Hate alone is not enough to nourish. But there’s rage too.

tired. had a great weekend with family goings on. got completely fragmented. bent. split. polluted last night at awis’ 21st birthday. oh it was jules’ wedding too. great time. they threw a good pary which is something i figured those two were good at. just seemed like they have a good time. i was binging pretty hard. got to a point where there was karaoke and long heartfelt confab with my bro. i actually tapped out. that never happens.
so anyway got a wakey from kris and things were not looking good for an honorable lift-off. i haven’t been hung over in a while which means my body has just flown the white flag figuring there’s no use, i’ll always fight back by tipping the bottle again. so a little later deej and bexter came in to awake the beast. i wasn’t tryin a hear dat scene. so she went and foraged for some addy to shrink my grey a bit. then i woke up and voided my bowels then my gut. by the time i completed my floor routine, bex and dex showed up. i popped it then asked her for a few more minutes. planned to leave at 11 AM it was 10:25. Round a bout 10:45 moses and dex showed up for the final lift off. matt packed my crap while i de-loused (another life saver). was feeling better. got on the road with john and dom by 11:08..late.. but respectable. stopped off for a coffee and a few glazers for the ride.
we took a pretty long ride and arrived at dina’s two hours later. bit into the hair of the dog and hung with the other side. had a great homemade pasta dinner. lined the stommy something fierce. left for NT and hung with the boyz on the porch once we got settled. nodded off a bit. good speaks with the gents then took another shower.
left for bklyn. got here. played some terrible guit and having some night cap. trying to bring it down. tired. not sleepy but real tired. I’m glad i have work tomorrow so that i can catch up on some sleep and get ready for next weekend. it was great to see everyone this weekend.

phew. lot’s of bright and cheery posts not so lately. a lot has happened since my last. i was bombarded with family for three weekends in a row. first my wiw sister came in and we had a nice visit. took a trip to the statue of liberty and ellis. spent a lot of time but we were both intrigued. then i met my dad in sleepy hollow for a birthday dinner for my uncle dom. he and e had a long involved conversation about religion. not exactly what i would have chosen for an 81st birthday party but they enjoyed sparring (and reveled in the fact that they share birthdays).
then my bro, sis-law, dex, cuz and wiw sis came down for a weekend. walked the bridge with the ladies, got some maggie brown fare. good times there too. never long enough but that’s my fault either for living far away or not having a nice enough place to make it uber desirable to visit. then the elder came with her kids. had a great time there too. made some music. made them walk the brooklyn bridge. all in all a great success. and i only had to give the place a stern cleaning once.
other than that, i’ve been extremely mal-motivated with work and un-work. haven’t made much headway on the imbibing front or the mitigation thereof. probaby contributing to me not getting my stuff in order. been reading a bit more so that’s good. buying and seeing music.

So I finagled this great business trip up to Row Dailand for next week. It bridges two weekends that I wanted to be up at the homestead. One for Z’s 30th birthday and another for Becca’s play. So I’m leaving on Saturday and staying until the next Sat or Sun. Looking forward to it. The work is super light too. Yeeehaw.

Talked to my cousin Matt today. It was his birthday last week and he’s officially half my age. Old fart. So I’m badgering him about what’s new and this and that and like most teenagers he says nothing. I’m thinking this happens because kids are just hopping through life not really appreciating what’s going on around then. So a little more questioning and he tells me that he may have broken this bone or that bone and that he got a computer for christmas and then when I’m talking to his mom she tells me he’s working on a model plane (something his father used to do). Then the tables turn and I’m asked what’s new. I say not much. Neglecting to mention with out further questioning all of the stuff that’s going on. New car. More music. Played a gig (although that’s a little old and needs to be repeated). It makes me realize that progress is slow and I have to evaluate it more often. It may not seem like much to me but it’s something.

I gizmo’d with Dexter and his parents today. I also VNC’d into their computer so that I could see the pictures that he was looking at locally. He kept saying “this is good, justin, this is good”. I agree it was great. I also booked a flight down to orlando/tampa to hang out with them next weekend. That will be good too.

