mirando los santos

chachuuung @ 2009-12-02T20:27:00

2009-12-03T02:27:55Z

i had my first day of volunteering at planned parenthood today. it went really well, i think. i spent most of the day figuring out all the fun things you can do with people´s medical charts: like starting new ones (the folders have these little bendy metal clasps on them), adding stuff to old ones, attaching many stickers to them, filing them, refiling them, sorting them, etc. etc. everyone was really busy the whole time, but the receptionist was super nice and funny and taught me stuff and made me feel at home. especially after we made coffee.

now i am tired and trying to download fruity loops again so i can write songs that hopefully my band will want to play.

reading: los detectives salvajes, by roberto bolaño.

MANDATORY AUDIENCE CALISTHENICS

2009-11-15T05:15:03Z

AMERICA!
SOAkING IN SOFT POWER
AMERICA!

do you know the institutions that made you? the institutions that make you.
naming them's not hard; try it!

DROP THE BEAT

*speaker repeats audience offerings*

FAMILY: hi mom, i dad, hey little sister, how you doing? how is home? is it SAFE there?

MANHOOD: hellos abstract code of conduct! hello invisible brotherhood of the penis that drives its furred and blunted sword in to the ground, into our lives. hellos. no i won't wear pantyhose in public. is there any kind of violence we've left out?

FOOD: hello food! hello steaks from Rainbow Foods and hummus. hello sodapop. hello olive bar at Lunds. Do you love me? your packages promised me life. thank you food place. thank you.

INDEPENDENT MUSIC:
hello independent music scene. wanna trade? where ARE we going? nice coat. radical means to the roots, man. like radishes. how can we effect structural change with sound, sonic youth? how can we effect structural change with sound, psychic TV? how can we effect structural change with sound Knotwells? How can we effect structural change with sound Whitney houston? with the police. how can we effect fucktural change with sound, b3n h34th? how can we..psychotic breaks in the sounds of the streets.

GRID: hello grid. hello to all the streets aligned to magnetic north, and to those adjacent that do not. hello Enlightenment Rationalism. hello Hoffmann on Franklin and Chicago, smoking a cigar. hello (specific addresses of friends). hello holy shit we are humans and we walk in straight lines! hello gutter, hello cars.

HEllo NATURE in the city, how's it going? we miss wolves. hello plants by asphalt, you are trying really hard. remember in november? the buffalo where streaming down Lake Street to the river, churning up the earth beneath the streets, it was covered in fallen leaves.

hello RADIO! you're ALRIGHT! i love the way you make me feel like i am not alone. electrical beacon fire, you relayed the fall of Troy to Clymenestra. but what the fuck is a radio wave, really?

HELLO MONEY!: money money money money money money money etc.

chachuuung @ 2009-08-22T03:38:00

2009-08-22T08:55:08Z

bues, bien.

i am definitively back to posting. today's happenings:

slept in my rented, soon to be not rented bed for the duration of ana's shift.

picked her up at pizza luce downtown, 3pm. drank beer. went to american apparel; she stole. met heather, jim's girlfriend, while he was on his lunch break. went and drank margaritas (on ana, thank you) and had our palms read. instructive, at least about hand physiology. made skeptical phrenology jokes with twin straws: unappreciated. drove jim and heather home to st.paul, made them listen to old cities of the plain mix; jim and heather (and i) agree: david's voice is god-like(i explained whiskey's help on torchbearer).

dropped ana off at a lame party. went (very late) to D&D; made new eldridge wizard character. good talks with germy, m kyle, and otha. made fun of trevor's hair and studiousness. picked up ana as she was sitting on gross boy's lap. fought. cried. fought. cried. made up. started watching dune. ana fell asleep (worst movie buddy i have). lucy joined me for crucial sting scenes. tried to carry ana to bed. failed. drove home drunk. can't type more.

love.

ps i gradjamated from college

this is where cities of the plain talks about "dregding the channel"

2009-08-19T08:09:56Z

here's the song: https://www.yousendit.com/download/YkxMS3dsT01LVlUwTVE9PQ

we're planning to re-record it next week. readers! how would you improve it?

