I enjoyed the shit out of Last Night at the Lobster.

I picked the book up out of an interest in joining in on the fun at one of the many Elliot Bay Book Company book clubs and maybe meeting some people in this town of mine. We'll see how that works out.

Last Night at the Lobster is about a Connecticut Red Lobster on its final day-- corporate offices has deemed this particular store redundant and has decided to close it down.

Mostly we follow around a guy named Manny, the restaurant's manager, as he deals with his feelings on the final day, a massive blizzard, his feelings for one of his servers, and a staff that just barely wants to be there.

Every word of the book rang true, I felt. Stewart O'Nan really has a handle on what it is to have your place of employment close down-- it really is a big deal, a world-shaker, but with the exception of a few hugs and drinks with your co-workers, not the kind of deal where its really acceptable to get emotional in public.

Last Night at the Lobster is a very quick read (finished it in two days) but still entirely worth the $13 cover price, I thought.

Stutter Island.
I don't understand how Scorcese's chosen this as his next movie.
I'm sure he'll make it into something watchable. Maybe even something good. But I'm gonna give this book away.

Teddy's a U.S. Marshall trying to track down Rachel Solando, an escaped violent mental patient who drowned all her kids, or something. He and his partner are on Shutter Island, the place where she escaped from her awesome ward of violent mental cases. Surprises abound.

I don't even feel like going over it. This movie will be Scorcese by way of Shyamalan. for real.

I'm laid off.
I was given my walking papers just over a week ago.

The job search begins.
My work has been graceful enough to allow me to stay there until March 1st. This means I get medical until March 31st. Thank you for that, NC Machinery. I'll be taking advantage -- getting massages and acupuncture every week until the 31st. I have to make a dental appointment or two as well.
Yesterday I spent the evening at work. My shift ended at 5pm, I was home at about 10pm. I stayed at work re-doing my resume and applying for one job. It was an information intake officer, or something like that. I have no idea what it was or what the job entails, but I'm mostly qualified, based on their criteria.

There was an essay portion to the application, and I had to answer each question with a narrative about why I may be capable with a customer or someshit. This, and the fact that USAjobs.gov requires you to use their version of a resume and type up all your info again, took all evening. So now that they have my information, the government is going to be receiving applications for all kinds of shit from me. That took forever to do and it isn't worth it for just one job.

We'll see what happens. I know of people taking weeks to get their unemployment benefits. I hope I can get mine.

I'm worried I won't land a job soon.

"My guilt is all I have left. If I lose it, I have stood for nothing, done nothing."

Maybe Ironweed is the darkest book I've ever read. I'm thinking that maybe it's also the reason it took me so long to read. I wound up reading a couple of graphic novels and even picking up a second book while reading it.

That doesn't mean its a bad book at all-- just that I found it difficult. I was embarrassed to find that one of the reasons I found Ironweed so hard to read was the length of the sentences. They'd go on and on, for three, four, five lines, and I, with the attention span of a beagle puppy, had a hard time following along.

I liked Ironweed. It moved me. I have every intention of reading at least one more of Kennedy's Albany Cycle books.

Ironweed revolves around Francis Phelan and his guilt. Francis is a (to use the term so often used in the book) bum who left his family about 20 years earlier when he dropped and killed his 13 day-old baby, Gerald. The book follows him and a couple of other bums on their quest to not freeze to death in the frozen post-depression Albany winter of 1938. The book also tells of his finally, after so many years, confronting his own sense of guilt for the death of his son and so many others encountered while on the bum. I don't know. Maybe frozen Albany is supposed to double for purgutory. It doesn't matter. When his dead baby's ghost, in a Six Feet Under-type speech, tells him that after he has redeemed himself he will "stop trying to die because of me," I felt it like a gut-punch.

When I hear that a book or a movie is "about redemption" I usually cringe at the sound. But I really, really liked this book. This is a book about doing really awful shit and almost destroying yourself over it.

I took one picture at last night's Juana Molina show, and this is it.

It was such a nice experience being at an uppity joint like The Triple Door and watching someone as amazingly talented as her. Julie, who I met at the show and who arrived first, saved us what I felt could have been the best seat in the house.

