Rock N' Roll Fishing Show

There is No Future

2012-01-24T01:56:00.000-08:00

Like an idiot,

"What will tomorrow bwing?" bubbles of spit.

Spectacle holds no hostage, lays bare

only crotch, and crux.

Not that one you retard, get me a root beer!

I could do better. Couldn't is the

most elegant mutation

in english: true onamonapia.

2011-05-26T15:27:00.000-07:00

Summer is here.
Living on fish and wild strawberries-
its hard to remember when you were
just a shaggy silhouette, shooing the deer
from the salt lick.

2011-04-22T15:45:00.000-07:00

Inland Empire

2011-04-19T01:49:00.000-07:00

Born under a dynasty of sociopathy.

I would use my x-ray glasses

to see the contents of your gut.

I can imagine it: strung tight with piano wire

anaerobically wheezing in bile.

The soundtrack of your life is a symphony

of cells in concert against you.

Orange Pop

2011-04-19T01:40:00.000-07:00

Know this song is sad, but don't be sad.

Make the act of zoning out an act of tuning in.

Understand the signifiers, but never be signified.

Autism is the next step.

Swell our ranks until we can't tell anymore.

Teach us the last lesson.

The Teeth of Dogs

2011-04-19T01:26:00.000-07:00

Music is human.

Music is humane.

Music wants to teach you something

about your body.

Ringing out!

to kick the teeth of dogs.

The drums clean themselves
with their tongues.

Apocalypse

2011-04-18T01:57:00.000-07:00

The apocalypse happened,

and I really am alone...

I don't miss it much.

I took about a hundred car batteries from the stores.

I play Sega Genesis all day long.

My favorite game is Altered Beast.

Shit's About to Get Real

2011-04-18T01:44:00.000-07:00

I feel so alone when I stalk.

Total despair.

Full powers.

O God! Cousin Hans come back to me.

I miss you- its worse than when Mom worked.

To rekindle the fire of childhood,

only to dump soap on it and leave

again. I can't take another round of this.

I want to watch you, anonymously

talking talking to me- about me.

You never call, and it breaks my heart.

I will never find love until

you find love. But I know

that you will never find love.

For the fitness of his bastard

2011-04-08T01:43:00.001-07:00

He doesn't know what he wants anymore.
For the fitness of his bastard
he will fly to the edges of Castleberry Ponds,
and pluck the wet seeds from brownberry
bread. Wait on a wire.
Imagine a dad with wings!

almost

2011-04-06T13:02:00.001-07:00

I had a dream that was so real,
a girl leaned over
and kissed me.
Her head suspended over me
made the impact perfectly weightless
It was important
when I reached for her boob, it was
perfectly obscured by her shirt.
She moved my hand away tenderly
because it was too fast.
The dream was so sweet-
I don't now where I went wrong
I don't know why this dream
makes me cry
almost

Best facebook status ever

2011-01-26T03:00:00.000-08:00

good night sweet prince. finished the x-files after threeish yearz... damn i was told half way through to give up the cause, what a gasssssss. it never stopped fluffing me... ever. my life is complete, time to die.

Seventies on the Forest Floor

2011-01-25T02:09:00.000-08:00

"You talk too much you worry me to death"

-William Reginald Hall

You adulterated my funky marinade

and then I woke up with flashbacks

to death.

This is real talk,

swerving around the downstairs mixup,

congressional medal of the arts

shining like a pop can

from the seventies

on the forest floor.

A mushroom of dementia

and hubris.

Their New Alien

2011-01-25T00:47:00.000-08:00

Everyone learned a new language while I wasn't looking

It is alienating, as in eating an alien

It is like they stopped caring about communicating

and are content with rolling their new alien

around in their mouths

Way to Die

2010-12-15T16:20:00.001-08:00

If I die, I want to die by nuclear bomb.
I want to be incinerated in a flash of blinding light
and have my consciousness extrapolated across space and time.
Only an atom bomb can bring
those impossible physicalities here.
That is the best way to die.

