If I ever complete any novel-length piece of work, I am going to either title it ‘The Ballad of an American Dreamer’ (yeah, stolen, but I doubt the originator of the title will care) or ‘Shithouse Literature’.

I am thankfully alone in the office at the moment. Approximately 30 more minutes of non-itchy bliss. I hate that itchy kind of bliss. It never fails to irritate. Then there is the Christie kind of Bliss, but I think she is in Illinois.

The Czech d00d working here poked his head in and rattled off a few phrases about RAM or somesuch. He reminds me so much of the brainless Jiri from 12Snap that I feel often the urge to violently vomit the contents of my digestive system onto his primness.

Yes, 30 fleeting minutes until my meeting. We will discuss inchoate ideas and from them devise half-baked plans. Same shit, different gathering of the intelligentia where I work. Damn. I have been here less than a week and I am already one jaded motherfucker. I’d rather be a jade motherfucker, actually.

Jsem velmi sileny z idioty.

Two nights ago, we attended an ‘avante-garde’ ballet. I was, frankly, impressed. The music during the first set was fully percussive and incorporated quite nice timbral textures locked in polyrhythmic grooves. Too bad I did not catch the composer’s name. Bastard me. The second was a revelling rolick of semi-dark, upbeat symphonic stuff with hoards of balleters scrambling in a frenzy around the stage while a single, white-clad one practised stretches, oblivious, behind the bars of a cage. Near the end, the music turned more dissonant and the revelers left. The lone dancer came to the forefront and careened and pirhouetted for the best performance of the night. Quite entertaining.

I reserved tickets for the Anekdoten/Present/Magma performance in July. Wee hee!

First day at work. Sunday was a stupifying whorl of one stimulus after another. I arrived in Prague at about 5am. I shuffled sleepily around the city (from Florenc to Vaclavske Namesti to Namesti Republiky and finally to Masarykovo Namesti) and boarded the train to Usti Nad Labem at approximately 7.30. I had a few beers on the way and struggled down dry bread and salami. I fell asleep on the train and missed the stop. Luckily, the attendant awakened me before the next stop and I got on the first train BACK to Usti (I would have eneded up in Dresden – which would have been a catastrophe).

Being in Usti was nostalgic, sleepy and mostly incoherent though I was. Hela was amicable (as was her Floridian boyfriend) and returned my CDs (in two batches … she had to go fetch what she forgot whilst I sat in a cafe sipping coffee and rum). I got back to Prague at 13.00 or thereabouts.

The troubling thing that I learned whilst in Usti was the fact (maybe heresay? I am not sure, but I am still frightened) that Andrew is in prison. Prison. For 30 years. Fuck. Hela smiled her little smile and said something along the lines of that was the direction in which he had been heading anyhow…

What on God’s Smoky Earth could have Andrew done to land in prison for 30 years? Methinks something concerning taxes, evasion, fraud, and everything else wrapped up in that farce of a company he had insisted on fronting (and Rob backing – where is Rob? Does he know?). The same ‘company’ which enlisted the services of Jenicek and me for about 1 1/2 years. Maybe I should count myself lucky to have flushed myself from the urinal of that establishment.

The highlight of the day was the long, involved conversation with Jenicek over countless beers and vodka. Parallels. Chris calls me ‘brother’. I likewise call him and Jenicek the same. We have, no matter our space and time apart, similar aims, similar thoughts, and – most importantly – similar grievances.

I remember very little of the bus ride back, but somehow found my way (accompanied by two exceptionally heavy packs full of CDs) to my flat and crashed into brief oblivion. Yesterday was spent huddled on the couch at times deep in thought and at other times absorbed in music in which I had not had the chance to drown myself for nearly a year.

I sense the coming of a routine. May it not break me.

Errr… drank too much rum last night. Wasted day this shall be. Tomorrow I go to Prague.

I made the best moussaka I have ever tasted yesterday evening. To satisfy Vesna, layers of sliced potatoes (along with the usual eggplant and my typical mushroom/onion/garlic/tomato sauce) were added to the whole. Suprisingly, it tasted even better reheated this morning. A yummy breakfast, indeed.

