| Taxi Driver |
[Dec. 18th, 2006|01:09 am] |
I watched "Taxi Driver" again. I know I shouldn't have, I know it. But I did, with Jahn. That movie scares me. It scares me because of how accurate it is. I am just like that taxi driver. I can't communicate sometimes. I get so lonely and I get so confused and angry and I try to connect with people and I just can't. And everything Travis does in the movie, it makes sense to me. I wouldn't kill anyone, I promise, but it makes sense what he does.
I don't want to grow up and get a job and be enveloped by horror. Travis tries to be a cab driver but he can't, he is still himself and he can't lose himself, and he tries to fake and pretend like he's a regular cab driver but he isn't. I am one of those people who can't become anything other than what I am already, and I just hope I remember never to try, no matter how bad I feel. But the problem is that everybody wants you to try. Everybody wants you to grow up and stop being you and start being something serious. Part of me wants to but I don't think I ever could, and I think if I tried I might end up like Travis, and like that guy who robs the convenience store in that movie, and like so many people end up in the cities or anywhere, just losing themselves completely and getting enveloped.
Violence is not the answer. I have to remind myself of that because it seems so often like it is, like it really is the answer. I have to remember the truth. |
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| Rock n Roll and all |
[Nov. 9th, 2006|06:18 pm] |
A brief and sheepish update of "the music career":
I am having fun being a rock n roller. I am still with my band of scrappy stragglers known as the Harpoons. We have been doing great. When we went on tour across the Eastern half of the USA this summer, we ended up getting a record deal with Minty Fresh Records, a Chicago indie label who have put out groups such as The Cardigans and Veruca Salt and some others. I finally signed it recently. We are going to make at least one record, probably two, maybe more after this contract runs out.
By wonderful luck we will be recording with an awesome, semi-well-known producer name Brian Deck. He has done records with Iron & Wine, Josh Ritter and Modest Mouse, to name a few. He is really cool and honest. We'll record it in January, probably release it (internationally!) in March or so.
We've been playing shows, and they are great. We even are going to play at the big-deal music festival South by Southwest in March. March, what a month it will be. We are learning more and more songs, and arguing fiercely (in a very good and friendly way) over which ones will be on the record, and what the record will be like.
It is all very cool and it is especially important for me to remember what it is really about. It's not about me, but it is about other people who listen to music. Rock n roll can save your life and that is what this is all about. There is so much poetry in this world that goes criminally under-noticed. We've got to notice it and commune with the perceptive, the open-hearted, the secret poets hiding in the hinges of the world. |
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| Loneliness, idolatry and livejournal.com |
[Nov. 7th, 2006|03:55 pm] |
1. I have been re-learning that loneliness is not necessarily an affliction. Loneliness is everywhere, and it can be very wonderful. For the sake of the survival of civilization, we've made it out to seem like an undesirable condition, because if everyone were always alone, then civilization would die out. And it's true; you can't be alone all the time; you wouldn't survive. But you can be lonely for a long time and it doesn't have to be bad. Loneliness is humanity. Everyone is lonely, because every person is the only person inside their own head. And it's fun, and you need it, and it is often a welcome antidote to the chatter and bustle of civilization: sweet, sweet silence; privacy; time to be alone with God. I walk around friendless these days, and I am realizing (remembering?) that it can be a joy to have no one to call or talk to or have lunch with. It's certainly no reason to be any sadder than usual. So I won't be. I'll be like I am, and hope that no real reason for despair comes along. If I can keep my head clear, the odds are in my favor.
2. Idolatry is everywhere. Everywhere you look people are trying to declare themselves godly, without ever saying it outright. Politics, fashion, social interaction. So many people whispering under their breath, "I am God" or "this thing is God." Even religion is ninety percent idolatry. Especially religion. Religion can't accept human powerlessness, can't accept death, can't accept the vastness of the universe, so they create a god. They say, "This is God. Don't disrespect God. God is in charge of everything." But what they are really saying is, "I created God. Don't disrespect Me. I am in charge of everything." No, I say. That is not God. God is not graspable like that. God created me; I did not create God. I can never understand God at all. Even me saying this is self-advancing and is borderline idolatry. But I have to keep striving for humility in God's presence. Idolatry is the part of human nature that we have to control; it is the yetzer hara, the evil inclination.
3. I started to miss livejournal. How are you people out there? (Is it just Katie Harper and Katie Disabato?) Leave me a comment and maybe I'll post some news on the music career and all that jazz. I mean, rock n roll. Love you. |
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| it's that time again |
[Jul. 30th, 2006|12:38 am] |
Listen up. The news of my life is: I got a record contract with Minty Fresh Records and I'm recording an album to be sold in stores all over the world next month. (That's August!) My band is called Ezra Furman & the Harpoons -- I know it is self-centered and I am sorry for that -- and I need you to suggest album titles. I can't tell you yet what songs will be on it because I'm not totally sure.
