necrophilia and the lucky stiff

Dude, Totally Move to Columbia City

2012-01-23T02:59:00.000-08:00

Across the street from the clean, clean counter where
you dig elbows into glossed oak surfaces, there is a closed
dive, lamented, serenaded by neighborhood historians,
glasses raised, you loved it, you knew it, you say
after one-- maybe three- pitchers of high life, shrunk
into corners by snarling old black men proclaiming

that you're like one of the uglier beatles.
just. look at that hair.

across the way, up the hill and a bus or three away,
on the dilapidated sidewalk outside the bar where
an acquaintance from high school sells cocaine to part
time art-schoolers, you smoke and smoke and buy t-shirts
and hot dogs and smoke and smoke and eat more hot dogs
and do not realize the taxis stop running, do not realize
the limits within the city's limits.

there are so many boxes holding old copies of the Stranger.
two weeks, a day, four months. as if no one reads hear any more.

past the place you always meant to buy a cheesesteak, but
really, who could expect you to, when the bike paths meant so many
swerved tires and knocked-elderlies. across the way, sometimes
you watch the sunrise, or set, and wonder when they'll foreclose
on the ethiopian coffeeshop, the hispanic church and the
laundromat you assume is a drug front, get a bar in that
plays Sufjan Stevens.

but the row is full of food. there are so many ways
to eat a drink. to fill a counter.

your girlfriend chastises the server for a lack of gluten free options.
after all, sweeping back her hair, we're not savages.

Starting With Intent to Finish

2012-01-05T14:40:00.002-08:00

Start it with a poem about drinking. About a long, dark porter
and sly slow slurp. The real, hard, anger of salt.
Then go to your most detatched, your commentator newscast.
Don't get your hands dirty, wear clean gloves. Comment on the sun,
raying out over the hood of a dented buick. As you stand there with
a microphone in a suit your 17 year old self still protests, make
that buick glinting your goal.
aspire.
Talk it good so people forget all about the
drinking poem. Write the light so hard that you are
a tee-totaler, always were. Write yourself celibate
on forests that you camped under the day before
yesteryear, punctuate with a poem about acid rain.
Go righteous. Go fist pumping.
Then, write the sex poem-filthy and needed--
before writing the monsters out of the closet
and back under the bed where they belong.

_______________________________________________________

blogspot will probably wreak havoc with the format of this, but so goes. I wrote this on tuesday at the SPLAB meeting I facilitated on Writing Goals. This is as it was in the minute, and as a freewrite, I'm pretty happy with both how it feels and what I was "trying to say" about both the process and product of writing new poetry in the new year.

Recap in Eleven Sentences.

2011-12-31T15:17:00.000-08:00

If I had the technology, the know-how, the patience, there'd be a graph with several arrows and a few would bounce straight along, a couple would shoot towards the top line-markers and the rest would drop right off.

The more I am blessed/burdened with the cars of others, the less I want one for myself, as a solo individual. Kids, family, these potential eventualities could dictate otherwise, but there's a certain yoke-around-the-neck about having a car, despite the obvious opportunities it affords. It is bad enough having a phone.

There were a lot of poems I meant to write.

There were a lot of albums I meant to hear.

The world does not seem to want us on it any more.

Currently, this day, this moment, I have a hard time picturing "fun" tonight; there's so much I have to do and only some of it have I any clue how. I tend to consistently resent the holidays for draining me of all financial, emotional and energy resources right before I'm supposed to really focus on goals that remain a good climb away.

There were a lot of movies I thought might be kind of nice to see, but knew for sure I wouldn't have the time or money.

All that said, I'm taking aim; it always takes longer than one thinks, but that doesn't mean it won't happen.

"Let's just try to get through Christmas."

2011-12-24T15:24:00.000-08:00

an escalation of violence in several southeast neighborhoods

2011-12-12T17:44:00.001-08:00

and you are big, ish, tall, ish,
lumber like something tough or clumsy.

but no fights since fourteen
or one joke-out-of-hand-with-your-cousin
that had to stop --
bartenders.

and there's nothing you've got that anyone
could fence for much,
and if it's all so co-ordinated
or just conveniently along every transit hub
you've lived in, well you are big, ish,
and your coat is torn and bad shoes and

you have a beard so
no reason to fuck with you

but somehow, an evening walk
just seems out of the question,
and you are big, ish, tall, ish, can
run

but if you wait too long, then it's too late
and you are fast, ish, but if you start
too soon, then chase becomes inevitable

and the cops post bulletins advising people
to walk shivering and terrified in groups of three
or more, bereft of books or money or music
or all things that made the transit
work as a second home and you are smart, ish,

but

growth/entropy/roath/centipede/statshots.

2011-12-12T16:08:00.000-08:00

claustrophobia went well saturday. watch the videos here. Tomorrow I read at Northwest Playwrights Alliance's Literary Salon. Right now I am at NSCC, printing out some poem copies which I will doubtlessly just fucking wow audiences with. Friday I'm doing the same sort of thing, but at a giant Christmas Light Event where I used to work. Then the next day I am going to read at Elyse Brownell's (you can find her poetic works online or in links above) going away party.

I just deleted a whole bit I was going to post that was just going to read too much like, well, someone's personal blog. There is drinking for such things.

"There was a lone 'woo-oo' out there that sounded really weird."

2011-12-01T12:52:00.000-08:00

*) waiting at Empire Espresso to hear from Marty, who will have heard from Vicky, about when to get the keys to the NEW PLACE IN RAINIER BEACH.

**) over the last couple of days, Not Drugs and I went up and pestered Jake Tucker in Vancouver, BC. Vancouver, population-wise, is slightly smaller than Seattle, but the whole vibe of it is a lot more "LOOK AT US. WE ARE VANCOUVER. WE ARE A BIG BIG CITY WITH LOTS OF TALLNESSES!"
This makes sense, I guess, since they are a lot closer to the top of the cultural food chain in Canada than Seattle is in the U.S.A., coming in somewhere after Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, etc. I dug the more metro-vibe, though I think it'd take longer to get accustomed to navigating the downtown; I'm perpetually used to everything ending at the water. Not there being a WHOLE 'NOTHER SIDE OF TOWN after the water (shutup, West Seattle.)
The National kicked ass, in a way that is consistent with The National. Which is to say, greater energy, more screaming (no joke), but still a sense of the serious, melancholy and ornate. The Alligator and Boxer tracks took me RIGHT BACK to Wales, which, in that dark, rainy time, is when I got into the band. Broken by Matt's jokes about penis-nicknames, which managed to not be as incongruous as it sounds.

***) I have all these ideas, but first, it is time for a Panini.

Thanks!*

2011-11-24T12:25:00.000-08:00

For: the northwest, and how even when it feels like you're going to die from sprawl (hello, smokey point) the light bursts and you're out in the Middle of Nowhere, in the best way possible. And that my folks live out here, instead of at some enclave on the edge of Kirkland, so they can be close to a megachurch.
that I've got a new place to live. that i've got good enough friends that the last months have been punctuated by stress headaches, rather than been one constant panic attack or a filthy sleep closet in the ID.
not drugs.
the fam.
creative pursuits and the support they've (already) been shown by Seattle's poetry community.

speaking of Creative Efforts. The now-internet-elusive Wood is marketing the following: OK, so this is me self-promoting. The plan is to get my irresponsible, stupid, violent, sexy and ultimately marketable novel finished, and to get funded to do it, so I'm crowdsourcing, with the aim of getting it sorted this week. You can read more about it here.
Pay it forward, people. While I'm sure he's embarked on more "literary" efforts (i've read some, they're good), Wood also chronically underrates his own work, so it's great to see him getting ambitious.

*I know that being Grateful should be a constant concern, and that the History of Thanksgiving is Wrought and Fraught, but that doesn't mean we can't all use a good reminder now and then. Most folks reading blogs, even those in dire straits, have it better than huge chunks of the world. I believe the reaction to that shouldn't be guilt, but gratitude.

Involuntaries

2011-11-21T16:08:00.000-08:00

clings to the rail
then
skirts the edge,
sine-waving all over the sidewalk.

shudder. spasm.

clung-clung-clang on thin bridges
torso wants the ground
hair wants the five feet,
fifteen,
twenty,
fifty

arms want to clothesline strangers, teeth to dig into faces of nearleaning friends, legs the radials of 18 wheelers, throat clearing constant in libraries, the fuck-thefuck-thefuck, even reading a book, full-on engaged, hands reach for low hanging powerlines

intentions irrelevant
steps clipped
he begins to lean

. . . or a joke about cat slaughter.

2011-11-18T13:29:00.000-08:00

Things heat up at Claustrophobia Central. Monday will be the second of the series, and I look forward to seeing how it plays at an outside venue.

Speaking of, I'll be making my way south again-- Marty and I will be sharing a two bedroom spot in Rainier Beach for even cheaper than one would guess a two bedroom spot in Rainier Beach would be. Right near the light rail, groceries, etc.

This has been largely perfunctory. I have been thinking about switching to a blog that doesn't have a title about fucking corpses, but that's probably just a sign of aging.

In like squished peeps.

2011-10-31T13:06:00.000-07:00

The new project from GI and Not Drugs.

the judge said "i will never die."

2011-10-25T13:06:00.000-07:00

On a rare slow day, I've finished "Blood Meridian." Combine with a started-great-got-weird last night still weighing on the brain and all its attendant grogginess the mill of students and teachers and the un-comma-ed neo-biblical writing style of Cormac McCarthy and you have a day of inclement unexplainably strange sadness whirring through and under the clicks of computers and the slow mumble of minds seeking expansion that may never come.

futures.

2011-10-20T16:08:00.000-07:00

Revolutions are real things,

2011-10-13T13:45:00.000-07:00

but are poems about "revolution" about the real thing?

this afternoon, at the North Seattle Community College Espresso Lounge, myself, Lindsey Walker and John Newman read as part of the school's Year of Learning program; the theme for the year is, yup, "revolution."
So vague, but so specific; many of the students at North are international students, some are here directly due to displacement brought on by real, violent, terrifying revolutions. So, given my limited scope of experience with these things, I wasn't sure what to read; I support proactive and sometimes risky measures for change (my next post will probably be about Occupy______) but I am not an anarcho-socialist, by any strict measure, and my own experiences with violence involve seeing a few barfights and hitting someone over the head with a broom when I was 14. That said, the definition of "revolution" was intentionally left squishy-- Lindsey read about science, medicine, the pharoahs. John read about the Civil War, 1963 (in a piece about the '60s that didn't make me want to puke) and finding anonymous notes in library books. I read about Wales. More specifically: Culture Vs. Cause (or Enough with the Marley Already if Folks are Actually Dying)/ Neo Takes the Blue Pill/ Dongtan-Hwaesong-Suwon-Seoul/ Swansea-Cardiff Blues (bellingham edition)/ Ambition is Critcial (Swansea Edition)/ Quake Theories

First piece is perhaps an ~~extraneously~~ mean-spirited jab at collegiate hippie types (and bob fucking marley posters) which I wrote about six years ago, just after graduating the first time. The last poem is new, about earthquakes and what happens to Seattle. Things were well set-up and there were actually a lot of people there. (noon on a thursday? who knew.)Cousin Justin hit up the reading after a too-brief hangout beforehand, where we test-drove Ford Focuses and hey! Free coffee.

Tuesday night I had my first taste of facilitating at SPLAB Living Room a task I felt underprepared for. It's a hard working and dedicated group of writers that shows up, founded by Paul Nelson and running for over 10 years. (this is it's second in Columbia City, prior it was in Auburn.) Unforseen and unfortunate circumstances-- I don't feel like blogging grief right now-- prevented much prepwork, but things went well anyway. See above about the dedicated and talented writers.

Anyway. Lots of family is out, I'm working a lot and soon will start putting together a new book/chapbook/manuscript. Longwinded, I know.

Someone Else's Countdown

2011-10-09T20:31:00.000-07:00

It was a day we didn't have a host, so each of us took turns, rushing toward the front, our nearly-paper Denny's uniforms crinkling with starch, gleaming with the grease in the air. I had a ponytail then, so people sometimes thought I was as old as I am now. A man in light denim and a white fisherman's beard ordered something fish-based to go. That had never been our specialty. He sat in the oval by the windows looking out to a gas station and a parking lot. The cook forgot something and he nodded, saying it was for his wife, so we'd better redo it. He waited, payed, tipped well, mentioned that his wife really liked this Denny's and this dish was her favorite. I nodded and said Well I hope she gets better, I said, so you can both come in and sit down. Oh, he said, and leaned on his cain. She's not getting better.

