The Cobblestone Address

"tin cans"

2012-02-10T10:39:00.000-08:00

"tin cans"

a morning poem on a thoughtful friday by jake kilroy.

tin cans of pennies left in the rain,

drumming,

drumming.

making breakfast in the kitchen,

humming,

humming.

these songs can't last forever,

though the end ain't so bad,

just running, gunning, grinning.

looking like a marble statue,

fallen in a garden made of sheets,

stunning, stunning, stunning, honey.

well, why not break our bones?

isn't it better than our promises?

my twenties was one long decade of doing both.

and i've got a lifetime to make amends.

i hope.

Supa Bow

2012-02-06T09:40:00.000-08:00

As I have dinner with my family nearly every Sunday, I'm usually unavailable to see old movies at The Bay Theatre in Seal Beach. But, since my family was just doing gourmet Super Bowl snacks all day, there was no dinner. With the free evening, I thought I'd bail a little early on the Super Bowl to go see a movie. In January, The Bay Theatre was killing it: Sunset Boulevard, The Godfather, Roman Holiday, etc. But, on Super Bowl Sunday, I suppose out of protest, they were playing The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert. And I very immediately decided that I'd never be able to explain or live it down that I missed the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl because I went to go see some cult movie about drag queens in Australia. So, reinvigorated by the prospect of manliness, I bought some firewood, as well as two bars of very plainly wrapped soap, and read a scary book by the fire.

Also, I lost ten bucks to son of a bitch Chase. Goddamn Patriots.

Old Flames XIV: Under The Spell Of Poison

2012-02-02T22:44:00.000-08:00

Under a desecrated moon, under the bone-bare trees, under the spell of poison, we howl and cackle. In the blues, in the yellows, the reds and oranges too, we can glow in the winter and sparkle in the summer. But, for now, we rest here, somewhere between a wink and a hallway. We left the churches, the military wards, the crazy old hospitals we called home. We're on the roads now, stepping the line every inch we get. Roll out a new highway. We all have new cars.

So what is the miracle of language? Is it not actually speaking? Is it knowing with hands and shoulders? How shall we communicate in the future, when all of everywhere is barren, laid to waste, burned against the sky like a cemetery tombstone?

That's where we come in. When the world is feeling lowly and wretched, we drink gin by the flames that burn our back with shadows. But we need to keep dancing and never stop singing, so that the world will feel loved again. We our heroes in and by our own rights. Merciful nights, we beg of you to break our hearts and rebuild, rebuild, rebuild. We are merry without control, jealous without hate and the personification of love without the broken parts. But, for this, we are damned. We are damned to a culture of never stopping. Tirelessly, slumping against each other, swinging our hands like tools, just moving like we think the tune and hum will be done soon. But we left all the holy men in a ditch we call the old world.

But this isn't the gold in our hands, the prayer without coughs, the legends without footnotes. This is the last era of honesty. This is the tremendous storm we saw coming. Well, shall we burn our fingers on tears or break our arms from carrying all the guilt? Surely, this isn't the last time we'll call God crying.

Hell no to Hellfire, we'll all cheer. But then we'll wonder how to get the heat and, before you know it, we'll be trapped between a fire and a sky again. We'll eat the stars and dip our hand in the further galaxies like ponds. How far can the moon be anyway? The North Star, how far north I say? I shall bathe in the Milky Way and watch all of my former lives die on the planet before me, one after another, always sipping the finest blackhole of champagne. Consider Heaven a bathroom floor, mesmerized by the startling chill of a tiled white endless.

So, then, what are dreams but last chances and resorts in a stunningly real school of thought? How about you Roman, Greek and Norse gods of dreams? Tell me, what have I gotten wrong here?

Nodding a head is the closest thing to an aneurysm and the slightest form of dancing. But, for now, I must say, it will have to do. I simply can't go back in there without my tuxedo.

Well, then, if this startles us all as the newest medium of memory, after a history of thought, I shall drink myself to death! It is the only way out! I cannot love again and I cannot go home again. This is a startling crash of myself. I thought I had more years, but I want none. If this is as good as it gets, then I consider myself a lucky man. I had years to figure it all out and I didn't. But, gosh darn it, I had a grand time. What, with the laughs and the trips and the parties? Here's to me never living again! I've got to tend to my rest if I'm to be a real player around here, a mover and shake, if you will. I've got a reputation to keep, or fix, or build. Who knows the rule of the western heaven prairie? Maybe it'll be tumbleweeds of clouds. Maybe the good people have all gone to bed. Maybe it just wasn't enough fun.

What a lark! Why can't we have everything? Why must we wait for it? Why shouldn't we choose death as a means and not an end? What say you, grim? Old friend reaper, I won't bother you again, or for a long while at least. We will just have to wait to find out. "Welcome to the new mystery; we have seats waiting," the banners will read. So play the music, angel drummers. Ready the gates, patron saints. Role out the red carpet, Jesus. I'm on my way.

Steve Billion And His Wonderful Irony

2012-02-01T12:04:00.000-08:00

I don't know when, I don't know what it'll be about, but, one day, I'll write a short story called "Steven Billion And His Wonderful Irony."

Old Flames XIII: For The Horses That Ride Into Glory

2012-01-29T17:34:00.000-08:00

From the battlefront, it's easy to count the stars. Many nights, it will be the last thing you consider beautiful. Pop the tent, pop a beer and wrestle yourself to the ground for the spectacular disorder that is humanity. After the violence cleans out all veins and arteries dirtied with old blood, we shall drain ourselves here, out in the field, where makeshift graves are solitude and rest. We are old, but we are tired and angry. We are hurt, buried alive within ourselves. Our bones creak and our muscles hiss, like that of a vintage radiator. We can remember the history of cars, but we don't know why we find ourselves scrapped from the scrap pile. We read the good book in motels in between fits and we kept our homes bare, for who knows when we would join the war effort again? Here we are at breakneck speed, sure of the impact, confident in free will. Surely, we are not to go to bed without knives, fiends and friends? What kind of dinner party would that be?

A Working Man

2012-01-24T10:30:00.000-08:00

Well, after a month of horrifying debauchery and self-indulgence that only a fat stoned king would consider good fun, I'm a working man again! Thanks to my buddy Katy (who got me out of writing boring articles in college, who I then made join Automaton City, which ended up scoring her a book deal, so maybe we're almost even?) and her dedicated to charity work for local idiots, as well as the stellar words of Non, James, Chris and Nicole, I'm now a project manager at Column Five Media in Newport Beach. Woo!

Jake Kilroy's 2011 Year Of Reading

2012-01-11T14:21:00.000-08:00

In 2011, I set out to read 100 books and graphic novels. I failed. Surprising? Not really. I read around 85, which beat 2010 by about 50 books, 2009 by about 60 and 2008 by about 82. I'm fully in the swing of reading as much as I can get my grim reaper palms on. I like recalling my year of reading as if some fancy magazine executive with a monocle hired me to do a recap, which...didn't happen. But I'm unemployed, so I have time to do this "freelance work" (I commissioned myself to write this, with payments of potato tacos and beer). Anyway, here are way too many thoughts that may or probably won't blow your mind:

FICTION:
1. "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" & "The Girl Who Played With Fire" by Stieg Larsson
Mikhail Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander are strong, detailed characters that had lives long before these novels found them. That sounds peculiar, but a whole lot of mysteries and thrillers offer characters by way of the plot and it's hard to imagine what they were doing before murders started popping up. But Larsson gets it. He carefully and then wildly brings light to the darkness of each courageous moralist that make up the dynamic duo in his Millennium series. The motives are believable, the dialogue is realistic and the actions are time-consuming. And every supporting character has a back story. It's the real world, just much darker. These are thrillers without stereotypes or gimmicks, which is so unrelentingly refreshing in a genre that practically thrives on the reader knowing the ending before they start the book.

2. "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak
Any story about a German family during the Holocaust is no easy task, especially one that's narrated by Death. A German girl comes of age in the middle of a war that no one in her family welcomes and finds a strange mixture of joy and sadness as she steals local books with her best friend, listens to her father's accordion, helps with her mother's chores and engages her family's gigantic basement secret, the Jewish fist-fighter Max, in life discussions. While the world is furiously destroying itself, all you find yourself interested in is one street in some small town in Germany. It's a book about people, no matter what violence and history rages beyond the stretches of any neighborhood.

3. "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins
The plot's been done over and over, but the reason The Hunger Games works is that the two main characters, both teenagers, act as muted moral compasses in the dystopian country of Panem (the smoking ruins of America). It's a violent book that paints kids as the only sensible people left in the world without making the adults worthless (hopeless, maybe, but not worthless). It offers a fantastic world for kid or young adult readers that's exciting as hell and also ludicrously addicting once the kids start killing each other like calculated maniacs. You just have to look over some typos and a few poorly worded sentences and you're so, so in.

4. "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy
It's the most atmospheric book I've ever read, as McCarthy slides in repetitive descriptions subtle enough to let the reader absorb the dark, gray, bleak and ashy world of the story. And so little happens in the narrative, while still being a captivating read, that you feel the epic hush of the new haunting, decaying world left over after the colorful one failed. I'm not a huge fan of post-apocalyptic tales, but McCarthy's story is so basic, so honest and so very precise that it makes me appreciate post-apocalyptic tales for what can be found in people instead of what happens to them. It's not "what the human spirit is capable of." Instead, it's more just "what the human spirit is" in it's most centralized thought process. To have written it seems almost impossible, because it walks a dozen fine lines without ever letting the reader know that the lines are even being walked in the first place.

5. "This Side Of Paradise" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Fitzgerald took his main character, the obnoxious, self-absorbed and unrelentingly entitled snob Amory Blaine, and gave him the wide open world, just to let it nearly crush him. You witness Blaine's transition from youthful upstart to conscientious adult, by way of college, where you realize that Fitzgerald's mocking every arrogant university student who churns out the same opinions about poetry, socialism, the military, etc. This Side Of Paradise observes the whole college student's evolution into obsessive academic lingo and thoughtful dinner party philosophy. It's so goddamn well-written and, by the end of it, you have to wonder if Fitzgerald penned one of the best pieces of character development in the 20th Century.

6. "The Thin Man" by Dashiell Hammett
The film adaption has been one of my favorite movies since high school. The movie is wittier and funnier with a generally better mood, but the book has way more depth. It's a who-done-it with the most engaging (and boozing) couple around, Nick and Nora Charles. They drink, they smoke they solve murders, all while making each other laugh. In the book, Nick's a little crankier, more serious and less light-hearted, while Nora remains just as jovial as her cinematic counterpart. But the book presents a darker world than the movie does, so Nick's sterner demeanor matches the shadows and shifty eyes of the city. In between are some surprising conversations way ahead of their time. Like Raymond Chandler once said, though, Hammett wrote scenes that didn't seem as if they had been written before. Hammett takes murder and gives it a fair balance of gritty and comedic. It's screwball at its most dangerous.

7. "Side Effects" by Woody Allen
After being a long-time fan of his films, I've learned that Woody Allen understands slapstick as well as he does solemnity, just as he knows the dance between thoughtful philosophy and throw-away absurdity. The short story collection has moments of tenderness and poignant observations of human nature, but it's all amid senselessness, craziness and nuttiness. It's so wordy while being so light, with everything from a character leaving his wife to marry an animal to a character abandoning his psychoanalyst for a magician, who then allows him to enter the plot of Madame Bovary to have an affair. It's just silly enough to make it seem whimsical but sweet enough to keep you involved.

8. "Men Without Women" by Ernest Hemingway
This collection of short stories really puts together what Hemingway was: a reflective lover of life posing as a glorious defeatist. He didn't have to live through his characters. Shit, his characters would try to live through Hemingway if they could. As Hemingway moved through the world, whether it was war in Europe or a safari in Africa, he lived in the moment without having to catch himself. He was thinking what the romantic poets were musing, but he would've informed them that they didn't need all of the wimpy sentiment and that there was something bold and brave about romance. So, even when one story doesn't necessarily stand out, you take his arsenal of worldly tales, whether it's a terrified couple discussing abortion or a major lamenting over the death of his wife, and you hear Hemingway telling you what life is and how it works. It just "is" most of the time and Hemingway will tell you that it's surely enough.

9. "Everything Is Illuminated" By Jonathan Safran Foer
I know Foer is a polarizing literary figure and I seem to only ever love or hate him. In this one, he again impresses and infuriates me. He may tinker with heartstrings in the most sneaky way, but he does give readers a dozen moments to remember, which works well, as the whole book is about containing history and the chance of making it something more that rumors and guise. Within the three main characters, there lies an underlying hope to conquer all memories, dreams and histories like children's stories. But the real world won't ever allow memories, dreams and histories to be our reality, which is what makes them so horrifyingly gorgeous. So, against all understanding, we try and try and try until we fill books about our losses.

10. "Light Boxes" by Shane Jones
I bought the book solely because the cover featured a pretty serious sketch of five thin men in top hats and trench coats standing in the snow wearing colorful bird masks. Well, it turns out those five men and the rest of their small town are planning a mutiny on the brutal month/god of February. The fable-myth-fantasia-novella is written with every contemporary literary device available and it works because the narrative is just as sparse and weird. February grew jealous of man's ability to fly, so he plagues the town with eternal winter. It's a strange tale of misery and violence with poetry weaving in and out, balancing the warmth of hope found in an old world fairy tale with the cold-hearted sadness of modern society's doom.

GRAPHIC NOVELS & COMICS:
1. "These Days Are Just Packed" by Bill Watterson
When I was a kid, Calvin and Hobbes did a number on me. They were loud and adventurous while, in turn, quietly discussing philosophy. Looking back, I probably scored a heavy helping of social interpretation from the two. It's pretty hard to get a kid to consider morality and mortality, but, somehow, when Calvin posed a question to Hobbes in the woods or in the wagon, there came a serious pondering of existence in this great big world. Bill Watterson spent his years as a cartoonist having an open discussion about the wants and drags of mankind and the nervous wonderment of people, all while letting an uncontrollable kid's imagination run wild with his closest friend. It was perfect then and it's perfect now.

2. "Blankets" by Craig Thompson
This semi-autobiographical graphic novel was honest and sincere without ever becoming uncomfortable. For all of its beautifully bleak setting of Wisconsin and Michigan in winter, it really does take the high road of optimism and realism instead of ever portraying life as unbearable and cold. And that could've been very easy to do, considering the main themes of the book is a teenager discovering love and questioning the church. It's really just about a teenager trying to figure everything out his senior year of high school without ever appearing to be somebody who's doing that. It was superbly balanced and subtle in its brief moments of poetic waves. So, so well done.

3. "The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen" by Alan Moore
I don't know how Hollywood botched the film adaptation as hard as they did. The whole thing is adventurous, humorous, violent, unsettling and astoundingly literary. While reading these grand tales of famous literary heroes versus villains (Victorian in the first two volumes and all across the 20th Century in the third), you feel like a kid from decades past reading the classic sci-fi and adventure paperback serials as modern storytelling. The tone of each volume reflects the times as well as the varied storytelling mediums. I loved it like a kid reading comic books with a flashlight.

4. "Blacksad" by Juan Díaz Canales
Oh man, I could honestly read a dozen volumes of this series if they existed. It's anthropomorphic animals in a classic noir setting. There's enough brief nudity and violence to make the first three episodes for mature audiences, but enough cartoon bashfulness and concern to make it for earnest youths. It could've easily been stupid, but it wasn't. The type of animal each character is gives something away without having to be explained. It's the 1950s. Hitler existed, the war happened and now all animals are recovering and trying to figure out the world again. There's the Arctic Nation (the KKK) and the Black Claws (the Black Panthers). The Golden Age of Hollywood, the Cold War, the Blacklist Witch Hunt, the Beatniks, the country's move into the suburbs, it's all there. I'll always have a soft spot for classic noir setups and characters, and there's a kid lurking in me somewhere always wanting to be entertained by talking animals. It takes itself seriously enough to be taken seriously, but not enough to miss out on the joke.

5. "Hellboy" by Mike Mignola
The whole premise of Hellboy is cool. It just is. It's old school pulpy monster mayhem mixed with modern sardonic self-awareness. It never leans too far either way. One moment it's classic evil mystic shit, the next it's a gunfight with creatures from another dimension, then it's murder mystery type of wandering, and then it's something else. Hellboys a solid character. He's a great structure of ego and wit balanced with regret and wishful thinking. It always works and it's always fun.

6. "Marvel: 1602" by Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman is one hell of a writer. He took characters that everyone knows, tossed them back to the year 1602 and it didn't come out campy. In fact, it came across as a serious observation of history with mutant transplants. Professor Charles Xavier becomes Carlos Javier, a compassionate Spanish cripple. Doctor Doom becomes Count Otto Von Doom, a powerful Latverian ruler. Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto becomes Grand Inquisitor Enrique, a leader of the Spanish Inquisition. The list goes on. Mutants are instead called "witchbreeds" in a time of urgency, as England tries to keep its hands on the New World without falling to Scottish rule themselves. The story's never gimmicky, the characters are always of depth and the combination of fantasy powers, time travel and legitimate historical concerns makes it one radical package. It's confusing at times, but, as you know these characters as the X-Men and the Fantastic Four, you know who to root for. Wonderful drawings, wonderful writing, just a wonderfully fun read.

7. "The Alcoholic" by Jonathan Ames
Maybe the most honest narrative I've read, it feels like a thinly disguised memoir, though I couldn't guess how much is real. It discusses life without an arc, as more of a series of events that come at a person over the years. Some are tragic, some are funny, some are cool, some are pathetic. Each moment seems to be observed with the same grace of "this is how it is." He doesn't relish in his drinking, he doesn't relish in his women, he doesn't relish in what surrounds him. Though the character feels like the kinder gentler younger brother of Bukowski, and discusses an affinity for Hemingway, the alcoholic Jonathan doesn't sway and march through life with the force or authority of a "man's man." Instead, he kind of chirps along like a bird with a broken wing. It could've easily been one long epic of self-praise and moments of "Wasn't that cool when I got drunk and did all that hilarious shit?" But it wasn't at all. It was very much "This is me, this is life. Sometimes, things go well. Sometimes, things go bad. I wish I wasn't this way and I hope things get better."

8. "The Adventures Of Tintin (The Black Island & The Secret Of The Unicorn)" by Hergé
Honestly, Tintin is like the Archie comics with balls. It's playful and innocent, but it still includes whiskey and guns. It brings you into the era it was written and you feel like some imaginative boy in 1930s Belgium reading this at night, saying dumb things to yourself like, "oh boy!" I can see how this sense of adventure came to influence other storytellers of the 20th Century. The Tintin comic strip started in 1929, so this was before the era of "we need a big twist." It's just a pleasantly wild, sometimes funny, mostly straight-forward, do-the-right-thing-at-all-costs, mystery-solving adventure serial. I feel like it'd be harder to market someone like Tintin now. Either it would be pushed towards more gritty or more family-oriented. Tintin stories just include whatever Hergé felt was necessary. Murder and booze are always hanging around the boy-wonder journalist and his dog, as they do everything can to solve every freakin' mystery in Belgium.

9. "Lions And Tigers And Crocs, Oh My!" by Stephen Pastis
Pearls Before Swine is one of my favorite comic strips, mostly because it has the sharpest wit in the newspaper. It's for the cynical strokes of humor. It pays tribute to the greats and shreds the worst. Featuring a rat, a pig, a zebra and a goat named Rat, Pig, Zebra and Goat, the strip follows the group of animals through their hyper-weird lives, whether it's Pig falling in love or Zebra trying his hardest to not be eaten by the crocodile fraternity next door. It's sardonic and sarcastic while still being goofy and fun. In this collection, Pastis adds his own commentary below each strip, which is actually funnier than each strip most of the time. The dude just writes like he's already your drinking buddy and you've spent a half hour making light of his profession.

10. "Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid In The World" by Chris Ware
Jimmy Corrigan is uncomfortably bleak. It's not a roller-coaster of emotions with epic highs and crushing lows. No, instead, it's just a long, thick feeling of sadness that rolls around your insides. But Ware's idealistic and flawless art, combined with his flowing cursive of poetic narrative, brings about a weird sense of curiosity. Also, it's mostly Jimmy's grandfather's parallel story that brought about a sincere satisfaction. The mix of 1980s Michigan and 1890s Chicago intertwines without getting tangled, as it never makes it obnoxiously obvious what's happening, even though I would've thought it to be a much, much better book if there had been a bigger pay-off. I enjoyed reading it, though I thought I was reaching a destination. It never truly comes and you wonder if that was the whole point.

NONFICTION, POETRY & ESSAY COLLECTIONS:
1. "A Short History Of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
Bill Bryson is a genius. And it's not just because he knows everything that he explains, but because he can explain it to me. Science is awesome, sure, but it's rarely ever presented to me with the excitement and easy language that I need. Save for a few friends, I usually get the droning narration of textbooks or the pompous and purposefully complex speeches of windbags. But Bryson explains everything from dinosaurs to volcanoes to chemistry to the universe to mass extinction (as well as the funny, weird and peculiar stories behind the scientists). Honestly, it was one of the most fun times I've had learning. Since I'm not well-versed in science, there weren't very many moments of, "Ah, I knew that." It really was mostly just me repeating, "OH, WHAT THE SHIT!?"

2. "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safron Foer
I've been vegetarian since I was 10 and I've gotten shit for it since I was...10. And, I must say, it was refreshing to read a book that wasn't angrily arguing "eating animals is wrong" or"eating animals is right." Foer gives his readers extensive research that one would expect to find in a thesis while retelling stories from his childhood, like it were some conversation at a party. He makes it personal with numbers and interviews. The book is written with some of Foer's traditional emotional and empathetic style, with moments of over-the-top literary devices, but it's a beautiful, disgusting, overwhelming, horrifying, excellent text. It's more of a long musing on eating animals while campaigning against factory farms instead of a straight-forward academic thesis.

3. "Wild Ducks Flying Backwards" by Tom Robbins
Tom Robbins writes unlike anyone else. It's so far removed from the writing process and grasp of language that I understand as proper. His novels are like attending a music festival on drugs...though somehow contained between front and back covers. In his only collection of articles, essays, poems and the rest of his bag o' random, the wildfire novelist shows that he can seriously exist in other mediums. He talks art in essays for museum magazines as well as he can use poetry to describe the Devil coming down the stairs in a Raiders jacket. A few articles drag on a bit (because without wacky made-up characters, real people tend to look about confused), but then you look at your bookshelf and realize you have no interest in reading anything else.

4. "The Partly Cloudy Patriot" by Sarah Vowell
Vowell has stunning wit about her with a deadpan delivery. It's hard to write deadpan in reflective essays of your life, conjuring up jokes at your own expense and presenting them like nonchalant throwaways for the sake of a bit, all while laying out groundwork for political, historical and contemporary observations. But she does it with a familiar NPR narrative pacing and a tremendous appreciation for essay-writing. The book is sincere, using humor as a tool instead of a force. It's a thoughtful and genuine collection about a nerdy leftist New Yorker who loves history and politics. She's timid but critical, soft-spoken but loud, small appearance but big personality. She's also a whole lot of fun.

5. "Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit" & "Burning In Water, Drowning In Flames" by Charles Bukowski
I think Bukowski just saw the world in poems. That's why he wrote about everything from specific arguments with women to really trivial shit, like getting the mail. It's hard to be sure where Bukowski's brilliance ends and his rambling starts. He says enough to cover the entire spectrum of genius and idiot while writing about the same thing over and over. He wants you to know that he drinks, fucks, gambles and doesn't care about any of it. In his poems, there lies a confident drunk, asleep at the wheel of life, seamlessly floating on by, content with distraction and apathy.

6. "Shit My Dad Says" by Justin Halpern
I was afraid that Halpern, beyond his Twitter account, would end up being something along the lines of Tucker Max (who sucks, by the way), writing things like, "And then this crazy thing happened to my balls, and here's how my crazy dad reacted." I thought it was going to be the memoir of a 29-year-old party guy laughing at us for getting a book deal. But it wasn't. The book was earnest. And Justin Halpern is stupendously likable. You root for him, his father, his mother, everyone. It's actually a relatively simple narrative about a father and son, except, of course, the father is like a verbal confetti gun of swear words. Halpern's humorous memoir turned out to be one of the most enjoyable books about a family I've ever read.

7. "A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius" by Dave Eggers
When his parents die within just weeks of each other, Eggers moves out to California with his older sister and his much younger brother. And what seemed to start off as a memoir detailing the fallout that followed his parents' death becomes something of a frantic (and somewhat fictionalized) diary of his twenties instead, as Eggers raises his brother like a parent and runs a local magazine with his new friends in San Francisco. The narrative is so wild and charismatic that it almost seems unedited, but, given the score of literary devices used, it's obvious that it's very planned and an attempt at nervous realism. If Eggers seems smug or arrogant or mad at the world or losing his shit, you let it go because nobody knows it better than him. It'd be really easy to hate a book like this, but it's told in such a brutally honest way without making scores of attempts at caring what others think that you let it go and just pat the dude on the back.

8. "Morning Poems" by Robert Bly
Bly writes very observationally with compassion and humor. Maybe not in his words, but in his tone. Even in his misery, he's aware that he's writing a poem and trying to get a point across. He doesn't just write his feelings down so it comes off manic and overly charged. It's very calm. He sees the great world around him, with nature, with people, with everything, and he can narrate between the lines. It's hard to balance the depth of good poetry as well as the bluntness of accessible poetry, but Robert Bly can do it pretty seamlessly.

9. "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan
Taking a long look at "industrial, pastoral and personal meals," Pollan provides an academic narrative on the food industry in its impressive breadth and scope. He investigates meat farms, organic growers and even details his own adventure hunting animals and scourging mushrooms. It's a fascinating read for sure, despite Pollan making it seem like vegetarians would never bother to read his book, as if all us are too busy reading David Sedaris while getting high and Tivoing documentaries about socialism and dolphins. Well, guess what, Pollan? I read your book and found much of it thoroughly engrossing! Take that!

10. "The Last Magician" by Stephen Corey
The only way I can describe this book is “quintessentially American," as it seems like Corey grew up in the America we were all supposed to call our own, with picnics, fireworks, bedtime stories and Sunday papers. And, given its sincere reflection and thoughtful musings, it reads like the collection was penned by a father grateful for his new life after spending his youth traveling. He’s somewhere stationary now and wildly appreciative of having a wife, kids and a home in the suburbs. There's a lot of quiet smirks lurking behind the words, painting the portrait of the American Dream without the delirious ecstasy, but with the calm, secluded possibility that it can exist. But he never sets out to do that, so the poems don’t come off as big hope or endless love. It just comes off real, as one man tries to interpret the world from his place in it.

Happy reading in 2012, folks!

