Unbuckled under the legal limit

It's all typography. Something about these characteristics makes it apparent. The old fraud wouldn't be getting his view from that window back for many days. It was just something that couldn't be prevented. The giant sky rose like glitter over the rest of the world. Everyone turned out their lights to avoid being burned alive. Something in that kettle made her wish she had never been alive. As it turned out, only kind of was she proven incorrect.

Something in the dog's breathing reminded me that elsewhere, a child was being raped. I looked away from the dog, for a moment, then I looked back at it. I longed for music. Because when I was listening to music, nobody was getting raped necessarily.

They found her screaming at a tree just two miles south of here. Screaming curse words. Throwing sticks. She was dirty.

From somewhere came this horrid noise, and it sounded like a car engine stalling due to a dying rabbit stuck in the carburetor. I looked out into the forest, took a moment to sneeze, and then carried on with the conversation.
"So, tomorrow then. And don't be late with it this time."

The three of them sat facing inward at a central point, trying to combine their theories and ideologies into one central all-powerful idea. It didn't work. Only one of them would know the way.

Some say the reason she was so scary was because of her dark humor. Others, more observant others, would say it was how she was hung in effigy from the stoplight just outside the school, wearing a T-shirt that read: "...until now, that is."

The puppy, Gruber, threw his legs in front of themselves, bounding toward a destination he had never felt before: speed.


You know, I never won any young authors competitions. Not even close. I wrote once about Fastky the dog, I wrote about The Good Week. But apparently my work was bullshit. It still is. Nothing I've written can grow. It all dies of my own A.D.D. I feel that maybe I used to be a more focused writer. Though maybe my writing itself wasn't focused, I could sit down and go and go and go until I had wasted 2,000 words of thought on the simple subject of adjusting from high school to college.

Something about writing trips you up. It's a different something for everybody, but no one can feel perfectly fine with the way they write. Otherwise they're not writing at all. They're doing some other menial activity.

Where has all the time gone? Oh I don't know. Oh, oh, but I don't know. Wake me up. I'm a timeaholic. I'm having the time of my life. Of all of our lives. I'm having it as though to myself, I am keeping the fourth dimension.

If everyone in the world battled cancer untreated at the same time, they would all die.
"Don't mess up my hair," God said, "ever."

--Eliot Sill

50 ... things

Your problems, from me:


1. Sunflower seeds

2. The Wire

3. Wallace

4. Boats

5. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

6. Peein' Ian

7. A Kid Named Cudi

8. DKB - The Overdue

9. Remember Lil Wayne?

10. My dog

11. Names

12. Germany

13. Less fortunate countries

14. Marijuana, amongst other drugs

15. The Big Dav(e)

16. Feline AIDS

17. Slugs

18. Ravens

19. The Wire

20. College

21. Effort

22. The pursuit of happiness

23. Sports movies

24. The Wire

25. Bananas

26. Diseases

27. Finding Forrester?

28. Ray Allen

29. Ben Gordon

30. All that weird music Lauren likes

31. Lauryn.

32. Public schools

33. Cross-curricular!

34. Jackie Robinson

35. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

36. Talib Kweli

37. Alcohol

38. Jamie Foxx

39. Fantastic Mr. Fox

40. The National

41. Lollapalooza

42. Pitchfork — might have to sell my ticket I have for Sunday. If you'd like it, go on and shout me out.

43. Burgers

44. The diversity of humankind

45. That fucker who killed MLK

46. Dave Chappelle

47. Young adorable Kanye West

48. Chicago

49. Bad TV dramas

50. The Wire

_________________________________________
Your problems, answered:

1. Sunflower seeds
(in my mouth)
2. The Wire
(not watching it, thus my tv is off)
3. Wallace
(WHY?)
4. Boats
(smacked down)
5. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
(Owning property)
6. Peein' Ian
(drugs)
7. A Kid Named Cudi
(GOOD music)
8. DKB - The Overdue
(Not music)
9. Remember Lil Wayne?
(Irrelevant music)
~

10. My dog
(so ittttchy)
11. Names
(not as important as we claim they are)

12. Germany
(what's goin' on over there?)
13. Less fortunate countries
 (what's goin' on over here?)

14. Marijuana, amongst other drugs
(they're out there)

~

15. The Big Dav(e)
(Maroon car hell yes Grant!)

16. Feline AIDS
(The past can still hurt)

17. Slugs
(So can salt, actually)

18. Ravens
(Lockouts... and Baltimore)

19. The Wire
(So what?)

20. College
(Gotta get Stringer smart!)

21. Effort
(College's fine print)

22. The pursuit of happiness
(College's bold print)

23. Sports movies
(My personal favorite? Remember the...)

24. The Wire
(Sorry, just don't worry about it.)

25. Bananas
(How 'bout them apples, angry white man?)

26. Diseases
(How 'bout them abscesses, sad white man?)

27. Finding Forrester?
(movies I haven't seen that have black people in them)

28. Ray Allen
(movies I have seen that have black people in them)

29. Ben Gordon
(the opposite)

~
30. All that weird music Lauren likes
(Like Energy Spent, by Liam Finn)

