The Compass

I really need to start keeping links to articles for this. Every month it comes around and I scramble to find something to actually read. I think people still do that, right? Anyways, if anyone’s got some good sites to read things that I can link to in the future, let me know. 

But for now, here are some Tumblr’s I’ve come across since last time:

Luke Dixon: I love this guy’s stuff. He does what I try to do sometimes, but way better.

Mr Harris Tweed: Reminds me of This Isn’t Happiness, you probably already follow it. A lot more nudity though, you’ve been warned. 

I Like Art Alot: Just a collection of random art found on the web. Most of it is great though. Something to fill your feed with pictures if you need that.

Awesome People Hanging Out: Just a tumblr with pictures of awesome people hanging out. What’d you expect?

And of course, three songs:

Avett Brothers- Talk on Indolence (Live) — Recently got into these guys, definitely have been missing out. Yes, it’s another VEVO video which deserves it’s own investigation on why it’s on Youtube and why it makes me watch ads and puts ads around my videos. Song is AWESOME though.

Placebo- Running Up That Hill — If you’ve watched the History channel recently, you’ve probably heard this song. Since I’ve watched so much Pawn Stars and American Pickers in the past two days that I could create a very effective drinking game for them, I heard this song about 200 times on the commercial for the Gettysburg special. Had to find out where it came from.

Portugal. the Man- Do You —I just found this video. Not sure when it first came out, but it is totally not what I was expecting from them in a video. I need to find some more out about it. 

BONUS VIDEO: Justice- Civilization — Finally there’s a video for this song that 1. Has the whole song and 2. Isn’t an ad for Adidas. Enjoy the statue and buffalo carnage. 

I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Jack over the past year here at Elmira College.  We both were enrolled in Major English Authors as well as Craft of Writing Fiction.  After a few short weeks into the term I immediately identified with Jack’s point of view as a reader as well as his voice as a writer.  I could always count on him to shake some sense into our comrades in Craft of Fiction whenever they strayed from one of my stories, and I like to think I did the same for him.  

I read this piece a few weeks ago and was blown away.  Not only am I a huge Nirvana fan but I was truly impressed by the piece and its professionalism.  I hope you all enjoy it, and I thank Jack for allowing me to share it.

The Bridge Keeper of Rock by Jack Day

In hindsight, I suppose it was only a matter of time before I became an avid listener and admirer of Dave Grohl’s riveting and powerful sound as a drummer, guitarist and overall musician. As an eight year old in the fall of 1994, I can remember looking on skeptically as my sister, three years older than me, would sit in front of her stereo and television blaring CD’s and VHS tapes of her favorite band, Nirvana. I would walk into our shared bedroom and become witness to her head banging in adoration of a band, that at the time, I just didn’t understand. The captivating sound of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and the poetic lyrics of “Come As You Are” would resonate from our upstairs bedroom, pungently perfuming our home with the abrasive and melodic sounds of grunge music. I can look back now and find myself waiting for our parents to shout at my sister to turn her music off; but, at the same time remember listening to the music with curious interest. Brushing parental condemnation aside, as my sister continued to indulge in Nirvana, their iconic sound and the current sound of Dave Grohl’s Foo Fighters had been ingrained in me, whether or not I had known it at the time.

In 1989 it had become clear that Grohl’s band Scream wasn’t going to break free from the underground confines of the punk rock scene. The band’s No More Censorship album had sold a less than stellar 10,000 copies and they were dropped from their label. Now Grohl and band-mates had no record deal, no money—and, when they returned from a European tour to discover that they had been evicted from their shared house, no home either. Dave Grohl grew tired of the struggle. “Even though I was only 21, I was starting to question this as a decision,” Grohl admitted in MOJO magazine in 2009. “I was like, Do I really want to be homeless, for the rest of my life? I was tired of having absolutely nothing, I was tired of being hungry, tired of being lost, and tired of being tired…I just wanted to go home.”

Stranded and depressed, Grohl called Melvins frontman Buzz Osbourne, and explained the band’s difficulties. “And Buzz said ‘Have you heard of Nirvana? They’re looking for a drummer.’ So then I had the hardest decision of my entire life,” said Grohl. “Do I stay in Los Angeles with my best friends, or do I move on? I remember saying to Franz Stahl [Scream guitarist] that I was going up to try out for the band, and he just shook his head and said, ‘You ain’t coming back.’ And deep down I knew it too.”

Grohl joined Nirvana after the band had already released their first record Bleach. He first began recording with the band as they started to piece together their second, music changing album, Nevermind. Novoselic has said they picked Grohl because he was such “a hard hitter” on the drums and Kurt Cobain has said if he had a choice between the legendary drummer of Led Zeppelin, Jon Bonham or Grohl he’d take Grohl. The album Nevermind garnered critical acclaim and Nirvana soon became rock superstars shortly after its release. On January 12, 1992 Nirvana’s albumreplaced Michael Jackson’s Dangerous atop the Billboard charts. And at some point during the early morning hours, while the band was knocking Michael Jackson from his perch, the band’s frontman [Cobain] had shot up heroin and overdosed. Cobain somehow managed to live through that incident. “There were a lot of those…incidents that you just found out about later, in a weird way, it just became this…thing that nobody knew what to do about. If you’ve ever known someone who’s battled something like that…you just know that there’s nothing you can do…” Grohl explained to MOJO Magazine in 2009.

Cobain was already using heroin when Grohl, 21, moved into the singer’s apartment in 1990. The drummer, still a young kid from Virginia was somewhat oblivious to the issues surrounding Cobain’s drug use. “I didn’t know anything about heroin; I barely knew anything about cocaine. My drug career was limited to heavy hallucinogenics and mountains of weed. I never did coke, I never did heroin, I didn’t fucking need speed…and in Virginia, none of us had any fucking money to buy drugs anyway.”