The Special Man

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

Then
there is the special man.
Somewhere there are women who
are keeping him in their thoughts, and they
are frames of reference.
They think about him, and he thinks
about the other dudes, forever,
like a beautiful self-replicating prism.
The dudes are the constellations that will
guide him in the night.

Idiom

2010-11-26T02:04:00.000-08:00

You hold the universe in your hand
like a memory of a thing that never existed.

Bust

2010-11-26T01:59:00.000-08:00

The figure, as sculpture:
A ham-fisted pulverization
made of the wrong stuff.

The Sting

2010-08-06T00:58:00.000-07:00

We're going

to have

to have you.

Have a positive attitude.

TRON

2010-08-05T23:41:00.000-07:00

All that is visible

must grow beyond itself

and extend into the realm of

the invisible.

You Don’t Like Me Because You Want to Fuck My Wife

2010-07-08T00:54:00.001-07:00

I know how you feel!

The Thing

2010-07-08T00:38:00.000-07:00

They understand you better than

you understand yourself; alone

and racked with paranoia.

“The Thing is the Thing”

sighs the Volkswagen Eeyore.

Cars drive past him parked- FOR SALE

and the beautiful girls

shriek at his cuteness.

Sea Foam

2010-06-12T10:15:00.001-07:00

Pink and mint.

2010-04-05T11:56:00.001-07:00

I know you are trying to define your own reality but until you succeed we have to share.

the thing

2009-04-30T01:00:00.000-07:00

They understand you better than
you understand yourself; alone
and racked with paranoia.
You are the thing, we are nothing
but a set of disparate parts.
But I was born in the wrong time.
No one values the things I have to offer
sighs the Volkswagon Eeyore.
The new cars drive past his
parked form, FOR SALE
and the beautiful girls
shriek at his cuteness.

Alight the feeder

2009-04-29T00:38:00.000-07:00

If you love me
don't do the things
that people who love each
other do.
When the man sits
at the window drinking coffee,
too dull to remember his yoke,
a chickadee alights the feeder.
"I love birds".
The rain fogs the windows,
the classical station does what it always does.
Look at him!
The chickadee flees.
The man alights
the feeder.

The dudes are the constellations

2009-04-29T00:06:00.000-07:00

There is always some other dude.
The one with the weird wit,
the one with the devious glint.
The glint held a mystery.
Mystery solved, next case.
The one with the talent,
the one with the hair,
the one who is good with words.
The dude who's writing is so funny,
or whose demeanor is unassuming,
but whose kisses are passionate and soulful.
The one who is there, at the right place
and the right time; Park Point in the summer,
2 am in the winter.
The one who takes his winnings
and spends them all in one place.
The one who drinks too much.
Then
there is the special man.
Somewhere there are women who
are keeping him in their thoughts, and they
are frames of reference.
They think about him, and he thinks
about the other dudes, forever,
like a beautiful self-replicating prism.
The dudes are the constellations that will
guide him in the night.

You are closer

2009-04-21T23:23:00.000-07:00

You are like the sister I never had, though
I have a sister. You are closer.

Underneath your body

2009-04-15T23:54:00.000-07:00

Something happened to you
while you were surfing the net.
Your acme passed underneath your body
without even brushing your leg.

The money in matchsticks

2009-04-13T10:57:00.000-07:00

There is pride in ownership,
of birds and studs.
A wood stove, and the proportions
of property. I don't want to own anything.
The vast swath of woods
that is really a toothpick farm.
"Let's go ahead and mow that poplar lawn"
for the money in matchsticks.
The tip is dipped in a sulpherous cauldron,
with magnesium soft and strange,
and a strange girl groping my zipper,
to light a head that strikes anywhere.

