Yours.

She says I look like New York
says I remind her of home
she wears the shortiest shorts
she talks the phoniest phone

she's fragile like a butter(fly) like a diamond ring
you can pop her rubber-band, but I'm her bumble bee sting

I got a woman, and her name is yours
I don't know what to tell you, brother
but when it rains, pours

She says she fell like a stone
gave me her trembling heart
says she's too young to be alone
too old to go back to the start

she's fragile like a butter(fly) like a diamond ring
you can pop her rubber-band, but I'm her bumble bee sting

I got a woman, and her name is yours
I don't know what to tell you, brother
but when it rains, pours
Pours.

I went to the future, and discovered that time travel is impossible (that is, if logic has anything to do with it)

Parkinson's disease has no one to thank more for it's presence in the modern psyche than Michael J. Fox. And, the lovable Mr. Fox has nothing to thank more for his presence in the modern psyche than Back To The Future - a trilogy of hover-boards, bad-ass retractable jacket-sleeves, killer vintage ES 335 Gibson Semi-Hollow body guitars, and the most impressive over-simplification of the notions of time-travel ever written. Amazing. Simply put, it's just a great freakin' movie. Er... 3 great freakin' movies.

However, this popcorn logic-based train-wreck of overacting is still the best possible place I can think of to start my thoughts on time travel.* (Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, and Bogus Journey don't count because... Keanu Reaves sucks.) And of course, you'll want to know what I think of this, or you just won't have the full story.

Here are the questions we need to answer:

• Will time travel ever be possible?
• If so, will we be able to travel backward AND forward?
• If so, wouldn't we already be doing so?
  

Let's take, first of all, the idea that you can travel "back" in time, and change events that happened before time travel was invented. (There will be disclaimers throughout, I'm sure, but let's start them by saying that there is no way to discuss this without serious grammatical overlap, and logical cross-eyedness). In the first "B2F", Marty McFly goes back in time to when his dad was in high-school, and tries to make him... tougher. He is in danger of having his teen-aged mom fall in love with him, and begins a 2 hour fiasco of innuendo that would make a gnat's skin crawl.

Here's the problem with the concept that humans could ever (EVER) travel back in time. If it is ever going to be possible, then at some point in the past, someone from the future has already come back, and the cycle has already begun. Which means, if the manipulation of the past is ever possible in the future, then it is, by simple paths of logic, always possible. Since we know that it is currently not available, we can ascertain that it never will be. Make sense? No? Let's try an example.

Ask 100 people what they'd do if they could go back in time, and someone (probably many of them) would say something like "Dude, I'd totally go back to when Hitler was like, 12 years old, and I'd just beat him like a rag doll, or I'd like, kidnap him, or something. Yeah."

Genius.

Or you'll get "I'd stop the crusades."
Or, "Um, I would like, go back to my childhood, and like, just tell myself how wonderful I really am, and that I don't have to prove anything to any... " I'll stop here, 'cause I think I just threw up in my mouth.

Here's the problem. If time travel, at any point in the future, is ever invented, then of course, someone will do these very things (though, you'd probably still never get that bubble-gum pep talk you clearly needed, unless along with time travel, we've discovered how to help people not to throw up in their mouths as well). Now, if we can safely say that at some point (let's say the year 2080) time travel is invented, and people can indeed go backward, wouldn't someone around Hitler's time already have known about it?

Yes. The answer there is yes. Or, to put it in the terms of Stephen Hawking, if traveling backward through time is ever going to be possible, we would be plagued with time tourists today.

Don't worry if you're confused. Just stop reading, and we'll all keep you posted on the events of the rest of humanity. If you get that, let's move on.

Now, having stated these simple steps of logic, we can ascertain that even if time travel were ever possible, there is no way that we will be able to travel backward, to events that happened before traveling through time was made available (feel free to go backward now, though, and re-read anything I've just written, 'cause it is hard for some people to get - incidentally, if I could travel back in time, I'd stop most of those people from learning to read).

