Monday, March 31, 2008

Opening Day

Opening Day

The Mariners beat the Rangers
5 to 2.
It snowed
and they had to put the roof on.
J. J. Putz got the save.
He fanned two and gave up one hit
in the 9th.
The pitch of the evening
was the split finger fastball
which came out of his fingers
full of Pratt and Whitney
but
died like a shot clay pigeon
over the plate.
Very nice.
Happy totals on the radio.
Yea baseball.

Here's something else.
From a book I re-read a couple of weeks ago...

"Know this: though civilization has upset the established order of Nature, it has nevertheless not deprived Nature of her rights. In the beginning, she created strong and weak, her intention being that the latter be eternally subordinate to the former as the lamb is to the lion or the insect to the elephant. The adroitness and wit of humankind determined the relative positions of individuals, for soon it was not physical strength that decided rank but the strength of a man acquired through wealth. The richest man was the strongest man, the poorest was the weakest. But in spite of this changes in the manner in which an individual came by his power, the superiority of the strong over the weak remained fundamental to the Laws of Nature, according to which it mattered not if the rope which secured the weak was held by a man who was rich or a man who was strong, or whether it's coils weighted heaviest on the weakest or the poorest."

That's from the Marquis De Sade in "The Misfortunes of Virtue." It's what the counterfeiter Dalville tells Sophie when he enslaves her. These parts where the evil characters wax philosophically are more interesting to me than all of the perversion and tolchocking that goes in this book. It's a rationality for continuing the status quo that never seems to get old. It's exaggerated here of course but it's basically the whole enlightenment values to the extreme, self actualization at all costs, social darwinism song and dance. Whenever anybody starts talking about the Laws of Nature and human society, it's bullshit time. You hear a lot of this these days from people who think it's nice to have more than their slice when there's hardly enough to get by. Good old republican (not the political party) virtues and the notion of the collective good seems to have gone out the window with these folks. In their view, anybody that doesn't want to sign up for this type of savage, anarchic individualism calling itself democracy is a bolshevik. Just like Livy said, this kind of shite is gonna eat us up because like it or not, under the masts of the ship of state, we are a collective and none of these folks is truly an island.

It's a discourse that's going on that unfortunately isn't going the way I'd hoped it would. We gotta get some thinkers in this game that can throw some heat, like J.J. did tonight in the 9th. Michael Walzer would be in my bullpen. His ideas concerning economic justice and political obligation are thought provoking and may strike out a few rhetoricians who use abstraction to scoobie everybody else into letting them act like King Kong-sized, insatiable two year olds. The game's not over and just like Mr. Sexsmith sings, there's still time.

More Rants of Exchange

Rate of exchange
don't treat the greenback so good
nowadays.
Anyroad
last post's rant of exchange
remembered to tell me
about this rant of exchange
that's got bits from
Russell Hoban's 1980 novel
Riddley Walker.
"the onlyest power is no power."

http://www.ocelotfactory.com/hoban/riddley.html

We covered up the clutter
and burried all our broken wires.
Opened up the shutters
and we can see for miles and miles.
And isn't it true
that we know something about you?
But that's okay
that's okay.
Every tomorrow meets its end
in yesterday.
And isn't it strange
accounting the rates of exchange?
We got there from here
"the little come big by the far come near"
so please don't take the good news so hard.
Lose the frown
break a smile
hide your soapbox
for a while.
We've got something
for your ringing ears.
"Sharna pax and get the pole"
brighten out the deepest hole.
Signal tower
flash the hour
of all clear.

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Oversees a Broad

Ghost buildings with painted on bricks.

They used to make flowers out of stone
and all you can do is get sick.

History grows out of the red soil ground
and film is for sale every second step
but has anything important been found?

They want to buy it from an old world store
because the rate of exchange on the past
is so much more.

When you go back home
remember to say hello
to the fake future,
the overflowed dike,
and the rupturing suture.

Let's build it up and knock it down again.
Make skyscraper pueblos out of styrofoam
and be the National Bank of Man.

The bills are never going to be paid
and we no longer care what was once there.
We're here to put the air in it's grave.

When you go back home
remember to say hello
to the forgotten past
and the rivers and grass.

Bossa Nova please, maestro.

They say look on the bright side
and 
blue skies will smile on your front door.
Sorry
I haven't got time
I'm counting the cracks 
in this old floor.

Now that you're gone
I can't leave here
oh no.
Better off being alone.
Better off being alone.

You and I are free.
Some things weren't meant to be.
Think I'm gonna stay inside
and hide.
You'll see.

Lately I found myself wandering 
and wondering what I'm going to do.
Maybe you were the one for me
or
Maybe you weren't
that's nothing new.

