Tuesday, February 21, 2017


CREEP

Have you heard about the
Go to nerve syndrome
new virus and the ever
changing nature of slang
can be quite confusing
like the static of a
Berlusconi media
and your jittery morning
smile as birds hover over
your fevered bedhead.

It is the itch
under the sack
in your scalp
the facial tic
the stutter in your Mom’s
hubbidahubudda Budhha
phone call now.
But, never mind the history.
Ignorance is bliss is fear
is the right to be PC
is the right to be offended.

If you don’t like the games
the lines, then
gallop over them like John Lennon
Unicorn and rain piss
on the gods or as the wombat,
if you please, rough as a boar,
hard as a table
appearing cuddly.
Fuck on the water
get weird on a raft.
Mind the outboard motor.
When the hearts of scar tissue
sings of hunger from your intestines
and Bob Kaufman ceases
to believe in your dreams.

Blow the bass player.
Burn the books.
Buy drinks for the drummer.
Listen to your enemies.
They wanna give you universal
access to anything you can
pay for with plastic.

Yuck it up at funerals. Nostalgia is for creeps.
Just as one would not show their
hand to the father, that entity that dealt it,
felt it, held it, cherished it, smelled it and
knelt down in thanksgiving for it,
lest he thwart your angst-felt wisdom;
so, too, do ignore the lists of the masses.
They are to be burning heaps,
steaming crocks of nothing
good, but for the ones who
conjured them up, wrote them down
and share the profits.

Kill the clouds and blot out
the sunshine if it omits desire
and stilts creativity and love.
Leave the world to sweat
and dream of ether.
Laugh at pain as it melts
or becomes more severe.

Eavesdrop, you Creep.
You will learn something.
She says, “Did we talk about the generator?”
He quotes the idiocy just to
misuse the word.
Grammar is for snobs.

Know your Mother while you teach
her to smuggle your conviction to
master agents of control
if you read this with your pants on
and the headphones turned up just a little
further than your buzz, dial the boss
and tell him it is for the candy-colored
bunions of your stage coach Betty.
Tell him you desire butterfly dust in
your milk bottles in the morning. Tell him.
Tell him. Tell him there is no stain without
shouting and ape shit algelbra.
Tell him you love him. Set him free.

Stir the fear into the corn syrup
and watch the world waddle
in their muumuus.
If you have to engage further,
thank the world equally for pain
and giggles; thank the idea of the cosmos
as you do another migraine;
as you would an orgasm
that cripples;
or polio and the lack thereof
and the drivers in need of
dead pedestrians and rotting birds.

Tell the story about wellness falling
on the pilgrimage into nothingness
when never allowed something to peak
into the abyss and the
rain fell up the stairway to find the
love of a wombat only to find that
they are as hard as a table, on the trail to moans.

We are a generation that consumes cultural
identities like locusts, but never digests any of them.
When you eat three, then there are nine.
But, is that true?
Try it sometime, then, yell “HA! LOCUSTS!”

Generosity begat pain and deafness, sorrow.
Tweets and writhing knew all
The buttercups and the lids of eyes
Fluttered upon a dismal mid-morning as
goats ate grass with dressing on
the side.

Yuck it up at funerals. Nostalgia is for creeps.
Tweets are crutches. Count the dead.
But, if you need them, use them.
Know that sometimes
They are best meant for pretty birdies
and Satan brought home donuts, and it's
Stanley Kubrick's fault, he typed.
He tapped it into his device.
He quotes the idiocy.

...remember a time when a dyslexic
15-year old could perform a tonsillectomy
on a raging river with nothing but a bit
of quartz and a rotary phone or
live in a paper bag at the bottom of a
septic slaughterhouse and
not lose any sleep.
The guy who made my cabinets told
me all about it. Had the meter maid
delivered to his ulcer.

Still, it ain’t over yet, but
I'm gonna miss my widget frag
My Don guy wag my wiggle in
The diggle of the wonkey lag
At Sunday do my jiggle jump
Off the bridge in your slit,
you gape guy.
Poop in the atheist member
Of mod flood, you Doufous!
YOU DO FOR US! YOU MARY POPPINS
WIGGLE WORM!!!

But, I won’t share this except
to you, my confessor.
I HATE YOUR SHOES!!!!!
What are you doing there?
They create my fear.
Where do the toes go?

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

A LONG CALM AMIDST A BUZZ IN THE WAKE OF A TWIT


I am not as calm as Mr. Chomsky, but I value his experience and his commentary, so check out the interview that is below.
I have been thinking a lot about the effect of this two-year battle over our minds, with the Sanders campaign and the misleading assumption that Trump was a clown who had no chance and that Hillary was horrible but would run away with the election. Add to that, we have educated folks watching the debates as entertainment, when none of the real issues were being debated.
I had a conversation with a cat the other night and he said, "There are parts of my mind that will forever be corrupted by this election. That is real estate that I don't think I will be able to reclaim."
Now, there is commentary about the effects of social media. Uh. Yeah.
Humans are watching their little hand-held boxes instead of living their lives. Clicking on minuscule, tiny headlines of drivel and re-fueling the junkfood society by re-posting and tweeting and commenting and fretting. Sometimes. Sometimes, the data is worth transmitting and re-transmitting and swimming in and chanting. Yep. I know.
Sometimes, though, shit ain't right...and maybe it isn't you that's being mislead, maybe it is your more easily mislead sidekick. Maybe S(h)e's the one who is copying and pasting the makings of a new regime of double speak and confusion. Is there a cure? We'll find out how much it works, but this is what Noam has to say"
"You combat it by being an educator; by trying to educate and organize and bring people to understand that they should use their critical intelligence to evaluate what they read, whether it is in the mainstream or on some site that they're looking up...I think it can be overcome."
I hope the man is correct. I see a society that is constantly distracted by trivialities and is rushing to busy themselves in the opposite direction of wisdom and any sense of good judgement.

I have more to say about our mindsets, but I don't think I'll get to them tonight.

Saturday, March 5, 2016

FACE


"I was sayin let me out of here before I was Even born--it's such a gamble when you get a face It's fascinatin to observe what the mirror does But when I dine it's for the wall that I set a place"
Richard Hell, "Blank Generation"

Monday, February 15, 2016

FIXES LIKE THE ANGEL OF HELL


FIXES LIKE THE ANGEL OF HELL
Delegating the pencil
to the crapper, the tweets
and hawks took over obliterating
justice in favor of the correct
There were no proofreaders and
spellcheckers and the pawns
thought they could hump kings
and that’s ridiculous and they
ran stop signs and that was fun
and they popped locks and
snapped shots and posed much
but it made them obvious
and they ended in the cages and
were convinced that they were
in the cages and they didn’t get
out they didn’t
get out and they didn’t get off
But they could have
If the concentration had been more like
The truth
My memory of you looking out the window at the beauty
And walking off into the sunset
Then
Then
We got somewhere like the truth
And there was hot chicken
For dinner
And sleep
And rest
The truth that only took
Patience.

