Alarm Clocks

I need 1,440 alarm clocks for a performance art piece i would like to do...obviously this will take a while and you probably all want an explanation. All in good time my friends...until then...send me your fucking alarm clocks. And make sure they work! Also, if you have any idea on how I can maybe get funding for this...or maybe get free alarm clocks...that would be swell too.

hearts.

send to:

saxon baird

2936 NE Going

Portland Or 97211

Worst albums I own (on a lighter note...)

Okay, enough seriousness and reflections on death and life. A conversation began the other day at work about the worst records we ever owned. Surely, I have blocked many out of my memory. However, I decided to come home and find the worst records I STILL own. Even better, I decided to pull out the worst records I still own that i still ENJOY! here is the embarrassing list....

First, most embarrassing records I still own and i have no idea why:

Aztec Camera-"high land, hard rain"

This is one of those records I bought because they existed during a time and place where other bands where good. Whoops. Fans of Bruce Hornsby should check this out...

Commodores- "Natural High"

I must of bought this because"three times a lady" is on it. But seriously, that isn't even a good song. This is their 6th studio album and feels like it. Boring, and lackluster, The Commodores obviously forgot to this record while doing coke but choose to after they had been up all night and had already run out of blow.

Cursive-"the ugly organ"

once again, one good song. Other than that, its just a bunch of whiny songs about how hard it is to be an artist. Fuck you Tim Kasher...stop crying on stage.

Devo- "Oh no! It's Devo"

Oh no is right. I love Devo but no one...and i mean NO ONE listens to them past the third album (maybe even the 2nd). This is like their fifth and its only redeemable quality is the cover. Check it out:

yep thats right...they are all potatoes, and for whatever reason Mark Mothersbaugh has decided to wear fake glasses with fake eyebrows on them.

Truely a misunderstood genius.

Note: check out their video discography...the video from this album is equally absurd, hilarious, amazing??!

John Denver- "poems, prayers and promises"

uh. uuuuuuuuuuh. uh...


Foreigner - "double vision"

this might be able to go under the "embarrassing records I own but still enjoy...". However, i dunno if I do enjoy it or if I just know the entire album by heart because its something I heard growing up. Another amazing album cover...nice jacket asshole...

Styx- "the grand illusion"

see above.

Hot Hot Heat- "knock knock knock" e.p.

something about this album makes me want to believe that in like 20 years it will be cool and kids that are my age now will want to dance to it.

But there is also something that makes me want to puke knowing that I even own it...

Slapstick-discography

some 3rd wave ska band from Chicago that alot of actually good bands came out of . However, it reality, there is no reason for me to own this. Its not enjoyable anymore, the songs are stupid and frankly no one should own any 3rd wave ska anymore no matter who the founding members are and went on to become. (that includes skankin pickle...give me a break and give it up)

Sublime- "40 oz. to freedom"

yeah this is pretty bad. i tried to defend this to myself but i cant even listen to it. i grew up with it and at some point was a 14 year old snotty surfer who thought this was cool. oh well...

the decemberists- "castaways and cutouts"

I actually know why I still own this and it is because of one, really good song that the singer was never able to re-create. Other than that, this album is pretty impossible to listen to all the way through. An easy listening version of Neutral Milk Hotel. In fact they don't even deserve that...how about Phil Collins fronting a bar band from a small harbor city. I know this may offend some of my friends but guys...guys...really...c'mon....no really....they all look like math teachers...and not in that good way.

Aston "Familyman" Barrett- "Cobra Style"

I dont own a lot of reggae or dub. I am more a fan of rocksteady(jamaica's version of soul music). Although, I think there is some good stuff out there. Unfortunately, this is not it. Made up of various tracks of awkward reggae songs recorded in the late 70's and early 80's, its sounds like some of these bands are doing an interpretive Brian Eno songs....so awkward!

Medeski Martin and Wood -"the combustication" and "the dropper"

these are albums that phish fans listen to when they want something "heady". these guys may be amazing musicians...but it just sounds like a jazzy version of yngwie malsteem. (i.e. lots and lots and lots of wanking...) why i own TWO of them...is still a mystery.

