The (new) DeKatch Pages

rewrite

2011-09-09T07:50:00.006-05:00

(orig. shat this one out for a 'pome-a-day' piece a couple years back. Forgot about it. 730am revise, years removed, is as follows):

THE HI-ROAD DRIVE-IN

leadfooted down U.S. 68 past Dunkirk to
Columbus
for a wedding
20 yr. old music from my boyhood shuffling
the big W. OH sky

clear & cool @ noon 1st day
of spring & nearly blew by it to spite

our eyes peeled for it, anonymous, almost hidden
outside passengerside window, just beyond
irrigation ditch, hemmed in by distant
treelines not yet leaved, rumble
of tires on gravel in reverse to pull into
its dirt driveway, disembark & photograph

sun/weather-bleached box office marquee recalling
tornados on Katie’s birthday, June ‘89
broke off & carried away the bigger part of
its whitewashed plywood screen, yet unmended, to leave
those few here for the movies squinting
as if watching grandparents’ portable TVs

oblivious, it would seem, to advances
of kids like me, there to lose/take cherries, now as then & back
to frame the marquee, this
tumbleweed, if you will, to that cobwebbed corner, my
sentimental mind & take cover behind
driver’s side door to skirt

wind-kicked dust. Resume driving
sign aliases in an antique café guestbook
downroad in Kenton, marvel @ unchanged
farm machines foreground to yellow thaw
19th, to be exact, since I last blew through &

left behind & Stipe’s voice filling the car rings
apropos: Take a picture here. Take a souvenir.

comes a time when it's later , honey, I'm sure ...

2010-03-03T21:14:00.002-06:00

Three semi-feral male cats patrol my block of Hyde's Park. Two are silver tabbies and the other is a yellowish shorthair. They're all muscles, claws and fangs. The tabbies are friendly. The shorthair is fearless and likes to bite, but he's friendly, too. I believe and have heard tell they 'belong' to one of the neighbors. Any neighbor who would leave his housecats out in the elements is no friend of mine, but these three guys are pretty damned awesome. They can get up a 50-foot tree in about a second.

Oh, there are 'missing fluffy' posters all over the neighborhood, and I can only wonder if this trio have anything to do with small dogs & birds disappearing. If yes, more power to 'em ....

My granddad used to say he didn't trust anyone who didn't like cats. I believe he was right about that a little bit more with each waking moment.

I'm a little bit country punk ...

2010-03-02T19:08:00.004-06:00

This Leno back on The Tonight Show business makes me happy I no longer have a TV.

I woke up surly yesterday, and spent the morning flaming some dude who blogs wine reviews, yet doesn't seem to understand the difference between a right bank Bordeaux and a left bank Bordeaux. Seriously, who drops a mere $7 on a bottle of St. Emillion and expects it to knock their socks off all 1978 Pauillac-like? Yes, I was once jerked around by airport security for being a terroirist.

My two cents, and I'm not the first (see: Lynn Sweet) to go out on such a limb: Lots of congressional incumbents will lose their seats in the midterms regardless of party affiliation. The electorate doesn't see democrats or republicans as the problem. Rather, it sees congress as a whole as the problem. The White House knows this (see: Obama at the recent 'health summit' talking trash about 'seeing what happens in November,' or whatever his exact words were), and those are some pretty crack wonk psychic witches (Axelrod, et al) working there. And there I go, talking my leftie friends down once more ...

2010-03-01T19:28:00.003-06:00

I could swear I have posted since Xmas. Oh, well ...

People in Chicago drive like assholes. Especially in crosswalks. Or when behind the wheel of something German. Go figure.

I think I saw Paul Westerberg walking into the revolving door of the Michigan Av. Filene's basement today, but for a moment before I realized who dude looked like I thought it was Ozzy Osbourne.

the last blowing past

2009-12-25T01:33:00.003-06:00

I first heard/got into Vic Chesnutt on an R.E.M. tribute album from the first half of the 1990s. "Surprise Your Pig," it was called, and his contribution was a groovy mashup of "It's the End of the World as we Know it (& I Feel Fine)." Being the dilligent music fan, I did my research and got into his work. He'd been writing songs since childhood, came from a musical family. Played a mean guitar from a young age.

I next really got into Vic's music with his 1998 album, "Is the Actor Happy." Vic wrote a mean lyric & did the most interesting things with the basest chord progressions & the most creative & spare arrangements. His "The Gravity of the Situation," from that album, is one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard.

In the '80s, when Vic was 18, he was paralyzed in a car accident. He re-learned the guitar with his now-limited arm/hand movement, which forced his songwriting hand to the simpler. The simpler, you know, is the more tried and true way, at least in the music I like. This past summer, I had a dinner party and a friend of mine, himself a survivor of a tragic car wreck, confided an anecdote about meeting Vic at a show at Schuba's, requesting a song Vic's band didn't know, sharing his own car wreck story ... Vic played him the song, in spite of his sidepeople being out of the loop. Nice guy, I thought. I know it meant a good lot to my friend.

Vic released a great album, "At the Cut," this year. He recorded it & toured in its support with Fugazi's Guy Picciotto and a number of other fine musicians. In the past, he worked with great bands like R.E.M. and Lambchop. He received accolades from *everyone* who matters. In a town like Athens, Ga., where *everybody* plays in several really good bands, that means a hell of a lot.

I was lucky enough to stumble upon an interview with Vic & Mr. Picciotto a week or so back, on NPR. Vic was as intimate as his songs, honestly and humbly discussing his accident, his addictions, his past suicide attempts (there were many). As had been the case as long as I've known the man's music, I kept liking him more the more I heard.

Vic passed today/yesterday, 24 December. He'd overdosed, intentionally, and left a note, instructed the authorities who found him to contact his friend, Kristen Hersh. The first reports were that he was comatose, but soon enough, his death was confirmed.

All that has ever been cool in music or the arts for that matter lost a very, very good one this holiday season.

Things I Learned Reading Hemingway

2009-11-03T20:54:00.002-06:00

-- Don’t be impressed by one’s titles, accomplishments, etc (“Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton. Do not think that I am very much impressed by that ...”).
-- Don’t live vicariously. Just live.
-- A good man may know his limitations, but that’s no excuse to walk the line as long as you’re honest with yourself and others.
-- Tell it like it is. Don’t sugarcoat it. Don’t go around comparing her to a summer’s day. Save your breath. She knows that’s bullshit. “She was damned good-looking” takes less time and space and says miles beyond any archaic, verbose sonnet.
-- Keep your writing friends separate from your tennis friends.
-- When in doubt, best to trust balls and grace. My late friend, Carl, put it that way once, but he was paraphrasing Hemingway.
-- Your art/craft above all else. When cash-strapped, buy books, not clothes. Gertrude Stein’s edict, adopted by EH.
-- At the end of the day, when it comes to you, it’s your way or the highway, and stay the hell away from mental health professionals.

Pleased to Meet Me

2009-08-27T22:51:00.004-05:00

i.

he sits
translates Rimbaud
cheap desk from Ikea
a dark studio by the lake
he sits

egged on by Spanish red
a semester of French in college
seduced by his TA to guarantee

an easy B, resorts
to search engines to assist
w/the trickier parts, but is surprised

bemused (Breathless)
what he’s retained
perhaps from subtitles
in films from Jeunet & Godard
Breathless (bemused)

I is
the other is not

the author & does
protocol for
meeting oneself

exist
only in dreams
unrequited maybes
riff away on Walter Mitty
exist

Breathless
to the author’s
Masculin Feminine
-cigarettes & idealized selves
breathless

ii.

born
in a barn

on the S. side
of a steeltown

way of thinking
takes to drinking

like his daddy
(his daddy . . .

His old man’s Charger is all stale smoke & sticky old beer. The old man perspires Miller. Exhales Chesterfields. They see each other weekends since the divorce. Stay up late to watch Hee Haw and Benny Hill. As a man the child stays in most weekends. Never marries. Comes to associate sweaty beer aromas with country and western from the ‘70s. Acquires an affinity for tight-clothed redheads with curves. Southern accents. Lowbrow humour. Waylon. Willie. )

iii.

Ridge of his N. Mediterranean
nose the airs put on to his toes tapping
lines into stanza those Bohemian
shades so as not to catch his self napping
the newly-formed crows’ feet & blood-shot eyes
keep the sun away the critics at bay
nobody knows his poker show the yes
he promises & blindly looks away
tweaked on LSD he loses his mind
on too much Nietsche in college a fraud
in Chuck Taylors in the Bowling Green wind
& recalls reading something from Rimbaud:
if you see yourself coming cross the street
anyone else would be better to meet

iv.

I has Johnson’s Love in Vain
I meets ladies on Amtrak, paints

w/his cock in the rain & writes ghazals
to loves lost on trains easy as I finds it & improvs

Sonatas to weather patterns, rhapsodizes galaxies, jungles &
stillframes, all the while

I is me is
sane

is an artist
feels pain is
homeless, orphaned tumbleweeds
on greasemonkey summer pavement joneses

for James Brown loud on headphones is
I’s opiate throat-rush enough &

dirty-fingered & minge-mouthed
Heartbreak Hotel & Thin Lizzy’s Jailbreak

unafraid to sleep alone, I whinges
anyway, at the thought of it, but I

is alright
won’t complain
gets tight & recalls something
his old man used to say: even the best
wine stains.

pleased to meet me, before the clustered corpse

2009-08-26T18:35:00.003-05:00

so, on Sunday, at high-noon, I'll be reading with some friends at the Bucktown Arts Festival. It's a collective piece ... basically we each were given the prompt: what happens when you meet yourself? and then we each pieced together our own lines on the idea and then Mr. Barton cut and pasted lines from each of our pieces into a finished corpse. It's pretty cool to see that process unfold, and should be a good time throwing it all together at Holstein's Park in a few days ...

Things to do around Hyde's Park

2009-07-23T08:58:00.002-05:00

1. Grow a beard.
2. Build a bar in my bedroom.
3. Go bowling across the street.
4. Chill w/Clarence Darrow's ghost in Jackson's Park.
5. Shave my beard.
6. That silver-haired, Harry Morgan-looking regular at Jimmy's who always gets 4 or 5 burgers for takeout ... yeah, that guy ... get all the regulars to start calling him "Hamburger Joe."
7. Grow a beard.

some emails from 4 years ago

2009-07-14T21:34:00.001-05:00

Scott DeKatch to Kristy
18/06/2005

did you pay CJ $20 to appear in this? he emailed me that the $20 would be mandatory this year.
Reply Forward
----------------------------
Kristy Bowen: Seriously? WTF?...
I emailed him back the day he sent out the call and said I was in, but nothing about paying the $20....I was going to anyway, just to support the thing, but if that's the case.
-------------------------------
From : C. J. Laity
Sent : Saturday, June 18, 2005 9:38 AM
To : Scott DeKatch
Subject : RE: ATTENTION: 2005 CHICAGO POETRY FEST BOOKING
Hi Scott. In order so that I don't lose my shirt again this year on the fest the $20 anthology donation is required of all poets who want to participate. I'll put your name down on the pending list. Send me a poem w/ the donation asap as the slots are disappearing fast. --cj

=============================================
Kristy Bowen:
oh boy, this is going to be ugly.... I just sent an e-mail to CJ withdrawing my participation. It's just so WRONG. I was more than willing to cough up the 20 bucks, but the whole pay to play thing is a little slimey....at least for a reading. What we'll end up with is a whole bunch of poets who payed the 20, not because they are good and were chosen for the fest based on that, but because they paid.
I’m seriously hoping he'll just quietly take me out of the line-up. Either that or there'll be an entire juvenile article on the website trashing me in a couple days. Hopefully, outside of attacking my mother or something, he doesn't have anything on me..
And I can't be the only one who's told him where to go..

Kristy Bowen to me

Fuck, here we go....Here was the response I got...we may BOTH be in for the wrath...

