The Cargo Cult

तें सोंग्स एंड वहत इ लिखे अबाउट Them

2009-01-22T09:13:00.000-08:00

10 SONGS & WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THEM

One of my favorite things in the world is when a friend shows me new music and I fall in love with it. This is a list of some songs I'm loving right now - it's not meant to be some "hey check out how cool I am because the music I listen to is totally obscure and you're not cool enough to know about it and once more people find out about it I'm not gonna like it anymore" - it's just stuff I'm into, some of it is pretty mainstream or older or whatever and some of it is new and you maybe haven't heard it - I want to start posting more about this kind of stuff because music is so important in my daily life and to give someone the gift of a new favorite artist or a beautiful song is better than (almost any other possible gift) these ten songs are my current playlist - listen to them while you read this and hopefully I can turn you on to some new favorites! (eventually this list will be replaced with different songs and I'll write about those too.)

I'm not a music critic either, so I won't write well about these songs - I'm gonna treat it like we're sitting down next to the stereo and I'm just playing some songs and telling you what's up. if you want expert, intelligent critique and discussion, go to PITCHFORK

MGMT "Weekend Wars"

making music as a non-world famous person, playing shows on the weekends, that what i think of when i listen to this song, i think lyrics are super important when i'm writing songs, but for some reason as a listener - sometimes i dont give a shit what a song is about. This whole album makes me love the guitar a little bit (which I mostly hate right now) - - - If you haven't heard the rest of the MGMT album, check it out, go to the beach, smoke something and have sex with a stranger while this is blasting from your car.

Crystal Castles "Untrust Us"

another obvious sign that I'm so not paying attention to lyrics much right now. Sarah and I have decided Alice Glass is singing to me. (Oh, oh eeeeeeee- oh oh oh eeeeee - I'm flattered) CC is all about blippy beats and screams and dancing and cheap fun. I hope there's not too much of a backlash against them later, because they could be the white stripes of glitchrock. (I've since been informed by my friend Kayvon that the vocals on Untrust Us are actually a manipulated sample taken from a Death From Above 1979 song.)

Bright Eyes "Haligh Haligh A Lie..."

There are just a couple of men I would make out with. Conor is one. The Ancient Greeks thought you could absorb a man's power by buttfucking him... I know this is so crude, but I would shove my tongue down his throat in hopes of sucking away even the tiniest little bit of his talent to use for my own evil purposes. Here's an example of a song that will make me feel both inspired and completely useless. Could anything better be written? Hasn't he said it all in this song? I almost cry EVERY time i hear this song and sometimes I listen to it on repeat. When he gets to the "I KNOW NOT WHO I AM!" line I just clam up. --- I don't think I could ever write a list of favorite songs and not include a Bright Eyes track.

Naomi Elizabeth "I Wanna Be Bad"

Oh man. You know when you watch too much porn and start just uncontrollably perving all day? I have these little breakdowns where I almost feel like I should go to church or something and confess to a priest about the disgusting things happening in my head. I'm just afraid I might catch on fire if I walk into a church. Naomi sings about taking a comfortable life and going on a sex rampage just for the sake of adventure. I believe her when she says she wants to be bad, she seems like a nutjob (in a good way). Maybe being bad is hiding someone's car keys, I dunno - but she makes it sounds sexy.

TOBACCO "Hairy Candy"

I'm pretty sure this is what old crime-dramas would sound like squeezed through a coke whore's asshole. Best part is everybody's too busy being cool to care how shitty of a dancer I am. I think about rubber masks and years of recession. huge boom boxes, holes in your dancing shoes. This is my favorite instrumental album since Jonny Greenwood's BODYSONG... which I love almost as much as I love the FIGHT CLUB soundtrack by the Dust Brothers.

Jonny Greenwood "Moon Trills"

The first time I heard this album I was sitting on a chair in a hotel room really high up and I was looking down at the street and the ants marching and it all looked like a nasty bunch of veins and arteries and tumors... I wanted to die. Not because anything in my life was so bad, to be honest I don't even know exactly why - never do - but I was in a low place. I was on my second bottle of cheap red wine and second pack of cigarettes. I hadn't spoken to a single person in three days... Something about this song made me start to snap out of it - it has these lulls, and then they lift up. I won't say the song saved my life but it made it a little bit longer...

The Fashion "Dead Boys"

One of the only guitar bands I am in love with right now. They're from Denmark and they've got so much more New York City in them than most of the real NYC groups out there. Shake it, Stab it, Fuck it up and run... I missed them when they played SF and I'm still kicking myself for it.

