an open wound.

sitting in my room, in my smoker's garb, with the ember of a half lit cigarette guiding my minds eye to a place where fire burns away the excess emotion, the baggage and the grim, leaving only the husky, charred remains of my heart, beaten and made embolden in this crass world. the fire burns, but i can't feel the pain of the extreme heat, nor can i smell the burning of my flesh, but in it's place i feel the burning of my red hot blood surging through my veins, reminding me that i'm alive, that i'm still here, that i have a right to feel, to breathe. the breath i take, the fire i breathe in and the sacrifice i give to this un-named ember, i give freely. i willingly, woefully subject myself to a redemption in solitude. i love not because i have found that which has been missing. i love because it's forced upon me by the same drive that forces me to open my eyes after i blink. the force is untamable, cannot be harnessed but it moves me so. my fingers flash across these plastic squares as though my digits are running freely and of their own accord. when my mind is lost to the tasteless lust that i feed myself with, when my heart yearns for an unknown, unrequited, unwitting reciprocation. i have nothing, therefore i am nothing, therefore everything is as important and as unimportant as everything else. this circle of contradictions does nothing but exacerbate the now unstoppable fire that was started within my soul. this soul fire burns not for a person, but rather an idea that i've created. the idea i've established around a person. persons. it makes no difference. it's not a person i'm searching for, i'm craving. it's this fake, unattainable, perfection that i pretend to see within them, these people. when will i learn that this is a fallible truth? must i be subject to trial by soul fire again and again? to what purpose? to what end am i yielding so much time, effort, energy and pain? there's no light at the end of this tunnel. this tunnels leads NOT into to the fairytale land where the charming justly win their beloved, but rather the cunning and brazen and bold are held up as gods in the eyes of the lusty. no longer is their 'true' love. true pain is the only infallible, requited, unforgiving truth that this soul fire has burned so much away to show me. it's only after i am but a scarred, blackened, brittle fool that i realize i have suffered so much because i WILLED myself to suffer it. if only i wasn't so blind to myself. if only my mind could see through what my heart feels. there's no joy or unending happiness at the end of this, MY tunnel. there are only deeper, darker flames.

Current Location: my room
Current Mood: uncomfortable
Current Music: silence

ah. how much more appropriately can i title a blog then by ripping the name off of a song.

so i'm hanging out with my old roommate and good friend tomas today. i slept over at his place last night and my early morning rehersal conditioning apparently didn't bother to take time off for spring break. which means of course, that i am now fully awake and by myself in my old apartment with three people and a very furry dog who are all passed the fuck out. blog time!!

