The DeKatch Pages

The DeKatch Pages has moved!!!

2007-02-06T02:13:00.000-06:00

hey all, I've moved to a new url, http://thedekatchpages.blogspot.com/

As time passes, I will update the archives with posts from here, but I will no longer post at this site.

Ta,

-sed

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

2007-02-04T13:40:00.000-06:00

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.”

oh, where are you now . . . .

2006-07-12T00:37:00.000-05:00

I awoke to the news of Syd Barrett's death. Both Steph & Big Daddy seemed to think he'd already been dead for some years, but I guess when you go underground you go underground, unless you're Abbie Hoffman ...

... I think I was 17 when a classmate gave me a floppy, plastic 7" record from a copy of her Sassy of Michael Stipe singing Syd's "Dark Globe." That was really my intro to Barrett's music, though like most western teens I'd already been exposed to the more popular (& significantly more pedestrian) stylings of mid-period Pink Floyd. I was really taken aback by the song's abstract yet morbidly heartfelt lyric: Oh, where are you now, pussywillow who smiled on my seed?/When I was alone, you promised a stone from your heart ... I was a wannabe skatepunk goth grunge poet kid or something. Who the hell knows -- it was suburbia at the end of the Reagan yrs. & we were *all* rightly miserable ...

... earlier this evening I told several of my friends, via email, Syd's influence on his one Floyd album & two haphazardly put-together solo lps was greater than that of the rest of the ensuing Pink Floyd collection. Of course it was/is just my opinion. I mean, I am a guitar player, and I know there are a lot of us out there who have fished at David Gilmour's pond, but when you're talking about the visible -- errr -- audible effect one artist has on so many afterwards, I think Syd is right up there with Buddy Holly & Patti Smith & the Minutemen & The Velvet Underground. People who listened to Syd Barrett wrote songs & started bands. Fucking good ones, too.

There's that great old (and now maybe tired) Neil Young line about it being better to burn out than to fade away. Barrett's a bit of an anomaly, since he burned out first and then faded away to rust where none of us could see. His songs remain, & I love them like I did as a teenager, & I suppose that's enough.

2006-03-16T23:46:00.000-06:00

my phone died. $200 plus tax on a new one. I can take pictures with this one. Reminds me of cold war spy gadgets from a Discovery Channel special. GPS + camera = surveillance? Hmmm.

photos from Grand-dad’s cedar chest

smuggled thru army censors

he must’ve stood

knee-high

in London’s rubble

& the other

befuddled &

shoegazing

stragglers

in b&w after

the bombs(')

brown aftermath grain caught

even before age(’)s yellowing

the prints

he never talked about

the war

.

2006-01-16T19:20:00.000-06:00

this Todd-lin' town ...

Went to the Cafe last wk. to catch Todd Heldt's feature. Todd's a good writer -- a rarity indeed in this time & place. 50-some yrs. ago Algren wrote, "giants lived here once" & I'd swear those old Giants (Wright, Lindsay, et al) have been supplanted by a smarmy lot of quasipostmodern hackademics & an even smarmier lot of slam-influenced/so-called 'performance poets.'

Nonetheless, Todd's an exception to these smarmy lots. Several months ago (& in the company of some other fine writers), we featured together on a now defunct WZRD poetry show & at the DvA Gallery. He writes from the gut & knows & loves the language & I think those are pretty much the essential components of any good writer. At this event, he read a longer piece of what I would still define as "sudden" fiction -- short, Minot-esque anecdotes strung in and out of sequence resulting in a particularly moving finish.

Todd has been taken to the mat a bit recently, if only because he hasn't been afraid to air his opinions on the racketeerish hucksterism in this monster called 'American Letters' -- particularly here in Chicago -- where said hucksterism appears much more than it is at the hands of its one or two megalomaniac practitioners. Admittedly, it saddens me to witness such divisiveness among so-called 'artists,' but I suppose we all have egos & maybe sometimes we allow this fault to impede our better selves.

In spite of this particular evening's performance being only partially functional (there was a holiday party, unbeknownst to anyone involved with the regular reading series), it was a good reading by a good writer. Several other good writers were in attendance, & for a few moments I felt a humbling, profound (if not inflated) sense of community.

2005-07-14T23:32:00.000-05:00

2205

80 degrees
on a sunday
finished w/work
I wander, aim-

less, it would seem
into some bar
near Halsted &
Diversey at

6 p.m. &
order Stoli
over ice w/
lemon & Liz

the bartender
introduces
herself & plays
Joni Mitchell

on the jukebox
& then The Cure’s
Pictures of You
song takes me back

to age 18
but who wants to
be so awkward
then, let alone

at 33.
Nobody here
but 3 other
women, Sox fans

up N. for the
crosstown classic
chatting sex &
calling me out

for having walked
into such talk
a friendly crowd
for Lincoln Pk.

I hate the Cubs
or at least can’t
stand those vapid
Wrigleyville Chads

& Tiffanys
hot to adopt
the Cubs, their Chads
teat-jobs & all

& T. Heldt called
earlier, wants
to get some beers,
find a reading,

maybe. Liz is
pretty, dirt-blonde
bangs & exposed
unpierced navel

wider hips &
tight, all-black clothes
but the red fake
pearls on her neck

are a spurting
aorta, hot
cinnamon drops
or grenadine

bleed into some
conversation
about college
or student loans

or some other
small talk like that.
Others have come
to the bar now

. & I’m writing
& they’re talking
& I’m finished
drinking Stoli,

counting all of
the syllables
like some workshop
reject & the

setting sun paints
storefront across
St. platinum
like pictures of

Algiers in grade
school history
textbooks or some
‘60s epic

from Hollywood.
& the moon in
Scorpio for
another day.

The juke is good
for Lincoln Pk.
The syllables
will do, I guess

the first time I saw lightning strike I saw it at sea (or something like that)

2005-07-10T20:40:00.000-05:00

Can't stop hearing the Cure's "Hot, Hot, Hot" in my head. Spent the earlier hours today somewhere near Kankakee & it was all green cornstalks and beanfields, or fields of whatever grows there. I'd forgotten how narrow those midwest county roads can be. Thinking about horrific photos my grandfather took in London after the Nazi bombs he never showed us & that I discovered a couple yrs. back after my grandmother died.

a pome?

2206

sun-reflected mirror on blue
municipal garbage truck refracts
is a strobe gives
fits thru
leaves high noon. Still slow from last night’s

sleeplessness I board a 66 for my one o’clock --
dusty, wood-planked construction
site foreground to the Batman-black
Hancock. A lazy Wed.
The movie ppl.

commandeered E. Delaware
Ave. The tourists in tucked
-in shirts & pleated shorts point
fingers, crane planetarium-stretched necks & block
pedestrian traffic

on The Mile
as always & it’s
hot not humid as I write
chord charts for tonight’s audition.
Down to my last $50 until July

-- 9 days away. I leave
the bus at Larrabee. New
condos cast cool shadows above
Sra. M. Cabrini’s remaining
projects & I think

I must be
some kind of communist, recalling
P.R. in my youth
its moneyed its
have-nots. The good guys

in the movies couldn’t touch
Carmencita Rodriguez, my cousins’
abuelita leafleted island
intersections in the ‘70s
taught me Spanish

& Catholic Voodoo
under far
more oppressive suns
who died this week
2 yrs. ago

from cancer
as always it may
be the tightness of my wallet
makes me think
this way. I can’t remember

anything but
this lusty hunger for
anything else. I could
have been wealthy, well
-heeled

& boring
& today E. told me
she thinks G.'s a whore
(her words) for not holding the elevator
& last night’s full

moon must linger
like a buzz
the tourists the
manifest destinies
of the movie ppl.