The album Nevermind is regularly placed in Rolling Stone’s top twenty greatest albums of all time. And though Nirvana had at this point attained rock stardom, it was clear to Grohl that the band’s future was in jeopardy. He always knew that the late Kurt Cobain was destined not to live a full life.

Grohl told BBC Radio 1 in 2008, that he had prepared himself for an incident such as Cobain’s suicide in 1994. “There are some people that you meet in life that you just know that they are not going to live to be a 100 years old…usually it takes something like that for people to appreciate life as a gift and you have to take advantage of the time that you have. Sometimes you just can’t save someone from themselves.” 

Kurt Cobain’s suicide on April 5, 1994 signaled the end for Nirvana. Of the tragedy, Grohl said, “It was probably the worst thing that has happened to me in my life. I remember the day after that I woke up and I was heartbroken…I get to have another day and he doesn’t.” Surely, no one expected the band’s drummer, Dave Grohl, to leave the comfortable confines behind his drum kit and move to the forefront of one of the most successful rock bands of the next seventeen years. But, that is exactly what happened.

In October, 1994, some six dark months after Kurt Cobain’s death, Dave Grohl booked time at Robert Lang Studios in Seattle to begin recording solo material titled Foo Fighters in an effort to maintain anonymity. Grohl, however, was unsure of where his future truly lay. Then there was a phone call from Tom Petty, a man that Grohl deeply admired, and who coincidentally had just parted ways with his band’s volatile drummer Stan Lynch.

“Right when the thing with Stan Lynch happened, we were already booked to go on Saturday Night Live so that left us high and dry,” explained Petty in MOJO magazine, 2009. “So we thought, first of all, who’s a great drummer? Dave Grohl is our favorite drummer right now and he isn’t doing anything. So I called Dave’s office. He phoned back and was really keen to do it,” Explained petty.

Grohl’s appearance with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on Saturday Night Live aired on November 19, 1994, and, though unheralded at the time, it marked his first public performance since Cobain’s death. “I didn’t get that deep with him about Kurt Cobain,” recalled Petty. “What I did talk to him about was joining the Heartbreakers. He thought about it but he was torn. He told me he’d just completed the first Foo Fighters album on which he’d played everything, so the idea of actually being in a band really appealed to him. But I told him that with that going on, and with a deal, he would be unhappy with us. We’re an older bunch of guys and I thought he would be happier doing his own thing,” recalled Petty.  Petty’s frankness seems to have steered Grohl in the right direction as he and the Foo Fighters have had a career that has long-since outlasted Nirvana’s. Some seventeen years later, Petty remains a firm friend and fan of Grohl’s. “He’s become his own force of nature with his band,” remarked Petty. “He’s got tremendous energy and a lot of power, and he sings with a lot of power. He’s a musician who came up playing live and you can tell that he really knows his chops.”

Petty isn’t the only one that believes Dave Grohl knows his chops. Foo Fighters supported Bob Dylan on the Modern Times tour. Grohl was in his dressing room when he received a message that Mr. Dylan wanted to see him. Grohl walked out of his dressing room “and he’s standing like a silhouette in a dark corner—black leather boots, black leather pants, black leather jacket. He said, ‘What’s that’s song you got, Everlong? He said, ‘Man, that is a great song, I should learn that song’.” Grohl just laughed. “So I don’t give a fuck what anybody else thinks,” he added. “Bob Dylan likes one of my songs. That right there is enough for me.”

It’s not only legendary rockers Petty and Dylan that admire Grohl’s music. On Tuesday April 25, 2006 a small earthquake shook Tasmania, Australia. The result was the collapse of the Beaconsfield gold mine and two miners having been trapped beneath crumbled rock. Five days after the collapse the two miners were found alive and asked if they needed anything while they waited to be dug out—they asked for an Ipod—an Ipod with the music of the Foo Fighters. “I was really blown away, ya know, I was like fuck, the guy is trapped in a mine, he wants water and our last record? It doesn’t make any sense.” Dave Grohl jokingly explained in a CBC television interview in 2008. Grohl, moved by the incident, sent a personal note to the miners telling him that he hoped they were hanging in there and that he had tickets and some cold beers waiting for them when they got out. Sure enough, when the miners got out they drank “a lot of beers,” according to Grohl and in September 2007, the Foo Fighters released a tribute, Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners, to the miners on their album Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace.

The year 2009 was supposed to be a year off for Grohl, a chance to enjoy proper downtime with his family at the end of a decade during which Foo Fighters established themselves as one of the worlds biggest rock groups. That plan didn’t quite work out, because since then Grohl has been working with a new project Them Crooked Vultures, a band he willed into existence during a 2005 MOJO interview, when he nominated Queens Of The Stone Age vocalist/guitarist Josh Homme and Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones as two musicians with whom he’d like to collaborate. “I wasn’t entirely serious, it was more wishful thinking Grohl admitted in a 2009 MOJO interview. “But the responsibility of the Foo Fighters can sometimes be overwhelming and so my band all have side-projects—pressure release valves we can hit to keep everyone from losing their mind. And I mentioned it back then because I felt I needed another ‘In Case Of Emergency Break Glass’ band. And as Josh is my favorite guitarist and John is my favorite bass player I thought it might be fun.”

Looking at the musical journey Dave Grohl has undertaken since his days as a 17-year-old high school drop-out. The kid who started playing music by imitating The Beatles and Ringo Star by beating pillows in his bedroom now has Paul McCartney’s pin in his Blackberry and considers him a friend: “He’s the sweetest guy,” Grohl has said. “I love him to death.” Now there are three separate chapters of Grohl’s life on the shelves of record shops worldwide—the DVD of Nirvana’s classic 1992 Reading festival headline show, the DVD of Foo Fighters Live at Wembley Stadium and now Them Crooked Vultures debut album. If ever this most unassuming rock star could be forgiven for giving him-self a pat on the back, this would be it.

