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What do I like?

By Tao Lin

NEW YORK CITY-

I like to type about things that I like. I like music.

I think I need to type 250 words before I can post a link. That is how this site works. I don't know. I'll type about food that I like. I like acorn squash. I like acorn squash in olive oil and sesame seed salt substitute. I like mallomars from Pure Food and Wine. I like coconut water. I like mashed potatos from Angelica Kitchen. I like the desserts at Angelica Kitchen. I like figs. I like bananas.

Here are some links to songs that I like. I like Blacktop Cadence. I like Defiance, Ohio. Blacktop Cadence to me is like an animal. Many animals are pretty. A fish is pretty. A bird is pretty. They are efficient. They seem clean. Blacktop Cadence to me seems beautiful and clean and efficient. The universe is like that. It is efficient and beautiful. Maybe not. I talk about being surrounded by endless shit a lot. I just like these songs.

Last Night... After I Bought The Wine by Blacktop Cadence

Oh, Susquehanna by Defiance, Ohio

Response to Griot by Defiance, Ohio

I want to try cocaine. It will never happen.

me: lets do cocaine

we can buy some

Mallory: okay

me: and do it together

just once

Mallory: its easy

okay

i think i would freak out

me: bring some when you come

we'll do it at pure food and wine

Mallory: no i dont want the responsibility of buying it

what if it has like detergent in it

and i kill us

you buy it

me: im afraid, i dont know how

ill buy detergernt

Mallory: okay lets do detergent

me: will it hurt

we can't get cocaine

Mallory: yes

cocaine

i know someone who does lots of cocaine

i hung out with him tonight

me: ask for some

Mallory: he would get it for us for cheap

me: do it

im bored

Mallory: we are drug addicts

Don't comment saying you can get me cocaine. I don't want to do cocaine. I like to gmail chat about wanting to do cocaine.

What else do I like? I don't know. So far I like gmail chatting about wanting to do cocaine and I like music. I like those three songs.

I like this music video. It is Diagnosis by The Weakerthans.

I am bored. I like this poem by Ben Lerner. I like the way that I like it. I like it like I like eating food or being in sunlight after being in air-conditioning for a long time. Or drinking cold things when I feel hot or hearing someone say something playful and interesting and being playful with me in a way that is not boring to me.

I like boring people if they are nice. Boring people who are considerate. I like them. Boredom isn't bad. Boring people aren't boring to me. This makes sense to me. Big words make me feel sarcastic. If someone doesn't talk I like them. I like people.

I drew this. I don't know what they are. I like them.

Idontknowwhatthisis_2

Why are they blurry. I don't like that.

This post took me twenty minutes or something to format. I got pissed at the computer and this site and typepad. I feel frustration. I am finished now. I navigated the tools and fixed on my problems. I like that.

I am going to do something else now.

What Are Some Comics That I Like?

By Tao Lin

NEW YORK CITY-

I will list some comics that I like and then write descriptions of them in the style of 9th grade AP American History definition lists.

Clumsy by Jeffrey Brown - It is about a person in his second relationship of his life with another person, a girl. The person is in his mid-20s. It shows many scenes from their relationship, not in order. In the last scene the person is happy. In the second-to-last it shows the person crying on the phone and then it shows the person crying alone sitting on his bed. I cried a little standing in the subway station when I finished reading this.

Any Easy Intimacy by Jeffrey Brown - It is about a relationship. The girl doesn't want to see the guy as much as the guy wants to see the girl. But the girl doesn't want to completely not see the guy either. The girl just wants to see the guy a certain amount, and since the guy wants to see more of the girl the girl has more power in this relationship and is able to decide when the guy will be able to see the girl. This makes it so the guy has to either accept this or not see the girl at all. The guy chooses to accept this. It has an ending that is not happy and is also not sad but is very emotional still to me. I think all relationships exist in a state of power struggle like I described, with the power moving around. That the power moves around allows the relationship to continue, I think. Sometimes people seem able to overcome the power struggle and become someone who loves everyone. I don't know how that happens and how those kinds of people feel. Probably they have just prolonged their moments of 'acceptance.' Everyone has moments of 'acceptance' I think.

Aeiou

Spent by Joe Matt - This is about a person who masturbates around ten times a day. The person makes tapes where he edits out the men in the pornos. It is about Joe Matt. Joe Matt writes about himself. He is very brave to do something like this I think. I think I want to write like this. Some people may feel alienated by Joe Matt's porno tapes but some people also will like it, and those people who like it now know it, and so can contact Joe Matt and be his friend. And those people who would feel alienated by this kind of thing will feel alienated and not talk to Joe Matt which will prevent future pain and suffering that would potentially be more painful than just being alienated immediately.

