Yes, Deep Purple, Sly & The Family Stone...Shuggie Otis.

I've been really digging into old music lately. All the artists I've listed in my title are good. Check em out. They're all pretty famous.

Another note - I have to say that most American white music is pretty fucking weak. I think folk music is pretty good nowadays; I think good music is representative of a culture, so in order to have good music I think you need to have some history first.

Now I Know

I think I know now why I was dissatisfied with Ann.

I realize now how similar Ann and Colleen really are. Living with Colleen has made me realize what I was starting to discover when I was with Ann. We are too different, and I think I need something that Ann could never give me. I realized this tonight.

I know now that I just want somebody who actually understands me and does give me the support I need. I really want somebody who listens to the music I listen to, or somebody who I respected enough to talk about certain things with. I don't want somebody who just listens and nods. I realize I might sound a bit selfish and immature about it. However, I really don't feel that way. I hate fuckin people who just agree with whatever I say, or people who think what I say or feel do not merit support. Actually, I realize I destest these qualities in people, through Colleen and Ann. I detest how they take everything as a joke, with no real sense of right or wrong. Actually scratch that. They do have a sense of right and wrong; it just differs from mine. I personally think it's incredibly fake. I'm going to take the low road and come out and explain this straight out, blunt-like.

I don't respect Colleen as a guitar player, and it irks me when she tells me how to do this or that when I'm playing music. I realize I'm not fuckin Jimi Hendrix; I'm just starting out. Whenever I expose a raw piece of myself by trying to express something through music, they laugh man. They fucking laugh! I am a mortal man with my own insecurities, which I try to deal with. The way they deal with shit is by laughing at it. They're afraid to really expose themselves, whereas I feel I am not. I still get nervous when I do it, but I still do it. It's fucking hypocritical and incredibly annoying. It makes me even more angry when I think about how Ann always supported Colleen in her uglyass, shitty guitar playing. Jesus. It also pissed me off when Haddy did the same exact shit to me. And then I see her playing. Honestly, I think I play alot better than she does. Dumbass group. I really hate other people sometimes. I guess I'm insatiable - I don't like superficial support and I don't like being belittled. I guess I just want understanding. Cliched, but true.

I read this over and I sound pretty petty and insecure about shit. I imagine what all these women would say to me in their defense. I think they'd all feel that I was bragging when I was playing, thinking I was the shit. I don't feel as if I do, but perhaps their perception is different. Fuck, this is what I really hate about guitar. The whole fuckin image of it. It's not even about the music anymore. Godamn that John Mayer.

I Used to Love H.E.R.

Hip hop is quickly dying for me. I've been listening to alot of old music lately, and I've been discovering all of these songs that today's hip hop producers sample. 99% of the time they sample it and its just a straight rip man...no creativity or hotness to the new song at all. The only song I've recently come across that I thought the new artist might have done better than the original was....Sly & the Family Stone - Everybody Wants to Be A Star. The Roots took that song, but they flipped it so it was even hotter than the original, even though they pretty much took it note by note. Original music was so damned GOOD man. It's sad that nothing new is really being created.

I remember reading a quote a while back and it stuck to me. "All music has already been written centuries ago by old white dudes in powdered wigs." That's the truth, mang. I was walking along today thinking. I had once been really into shoes. Alrite that's a flat out lie. I'm still hella into shoes. But there's only a limit to where your creativity can go there. I thought, "Well with music, there are a finite number of notes and combinations and instruments, but there's still fresh new ways of doing it." The deeper I dig, the less true this seems.

Then again, you'd have to ask yourself, really and truly, how creative and original anybody can be. We've already been through thousands upon thousands of years of humanity; I'm fairly certain there really is nothing new under the sun, as they say. They say ignorance is bliss. I've always felt that knowledge was just burdensome; you know what's out there and what's not, and it disappoints a man. It's difficult to be happy when you feel that you've gotten as far as you can, and you still have time to explore more. But, there is nothing to explore.

