222

Hi,

I have nobody to impress here, and I am not writing a personal blog in English anymore. Depending on where my hobbies and/or studies take me, a more international approach might be established, until then - Latvian blog or no blog.

Not deleting anything, obv.

33.

I'm not exactly high; actually, I'm hello, as in, hella low from tripping. You can probably tell by the desperate pun construction.

No dramas, no stories. Can't decide between writing terrible stories with actual anonymity, shitposting in comment sections or just posting on 4chan, since blogs don't cut it anymore.

Fire

Note: This is a rough translation of what I originally wrote in Latvian. Writing from scratch would've been different in a better way.

I came to Tallinn on Saturday afternoon to evaluate the burnt flat, since I couldn't figure what the broker said on the phone; only that the guitars have been relocated to the living room to suffer less from the water. The owner's husband would be waiting for me.

The outside looks fine, as well as the stairwell, except for the burn marks present since January that were to be fixed in February. The doors to my hallway open up.

There's rubble, coal, ash, dust and burnt furniture everywhere. The apartment's broken doors don't serve their function, since the living room is visible through the holes in the walls. As I walk in the flat, I step over wet and dirty carpets, towels and female hygiene products (to-be flatmate had unfortunately left her stuff here already). Holes in the floor, walls and ceiling. As I read in the news, the cause of fire was a fuse box a floor below, but it seemed that all the wires in the apartment had burned - they seemed to have leaked something.

The guitars are gone. No instruments visible, except an ash covered tambourine. Everything stolen on Friday night or buried down. The beds are covered with rubble, all pictures, paintings and drawings have burned down. Both cameras are gone. I fill up a plastic bag with clothes, take my suit that stinks like soot, and leave. I leave most of the stuff at a friend's place and go sit at a cafe to drink the pain away and look for a new place to live. Luckily, before I check into a hostel, Pēteris offers me to stay at his place, since he's away for the summer.

On Sunday I come to pick up the remaining things. Most of the books are still alright, the electric teapot, dishes and flatmates' stuff as well.

On Monday I go to the police, where the owner, her husband and son are waiting for me. After a nervous hour in the waiting room, I go into the interrogation room with a list of stolen things. The total sum is 1434 euros, including: 3 guitars, Kaoss Pad 3, digital camera and Zenit. The melodica, Midi keyboard and pedal effects were left unincluded, since they were all bought used and/or cheap. Thankfully, the wooden cajon is still in Riga and unharmed.

Later on, it turns out there is a witness, who has seen (and named) three men, who drank in my flat on Friday night, as well as moving my guitars closer and closer to the door. There is a chance, that money at least could be compensated.

That concludes all I experienced and got to know.

The things that shouldn't matter

I wish I didn't like people this much, and I wish I could stay home without spending money on beer, instead of eating cheap and healthy, and wasting time on things that matter more. 2011-2012 was spent in a bar, instead of practicing instruments, instead of studying properly, instead of working, and now it all comes back - I'm ashamed to say that I play the guitar for 4,5 years now. Most of the experience has been gathered this year, because I didn't have anyone to meet on daily basis. When I started to hang out regularly, money melted even faster, and a job didn't help at all.

Pictures.

Choir camp. Drunk.

One of the many landscapes. Drunk as well, but it's less visible, since I used a tripod.

My Everything

This song made me stay up for another hour last night, because I had to dissect the band who could make something so incredible. Last time I was touched this emotionally was with Cigarette Duet.

Also, just found out how I spent way more money that I should have in the past few weeks, haha.

Numbers, letters

Time for metaphors!

So, imagine being a bus driver who has a route through a city with 20 stops, and there are people waiting to get on it in each one, and after the final stop, the bus goes on to a brighter future (another city or whatever). However, since you're a shitty driver and have some issues you can't even explain to others, instead of letting people in, you just hang out of the window and highfive the potential passengers as you pass the stops. And the trip is pretty much for nothing. That's the end of the metaphor.

**
A few hours later, I stepped outside to have a cigarette and discovered the plastic skeleton sitting in a chair on our front lawn. It was wearing my only suit, had one leg crossed over the other, and was holding a glass of red wine. (Source)

This is for the people

"i check your blog daily for new updates and would be very sad if there were no new ones over the summer,but i respect your decision either way"

***

Two out of three teachers didn't say a word during my specialization interview. It was painful to talk to the third one, because he was my favorite of all and my message was "hey, sorry, I'm leaving".

It all went downhill since then. I got home, got a headache, fell asleep, missed my bus to Riga, spend half of my remaining money to buy a new ticket for a night bus that arrives only at 3am, then I get to walk for 25 minutes with my valuables to home, then I get to wake up at 10 to meet up with potential clients, who all complain about the prices.

