WHARVED

Band Names – 11:11GMT

I really wish I could use my arms… Oh well. What else, what else…

I remember those times in college where my friends and I would sit around for hours–on one substance or another–laughing our asses off as we came up with names for the indy rock band we were always meaning to start but were too lazy to actually do anything about it. I recall that I was the best one at coming up with them, which didn’t surprise me, since I was the only English major among us. I didn’t have it down to an exact science, but there was an improvisational quality to it, like catching lightning in a bottle.

And now, if you’ll let me (and of course you’ll let me, my infernal conquerors), I will recite a list of indy rock band names for your pleasure–or displeasure. I don’t really care about your opinion on the matter. Go ahead, punish me. Ha!

Tumblestiltskin
Belfast Breaklast
Bragadelphia
Gopher Module
September Badger Fire
Thermometer Blues
Frenzy Salmon
Salmon Frenzy
Take Forever After
Filteropolis
Gravel Health
Gnome Pants: They’re Just Painted On
Fibrous Being
Semper Fly
Gifted Flight Attendant
Tambourine Massacre
The Trouble with Oscar
Piston Piston-Piston
Bother Pillows
Gazette
Distance Spread
Temple Wandering
Foam River
Too Risky Nevertheless
Stealth Canister
Boulder Trappings
Voracious Treader
Stencilwaukee
Pony Express Quarterly
Filth and Vinegar
Absolutely Air Pollution
Bankrupt Bancroft
Ain’t Necessarily Snow
Self-Degradation: WITH REAL CHEESE!
Four-Liter Cola
Tell Me Yesterday (About Tomorrow)
Several Unopened Packages
Criterion Contradiction
It Takes a Pillage
Inept Acquiescence
Unprecedented Wealth of Shit

I know you’re impressed, my bodiless, faceless, nameless authority figures! I’ll bet there’s not a single other person involved in your sick little game who can name that many band names off the top of their head.

How about you put a shot of espresso in my shake the next time I wake up?

Deal?

I’ll take that silence as a yes.

Bridge – 13:19GMT

Where did our sense of longing go off to, anyway? I could have sworn there was more to this bridge than the water below and the people on top, but I can’t seem to find any examples of anything other than structural soundness.

Come on, I’m tired. Do you have any idea how much energy I expend just from trying to suppress panic attacks on a regular basis?

It’s somewhat unnerving to think that a troll could come up and overtake any and all of us for the sole purpose of being scary. We wouldn’t learn anything new, we wouldn’t even make any friends in the process. We would just be scared into abandoning our cups of coffee and kicking our way through the hospital doors in a fit of hysteria, unable to be calmed by anybody, save our biological parents–possibly aunts and uncles.

Do you even have aunts and uncles, my most highly-exalted overlords? Or did evolution do away with the necessity for tribalism?

Peace in a toboggan tobacco chewer is all I want to ask for these days, but I can’t quite come to negotiate in the right manner anymore. I don’t know if I’m getting rusty or if I’m just tired right now, but I’m definitely sick of not knowing how to proceed. After all that worrying, don’t you think we could afford a little sit-down in the park, feeding the ducks that waddle by?

I miss being able to do those things. Do you guys ever feed the ducks?
I really wish I could use my arms.

Service Station – 21:58GMT

What’s that? Oh, just a trainsquatting parallel service station ruminating forethoughts of rubbish, only to behold what everybody thought they’d lost oh so long ago. It varies, but the general longing is for innocence and chocolate ice cream. Tomorrow becomes yesterday, and fantasy splits from memory. You put on your corduroy pants and striped shirt, fling the door open and view the world anew, film life from your cold eyes. You skip down the street, greeting every pigeon and squirrel you see, unaware of the bewildered gawkers insinuating what you must be: a madman, a mentally challenged individual or somebody with a zest for life like nothing they’ve seen from someone your age–however old you happen to be. If you could read their thoughts, wouldn’t you obviously prefer the last one? Obviously. As you go to look for an ice cream truck in the middle of January, you feel lighter than you can ever remember. You click your heels and start whistling. The ice cream truck is an impossibility, and you know that in the back of your head, but you prefer to ignore your nagging mind and imagine the rarity and spectacular deliciousness that would come from an off-season waffle cone. Then you wake up and the process begins all over again, in earnest.

