teenagepants

hot sauce (for T.L.)

2009-08-03T09:51:00.002-04:00

3/4 cup cider or white wine vinegar
10 fresh chili peppers, de-seeded & de-stemmed
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
2 garlic toes, pressed

bring the vinegar to a boil in a saucepan.
pack all ingredients tightly into a hot jar & cover with boiling vinegar.
cover at once with metal lid, and screw on band. s
tore at room temperature up to 2 weeks.

they put fire back in your belly.

2009-07-01T17:19:00.002-04:00

my buddy eric really likes putting robots on his album covers. a few years ago, it came time for another album to be released and thus a new robot to be constructed. he asked me what kind of robots i could draw. i told him i'd never drawn a robot before. he made me draw a robot, and this is what happened:

today, eric sends me an e-mail that he received from a fan of his band with the following picture attached:

perty cool.

dream (again)

2009-06-11T00:14:00.006-04:00

i was dressed in red, green & white. pinatas hung from the rafters of my high school gym, and flowers sat clustered in the bleachers. the girls were having their pictures taken behind a screen, when i looked over & saw you standing at the door. i walked over, smiling, naturally. you smiled back and walked towards me, took me by the arm and brought me outside where we sat on an air-conditioning unit that buzzed too loudly for us to speak in secrets. we didn't speak at all, until you looked over and laughed. i laughed and threw my arm around you, said how I missed being with you. It wasn't sad, though -- with a smile on my face. You walked away, turned around and motioned for me to follow you. We took a bundle of daisies and brought them to our bodega guy, like I did that one Christmas with a plate full of food. He pointed us toward a museum. We walked inside, and before we could make it to the giant marble staircase, I turned you towards me and said:

i miss us being like this, and i'm sorry.

you stopped me before i could apologize more than once (my worst habit) by putting your finger over my lips and pulling me in for what seemed like the most natural embrace i'd ever feel:

shhh. we're melding. we're melding again.

good children.

2009-05-18T17:17:00.006-04:00

i remember watching you go
& the long walk home
past the blinking light
of the strip clubs & the carl's jr
& i remember brushing your hand
& how it made me feel so sad
i wanted to hold your hand so bad

i should have kissed you when i had the chance

2009-05-18T17:15:00.001-04:00

My heart of silk
is filled with lights,
with lost bells,
with lilies and bees.
I will go very far,
farther than those hills,
farther than the seas,
close to the stars,
to beg Christ the Lord
to give back the soul I had
of old, when I was a child,
ripened with legends,
with a feathered cap
and a wooden sword.

-Federico Garcia Lorca

in silence easy.

2009-05-18T17:00:00.004-04:00

a KORG, a key, some ghosts, a tree and all the bullshit in between

2009-05-08T04:13:00.033-04:00

hold it in your pocket

2009-05-08T04:02:00.003-04:00

It doesn't matter what I think anymore, and that's probably what kills the most. I want to run & jump & live in my city, and there's a little understanding in why I can't. I don't really think I get it. I know I don't. I'm living in the past & I'm feeling what comes naturally, so who can fault me there? I wish it would've happened the way it was planned. It's like I'm stuck in the dreamstate & I'm having a party, but no one shows up & it keeps replaying over & over & over & over. I can't talk and I can barely move. I keep looking up with those eyes that only two people have ever been able to understand. I look at your face and you're there and you're waiting for everyone to show up, too. When they don't, you keep looking at me, accusingly, and a wave of guilt overcomes me and knocks me into the grass. I keep looking, and soon, my eyes are welling up, my mouth is opening but nothing's coming out. You looked so angry, but then it's like the curtains drew & you see what I see. You get it. You always end up getting it.

we can buy the time, noel.

2008-11-10T21:02:00.010-05:00

keep an eye + on the sky + will they come + Oh the bombs + do you wanna dance + easy now + easy now

2008-11-07T22:05:00.002-05:00

2008-11-03T21:37:00.001-05:00

all in a day

2008-11-03T21:36:00.002-05:00

2008-11-03T21:35:00.000-05:00

ASTRAL BONERS

2008-11-03T21:29:00.001-05:00

bunks

2008-10-21T21:24:00.002-04:00

2008-10-21T21:22:00.002-04:00

2008-10-21T21:16:00.004-04:00

thursday

2008-10-21T21:15:00.001-04:00

(when i feel my most homesick)

2008-10-21T21:11:00.004-04:00

i still think mola-mola is a great name for almost anything

2008-10-21T21:07:00.004-04:00

"become what you are" -juliana hatfield

2008-10-20T23:26:00.003-04:00

funeral time

2008-10-20T23:18:00.004-04:00

2008-10-20T23:12:00.001-04:00

2008-10-20T23:06:00.002-04:00

i also made muddy mudskippers

2008-10-20T22:16:00.005-04:00

p freaked!

