A wading pool for unborn kings,
Fruit of the Loom,
Swivel Chair Throne in
This Hurricane Room.
Drafty fourth floor.
Manifest destiny, western frontier of
The city of Tribal Love
Governing from the eastern shore,
A window office in a Cubicle Nation.
From the space station on the roof,
I poke out my head, I swallow stars.
Count them, for further proof:
Eclipsed by the city's midnight Milkyway
Few remain.
My face consumes the mirror:
I am enormous in my own skin.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Republocrats and the Democans...
The Evangelical Block: America’s Religious, Right?
Steven Waye
“One nation under God”. “In God We Trust.” Creeds such as these have remained woven into the fabric of American culture since its inception as a nation, serving as a reminder that, despite the constitutional commitment to an ostensible separation of church and state, a fundamental religiosity was instrumental in shaping of the values of the fledgling nation. Reciprocally, these phrases continue to reflect the enduring status of America as a very spiritual nation (91% of Americans believe in God, according to a 2007 Newsweek poll). We encounter them every day, muttered reflexively in classrooms across America, bannered across the bottom of our national currency; but the straightforward phrasing of these axioms belies their ambiguity, as well as the plurality of American religious belief. In what sort of God do we trust? We are one nation under God, perhaps, but do our spiritual convictions make us more or less indivisible? Such is the challenge of a politician attempting to appeal to the sacred heart of contemporary America.
George Bush’s narrow victories in 2000 and 2004 were attributed largely to his ability to energize and mobilize the nebulous “religious right”, a term injected into the vernacular by the news media to describe a group of people that are loosely bound by a zeal for a specific brand of evangelical Christianity, social conservatism, gun racks, and PTA meetings. Perhaps because of the dominant personalities (Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham) that have risen from this camp in recent decades, this faction of American Christianity is assumed to be representative of the general American Christian populous. It is assumed that by appealing to this demographic, overwhelmingly the domain of the Republican Party in recent years, one has captured the soul of the spiritual center of a spiritual nation.
But according to a 2005 study* only 7% of Americans define themselves as “evangelicals”, meaning that, among other stringent criteria, they define themselves as having a “close personal relationship with Jesus Christ”, maintain that faith is a vital part of their everyday life, and that it is their mission to share this faith with others. The numbers simply don’t jive with the sort of sway that this block has over the minds of politicians and pundits. While the evangelicals are not the largest Christian denomination, they are almost certainly the loudest. Perhaps the perceived effect of the Bible-thumping camp on the last two elections has less to do with magnitude than with megaphones.
The two candidates have taken tellingly different tacks in their pursuit of the elusive “God vote”. As of late, McCain has taken the Bush approach, courting the evangelicals by making his no nonsense anti-abortion stance a more salient issue than it has been at any other point in his political career, becoming more vocal about his faith, and recruiting an obscure first term governor from Alaska who fits the Christian conservative mold to a cross-bow shaped T. McCain’s Christianity is of the old guard, a public faith that focuses on honor, duty, and community. At the Saddleback forum, hosted by Pastor Rick Warren, he identified America’s greatest moral failing as an essential selfishness. “Our faith,” he said, “encompasses not just America but the whole world.”
Obama speaks to a younger generation of believers, with a more nuanced, introspective, and, not surprisingly, trendier outlook on Christian faith in a postmodern world. Obama has always been more forthright than McCain in discussions about his faith, but far from actively courting the evangelical vote many of his proposed policies are in direct opposition to fundamentalist values. Statements like the one he made during the primaries about small town America, a bastion of religious conservatism, being comprised of people who “cling to guns and faith” do not make him sound like a man who is overly concerned about kissing the elephant-sized ass of the so-called religious right. Instead, Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, espouse a more secularized faith that appeals to Christian concerns for equality and social justice. Unlike Kerry in 2004, who bumblingly tried to avoid the faith issue altogether, Obama is appealing directly to a new generation of Christians who seem more concerned about the practical application of their faith than the finer points of theological doctrine.
Faith and politics have always been inseparable in this country, and above all we want a man (or woman) in the White house who reflects our most deeply held convictions in word and deed. This election will be in many ways a barometer of America’s spiritual priorities and will aid in putting a face to the God in which we, as Americans, actually trust.
_____________________________________
*Born again Christians" were defined in these surveys as people who said they have made "a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today" and who also indicated they believe that when they die they will go to Heaven because they had confessed their sins and had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. Respondents were not asked to describe themselves as "born again." Being classified as "born again" is not dependent upon church or denominational affiliation or involvement.
“Evangelicals" are a subset of born again Christians in Barna surveys. In addition to meeting the born again criteria, evangelicals also meet seven other conditions. Those include saying their faith is very important in their life today; contending that they have a personal responsibility to share their religious beliefs about Christ with non-Christians; stating that Satan exists; maintaining that eternal salvation is possible only through grace, not works; asserting that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; saying that the Bible is totally accurate in all it teaches; and describing God as the all-knowing, all-powerful, perfect deity who created the universe and still rules it today. Further, respondents were not asked to describe themselves as "evangelical." Being classified as "evangelical" is not dependent upon any church or denominational affiliation or involvement.
Steven Waye
“One nation under God”. “In God We Trust.” Creeds such as these have remained woven into the fabric of American culture since its inception as a nation, serving as a reminder that, despite the constitutional commitment to an ostensible separation of church and state, a fundamental religiosity was instrumental in shaping of the values of the fledgling nation. Reciprocally, these phrases continue to reflect the enduring status of America as a very spiritual nation (91% of Americans believe in God, according to a 2007 Newsweek poll). We encounter them every day, muttered reflexively in classrooms across America, bannered across the bottom of our national currency; but the straightforward phrasing of these axioms belies their ambiguity, as well as the plurality of American religious belief. In what sort of God do we trust? We are one nation under God, perhaps, but do our spiritual convictions make us more or less indivisible? Such is the challenge of a politician attempting to appeal to the sacred heart of contemporary America.
George Bush’s narrow victories in 2000 and 2004 were attributed largely to his ability to energize and mobilize the nebulous “religious right”, a term injected into the vernacular by the news media to describe a group of people that are loosely bound by a zeal for a specific brand of evangelical Christianity, social conservatism, gun racks, and PTA meetings. Perhaps because of the dominant personalities (Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham) that have risen from this camp in recent decades, this faction of American Christianity is assumed to be representative of the general American Christian populous. It is assumed that by appealing to this demographic, overwhelmingly the domain of the Republican Party in recent years, one has captured the soul of the spiritual center of a spiritual nation.
But according to a 2005 study* only 7% of Americans define themselves as “evangelicals”, meaning that, among other stringent criteria, they define themselves as having a “close personal relationship with Jesus Christ”, maintain that faith is a vital part of their everyday life, and that it is their mission to share this faith with others. The numbers simply don’t jive with the sort of sway that this block has over the minds of politicians and pundits. While the evangelicals are not the largest Christian denomination, they are almost certainly the loudest. Perhaps the perceived effect of the Bible-thumping camp on the last two elections has less to do with magnitude than with megaphones.
The two candidates have taken tellingly different tacks in their pursuit of the elusive “God vote”. As of late, McCain has taken the Bush approach, courting the evangelicals by making his no nonsense anti-abortion stance a more salient issue than it has been at any other point in his political career, becoming more vocal about his faith, and recruiting an obscure first term governor from Alaska who fits the Christian conservative mold to a cross-bow shaped T. McCain’s Christianity is of the old guard, a public faith that focuses on honor, duty, and community. At the Saddleback forum, hosted by Pastor Rick Warren, he identified America’s greatest moral failing as an essential selfishness. “Our faith,” he said, “encompasses not just America but the whole world.”
Obama speaks to a younger generation of believers, with a more nuanced, introspective, and, not surprisingly, trendier outlook on Christian faith in a postmodern world. Obama has always been more forthright than McCain in discussions about his faith, but far from actively courting the evangelical vote many of his proposed policies are in direct opposition to fundamentalist values. Statements like the one he made during the primaries about small town America, a bastion of religious conservatism, being comprised of people who “cling to guns and faith” do not make him sound like a man who is overly concerned about kissing the elephant-sized ass of the so-called religious right. Instead, Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, espouse a more secularized faith that appeals to Christian concerns for equality and social justice. Unlike Kerry in 2004, who bumblingly tried to avoid the faith issue altogether, Obama is appealing directly to a new generation of Christians who seem more concerned about the practical application of their faith than the finer points of theological doctrine.
Faith and politics have always been inseparable in this country, and above all we want a man (or woman) in the White house who reflects our most deeply held convictions in word and deed. This election will be in many ways a barometer of America’s spiritual priorities and will aid in putting a face to the God in which we, as Americans, actually trust.
_____________________________________
*Born again Christians" were defined in these surveys as people who said they have made "a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today" and who also indicated they believe that when they die they will go to Heaven because they had confessed their sins and had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. Respondents were not asked to describe themselves as "born again." Being classified as "born again" is not dependent upon church or denominational affiliation or involvement.
“Evangelicals" are a subset of born again Christians in Barna surveys. In addition to meeting the born again criteria, evangelicals also meet seven other conditions. Those include saying their faith is very important in their life today; contending that they have a personal responsibility to share their religious beliefs about Christ with non-Christians; stating that Satan exists; maintaining that eternal salvation is possible only through grace, not works; asserting that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; saying that the Bible is totally accurate in all it teaches; and describing God as the all-knowing, all-powerful, perfect deity who created the universe and still rules it today. Further, respondents were not asked to describe themselves as "evangelical." Being classified as "evangelical" is not dependent upon any church or denominational affiliation or involvement.
“Soooofragette Ceeeeety!”
Over the speakers I hear an overly emotional guitarist crooning something strangely familiar, considering the flamenco strumming pattern and the lyrics, all in Spanish. I laugh as I realize this guy’s covering the entirety of Ziggy Stardust. Alien rockstar, indeed. I am simply amused by this Hispanic man’s pilfering of Bowie, until I notice the vigilante tapping of my toes and realize that in some strange way this resonates with me more than the original. I ask the baristo (it’s a dude) who this is and he says “Sue George”. I’m sure I’m butchering the actual spelling, but the too appropriate image of a boy named Sue recording the hits of a cross-dressing glam rocker is just too gratifying to have me bother looking it up. I can just envision little ten year old Sue prancing around in front of the mirror with his mom’s lipstick and high heels on, belting out “Ch-ch-ch-ch-changeeees!” in a thick latino accent. Not that I ever did that. I mean I lived in New Mexico, but I never had that much of an accent. I gave up that dream when I realized that with my skinny calves, I’d never look good in stilettos………uh, anyway, I think my point was, there was some Sue in me too, at one point. I too had arena-sized dreams of superstardom. Hearing this, listening to a man that was so moved by an artist that he took that time to translate his favorite album and make it his own in an endearingly sincere and heartfelt way…I really liked that. What better example of the triumph of the spirit of man, when his passions drive him to produce some strange and beautiful output, by sheer force of the vibration of some mysterious contrapuntal resonance. I can only hope that occasionally, my scribblings approach that level of nakedly honest tribute.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
A Package
"Damn it, why do you always wear belts?" she says with a needling grin.