Now, this still doesn't rule out the concept that time travel will someday be invented (by the way, when I say "invented" I mean that the technology is discovered, tested, perfected, and implemented as a staple into modern culture, not just that the theory is stated. Remember Einstein was a genius, but one of the best things he ever wrote was ... well, wrong.)

Okay, so let's look now at what "Time Travel" would be, if it is NOT moving backward through time. In order to move forward through time, you simply have to travel faster than time itself. Or, you have to slow time down while you continue moving forward. Either way, now we're just talking basic rules of physics. If you can run at 10 miles per hour, and I can run faster than 10 miles per hour, then I can run past you, and see parts of the road that you will eventually see, before you do. Now, if "Time" moves 670,616,629 miles per hour (or, for the sake of easy reading, let's use "The speed of light" or "X"), and I can run faster than "X", then I will be able to see parts of the road (or the world) before time does. Okay, that's a terrible way to describe it, let's try something else.

DEFINITION: "Light Year" -

• 9,460,730,472,580.8 km (about 9.461 Pm)
• about 5,879,000,000,000 statute miles
• about 63,240 astronomical units
• about 0.3066 parsecs

OR: "Distance covered by traveling at the speed of light for 1 earth year." So the formula would be something like: Speed of Light x 365 days = 1 Light year

In smaller units, if you travel at 10 miles per hour for 1 hour, how far will you go? 10 miles. That's right. So: 10 mph x 1 hr = 10 miles

This coming together?

If you could look through a super-duper high-powered telescope (TM) into space, and you could see a star exploding, the reality is, that star is at least 4.22 light years away (the closest star we know of), and probably exploded earth years ago, which means you are essentially looking years into the past. Conversely, if you could somehow go to that star, and look back at the earth through the same telescope, you could see the earth, millions of years ago. Adjust the distance and/or the telescope strength, and you may be able to see... yesterday. You follow?

Okay, let's move on. If you could use the right equipment, you could SEE the past... from "outer space". Still not very enticing, is it? Nah, didn't think so. Okay, but about this "moving faster than light" thing? What's so great about light?

Well, the speed of light is also the speed of any image traveling to your eye. Let's take this example from wikihow.com on how to determine the distance of a lightning bolt from yourself.

1. Watch the sky for a flash of lightning.
2. Count the number of seconds until you hear thunder.
   
3. Divide the number of seconds by five to calculate the distance in miles (or divide by 3 for kilometers).
   
1. In other words if you counted 15 seconds from when you saw the lightning, the strike was 3 miles (5 kilometers) from your location. The delay between when you see lightning and when you hear thunder occurs because sound travels much, much more slowly than light. Sound travels through air at about 1100-1200 feet (330-350 m/s) per second, which is a little more than one mile per five seconds (one kilometer per three seconds).
4. Do this for a few consecutive strikes of lightning.
5. If the distance is getting progressively smaller, your ass is about to be fried.
   

See? It's fun for everyone. If you see a star fall from the sky, the distance of that star from you determines how long it took for that image to travel to your eye; in scientific terms - a long-ass time.

Now, if we're able to somehow physically move in any direction faster than the speed of light itself (670,616,629 miles per hour: aka "really f$*$ing fast"), then we'd be able to essentially move forward in time, faster than time. (Don't get too excited, currently, the fastest recorded speed ever travelled by a human was in 1976 (!!) at a whopping 2,188 mph.)

Speed of Light: 670,616,629 mph
Fastest Human: 2,188 mph

... and the winner is, the speed of light, but a crap load of mph's.

So. What are we learning here? That time travel is impossible? No. Not even close. That time travel is implausable? Abso-f$#@ing-lutely.

Let's say the improbable happens (as it tends to over time), and someone figures this out. Let's say we figure out how to stay alive, and move people faster than 670 MILLION miles per hour. Having that kind of technology means we're going to use it, right? And if history has taught us anything, it's that whatever is created with the intention of being used for good (see: moving forward to discover the cure for AIDS, Cancer, Bad Hair), is inevitably going to be abused for... less than good (see: moving forward to come back and spoil the end of "Lost" - it's lame, don't bother. Or, to discover how Brittney Spears is known in 40 years - she isn't).

