flung in front of the moon

today, time is a blur of sloppy legs and soft ground beneath my feet. i slept too late, and now i am psychologically downtrodden. how silly. sometimes i awake in the morning and feel half asleep all day. the causes of course are many, but usually directly related to a lack of sleep and an overabundance of tossing and turning, which is usually related to too much heart and brain activity. i suppose we really must allow our world to stop if we are to sleep. or at least slow down greatly. sometimes mine is like a stairwell running away from me in the other direction. it reminds me of the escalators in Prague, which were sooooo steep and sooooo fast and sooooo utilitarian. so communistic. i am often amazed by the simple ways in which political ideology represents itself. so no bike ride for jefferson today. the streets are wet and the eyes groggy. i drift and drift.

they waited all day for the sun to appear. then, late in the afternoon, like a good prince, it showed itself for a few minutes. blazing high over the benchland that lies at the foot of the peaks behind their borrowed house. then the clouds were drawn once more. they were happy enough. but all evening the curtains made melancholoy gestures, swishing in front of the open windows. after dinner they stepped onto the balcony, where they heard the river plunging in the canyon and, closer, the creak of trees, sigh of boughs. the tall grasses promised to rustle forever. she put her hand on his neck. he touched her cheek. then bats came from all sides to harry them back. inside, they closed the windows. kept their distance. watched a procession of stars. and, once in a while, creatures that flung themselves in front of the moon.

~ray carver

a blur of nonchalant bliss

Another show. A room full of the uber-cool San Francisco urbanites, swimming in their sea of nonchalance. Wallet chains, keys hung from belt-loops, t-shirts with ties, white knee-high socks with blue stripes on toe tapping girls in black skirts. beer and cigarettes. And once again, we found ourselves on the wrong bill. It just wasn’t okay that my heart {as always when I play live} was there on my sleeve, thumping and dripping. I’ve never understood all that well, art without emotion, or at least the full range of emotions. But who am I to judge. Perhaps it’s just that my emotions are big and sweeping. I remember someone from sacramento saying that he “had to go outside and couldn’t listen to jeff pitcher, because it was too much.” he “justed wanted to enjoy a beer and hang out, not be confronted with all of this.” a compliment I thought. Or perhaps it was the simple fact that one cannot jump around excitedly to cello all that easily. But admittedly, it is frustrating to give so much to a room full of chatting people. Chatter chatter chatter. My brain says, “if you were brilliant, they would stop what they are doing and watch from the edge of their seats.” Which is nonsense. There were of course the ones {as there always are} that walked to the front shortly after we began, and stood enraptured, watching and listening attentively. I am so grateful for these people, as more than all else I want to connect when I play live. I want to touch them. But I am tired. We are tired. Tired of not having what we want with music {you petulant little shit Jefferson} though we work so hard. Not hard enough I guess. Why is it that we feel we should be able to cajole life into being what we wish? I am {we are} also exhausted with having no drummer. It is tiring to constantly bend what we do to ‘sort of’ work without the rhythm. Perhaps then the people would dance. They would jump, and spin their arms in a blur of nonchalant bliss, as I whisper and scream my deepest secrets, veiled in melody. So where are you dear drummer? Where are you? Does anyone wish to join? A guitarist too. Preferably that plays piano as well. We really are quite affable. It would be such big fun. rock stardom promised. Let us know soon please. Please.

gently turn to the right.

the weekend before the weekend we just had {would that make it last last weekend?} andrea and i spent a day eating and hiking and catching up. it amazes me how infrequently i see some of the people i love so much...a potent reminder of how lost in the vast sea of our lives we can become. it also makes me realize how infrequently people are in my car, as the wig is ever so rarely worn. andrea looked at the photo and laughed, commenting that sometimes she looks so androgynous on film, that matt {her husband} has named this person "mike." {though my sunglasses on her face surely don't help.} alas, we all wear so many masks.

and tonight, the mask of performer for me. another show, likely the last for some time, as the booker in me has fallen tired. doesn't someone want to be our manager? our booker at least? so the make-out room. of course the pulled muscle in my stomach isn't helping matters much. i thought i had broken a rib yesterday on my bike {which i've done in the past, though not on the bike} but this morning it feels better. i can breathe a bit more deeply, and may gently turn to the right. how fragile these bodies of ours. ahhhhhhhhhh.

if i had an alligator, perhaps i would build a moat

Look! a goat

the dying throat

i have no idea how this will work, concerning the current problems with my voice, {the dying throat} but i am playing a {likely} quiet set tonight at club deluxe in San Francisco. hmmmm. drink your tea jefferson.

the update of sorts

at 9:30 or so, mike called me from a restaurant to inform me that he had just ordered a St. Pauli Girl non-alcoholic, which he said rates higher than the O'Douls. he just called again moments ago, to let me know that he had moved on to another location, and had purchased a Clausthaler {see post below}. i find this to be quite funny. i called him back to see what he thought, but he didn't answer his phone. ah well. i feel like sitting in bed reading anyway. finished Jim Harrison's farmer last night, and now i will begin the incredible and sad tale of innocent erendira and her heartless grandmother, by Garcia Marquez. i don't know if i want to read anything sad at the moment, especially not from him, but it seems to be speaking to me.