chachuuung @ 2009-08-06T01:15:00

2009-08-06T06:17:09Z

chachuuung @ 2009-07-17T12:21:00

2009-07-17T17:25:42Z

*

that's a kiss for all creation, dedicated to the nice Christian ladies that stopped by my mother's house this morning.

and here's your invitation to my band's show tomorrow night, Saturday, at the Steven's Square Center for the Arts, above the convenience store just north of Franklin and 3rd Ave. it's golden oldies night, folks: expect a dirty cover of Golden Slumbers, and some good ol'screaming 60's soul music.

love,

gabe

THE WEST BANK SOCIAL CENTER

2009-06-17T04:13:52Z

my amazingly productive friend Miranda has been working with various local citizens to open an art and performance space up the stairs from the Nomad Bar (West Bank, Minneapolis, MN).

what's this place going to be about? i'm not quite sure yet, but i'm going to their opening party to find out. you should too:

West Bank Social Center Opening Night Social
Saturday, June 27th
7 p.m. until late (see below for details)
501 Cedar Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN

"Help us celebrate the official opening of the West Bank Social Center, a new creative community space where unexpected things are happening! Tonight: Cocktail Hour with a special guest host to be announced! Performances, films, and other multi-media contributions from local artists. Dance night extravaganza! To join our email list send a note to westbanksocialcenter@gmail.com with "EMAIL LIST" in the subject line."

(see westbanksocialcenter.org)

Cedar Avenue as seen from the corner office at the WBSC.
>
ABOUT WEST BANK SOCIAL CENTER

How do you introduce an event space that blurs the boundaries between art and audience, between education and entertainment, between creative practice and everyday life? A place that’s equal parts speakeasy, performance space, and living room salon? We could draft unwieldy mission statements, hem and haw, call on our very best theoretical know-how. Or we could just call it West Bank Social Center and get down to the business of programming the space.

On any given day at WBSC, you might find people helping a local artist test ideas for a new piece, donning white gloves for high tea, or busting a move at a science-themed dance night... and who knows what else? The mix of activities is willfully eclectic, purposefully in flux, and for the crotchety folks who aren’t satisfied with our offerings, there are WBSC open planning sessions where you can propose new projects and events. WBSC exists for members of the Twin Cities creative community—to support their work, sharpen their talents, and nurture a collaborative space for us all to share.

West Bank Social Center Opening Night Social
Saturday, June 27th
7 p.m. until late (see below for details)
501 Cedar Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN

WBSC OPENING NIGHT SOCIAL

Help us break in the new space at WBSC’s inaugural Party! It's a fundraiser, a city-wide social and dance night extravaganza! What’ll the evening hold? We can promise participatory art, drinks, and dancing—the rest is up to you! Festivities start at 7 p.m.

GET INVOLVED

Help get WBSC off the ground! Besides helping to spread the word about our Opening Night Social, there's a few other ways you can support WBSC:

Become a Member: $25 gets you a two-month membership to WBSC and earns you fabulous privileges, including discounted entry to select events, a seat at our monthly Board Meeting (more fun then it sounds, really!), an open programming slot to dream up your own activities, and a membership kit complete with original artwork by WBSC members.

Clean-up and moving crew: We'll be tidying up the space the afternoon of Sunday, June 14th and moving furniture in Tuesday, June 16th. Come lend a hand!

WBSC WISH LIST

Do you have access to any of the following? If so, please send us an email!

Technology:

* PA system (Speakers, Amp, Mixer)
* Microphones
* Projector
* Screens
* AV cords
* Old(ish) desktop computer
* Professional quality video tripod
* Backdrops
* Lighting kit
* Gaffer tape

Furniture:

* Large meeting table
* Work tables & desks Thanks to the previous inhabitants: Aaron, Josh, Annie, & others!
* Rugs
* 25+ stackable/folding chairs or other seating options
* Mobile platform/stage (or supplies for building it)
* Chalk or bulletin board
* Storage or shelving
* Couches & comfortable lounge style chairs
* Coffee table and end tables
* Heavy fabric for drapes; plain black fabric for tables
* Curtain rods
* Compact refrigerator (6 cu.ft.)
* Toaster oven and/or microwave
* Polaroid camera & film
* Garbage cans
* Basic cleaning supplies; toilet paper and paper towels
* Mobile garment rack and/or coat hooks
* Basic tools, hardware, & lumber
* Paint and painting equipment

LASTLY...