He smiles back, deviously. "Someone buys you a Christmas present, do you bitch at them for wrapping it?"
He smiles back, deviously. "Someone buys you a Christmas present, do you bitch at them for wrapping it?"
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Into the Wild
"Two years he walks the earth. No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road. Escaped from Atlanta. Thou shalt not return, 'cause "the West is the best." And now after two rambling years comes the final and greatest adventure. The climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual pilgrimage. Ten days and nights of freight trains and hitchhiking bring him to the Great White North. No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild."
- Alexander Supertramp May 1992
Rapture: to love effortlessly, to smile as one who is the source of all smiles, to be unequivocal in life and death. To be angry with nothing, to fear nothing, draw back the shades and let the light in.
- Alexander Supertramp May 1992
Rapture: to love effortlessly, to smile as one who is the source of all smiles, to be unequivocal in life and death. To be angry with nothing, to fear nothing, draw back the shades and let the light in.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Yesterday's News
I love my life of cupboards;
to place the perfumes in plain view
on the dresser,
to hide the poisons in the highest cabinets,
out of reach of the children.
Nothing touches, and there is no mess.
My anger, dripping sweat,
diffused by your permeability,
the flashing back and forth of our
bodies together, interchangable,
the recognition of a bonded beauty;
the wanting of that forever.
Even this I can store apart
in a disinfected, bloodless
corner of the mind.
I love my life of cupboards;
the here and thereness,
the definability and
distillation of the once towering
essence of the Mysteries
in which I used to abide,
but now comfortably
fit in my drawers.
I try them on,
wear them out,
and throw them away,
like yesterday's news.
to place the perfumes in plain view
on the dresser,
to hide the poisons in the highest cabinets,
out of reach of the children.
Nothing touches, and there is no mess.
My anger, dripping sweat,
diffused by your permeability,
the flashing back and forth of our
bodies together, interchangable,
the recognition of a bonded beauty;
the wanting of that forever.
Even this I can store apart
in a disinfected, bloodless
corner of the mind.
I love my life of cupboards;
the here and thereness,
the definability and
distillation of the once towering
essence of the Mysteries
in which I used to abide,
but now comfortably
fit in my drawers.
I try them on,
wear them out,
and throw them away,
like yesterday's news.
The Passenger
I am the passenger and I ride and I ride
I ride through the city's backsides
I see the stars come out of the sky
Yeah, the bright and hollow sky
You know it looks so good tonight
I am the passenger
I stay under glass
I look through my window so bright
I see the stars come out tonight
I see the bright and hollow sky
Over the city's ripped backsides
And everything looks good tonight
Singing la la la...
Get into the car
We'll be the passenger
We'll ride through the city tonight
We'll see the city's ripped backsides
We'll see the bright and hollow sky
We'll see the stars that shine so bright
Stars made for us tonight
Oh, the passenger
How, how he rides
Oh, the passenger
He rides and he rides
He looks through his window
What does he see?
He sees the sign and hollow sky
He sees the stars come out tonight
He sees the city's ripped backsides
He sees the winding ocean drive
And everything was made for you and me
All of it was made for you and me
'Cause it just belongs to you and me
So let's take a ride and see what's mine
Singing la la la la...
Oh the passenger
He rides and he rides
He sees things from under glass
He looks through his window side
He sees the things that he knows are his
He sees the bright and hollow sky
He sees the city sleep at night
He sees the stars are out tonight
And all of it is yours and mine
And all of it is yours and mine
So let's ride and ride and ride and ride
Oh, oh, Singing la la la...
-Iggy Pop
I ride through the city's backsides
I see the stars come out of the sky
Yeah, the bright and hollow sky
You know it looks so good tonight
I am the passenger
I stay under glass
I look through my window so bright
I see the stars come out tonight
I see the bright and hollow sky
Over the city's ripped backsides
And everything looks good tonight
Singing la la la...
Get into the car
We'll be the passenger
We'll ride through the city tonight
We'll see the city's ripped backsides
We'll see the bright and hollow sky
We'll see the stars that shine so bright
Stars made for us tonight
Oh, the passenger
How, how he rides
Oh, the passenger
He rides and he rides
He looks through his window
What does he see?
He sees the sign and hollow sky
He sees the stars come out tonight
He sees the city's ripped backsides
He sees the winding ocean drive
And everything was made for you and me
All of it was made for you and me
'Cause it just belongs to you and me
So let's take a ride and see what's mine
Singing la la la la...
Oh the passenger
He rides and he rides
He sees things from under glass
He looks through his window side
He sees the things that he knows are his
He sees the bright and hollow sky
He sees the city sleep at night
He sees the stars are out tonight
And all of it is yours and mine
And all of it is yours and mine
So let's ride and ride and ride and ride
Oh, oh, Singing la la la...
-Iggy Pop
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Sandbox
Here
is my sandbox;
here
I laugh and play
until the mosaic grit of the
salt and pepper grains
coat my body like
animalskin.
If only
I could so wear my joy,
if only
I wasn't such a snake;
in a state of constant
reinvention
as I attempt to navigate
the moody dunes.
And so you'll forgive me, because
I want at once
for you to lie with me and
to nip venemously at your heels.
is my sandbox;
here
I laugh and play
until the mosaic grit of the
salt and pepper grains
coat my body like
animalskin.
If only
I could so wear my joy,
if only
I wasn't such a snake;
in a state of constant
reinvention
as I attempt to navigate
the moody dunes.
And so you'll forgive me, because
I want at once
for you to lie with me and
to nip venemously at your heels.
Friday, August 22, 2008
A Collection of Characters, Pt. 1
So this post has been much longer than I anticipated, but it's pretty much entirely for my own benefit, so whatever. There are a lot of funny stories in there, so if you get bored ignore my commentary and read the bulleted sections. I'm breaking this into two parts, for the outbound and inbound journeys.
Here's the summary of our hitchhiking travels this past week. I'm not the most reliable storyteller, mostly because my memory for details is poor, and so I end up embellishing and making up half the facts. Fortunately for me, we met enough characters this past week that no added color on my part is needed, and so I will record these tales for future reference when my recollection dims.
Here's the summary of our hitchhiking travels this past week. I'm not the most reliable storyteller, mostly because my memory for details is poor, and so I end up embellishing and making up half the facts. Fortunately for me, we met enough characters this past week that no added color on my part is needed, and so I will record these tales for future reference when my recollection dims.
- The first guy that picked us up was this old Jewish dude with three dogs and a '61 Cadillac. The Jews love me. Seriously. I have a long list of credentials and references. So it's not a big surprise to me that this guy was the only one to even look at us after standing on the side of the road for an hour out in Harriman, in the whitewashed suburbs of New York City. This guy was this old tropical plants salesman, he had to be about 70 something and he had just spent his whole life selling rich people these rare exotic plants. What a strange life! People fascinate me, particularly the nature of their life's work, because I strongly believe that this is what reveals the character of a man, his work, his action. Anyway, he was this very jolly sort of fellow, we sang along to Sinatra the whole way and Dave and I played with his labradors in the spacious backseat. I don't know much about cars but this one was beautiful and old, and it drove like a boat. I've always wanted a car with fins, silver-green, just like this one, and he told us about how he collects these things. Again, fascinating, people and their collections of old treasures. You could tell this guy was getting very nostalgic about youth seeing us out here, and kept imploring us, like so many elderly people do, to make the most of our youth, and I think it made him happy to see us doing just that. I also love old people who don't shy away from coarse humor, there's just something funny about our expectations of the dignity of old people and then hearing them talk about the girls they took out like half a century ago and realizing that not much changes. He dropped us off about an hour up, in Saugerties (sounds like Socrates).
Sidebar: Here, I encountered my first Stewart's ice cream stop/fuel station and bought a coffee milkshake, not realizing that Stewart's is like the Starbucks of upstate New York. Like honestly we were in towns with a population of 15, with 3 Stewart's. Like in some places the entire population of the town was honestly either employed at, eating in, or loitering outside of a Stewart's. Weird. More on this later.
- The next guy who picked us up was ex-NYPD with a thick yous-guys accent, so I was a little surprised, considering what we were doing, or at least where we were doing it, (thumbing on an interstate on-ramp) is illegal in New York State. I commented on this, and he said he didn't usually pick up hitchhikers, but that we looked like "nice boys". I'm not really sure what that means, especially considering our (polite) aggressiveness in soliciting rides and Dave's greasy mop-o-hair, but I guess it's a good thing, as we would be told this many times on the trip. Hopefully at least we are changing people's attitude towards hitchhiking in a small way. Anyway, this man could curiously, considering his former occupation, be described as a "lefty pinko nutjob," to borrow a phrase. He kept asserting that if we voted for McCain we'd be drafted the minute he was sworn in, as if McCain's secret agenda was to convert all the young men of America into cannon-fodder for the War on OPEC. Anyway, he did make some legitimate points, and I kept my politics out of the discussion for the most part because I'm still sitting on the fence and it seemed impolite and frankly pointless to disagree with this guy. I asked him for his favorite cop story, and somehow he turned the discussion back to the war by telling some story about policing the mobs who gathered to protest Nam. All in all, an interesting ride.
We were dropped off at a shopping mall in Albany/Schenectady, where we awaited pickup from our friend Susannah Krewson. In the meantime, Dave and I figured out how to climb the columns supporting the outside of the building. This would become a theme on the trip, ending in tragedy. Again, more on this later.
Susie dropped us off outside of S'tedy, where we hitched a short ride to the nearest rest stop. I offered the guy some of my premium mocha M & M's. He thought they were "OK". What an asshole. They were delicious, actually.
In David's experience hitching south, the rest stop circuit was the way to travel. It seemed promising, as we were able to personally address/charm all the traffic that went in and out. Unfortunately, northeners generally suck a lot more, and so we ended up waiting three hours for a ride. (I have to interject here that I am very appreciative of the fact that both of us, but especially Dave, are mostly very positive people. If I had been forced to endure these waiting periods with a pessimist, I probably would have thrown myself under a bus.) As it were, we had a very fun time regaling travelers and goofing around, but we were both tired and the sun was going down. You think it's hard to convince a total stranger to trust you in their car in the daytime, try doing it after nightfall. Graciously, we were given a ride to Pottersville, some boonie village in the Adirondacks. This part of the journey is one of my favorites.
- A kindly woman in her forties (but quite good-looking for her age) and her son took pity on us as dusk was fast approaching. Dave and I, being the wholesome All-American Cherry Pie Loving boys that we are, quickly worked our down-home charm and within 1o minutes were proferred an invitation to spend the night at her residence.