Gotta run.

C

PART 1

One would think my abstinence from writing means that a wonderfully marvelous 2k wordcount piece is being generated over the past two weeks, but, yeah.

Since any last entry, I've married two Ukrainian girls, drank liters of drinks and written three songs, or maybe four. Memories are fading away, so the described events are backwards or mixed up.

Today I made my first sale for the company, about 9k euros. They might forgive the past misfortunes now.

A friend asked me to accompany her with a song today, so I was listening to Imagine and thinking of why it is so popular. I've heard how The Beatles established the pop music sound*, but the first pop song doesn't mean more to me than the hundreds produced today. The lyrics are great, but otherwise, why would you care about who did it first, not who did it the best way for your needs?

Every time I mention how I don't really listen to The Beatles, someone always goes berserk on my ass, because apparently these guys are an exception to the whole "to each his own" thing. Besides, they have created a huge cult and a brand name, with bags, t-shirts, cups, re-releases etc., which is hardly different to what modern pop artists** do. It's cool and trendy to listen to Beatles, but the music is subject to individual opinions just like anything else.

VILNIUS

Saturday night we hopped on to a bus to travel for about seven hours to the heart of Lithuania. Three guys with huge bags, two tripods, stands, poles, cameras, microphones, recorders, lights, reflectors and a clapper.

I hadn't slept much before that, so the night bus seemed appealing, but that didn't work. As we arrived and settled in, the first shooting took place in the morning, in a church, that used to be a cinema. The best part of that was definitely the choir, in fact, I really want to apply for a church choir now, and I don't know if it's possible to do without any religious background.

An incomplete rundown of the other shooting places:
1. Some fancy club that used to be a cinema. Great atmosphere (at least when it was empty) with a piano on a dark stage, perfect acoustics. Daniel and I wanted to come back the next day to record some pieces on it, since we have superb sound equipment and superb piano skills. Vytautas didn't want to bother them anymore. Too bad.
2. A bar that used to be a cinema. Completely fucking empty, except for the two bartender girls, two security guys and a friend of security guys, and us, four people filming and recording sound. Music blasting on full volume, crazy lights illuminating colorful dots around the place and the only features actually in use were the smoking room and toilets.
3. A room in a church, run by an impolite priest, that used to be a cinema, now offers some private screenings, as far as I understood. There was a piano with some text written in chalk on the side, the priest forbid us to film that.

[Information lost]

*Please don't kill me for my abstractly approximate knowledge of music genres, never cared to learn the names and history of that.
**Because you are an artist if you preform songs written by others, just like you are the chef when you bring the food from kitchen to the table)

PART 2

The following is an approximate translation from an entry originally written for the other blog.

I found a new Where Is My Mind cover.

How to describe the loneliness without whining?

Right now I'm drinking coke from yesterdays party, smoking my shitty cigarettes and not working, because I'm tired as fuck. Can't sleep as well, because I forgot to do the laundry and now an hour has to be spent awake. There's a feeling that others are tired of me again. Started to write a song, almost decent lyrics, but melody can go fuck itself, and the chords can go fuck themselves and my fingers can go fuck themselves.

A reminder that this song exists.

Shit, gotta make a list with the songs that I try to advertise for others, because they're awesome, but nobody else likes them, and then I'm sitting home and my heart is pounding, and I don't know what to do, because I have to talk things over, but nobody else cares. And then everyone is surprised that I go to the christian cafe every day, where everyone is polite and talks to me, and secretly tries to save me. Maybe one day I'll be the guy running around with a maniacal smile while searching for my bible.

In the moments, when I escape the void, I pour myself into the wrong person purely out of desperation. And then it's shitty and awkward for everyone. Meanwhile I keep the fantasy of fleeing to Vilnius and marrying that girl.

Also, fuck you if you write a question and don't follow it with a question mark in emails. That's the second worst thing I've seen anyone with a university degree do to language. It looks fucking angry, if it's not - it's misleading, if it is, why can't you just write the whatever out properly, so I can understand why you're angry.

I see no future for this blog as a blog. I've tried but there's even less emotional feedback than in real life. I should write articles. Don't be surprised, if nothing is posted over the summer in English.

Stories with no culmination, stories with no morale, stories with no story

I'll start off with the most interesting part of this entry.

A year ago or so, I discovered a single hair growing right next to my nipple. While the ability to grow chest beard has escaped me, there is a tiny bit of fur noticeable, however this one hair somehow reached incredible lengths, surpassing its peers multiple times. The only-love-of-my-life of the time made me kill it, but now it's back, and it has a brother. It is as if my right nipple is radiating some unknown wavelength (hint).