Saturday, December 12, 2015

STOLEN GLOW

This is what the Missouri Botanical Garden looks like after dark these days.
It costs $15 to get in and experience "THE GLOW" and I haven't made time, but it is free to stay out and snap pictures through the fence...and I am half-a-block away.
So, is this the bum's view or an advantage of being a neighbor?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------A couple weeks ago, I was riding my bike on a dark and busy Tower Grove Avenue during early evening rush hour traffic.
I noticed the blue tree out of the corner of my eye to my right, but just then, there was a commotion to my left. Someone had hit a cat and it was scrambling frantically to get to its feet and get out of the street, but its spine was corkscrewing the paws weren't gaining ground. I jumped the curb and stopped on the sidewalk to watch.
Cars were slamming on their brakes.
The first, to avoid the cat, and a few after that, to avoid that stopped car. Then, a school bus came roaring up behind them and nearly rear-ended the stopped line of cars. The bus quickly swerved into the bike lane, where luckily, no bikes were traveling and no cars were parked.
I went back later to take a picture of this blue tree, but they had shut down the lights for the night. I looked across the street and the cat was there.
Lights out.
Against the curb.

The next morning when I biked past, the cat was gone.
This Wednesday afternoon, I dropped what I was doing to go pick something up at the library.
I got my bike out of my apartment and noticed that the sky was in that "magic hour". I forgot to bring a camera, but rode through Tower Grove Park slowly to take it all in. The oddly warm, December air. The light through the bare branches.
I have seen this before.
One afternoon, I was dismounting at the library and took these through a butterfly sculpture near Southwest and Kingshighway.









By the time, I left the library, the "magic hour" was gone.
I rode through some alleys and cut East on Shaw and then South on Tower Grove where the traffic was urgent. The stops and starts of the end of this fucking humpday workday were annoying to the commuters. Again, to my right, the lights were glimmering as I passed slowly; as they appeared through the grates and between sections of stone wall. Eerily, bell music and some other kind of music sounded, but was barely perceptible over the rush of the hour past my left shoulder.
I dumped off my books and a DVD, swapped shirts and rode out for a few pints.
Later, I returned to the blue tree with a pleasant buzz, a camera and a friend. It was a December, 2015 version of the knothole gang.
What?
What is the moral of this story?
One man's magic hour is another man's rush hour, or something.

