Tuesday, August 31, 2004

Oh, whats in a name?

"But what does Thousand Sons mean?! C'mon, they always tell the main character!"

Well...I actually have one thousand sons. I certainly had a lot of fun making them! They all have paper routes and made me rich! HA HA!

Okay, okay. Not true. Its meaning is two fold:

The short version is I used to play a lot of Warhammer 40k. and always liked the "Thousand Sons" chapter. The concept of undead sorcerors locked forever in their battle arrmor, fighting endlessly appeals to me on some level. Thats how I feel at my job most of the time.

The long winded, intellectual version is from my love of Shakespere.
The Bard had a great quote about the refined qualities of sherry:

A good sherris sack hath a two-fold operation in it. It ascends me into thebrain; dries me there all the foolish and dull and curdy vapours which environ it; makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble fiery and delectable shapes, which, delivered o'er to the voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes excellent wit.

IfI had a thousand sons, the first humane principle I would teach them should be, to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack.
-Falstaff, King Henry IV

Being a bit of an inebriate myself, I would have to agree! *hic*

It's strange though. I've had plenty of nicknames in my life, but this is the one that stuck for some reason. Probably because I didn't really choose it, it chose me. I started posting as 'Thousand Sons' years ago in the Dark Ages of the Internet as an afterthought. Just as a goof really, since none of my other 'nics' seemed appropriate anymore. But now a rather broad spectrum of people around the world know me as Thousand Sons. Moreso than any of my so called 'serious nics'. Thats just Eerie!

As a friend of mine once said "Always be serious about what you create. Even if you do something as a lark or a goof, you might be best known for that one day."

I suppose it could be worse, y'know?

Better than being Bill Chimpfucker.

"Eeeehh. It was only the one time, pretty lady!"


Cheers!

Another round of thanks (albeit belated), this time to Grinder for linking to my page.

Ahh, the power of the Internet!

To be able to reach out half way 'round the world and make someone laugh.

Sweet.

Well, at least Australia loves me now...

One continent down, several to go.

BTW, Atlantis loves me too.

But Lemuria wouldn't know funny if it got bit on the arse!

Those bastards....

Sunday, August 29, 2004

Possible Pasts

"They flutter behind you
your possible pasts
some bright-eyed and crazy
some frightened and lost
a warning to anyone
still in command
of their possible future
to take care..."
-
Pink Floyd, Your Possible Pasts


A different city...another time.

Strange little shop in a funky little northside neighborhood.

It was the camera shop that she had managed. As I looked around I knew immediately that this place was the sort of place she loved.

The employees worked away efficiently, customers came and went.

Nobody noticed me. I have that talent.

Then I saw it.

A handmade sign in her handwriting.

It was unmistakably hers, with the loopy curlicues and flourishes.

I reached out my hand to it.

Hot tears burned my eyes, I couldnt take it anymore. I bolted outside and sat on a bus stop bench. I sobbed like a child. The dichotomy of the scene overwhelmed me. It was a beautiful, warm summer day filled with sunshine. And yet, to me it might as well been the coldest bleakest winter. I was in the wrong season...

"I do not want to go back. I do not want to relive the horror.
I do not want to reclaim the pain. There is pain too deep to withstand right here, right now. There is no way to recapture that awfulness, anyway. The mind and heart, safely over to the farther shore, simply refuse to encompass the enormity of the voyage.

Fragments...
...all around, fragments of my work, my life, my love and my pain,
scattered in this
bleak season...

And in the darkness, shards of time."

-Glen Cook, Bleak Seasons

I had a vison sitting there, a Possible Past that never was:

I had shown up unannounced to surprise her, as I have done often in the past. She feigned surprise, secretly delighted to see me. We had coffee at the Cafe down the street, reminiscing about old times and new. I gave her a cd I'd made just for her. I hoped she would get the inside jokes and references I carefully placed in it. Of course she would. I told her about the book I'm writing, how I've been working on it for so long. We would promise to keep in touch.

"Dont you remember me? how we used to be? do you think...we should be closer?"

But this is all just fantasy now. It never happened, and now never will.

"...strung out behind us the banners and flags of our possible pasts lie in tatters...and rags."

Rage

"I'm gonna dye my hair blond and change my name to Rage!"
-A Friend

RW wanted something on Rage.

I dig the Blazing Fury myself, but Rage is always nice.

Rage is good for you once in a while. You need to let it out.

There is Rage deep in my soul.

Like a sword molten from the furnace, it burns white hot.

I've quenched it in the water of Reason.

Sharpened it on the whetstone of my Logic.

It is all the more dangerous for that.

Humour Part II

Humour is appropriate on a gray Sunday.

As long as its dark.