Blood cheese

2009-04-13T00:14:00.000-07:00

The time has come to harvest the pulse
of my achievements.
All I have are words and symbols with which
to quantify the boundaries of my butterfly ranch.
Great mesh tents like titanic nets to hold the cakes
frosted in dust and short as wicks. Verbage is the only
grass to feed the aurochs, their flesh
as red and heavy as catfish bait. Blood
and bread, a sacrament to patience

The money in matchsticks

2009-04-12T23:49:00.000-07:00

It doesn't matter to me,
this hundred dollars.
It is a new fly rod, it is
three solid nights on the town.
There is pride in ownership,
of birds and studs.
A wood stove, and the proportions
of property. I don't want to own anything.
There is a vast swath of woods
that is really a toothpick farm.
"Let's go ahead and mow that poplar lawn"
for the money in matchsticks.
The tip is dipped in a sulpherous cauldron,
with magnesium soft and strange,
and a strange girl groping my zipper,
to light a head that strikes anywhere.

What am I wearing?

2009-04-08T01:15:00.000-07:00

That is definitely me in that picture.
I look short.
I think I must have the build
of a short man, even though
I am tall.
"How tall are you?" they ask,
looking up at me, surprised
by my height.
I rise from my chair and
feel gravity kneading my stomach.
What am I wearing?
My torso is too long or something.
It is filled with occult impulses
and has shortened my parameters.

2009-04-08T01:10:00.000-07:00

The fish
is not a metaphor
for freedom, or wildness.
It is not your avatar in the river.
The fish is the path
of least resistance.
The fish is just like you.
It has staged until sexless
and now in its final gasp
it realizes that the water
has turned.

Castleberry Ponds

2009-03-28T13:39:00.000-07:00

For the fitness of his bastard
he will fly to the edges of Castleberry Ponds,
and pluck the wet seeds from Brownberry
bread. Waiting on a wire.
Imagine a dad with wings!
Imagine a room
where the light never changes
in natural ways
or a branch underneath you.
A nest of gaping, slimy mouths, each
one the squeakiest wheel.
Imagine a dad with wings!
A rabbit in estrus painted in airbrush
on top of a hatchback, turning in
metal flake suspended in medium.
Imagine a dad with wings!
Mistaking your motif
for game on the wing and to fly
with abandon to snatch something
fake like a lure, and to be like a fish
arrested in motion and always unsatisfied.
Imagine a dad with wings!

Fishing

2009-03-25T00:52:00.000-07:00

There is something about a wild, alien animal
fighting at the other end, telegraphing its muscle
through your rod.

The Asian Branches

2009-03-25T00:26:00.000-07:00

Legends, writ large on ancient scrolls
pass warnings upstream.
I draw one and walk out under the motion
detector so the light will turn on, and unfurl it
beneath the harsh flood.
"Pandora's Box" is the title.
I don't have to read this one, I already know the ending.
I would rather imagine a woman named Pandora.
Maybe it is a stage name. After the myth.
The wind thickens in the courtyard, and the light shuts off.
Under the junipers is a cardboard box.
I go to retrieve it, tripping the light back on.
I pull it out into the light, smearing it with condensation
from the Asian branches.

Denali

2009-03-25T00:19:00.000-07:00

I don't know why people keep dogs.
People just like a warm body around, I guess.
Instead of a kid, or a wife, why not a dog?
Why not all three?
The dog looks balefully up at you.
"I know how you feel Denali" you say,
your mind choked with retarded sexuality
and the urge to piss in the backyard.

Physical acts

2009-03-19T01:19:00.000-07:00

Terrible physical acts
are the only ghosts that are left.
You do things, you have done them before me,
and those acts are behind us, but they are always
in front of me. Beautiful physical things
that I can't understand or control.
I watch them on replay, embellishing
accents until the patina they wear on their flanks
is mellowed with time,
until finally love will arrive.

Imagine a dad with wings!