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Anagrams

BRETT LARS UNDERWOOD

A Bolstered Word Runt
A Blenders Tudor Wort
A Blundered Sort Wort
A Bundled Terrors Two
A Bundled Terrors Wot
A Bundled Terrors Tow
A Bundled Terror Twos
A Bundled Terror Stow
A Bundled Terror Tows
A Bundled Resort Wort
A Bundled Rower Trots
A Bonded Rustler Wort
A Blender Sword Trout
A Blender Sword Tutor
A Blender Words Trout
A Blender Words Tutor
A Blender Tudor Trows
A Blender Tudor Worst
A Blender Tudor Worts
A Blender Word Tutors
A Blender Word Trouts
A Blunderers Word Tot
A Blunderers Word Tot
A Blenders Tudor Wort
A Blenders Word Trout
A Blenders Word Tutor
A Bolstered Drown Rut
A Bolstered Word Turn
A Bolstered Word Runt
A Bolstered Turd Worn
A Blustered Drown Rot
A Blustered Word Torn
A Trebled Rondo Wurst
A Trebled Donor Wurst
A Trebled Rounds Wort
A Trebled Rounds Trow
A Trebled Drowns Rout
A Trebled Drowns Tour
A Trebled Rotund Rows
A Trebled Untrod Rows
A Trebled Round Trows
A Trebled Round Worst
A Trebled Round Worts
A Trebled Drown Routs
A Trebled Drown Roust
A Trebled Drown Tours
A Trebled Tudor Sworn
A Bender Worlds Trout
A Bender Worlds Tutor
A Bender World Tutors
A Bender World Trouts
A Benders World Trout
A Benders World Tutor
A Bestrode World Turn
A Bestrode World Runt
A Buttered Lord Sworn
A Buttered Lords Worn
A Buttered Worlds Nor
A Buttered Sword Lorn
A Buttered Words Lorn
A Rebutted Lord Sworn
A Rebutted Lords Worn
A Rebutted Worlds Nor
A Rebutted Sword Lorn
A Rebutted Words Lorn
A Bled Tortured Sworn
A Bled Drowns Torture
A Bled Drown Tortures
A Bled Downs Torturer
A Bled Down Torturers
A Blend Rewords Trout
A Blend Rewords Tutor
A Blend Tortured Rows
A Blend Reword Tutors
A Blend Reword Trouts
A Blend Rutted Sorrow
A Blend Sword Torture
A Blend Words Torture
A Blend Word Tortures
A Blonde Retrod Wurst
A Blonde Reword Trust
A Blonde Reword Strut
A Blonde Sword Turret
A Blonde Words Turret
A Blonde Word Turrets
A Blonder Rewords Tut
A Blonder Reword Tuts
A Blonder Worsted Rut
A Blonder Doter Wurst
A Blonder Trowed Rust
A Blonder Trowed Ruts
A Blonder Dower Trust
A Blonder Dower Strut
A Blonder Rowed Trust
A Blonder Rowed Strut
A Blonder Trusted Row
A Blonder Duster Wort
A Blonder Duster Trow
A Blonder Rudest Wort
A Blonder Rudest Trow
A Blonder Rusted Wort
A Blonder Rusted Trow
A Blonder Rutted Rows
A Blonder Trued Trows
A Blonder Trued Worst
A Blonder Trued Worts
A Blonder Drew Tutors
A Blonder Drew Trouts
A Blonder Sword Utter
A Blonder Words Utter
A Blonder Tudor Wrest
A Blonder Tudor Strew
A Blonder Word Truest
A Blonder Word Utters
A Blonder Turds Wrote
A Blonder Turds Tower
A Blonder Durst Wrote
A Blonder Durst Tower
A Blonder Turd Towers
A Blondes Word Turret
A Blondest Reword Rut
A Blondest Ruder Wort
A Blondest Ruder Trow
A Blondest Word Truer
A Blondest Turd Rower
A Blunders Retrod Two
A Blunders Retrod Wot
A Blunders Retrod Tow
A Blunders Reword Tot
A Blunders Doter Wort
A Blunders Doter Trow
A Blunders Rotted Row
A Blunders Trowed Rot
A Blunders Trowed Tor
A Blunders Trowed Ort
A Blunders Dower Trot
A Blunders Dower Tort
A Blunders Rowed Trot
A Blunders Rowed Tort
A Blunders Trod Wrote
A Blunders Trod Tower
A Blunders Word Torte
A Blunders Word Otter
A Blunder Rewords Tot
A Blunder Retrod Twos
A Blunder Retrod Stow
A Blunder Retrod Tows
A Blunder Retrod Wost
A Blunder Reword Tost
A Blunder Reword Tots
A Blunder Doters Wort
A Blunder Doters Trow
A Blunder Sorted Wort
A Blunder Sorted Trow
A Blunder Stored Wort
A Blunder Stored Trow
A Blunder Strode Wort
A Blunder Strode Trow
A Blunder Worsted Rot
A Blunder Worsted Tor
A Blunder Worsted Ort
A Blunder Dowers Trot
A Blunder Dowers Tort
A Blunder Drowse Trot
A Blunder Drowse Tort
A Blunder Dowser Trot
A Blunder Dowser Tort
A Blunder Doter Trows
A Blunder Doter Worst
A Blunder Doter Worts
A Blunder Rotted Rows
A Blunder Trowed Tors
A Blunder Trowed Rots
A Blunder Trowed Sort
A Blunder Dower Trots
A Blunder Dower Torts
A Blunder Rowed Trots
A Blunder Rowed Torts
A Blunder Sword Torte
A Blunder Sword Otter
A Blunder Words Torte
A Blunder Words Otter
A Blunder Trod Towers
A Blunder Word Tortes
A Blunder Word Otters
A Blends Tortured Row
A Blends Reword Trout
A Blends Reword Tutor
A Blends Word Torture
A Bundles Retrod Wort
A Bundles Retrod Trow
A Bundles Reword Trot
A Bundles Reword Tort
A Bundles Word Retort
A Blunted Order Trows
A Blunted Order Worst
A Blunted Order Worts
A Blunted Orders Wort
A Blunted Orders Trow
A Blunted Rewords Rot
A Blunted Rewords Tor
A Blunted Rewords Ort
A Blunted Retrod Rows
A Blunted Reword Tors
A Blunted Reword Rots
A Blunted Reword Sort
A Blunted Drew Rotors
A Blunted Sword Retro
A Blunted Words Retro
A Blunted Trod Rowers
A Blunted Word Sorter
A Blunted Word Retros
A Blunted Word Resort
A Blunted Word Roster
A Bundle Rewords Trot
A Bundle Rewords Tort
A Bundle Retrod Trows
A Bundle Retrod Worst
A Bundle Retrod Worts
A Bundle Reword Trots
A Bundle Reword Torts
A Bundle Sword Retort
A Bundle Words Retort
A Bundle Word Retorts
A Lobed Drowns Turret
A Lobed Drown Turrets
A Bolder Rodent Wurst
A Bolder Wonder Trust
A Bolder Wonder Strut
A Bolder Downer Trust
A Bolder Downer Strut
A Bolder Turned Trows
A Bolder Turned Worst
A Bolder Turned Worts
A Bolder Reword Stunt
A Bolder Worsted Turn
A Bolder Worsted Runt
A Bolder Trowed Turns
A Bolder Trowed Runts
A Bolder Trusted Worn
A Bolder Rutted Sworn
A Bolder Drowns Utter
A Bolder Rotund Wrest
A Bolder Rotund Strew
A Bolder Untrod Wrest
A Bolder Untrod Strew
A Bolder Drown Truest
A Bolder Drown Utters
A Bolder Downs Turret
A Bolder Down Turrets
A Bolder Tudor Strewn
A Bolder Word Entrust
A Boulders Trend Wort
A Boulders Trend Trow
A Bowlders Rodent Rut
A Bowlders Rend Trout
A Bowlders Rend Tutor
A Bowlders Nerd Trout
A Bowlders Nerd Tutor
A Bowlders Trend Rout
A Bowlders Trend Tour
A Bowlders Turned Rot
A Bowlders Turned Tor
A Bowlders Turned Ort
A Bowlders Under Trot
A Bowlders Under Tort
A Bowlders Nuder Trot
A Bowlders Nuder Tort
A Bowlders Retrod Tun
A Bowlders Retrod Nut
A Bowlders Doter Turn
A Bowlders Doter Runt
A Bowlders Rotted Run
A Bowlders Rotted Urn
A Bowlders Rutted Nor
A Bowlders Trued Torn
A Bowlders Don Turret
A Bowlders Nod Turret
A Bowlders Dun Retort
A Bowlders Trod Tuner
A Bowlders Tudor Tern
A Bowlders Tudor Rent
A Bowlders Dot Turner
A Bowlders Dot Return
A Bowlders Turd Toner
A Bowlders Turd Tenor
A Troubled Rend Trows
A Troubled Rend Worst
A Troubled Rend Worts
A Troubled Nerd Trows
A Troubled Nerd Worst
A Troubled Nerd Worts
A Troubled Rends Wort
A Troubled Rends Trow
A Troubled Nerds Wort
A Troubled Nerds Trow
A Troubled Trends Row
A Troubled Trend Rows
A Troubled Drest Worn
A Troubled Drew Snort
A Troubled Drown Rest
A Troubled Drown Erst
A Troubled Rod Strewn
A Troubled Sword Tern
A Troubled Sword Rent
A Troubled Words Tern
A Troubled Words Rent
A Troubled Trod Wrens
A Troubled Word Stern
A Troubled Word Terns