Now, here we get to some crap that is frankly far over my head (not that the rest of this topic clearly isn't, but rather that this next part is like even more. Like, speed of sound is fast, but speed of light is faster: time travel in leu of the speed of light is hard to get, but time travel in leu of time warps in the space/time continuum... is harder). However, Stephen Hawking explains a buncha crap on his site, then comes to the basic conclusion that though it's not possible that time travel will ever allow people to move backward through time to any point before it was discovered (invented), it is possible that time travel, once becoming available, will forever be available back to the point at which it was invented.

Kinda like saying, "time travel is available starting ... now. No time travel was available before I said 'now', so if you're going to go backward, you can only go backward to the point where I said 'now', no further. However, you can go forward as far as you want."

Here's the problem with the last part of that ("forward as far as you want"). Just because I can run faster than 10 miles per hour doesn't mean I can run faster than 20 miles per hour. It doesn't even mean I can run faster than 11 miles per hour. Maybe I can run exactly 10.000000001 miles per hour. Which is still faster than 10 miles per hour, but only slightly. Just because we could one day move forward faster than time, doesn't mean we can move forward infinitely faster than time.

Now, let's say the first time that time is warped and people can move forward, say, 4 seconds, is on August 3, 2007. Then, Jim, let's call him Jim. Jim gets into the machine, the contraption. The rocket-ship shaped thingy. And he vaporizes. Jim's colleagues stand around looking at each other. There is a hush. A strange, awkward silence. There's a split second of thinking "Holy crap, maybe we should have let Jim call his wife first". Then, 4 seconds later, Jim re-appears. Jim steps out of the rocket ship, and says "the damn thing's broken".

Jim didn't experience those 4 seconds. He flipped the switch, and nothing happened. He stepped out, and the world was 4 seconds older. The other scientists are in tears with joy, and Jim is forever skeptical of whether they're pulling his leg.

Now, over time, they figure out the algorithm, and learn to go faster and faster. Or, they figure out how to travel longer, at the same speed. The gap grows over time, and 1 millisecond in the machine equals 4 seconds outside of it. So, 1 week in the machine equals 12 years outside of it, and so on. (these numbers are a crock of shit. FYI).

Now, let's say they start building larger, more comfortable, livable machines where people can stay for longer periods of time. Let's say some kid is raised inside of this machine. Still only going slightly faster than the speed of light. That kid is born on earth, put into the machine, and then, when he's 12, gets out... a million years later. See where this is going?

So, just because we can see tomorrow, doesn't mean we can see the end of the world, right?

Wrong.

Remember how we said that if we invent time at, say, 10PM on August 7, 2007, then you could move backward all the way to 10PM Aug 7, 07, but no further. What that means, though, is that people in the year 50,490 AD could travel all the way back to that point in time as well. So, essentially, we don't necessarily have to go forward in time to "discover" the future, because they'll come back to us. And, if I know humans (which I don't), I know that many of them will want to come back to "the beginning", meaning they'll want to come back to that very second that time is invented.

Now, if there is a "portal" or "door" through which all future "time tourists" (as Stephen Hawking calls them) can travel, and that door is all at one place and moment in space/time, then not only does every discovery instantly collapse onto that one moment, but so does every conflict, every disease that travelers from the future may have, every super-villain that may have been born on Aug 7, 07 will be a target for future heroes. Every war criminal escaping death into the past. Every new destructive and explosive technology. It all "happens" at that very second. Which means, at 10PM on August 7, 2007, every moment of the future that will happen, happens. And the universe collapses in on itself.

The moment in which time travel is invented, the world will end.

Puff, puff, give, man. Puff, puff, give.

* I'm not a physicist, mathematician, scientist of any sort, pilot, pitching coach, astronaut, nuclear engineer, or any other type of authority on things that could/should pertain to time-travel, or the speed of light. If this is not obvious to you, you should be shot in the forehead point-blank with a potato gun, and beaten with a rusty muffler until your feelings are hurt.

on smells, and the ways my body is changing.