I want cold beer, a dog
a starlet of my own
& hungry & alone
is there no place
like home.

2005-06-28T23:05:00.000-05:00

sketch for a portrait of Richard M. Daley

first, those narrow
shoulders made big
in padded suitcoat
sleeves & strands

of wind-swirled comb
-over greasy
& grayed, be-

leaguered, blue-eyed, “so what?”
squint. His crow’s feet

& podium from the hip

.

0806

oak shadows
on the noon streets

of Streeterville
summer

begins
a swelter

of sweat reflected
from new-sodded

chemically treated
lawns & smoked

-glass hi-rises &
breeze

is a
blessing is a

tease. Anne Bancroft dead & hazy
replay in my head of

old jokes
from Richard Pryor

cut from the finished
screenplay for

“Blazing Saddles,” something
about Madeline Kahn

& the sheriff’s arm
. the white women

capris
& stilettos

pretend
to not see me

struggle, starve at
poetry.

2005-04-23T22:55:00.000-05:00

a short-lived affair ghazal, contemplating Creeley & Lawrence

We met among the barren greenish grey of newly
constructed condos in their winter-ravaged courtyard

walking dogs for cash for food & rent. The greener grass
of the unexplored, or strange, as it’s defined by old

greasy men in greasy spoons who must have grown jaded
w/their wives long-resigned to boring bridge clubs, book clubs

or other gossip circles an easy enough tease
(at least for S. & me). On a mattress on her floor

we came, heard raindrops trickle out the gutter to turn
the cracked sidewalk brown. Came again. Downpour paints the town.

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

for a gallery curator

were you
sleeping, old friend,
when the thought-cops arrived
to commandeer our politick?
were you.

2005-04-15T23:35:00.000-05:00

a lost pussy pome

Cast out in a drought
once-white, dirt-ridden t-shirt
drenched, heavied w/sweat

at a gas station
on the old Lincoln Hwy
diesel fumes wafting

into newly cooled
Indian Summer evening
in W. Ohio

In my 18th year
having just lost my cherry
to long-legg’d Katie

from Hardin County,
where dog races draw a crowd.
We leave ourselves there

& I hit the road
Petty singing on cassette
“Runnin’ Down a Dream”

or running away
from that Virgo sun gone down
into the flatness

into the moonrise
I drive, sort of mariner,
from that bridge-burning.

I write her song &
record it on Tim’s 4-track
& get good & drunk

on homemade cherry
wine, purchased by my mother
on the Erie shore

years or more before.
I begin my Sr. year
in September, brood.

Katie schools down South
in New Orleans or Athens,
or Austin, maybe ...

I construct a poem
in college, call it “first sex”
or something like that

written in a rush
& under the influence
of marijuana

for Thayler's’s workshop
my 2nd yr. in Bowling
Green & Carl likes it

so I decide to
become a poet that day
(& to smoke more pot).

The poem finds its way
into some little journal.
I get over her.

-- sed March '05

2005-04-05T22:54:00.000-05:00

It was sad to recieve word of Robert Creeley's passing. In my opinion the greatest American poet of the last half-century. At the local corporate chain bookstore, a National Poetry Month display features books by Maya Angelou and Billy Corgan, but nothing by Creeley. So it goes, the perception of the mass-markets.

One of my favorite Creeley poems:

The Memory

Like a river she was,
huge roily mass of water
carrying tree trunks
and divers drunks.

Like a Priscilla, a feminine Benjamin,
a whore gone right over
the falls,
she was.

Did you know her.
Did you love her, brother.
Did wonder pour down
on the whole goddamn town.

* * *

2005-04-03T22:24:00.000-05:00

Single malt and steak and mushroom pie at the Red Lion. I was just at a reading, where I realized, once again, Gene Tanta is a damned good poet -- even when only reciting the work of elementary school children. End of the reading, people shuffled around the DvA gallery and Tom filled me in on the media circus at the Cafe last week in the wake of JJ's arrest. I guess that will teach me to miss out on that poetry series.

Steph and Katee meet me at the Red Lion and we have some drinks. On the way out, I hail a cab, and as we're about to enter the taxi, some Abercrombie-clad Chad & his backward baseball cap-wearing buddy, Chad, elbow ahead of us quite violently to steal the cab from us. One of them mutters something derogatory about my prized Coca Cola truck driver's jacket and hollers "I fucked your mom" to nobody in particular as the cab scurries them off to The Store or Mother Hubbard's or some other 4 a.m. shit-hole. And sometimes I wonder why I so despise Lincoln's Park.

The late, long March into spring . . .

2005-03-26T18:51:00.000-06:00

Three or four weeks ago N & I broke up. I suppose it may have been coming, but that did nothing to assuage my ensuing state of shock. I won't say it's one of those situations always like the first time, but age and baggage definitely don't make things any easier. Perhaps why I've neglected this weblog so. Do forgive me.

Again, that was three or four weeks ago, and it's been quite an eventful change of seasons here in Scott-land.

I received, courtesy of Dale Smith at Skanky Possum, an edition of my old friend/teacher Carl Thayler's new book. I got a deal (I think) on the book in return for a review, so I have been doing my best to digest all 328 pages in order to concoct a decent review. It's pretty good stuff -- I may attach an excerpt.

Last Wednesday I read at another poetry to-do. This was at the Bourbon Cafe in Lincoln Square. A funny thing -- I sidled up to the bar, ordered a bourbon and the bartender (a dyed blonde E. Euro-type) asked me "how do you make that drink?" Anyway, I talked and pointed my way to the proper beverage. I had a few and only paid for one. Sat with Tom and Jan, talked a bit with Todd and Kristy (with whom I'm doing a May 6 reading at DvA Gallery in Lincoln Park) and then with David and J.J. I didn't know then it would likely be the last time I'd speak with J.J.

A couple days later, on Saturday, I carried my guitar and my Pignose Hog 20 amp to the Green Door Tavern to play another solo gig (see archive for another Green Door story). Having invited at least 20 friends to this event, I was happy to see my friend Brad and his brother, Brett (what is it with sibling alliteration?), actually accepted my invite. My friend Stephanie was also on the bill, which we shared with a bad Dave Matthews clone who brought a 4-ton acoustic amp (the green door is *tiny* -- my pignose was nearly too loud). I drank a bit, rocked out some songs. I broke a string and the Dave Matthews clone offered to replace it for me, but he used an acoustic string and strung it the wrong way through the peg. I really should do those things myself.

I decided to skip Tuesday's Cafe series, as the feature had cancelled and 2 or 3 hrs. of open-mic was more than I was willing to endure by this point. The weather had been shitty and I was broke.

Wednesday I was somewhere in River North and I caught a headline in the window of a 'Sun-Times' vending machine: "Killer Poet Caught on West Side." Being a poet (or so I think) myself, I was intrigued and imagine my surprise when I read the lead and found out J.J. Jameson was this so-called "killer poet." Yes, the goofy old New Englander I'd been calling my friend for the last year or so was really an escaped fugitive and #1 on the state of Massachussetts' most-wanted list, for escaping from a minimum security institution where he was doing life for an execution-style killing. Days later, I'm still in shock. I imagine everyone who knew J.J. here is still in shock, too.

Easter was quiet. Brunched at Hearty Boys, a very good spot in Boystown. Never too crowded even on Sundays, but may change soon as reps from the Food Network were dining there today. Also witnessed a double date of yuppie jagoffs drinking Veuve Cliquot mimosas. I'm quite irked by folks who imagine there's something attractive about ruining a very decent Champagne with orange juice. It's like ruining your single-malt with cola or soda, or leaving the label on your cigar just so everyone else can see how much you spent on it. I'm just not about that, I guess. I blow the extra loot on Veuve Cliquot (as opposed to my usual $3 Chuck), I'm gonna get it nice and cold and drink it as is. I want a mimosa, I'm using some crap spumanti. And you sure as hell won't find me hoarding a cigar-label over anyone. Whose pleasure is the experience about, anyway?