A Troubled Word Rents
A Boulder Trends Wort
A Boulder Trends Trow
A Boulder Trend Trows
A Boulder Trend Worst
A Boulder Trend Worts
A Boulder Trod Strewn
A Bowlder Drone Trust
A Bowlder Drone Strut
A Bowlder Rodents Rut
A Bowlder Snorted Rut
A Bowlder Rodent Rust
A Bowlder Rodent Ruts
A Bowlder Rend Tutors
A Bowlder Rend Trouts
A Bowlder Nerd Tutors
A Bowlder Nerd Trouts
A Bowlder Rends Trout
A Bowlder Rends Tutor
A Bowlder Nerds Trout
A Bowlder Nerds Tutor
A Bowlder Trends Rout
A Bowlder Trends Tour
A Bowlder Nursed Trot
A Bowlder Nursed Tort
A Bowlder Sunder Trot
A Bowlder Sunder Tort
A Bowlder Trend Routs
A Bowlder Trend Roust
A Bowlder Trend Tours
A Bowlder Turned Tors
A Bowlder Turned Rots
A Bowlder Turned Sort
A Bowlder Under Trots
A Bowlder Under Torts
A Bowlder Nuder Trots
A Bowlder Nuder Torts
A Bowlder Order Stunt
A Bowlder Retrod Nuts
A Bowlder Retrod Tuns
A Bowlder Retrod Stun
A Bowlder Doters Turn
A Bowlder Doters Runt
A Bowlder Sorted Turn
A Bowlder Sorted Runt
A Bowlder Stored Turn
A Bowlder Stored Runt
A Bowlder Strode Turn
A Bowlder Strode Runt
A Bowlder Doter Turns
A Bowlder Doter Runts
A Bowlder Rotted Urns
A Bowlder Rotted Runs
A Bowlder Trusted Nor
A Bowlder Duster Torn
A Bowlder Rudest Torn
A Bowlder Rusted Torn
A Bowlder Trued Snort
A Bowlder Don Turrets
A Bowlder Nod Turrets
A Bowlder Rotund Rest
A Bowlder Rotund Erst
A Bowlder Untrod Rest
A Bowlder Untrod Erst
A Bowlder Dons Turret
A Bowlder Nods Turret
A Bowlder Duns Retort
A Bowlder Dun Retorts
A Bowlder Rod Entrust
A Bowlder Trod Tuners
A Bowlder Trod Unrest
A Bowlder Tudor Stern
A Bowlder Tudor Terns
A Bowlder Tudor Rents
A Bowlder Dots Turner
A Bowlder Dots Return
A Bowlder Dost Turner
A Bowlder Dost Return
A Bowlder Dot Turners
A Bowlder Dot Returns
A Bowlder Turds Toner
A Bowlder Turds Tenor
A Bowlder Durst Toner
A Bowlder Durst Tenor
A Bowlder Turd Tenors
A Bowlder Turd Stoner
A Bowlder Turd Toners
A Boldest Reword Turn
A Boldest Reword Runt
A Boldest Drown Truer
A Boldest Word Turner
A Boldest Word Return
A Bolted Rewords Turn
A Bolted Rewords Runt
A Bolted Reword Turns
A Bolted Reword Runts
A Bolted Drowns Truer
A Bolted Sword Turner
A Bolted Sword Return
A Bolted Words Turner
A Bolted Words Return
A Bolted Word Turners
A Bolted Word Returns
A Bottled Rewords Run
A Bottled Rewords Urn
A Bottled Reword Urns
A Bottled Reword Runs
A Bottled Ruder Sworn
A Bottled Drown Surer
A Bottled Sword Rerun
A Bottled Words Rerun
A Bottled Word Nurser
A Bottled Word Reruns
A Blotted Rewords Run
A Blotted Rewords Urn
A Blotted Reword Urns
A Blotted Reword Runs
A Blotted Ruder Sworn
A Blotted Drown Surer
A Blotted Sword Rerun
A Blotted Words Rerun
A Blotted Word Nurser
A Blotted Word Reruns
A Bowled Retrod Turns
A Bowled Retrod Runts
A Bowled Trod Turners
A Bowled Trod Returns
A Bowled Turd Snorter
A Blurred Rodents Two
A Blurred Rodents Wot
A Blurred Rodents Tow
A Blurred Snorted Two
A Blurred Snorted Wot
A Blurred Snorted Tow
A Blurred Downers Tot
A Blurred Wonders Tot
A Blurred Rodent Twos
A Blurred Rodent Stow
A Blurred Rodent Tows
A Blurred Rodent Wost
A Blurred Wonder Tost
A Blurred Wonder Tots
A Blurred Downer Tost
A Blurred Downer Tots
A Blurred Stoned Wort
A Blurred Stoned Trow
A Blurred Endows Trot
A Blurred Endows Tort
A Blurred Snowed Trot
A Blurred Snowed Tort
A Blurred Noted Trows
A Blurred Noted Worst
A Blurred Noted Worts
A Blurred Toned Trows
A Blurred Toned Worst
A Blurred Toned Worts
A Blurred Wonted Tors
A Blurred Wonted Rots
A Blurred Wonted Sort
A Blurred Endow Trots
A Blurred Endow Torts
A Blurred Owned Trots
A Blurred Owned Torts
A Blurred Doters Town
A Blurred Doters Wont
A Blurred Sorted Town
A Blurred Sorted Wont
A Blurred Stored Town
A Blurred Stored Wont
A Blurred Strode Town
A Blurred Strode Wont
A Blurred Worsted Not
A Blurred Worsted Ton
A Blurred Doter Wonts
A Blurred Doter Towns
A Blurred Rotted Snow
A Blurred Rotted Sown
A Blurred Rotted Nows
A Blurred Rotted Owns
A Blurred Trowed Tons
A Blurred Trowed Snot
A Blurred Stowed Torn
A Blurred Toted Sworn
A Blurred Towed Snort
A Blurred Drowns Tote
A Blurred Drown Totes
A Blurred Downs Torte
A Blurred Downs Otter
A Blurred Down Tortes
A Blurred Down Otters
A Blurted Drone Trows
A Blurted Drone Worst
A Blurted Drone Worts
A Blurted Snored Wort
A Blurted Snored Trow
A Blurted Drones Wort
A Blurted Drones Trow
A Blurted Rodents Row
A Blurted Snorted Row
A Blurted Downers Rot
A Blurted Downers Tor
A Blurted Downers Ort
A Blurted Wonders Rot
A Blurted Wonders Tor
A Blurted Wonders Ort
A Blurted Rodent Rows
A Blurted Wonder Tors
A Blurted Wonder Rots
A Blurted Wonder Sort
A Blurted Downer Tors
A Blurted Downer Rots
A Blurted Downer Sort
A Blurted Wends Rotor
A Blurted Dent Sorrow
A Blurted Tend Sorrow
A Blurted Wend Rotors
A Blurted Order Wonts
A Blurted Order Towns
A Blurted Orders Town
A Blurted Orders Wont
A Blurted Rewords Not
A Blurted Rewords Ton
A Blurted Retrod Snow
A Blurted Retrod Sown
A Blurted Retrod Nows
A Blurted Retrod Owns
A Blurted Reword Tons
A Blurted Reword Snot
A Blurted Doters Worn
A Blurted Sorted Worn
A Blurted Stored Worn
A Blurted Strode Worn
A Blurted Worsted Nor
A Blurted Dowers Torn
A Blurted Drowse Torn
A Blurted Dowser Torn
A Blurted Doter Sworn
A Blurted Dower Snort
A Blurted Rowed Snort
A Blurted Rondo Wrest
A Blurted Rondo Strew
A Blurted Donor Wrest
A Blurted Donor Strew
A Blurted Drowns Rote
A Blurted Drowns Tore
A Blurted Drown Store
A Blurted Drown Rotes
A Blurted Downs Retro
A Blurted Down Sorter
A Blurted Down Retros
A Blurted Down Resort
A Blurted Down Roster
A Blurted Rood Strewn
A Blurted Door Strewn
A Blurted Odor Strewn
A Blurted Sword Toner
A Blurted Sword Tenor
A Blurted Words Toner
A Blurted Words Tenor
A Blurted Trod Resown
A Blurted Trod Owners
A Blurted Trod Worsen
A Blurted Word Tenors
A Blurted Word Stoner
A Blurted Word Toners
A Burled Rodents Wort
A Burled Rodents Trow
A Burled Snorted Wort
A Burled Snorted Trow
A Burled Downers Trot
A Burled Downers Tort
A Burled Wonders Trot
A Burled Wonders Tort
A Burled Rodent Trows
A Burled Rodent Worst
A Burled Rodent Worts
A Burled Wonder Trots
A Burled Wonder Torts
A Burled Downer Trots
A Burled Downer Torts
A Burled Retrod Wonts
A Burled Retrod Towns
A Burled Worsted Torn
A Burled Rotted Sworn
A Burled Trowed Snort
A Burled Drowns Torte
A Burled Drowns Otter
A Burled Drown Tortes
A Burled Drown Otters
A Burled Downs Retort
A Burled Down Retorts
A Burled Sword Rotten
A Burled Words Rotten
A Bustled Retrod Worn
A Bustled Reword Torn
A Bustled Drown Retro
A Bustled Down Terror
A Blued Drowns Retort
A Blued Drown Retorts
A Blued Sword Torrent
A Blued Words Torrent
A Blued Word Torrents
A Lubed Drowns Retort
A Lubed Drown Retorts
A Lubed Sword Torrent
A Lubed Words Torrent
A Lubed Word Torrents
A Bend Worlds Torture
A Bend World Tortures
A Bend Wouldst Terror
A Bend Wolds Torturer
A Bend Wold Torturers
A Boned Worlds Turret
A Boned World Turrets