There is a growth on my tongue. It's as if my tongue is swelling to conquer my chest. I feel it pressing the back of my teeth. When I read email, I take breaks to stretch and massage my jaw for the pain. I could choke. There is a chance that my tongue is morphing into another person. A little villain. A not-so-little-as-yesterday Lex Luther.

My hands are bony. They're not growing. They're shrinking, I feel. My wrists were always small, my hands freakish and rubbery in comparison. But now, they're shrinking. It's fitting, I think. Large tongue, tiny hands. My forehead is secreting the strangest goo. Back to my tongue.

My tongue doesn't taste odd. It's not even a new texture. It's just progressively - daily - occupying more space in my mouth. I don't know why. I wasn't bitten. Was I bitten? No. I wasn't bitten. I didn't bite it. I didn't eat anything strange. I may have swallowed more than I should have. I may have chewed up and swallowed a buncha stuff I should have spit out. I probably shouldn't have even eaten it, now that I think about it, but since I did, I should have just spit it out. Now, I'm paying for it. My tongue is rejecting it. Rejecting me. I may have to amputate. Should have thought of that sooner.

I get phone calls (sometimes), and I feel myself sweating. I pace. I walk a mile in a 10 minute phone call. I start to hyperventilate. I can smell copper. I taste pennies. My cheeks feel red. Like Jaundice. No. Jaundice is yellow. What's red? Fire. My cheeks feel red. Like Fire. My eyelids are heavy, but won't shut.

It's just within reach. This thing. This goal. It's so close that I can see how far I need to go. Before, I couldn't even see it. It was so far away, that I thought I was closer than i was. Now, I'm close enough to see just far I have to go. I hear smart people say that the more they learn, the more they realize they don't know. That's dumb. The more I learn, the more I realize I like learning, and hope I never run out. I digress.

My feet are covered in blisters, and I walk a fraction of what I used to. I miss her. I forgave her. Then she hurt me again. I asked her to stop, and she accused me of hurting her on purpose. I just wanted it to stop. My feet are sweaty. They're not swollen, just sweaty. I wish all this would stop. I wish there were some reason. Some excuse for the excess in failure. I wish I could just quit. I wish I had no ambition. No drive. I would be a much happier person. I wish I expected less. Delivered more. Was more stable. More predictable. More dependable. I wish I wasn't so selfish. I was once very selfless. I am not anymore. I don't think so. I'm a freakish, big-tongued, sweaty-footed, hyperventilating, overweight, cross-eyed, vagabond.

I didn't want this. I'm afraid. I don't laugh as often as I want. I don't cry as often as I probably should. My eyes water, but there are no tears. Not real tears. I'm tired. I'm too young to be this tired. I'm too old to be this scared. What the hell is that smell?

.... wow.

Right in the balls...

... Yesterday I kicked myself right in the balls.

Didn't think that was possible, did ya? Yep. Me either. But thanks to a middle-aged chinese woman, a hour of "Yani's Slowest Hits", and a steam room, I accomplished the impossible, and racked myself.
Twice.
Once with each foot.

I've never really been a "Spa Whore" or a "Massage Junkie", but I've gone with Lektor a few times now, and I gotta say, I'm becoming attached. Lily (pronounced: "Lee-Lee") is apparently the queen of a profoundly intrusive and discomforting style of massage - one that is priceless and unforgettable once your muscles (and testicles) heal.

Getting closer to 30 everyday, I notice every once in a while that things that didn't always hurt me are now quite painful with no apparent escape (40 yearolds, bite it. This is MY blog). Kneeling or squatting in longer than 2.4 second intervals makes my knees grow internal toothpicks that stab into my brain and begin shutting down bodily functions... like standing.

Then, after a few weeks of working, working out, and walking my usual 40 blocks or so a day just to get a sandwich, I go back to Lily, and I get my crap straightened. I stay on my stomach for the first 45 minutes, and I usually fall asleep. The first time I did this, I awoke to try and respond to her question that I couldn't understand.

"Oh Di-pah?"

What the hell is she saying to me? I really don't want to get hurt here, and she's made it clear that she's capable of causing some serious damage... uh... "Yes?"

AHHHHHHH sweet Jesüs Gonzales! Did she break skin? I think she just put her fist through my back.