G dubs

2008-10-20T22:13:00.002-04:00

2008-10-20T22:11:00.004-04:00

2008-10-20T22:07:00.002-04:00

2008-10-20T22:01:00.005-04:00

i saw a picture of andy bodor in a robe on the side of the taco truck. NO LYING:

andy's a total liar and will deny it, but my mobile blogging speaks truth.

legs

2008-10-20T21:57:00.002-04:00

2008-10-20T21:55:00.002-04:00

This guy is a cop

2008-10-20T21:53:00.005-04:00

-hates when I call her lizard
-sleeps sideways
-rides white horses

Midnight Thunder

2008-10-20T21:49:00.001-04:00

please excuse.

2008-10-09T01:28:00.003-04:00

There's too many people you used to know
They see you coming they see you go
They know your secrets and you know theirs
This town is crazy; nobody cares

Listening to Sea Change in full for the first time in a few years. Thinking of 8210, thinking of old friends. Missing Mandeville Street & backyard haircuts. Going swimming in gay pools. Baking quiches at insane hours of the night & sleeping late in a room with no windows. Waking up, putting on a record and opening all the shutters & windows. Sasquatch and Butters sleeping on my chest. Finding August dead & burying him not deep enough in the flowerbed near the front steps. Clawfoot tubs. Looking at the most beautiful steeple from my backdoor steps. Riding my bike with a basket full of groceries, dresses found on Decatur Street and Astral Weeks. Pitching tents in the living, pitching tents in my pants. Standing on my bike pedals and leaning over for kisses. Kisses in general. My bike in general. Riding to the levee. The levee was there. Mosquito bites on ankles, scratching til you bleed. The best Mondays ever. Weird alcoholic drinks made with Sunny D. Miss Dee's tuna sandwiches. 200 people in our living room all smiles for miles. Finding cool couches and carrying them for three blocks. Getting stoned, eating donuts and getting lost at Gator's. Sweating in the winter. The funny little organ that I'd marked with masking tape to learn to play. Hiroshima Mon Amour.

Not a Monday.

2008-09-26T19:12:00.003-04:00

it's not very often that my heart pounds off-key and jelly fills my bones, but "Cigarette in Your Bed" was enough to make it happen.

when it comes to trusting ghosts, i am an expert.

2008-09-26T18:46:00.005-04:00

today i found the ghosts in my room. i made them stick around to talk.
they said they were there to help me figure out what kind of ghost i want to be.

the thing about ghosts is, sometimes they are too sad to leave, and sometimes they are just watching you in the shower. you have to be careful about trusting ghosts.

2008-08-12T21:18:00.003-04:00

It started with a cake. I'd been calling in sick to work on an almost daily basis. I'd spend hours at the park reading these vegan cookbooks that Sarah bought for us as a step towards a healthier lifestyle. When I found the perfect dessert, I trekked back to Greenpoint Avenue, gathering up ingredients along the way. To pass the time of baking & waiting, I started a mixtape. My days were consumed with skipping work, seeking out cake recipes, and making a mixtape for my girlfriend. It was almost springtime, and I was twenty-two.

Moving in together wasn't something we really planned on happening, but given the shitty circumstances of Mother Nature's way, our home of New Orleans wasn't exactly an option anymore. We looked for something new -- new opportunities but more importantly new bands to discover, new bars to haunt, and new cute girls to stare at in the coffee shop. We landed in Brooklyn.

She ordered this electronic drum kit, and days before it arrived in the mail, we'd already named our band and tried to figure out what songs we would cover. My friend had just sent me a mixtape in the mail, and the first track was the original "Hangin' on the Telephone" by the Nerves. I cursed Debbie Harry for having gotten to it first. Sarah threw a bass in my hands & taught me the four chords to "Just Like Heaven". It was decided. We spent each & every night making dinner, watching Jeopardy then practicing, her on her drums and me on my bass. We never wrote any songs of our own. Well, she did, but she never let me listen to them. (Once I found a tape of her playing guitar and singing a song she'd written called "You Broke My Little Gay Heart (Into a Million Pieces)", and I think it made her nervous. I loved it.) She only played for me covers, any one I'd request or some I'd never heard. She knew how much I loved Modest Mouse. I told her a story about how one night close to my high school graduation, I put in The Fruit That Ate Itself and kept replaying it. I just drove & drove and before I knew it, I was in Florida. I came home to her one day practicing "All Night Diner". It was lovely. I could've repaid her by playing that same damn Cure song repeatedly, but instead, I decided to repay her in mixtapes.