A Browned Older Trust
A Browned Older Strut
A Browned Oldster Rut
A Browned Retold Rust
A Browned Retold Ruts
A Browned Slurred Tot
A Browned Rustled Rot
A Browned Rustled Tor
A Browned Rustled Ort
A Browned Strudel Rot
A Browned Strudel Tor
A Browned Strudel Ort
A Browned Ruled Trots
A Browned Ruled Torts
A Browned Lured Trots
A Browned Lured Torts
A Browned Retrod Lust
A Browned Retrod Slut
A Browned Rotted Slur
A Browned Old Turrets
A Browned Lord Truest
A Browned Lord Utters
A Browned Lords Utter
A Browned Sold Turret
A Browned Olds Turret
A Browned Dolts Truer
A Browned Rod Turtles
A Browned Rods Turtle
A Browned Trod Rustle
A Browned Trod Sutler
A Browned Trod Ulster
A Browned Trod Lustre
A Browned Trod Luster
A Browned Trod Result
A Browned Dot Rustler
A Buttoned Worlds Err
A Buttoned World Errs
A Burdens Retold Wort
A Burdens Retold Trow
A Burdens Dwelt Rotor
A Burdens World Torte
A Burdens World Otter
A Burdens Wold Retort
A Burdens Trod Trowel
A Burden Oldster Wort
A Burden Oldster Trow
A Burden Retold Trows
A Burden Retold Worst
A Burden Retold Worts
A Burden Dwelt Rotors
A Burden Worlds Torte
A Burden Worlds Otter
A Burden World Tortes
A Burden World Otters
A Burden Wolds Retort
A Burden Wold Retorts
A Burden Trod Trowels
A Burned Oldster Wort
A Burned Oldster Trow
A Burned Retold Trows
A Burned Retold Worst
A Burned Retold Worts
A Burned Dwelt Rotors
A Burned Worlds Torte
A Burned Worlds Otter
A Burned World Tortes
A Burned World Otters
A Burned Wolds Retort
A Burned Wold Retorts
A Burned Trod Trowels
A Bends World Torture
A Bends Wold Torturer
A Bunted Worlds Retro
A Bunted World Sorter
A Bunted World Retros
A Bunted World Resort
A Bunted World Roster
A Bunted Wolds Terror
A Bunted Wold Terrors
A Bode Trundlers Wort
A Bode Trundlers Trow
A Bode Trundler Trows
A Bode Trundler Worst
A Bode Trundler Worts
A Brooder Dwelt Turns
A Brooder Dwelt Runts
A Brooders Dwelt Turn
A Brooders Dwelt Runt
A Borrowed Lend Trust
A Borrowed Lend Strut
A Borrowed Trend Lust
A Borrowed Trend Slut
A Borrowed Turds Lent
A Borrowed Durst Lent
A Bored Trundlers Two
A Bored Trundlers Wot
A Bored Trundlers Tow
A Bored Trundler Twos
A Bored Trundler Stow
A Bored Trundler Tows
A Bored Trundler Wost
A Bored Trundles Wort
A Bored Trundles Trow
A Bored Trundle Trows
A Bored Trundle Worst
A Bored Trundle Worts
A Bored World Entrust
A Bored Drowns Turtle
A Bored Drown Turtles
A Robed Trundlers Two
A Robed Trundlers Wot
A Robed Trundlers Tow
A Robed Trundler Twos
A Robed Trundler Stow
A Robed Trundler Tows
A Robed Trundler Wost
A Robed Trundles Wort
A Robed Trundles Trow
A Robed Trundle Trows
A Robed Trundle Worst
A Robed Trundle Worts
A Robed World Entrust
A Robed Drowns Turtle
A Robed Drown Turtles
A Border Letdowns Rut
A Border Letdown Rust
A Border Letdown Ruts
A Border Trundles Two
A Border Trundles Wot
A Border Trundles Tow
A Border Trundle Twos
A Border Trundle Stow
A Border Trundle Tows
A Border Trundle Wost
A Border Rustled Town
A Border Rustled Wont
A Border Strudel Town
A Border Strudel Wont
A Border Untold Wrest
A Border Untold Strew
A Border Wouldst Tern
A Border Wouldst Rent
A Border Wold Entrust
A Border Rotund Welts
A Border Untrod Welts
A Border Downs Turtle
A Border Down Turtles
A Borders Letdown Rut
A Borders Trundle Two
A Borders Trundle Wot
A Borders Trundle Tow
A Borders Rotund Welt
A Borders Untrod Welt
A Borders Down Turtle
A Suborder Dwelt Torn
A Suborder World Nett
A Suborder World Tent
A Burrowed Lend Trots
A Burrowed Lend Torts
A Burrowed Lends Trot
A Burrowed Lends Tort
A Burrowed Trends Lot
A Burrowed Trend Lots
A Burrowed Trend Slot
A Burrowed Trend Lost
A Burrowed Lord Tents
A Burrowed Lords Nett
A Burrowed Lords Tent
A Burrowed Dolts Tern
A Burrowed Dolts Rent
A Burrowed Told Stern
A Burrowed Told Terns
A Burrowed Told Rents
A Burrowed Dolt Stern
A Burrowed Dolt Terns
A Burrowed Dolt Rents
A Debtors Trundler Ow
A Debtors Trundle Row
A Debtors World Tuner
A Debtors Wold Turner
A Debtors Wold Return
A Debtors Word Runlet
A Doubters World Tern
A Doubters World Rent
A Obtrudes World Tern
A Obtrudes World Rent
A Redoubts World Tern
A Redoubts World Rent
A Browsed Trundler To
A Browsed Trundle Rot
A Browsed Trundle Tor
A Browsed Trundle Ort
A Browsed Retold Turn
A Browsed Retold Runt
A Browsed Rutted Lorn
A Browsed Told Turner
A Browsed Told Return
A Browsed Dolt Turner
A Browsed Dolt Return
A Browsed Trod Runlet
A Debtor Trundlers Ow
A Debtor Trundler Sow
A Debtor Trundles Row
A Debtor Trundle Rows
A Debtor Slurred Town
A Debtor Slurred Wont
A Debtor Rustled Worn
A Debtor Strudel Worn
A Debtor Worlds Tuner
A Debtor World Tuners
A Debtor World Unrest
A Debtor Wolds Turner
A Debtor Wolds Return
A Debtor Wold Turners
A Debtor Wold Returns
A Debtor Drown Rustle
A Debtor Drown Sutler
A Debtor Drown Ulster
A Debtor Drown Lustre
A Debtor Drown Luster
A Debtor Drown Result
A Debtor Down Rustler
A Debtor Sword Runlet
A Debtor Words Runlet
A Debtor Word Runlets
A Redoubt Lord Strewn
A Redoubt Worlds Tern
A Redoubt Worlds Rent
A Redoubt World Stern
A Redoubt World Terns
A Redoubt World Rents
A Obtrude Lord Strewn
A Obtrude Worlds Tern
A Obtrude Worlds Rent
A Obtrude World Stern
A Obtrude World Terns
A Obtrude World Rents
A Doubter Lord Strewn
A Doubter Worlds Tern
A Doubter Worlds Rent
A Doubter World Stern
A Doubter World Terns
A Doubter World Rents
A Bodes Trundler Wort
A Bodes Trundler Trow
A Bowed Trundlers Rot
A Bowed Trundlers Tor
A Bowed Trundlers Ort
A Bowed Trundler Tors
A Bowed Trundler Rots
A Bowed Trundler Sort
A Bred Would Torrents
A Bred Rotund Trowels
A Bred Untrod Trowels
A Burred Letdowns Rot
A Burred Letdowns Tor
A Burred Letdowns Ort
A Burred Letdown Tors
A Burred Letdown Rots
A Burred Letdown Sort
A Burred Oldster Town
A Burred Oldster Wont
A Burred Retold Wonts
A Burred Retold Towns
A Burred Slotted Worn
A Burred Wolds Rotten
A Bursted Retold Worn
A Bursted Trowed Lorn
A Bursted World Toner
A Bursted World Tenor
A Bused World Torrent
A Debt Trundle Sorrow
A Butted Rewords Lorn
A Butted World Snorer
A Butted Drown Sorrel
A Debut World Snorter
A Tubed World Snorter
A Blond Turreted Rows
A Blond Redrew Tutors
A Blond Redrew Trouts
A Blond Rewords Utter
A Blond Reword Truest
A Blond Reword Utters
A Blond Worsted Truer
A Blond Dowers Turret
A Blond Drowse Turret
A Blond Dowser Turret
A Blond Dower Turrets
A Blond Rowed Turrets
A Blond Trusted Rower
A Blond Rutted Rowers
A Blond Drew Tortures
A Blond Dews Torturer
A Blond Weds Torturer
A Blond Wed Torturers
A Blond Dew Torturers
A Blond Turds Rewrote
A Blond Durst Rewrote
A Blonds Turreted Row
A Blonds Redrew Trout
A Blonds Redrew Tutor
A Blonds Reword Utter
A Blonds Trowed Truer
A Blonds Dower Turret
A Blonds Rowed Turret
A Blonds Rutted Rower
A Blonds Drew Torture
A Blonds Wed Torturer
A Blonds Dew Torturer
A Blonds Turd Rewrote
A Bold Returned Worst
A Bold Returned Worts
A Bold Turreted Sworn
A Bold Downers Turret