“I’m proud of a lot of the shit I’ve done,” Grohl has admitted. “I feel blessed that I’ve got to experience all these things, and accomplish so much. And do I think it’s luck? No. Do I work hard? Yes. Am I fucking good at what I do? I think so. But am I going to tell everybody in the world that I think I’m a great songwriter and amazing drummer and huge rock star? No, that’s not my fucking style. It still amazes me that we’ve taken this thing from a fucking demo cassette made in five days to selling out two nights at Wembley Stadium with Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones. You get there and it would be very easy to say, all right, let’s pack it up, we don’t need to do anything else, what more can we possibly accomplish? I really can’t imagine where we go from here, man I never thought any of this was possible. But, you know, I remember that certain people really resented me for having the audacity or gall to keep playing music after Nirvana, and at the time that, to me, was the most ridiculous thing. I wasn’t finished. And you know what, I’m still not finished.”

Many have been devoured by the drug that is the pressure associated with being a rockstar. Grohl’s drug is being exactly that, thrashing his drums with caveman aggression or standing at the lip of the stage releasing a signature barbaric yawp at thousands of fans is what fuels him.  In his encore at Wembley Stadium in June of 2008, Grohl stopped midway through one of his band’s signature songs “Best of You.” He turns his back to the crowd and looks at Taylor Hawkins on the drums: They stare hypnotically at one another they say nothing but their eyes speak volumes—they tell a story of a band that is still overwhelmed and humbled by their success—they are in disbelief of the 86,000 fans shouting their song in worship. Grohl turns back to engage the crowd, he brushes his sweat soaked hair back from his face and gazes out upon the sea of flickering lighters, he can’t believe where he is. He rubs his eyes with both hands and shakes his head. Dave Grohl, the man who withstood and endured every struggle a musician can encounter and one of the world’s most accomplished rockers is brought to tears on stage. Still crying, Grohl carries on and finishes the performance and then thanks the crowd with welled up eyes. His emotion is raw and his sound is visceral—this is his drug.

Hey guys its Tuesday and its link day.  Awwww yeah son.

1. Game of Thrones is the best show on Television, Get yourself a taste.

2. Portal 2 is the new hotness.  And it is just as hilarious and awesome as the first one.  Do yourself a favor, and get another taste.

3. New Epic Meal Time, Obligatory link taste.

4. I don’t necessarily like guns, but FPS Russia cracks my shit up.  Tasty taste taste

5. Bob Dylan is 70.  That is crazy and it makes Raven happy, saggy old Dylan TASTE.

Hello everyone!

There are very few people outside of the Compass and immediate family that I would take a bullet for.  Mr. T is one of those people.  And so is James Riley.  I met him two years ago and since then, we have grown to be very good friends.  He also happens to be one of the smartest people I know and has a certain finesse with the written word that is oh so attractive, much like his beard.  I cannot thank him enough for sending me some of his work for this week; it really is an honor.  I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did.

-Anthony

——-

Museum of Idiots

by James Riley

All of my friends are dead and I live in a museum. That isn’t a metaphor or some bullshit sentimental statement about being old, though I am old. I am an old man who doesn’t have the courtesy to just die already.

             To be truthful, most of my friends died long before everything went to shit. Al Reggo died of a heart attack on his 40^th birthday. What a fucking party that was. John Pickler joined and died in the Navy, that shithead. And Steve Walkowsk just got too old to live.

            Really, it was only Vida that I lost after Overshoot Day. I suppose most widowers feel intense sadness and loss when their wife passes. What a bullshit phrase that is, huh? Passes. Nobody passes anymore.  Everyone DIES. Fucking pigshit dead.

            My wife is dead as a goddamn doornail.  I watched Vida get torn apart by wild hogs. In the movies and books (I’m old enough to remember things like this were entertainment) it’s always dogs that go feral or lions or bears. But they are too picky when it comes to eating.

A pig’ll eat anything you put close enough to its snout.  When I was 18, I spent a summer out in Oregon working on an “organic” farm. Even there the pigs were fucking ruthless eaters. They would root around for anything. It was a real problem for the farmer’s whole “no chemicals” thing.

            Truth be told, I didn’t see her get torn apart. I heard her get torn apart. But I ran like hell. We were both running like hell.  I couldn’t even look back at her. It was like fucking Sodom.  That’s what we are living in now, Old Testament Wrath and Punishment. I suppose I really do miss Vida. We were high school sweethearts and I loved her. I still love her. But, I couldn’t handle things the way they are with her around.  But mostly I just regret not fucking someone else when I had the chance.

            I suppose that I could still do it. Have sex, I mean. My equipment still works, but I haven’t seen a woman anywhere near my age. And how goddamn comical would that be, an old man with a young girl? It’s foolish. It’s shameful. That sort of thing used to fly but what would be the point now? It’s one of those absurd things that people used to do, but not anymore.

            People used to do all kinds of crazy shit. Did you know, for example, that some Mongolians used to cover themselves in nothing but horse shit and ride into battle screaming. Even crazier? Some people used to murder entire towns for shiny rocks.  Hurray for progress.

            We do strange stuff now. Well, it would have seemed strange to me years ago, but now it is just the way things are. For instance, There’s the old man. Older and crazier than I am and that’s saying a whole fucking lot.  His name is Walter, but most everyone calls him Don Quixote because he lives in the Medieval Wing and wears a full suit of armor. He used to be a professor at SUNY New Paltz before it closed and I suppose that when you spend all that time thinking about knights and castles and that sort of stuff you start to think you are in a movie or something. I can’t tell if he has actually gotten worse since he moved in or if he is just foxing everyone. Crazy is a good defense. People generally don’t fuck with crazy people. That’s why the Mongols did so well for themselves. Well that and their armor and weapons. Some, of course, did wear armor and if the stuff in the display case is any indication I have to say it is quite comfortable. It holds up pretty good, it breathes and it’s light. Hurray for the Mongols.