From Carl's new book, 'Naltsus Bichidin 2:'

ON FIRST READING RILKE

Lucent with the light
of those salad days

the Boulevard that stunted
summer with its rain &

a voice stolen
from the bookstore

down the street
between a workout &

the aisle of the Pantages
Theater poems seeking

a hero without
the flashlight

followed to a seat
my breath sweetened

with Sen-sen &
a candle-thin sputter

of talk
to keep my cool

on a matinee ticket
head bowed to the

girl's neck
in the dark &

scared &
gone to hell

the voice
that was Rilke

spoke its dread
which was only

it said
the sap in the tree

welcome welcome
to poetry.

-- Carl Thayler, 2004

2005-03-18T13:14:00.000-06:00

This tendency for young, homogenized women to wear these so-called "Ug" boots ... what the shit? I mean, I went int oa bar with a friend of mine a couple weeks back and every woman in the place was wearing these monstrosities. I figured it was a sorority event, as those sort of cults force their members to all wear the same outfit and whatnot. I would like to meet the person who gave them the idea these boots look good. I would like to thank that person for making laughable ladies look even more laughable.

more bot mail for Dusty

2005-02-25T14:55:00.000-06:00

My cat, Dusty, recieved a new email from the Russian bride bot scam:

From:
luda
Date:
localDateTimewithTimezone("February 25, 2005 8:31 AM","timetag1");
25 Februari 2005 10:31:00
Subject:
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Message:
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I was a college gonzo

2005-02-21T09:37:00.000-06:00

Hemingway used to say if he couldn't think of anything to write, he always knew he could begin by writing "one true thing." If Hunter S. Thompson ever brought anything to the table of the way we document people, places, events et cetera it was a penchant for telling the most outrageous truth in the most outrageous way. Nonetheless, he was telling us the truth.

17 true haiku

... for Hunter

all you can do, Bub
fenced in by terrible lies:
hold fast to that truth

in the first person
interspersing opinion
subtly into it.

The goal: to stay true;
to make a clown of oneself
& call it “gonzo.”

Entertainment, Bub,
is merely a side result
of the getting there

the countless pieces
of himself the reporter
decides to reveal.

*

I, too, was a failed
politician w/a taste
for controversy

Drugs. Bombast. The road.
A disdain for self-import
& pragmatism

w/penchant for foot
in my or any other
hack-throated shit-mouth

in place of that truth.
The universal given:
politicians lie.

Does the journalist
embellish to remove self
for story’s angle.

Does the candidate.
Do our heads & heels of state.
Does everyone, but

to opt for the truth.
To stare, unafraid, into
hwys less driven.

*

I could praise you, Bub.
I could sing this elegie
simply as waking

easy enough to
account for the substances
ingested myself

in my stupid youth
w/both feet inside my mouth
vivid now as then.

I could, but I won’t
describe you as god-like, or
even as hero.

Just another dead
disheartened by that true, blue
American Dream.

ars autobiografica III

2005-02-14T09:35:00.000-06:00

My mom had remarried a couple years earlier, to a complete ass-hole. L was a surly insurance peddler. His parents had kept him on a leash as a child. He thought he was pretty smart. Figured he could talk my mom into moving us into a more blue-collar edge of town where the schools were lousy so he could catch a tax break. Though he never succeeded in doing that, he did manage to mangle the better part of three years of my life. He was a fairly abusive guy, sometimes in the physical sense. He tried to restrict what my sister and I could watch on TV. Claimed MTV would rot our brains, but didn’t seem to mind my listening to his old Black Sabbath records. Go figure.

Anyway, that shit starting hitting the fan when I entered high school (If you’ve seen or read “This Boy’s Life,” my situation was pretty parallel). I started lifting weights and playing football to get out the mounting aggression I felt toward the cockholder my mom had married. Or maybe I just enjoyed the extra time away from the house.

I really never understood all the crap they feed you about high school being the ‘best years of your life.’ That’s pretty sad. I mean, you’re just pubescent, you start getting all of these near-uncontrollable urges, your face breaks out and no matter who you are or how hard you try, you can’t please everyone and ‘fitting in’ takes on a very disproportionate importance.

So, I spent the first year or so of those years hitting the weights, ‘jocking out,’ if only for my own protection. My grades started to hit the shitter, except for Spanish and English. I could blame it on that bastard or on myself being at one of those awkward stages. I just accept it as the way it was and uncontrollable.

The end of my freshman year of high school, I took a job setting up and then operating rides at a church festival. I was 15, but lied and told the carnies I was 18, so they could hire me. All I really remember about the time were these semi-toothed career carnies asking me if I knew where in town they could score crank or “sweet asshole.” I was pretty naive about drugs and pretty quiet about sex then and, sadly, unable to help them with either.

I took my carny pay to Puerto Rico with me that summer, did some fishing with my uncle and cousins, bought a guitar I wouldn’t be able to find on the mainland, scoped out all the beautiful women of the island, drank real Pina Coladas and experienced my first tropical drunk, spent a great day at El Yunque and hopped a hydrofoil to St. Thomas with my mom and sister. I remember a voluptuous caramel-skinned woman at a restaurant making eyes at my mom. My mom divorced the jagoff later that year and a healing came upon us all.

Ars Autobiografica (part 2 of a few)

2005-02-09T10:02:00.000-06:00

So, I transferred back into the public school system in the tree-lined suburbs of Youngstown, OH. Youngstown itself is a sad place from a sad Bruce Springsteen song. It’s a lot like Michael Moore’s Flint, MI. Poland, however, was a bit more hoity-toity. It’s one of the oldest towns outside of the first 13 states, and most of its upwardly mobile residents act as if their families have lived there since the 18th century (most of them are newer residents who live in gods-awful cookie cutter McMansions). My family was not so well-off, but we happened to live within the borders of the school district, so I was in like Flynn. Or, at least, I was in the door.

In 7th grade I had an English teacher who thought I wrote like Stephen King. Even at that young and impressionable age, I was no King fan, but I milked it in her class and I guess that helped some initial skills-honing. I really didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life (some may say I still don’t). I wanted to play my guitar and get lots of women and float down the river to New Orleans in a canoe and maybe lead a 3rd-world revolution. Some goals never change.

In 8th grade I started up a band. It lasted for about a week or two. We played covers of Pat Benatar and Scorpions and didn’t bother to find a drummer. I spent that summer in Puerto Rico with my aunt and uncle. It was a storm-ridden summer, and I spent most of it reading old standards like “Ivanhoe” and “Wuthering Heights” and “The Sun Also Rises.” “The Sun Also Rises” is still one of my favorite books. I remember sending a long and silly letter back to my cousin Adam in Youngstown about the crazy amazon-like women of El Yunque rainforest. It was just goofy, pubescent boys-will-be-boys stuff, but his mom then forbade him from hanging out with me, the *crazy* cousin, and grounded him to spend the rest of the summer listening to awful Christian Metal like Stryper. Once again, I felt like I was onto something with this writing thing. Again, my poor cousin was somehow involved.

Those years, school sucked. Most of the other kids were the sheltered spawns of newly-rich assholes recently moved out of the city for fear of people of color. I preferred the city to suburbia. I hung out a bit at a really cool secondhand book store and started buying $1 and $2 copies of whatever struck my fancy, or looked cool. I spent a lot of time alone with my guitar. When I did associate with others, it was a grungy circle of other not-so-rich kids who happened to live within the outer reaches of the school district, an edge of the community we lovingly called the “ghetto” of Poland.

