Lungs of the City

HOW FAR DOES THE HEAD TURN?

2011-12-31T20:58:00.000-08:00

HOW FAR DOES THE HEAD TURN?

The hawk’s shadow is motionless
high in the limbs
against a winter haze
above the alley as he peers
off the back porch
inhaling the ghosts of friends
some of them dead
through the filter

11 p.m.

He is waiting for it to pounce
and wonders if it is instead an owl
as the neighbor
to the East lets his
hounds out
and then back in
when the beast with wheels
to support crippled hind-quarters
yelps

Silence returns
as he gazes at faint Christmas Eve stars
and sips the last of the Imperial Stout
a gift
wondering how the urban bird’s vision
differs from his

Bones aching from the clench of
the steering wheel
along winding roads
mind easing from the
white
line
fever
caught from the country hills reunion
and the stress of the holiday week

He is only sure that he is
where he is

Innards wrestle with the dichotomy
of lost childhood idiocy
and a huge meal
while his head swims in thoughts
of a dead father and the quote
his mother included on the
card
from Hafiz
something about God’s yearning for
“the playfulness in your eyes”

The sluggish impulse to denounce
tradition
and hopes that he is choosing
the correct path
in delicious cocktails
complete the dilemma

South St. Louis dreams
as the head swivels and
the eyes shine

Brett Underwood--Christmas Eve, 2011

THE BEST SONG I HAVE EVER HEARD

2011-11-10T10:25:00.000-08:00

Prisencolinensinainciusol
-We're the same to choose now the whole bin to seen, and then a whole right mary used to cover boss die.
- Brrrr, The checkers of mine keep it cold baby, sustain yeah blue cho woe.
- When they're sayin to choose now the hole bin to see, Then a whole right mary used to cover boss die.
- Wether it's the same as you would copy esteem, you know the chava nava judge is called dream is a sham.
-You're the commin up choose my wife, now let's show the hoba hoba that's gettin lota cover no time.
-Oh my difference to Stan, my life's choosin for my man, give the cause to the much called to rainy girls.
- Oh for something
- My eyes wide senseless and he used some golden diesel....EYES.
- And he called me a sailor, Prisencolinensinainciusol...Alright.
-My eyes wide senseless and he goes so go with diesel....EYES.
- Prisencolinensinainciusol.....Alright.
- Perhaps you don't sleep without a kid in the scene, till I produce a number jumps...oh had a good time. Let's face it... YO.
- We bin seein in the sand, the rugby shoes become a band, this is two of a kind that never follow other driver's date.
- My Eyes by chance let Prisencolinensinainciusol....EYES
-You'd a called a mega stay walk, please in combination at two-some.....Alright.
-Unation on flues he could Autum and Dawn as people love acid like keeping you on.
- My eyes wide senseless and I guess I'll throw me diesel.....EYES.
-You can call Mega Stream watt, Precinct calling Ace Vantuso.....Alright.
- You'd issue my pills you'd keep at them at dawn, as people love acid like leadin you on.

HERE IS A NEW YORKER PIECE ON THE ARTIST AND THIS MAGIC
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sashafrerejones/2008/04/universal-recor.html
April 29, 2008
Stop Making Sense
Posted by Sasha Frere-Jones

I am looking out over the pool of the Hotel Victor, in Miami Beach, preparing to leave for the sunny shores of Pittsburgh, but I have no regrets, because I have Adriano Celentano in my life. (Thanks to William Rauscher, of Acknowledged Classic, for the introduction.)

The Italian actor and singer recently turned seventy, and has spent most of his career as a sort of Italian Jim Carrey, a comic actor with a knack for the physical and goofy. (His style may be the logical outgrowth of an early mastery of the hula hoop.)

He was also a singer, and in 1970 he released a song called “Prisencolinensinainciusol,” recorded with the singer and actress Rafaella Carra. It was performed live, lip-synched but thoroughly choreographed, on Italian TV. The song lyrics are in neither Italian or English, though at first they sound like the latter. It turns out that Celentano’s words are in no language—they are gibberish, except for the phrase “all right!” In this television clip, filmed several years later, Celentano explains (in Italian) to a “student” why he wrote a song that “means nothing.” He says that the song is about “our inability to communicate in the modern world,” and that the word “prisencolinensinainciusol” means “universal love.” (The bad translation is my own.)

In 1970, an Italian man recorded a song long before disco and rap that is very close to both, and then an unnamed person choreographed it for a battalion of dancers in a hall of mirrors. If the results are really as miraculous as they seem right now, and I am not just talking myself into something, it is precisely because “Prisencolinensinainciusol” is such a loving presentation of silliness. Would any grown performer allow themselves this level of playfulness now? Wouldn’t a contemporary artist feel obliged add a tinge of irony or innuendo to make it clear that they were “knowing” and “sophisticated”? It’s not clear what would be gained by darkening this piece of cotton candy, or what more you could know about it: it is perfect as is. Notice that when Celentano presents his song for a second time, nobody makes fun of it, though it would be so easy to, and it’s so much better for this restraint. (Also: more classroom settings for pop stars to parse their own material, please. An hour a month would be enough.)

I don’t often long for worlds gone by, but this clip gets me going. I think Missy Elliott (who hasn’t been around to help recently) is the only performer I can think of in recent times who is as comfortable with ecstatic nonsense as Celentano. Perhaps it’s the lack of a known language that enables people to loosen up. So close your eyes, people, and start typing some songs.

YOU WILL MISS ME WHEN I BURN

2011-11-09T12:54:00.000-08:00

READ THIS

When you have no one
No one can hurt you
When you have no one
No one can hurt you

In the corner there is light
That is good for you
And behind you, I have warned you
There are awful things

Will you miss me when I burn
And will you eye me with a longing?
It is longing that I feel
To be missed or to be real

When you have no one
No one can hurt you
When you have no one
No one can hurt you

Will you miss me when I burn
And will you close the others' eyes
It would be such a favor
If you would blind them

There is absence, there is lack
There are wolves here abound
You will miss me
When I turn around

When you have no one
No one can hurt you
When you have no one
No one can hurt you

now...LISTEN

AND

AND

Which one do you like better?
Why?

WHILE WE WAIT FOR THE PAIN TO BE RELEASED

2011-10-13T22:56:00.000-07:00

"Baseball is like church. Many attend, few understand."
Leo "The Lip" Durocher

“Baseball is like church. Many attend but few understand.”

~Wes Westrum

SO WHO SAID IT FIRST? DOES IT MATTER? Or...why are you a whiny jackoff?

SPORTING PAIN
I used to have a fastball. Clocked at 87 miles-per-hour once or twice, it was no ticket to fame, but not bad for a lanky teenager. It used to dive under the mitts of catchers and rise enough to cause Major League scouts to cause notice when they spied my High School stats. I threw crooked and left-handed and struck out a lot of country boys in the sunlight and under bad lighting on dirt fields. Meanwhile, I learned to drink rank lager out of cans along gravel roads and sometimes on the next day, I’d pitch again, sore arm or not.

I threw a no-hitter the day after prom night my junior year. I remember the second baseman pounding OJ and groaning in the seat across from me in the bus that Saturday morning, bitching about his weariness, his hangover, the sun and the noisy-ass bus. I could be wrong, but I think he went three-for-four that day and we won in five innings.

He wasn’t bitching and moaning on the ride home. I remember that for sure.

We rode home giddy and cocky and goofy as fuck.

When I was in Little League, we only played a dozen or so games a summer. I had nothing to do but keep score during the KMOX broadcasts of Cardinals games when they were agonizingly close to first-place, but never there in the end. I’d spazz out in my bedroom amidst posters of Kenny Reitz, Ted Simmons, Bob Gibson and other out-of-town legends such as Johnny Bench and Willie Mays, bouncing balls off the walls and diving around to test my agility and ability while Lou Brock stole base after base, free agency took effect in the Major Leagues and I busied myself in between pitches. Occasionally, the games would show on television and I’d watch with my Dad, who turned me onto the history of the game by showing me around a board and dice game called Strat-O-Matic. I could manage the ’74 Cardinals and test my luck against the ’54 Giants or the ’27 Yankees, managed by my father. We played catch and he threw me batting practice and took me to games at Busch Stadium. We would be there in time to enter as soon as the gates opened and stay for the last pitch, often waiting outside the clubhouse doors to gather autographs. Every loss was agonizing to me. I was only a frustrated fanatic.

I rode along on bus trips with the high school team when I was a little dude and Dad was the coach. I liked the sound of spikes on concrete and the rattling of the wood bats in the canvas bag…the pop of the mitt, the crack of the bat, the smell of Atomic Balm, the sign language between coaches and players and grass-stained baseballs. I liked the different consistencies of dirt and the relief of water when my mouth was dry and my face was covered in dust after a long ride on gravel roads with the windows down.

Baseball is a sensory experience. It stings, it burns, it aches, it itches and it sings with adrenalin in your veins when your motions fit with the poetry of the game. When you kick it, drop it, throw it away or in the dirt, swing and miss it or pop it up, it hits you in the gut worse than Montezuma’s revenge. The agony of defeat is real. I prefer getting nutted by a bad hop to the feeling following a loss that I could’ve prevented. But I prefer both of those feelings to getting upset while watching from the sidelines. Especially when it is the fate of a bunch of millionaires hanging in the balance.

If you give a shit, the game will take all you got and throw it right back in your face, sometimes in the form of dirt, crow, humiliation and disgust. Other times, though, you get something back that was worth the blisters, wind sprints, shin splints and strawberries. My desire to master the game was enough to get me out of the cornfields and into a university. When it all ended at the end of my junior year in college, my pitching elbow fucked with tendonitis, I was a lost soul for years, but I still knew that life was worth a lot of physical pain when you get to the other side of achievement. Over twenty years later, I struggle to understand what life is like for those who don’t bother to bust out of inertia. I love the comfort of a good rut. Don’t get me wrong. Coasting, gliding, piggybacking, oh yeah---that’s good stuff, too. I’ll even admit to some corner-cutting and half-assing from time-to-time. I learned a lot about those methods while enduring certain days of practice when I wasn’t feeling well, or was nursing a sprain or a strain. I also learned that if you play through a little bit of pain, your mind will adjust and you can get the job done. Then you’ll be in a better place while your muscles burn and your back aches. The skunkiest, pisswater beer tastes all right in a place like that, but if you don’t want one of those hangovers, drink the good stuff. Pain does not always lead to gain. Sometimes it leads to suicide and bad poetry.

Which leads me to an important point: getting rid of the pain of fun gone stale. The hangover is an unfortunate side effect of laziness. Yes, you have to drink and maybe smoke and avoid drinking healthy amounts of water to achieve the existential dread of the hangover, but laziness only prolongs its power. Do you enjoy being the whiny bitch or groaning loner after every night at the pool hall, wedding reception, wine-soaked book club meeting? I’ll be honest, I do good work while hungover and enjoy long bouts of solitude, so I don’t avoid hangovers. From my observations, though, most of you are different, so here is some advice: get some exercise. A brisk walk will re-oxygenate you body and pump out the poison. Drink lots of water. It will never taste better. A run or bike ride evict the demons. Soon you will feel like as if you are truly living. That is only the effect of some tricky chemicals in your brain. You will still be the same cog in the belly of the beast, but it will feel much better once you’ve rejuvenated yourself and are able to face reality. In other words, fuck the game, don’t let the game fuck you! Get up and do something about it and be ready for next time. These sound like mad exhortations of a meth-addled wrestling coach, but their reasoning is sound and worth carrying out.

Of course, there is the realm of pleasure in the sack to relieve your aching brain. May favorite way to spend a day after a night of fun is to fill it with more fun. Get friendly with a leisurly hedonist who absolutely has to have two things in the morning: sex and food. Blow off class or work or and class and get to it as soon as you wake up. Nothing like it, Folks: the windows open and the sounds and breezes lowing in over your two-backed beast---its visit lasting until it is time to visit your favorite wok, bistro, pub, tavern or diner. A workout following chow! Good living, for sure, especially considering that a shower and more of the good stuff are excellent appetizers and deserts. Of course, that is the advantage of leisure and many of you bolt upright to the sound of his or her alarm clock, too late to enjoy such mornings, but you've got to do something to jettison the malaise and madness. Let them run off to work if they have to or get the hell away from them if they can't or won't perform in the morning (or afternoo

Here is a vision of your future should you skirt the world of physical exertion: you may well stop drinking.

I know, that sounds crazy, though many around you are crazy enough to practice abstinence and are being coaxed into such behavior by lots of advertising and a kazillion-dollar-a-year drug industry, not to mention an all encompassing police state. So barring something obscene and deadly such as going dry, you might become one of those folks who is enamored with computer games, statistics, and lo-cal deserts. You’ll suffer gastric difficulties due to stress from watching sports for its results without any regard for the beauty of the game itself. You’re anxiety will be heightened by your appetite for tri-caffeinated cans of death which you will sometimes cut with vodka so that you don’t strangle the idiot you’re dating. OR! Or, you could possibly become so devoured by the cult of fantasy leagues that well…let’s not go there.

Yes, many favor delusions and illusions to rational thought and following a path of reason. Some speak of unicorns and Santa Claus. They drink the “blood of Christ”and go home to bleed internally over a sports event without any regard for the beauty of the game itself. A morning will come when you realize you are one of the numbnuts you used to hate: that frustrated fanatic who screams at the TV.

Believe me. It’s true. C’mon, you can save those activities for when you’re doped up on state-ordered soma in some geriatric hovel.

Don’t say no! Enjoy the nightlife and physical activity while you can. The stress will kill you before a little sensory stimulation…and if you do find yourself in need of a good, drying out spell, you’re going to need to sweat that out with some good, outdoor huffing and puffing, if not a little heave-ho!

If you can stand to get out of bed, that is.

Previously published in 52nd City’s SPORTY issue, July, 2007

ROTATE YOUR TIRES

2011-09-23T08:38:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking a lot about the need for satire and whimsy. Wanna guess at where my mind took me?
Watch these videos and see my unfinished piece at the end, here:

LES CRANE

NATIONAL LAMPOON

BUKOWSKI

ROTATE YOUR TIRES
Negative Nellies and Sweet Polly Purebreads,
He-Men, bullhorns, underdogs, clicking mice and fraidy cats,
Cronkites, security cams and helmets, safety goggles and empathy
true love and gravel fucks
don’t stop the wars hawks drop and
the rain of bloody injustice in the dustbeltistan
as you flip through the channels and pages
looking for the rest
of the wrestling of your mind
in the high definition specs that
fail to capture the cosmic slop.

A wedding ring and the keys to the minivan
when daddy’s taken for a goose ride
and we’re all conked out like Mr. Van Winkle
makes no nevermind to the vortex or the fish tails because
The Viet Cong didn’t watch the Waltons
and Good Times so you could buy
cheap tee shirts and the scrap metal Coca-Cola cans
from a ground zero china shop away from the bull
of Wall Street.

So flit around in the mind of Billy Pilgrim
or pretend we fed turkeys to helpless savages
and that the radios help us
consider all things in mid-commute from
cubicle to air-conditioned podcast twitter feed
facsimile of life.

Change your tires
Change your oil
Change of scenery
Change your mind
Change for a dollar
Loose change?
Sex change?

Feel better?
Well, if you weren’t full of shit,
you’d be changing your pants.

So there’s something.

If you think too much about the difference
between the damage you have done and the
frugality that you promise yourself,
remember that shrink-wrapped vegetables
and leaf-blowers ARE FUCKING RIDICULOUS!
…and so are you.

Ha!

Manageable decisions and necessary delusions
at all other times.
Or…
Is it reality for you?

History confirms our banality
stupidity
and destructive proclivities.
…and all the time pimpin’ is in effect.
You know what I’m sayin’
Bitch better have my money!

Take a dose of satire when needed.
Baffle the dumb-ass.
Kiss a smart-ass of your liking.

…and prepare to be chastised.

Take care of yourself.
The only real control we ever
have
and need
is with self…

and the self is a fallacy.

…BUT! when you can manage,
remember
the only commandment,
according to the bag lady in the cathedral:
DON’T BE AN ASSHOLE!

Oops!
Too late?
Well, here’s this:
Focusing on what you don’t want
brings it to you.
So watch out!
You’re gonna die.

AARON BELZ POEM IS THE BASIS FOR A SHORT FILM

2011-07-14T12:42:00.000-07:00

AARON BELZ sent me an email yesterday. He included a short film: "...a Hollywood director’s cinematic interpretation of the process behind my poem “To Dream Only of Bunnies."

”TO DREAM ONLY OF BUNNIES

To dream only of bunnies
is a kind of poverty.
To dream of red flashing lights,
and that only, is also sad.

To dream of flashing red
bunnies, however; to sleep,
and by a sleep to say
we dream of red and green

rabbits flashing, among cars,
and a friend we haven't seen
in quite awhile standing
naked in their midst;

to sleep: perchance to die
in this our lonely shadow,
is basically to wake up
in a most alert way,

suddenly, and on a Sunday
afternoon, at the futon's
edge, one hand on the floor,
and to know, at last,

that one's existence
has meaning; has, not only
meaning, but importance;
has, in short, a dream

toward which to point its
prow as toward the rising sun
that, white on the horizon,
fills the water with its flashes.

Here is what Christopher J. Boghosian says about his project 7 Films, 7 Weeks:
"Eager to cultivate my craft and voice as a filmmaker, I am currently making one film per week for seven consecutive weeks. For inspiration and focus, I begin by randomly drawing a Greek personification spirit on Thursdays, then screen the film below on following Wednesdays.

As you can imagine, this project triggers my deepest fears: Am I wasting my time? Can I live up to the challenge? Will the films be any good? I’m not sure, but that’s okay, because my primary goal is to mature as a director and have some fun. The key lies in my stripped-down production approach (e.g., 1 location, 1-2 actors), which enables me to make one film per week while focusing on directorial execution and personal expression."

Week 1, July 7 – 13: Deimos

Deimos: Film 1 of 7 from Follow My Film on Vimeo.

Danny McClain

2011-03-28T23:33:00.000-07:00

Horrible news: Danny McClain passed away this morning. He was one of the most dynamic drummers of the scene for some time, having played with Darin Gray in
GRAND ULENA, JOHNNY ANGEL (as I had previously forgotten...thank you Dave and all commenters)and in various other projects with the likes of Chris Smentkowski (BRAIN TRANSPLANT) and Dave Stone. GRAND ULENA'S label, FAMILY-VINEYARD, responds here
(Updated 10/19/2011) Toxicology reports show that he died of unfortunate, but natural causes: http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/rftmusic/2011/10/danny_mcclain_toxicology_repor.php
Celebrate the magic of these performances...
AND take care of yourselves!

.....and JOHNNY ANGEL

...just saw this online, too:
"The wake is from 4-9 thursday, baumann colonial chapel, 2504 woodson rd, overland mo. 63114, the funeral starts fri at 11 am. at baumann, the "internment" is at fee fee cemetery"

I didn't know Danny very well. I was the old guy going to Grand Ulena shows and bugging him at bars on South Grand about what was happening next. Bought him some beers at my place of work.
Check out the comments to see how much he is missed.
...and here is some video from the memorial held at Floating Laboratories on April 2nd:

Brain Transplant live in Saint Louis, April 2nd, 2011. Performing at the memorial concert for Danny McClain from joseph raglani on Vimeo.

Dave Stone, Kevin Harris & Alberto Patino performing at the Benefit concert for Danny McClain from joseph raglani on Vimeo.

Black Sabbath and Sherwood Schwartz

2011-03-10T20:26:00.000-08:00

I've had some odd epiphanies when drinking. Go figure. Ha!
One time when I was at the Empty Bottle in Chicago listening to Rhys Chatham and a bunch of cats on stage doing a multiple guitar riff during his piece GUITAR TRIO, I heard part of a HOUSE OF LARGE SIZES tune. Don't ask me which HOLS piece I thought it was, but it was obvious to me as I stood swaying in the crowd that night.
Last night, while unknowingly celebrating the birthday of Chris Martinez as we drank at the Royale, Marla's iPod played Black Sabbath's "Solitude" from the album MASTER OF REALITY.

I immediately identified its similarity to "The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle" which was, of course, composed by producer Sherwood Schwartz, who did similar work for his other big hit for television
THE BRADY BUNCH. Anyway, I don't read or write or play music, so chime in if you can point out the musical similarities:

...and then I found this today:

Ugh.
How easily our leisure time turns to crap.
One wiki report goes, "The band Little Roger and the Goosebumps recorded a parody of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven", substituting the words to the Gilligan's Island theme song"

So FUCK ALL THAT!
Check this shit out!

APPEARANCES AND MOONLIGHT DANCES

2011-03-09T14:50:00.000-08:00

Two of my poems will appear in issue 5 of Bad Shoe Press
http://saintlouisprojects.org/
St. Louis on Tuesday, March 15th:
Here are the deets:
On March 15th (the Ides of March), St. Louis lit mag Bad Shoe will release its 5th issue, hosted by the Archive bookstore at 3215 Cherokee Street.
...
This is a special issue of the lit mag, which is the only periodical publication for emerging and eminent lady writers and artists in St. Louis. For the first time, the editors are publishing male perspectives on femininity.

Authors/artists in Issue #5:
Jacob Cohen
Tony Renner
Mary Phillips
Kelli Allen
Matthew Freeman
Phil Gounis
Erin Nihiser
Byron Lee
Brett Underwood
Bob Reuter
Aaron P. Ruiz
Christopher Alex Chable
Christine Callahan
Carrie Keasler
Nicky Rainey
Joe Sulier
Erin Wiles

Many of the authors published will be reading excerpts of their work at the release I AM DEFINITELY READING, with Matthew Freeman and the Skekses providing musical entertainment. Doors are at 7, reading starts at 8. The Cherokee Peach will sell snacks, wine, beer, and handmade sodas, and the Archive will also be open for book sales. Bad Shoe Issue 5 will be available at the special release price of $8.

APRIL 15TH: Check out http://www.thebicyclereview.net/
The Bicycle Review will publish two of my pieces! My first out-of-town recognition outside of the world of zines.

Saturday, March 26th at 7 p.m....
Regional Arts Commission (6128 Delmar Blvd--across from the Pagaent)
FOUR POETS AND A BUSKER
Sherman S. Sherman opens the show with some of his songs from
Fred's Variety Group, Good Griefs and Peck of Dirt http://www.myspace.com/peckofdirt

Reading will be:
MATTHEW FREEMAN woke up to find himself a poet as he was a teenager ruined with love. he then took off for alaska, new york, texas, writing and singing all the way. after visiting various institutions he's now in a different one: he's about to graduate from st louis uni...versity with an english degree. his third book, darkness never far, was recently reissued in hardcover. he has also just begun his teaching career.

STEFENE RUSSELL is the former co-editor of Prinsesstarta and 52nd City literary magazines, and is currently the Culture Editor at St. Louis Magazine. She is also a member of Poetry Scores (http://poetryscores.blogspot.com/), an arts collective devoted to translating poetry into other media, and Otis Nebula Literary Syndicate (otisnebula.com), a publishing project operated by working writers dedicated to serving living word, sound, and image to which commercial concerns are always subordinate.

BRETT LARS UNDERWOOD is a bartender and a gadabout who writes, promotes and produces happenings and mishaps. He's quicker with the stink eye than verbal reprimands and favors the brushback pitch over preemptive warfare. Once upon a time, he co-published a ‘zine entitled LICK MY SQUAGGLE NOOSE, CLAM TICK. He penned Zen koans for THE RIVERFRONT TIMES and ST. LOUIS MAGAZINE as well as many journals of suburbia.
For several years he produced and hosted KDHX' The No Show and the annual event DAY OF THE DEAD BEATS.
His verse and riddles have been published by 52nd City, Bad Shoe Press (March 15th), The Bicycle Review http://www.thebicyclereview.net/ (April 15th) and included in FLOOD STAGE: An Anthology of Saint Louis Poets.

KEN BROWN wass born in Missouri- left town at nineteen...Returned twenty-one years later after Minnesota, Maine, and Mississippi in a tent, Montana, Morocco- where he lived with a prostitute afflicted with polio. Normandy, Madrid, Grecian Islands- despondent- to upstate New York across the country in a Honda- through Mexico- Vegas- Santa Monica for four years doing laundry for a living then dog-sitting at the Ding Dong... Wound up in
Australia-Perth- the out-bush for nine months- Hell’s Angels blew up land- went broke- made ten thousand dollars on Karma Kards- fell in love for the thirteenth time- engaged-Kicked out of Australia- published in 45 periodicals- wound up back where he started.

The reading at Duff's scheduled for Monday, March 28th got bumped, so boo-hoo.

