Standing at the bus stop in the one-hundred and eight degree heat, my mind tends to wander...and my right foot also wanders... from concrete to macadam. The left one follows suit, bringing the rest of my sack of bones. Screeching tires. Smelly rubber. Watermelons into walls. Leaking lemons. Twigs snapping underfoot. Torn paper. Cereal box in a garbage bag.

Thoughts go sour some days. Maybe you'll be driving on the freeway and find yourself day dreaming, "What if I just jerked the wheel to the right and flew straight through that rail and careened over that cliff?" or maybe "That truck behind me needs some lovin'. Why not slam on the brakes and see if it can impregnate my Honda with its massive engine block!"

You know? Those thoughts are normal. Everyone has them, but never truly act on them (unless...). That's why Michael Bay gets people to sit through the scripts he brings to the big screen.

I can only wish I could be the man in U.N.K.L.E.'s amazing music video: Rabbit in Your Headlights...

Get up and do it again.



Jack

P.S. They should have never lived... Funniest chase scene I've ever experienced.

I can't seem to stop my mind from traveling from one thing to the next at unbeknownst speeds. They escape me, and it's really beginning to annoy me.

Then again I may be just stating the obvious, because only if there exists one purposeful goal, there's not much else the mind needs to focus on.

So I just stare at our sunsets.



Jack

photo by: Jack

Labels: mountains, sunset

Get me on the road, I am jumping out of my skin!


Eric M.

photo by: Eric Morelli

"If I wasn't Bob Dylan, I'd probably think that Bob Dylan has a lot of answers myself. " - Bob Dylan


"Then ask me what it's like to have myself so figured out. Wish I knew." - Jesse Lacey


"You write such pretty words, but life's no story book." - Conor Oberst


"Beethoven can write music, thank God, but he can do nothing else on earth.. " - Ludwig Van Beethoven



It may be convenient to assume that everyone has the world more figured out than you, but that's just not the case. Understanding that the blind are leading the blind is the freedom to follow whomever you choose, if anyone.

Eric M.

P.S.

Labels: Bob Dylan, Brand New, Bright Eyes, Conor Oberst, Jesse Lacey, Study Band

Fourth grade was the first time I ever thought about what I would be when I grew up. Well, that's not entirely true. It was the first time I based the thought in reality. My dream of being a super hero shattered, and I halted my intensive study of powers I didn't possess(i.e. flying, shooting lasers out of my hands, and running) to focus on my true calling. I wanted to be an artist. Ugh, that word makes me feel gross now, but I use it because fourth grade me held it with such sincerity. Subsequently, I almost failed fourth grade. My ambitions were in place, so who needs math. I wasn't distracted, I just didn't do anything I was supposed to.

Somewhere along the windy road of youth I lost sight of that pursuit. My days were spent running around with friends, and just plain enjoying the world, rather than bettering my technique. My eyes casually wandered from art, to music, back to art, to snowboarding, and finally back to music again. There are times that I wish someone had told me,"You are going to have to be very good at something when you grow up," but mostly, I can go with the flow.

Recently, I have had the urge to draw. Unfortunately, my ability has slipped somewhat behind my expectations. It hurts not being able to portray someone as beautiful as Edie Sedgwick in the way that I see her. To me she is a paradox. Her beauty is effortless, though the effort that she put into her appearance is obvious. Tired eyes.

Eric M.

Illustration: Eric Morelli

At the moment, I'm finishing up a fantastic Tim O'Brien book called Going After Cacciato. It begins in Vietnam, and ends in Paris, France.

There's nothing I will remember better than my time spent in that French city. Studying in a house on the Left Bank with an interior architect named Erik, who's grandfather helped develop camouflage in World War I, I was surrounded by language and culture. I was encapsulated in a different world.

There's a building on the north eastern edge of the 15th arrondissement called Tour Montparnasse. The locals joke to the tourists that it's the box that the Eiffel Tower came in. In reality, it's an eye sore. The office building comes jutting out of the beautiful baroque architecture like the monolith in Kubrick's Space Odyssey. It has a mall extremely close by filled with stuff nobody needs but everybody wants. There are guards with guns patrolling the perimeter. I have to be honest, the whole four and a half months I studied there, I disliked the thing as much as the Parisians do...

Jusqu'à ce que je suis allé au sommet avec mes amis.

It was raining as the elevator rose. The clouds broke when we reached the top. Peering out of the windows, tons of rainbows sprouted out of the ground only to fall back down miles later. One ended right below us in the Cimetière du Montparnasse Then we found the steps guiding us to the platform atop this massive black vertical light switch of iron and glass.

Wind howled and rain still trickled from the heavy gray clouds above us. The sun showed itself in bits. Lightning even struck the poll behind us, but there was the city, flat like a record. It was astonishing to experience, as there is no where else in the city that offers such a view of itself. It may be voted the second ugliest skyscraper in the world, but I had the chance to catch this photo of the 7th arrondissement...



Jack

photo by: Jack