I woke up today at 7:40 a.m., ground some coffee beans, and brewed a pot. I don't drink coffee, so that was kind of fun. Three other men showed up separately at my apartment: 8:30, 8:40, and 8:45. We sat down to have a talk. They drank my coffee. It was okay. 10 o'clock came quickly, and each of the men decided to leave for church. I did not. I instead took a very slow shower, 30 minutes at least. I got out of the shower and stared at myself in the mirror for 10 minutes and put on some boxer briefs (Maroon. It was the only color left. Why do they even put maroon in there?). I walked upstairs and sat down at my computer, checked my email, listened to some talk radio, and practiced the same riff I've been playing for the last week on my guitar. My neighbors are humming it through the walls now with me whether they like it or no. I waited for a phone call from a Friday night date for a follow up lunch. I thought about going to lunch on my own and put some jeans on, but then laid down on my bed.... No socks! (It's always hard to go from no socks to socks. No socks always has more intertia.) Started reading again. Read for 10 minutes until the chapter had ended. And I kept reading even though I didn't have the energy for another chapter. I made it about 4 pages in, but dog-eared the first page of the chapter I had begun. I thought about dying. I read everybody's blog but made no comments. Sorry. I was in one of those mouse only moods. Thought about going to lunch by myself again. Decided to wait until most restaurants had emptied their sunday school luncheons. Picked up my guitar. Played "Be Kind to Me", the way I would if there was large group of friends sitting around, sing along style. Wrote down lyrics to five songs that I had previously noted as good songs to cover last year. Put on socks and boots. Accidently found a good shirt in the bathroom, thin and old and soft. Put on my grandad's flannel insulated shirt. Walked into the bathroom again. Noted that my hair was getting long and that I should for once in my life allow it to keep growing freely. It looks kinda wispy like a young robert redford. Robert Redford in The Natural. Went for a walk. Walked for an hour. Thought about how I could just keep walking. How at any time as long as I was walking I almost always felt good because I could always just keep walking in a straight line. What's to stop me? I went to Blockbuster after drinking a smoothie and asked for a movie which they did not have. The clerk asked me who was in it. I said I didn't know, it starts with a K and sounds like Andalar, I said. He asked if I'd like to join the Blockbuster subscription club. No thanks, I said. You could get the movie you want if you subscribe, he said. No thanks.

Called my Friday night date to arrange for lunch this week. Left another one of my prototypical messages. Call me back, I said. It's 9:30, I said.

And now I have one wish. I wish that my room would break off the side of my house like a goodyear blimp and drop in the Colorado river. I'd float down the river. I'd wave to the kiddies for the first mile or so, but then I'd just sleep. And I'd just keep rolling along like that until I hooked up with the next thing.

This happens every couple of weeks. I'll watch a movie or read a book, and when I'm finished, things are different. You know, like they would be if you had come back home to your family after a long trip to somewhere you've never been. And you're eyes are opened to someone else's world, the one created on screen or in the pages. I may cry, or speak very little, or start writing more songs that night, most of them with a half a verse and a chorus. But whatever the catalyst, the result of a more emotional state for me is always to remember what it was like to be a kid, age 7-10. I remember the sound of my own name, Joe...Joe Vaughn, (my parents disguised me as a regular guy) it was the weight of my own potential tipping me forward through 3rd and 4th grade. It is the purest kind of feeling I can recall. Now fast forward about twenty years. The same kid, a little less self conscious, but practically the same kid. What happened to all that potential?

(Okay I'm going to do it. Yes. Switch narratives on you. No complaining.) And what does he do about it? He goes to bed early so that he can get up early. He eats out after work with friends. He looks for opportunities to meet someone new and exciting. But mostly he goes to work and tries to appear worth more than he was last week. And berrates himself for not doing more with his time after 5:30 p.m. He makes promises to himself, but knows himself too well. He laughs as much as possible, inventing a new sense of humor about every little thing. Laughing helps a lot.

(I'm done with the third person now, thanks for that.) Every night when I sit down to write on this thing, I find it harder and harder to find something worth writing about. I always believed that writers were not primarily writers, but primarily something else about which they could write. So when I sit down here, there's a big window right behind my computer. It's probably the best view I've had from any window that has ever been in any place that I've lived. It covers most of the wall. I can see the downtown skyline from my window, about a mile away. And it has come to represent my land of milk and honey. I go there all the time. Literally. When I'm there, I don't think about it this way, only when I see it from my window. It makes me want to get busy doing something, something that I should be written about. Not to memorialize it, but because...a rose is a rose I guess. It just feels better to be doing anything that you love to do when you are inspired. And let me say, at the moment that I am not inspired. No, this is not good at all.