If you're still reading, thanks! We can't wait to get the West Bank Social Center rolling.

For updates on our events and activities you can follow us on twitter, check out our website, or send us email at "westbanksocialcenter@gmail.com" if you just want to say hi.

See you all soon!

i think it's gonna be cool. they're having an opening party soon. check it out:

West Bank Social Center Opening Night Social
Saturday, June 27th
7 p.m. until late (see below for details)
501 Cedar Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN

website: http://westbanksocialcenter.org/

chachuuung @ 2009-01-08T23:17:00

2009-01-09T05:19:29Z

htnnny

2008-12-22T05:45:31Z

DO YOU LIKE PARTY FUN MUSIC TIME:

my sister and i are going to make a christmas album for my mom and dad. we might do a carol or two, and cover a few of my mom's favorite folk tunes, and we need a whole bunch of singers.

so i'm putting out a call to everybody who'll be in the city on TUESDAY, to come over to my house to drink festive drinks and sing and strum and generally put a party on record in the space of an evening.

we're pressing record around 6 and will play in a ramshackle fashion til 9 o clock.

beer and eggnog will be plentiful. bring instruments!!!!

on the West Bank at 1903 S 6th St. come in through the back.

call for lucid research participants!

2008-05-16T07:47:55Z

hwy ljers! want to help me with a research project?

I'm doing research on LUCID DREAMING, and i'm looking for lucid dreamers to interview about their experiences.

what's it about?

the basics: the mechanics of your induction process, your individual experiences, motivations and creative/therapeutic goals as lucid dreamers... what PLAY means to you...

i'm also particularly interested in gathering your views on the ethics and interpersonal aspects of lucid dreaming: what role do other beings play in your dreams? how do you think of the "other" in these dreams? and how do you interact with these others when you know (and sometimes THEY know) they aren't "real"...

your confidentiality is assured of course.

i'll be conducting interviews via whatever chat program you prefer, so if any of you think this sounds exciting, drop me a line at gobifish@gmail.com or post a comment with your IM or MSN number so we can set up an interview time. our chats shouldn't take more than 30-60 minutes, i think.

yours truly,
chachuuung

ohh sweet livejournal, i turn once more into your welcoming bosom in my time of need

2007-09-06T07:42:05Z

school punched me in the face without any warning at all. i thought you were my friend, school. i thought i'd won you over; now it looks like all that work, all that self-abasement, all the time spent pretending to like the crappy CDs you played for me was in vain. you punched me in the face without any warning at all.

the state fair on labor day. bloody marys for breakfast. drunken, mostachioed boozetranauts crashing off bicycles into pavement, over and over. tremendous plastic soda cups full of vodka and black label. the scrambler. the ferris wheel. fried cheese curds out of steaming black garbage bins. techno power. booty dancing on the midway. yells of "let's get lewd!!!".

and then tuesday was slow-motion violence day. woke up bleary, shrieking back at an alarm clock that said 11:00 am - two hours past the start of my first shift at my new job. fumbled apologies to too-polite english professors over the phone.

so yeh, bad start to the week. it'll work out, though. this is gonna be a hard hard hard and probably very rewarding semeseter. barring termination on grounds of alcoholism/sociopathy/twitchy eyeballs, i'll be spending the year working as a writing consultant at the u of m writing center. more on this later.

anyway, tonight's horror is me staring glassy-eyed at my first assignment. it's for a class on writing consultancy, and i'm suppose to BLOG on the official writing center BLOg about the early life experiences that made me a reader and writer. BLOGgy Blogggy blog blog. for cash.

i don't know. this licor cafe is a big help though.

skill share 1

2007-08-23T08:53:08Z

when i'm in a dark room, for instance, and i need to throw a pop can into the recycling with the minimum of effort, i use a trick i learned as a kid trying to chase down my black dog in dark suburban forests:

look above your target. for some reason, if you focus your eyes on a spot about 20 degrees above the target, it's a lot easier to see. it can't be just me.