The Get-Up Kids- 3 records.

Get up kids? 3 of them!!??! At one point this shit was something I loved. Then I grew up a bit...went back to it...and realized how much they suck and were directly ripping off SO MANY BANDS that are way better. barf. i must still own these because the record stores wont buy them back.
____

Ok now to the really embarrassing stuff:

Most embarrassing records I own and absolutely love (or still somewhat enjoy.)

Eddie Money - "s/t"

Fuck all of you. Eddie Money's first record is so hot. Nothing gets me going like "two tickets to paradise". I have honestly never met someone in my generation that likes Eddie Money. I love him forever though. Nothing can take Eddie from me.

the Eagles-"one of these nights"

Jeff and I are the only people we know who dig The Eagles. Maybe its because we are from California and so are they. I dont care how much they may have ripped off southern rock....I still love them.
I'll take "lyin eyes", "one of these nights" any day.

Bob Seeger- "against the wind"

whatever...so the guy sold one of his songs to chevy. he was probably just thinking about paying his children's college tuition. I like stuff that has no B.S. too it. Just straight up, sweaty shirt, no pyrotechnics rock. That's what Seeger is and i appreciate it and even like it. Have you seen these guys teeth? They are horrible...total rocker...not rockstar.

Alkaline Trio-"s/t"

I can sing every song, word for word on this record. Honestly, it still baffles me that this guy wrote these lyrics when he was in his mid-20's. They sound like they were written by a 13 year old. Maybe thats why I love it still....

Basement Jaxx- "kish kash"

I dare you not to dance to this record!

The Blow "paper television" and Feist " let it die"

I put these together because I have been called a "fag" more than once for listening to these albums. So be it...

Saves the Day- "stay what you are"

yeah, i cant say much to defend myself on this one. Nostalgia definitely plays a factor but I seriously have tried to sell this back and decided not to at the last second more than once. I know all the words too...seriously embarrassing....oh well...

note: i visited a friend in D.C. that I hadn't seen in ten years.(so when we were like 12.) She had a mix in her car made up entirely of music she listen to in High School. The first song on this record was the first song on her mix. Needless to say, we shamelessly rocked out.

gogogo airheart- "exittheUXA"

Probably most people dont know these guys but those of you that do are definitely shaking your heads. I dunno if there is actually anyone in the world who still likes and even listens to this band...but I will always be a fan. I have no excuses...

Cornershop- "when I was born for the 7th time"

Is this embarrassing? Pretty much...but only because they are known as a one-hit wonder with a song that talks about wanting to have a bosom for a pillow. Nevetheless, I still rock this every now and then. Who doesnt want to listen to a cover of "Norwegian Wood" entirely in hindi?

Okay that is pretty much it. I am sure there is other stuff you could come over and see that I have and laugh your ass off about. But this is all you get...

concrete

An extra blog to make up for my lost week....

I took a walk briefly, today with the intention of taking these photos. All of the sidewalks in Portland are marked and etched with the names and numbers of the streets. They are also marked with the year and the name of the company that laid and formed the sidewalks of our city. All of the sidewalks across Portland from downtown to the more residential areas are like this. The names vary but the years are usually sometime between 1900 to about 1924.

I recently wrote an entry about the strange, fervor and pride I have of being working class. Or at least, I look upon my working class with a sort of respect and am happy with how it has influenced me as a person.
However, a strange thought occurred to me the other day while walking to work. As always, I notice the names and dates of the sidewalks I pass and I realized how lasting the work of these men is. These concrete sidewalks influence how we move and travel throughout our neighborhood and the city. Furthermore, with the exception of the random repair, these sidewalks have held up for over a hundred years. Surely, the men who helped have all passed on. Many, if not all of them, are probably mostly forgotten, nameless individuals who existence is probably no longer even in the memories of the living. However, these men were able to produce something extremely important and lasting that has carried on well beyond their own lives. Blue collar, hard laborers but were still able to contribute to something lasting.