Alright, I'm done with the interesting stuff now. While body hair is in at least some way amusing to society (hey, this is a nice song), my concerns include the monthly identity crisis, what to do with music, what to do with career, studies, work, etc. I can't even do the blogs properly, my comic project, a fucking easy one, I have enough material for 4 entries, require exactly one hour more than I want to spend on it a week. The entries here and the other one now consist of haikus and poems, because there is nothing happening, nothing to tell, nothing to worry about except for my mistakes and misdoings, which are non-debatable, since the only morale is "I should have studied more" or "I shouldn't have spent my nights re-watching films".

In the intense moments of sadness, the friendly neighborhood Christian cafe welcomes me with pretty girls, who all fucking know my name now, coffee and new burgers every day. There was this one girl, who recognized me from her friends picture on facebook, asked me something about that, and that was maybe the second time she served me ever. Today she knows my name, knows my food preferences, knows my habits, remembers what I told her briefly during small talk a week ago, makes a[n actually funny] joke, gives me a discount, besides the student discount, of course. And all I do is advertise that place on my blog every week, and I'm pretty sure that the target audience is not the same.

I wrote a shitty song in November, the only reason it's still alive is that it actually held some story, and the story is not exactly about a broken heart, but, you know, nothing is happening at all. Like depression, but in a very specific direction. Last week, I accidentally wrote it again, different key, different rhythm, progression, lyrics, structure, everything, just the underlying idea is the same. And while I have no difficulty publishing my half-assed poems here, I'm still ashamed to put the fucking lyrics publicly, meanwhile, I hope someone would finally get it.

My plan for Tuesday is to go to the open mic again, this time alone, and just do the fucking song to the drunk, rude and uninterested crowd of a hostel bar, where you'll be lucky not to get splinters up your ass.

Because, fuck it, there ain't many things beside music that actually make me happy today.

I want to meet people and talk to them, but my struggles include *nagging them to a point where they get tired of me, *walking around the old town like an asshole, *leaving the one place where I had a discussion because

i'm a terrible writer, i still don't know what i wanted to say, so i quit for today.

next stop, 100th entry since october, wow. one of the persons that i specifically wanted to read my blog opened it once, when it had exactly one entry. pretty sure she never opened it again. it's not that the blog is important, but i hoped she'd talk to me more. fuck, i don't know what i expect anymore.

hey, faggots, i write poetry

EDIT: I'M APPROACHING 100 POSTS HERE, SO THERE'S GONNA BE A SURPRISE WHICH WILL PROBABLY BE DISAPPOINTING BECAUSE I HAVE NO TIME FOR THINGS AND STUFF.

i tend to put song lyrics up in the title, just like all the other teen girls, but tonight i wish i could put the synth from this song's chorus, because nothing could describe my mood better than that. let me open up paint and draw it for you.

i think that's correct.

in either case, a poem for all the lost souls. not a haiku.

as i walked through the city

there was a bottle of rum

and it wasn't exactly empty

no, still waiting for some bum.

of all the bright moments today

that was the finest one.

the sky was a light shade of grey

so not much help from the sun.

my rhyming skills suck, alright

i use an app for that

so the last two lines i write

don't make much sense. cat.

poetry is hard.

let me just do a haiku

in this moonless night.

oh, i wish i was

half as creative as now

at work, school or bars.

should i take up drugs?

would cocaine make me cooler?

what about a car?

i'll cut my hair soon.

if that doesn't get me laid,

nothing will, damn it.

god, to be honest,

i wouldn't complain much, but

life is tough, i'm not.

yes, i ended up on a superdepressive note, but i lost my acceleration in the poems.

and with this nightly comic i will catch some sleep before work.

island songs, window sills, drunks and was that what i think it was

1. I honestly thought Tallinn would be more friendly than Riga for several reasons, but today I've encountered more drunk assholes than in the cheap (and cancelled) summer festival I went to in 2009, where the only people not drunk were the people smoking weed.

2. Today I had one of the moments that nobody else can know about - and these moments are piling up and I don't like to forget and I don't to update the paper diary. If all those moments happened to me on the same day, I'd be sent to jail just in case, because the sum would be so discrediting, though technically not illegal.

3. My weekend is reserved for schoolwork. However, since I know it's the last day to relax before impending concerts and writing and working and exams and travels and so on, I accidentally stretched Friday 3 hours into Saturday.