2011: A Survey

2012-01-09T22:57:00.000-08:00

Where did you begin 2011?

On a beach in Mexico, next to a Christmas tree on fire, screaming, "Aaaaannnnaaaaaaarchy!" Save for the screaming, that's how I ended it too.

Have any life changes in 2011?
Moved out again, this time into a clean, quiet young adult house. Naturally, we're still acting like kids with drinking problems, but we clean up after ourselves now.

Where did you go on vacation?
New York City, Seattle, Oregon, Las Vegas, Big Sur, Mexico (a few times), Santa Cruz (a few times), Joshua Tree (a few times), Big Bear (a few times).

What's the one thing you thought you would never do but did in 2011?
Watch my company collapse.

What was your favorite moment?
Wandering New York City for the first time. Seriously.

What was your biggest accomplishment?
I finished my novel, which, even though I've been looking to do that for years, was still a surprise. To be honest, whenever I start a project, I usually assume I won't actually finish it.

What was your favorite TV program for the year?
Hard to say, as I discovered both Parks And Recreation and Community this year.

What was the best book you read this year?
The Girl Who Played With Fire by Steig Larsson.

What was your favorite film of the year?
Midnight In Paris (by Woody Allen).

How would you describe your personal fashion concept this year?
"These are the shirts in my closet. Most of them button. Watch me wear 'em."

What song will always remind you of 2011?
"All My Friends" by LCD Soundsystem.

What did you do on your birthday?
I bailed on work to go shoe-shopping with Rex before we met up with Jeff and Greg for a few beer flights. Then I hung out with my family. I've come to really enjoy not planning shit for my birthday.

What was your best month?
April. Easily. Hell, it may have been the best month of my life. That was a solid month of laughing non-stop. For a brief month, I figured out life better than I ever had before. I'm pretty sure that I was going to bed grinning most spring nights.

What one thing would have made your year more satisfying?
Not having to invest $4,000 in my car. Maybe putting that money towards something more practical...like a really nice titty bar.

What kept you sane this year?
Writing.

What celebrity did you fancy the most?
At the beginning of the year, it was Rachel McAdams. By the end, it was Olivia Wilde. Look at me grow as a person!

Drinking buddy of the year?
Rex and Chase. Definitely.

Smoking buddy of the year?
Grant. Definitely.

Whose behavior merited celebration?
Everyone who was at Greg's house nearly every spring weekend for drinking and swimming.

Whose behavior disappointed you?
Mine/the government's.

Any regular activities?
Sunday night family dinners at my parents' house, Monday night writing at Non and Jessica's house, Wednesday night basketball, Sunday morning basketball...and a brief period of Tuesday night backyard movies.

Favorite night out?

Memorial Day Weekend. Saturday, if I'm getting specific. Danced all night on the coast of Oregon. It was the perfect night. I'd relive it again and again if I could. Honorable Mentions: the Superfriends' Star Wars Saturday. That was one long, glorious day and night of destroying my body. We bought food from Del Taco, Little Cesears and KFC while drinking Irish car bombs and a $100 bottle of the finest Jameson. It was horrifyingly rewarding. If not that day, then I should mention the afternoon Chase, Rex and I spent drinking mimosas in our underwear before heading to Joshua Tree. Or any drive up the coast with those two. Or that all day swim session with everyone at Greg's house. Or his Christmas party. Or...actually, this could go on forever. I had a lot of fun this year.

Start a new hobby?
Coming up with really ludicrous ideas and grand plans with Grant in the basement. Also, I wrote my first television pilot and most of a movie screenplay for the first times.

Any slumps?
I spent the summer uneasy.

Been naughty or nice?
Twas a fair balance of disease.

Any regrets?
Not being on hallucinogens with James for The Natural History Museum in New York.

Do you have any New Year's resolutions?
Yeah, but they never make any sense. It's always like "don't get stung by bees" or "get even taller."

Overall, how would you rate this year?
On a scale of one to ten, I would say...spectacular!

What do you want to change in 2012?
Either get in better shape or go for all-out warfare on my body.

What are you wishing for in 2012?
One hell of a year.

News Of The Day

2012-01-09T16:32:00.000-08:00

Refused is reuniting.

"fucking disgustingly happy"

2012-01-08T22:10:00.000-08:00

"fucking disgustingly happy"
filled to the brim with tequila by jake kilroy.

give me the wood pirates and flower boats.
give me the holy grail,
filled with the blood of our youth.
smear it across my mouth like a clown grin.
put me in a tuxedo.
tell me where the parade is.
let me buy you a loft.
let me read you poems by bly.
let me cook you breakfast sandwiches
and get it all wrong.

let me whisk you away
to the same fields
you grew up battled on.

let me burn those bridges
of friends that forget your birthday
every single year.

let me mouth off to the men
who told you'd look good
if you were someone else.

let me write christmas cards
and hide plastic eggs
for your nieces and nephews.

let me build us a house
from the trees that cracked
in your favorite lightning storm.

darling, i may have soft hands,
but i can use them to fix cars,
repair sinks, hold candles,
stir pasta, wash windows,
cup water, drape over you.

i see us laughing until
we're gasping for air
and begging each other
to stop telling jokes
because the sun
will soon be up.

i want this room awash in lights
from lanterns we bought at a garage sale.
i want this bed as full as our hearts
and i want to keep wanting.

i'll stop writing songs for sailors.
i'll stop stumbling home from bars.
i'll stop jumping into moving cars.
i'll stop asking for more than this.

just give me your new year
and i'll give you my christmas
and all that will be left is
birthdays and dinner parties.
we'll be all dressed up
and everywhere to go.
i'll be the most reckless gentleman
you ever made promises to.
i'll be daper and dangerous,
like a classic movie rogue,
swerving on roads
and endlessly tongue-in-cheek.

one smile, one wink,
one nod, one last dance.
all black and white.
making everyone miserable.
hopelessly in love.
fucking disgustingly happy.

Old Flames XII: Godspeed You To Sea, Young Mariner

2012-01-08T01:07:00.000-08:00

Godspeed you to sea, young mariner. Do not take up piracy, fatal youth. This is a beach to bury the dead. This is not where you will build and burn your summer home.

Oh, the burning, you ask?

You will find yourself alone and heartbroken, drunk on sweet rum, trampled by the hopeless and pitied by the gutless, looking for a world to tear down. And then you will find your home on the cliff and wish it to fall. But what of the rocks below?

Feed them.

They are hungry for your body, but you still have more reward to see upon your head. Let them finish the house you built with dry hands and eager manner. Let you announce your home's demise and let the rocks below grind their teeth. This is you on a dark beach, awash in flames, cackling insanity under the moon that crawls across the water like a beggar in love.

This is mutiny upon ourselves! This is young boys and young girls making blood pacts in the trees! This is forlorn devotion to the last cause that ever mattered: our future!

Wreck this day and night will be filled with the saddest lover to ever want to rob you. Shall you take up above the tavern? Good, then watch the waves. We are waiting for enemies.

Here We Go, New Year

2012-01-02T23:37:00.000-08:00

2011 was one hell of a year. It started and ended on a beach in Mexico. In between, I finished a novel, wrote an essay collection, moved out again and visited NYC for the first time. In between all that was road trips, dinner parties, swim days, game nights and a few weddings and ragers. Well, guess what? This year started on a beach in Mexico and I've already been dealt a good hand. Ante up, 2012.

Unemployed: Redux

2011-12-28T16:05:00.000-08:00

So...my company stopped being a company yesterday and I'm now out of a job, which obviously means that I'm going to Mexico indefinitely. So...goodbye, Jake Kilroy! Hello, Senor Joaquin Salvador Funnypants!

"funeral for the middle class"

2011-12-28T01:34:00.000-08:00

"funeral for the middle class"
written while watching a movie with a man in bandages by jake kilroy.

what is the condition of the middle class?
hopeless?
heartless?
gutless?
flat-out fucking dead?

this is why we attend plays,
to pretend culture,
or why we spend hours looking at christmas lights
on december 27th,
because we can't ever go home
without thinking
about the lovers
we pray are dead
without us.

the middle class is one big mass grave
of people that considered revolution
and then stopped.
twas just working class jive talk
that fell short
in the mechanic shops
where fear paralyzed us
and the shitty bars
where everyone drowned.

so we built churches
and prayed to gods
made of wood and regret,
called coffins statues
and feigned misery
to feel esteemed.

no gods,
no masters,
no peers,
no nothing.
this time,
we dance until we cry.

without songs or souls,
merciless and less,
we're starving at buffets
and complaining
about snacks.

this is the world,
broken and buried,
shoved into a closet
that belongs to the world's loneliest poet.

ethnic food for the white beggars
with income and benefits.
failure for the poor,
failure for the rich,
goddamn nothing for the middle class.

this is us sneaking into coffee shops
and hiding out in record stores,
all so we can get drunk
and check our voice messages
and hear the horrifying gasps
of our ex-lovers
that once left us
for people
that were like us
that don't like us
and wear better clothes.

so,
in between the lines,
tucked away between words,
i'll explain everything to a stranger
at the airport
after a handful of pills
and a mouthful of shots.
but i won't brush my teeth
in front of my significant other
because i find this home life
the most doldrum waste of scars.

sure, sure,
these are the bandages i shoplifted
and the keepsakes i dipped in holy water,
the laughs i kept in glass bottles
and the weather i hoped would never come.
but it'll never be the party i wanted,
the shot of adrenaline i called medicine,
the hope with me i carried like a lucky coin.

no,
this is a terrible idea from a scholar,
a wish from a kid who can't dream,
maybe even the last train home,
in a house where no one sleeps well.

so if this is the funeral for the middle class,
the one foretold in rumors and fliers,
you better count your lucky fucking stars
that i've got a few good dollars in my pocket.

"in a nation of hope"

2011-12-16T00:21:00.000-08:00

"in a nation of hope"

written while putting off needed sleep by jake kilroy.

a couple of black flag songs

being played too loud

in the basement.

one kid working on his car,

dreaming of highways

and empty beer bottles.

this country at war,

carving hearts up

and framing them.

play music,

drive fast
and stick around.

Five Things That Are Awesome

2011-12-08T07:41:00.000-08:00

1. BAND: The Horrible Crowes
You know who's rad? The Gaslight Anthem. You know what's rad? The Gaslight Anthem's Brian Fallon doing a side project that he describes as "The Gaslight Anthem : Bruce Springsteen :: The Horrible Crowes : Tom Waits." It's Fallon and his guitar tech, Ian Perkins, and their debut album Elsie is so damn legit with the right amount of everything. Like the Gaslight Anthem, it's broken hearts alongside brass knuckles, churning honest nostalgia into earnest swagger. Check out these songs: I Witnessed A Crime, Crush, Behold The Hurricane, Ladykiller. Black Betty & The Moon.
2. MOVIE: My Dinner With Andre
I rented My Dinner With Andre from my local library because of a spoof episode on Community. Also, I like Wallace Shawn a whole lot. Plus, an entire movie that's just a dinner conversation with four stars from Roger Ebert? What I thought would be an extended conversation about art and friendship turned out to be one of the most diligently philosophically and easily engaging movies I've ever seen. The two of them discuss the whimsical big picture (musical theater in a European forest) versus the appreciated small things (morning coffee and crossword puzzles) in such a poetic and amusing sense, you feel as if you're eavesdropping on old friends at a fancy restaurant.
3. TV SHOW: Community
I can't believe they might cancel Community. That's goddamn insane. The show feeds my love for pop culture, meta-humor, wit, deadpan, real world observations and spoofs. I don't have to describe it because you should already be watching it. I mean, we're going to cancel Community and just let NCIS have another fucking season? Great, world. That's just great.
4. BOOK: The Girl Who Played With Fire
With years of investigative journalism behind him, Stieg Larsson understood an important thing about storytelling: people make events, events don't make people. You'd think this would be obvious to novelists everywhere, but, year after year, one lazily written book comes out after another and it's due to authors wanting scenes and outcomes more than motives and movements. The thriller genre of fiction lets that shit slide like crazy. But Larsson's crafted a tightly wound trilogy and I'm in the middle of the second book. The Girl Who Played With Fire changes up the story better than almost any other sequel I've ever read. Larsson has created exciting characters that have realistic feelings and function with deep purpose in a world of horrendous violence.
5. RANDOM: Derweze (or Darvaza)
There's a Gate to Hell in Turkmenistan. Soviet geologists were drilling there in the '70s and the ground collapsed. Underneath the rig was a gas pocket. Thinking it would burn off in a few days, they waited. Well, now it's 40 years later and the pit is still burning. It hasn't stopped since. Hell yes.

Old Flames XI: The Genius Art Of A Fallen Society

2011-12-06T21:53:00.000-08:00

Run from this town, I've got the get-outta-here blues. Pack up the caskets and feed the horses, we've got a two-day ride. To where, a man of god will ask. To the promise land, an outlaw will answer. And all but the preacher will laugh.

This is the highland lowlife livin' we told and sold to the saviors. These are the secrets we used to bargain for our lives. What did you give up, the public will ask. We'll say nothing and they'll believe it. But then we'll say everything. We gave up everything. Every word in the dictionary was given up. Every misspelling in the holy books was given up. Every error in the history books was given up. Every laughable mistake in brochures and presentations was given up.

"This is the time of the businessman?"

"Nay, this is the fall of the businessman."

Well, what gives, donkeys and elephants? Where's the school spirit? Where's the ol' college try? Maybe these questions would be more opportune if you hadn't cut the education budget. Thanks for burning the prisons so we could have the caves, pundits. We waged war with ourselves and all we got were these lousy casualties. Is there honor in merit? Well, consider: is there merit in honor? Answer either and you'll be shot for the irony.

Remember what plagued our lands? Good, then tell us. We're nearly out of sitcom reruns to behold. Give us our holiday, what be the enemy's name?

"Us," she'll say in red and gray.

The crowd will panic. And that'll be the end of it. That'll be the last great act of this country. It'll be our ruins, left for the world to behold the first country to go mad with power.

"betray your heroes of rock 'n roll"

2011-12-05T20:50:00.001-08:00

"betray your heroes of rock 'n roll"
written off-hand by jake kilroy.

part i:
betray your heroes of rock 'n roll.
give up the drugs, stay home
and get a job.
attend museums and organize picnics.
talk about daycare centers,
talk about tax reform issues,
talk about the future, finally.

build a fence, paint it white
and buy a dog.
name it after someone you loved.
keep it to yourself
until you tell your family at dinner
on some random sunday evening.

eat healthy, jog at night
and be safe with fire.
remember pranks that went wrong.
laugh about them,
but quietly wish you were
a teenager again without a curfew.

tell your kids your favorite memories
but paint them as mistakes.
lose control one evening
and blow off steam by driving.
recall how you used to smoke cigarettes.
don't buy cigarettes.
buy a coffee drink you can't pronounce.
don't go home.
end up at the hill overlooking the city.
don't give up.
just recite yourself the promises you made
when you were a kid.
rationalize everything.
tell yourself you accomplished everything.
tell yourself that your inner kid is happy.
tell yourself that yourself is happy.
apologize to your heroes of rock 'n roll
and tell them they don't mean shit to you.
you have a family now.
and the last thing you want is rock 'n roll.

part ii:
listen to rock 'n roll on the way home
and tell it that you'll never leave.
but you still have a family.
and they mean everything to you.

part iii:
listen to rock 'n roll when working on your car
and you can't find the tool you need.

part iv:
listen to rock 'n roll when your kids go to college
and you have an empty house.

part v:
listen to rock 'n roll when you reach your twilight
and you want to relive.

part vi:
listen to rock n' roll when you've got nowhere to be
and all you want in this world is a song.

"dig at your own bones"

2011-12-02T09:26:00.000-08:00

"dig at your own bones"
written earnestly by jake kilroy.

dig at your own bones,
scratch 'til your skin opens up,
'til your flesh gives you a home.
open yourself up like a gift
and claw at the demons
too high on opium to fight back.

wiggle your fingers into the heart
and pump it yourself.

brush off the dust from lack of use.
swallow the dust to put something in your stomach.
let the dust settle when you go to bed alone.

curve your muscles as a refresher course.
remember what it feels like to fight.
beg your body's forgiveness.

put both hands in now.
tie your fingers together.
make prayer.

tug on your lungs to cough up stale air.
choke on it, sniff it back in, spit it out.

crawl up your throat and remove the words
lodged in there for years.
give gravity to them and push into your heart
to hear your gut grumble with unease.
vomit.

stand back up.
brush your gums clean from the inside.
grit your teeth and swallow your tongue.
give it back to your mouth and lick your lips.
sigh.

carve last words into your chest.
so when the coroner comes,
he'll know your regrets.

dive your wrists down your torso,
massage the roots of your organs
to give thanks that they still work.

make yourself honest
by dragging bloody fingers across your skull
and proclaim it rock art
for scholars to find,
when they want to know how we failed as a species.

nod to know you can.
reach down to bend your knees.
make prayer again.
wipe tears.
sleep.

"wet bible pages"

2011-12-01T23:06:00.000-08:00

"wet bible pages"
written with very little by jake kilroy.

a coughing fit at midnight,
spilled water on my books,
realized i still had your bible.

read it through, didn't ring true,
so, darling, to hell with you.

Old Flames X: Borne Into The Sea

2011-11-28T00:16:00.000-08:00

I was borne into the sea, like a sailor overboard with a drinking problem and mermaid troubles. I was caressed into the air by the willowy arms of a god that had long forgotten his own problems with the church. I was dashed onto land by the screaming, scraping majesty of a cold air front. This is the wind. This is the bends. This is the end of the world for pessimists.

Imagine a country without borders, a corral without cowboys, a chick without curves. What would we have? Anarchy, surely.

This is ten broken promises counted on ten broken fingers. This is the list of new year's resolutions being used for kindling. This is the breakfast I lied about eating. This is the second drink I've had for lunch. This is the three botched dinners I made you as apologies.

How well are we doing on time? Oh, that bad eh?

Well, then it's too late for lovers' quarrels and fantasies about past lives. We've got a house to build and neighbors to scorn. Why can't we all own pianos? Wouldn't that make things easier? How would we rob and murder each other if each of us were classically trained? If there were symphonies for every block, why would we ever use and abuse each other? Was that a good idea? I actually came up with it as a child. Watch the world get harder.

This is for all the broken casts with penny poetry scrawled into the white paint. This is for the red tape of democracy and the yellow tape of crime scenes. This is for party favors. This is for the old school. This is for the new wave. This is for the sleight of hand in every card deal.

This is for every kid breaking out of their house at night. This is for every teenager breaking into houses. This is for every twenty-something breaking hearts. This is for every thirty-something breaking up marriages. This is for every forty-something and beyond breaking their own promises to themselves.

This is for the rest of us. This is for the nobodies, the somebodies, the anybodies - all everybodies with antibodies. We are now moving matter. We are now making matter. We are now making sure we matter. This is why we move, so we can fill new deserts and taste new oceans.

The saltiest kiss I ever had was a girl's shoulder after a swim. That was one fine summer. She was young and I was young and all we had was youth.

To realize it now, as an adult is tragic: my most battled quality is my perfectionist drawl about being an outlaw. But what if I had my youth again? Would I pray for ivory beds and silky hair? Would I sneak off and abandon my parents? Would I make the most of a bad idea?

These are the questions to ask. These are the answers to beg for. These are the conversations we have with ourselves when we read a good book. These are the lyrics we know to the songs we hum in showers. These are the newspaper clippings I turned into revolutionary themes. How are we crass? We are crass by proxy, of course.

"Oh, now tell us how it ends, young, beautiful murderous thieves."

"In a stage bow, I promise you."

That is grand enough for me, for I have books to read and books to write. But how will I ever write with the future so very much a concern? I will figure it out later!

"Ah yes, famous last words..."

"The most famous indeed."

Well, then this is for the weddings, the funerals and the romantic getaways that fill our lives in constant ecstasy we deny and continuous euphoria we don't believe. That is truly remarkable, citizens of the world. All we ever really needed was tree houses and candles. Everything else is just trim.

"It's settled then. We shall kill ourselves."

"It really seems like the only honorable solution."

So, march forward, brave men and women! We honor your defeat by way of thunderous applause! Hear me now in this cavern!

"He's lost it now."

"If it was ever really there..."

Ah yes, the true nature of wisdom is the ability to talk with ease.

So give me the microphone.

I've got a culture to save.

Saturday

2011-11-23T12:35:00.000-08:00

I've had a lot of great days in my life. Hell, I've had a lot of flawless days this year. But, man, Saturday was incredible.

It's easy to point out big events and say, "Hey, that day was something." Obviously, when I first wandered Sydney, Paris or New York City, those days were big. And, sure, the first time I saw my name in print or bought booze legally for the first time have been grand moments in my never-ending carousel of a life, but that's not what I mean.

And I don't even mean really fun days that you'll always remember, such as Memorial Day of this year when I stayed in a seaside mansion with all the time in the world or the Mexico trip when we got robbed and almost drove off a cliff.

No, what I mean is the epic days that were made out of impromptu nothing. To me, what's impressive is when you can go to bed laughing about things that you'll easily forget in years to come. It was easier in our youth, when we only worked two days a week and could go swimming, bike-riding, partying and swooning in a single evening with ease and without worry. What gives me chills is to be so ecstatic about moments that may not even be on the radar for others (a classic parade of "you just had to be there").

Saturday was one of those days.

After attending a pirate show on Friday with more than a dozen friends for a birthday and drinking beers the size of my arm one after another, the lot of us came back to my basement bar and inhaled whiskey and beer until the early hours of the next day.

So, on Saturday, I woke up in search of the trains that hit me with Chase saying nobody was home. So, the two of us watched the Lil' Wayne documentary wearing only the jeans we slept in.

We told Rex to return/come over and the three of us goofed off until visiting my mom's farmers market booth and grabbing breakfast at Kimmie's Coffee Cup in the Orange Circle. Filled to the brim with food and laughter, we came back to the empty house to do dives off the stairs and couches onto oversized beanbags like oversized children. Nobody home but us kids, we thought. Sweaty and shirtless, we got rid off our pants and drank mimosas in our underwear on the back patio to compose a sincere letter to a friend before going through old photos and reminiscing about our younger exploits.

Around six, Dave, Sara and Brian (Dave's roommate) picked the three of us up and we sped out to Joshua Tree singing one song after another, where we stayed at a house (my first time out there not sleeping in a tent or a van). There, we inhaled whiskey and beer again until we played an erotic board game turned quiz show with contestants being tossed beers on the roof. Also, there was a brief scare of aliens, a costume contest that just about everybody won and an hour-long gigglefest over nicknames from a label maker. After scarfing down food from the super killer Mexican restaurant for some reason in Joshua Tree, we fell asleep watching The Big Hit.

What a fucking day.

The Great Gatsby

2011-11-23T12:08:00.000-08:00

Other goofy takes on The Great Gatsby are on Hark! - A Vagrant, but the phrase "fuck the jazz age" makes this one my favorite.

Old Flames IX: If I Were God

2011-11-22T21:31:00.000-08:00

If I were God, I'd pray for better angels. I'd wager all of my feathery white gold on the anarchists that made it past the gate. Saint Peter just wanted to see what would happen with a little graffiti and color. So, let us paint this heaven before tumbling down the splintery ladder to earth. See you on the other side, darling. See you were it counts.

But with longer lashes and sweeter dashes, right? Because how can I rely on an empty wallet? Bash these brains in to see roses. A severed head for a pot, so the grin always glows. Mark(et) my words, I've had it with these wars. I'm done with the class fights and protest rights.

I was in the grocery store tonight and nobody bothered anybody. Everyone stacked their carts with turkeys. Thanksgiving is this week. All I had in my hands was vegetable oil and cookie frosting. What was I then? Can I still be an adult if red wine is all I've got for dinner? Come on, we were the tragic generation? We came from homes that were broken homes a generation before. We came with the stitches already on our body. We came with plaster on our bedroom walls. We came with duct tape and glue. We came into the world sick to our stomachs. We aren't broken. The system is broken. It didn't come out fixed like we did.

So give us our medals, bestow us our pride and give us your thanks for looking at the world like a last meal. Don't hand us the hate, the guilt, the regret, the patriot acts. Don't feed us the lies, the greed, the horror, the dragging curse of a western god. This was our mess. From when we had town halls in school rooms to now, between the sweaty hand and the big red button, this was a final stand against ourselves. But no one will show, you say? Well, we all have flaws and freedoms to give the world just cause for tying us down. It's a wicked world, but it's always been one or the other, and that other world is like one long terrible dinner party.

Now, what is? What shall we all have? Have we questions? We have answers. So, why start making a joke now? Why didn't we always just think this? Why did we have to hate and worry and fear what so many of us all do?

We are all treasures with different values, says the magician.
We are all coins with scratches, says the philosopher.
We are all money, says the kid.

"If Only We Could"

2011-11-20T20:45:00.000-08:00

"If Only We Could"
after coming home by jake kilroy.

i wish i could write poetry on my knuckles
and drum them on your window,
on rainy, blasphemous nights,
when you're up reading late.

that would be my new year.
that would be my resolution.

you would be the heart i wish existed,
the lungs that weren't beyond repair,
the legs that can always run home
and the brain filled with hope.

why couldn't we just live here?
why couldn't we just give in?
what makes us go west?

to the sun, to the ocean,
to the fairy tale stories,
told and retold to generations
that come after the war's end.

this shall be one long, dazzling display
of affection, of realism, of comfort.
this will be the graffiti in words,
painted with the colors of adventure.

break more pens in furious rants,
bust more cracks for a sinful grin,
lay waste to all the times i begged for forgiveness.

here.

this is what we have.
why not make the best of it?

"Knife Studies"

2011-11-14T16:10:00.001-08:00

"Knife Studies"
a poem from a dark, empty house by jake kilroy.

Anarchist blessings for those camping in life,
burning old bills and sticks through their hearts,
cutting out snowflakes and pasting new stars,
oh, what fun an afternoon can be with a knife.

Autumn Leaves (Me Feeling Productive)

2011-11-11T15:17:00.000-08:00

Last night, I put together more than 100 envelopes for submissions of my essay/poetry/short story collection to literary agents. Then I went to my extremely talented artist friend Alex's house and handed him the two kids books I've written, as he'll be illustrating them all kinds of radical. And, this weekend, I should finish a few more chapters of rewrites on my novel.

However, as for tonight, I'm going to get drunk as hell in my basement bar, if anybody needs me.

Also, there's colorful leaves all over my front yard and backyard and it's goddamn tremendous. I'm working from home today and I can't stop looking out my window. Outstanding work, Autumn.