****************************************************************

Kristy,

Please share this letter with whoever is concerned.

Your letter simply makes me sad.

I think of the fest more as joint venture among the poets. If we all chip in the $20 we can buy some advertising and cover the expenses of something this major. It is not fair that some poets chip in, and others don't, when all the poets take advantage of the fest.
The use of the word "required" or the _expression "lose my shirt" was only sent in one email to one poet, Scott DeKatch, so I'm assuming that this email was somehow shared with you and possibly with others. I am utterly disappointed that Scott did that. I have done nothing but support Scott DeKatch and his work, so for him to make a big deal out of a lousy $20 is to me, well, pretty damn icky.
I also feel rather let down that you will not appear out of protest. In order to make the fest a success I'm asking the poets to chip in this one time. So far nobody else has complained. You consider this "pay to play" but I think that is a rather unfair accusation that you are making. I do more "free" work than anybody in the poetry community. I did not get paid for my work with the Printers Row Book Fair. I do not get paid for all my work with ChicagoPoetry.com. I am constantly promoting other people's shows and books. Many times others make money off of my work, but I don't. That you or others have decided to make a big deal this one time that I am forced to seek funding from the participants, is again, extremely disappointing.

***********************************************************************
Kristy Bowen:
He claims that no one else has a problem, and yet, I recall another e-mail asking (practically begging) for features that went out a few days after the initial one..perhaps the glut of people he was expecting wasn't quite as large as he initially assumed....and why would it be, who pays to read for gods' sake?

dogging neruda

2009-06-14T01:21:00.003-05:00

I did a reading, I think back in December, maybe on my birthday. Read an older piece of mine. At the end, Chris says, "are you *really* comparing Pablo Neruda to Rod McKuen???"

"No," I say. "The speaker in the poem is doing the comparing."

"But, really ... the speaker was calling them both 'hallmark hacks.' Do you really *mean* that?"

I've read Neruda, I told him. In spanish, even, and my spanish is pretty decent ... however you slice it ... it may be great and heartfelt and magical and musical, but there's still a hallmark thing happening ...

anywhooo, I had a reading a few weeks back ... I was pretty stoked for it, because I knew I'd have some long-lost friends hanging at it, a few of whom are big Nerudites ... so, i took a well-travelled Neruda piece & did my own translation, direct from the spanish text (keep in mind -- there is no spanish equivalent of words like "to do," and that it contains untranslatable idioms). Not tooting my horn, just stating it, and it follows:

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

I Can Write the Saddest Lines Tonight
by Pablo Neruda
trans. S. E. D.

I can write the saddest lines tonight
cld write the night is starry
the stars, afar, shiver blue

the wind of the sky in the night sings, circles
I can write the saddest lines tonight.
I loved her, Jack, &, sometimes, she loved me, too.

on nights like this I’d hold her in my arms
kiss her countless times beneath the endless sky
she loved me, Jack. I loved her, too, at times

how not to love those big, still eyes
I can write the saddest lines tonight,
to think I don’t have her. I lost her.

to hear the vast night, greater than she
verse falls to soul, is dew to pasture
what matters my love can’t keep her

the night is starry & she’s gone
far off, somebody is singing, far off
my soul is sad from losing

closer to the vest
my heart looks for her -- she’s gone
the same night whitens the same trees

we no longer are the same
I no longer love her, but how I did
my voice searched for the wind to touch her ear

& now, kisses from another, as before from me
her voice, her body clear, their eyes endless
I don’t love her, that’s true, but maybe I do

so short, love, & forgetting so long
b/c on nights like this I’d hold her in my arms
my soul is sad from losing,

even though this is my final pain
& these are the last lines I’ll write
I can write the saddest lines of all tonight.

I guess when I go down, I go down in flames ...

2009-05-19T17:31:00.004-05:00

The price one pays for attempting wit. Guy got cheesed at me today for stepping on his lame one-liner on some message board about that Eugenides guy who wrote The Virgin Suicides. I end the workaday & log on to find not one, but three emails from this fellow. I received these via one of those 'social networking' sites. Sadly, when you 'report' somebody making threats, the site 'blocks' them & you can't respond in private. Not that I'd want any more of my info available to Dude, but, hey, one good turn deserves another, eh?

Correspondence #1: Hi

Today at 12:03pm
from: D.D.
Hey fa--ot......nice shades while indoors....you look like an AIDS stricken Bob Dylan....hard to look like a hipster when you're a srawny geek wearing a $ 7 blue workshirt.........humorous.....little weasel hiding behind your keyboard........f--k you

Dear D,

Thanks. I own several sunglasses, but those are my favorites. Bob Dylan is also one of my favorites, so thanks on that one, too. I always thought 'hipsters' *were* scrawny geeks wearing $7, blue work shirts. The one in the photo was purchased at The Gap, I think. It was pretty cheap, but probably more in the $15 price range.

There is a weasel behind my keyboard?!?!?! I could use a pet.

I'm sorry, I don't go for guys, and, also, I don't believe we've ever met. Therefore, I can't help you with that request.

yours,

sed

Correspondence #2: Scott the nervous bed wetter

Oh nooooooooooooooooo ! Scott is on youtube in a HIP poetry reading club !!! LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL ;) He's nervous, twitching, sweating. Apparently the pressure of reading his emo poem in front of 12 people is too much for him ! And hey geek, the pseudo hipster poem by Mike Myers in So I Married an Axe Murderer was much funnier ;)

Dear D.,

Glad you found that YouTube! I don't remember sweating at that reading, but I probably was a bit out of my element, as that was taped at this cozy, little bar where they usually don't bring cameras. I assure you, I can be quite the ham.

Per your last correspondence, I'm racking my brain trying to remember whether or not Mike Myers wears a $7, blue work shirt in that film. It *was* a funny reading his character gave, though. Sometimes I think he must have caught one of my friend Charlie's readings back in his Second City days.

sed

Correspondence #3: message

Where'd you go fa--ot ? Curled up in your bed, crying emo style ? You're a dime a dozen - Wanna be writers who scribble terrible poetry in a worn spiral pad, quoting the Important writers you read, trying to convince yourself that one day you really WILL write that novel you've had in your head all these years. Er, you're 37 Scotty Boy, your times up already, you'll never write a novel, all you'll leave behind is your little notebooks with your god awful emo whinings. You're a reader, not a writer ;) Sad truth huh boy ? So follow that urge and put that gun in your mouth, yessssssssssss..........feel that muzzle in your mouth, just like all those gigantic black c---s you've had rammed in your mouth...follow that urge, you'll never be anyone, you're a wanna be...a nobody....you think you're a f--king writer ? You think you're some kind of f--king Mickey Spillane ?!?! LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL ;) And oh, I know some twisted mutherf--kers in Chicago...behave yourself now boy.....I hope you sleep lightly.....

Well, D, I went to work. Then I went to get coffee with an old friend. A dime a dozen? Well, I don't know about that, but I prefer perfect-bound notebooks, as the spiral ones tend to mangle the pages, which then tear out too easily. I do most of my work on a word processor, though.

According to Monty Python, 37 is not old. They also had some nice things to say about John Denver, but that is neither here nor there. I don't have any urges to put any gun in my mouth, and as far as I know I've never done the other thing, but, hey, who knows, I mean I *did* have a few wild years back at school. (Sigh), suppose that would be my business, though, huh?

I sleep alright. I dream in color, too. Once, when I was 16 or so, I dreamt I was cutting class & got caught by the assistant principal. Then, I wished the situation could be a bit cooler ... wouldn't you know, all of a sudden I'm dreaming I'm on an airplane playing my guitar with Jimi Hendrix. He showed me some cool stuff and then said, "Excuse me, while I kiss the sky," and parachuted out of the plane. I believe the experts call that 'lucid dreaming,' but what would I know?

Chicago is a nice place, yes, but some folks can be twisted. I also know some twisted folks in the Ft. Myers area, as well as some cops.

best,

Scott

retrograde in spring (unf.'d)

2009-05-16T16:53:00.002-05:00

curses, mercury
in concert w/a full moon
to leave me scattered

mad as a hatter
(aptly named, that element)
& what hard winter

to precede this turn
of events, the whole night sky
one cold roulette wheel

or concentric
opposite cyclones
spun out above this hemisphere

game-player of an imp, you!
return my phone calls!
my better letters!

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio (magazines) ..

2009-05-01T00:27:00.002-05:00

Who buys magazines anymore? Not talking your 'In Focus' or 'Celeb Snuff Gone Wild' stuff, but, you know ... those glossy, little stapled numbers with book reviews, album reviews & the like ...

... 15 years ago, I would rush to the mailbox for some of these guys ,,, I'd read a review of "Alien Lanes" in one, Welsh's "Filth" in another ...

Art has been fragmented, divided between the sell-it-nows and sell-it-howevers ... nobody creates to create. Well, almost nobody.

An old college friend's husband had a gig tonight. I really thought I'd make it, but I missed it. I'm sorry. I imagine it was a very good show.

Lou said it first, but I'm thinking it's the beginning/of a new age.

really?

2009-04-10T17:06:00.003-05:00

So, on the day the Sun-Times runs with a cover on how the CPD is gonna start cracking down on crosswalk violations, I was nearly hit by rude jag motorists three times. Two of these three were cabbies (go figure). I have yet to trek home, but the crosswalk On California by the blue line is pretty vicious ... one can only hope they sting that one.

pome-a-day, schmome-a-day, what are these deadlines ...

2009-04-06T18:53:00.006-05:00

I always catch myself doing things I said I'd never do: Getting a tattoo, running a marathon, opening a bank account ... so, when I scoffed at a bunch of you last year or the year before when you did that 'pome a day for a month' during April (which, they tell me, is 'national poetry month), well, you knew me, and you knew you'd live to see me eat crow. Robert Brewer is hosting one of these pome-per-day shindigs on his blog and, for some reason, I have found myself rattling off little pieces for it, almost daily.

Now, I am an incredibly lazy writer. I mean, poor Matt Barton was on my ass for the better part of the second half of 2008 to write a piece on some mural at St. Paul's by the end of the year and I got it to him, I think, some time around January 10. All was well ... some of us have a different sort of clock for some things. I'm not always bad with deadlines -- I mean, I have dabbled in journalism, and was pretty good at getting that stuff wrapped up right & on time & whatever ... it's the creative stuff, though ... I don't rush it. Needless, I think it's at the very least a good excercise, so here went ...

The way this particular thing works is as follows -- each day, the blog directs the participant to a new 'prompt,' and the participant then constructs a pome around that prompt. Pretty simple. Anywhoo ... 5 or so days in, I've decided to post my entries to this point. Are they precious, little, talent-laden works ready for smarmy, ivory-towered literary honors? I don't think so, but they are sort of a nice window into process, or at least my process. anyway, here goes (I may have gotten a couple days out of order here, but you get the picture) ...