"Moh Dee-pah?"

"Yea! I said Yes!" This better feel good when I leave, 'cause right now I suddenly have sympathy for my mother. I feel like reading the Vagina Monologues and studying ancient rituals of glass eating in order to ease the pain those tiny Chinese hands are inducing on my back... and then it dawns on me what she's been asking me.

"NO MORE DEEPER! PLEASE! NO MORE DEEPER!"

"Oh, okay. You feel pain?"

"Yes! I feel pain!"

This breakthrough was the beginning for me. Now that I know that Lily is fully capable of climbing around on my back like a spider monkey looking for coconuts, and that she's got the strength of samurai, I am more comfortable with the fact that I need to tell her NOT to hurt me when I lie down. Which I did very well the next time I went back.

Lektor gets massages as often as is available because of the belief that it is not a luxury, but a necessity for a healthy, comfortable, and relaxed body. I tag along and subscribe to this belief as often as my testicles allow. Even that hindrance shouldn't be much of a factor after the most recent visit, when Lily demonstrated to me her ability to break my legs at the hip, curl them around into an oddly hairy pretzel, and slam my own foot into my scrotum.

"MOAH DEEPA?"

"NO LEE LEE! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. NO MORE DEEPER!"

Here's what I meant. That's what I said.

I said I wanted to say one more thing. I meant I wanted you to hear me the first time.
I said it made me want to listen more. I meant it made me want to weep.
I said tired. I meant on the verge of falling apart.
I said I liked it. I meant it made me want to love you.
I said in a few days. I meant immediately, or sooner, if possible.
I said it frustrated me. I meant I wanted to punch him in the throat.
I said we have a lot in common. I meant you remind me of my dreams.
I said there's something off. I meant I want to crawl into a cave and disappear for a month.
I said I miss you. I meant to not hurt you by admitting I'm feeling home here.
I said I hate you, and I laughed. I meant the laughter.
I said not to worry about it. I meant that if I worried more about it, I'd go insane.
I said I'd be there. I meant I feel stuck there.
I said I'd pray. I meant I wish I would have prayed before.
I said I'd call. I meant don't leave.
I said I knew a guy. I meant sometimes I feel...
I said you should have been there. I meant you should never be away again.
I said I feel trapped. I meant I feel the weight of failure for staying still.
I said I could handle it. I meant I want to be strong enough.
I said what I meant once. Now I can't take it back.

funny funny. you like.

This is the land that I love...

I think I've been in about 437829473892573295 church services that have sounded incredibly similar to that. This made me laugh so hard I bit a hole in my tongue.

James Earl Jones is Lord Vader

holy crap this is awesome!

Stuff I love that I'll totally understand if you don't...

To Whom It May Concern:

I realize that I have ... peculiar tastes. I like a lot of things that very few other people enjoy. Understandable. I'm a preacher's kid, I work in technology, and I have spent the huge majority of the past 10 years in the indie music scene. I'm bored by political loyalty. I'm disengaged by predictable romantic comedies. I'm generally unimpressed with pop culture.

Having said all of that, there are a handful of things that I enjoy that I cannot actually endorse for anyone else. There are sounds, sights, colors, themes, feelings, and moments that strike a nerve with me and make me grateful which, having experienced the same, you may very well have the distinct feeling that your head is going to explode. I would like to list a few of those things here, if I may, just to clear the air. (This is not a line in the sand as much as an intervention I'm performing on myself.)

• Aqua Teen Hunger Force, The Brak Show, and others - I simply can't get enough of this, and I MAY know 2 other people on the planet who share my addiction. However, here they are.
  
  
• Blonde Redhead, Bjork, Tom Waits, and others - I have no intention of converting you on this, but the way Blonde Redhead blends their poppy melodies with intimately daunting vintage tones, or the way Bjork grunts and scraps in the middle of her damn-near-perfectly articulated lyrics and flawlessly discomforting production, or Tom Waits' ... Waits... iness.
  Jeeeeeeeze.
  Can't.
  Get.
  Enough.
  