Terrible seconds turn to days and still I cannot show my face

2011-10-08T03:24:00.000-07:00

at some point I post blog full on about the new bartending job vs. the current bartending job and old bartending job and its all likely made of venn diagrams and photos of women holding beers at chest level.
nonetheless: Hillman City is like the southend equivalent of Crown Hill. Not. Ballard. (columbia city.) But, as everything in the southend is basically facing south, you have orient things that way. the potential-new-regular got the joke, even as for the fifth time in the evening a man got up to exhort the crowd on the virtues of Merle Haggard (not hating, btw) and I wondered. Things.

Ín plainspeak, I've meant to post many great things to here, to buddyhead, to whatever media source most speaks to you, but I am now working three jobs and will probably have to move again soon.

so, it's 330 am, I'm just under an hour off a 15 hour work day and no sleep in sight, unless this Elysian Loser Ale kicks in soon. Oh, Grunge, the things you gave us will always carry the ghosts of things you took away.

me five years ago, two years from now/fuck it, here's an old song.

back at the loft:

2011-10-05T12:52:00.000-07:00

Because of technology, there is no more serious injury, bad illness or death. All people live forever, like vampires or demons.

from a student's short paper assignment about the Future, and Possible consequences of technology. (she also addressed the idea that with people living forever, innovation would stagnate and birth rates would plummet.)

Fix it with mixing.

2011-09-22T12:13:00.000-07:00

Last night Not Drugs and I went to the Breadline at Vermillion. There were readings from Evan Peterson and Laura Wachs, a reading/music/dance performance from Pistol Shrimp and zany violinnings from Led to Sea. One of the things that consistently impresses me about Breadline is the format; much like Weird and Awesome with Emmett Montgomery, you do not have to enjoy every performer to leave the night feeling satisfied and entertained.

That. Is. Huge. Granted, if every performance sucks/isn't your bag, you aren't likely to have a great time, but there is more room for gradations of interest and quality when you've got mixed-genres. I liked Evan and Laura (exception of one or two pieces, but that's gonna happen) but only fully enjoyed Pistol Shrimp when they were incorporating the Butoh dancer into their routine. That was only about a third of the time, and they took the largest chunk of the evening. The violinist played with a lot of loop pedals and some effects, but the songs were good enough to avoid feeling like a novelty act (*coughcoughcough* CR Avery *Coughcoughcough*) If it'd been a full evening of only one of these performance types, I'd have been worn out by the end, possibly grumpy even at the people whose work I enjoyed. As it was, I felt energized, interested and inspired.

In other news, Google Plus. Eh? Eh?

insta-wringer

2011-09-17T09:57:00.000-07:00

Minimal Transitions

2011-09-12T10:43:00.000-07:00

Morning on a hardwood floor, last one in Brighton/Othello/Graham. Yes, Seattle has a neighborhood called Graham, and depending who you ask, it's where I've lived the last year, nine months. Just a memory foam, laptop, stereo and odd assortment of shoes, boots and blankets left. The impulse being to get crippled-nostalgic, or not at all. Drive through Columbia City thinking how I'll miss it when, really, just as close, but north. I guess the possibility of a short walk to Mel's in Hillman City will be missed, but not practically. The taco truck a bit more so.
The sneezing and packing and all that other stuff about moving I will not miss. Practically, I won't have to-- still not sure how long I'll be at David and Lindsey's place on Beacon Hill. Rachel (who is moving to Columbia City-- I won't have to miss it) remarks that I'm sentimental for wanting to spend a little time alone here surrounded by dust-bunnies and burned CDs. I don't think sentiment is quite the right word, but maybe. Giving transitions their due.
Lets see-- I was terrible for stats in this house. Brielle threw a few great parties with trees and dinosaurs, we had I think four Your Hands Your Mouth readings here, featuring the likes of Robert Lashley, Chris Gusta, Ryan Johnson, Shane Guthrie, Elissa Washuta, Emily Wittenhagen, Caren Scott, Melissa Queen, Rainey Warren, Greg Bem, Jay Steingold, Jessica Lohafer, Cate McGehee, Bronwyn Isaac, Jake Tucker, myself and probably some other people who are now offended.
Good, solidifying family time here. Lots and lots of The Office, Parks and Rec, Mitchell and Webb, Bones, Family Guy etc etc etc; dangers/blessings of Netflix. So much family guy. It's like eating air with sugar on it. Good seeing the first seven months of my nephew's life, day to day, as he's gotten fatter and squawkier.
Won't spend much more doing analysis. It's not like I'm moving to another country, or even city and have spent the last day, week, month, in a frenzy to ham-press hot new memories into a current space. These things are usually done drunk and I so far haven't cheated on Sober September. I'd take a picture of my empty room but the camera and cords are already up on beacon hill.

Just imagine if YOU kept getting colder while the rest of them around you burned.

2011-09-08T10:06:00.000-07:00

Housefire publishing is a site based out of Portland. I met the editor at the backend of a party in the Central District. It was one of those "art parties" or "lit parties" wherein the general consumption of Genesee was punctuated by readings in a crowded basement. The bit of the reading I caught was good and in the afterwards so was the banter. Granted, I was a good five-ten beers behind most people, having come from work, but, you know. The editor (Riley) told me to get in touch, in a writerly way.

This is one of the things to come from that conversation. A short fiction. Go to it, read it, read the other things on the site.

Tell us about the Owls, Dana. The Owls.

2011-09-06T12:57:00.000-07:00

For the past couple of months, Rachel Hug (heretofore to be referred to as "Not Drugs") and I have been curling up on whatever couch, floor or bed was close at hand and watching David Lynch's perpetually iconic early '90s TV show Twin Peaks. Being Lynch at his (arguably) most accessible, the show tends to serve as an alt-culture touchstone for a lot of people, and one of the most interesting things about re/watching the show was the reactions of those who hadn't watched it yet -- "I know! I know! Someday." I can't really recommend the show; it's already been recommended to you, geeked on by your friends and generally deconstructed. It's worth checking out, and largely unlike most things produced prior or since, but it's also just a TV show for about 80% of the time. The other 20% is the reason it tends to hang on in the minds of critics and fans, be rediscovered. But I think most great TV shows hit that sort of range-- between 70-90% of the time they're average-to-good pieces of entertainment, then that other percent they cross over into Art on the level of the Great Films, Plays or paintings. But half the time you're watching TV for a certain sort of comfort, anyway.

But! This is not a TV review. This is about geekery. The wiki link for TP has changed since last time I looked at it a couple months ago-- that's how dedicated the fanbase is. There's a convention/retreat in North Bend, Wa (where some of the exteriors were filmed) every year that Chris Gusta goes to-- it was ultimately through one of those trips that he decided to move to the northwest. Not Drugs and I are not so dedicated as that. But having a free Sunday, we decided to head out to northeast King County to check out Twede's Cafe, home to the pie, coffee and atmosphere that Dale Cooper was such a fan of.

The original interior got arsoned about ten years ago. These days, it reminds me a bit of the Stanwood Cafe, albeit slightly more dissheveled. The prices are a bit high, but the portions are such that Not Drugs and I split a Fish 'N Chips and were almost too full for pie. Almost.

By the bathroom there is a wall of pictures, newspaper clippings, memorobillia, etc.

It was interesting people-watching and guessing who was a tourist (I guess even today that Peaks tourists account for roughly 5% of the business there and probably more on holiday weekends) and who was a regular. Some small towns have folks sporting the kinds of cowboy shirts you can also get at Red Light Clothing Exchange, but North Bend doesn't seem to be one of them. The place fully embraces the tourist element-- all the servers were wearing shirts advertising Twede's 1) 50 Different Types of Burgers (yup) and 2) Home of Twin Peaks' Pie and "a damn fine cup of coffee."
The place also hosts an open mic on Tuesdays.
This all seems for the best; North Bend wasn't depressing in the way that some Washington towns can be, nor was it generically strip-malled but the downtown didn't appear to have the internal bustle of an Arlington (though that may be good-- less meth) or the diversity of business of Stanwood, or the packed-right-in cute historical downtown of neighboring Snoqualmie. If you were there for a reason (like a TV show conference) you'd probably find a decent bar or restaurant or two, but nothing jumped out at me as "ooh, we should come back for that," even with my er, "unique" fascination with the smaller towns and suburbs in Western Washington.

Also, it should be pointed out that neither North Bend nor Snoqualmie seemed like places where the woods nearby contained portals to Unspeakable Evil. But then, maybe that's part of the point.

so much comfort in meat.

2011-09-05T12:39:00.000-07:00

sweet labor day jams.

Silence, Communication, Rosemary and Thyme

2011-09-03T15:39:00.000-07:00

Thursday night I participated in Silence and Communication (check out the link two posts down, I'm feeling lazy.)
You can read The Stranger's review, which describes things pretty well from an audience point of view. It went well, and while I believe that Greg Bem, Matthew Thompson and Jason Conger (who probably also have links I could link to, but, lazy) put together a fantastic reading lineup, the concept was well-executed enough it almost didn't matter who the readers were. It was a whole piece. A concept. Plenty of folks showed up to support their friends, but there wasn't a feeling of a "headliner" or what-have-you. That said, definitely enjoyed a lot of the specific pieces on their own as well.
As for my part, I read a piece called "context(subtext)" that existed prior to getting the invitation, but hasn't made it out much, so I hacked it up. The event consisted of straight up poetry, prose pieces, sound poems, noise music, performance art, etc etc etc. Alllll sorts.

Nico Vassilakis tore up the above paper into a microphone for his piece.

Sole Repair, photoed from the balcony. Once the event got going I didn't have much time or energy to take more pics. Suffice to say there were a lot more people there.

I was pretty damn out of it the whole day/night. This added an additional level of surrealism to the experience for me. Note how it looks like my face is falling off.

I do not remember whose head this is the back of.

We sat in chairs around the room. I was in chair number 9, next to Jarrett, who sometimes wears a hat similar to those which I used to own.

Field of Memes

2011-09-02T09:53:00.000-07:00

or RobotmonkeybadgerninjaBACONLOLZ

When the robots finally come for you,
probe you with lasers and stick needles
in you and look nothing like R2 d2 Or
the giant bugs from the Matrix
you, for one, will not be pleased to
welcome your new robot masters,
you will be crying and blubbering
And it will totally compute.

And I've seen you play baseball--
the Zombie apocalypse will not be
"awesome"
you will get your face ripped off.
not awesome.

Because the vampires were to be expected,
always a compendium of handsome assholes,
just enough gore and guts to grab the guys, too,
and werewolves have always been a bit goofy,
a metaphor for alcoholism or whatever.
but
seriously
really
literally
inserting "monkeys"
is not
random
that isn't what it means.

I get it-- I'm late to the joke, late to the disdainparty
and the subsequent "What does this say about our SOCIETY"
blog posts by people for whom pop culture is not a relevant
reference point, it is
their ONLY reference point-
so wear your
owldolphin sweatshirt
while eating chocolate bacon,
posting funny cat pics,
while reading Gorilla Vs. Bear
and naming your band
Badger Shark
but when the jokes
run out
and you have to go outside
and you wonder
why
nothing feels good
it's because you've finally done it.
you've really, finally, truly done it.

you've even ruined
animals.

Wait I thought you said VIOLENCE--

2011-09-01T13:43:00.000-07:00

Tonight is the Silence and Communication Event at Sole Repair

I think it'll be pretty sweet. Spending the next couple hours making some arts with papers and pens.

Let me tell you how to sequence your next record:

2011-08-27T17:00:00.000-07:00

Set 1: Rules For Riding the King County Metro/Little Fear of Drowning/Neo Takes the Blue Pill

Set 2: You in Your Heyday/Like Taking Communion/Story Problem

^Show last night with Cristina Bautista & Gold Parts and Police Teeth. I started ordering whisky drinks thinking they were comped/drink ticketed and then received three tickets good for PBR. It was very hot in the rendezvous. I had lots of good advice for other people about how to run their businesses, bands, marriage.

Petty Pains of Modern Life and Why White Zombie are the Best Band Ever

2011-08-26T13:07:00.000-07:00

Recent life in Bullet-List Form

>>> Brielle, youngest of the bio-sisters, is somewhere in the midwest (not colorado, har har) right now, highwaying her way closer to Chicago,

where she'll study art and writing at the Art Institute of Chicago. The absence there is palpable, rather than symbolic, as I've been living in the same house as her the last year and a half.

