Category Archives: Concrete Fact

Muse

Whoa nelly, stop the presses. This is a bunch of writing in a small frame of time, especially for my present-self. It’s because I’m trying to flex those muscles again, get them pumped. I keep coming back here with massive intentions, with my muse screaming at me to get something down while the feeling of wanting to create is fresh on my mind. It really is strange to think of some muse, but it’s there. There are times I couldn’t force myself to write the smallest tid-bit of stupid, but that feeling creeps in, and everything I write out is pure gold. I come here though, so there’s little self-editing, and zero research, making it beyond easy to sit down and hammer out some non-sense.

What do you dictate of me, oh muse? Bring something out of the inky-black depths of my sub-conscious? Perhaps reflect on something of great importance I hadn’t considered until this moment? Or maybe just vomit all over the keyboard and get it out with all of the concern laid on catharsis and none on editing?

It’s weird because the pull is very real, that pull to write. I’ve been too tired and exhausted recently to do anything, but now here I am, hammering it out. There is no immediate need, no immediate idea, just a need to type something out. Tonight, this is what I will get from my muse. There’s excitement though, because I feel there is so much to type about, so much to write and put into words. I know it’s all about beer, too. That is what I am going to write about, that is what i will draw inspiration and joy out of.

I know this is what  my muse (and gumption) will start pointing towards. My work and passion are starting to come out of the woodwork and fuse together into something I can tame and master.

Or maybe not. Maybe I just need to be able to unleash them and deal with the consequences later. Really, if I could predict my muse, I’d be rich.

Have Nots

To be perfectly honest, I view myself as a have. I have every possible thing I could ever want or need at my fingertips. Sacrifice consists of having my wife dropping me off at work because my car’s busted. Or moving in with my parents because we can’t afford to live in the city. Or not being to be able to fit in breakfast before a long work day because I decided to sleep in a little.

There’s a multitude of other first-world problems I could throw in here, but it would end up sounding as preachy as it already does. This is my luxury though, my time for reflection. I can always bring down the sledge hammer of perspective with off-the-cuff statements like “I wonder how many people died of starvation in Africa today” or ” I wonder how much suffering occurs around the globe due to America”. A bunch of other high-horse-jaded-yet-privileged things pop into my mind, but just feel cliched beyond anything I can possibly come to terms with.

I can keep going in this loop, this endless cycle, but I feel I can at least throw a few of these cliches out there. At the very least I can look back on writing like this with shame and awe of how out of touch I was and still very well could be. Gotta keep an open mind, right? I just feel so out of touch with writing like this, because I can sit back and re-read it and already see the inherent hypocrisy, the conflict of ideas. It might be because I can’t structure an argument properly, but there’s the reason I come here. Hash it out and try and make a modicum of sense. Structure takes thought.

It doesn’t take thought though, because I already have everything I need right here. Everything. Yet I project into the future a better future with what I could have by effort expended now, ideas and work applied to this future self. Things could be so much better than they are now, if only I applied myself more. That idea right there is at the heart of a maddening paradox. Do more to achieve more, if you don’t want to achieve less. Or something like that, I sense over-simplification.

Deep down I think that this is all the rantings of an over-privileged straight white male, clearly sitting in the societal elite by default. So in protest  I rail against it and try and earn it, through merit.  I try and establish a yardstick of accomplishment, but end up not really caring about it because it’s only measured against my projected ideas and self. It’s subjective.

I try and have-not as much as I can because I don’t feel I deserve what I have, which is also completely subjective. I only know that for me it’s much easier to tell myself I don’t deserve things, it seems more fitting.

The kicker is that I have it though, and I get to decide with what to do with it.

I take a deep breath, exhale, and quiet the chatter. The best I feel I can do is listen and keep and open mind.

My open mind tells me to live in the present, and be eternally grateful.

Still Existing

Ya know, I was suddenly struck to come here for no reason at all. Mostly because I haven’t posted anything in months. mostly because I’m bored.

Ideas are still around, and just in these few sentences, I’m realizing how soothing it is to basically type free-form thoughts straight from my head as opposed to an article i try and craft and have to re-read and edit a couple times. and extreme run-on sentences, i love those. it’s freeing to just use my writing voice, and feeling that it doesn’t need to go anywhere, say anything.

that’s been missing for months. just the idea that no idea can stack up to the importance i try and place on it. breathing a little, laughing, and throwing out a few cliches. as a writer of blogs, it’s what i do best.

it boils down to just doing things occasionally, flexing the muscles you think have atrophied, only to realize you’re an idiot and you do things because of obligations self-imposed or otherwise.

just because it’s inconsequential doesn’t mean it isn’t necessary. sometimes, you just come to grips with things because it seems like more work to pick it apart into its pieces than to just go with it. sometimes, the components are everything. sometimes, they don’t matter.

everytime, it really just depends on how i’m feeling that day.

