Dear Ariana,

A night of whiskey? Asleep in my car in North Hollywood. I miss an improv jam. Then there is driving home at 2am and vomiting by an elementary school. And sleeping. And waking up in the morning to move my car. Also tennis happens. I learn that I have to move in a week because my roommate's manager wants to raise his rent if I stay here. The look begins again. With my high school friend, looking at photos of people we knew in elementary school who are now fat. And delicious free sandwiches. Trailer Park Boys: it is funny and Canadian.

One girl called me 'nothing boy' behind my back in Jr. High. So what if I am.

I miss my high school AP English teacher who showed me how people can be awesome. And my sixth grade teacher who told us stories about living in New Guinea and being taught how to grow watermelons by a boy named Winepiss. It might not have been spelled like that.

Up and down up and down.

~BRAD~

P.S. Yo fuck this guy

Calamity.

No reason, no calamity, my mind just felt comfortable there. Maybe watch it long enough and it'll change, like a cloud.

Dear Brad,

My six-year-old piano student Arden made me feel like I was in Chicken Soup for the Soul today. She used like the ultimate kids-say-the-clichest-things-to-warm-teachers' hearts cliche, but let me tell you how it just about opened up my chest like a blossom, did that cliche. We usually take a 1/2 hour piano lesson at 6.30, and I swear to god, she touches a key and I look up and the clock says 7.01. I'm always surprised, and I guess so is she, cause today she said earnestly,"when you're having fun, it feels like time goes by in a minute--no, in a second!" I mean, Jesus. Okay. I'll just feel good then. I guess it's that easy after all. Plus, I get paid? What?

I've always hated the idea of teaching, but maybe it is actually rad. I'll have to do a little more research and then get back to you with a complete analysis of American education. Hey be careful, the edge of your seat looks pretty steep, there.

Yeah. Tin Haus was hilarious today too. Someone e-mailed us with the following query:

"I am confined to a Lunatic Asylum[sic]. Most of our time is restricted by the arbitrary rules of the staff. We are allowed a 1/2 hour to use e-mail and to write on the computer a 1/2 hour a day. It took me a year to finish my story. Our mail privileges are severely limited. Might I be able to submit via e-mail?"

I...

ignored it. If you have an idea of how to respond, let me know. I would LOVE to tell you some of the hilarious names we also get, but what if they googled themselves and came across their names here and were humiliated, here of all places? Here and were should rhyme, you know? I feel that complaint is nearly a cliche as well.

I just got a really intense phone call, so now I will stop and go to sleep. I hope the day has treated you kindly.

Ariana

D.L Hughley was born on March 6, 1963.

I have seen the ethical drugs store! But I have no use for drugs at the moment. Neither of the ethical nor of the more insidious children-killing sort.

My most destructive behavior? I similarly pick at the skin around my nails. And I get kind of obsessive about popping zits and poking at my face. But probably my most destructive behavior is wanting and expecting to be liked and rewarded for having no redeemable qualities or skills.

Here is an excerpt from a performance poetry piece that you may be familiar with:

Life is a highway,
I wanna ride it All night long
If your going my way,
I wanna drive it All night long
Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, yeah

--Rascal Flatts, "Life is a Highway"

You know I thought of this moving avante garde post post modernistic neo-classicist piece today, and it has really aided me in stepping back and taking a look at my own life. My life too is a highway. And I am stopping at a truckstop diner at this stage in my life, and there is a waitress with a snaggletooth, and I can't decide between the egg-white omelet or the churros n' spam on a bed of white rice. I have my map out to plan the rest of my journey, but it turns out it is a park map for Disneyland, with penises drawn on all of the mascots. Meanwhile, when I look out the window, I see that my car is being broken into, and all of my belongings are being replaced with Nickelodeon's FLOAM.

Also there is road construction, and I'm probably heading north to the uninteresting parts of Canada, and avoiding all of the fun roadside attractions along the way. And Rascal Flatts is stuck in the tape deck. And I'm gonna ride it all night long.

~BRAD~

P.S. Lord God, please help me navigate this empty, road-kill laden highway of life, God, and Lord, please God.

P.P.S. My favorite part of the L.A. drive was listening to M83 and the female Motel 6 employee who looked at my ID and said, "Wow, you're only 2 months older than me, but you look so much older!"

P.P.P.S. I forgot to respond to most of your letter. Parenting! Hm. And good writing tips that made me look at my current writing project and sigh and abandon it and hope.

La la la gonna do drugs tomorrow oh what?

uh

Dear Brad,

what is your most destructive habit? I pull off all the skin around my fingernails. It's disgusting. It feels great.

What was your favorite part of the drive down to LA?