            You can be crazy as a shit-house rat, but for my money armor is pretty good too. It isn’t always necessary but when gangs come by you don’t have to worry. No one really wants to be kings of these wastelands except a couple of looney tunes and some young bucks that haven’t known anything different than this. There are some desperate people out there but if you look like you are too much trouble they will keep on moving. It’s like bears. The only way to defend against a black bear is to make it look you would be too much trouble to kill. That’s the only option.

            It used to be that people weren’t afraid to die. But now people aren’t afraid to kill. Keeping a samurai sword with me is helpful. The first time I cut off someone’s arm all I could think of was that commercial about those knives that could cut through cinder blocks and then slice a tomato. Four hundred years and the sword still cuts through people like they were butter. Hurray for the Japanese.    

            But hell it ain’t so bad. I’m not complaining anyway. I’ve got a warm place to sleep and somewhere to ride out the last years of my life. Truth be told, I kinda always wanted this. When I was a kid, fourteen or so, I always thought about living in a museum. I guess it came from growing up where I did. The DuPont family owned half the town. They were the Hapsburgs of the greater Brandywine river area: Inbred and crippled. Man, you couldn’t go to school, get sick, or walk in the park without seeing their name. And their houses? Shit. You’ve never seen so many useless rooms. All of them museums by the time I was a little shit. Botanical gardens, art museums, and fucking historical societies, all in what used to be someone’s home. Even if they were old rich snobs. Even if they were racist sexist criminals who built their fortune off the low-wage labor of shmucks like my father and his, at least they gave us parks. At least we got a bit of walking room. A consolation prize. It’s more than you’ll get from most people. Anyway, I used to walk around those parks and think about getting rich and building myself a museum to live in. Hurray for dreams coming true.

             There is still a general confusion about what happened and why things went straight to shit. It has something to a global financial meltdown but I don’t understand all that crap. But while I don’t fully get it, the best explanation I have ever heard is a simplified half-true metaphor. Is it true? Who cares. It is a story and I get it. Sometimes that is all any of us need. 

            During World War II there was this remote uninhabited island in the Bering Strait and the American Navy wanted to stockpile some food there. So what those geniuses decided to do was ship twenty nine reindeer there. Why reindeer? Well it wasn’t because they taste good and it sure as shit wasn’t because they smell good. I guess it’s because Reindeer are cheap and they love lichen and can actually live on shit scraps of land in weather that is cold as balls.

            Anyway the reindeer fucked and ate until there were six-thousands of them running around that island. And it only took them 19 years for christsakes! That’s what happens when you have zero predators and no competition. But when you only have one thing that is important to living, well it only takes one late winter to turn six-thousand reindeer to forty two females and one infertile male. Poor fucking buck. It’s a damn shame he couldn’t do anything with them. Was a time when human beings would blow themselves up for exactly that situation.   

            Well as the metaphor goes the island is earth and we are the reindeer. Only with us, it’s a bigger scale thing. They say it took us about 400,000 years to get to this point so unlike the reindeer our population boom wasn’t so quick but, in our defense, we had a lot more things to kill. And we made it to 8 trillion people, so that ain’t too shabby. Some scientists pinpointed the day that we first had too many people for the world to possibly support. But of course they don’t all agree, bunch of dopes. They do agree that whenever it was, Overshoot day was the first snowfall of this 11 year long winter we live in. We sure as shit ain’t going anywhere overnight. No, the human race is going to linger on.            

            That damn woman is singing again. Her name is Marlena. She only got here a couple of days ago and she is driving me up the wall.  I mean it’s not my house and I don’t make the rules, you know? People come and go and it is no skin off my ass what they do as long they don’t take more than their share of the food.  But she walks around here in silk gowns like it’s a fucking palace or something. Gowns, I might add that come from an exhibit. But I pull down one fucking painting and suddenly I am a monster or something. Who the fuck cares if it is a Degas? There’s plenty of other fucking pictures of ballerinas in the room and we need the kindling. 

            That’s the other thing. She says I cuss too much. Maybe, I do cuss a lot. Fine. But the world is fucking burning and what the fuck does she want me to say? Fiddlesticks? I see a person get stabbed and I am supposed to just say oh poop? She isn’t crazy like Don Quixote, so I just want to know where the fuck she thinks she is. 

            I want to throttle her, but she has this way of being so calm that’s just so goddamn frustrating. She reminds me of one of the Buddhist statues in the Asian Art Wing. Avalokitasvara is what the placard says. She is supposed to be posed in the abiding calm position it says. All I know anymore is what fucking placards tell me.

            That woman is going to kill me. I am sure of it. I’ll die of a heart attack or she’ll get me killed looking after that sprout of hers. The baby is just like her mother. Nut brown and stupid. That is what I hate about her: she is only a fucking child. Now that I am thinking about it she looks more like that statue of Mary with the infant Jesus. They were a couple of dopes too. Sticking their noses where they don’t belong and trying to help preserve shit that should just burn.

            The kid, it seems, is a bastard. Possibly from rape. But you wouldn’t tell it from the looks she gives him. Fawning all over him. Coddling. Kids used to be born with no idea what kind of shit was in store for them. And now? Ha! How could it get worse you could have asked me forty years ago. And I’d just have to shrug and say “Beats the hell out of me.” I must be old, listen to that. Driving around the city I grew up in, my father would point out places that used to be. “That used to a bakery” he said pointed to a suspicious corner store. “There used to be DuPont weddings there.” He said of a struggling church in the neighborhood he moved out of. And I can’t help but think that where I am now, there used to be a beaver pond.