The Good Life "Your Birthday Present"

Tim Kasher is one of the best writers alive. I (may know him from Cursive) hate being the type to say "oh I liked their old shit better..." but The Good Life is one of those projects. The first album is one of my all time favorites. It sounds like a sad drunk locked in his room with a shitty drum machine, some whiskey, a phone that hasn't rang in weeks - and a heart that's been beaten to shit. The music sounds like it doesn't want to be made, it sounds like it's not meant for you to hear it. It sounds like it's uncomfortable because it knows you're listening. It's the most genuine and gorgeous thing... I wanted to get the artwork from the album "Novena On A Nocturn" tattooed somewhere on me until I saw that the guy from The Ataris had it - then I thought, hmmm, I've got a lot of cheesy tattoos that other people have, why not... I put this track in my playlist on my birthday in hopes that someone would click on my wishlist and decide to buy me a new MacBook Pro.

The Limousines "New Year's Resolution"

I know what you're thinking. What kind of retard puts one of his own songs in his little blog list song thingie? me. I'm that kind of retard. And this song is dope, especially when it's New Year's Eve for real.

Bjork "Unravel"

What's a Bjork? Aside from the cutest, most amazing pixie monster in the world, I like to say a Bjork is the feeling of sinking into the quicksand of musical bliss... wow. that was tacky and cheesy as hell. but I stand by it. I will close my eyes and sink into my Bjork. Unravel is not my favorite Bjork song (All Is Full Of Love and Pagan Poetry are tied for that honor) but this one tells a story I know really well. - I have heard a lot of my "friends" say they can't get into Bjork, they can't get past her voice - that's so strange to me... Except when I first heard Glassjaw I made fun of Daryl Palumbo - his voice was like nothing I had heard before, so it caught me off guard... But now he's one of the bosses at the end of a level. Like if the music world were a video game... Bjork and Thom York are who you gotta take down to beat the game. (Sonny, you know what I mean!)

The Couch

2008-09-07T21:11:00.000-07:00

There's a couch out in the middle of a field
At the edge of town,
Where I live
And all the neighborhood kids go out there
To waste their time.

Generation after generation of high school slackers,
stoners, punks and skaters
go out there to the raggedy, dingy mustard yellow couch
to meet girls and boys from other schools,
to share drugs and spit,
to tell stories about the jocks
and make fun of the popular assholes,
they trade phone numbers
they trade girlfriends and boyfriends
and sometimes punches.

For years I've watched them through a hole in the fence in my back yard.

I know some of their names,
I know some of their secrets.

I've kept tabs the best I could,
All of their love triangles and mini soap opera dramas…

I know who's secretly gay,
Or, in a lot of cases
Bisexual would be the proper label.

Boys fucking their girlfriends on the couch
in the afternoon
And then
sucking their best friend's cock later that same evening.

This year there's a couple of those closet kids
Who started calling those favors Bro-Jobs,
Which I find hilarious…

Throughout the years
I have only masturbated
While watching the straight couples,
I swear.

a tradition started long ago
where the kids whose senior year was ending
Would write their names
and the numbers representing the year of their class
with permanent felt tip markers
On arms and the cushions.

I don't know who started the ritual
But it has been going on so long
That there isn't much space left
for autographs.

The letters and scribbles
And memories
take a few cycles through the seasons
to begin fading away.

It has been so many years now
That I've watched kids come to the couch
In the first few days of their Freshman year,
Start doing drugs
and fucking
and fighting,
Then graduate
And move on
To whatever they move on to,
Prison, boring desk jobs, early graves,
Marriage and kids of their own…

I don't know where they go
After the couch
But I really enjoy keeping up with them.

It's like watching television,
Except less stuff happens
But when it does happen,
Since it's real,
It's way more interesting.

It's much better than watching fake stuff happen
Through a screen.

When I first started watching
I just stood out there in my yard,
Sometimes for hours
With my right hand cupped at my temple,
My left eye squeezed shut,
My legs straining to keep me up
On the tips of my toes…

I'd get tired
Or hungry
But I would be unable to pull myself away from the fence.

The worst was when I would feel a sneeze coming on
Or a tickle in the back of my throat…

I learned to suppress coughs and sneezes
By researching on military websites
And special service veteran's message boards
Field handbooks I'd find at estate sales…

I find it absolutely astounding how much control
Snipers have over their involuntary bodily functions.

Before long
The couch became my biggest obsession
And I started to care more and more
for each year's fresh batch of kids.

There's something special
Something satisfying and selfless
About caring for people
Who don't even know you exist.

I've been concerned for them
I've cried for them
And cried with them
And I've gone Along with them
through their laughs and their proud moments…

I've lost jobs for these kids,
I've sacrificed relationships with women…
They never knew it but we had a deal,
As long as they came to the couch
I'd come to the fence.