I'm going to take another sidebar here, so I don't have to say this again at every point where the account features an act of unsolicited human kindness. I had multifold reasons for taking this trip. First off, I'm an explorer and an adventurer at heart. I also like to prove people wrong. (I was told repeatedly "You're gonna die out there, you jackass.) Beyond that though, this is a discipline for me. Despite what inferences might be drawn about many situations in which I've found myself in the past, I don't like being stuck out in the open, with no shower, no food, and no place to stay. I don't like not having control over my environment. I'm typically independent and self-sufficient. I'm walled off, and I don't ask for things I can't return. I hate, above all, to be anyone's charity case. So, far from naivete on my part, this trip was a very conscious decision to throw myself at the mercy of humankind at large, to give up my "island-unto-myself" delusions and test my own character and that of a bevy of complete strangers. In America, land of the "self-made man", independence and self-sufficiency are two rarely questioned ideals, and yet they can just as often be weaknesses as they are strengths. So it may sound strange to say, "I have set out lately to consciously attempt to make myself more dependent on others." I was watching a show called "Dexter" on Showtime about a (rather endearing) pyschopath who murders only those who have committed heinous crimes. I shuddered first to realize how many similarities I had with this man in terms of my own lack of emotional vivacity, and, perhaps more frighteningly, how similar this man's value system is to my own, and to the American ideal of utilitarian justice. Eliminate those who pose a threat to society, answer only to yourself in terms of judgment.
Anyway, I digress. Dave and I had an unspoken agreement (we discussed this afterwards) that we wouldn't offer anyone money, because we were attempting to foster a community of free giving, and not one of exchange. A transaction would have cheapened the situation, and the joy I felt over that one guy or gal who stopped after a thousand passed by, being taken in by complete strangers when our presence offered no practical advantage and could only have caused them harm, was immense. These acts moved me, intensely, as nothing really has in a similar way in the past few months. I took a leap of faith by going on the road without a backup plan, albeit a small one, and time and again, my faith was nurtured and rewarded. Consequently, my relationship to God has never felt stronger. Love is only understood when experienced from both ends. I'm beginning to realize that although for the most part I am able to give love freely, I'm largely unable to accept it, for fear of becoming vulnerable to it. By placing myself in a position where I had no other choice, I got to know some truly wonderful people in a small way.
Alright, you can go vomit now, or stage a love-in, whatever you want, that's my touchy-feely rant for the day.
Back to the strayt dope.
- So this segment takes some curious turns. The car, a very shiny and newish seeming Aztek, is driven by her son. Both this woman and her son have iPhones, and so I guess between the car and the technology Dave and I both sort of subconsciously formed this perception of affluence. Anyway, they drop us off at a gas station right off the exit, which conveniently has this like boondocks WaWa in it, and we procure some mad tasty burgers. We solicit rides for another hour untill it gets really dark and we can see people backing away and reaching for the pepper spray, so we give us and hike up this mountain to where this lady lives. So this place, safe to say, not what we expected. It's this double wide trailer with various rooms and levels just spouting up from it at random intervals, like some crazy redneck castle. Her boyfriend is just chillin' on the couch, sporting a well-coiffed mullet, drinking Milwaukee's Best, and watching America's Funniest Home Videos. I'm overjoyed, as my love for mullets is also well-documented. Hell even Dave, to his credit, once sported one of the most beautiful mullets I've ever seen. But that's a different story. This lady lets us use her computer and just knocks herself out makin sure we're comfortable. It was so awesome, I don't think I've thanked anyone more in my life. Anyway, we sleep, wake up early to hit the road, and as we leave Dave notices her playing online slots (you apparantly can't keep people from inventing new and creative ways to throw away their money) and on the porch, sitting there, are two Molotov Cocktails. Weirded out. Why they couldn't buy shotguns for defense, like a normal hick family, I will never know. Anyway, Dave and I puzzled for days over the curious mishmash of expensive toys and boondocks living. I think they robbed a bank or something, and are building a Fortress of Solitude in the hills to protect themselves. Or they are superheroes, living among us as Cledis Kent and LouEllen Lane. Just a theory.
We hike to the freeway and catch a short ride to the next rest stop. Again, a few hours till we're picked up. We get tired and badger this lady into picking us up and driving us to Lake Placid, which is way the fuck out of our way, but we're moving again.
- Our driver is another middle aged woman, which becomes a trend. I think these ladies are out of their minds, picking up two strange men, but I guess overall we're two pretty nice looking fellers and old chicks get lonely too. This one was lively. The road to Lake Placid was narrow, two lanes, but she put the pedal to the metal and passed people up like Steve McQueen. We barely had time to dig the spectacular view and relics from past Olympics that littered the side of the highway. I'm not really a jittery dude, but I was definately hanging onto the "Oh Shit!" bar most of the way. We talked eastern philosophy, debunked postmodernism, defended Christ and ate some wicked roast beef sandwiches. (Dave's was better than mine, but that's just because he refused to think outside the box and went with the house special, while I tried to be a renegade and make the sandwich my canvas. So, Dave, I stick to my guns. Asshole.)
We chilled for an hour at Lake Placid. It was a beautiful day. Breathtaking. We hitched a ride from a family of four in a Windstar (again, I appreciate the ride, but they have small children in the car...what the heck are they thinking??) and got dropped off about ten miles from the northway (I-87, this is what the yokels call it).
- Not two minutes later, we get picked up by this very jolly man. We soon learn the source of his jollihood, as he reaches into the glove compartment and cracks a Natty Light while he steers with his knees. I'm in the backseat and can't see Dave's face but I'm grinning like a motherfucker, half out of, "Oh, snap..." and half out of, "Just when I thought this place couldn't get any hicker..." and half out of "This is going to make a good story." It was a backcountry road, no traffic, and we didn't think homeboy could do much damage anyway. So this guy is a chatty Cathy, and tells us his life story, about how he was kicked out of his hometown (Keeseville) over to the next down 15 miles down the road (Ausable Forks) because his ex-wife left him and took everything he had. This ride is starting to feel like a bad country song. He also makes the hilarious assertion that every woman in the area has double D's because "there's something in the water". Dunno, about that, but there's definately something in his "water". This best part, though, is when it becomes painfully obvious that this guy has never been more than 30 miles from his hometown. He asks where we're going and we tell him, Montreal. The exchange goes something like this:
"Well I don't know anything about Montreal" he says, "but if you guys are going North, you gotta go to PLATTSBURG."
*Exchange of blank stares*
"You mean you never heard of PLATTSBURG? They got everything up there! They got women, a monument, the BATTTLE OF PLATTSBURG! Ya gotta go to PLATTSBURG."
Dave is sitting in th frontseat looking dumbfounded as I'm cracking up in the backseat. He takes us to a gas station by the northway and we go our merry way and he, his.
Now, the way I see it there are two rides that constitute the Holy Grail of hitchhiking. The first is a topless woman with a Ferrari and a fresh sack of bud. Shockingly, we didn't find any of those. What we did find though, was almost as good: a motorcycle gang. I got excited and sent Dave over to beg a ride while I thumbed by the on ramp. Unfortunately, they insisted that we have helmets, which stupidly we lacked to foresight to pack, but in a brilliant stroke of luck, the man fueling up at the adjacent pump was going all the way to Montreal. Dave crackled me the good news on the walkie-talkie, I gave a fist pump of triumph, and away we were whisked to Canadia.
- This guy, as it turns out, was either really boring or I was just to exhausted to listen anymore. I think he was an engineer of some sort, going up to visit his girlfriend. What was cool though, was that this guy (like most of the people who picked us up) was a former hitchhiker and was also a member of CouchSurfing.com, the website that Dave and I are members of, and that we used to find a place to stay up in Montreal. Basically, it's a community of people who, like us, believe in cultural exchange and hospitality. People send us messages and stay with us when they come through Philly, and we in turn have a place to crash almost anywhere in the world, giving and receiving freely, learning from others. The kind of world I'd like to live in. So we exchanged information, he offered us a place to stay out in Keane, which is apparantly some artsy outpost in upstate New York. Cool Stuff.
And we arrive! The tricky part was convincing the border agents that we weren't homeless vagrants (we certainly looked it) planning to cross the border and camp out for good. We showed them that we were carrying plenty of money and told them about our trip, and about couchsurfing. The french Canadian border patrol guard who interrogated was incredulous that something like this existed, but she ran background checks and everything graded out, and Jack dropped us off at the Metro stop.
I'm tired of writing and just want to get this up, so I'll include our adventures in Montreal in my next installment. Hope you enjoyed reading thus far!
SW
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
All Signs Point to WEST
Lady Liberty may have her back turned on Jersey, but for a few thousand concertgoers this August 8th at the All Points West music and arts festival, the freedom to light some “torches” of their own and dance like idiots (err…maybe that was just me) was to be found across the bay in Liberty State Park. Indie favorites Radiohead, Girl Talk, Andrew Bird and the New Pornographers carried the bill on the first night of the three day festival, which, unfortunately was the only date I could afford. The City ain’t cheap and here at First Call…well, I’m still waiting on that first paycheck.
Like most in attendance I was there primarily to see the Greatest Band in the Universe at what may very well be the peak of their career. If you’ve read my column in the past or heard me speak consecutive sentences, you’ll know who I’m talking about. I was born with two ears and a soul, so scraping enough cash together to see Radiohead has been one of my more pressing desires for a long time. This summer’s North American tour in support of their latest and (in this writer’s opinion) greatest effort, In Rainbows, was not something I was prepared to miss, and I wasn’t going to let a minor inconvenience like living in New Mexico, the forgotten outhouse of America, stop me.
Radiohead has become a brand name and starry-eyed, flannel-garbed gushing over their greatness is an unquestioned hipster cliché, but I could really give a shit. Anyway, I’m no hipster, clichés are generally established for a reason, and (surprise surprise) I’m actually devoting most of this issue’s column to the slightly lesser known acts who stole the show earlier on in the afternoon (not least of which was the Venezuelan lady selling Arepas at the far end of the park.)
After braving the half mile line to board the ferry, managed by a toolish, haggard-looking attendant with a bad facial hair problem and an attitude to match, we arrived at the side stage in time to see husband/wife duo Mates of State. I had heard lots of good things about them, and I was looking forward to hearing some of their material. They definitely didn’t disappoint. Jason Hammel banged away at the drums like Meg White with chops, and Kori Gardner (wo)manned the synth/keys with gusto. I really enjoyed the energy they brought to the stage. I could tell they genuinely loved to be up there together, and that translated to a very tight synergy, especially in their vocal harmonies that contrasted pleasingly with the frantic pace and meandering structures of their music.
Afterwards we ventured across the park to see Canadian “supergroup” The New Pornographers, fronted by alt-country artist Neko Case and A.C. Newman, formerly of Zumpano and Superconductor. Sandwiched around a bevy of Canadian in-jokes, the Pornographers performed a very passable Cars pastiche, highlighted by the hook laden “Use It” and “Sing Me Spanish Techno”, two favorites that I could listen to over and over without feeling punished, unlike Newman’s lament in “Techno”. They closed off the set with a sing-along rendition of ELO’s “Don’t Let Me Down.”
Brazilian dance-pop band CSS could appropriately be described as “all flash and no cash”, with functionally danceable but all-too-predictable beats and a stage show highlighted by two instrument free girls hopping around in neon jazzercise unitards. Fun, but definitely my least favorite act of the day.