1 April (prompt = "origins")

AUTOBIO 101, lecture notes

Don’t hesitate
to embellish. “Born in a barn”

reads more interesting than
hospital reports to grab

the reader
as does conflict

btw. one’s parents’ in-law
conveys caste

from the cradle establishes
angle early. Chapter 1 is

all you’ve got. The best
writers began

as journalists.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

2 April (prompt = alienation/being an outsider)

DRANK UP A PARTY

found out for tipping a jitney in the sticks
of Long Island – ladies up from The City
for outlet mall shopping, who’d shared the backseat
from the depot w/N & me, ourselves there
for her friend’s wedding -- people I didn’t know
decked out in heavy taffeta bridesmaid gowns
in July’s hard, Atlantic humidity
tree-line wall around the Hamptons, private beach
ill @ ease, my neck raw from starch & sweating
unstable having forgotten vitamins
& my forced, two days too late apology.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

3 April (prompt = "the problem with ____________")

(I have yet to finish this one -- see, bad with deadlines, but they do give you until May 1)

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

4 April (prompt = Animal)

MOBY DICK, APPROXIMATELY

24 yrs. old, riffing on Melville
to impress a woman @ a party
after the bars have closed one Fri. night
& my friends from other bands are drinking
in the kitchen, taking turns picking out
new releases from Matador Records
to spin until sunup, when they might sleep
finally, or at least disperse & then
if the Melville reference does the trick
maybe she’ll accompany me to bed
ratty twin mattress on a ratty floor
of my old apt. @ 3rd & High
if she doesn’t stay, if she gets away
we’ll just call the flirtation ironic

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

5 April (prompt = Landmark)

THE HI-ROAD DRIVE-IN

we leadfooted down U.S. 68 past Dunkirk
headed to Columbus for a wedding
20 yr. old music from my boyhood
shuffling under the big W. OH sky
clear & cool @ noon on the 1st day
of spring & nearly blew by it to spite

our eyes peeled for it, anonymous, almost hidden
out the passengerside window, just beyond
the irrigation ditch, hemmed in by distant
treelines not yet leaved & the rumble of
tires on gravel in reverse to pull into
its dirt driveway, disembark & photograph

its sun & weather-bleached box office marquee recalling
tornados on Katie’s birthday, June ‘89
broke off & carried away the bigger part
of its whitewashed plywood screen, still unmended, to leave
the few who do come to see squinting
as if watching their grandparents’ portable TVs

appearing oblivious, it would seem, to the advances
of kids like me, there to lose/take cherries, now as then & back
in the now we frame the marquee, this
tumbleweed, if you will, to that cobwebbed corner of
my sentimental mind & take cover behind
the driver’s side door to skirt wind-kicked dust, resume driving

& sign aliases in an antique café guestbook
down the hwy in Kenton & marvel @ the unchanged
farm machines foreground to the yellow thaw
19th, to be exact, since I last blew through &
left behind & Stipe’s voice filling the car rings
apropos: Take a picture here. Take a souvenir.

Gina, pobrecita (or, everything's great in America, for a small fee in america ...) ...

2009-03-12T23:26:00.003-05:00

I'm listening to NPR this a.m. when I wake up. A pretty run-of-the-mill wakeup, but I'm struck by this human interest piece they run on how folks are actually saving more than they're spending in these recessionary/depressive times ...

So, they talk to this woman in L.A. named Gina. Gina is beside herself, wallows in despodence over having to now save what she once spent. No more mani/pedis. No more birthday parties for friends at swank eat/drinkeries. No more starbucks. Poor, poor Gina must now do her own fingers & toes. Poor, poor Gina must now cook her own meals (&, from the sound of it, learn the proper way to boil water). Poor, poor Gina must now brew her own Yuban (a "downgrade," she claims (IMO, not bad mass-market coffee, at all)) instead of swilling over-roasted, $2/pint Starbucks.

These, indeed, are the times that try our souls.

What men talk about

2009-02-10T10:31:00.006-06:00

no tissue is an issue

Last week, after work, I stop into a fast food joint for something on the way home. The neighborhood is sorta mixed, that area where R. North meets the Gold Coast near the SRO YMCA & the methadone clinic. You get all sorts from all stations in this joint, kinda like walking right into Terkel's Division St.

A bit grubby from the workaday, I hop into the john to wash my hands. In the stall, from the sound of things, is an older guy sing/talking to himself:

No tissue ... no-o-o-o-o tissue ... no tissue/is an issue ...

I have to laugh. I imagine this man's been handed many a lemon in life, and here he is, making light of things as they now are with his No T.P. Blues.

Which brings me to this theory I overheard somewhere. I think it was my mom or one of her friends, during an impromptu meetup of their She-Woman Man-Haters Club ...

We -- men, that is -- love to talk about our shit. Taking a shit, its regular/irregular consistency, the frequency w/which we do it ...

Pretty sure the aforementioned theory was about men never developing past the anal stage of early childhood. Dunno if it holds water (pun intended?) . I mean, they were all recently-divorced and also a tad tipsy, I think I recall ...

it was 50 yrs. ago, today . . .

2009-02-03T00:37:00.000-06:00

(orig. from 2 years ago. Timely today ...)

The Day After ‘the music died’ – thoughts on Buddy Holly & Herb B. Berkowitz 4.2.07

I've never really been a fan of that Don McLean song. I've never really been a fan of that whiny, melodramatic '70s 'singer/songwriter' genre. Be it McLean or James Taylor or Seals & Crofts or Dave Matthews or whomever, I didn't get it when I was a kid and I don't today.
Don't get me wrong: I love when a great songwriter (Willie Nelson, Ani DiFranco, Neil Young, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, Jeff Tweedy, Jay Farrar, Chan Marshall Paul Westerberg, to name a mere few) picks up a guitar or sits at a piano and just bares all. However, I also like my rock and roll to be at least a little bit threatening. After all, it's rock and roll – lock up your daughters and hide the radio teen angst rebel music. It was this way from its very accidental and organic onset and what's left of the good stuff is still this way. If it doesn't make a certain element of the 'power structure' cringe, it's elevator music: Pat Boone, not D. Boon.
Which is why I'm always disheartened every February 3 to open up any major newspaper and come across what I believe to be some reactionary version of a tribute to Buddy Holly on the anniversary of his death. Granted, Buddy has countless fans representing every nook and cranny of the spectrum (probably not as many as Elvis Presley, but that's a different story about the unjust nature of the so-called industry and its marketing practices). Yesterday it was an article by Herb B. Berkowitz, who directs a PR firm in North Carolina.
Mr. Berkowitz is obviously a great fan of Buddy's music. He was thirteen on that fateful day in early 1959 and has attended the anniversary tributes to Buddy, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson at the Surf Ballroom. I couldn't be happier to know there are such dedicated champions of Buddy's work, and none of this is meant to take anything away from Mr. Berkowitz or as any sort of personal attack.
What initially puts me off is the following quote from his tribute:
Back then, the cool rockin' daddies and teen queens who entertained teenage America did so with their voices, not by putting their private parts on display.
This is a rather reactionary statement, in my opinion. It's also spin not much different than that propagated by too many rightists on Martin Luther King's birthday every year when they unwincingly 'adopt' Rev. King as a champion of their own platform.
Now, I was born nearly 12 years after Buddy was taken from us. However, I don't think I need to have 'been there' to know this is anything but accurate. We've all seen the footage of Presley thrusting his hips like some porn actor on speed, no? Jerry Lee Lewis marrying his 13 year-old cousin? Chuck Berry violating the racist Mann Act? The orgasmic stage theatrics of Buddy's dear friend, Little Richard Penniman?
Buddy's work itself is every bit as sexually subversive as that of any of his contemporaries who were shaking up the white, patriarchal power structure of the Eisenhower years. In "Not Fade Away" -- a song dense hippies will mistakenly tell you was written by the Rolling Stones and made famous by the Grateful Dead -- Buddy sings, "my love is bigger than a Cadillac." "Rave On" could be his generation's "Talk Dirty to Me." His cover of King Curtis' "Reminiscing" addresses a cheating significant other. "I'm Gonna Love You, Too," according to some of the bios, was initially about an orgy in which Buddy may or may not have taken part. If you believe the first-hand accounts in said bios (or subsequent interviews with Little Richard Penniman), Buddy took the stage at one performance late and with his zipper down because he'd been backstage shagging a woman from Little Richard's band. He bedded his usurious producer's wife during a recording session. His fashion -- dark-rimmed glasses and all -- mirrored the style of the young, hip African-American men too many daughter's fathers reasonlessly feared in those days (a nearsighted Briton named John Lennon would later credit Buddy for giving him the courage to wear glasses onstage). He may not have trashed any hotel rooms, but Charles Hardin Holley was the epitome of the contemporary definition of rock star.
There also exists the story of one cold West Texas November during one of those notoriously draconian 'busload of talent' tours when Buddy invited tourmate Little Richard, a bisexual black man, to his parents place in Lubbock for Thanksgiving dinner. His folks, white Baptists somewhat set in bigoted ways, refused to allow Richard into their home or feed him. Buddy joined Richard on the freezing front porch, refusing to enter the house or eat until the elder Holleys finally came around and welcomed their son's friend to their table.
Berkowitz goes on to write, "In the pre-Beatles era of rock'n'roll (sic) (Holly) was one of just three white boys who really, really mattered, and the only one who didn't live long enough to cash in on it." He cites Presley and Roy Orbison as the other two who "really, really mattered."
Without going into any of the myriad reasons I'm moderately offended by the invocation of race in the above opinion, I could also opine this isn't exactly accurate. Les Paul pioneered the recording techniques Buddy embraced & remained fiercely adamant about. And Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran were hard-rocking, songwriting trailblazers who also died way too young and never really "cashed in." Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis were incredibly important artists, and claiming they ever reaped their just rewards would also be a decent-sized stretch of reality.Like too many recording artists of just about every genre, time and place, Buddy Holly was shamelessly exploited. Recording engineer Norman Petty strongarmed a naïve Buddy into allowing Petty partial songwriting credit for songs Petty had no hand in writing. At the time of his death, Buddy (whose wife, Maria Elena, was well-connected in the recording industry) was in the process of starting up his own independent record label, Taupe Records, as a reprieve for exploited artists. Ritchie Valens and Waylon Jennings were among those who would have been in the Taupe catalogue. Buddy had 'discovered' Jennings. He taught his friend, Roy Orbison, how to play a bullfighting call that would become the famous guitar hook in Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman." He wrote the first "girl's name" song, "Peggy Sue," and introduced minor chords and modes to rock and roll. Unlike Presley, Buddy Holly actually wrote his own songs. His independent, relentless conviction was responsible for sound recording innovations we still employ today. He played a Fender Stratocaster because it was the loudest guitar he could find, and he rocked hard. His band rocked hard. Several years before the Beatles made an advertising campaign of it, he put into words and music "we'll live and love with all our might."

rewrite of a freewrite

2009-01-21T22:35:00.004-06:00

yeh, I'm not much for double-posting, but I like this one, &, since my efforts of late have been fiction-devoted (& since such fictions are too long for this format), here's a rewrite of a piece from September ... I guess rewriting a freewrite may be too much, but, hey, at least I'm not prefacing the piece by explaining it, right?

off-topic freewrite on a bus

that fat, old sun, She’s
a blood orange peeks out from
behind chalky clouds
traces their purple
as if they were islands &
She core of the earth
lightbulb in a globe
bought @ a novelty shop
$10 or less
& dies in the W.
to become the catalyst
for all religion
the childhood rhymes my
granddad sang, “sailor’s delight”
that old world voodoo
the herbs collected
for mojos by my granny
roots, essential oils
that 3rd eye, she sd.,
back of her head. She was born
her parents’ kitchen
Ambridge, PA, in
1911, same yr.
as the last rivets
into the iron
of that great unsinkable
the crown’s Titanic
Gigantic Empire
& the boat was long – the songs
from Tin Pan Alley
to celebrate her
this ironclad Jesus or
a 2nd coming
of old Viking Studs
blue-eyed Injuns forced loveborne
before Columbus
I went to the store
& bought a pint of Gordon’s
went home to the news
on the internet
& outside the impending
southerly storm clouds
The president hid
I met the new same old boss
hurricanes formed &
fell into the land
the candidates huddled &
made nice on TV
there was a vacuum.
it swallowed us all, taking
less time than The Bomb.

-2 Sept., 2008

sayonara, tyrant. thus always ...

2009-01-21T15:21:00.002-06:00

The Steelers are in the Super Bowl. George W. Bush is out of the White House. I think it was Jerry Ford who said, "Our long, national nightmare is over." I couldn't put it in better words. It's a good week, so far.

things you may or may not know about me

2009-01-16T21:38:00.002-06:00

ok, so on the Spacebook thing, Juliet tells me I'm tagged. If I tag *you,* the name of the game is you post a note with 16 thangs about *your*self and tag 16 more people to do the same. Think of it as a cross between a chainletter and that old 'SNL' skit w/Lovitz about, "GET TA KNOW ME!!!" anyway, I had fun with this, so here's the same for those of you who don't spacebook me.