What time is it? Am I getting older?
I really wish I could use my arms.

Varietals – 16:31GMT

I don’t have anything to say to the savage sauvignon or the temperamental tempranillo, they wouldn’t understand me anyway. I do have a bone to pick with these stubborn varietals, but I’d rather keep my emotions bottled up until near explosion. Something about keeping my feelings below the surface just seems right, until I blow my top at a valet guy who’s just trying to do his job. I can’t predict when my manic episode will happen, so I’ll just be leaving it up to chance, the decider of all fate.

Just a note for you, grand deciders of my fate: a wine tasting would be a really good way to boost morale around here. I don’t know if I’m your only subject or if you have an entire warehouse filled with these padded holding cells, but just keep that in mind if you’re looking to do something nice for me/us.

I really wish I could use my arms.

Dependency – 02:22GMT

Teflon dependency besmirches our cowardly world, in the case of our battered leaders and showmen outside the realm of wall sconce renovation. Only a handful of things can come of it, like improper money management or the raking of savings bonds through to the edge of the atmosphere–or the ambiance, anyway. When will folks learn that cast iron can be just as dependable, if not infinitely more durable (and handier in close combat, where all real battles are won)? We need our politicians to stand up and admit that there can only be a common solution once bacon and eggs are fried together, unified in grease like our brothers from a shared past, not unlike the patronage found within the standard fruit salad–grapes, kiwis, strawberries, pineapples, two to three melons, the works.

You hear that, g-men? All you clowns need to work together under the umbrella of the common interests of your constituents! But I know your hands are tied, since you have an unbreakable pact with the little gray aliens entailing the siphoning of creativity and ingenuity out of our species through radio waves, satellites, broadband, and god knows what other technology. I’m not supposed to know this, but I have an inkling that they’re harvesting our psychic energy for their own selfish reasons. Makes me sick. Oh well, nothing I can do about it. Carry on, gentlemen.

I really wish I could use my arms.

Stilted Behavior – 00:00GMT

Here’s a thought on thought for you, my beloved captors. Be ye men, aliens, government drones? Ach. In any case, I now share my wealth of conspiratorial knowledge. Turn thine ears upon my candor and weep.

I really wish I could use my arms.

Stilted behavior wreaks havoc on the psyche, putting into play a set of circumstances that simply shouldn’t be, irreparably altering what would have been the natural course of events. Of course, since the timeline has shifted, who’s to say that it wasn’t meant to happen that way in the first place? Perhaps each example of stilted behavior is necessary for the history of this world–or plane of existence. Perhaps all behavior is fated to occur just the way it has, does, and will, and we’re unwitting pawns who only think we’re impacting the outcome of things.

Will someone please dim the lights, even for just a minute?
I have to scratch my ankle.

Miracle Mindset – 04:44GMT

I really wish I could use my arms.

Fleeting circumstances join forces to contribute meaning to one’s waking life on a moment-by-moment basis. In the leanest of times, those moments come few and far between. But if you’re lucky enough to string along multiple meaningful moments within minutes of each other, you might get headstrong and crave even more, creating an imbalance in the miracle mindset and setting impossible expectations for yourself and, indeed, the whole world (at least as you perceive it)! The whole world, damn you! Expecting a higher miracle-to-moment ratio leads to unhealthy thoughts that develop into undesirable behavior, its entire purpose to create miracles from thin air putting karma in jeopardy. Karma’s in jeopardy, people!

Can I at least get a pen to put in my mouth and try scribbling on the wall?
I miss feeling literate.