A warning. this post is a crapped-together almagation of 3 different conversations, previously unfinished, hiding in my drafts folder for a long time.  The paragraphs don’t go together actually; in fact, I pasted them together last night, drunk, where patience and craft did not exist in the slightest.  They’re out though.  They’re no longer sitting there staring at me to finish them,  after the spirit that inspired them had long left me.  Blogging is circumstantial for me.  But that’s what’s important, getting them out.

Do me a favor; turn your speakers on. Do this with me. Navigate over to Built to Spill’s site. You can hear every song off You in Reverse, the treat I’ve been taking in and allowing full access to my hidden everything for the last 3 solid days. It all leads to a vortex of remembrance. It’s so crisp and clean and too-well pulled off and good and smart. Despite what I already know are the downfalls, there’s still something about smart, grown-up boys. I flat out love them.

That’s what you get with maturing professionals; masters of their craft. They start out musicians and guitar players, but they become engineers and artists — they’re both at the same time — and make flawlessly designed and produced “works.” They’re slick as hell and I appreciate the effort and the detail.

Feels like I’ve seen a lot of music lately, and there’s definitely a difference between what I’ll call professional and what I’ll call amateur.  I’m not exactly making value judgements, I’ve just noticed recently a starkness between what the professionals give you and the rest.  I think it might just be maturity on their part perhaps.  Or maybe my needs have changed; maybe I’m looking for something else at a show now.  Maybe I’m looking for a peak.   Professionals get out there and wail and don’t spend 10 minutes between songs tuning and talking about beer.  They wham through it, slick, and give you an experience.  There’s just a big, pregnant difference and it’s not lost on me. 

We saw The Shins, but the sound was off and it didn’t change my life like Natalie Portman promised, but it was beautiful to watch. We saw Dr. Dog, who did though. Change things. Completely rocked it.  We made friends with the awesomest one. The one who acts like an old man but looks like the Flying Tomato. We saw them first months ago, opening for the Raconteurs , the band I remember from having blown my brain clear out of my head into Rorschack splatterpaint ink blots on the wall behind me.  The Raconteurs was the best rock show I’ve seen this year – it’s nothing like the album.

We also saw What Made Milwaukee Famous , though the lead singer annoyed with his amateur rockism. And the Teeth, who were solid solid diversified talented kids. I’m sure you can find them on Myspace; I can’t navigate there from this work computer. Before them we saw Ghostland Observatory, who was 5 times better than I expected them to be, which is a rare and fantastic surprise.  One of them wore a cape and the other Indian braids and aviator glasses.  Reminded me of a really great Air show I went to in 2000.  We saw She Wants Revenge and BRMC again baby, Broken Social Scene and Pretty Girls Make Graves.  But these were on different dates. I just hadn’t mentioned it before and I wanted to.  

I’m lucky though. Kelly gives me incredible music all the time. I come home and he’s uploaded new finds, practically weekly, into my iTunes. Then he goes out to my car, finds my ipod and syncs everything for my surprise the next day. It’s like constant little kickass gifts.  He’s discovered what I like, what I want and need, and keeps it coming, keeps the slightest intriguing pressure right where I always want it, to manifest my suggestions, making real the things I tell him I’ve heard of or found. Plenty of times, they’re his own and he’s showing me something and it creates a yet-to-be articulated language that deals in feeling over words. New languages are important for lengthy relationships. We can’t pretend we already know everything.

Sometimes other people give me incredible music. Sometimes, I can’t remember who I’ve shared the new stuff with and which pieces they need and if I’ve already had this conversation with them. So many times, I just want to burn through my whole collection and mail it out unexpectedly to the people the songs and powerful sounds make me think of. I miss people. Often. Strongly.

I’m great with the creation, with any kind of brainstorming or dreaming or straight up fantasizing. But I’m bad on execution, I think. I’m not exactly sure why. But no one gets enough from me, or they don’t get fully what I intend. Just wishful promises with slatey eyes and great big drunken smiles. But is that giving? Is that what they’re wanting? That can’t be.

There is a good part of my personality that’s more than slightly manic. But it’s circumstantial; I have triggers. When confronted with certain people, at certain times of uncertainty and in certain circumstances, I wear my lack of resolve and inner tumble-dry setting like an announcement on my face. My doppelganger walks in front of me; I follow behind. I should name her, she takes the lead so often. Some people know me only through her. DoppelG L.