Of course, these concrete sidewalks will probably not always exist. As everything does they will corrode and eventually fall apart and disappear. Nevertheless, as I was walking to my job of making pizzas, I couldn’t help but compare these men to my work. What is lasting about making pizzas? If anything, it’s contributing to obesity, high blood pressure and an eventual heart attack to hundreds of people a day. What am I contributing or helping? To appease hungry individuals? In realty, there is nothing lasting nor all that redeemable about making pizzas.
However, it is not a necessity to live a life dedicated to the production or contribution to something lasting and important. There is something to be said about the individual who comes and passes this life like a shadow. What they did may not help guide cars and pedestrians, house families for generations, educate, etc. However, surely they had friends, maybe a family, brought momentary satisfaction, happiness, pleasure, advice or ease to others. Maybe they lived a completely isolated life but one day pitched a coin to a man in need on their way home. Maybe they were not even what we term as “good people”. Surely, we are complicated beings. Nevertheless, there is something fascinating and worthy of note about a life lived that left very little that will last beyond the next generation. A life like this is acceptable as well. However, after 9 hours of making pizzas, cleaning floors and chopping vegetables, it is sometimes hard to find anything of worth in the work I do.

I can’t help but go back to Mr.Ramsay reflecting upon his work in To the Lighthouse. Father of nine, famed thinker and professor, and still a intense desire to leave the world with so much that is lasting. He reflects…

“The liftmen in the Tube is an eternal necessity.”

It makes him feel ill but he comes to terms with this thought. It is okay, the men are a necessity.

I reflect…

Is the boy in the kitchen making pizza an eternal necessity?

No, he is not. The most tragic thing I can think of is of someone flipping burgers for 9 hours and then on their way home meeting a sudden death. Their last nine hours were spent over a stove. It is a rather pessimistic thought and doesn’t help me get out of bed in the morning. Nevertheless, while the boy is not an eternal necessity, while he is leaving nothing lasting in his work, there are reasons in his life that he must do this right now. To eat, to have coffee with a friend and sit in a park, to travel and see a bit of the world, to provide, etc. It must be done for himself.

All discussions of anarchy, communism and the world developing into a certain utopia where we work for free to provide for everyone are always fun. But I wash them down the drain every morning with the excess juice from the sausage I just cooked in a 600 degree oven.

For now I have to learn to be okay with this. And hell…it is a tired, old saying but doesn’t hurt to think of sometimes…There is always somebody who has it worst.

How can I not be true to myself? How can I not seek out that which I want and is best for my well-being? So much in my life prevents me from doing this. How can I not try and spend my few, daily hours away from work how I want? It would be a crime unto myself to not.

Two poems by carl sandburg that I once wrote across a bedroom wall that I now can’t help but reference as a conclusion:

Under the harvest moon,
when the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.

Under the shimmering roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And ask you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.

---

Happiness

I asked the professors who teach the meaning of life to tell me
what is happiness.

And I went to famous executives who boss the work of thou-
sands of men.

They all shook their heads and gave me a smile as though I
was trying to fool with them.

And then one Sunday I wandered out along the
Desplaines river
And I saw a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with their
women and children and a keg of beer and an accordion.

Some of his poetry should be written across the walls of restaurant kitchens, garbage trucks, the handles of hammers and the sidewalks of every city.

where reason succumbs...

are we breathing? are we breathing? are we wasting our breath? - emily haines


i spent a day going to the river last week. I have had strange incidents with the river that haven't yet convinced me of its splendor. Growing up in southern california near the beach, the river has never been much more to me than what lets out all the sewage into the ocean. therefore a trip to the river is always awkward and foreign to me. I know that it sounds strange to many for me to be almost 24 and not entirely know what to do with a river, but what can i say...i grew up a beach bum.Yet last week's trip to the river was different and lovely for the first time. However, the thoughts that accompanied me while I was there added a strange element to the whole experience as well.