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

1. I have been overheard, on more than one instance, referring to Barack Obama as "President-elect Wingman."

2. I would rather drop a good chunk of money preparing a killer dinner party for my friends than going out with them to, oh, 95 percent of restaurants out there (except maybe sushi places, since I really don't make my own sushi. Yet).

3. I used to work at a French Restaurant/wine bar. My boss, who hails from Bergerac, would often call on me to correct his American-born wife's not-so-good french. He never picked up on the fact I only took one semester of french in college, in which I only received a 'B' because the T.A. had an admitted Skodt-crush. As it stands, I have about a 30-word french vocabulary (most of which = words for some sort of food or beverage) and can't conjugate any verb in french to save anyone's anything.

4. As a child, I had nightmares about Jesus. In the here and now, I am an atheist.

5. But I do believe in magic.

6. If a gay man hits on me at a party or bar, I play along and don't let on that I'm straight, because, hey, don't we all love the attention?

7. I don't believe in seasonal-affective disorder, but if the Steelers lose, I am a raging psychopath until the next time they win. You should have seen me from Feb. to Sep. of 1996.

8. I'm not a leg-man, breast-man, ass-man, etc. per se, but I do have a thing for ladies from all over the globe with *any* accent not indigenous to the Northern 1/2 of the U.S.

9. I don't know if I'd be able to take a bullet for any head-of-state, but I wouldn't think twice about taking one for Paul Westerberg, Bob Dylan, Bill Cowher or Tom Waits.

10. I cried, like a baby, for a good 6 hours, when John R. Cash died.

11. One time, I finished the Chicago marathon. It was never a goal/dream of mine, but Joe Strummer finished three, so, uh ...

12. I am a complete effing *snob* about wine, but my favorite domestic is still $3 Chuck.

13. Who is this Bill Ayers character who keeps add-requesting me?

14. If I *ever* catch you putting ice into a glass of single-malt, you had better run, like hell, for your dear life (I will allow a *very* small splash of water).

15. back in the '70s, my uncle Ruben had a *GINORMOUS* afro. I mean the kind with a chin-strap. I was, like, a toddler ... anyway, I saw a lot of "Welcome Back, Kotter" in those days, and he sort of reminded me, due to his hair, of the Freddy "Boom Boom" Washington character from that show. My mom, my aunt, etc. -- to this day -- think it was *sooooooooooo* cute how I called my uncle "Oomboom" because I was not yet old enough to say "Ruben," but, really, I was trying to call him "Boom Boom" because he looked like Freddy Washington. Cousin Amy, now you know ... the rest of the story.

16. This is the Tom Green Show. It's not the Green Tom Show. It is my favorite show because it is my show.

a blast from the past

2009-01-15T23:04:00.002-06:00

(orig. from Sept. 2004 ... I just like this one)

17.9.04

I don't know what it is when summer ends and the air gets cooler and my moods fluctuate with the performance of my favorite sports team. I find myself doing things I normally wouldn't, like setting foot inside so-named 'sports bars,' yelling obscenities at plasma televisions and getting drunk when the sun is still directly overhead. Perhaps one can take the boy out of the Rust Belt, but can't remove the Rust Belt from the boy.

I went the other day to the unveiling of a small, unassuming landmark to the Haymarket Riot (I'd call it a 'monument,' but it's not, as it's message is ambiguous (no doubt in deference to the CPD's continued insistence the innocent who were executed really threw the bombs)) . Suit-wearing headshots elbowed their way to the news cameras and so-called 'anarchists' wore black and brandished posterboard signs. What a crazy 120 years, I thought, during which time the voice of dissent has evolved from risking one's life to speak out for the oppressed to tying up downtown traffic with bikes for an hour or so every fourth friday. Surely, somewhere in the ether, Eugene Debs is proud. Me? I hear the job market looks up in Calgary, but is there a Steelers bar?

no paper for you!

2009-01-14T20:50:00.005-06:00

All I wanted was a Sun-Times. The weather was lousy, the el is always slow and I like having the patternless crossword for the ridiculously long trek to work. Easy enough, I thought. There's a newsstand in the Logan Square station and I had 50 cents in my pocket. I could have gone into the newsstand, but I do like to get through the turnstyle (you never know when a train is going to sneak into the station and I didn't want to miss mine) and, anyway, there's a window there so folks can patronize the newsstand after they've swiped their card and cleared the turnstyle.

I approached the window. The newsie, a guy I see pretty much five days a week, acknowledged me.

"Could I get a Sun-Times, please?" I said.

He threw his arms into the air, as if he was exasperated, as if it would just have been way too difficult to walk around the counter and grab me a newspaper. Yes, he's been walking around the counter to get my morning paper now for four years, more or less. For some reason, today was the day my regular newsie decided to go on strike.

"But I've already swiped my card," I said. "The train's coming."

Again, he threw his arms into the air. At this, he began moving toward the edge of the counter, where the newspapers are kept.

"Look," I said. "Never mind."

Really, I get my New York Times crossword online. I read all my morning news (including both major Chicago papers) online, too. I can't get the patternless that way, so I give this dude $2.50 a week for it.

So, there I was, stuck on the inbound blue line without my patternless. 45 minutes to Jackson and then another 15 on the red just to get from Jackson to Chicago and State. I thought they'd fixed up that 'slow zone' garbage last year. I'd thought the customer was always right.

I was reminded of the fall of 2002, when I lived in Pittsburgh. I was walking to work one beautiful Squirrel Hill morning when I dropped some change into a machine for the day's Post-Gazette. As I opened the door to get my paper, a shopkeeper came barreling out of his newsstand there on Murray Ave., a frantic look on his face.

"Hey, Buddy," he said. "Does that vending machine pay taxes? Well, I pay taxes. Buy the paper from me."

I thought he'd made a good point, and he'd gotten to my ex-Catholic guilt thing, so I went into his store and bought a second copy of the same paper. I've stayed away from the vending machines ever since.

I tell you, now I'm having second thoughts. My newspaper issues are completely ferkacht. I'll start bringing books or something, I guess ...

voices in my head

2009-01-13T18:17:00.003-06:00

these were the songs cemented in my head this morning, in the pre-9th circle cold.:

Love You To, the Beatles -- Make love all day long. Make love singing songs.

Lily, Rosemary & the Queen of Hearts, Bob Dylan -- some folks diss this tune b/c it is really long. I like it.

The Beast in Me, Nick Lowe -- don't ask. It just found its way there.

If Not For You, George Harrison -- Dylan's original comes from an album where he's kind of going through the motions. Harrison always brings it. There's always an urgency to everything he sings.

Strawdogs, Guided by Voices -- I was obviously on a Dylan/Harrison kick. Tobin Sprout is the George Harrison of '90s indie-rock.

how I spend my bar time

2009-01-11T00:43:00.006-06:00

freewrite w/a corpse *
… for Mark Hutchins, still alive

our world
is ending, I’m pretty sure

enduring some generic covers band
@ some tacky R. north racket

$9, 4 oz. glass of piss
plus tax (still, I tip, ex-barkeep)

who will write the next
Last Picture Show? & who

will find it
& where

in the ethers of
some world-wide net cast

to the millions, seen
by nobody

(my old guitar buddy, Mark
cld rock it out, left-hand

& upside-down, fuzzy on booze
& put it straight to say

too much cologne, get me
outta this place, where

whips & chains
compete for space

in a dirty room

(Mark, I miss you. The moon today
arose red & oversized

behind the lake. I went out
w/old friends

from collegetown &
yr. name came up &
shit, I really think this

is it, I mean
all there is

))

to hang up the rock
& roll shoes

for middle-age, I’m fucking
deaf.

*(note -- corpse: a poem, or part of a poem, constructed from pieces of other poems. The ‘corpse’ fragments of this poem are italicized.)

not a painter, I am ...

2009-01-07T08:06:00.006-06:00

So, I don't really do pomes to order, but one of the waiting 4 the bus guys approached me on this, since 3 of us have a month's end shared feature at the Mercury Cafe. I said, "sure," either begrudgingly or full-bully (depending upon that evening's vino intake) & below is the 1st draft of what came to me.

The subject? So, at St. Paul's in Wicker Pk. (new home to a great 1st Friday poetry series), in the 'big room,' there apparently exists a big-ass Jesus mural/painting. I have never been to this 'big room' or seen this Jesus, but, what the hell? I mean, maybe that's the point?

enjoie

_____________________

i.

consider the source
of all this
is overhead
mythologies invented

by Egyptians to dumb
down the journey

of Earth in the Cosmos; astronomers
they were
in the time of folklore, planets

for gods
& all we knew was blue
sky the phases

of moon
its nightly arc & sun

its retrograde into
resurrection

the 1st nomads into
Palestine

brought this along
reworked to spite the pantheists
& strongarm

the populace. consider the age

of Aries, rung in
to run off the bull-calf
then finally give way

to this fisherman myth. read backwards
the star signs
& believe

nothing you can’t touch
trace
or deduce, fear

not the burning
@ the stake, rack
& hairshirt. that time

is past

ii.

I was a 5th grader @ St. Luke’s Roman Catholic, piss-poor
altar-boy in the days before attention deficit disorder

I’d learned my 1st few chords on a $70 JCPenney guitar & beat
around my 1st few Beatles tunes, would have rather grown up to be

John Lennon than Jesus, in spite of my cracked, flat pre-adolescent voice, my semi-absent old man

who saw me odd weekends, insisted upon attending
Fr. Shori’s Sat. p.m. mass, arriving early
so we could get a seat behind

Boom-Boom Mancini, fresh off his 1st-rd. pasting of A. Frias for the lightweight belt. I marveled @ being nearly his equal in height

@ such a young age, his date ea. wk. a different lady, his
rote knowledge of the mass ritual, the very altar boy

I never was &

ea. peace-be-w/you ego boost enough to my old man’s Cath. failure complex. The father, like son, no big fan

of the 1st commandment

iii.

believe?

I think I may have, once, @ a young-enough age
to have had viable nightmares

5, maybe 6
& the happy pills
prescribed to numb

my folks’ divorce
potent enough to illicit
hallucinations: Evil Jesus

outside the bedroom window in the night to
kidnap & keep me

some rusted out van
& the S. Cal. hillsides, an image

retained from an episode
of CHiPs

& left afraid
to sleep lights out until one day

I spit out my pills
to wait out the half-life, no longer

fearful of
anything I couldn’t touch & jaded long before

& little more than this white likeness looking
down onto peeled paint, chachke

to dollarstore candle-hipsters & burned
into the collective brain

of 1 billion-plus
save us

.

* * *

anyone who tells you they love Bob Dylan's 'self-portrait' is a liar.

2009-01-06T23:11:00.006-06:00

so, twice in as many days, two different folks tell me they really, really, really love Self Portrait. Whenever I hear this, my very gut response is, “really? Is this a joke or something?” I mean, I really don’t intend any offense. I just have a hard time grasping that. It’s almost always one of you whose musical aesthetic I admire, too. I just really have to get this off the old chest …

Yeah, I know you’re out there. Every now and then, that “What’s your favorite Dylan album?” game comes up and one of you invariably says something to the effect of, “well, actually, I really like Self-Portrait.” So, OK, maybe you do like the album, for whatever reason, but is it really one of your favorites? I mean, out of Bob’s nearly 60 releases, is this one really in the same zip code-errrrrr-region as, say Blood on the Tracks or Blonde on Blonde or even, oh, Nashville Skyline? Shot of Love? Freewheelin’?

