laurelhurst park by bike 2?: clumsy seduction

nice shirt!

i saw her earlier, playing ms pac man. i thought she was wearing a tshirt and nothing else.. i like girls without pants, so that was intriguing. she also had dark complexion, long dark hair.. not quite exotic, nice legs, nice everything.. she had to kind of bend forward to play, and that was also nice. i think her name was sara, but her name doesn't matter.

the other one was probably joann.. or something. joann - tall and thin, sharp dark glasses and camo heels.. classy and demanding, uncomplicated. they both wanted to dance, but the 8bit indie rock was on the fritz.. it was nice to watch them cajole and harass, i guess, but i figured it was an investment with considerable potential. never meant to be.

looking back, it seems kinda underwhelming.. they were pretty enough, but nothing to write about..

ha!

Laurelhurst Park on a bike

Filmed by Portlandize.com. Visit Portlandize.com

My Face!

Excited To See You

Excited to see you by measureandscale

This song was written by The Leaning Towers and myself on the first day of 2007. A few hours previously, my girlfriend had dumped me. Some people drink heavily after that kind of drama. I prefer to rope my friends into writing pop songs.

You see my hair standing up like I'm excited to see you
But I'm not. I just combed it that way.
I see you looking at me like you're excited to see me.
But you're not. You're just looking that way.
You think I'm staring at you with longing lonely eyes.
But I'm not. You just see me that way.
And when you talk I think I hear you have something to say.
But you don't. I just hear you that way.

Sometimes it seems somethings there when it's not.
You've got to know not to stare for too long at one spot.
Take a look around and you'll become the center
of attention for some other wandering eye.

You see my hair standing up like I'm excited to see you.
But I'm not.

Voltaire

I love you internet. Do you remember when we met in 1994? You're so much bigger than you used to be. Remember when none of my friends were online yet, and I was the only one with a modem? Before facebook, myspace and the time where everybody had cameras on their phones? When everybody was just a 'handle'.

My handle was "Sandog". I have no idea why I liked that word, but I did when I was thirteen.

The first girl I ever met online was Cathleya (I think her handle was "KittyKat" or something like that), in some chat room for teenagers. She was also my age. She lived in El Dorado Hills, California, which I thought was hilarious when I was a kid. She didn't get the joke because she never read Candide. "How can you live in El Dorado and never read Voltaire" I asked her? "I'm thirteen" she explained.

We became penpals. Not email, but real letters (because we shared email with our families, remember Internet, this is before the time of free webmail). She sent me a picture of her on the swim team. I had terrible acne back then, and wouldn't let anybody take a picture of me, so I never sent her one. But she kept talking to me, because she thought I was funny, and she assured me that my face was probably just fine and I was overreacting. But she never pressed the topic, kids (and teenagers especially) are surprisingly more perceptive than we would like to give them credit for. We talked on the phone. I sent her copies of Pablo Honey and Last Splash that I made on a double cassette tape deck. And she was super-cute too, the kind of girl that would never have talked to me at school. One time we talked on the phone for an hour. Her dad called my house a few weeks later asking who I was and why I was on the phone bill. It was funny, she heard him grilling me, and took the phone from him and we talked for another hour after that.

We've still never met, not face to face. I didn't put too much thought into it until recently, when I realized what a unique thing it was. Meeting somebody from the other side of the country. Being 13, and having a modem, and as much access to the world as any adult. I love you internet because you're the great equalizer. You gave me as much access at 13 as I have today at 28. You taught me that the best way to introduce yourself is with your words, not your face.

Mind is a gift. Body is a cage.

I Like Your New Haircut Episode Fourteen - Happy Birthday Jenny

morning breath

Morningbreath by the leaning towers

i'm just a square at sea
water dripping from the weeds
decide which machines
which machines make you leave

i know you've got it too
lines and waves, words, and morning breath
and antibodies

so cancel my account
i don't want you to see

don't ask me how i'm doing, cuz i can't tell
this pen is dead.
these secrets are not for you.

I Like Your New Haircut Episode Thirteen - Shameless

Well you said you'd never leave me for no reason, then you lied
and I said my head was changing like the season well I tried
and my brain and heart are both uneven you don't see me so I don't mind
and everytime i see your face this pain I keep inside

And I open up the window and I look up at the stars
and I see your face and wonder how you are
what you're doing what you're saying
who you're with and where you're at
what you're wearing beneath that dress tonight sometimes
I even think about that.

So I'm keeping myself busy writing these songs to you
and I hold my head up high though I am sad and I am blue
because that's the way you'd want it so it's the way I want it too
and in some small way that validates my shameless love for you.

Ghost of the Intersection

She was the first girl I met in town that I really had a crush on. We would hang out, listen to records, smoke a little pot, she had scrabble. I accidentally introduced her to this guy John at a party and they started dating. One night she went home with him. I was dismayed.

But I didn't give up because I really liked her. She was so, so cute. I invited her out to sushi. We had wine, the plum served in the glass. When she dropped me off I told her the truth. I said, "I know I like you more than that other guy does, and if I don't tell you now my Patrick Swayze Ghost will haunt this intersection forever." And the weird thing is that it worked. She dumped John and started kissing me.

The prettiest girl in Portland was sleeping on my floor, because I still didn't have a bed. I'll never understand the way women make decisions.

I remember being a little sad when we started dating, just because the heartbreak would have been epic. Could have been a great album I think. Happiness makes me creatively impotent. And the entire time I was with her I was pretty boring. The price of love, I guess.

trying=failing

Trying=failing by the leaning towers

cute little robots fling themselves off ocean cliffs. they make sounds like baby pterodactyls.

i have a strong visual image of a gleaming little man arcing off a huge precipice, almost gleefully singing his own demise.

I Like Your New Haircut Episode Twelve : Polar Bear Featuring HungryTiger3

Today I drew a picture of a polar bear, he was swimming underwater.
He had no ears, he had no paws, he had no tail he was underwater.

His eyes were closed and his legs too small, the lines were crooked the perspective's all wrong.
He had no ears and he had no tail, I made some bubbles that came out of his nose.

youtube.com/ILikeYourNewHaircut
soundcloud.com/ILikeYourNewHaircut

Braised Greens (demo)

For your consideration. A demo, which will make it's way into a full song one day.

Braised Greens by ilikeyournewhaircut

I want to be the only boy. To braise your greens.

I'm your best line of fit - I've got the points to show
I know you say that you don't need me
And I think it's cute that you are playing hard to get but I think I ought to know
I've done it many times so please don't let me go.

You know that this is the way that I am being mean to you
by asking you to stay here with me when you've told me
that you'll never give away your independence but I'm telling you.

I'm your best line of fit and I think you see it too
I'm the best you're gonna get look at the data set.
And when you tell me you don't need me well I think it's cute.

blood test

wow!

peacock mask!
wow!




results of the blood test
were just as expected
it's all 1's and 0's
your binary star system code

that spell out i love you
with fine wired motors
in your face that twitch
when i treat you the worst of them all

they all say you don't know how lucky you are
but i think you're right to feel slighted so far
we maintain quite carefully outward finesse
that never betrays th'eerie nightly bazaar

mutation creates need and need is desire
with programming never quite perfectly sired
you can't commit fully to your suicide
the best you can manage is failure to thrive

blood test by the leaning towers

more at theleaningtowers.com