I'm scared!

I'm scared.
I'm deciding to go travelling,
and leave this little life I've built for myself behind.
I'm afraid of messing up royally,
but feel it's a decision I've got to make.
I'm not sure why I'm making myself do this,
but I'm selling nearly everything I own, putting on a backpack, breaking my lease,
and taking it to the road.
I'm going to go from Austin to El Paso, that's my first "plan", but it's likely to change.
I'm thinking of just thumbing rides, and this is alternately exciting and frightening.
I'm going to end up in San Francisco, after passing through Arizona and New Mexico,
and then I'm going to make my way up to Seattle, where I'm looking at an acupuncture school.
Then, I'm not sure what I'm going to do.
It might all be a horrible mistake,
but I'm willing to take that chance.
Austin just isn't feeling quite right.
I'm not sure,
maybe it's me,
and that's what I intend to find out.
Aaron

The Legacy of Aaron Fast

So, after google searching my name (it's been a while!), I found a couple of other Aaron Fast's out there, and I would like to invite them to a battle to the death for Supreme Aaron Fast Supremacy (yes, I realize that this is redundant).
One Aaron Fast is a Kentucky U student, and I wrote him an email saying "Hey, you stole my name!" plus some other stuff, and I'll let you all know if he writes you back (and by you all I mean...no one...bloggin to the trees, baby). Another Aaron Fast is a registered sex offender. I hope this doesn't come back to haunt me!
I don't know, there were some others.
My friend Gabe Dominguez (sorry gabe, i had to use that picture!) aka shake your peace ...wait, what the hell was I going to say about gabe?
I'm not sure.
I've been away from this tab for too long.
um...my friend gabe, aka shake your peace...um...is a nice guy.
As for my other friend, Greg "Cosmo D" Heffernan, I'm always watching what he's up to, and it's always full of surprises. Lately, he's been to my almost-home-town, Washington, D.C., and has made friends with pianist Vijay Iyer, and I'm excited about his future.
As for me,
I'm turning into a groupie,
rather than a musician,
and I'm unable to complete anything.
I guess that's why I'm supposed to go to acupuncture school!

Aun Aprendo (I Am Still Learning!)

This is an image that Francisco De Goya (1746-1828) drew (in black chalk) at the age of 80. Written above the old man walking with two canes is the phrase "Aun Aprendo", which means "I am Still Learning".
I love that, and am trying to make it a part of my life,
but i'm not sure if learning means going to school,
or saying fuck it,
and seeing what happens.

well,

i've just finished reading a nice book called "life is so good", an assisted autobiography (the last one of those I read was the miles davis autobiography ) of George Dawson, a 101-year-old black man from Texas who learned to read at the age of 98. (The book is copyright 1999, and I learned that George Dawson lived to be 103, passing in 2K1). The early part of his story obviously revolves around being a young black man in the segregated south, and it's a fascinating firsthand account, both more and less terrible than you'd imagine (a seemingly very happy family homelife contrasted with seeing one of his older friends get lyched when still a child). After that, there's a lot about him leaving home, first to work for a white family, then just to wander via passenger and freight trains (he gets around this country as well as Canada and Mexico).
Rock and Socks, George.
Anyway,
here's what's going on:
I'M TRYING TO GET ABLETON LIVE TO WORK AND MAKE MIXTAPES FOR YOU PEOPLE! and by you people i mean, my cat.
and i don't have a cat.
so for me.
but I'm interested in making nonsense mixtapes, and it's an interesting process, involving things like tremendous latency and things i've never considered like ASIO.
It's also going to cost an awful lot more money than i expected to get set up. rats!

OK, cool things I've looked at recently:
Nikki S. Lee, a born-in-korea, now in the u.s. photographer/artist/thinger who "After observing particular subcultures and ethnic groups...adopts their general style and attitude through dress, gesture, and posture, and then approaches the group in her new guise." She hangs out with hip hop heads , schoolgirls , punk rockers , old ladies , and more, then gets passerbys, or members of the group to snap a group photo of her with her friends (I'd put friends in quotes, but that would seem cynical). I've seen her work in museums, and it's fascinating. Here is a link with some of that work, along with some of her other work, including a cool series of photos called "part", which are essentially intimate moments between two people, with one of them just cut out of the frame.
She's obviously got some fixation on identity, and I read a site talking about how the eastern view of identity considers the person as less solid, and views them more as a functional component in a group of people, i.e. you are who you hang out with and how you function within that group?, something like it.

Also, one of my just-about-favorite artists, (who I've already turned my man Cosmo onto, and he's going to be the only one reading this, so it might be redundant), William Schaff .
I first got turned onto William Schaff because he did the artwork for lift your skinny fists like antennas to heaven (see header to this entry), the penultimate album by a band that will always have a special place in my heart, godspeed you black emperor.
ANYWAY, go to William Schaff's flickr site (he used to have his own, but so it goes), and check out evrything there, but I have to admint I have a particular affinity for the mail art (scroll down in the column on the right to find it).

