Here Be Drags

I've never heard this song. I really like the Hold Steady. I lost track with them a little bit. It's too hard to keep track of music. Even music I already know and love. Some of my friends do an admirable job of keeping up. It is so easy to slip. They planted a flag in the dirt and stood by it, and rode dirt flag all the way to the bank. I like that, and I like that the hill they chose to die on was one that has absolutely no relation to the popular bands of the day. Craig Finn and his boys basically got super rich doing an approximation of a Bruce Springsteen who forgoes the pathos of the working man and pickets with the low-lifes and excellent scumbags and the dudes and ladies on the margins. I know pretty much anyone reading this probably knows who the Hold Steady are. They just popped up on iTunes. That's a good thing.

My bold declaration is thus: They make me proud I am a human, and that I have ears to hear, and that I was lucky enough to hear "Hostile, Mass" when I did, so I could follow them the whole way. Of all the paths this is one that seems the most deservedly emulated. Done the right way. The difference between the Memphis Grizzlies and the Miami Heat (something to be discussed soon). Decency and warmth and intent and delivery and lift-off like you wouldn't believe.

ALMOST KILLED ME indeed.

Runts and the End of the Evening

This was supposed to go in the "summer doy a ding-dong summer!" post but I FIGURE it deserves a post of its own. Deserves! I wanted to solicit reading recommendations, but on Facebook this would probably just lead to FLAME WARS and TROLLING and about seven million terrible suggestions. And my Twitter done BROKE ISSELF. The funny thing is, since no one knows this blog exists it is a different sort of futility. I embrace futility as a brother.

These are books I have read recently:

The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima
Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert
Children of Dune by Frank Herbert
The Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
The Wreckage of Agathon by John Gardner


So mostly what I have been reading has been set in Japan and the desert planet of Arrakis. Oh, also I have periodically picked up Rabbit, Run by Updike, and even though it is awesome I am having problems really getting in there. Maybe because they are not on the desert planet of Arrakis? "Killing Yourself To Live" is a pretty cool title, but I think I really hate Chuck Klosterman. Especially when he started talking about Kid A predicting 9/11. Why does that lesbian Chuck Klosterman write such annoying bullshit? God.

Suggest away. Speculative fiction, books about rivers, even some Western literature canon, as I haven't read most of it (because I find it TEDIOUS and BORING for the most part). Is there a mixture of David Milch, Craig Finn, and Aaron Cometbus out there? Something to help me learn the world's name.

By the way Your Highness ruled. I was one of the thirteen people who saw it.

Enemies strengthen you. Allies weaken.

It is pretty much summer. Summer is at worst failed expectations in a firestorm and at best sloshball days and cool nights. Railroad tracks with Jason Molina as crooning whiskey preacher. I've been trying to get a few people to make compilations of summertime music. Throw it my way. An acceptable summer mix could also basically just be 90s indie rock. Almost all of that stuff sounds like baseball bats cracking, pebbles crunching, and some kid realizing some profound shit in an altered state. It's a fun time to be alive, even if the main appeal of summer (a real tangible break from any aspect of your life you hate - school!) has been rendered moot with continued existence. Still, it continues to evoke strange feelings out of me, despite just being something that happens every year around this time. If winter is all about being down and out, summer is the BRINGER OF GREATER THINGS. And yet that thinking is kind of dumb, and puts a lot of pressure on a summer to stand and deliver.

Summer is that snake that just keeps eating its tail. That hungry snake! I think his name is Herbert! Check out these words of MINE, from a couple of years ago, roughly this same exact time: 25 years old, very poor, experiencing a crush you should get out of your system when you are in high school, keeping it low down, dirty, and useless since 2002. Historiography, married women, an anti-coming of age film, swine flu, death on the installment plan. Love, love, love.

The "love, love, love" is an ode to a Mountain Goats song. I wasn't insane. Everything else is pretty boilerplate Alex. I'm of the opinion boilerplate Alex is pretty cool at this exact moment, so I ain't trippin, bruh bruh. I guess my main point, if I had one, is that for whatever silly reasons, summer is an extremely special time, and shit always seems to HAPPEN with a frequency. I will be forty five years old and I'll still consider summer bildungsroman times. Going to parks to get my basketball ON(!), porch and stoop times, nights that just don't end, hatching deviously benign schemes and getting teary eyed listening to Drake or Cinerama, I channel my hero George W. Bush and say BRING IT ON, BRUH BRUH. I get the sense more and more every year that this kind of thing has to stop. But I'm going to pretty much deny that until the moment I die. Not a principled stand, but a stand.

I have a gross summer goal and a lot of free time. Get at me, younglings. I miss you.

Thou Shalt Not Disfigure the Soul

Hey blogosphere!

I'm graduating COLLEGE tomorrow. What does this mean? Not much. But I get to wear a hat and have an excuse to feel gnarly for forty five minutes.

I have some thoughts that might go slightly over 140 characters. But only slightly. Get back on the Astro Train, my pretties.

The night is dark and full of terrors

Changing tmeplates means I lost my blogroll.

I LOST MY BLOGROLL.

MY BLOGROLL IS GONE!

Pain like you have no fucking idea.

Let justice be done though the heavens fall

Some news.

David Leventhal is engaged. Hey-O!

Bob is now my roommate.

It is Christmas Eve.

Accepting submissions for the next Astro Train.

I'm particularly offended by girls and this proposition: "If neither of us are married in ten years we should get married." Aiyo, how come no less than eight girls have said that to me? It is not RAD to be a back-up plan (not to mention a fake back-up plan!). What the hell people, what the hell?

You are not the cosmos!

I wish it was warmer. I could go on more night walks. Cold hands and frosty breath is great and all, but I want people to SEE what band I'm repping on my shirt. You feel me?