...in other news, I will read as part of a performance with
Hearding Cats Collective, including poetry from Anna Lum, Stefene Russell,
Treasure Williams and myself...this will be morphed into a program called Kyma, manned by the one-and-only Rich O'Donnell and accompanied by Rich and Zimbabwe NKenya on various instruments...at Floating Laboratories on Saturday, April 16th.
http://heardingcatscollective.org/
http://www.floatinglaboratories.com/

Let Go; Let Ligeti

2011-03-02T16:28:00.000-08:00

I was lucky enough to sit in a room alone as the sun set through the South-facing windows while listening to these gems. I want to go out for a bicycle ride in a bit and have some drinks...read some poetry at fireside...return to hear them again.

As a side note, I add that Ligeti's son, Lukas Ligeti, will be performing in St. Louis as part of a Hearding Cats Collective show on April 29th.
http://www.lukasligeti.com/
http://heardingcatscollective.org

$598 hose job and other delights

2011-03-01T16:31:00.000-08:00

Revisited the life of a car-less cat this week while the sled was in the shed getting hoses and clamps and thermostats and now it stopped crying and my joints are a little sore, but I didn't get hit by the funnel cloud, 'cause I beat it by 30 minutes on a bicycle and reached into the fridge and grabbed a Catastrophe Ale as the storm passed.
Walked to a train to work and raced across the bar mats and Spoken Nerd stopped in on his way back to Nashville from the World Bird Sanctuary to get a growler of Coffee Stout.
Today, I bled into the carbon-dioxide nightmare after walking through the morning sun. Took a nap all afternoon and then I watched this after an angel left the room.

Yeah, life is good before the Apocalypse and I am gonna do lots of readings get the words in Bad Shoe and The Bicycle Review and that's a fine how do you do for you willy wontcha...
AND FUCK CARS!!!!
Read a book.

...or if you don't want to...

Big Mouth!

2011-02-08T10:10:00.000-08:00

We had an easy go of it last night at the Schlafly Tap Room. All you ninnies and lily-livers were licking your wounds from having eaten too much crap and washed it down with too much of something else while you missed a perfectly good football game and were horrified by a popular-culture twat bellowing the unfortunate anthem of our nation and then that halftime show that was....oh blah, blah, blahhhhgggg.
I will get to the story.
We got off a slow start and that meant that I was well-rested and left with attention and energy towards the time-of-the-night when I would usually be ready to close up and get myself off to some other form of entertainment. {OH, I THOUGHT YOU WERE A BAR. WE THOUGHT YOU'D BE OPEN UNTIL ATLEAST ONE!!! said the man to the waitress, last night.)
Anyhoo, in walk some fine younguns off the street. Beeming with one buzz or another. I was down to one customer, whose humor was running very thin, so I set up the new group, gladly. They were on their second-round and we had all had some good laughs about the unfortunate mix of oxycontin and cocaine and the fifth leg on some buffalo that does not produce cheese (by the way)...and this and that and all over the place and Wow! I am stupid and how-about-that?
Somehow the subject came up: Zed, when are you here? When do you bartend? I gave them my simple three-night schedule and per-most-Americans, they asked, what else do you do?
Ha!
"I am a poet", I said. "Used to do a radio show. Had a conversation with a drummer the other night. He said he once called Lenny Bruce a racist on my show", I said.
Oh, they wanted to hear all about my seven years doing THE NO SHOW on KDHX, but one was brave enough to admit that she knew nothing of this LENNY BRUCE and nothing of the Beats, which I also mentioned, in reference to my hosting of DAY OF THE DEAD BEATS.
At this point, I could say that I need to rewrite this whole thing and include hyperlinks to said projects, but I will instruct you to do your homework.

I sent her off to Google Sir Lenny and the Beat Generation.
Woke up this morning thinking about it all and this bit in particular:
To is a Preposition, Come is a Verb

To is a preposition.
To is a preposition.
Come is a verb.
To is a preposition.
Come is a verb.
To is a preposition.
Come is a verb, the verb intransitive.
To come.
To come.
I've heard these two words my whole adult life, and as a kid when I thought I was sleeping.
To come.
To come.
It's been like a big drum solo.
Did you come?
Did you come?
Good.
Did you come good?
Did you come good?
Did you come good?
Did you come good?
Did you come good?
Did you come good?
Did you come good?
I come better with you, sweetheart, than with anybody in the whole goddamn world.
I really came so good and I came so good 'cause I love you.
I really came so good.
I come better with you, sweetheart, than anyone in the whole world.
I really came so good.
So good.
But don't come in me.
Don’t come in me.
Don’t come in me
Don't come in me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me.
Don’t come in me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me.
Don't come in me.
Don't come…. in me…in me in me.
Don’t come in me, in me….in me.
I can't come.
'Cause you don't love me--that's why you can't come.
I can't come.
I love you, I just can't come; that's my hang-up.
I can't come when I'm loaded, all right?
'Cause you don't love me.
Just what the hell is the matter with you-what has that got to do with loving? I just can't come that's all.
Now if anyone is this room or the world finds those two words decadent, obscene, immoral, amoral, asexual-- the words "to come" really make you feel uncomfortable--if you think I'm rank for saying it to you, you the beholder think it's rank for listening to it, you probably can't come. And then you're of no use, because that's the purpose of life, to re-create it.

...and this tribute by Chumbawamba:
BIG MOUTH STRIKES AGAIN!
"I caught you with your head down the toilet as you were gulping up dirty words, then later dressed in suit and tie, whilst playing to the laughing crowds, you were gargling, spitting, fingers down your throat, making yourself so sick. Vomiting the words that you’d sucked and slurped all over the cops at the back!
Big mouth, big mouth, big mouth strikes again
Big mouth, big mouth, big mouth strikes again
Flucky now, flucky now, flucky now, oh my, it’s a good job Fusion cannot spell. ‘Cause if I could you know I’d get a lot of flack off the record company, always on my back. Well I thank God for watching what I’m doing. Whoops. Fusion watch what you’re saying. Remember what happened before when you tried to thank God, um, Christ, um, Him--you had to scrap your lyrics and throw them in the bin. I couldn’t win, it must’ve been a thing. Anyway I’ve been asked here not to give lip, but to talk about a topic which we call censorship. Musicians have no right to say what they want to. MC Fusion want to say some of the people say that blunt--nobody has the right to tell you want to do. ‘Cause if you do it to them, it may be [?] on you. Whoever bought this record try and figure out what the flucking hell is Fusion talking about, but it makes sense to the A G I T, cause this is what happened when they try to censor me. Ha. Finally, Fusion, I mean we, got freedom of speech. Censorship is a load of bollocks, and that’s what agitation propaganda and anything you can do, I can do better.
‘To’ is a preposition
‘Come’ is a verb
‘To come’ is a verb intransitive
To come, to come
Did you come? Did you come good? Good!
Did you come? Did you come good? Good!
Don’t come in me, don’t come in me
Don’t come in me, don’t come in me
It takes technique to thrill me!
Did you come? Did you come good? Good!
Did you come? Did you come good? Good!
Did you come, come, come, come, come good?
Big mouth, big mouth, big mouth strikes again
Big mouth, big mouth, big mouth strikes again
(Good Thief routine)
Stepford husbands, Stepford wives
With longer scissors, sharper knives
So sugar-sweet, they spend their time as censors, working overtime
This good-good culture
Bullshit motherfucker bullshit
Welcome Christ, judges, lone ranger
Bullshit motherfucker bullshit
Padres, pastors, popes, priests
Bullshit motherfucker bullshit
Critics, comics, you, me
Bullshit motherfucker bullshit
Big mouth, big mouth, big mouth strikes again
Big mouth, big mouth, big mouth strikes again"

Missed Linkous

2010-12-31T01:07:00.000-08:00

...AMONGST THE SHIT AND LIFE WE LOST THIS YEAR, LET US RECOUNT MARK LINKOUS.

...will I have anything to say about a guy who changed my musical tastes?
Keep checking this blog. I intend to add thoughts.
This one hurt as much as Vic Chestnutt and Mik Miano; Hunter, too, yeah. Geez.
So much left for us to witness without them and this whiskey is...
SPARKLEHORSE

SPIRIT DITCH
I want my records back
and that motorcycle gas tank
that I, spraypainted black
the owls have been talking to me
but I'm sworn to secrecy
...and oh HELL...lest my friends think that I don't mourn the passing of Dr. Van Vliet, too, here is something:

I woke up in
a burnt out basement
sleeping with
metal hands
in a spirit ditch

the moon it will rise with such
horse laughter
it's dragging pianos to the ocean
if I had a home
you'd know it'd be
in a slide trombone

I woke up in
a burnt out basement
sleeping with
metal hands
in a spirit ditch

(mum on answerphone interlude)

I woke up in
a burnt out basement
sleeping with
metal hands
in a spirit ditch

...I remember the day I found the album VIVADIXIESUBMARINETRANSMISSIONPLOT in the stacks at Vintage Vinyl...I was with my dear friend, Marcia Pandolfi. We had eaten and had some drinks at the old Cicero's. I saw this case with the colors and the blurred visions and the mashed up title indicative of Beefheart's TROUTMASKREPLICA. Why this association? I don't know.
I used to get drunk and shop.
Fuck you!
I bought my first NEGATIVLAND album on a similar impulse.
I even remember the transaction at the cash register. The VV cat was very excited to tell us that Mark Linkous aka Sparklehorse had recently taken too many sleeping pills while on tour and had fallen out of bed. His legs had lost circulation and he had to finish the tour in a wheelchair.
This astonished Marcia.
It was only interesting to me because of the enthusiasm with which the merchant delivered it. Of course, it spiced my purchase.
Short story fucked: I loved the album. It is a beautifully lyrical collection and it is ornery as HELL...AND lest my friends think I don't miss the passing of Dr. Van Vliet, check this out, too:

Egoist, Isolationist, Harmless?

2010-12-29T14:46:00.000-08:00

sketch by Chris King

NOTICE THE SIMILARITIES?

I did.

“I was an August day in Paris, on the Quai d’Orleans by the Seine. Hugo kept congratulating himself that this year he had postponed his departure to Deauville: the weather was fine and Magda quite entertaining. He did not like dining with pretty girls; at his age it was better to keep his pleasures separate. For a lunch like this what he needed was a hard-boiled, cynical old American, such as Magda, who appreciated her food and had good taste in wine. She admired him, but that left him indifferent: he had always been admired for his taste, his wealth, his splendid collection of porcelain, his knowledge of ancient Greek writers, his generosity, and his intelligence. He did not need other people’s admiration, yet Magda amused him. It was better, and more unusual to be amused than loved.
“Egoist”
“A weeping young woman had called him that once. The sensual memory of her tears still touched his heart pleasurably: she had been so young and so beautiful. He had been young then, too. Egoist…he might have replied that in this world of mad, brutal men and their stupid victims, the only harmless people were egoists like him. They did not hurt anyone. All the misery suffered by human beings, thought Hugo, is unleased by those who love others more than themselves and want that love to be acknowledged.”
From THE SPECTATOR By Irène Némirovsky

THE GENIUS OF THE CROWD by Charles Bukoski

there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day

and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace

those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach peace do not have love

beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average

but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect

like a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock

their finest art

Well, Fuck a Duck

2010-12-12T12:38:00.000-08:00

It must really suck to be a Nazi slave, if you're a duck:

...and lots of good, wholesome, patriotic racism here (though, I did appreciate the nod to Dali near the end):

...and who can ever forget DUCKTATORS!!? I like the "Peace Conference" in this one ("have they forgot 'tis love that's right and naught is gained by show of might"):

Jesus, you'll have to wait

2010-12-04T13:10:00.001-08:00

Not sure yet if it is a good thing that the wind has scared me inside today on my 47th birthday, but I am panning through odds and ends in the stream that is the internet.
Poem For My 43rd Birthday
by Charles Bukowski
To end up alone
in a tomb of a room
without cigarettes
or wine--
just a lightbulb
and a potbelly,
grayhaired,
and glad to have
the room.
...in the morning
they're out there
making money:
judges, carpenters,
plumbers, doctors,
newsboys, policemen,
barbers, carwashers,
dentists, florists,
waitresses, cooks,
cabdrivers...
and you turn over
to your left side
to get the sun
on your back
and out
of your eyes.
from "All's Normal Here"

Oh! Ain't it the truth. Bukowski knew the importance of claiming time for yourself.
"I don't have time!" they say. Take it! Make it yours!

I stood behind the bar last night with time to think, but not enough time to do much but serve and maximize the income. Stackin' the cheeze.
"Why is this not pleasurable?" I thought. Around the bar and in the dining room, seemingly EVERYONE else was cussing and discussing something as I stood momentarily idle. Listening in, I again realized that I did not want to be included in any of their "conversations". Soon enough, I would be free to have my own inner conversations in my own time.
You know what though? I never did.
I came home to do some administrative work to try to wrestle the St. Louis public from their couches and barstools; their keypads and screens. I escaped for a bit for a brisk walk around the neighborhood and returned to have some drinks with a friend and later hit South Grand for a pint, a couple jiggers and a crazy-good Cuban at the City Diner. A good night. A very good night, all things considered, but I didn't quite free myself. No epiphanies.
Oh, the poor, fucking prima donna! Ha!
Crashed soon after in the safety of my bed and awoke to send the thickening schedule of the future to various heads. When I finish this bit of jibber-jabber, I will claim my time. A book, a nap, and another walk. If nothing else, the wind today will scare the life back into me.
Enough of this existential pseudo-angst.
Time for some time time time....
But WAIT! DON'T GO YET!!!
Look what's coming up in 2011!
All of this at the Schlafly Tap Room:

January 7th:

Tight Pants Syndrome

http://www.myspace.com/tightpantssyndrome

Bunnygrunt http://www.myspace.com/therealbunnygrunt

Hum Drum http://www.myspace.com/humdrumsound

January 8th:

The Cruel Cuts http://www.myspace.com/cruelcuts

Warm Jets U.S.A.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Warm-Jets-USA/117258474983109

Paper Dolls http://www.myspace.com/wearethepaperdolls

January 14th:

This City of Takers http://www.thiscityoftakers.com/

The Transatlantic http://www.myspace.com/thetransatlanticmusic

The Otto Modest http://www.facebook.com/theottomodest

January 21st:

Dulad http://www.myspace.com/duladsduelinginfinity

The Smiling Thief http://www.myspace.com/duladsduelinginfinity

Triceratops http://www.myspace.com/triceratopsband

January 22nd:

Beth Bombara http://www.bethbombara.com/

Ne’e http://www.myspace.com/neepop

http://www.facebook.com/kristindennis#!/neemusic
Jes Kramer http://www.myspace.com/listentojeskramer

January 28th:

Black James http://www.myspace.com/littlejenniandthewaterhead

Pelvic Girdles http://www.myspace.com/pelvicgirdles

Last to Show, First to Go http://www.myspace.com/lasttoshowfirsttogo

January 29th:

The UltraViolents http://www.myspace.com/theultraviolents

DinoFight! http://www.myspace.com/dinofightstl

Death of Yeti http://www.myspace.com/deathofyeti

Thursday, February 3rd: Pokey LaFarge and the South City Three all night!

February 5th:
Mil Effect http://www.myspace.com/mileffect

Kuan (pay Bret Nagafuchi) http://www.myspace.com/kuankuankuan

R6 Implant (members of Fragile Porcelain Mice, Yowie and Sine Nomine) (pay Shawn O’Connor)

March 11th:
Theodore http://www.myspace.com/theodoreacoustic

with
NIGHTY NIGHT (from Carbondale)

March 12th:
HumDrum http://www.myspace.com/humdrumsound

Ne'e
http://feeds.feedburner.com/iwtas

March 19th:
Tok

Bunnygrunt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunnygrunt

This City of Takers

April 2nd:
Dulad
http://www.myspace.com/duladsduelinginfinity/friends
The Transatlantic
http://www.myspace.com/thetransatlanticmusic
Barefoot Jones
http://www.myspace.com/barefootjonesrocks

April 8th
Zevious (from Philadelphia)
http://www.cuneiformrecords.com/bandshtml/zevious.html

Spelling Bee
http://www.myspace.com/beespellingbee (Joseph Hess and Mabel Suen from KDHX' WRONG DIVISION)

Britches
www.facebook.com/britchesbritches
www.myspace.com/britchesbritches

April 9th:
Prairie Rehab
http://www.myspace.com/prairierehab

Corey Saathoff and the Trophy Mule
http://www.reverbnation.com/thetrophymules

Trigger 5
http://www.myspace.com/trigger5country

April 22nd:
Groupthink
https://www.facebook.com/groupthink

Tory Starbuck Project
http://www.myspace.com/toryzstarbuck

Pat Sajak Assassins
http://www.myspace.com/patsajakassassins

April 29th:
Red Squad
http://www.myspace.com/redsquadcommand

Britches
www.facebook.com/britchesbritches
www.myspace.com/britchesbritches

Paper Dolls
http://www.thesixtyone.com/#/PaperDollsSTL/

April 30th:
Bunnygrunt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunnygrunt

THE KYLE SOWASHES (Columbus, Ohio)
http://www.myspace.com/kylesowash

Black James
http://www.myspace.com/littlejenniandthewaterhead

May 14th:
Franklin Felix
http://www.myspace.com/7098989

Megafauna
http://www.myspace.com/mymegafauna

Tok
http://www.myspace.com/tokandroll

As I sit and watch and listen to these acts, I wonder if I am in-FUCKING-sane to expect the public to grasp this array. Maybe I would be more successful if there were more scatter-brained, lazy poets with expendable time and cash to come to these shows.
Please tell me I'm wrong...or don't.

Oh, yeah...other folks born on this date:
Rainier Maria Rilke
Crazy Horse
John Cale
Jeff Bridges
Jay-Z
and
BIG POKEY!!

POWER

2010-11-20T11:31:00.000-08:00

People bitch about Burroughs and Bukowski, saying they don't like their writing...some call them hacks. Blah, blah, blah...
What I appreciate about them most at times is their outsider's take on the world.
They allowed themselves the freedom to think outside of the work-a-day existence.
Burroughs work is all about the struggle to unleash creativity from the powers of control.
For instance:
“words are still the principal instruments of control. Suggestions are words. Persuasions are words. Orders are words. No control machine so far devised can operate without words, and any control machine which attempts to do so relying entirely on external force or entirely on physical control of the mind will soon encounter the limits of control. “ from THE LIMITS OF CONTROL, 1975
“Verbal techniques are now being used to achieve more reliable computer-processed techniques in the direction of opinion control and manipulation, the ‘propoganda war’ it’s called.” THE JOB

“a modern government armed with heavy weapons and prepared for attack could wipe out ninety-five percent of its citizens. But who would do the work, and who would protect them from the soldiers and technicians needed to make and man the weapons?” from THE LIMITS OF CONTROL, 1975
“Americans have a special horror of giving up control, of letting things happen in their own way without interference.” From NAKED LUNCH
“The whole of Western psychology has been sidetracked from the way it should have gone. It should have gone along the lines of Pavlov and the conditioned reflex.” From an interview reprinted in BRAINWASHING: THE FICTIONS OF MIND CONTROL: A STUDY OF NOVELS AND FILMS by David Seed
‎"And what does the money machine eat to shit out? It eats youth, spontaneity, life, beauty and above all it eats creativity. It eats quality and shits out quantity." THE JOB
"America may well be the hope of the world. It is also the source of such emotional plagues as drug hysteria, racism, Bible belt morality, Protestant capitalist ethic, muscular Christianity that have spread everywhere transforming this planet into an annex of Hell." THE JOB
"America is not so much a nightmare as a non-dream. The American non-dream is precisely a move to wipe the dream out of existence. The dream is a spontaneous happening and therefore dangerous to a control system set up by non-dreamers." THE JOB
‎"What I am here to learn is a new way of thinking. There are no lessons and no teachers. There are no books and no work to be done. I do almost nothing. The first step is to stop doing everything you "have to do"...The new way of thinking has nothing to do with logical thought. It is no oceanic organismal subconscious body thinking. It is precisely delineated from what is not. The new way of thinking is the thinking you would do if you didn’t have to think about any of the things you ordinarily think about if you had no work to do nothing to be afraid of no plans to make. Any exercises to achieve this must themselves be set aside. It’s a way you would think if you didn’t have to think up a way of thinking you don’t have to do. We learn to stop words to see and touch words to move and use words like objects." WSB--THE JOB

Pistol Poem No. 2
by William S. Burroughs
Who Controls The Control Men
Who Controls The Men Control
Who Controls Control Men The
Who Controls Control The Men
Who Controls Men The Control
Who Controls Men Control The
Who The Control Men Controls
Who The Control Controls Men
Who The Men Controls Control
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Who The Controls Control Men
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Who Men Controls The Control
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Controls The Control Men Who
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Originally published in A William Burroughs Birthday Book, Temple Press LImited, Brighton, 1994. Republished by RealityStudio in August 2010.

Quick Fix
By William S. Burroughs

To put the country simple, earth has a lot of things other folks might
want...like the whole planet. And maybe these folks would like a few changes
made. Like more carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere, and room for their way of
life. We've seen this happen before, right in these United States.

Your way of life destroyed the Indian's way of life.
The Indian reservation is extinction.
But I offer this distinction. I'm with the invaders, no use trying to hide
that. And at the same, I disagree with some of the things they are doing.
Oh were not united anymore than you are
Oh we're not united anymore than you are.
Conservative factions is set on nuclear war as a solution to the Indian
personality.
Others disagree
Others disagree
I don't claim that my methods are one hundred percent humane, but I do say,
if we can't think of anything quieter, and tidier than that...
We are all not that much better than new earth aches.
There is no place else to go
The theater is closed
There is no place else to go
The theater is closed
Cut word lines
Cut music lines
Smash the control images
Smash the control machine.

Bukowski was a cruder sort. Did not have the academic background that Burroughs did.
He took chances, though, and he certainly understood the importance of freeing ones self from the reins in order to get the important living done...and down.

POLITICS IS LIKE TRYING TO SCREW A CAT IN THE ASS

"Dear Mr. Bukowski:
Why don't you ever write about politics or world affairs?"
M.K.