NINETY FEET OFF THE BEATEN PATH

---------------------------- I had a craptacular, five-day weekend of work and came home in a funk last night. Even the Four Roses was sad. I slept well, though, and didn't have anything pressing this morning, so for the first time in over a year, I got on my bike and rode through Forest Park. My knees have been an issue for months, but I'm back in shape now. I will never be 100%, but I felt fine continuing my ride to University City for lunch at the U-City Grill.
It is just past noon and surprisingly, the place is empty, except for Hyo, who puts the "man" in this one-man show. He owns the place. He takes your order, he prepares and cooks your food. He puts it in front of you and he cashes you out when you are finished.
Fine with me. I'm fucking hungry. I order bibimbap with an extra egg and hot sauce and Hyo goes to work, chopping vegetables and dropping two eggs on the grill as another customer walks in and sits at the counter next to me, a couple stools down.
There are delivery truck drivers and passers by making banter with the porter from the bar next door. No piped in music at this diner but that type of street life.
The bowl of bibimbap arrives quickly and I go to work. Anyone who knows me, knows that I like to eat out of a bowl. Soups and stews, sure, but also noodles and pho and homemade concoctions featuring brown rice, seasoned veggies and eggs on a bed of spinach with lots of hot sauce. Bibimbap is my kinda dish.
Delicious!
I was about halfway through my fast-breaking lunch when someone trips in through the open door over my right shoulder. It is some pinhead holding a gift bag. He sits at the counter. His partner is staring into his cellphone and carrying a backpack.
"Hello", Hyo offers.
"Hi! Um, I read all the reviews of your place here!"
"Yeah, I don't know."
"You don't read them?"
"No."
"You are the owner, though?"
"Yes."
"What's your name?"
"Hyo. H-Y-O."
Hyo is preparing food, moving back in forth between a bowl, a pot of rice, the grill and some chopped vegetables.
"Oh, O.K. Well, I'm from LIVING SOCIAL. We do promotions for restaurants and stuff like that. Is there a better time that I could come by to talk to you when it is not lunch."
Hyo peaks down into the dainty little gift bag sitting on the counter.
"Sure, but you know we don't do any sort of online promotion. We don't even take credit cards."
"There's no computer in the store."
"No."
"Do you have a smart phone?"
"No. I am anti-technology."
"Oh, heh, well can I come by and talk to you sometime when it is not lunch?"
"Sure."
"All right. Have a good day!"
"You, too."
The hucksters shuffled out and a relative quiet returned. My heart is grinning.
Ninety feet off of Delmar Boulevard, a breeze blows through the door and a beer truck runs up on the sidewalk.

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

SHUT UP AND LISTEN!

CHARLES MINGUS DOESN'T LIKE IT WHEN YOU JIBBER JABBER IN THE VENUE “You, my audience, are all a bunch of poppaloppers. A bunch of tumbling weeds, tumbling ’round, running from your subconscious unconscious minds…. Minds? Minds that won’t let you stop to listen to a word of artistic meaningful truth…. So you come to me, you sit in the front row, as noisy as can be. I listen to your millions of conversations, sometimes pulling them all up together and writing a symphony. But you never hear that symphony… You haven’t been told before that you’re phonies. You’re here because jazz is popular, jazz has publicity and you like to associate yourself with this sort of thing. But it doesn’t make you a connoisseur of the art because you follow it around. You’re dilettantes of style. A blind man can go to an exhibition of Picasso and Kline and not even see what works. And comment behind dark glasses. Wow! They’re the swingingest painters ever, crazy! Well, so can you. You’ve got your dark glasses and clogged-up ears…. You become the object you came to see, and you think you’re important and digging jazz when all the time all you’re doing is digging a blind, deaf scene that has nothing to do with any kind of music at all.” Charles Mingus addressing the audience at the Five Spot in NYC.