2009-03-19T00:51:00.000-07:00

The cuckoo lays her egg
clandestine, in another nest.
Who knows where dad has flown?
Imagine a dad with wings!
He is a rambler. Free to fly where
he wants.
But he doesn't know what he wants anymore.
For the fitness of his bastard
he will fly to the edges of Castleberry Ponds,
and pluck the wet seeds from Brownberry
bread. Wait on a wire.
Imagine a dad with wings!
Imagine a room
where the light never changes
in natural ways
a branch underneath you.
A wire singing coldly beneath you
your bastard is crying, his mouth is
the squeakiest wheel.
Imagine a dad with wings!
A rabbit in estrus painted in airbrush
on top of a hatchback, turning in
metal flakes brought from beaneath you
suspended in medium.
Imagine a dad with wings!
Mistaking your motif
for game on the wing and to fly
with abandon to snatch something
fake like a lure, and to be like a fish
arrested in motion and always unsatisfied.
Imagine a dad with wings!

I'm not Bono

2009-01-05T12:42:00.000-08:00

Who do you think I am?
What do you want from me?
I spend more time accomodating
your collective grievances...

I'm not Bono.

Which have eviscerated so many pale fish bellies

2008-11-26T20:40:00.001-08:00

If you have been lucky enough to capture a bald eagle (via the means described in the previous chapters) we will assume that you have field dressed the fowl.
Place the bird breast up on the block. You may be surprised at it's diminutive stature, but remember that birds of prey are more bluster than bulk. This is no fowl of the yard, or game bird with lead on the wing.
This- If you are American! Is a national symbol. You won't find it hanging in the window of some Oriental roasting salon, you won't find it at your greengrocer's.
A rare bird at the roost, and rarer still at table!
Fill it's gut with lemon wedges and tobacco leaves. Add a sprig of Indian's paintbrush for colour. Grease the bird with rendered fat, and let the fat be white- yellow fat will tang the flesh. Now the great falcon is ready for the oven!
Roast him as you would a big, rangy chicken. Be careful not to let his sternum split, or worse, his skull. You can gauge his doneness by his drippings and by listening for seismic chirps in his cooking sounds.
Now he is at table, and with willing guests abiding, for this occasion is one of singular import. Carve him with repose, and let your knife be sharp as Excalibur! Remember that the finest cuts are about the face and loin, and the wings are inedibly toughened with animality.
You may be tempted to offer the "drummer's stick" to a favored guest... Fine. Just be sure to warn them of the talons!

Deer God

2008-08-04T22:43:00.000-07:00

God has taken the form of a deer.
He is everywhere,
waiting to give you
a fatal car accident.

2008-07-24T10:00:00.000-07:00

2008-06-26T14:31:00.000-07:00

Gill Net

2008-06-17T00:41:00.000-07:00

"It's easier to catch girls than it is to catch fish."
John said, as he pulled another gill from the net.
I wondered what John meant by that, and I thought
about it for a long time, the fish collecting around my feet.
Then I remembered that John was in a band.

Ghengis Khan

2008-06-06T02:19:00.000-07:00

"I was born,
with a blood clot in my fist."
she said.
So?

The Virgin

2008-05-05T02:55:00.000-07:00

The Virgin waits
like a wolf,
made of virgins waiting
for the amazing.
The Virgin shoots
the political science students
with an errant, lazy satisfaction.
The amazing has arrived.

Fill The Slot With Reverance

2008-05-05T02:40:00.000-07:00

Men often write about their fathers.
The fathers sulk in granite thrones.
What was he thinking about?
There is no answer, but the men
fill the slot with reverence.
The men will accept nothing less
than jewelry made from the bones
of elephants or whales.
The father hands down a
catalog of guns or a page of
phone book, "Taxidermy" encircled
in ball point pen. The father looks so young
as he climbs back into his car and drives
away, thinking all kinds of
dim, wrong headed things.