Again, I’m sure each Self-Portrait champion has his/her reasons, and I’ll get into those in a paragraph or so, but, really? I mean, preferring SP to the more, uh, agreed upon ‘favorites’ is sort of like preferring Coupling after Richard Coyle left the show, or preferring Archie Bunker’s Place to All in the Family. Isn’t it?

So, with Self-Portrait, Mr. Dylan attempts to string together a double-length set of country standards with countrified reworks of some earlier biggies (“She Belongs to Me,” “Like a Rolling Stone”). Most notable, though not for its quality, IMO, is a rendition of Paul Simon’s “The Boxer” in which Nashville Skyline Bob sings an overdubbed duet with raspy-voiced, ‘61-’67 Bob. There are a couple nice moments among the mess, sure, but every rough has its diamond …

why I don’t think Self-Portrait is great

Alright … note, I didn’t say I ‘detest’ or even ‘dislike’ the album. I’m just saying it’s probably toward the bottom of the pile. I mean, if you put out 57 of anything, you’re bound to have a few duds, right?

Chronologically, Self-Portrait is bookended by a very solid 1961-69 canon. Sure, Nashville Skyline doesn’t shine as bright as the albums preceding it, but it’s still a solid collection with a few really great songs (“Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You” hops to mind). On the other side, a couple years off, Dylan puts out Blood on the Tracks and Desire and then his string of “gospel” albums, all of which crush Self-Portrait like a grape. Sure, Shot of Love is no Blood on the Tracks, but the gospel albums still hold their own, are much more enjoyable to sit through. Really, I’ve sat through all of them.

who really thinks Self-Portrait is so great???

Good question, Scott. I’ve divvied it into a two or three groups. Here goes …

1. David Zimmerman, Sara, Jesse, Anna, Samuel, Jakob Dylan, et al ….

I guess if your family won’t support you, nobody will. Then again, I don’t know any of these folks, so I haven’t been able to ask any of them directly. Shrug.

2. The Dylan completist/absolutist.

You know who you are. You’re almost always male. You own all 57 Dylan releases on vinyl, CD, cassette, 8-track and ¼-inch reel (on top of the burned remixes of your favorite albums peppered with your favorite “alternate takes”). Nothing Bob has done, does or will do was, is or will be wrong. On your wall is a near-naked icon of Bob hanging on a crucifix. You spend your spare time uploading bootlegs of Renaldo and Clara and Eat the Document to YouTube. You have not had a date since the Reagan years.

My advice: embrace your inner Blonde on Blonde. Go outside. Discover Lavalife. Visit the iTunes store & check out music by artists filed under A-C and E-Z.

3. The music snob (or did you hear the one about the indie-rocker?).

Soooooo, the joke goes something like this:

Jokerman: Hey, didja hear the one about the indie-rocker?
Straightman: No. Do tell me about the indie-rocker.
Jokerman (voice muffled, staring at shoes): Nevermind.

This is an archetype exemplified by the Jack Black/Barry character in the film/book, High Fidelity. His/her only purpose in life is to out-obscure his/her peers. To this ilk, admitting to like something enjoyed by any semblance of the masses is to concede everything one has worked at in life. He/she has likely never actually gotten into half of the shit they claim to dig, but if they let on, it would ruin everything they represent. How plebian to hold Highway 61 Revisited in such lofty esteem. Have you even heard “In Search of Little Sadie?” I mean, if you don’t know, I’m not gonna tell you, but, hell, “All the Tired Horses?” Come on, that’s light years beyond The Basement Tapes.

My advice: repeat, as often as necessary: It’s alright to like things other people like. Blood on the Tracks is very good.

What I actually *like* about Self-Portrait

OK. There are a couple good moments. It’s a good reference piece. It’s groovy to throw this version of “The Boxer” or “Like a Rolling Stone” into a party shuffle.

So-o-o-o-o-oooooooooo ...

The argument you’ll hear in favor of the album is that it represents a departure for the artist. But, come on, we’re talking about a dude who departs a good bit with each release. I appreciate the “departure” take. I really do.

My take? I think Bob was burnt out for ideas, had a contractual obligation to fill and phoned in a big, old turd.

Then again, I’m a guy who digs the music of Yoko Ono. No, really.

look what I dug up unpacking.

2009-01-05T21:04:00.002-06:00

.

.

.

.

holiday wish list

discipline, maturity
painter’s eye
brevity of pen
longevity
& new & old friends
cash on hand
no war
a roof, a bed, a
rock and roll band &
pantryful of cans

.

.

.

.

.

resolutions

2009-01-02T19:26:00.007-06:00

- buy a new phone (mine is near-death, often gets no signal & the screen just cracked (rendering it near-useless, as well)).

- travel somewhere this year other than to Columbus for Jill's wedding.

- drink less alcohol.

- that novel I've been finishing since, oh, 2004, we-e-e-e-e-e-llll (no, really, it's there, I'm just anal about revision (is it possible to be revisionist about anal?)) ....

- finish the pome about the Jeezus mural at St. Paul's I told Matt Barton I'd have to him two days ago.

- drink more alcohol.

- no more eating like an arsehole.

- start a new band.

- learn to dream in b&w, not like the 'normal' kids, but because it would make my dreams Fellini-esque. Yeah, my dreams to this point have been exclusively in color.

- two words: Flugtag Ornithopter.

.

what a 1st draft looks like

2008-12-17T21:06:00.002-06:00

freewriting the hunt

birds
in hand
unhanded &

got away

all of them
journals or
films recalled

long gone, yet
real enough, at least
until waking

cheap 12-pack
& politics
to kiss them off

revenge enough
& construct
decoys, my outer selves. I’m sick

of love, Bob sings
but in
the thick of it. Yes.

You will lose. We are born
into it, the losing
to learn

to paraphrase
overquoted Nietsche
like some college kid in black

when I was 22 & thought
I was hot shit
w/my band & all my other

quasi bile
I digress. I don’t have time to parenthesize
this aside. I’m getting tired.

I feel better.
There will be others.

lyrics/ yeah?

2008-12-11T00:51:00.003-06:00

(I normally don't do this, but wtf? here are some 1st-drafts for a new tune)

breakup song '8

I has Johnson's "Love in Vain"
I meets ladies on the train
I is me here, I is sane
I's an artist, I feels pain

& I's alright; you won't hear I complain, luv
& I gets tight & even the best wine leaves a stain

....

o, yeah, go there, take I's home
I is orphans, rolling stones
back on the pavement, tumbleweed jones
god-sent parliament spike into the to the bone

(chorus)

find I quietly on the fringe
dirt on I's fingers, mouthfulla minge
binge I singe I sleeps alone & whinge
heartbreak, housebreak, jailbreak hinge

of a thigh & I's alright ...

(chorus)

pre-dawn birthday haiku

2008-12-01T07:31:00.003-06:00

snow stuck to cars, hard
sugar to frost my waking.
embedded footprints/tire-tracks.

really, John McCain? Really?

2008-10-16T21:28:00.003-05:00

These bully rightists playing the 'voter fraud' card ... I mean, didn't we pass the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 to get rid of that sort of profiling? How are these new hoops & balance beams at all different from the poll taxes & citizenship tests of the Jim Crow South, aside from said tactics being aimed at a broader group of citizens? It's already disheartening to hear these folks say things like, "my opponent is fixated on the past (see: Sarah Palin in the VP debate)," but when you take into account their willingness to embrace the unamerican, (albeit unpatriotic) practices of the past, such statements become increasingly frightening.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27228549/

...

2008-10-15T21:21:00.005-05:00

freewrite at a shrink’s

career? I burned that bridge
& ret’d to Chicago
a few bags of my stuff
a g/f’s bed

& found work
taking surveys
about movies & smoked

Gitanes on our rotted-wood landing
read the books she brought me & drank
pints of Jim Beam
fought & made love & got

a new job
& got canned
this

is thrown-away chapters
prequela never sent
recalled now
on rented couch

the 50-min. hrs.
copaid, shortchange

to relearn incomplete

I’d also like to say

is any press good press?

2008-10-05T14:14:00.008-05:00

(pt. 1)

... &, if so, for whom? the subject? the press? Does the pan backfire on the critic &, in turn, transform itself into an unintentional rave for said critic's target(s)?

I participated in a really cool poetry reading the other night at St. Paul's in Wicker Park. Got to read pomes & riff around w/ Kurt Heintz, Kristy Bowen & Todd Heldt, &, later in the night, Charlie Newman (who curates the whole "first friday" series) ...

The series is a bit of a stalwart. Charlie had been doing it for years at Lincoln Park's DvA gallery. When DvA closed its doors, St. Paul's opened theirs. It's a cozy venue in a residential area, and has long been a benevolent patron of things cultural and artistic. Some things change & some things stay the same, I guess.

Anyhow, there was more than enough reason for me to be stoked for the night. Todd, Kristy, Kurt & Charlie are among my favorite local writers. Charlie MCs two excellent-yet-completely-different-from-one-another spoken-word series here in town, has been the host of a fabulous poetry radio show and is one of the more prolific poet-types out there. Todd and Kristy, still in their 30s (like me), have a list of reputable publications, awards, kudos etc. a mile or so long (unlike me, yet (cross wood/knock on fingers)) and may well be the next two big names in what the more pretentious may refer to as 'american letters.' Kurt has been a juggernaut in pomes performed, paged, staged etc. for decades. If these folks weren't my friends, it might be quite intimidating for an uncomely literary slacker like myself to share such a Friday night bill. As it stands, we are friends, so I suppose I just decided to put my nose to the stone & do my best to bring the old A-game ...

The First Friday crowd tends to be heavily littered with serious fans of poetry and serious writers of it, as well. The sage Tom Roby was there with copies of his latest collection (and a damned good one, at that), Shapeshifter. Lots of other local heavyweights & open-mike regulars & poetry enthusiasts were there: Michael C. Watson, Shelley Nation, The 'Waiting for the Bus' guys, Nina Corwin, Bob Lawrence, Al DeGenova, Bob Rashkow, Dina Stengel, Joe Roarty, Chris Gallinari, just to name a few. Gallinari, por ejemplo, is a relative newcomer to this whole writing poetry thing, but the guy's work improves significantly every time I read or hear it. The guy has two really good things going for him: 1. an innate desire to learn/improve & 2. a pretty good grasp on Language.

SooooooooowhatIthinkImeantosayis ... while these First Fridays may be intimate, cozy happenings, they're definitely not readings to phone into. There were also a couple other much talked-about events this night (i.e. the Chicago Calling Festival, a virtual Lollapalooza of multi-city collaboratives), so it was wonderful to see so many folks tirelessly on fire for culture in attendance. If you were there, and I didn't personally get over to you to thank you for being there, please allow this here bit o' typin' to suffice for my humble gratitudes ...

So, it was a pretty fun reading. We did it round-robin style, with Kurt kicking off a round, then Todd, then Kristy & then myself. Halfway through we took a break & invited Charlie up for round two. Those guys (& gal) definitely brought *it* and (at least from my vantage point) also brought down the proverbial house. I'm still getting emails from folks who were there, telling me what a great time they had, how much they enjoyed everybody's reading & how they thought our round-robin format kept things fresh and fluid ... alas, I may digress, and since I already mentioned all the kind, wonderful & completely positive correspondence I've received about Friday ...

sound. fury. signifying?

or

is this where it gets interesting, Scotty?

At some point that evening/morning, after post-event tacos & margaritas & repartee, I returned to my place to some rather interesting stuff taking place on the ol' info superhighway. You can click on the title of this post to see some of this stuff (all 4,000 words of it -- a feat in itself considering the events described therein took place roughly an hour before the piece went live). You can scroll to the end of this post to see the other stuff. From what sidewalk crack did this gnarly bile bellycrawl, I asked myself. I mean, it had been a great evening. A splendid time, as they say, was had by all ...