For a long time I think I've felt this way. I've jumped from subject to subject, learning quickly, enthusiastically, until I learn enough to see that there is nothing down the road for me. I see all the negative things, all the things people have done before me, when all I ever wanted to do was to do something nobody's done before, to create a wholly beautiful and fresh thing that can change..everything. Now that I write this, I realize how true this is. My entire life, I've wanted that.

Some days I believe that it takes a genius to do all of that. But damn, geniuses...they're one in a million. One in a billion! They don't come around often. All the people I've respected, all the musicians I've loved to listen to and yearned to be; were they geniuses? Something in my heart tells me no, they were simply intelligent people who has a passion for what they were doing, and had the will do pursue it into the darkness. Into possible failure. All of these years, and I still think I am afraid of that. Simply letting go. I think it's because I'm so afraid I'll wake up one day and realize I've become a hack. I'd see what I've created over the past whatever years and realize it's all shit. I think I'd break if that happened.

I know now I am an intelligent human being. I simply lack the personality, the will and the patience, to succeed at whatever I want to do. These years...they are the last times I have a chance to change that. I must take note of this and make efforts to change it.

Bad Character

There are times when I feel a surge of happiness swell within my soul. In the dark reaches of my body and heart, or perhaps my mind, I feel a flutter that changes and bleeds into the rest of my body, infecting my entire being with a sudden mirth and light-heartedness. It is something very fragile and precious. The other day I felt it suddenly. I can never tell when this will occur or what brings it about.

Man, I gotta say, I am very uneasily satisfied. And by that I mean almost never completely satisfied. I always want to write one way, or walk a way or talk a way, and especially play music a certain way, but it never comes out the way I imagine it to. There are always mooments. During the day everything aligns for a mere moment, and I hear a phrase pop into my head that perfectly describes that moment and captures everything I want about it. Or the other night, I dreamt a melody that simply turned and vanished into the air as soon as I woke up. These are the times I see the beauty and perfection that I have so much potential to exist in. I've always felt that other people see these things, or manisfestations of these things, in me and thus believe in me. But in order for me to truly believe in myself, I have to see these things in my own perfect way, with my own eyesight.

Sometimes I wonder if we're all capable of such perfection. I'd like to hope so. I think if we all were, shit would be in perfect harmony. And I'm not afraid to admit that. I wish the world really was full of love and happiness. I wish we all had the genius in which to tie all the meaningful snippets of everyday life - the images, sounds, melodies, words, phrases, feelings, thoughts - into a unified force.

Generally I feel very different from everybody else.
Check yes.
Pencil down.
Close eyes.
Smell the things that remind you of the past.
Listen to the music that moves you into another world.
Recall the phrases and sentences that describe reality, or perhaps your own perception of it, written in another being's words.
Feel and stir things long since dormant.
Be happy.

Back in L.A.

Whats up kiddies, I'm back in where I left my heart in; no, not San Fran but in the San Gangsta Valley, as those aZn's are so particular on calling it. It feels good to be back home. I realize now that THIS really is home. The yay is cool, but it feels empty. Sorry.

I've realized that my scene is really Hollywood. Melrose and La Brea...actually the entire area is what Berkeley tries to be and more. When I grow up to be a big kid (adult) I'll probably end up living there for a little bit, at LEAST. I went there to scope out some records and shoes and maybe some threads, but ended up leaving early to catch a lunch that I missed anyways. I found it funny because I went to Sportie and FINALLY found the Vans I've been fiending for, except they were slipons instead of the eras I wanted. fuck. I still asked them to grab em though, and I was still gonna buy them but then at the last minute I was like NAAAW and booked it.


AIIIITE!

So what if you catch me, where would we land?

My title I jacked from Liem....it suddenly reminded me of fucking San Diego again. I want to watch Garden State again, if only to recapture the feelings I had at that moment. I wish it were still showing in theaters; I think I'd pay the $10 to watch it, alone even. Actually, I'd probably prefer to do it alone, just so I could relive things once again.