The Replacements

2011-11-09T12:20:00.000-08:00

The Replacements
by Jake Kilroy

I saw the Replacements documentary Color Me Obsessed in Los Angeles on Friday with Lindsay. The "rockumentary" (one of my least favorite words ever actually) featured friends and fans, but no actual members or music of the Replacements. So, when someone mentioned a song or an album cover, you just had to know it. It was sort of a documentary made for serious fans, I guess.

The Replacements, for those (for whatever reason) who haven't discovered them, were incredible. Their career was basically the 1980s (1979-1991) and, to many, they were the last great rock 'n roll band. The four drunks from Minnesota were Paul Westerberg on vocals and rhythm guitar, Bob Stinson on lead guitar, Tommy Stinson on bass and Chris Mars on drums. Slim Dunlap and Steve Foley stepped in at the end, when the band was falling apart, but The Replacements, as in the legendary boozing goofs from Minneapolis, are those original four.

They were critic darlings, they influenced way too many bands to count and, yet, when you find a fellow Replacements fan, it's like acknowledging a member of your secret club. Shit, I was at a show last year when I was talking to the singer of a band called Whitman. I asked him what his band sounded like. He told me, "Well...my favorite band is The Replacements." I cut him off and said that I'd just buy his albums right then and there, as if supporting another Replacements fan is always the right thing to do.

The 'Mats (nicknamed that because of a misprint they found hilarious when promoted as The Placemats) are one of my all-time favorite bands, if not my actual favorite. Ok, they are my favorite band, but it's hard to say sometimes, because I think Bob Dylan was the best songwriter of the 20th Century and The Clash was easily the most talented (without getting into the whole Beatles debate). But The Replacements resonate with me like no other band out there. They were having more fun than anyone, they couldn't help but get famous, they played shows in the flannel or t-shirt they wore all day and they would get drunk in lawn chairs. They were so astoundingly talented without really giving a shit. While serious musicians would sit in a studio and craft a song for weeks, meticulously working towards perfect musical harmony or whatever, The Replacements recorded entire albums in a day, all while drinking cheap beer. And then critics would tell them how great they were.

When a magazine called The Replacements "the band of the year," pissed-off top-selling artist of the year Jon Bon Jovi infamously remarked, "If they're so famous, why haven't I ever heard of them?"

To which, I can only assume The Replacements laughed and said, "Who the hell gives a shit about Bon Jovi?"
Maybe the reason I have trouble naming them definitely as my favorite band is because I'm always kind of mad at them. I'm mad at them for never properly considering how great they were. I'm mad at them for kicking Bob out (as one dude in the documentary stated, "How much of a mess do you have to be...to be kicked out of The Replacements for being a drunk?"). I'm mad at them for wanting to leave the past behind. I'm mad at them for biting every hand that ever fed them. I'm mad at them for sentimentality getting the best of Westerberg's writing in the end. A lot of their friends in the documentary said it was hard to be a Replacements fan sometimes, because every time they had the opportunity to move on, they'd just blow it off most of the time.

But all of that shit is also why I adore them. And I didn't even discover them until a year after their Fourth of July on-stage break-up.

I was in second grade when I dug through my father's glovebox and rummaged through his music collection. I found cassettes for The Cure's Disintegration, Rickie Lee Jones's Traffic From Paradise, Los Lobos's Kiko and, most famously, The Replacements' Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash. And that album straight up changed my world. It was my first instance of finding new music and I technically did it on my own. My parents would've shown me them at one point or another, I figure, as my parents were responsible for getting me into really cool music: Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, The Sex Pistols, The Rolling Stones, Bob Marley & The Wailers, The Who, Fine Young Cannibals, Johnny Cash, et cetera. My dad was even the one who got me into The White Stripes and Outkast.
But what I found in that Replacements tape was overwhelming. At that young age, all music is polished. Everything you're exposed to is flawlessly done. But you're also not exposed to much music. So, it's very easy to assume, "oh, so this is music." To hear four guys play the shit out of what they called "power trash" probably shaped me right then and there. Everything was inconsistent. There were random yells and no chorus sounded the same. Songs tapered off, the guitar was lower in certain parts, there were mistakes everywhere. One woman in the documentary described the solos as "hitting all the wrong notes at the right time."

But that's what I love them for. Nobody could say, "hey, there's a lot of mistakes on this album," because The Replacements would smugly reply either, "Are there?" or, "Yeah, so?" They put out punk classic after punk classic before evolving into a complex alternative band, because, as Westerberg stated, "We write songs rather than riffs with statements." So, they got sick of the punk scene and moved on to acoustic songs and songs with horns.

On Let It Be, there's a soft, tortured piano tune about laying off gender benders ("Androgynous") alongside a loose punk jam called "Gary's Got A Boner." Respected music critic Robert Christgau gave the album an A+. Also, it was named Let It Be, because their producer was a huge Beatles fan. The Replacements joked about naming the album Let It Be and their producer told them they couldn't. Ever the dissenters, the 'Mats decided on the spot to name it Let It Be, because, hey, why the hell couldn't they?
When I recorded my four-song project last year, I kept trying to fix it up and make it sound like a professionally recorded album, which was clearly stupid. Then I thought of Sorry Ma and wondered, "Aren't all the mistakes, like, half the reason I love The Replacements?"

I love them for their shrug-off-everything spirit, because it makes them impossible to criticize without them getting in the last word. They're like those brilliant kids in school who don't fully apply themselves. They may be slackers, but everyone knows what they're capable of, if only they really tried. Who knows what The Replacements would've become if they sobered up and started really putting in efforts with the fame machine? Now, sure, that may absolutely appear to be a cop-out, but I like that they existed during an era of hair metal bands and new wave groups being way too into themselves, with everyone tripping over themselves to be a one-hit wonder. All the while, The Replacements scored critical praise and just sort of laughed about it. And it wasn't like they "just wanted to be artists" or "ignored the fame in order to create." They seemed like they just wanted to do whatever made them happy, which was just being a band.

So, instead, they showed up drunk to their shows. They even showed up drunk to their 1986 performance on Saturday Night Live, which got them banned forever, as one reviewer noted that they were "mouthing profanities into the camera, stumbling into each other, falling down, dropping their instruments and generally behaving like the apathetic drunks they were." Rumor has it that NBC had to rebuild the green room because The Replacements got into a food fight and destroyed the whole thing.

Fans would arrive at their shows without knowing what the hell would happen. They were deemed "the greatest live band ever" by someone once with a tongue in cheek, because either they played harder than anyone else or they got too hammered to really care how things went. No show was ever the same. And everyone's favorite shows, it seems, were usually the ones when The Replacements also became "the world's greatest cover band." Realizing the band was too drunk to correctly do their own songs, fans at their shows would yell out random songs they wanted to hear. If one of the members knew how to play it, he'd try and the rest of the band would follow, everything from the Defranco Family's "Lovebeat - It's A Heartbeat" to "Summer of '69" by Bryan Adams. One fan remembered a show where they were too drunk to play anything but The Beach Boys' "Help Me, Ronda."

When a teacher found out I liked The Replacements in high school, he burned me copies of their bootlegs (as well as The Shit Hits The Fans), just so we could talk about their live shows.
Some memories that fans shared:
- A guy went to a Replacements show with his cousin, who was a huge fan of the four-piece. While playing pinball, a dude asks him for a spare quarter to play the machine next to him. Guy gives the dude a quarter. They played pinball. The Replacements come on stage and start playing. Guy notices there's only three people on stage and wonders what happened to the fourth one. After two songs, guy turns to the dude and says, "Hey, I'm gonna go watch the band." Dude grabs his arm and says, "No, man, we started this together. We have to finish it." They keep playing pinball until the dude's last ball drops. Dude smiles and says, "Thanks! Gotta go!" Turns out that the dude who bummed a quarter is Bob Stinson. He tries to climb on stage, but Westerberg keeps kicking him.

-The Replacements opened for Tom Petty following the release of Pleased To Meet Me. At a music festival on their tour, they showed up on stage in drag (clothes they stole from Petty's wife). Westerberg then yelled into the microphone, "Tom Petty said he'd fire us if we fucked up again. But you know what? Fuck you, Tom Petty! And fuck you too, Nashville!" The band then played four or five songs before launching into a ten-minute instrumental version of Lou Reed's "Walk On The Wild Side."

- A show was over, but Paul Westerberg was drunk and wanted to keep playing, so he did solo songs until hardcore kids started heckling him. He said, "Hey, come up here and play if you think you can do better." So, he took his spot behind the drums and the two hardcore kids played guitar and bass, and the three of them played "Louie, Louie" for half an hour.

That last one might be The Replacements in a nutshell: anyone can play music. They started off as a drunk (Bob), a janitor (Paul), an artist (Chris) and a 14-year-old little brother (Tommy). They were a crew of misfits who kind of gave a hard time to anybody who complimented them. They wanted to play music, but it seems like nobody could ever tell if they really wanted to leave the garages and basements. When they found commercial success, they would shoot themselves in the foot to keep from going mainstream. And it's hard to tell if it was systematic or they really just couldn't help themselves, like they had to self-destruct to live up to their own reputation. So it's funny that when they were self-destructing, they put out two pretty, well-constructed and polished-sounding records (which I, as well as most fans, actually like the least).

When sound engineers would tell them to play songs slower or faster, they'd just say, "Oh, I forgot the chords...so we'll just have to keep it the way it is." They'd draw marker lines on the clothes of studio representatives. They'd drink their weight at the bar with fans before a show.
But they never became charity cases. They never started doing heroin with groupies. They never trashed a million dollar hotel room. They never made personal regrets or public apologies. They were just drunks, for the most part (but, I mean, seriously reckless drunks). They weren't going to after-parties or big bashes in their honor. Someone once described them as "one of the most famous bands that never really left the garage." They could play a show in a basement or a stadium and it would've been the same. They would've gotten hammered, worn whatever they felt like (including tutus) and then played their music however they wanted, no matter what other people wanted them to do. If somebody told them to play their old songs, they'd either play all the old songs to be really true to their fans or they'd only play new songs just to piss them off. They even covered a Kiss song on one of their albums because they knew how many their fans hated Kiss. I suppose that's why being a fan of The Replacements in the '80s was a complicated ordeal, because you never knew if The Replacements were really on your side.

When the just-starting-out Goo Goo Dolls opened for The Replacements on what would be the Mats' last tour, the four drunks ripped apart all of their backstage passes and slapped them to the stage, so when the Goo Goo Dolls (who were too poor to afford shoes at the time) would walk on stage, their feet would get stuck. Meanwhile, The Replacements sat off to the side, howling with laughter and drinking cheap beer from a cooler they brought from home.
After the movie, it was midnight and I didn't feel like going home. The movie put me in a weird mood. So I just sped along the Southern California coastline. I ended up in San Pedro, cruising around the port and listening to "Within Your Reach." Pretty soon, I was in Redondo Beach listening to "Careless." And then I was atop Signal Hill blasting "Buck Hill." It took me more than two hours to get home, just from aimless meandering. Apart from what I learned on the drive (like how this state has way too many CVS stores), I acknowledged some curious feelings about the band that's always, always, always been closest to my heart.

The fans of The Replacements can be like the actual band. Towards the end of the documentary, a drunken couple kept heckling the lead singer of the Goo Goo Dolls whenever he came on the screen. As much as it bothered me, I wondered, "Isn't that what The Replacements would've done anyway?" I mean, The Replacements didn't respect anybody. This is the same band that drunkenly broke into their studio and stole what they thought were the master copies of their previous four albums and threw them into the Mississippi River. The band knew what they were doing, but they either got too drunk or played dumb all the time. And I figure they did it so nobody would ever make them into something they didn't want to be. Hell, when they got the chance to make their own professional music video, everyone gave them a million ideas. Do this, do that, said everyone. So, just to be dicks, The Replacements shot their entire music video for "Bastards Of Young" with a speaker playing. That's it. Seriously. The entire music video for "Bastards Of Young" is just one, long black-and-white shot of a speaker.

So, as I made my way home at the slowest of rates, I recognized landmarks from past times of getting lost. I ended up at the San Pedro bridge that Jeff and I reluctantly went over after getting lost trying to find a record store in Long Beach in my Deathmobile, I passed a coffee shop where I caught up with an old flame one summer after a playhouse flooded and we were left with nothing to do and I finally found my way back to the freeway because of a round-about Non and I circled when trying to find Cal State Long Beach.

But, because I've been listening to The Replacements for practically my whole life, a whole lot of their songs carry weight with memories too. I remember Bret, Rex and I myself dancing around Chase to "Can't Hardly Wait" in my old backyard, I remember dissecting "Customer" with Jeff and Nick on our way to Mission Viejo to spend the summer as punks in foreign territory and I recall driving fast every time "Hayday" comes on.

The Replacements is my band. They're the most personal band I listen to, since I discovered them by myself and they've been with me since I was a kid. And nothing they did ever felt forced. They weren't trying to be big stars or punks. They acted like they didn't care because they legitimately didn't care. And, because music history is all sorts of screwy, not enough people listen to The Replacements, so I actually get to tell people about them. I don't show very many people bands they haven't heard before. I'm very often on the receiving end of it. But The Replacements is the band that I get to show to people and it's, like, crazy exciting to do. It's amazing that I get to be the one who says, "Holy shit, you've never heard The Replacements? Ok, I'm going to give you The Replacements."

So, anyway, if you've never listened to Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash or Stink or Hootenanny or Let It Be or Tim or Pleased To Meet Me or Don't Tell A Soul or All Shook Down...well, then...I give you The Replacements.

Last Stand Prayers

2011-11-07T11:06:00.001-08:00

"When I came at the world, I brought everything I had. It wasn't much, not by the standards of Fitzgerald or Bukowski. It was a pack of cigarettes, a lighter my father gave me and a loneliness nobody could put into words. How's that for apathy?" asked the man.

"Your name is in everyone's prayers," answered the kid.

The man nodded while the kid threw stones off the nearest cliff.

The Magician's Veil: Part One

2011-11-04T13:39:00.000-07:00

"The Magician's Veil: Part One"
the beginning of something by jake kilroy.

The steam of the city came from every crack. It was the hottest month of the year and the poor of the downtown, an area known only as The Gray, knew it better than anyone. The Gray hid in the broken heart of the skyline, though it felt like the edge of civilization. Hissing and whistling came from the grates and the walls, as the water below them shook desperately to escape.

A young man by the name of Squile, pronounced "skill," left his block in search of a magician. As he kicked the cans of the alleyways and the dirt of the backroads, tucked away by the bridge, he felt the violent dreams coming back. Flashes of light careened in his head, bouncing off his ears and piercing his eyes with what he could only explain as "spiritual visions." Without any money, his family suggested he go in search of a magician, as the chance of affording a physician was slim, if not impossible.

Squile ducked through the sewer systems to make haste, tossing a switch blade in his hands for rats and thieves. He whistled his neighborhood's anthem, so any creeping sharp grins would know he was from the dirtiest of districts, making him the dirtiest of fighters. Now, on the other side of the water, Squile jumped through a pipe that had been set up as a hidden slide into an underground poker room. He slid, dragging his blade against the concrete towards the end to slow him down just enough to keep his stride when he hit the plank wood of a tavern's cellar. Several men played cards at a table nearby. They hardly noticed him.

This burrough, known only as The Range, was considerably cleaner than Squile's stake of city land, but it was the lowest level of interest for the other side of the river. Squile went up the stairs, kicked open the door and meandered through the bar of restless street tycoons. Broken bottles filled the trash cans, the bartender had a small arsenal beneath the counter and most of the crowd wore bowler hats with no smiles to match. It was loud and awful, but Squile moseyed through, still whistling his proud district tune. The locales knew him, but not by anything more than "kid." Squile was neatly dressed, or as fashionable as one could be from The Gray. Wearing a thin three-piece suit with shorts instead of pants, as pants were much more expensive in the city's tailor shops and a sign of class, Squile was as fancy as he figured he'd ever look. He was on the street and finally stopped tossing his knife in the air. Instead, he took in The Range.

Nearly everything in The Range was painted a shade of white or brown. The cobblestone streets were brown, the buildings were brown, both the horses and carriages were brown. One thing after another was either white or brown. The windows were white, the sky was white, the dresses were white. Squile nodded to nobody and stepped off the tavern's porch, slipping his sharp toy into his coat pocket.

Sunset was soon approaching, as the crew of lamplighters put the candles to work. Squile heard the angry chants of a fruit vendor at the market, which was spread through a large alley. Chalking up a sly smirk, Squile dodged carriages and beggers to make his way over. Without any hesitation, he bumped into the nearest lamplighter, who fell backwards into the angry fruit vendor, spilling his inventory. The lamplighter and the fruit vendor got into it, all while Squile collected his earnings.

Now looking like a young, lumpy man, Squile ate his winnings casually, with several more to go in his pockets. The sky was blood red by the time he reached Mortigan's Square and well on its way to darkness. Squile caressed the brickwork of the square until he came to a corner of ivy. The ivy was everywhere, except for a gaping hole in growth near the bottom. Squile brushed off some mortar dust and pushed on random bricks.

A churchbell rang in the distance. The sun was coming down upon the city. The brutal light of the sky flodded the streets in the final gasp of the horizon's breath.

Squile, still tapping at bricks, clicked his tongue and bit his lip, wondering what he should do. It was one thing to visit The Range. It was something else entirely to sleep in its streets. He just had to get beyond the wall.

Finally, his fingers stumbled upon a groove in the dirt and he pulled as hard as he could. The brick rolled in its place with the sound of gears replacing the gutter talk and drunken chatter awash in the square.

The bricks parted to form a small, though truly grand, entrance into a stone courtyard. It looked desolate and abandoned. Squile made a face. This was not what he was told would be. The rumors and wild talk had always suggested the courtyard was lavishly adorned with the most curious garden in the city's history.

Dumbfounded and disappointed, Squile made his way across the courtyard, taking in the spectacular nothing around him. Deteriorating walls of once-majestic masonry surrounded him on three sides as he faced what appeared to be a long-forgotten spice store. Its wooden sign swayed in the lulling breeze. Dry leaves fluttered lazily. Squile's eyes took in the scene once more before he noticed the design below his cloth shoes. Beneath the weight of Squile's increasingly nervous stance, there lay a star within a circle. Squile inhaled quickly. A pentagram in stone is almost never a good omen.

He gasped, reconsidering his intentions. His breaths shortened and sped up. The brick behind him began closing, as stone rubbed stone. Squile sprinted to the hole in the wall, but would've been crushed if he had attempted to jump through it.

There now came a rumbling in his heart he was usually unfamiliar with. Fear, in all of its entangling trickery, crept through him like snakes. His eyes stayed on the pentagram. Could he climb the walls? He wondered. He would have to.

Moving uneasily to the pentagram, Squile lowered his body, ready to run and climb the wall. He relaxed his lungs, exhaled and regained his calm. This is not how the city will kill me, he promised himself.

But before he reached the end of his count, the courtyard exploded with colors. Squile blinked and straightened. In an instant, Squile was in the most breath-taking garden he had ever seen. Flowers he didn't recognize, trees he wouldn't have believed, mesmerizingly soft grass all circled a tiny pond in the corner. In the middle, underneath Squile's feet, the pentagram covered itself in ivy.

And then the door of the shop opened.

Squile spun around and was even more impressed with the shop's appearance. It looked new. Beautiful architecture swept over the shop, now with clean windows and fresh paint. Squile stepped out of the ivy, hyponotized by the beauty. His heart racing and his skin itching, Squile stepped onto the small porch and then into the shop.

The shop's interior was astounding. Walls of velvet, chandeliers of brilliance and endless shelves of world wonders filled the shop, which was overwhelmingly larger than the outside hinted at. Squile moved hesitantly through the shop. Jars of powder and liquid, neatly labeled, filled an entire wall's shelves. Another long shelf featured tanks of plants and mud, each beautifully labeled. Squile jumped as he noticed that each tank contained frogs. The frogs watched him move across the room, towards the other half of the room swathed in black. Squile gulped as he proceeded. More shelves came into sight, each one offering new things that Squile didn't recognize. It was a hall of dreams.

Squile heard a swift movement in the darkness beyond. A knife soared through the air, barely a whisper from Squile's ear, and dug itself into the door frame Squile had come through. Squile shook with anxiety. He trembled as he gritted his teeth, slowly building himself up for what may come.

The outline of a gentleman came from the shadows. He wore an elegant suit, with matching cape and top hat, and held a knife that he twisted into his fingers. The gentleman's calm voice both thrilled and terrified Squile.

"And what may I do for you?" the gentleman whispered in a slow, syrupy growl.

Squile warmed himself up with heavy breaths.

"I want to be a magician," Squile replied.

A thin smile carved its way up the gentleman's face.

"Oh, is that all?" he said. " Then come with me, for we have work to do."

And, with that, the gentleman turned and gently disappeared into the darkness.

Squile heaved a sigh, smiled sharply and then followed the magician into the shadows.

Old Flames VIII: All Gather For This Burial

2011-11-03T23:55:00.000-07:00

I'm coming for you, reckless hearts. I'm riding my stagecoach west. But lest we forget you, prayer and politics. We'll ship you out with the coffins. We'll drag you to the coast, to the mountains, to the brink of self-repair, and then we'll burn ourselves alive as martyrs. For what cause? Just 'cause. We ain't fooling this year, this season, this breakdown of days. We've said so much in so little time. Give this next man the podium to speak. He has ideas! He has speeches! He has the world in the palm of his hand! Say what now, bespectacled man? We hardly knew ye. We down the ale and clunk the table, softly dampening the rot of the wood. We'll need that later for shelter, long before we build castles and gods. Sing us to sleep, clergyman. We simply must go on. We should wind through under the city, so we can end up in the better tomorrow. Wait, wait for your beloved. Surely, surely, this is a man who could've fixed Christ. Medic, medic, we've got an apostle here.

Utterly Smitten

2011-10-27T12:44:00.000-07:00

Ok, these two are on a crazy streak of delightful. My friends Celeste and Kim run a blog called Utterly Smitten. It used to also be run by Leslie (who was kind enough to let me sleep on her New York City living room floor), but now it's just the West Coasters. And they're doing spectacular work.

I ramble on this blog a whole lot and, as a collection, it's wildly self-indulgent. So, Utterly Smitten, in its concise, precise way of articulating joy as a worldly project, is sort of the anti-Cobblestone Address. It's whimsical, gleeful and appreciative. It covers art trends, fashion, food, home decor and general hey-maybe-we-should-be-creative-and-excited-or-just-smile-a-little-more-since-life-really-ain't-so-bad pieces. There's something about the collective vibe of the blog that reads like it's for adults reinventing nostalgia, from treehouses to costumes, and you find yourself wondering, hell, why couldn't we still giggle about old photographs and let our imagination get the best of us?

Some radical posts of late:

- One Couple, Two Houses

- The Soul Of Vinyl

- Dear Photograph, I Love You

- Adventures In Dreaming

Anyway, here and there, I get sick to death of myself and need a break. I can't even imagine how it is for people who aren't me. So, if my blog ever seems like it's become a mess of drunken poetry and obnoxious anecdotes about nothing, I recommend Utterly Smitten. Celeste and Kim are like...rainy day changer extraordinaires, a two-person tribe of the High-Five elite, the elected officials of Good Mood City. Yeah? Yeah.

Old Flames VII: Shadows Come

2011-10-25T22:18:00.000-07:00

Shadows come, bear us the frosty mornings we dream in your darkness for. I have lit all candles and sat on my couch all night. I have waited for starlight demons to dazzle me with coy sleight of hand. Mesmerize me, faintest moon beams. Boon with me with a majestic sorrow, for I have cut up your universe and made you lonelier stars.

From this, I became a summer. I sat in the fields of gold listening to the corn grow and a jazz piano in the winding road. We watched afternoon disappear like an old friend. I wrestled with my morals out beyond the creek with my closest of blood brothers. I paved my way to hell and adulthood with shoes I never wore. Shit knows they came every Christmas.

Oh, darling mistress Christmas, you were good to me as a child and I am easing into the winter holiday as an adult. There is new ingredients in the eggnog and friends by the tree. We all become winter wanderers when the weather outside is something we ain't used to. Give me the pumpkins and stars and four leaf clovers from other holidays. We're cooking a seasonal stew to get warm. Stay eternally warm. We want these clouds we threaded to be throw pillows for when we have guests. Let this house fill itself with guests. So, bring every schoolmate and ex, we're drinking ourselves gorgeous tonight.

Hot damn, blessed be our busted knuckles and wrap them in bandages for when we drink our hottest of sweet ale, to finally go swimming into the fearlessly golden beyond.

Old Flames VI: Hammers & Miles

2011-10-24T22:41:00.000-07:00

All I wanted to hear was Peter, Paul & Mary's "If I Had A Hammer" or The Journeymen's "500 Miles." Marching through the swamps and meadows, I shed my clothes to be a better man here in the new west. No knives in my pockets, no powder in my nails, I arrived to be greeted by sunshine and soul songs in countryside. Lord, why couldn't I go back home?

Even in this heaven, even in this messiahless land of washboard words and stick clapping, we are only praying away the spirits of Olde English Rule. Bathe me in the river to make me a moralless man. Whisper love letters to the wind and don't pay the government. Harmony came too softly, lovingly rooting itself in American folklore. We all read it, but we never got the anthems tattooed.

Barrel-chested men stand at the cliffs singing sailor songs for dead mates. God buried them at the bottom of the ocean for the sins of drinking buddies. All desolate friends find themselves in churches when the dearly departed catch the last train home. But after two beers and a handful of songs on guitar, we'll all sniff the gunpowder in our broken fingers, wrecked cracking dry by godless hands. Working the railway or the highway, sweating my guts clean for a savior who won't show, this has always been the murderous lullaby.

Here, a man swings from a tree, and it's up to the writers tell you once they decide if the man is alive or dead. Could be the end of the line noose, could be the childhood tire swing. All I know is I'm miles away from home with just a hammer, so either I build stages or gallows. I can swing my tool in the daylight sprites of wayward youth, as I come down on the nails like I was sealing shut the coffin for the last vampire on the west coast.

In the distance, I hear a train and I grin my dirty pale coating, because I know the right kid got outta the country. We'll watch each other shrink in the distance until we see each other as tycoons. We'll compare our hearts like egos and grind our groin slowly. We are men after all. Only gods for a summer evening, we think. What a long ago waste we missed. Put your arm around me, old friend. I want to see our youth and it'll take everything we both have.

I'll forever be away from home, you know. I'll always have the farmland in my red skillet heart, but I'll always have skyscrapers in my diamond sky eyes. Tender and brash, I'll take my grass stains and drinking problems home when the moon comes to set. Just let me see the coast. Just let me breathe the mist and watch the gulls dive. Let me hear the echoes of rocky beaches and the rolling waves of teenage romance.