            Me and Vida never had a kid. She was infertile but you know, life and lemons. I wonder if we could’ve had them, would we have been good parents. Well no. I know Vida would have been.  Would I? Aw hell. Listen to me. I wasn’t and that’s that. The point is that not having a kid or kids or even pets, we moved around a lot. After the miscarriage, she took up painting. “Maybe a hobby would help” I said, I never thought she would get a fucking career. Let alone a revolutionary one. She said that she was happier painting than she had ever been in her life. She took up half my drafting room when she started getting serious and we moved to Brooklyn, when she said she needed a place “to create.” I hated it when she talked like that. What I really hated was that there was no demand for my architecture. No one was building anything then. So I quit  and started hobbies of my own. Gardening. Fishing.  Turns out that that was a start of a career for me too. All it took was a global fucking collapse.

            Vida became a celebrity and started going around to parties in Manhattan with a whole bunch of fucks that probably sniffed their own socks after taking them off. I was never so bored in my entire life than while at those parties. It makes me happy to know that all of those smarmy picks are probably long dead by now.

            I guess I do like the little shit. I mean I don’t really have to watch him. It really should make no difference to me if he dies. But I’ll be damned if I don’t clench my teeth in anxiousness every time that little shit runs around the museum. He is tough, I’ve seen him take a header a few times and get back up and keep squealing around the fountain. Actually the only time I have seen him cry when he hits the hard marble floor is when his mother sees it happen. She runs over and lets the kid know there is something to cry about. I’ve told her not to but she doesn’t listen. Besides why deny this kid the only kindness he’s likely to ever have.

            I watch the kid when Marlena does her work. We all have to work to stay here, that’s the only rule. I help farm and maintain the fisheries in the fountains and ponds. Marlena weaves shirts which look remarkably like the shirts in the folk art wing. I asked her about it and I got a pieces of her story. Her grandmother used to weave in Mexico and after the family moved to America she spent her time weaving shirts for nobody. Marlena’s mother was much too busy to keep up the tradition but Marlena spent afternoons at her grandmother’s feet watching her weave complex beautiful shirts that make Marlena’s, she assures me, look cheap and gaudy. She said  “It is not easy to learn. You only see a little and remember less.” Exactly right.

            I tried to figure out more of how she ended up here but she only shrugged it off. “You have to keep moving. Until you don’t, I guess,” she said. That is exactly right too.

            Now everyone has lost their goddamn mind. Marlena has thrown everything out of whack. Walter challenged me to armed combat for christsakes! The old loon is gonna forget in a day or two as long as we don’t cross paths, but still. He started with that “m’lady” crap about three weeks ago.  I should have known. She is like a fucking witch, or something. Circe. 

            Anyway, it was the town council that I figure she’s taken control.

            Todd, he fancies himself a mayor or something, was talking about trading with those zealots down on Ellis Island. I said we should let those stupid cult fucks rot. If anyone thinks it is a good idea to send people to an island where they sacrifice people to their god, then that person is a fucking idiot. That’s what I am living in: a museum of idiots.

            So Todd starts telling me about how isn’t proper parliamentary procedure to interrupt before the motion is brought to a vote.

            And I am just about to tell him what he can do with his procedures and show him a few motions of my own when all of a sudden Marlena stands up and starts talking about how unsafe things are getting here and how we need to start thinking long term. She says that in Akron, Ohio they were starting to build schools and hospitals and they even have a post office. Well Holy Shit! That just great, I can send them a postcard. “Greetings from Manhattan! Having a Wonderful Apocalypse! Wish You Were Here.” 

            It’s just like in Vida’s and my neighborhood in Brooklyn. It wasn’t the roughest place but it was working class. It was a real neighborhood and I liked it. You get a routine going and things are pretty good. Me and Al Reggo would have lunch at the diner on the corner every day. The food wasn’t great but it was good enough. I liked it anyway.

            Anyway, these yuppie pricks start moving in and changing shit that don’t need to be changed. They even suggested that we could replace the fire alarm with a pager system. “Well in Connecticut, all the fire stations have it.” Move the fuck back to Connecticut then you stupid motherfuckers. I liked hearing that siren. You know why? It let me know I wasn’t going to burn the fuck up! That’s what’s wrong with people today. Shit couldn’t be more fucked up but they are damn sure gonna try.      

            So at the meeting I say, I don’t give a damn about no fucking post office and she don’t look mad or nothing. She just shrugs it off, like maybe I’m right or maybe I’m not. And that really gets me hot. I say “If you don’t care then don’t bring it up”

            She says “I am sorry Mr. Lancer. I don’t mean to overstep my bounds here. I just thought that we could think about these sorts of things in terms of how they affect the future.”

            I say “Fuck the future and fuck you.”  I’m not proud of it, I just got so angry.  I mean, what the fuck is that Mr. Lancer bullshit, huh? It’s fucking condescending. My name is Frank goddamn it. Mr. Lancer isn’t my father either. He was Robert. His father was Emil. I hate that shit.

            Todd has been trying to get order but he’s given up and no one is listening to him. Everyone is looking down but waiting to see what is going to happen. She doesn’t say anything but just looks sad, like a reprimanded child. I feel like an asshole. And Walter comes up to me and throws down his gauntlet. She tries to stop him and says everything is ok but I guess it really isn’t.

            I should apologize. I won’t. I couldn’t get talking about all of it. Once you start feeling like a jackass you can’t stop no matter what happens. Shit. 

            For fuck sake, what is wrong with me? I watch her walking down the halls. She is beautiful and the silk gown she wears doesn’t cover her breasts fully. The little sprout runs up and down the halls giggling when he passes her because she reaches out to grab him. She looks absently at the paintings letting them kinda wash over her, like maybe if she does it enough she’ll eventually see them when she closes her eyes. And all I can do is watch her.