I’ll not go into it, but by now I know my behavior, my erratic nuance, my pointless procrastination, my tendency to drift into my own Pan’s Labrynth dream world. I’m an adult though; indulging in delusion should be past me, but it’ll never be. It’s like the long and winding walk I take each working morning from my car to my desk chair. Some days I race through it. Other days I talk to Char the whole way or to someone else the whole way in reverse at the end of my day. But most days, I’m not ready to start reality. I think in the car the whole way there. It’s my time, my head, my thoughts and excruciating wants. Then, when I get to the garage, I’m not ready to end my short film quite yet. I put Benzy in park. I glance in the mirror, glance at myself, then looking down, find earbuds and place them in my ears. Then, I find it. Today it’s Going Against Your Mind. And with every step, though I’ll not do it justice here, I know exactly what he’s talking about.

some new, very good things are popping up in Houston these days.  maybe i’ve been here long enough now to start noticing.  or maybe i should just suck it up - or swallow it; take it in in whatever way - and finally claim this place as mine.  maybe i should invest more in the culture and the local sole proprietorships and the artists and the bands.  encountering cool shit in the works definitely makes me want to.  maybe i should make this my neighborhood.  claim one; be in people’s lives.  get out more and witness what happens on Wednesday nights.

if you live in Houston, go to Domy Bookstore on Wesheimer near Dunlavy and Hazard.  Next door to Brazil and across the street from the new store I want to take a second job in, spend my time in right now to bulk up my closet and help me find a style.  Walk through Domy though; see the toys and the limited-edition handmade books and projects and magazines.  Reach back to that memory of being a kid in a children’s bookstore and walking along, fingering the slick and visual covers, picking one up and sitting with it down on the floor, in the store, next the a bookcase because that’s what they’re for and that’s what comes to you naturally.  it’s almost the exact experience, walking through Domy.  Like walking into toy or a comic book store – wanting to pick up and see and touch and play and read every single thing you lay your eyes on. 

Then, when you’re done trying not to bend any of the pages or leave any fingerprints, walk yourself right into the backyard.  Find a table, under some Christmas lights maybe.  Pull up a bench seat and look around.  Open up your your time-traveled worn-in journal.  Take out your pen or your Macbook and scribble something.  You’re in the backyard, a comfortable back yard.  A secret place that’s also cool and quiet and almost dark but not at all.  You can just sit there and do your thing quietly, undisturbed, or you can look around at people.  Go next door to Brazil and order yourself anything off the menu and they’ll bring it out to you.  Remember to bring salt and pepper if you need it, and a glass of water.  A glass of wine maybe.  A microbrew.  Raspberry tea and a sandwich.  See all the life inside then go right back out the door to the backyard and find yourself that quiet table again. 

On Wednesday nights they screen movies on the back of the brick building behind the backyard.  You sit at your table against a tree and look up and there’s Heavy Metal Parking Lot, 15 minutes long and full to the teeth with 1986 Judas Priest hair-rock glory.  I wonder who those people where in the documentary; where they are now.    If they live in suburbs or in the sticks or in a city somewhere.   

Tonight the backyard filled with people around 8:30, in time for Idiocracy.   Later I realized it was full of people, some I recognized around Montrose before, in the resale shops and at places I volunteer or stroll through sometimes.  People filled the back steps of the porch, sitting, and leaned against gates and sat in each other’s laps and clapped out loud.  I recommend doing that backyard in this weather on a Wednesday night.  Good stuff.

I had lost this for a while.  Encantada has had a lot of deaths  And there are lots of reasons.  I get drained, disappointed and not finding the time, dried out from working under fluorescent bulbs in a climate-controlled building and letting myself be feasted on and my twenties march away from me.  I feel things die.  Perfecting what has become my daily practice: screwing a tent stake through my temples for 8 daylight hours, 5 days a week.  Trying to remember to take breaks from the blinking screen and blink.  Not depressed, not sad.   Narcotized maybe.  Tired.  Constantly undecided. 

It’s been a long while actually, but I miss this so much.  I’m coming back.  I’ve been brought back maybe.  Encantada has had many returns. 

I know how to get back to writing in a blog again.  Read again.  Engage again.  Tell someone you’re reading.  Start a dialogue with them.  Start talking again.  Comment and offer something of yourself.  Talk to me; I’ll offer something back.