I left their set early to go see Andrew Bird, one of my personal favorite artists. Although my friend Margaret accurately pegged him as “pretentious”, pretention has never sounded so sweet. I’ve been enamored with Bird’s music since I saw him last September at the Austin City Limits festival, his performance there being one of the most awesome solo performances I’ve ever seen. His classical training shines through in his sweeping violin-driven sound, but he really sets himself apart in the distinctive looping and layering effects he employs live in his attempt to recreate his lush studio sound. Whistling like his namesake in one moments, furiously attacking a guitar or a violin in the next, it is truly a delight to watch and listen to. Any lover of words can also appreciate his clever turns of phrase, punctuated by his soaring baritone.
By far the most entertaining all-around performance was given by mash-up artist Girl Talk. Sporting a red jersey, hot pants, and a wall of matted, greasy hair, Greg Gillis looked every bit the sort of dude who spends a lot of time in his basement dissecting Top 40 hits, but he managed to enlist the help of some friends to put on one hell of a show. He invited a large portion of the audience up on stage with him to augment his sparse set up, and scantily-clad breakdancing, ball tossing, and toilet paper pitching ensued, all set to the tune of Gillis’ frenetic and unabashed pilfering of pop favorites.
To close the night, Radiohead was sublime, although I was too short to see much of the stage in the packed crowd, and I can’t say much about them that you don’t already know and I haven’t already stated in this column, but I can definitely say that I got to see them at the top of their game. Overall, the trip was worth every penny, and I encourage whatever readership I have to go out and support these artists by going to their shows and purchasing their music. But you don’t have to take my word for it; after all, if it’s good enough for America’s favorite statue to raise a light to, it’s good enough for you.
Like most in attendance I was there primarily to see the Greatest Band in the Universe at what may very well be the peak of their career. If you’ve read my column in the past or heard me speak consecutive sentences, you’ll know who I’m talking about. I was born with two ears and a soul, so scraping enough cash together to see Radiohead has been one of my more pressing desires for a long time. This summer’s North American tour in support of their latest and (in this writer’s opinion) greatest effort, In Rainbows, was not something I was prepared to miss, and I wasn’t going to let a minor inconvenience like living in New Mexico, the forgotten outhouse of America, stop me.
Radiohead has become a brand name and starry-eyed, flannel-garbed gushing over their greatness is an unquestioned hipster cliché, but I could really give a shit. Anyway, I’m no hipster, clichés are generally established for a reason, and (surprise surprise) I’m actually devoting most of this issue’s column to the slightly lesser known acts who stole the show earlier on in the afternoon (not least of which was the Venezuelan lady selling Arepas at the far end of the park.)
After braving the half mile line to board the ferry, managed by a toolish, haggard-looking attendant with a bad facial hair problem and an attitude to match, we arrived at the side stage in time to see husband/wife duo Mates of State. I had heard lots of good things about them, and I was looking forward to hearing some of their material. They definitely didn’t disappoint. Jason Hammel banged away at the drums like Meg White with chops, and Kori Gardner (wo)manned the synth/keys with gusto. I really enjoyed the energy they brought to the stage. I could tell they genuinely loved to be up there together, and that translated to a very tight synergy, especially in their vocal harmonies that contrasted pleasingly with the frantic pace and meandering structures of their music.
Afterwards we ventured across the park to see Canadian “supergroup” The New Pornographers, fronted by alt-country artist Neko Case and A.C. Newman, formerly of Zumpano and Superconductor. Sandwiched around a bevy of Canadian in-jokes, the Pornographers performed a very passable Cars pastiche, highlighted by the hook laden “Use It” and “Sing Me Spanish Techno”, two favorites that I could listen to over and over without feeling punished, unlike Newman’s lament in “Techno”. They closed off the set with a sing-along rendition of ELO’s “Don’t Let Me Down.”
Brazilian dance-pop band CSS could appropriately be described as “all flash and no cash”, with functionally danceable but all-too-predictable beats and a stage show highlighted by two instrument free girls hopping around in neon jazzercise unitards. Fun, but definitely my least favorite act of the day.
I left their set early to go see Andrew Bird, one of my personal favorite artists. Although my friend Margaret accurately pegged him as “pretentious”, pretention has never sounded so sweet. I’ve been enamored with Bird’s music since I saw him last September at the Austin City Limits festival, his performance there being one of the most awesome solo performances I’ve ever seen. His classical training shines through in his sweeping violin-driven sound, but he really sets himself apart in the distinctive looping and layering effects he employs live in his attempt to recreate his lush studio sound. Whistling like his namesake in one moments, furiously attacking a guitar or a violin in the next, it is truly a delight to watch and listen to. Any lover of words can also appreciate his clever turns of phrase, punctuated by his soaring baritone.
By far the most entertaining all-around performance was given by mash-up artist Girl Talk. Sporting a red jersey, hot pants, and a wall of matted, greasy hair, Greg Gillis looked every bit the sort of dude who spends a lot of time in his basement dissecting Top 40 hits, but he managed to enlist the help of some friends to put on one hell of a show. He invited a large portion of the audience up on stage with him to augment his sparse set up, and scantily-clad breakdancing, ball tossing, and toilet paper pitching ensued, all set to the tune of Gillis’ frenetic and unabashed pilfering of pop favorites.
To close the night, Radiohead was sublime, although I was too short to see much of the stage in the packed crowd, and I can’t say much about them that you don’t already know and I haven’t already stated in this column, but I can definitely say that I got to see them at the top of their game. Overall, the trip was worth every penny, and I encourage whatever readership I have to go out and support these artists by going to their shows and purchasing their music. But you don’t have to take my word for it; after all, if it’s good enough for America’s favorite statue to raise a light to, it’s good enough for you.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Fanmail
This is my beautiful black enticement: each friend is a spotlight into a slow unravelling spindle that I cannot reverse. If Hope was the last bird rentained, then perhaps Innocence was the first to escape. These timeless moments pull me in seven directions, as the contest between my divine self (tired) and my animal self (ravenous) drags me outside to howl (quite literally) at the moon (my final tightrope between the physical and the ambrosial). I am profoundly moved and deeply scathed. Who will endure my face as I kiss you and shove you to your death, eighteen stories? I cannot love, and I will die before my time. ____ you are nothing to me, and I need everything from you...this is an open letter, and I am sorry for the burden of expectation, you didn't ask for it. Damn you for everything, damn you for being so gorgeous that I lose my language in front of you. Thank God that I am not a Judge, I am a simple charon, collecting, collecting, listening to stories and pilfering coins. When you see a bridge in the fog, remember me, straddling a line I would have never drawn.
SW
SW
Sunday, August 10, 2008
In the Village
Newyorksunday and after
spending the afternoon with Dali
I can think of nothing
but the slow sweet oildrip of time.
Later, I remember
what you said about that exit sign,
and I think I understand it,
as outside,
language sheds the artless yoke of meaning
and dissolves into shakerleg city music:
The stuttering trills of the Dominican parade
hum like a pack of mayflies,
joyful in their ephemerality.
On the subway, an old man
is rasping and his words
are flattened beneath
the rushing wheels of the traincar,
just as my clumsy whisperings
must have slid right off your ear
and thudded on the floor, unnoticed.
I feel like the man in that film, Un Chien Andalou:
I am struggling so hard
to shed all of this absurd baggage;
dragging a baby grand,
some strange dead animal,
and these two hilariously nonplussed clergymen,
all while this crazy ant colony
is inexplicably trying to escape from my palm,
and all I wanna do is just
try to cross the room
to where the girl is standing.
I tried to explain some guy thing
to you at the baseball game,
and you're right:
I suck at explaining everything.
So here's another thing
only I will ever understand,
because it comes from my
rectangular perspective:
I have gladly given up sleep
to follow the roller coaster curve
of your moonwhite skin as it falls
down from your shoulders and
rises up to your hips as the weight
of your legs are draped over mine,
a line that can never be painted or filmed
but only watched and touched
at a certain moment,
in a certain light.
spending the afternoon with Dali
I can think of nothing
but the slow sweet oildrip of time.
Later, I remember
what you said about that exit sign,
and I think I understand it,
as outside,
language sheds the artless yoke of meaning
and dissolves into shakerleg city music:
The stuttering trills of the Dominican parade
hum like a pack of mayflies,
joyful in their ephemerality.
On the subway, an old man
is rasping and his words
are flattened beneath
the rushing wheels of the traincar,
just as my clumsy whisperings
must have slid right off your ear
and thudded on the floor, unnoticed.
I feel like the man in that film, Un Chien Andalou:
I am struggling so hard
to shed all of this absurd baggage;
dragging a baby grand,
some strange dead animal,
and these two hilariously nonplussed clergymen,
all while this crazy ant colony
is inexplicably trying to escape from my palm,
and all I wanna do is just
try to cross the room
to where the girl is standing.
I tried to explain some guy thing
to you at the baseball game,
and you're right:
I suck at explaining everything.
So here's another thing
only I will ever understand,
because it comes from my
rectangular perspective:
I have gladly given up sleep
to follow the roller coaster curve
of your moonwhite skin as it falls
down from your shoulders and
rises up to your hips as the weight
of your legs are draped over mine,
a line that can never be painted or filmed
but only watched and touched
at a certain moment,
in a certain light.
Another thing I wish I wrote:
i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh ... And eyes big love-crumbs,
and possibly i like the thrill
of under me you so quite new
-e.e. cummings
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh ... And eyes big love-crumbs,
and possibly i like the thrill
of under me you so quite new
-e.e. cummings
Monday, July 21, 2008
Mouth, Paper, Crayon
I made a clay form of your hands, with my hands.
They looked just like you, I threw them in the sea, to watch them swim.
As they clapped and flailed, the captain failed
to stay awake at the wheel.
And your seven angry sisters blew kisses of flame,
and they came and they sang and they clashed and they clanged...
And I'd kill for the thrill of solitude right now,
and I'd leap just to die from the shock of coming down.
And when the bad news comes for you...
I'll cast you crowns with black jewels from the moon.
And later on that gray day, I hunted
White-collared loons with hula hoops;
the method's are strange, but the standard rule's still
"don't lose your cool".
When the day was done, all the sunthread spun
arrows and flies, terrors and lies
all caught their targets by the newskin
of their mangled second tries.
And I'd kill for the thrill of solitude right now,
and I'd leap from the womb for the joy of crying out.
And when the good news comes to you...
They'll drag you from the bowels of the earth
Just to see me
They'll drag you through the rocks and the dirt
Just to free me
They'll kick you and they'll dirty your shirt
Just to tease me
Then they'll throw us back in the hearth,
and that'll please me, yeah.
They looked just like you, I threw them in the sea, to watch them swim.
As they clapped and flailed, the captain failed
to stay awake at the wheel.
And your seven angry sisters blew kisses of flame,
and they came and they sang and they clashed and they clanged...
And I'd kill for the thrill of solitude right now,
and I'd leap just to die from the shock of coming down.
And when the bad news comes for you...
I'll cast you crowns with black jewels from the moon.
And later on that gray day, I hunted
White-collared loons with hula hoops;
the method's are strange, but the standard rule's still
"don't lose your cool".
When the day was done, all the sunthread spun
arrows and flies, terrors and lies
all caught their targets by the newskin
of their mangled second tries.
And I'd kill for the thrill of solitude right now,
and I'd leap from the womb for the joy of crying out.