******> Soon that will change. Investigating (limited) housing options now. They include beacon hill, chinatown (ostensibly), capitol district (what I'm calling that space between Pine and Jefferson and 12th and 20th that is literally Central District but increasingly co-opted by 'hillsters) or probably places in suburbs that are affordable but far away from everyone i know and everything I want to do.

>work. have had little luck/fucked up my interviews for full-time jobs. stop that, brain. >still, some digging and pestering have yielded some freelance tutoring opps, some freelance blurb-writing opps that are still in-process.

in.
process.
this is the frustrating part; waiting for writing samples to be cleared, etc, before I can go full-bore. Things I would have been more confident in before a summer of job-hunting. Confidence is key. Irony.<<<<<<<<

(Not much to do but keep at it. Dig in. Make it part of you until it doesn't have to be. All sorts of mantras to make the demoralizing slog of Craigslist and numbing rigor of cover letters into some sort of arch-masculine chest-pound.)

!!!!Tonight, however, Jake Tucker and I will drown our respective (and very different "sorrows" in beer at various town-based places and then I do a gig with Cristina Bautista's new band and Police Teeth, whom have been mentioned here before as fine individuals and purveyors of good-time, rootsy folk music, which is the best type of music for humans to make. Here is them covering White Zombie and then playing their own song about trashing living rooms and jumping fences:

and the original:

so good.

also: anyone notice how the ads for Colombiana are basically "check out this hot chick killing shit?" or perhaps more specifically, "check out this hot south american chick killing shit?"

zabrecky makes himself disappear

2011-08-18T14:03:00.000-07:00

or if you're taking over, then it's over

LA is a city that always dangles a carrot three feet away
from the noses of its citizens. this arrives to screen,
by phone, from my friend who holds microphones and wails
in an attempt to corral all the searing noise around him
into a cohesive statement. beat. riff. rhythm. anthem,
even rising to the sky, but stopped at last by smog.
songs try their best to find their way out of the city,
in the bumping trunks of riders, in the collapsing chanteuses
somewhere just outside hollywood, the bricked off lofts
of silverlake. I can't get back there. I can't get into it.
I can't even name a street that isn't already famous,
despite the hours behind the wheel of a twelve wheeler.
Someone tells me something about Bukowski, the city making
him what he was. About sleaze and punk and availability of
everything. i think about a poem I wrote ten years ago and
how I heard the subject turned to magic after a collection
of late 90s new wave songs failed to advance his neighborhood.
he is probably on stage tonight, somewhere on the second floor
of a tall building, wearing a funny hat and introducing
women in fancy underwear to a crowd who don't have shows that night.
_________________________________________________________

the opening quote is from Robert Lashley, of Scume Eating, etc, who are in LA right now, or leaving it, on their way to Spokane. The prompt was from Theresa Mitchell, from a while back, who told me to write about a musician who influenced me. I was ostensibly going to write about Rob Zabrecky, from Possum Dixon, a band I liked in High School, but obviously, I ended up writing about LA. As you can tell from the time of day and sloppy prose style, i wrote it at work.

Thursday Night

2011-08-13T15:43:00.000-07:00

looked sort of like this:

"I haven't heard right since we started this band."-cg

2011-08-12T11:06:00.000-07:00

"Noise" means a lot of things to a lot of people. A "noise band" could be basically a rock band that puts their guitars through lots of pedals and never muffles their feedback. To that end, you could describe almost half of Nirvana's catalog as "noise rock." To other people, noise is a nearly entirely electronic affair, a more ambient lull, etc.
last night i read poetry with three noise bands, two of which were an entirely improv-ed affair with shouted adlibbed lyrics, guitar destruction and a healthy sense of catharsis. I'd read with My Printer Broke, (comma is part of the title) when there were violins, keyboards and such involved (many destroyed by the end of the night) but I think they did just as well as a two piece, switching instruments, etc.

I did two sets, one after My Printer Broke and one after Scumeating. As such: set 1:Neo takes the blue pill/about last night/little fear of drowning/the most important meal/beneath the cathedral/isolation therapy The last two I performed with CG making creepy sounds on the guitar, which added a certain tension to otherwise fairly quiet pieces. Set 2:Bloodmoney/Our Favorite Radio Station/Paintings of Famous Satanists For "paintings" I was joined by the last band, Waiting for the Pagans, on noise. It's more challenging to read over two noising guitars, but it was a fun collab. When WFTP played, they turned their amps up all the way and proceeded to fuck their guitars up with hammers, boots, the floor and their own faces. It was unbearably loud, harsh and pretty damn riveting. As Fiona put it "Your set was marvelous. . . and completely terrifying."

Scumeating combine elements of noise, sound-collage, space-rock, punk and disco over driving backbeats, with Robert Lashley (award winning poet and playwright) howling lines like "GET YOR CRACKHEADFRIENDDS OUTTAMYHOUSE!" It isn't something with a direct comparison, but is pretty damn awesome.

Anyway, good night. Next up: I also do weddings.

You never saw me come, you'll never see me go (2 flashquicknesses)

2011-08-10T14:49:00.001-07:00

discman
In times of such economic turmoil, political import and environmental uncertainty, sometimes I simply want to stand, 19 years old, watching a wall of department store tvs condense the whole thing into stupid, simplified sound bites, mewling mouths of anchors and beauty queens rashed out by headphoned metal. I could nod there until everything's dusty and blown away, or rebuilt and shiny, dependent only on the lead salesman to tell me when to move out of the way.

everything else becomes fiction

sometimes I sit on the edge of my southside porch,
drinking french-pressed coffee I bought with government
stamps and wonder how anything ever seems urgent.

then a cop car blazes past, at nine thirty a.m.,
sirens shrieking, lamenting. then a firetruck,
then an ambulance, then three more red-and-blues.
I am halfway into my book, about a young man who
grows older as he wanders around the world unfullfilled,
sleeping with lots of women,satisfying all but
the most wanton, admitting to some of his own flaws
but not others. the dustjacket describes it as
thought-provoking. the sentences are constructed immaculately.

the cop scanners crackle hard in my neighbor's truck.
coffee grounds take over my mouth. a fog, in august,
over the tree-line, and more sirens and two old ladies cross
in the middle of the street,one holding a safeway bag
bulging with onions. they cross in front of a bus,
without even looking. if there weren't raccoons, I don't know
what we'd do about the trash.
soon I will trip down the hill for my own reckoning like I've done daily
for a year and a half, all my life.

dongtan-hwaesong-suwon-seoul

2011-08-02T16:19:00.000-07:00

humidity. the rain is part of the humidity. they aren't separate elements. the bus is underwater. schoolgirls giggle like schoolgirls at the athletes, the soccer players, the tennis instructors, imported from the united states. the run of water. the flow of traffic. diverted into. the disparate looks at a nation that refuses to be submerged. seoul burned, they tell me, it wasn't so tall then, but we rebuilt it. five teenage boys in a war memorial, making jokes at the simulated shooting experience. rushing soldiers overhead in stone. this is what the guns are here for, the 3-d movie and video games, to absorb the weight of jokes and float above them. we try to live peaceful now, but always watch.they remember macarthur. the minibikes speed quick between buses. outside faces condense with a thin film, like what we wrap our beef and sprouts in, this is japanese food, before, it was mongolian. fusion. shoes piled by the door, signs in english and korean and japanese survive bombs and land wars and taste like fusion.
___________________________________________
submitted to Hoarse, so may take it down in a bit, if they choose this and not the other, more ridiculous thing I sent them.

A unit of work:

2011-08-01T12:17:00.000-07:00

Saturday was the zine release party for Erg: A Work Zine at Rainey and Jon's house in the CD. The zine is beautiful (and not online, so unlinkable) and the readings from Martha Reiner, Sierra Nelson, Jonathan Shapiro and Rainey Warren were rad. I did a set near the beginning that consisted of the following pieces: missing every day/isolation therapy/loft poem #3/bloodmoney/neo takes the blue pill

its nice sometimes to give older pieces that don't usually get out much a little air. after that we drank lots of wine and beer and ate oranges and started fires in fire pits and I wasn't the worst off there by any means. we made sure the fire was out before troddling home.

Korea Trip 2011 Wrap - Up Party Program

2011-07-28T21:34:00.000-07:00

Because if I do not write a trip-wrapping up post now, I likely will never do so, and thereby will disappoint myself and possibly others. So! In a convenient multi-list format, here are things about the trip I haven't yet mentioned:

Lies:

* I was not in Busan. For some reason I thought we would be in Busan, but we were not. I was either mistaken or misled or simply a spreader of lies to all I know. But the places I went were: Incheon, Suwon, Seoul, Hwaesong/Dongtan (like, a suburb of Suwon?) and Pyeongchang. Those were the places. Not one day, moment or second in Busan.

* The food was not weird. It was delicious. Some of it was unfamiliar, but I imagine I'll find myself at Korean Restaurants more often these days.

* Formality: maybe it was the camp format, or a concession to American Ways, but it really wasn't terribly formal. I've been in the houses of relatives where I felt less at ease.

Kids:

* as I believe I mentioned before, ten year old boys are ten year old boys no matter where you go. even if they are familiar with, know how to deal with and are well equipped to handle school, they would still rather put chairs on their heads and yell "Teacher! I am Transformer!"

* they love to catch Dragonflies, these kids.

* anna (many children used english names), a 10 year old girl who looked about seven, had braces and was generally quiet, comes up to me the day before departure: "teacher-- you go seattle tommorrow?"yes.
the next day she approaches me with a pen, rolls up my sleeve and writes "I love you. Bey! --anna"

Culture:

* Korea is very Korean. White people in Seattle love to talk about how very White Seattle is, but it's fricken' London compared to Seoul. 99% of Korea is Koreans. . .

. . . but that doesn't mean the city isn't international-capable. The country. Signs in Korean and English. German tv stations in the hotels. Parisian Baguettes. Etc. The whole culture has it's arms open. Which is maybe easier to do when you can present an obviously unified front? I dunno.

* The buildings are tall, but somehow I don't think I'd go insane living there. Maybe it's the inbuilt parks between apartment buildings or the fact that I know in the back of my head I don't speak the language and thereby a lot of the noise would be rendered useless to me, but I think I could do it.

* Not that I'm planning to move.

* There. Necessarily.

other things? maybe. maybe more pictures. maybe links. maybe k-pop videos. but I know how I work and how this blog is and I don't like making promises.

Asahi(koreatrip #7)

2011-07-23T01:20:00.000-07:00

. . . is the Budweiser of Japan. Accordingly, it tastes way better than Budweiser, but was not worth the 8,500 won I spent on my first drink in two weeks at Incheon International.

I've spent about 60,000 won this trip, but much of it today, as time was running out. Flight boards in 15 minutes; accordingly, I'll post a full(ish) recap, with pictures and links and snark and sincerity, later. But three things about the airport:

*"tasteful" korean porn totally available at the the book/video store. "ero blockbuster" the only words in english.
*there is a Dunkin' Donuts here. There is not one in Seatac.
*of COURSE it is Wi-fi-ed. Of course there is an internet lounge. Of course you can charge your ipod at one of the free ipod charging stations past the security checkpoint.

two photos(koreatrip #6)

2011-07-20T15:35:00.000-07:00

we went on a walk up to some buddhist shrines. this is suzanne in a hollowed out log. because of blogger-in-hotel-lobby-shortcomings, this post has taken 20 minutes, and only two pictures instead of like, eight. also, I was posting blind (going only by th ephoto number.)

kids!

Pedagogy (koreatrip #5)

2011-07-19T15:24:00.000-07:00

Day two of teaching went better than day one. This is always the case, you'd think, but it is not, in fact, always the case. (how's that for some bible-style obfuscation?) I'd rather day two be good and things get progressively better, than start good and fall flat.

I'm writing this from the Kensington Flora hotel lobby, which means this, too, shall be a short post. To prove I'm in korea: 아나댐; 나ㅓㅇ댜맺 쟈뎌개누

no idea.

You'd Think. . .(koreatrip #4)

2011-07-16T16:31:00.000-07:00

that in a city like Suwon, next to an international hotel, there would be at least ONE place selling postcards. Cheap, tacky postcards. That I can send to friends, enemies and loved ones.

This, so far, has not been my experience. In further minor frustrations, my camera battery is dead, rendering the picture uploadery I was hoping for undoable at this time. In four hours I'll be on a bus, with the rest of the WBC team, to the countryside, where the real meat of english-teaching will begin.