Ars Autobigraphica (part 1 of several)

2005-02-07T08:45:00.000-06:00

In 4th grade at St. Luke’s Roman Catholic, my homeroom teacher was an angry bear of a woman named Miss DiOrio. We called her “Miss Diarrhea.” She was shrewd and oppressive, as was most of that period of my life.

As I recall, we would occasionally be assigned ‘creative writing’ projects – every week or month or something like that – it was a long time ago – the Reagan Administration was young.

I remember concocting a story about my cousin Adam and me taking a hot air balloon to New York, where we then did battle with some psycho-balloon-hijacker-types. I was 10. I watched a lot of “The A Team” and “Dukes of Hazzard.” Miss Diarrhea criticized that story in front of the class, claimed it was “ultraviolent filth.” I think that incident must have been the first time I thought I could pull off this “writer” farce.

The next year I started playing guitar. Like most beginners, I was pretty awful. My mom signed me up for lessons, but they went slowly. Thankfully, my dad had shown me a few chords and my mom had given me a “Complete Beatles” songbook as a companion gift to the guitar (the guitar itself) was a blonde dreadnought Dad had bought for $70 at JC Penney). So, I “read ahead” and learned some rock and roll basics – you know, I, IV, IV and power chords and never get too hung up on any one lady, because you’re a ramblin’ man. Don’t give your hearts to a ramblin’ man, Waylon used to sing. . . Anyway, the first “song” I wrote was that year, and followed the basic chord progression and tune as the Champs’ classic “Tequila.” It went something like:

“Gonna blow you away
gonna blow you away today
gonna blow you away ... “

A month or so later, toward the end of the 5th grade school year, there was an inclimate weather day, and a classmate and I spent the break period drawing pictures of naked women. My drawings were good enough, considering I hadn’t really seen any naked women or taken any formal art lessons. But the nuns at St. Luke’s were not so fond of these drawings and they sent me home with my artwork sealed in a Manila envelope for my mom. My mom seemed to think those drawings showed some aptitude, so she marched me back to St. Luke’s and informed those reactionary nuns I would be returning to the public school system. Happiness all around.

outta town, outta site, outta my mind

2005-01-30T20:38:00.000-06:00

We wanted to get out of the city for the weekend and N's dad is vacationing in Florida, so we decided to spend Saturday night at his place in the SW 'burbs. It's a good excuse to get a bunch of laundry done for free and to spend inordinate amounts of time pretending to shop at places like Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is a place where you can buy skimpy panties with words like "hottie" emblazoned across the front, but you can't find the new Jon Stewart or George Carlin books. Paraphernalia with Confederate flags and NASCAR gear sell well at Wal-Mart, I imagine.

We picked up a nice pork tenderloin and two bottles of $3 Chuck at the nearby Trader Joe's and I cooked a nice dinner and we watched the classic "So, I Married an Axe Murderer" and some BBC variety shows. A couple years back, I was spoiled a bit when I worked at a French wine bar, but I must say I *have* been developing quite a fondness for the Shaw Vineyards, especially their Sauvignon Blanc. I mean, Sonoma is no Loire Valley, but for $2.99 you can't get much better. The wine was good. While surfing channels, I happened upon the Pixies on "Austin City Limits." The night was good.

Once asleep, I dreamt I was the moon orbiting and chortling through space. When the dream began, I was waxing in virgo and once I got to taurus, I seemed to be stuck. I started waking up at this point in the dream to ask N how the hell I could get out of being stuck and into gemini, but there was no waking her. I hate those dreams that hang with you after you wake up. It was muggy under the blankets and difficult to get back to sleep.

This morning, there was a taped reading on C-Span from a Howard Zinn-edited companion book to his "A People's History of the United States," basically actors reading left-leaning speeches from various points in history. I'm into that kind of thing, and a big fan of Dr. Zinn, so like a wonk I sat there eating DIY creme brulee, watching "Books on C-Span." I especially appreciated the reading of an anti-war speech by Eugene Debs that landed him in prison for 10 years. Little has changed since he made the speech, in which he stated the ruling class profits from war while the working class fights and dies in it. The final reading was a Speech Zinn made before being jailed for his own civil disobedience.

I'm re-reading Hemingway's "A movable Feast." I think everyone ought to read it, at least anyone working at being any sort of artist. One of my favorite passages follows.

"... The one who is doing his work and getting satisfaction from it is not the one the poverty bothers. I thought of bathtubs and showers and toilets that flushed as things that inferior people to us had or that you enjoyed when you made trips, which we often made. There was always the public bathhouse down at the foot of the street by the river. My wife had never complained once about these things any more than she cried about Chevre d'Or when he fell. She had cried for the horse, I remembered, but not the money. I had been stupid when she needed a grey lamb jacket and had loved it once she had bought it. I had been stupid about other things, too. It was all part of the fight against poverty that you never win except by not spending. Especially if you buy pictures instead of clothes. But then we did not think of ourselves as poor. We did not accept it. We thought we were superior people and other people that we looked down on and rightly mistrusted were rich. It had never seemed strange to me to wear sweatshirts for underwear to keep warm. It only seemed odd to the rich. We ate well and cheaply and drank well and cheaply and slept well and warm together and loved each other."

distressing dreams & things I hate

2005-01-24T11:47:00.000-06:00

2 distressing dreams. In the first I'm in a jetliner taking off and for some reason the toilet is in the front of the plane between the passengers and cockpit. We're ascending over Chicago and it's rough, sounds like the engines are about to give out. Not my first traumatic plane dream, but something significant and bad always seems to happen when I have such a dream.

In the second, I run into an old roommate, who chews me out about the manner in which I burned the bridge between us a few years back. I suppose I deserved it, even if this tongue lashing wasn't exactly real.

We ate at Ann Sather today. I think we both needed comfort food. N's bummed about her dog dying and her car on death's door. I'm bummed about the Steelers blowing another conference championship game, I guess, though I tend to think of most sports fans as "meatnecks (Andre's word, not mine)." I hate the New England Patriots. I hate their ugly-ass uniforms and their style-deficient head coach, the way they *always* get favorable calls from the officials and the way the media so willingly rimjobs the team whenever they write about them. I told N as long as that chimpanzee, Bush, is in the White House, the Patriots will win Super Bowls, simply because they're the Patriots. She called me her "little conspiracy theorist." I'm right, you know ... reichstag.

Tallulah, I just like that word.

2005-01-21T11:07:00.000-06:00

SO, the other day, I'm sitting at breakfast when N drops a year-old issue of 'Writer's Digest' in front of me. I've never really been a huge fan of said publication, never really found it too helpful, somewhere between a well-intentioned trade mag. and a ploy to get would-be writers (note: as a child, I was a would-be firefighter, astronaut, superhero -- today I am a would-be porno star, tv pundit, superhero ...) to shell out $4/mo. to read a bunch of information useless to them and, perhaps, to succumb to one or two of the myriad ads for phony lit agents, poetry contests or set-your-pomes-to-music schemes advertised in the back. I mean, there are some alright items inside, but the publication exists merely as a marketing tool for its own books. Given the cover price, it's not even free advertising. Who am I to complain, as mayhaps I use this blog to plug my own more expensive literary endeavours?