The Poor Bastard by Joe Matt - This is about a person doing things. The person ends a relationship and then tries to have other relationships but it is hard. Reading this I felt that Joe Matt worked very hard. I like people who can work very hard, I think. A person has to be motivated to work very hard and has to dislike being around humans to some degree. By 'dislike' I mean not that they hate people but that they are very sensitive about humans and feel worried and nervous a lot that they have hurt someone or that someone hates them. I think that's usually how it is with people who like being alone. I think Junot Diaz took ten years to write his first novel because he likes talking to people and being around people, according to accounts I've read of him being very social at his readings. Why do some people praise writers who are very friendly and personable? If I meet Joy Williams or someone in real life and she is very quiet and nervous and afraid I would like her more not less.

The Playboy by Chester Brown - This is about a young child hiding Playboy magazines and tearing out one page to masturbate to it. The young child grows up and as an adult has problems keeping an erection maybe due to high standards of Playboy. This and Joe Matt show people masturbating face down, using a bed or a chair, whereas movies and other books and comics I have seen show people masturbating standing up. I usually masturbate like it's shown by Chester Brown and Joe Matt.

Summer Blonde by Adrian Tomine - This is four stories by Adrian Tomine. I like the endings of each story very much. I can remember each ending very well. They were all very moving. I cried at the end of the last story. It was not a sad story and it did not have a sad ending.

Ghost World by Daniel Clowes - This is about two girls. I like the ending. It moves quickly suddenly and feels emotional to me.

My New York Diary by Julie Doucet - This is about a girl moving to New York and living there then moving away. One scene shows a guy wanting to be with the girl but the girl does not want that. The guy calls one night and wants to come over. He asks a lot. The girl says okay but she is going to work while he is here. The guy says he is going to kill himself and he slits his wrists while watching the girl work. The guy cries and it's sad. The girl keeps working for a while. She has no responsibility to help the guy and the guy's emotions seem sincere and somehow uncontrollable, a situation that made me feel emotional. This is one of the few graphic novels I like where the main character is not depressed and would not describe themselves as 'fucked.'

Jimmy Corrigan by Chris Ware - This is about a person who is very nervous around people. I felt really sad in a good way while reading this and looking at it.

Black Ghost Apple Factory by Jeremy Tinder - It is a lot of short stories. I think it felt beautiful to me and sad. It is also strange in a playful way like the author is playful.

Black_ghost_apple_factory_lg 

Listen to Music

By Tao Lin

NEW YORK CITY-

I like all these bands. The Broadways are from Chicago. The two guitarists are now in The Honor System and The Lawrence Arms. The bassist is now in The Lawrence Arms and The Falcon. I think they were something like 19 or 20 years old in these videos. I think these videos of them are from 1998.

I like Mirah. One time I was listening to Mirah in the car with my mom and my mom said, "What is that noise?" It was Mirah's fingers moving around on the guitar. My mom said it sounded like she recorded it in her room and I said she probably did. My mom laughed.

I like Defiance, Ohio. I was in my friend's car and she put them on. I had not heard of them before. The first song she played was "Petty Problems." I said, "That guy is screaming." One guy was doing a raspy voice for harmony or for doubling the melody. I like when bands do that. No-Cash does that. Leftover Crack does that. Or maybe not (not doubling or for harmony) but they do do the raspy voice. The Arrogant Sons of Bitches do it for doubling the melody. Good Riddance does also on their CD Ballads from the Revolution.

I like Leftover Crack. I have seen them a few times. I really like going to a Leftover Crack concert. It is like a giant party but not in a bad way. The lyrics are very depressing but the music is very happy. The lyrics are sarcastic also. It is very fun and a good feeling to sing very depressing lyrics about death, depression, and loneliness in a giant crowd of nice people to upbeat, ska/punk music. I feel happy when I am at a Leftover Crack show. I feel happy at almost every show by a ska or a punk band. Stza is very nice. Leftover Crack fans are very nice. They have a lot of fans that are like 13 years old and they are nice 13-year-olds. At one Leftover Crack show there were like 9-year-olds stage diving. Leftover Crack was called Choking Victim but they got a new drummer and renamed themselves Leftover Crack.

I like Strung Out. This song I put here is my favorite song of theirs I think. My favorite CD of theirs is Suburban Teenage Wasteland Blues. It is their 2nd CD. The guitars and drums sound very nice on that CD. The songs almost never repeat themselves. I like when a song doesn't repeat itself. Each song has a lot of lyrics. The drums are very tight. It is like a giant creative machine on each song. The drummer for Strung Out also plays in Pulley. The singer is a tattoo artist also.

I wanted to include Hot Water Music, Good Riddance, The Lawrence Arms, and some others in this post but could not find the songs I wanted to include on Youtube. I also wanted to include more Defiance, Ohio songs.

I like listening to music.

