Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.

One of the places I haven’t been in awhile, even though it’s right next door to where I live, practically.

For the record: Yes, I know the theme of this week is black metal. Eventually, I’m going to bother to subvert that into something I can write about, and write about it. This will likely entail babbling about the biomechanical structure of the Combine Citadel in Half-Life 2, or something similar.

Right now, I may still be talking about transit. I’m not really sure yet. I’m certainly talking about locale. As I write this, I’m sitting outside of a place I used to work, the Steel City Café, at a black metal (hah!) table, watching crowds stroll past to take in Blob-fest, Phoenixville’s annual horror movie celebration.

Ahead of me, just around the corner, there’s a stage on which a band have just finished playing. I recognized “Carry on My Wayward Son” and a few other things. Now Jethro Tull’s Aqualung is playing, from recording, presumably while the next act sets up.

A block or so behind me, a crowd of screaming people are about to explode outward from the Colonial Theater, to recreate the famous ‘crowd bursts out of the theatre’ scene that was filmed in that same theater oh so many years ago.

Up the street to my right a block, kids are lined up out onto the sidewalk waiting for Blob Sundaes from Brown’s Cow, another place I used to work.

I don’t really work anywhere right now. Well, except for last week (or maybe the week before) where I drove a forklift and assisted a man named Karl in the deconstruction of a two-story high refrigerator case.

Cell phone. Hang on a moment.

Massive eruption of screams behind me, as masses flee the theater. Everyone else heads over to look. Camera flashes and screams, the roar of the crowd. A helicopter flies overhead, looks like local news of some kind. Ahead of me, the band continues to tune up and perhaps starts a song, but they’ve chosen their moment poorly.

They persevere, though, and eventually their sound: chanting vocals and rhythm guitar, solid rhythmic bass and drums. Or at least, so I think, until my sister wanders down and returns to inform me that there is, in fact, no one there.

Location. Geography. Displacement.

I’ve always had more friends that lived far away than friends who lived nearby. Always been separated, to a certain amount, by a mere happenstance of space-time. Some day, I’m going to figure out a way to transcend this, or so I tell myself, but at present, the inconvenience remains.

Locale makes a difference. I wouldn’t be writing these words in my house. Judging by recent performance, I wouldn’t be writing anything in my house.

It’s starting to get dark. The helicopter remains overhead, and there’s a cop car parked in the center of the intersection, reinforcing the fact that the road is closed to promote foot traffic.

I think I’m going to take the chai latter I purchased here up the street to Brown’s Cow, and get a scoop of vanilla ice cream in it. Then, perhaps, I’m going to go watch some Lost and play some video games.

But it’s nice, to be out in the world again for a moment.

I should do this more often.

Addition: Couldn’t get this to update before on unnamed linksys wireless, going to give it another shot in a second, as the power indicator on my laptop screams a tiny, red-orange blinking cry for help. There’s a real band again now, and they’re pretty good, but I’m still thinking about heading out. May have missed the boat on Lost for now, but I’ll get the discs later. I’m not quite ready to go back inside yet.

Theme: Black Metal Teaser.

Much to Zach's chagrin, and to the excitement of Tom and I, the theme this week is black metal. Yes, Black Metal. (This highly increases the likelihood of Tesla being a theme in the months to come, but that's a story that Zach can tell better than I...) In keeping with the jazz improv theme that we've been kicking around in our conversations with each other, this seems like a week that Tom and I will be the main performers for this week, with Zach as the accompanist.

I have a slight urge to further define black metal, but that would defeat the purpose the blog, which we realize we haven't put up. We have attempted to define the blog in our initial posts, but somehow purpose seems a lot more real when it is part of an "about" page with a couple pictures of the people who'se words you are reading.

The server has been giving us a bit of trouble, so if you suddenly see a bunch of new posts dated the day before that you know for a fact weren't there the day before, know that you're right and the website is a liar. I'll be back later in the week with something substantive about black metal or at least my experiences with it.