The other night on TV I heard that 10-year-old Mazzy Star tune, the slow D-A-G one with the really cool, spooky echo. Don't ask me the name of the song, but it was playing again today when I went for tea. I like that song. I associate it with the cold, wet spring of 1996, which was perhaps the strangest season of my life and which I won't get into here and now. Let's just say it was a time defined by my late dad's old navy blue London Fog trench coat I wore then. Maurice told me it made me resemble George Harrison, circa. 1965, and I thought that was pretty cool, so I wore it quite a bit, in spite of it being a size too small. I wore it until this woman I was seeing at the time told me "you know, you kind of look like Paddington Bear in that coat." Things weren't quite the same afterward.

tuesday

2005-01-19T09:56:00.000-06:00

Recieved word yesterday that a piece of mine's been accepted into the upcoming issue of "Monday Night." That's two acceptances in one week. Hopefully my recent art luck parlays into some sort of career luck.

Yesterday was CJ Laity's birthday and there was a roast for him at the Cafe. CJ is the webmaster at the site http://www.chicagopoetry.com and has been kicking around these parts much longer than me. I've only known him about a year, but I've managed to read at number of his events in that last year. He sometimes stirs things up, but sometimes things need stirring. It figured to be an interesting evening.

The crowd was decent, in spite of a Danteiian freeze that later gave way to an onslaught of snow. About half the open-mic folks took part in the roast. J.J. Jameson was reminiscent of old Friar's Club footage, Tom Roby did a good aping of CJ's recent 'punk-poetry' venture and Gregorio Gomez had us all in stitches. It was pretty cool. Even cooler was when David Gecic pulled me aside to slip me some cash for the chapbooks he's sold for me via his http://www.puddinheadpress.com site.

hope the Russians love their kitties, too . . .

2005-01-17T13:49:00.000-06:00

FWIW, my revolution will not be digitized. It will be analog, though perhaps assisted by the digital.

One day, whilst fairly bored, I created a friendster profile for my cat, Dusty. He's a pretty smart cat, so under "schools" I put "U of Chicago," "post-doctoral" and "physical sciences." A few days ago, he recieved the folowing message:

From:
Mariya
Date:
Saturday, January 15, 2005 4:23:00 AM
Subject:
Hello.
Message:
Hello.My name is Mariya.I read your structure and it has very much liked me.Many a structure what that usual, but you has interested me!!!I could not find the half at us in Russia.And I have decided to try to search it in internet. My purpose of acquaintance to you for long relations and creations of family.If I have interested you also YOU want to learn me better.You can write that to me on my e-mail.Mine email: alonegirl2005@mail.ru

It makes me think perhaps Dusty is the one who should be blogging, or at least the one who should be the protagonist of the things I write. It makes me wonder if people actually respond to these bots.

Tumbling Dice

2005-01-12T10:48:00.000-06:00

I was making breakfast this morning when an otherworldly thunderbolt rocked the windows. For a second, I was a scared kindergartener. Then a hard rain came in, flooded the sidewalks and melted most of the snow. After the rain, a fog fell and it was balmy and gorgeous outside.

Here at my usual Buena Park corner cafe, I'm chill upon a vintage teal couch and "Tumbling Dice" is cranked a tad louder than I imagine the predominantly yuppish clientele would like, but to me it's heaven.

I'm thinking about my old friend Carl, and the firestorm he endured for simply being himself in academia in the oppressively politically correct 1990s. I remember meeting Robert Creeley nearly a year ago and the Carl vs. Academia discussion I had with him. Creeley, who is also an acquaintance and contemporary of Carl's, told me I was smart to get out of *that* when I did. Still, I'm bitter.

I'm attempting the next great literary coup d'etat. Please join me.

Willie and Merle

2005-01-10T13:53:00.000-06:00

Today's music at my corner cafe is Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard duets. Much better than the crappy, nonthreatening ski-lodge quasi jazz I heard in here the other night.

"I can sober up tomorrow/and face my friends again..."

I have become addicted to the "missed connections" postings on craigslist. I don't post or reply to these myself, but there's a bit of entertainment to be had at the expense of those who do. I guess you could call it my own version of reality TV.

maybe the Third World his first time around ...

2005-01-10T01:05:00.000-06:00

I spent the first part of Saturday afternoon participating in a research study for some radio group. Had to listen to 10-second bites of bad music and answer how much I liked each song and on which of 4 local stations I thought I would most likely find it. The focus group itself was comprised of a bunch of guys, most of whom wore moustaches and looked a bit older than me. Now, to get into this study, I lied and told them I listened to two of these awful AOR stations more than anything else on the radio (I *may* take in maybe an hour or two a week of NPR and college radio), but I needed the extra money and what they don't know won't hurt them. I think most of these guys live in the W. or SW. burbs. Midway through, during the break, one of them told me, "Gee, I think I'm gonna go home and listen to my radio."

Later, N & her cousins Anthony and Ava and Anthony's wife Natalie and I drove a homemade birthday cake the far, far, way to Mokena, IL, for their cousin Margaret's birthday. Margaret's mom is in hospital recovering from car crash injuries, so we were all feeling varying degrees of some necessity to do nice things for family. Mokena is really out there, and is pretty desolate. We wondered aloud why so many of their family members live so far from the city, and referred to this barren burgh as "Mokena Faso."

It was alright, though. N's aunt made us spritzers of Sparkling wine and cold California Merlot and we watched "Napoleon Dynamite" before the younger cousins started wrestling and it was time to return to our first-world digs in Chicago. I would have liked to have gone for a drink or two with everyone, but we were so late getting back and everybody was tired.

needles and pins / / /

2005-01-07T01:11:00.000-06:00

Nyla says to say she's sick of my moist, naked ass rubbing against her when we sleep. I suppose the romance is dead.

Rough, rough day. N had to have these invasive neuro-spinal tests today (yes, she's OK) and in the midst of that we found out her aunt had just been in a nasty accident (she will be OK, but it was pretty bad). A doctor and three residents poked and prodded N, first with electrodes and then by inserting a long, thin needle into different muscles. She looked miserable enduring what would otherwise be classified as torture and I was miserable watching her deal with it. All the while I was hearing Sonny Bono's "Needles and Pins" in my mind. Later, after it was all over, I sat at a coffee jernt listening to terrible quasi jazz, catching flirty eyes from people too shy to say hello. I suppose I was too beaten down from the day's events to care about this and I know I'm too involved in my relationship to have cared otherwise, but I would have given anything at that moment to have been listening to the jangling chords of that great Sonny song and gotten a simple "hello" than to hear that crappy ski lodge muzak interspersed with the sound of my own breathing.

I'd write more, but my moist, naked ass is pooped.

fixing their shit ...

2005-01-05T13:26:00.000-06:00

Something about the feel of a newly starched shirt. Not too much starch, but when it's just back from the cleaners ... I never used to give a shit about what to wear, then I started dating a damned Libra. They'll brainwash you that way.

I'm set to grind an axe, or to 'fix everybody's shit,' as one of N's aunts put it one time.

So, N's renting a unit in a condo. Her mom owns said unit, but for some reason the 'condo association board' feels the need to meddle with N's mom's private holdings. Apparently N has been renting a bit too long for their own stodgy good. Thusly, this 'condo association board' has seen fit to dig up some old and self-important by-law stipulating an owner may only rent out their unit for 2 years. Never mind the underlying fact her mom owns the place.

What I really want to know is this: How is it people become so self-important? Especially in a time and place where we should all have loftier aspirations than meddling with such a non-situation. This is a small building and N has hardly been a bad neighbor, but because a few assholes are too dumb, blind or shallow to deal with their own ineptitudes, they find a need to gang up on her for no real reason. I hope to hell the next occupant of this unit makes life hell for all of these stodgy, smarmy jackholes. At the very least, there is now an added sense of satisfaction when our sex gets loud.