i've been very confused these last couple of weeks. alot of my mental focus has been either lost or partitioned out to a myriad of random goings-on. i've met a few people whom i feel a very strong connection with. seeing as how i generally don't like other people, and that i tend to be an extreme elitest in regaurds to another persons right to share the planet with me, i find it quite profound that a few people have been able to impress me without particularly trying. (thank you for sitting through that amazing run-on sentance...moving right along). i have a feeling that, should i play my cards right, these people will soon become a few of my close friends. (of which there are very few...surprised? didn't think so) which, obviously, means that they will being to influence my life and visa vera. (honestly though, it's somethign to think about...the future and all....OOOO.....the future....) as you may or may not have noticed, i've been thinking way too much. that being said, i'm incredibly glad it's spring break. i very rarely get to enjoy a spring break. last year i went to new york with the DVC chamber singers. not that the chamber singers were a bad group or that the vocalists were assholes, but i had a shittastic time. i had recently broken up with my girlfriend (very serious relationship by the way) and i wanted to vent out in the only way a 19 year old college sophmore on spring break in new york could. but unfortunatly 1. there was ONE person in the choir over 21, down enough to go buy us a bottle of something. which she bitched about. "oh no, i HATE vodka!! i'm only buying that if i can get raspberry twist. (which, in case you were wondering, increases the vomit factor of vodka by 50%. and there's no way for it to stand alone either...so you're not even gonna get drunk....gah...) 2. 10 people wanted to share one, small, bottle of raspberry vodka. and of course, my favorite, 3. on the whole, choir people SUCK AT GETTING DRUNK!!! a party with choir people must conform to these three rules in some form or another A. someone needs to know how to play alot of stupid ass songs on the guitar B. everyone needs to sing said songs loud and in four part dachauphany. and of course C. there needs to be alot of hott chicks who hate you because you suck at singing and wear clothes you bought at the goodwill. oh yea, and they need to stick in tight little groups and talk about you while you're in the room until, of course, you leave the room and are forced to listen to a bunch of laughing while you're walking back to your hotel room, which is OF COURSE empty because your 30 something year old roommate/coworker is out drinking and getting some serious bar skankage. just pray he goes back to her place.... god, i love spring break. i'm not sure what my problem is, but this year i'm going to chicago with the jazz choir and the jazz bands. now, luckily for me, i'm acctually kool with a majority of the band guys being, as you all should know, a band guy myself. and i also have my good friend alexie with me to rock the joint...hardcore....and as it were, quite inexpensivly. boy howdy i sure do love not having money! at least now i can hit on chicks and when they realize i have nothing to offer them and turn me down, i can be like, "stuck up yuppie bitch!! she's so god damned vain. i hope her black heart engulfs her in the flames of emo hell!!" i think i got that from dante or something....anyway, chicago. hopefully it wont suck. like i'm sure it has a good chance of doing. but my point is this, i don't leave for chicago until friday the twenty-first (what in tarnation?!? you done spelt out numbers wit werds?!?!) and, as it's currently monday the 17th (oh now come on, the one and the seven key is a crapload easier....come on....you elitest bastards...) and as i'm also currently on spring break, i have four days with....nothing....to.......do. which i think is awesome. what's my goal you ask? why it's nothing spectacular. all i ask is that i manage to make up for the sure-to-be-lousy chicago trip with a precurrser of KICK ASS SPRING BREAK-A-PA-LOOSA!!! i know what you must be thinking, "but travis, my amazingly good looking friend, how can you possibly circumvent a terribly expensive trip with a bunch of assholes in only a few days? oh, and my, you're quite dashing today, i must say. because it rhymes....oh dear, look at the time....." well let me tell you my over curteous friend, i claim to not only circumvent the horrible trip, but i make a stand to commepletly blow the trip out of the water with incredible times that shall be had by all!! and the heralds will proclaim my spring break's greatness with all of the trumpets and the voices of a thousand seraphims which with two wings they cover thier bodys, and two wings the cover thier eyes and with the last two, rock the fuck out to my glory!!!! yea, fucking epic....rock on.

so, my point is this, (insert reiteration of thesis argument). thank you for reading and thank school for giving me the ability to make the illusion of eloquence through big words and smaller more difficult words. and...for teaching me that english just isn't worth my time sober. *shakes the hand of the person who first intorduced me to the morning screwdriver*



ta!



~travis

"live long and prosper" - spock (a.k.a. the fucking man)

Current Mood: exanimate

The dying speakers in my beat up old car resounded with the provocative genius of Radiohead. The album, Kid A. Ive had many, MANY, conversations about "the best Radiohead album of all time", which honestly, has yielded nothing more than the forever solid truth that no two people can look at Radiohead in the same way. But this isnt about the best Radiohead album of all time. This is about the sexiest album of all time. As I was listening to Kid A, I had an epiphany! This album exudes everything that is, was, and will be sexy. It is obvious when you hear the CD from beginning to end. Its so perfect. Here, let me show you what I mean.

Starting out with "Everything in its Right Place", with its incredibly ethereal sound and its ability to produce the illusion that every note is being born from the note before. It makes it seem as though this song just oozes with undressing and passionate kissing. Followed by the songs apex, surmounting with a swell of dynamics and texture practically pulling you down to the bed by the collar of your lipstick smeared shirt.

Then we move on to the title track with "Kid A". Coming from the dregs of "Everything", its quaint music-boxish keyboard patch practically screams the ever-amazing, 'look of love into the eyes of the one with whom you are willing to share yourself.' And it doesnt stop there as we continue to listen while the bass and drum set queue in. The bass is silky smooth and it seems as though none of the notes end, but rather, they all just begin, over and over, abolishing the end of any sound. Constant rebirth. Along with the drum set, with it's 'almost too fast' beat that doesn't work just right. Ah!