Off the Grid

This weekend, i have this whole itinerary where I’m biking from work to my parent’s house to a beer fest, and then back to my parents house, because i wanted to do a little training for the STP and this is a practical way to go about it. save a little gas money in the meantime, as well.

I totally forgot my phone at home today,and won’t be getting it back until sometime late tomorrow. It’s kind of liberating. People are going to try and get ahold of me and think I’m a total jerk for not getting back to them immediately. More likely, no one is actually going to try and get ahold of me, as everyone leads busy weekends in the summer.

I kinda love doing shit like this though. It’s not like i can’t come to the internet, or have access to phones in other places i go. It’s just inconvenient enough to get ahold of me now. the ball’s in my court now, i will be getting a hold of YOU when i damn well feel like it.

what a time we live in! i have expectations of instant gratification in every aspect of my life. it’s nice to pull back from that for a moment or two, and realize just how silly it is sometimes. what’s not important will soon become not-important again, and life will carry on.

Ex

So this is part of my punishment, i suppose. having an idea, a fully-fleshed idea ready to go, and then forgotten. it had something to do with starting with “Ex”. Exaltation, extension, expensive, it doesn’t matter. As important as that idea may have seemed at the time, this one takes it’s place. you forgot a seemingly important idea. despite how important that first one may have been, aren’t you here now because of it? and aren’t you now expressing said idea inferiorly?

good job idiot, this is the life you live. just the thought of leaving this thought unedited leaves you happy. it would be incomprehensible. you’re not that drunk, but typing takes focus, and you’re too mad at yourself to do so properly. the filters you have in place at least take up enough space to keep you from doing this raw.

the conception was a good thought though, and hopefully, you can find your way back to it.

this does not bode well for your ideal self though, typed in words that are socially acceptable. true definitions are not beyond you, but are beyond what you are willing to expose to those who may discover who you are.

it feels like bullshit to type in code, but at the same time, it makes you think. the thought strikes you though: really this is stupid all-around, and anyone hoping to get anything out of this beyond yourself  is getting what they paid for.

now get back to rememberin’. who else is it going to do any good for?

Stevie Wonder

How do i get this far in my life and not get exposed to certain things?

I got my hands on Songs in the Key of Life and listened to it while i was helping heather with some crafty-work. I couldn’t believe it, i just couldn’t. All i ever hear is reverence for Stevie, but i’ve really only heard a few of his singles like “I just called to say I love you” and “Isn’t she lovely”. I pounded this album and wanted more, it was mind blowing. The way this album listens, it almost sounds like a greatest hits compilation. I also had no idea that Coolio straight jacked everything but the lyrics to Gangsta’s paradise from Stevie. This album contains everything i love about music.

Which brings me back to the original question i posed at the beginning of this post, and the answer is obvious. It’s because discovering things like this and appreciating it on your terms is what makes your life wonderful. Finding culture, new or old, and realizing something you hadn’t before. The timing behind finding something and integrating it just has to happen naturally, but that drive to find things and stay open is the part that takes work.

You stay open because the reward can be something shining like this, something beyond anything you ever expected.

Of course being that open inevitably leads to posts like the previous one.

It’s worth it though, it’s so worth it. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here. It wouldn’t be worth the bother.

Overdrive

a quick note to self before getting to the topic at hand: filthy beers had it’s first semi-public tasting and did a bang up job, and even though it’s been going on for a year, it feels like things are finally starting. and now back to said topic.

It may have been being sick for the past month, it may be a shift in the moon’s gravity, it might be a slight switch in brain chemistry. Whatever it is, i feel like i’m in overdrive. I want to go out and be interacting with people and life at every moment of everyday. I feel like my creative juices and mental acuity are at the highest highs they’ve had in awhile. i feel like i should be striking while the iron is hot.

i’m busy all the time, but i want to be, it feels exhilarating. i’m flirting very closely with the line of too-many-things-syndrome, but i feel the most purposeful i have in a long time. it’s directed at beer, friends, family, life. i want to be out there in it, interacting, doing.

this happens occasionally, but i feel like i’m gearing up my mind and body to really make a go of it in the brewing game. because if i want to be successful at it, i’m going to have to be running at this pace all the time, no foolin’. it’s a strange mindset of truly knowing failure is not an option. not in the sense of the phrase where it’s do or die, but in the sense that nothing is going to stop me.

apparently, if i can direct it properly and justify it to myself, i am a force to be reckoned with. fingers crossed.

Macklemore

Ridiculous.

Seriously, filthy and ridiculous. Heather and i went to see Macklemore perform to a sold out showbox, and it was one of the most melancholy shows i have ever seen. totally not due to macklemore though, it was all on me. He rocked it harder than i had ever seen him do.