In the meantime, packing, church, coffee, attempting not to slip into food coma simply from the residual hospitality of the last three days.

Five Videos, Zero Context (koreatrip #3)

2011-07-15T16:53:00.000-07:00

Shabu Shabu (koreatrip #2)

2011-07-14T05:09:00.000-07:00

today we: went to a Korean Folk Village, looked at ways people in Korea lived as the Euroamerica we know today was still in it's nascency. Visited a Korean high school. Went to the Nam June Paik Art Center. I wish I'd have had more time there, possibly alone, but getting to go was big to me. Ate Shabu Shabu, a dish Japan stole from Mongolia, then Korea stole from Japan. I am so full and warm right now.

The humidity here is pervasive. Tommorrow we're heading to Seoul.

International Dateline.(koreatrip #1)

2011-07-13T18:52:00.000-07:00

Traveling over the pacific, one skips a day. Arrived in Incheon last night to travel over the longest bridge I've known to float. Korean Air is the poshest sort of economy class and they are, as you can see, very proud of their flight attendant's poise, posture and legs.

The flight was ten hours. I watched five movies. Cedar Rapids, Win Win, The Lincoln Lawyer, Ceremony, and Season of the Witch. Brief rundown: Ed Helms is good at both mocking and venerating good-hearted naive types (and in this way the movie felt strangely old-fashioned), Paul Giamatti Giamattis pretty hard, but not quite oscar-level Giamatti-ing, pretty good, a Max Winkler joint and where have I heard that name before? kinda smug but pulls it together at the end and THE BEST MOVIE EVER.

Hotel is good, jetlag bad, gotta hit up a Folk Village.

s2b

2011-07-12T08:48:00.000-07:00

in an hour I leave for:

We will arrive there in twelve hours.

I should make sure I've got my toothbrush packed and at least one light pair of socks.

This time next week, I will be in Korea.

2011-07-07T15:18:00.000-07:00

South.

This isn't something I've really kept blogupdated about, because taking a trip is exciting, preparing for a trip is tedious. Preparing for a trip when said preparations require frequent trips out of town*, taking time off an already too-lite workload and asking people for money so you can go on said trip, well, that is tedious, exhausting, frustrating and one must make the choice for it to not be embarrassing**.

That said, as I've observed elsewhere, consistently impressed with the support and generosity of friends and family. So much to do in the next few days.

That said, amuse/distract yourself with this bit of lite-political musing. There's a few points he draws a bit broad, but hey.

*Stanwood, which is no Busan, but still
**I've largely successfully made that choice, and no one's made me feel like I should be be embarrassed. I think "embarrassed" is just a place I find myself easily.

News From Home

2011-07-05T16:08:00.000-07:00

the t-shirt factory burned down and now he have nothing to wear on the tops of our bodies. your uncle painted his torso with the melted skin of the factory workers. the rest of town saw that and liked it. now we walk around beating our chests and thinking of clever designs. Some of the knitting circle sold their sewing machines to pay for glue. Skin gets flakey. There'd been a plan, approved by the mayor and everything, to boost civic pride by creating apparel based on the sillouhette of the water tower and catfish billboard by city limits. The idea, your cousin tells me, is to sell them to chiseled men and tall women to wear sexily in other
states, but now all our cloth is smoke. No one can put our town on their bodies, the jobs are all grumpy and angry, fruit is sad and wilty and we've been removed from wikipedia. This is what the mayor told us when he visited for dinner. We had my famous lamb-chops and he asked about you, what you're doing, I said I wasn't sure because your letters are so vague. We all had a laugh about that, except
for your aunt, who is not well and refuses to stay awake in church. When you come, bring anynews clippings about your activities, some smelling salts and sweaters. It will be winter by then,
I'm sure.

Falling down is not magic

2011-07-02T22:08:00.000-07:00

Thursday's Hoarse reading--complete with welsh magicians, cake, lots of awesome readers and deepstomach laughter-- and last night's Drink for the Kids (benefitting Vera) were good but sitting completely alone in my house without music on, tacos impending, this is good. Soon I will watch Peep Show and sleep.

But! It should be noted that I'm not just imagining how fun the Hoarse! readings are, or how (coughcoughterriblewordalert) "vibrant" and "diverse" (ughgross) Seattle's "literary community" (AAAAAAAAAAGGGGH!) is, as evidenced by Emily Wittenhagen's awesomely enthused manifesto of the this is why we do this variety.

I like the part about Jurassic Park.

Feeeeels like the first time.

2011-06-30T11:46:00.000-07:00

I once wrote about that song (but not ABOUT THAT SONG, you know, deep) but have since abandoned the poem. Still like the song.

Tonight, in Belltown, at a theater with a lot of red curtains I'll be reading at the HOARSE! release party for issue #3. Houdini.

Repost: Barrooms/Community Building.

2011-06-27T13:14:00.001-07:00

In this article, Stranger books editor Paul Constant makes a call for a "writer's bar" where the entirety of Seattle's literary community can gather. It's not a bad idea; I think it's healthy for writers of different styles-- entirely different styles, not just different styles of fiction or poetry-- to rub elbows and bounce ideas. Take the ingredients you like from an essayist and put it into your short story. Things like that.
That said, I do wonder if Seattle (and other) literary types get too into "being literary." A good bar where you can talk as pretentiously as possible about whatever you've read or are working on-- that's a rad idea. but it'll always need to be balanced by the good bars where you can people watch, write in solitude or, gasp, places and activities not involving alcohol.

which I could use a bit more of lately.

off in a bit to meet with Brian about Works in Progress, which if I haven't talked about here yet, I'm not unpacking now.

Go to Sleep With the Light On

2011-06-24T12:30:00.000-07:00

the last day of my 20s I stood in a narrow room where they asked me questions about incarceration history and my sexual habits and stole blood from my right pointer finger and inspected my arms for veins and elbows for bruising. later, but not much later, I stared at the sheetrock ceiling as narrow tubes sucked fluids from my body and gaunt-eyed women with needles and tape walked slowly to their charges. My jeans are torn at the cuff and stringy at edges, as they've been since birth. This place is like a hospital, that gives you money. The ceiling is like a hospital's. The white coats are like doctor coats. The halogen lights are like, the beds are like, but they won't let you sleep. The nurses thump the side of the pillows. A man in a trucker hat and grey beard and freckled arm starts, almost pulling his needles out. This is like some other beds I've slept in, where the ceiling and lights and noises kept me from rest and I pulled blankets and arms off me before shuffling back into daylight, through tinted glass doors, in rudimentary bandages, no goodbyes. The man who unhooks me is tired but friendly, sees my novel and tells me if he could be anyone in literature he'd be in The Brothers Karimazov, and he'd be Aloyisha. The good one.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

This is the first thing I've written since turning 30 on tuesday. I will probably turn it into a Haibun. Thanks to Ryan for the prompt. I am bad at spelling Russian names.

Faith Without Works/Ties that Bind/Toby Shiner's Jacket.

2011-06-16T12:59:00.000-07:00

jewelry rained from the top of the sears building and
the hockey jerseys glowing in the light of the carfires
raised chants, broke windows, someone tweeted pictures
picked up by the news.

in the largely empty workroom a computer plays anarchist
folk rock from the thirties. we drink prime whisky on a
brown carpet. the novelist unfolds deserting the "movement"
slowly, halting to shake his head. "we were just kids."
bleak unraveling of belief in brick and mortar and black masks.

conflicting reports as to what this actually means.
a sort of populist chaos. the petulance of spoiled children.
inevitable release of Id in a building full of people,
the outflow of violence. loud noises! ooh, shiny! fuck the fuckers!

at my 19, the ponytail had ceased to be political. the
les schwab jacket, two sizes too big, gifted by a friend was
also not a political statement, or an ironic one, but it did
make me feel bit harder than maybe I was. when the protests turned
to riots turned to A Battle In Seattle and cameras swarmed
and my co-reporters at The Polaris took their tender skin to get
broken by rubber bullets on the second day, bragging on
the fuckedupness of the thing I knew that I had to finish the week
without these bragging rights, the anarchy of the restless, the bravado
of tourists.

To Fix the Gash In Your Head

2011-06-14T15:11:00.000-07:00

Perpetual States

To be forever eating, to be forever drinking, never sated. What they said it would be like in hell (a variety of sources, don't ask me to be specific,) the vice of choice shoveling, battering, inundating. To be forever packing snowballs with no one to throw them at. To be forever pissing, never relieved (bad example: in the act itself there is relief)what they said hell would be like when they believed in it. Sometimes the bus is forever turning a corner and Jerry is always just missing his connector. At times like this the sky remains exactly the same as it was the moment before and pieces of bread fall from the old lady's hand to the pigeons (who eat the crumbs, this old lady is not in hell.) At times like this, and sometimes at other times, Jerry thinks of Joe Wenderoth, sitting in Wendy's, completely dazed on cough medicine and perpetually wanting to fuck the red, soft, wet
mouth of the girl at the register. How sore would you get, from shifting in your seat, due to that wanting, and what about those days when people think you terrible for disenjoying their picnic and being unthankful for your peeling sunburn? There are a few of us, and we are forever realizing we aren't alone.

I wrote these both in under 25 minutes at work. Or you could read James Burns' Largely Correct rant/take on Indie Rock in all it's linguistic meaninglessness. I quibble with some definitions, but I think the larger thrust of what he says is well stated and something I'd have written here but am lazy and hate writing about music a lot of the time.

Pinching, Pulling

Crabs running sideways in sunglasses make me hop quicker than a dance with "hop" in the title ever could. My girlfriend is hungover from wine and whisky after wandering the streets of Columbia City lost but nonplussed. Eventually the bar (there's always one of those) overcharged me for drinks and the man who makes a living playing guitar on cruise ships was talking to the off-duty bartender. It was like a dance. Or hop. The woman he will see later is in California, so it will be much later. I think the off-duty bartender's swooping dark hair has him convinced. Successfully, I guide my wandering girlfriend to her whisky-ginger, which is now mainly melted ice (I hadn't known about the earlier wine) and in low light I still drink IPAs like they were ales with half the strength (maybe why I always have a headache) and the on-duty bartender is reluctant to do anything at all. Half the walk home I had my fingers through blonde hair, staggery past fields of disused tires. This morning I was glad I can give directions and cook eggs, because if there'd been a pack of wild dogs, I doubt I'd have been able to fight them off.

"This reminds me of bellingham.""this reminds me of ellensburg."

2011-06-10T14:30:00.000-07:00

In everett last night I read the following poems in the following order: doot doot de doot(summer)/pink laces and kierkegaard/fear of drowning/genus, species and flavour/bellevue/most important meal/body party/rugby '08/swansea-cardiff (b'ham ed)/story problem
For the record. The open mic was mainly guitar players but there were a couple interesting folks who got up and simply read. The crowd was supportive and I succeeded in feeling okay about the whole thing. Sold some broadsides, but the quagga remain.

It is still weird doing a reading with your folks in the front row.

The drive to and from Everett, what with stopping to get/drop off people/acquire necessary goods was around 3 hours of driving.
I don't hold to the popular-with-some belief that all suburbs are terrible, soul-crushing places, but Lynnwood, Wa., which is pretty much designed to be driven, still saps a whole lot of time getting from one place to the next. Yeesh.

tonight, rachel and i will hope her car doesn't break down when we drive to georgetown with the intention of drinking beer, being in fun places and getting the fuck away from cap hill for a night.

content soon?
content, soon?
maybe.

appropos to Music: I think the Dum Dum Girls are aptly named. I got their doing the Youtube-hop game from Male Bonding, who I think are pretty good.

I can't make your (event),

2011-06-08T22:21:00.000-07:00

I shall be spending all day and evening drawing pictures of Quaggas next to a poem about breakfast and wondering what the fuck to do about eating.

The Mason Jar of Timeliness Says You Just Missed a Guarantee.

2011-06-07T13:12:00.000-07:00

Workburrow. Arrived at the Library an hour early (like I usually do) with the intention of listening to music, writing, sending necessary corrospondences (like I usually do.) Network was down. Spent some time with Devils and a maple bar.

Shortly after arriving at my shift, computers flicker back on and the students swarmed. I tend to intend to Write Something, but company time isn't my time and I suppose it's not fair to grump out on a poor student for interrupting a haibun about Concrete or some such thing.

