"blues in dallas," from all hail west texas

this post is dedicated to james, whose toilet overflowed today.

i was about to take on "source decay," which is about distance and having your heart ripped out of your chest and the unbearable weight of nostalgia and all that stuff, but james called.

lately, some things have been occurring to me. cosmic things. i can't share them all here, but i'm pretty sure they have a lot to do with the fact that last summer i had a girlfriend with an air conditioner, and this summer i have neither, so i get to enjoy the conciliatory solace of asceticism (read: sexlessness) and am probably dehydrated to the point of shamanic visions.

there's been a lot of endgame thinking, too, which is what "blues in dallas" is about. waiting at the gates of heaven for someone to show up. i was pretty sure i knew who i'd be waiting for, but in the past few months, my list has changed. (my financial investment service of choice had to verify my identity and asked "where did you meet your spouse?", which was one of my secret questions even though i don't have a spouse. for a second i forgot who he might've been referring to. or, maybe, i was ashamed for being so dumb as to think of that person that way.)

james, your toilet overflown, i think i would reasonably kill some time for you at the gates of heaven. i mean, these things change, don't they? i remember when you went through your white-shoe all-time-vacation phase--that was annoying, james. since then, denim shirt, belly out, there's been nothing but good feeling. if i were a praying man, i might for you.

"the best ever death metal band in denton," from all hail west texas

preface:

me:
my sense of romanticism is way too deep seated to be challenged with something as flaccid as common sense

or even something as elegant as logic

point is, when we get married, everyone is going to have an honest cry rather than a perfunctory one

Thomas: that made me laugh.

me: it's true and you know it

Thomas: no. it's very true, but what if they're crying because they realize we have committed ourself to a lifetime of messy relationships with the same person because we aren't capable of having it any other way.

me: i hadn't thought about them crying in that way

that's not it

Thomas: i don't think it is either, but the prospect scares me.

me: i mean isn't this why we listen to the mountain goats?


ok.

i remember, it was march 2002, the first day i heard the mountain goats, on thomas's couch; all hail west texas, fresh off the racks. a song comes on about two guys, who are friends, who are definitely existing in harmony to the exclusion of the world around them. the world, of course, knowing no grace, intrudes. the world says they are fucked up. thomas became one of my best friends because we knew how to shut things out in the same way. we taught others, and spent a hellish year in a massive house, and a lot of us still talk about it like it was the worst time of our lives, but we play the long game, so history has turned it into the best. i've never learned more.

last night i played music on a stage for the first time in a couple of years. thomas and i still play together sometimes. jeff and cyrus, in the song, know that bond. there's no name for it. and there's nothing in it but love, blind love; stupid, blind, bank-account draining, futureless, masochistic, glorious love.

"fall of the high school running back," from all hail west texas

losers!

all of them, total losers. william standeforth donahue, even you, star, will fall, in with with the losers, "threatening nothing. threatening, finally, not even themselves."

stayed up late reading padgett powell's aliens of affection, a sterling, grisly, humanistic book if there ever was one, and i woke up with william in my head.

and, y'know, john darnielle doesn't even fuss too much, because william's like a million other kids who made a wrong turn--when darnielle sings, you can just hear him shaking his head, a gesture only fully executable by things with hearts.

"jenny," from all hail west texas

whenever i've felt the absurd need to explain exactly what love was to someone, i always arrive at a variant of, "for some portion of time, you and i are the only people who exist in the world."

"jenny" is about being in love with, and on, a motorcycle. my bad breakup coincided with shick fixing his bmw bike, and i remember that the rides were the first thing i could call a cure: "we were the one thing in the galaxy god didn't have his eyes on." if you've ever been on a motorcycle, you'll know what i mean. and if you haven't, you should go; nothing will make you feel dumber and more invincible and more carelessly homoerotic.

addendum, 5/30:

of course this song is not about a motorcycle. i was a bad liar three weeks ago and i'm a bad liar now. i've only had the feeling in "jenny" a few times. after thinking about all the melodrama and anguish and ambiguity in his music, i sorta only realize now how uncomplicated, how good, how rare that feeling is.