non alcoholic

last night, just after midnight, i was writing Mike an email and sending him a photo of a Clausthaler Non-Alcoholic beer truck i had seen earlier in the day. a few nights ago he decided to write O'Doul's {Non-Alcoholic beer}, a letter asking that they sponsor our bike trip this summer. at this point, we are up over seventy letters, and this thing has really caught fire. anyway, as i was writing, i thought "hell, i live right across the street from a store that is open 24 hours...i should go get myself some Clausthaler and drink them while i write, as he did the O'Doul's." so i did. i felt funny buying them at 12:30 in the morning, and figured they would taste awful. i was sleepy, had already brushed my teeth, and it all just seemed so absurd, which i imagine must have been part of the allure.

so i came home and drank. took photos and wrote. to my utter dismay, they were actually quite good. they didn't really taste like beer, but then i don't much care for beer. as a matter of fact, i liked the amber one quite a bit. it was rich and nutty and refreshing. i sat in my bed typing away, laughing as i drank the two beers in their entirety.

here.

today when i took rosie for a walk, she seemed preoccupied. can dogs be preoccupied, or do they only know of the present? would we humans be preoccupied if we lived more sucessfully in our moments? as we walked down the hill, her sniffing things and me looking out at the wispy fog on the bay, i thought about the fluctuations of life. i noticed the old red sweater, soaked with rain and balled up on the side of the road, covered in dirt. whose was that? rosie began sniffing other dog's shit, then squatted to drop her own. strangely, i wondered if there was something more than animal biology happening. was she inspired by the others?

yesterday, i was informed at the dentist that i must pull my bottom lip forward with my left hand when brushing, in order to adequatley clean down to the base of the gum. i tried to photograph this silly procedure but had no available hand for the camera. it feels so messy. after the dentist, i went to a bike shop in Palo Alto where i test rode one of the bikes Mike and i will be ordering. it was without question, the most beautiful bicycle i have ever seen in my lifetime. so sleek and delicate and powerful. a truly magnificent machine.

my day though, was colored with the news that a friend of a friend had been killed in a car accident earlier that morning. she had neglected her seatbelt and died instantly as the car flipped over again and again. i didn't know her, but spent much of my day thinking about her quick and unexpected departure. sometimes, the utter fragility of it all, is completely overwhelming. oh that we can revel in being here.

will the bush burn?

and as the new year warms its legs and begins its run, my mind drifts ahead to the forthcoming elections. perhaps there is hope after all.

the inherent sensitivity of eyes

somehow, between the hours of going to bed on thursday night, and waking up on friday morning, i seem to have fucked up my eye. i tried with all of my restraint to keep from touching it on friday, which proved hopeless. i rubbed and rubbed and rubbed, until my entire eye socket was dry and red and sore. i must have looked in the mirror fifty times in effort to remove whatever it was that had worked its way in there. nothing. it began to drive me crazy, so i finally went out and bought some visine, took some tylenol and gave up. sleep.

i awoke saturday hoping that things would be better, only to discover that they were actually a bit worse. frustratingly, i had things to do yesterday, and couldn't resolve my eye. christian came down as we were to mix the last of "I Am Not In Spain," which we did. which is another story.

needless to say, while i sat on the couch in ron's studio, attempting to listen with the best of ears, i was nagged by the incessant discomfort of my eye. difficult to stay focused. by the end of the day when i arrived home, i was absolutely exhausted from the energy expended. add to that of course, that i slept about two hours the night before, as i was kept awake by a combination of my eye and coughing. yes, the cold has dropped into my chest.

i took some 'nighttime theraflu,' which works so well that i find it rather frightening, and slept for eleven hours. i awoke today with the resolve that if my eye was not better, i would go to the doctor. but lo! it had improved, which thusly led me to believe that i must have somehow scratched it and therefore should craft up some kind of patch so that it may rest and heal. voila. a balled up sock and a scarf. it was really all about getting the pressure just right. hopefully tomorrow will be better.

it brings to mind years ago, when two friends and i were building a soundproofed studio in our garage, and i got a sliver of a screw wedged into the underside of my top eyelid. that was immeasurably worse. the pain was excruciating, and i had a black eye by four am when i finally called cheryl to drive me to the emergency room. the doctors removed it, and she and i went out to lunch. the sun was out on a cold winter day, and we ate falafel. i've known her ten years now. my god.

businessman running

Last night I went for a run in my suit. I find it terribly funny, that I felt more comfortable wearing my suit on a six mile run through the hills, than I ever have wearing it to some event of some sort where I’m supposed to look however one is supposed to look when they are wearing a suit. I do not feel comfortable in one, and therefore do not like wearing them. The last time I wore it was to Christian and Macie’s wedding, and I felt like I looked ridiculous. Like the sixteen year old boy wearing his dad’s suit on some silly date. Yes, it is a bit too big for me. It is also older than me, as it was my grandfather’s.

Interestingly enough, the biggest problem running was the jacket, not the pants. It was actually quite warm {as it is wool} and the tie didn’t really bother me at all. Though there was a great deal of friction with the pants, I felt relatively mobile in them. But the jacket. Oh the jacket. My arms just wouldn’t swing the way they should, and my shoulders felt tight. I cannot imagine that I will be doing this again. It simply made what is already a less than wonderful experience, less wonderful. I will say though, that as I ran up the busy streets of Berkeley, I found myself giggling and giggling and giggling. A worthy experience. perhaps i will try it out on the bike.