And when the good news comes to you...
They'll drag you from the bowels of the earth
Just to see me
They'll drag you through the rocks and the dirt
Just to free me
They'll kick you and they'll dirty your shirt
Just to tease me
Then they'll throw us back in the hearth,
and that'll please me, yeah.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
This is why...
My favorite days are when the haze rolls away and there's nothing before you except the innumerable threads of possibility, each one tethered to a joy so far off that, even straining all five senses together you are left with a picture just bright enough to make you say: "I'd give up everything I know just to hold this, to hold onto any one of these for a moment."
...and life is most beautiful when the hardest part lies in the choosing between wonders.
...and life is most beautiful when the hardest part lies in the choosing between wonders.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Some days, I look at myself and think, "God, I am such an asshole..."
I sat in this dirty diner all day, just feeling the same. I could have sat here, watched this paunchy man out the window with the bluetooth jabber and get fatter and fatter and lose more hair and get stabbed and swept away by a street cleaner and notice nothing but the way the sidewalk sparkles, before and after. Pretty girls come by and I notice them too. I see some dressed in black, and I think I knew them before. I notice them like statues, and I understand Pygmalion, his hubris, his lust for nothing but the familiar and awesome products of his own genius.
I think about the paper I edited last night, it was my friend's, and I marvel at how this guy took this mundane experience about air travel and used the claustrophobia he felt sitting in a hot taxiing metal tube filled with hot disgruntled strangers to propel himself to write this beautiful, bloated piece about it, about heroism and halloween costumes, among other things. What an elegant blow to the face of ennui and inertia, to turn that old whale on its back and find all these beautiful ideas still there, clinging to its gross underbelly. And I think perhaps that's a worthy goal, to be a spelunker of ideas, to go searching around in dark smelly caves for new life. But, Jesus, who really gives a fuck?
I have lunch with Ayn Rand's slobbering beast. He doesn't eat a thing, just sits there slobbering and I just want to yell at him, "eat you slobbery motherfucker, eat already, if you're so damn slobbery just eat something for Chrissakes!" but he just sits there drooling away with vacuous eyes that draw me in and give nothing back.
This is whom I am asked to love. I think about Christ's love, this perfect love supposedly and realize what's never clicked for me is that the goddamn loneliness of the whole business of divine commiseration couldn't be proper love, as if my love for a snake, all fangs and venom, could be called divine. I've searched for this ideal all my life, to love something that could not love me back and more often than not been consumed by the exact vulgarity I sought after. Where's the love that lifts as I lift, that uproots me from the soil?
But goddamn it anyway, I listen to the rhythmic drone of my own toothless drivel and teach my soul to settle, to give up the life I have left in exchange for the quieting of my squalling sensibility. It's God's way for me. I smoke a cigarette as I slowly go colorblind and number my hours like ants marching.
I think about the paper I edited last night, it was my friend's, and I marvel at how this guy took this mundane experience about air travel and used the claustrophobia he felt sitting in a hot taxiing metal tube filled with hot disgruntled strangers to propel himself to write this beautiful, bloated piece about it, about heroism and halloween costumes, among other things. What an elegant blow to the face of ennui and inertia, to turn that old whale on its back and find all these beautiful ideas still there, clinging to its gross underbelly. And I think perhaps that's a worthy goal, to be a spelunker of ideas, to go searching around in dark smelly caves for new life. But, Jesus, who really gives a fuck?
I have lunch with Ayn Rand's slobbering beast. He doesn't eat a thing, just sits there slobbering and I just want to yell at him, "eat you slobbery motherfucker, eat already, if you're so damn slobbery just eat something for Chrissakes!" but he just sits there drooling away with vacuous eyes that draw me in and give nothing back.
This is whom I am asked to love. I think about Christ's love, this perfect love supposedly and realize what's never clicked for me is that the goddamn loneliness of the whole business of divine commiseration couldn't be proper love, as if my love for a snake, all fangs and venom, could be called divine. I've searched for this ideal all my life, to love something that could not love me back and more often than not been consumed by the exact vulgarity I sought after. Where's the love that lifts as I lift, that uproots me from the soil?
But goddamn it anyway, I listen to the rhythmic drone of my own toothless drivel and teach my soul to settle, to give up the life I have left in exchange for the quieting of my squalling sensibility. It's God's way for me. I smoke a cigarette as I slowly go colorblind and number my hours like ants marching.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
An Attempt
I have shouted at that Old Angel
Midnight, and slept the whole day dark
just to keep him there.
Everyone's an artist now;
daytraders become nightbloggers and
nightwatchmen become daydreamers
in a haunted futile dereliction of
our vagrant earth,
and Jesus,
isn't that beautiful, the very attempt?
If we were all perhaps
a bit more in love with our own genius,
with the hotquick breath
and madpanting lolling eyes
of our lovers and
let the road just roll over
every Neil Cassady that refused to submit to anything
and just fucking L I S T E N . . .
And so I intend to live,
just to be ironic,
just to give singular form
to all my self-indulgent, escapist fantasies.
And just try to stop my love now
as it crushes you into a slow, condensced vibration.
SW
Midnight, and slept the whole day dark
just to keep him there.
Everyone's an artist now;
daytraders become nightbloggers and
nightwatchmen become daydreamers
in a haunted futile dereliction of
our vagrant earth,
and Jesus,
isn't that beautiful, the very attempt?
If we were all perhaps
a bit more in love with our own genius,
with the hotquick breath
and madpanting lolling eyes
of our lovers and
let the road just roll over
every Neil Cassady that refused to submit to anything
and just fucking L I S T E N . . .
And so I intend to live,
just to be ironic,
just to give singular form
to all my self-indulgent, escapist fantasies.
And just try to stop my love now
as it crushes you into a slow, condensced vibration.
SW
Joanna Newsome
If I could write this, I could die happy:
"We could stand for a century,
staring,
with our heads cocked,
in the broad daylight, at this thing:
Joy,
landlocked in bodies that don't keep -
dumbstruck with the sweetness of being,
till we don't be.
Told: take this,
Eat this.
Told: the meteorite is the source of the light
And the meteor's just what we see;
And the meteoroid is a stone that's devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee.
And the meteorite is just what causes the light,
And the meteor's how it's perceived;
And the meteor's a bone that's thrown from the void that lies quiet in offering to thee."
"We could stand for a century,
staring,
with our heads cocked,
in the broad daylight, at this thing:
Joy,
landlocked in bodies that don't keep -
dumbstruck with the sweetness of being,
till we don't be.
Told: take this,
Eat this.
Told: the meteorite is the source of the light
And the meteor's just what we see;
And the meteoroid is a stone that's devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee.
And the meteorite is just what causes the light,
And the meteor's how it's perceived;
And the meteor's a bone that's thrown from the void that lies quiet in offering to thee."
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Portfolio
The following are the edits I made for my portfolio from some of the writings below, some of which I feel are much improved.
Eulogy
(Which I’ve been expecting for awhile)
I won’t shed a tear or crack a smile.
You bought me shoes that never fit, and
when I asked you for a roadmap, you handed me a globe.
and a four-Advil headache;
it’s more than you’ve ever given me.
muttering to myself and counting the rings
on the fallen trees in the backyard?
“Perfectly well,” and though it’s not exactly a lie
I don’t believe it myself.
in a time when there were only
three primary colors in the world, but
and fluent in platitudes after all my visits,
which are becoming increasingly less frequent.
but there is nothing left to celebrate,
nothing there to mourn.
A Gift
(The same as you)
We inherit the unmarred love
That we were born into.
It descends like a dove,
A holy gift,
As I grasp at tar-filled straws,
Walk on painted stilts.
Reveals me damned.
So abide in me,
And take me as I am.
Glossolalia
vanish like dying faith,
fizzling with a sound so unlike
the primal yawp of the bursting bubbles
I used to blow as a child,
the defiant cackle of a renegade balloon
lost in the stratosphere,
or the hiss and pop that follows
the ignition of summer’s virgin firecracker.
grows fainter as I grow older.
When, perhaps, the sun and the earth
stop dancing in circles and steal a kiss,
I will hear the roar of ten thousand lives
extinguished in a fit of passion.
by a painter I admire,
something about zombies
and supermarkets,
a long-winded way of saying,
“Gee, the world is sure a pretty
fucked-up place.”
writing anything at all, awful or otherwise.
It’s the same reason a skater
carves figure-eights into the ice,
a symbol that’s come to signify the infinite,
a concept that has existed since before
words and pictures attempted
to stuff ideas into skintight suits.
Can what I call “creation” be nothing more
than a vain attempt to translate a text
that lies beyond the grasp of human comprehension?
Did Moses himself write the scriptures,
or did he just spend his life learning to speak
the language of a land caught fire?
not a single thought is mine to claim.
For every Isaac I’ve breathed into existence,
there awaits a mountaintop and a sharpened knife,
in a world where even
my blood sacrifices are refused.
Invading, replicating,
deconstructing and destroying
the Truth that gives me life…
To prove what point?
once again I’ve beaten my father in a game
of basketball that I know deep in my heart
he let me win. I smile
because I know it’s done in love,
but life was much more fun
when I was a better liar.
Passion
but I have seen blazes
of all sizes and shapes, and
this isn’t like them at all,
against the soles of our boots.
We held them in our hands until we yelped,
threw them down on the dirt floor,
and crushed them into soot. Or that
one summer night on the porch
we lit our first cigars. I set my jaw
against the firebrand I held
in my clenched fist, feeling tough because
I earned a scar and hadn’t screamed.
where we would roast marshmallows
and toss the skittish salamanders we found
into the white heat, until their scales shriveled
and their eyes popped like roman candles, and
seared your face in the bonfire you tried to vault.
Out on the mesa, under the ancient heat
of the stars, you were coked up and
I am still unable to look on what was lost.
Every stroke of the pen
stays the tipping hand
that dangles me above the flame.
Premarital Counseling
Locked into our concentric elliptical orbits,
I constantly feel your pull
but try my hardest to avoid collision.
I get it, it’s like the woman says:
But I’m thinking about the base.
Are there safe places to meet?
My meetings have always been car wrecks;
messy, unplanned, and impersonal, but
Self-destruction for me is recreational,
but I contain multitudes:
Sleepless nights on the mesa,
e-mails that were never returned,
to a darkened bedroom. These are
the inhabitants of my green world,
and I must think of them also.
They are defenseless and mine to protect.
but as you run your fingers over my scars
and name them, you understand without asking.
When she asks us to grade our sex life,
we exchange sly grins, and I think,
Soapbox Moments
Stay that way for the rest of the day and watch the time go
Listen! The birds sing! Listen! The bells ring!
All the living are dead, and the dead are all living
The war is over and we are beginning...”
-Stars, “In Our Bedroom After the War”
I laughed into your ear, soft and low like an almost ghost,
A widow-that-could-have-been on the morning after the war.
You couldn’t know how much I like to watch you live,
your life laid out before you like a minefield
shudders and erupts behind you, hoping perhaps for the one
that takes pity on you and gives you sleep. It’s the way
open its mouth and swallow you whole, as if the world
might finally make sense looking out from the depths of its belly.
on every note of the symphony you are conducting
with your flourishing hands. I can hear it
about phony magicians and delicately carved salt-shakers.