31. Lauryn.
(What a lovely fucking lady)

32. Public schools
(tend to miseducate)
33. Cross-curricular!
(Unless you're learning from this mofo!)

34. Jackie Robinson
(Mostly probably about this mofo.)

35. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
(The answer to life lies on Jackie's back)

36. Talib Kweli
(Black Star never goes on stage without a towel)

37. Alcohol
(Canopy Club-Laura Sokolowski-SoCo-YUP)

38. Jamie Foxx
(who I blame for being crazy)

39. Fantastic Mr. Fox
(this one's simple)

40. The National
(Picturing Fantastic Mr. Fox singing "I won't fuck us over!")

41. Lollapalooza
(At this venue, where I did not get to see them last year. Or this year. Or ever, most likely)

42. Pitchfork — might have to sell my ticket I have for Sunday. If you'd like it, go on and shout me out.
 (Uh, yeah. Shit.)
43. Burgers
(Delicious...)

44. The diversity of humankind
(...different.)

45. That fucker who killed MLK
(What was his probbbbblem? Oh right, unforgivable racist and inhumane. Forgot)

46. Dave Chappelle
(Nicole Simpson can't rap!)

47. Young adorable Kanye West
(Milsap's band)

48. Chicago
(Found out I was gang affiliated, got on tv and told on me)

49. Bad TV dramas
(Aka, not...)

50. The Wire
(Okay okay, you're right. I have a problem. Well, maybe just an addiction. Not a problem. WALLACE!)


--Eliot Sill

Bildungsroman

 by Brendan Cavanagh

i step out the door, hearing that reassuring click of the door locking behind me.  i look both ways- as if crossing the street- making sure there is no one around me.  firmly resolved that i am indeed undisturbed, i swivel the volume on my ipod all the way up, letting the music fill my ears and thoughts and soul.  its tough being hearing impaired, always having to ensure that my music isnt too loud, disturbing those around me.  i think back on those instances in study hall in high school when i thought the clancy brothers & tommy makem were singing softly in my ears, only to look up and find my peers laughing at me, subsequently telling me to turn it down.  this is the deepest embarrassment.  oop!  someone ahead.  i turn the music down momentarily, with my thumb resting readily on the click wheel.  hes wearing headphones, he cant hear me.  he passes, i can turn it back up.  now im finally crossing the street, off the block on which my dormitory resides, technically out of butlers realm.  to the left- police headquarters.  i hope they don't follow me, thinking im up to no good.  what if i accidentally trip on a cracked sidewalk because of my lack of coordination or awkwardly sidestep a patch of resistant mud?

What are you doing?
Oh, hold on.  (hand goes in pocket)  No! i don't have a gun, i just have hearing aids.  (left hand raised, right hand in pocket containing hearing aids)
Have you been drinking?
No officer, I haven't been drinking or smoking.
Why do you say you weren't smoking?
I just meant- I don't want you to-

no, stop it!  thatsentirely irrational, stop envisioning things that wont happen.  just enjoy your daily walk.  i pass the iron railings of the first nice house on the block.  iron railings are highly significant in literature.  james joyce knows that.  they're all over dubliners- eveline feels trapped in dublin when she grips the railing and watches her chance at escape with her lover fade as she succumbs to the gloomy confines of her native city.  im more like the boy in araby- gripping the railings and silently admiring the beauty of that girl i cant have, mangans sister=the virgin mary?  that was my best paper.  five pages instead of two and a half, and an a- to prove my talents.  i saw a black woman enter the garden through a gate in these iron railings the other day.  thats funny.  black people were once confined to iron shackles when they were first exported to america like cargo.  now they own houses.  they look at me from the porch, over the railings.  am i confined by these railings now?  they have more than me- age, experience, money, a house.  bob dylans chimes of freedom [live] clang and toll in my ears.  thats a great political song, ive heard some say its the single greatest protest song of the civil rights movement.