  
• Chuck Palahniuk, Quentin Tarantino, Irvine Welsh - I know. It's "violent" and "gratuitous", but they're just so GOOD AT IT! Fight Club for me, like many people, was the introduction to Chuck P's work. But Choke, Haunted, Diary, Stranger than Fiction, and a few others later, and I've gotten some strange internal callousness that won't allow me to be moved by much else.
  
  Until I see the newest Tarantino film. Exposing a new and revolting side of both Hollywood (he does Hollywood so well that it makes Hollywood look stupid) and bad guys in general, QT has made my list of the top 10 people I'd pay money to meet if I could.
  
  Trainspotting is a great movie. But the book makes "To Kill a Mockingbird" look like it was scribbled in cat urine on an alley wall. Irvine Welsh creates worlds on paper (and therefore, in your mind) that will give you jitters at night and nightmares during the day. He shows you a way that people's everyday life can progress into utter surrealist chaos. Apocalyptic on an individual level. For that, I'm grateful.

This is my post for the day. Deal with it.

the names of things, or the way we speak to fear.

I woke up to my own voice in my ear again. This time it was Roy playing a loop of "One more night, drinking terpentine" over and over again while adjusting tones and sounds. I hadn't showered in days, so I enduced the Bacterial Hollucost for about 5 minutes and started working.

We went to bed at... correction: Roy hasn't been to bed yet. I went to bed at around 7am. We worked like crazy to get the right vocal takes for this song so I could move onto the next one. This process is so frustrating, I really hope it's worth it. At this pace, we'll have a record in a year or so. But Roy goes back on tour this weekend, so that's not an option.

Dakota had another seizure yesterday. This one while Roy and I were tracking. Roy's Hispanic roots come out in tragedy, I've discovered. Namely, he turns into a Mexican woman ("Aye No! Mamma!") and nurtures his dog out of her trance. I, on the other hand, apparently lose my vocabulary completely, as I was the first to notice she was convulsing, and I sorta yelped "dude!" with the drawl of a texas high school footballer.

I'm debating on changing the name of this project, and I feel justified in thinking about it as I've yet to play a show, or release a single song as this band. I basically just think the project may need a name more concise and vivid. Something like "Whale"(??) or "12pt Garamond"(?!?!).

holes.

Seize the day like an epileptic with a hangover...

Not much to report, but lots to tell. The record is coming along. I'm excited, tired, and frustrated. We keep hitting brick walls within minutes of every breakthrough. Vocals are an everloving bitch to track if you don't want to sound like an idiot AND you don't have disposable money to spend. Not everything here is about music, but it's damn near close.

Roy has one of the most beautiful Blonde American Pitbull's I've ever seen. Her name is Dakota. She and Rosco (my 5 mo/old Boxer) are getting along fine, but Rosco is wearing her out a little, I think.

Roy and Wendy (his wife) went to church this afternoon, and left me here to work on vocals for the record, and to get some time to try some things with the mixdown. At about 4:30, I thought I heard someone walking around downstairs. Assuming they'd come home, I mozied down to the kitchen to find Dakota locked up in the corner in an epileptic seizure that scared the hell out of me. I rushed to get a wet cloth and some water for her, and lifted her head out of the pool of her own foamy drool. It sucked. It was such a deeply sad moment to watch her come out of it and not know where she was, or what to do with herself. She lay on her stomach after the seizure broke, and just stared at the wall in a trance for a few moments which seemed like an eternity, while Rosco and Pudge (the black Lab?) went nuts outside because they knew something was going on. It wasn't the first attack she's had since I've been here, but it's the first I've seen, and I saw it alone with a huge feeling of responsibility resting on my back while it happened.

After all that's gone on here (I also have now been fired for the first time in my life, because I wasn't paying nearly as much attention to my employer as I was this record. At least, according to them), we needed a break. We went out tonight to meet up with some of Roy's friends. Genuinely sweet and cool people. It's great to meet sincerity and honest interest in new people, and I found it in everyone I met tonight. ZERO pretense, even less tension. I felt at home, which was nice, since I haven't in a while.

Oh, and the record is starting to sound good too.

Living in the hole I made.
d.