But now that you're gone
I can't leave here
oh no.
Better off being alone.
Better off being alone?

Lighten up, Francis...


Yesterday night's post
the Saturday Evening Post
was mercurial 
and repetitive.
So
let's have some corny jokes, eh five?
Aye aye.

Why does a milking stool have three legs?
Because the cow has the udder.

What did the fish say when he bumped into the wall?
Dam.
What did his friend say?
Dumbass.

And let's have a funny story, eh five?
Okay.
Johnno comes over on Friday night
with some cheap plonk
n we sit on the porch
watching the spring snow.
"You know what movie 
really gets on my tit?
Forrest Gump.
Never seen it
never will.
I can't stand the idea it exists.
Stupid be stupid do.
What the fuck?
Life is like a box of chocolates
you never know what you gonna get.
Yes you do.
Yes you fucking do.
It's printed on the inside of the fucking lid!"
Made me smile
n I'm smiling right now.


Saturday, March 29, 2008

Positively 2nd Ave NE


You wanna see me snarl?
I'm gonna snarl
'cause 
I was just out with 
Hatcheted Heart
Captain Eo
and of course
being the chatty gurls they are
pressed me about
the not so good Friday. 
Going back
going back
"something's missing and you know they won't leave you
alone
I'm not worried about you 
why you worried about me?
I'm not worried about you
why should I be?"
Steve Wynn said that.
He means it.
Kendra Smith means it
and oh you know Karl Precoda means it.
Oh you know Karl means it
n I mean it too.
Cause the snakes are coming out
and you know you never liked it.
Especially 
when the Kay 
pickups 
scream against the 
Fender Bassman
because they can't take the strain
and you can't fake that
like you.
No
you
can't take the strain.
"It's all right, it really didn't mean a thing."
Goddamn right.
It really didn't mean a thing.
It really didn't mean a thing.
But I remember what you said.
I remember what you said
and 
now
I want to make this perfectly clear.
want 
to 
make 
this 
perfectly 
clear...
that just as everything you think you are
and more
is so important to you,
I am 
and
have already been. 
Yeah,
and
more...

Friday, March 28, 2008

Daisy Glaze

What's it about? 

Daisy Glaze.
Track eight
on Big Star's 
Radio City.
I keep listening to it
for almost thirty years now.
I still remember the first time
I heard it
as vividly as someone remembers 
hearing a loved one has passed away
and some of mine have.
It was summer of 1983
and I had just met Roosty
we made a garage band
inna garage.
He introduced me to Mot 
who 
was Mod
and played 
a Rickenbacker
330 
and who
in turn
introduced me to his sisters
Soup and Psyndi.
It was them
the two weird sisters,
n I'm using the olde version of weird
here,
who liked Big Star 
and liked
Radio City most of all.
Nice summer day 
stoned at Salter's Point beach
with Tom's VW van doors open 
It came on in the still air of the afternoon
and time started to stretch out 
into long languid streams.
Alex Chilton
singing like a little lost boy
who only lives in the smallest dream.
The one you can't ever fully
remember
before you're jolted awake
but 
you weren't really asleep.
"You'd better not leave me here"
over and over against that chiming guitar
and the slow progression of ride 
and snare.
"I'm lying in the stream 
and floating fine
receiving things 
in my beautiful mind."
Christ.
It was like the darkest night 
was dropped like a heavy blanket
on existence.
"and now I'm thinkin' Christ
nullify my life...
nullify my life."

I wanted to know what it was like to have 
Daisy Glaze 
come out of my mind
my voice
my guitar.
It's never happened
never even come close.
Why?
Issit because they recorded it at Ardent Studios
in Memphis
n used the now sacred relic
Fairchild Limiter?
Sweet compression
squeezes the notes through the bright filament
of vacuum tubes.
No.
It's because I don't know what it means.
I think it may be 
about heroin 
but that's just the words on paper.
I know it's about so much more
to me.
But does that mean I know what it's about?

I live too often in Daisy Glaze.
Things fall apart 
n I just stand blankly
unable to choose the right decision
"This is the story of a man who could not
make up his mind."
Thank you Sir Larry.
Stand blankly
through two marriages
through countless bands
through tearful girlfriends
through a series of goodbyes
through the years
inna Daisy Glaze.
Not because of narcotics
or Bushmills
like some of you may think
but 
because I am lost.
Like the sad voice in the song
but at a strange kind of peace
'cause I know
I'm lying in the stream 
and 
floating fine.

What's it about?