"Dear M.K.:
What for? Like, what's new? --- everybody knows the bacon is
burning."

our raving takes place quite quietly while we are staring down at the
hairs of a rug --- wondering what the shit went wrong when they blew up the
trolley full of jellybeans with the poster of Popeye the Sailor stuck on the
side.
that's all that matters: the good dream gone, and when that's gone it's
all gone. the rest is horseshit games for the Generals and money-makers,
speaking of which --- I see where another U.S. bomber full of H-bombs fell
out of the sky again --- THIS time into the sea while SUPPOSEDLY protecting
my life. the State Dept. says the H-bombs were "unarmed," whatever that
means. then we continue to read where one of the H-bombs (lost) had split
open and was spreading radioactive shit everywhere while supposedly
protecting me WHILE I hadn't even asked for protection. the difference
between a Democracy and a Dictatorship is that you don't have to waste your
time voting.
getting back to the H-bomb dropout --- a little while back the same
thing happened off the coast of SPAIN. (we are everywhere, protecting me.)
again the bombs get lost --- careless little toys. it took them 3 months ---
if I remember properly --- to find and lift that last bomb out of there. it
may have been 3 weeks but to the people in that coast town it must have
seemed 3 years. that last bomb --- the god damned thing had gotten itself
wedged on the edge of a sandhill far down in the sea. and everytime they
tried to hook the thing, so tenderly, it would shake loose and roll a little
further down the hill. meanwhile, all the poor people in that coast town
were tossing in their beds at night wondering if they'd be blown to hell,
courtesy of the Stars and Stripes. of course, the U.S. State Dept. issued a
state ment saying the H-bomb had no detonation fuse, but meanwhile the rich
had left for other parts and the American sailors and townspeople looked
very nervous. (after all, it the things couldn't blow up what were they
flying them around for? might as well carry 2-ton salamis. fuse means
"spark" or "trigger," and "spark" can come from any where, and "trigger"
means "jolt" or any similar action that will set off the firing mechanism.
NOW the terminology is "unarmed," which sounds safer but is the same thing.)
anyhow, they hooked at the bomb but as the saying goes, the thing seemed to
have a mind of its own. then a few undersea storms came about and our lovely
little bomb rolled further and further down its hill. the sea is very deep,
much deeper than our leadership.
finally, special equipment was designed just to haul bomb-ass and the
thing was pulled from the sea. Palomares. yes, that's where it happened:
Palomares. and you know what they did next? ---
the American Navy had a BAND CONCERT in the town park in celebration of
finding the bomb - if the thing wasn't dangerous they were really cutting
loose. yes, and the sailors played the music together, one big sexual and
spiritual release. whatever happened to the bomb they pulled out of the sea,
I don't know, nobody (except the few) knows, and the band played on. while
1,000 tons of radio- active Spanish topsoil was shipped to Aiken, S.C. in
sealed containers. I'll be the rent is cheap in Aiken, S.C.
so now our bombs are swimming and sinking, chilled and "un- armed"
about Iceland.
so what do you do when you've got the people's minds on something not
so good? easy, you get their minds on something else. they can only think
about one thing at a time. like, all right, head line of Jan. 23, 1968: B-52
CRASHES OFF GREENLAND WITH H-BOMBS; DANES IRKED. Danes irked? oh, mother!
anyhow, suddenly, Jan. 24, headline: NORTH KOREANS SEIZE U.S. NAVY
SHIP.
oh boy, patriotism is back! why, those dirty bastards! I thought THAT
war was over! ah ha, I see --- the REDS! Korean puppets!
it says under the A.P. wirephoto, something like this --- the U.S.
intelligence shop Pueblo --- formerly an army cargo ship, now converted into
one of the Navy's secret spy ships equipped with electric monitoring gear
and oceanographic equipment was forced into Wonsan Harbor off the coast of
North Korea.
those dirty Red bastards, always fucking around!
but I DID notice that the lost H-bomb story got shoved into a small
space: "Radiation Detected at B-52 Crash Site; Split Bomb hinted."
we are told that the president was awakened between 2 a.m. and 2:30
a.m. and told of the capture of the Pueblo.
I presume he went back to sleep.
the U.S. says the Pueblo was in international waters; the Koreans say
the shop was in territorial waters. one country is lying, one is not.
then one wonders, what good is a spy ship in international waters? it's
like wearing a raincoat on a sunny day.
the closer you can get on in, the better your instruments pick up.
headline: Jan. 26, 1968: U.S. CALLS UP 14,700 AIR RESERVISTS.
the lost H-bombs off Iceland have completely disappeared from print as
if it had never happened.
meanwhile:
Sen. John C. Stennis (D.-Miss.) said Mr. Johnson's decision (the call-
up of Air Reserves_ was "necessary and justified" and added, "I hope he will
not hesitate to mobilize ground reserve components as well."
Senate minority leader, Richard B. Russell (D.-Ga.): "In the last
analysis, this country must get the return of that ship and the men that
were seized. after all, great wars have started from much less serious
incidents than this."
House Speaker John W. McCormack (D.-Mass.): "The American people have
to wake up to the realization that communism is still bent on world
domination. there is too much apathy about it."
I think that if Adolph Hitler were around now he would pretty much
enjoy the present scene.
what's there to say about politics and world affairs? the Berlin
Crisis, the Cuban crisis, spy planes, spy ships, Vietnam, Korea, lost H-
bombs, riots in American cities, starvation in India, purge in Red China?
are there good guys and bad guys? some that always lie, some that never lie?
are there good governments and bad governments? no, there are only bad
governments and worse governments. will there be a flash of light and heat
that rips us apart one night while we are screwing or crapping or reading
the comic strips or pasting blue-chip stamps into a book? instant death is
nothing new, nor is mass instant death new. but we've improved the product;
we've had these centuries of knowledge and culture and discovery to work
with; the libraries are fat and crawling and overcrowded with books; great
paintings sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars; medical science is
transplanting the human heart; you can't tell a madman from a sane one upon
the streets, and suddenly we find our lives, again, in the hands of the
idiots. the bombs may never drop; the bombs might drop. eeney, meeney,
miney, mo-
now if you'll forgive me, dear readers, I'll get back to the whores and
the horses and the booze, while there's time. if these contain death, then,
to me, it seems far less offensive to be responsible for your own death than
the other kind which is brough to you fringed with phrases of Freedom and
Democracy and Humanity and/or any of all that Bullshit.
first post, 12:30. first drink, now. and the whores will always be
around. Clara, Penny, Alice, Jo-
eeny, meeney, miney, mo-
from THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN TOWN & other stories by Charles Bukowski

...and there's this from NOTES OF A DIRTY OLD MAN:

"I don't want to get as holy about being active and involved with mankind as Camus did (see his essays) because basically most of mankind sickens me and the only saving that can be done is a whole new concept of Universal Education-Vibration understanding of happiness, reality and flow, and that's for the little children who ain't murdered yet, but they will be, I'll lay you twenty-five to one, for no new concept will be allowed--it would be too destructive to the power gang. no, I'm no Camus, but, sweetheart, it bothers me to see the Klankheads making hay out of Tragedy.
Gov. Reagan's statement, in part: "The average man, decent law-abiding, God-fearing, is as disturbed and worried as you and I about what happened.
"He, and all of us, are the victims of an attitude that has been growing in our land for nearly a decade---an attitude that says a man can choose the laws he must obey, that he can take the law into his own hands for a cause, that crime does not necessarily mean punishment.
"This attitude has been spurred by demagogic and irresponsible words of so-called leaders in and out of office."

but, God, I can't go on. it's so dreary. the Father-Image with ye old razor strop to whip our ass. now the good governor is going to take away our toys and put us to bed without dinner.
lord, lord. I didn't murder Kennedy, either one of them. or King. or Malcolm X. or the rest. but it's fairly obvious to me that the Left Wing Liberal forces are being picked off one by one--whatever the reason (a suspect who once worked in a health food store and hated Jews)--whatever the reason, the left-wingers are being murdered and put into graves while the right-wingers don't even get grass-stains upon their pantscuffs, and weren't Roosevelt and Truman also shot at? Democrats. how very odd.
that the assassins are sick, I will admit. I'm also told by the God-fearing that I have "sinned" because I was born a human being and once upon a time human beings did something to one Jesus Christ. I neither killed Christ or Kennedy and neither did Gov. Reagan. that makes us even, not one up. I see no reason to love any judicial or spiritual freedoms, small as they may be now. who is bullshitting who? if a man dies in bed while fucking, must the rest of us stop copulating? if one non-citizen is a madman must all citizens be treated as madmen? if somebody killed God, did I want to kill God? if somebody wanted to kill Kennedy did I want to kill Kennedy? what makes the governor, himself, so right and the rest of us so wrong? speech-writers, and not very good ones at that...what they won't tell us is that our madmen, our assassins do spring from out present mode of life, our good old All-American way of living and dying. Christ, that we are all not outwardly raving, that's the miracle! and since we have been rather sombre here, let's end it on the light fantastic, speaking, as we are, about madness."

LET ME SLEEP!!!

2010-09-25T02:26:00.001-07:00

RELISH

Alone but not lonely in a rich, dark room, filled with familiar furniture. Thinking June and July thoughts in the cold of February. Sitting in the almost dark of a quiet neighborhood (birds silent, cars parked) using time to think. Touching the buttons of the stereo like he would the spots on that lover, he used his fingers for effect, trying to bring about an emotion or coax a sound to drip around and seal the thoughts of a moment in music.
Quietly sitting, he tried to move now, silently to get some water or a cigarette, no more noisily than a sleek black cat across carpeted floors, or the hum of a light in warm sedate household. Just wanting everything to be right. Manageable. Listening for a pulse, but not trying too much for fear that the rage and anxiety of the past nights would return.
Barefoot across slowly creaking boards, trying to let the world sleep so that he could recite his feeling onto paper before the top began spinning again, blurring the colors and leaving those dark comfortable moments behind never again to be captured.
Like a comfortable head on a down pillow, like a comfortable limp, soft cock nestled in the warm crevice of her curves. Not penetrating, not invading, just content to be there lengthwise against her. Avoiding the erection and rigidity by lying still, savoring the contact, afraid to move and change the arrangement—afraid to awaken the beasts within them both. Not wanting her to move and instigate arousal and something more complicated and writhing, something requiring more effort, more precision. Not wanting. Sunk into cool sheets, his arms draped around her torso, feeling the outlines of her plump breasts’ skin. His chest hairs tingling upon her back. His cheek sunk in to one pillow next to hers. His nose amidst the sweet but salty aroma that lingered in her long, normally clean, but now sweat-smelling hair and scalp. His breath enveloping the moment as it seeps from his lips and nostrils through the strands and around the nape of her neck, making her dream state unhurried, warm and rich, at least from outward appearances. Moving his head out of its resting place (only barely, but still a risk) to slowly take a cool, refreshing drink from a straw in a glass on a nightstand that would lend itself to the middle-of-the-night thirst of the prone, weary lovers.
The ticking of the clock, unheard. The smell of their sexual oozings in the sheets. A leaf blowing across the sidewalk outside the window, scraping, paper-like as the gentle breeze moves it with the delicacy that a lonely song moves a black convertible on a moonlit, desert highway. Only less directed.
That water upon his lips, past his teeth, onto his tongue to his jowls.
It will all be over soon, the stillness of the night and her attention, so he tries to forget that he is immersed in time as soon as he remembers, but the now apparent clock ticks on. Soon she will shudder awake from an inevitable nightmare because she is not happy. She is not sedate. She is not able to linger, through and through. Her pleasure is flighty and on the surface, not spread out like stubborn butter on hot absorbent toast, but scattered crumpled cash next to a mound of credit-card bills. She is unable to let him sink to her core and envelope him, because she hungers form more, different beds, not those moments of detail that she sleeps through now. He understands, calling his allowance of her wandering—generosity.
So, he feels his mind drift through his past to the faces of former kittens who could purrrrr in recognition of his affection, some longer than others, but would then wriggle free, finicky and unsure of their desire or his. Sometimes all it took was a touch. The CD would skip. And then, the sheets would grow cold with the heat having been removed from him and the water glass would no longer be a reservoir of relief but another liquid temperature drop toward the loneliness that apes death for those who call themselves alive.
So at times like this, when he had shirked those longings for close skin and kind words, for mutual breath in unison, he would await the next encounter and promise himself that he would savor its every second, letting it trickle through leaving only memories of blonde, belly down and gentle curves disappearing into musty, moist pink darkness of delight. Dire, damp, then disappearing. He would take another sip, the last sip, and fall off to sleep with the remnants of her aroma still on his pillow. Lingering. Taunting. Like a song that never lasted long enough to relinquish real truth, its echoes fading to a quiet room, carpeted, warm, lonely, but never sufficient.
Telling himself that it was part of a circle, he wanted it to be wide and expansive. Girls like her tightened it around him like a constricting boa of strangulation.
“Don’t please. DON’T,” he would whisper as if gasping in his dreams, but she was gone.
They were gone. Leaving only those memories, somewhat satisfying, but never forever. Cigarettes and ashes not willing to be lit again.
It wasn’t a crime to play them over. Did he want more, or were they enough? Slowly rolling from horizon to treeless horizon and disappearing into thin air, wispy. Where do they go? Never mind. Here’s another. Look at it. Feel it breeze by. It will soon be no more but a filter in a tray. She will die or form a head like many bad ideas bottle up, butting against one another.
Stop the wind. Pull the sheet over the head, but they will inevitable wake up and sneak out quietly through that door that you couldn’t bear to lock. For if you did, they would settle into their mold; into your mold, an no longer would they be able to seep across your pulsing heart; like piranha on heroine, towards the heart of another.
So, let them slip away. Don’t bat an eye. Leaving cold sheets and hope that another comes along before the cool night overtakes the small amounts of warmth left from the last hot, coastal hint of pleasurable steam. Savor the last flickering flames before the melting wax comes back to drown you, leaving only a smoking wick and the smell of what had bee. Fire, mesmerizing, stupefying fire.
And when you awake from your refreshing and piercing dreams, get up and wash your fucking sheets lest you die in the smell of that last hour. Too languid to go get a cup of coffee and hunger for another cloud.

from LICK MY SQUAGGLE NOOSE, CLAM TICK #1
reprinted in THE SUBTERRANEAN QUARTLERLY May, 1994

Brett Lars Underwood

Me, Joe McPhee and a $25 poem

2010-09-13T12:15:00.000-07:00

I had a real fine time performing at the Hearding Cats Collective production DAEDALUS CACOPHONUS on Friday evening under an eerie sky in the beautiful, Old Post Office Plaza to the accompaniment of saxophonist Joe McPhee. A friend shot video of it, which you can see here. Laurent Torno III was there with a much better camera than the Canon Powershot that my friend used for this video. I hope to see his footage soon.
See the script below.

READY FOR LIFT OFF

Crawl outta your skin and grow wings, Kid
Crawl outta your skin and grow wings

Crawl outta your skin and grow wings, Kid
Crawl outta your skin and grow wings

Crawl outta your skin and grow wings, Kid
Crawl outta your skin and grow wings

Take your wait off
Strap your wings on
Gravity is a crutch!

Gotta get away from you Cretins!
Flying higher and higher

While faceless slaves
feed the beast
grow, slaughter, cook and serve
the feast

sew the walkabout threads
stripped from wheels
spin willy-nilly wobbly heels
shuffle feet
scuttle butt
talking the talk
walking the walk
clod-kickin’ nomads
riddling clichés
in piecemeal-economic class majority of days
knotting and tangling
screaming and steaming
angels falling in teams
coaxing hope from men and children
suffering guilt and schemes

for flavored vodka
to put out the flames.

Faceless in frenzied crowds
not their piglets for a tit
sweet silk web of perks
splinters in their lips

it’s a wooden cow
eating the genius grass of now
leisurely-gone-mechanical
madness habit
horses clip-clopping through the sky,
hot on the trail of a giant carrot,
bobbing
on the end of a string
tied to a stick unseen.
Burning spear becomes the sun.

Sorry.
Pardon me.
Sodomy
crying in reality
steeping in normality
buttheads are bound
to butt heads
that buy shit, bite shits
bytes hit and heights hit
won’t give the satisfaction of
the real tail hit.

You chop down peasant trees
if you can’t get no
pleasantries,

You a pissant?
Pissed-off, beaten-down?
Disinegratefully muttering,
“Icarus is sick of us clowns”

and the sin of Pomegranate
Sultans of Homer
Keeping her down
under
while up top
behemoth
violent women
with bushels and bushels of rags
and frenetic mongrels dropped
from hot snatches
to scamper about floors of life
‘cause they were lonely.
Heel scream bitch moan

retort cranked to 9

The locked-down boom box blares
soft-rock soma static
statistician death
equation of chaos avoidance.

See its nonsense?

Others anguish?
sitting in the John Wilkes Booth
with the Donner Party

Sorry utters ranting of wishwash blather
of too much peroxide
silicone and the glide
and the kind of salvation
they sell on late-night television.
faces cracked and exploding,
but you tip
a little extra
so the waitress
can shoot it between her toes tonight.

Gotta get high tonight
Outta sight
Set a course for the midnight light
Window-pained souls squeegee a play of rage
turn to stone in its chemical cage
jaws yawning uncertainty
future doom cult in dreads circle spirits
their wagons around teepees

snap and rage
against bludgeoning
the right
clothes tumble in the drier thoughts
fall in sync

Scattered and disconnected,
but all feeling the same heat.

STOP THE CAR!
I’M GETTING’ OUT
I CAN’T TAKE IT!
Hey look out
There’s somebody comin’
And there’s nothing you can do about it!!!!

That’s ok
He ain’t got long to go!
So we’ll forgive him.

Something spontaneous
Possibly dangerous
Something precarious
Probably not legal
Something fun
Eventually lethal
But we probably won’t be out
That long.

Ride it on a glide like that
Let it prove its groove
Slow down ancient mellow day
And play it to the moon

And now we hurtle through the stars
The President says we goin’ to Mars!
Just to get away from this rubbish heap!
Flying higher and higher
Until we drown in melted glaciers.
…another failed attempt at escape
from Cretins and their addiction
to the glug glug.

Crawl out of your skin takes time
Crawl out of your skin takes time

Crawl out of your skin takes time
Crawl out of your skin takes time

Crawl outta your skin and grow wings, Kid
Crawl outta your skin and grow wings

Crawl outta your skin and grow wings, Kid
Crawl outta your skin and grow wings

Crawl outta your skin and grow wings, Kid
Crawl outta your skin and grow wings

Brett Lars Underwood, 2010

The chants at beginning and end can be attributed to the late, great Welsh band, Mclusky, and their song ICARUS IS SICK OF US.

Would that I were the performer that they are/were.

John Sinclair

2010-09-09T11:47:00.000-07:00

I have never met the man, but I have spent many "religious" moments at the late, great Bohemian National Home and I know the magic ideology of the forgotten parts of the world...Detroit being one of those places.

Spend some time listening to him:

...are there any words you have for would-be revolutionaries?

"Well, yeah: Figure out what you wanna do and then figure out how to do it...and then get some people who wanna do the same thing and look at it the same way. You just have to do things...there's no formula; there's no template."

Good-bye to August

2010-08-31T12:08:00.000-07:00

Beautiful hot day
I miss the sun
I hate the sun
Face lathered in aloe
Flaking
Peeling
Burnt
Post-lunch hot salsa logic
needs a walkabout
stuck inside
with you, my only fan
and your successful breeze.

Who is your Captain?

2010-08-25T07:52:00.000-07:00

Pachuco Cadaver :

When she wears her bolero then she begin t’ dance
All the pachucos start withold’n hands
When she drives her Chevy Sissy’s don’t dare t’ glance
Yellow jackets ‘n red debbles buzzin’ round ‘er hair hive ho
She wears her past like uh present
Take her fancy in the past
Her sedan skims along the floorboard
Her two pipes hummin’ carbon cum
Got her wheel out of uh B-29 Bomber brodey knob amber
Spanish fringe ‘n talcum tazzles FOREVER AMBER
She looks like an old squaw indian
she’s 99 she won’t go down
Avocado green ‘n alfalfa yellow adorn her t’ the ground
Tatooes ‘n tarnished utenzles uh snow white bag full o’ tunes
Drives uh cartune around
Broma’ seltzer blue umbrella keeps her up off the ground
Round red sombreros wrap ‘er high tap horsey shoes
When she unfolds her umbrella pachucos got the blues
Her lovin’ makes me so happy
If I smiled I’d crack m’ chin
Her eyes are so peaceful thinks it’s heaven she been
Her skin is as smooth as the daisies
In the center where the sun shines in
Smiles as sweet as honey
Her teeth as clean as the combs where the bees go in
When she walks flowers surround her
Let their nectar come in to the air around her
She loves her love sticks out like stars
Her lovin’ sticks out like stars

Captain Beefheart from his album
Trout Mask Replica
(1969)

...and NOW! for something completely different:

I Am Getting Out There

2010-08-17T17:53:00.000-07:00

I've been busy and lucky lately.

Writing a lot and getting calls to read.
Put these in your memory banks and on your calendars. I'd love to see you, sign a book, talk some shit...and of course, have some drinks.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 2ND AT POP'S BLUE MOON

"Bob's Scratchy Showcase" is gonna be an evening of local writers:
Brett Underwood, Tony Renner, Matt Freeman and special guest
Barely-Free Partial Prisoners
$5
5249 Pattison Ave Saint Louis, MO 63110
Neighborhood: The Hill

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4TH 7 pm @ AT THE HARTFORD COFFEE COMPANY 3974 Hartford Street, St. Louis, MO 63116 (314) 771-JAVA (5282)
Several poets from the recently released anthology of St. Louis poets FLOOD STAGE will be reading. I am one of those poets!
Read about the book and the local publishing seen here:
http://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/books-and-literature/reviews/article_bc5b7e12-7d68-5b75-ae9a-88895e596f84.html
http://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/books-and-literature/article_a53f72cd-28df-5d1e-8f77-265422a378c3.html

...and this is the big one!
Saturday, September 10th
HEARding Cats Collective presents
Daedalus Cacophonus
An outdoor collaborative at the Old Post Office Plaza featuring percussion, dance, and poetry
ST. LOUIS, MO - August 3, 2010 - HEARding Cats Collective, St. Louis' new presenter and producer of "strange and wonderful" arts events has received a generous grant from DowntownNow! to create innovative arts programming at the Old Post Office Plaza (9th St. and Locust). Entitled Daedalus Cacophonus, the event will take place Friday, September 10, 2010 at 6 pm, and feature an evolving percussive landscape led by Artistic Director Rich O'Donnell (SLSO principal percussionist, retired), dancers from Ashleyliane Dance Company, a variety of local poets (Anna Lum, Brett Underwood), and New York jazz saxophonist Joe McPhee. The event is free and open to the public.

In homage to Daedalus, an ancient Greek craftsman so skilled that his sculptures "seemed to move about," HEARding Cats Collective will assemble a team of local professional musicians, poets, and dancers for a mesmerizing 75 minute multimedia cultural journey. The music will inspire dancers and audience alike to move about the Old Post Office Plaza - just like one of Daedalus' creations.

Daedalus Cacophonus will create a free-flowing rhythmic dialogue between musicians, poets, dancers, and audience. The core musical element of the piece is an ensemble of 5 percussionists (O'Donnell, Papa Wright, Craig Williams, Matt Henry, and Thomas Zirkle) belting out world rhythms on bass and hand drums; meanwhile troupes of dancers, dressed statuesque in togas will groove to the beats; other sections will feature quieter duo and solo sections combining poetry with improvised saxophone (McPhee); and later, mallet percussion with splash cymbals and water gongs - making use of the basin at the plaza. The entire performance will be scored (timeline of individual sections broken out by sequential minute cues), so that each member's unique contribution is a coordinated piece of the whole, interwoven with the other performers' sections to create a complete narrative

Like many of the events HEARding Cats already has planned for 2010, Daedalus Cacophonus will draw artistic talent from a variety of age, gender, and ethnic backgrounds. Performers will range in age from 20s to 70s, both male and female, and include Caucasian, African American, and Asian individuals. This diversity of cultural influences and talent pool is the ideal way to highlight St. Louis' role in the regional and national art scenes.

For more info, please visit the links above, or www.heardingcatscollective.org.
HEARding Cats Collective was formed in November 2009, and will work to keep St. Louis strange and wonderful...

I hope this finds you well and that you will join us at the Schlafly Tap Room after the show for some rock n' roll! We've got a doozy of a show AND its free!

Tok http://www.myspace.com/tokandroll

GasRat http://www.myspace.com/gasrat

I, Crime (Hot Rock from Detroit!) http://www.myspace.com/icrime

Then!! Stay tuned for details about another reading at Firecracker Press
on Saturday, December 11th!

Thinkingusic

2010-07-03T12:21:00.000-07:00

THINKINGUSIC:
I saw that in a comment on Facebook just now.
The woman who typed it said she was "typing" on an IPhone whilst in a cab.
She meant to type "thinking music".
I'm going to think about this new word for a bit.

Grandmother's Song

2010-06-23T06:03:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite celebrities as a kid was Steve Martin. As I was walking around the sweat capitol this morning, this song popped into my head.
Steve introduced the song as such:

You know folks, when I was a kid, I was pretty close to my grandmother and she used to sing a song to me when I was about this high. It always meant something to me and I'd like to do it for you right now because it does have meaning in today's world even . . . all these years, you know those, even during the "hip drug days" you know when everybody was supposed to be so cool and everything had double meanings and this little simple tune would keep coming back to me and I think it kinda guided me through those years and I'd like to do this song for you right now, I think it might have a little meaning for you

Be courteous, kind and forgiving,
Be gentle and peaceful each day,
Be warm and human and grateful,
And have a good thing to say.

Be thoughtful and trustful and childlike,
Be witty and happy and wise,
Be honest and love all your neighbors,
Be obsequious, purple, and clairvoyant.

Be pompous, obese, and eat cactus,
Be dull, and boring, and omnipresent,
Criticize things you don't know about,
Be oblong and have your knees removed.

Be tasteless, rude, and offensive,
Live in a swamp and be three dimensional,
Put a live chicken in your underwear,
Get all excited and go to a yawning festival.

O.K. everybody!

Be courteous, kind and forgiving,
Be gentle and peaceful each day,
Be warm and human and grateful,
And have a good thing to say.

Be thoughtful and trustful and childlike,
(O.K. everybody on this!)
Be witty and happy and wise,
Be honest and love all your neighbors,
Be obsequious, purple, and clairvoyant.
(Let 'em hear you outside!)

Be pompous, obese, and eat cactus,
(Everybody sing!)
Be dull, and boring, and omnipresent,
Criticize things you don't know about,
Be oblong and have your knees removed.

(Ladies only)
Be tasteless, rude, and offensive,
(Now the men)
Live in a swamp and be three dimensional,
(Everybody)
Put a live chicken in your underwear,
Go into a closet and suck eggs.

Where you gonna run to?

