| THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016). |
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i feel bad about the mail art thing. i fucked that up in a typical nate way, but the feeling bad is uncharacteristic. apologies to those who felt let down. where have i been? domesticated, demodulated, happy, alive. where have you been? |
i don't think i've been to the same thing you've been. drank a huge amount of straight vodka friday night. woke up the next morning and saw a plastic bag and a rubber band on the nightstand. this is how my cousin killed himself. i decided i'd better lay off the booze. i also woke up that morning with tom waits' "shiver me timbers" running through my head. i'd heard it the night before on some tv show. i've spent the past two days working out an arrangement for it on ukulele. it's my favorite song on the uke. it fits the instument. and i think i sing it well. my uke is starting to get on my nerves, though. it's relatively cheap and a bitch to keep in tune. i seem to have only an hour or two of good playing time before it starts going south. then you can only tune it as best you can and let it sit for several hours to tighten back up. but that's where my head has been. i can't die until i get a decent ukulele. |
i detuned my classical guitar to open-G a couple weeks ago. everything i played sounded like island music. i tuned it back to standard the next time i played. i have never played much with alternate tunings. maybe i often play with alternate tunings. i think my ear is shit. more often than not, i tune my guitar when i feel like i can't sing the songs i've been singing for years. once i tune, everything sounds better, and i think to myself 'i should tune every time i pick this thing up,' but i never do. i use capital letters consistently these days. not here, though, i guess. old habits in this little white box. |
Droop, just keep a pickin and a grinning. you would be missed greatly. |
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i am here. things inside my head?heart?nothingness? have changed completely. there are so many things we *don't have to do.* Feeling bad may have its uses but most of them are not good. Worthwhile? Useful? Maybe proper capitalization. Maybe. Nate is awesome, if you didn't know it, now you do. |
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boognish. that wasn't nearly enough detail. i am here too of course. i never go away. it looks like a whole lotta chaos where i am. domesticated couldn't even begin to describe it. i've been tamed by family life. the girls are amazing, watching them grow and discover their world is by far the most interesting thing i've ever done. but the work of keeping them alive, fed, bathed, and entertained is also sometimes exhausting. i just turned 39 and am finally starting to feel my age, mostly in my knees, hips, and back. i always hoped i'd age more gracefully than i am, but i'm hoping that in a few months or maybe a few years i'm not sure that i'll be able to rediscover and reinvent my wild side. we're thinking of moving to the part of the country where Patrick now lives. in my heart i'm hoping more for the big island, but mostly i'd love to just get out of texas. |
thats what it looks like where I'm is. |
I'm...I don't know where the hell I am. I'm looking for Joyce Carol Oates' story, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been." That's my answer. Droopy, I imagine you sound like a less throat-polyp-y Tom Waits when you sing. (Which is kind of what Mark Lanegan sounds like, and if you sound like him, I may have to start stalking you. I hope you won't mind.) I found an audio recording of an interview Tom Waits did in 1975 -- he was 26 years old, and he sounded like a 70-year-old alcoholic with throat cancer even then. I kind of love him for that. |
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It looks like fog and hungry for dinner where I am. Although I am growing steadily more undomesticated by the day. Soon, I may cross over into feral territory. I was actually in your neck of the woods the other day so that my car could be disemboweled, and I thought of you. Nothing really happens in the land of platypus. For the time being, I think I like it that way. I grow less and less fond of surprises. |
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i hate surprises. |
It is warmer here again, a welcome change, but winter cannot be too far off. I am ready. It will be Albuquerque in November. And Phoenix the day after Christmas, then the AMI beach in January. |
