It's Seven Seventeen Two Thousand Seventeen. Summer is a Device.
Some songs about being 17. Are the Boredoms doing some kind of durational performance somewhere today? I would have loved to see.
What does the candy bar on the shelf say? What does the jewel in the glass case say, when it calls out? What do the actors say? TAKE ME.
The first time I heard this song was in college. I think my room mate freshman year Tommy was playing it. I was only vaguely aware of Ladytron.
I didn't know there was a music video.
The lyrics to this song strike me as particularly true today.
Probably I knew they were true then too.
"say they'll let you know"
that really is how it is.
only a fool thinks they really will let you know.
you know when you're young enough and cute enough.
you know when you've got the job.
or you train yourself to know. but then
or someone trains you, but then you maybe think that knowing is just a quality.
Songs about disappearing.
Trimming.
I took a course.
I bought a new bed. One of those memory foam mattresses that come in a box. I miss a spring mattress. My current one, who's caused me so much pain over the years has been kind to me lately. Or I've found exactly how to avoid the broken springs. I guess I mean what's more important that sleep? "Nothing" PLD says. So I got it. I'm scared.
Trying to occupy myself with novelty/new things. I can't keep running. I can't just wake up every morning and just keep mortifying myself just mortar and pestle self I can't keep just getting up every morning and pasta pesto myself. I just wake up and exercise until I can't breathe and then only then decide how I feel about proceeding.
So now I leave myself just six hours to do a pastry of myself. Window shopping errands et cetera. Not quite unmoody not just yet.
Someone on the train playing a video game on their phone with the sound on.
We're all watching.
My childhood friend and I played Nintendo (SNES and, to a much lesser extent Classic) taking turns. So did my brother and I. I rarely write about this: the obsessive video game playing. Eventually limited to weekends. But the taking turns, the watching each other play video games seems to me a crucial aspect of the experience. Maybe I wish I woke up and played Nintendo today.
Window shopping. The sales and the new collections.
Gaybar autocorrects to crybaby.
I was trying to escape to write there in the shade.
I can't believe I've ruined so much: the world, the environment, my parents' credit. I tried this class mobility thing but I failed. The world wants me to be tough and authoritative but I'm chicken feathers all without one gut.
Try to make it real. But compared to what?
I'm not invited anywhere. I feel myself butchered. Made bacon.
I'm the source of all disappointment. I feel like I let everyone down, in all ways.
Desperate for a friend.
Okay some old guy at the bar asked if I had red hair as a kid. I said no. He said he was trying to picture me with flaming red hair I could get away with it artificially. Yeah I guess I suppose. Something reeks him or me. I was hoping he'd be cool but no. I'm just sweaty and wasted.
Getting fed to bugs. I'm just blood.
What can I withstand. This boredom. This painful anxiety. This uncertainty. Doubt.
Desperately want someone to explain what to do.
I can't tell the difference between the radio and my library.
What's being broadcast to me,
what's me being stalked by the algorithms.
What's me diving in my own past.
I'm so lost I could sell magnetized needles. Just go north, become a girl. Just keep flapping. Eat more, better, smarter, less. Rot while alive. Give yourself a break. Name yourself something good. Strengthen your brand. Convey your value. Add value. Add value. Add value. Blow smoke, cough in my face. Give me a greeting from another planet. Impress me with your tricks. Make your hunger a selling point. Your plumage. Add value.
I wonder if I just should have kept telling you how strong virile sexy human horny valid you are. Should we just have turned ourselves into sea monsters. Should we run into the muck.
How would I support myself without the lie I've been telling, been told etc. the multiple ones. I wish I was the kind of artist (writer whatever) who could just spent the summer making stuff. I can't even spend my free time making stuff. I've been stripped of stuff to make. It's a problem. A class thing? A talent thing? Talent is about class. It's not anybody's fault. It's either nobody's fault of partially mine, to an extent I can't measure and therefore find overwhelming. The unknown factor, solve for x if x is how much it's me making it up, overreacting. Is there another way to act.
People sometimes remark that I look so young. I have two things to say about that:
A) forgetfulness. lotus smoothie before bed
sleep posture
body calls - do you know my instructor?
stay present, get presents
everyone's a hitchhiker.
I mean my friend just stay keyed in
to that box inside. Set your watch by the first heartbreak.
and radiate outward and
make no secret of it.
Where you're from.
Stay sad teen.
B) SNAIL SECRETION. I thought it was gross when I first heard about it but let me preach the gospel to you. It's vegan because the snails aren't harmed and they consent to give the slime (I guess) and it's the consent that also makes oral sex vegan (I guess). But honestly I am a white guy in his 30s who smokes and gets too much sun despite his best efforts and he looks good for his age. And it's because of the snail secretion. The snail secretion and the forgetting, staying sad.
Maybe he just forgot how to age. To grow up. There's a line in BLACKWAVE about how hard it is for queer people to age. And that's true. But something else too. A fear of differentiation.
I've heard some people say that they (some people) are their own best friend.
But I've never believed that, them, those so-called people.
I feel myself sticky sick and unlovely. I didn't make it to the party so I can't expect anyone to come to mine. I can't accept anyone to come to mine.
Do we need a Cinema of anxiety. Music of disassociation. Dance of biosphere collapse.
Make genetic damage into art.
I'm calling you. I called you. I left a message. Add value.
I tried to say how much I miss you. What else. Remember that time we smoked a j by the Vietnamese sandwich place in some and had basil seed juice you had a boom box I think this is the song we were listening to over and over again was:
Walking uptown through the San Francisco fog. I get all the days mixed up. That place that experience is where i still am probably. Refusing cigarettes to all but THE MOST CHARISMATIC junkies on Haight street. Looking for old indie 7"s. I would love to find Sally Skull, old Slampt stuff. You know?
I have almost every record I want though. That was on my list. I've been very fortunate and patient. You get what you want sometimes. If what you want, if you're fetish object is the Heavens to Betsy "Direction" 7" on Chainsaw. Or the Cat Power Dear Sir 10" on Runt. How often do I even listen to those? I keep falling down on the train.
Azealia Banks interview in XXL.
She says "Everybody’s been narrating the Azealia Banks story except for Azealia Banks." I want to become a book. I mean I want to write a book, of essays, including one about why we should always defend and celebrate Azealia Banks and girls like her. Maybe it should be a fan letter or a play or fanfic. I think she's so great and underrated in so many ways. Her "Seventeen" is maybe better than the original, huh?
Thinking today of being seventeen and how to stay that way. How unfortunate it is to be that way, to have to stay that way.
Truly? I cannot recall being 17. I can remember being 16 and I can remember being 18. There may have been some upsetting jealous teenage feelings during that in-between year. Maybe some of this is what's burnished me or something.
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