But two songs in, i felt the melancholy. This is his big sold-out Seattle tour before he goes on his nationwide one, and the crowd energy waiting to see him off was thick in the air.  The opening acts had the luxurious luxury of a die-hard crowd waiting for Seattle music. All the opening acts rocked, and got a willing and able crowd. Then Mack came out and killed it like he always does. It felt different this time though. Like i was saying goodbye.

Not to get too sentimental, but i felt happy with such a touch of sadness. I got really cheesy and was trying to remember a Shawshank Redemption quote i knew fit so perfectly. I’m just going to type what i came up with as opposed to googling it because it’s the feeling, not the exact words. they go: “some caged birds are so beautiful, they make your world feel that much less bright when they leave, but you knew it was a sin to keep them in the first place”  it feels wildly inappropriate on reflection now, but the general idea is there. There was an element of farewell.

Just a mere 3 years ago, I saw macklemore flyering the hell out of a show he had coming up in a couple weeks, right at the neumos exit, after killing it as the most prominent opening act there that night. probably a year later, I went to Nectar on the Vs. album release and paid a $20 “suggested donation” (a term i am highly fond of) for the album he and this dude Ryan Lewis were putting out, because i loved what they were doing. Meeting and getting to talk to him at the various events of his we’ve been to, and seeing what a cool guy he is.

it’s been growing and has ended up at this big triple sell-out in seattle before hitting the road. seeing him put his usual A game and realizing he was going to be showcasing it for the rest of the nation gave me a little NW pride. Actually seeing the beginning and being there  for what i considered a culminlation was a little over-whelming for my sappy self.

as effusive as this seems though, my admiration pales in comparison to hers, my wife. he’s her “hip-hop husband”.

can’t blame her.

Something New

I like ben’s last post.

The idea of striving for something that is really nothing is something that’s always struck me about life in general. Water flowing to a pool by any means necessary, the easier the better.

The irony of escaping systems always cracks me up as well, it’s like trying to escape life without dying. What’s the first thing you do after breaking out of a system? Set up a new one. Bonuses being that you at least get to be in charge, and it tends to be less violent these days. There’s some serious issues of control buried in there, though.

Just some response thoughts, i’m not here to get terribly deep today, but we’ll see. I got no plan, just a two week gap in posts and some downtime.

The two weeks is strange to me. I have done alot in my life since my last post, but would be perfectly content to not list any of it here, when really it’s what i should be doing. I’ve been having some rocking times over the past few weekends, and in the long run, this blog is for me. If i end up living to be 80, i want to be able to read about things i did back in the day when i was young and actually had to go places to interact with people. I’d rather just list them bullet style, since hopefully my memory will be good enough to fill in the gaps.

-Making an awesome, nothing went wrong batch of beer out at my parents house.

-Going with a co-worker and my wife to the showbox for the sasquatch line-up announcement party and jetting after mad rad and das rascist, only to find out macklemore got some stage time later in the evening.

-Running around with the filthy beer gang and going to see Mark Farina kill it live at neumos, where i danced until my entire shirt was a much darker shade of green.

-Hanging out with new law peeps around beltown where i found some jolly roger on tap, then managed to get dick’s later in the night after having the window shut on us after seeing farina.

-Having an awesome valentine’s day with my wife where we urban hiked, napped, and saw Rock of Ages.

-Getting into the groove of the bi-monthly event of taking my grandpa to the snoqualmie casino, then wrapping up the day playing hours of video games and drinking homebrews with the filthy crew.

Putting it all in list form like that is such a great reminder. I have so much awesome stuff going on in my life, all the time. Just like i need to remind myself of how superfluous and insignificant i can be at times, i can also remind myself of other things less existential. swing that camera around to point at whatever i want.

ebb and flow, baby…so it goes.

Art

Again, i apologize for the last post, sort of. sometimes documentation is more important than content. on that note, let’s get started!

so here’s the counter-point, ideas running fresh and anew, somewhat un-ironically. apparently, i need outside influence to get out of idea-ruts. this version came in the form of  a documentary (mockumentary?) of epic proportions called Exit through the Gift Shop, done by infamous anonymous street artist Banksy. This film does an amazing job of blurring the line between fiction and reality these days, reminding you how much you have to hone your ability to question reality and what is presented to you. or just reality and what aspects of it you choose to believe. that’s the highfalutin vision of it, but you could just as easily look at it as the highbuffoonery it is.

in this regard, it really shows art for what it is, reflection of society be dammed. you watch shit like this and see just how important, and unimportant it is. how much you, as the viewer adds to the final piece. the creation of something this deliberate and high-concept is nothing short of amazing. yet the fact that i consider it as “high-concept” is already talking out my ass and out of my depth.

here’s the thing. for a moment in my life, Banksy made me care about an idea. as brief and limited as that moment was, it happened. it hit me hard enough to try and respond, to react. damn you, artists. is this your purpose?