One day I got the brightest idea ever!

I went down to the hardware superstore
And I picked out a cheap little tin tool shed
Just a little bit bigger than one of those god awful
Steamy plastic shit houses at concerts
And county fairs…

I assembled the shed
And set it up right beside the fence.
I measured some stuff out and
I cut a hole in the wall right in the spot
Where my fence hole was.

I brought in a tall bar stool
And it was the perfect height
so that I could sit there all day and all night
in total comfort.

I'd bring my food and water out to the shed,
I'd bring my blankets and recently
I brought my brand new digital video camera
Out to the shed.

God only knows how many times
In the years before I had the camera
I wished I could rewind
And re-watch
And rewind and re-watch…

I'm not crazy or delusional,
I'm not dumb enough to think
What I've been doing is normal
And I can see how some people
could come to think what I do
is sick or wrong,
Maybe even illegal,
But one thing I've realized
Watching the couch for so long
Is that so-called real friendships
Are a lot more difficult to maintain
Than my relationship with the kids.

I figure
Why fuss with a dialog
When a monolog is half the trouble?

Some people collect stamps or Star Wars toys,
Cooped up all their lives
in their dark houses with video games
all alone
making love to pictures on the internet…

That's what some people love.
They love what they love and I love what I love.

I love watching the couch
And keeping up with
All of my friends,
Say what you want about it,
They never judge me.

I've had so many favorite moments in the shed
I could probably write a book
Or a movie or something
About all the adventures and drama…

But one of the greatest moments
That sticks out in my mind
Happened just a couple of months ago…

It was a bright, beautiful morning,
Crisp frost crunched in the grass
As the earliest of the early birds arrived
And lit their cigarettes
And when they sat down
On the couch they were horrified to find
huge, sticky stains on the cushions,
thick pools of dark stuff,
almost black
right in the center of the couch.

someone said with half a laugh
that it looked like blood or something
but there was way too much of it
to be real…

one of the boys,
my second least favorite
dropped his cigarette
when his mouth flopped open,
lower lip trembling
when it occurred to him…

"it's blood! Holy shit, guys – this is blood!"

one of the girls
doubled over and threw up,
everybody else started gagging and yelling,
one kid even tasted it to verify before they all
ran back to school
to tell somebody…

I loved watching them
And knowing them better
than some of them knew themselves.

Watching groups of them
growing up
getting it all figured out
then going away.

I loved so much about watching them
And knowing them, and loving them and hating them,
But most of all
I loved
being the only one
Who knew
What happened
on the couch.

Please Keep Loving Me

2008-09-07T21:09:00.000-07:00

Please Keep Loving Me.

please keep loving me,
when thought of losing
what we are
feels like death's cold breath
on the backs of our necks.

please keep loving me
when it does not come
so naturally.

even when it feels more like work than
like play.

please,
keep loving me.

please keep loving me
when I scratch open
our old wounds
and when our wild hearts
tug at the chains
which hold them home.

please keep loving me.

when your eye wanders
more often than it watches over me,
and when your body lusts for new
adventures.

if ever the shadow you cast
falls on and colors a darker shade
the pillows and the blankets
and the body
of another,
lying
in a place
more like the scene of a terrible crime
than a home,
even then,
especially then…

please keep loving me.

and when old faults are
far behind,
let's laugh at the day we are riding.

let's hold the brightest of hopes
for tomorrow
and the day after that.

when we make copies of ourselves
and we spend decades
mixing in the best ingredients
we each have to offer up-

please keep loving me.

one day those kids will move away,
to search for love
like what their parents had.

in times when we are the envy of friends
for our perfect harmony,
when it's more true than they could know
and just as much
when that harmony is just a mirage
viewed from their desolate perspective.

when you're the boat
and I'm the sea
and we
refuse to flow
together,
while we wait for the safety
of high tide…

in some of the last years
when the fading blue blotches
of old tattoos
are joined
by the brown spots of age
marking the soft,
crinkled, see-through skin
on our faces and our hands.

when the house we bought
with the money we earned
selling off our youth,
starts to fall apart.

when our floorboards,
our walls give way to wind
and hallways creak and shiver,
when the roof begins
to let in rain...

when the sons and daughters
come home for holidays and
bring us pamphlets,
meant to coax us from the comfort of our home.

when they take us away
to roll around in chair parades,
shuffle around on canes,
wait out the twilight
spent in buffet lines,
where we can die of natural causes
and be scooped off the floor by
trained strangers.

and when our sight begins to fail
I hope we still see
the same reasons
we spent the only life we had
together.

when all of this truth
comes to be,
please…

please

keep loving me.