So for those feeling mopey, I invite everybody to Gothic Dance! (requires sound & QuickTime)

I know you...

I know you.

You were too short.
You had bad skin.
You couldn't talk to them very well.
Words didn't seem to work.
They lied when they came out of your mouth.
You tried so hard to understand them.
You wanted to be part of what was happening.
You saw them having fun,
and it seemed like such a mystery
almost magic.

It made you think
that there was something wrong with you.
You'd look in the mirror trying to find it.
You thought that you were ugly
and that everyone was looking at you.

So you learned to be invisible,
to look down,
to avoid conversation.

The hours, days, weekends.
Ahh, the weekend nights alone.
Where were you?
In the basement? In the attic? In your room? Working some job?

Just to have something to do,
just to have some place to put yourself,
just to have a way to get away from them.
A chance to get away from the ones that made you feel so strange and
ill-at-ease inside yourself.

Do you ever get invited to one of their parties?
You sat and wondered if you would go or not.
For hours you imagined the scenarios that might transpire.
If they would laugh at you?
If you would know what to do?
If you would have the right things on?
If they would notice that you came from a
different planet?

Did you get all brave in your thoughts?
Like you were going to be able to go in there and deal with it, and have a great time?
Did you think that you might be "the life of the party?"
That all these people were going to talk to you
and you would find out that were wrong.
That you had a lot of friends and you weren't so strange after all.

Did you end up going?
Did they mess with you?
Did they single you out?
Did you find out that you were invited,
because they thought you were so weird?

Yeah, I think I know you.

You spent a lot of time full of hate.
A hate that was as pure as sunshine.
A hate that saw for miles.
A hate that kept you up at night.
A hate that filled your every waking moment.
A hate that carried you for a long time.

Yeah, I think I know you.
You couldn't figure out what they saw in the way
they lived.
Home was not home!
Your room was home.
A corner was home.
The place they weren't,
that was home.

I know you.
You're sensitive, and you hide it
because you fear getting
stepped on one more time.
It seems that when you show a part of yourself
that is the least bit vulnerable someone takes advantage of you.
One of them steps on you.
They mistake kindness for weakness,
but you know the difference.
You've been the brunt of their weakness for years
and strength is something you know a bit about
because you had to be strong to keep
yourself alive.

You know yourself very well now
and you don't trust people.
you know them too well.
You try to find that special person,
someone you can be with,
someone you can touch,
someone you can talk to,
someone you won't feel so strange around.
And you found that they don't really exist.
You feel closer to people on movie screens.

Yeah, I think I know you.

You spend a lot of time day dreaming
and people have made comment to that affect
telling you that you are 'self involved' and 'self centered'.
But they don't know, do they?
About the long night shifts alone.
About the years of keeping yourself company.
All the nights you wrapped your arms around yourself
so you could imagine someone holding you.
The hours of indecision.
Self doubt.
The intense depression.
The blinding hate.
The rage that made you stagger.
The devastation of rejection.

(sigh) Well , maybe they do know.
But if they do
they sure do a good job of hiding it.
It astounds you how they can be so smooth.
How they seem to pass through life,
as if life itself was some divine gift.
And it infuriates you
to watch yourself with your apparent skill
in finding every way possible
to screw it up.

For you, life is a long trip.
Terrifying and wonderful.
Birds sing to you at night.
The rain and the sun, the changing seasons are true friends.
Solitude is a hard-won ally
faithful and patient.

Yeah, I think I know you.

--Henry Rollins

Saturday, August 28, 2004

Humour

Time to lighten the mood a bit.

This is from a forum post exchange years and years ago. I cant take credit for it, but it still cracks me up.

"Throwing Muses is not long for this world! Soon he will be a supernatural smorgasbord for the beasts of the underworld, who I will unlease with the fury of a thousand sons."

"Well, I'm all for a smorgasboard, but I'm not too fond of having any underworld beasts become unleased. We'll just renew those leases before the thousand sons get back from lunch. No wonder they get furious."

"A thousand... sons? Suns, you ass!"


Har!

Dont wanna live like a refugee!

"This will always be a place of refuge."

I have decided, firmly, that my blog will not be political in any way shape or form.

I get tired of listening to the broken records. It's bad for the soul and will wear you down.

So if anyone wants a place to get away, if only for a while, this is the place to go.

Oh, and this is a smoke friendly blog...so smoke 'em if you got 'em!

;-)

Friday, August 27, 2004

Stop! STOP!

"I'm sorry ladies and gentlemen, there's no reason for me to do that song here..."

Radio Radio
I was tuning in the shine on the light night dial
doing anything my radio advised
with every one of those late night stations
playing songs bringing tears to me eyes
I was seriously thinking about hiding the receiver
when the switch broke 'cause it's old
They're saying things that I can hardly believe.
They really think we're getting out of control.

