Your leaking thatched hut during the restoration of a pre-Enlightenment state.

 

Hello, my name is Judas Gutenberg and this is my blaag (pronounced as you would the vomit noise "hyroop-bleuach").



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   disease, deficiencies, and contagion
Thursday, March 6 1997

Thing to say today: We live on a scratching dog.

I am a witch doctor, and I treat myself creatively based on whim.
I got up at about 2pm. It's the pattern this week. All kinds of medical problems seem to be complicating my life this week too. There's a weak cold trying to take possesion of my throat. I battled that with two grams of vitamin C, ascorbic acid. Then there's this problem with the inside gum at the root of my right bottom molars...a channel of evil infection has developed. No doubt I have inherited a measure of my father's chronic gum disease, but normally I don't get into trouble unless I'm terribly negligent. What with all my drinking and drug abuse, though, perhaps I have been. I have also developed horrible athletes foot at the base of my smallest left toe. Finally, there's the nascent mild case of "arthritis" in my right ring finger. The last problem is probably related to the gum trouble (my Dad seems to believe there is a strong connection between troubles in the hands and feet and troubles in the gums: they are related in some Acupuncturist way). Today I massaged the gum until it was raw but no longer bleeding, soaked it in hot salt water (both techniques learned from my father). I have felt little if any of the ring finger "arthritis" since. Perhaps the athletes foot problem will begin to recover to: I wrapped it in a rosemary-stuffed pillow of toilet paper. I am a witch doctor, and I treat myself creatively based on whim. If nothing else the placebo effect will preserve my disease-riddled corpse for a little while yet.

I also did two loads of laundry today since cleanliness (especially clean socks) is a possible step along the path to good health. Throwing away that beautiful grey lint which is caught in the dryer's lint trap always offends me somehow. Surely if every day the lint was saved, in a month's time there would be enough to knit a sweater.

I like my punk rock to be both melodic and to deal with personal issues, and most of the punk rock at Big Fun (Dead Kennedys for example) was both non-melodic and annoyingly preachy-political.
In addition to being an old man, I am also a fan of that hard and fast rock and roll type music popular with the youth of today. As I've said before, I'm not especially fond of punk rock music. But there is some that I like. One punk rock band I like is the Descendents. They were a popular band at Big Fun and common roadtrip music in Matthew Hart's Vomit Comet. It was virtually the only real punk rock (besides, perhaps, Jawbreaker) that I really liked at Big Fun. This of course has something to do with the fact that I like my punk rock to be both melodic and to deal with personal issues, and most of the punk rock at Big Fun (Dead Kennedys for example) was both non-melodic and annoyingly preachy-political.

So today when I was at Plan 9 I picked up a copy of the Decendent's 1996 CD, Everything Sucks, used, for $6. It's a finely produced (i.e. not low fi) recording, but low fi is not what I look for in punk rock, it's what I expect from the more personal music of experimental bands. This album is good, if a little on the short side. The lyrics and melodies are, well, kind of sweet. They have a poppy anthemic quality about them while still displaying real feelings of angst, mostly related to rejection by girls. Heartbreak is a beautiful topic for pop music, and well-suited to melodic punk rock. This was the discovery that Green Day made and that's why they are as famous as they are today. But there's a nasty darkness here in the Descendents, heightened no doubt by their occasionally strange ideas of tonality (listen to track 10: "Hateful Notebook"). So the angst comes across as more sincere with the Descendents than it ever did with Green Day. Of course, unlike self-described punks, I actually rather like a number of Green Day songs. It's just that I can't see myself buying music I've heard played to death on mainstream "modern rock" radio.

Back at my house all I could think to do was go to sleep. It was only a little past 7pm, and I couldn't really sleep. I suffered from low-level misery from congestion, gum trouble and the nasty chasm that has opened at the base of the smallest toe on my left foot. The thing I most feared was that my friends would come by and all I'd be able to do is say I was sick and they'd have to oblige me with reassuring grunts. But no one came for me. I sort of miss the days when no one came to visit me. Even when my friends DO ignore me, it isn't the same. The chance they might come is enough to keep me on edge.

At work I massaged my gum anomaly and complained to blixa in Sam 'n' Ellas.


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