They are words that keep my heart doing its thankless work,
majestic arc of a breeching whale. I knew a boy once,
whom I thought dead, who used to pick onion grass
when later that afternoon I spied you dancing with him,
outside your bedroom window.
The Strange
which I have believed without seeing:
overtaken by the Spirit that binds us all.
They feed each other with silver teaspoons
out of a brown leather bottle,
until they collapse in each other’s arms.
They will not stir until the end of the age.
a woman returns to her husband.
While he was out, tending to his flock,
she was bound and dragged away.
When she crawls home,
he picks out the shards one at a time
and washes her in the river
that flows from his eyes.
but she calls the God of Love
by the wrong name.
She starves,
along with her only child.
whose only crime
is to be born whole
and love those who could not
love him in return.
He asks her,
“Why are you crying?”
She stops,
and learns to shrug her shoulders instead.
On my best behavior
I wish it were a little stranger to be cruel.
I missed you.
It's been awhile since I've written anything at all, my creative powers being sullied by the busyness of my summer masquerading as productivity. Since I very much doubt this is read by anyone in particular, I'll allow myself to write confessionally in an attempt to "find a home for my malfunctioning being," a more comfortable (or at least two-dimensional) home than my meandering electric brain.
I've been really struggling with faith this summer, with hypocrisy in the church on the one hand and hypocrisy within myself on the other, with believing in my Holy Self when every other path seems so much simpler.
I really want to love Jesus. Like no joke, I truly believe that the only way to love people properly is to first recognize that we're enveloped in this vast, incomprehensible, unconditional, unshakable love that never leaves. Isn't this what we search for all our lives? And to be assured of that from square one, before we even leave the womb is a remarkable, joyful thing. It's something we should celebrate with every breath, every kiss, every exclamation! Why has religion become something so staid and stuffy, so insulated and businesslike? I'm so tired of trying to be a part of that, to fit into a system that saps the Life out of life, jumping onto a sinking ship, living out a slow spineless death. God save me from a heart that can see nothing but evil in your church...
***
Today I saw the Holy Spirit at work, and felt the weight of my own mortality, the superficiality and the shortsightedness of it. I was in this meeting room with all of these adults, and until today I had seen no life in them at all, and then all of a sudden someone new comes (my friend David Casson) and things get stirred up and just like that God awakens everyone in the room and the Holy Spirit descended and we had one of these prayers that actually feels like a prayer, a taste of the living water that keeps me believing when I'm desolate. Man, what a beautiful thing, to see so many men and women breathing, together...I wish I could've sat there and dug that moment forever.
I've been really struggling with faith this summer, with hypocrisy in the church on the one hand and hypocrisy within myself on the other, with believing in my Holy Self when every other path seems so much simpler.
I really want to love Jesus. Like no joke, I truly believe that the only way to love people properly is to first recognize that we're enveloped in this vast, incomprehensible, unconditional, unshakable love that never leaves. Isn't this what we search for all our lives? And to be assured of that from square one, before we even leave the womb is a remarkable, joyful thing. It's something we should celebrate with every breath, every kiss, every exclamation! Why has religion become something so staid and stuffy, so insulated and businesslike? I'm so tired of trying to be a part of that, to fit into a system that saps the Life out of life, jumping onto a sinking ship, living out a slow spineless death. God save me from a heart that can see nothing but evil in your church...
***
Today I saw the Holy Spirit at work, and felt the weight of my own mortality, the superficiality and the shortsightedness of it. I was in this meeting room with all of these adults, and until today I had seen no life in them at all, and then all of a sudden someone new comes (my friend David Casson) and things get stirred up and just like that God awakens everyone in the room and the Holy Spirit descended and we had one of these prayers that actually feels like a prayer, a taste of the living water that keeps me believing when I'm desolate. Man, what a beautiful thing, to see so many men and women breathing, together...I wish I could've sat there and dug that moment forever.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Medley
When my heart begins to freeze,
I don my Sunday morning jacket.
I sleep in shade of screaming trees,
finding peace amidst the racket.
as I count the dimming stars:
finding peace amidst the racket,
making cots of hard-top cars.
I am also counting crows.
Making cots of hard-top cars,
their squawking grows a bit verbose.
whose speech is modest as a mouse.
Though their squawking grows verbose
when playing to a crowded house.
Ask my friends Elliott and Kurt.
When playing to a crowded house
they found a cure to all their hurt.
when my heart begins to freeze.
They found a cure to all their hurt,
asleep in shade of screaming trees.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
The Strange
I have stories for you,
Which I have believed without seeing:
They were drunk, high on
the Spirit that binds us all,
which they fed to each other
with silver teaspoons
out of a brown leather bottle.
They were looking for her husband
but her husband wasn’t home.
He was out, tending to his flock.
When she came home
she was naked, bloody and
covered in glass.
Her husband came to
to ask for prayers.
but she calls God
a different name.
And so she starves,
along with her child.
as a criminal dies,
whose only crime
is to be born whole
and love those who could not
love him in return.
He asks her later,
“Why are you crying?”
And so she stops;
and learns to shrug
her shoulders instead.
On my best behavior
I wish it were stranger to be so cruel.
Passion
They say it burns, like fire,
but I have seen blazes, and
this isn’t like them at all.
against the soles of our boots,
held in our hands until we yelped,
throwing them down on the dirt floor,
crushing them into soot.
The soft click of the lighter,
the smell of searing flesh
hissing as I set my jaw against
the firebrand I held in my clenched fist.
where we would roast marshmallows
And toss the skittish salamanders we found
into the white heat, until their scales shriveled
and their eyes popped like roman candles.
under the ancient heat of the stars.
You were coked up, liquored up
and thought you could vault the damn thing.
I never could look at your face again.
Every stroke of the pen
stays the tipping hand.
Eulogy
What a maddening, unknowable pair you are.
You bought me shoes that never fit,
that I began to outgrow the moment they touched my feet.
When I asked you for a roadmap, you handed me a globe.
Not quite as put together as you, perhaps, but who can be?
You’re The All-American Couple, with stars and stripes
adorning your carefully starched lapels.
They said you kicked them out of the house for being too rowdy.
They make off-color jokes and smell like Ten High, so what?
At least they know how to have a good time.
I woke up with three broken knuckles
and a four-Advil headache, which may not be
the greatest souvenir, but it’s more than you’ve ever given me.
to stay with your Aunt Euphoria and Uncle Melancholy.
Phoria still loves to talk, but Mel
just sat on the porch all weekend,
muttering to himself and counting the rings
on the fallen trees in the backyard.
Auntie asks how you are doing, and I say
“Perfectly well,” because that’s exactly what you always tell me.
So it’s not exactly a lie, though I don’t believe it myself.
Auntie sends me home with a batch of homemade brownies.
Uncle leaves me with some choice words of wisdom,
and a smile that means more for the effort involved.
in a time when there were only three primary colors in the world.
Your ultimatums and decrees were the law back then,
but these days I leave your house hungry and fluent in platitudes
after all my visits, which are increasingly less frequent.
When I finally hear the news
(which I’m expecting any day now)
I won’t shed a tear and I won’t crack a smile.
I’ve made all the effort I could, but
there is nothing left to celebrate,
nothing there to mourn.
Soapbox Moments
“Lift your head and look out the window
Stay that way for the rest of the day and watch the time go
Listen! The birds sing! Listen! The bells ring!
All the living are dead, and the dead are all living
The war is over and we are beginning...”
-Stars, “In Our Bedroom After the War”
I laughed into your ear, soft and low and too long like
A widow-that-could-have-been on the morning after the war.
I don’t think you know how much I like to watch you live,
your life laid out before you like a minefield
shudders and erupts behind you, maybe hoping for the one
that takes pity on you and gives you sleep. It’s the way
open its mouth and swallow you whole, as if the world
might finally make sense looking out from the depths of its belly.
on every note of the symphony you may or may not be
trying to conduct with your flourishing hands. I can hear it
about phony magicians and delicately carved salt-shakers.
They are words that keep my heart doing its thankless work,
knowing that someone still cares about the simple,
majestic arc of a breeching whale.
who used to pick onion grass and play roller hockey
and feed ants to antlions. Imagine my surprise when
later that afternoon I spied you dancing with him,
outside your bedroom window.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
The Poet
As the firetruck rambles past, the stranger across the street closes his eyes and breathes diesel. The siren's roar augments the perfect melody he knows so well, enough to make him gasp again, and shudder. The hot breath of the exhaust pipe evokes the flames of some far off tragedy. He can hear the screams, see the charred out hollow of someone else's broken life. He is moved, it does not matter in which direction. He smacks his lips and smiles.
The sirens fade. No longer parted by the firetruck, he spies a haggard man across the street in a business suit. When he was a child, he would wear his father's jacket and carry around his father's briefcase, racing around the house in a pedal car. He would interview neighbors, and strangers in shopping malls and restaurant booths. "What do YOU want to be when you grow up?" He posed this question earnestly to business executives and old widows. They would laugh uncomfortably and tell him he was precious, or too precocious for his own good. When they turned the question back on him, as the situation demanded, he would shrug, and laugh. This always seemed to be enough. He was just a child after all.
He would play "army man" with his friends, and he always got upset when the stage deaths weren't well acted. When they played baseball, he delighted himself by imitating the swings of famous ballplayers. They would play schoolhouse in his friend's basement, and he was always affronted when his ficticious schoolwork received less than stellar marks. There were strict rules to his imagination, which he defined arbitrarily and enforced like a despot.
Some dreams blossom, and some die on the vine. Others are sold at the market for pennies. His just grew and grew and grew untill they became grotesque and untenable. He gorged himself on dreams, and his visionary appetite became insatiable. He plucked the dreams of others and ate them like red apples, as his fell and rotted at his feet.
The stranger stares at the man in the suit. Whatever dreams this man had, he sold them long ago, and dons the transaction in an unflattering set of pinstripes. The businessman catches him staring, this unkempt vagrant, and shoots him a look of disgust. "Get a job, you f***** slob" the look exclaims (though not aloud). But the man across the street does not notice, he has slipped back into the daydream that the firetruck dropped at his feet. He does not notice, either, when I drop a quarter into his cup.
-sw
The sirens fade. No longer parted by the firetruck, he spies a haggard man across the street in a business suit. When he was a child, he would wear his father's jacket and carry around his father's briefcase, racing around the house in a pedal car. He would interview neighbors, and strangers in shopping malls and restaurant booths. "What do YOU want to be when you grow up?" He posed this question earnestly to business executives and old widows. They would laugh uncomfortably and tell him he was precious, or too precocious for his own good. When they turned the question back on him, as the situation demanded, he would shrug, and laugh. This always seemed to be enough. He was just a child after all.
He would play "army man" with his friends, and he always got upset when the stage deaths weren't well acted. When they played baseball, he delighted himself by imitating the swings of famous ballplayers. They would play schoolhouse in his friend's basement, and he was always affronted when his ficticious schoolwork received less than stellar marks. There were strict rules to his imagination, which he defined arbitrarily and enforced like a despot.