Let me start over, for I have doors to open and windows to close. Why do last hope criminals get redeemed when I can't do anything about regrets as a god-fearing realist? This is the chain gang as a yuppie boardroom. All men in suits sing the anthems of dead sailors anyway, you see. From the peak of god to the peaks of man come the afternoon heartache, all watching the sun from mirrors in their heartless rooms.

So, we turned on the music and started laughing. Nothing hurt. Nothing came. We just painted a future for the kids we'd have after the shrugs and giggles got out of our system. Then we became husbands and wives. We became kids all over. We just got the money we needed for our big, big plans. Honey, I've loved you since I was a kid. I just didn't know the right name to write in my journal. But I knew you. I talked about you constantly. I told them you'd come. I believed you'd come. I watched all those folk documentaries and foreign films, so I'd have something good to talk about on our first date. I wanted to impress you. I wanted you to get reckless with your heart. Lord knows I did.

There I go again, carving up the gospel, just so I'd have lyrics or poems to give you. I'd give you all my words if I didn't need them for pillow talk. Let me tell you these stories all over again some day with the right music. Darling, honey, you'd be in for one hell of a surprise.

Old Flames V: Dog Statues

2011-10-23T02:56:00.000-07:00

I remember the dog statues at the wavy house at the end of the block. It was the summer I discovered the skin of the country. It was Great America on the speakers. The soldiers always came home and got jobs. Some became artists, clueless knives and all. The books were buried. This was the new white burn. It's just one lost love after another.

So this is the tonic water we taste on our tongues. This is the heartache. This is the crassness. This is how I got through the war of it all. So bury this axe tonight in the skin of the door, all with wood from crosses never carried to the holy ground. Yay, yay, the priests will say, but we'll really know just who would toke a quiet huff in the diamond snuff. And so it became the last letter of broken words, severed at the gut. Mankind, why won't we hear us out?

Just because, that will be the empty chant that'll come back, tar and feathers and all, and we won't fall, we won't even crawl, no matter how lonely we get. Savor the smoke, as we drag through the ashes looking for the keys to Heaven.

This masterpiece is too much to ground, so please serve this to the troops. We have one too many authors writing haikus. Get them on the tombstone to save the canvases for tents. Shall we not die out here, away from city kings, away from poisoned church wells, buried hatchet ivies, more failed graces and dead lovers. Move on, move on, please.

Too many comedians swinging from the balcony, too many loons try to stage for free, and we mostly just let the whos and whats figure it all out. Why can't we play God's grand dice game? What are we, poisoned rats? Awash us, awash us, anoint us harrowed princess and garden graveyard of fairies. This was not the end we played so well. Dig it up, dig it up, we have alibis and grudges to deal like the devil's last poker game. Swear it to live, kid o' gray street almighty. Swear it to all graves here.

Surrender, surrender, I never met our maker. We were us and this was that. We just wanted to call it a wrap. Let's do grand here and now, merry roasters and boasters of drink, here we sleep in one rambling house for a tremendous dream. Sleep well, sleep well, sleep in one grace of now.

Gay

2011-10-20T11:17:00.000-07:00

"If Herman Cain wants proof that sexual orientation isn't a choice, then he should just say, 'Hey, I like women. Could I choose not to?' When he realizes he can't, shouldn't that be the end of the argument right there?" - Kevin Ryder, from Kevin & Bean (surprising, right?)

The Last 24 Hours

2011-10-18T22:57:00.001-07:00

Well, the last 24 hours have been one wild turn after another. My company is being purchased, resulting in massive layoffs this morning. My car is in the shop for another $1,000+ repair as of this afternoon. And I did nothing today but lay on my couch and watch My Neighbor Totoro and most of Community's Season Two because of some rather harsh food poisoning I brought back with me from Mexico.

But at least I'm still undefeated in my fantasy football league. Hey, that's something, right?

Ah, Mexico

2011-10-17T10:17:00.000-07:00

I went to Mexico this weekend. I feel like I played a hundred games of backgammon on the beach and danced my feet numb at La Fonda. The paint of my lungs is peeling from cigarettes and coughing from so much laughter. My stomach is full of rice, beans and tequila. I worked on my book like the workweek would kill me. I saw the world in sunglasses and let the wind have a grin so sharp that it would've cut up my hands if I was a praying man.

Also, I need to stop writing posts like this. It's getting, like, super-uber cliche.

But it's like this every time in Mexico and it's been like this for years. Rex and I talked about it during an evening smoke break as we overlooked waves rolling in on an empty beach while a live band played for folks downing real margaritas a stairway up.

We just keep recapturing our youth without even trying. We just keep getting dealt royal flushes south of the border. We just spend our lives never wanting to go home.

Also, they sell puppies at the border now and I can't get over thinking that I'm going to make one hell of an impulse purchase when I get sick of cheese tamales and ice cream. Goddamn.

I'll love you forever, or as long as you let me, Mexico.

Old Flames IV: I Was Sleeping A Mountain

2011-10-12T23:39:00.000-07:00

I was sleeping a mountain and coughin' up earth. I slept for days and buried my curse somewhere in Texas, somewhere with a pile of gold and a pistol. We were beggars then. We're bankers now. But we can call it one too many games of three card monty out in the desert. Ride our horses straight into the sunset. But what came? The future rolled with with lighting and thunder, wrecking the dark skies with pale blue and white. So, so pretty, we all said.

But these were days of hot suns and hot damns and the summertime gatherings. Mariners in the lake, darlings in the creek, love awash in dueling streams. There were no need for strings then. No harps, no nooses. We just built our houses with stone. No hanging, no swinging, no playing anthems for choir angels. Though we could use the light, you best ride your horse as fast as you can before the silver screen burns.

This is the future blow, kid. We've got the theaters and the parks for orphan youth to bury the hatchet. We've still got the criminals and crooks. We've still got the roller-coaster that never stops, not in any of us. We've still got the sunsets, the gardens, the fairweather prayers. What was ever wrong with this roof? We could watch the sky send sunshine through skin, breaking the solstice, tickling sparks through the small towns nearby.

I remember these pages of books. I recall these campfire tales of loneliness and grief. No kid grows up wanting a second chance. Why wouldn't we get it right the first time? I looked at my dog once and realized he'd never smoked a cigarette or broken a heart. No one hated him, nobody ever bothered him. I took one last sip of my orange juice and stared at him while he napped. When he woke up, he licked my cheek and everything settled. But, for one night, I figured my dog was smarter than me.

I also remember driving you home in a white dress, I remember losing my heart before my head and I remember coming home with slumped shoulders and a prizefighter grin. I drank honey that summer. I drank cold water. I drank rum in the shade. And that's when I found prayer, though only to the ghosts of history. After too many cigarettes, ask me for a ride home. It's time I should leave.

See you on the other prairie, rhinos.

Old Flames III: The Golen Light of Night

2011-10-09T22:54:00.000-07:00

In the bar, there was a mood. Maybe it was a fever. It was scarlet something either way. The dapper yellow dots came from a horn and bounced off the mirror, spilling black notes everywhere, along with the crashing of a melody. We coughed on the gin and told each other stories. She was in pale blue and I was in pale everything. Well, my suit was black, but my soul was ghost white. One too many promises broken to the gods. The worst bookies they were, the lot of 'em. Let the band play, let the friends cheer, let the last drink go down easily. I want one prayer ceremony after another before the Devil finds this dive. We've got a fistful of great days ahead of us and I'm not slipping into a bidding war with the man who steals from the darkest of graves. We could sell our halos for more. So, pry my grip from these tarot cards. We'll see who was dealt a fair hand. Just wait to tip your hat for the bartender still, as he'll be slinging us shots until the end of the world. Drink up, for this soul is all we had and now this fiery glass of regret is all we have. Make waste the cackle, glory in the highest, said the drunken priest. It's just one more man among us. It's just one less god in the world. Can we take home the sky now? This better be the last chant of the tribes of the endless fields and water of the great planet. Now, where were we? Were we in the bellows and howls of the midnight winter slurs? Well, maybe, mariner, you have sailed too far from home. We are value here. Talk to our pirates and chat up our boxers. We have one long journey ahead of us. The cemetery is just down the street, but we'll take the scenic route for a while. Step up, keep up, for this is grand brickwork we tread. Sleep, sleep, says the priest when he can't. This is one harbor stare I won't soon savor. Not enough boats and bells nestling the breeze. And all we did was drink rum inside, laughing cheers to the the battles while heckling our history. This was one long joke told too long. This is last call, folks and mates. Drink up. We have blood on our hands.

My Manliness: An Essay

2011-10-07T08:54:00.000-07:00

"Where do you have to go for your errands?" Grant asked me, as I put shirts away in my closet last week.

"I don't know," I said with a shrug. "Or, shit, I definitely have to replace my shower nozzle. So...probably, what, Bed, Bath & Beyond?"

"No, dude, you need to go to Home Depot," he laughed.

"Hmmm. I think I was just looking for a reason to go to Bed, Bath & Beyond."

"You should be looking for a reason to go to Home Depot!"

"Oh my god, have you ever been to Bed, Bath & Beyond?"

This is my existence as a man. It's one long misunderstanding of what manly men are supposed to do. Or I imagine that's not entirely accurate. I guess a lot of the time it's me understanding what manly men do and then very purposefully ignoring it. Oh, what, I'm supposed to eat red meat, tell you all about the UCLA/USC rivalry AND know what's wrong with my car? I've got romantic comedies to watch, people!

But it always comes back to my dad telling me and my brother at the dinner table years ago, "I failed you as a father." It was definitely light-hearted, clearly not true and one of the funniest things the man's ever said. But, when it comes to knowing the manly things, my brother and I are somewhat, if not totally, inept. And I'm worse than my brother. We can't build shit, we don't understand cars and we won't follow sports. But at least my brother can barbecue a steak while talking about Game of Thrones or Call of Duty. Hell, he was probably already in the lead when he asked me, "What the hell is Two Weeks Notice?"

Recently, I took a wild turn and joined a fantasy football league. Why? Because my roommate and friends were doing it and I wandered into the basement on Labor Day wearing a bathing suit after partying my ass off on a Sunday evening. They needed an eighth person and they promised me it wouldn't be much work. Well, now, I'm in first place. In fact, I'm undefeated, leading one friend to check the standings once and drunkenly yell, "Jake doesn't even fucking like football!"

It's true. I only watch the sport one or two days out of the year: Super Bowl and New Year's Day (if I'm not in Mexico). Some years ago, I was at a Super Bowl party with an ex-girlfriend. Her friends' boyfriends talked about sports in the '90s and I laid down all of my knowledge about basketball and baseball from the decade, admitting I was a huge fan up until I was a teenager. They were taken aback, as they had heard the rumors that I was some pansy writer vegetarian. One of them asked, "What the hell happened when you became a teenager?" The girl I was with leaned over and answered for me, "He discovered poetry."

That had some weight and truth to it, though it was also because I realized I didn't give a good goddamn fuck about baseball. And then writing and music pushed out my dedication to basketball, though I still follow the playoffs.

I was on the phone with a friend, discussing football players' stats (because I look that shit up now for fantasy reasons), my brother stared at me, grinned and said, "You happy? Talking about sports makes you happy now? So you're into sports now? Just gonna leave your ol' brother behind, eh? Fuck you! I have to start talking about cars now!"

My old roommates were huge Angels fans. Needlessly to say, they stopped inviting me to watch games with them in the living room, because I'd just get drunk on cheap beer and heckle the television. I wasn't rooting for anyone but me then and watching baseball on television is usually tallied up as a loss in my book. Once, they invited my brother over. He said all kinds of solid observations about trades, injuries, RBIs, ERAs and made thoughtful suggestions about what he thought would improve certain players' games. My roommates were impressed. They all told him how much manlier he was than me and that it was cool to have a Kilroy watching sports with them. Then, around the seventh inning stretch, they realized he kept sneaking looks at his phone and took it away from him. After going through his phone's text messages, it became apparent that everything my brother had said in the last hour was actually his friend coaching him. My brother cackled and then made one last observation of the game: "That pitcher's name is really long." They didn't invite him back.

Thus is the Kilroy Brothers' charm: a resonating mockery of most things manly.

The two of us thrive on refusal. If someone tells us to be interested in anything, especially something manly, we automatically become less interested in it. And, not only that, but we also become obnoxiously uninterested in it. This, I believe, has lead to our ability to talk shit better than the average citizen. We actually don't get much flack for not knowing what tools are which, what team won what championship or what makes any car run. But we take serious interest in everything (another Kilroy Brother trait). We want people to tell us about building and mechanical projects. The two of us are sincerely interested in someone telling us why something is interesting to them. We just don't want someone to tell us we should or need like it. Because then it becomes twenty minutes of us making fun of that person until they feel like a dopey fuckard. Nobody in there right mind would put either of us on their list of Top Five People To Have On Your Side In A Physical Fight. However, I think we'd make it to a lot of lists if they fights were verbal.

At some young age, I imagine we were presented with a crossroads: get interested in manly things or get good at talking shit. We very definitely went with the latter. Nobody really hassles us anymore. We love being invited to do manly things, but we'll goddamned if someone's gonna make us do anything. Example: Both of us get invited to go rock-climbing, though neither of us actually rock-climb. Our friends know this. They invite us out to the spots, very nicely ask us if we want to climb and we very politely refuse. Why do we go? Because we love hanging out, camping and drinking. Our interest in sports goes about as far as makeshift games with friends and doing our best to not die of a heart attack.

But, as for general manly interests, I had an imagination that wouldn't tolerate the main interests of manly stereotypes. I built with Legos and my tools were plastic, so I never asked my dad for a real tool belt, since, to me and my wildly delusional brain, I already had one. I never asked my dad to explain an engine to me, because I had bicycles and go-karts. When he tried one time, I was 12 and told him, "This sounds like math."

For the most part, my dad never pushed any interests on me. But he support and/or paid for any interests I discovered, from drums to website software. He never told me who or how to be. His philosophy was, "If I'm a good father, I'll raise a good son who has good interests of his own." However, my dad was a half-breed: half-manly man, half-not-so-manly-man, which is, in all honesty, probably where I truly fall. My dad's the editor of a racing magazine who self-published a poetry book. He can fix things around the house, but he always says he just barely did it. Realizing my meek frame and spazzy outlook on life as a child, my father probably assumed it would've been dangerous for me to do anything with hammer.

I mean, I'm the son of a journalism father and an English major mother. All I did was read. And maybe my brother looked at the television when an old war or cowboy movie was on (they were on at my house all the time) and then looked at me reading some chapter book in bed and made his decision to be the slightly manlier son, and, lately, he seems to only read books about history and environmentalism.

But, still, my brother's manly by family's standards. The influence of cinematic manliness has never really been there for us. My father's brothers want to drink good beer and discuss Irish music, literature and history more than anything else. My mother's only living brother is a reformed backpacker and current artsy carpenter. However, the one who passed away was a football-watching business owner who left this world when I was in elementary school. And then one grandfather taught me how to play the tin whistle and the other took me to see musicals.

I'm a product of my upbringing and my upbringing was whimsical.

Nobody in my family was fixing up a classic car or following hockey. Also, I'm selling my father, uncles and grandfathers short here for a good laugh. Everyone took me camping and fishing, though my interest in fishing died away when I stopped eating meat as a kid...which, come to think of it, probably sent me down this path in the first place. I mean, what, you're gonna explain power tools to a boy who thinks lambs are fucking adorable?

No, because that boy is going to grow up into a man who was legitimately thrilled when he realized he had to buy home decor for his new place. Shit, a few days ago, I had to buy a standing light. Did I go to Home Depot? No. Instead, I went to Lightbulbs, Etc. Is that because I'm not so manly or because I have really dope taste? Well, it didn't matter either way because I certainly don't have very much money and Lightbulbs, Etc. is crazy fucking expensive apparently. So, keeping son of a bitch manly man Grant in mind, I ended up going to Home Depot, which my friends call "Homes Deeps," a la Lord Of The Rings, and scored a really nice lamp for a totally good price. Good job, Home Depot.

Also, that reminds me of the time that Chase took my brother and I to Home Depot when he was going to build my family a new garage door. It was like the cool uncle taking his two sissiest nephews to carry stuff for him. When Chase would say, "Oh, I also need to check out somesortofsomething," my brother would do something like knock on wood and say things like, "Maple, eh? Pretty strong stuff here. You know, you could build a mighty fine shed with this." This line of silliness would lead to me laughing like an idiot and Chase just shaking his head in sympathy. Sometimes, Sarvas would invite the two of us along just to see how the other half views Home Depot. Guess what the answer is? It's like a way less exciting version of Target, where there's no popcorn or pretzals and we can't buy season two of any goddamn TV show.

The friends I see regularly are men who love Home Depot but also maintain lots of half-breed tendencies. The three guys I probably hang out with the most frequently are Grant, Rex and Chase. They all rock-climb, two of them surf, two of them wrestled in high school and they've all been in fights. I don't do any of that. I've rock-climbed a handful of times, but I mostly go with them on trips to hang out in the wilderness. I've surfed a few times, but I almost always prefer reading on the beach. I played junior varsity basketball for one year and then got over it when they put me on varsity. And I've talked my way out of every fight I've ever talked my way into.

However, I've also watched Love Actually, Grey's Anatomy and The Notebook with those dudes. Also, we definitely maybe saw Definitely, Maybe together in theaters on Valentine's Day one year. So...those are the sorts of half-breeds I hang out with. My high school friends, on the other hand, will never understand why I like anything.

I see manhood as the ever-changing existence. It's an entire spectrum. Sure, I've been known to do yoga while watching several episodes of Sex And The City, but I've also gotten drunk as hell on whiskey in the woods of Missouri. I write poetry, but I also swear like a sailor. My brother once had a long discussion about the properties of being a man. We decided that he saw man as the hunter and I saw man as the poet. That's where it stands, I suppose.

And, in all honesty, the spectrum is so wide that I probably do lots of manly shit by default. But it's a lot more interesting (and manly?) to observe the differences than the similarities. From a distance, I can't imagine it'd be obvious that I own both Sleepless In Seattle AND You've Got Mail when I get all hammered-ass drunk on Jameson and threaten to kill everyone while cackling. It's just a strange balance being a man sometimes.

Ah well. Whatever. Grant went with me to Bed, Bath & Beyond last night so I could buy pillows. And guess what? Bed, Bath & Beyond was totally amazing!

Five Great Songs With Great Videos

2011-10-03T12:42:00.000-07:00

1. "Blood" by The Middle East

2. "Cameras" by Matt & Kim

3. "Queen Of Hearts" by Fucked Up

4. "New Noise" by Refused

5. "Modern World" by Wolf Parade

Old Flames II: Salting Old Wounds In The Desert

2011-09-28T23:30:00.001-07:00

I was halfway to Mexico when I called my mother from a bar pay phone. She let me know that the woods were on fire and I had best flee the country. All fire stops at borders, she told me.

"Thank God we believe in crossin' 'em," I said, spitting tobacco and wiping my chin. "Right, boys?"

Two amigos stepped outta the white Cadillac backseat, sifting through the desert wind and gripping Spanish pistols. This is the land where we come to build angels. Yet this be the pale grim grin of the Devil's teeth, raised of mountains and sunk with bullets.

"One more notch on your belt buckle, Johnny," one ghastly voice will bellow from the Heavens.

And one more song will play, sounding like gun blasts and dynamite lights. Bring out the mariachi band to play us this ballad. Revere the guitars, savor the taste and beg for mercy.

That should've been the end. It truly should've been. But where would the story keep if not spoil in this box without a closed door? So, perk up those ears, this is and was the truth.

I grinded my teeth and cursed my cast bones. This here is a last chance. But, then again, every chance is a last chance. How do you know you're always gonna make it out? There be gangsters and mobsters out there, chums. Slip up the accent and they'll grind your old battle wounds up for soup to feed the prisoners.

So, here, with this desert rough, where castles lay in the sky, a view comes with tears as rain. It's just one more storm to bare, you'll pray, and wait for the gods in a parade of self-pity and self-worth.

Now, what if you just turned up the stereo and hit the gas pedal?

These stories are always better.

GO.

Old Flames I: The Highway Season

2011-09-27T21:40:00.000-07:00

There was a season of highways once. Twas the rainiest, dirtiest, funniest days of our time; peculiar indeed. We cackled lightning and belly-laughed thunderstorms. What god left us this wasteland of roads, with one utopia after another, always one more oasis dying in the breeze of the distance, we'll never know.

We wailed guitars out in the fields that gave us tornadoes. We wept in the great plains of a dying breath country. We bested our kin in the stretch of a foot race. We swam in rivers, we smoked on porches and we laughed everywhere. We had diaries of dreams and journals of jokes. We watched fireflies spend the summer with us, we sipped liquor with mint snd we heard the world spin its slow, heavy grind.

There were rocking chairs, long sunsets and enough fireworks to keep the great conversation of this nation burning. What was this country becoming? We all wondered that Fourth of July, looking up at the black disappearing in the ghostly parade of the sky. But all we came up with was more backyard dinner parties.

So, when the country settled, what did we have? We had the shoeboxes of letters, the albums of photos and the etched memories of lost causes and lofty effects.

But it all started with a car speeding down the spine of this country. It all started with a joke taken too seriously that ended up having a killer punchline. It all started when someone loved something more than something else.

And it gave us all a long history of escape artists.

Bathtime vs. Playtime

2011-09-26T19:32:00.001-07:00

I was at Target today with my brother, buying things for my relatively new bathroom. Holding a bath towel, I asked him his opinion of two different soap dishes. He pointed at the bronze one and I nodded, spacing out at a dozen different soap dishes on the shelves in front of me, and all I could say was, "Holy shit, remember when we used to come here to buy toys?"

Age gets you in the strangest moments sometimes.

Disheartening MILF

2011-09-21T22:08:00.000-07:00

You know what's disheartening? Driving and seeing a hot-ass MILF flag you down and naturally assuming she wants to find out what you're doing around midnight, but then realizing she actually just wants you to slow the hell down right the fuck now so you don't run over her idiot kids.

Also, two questions: How did these kids score shirts that match the color of the sky at sunset? What kind of hot-ass MILF lets her kids wear said shirts at sunset in the middle of the street?

ANSWER ME THAT, YOU HOT-ASS MILF TERRIBLE PARENT.

Jake's Stupid Day of Idiocy

2011-09-15T18:06:00.000-07:00

5:15 a.m. - Jake's alarm goes off.

5:50 a.m. - Jake gets out of bed.

6:05 a.m. - Jake is on the road.

6:30 a.m. - Jake notices that his engine light is on.

6:31 a.m. - Jake notices his temperature gauge is past the H.

6:33 a.m. - Jake exits the 405 and pulls into a residential neighborhood to open his car's hood.

6:34 a.m. - Jake blames himself for not knowing cars better or generally at all.

6:35 a.m. - Jake recalls the folks at Jiffy Lube telling him that he might have a coolant leak about two months ago, though there haven't been signs or trouble since, so Jake didn't really do anything about it.

6:36 a.m. - Jake curses himself for never doing anything about it.

6:40 a.m. - Jake fills his radiator with coolant.

6:45 - Jake starts his car, only for it to rumble as his temperature gauge flies past the H once again. Jake opens a book and starts reading.

6:50 a.m. - Jake starts up car again with a slightly better sound, but then turns the car off and goes back to reading.

6:53 a.m. - Jake calls his father to ask what overheating a car is like. Jake's father doesn't pick up, so Jake leaves a voicemail and then goes back to reading.

6:55 a.m. - Jake gets out of the car and goes to check the engine again, but very quickly notices that the asphalt is covered in coolant.

6:56 a.m. - Jake decides that the people at Jiffy Lube were right about that whole coolant leak theory and goes back to reading.

7:10 a.m. - Jake texts work that his car has practically blown up and he will most likely be late.

7:20 a.m. - Jake's father calls him back, but Jake misses the call because he's standing on a stranger's lawn, sighing rather loudly to himself.

7:23 a.m. - Jake calls his father and leaves another message.

7:24 a.m. - Jake leans his against the steering wheel, continuously exhaling audible sighs.

7:45 a.m. - Jake's father calls him back and tells him what to do.

8:00 a.m. - After hoping everything would just fix itself if he kept doing nothing, Jake calls AAA.

8:10 a.m. - Jake becomes a member of AAA again after forgetting to renew the past two years.

8:15 - Tow truck is dispatched by AAA.

8:20 a.m. - Jake watches two kids leave a house for school and approaches the house to ask if he can use the restroom.

8:21 a.m. - Seeing as how nobody answered, Jake spends a full minute listening to someone shower, yet still hopes that the door will be answered. After a sense of creeperdom overcomes him, Jake flees the yard.

8:25 a.m. - Jake wonders if he has enough time to run to the nearby elementary school to use their restroom facilities, though the tow truck should be there by 8:35 a.m.

8:30 a.m. - Jake decides to go for it and jogs to the local grade school.

8:33 - After debating which is the office entrance for several minutes, Jake watches a tow truck drive by and sprints back to his car.

8:37 a.m. - Jake gets sound advice from AAA guru, who suggests Jake take his car to nearest AAA-approved auto shop. Jake agrees.

8:40 a.m. - Jake changes his mind and ignores sound advice, so he can pay $100 to drop car off at family friend mechanic he trusts.

8:41 a.m. - AAA guru decides Jake's an idiot and doesn't see any reason to further speak with him.

8:45 a.m. - Like a stupid low-budget comedy, the three wacky men (the gangly uninformed white twentysomething with the broken car, the older and wiser Philipino AAA tow truck guru and the near-30 Mexican nice guy driver learning the ropes) all pile into the tow truck bench seat and set off for adventure.

8:46 a.m. - Nice guy asks Jake if his full name is Jacob. To which, Jake shrugs and says, "Nah, just Jake. My parents hated the named Jacob for whatever crazy reason."

8:47 a.m. - Nice guy tells Jake he has a nice watch and then tells a story about how his girlfriend bought him a fake cool watch that broke within the week. Jake laughs and the two talk about Target watches while the AAA guru in the middle doesn't say a word.

8:55 a.m. - After several minutes of silence, Jake panics and asks how long they've worked for AAA. Nice guy says a year and guru says 14 years. No one talks to Jake for the rest of the drive.

9:20 a.m. - Jake and crew arrives at beloved mechanic. Jake asks how business is. Mechanic informs him, "It's good. I mean, you keep bringing me a lot of business."

9:21 a.m. - Jake realizes how much doctors and mechanics must love him.

9:30 a.m. - Jake's mother picks him up.

9:40 a.m. - Jake wakes his brother up, so he can borrow his car. Sleepy brother agrees.

9:45 a.m.- Jake notices how dirty his brother's car is, so he gives it a quick hose-down.