2010-05-31T09:32:00.000-07:00

Had the supreme pleasure of seeing the Black Diamond Heavies at the Schlafly Bottleworks Saturday night and have been thinking a lot about the song SINNERMAN...

Two thoughts as your pussy bitches about the weather

2010-05-25T12:36:00.000-07:00

Mr. Bungle:

Henry Miller:
THE AIR-CONDITIONED NIGHTMARE
http://books.google.com/books?id=jAEY3Kbnj3oC&dq=henry+miller+the+air-conditioned+nightmare&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=-yb8S9upEIm2Npq4-dQB&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false

CHEER-ACCIDENT will. I promise.

2010-04-14T13:36:00.000-07:00

Chris Dee is a lovely lad. Besides manning the guitar for local post-punk performance artists The Conformists, he is a super-chill cat and now, he has offered up a gift to the grumpiest (or goofiest) promoter in town---that's me, Shitbag!
That's right, Mr. Dee came at me recently with an offer that had tears running down my legs the second I read it via the email-enhancement program I beckon towards for such good news. He wanted to know if I could book Cheer-Accident!
This was a bit of a last-minute thing, but the date had been set aside for a Tionol that I regret having worked in the past, so I needed to do some pleading with the folks at the World Headquarters of Schlafly Beer. We are a humble sort down at the Schlafly Tap Room and only bite when numerous folks have spit on, cursed at or poked us beyond a point that we cannot fathom. It was an easy deal that we made to O.K. the booking of the Eliot Room with such genius on the same night that others will be fiddling...that's another story.
Let's get to what you need to know: in short CHEER-ACCIDENT is legendary. They are lovely folks who love their hometown of Chicago. Were they to choose a home-base such as Berlin or Rome or London, who knows what would change.
Listen extensively here.
So much history behind the legend.
I'm waiting for new tires on the Honda. Getting ready to see them on Sunday with Sleepytime Gorilla Museum at the Bottom Lounge in Chicago. But first:
Friday, April 16th
9 to Midnight
at the Schlafly Tap Room
2100 Locust Street
St. Louis, MO 63103
314.241.0986

Four acts: no charge for admission
Amelie Morgan (solo piano
Spelling Bee
The afore-mentioned and hyperlinked act: The Conformists
and
Cheer-Accident

Like it or don't, people will be talking about this show for many years to come.
I'm not exactly bleeding words today, so I give to you a bit from their page on their present label, Cuneiform Records:
For over 20 years, Cheer-Accident have been a creative, interesting force in rock music. They constantly strive to surprise their audience and themselves with constant reinvention. Fear Draws Misfortune is their 16th release and arguably their best release and their album which strives the furthest towards a powerful balance between personalized and unique studio techniques and the excitement of a visceral, live, well-honed rock band. Which is saying something. It is a strongly compelling and high-reaching album that uses a wide variety of ideas, styles and studio techniques, resulting in a cohesive and ambitious album of art-rock. The basic band is a trio who between them perform on vocals, keyboards, trumpets guitars, bass and drums, but they are augmented by 15 additional musicians who, each in their own way, bring their own musical gifts to the album. Fear Draws Misfortune reveals a fortuitous intersection between Cuneiform and Cheer-Accident, both of whom have long admired the other and both of whom finally decided to do something about it! This long overdue marriage, which neatly coincides with a timely (and quite lengthy) cover-feature article in December 2008's Signal To Noise magazine, promises to hurl Cheer-Accident into wider recognition.

" I could easily fill a page talking about any given minute of this album, but suffice it to say that if you’ve ever loved Magma’s apocalypticisms, Neu!’s ghosts in the machine, or Beefheart’s Dada boogie—or at least dreamed of watching the Mormon Tabernacle Choir fall down a very long flight of stairs—it might be for you." — Monica Kendrick/Chicago Reader

"...[Cheer-Accident] meld difficult, angular rock with absurdist lunacy in intentionally disturbing ways that are just brilliant." – Alternative Press

"There are few ensembles that can make noise sound both as mysterious and as strangely inviting as Cheer-Accident." – Delusions of Adequacy

SO COME ON WITH IT, ST. LOUIS!
I embed this video b/c it features the ever-present babbling crowd as part of the soundtrack. Please enjoy more by clicking on videos here.

Springtime!

2010-04-11T11:42:00.000-07:00

It's mid-morning as
the neighbor lady plops down the steps
huffing and puffing towards the car
gasping for air
arms all akimbo.
Hootin', "Woooo, have mercy. Lawd, Dear God!"
Fannin' herself with the three fingers free
from her oversize bag.
Scuff shoes shufflin' across the pavement now
until one falls off.
Perched on one leg; draped in a muumuu;
she stops to slip it back on
the front of her swollen foot
that won't squeeze in over the heel.
No Cinderalla dreams today.
"Move it, Bitch!" screams the driver.
"We al'ready late!"
But she didn't lose her balance
as bird chirps and the smell of mowed grass
and gasoline
float in on a cool breeze.
The bartender rolls over
and turns up
the radio.
Somebody is angry that the relief
staff won't be enough
for the Fall
classic.
He gives it up.
Gets up.
Shuts the window
and realizes
that he stripped naked
before crashing in front
of the fan
last night.
Howdy, Neighbor!
He chuckles.
But no one is around.

Brett Lars Underwood, 2010

Lungs of the City: GO TO SLEEP EARLY AND SLIP IT IN THE MORNING

2010-04-11T00:10:00.000-07:00

Lungs of the City: GO TO SLEEP EARLY AND SLIP IT IN THE MORNING

GO TO SLEEP EARLY AND SLIP IT IN THE MORNING

2010-04-11T00:04:00.000-07:00

TAX DAY RELAX DAY
YOU'RE MOTHER'S GOT A TIT OR TWO
CATHOLIC GUILT THAT YOUR FATHER BUILT
AND YOUR AUNTIE'S A LEVIATHAN
A LIAR THEN
SHE CAN'T GET A CAT WET
YOU BETTER BET.
WHAT?

Thursday, April 15th 9 P.M. AT THE SCHLAFLY TAP ROOM:
The Skekses
www.myspace.com/theskeksesstl
Barely-Free Partial Prisoners
www.myspace.com/barelyfreepartialprisoners
Catholic Guilt
http://www.myspace.com/catholicguiltlives

Patricia Highsmith

2010-03-31T19:24:00.000-07:00

I did a lot of lazing about this winter, huddled up under the blankets against the chilliness of my South Side flat (I like it like that...Booo! forced heat!). When I laze about, I listen to all kinds of radio. One sleepy afternoon, this interview caught my attention. In particular, the fact that the subject of this author's new book is Patricia Highsmith, whom I have heard of because of her book STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, or perhaps due to the fact that I've seen the Hitchcock movie based on the book, caught my attention. Check it out. Turns out Ms. Highsmith was quite the player:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1303128

So, I grow tired of the radio and move on to other media. I quickly re-read STRANGERS ON A TRAIN and a couple other novels by Highsmith, having found them in abundance at our fabulous downtown library. I watched STRANGERS ON A TRAIN here:

Haven't gotten around to digging up THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY, but I noticed today that
THE CRY OF THE OWL just hit the streets here in the States.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cry_of_the_Owl

Hollywood will forever have a boner for the remake, of course, and guess what!
The French derived a film from her novel way back in 1987:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Cri_du_hibou

As you might expect, I like the twisted, pathological characters in her work (and the fact that she was an ex-patriot almost as soon as she was able to arrange to get the fuck out of here.

So, give her a read.
Even Matmos is hip to her:

...of course, not everybody is a fan:

Playlist for Late Night Radio

2010-03-31T16:48:00.000-07:00

I used to host a radio show on KDHX.
Just ran across a bunch of old playlists from The No Show on the Ewaves yahoogroup list and thought to look up the show when I subbed a New Year's Eve show for Randall Roberts. Thomas Crone later asked me to write about being at KDHX late at night and I repost that piece here as it appeared on 52ndCity.com
No big deal, but I thought it was interesting to go back and see the actual playlist.
Having fond memories of the glee and idiocy of playing Criswell and Negativland.

...and FUCK!!! That MC Honky shit was beautiful and hilarious!

Oh, and Christian Marclay, defying the grooves:

It was a lot of fun and a lot of work and I'm glad it is over. Glad, too, that I have a large shoebox full of recordings of some of the shows. It was STUPID!

Late Night Radio | by Brett Underwood

You've all heard the stories:

There are drunken marauders storming the station late at night. They put a gun to the DJ's head and demand Air Supply—any Air Supply—at 45 revolutions per minute. Then the jock spewing through a smirk "Don't ever utter revolution and air supply in the same sentence again, Shitbird. We can conquer the world without breathing!"

Or, the one about the man with a half-shattered mind, alone in a room with a microphone, two turntables and a cassette player, digging through a box of cassette tapes and mumbling into a live microphone about that perfect track, wishing it was on his finger tips, wishing it were on the air, wishing for anything but this moment which yawns with ennui in the ears of some listeners and fascinates others who revel in the absurd—all unaware that a pizza delivery girl enters the room on a skateboard, strips, squats up on an office chair and spins with mad abandon whilst lustfully lapping up music from dusty LPs, her hands turning the records clockwise across her tongue so that she ingests so much E Minor tragedy that she begins to weep. Not long after, the host lays his fingers on that Charley Pride he was searching for and the girl dissolves into dust, tears and all…

Then there's the story you like to tell about how you heard this late-night jock babbling at a bar about some older woman who called claiming she used to talk to Moondog on the bus as they rode through the Lower East Side back in the 70's...or was it the 60's...and something about him having attended the Missouri School for the Blind and it was kind of weird because he, himself, the radio guy, was riding the 13 to the Central West End, reading DeLillo when he heard the woman's voice. She was climbing into the bus with a walker and he watched her and listened to her conversation with the bus driver and she got off at Barnes to work at a gift shop...and no, he didn't introduce himself.

Or, the federal judge crying on the phone to the host because he was rude and hung up on him while he was forlorn and riding around the East Side and just wanted to hear some Tull while he and a transvestite ate jet pops in the back of a limo.

None of it is true though. They are all urban legend or lies! None of that could ever happen on late-night radio to late-night radio hosts. For events such as those to occur, for instance, at KDHX at 1:45 on a Friday morning, the sun would have to implode and Reagan would reincarnate as son of John Denver to save the world from schmaltz. Yes, for such arrangements to be made, that much would be imperative, you innocent clams who yearn to produce such pearls.

No, what happens at KDHX during late-night radio is beyond words. I couldn't describe it even if I remembered any of it. It is as if aliens steal my memory as I exit the building after hosting an episode of The No Show and I am left to float home on a beam of light in a fringe-top horseless carriage.

I mean I have the recordings to prove to myself that I was at the station, the overhauled bakery on Magnolia. That’s me on the recordings. The crumpled playlists are there in my bag and archived on the station’s website.

I recall standing outside the station smoking a quick cig as some kids swerved through an intersection after carjacking a fraught damsel chasing down the street with cell phone to head, blood trickling down her torn hose and left knee. And last summer, I stopped by the station on my bicycle to check my email and found two punk-rock show producers outside talking to the police about the woman who was handcuffed in the backseat of the squad car. She had stopped her truck while one of them was loading records into his and ran towards him screaming, "I can't stand it anymore!" and nothing else.

However, these incidents all happened outside the station.

Most nights when I'm not doing the show and have stopped by to listen to something or do some audio work on the computer in Studio A or B, Bob Reuter, Kevin Lawrence or Seth Wahlman will be there doing the same thing or finishing some correspondence. I have a perfect recollection of those nights…and each Thursday as I enter the studio and Josh Weinstein is riveting the heads of his listeners to the heavens, I am fully aware and embarrassed to be sharing the same call letters.

But my friends claim they have visited me while I was doing the show and left because I wouldn't talk to or even look at them and the phone would ring and I'd quote what sounded like Zorn’s horn and Bukowski mixed together and slam the phone down, cackling and frothing at the mouth while grabbing an LP with my other hand and smashing it across the console. But you can't trust those loons; they feed buffalo chips to starving Sioux and argue over soda products and colors of caulk. I can only hope that they, too, will someday learn what it is like, “to be in the zone.”

I can only share one late-night KDHX story with you and hope that it resembles the story I would tell if I could remember anything about doing my show because it happened before midnight on New Year's Eve a couple years back and so was not yet in my sense of time, late night.

I was covering another host's show, so he could hold one of his underground cheese-curls and sparkling water orgies. The previous host had left in a huff, shrieking something about hippies or long-hairs or something, as I spun into the program with some old Pere Ubu and was having a leisurely go of it, like most veteran hosts do when the phone calls aren't rapid fire and the tracks are long enough to type in a playlist allowing mind and fingers to cue up the next track, PSA or the like. I answered a couple of requests for material which I could not fill. No sweat. I didn't have the material. It was not my show. “Enjoy the bubbly, sweet birdies-of-the-night. I’m a grinning volunteer, bridled only by insouciance and a need for solitude huddled in a small room with my fingers at the controls of the airwaves and a live internet stream fueled by nameless urges and caffeine”, I said to the clock.

Later, I recalled my wish to spend a New Year's Eve on my back atop a hill or mountain, cocooned in a thermal sleeping bag with an awe-inspiring view of the stars and planets. I was spinning records and imagining such a night when I came across "I Am God" from Negativland's 1993 album "Free". It is a reflective, sometimes shocking and humorous audio collage which opens with children singing about the ecumenical movement and features a repeated chant of "I am God. You are God. We are all God." A piece which might incite a response; people being so trigger happy when it comes to their religious beliefs.

I mean, I've heard the stories about radio personalities being shot in the parking lot outside other radio stations and I've heard other producers tell stories about being threatened by nutbag callers. I have only recently been brave enough to watch Play Misty for Me so I fathomed that I might draw some frustrated demon out of the cold, dark night.

Nope. Wrong.

Didn't have a call for the rest of the show.

I had a couple bands and a party to catch afterward, so I was packed up and ready to roll when I podded up the announcement at the end of the show and cleared the way for the next show’s hosts. I shouldered my bag of tricks and walked outside with my attention focused on the upcoming hours.

I was about halfway down Magnolia to Grand when the fireworks and gunfire announced midnight on the South Side. There were a couple kids across the street launching bottle rockets willy-nilly in all directions and I thought for a moment that I might make a likely target, but rounded the montessori on the corner and walked up Grand free of damage. The gunfire sounded automatically, clearly and rapidly, but distantly.

I was home, re-garbed, ready for action, back out the door and by 12:20, I had parked the car halfway between the bars and the house party and was standing in CBGB with an Oatmeal Stout and a Gambrinus-like thirst as a Jan Primus' spirit sang softly in a drunken woman’s ear as he shot me a wink fueled with jiggers of corn. Her squirming disgust was pitiful. Like souls sleeping dreamlessly, like cyborgs on Soma, she was having none of it. There was still a hint of displeasure to show for her pride, though, so I wrestled the spirit away and we shared old memories from having been at play between our respective headphones and four walls.Playlist for Sovereign Glory! on December 31, 2003

Key: Artist:::Title:::Album::: +=Request *=New
[Notes]

BRETT UNDERWOOD:::Subbing for Li'l Edit:::Happy Everything

PERE UBU:::Dark:::St Arkansas
[ Well, maybe not AM radio, but... ]

FROG EYES:::Miasma Gardens:::The Golden River*
[ One of my favorites of '03. You can find them at
http://www.animalrecordings.com and http://www.globalsymphonic.com ]

MARCELO RADULOVICH:::Telerana:::2 Brains
[ http://www.accretions.com ]

--------:::--------:::--------

CRISWELL/w/ERIC PETERS:::predictions/Electronic Rhythm:::The Legendary Criswell
Predicts Your Incredible Future/Barry 7's Connectors

BECK:::Round the Bend:::Sea Change

MARCELO RADULOVICH:::Do the Deed:::2 Brains
[ Yes, I like. ]

--------:::--------:::--------

POLE:::Fohlenfurz:::Pole 3
[ background ]

--------:::--------:::--------

IMPERCEPT/CRISWELL:::Long Journey for Such a Small
Creature/predictions:::Circuits of Steel: Electronic Music from Pittsburgh for
the 21st Century

MC HONKY:::My Bad Seed:::I Am the Messiah

REALISTIC:::Angel 2000:::Private Moments

unknown:::hidden track (Country Grammar bootleg-mashup):::The Best Bootlegs in
the World Ever

STEVE FISK:::Aviation Oakie:::999 Levels of Undo

--------:::--------:::--------

MUSLIM GAUZE/CRISWELL:::Turkish Sword Swallower/predictions:::Sufiq EP

DAEDELUS:::Fin:::Rethinking the Weather*

ROBOTOBIBOK:::Sonda Jungle:::Jogging (from New Music from Central & Eastern
Europe Volume 2 on Tamizdat Records
[ jazzy jazziness from Poland's Vytvornia Om Records ]

BROOKLYN FUNK ESSENTIALS:::The Revolution Was Postponed Because of Rain:::Dorado
A Compilation (3)
[ Planet Earth Recordings ]

--------:::--------:::--------

CHRISTIAN MARCLAY:::His Master's Voice:::Records (1981-1989)

LAS CAJAS DEL RITMO:::Com Com:::music from the documentary Frontier Life (Banda
Sonora)
[ More stuff from Accretions Records ]

CONLON NANCARROW:::Blues for Piano:::Lost Works, Last Works

BECK:::Sing It Again:::Mutations

THE BOREDOMS:::15:::Super Roots 6

--------:::--------:::--------

NEGATIVLAND:::I Am God:::Free

APHEX TWIN:::Nannou:::Windowlicker

DAEDALUS:::Bright Stars:::Rethinking the Weather*
[ New on Mush Records, a division of http://www.dirtyloop.com ]

ENNIO MORRICONE:::Waiting:::from "A Gun for Ringo"

MATMOS:::l.a.s.i.k.:::a chance to cut is a chance to cure

Readog

2010-03-18T10:41:00.000-07:00

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read." -- Groucho Marx

hUbbuB

2010-03-16T19:38:00.000-07:00

NOTHING TO DO BUT WAIT FOR THE CRACK UP

Mik Miano

2010-03-10T10:48:00.003-08:00

Mik Miano
Originally uploaded by Brett Lars

Rest in Peace, Mik.

Mr. Mik Miano

2010-03-10T10:48:00.001-08:00

Mr. Mik Miano and Lindy's Puppet.
Originally uploaded by Brett Lars

Rest in Peace, Brother.

I AM A LAZY BLOGGER

2010-02-02T14:17:00.000-08:00

I have smoked several cigarettes since I "quit" in June and am increasingly affected by smoke. The bar I work is now non-smoking as is the entire complex that houses it. The smoking issue is a touchy one. I am glad to not be smoking anymore, but if you wanna smoke, go right ahead. I will probably sit right there and continue doing whatever I'm doing. In short, I am not a bitch. I am, however, a lazy blogger.
I was looking back over some of my favorite places on the worldwide waste of time and happened upon this gem.
Some people are fucked...but you already knew that, I hope.

http://waiterrant.net/?p=1630
January 14th, 2010 by Waiter

It’s a crisp winter’s night and I’m strolling though Union Square in Lower Manhattan. I’m supposed to be meeting a friend for dinner but when she texts to say she’s running late I suddenly discover I’ve got forty-five minutes to kill. So I duck into a cigar shop, select a Punch Maduro Rothschild from the humidor, snip off the end and walk back into the park. Finding a quiet corner I get the stogie going with a wooden match and settle back to enjoy my favorite pastime – people watching. Unfortunately, people are also watching me.

“That’s disgusting,” a smartly dressed young woman says as she walks past me.

“I beg your pardon?” I reply.

“You look obnoxious smoking that cigar,” she says.

I look at the woman balefully. She’s your prototypical New York babe - cute, dressed in black from head to toe, holding a cup of Starbucks coffee with an iPod plugged into her head.

“I may look obnoxious, dear,” I reply. “But you sound obnoxious.”

“What did you say?” the woman says, popping her headphones out of her ears. I repeat myself.

“What the…” she stammers.

“Have a nice night, Miss.”

The woman looks at me flabbergasted. She tries coming up with a witty comeback, fails, and walks briskly away. I shake my head. It takes all kinds.

Smoking’s bad for you. Don’t ever take it up. Quit if you can. But for me tobacco is like a dysfunctional ex-girlfriend you can’t let go off. Even though you know seeing her is bad for you, when times are tough you find yourself calling her at three in the morning anyway. One day I won’t need these things, but right now my flesh is mighty weak.

I walk over to a construction site and prop myself up against a concrete wall. I get in a whole five minutes of quiet time when a man and woman pushing a baby stroller stop alongside me.

“Can you move somewhere else with that thing?” the man says.

“Excuse me?” I say.

“The smoke,” he says, smiling passive aggressively, “It’s not good for the baby.”

“You don’t say.”

“I’d appreciate if you moved.”

New Yorkers are obsessed with real estate. I once knew a man whose father died from a massive heart attack. The next day, when he went to his father’s place on the West Side to sort though the paperwork, he discovered the landlord had already rented the place and changed the locks. Unfortunately for the landlord the son was a lawyer – and a grieving, pissed off lawyer at that. So Manhattanites turning feral to claim a square meter of asphalt in a public place doesn’t surprise me.

“I was standing here first,” I reply, calmly. “You came up to me.”

“But…….”

“If you were here first,” I continue, “I wouldn’t dream of smoking next to your child.”

The man stares at me lamely. I feel like busting him about his “man bag” but decide against it. Could be for diapers. No use escalating things.

“C’mon honey,” the man says to his wife. “Let’s go.”

“You’re a jerk,” the wife hisses as she walks away. Calm down babe. All that negative energy can’t be good for junior. I look at my watch. I’ve been smoking this thing for six minutes and have been insulted twice. From the reactions I’m getting you’d think I brought an assault rifle to an Obama rally.

I stay on station and puff away. Another woman walks by and breaks into a paroxysm of exaggerated coughing. I ignore her. She coughs some more. I just look at her and smile.

“Those things will kill you,” she says.

“Have you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior?” I ask.

“What?”

“Would you like to pray with me?

The woman rushes off in terror.. My mom grew up in Spanish Harlem and the Bronx and gave me an invaluable piece of advice for dealing with people in New York - if someone’s bugging you just act crazy. I’ve modified her approach somewhat. Public displays of religiosity work just as well as feigning psychosis.

I expel a mouth full of smoke and contemplate what a weird town New York is. People will walk past a naked bum shivering in the streets or a woman sobbing on a street corner but they’ll take time out to castigate a man smoking a cigar. A helluva town. I hope I can finish my smoke before I get stoned to death.

I start shivering so I decide to walk. The sidewalks are thronged with people. Not being totally inconsiderate of my cigar’s effects I walk alongside the curb. But when I notice that people are swerving to avoid me I decide to perform a little experiment. I move into the middle of the sidewalk with my cigar firmly planted in my mouth. The dirty looks I get are legion but the flow of people part ahead of me like the Red Sea before Moses’ staff.

For the next half hour no one else bothers me. Happy and content I continue my walk around the square, cocooned in the opprobrious privacy of smoke.

Oh, and if you think you know how to act in a restaurant, read this guy's blog religiously and buy his book. He speaks from much experience.

...and if you wanna quit smoking or know how I came to be a mostly non-smoker, check out Mr. Waits here:

SEXYBACK

2010-01-28T15:11:00.000-08:00

The saga of the stolen car and my return to being a guy who owns one car instead of two after having had none nears the end!!!
Finally got up off my ass yesterday and took it to the garage to get the inspection. All is well and it is purring like a 1999 Honda Accord with 93 thousand miles on it. A little dinged up, but it has a new black hood on it and looks pretty bad-ass. I wish I would've waited for it to show up before I bought a different car, but I like what I bought recently, a 97 Honda with a stick.
So, I have to sell the 99.
I don't like such details.

But, as I said, it will all soon be over. I've had two calls already and it has only been an hour since the ad landed on Craigslist. Why does life include such details or why do I allow them into my life? It makes me weary, but I have not lost my sense of humor. I cleaned much of the ashes and tobacco from nooks and a cranny or two. Bunches of it were in the cupholders and in the space where the ashtray and other shit would go if the car came with those "shit" accessories (or something). I haven't cleaned much ash outside of work, but these joyridin' cats got liberal with the Newports, so I had some cleaning to do.
I had just come from the YMCA where I got involved in a conversation with a stranger and Sunyatta about the crack down on smoking that is happening all over the world.
I worked out. I bicycled. I watched Bourdain and I walked on a treadmill. I thought about the movies I watched and how many cigarettes I watched get smoked in THE MECHANIC and FIGHT CLUB. I tried shooting some freethrows later and thought about the dealer that lived on the dorm floor at SLU when I was a junior. He would get out of breath from simply shooting a couple buckets. Too much pot, Ropes.
Eventually, I made it home and ate a big lunch. I got the add up on Craigslist with the pictures I took of the damaged goods. I took a couple quick phone calls and returned a couple emails and then it hit me. I had to take a nap.
This is what I wrote as soon as I woke up:

Ashtry row is endless
more fucking
ashtrays than
you can shake
a stick at
it's like volcanic
fallout
that ashtray row
that's why we hate it
It's the smoke
and the bad
smell that
we're talking
It's the apathy
and the ignorance
of the denial
of death that
we're gonna
outlaw.