Sunday, July 12, 2015

SOUTH OF NO NORTH

SOUTH OF NO NORTH...escaping the war...Charles Bukowski "He looked at me. I stared down at my feet. He seemed to be reading a sheaf of papers in front of him. It took several minutes. Four, five, six, seven minutes. Then he spoke.
"Listen, I am having a party next Wednesday night at my place. There are going to be doctors, lawyers, artists, writers, actors, all that sort. I can see that you're an intelligent man. I want you to come to my party. Will you come?"
"No."
He started writing. He wrote and he wrote and he wrote. I won­dered how he knew so much about me. I didn't know that much about myself.
I let him write on. I was indifferent. Now that I couldn't be in the war I almost wanted the war. Yet, at the same time, I was glad to be out of it. The Doctor finished writing. I felt I had fooled them. My objection to war was not that I had to kill somebody or be killed senselessly, that hardly mattered. What I objected to was to be denied the right to sit in a small room and starve and drink cheap wine and go crazy in my own way and at my own leisure. I didn't want to be awakened by some man with a bugle. I didn't want to sleep in a barracks with a bunch of healthy sex-mad foot­ball-loving overfed wise-cracking masturbating lovable frightened pink farting mother-struck modest basketball-playing American boys that I would have to be friendly with, that I would have to get drunk with on leave, that I would have to lay on my back with and listen to dozens of unfunny, obvious, dirty jokes. I didn't want their itchy blankets or their itchy uniforms or their itchy humanity. I didn't want to shit in the same place or piss in the same place or share the same whore. I didn't want to see their toenails or read their letters from home. I didn't want to watch their assholes bob­bing in front of me in close formation, I didn't want to make friends, I didn't want to make enemies, I just didn't want them or it or the thing. To kill or be killed hardly mattered."

Friday, May 8, 2015


Mothers Day Proclamation 

by Julia Ward Howe


Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the bosum of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

The "Appeal to womanhood throughout the world" (later known as "Mother's Day Proclamation") by Julia Ward Howe was an appeal for women to unite for peace in the world. Written in 1870, Howe's "Appeal to womanhood" was a pacifist reaction to the carnage of the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. The appeal was tied to Howe's feminist conviction that women had a responsibility to shape their societies at the political level. 
It's not about the magic of the uterus.  Give the Hallmark bullshit a rest. Sorry, it's not about YOUR mom, unless YOUR mom thinks terrorists are going to steal the laundry off the line in the backyard.  Unless she deals with that fear by voting for the Ashcrofts and Patriot Act peddlers of the world.

Sunday, April 19, 2015

A EULOGY TO ANNE TKACH


Thank you very much for joining us here to celebrate the life of Anne with her father, Peter, the rest of her family and all of her friends and loved ones, including of course, my friend and Anne’s long time man, Adam Hesed.

 My name is Brett Underwood. I’ve been an Anne fan since I met her through the music scene back in the NADINE days, after she returned from New Mexico where she had enjoyed much success with HAZELDINE.

Shawn Barton, her friend, roommate and bandmate in HAZELDINE wrote, “Anne knew Claudia and I were starting a band, so she bought a bass and learned how to play it. When we were accepted to SXSW, she bought a van and drove us there. She made my first wedding bouquet, then she drove to Colorado from St. Louis to help me pack and leave that first husband. She made catfood from scratch and loved whiskey and her parents and knitting and playing music and overalls and St. Louis and Adam”.

 I, personally, came to know and love her as the angel that she was and is, really. Every one of her subsequent St. Louis bands played at the Schlafly Tap Room, where I tend bar and promote music and it was an honor to be asked by Anne and Adam and the rest of her band, MAGIC CITY to pen the ridiculously fun “liner notes” to their one-and-only full length album on Gotta Groove Records.

As many have said, it was an honor to work and play with Anne in any way.

 I’ve spent the past several days reading and listening to other people's experiences and friendships with her and this is all more-or-less a collection of those memories.

Of course, Anne Tkach was “family” to many outside of her blood family -- her bandmates, local showgoers, the customers and coworkers at Wild Oats and then Local Harvest and those in the world of sustainable food.
She was also a supporter to many in the arts scene.
She served many in so many ways as a friend, a teacher, a guardian, a confidante, a source of wisdom, relief, and inspiration.
Early on, a classmate wrote, she was known to take time out to say something to a random goofball in the hallways of Webster Groves High…and the musical community, especially on the South Side of St. Louis, consists of oddballs, freaks and misfits.
Believe me, that’s a good thing and Anne knew it, too.

 She approached life at once with incredible dedication and fierce stubbornness.

SHE WAS TOUGH, but may have been the kindest any of us have known.

If you were lucky, you were in on her sense of humor. You were rewarded with her laugh, her guffaws, her smirks, her raspberries and even the occasional belch and certainly an acutely thought provoking commentary.

To be close to her was to be locked into her blue-eyed gaze.

If need be, you were gently put in your place with a charming, if irreverent quip. 

A fellow musician wrote, “Anne was warm, and kind, and smart, and always had that look like she knew something you didn’t. Comfortable in her own skin. Effortlessly cool. Beautiful.”

She was quick to share/shrug off the spotlight, praise, and attention. She left you feeling: seen, heard, welcomed and appreciated as a player, a musician, an artist, a co-worker, a human being.
That combination of talent and humility is exceedingly rare.

To Anne, though, that was all part of the work and the celebration of life…and she did see work and play as a celebration, in particular referring to work in a recent letter to a friend as “a balm of the soul”, adding “ I realize how important it is for us to take care of ourselves, how important it is to connect with each other, how important it is to respect each others' boundaries, to communicate, to hold the space for growth, to listen, to lead by example...so much. I just want to move into the future with integrity and respect and love.”

Anne was a musician admired by those that witnessed her majesty as much as any musician in town. On bass, on drums, as a vocalist armed by what one referred to as a paradoxically fragile and sinewy voice, as a songwriter or simply strumming a guitar, her versatility was remarkable.
She was as comfortable sitting around in bib overalls knitting as she was in a dress, rocking out in a club, duckwalking across stage.
Few musicians had her reach, or energy, or comfort jumping in and out of genres.

Anne Tkach was a dream.

She didn't just play with dozens and dozens of musicians and bands in St. Louis and elsewhere. She believed in them, supported them, worked for them and inspired them…and she was in some of the finest bands in town.

The world doesn't often give you someone so magical, smart, crazy, talented, dedicated, fun, challenging, perfectly imperfect, and alive in all ways. And before you can say "Thank you" the world takes them away again.


Now her powers are legendary and her friends are a nation.

“In a way,” one fellow musician said, “the way she died, it’s like we all got struck by lightning.”


DEATH EXPERIENCE 
by
RAINER MARIA RILKE 

We know nothing of this going away,
that shares nothing with us.
We have no reason, whether astonishment and love or hate,
to display Death, whom a fantastic mask of tragic
lament astonishingly disfigures.
Now the world is still full of roles which we play
as long as we make sure, that, like it or not,
Death plays, too, although he does not please us.
But when you left, a strip of reality broke upon the stage
through the very opening through which you vanished:
Green, true green, true sunshine,
true forest.
We continue our play.
Picking up gestures now and then, and
anxiously reciting that which was difficult
to learn;
but your far away,
removed out of our performance existence,
sometimes overcomes us, as an awareness
descending upon us of this very reality, so that
for a while we play Life
rapturously, not thinking of any applause.

__________________________________________________

 I had lots of help. 