One of my fears about digital music distribution showed it’s beady little eyes to me the other night. I was on the phone with my nephew (who was about to watch Amercan Idle, which I could post entirely but won’t) and he was telling me about the 80’s rock that he was listening to. He said his father used to listen to the stuff but so did I as his dad and I were quite tight back then. When he mentioned Dokken, Extreme and Van Halen, I asked which VH albums. His reply was that he didn’t know because he just had them on his sister’s iWhatever. I realized that I’ve fallen victim to that as well. Like with the White Stripes. My exposure to them has been mostly through my Rio Karma and I don’t know anything about the progression of any of the albums or even which albums belong to which songs (strike that flip it). An era has passed that I relished in. Where you’d name what track on what album this song or that song was? Which album was first? What personnel was on which album? I have a friend that can probably tell you the track number, album and year of any Zeppelin tune.
I guess this is similar to the album sides going the way of the LP and tape with the advent of the CD.
Oh well. Onward and outward.

Here’s a quick one off. Need some work but my pops used to sing this song and I always thought it could be done with some real edge. Still looking for that edge. And some drum technique. And some level contol while recording.

Greenback Benjamins

Went back north this weekend to visit the family. It was Kari’s birthday almost too. Good to see all the players. Played in the pool. Didn’t have much to report to them ’bout the goings on of my life. Had some music to show them and they obliged.

Had one experience that convinced me I’m still not well. I was sitting by the steps and watching everyone play with M. T. who broke his collar bone and elbow. Bro, Kate, Ty and Kari in the pool. Chas throwing the ball back to them. Kris, M and Mom at the table. Everyone getting involved. Then I was watching D.J. do something and I just got down about what his life was going to be like. Came out of no where. He was laughing and having a good time but I still felt this way. I can’t imagine how bad I’d feel if he wasn’t healthy or something. Life should not be seen as a burden but I can’t seem to shake the notion. Certainly shouldn’t feel that way with how easy I’ve had it.

My pops decides to come to Brooklyn and hang out with his eldest son. He’s really getting into this biking thing which is good because he doesn’t really have any feeling in his legs and walking just won’t do. I’m glad he finally came up with the idea on his own because my previous suggestions of procuring a bicycle were shot down like a prototype plane pilotted by John Denver (no bullets required).

I was feeling a little under the weather (not the Irish Flu this time) but I couldn’t waste the 1 on 1 time, so I took him to my favorite wings joint.

A song comes on and I ask him if he listens to this particular artist.

‘Dem sez: “it sounds like a white Joe Jackson”

I search the synaps for a black Joe Jackson but the only Joe Jackson (associated with music) I can muster is

I and I: “the only Joe Jackson I know is white.”

‘Dem sez: “you know, the guy that was big last year with the tune about big feet or something”

I and I: “you mean ‘Bubbly Toes’ by Jack Johnson”

‘Dem sea: “I guess.”

I and I: “That’s who we’re listening to”

Don’t know where to go here. I’m ending the day listening to a song that my brother really pimped to me and I’m down with it. I have a lot of stuff to post here but I’m uninspired. I probably just broke blog rule number one don’t edit what you write. Leave it to the train of thought. I just deleted a few lines because I didn’t have the courage to post them just yet. It’s a process.
I know this much. I think the IMs that I had with my brother and the conversation I had with my sister are a good start. We’ll unravel this stuff eventually, but not before a whole lot of blood, sweat and tears. We’ll come out of it stronger, wiser and more healthy. Or dead.
Anyway, since blogging isn’t real natural to me just yet, I’m going back to learning this song.

Had a real nice visit from crew belmont this weekend. Matt, Mariel and Dexter made concer(n)ted effort to get here to Brooklyn, which was much appreciated.
People keep offering to come down and give me a hand with the place but I haven’ t found the inspiration yet and when I secure a potential visitor my mind wanders to taking them out and showing them the neighb (although it’s more a ‘hood).
So when I told people that I’d be having my brother down, they suggested I put him to work. In fact, when told that he was visiting madre propositioned that we could really get some work done on the place. M-unit suggested that the realit was that Matt may not be the motivator in the home improvement area of interest.
Just as well. Blood and I were able to hang in the uninhabit(ible)ed section of the pad and pass some nectar and go over some essential shit. I know I got some shit out that I couldn’t with anyone else, even my narcoleptic tool of a therapist.
The thing about it is I’ve been able to turn to the sib for a while now and he’s provided me with a ton of guidance and support. I just hope that I’ll be able to bounce it back to him some day.
So not much to show on the home improvement front this weekend unless you count my head as my home. Which it is. And it wasn’t so much improvement cause I don’t feel all that much better. It was more like demo. Of the the notions. The fears. The hate.