Some dreams blossom, and some die on the vine. Others are sold at the market for pennies. His just grew and grew and grew untill they became grotesque and untenable. He gorged himself on dreams, and his visionary appetite became insatiable. He plucked the dreams of others and ate them like red apples, as his fell and rotted at his feet.
The stranger stares at the man in the suit. Whatever dreams this man had, he sold them long ago, and dons the transaction in an unflattering set of pinstripes. The businessman catches him staring, this unkempt vagrant, and shoots him a look of disgust. "Get a job, you f***** slob" the look exclaims (though not aloud). But the man across the street does not notice, he has slipped back into the daydream that the firetruck dropped at his feet. He does not notice, either, when I drop a quarter into his cup.
-sw
The Firefighter
On the street, there on the right side, is a man. He walks to work with the weight of the world on him, with the pressure of obligations, palpable even from here.
As a child, he is a dreamer. He throws on the cap he got for his birthday, dreaming every moment of every day of being a firefighter off to save the day. Those moments dwindle as his studies to become something more slowly fill the gaps in his mind, and then spill into the corners specifically reserved for dreams. The physics classes teach him fear of heights, the econ classes the delicacy of the money market, the biology classes the fragility of life, the statistic classes the few who make it, the sociology classes the might in numbers, the philosophy classes the ideas of others...
No longer does he think of the firetruck, except in those exhilarating moments when a siren rings and wind brushes against his face from the force of the red blur now speeding away down the street... But that's not practical! It's dangerous, and stupid, and different, and whats-his-name at one time said that jobs like that are whats-it-called. So he walks down the street into the indistinguishable glass building lost among other men in suits.
His adventure gone, his fears multiplied, his practicality in high gear, his thoughts stamped out by those that are more highly acknowledged, his personality molded into everyone around him. And he doesn't even know that his dream is still there, that his dream can still be, but it is lost in the thicket of maturity, progress and real life.
-as
As a child, he is a dreamer. He throws on the cap he got for his birthday, dreaming every moment of every day of being a firefighter off to save the day. Those moments dwindle as his studies to become something more slowly fill the gaps in his mind, and then spill into the corners specifically reserved for dreams. The physics classes teach him fear of heights, the econ classes the delicacy of the money market, the biology classes the fragility of life, the statistic classes the few who make it, the sociology classes the might in numbers, the philosophy classes the ideas of others...
No longer does he think of the firetruck, except in those exhilarating moments when a siren rings and wind brushes against his face from the force of the red blur now speeding away down the street... But that's not practical! It's dangerous, and stupid, and different, and whats-his-name at one time said that jobs like that are whats-it-called. So he walks down the street into the indistinguishable glass building lost among other men in suits.
His adventure gone, his fears multiplied, his practicality in high gear, his thoughts stamped out by those that are more highly acknowledged, his personality molded into everyone around him. And he doesn't even know that his dream is still there, that his dream can still be, but it is lost in the thicket of maturity, progress and real life.
-as
The Gutter Twins:
A Reach Towards the Light for a Match Made in Hell
The opening track, “The Stations,” sets the tone, with Lanegan crooning, “O mama, ain’t no time to fall to pieces,” with every ounce of bitterness his pack-a-day baritone can muster. The guitars and strings wail in the background as Dulli joins Lanegan for the chorus, lamenting a salvation that for them only serves as a consistent reminder of what they always pined for but never tasted: “They say the rapture’s coming/they say he’ll be here soon/right now there’s demons crawling all around my room/They he lives within us/They say for me he died/And now I hear his footsteps almost every night.”
.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Glossolalia
Brown froth congregates round the base of my cup
as I drink in all but the last stubborn drop.
They cling to the periphery like a life preserver,
or a proverb, shielding them from the same
nameless void they embraced
on a Sunday morning when the glass was much fuller.
Each pocket of air deflates upon exposure,
shriveling with a sound so unlike
the primal yawp of the bursting bubbles
I used to blow as a child,
or the defiant cackle of a renegade balloon
that dared fly too close to the sun.
This is the music of the world,
that grows fainter as I grow older.
When, perhaps, the sun and the earth
stop dancing in circles and steal a kiss,
I will get to hear the roar of ten thousand lives
extinguished in a fit of passion.
Honest Expression
Ultimately, martial art means honestly expressing yourself...
it is easy for me to put on a show and be cocky,
or I could show you some really fancy movement...
But to express oneself honestly, not lying to oneself,
and to express myself honestly...
Now that, my friend is very hard to do.
Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives
And for that live moment we thrive
Awakenings, as we make the dead come alive
Rise and walk my son
Come into the light
Inside the dark we illuminate mics
Give knowledge to mediocre
The will to neanderthal
Filter to the the small
Digital to analog
We steady advancin'
Rhyme enhancin'
Civil minds can't keep up with this
Dig - I'ma put it on the table
I ain't a thug nigga and playa, I ain't playful
I'm just Senim Silla, man without label
Standin' on my own to you tryin' to stay stable
Speakin' what I know to only what I'm able
I ain't the kinda guy who carry on for dough
The material cat who walk around for show
I'm just your everyday, merry way joe on the go
While others go with the flow
I ain't never been the one to follow trend, I do my own bit
Can't keep up with the joneses, I'm on my own sh*t
I don't care what you drink
What you stress, how you dress, or where you got the link
I ain't impressed
These lames run around like mice in a maze
Tryin' to get up on cheese, its just a rat race
Wanna change times' schemes to make man worship things
Over the supreme being, or stop, fill up?
Should I join the hypocrites?
Or side with the suckas by choice
It makes no difference that y'all product of environment
It's just coincidence
The world's a violent place baby, there ain't no more innocence
Or civil men or penatence, just
Ignorance cast on the right from wrong
They mimic sh*t they see on TV or hear in a song
What that tell you they on?
A sucka act up every minute
The righteous live on but the the niggas are infinite
I ain't hardcore, I don't pack a 9 millimeter
Most of y'all gangster rappers ain't hardcore neither
Whoever get mad then I'm talkin 'bout you
Claim you fear no man but never walk without crew
Where I'm from, your reputation don't mean jack
So what you pack gats and you sell fiend's crack
You ain't big time, my man
You ain't no different from the next cat in my neigberhood who did time
Rhyme after rhyme it's the same topic
What make you think you hardcore cuz you was raised in the projects
Broke ass finally got a hundred in your pocket
Now you on the mic spittin' money's no object
What you say is bullcrap
If you wasn't with your crew and wasn't drunk off the brew
Would you still pull gats?
You need to stop frontin'
Or you're headed for self destruction
Yeah, today's topic is self-destruction
I ain't talkin 'bout the KRS-One discussion
I'm talkin 'bout the one too many ignorant suckas
Lyin' on the mic to my sistas and brothas
Everytime you listen to the radio, all you hear is nonsense
They never play the bomb sh*t
Everything that glitters ain't gold
And every gold record don't glitter that's for damn sure
How many cats you know speak the illegit rhyme after rhyme diligent?
85 percent represent ignorant
Either you innocent or guilty
Some of my favorite emcees fell off
It damn near killed me
Lookin' at the kids that was true hip-hop
Nowadays them cats don't even do hip-hop
Rap got 'em brainwashed with cats that don't last
And five minutes of fame
That's when it's a shame
Seein real emcees tryin' to imitate rappers
If you ask me they goin' out ass backwards
Tradin' in respect to push a fat Lex
Puff rhymin' on the remix, what's next?
It hurts so bad I wanna smack 'em
My favorite crew members break up turn around and join wack ones
This is dedicated to you hip-hop hypocrites
Drivin wack songs like you don't give a sh*t
I ain't got nothin' against nobody tryin' to make a decent living
It ain't the money that's the issue
Only if that's the reason why these cats are makin' decent music
That's when I got beef with you
And I'ma break it you like never
Go ahead, call me player hater if it make you feel better
Try to jump my crew if you cats feel foggy
You need to wake up and smell the damn coffee
-Binary Star
it is easy for me to put on a show and be cocky,
or I could show you some really fancy movement...
But to express oneself honestly, not lying to oneself,
and to express myself honestly...
Now that, my friend is very hard to do.
Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives
And for that live moment we thrive
Awakenings, as we make the dead come alive
Rise and walk my son
Come into the light
Inside the dark we illuminate mics
Give knowledge to mediocre
The will to neanderthal
Filter to the the small
Digital to analog
We steady advancin'
Rhyme enhancin'
Civil minds can't keep up with this
Dig - I'ma put it on the table
I ain't a thug nigga and playa, I ain't playful
I'm just Senim Silla, man without label
Standin' on my own to you tryin' to stay stable
Speakin' what I know to only what I'm able
I ain't the kinda guy who carry on for dough
The material cat who walk around for show
I'm just your everyday, merry way joe on the go
While others go with the flow
I ain't never been the one to follow trend, I do my own bit
Can't keep up with the joneses, I'm on my own sh*t
I don't care what you drink
What you stress, how you dress, or where you got the link
I ain't impressed
These lames run around like mice in a maze
Tryin' to get up on cheese, its just a rat race
Wanna change times' schemes to make man worship things
Over the supreme being, or stop, fill up?
Should I join the hypocrites?
Or side with the suckas by choice
It makes no difference that y'all product of environment
It's just coincidence
The world's a violent place baby, there ain't no more innocence
Or civil men or penatence, just
Ignorance cast on the right from wrong
They mimic sh*t they see on TV or hear in a song
What that tell you they on?
A sucka act up every minute
The righteous live on but the the niggas are infinite
I ain't hardcore, I don't pack a 9 millimeter
Most of y'all gangster rappers ain't hardcore neither
Whoever get mad then I'm talkin 'bout you
Claim you fear no man but never walk without crew
Where I'm from, your reputation don't mean jack
So what you pack gats and you sell fiend's crack
You ain't big time, my man
You ain't no different from the next cat in my neigberhood who did time
Rhyme after rhyme it's the same topic
What make you think you hardcore cuz you was raised in the projects
Broke ass finally got a hundred in your pocket
Now you on the mic spittin' money's no object
What you say is bullcrap
If you wasn't with your crew and wasn't drunk off the brew
Would you still pull gats?
You need to stop frontin'
Or you're headed for self destruction
Yeah, today's topic is self-destruction
I ain't talkin 'bout the KRS-One discussion
I'm talkin 'bout the one too many ignorant suckas
Lyin' on the mic to my sistas and brothas
Everytime you listen to the radio, all you hear is nonsense
They never play the bomb sh*t
Everything that glitters ain't gold
And every gold record don't glitter that's for damn sure
How many cats you know speak the illegit rhyme after rhyme diligent?
85 percent represent ignorant
Either you innocent or guilty
Some of my favorite emcees fell off
It damn near killed me
Lookin' at the kids that was true hip-hop
Nowadays them cats don't even do hip-hop
Rap got 'em brainwashed with cats that don't last
And five minutes of fame
That's when it's a shame
Seein real emcees tryin' to imitate rappers
If you ask me they goin' out ass backwards
Tradin' in respect to push a fat Lex
Puff rhymin' on the remix, what's next?