_____________________________________________________________________________
SOLD THE CAR!!
It took less than a day after I put it up on Craigslist.
Then I found my old Toyota on GoogleMaps.
Weird!

View Larger Map

...and since I'm learning how to use GoogleMaps, here is the alley where they found the crashed up 99 Accord. Ha!

View Larger Map

Strangely enough, GoogleMaps refers to it as Suburban Tracks. This location is Northwest of Kingshighway and Delmar between Cates, Cabanne, Claremont and Academy.
...but why should you care?

WSB

2010-01-22T13:22:00.001-08:00

wtf

2010-01-18T00:08:00.000-08:00

Please know that a member of the Quaaludes threatened me with DEATH tonight. Also a member of the Lindbergh Babies, etc...

The person in question is named Mark Reynolds. He threatened to kill me tonight again.

He has attacked me before.

I have seen him in action before and can say that he could be a dangerous person.

It is a shame. I used to consider him a friend, but there is something wrong with the man.

SELECT ACTION

2010-01-17T12:52:00.000-08:00

Steps hit the streets every Mundayne morn
mined clarity from sleeping minds
spun piecemeal wheels healing
in dreck of a slim paycheck
for something as divine
as vanishing points
of light in a better
way of living
and to fool
them with
squinted
third
eye.

Right now

2010-01-16T11:20:00.000-08:00

I have to go back to work.

BEER

2010-01-13T12:48:00.001-08:00

BEER
(from: Love is A Mad Dog From Hell
by Charles Bukowski)
I don't know how many bottles of beer
I have consumed while waiting for
things to get better
I dont know how much wine and whisky
and beer mostly beer
I have consumed after splits with women-
waiting for the phone to ring waiting
for the sound of footsteps,
and the phone to ring
waiting for the sounds of footsteps,
and the phone never rings
until much later
and the footsteps never arrive
until much later when
my stomach is coming up
out of my mouth they arrive
as fresh as spring flowers:
"what the hell have you done to yourself?
it will be 3 days before you can fuck me!"
the female is durable she lives
seven and one half years longer
than the male, and she drinks very
little beer because she knows its bad
for the figure. while we are going mad
they are out dancing and laughing with
horney cowboys. well, there's beer
sacks and sacks of empty beer bottles
and when you pick one up the bottles
fall through the wet bottom of the paper sack
rolling clanking spilling gray wet ash
and stale beer,
or the sacks fall over at 4 a.m.
in the morning making the only sound
in your life. beer rivers and seas
of beer the radio singing love songs
as the phone remains silent and the walls
stand straight up and down
and beer is all there is.

GENERATIONS

2010-01-07T15:11:00.000-08:00

BEAT

BLANK

BEATEN

NOW

FAILED

...more on Vic Chesnutt

2010-01-07T11:01:00.000-08:00

Teri Gross did a follow up session in remembrance of Vic Chesnutt. It aired today.

Garbage and others recorded a tribute album to Vic in 1996, entitled Sweet Relief II: Gravity of the Situation

...and another brilliant cover of a Chesnutt song by a band I remember hearing along the way:

PONY WITH A BROKEN NOSE

2010-01-04T23:32:00.000-08:00

When you get the call, you hope it is the best news.
The baby's got two arms, ten toes and fingers and the eyes aren't crossed.
Tether ball experiments won't be done on it in Lithuania.
T-balled weeny quits at four days on the highway of road test.
Transmission girlfriend with the penis that won't deflate after flight.
Expanded warranty translates to hosejob irregularity above 180 degrees.
What gives!

HAVE FAITH WHEN YOU GOT THE DOUBTS!!! JESUS HAS CARS!

Patty D. writes:

"I was married for 32 years to a man who said he knew God personally, but the fruit was always bitter, and at the age of 55, our marriage ended. Through the years of mental and physical abuse, I trusted our Lord would carry me through this valley and He did. Never sure of what I would have to endure, I trusted in God, my perfect Father to walk with me.

Divorce is never easy for anyone.

I always had a car chosen for me by my then husband. Now with no credit history, I needed a car and a place to live. I cried out to God. In an attempt to purchase a car while living temporarily with my eldest daughter, and with only $2,000 for transportation and rent, the future looked bleak. I found a car for $1,000: a bargain for its age. The owners didn’t say in the ad that it was a standard car, for I can only drive an automatic. I told them about my faith and trusting God to find the car for me. I woke up early to start my venture, praising God for His love and protection.

At 7:00 am I drove myself in a loaned car down a empty highway. My cell phone rang. The call was from the owners of the car I couldn’t drive. They had listened to my plight and went to prayer. During the night, Jesus spoke to their hearts, telling them to sell their own family car to me for the same price even though it was more valuable. I couldn’t believe my ears. Then, when she told me where she lived, my eyes and heart could not believe what was before me. Forty feet in front of me was the street they lived on. We praised God for His faithfulness and His promise to bring to pass the desires of our hearts. Thank You dear sweet Lord for your promises and protection.
"

Oh to have such divine luck with a car!
I have had good luck in the car department to be sure. Who can ever forget the $500 Toyota Corolla station wagon that did me good service for years after that piddly payment?

Not only did it run well, but the rusted-off, rear bumper gave way to a whimsical sculpture put in place by Masters Zak and Mik Miano (then of the City Museum's welding wonders).
Sadly, I had to send the Toyota on to another place in a lot on Hall street. The bumper is still with me in my kitchen, waiting for orders.
I went on to purchase a Honda Accord that seemed nice with its leather bucket seats and CD player, power windows and roomy interior, but the brakes went South pretty quick. That cost some green. It never seemed to get very good gas mileage and there never seemed to be time and money enough to go on a trip to Detroit or Chicago or Memphis to enjoy the fact that it has less-than-a-hundred-thousand miles on it.
I was not in love with the car and who knows what causes us to do silly things when we've been drinking, but...I left the keys in it a couple weeks ago. It was gone the next day. I don't know. Don't ask.
Have I explained this in a previous blog? Am I repeating myself? I am certainly revisiting the car part of my life, because the police called last night. They found it in a big, wide alley that the officer called Hodiamont Tracks (and which Google Maps calls Suburban Tracks???) to the Northwest of Kingshighway and Delmar. My buddy Sam and I rode up there to find the officer waiting for us in there. He needed to check the trunk to make sure there wasn't a dead body there. He needed to check my driver's license. Otherwise, we went to buy red, gallon can of gasoline and it started and drove all right back to my house.
The lucky ones left cigarette butts and ashes around the inside and they smashed it into something so that the hood, the grill and the front quarter panels on each side are fucked up, but it drives. I'm having it inspected right now, so I can see about selling it, but the guy at the shop said he can't get the hood open, so...I take it to a body shop down on Gravois on the recommendation of my friend Tom. He had a car backed into one time and the guy banged out the damage so he could drive it and didn't charge him. It cost him a twelve-pack, in other words.
We'll see what happens next.
The bodyman is searching for a hood.
Take that however you want to take it.

Comedy

2010-01-01T05:43:00.000-08:00

Life is a comedy when the bartender is up on New Year's Day to see the Blue moon descending in the Western sky and he is well rested, wide awake and driving to the gym...only to find that the gym isn't open at 7 a.m.
Oh, but some things remain the same. Semi-automatic weapons were fired willy-nilly at Midnight. There was a double murder on the mean streets while that moon was high in the sky. In a shotgun apartment, a couple of drunk girls got in a fistfight over something stupid, went to bed with bloody lips and woke up with jangly nerves and no cum on the sheets...and downtown, a man died of hypothermia while thinking he would be all right as soon as he could get his friend Pinky out of the Sterno can still caught in his fingers when they found him underneath a delivery truck.

So, here is some comic relief in honor of all those who had to work New Year's Eve.

There are a ton of these, check them out.

Our oldest living composer

2009-12-31T18:56:00.000-08:00

Revisit our oldest living American composer, Elliot Carter

Free?

2009-12-25T15:30:00.000-08:00

Another holiday free of normalcy. Slept past noon. Ate a giant bowl of hearty soup (sweet potatoes, carrots, brocolli, celery, five-bean mix, garlic, onion and lots of rooster sauce, spicy mustard and basil boiled down in vegetable boullion and dumped over jalapeno pepper cheese and pumpernickel) while checking the news and comments of the day.
Had a good cry over the suicidal death of one of my favorites, Vic Chesnutt.

I heard this interview earlier this month and have been urging a friend or two to listen to it as our talking heads attempt to work out our issues with health care reform and all the rest.

That was enough to send me out the door. I promised myself a walk on this day free from work and all the rest. The temperature dropped 30 degrees overnight, so I layered myself in tee-shirts, a sweater and one of my Dad's coats and stepped out into a fierce Winter wind. Mindful of black ice on the sidewalk, I treaded lightly and slipped and slided my way over near Tower Grove Park, where I was surprised to find standing water on the sidewalk adjacent to the park. More surprisingly, there was standing water in some places and ice in others. I quickly tired of skating and tippy-toeing and moved to cross the park to find that mud was still splattering up on me from underneath a light dusting of snow.
I love the simple details of moving about in the world when I'm not in a hurry or having cause to worry if someone else is comfortable with the situation, so I put my chin down into my layers and beat it South towards a clearer path. I had it in my mind that I would have a meal while I was away and I did. I popped into The Vine
I've been eating their chicken shawarma, hummus, and falafel for years. One could order it from over a counter in back of their adjoining market. Only recently has this new space opened for sit-down dining and I hesitate to mention it, lest it be run over with idiots, until I realize that few will read this post, so...
Let me say, though, that this is one of the best restaurants in town. I ate there on Thanksgiving, amidst a much warmer walk, and found myself alone in the place. Not surprisingly, the service was quick and my food arrived before my freshly squeezed pineapple juice was ready. I had an incredible salad, the juice and two falafel sandwiches. The bill: $11.09!!
I've been since and the food always amazes, though the crowds have yet to appear. Only today were there other folks in the restaurant. When I shivered in the door this afternoon, there were two "dudes" chuckling over their food. They were not bothersome to me from my place amidst pillows and they seemed to know one of the family, a big guy who stood at their table and joked a bit about one of them having never eaten "anything but cheeseburgers". The young woman keeping the place clean and in order met me at a small table towards the front of the table and recommended some cardamon tea. I accepted. Soon, I ordered lentil soup and a tabouli salad, remembering all the Christmas Eve gorging from which I had not yet recovered.
The bill: $10:39
Amidst my dining, I watched street traffic come and go along South Grand Boulevard while dozens of folks came and went from Jay International Food (just across the street) and Wei Hong Bakery (next door), imagining what I would do if I saw my stolen car travel by as I sipped tea. Ha!
Yeah, I lost a car last weekend. Gone is the silver '99 Honda Accord I had purchased just last Spring. Stolen.
I don't feel the (what I hear is) normal sense of violation, though my wallet and license were in the car and are gone, too. I have done what I can to search for them and have a new driver's license, Visa card and library card. I was able to rent a car to get to my Mom's yesterday and will soon buy another sled. C'est la vie.
Ce n'est pas grave.
Whatever.
Stupid of me to leave things in my car and I probably won't do that in the future, but I can't honestly say that I am upset about another car gone away. I hope it made someone's days a bit easier.
To sit in a small place and eat delicious food while reflecting freely as another restaurant employee enters to dine alone on his day free of rushing about is what I recieved today. Give the streets back to me more often and who knows what will happen?
Return my days to me or shall I take them back?
Take them, fill them with anything as beautiful and fierce as those that a Georgian songwriter has done and stash them away?

...and after I read Vic's obituary on a blog, I noticed this Swigel gem...

...and if that's not enough for you, then explain to me what the hell is wrong?

Dutch TV Presenter Wont Stop Laughing - Click here for funny video clips

...while I'm pissing my pants in solitude, happy that I'm not Charlie Sheen

You're Gonna Die

2009-12-16T19:37:00.000-08:00

At times, I entertain.
These times require an endurance of alcohol, usually.
Some nights, there are folks sleeping in my apartment when I wake up.
I have floor space and a futon, so it is not the worst place for them to crash.
I have extra pillows.
I can always offer them one of my (now dead) Aunt Zelma’s quilts if it is chilly in the sunroom, where the futon is; or on the floor near the inactive fireplace that still allows a draft in from the outside.
Mine is nothing better than a crash pad unless one is curious enough to land in my bed.
That’s another story.

Not too long ago, I awoke to hear another’s breathing in my place and remembered that an esteemed member of our St. Louis society had taken me up on an offer to sleep off a good session of drinking at the Royale, one of our favorite establishments. I snapped to for a bit and remembered the situation, got up to hit the can, splash some water on my father’s face (the one I see these days after such nights) and I went back to bed.
Eventually, we both were ready to move on and I drove him back to his car.
I don’t remember. Maybe we had breakfast. Regardless, I returned to the fabulous emptiness of my hovel to sleep some more and listen to nothingness on the radio but more NPR babble about the economy or some static-laden drivel about yesterday’s game or some long-forgotten AM pop-chart sing-songy. I did this as an attempt at sleep and probably drifted off for a few increments of 40-minute nods. Seems like I had to get up later that day and shower, get some errands done and then run off to work. At any rate, it wasn’t until a day-or-two later that I noticed that my Dad’s paperback copy of THE GODFATHER was sitting on a towel that I had placed on a flat space in my bathroom.

I have retrieved certain items from my Dad’s collection since he died a couple year’s ago.
Most of them are books that he referred me to when we were all younger. Some of them I have read and have captured my mind. Some of them, I gathered as a commemoration of his spirit and efforts as a teacher and historian. There are still other items that I took along because I wanted to revisit our times of watching television and studying the institution and religion that is Baseball. I have his VHS copy of GOLDFINGER, for instance. It is an interesting enough movie of its genre and I revisit it at times, but it is certainly not my favorite. I have it on the shelf because it reminds me of Dad and that time from which he emerged: that pre-Vietnam War era during which it still seemed possible to dash about the globe in a tuxedo to uncover some unruly details about some foreign cads before retiring with a cocktail later that night...and a honey to spill it on.
Huh?
I don’t know. It is a comfortable place to reside, I might say. Seems less ugly than what the CIA was up to at the time or got involved with later, yes?
I see photographs of Dad from back then. He was a few years out of the Army with his Bachelor’s Degree and a new teaching job and my Mom, his wife…and then me.
He was sporting the slim ties and the suits. He had the short black haircut and as a young, but experienced teacher who stood six-foot-one, I’m sure he made an immediate impression on everyone at the secluded community in and around Brussels Community High School. He went on to teach high school for some 30 years, had two more kids, bought a house and eventually became a published author of American history.
As I grew older, our journey into the world of Baseball became more intense and he became the proud father of a kid with a lively fastball and a place on a very good junior-college team.
I had taken over writing high school basketball reports for the local paper and carried an interest in journalism into college and further to university, though never felt the final urge to commit myself to that style of writing, especially after moving to St. Louis and becoming interested in more, shall-I-say, exotic forms of writing and influences of punk rock, late-nights and politics outside of the press box parameters of a sports writer. Then I blew my elbow out and that was the end of organized athletics for me.

I could feel him wishing that I’d stay with the game, become a teacher and coach or a newspaperman, but it didn’t feel right to me. He would urge me to look towards the military for training and guidance and a doorway into society, but that surely did not feel right to me and I wriggled away from his urgings. We became more distant, with less common ground to bond our conversations. Eventually, I would become completely disenchanted with Major League Baseball and corporate journalism. I was downright grumpy about society and hesitant to become involved in its machinations. I struggled to pay the bills, but kept a simple, inexpensive lifestyle and simply hoped that he’d either come to some conclusion and suggestions for a better path for me. The rest of the time, I walked and ran and caught buses to nothing jobs and hoped that something better would appear on its own.

The verses of Jello Biafra sounded more truthful than anything I was reading in the newspapers, but did not hold sentiments I felt like I could discuss with my Dad.
He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease and survived ten frustrating and ugly years of a spiral to death: literally a mindfuck for him and the rest of the family. By the time the day of his funeral came, I was completely relieved that his suffering was over and happy that part of my Mom’s burden had been relieved. I had grieved long before his death. All the normal stuff passed through my mind, but the bitch of it all for me was that he had been chopped down early and had to endure the final decade of his life without really writing. One summer day, we drove down to Little Rock to visit with one of his mentor’s, Dee Brown, the author of BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE.
It was a wonderful visit, but the gravity of the occasion was that that much older man had far more mental clarity than my Dad. Dad was still driving in those days, but would miss exit signs and it was a major relief to get home. His mind had gone.
Still, that did not light a fire under me to write. I have written much more since his death than I did while he was alive, but I attribute that to the people I have met, heard read and read. There seems to be only the urgency of an occasional inspiration.

Such an inspiration was the opening of the novel left there on the reservoir lid of my toilet. I have seen the movie a dozen times and the sequels at least half-as-many times, but have never read Mario Puzo’s novel, THE GODFATHER. The part of the book that grabbed me the other day is the story about Johnny Fontane, whose singing career had gone down the toilet after he left his wife—an act which deeply disturbed his Godfather, Don Corleone. Johnny had gone on to lead “a footloose and fancy-free” lifestyle and had eventually found that he was losing his singing voice due to the smoke, booze and lack of rest. He is scared to death that he is at his end and he knows only to come to the mercy of the Godfather to help him get a sought-after part in a Hollywood movie.
You know the rest. Yeah, you know: horse’s head in the bed of the unwilling director. Yep.
Much of the rest of Johnny’s story isn’t included in the movie, but it all boils down to the fact that he is coming to face the facts, he ain’t getting any younger and no matter how many “pieces of ass” he’s bagged (yeah, besides all the killing, there is lots of fucking going on in this book: it is as racy as all that…witness the joke on P. 181 about fucking Lassie!), he is feeling like he needs to clean up his act and set his course straight.

You come to these milestones or crossroads in life. They jump up and punch you right in the face. Sometimes they rip the world out from underneath you. The ankles, knees and shoulders bark with every movement. Even daily exercise doesn’t fix it back the way it used to be. Hangovers last a full day or two days. You don’t recognize the person in the mirror at first glance if you don’t look yourself in the eye.

I was fortunate to be gifted Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel THE ROAD recently for my 46th birthday. I had thought of reading it, because I like to read the book before seeing the movie and I really wanted to see it at the Tivoli, so I was sure to finish that Percival Everett novel that I was reading, so that I could get through McCarthy’s book before the movie left the theater.
I love an apocalyptic tale where man is finally getting his ass handed back to him after having fucked everything up and the poetic prose of the book added to a feeling of late-night reverie as I glided through page-after-page. Finally Henry Miller’s prophecy that the air-conditioned nightmare would someday sputter to a stop had come true in this meditation. Sure I was reading the book while weary from bartending shifts, but the reading was so effortless and the verse flowed with such ease through the barren land of the father’s and son’s plight that I didn’t feel its force until late in the book.
I am not a parent, so I didn’t feel a biological kinship with the father and his need to guard his son, his lifeblood. I did however feel something change inside me when the father finally died on that cold beach. Something of my pain surfaced and I did miss my Dad again. It was a relief, and I’ll tell you why.

About a month ago, I was really struggling. I was at odds with my own plight and in doubt about how much longer I wanted to make my living on my feet and away from the possibilities of a more contemplative life. I had been drinking plenty and when one night, when I finally got a night free to stay home, I made a big pot of chili and ate far too much of it. It was quite late before I finally went to bed, but I had to go while I was still full and was too uncomfortable to sleep. I was tossing and turning for hours, but finally began dozing off for minutes at a time only to awake with a startle.
At some point I dreamt that my Dad was standing over me and lightly poking me in the shoulder. He was affected by Parkinson’s and I was asleep on the couch in the house in which I was raised. It was as if he missed me and just wanted me awake. But later that morning, while it was still very dark, I dreamt that he had come to me again. This time he was not alive in my dream. I could feel him as cold and black and standing over me in my bedroom.
Disturbing?
Yeah, ya think?

I’ll go on to say that I did see the movie a couple days ago and if you haven’t and you want to, go do it and come back to this later or else it may be ruined for you.

Image Macall Polay.
© 2929/Dimension Films.

First off, Viggo Mortensen has been nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his part in the movie.

Like I said before, I didn't relate to the novel for the "family ties" of the whole thing. I liked the ending of the book because it didn't end simply with the boy being "adopted" by another family. I suspected that somethings would be left out of the film and of course I was right. One of my FB friends was commenting that all the "good guys" were dressed like scummy street punks and all the "bad guys" looked like hillbillies. Except for that sole black man and the family that takes the boy in at the end, who looked like they wandered off the set of THE GRAPES OF WRATH and that their name was the Joads.I walked into the theater half expecting the still-intact nuclear family in the end to come walking up the beach in North Face apparel, though, so I'll take the bedraggled folks from the dust bowl family and allow for some sort of suspension of belief.
The NRA liked the scene, I'm sure. "Hey look, Bubba! Old boy got him some shotgun shells and him AND his kin is still alive and takin' in orphans. God Bless America!"

I almost busted out laughing when the cart thief turned out to be a black dude, but it was too unfortunately sad, especially since it calls for Viggo to go all Dirty Harry on him. I have NO idea why they made that choice. That was the only black character in the movie, right? Very odd choice.

I noticed that they didn't bother to depict the scene with the baby on the spit. Probably saved themselves a ratings slip there. I did notice that the trip to the ship, the loss of the gun and the theft of the cart was all consolidated into a few moments.
The most important part of the book to me is the poetic reflection of these people in such desperation to stay alive in a world that offers very little except the immediate and apparent knowledge that death is imminent and humanity is bound to rub itself out in climates of such fear. The sadly adoring scenes of lust for a can of Coca-Cola and Cheetos and Jack Daniels and vitamin water definitely cheapened the movie for me. Another friend was equally disturbed by the product placement. I thought to myself as I was driving home, "Why no Twinkies? Those things will never rot". But I think that was a scene from The Simpsons, wasn't it?

My favorite part of the book is the very end. Not the new, "stepmother" who is "so happy" to take the boy in after his papa has died, but the last paragraph:

"Once there was a brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could seem them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimple softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes.
Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery."

That's the fucking book right there for me.

"Humanity, you never had it from the beginning."
Charles Bukowski from Notes of a Dirty Old Man (1969)

Lungs of the City: Thollem McDonas and Tsigoti hit ESP-Disk

2009-12-16T11:32:00.000-08:00

Lungs of the City: Thollem McDonas and Tsigoti hit ESP-Disk

Thollem McDonas and Tsigoti hit ESP-Disk

2009-12-16T11:20:00.000-08:00

My crazy and mad, globe-trotting friend, Thollem McDonas is in Italy right now playing with his group Tsigoti in celebration of the new release on ESP-Disk.
Read all about it below and look for them to be hitting the streets of Saint Louis with a show at the Schlafly Tap Room in May sometime.

See this page with all its fancy links at:
http://espdisk.com/official/catalog/4057.html

ESP 4057

TSIGOTI - Private Poverty Speaks to the People of the Party
ESP 4053

ESP-Disk' is proud to announce its newest artist, TSIGOTI (previously known as Waristerror Terroriswar), a collaborative and improvisational quazi-punk band dedicated to expressing their opposition of war, authoritarian regimes, and violent religious extremes. Combining revolutionary politics and intelligent avant-punk fervor, Private Poverty Speaks To The People Of The Party was recorded with a group of players that have run the gauntlet of life experience and musical exploration.

Private Poverty Speaks To The People Of The Party was created with patience and dedication, yet still holds the same raw improvisational qualities of their debut recording, The Brutal Reality of Modern Brutality. Straying from the typical notion of political commentary, TSIGOTI focus their approach from an insider's perspective, exploring people who suffer being attacked, imprisoned, terrorized, tortured, brainwashed, and tricked. By expanding their sonic territory and political repertoire, TSIGOTI deliver a clever, experimental, yet accessible work of art that is true to the ESP mission - forward thinking and forever changing.