An End To Sadness

2008-05-05T02:23:00.000-07:00

Rejoice,
young pistol,
for it has been a score of trillions
that has delivered you to us.
An end to sadness
has arrived
at last,
and you are the means.
The black island that
in your heart has hanged,
now takes shape.
Cells upon cells
have tripped their traps
in rabbit's beard
and cadence rapt.

Dignity

2008-04-23T03:21:00.000-07:00

Dignity is a trampoline
strung tight with baby swiss.

That Weird Star

2008-04-23T02:19:00.000-07:00

Nobody wants to be the crazy uncle.
No one starts out aiming for that weird star.
They just end up there.
No one plans to chock their lack
of financial or romantic equity up
to environmentalism, or fidelity to
idealogical scarecrows.
No one spends their life hoping that
their acme will pass beneath them without
even brushing their leg.
"They broke the mold when they made him"
you imagines your family saying, too old to learn
the new clichés that have been invented
to describe you.

Fill The Slot With Reverence

2008-04-23T01:53:00.000-07:00

Men often write of their fathers.
The fathers sulk in granite thrones.
What was he thinking about?
There is no answer, but the men
fill the slot with reverence.
The men cannot admit
that he was just some guy,
in the same way they can't accept tight pants,
or jewelry made from the bones
of elephants or whales.
The father hands down a
catalog of guns or a page of
phone book, "Taxidermists" encircled
in ball point pen. He looks so young
as he climbs back into his car and drives
away, thinking all kinds of retarded, wrong things.

Cat Person

2008-04-23T01:37:00.000-07:00

"Are you a cat person?" she asks
as I pet her gross dog.

Two

2007-01-24T13:26:00.000-08:00

Two

Ely

Let's you and I take this show north
Walk out among the miner's houses
Your tall laugh, clear as water
Will ring through the iron hills
Striking the impossible chord

Love In Inches

I think in terms of board feet
Twelve by twelve by one inch
It's a way to quantify trees
Standing in your heart,
The last forest waits to be cut
And built into a house that
You can live in, counting
Love in inches

Someday

2006-12-29T14:15:00.000-08:00

I will write you a flower made of felt
You can fold a vase for it
Out of the paper you saved
And it will hold water
I like to imagine you
In a hurry
Running down the stairs
Grabbing a jar of tomatoes
And running back up the stairs
Out of breath, face flushed
Your braided hair
Starting to unravel
I don't have many regrets
But I fear accruing them
Someday
I'll pull up in a pickup truck
And you'll have the coffee made

2006-11-13T11:32:00.000-08:00

Africa

2006-03-31T12:37:00.001-08:00

John Buchanan

2006-01-29T14:20:00.000-08:00

School Stuff

2005-12-15T13:36:00.000-08:00

Magnetic Fields

2005-11-21T16:21:00.000-08:00

Some roads, are only seen at night

Ghost roads, nothing but neon signs

But some nights the neon gas gets free

And turns into walking dead like me

When I first heard the Magnetic Fields it was on Halloween. I was drunk, dressed like Peewee Herman, and it was one of those moments of musical epiphany I thought only happened for the very young or very stoned. Except this one lasted, and here I am today to testyify to you young sinners about the salvavation of the Magnetic Fields.

The first thing I heard was the Magnetic Fields' record "Charm of the Highway Strip", which is still my favorite and arguably their best. Friends were always telling me that I should hear them because the band's Svengali, Stephin Merritt, supposedly had a smilar style of recording music. I shrugged it off and never pursued it. That Halloween night, I heard something coming out of the speakers that sounded like Outkast's "Hey Ya" sung by the voice of a new-wave Johnny Cash with lyrics that evoked the lonesome perfection of a spaghetti western.