[p.s. the purpose of this "skill share" series is to document the kind of mundane, incommunicable life-skills i've acquired over the years, no thanks to my dad. i've been rehearsing this sort of thing since about 2005, when my biological clock kicked in and i started fantasizing about fatherhood. sad but true.]

chachuuung @ 2007-08-04T06:55:00

2007-08-04T11:57:48Z

tra la la la tra la la

2007-06-29T08:57:55Z

tallulah gosh - beatnik boy
http://download.yousendit.com/C4B27FB51B30192F

summer fun

2007-05-14T11:20:15Z

hey, my band needs 2 loud, portable amplifiers.

how do we do this? links?

chachuuung @ 2007-05-08T03:12:00

2007-05-08T08:13:08Z

thin skin kid
like wet paper
up riverside ave.
face first into warm wind

everything passing right through her, a rattling through of alien things, drumtight translucent skin. heart sick.
were gonna sing about anxiety. mortal fear of the enemy in you. the enemies in you. the many many no-one no I in you.

loneliness.

tell her what? to wait. it comes back. it comes back. it will. it has to. it always does. and yeah, people are always warning you not to cross that line... cuz if you cross that line.. just like never mind.. don't you cross that line. but no one ever tells you what to do if you've already crossed that line. no one ever tells you what happens after the cataclysm.

heart away. but hands and hair and mouth and skin and brains brains brains. (checks hisself) yup, all still here. thats almost enough, having a body.

chachuuung @ 2007-04-12T02:42:00

2007-04-12T07:51:11Z

ohh lah lih lah lyh

chachuuung @ 2007-02-23T00:22:00

2007-02-23T06:44:32Z

kidney (?) pain
spleen (?) pain
what the hell is going on in there? i need to make a doctor's appointment.
lot's of thoughts today. took adderall in the morning to study for european history presentation. it went well, but i felt wrong all day.. active and ambitious, but wrong. reptilian calculation without feeling.

modular, self-examining mental structures. the mental strength, flexibility and reflexivity i need to create new mental patterns. instrumentalized consciousness.

scientific method. data collection: "instantaneous observation" - record daily self-checks.

walking to class, smelling springtime, i realized that i live in a sort of permanent state of emergency. routines/rituals fizzle before they start due to my constantly hitting reset. so rituals... slow life. movies do seem to help. time to try a strong, daily diet of cinema. morning viewings!?

increase nerdiosity. the things i learn in these months will be with me all my life.

cook my own food.

identify self-sabotaging social behaviors and work on them. this is related to courage and to being alive to the great possibilities of the present. radical action within established boundaries of self-damage. brave enough to be strange.

foresight. strategy. nurture ambition.

enter a subject, brain.

2006-12-23T06:10:29Z

ok kids, i'm leaving for spain tomorrow, but i'm home alone tonight and feeling dull as a rock and kinda sad. ana went home to aberdeen today; i'm suddenly lonely, although not enough to go out and find my friends, wherever they are. i can't sit here and not-pack any longer though, so i might just go to palmer's and get boozed up. but i almost hope i don't run into anyone i know; i'm feeling so flat and affectless i'd probably creep them out.

in any case, i know all i have to do is get through the next couple of days and i'll feel better. DUH, i'm going to spain TOMORROW! and i haven't been home for a year and a half...

minneapolitan friends, i love you and i'll see you in 3 weeks.

chachuuung @ 2006-11-15T19:17:00

2006-11-16T01:17:41Z

i'm getting rid of the cellphone. but i have a home phone #. call me sometime!!!

612 338-3898

chachuuung @ 2006-11-15T18:05:00

2006-11-16T00:05:28Z

http://livedigital.com/content/52110

chachuuung @ 2006-11-04T23:35:00

2006-11-05T05:35:00Z

mara_pauline says she's gonna write a novel for NANOWRIMO(dot org). this is super exciting, and i hope if she ever needs some quick hack-job content to fill out a slim chapter at the last minute - she'll know who to turn to.

i think if i were gonna write a novel first of all i'd refuse the impulse to begin a "psychological" novel. (but i think i'm blind to "character", so...)

i'd make sure that form and content were carefully calibrated for complete mutual sabotage so as to prevent my nestling myself into the spongy "benevolent universe" or "coming to a realization about life" crap i know i'm prone to in journal form. a self-sabotage so complete, an entanglement in a form so ungainly and convoluted, that anthropocentrism won't even have a chance, i'll be too busy figuring out how to get from point A to point B to point C...etc.