Last night was my first night actually Hosting Hugo House's Works In Progress open mic. We ran it about the same way, save that after 9pm the time limit drops from 5 to 3 minutes and instead of playing a soothing A chord on an instrument of folky troubadors, I clear my throat all growly-like to let people know when they're finished. Some good readers last night and good energy. I thin people tipped Garth more than they did me.

Pics to follow, probably.

Also, a Taint Joke In there Somewhere. . .

2011-05-31T18:44:00.000-07:00

Oblong table, grandma at one head
and the kids and parents all on Chili
with cheese, theology and consequence
hanging from the chandelier like decorative
eggs, over the spoon-beatings the youngest
gives her beans and meat.
Consequences.
Reactions.
Spirals.
The pull of corrupting influence,
our matriarch nodding about "bad influences
tainting" like sour cream in good chili
or bits of peppers, why are there always
peppers, gross, eventually becoming a
veritable morass that sucks one into it,
such truth.
the family that prays together.
wisdom, generational.
Catching on, in the dining room, not-as-little
sister observes sagely that it's always good to avoid
sucking morasses, if there were a corner, mother's
look says, you'd be standing in it. Grandma
continues, unabated, eating, littlest sister continues
failing to stir. At some point someone says "you guys!"
And the theology still hangs from the chandelier
they put in my alotment of upcoming testaments;
you don't have to carry it with you, but you'll
have to come back and get it some day, this black
and white, bound-by-the-holders of your silverware,
finish the cold chili and face whether this is
the dish you'll serve to your own-- wait, sucking morass
gah, ugh. Duh. So bad.

GSH

2011-05-29T16:22:00.000-07:00

R.I.P.

There'll be peace.

2011-05-25T15:58:00.000-07:00

Flaying Babies

2011-05-17T14:12:00.000-07:00

Piling up some rejection e-mails from places I'd like to be published in less because I read themm all the time and more because it'd be cool to say "I've been published in___________"

That said, hell or highwater, I'm compiling a new collection to send to various places and people, specifically with the intention of not self-publishing this time around. It's not that I'm "done" with Self-Publishing, but I wouldn't help footing the bill, booking gigs and whatnot. Already stacking up pieces; range from a few pieces I'm already-sorta-sick-of-reading-live to stuff written just the other day.
More on this as it develops, or not.

Toda at the Loft (from whence I write this) I helped a high schooler write a paper on A Modest Proposal. Saying that essay is still a high-water mark in satire is like commenting on the wetness of water, the greasiness of cheap pizza, the annoying irritation that are lapdogs.
But still-- you forget how dark it is until you're trying to work "making boots out of the skinned babies" into a rhetorical essay about exaggerated persona.

Because I don't have that much to say about "Goblin"

2011-05-11T16:30:00.000-07:00

I wrote about Police Teeth.

and how "post punk" is not a thing.

and now I'm going to watch a new Archer episode. Days on are half on, days off are half-off. So it goes.

Meeting Neighborhood Needs

2011-05-09T00:08:00.000-07:00

it's commonly agreed that knife-throwing
is a good reason to end a relationship,
or a good way to end a relationship,
all the helping idea books say so.

it's with this in mind that there are such large
magnets overhead,to keep the hand-holding
and quicking kissing going.
as the tourists or townspeople walk through
this district, staring at tea-shop windows
or contemplating vintage autos,
all the knives are sucked from their pockets.

the money, too, but no one ends
relationships over that, the helping books
advise that there are deeper and greater
rewards than pennies flying out of pants.

it's with this in mind that the following district
is furnished with gorgeous apartments
for people to have sex in public places
in which to loudly discuss the length and curve
of pubic hairs and then laugh and
say "oh, you're so bad," because this is part
of an open society and plus, what else will people do
once their wallet has been stolen by sky-magnet;
can't get back-- one needs money for the trolley.

Body Party . . .

2011-05-03T14:29:00.000-07:00

can now be found online at the current issue of beat the dust.
Thanks to David Oprava for the nomination.

Other news, Saturday was the Your Hands Your Mouth release party for issues 8 and 9. We had ten people reading in the living room. TEN. And hey, it went well. Readers (from last to first): Robert Lashley, Greg Bem, Jessica Lohafer, Jay Steingold, Chris Gusta (break!) Cate McGehee, Ryan Johnson, Caren Scott, Rainey Warren and Jake Tucker.

Phew.

Easy Misses (27/30)

2011-04-27T10:41:00.001-07:00

down the gravelway
the bus passes two seconds too early
and late for a meetup in Fremont (phinney, really,
I always make that distinction now) before
a show that starts late, thankfully
but the meet and greet is canceled
and that's the most important part.

this is all just throughout the course of the day.
there are also the submission deadlines, respond-to-dates,
job-postings, flirtation windows, the time
when you linger just longer over a friendly goodbye.

sometimes, you hit. sometimes, I just make the last
train. but the arbitrarity of it all makes it feel
like throwing darts, blindfolded, at a spinning target.
the detonators next to the bullseye. don't miss.

The Hard Life of the Calloused Fingers

2011-04-25T22:23:00.000-07:00

the seventies-style lampshade, dented in three
ascending spots is the thin shield between his life
as a teacher and life as a writer. starting a poem he
swivels to the deepest dent, almost, almost a rip
and takes a swig from the engraved flask he received
post-graduating, a ritual more than anything, this
is the same rum from two weeks ago. but he considers
"poets are thirsty creatures" for the next title
of a book, essay, something. trolls the new medias
for new medium, reads a story about depreciating
values of degrees and vice versa.

circle-paces his porch, perking ears for neighborhood gunshots.
haven't been in years. one of students asked him
what life was like in the olden days, squeezing childish
truth-telling into teenage dickishness, but professionalism
forbids one from getting feelings hurt.

back inside. the rum remains stubbornly in the flask,
he doesn't reach for it. tosses a stress ball
at the ceiling; it only ever when things are breaking,
what happened to the last lamp, but he saved the shade.
forty minutes later, a finished product on his screen,
exhausted but not sleepy, sober but fuzzy-visioned,
the slow trot of some forgotten reference winces
through his backbrain--

as long as standards keep dropping. . .it says,
but doesn't finish the sentence.

3 Stabs at Something Devotional

2011-04-24T23:29:00.000-07:00

3 Stabs at Something Devotional

1.
Easter best, spilling out of aisles into standing room,
arm-raising room, huge hugs and decorative hats.

The pastor looks extra sharp. The choir has extra soul.
The sun affirms our open curtains, congregation swelling

in warmth, enthusiasm, ties. All the common distractions remain,
when special music performs an original song in starched

whites, the repetitive end-rhymes with "Jesus"
get really silly really quickly, at least in my head.

2.
Clouds break over Camano, Eagles wingspanning
through inspirational-poster sunscapes. If you could see these
trees, these-- the evergreens' warm stoicism, the cliffsedge chapel,
the quiet, the quiet
the quiet.

3.
It takes so long to get to work.
Between the morning's panic,
arrival's realization that all attempts
at buttoned proffessionalism
are futile,

is the cold trot up to the corner
breathing in my street, scuffing
gravel, taking my place to wait

between book-clutching kids
off to school and old men in
red-trimmed fedoras, tsking at their
watches but relaxed;

it'll come.

Our Favorite Radio Station (22/30)

2011-04-22T15:04:00.000-07:00

By bits and pieces the bendy bus chunked and disintegrated down
into a small, two-door enter-and-exit bus, the whole back
passengership darting backwards down the highway, like cereal falling
back into the box, but we kept driving. The winds tore the roof off
the bus and the doors, too, so we turned up the radio so we could
hear the song. It was a favorite. I was driving and prefer music
to conversation with most humans and now we were in a mini van;
probably some schrapnel that stuck, and all the seats with
the last of the passengers had bounced down the road
like soccer balls down a hill and the sound was loud and bright
but the song wasn't quite as good.

"I can't believe what--"

"Man. That wasn't a party, that was a--"

"Lets stop for a milkshake. The whole thing has made me hungry for rasberry."

We rolled, bits of wet slapping our faces through the windshield-craters and I have to keep shaking bits of what seems like milk? cream? cottage cheese? out of my eyes, steady the wheel with both hands so the wind doesn't take us and we pass it, overturned Dairigold truck spewing it's wares like pressurized gas.

"It's disturbing how quick that's coming out."

We roll over a deer and with two quick jolts we're in a station wagon. We've passed through two bale-wire strip mall towns and now the clouds are purple. The mini-van, the bus and the party? was it? seem so far back. The radio screes like rubbing styrofoam and soon fuzzes out.

"This far north, our favorite station is no longer an option."

"This far north, most things are no longer options."

A Passionate Tome of Perpetually Increasing Relevance

2011-04-21T15:33:00.000-07:00

or Arguably the Third Best Thing is Sunday Dresses

In the end, it doesn't really matter what Earl Sweatshirt is doing.
What matters is the idea of Earl Sweatshirt, and that he's done something so
awesome, so subversive, that at sixteen he is a martyr for a cause, like
the West Memphis Three-in-one, a derangedly real manifestation of outsider art, that
he is someone to "Free." This is kind of a healthy rallying point, I suppose,
that get-free urge, no matter, almost whom (give us barabbas!) you're opting to free;
most other high volume chants start with "fuck" or "destroy" or at least "give us". .
see above.
but probably what matters (whether or not Young Master Sweatshirt will ever
find justice) is that, in some small way, there is an Earl Sweatshirt inside all of us,
a young, smart, idiot being lectured at a youth camp in Samoa about why making
hit singles about raping people or eating their sandwiches or whatever
isn't cool.
In this sort of climate, calling you baby, a term I've always thought was sorta creepy
or at least weird, seems not so bad. Almost Heroic, even. There is a baby inside
everyone, not in a cannibal way, but in the way that potentially, we are all someone's
baby, or could be, if we could only lose weight or get muscles or knew how
to dance dances from tropical climate. It is this thought that makes
this other thought-- that when he returns Sweatshirt will be born-again and they'll change
their name to God Future (skaleluia!)like so many of us, but
ultimately (baby)
there is a war going on, which is like saying that there is a sky above
and a ground below in terms of novelty but why not be reminded
and baby, I guess what I'm really trying to say
is that the best thing about mainstream church culture
is the food, obviously
but the second best thing
clearly are the puns.

Just More Victims of Seattle's Crisi-Proportion Budget Shortfall

2011-04-20T10:52:00.000-07:00

the roadside raccoon is starting to stink.
the sidewalk grass unmowed on
this southend arterial, at first
passersby nodded or shook their
heads or took pictures of the
perfectly preserved, taxidermy-ready
fur, just half a block from the corner store
and you don't see that everyday.

now the bits of bone, orange
and black and flies and oh, geez
has something been eating it?

a block and a half down the new
bus stop with clean seats and
black and white photography
is dented and mangled and
shattered by a a swerving
night truck that also took
out most of the fence by the
mexican food store.

a quick repair or replacement
seems unlikely.

Lynnwood Transit Center (17/30)

2011-04-17T20:39:00.000-07:00

here, under the shelter, as dusk takes the evergreen tops

framing the confrence center and the edge of a strip mall

serving to define this sprawltown, incorporated 50 years ago,

borders, naming, everything arbitrary, necessitating later

incorporations of further sprawl, farther out, but this is

Snohomish County's first great thumbprint.

Why this sunset, post-hail, post-blood-draw, post-job-interview,

dropping down over moist pavement, seems to drag me with it,

I'm not sure. They happen all the time, sunsets, but the uninvited

reminiscences--

six years old, losing my family in the alderwood mall,

making the journey from Sears to JC Penny near-tears

and the salesgirl giving me a Snickers while i waited

for my dad to trek the distance of the mall--

make for cold company at a transit center in the town my best friend and I,

fifteen years ago searched for case-split abandoned Megadeth CDs on racks

between fishing rods and belt sanders. The town keeps growing, but

never gets any bigger. A man with an excellent mustache whistles,

seemingly knowing something I don't. Another Community Transit

passes, third in a row marked Out of Service.

Such Sweet Company (16/30)

2011-04-17T20:21:00.000-07:00

In the company of angry poets
In the company of those who repeatedly forget
your name
your name in
the company of noise musicians
the company of ferret breeders
the company of horse race predictors

predicting
predicting bad
predicting bad losses
predicting win big
predicting win big forever
predicting the company
of knuckle-rappers
of doom-sign holders
of bad bad actors
predicting the company will take its labor elsewhere

elsewhere standards are flexible
elsewhere anyone can toss the die
elsewhere, your name gets laminations

your name
your name
your name.