Not only that, but the beats were funky and crunchy and they had the whole place dancing, even me. The man behind the curtain is Stephin Merritt who is an all around genius and records, writes and perfroms all the music in Magnetic Fields. Charm of the Highway Strip is oft neglected in lieu of Merritt's more daunting and impressive masterpiece "69 Love Songs"- which has, well, 69 love songs. This is an awe-inspiring achievement especially considering about a third of those songs are really good. "69 Love Songs" provides a rich and varied pallet to be sure, but can't hold a candle to the sheer beauty and purity of "Highway Strip"

Plus, "Charm of the Highway Strip" bumps. The songs are just such tasty fucking jams and the lyrics are truly masterful. Check out my favorite, "Two Characters in Search of a Country Song":

You were just like me,

You were one big bruise

In the game of life you were playing to lose

You were Jesse James,

I was William Tell

You were Daniel Webster I was the Devil himself

I once drove an orange VW bus across the west. It was old and rusty but it became my life. I listened to it's every murmur trying to gleen the secret poetry that seemed to resonate from the machinantions of it's tiny engine. It became a symbol for my life up to that point. If I could keep it running, if I could push it over the next mountain... Well, as Louis Jenkins would say, the whole damn medaphor would come dangerously close to flying off the cliff. No music I've heard captures that feeling like The Magnetic Fields.

What do you do when you're driving around on dark country roads, polishing off a bottle of Jack Daniels, and you want to hear (as loud as possible) the antique loneliness of Hank Williams, the elegant detatchment of Joy Division, and the orgasmicly satisfying crunk of Jay Z's "Big Pimpin'" combined? By now I hope you know the answer.

Stephin Merritt is gay. This is meaningful to me because by listening to 69 love songs written by a gay man, I have a perspective on gay love that might have been tough to come by otherwise. I love him for that. No, not like that, perv. Here he is pictured rocking out with bunny ears WAY before Mark Lindquist ever did. Kudos, Stephin, and thank you.

By the way, when I started this blog I wanted it secret. Now I am asking you, the would be reader (if you exist) to please post comments. I liked screaming into the void at first but now it just feels like, well- screaming into the void. Thanks, blogosphere.

Legends of Hip Hop

2005-11-15T12:42:00.000-08:00

This is a comic I used to draw for local hipster pamphlet The Transistor. I am going to post them occasionally- sequentially- just for the hell of it. I don't ever feel like writing about rap, probably because I am oversaturated, so this will help provide "fair and balanced" coverage. I am skipping the first one because it sucks. Actually, fuck it. Here it is:
Twice in one day! Nice jacket, Marl.

Love is All You Need, or True Love, or Love at First Sight, etc.

2005-11-13T15:20:00.000-08:00

So the band is called Love, and if it weren't for the Beatles these guys would be my favorite. Their third album, "Forever Changes" is one of the most beautiful and psychadelic things I've ever heard. Band leader Arthur Lee is truly a genius, and luckily for the sake of this post- an enigmatic one.
In the summer of Love (1967, kids) three masterpieces were unleashed on the turned-on masses: The Beatles "Sergeant Pepper's", Jimi Hendrix's debut "Are You Experienced?", and Love's third album "Forever Changes".
"Sergeant Pepper's" sounds like... nevermind, the Beatles don't count- they're aliens. Oh wait, so is Jimi.
Anyway, we're talking about some mind-bending, touching the face of god, angels of liquid colour giving you an HJ (hand job, virgins) type of shit.
The fact that these guys can hang with The Fab Four and Hendrix should impress you. The fact that they do it while remaining almost entirely acoustic should blow your mind. The fact that you've probably never heard of them (don't worry, I hadn't either) should make you feel sad, confused, and lonely.
While everyone else was taking the electric kool-aid acid test, these guys were drinking Jonestown kool-aid out of a mason jar while they surfed a wave of molten rainbows out of the speakers and into your ear inside of which they "shot the curl" (surfer lingo, squares).
Forever changes is nearly flawless. I'm not going to bore the reader with flowery, cliched pontifications on it's merits as porn for music critics. I don't give a shit about that. Okay, I do, but that's not the point.
The thing that makes Forever Changes so cool is that while everyone else was riding the tide of peace and love the late sixties seemingly represented, Love's music manages to capture both the psychadelic euphoria and the paranoia of the time. Or anytime. The songs will come in like a summer's breeze- all Byrdsy folk rock and crimson and clover- the lyrics seemingly sweet at first. Slowly the words mutate from tender to melancholy and then in an explosion of mariachi horns (mexican, gringo) the whole thing transforms into Herb Alpert on a ten strip screaming at you on a payphone in the middle of the desert about how much he wants to lick your emotions.
Then a little girl with pigtails floats past whilst riding astride a hummingbird and everyting is fine again. The band's name is Love.
Arthur Lee later went to prison on weapons-posession charges. Oh yeah, and the guy's a fucking gun nut. Coolest guy ever (yes, guns are cool, hippie).