Everything she did & was made me think of songs. Some songs I never wanted to hear much less spend the time taping to subject to someone else. Other songs that made me think of home, New Orleans, bike riding two on one bike, or shows where I'd her before we were officially friends. The third track on the side A was "Butterflies Are Free" by the Free Design. It scored its place on the tape not only for obvious reasons that Sarah gave me butterflies in my stomach (gawsh!), but my friend was playing it at the record store where we worked once & Sarah walked in. Right when they hit the high note on "free". It was a scene from a John Hughes movie. It was stepping off of the last step right as the G train arrives. It was too perfect.

She always teased me that I was too cool for a nerd like her, but I secretly wished I'd heard of bands like Delta 5 & Huggy Bear before she played them for me. I always enjoyed her excitement in response to my ignorance. Nothing could top the time she was talking about Germ Free Adolescents and I looked at her and said, "Huh? What's that?" She could barely contain herself as she rummaged through shelves of CDs to find X-Ray Spex. She really was happy, and I was happy, too. One day, Sarah came home from work to me with a cake in one hand & a broomstick microphone in the other, dancing around to Tommy James' "I Think We're Alone Now". This alone is was proof that "cool" isn't really the right word to describe me.

This was our life. We baked cakes & made tapes & sought out recipes & played the same songs to each other every night, and we were content. We were lost & confused in the big city of New York, but with each other, we were home.

2008-08-12T14:09:00.004-04:00

This dream is still fresh in my memory, so I need to do a short recap.

I met up with lots of my friends from New Orleans & Brooklyn at this party on my elementary school's playground. There were picnic tables filled with BBQ & watermelon. Kids were playing on jungle gyms with balloons attached to their wrists. Everyone was standing there when it started raining. Kids jumping in the grass turned it into mud, and a parade started coming down Jones Creek Road. Marching bands and baton twirlers and people throwing treats, the whole nine. Then, one of the floats stopped, and out came Johnny Cash. He was singing "I Still Miss Someone", got off the float and came and laid in the mud with all the kids and I ran over and laid with them. He was smiling and we were all covered in mud. He kept singing.

When I started to walk home, I was completely overtaken by giddyness & dirt caked up to my neck. Then I saw his van. No one was in it, so I climbed in and fell asleep on the back bench. He & his new girlfriend came out to the van and woke me up. When I saw his face, there was a look of anger for about three seconds until I rubbed my eyes and said, "What?" Then he smiled. He looked at his girlfriend, and she left us to talk. He climbed in the van and asked why I'd come. I told him I was too tired to walk anymore. He said he'd drive me wherever I needed to go. He asked about the mud but didn't seem to care that it was all over his seat. While he was driving, I sat in the passenger seat and told him about everything that had just happened, the balloons, the friends from everywhere, the kids jumping, and Johnny Cash. He just glanced over every now & again with a smile to let me know he was listening.

He stopped the van and told me to get out. I thought he was going to leave me on this bridge. It was a bridge over the creek where my mother would take my sister & I when we kids. He parked the van, got out, and grabbed my hand. "Don't think." We jumped off the bridge and into the creek, not knowing if we'd come back up for air. When our heads popped up, we looked at each other confused and he pulled me in and hugged me. He said he was sorry to scare me. I hugged him back and we floated.

NEED HELP

2008-08-10T17:40:00.003-04:00

I'm searching for a portal, somewhere within the five boroughs, that I can climb into and climb out of in the parking lot of the Atlanta Motel. If you hear of anything or if (even better) you see any strange link sausages lying on the ground (Jimmy Dean, etc), please contact me, as this is a sure-tell sign that a portal to the city of Atlanta is nearby, perhaps even by just a few feet. I'm looking for this just today. And probably tomorrow, too. I'm always looking for doorways to special places where parts of my heart are scattered.

Have you ever had a red-headed fairy? The kind that arrives in an air conditioned carriage with a watermelon and a mixtape chock full of Kate Bush and Ethiopian soul jams? The kind that kidnaps you from your world and takes you to another one, one where they answer the phones "Knock Knock", and they let you sing Queen songs even if no one's listening. She'll never tell your grandmother that you're listening to rock 'n roll. My fairy keeps all secrets inside four walls and even make those walls look like the ones from when you were a teenager. She knows you don't need arms to play a game of darts. She'll always has an extra quarter, even in the future when extra quarters are rare, and she'll give it to you when you think it's only one credit but it's actually two. You probably don't know what I'm talking about, but if you do -- and I hope you do -- you know that those special kinds are rare. When you catch them, you keep them close and let them sleep near your head, not in a coffee can with holes poked in the top.

She's in Atlanta, and I'm here. And I miss her. She knows that this is the best we can do, and she'll never judge me by that.