Thursday, December 3, 2009

New Addition To The Family







Nothing fancy. His name is Clarence, and he's shy and enjoys poetry. He's a Seagull S6, and though he's not the prettiest guitar in existence, he's all solid wood, has a low action, and purrs when I hug him.

I've been working with a metronome a lot, trying to improve my rhythm -- or, rather, gain some semblance of rhythm -- and am making an organized attempt at learning ALL THE CHORDS TO EVER EXIST. I know like seven. So I'm pretty much there. Yeah.

I've discovered I can rhythmically flail while singing, but once I try to keep a coherent count of where I am, I suddenly lose my tongue. Once things are more instinctual, I'm sure it will be easier.

Muscle memory, ACTIVATE!

~Bonus Video Embed~


Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Demonstration and Camaraderie


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran-protests5-2009nov05,0,2031874.story?track=rss


I try not to comment on anything I have not researched well enough to speak on with authority, but I feel obligated in this instance to state my support. I don't think it's a stretch to say the key to liberty in Iran is not CIA operations, American installed puppet regimes, or cruise missiles, but the uprising of its own intelligent, courageous citizens. There is an enormous generation of youth surging forth in Iran, and it speaks with one voice into the face of oppression, arrogance, and theocratic despotism. There is a conscience in the organism of Iran, there always has been, and in the wake of increasingly blatant atrocities and insanities, that conscience has arisen to the forefront of the organism's mind, where it is now battling the homunculi of archaic brutality and hostility to reason.

To my brothers and sisters risking their lives in the fight against tyranny, in the face of ignorant hatred, under the bludgeons of masked men and the clouds of tear gas, in the prisons of obvious primates, under sentences of death and unwarranted confinement, I can only state my passionate support and awed inspiration, though my words can only ring empty in the presence of those courageous enough to put their lives and bodies on the streets.

This is one American who is with you, not for America's sake, not in the hopes that you will be like the West, but in the hope that you will be yourselves, freely, without fetters or fears. We have much to learn from you, and I look forward to a day when we can exchange ideas without a climate of suspicion, resentment, or fear.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

E-Reading and the Apocalypse

With all of the doomsday talk around E-books, E-readers, and everything prefaced with E, I thought I'd throw a thought into the mix.

I love technology. While I may not own an iPhone, I could accurately be described as transhumanist. When the day arrives that we can trade in our organs for nanobots, I will be first in line.

But, you see, I have this bookshelf.



It's not much. It's way too small and has already overflowed, leaving me to pile books on every precious piece of uncluttered horizontal surface space, but it's mine. Those are all books that I have bought, kept well, and can read at any time. When my nieces and nephews are older, and if—gods forbid—I ever spawn a creature of my own, they will have them available at any time.

But could I lend them my Kindle?

When I was a child, my family had a bookcase. It was giant, ancient, and held all the knowledge of the world. (Actually, it was about seven feet tall, built by my father, and filled with yellowing paperbacks, but I was a kid, so it seemed more dramatic.) The top shelf held my dad's nonfiction, mainly, large volumes on nature and history and guns. Below that were several shelves of everything from Lord of The Rings to Dean Koontz, but mostly Stephen King and Tom Clancy. LOTS of Stephen King. Everything he had published, in fact. Then there was the bottom. It was stocked with Dr. Seuss, Shel Silverstein, R.L. Stine, children's science and puzzle books, and a pleasant array of other random things my parents would add.

One of my favorite activities was to sit down in front it all and just pull books out, looking through them, examining the covers. Before I could even read, I was fascinated by books. Here, standing against the wall, was a portal into worlds far away from the tiny cluster of houses surrounding a grain elevator that made up my neighborhood. As I learned to read, I was ever more infatuated. It evolved. I had an argument with my brother about whether bullfrogs ate worms or not; we looked it up. I was right. I crawled up the bookcase from Suess to Silverstein to Stine to King.

By sixth grade I was marveling at Stephen King novels, and writing "books" that somehow always ended at less than three pages. I had long since known I would be a writer, but that's not the point. The point is, even before I could read, I knew I would be a reader, and when the time came, I had ample material to read.

I didn't live in a town big enough for a library. With our large family, we rarely got to go to the bookstore. (Though when the Book Fair came to school I always got to pick two books.) All of those books sitting there, like gold in Scrooge McDuck's vault, ready for swimming, are what made me the reader I am today, and, consequently, made me the person I am today.

If all of my books are on my reader, how am I supposed to pass that experience on? Would handing a child a Kindle have the same effect? Am I nitpicking, or perhaps alone in this kind of memory?

Don't misunderstand me. I think e-paper is awesome, and LOVE the idea of downloading a Virginia Woolf novel for ninety-nine cents. I don't think books will disappear any time soon, but, sure as dogs are damned to hell, e-books are where we're headed. It makes me wonder what may change without our noticing.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

15 Books That Will Stick With Me

Rules:
Don't take too long to think about it.
List 15 books you've read that will always stick with you.
They should be the first 15 you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.