On a related note: the reason I do not update this is because the written word is particularly irritating to me right now. I haven't written anything decent in so long, and what ends up happening is me talking about how I don't like to walk around in the cold. So asinine it hurts to look at. I feel I owe you, as dear friends, to not waste your time with that kind of shit. It's at this point I mention the hilarious irony of Saad Hariri visiting Bashar al-Asad in Damascus, thereby demonstrating my knowledge of things beyond drinking Whiksey Sours. It is also right after that point, that you roll your eyes at such a feeble attempt at actual commentary on an actual issue or event. I feel like that used to be my calling card. Outraged, unhelpful commentary maybe, but man, I kind of gave a fuck at one point in time. I swear to GOD mang, I am just tooooo tired to watch CNN anymore. All I really want to do is listen to Propagahndi and Jason Molina over and over again. A simple life. A simple proud life, lived well, by a dude. Sometimes the ties that bind are strained, AM I RIGHT?

I'm going to start working on a "novel" soon, and this blog will become excerpts of said novel, analysis on the NBA season, or just more rehashes of a criminally insecure member of the blogosphere. I'm attempting a Richard III comic book adaptation with Bridget. I want to start a black metal band called God Wills It.

The Crass Posse is alive and strong. Strong in the way of something that's been ripped to shreds but still is functional and mad like a demon.

Elizabeth is about to have a baby.

The point is, life is decent, and not nearly as stupid as these posts make it seem.

My top vacation spots:

1) Iran
2) England (Bosworth Field, muthafuckka)
3) Spain
4) Japan
5) Lebanon
6) Australia
7) Norway
8) Vietnam
9) Egypt
10) Russia


Oh. I had a pretty neat movie experience the other night. I was texting Erin about burning me this hilarious 8-bit trance-y type CD. And I said something to her that I didn't realize was true but when I read those words I was like, holy fucking shit, that is so true. A kind of reclamation of the narrative of the who-what-and why I am. I tell you this in bad faith, you will not see the boy in me die, I'm in this game of nutters and complete nutters for the long haul. Thank you for your friendship and for your patience and for your insanity to be reading these (awesome!) rants! The reason it is ironic is because Bashar probably killed Saad's dad! On the other hand, this could be an example of a ruthless peacemaker. We should get into that, right? It's actually not that, I just wanted to introduce a thread that I'll return to eventually. The ruthless peacemaker. Something I'd be fine with on my tombstone.

I feel some seismic shift shit on the horizon, but I'm ready for that, cause I got my clan in the front, and there's no peace in destiny, just motherfucking destiny! 2010 is our year guys, lets take this one by the horns. I hope I appropriately mixed the vague with the concrete and I won't re-read this in five minutes and think I'm insane. Actually, I do hope that will happen.

I remain,

The guy covered in tattoos of Qur'anic verses and hadith

baqiyyatu l-sayfi anmaa `adadan my brothers.

What the storm means

My handball tournament this weekend has been canceled. I haven't been this upset since I lost a pen I kind of liked.


I said defiantly, "I dare you to say ONE good thing about me."

She looked me up and down for what seemed an eternity.

"Your lips are well moisturized."

I laughed, I did. Not only because it must have been a strange cosmic fluke that they were moisturized at all, but that she was serious. That was the one good thing she could say.

I was Rolling On Floor Laughing My Ass Off

Like I always am.

So many leeches

Run to her dude, run to her.

I can't bring myself to write quality serious shit on this thing anymore. That's fine though. You are fine with that.

My name ain't Thomas and I ain't really that awful.

Summer is the time for melodrama, but it's fall again so back to work, back to work, back to not being a bitch.

Can't Maintain is a great record. No one writes wince inducing lyrics that speak to super relate-able darkness like Sean from Andrew Jack Jihad. I can understand some people's reservations in completely endorsing the band, but on the other hand, I can't, cause it is so extremely fucked up in the most redeeming of all ways.

I have two exams tomorrow, the official start of the new school year. That is what blogs are for right? Talking about school and shit? I've got a job, I don't have problems sleeping anymore, I don't think I'm gonna have a heart attack every night, I don't think about dying all the time, and I have a very respectable coterie of good characters in my life. That's the good shit. My booty call situation could be better, but what are you gonna do, youknowwhatimsaying?


I wish I could bring myself a bit deeper into Lebanon right now, but that godforsaken country is even more depressing than usual. Saad's attempts at a national-unity government aren't being embraced by the opposition, and the usual 15-10-5 seat distribution is not gonna be enough to satisfy Hizbollah and General Aoun. I find whatever it is I just wrote vastly more interesting than even pretending I give a shit about the shameful healthcare pre-emptive implosion by cowardly Democratic senators who I guess need an ULTRA Majority to do anything. The Super Majority just ain't enough for them. We got racist people lining up Winchester and Steven's Creek with signs about going back to Kenya and how we aren't Russia and the White House puts their faith into Max fucking Baucus? To quote the TRANSPLANTS, it's a wicked world we live in. Anyway, who wants to go to Lebanon with me in about 3-4 years? Falafels, nice weather, cute ladies, lets do this. Yo, welcome to the best shallow paragraph about two completely unrelated things ever. All about the amalgamation of capital, YA DIG?

Most recent books: The Painted Bird, Book of Laughter and Forgetting, the Taqwacores.

Alcoholics Anonymous is a bunch of bullshit by the way.

He was a punk and a drunk and never cared what Hanafi or Hanbali or Maliki or Shafi told him to do, but he was sincere and Allah kept him humble.

Rest in peace Thomas Awful!

Saturday wishlist

1. Find this band (particularly the frontman) and kill them.

2. Learn to breakdance.