R. Kelly. Enough said.

2005-11-11T13:20:00.000-08:00

I don't even know where to start. First of all, I consider R. Kelly to be a musical genius. Second of all this is a picture of an R. Kelly mannequin. Third of all, I am going to refer to R. Kelly simply as "Kelly" from here on out. Last, I am going to try to abstain from any reference to him peeing on people- too easy and played out. It is really funny, but that's that.
There's so much I could say about Kelly that I'll have to pare it down to his most recent masterpiece, (and possibly magnum opus) entitled succinctly: "Trapped In The Closet".
This shit is the "War and Peace" of R&B operas so I think I'll stick with the first chapter for now. There are more R&B operas you ask? Yes. Though none as ambitous in scope or as bizzarre. This was created, after all, by the man who after walking out of his tour with Jay Zee went to the local McDonald's and worked the drive-thru for 3 hours. His agent put it best when he said "He just loves working behind the counter." He also cried "hysterically" a lot while on the ill fated tour. He loves fast food restraunts because he spent every morning as a child hanging out at them with his mother. Of that experience he said, and I quote, "She'd wear this cheap lipstick. She'd leave this red lipstick ring around my cup. And I'd turn that around and drink that part, taste lipstick and coffee at the same time. 'Cause if I could, I would have married my mom. But you know, she turned me down ... Those are the things that my mother and I shared".

ANYways... Back to "Trapped In The Closet". Chapter One (of 22 so far) begins with Kelly waking up in a strange woman's bed. Looks like Kelly got a little too bubbly at the club and uh, well you know how that goes! The story takes so many twists after the first chapter that, needless to say, he's lucky it was a strange woman's bed. He tries to leave, to get back to his wife at home, but naturally the woman's husband is coming up the stairs at that moment. What are the odds? Now we come to the introduction of the central medaphor of this epic- the proverbial "Closet".
He doesn't want to go in there, he suggests that perhaps he could exit via the window. "Yes," she says "except for one thing, we’re on the 5th floor”. Damn. The tension's mounting- "Think, think..." says Kelly, thinking out loud. He gets in the closet and laments "now I'm in this darkest closet trying to figure out, just how I'm gonna get my crazy ass out this house". This darkest closet. Things are looking grim.
The husband walks in the room. Oh, by the way, Kelly can see it all because in the video the closet door is essentially a venetian blind, (later when he's in another closet, he can be seen smoking a cigar, in the closet). The wife is all smiles and tells her husband "I've cooked and ran your bathwater". I don't know if she cooked his bathwater or what, it's unclear. I think she cooked him breakfast. She's got all the bases covered, she's so good in fact that Kelly thinks "she deserves an Oscar". So does Kelly for his performance in this video, especially at this point, because his cell phone rings and he scrambles to put it on vibrate.
Now it's on. The husband begins to search the apartment, and as Kelly lists (ad nauseum) all the places the husband checks before settling on the closet it serves as a musical climax, slowly building until he's about to open the closet. The music swells, tension builds to nail-biting intensity, he's opening the closet...