Press Quotes

"The customary digital riddles characterizing the genius of this master pianist are all but forgotten here, for this sounds more as a semi-acoustic punk album. Beaten-up instruments, muttered vocals, rhythms and keys often disrespected; the exclusive wish is crying out loud that 'we can’t do this to ourselves anymore', as per one of the tracks titles. When we compare the fusion of these sensations to a sort of feverish pagan ritual and listen to this set with the same attitude of, say, looking at a shaman dressed like a young Joe Strummer, the honesty of intentions begins to clash (pun definitely intended) with our previous ideas pretty hard. Bizarrely frank stuff. - Massimo Ricci, TouchingExtremes, Italy

"Thollem Sickofwar revs up his beatup piano and throws down on war. The results are edgy, uneven and sometimes disquieting. All in all, a rollicking success." - J. Worley, Aiding & Abetting

That Damn Pie

2009-12-11T19:30:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure where I heard this one; probably on the radio as a cleaned-up version as I drifted in-and-out of sleep:

A man and his two sons walk into a diner and have a seat at an empty counter that is being cleared and wiped down by a matronly waitress of large bosom and apple-red cheeks. The boys sit on either side of the father. Soon enough the waitress looks down at the 12-year old and asks what he'd like to have. The boy sits back a little and smirks while he looks past the waitress to a display case.
"I guess I'll have a piece of that damn pie."
Immediately, the father bats the son in the back of the head with his left hand and the son goes chest down on the counter. The waitress is taken aback and gasps a bit, but recovers soon. This time she turns to the five-year old boy, leans down on her elbows and says, "How 'bout you, Little Man? What are you gonna have today?"
The little boy just shrugs and says, "I don't know, but I sure as fuck ain't gonna order any of that damn pie."

2009-12-10T14:19:00.000-08:00

Get your car fixed

and then

crash it into your own butt.
If you don't understand,

take off your high-class dress

and masturbate while watching

or reading CRASH....or have

another lemondade and shirk responsibility.
Kill the poor.
Make wine with slave labor.
Lace dresses with little malnourished hands.
Fart in the faces of the midgets.
I'm going to watch THE DEER HUNTER

while I wait for my third pizza of the day.
Rick Ankiel sucks real good now that

his neck is bendy.

Were there a dash of hope

in bubbles

and curves

I’d be smoking different pipes

tearing the yes out of eyes

that sprout from faces such

as yours

I’d look at you with hope

in your faces

Those given me when you

take me for another that

believes

But I’ve seen too many

and I’m not giving up

my sight

I’ll go on seeing

and that is all

you can expect of me.

Brett Lars Underwood, 2008

Don't kill yourself

2009-10-10T13:42:00.000-07:00


"I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still in a room."
Blaise Pascal

There is a lot of deep-breathing involved in a life that includes chronic pain, lost friendship, addiction, hangover, disappointment and the search to get yourself cured by exercise, wrestling with self-doubt and taking advice from those that can see from outside of your wretched subjectivity. You find yourself in another universe at times. You find yourself anxious and longing for the comfort of your former rut. You find yourself yearning for another one and are afraid that you'll seek out the same old path, but with different faces, voices and stranger bartenders. You're tempted to rip away from the whole game. Drop all your crutches and crawl away from home to see what the universe will throw at you without all your shields and masks.
Skip town, quit the job, shave the head, sell the car and walk to somewhere else.

"Basically, I have one feeling...the desire to get out of here. And any other feelings I have come from trying to analyze, you know, why I want to go away...See, I always feel uncomfortable and I just want to...walk out of the room. It's not going to any other place or any other sensation, or anything like that, it's just to get out of "here."

Richard Hell (from a PUNK Magazine interview with Legs McNeil that was quoted from in the oral history by McNeil and Gillian McCain PLEASE KILL ME)

If you're lucky you know that all of it will pass and your vision will clear. If you're tortured, you don't know. You are certain that there are no options.
The flood of emotions is like an acid trip. If you haven't had the experience before, you panic. You start thinking "crazy thoughts" and if you don't have anyone to talk to that can tell you that the moment is indeed not all, you jump to extreme conclusions.
There is no light at the end of the tunnel; or if there is, it is the afterlife calling you to the other side.
I don't have any answers for those that have mental illness or behavior issues. Get help and be good to yourself. There is something: BE GOOD TO YOURSELF. You can be an asshole to others and treat them unfairly and you can also do the same to yourself. I think there should be a new and all-encompassing commandment to take the place of those ten that we've seen handed about and "down" to us: DON'T BE AN ASSHOLE!
I was in St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan once. There was a mass going on one morning, but there were people milling around taking pictures and sight-seeing. Anyway, I was turning around from wherever I was pointed when a baglady grabs my sleeve. I look down at her and she asks me if I read the Bible and I told her that I had, indeed, read the Bible. She says, "That's good. Then you should know the only commandment!"
"Yeah? The golden rule, you mean?"
"No, Dummy! The only commandment is DON'T BE AN ASSHOLE!" and she kind of harumphed and walked away.

"In all probability committing suicide would be the proper course, yet I find myself reluctant to take the final step. Periodically all through my life I've contemplated doing away with myself---either by jumping from a tall building or preferably shooting myself through the temple. At moments such as the present I find my existence overwhelmingly futile and know it is pointless to continue on when there can be no change.
It is simply that I haven't the nerve. I lack the drive required to push myself over the brink. It is like all I do---at the crucial moment I fail. I am as negative as one can imagine and have always found it more difficult to finish even the simplest task if the opposition becomes even slightly evident. Certainly there can be no wrong in eliminating a nonentity.
What is particularly strange to me is that---although I feel little other than loathing of myself and fully recognize my insignificance---and am weary---miserable---discouraged---and wish for death---way down inside something remains stubbornly alive."

Suicide by Herbert Huncke from his journal and The Herbert Huncke Reader

So, people are in pain and misery and they freak out and think that they can't live inside their own bodies and decide to end their lives. It is heartbreaking stuff leaving friends behind to deal with the mess, even if it is only emotional.
I may end up having more to add to this, but I write it only as an introduction to this fascinating documentary. Enjoy and notice the mention of St. Louis and an unnamed bridge in one of the stories. Oh and Jay Farrar pops up on the soundtrack singing Son Volt's World Waits for You from their 2005 album Okemah and the Melody of Riot.

...and read this if you haven't. The posts are interesting and shed much light on the extreme emotions surrounding the act of suicide. It can even piss of the advertisers!

...and finally, here is a song that our friend Hunter S. Brumfield penned, recorded and that later became a fan favorite of the band Bad Folk (reprinted here from Tim Rakel's blog, Trashcanvas):

The Laughing Song (lyrics by Hunter Brumfield III)

He's sorry that things turned out as they did, it's a god-forsaken shame
small was the box in which that he hid to temper his poisonous brain
he reached for the stars, came back with stumps (maybe stubs?)
in a downpour, yearning for rain (though i was told "urine" was the lyric, i thought "yearning" more poetic and gave Hunter credit for the ambiguity)
happiness got him once he hit bottom
gonna laugh his way through all the pain

Believe him it's easy to drink and be sleazy
as your conscience just limps along
mistaking freedom for license, he screamed in the silence
and his echo said boy you're all wrong
well, life is absurd, haven't you heard?
keep laughing boy, that's your best bet

Giggling Through Another Stupid, American Life

2009-10-05T06:33:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, you get the idea that you are living a special life. You think you are on to something.
You are convinced that your existence on the rock is somehow a little bit better than the lives of the rest of the monkeys. You witness the beauty of a sunset or a car crash or perform, perfectly, a straight-set badminton victory. Perhaps you feel a little bit better about your status on the planet because you sat in on a jury that put away a guy who molested his step-daughter through her entire childhood or you performed a double mastectomy on a jive-ass transvestite. Sometimes, all it takes to feel like you are doing things right is to enjoy a sandwich. You bite into a concoction that makes your saliva perform like godcum on the first Sunday and you feel lucky. You can sit back sipping your Sanka and remember how you slammed it home after the give-and-go and Karen slipped your socks off.

Sometimes, you are an idiot. Sometimes, you get the wind knocked out of you by a 25-mile-per-hour, 295-pound psychopath because you forgot to raise your hand for the fair catch as you set to recieve the punt...and you realize you forgot to wear your cup. Most of the time, it is the little disappointments that will drive you nearer to the idea of practicing a series of little suicides or one big one.
Read the man: Bukowski.
-------------------------

The Shoelace

a woman, a
tire that’s flat, a
disease, a
desire: fears in front of you,
fears that hold so still
you can study them
like pieces on a
chessboard…
it’s not the large things that
send a man to the
madhouse. death he’s ready for, or
murder, incest, robbery, fire, flood…
no, it’s the continuing series of small tragedies
that send a man to the
madhouse…
not the death of his love
but a shoelace that snaps
with no time left …
The dread of life
is that swarm of trivialities
that can kill quicker than cancer
and which are always there -
license plates or taxes
or expired driver’s license,
or hiring or firing,
doing it or having it done to you, or
roaches or flies or a
broken hook on a
screen, or out of gas
or too much gas,
the sink’s stopped-up, the landlord’s drunk,
the president doesn’t care and the governor’s
crazy.
light switch broken, mattress like a
porcupine;
$105 for a tune-up, carburetor and fuel pump at
sears roebuck;
and the phone bill’s up and the market’s
down
and the toilet chain is
broken,
and the light has burned out -
the hall light, the front light, the back light,
the inner light; it’s
darker than hell
and twice as
expensive.
then there’s always crabs and ingrown toenails
and people who insist they’re
your friends;
there’s always that and worse;
leaky faucet, christ and christmas;
blue salami, 9 day rains,
50 cent avocados
and purple
liverwurst.

or making it
as a waitress at norm’s on the split shift,
or as an emptier of
bedpans,
or as a carwash or a busboy
or a stealer of old lady’s purses
leaving them screaming on the sidewalks
with broken arms at the age of 80.

suddenly
2 red lights in your rear view mirror
and blood in your
underwear;
toothache, and $979 for a bridge
$300 for a gold
tooth,
and china and russia and america, and
long hair and short hair and no
hair, and beards and no
faces, and plenty of zigzag but no
pot, except maybe one to piss in
and the other one around your
gut.

with each broken shoelace
out of one hundred broken shoelaces,
one man, one woman, one
thing
enters a
madhouse.

so be careful
when you
bend over.

---------------------------

You find yourself crying at work one day and realize you are nothing like you thought you were and it all seems hopeless. Every second is another dagger set between your ribs. You want to go back to your youthful days of self-destruction and have visions of your grave or you dying, alone.

...and then, you don't know exactly what it is...somebody pisses you off or the world tilts slightly under a full moon...the waitress spills hot coffee on her tits and smiles instead of screaming.

Something cracks and you are able to see a way to go on.

...and this has nothing to do with anything, except it made me laugh.

Don't Try

2009-09-23T00:11:00.000-07:00

SHOULD YOU TRY???

Check out this cool story about this grave by clicking here:

Charles Bukowski (1920-1994): A friend of mine recently found himself in the bustling metropolis of San Pedro, California, the whimsically dumpy harbor area of Los Angeles, famous for not really a whole lot else as far as I know other than being where the Great American 20th Century Poet Charles Bukowski is buried, underneath a modest in-ground marker that reads “Don’t Try.” This was, of course, the advice Bukowski gave, while he was still alive, to poets, writers, and everyone else looking to become the type of person that makes a city famous for being buried in it. But in death, I think it was his advice to humanity in general, his final pearl of wisdom imparted to mankind. Don’t try, at anything. Just be. There’s a certain amount of disingenuousness inherent in this statement; after all, when Bukowski was still just a alcoholic mailman, sending hand-copied manuscripts to magazines and publishers, he was definitely trying. And you don’t write as many poems, novels, and screenplays as Bukowski did during his life without putting out some effort. But just like the more spiritual epitaphs usually found on the gravestones of the honest Christian men, Don’t Try is more of the goal, the life’s lesson learned. It’s the advice Bukowski would have given to himself, a fittingly narcissistic thought for a man who made a career out of relating his sexual exploits, drunken loutishness and otherwise self-serving behavior. He was like Thoreau with a taste for booze, choosing the slums of LA, instead of Walden Pond, as his personal purgatory, with women and barflys serving as his woodchucks, ants, and squirrels. And like Thoreau, he didn’t remain there forever; after the slums had served their purpose he moved on, eventually living, and eventually dying, in the comparatively upscale San Pedro, a white wine-sipping old timer. My friend went to the graveyard to pay his respects. The people there had no idea what he was talking about. They finally looked it up, gave him directions and sent him out there; no historical monument, no literature about the life and work of the late great Charles Bukowski. Just a plot number. He found the grave, there with all the other graves. There was nothing spectacular about it. It could have been the grave of anyone, and I guess it is, as far as most people are concerned. Except it says, right on there. Don’t Try.

So you want to be a writer
by Charles Bukowski

if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.

if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

___________________________________________________________

So, I have to think that Buk would appreciate this bit of drunken idiocy

So I know you can't see it through the glare of the flash, but it says something amidst the mispelled scribbles. Who is going to make this bumper sticker?

DON'T TRY
BUKOWSKI
TRY
BUKKAKE

Of course, it is disgusting, but can we not reward a play on words and the recognition of our most worthy poet?

Oh, you don't think he's culturally worthy?

I dare you to read this book and neglect his prowess!

THE PLEASURES OF THE DAMNED

...OR, YOU CAN PERUSE THESE OTHER VOLUMES:

Novels

* Post Office (1971)
* Factotum (1975)
* Women (1978)
* Ham On Rye (1982)
* Barfly (script) (1984)
* Hollywood (1989)
* Pulp (1994)

Poetry

* It Catches My Heart in its Hands (1963)
* The Days run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills (1969)
* Mockingbird Wish Me Luck (1972)
* Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame (1974)
* Love is a Dog from Hell (1977)
* Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit (1979)
* The Last Night of the Earth Poems (1996)
* Betting on the Muse: Poems and Stories (1996)
* Bone Palace Ballet (1998)
* what matters most is how well you walk through the fire. (1999)
* Open All Night (2000)
* The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps (2001)
* Sifting the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way (2003)
* The Flash of Lightning Behind The Mountain (2007)
* The People Look Like Flowers At Last (2007)
* The Pleasures of the Damned (2007)
* The Continual Condition (2009)

Short story collections

* Flower, Fist, and Bestial Wall (1960)
* Run With the Hunted (1962)
* Cold Dogs in the Courtyard (1965)
* Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Beasts (1965)
* At Terror Street and Agony Way (1968)
* A Bukowski Sampler (1969)
* Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions, and General Tales of Ordinary Madness (1972)
* Mockingbird Wish Me Luck (1972)
* South of No North (1973)
* Hot Water Music (1983)
* Tales of Ordinary Madness (1983)
* The Most Beautiful Woman in Town (1983)
* All's Normal Here: A Charles Bukowski Primer (1985)
* Portions from a Wine-stained Notebook: Short Stories and Essays (2008)

Nonfiction

* Notes of a Dirty Old Man (1969)
* Shakespeare Never Did This (1979); expanded (1995)
* The Bukowski/Purdy Letters (1983)
* Screams from the Balcony: Selected Letters (1993)
* Living on Luck: Selected Letters, volume 2 (1995)
* The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship (1998)
* Reach for the Sun: Selected Letters, volume 3 (1999)
* Beerspit Night and Cursing: The Correspondense of Charles Bukowski and Sheri Martinelli (2001)

2009-09-22T13:58:00.000-07:00

"Our misery that afternoon, in which the smell of tears mixed with the scent of sun cream, was a reminder of the rigid, unforgiving logic to which moods appear to be subject, a logic that we ignore at our peril when we encounter a picture of a beautiful land and imagine that happiness must naturally accompany such magnificence."

"It is perhaps sad books that console us when we are sad, and to lonely service stations that we should drive when there is no one for us to hold or love."
from THE ART OF TRAVEL by Alain De Botton

_____________________________________________________________________________

“The sky is a buffoon’s attempt to conceal chance.”
Cassandra Stark Mele, “In Case of a Storm” 1995

To You, Cloudy Girl

Darkness and rain fall silently on rocks
where no brains understand.
Happiness is more than a mood, kid,
and a smile is less than bliss.
It’s a façade like the sunshine
that only clears when vapor’s gone.

The moon exists when it’s hidden.
There is more to nature than weather.
We are fools to hang our consciousness on
such thin, categorical tethers.
No revelation is there—no unseen truths,
just a continuing spray of babble.
Just remember, now please, don’t despair.
Our spirits aren’t lost when no longer here.

If we wait, another mood will pass.
My lips eclipse will no longer persist
and my teeth will show like blue sky.
If you stop to consider this inevitability;
if you wait for it to happen;
if you listen and watch as the process unfolds;
then your patience will be more than
any bottle could ever hold.

You will see that your waiting can carry you further
than any flittering flight of a fit.

So please try to find a hole in
the wall of balled up sounds
that tell you all is in your mind,
that completely dismiss the soul.

The mind is only a means.
Science is but a key.
But to find the way to unblemished truth
we must wait indefinitely.
For if we rush past all the clues
towards an end for which we lust,
we’ll miss the meaning of every connection
as gods smile while we wait for the bus.

Brett Lars Underwood, 1994

New Music Circle Announces 51st Season

2009-09-08T11:51:00.000-07:00

New Music Circle Announces 51st Season Lineup

Contact:
Ryan Harris
New Music Circle
nmc.ryan@gmail.com
314-479-3001
www.newmusiccircle.org

But, what if...?
ST. LOUIS, MO - September 2, 2009 - New Music Circle opens its 51st consecutive season of innovative arts presentations on Saturday, Oct. 3, 2009 at the Mildred Bastian Theatre on the campus of Forest Park Community College. The concert starts at 7:30 pm, and features composer/performer James Hegarty's new work, eXscapement, showcasing solo pieces for piano, interactive robotic sound objects, and video projections. He will collaborate with his artist daughter, Anna on the project.

In addition to the opening concert on October 3, the organization has booked a full season of the finest new music talent from an international scope. Featured presentations include Larry Ochs Sax & Drumming Core (Oct. 9 - Sheldon Concert Hall), Rob Voisey's 60x60 Dance (Nov. 8 - MadArt Gallery), local electronic composer John Tamm-Buckle (Mar. 13 - Kranzberg Arts Center), and granular systhesis pioneer Curtis Roads (May 1 - Mildred Bastian Theatre) performing a new work FLICKER TONE PULSE with video artist Brian O'Reilly.

New Music Circle will also continue its CAMA program, now in its third season, by empowering five artists to produce new collaborative works utilizing local talent. The five CAMA artists for the 2009-10 season are Tom Hamilton, James Hegarty, Craig Hultgren, Kelsey LaPoint, and Van McElwee. They will help produce and present a variety of artistic adventures that blend new music, video, dance, and performance. Among the CAMA events, one in particular will feature a collaboration produced by Hegarty that blends the visual art and music of Zimbabwe Nkenya and Douglas Ewart. Ewart was a past president of the acclaimed AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians), based in Chicago, IL. Nkenya, a multi-talented local improviser, has played and recorded throughout the United States.

A full listing of the season's events with detailed info can be found by downloading our newsletter at the following link: New Music Circular. Tickets to all New Music Circle concerts are $15 at the door, or $7 for students/starving artists. Season ticket memberships can be purchased for $80 (regular) and $40 (students/artists), and include admission to all 10 of NMC's presentations. For more info on tickets, please contact newmusiccircle.info@gmail.com, or visit www.newmusiccircle.org

Finally, in celebration of New Music Circle's 50th birthday - the 50th year since the 501(c)(3) was actually incorporated, NMC will host a birthday party at the Kerr Foundation Building on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009. For more details, please visit our website.

NMC logo
New Music Circle is a not for profit organization dedicated to presenting a variety of cultural events emphasizing contemporary music and enhancing Saint Louis' reputation as a significant location for the creation and performance of improvisational and experimental music. NMC has presented a continuous season of concerts since 1959, making it one of the oldest organizations of its kind in the United States.

Sponsored by MAC, RAC, A&E

Hafiz and John Cage are good enough for today

2009-09-01T14:57:00.000-07:00

The Five Days Remaining (by Hafiz)

The goods produced in the factories of space and time
Are not all that great. Bring some wine,
Because the desirables of this world are not all that great.

Heart and soul are born for ecstatic conversation
With the soul of souls. That’s it. If that fails,
Heart and soul are not in the end that great.

Don’t become indebted to the Tuba and Sidra trees
Just to have some shade in heaven. When you look closely,
My flowering cypress friend, you’ll see that these trees are not all
that great.

The true kingdom comes to you without any breaking
Of bones. If that weren’t so, achieving the Garden
Through your own labors wouldn’t be all that great.

In the five days remaining to you in this rest stop
Before you go to the grave, take it easy, give
Yourself time, because time is not all that great.

You who offer wine, we are waiting on the lip
Of the ocean of ruin. Take this moment as a gift; for the distance
Between the lip and the mouth is not all that great.

The state of my being – miserable and burnt
To a crisp – is proof enough that my need
To put it into words is not all that great.

You ascetic on the cold stone, you are not safe
From the tricks of God’s zeal: the distance between the cloister
And the Zorastrian tavern is not after all that great.

The name Hafez has been well inscribed in the books,
But in our clan of disreputables, the difference
Between profit and loss is not all that great.

-Translation by Robert Bly

...and, of course, on days like today, I think of Bukowski who wrote about days like today. He said that it is good to fall asleep behind the sofa for a couple days. Lie around in the dark for a couple days. Take time for yourself. Let the juices replenish.
You have to do it,you know?
If for no other reason than to remember what a crazy, fucking life you live and how mad and beautiful it all is when you let it be.

Post-festival moans

2009-08-31T00:56:00.000-07:00

Just survived another crazy weekend of bartending and rock n' roll and thought to share this piece that was written after another crazy weekend behind the bar.

Oyster Festival, Saturday Night, 2006
You had the winner last night.
I commended you this morning
as I woke myself up laughing
on my lonely mattress
in my South Side flat.
We were side-by-side
amidst a sort-of war,
battling glasses and masses
who wanted more beer,
more shellfish,
more vodka.
"Give me more delusion
ten minutes ago",
their faces said.
A man the size of two Coke machines
was banging a less-fortunate patron's
head off the bar above us,
unbeknownst to us at the time.
Soon he would threaten to send
a manager into the afterlife.
But downstairs, you said that you
had a serious problem.
I, in my selfish-brood, said that
I kept imagining that I might
carve up people's faces
with the remnants of a broken
bourbon bottle.

Earlier an off-duty co-worker,
drunk on scotch, had smashed a
glass of straws against a pillar,
showering the bar with shards of detritus.
He did so despite the fact
that the brewery's owner was sitting
next to him.
Welcome!
Said the chards to those sitting
with ice that would never melt
in their drinks
on their clothes.
Thankfully, not in their eyes.
But you, sensing a need to lighten the mood,
said,
"No, I have a serious problem.
I can't keep my hands out of my pants."
I insisted that you climb atop the
rail and lessen the crowd with your
lust, almost barking the order, in jest.

After that, the rest of the night
shed its gravity
and no one was shooting at us.
I knew that all was
quite manageable
even though we had lost quite a bit
of faith and hope,
plenty of bodily fluids,
including a little blood.
It was all quite manageable and
we could sort out our regrets
and do our second-guessing later
after double-douching the place,
locking the safe
and going to our reserved places of rest
to awaken in twisted sheets,
though mine were less twisted
than usual thanks to you, my friend.

CAPTURED

2009-08-25T18:12:00.000-07:00

NOT WHAT YOU SAW
what you believed
the memory captured
no approach in sight
a faint sense of ease
pleasure and then vanished
but dripping from
all of your being.

Cleansed.