Transit: Planes Mistaken For Stars

A band whom I'm quite fond of (I own all of their CDs released in America), Planes Mistaken For Stars recently broke up. The label they were previously an artist on folded back into its parent label, and while a couple groups survived, so I hear, most of the other ones are left in limbo. It was probably this and a combination of other factors that led to the group disintegrating.

They are transitioning as well. The singer now has two kids and is starting a new band with the drummer (Gared and Neil, respectively, both the only original members left), and the other guitarrists are starting their own group.

Of course, this doesn't exactly soften the blow. Describing Planes' sound precisely really is a challenge. In the beginning (1997), they started out as an screamo group on Deep Elm Records, an old guard emo label known for groups like the Appleseed Cast, Brandston and Cross My Heart. As you may have heard, this was back when emo did not mean putting on your sister's jeans and raiding her makeup cabinet. Their final full length, Mercy, was one of my favorites of last year owing to it's aglamartion of metal volume, manic tempos and emotional voalitility.

They played with many groups from all ends of the punk and metal spectrum, finishing tours and crossing oceans with Converge, Small Brown Bike, Dillinger Escape Plan, Hot Water Music, Mastodon, Cursive, and most famously, Against Me!. Planes was a group not quickly pigeonholed or quickly grasped. This, is of course, why their headlining shows I saw never had more than 100 pepole there.

Listening to Planes' music ran a gamut of moods for me. I've cried, made out, headbutted mirrors and most other emotions in between while listening to that group, so to say that I'm saddened that I won't ever have a new Planes Mistaken For Stars CD to look forward to wherever my life takes me is an understatement.

In my life there is plenty of transit so on one level, my roads parallel theirs. I suppose I naively hoped that Gared's and Neil's musical trails would stay with Planes Mistaken For Stars for longer, but I know so long as I have an internet connection and their new project has a MySpace page, I can follow where that aircraft touched down...

Oh, blogger, you wacky web thingy. I can't enter in a title for this post. I don't know why. Perhaps because my computer is made entirely out of potatos. Or something.

Anyway, this week's theme (which is almost over! We are masters of timely writing!) is Transit, if you couldn't guess, and it's especially relevant to me right now, as I'm noving to New York City for some reason. I guess. I mean, everyone does eventually, right? Unless you're like James, and live in Chicago, and are like, whatevs*. But given that right now I live in the middle of bumblefuck nowhere, it'll be a nice shift. For example, when bored, I can walk out of my sublet, and see things. As opposed to now, where I basically just get bored and then eat food.

*Whatevs indeed, James.

It's not really too new for me. I've been to New York before, and I know not to look up at them fancy-pants tall buildings (else betray my sorghum-root chewing, squirrel-eatin', hee-haw watching roots), though the last time I was there I got this awful sore throat. It wasn't too bad, since I talked like Tom Waits for a solid week, and got a free cup of tea at this cafe once. So I can't help but wonder if Real Tom Waits gets things like that - people offering him cough drops, throat lozenges, soothing chamomile tea. It must be pretty nice!

Speaking of scary things, I am infested with bird mites. They came from a nest of baby birds that live out on the back porch. Needless to say, the birds no longer live there, and their mites are slowly going away too. Having been infested with things before, though, I gotta say, bird mites are the way to go - they wash off easy, don't leave any horrifying, itchy marks, and barely bite at all.

Though, right, yes, Transit. I take the train. I would take the train to the effing moon if I could. It's like riding in a larger plane, where instead of being surrounded by vacationers, you are surrounded by one of four types of people, which I shall detail thusly.

1. Menonites - there will be dozens of them, and they all leave around Philadelphia. To where? Who knows! Once there was a large family of them on the same train as I, and they had an adorable child. The child, maybe two years old, kept walking back to me and staring. The anxious father, who looked to be about eighteen, would quickly scoop the child up, like I was the devil or something. When the father dropped the child on it's head while disembarking, I couldn't help but feel that my revenge was complete. Then I found out I was deriving joy from a child's injury.

