Lying on the bed next to a stack of books, trying to read Amis, Vollmann, Mailer, and Greene. Nothing will stick. Past midnight and still wearing the day’s shirt and tie. I don’t want to relax. Sneaking glances at the window across the way where a couple of big beautiful girls are getting dressed to go out. Watching the pilot light on the heater glow and fade. Waiting for a catastrophe, a reason to unplug and run, to get basic and brutal in some far-flung mosquito soaked village…what do I do? I make images. I fuss with typefaces, color palettes, and pixels. I live behind screens, conducting my life in 72 dots per inch. I should be a soldier. Sometimes I wish I went to war like my grandfather: hardcore military, making tactical decisions down there in the muck, crawling on a cut six-pack with a dripping blade between my teeth. Racing across hard-packed tundra in the middle of the night while searchlights sweep the horizon.

“You must become tough. Strong like nails.” These words play through my head, wrapped in a brittle Russian accent. Why is my mind manufacturing imaginary Russian advice? I do not know where these words come from. Probably a snippet from some action movie circa 1985, back when Russkies and not Arabs were the villains. Regardless, the phrase offers sound advice because I am not tough, certainly not like nails. To achieve any degree of toughness, one must have a goal. A reason to be tough. My goals in life remain well hidden.

The only thing I can think about right now is that I cannot remember what Tom Brokaw looks like. I can picture all of the major news anchors except for Tom Brokaw and it’s driving me nuts.

Adultnapper – Real Subjects
(from Real Subjects 12″. Mule, 2006)
One of my new favorite artists – his 12″s on Mule are hot electro-techno collisions and he performed damned well at a recent Minimoo party; simultaneously sinister and inviting, sort of like a juiced-up Ectomorph. Speaking of…

Tuxedomoon – What Use (Ectomorph Remix)
(No Tears / What Use Remixes, 2000)
Utterly transforms the 1980 avant-rock original into icy Detroit nihilism.