I HAVE NO IDEA

2009-07-22T22:24:00.000-07:00

The Good Stuff and the Rest

The total number of abortions in the United States is as low as it has been since 1974 according to the Guttmacher Institute (GI), an organization that strives towards "advancing sexual and reproductive health worldwide through research, policy analysis and public education. She looked me right in the eye and grabbed my unit. ">"'I Would Want to Give My Child, Like, Everything in the World: How Issues of Motherhood Influence Women Who Have Abortions," was published in the January 2008 issue of the Journal of Family Issues./cgi/content/abstract/29/1/79 He cooed in my ear something so boyish that I forgave the bald spot and the obviousness of the recent purchase of the Hummer and agreed to marry him. "The majority (61%) of U.S. women who have abortions are already mothers, more than half of whom have two or more children," said a GI report. I don't know, Man. Have you seen the way she cringes when she says, 'creepy old guy'. "In many cases, women choose abortion because they are motivated to be good parents," the GI report continued. I would totally wipe the ass of his spawn with a big ol' smile on my face. I mean, FUCK, look at 'im! "Women who have no children want the conditions to be right when they do; women who already have children want to be responsible and take care of their existing children," reports GI. Yeah, Dude, he's fucking pussy-whipped to the zillionth power. I don't think he's gonna show tonight. Probably at home groaning out Elvis tunes or out poking through smaltzy crap in a mall. The Northeast had the highest abortion rate, followed by the West, the South and the Midwest, GI concluded. There was no further statistical analysis included in the report to indicate whether play on turf or grass was conducive to termination. Baby, I don't care if he's jumpin' the fence and playin' for both teams, that boy is FINE! Mifepristone (commonly known as RU-486) and Misoprostol (trade name Cyotec) are abortofacients. Dude, I HAD to wash the sheets TWICE!!! HA HA!!!. "A survey of over 3,000 adults over the age of 57 years, challenges some stereotypes that may be held about the eldery and sex…over half of those over 75 years remained sexually active," said an AARP study. "You might as well say Real Men Love Santa Claus/the Easter Bunny/Flying Spaghetti Monster," he scoffed, pointing at the bumper sticker on a Ford Windstar full of kids.

______________________________________________________________________________
...and now watch this episode of IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA!!!!

Beer blogs differ. Yep, they do.

2009-07-18T14:02:00.000-07:00

Those of you that have seen me in action know that I like to drink beer. You might also know that I like to taste some of it. I am a quiet guesser in hope of wisdom and luck, so I dig around and listen to the others.
I'm no expert on the world of bloggery, so I don't know of a lot of the worthwhile blogs on the interwebeer.
I'd like to point out this first one, though.
Mike Sweeney has upped the intelligence level of the St. Louis beer lover.
http://stlhops.com/

Another St. Louis place to click for beer news is here.
http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/lager-heads/
Remains to be seen how they continue since Adam Jadhav left.

This is a small, but interesting collection of beer lovers
http://www.aleuminati.com/

...and by gosh and golly, look at the name of this blog.
http://thankheavenforbeer.com/

I happened along this one night while looking for a friend.
http://cheepbeer.blogspot.com/

But this one is perhaps the scariest of all and is not about beer at all, now is it?
http://cheapbeer.blogspot.com/

Only Cannibals Take Heart

2009-07-06T07:51:00.000-07:00

ONLY CANNIBALS TAKE HEART

Perhaps I should take heart
that you even speak to yourself
in that seldom-viewed blog
that I can't seem to find
on mornings when I search
for such nothings,
but only cannibals take heart.

Prescribe downtime and contemplation
to figure out this mess and sweep
the bunnies from their corners,
but I like their crunchiness
on the souls of my bare feet
and downtime is not about sweeping.

Were I to walk to the answer,
it would only take a month.
I would find you in a dozen faces.
I would find us in trouble again.
I could do it only to distance myself
from whatever future they say there is...
or I could do it for focus.

The capitalists say I have four days
free of extraneous cash and work
to cypher it out.

I shoot you as you shoot me,
but we don't recognize
the barbs.

Why just this morning, I thought it
was just another ache or pain.
Rolled over and groaned, nearly
breaking my schwanzstucker off
in the process.

Only then did I remember that
I was dreaming about running after
you, west on Magnolia to Kingshighway
and east to Sauget.

I have a squeem

2009-06-15T12:40:00.001-07:00

I am going to write something on here soon. I have to sit down and do it. Been running around and getting it out of the way. Clearing a path. Doing the math. Eating the spam. Puttin' mustard on yo ham. Makin' it glam. Pouring gasoline in your Uncle Samsonite drill bit luber.

Sunday en Sol: Lindy's rebuttal

2009-04-21T20:22:00.000-07:00

I knew I needed a fact-checker in my life and it just so happens that the songbird that has wrenched my heart from many distraught places and amazed my mind with ventures inspired by what I can only categorize as magical realism is a proud tour guide as well.
Lindy wrote me in response to this blog and the ones that I will add soon. I thought I took notes and maybe they're still in a clutter somewhere, but here is all you need to know before you read this blog and the others. I will correct them when I have time, or maybe I'll leave them as is: fiction from the eyes of a stupido tourista.
"Well.... few inaccuracies, but ok. However, just to preserve my image as a top-notch professional tourguide, you should note that niether the Indian place nor the Sunday flea market (which is famously known as El Rastro) were in Sol... actually, Sol is just that low place with all the shops in the middle of the little dip between my house and the other side of up-the-hill, around that ugly statue of the bear humping a sickly-looking tree (it happens to be the symbol of Madrid, commically). We didn't actually do anything in Sol, as best as I can remember, as I think Sol is touristy, boring, and snobby. We ate Indian food in Lavapies (the old Jewish district, now hippieville), and El Rastro is in nearby La Latina. My bike got stolen from Pl. Tirso de Molina. Montera is a street, the Plaza is Gran Via, and I passed out in an alley behind Montera a week before you came... The night before the airport, I was chasing my crazy friend all over Lavapies and La Latina cause she was drunk and trying to get me to go to dodgy places with her and random guys on the street and I was worried she was gonna have her buzz killed in a hurry if I didnt talk the crazy bitch into just going home. The museums are near Atocha, and the gay district is Chueca. The Bull Fight area is all called Ventas. Anything we did around my neighborhood, including the Russian resaurant, the Nick Cave bar, and the bars we went to with Javier, all happened in Malasaña, the main neighborhood of the Movida Madrileña back in the 80s."

Lindy took me for another walk Sunday morning. We returned to Sol, the very center of Madrid and the very center of Spain, where there was a street bazaar taking hold of the morning in Puerta del Sol. You know the scene, thousands of homo sapiens waddling around looking at one thing and then another, touching the fabric, twiddling the trinkets under tents. Here there is a souvenir shop. Over there, somebody is peddling food.

Here's a musician, there a pick-pocket waiting for an easy mark. Couples in love. Couples bored to shit. Couples who haven't met and those that wish they had not.
This was much of the same, but my groggy head and the change of scenery made it novel...and I was in Spain to see through Lindy's eyes and that is what I did for most of the day.
The most interesting displays of wares were on the streets where folks had their artifacts and relics laid out along the walls on blankets, not tables or stands of any sort. Books, postcards, records, trinkets, old radios and other appliances were on display. Lindy bought a doll with a white porcelain head to send to her friend Rose, who collects items that Lindy shares an interest in, but which she can't afford to add to the organized clutter of her small room and in her bags when it is time to travel. We escorted that doll up and down streets for a bit and then started cafe and cervezaria hopping.
As much as I was following Lindy around, I was also watching and listening with my own sensibilities, so I caught a couple scenes with the camera and the snapping of one shot, caused a shop owner to hiss me away, which I knew he would.

I have an eye for the absurd and I wanted that picture, so I took it, but I knew someone wouldn't like it and a Bukowski piece immediately came to mind. I can't find the actual poem anywhere, but I've heard him read it on a recording. It goes something like this:
I was walking down the street
and I had my camera
with me
As I passed the shop
window I
noticed the mannequin there.
I photographed the mannequin
in the shop window
and immediately the shop
owner came running out
and screaming,
What are you doing?!!!
What are you doing?!!!

Nothing, I said,
I just took a picture
of the naked mannequin.
I really wish you wouldn't
do that
she said.
She had made me
feel guilty
and I had done
nothing
really
wrong.

I started to walk
away
but then spun
around and
crouched to one knee
and I shot
her again.

The trouble with these people
is
their cities have never
been bombed and
their mothers have
never been told
to shut
up.

Something wasn't right with taking pictures. I took it anyway. Luckily the walls and the street pussy didn't mind one bit.

GET ME TO A CERVEZERIA!!

2009-04-16T20:01:00.000-07:00

My first trans-Atlantic flight was non-eventful. THANK GAWWWWD!!
I sat next to a quiet Africaner, in front of some giddy Atlanta mommas and behind a guy from Costa Rica who was entertaining a big girl from New York who was headed to Portugal to meet her sister, do some hiking and hostelling and eventually hook up with her parents in London. Yes, I eaves drop proudly.
I passed the time nodding off and on in between visits from the various flight attendants. I was too delirious to get much serious reading or writing done and set my mind to relax in the interest of hitting the ground running once I made it out of the airport in Madrid. I suppose I was a little giddy at having made it to the last leg of my journey to Spain and at the prospect of being so close to finally bringing the visit to Lindy to actualization, but my stay at the Ramada on Thursday night had allowed me to chill and I really just wanted to endure the flight, jump into whatever fun Lindy had planned for us and wake up after a long nap in a foreign country for the first time in my life.
The luggage came around on the carousel eventually and I followed the signs saying "Salida Way Out" to that place where the weary travellers are greeted by loved ones or drivers holding signs with their names on them. That's the plan, anyway, but when I got there, Lindy had not.
I walked back and forth along the front of the aeropuerta a few times before finding a place on the floor where I reclined with my bags like a drunken hippy happy to be in a place where I could relax.
She eventually showed up reeling from the previous night and morning, and of course, as sweet and apologetic as she could be. What's more important is that she regailed me with the tale of her late arrival which I gladly took in as we navigated our way out of the airport and onto one Metro and then another. There she was having been drunk late into the night, passing out in Plaza de Montera and awakening to find that her bicycle was no longer locked up where she had left it when she went to visit friends. So she came home to crash for a couple hours, but slept through the alarm. Charming girl, that Lindy. She's the only one I'd jump the pond for, to be sure.
We negotiated the Metro and popped up out of the ground at Plaze de Espana to drop my bags at her flat on Calle de Pez. We had an errant lunch and beer with one of her flatmates down at the end of the calle. Lindy was thinking that the place served paella, but it wasn't on the menu or special board so I settled on the tortilla which was delicious, like a potato and egg quiche. It was there that I imbibed my first Spanish lager, the Mahou Cinco Estrella. I'll only say that it is a fitting cerveza to wash down such food. Many of you know of my love of big ales. I was not in Spain or on vacation to dance with the same, though, so I happily accepted the first and then the second bottle...or did I actually receive the second bottle. There seemed to be a bit of a lag between the service of our food and whatever follow up may have occured afterwards.
No worry.

That night, we retraced her steps down Plaza de Montera and the exact center of Madrid and Spain, an area called Sol. We dined on Indian food and at a Morrocan restaurant with outdoor seating called Restaurante Baisakhi. An eight Euro special included, among other things, mixed ensalata, two entrees (one being Korma de Pollo) and most importantly two glasses of red wine and two shots of some sort of apple schnapps. Soon we ambled about to make it to a couple bars and made it an early night.

Hell is other people: Hysterics in Memphis

2009-04-16T09:45:00.000-07:00

April 3, 2009
----Sitting in the Atlanta airport on a Friday afternoon approaching 5 p.m. and on Concourse E the air is full of motion and excitement; unlike last night's experience at the Memphis Airport, where everyone---well, many, were frustrated and bitchy. Many of us missed flights or had flights cancelled towards the end of a long day due to a thunderstorm that had swallowed up the area. To the south and east, the weather was more severe, but a thunderstorm is enough to cause flight delays and plans had to be changed.
Tired of watching those racing and pacing up and down the concourse, I am reading THE ADVENTURES AND MISADVENTURES OF MAQROLL by Alvara Mutis:
"A caravan doesn't symbolize or represent anything. Our mistake is to think it's going somewhere, leaving somewhere. The caravan exhausts its meaning by merely moving from place to place. The animals in the caravan knows this, but the camel drivers don't. It will always be this way."
There are many empty symbols in these airports, but some of us think we are more important or full of purpose than the others. My gripe over missing the connecting flight to Amsterdam Thursday night was not the delay in arriving in Madrid and missing prescious time with my dear friend, Lindy. Nor was it the downtime waiting for the next flight or the further delay waiting for the mechanics to check on the jet which eventually delivered us to Madrid Saturday afternoon. No, Hell is other people, and the Hell for me on Thursday night was listening to the prima donna assholes and twats bitch and whine about the distress in their lives at having to miss a flight. It was too much like work for me: that sound of petty bickering. Of course, as you might imagine, nearly all of them wore looks of anxiety, fear, astonishment or anger on their faces as they held cellphones to their heads and vented to friends, lovers, co-workers, airline representatives and hotel clerks. Just a drop of inconvenience had dropped into their lives and painted their faces with this ugliness.
Watching and listening to their antics and fits of hysteria and dramatization, I wondered what it must be like to be so cluelessy priviledged, accustomed to service upon order or utterly unprepared for a kink in their linear progression down the straight road. I would prefer that my life ticked along with efficiency and precision when I'm paying to move it along at a certain rate, I suppose, but I don't find the need to flip out when I am not having my rim tongued with the delivery of my prescious beans and franks by boys in freshly pressed polyester tuxedos. What's the point?
The worst of the bunch were women. There were three in particular who I hope never again to see or hear from ever again. The first and most angry was a Dutch woman. She was legitimately frightened, it sounded like, about being stranded at Memphis International. After snorting and moaning at the woman behind the Delta Airlines desk for atleast 20 minutes, she moved on with her instructions as we all waited in line. I would see her later trying this act on a small group of airline security folks. I didn't stick around to see how they dealt with her antics.
The second was an elementary school teacher who had left her second graders a day before spring break to get a head start on her trip to somewhere and it most definitely wasn't Memphis. Upset because she was going to have to shell out 80 bucks for a hotel room instead of sleeping at the airport, she pointed out, "We teachers are used to pinching pennies and these people are unpinching them!" This all in a huff to the woman behind her in line. "Well, they're not going to get away with this. That's all I've got to say." Somehow I thought that we couldn't be fortunate enough for that statement to be true, so I switched her half-assed and pathetics comments to mute and put my face into an issue of The New Yorker and a piece about solitary confinement.
I saw our teacher step to the desk to address the same woman who had absorbed the hysterics of the Dutch woman. If Ms. Teacher was laying down the law, she did it quietly and swiftly, for she certainly denied us any theatrics and was soon on the bus to the Ramada Plaza with me and many of the rest of the party. It was on that shuttle that she divulged to some other stranger the rest of the details of her day and why it was all "so crazy" and she was lightening up and sounding less threatening as she shared it all with him, and by association, all of us. She was over for me as I looked out the windows to try to figure out how far away from downtown we were being delivered. The Hell of Thursday night in Memphis came in a threesome, however...and no, not that kind of threesome.
Our third damsel in distress was a fit brunette on a sales trip to Atlanta. She, too, couldn't believe that the weather had her delayed. I know because she said so on her cellphone. She was the only associate that was going to miss tomorrow's meeting; and she was putting all of this in as overtime; and she couldn't believe it because she had already spent $30 of her per diem at the airport and now, NOW! she was going to have to stay at this MOTEL!
"Oh my GAWD, I don't even know the name of it, but they didn't have anything else and OH, MY GAWD! It's a Ramada. We're pulling up now. Yeah, a RAMADA, can you believe I'm going to sleep in a MOTEL?!! Oh, and they wouldn't release my luggage."
Yes, I had both ears full and was about to begin a little-bit of a fevered dance of my own if I didn't get out of the group of terribly put-upon people. As soon as the van was in park, I was out the side door and at the rear bumper to retrieve my duffel and get to the desk to check in. One woman was occupying the sole clerk and Ms. Oh-My-Gawd was on here cellphone reaching into her purse and attempting to walk into the second position. She stopped, blocking two other folks just behind her with her contorted corpse and that was all I needed. A quick step to my right and I was at the desk. I had card, ID and confirmation number ready when Shaniqua looked up in my direction. I was up to room 340 to dump my bags and back downstairs by the time Ms. Oh-My-Gawd was approaching the elevators. She was still on the phone, so I didn't stop to press her with some mack. I darted to the unmanned computer in the lobby, shot the 411 to Madrid via email and marched down a rainy patch of nowhere, somewhere outside of the I-240 belt, south of Memphis. My goal? Food, liquor, beer or anything better to do.
I stomped through and around puddles and mudded-up sidewalk past car dealerships and chicken shacks seeing nothing promising amidst the neon signage beyond, ducked inot a Citgo about a quarter mile away from the motel. I grabbed three tallboys of high-gravity lager and paid my money to the cashier behind the bulletproof glass, but not before he carded me (!!) "I must be looking good tonight, eh?" I said, getting no comment from the clerk. No matter.
By the time I re-entered the lobby, the line was down to four souls. I walked on down the hall with much urgency and hit the stairwell door just as Ms. Oh-My-Gawd was coming down from her room. "OH MY GAWD!!!" she shrieked, astonished that there was somebody else in the motel, using the same door as she...at the same time.
I stepped aside to let her pass and began laughing. As I lunged up the first flight of steps, I cackled in falsetto mockery, OH MY GAWD! and was up the steps, down the hall and into the room to order a pie, strip, shower and redress. I was finishing my first slice of Memphis BBQ pizza and cracking open the second can when John Stewart was going over all the hubbub about Mrs. Obama touching the Queen of England.
THE HORROR!

In the baggage room at Greyhound
Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997)

I
In the depths of the Greyhound Terminal
sitting dumbly on a baggage truck looking at the sky
waiting for the Los Angeles Express to depart worrying about eternity
over the Post Office roof in the
night-time red downtown heaven,
staring through my eyeglasses I realized shuddering these
thoughts were not eternity, nor the poverty of
our lives, irritable baggage clerks,
nor the millions of weeping relatives surrounding the
buses waving goodbye,
nor other millions of the poor rushing around from city
to city to see their loved ones,
nor an indian dead with fright talking to a huge cop by
the Coke machine,
nor this trembling old lady with a cane taking the last trip
of her life,
nor the red capped cynical porter collecting his quarters
and smiling over the smashed baggage,
nor me looking around at the horrible dream, nor mustached negro
Operating Clerk named Spade,
dealing out with his marvelous long hand the
fate of thousands of express packages,
nor fairy Sam in the basement limping from leaden trunk to trunk,
oe at the counter with his nervous breakdown smiling cowardly at the customers,
nor the grayish-green whale's stomach interior loft
where we keep the baggage in hideous racks,
hundreds of suitcases full of tragedy rocking back and forth waiting to be opened,
nor the baggage that's lost, nor damaged handles,
name-plates vanished, busted wires & broken ropes,
whole trunks exploding on the concrete floor,
nor seabags emptied into the night in the final warehouse.

En la consigna de la Greyhound

I
En las profundidades de la Terminal de la Greyhound
sentado como un estúpido sobre un camión de equipaje mirando al
cielo esperando la salida del Expreso de Los Angeles
preocupándome acerca de la eternidad sobre el tejado de la Oficina
de correos en el cielo rojo de la noche del centro de la ciudad,
mirando con pasmo a través de mis gafas me di cuenta estremecido
de que estos pensamientos no eran la eternidad,
ni tampoco la pobreza de nuestras vidas, irritables encargados de equipajes,
ni tampoco los millones de sollozantes parientes que rodeaban los autobuses diciendo adiós,
ni tampoco otros millones de pobres apresurándose
de ciudad en ciudad para ver a las personas amadas,
ni tampoco un indio muerto de miedo hablando con gigantesco poli
junto a la máquina expendedora de Cola,
ni tampoco esta temblorosa anciana con su bastón que emprende el
último viaje de su vida,
ni tampoco el cínico portero de la gorra roja que recoje sus propinas
y sonríe mirando el machacado equipaje,
ni tampoco yo mirando en derredor mío al horrible sueño, ni tampoco el mostachudo empleado negro de Operaciones llamado
Spade, repartiendo con su maravillosa larga mano el
destino de miles de paquetes express,
ni tampoco el marica Sam en el sótano cojeando de plúmbeo baúl en baúl
ni tampoco Joe en el mostrador con su crisis nerviosa sonriendo cobardemente a los clientes,
ni tampoco el ático gris verdoso estómago de ballena
donde guardamos el equipaje en detestables estanterías,
centenares de maletas repletas de tragedia balanceándose
de un lado para otro esperando ser abiertas,
ni tampoco el equipaje que se pierde, ni tampoco las asas rotas,
las desvanecidas placas de identificación, los alambres reventados & las cuerdas rotas
los baúles enteros reventando sobre el suelo de cemento,
ni las talegas de marinero vaciadas de noche en el almacén final.

A little LIGHT READING BEFORE THE SHOW

2009-03-05T16:44:00.000-08:00

SEPTEM FAITH
Angels are falling by the dozen. Having coaxed hope from men and children, they've got Catholic guilt and yearn for a flavored vodka to put out the flames. Torn away from contemplation, they smoke and drink and call in sick. They know that this won't mix well with their Pfizer candy and blind faith won't pay the bills, but the leader of the free world keeps his fellatio secret and preaches peace with firepower and lottery tickets.
Penny said, "I know things will get better", then fell out of bed, bruising her face on a piggy bank.
Ezekiel hopped a bus and a train with one ticket to nowhere but the blur away from his head that was beginning to talk about moving to a better city anyway. The needle is beyond E and bounces every time we hit a pothole.
When angels turn to fear and the glue's not as sticky, I searches for an answer to signal me home, I heard an old man say to his eggs today.
The bomb technician was a poodle that said, "I hope I know what I'm doing", before his matter painted the white walls with crimson and fur. That from the chattering bush in Tower Grove Park, as a horse clip-clopped through the sky, hot on the trail of a giant carrot, bobbing on the end of a string tied to a stick which nobody can see.
A hipster prints out bumper stickers that read, "It's an egg, not an omelet".
Sweating, Luther awakes.
Sun creeps through the blinds and he slides his thumb over the "on" button.
The chorus sings, "Why does there have to be a morning after?"
The DJ croaks.
Luther knows he'll feel better if he gets up and swallows a whale's load of cold water and bicycles hands free through the streets and alleys in the afternoon sun, looking at the despair in every set of eyes and maybe a smile from those who think they're getting away with something.
He'll hawk up two or three barrooms and wash the rest of it off when he gets home. He likes the way it laughs as it swirls down the drain and the way that laughter echoes in the
shower.
Everything's gonna be all right...until he can't do this in the middle of the day any longer. Or until he has to explain it to someone who has no idea or would rather not be reminded that Angels are falling by the dozen. Having coaxed hope from men and children, they've got Catholic guilt and yearn for a flavored vodka to put out the flames. Torn away from contemplation, they smoke and drink and call in sick. They know that this won't mix well with their Pfizer candy and blind faith won't pay the bills, but the leader of the free world keeps his fellatio secret and preaches peace with firepower and lottery tickets.
Penny said, "I know things will get better", then fell out of bed, bruising her face on a piggy bank.
Ezekiel hopped a bus and a train with one ticket to nowhere but the blur away from his head that was beginning to talk about moving to a better city anyway. The needle is beyond E and bounces every time we hit a pothole.
When angels turn to fear and the glue's not as sticky, I searches for an answer to signal me home, I heard an old man say to his eggs today.
The bomb technician was a poodle that said, "I hope I know what I'm doing", before his matter painted the white walls with crimson and fur. That from the chattering bush in Tower Grove Park, as a horse clip-clopped through the sky, hot on the trail of a giant carrot, bobbing on the end of a string tied to a stick which nobody can see.