THE BROADYWAYS "15 MINUTES"

THE BROADWAYS "DROPJAW"

MIRAH "WE'RE BOTH SO SORRY"

DEFIANCE, OHIO "THIS TIME, THIS YEAR"

LEFTOVER CRACK "BORN TO DIE"

LEFTOVER CRACK "500 CHANNELS"

LEFTOVER CRACK "CRACK CITY ROCKERS"

STRUNG OUT "WRONG SIDE OF THE TRACKS"

Why I Am "Prolific" So Far

By Tao Lin

NEW YORK CITY-

In interviews and other places they say I am prolific. I think why I wrote many things so far is because when I was depressed, lonely, in a situation of unrequited emotions, or had just been disappointed by a human being, I didn't watch TV or call someone or drink alcohol. I wrote stories, poems, and novels.

Squid

I don't watch TV because I don't have one, but also because for some reason I prefer feeling existential despair and despair having to do with being emotional and melodramatic to feeling nothing (I don't have strong urges to get painkillers or cough syrup or other things or drink alcohol) or feeling "vacuous" or "distracted" or whatever by a TV show, a video game, knitting, "small talk," etc. For example if I already feel depressed and alone I will listen to music that is depressing and by a lonely person instead of other music. The same with movies. I sometimes have urges to do some of those "distracting" things but the urges are not very strong and most of the time if I am feeling severely depressed I will drink coffee and sit at the computer with intent to write a story or poem or edit or something.


Hamster


I didn't talk to people mostly because I didn't have people to talk to (when I wrote most of what I've written so far) but also because I feel very bad about misleading people or using people to relieve loneliness. If I wouldn't talk to someone normally, when I am not depressed, I feel self-conscious talking to them when I am lonely, because I know some of it must be because I feel lonely. I feel bad when people around me are disappointed by relationships. If I start "hanging out" and being in social situations a lot and if there are two people who come to my reading for me I feel bad that I only talk to one of them or that I didn't talk to both simultaneously the entire time. I don't like when I'm talking to one person and there is another person standing there waiting for me. I would almost rather just not talk at all. If there are three people in a group and I am one of three I feel intense pressure to not talk too long to one person (or to just not talk at all) because the other person will feel "left out." I had a reading and more than one person came and one brought me a flower and that night I lay in bed feeling really emotional about how the person who brought me a flower felt when I talked to the other person. Even if it's someone I don't know who comes to talk to me and someone else taps me and talks to me I feel really bad about the other person. I'm not being very articulate but I think you can understand me.

When I feel myself "using" someone to relieve loneliness I feel like a terrible asshole. I feel like I'm in a movie or sitcom. If there are two people who like me at the same time I feel very emotional thinking about the situation. I want them both to get what they want. Because I know how it feels to like someone who doesn't like you back. I don't know. If both people are very detached people it is better, I feel less emotional and more like it is a life-affirming situation, that there is just a lot of good feelings happening between human beings. I like people who I feel that no matter what terrible shit happens to them they will never feel complete despair but always be a little outside of their situation, viewing it with amusement and complete acceptance, and who accept death also. I am more able to think about those people without feeling emotional in a way that makes me not want to talk as much or have relationships or friends as much, meaning I understand that they will understand that if I do not like them as much as they like me that is something they can accept, and not feel complete despair about. I think I like when people treat me like that. But I am reluctant to treat someone like that, so directly, if I don't know if they are very detached and able to accept things completely; though I think I learned to be very detached and to accept things completely in part because people have treated me in the way I described, which is directly and not in an all-or-nothing way, meaning that if I wanted to be in a relationship with them and they did not want it they would still talk to me, but just talk to me and do things for me in the exact amount they wanted to, always knowing that I wanted more.

Tao_lin_2

If more than one person likes me and wants to talk to me and hang out with me I feel a little "powerful" and "loved" but a lot "worried" and "sympathetic" and I get a concerned facial expression. If I like someone and they do not like me I feel "worried" and "sympathetic" also toward myself, as if I were someone else, but I also feel powerful, because I know that I am able to accept the situation, meaning I won't kill myself or anything like that.

But I also want to type that I think if I viewed myself from another person's perspective I would probably think that I was a person who used many people just to relieve loneliness. And from a certain perspective everyone is just using everyone for everything. I didn't type about that in this post. This post is incomplete and from a certain perspective only.

There are many other reasons why I am "prolific" so far.

I enjoy being alone at a computer with coffee and listening to music and doing things on the internet.

I like drinking coffee and listening to music and editing a story.

There are other reasons also.

Thank you for reading my post about why I am "prolific" so far.

TAO LIN (b. 1983) is the author of a novel, EEEEE EEE EEEE, and a story-collection, BED, that will be published simultaneously in May, 2007 by Melville House in the first two-book debut of a story-collection and a novel since Ann Beattie in 1976. Tao's blog is READER OF DEPRESSING BOOKS.




Tao Lin - Bio









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