I was disappointed to learn that Juana Molina was touring with a band this time, for the first time. I hadn't seen her on any of her earlier tours. The band didn't really hinder her in any way, but her (for lack of a better word) jam tendencies really seemed to show themselves when she was on the stage by herself. The musicians in the band she's traveling with-- a bassist and a drummer-- were phenomenal. Brilliant. But they were her backing band, and she said from the stage that they'd only known each other for four days. So of course they weren't going to be prepared to have her go off on tangents like the one she went on when she was up there alone. The shit she did while she was by herself-- I described it to Beth as being a "vocal kaleidoscope." I still haven't found a better way to describe what I heard her do.

I don't mean to complain, though. I couldn't have been happier with the evening. Five or six of us, mostly meeting for the first time (via Yelp), sat down to dinner and a phenomenal show. Everyone was perfectly friendly and just the right amount of chatty. I had a lot of fun. What a great night.

Edited to add: I can't believe I haven't yet mentioned Laura Gibson. It was such a pleasure to watch her, up there, by herself. She played her guitar and stomped her foot and sang her haunting and lovely songs. She was funny and loveable and just... perfect. I wound up buying her stuff.

I've had a harder time reading the Ironweed by William Kennedy than I care to admit. I love the book, but the prose is winding and sometimes difficult to follow. Difficult for me is what I mean, coming from the school of Hard Case Crime and easy-to-read books of that kind. Ironweed is a dark, slow book. Devastating and full of horrid imagery and dark, dark humor. I started the book more than three weeks ago and I'm at about 110pgs, sad to say.

Also, though, it's The Wire that's ruining my life. Taking things over. I work, I work out, make and eat dinner, I watch The Wire, have a quick conversation with Beth, and go right to sleep. If I could find the time, I'd watch two, maybe three episodes of The Wire every evening. Disc 1 of Season 2 arrives from netflix tonight. You can guess what I'll be doing with my post-work post-gym evening.

I love this show. So far, I don't love it I like I loved The Sopranos or The Shield, but I do love it.

Killing Castro is one of the more ridiculous books I can remember ever reading. I'm okay with that, though. I enjoyed the shit out of it and it was a good break after reading Unless, a very emotional and mournful book, a couple of weeks ago.

American dudes with guns and bombs go to Cuba and try to kill off Castro. There's the mercenary type who doesn't care about anything but money, the guy who is dying of cancer and wants to do this one good thing before he's dead, the dude who wants revenge, the guy who just wants out of the country because he's wanted for a double murder, and the savage stupid one who spends the entire book trying to rape the girl on the cover. Killing Castro seems to be like a somewhat more stupid version of that movie Valkyrie that's out in theatres now. History tells us the end of the novel and it really just is a matter of watching these guys get there. Silly action with dumb characters spliced in with a lot of really interesting historical bits, detailing Castro's rise to power.

There are loads of Lawrence Block fans out there that were dying for this reprint to come out, and I can only imagine they're happy with it. This was my first Block experience. And I'll keep reading his work as long as Hard Case Crime keeps sending it to me.

P.S.- Killing Castro takes the award for most embarrassing book cover, I think.

Also- Wow. Block originally wrote this in 1961. People have wanted Castro dead for a very, very long time.

I went on a Gallery Walk tonight in Downtown Seattle. Pioneer Square, the neighborhood is called. I can see myself going on these a lot, in all the different neighborhoods.

It was a mostly quiet affair for me, since I don't really know too many people in town, but it was okay. Being alone in a roomful of people who are talking to each other can get a little grating but then I see these photos of Michael Kenna's, and I know the trip was worth it. The quietness of them-- I don't know how it made me feel. Like we live in a beautiful place, I guess. I don't know. I'm afraid I left my art critic hat in the other room. It doesn't matter. I got a little lost, I spent the better part of half an hour looking for parking, I was there alone, and traffic was a nightmare, but I felt pretty great when I saw his work on those walls.




Jennifer Harrison's work also made me feel pretty glad to be there. The paint literally jumps off the canvas, as if she were working in play-doe or cake frosting. The work is simple and repetitive, but that's beside the point. Just look at it.