______________________________________________________

Let's Get Out of Here, Scooby (14/30)

2011-04-14T10:53:00.001-07:00

"shine your lonely light on me/I'll be there to hold the mirror" --m. lanegan

huge bone trees, bits of meat still clinging,
hang over a swamp, like the one Taran wandered through
on his way to the Cauldron, witches waiting,
companion's harpstrings breaking at every
confession of courage.

this isn't news or anything worth reporting,
the ghosts that run this place have been building
creepier versions of nature for the last fifty years
as thick black smoke turns to thin grey smoke
turns to tar in the water.

there are talks of turning the whole marsh into
blood, and giving the herons and various snakes
terrifying yellow eyes and huge boney fangs,
but the ghost union is still in negotiations ever
since the brood of Warlocks moved their meetings

to a new location, decrying Ghost of Missing Child Swamp
as "just way too obvious, I mean, we aren't LARPers."
The rats, huge NIMH-descendent monsters from
Norway scurry to and rom the neibhboring village
which carries on, oblivious or ambivalent, Wal-Mart protests, drag strip races,
kids gone missing, children's story time at the library.

Just in Cases (12/30)

2011-04-12T10:28:00.000-07:00

the early birds
have hit it hard
at what-the-fuck AM,
internal clocks alarming
all over my already-barely sleep.

the last cold snap hit me
in a thin coat
with finger-sized hail
as I walked a ridge
half-mile away from
shelter, my only thought
was "OF COURSE."

the first bright stretch
of more than a day
had me on one of a series
of criminally underutilized porches
in my life, making and unmaking
decisions, making plans but
signing no contracts,
a thick coat in my backpack.

A Poem For, But Not About, Breakfast (11/30)

2011-04-11T11:50:00.000-07:00

The egg carton is down to three already; the slow pillage has begun.

Ten minutes in any direction from a reliable source of protein,
his car breaks down. A thread from the uphostered ceiling
detatches, grazes his nose. His face salts up the steering wheel while his
stomach pulls uppercuts and starts mocking.

why are you hitting yourself? why are you hitting yourself?

The juice is tasting vinegary, but we are not sure; that may
just be because it is organic.

His phone crunches and buzzes out beneath his boot. Instantly
indistinguishable from the surrounding pebbles and weeds. He
does not regret this destruction of a false hope; relatives did not answer,
the local parish was pre-recorded and AAA is a cruel myth told to children.

They wander around, opening cupboards and closing them
and opening them again just in case. One person takes a dirty spoon
off the counter and thrusts it into an open jar of peanut butter, scraping, digging.

By this time, he thinks, he could have just walked to a store,
but how would he heft the bags, squishing shifting with irritating
plastic sounds, all the way back to the house, what is ten minute drive
in walking time? It is too late now, staring at the ground, driver's side open,
a lone truck passes but does not stop, a lovers-bearing convertible
does the same. Everything he thought he knew about human kindness . . .

Where is he? One of them asks, taking off their shoe? He was supposed
to be back by now. This is not enough eggs. The other smears bacon grease
all up and down the last piece of bread and divides it amongst
us like a miracle. We are far past breakfast time now.

The cars on the highway pass more frequent now, one even stops
but he waves them on. It is too late. His car will rust right there on the
yellow line. He holds his face, even when the state-mandated towers
latch their hooks to the bumper; reckless endangerment and a guilty plea sounding like:

all I wanted
were some real hand-smoked links.
breakfast is the most important meal of the day, you know.

ginsbergia (9/30)

2011-04-10T14:36:00.000-07:00

Last night, after a day of weariness and ping-pongy feelings (some other time, k?) I stopped in around midnight at SPLAB's Allen Ginsberg Poetry Marathon. It is a yearly thing they do, seeing how long they can keep people doing Ginsbergy stuff (reading responses, reading his work, watching films related to the beats movement, etc.) I guess this year they broke the record with something like 11 hours straight. I was only there for about an hour and a half of it and I started falling asleep (check the sweet picture of me looking half-dead) but it was a great time while I was awake and the new SPLAB (Spoken Word Lab) room in Columbia City is really warm and home-y feeling. For as much as I liked the Columbia City Cinema, this new room is way inviting. I started this piece there and have finished it just now. The last couple days I have been writing, but more of a journal-ish feel about the last couple of weeks' ups and downs (again, some other time) but this one is an actual poem, at least.

ginsbergia

the corpses go by so fast,
all exquisite, just in time
to start the film about poems
and men who write them
and women who love them
and also write, with splayed-fingered
gestures into microphones.
the room around us, draped
in a history of education and
host to ghost mice, amputee moths
and cold pizza, admiration,
adoration skate the hand-rail border
of literal, spiritual worship,
if it were possible to worship
half-sprawled off a couch.
the men with the poems
and the women with the poems
and the men with the women
with the men with the poems
and the lateness of the night
and brown warmth of the
room helped our own words,
scattered and mashed in a blind flail,
resonate as some sort of knotted rope
tossed from past traditions
into the near future
lined, wrinkled, blessed with ink.

I like Ginsberg, but don't hold him (or the beats in general) in the same regard as many people do. I wanted that to communicate without it seeming like I was making fun of anyone. Probably a blog/essay about the Weight of the Beats has already been written, but I've got enough thoughts about it I may toss that up here sometime.

acrobatics/advice (7/30)

2011-04-07T16:31:00.000-07:00

guru

before writing, she says, you should do some jumping jacks.
maybe a somersalt or two. it's what she tells anyone, writer or not,
when they're in a bind. it works best for joint problems, or occasional
sex advice, hit or miss when dealing with depression and has
never once efffectively taught someone to parallell park.

but the advice holds true, and if you know where to find her,
she'll find a way to apply stretches and jogging to
tax problems. some people swear by it, tie their laptops
to their thighs, do rounds of twenty and check for lost data.

there's worse advice, I suppose, but in the library where I work,
as in most libraries, physical activities are discouraged. even
the knuckle crack at this, the moment the piece becomes self-aware,
will have to suffice, and the inherent issues in jumping jacks, flexibility
or the efficacy of consistent advice will have to go un-addressed,

i just know that so many times the punches landed verbally hit harder
but the miles run mentally don't add up to much. maybe this is the secret;
knowing when to take the best of it and just apply it all the time. still,
even if I could somersalt down the street, jumping jack my way to publication
or stretch my left leg behind my head
I probably wouldn't.
_________________________________

prompt from catherine mitchell.

Snacktime for Jimmy (5/30)

2011-04-05T09:42:00.000-07:00

This started as a piece about a panhandling alien and his carnivorous pet. Then it got strange.

It should be noted, that there on the corner, with the sign and the bell and the large, pungeant creature (probably a dog) when he refers to the "motherfuckers" he's using figurative language and the application thereof is fluid and open to interpretation (like entertainment expenses on a five star business trip, like kink-levels in mid-20s, like one's "contribution" to community living)

but that does not mean, when he stomps and rings and shouts impolite things, that he is insincere. Make no mistake, he did not blaze down from whatever broken-off asteroid-- he has corrected passerbys that there's no such thing as "planets" where he comes from-- that he did not blaze from space with any intentions of a soft-sell.

There are things-- ring ring-- that the motherfuckers don't want you to know! Don't want you to do! Where I come from you don't just walk by someone with outstretched tenacles and his giant shag beast! Motherfuckers! Because on the hurtling space rock I escaped with my life, that is rude!

He was not formally trained in the ways of sales, despite his choice of colognes.

It's been debated by those he'd have choice names for what to do. He demands nothing but attention, still, his creature (affectionately referred to by out of town soccer teams as "jimmy") eats smaller pets. That's the danger of our all-pets no-babies zoning ordinance. The city council watches secret footage of him, with the sign and the bell and the proclamations and collectively scratch their chins. Oh, for want of a beard. He's been good for tourism.

I've been thinking of getting an eighth cat.

Do you suppose actual motherfuckers are getting offended? He's awfully vague.

In the cold dark of the 15 month rainy season, make no mistake. Jimmy is hungry. Passersby often confuse pet and master, as disembodied legs and asses walk cats around the block and shoulderblades biceps ride their great danes into battle. All are terrified of Jimmy, but mating rituals forbid such admittances.

The Duck no longer passes that corner.

Sometimes, the city council stares wistfully out the window and thinks of simpler times, sitting on fire escapes, torturing last gasps out of innocent vegetation, practicing chest bumps, drinking simpler times. The city council then sighs and goes to put on a nostalgic ballad, which is where it falls apart; they can never agree on the song.

Ultimately, it becomes a problem of zoning. Make no mistakes; the motherfuckers know the difference between being called upon, invoked and called out and they will abide no such disrespect. They've dealt with this sort of thing before, but usually in forests or mountaintops or cornfields or the set of Community but rarely on corners beneath malls and huge stacks of hollowed out legos and large pictures of handsome strangers without shirts on-- why are there no shirts on? why?

If they decide on tourism, there will be glass cages and informational kiosks and Societies For the Preservation Of___If they decide on Business, the corner will, though permanently stained, will be the Former Site Of____ and there will be a plaque and maybe a photo opportunity, but by and large, handsome shirtless strangers will rule the day from on high.

If they decide on revenge, they may get more than they bargained for.

In a basement a few degrees north, terrified pet-owners give eachother deep-tissue massages and weep openly about what's happened. They do not have a name-- the group, the pets, the owners-- they merely remember the day they passed the corner and all the-- oh. they don't want to talk about it.

The only thing taken from these meetings, the only recorded piece of advice is a man playing ragtime on a toy piano, but slowed to such a degree that one could shout MOTHERFUCKER! between each note. Which, make no mistake, is how things like this always go.

Last of the Coffee/Bad Place to Live on a Roof (4/30)

2011-04-04T15:07:00.000-07:00

Not sold on either of these, but it's what I got for today.

Last of the Year Old Coffee Beans

All the tea is flower-flavored
a few stray beans claim the counter
but the bag is empty.

Without it, there is no where for the contemplative to go.
Watching the flat-roofs of the complex downhill
swamp up with your town's famous drizzle
becomes a day's worth.

Morning and afternoon are the same angry,
sunday-funnies nag, rolling pin in hand,
arms crossed.

The trip to the corner store for refills
is, in and of itself, a triumph.
________________________
Seattle is a Bad Place to Live on a Roof

But the gardens are so green,
and the fruits so rich and lush
and the misty skies made for contemplation.

Harold doesn't need a watering can.
His favorite R.E.M. album is Life's Rich Pageant.
He lives in a house made entirely of glass
and wood and occasional steel, for effect,
raised and situated between other houses,
stacked upon eachother and shrank and
given new names.
There must be some sort of way
to solve the world's problems
while keeping the soundtrack tasteful
and hands clean.

It is a beautiful thing, to stare into the sky, eyes open
with each individual drop careening toward you,
the lone april robin on the wire, shifting it's view
towards all the rain and puddles and you,
lying their on your rooftop home
you got for such a good deal.

April is National Poetry Month. (2/30)

2011-04-02T13:24:00.001-07:00

a lot of people will be writing a poem a day. I probably won't. But I'll write more, post some of the good ones.

post

waiting for a letter
early spring, when sludge turns to mud
beneath big-wheelers in the driveway
and kids set off fireworks because they can,
then run behind the pickups
when cars from the arterial left-turn up
our street

is the strangest thing.
the brevity of excitement
at the sound of every engine, thought
that sunshine should somehow
make it quicker,

this information,
coming at what seems
a crawl, it is the strangest thing
that people still get their news
this way, by foot, by hand, by wheel.

waiting for the response
in early spring, as the bugs get active on the skin
and you're ready to move forward
but distract yourself with clicks and whistles
glancing out the window
at the street
and the kids swarming
the ice cream truck.

Chills

2011-03-27T19:14:00.001-07:00

"Jerry scared all the fish away with his loud personal story."

2011-03-26T11:36:00.000-07:00

Lazy saturday: Huluing Parks and Rec, The Office, bronwyn is making french toast and coffee, blankets.
later heading up to Stanwood with Dad to visit the grandmas and see some blues at the Hotel Tavern.

dances we do in cold weather.

