My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

Tattoo by Fish, Las Vegas Tattoo, Ybor City

So, my 600th post is about my 45th, and most recent, tattoo.

These lyrics are from what’s quite possibly my favorite Elliott Smith song, the not-so-known, Some Song. It’s part of a little three track collection, the Needle in the Hay – EP. The first thing that draws me to the song is that it’s written almost entirely in the second-person. If done right, second-person writing is so powerful, it pulls people into the narrative with such intensity. اسرار ماكينة القمار To me, it’s so underrated and under-used, in music and literature. لعبت روليت It’s really difficult to pull off, but I think the pay-off is worth trying. The song itself sounds like it’s straight autobiography, Elliott laying out how he saw himself. It’s a very odd mix, he knew he had talent, that he could be who he wanted to be, yet he hated the songs he wrote, hated himself, and he knew he was broken and couldn’t get it together. I understand that odd juxtaposition of feelings toward oneself.

I know I write well, I have skill and my stuff resonates with some people. I know I have a lot of potential to write and do great things, the potential to be the fellow I see in my head. I also hate almost everything I create. I feel like a fuck up, piece of shit failure. I’m just about thirty and I haven’t really accomplished anything important, I’ve screwed stuff up. I’ve wasted chances, ruined things. I’ve made so many bad choices lately. I can’t seem to hold it together enough to be who I want to be. موقع 365 سبورت Maybe I’m stuck the way Elliott was stuck. I don’t know.

Tattoo by James, Stranded Tattoo Studios, Savannah, GA

This tattoo I got in Savannah, GA, the night before my brother’s wedding. Everybody else is off drinking and watching football, I’m getting a tattoo. That really says a lot, I think. At any rate, if you’re ever in Savannah and find that you’re in need of a tattoo, Stranded Tattoo Studios is the place to go. James, the fellow who did my tattoo, was spectacular, and I’ll just go ahead and say it, is probably the best damn tattoo artist in the entire state of Georgia.

As for the tattoo itself, the whats and the whys.. The lyrics are from an Alanis Morissette song, Hand in My Pocket, which is off her North American debut record, Jagged Little Pill. That’s the whats, as for the whys, they’re mine on this one.

(Again, the grammatical error in the tattoo was done to match the way the lyrics are written on Alanis.com.)

Tattoo by Colt, Las Vegas Tattoo, Ybor City

So, this tattoo is from one of my favorite Nirvana songs, Blew, which is on their first record, Bleach. Nirvana songs don’t necessarily tell a story that goes, and then, and then, and then. روليت مباشر Nirvana songs are often a mix of lines that mean something and lines that mean absolutely nothing, so it’s a matter of picking out the important lines and figuring out what they mean as a whole. That’s one reason I love Nirvana so much, every song is sort of a puzzle to solve. اسرار لعبة البوكر

To me, Blew is about being stuck, feeling intensely frustrated, and wanting it to stop. I’ve felt that way for so long… المراهنات على المباريات One night a few months ago, I felt like making those feelings something external, marking them as part of the story of me.

Tattoo by Colt, Las Vegas Tattoo, Ybor City

So, this tattoo… The lyrics are from an Aimee Mann song, King of the Jailhouse, which is off her record, my second favorite, The Forgotten Arm. If you listen to the record in order, the songs tell a story about this alcoholic, washed up former boxer, and his girlfriend, and the arc of their relationship from beginning to end. Few albums are perfect, there are always a few songs that are just “meh,” but I think The Forgotten Arm is as close to perfect as an album gets.

As for the tattoo, well, I’ll just say that if I’m stressed enough, and lonely enough, I’m guaranteed to do something stupid. I’ll do the worst, dumbest thing possible, and I don’t know how to fix that about myself.

So, I got this tattoo some months back, while I was in Cincinnati. I got it my first few hours in town, we arrived and by nightfall I was having these lyrics etched into my leg. The lines are from an Alanis Morissette song, Flinch, off her record, Under Rug Swept. The song is really a story, six minutes of flash writing about this connection between two people, this consuming, unrelenting connection. These two lines, they’re my favorite, I’ve thought similar thoughts so many times.

These lines always remind me of someone, this person who’s always with me, even when she’s not. I was thinking about her that dusk in Cincinnati, thinking about how she has this deep affect on me. It’s like she has a key to everything in me, and I couldn’t change the locks even if I wanted to. The affect is beyond reason, and even when it hurts I cannot make it stop. It’s so like the way breathing affects me, the way a lack of air feels miserable, terrifying, and there’s not a Goddamn fuckin’ thing I can do to quell that lack, or change the way it makes me feel. I missed her so much when I woke up that morning, I missed her before I even left Tampa, and it hit me, it really hit me when Flinch popped up on my iPod just as we crossed that line into Cincinnati, it hit me that this one person means everything to me, that no one else holds so much sway to render me so completely happy, and so perfectly lost and melancholy. It amazes me how lyrics can pull so much out of a person, like some sort of magic spell that make the world clear as a pane of glass.

That’s all I care to say about tattoo #41.

(Oh, the grammatical error in the tattoo was done to match the way the lyrics are written on Alanis.com.)

Well, December’s not going to be perfect, post-wise. لعبة الحظ الحقيقية I fucked it up yesterday. This is okay, I accept it. I need to get back to quality, I’m so far from quality I barely remember it. Still, past all the anxiety, and stress, and nightmares, is me. I’m in here somewhere…

Hi! So, the last part of November went badly. I had trouble with a trach change, and some Xanax, and a girl, and seven seasons Intervention, and my vent, and a rubber ball, and peanut butter, and some duct tape, and a kitten wearing a pashmina… I just didn’t feel like writing amidst that sort of chaos. December, however, is new and wide-open.

I wonder how much longer I’ll be stuck in this rut..

Today was crazy, I couldn’t write.

So, lately my trach’s been bothering me, my ear’s acting up again, so I can’t hear so well. I’m just not feeling so great, I’m kind of nervous all the time. It’s hard to write like that, or just to focus on anything. Then there’s this other box of somethings I can’t write until, I don’t know, five minutes before I die, I guess. I’m trying, though. I’m trying to be better.