Wait a minute. I think I know that Korean Plaza. Are you living near the Ethical Drugs Store?

I've always been curious about it.

Oh yeah, I nearly forgot: one place I need you to drive past just as soon as you humanly can is 3rd Street and Rossmore. It's called Youngwood Court. It's pretty close to you. Don't google it before you go...just go.

Today was a wash. A lot of music. The kids next door had a lemonade stand and when they saw me they chanted as one: "HI ARIANA" and my god did that feel good. I bought a brownie (they were selling two for $.25!) and a lemonade and told 'em to keep the change. They're terribly cute. In the New York Times today, there was an article saying that the hierarchy of maturity had changed. "Self-actualization" is no longer at the top of the pyramid. It's "parenting" now. Well, shit, I thought. Since I definitely might be paraphrasing incorrectly, here's the whole article.

This will be a short letter, but it needs a punch. D.H. Lawrence was born on September 11th! Man, there is no way that is not old news in every single way. Miss. FAILURE.

Also, Ten Rules For Writing Fiction. God, we are so young still.

Ariana

Our 'E' on a lean arse key,

I like personal prayer. It's like meditation. It grounds you and focuses you. I used to feel uncomfortable if I ever had to say grace or participate in some kind of group prayer though. I just couldn't always get on board with everything someone else was praying about. And I didn't like saying "Lord" and "God" all the time. "Lord" and "God" as words are very distracting.

"Dear Lord our God, we pray that you give Jason a good interview tomorrow Lord God, we pray Lord that you help Mona find her car keys God, and God we pray that you bring Party Down back on the air God our Lord God God God Lord..."

I like the idea of praying and acknowledging one's smallness though.

I like your video too. Didn't think it was EMO! I wanted a video of Elmo watching me watch your video so I could write "META! META! META! ELMO! ELMO! ELMO!"

I don't like Zinnia. Or maybe I should say I don't like her video. But I don't think I would like her either. I hope she does a lot of beautiful things in the other areas of her life and proves me wrong.

I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU POSTED ICP. Now we're just another corner of the internet.

Let's see...improv. I told you about the jam on Tuesday already, right? So now I am talking about my friend's show on Thursday? It was fun! There were four groups doing variations on a Harold format. It was at a church. I had a piece of Lacy's birthday cake. I don't know her, but I have celebrated her birth by ingesting flour and frosting and sugar. A couple groups were really good, a couple were pretty bad. Both made me want to perform though. I got to meet a lot of nice people too. Maybe didn't actually interact with them much. Sort of missing human interactions...getting a little lost in my own world last few days. Apparently speaking in fragments as well.

My place is really close to the Koreatown Plaza Mall. There's a big Korean supermarket on the bottom floor, which is pretty cool, and an International Food Court. It's interesting being a minority for once. Or I guess I was kind of a minority where I was living in Chicago too. I can't help but think how hard it would be to actually relate to anyone around me though, especially when they're not speaking English. But I don't like that feeling, I like the YAY WE'RE ALL HUMAN feeling. I feel kind of like I'm existing outside of my environment.

I got the weirdest sensation that it was raining just now, but it CAN'T BE.

I think I have to go. And I didn't even include any amusing media files. SAD FACE.

GROUP MIND.

~BRAD~

Bradlington,

Whenever I meet someone that works in advertising, I'm always 1) shocked that they are admitting to it 2) suspicious of them 3) curious and slightly beguiled by them, like I'm standing near a lesser devil in mythology 4) hey, so, Mad Men 5) hey, wasn't the husband on Bewitched in advertising 5) hey, wasn't the dad on the Brady Bunch in advertising oh no now I remember he was an architect. Speaking of advertising, I don't know if you heard, but our hot mutual friend who works in advertising and his hot girlfriend are getting married! Bill and oy vey I have forgotten her name. Uh. Well. Anyway, I would totally accept if they tried to seduce me as a couple. It should be clear at this point who I'm talking about.

On Sufjan: I wonder if All Delighted People would go to All Tomorrow's Parties.

Jarmoosh: First, I want to be whoever that girl is. Second, Oh My God. That clip has John Lurie in it! He is my number one. If people were candles, John Lurie would be duplicated and reduplicated on my birthday cake, lighting up my entire face. Unnngghh. Okay. I am going to try not to make this entire letter about how much I love John Lurie, am inspired by John Lurie, and am horrified that he can no longer make music because of the whole lyme disease sitch.




"I got a bone for you.
'Cause I'm a doggy,
and I'm naked almost all the time.
Bow Wow."

WHAT! That song is the whole point of music!

All right. First thing I did today was pray. This is new for me.
I wake up, sit on the side of my bed, lean over, put my hands over my face, and pray. Who am I praying to? Not sure. It doesn't feel religious to me. It's more like an "oh my god, help me fight Resistance today." It feels a little dumb, and also feels really good.
We may recall last night's intolerable act of serenading myself. I think I may now might be praying to myself. Y'know, to my inner goddess... (no.) No. It doesn't feel inwardly focused, and it's not really a pep-talk.
It's the quiet begging from a part of me that readily admits to feeling a humility toward dedicating my life to trying to create stuff. That part of me does not get heard very often, as 99% of the time, the awesome and impatient side of myself is leading the party, crashing through the forest, hitting up all the bitches.
So, in the morning when I am praying off the edge of my bed, the impatient part of myself wrinkles up its face and goes "who are you praying to? what is this? why are you doing this?" I look at it with both sides of my mouth sagging down and don't respond. "Fine. I don't approve" it says, then gets distracted and leaves me alone. While it's off in the other room, deciding what it wants for breakfast and figuring the day up and muttering to itself that I'm wasting my time, the emptier side of me sits alone on the side of the bed and prays.

I'm still trying to decide if it's stupid. It seems to be working. I feel like a warrior.

It gets more emo! While the sun was setting, I sat on the front lawn and listened to "All I Want" by Joni Mitchell and of course cried, even though all the bicyclists were bicycling right by my house and could just look over and see me being an ass. Whatever, it was barely a cry, like just the sides of my eyes got a little smeary. Then I spent like an hour learning it on guitar, and I could even upload my version onto here I wonder if I could do that!



META! META! META! EMO! EMO! EMO!

Virginia came into my room at the tail end of that and asked what I was doing. When I showed her, she said "you need to look at infinite cat immediately." I did. I have no problem saying it is better than me.

Then we watched Insane Clown Posse's new single.


Just... 0.46.
I could only watch this for 2 minutes before I started to feel like I wasn't going to make it through the rest of my life.

Then we watched Zinnia Jones, a transvestite atheist, give his/her opinion on the topic.


And that is how I realized it was 2 in the morning. How could our forefathers ever have foreseen any of this? If I could choose between going back in time and having a forefather come forward in time and getting to be his tour guide, I would pick the forefather in a minute. Specifically Ben Franklin.

What was the improv like?! Maybe that's too long ago to write about now. I understand if so. You can pretend I asked another question.

Portland is easy, and LA is war. I did not say either of those things first, but I believe them to be true. I am slowly piecing together my chainmail. I wish to the God Above you would start putting some of your illustrations into your letters.

Brad Brad Brad Brad Brad, who was busy with three Brads of his own,

Ariana

Doe Ariana (because you are a female DEER and it is a SYNONYM),

I've been hanging out on the floor of my apartment for the past two days. I've been illustrating mostly, so I don't feel totally unproductive, but then I am also avoiding defining "productivity" for myself so I won't feel bad. Also all I ate yesterday was some drinkable guava pineapple papaya yogurt and some broccoli and baby carrots. Oh, and a:

Doing better today. I had a footlong buffalo chicken sandwich from Subway and a portion of a 32 oz. Bolthouse Farms Green Goodness Juice (I want this to become one of those blogs where advertisers pay you to subtly mention their products throughout your posts). Also, I've been listening to good ol' Sufjan:

Just repeating those two notes on the piano and the phrases "I'm tired of life," and "I'm goin" is totally resonating with me right now. I wonder why the critics aren't all rubbing up, gettin' their critical acclaim juices all over this EP. Maybe they're out of juice. Bolthouse Farms has an excellent selection of juices. Just look for them in your grocer's produce department!

Also I was listening to some Simon and Garfunkel when I went to bed last night after watching the latest episode of Mad Men, a television show on the cable network AMC, which airs Sunday nights, 10/9c:

I enjoyed your musical selections. And that you serenaded yourself. That's probably more tolerable than hearing about somebody serenading someone else with that song. When I saw the title "You Really Got a Hold on Me" though, I thought first of "I Put a Spell on You" by Screaming Jay Hawkins, as featured in the 1984 minimalist/absurdist comedy, Stranger Than Paradise by Jim Jarmusch:

QUIT IT, BRAD.

Last night a few of Peter's friends stayed over. They smoke a lot of pot. They're nice. I do sort of wish I had my own room though because I don't always remember how to interact with people.

I think I might enjoy eating make-up.

I haven't really worn jewelry. I used to wear a watch off and on till around Jr. High. I have also worn two different friendship bracelets at two different stages in my life. I would consider wearing some kind of bracelet again. Maybe an ANKLE bracelet though. Because FUCK THOSE ARE POINTLESS AS SHIIIIIT.

Oh no, I've gone and lost all my future advertising dollars.


Brad brad brad brad brad,

~BRAD~