Radio is a sound salvation
Radio is cleaning up the nation
They say you better listen to the voice of reason
But they don't give you any choice
'cause they think that it's treason.
So you had better do as you are told.
You better listen to the radio.

I wanna bite the hand that feeds me.
I wanna bite that hand so badly
I want to make them wish they'd never seen me!
Some of my friends sit around every evening
and they worry about the times ahead
But everybody else is overwhelmed by indifference
and the promise of an early bed
You either shut up or get cut out;
they don't wanna hear about it.
It's only inches on the reel-to-reel.
And the radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools
tryin' to anaesthetise the way that you feel!

[Chorus]

Wonderful radio
Marvelous radio
Wonderful radio
Radio, radio...
-Elvis Costello
(Did anyone else get the chills when they saw that on Saturday Night Live years ago?? I know I did.)

Thursday, August 26, 2004

My Soul to the Mountain...

Have mercy on me, my Soul.
You have shown me Fortune beyond my grasp.
You and Fortune abide on the mountain top;
Misery and I are abandoned together in the pit of the valley.
Will e'er the mountain and the valley unite?
-Kahlil Gibran
There is a mountain near my hometown. A foothill compared to the leviathans to the West, but a mountain nonetheless. On the summit is a granite formation that thrusts out like the prow of a ship. At the edge it's broken at an almost perfect 90 degree angle, and approximates a chair. I named it Hlidskjalf for Odin's High Throne. In Norse mythology, Odin would go to his High Throne to see the Nine Worlds and all that transpired there. In my younger days, I would go there and peer out at my world. My hometown, and the great Shining City beyond.

I went there the day of The Funeral. I hiked up to the summit to Hlidskjalf; to sit and ponder the meaning of it all. Looking out at the World...it seemed smaller somehow. I listened to "The Grey Havens" on my player.

This was my mountain, but for a brief time it was our mountain too. Time means very little to this place, it hasn't changed much over the years.

But there, right there! I kissed her for the first time, so many years ago.

Like lightning, so bright and powerful...but fleeting.

The whispering wind through the pines gave me little comfort.

She's gone now.

Into the West.

Inside Joke...for those in the Know...

"Is it wrong to watch blind people make out?"

"We must never speak of this. Ever."

Relativity

Blogging is pretty strange. I mean, its like standing in a public square with a mask on reading your diary aloud.

I kept a journal in my younger years. 'The Book of Infinte Knowledge' I called it. A self mocking title because it certainly wasn't infinite, and looking back pretty short on knowledge as well. I pulled it out not long ago, along with some of my old sketchbooks. Jesus. Did I really write this?? Adolescent pinings for the unattainable? Angst ridden angstiness? (That's not a word, TS! ) Did I draw these horrible things? Demons and wizards? Leather clad skeletal warriors astride pteradactyls, for fuck sake?! (Yes...really.)

At the time, I thought it was pretty cool.

Years from now, I'll probably look back and say "Did I blog this?! Horrible!"

But remember 'cool', like time, is relative. And dependant upon the location of the observer.

In astronomy terms, my earlier work is 'red shifting' away from me at an enormous rate of speed.


Tuesday, August 24, 2004

Here comes the rain again...

Well, the crummy weather has returned to my little corner of the world. Time to dust off the melancholy music again.

This song never fails to 'get' me on a rainy day.

Rain is Falling
by Electric Light Orchestra

Looking from this window
A thousand rivers running past my door
Standing on an island
Looking for someone upon the shore
I can see it very clearly, nothing's really changed
Then lightning strikes across an empty sky.
Ooohh, the rain is falling
Will it wash away the lonely tears?

Monday, August 23, 2004

Where do we go from here?

Now I am fully immersed in the Blogosphere! But...where do we go from here? (A five-layer inside joke if you know me personally. Like a bean dip!)

This blog is where I will scrawl my witticisms on the bathroom stall that is the Internet. Pithy thoughts, ramblings, the occasional song lyric.

I wont wax political on my blog. There are others who compete in that arena far better than I. To paraphrase Scytale the Tleilaxu "I toddle, where they stride."

What I do know is pop culture, mayhem, and frivolity. I'm a creature filled with useless knowledge, and obsure quotes.

"And if you aren't careful, you might learn something before its done! So lets get ready, okay?"

Hey, hey, hey!

How does it all go again? The mind...the mind...

"The Mind, the Tool, and the Engine. This is optimum fusion. And Man, in his arrogance, locks horns with nature and plunges headlong into the new frontier. Not bad for the descendant of tree apes..."

-Tony Stark, Crash


Is this thing on?

Sweet fancy Moses! I'm a blogger now! Behold, for I blog! Har!
...
...
Now I'm bored. Feh.