            It has been a week since the meeting and I don’t know what to say. I tried to say something to her the other day. I had a whole thing planned out, about how sometimes I speak without thinking and say things I don’t mean. How I am an old man and how my temper gets the best of me and I was way out of line with what I said. I even practiced it for christsakes! I must be losing my marbles. I mean what the hell am I thinking? Anyway there was no point. She just kissed me on the forehead and walked away before I could get anything out. I don’t think Jesus felt as awful when he was kissed. I can’t handle this shit.

            At least Walter didn’t try to fight me. I think she might have smoothed things over with him too. I saw them walking after the meeting. To be honest, that pisses me off too but I am not going to get all bent out of shape about it. She was trying to help. But what am I, a child? I’ll fight the dumb bastard if he wants.

            I guess she has forgiven me without me having to ask. She still has me watch the sprout but I don’t take him outside. I know that upsets her a little.  He isn’t a complete moron. I like the little shit actually. As far as kids go he isn’t loud and he never cries. The only time I really hear him is when he laughs and that little shit thinks everything is funny.  He thinks that the Picassos are the most goddamn hilarious things he’s ever seen. I’ve let him draw on a couple. No one comes into the Modern Art wing and I think they look better that way. We sword fight too. His mother, probably, would be more pissed off with the Picasso thing. But the kid can’t get hurt, we use the European ones. Those are so blunt that they might as well be sticks. It is amazing to think they got anywhere with that shit. Hurray for germs, I guess.

             She is driving me nuts and she doesn’t even know it. What the hell am I going to do?

            It was the little shit’s birthday today. I went over to the Natural History Museum and got him a Hopi Doll and a yo-yo. Those miserable fucks really fucked me on it though. I mean two whole goddamn deer? For a couple of toys? They had me by the short hairs so what the fuck.

            I was thinking about getting him a knife but his mom wouldn’t like that at all. I’d like to see what she would say if he ever fucking needed it. He better appreciate the effort it took to get those gifts, that’s all I am saying. What am I saying? My father taught me all about the value of a dollar, but where the hell did that get him? Nowhere.  And anyway a dollar is worth absolutely dick now. It only matters what you can do for yourself. I should have got him a knife. Well next year. If there is a next year.  

            The party goes off and it’s alright. It’s not like Chuck E. Cheese or anything but the kid gets a cake and he seems pretty happy with everything. I don’t know where the hell she found the stuff to make a cake but it’s not half bad. Obviously, it’s small so we all only get a taste except for the kid, who gets a proper piece. He has chocolate all over his face and for a second, just a second, I forget where I am. It seems right and natural but only for a second and the feeling passes.  

            It doesn’t seem as stupid to celebrate his birthday as I thought it would and I think that’s mostly because it’s not a big deal. I show him how to use the yo-yo but he is too short and even on a step stool he couldn’t get it.  He was amazed watching me do it, though. He has been dragging it around him all day like a dog or something. He likes the doll too. He has been clutching it to his chest.       

            The party reminds me of those parties that Vida used to drag me to. I don’t particularly want to talk to anyone. And Todd is boring everyone with some fucking story about some bullshit or other. Maybe it’s his reminiscing of life before he came here or maybe it’s his bullshit account of a run in with a gang. That fuck has only got four stories. So I sit alone at the table and just watch Marlena play with the sprout. Someone got him a ball and she is throwing to him and he is giggling his ass off.  He can’t catch worth a damn, but he still loves it.  She loves it too. She is smiling wider that he is and she is downright beautiful. I’m lost for more than a moment this time and our eyes meet when the kid runs over to me to get me to play ball for a little bit.

            I throw the ball to him, toss it really, and it hits him in the face. Not hard but Marlena tenses up and so do I. But he just laughs and runs after the ball. Marlena’s eyes meet mine and she smiles and looks away. The kid and I play some more.

            We had a picnic and it was like living in old New York except that it felt more like Yellowstone than Central Park. But a rifle shot will scare off most animals. Anyway it was just like when me and Vida used to spend Saturday afternoons in the Prospect Park. Vida liked Central Park more but I always loved that Prospect Park had so many overgrown areas.  I liked watching the Puerto Rican families barbecue and then play soccer. I never really saw that kind of thing in Central Park. I always thought that Central Park was exactly what Manhattanites would have made nature if they could have recreated the world, pleasant but ordered. It makes me happy to see that shit break down. It is amazing how fast plants take over a place breaking up concrete with their roots. Sometimes, I forget that I wanted to build things for a living.

            The sprout is running around and I tell him not to go too far and to stay where his mother can see him and I think Marlena is as surprised at me as I am. But the kid listens so nothing happens.

            I start to talk to Marlena about how nice it is to be outside and how much I am enjoying the wildness of the park. I start to talk about how skyscrapers are hubris pure and simple. It is a conversation I have had with Vida a few times. I fully expect Marlena to counter back with regurgitated arguments from some book by some Dutch professor I couldn’t give a shit about but she doesn’t.

            She just says how they are too big to have so many of them, that’s all. She starts talking about Tower of Babel and how that was hubris but a good kind. She says, “People were working together to reach heaven to share a unity. They did it so they wouldn’t be scattered or broken. But when God saw how people worked together and they could do anything, that scared the hell out of him. He never thought that we could all point all our individual free wills together in the same direction. I guess it just never occurred to him that we could all be free and united.”

            “So he broke them apart and gave them different languages so that no one would ever really understand anyone else. And so that is why everyone wanted their own tower. Hubris isn’t the problem, by itself. It never was.”

