thepoetspeaks

No Surprises

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 01:20:14 GMT

The business world is a really interesting one. It kind of appeals to me.

I'm taking a business communications class, as well as an accounting class. With business communications, you learn how to tell someone that you will fuck them up if they don't do what you ask of them. "I will eat your fucking children," can be replaced with "Please respond at your earliest possible convenience." "This place is run like a fucking shithole, and you are a greedy slob," can be replaced with "Thank you for taking the time to consider the opinions of your devoted employees." It makes me think of money and its relationship to people. Or vice versa.

The business world is one of anal retentive buffoons. These people - if you can even call them that - are focused on one stereotypical thing and one stereotypical thing only: diapers. No, wait. Not diapers. Money. They are focused only on money, and the pursuit of money. Is that in the Declaration or the Constitution or something? It should be. Anyway. The amazing thing is just that. How focused they are. It's like you've put these pulsing veins and beating hearts under a microscope and seen just how underdeveloped and loveless the lives of these machines are. We are taught to never say anything negative ever in any of our assignments for the sake of...well, I don't really know. Are these people - if you can even call them that - so touchy that they can't even take direct criticism? It's really quite a mindfuck, and it makes me think that our cities are run by pooey little Donald Trumps and Mike Bloombergs who can never hear a bad word around the grownups or else they get all fussy and...and...and and!...wahhh!!!

That being said. I like money. I like financial leeway. I like freedom to go places and get shit and not have to shovel burgers or kiss ass to get it in tiny essentially meaningless scraps. What could a smart motherfucker like myself do in the nursery of fussy babies with graphite tubing shoved up their sphincters?

Oh, I also like accounting. Numbers are fun. My teacher is the man and I rocked that test today.

Goodbye.

Cordially,
Eugene F. Sardito

My head about it

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 22:03:35 GMT

Oh no oh no oh no,
~eug

Hail to the Thief

Sat, 24 Jan 2009 09:55:45 GMT

4 years later or whatever it's been and I think this album is just starting to finally hit me. The anger I feel toward my fellow Americans. The dark warped places I see where people have ended up. People I cared about. Whether it was just a passing acquaintance or more than that. Maybe it's all a delusion - that sense of brotherliness toward man. But it's one that I registered for some years back and I haven't forgotten about it.

I certainly thought Hail to the Thief sucked at one point. Radiohead even thought it did. They almost stopped making music together because of it. But. I think it was an accurate expression...representation, whatever...of what was going on at that time. Definitellly, ummm...it was definitely ahead of its time. I can't imagine anyone actually "getting" it when it first came out. It takes time. And life experience. Not that I have all that much life experience but I've caught glimpses of it. The horror of war. What that does to people. I think reading Slaughterhouse Five might have something to do with it. It shows both polar extremes of the so-called human experience. He even makes it easier for himself as a writer by using the whole time-traveling thing. If he wants to relate two things together as one in the same, he'll slide between scenes of a similar mood. Or if he wants to bang you over the head with something, he'll put something really beautiful next to something horrendous. Like candles made of human fat during WWII. Which might be more than a little sensationalistic of me to mention but whatever.

I guess I'm good at saying things people aren't comfortable hearing. Or asking questions. Or, again, maybe just being completely delusional in thinking that I could have that much of an affect on someone. I believe in people so much that I want to challenge them. See where they're at. Draw a line down the middle of the floor. Please don't criticize me for anything I say. I do enough of that myself. Anything I say...especially here...are things that have been pushed to the surface after many months of not saying anything to anyone about anything ever.

Hail to the Thief. I don't know. It's just amazing. After learning a few things about songwriting from books by professors at Berklee, I can see where (in this example) Thom Yorke made certain decisions. Ballsy decisions at that. There's no question that he understands certain things about music better than I do (like, everything) but I just might be onto something. He may have started Sit Down, Stand Up with the music and this example would be completely wrong. But. That's eight lines of words. See for yourself: http://www.radiohead.com/Archive/Site9/page3.html

Eight lines of words that he was able to make into that song. He probably had pages and pages of extraneous shit. Or maybe not. Which he then boiled down to eight lines. Or maybe not. And then he thought, after looking at those eight lines, "Oh, I know. I'll just repeat THE RAINDROPS thirty-two times."