9:46 a.m. Jake carelessly throws the hose down to go turn it off, but said hose lands on the ground with the push-handle down and the spout up, suddenly spraying Jake like a sprinkler. Jake yells and frantically dashes out of the water, as his mother, brother and dog watch speechlessly from the window.

9:47 a.m.- Jake sits in his brother's car with soaked pants and starts his drive to Los Angeles for the second time, arriving sometime around 11.

A New House & Motto

2011-09-14T12:25:00.000-07:00

My New House
I love my new house. I swore I'd never live with three guys in a house again, but, my goodness, what a little extra rent and maturity can give you.

I loved The Madison (21-24), even though it probably stunted my emotional growth and infected me with diseases that won't become apparent until my twilight years. Back then, I'd come home to a group of employed and thoroughly fun dudes and we'd spend the days adventurin' and the nights a-drinkin'. There were parties all the time and, if there wasn't, it was still kind of like a commune, complete with muddy footprints on the ceiling and a fake gun stabbed into the wall. The Madison was maybe the most continuous fun I'll ever have in my life, as it was like a second childhood (with all these new cool things I didn't have or do in my first childhood). But, again, The Madison was loud and crazy almost at a horrifying constant.

Considering I'm now in my mid-twenties, it's incredible to spend the day alone in a quiet, clean house you can call your own. My roommates and I are in and out during the day, mostly seeing each other at night, all before a reasonable bedtime. We've only been in there two weeks, so it's not much to go off. It's a super mellow house during the workweek and we have friends over on the weekend, I suppose. But the whole thing seems surreal, to have so much living space and be able to play pool and drink in your own basement bar before calling it an early evening so we can read and write in bed. I love it. The house is full of creativity, patience, respect and giggles.

My New Motto
The whole "Cowboy Spirit" thing started about a year ago and it lead to a whole season of blurry evenings. When the new year came around, I asked if we should keep it going. Chris said, "I don't think I can keep it up." Rex said, "Honestly, I'm pretty exhausted from these past few months." Grant said, "It'll kill us, Jacob." So, we left the legendary spirit of modern cowboys in 2010 and dubbed 2011 for Bill O'Riley's famous quote, "Fuck it, we'll do it live!" And we've done it pretty live this year, but, lately, I feel as though my mantra has mutated into "Hey, why not?" Alas, I've learned that this phrase has lead to some misguided choices in recent months. Well, I'm restarting myself for the umpteenth time and gonna go with a slightly varied motto, "Hey, why?" So, let's see how long it lasts until I start answering the question at hand with a whole batch of bad decisions. Woo!

"And They Waited"

2011-09-09T22:04:00.000-07:00

"And They Waited"
written without a drop of sobriety by jake kilroy.

The porch rang with laughter. It was springtime and there was a mild heat settling into the neighborhood. Lilac mist wafted under the street lamps and a car passed every time someone changed the radio station.

She leaned against the porch pole, dirtying up her shoulder, as she watched the universe.

"Counting stars?" he asked, sneaking up beside her with a drink.

"Counting something," she cooed with a sigh.

"Aren't we all?" he said, taking a sip and sliding his hand into his pocket where all he had was spare change.

She clicked her tongue and waited for the world to give her everything. He watched her drift and then he asked the world for everything. And they waited.

And the world came at them with nothing. She was surprised and he nodded.

Take what young lovers abandon for love and you could fill a city dump. Take what young lovers give for love and you could fill an ocean. Take what young lovers want of love and you could fill the sky.

Whether it's trash or treasure, it's ours. Finally. Now let the world take us, give us away and want us again.

I have all night and a lifetime ahead of me, the boy thinks.

I've got one night to turn things around, the girl thinks.

And they wait for the world again.

And, once more, the world comes at them with nothing.

Must be an off night, he thinks.

Just another slip of the cosmos, she thinks.

And they wait for the universe this time.

And the universe hands them new constellations that they'll later draw into each other's backs, counting blessings on soft fingers, ready to make love their favorite charity.

And so the world waited.

"no beatnik history here"

2011-09-08T23:23:00.000-07:00

"no beatnik history here"
done on a bender by jake kilroy.

sweetheart minute-made renegade loser,
left hip turn kick punch jack knife cruiser,
honeypot crockpot nutty job boozer,
my queen o' gasoline blasted bruiser.

now tend hearts.
scour the land.
forge new paths.
empty the world.

pretty mouth hooter brooder sly learner,
all hate no waste brazen keepsake burner,
tough skin no win brittle lust turner,
all fuel no rule skip school yearner.

now keep here.
break all bread.
pray (for) gods.
beg (for) mercy.

How Every Summer Should End

2011-09-05T20:34:00.000-07:00

JAKE: Hey dude! How are you?

JOHN: I'm doing alright. How about you?

JAKE: Doing pretty good.

JOHN: Yeah, I can see that. It's noon on a Monday and all you're wearing is a bathing suit.

JAKE: Can't complain.

"the greatest"

2011-09-01T07:29:00.000-07:00

"the greatest"
a novelty of acts by jake kilroy.

howling at the harvest moon,
'cause it's the biggest.
laughing at the afternoon sun,
'cause it's the hottest.
went rocky into love,
tucked away as a last resort.
went head-first into lust,
with the pop of champagne cork.

went to bed full of grease,
woke up with bloody knuckles.
watched the neighbor's garden,
with a perfect glow in daylight.
took the vegetables home,
made a meal i couldn't stomach.
lost my slender appetite in the war,
forever drumming my own soul.

now slouching towards bookshelves,
filled with books never touched,
turned rose-colored here,
for the charity of firewood,
after the heater went out,
after a fight with the handyman.

oh, how pride is the greatest of sins,
in every sense of the word.

Baseball, Rain & A New House

2011-08-31T07:20:00.000-07:00

Three things.

Baseball
1. I just finished the Ken Burns documentary Baseball and, honestly, I think it may be the best thing I've ever watched. And I say that as someone who has seen 99 of AFI's 100 greatest movies and does not follow baseball. However, from beginning to end, it's perfect. The original nine-part documentary is 18.5 hours long and I just watched the four-hour follow-up, The Tenth Inning. The story of baseball is told as the great American opera, with its heroes and villains, its triumphs and tragedies, its action and adventure. It's beautiful, glorious and unrelentingly interesting. It shows how baseball has endured wars and epidemics. It's the unstoppable history of Americans. I've always loved old baseball movies and haven't followed the sport since the 1990s, but, hot damn, this documentary was spectacular.

Rain
2. I went to Big Bear this weekend. On Saturday morning, we drove deep into the woods, parked and made it over boulders and fallen trees. Once we made it to the rock-climbing spot, the sky rumbled and movie set rain came flooding from the sky. The seven of us ducked into a small shelter of rocks. We were going to wait it out, but then we wondered if the roads would flood. So, we ran through the woods shirtless in the pouring rain with thunder rolling and lighting screaming. Finally, we made it to the cars. The lightning cracked louder than I've ever heard it, like it was a monster coming for us. We yelled for each other to get in the car and we sped the hell out of there. It started to hail on our way back down a different road, so we listened to old punk songs. The parking lots and streets were devoured by water, so we ate grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. Then I took a nap. Then I drank all night.

A New House
3. I'm moving out this week with Grant, Rich and Jason. It's a huge house with a gardener and a big backyard. It also comes with a basement that seems straight out of the '60s, complete with a legit bar and a pool table. I imagine that we'll end up spending an alarming percentage of our time down there, growing delusional as we pose ourselves as "swingin' cats." Stoked.

Rough Water

2011-08-24T07:29:00.000-07:00

This heart is a lantern.

This body is an ocean.

This love is a submarine.
This metaphor is terrible.

I Gave Myself A Haircut

2011-08-19T08:07:00.000-07:00

I cut my own hair last night, which I believe is often a sign of mental instability. If it had turned out poorly, I would've blamed curiosity. My grandma would've somehow blamed Obama.

I haven't been to a barber for years. I have my own system now: when I start twirling my long hair like I'm some gum-popping skank trying to sleep with the local high school football team, I take a buzzer to my head in every direction that week.

This week, my hair was just starting to get to twirling length and, instead of risking the affectionate here-and-there family nickname of "Patches," I decided to challenge myself. I was going to do overtime for my job, but I was burned out on work and my wrist hurt. So, amped up on gettin' something done, I asked myself, "Could I cut my hair with scissors and not look like an escaped patient and/or hipster douchebag?"

The answer is apparently, "Hell yes."

Cutting your hair is easy as a guy who ultimately doesn't care about his hair. It's like one playful mess up there. Consider the act to be the safest form of self-mutilation. All I did was run my hands flatly through my hair and cut whatever was above my fingers. And I had a great time. I may never even do the buzzer again. Next time, I'll probably try something wild. Who knows? Andy Warhol had stupid haircuts all the time. Worse case scenario, I'm like Andy Warhol.

Just by saying that, I instantly became my favorite barber.

In fact, nobody whose cut my hair professionally has ever been what I wanted, and I've had all sorts of people. I've had the Rosie Perez lady tell me about her shitty ex-boyfriend, I've had the older Chinese woman ask me questions I didn't understand, I've had the white hot-shit sorority girl tell me about her whole stupid career as a stylist and comment on my apathy. I've even had the guy from Up buzz the side of my head and then ask, "Hey, wait, so what'd you say you wanted? Just a trim?" FUCK YOU, SPENCER TRACY. I WAS IN EIGHTH GRADE AND YOU TOTALLY SCREWED ME.

As a kid, my dad would cut my hair in the kitchen, like we were raised in the goddamn Dust Bowl. I liked it though. It was my first understanding of saving money. Did you know that a standard haircut at Supercuts is, like, thirteen bucks? I did what they did last night on a whim and a beer. Suck it, tentacles of this never-ending awful economy! Also, there's a lot of cool magazines in my bathroom. Do you really need five different magazines in the waiting area with Jennifer Aniston on the cover without owning up to a single issue of National Geographic? Jesus, Supercuts, people who like the rainforest and lion cubs need haircuts too.

This all works for me because I've never done anything especially edgy with my hair. I've just had different lengths. Once, I had a mohawk. Another time, I did spray-on dye for Halloween. Other than that, it's been natural brown and styles that have ranged from "spiked punk" to "Russian assassin." So, for me, cutting your hair is easy. If it goes terrible, all you have to do is wear nice clothes for a while and nobody will even notice your botched lobotomy.

Two Lovers In A Field

2011-08-16T16:26:00.000-07:00

His fingers sailed across the great plains of her back with the breathy wind of her body's hum carrying his touch from the arch of her neck to the curves of her thighs. The girl's tongue creaked and the boy's eyes swayed. The flowers around them sighed and he whistled a sailor tune. She grinned a masterpiece. The sky was blue, the world was warm and he felt the great shakes within him. The boy trembled with wonder.

"What if this is all there is to it?"

She rolled her brown curls down her head and kissed his bare arms.

"Then I say we did alright," she cooed.

"What a pageant it is to be in love," he quietly told his beloved girl in the field.

"Hail, hail," she mumbled, already drifting off to sleep again, "one float after another."

"The best parade in town," he remarked, as the long, slow pull of the world turned around them, softly pushing them towards sunset.

My Grandfather's History

2011-08-11T07:48:00.000-07:00

My grandfather took our family out for dinner Tuesday, and, as we sat in the restaurant, for whatever reason, history aggressively caught my attention. Maybe it was because I had just finished Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything Is Illuminated that day or because I've been watching Ken Burns: Baseball and just made it to the 1900s, but I stared at my grandfather as he told a story about his last trip to Vegas and all I could think was, "How the hell are you not bored right now?"

I thought about his personal history and how it intertwined with everyone's history. As he made a life in the foreground, what was blasting behind him in the background? He was born in the spring of 1928, so let's just consider a few things...

His first crush came during the Great Depression, his teenage rebellion came during World War II, he became an adult and served in Korea, bought a house when America built the suburbs, raised kids in the wild times of the '60s, watched his oldest son get married during the disco era, grew old in the most obnoxious decade ever and feared the technology breakdown of the next century as someone who had seen most of the 20th Century.

I mean, it was some muggy-weather summer evening in 2011 and we were in some tacky lounge eating steak (well, I had a potato) with cheap mirrors and some leftover "happy birthday" sign on the wall. This place was beneath him! Shit, the man was alive when the stock market crashed! He was born before Hemingway said a farewell to arms! He saw the first mushroom cloud and voted for Truman! He already knew how the world worked when Kennedy was shot!

When I was 13, the biggest deal was Clinton getting head in the oval office by a frumpy intern. When he was 13, fucking...Hitler was in power and trying to take over the whole goddamn world!

And I wondered if my grandkids would stare at me one day. I wondered if, as I'm trying to explain to them something as remodeling a swimming pool, they'll stare at me and wonder how I'm not bored. They'll write some dumb shit online (or whatever they have then) about how I got my driver's license around the September 11th Attacks or how I was taking a nap in a park when I heard Michael Jackson died. They'll freak out about me seeing Avatar twice in theaters, 2D with my brother and 3D with a pretty girl. They'll want to hear about my entire elementary school listening to the OJ Simpson verdict on boomboxes during lunch time. They'll talk about how I was barely getting into music when Tupac, Biggie and Kurt Cobain died. They'll have me explain to them time and time again how I did any homework before the internet, how I remember my family's first computer and how I couldn't think of a single thing to do the first time I signed online.

They'll want to know about my history, and they'll stare at me like I've gone through hell, and all I'll want is for them to pass me the goddamn salt and pepper.

Dear Anonymous Girl

2011-08-03T07:41:00.000-07:00

Dear Anonymous Person,

I got your anonymous comment on one of my poems (from a bedroom window, the sea) and it's baffled the hell out of me since. It reads:

You hurt me. And I can't yet forgive you for that. Get out of my head.

Look here, anonymous person, this isn't the forum for whatever the hell you want to talk about (as I assume it's not about something fun, like high-fives, video games or candy). Also, I can't think of any dudes I know that would write a quick bite that. If a guy did that, it would be, "You were a dick to me. Fuck you forever." Also, they'd still include their name, I bet. So, naturally, I assume you are of the female variety, and a passive-aggressive member of your gender at that.

Well, listen, lady, I've been hurting girls for as long as I've understood them as people, creatures, things and dreams I've wanted, so you're going to have to be more specific. Sure, it's more emotional hurt now, since we're very much adults at this point. But, when I was younger, it was physical hurt. I mean, I threw dirt clods and rocks at my first crush in third grade and she probably still wasn't entirely sure who I was.

"Why is that tall kid throwing stuff at me? Also, why is his shirt tucked in? Why does he wear such abnormally long socks?" I can only assume she wondered.

I swear, all that shit made sense to me in third grade, everything from the rocks to the socks.

However, I didn't hurt my second crush. But all of that bottled up insanity had to go somewhere, right? Right! So, instead, I just stared at her like some young serial killer (with a better fashion sense gained in the two-year gap) and just made fun of other girls in our class. So I suppose I hurt her by hurting her friends. I guess it wasn't physical. Also, I don't know if I really hurt her friends. I think it made me more popular with her friends actually. Fifth grade was pretty weird, now that I think about it.

In junior high, I threw paper airplanes at the girl I liked while also relentlessly making fun of her, so it was physical and emotional, I imagine. Well, guess what, everyone? That was middle school. Everything sucked and everyone hurt. My proudest moment then was when I flipped out and poured a full can of soda on some bully, and even that was closer to instant death than actual momentary hurt.

In high school, I just sort of collapsed as a person when I saw my teenage crush. I just spat out insane gibberish about the romantic poets and plays I wanted to see. I lied about musicians I enjoyed and what I wanted out of life. Under the pressure of not being who I thought I should be, I disappeared from her phone bill, but reappeared over and over in her diary, probably in furious cursive. I hurt her. But, hey, we were teenagers. Everything hurt and we sort of loved the agony. Every teenager is a masochist and a sadist. That's no excuse, but at least she had just cause for leaving an anonymous comment on a blog...if they even existed ten years ago.

My early college years was just one long wake of the wrecking ball. People got hurt, but everything was happening too fast too notice. Sorry. If you're from that era, I'm going to need your name, number and wherever the hell we met just to have a starting point of clearing this shit up.

And, if you're from my adventures in adulthood and you want to tell me what this is all about, contact me like a normal person. We're engaging mature people with livelihoods and well-developed communication skills. If I hurt you, then you obviously have an e-mail address or phone number of mine. I've learned a thing or two in the last handful of years. If we didn't talk things out, then there was a miscommunication. Maybe you weren't listening to me. I've been very clear as of the last two years, but I'm willing to admit that I didn't understand you or maybe misheard you. Also, let's not rule out the possibility that you were spouting off some nutty bullshit (though I am, of course, biased in the matter). I love trying to figure out the dynamics of relationships now. It's like a game. Shit, it's like Operation and I'm trying not to touch the sides while I remove your broken heart.

So, hey, anonymous girl, hit me up like how we were whenever the heck whatever the hell happened and we'll figure things out. I assume. I still have no idea who you are, what I did or why you're still so mad about it. Furthermore, you're just feeding my ego by telling me I'm still in your head. That's like...the worst combination of three sentences. All you did was build me up from terrible to great.

1) You hurt me - I feel guilt, as I don't want to hurt anyone.
2) And I can't yet forgive you for that - I feel indifference, since it sounds like you'll just let me know when you come around.
3) Get out of my head - I feel pride, for being thought about so often by someone who doesn't want to like me. Maybe sort of like a Sam and Diane thing, eh...?*

So, thank you, uncommunicative girl that I may or may not recall, your comment has left me aglow. I wish you the best of luck in your wild endeavors and look forward to one day discovering what exactly you're talking about or referring to. I'm a huge fan of mysteries.

This is all, of course, if I do actually know you. If that comment was left by just some random nobody, as a joke or whatever, well...ok, that's pretty goddamn funny. I'm probably going to start doing that on other people's blogs. Thanks for the idea.

Love,
Jake

*If you haven't done so already, check out Cheers on Netflix's Instant Stream. It has all 11 seasons and it's seriously the best show.

Mix Memories: Volume Two

2011-07-21T13:20:00.000-07:00

"So Much For The Afterglow" by Everclear
This may have been the first song where I could cite influences. I heard the opening forty seconds of this song and thought, “These guys must have been influenced by the Beach Boys,” and thought I was a goddamn musical genius. I mean, this was in eighth grade when it was an absolute miracle if I could think about something other than boobs and vandalism for more than ten seconds.

"Flat Top" by Goo Goo Dolls
The Goo Goo Dolls' album A Boy Named Goo represents a specific time in my life. It was the summer before seventh grade, I think. I'm not sure. I just remember either playing video games at Jeff's house or having bunk bed wars with my brother. I also remember thinking this song was a wonderful social criticism. Leave it to a sheltered 12-year-old to think that the Goo Goo Dolls were the new Black Panthers.

"Alex Chilton" by The Replacements
When I accidentally discovered The Replacements in second grade by rooting through his cassettes, I thought they were a secret. It was like this fun little punk band that only my dad knew about and had unknowingly bestowed upon me. Then, years later, he bought their later albums for the family and I realized that The Replacements evolved into one of the most influential bands of the 1980s. Then all my family did was listen to this song in the car, making The Replacements our family's band. It was nice of my dad to share.

“The Skin Of My Yellow Country Teeth” by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
In the summer of 2007, I was doing my first internship at the magazine and it was my first adult job and I was starting to feel like a real sell-out asshole. It was summer and friends were on road trips and I was working in an office building. I would end up staring at my computer or staring out the window contemplating just why the hell I was trying to grow up. To combat such feelings, I listened to this song every day in the elevator and would rock the hell out. So, with just a big moment of silliness before working, I felt way better about it all.

"I'm A Flirt (Shoreline)" by The Hood Internet (Broken Social Scene vs. R. Kelly)
Bret put this on at Chris and Rich's Christmas party one year and then everyone talked about how R. Kelly should just join Broken Social Scene and make us all really happy. Seriously, any mash-up with an R. Kelly song is almost immediately everyone's favorite jam.

"Debaser" by The Pixies"
If I had to choose one band to be remembered as the soundtrack of my high school weekends, it would undoubtedly be The Pixies. I feel like that's almost the only band my friends listened to in their cars. When I think of all the weekends spent at Julia's, I can almost always hear The Pixies on in the background. However, it was my dad who told me that the song was about a film by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí called Un Chien Andalou. I thought it was just about randomly slicing people's eyeballs.

"Only Got One" by Frou Frou
I got really obsessed with this song right before leaving for Australia. I was 19 and I had been wanting to go to Australia since I was in grade school. My grandmother and I arrived in Sydney and she took a nap after the 15-hour flight. I, on the other hand, took an hour-long bubble bath in the only tub to ever fit me. It was like three feet deep and six feet in length. I had all the bathrooms lights off except for one soft night light and, with the Sydney skyline out the window and this song playing, I honestly don't know if I've been so goddamn delusionally happy since.

"Buggin" by The Flaming Lips
I remember listening to this song after doing yard work at my grandparents' house with a stupid amount of bugs around me. That's about it. Also, this song isn't very deep, but it's really, really cool.

"Like I Needed" by Rogue Wave
I stole this album from my school newspaper. It references Star Wars. It combined two of my favorite things: Star Wars and stealing.

"Pictures Of Success" by Rilo Kiley
I have no idea how many times Rex and I listened to this song when we drove out to Arizona, but it was a shit-ton. The time was June 2005, I was barely 20 years old, Rex was 19 and each of us had way too much free time. So, somewhat on a whim, we road-tripped it to visit Ashley, who was staying with Eileen for the summer. We got there around midnight and it was still hot. Within minutes of arriving, Rex and I were swimming in the backyard pool and cackling our lungs out, all while some crazy storm started up and lightning was cracking above us. Both girls watched us swim like drunk little kids and then the four of us drank more beer together, sitting around Eileen's bedroom listening to music. I don't remember when, but sometime that weekend, we were all passed out, spread about Eileen's bedroom and this song came on again, and it was so ungodly perfect.

"Penelope" by Pinback
When I discovered this song, it became the only song I listened to for, like, two weeks. I came into the school newsroom one afternoon wearing an Explosions In The Sky shirt with doodlings of cavemen on it. Katy said it looked like the shirt ripped off her brother's band. I told her that the shirt was for a band that's been around for a while and asked what band her brother could possibly be in. She said Pinback. I was quite speechless. I then told her to tell her brother that this song was incredible. Her response: "You know that song's about a pet fish, right?" I did not, and it suddenly made the song seem less beautiful.

"Painter Song" by Norah Jones
During my first year of college, I fancied myself a painter. And guess what? I can't paint, and I knew it within minutes of trying. But that didn't stop me from listening to this song shirtless in my garage while messing up some canvases with paint for a few months.

"Two Janes" by Los Lobos
This song was my absolute favorite song off the album Kiko, which, even in my twenties, I still consider to be a flawless album. When I would snag the cassette from my dad's glove box to listen to it in my room, it was the first time I thought I was really expanding my musical horizons. Keep in mind I was in, like, third grade, so my horizon was pretty much my front yard.

"Atlantic City" by Bruce Springsteen
I remember showing this song to Rex in my Oldsmobile on our infamous drive to San Diego for a party that most definitely wasn't happening. I told him how Bruce Springsteen recorded the entire album locked up in a bedroom in some old country house with just an acoustic guitar and a four-track recorder. When we showed up to the Mira Mesa House and found out that there wasn't a party, we just drank a bottle of whiskey and a jug of wine out in the garage and recorded songs on acoustic guitars we found.

"Mine Tonight" by Lucero
When you're driving down the California coast for any stretch at night as some undergraduate who hasn't figured things out...you have a lot of time to figure things out. I don't know how many times I drove down to the Mira Mesa House with Rex, Jeff and Matty Punk, but it felt like a whole lot and this song always seemed to be playing on those night drives down the coast and it put me in the weirdest mood.

"I Still Miss Someone" by Johnny Cash
I got really into to this song at the wrong time. This melancholy tune is about missing someone in autumn. Well, it was summer and I didn't miss anyone. I was just getting drunk in people's jacuzzis and stuff. Johnny Cash and I don't always see eye-to-eye.

"Epistrophy" - Cootie Williams
I listened to this song a lot when I'd smoke cigarettes at the Chapman parking garage behind the law school when I was a senior in high school. I think I'd narrate random stories over it. I don't know why. I was just looking to get out of the house on school nights and the beginning of this instrumental almost invites narration.

"Kingdom Come" - Coldplay
This song was playing when I dropped Sam off at their airport when she first left for Spain. I couldn't listen to this song for a year without feeling sick to my stomach. Now, I just wonder why the hell Coldplay doesn't write more quiet epic acoustic jams instead of the same twinkling falsetto arena rock hits.

Holy Hell, Vegas

2011-07-20T08:05:00.001-07:00

Well, I just returned home from my first ridiculous Vegas trip and it was...ridiculous.

I've been to Sin City many times, though only twice since turning 21. The last time was a year and a half ago when three friends and I stayed at a timeshare and mostly just hung around roulette tables and giggled a bunch.

This time, however, was for a bachelor party and now I get all that "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" stuff. It was hundred dollar dinners in suits and sleeping on the floor in a bathrobe. I don't remember a whole lot of our last night there, but I do vaguely recall us going to a club with some girls until 8 a.m. and then walking the entire strip back to our suite. Also, this morning, I found a note in my pocket written in Spanish from a girl apparently named Bri saying she misses me and wants a beer. There's also some mention of kisses. Hope I made good on that one.

Thanks, Vegas, for letting me touch grim death for a brief moment.

"lists"

2011-07-15T22:48:00.000-07:00

"lists"
done in contemplation by jake kilroy.

and i pack my bags.
i pack them with lists.
lists of relatives.
lists of friends.
lists of enemies.
lists of lovers.
i'm taking them with me.
and i'm out the door.
one bag is going in my car
and the other's going in the river.
i swear to god.
who ain't on any list.

I Wrote A Novel

2011-07-14T10:30:00.000-07:00

Well...it's finally done.

I finished writing my novel last Friday afternoon. Two years and 600 pages later, I now feel slightly less full of shit.

This, of course, is a huge relief, because when I start something, there's always a good chance I'm not actually going to finish it. So I did and now I'm reading it from start to finish for the first time and I recognize a huge difference in tone and tempo between the first and last chapter.

I mean, it makes sense. I literally wrote this book all over the place.

I first started writing it on a cliff in Mexico, which turned out to be the prologue. Then I wrote the opening two chapters when we were moving out of our party house in Orange. That summer, I wrote about eight chapters while goofing off in Seattle. I wrote four or five chapters while trying to figure out my life in Austin. Then I wrote ten chapters as a working stiff in Irvine. Finally, I took an indefinite leave of absence and moved onto other projects when I hit writer's block, but I came back this spring to finish the last few chapters in Los Angeles on my corporate lunch breaks.