            She figures that God broke them all up and made them all want to be gods themselves and that is how everything went to shit. And I ask then what does it mean now that building those individual towers scattered up everyone again. After all they were just temples to the new god of commerce. I ask her if she thinks God got mad because we worshiped money. But she says it hasn’t got anything to do with that and it hasn’t got anything to do with nature. And I ask her what the fuck has it got to do with.

            She says, “It’s got to do with … I don’t know. Compassion, maybe? Or kindness. It’s got to do with not wanting to control everything and being happy building your little part of the tower.”

            I laugh. “You think that the shit we are going through is because of compassion?” I say.

            She says “Or a lack of compassion. Maybe, God decided it was better the way things were and wanted to fix his mistakes. He’s done that before.”

            I say “There isn’t a God. That’s a nursery school stroke job like when they used to talk about American exceptionalism. But if there was a God, he would have been pissed off that there were more towers now. He’d be angry that even working against each other people would be able to challenge him.”

            She says “That could be. But if that is true what difference does it make? Why does that mean we shouldn’t be compassionate?”

            I don’t have an answer and we sit there in silence.

            After a while I say “My wife used to be an artist, you know.”

            “I didn’t know you had a wife,” she says sweetly like I didn’t just insult her with all that God shit.            

            “That’s because She’s dead, so you weren’t likely to make her acquaintance.”

            “I’m sorry.”

            “Don’t fucking be. You have got nothing to fucking do with it. Anyway, the point is she used to be an artist and we would talk about art. I never knew as much as she did about it but I could talk a little without sounding like a complete shithead. Anyway, I always felt defensive when we talked, like she automatically had more important things to say because she was an artist. She always talked about the soul of a creator and how the artist is like God in that way. And I would ask what about everyone else. What does that mean for them? Anyway, sorry if I was too defensive with you.”

            “You don’t much care for art, do you?”

            “I wouldn’t say that exactly. Sometimes I do. But I think it’s a lot of bullshit too. I knew a lot of people who had no perspective on that sort of thing at all. But there is some works that I really love.”

            “I can see what you mean. I wonder how long it will take to have people start doing it all again.”

            I want to ask her if she means specifically art or what but the little sprout runs out and he cut himself so the conversation ends there. We patch him up and just all sit together for a while in the cool breeze of the afternoon. We make our way back to the museum long before the sun goes down.

            Shit. I was happy just to die here and then this shit happens. Marlena told me that she is on her way out. She said that she and the sprout are moving south. With winter coming they can’t take the cold. Well he can’t take the cold. He’s got a fever and that sort of thing can kill a man, let alone a child, so I get it. She didn’t ask me to come. She knew what she was doing. She just said that I could come if I wanted to. Now I am not saying I’d go if she’d asked but I sure as shit ain’t gonna make myself a supplicant to go on same damn fool trip.

            Still, would it be right to let her go alone? She’ll be safe enough moving out with the trade caravan and the kid might even make it. There are doctors down south. But it will be lonely traveling and ain’t no one going to care about her in that caravan. She might as well be alone.

            But I can’t go. I am too old for that. And what would be the point? It’s not like we could have any type of relationship. That is just a shit idea.  But it is a shit idea I can’t shake. I can’t stop thinking about getting up and going down to my hometown and dying there instead of here. It would be a hell of a lot more comfortable and I would be happier. Marlena and the sprout could come too, if they wanted. I haven’t been back there since I left for school up here when I was eighteen and come to think about it I can’t remember the last time I’ve really been off this island in. Christ, it must have been a trip to Europe with Vida. It can’t be that all that bad outside can it?

            I don’t really want to die in this museum with the rest of these people. Especially not Todd. I swear if that fuck is the last person that will just about ruin my afterlife.  So I guess that makes up my mind.  I’ll go. It’s like she said, you just keep moving until you don’t and I have some movement left. For christsakes, I am not dead yet.    

(Comments)

Hi everyone!

Because I am extremely busy this week (and next week for that matter), I want to feature other people’s work.  So hopefully they will send me their stuff soon.  As for now, I have a paper to write that was due yesterday so we will all see how this week works out.  Links later this week.

-Anthony

I have spent the past three days attempting to listen to “Pensacola” by Manchester Orchestra as much as possible. It has been the only song on my soundtrack for walking to work. I have listened to it all day at work. It has consumed me. The song first entered my consciousness this past Saturday, when I went to see Manchester Orchestra perform in Rochester, New York. The tickets were a surprise gift from Anthony, one of the creators here at The Compass. We went with several friends from Elmira College, as well as my brother James and his roommate. I had only heard one song from this band before entering the Music Hall, and I was not excited. Concerts can be alienating and uncomfortable even when you’re familiar with the artist. But now I wish that I could return to that night and stay there.

“Pensacola” is catchy, eloquent and powerful. When Andy Hull sings, “My daughter, she barely eats. She barely sleeps. She barely speaks,” with the horns accentuating his melody, I want to scream along from the rooftops of Manchester. It brings me back to that night, discovering a band, surrounded by friends – my former roommate and one of my closest friends at Elmira, Joe, was there as well – and full of laughter. It was also the last night that Dr. Michael Kiskis was alive.

I first met Dr. Kiskis during my sophomore year of college. It was Term II, the beginning of 2007, and I was taking American Literature: 1945 to Present with him. After seeing Kurt Vonnegut’s name on the syllabus, I grew excited with the prospect of finally reading the work of a man my parents had often praised. I was not prepared for the mental strains Vonnegut’s writing, combined with numerous other factors, would cause me. Slaughterhouse-Five is about a man who has come “unstuck in time,” and for me it was easy to lose myself in a questioning of reality. I was also taking European History II, in which we discussed the horrors of the Holocaust. Confronting callousness and extreme disregard for human life caused me to question my own desire to persevere. How can we go on when the same selfishness and ruthless that led to the Holocaust exists in a more basic form all around us? From Vonnegut and other American authors we studied, What if everything we think about time and the world isn’t quite right, and the orderly systems I’ve grown up relying on are fundamentally flawed? How can I keep going?