Amstel Adams

Gee-Flips came over last night with all of his pictures.
Amstel Adams.
How'd he get so good at it?
Photo-grapher
Photo-grapher.
Get the picture?
The observant will note
the many Pretty Things references
in this post
n probably the next
few.
I found Disc One of Unrepentant
hiding in
Chocolate Watchband's
44.
Are you gonna be there?
Reflecting Grey?
Yes.
Gee-flips has a good eye for composition.
His photos of the not so good Friday show
in Blingham
remind me that Roosty n Scaught
played a really nice set.
Shame shame.
Gee-flips is good folks.
Gentleman Drude.
It knocked me out
when he took my suggestion
to go to Morocco seriously
and went.
Mayhaps I'll post a couple of his Morocco pics
and a couple of Blingham pics
here.
Better ask first, though.
Intellectual property
being what it is.
Gee-flips is the kind of person
that makes you want to try harder
to listen
to respect
to appreciate
other people.
How'd he get so good at it?
Photo-grapher
Photo-grapher.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Lares and Penates

Household Gods.
Since the fall of Care-oh and Scaught
or really
since the fall of Bean and Scaught
I wander in search of a place to put 'em.
Like pious Aeneas
at the fall of Troy.
Actually
more like Aison.
Jason.
Not born from the Gods.
like Achilles
like Aeneas.

Jason is mortal
and
Jason has problems
forced on a difficult journey
he didn't choose.
He doesn't like it.
Neither do I.
Right now
I am washed up.
Take that any way you want to
and you'll be correct.
Washed up on a strange continent.
Welcomed by the inhabitants of a city
where my past glories are celebrated.
That was an age of heroes
Pilot County Suites and Candy Aquamarine.
It's gone now
like my youth.
Like my desire shoulder the battered weapons
of volume and rhythm
and stand again in the field
"bringing it" as the Hatcheted Heart likes to say.
Useless
like stooped Priam in young man's gear
making a last stand against the Greeks.
At least he had a wife to tell him he looked
like a fool.
But we is alone
n kinda lost.
Somewhere in these books I keep reading
over and over
there lies a sign that points the way
or a good wind to fill my sails
and allow me to gently disembark
from this crumbling dreamland.
Yup.
I'm still looking
for Aeneas' Italy
for Jason's Golden Fleece
for a safe place
to put my Lares and Penates.
My household Gods.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Lay Piety

What are we like at our most in between?

Equidistant from your eyes and mine.

Midpoint where our breath mingles invisibly.

What are we like at our most in between?

Every idea of you came to me

through my eyes and my ears and my skin.

But if I go out of my mind will you be there

waiting at the median of our warm bodies?

I haven’t got sense enough in the world

to know where you or I stand.

Distance, direction, the future, the past.

I perceive and I think and imagine.

But what if you aren’t really there?

And what if I’m not really here?

Whoever I am I can’t bear the thought

that would ever make you fiction.

I cling to my faith that you’re always with me

especially when I’m alone.

Believing you’re there gives me reason to be

Be here

be there

and between.

Ava, Shirley and The Fall of Eagles


Every other Monday
I talk to Rosy Fingered Dawn
Sort of an oracle
I guess.
Anyway
it helps me
sort things out
n there's plenty things
needing sorting out.
The sliding scale
makes that possible.
Thank you Mr. Freud.
Thank you Mr. Jung.
I'm still clinging to the raft.

Care-oh picked me up after Dawn
with the two hounds in tow.
Ava and Shirley
Ava and Shirley

The pups.
My pals.
No matter what life slings at you
it all goes into the rearview mirror
when you're with the pups.
They're a team.
Inseparable.
We all went to chez Care-oh
ate tuna casserole
with olives
played and watched
The Fall of Eagles.
Who doesn't love historical costume drama?
Who doesn't love low budget, BBC historical costume drama?
Ay Claudius!
The Fall of Eagles
Europe at the brink of the Great War
Foreign Ministers
Kaisers
Kings
Generals
Anarchists
n overarching arrogance and greed
Monarchy crumbles
blood irrigates fallow farmland.
Gotta re-read
The Guns of August.
Why did everybody think
it would last mere weeks?
Arrogance n greed
bellicose nationalism
rational / irrational paradox
the cult of the offensive
and then
"An iron vice has caught us all."
Hmmmm,
seems very familiar
very familiar.

Total Eclipse of The Earth

The language can’t hide your words lack of worth
holding no perspective
like an eclipse of the earth.
It’s only your shadow on the ground
that you never find your way around.
So introspective
but it’s all been played out.
So many things to speak about
but all you ever do is shout.
Sing, sing the rage
like Achilles in a cage.
There’s no solution
to your anger and confusion
so just continue to delay.
Until they find out you’ve got nothing to say.
The sweet smokey spell you’re under
holds you in this dark penumbra.
The light and the heavy and darkness between
will blot out the stars in the sky and your dreams.
So when again will we meet?
Under cloud or moon or out on the street?
Well you know that when it finally goes south
your ambition will have vaulted over your mouth.
Somewhere somebody has made you a crown
but the commoners kicked it all over town
I found and it wiped off the sticky and slime
Is it okay if I make this thing mine?