To be continued.

On another note, I am out of the closet. The blogging closet that is. I got drunk and told all my friends I had a blog. After making many jokes with phrases like "blogosphere", I think I convinced them of the virtues of blogging. Even my room mate started a blog, and as he so aptly put it- "Oh, blog on you crazy diamond! Blog on!".

Moog

2005-11-10T10:32:00.000-08:00

He may look like a normal man, but he can't wait to retreat to his laboratory to devise new methods of melting your fucking mind... With sound! Without Robert Moog, I never could have experienced the sonic equivalent of aliens having sex on a waterbed, or the sound of the universe beginning again- inside of my brain.
Bob Moog made his first synthesizer in 1964. I wonder what he thought when he first heard the sounds it made. Could he have possibly concieved that someday his creation would be the soundtrack to the presidency of then lukewarm Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan? Did he understand the dangerous power his sonic weapon would yield one day? Both for good- and evil.
Good, as in the case of the blistering synth solo on Emerson, Lake and Palmer's "Lucky Man", or super bad, as in the case of Vangelis' "Chariots of Fire". Wait- which one did I say was good? Who cares? They are both mind blowing aural odysseys!
Sometimes when I am at home, recording music in my living room, I fire up the Moog and start twisting knobs. I have fucked around with it a lot and I can really dial in some shit that sounds like it's going to peel my face off. It can sound like the aurora borealis (northern lights for those not fluent in latin) flickering across the firmament, or it can sound like a fucking lazer beam pointed right at your- you guessed it... eardrum.
Look at these guys. What are they doing? Walking through the meadow with the precursor to that eighties standby, the Keytar? That's right, a keyboard and guitar combined. Bartender, I'll take a double of whatever these guys are having. Oh, liquid gravity on the rocks you say? Moon rocks? Bob Moog died in August, and I hope he's enjoying the psychadelic nirvana he must surely inhabit. I know, because he has shown it to me.

Cat Stevens

2005-11-09T16:07:00.000-08:00

Cat Stevens is about as good as it gets. I don't blame him for becoming a fundamentalist. It seems like a logical progression. Have you ever seen footage of him performing in his prime? He looks like he's fucking posessed. I've never seen someone sweat so much. He's got a lot of passion inside and the world of pop music couldn't contain it- so he found God. Or Allah. Whatever you gotta do, Cat.
When I listen to "Tea for the Tillerman" it almost makes me cry. After a six pack of tall boys from the little store on a lonely winter's night in Superior it did make me cry on more than one occasion.
The lyrics- not so good. Like another favorite of mine, Simon and Garfunkel, the lyrics kind of take a back seat to the emotional impact of the music. There are exceptions of course- Cat Stevens has "Where do the Children Play" and Simon and Garfunkel have "Mrs. Robinson" and "Fakin' it". Mostly these guys are pretty big fruitcakes and write lyrics that read like the copy on the back of a box of Cellestial Seasonings sleepytime tea. It's all chammomile and barley rice, like a shopping list for the co-op.
Actually I say that because my beloved cousin Hans told me a story about how when his dad first heard "Tea for the Tillerman", he was in Colorado at this guy's house- all manner of herbs and tinctures were hanging about the place. Ironically it was tea (intended for the tillerman, mayhap?) and that guy turned out to be the founder of Cellestial Seasonings. Weird. This is another reason I love Cat Stevens- his music is so fucking hippied out that it keeps the squares away. It's so hippied out it keeps the hippies away. You can always find a well worn copy of "Teaser and the Firecat".
Oh, and he draws his own album covers. Creepy ass psychadelic children's book illustrations- this guy does it all. AND he did the soundtrack for Harold and Maude. Listening to "Where do the Children Play" reminds me of watching Harold and Maud for the first time in a tiny house outside of Grand Marais in the winter. Thanks Cat. Can I call you Cat?