So to reiterate, SUGGEST ALBUM TITLES
If yours gets chosen you will receive a FREE poisoned milkshake. But beware, it is only a metaphor. |
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| Album title and tour |
[Apr. 30th, 2006|10:19 pm] |
Hey. I am looking for a good album title for my forthcoming album. "Old Glory" is out. Don't ask me why. It's complicated. I want you to suggest album titles. I've got some ideas of my own but leave yours in comments.
The album's almost finished. It'll be fully rock n roll-icized with lots of soul.
By the way, the tentative tracklist:
1. Mother's Day
2. How Long, Diana?
3. I Wanna Be a Sheep
4. I Wanna Be Ignored
5. Halloween Snow
6. American Highway
7. Hotel Room to Casablanca
8. My Soul has Escaped from My Body
9. Little Red-Haired Girl
10. On the Road No. 22
11. I Dreamed of Moses
12. Lydia Sherman
ALSO IMPORTANT: I'm going on tour in the summer - me and my backing band of scrappy stragglers, the Harpoons - and you should come to my shows. They'll be on www.ezrafurman.com so you could look and see when I'm coming through your town. They're not posted there yet but they will be. In the meantime look at www.myspace.com/ezrafurman if you like.
Love Ezra |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 12th, 2006|07:14 pm] |
Passover is here again, and it never fails to hit me in my gut. It is truly a holiday of the gut, with all the food restrictions and highlights, and all the visceral storytelling and the hard-hitting emotions and all that. This is my first Passover without my family, and I wish I was with them. Hillel’s traditional seder and then tomorrow Seth’s Harvard seder will have to suffice. I am ready for Pesach. I really think I really am ready.
We are free. We were slaves and now we are free. Just think about that. That is amazing and incredible. In so many ways, this redemption applies to all people. Turn it over and turn it over and turn it over, and every time you will find something new. I never get tired of Pesach.
Ask questions this Pesach. Understand the centrality of the question to all of existence. Your existence is a question which you answer by living.
"It is an old saying: Ask a Jew a question, and the Jew answers with a question. Every answer given arouses new questions. The progress of knowledge is matched by an increase in the hidden and mysterious."
- Rabbi Leo Baeck
Chag Sameach, everybody. |
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| For your consideration and comment |
[Mar. 6th, 2006|05:28 pm] |
"The Jews have come from the tragedy [of the Holocaust], and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror, with their work, not their crying and yelling. Humanity owes most of the discoveries and science of the 19th and 20th centuries to Jewish scientists. 15 million people, scattered throughout the world, united and won their rights through work and knowledge. We have not seen a single Jew blow himself in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people. The Muslims have turned three Buddha statues into rubble. We have not seen a single Buddhist burn down a Mosque, kill a Muslim, or burn down an embassy. Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them."
– Wafa Sultan, Arab-American psychologist |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 6th, 2006|12:35 am] |
I realize that I've said things like this before, but things are a little different now.
Kat and I broke up for good and we will not be getting back together.
I'm just writing this to tell some of you guys what's going on, and so you know, whether or not it concerns you. That's all for now. |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 26th, 2006|04:21 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | "Fear of Sleep" - the strokes | ] |
I’m empty and full oh boy screaming down the streetways in the city oh baby oh baby fuck I’m headed for a brick wall and I just know it will be soft as anything |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 13th, 2006|04:52 pm] |
Kat and I broke up kinda. Doesn't seem like a permanent thing. But we are broken up until further notice. We won't see each other until May, so I guess we will work things out then.
In further tellable news, Ezra Furman & the Harpoons had our first concert on Thursday. It was spectacular. In case anyone is even remotely intrigued the set list was: 1. Mother's Day. 2. My Soul Has Escaped From My Body. 3. I Wanna Be a Sheep. 4. How Long, Diana? 5. Hotel Room to Casablanca. 6. American Highway. 7. Cuban Dog Blues. 8. Dark Secret. 9. Halloween Snow. And we recorded it. It came out sort of iffy - yuh can't hear the drums or the harmonies.