But wait!!! The great thing about being me, is that change is never too far away. A friend told me last night that 7 out of 10 Americans do not welcome change into their lives. A big reason, in my opinion, why it is hard for us to be a more spiritual society. Well if change comes a knockin' on one of ya'll's door, I've kinda got a hankerin', so pass the Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket. If you're not going to take the last drumstick, I certainly won't be shy about it.

Hello everybody,

I've got a few new musical recommends because I just downloaded 50 free songs from EMusic.com (awesome!) and then canceled my account. If you're looking for free music, it's a pretty good deal and they have a lot of stuff I didn't think they would. So here's what found that I liked:

Dungen
Ta Det Lugnt


It's Sweedish psychadelia!!! With some sweet fuzzy solos. I really like this. Probably my new favorite.

John Doyle
Wayward Son


Celtic folk. It's awesome!! Some friggin' mighty powerful tales in there John. Good goin'.

Breakestra
Hit the Floor


Hip Hop James Brown style. Funkdafied!!!

Adios everyone.

4 jobs that I've had:

1. newspaper delivery boy - Sundays sucked
2. newspaper reporter - i learned a lot about brazos county crime
3. 6 year-old camp counselor - kids are morons - wasn't i a kid once?
4. wedding photographer - so, where's grandpa and grandma?

4movies I have watched on repeat:

1. The Natural - i get my childhood mixed up with this movie
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey - didn't quite make it all the way through the second time
3. Primer - Only because Tim had it on in the living room a few times. It grew on me.
4. Sneakers - not sure, i like the sound track

4Extreme Sport Vacations I'd Like to take

1.Bowling in Angola
2.Shrimp boating in the Meditteranean
3.Everest
4.Tip of South America to Canada on foot.

4Websites besides blogs I visit Daily:

1. Channel101.com
2. myspace (it's fun guys come on try it!)
3. kexp.org
4. gizmodo

4Foods

1. Mom's pineapple chicken with stirfry rice - mmm mmm
2. Central Market has these flat strips of candy, strawberry stuff - pretty good.
3. Mangias Deep Dish Pizza - pepperoni
4. Shiner, Lone Star, and Newcastle - for now

4Changes to my house

1.It would be my house
2.Skylights, with a tree poking through the roof.
3.no rooms
4.glass ceiling, tinted upon request



tags (this means you must do what I tell you to do):

1. Matt Graham
2. Autumn Rgrs.
3. Gibby
4. monilove
5. julesdwit

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the Alamo Draft House (Beer, Gourmet Pizza, and Independent Film) here to see a documentary film about Townes Van Zandt. I did not own a single cut from this fella's large and relatively unnoticed discography. The film, Be Here to Love Me, has been stuck in my throat for the last couple weeks. Please do yourself a favor: Watch this film and listen to any of the early recordings from this guy. And if you are planning to drive anywhere in Texas further than 45 minutes away, please do not do so before requesting that I burn you a mix and overnight it to you. I am expecting at least one person to respond to my offer. You may be the first lucky one.

If you're interested:

Highway Kind

By townes van zandt

My days, they are the highway kind
They only come to leave
But the leavin’ I don’t mind
It’s the comin’ that I crave.
Pour the sun upon the ground
Stand to throw a shadow
Watch it grow into a night
And fill the spinnin’ sky.

Time among the pine trees
It felt like breath of air
Usually I just walk these streets
And tell myself to care.
Sometimes I believe me
And sometimes I don’t hear.
Sometimes the shape I’m in
Won’t let me go.

Well, I don’t know too much for true
But my heart knows how to pound
My legs know how to love someone
My voice knows how to sound.
Shame that it’s not enough
Shame that it is a shame.
Follow the circle down
Where would you be?

You’re the only one I want now
I never heard your name.
Let’s hope we meet some day
If we don’t it’s all the same.
I’ll meet the ones between us,
And be thinkin’ ’bout you
And all the places I have seen
And why you where not there.

What did I do for New Year's? Played sherrades of course with the old Mike Braeuer and Mrs. Mike Braeuer. By golly, it was humdinger of a sherrades (<---I have no idea) game if I've ever seen one. All said, I ended up twirling my shirt, which was previously serving as a cover to a large part of my body that had not seen the sun in a good while, above my head and doing the bull dance while drawing connections between the dinner pastries filled with chicken and my mothers own famous chicken pot pie. All this...before I started drinking...sprite...with a little bit of liquor...ice...on the side.

I finally got some of those wireless waves to make their way to my computer. And you know what that means--yep, time to make the donuts. Oh, and I may write a few words now and again here. But don't you worry about getting to the bottom of this thing called "life" in Austin. You won't be needing to discern the truth from the smoke and mirrors or trying to figure out who's blowing somebody's smoke up somebody else's arse. Because it's all about smoke beats water here. Right? Well then, get on with it.