I am good people!

2. Drug Dealers - you will know them, because they are dressed very well. Suspiciously well. Like, shouldn't be riding the train well. Their luggage is nice, their clothes are nice, and their cell phones are shiny and clean. They make poor conversationalists, though, perhaps because they hate the game, or something. Whatever, they're almost as big a bunch of douchebags as the menonites.

3. Old People - there was a time in my life when I didn't have any friends below the age of 65, so I dig old people. They're frequently crazy about Jesus. I once had an old man walk up to me, and ask me if I was a Christian. I responded that yes, I am, I'm Catholic. He then told me that boy, he's sure glad he knows the love of Jesus Christ. And I was like, yep. We then sat in awkward silence for two hours, before he started talking about Pittsburgh. Another time, I sat next to an older black lady, who was accompanying her enfeebled mother aboard the train. We talked about how people who don't believe in evolution are dumb. She was pretty keen on Jesus, now that I think about.

4. Young Jerks - the category that I fall into. They ride the train and talk loudly on their cellular phones about what Paula is doing and omg are you going to Claudine's tonight and Kendra's dating Michael again I thought they broke up! Many of them are trying to be young professionals, to which I respond, ha ha, you wouldn't be riding the train if you were successful, your ass would be on an aeroplane.

Passive Aggression is the only way to meet new people.

Theme: Transit

This weeks theme, decided after precious little discussion, is transit.

When I'm on a train or bus, or bus after train or train after bus, I really just want it to be boring. I don't want someone's cell phone going off and hearing the latest ringtone from Luda, the Hova, or the RZA. I want the air conditioning to be working if it's the summer and I don't want the vehicle/apparatus/hunk of junk/pile of bolts to break down. I don't think I'm asking for terribly much.

Really, my view on transit is that it exists in my life as an inbetween. I am not where I want to be and I am not where I was, so therefore, the state in between the two I do not find to my liking. But James, you cry! Isn't life about the moments between where you were and where you want to be? You're throwing away hours and minutes of your life! Do you want to do that? (Yes, and no.) Aren't the unexpected and the surprises what makes life worthwhile? I must sheepishly admit you're right.

On the other hand, buses and trains allows me to slip my headphones on and ignore the slice of the world that is also presumably not where they want to be either. But, as my opinion of the world around me is rather low (present company excluded), I don't find listening to a phone conversation about baby's momma drama or I want those reports in by tomrrow or it's someone's head on a plate to be really, the way to spend my time. If I must listen to something while I am neither here or there, it will be of my own choosing, not what is imposed upon me. These inbetween moments are still moments of my life, and so long as I rule every moment of my life, I have chosen those moments to listen to music.

Sadly, this does not hold for elevators. The space is too small, headphones too blatantly anti-social and other people omnipresent. I never know who might walk in that door and see me mouth "We can light the fuse and run!" As Jerry/Tycho from Penny-Arcade might say, it is sub-optimal.


Most of the time, I (and here, I guess that most other people) spend their time on elevators nervously looking around and waiting for their floor to be called. As I have had a conversation more immediate to my life and how I really felt with a complete stranger rather than some of my best friends, a stranger whom I'm confident I'll never meet again in an elevator a couple weeks ago, I can say this behavior in elevators a true waste of time if there was any.


Why did I have this conversation?


Well, this complete stranger was an attractive woman who looked like she was within a couple years of my age and also nervous. I figured, and believe now is probably a good idea, may as well try to have something to say to these kind of strangers which is a) worth talking about, b) interesting and c) that will keep a conversation going.


Also, (as Zach has been known to quip) why the hell not?


He is, of course, right. Whimsy keeps life interesting, and if I didn't have that conversation, it would have been another awkward elevator ride from which nothing remotely memorable is gleamed in an otherwise unremarkable day.


And I think, for everyone involved, the less, the better. I know that xkcd would agree, and currently, that's enough for me...