From that site, somehow, I got linked to THIS site, one artist's attempt to subvert money, and turn us all onto Noney, in which all monetary notes are handmade and worth their "aesthetic value" in a person-to-person system of barter. Get it?

In a less highbrow artistic aside, I enjoyed Weird Al's new video for "White and Nerdy" off of his MySpace page (who knew he'd have one!).

I was linked there courtesy of my favorite website of all time, WFMU's BEWARE OF THE BLOG , which I usually read right after my email.

Ok.
I'm done.

Oh rats. I just manually typed in all of those links for this whole post, before seeing the link tool at the top. Shucks! At least I learned what a=href means.

Well, it's been five months...

and the rest of my blog looks like a different world.
I'm going to start documenting my life again, my advenures in money, music, and you know, god and stuff.
Today, we start with the heavy stuff (jesus!).
Seriously, jesus.
Now, those of you who know me, might know that I'm jewish.
But forget about it.
Because my dad's christian.
or protestant.
Or something.
or was.
but then he turned against religion, so he's mostly kept his mouth shut about it, and done his best to mutter sabbath prayers when my mother lights candles.

But I digress.

today, I've exhausted. After meeting a lovely girl at The Buffalo Exchange yesterday (the hippest clothing shop on neptune), I was excited because maybe we were going to eat breakfast together this morning.

well, I've pretty much ruined that, because I called her FOUR (count em, 1-2-3-4) times last night in the course of an hour.
BUT, I had an EXCUSE!, you see!
I called Once, left a message,
then called again,
and left a P.S.
to that message.
It was charming, really.
THEN, I went into the bathroom, and did my best to shave, as I always do, with a ConAir head shaver, which is way too big and insensitive to be shaving with, not to mention mine is mostly broken.
So I'm shaving with this thing, and I come out of the bathroom, and I've gotten a message in the meantime from this girl (who's not a girl I'm trying to have sex with, really, but just an interesting and potential buddy. she's really great, and into vegan cooking, and ayurvedic medicine, and all of this stuff i'm interested in, and don't have anyone to talk to about).
SO, I call her back, and get no answer.
And i'm like DAMN!
THEN, i decide I'm going to meditate and/or go to sleep, and I should call this girl, because we'd been talking about doing breakfast the next day, and I'm like "Oh, you don't need to call her, you'll talk to her tomorrow" and then the other part of my brain is all like "DUDE, don't be such a puss, this isn't middle school, give her a call".
So I force myself to call her back, feeling really awkward and clingy and creepy (this WAS supposed to be platonic, right?), and get her answering machine again, and then am like "oh well, fuck it", so I hang up, leave the house today without talking to her, and don't bring my cell phone with me. Sorry, Sarah!
BUT, she's got this dance performance she's doing tonight, so I'm going to try to catch that (it's free, and close, and African dance is another thing we're both very interested in, and I'm not lying when I tell you I can dance you face off if you're not some highly trained african dancer).

SO, back to jesus.

So what happens is, I'm leaving my house, and I'm exhausted, and I'm like "I've gotta go get my chauffer's license so I can get a job as a pedicabber (a bike taxi)", and I'm biking for 15 minutes or whatever, and just like falling over exhausted, having a very hard time keeping my spirits up, because I don't, in fact, have any interest in being a pedicab driver (terrible hours, physical stress on the body, just don't feel like it).
But I'm doing it anyway, because I've got to make MONEY!, right? MONEY!, and I'm not even allowing myself to acknowledge the fact that I've got $6,000 in my mutual fund, and that this is the time to use it, but I'm too embarassed to tell my parents that, and i've got one job already.

so I walk into this place.

And i'm like, damn, this woman's not even looking at me.

And it turns out, she's the sweetest woman, and i have a nice time in her presence, even though i'm unprepared for my little pedicab license, because i've got to go spend ANOTHER $35 to get records from Virginia, where I used to live, in addition to the $35 I spend to get my records in Texas, where i'm living now.

BUT, I'm exhausted, and she's seeing how fucking worn out i am, and ends up talking to me about jesus (in a really nice sort of way), and giving me five bucks.

I was charmed.

i read some quotes on her wall, before we had the jesus talk, that had already lifted my spirits, and when she told me "jesus is real", i know she meant it, and I know it was true for her.

Here's why: Well, there's no explaining it really, nevermind.

But, i read this one nice quote on her wall that said "don't worry about anything, pray for everything" or something like that (it was from some gospel).

So i said, i'm so fucking worried about money. Fuck you, God, I'm going to stop worrying, i'm done worrying, please take care of it, god, take care of it, i'm entrusting you with my money as i've entrusted you with any number of other things.
And then the lady walked out and said "are you going to be ok" and offered me five bucks, which obviously I wasn't enthused to take until she really wanted to give it to me, and i was honest about my empty wallet and my empty stomach and how exhausted and hungry i was.
So i went and felt like a millionaire with my $5.25 (i found a quarter in a vending machine!), and got the best lunch i've ever eaten, at some greek deli.

Amen.