I got this from Richard under the overhang outside the bell building in St. Pete High in 1995. I just found it while cleaning. First that tape, now this - I'm soaking in high school this week. Easier and simpler than my 'almost-grownup' troubles? Maybe just different.

2. Rachel
3. Richie

Dont tell him I told you but, Josh told me that you dident call him back last night. That hurt him. He cares about you you know. He tells me that he has dreams about you, nothing obscene, just dreams. He thinks about you constantly, that's all he talks anymore. "what are you to him?" he askes himself. He would ask you out just to find out what you mean to Him, but He's afraid you'd think of him differently, You know, Badley. So if you have any feelings for him, tell him but remember, these feelings are new to him. Hes led an unusual life. He knows things that you would expect to hear from old wise men on isolated mountains. Don't get me wrong, He doesent get shaky around girls at all, only you. I don't know what it is about you, but you got him around your finger. What are you going to do now that you have someone who loves you more than life itself?

Richie

PS: Just ask him, he'll confess
PPS: nevermind
PPPS: Don't Tell Him I Told You, shhh!!

For the record, I've never known anyone, high schooler or otherwise, who knows what love or life mean, but I've known some who've come close - and Joshua wasn't one of them. Richard was, though. How much he idolised Josh, and how much better a person Rich was...

thanks, dad

"The great ideals of liberty and equality are preserved against the assaults of opportunism, the expediency of the passing hour, the erosion of small encroachments, the scorn and derision of those who have no patience with general principles, by enshrining them in constitutions, and consecrating to the task of their protection a body of defenders."
-- Justice Benjamin Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process (New Haven, 1921)

In an email sent long ago.
More about discussing Anthony Burgess and going through old scrapbooks and forgiving fathers and throwing out papers later... after I've done at least one of those things.

don't go hiding, hiding in the shade...
I remember listening to this song for the first time, five or six years ago, as part of a mixtape Jim Webb made for me. We met in Drama class; I was a ragtag girl in thriftstore and army-surplus, alternately loud and fast on speed and quietly comatose on other things. He hid behind long matted hair, mumbling, sketching dark cartoons on my notebooks... we talked about music a lot. Nirvana. Geeky alt-rock. White Zombie. He lived near me, and we rode the same bus when he rode, and when he didn't ride we'd walk the long hot pavement to my house and sit picking at weeds in the cracks, sometimes talking a little. When he decided to really talk or perfom in class - which was rare - it would be brilliant, disturbing but fascinating and with a real and tangible talent. I started to drift away. He started to stalk me. Pages full of Oscar Wilde quotations appeared in my mailbox, death-threat-loveletters made of magazine cut-out-letters, and this mixtape. Nirvana's Love Buzz, Hairspray Queen, Rob Zombie, Tool, Self's Cannon, Spot, Radiohead, Pantera, lots of speed metal, Detroit punk. Fucked-up. Weirdo. I lost the tape, then found it again four years later in a move from one college apartment to another. Considered taping over it, relented, boxed it up to be lost for another year... I just found it again. I've been playing it all day. Jim is married now, with a baby girl and I think another on the way. Working as a car mechanic, maybe, or an assembly-line bluecollar, something mindless; coming home to a beer and the TV. Even I failed him in that. I never expected anything of him, either. I wish I had some reason to look him up, now that we're 30 minutes across the bay and a universe apart. What could I possibly say? What would he have to say to me? Would we even be listening? Maybe we'd talk about music some, about cats and kids, about high school. Maybe we'd just sit and pick at the weeds in the pavement cracks and remember the smells of asphalt and cigarettes and markers on boots, the smell of being 15.

ouch. just... ouch.

