2001-08-11 - 1:06 a.m. - things i saw on the interstate and angelina jolie's padded bra
today was a day of traffic jams. you know when yer driving on the interstate you never have time to take in all the debris on the side of the road. i was at a complete stop in the left hand lane and looking at so many pieces of broken car--scattered wires, twisted steel, melted rubber--and thinking about how with every one of those pieces lies the story of a broken life. and then there was a flattened mamal of some sort dry and primed for hanging on a wall. there was too much death there, i needed to be in a different lane to celebrate the beauty of the moment. of being stopped on a street that people normally travel at speeds so excessive that the only things visible are advertisements made so large as to dwarf the sun and maybe occasionally a giant tree or a church. so i got into the middle lane and rolled down both of my windows and put in the tape i made with the first Saturday Looks Good To Me LP on it and i cranked it up totally fucking loud so like everyone i passed with their widows down could here it. then i bounced around and sang along. and all these men driving home from work, probably in their late forties were looking at me with puzzled expressions on their faces as if i was listening to the soundtrack of their childhood and teen years yet the specific songs were strangely unfamiliar, uncanny if you will. and i was just so fucking happy to be sitting in stopped traffic sharing this beautiful music with all these strangers and watching their puzzled expressions. finally one man shouted out his window asking me to turn the radio down, i think he wanted to talk, which he did:"what radio station are you listening to?" as if he wanted to partake in this magic i was embracing(magic is eveywhere) and maybe relive some of his youth at the same time and perhaps then everyone on the same interstate would turn on the same radio station and get out of their cars and dance like that REM video, you know the one I'm talking about, if not i really need to show it to you sometime.
"it's not on the radio...it's a tape" i said.
"what's a young person like you doin listenin to such great music?" he asked revealing a low opinion of my age group (or demographic as all the corporations and advertising firms say in reference to different age groups) which i felt the need to change somehow.
"its my friends band...they're from detroit." i said wish a somewhat smug look on my face.
"you mean it's new?" he couldn't believe it.
and here i could see the cars ahead of us slowly begin to move.
"their called 'saturday looks good to me' and there are two other bands on here also" i said as i ejected the tape from my tape player. "all three bands have the same guy who wrotes most of the stuff, here, check it out." and i threw the tape out of my window and into the guy's waiting hand in the car next to me. he nodded his head thanking me and resumed his pace with the flow of traffic. a little ways down the interstate i passed him again and i could hear the beautiful organ of "I would find it so beautiful" blasting out of his car and i almost cried.
and people wonder why i love to drive.
and im still waiting for you to get back. you left an hour ago with the promise of a speedy return and now im stuck here waiting after all our other friends left. i know your girlfriend is more important especially since she has been in germany all summer. but a little consideration, a phone call ot something would be nice.
and right now im making mixtapes for my trip across seas to england. well not mixtapes just taping a handful of records on to tapes to listen to on the plane, taped so far: bunkbed nights, saturday looks good to me, lovesick, the white stripes, stephen malkmus, the lightning bolt, wolf eyes, pig eye jackson,
soon to be taped: bob dylan, retsin, aloha, sonic youth, shellac, sweep the leg johnny, neil young, the beach boys, operation ivy (they taught me so many things that i had forgotten today), velevt underground and fugazi. and whatever else i can find that i think might make a plane trip feel shorter because i know that for some horrible reason the airline will decide to show me "Dude where's my car" and "tomb raider" which i really want to write a 'zine article about called "boob raider: why was it neccesary for angelina jolie to wear a padded bra to make this movie. OR the only thing our society can find to emphasize about female characters in movies is their breasts. OR why were the breasts such an important part of the character, shouldn't the emphasis have been on story...oh wait...that part sucked...so basically i want to write something about how the breasts were way over emphasized and used as character identification which was unneccesary and what does that say about society that the only thing we need to emphasize about a female character, her trademark if you will, are large breasts. if anyone has a clever title i could use please email it to me. thank you.
xoxo
listen to: the white stripes, bob dylan, saturday looks good to me, op ivy.
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