One day I'll learn to express how art makes me feel, if I feel anything at all. A lot of the time I'm just happy for these artists, that their work is on display and that they're making a living from what I can only imagine to be their favorite activity in the world.

I don't know.

It should be mentioned that I am searching (and failing) for descriptive words to use in this blog whilst very comfortably using (wearing?) my slanket which the lovely Bethy bought for me. Thanks, hon.

It occurs to me that Unless is the first Canadian novel I've ever read. It also occurs to me that Unless is the first novel I've ever read by a woman and about women. It left me wondering if the book was meant for women, a little bit.

Unless is a first-person narrative about a woman who has suffered a great tragedy in her life, the kind of tragedy of a tentative nature that manages to keep her mind on this tragic event throughout the entire book because beyond the sadness there's also a great deal of worry involved.

There's a lot going on here. The narrator, Reta Winters, is an author of what I can only describe as chick-lit. 'Comic fantasy' is what she and her editor call the books she writes. Reta also translates the memoirs of feminist author and Holocaust survivor Danielle Westerman, and Westerman's views carry over into a lot of the book. The reader follows along with Reta Winters while she deals with daily life, writing, friends, and family while also dealing with what else is going on, outside of her control. This makes up the bulk of the book.

I thought it was a solid, though very wordy, read. I'm glad I read it but I'm afraid my attention span made it so that some of the passages blurred into each other. It left me feeling as though there were something profound that the author was trying to impart that I must have missed. I don't feel as though that's the author's fault, though.

Christmas was, I felt, a success. Yes, I had to have my car pushed out of my driveway by two nice strangers, but I made it out alive and the drive to Port Angeles, where I take the ferry into Victoria, was a breeze.

Beth and I had a good time and I was welcomed into a new family. I was treated as family. I was given gifts and I ate and drank with people that I'd only met a couple of times. They went out of their way to let me know that even though this time is hard because I'm so far away from 95% of the people I know, that I have a place there, in Victoria.

It felt good.

My mother abandoned Christmas family stuff this year-- since everyone's left Miami and/or become an asshole, she decided to go on a cruise. I guess she couldn't handle the idea of having a five or six person Christmas dinner this year, especially having had more than twenty people over just last year. I can imagine it must be difficult. So she decided not to play the game at all: my mother and stepfather took my sister and brother-in-law on a cruise. They're in the Caribbean right now. They skipped Christmas and they'll be skipping New Year's Eve, too. I love it. I think its brilliant and given the year she's had, she deserves it. I'm happy for her.

The Seattle snow week is over. The brilliant white sheen of the roads has been replaced with what looks like mounds of pissed-on used charcoal on all of the sidewalks.

Ew.
What a stupid, sick, waste of a week its been. I think this may be my first ever Seattle cold. I've had Seattle sniffles before, but not like this. Not this debilitating stuff-ass bullshit. I'll be glad to be over it soon. I was working out a lot and seeing results and really... finally feeling like I was getting stuff done.

Aside from being my first proper Seattle cold, this week has also brought my first proper bit of Seattle snow. And by 'proper bit' I mean I've been indoors for the last two days. I'm mostly too frightened to drive, and anyone following the news should be. Some websites were making it seem as if it was the first time its ever snowed here. They made it seem as if It was smart to stay indoors not because of the snow but because the Dawn of the Dead was taking place outside. Right now there's a group of about 4 guys and a pregnant lady who are staying at the Southcenter Mall, waiting to be able to get out safely, apparently.

I've spent the last two days in bed, playing on the laptop. One of the things I did was play on both Yelp and Facebook way, way too much. An embarrassing amount. But hey, I don't really know anyone here so e-socializing, sometimes, especially when I'm snowed in and sick, is the way to go.

When not soullessly interneting and eating shit online, I've been doing a couple of other things. One of those things has been reading Nick Hornby's Shakespeare Wrote for Money, a book which I've been enjoying, to my surprise, a whole lot. Shakespeare Wrote for Money arrived this week from McSweeney's and I thought "no way this is the book of the month." The other ones had been so nice, these massive hardcover editions with embossed lettering on the covers and all that. this one's just an itty-bitty paperback. Either way, the book collects some of Hornby's columns from The Believer.

