Techno Robot Pudding

The sky is ablaze with wispy tufts of smoke; spewed from many an engine taking its last few hits of air before failing and sending the craft encapsulating it into the obsidian abyss. From my position aside the life raft, I can make out plane after plane smashing ever so subtly into the ocean. The nearer impacts ripple my surroundings and create an even more nauseating bob to my current weave. The further-out impacts simply ker-plunk. Like God is skipping stones across the bitter salted sea.

Make that thoroughly salted. It’s hard to figure out what to worry about more; starvation, sharks, or the simple raw stinging pain of the water on my open wounds. They’ve since stopped gushing blood, but I’m relatively sure the alkaline tinge my plasma adds to the immediate six feet of water remains. Sharks have an incredible sense of “smell.” Funny how you think of smell belonging to air-breathing creatures. As if our gilled friends can’t pick up something they can’t see in the water. But then again, scent is very much linked to taste. I hope I am quite rotten before I am eaten.

It’s rather hard to catch food when you’re holding on to a life raft. It’s also rather awkward to call a large jug a life raft. Then again, it’s also rather awkward floating in the middle of the sea with open wounds while your wingmates plummet through the cieling of Neptune’s palace. During the first several hours I spent soaking in this gigantic gloomy puddle I caught myself daydreaming. Or hallucinating. I prefer the first term. It makes it seem like your brain is not reacting to mass confusion, malnutrition, dehydration, shock, and pain as a matter of narrowly keeping itself from shutting down.

One daydream involved me sinking with the plane. I would be rescued underwater by King Neptune and given a special helmet which allowed me to breathe and communicate while submerged. I spent the majority of my visit to his palace sitting on the couch watching reruns of Three’s Company. Funny how I don’t watch that show in real life. Perhaps it’s better when you’re disoriented and fantasizing about not drowning. Or perhaps it wasn’t Three’s Company. I no longer remember. But yet it feels like I do.

I honestly do remember the last album I listened to. It was The Very Best of The Smiths. In fact, I was humming the guitar riff from This Charming Man when the first salvo of missles disintegrated the back of the plane. I kept humming.

Perhaps I will resume that practice. Humming keeps you mentally alert. Your brain works through the rhythms and notes of the music, and it’s not as humiliating as outright singing. If I am rescued, I will hum U2’s All I Want Is You. If I am not rescued, I will probably run out of things to hum.

Well, at least I finally have some time to think.

wow, we’ve not spoken in over two weeks. i confess, it’s a one-sided dialogue (ironic?). i’ve been busy, as you may assume. the final film development is finished and ready for editing.

and my sound art is just plain finished. i mixed the rest of it last night, and needed to do very little to finalize and master. listening to it is interesting. i think it will confuse many people, which is quite alright by me. it might find its way to linkage eventually. though i’m going to wait until after it is reviewed to attempt cramming it on the web. it is five and a half minutes long. it contains some foley sound, some synthesizer sound, and some altered generic noise. the central idea behind it is basically an exploration of what goes on in the back of your head leading up to and during a dream. in this case, the dream is turbulent yet mysterious. i won’t say much more. i’ll leave it to the listener to draw their own conclusions.

finished reading Vonnegut’s book entitled Slapstick. fantastic. in fact, i think i’ll go snag another one of his titles soon. you see, my supply of unread Vonnegut is depleted. all two books, the other being Welcome to the Monkey House. also recommended. as is Slaughterhouse Five.

Conan comes to UB on saturday. can’t wait. perhaps he will bring some of his funny friends. perhaps he will just talk. perhaps we will all just sit down and have some tea.

speaking of which, i need to purchase a kettle.

wow.

went to see Matt Good tonight at club infinity.

wow.

the first openers, Paul Isaac & Red Thunder, were a decent buffalo band. the soundsystem wasn’t working well for their acoustic guitar, violin, vocal combination- but the latter half of their set was fairly promising. the cover of the Hip’s “Wheat Kings” was freaking sweet.

the second opener, Melissa McClelland, was fantastic. she held her own very well standing up there with just an acoustic. her charismatic and witty presentation made some forget that Matt Good was next.

until, of course, he came out. i don’t totally remember the setlist, but i do remember how blown away i was. i’d previously seen him in the same location in october with a full band. while i miss seeing Pat, Rich, and Christian alongside him (especially Pat, he’s freaking amazing); this was a welcome change which highlighted Matt’s talents. this format allowed him to use his voice to the fullest, and he absolutely did. the reconstructed version of indestructible was probably my favorite song of the night though sort of a protest song, life from the minimum safe distance, tripoli, and prime time deliverance were also amazing. the cover of Nine Inch Nails’ song hurt that he performed with Melissa (in Johnny Cash style) seemed at first to be jumping on the bandwagon, but this was quickly disspelled about five seconds in when the heartfelt song started to take it’s toll. alright, maybe i teared up. you ass.

and who can forget his ann coulter talking doll? if he ever takes a break from music, he could make a killing on the lecture circuit. i’m hoping that they’ll come out with a bill o’reilly talking doll to keep her company. shit, it could be one of those saturday morning animated sitcoms! call me Matt!

of course, all the standing combined with the fact that i worked over 9 hours earlier in the day took its toll. my legs and feet hurt like a bitch, and i just came right home because walking on them was like treading jelly. that’s not to say it wasn’t worth it. sweet times.

ALSO, this day marks the one year anniversary of Techno Robot Pudding’s descent from theoretical oblivion onto the hypertext medium. celebrate!