can't be bested

It was a journey and a half getting to and from Chicago. The journey was the understood one involving the car, the trailer, the five people in the car with the snacks and the music. Developing with my friends and my wife into a musical entity that we are more and more proud of and confident in is the half.

I make the distinction because the physical movement had its beginning and its end. The band certainly had its beginning, even if it was when Melissa was born it had a definite starting point. But it has an evolution that defies an absolute ending. It is that faux/possibly actual immortality brought upon a group of people by playing music. Not to downplay other creative efforts but there is something undeniably enduring about music and its ability to engender or inhibit growth in people and culture.

When we were playing last Friday night I think we all felt that. We felt different for sure. There was progress from the beginning of the show to the end of it. It is somewhat sad that we only played one show that weekend. I think the progress leaked over into the next day or two but it seemed to slow as there became more hours between the present time and the end of the show.

Cody's girlfriend, Lindsey, came with us and did a bit of filming of things along the way. She teaches film and different aspects therein at a local community college here in Omaha. Having her around and my older brother's fascination with movies has caused me to consider the finer points of film making. I don't know much about film but I know what I like. I guess that is the case for most people, or all people, rather.

So there.

real life screams

It's my last day at Kinko's and I am eating a classic twinkie snack cake with a heavy helping of sugared berries swimming in a sugary goo slathered over top. I am celebrating. I know I said in a previous post that I didn't feel a public blog was an appropriate space to air grievances against your employer. I know I said that and I still agree with myself. I however, well, once nine o'clock arrives, am no longer under that heavy lade that is a job at FedEx Kinko's. Jesus once said all you heavy laden, I will give you rest. I cupped my hands and had naught but a Kinko's job and Jesus put a hanky up to his nose and mouth at keep the stench at bay. He pinched that job but the scruff of its neck and placed it in a fish bowl full of baking soda and peroxide. He then reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a yellow bicycle and Urban Outfitters. Well, how about that.

I want to see if I can pull this off and make it worth reading. I want to write a pithy dirge to my soon to be former job. I want to write it on the spot and without any planning or preparation. Let's see what happens.

a reprimand

what comes of a position of internal
rearing
and a nature not tended to
initially
and quite nearly eternally?
what comes is a disrespect for the self-
ish things that always engenders the tension of living
for others and with yourself.
a disrespect from all
sides
and withering from the same
and whispering and hoots and calls
because you're distracted
not interested
in purposelessness



That was stream of conscious. And I think it was quite sad. But I feel freedom. Kinko's makes me sad. And eulogies aren't supposed to be cheerful. Sure they usually embue a sense of hope in some way. But for me, Kinko's stole that little spark. Or perhaps it just buried it in place well marked that I couldn't see until I had an escape route planned. I am onward and I am upward.

Honeybee plays in Chicago this weekend. It will be epic. I assure you.
brandon pierce geary

I am on a roll. I am butter. Seeping into the crannies. Smooth. I feel very good about most things at this precise moment in time. Sure I fret about money, health (mental and otherwise), dreams deferred, societal ills and conspiracies. Yet I feel peaceful. At peace, even. Probably the sun. It's always the sun, isn't it.

I have been reading anthologies lately. The anthology is quite possibly my favorite literary invention. I love reading a single writer's collection but an anthology brimming with all manner of voices and perspectives is intoxicating. I have been reading from the "Best American" Series. This series is very appealing with its wide-ranging focuses from collection to collection. The Best American Nonrequired Reading is captivating my attention right now but I would love to read the Best American Sports Writing, Best American Spiritual Writing, and Best American Essays. Oh, I love good essays. Creative nonfiction is delicious. I just finished an article in the Best American Nonrequired Reading anthology by Jonathon Ames, a writer for Spin, about a goth festival in Illinois. I gotta tell you, that guy had me in stitches. Stitches!

He was so matter of fact. I think that is going to be a very recognizable defining quality of quality writing of this era we live in. This decade. The best, or most widely acclaimed and watched, writing on television is usually quite dry. Droll is funny and interesting and endlessly amusing. That is why I am so hyped on nonfiction. It is just facts but it can be so entertaining or even just not boring. Not boring is very good. Uninteresting is very bad.

Another thing that is very is good is this:
"Not all of us Americans appreciate the fact that we have about 150 very good quarterlies in this country. Every state seems to have a very good quarterly, and about a hundred colleges have very good quarterlies — from the Kenyon Review to the University of Illinois’s Ninth Letter. So by our estimate there are about 150 very good quarterlies in this country. Maybe more. Now, the thing we don’t always appreciate here in America is that elsewhere in the world there are few to no quarterlies." Dave Eggers from the "Q and A" section of the Best American Nonrequired Reading collection.

THIS IS GOOD NEWS. God bless American writers. I usually am not the most ardent fan of things American. But perhaps the winds are changing if this country values its writers as much as it seems to. Hmmm.

brandon