In Chicago: City on the Make, Algren wonders how it is "senators get so close to God." Well, I guess a senator at least has to do some work to achieve that seat. These 'condo association boards' and 'country club boards' and boards of whatever other kind, they just use these meaningless positions as a means to vicariously masturbate over delusional domination fantasies. Tsunamis, Global Terror, the decline of our own civilization ... and those pesky, meddling tenants.

wire in a fire

2005-01-03T10:01:00.000-06:00

We stayed in New Year's Eve, rang in midnight with Belgian raspberry lambic ale and didn't make it much further than that. We've been playing the same Trivial Pursuit game for the last three days.
Saturday, N's mom had us up to her place in Lake Bluff for a dinner party. There was much food and many familials. N's cousin told us a story where he meant to call his brother-in-law's girlfriend a hare-lip, but instead uttered something nastier. The weather's been nice. Eye of hurricane nice. After dinner, N&I went to the Gallery and it was pretty dead. Garrett was playing a semi-scoustic set and smoking a one-hitter during his break. There was an incredibly wasted young woman hitting on Jim the Beatles guy, who is like 60 and fairly road-worn. One could say we rang in the new with a near-dying whimper.

Welcome to the Cheddar Lounge

2004-12-29T09:19:00.000-06:00

Xmas was all whirlwind and flash, like the old Sonic Youth album cover. Chicago to Youngstown and back again on little sleep and plenty of beer. Saw lots of old friends. Blasts from my pasts. Time does funny things in Youngstown in December at the Cedars Lounge.

The Cedars is an institution of sorts. Back in the day, it was a dank dive with cheap beer, loud music and bad poetry on Tuesdays. Somewhere along the line, the owners came into some loot and added on and now there's a groovy couch room and a kitchen. It's still the place in town to go for good music, and about the only place to avoid meatnecks in Starter Jackets and their overtanned girlfriends. I drank my first illegal beer there when I was 17 at a Sister Ray show. My friend Mike once kissed Johnette Napolitano there and promised her a fine deli tray on her return (she never came back). A guy I knew in high school, Jeff, had a band called the Runts and they named their 7" e.p. "The Cheddar Lounge" in the club's honor. When doing my senior thesis, I attempted some long-winded ode to the Cedars, but fell way short of the goal. Sometimes words are not enough, I guess.

On Xmas night, the Cedars is the only place to be. Never mind if it's the only open bar in town (or just seems that way). It's pretty much the evening stop-off for any and every young and every decaying semi-hipster who used to live in town and moved away plus all the regulars (who I sometimes think are the really hip ones). This year there was a beer-soaked, high-energy cowpunk band playing. Per usual, people were elbow-to-elbow and 3-deep to get to the bar. You can get a draft for a dollar (it used to be 75 cents) and the bottles don't cost much more. Just imagine visiting from New York or LA or Chicago, closing out the night with a bar tab equivalent to your first round back home and being much more buttered to boot. Some people get depressed for the holidays, but homecoming Ytowners have a good time.

I went with a friend I hadn't seen in some time and ran into some more long-lost types inside: The bartenders who still remembered me from years before who were still generous with the already-cheap wares; The leather-clad indie-guy with whom I used to ramble incessantly about GbV; The woman who loaned me her 4-track for a solid 6 months in '99 and didn't complain when I returned it broken; middle-aged painters still painting and middle-aged rockers still looking for that gig to break their band; shit-talking pick-up pros and their hard-storied past conquests; good-looking Boho-goth college-types and high school kids sneaking into their first real bar; the guy who taught me old songs on my first guitar and the girl who came all the way to Chicago just to create an ugly scene; One poor sap in a Cleveland Browns jacket watching sports highlights on a corner TV. Nobody else notices there's a TV . . .

We drank a ton at the bar. Then we went to someone's house and drank a ton more. The sun was rising when I finally got back to my mom's place. I didn't really feel drunk at that point, and when I woke up hours later, I wasn't hung over. I felt good. Energized, even, to the point where I returned Sunday with my friends to have a few more drinks before my train ride home.

I've spent the better part of the last year or two getting over certain nostalgic tendencies. I suppose such tendencies fester when old connections disconnect. Stepping into one's old haunt for the first time in years can be daunting, at first. Then, past events flow into mind, create a melancholy sort of high. At last, the come-down isn't so bad; that old haunt -- its hipsters, its hucksters, its drama queens and its ghosts -- keeps haunting.

Expatriatata

2004-12-20T22:37:00.000-06:00

I remember years ago when I was in a friend's wedding and we all gathered at his dad's place for a prenuptual whiskey. His dad was a greasy Coast Guard vet, seemingly obsessed with Japanese martial arts. On the walls of his gaudy, suburban home were souvenir store hangings with vague proverbs on revenge. I wondered for a second why my friend's dad couldn't make his first marriage work, or maybe I didn't. But that was Cleveland, a place I'd sooner never see again.

The expatriation bug seems to be in the air of late. Folks going to Canada in droves and how to blame them, really? You can have expanded marriage rights, universal health care, decriminalized marijuana and not feel like the rest of the world hates your home. And hockey. And who cares if their version of football is silly? You can travel to Cuba without your government imprisoning you for it.

I don't know if I could ever permanently expatriate, anyway. I don't know if I could ever just stay in one place as opposed to the other or another. If I moved right now, I would probably just go to New York or New Orleans or Austin. Some might say the shit has finally hit the fan. I think folks have just finally noticed the odor circulating. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Pound ... they went to Paris, man. Why did they go there? They were pissed off because the government took away their booze. Sure, Hemingway was wounded in war and may have felt some disillusionment, but if he could have sidled up to a bar stateside, The Sun Also Rises may well have centered around a rodeo in Wyoming. Canada? I mean, most U.S.-ers aren't even going to Quebec ... it's just too easy.

I guess my point is: if you're going to call yourself an expat, then up and go a little farther than Toronto, Jack. There's a big world out there and hopping that northern border is about as subversive as voting for Nader or riding your bike in one of those insignificant Critical Mass events. Or wearing your $85, Marc Jacobs-designed Che Guevara t-shirt to the Whole Foods on Clybourn, where you're always rude to the non-union staff.

2004-12-08T10:57:00.000-06:00

Nyla's internet went out again this morning. She just had a maintenance guy over two days ago and it's out again and with it the cable. Were I a tad more paranoid, or a tad less apathetic at this point, I would suspect the ministry of homeland security.

speaking of the internets, I was spammed by poetry.com. This is one of those "enter our poetry contest and win $XXX" scams where they get a bunch of kids and lonely old ladies to send in really bad poems about Norman Schwarzkopf or their pretty kitties and bilk them into dropping $40 on an 'anthology' of these submissions. I submitted a haiku to let them know I was onto them. Awaiting their response/solicitation to buy said anthology.

I was up early this morning, had a nice diet-friendly breakfast of lean turkey bacon and eggs with a spinach salad. I really crave whiskey and that Jameson bottle in my closet is looking mighty neglected. 1 more week until I can booze with a clean conscience.

rock, read and drop

2004-12-06T13:17:00.000-06:00

Last Friday I played a solo set at the Green Door tavern in River North. It's an historic place, as it survived the fire 133 years ago and prohibition (was a speakeasy, they tell me). There's a nice cabaret room downstairs. Had a decent-sized crowd, though they'd come to see Steph, who had booked the show and headlined after my set. I had nearly forgotten how it felt to stand in front of an audience and play my music and have people actually listening. It was nice. The free beer was nicer.

Tuesday was my second poetry feature/book-release/birthday bash at Charlie's cafe poetry series. Like the rock thing, a good crowd, and some friends of mine even showed up (they normally wouldn't). Nyla brought a cake from Mandy B's and Charlie provided pie and marscapone from Trotter's to go. Those were all nice gestures, but the Jameson gift set from Anthony and Natalie took the aforementioned cake. N & I then went to Simon's with Joe and Cindy for some drinks. 33 feels OK. The next day, my actual birthday, Nyla took me to see The Motorcycle Diaries, which is not a bad movie. We had pizza and beer afterward, and now we're dieting again. I don't mind it, as the food is still good, but the lack of fat or simple starch really ups one's cravings, and we're eating like pigs.

We're losing weight, too, though, so it ain't all bad.

cominos

2004-11-24T10:11:00.000-06:00

We've had a cold front or two, but now it really feels like winter. Wind is strong enough to blow fallen leaves upward. This time of year was always worse in Bowling Green, though, where there really weren't tall buildings to break the wind. I break wind in my sleep, or so I have been told. What to do about it except incorporate more cumin into my diet?

new stuff

2004-11-18T15:38:00.000-06:00

My new chapbook, writing around reason, will be available by the end of next week for $6. Contact me, or find it soon enough at the usual places. I'm doing a book-release reading at the Cafe, 5115 N. Lincoln, on Tuesday the 30th. The day after is my birthday.

I spent the better part of today watching the dedication of the new Clinton Presidential Library. It's always kind of age-inducing to see ex-presidents gather, whether at one of these or at a funeral. Gerald Ford was too ill to attend, saving us any physical pratfalls to accompany the current President's verbal ones. It was cold and raining and Bono and the Edge performed and the ex-presidents blew sunshine up Clinton's keister. It was very phony. Very much like church.

a piece from the new book:

Crazeology

Bird feather, scratch
of old needle.
Cold outside & will get colder through
the week. Echo, snap of Roach’s kit
kicks quintet back into

outro. Charlie Parker always
best when leaves are turning, burned
in rusted

cans to keep warm the
fingerless gloves of Marine Dr. trolls

& my imagination r o l l s

E. from here
to the upper W. Side, Scrapple
From the Apple, an old flame now married

in Brooklyn, when
in Morningside never
heard so true the changing

chords. His horn
dances yet from out

of nowhere, drifting
on a reed. How deep

is the ocean.

damn cool

2004-11-15T13:06:00.000-06:00

Kim Deal's voice brings tears to my eyes. I'm a big girl. That's OK.
I went to see the Pixies on Saturday. It was damn cool. We loaded up on beer at home and then walked to the Aragon, where beer is $6 for 10 ounces of crap. The concert was great, though, leaving few stones unturned. Few bands I like better. Frank wore jeans and a v-neck sweater over a button-down shirt, looked like a student teacher.
My ex wants me to help her brother find a job in Chicago. I can't even find myself a job.

to forget the general erection ...

2004-11-04T13:08:00.000-06:00

Folks, let me tell you something about the politics of getting elected. Very simply, it comes down to money. When you outraise your opponent, you have a 96 percent chance of winning. This is why some incumbents in congress (like, say, house speaker Dennis Hastert) raise $600,000 to their opponent's $16,000. Very clearly, if the playing field were leveled, the makeup of our allegedly representative government would take on a markedly different look.

This is why democrats in the U.S. need to take a long, hard look at what their party of choice has been doing since the Reagan Years. It's not so much the Republicans having access to more or deeper funding (they don't) as it's the democrats' reluctance (or downright refusal) to acknowledge the relationship between winning the fundrasing game and winning elections. At best, this is evidence they play the game not to lose, as opposed to playing to win. At worse, this is evidence the party is tremendously out of touch with contemporary campaigning.

During the recent presidential election campaign, the democrats spent an inordinate amount of money to conduct decidedly undemocratic activities: blocking Ralph Nader from ballots in several states and spearheading efforts to keep Nader out of the presidential debates. Interestingly enough, the only time John Kerry led in pre-election polls since the conventions, his campaign had the fundraising edge. When the incumbent again pulled ahead of the challenger, the polls reflected this.

So, it wasn't a mandate from the masses. Rather, it was the product of poor campaigning -- more specifically, of poor fundraising.

shave your moustache and get a real job

2004-10-28T15:54:00.000-05:00

I can't remember a warmer October. Last year at this time I was bundled more than I was not. My then-landlady hadn't yet turned on the heat and I slept in layers of winter clothing. I'd just purchased an old army coat for $5 at the thrift store next door. I was in Wicker Park today and really missed living on that end of town. Did I mention how badly I need a haircut?

I spent the morning at Filter. All the coffee in Africa couldn't wake me, and I fettered around with the Nation crossword for an hour or two. It's one of the harder ones, even compared to the NY Times. A couple of young women wearing U of C garb sat near me and I eavesdropped a bit.

"Summer is OK, but she's really a bitch when Taryn's around," one said.

"No kidding, but her boyfriend's so hot. What's his name, again?"

"Eziekiel. He gets lots of coke"

I asked myself why I've never come across anybody from that school who has a normal name. Then I remembered my friend, brad, takes classes there. He's a grad student, though, so it may not count.

Having given up at the puzzle and any sort of legitimate caffeination, I left. I was stopped by a 20-something woman on North Avenue soliciting haircuts so she could pass some sort of exam for some unfairly high-end salon. She wanted $20.

"It'll be $60 once I pass the exam," she said.

I don't pay more than $15 most of the time, anyway, for a haircut. She was nice, though, and seemed earnest enough, but I was broke. I spent my last $2 on cheap pomade.

Columbus by Day

2004-10-11T10:03:00.000-05:00

N & I recently watched a doc. about C. Colon's true origin. According to the program, the man was a Spaniard, not an Italian. Believable enough, though they'll probably never teach that in the grammar schools.

Before setting sail under Spain's flag, Colon was a mercenary. He had actually fought against Ferdinand and Isabella's throne, which is why some surmise he masqueraded as Genovese. Once he planted their flag on the islands of the West Indies, he enslaved the natives to mine precious metals. His soldiers tested the sharpness of their swords by lopping hands off of children and leaving them to bleed to death. Five centuries later we still give a holiday to this man whose faulty maps eventually led him to St. Augustine.

Christopher Reeve died. I don't think I was ever really a fan. I've long believed equestrian to be cruel to the horses. I remember when Superman II was released; I was visiting my aunt and uncle in Puerto Rico and we stood in a very long line at the Cinema to see it. People recognized my uncle and let us cut in front of them. I never thought Margot Kidder was a very good Lois Lane. I remember feeling what may heve been my first prepubescent hormonal pangs for Ursula Andress in that movie and thinking General Zod resembled John Entwistle of the Who. I must have been 9 or 10.

I'm tired. My stomach is a churning mess. The kitchen smells of ripe red onions.

McKinley's park is meant to stay in the dark.

2004-09-28T15:16:00.000-05:00

The wind talks a good game on the street, but the heavy, white cumulus stay still in the sky. See, I've been reading Algren's Nonconformity, so I'm apt to believe those with their heads aloft in the clouds may be impervious to the wind at street-level. There's a new pome of mine somewhat related, but I can't figure out how to make it indent on this blog page, so you'll have to catch it elsewhere. Yeah, I still attempt poetry (see below entries), even if I haven't made it out to any recent events (still hung-over, I think, from last month's 'fest').

This morning I walked around Chinatown seeking a replacement for the old Chairman Mao hat I used to love, but no dice. I mean, they have similar hats, but they're all bejeweled and marketed for ladies these days. Earlier, heading NE on Archer Ave. from McKinley Park, I saw the Sears behind bright billboards hiding the homeless living below. There is a bar right at Archer and Damen called El Toro Loco, or "the crazy bull," advertising excellent service for pretty ladies. Like a lot of the S. & SW. sides of town, there is not much else.