So, it was here I remembered. I must be blessed with that cliche 'writer's photographic attention to detail' they told me about in school, but, yes, this one dribble of minutiae from St. Paul's I'd so nearly forgotten, but, aha, now it returned plain as the moment -- the literal moment -- it happened ...

Around 8:10 or 8:15-ish, I'd just given Tom money for my copy of his book (yep, I'm always buying lots of self & independently published works) & taken my seat beside Kristy, yes, when this manic-eyeballed guy in a backwards baseball cap all but falls into the room. Everything happened so quickly, you see, and I wasn't really sure who this man was, but I looked over at the 20 or so folks in the audience and there they were, shaking their heads, rolling their eyes and chuckling. It was fairly obvious most of them knew this guy with his crazy, all-over-the-place eyes and his fingers flapping.

"Who is that?" I asked. The man looked familiar, but everything happened so quickly and, of course, my mind was focused on having a good time & a good reading.

"I think he's somebody's uncle," one of the nearby attendees said. "Only not really their uncle. I read something about it on some website."

"I'm fairly certain he's not my uncle," I said. I looked around. I quickly asked each person in the room if the man was their uncle. Most of them, the ones who heard me, anyway, shook their heads and laughed. I was certain I'd seen this man before, but where and when? Surely, my 1960s excesses had gotten the best of my selective recall.

I decided to confront the man, to inquire how, when and why we may have crossed paths. I left my seat, but he was already on his way out. He wasn't happy about being on his way out, and he attempted to make some sort of scene. I figured he must have done something somewhere sometime to have initiated the chain of events I was now remembering, but I suppose at some point in every story each of us will be or has been on his/her way out ...

Alas, nothing. My mind = cheesecloth. Who is this person? Why does he keep turning up at these events, claiming the world is out to get him? Is this your uncle?

Then again, I s'pose we ought'n't pay it any mind. Every family has one.

(the following appeared, ever so briefly, in either an email sent to a listserve, or on a website ... I'm not sure. I don't really care, but I just got a bit off my chest in which I mention it, so go on and read ahead & be sure to check out the link in the post title, too)

:

**Fri Oct 3: St. Paul's, 2215 W. North Ave, Todd
Heldt, Kristy Bowen, Scott DeKatch and Kurt Heintz
will fart chanel number five in what promises to
be the snob fest of the year, 8 - 9:30 PM. Given
Charlie Newman's dislike of Christians, it's odd
that he chose a church as an alternative venue
after the DvA closed, but what is even odder is
how he has completely abandoned the notion of
"mixing it up" to present this celebration of
sameness. He once joked that he wanted to throw
together a show of poets who hate CJ Laity, and
sure enough his vision has come to fruition with
this pearly white event, which will feature four
of the most stuck up individuals to stink up the
poetry scene. I'm not sure if the joke is on the
poets or on himself, but he could not have chosen
a clearer example of Chicago's poetry borg. Todd
Heldt was taught that there is only one style of
poetry that is acceptable and that style just so
happens to be his own. The last time I saw that
do-nothing Kurt Heintz was years ago when he
bombed with a piece about being a "gay man in a
burka". Huh? Kristy Bowen recently savored her
little malicious bout of CJ bashing at her blog
and no doubt earned some brownie points from the
hate club for doing it. And Scott DeKatch doesn't
think poets should pool their money to publish a
book or to put on a fest, but he has no problem
paying Kinkos to publish his own work. Donations
will be solicited for the church

...

2008-09-04T22:59:00.006-05:00

off-topic freewrite on a bus

that fat, old sun, She’s
a blood orange peeks out from
behind chalky clouds
traces their purple
as if they were islands &
She core of the earth
lightbulb in a globe
bought @ a novelty shop
$10 or less
& dies in the W.
to become the catalyst
for all religion
the childhood rhymes my
granddad sang, “sailor’s delight”
that old world voodoo
the herbs collected
for mojos by my granny
roots, essential oils
that 3rd eye, she sd.,
back of her head. She was born
her parents’ kitchen
Ambridge, PA, in
1911, same yr.
as the last rivets
into the iron
of that great unsinkable
the crown’s Titanic
Gigantic Empire
& the boat was long – the songs
from Tin Pan Alley
to celebrate her
this ironclad Jesus or
a 2nd coming
of old Viking Studs
blue-eyed Injuns forced loveborne
before Columbus
I went to the store
& bought a pint of Gordon’s
went home to the news
on the internet
& outside the impending
southerly storm clouds
The president hid
I met the new same old boss
hurricanes formed &
fell into the land
the candidates huddled &
made nice on TV
there was a vacuum.
it swallowed us all, taking
less time than The Bomb.

-2 Sept., 2008

hullaba-who?

2008-08-16T16:42:00.002-05:00

The war machine looms & thunders overhead. It's a nice weekend to get out of town, but I have to work. This air and sea show, and this Lollapalooza, you see, are great marketing tools for realtors selling timeshares just up the road in Lake Geneva or over across the way on Michigan's W. shore. Your own private beach, folks, to escape straggling mouthbreathers in town to see some ho-hum spectacle for the first time ...

The Lollapalooza thing, yeah, uh ... I keep thinking what a *great* lineup this year's (which also seems to be pretty close to last year's) would have been 15 years ago. You'd get Uncle Tupelo instead of Wilco. You'd get Radiohead when they were just some really good rock band with two really good albums. Then again, when we were kids we weren't really of the $5-for-a-bottle-of-water-to-see-washed-up-acts from-the-mid-90s demographic, were we? I suppose some of us are now, but it's like this account I once read where a guy goes to see Elvis in '77 and opines, "if you half-close your eyes and let your imagination roll, you just might catch a hint of his 1958 self ..." I think I see the devolution of this festival into what it now is as one of the great failures of my generation, or something like that, home in Chicago, the world capital of silver-colored hucksterism.

this is the week, it was ...

2008-06-18T22:41:00.009-05:00

wednesday …
hit on by a man at a 4am bar who’s apparently impressed by my rugged good looks & the way I wear a ringer tee. I normally don’t patronize after-hours establishments so late, perhaps because of the crazies, and I usually don’t mind being hit on by anyone as long as they’re not outwardly aggressive about it. However, when you start telling me, in graphic detail, all the things you would like to do with/to me upon getting me home, well, that’s just creepy, and that’s where this’n’ is going. I gather from his demeanor he is what some would call a “top.”
“I gather from your demeanor you’re what some would call a top,” I say.
“Why yes,” he says. “I am a top.”
“You see,” I say, “it’ll never happen. I’m also a top.”
This prompts a good chortle from the friend I'm with, who reminds me I’m really not into men & why didn’t I just tell him that -- I suppose sometimes it’s just better to let ‘em down easy …

thursday...
near the end of my work day a client breaks the news to me Tim Russert has just collapsed & died. I’m still pretty miffed about Bo Diddley’s passing a couple weeks prior, but at least I suppose we saw that one coming. Russert was just so vibrant and still relatively young.

ordinarily, I take the passing of public figures I’ve never met with the proverbial grains of salt, if even that. These were a touch more personal. I’m a guitar-slinging rock musician who also did quite a bit of politicking and somewhere in between dabbled in journalism. In other words, I suppose I was a pretty big fan of both guys.

On Bo’s passing, I felt a lot like I felt when Carl Perkins died. Similar stories, I guess – good old boys who basically invented this art form, rock and roll, and who never really got the credit (or compensation) they deserved. Bo was playing to the masses & helping the homeless until a recent stroke had sidelined him. I was sad for a good while. He walked 47 miles of barbed wire, wore a cobra snake for a necktie.

On Russert, well, what can I say? Meet the Press is one of the only shows I have never really missed. I don’t even have a TV these days & I don’t miss it (gotta love those streaming rebroadcasts). The guy’s humility & enthuisiasm made him a member of everybody’s family. I mean, my friends & I can be pretty damned jaded & pretty much the minute that news broke the texts started to come in. It was sad as hell watching an entire network news team struggle through thursday night and even worse watching Brokaw & co. attempt to hold it together on Sunday. He loved his rock & roll & his hometown sports teams & would rather shoot the shit over beers than guss it up at some white-tie event …

friday…
My mum’s visiting from Ohio, so the plan is to do tacky tourist things, like get deep dish pizza. There’s a great place around the corner where you can get a large pie and a pitcher of beer for $20, but she insists upon Uno, even though she could drive the 50 minutes or so to Pittsburgh for the same thing whenever she desires. Sigh. It’s, OK, though, because it’s Mum and I haven’t had a good pizza in a while. I’m wearing a t-shirt with one of my old bands on it & the hostess asks me about it & I’m temporarily struck w/this weird nostalgic sense of failure until I realize I’m still keeping on musically.

saturday …
I’m playing a U. Utah Phillips memorial/benefit at the Heartland. I have mixed feelings about the venue. It spins itself as some hotbed of leftist populism, but it’s, like, $15 for a freakin’ hamburger. Apparently, the part of leftism about sharing the wealth lost its way somewhere s. of Lunt St. It’s a noble enough cause, though, and turns out being a good time. One of the other performers has engineered for Dylan & the Band. There’s a good us v. them feel to the night. I didn’t realize other performers would play their own songs, too, so I just play songs Utah used to. It’s still pretty cool to get any audience singing along to “Dump the bosses off your back.” Anyway, I’ll get to play several of my own on Fri., 20/6 at the Horseshoe (insert shameless self-plug here). Somehow, Larry Dean is part of both gigs …

sunday …
as mentioned already, I come pretty close to tears watching today’s Meet the Press. Maybe it’s my hangover. Maybe it would be better if it were football season already. Mum gets to the airport & back home intact. I take a long walk.

monday …
I give a guitar lesson on mondays. This student’s more of a friend, so we usually wind up having drinks, shooting the shit, making a night of it. We’ve both had out-of-town guests for the weekend & are both pretty tired, but it’s a good time nonetheless. She relates the story of how this morning at 5 she was awakened by the noise of two men beating up some woman in the deserted lakeview dawn. Another Pleasant Valley Monday.

tuesday …
On the s. edge of the abandoned cemetery now called Lincoln’s Park, I notice some dork on a Ducati gunning his engine so as to prompt his female passenger to grab him tightly. This inspires a song I write in about 5 minutes & call “Hesitation St.” It’s a Petty-meets-Elvis Costello thing in my own head & more than enough to shake the funk of a hundred lousy weeks.

ok, addressing the real politick

2008-06-01T11:30:00.004-05:00

I had a pretty good Saturday. Spent the beginning of the day watching the DNC Florida/Michigan hearings and the evening at the Gallery Cabaret rocking out to my friends, We Make Thunder. But back to the earlier part of my day:

I tend to agree with the notion that changing the rules in the middle of game is cheating. I'm also beginning to see the Clintons as sneaky, ruthless cheaters and sore losers, if I didn't already sort of see them in that light. Your goal is to oust the party in power, one who you believe stole an election -- committed voter fraud, essentially, to install itself, and you belittle your best efforts by stooping to essentially the same level.

I posted the remainder of this entry to Lynn Sweet's Sun-Times blog on Sen. Obama divorcing his church. We'll see if she greenlights it ...

I don't understand the assignation of the word "hate" to this church, Rev. Wright, Fr. Pfleger, Michelle Obama, et al. I don't grasp the American right & those Clinton-backers who call out anything uttered by any of these folks as "unamerican." We are a nation founded in dissent -- armed revolt, to be more specific. We are also a culturally/economically/ethnoracially divided people, a nation of opressors and the opressed. Nothing said by Rev. Wright was 'unamerican' so much as it reflected the way a good number of Americans feel about certain issues. Nothing said by Fr. Pfleger was untrue. I suppose if one has lived a sheltered life, and/or a more privileged life than a good number of us, they may not understand or be able to look at a bigger picture, through the eyes of the oppressed.