i work on an island. i have a big black dog. he turned two today. also, a smaller and not totally black dog. he's not even one yet. i built a deck. it has broad benches and a built in pond. the pond is in progress and there are no stairs yet. i am building a deck. when you stand on the deck you can see into the neighbor's yard. i planted bamboo. i'm looking for a persimmon tree. i'd like to have a persimmon tree. i am much more handy than i have ever been in my life. my roommate is a carpenter. you should see my built-in walnut desk. i helped. i helped a little. i watched. we built a walnut aquarium stand to match. the tank is fine sand and a few mounds of rounded gray rocks the size of goose eggs. dark green hair algae grows on the rocks like moss. the sand is planted with a short grass that grows on runners - little straight lines of evenly spaced grass sprouts. trumpet snails cover the sand. industrious red shrimp eat things i cannot see from everywhere. they seem to graze on the mossy rocks. there are just a few fish, all males, iridescent blue and black. all born in the other tank. the other tank is larger, more heavily planted. it has a coarse gravel floor and driftwood, bladder snails and ramshorn snails, a large colony of the red shrimp, a hundred or so fish in every stage of their swimming lives. the big tank is kinetic; the little tank serene. i think i've temporarily lost my art. i cannot seem to do anything. i've been sick. these things we don't have to do: they tend to do us. that's my experience. i'm going to go play with my dog. he's a big boy now. two years - no longer a puppy? he's still a puppy. |
i don't know what my voice sounds like. i try not to listen to it. i sang into my stage tuner to see what my range is. according to a website, i'm a baritone. though i think i lean toward tenor. put on a mark lanegan cd that was sent to me by dave himself: "the winding sheet". honestly, i'm not much into it. but that's just me. i think i'm kind of in between mark lanegan and tom waits, as far as the sound of my voice goes. i'm going to read a jack london story. i don't think i've read one in 30 years. "shiver me timbers" mentions martin eden, which turns out to be a jack london character (an autobiographical one). i want to be prepared should someone ask. last night in bed i was playing my uke. it started detuning as it often did. strings detune at different rates and tuning them to each other goes into an insurmountable round-robin of failure. i set it in the seat of my wheelchair and went to sleep. when i woke up this morning i picked it up: it was perfectly and sweetly in tune. i'm starting to wonder if it's my brain that's going out of tune, not the uke. |
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tools than ever before in my life. a chainsaw? a weeder a chisel set? bring it on. oh, did i mention the bore drill bits? drilling holes and making doors. im a full on dad now. my lawn looks like shit but on saturday mornings you can still find me blowing, cutting, sawing or chiseling something. you'll also find me on the couch with a beer later that day. it looks like dad over here. the woman is slowly uping my handyman game with her endless basket of projects. up next, installing a toilet. |
Tis looking like a canvass full of thick gesso unenlivened by color. I am in love with late October, when the leaves drop, and I get to step on death everywhere. And then it rains, and dying becomes a slippery mass of muted and subdued chlorophylless snail harboring compost. It's like Droop's uke without the untuneable stringsongs here today. Chipolte without the pepper. Speaking of Pepper? |
you seeing a big blue whale, platy? |
Used to be I would sink my head into the bottle from October 10 through Jan 26, anniversaries of the death of my mother and birth of my son who died Oct 12 and the Jan date of my simultaneous birthday and death of my father. When I sobered up in 1987, I still went underground for those months, a miserable black time for reflection and self pity, until I outgrew both. Neither was productive. And the drinking was not either. I like to think I am beyond all that, happily meditating my way to the light, if not to ice cream and delight, somedays real insight, somedays not. Nate, I have a persimmons tree, many of them. Can send you seeds. |
(hi) |
leaves fall in north texas, but they don't turn color like in new england. the leaves here just turn brown and fall off - apparently at night, all at once. except for the live oaks that line the streets of my apartment complex. since i stopped drinking, i haven't been eating or drinking much. the last piss i took looked like strong tea - i'm dehydrated. i'm sipping water, now. figured out how to play "ain't misbehavin'" on the uke. i drew a graph of a ukulele neck on a piece of paper; at each fret i drew a circle using the back end of a teaspoon measure: it has a circle so you can hang it on a metal loop. i wrote each consecutive note of the string in the circles (c, c#, d, etc). when i want to figure out how to finger a chord, i write the notes out on the side and then use pennies to plot each possible variation. still looking for a banjolele. |
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There might also be a little jack on the front of your hard drive with either an earphone symbol or soundwave symbol (three concentric arcs) next to it. |
They are awesome. |