musical news

Atom and His Package was fantastic! The Orpheum, full of indie kids, hangers-on, and us, was as always a great little hole in the cracks of Ybor City. We were all out of uniform and so weren't included in the groups of people clustering according to clothing style and musical preference - a good way to be unabashed dorks without crowding. The first opening band was a group of best friends from a local high school, I think, and sounded just like one would expect them to. Second openers The Dumbwaiters were surprisingly good; by the end of their set they had the hands-in-pockets emo throng actually bouncing a bit and shaking marimbas. I can't wait for the CD. Atom wandered in just before the DW set and mingled for a while before taking the stage (and helping break down equipment), assembling the Package, and launching into Upside-Down from Here. Who knew there'd be a moshpit at an Atom show?! Metric System, Books, Punk Rock Academy, Snowshoe BBQ, Hats Off to Halford, Pumping Iron [Fe] for Enya, and Undercover Funny were played, among others. Jason Mewes' long-lost identity double regaled us with stories of being chased through cow pastures in Lakeland and got the crowd dancing. We ran into Josh from Skyline and Randy the strange. A good time was had by all.

subliminal message: While you're online, go listen to Sooz Radio. Y o u w i l l l i s t e n n o w . . .

Finally, the playlist to Friday's Castle jaunt! Courtesy of DJ Tom (thanks for the email):
Playlist For Friday 01/18/02
R = Requested
[all typos are Tom's]

Silke Bischoff - Felix In The Sky
Drawback - Undone
Akanoid - Sin
Cruxshadows - Heaven's Gaze (Bitter Tears)
Clan Of Xymox - The Same Dream
Maliyn - Skin & Lye R
Diary Of Dreams - O'Brother Sleep (Sleepwalker)R
Technoir - Requiem
VNV Nation - Standing R
HMB - Wanted
BlutEngel - Black Roses (Opposite Sex)R
Lights Of Euphoria - Fortuneteller R
Din_Fiv - We Are R
Imperative Reaction - Scorpio R
God Module - Ressurection R
Wumpscut - Soylent Green (Extended)R
Leather Strip - Strap Me Down R
Evil's Toy - Lucifer's Garden R
X Marks The Pedwalk - Maximum Pace
SITD - Snuff Machinery R
Funker Vogt - Harvester Of Sorrow
KMFDM - Boots (Candy Mix)
Skorbut VS Kalte Farben - Into The Void
Suicide Commando - Love Breeds Suicide R
Melotron - Bruder R
HMB - Falling Stars
Assemblage 23 - Naked (God Module)R
Accessory - Deadline (Emperor)R
Tumor - In Hell
Mondsucht - Nachtfalter (Club)
Hocico - Poltergiest R
Spiritual Project - O'Fortuna
Lords Of Acid - I Sit On Acid
Crematory - Tears Of Time (Dance Raymix) R
Wolfshiem - Once In a Lifetime (Extended)R
Covenant - Der Leidiemann (Club)R
Beborn Beton - Another World (Extended)R
Seabound - Hooked (Radical)R
Fictional - Hangman R
Apoptygma Berzerk - Kathy's Song (Victoria)R
HMB - This Fire
BlutEngel - Seelenschmerz R
Leather Strip - Kill-A-Raver R
Infekktion - Brain Dead
Das Ich - Destillat (VNV Nation)R
Wumpscut - Wreath Of Barbs (Nebulous)R
Helium Vola - Omnis Mundi Creatura R
Snake River Conspiracy - How Soon Is Now? R
Rammstein - Stripped R
Marilyn Manson - Tainted Love R
Dead Can Dance - The Ubiquitous Mr Lovegrove R
Garbage - #1 Crush R
Yendri - Ringfinger
Soil & Eclipse - Poetry Of Angels R
Mesh - My Defender R
Depeche Mode - It's No Good R
Equatronic - La Isla Bonita R
Naughty By Nature - Hip Hop Hooray [The traditional end-of-evening bootyshake track. We requested Baby Got Back in honor of Adam's birthday, but to no avail.]

-- Power is when we have every justification to kill, and we don't.
-- You think that's power?
-- That's what the Emperor said. A man stole something; he's brought in before the Emperor. He throws himself on the ground -- he begs for mercy. He knows he's going to die. And the Emperor...pardons him. It's a worthless man. He lets him go.
-- I think you are drunk.
-- That's power, Amon. That is power.

[Amon Goethe/Oskar Schindler - dialogue from SL]