Hornby is astute, funny, and wordy. I like reading this a lot right now. I remember trying to read his column from The Believer itself and feeling like I didn't understand what he was saying. Turns out I just have a really short attention span, is all. I feel like reading it now, and I'm enjoying it a whole lot. I love finding his take on books I've actually read, like Allison Blechdel's graphic memoir Fun Home and books that are on my shelf waiting to be read, like Jesse Walter's The Zero (He liked both of them).

I've also watched two discs of Brotherhood, a Showtime drama about a couple of brothers-- one is in local Rhode Island politics, and the other is in the local mob. Hilarity ensues. Actually, not at all. This show, for obvious reasons, gets a lot of comparisons to The Sopranos, so that's what I'll do here. Brotherhood, while good, doesn't carry any of the pathos that Tony and the gang did. Brotherhood really only seems to have one somewhat sympathetic character, while The Sopranos really only seemed to have one or two that weren't. Yeah, Christopher Moltesanti was a abusive cheater who occasionally called Adriana a hoor, but we loved him. I don't know why, but we did. I think its because, for better or for worse, we watched him struggle. With not taking drugs, with who to shoot and who not to shoot. We felt for him when Paulie busted his balls and smelled Adriana's underwear while going through her drawers. We knew Cleaver would be an awful movie, and yet we wanted it to make him rich and famous so that he could leave the life behind.

But I digress-- my point is that the characters on Brotherhood are mostly abhorrent and mean and sad and unfunny. Still it gets four stars on my netflix queue. I haven't been able to explain why, though. I'm thinking Jason Isaac. I'm thinking I just like watching the guy, more without the blonde Malfoy wig than with. I'm actually pleasantly surprised at what a handsome dude he is-- I'd only seen him as Lucius Malfoy in the past. Now I never want to see him in that role again, because it'd somehow take away from his repugnant Irish gangster thug persona. The dude that it drives me crazy to watch sometimes is Jason Clarke. Guy looks like Chandler Bing only beat up. His face makes me uncomfortable. He looks like a garbage pail kid. Either way, its made for good watching. And Hornby's made for good reading. And I'm grateful for it. Also for the Slanket Beth got me. Thing's a lifesaver in this weather.

Still not a cook, but still taking care of myself and learning new things. The latest thing I tried for the first time was the Easy Tuna Casserole from AllRecipes. Okay. So the word EASY is in the title. I know that. But I did it, and I did it damn well. I even added green peas to the mix and it made me wonder how anyone could have ever eaten it without the peas. Really. I'm the new God of Cookery. I've done mac and cheese, Curried Coconut Chicken, and this stuff. I'm cleaning up. No one can touch me. Ever.

Does it taste better than it looks? God, yes.

Thanks to girlfriend Beth for the recommendation. I think she recommended it because it said the word EASY in it. But whatever. This week (probably even today!) I'll try something new and exciting, cooking-wise. It won't have the word EASY in the title, either.

In other news, I've requested my transcripts from FIU because I want to start going to school up here ASAP. I hate life as it is right now and I've decided to do something about it besides watching movies and buying music I can't really afford. So I'll go back to school, finish the English degree, and then something else.

I am not a cook.


But I really used to want to be, so badly. I just never got around to it. Learning, that is. I let my mom do it for me. Then my ex-girlfriend. I grew up on a steady diet of quesadillas, the only thing I've ever known how to make. I've always cut up leftovers (made by someone else) and thrown them into my quesadillas and called it 'mexican.' heh.

Last night, however, I made myself proud. I made Coconut Curried Chicken from a recipe I got off of http://www.allrecipes.com/. Did it come out great? No. I made it, though. This was no mean feat-- I made kraft mac & cheese for the first time this May, I think. I almost feel bad that I made enough for lunch for the next few days, because I want to keep experimenting and learning. So much fun.

I actually danced. I can't believe it. Everyone was happy and moving around. My lack of rhythm wasn't an issue at all.

I had a blast. I love this freakin' town.

So last night, Halloween, I saw Torche again.