Thomas Crone's writing was a lovely insight into the life of Anne at Webster Groves High School. Besides the guidance of Roy Kasten, Chris King and a "roundtable" in Adam's kitchen, there were countless posts on Anne's Facebook page. I am grateful, too, for all those who visited the Schlafly Tap Room on the night that MAGIC CITY was to play...just two nights after that lightning storm. I thought it best to capture as many thoughts as I could, spending several hours gleaning, copying and pasting. Shawn Barton from Hazeldine, Chris Ward from KDHX and another friend, who shared with me a letter than Anne had penned to her recently, were especially enlightening. 
Oh, and the lightning quote is from Robin Allen.
Amazing.
Another dear friend suggested the Rilke poem.
I got to meet a lot of people who were part of Anne's life on Saturday. That probably wouldn't have happened if they had not seen me on the altar. I helped a lot of people cry yesterday.

I hope you're well.

Sunday, December 21, 2014

AUTUMNAL DELUSION

AUTUMNAL DELUSION
 Funny racism or runny fascism while
ye prisoners of hope and fall colors eat
pumpkin-spiced cold meds and mucous to avoid
neti pot death hot dogs and waitresses flying
in every direction.

Put wastoids in your gravitas.
 Load ether with lead-ladened muchmuck.
 Cough up gravy into your designer tissue.
 Oh, and Ichabod's head is off the top of the
visitor’s dugout and kagarooing up
the aisle in that horse's ass.
van hit the soybean head shoot dead boy.

 Root for the one percent in your muumuu.
Chug aluminum –bottled water and hoot.
Live it up.
 Toss lewd verses to garbage. Your days are few.
 Your wool is worthless.
Replay these days and they’ll go back
and look at it stored on yourtube or
reflected in a mirror coffin or
another threat to the environment
babbling DADA in a six-wheeled stroller.

NEVER

NeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEtNeVerFoRgEt NeVerFoRgE<

Thursday, August 9, 2012

KLEENex




KLEENEX

Snotty sheriff, surely you
remember the sky is stingy yet
breaking water in a Montreal
spoon sticky wet stool and wasted eggs
revealing some fabulous white hexagonal tile
can’t deny cheap poutine.
Labor, sore feet and beer tits
over the desperate attempts of hair spray
in spite of this hick dynasty
attitude leave creation to
some news pipe breaks in the grass
leaves. 

Meanwhile a matter in the
yuppies’ “local”
tortellini sprinkled with
 mounting corpses
and a need for maggots
when all we got is flies
deep to right
to the left of a hobbling
Dominican bouncing once
on the perfectly manicured
dilemma as the peasants dial
for fascist pizza rolls
on the homeless to transition
from bifocals to safety goggles
due to inclement bukake
if I thought that there was
any chance of the turtles
overtaking the snails.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

SPIN CYCLE



SPIN CYCLE
Pants looped after too many belts
don’t promise success or bail free
waters under dirty skies every
mixture says don’t when the balance
beam broke into a foxtrot just inside
the screen door where love splashes
on the rocks with the sand in the glass
falling faster than angels and stockbrokers
with sad suspenders oblivious to the spring
in the step of the dreamsick broad ins
stained sweatpants cleaning out some boxes
for the rats to pray in the safety of their own
hunger wrapped in cloverleafs and buzzed
by choppers on the label of the hash can,
is all I saw all day.

Shut up will ya’.

The vicar’s got a full count and a nasty
crease in his trousers.
His hitting streak is on the line and the laundry mat
could regurgitate on the way to actual soul music
in the busboy’s shuffle.
 April 5th, 2012

Friday, June 29, 2012

LARRY D. UNDERWOOD: Born June 30th, 1938

THINKING ABOUT MY DAD ON HIS BIRTHDAY

     Sitting up late tonight, taking care of business and remembering falling asleep as my father typed out his first book on a typewriter.  He had a big poster of Sitting Bull pasted to cardboard and tacked to the wall of the apartment where we lived in Brussels, Illinois in the early 70s.
Photobucket
     He finished the book.  It was about the "battle", the "massacre";  whatever you want to call it....a major military fuck up at Little Big Horn for the 7th Cavalry...it was about Sitting Bull and Custer and it never got published, though it led to a long friendship between my Dad and the famous author of BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE, Dee Brown.
     Part of that work, ended up in THE CUSTER FIGHT And Other Tales of the Old West.
Photobucket
     Dad published plenty of books and articles and got me my first writing job...a freelance arrangement with Bruce Campbell at THE CALHOUN NEWS covering my Brussels High School basketball team's games and I'm racing to finish this post before I lose steam.  He would be typing and compiling.  He would be cutting his pages up in strips and rearranging them.  I am just...trying...to get it down.
     He got me active and engendered an interest in baseball and Mark Twain...and gave me the gift of sarcasm that continues to give a goosey goosey to the world that needs it.  This world needs nothing more than to remind its active members to laugh...or at least take another look...a deeper look, before you go off in your directions of idiocy.
Photobucket

I wrote this piece for 52ndCity.com a few years ago while thinking about my early years and the interest we shared in horsehide, dust and the game...it inevitably became a guideline about how to live with a little adversity.

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 afternoon).
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

Here is the obituary that appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

ST. LOUIS: Larry Underwood Was educator in Godfrey


08/02/2007

Larry Underwood, a retired educator in Brussels and Godfrey, died Monday (July 30, 2007) from complications of Parkinson's disease at his home in Meppen. He was 69.

A native of Delafield, Ill., Mr. Underwood moved to Shawneetown, Ill., as a youth. He received a bachelor's degree from Eastern Illinois University in Charleston and later earned a master's degree from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Both degrees were in education.

In 1957, Mr. Underwood enlisted in the Army. He served until 1960.

He started teaching in 1963 for the old Dahlgren School District in Dahlgren, Ill. After teaching drivers education and coaching for a year, he joined the Brussel school district.
Mr. Underwood taught seventh and eighth grade for a year before moving on to Brussels High School. While there, he served in many capacities: dean of students, librarian, American history and German teacher, and bus driver. He retired in 1993.

Mr. Underwood also taught at Lewis and Clark Community College in Godfrey for nearly 20 years.

Mr. Underwood authored seven books on the Civil War and other history topics. The books were "Butternut Guerrillas," "Dreams of Glory," "Love and Glory," "Custer Fight," "Abilene Law Men," "All the President's Children" and "Guns, Gold and Glory."

Mr. Underwood was a member of the Calhoun Farm Bureau and the American Legion.

Visitation will be from 5 to 8 p.m. today at St. Joseph's Catholic Church on Meppen Lane in Meppen. A funeral will be held at 10:30 a.m. Friday at the church. Burial will follow in St. Joseph's Cemetery in Meppen.

Among the survivors are his wife, Sue Albert Underwood, whom he married in 1962; a son, Brett Underwood of St. Louis; two daughters, Melissa Ann Sievers of Meppen and Rebecca Baecht of Jerseyville; and three grandchildren.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Blessing Hospice-Greene County, PO Box 89, Carrollton, Ill. 62016; or St. Joseph's Cemetery.