i'd revel in my godlike ability to just mush the text-world and the thing-world into one big ball of invented physics. actually i'd probably write in all kinds of metaphysical mumbojumbo like that, just cuz i'm god, shit. arrange the heavens however the fuck i want. if any "humans" show up, i'll dismantle their psyches and reuse the parts in ludicruous or creepily diffused ways...

clumsily introduce a ferociously powerful embodiment of NATURE into a mostly urban narrative, about halfway in; invent the urban pastoral.

make the first half a puzzle that the second half must enter and solve..

intrusions of the novel into the real. photo-documentation of a real life shoplifting excursion as coda to part 1.

vertigo-inducing dilations/contractions of human-scaled time

maybe some real lurid fistfights on the city bus. or a tiger-hunt. committing unconscionable crimes vicariously, through a bloody-minded alter ego, named after some friend of my mom or dad's who i think is kind of a creep anyway..

avoiding the psychological means avoiding tedious boy scout scenarios - being 'true'. tie it to the gleeful amoral obsessive in me instead. better to write like i'm getting away with something.

creep. amnesiac. hysterical stick-un-balancer.

2006-07-07T08:52:47Z

ok, gotta ease back into this updating thing. too many confusing things going on, things that could be horrible but i can't tell because i can't manage a shred of objectivity; been drifting back and forth between sorta-ok-ness (before the cigarette), and(after) sinking, drifting, identity-shredding (this is a sinking ship metaphor) horror in the vastness of deepest ocean...

but i seem to remember a couple weeks there in june that were really amazing.

see, the lifeforce-draining effects of booze (and cigarette smoke) always take a month or so to really take hold. in the mean time, amid that long, slow decline of certain pleasure-producing centers in my brain, the booze does wonders. It stabilizes my chemistry somehow, looses the hold of some skull-clenching fist,

keeps King Mania on the throne (err.. at the till..) for days.

i am a man blessed and cursed with miraculous, glorious hangovers. the nighttime debauchements are nice enough yes, (ahhh, silvery dreamscapes...) but ohh, sweet apollo!!, the waking up in the sun next day, still soused to the gills and GOLDEN, eyes, arms and throat all opening to the miracle of sunlight. that makes it worth it.

gasping sweet air, stupidly, swimmingly happy, okwiththeworld, still-drunk as a newborn babe. flitting up stairways in the public library, making eyes, making a spectacle of myself in the park ...i don't care, summer is a miracle, the city is a miracle, my life is a miracle...etc... it goes on and on for days and days and days.

(((( remember when we walked around stadium village, and I showed you the field where my house used to be, and you were feeling kinda bad, but I blathered on anyway, told you a story about the time a moose was fighting an elephant in my livingroom, and the elephant crashed through the wall and stumbled bleeding out into traffic and got run over by an elephant-shaped bus full of elephants who all came streaming out of the bus to moan and grieve for their fallen friend and then all turned at once with a trumpeting of VENGEANCE and trampled the house to the ground?

and we ate at the wok, and told lies, and made a pirate ship out of a parliament box and christened it the ARGY and it really sailed for a while... (that dance wasn't hard to do, was it?) although I started fading as the sun went down))))

never long enough.

drag down this rotten hull of a ship, oh lord,
the crew's all dead, sails torn to shreds,
to the barb'rous sea may i be wed.

or not. maybe I'm being silly, but it might be worth trying to quit smoking again, or getting a little exersize, etc.., or calling up a friend, before I quite MARTYR MYSELF TO A MERCILESS SEA GOD

chachuuung @ 2006-06-23T04:58:00

2006-06-23T10:03:10Z

mojave 3 - life in art

in case of overwhelming loneliness.

chachuuung @ 2006-06-17T04:19:00

2006-06-17T09:47:52Z

i´ve been keeping a paper diary and indulging myself in untranslatable shorthand, which i plan on keeping to myself.

any task becomes manageable when broken into enough small steps.

1. throw backpack onto roof
2. drag big garbage bin to side of building
3. jump onto bin
4. climb over eaves and scramble onto roof
5. pickup backpack
6. open window
7. climb in

if you have the courage to initiate step 1, the rest takes care of itself. a little like nuclear war, i guess. a single test of will at the start, but the rest is purest action.