4. It might not look obvious, but I like the Lithuanian family that I can't communicate with in my apartment. They like how I play the guitar behind the wall, I like how they feed me, holy shit, I hadn't had proper Baltic food in a long time. Lido has price issues, overdone quality and the table cleaning girl wears a parody of a national dress with ugly socks and a "Chinese" tattoo above them (and I really hope that's a menu for the restaurant she worked at before Lido). Living Room at least provides some friendliness, but the specials are always pasta with fancy cheeses and rucola. Tastes great, but today's potatoes, cutlets and borscht just kicked up memories of a better life, when meat was a daily treat, clouds of fat rained large drops of sour cream and potatoes appeared on the plate without the ritual of watching South Park while peeling them.

Too bad for my stubbornness, should have gone to Latvia earlier, can't go tomorrow night.

And then, as another parade of Finnish/Estonian/Russian drunks goes by my window, at 3:08 on a Saturday, I realize how important food is.

Here's me being all high.

Firsts and "good luck next time"s

The first public performance with L has been spent wonderfully. The mics were too quiet, the speakers were bad, guitar plugged to the mixer is not what I want to do often, but, fuck it, I love playing live. L seemed satisfied as well. She said some people came from the other room to see us, and, later, when I complimented a girls looks, L cried out that "she was the one!" Oh yes, I don't need no groupies or numbers, it's enough that pretty girls come listen to me.

The Canadian host was great as well! Miraculously, I picked Feist's song to play a few days earlier, so he liked that too. My blues song sounded the best for me, though, while Medicine Man was hard to comprehend due to my microphone falling away.

While trying to delete a letter, I pressed a key combination that just completely broke the layout for Chrome, and I can't seem to fix it, whoops.

And, finally, all results for news.err.ee flash fiction contest are in, and I'm not in the top 5. While my hopes were sky-high, the fact they published it is putting a stop to my worries. Winning the 200 euros was the most important part, and that's just money. As for the story, it's stupid. I wrote to fill the guidelines and that never works. There are always next times.

I don't have pictures, so this will do.

Security

Apparently, my apartment door was left open, so the guy maintaining the house wanted to be helpful and notify me of that.

The only thing I remember is how I half-chased him out, while he repeated "open" in broken English.

Jesus fucking christ, strangers in my home have always been the worst part of my nightmares. How the fuck do I go to sleep now?

My laptop is not super-expensive, but contains everything study and work related, besides all my pictures (only "backup" on the blogs). Lying on the table.

Ashtray used 4h ago on the window. Provably the smell of tobacco.

Keys to my everything.

Wallet.

If I wasn't scared shitless, paranoid about someone hiding somewhere here, I should really go check everything.

I wrote a song and not a day passed until I realized that it's actually the 4 chord song in disguise

F#m E D A E Fm

The masterful rhythms can't hide that now. Also, after years of talking about this, how can I still come back.

Other news: guests, who got me real bread and rumors from Latvia; headaches; drinking with almost no physical consequences; too many guitars for a flat my size; a surprise performance in 44h from now on, holy shit; work not done; plans on running away from home just to be rediscovered 30 years later as a bum, so when I pick up a guitar to play, my talents don't matter but people like me because they don't expect bums to play guitar. YES, JELLY.

No pictures, because you got like a million last post.

Oh shit, deadline for random mammals. fuck me, not tonight

Music should be nice

I believe it was the Latvian magazine "Rīgas Laiks" that had an interview which mentioned that "Calling a musical piece "background music" is the worst insult of them all." Which is agreeable in a way, of course.

What worries me more is that some people completely ignore the possibilities that music can give us. Next week I'm playing with such people, who don't understand how the organization of a song should be done, but all my suggestions are waved away, "it's more about the feeling, it should come from the heart" no, fuck you, it can be done better, it could be done beautifully, and the public is partially to blame if they only require a bunch of kids on stage.

Hear hear

"Don't write about today's rehearsal."

Alright, so the past few days I was studying, working, writing songs and then there were joints in the living room. Nothing write-worthy, but, speaking of living rooms:

Once upon a time, I was this 12-year-old kid who would discover atheism and immediately dive into it, without any context or "arguments" for the "cause", and start slurring believers on social portals, because I figured there's a war or something. And being on the opposing side is always more cool.

A few years later, my attitude changed to "I don't know" and "let's not talk about this", which still works, because I'm not going to convince anyone. And the first question, inevitably, is "do you believe in god?" which, in some units that I can't describe, equals "do you still love her?" question. Always this philosophical and emotional implication, that is not unlike the girls who drink, talk to drunk people in parties and go study psychology.

