Information Blues.

Sometimes I think about life as compared to Role Playing Game. How would it be different if I were my own puppet? If I could make cold calculations about my life and then tell my character to just do it?

I remember thinking about it back in junior high. I was playing Might and Magic 3 on our 386sx. I’d just started, and my party of adventurers was broke. I checked out a barn and was presented with the option of leaving one of my characters there for a week to work, earning something like 4 gold per day. What a messed up idea! I could leave Iolo the bard for a week, which could pass within a minute on the computer via repeated pressings of the “rest” key, and then I’d be 28g richer? I could drop off Fizkreto the sorcerer at the forge and make him pound out short swords for a week? What?

So what would I do if I were playing myself on a computer RPG? Would I tell me to practice guitar 24 hours a day? Would I have produced many novels by now? How fast could I ride my bicycle up North Pinehurst Road? I know I’d be a whole lot richer, as my character would be relegated to eating large batches of pinto beans from scratch. If I was lucky I might get a corn tortilla too, and some cheap cheddar.

What would this to do the soul, to totally disregard one’s (confusing) emotions and (troublesome) metaphysical needs? To place product, or end goals, over intermediate happiness? It’s hard because producing products, achieving goals, makes me happier than just about anything else. But usually I need to be happy first in order to achieve them.

And then there’s the rub about quality in regard to products. If I’m not happy, or I’m not primed in the proper way emotionally, maybe I can’t produce the product I want.

Today I told my character to go write some fiction. He took two hours to get out of the house and then proceeded to write one page (single spaced, at least) in the span of three hours. Then he got sort of moody because I hadn’t fed him enough. So I told him to go shopping for vegetables instead of engaging in instant gratification (something like a tacqueria burrito.) Which he did, but then lost his appetite. He seemed to have stalled, so I told him to do some important chores, but instead he reacted by drinking scotch and eating ice cream in the bath tub while listening to Robert Johnson over and over.

I need to go easy on myself. I keep telling myself this. But it’s hard to do. Sometimes I deconstruct my mental blocks so thoroughly that I can criticize them almost as an unsympathetic outside party. But that really doesn’t help; what that does is catch me in a futility feedback loop.

Tonight I saw The Pixies perform at the Greek Theatre. It was a vivid experience, as I realize that they’ve occupied a large place in my life. I’ve listened to them so often, with so many great friends, that certain songs are like time warps. I’m transported to a moment, or an era, or a feeling.

They played Here Comes Your Man, which reminds me of Sasha, and learning to play guitar in Lothlorien. Our voices harmonized well together but I butchered the riffs.

They played Where Is My Mind, which to me is Liz’s song. It reminds me of a moody, watery age where it served as a comforting (yet confusing) audio blanket.

They played I Bleed, which reminds me of Caitlin, because it contains a drum fill she was obsessed with for months; I can see her drumming on the steering wheel. In fact watching the drummer pound out certain phrases that I know made her happy reminded me of time we spent together, deconstructing and praising The Pixies. Luckily they didn’t play Head On, because that reminds me of bottles of urine by the side of the road during a desert traffic jam. Besides that, Head On is Caitlin’s song.

But ultimately, just about every Pixies song reminds me of Matt. They remind me of long drives in The Happy Fun Bug, dormitory living, and trips to Paso Robles. I feel like Matt and I liked the Pixies so much together that some of his own Pixies memories and associations became mine. For just about every Pixies lyric imaginable it’s easy to conjure a picture of him performing some sort of gopher dance and singing along, relishing each word. Their songs are weaved into our mutual mythology.

It connected a lot of dots to see them play live, even if it was on the reunion circuit. I felt a blissful sensation as their songs toured me through my own life.

JLH has been my favorite bluesman for at least six months now. There have been brief diversions into Hound Dog Taylor and Furry Lewis, and those guys are amazing, but right now I’m naming Hooker the champion.

Who has a more raucous guitar tone? It sounds like his notes are pressed between a lemon squeezer, on fire. They’re biting yet brittle. His tone is scooped of mids yet thick and distorted like clay. His amplifier is howling with pain, his speakers are sliced. It’s perfect.

Who drinks more whiskey and has lost more to women? That’s a rhetorical question.

Who has a more advanced, nebulous sense of rhythm? JLH plays behind the beat, his meter changes. It’s drunk, emotional. Yet it’s danceable. The Magic Band only wishes they could swirl and stagger like him.

When John Lee takes a lead he doesn’t waste notes; he gets right to the point. It’s the audio equivalent of drinking scotch. He digs into a few strings, bends them until they’re disonant, unsettled, then plays them like a machine gun for a few bars.

To John Lee Hooker: I owe something to you. You’ve recorded a song world where my feelings can be satisfied. Thank you for helping me with the last six months.

I’m drinking a Mackeson Sweet Stout that Todd gave me. Apparently the slogan is, “MACKESON – TAKES YOU TO THE MAX”. They add sugar and then pasteurize it right before bottling to create something like dessert beer. It’s dry and roasty like burnt toast and sweet coffee. Maybe there are some cacao nibs sprinkled on the toast. (Existing market share stands at 34%.)

It’s not an amazing beer. It’s made in England and has a big beer factory feel to it; not a lot of love or mojo. Not like the hotrodded cheese grilled sandwich I just made. Let me tell you: I sliced up an entire serrano pepper and placed it inside. I buttered the bread meticulously. I dusted the insides with fresh cracked pepper, then slow cooked it over space age polymers. It came served with a tablespoon of mustard glowing with a halo of tabasco.

This was to commemorate the wattage produced on the bicycles today by Simeon and I. We gave the pavement and sea gulls something to talk about as we gasped and burned our lungs on a lap of Bay Farm Island, criterium style. It was clear so much wattage could not be maintained for long; whose watts would fade first? That is the noble question.

It reminds me of a text based nuclear power plant simulator I had for my Commodore 64. Of course all I ever did with it was attempt to melt down the core as quickly as possible. If you did it right you could achieve China Syndrome.

1.) The Wolf flies lofty, majestic. It’s predictable and billowy like a hot air balloon.

2.) The Hydra prefers to laser, then go overland like a many-headed wagon wheel.

3.) The Elite Xpress demonstrates a propensity for lodging in trees and attacking women with strollers. However from a limited set of trials, the women with strollers don’t seem to mind.