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The standard symbol for line in is an arrow going into a circle. the jack is light blue. the microphone jack is a pink jack with an illustration of a shure sm-58 style microphone. jack black is occasionally depicted as a panda; a black jack is generally intended for your rear (surround) speakers. i'd like to see a blue whale. i'd prefer to see it alive. last time i saw a live whale i was off the coast of fort bragg. i love being on the water. |
and a banjolele. and the complete tom waits on cd. |
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Counting his studio albums, live albums, compilations, bootlegs, and guest spots...I wonder how many hours of continuous Tom Waits exposure that would net you. I wonder what would happen if you set up an experiment and played some plants nothing but Debussy and other plants nothing but Tom Waits for months on end. Who around here is pregnant? You could get a special iPod just full of Tom Waits, prop the speakers on your belly, and bathe your fetus in that glorious sound all day and night, and then -- if your child was born whole and hale and not an Eyeball Kid or something -- you could use the same music as lullabyes. "Earth Died Screaming" would soothe your baby into sleep. It would be beautiful. |
Our house is chaos - Ian learned to crawl and pull himself up on things while in MA, so we are in the midst of trying to babyproof a 90-year-old house with rooms that are suddenly too small for everything. |
It was weird. |
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Blue Sky Plenty Blue |
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so what, is it whale watch 2009? one massive fucking whale on tour up the california coast? |
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no, that's just me sunbathing. |
people say you miss the fall colors in california. you should see the vineyards on my drive home. |
the view should be stellar. |
I was going through AV the other day and noticed that everything was ablaze with colour. It was pretty excellent. And of course the crush is on so the air was so thick you practically got drunk just driving through. It's a good fall. |
We pounded our stakes in the ground, all powder brown, and the branches spread like scary fingers reaching. We were in a pasture in Kankakee. And One Eyed Myra, the queen of the galley who babysat the camel and the ostrich, she looked at me squinty with her one good eye as she bottle fed an orangutan named Tripod. Now, how Tripod got his name is not appropriate for children. And then there was Yodeling Elaine, the Queen of the Air. She had a dollar sign medallion about as big as a dinner plate around her neck, and she had a tiny bubble of spittle around her nostril and a little rusty tear, for she had lassoed and lost another tipsy sailor. And over in the burnt yellow tent by the frozen tractor, the music was like electric sugar and Zazu Bolin played "Stavin' Chain" with Mighty Tiny on the saw and he leaned his head back with a mouth full of gold teeth and they played "Lopsided Heart." And by the time they finished "Moanin Low" I was wild-eyed, and Doctor Bliss slipped me a preparation and I fell asleep with "Livery Stable Blues" in my ear. (Need a little bit of "Livery Stable Blues," guys. Play it nice. Play it for me and Molly.) And me and Molley Hoey drank Pruno and Koolaid and she had a tattoo gun made out of a cassette motor and a guitar string, and she soaked a hanky in 3 Roses and she rubbed it on the spot and drew a rickety heart and a bent arrow and it hurt...like...hell. And Funeral Wells spun Poodle Murphy on the target and he threw his hardware. Only once in Sheboygan did he miss, only once, Jesus, it took off just a miniscule piece of her ear but she never let him forget it. Women. They were doing two shows and she had a high fever and, you know, that probably added to her frustration, her anxiety, her depression. And Tip Little told her, "Hey, if you're smart, you'll leave the bum! You've got to leave the bum! You've got to leave the bum, leeeeave the bum, leeeeeave the bum!" And she said, "He fetched me last time I run. But I'd like to hammer this ring into a bullet and I wish I had some whiskey and a gun." |
I Still Believe in Balloon Boy |
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Adria Fruitos http://www.adfruitos.com Adrią Fruitós is a Spanish illustrator who currently lives and works in Strasbourg, France. When hes not dreaming of deserted islands and coconuts, he works for magazines and advertising agencies for publications all over the world. Aside from his commercial work, Adrią has also designed tee shirts, done mural painting, and has exhibited work internationally. He was recently selected by Lürzers Archive to be among of the 200 Best Illustrators Worldwide. He says life is like a coconut, hard and hairy but full of juice! LOVE THAT LAST LINE. |
Life is good. I keep Droop in my thoughts; I remember my vodka filled days and nights. I'll take the rain anyday. |
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