One more thing. I want to call Dave Lavon but I have no idea how to do so. If you have any leads, lead away. |
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| My Dream Last Night |
[Feb. 10th, 2006|11:44 am] |
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I was taking a dump. Then Jonah came along and sat down on the toilet next to me and started taking a dump of his own. There were no dividers between these toilets. We acknowledged that it was sort of gross to be doing this right next to each other, but we decided to rise above that. I started making him laugh somehow. I think we were talking about Greek gods, or some kind of religion with a lot of different weird gods. After we were done we found Dave Lavon’s wheelchair some place, like at ETHS I think. Why did Dave have a wheelchair? I don’t know. The thing is, it was heavily associated with his car. Anyway, me and Jonah both sat in the wheelchair and it started automatically driving itself home to Dave’s house. We just went along for the ride, and it pulled into Dave’s garage. We said to ourselves, oh shit, we don’t want to get caught hanging out in Dave’s garage when Dave is off in Israel, Mama Lavon will kill us. I was trying to get of there, but Jonah wouldn’t get out of the wheelchair, and it was rolling backwards. I pulled him out of it and we scampered away to safety. I think Sam Garfinkel made an appearance and made a joke about the name of the street Dave lived on. Then Jonah and I met up with Dave and walked together to a gym, where we talked about Judaism. Dave said he had been studying how to challenge people when they made incorrect claims. Dave was talking about the traditional Jewish lifestyle and how it was the perfect way to live. I said no, there are a lot of problems with it. He said I was wrong. Then I started singing the screamy part of “Let’s Not Shit Ourselves” and Dave smiled intriguedly. Then I realized that I couldn’t think of any problems with traditional Judaism except that it was hard to keep to. Dave agreed that it was. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 19th, 2006|02:01 pm] |
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Now I am back at school! Break was epic. I enjoyed the greatest American city, Chicago, and also the elusive Hawaii, where my family blew up, but in a good sort of way. And I had my first merry christmas, in Connecticut, meaning I celebrated christmas with christians and didn't not enjoy myself. I also went to Ann Arbor for a lovely weekend with lovely Kat Bawden. She's dynamite! Except less destructive, I'd say. Maybe. Break was full of ups and downs, overs and outs and ins. It was good, it was all good. I have been thinking a lot. And writing too. I think I might write a li'l novella about this gorilla. More on that later, maybe. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 10th, 2006|01:37 pm] |
Things Like New Year's Resolutions:
-Be more assertive (you know what this means ezra)
-Stop eating when full
-Abolish sarcasm
-Run more
-Don't be embarrassed
Well I'm off to have my wisdom teeth plucked. Want a book recommendation? No? Okay, Tropic of Capricorn by Henry Miller! |
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| Concert in Chicago |
[Jan. 5th, 2006|07:42 pm] |
IMPORTANT (although i should have done this earlier)
I havea concert tonight, ages 18 and up, at 9 pm at the Beat Kitchen, which is a cool place on Belmont. 2100 Belmont. You can remember because 9 pm is also 2100 hours, military time. It's me at 9 for 45 minutes, then a couple of Chicago bands called SkyBlyne and Best Days Behind. Yeah, their names rhyme. So happy New Year and BRING EVERYONE YOU KNOW!
-ezra |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 6th, 2005|05:45 pm] |
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I can't quit thinking about pain and blood! |
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| Up all night like an idiot |
[Nov. 16th, 2005|02:51 am] |
When the night gets late, and you just can't sleep - you're looking at your clock every twenty minutes and every time it's twenty minutes later - and your alarm is set for 8:30 a.m. and the CD you were trying to fall asleep to ran out of music and your roommate is asleep and the night is big and you are small, well, what the heck else are you gonna do besides write?
That stupid moon is glaring at you from the black black sky, wondering when you're going to stop thinking and just join it and the other inanimate objects, but your soul is trembling and you can't stop that because it is all you can remember ever being, so you bow to its every whim.
You can't even think of anything to write and you write anyhow, probably because it is a homonym with "right" and that idea is all you can hold onto when things are so crazy, and oh lord your roommate begins to snore which you know will build to a deafening sawing sound from experience with nights like these.
You wish somebody else was up, anybody, and you think about calling people, and then remember the last time you did that, and how they were just confused and unhappy and not at all good to talk to.
And you're not confused or unhappy, and you'd be great to talk to, even if maybe you are a little confused, and perhaps more than a twinge unhappy.
So you talk to the blank page that has never not listened to whatever you had to say. |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 9th, 2005|05:52 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | "I Need You" by the Beatles | ] |
I am very confident in my new major advisor. He's so awesome. First thing we talked about when I met with him today was the White Sox and how two weeks into the season he saw a White Sox game and said, "This team's gonna win it all this year." and his friends all laughed at him. BOO YAH MICHAEL ULLMAN'S FRIENDS.
Other pluses: He teaches History of Blues and History of Jazz, and he thinks math requirements are ridiculous and dumb. I think I've made the right choice.
Also, is anyone else tired of sexist women claiming to be feminists? I'd like to rant about that with somebody. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 31st, 2005|04:27 pm] |
Listen up! Thanks for the response to my cry for help. I don't feel desperate anymore - people were helpful, but I am just kind of unstable. I may need the help of my closest friends again. I think, since they are so awesome, that I am going to be all right.
Plus, I got a new phone! Same number. I need absolutely everyone's phone number. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 29th, 2005|08:40 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | "Across the Sea" - Weezer | ] |
I'm scared of Halloween, so I'm staying in right now until I get up the courage to go out. I won't dress up, though. That's too scary. I am only braving the outside world because Job wants me to go to Moksha's concert. So I'm going to go. Being scared isn't much of an excuse to not be a good person.
I had a fantastic conversation with Cecelia today! It was illuminative and purgative.
Recently I went to an OK Go concert; it was so good! And a great band opened for them called Juliette and the Licks. I went with good friends and it was a lot of fun, and it was right after a successful Major:Undecided Show, a successful midterm, and a successful
HOLY CARP THE WHITE SOX WON THE WORLD SERIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was great! And we painted the cannon which people paint when important things happen. It was beautiful! CHICAGO! CHICAGO WE LOVE YOU!
Also, I'm playing a concert at Brown and Brew (a coffeeshop at Tufts) on Tuesday night. From 9 to 12. Ahh, it's futile. I love it. |
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