Though I've been continually working on the book for two years (not consistently or constantly, however), I haven't really mentioned it on too many occasions. Sure, several of my close friends were aware that I was writing a book, but we never talked about it in great detail really (except for Chris, who is sort of my unpaid editor). And, sure, I discussed it with friends that have written or are writing books (Celeste, Non, Jason, Alex, etc) to compare experiences and encourage each other.

But, very earlier on, I felt the risk of becoming "the guy who's indefinitely writing a book" (just like the guy who has a great idea for a movie and will one day write the screenplay and the the guy who is always playing music but not making any). After enough times, someone is bound to say, "Hey, shouldn't you be done by now?" And, naturally, the writer would fly into a blind, murderous rage (even thought people should call you on your shit). So, now that it's done and I've told everyone, I've found myself in conversations about my book recently and it seems strange.

People want to read it, people want to know about it and people want to know what's next. My friends are very supportive, as this could all be one really crazy book of nonsense, like some epic saga about robot gigolos and the fembots who love them.

I've started at least five novels. Most of them didn't make it past the third chapter (though they may one day). Back then, I told people I was writing a book (oh, I was so proud). These days, though, I feel like the reaction should be more "oh my god, finally" instead "hey, congrats, man."

Hmmm.

I don't really know what the point of all this was. It's mostly just to say that I've been lying to you all since I was 16. I've written a lot over the past ten years. But I was in a high school classroom when I told my friends that I wanted to write books. I was in college when I told a friend that I just wanted to finish a book. And it was only a year ago when I told someone that I just wanted to finish this book.

Well, everyone, I'm telling you the truth now. I swear I'm a writer and I've got 600 pages to prove it.

Finally.

"from a bedroom window, the sea"

2011-07-06T10:25:00.001-07:00

"from a bedroom window, the sea"
hopelessly by jake kilroy.

from a bedroom window,
in a city that hums in the winter
and whistles in the summer,
i can see the harbor,
through the trees,
over the hills,
beyond the power lines.
and what waits there?
boats and ships and yachts!

all men in white aching
to free themselves from being men.
women in dresses,
boundless in energy,
remarkable in beauty,
waiting in vain
to escape womanhood.

of thrills, of waves,
of the nurturing calm of the sea,
a playground for those without borders,
for those without ties,
for those that sail,
like kites and balloons,
some cutting, some floating,
but always as lost as much as found;
a profound weightless, guiltless, endless idea,
as the five senses become schools of fish,
too plentiful for understanding;
with only enough thought
to know that we would like to stay
until our muscles come full circle,
until our bones feel leaky,
until we are nothing but water,
working just enough to be a mirror for the sun,
sleeping heavily for new kids to swim,
watching the world go on and on for eons,
always with the depth to change.

i watch from a bedroom window.

Going To The Movies Alone

2011-06-22T17:16:00.000-07:00

I went to the movies by myself last night.

Why? I have no idea. It was like a social experiment or something.

I decided that I wanted to see Pirates Of The Carribean: On Stranger Tides on the big screen and I figured most of my friends had already seen it. Instead of making a round of calls and figuring out the details with people, I thought maybe I would go for an adventure and see it by myself. I was quite curious actually. The idea of seeing a movie alone intrigued me.

And so, almost immediately after starting up the car, I thought about bailing. I mean, shit, I was about to cross over to the other side, to the land of dudes who see movies alone.

"There's absolutely nothing wrong with going to the movies alone," my dad told me.

"I've never done it. In my entire life, I've never done it," my mom added with a note of jock 'tude in her voice.

Then, I thought about it and realized that I hadn't really ever done it either. I remember I went to the movies alone once in high school because I was writing a movie review for the school paper and I took it way too seriously (I had a notepad in the dark theater, as if I could see what I was writing...and I was probably just drawing boobs anyway). Also, while in high school, I used to sit in on a film course at Chapman University because they showed old movies and my friends weren't really interested in them. I'm not sure if that really counts, since it was a classroom and I think the teacher thought I was one of his students. Actually, he probably thought I was flunking the fuck out, since I was only there half the time, but I think he assumed I was a student nonetheless.

Upon arriving to Cinema City, I emptied half my bag of candy into some cough drop box I had lying around my car. The bag of candy was too big to fit in my pocket and I thought, "It's hard to think of a lamer situation to run into somebody you know than arguing with some teenage movie theater employee about sneaking candy into a movie I'm obviously attending by myself."

After I considered that thought, things went pretty sketchy in my head. Holy shit, I wondered, what if I run into someone I know?

So, as I crossed the parking lot, I began to feel like I was attending some kind of school dance alone, which seems silly. I watch a stupid amount of movies by myself (granted, I'm in my bedroom at the time) and I love going to movie theaters. But, for some reason, I've fully accepted the weird stigma that I have to see a movie with someone. But why? We just sit in the dark and stare ahead at the screen in silence anyway.

Maybe it's just like why I don't really travel alone. I essentially want someone I can turn to and yell things at when I'm excited.

Regardless, I came up with back stories.

If I ran into someone I knew, I'd tell them, "Oh, I was supposed to meet my friend here, but something came up and he isn't going to make it. I figured I was already here, so I might as well see the movie."

If I had to explain myself to someone I didn't know, I'd tell them, "Oh, I'm a big fancy lead singer of a big fancy band on a big fancy tour and we had some time to kill and I didn't really feel like doing a bunch of coke, so I came here to see a movie while I'm in town for the night."

If I was forced to come up with a name for that ridiculous latter story, it would've been something pathetically obvious: "Oh me, my name's Jim Jimmerton St. Claire Cloud McFunrocker. I sing for a band called...Jimmy Jim Jim And The Parking Lot Cars."

I either lie really, really well or really, really poorly. It's tremendously hit-and-miss.

Anyway, once inside the theater, I decided, "Man, I am going to treat the hell out of myself." So I bought a big stupid drink and a big stupid popcorn and I had a big stupid smile on my face the whole time. I doused my popcorn in butter and salt ("doused" is not an exaggeration). This was thrilling, as I don't always get to do this. If I'm at the movies with a friend, one of us will buy the candy and one of us will buy the popcorn, so we can share (and not everyone loves butter and salt as I do). Then, every time I go to the movies with a girl, she tells me not to pour on the butter and salt because it's bad for me, and I think, "Bitch, maybe I want diabetes." But it never comes out like that. Instead, it comes out like, "Bitch, maybe I want you to get diabetes."

Movie popcorn brings out the worst in me.

So, then, when I reached the 17-year-old girl at the booth, I had to set my poison of a popcorn bucket down, so I could hand her my ticket, because my hands were full of all this food nonsense, like I was preparing to see the original Star Wars back in the 70s, as if this was supposed to be some life-changing event I was about to have at the movies ("Jesus, this tall drink of idiot water loves movies. Motherfucker's probably going to start telling me movie trivia and how historically inaccurate these Pirates films are," I assume she thought to herself). Even then, as she handed me back my ticket and we simply stared at each other awkwardly, just the look (I may have very well imagined) she gave me nearly brought out my story about being the lead singer of Jimmy St. Jim And The Who Fucking Cares or whatever from some East Coast city I'd make up like Moviepostercarpetville, Pennsylvania.

Clearly, going to the movies alone was messing up my brain in a big way.

Finally, I sat down in my theater seat and the trailers started. And, every time I crinkled the plastic that surrounded my precious Sour Patch Kids in between trailers, I felt like everyone was looking at me and thinking, "Is that poor societal defunct alone? Is he going to want some of my Whoppers? I'll be goddamned if he does. Honey, should I set my purse on the floor or do you think he could still reach for it? Oh, I hope he doesn't scoot next to us and do something weird."

This all makes sense to me, as it was a small theater and I was the only one there with the seat next to them filled with the makings of a dirty food bomb.

So I watched the movie, got up when it finished and left in silence. I'd like to see any pirate film on the big screen, but, honestly, it felt like I could've easily watched something at home instead. That's what I realized as I crossed the stale pink, red and yellow colors of the lobby. I realized that movies aren't all that cool by yourself.

You should be dissecting that shit on the way home! Did I get to tell anyone that I thought the movie was mediocre? Did I get to tell anyone that I thought the movie was obnoxious, silly and a big letdown? Did I get to tell anyone how hot I thought the mermaid was? Did I get to tell anyone all the crazy things I would do to that mermaid? Did I get to ask everyone what that actress's name was, just so I could watch three or four friends pull out their iPhones and tell me at the same time? No! So, guess what? I had to do that google her myself once I got home and I found out her name is Astrid Berges-Frisbey. Fucking...a Spanish-French actress with a last name that's pronounced "frisbee?" Hell yes. I love frisbees. Sign me the fuck up, lady, and let's go see your movies together, because I am straight up done seeing that shit by myself.

Romantic Rights, Live on Conan

2011-06-22T08:20:00.000-07:00

Hey, remember when Death From Above 1979 played on Late Night With Conan O'Brien and it was just, like, the best? If you forgot why it was so awesome, wait for 2:30 in the video below:

"Romantic Rights" - Death From Above 1979, Live on Conan

On a related note, I feel like "Romantic Rights" was playing at every party I went to the summer of 2005. Shit, whenever that song comes on, I still want to get hectic.

New York City: After

2011-06-20T14:47:00.000-07:00

I've been to a lot of big cities in my time. I've been to London, Paris, Madrid, Dublin, Vienna, Sydney, Melbourne, Tangier, Lucern, Munich, Vancouver, Boston, Seattle, Portland, Chicago, Austin, Nashville, Denver, Washington, DC, et cetera and New York City is the only one to ever overwhelm the hell outta me.

As James and I talked in the Kristen's living room on our last night in New York (James on the couch and me on an air mattress), we had a long conversation that included some of the most articulate things either of us have ever said about traveling. We came to the realization that New York City was the undefeatable giant (not all that surprising, but, hey, we thought of ourselves as a disaster strike team). When we went to Portland, we felt like we were louder and crazier than the city itself. With NYC, we talked a big game and feel disgustingly short. We were intimidated, tense and, in the end, put through the ringer.

However, I say this as we were unversed and arrogant when we showed up in JFK airport. We may not have been the conquerors we set out to be, but New York City was a gigantic monster that glowed and sang for us. It was tremendous. It was fun, hectic and downright spectacular. I loved it. I finally saw the city and it was more than I anticipated.

I wish I could tell you what he and I said while we laid there in the dark, hearing the muffled sounds of honks and shouts. But I can't. We came to the city laughing and shooting our mouths off and we returned with severed nerves. Our entire systems were only able to hold our muscles together by the end. So, instead of a thoughtful piece on what New York City is, I am only able to manage some fractured thoughts about the Big Apple and my tiny experience eating it.

Some quick thoughts on the place:

- Whenever New York City did something that surprised him, James would thin his eyes, smile and say, "Well played, New York." I'd say that phrase became the catch phrase of the trip.

- The cabs were clean and strangers were kind and helpful. Maybe things have changed or you have to be there long enough to really see the city's dirty secrets.

- I went to the top of the Empire State Building and the buildings went on forever. I mean, I could see badlands of New Jersey and what comes beyond Brooklyn, but, for the most part, it just looked like some futuristic landscape of tall buildings. It was unreal. New York City is like old Rome if they had focused more on tourism instead of conquests (you know, if they had just abandoned east, west, north and south to only go up instead).

- I smoked a cigarette by myself on a fire escape in New York watching traffic. I think, at the age of 16, that's all I would've needed to consider myself a success.

- Growing up, I thought of movies about New York as somewhat of a bad influence. Sure, there were a lot of pretty moments about extraordinary love and healthy marriages in the Big Apple. But, for the most part, I feel like my parents implied that I shouldn't smoke my lungs dead, shouldn't drown my liver and shouldn't sleep with women only to leave in the middle of the night like a whisper...and then it was always New York City who kind of said, "Hey, what if you did all those things in abundance instead?" That doesn't reflect my trip or my lifestyle, by the way. It's just sort of how I imagine everyone lived there when I was a teenager.

- I want somebody to get really high and go to the American Natural History Museum, so they can tell James and I if it's as cool as we both assumed it would be.

- The only time New York City shook my heart was when I saw the minature Statue of Liberty at the 9/11 Memorial covered in firefighter badges and notes to loved ones that disappeared. I felt a wave vibrate through my entire system.

- I see the influence of New York in everything now, from Regina Spektor songs to the Grand Theft Auto games.

- You can be happy in that city for free very easily. Well, ok, maybe the price of an ice cream cone. There was one point when I was eating an ice cream cone on a Brooklyn dock, looking at the city skyline in the mid-afternoon summer sun, and all I could think of was what I was looking at. I had a hard time coming up with where I lived or when I was leaving or what exactly I do for a living. All I could think of was ice cream and the New York City skyline. It filled my entire brain.

- There is such a crazy amount of attractive women in that city. Kristen told me that the ratio of women to men there is 3 to 1. There were a lot of moments where a hot girl passed us and I'd turn to Kristen and say, "3 to 1? Are you kidding me?"

- Also, from what I hear, I don't know how most male graduates of NYU don't die of STDs by their 30s.

- In a way, New York City is like Disneyland for adults. It's so perfectly organized and each of its five lands have some wonderful sights and rides. Everything seems so rehersed and experienced.

- My brain broke several times on the trip. It just became too difficult to really take in and keep my sanity. It was like visiting a holy city. Gods must have built this place, I thought at one point; it would've taken mankind thousands of years to do this. At its worst, New York City is one big tribute to man's ability to simply exist. At its best, it's anything you want it to be.

- If I lived in New York, I'd like to make it a hobby to bet on kids' tug-o-wars in Battery Park.

- Much of my previous knowledge of New York City comes almost entirely from movies and television shows. I realized this as I recognized much of Central Park from shitty romantic comedies. In fact, most of the time I was there, I had the distinct feeling I was walking around a film set.

- When I was atop the Empire State Building, I watched individuals walking the sidewalk by themselves 86 stories below me and all I could think was, "How the hell can anyone move here and think they're going to become somebody important or famous?"

-When I finally got home and had dinner with my family, there was a brief pause in conversation and I looked out the open top half of our Dutch door. I saw nothing and I heard nothing, and it was something. After three days of noise in the city, even while sleeping, it became a powerful sensation to acknowledge the quiet of the suburbs. In fact, it's one of the only times I truly thought of silence as deafening.

- Coming home from New York City was like dating a hot celebrity for a while and then realizing you're more fond of the girl-next-door type. Sure, I'd love to go to big Hollywood parties and talk up famous people, but I'd ultimately be more excited about taking it easy, cooking dinner and staying in to watch violent interracial porn with my old lady (hey, I don't want to get too boring).

- James was the perfect traveling companion and adventurer, and Kristen was the perfect hostess and guide. I had a lovely time. Well played, New York.

New York City: Before

2011-06-15T14:52:00.001-07:00

I leave for New York City tonight to see it for the first time and I feel like I'm revisiting a beautiful lucid dream I had as a kid. Can you feel nostalgia for a place you've never been before?

Well, I tell ya, I've got six hours, a few pints and a Hemingway book to kill at the airport while I come up with an answer.

Goodbye, West Coast.

All My Friends

2011-06-13T00:18:00.000-07:00

I can't see how you can go for a night drive by yourself, listen to LCD Soundsystem's "All My Friends" and not have a strange moment of reflecting upon your entire life up until you started the car and put on the song.

"all i ask"

2011-06-09T23:01:00.000-07:00

"all i ask"
written after a perfect evening by jake kilroy.

if i could just laugh with friends in candlelight,
telling the world's oldest joke,
one that grew in the very roots of this country,
the long arms of the trees that grew our food,
in the fields that buried our acres of dead,
just near the river that bathed our christs,
and emptied into the sea that gave us freedom,
back when we tipped hats that we wore,
during an era that never saw the end,
while the kids heard the folklore mystics,
of the sort that smoked long wooden pipes,
for they were the chants and the choruses,
found in the songs about absences and embraces,
remembered as the only true words said,
when we watched boats and trains leave us,
or the nights we starved ourselves thin,
as much of our hunger was for dreams and loves,
spread through us and woven into our bones,
twisted like ivy up and down our columns,
since we are mostly just empty palaces anyway,
treacherous as court jesters in a mutiny,
sacrificed as the one long poem of defeat,
colored spectacularly as a renaissance,
twirled into space by the demigods in rags,
sickened by their own heretic spells,
parched from the desert angels of yore,
horrified that the water will not clean,
blessed as the careless aches of man,
stranded to be the first cough of breath,
hailed as our god's last word on earth,
broken as an empty promise to time,
counted as seven days of waiting for light,
loved as words swept into an old vase,
seen as the quiet dance of ballroom grace,
written as the garden path whisper sonnets,
bagged as fireflies and fairies here to astonish,
captured as the rumors and splinters of age,
discovered to be the shifting world asunder,
because this is how it always has to be,
perfect in its escape and nothing without its heart,
so is everything, so is everything, so is everything,
i swear i wouldn't ask for a grand death,

"two lovers in your heart"

2011-06-02T07:40:00.000-07:00

"two lovers in your heart"
written sleepily after a spell by jake kilroy.

sometimes, there are two lovers in your heart.
sometimes, they're the acrobats of the bed.
sometimes, they read the newspaper together.
sometimes, they rub their feet and that's enough.
sometimes.

and then comes the sweaty nights when the radio breaks
and only plays the songs they never want to hear
and they fight until they swallow their own throat
and they cough up bits of their insides from screaming
and they can't stop crying until they're dizzy.

maybe they still talk in their sleep.
maybe they want to hear more.
maybe they think out loud then.
maybe that's why they love.
maybe that's why anyone does.

so they'll cook each other breakfast in bed.
so they'll kiss the other cheek when it's turned.
so they'll laugh the hardest after grieving.
so they'll read their letters to each other.
they can be so perfect, truly, finally.

or be sick to their stomach forever.

whatever you want love to be,
it will,
whether you have it or not.

"don't let me disappear to the coast of oregon"

2011-05-31T16:26:00.000-07:00

"don't let me disappear to the coast of oregon"
written in an airport lounge by jake kilroy.

don't let me disappear to the coast of oregon,
so that all i do is smoke myself dry,
drink myself soaked,
laugh myself stupid.

sip the wind like wine.
lay in grass beds.
write jokes on hands.
waste away in the world.

and come back to the city
to eat fried food i can't taste
in a nearly empty bar
listening to neil young
waiting for a friend,
recounting the mistakes i've made
and the people i made them for.

don't let me sink.
don't let me drift.
don't let me sail away,
because i know where i'd go.
and it's not here.
and i can't say that out loud.

so, if i could, for one night,
here and there,
between the gaps of gritted teeth
that make up the the grinning months of the calendar year,
allow me a party,
where i can taste neon lights like syrup
and play music too loud
and throw my things into the pacific.

before chain-smoking in freeway traffic
on my way to the airport,
to go home somewhere else.

Thank You, John Waters

2011-05-24T19:18:00.000-07:00

Papa Bear Makes Wise

2011-05-21T21:42:00.000-07:00

BROTHER: She just kept plucking around.

FATHER: Let's not say the word "fucking."

SISTER: Wait, did you just say what I thought you said?

FATHER: I said, "Let's not say the word 'fucking.'"

BROTHER: Haha!

MOTHER: I can't believe you just said that.

FATHER: Ah, Deb, I'm just fucking around.

If The World Ends Tomorrow...

2011-05-20T12:16:00.000-07:00

"If The World Ends Tomorrow..."
a apocalyptic rant by jake kilroy.

I've been wrong about a lot of things in life. Like...A LOT of things.

But I've never ever been wrong about a rapture. Mostly because I've never predicted one. And I've never supported one. The only rapture I kind of like is the band and even they sort of get on my nerves.

So, it's made the news that, according to Harold Camping, president of the Family Radio Christian Network, and his followers, the world is supposed to end tomorrow (around 6 p.m., from what I understand). For all I know, it will. How the shit would I know? Everybody's making assumptions here. My guess is that it won't, but don't quote me on it, because I want to keep my record on not being wrong about raptures spotless. I just feel bad for those who give a specific day about the end of the world. They don't seem to get the enormity of what they're claiming.

Because how pissed are people going to be on Sunday morning?

I'll tell you: REALLY pissed.

If the world's truly ending tomorrow, tonight should be goddamn lunacy. Over the years, I've only really gone to church for weddings, funerals and the occasional mixer, so I'm almost certain I'm not allowed on the glowing escalator and, if that's the case, I may be prepared for dealing in the gnar and gettin' hectic on the world. If I was convinced these were my last days, I'd go for broke in every sense of the word (spending all my money and breaking things). Then Sunday comes and I apparently don't have to cross a lake of lava to get to my car? How mad would I be now that it turns out I still have my whole life ahead of me in the suburbs, except now with a body full of heavy drugs and STDs? Look, I don't know how buckwild everybody's gonna get in their last days. This is all just speculation.

Of course, this is all if I took Harold Camping's word about the rapture, which I don't, since I guess he blew it pretty bad in September and October 1994 (he had a set date as well as a back-up date). Also, I don't trust anybody with an active verb for a last name.

On Sunday morning, what if people walk up the guys with the apocalypse signs and say, "Hey. So...what the hell, man? What do I do now? You told me that yesterday was the day. I did a lot of terrible things last night. Look at all this blood on my clothes. How am I going to explain this to my wife who went to a freaky sex party last night? You screwed me, bro."

The rapture is not a picnic. I know enough about the Bible to at least be aware of that. It's not some, "oh hey, if you're not doing anything Saturday, we should bike ride to the beach and eat on the pier." NO. The rapture is the end-all. The month before the rapture (that I would hypothetically believe in), I would probably free-for-all everything that usually has consequences. I'd take up heroin and prostitutes, for sure. Why wouldn't I? I mean, that's not my usual prerogative, just so we're clear. Not even close. I'm usually about basketball and vermicelli bowls. Stuff like that. You know, books and beer. Those sorts of things. But, really, if it's my last month on the Earth I know, appreciate and take care of here and there, I'm going out with a bang. Literally. I will probably procure a firearm of some sort. Why? Hey, here's a better question: why not? It's the freakin' rapture, man.

So, no, the rapture is not a picnic. It's a life-changing event. Yeah, my wedding day will probably be important. So will the birth of my first born. But the rapture? That's, like, crazy huge. That's not something you go at willy-nilly. And if you're wandering around the city with signs, just to grab some attention from the patrons of Starbucks, there reworking the first scene of a script they probably won't finish, then, come on, man, you need a new hobby. In fact, you should be the one writing a movie! You obviously have a cooler imagination than everybody else!

Raptures aren't for yokels, and claiming it is even wilder. This shit's serious. You're telling everyone that everything they know will end. EVERYTHING. All the celebrities you love, all the politicians that decide things, all of your stupid tasks like getting gas and buying groceries, every book and movie that exists, airplanes, trains, ships, oceans, mountains, cities, towns, rockets, fucking...EVERYTHING will no longer be. And if you believe that, if you honestly believe that's going down tomorrow, WHY ARE YOU HANGING OUTSIDE OF MALLS TELLING PEOPLE THIS? YOU SHOULD BE AT HOME WITH YOUR LOVED ONES MAKING FAJITAS AND PLAYING BOARD GAMES. OR YOU SHOULD BE PICKING UP FOOD FROM YOUR FAVORITE RESTAURANTS BEFORE CALLING EVERY PERSON YOU'VE EVER WRONGED AND TELLING THEM THAT YOU'RE SORRY. MAYBE YOU SHOULD BE IN YOUR LIVING ROOM, LOOKING THROUGH EVERY PHOTOGRAPH YOU HAVE AND CRYING UNTIL YOUR EYES SOUND LIKE A GAS LEAK. IT SHOULD BE FUCKING TEAR GAS COMING OUT OF YOUR FACE. YOU SHOULD BE OUT OF TEARS.

TEAR SUPPLY: FUCKING DEPLETED.

And, shit, if you really believe the world ends tomorrow, how are you taking it so well? Because you'll be lifted? Dude, not everyone you know is going to Heaven. Some of your buddies at the bowling alley, some of your ex-girlfriends that you stayed on good terms with, even some of your relatives with their condescending tones that you still kind of like seeing at sporadic holidays (though you never send them a birthday card), they're all doomed and not coming with you. You will miss them. You will miss them tremendously. You should be calling them. You should be giving them some goddamn tips about how to walk the new world of fire that they're left with while you drink white wine in a toga for eternity! People left on Earth are so screwed, man! While you're at your afterlife dinner party, filled with finger foods and pale confetti, chatting up Mark Twain and beating the shit out of Abraham Lincoln at foozball with Jimmy Stewart on your team, your heathen friends are going to be walking a planet that will mostly look like the Australian outback in a century after the Ozone layer has caught fire and exploded (I don't understand global warming, so, to me, that scenario is just as likely as the rapture happening on Saturday...yes, I ignore religion AND science).

The point is, if you really, honestly, truly believe the world is ending tomorrow, why are you wearing such dumb shirts and not a tuxedo? Go out in style, guy. I guess they don't have tye-dye in Heaven (as I assume it's mostly white and ivory mixes), so, if that's your reason, go for it, I suppose. Get out your last hoorah of clothing with colors. But you shouldn't be out here telling me and everybody else to repent. You've already got your one-way ticket. You don't need to do any more saving. You should be at home watching a marathon of Disney cartoons and eating a dozen plates of nachos with people you can't get enough of. Don't waste your time on everyone else! This is a time to relax!

Also, how are you able to relax right now? Don't you have a crazy amount of anxiety? I couldn't deal with that kind of pressure. You're about to go on an eternal trip, man! You should probably have some knots in your stomach to unwrap! What should you bring? Should you even bring anything? Will they provide shoes at the gates or should you bring a nicer pair? Should you buy new shoes? If so, tennis shoes or dress shoes? Can you be overdressed for the afterlife? Could you be underdressed? These are major concerns you should be having, since your decision affects you for, oh, I don't know, for-fucking-ever.

Why are you not at least stocking up on clean underwear? Macy's should be out of underwear right now. Vons should be out of toothpaste. CVS should be sold out of motion sickness pills. These are things that everyone person planning to leave Earth tomorrow should have an eternal supply of. Sure, it's probably a safe assumption that Heaven will provide all of your toiletries, but even the nicest hotels don't always leave mints on your pillow. It's a risky move. At least bring a backpack, for Christ's sake! I mean...Christ will probably want a snack or something. And then you have to figure out what He would want! Corn Nuts seem like a solid choice, but which flavor? Is chile picante too spicy? Is original too boring? Ugh. Everyone planning to abandon this planet tomorrow should be experiencing multiple aneurysms, just trying to figure their shit out.