Starry-eyed an’ laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an’ we watched with one last look
Spellbound an’ swallowed ’til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse
An’ for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

i want to be one of the lonesome-hearted lovers he sings about,  standing on top of a hill and witnessing these magnificent chimes of freedom flashing across the sky, like brilliant lightning or colorful fireworks.  i should have been in the civil rights movement, or at least been alive so i could see dylan perform this at newport '64.  i love the way he laughs in the live footage as he struggles breathlessly to belt out that long line towards the end.  why am i staring down at the sidewalk like im struggling to begin on a test?  i look up.  im halfway across the block.  there are silent, sparse snowflakes drifting lazily down from the impassive gray sky.  this could be the start of a coen brothers movie.  i distinctly recall snowflakes or ashes drifting in a like manner at the beginning of true grit and a serious man in particular.  i watched both of those with my cousin in st louis last time i visited, over christmas break.  i cant wait to go back this summer.  with all this imagery around me- iron railings and scant snowflakes- its like im conducting a close reading on a short story about my life.  thats amazing.  i can find so many intangible themes traced throughout these walks.  ive reached 44th & graceland, the next block.  that would be a great album title.  44th & graceland.  the album cover would probably be a washed-out faded photograph of the conjoined street signs.  i wish i could improvise.  you would think playing the piano since i was five and having eight years of formal practice i could improvise.  if a band ever asks me to play piano or keyboards or synths for them AND they tell me theyll write the sheet music, im in.  too bad i finally turn after crossing the next block, making that street corner more significant than 44th & graceland.  44th & boulevard.  what a crummy (holden spells it crumby) album title- no let's use lousy- what a lousy album title.  bob dylan comes on again.  ah yes, this song perfectly matches my mood and the gloomy, rainy weather.  why do i identify so heavily with any song of his that deals with moving on after a relationship?  ive never been in a long-term, serious relationship.  i dont know what its like to feel that acute a pain upon splitting up.  yet when i hear his words i feel that pain in my heart.  i attribute too much significance to people in my life that dont really relate to the characters in his songs.  here comes the good part, the third verse

If you get close to her, kiss her once for me
I always have respected her for busting out and gettin' free
Oh, whatever makes her happy, I won't stand in the way
Though the bitter taste still lingers on from the night I tried to make her stay

i would want to tell the next boyfriend that.  that a part of me will still love her, but i have to say it without looking pathetic or anything.  i hope shes happy.  who am i talking about?  maybe i need a serious girlfriend so that if we break up, these songs will finally have meaning.  i need to stop wallowing in unnecessary depression.  though i feel like self-imposed depression brings out the suffering artist in me.  all great artists suffer.  that was mentioned in english today.  does one have to suffer in order to be an artist?  i didnt say anything.  i wanted to say yes, but i felt that would be unfair to those who have prospered off making happy songs or poems or stories, telling themselves theyve never been depressed.  maybe thats possible.  but i think suffering leads to superior art.  ill always identify with the poets whose fathers have died and the singers who had to move on prematurely from a relationship.  when i suffer i feel like writing papers, or blog posts.  i need to start carrying a notepad to record my thoughts and transcribe them to classic brian.  i dont know if im ready to dabble in experimental writing or creative writing.  i definitely cant write fiction.  coming out on top of the zombie snowpocalypse poll was a fluke.  im better at relating events that ive actually experienced and making them applicable to everyones lives.  but maybe if i write about the imagery i see on my walks, people will respond positively.  maybe my thoughts and ideas are more significant than i imagine.  this is really heavy stuff, these are my innermost thoughts.  it would definitely be thrilling to write about this.  i think im gonna- no, going to- do this.  i better put this off for a while, to collect my thoughts.  gather more images.  no.  im going to finally do this today.  the lewis & clark ken burns film soundtrack appears on shuffle.  somebody speaks out thomas jeffersons words regarding the success of the corps of discovery above a beautiful instrumental- god, that was my favorite part of eighth grade.  that video is beautiful and the music so sweet- he says

The work we are now doing is, I trust, done for posterity, in such a way that they need not repeat.  We shall delineate with correctness the great arteries of this country...those that come after us will fill up the canvas we begin. (his voice cracks) Thomas Jefferson.

after his words fade, the music plays on and seamlessly ties into the next song, a continuation of when summer ends.  hauntingly piercing flutes and rhythmic strings and soft violins.  the song is so sad, but so uplifting.  i feel like lewis & clark as they ascended the great divide and looked out across the vast expanse of undiscovered america.  the gut feeling they must have experienced- accomplished, tearful, heart-rending, triumphant.  i feel it too.  is this an epiphany?  is this song telling me to reveal my stream of consciousness to the readers of classic brian?  this is much like the climax of james joyces a portrait of the artist as a young man.  stephen dedalus ascends a great hill as he achingly mulls over what his true vocation is.  he decides to abandon his hope of becoming ordained and decides instead to be a writer, a lover of language,

to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.

