so look, i haven't forgotten.

goddam right it's a beautiful day!! celebrating maffew stubbs's birfday tonight lol...The Final Four watching The Final Four at seth's. racing little 50 quals tomorrow. seeing herbie hancock this week, mile davis' piano-ist.

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runnastud03 (12:37:39 AM): letterman is like my dad
mas404 (12:38:04 AM): hahaha yesh i know ive pointed this out many times
runnastud03 (12:38:22 AM): haha yea
runnastud03 (12:38:27 AM): someday ill get there
mas404 (12:39:29 AM): and when you do ill be sitting smoking a 2.49 stoogie and drinking a mini keg heine
runnastud03 (12:40:43 AM): hahahahha thanx man

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matt's away message lol --

"im not sure that i can top last years birthday i mean a pool party at tom brokaws and dinner with tim russert can you top that?"

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runnastud03: i dont give a shit if you do or not

runnastud03: i think you should lol

runnastud03: however

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listen i don't even know where to start. last night was phenomenal. we went to the manhammer house for a second weekend in a row. got there at 11 with ant matt felipe and jeff and boy the beer was bad the people were good but we did everything we could to drink it. i'm not even going to go into the night; we had fun. i remember times i've written about everything and forgotten how to say one thing and it bothered me for hours afterwards.

it is simply terminology, obsessive yes, hell yes, but you should know all the people i know who toss around fun and who they're with, and these can mean everything -- to me and to you it means simply the best of everything: luck, love of the kind i know, rising spirits, drinking bad bad beer with grace no not the girl grace but marla, erin, marta, chris, steve, the other chris, the other steve, joe, sonya, mary beth, jess, and the girls guys i can put faces to but no names, weezer's the good life, bob marley's one love, matt stubbs' dawson creek theme rendition, worse hangovers after ice cream sundaes than after bad beer, drunk phone calls are some of ant and katie's specialties among others, a poptart in the nude "sure man," the drinking the bad beer's not bad, the drinking lifts, people going, people gone, guy peeing in the corner, off the balcony, jeff wants to mix faygo with the beer? ha, mad mushroom's cheesy bread!!, she thinks i'm cute, she has a boyfriend, kiss on the cheek, O.K., there's a girl with wings on over that way, ummmm umm... an eskimo, guy likes my flannel, beer pong with felipe goes down to the wire with marla and her boyfriend who is cool as hell he did the seawalk with stubbs, no pot, sonya's uncle is mr alley at central and she is the c-store charmer i met and she recognizes me!, she's works tonight, "you pee'd my pants!", ramping my bike on the drunk way home down the hill after the crossway before the sidewalk to the mighty jordan with ant is fun!!, drunk again and wonder, joe's the man the drunk man but the man nonetheless, felipe has a wife beater and a gold chain underneath the costume, matt watch your head on the ceiling, christ has been drinking since 8, wondering and so simply deterred at that buckle on my belt and pants ripped on the side, sit back and wonder, marvel at their smiles, smile yourself a little.

dear friends, good, bad, ugly, and so forth,

i ask you out of whatever is left in me, out of what tiny bit of gentility and mirror of a sweat shot of sun i have left, ha, please sign the guestbook. no no i'm joking.. kinda. but please consider what's good and where we are to go from here. where did we meet (have we really met)? was it, say, 6-7 years ago or maybe even yesterday at the food court i was peeling an orange for you and having lunchtime conversation about studying for the big gigantic psych test... studying the answers oh yeah and talking about politics, anything, girth of hotdogs, girls, "don't eat the food!", girls, the previous night up all night pressing hard on a creative writing assignment and talking online with drunk katie r meredith and jane, all girls, finding the leaky popice in the box, girls, stubbs shaving his chest into an IU, george w bush (fuckhead), business school majors, girls, rain, almost love with girls, fixing rasberry lemonade iced tea mmm yea, girls, chizzle rides my bike any bike for the first time in 10 years, watching that girl sitting behind me and doing commentary, george w bush (fuckhead), gives the girl in the tour group my number (didn't happen), louie do you remember the one time with the nurse and the really long fingernails and it made you scream?, tony dropps the soap so he has to buy some more and the kid calls to spend his one final minute on his phone card with me, girls, de la cova says kudos on the journalistic-sounding essays, a girl said hi in line, louie wantsta work at the cemetery too!, umm girls, schweet!, i don't know how in the hell to apologize but jeezus i ask forgiveness, mexican-american author richard rodriguez's lecture was amazing and i'll post notes on it later when i have the time, april fool's had a flat tire, jaws (an employee, we call him jaws), george w bush (fuckhead), monkeys like i said, george bush, girls, bingo, you name it, and how. that's what it means. and you know it. and you stay out of this, Fuckhead.

and you do this you'll be received where you should be received: in my heart.

haha.