A hipster prints out bumper stickers that read, "It's an egg, not an omelet".
Sweating, Luther awakes.
Sun creeps through the blinds and he slides his thumb over the "on" button.
The chorus sings, "Why does there have to be a morning after?"
The DJ croaks.
Luther knows he'll feel better if he gets up and swallows a whale's load of cold water and bicycles hands free through the streets and alleys in the afternoon sun, looking at the despair in every set of eyes and maybe a smile from those who think they're getting away with something.
He'll hawk up two or three barrooms and wash the rest of it off when he gets home. He likes the way it laughs as it swirls down the drain and the way that laughter echoes in the
shower.
Everything's gonna be all right...until he can't do this in the middle of the day any longer. Or until he has to explain it to someone who has no idea or would rather not be reminded that Angels are falling by the dozen. Having coaxed hope from men and children, they've got Catholic guilt and yearn for a flavored vodka to put out the flames. Torn away from contemplation, they smoke and drink and call in sick. They know that this won't mix well with their Pfizer candy and blind faith won't pay the bills, but the leader of the free world keeps his fellatio secret and preaches peace with firepower and lottery tickets.
Penny said, "I know things will get better", then fell out of bed, bruising her face on a piggy bank.
Ezekiel hopped a bus and a train with one ticket to nowhere but the blur away from his head that was beginning to talk about moving to a better city anyway. The needle is beyond E and bounces every time we hit a pothole.
When angels turn to fear and the glue's not as sticky, I searches for an answer to signal me home, I heard an old man say to his eggs today.
The bomb technician was a poodle that said, "I hope I know what I'm doing", before his matter painted the white walls with crimson and fur. That from the chattering bush in Tower Grove Park, as a horse clip-clopped through the sky, hot on the trail of a giant carrot, bobbing on the end of a string tied to a stick which nobody can see.
A hipster prints out bumper stickers that read, "It's an egg, not an omelet".
Sweating, Luther awakes.
Sun creeps through the blinds and he slides his thumb over the "on" button.
The chorus sings, "Why does there have to be a morning after?"
The DJ croaks.
Luther knows he'll feel better if he gets up and swallows a whale's load of cold water and bicycles hands free through the streets and alleys in the afternoon sun, looking at the despair in every set of eyes and maybe a smile from those who think they're getting away with something.
He'll hawk up two or three barrooms and wash the rest of it off when he gets home. He likes the way it laughs as it swirls down the drain and the way that laughter echoes in the
shower.
Everything's gonna be all right...until he can't do this in the middle of the day any longer. Or until he has to explain it to someone who has no idea or would rather not be reminded that Angels are falling by the dozen. Having coaxed hope from men and children, they've got Catholic guilt and yearn for a flavored vodka to put out the flames. Torn away from contemplation, they smoke and drink and call in sick. They know that this won't mix well with their Pfizer candy and blind faith won't pay the bills, but the leader of the free world keeps his fellatio secret and preaches peace with firepower and lottery tickets.
Penny said, "I know things will get better", then fell out of bed, bruising her face on a piggy bank.
Ezekiel hopped a bus and a train with one ticket to nowhere but the blur away from his head that was beginning to talk about moving to a better city anyway. The needle is beyond E and bounces every time we hit a pothole.
When angels turn to fear and the glue's not as sticky, I searches for an answer to signal me home, I heard an old man say to his eggs today.
The bomb technician was a poodle that said, "I hope I know what I'm doing", before his matter painted the white walls with crimson and fur. That from the chattering bush in Tower Grove Park, as a horse clip-clopped through the sky, hot on the trail of a giant carrot, bobbing on the end of a string tied to a stick which nobody can see.
A hipster prints out bumper stickers that read, "It's an egg, not an omelet".
Sweating, Luther awakes.
Sun creeps through the blinds and he slides his thumb over the "on" button.
The chorus sings, "Why does there have to be a morning after?"
The DJ croaks.
Luther knows he'll feel better if he gets up and swallows a whale's load of cold water and bicycles hands free through the streets and alleys in the afternoon sun, looking at the despair in every set of eyes and maybe a smile from those who think they're getting away with something.
He'll hawk up two or three barrooms and wash the rest of it off when he gets home. He likes the way it laughs as it swirls down the drain and the way that laughter echoes in the
shower.
Everything's gonna be all right...until he can't do this in the middle of the day any longer. Or until he has to explain it to someone who has no idea or would rather not be reminded that Angels are falling by the dozen. Having coaxed hope from men and children, they've got Catholic guilt and yearn for a flavored vodka to put out the flames. Torn away from contemplation, they smoke and drink and call in sick. They know that this won't mix well with their Pfizer candy and blind faith won't pay the bills, but the leader of the free world keeps his fellatio secret and preaches peace with firepower and lottery tickets.
Penny said, "I know things will get better", then fell out of bed, bruising her face on a piggy bank.
Ezekiel hopped a bus and a train with one ticket to nowhere but the blur away from his head that was beginning to talk about moving to a better city anyway. The needle is beyond E and bounces every time we hit a pothole.
When angels turn to fear and the glue's not as sticky, I searches for an answer to signal me home, I heard an old man say to his eggs today.
The bomb technician was a poodle that said, "I hope I know what I'm doing", before his matter painted the white walls with crimson and fur. That from the chattering bush in Tower Grove Park, as a horse clip-clopped through the sky, hot on the trail of a giant carrot, bobbing on the end of a string tied to a stick which nobody can see.
A hipster prints out bumper stickers that read, "It's an egg, not an omelet".
Sweating, Luther awakes.
Sun creeps through the blinds and he slides his thumb over the "on" button.
The chorus sings, "Why does there have to be a morning after?"
The DJ croaks.
Luther knows he'll feel better if he gets up and swallows a whale's load of cold water and bicycles hands free through the streets and alleys in the afternoon sun, looking at the despair in every set of eyes and maybe a smile from those who think they're getting away with something.
He'll hawk up two or three barrooms and wash the rest of it off when he gets home. He likes the way it laughs as it swirls down the drain and the way that laughter echoes in the
shower.
Everything's gonna be all right...until he can't do this in the middle of the day any longer. Or until he has to explain it to someone who has no idea or would rather not be reminded that Angels are falling by the dozen. Having coaxed hope from men and children, they've got Catholic guilt and yearn for a flavored vodka to put out the flames. Torn away from contemplation, they smoke and drink and call in sick. They know that this won't mix well with their Pfizer candy and blind faith won't pay the bills, but the leader of the free world keeps his fellatio secret and preaches peace with firepower and lottery tickets.
Penny said, "I know things will get better", then fell out of bed, bruising her face on a piggy bank.
Ezekiel hopped a bus and a train with one ticket to nowhere but the blur away from his head that was beginning to talk about moving to a better city anyway. The needle is beyond E and bounces every time we hit a pothole.
When angels turn to fear and the glue's not as sticky, I searches for an answer to signal me home, I heard an old man say to his eggs today.
The bomb technician was a poodle that said, "I hope I know what I'm doing", before his matter painted the white walls with crimson and fur. That from the chattering bush in Tower Grove Park, as a horse clip-clopped through the sky, hot on the trail of a giant carrot, bobbing on the end of a string tied to a stick which nobody can see.
A hipster prints out bumper stickers that read, "It's an egg, not an omelet".
Sweating, Luther awakes.
Sun creeps through the blinds and he slides his thumb over the "on" button.
The chorus sings, "Why does there have to be a morning after?"
The DJ croaks.
Luther knows he'll feel better if he gets up and swallows a whale's load of cold water and bicycles hands free through the streets and alleys in the afternoon sun, looking at the despair in every set of eyes and maybe a smile from those who think they're getting away with something.
He'll hawk up two or three barrooms and wash the rest of it off when he gets home. He likes the way it laughs as it swirls down the drain and the way that laughter echoes in the
shower.
Everything's gonna be all right...until he can't do this in the middle of the day any longer. Or until he has to explain it to someone who has no idea or would rather not be reminded that Angels are falling by the dozen. Having coaxed hope from men and children, they've got Catholic guilt and yearn for a flavored vodka to put out the flames. Torn away from contemplation, they smoke and drink and call in sick. They know that this won't mix well with their Pfizer candy and blind faith won't pay the bills, but the leader of the free world keeps his fellatio secret and preaches peace with firepower and lottery tickets.
Penny said, "I know things will get better", then fell out of bed, bruising her face on a piggy bank.
Ezekiel hopped a bus and a train with one ticket to nowhere but the blur away from his head that was beginning to talk about moving to a better city anyway. The needle is beyond E and bounces every time we hit a pothole.
When angels turn to fear and the glue's not as sticky, I searches for an answer to signal me home, I heard an old man say to his eggs today.
The bomb technician was a poodle that said, "I hope I know what I'm doing", before his matter painted the white walls with crimson and fur. That from the chattering bush in Tower Grove Park, as a horse clip-clopped through the sky, hot on the trail of a giant carrot, bobbing on the end of a string tied to a stick which nobody can see.
A hipster prints out bumper stickers that read, "It's an egg, not an omelet".
Sweating, Luther awakes.
Sun creeps through the blinds and he slides his thumb over the "on" button.
The chorus sings, "Why does there have to be a morning after?"
The DJ croaks.
Luther knows he'll feel better if he gets up and swallows a whale's load of cold water and bicycles hands free through the streets and alleys in the afternoon sun, looking at the despair in every set of eyes and maybe a smile from those who think they're getting away with something.
He'll hawk up two or three barrooms and wash the rest of it off when he gets home. He likes the way it laughs as it swirls down the drain and the way that laughter echoes in the
shower.
Everything's gonna be all right...until he can't do this in the middle of the day any longer. Or until he has to explain it to someone who has no idea or would rather not be reminded that Angels are falling by the dozen. Having coaxed hope from men and children, they've got Catholic guilt and yearn for a flavored vodka to put out the flames. Torn away from contemplation, they smoke and drink and call in sick. They know that this won't mix well with their Pfizer candy and blind faith won't pay the bills, but the leader of the free world keeps his fellatio secret and preaches peace with firepower and lottery tickets.
Penny said, "I know things will get better", then fell out of bed, bruising her face on a piggy bank.
Ezekiel hopped a bus and a train with one ticket to nowhere but the blur away from his head that was beginning to talk about moving to a better city anyway. The needle is beyond E and bounces every time we hit a pothole.
When angels turn to fear and the glue's not as sticky, I searches for an answer to signal me home, I heard an old man say to his eggs today.
The bomb technician was a poodle that said, "I hope I know what I'm doing", before his matter painted the white walls with crimson and fur. That from the chattering bush in Tower Grove Park, as a horse clip-clopped through the sky, hot on the trail of a giant carrot, bobbing on the end of a string tied to a stick which nobody can see.
A hipster prints out bumper stickers that read, "It's an egg, not an omelet".
Sweating, Luther awakes.
Sun creeps through the blinds and he slides his thumb over the "on" button.
The chorus sings, "Why does there have to be a morning after?"
The DJ croaks.
Luther knows he'll feel better if he gets up and swallows a whale's load of cold water and bicycles hands free through the streets and alleys in the afternoon sun, looking at the despair in every set of eyes and maybe a smile from those who think they're getting away with something.
He'll hawk up two or three barrooms and wash the rest of it off when he gets home. He likes the way it laughs as it swirls down the drain and the way that laughter echoes in the
shower.
Everything's gonna be all right...until he can't do this in the middle of the day any longer. Or until he has to explain it to someone who has no idea or would rather not be reminded to rinse, lather and repeat or let go, let gods.
Brett Lars Underwood, 2008

Oh My GAWWDZ! I must be a human!

2009-02-26T20:42:00.000-08:00

I admit it.
I'm attempting to crush the economy of the United States of America.
I've been on the wagon for over three weeks.
Can you feel the weakness in the collective economic knees.
I go out to shows and only buy CDs.
I show up buzzed by some other means than alcohol.
It might be too much exercise or coffee.
It might be that I just woke up from a nap after reading for a couple hours.
Rest assured, I'm feeling fine...and I intend to crush you.

Oh ho ho!
Only kidding.
I know and now you should know.
I have no intention to crush you or have any crushes on you.
I know because the two fortunes I got with my bag of Chinese food tonight told me so.
You see, after I ate some vegetarian egg foo young and some chicken in garlic sauce while watching The Daily Show, I went into the kitchen to rinse out the bowl from which I ate...and I saw my fortune cookies.
I saw the light shining off the wrappers that held my fortune cookies and I ripped them open and crunched those cookies like they were the 'nilla wafers you promised in that one gospel that one time.
You know.

I got those messages and now I know I'm human and I love.
"You have a strong instinct to take care of the people you love."
That's how the first one read.
I wonder why I don't exhibit this instinct very often, I thought.

The second cookie held this enigma:
"Good things come in small packages. One is coming to you."

Hope at last. I can feel well AND have some sense of anticipation of this small gift. Oh, I wonder what it will be.

Well, I don't think I'll think much about it after I post this, but I'm welcoming any small packages you might feel to gift me in return for the care that I have shown you, my loved ones.

Rejoice!!!

Yes.

Lights mourning; lights night

2009-02-12T23:32:00.000-08:00

I took this inside the mausoleum where we shared a funeral service for my grandmother, Beverly Jean Albert (nee Jones).
She died of complications from Alzheimer's Disease at the age of 84. We put her to rest next to her first husband, Lloyd, in Danville, Illinois.
Pictured are my sister and her husband.

...and later on that night, I made it home to a Quief Quota/Pat Sajak Assassins/N. Nomurai show at the Tap Room. This is the shot through my windshield as I headed west on Olive towards St. Francis Xavier Church at Grand taken as I sat waiting to turn left onto Ewing.

Waiter, There's a Firefly in my Soup.

2009-02-04T18:18:00.000-08:00

Yep, the world is fucking goofy!
When you get a chance to take a break from it, sit down and watch this reflective essay from the honorable Bill Moyers.

...and then you should watch this piece about the economics of the world by reading Naomi Klein's award-winning THE SHOCK DOCTRINE: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. I recommend you purchase it, but you can now read it online.
Here, too, is a preview of the book.

...and just so you don't off yourself, I want you to know that you can get your daily dose of satire for free.

This Lasting Image

2009-01-27T20:53:00.000-08:00

I am not as much as you.
I am not what you need me to be.
Make a face; you don't approve.
You know it.
I know it.
That's why I have legs.
That's why I have muscle.
That's why I go the extra mile.
I do it all for you.
I do it all for you.
For you.
Make some stupid remark.
I may kill you.
But this is my smile.
They took it from me.
This is my smile.
Somebody made me laugh
before the cuffs came off.
I snubbed out some motherfucker's life.
You found out.
We had a laugh.
You took a picture.
You applied the rules.
No one told me
or I forgot.
This is it.
I had this laugh.

*http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/8FA3EA1E89B08AFD8625743A00123707?OpenDocument

I Envision Puppetmasters

2009-01-18T08:49:00.000-08:00

What else is there to say?
I'm lucky enough to hang out with a Texas sculptor who talks like a pirate when he wants to talk like a pirate.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the one and only Mik Miano is in town!
Some of you have seen the bumper on the back of my '81 Toyota wagon. That is the work of Mik and his son, Zack (Zach?).
Mik is visiting from Houston and we went down to see Fred Friction administer longnecks from behind his altar at the newly reopened chapel named Fred's Six Feet Under, which is a cozy basement grotto underneath Iron Barley down near the corner of Virginia and Bates...and then we went to Mangia Italiano and the City Diner, of course.
That's what happens quite a lot when we're haunting the streets of St. Louis together: Irish Whiskey and another beer.
"Yes indeed, I think I will!" Mik said.
This image is worth a thousand slurred words, I do believe. Perched on Mik's lap oh so perilously is the puppet that I am sitting until Lindy comes back someday to reclaim it. I suspect that the puppet will pop up in many other pictures.

ABOUT THIS TIME LAST YEAR

2009-01-13T06:59:00.000-08:00

More energetic and delirious than I’d been in awhile, a customer at the bar upped the giddy with silly shit spurting forth with innocent excitement about the world of the new.
“I’m not kidding, Violet,” he said to the bartendress.
“I don’t care what it is, but I like to try anything I haven’t had before.”
“That was good!” he said of a Huber lager. “What else you got!”
She poured him a Schlafly American Pale Ale and he piped up again.
Heads turned.
We were sipping coffee on a day that hadn’t quite yet kick-started itself.
I barely got some lunch in me and was starting to long for the smoke I had left in my flat.
The coffee bent nothingness into something but nothing and I felt conscious for the first time since the whiskey and chronic buzz I had put on a couple nights ago, before cold and dark days of reading and sleeping.
“I discovered Pizza Hut all-you-can-eat,” the wackado continued, loud enough for all in the dining room to hear.
“Man, I had salad and nine pieces of pizza. And then! I had some cottage cheese and some pudding!”
The cat next to me was now crying into his sleeve, not able to laugh out loud.
“Then! My buddy called and wanted me to hang some dry wall with him. Aaaahhh no, I’m immobilized!”
The shit satellite radio poured more 80s schlock into the mix. I knew I couldn’t last long thinking about all the hopeless love I had spent while listening to this dreck but somehow it felt good, sparked by the coffee and an increasing need for inhalation.
“You show me an all-you-can-eat graze bar and I’m there!” he cackled now. “I wish they had a place that had it all. I’d munch cheeseburgers, souvlaki and kani maki.
This little dude must have a tapeworm, I thought…and how does he know about sushi? He didn’t look the type: a buzz cut, weathered face and work-a-day demeanor. But there was something crazy and angelic about him. He took his days with him, I guess. I don’t know. I remember thinking that NOW was enough for him and he was definitely enough for all of us. He had us by the ovaries and gonads.
He let us dive down and sink into our own comments about Morrissey and the shit Brit DJ. Let us look out the windows onto the banking public on Grand Boulevard. Let us sip and wonder “what next?” And then, “I started drinking when I was five”.
Skulls on necks spun, they did.
“I used to sit on my Granddaddy’s lap and drink beer, Violet.”
He had us on the hook again and was reeling us back in, but I was glad that I was not him, yet jealous and envious, somehow.
“He used to give me whiskey, too! Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!”

Violet kept herself together somehow. The rest of us were either stunned or crumbling to pieces, but she was clocked in and simply grinning a little.
“Do you like that APA? That’s what I drink,” she said.
I liked her composure, but I wanted more.
“Ah, Man! This is fucking great! What is this????!!”
Violet pointed at the APA tap handle.
“It’s kind of fruity!!” he squeaked as the boy to my left lost it, expelling mucous across his plate of chicken wings.

Sometimes I Write Weird Shit on Cocktail Napkins...

2009-01-07T13:53:00.000-08:00

...and it becomes something else. Sometimes it stays just as it is, word-wise. Here is something I wrote on the back of a drink ticket at work, for instance:

*A Fine How-Do-You-Do

Why don’t you pull

A sumac branch out of

Your innuendo;

Sit on your own face;

And I’ll fuck your god in

The heart

With a pear and pepper

Chutney gun.

Brett Lars Underwood, 2007

The funny part was when I handed it to a customer!

Or this piece of something that I wrote at the final bar of the night one night

*Balled Numb

You know what’s it like

At 3 a.m.

My bones numb from your

Fire

The candle has set the town

Ablaze

And

The bartenders are tired

And you are scared out

Of your mind

Can’t comprehend the

Outcome

Or even what just happened

Then

So you cry yourself

To sleep

Meanwhile, I laugh in

My dreams

But why can’t you get it?

Brett Lars Underwood, 2008

But while I'm at it, I'll post one that I wrote straight into this machine:

Why I Can’t Run a Thousand Miles per Hour

Funny how I dreamt of tearing

my face from Pompei stone

last year as the gout

continued its assault on my

agility

a letter opener removed a kidney

from Z

or was it S?

Maybe Q?

In my sleep.

Who can tell when there is this volcano

From your mouth

As my father lost the ability to speak

Sincerely knowing the abacus was losing track

and fields of daffodils were silk rapture

up a crazed cunt at the Dollar Store,

and aliens administered your first pap smear

in years

or some shit.

I’m reaching for a cork

For you to put in it.

No worries, though.

I’m not going to act on my thoughts.

I'll have to retrace my Pepto dismal diary

Lick the mud off your corns and hope

for better Casey Stengelese

burps from your Mom's

backside.

Does that fit in here?

If it does, I don’t know why.

The rookie can't bunt

to save his life

and they call

football

what's done in

domes.

We aimless gophers

crippled by

the time and magazine news

that thought we knew better.

So,

Shave with no mirrors

I'll open the shades

and drink what's in the fridge.

The rest of you can do without me

today.

Tomorrow, you'd better

have your boots on.

I’m gonna run circles around

Your skinny little asses and

Inebriate the meek

And stack cheese like mice architects.

...and tell me this:

who fucked Mussolini's mom when she

was pregnant with 'im?

Poking him in his fontanel and

then the trains ran on time

with fascism.

Those were the days, huh Bub?

Who shot the shot?

I did!

winning the Harly Race wars

scars on all my victims to be.

I was lauded afterwards for

Awarding slaves to all the

Paupers

And advancing Prince to his

Upper POP status

…and Glockenspiels were invented

amidst the ensuing orgy!!!

But "Who'll" is fun to say too, Seuss.

Like "Who'll we knuckle up tomorrow, Cassius?"

And I free them all with an afternoon

Siesta.

Oh never mind!!!

Just lather up your limp dicksky

With leather gloves covered in whiskey

and pour another for dear ol' Studs.

If you're working,

dream of suicide.

Me?

I'm about to pop open another.

and sing a song about sandwiches.

...or something about dropping bowling balls

from copters on cloverleafs at

rush hour.

That's a clit-tickler in me funny bone.

Jesus, get your shit together, Kids!

It’s the rapture that’sa comin’.

And if you know what that is

You’re an imbecile.

Still, all is forgiven.

Its that kind of day

Though I limp this way.

Brett Lars Underwood, 2007

Lungs of the City: Before vodka, there was Zen

2008-12-25T19:27:00.000-08:00

Lungs of the City: Before vodka, there was Zen

Before vodka, there was Zen

2008-12-25T11:26:00.001-08:00

I was doing laundry last night and this poem followed me upstairs amidst an armload of clothes. This was written on the back of the piece of stationary:

PLEASE

CLEAN THE

DRYER FILTER

AFTER EACH

USE…..

(FIRE HAZARD IF NOT)
Thanks.

On the other side:

The Mind of Absolute Trust

By Seng-Ts'an

The great way isn't difficult for those who are unattached to their preferences.

Let go of longing and aversion, and everything will be perfectly clear.

When you cling to a hairbreadth of distinction, heaven and earth are set apart.

If you want to realize the truth, don't be for or against.

The struggle between good and evil is the primal disease of the mind.

Not grasping the deeper meaning, you just trouble your minds serenity.

As vast as infinite space, it is perfect and lacks nothing.

But because you select and reject, you can't perceive its true nature.

Don't get entangled in the world; don't lose yourself in emptiness.

Be at peace in the oneness of things, and all errors will disappear by themselves.

If you don't live the Tao, you fall into assertion or denial.

Asserting that the world is real, you are blind to its deeper reality;

denying that the world is real, you are blind to the selflessness of all things.

The more you think about these matters, the farther you are from the truth.

Step aside from all thinking, and there is nowhere you can't go.

Returning to the root, you find the meaning;

chasing appearances, you lose their source.

At the moment of profound insight, you transcend both appearance and emptiness.

Don't keep searching for the truth; just let go of your opinions.

For the mind in harmony with the Tao, all selfishness disappears.

With not even a trace of self-doubt, you can trust the universe completely.

All at once you are free, with nothing left to hold on to.

All is empty, brilliant, perfect in its own being.

In the world of things as they are, there is no self, no non self.

If you want to describe its essence, the best you can say is "Not-two."

In this "Not-two" nothing is separate, and nothing in the world is excluded.

The enlightened of all times and places have entered into this truth.

In it there is no gain or loss; one instant is ten thousand years.

There is no here, no there; infinity is right before your eyes.

The tiny is as large as the vast when objective boundaries have vanished;

the vast is as small as the tiny when you don't have external limits.

Being is an aspect of non-being; non-being is no different from being.

Until you understand this truth, you won't see anything clearly.

One is all; all are one. When you realize this, what reason for holiness or wisdom?

The mind of absolute trust is beyond all thought, all striving,

is perfectly at peace, for in it there is no yesterday, no today, no tomorrow.

Compare it to this piece by Charles Bukowski. Why? I'm not sure.


THE GENIUS OF THE CROWD

there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day

and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace

those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach peace do not have love

beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average

but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect

like a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock

their finest art

Lungs of the City: I lost a bit more of my technoginity today

2008-12-23T15:52:00.000-08:00

Lungs of the City: I lost a bit more of my technoginity today

I lost a bit more of my technoginity today

2008-12-22T11:40:00.000-08:00

I just popped my video-interface cherry.
Yep, I lost my Skype virginity to one of my favorite people, Lindy, who is on break from her teaching job in Madrid. She just got a computer with a camera in it, so I got to have an hour long chat with her while I froze my toes off in my apartment, finished waking up, ate pizza and watched her look into the screen and smile that smile.
I'm going to see her during her Easter break, so we were pretty giddy and the oddness of speaking to one another for free from so far away and me being granted the vision of her face is currently overriding all other impressions, but I wonder how odd it will be when we are all carrying on this sort of correspondence. I'm guessing it won't seem so odd when the microphones, cameras and video feeds are of better quality. For me, it was a bit uncomfortable because I am stuck to this desktop and had my head attached to the PC via headset and a short chord. Pretty geeky. Very nerdy, but not so bad, I have to admit.
Is this what it felt like to speak on a telephone in 1895?
But, thankfully, I get to go back out into the world briefly to interact with you and the rest of the human race and the hot shower I'm about to enjoy will ready me for some good, dirty work and fun on this cold night. I'm not ready for an solitary existence in this cocoon quite yet.
What?

Lungs of the City: Do Your Ears Like Magic?

2008-12-18T09:52:00.000-08:00

Lungs of the City: Do Your Ears Like Magic?