ill do it, then.  ill write this blog post.  this revelation surges in my body- i feel as if i could walk forever, but no.  its terribly cold and windy and i have a lot of work to get done.  im nearly back anyway.  i look into the windows of parked cars on my left- my reflection peers back at me, the windswept hair flying over my sunglasses- the sunglasses make me invisible.  invisible man wore sunglasses to conceal himself as he walked alone on the streets of new york.  i do the same.  i dont want people to see me when i take my walks.  if my thoughts are my own and my music pouring into my own ears, then i should remain undisturbed as i walk along the sidewalk

i walk on the sidewalk
down the sidewalk i amble
across the narrow stretch of stone i pass

ever since i read mark hallidays poetry in class and saw him read it aloud when he visited last month i play with words throughout the day.  i couldnt be a poet, but its so enriching to color my mental play-by-play of the day.  like filling a blank page of paper with whatever i want.  i sprint up the short flight of stairs leading to the door.  ever since my friend said he always runs up stairs ive done the same.  i wave my butt over the scanner outside the door (my id rests in my back pocket).  although my ears are filled with a new song, i still hear a dull thud that i immediately recognize as the reassuring click of the door being unlocked.  i step inside, mindful to turn down my music so none of my floormates will hear.  i sit down and begin to type.

Tynan - I talk about something for a while and you read it maybe

OK so I've got something very important to talk about with you. This is something I've been thinking about for many years. I'm gonna ask you a question. Who's the best comic book supervillain? No don't stop reading, for real. This is important shit. Think of the most badass supervillain you know right now.

Did you say The Joker?

Wow what a boring fucking answer. Hey by the way, you wanna go jack off to pictures of Christopher Nolan later?

The REAL greatest supervillain ever is GALACTUS, THE DEVOURER OF WORLDS!!!!!!!!!!!

OH SHIT YEAH

Galactus is pretty much the coolest bad guy that anyone has ever thought of. Galactus is not from Earth, because Earth is too stupid and too dumb for Galactus. Galactus is from a planet called Taa, which sorta sounds like the sound I make when I stub my toe. Like, Taa! I stubbed my toe. Anyway.

He's got the power of a god and he's like a billion feet tall or something. Basically what he does all day is fly around the universe being an asshole because he doesn't give a fuck, and oh yeah, he eats planets.

Yeah that's right, this motherfucker eats planets. His last name The Devourer Of Worlds. Like, Meh, I'm hungry, I'm gonna eat Jupiter. NOM. I just ate Jupiter. It was fucking delicious. What did you eat for breakfast this morning? Raisin Bran? Oh that's cool, Galactus ate a celestial body that weighed 6 sextillion tons. See? He's already cooler than you.

They see me rollin

So basically in the comic books, Galactus will come down to Earth every once and a while and descend onto New York City. I feel like whenever there's some giant monstrosity coming to destroy Earth they always land in New York City. Then again, Cloverfield would have sucked if it took place in Wyoming and most of the action was just a couple people running across a field of grass. You know what movie I haven't seen in a long time? Cloverfield. I like that movie.

So Galactus comes down to Earth or whatever, and like all these storm clouds gather, and he's all like, "GREETINGS EARTH, I WILL EAT YOU" or whatever. He speaks English by the way, figure that one out. As soon as everyone sees Galactus, they shit their pants. Even the mighty Thor, the goddamn god of thunder. Because they know they are B'd in the B. Boned in the butt. Hard. I mean, what they gonna do? Usually superheroes just punch their problems (see here) but they can't really punch a dude who is the size of a really really big thing.

Pretty much the only way to beat Galactus is to somehow beg for mercy like a fucking pussy. Like one time Norrin Rad promised to become his bitch sidekick if he spared his planet. Galactus still wins even when he loses. What a supreme badass.

I haven't even mentioned what I like the most about Galactus though. Have you seen what this dude is wearing? Look at his outfit.

Sexy

It's like some kind of...purple and blue...robotic...bunny armor? With a skirt? I don't know, but he looks ridiculous. He looks like he lost a bet.

Why is this my favorite part? Because he has unlimited power, he eats planets, he's probably punched God in the face, and he chooses to wear that. How embarrassing is it to have armageddon brought about by the Fabulous Mr. Fabulous up there? It's almost like he's daring you to make fun of him. Like, go ahead punk. Make fun of this outfit. You are my brunch. I will turn you and everything under your sun into shit. Woah.

I've never seen The Fantastic Four: The Rise Of The Silver Surfer for a multitude of reasons, the main one being I don't like to watch movies that are bad. Apparently Galactus is in that movie though. But they FUCKED UP. They scrapped his awesome purple suit and made him a giant cloud monster or something? And fire?

This is supposed to be Galactus I think

Wow, someone totally missed the point. That'd be like if somebody wanted to make a Superman movie, but he couldn't fly, he didn't wear his suit, and he fights a giant spider in the third act. OH WAIT THAT MOVIE WAS ALMOST MADE BACK IN 1997. FUCK ME.