Or maybe not.

~eug

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 21:33:08 GMT

I hate when Julian shows off.

Go your separate way now.Someday you'll come back and I'll be dreaming
I was sunburned.I don't want to break your heart in.Break your heart in two halves.
Keep one half and give one half to me.I like the summer - miss the summer.
Tell me, what'd you do? Nothing? Me too...

day of infamy

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 10:26:06 GMT

the new franz ferdinand album is gonna be fuckin sick.

up.

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 00:57:36 GMT

what is there to be intimidated by? i guess i'm most afraid of myself. i need to lighten up. i used to be so good at not making sense and being comfortable with that. even excited by it. equations and other people's interests are only good for fucking things up. i have no idea what people want. to hear. to see. i'm not representative of anything going on right now. i was born too late. maybe i should just give up.

completely or perhaps not completely unrelated, 2008 has been the shittiest nothing year in recent memory. i mean, nothing monumentally bad happened...and there have been some interesting sparks in the dark...but overall i would say it was lacking in several things that '06 and last year especially did have for me. priorities, perhaps, and the practice of said priorities. a pretty glimmer to things, which for the most part cancels out the nasty memories of those days. other things, too. but i spent a long time in the dark. wasted some of my younger years with people who were happy where they were and tried to make me feel the same way, and i'm determined to not let that happen again.

pis-en-lit,
eugene

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 20:56:04 GMT

some people are such blatant liars that you just cannot let yourself get offended, whether the lies are directed toward you or not. it's out of your control. it doesn't/didn't/no longer has anything to do with you. move along.

seeing conor oberst tonight. with ben kweller opening. pretty excited.

rise and shine,
~eug

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 09:10:08 GMT

tonight i bought a little black cigarette lighter. a BIC. i like BICs because they last a long time...although, they do tend to fall into the same black hole as guitar picks and (i'd imagine) bobby pins (for girls). doesn't BIC also make pens and things? curious. anyway. i also like BIC because they have nice designs on their lighters. a butterfly. a fucking crazy skull guy playing dice. a chess piece. and they also have lighters in every color you can think of. black. i chose black for a reason. to match an article of clothing perhaps...

i hate to see couples break up. especially when they seemed to have their shit so well together. it's nice to see two people getting what love promises. even though you hated her when he first started bringing her around. i've developed somewhat of a heightened sense of smell for the dying love affair. the air smells like burning cinder. kind of evil smelling. sounds like he's not been getting very much sleep these days. doesn't wanna talk about it. there's just something different. s'how it goes.

october.

reasonable and on top,
Eugene

EXident

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:36:42 GMT

i didn 't mean fo r it tohappen
it just sort a happend..
a row of buckets, each
with some disugsting thing in
it for me to eat and
prove my l
ove

to you.
you better straighten up and fly right
or i'll drop you like a bad habit.

REMpresentation

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 08:12:53 GMT

We've already been through this a thousand times
But you just can't seem to leave it behind
Cigarettes fill the ashtrays
Stilettos in the hallways
Echo like a poet who refuses to rhyme

Blame me for things not going as planned
Good thing I left before it got out of hand
Not that you care
Enough to repair
A ceiling so poorly designed

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 10:28:02 GMT

Oh you five and ten cent women
With nothin' in your heads
I got a real gal I'm lovin'
And Lord I'll love her till I'm dead
Go away from my door and my window too
Right now

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 08:22:50 GMT

I want it all.
I just can't figure out...

I don't give a fuck.

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 09:02:02 GMT

Today I acted very weird. At home as usual. Not that I'm ever really home anymore except to sleep and even then I'm simply lying in bed waiting for the drunken dizziness to go away. But in school even, which was quite amusing, mostly just for myself. No, actually all for myself. I went to the bathroom and there was a flock of what I could only assume to be freshmen lining the halls and they were all giving me this fucking stupid look so I naturally declared, "Everyone, I'm going to the bathroom!" which seemed like a bright idea until I was given two or three minutes to think about it while urinating, when I decided it would be best to walk out like nothing had happened.