It's a sad commentary on our nature -- our system, too -- when public servants are strongarmed into renouncing any person or institution whose opinions may or may not offend a few people. As far as any of us who cannot speak for him can tell, Sen. Obama disowned Rev. Wright and his longtime church out of perceived political necessity. Rack up one for the flag-wrapped reactionaries and a loss for free speech.

---
well, that's it. I had to go and get all sociopolitical on j'ass (j'ass, btw, being a derivative of "your arse," is the basis for the word "jazz," as in the boppin' music would likely find you, "shakin' j'ass..." THAT is an entirely different story).

I think I lost it -- lemme know if you come across it

2008-05-31T12:08:00.004-05:00

I'm always losing things. Normally, said things are books or CDs. Predictably, if I replace these things, they will disappear again. Now, I have possessed some items nearly my whole life, but it's as if some jack-ass external and possibly supernatural force doesn't want me to have certain items. It's usually an ex who winds up with these things, either via thievery or dumb luck, but they are always the same items go missing. These include, but are not limited to, copies of The Sun Also Rises, The Book of Nightmares, Being There, A Hard Days Night and a People's History of the United States. To cope, I replace the books with used paperbacks (they, too, will disappear) and have replaced the music with burned and borrowed tracks from friends.

Reading over the above paragraph reminds me I should have coffee before anything else any morning, and await my home-raid from the RIAA brownshirts. Those are other stories.

that long train west

2008-05-26T18:00:00.003-05:00

I am currently without TV or home internet access. It's been a long holiday weekend and I've been a bit removed for the past few days from current events. Accordingly, it was in an email received this morning I was informed of the passing of Utah Phillips. He was a giant in american folk/protest music, though apparently not giant enough to get an obit into the likes of The New York Times or any of those mainstream presses.

I suppose Utah's a guy most of us who work in words & music should know of, though it can take a good, knee-skinned climbing of that old family tree to get to his work. He's been covered by Tom Waits and Waylon Jennings, and nominated for a grammy for a spoken-word and guitar album he recorded with Ani DiFranco in 1995.

I'm pretty sure that Ani collaboration was my first introduction. Mid '90s, some carloaded road-trip with my ex and three friends to some concert in Cincinnati and one of them brought a 'utah and ani' cassette along. I have since become familiar with the man's music, but the one thing still ringing in my ears goes back to that August day. It was a rough and sticky trip -- my girlfriend's car had overheated and we were literally on the verge of pissing into the radiator on the side of I-75 to limp the remaining 20 miles or so to our destination. At some point before or after we were listening to that tape & Utah was rhapsodizing on the bankrobbers of the great depression, on how so many americans back then looked to them as heroes. After all, they stuck it to the very banks who had foreclosed on so many homes, farms, dreams ...

All of this is going through my head about an hour after walking up N. Lincoln Ave., where H-wood folks have redone its 2400 block to look something like it may have in 1934, when G-men chased a man they believed to be John Dillinger down an alley outside the Biograph Theater and shot him in the back. This hulabaloo for a new blockbuster movie with Johnny Depp and Christian Bale. I've not read the screenplay, but have skimmed the book, which comes off as at least mildly pro-G-men ...

All of this on a day when politicians spout talking points on remembering fallen soldiers. That's all well and good, but somehow I'm stuck thinking also of folks who died fighting for other things we take for granted -- an eight-hour work day, job security, a livable wage ...

gallery cabaret freewrite

2008-05-25T20:32:00.000-05:00

for s.m.

always a ghost
on the piano
& the departed I knew
here
too many already
the smoke eater
cracks over a low point
of Thursday’s open-mic, Waiting on a Friend
played badly though
apropos & now a piece
about the ‘muse,’ a notion
I fail to grasp
apart from old myths. We’ve broken up
w/our others
this week &
why else to meet
for beer &
whiskey &
comiserate. The bar closes.
I walk her to the Blue Line.
I want to kiss her
& she tries. I hail a cab
home to Edgewater.

under the loyola el pkg. goods freewrite #

2008-05-25T20:28:00.002-05:00

you were telling me
about yr. dream, the one
begins you wake

@ his place
preoccupied w/leaving
to feed yr. dog

& put off cleaning
write something
go shopping

but he’s not there
when the guests
begin to arrive

uninvited, the couple
fucking in his pantry &
univ. colleagues

small-talking
their theses
sounds like

… yr. overwhelmed, I offer
by the lot of it
it’s late

we’ve nursed liters of wine
watching Jeunet in yr.
living room in un-

folded camping chairs
Wed. night rocking
back in them, taking turns

our mutual, amateur
shrink game you sd.
there were eels

in yr. suitcase
I noticed
yr. boots

on the dumpster
& the snow
hits yr. window

I remember Kinnell’s Book
of Nightmares, his
2ndhand shoes

(each star, ev’ry
1, see
is a magnet.

& the gravity
of these chairs
finds us

in our 30s, here
to sort thru
timing &

years &
define
just what) I’m

singing Dylan
to myself
at the bar -- I wouldn’t

worry about it none, though
those dreams are only in yr. head.

fake Campbell McGrath pome

2008-05-25T20:25:00.001-05:00

I slept in
S made coffee & eggs
I checked the weather online
it was warm
for Jan.
I ate my breakfast
I packed lunch
(an apple, 2 peanut butters on wheat)
I went outside &
it felt like spring
I was late for work
the el smelled like human piss
there was a shakedown
at the bughouse
across from the library, 2 homeless guys on a bench
fingered by bike cops for booze
in a soda can & forced
to dump it. One walked away.
The other slept on a bench.
The rich took their dogs inside.

2505

2008-05-25T19:28:00.002-05:00

mister moustaches ...

Went friday night to a friend's "moustache party." As can be surmised, this event asked each attendee to arrive wearing a moustache/moustaches (whether real or fake). It was a good time. I opted for a small soul patch, as actual moustaches make me look like some sort of cop or football coach or hapless third-world dictator ... not enough for the party's organizer, however, and within minutes I was bestowed with a dollar-store paste-on moustache of the handlebar/Snidely Whiplash variety. I enjoyed wrinkling my upper lip to make it appear alive, like any good silent film villain. Soon, though, I had to remove it, as it was causing quite a nasty allergic reaction. Apparently these things are made of asbestos ...

...

Saturday, some good friends from the poetry thing had a cookout. I rode the 76 bus west to the 9 south to the 72 then a-way, way west to their cute house in Humboldt Pk. Something about the aroma of real charcoal smoke and meat ... It was a good crowd, fairly eclectic, and the food was out of this world. I was pleasantly surprised with my friend's concocted 'rattlesnake shot.' OK, well, she didn't invent it so much as she introduced it to me, but it was quite good & quite potent. German cherry brandy, canadian whiskey & sweet & sour mix, so a sort of play on a whiskey sour or something like that ....

...

I was going to write a longer, thought-out treatise on the state of american politics, the so-called vice-presidential shortlists that have found their way into the mainstream media. What really could I say or do, other than to quite boringly & boorishly inject my own two cents into an already overloaded fountain? Next time, next time.

2008-01-23T18:44:00.000-06:00

Fox Elegy

for Jim Phillips

i.

the curving valley
of the turgid, septic Fox
where once the mallard

water'd w/the deer
& the Pottawattamie
dwelt before the Fox

Indian arrived
displaced by the division
of the Beaver Wars

the intervention
of the French an early glimpse
the staid strategy

of the white man, the
capitalists, to divide
then to make extinct

like the Indians
the winding river nearly
flooded completely

w/blood of small game
hunted for sport, those natives
killed for manifest

trappers' blood the bad
deal arguments gone down in
a right bloody mess.

ii.

was in a classroom
some town on the river in
the 1960s

called out by students
adopted its moniker
& became The Fox

to catch the dumpers
unawares -- all Errol Flynn.
You were not John Wayne

tho' even some cops
enamored w/the river
& yr. monkeywrench

tipped you off to stings
got away like those ill fish
nobody could eat

carried, dumped gallons
their own acrid sludge back to
their meeting room floors

& rode off, untouched
The community gives back
the next day's headline.

iii.

in the summertime
over lunch in Geneva
at a beer garden

on now-cleaner shores
daytrippers get drunk &
ducks in the water

in their devoted
familial processions to
follow its current

lunchers get drunker
return to boats, watersports
spinning for panfish

here, in yr. back yard
nary a glass raised you in
yr. back yard.

Thoughts on Iowa's raucous caucus

2008-01-05T00:08:00.000-06:00

I watched it on MSNBC, because you can't beat Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann getting all giddy over an election. Today's NY Times actually ran a good review of Matthews' coverage. The man is part wonk, part shaman, part belligerent barfly & I love it.

Earlier in the day, my mom (who is quite the anti-Bush, old-school, union-card-carrying democrat) asked who I thought would win, and I called it exactly as it turned out on both sides. I'm sometimes that good with NFL picks, but have never been with politics. Usually because my heart's on my sleeve.

Mike Huckabee reminds me of Kevin Spacey portraying a xanex-mellowed Richard Nixon.

I'd resigned myself to not really liking any of the candidates. Hillary plays dirty & is too conservative. Edwards talks a good game but something about him is so-o-o-o-o-o-o plastic. Obama doesn't say much (though he says it well). Biden's a loose cannon,. Dodd's smart (albeit too conservative). Richardson seems clueless half the time and Kucinich and Gravel are just plain silly ...

But, I must admit, I was a bit overcome by some sort of very good feeling when Obama won it and did that so handily. I don't think I'd have felt that way were it any of the others, and I don't remember feeling that way about *any* election's outcome -- let alone one small caucus. For a brief moment, maybe I felt good about the U.S. Who knows?

BTW, if you know & love Mark "Mark" Antonelli, it's his birthday today. Spank his arse.

2007-12-16T04:25:00.000-06:00

That verse in Prince's "Alphabet St." about drivin' his daddy's Thunderbird to Tennessee? One of my favorite moments ....

I'm snowed in with the dogs. Single again, it seems. I just turned 36. My friends were very nice. Olga was specifically sweet, convincing me this literary/rock and roll thing vs. an actual career is *not* a midlife crisis, is a good thing.

Of course I don't need that convincing.

The holidays impend. It's jumper season downtown, officially. I always enjoyed the winter, though I dunno about it getting dark at 4pm ...

Friday I've got Friday on my mind

2007-05-18T17:44:00.001-05:00

In my line of work, a slow work week is a double-edged sword. I finish a bit earlier and less exhausted, but with considerably less cash to throw around on silly things like horse races & beer & new musical toys & groiceries & rent. This was one of those weeks. Actually, I should say these were two of those weeks. Yegad.
---
It was a nice day. Actually had time for a lunch break. Ate completely crappy pastries & drank burnt coffee watching suits & tourists pass by at the top of Viagra Triangle. Watched a couple young canvassers from my old org. work the corner to little avail. I don't miss that job, and they won't, either.
They're shooting in my work neighborhood. Some football movie titled "The Express" with Dennis Quaid. I read somewhere the story is set in Syracuse, NY., which makes much sense ...
-----
Jerry Falwell passed on this week. I was thinking I must be some low-life, because when I received that bit of news, my gut reaction was "good -- maybe as of now the world is a bit less hateful." Obviously, I wasn't the only person on earth to feel this way, and it was heartening this morning to read Cathleen Falsani's religion column in the Sun-Times to find she had pretty much the same reaction I did.
---
That old Everly Bros. tune, "Walk Right Back," in my head most of today.
-----
Heading home from work ... the blue line lurches doggedly forward filled with a demographic more reminiscent of a Naperville-bound Metra than the mass transit of Chicago's eclectic & hard-working NW side ... some fratboy in a backwards blue baseball cap yells, to nobody in particular, "Cubbies ... how about those Cubbies?"
"Uh, did you just say, 'how about those yuppies?'" a woman's voice chimes. The three of us who did not just walk out of the J. Crew catalog and onto the el had a nice laugh at that one.