Monday, March 24, 2008

Last Trip to Bellingham




In the continuing story of things falling apart
things fell apart.
Some more.
Good Friday.
Not so good Friday.
We did the acoustic thing
in Blingham.
Mic messes
n hippies.
Good beer from around our way.
Like a nice chocolate shop
but beer.
However
the lay lines in Blingham are bad.
Remember November?
Anterior cruciate ligament
pop.
Care-oh and Scaught
pop.
Paul Lynde Fanclub
pop.
and now
Roosty n Scaught
pop.
We don't believe in self pity
boo who?
We know we own stacks of blame
in these things.
At times though
there seems to be a hidden calculus
operating under the hum of these interactions.
occulted ambitions
smuggled perceptions
opaque ciphers
all being strangled
by the steady drumbeat
of time.
We ain't getting any
younger
no.
We is getting ahn
but I don't know
whats going ahn.
Love on everybody though
Life is hard enough
n I don't want to make anybody hurt
so things go pop
we breathe
watch the moon
and move along.

Lux Nova on The East Greenlake Express

The air goes in
the breath goes out.
The breadth of a decision.
The width of a doubt.
She sits in the corner
your eyes resting on her.
The lashes and black hair
and the dark in her stare
radiate in waves
from Olympus to Hades.
Will you drift into her rocks?
Break apart in her locks?
Or ride high on the swell
past the seas where the sun dwells.
Just the slightest glance
can cause the reins to dance
in this chariot race
for a glimpse of her face.
Dark Lady of the sonnets
why have you done and gone it?
You paid the fare and now you are sitting there
and
you are most fair
most fair.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Never Was and Isn't Going to Be

It’s like clinging to a piece of wood in the middle of the ocean.

It’s like staring at the light in the windows of houses from the dark.
It’s like singing a song into a vacuum.
It’s like thinking about things that are invisible.
It’s like talking and talking and talking about the words nobody ever hears.
It’s like reaching for somebody that’s not there.
It’s like all of the seconds
and all of the minutes
and all of the hours
and all of the days
and all of the years
are here and gone.
It’s like clinging to a piece of wood in the middle of the ocean.
It’s like laying in bed and never going to sleep.
It’s like sleeping and never dreaming.
It’s like there are two heads
with two mouths
saying different things
at the same time.
It’s like the sound of screaming that doesn’t ever stop.
It’s like not being born and dying.
It’s like sore eyes that never see anyone.
It’s like a phone that nobody calls.
It’s like an empty box.
It’s like a pot of soup rotting on a stove.
It’s like clinging to a piece of wood in the middle of the ocean.
It’s like the pages of books already read and already read.
It’s like that feeling that hurts so hard.
It’s like those thoughts that make you talk out loud.
It’s like November, December, and January.
It’s like February.
It’s like March.
It’s like it never was and isn’t going to be.
It’s like clinging to a piece of wood in the middle of the ocean.

Friday, March 21, 2008

For My Life's Comet

Up to me
down to you
Shafts of light
passing through
All the dark
of our lives
Boy and girl
Man and Wife

And every time we touch
My head goes round
I get down on my knees
and kiss the ground

Up to me
Down to you
Up the stairs
to your room
You are the light
and the truth
Up to me
Down to you

And every time we touch
my head goes round
I get down on my knees
and kiss the ground

And this is the most important thing
to me, the most important thing

And every time we touch
my head goes round
I get down on my knees
and kiss the ground

Up to me
Down to you
Far away
Closer too
Doesn't matter what they do
Up to me
Down to you

Sea Shanty for The Unreliable Narrator

Remember when we first went down there together
and out into space on the edge of the tether?
You said it’s like swimming through a Bermuda’s triangle
we made mathematical sense of something newfangled.

But now you don’t have so much time
and there ain’t enough room for us in your mind.

When you walked out of the sea and into the sand.
With only the clothes on your back in your hand.
We waited and watched
worried and stewed.
The line of the phone and tealeaves we brewed.

Bathed in a bathysphere floating in trust
but your mind isn’t big enough for the both of us.

Is it hell living in that diving bell?
What do you tear asunder every time you go under?
Are we like the creatures you see in the deep?
Glow while awake and gone when you sleep?

And right now it grows dark at the heart of the sea and dim in the deepest parts of me.

For all of us here that still walk on the land
and don’t go to sea with invisible bands
are bound and determined to fade out like ghosts
haunting the mind of a parasite’s host.