1 Ulysses by James Joyce
2 The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
3 The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf
4 Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
5 Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
6 Love is a Dog From Hell by Charles Bukowski
7 On Writing by Stephen King
8 Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche
9 A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
10 Letter to a Young Contrarian by Christopher Hitchens
11 The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White
12 The Border Trilogy (All The Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities of The Plain) by Cormac McCarthy
13 The Road by Cormac McCarthy
14 For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemmingway
15 Walden by Henry David Thoreau

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Drawing; Poetry

Big post today. Have been writing but not posting. The drawing was done weeks ago. Thankfully, I no longer feel that way. (At the moment.) The poetry was written over the course of the past few weeks. The best poem is probably the last. If you get tired/bored scroll down and read it.



It seemed so at the time

Last night
I enjoyed
the most beautiful evening
of my existence.

I was headed
to my old apartment
to pick up a check
for four hundred
dollars
and the sun was setting
orange and pink
and peach and blue
and every direction
you looked
the clouds were different
soft marshmallow rubble
or smooth swirls
or sliding hues
Bright Eyes
was on
the stereo
and told me love did exist
outside of poetry
and as a flock of birds passed
the glowing blinding beauty
of the setting son
gliding over the cloud mountains
and green broccoli trees
I became transfixed
so that my foot fell on the gas pedal
and I went over sixty
through a forty-five
and a cop passed
bringing me down enough to notice
he didn't pull me over
and it suddenly seemed
as if even the assholes
were not so bad
as if even the pimps
of mob justice
had to sit up
and take notice
of everything around us
and stare
at the setting
pastel sun
as I'm pretty sure
this one was.



A glimpse of something-

I am a
lifelong
groundhog
peering first
over the dirt
and marveling
at a frightened field mouse
it
r u n s
along
a log
silver-brown coat
gleaming
in the shadowed sunlight
it disappears
into
the dark
and I am left to wonder
what other
creatures
call this land
their home.


Momentary Weakness


Beautiful people
exist.
More beautiful people
exist
than non-beautiful.
They hide behind
their ugliness
and cower.

What the fuck?
I think that was
optimism.

Momentary Strength (or self delusion)

The more I
hate my life
the more I
like it
over everyone else's.

They seem to be
having fun
but – fuck –
they're so stupid.


Recipe For Poetry


Depression
+
Coffee
(or substitute sleeplessness)
+
Frustration
Anger
Annoyance
Loneliness
(proportion to taste)
+
Hope
Despair
Obsession
Carelessness
Design
(in equal parts)
+
vocabulary
connotation
misunderstanding
deception
+
sexual tension
+
satisfaction
+
scorn
+
praise
-
originality
_______________________________________
(equals)
1 ton
of bull shit

Serve with a side of
mixed metaphor.


The cheapest anesthetic is an accurate ear.


I used to walk
with a man
in a gray jacket
with gold lining
who kept his hands
in his pockets,
whistling,
and said good things
about good people
into my ear.

He spoke so well
he could make me
weep
with anxious satisfaction
over a single look
from another.

He died one day.
Disappeared
like childhood fun.
I don't know where
or when
but he's gone.
I occasionally cut cardboard
to look like him,
draw on a face,
whistle lips,
those shiny
window reflecting eyes

I tell it it's him
and I tell him
to tell me
all the good things
of those around me
so I can suck in my breath
and rub my hands in awe.

He is very quiet.

I speak for him,
sometimes,
spilling words
in softly filling pools
that shine empty
and bright.

They evaporate.

I look at the cardboard
and grin so hard
I can't feel my face.


Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Music- American Philosophies



Me and my ukulele. Woooooooooooooooooooooooooot.

I suck every time I turn on the freaking camera. I have a MUCH better .mp3 of it. But I didn't want a lame lip synced video.

Anyway.

Lyrics.

I've got a three fifty seven and a twelve guage shotgun
never been to heaven but it sounds like much fun
I aint got a reason but I got the will
to spread the word of Jesus or at least to kill
I've been working too hard and for far too long
to let a man in glasses try to tell me I'm wrong
I'm a man of my nation or at least my version
I keep my box clean but avoid excursion

you know I go to college though I don't learn nothing
but I have a lot of sex so I guess that's something
I do a lot of drugs with my friends and talk
about who we've fucked and who we've fought
as if it's gonnna matter once we get out
forgetting how to think and learnin how to shout
gotta be a gear if you wanna compete
get a good job and a big TV

we live
in a world
where the poor stay poor
and the fools stay fools
and the latter get rich and enforce the rules
we tell our kids to obey
so they grow up to say:

I've got a four floor house with a great big lawn
that I mow every day and it don't seem wrong
cause I don't gotta read when I got DVDs
and I don't gotta think when I know what I see
and the world's not there if it's not in the news
I only like pop cause I haven't had the blues
and I live in a land of water and green
where the bads not bad nor the good what it seems

I got my gods even if I don't
they give me all the knowledge that I don't even know
cause the truths only true if it always feels good
and accuses and excuses as I think it should
been catching my conclusions one at a time
holding out my hat and hoping for a dime
cause I got big ears and little bitty eyes
so desperate for the Truth that I'll even take the lies


we live
in a world
where the poor stay poor
and the fools stay fools
and the latter get rich and enforce the rules
we tell our kids to obey
so they grow up to say

Monday, August 3, 2009

Doodles!



Vacation is nice....