They were pretty fantastic. So loud that there were moments where I didn't recognize the songs even though I've heard them a million times and seen them a bunch of times.


The guitarist, Juan, recognizes me from Miami even though he has no clue who I am. he's like "Hey dude, stick around. we're going to a party later" and I'm all bored and I still don't know anyone in this town so I say "okay." He's like "hey come have a drink with us" so I follow him into the bar. Then he says "hey follow me backstage" so I follow him backstage. Then he leaves me alone to talk to someone else.


I'm in the backstage area with members of Clouds (one of the openers) and some other band. They're passing around a joint. I say "uh... hi." One guy is having a beer, and one guy is having a cocktail. Probably whiskey. The bassist from Torche is back there and he's dressed like Subzero or Scorpion from Mortal Kombat but red. I don't know who that's supposed to be. I've never met him. I shake his hand.

Security guard comes backstage and looks at all of us. He points at the guy with the beer and says "you're out. come on." and the other stoned guys are all "why dude?" and the security guard's like "you're not supposed to be drinking back here." he pulls the guy with the beer out and throws him out of the club. The rest of us are all there, one of us has a joint and one guy with the whiskey and we're like "uhhhh."

Everyone walks out and leaves me with the roach. Fearing the security guard's return I put it on the table and leave. I see guitarist Juan and he's like "dude come to the party" but I have no clue where this party is and they're gonna take forever to load up. So I go out to the stage and say bye to the drummer (he's the only guy I really know, he's dressed like GG Allin) and I go outside to contact this dude because he invited me to a party but never texted me the address. I text him that I still need the address and he doesn't get back to me. I go home.

On my way home, car full of people pulls up next to me. This girl on the passenger side rolls down her window and says "This is a citizen's arrest."
I shrug and say "okay, why?"
and she says "For driving a PT Cruiser, motherfucker" and they speed off, laughing.


The end. Wah wahhhhh

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And I Hope that you Die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead

My Awesome Boss:
Boss: Hey Gabriel, I'm gay. You know that, right?
(Grabs my forearm and rubs it, presumably in what he considers to be a gay way)
Gabriel: Oh, yeah?
Boss: Ahh just kidding. Nothing like a nice papaya in front of your face.

O Pioneers!!! / Saw Wheel split CD
How awful it must be to always be compared to that Against Me! band. Unfortunately for them, the comparison will follow them around for years, and not without reason (the exclamation marks at the end of their name doesn’t help). O Pioneers!!! is a band made up of two members: guitarist-vocalist Eric Solomon and drummer Jeff Johnson. Together, they play jangly, scream-laden punk rock that fits comfortably into that bourgeoning punk rock craze ‘folk-punk.’ Except for the monotony of the shouted vocals, the music is high-spirited and fun with plenty of shout-alongs.

Saw Wheel also fall under the umbrella called ‘folk-punk,’ only with an entirely different sound. Saw Wheel is singer-songwriter R.J. Cresswell “and friends.” On this particular album his friends are guitarist Richard Crenweldge and bassist Justin Smith. Cresswell’s side of the record bleeds Americana the way that Avail, Rumbleseat or Hot Water Music would—sometimes sincerely, sometimes sarcastically. Saw Wheel uses a more conventional approach to folk music, often accompanied by tambourines or a second acoustic guitar. His lyrics invoke images of rattlesnakes and plastic Jesus statues on the dashboards of what could only be old Chevy pick-up trucks. Using wit and sarcasm, Cresswell warns other countries not to “tread on U.S.” or they will “surely die.”
Layout and CD illustrated by uber-talented punk rock fixture Christy Road. (Team Science)

Consular 7inch ep
Consular are a heavy, heavy band. Loud and slow, they chosen to take the Sabbathy road trailblazed by bands like Cavity and Sleep. On their debut 7", Consular have proven their ability to pull off sludgy, repetetive riffage like pros. The songs don't vary very much, mostly the listener is slowly forced into a depressive funk (and this is a good thing) while the monumental riffs and feedback move forward at a creeping pace and the singer screams maniacally.
Just try to imagine smoking weed out of a hollowed out skull. I'd love to see what they do when they get the opportunity to play with a full length's amount of space. (Fatal Apathy)