Some Songs

Here are several songs that are currently stuck in my head, on repeat.

The Kooks - See the Sun (Alternate Version).  The Kooks are an awesome British indie rock band.  They have a great sound and some fun tunes.  This is one of my favorite songs from them.

Brand New - Jesus Christ.  Not a huge Brand New fan, but this song deals with a subject I think about a lot.

The Weepies - Nobody Knows Me At All.  Again, not a band that I see myself getting super into, but this song expresses pretty well how I feel sometimes.

Stumble Upon

So often I'll be surfing my usual websites, looking for content that interests me, only to find the same old junk. Usually, I find new sites, articles, etc. through recommendations from my friends and family.  However, recently I stumbled upon StumbleUpon.  StumbleUpon bills itself as a "discovery engine" that finds and recommends web content to its users based on pre-selected interests.  Its features allow users to rate Web pages, photos, and videos that are personalized to their tastes and interests using social networking principles.


StumbleUpon has been around since 2001, but as usual, yours truly was late to the party.  I also could swear that someone showed me this before, but for the life of me I can't remember who.  Regardless, I started  using it today and was fairly happy with the results.  If you've never used the site before, give it a try!  You might find something you like!

New Poem: You in a Crowd

This poem was inspired by a quote from Henry David Thoreau, which is included beneath the title of the poem and partially quoted in the poem itself.  There may be small changes forthcoming, but I think, for the most part, it is finished.  Enjoy!

You in a Crowd

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.  -Henry David Thoreau

Tonight I find myself surrounded by people I do not know, nor care to know,

Strange men who in-between each shrieking cup of gin, lead lives of quiet desperation,

Who shuffle past indefinite in their choices, but uniform in sin.

In the swarming multitude I feel a warm, soft patch of unfamiliar skin

Brush past, and for a moment glancing back, I glimpse your face, as in the wind

The belly of a leaf might turn, as if coerced, and catch a bit of vernal rain.

I’ve seen your face before somewhere.  Was it you who sat there on the subway train?

Did I see you at an interview for a job we both desired, or are you the one

Whose glare I sense in the pictures of a classmate now deceased, like faded, self-reflections?

At times I almost feel as though we pass dim recollections

Of ourselves amid a crowd of old acquaintances we never made, compelled

To turning back to feel the faint touch of who we might have been.

Memories: Second Grade

What to write about?  This is a question I find myself asking every damn day.  I want to write about common experiences in an uncommon way.  I want to take the ordinary and make it come alive on the page.  I want to take those little moments that touch us, that we remember for unknown reasons, and try to unfold them, to coax from them some meaning, something tangible. 

To that end, I have recently begun attempting to compile a list of all of those moments from my own life.  It is my intention to draw inspiration from this list of memories, to use it as a source of writing material in between the less interesting parts of my life.  The poems drawn from this list will also serve as a sort of quasi-autobiography.   They will act, much like this blog, as a means of preserving my experiences for future reflection, which is something I enjoy greatly.

As I was writing the following account, I realized that it had a kind of poetic sound, which was not my original intention, however, I liked it and decided to stick with it.  Enjoy!

One time in second grade, upon returning from recess, I stood before some classmates – whose names I can’t recall – telling jokes and poking fun at a kid much larger than myself.  He shoved me as if to say, “Back off!”, and as I fell away I tipped his cap onto the floor.  And in my laughter I barely noticed him recoil in anger and punch me in the stomach. 

Bent over, smaller than I’d ever been before, I stood grasping at the air as if to say, “Come back!”, and my cheeks drew warm, unwanted tears like a damp mattress.  The audience crept near and whispered a maternal, “Are you ok?”, as the echo of a fist rang even further in my belly.

In a moment I stood up, and all the nets of reason fell away and no one could be heard to say, “Stop.  Think.”  With one crude swing of balled up flesh, I laid him down beside his cap as though he were asleep.  I didn’t stay to count the seconds that elapsed; I knew it wouldn’t last.  I grabbed my damp, discolored books and hurried out of class.

