"Scribtotum" is my piss-poor latin word meaning "To write many things." I just didn't want to call this a blog, you know?

This one's more of a rocker... the type of song I sing acoustic that used to drive REDACTED crazy: "You're wasting these songs by not having a band!!!!" Feh. Thanks for not wanting to be my friend after I left your band, REDACTED. Where's my video, REDACTED? Maybe to sing Making a sign Cuts the mist out of my mind Calling sound Culling it down Brings the lightning to ground Soften the sanity focus I'll be the upside down roses I'll only see by my own Bright Light Is there a tone A word or a rune I can carve into my bones? Draw me a card Mirror in shards I am wholly in the parts Yet another song about making music and the creative thang. I started this one on the 19th, promptly forgot what I had played, then figured it out again last night and this morning. Next!

It's probably the first full song I've written in a year or so. Culled from a couple of false starts and listening to lots of Son Volt, Eleventh Dream Day, and Go-Betweens. As should be expected, it doesn't sound much like any of 'em. Called "It Will Matter," here are the lyrics: Can I talk you down From the highest roof in town Can I make the sounds Clear but not too loud That'll make you wanna? Can any body Really get inside your head? Can any body Put your tears to rest? Can I make you smile Like you haven't in a while Do I have the style Low but not too wild That'll make you wanna? And I'll bring Cooling water And I'll bring A sturdy ladder And I'll sing Enough that it will matter I'm of no mind to flatter That might just bring your laughter I'll still hold my hand out to you (repeat verse two) --copyright 2004 Matthew Wayne Selznick Maybe this will bring the muse out from hibernation. It is Spring, after all.

Well, this one was particularly bizarre and vivid. It started with my old friend Roger and I showing up at a house apparently shared by greenplaid and a young Demi Moore. For whatever reason, we were there the night before a trip to Disneyland. Roger and I were supposed to sleep in the kitchen, which of course, being a dream, did not seem all that unusual. When the Disney portion of the dream came around, Roger was replaced by jane_grey and an unidentified friend of greenplaid. But this was not really Disneyland, this was like, UrbanBlightLand -- if Main Street USA was replaced by, say, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in downtown Long Beach (was it Chris Rock who pointed out that Martin Luther King Jr. street in any major city was guaranteed to be in the ghetto?) We were quickly engaged in a staged but very convincing and realistic morality play involving a black man, a young, poor Korean man, and some upscale occupants of a limousine who seemed to be instruments of some dark force. The black guy and the Korean guy made all the right choices, with some help from us, and even avoided a conflict with…

I think I'm becoming less cynical as I get older. This is strange, because I don't think it's supposed to work that way. I look at some of the people I know who are older than me, and by and large I see depression, world-weariness, and of course cynicism. Now, I have my sadness, my occasional regrets, yearnings, what have you. But I feel pretty good about life and human beings and all that. I see another minority edging toward equality, despite what the godsayers and our president (yes, I know that should be capitalized -- let's see him earn it) might attempt. I see two! honest-to-goodness robots crawling around on the surface of Mars. I'm writing. I have a dog that looks me in the eye, and a cat that asks for pets as soon as I wake up (and lets me scratch her belly.) I'm healthy. I just finished watching Forrest Gump on television. I remember, when I first saw it in the theatre years ago, that I thought it was a manipulative piece of fluff. Now, I'm more willing to be "manipulated" by a film... in other words, I'm willing to feel something. As for fluff, well,…

A couple of hours ago, I saw my wife off on a short business trip to Northern California. Even though it was five AM, I couldn't go back to sleep. Got some coffee going, fed the dog and let him out, and found myself in the musing mood that usually comes to me in the earliest of mornings. I've been reading biographies lately. Fredrick Pohl's The Way The Future Was, and now Sting's Broken Music. I think I've previously read just one biography, of H. P. Lovecraft, and that was at least ten years ago. I wondered why I'd done two in less than a month... maybe it's a sign of growing maturity, or a sign, perhaps more accurately, of an awareness of my age? Reading the stories of a Grandmaster of science fiction and a music hero of my teenage years in their own voices (I hope) helps put my own life in perspective, and helps realistically chart what I'd like to see happen next. On the one hand, I wonder at how early in life each of these people achieved a degree of success I've let to see. There's no resentment or disappointment in myself there, for Fred…

Recently, someone asked me why people use LiveJournal. "Is it a diary? Who sees it?" In trying to describe LiveJournal, I realized I had some ideas about it that I'd never directly considered. I'm putting them down here to hopefully solicit some discussion. I don't consider this medium to be a diary. To me, a diary is something intended for one reader -- the writer. Most of the LiveJournals I read are definitely intended to be read by others. On the other hand, I've seen some deeply personal, intimate writing here -- stuff that moved me with its candor. What would inspire people to bare their hearts to strangers and casual acquaintances? The first step in examining the question is, of course, to examine my own motivations. Why do I write in this open forum? Recently, I posted my personal governing values, and the flaws I perceive in myself these values are designed to help correct. What on earth inspired me to put such stuff where anyone in the world could read it? The answer is in the question. By putting such things in a very public record, there's a much better chance that I'll not ignore it all in…

It's Michael W. Dean's $30 Music School. Five hundred + pages of everything the DIY creative person needs to know, from starting a band to writing your own contracts... it's chock-a-block (and how often does one get to use that old saw???) with tips and useful anecdotes that only someone who's a peer with Ian MacKaye and Henry Rollins could know. Seriously... some of the stuff you'll know, some of the stuff you forgot, and some of the stuff you didn't know you needed to know. It's all in here. I don't plug often... listen! That's all.

There are So many fucking Christians In this desert town When strangers meet They exchange churches Like kids comparing baseball cards Cell phones Are the boom boxes Of the new millennium The desert encourages Forty year old women With fifty-year wrinkles Brown And Crevassed To wear tight sweaters Short denim skirts And fuck-me boots In a group of ten teenage boys Eight are skinheads Seven are puffy gym-class bodybuilders Four (or five) are white supremists In hip-hop baggies Two Are missing Home, hovering over their laptops Plotting their catastrophic statements And cowering in fear of their peers. NASCAR should have a church here. Seriously. New blue jeans Pressed Equal dress slacks I wonder how the Punks Hippies Pagans Queers Democrats Skeptics Last 'round these here parts? And where do they hide? And where do I find them? -- written from a Starbucks in Victorville, CA, USA