All I'm saying is be prepared and spend your closing hours with people you love. This isn't a time to tell some lost soul on his way to Panda Express that he should be at home getting ready for the rapture. THAT'S WHAT YOU SHOULD BE DOING. GET THE FUCK HOME AND BE READY FOR THE END OF THE WORLD, DUDE.

And, if the rapture doesn't come tomorrow, then I'd just stay home on Sunday, man. If there's one day to stay home from church, it's the day after the rapture didn't come when you promised it would and you looked like an asshole. Get your shit together. Literally. You're leaving soon.

Ah well.

Good luck out there, everybody!

Cake & Jazz Music

2011-05-20T07:21:00.001-07:00

"Who needs full-time jobs anyway? Cake and jazz music? That’s what life’s all about." - Celeste Hoang

I'm A Genius (Sometimes)

2011-05-18T07:55:00.000-07:00

I rarely think of myself as a genius. And, when I do, it's not because of I wrote or said anything profound. At best, my writing is motivated by impressing strange chicks I meet in stranger bars and my talking is used as a severe distraction from whatever I am currently wearing.

I've come to realize that the only time I award myself the obnoxious title of "genius" is when I make complex meals without recipes (which is often achieved by randomly combining ingredients I find around the kitchen in a hopeful attempt to not starve or leave the house) or by turning one meal into many. That's about it. I really only declare myself a genius when I have a mouth full of food.

"Kilroy, you magnificent bastard genius," I recently announced to myself, hardly understandable with my face being crammed with rice noodles and soy chicken. I happened to be watching yet another episode of Cheers (the entire series is on Netflix's instant streaming, people) and I had heroically saved the broth of the Loving Hut's royal noodle soup and turned it into a fourth meal by coolly adding a few ingredients all radically and what have you.

So next time you think, "That Jake is no genius," just wait until I turn some leftover burrito into a taco salad three days later and your brain explodes from sensual joy. YOU JUST WAIT, AMERICA. I'M ALWAYS COOKING UP SOMETHING.

Mix Memories: Volume One

2011-05-13T10:13:00.000-07:00

I don't listen to music as often or intently as I once did. These days, I typically have an audiobook in the car and a movie usually going in my room. At work, I sometimes have Pandora on or I listen to one artist's discography on my iPod. And I think I've realized why it's never one of the many playlists I've made over the years. When I listen to those mixes, they're a collection of my favorites and I find myself distracted with the memories the songs bring. So, I decided to put some of them down, if only as some self-preservation. Some memories mean more than others and some are just observations.

"The New Year" by Death Cab For Cutie - I spent a lot of the summer of 2004 either playing music in my garage or hanging out in front of Bogart's. My friends worked there and the owner hated us loitering around the parking lot. I mean, we were 19 years old and our friends made sandwiches for a living, so obviously we were moochers. But it felt like you could stop by any time of the day and there was someone there doing nothing. I remember Rex showed me this song in his car in Bogart's parking lot once when we were bored and playing catch. You could spend all day there and it wasn't until the sun went down that you had to figure out what to do with your time.

"A Tender History In Rust" by Do Make Say Think - I don't remember why I was coming home from Los Angeles that night, but I remember Sarvas was driving and Jeff put this on. I watched the skyline fade behind the trees and the houses as we headed home.

"The Remains Of The Day" by Mono - Jeff showed me this song once and I told him that it was hardly a song. He gave me a copy of the album anyway, and I listened to it on my own a few more times and loved its airy sound. It was perfect music for sitting around my room.

"Digital Love" by Daft Punk - When Ryan and I visited Boston, Cousin Eric drove us to New Hampshire to see his friends and we listened to Daft Punk as we took our time through the the forested countryside. Once we arrived in that small town in New Hampshire, the three of us wandered along a river and then sat at an outdoor table at Eric's friend's restaurant. The patio was covered and we watched a heavy storm come and go, all while Ryan and I fell in love with the same girl we couldn't have.

"Don't Stop" by Brazilian Girls - Chris and I took a long bike ride around Old Towne Orange one spring afternoon, all while talking about how our relationships would soar or sink with no middle ground. We stopped by his girlfriend's apartment and she was cleaning her room with this song on. I demanded to know who it was and then listened to it for a week straight.

"Us" by Regina Spektor - I was watching Conan O'Brien one night I couldn't sleep and she was performing this song. I leaned closer to the television because I couldn't believe how good it was. I thought about lucky the guy was that the song was about (not so much the lyrics, but just to have such a good song about him being played on national television). I then decided to date a pretty singer/songwriter that could play the piano for me on Sunday mornings in our New York City loft with brick walls while I made her breakfast. I have since been unsuccessful.

"Die" by Carissa's Wierd - I remember finding out this band the summer I spent hanging with Bret and Randy at the hookah bar. This song gave me the chills the first time I heard it. Who could be this beautiful and broken?

"Road To Joy" by Bright Eyes - I remember driving up to Thanksgiving with my mom, my brother, my sister and my grandma one year. My siblings hated Bright Eyes and I couldn't stop listening to this song. I made them put it on and I either forgot or didn't care about the part where he yells "Let's fuck it up, boys! Make some noise!" Well, I'll tell you, nobody was happy. Except me. I was really happy. This song ruled then and it rules now.

"Old School Reasons" by Alkaline Trio - I can't think of a better song to blast while cruising around on summer afternoons with the windows down. I listened to it the entire summer of 2006 when all I recall doing was swimming, drinking and writing. I feel like I only worked at my restaurant job just enough to afford gas that summer.

"Twelve" by Forward, Russia! - I was sitting in a gas station with Jeff while Rex was getting gas and we were trying to figure out what the lyrics were as it was playing. I think we cheated and finally pulled out the album insert.

"Indian Summer" by Pedro The Lion - I love the phrase "Indian summer" and this song sort of puts the right vibe to those two words. Also, for a few-week period, Bret had to repeatedly ask me not to sing-talk like the singer. I couldn't stop. I had a problem. I was crazy addicted to sing-talking like the singer of Pedro The Lion.

"Bruised" by The Bens - This song makes me think of Julia, but not because of this specific song. I just feel like I got into each Ben in the band at her house (Ben Folds, Ben Kweller and Ben Lee). Actually, maybe I did listen to this song at her house when I went there every other weekend. I don't know. The more I think about it, I feel like this song reminds me a lot of the end of the summer after high school when everyone left for college. Ugh. What a cliche.

"West Coast" by Coconut Records - I first heard this at a party at the Columbus House and everything suddenly felt like some weird indie music video. Everything seemed to be moving slower and everyone was smiling all nostalgic. Or I think that's how it was. I'm not entirely sure. I was on drugs at the time.

"Every Direction Is North" by El Ten Eleven - Randy one gave me a heap of electronic and post-rock music. I didn't listen to it for a long time. I finally put one of the albums in my car and I remember this song standing out as I pulled out of a gas station. I put it on a mix for someone later that week. That's about it. Sorry. Not much on this one.

"We Have A Map Of The Piano" by Mum - I took this in a gigantic steal from Jenelle's computer. We had lunch at Jalapeno's and then went back to her apartment and she showed me all the music she considered for choreography. I didn't listen to Mum for years. Then, one night when I was sitting at my computer, I put it on and it put me in the weirdest place. It felt like a Bjork-like digital ghost was seducing me with opium and freaky slow dancing from the east. I think I laid on my floor and listen to the barely-there ambient music wondering what dance Jenelle came up with for this song.

"Swimmers" by Broken Social Scene - I listened to this song and it made my way into a dream one night. I think it was me, a girl I loved in the dream and didn't know in real life and our collective friends all swimming at some lake with a rope swing. It was in slow motion and it looked like my brained film it on an old video camera. My dream couldn't have looked more like a memorial video to play at some hipster's funeral if it tried.

"Suicide" by Eulogies - I have no idea how I scored this album. I found it tucked in my car's backseat when I was cleaning out my mess of an interior. There was no case. It was just the actual disc. I put it in my stereo when I got home. After I heard this song, I thought, "Well, it doesn't matter whose this was. It's mine now."

"Up On The Roof" by The Drifters - The summer between my junior and senior year of high school, I spent a lot of afternoons driving around with Sarvas and smoking cigarettes for the first time. We listened to a lot of oldies and he told me this was his cheer-up song. Everyone has their own cheer-up songs, but I don't normally adopt them. This one, however, I kind of lifted for myself. I listened to it once on an actual roof and I probably ripped a hole in the space-time continuum. Sorry, universe.

"Mood Indigo" by Duke Ellington - Some summer nights, the weather is perfect. You sleep with the windows open and maybe one blanket on top of you. And you almost don't want to fall asleep, because then it'll be loud and bright and you'll get distracted with the morning world. But for those minutes or hours you lay in bed, waiting to fall asleep in the cool breeze, you think of somebody. That's this song.

My Quiet Birthday

2011-05-11T07:59:00.000-07:00

It was my birthday yesterday, and I turned 26 like someone slipping out of a party through the back door to have a cigarette alone on the back porch. That's not supposed to stir idle tales of melancholy. The person on the porch isn't leaving the party. He's just taking a break. And he's drunk as shit. And he's probably gotten all loud and handsy. And he's probably laughed his throat sore. But now he just needs a lone cigarette under the hailing light of a western moon to quietly reflect on the past and consider the future.

But it's not some big change coming. He doesn't need to strike up the band for a new anthem. Maybe he only needs them to alter a few notes. In his head, it could just be "get Del Taco on the way home" or "call the doctor tomorrow." It becomes a laundry list of the little things as the big picture's still in focus and coming to the good part.

Many asked me what I had planned for my birthday this year and, after several inviting suggestions and a few suggestive invitations, I decided to just stay in. I worked from home and a few things came up that I didn't expect. My mom bought me a bagel and hot chocolate from The Coffee Grove, Rex took me to lunch and Jeff, Rex and Greg took me out for a few calm and collected hours of good beer and delightful conversation (and, the night before, Non and Jessica had me over for a lovely birthday dinner). At night, my parents made French onion soup, croque-monsieur and cheesecake, and we played Settlers of Catan.

And that's all, and actually more than, I wanted for my birthday.

Initially, I had planned to work from home, take myself out for breakfast and lunch, spend the late afternoon reading or playing video games and then eat dinner with the family. It didn't change that much, but I was excited for the day and thrilled with the small additions. I've seen a declining interest in my birthday celebration over the years, though I've also noticed the way I celebrate my birthday is somewhat reflective of what brought me the most happiness that year.

When I was 25, I celebrated by playing a gigantic game of basketball. I felt that I got the most from being healthy that year.

When I was 24, I went to dinner and a movie with my girlfriend. I felt I got the most out of a committed relationship that year.

When I was 23, I had a pool party and we ended up sitting around the jacuzzi talking the afternoon away. I felt I got the most from my friends that year.

When I was 22, I threw a house party in my first rented place and a whole lot of people came. I felt I got the most from freedom that year.

When I was 21, I celebrated my birthday for six days and called it Jake-A-Palooza. I felt I got the most from ego that year.

By the way, "family" doesn't make the list of what I get the most out of every year, as my family has been an unsaid first since I was born.

Beyond that year of legal drinking, I don't remember what I did for my birthday. I believe all the drinking on my 21st birthday destroyed part of my memory. All the whiskey and all the beer set fire to my warehouse of teenage boxes. It was an electrical fire when the synapses of my brain began popping and sparking, laying waste what came before.

I just know that, on my 20th birthday, my father told me, "In ten years, you'll have a career. In five years, you might have a wife." He patted me on the back, smiled and exited my room. I stared at the empty doorway for a moment and then spent the rest of the night on the floor listening to Bruce Springsteen records, trying to calm myself down.

No matter how inviting the future is, the present is always much more comfortable. I like what came, what's come and what's coming. And, in my 26 years on this earth, I can say that I lost my head for a few of them, but I've done well for the most part. I can site moments of mania and days of bad decisions, but, if I had to chalk everything up to one of two columns, I think I'd be pretty excited about the score.

And I've had plenty of time to realize this, as I've been granted two and a half decades on this planet to figure it all out. Obviously, I've spent a very small fraction on actually concentrating on figuring it all out, but nearly effort in a person's outrageously fragile existence is subtle attempts to figure it out. Every friend you make as a kid, every shitty poem you write as a teenager, every day job you interview for as an adult are all part of figuring it out, though most of us make it look easy. It's easy to figure yourself out and you don't have to spend a lifetime building the goddamn machine. Instead, just oil it here and there and add some cogs when you feel it's necessary. It's not a matter of having the biggest machine, but it's about the owning up to the one that runs the most efficiently.

In case you're wondering, I gave myself a fuck-ton of analogies for my birthday and I'm using them now. Woo!

This past year, I feel as though I've gotten the most out of staying in, sometimes with my family and sometimes alone. I've read more than I ever have, I've watched more movies than I ever have and I've become cleaner and more organized with my life. This is not to imply that I haven't gone out. I mean, shit, this past year included Cowboy Spirit and whatever the hell this recent "spring anarchy" counts as.

I've had a tremendous amount of fun in the last 365 days, but when I honestly consider what has helped me the most evolve as a person, it was making the most of staying in. And it wasn't really about figuring it out. I'm figuring it out all the time. I'm like the Sherlock Holmes of my own life (birthday analogy!). As I've stayed in, I'm improved as a writer more than I ever have in a year and I've more or less come to understand the general pace of adult life. I've worked on social nuances and improved my rhythm of being a healthy human being.

Among the very small number of people I celebrated my birthday with between the very few moments of my birthday celebration (a total of two dinners, a lunch and a late afternoon fit of drinking), I came to absolutely no outstanding conclusion whatsoever. I'm not searching for a great answer, I'm not waiting for the great reply and it felt great for my birthday to come and be unsure if I'm where I think I should be or that I just don't care.

That is my great revelation, and it was a great birthday.

"pink shirt"

2011-05-06T14:19:00.000-07:00

"pink shirt"
a thoughtful bit of nonsense by jake kilroy.

i remember you in a pink shirt,
when i played drums in a band
that ultimately went nowhere.

you sank your teeth into your lips,
like great warships in ruins,
melting into the hungry sea.

and i was just a musician
that lied about music,
as woefully dazzling as smoke.

you had eyes that came at me,
that dazed the furious world,
like a lustful escape artist.

but you were on the balcony,
when i left with someone else,
to drink wine in a front seat.

i went home counting trees
and painting your name across
the winter lull of my window.

and you were all i had in me,
carving tools from bones
and meat from muscle.

so i skulked my kingdom
as a tired, bloody hunter,
with an arrow through his throat.

My Face Is Literally Falling Apart

2011-05-04T11:43:00.001-07:00

A piece of my tooth randomly fell out of my mouth the other night. This was obviously distressing news. As I chewed my gum and suddenly felt something come unstuck, I thought that I had heroically outed some stale piece of popcorn or porcelain. But no! It was a part of my mouth.

What keeps playing in my head is that scene from It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia where Charlie keeps pulling teeth out of his mouth. And, let me tell you something, that guy most certainly does not have his shit together.

If part of your mouth is actually falling off your face, then that's probably a solid argument against having your shit together. When something like that happens, you'd think I had spent a month eating sour patch kids in a bowl of Pepsi like it were cereal for every meal and just abandoned brushing my teeth altogether. But that's not the case! I brush my teeth two or three times a day! And, sure, I haven't had a stunning diet recently, but I was regularly eating all kinds of fruits and vegetables the first three months of this year.

Damn, maybe it was Anything Goes April, which turned into May I Have Everything May. I don't know. I'm not a scientist. If I were, I'd cure all teeth problems forever. And everyone would throw me a parade where all we served were things that destroy your gums but now don't.

"Yes, I'll have that jellybean sandwich! In fact, make that two!" all the kids would say.

The only trouble they'd be in is when they have to go to the face doctor for smiling too much. And they wouldn't even be bummed.

"So..." the doctor would start.

"Fucking worth it," the magnificent kids would tell him, cutting him off.

"Jake Kilroy the scientist is the greatest person to ever live for any reason in any country on any planet," the youngest, most adorable youngster would announce adorably.

But, no, I'm not a scientist and instead of being praised in the history books as "the man who solved everything," I have to go down in the diary I don't really have as "one big decaying mess." Maybe if I'm nice, I'll list myself "peaked," so that peers assume that I was once a man with full teeth.

I drank cold water two nights ago and nearly threw the cup across the room. That's how bad it stings. Now my goddamn nerves are exposed. People will see my feelings. You know what that means? I have to eat my feelings. All billion of them. That's right! I have a billion feelings. Happy? No! That's not even one of my billion feelings right now! Right now, I feel "unpruniaxed," which you didn't even know was possible until now! Why can't I go down in history as "the awesome hero would had a billion feelings?" Nope. Instead, I have to go to sleep knowing I'm "the guy who whose bones collapsed on him in a spectacular disappointment."

You know what? I was too good to myself this last month. That's what happened. Everything I wanted, I gave myself. I was having cheesecake for breakfast and beer for lunch. Dinner? Who gives a shit about dinner when all you've had to eat that afternoon is a few Pez candies and a couple swigs of bourbon?

Fuck this.

Oh, and last night, while at Taco Bell, I pulled up to the window and the guy said, "Yeah, I remember this order. You're the only one who orders rice instead of meat."

I nod and mumble something that sounds vaguely like a reply. When he comes back with my food, he adds, "After you left last night, I tried it with rice and it was pretty good."

YEAH, THAT'S RIGHT. I WENT TO TACO BELL TWO NIGHTS IN A ROW. Same fucking Taco Bell, same fucking guy giving me Taco Bell. But have I learned my lesson? Hell no! I might get Taco Bell tonight! I might eat that shit in my sleep! I might dream about Taco Bell!

All I have to do is make sure I chew all that Taco Bell with the right side of my face, so that those nacho chips I've ordered on this lifelong binge of destroying my body don't stab the goddamn exposed nerves in my mouth.

Ugh. I'm so hungry.

"what came after the war"

2011-04-29T09:26:00.000-07:00

"what came after the war"
a battled consideration by jake kilroy.

g0oodbye, crimson heroes
and beautiful banshees of the beach.
glorious shipwreck cove,
filled with gold and broken bones,
for merrier weather and a funeral at sea.

hello, patron saints
and coastlines of dead priests.
the last stand of any men here
will bleed the history books dark
and we'll all salute with mangled hands.

finally, cloudy weather,
marked as a spell of sunken spirits.
a parade of ghostly footprints,
slowly churning in the gray sand,
one mutilated cough after another.

onward, last of the grand,
with feet so tired they rattle.
slippery fingers over the gun,
soaked from tears, wet from heat,
with only a disease to follow home.

Missculinity: Volume One

2011-04-28T10:38:00.000-07:00

I think it's a testament to my masculinity that I naturally assume the gauge is broken if the needle passes the H on my car dashboard. Then, when I pull over and look at my engine, I think, "oh shit, this is what my engine looks like" and remember my dad once telling me, "I failed you as a father."

I hope my car doesn't blow up on the way home.

A Thought

2011-04-24T18:33:00.000-07:00

I'm dangerously close to getting it together and figuring it all out.

"our bridge"

2011-04-24T00:24:00.000-07:00

"our bridge"
after a discovery by jake kilroy.

smoke burns, carpet burns,
all in one long fire of a day;
sleeping in clean sheets,
letting the television speak,
with all of the lanterns off.
set the alarm for a sunday,
we've got to rebuild.
we must rebuild the bridge.
we shouldn't have burned it.
but my contractor will contact yours,
yet our architects won't agree,
and my workers will slack off,
while yours will just bitch.
mine will fall asleep in the sunshine,
with sandwich crumbs and bare feet,
and yours will stand in the shade,
barely hungry enough to chew.
my men will have pockets of jokes
ready for your men to not get.
i'd invoice a sense of humor,
but you wouldn't lend the paper.
so let's just say the bridge is built
and go home on different sides;
maybe see each other next year.

A Whole Mass O' Mess

2011-04-21T07:25:00.000-07:00

My mind's all over the place, so here's a...

Fake excerpt from a noir novel:
"Bang bang," said the gun. Nobody in the ballroom laughed. They had all heard the joke before.

Poem with just one line:
You can collect broken hearts like phone numbers, but you can't store them like baseball cards.

Quick recap of my life:
Life has been stupidly good lately. I'm writing more than ever. I'm reading as much as I can. I work from home two days a week and surprisingly appreciate my commute to Los Angeles the other three days. I play basketball at least two times a week. A recent 10 a.m. Sunday morning basketball game turned into an all-day barbecue with all the locals eating burgers and playing volleyball (I didn't get home until 10 p.m., sunburned as shit and happy as hell). Monday night is still group dinner/writing and Tuesday evening is now watching old films on a movie screen in a backyard with friends and popcorn. I feel like I'm living out my third adolescence, as I keep finding myself falling victim to the dumb grins I remember carrying with me as a 20-year-old; back when all I remember doing that year was going to shows, going on bike rides, going to Australia, going to Arizona, going to Northern California, going at everything with a charming sense of who gives a shit. I feel like I have all the time in the world and I've never been busier. I also don't think I've ever written such a junior high-sounding entry about my life, not even in junior high. I feel like I'm on the verge of writing things like, "And I'm hitting more green lights when I drive!" Ugh. This paragraph was disgusting. Ah well. Woop, woop!

Something I can't stop saying:
Woop, woop!

Movie you should watch:
City Island

Song that should make you feel all kinds of good:
"Good Ol' Fashion Rump Shaker" by The Hood Internet
{Beastie Boys vs. Matt & Kim}

Dangerous thought:
It's been an amazing past month of summer and it's only April. Hot diggity damn, coming summertime, I'm gonna mess you up in a sexy way. Woop, woop!

The Dinner Party: My Delirious One-Act Play

2011-04-07T13:08:00.000-07:00

The Dinner Party: My Delirious One-Act Play
a stunning lapse in judgment by jake kilroy.

[CHARACTERS]
CAROL
a thirty-something insurance agent who wishes she was smarter
SEAMUS
an obnoxious but content thirty-something with a lack of ambition
AARON
a failed novelist in his thirties, currently working as a columnist and married to Mandy
MANDY
an apathetic retail store manager with a drinking problem, married to Aaron

[SETTING]
We see four long-time friends sitting around a dinner table set for a dozen people. It appears that all of the seats have been occupied during the evening, given the leftovers and crumpled napkins. The characters Mandy and Aaron sit at the heads of the table. Aaron appears relaxed and observational and Mandy seems tired, as she leans over the table, propped up by her elbows and holding a wine glass close to her mouth. Seamus in between the couple, looking about the room, with Carol on the other side of the table, squinting as if thinking of what to say.

CAROL: What do you think Descartes meant when he said, "I think therefore I am?"

SEAMUS: Holy shit, Carol. It's pronounced "day cart," not "des car tes." Have you ever even fucking heard French?

CAROL: Oh, I'm sorry, Seamus. I was hoping you could not be an asshole for once.

SEAMUS: Yeah? Well, I think you're a bitch, therefore you are.

CAROL: Oh, I'm sure that's what Descartes meant. I'm sure he meant for some welfare rat, whose greatest accomplishment is banging some hooker and not contracting a venereal disease, to use that as some weak burn at a dinner party.

AARON: I hope one of you two gets AIDS.

CAROL: Me? Why me?

SEAMUS: I bet I could fuck something diseased and not get AIDS.

AARON: How?

SEAMUS: I don't know. Will power?

MANDY: You don't have any will power.

SEAMUS: Me? Are you kidding? How many times did I refuse to sleep with your insane sister?

MANDY: She wasn't insane. She was a sex addict.

SEAMUS: Meaning I wasn't an enabler! You're fucking welcome, Mandy!

CAROL: That's probably the nicest thing you've ever done.

SEAMUS: I know, right? Finally, Carol says something that's not stupid.

CAROL: Yeah, sleeping with you would've probably killed her with sadness.

MANDY: Thank you, Carol.

SEAMUS: Carol tried to sleep with her!

MANDY: You did?

CAROL: Only a kiss! I was drunk, it was college, I think it was my birthday...I don't know! I was 20 and I just wanted to kiss her. That was it!

MANDY: Wow. Maybe you sent her into the loops.

CAROL: No way!

AARON: Is that a phrase? "Into the loops?"

MANDY: Yeah, I got it from your failed novel.

AARON: Ha. At least I tried.

MANDY: Said the failure.

AARON: Mandy, I'd say you drink like a fish, but a fish would've drowned by now.

MANDY: Wakka-wakka-wakka.

SEAMUS: What the shit? Was that Fozzie Bear?

CAROL: You would know, you immature douche.

SEAMUS: I'm a douche because I love the Muppets?

CAROL: No, they're not mutually exclusive.

SEAMUS: Oh my god, Carol, I've never heard anyone use a phrase so incorrectly.

CAROL: Not even when you hear hookers lie about washing their hair instead of taking your money?

SEAMUS: What?

CAROL: You heard me!

SEAMUS: Yeah, that's the problem every time you talk.

MANDY: We need more wine.

AARON: Said the fish.

MANDY: Said the failure.

AARON: You're already repeating yourself and you're not even a dozen glasses in yet.

SEAMUS: Holy shit, are we missing American Idol right now?

CAROL: I think so, therefore we are.

If I Wrote Old Movies: Volume III

2011-04-06T08:03:00.000-07:00

If I Wrote Old Movies: Volume III
by jake kilroy.

“Darling, this is too much red wine,” she said, holding out her glass.

“Is there such a thing?” he said with the sly raise of his brow and the twist of his mouth.

Her laughter fluttered like butterfly wings, and then she drank the maroon sea from her glass.

“How is it that we haven’t stayed in on a Saturday all year?” she asked, looking about the room of gold and white.

“The year is barely even a quarter of the way through.”

“Yes, yes, it’s the longest new year’s party we’ve ever attended, I’m sure.”

He stood at the window, warmly surveying the city, as his wife settled into her lounge chair with a silky exhale.

There was a polite knock at the sitting room door and their butler entered.

“Mr. Harrington has arrived,” the old servant said with a bow.

“Oh, good, good. Show him in,” the man said, waving his hand.

A young man entered with his right hand outstretched.

“Charles!” the woman said, gleefully pulling herself up.

“Hello, Uncle William,” the young man Charles said, shaking the man’s hand before moving towards the woman. “And, Charlotte, you dazzling spectacle, you look like fireworks as always.”

“Too much make-up?” Charlotte remarked lightly, as she and her fur coat swallowed Charles in an adoring hug.

“Don’t start her up and then leave her with me, you scoundrel,” William laughed, pulling a long sip at his wine glass.

“Sorry, uncle,” Charles said, pouring himself a brandy immediately. “The women I meet with are hourly, so I’m used to not wasting time.”

“Why, you delicious savage,” Charlotte crooned. “Where have you been hiding?”