What changed, and why? I don't know if I could ever answer these things.

I wonder what will happen in the future. Will I ever feel for anybody ever again? So far, I haven't really felt anything for anybody, really. Women I once felt extreme attraction for now seem everyday. Well, perhaps not everyday. Just not too spectacular. Unimpressive. Disappointing. All of the above.

Sometimes I think about Rohit and I wonder if this is how he feels. Random, yeah. I've been burning so many bridges lately, and I think I try to desperately rebuild them.

I've been having ideas and visions lately of what I want. I want to sit on a grassy hill overlooking a lake. Beneath a tree, I'd sit next to my woman and we'd watch the sun roar below the horizon as the day dies and the night is born. She'd lean her head on my shoulder, and I'd put my arm around her waist. Peace. It's color is blue, mixed with green. It turns to purple and black, stuccoed with pinpricks of light, the colors of infinity. This is my heaven, I think.


I'd say I'm depressed but I don't feel it. I don't feel much these days.

There and Back Again

He heard his father cry out - they had left the camera with his mother. "All this way, and no picture," he'd said, shaking his head. He reached into his pocket and began to throw the striped stones into the water. "We will have to remember it, then." They look around, at the gray and white town that glowed across the harbor. Then they started back again, for a while trying not ot make an extra set of footsteps, inserting their shoes into the ones they had just made. A wind had picked up, so strong that it forced them to stop now and then.

"Will you remember this day, Gogol?" his father had asked, turning back to look at him, his hands pressed like earmuffs to either side of his head.

"How long do I have to remember it?"

Over the rise and fall of the wind, he could hear his father's laughter. He was satnding there, waiting for Gogol to catch up, putting out a hand as Gogol drew near.

"Try to remember it always," he said once Gogol had reached him, leading him slowly back across the breakwater, to where his mother and Sonia stood waiting. "Remember that you and I made this journey, that we went together to a place where there was nowhere left to go."


I just finished this book for my class, The Namesake. This was an entry from it that particularly stood out to me. I'm not sure I can explain why.

So over the weekend, I went home to LA. It was strange, because when I was there I accidentally referred to Berkeley as "home." It was the first time something like that had happened.

CalSO has finally finished. All the counselors have taken off, our paths diverting after an intense month and a half together. I wonder what will happen to us all. It's strange how people can get so close when they are forced together in proximity, and then allow things to drift away once they are physically apart. I have been guilty of this myself. I've been drifting further and further lately. Strangely, as I become more and more detached, who I have become seems to fall off and I see myself, simply myself, clearer and clearer. I've realized my instinct is something I really should trust.

For most of my life, I've tried to achieve this sort of understanding of everything. I believed that there was a certain level of existence, where I could clearly explain and understand all of the facets of life. The more I age, the more I realize how convoluted and inexplicable life, and all things composing it, really is. I've realized you can't think too much; you should go with your gut. There is a way of understanding things, but not the way I've been trying to do it.

I've gotten into reading once again. I know I posted how I felt that my writing had fallen off a few posts ago, but I can feel it returning now. It's weird how it comes back. I think it was just in remission, and it took a little bit of practice to bring it back out.

I just wish I had something to talk about. Life has been quite banal lately. An objective observer might consider my life quite interesting, but I find it pretty boring. I'm still trying it figure out how people can find certain things meaningful. It must be the people; it's always the people who make the memories, not the events. I theorize that perhaps I cannot find meaningful memories because I cannot establish meaningful relationships with anybody. I just do what I do, and I can read when people decide I am a meaningful person in their lives. I try to keep these relationships up, but truthfully they mean as much to me as anybody else. There is nothing in my heart to distinguish these people from any random stranger on the street; I only know that they are more important because of what I know, not what I feel.

I'm not sure if that's what I really think; I'm also beginning to realize I say alot of shit now just for shock value, or because I think it sounds good.

For in the end, we are simply bags of flesh, suspended in midair, believing we are significant...