I'd like to go to a psychiatrist, though. It would be just talking and someone listening, and maybe giving some good advice or, even better, prescription medicine to spice up the day, no?

Back to the point, the details of which I have forgotten, since an hour has past since the third paragraph.

No, I've changed my mind.

Here's a song.

Here are some pictures I took over the past 2 months.

Number one. The young artist expresses his winter depression through this dark piece. Notice the bright lights cast by park lamps that are opposed by the tall leaning street lamp. The latter is built for practical purposes and is not more or less than just "convenient to have". Metaphore of the working class crisis. The warm colors and a Christmas feeling is used ironically to reflect author's contempt of capitalism. Situated almost in the center, a sign "no parking" symbolizes the countless limitations we have today.

Number two. I accidentally took this today, as I was trying to figure out settings for an ID card portrait, before giving up and asking my flatmate to take a proper picture of me.

Number three. Couldn't get the colors right while taking the picture, couldn't get them right while editing, so just clicked "auto-enhance color" and saved. Teachers would be in awe.

Number four. I still love my fucking view, and I love the moon. Fuck Mars.

Did I mention the moon?

The Moon

For the past weeks, I want to go to the Moon. When I said this to a coursemate, he asked, if that's a bar. But, no, the actual white moon in the sky. Zero interest in Mars, that's just a red desert. I don't think there's much interesting to see for now, all the "there was water here" statements are (as far as I know) based on results from testing, and laser zapping and mining and so on, it's not very visible for a visitor, who has no knowledge in geology.

And Mars is a red desert. You can get very similar things on Earth. I see pictures from Mars, and it looks nice, but I can't really comprehend that it's a different planet. And it's further away, but even that knowledge doesn't make it better.

The Moon, though, is white. Black sky with bright dots, a large earth from the distance (just a dot from Mars), yellow sun on black canvas and a gray scale desert, no movement, no air, no sound, except the vibrations in your suit. Only colors of the surface are from the star-spangled flag. Fuck yes. That gives you the satisfaction, because it can be nothing else than a rock in space.

Mars, no. You go there and look around and see Earth, and as you wander around, you expect someone or something to come out from behind a mountain. But that never happens. And there's even atmosphere, which  create something of an Earth-like sky.

The only things I'd love to see on Mars are the huge mountains. Mountains are cool.

Whoops

NOTE: I was high and posted this in the wrong blog yesterday.

I love celebrating 4/20 and planning to write my blog post about it and then just sitting there stoned for hours and realizing it's 1:29 in the next day.

But, in all seriousness, after countless headaches, after panic attacks about liver cancer and dying, I'm trying to quit alcohol. I started quitting several times - some days I just forgot I'm not drinking anymore, some days I forgot why. And some days I was just socially required to drink to make others more happy. Still, mixing wine with water and pretending that my diet is somewhat serous.

I have people coming over next week. Most likely. Probably. Hopefully.

Unless I work really fucking hard until the end of April, I'll be completely broke next month.

Each is concerned with their immediate need

April 15 is now important because of bombings. This will reflect in various policies of US and allies. Almost 200 injured, three confirmed dead (current data).

I crie evry time.

The same day 55 are killed in bombings throughout Iraq. And, I'm not blaming anyone in particular, but, according to every fucking news company that I check, Boston bombing is more important. Every murder is equally bad, assholes. "But America is a civilized western country and should be safe hurr durr" US has started questionable wars, resulting in deaths of thousands of civilians. It has raised generations of self-obsessed assholes, and the capitalism, as much as it works economically, creates a tense and over-competitive environment*. It is bound to have enemies, it is bound to have crazy people.

I can't wait for the announcement of the suspects to induce a new waves of racism, revenge, labeling and madness.

Meanwhile, after countless documentaries, books, escaped citizens as guest speakers and nuclear warfare threats, internet still produces memes and recycled jokes about North Korea, while millions suffer, eat rats and are sent to concentration camps (along with all relatives and unborn children and grandchildren) for folding a newspaper wrong.**

But, yeah, Boston bombing is totally the most significant thing going on.

*Exaggerated capitalism in South Korea has lead to incredibly high suicide rates, according to Blaine Harden. The only country to exceed their rates is Greenland, where 20% of population have tried to kill themselves at some point of their lives.

**This rant is inspired by this book and documentaries including Land of Whispers and Inside North Korea, to name a few.

Graphs

Most of my 3 readers will know that occasionally I draw incredible paintings, sometimes they're presented in a comic blog.

As of last week, I've began a series, featuring random mammals and their questionable ways of life.

Here's the link, and here's a graph, because everyone fucking loves graphs.