It hurts so bad I wanna smack 'em
My favorite crew members break up turn around and join wack ones
This is dedicated to you hip-hop hypocrites
Drivin wack songs like you don't give a sh*t
I ain't got nothin' against nobody tryin' to make a decent living
It ain't the money that's the issue
Only if that's the reason why these cats are makin' decent music
That's when I got beef with you
And I'ma break it you like never
Go ahead, call me player hater if it make you feel better
Try to jump my crew if you cats feel foggy
You need to wake up and smell the damn coffee
-Binary Star
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Sunday, March 2, 2008
O Cap'n, My Cap'n
Captain Kirk was a rockstar tonight.
On other nights I knew him, well,
at least knew him well enough to know
that he’s an average looking guy from
the gorgeous friend of a gorgeous friend.
To his face, he is always just Kirk,
with the crew cut and the cover band
and the girlfriend with kind eyes, at which
I can never manage to arrive in the compulsory meanderings
of my renegade glances, moving upwards from her hips.
But the vindictive comedian that I play
in one of my meaner public lives
can’t resist accentuating the arc of his dumb luck
by painting him with clownish nicknames, and I dub him
“The Cap,” or “Cap’n K” or “
Tonight though, he’s someone else entirely.
I always thought he was a nice guy
but it turns out his band is actually pretty tight,
and so I pay him tribute with sardonically overwrought fist-pumps and yelps,
I guess to force laughter from whatever girl I’m with.
I would like to say that this
is one of the more difficult parts
that I play in my life of petty method acting,
but it’s as effortless as a devil’s handshake, if I’m being Honest.
And that’s the one role that
I’m still truly scared to face.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Our Fathers
It’s high noon on a high desert Wednesday;
the golden aureola ringing round
the sun laps at my face, its hot breath
irrupting into my mid-afternoon siesta.
I am supposed to be fixing a tire
and so I ask a boy my age for help.
We share a bond, working for my father.
We work at work that’s never done, under that one
indiscriminate spotlight. We tell stories
and our fathers’ response. His, a solar wind;
a temperamental tempest of fiery flame,
flaring with rare intensity until it settles
for a dormant decade. I have worked
virility bubbling beneath his stoic exterior.
Worn yellow gloves adorn his hands
like sherriff’s stars. He is balding, never smiles,
only nods with tacit acceptance. Nothing
I don’t realize what it means to me except in moments
of my misbehavior, when storm clouds obscure
my sight and I’d do anything to see
the light again.
and watch the stars unveil themselves.
I count them all, holding their gaze,
and let each one own me in its own way.
Elliott Smith:
Shedding New Moonlight on an Old Favorite
By: Steven Waye
I’m typically wary of posthumous or post-breakup releases, because they’re usually preening attempts to electroshock a geriatric rock n’ roll dinosaur back into relevance or make an extra buck off the tragic death of an icon. I purchased New Moon, a compilation of Smith’s unreleased material, with trepidation, especially in light of all that Elliott stood for as a musician.
In reference to the title of his 2000 release, Figure 8, Smith says this: “I just like the idea of figure 8, of figure skaters trying to make this self-contained perfect thing that takes a lot of effort but essentially goes nowhere.” To me, this is the quintessential statement on artistic honesty. Smith made the music the way he wanted, because he couldn’t do it any other way, the same way he couldn’t help his squeaky speaking voice or his frightening appearance. Instead of tempering these attributes down to a non-abrasive bromide, the fierce introspection and distinctively shaky vocal delivery featured in every self-contained, perfect world he created are nothing if not univocally his.
And it for exactly this reason that, whatever it was intended to be, New Moon stands as a worthy retrospective on Smith’s lifework. You couldn’t fit Elliott Smith into a commercially viable package if you tried. This is Elliott at his best, stripped down and intimate, without the symphonic frills that weighed down some of the major-label music he made at the tail-end of his career. I’m not really into the whole, “one squirrelly dude with a guitar waling about his feelings” genre, but I’m a huge fan of Smith’s lo-fi early work because, at his core, Smith was always a punk rocker, even after he ditched his band Heatmiser in favor of a four track and fingerpicks.
There is a vibrant cynicism that underlies even Smith’s poppiest songs, and this shines through most starkly on his more naked acoustic tracks, which New Moon features predominantly. Somehow, Smith never seems sappy or insincere even when belting out his most Hallmark-worthy lines. The opener, “Angel in the Snow” is classic Smith, a plodding and infectiously repetitious bass line backing up Smith sighing, “don’t you know that I love you” with an earnestly that few others could pull off, mostly because the affection he speaks of sounds so tired and worn that it becomes nearly tragic.
“Going Nowhere” subtly displays the attributes that leaves Smith with few peers as a folk guitarist. Violently rapid chord changes shift over a jarring rhythmic pattern, and all the while Smith’s gentle falsetto lulls the listener into a daydream as he whispers about nothing at all, and the harsh reality of it.
Other standout tracks include “High Times”, “Riot Coming”, and “Whatever (Folk Song in C)”, but the best of this album for me by far is Elliott’s cover of Big Star’s “Thirteen”. It captures an idyllic sort of Leave it to Beaver era romance that contrasts so harshly with Smith’s usual invective about soured relationships that I can’t help but be moved by his pained, wistful interpretation.
Although the album sags towards the end with tracks like “
Monday, February 11, 2008
IN RAINBOWS:
The Defining Work of a Band That Will Define Our Generation
By: Steven Waye
As a rule, few events arouse excitement within the hipster community. It’s cool not to care, unless it means caring about something that has no right being cool. Like androgyny. And soccer. With this in mind, the frenzied flocking of the indie masses to the internet this past October 10th to get their ears on In Rainbows, Radiohead’s most recent offering of sonic wizardry, was truly an event worth taking note of. It was a virtual Woodstock of sorts for a 21st century audience, with hippies and hallucinogens being replaced by hipsters and hard-drives, and the crashing of InRainbows.com speaking just as loudly as Arlo Guthrie’s now-famous proclamation, “The New York State thruway’s closed, man”.
Yet at this point in their career, Radiohead can no longer be dismissed simply as the darling of a niche group of scenesters. The rousing commercial success of Radiohead’s outside-the-industry release is clear evidence of much more than a sporadic burst of enthusiasm by an alternative audience. Radiohead’s mass appeal is such that they have become an embodiment of the independent ethos: become universally adored by selling out to no one but yourself. The band’s airplay has stretched far beyond grungy coffeehouses and dusty basements. The estimated proliferation (1.2 million downloads the day after its release, according to a pitchforkmedia.com report) of their free-of-charge internet release supports this claim. I’ve made Radiohead devotees of Classic Rock junkies, hardcore aficionados, and Justin Timberlake fans alike. And it’s not as if Radiohead were exactly hurting for popular or financial success before In Rainbows, their seventh full-length release. Despite their artistic meanderings, they have enjoyed a wide base of support ever since the release of the critically acclaimed OK Computer in 1997. So what is it about Radiohead, despite the band’s decidedly pioneering sound, that allows them such widespread adulation?
In reference to the lyrical content on the new album, frontman Thom Yorke says, “It's about that anonymous fear thing, sitting in traffic, thinking, ‘I’m sure I’m supposed to be doing something else’”. The sometimes dreamy, sometimes danceable beats that serve as a backdrop for Yorke’s lyrical musings about paranoia, suburban entrapment and romantic disillusionment recreate the sort of lyrical tension that the Beatles often perfected. It takes a truly gifted lyricist to write a sing-along about arson or heroin addiction, and like John Lennon before him Thom Yorke manages to reconcile dark imagery with beautiful melody more adroitly than any of his peers. In Rainbows exhibts what is easily Yorke’s best work since OK Computer. Without denying the bleak mechanical brilliance of their output from the Kid A/Amnesiac era, the band occasionally got too bogged down in their experimentation with dub and electronica and churned out material that was at times too inhuman to connect with the listener. Yorke’s haunting wail is one of the band’s greatest assets and when paired with Jonny Greenwood’s soaring string arrangements and biting guitars, the results are stunning. In Rainbows sees Radiohead laying down their synthetic drum kits and vox modulators, admitting that each new album does not have to be a complete reinvention in order to be a masterpiece. They deal with all the great inconsistencies of life by treating them exactly as they are, joyful and melancholy and beautiful and confusing and wildly celebratory all at once.
Track 1: 15 Step – Thom and the boys come back kickin’ on the opening track, an open invitation to the manic dance party running through Yorke’s head.
Best line: “You used to be alright, what happened? Did the cat get your tongue, did your string come undone, one by one?”
Track 2: Bodysnatchers –
Best line: “Do the lights go out for you? Because the lights go out for me.”
Track 3: Nude – Lush, soaring, pop ballad. The kind of song Chris Martin dreams about writing. Their best work since “How to Disappear Completely”.
Best Line: “You paint yourself white and fill in the noise, but there’ll be something missing.”
Track 4: Weird Fishes/Arpeggi – Opens as a minimalistic fingerpicking tune, taking the listener on a full tour through Yorke’s weird ocean, full of rippling starts and stops.
Best Line: “Turn me on to phantoms I follow to the edge of the earth, and fall off. Everybody leaves, if they get the chance, and this is my chance.”
Track 5: All I Need – Crunchy synth bass line throbs over top of a thin layer of warbling strings. The quintessential Radiohead atmosphere piece. What happens when the self-deceiving suburbanite from “No Surprises” starts being desperately honest with himself.
Best Line: “I’m an animal, trapped in your hot car.”
Track 6: Faust Arp – Sticky sweet string ballad masks Yorke’s spoken-word exhaustion. Mostly filler, the eye of the storm.
Best Line: “It's what you feel now, what you ought to, what you ought to. Reasonable and sensible, dead from the neck up, because I'm stuffed, stuffed, stuffed.”
Track 7: Reckoner – Every now and then these guys write something that make me wanna just start dancing for joy, and I just don’t give a shit what Yorke is wailing about.
Best Line: “Because we separate, it ripples our reflection.”
Track 8: House of Cards – A dreamy, punch-drunk ode to the moment. Opening lyrics sound kind of like they belong in a Rod Stewart song. And I mean that in the very best way possible.
Best Line: “I don’t wanna be your friend, I just wanna be your lover, no matter how it ends, no matter how it starts.
Track 9: Jigsaw Falling Into Place – Their most straightforward rock song since The Bends. It’s refreshing to hear Radiohead sounding like an actual band instead of a cohort of manic depressive computers. Maintains the tension and edge of the rest of the album without the usual dramatics.
Best Line: “The walls abandon shape, you've got a cheshire cat grin. All blurring into one, this place is on a mission.”
Track 10: Videotape – More subdued than one expects from a Radiohead closer, Yorke sounds subdued in both his lyrical droning and his tired, repetitive piano playing. An elegy of sorts, as close to “at peace” as we’ve ever heard from the band, and we get the sense that Yorke is almost (gasp!) happy as the album rolls away into the distance to the rhythm of a firing squad drum beat. A perfect ending to a masterpiece.
Best Line: “No matter what happens now I won't be afraid, because I know today has been the most perfect day I've ever seen.”
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