Lately, i have been engaging in a sort of theologicial/life-defining debate with my dad over emails. my father has always found structure and pattern in nature and sees god in this. its the same with the art he enjoys. he often says that he is not interested nor particularly likes most art after the 1950's with the dawning of modernism and post-modernism. the same mostly goes for the literature he reads with a few exceptions of course.

To me, nature has always seemed almost the opposite of how my father views it. To me, nature seems chaotic. Most things in this world seem chaotic to me. Regardless if there happens to exist a god or eternal-life, i still dont find much reason or logic to our existence or this world. I know there are explanations for why these specific trees grow in this region and why this river winds the way it does. I understand that the rocks that grace its side and guide it to its outlet erode and leave particles of rock and sand on its banks... but as I sat there letting the small pepples fall through my fingers, i asked myself if there is a explanation or a reason for the size and shape at which each individual pepple and grain of sand erodes into? I dont believe so. True, it may be that our biological and ontological understanding is limited.(i ventured in using philosophical terminology timidly...please correct me if my usage is awkward or incorrect) And so perhaps there is reason and explanation for what we cannot (currently) explain. yet, this answer/excuse leaves much to be desired. if there are indeed answers and explanations to that which we dont understand that is existing in some other, unattainable, noumenal world; my life as i live and view it will always be disorderly and always, eventually fall into the unexplainable regardless since i will never obtain these unattainable truths.

I suppose this can be a dangerous point to exist on when trying to base one's morality, give reason to one's life, etc....blah blah blah. In an attempt to make this less philosophical and keep in somewhat personal and even prescriptive, i wont venture down that path but rather conclude with me sitting on a rock covering my eyes watching the flies and gnats swarm in the sunlight. I can live without ever fully understanding. However, i have this intense desire to continue and try to understand fully knowing that it is completely unattainable. life is the attempt and the failure.

a friend of mine recently wrote that his interior world was shifting and suddenly he must get to know himself all over again. I couldn't define my own life in better words than these. everything is in transistion and i have become different, altered. i feel as though i must re-examine who i am suddenly. there are decisions to be made and actions to be taken and as much logic and reason and i try to put into it, it simply comes from my emotions and what us working class folk call "the gut". how well do you know yourself? yeah...its always limited... but i know there is a certain extent at which can be understood and its something i need to re-discover.

i tend to reject letting any one philosophy, theology or outlook define and govern my life. rather, i seem to run off a couple between emotionality and reason that is no doubt partially conditioned by the society that i was raised in, etc. (hegel, freud...blah). nevertheless, when you find yourself with altered views and changing thoughts, frustrated and restricted, what do you work off of? how do you make your decisions? its seems reason always succumbs to my emotion and desire. its dangerous and you fail and you sometimes dont understand right away or sometimes ever at all. but its the attempt that i value...the attempt to have, know, become, hold that which its best for my well-being.

selfish? perhaps a little. however, i dont necessarily find this negative thing. and i like to assume that sometimes these actions benefit more than just me.

*

I heard on npr that a scientific discovery has been made. A scientist has been studying why some animals live longer than others. its all about the heartbeats. an animal consumes energy and through its activity, the heart either beats faster or slower. a squirrels heart beats something like 400 times a minute. while a whales heart beats every 3 seconds. in the end he discovered that ALL animals die (assuming that they exist to their fullest potential) after roughly a half a billion heartbeats. every animal from a cat to a elephant.

the only exception is of course humans. which he attributes to hygiene and modern medicine. So we have overcome and defied nature and thus live as long as an elephant opposed to the 20-30 that we should. what a privilege we have. how will you spend all those extra heart beats? how else but in trying to be as truthful with yourself as you can be? how else other than in an attempt that is, has, and always will be destined to fail?

a life spent denying, pushing away and avoiding grief and failure, is a sadder life than embracing and accepting it. So i'll make that leap...watch my beautiful descent. regardless where i land i'll find something there.

maybe you?