A few things happened between the week of finals in April and my return to Elmira in the fall that helped me to get out of this existential funk. During the Spring Term, I discovered The Office and fell in love with Pam Beesley, a woman who stood up for herself and took control of her world. That summer, when I discovered that my efforts weren’t appreciated or amounting to much, I quit my job at a place where I had worked for more than ten years. These two pieces helped set the stage for a major transformation, but it was “The American Renaissance” that helped me break through that door.

September of 2007 was the beginning of Term I of my junior year, and I was about to discover Ralph Waldo Emerson. Dr. Kiskis had us spend three weeks reading the essays of this exasperating writer, whose text was dense and troublesome. I loved every minute of those weeks. From “The American Scholar” to “The Over-Soul” to “Self-Reliance,” I was repeatedly discovering how we are able to overcome the limitations that society seeks to place on us, but only if we are willing to make the hard decisions necessary to get there. Accessing the Truth is not easy; if it were, more people would do it. But for those who have been enlightened, there’s no going back. You can’t unread it, you can’t unthink it. It is always a part of you. And in those early weeks of my junior year, I made a decision that has continued to shape my career and lifestyle: I dropped my education degree and became an English major, abandoning a definite career path for the chance to make my own way in the world.

In three weeks, I will be completing my second year with a national non-profit organization working to stop the dropout crisis. I have spent the past two years receiving less than minimum wage and working more than 55 hours a week to help middle school students realize that homework and education is important, and to raise money and awareness so this work can continue after I’m gone. In August, I will begin a year-long attempt to become a more prolific and worthwhile musician. These are the not careers of the weak-willed or conformists. I am on a path to do as much good in the world as possible, to become a leader and source of positive energy. That is what I want to do with my life. You can’t get a degree in Benevolence, but in Dr. Kiskis’ classes I learned that I don’t need a degree to be a human being. A lot of people helped me get to where I am today, and I’m thankful for them. But Michael Kiskis was the one who introduced me to the idea that I don’t have to settle, that I don’t have to stay stuck to the ground.

A great man died this Sunday. As much as I wish that I could go back to last Saturday – to the concert with my friends, to the discovery of something great, to a time when one of my inspirations was still alive – I cannot. That is the way of time as we know it. But I can continue living, confident and happy, knowing that Dr. Kiskis was proud of what I am doing and where I am going. So it goes.

-Paul

(Comments)

Hey all. This is a pretty hard week for some of us at The Compass. On Sunday, Dr. Michael Kiskis, our beloved professor of American Literature at Elmira College, died. Anthony, Luke and I all had taken classes with him and he influenced us greatly. Additionally, I know that several readers of The Compass knew the man and looked up to him. I’m dedicating this week to him.

To that aim, I will be posting some comedic links today. One of Dr. Kiskis’ favorite movies — if not his number one — was Undercover Brother, so it seems fitting to bring some silliness to your attention. Enjoy:

1) The Lonely Island has a new song and video out featuring Michael Bolton. Check out “Jack Sparrow”.

2) Do you like the juxtaposition of a frightening image and humorous text? Then you’ll love this internet meme.

3) I choose to interpret “Keyboard Kid” as a domestic abuse awareness video. It’s too sad otherwise.

4) This last link isn’t to something comedic. My girlfriend Jill works at the Tewksbury Public Library, and they are hosting a 50 Book Challenge. She’s attempting to read 50 books this year and as you can see, she is well on her way. In honor of a man who claimed he simply hoped he didn’t cause students to give up on reading entirely after taking his classes, check Jill’s entry out and use it as motivation to pick up a book.

-Paul

I didn’t do links last time. Sometimes it’s hard to find interesting stuff that you haven’t probably already seen. But I have a few here you might enjoy:

First, here are three Tumblr’s I’ve found recently that I really like:

This Isn’t Happiness— You probably know about this one already, but if not, enjoy. It’s mostly random images but a lot of them are awesome. 

After the Smoke— These guys actually started following me, so I checked them out and liked what I saw. This is pretty similar to This Isn’t Happiness, lots of pictures but they’re pretty great.

Josh Bryan- This guy was on eatsleepdraw and I really like the stuff he puts up. He’s a killer drawer and he also posts a ton of good art links. 

The Sports Guy, Bill Simmons, is starting a new website blending sports and pop culture called Grantland. I’m pretty excited for this because it’s going to include Malcolm Gladwell, Chuck Klosterman, Dave Eggers, Michael Weinreb, Katie Baker, Molly Lambert, Chris Ryan, Robert Mays III, Bill Barnwell and Patrice Evans. I don’t know who most of those people are, but the first two names are reaaaaallly exciting. Anyways, here’s the first two preview pieces from Katie Baker and Molly Lambert.

Here’s an article from Cracked.com that brings up some pretty good points about movies today. But no matter what anyone says, Shoot ‘Em Up is a satire of action movies and not just a really corny, bad action movie. Believe it.

I’ve been watching a ton of hockey, even though the Sabres are out. It’s on every night and it’s easy to put on and watch while drawing. Found this hockey blog on Yahoo that posts a ton of content and it’s really good. It’s called Puck Daddy. 

I dug up this old video because it’s hilarious and if you watch Community, you might not know Donald Glover from his old videos with Derrick Comedy. 

And now, of course, three songs!

Speaking of Donald Glover, he makes music under his alias, Childish Gambino.

RJD2- Smoke and Mirrors

Modest Mouse- Dashboard —Great video for a great song

BONUS: Herman Dune- Tell Me Something I Don’t Know — Jon Hamm showing a blue puppet around the world for the first time? Yes.