2011-03-21T18:53:00.000-07:00

in greys and muted reds, they're shooting a music video.
all natural light. glasgow rarely looks so post-chilled
chill.

the last time a calm this deep landed
in a grey-grit town
it was Manchester,
after someone's comedown lent them
the necessary zen for life epiphanies,
the sort between scheme and high-rise,

leap and landing. the records never sold,
but the books about making them did.

i guess we were all so young, we didn't know what we were doing, really
there's always a suspicion, in weather like this,
that the next minutes will bring back Death
in full-cloaked glory, voiced by the seven most ominous
actors we can think of, overdubbed, re-looping
a constant thud, while we, like a great stream of
rats, follow him into warehouse catacombs

it keeps them restless, this time, behind the camera.
only the pictures stay calm. behind each beat, behind
each grimacing, pretend-to-be-bothered worker mugging
a hello for hometown heroes, is the entire driving force
of a million dancing kids pockmarking

something special. of whole rainy puddle rituals
disrupting the epiphanies, destroying half of Europe
before the camera can even be clicked off, carried
on ships to America, where the grim spectacle starts again.

yeah, if I had to do it over, I guess I would. Its hard to know,
though.
in muted greys and bricks, the echoes bounce off the walls,
one more busted jaw youngster looking for a party, for someone
with a large coat and commanding voice
to tell them which dance is next.
______________________________________________

the prompts were to write about the black death. to write about the nu romantics. i made it into a sandwich. edits to follow.

Cheap Wine and Poetry

2011-03-21T15:06:00.000-07:00

Went well. Seattle poet/promoter Greg Bem recorded it and you can listen to it on the internet.
I performed first, opening for Sierra Nelson, Rebecca Hoogs and Emmet Montgomery. I genuinely enjoyed everyone who read-- Emmet did a sort of genre-blurring comedy/autobio/poetry set (you could say he "gave a talk"), Rebecca read some smart, occasionally sexy "page" poetry (don't like those distinctions) and Sierra was clever but-not-smug and adorably quirky (sounds waaaay more condescending than I mean it to, but oh well.)

I apparently also now feel entitled to refer to all these folks by their first names.

Set List
Zombies and Paint Thinner
Little Fear of Drowning
Flicking Ash
Saying Mean Things About Strangers
Genus, Species and Flavour
Ambition is Critical
Rules for Riding the King County Metro

Likely the biggest reading I've done in Seattle so far. Great night.

Ain't WITH. . .

2011-03-16T11:25:00.000-07:00

being broke.

Talked a few weeks ago with Lailey (or New York Sister, which would be a title if it didn't sound so loaded) about the difference between being broke in Seattle and being broke in New York. The main note was that when you're broke, like, have no money in NYC, and you tell your friends, there's a greater chance that they'll actually believe you.

Seattle is a city full of new-moneyists who, because they vote liberal and live on the west coast, don't think of themselves as rich. NYC is accepted as one of the most expensive cities in the US, if not world. You tell people in NYC you can't go out because a sandwich and beer could be the difference between having a place to live next month or not and you get a "yikes!"

but it's a real yikes. folks in Seattle don't seem to have that concept. the number of times friends of mine have responded with "yeah, things are really tight for me too, I saw this new dress I wanted but knew I really shouldn't. . ."

there is a gap there.

Dream Jobbery #345

2011-03-07T16:52:00.001-08:00

I wonder how many snarky blog-injokes, mind-numbing entertainment industry forums, misspelled hate e-mails and aplogetic dismissals of popular sitcoms this writer had to write/endure before getting to do this sort of thing for money.

seriously, when I was 10 I would have done that for free.

Feb '11/this ends here/has ended/trouble with tenses.

2011-03-01T15:07:00.000-08:00

Things that I realized/did/experienced in February that were not related to readings, as such:

1) starting a blog post and getting distracted and starting it up again twenty minutes later is a good way to forget all your awesome ideas.

2) sitting on the floor in the middle of your living room, trying to write things (of any nature) while the universe and your family cavorts around you is less than optimal. the reason this sitting occurs in this place is because of the necessity of physical wires for the internet.

3) roy williams is capable of high levels of support, fun-having, charm and unobrusivity, all at once.

4) my dad know everything about seattle's history and still wants to learn the new stuff ("why don't we swing through georgetown-- where exactly is all the stuff supposed to be happening there?")

5) planning for a class that you are going to teach requires actually planning for a class you are going to teach.

6) having a cute new baby around means people bring your sister food, which you can steal.

7) a broken phone screen is a pain at first, but then, liberating.

8) lists are the lowest form of communication.

The Month of February.

2011-02-27T16:14:00.000-08:00

This ends here, tommorrow.

The past: Feb '11 may be a banner month for readings. End of January, at the slam, Sara Brickman comes up to me and says "Hey, wanna do a reading for First Friday at Theo Chocolates? It's part of a benefit for Northwest Network, which provides support for LGBT survivors of abuse. The theme is loosely on love and nonviolence.

Do you uh, have any poems like that?"

Set
Lightbulbs (for Mom)
Not Like a Gas Stove at All
Best of All Possible Outcomes
Story Problem

I read with Sara herself and Mary Lambert.

In a chocolate factory. With free samples. I wasn't sure how thematically connected I was, but it went well. Afterwards Roy and I went to see William Elliott Whitmore at El Corazon.

The next reading was Feb 7th, with Shane, at Poetrynight. We did the whole Ourobouros book, minimal banter, applause til the end. It went over well, but the evening was dampered by the news of Ken Warfel's passing.

On February 11th, Marty Stegner and I launched what will likely (possibly) be a Series entitled the Muxbo Symposium. There were banjos and slides of crying children and home-brewed beer (Pale Poet Pale Ale) and fake mustaches and I did a set alongside a prose piece by Steve Barker and poetry sets by Zac Fulton, Jay Steingold and Anna Wolff. Everyone had hella fun.
Set
Songs About Fucking Steve Albini
A Brief Thanks for the Diners that Understand
Paintings of Famous Satanists
Little Fear of Drowning
Actually, it was the Worst of Times
Neo Takes the Blue Pill

My titles are ridiculous. I know. It's part of the fun. Two of those were never-been-read-new. I wore a fake mustache the whole time. I will probalby not do that again.

Most recently, on Thursday the 24th, David K Wheeler released his book of poems Contingency Plans. I recruited Terra Leigh Bell, who finished up a chapbook (about damn time) just in time and we got a pretty good crew into Elliott Bay Books' basement. Dave's friends made pie. Our sets seemed to compliment eachother (you know, similar themes but not THE SAME, similar styles but not THE SAME, etc) and Heather and Sean (cousins) made it and Josh made it down from Lynnwood which I was surprised by. I read the following*:
Sea Lions
Cavities
Ways You've Addressed Being Homeschooled
Swansea-Cardiff Blues
Explorer
Pink Laces and Kierkegaard
Best of All Possible Outcomes

The home-schooling poem went over best, surprising, given it's specialized subject matter and the fact it was it's first outing. Afterwards the bunch of us headed to Oddfellows where Josie Beck (formerly Hammond) bonded with Brittany over St Louisness and Josh made fun of them both.

*I don't post this stuff just to be myopic; it's something I actually geek out about with regards to my friends' sets, or bands I like. "Hey, what are you gonna play tonight?" "I dunno, I still need to throw a set together."

like that.

My Year in Lists Part 3

2011-01-30T16:22:00.000-08:00

Things I have found during a recent sweep/straightening of the corners of my bedroom, near the end of 2010/beginning 2011:

4 Stacks of American Education Services, Citibank and American Student Loan Services letters of varying relevance, addressed to the old Stanwood address.

2 of the same, but addressed to my current address in Seattle.

3 broadsides of "Genus, Species and Flavour"

7 chapbooks: readers copies of the first three, a misprint of "TWWCHNT: New Revised Standard" and three Ourosboros.

A handwrittend Shane Guthrie piece about condos (yes!)

A stack of photos from the first three months at Ty Beck.

A cd jewel case to Goodness' 1995 self-titled debut album.

3 different scraps of paper with unexplaned british phone numbers.

about 7 different copies of "When Saying Mean Things About Strangers."

Phone numbers from two different ex-girlfriends, acquired prior to our dating.

about 17 differnt crumpled up bank statements from the last two years.

Postcards from three different New York art galleries.

Chapters 1-26 of a book my Dad wrote and lent me, separately stapled and all out of order (read, enjoyed, feedback pending)

a stack of unopened letters from DSHS.

w-2a from Richard Hugo House, Vera Project and North Seattle Community College.

5 drafts of Vera Project's Powersharing Statement Language.

Notes from an interview with Trevor, intern at Vera Project, about the DJ/electronic scene in Seattle (barely legible)

A burned copy of Mastodon's "Leviathan" album (scratched)

Three unfinished Mix CDs, titles scribbled out.

9 different hastily-scribbled setlists for past poetry readings.

9,384 dust bunnies (not very bunny like)

A photo of the one time Phil Woodward came to IOI in 1999, staring at Shane in disbelief.

1 flyer for dianetics.

1 Visitor information card from St James Catholic Church (visited once)

Handwritten lyrics to "It's a Laugh" by Hall and Oates

A copy of "Big Machine" by Victor Lavalle (read, enjoyed)

A copy of "Financial Lives of the Poets" by Jess Walters (unread, probably will sell)

The last flattering photo taken of me, taken July '11 at Bimbo's cantina with Leigh, Emily, Alex and Bryan; I was looking away from the camera and sort of almost smiling. It's all downhill from there.

My Year In Lists Part 2.

2011-01-18T12:47:00.000-08:00

Without a doubt the finest films of 2010 were:

3-- The Duel. This adaptation of Chekhov's tale blends atmosphere and romance in a re-telling to compete with the best Shakespeare adaptations.
2-- Winter's Bone. This tale of crime and family in south-Missouri meth country builds tension throughout and features amazing understated performances that lend an authenticity to what could have been an excercise in stereotypes.
1-- Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus. Debbie Gibson shines in this eco-fable wherein Mankind's great fears are unleashed upon it. Thrills abound, but never detract from the underlying metaphor. Oscars for sure.

My Year in Lists Part 1

2011-01-11T13:18:00.000-08:00

List number one isn't so much a list. It's sort of a list. But not entirely. That's the sort of day i'm having, so, dear reader, fuckin' deal with it.
I tallied the total and over the course of 2010, I did 14 readings. Which is like, one and an eight per month. Or something. Granted, two were at residencies where I lived (one at Warm Beach house on the deck, one here in brighton) and a couple were at Gusta's Your Hands Your Mouth readings in B'ham.
Still, that's still a solid amount, especially considering I didn't do any tours or have any new shit I was trying to make people buy. This is sort of a form of bragging, but it is also a way of feeling less generally unaccomplished in the face of various successes (both deserved and un-) around me. I tend to hold it's better to compare yourself against yourself than others. Because there's always someone doing better.
The last reading I did in 2010 was at the Lights Of Christmas coffee shop. Trying to explain the worlds-collide nature of having performance poetry at a christmas-light display in North Snohomish County is too much for right here (and would rely on way too many simplifications) but I successfully wrote some borderline-uplifting stuff that I don't hate and people dug the reading.

other than that my fave readings were: Portland: Beer and Cookies Cabaret. . . oh man. so many chocolate chip cookies and sessions lager and a film about robots and comedians and country music. Eva Suter can throw an art party.
Swansea: The Crunch . . . need I say more?
Seattle, U-District: New Crompton w/Deerseekingheadlights, My Printer Broke We broadcast this on chatroulette and there was dissonant sludgefolk and sweet noise and songs about cats.

There are way more that roughly tie these, but I don't want to screw the economy of reading-status with inflation.

The other thing I did artistically, and perhaps most significantly, was start to visual art in an official way again. Also, verb words. Look at the pics here.

maybe next year there will be some longass post about a new book (or at least chapbook) that someone else is putting out (a goal of mine) or Conspiracy Agogo's east coast tour or my new found life as a regional-humour standup. The future, like they say, unwrit.

Christmas Eve

2010-12-24T11:52:00.000-08:00

Last night while the house was filled to the window-edges with people shouting over Elf, Dad and I hung out upstairs watching Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa songs on Youtube.

Got a text from Spencer at 1am. . . Sardines in Cedar Lodge. . . too tired. Signs of aging?

Good lunch with Cliff. Basically spaced on trying to get in touch with most other folks I planned on. Still need to figure out a christmas-ready set for Sunday. And all that.

Arguments with myself and another:

2010-12-14T12:09:00.000-08:00

Point.

Counterpoint?

musical note: dig the new jam up until the spell-out-the-lyrics bit. which seems a bit, well, lame.