Minutes later, standing on a toilet in a bathroom stall, quiet as a mouse, I heard my fellow classmates talking of my act, a tale much taller than I felt, having pissed all of my words away, and replaced them with fists.

Born on the 4th of July

I still have all my fingers!  Independence Day went off without a hitch and reminded me a lot of some memorable 4ths as a kid.  One year in particular, I got the brilliant idea to buy a bunch of little fireworks and combine them into one giant firework.  I set it off in the alley behind my old house and it was awesome!  A shower of sparks shot a good 6 feet into the air and made for quite a display.  This year I decided to try and recreate the magic - never mind the inherent danger this endeavor posed.  Side-note: I may be a pyromaniac.

Anyway, I bought a bunch of fireworks from Wal-Mart called Crackling Salutes.  You gotta love Wal-Mart, you can buy a blender with six speeds, do all your grocery shopping, AND purchase the ingredients to maim and disfigure yourself.  I combined my entire purchase, about 60 fireworks total, in a container I fashioned from cardboard and packing tape.  Even up until I lit the fuse I had no idea what was going to happen, but I had flashbacks of that time in the alley behind my house, when things were simple, and all the moments of my life, everything seemed to condense and burn before my eyes in one great instantaneous collage of sparks and light.

Below is a picture of my creation and a video of the event.  Enjoy!

New Poem: On Having Lost My Shoes in a Bar Fight

This poem is still in the editing phase, but I think it's pretty close to being finished.  It was inspired by a fishing trip with a childhood friend.  The muddy banks were so bad they sucked the shoes right off his feet and he had to pedal home barefoot on his bike.  He got the crap beat out of him by his parents for having lost his only pair of sneakers.

On Having Lost My Shoes in a Bar Fight

Foam and an empty can come floating down

The river, a last gasp of air trapped inside

Keeps it above the rushing current,

Bobbing up and down along a thin skin

On which insects glide across.

A Coke can maybe, flung indiscreetly

From a speeding car miles from here, and now

The logo worn away, like the edges of a rock,

The last swallow sipped so long ago.

Grasping at it with my eyes and baited breath,

I tread lightly down the muddy banks.

A low tide gently scrubbing the sandy shore

Sends murmurs between the stones, as water

Follows and slips into the footprints that I leave behind.

In time, one fateful footfall splits the earth,

The warm mud clasps around my ankles,

And spills over the mouth of my empty shoes

Like wet cement poured into some die I’d cast.

But that of course, was years ago, the nights

Gone rushing by and I, now drunk, too drunk to drive,

Steal an unchained bicycle, and with my feet

Stained black and cracking, begin the long ride home.

Each oncoming pair of headlights like a drink

Slid down the bar, vanish in an instant,

Their light still felt in the memory of places

They had once illuminated that now grow dark.

The wind from each slow-passing car kisses my cheeks
Like a fever on the handlebars of a dream,

As barefoot on the pedals I recall

My lonely pair of sneakers caught there,

Counting, watching the cans go down the river.

Hollywood

I recently made my first trip to Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course.  Now I've been gambling before, but this was my first experience at a casino in my area and I must say, I had a lot of fun.  My favorite game to play is craps.  For those of you that have never played before, it can be a bit confusing at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's a blast.  The best part is the group atmosphere; it's not you against a slot machine or a dealer, it's the entire craps table rooting for a single shooter.

Of course, gambling is always more fun when you're winning.  I've had my ups and downs in the few trips I've been to Hollywood Casino, but I am currently in the win column by about a hundred bucks.  I'm not sure when I'll go again, but I would like to do this more often.  The only big drawback (besides the potential to lose money) is the smoke.  Since I grew up in a house full of smokers, it doesn't bother me too much, but it is definitely something I could do without.

One last thing, apparently they don't like you taking pictures in the casino.  Not sure why this is, but it kinda stinks.  It was kind of dark out the few times I went so I didn't get any good pictures of the outside either; the picture above was provided by Google.