Hold On to Yourself

Oh man, Nick Cave's lyrical genius stuns me yet again. What scares me is that I actually get this without even thinking about it:

I’m so far away from you
I’m pacing up and down my room
Does Jesus only love a man who loses?
I turn on the radio
There’s some cat on the saxophone
Laying down a litany of excuses

There’s madhouse longing in my baby’s eyes
She rubs a lamp between her thighs
And hopes the genie comes out singing
And she lives in some forgotten song
And moves like she is zombie-strong
Breathes steady as the pendulum keeps swinging

You better hold on to yourself

Well, cities rust and fall to ruin
Factories close and cars go cruising
In and around the borders of her vision
She says oh woah woah woah
As Jesus makes the flowers grow
All around the scene of her collision

Oh you know, yes I would
I would hold on to yourself

In the middle of the night
I try my best to chase outside
The phantoms and the ghosts and the fairy-girls
On 1001 nights like this
She mutters open sesame and Ali Baba and his forty thieves
Launch her off the face of the world

Well, you know
One day, I’ll come back
And I’ll hold on to yourself

Babe, I’m 1000 miles away
And I just don’t know what to say
‘Cause Jesus only loves a man who bruises
But darling we can clearly see
It’s all life and fire and lunacy
And excuses and excuses and excuses

Well, you know if I could I would
Yeah, I would lie right down
And I’d hold on to yourself
Yeah, I would lie right down
And I would hold on to yourself

One day I’ll come back to you
And I’ll hold on to yourself
Yeah, I’m gonna come back
Gonna lie down
And I’ll hold on to yourself

Feel free to listen on my muxtape (on the right). Tell me what you think it means in the comments section. I'll comment later - I want to see if it says to you what it says to me.

Glamor Shots

I’m not highly photogenic. No self deprecation there, it’s just the way it is. My Irish face lends itself to round cheeks and a double chin no matter how much weight I lose. Also, I see a camera and am completely unable to appear natural.

So, going through my pictures recently (both photo and digital), I notice that (a) there are few of me, since they’re all taken with my camera, and (b) the ones of me aren’t all that great – many are from my holding the camera pointed at myself and the little lady with scenic locales in the background.

It’s kind of a bummer. I’m not at mid-life yet, but not too far from it, and I have few really good pictures of myself.

OK, OK, I know – disgustingly narcissistic. But it’s not. A person needs things in life to attain a positive self image, and something that goes a long way is a great picture of yourself to look back to at sometimes.

So that I don’t wax too philosophical, here, I’ll give you an example. Here’s Rob from over at Murder by Baltimore:


It was taken with a disposable camera during a night of drinking in France. Everything about it is accidental. But it’s a very cool picture.

Exhibit Number Two – Eve at Winning is for Losers:


This picture isn’t even the one I was going to use, but another picture she used to have up is no more. Still, even such a candid shot is better than most of the crap I have of myself.

So what’s my point? My point is that you, my friends, need to step it up. I need you to be active shutterbugs when we’re together. Moreover, I need you to share. Take some candid shots of me, especially in the rare event that I to actually look cool or do something cool. Then send it to me.

Please. This ugly mug needs some redressing.

Georgia Hates Fat People

Apparantly feeling it has done all it can do hating black people, Georgia has moved on to victimizing the overweight. Awesome.

I swear to you, when I scour the news for things to comment upon, I do not look for Georgia-related material. It's just that ridiculous headlines catch my eye, and apparantly Georgia is good at being ridiculous. (For Example, and Example.)

Check it out, with my comments in red:




Now, kids, the obilgatory public service announcement: