Held(,) dear.

Rip me from the spotlight.

The show is ended.

The backstage scene now begins.

My knees and legs unable to support my dizzy delirium.

Help steady my body.

The depths below begin churning as strange sediments begin to arise.

Let me.

I want to mine this precious mineral vein,

to see what visions will come.

Hold me(,) dear in my spelunking.

I feel weightless.

Perhaps, if you wrap yourself around me, we may float together.

{in the subterranean ether}

I fly off this edged state easily into deep space.

Tether and balance me.

I always seem to land safely

because I can exercise control.

Let me exorcise a lack of control and cushion me when I fall.

I will coo into your ear and call forth trembling, hopeful, goosebumps from your salacious, salted flesh.

Period Pains – Homework (Peel Session)

No rights: homage.

/Do your homework/

/hand it in/

/do your homework/

/you can’t win/.

The newly hired, seventeen year old busser arrives for her fifth shift.

I have been training her; and, she is under the mistaken impression that she answers to me.

She walks up to me and says: I know I’m supposed to wear all black, but I felt like wearing green today.

She wears a lovely army-style green button down shirt.

Am I busted or does it really matter?: she asks.

Yeah, it matters: I laugh: They’re gonna make you go home and change, I bet, but talk to J.

J. sends her home to change clothes.

I think: she’s gonna fit in just fine, on this isle of misfit toys, if she can deal with wearing the uniformed colour.

Sunday Morning Song

Elizabeth Cotton picking and singing Freight Train.Turns out this was the first song Lucinda Williams learned to play.

{Hither and zither, the sheet music “shows you which notes to pick”.

Giggle.

None of the clocks on my appliances match

the time displayed on the screens of my devices.

Because moments changed

Over night,

As if by magic.

The practicality of protracted wakeful periods during daylight hours.

The associated productivity increase.

You can get a lot of work done, outside, when you sleep all night

And only become conscious when the sun is up.

But, you can learn a lot by staying up all night and sleeping through the day.

My alarms continue their incremental resounding.

Like they do when I gotta work the restaurant.

But, not today.

Today

is my

off day.

/

[clears throat]

Al(l)right…

/

I let

the alarms

keep

going

off

/

Freight train,

Freight train,

runs so fast

/

I do strange things with my sleeping.

An alarm set at 3:33 a.m.

To force me awake to immediately resume sleeping.

I easily become lucid in dreams this way.

At the very least, it consistently improves my dream recall.

/

Please don’t tell what train I’m on.

They won’t know what route I’m gone.

/

I sleep upside down,

time

to

time.

Bed properly remade

Clean sheets

But with my head at my feet.

Pillows at the wrong end.

Feet by where a head usually is.

/

Place the stones at my head and feet

Tell them all that I’ve gone sleep.

/

I wake,

again,

thirsty.

Flit to the kitchen.

Make the mistake of reading poetic words

And I feel my heart beat.

Like the water had actually been coffee.

Joni Mitchell-Moon at the Window (1998)

No rights: homage to a song worth sharing.

About the ghosts.

I wrote a lot today.

You are good at what you do.: Æ says.

What do I do good?: I ask.

Being yourself: is the reply.

Thank you kindly. I’m the best at being me. Nobody does me better: I giggle.

Ghosts of stories yet to be born.

Fetal.

Feral.

A deep Joni cut.

~

/”It takes cheerful resignation
Heart and humility
That’s all it takes,”
A cheerful person told me
Nobody’s harder on me than me
How could they be
And, nobody’s harder on you than you

Betsy’s blue

She says “Tell me something good!”
You know I’d help her out if I only could
Oh, but sometimes the light
Can be so hard to find
At least the moon at the window,
The thieves left that behind

People don’t know how to love

They taste it and toss it
Turn it off and on
Like a bathtub faucet
Oh sometimes the light
Can be so hard to find
At least the moon at the window,
The thieves left that behind

I wish her heart

I know these battles
Deep in the dark
When the spooks of memories rattle
Ghosts of the future
Phantoms of the past

At least the moon at the window,
The thieves left that behind
Is it possible to learn
How to care and yet not care
Since love has two faces
Hope and despair
And pleasure always turns to fear
I find
At least the moon at the window
The thieves left that behind
At least they left the moon
Behind the blind

Moon at the window/

Chic Tweetz (Audio) – Desert Sessions Vol. 12

No rights: homage

to a song I cannot get enough.

Giggling my ass off since early this morning.

A lovely, silly diversion that lightens my mood.

Has a sort of Ian Dury and the Blockheads feel.

This album was released today.

Josh Homme has a disposition that attracts great talent.

From Queens of the Stone Age to Them Crooked Vultures (with John Paul Jones).

From Dave Grohl and Trent Reznor.

And, Iggy Pop.

And, now, Matt Berry.

Cheers

R.E.M. – Orange Crush (Official Music Video)

No rights: homage to a song that found its way into my mind this morning.

Howl great is the video? V. great. Contextual.

While most artists at this time where pumping out vacuous visuals of vamping lip synced monkies dancing around, pretending to be performing, R.E.M. did this.

A good interview.

Monolith-Fly Golden Eagle

No rights: homage to a song whose lyrics are still hard for me to make out after jamming this track for many years.

There is a certain mood that was made for this song.

It is here, today, on this slippery Sunday morning.

It reminds me of two words:

Hi-wa-itck: a Mohave tradition concerning lovesickness that is associated with insomnia, anxiety, light depression, and loss of appetite.

Front of center: (archery) the weight of an arrow tip that determines the penetration of the intended target.

/Lightly as we go.

I got ya hand inside my…

And where it ends nobody knows/

/So tell me what I’m supposed

To do

When all my thoughts get wrapped up in you/

/Was like an engine sucking steam

Just letting it slide/

/Just like your smile is so alive.

A bow and arrow shot you…/

/…coming unglued/

\Ahhhhhh let it go!/

Next Thing You Know…

No music rights: just homage to a soundtrackscape.

I am sick like dog: I say in my bestest, thickest Eastern European accent to the chef.

I am too ignorant to have a specific dialect, but the rasp in my voice is too deep to not enjoy, even if it hurts.

Ill since three a.m. The tasty haze of the deliciously grey day suits my fever.

Seven

a.m. texts go out.

1. The manager working.

I say: Ain’t well. Looking for a cover. If you don’t hear from me again, it means you guys are stuck with me doing my best.

I include exactly zero emoti-cons.

2. The potential covers.

I say: I’m sick. Host this morning?

No cover expected. Restaurant folk, generally do not rise before the early afternoon, at best, unless they are working. Were situations reversed, I would not come through either.

I sit on the patio and watch the day arrive between seven and eight.

Still and grey.

/Buckle up and endure, now, sweet thing./

I take puffs off my electronic nicotine machine, knowing full well it will help nothing.

My inhaler: I love calling it.

/Cancer for the cure/?

Ya know I can’t cite the source, but I recall a study saying folks are statistically more likely to prefer being shocked with a low charge, over sitting in a room, alone, in silence for fifteen minutes.

So I put on an album called electro shock blues.

I don’t mind stillness. I can shock myself with my own thoughts.

So who is the glutton for pain? The ones who like a bit of shock-pain because being alone is too painful or the ones who get off on stillness?

/well, hee hee hee hee/

/Next thing you know/ You’re eat’n hospital food/

I arrive to work. I am released and sent home after an hour. I think they wanted see if I would show up and try.

It’s good to have reasons to persevere and

over-come:

I say and i mean.

Because I get off on my intent to not let feeling bad make others feel bad or me feel worse.

Seems quite silly to say, as I put it into words now.

I am mostly light and love, but with a little bit of why-don’t-you-go-fuck-yourself for counterbalance.

Back home.

Bare beneath a grey robe.

Leg warmers over calves and most of my feet.

Earl Gray tea with a bit of cream and vanilla extract.

An American Werewolf in London Faux-Fog: I silently entitle the bootleg concoction, in homage of the traditional London Fog tincture.

Back on the patio.

The wind chops and dices the waters of

the Sound

into tiny, white-capped waves.

Little peaks of liquid mountains.

/What/

/What/

/I can hear you/

/I was…/

/Sing the one about the cat that’s always get’n wet/

Comes down the wires, from my tablet, into my Blue headphones.

I giggle.

Macha – Between Stranded Sonars

No rights: homage.

From the album See It Another Way.

Having had the autumnal blues yesterday, I message a distant friend who offered me solace. I say: I can tolerate one more beer before my tolerance renders me incapable of doing a good job at the restaurant at 8 a.m. tomorrow. A night out has done my heart good.

Asat alone at a bar top. To my left is my sister, currently outside cancelling her plans with her man. To my right is my father, currently at the bar ordering a pitcher.

I finish my beer as the band launches into their opening number.

Tommy Tutone.

Jenny.

I know that gal’s number already: I think: had you opened with Lady Stardust? Well, I mighta hung around for he/r.

I get home. To my pack of cigs. I wanna smoke a square and pluck one.

My mind moves quickly.

I play the game I love:

What is the perfect song right now?

Macha. First track from the self-titled album?

No. That was the perfect song two years.

Do better. Dig deeper.

Last track. Same band. Album afore mentioned.

I walk and smoke tobacco leaf. To make sure.

My brow furrows. Hard. Like the force of thought incepting me right now.

I am sure. Perfect song for right now, indeed.

Gore Vidal vs Norman Mailer | The Dick Cavett Show

This gal loves a good interview with interesting speakers.

Lou Reed, Lucinda Williams, Neil Young, Johnny Lydon, the list goes on,

Anon, anon.

But, this one….oh howl, I love this one.

A rare confluence of different energies, including the audience’s, along with a tennis-like art of arguement.

Style.

I love hyper-intellectuals flying their idiosyncratic flags.

“I am here and I am becoming very, very bored.”

“I have to tell you a quote from Tolstoy?”: Cavett to Mailer.

“Are you really all truly idiots, or is it me?”: Mailer to audience.

Howlaciously howlarious.

“It was the voice of Legion’s.”

“The difference is I’d savo(u)r the quote and you’ve thrown it into the battle.”

“Oh, for goodness sake.”

Lucinda Williams – I Lost It (Live 1999)

Coming from the state of LA to AL (now in WA), I am a snob about country music,

as most of it is pop music now; but some still continue the musicality.

Lucinda W. is not unlike a Patti S. to the Southern american music scene.

/Are you heavy enough to make me stay?/

/I feel like I might blow away./

/Let me know if you come across it./

/I don’t want nothing if I have to fake it/

/Never take nothing don’t belong to me/

/Everything’s paid for; nothing’s free/

Bongwater – Peel Session 1991

No rights: homage.

Also, homage to this channel, which posts Peel Sessions.

Track one had better put a smile on everyone’s face with its rambunctious ramblings. It’s only slightly raunchy, you’ll hardly even notice.

Track two gives a softer side. The addition of “yet” to “you don’t love me” charms me.

Track three: /maybe I’m getting too old for this but I don’t know what else to do….yeah/

Track four: remembrance of things past.

Sidenote: bongwater, like tape heads, should be cleaned regularly. Giggle.

Translations for the Deaf.

Douglas Hofstadter wrote about Googel translate not too long ago.

As an American, foreign languages are not the priority of inner city schools, at least not the one I attended. Not, their fault either.

I failed Kiswahili enough times, in college, to blow the socks off of any Kenyan who I meet stateside.

Ninasema Casey.

No one speaks any “Swahili” here. Not enough to even make the general populace know the language is factually called Kiswahili.

Bless you, Bibi Jane. And, bless you end of term oral examiner.

Can I write my responses to your oral questions?: I asked.

No.: she responds.

Shit: I think.

I’ve worked in enough restaurants to learn functional Spanish and Kiswahili.

(A surprising number of Kenyan immigrants in B’ham, AL. Magic City

We got a Nemo walking in: Robert would call to his kitchen, at Tavern on the Summit, whenever a catch of the day ticket came through. Howlarious.

But fish don’t walk, Robert: I’d always say

[After dinner rush, in the alley, smoking a cig.

Me: I thought “fish” was “samaki” in Kiswahili.

Robert: No, dummy. Nemo, like the movie.

Howlarious.]

)

I listened to this show, just now.

A few phrases in foreign languages hooked my attention.

I connect to Catalan, Frisian, and Corsican.

Don’t ask why, because I don’t justly know.

I love playing with Translate ever since the Hofstadter article.

But, I don’t have friends like his, to give feedback on the intimacies of Translate’s inadequacies.

On a cru que les données allaient nous libérer: appears in type face on the screen behind the band.

I make haste to Translate.

To triangulate my linguistic location.

If the phrase is in Frisian it translates to: On a cru que les données allaient nous libérer.

It translates to itself.

If the phrase is in either French or Corsican it translates to: it was believed that the data would free us.

In Corsican, the same spellings translate to: where it’s raw than the others were waiting for release again.

Hot and beautiful. Both.

Désormais ton monde est ainsi fait: appears in type face on the screen behind the band.

I make haste to Translate.

To triangulate my linguistic location.

If the phrase is in Frisian it translates to: this is a ton of things to do.

If the phrase is in French it translates to: now your world is so made.

Howl.

Kenickie – Can I Take You To The Cinema? (Peel Session)

No rights: homage.

/Your eyes, they follow me…too pale to see.

[One, two, three, four]

Can I take you to the ice rink? I don’t care, if you can’t skate…

To get you out of those wet clothes.

…I won’t lace your…

Can I take you to the cinema?:[Margot]

(Can I take you home?)

R.E.M. (not Tool) – Undertow (Live in Chicago / 1995 Monster Tour)

No rights: homage.

Breathe, wild thing.

That’s all you need do.

Your heart will keep beating and your eyes will keep blinking.

Or else, they won’t.

Then it will truly be someone else’s problem.

And, even then, will you breathe easily.

\…Brother, can you see those birds? They don’t look to heaven
But they don’t need religion, they can see
They go down to the water, drink down on the water
Fly up off the water, leave them be…

…You know I am tired, cold and bony tired
Nothing’s going to save me, I can see
I can’t say I’m fearful, I can’t say I’m not afraid
But I am not resisting, I can see
Now, I don’t need a heaven, and I don’t need religion
I am in the place where I should be
I am breathing water, I am breathing water
You know a body’s got to breathe…
I’m drowning me
(Breathing ourselves)
I’m drowning me
(Breathing ourselves)
Yeah\

Oh, k/no/w.

I’ve said too much.

I set it up.

I think that I saw you laughing (in the dark, Albinus).

While I played a game of Patience

In the corner.

Consider this:

Welcome to the occupation.

happy birthday, Monster.

I’m a bulldog for R.E.M being recognized for the amazing punks they are.

Southern Gothic Punk.

The album Monster turned 25 years old the other day.

What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?

/I was brain-dead, locked out, numb, not up to speed
I thought I’d pegged you an idiot’s dream…/

Yeah, /I never understood tha frequency (uh hum)/ either.

/Richard said, “Withdrawal in disgust is not the same as apathy”…

I couldn’t understand/

‘Til recently.

Well, the last time I saw Richard was Detroit in ’68.

And he told me: all romantics meet the same fate.

What’s the Frequency, Kenneth? Remaster. Given as a present to listeners,

along with a delightful, contextualization presented by original and remaster producer Scott Linn.

An awesome, quick interview.

He wanted “to take another crack at it.”

I dig both.

Re: Strange Currencies

David Foster Wallace really dug it during one particular book tour.

Read all about from the words of (a very thoughtful) other.

I.e. read it in many fewer words than DFW would have described it in, with hardly any footnotes. Giggle.

This particular anecdote is my favorite from the entire book.

/I don’t know why you’re mean to me./

/The fool might be my middle name./

/Take you there and make you mine./

/These words will be mine./

/I tripped and fell./

/I wanna feel it now./

/You know with love comes strange currencies; and here is my appeal:

I need a chance. A second chance. A third chance. A fourth chance…

[Insert magical, hard to decipher words here]

To catch myself and make it real./

Everything and more.