So you're aware of pending sorts of posts. .

2010-12-10T09:26:00.001-08:00

Coming soon to a Graham's blog near you: My Year in Lists.

For now, My Year in Lists.

Fit in the ground like hand in glove.

2010-12-04T14:58:00.000-08:00

After the mammoth blog fun of trips and setlists, let's have two videos you can just, you know, watch.

NW Hop Hip. Just audio.

I can't get enough of this one, really.

Swansea, days 6, 7 and beyond . . . !

2010-11-30T10:54:00.000-08:00

. . . it should be noted that day 5 did not end at the Rhyddings in a pool of Graham-flavored nostalgia. No, it actually ended with Chris Samia and I at a dinner on St. Alban's road, hosted by our poetry professor and writer-of-many-books Nigel Jenkins and his partner Margot. The food was delicious, conversation both honest and inspiring and the wine was flowing. Oh man, was it flowing.

So it was after that I went to sleep at 1 am, woke up at 4:30am and couldn't get back to sleep. and Day 6 was the day I was to go to Cardiff and meet Anne and Howard Webb. Which I did. And it was nice. I just wish that my primo instinct the whole time hadn't been to find a corner of the pub in Glaedeou y Garth (sp?) and sleep a bit. Then in the backseat of the car and sleep a bit. But saw some amazing views of the area around Cardiff and caught up with Anne, whom it's always good to see. She dropped Howard and I off at City Arms in the 'diff's center, where we talked football (both types) travel (wherever feet may take us) and life in general. I switched between ales and orange juice when it was discovered that City Arms may have all the half-quirky, half-everyguy trappings of a big-city local, but it does not, in fact, serve coffee. In the last hours of our sojourn there, we were joined by Punk John for a round before I trained it back to Swansea.

the train ride was all sleep, and sort of surreal. in my current life context, I am used to waking up at the jostles of the 7, being shoved into a corner when the bus gets too full by an elderly vietnamese man who communicates to me largely with gestures. or the light rail, where the asexual female robot voice informs us "now entering. . . Beacon Hill station."
so to have largely the same in-again, out-again consciousness backgrounded by the landscape I knew well for two years and then disappeared from, the Welsh accents and all-- that was odd.
That evening I had a really nice dinner at Ian and Nessa Folks' house. While in Swansea I didn't go back to my old church (I chose sleep) and I missed seeing people from there whom I'd have liked to. But I was really glad to hang out with the Folks. I won't run down all the conversation topics, because there were many.

Tuesday. Tuesday Tuesday Tuesday. Due to phone-situations (and bad reception) I missed about 8,431 calls (fine, maybe 3)and my morning was spent packing. So it goes.
Dragged luggage to campus. Met for a too-short (not like the rapper) lunch with Wood where we talked music, home life and the time travel murder of millions (okay, maybe a little bit like the rapper.)
Dropped my shit off at Adam/Keiran/Jen's. Adam described his turkey-cooking efforts as "just bastin' away."
Took a quick run to Monkey (downtown) and met Theresa and Pat. Ate cupcakes. Drank coffee. Alun *happened* to be meeting Sophie there later, stopped in and said hi. That was person 3,456 that I didn't know I would see but was glad to (okay, like person 4. ish.)
On my way to the Cricketers I stopped in at Primark. I kind of regret not getting the rad coat for ten pounds, but am happy that a simple shoe-buy didn't turn into a spree.
Annmarie and I drank stella at the cricks. her new BF seems real cool. As does Pat, teez's new dude. All whatevers aside, good for them.
Weesh. My compulsion for play-by-play is wearying me, can't imagine anyone reads this all the way through. Next was Thanksgiving dinner at Adkeirjen's, then a round of drinks at the Bryn Y Mor for Punk John's birthday then various convos and mechanations to stay awake for the 430am taxi to the coach, where we were early, thus facilitating a walk around Tesco in the wee hours, Keiran suggesting various fruit fights.
Jen's sister Laura and I rode the coach together to Heathrow, where the last of the party (for me) disbanded.
the four hours in the airport did a lot to make me glad to actually get on planes and Icelandair's Iceland-centric charm did a lot to make the same three pop songs they played at the beginning and end of my trip a nostalgia-striker.

when I got home I rode the light rail, met Jake at the house, we had a pitcher of Manny's at Lotties and watched some Peep Show. I was back. Am back. Right now Brielle and a friend are making cookies in the kitchen and Jonny and Nat are watching Anime. I should probably take a shower.

Swansea, Days 4, 5.

2010-11-25T12:43:00.000-08:00

The weirdest part of the whole trip was sitting in the Rhyddings Pub, after strolling campus, in the corner booth where the quiz crew of fall term '07 would rack up losses. The visiting Campus felt definitely like The Past but it was just odd being in the Rhyds again.
Wot the 'ell is a community college? A community is people, right? So what are all other colleges? You amerrricans sure like your convoluted language.
Which is I guess to say that a lot of the trip was, as Wood said: like you never left.

After the wedding, reception, drinking, walking to town, thick pints of Welsh Porter, driving to Mumbles, well, Saturday wasn't going to be too active. I transferred my suitcased life to Wood and Tracy's, got to see the kids, (still cute, still smart) and sit at the table where I was lucky enough to share more than a few meals during my tenure.
Rallied my energy, which wasn't much, for a few at Mozarts with Katie Weston and Liam Hellwood Blues and a Welsh hippie-ish dude named Scott. At first I thought I would collapse into my orange-vodka, but a little time rendered it a really good visit before Katie went back to Southampton, Liam to Bristol and me to sleep.

GOgoGogoGOgO

2010-11-24T02:26:00.000-08:00

. . . once again, from the Heathrow airport. Heading in a different direction this time. Days 4,5,6,7 will be hastily documented and chronicled before I allow myself any other blog posts. I do not guarantee satisfaction. a really scandanavian hot woman just sat down across from me.

Swansea Day 3

2010-11-20T08:54:00.000-08:00

The wedding was great. Never heard the phrase "I'm not really that worried about it" or "yeah, we'll figure it out" so often in any sort of wedding-planning capacity, and I've been privy to some pretty chill weddings.

Anyway, it was fancy dress, which is british for "costumes." I went as Dr. Venture, which involved growing a beard, shaving it to just a chin-beard, getting glasses and a bald wig. I looked more like a bad Star Trek Alien than anything else.

The ceremony was court-held and brief and as best man my primary job was to hand over the rings at the right time. I didn't fuck it up.
People cried, took pictures. It was laid back but didn't feel inappropriately casual. It felt appropriate to interrupt the first dance with a rickroll.. For real.

later, went out with a crew. Liam, one of Swansea's most recognizable characters, has moved to Bristol and on return is talking about how "no one likes him."

Susie:That's not true, Liam. I like you.
Liam: Fuckin' no one likes you either. 's why we get along.
Susie: Hey!
Liam: Oh, fuck off Sooze. You know it's true.

Swansea, days 1 and 2

2010-11-19T04:15:00.000-08:00

I am sitting in a bald-cap with the grossest chinbeard in a while, as Jess blow-dries Jen's hair in what has to be the calmest pre-wedding living room ever.

I flew into Reykjavik then London, then coached to Swansea. Punk John joined me in Cardiff and we pulled in behind the Swansea Tesco where a clean-sober Dave Beer drove us to the Brunswick, thereby joining Keiran's in-progress stag do.

"I feel like I'm in Minor Threat."-- Dave, on drinking a coke in a pub.

There were a lot of quotes. lots of "bloody hell, didn't expect to see you." After a while we moved to the Potter's Wheel where Keiran ordered many pitchers of a green cocktail made with Monster. Yeah. I had one. fuck you, jetlag. So the night carried on and after a trip to Vice we finished off at Mozarts where Adam's brother was amused/annoyed at us, but he was getting paid to be there.

Also: Swansea punks still love their John Reis/Rick Folberg. This makes me happy.

_________________________
Yesterday I secured my costume. Wandered the downtown with Keiran. A few places have painted their walls. There's an H & M now. The giant BBC Screen in Castle Square still broadcasts nothingness to no one.

Did my reading at The Crunch. Adam has really gotten into his role as a host, and Wood and Becky's help in organizing is evident. Got to see a lot of people and readers I hadn't in a couple years.

Felt fairly jetgovered, but powered through. The set looked like this:

A Brief Thanks for the Diners
You, In Your Heyday
Paintings of Famous Satanists
Explorer
Zombies and Paint Thinner
When Saying Mean Things About Strangers
Tunnels
Extra Wide Bathtubs
Rules for Riding the King County Metro

____encore__
Ambition is Critical
Story Problem

basically, overwhelmed by love and support. mainly new stuff, which I'm feeling more and more confident in both as text and performance.

soon I'll be standing by Keiran's side at possibly the casualest wedding ever, best man dressed as a mad scientist from a cartoon we watched so many hours of.

Writing this. . .

2010-11-17T05:13:00.001-08:00

. . . from a bus station in London, waiting for a coach to Wales. Oh yes.

Napowrimo continues as I split time. . .

2010-11-08T10:37:00.000-08:00

. . . between new stuff and edits. Witness.

Sitting at Goth Night with Punk John

In a tin can with blacked-off windows, raccoon-eyed girls dance,
backs of hands-to foreheads. the music distorts with volume.
boys from the role-player's club lead each other around
on leashes. The next track, from an '80s movie about
Doomed Teenage Love, gets spliced under with a steady industrial thud.

We share an eye-roll.
Where some trot out the old
"they think they're soooo different . . .”
and less patient friends threaten to chuck a chair
into the crowded dancefloor, we just grin.
In this-- like nightslugging 12-ers of John Smiths up the hill,
Replacements-soundtracked chili-feeds-- there is comraderie.

"You know, if you're a math whiz from the valleys
this might be the most punk rock thing you can do."

Eventually, and against most bets, we dance.
Maybe a cut we both know. Maybe a girlfriend-pacifying measure.
Maybe
maybe a whole-table migration, a sudden swirl of energy, or
perhhaps simply non-involvement fatigue.
In this-- like the room itself--
there is community.

_______________________________

A Brief Thanks For The Diners that Understand

The world today is an old fisherman's cringing face.
This entire district is so hungover they can feel it
in their shoulders and knees are a challenge.

On the kinsey scale of practical worthlessness
I am at least a 7.

It is with this in mind that the lights are low,
even over breakfast burritos. The waiter also has
deep grey bags under his eyes but moves with calm
precision, is reassuringly rugged but not threateningly
handsome and everyone manages a wan smile.

Let the fog take downtown and emergencies crack
the last ditch efforts of men in important buildings.

I will take this corner booth
for as long as it will have me
in another little victory.

Riffing on familiar themes.

2010-11-03T15:32:00.000-07:00

napowrimos 2 & 3:

Election Night Blues

when the whole county switched to mail-in
while I was switching addresses every six months
I was rendered someone who, by default
could not complete his civic duty and therefore,
practical wisdom says, can't complain.

bullshit.
like a studio gangsta dialing 911 during a break-in
or a non-praying Christian who feels
"so disconnected from God lately," I can say whatever
the hell I want,
for all the difference it makes.

the news feeds are incrementally creeping percentages.
the social feeds are lined with friends' increasingly
anxious screen-refreshers, the occasional gloat.
longtime friends who disagree trying to out-civil each other.

I will find out soon enough just how bad it is and for whom.
Recall the Goldman quote I don't entirely agree with
but can't help, after the shrug and the sigh-- a smirk.
The hard work will be here either way. Cynicism rolls back in.
This afternoon I watched an episode of Venture Bros
and thought about how some things,

you know
don't change.

_____________________________________________________________

Where It Really Feels Like a City

Dragged past the gum-stains and the huge billboards
for made-up neighborhoods, alleys full of needles and cats
and quick high-fives, you can look up on either
side and see curtained windows, the posterchild for
changing demographics and lots and lots of people
quickly sliding down stairwells to restaurants and
offices and back again.

You have to see these things time and again
in case everything starts seeming too cute.
In case you forget that crime still happens
on blocks with dog parks.

There won't be a reckoning, there won't be
a toppling, you'll never get your art-space back,
those seedy, beer-bearded merchants
you iconify in the black-and-white photobooks
of Old Seattle, they have found new haunts
and you're not invited. The great glass
sheen of downtown on one side,
the postcard view on the other, duck
in for sushi at a well-groomed restaurant,
stop for pizza where everyone eats loudly,
constantly darting their heads back
every time the door opens.