Then we have "national anthem". Personally, one of my favorites. A bit more like 'ok computer' with it's straight rock feel (rock in the sense of Radiohead....which is more like....some kind of awesome form of rock). The bass line is so perfect and the song's pulse just screams out the rhythm of desire. The song builds up, slow at first, but not in tempo. No, but rather in dynamics. Something Radiohead is infamous for. The texture slowly builds up....up and up. First, with tom's voice run through what sounds like an analog fish tank. Then the brass and woodwinds come in, playing together at first, and then even they go into complete anarchy. Confusion, every pitch, every note, every idea different from the last and the next. The rhythmus make no sense, the some-odd ten musicians are each having a unique musical conversation onto their own...but it WORKS!! Not only does it work, but it's probably the most engaging example of musical semi-minimalism Ive ever heard. The song ends with an almost gruesome chord, which again, just works.

Emerging out from this confusion, this chaos and blind desire, we come up to "How to Disappear Completely". Its andante tempo, which seems like it's just a little too fast for its own good, makes the song have this continuous forward motion. Its laid back bass line and drum beat set a mood of either slow, tender, beautiful mutual emotion or rather, the aftermath. The closeness, the holding, the satisfaction and the sense of oneness. The melody of this song can't help but bring you to focus. to think. to be calm. This is that one song that comes on while you're in the car with a bunch of friends and everyone kind of just quiets up.

Now, Im not going to get into it with every song, because then this will just be too hard to read. As Im sure it already is. But I will say that the album flows. I feel that every song was specifically put into the order it's in now. Go ahead and see for yourself. Put the album in itunes and hit 'random'. Its still really good, but it just doesn't have the same ebb and flow. Thus is the prowess of Radiohead. And this, my friends, is exactly what I want to do through music.

If you did happen to read this whole thing, go ahead and fight me on it. Do you think there's an album other than Radiohead's 'Kid A that you feel is much sexier? Tell me. Im leaving this blog open for opinions, thoughts, and arguments. Go ahead. Go for it. Ta!

~travis

Current Mood: satisfied
Current Music: Kid A - Radiohead

my present

When the capacity to love is no longer prized as a gem but as a burden, when the ability to immediately unconditionally care or another human being is looked at like a disease, when the four letters to which Romeo and Juliet died can be cured with a pill. This is the time in which I live. It..s when nothing pure is true and even blind truth has been rendered fallible by the same who write out witty hallmark cards and make our diets without carbs. When we value the ability to feel nothing over the capacity to die for the one thing you feel, when the people do not represent themselves in a light that they, alone are burning, but rather thrive for the light of another..s visions, no matter how perverse as long as there..s no responsibility and limitless rewards at the end of this façade. Where god and love have been turned into a mask that people wear to hide themselves in yet another glow of dismay. This is the time in which I live; this is the place in which I feel those forbidden emotions, emotions which cannot be expressed without immediate aversion and contempt. When love is confined to conditions and rules, when my heart is but an organ and nothing more. The time in which I live, the time without expression. Where only the manipulation of the present is honored as art or true feeling. Where the paint on the canvas is no longer admired as the soul of the artists and the smile on the mono lisa is merely a broken record..s unstoppable song. A song, which when stopped, destroys itself. Once this song has been stopped, there can be no revival. I live in the next dark age, when music of love can only be presumed to be the mad, private thoughts of a man crazed by lust, only to be followed by the raven..s peck and caw. I do not live my life for personal gain, for wealth, for power. I believe I am impacting the youth of tomorrow with the desire for self-betterment through the emotional adventures that bring to life the words of homer and Sophocles. I believe that tomorrow is a new day, and it..s the last tomorrow, there will never be this tomorrow again, for every tomorrow is destined to be today..s yesterday. The price I pay to feel with my heart is more than the cost of those who refuse to feel or to value those who feel. Their price is the soul, which in the end, is my only prize.

~travis

Current Mood: discontent
Current Music: Kid A - Radiodhead