#4 in the series

2007-05-13T13:26:00.000-05:00

(note: my band, The Prams, hosts a regular series of shows featuring great bands from outside Chicago: The KICK YOUR DOOR DOWN! series. #4 featured Rosehips, from Columbus, and was supported by The Prams & We Make Thunder! )

In retrospect, it was an anecdote from the bios of our favorite bands: a whiskey-soaked, all-energy train-wreck of a show where any minor mishap is superceded by the unpredictable spirit of true rock & roll, the kind you tell your kids about, the kind 100 people witness & millions claim to have seen. ... woke up this mornin' & I got myself a bee-eer ... I got drunk & I fell down ... Johnny always takes more than he needs, blows a couple chords, forgets a couple leads ... I've been piecing the night together for a week. I really don't black out like this. Fuck.

We brought Rosehips from Columbus, OH. They're a quartet of women with big drums & amps, high-altitude guitar-ing & catchy changes. Their bassist, Jill, also plays in November Loop, who were part of our first 2 gigs ever, so this was a sentimental big deal for us. Anyway, we *always* love playing the Mutiny and we *always* love doing it with friends from out-of-town. Like ham & eggs, or Waylon & Willie.

This show fell on Kentucky Derby Day/Cinco de Mayo. Some of us played some horses ($41 back on $60 of wagers) & drank mint juleps before hitting the venue. It probably wasn't a good idea to drink more bourbon at the Mutiny, but hindsight is so-named for a reason, and rock and roll knows no moderation.

We Make Thunder *tore* through a great set, played their 'classics' and covered Neil Young along with the usual surf & girl-group homages. Each time I moved, somebody handed me a shot. We Make Thunder were that perfect mix of tight and loose. I was pretty tight, myself.

The first thing I noticed about Rosehips was the controlled explosiveness of the Rhythm section. They were set up first, and warmed up around the classic hook of Pixies' "Gigantic." Maybe I threw all caution to the wind from this point on because I knew the show would be a great one. It was. The mix was loud & in everyone's face. The crowd was excellent, both in number & in spirit. Everybody rocked hard & dropped singles, fins & sawbucks into the collection jar. Rock and roll church, y'uns.

I remember the first half of our set being energy, cock, balls & sweat. We had a sing-along on the old Son Volt tune, "Windfall..." Guys from Altgeld Forgotten & Tall Friends were there (love those bands). Some greasy dude claiming to be from Matador was there, too, I later heard. If it were 1993 and not 2007, that would have been cool.

The only other thing I remember is that telling, rock-bio moment:

The end of our set, as we're deconstructing our medley of "Lullaby," "Supersport" & the GbV song, "Smothered in Hugs" into a sonic, 3-string implosion, Steph jumps behind Tom's drums. Andy from We Make Thunder grabs Steph's bass & takes over that implosion. At this point my guitar is off my shoulder & up against my amps making its own feedback & Jill hops up & grabs it, interspersing these angular, Carrie Brownstein-ish riffs with dissonant chord windmills. Steph gives up the Drums to Shawn from Tall Friends. A great, impromptu noise-rock supergroup you'll never see or hear again. The only moment of cogniscence in my blackout. The only one that matters.

#4 will most likely feature those meddling kids from Youngstown, OH, Posture Coach. And another great Chicago band or two.

#2 in my band's KICK YOUR DOOR DOWN! series

2007-03-10T16:24:00.000-06:00

The Mutiny is rapidly becoming our favorite place in Chicago to play. Yes, some clubs have a nicer sound system, or are less smoky, better-known or at least more 'on the radar,' but the club has been good to us, they're decent to bands in general and they're proving to be eager to work with us bringing awesome bands from out-of-town to Chicago. Hey, I'm a sucker for free drinks and being able to play longer than 45 minutes.

We hosted Treysuno. They used to be based in Toledo/Bowling Green & now they're scattered in various parts of OH and MI, I believe ... anyway, they've just wrapped up a rock-solid full-length & we'd been aware of them for a few years & we were excited to have them. We completed the bill with Tall Friends & Red, two of our favorite local acts.

Tall Friends played first. Probably the best performance I've seen from them. During their set, Andy from We Make Thunder overheard the doorman comment about the abundance of Ohio IDs at the gate. Every time I turned around, it seemed there were 10 more people in the club. I expected a *decent* turnout, as Red always bring a good crowd, but this turnout was definitely unexpected. You couldn't take two steps without knocking folks aside. It was like a big, smoky, alcohol-soaked Tokyo subway with good rock.

When Red played, folks started to move. They have this awesome song, "Not Too Late," that seems to get everybody going. After that, Treysuno put on a short-but-energy-driven set. This had to be one of the best shows I'd seen to this point. I was nervous to follow such performances. But we did, and in spite of a surprise visit from the fire marshall & in spite of Steph's amp blowing up, we trudged through our set & it seemed folks were happy.

#3 is May 5, with The Rosehips. They're a killer, all-woman band from Columbus. If it's half as good as the last one, it'll be great.

cawfee tawk

2007-02-06T21:46:00.000-06:00

It's been about a week straight the media has been running with this recent Consumer Reports piece on McDonald's beating out Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts in a coffee taste test. Far be it from me to call out the fair-minded purveyors of that survey, but I've never thought too highly of any of the three. Say I'm spoiled for coming of age in a college town where several cafes served up house-roasted stuff or for living in a big city, where there's decent coffee & decent cafes aplenty, or because the first time I actually drank coffee it was somewhere in Paris when I was a very impressionable 18 years old, but what is so good about any of those multinational options?

McDonald's coffee is served way too hot, and doesn't really taste like much.

Dunkin Donuts? A little more flavor than McDonald's , but still kind of stale & a bit watered down.

Starbucks always burns their coffee, which tastes exactly the same no matter which 'brew' you order.

I actually believe the Consumer Reports piece came to the same conclusions.

There's a great place way up in Edgewater called Metropolis. They roast their own beans and do creative things with a frother. They supply a number of nice establishments with their product. I only wish said product would find its way into my neighborhood and/or the one in which I work.

The Day After ‘the music died’ – thoughts on Buddy Holly & Herb B. Berkowitz

2007-02-06T02:04:00.000-06:00

4.2.07

I've never really been a fan of that Don McLean song. I've never really been a fan of that whiny, melodramatic '70s 'singer/songwriter' genre. Be it McLean or James Taylor or Seals & Crofts or Dave Matthews or whomever, I didn't get it when I was a kid and I don't today.
Don't get me wrong: I love when a great songwriter (Willie Nelson, Ani DiFranco, Neil Young, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, Jeff Tweedy, Jay Farrar, Chan Marshall Paul Westerberg, to name a mere few) picks up a guitar or sits at a piano and just bares all. However, I also like my rock and roll to be at least a little bit threatening. After all, it's rock and roll – lock up your daughters and hide the radio teen angst rebel music. It was this way from its very accidental and organic onset and what's left of the good stuff is still this way. If it doesn't make a certain element of the 'power structure' cringe, it's elevator music: Pat Boone, not D. Boon.
Which is why I'm always disheartened every February 3 to open up any major newspaper and come across what I believe to be some reactionary version of a tribute to Buddy Holly on the anniversary of his death. Granted, Buddy has countless fans representing every nook and cranny of the spectrum (probably not as many as Elvis Presley, but that's a different story about the unjust nature of the so-called industry and its marketing practices). Yesterday it was an article by Herb B. Berkowitz, who directs a PR firm in North Carolina.
Mr. Berkowitz is obviously a great fan of Buddy's music. He was thirteen on that fateful day in early 1959 and has attended the anniversary tributes to Buddy, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson at the Surf Ballroom. I couldn't be happier to know there are such dedicated champions of Buddy's work, and none of this is meant to take anything away from Mr. Berkowitz or as any sort of personal attack.
What initially puts me off is the following quote from his tribute:
Back then, the cool rockin' daddies and teen queens who entertained teenage America did so with their voices, not by putting their private parts on display.
This is a rather reactionary statement, in my opinion. It's also spin not much different than that propagated by too many rightists on Martin Luther King's birthday every year when they unwincingly 'adopt' Rev. King as a champion of their own platform.
Now, I was born nearly 12 years after Buddy was taken from us. However, I don't think I need to have 'been there' to know this is anything but accurate. We've all seen the footage of Presley thrusting his hips like some porn actor on speed, no? Jerry Lee Lewis marrying his 13 year-old cousin? Chuck Berry violating the racist Mann Act? The orgasmic stage theatrics of Buddy's dear friend, Little Richard Penniman?
Buddy's work itself is every bit as sexually subversive as that of any of his contemporaries who were shaking up the white, patriarchal power structure of the Eisenhower years. In "Not Fade Away" -- a song dense hippies will mistakenly tell you was written by the Rolling Stones and made famous by the Grateful Dead -- Buddy sings, "my love is bigger than a Cadillac." "Rave On" could be his generation's "Talk Dirty to Me." His cover of King Curtis' "Reminiscing" addresses a cheating significant other. "I'm Gonna Love You, Too," according to some of the bios, was initially about an orgy in which Buddy may or may not have taken part. If you believe the first-hand accounts in said bios (or subsequent interviews with Little Richard Penniman), Buddy took the stage at one performance late and with his zipper down because he'd been backstage shagging a woman from Little Richard's band. He bedded his usurious producer's wife during a recording session. His fashion -- dark-rimmed glasses and all -- mirrored the style of the young, hip African-American men too many daughter's fathers reasonlessly feared in those days (a nearsighted Briton named John Lennon would later credit Buddy for giving him the courage to wear glasses onstage). He may not have trashed any hotel rooms, but Charles Hardin Holley was the epitome of the contemporary definition of rock star.
There also exists the story of one cold West Texas November during one of those notoriously draconian 'busload of talent' tours when Buddy invited tourmate Little Richard, a bisexual black man, to his parents place in Lubbock for Thanksgiving dinner. His folks, white Baptists somewhat set in bigoted ways, refused to allow Richard into their home or feed him. Buddy joined Richard on the freezing front porch, refusing to enter the house or eat until the elder Holleys finally came around and welcomed their son's friend to their table.
Berkowitz goes on to write, "In the pre-Beatles era of rock'n'roll (sic) (Holly) was one of just three white boys who really, really mattered, and the only one who didn't live long enough to cash in on it." He cites Presley and Roy Orbison as the other two who "really, really mattered."
Without going into any of the myriad reasons I'm moderately offended by the invocation of race in the above opinion, I could also opine this isn't exactly accurate. Les Paul pioneered the recording techniques Buddy embraced & remained fiercely adamant about. And Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran were hard-rocking, songwriting trailblazers who also died way too young and never really "cashed in." Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis were incredibly important artists, and claiming they ever reaped their just rewards would also be a decent-sized stretch of reality.Like too many recording artists of just about every genre, time and place, Buddy Holly was shamelessly exploited. Recording engineer Norman Petty strongarmed a naïve Buddy into allowing Petty partial songwriting credit for songs Petty had no hand in writing. At the time of his death, Buddy (whose wife, Maria Elena, was well-connected in the recording industry) was in the process of starting up his own independent record label, Taupe Records, as a reprieve for exploited artists. Ritchie Valens and Waylon Jennings were among those who would have been in the Taupe catalogue. Buddy had 'discovered' Jennings. He taught his friend, Roy Orbison, how to play a bullfighting call that would become the famous guitar hook in Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman." He wrote the first "girl's name" song, "Peggy Sue," and introduced minor chords and modes to rock and roll. Unlike Presley, Buddy Holly actually wrote his own songs. His independent, relentless conviction was responsible for sound recording innovations we still employ today. He played a Fender Stratocaster because it was the loudest guitar he could find, and he rocked hard. His band rocked hard. Several years before the Beatles made an advertising campaign of it, he put into words and music "we'll live and love with all our might."