half a billion heart beats later it will hardly matter at all anyways. why is that not okay with so many of us?

my friend finds reason and logic in the face of so much that rejects him and denies him. While i dont necessarily believe in the same things as him, its beautiful. Furthermore, while he has never spoken of it to me, i assume that there are many who maybe think that he is cutting himself short by placing his belief in that which he does. yet, he continues on. failure looks him in the eye everyday, it surrounds him (i assume), the mass majority of the population would probably view him as a contradiction, an oxymoron...he doesnt care and continues on.
beautiful.
one cant keep lying to themself just because its easier. i am going mildly crazy over that which i dont understand and my dirty future full of blaring but scary truths.
shall i embrace it or tiptoe along the thin curb...scared to touch the grass on one side while never letting my toes hit the golden, gutter waters of concrete angles on my left?

sometimes sound judgement and good sense is worthless.

*
A crude metaphor through a real-life experience:

the other day the basement of my work flooded. there is one floor drain with a hole that is about an inch and a half wide. I was standing in about 2 inches of water. over half the basement was flooded. I spent over an hour with a push broom pushing all this water in a tiny hole to get rid of the water. i couldnt help but think that the water was like everything we must endure and attempt to understand in the world. while the hole is our brains. there is so much and it is so overwhelming but we cant just leave the water standing. we have to attempt to take it all in. but what is left when all the water is gone? nothing but a damp floor.

*
listen to more otis redding.

________________

image: Mathilde Ter Heijne "tragedy"

blame Ernest...

Last week I heard an interview on NPR with Annie Dillard. For those of you not familiar, she is the author of “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” and is mainly known for her narrative fiction. I have read one and a half books by her. They are reasonably decent and mostly consist of musings on faith, religion, herself , life and nature interspersed with an activity she finds herself doing. (i.e. walking in a forest, throwing up sandbags during a storm, etc.) I don’t particularly find anything entirely redeemable about her books. They seem to contain similar thoughts that any person would have during their life or everyday actions. These musings don’t offer much in the way of intellect or revelatory thoughts on life other than to stress that one must take the time to really experience it. Maybe that’s the point and that is fine. I just find her to be a lot like what talking to your sort of strange, earthy aunt or grandma would be like. From what I have read, it plays out like a modern-day Walden; only not as insightful.

Ironically enough, this interview on NPR displayed her as just that. It was very enjoyable for the most part but there was something she said that really bothered me. She recently released a work of fiction (only her 2^nd) and apparently she had written around 1200 pages at first. After this, she somehow was able to pair it down to a little over 200. She explained that she did this by closely editing the 1200 pages so that what was left was that which was necessary. No extra descriptions or overly-long paragraphs. She even explained that she cut down sentences in an attempt to cut out that which was not necessary. In the conversation she mentioned Hemingway and how he was a journalist before writing The Torrents of Spring and The Sun Also Rises. She mentioned his tight, easy prose and then Annie Dillard stated that, “When it comes to writing, we have learned everything from Hemingway.”

Now, I don’t necessarily fully disagree with what she is saying. Yes, it is a bit of an outlandish statement that EVERYTHING we have learned from writing since his existence is because of him. Nevertheless, it made me think of modern American literature since Hemingway and the statement begins to make a bit of sense. Who is at the top of popular American fiction? What books are on that list?

A Tom Clancy novel?

How about The Da Vinci Code?

Elmore Leonard?

How about a little less popular. How about those who can be candidates for being in some sort of canon (oops… I said it) in let’s say…hmm…200 years.

Joyce Carol Oates?

Tim O’Brien?

Okay, Okay but how about a little less popular but trying to do something a little bit less main stream.

Chuck Palahniuk?

I could make an arguement for all of the above as being highly influenced by Hemingway.

Yeah but what about Pynchon! He isn't influenced by Hemingway.