I finally accurately recorded the monstrously unrelenting bassline of ‘Stone Calendar’. The trancelike qualities whilst performing it should be noted as similar to the focal-on-ambulation idea I mentioned in the last entry. Project: a tape full of repetitive/meditative pieces along the same lines as ‘Stone Calendar’. Ask Tone to write lyrics to all of them.

About three weeks ago, I applied (abortively, I thought at the time) for a computational linguistics position through an agency here in Munich. Today, a kind female dubbed ‘Elizabeth’ rang me with regard to my interest in the position. I was startled. I still expect nothing (which is the best thing to do in any instance) in the long run, but the call flavoured my day like a dash of asafoetida does to a simmering pot of french lentils.

I am contemplating a jaunt to South America for at least 3 months. Loyal and I need some time together to suture still seeping wounds.

Brief icq “chat” with dana:

me -> how is the cantankerous creature?

dana -> tanned

me -> that’s bad for your skin, you know.

dana -> no

me -> of course it is! you’ll have skin cancer within a week! i guarantee it!

dana -> fine

me -> you are not as full of humour as you once were.

dana -> thanks for telling me; i really appreciate sincere creatures.

me -> sincerity is my forte.

dana -> i fortell your forte

me -> your fortellings are usually false.

dana -> i haven’t said they were true

me -> and i am not contradicting you.

dana -> i didn’t say you were contradicting me

me -> and my replies are not intended as inferences into what you have said.

dana -> have i said they were?

Damn formatting. Ah well. Tomorrow morning I should finish finally the govno which must be done to achieve a state of employment again. I should be worried silly about money, but I am not in the least. The problem floats by like flotsam as I walk barefoot on the beach, enjoying the sensation of each step on the sand.

Speaking of stepping, I have been trying to apply ideas (twisted in my own manner, of course) from Boris’ book on Buddhism (specifically on meditation) to my everyday life. Meditation whilst in movement, synchronizing breath with step. I concentrate on the present sensation of ambulation, of my body being carried forward by each step. I must admit that it is a fascinating feeling, especially if prolonged.

(defun permute (govno)
  (cond ((null govno) '(()))
        (t (mapcan #'(lambda (element)
                       (mapcar #'(lambda (perm)
                                   (cons element perm))
                               (permute
                                 (remove* element
                                          govno
                                          :count 1
                                          :test #'eq))))
                   govno))))

So I have just spent an hour updating my livejournal “interests”. A few surprising notes: I found another Magma fan, a Henry Cow fan, and a few other fractional siblings in thought. It is just simply amazing the kind of people you can find when you have a site available to the diversity offered on the internet. One thing I did notice, however, and which disappointed me, is that very few journals I perused were written by non-USA-type-people (only one, in fact).

Still no work on “Stone Calendar”. I shall soon walk the fifteen minute walk to my place of residence and prepare humous (interspersed with the taking up of my gueetar and layin’ some mean chords onto tape).

Yeah.

Whoopie! Today I finalized my residence and work permit in the nefarious, humid, crowded Kreisverwaltungsreferat. Say that 26 times quickly. Fucksheep seems to be down. No idea why. The weekend was filled with pattern matching code which flowed from my fingers and into Emacs flawlessly (well, actually with a few flaws, but they can be overlooked). But, unfortunately, I did not even as much as touch my guitar. Can I will myself to remedy this today?

As in the past, the onslaught of encroaching summer hate (heat) dulls my will and ambition. But I shall stay stranded in this concrete hades until in my pocket once again are those colourful notes which promote escape.

Heat. A breeze would be nice, but this stifling computer lab, windows though it has open, offers not even a hint of one. Bells play about my aural sphere, emanating from somewhere other than this room (although sweltering they may be, as well). Ah, the mediaeval postures of a modern city.

I began a book on buddhism. I am taken back to my days in Clear Lake, alone in my commodious dwelling, poised in meditation, and oddly satisfied. Prolly just nostalgia. Boris gave the tome to Vesna. She might well benefit from its pages better than I would.

I hope to finish ‘Stone Calendar’ tomorrow. It has gone from being a calming, ambient piece punctuated with meditative, pulsating passages to becoming a confusing wash of chaos and evil. And this is a good thing.

What would mother say if I joined a monastery? Father would be peeved. Escape from the toils reeking of penitence into routinized bliss. What a grey future I see. But I have said that hundreds of times and Sweet Entropy has come to the rescue. I await her again.