I pretty much hate everyone still, or again, as usual. I don't want to get lunch with you. I don't want to play soccer with you. I don't want to tell you what I did over the summer. I don't want to look up or smile at you or anything. No, not even you. Especially not you. I am, however, realizing my true, absurd and totally useless power to tell people what to do, or control a situation. Even just "Hey, come over here...sit down...and shut the fuck up" which I used today with remarkable results. Oh, who cares. I mean. Yeah. Who cares. I never say half the perverted shit that I'm thinking and I'm wondering what would happen if I did. Whenever I feel up to trying it, I get pretty good laughs. But I don't think laughs are my main goal. My mainnn goalll, so to speak, is just to feel semi-comfortable in my own miserable snake skin. To be the sammme no matter where I go or who I'm with. To not lie anymore out of petty courtesies.

I think whatever I'm blindly digging at will be misconstrued as rudeness...or...who knows. Am I rude? I'm one of the most polite fucking people I know. I even say thank you and good night to the terrorists who work at my local gas station. I'm so polite that I can actually feel my skin get whiter with every Please and You're Welcome. White people suck. Every raccce, then again, has its drawback. Like Chinese people, for instance. All they can do is steal gold medals from well-deserving Nastia Liukins's's's.

In conclusion, I don't give a fuck. I don't. I alllso don't give a fuck about your gimpy friends who say theyyy don't give a fuck, because they're gimpy, and your friends, and likely not very intelligent to begin with.

Love and All My Best,
Eugene

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 08:14:25 GMT

She must be plum crazy
I kinda think I like her
I kinda think I do

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 09:12:11 GMT

ok Eugene, this won't hurt a bit. although you might feel a slight sting just when the needle goes in...

ohHHHh fuckKKKK. fuck fuckfuck fuck. fuck.

ok ok. there there.

fuckinnnggg shit. ahhhhh.

ok. there now.

...

---
---

i hate when girls think it's so charming that i'm a music major. eugene's so cute with his guitar. or even if it's more than that, and they actually see that i'm relatively knowledgeable in basically all aspects of music. i'm just a nice little vacation for them. at least that's how it seems and it leaves me feeling very shitty and lonely in the end. eventually they pack their things and go back home. back to work. back to guys who are more practical. i guess i don't blame them. there's not a lot to do on this island. money doesn't grow on trees. only coconuts. and how much coconut milk can a girl drink? what's surprising to me is that, in a few recent cases, it's seemed like "the real thing". i don't mean love. just that i thought the person genuinely cared about me, what i had to say, whether it was about a book or my favorite composer at the time, and wouldn't leave so carelessly without even once looking back.

that's the sad thing about life. it's not fighting with gloves on. it hits hard. there are no do-overs or rewinds. only in one's mind, which can be very bothersome. it's a real headfuck to be part of someone's life and then suddenly not be. you get to know and appreciate and even internalize the little things. the smell of her place. her chores. even the turtle soap dish. it feels like you've stumbled upon some neat little planet and it's amazing to think that it existed before you got there but now that you're there it feels kinda cozy and like a place you could start to consider calling home. and then it's dashed away. you're just another DVD in her collection beneath the TV for someone else to stumble upon and think "Cool movie, wonder where she got it," just like you did before.

i can't tell what any of it is supposed to mean. or if it's even supposed to mean anything. life is transitory. we're here and then we're not. the dramatic musical arch of In Rainbows. the ballsy statement of wonder, Icky Thump. this is where i live. if not with them, then just watching them through a telescope. severely fed up with where i am back at base, feeling like i should be on the frontlines. maybe someday, someone will stumble upon me, quite by accident, and be happy they found me. never once thinking to leave.

Poem by Jack White

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 03:58:49 GMT

I remember back in the days
Me and Meg was runnin’ Detroit like a maze
back and forth, true ghetto lovin’
till one day she got a bun in the oven

While all the other Detroit bands was hatin’
I was recordin at the crib and marinatin’
Figured if bands like The Strokes could make it big
I could write my rhymes that was just as sick

I used to be cool, build chairs and shit
But then Seven Nation Army became a hit
Fuckin’ guidos was droolin’ mah jams at the World Cup
And then the crash with Renee, I said that’s enough

Since then I been playin’ with Brendan
It’s cooler than hell, so this must be heaven
And the new album makes me feel more alive
Even though the only good track is Five On the Five.

(original version here)

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 06:00:43 GMT

My room looks like a musical tornado hit it. How-to books, regular books, poetry books, notebooks, reference books, biographies, CDs, guitar picks, score-writing tools, crazy scribbled loose leaf notes, an acoustic guitar, an electric guitar, a bass, a double bass, a bass amp, a guitar amp, two more guitar amps, a mixer, various effects and tuning pedals, headphones, input/output jacks, a microphone (w/mic stand), pliers, Jack White's autograph, a Beatles poster, a list of songs I'm working on, chipping paint on the wall that resembles Lyle Lovett...

not to mention all the fucking shit that is constantly swimming around my head day in day out. what about this what about that. leave me alone.

A good song is pure work. Sorry to burst your bubble, all you deadbeat hippies out there. No one wants to believe it. Music comes from your soul, man! Well, if it does, then I don't have one. I have to find it some other way. Music is no different than your shitty job crunching numbers all day...except that, at least with music, when you finish something, if you finish something (...), you might be able to slightly skew the orbit of a person's life.

C# minor,
~E Major

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 05:47:44 GMT

if it ain't rainin tomorrow night i might go see nightmare of you. most likely by myself. why are they playing some jewish place? they deserve better. beth...am...something?...merrick? what? does this mean there won't be any alcohol?

buying a new album is like creating a mini-holiday for myself. regular holidays are always such shit and never what you hope for, anyway. specifically a brand new release. think i've gotten used to new recording technology, which is capable of so much more than the dusty old shit of yesteryear.

i writ a song tnight derin a thundersterm! can't tell if it's any good but i like it well enough. to the point, for once, without bein whiney...or writin it out even, all neat like. i'll be.

seedlings and trumpets,
~eugene

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 08:53:17 GMT

coming to you live from the basement at 4:45am. how come i end up where i started, how come i etc etc. nah, i'm just passing through. i spent the past hour and a half scanning mostly all of my photographs from my Photography class last spring. it was one of my happier times, and you can sort of see that in the pictures. it was also one of my most miserable, and you can see that too. the pictures themselves are pretty incredible to me. how accurate they are to what i was feeling at the time. i guess that's kind of the point. but i think i had some pretty impressive ideas that i somehow managed to pull off. am i talented at that? taking pictures? or just winging anything "artistic" and being ballsy enough to present whatever it is as a final product? every so often i say something that sounds like something HE would say. we won't get into that now. one of the driving forces in my life and i've never nor will i ever get to meet him. so it goes.

~eug

PS barf.

Mon, 19 May 2008 05:51:38 GMT

I'm standing still in the palace of mirrors
Perfectly numb by a stream of souls
That pass with the hours of our days
That come and go without a trace

I'm picking up stones on a whitewashed shore
Casting them one by one to the sea
They splash and sink before my eyes
Clueless as to what each one means

I'm strolling by the tombstones
of abandoned emotions
Laid down to rest and raised up to Heaven
where each one is reflected back to me

Fri, 16 May 2008 23:05:42 GMT

Well, the semester is basically over. Verdi Requiem concert tomorrow night in the big Colden Auditorium. I just had a funny memory of seeing a sign for The Beach Boys to play there, back when I was taking kiddy piano lessons. Hmmpf. Anyway, like last semester, I feel like I'm just starting to get my social jive going, only to have it mowed down by finals and the black hole of summer. Well, there are ways to keep that going, of course.

I also finished orchestrating my song, called Secret Pet, which will have its premier tuesday at the ungodly hour of 8:30AM. Pretty happy with how it sounds. My teacher was saying today that I should bring a Red Bull for the horn player since I'm asking for a high E. How about this instead. Tell the fucking horn player to lose a hundred pounds and stop watching so much fucking anime, then maybe he wouldn't have such a hard time hitting a high E?

Tomorrow is going to be people-overload. Plus I'm going out after. Tonight I'm gonna rest my chemistry with some nice music history paper writing. I really love my teacher - it's starting to get weird. I knocked on his office door yesterday and we had a strange little chat. Least I felt better. That's a long story for another time perhaps. Perhaps not.