Ahh…here we go…now there is somebody who is doing something that isn’t Hemingway like. And yes, although I hate to say it neither is David Foster Wallace. And although I could easily make the argument that he is in fact following a Hemingway-esque style…I guess Dave Eggers isn’t entirely either. Although, I have read nothing but his first novel which I thumb my nose at and isnt that really a work of non-fiction anyways? Note: If you are sitting here wondering why Don DeLillo, Cormac McCarthy or Toni Morrison and probably a few others (although not too many) have not been mentioned then shoot me, I haven’t read them yet. (getting to it…)

The POINT is that upon hearing Annie Dillard say this, I was at first in total disagreement but then I came to realize that to a certain degree she is actually somewhat right. And to further that realization, it dawned on me that perhaps that is the problem I have with so much American Literature. From what I can tell Hemingway is all about the story. By whichI mean to say, there is a focus on what happens; the events, how the plot plays out. This is opposed to a focus on the internal reactions, the memory or all the minutes and hours in-between these events. In fiction by Hemingway, it is the story that is most important. Sure, there are small, intricate details about those stories and the characters that make him great but 46 years after his death, do we still need to be writing like him? It may be also a symptom of our culture and contemporary society, but I don’t particularly see anything wrong with a story about very little or even a story about nothing. (But you know not in that Seinfeld sense because then we are just turning into a David Sedaris memoir, yuck.) It seems that a story about the insanity of what the mind must endure every waking hour in our highly-technological world or a story about how definitive reality is becoming less and less discernable (perhaps it never has been, I know but roll with me…) is lacking. Not entirely absent but seriously lacking. It is a strange thing to declare and desire but I find lots of American literature to be overflowing with that which is overly focused on the "story", the short tight, easy prose, or written very much in the vein of realism.(just like Papa Ernest.)

Frankly, it’s boring. It’s making life boring.

I was writing the other day and I suddenly became overwhelmed with the possibility that I had just written ten pages of nothing. I expressed my discontent and Amy said, “So what?”

How true. Who cares? I am tired of story-driven fiction and I am tired of most realism. There is no problem with telling about real-life events but when I write, I am attempting depict life in a way that is accurate but wholly interesting and far from realism. This sounds a bit like an oxymoron and yes, maybe that is exactly what it is. I am trying to accurately write about life but I am tried of realism. Surreal-realism? Sure, why not.

Furthermore, there is enough non-fiction, true-life stories out there. Why would we write fictitious ones? What would motivate someone to do this? If it is to write a great “story”, then honestly, I find that laughable. I could care less about writing a “story”; there are enough of great “stories” out there that have actually happened.

I am writing to fill the void, to fill what is missing when these stories are re-told. Thoughts, reflections, the mundane, the misery, the imagination, perception, “stinky” the trashcan (see last blog), all compiled into a huge mess that is my or someone else’s brain and spit back out at you. And do take note, it will come in long sentences, with lots of commas.

Its not that there isn’t anything redeeming about the authors mentioned above (although I would argue that there isn’t with some of them). Nor is it that I am declaring that realism isn’t legitimate or that is doesn’t contain anything compelling. Nor is there necessarily a problem with weeding out the unnecessary in your writing. (sure, Pynchon could probably use an editor) Rather, I am merely making the observation that there is too much of it and that there is very little out there that is today, accurately describing contemporary first world life without falling into either “story”-driven narratives or a focus on that which is absurd and ironic. I currently loathe contemporary examples of both.

In all sounds like a lot of youthful, heated manifesto-like speaking…I know. So what…I working towards something…all of this is helping getting me there.

I blame Hemingway for all of this.

------

in a side note, i am still trying to figure out what to do with this blog. I have noticed that it comes almost weekly. Therefore, I think I am going to to stick to that. I got other things to write and read and i refuse to write a detailed account of what I have been doing. however, i have also come to find that this blog has been working as almost a rough draft for more elaborate essays and articles that i end up writing. its almost like a notepad that i scribble all my ideas out upon and then later go back to, expand, and touch up. unfortunately, you don't get the final draft of it. sorry...i guess...should i be sorry for writing a blog? this is absurd..hopefully it will not always turn out this way.