it. But I don't doubt any of it, I sleep express myself quite often. Sometimes more so than I am willing to when I am awake. There's a raw truth in the unconscious mind.

Tactfully,
T.J.

Absolute Truth

Currently listening to "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane. Brilliance exemplified.

There are good times. There are bad times. And there are times not meant to be classified as anything at all. This is one of them. Prepare yourself for a flurry of my whimsical musings.

I don't particularly fancy being judged. I don't fancy judging others either. Anyone who does may be honorably dubbed an undiscovered hypocrite. This consternation called Life is too complex, too opaque for someone to say whether something is right or wrong. On what basis do we have the right to determine moral arbitration? There exists no Absolute Truth, only truth. Perhaps this is why religion was created; to give a purely symbolic sense of stability to a weak human race unable to fathom that their existence may not be a tally of good deeds and meaningful moments, but rather, an ambivalent hodgepodge of experiences. Are you a good person because you choose to follow an artificially concocted, pre-destined path of charity? Am I a bad person because I choose to diverge, to wander onto an abstract trail that will probably get me farther than yours?

Do not judge lest you be judged. It is not a sin to want to experience things.

Tactfully,
T.J.

Purple

Green means go
Red means stop
But tell me,
what does
purple
mean?

They live your life
Do this, do that
"Remember," they say,
"Curiosity
killed
the cat."

We are all
Great Pretenders.
And so we remain,
until
the fifth
of November.