, my soul i
Eugene

may showers

Tue, 13 May 2008 07:06:59 GMT

tonight i spent roughly four hours on my final orchestration project. the assignment was to orchestrate a folk melody out of the thirty or so our teacher demonstrated for us...or orchestrate our own shit. i'm doing my own shit and...well...it's pretty shitty! i like how it was when i had it arranged for organ etc. but ermm...well y'know. i spent four hours and got nothing done. literally running in circles, writing and rewriting the same six bar intro. not getting anywhere. this isn't even the cool kind of post thom yorke makes on dead air space when he's been rehearsing for seventeen hours straight: "eyes fallin out 01010111 oyyy its all bullocks!". no, not like that. this is more like, "i should be ashamed of myself for not being able to figure out the proper voice leading for five fucking string instruments and move on in a timely manner." plus woodwinds/brass/percussion. plus all these rules of parallelism and....oh right, they're there for a reason. because every time i play it back on Finale, i'm like, "what's that bit right there oy bullocks" and then i realize it was a parallel fucking fifth or something and i have to change the whole fucking line again. my eyes are permanently crossed and i can't undo them. haven't slept in 18 hours. tomorrow eese a nyew day. i hope.

~Eug

Room On Fire

Sat, 10 May 2008 05:03:12 GMT

01. What Ever Happened? - B Major (begins with sixteenth-note B unisons in guitars. dominant of Track 4: title also lends itself to this in the form of a question.)
02. Reptilia - B Minor (B's are now in eighth notes and in the bass. parallel minor of opening song: registral shifts in bass.)
03. Automatic Stop - F# Major (back-relating dominant: applied dominant of B.)
04. 12:51 - E Major (title is a specific time. big resolution. resolves Track 1-3's B dominant: answer to question in larger harmonic resolution.)
05. You Talk Way Too Much - E Major (same key as Track 4, only more rhythmically unsettled. sets off new set of conflicts.)
06. Between Love & Hate - A Major (ends on C Maj: seems more structurally significant than...)
07. Meet Me In the Bathroom - G Major (ends on D Maj7: seems more for color, although, right after other similar ending in Track 6.)
08. Under Control - C # Major
09. The Way It Is - B Major (ends on G# Minor - definitely linked to Track 11.)
10. The End Has No End - C# Major (with weird Nirvana-esque intro/outro: A/E*G#/D#.)
11. I Can't Win - B Major (rhythmically stumbling end on G# minor - echo of Track 9. leaves us hanging. "Yes, I'll be right back" might insinuate further resolution in next album, First Impressions of Earth.)

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 23:09:20 GMT

I got a new shirt in the mail today. It's black with gold around the edges and the collar is lined with white. It's all the rage in England but the label says it's made in China. I guess nothing's perfect.

I don't know why I've been so on edge lately. I feel like a weirdo sometimes, the way I don't talk to anyone and do the least possible amount of socializing on any given weekday. I feel creepy. I creep myself out. My phone rings as I write this and I don't answer. I'm afraid I might snap someday and really hurt someone...or possibly myself. I'd be just as likely to get into a fight with the wall or a door as another human being.

I had a peculiar dream last night where I was at school; I think my brain was drawing the connection between going back to school today after spring break and coming back to school in the fall after summer vacation is over. There were familiar faces in the halls, waiting outside the music office for something. It was the start of a new semester. Some girl who feels entitled to constantly be breathing down my fucking back was there and said hello to me. I told her to fuck off and she started to cry, which is one of the aforementioned things I'm afraid could actually happen someday. There was another part to it but now I forget. I was in the atrium with my Music History teacher, walking to a room we've never had the class before...

I got a new shirt today. It's black with gold around the edges and the collar is lined with white. It's popular in England but the label still says it's made in China. Oh, nothing's perfect.

~EugeneguE

haircut etc.

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:30:07 GMT

Her: You have...really...soft hair.......

Me: Thanks! I use conditioner!

...

grumblegrumble. oh well. today is a new day. i'm torn between places i could potentially go shopping today. i just might have to hit up two completely different neighborhoods.

by God, that sounds like a challenge.

~JooJooGene