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this was written in felipe's guestbook:

"recognize real? Since you are such a philosophy expert, it seems like you would know what it means to be real. Its not someone that changes around different groups of people or is constantly having an identity crisis."

and then this was added to, after we got back to the person:

"Who said anything about hate? Youre all quick to defend but have nothing to say. Open your eyes and really think before you speak."

..........

nate gowdy was here (in felipe's g-book, posted a day later than this entry actually heh [i went back and edited it in])...

last time matt ant and i responded, we did so dearly and drunk!! ah the good fight, and it all read almost sensibly lol. and yes, by god, no one is more pleased than i to see felipe be the victim of being accused of having identity crises, i tell him he does all the time! but who doesn't have an identity crisis here and there!?

and there's a difference, too, between any of us lecturing him and you doing so.. fuck words of discouragement in a guestbook, of all things. fuck the typewriter. i am sitting around feeling my arms and my fingers and legs and balls, trying to figure out if i am REAL or not. i must be: 1:00 a.m. i wiped my ass. the sun was just right today, kind of an icy tired yellow. listen, do you know what we are trying to do? are we crazy or do you mean something with your words of discouragement, or is it child's games, or tricks, or colored water? we gotta have blood! bloody shades in cheap hotels; mortar in the streets, shellholes! and young girls running wild down the streets chased by hungry dogs! fuck with the mexican you fuck with the best! my god my god, you are so dull! even the point you're trying to make is dull! it won't last. felipe's word lasts more than a lot of words i know. this is profound. YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW profound this is. all right, listen, do your own thing do what feels good and don't mess with the rest.

i remain sitting in the artificial sun of my three-lighted lamp, almost 20 years old, a 5-minute walk south of FELIPE'S, my god my god, and for it all it is a good day, we are all pretty good today celebrating the birf of maffew although i would hit the first man i meet who starts a nothing-has-to-do-with-felipe grievance in the face. if you have nothing good to say then don't spout it in the first, or i will punch you out. BAM! POW! KABOOM!

but i guess the most important thing this offers and what i am trying to say is this: are you going to be like the rest of the world who holds felipe's letters, my letters, who we are as mexicans brothers sisters lesbians lovers even people who call a dump west lafayette their home and sexy beasts named matt stubbs too, and what we will share with anybody, as well as your own letters (words, thoughts, crises) in a dark closet, your life? or are you going to be like the people he thought he was writing to when he puts his heart on his sleeve (at least he does to me when we're alone in his bed)? ...i'm talking about friends you mother! he likes me and i am glad. i am glad you wrote him, too. perhaps someday we will meet and you will be very dull, and we won't go to bed together, but no matter what you think or how odd you think i am, i will still be glad writing you made me feel like a christmas tinsel hemingway, ha! i do not snap too often, but i think your argument / quivel / whatever-the-fuck-it-is was snapped in two before it even began. if the rest of your life is up to the level of your wit in guestbook signings, some of your worries are over -- you're not good for anything (maybe you're good for nothing?).

do forgive us if we think you're a asshat, for there are times when the knife gets too close, very close, and people are not fair to people. i think, however, that you know all these things. and since you do, this letter and my discouragement of you is long enough, especially for the level of regard i have for you. abre los ojos.

best this way,
nate gowdy

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i'm gonna haveta wrap this up. i can't say anymore, it's too nice out! don't get me wrong, but don't get me right, either. this is my two-cents. it's just that i haven't forgotten. i only want all the parts to be all the parts.

it's good to know what's good.

--nate

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oh and i'm deep into making a nate's ninetys / aughties faves mix cd. so far my playlist is including:

-in the aeroplane over the sea, neutral milk hotel
-mr. E's beautiful blues, the eels
-float on, modest mouse
-you were the last high, dandy warhols
-we laugh indoors, death cab for cutie
-the good life, weezer
-playgirl, ladytron
-the sunshine underground, the chemical brothers
-lost cause, beck / flaming lips
-i don't mind if you forget me, morrissey (sure he's the 80s, but he's back!)
-such great heights, iron and wine ( a cover of the postal service!)
-hundreds of sparrows, sparklehorse
-dear marge, stereolab
-the bends, radiohead
-try, try, try, the smashing pumpkins
-wake up, the walkmen
-today is the day, yo la tengo
-vanessa from queens, stephen malkmus
-always on my mind, phantom planet
-landslide baby, beulah
-war is war, wilco
-[rich] girlz, by some hip-hopper? ha
-sleep the clock around, belle and sebastian
-have you forgotten, red house painters (sun kil moon is singer's new band!)

...this list is tentative...

"already we'll all float on okay don't worry we'll all float on alright" ~modest mouse, I Love You Matt Stubbs!!!

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