“Somewhere between the lower east side avenues,” Charles said, sinking the dark liquor of his glass. “They have marvelous bars down there, complete with easy women and hard men.”

“My boy, it sounds like quite a life you lead in the slums,” William said.

“Oh, it’s something alright, but I’ve found myself somewhat intrigued by robbery these days,” Charles said, pouring himself a second helping of brandy. “By the way, this is a sensational decanter. Exquisite glass work.”

“Don’t bother stealing it. It’s yours if you want it,” William said, raising his glass as if it were a toast.

Charles grinned. “Thank you, dear uncle, but permission takes all the fun out of thievery.”

“So you’re a gentleman thief now?” William asked.

“Oh, no, no. Gentlemen play cards in the afternoon and enjoy polo,” Charles said, wandering the room, admiring the portraits and antique furniture. He swirled his drink thoughtfully, making sure not to spill any.

“So you’re just a thief then?” Charlotte asked, repositioning herself on her side.

“Hardly,” Charles said. “Thieves pick pockets and lift fruit from the local markets and stands. What fun is that? I’m a grown man, not some petty orphan child looking to live another day.”

“So what do you do then?” William asked suspiciously, almost as a purr.

“Why, I rob, dear uncle! I wear masks and break into houses. I tie up families and take their things,” the young man explained, grinning sharply and savoring his words like a meal.

“Oh, come now, Charles,” Charlotte cooed. “Your mother and father would just simply not allow such things.”

“How are they to stop me? Mother’s in the hospital and father’s in the basement.”

“Oh, dear heavens,” Charlotte gasped. “What has happened?”

“What do you mean, your father’s in the basement?” William asked in a low, gruff tone.

“Well, you see, after I hit father in the face with the rifle and mother with her favorite vase, I tied father up, so he didn’t crawl to the front door and bleed on the rug I was planning on taking.”

Charlotte mumbled incoherently, confused and shocked. William thinned his eyes.

“You did what?” William asked, a growing impatience rising in him.

“I robbed them, dear uncle!” Charles announced enthusiastically.

“You robbed your mother and father?” William growled, setting his wine glass down. “You tied up my own brother like some pathetic animal and sent his wife bloodied to the hospital?”

“Oh god,” Charlotte cried. Her hands covered her mouth as her eyes watered, leaving the wine glass to hit the rug beneath her.

“Don’t do that, Charlotte,” Charles said, tossing his glass across the room and into a plant’s pot. “I plan on taking that rug and I don’t want to use your arm to comb out the shards of glass.”

“You traitorous bastard of a nephew,” William calmly rumbled through gritted teeth.

Charlotte could only manage a scream. “James!”

“Is that the butler’s name? I never could remember it,” Charles admitted whimsically. “It doesn’t matter though. I imagine he’s being tied up and beaten by my associates right now."

“You goddamn fool!” William yelled over the sound of Charlotte's sorrowful wails.

“Listen, uncle, I don’t want to risk getting blood all over my new things, so I’d appreciate you not encouraging me to drag a blade across your face,” Charles said, lightly grazing the couch with his fingers. “I’m disappearing for a while. I was kind enough not to kill father and decent enough to drop mother off at the hospital on my way here. Their things are mine now. Their plush lifestyle is all bundled up, beautifully massacred by their beloved son. Tragic? Maybe. Depends on who’s writing history, don’t you think? Well, I’ll have you know that I stole all their pens. Ha. Bully for me.”

Charlotte wept, as William backed closer to the window.

“You maniac,” William said, raising his voice to a strange level of fear and fury.

“Perhaps,” Charles said indifferently, pulling the rope that had been tucked into the back of his pants. “But I’m about to get rich the old-fashioned way. Call me an industrialist if you must, but I simply won’t be part of this simpleton party announcing itself as the traditional upper class.”

Several men in black clothes and masks entered the room.

“Now, if you could both please step to your left and towards this charming rope I’m holding, I shouldn’t have to ask my friends to let loose in your very lovely sitting room. They can be such rude guests if you let them.”

"slam poets in the back of a bus"

2011-04-03T23:48:00.000-07:00

"slam poets in the back of a bus"
considering music integrity by jake kilroy.

slam poets in the back of a bus,
letting the wheels roll away,
letting the metal scrape the asphalt,
letting their necks crane forward.

an exalted rush of blood to the brain.
a pinched nerve, struck like a piano key.
teeth grinding as the windows break
and the yellow paint gets carved away.

this is the hype that you told us the rumors
you expelled from the lungs,
the dirty lies you loved to cough up
and say there was a tumor in your chest.

this is the mesmerizing world you told us about,
the one that was supposed to explain it all.
one more tremendous car crash after another,
slamming so quickly that it sounds like music;
just one more orchestra we let burn to death.

"my beautiful beach of noise"

2011-04-02T23:22:00.000-07:00

"my beautiful beach of noise"
done right before a saturday midnight by jake kilroy.

my beautiful beach of noise,
with the railroad tracks
and the boombox jams;
the crashing waves of phone calls
and boring afternoon movies,
coming in and out,
slamming the door,
shutting the window,
muffling the snore of a lover,
dimming the laughter of neighbors,
trapping the blasting sound of quiet.

"to love in abundance"

2011-03-30T08:21:00.000-07:00

"to love in abundance"
a short spring poem, set to cackling, by jake kilroy.

you can love and love and love until it makes you sick,
until you wanna throw up your insides,
but if there ain't somebody holdin' that bucket,
baby, you're alone.

Irish Pancakes

2011-03-27T23:10:00.001-07:00

If anybody had seen me in my neighborhood, they would've seen me being pathetically dragged by my dog with my shirt undone, singing the "I didn't know" melody from Blind Pilot's "Oviedo" (courtest of Grant). I had whiskey and ice cream on my breath, and there were more than a dozen Irish Pancakes in my stomach. I wandered through the condos where my friend Bart lived in elemetnary school. All I could think about was the mine cart level of the Disneyland Nintendo game that we had a hard time with in third grade and just how out of control this weekend got. If you want to make an Irish Pancake, get a shot glass and pour one part Jameson, one part butterscotch snapps and one part orange juice. Drink as many as you can until you've lost all sense of reality. Woo!

"drinking silver"

2011-03-26T02:02:00.000-07:00

"drinking silver"
after heavy irish by jake kilroy.

pint after pint,
grin after grin,
comes the soft taste of silver.
your heart becomes a statue
for your other organs to worship,
as your stomach becomes a graveyard
and your liver becomes a foamy ocean.
the silver comes through your body like a storm,
loud and beautiful;
like something you saw on a porch in texas,
when you were shirtless and cackling,
bareboned in words and quiet in speech.
the lightning came at the trees,
the thunder came at your bedroom,
and everything felt like loud music.
you were naked then,
and you're naked now,
but there's something different about the glow.
the silver drains the color of your insides,
and swirls it around to grow;
so that the pigments of your skin
are like christmas lights.
and the silver tastes like magic.
it tastes like card tricks and top hats.
it tastes like first loves and lovers' firsts.
it tastes like goddamn memories.
so it tastes like silver,
like the stale taste of gold.

"broken wrist"

2011-03-23T08:10:00.000-07:00

"broken wrist"
something only mildly true that became something else entirely by jake kilroy.

i broke my wrist once,
so that it hurt when i wrote.
for once, the words just laid there.
as the fire was in the skin,
but not the paper.
i became bored with myself.
i became bored with writing.
i could only think of my wrist
and all it couldn't do.
so i read.
but didn't write.
i could put on pants,
but slowly.
i was like a caveman,
figuring out the world,
getting ready for work;
minute - minute by minute.
my words made no sense.
wordplay became wordwork,
and i was tired.
so i read.
until i fell asleep in my work clothes.
and then i found something you wrote.
and i wondered why i wasn't writing.
for once, i have pain.
it's physical, yes, but men need anything
to be men.
to be careless.
to be bold.
to be one long act with rave reviews.
so i read.
and i laughed.
and i read what you wrote.
and then i read what i wrote.
and i liked yours better.
so i read.
i could hold books with my left.
but do nothing with the right,
except for button my work shirts,
with stark pain i exaggerated,
to feel brave in my dress clothes.
which became my pajamas.
which became my costume.
which became my wardrobe.
which became my funeral suit.
which became my one joke in this poem.
but then i thought of you
and how you came at the world
much better than i did.
and i didn't feel lonely.
warm sounds swallowed me.
i felt like i was watching your parade,
swinging from a light pole
with a baseball cap and freckles.
and, suddenly, i was at my guitar,
holding it but not playing it.
i still can't play.
so i work.
so i read.
and i thought of everything as nothing,
and it made me smile to know i could.

"skipped a beat, kept the rhythm"

2011-03-22T07:28:00.000-07:00

"skipped a beat, kept the rhythm"
an early morning poem by jake kilroy.

my hands wandered you like nomads,
like i told so many deserts before.
the wastelands. the badlands.
the canyon rim of heaven's barren plains.

some rely on the smoke,
some heavy on the drink.
me, i'm as down for the count
as a boxer on his last stand,
sipping wildly at cough syrup.

painting scars as rock art.
writing songs 'bout songwriters.
i'm sick to death of blondes,
but i'm still riding the wolves
to all the wrong bars in town.

i slept through a long winter
and it felt like a summer's nap.
i was sick with sweat when i woke.
but i managed a squeaky laugh.

too many books on my shelves,
not enough numbers in my coat.
got just the right amount of gold.
and it passes right through me,
like the last raft on the river home,
which is any place i can find shelter.

i skim bibles and i store threats,
making the best of a gambling debt,
hoping god's the nicest bookie in town.
but my empty jeans say more about me
than my poker face could ever tell.

The Magic of Self-Indulgent Saturdays

2011-03-15T13:13:00.000-07:00

I woke up Saturday feeling like I needed a win. I think it had to do with the culmination of watching The Grapes of Wrath, reading The Book Thief and listening to The Replacements' song "Androgynous" on repeat lately. It put me in a weird place. So I decided to pamper the absolute shit out of myself (ironically following my Friday realization that I should start saving money better).

I used to have Saturdays pamperings in high school, where I would just do anything and everything I wanted. Back then, I had a smaller imagination when it came to money. I was paying for less too. Also, if I got away with buying cigarettes back then, that was some kind of huge win for me and it was only a couple of bucks.

In fact, my Saturday pamperings in high school were mostly just cigarettes, chocolate and Cuban food in the Orange Circle with a crossword puzzle.

There were a lot of Cs on my best Saturdays in high school, I'm now realizing.

But it was never because I felt lowdown back then. It was usually because I had a lot of time, money and I was really into self-indulgence. When you're 17, treating yourself to any kind of self-indulgence is like getting extra credit in a class that you already have an A in.

So, anyway, this Saturday, it was a strange mixture of feeling bad for no reason (which I was well-aware). Or maybe I have to feed myself propaganda feelings to justify such joyous cash-dropping.

It started with my my parents, sister and I visiting my brother at his coffee shop. Then I ran errands, which included reading outside while my oil was being changed at Jiffy Lube and wandering the mall aimlessly for the first time in probably ten years while my watch was being fixed. All I could find in the mall that interested me enough to buy was boxers (woo!).

I went to Bookman and bought used copies of:
- Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
- High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
- A Wizard Of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin (in old school paperback)
- The Lord Of The Rings trilogy - J.R.R. Tolkein (in old school paperback)

At Borders, I scored discounts on:
- Play The Piano Drunk Like A Percussion Instrument Until The Fingers Begin To Bleed A Bit by Charles Bukowski
- Wild Ducks Flying Backwards by Tom Robbins
- Rumblefish by S.E. Hinton
- Steve Martin's Let's Get Small
- Steve Martin's Comedy Is Not Pretty

Then I treated myself to Pho America. I ordered spring rolls and, while there, as I was waiting, I called and ordered a pizza and cheese bread at Valentino's (which was a first for me; ordering from a different restaurant in a restaurant I'm ordering at). So, I came home and ate like a fat stoned king.

The rest of the day, I read on the couch and worked on sending out book ideas out. When the sun went down, I cleaned my room until I went over to someone's house to sit around a jacuzzi and drink whiskey into late hours of the evening.

Sunday morning, I woke up and felt so goddamn deliriously good. It looks like self-indulgence still works wonders.

The High And Dry Rye Whiskey Blues

2011-03-11T15:48:00.000-08:00

The High And Dry Rye Whiskey Blues
a quick piece of flash fiction by jake kilroy.

"This ain't no peasant stop," he slurred. The words made it pitifully through gears of his mouth. His machine tongue was misfiring and his teeth pressed against each other like the factory of his face was in flames. He would've been sweating bullets if he had anything to load his gun with.

Instead, he just sat slumped in the driver's seat holding a bottle of rye. He looked like a pile of dress clothes the morning after. The top of the car was down and he tried whistling a tune that Tom Waits wouldn't have even understood.

"There's a place I know," he yelled with a melody that sounded like broken glass. He continued, "Folks won't pass me by."

The girl in the passenger's seat watched him with fascination and disgust. Behind the both of them lay the ocean. The car was parked on a patch of grass overlooking a cliff. The moon was high and white, the lone spotlight of the west.

"Dallas, Texas, that's the town. I cry, oh hear me cry," he croaked like a nightclub singer with a slit throat.

He took another sip from the bottle and finished the tune. "And I'm going back," he yelled again with the dynamite sound of rubble, "going back to stay there 'til I die, until I die."

The last words rolled out of him like he was talking in his sleep. He pushed rank air out of his mouth and his lips fluttered like an old car barely starting on a dirty backroad. Just the sound of his own failed engine struck a chord within his suicidal orchestra's heartstrings and he burbled out a laughter that was as raspy and poisonous as a leaky gas pipe.

"You like that song?" he said, twisted his neck and swiveling his head towards the lady next to him.

"I haven't liked any song I've heard tonight," she replied promptly.

"Yeah," he said, wiping his sweaty face, "I don't like music either."

"I like music," she informed him sternly. "But your entire songbook is lifted from degenerates and you're still singing them wrong."

"What do you know about degenerates?"

"I know I'm sitting in a car with one."

He let out a cackle that could've been accidental.

"Just so you know," he said, letting his finger wave in the air like a flag, "Dallas Blues wasn't written by a degenerate."

She raised an eyebrow. It was the first thing he had defended all evening.

"And," he said with the gathering steam of a rusting locomotive, "it may have been the first blues song ever recorded!"

The sentence exhausted him. He let his head hang backwards suddenly and hit the seat with a muffled thump.

"Then it's responsible for generations of drunks like you thinking they've got problems when they don't," she said with a calm air of enthusiasm.

"Lady," he hiccuped, "you don't get the blues."

"I understand the blues," she said. A sly smile slipped out from underneath her small nose.

"No, that's not what I'm saying, honey," he growled lovingly. "I'm saying, you don't get the blues. The blues get you."

His eyes sparkled like blood diamonds, sparing an alluring glow with a cold history behind it.

"Anyway," he said with an enthusiasm that had long been missing from his disheveled grin, "I should probably get out of your hair."

"What?" she asked. Her eyes furrowing. "You're just going to leave me here?"

"No, darling, I'm giving you the keys."

"You're giving me the keys to your car," she repeated flatly, making each word a different parody of his sentence.

"Well, I can't drive," he said, mirthfully exiting his own vehicle.

"You're serious," she said with a squint and a scoot.

"Sometimes," he shrugged. "Just leave the car wherever and I'll find it."

"And what if you can't find it?" she asked from behind the wheel.

"Then it's just one more reason to sing the blues," he said, leaning back with wild laughter that sounded like a bubbling oil geyser.

He swung a deep swig from the whiskey, draining the color from the bottle's face, with his other hand swaying purposelessly behind him. His body looked like rubber stretched beyond its means.

She watched him, shook her head disbelievingly, started up the car and left the man to start a long merry walk alone. As she sped up the coastal road, she heard the disintegrating sound of the blues and allowed herself a soft smirk.

Jake & The Bookseller

2011-03-08T10:05:00.001-08:00

I was at Borders with my buddy Cameron last night, purchasing The Book Thief (a 552-page book I need to start and finish in 10 days for a book club at work) and two Batman graphic novels (because justice never sleeps).

BOOKSELLER: Ok, that'll be $49.87. Would you like to donate a children's book to orphans today?

JAKE: Yeah, for sure.

CAMERON: Really?

JAKE: Yeah, dude. If I don't make these kids read, who will?

BOOKSELLER: Which one would you like?

CAMERON: Give them one of those.

JAKE: Whoa. Catcher In The Rye? Their little heads would probably explode.

BOOKSELLER: Oh, sorry. Not these ones. These ones over here.

JAKE: Oh, I'll take Where The Sidewalk Ends.

BOOKSELLER: Ok, that one is...$18.99.

CAMERON: Fuck...that.

JAKE: Ah...that is kind of a lot.

CAMERON: What about that one?

JAKE: Cloud With A Chance Of Meatballs? It's not the same thing as the movie. Did you ever see that?

CAMERON: No, was it good?

JAKE: Yeah, it was actually pretty awesome.

CAMERON: Get them Snow.

JAKE: I've never read it.

CAMERON: You don't have to read it. You just have to donate it.

JAKE: Yeah, but I want to give them something I've read and loved. Oh, wait. I can give them Are You My Mother? I'll take that one!

BOOKSELLER: Where do you see that?

CAMERON: Right there. Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman.

BOOKSELLER: Ok, I need to put this back on the shelf. This one isn't for donation.

CAMERON: It isn't?

BOOKSELLER: I don't know how that ended up there, but we'd prefer that one not be donated, since, you know, they're...orphans.

JAKE: Oh shit, I wasn't even thinking. Well, I feel like shit now, so I'll just take Shel Silverstein.

CAMERON: Really? But it's the most expensive one.

JAKE: Yeah, but I insulted the orphans. Actually, I forgot they were orphans. I thought they were homeless for some reason. Plus, it's Shel Silverstein

CAMERON: Never read him.

JAKE: You should. He's awesome.

CAMERON: I've only read one book and it was the one you bought me.

BOOKSELLER: What book was it?

CAMERON: Uh...what was the name of it?

JAKE: Breakfast of Champions.

CAMERON: That's right!

BOOKSELLER: Oh, good choice.

CAMERON: Yeah, I told this guy that I don't really read, so he bought me that book. I liked it. It wasn't boring...unlike The Great Gatsby.

BOOKSELLER: I love that book.

CAMERON: Really?

BOOKSELLER: Maybe it's a girl thing.

JAKE: It's one of my favorites.

BOOKSELLER: Oh...

CAMERON: Of course it is, ya gay.

Jake Kilroy for Publication in 2011!

2011-03-01T09:09:00.000-08:00

Do you know how sick I am of not bathing in champagne? Well, I'll tell you, I'm pretty effin' sick of it. I take showers in water and all the while I think, "Hey, what the hell is this? Water?" It is water. And fuck that. Fuck that forever. No more, I say!

I am hereby announcing my candidacy for publication.

Yes, people, I wasn't sure we'd get here either, but today is a day for you to mark on your calendars with the words "finally" and "fuck yeah."

Now, publication is a long way off, but I have faith in us. Well, I mostly have faith in you. My faith in me is touch-and-go. But, when I'm on, I am on, people. Why, just today, I looked up literary agents. Sure, there are naysayers out there who say, "Jake, that's not enough. In fact, just looking them up isn't nearly the same thing as sending it to them." To those people, I say, "Who are you and why are you reading my blog?"

The road will not be easy, but I've been down this road before. When I was 20, I spent the summer drunk on rum in swimming trunks wearing a sombrero and sending out book proposals. I haven't sent out a book proposal since and I don't often wear sombreros these days. I think my head is too fat. But I march on!

About a year and a half ago, I started a novel. In three months, I wrote ten chapters that I really liked. Then it took me a year to write another ten chapters that I loved. I returned to that novel last Saturday and, let me tell you...I wrote like some idiot savant. I reread what I wrote as an unemployed shit-for-brains and it was at least eight times better than what I was writing Saturday. Can I tell you something? It didn't feel good. Actually, it made me furious. So, at the public library, with the mutants and the dorks, I put away the story I once loved like an honor roll student and played Tetris online instead.

I once wanted a bumper sticker that said, "I'm the proud creator of a Faulker Awarded novel at Haper Collins." And now? Well, now, I'm angry at that son of a bitch novel. I'm close to being done, but it needs work and editing, and rewriting 120,000 words (with three chapters left to go) seems like a lot to do.

And I want to be rich now. Not a year from now. Now ten years from now. NOW. I want to spit in somebody's face and then give them a hundred dollars just to mellow the fuck out TODAY. Well, maybe tomorrow. I have things to do today.

Shit, I don't even really have things to do today. But I would if I were wealthy, I bet.

In December, I realized that I had writer's block. Maybe I still have it. Either way, my novel was being kind of a dickhead to me and I didn't want to put up with that shit. So I moved on, at least for a little while. In January, I wrote a television pilot. In February, I wrote a children's novel. In March...who knows? Maybe I'll start freelancing suicide notes. I don't know! I'm not trying to win the future here. I can barely even tell you what I'll be doing in a month (though, again, hopefully, it will be bathing in champagne...maybe with a few famous actresses, I don't know!).

I'll try these new projects out while also working on my new main focus: a collection of essays, poems, stories, etc. For now, as I don't have a title, so let's call it...Working Title. Its contents are already written on this blog. So, honestly, all I have to do now is just send out query letters and finally get mail that isn't bills. I'm going see where this takes me (Hollywood or the moon, nobody really knows).

All I know is that I want money. I want to move out of my parents' house so I can stop telling hot chicks at bars, "Hey, let's go to your place. My mansion is still being renovated."

I want to eat at Pho America all the time and be on an airplane at least once a month. I want to upgrade to the two-disc Netflix account and I want to people to understand what I do for a living. In fact, I'd like to understand what I do for a living. I want to own more than one belt too. I also want to people to say, "That guy, Jake...he's going places. Right now...I think it's to Club Awesome" (hopefully, that's a place by then). I'm no longer interested in sending out an essay to east coast literary magazines and waiting eight months to hear that I'm "uneducated" or "mentally disfigured." I want to send out the collection of my 50 best/better/pretty good/decent pieces (aka Working Title) to a shit-ton of literary agents that will get back to me within two or three months. I think I may have a shot at this. And, if I don't, then all it cost me was the price of postage and my dignity.

And both of those are pretty goddamn cheap.

Jake Kilroy for Publication in 2011!

Proving History Wrong

2011-02-25T12:31:00.000-08:00

"Proving History Wrong"
done after a morning conversation by jake kilroy.

"Did you know that Meriwether Lewis always used to eat Pop Rocks before heading out in the morning and that Sacagawea was actually Filipino?" Marcel asked absently. He laid against the living room window and stared out at the bruised landscape of the city. He had been asking random non-sequiturs for the better part of an hour.

"I'm almost sure nothing that you just said is true," said Casey, holding up his magazine.

It was early evening and the two roommates waited out their night lazily. Marcel drummed his knuckles against the window and Casey had sunk so far into the couch that he looked like a mass of throw pillows dressed in flannel.

"But you can't prove it, can you?" Marcel said, looking over at Casey for the first time in twenty minutes.

"Can't prove what?" Casey said, still reading his magazine.

"You can't prove me wrong," Marcel said, leaning forward now.

"You want me to prove that Lewis didn't eat a candy that wasn't invented until 100 years after he died and that one of the most famous Native Americans was actually from another continent?" Casey asked, setting his magazine down.

"Yeah," Marcel said. "Prove it."

"If it wasn't so cold out, I'd tell you to get some fresh air," Casey said, lifting his magazine up back to his eyes. "You're getting cabin fever in your own apartment."

"The hell I am," Marcel said excitedly. "Well, ok, maybe I am. But still! I just realized that you can't prove me wrong."

Casey's eyes rolled in his head like barrels. "I can't believe you're turning this into a matter of discussion and debate. Are you really going to make me get my computer?"

Marcel stared emptily at Casey.

"Fine," Casey said, as he lumbered up, "I'll go get my computer."

Casey left the room and returned with his laptop. Marcel rubbed his hands together. Casey opened up the laptop and started tapping keys.

"I'm not getting the internet," Casey said finally.

"That's a sign that you can't prove history!" Marcel announced, standing up with arms above his head.

"No, it's a sign that we should stop stealing our internet," Casey replied tiredly.

"We can make up our own history!" Marcel said, as if science and mathematics were coming through him and forcing his mouth open. "Right now, we can't prove anything. You and I don't read history books. All we read are novels and novellas and short story collections!"

"So?" Casey said, appearing wary though intrigued where this was going.

"Lincoln survived the gunshot, Fred Astaire fought in the Revolutionary War and Vietnam came out with a peaceful resolution!" Marcel yelled. "You can't prove me wrong! I can write American history. No, wait. I'm already writing American history!"

"Jesus, dude, you need coffee or a tranquilizer," Casey said, unsure of his own humor.

"There's a first for everything!" Marcel screamed, almost chanting, almost preaching, almost ranting, almost anything.

And then it came.

There came the first snowflake.

It hit the window and fell. Neither roommate noticed the snowflake, but, with it, came a rushing sensation for everyone in the city. It was snowing. For the first time ever, it was snowing in the city.

Casey stood up when he saw the sky look like pale, sparkling confetti. He stood up slow and mesmerized. Marcel asked if he was alright and Casey simply pointed forward. Then Marcel's eyes widened and he drew in breath as if he were trying to suck the winter in through cracks of the windowpane.

There was a throbbing glory in Marcel's throat and a pulsating dance in Casey's heart. Both men turned to each other without words and ran towards the door, snatching jackets on their way out. Casey barely remembered to lock the door.

Marcel was leaping down steps and Casey was fully jumping from flight to flight. Marcel pushed the building's door open with the force of an escape into the wild and slid to the curb on gravel that would soon be coated in white. Casey followed up next to him. They stared upwards at a sky that seemed to hear them, maybe even feel them from the swarming cold and glee of the city, as the locals came out in droves. Time evaporated and soon there was a parade of people. Some were curious, some were laughing, some felt downright victorious, as if they had finally won the war that they were unsure had ever even started. Strangers talked to neighbors, acquaintances hugged friends and Marcel put his arm around Casey.

Casey shook his head, looked at the changing ground and said, "There's a first for everything." To which, Marcel just nodded and kept his eyes up.

Youth, by Amory Blaine

2011-02-23T09:22:00.000-08:00

"Youth is like having a big plate of candy. Sentimentalists think they want to be in the pure, simple state they were in before they ate the candy. They don't. They just want the fun of eating it all over again. The matron doesn't want to repeat her girlhood - she wants to repeat her honeymoon. I don't want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again."

- Amory Blaine (from F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side Of Paradise)