Today is Nyla's birthday (26) & I'm taking her to dinner & wine. No cake left in the rain today, which reminds me of a time circa. 1993 Longfellow & I stumbled around a Bowling Green drinkery speaking the lyrics of "MacArthur Park" as pickup lines to unsuspecting college girls. If you are wont to use such tactics (pick-up lines), don't use our approach. You're better off being direct, like the greek-letter-clad meatnecks in college who wooed away the aforementioned ladies with, "So, wanna get a 6-er and screw, or don't you drink?"

2 new, 2 pomes

2004-09-27T10:35:00.000-05:00

working again is nice, if not not enough. Still find time for etching things ...

at the dedication of the Haymarket sculpture

“… as innocent and as guilty
as meaningful and as meaningless as any
other flower in the western field.”
-- Gwendolyn Brooks

predestined to the abstract, you take the middle
ground the politicians love to clutch. At last
landmark, immediately small

colossus to the noon-rush restaurant-
goers put-off to walk around
you to meals written off as

expenditure for the storied corporate moneydroppers
whose buildings line streets just E. of here where
a century and some years

ago fire-eaters raked
muck to pester meat
barons into

concessions never gained. You are smoothed
over hands & arms
building

or destroying, monument only to
revisionism, the city’s ambivalence
to declare

a uniform text,
accounting of events, the truth
buried bleeding beneath cement.

sleepless block 2309

in the wee hours, my
words don’t come. Traffic

distant on The Drive still
hums & just

outside, cicadas buzz; cool breeze & below
me streetlights the only lights. half-past

one, words don’t come. “write through,” they said
in school -- I do -- but words

don’t come. my lover shifts soundly
sleeping now & words don’t come. no muse

could help me – they really don’t exist, just
humbug & in hours I’m off to work, but words don’t

come. I’ll pay for this
then, but that’s still

future. for now, stare at my
notebook, no ink, hear a leak drop

from the sink & words don’t come & all old tricks
of “writing through”

are mere excuse, just things to do until
words come. to wit, this line

should be a start – huh-uh – the words, they up
& didn’t come. Perhaps to sip fruited herbal

tea – it seemed to help
McGrath that once – but I’m not into

that new-age crap, just
stuck here empty, insomniac

& jonesing, Jack. C’mon. Give
my words back.

Kiss me, I'm Bulemic

2004-09-21T16:55:00.000-05:00

2 weeks ago, Nyla and I began one of those trendy "eat-all-the-bloody-meat-you-can-and-lose-big-weight" diets. I lost eight pounds and she lost six. Min said, "Are you crazy? Starch is all I eat." I guess some of us aren't blessed with such a killer metabolism. The diet itself was a good thought.
While it lasted. A few days back, our cravings beyond our control, we went to a Leona's and gorged on crusty pizza. They make quite a crust at Leona's, buttery and cornmeal-laden. 3 days later, I am 4 pounds heavier. In two months I turn 33 and I'm all of a sudden paying attention to these things like some 17 year-old cheerleader. Nyla texts me, "Y R U such a big GIRL?!?!?!?!"
Today is our 6-month anniversary, speaking of paying attention to girly things. Clinging to the last fibres of my boy-cred, she is kinda cheesed that I won't do anything with her this Sunday until after the Stillers game.
Fuggeddaboudit, We're going to the Red Lion and get some Beer and Sex and Chips and Gravy.

Rhymes & the Football grass

2004-09-17T13:28:00.000-05:00

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?

summer's almost gone

2004-08-31T10:10:00.000-05:00

we got the rails, but they got the goombas?

I spent last weekend wandering aimlessly around Manhattan. People are prettier there than here in Chicago, probably because they actually walk from place to place. Chicagoans are stubborn to the point of obesity when it comes to driving versus taking public transit (13 percent of Chicagoans use it as opposed to 50 percent of New Yorkers). This is most disheartening, as it seems out system is more navigable and inclusive than theirs, but I suppose it's hard to keep your whipped cream Frappucino from spilling whilst being jostled about on the el.

But, really, it seems the beautiful-to-not-so-beautiful quotient between here and there is quite a chasm. Perhaps it's because the better looking ladies in Chicago avert their eyes from any and all contact, thus making themselves seem distant, or at least frigid. But what do I care, I am off the so-called 'market' and we have better food.

my feet show it

This past weekend I read at C.J. Laity's Chicago Poetry Festival. C.J. puts on great events and this is only the latest of several in which I have participated. This particular event is a two-day affair, with the first day being an open-air, "all ages" reading and the second day an "adults-only" shindig at Weeds, complete with free-flowing tequila and rowdy audience participation. I was slated to read at the boozer, which is always fine with me. After all, Charles Dickens used to walk 10 or 20 miles just to get to his favorite boozer.

Day one was a rainy and cold ordeal but folks showed up and toughed it out. Had it been sunny, we may have seen a larger audience, but it was a good show and some of us actually sold a couple books. I sold a chapbook to Susie, who owns the Book Cellar on Lincoln, and one to Wayne Allen Jones, who I could have sworn already had a copy. Wayne looked to be nodding off at the Weeds reading the next day, so I rolled off an impromptu couplet about it and it seemed to garner some laughter. I hope Wayne isn't angry with me. My old friend and co-worker, Brad, showed up there and the two of us and Nyla ordered a round of tequila (Sergio promptly poured us two rounds) right before my 7 minutes. We wound up leaving to get tacos some time before a fistfight supposedly broke out. So much for poets being herb-tea quaffing pacifists. I can't wait for next year's.

an east end ode

2004-08-16T11:31:00.000-05:00

I had a friend named Annie waited
tables at the Cage
on Forbes just E. of Murray, autumn
’02 when, burned out on 14 hours
6 days a week after
2 years for a cause in which I once
believed,

I’d escape my office to work at NY Times
crosswords w/her & talk shit
about the cord-clad University guys who
drank there weekends, would introduce themselves as
"doctor." She was pretty, bobbed brunette, eyes like lacquered
chestnut

or coffee, grew up in the South Hills, was the
subject, arguably, of a short story by M.
Chabon years back, his Lawrencian pinings
not yet honed into now-
famous drivel catalogued

even on film. My longings were more
real, I like to think, or at least

tangible. I don’t know. I was still married to politics
& unable to think in the teenage terms
I revert to now when so smitten. We went once

to Homestead thrifting
for winter clothes, the Mon Valley still
splashed in the red-orange and browns of October. The

Steelers won a lot that season & Sundays were all
dollar slices of pizza, Yeungling beer, warm sidewalk
conversation w/strangers & sunset
walks alone on Panther Hollow. A nice place to live, I thought,
if I had the time to. I left my career that

winter, returned to Ohio to wait out my grandmother’s
dying, moved back to Chicago, reunited my band &
attempted poetry, which I’d
made my major yrs. before & now Pittsburgh
is past like that I also
left only to return.

how about a new piece ...

2004-08-11T15:34:00.000-05:00

driving poetry

where I go w/this
is only predetermined in my own
knowledge I will get there, but

where? how? when? to

venture mapless only poses
peril when no sense

of road, direction,
destination (ask the old

explorers). This

is what it
is, is always what
it ever
is. Mind

the heavens, your
instruments.

Meeting Creeley

2004-03-24T22:12:00.000-06:00

I saw Robert Creeley at the U of C. Was pretty amazing, as his work seems to improve with his age. Did phenomenal pieces from his new book and made veiled asides assailing the pretention of the very halls of erudition welcoming him ("I don't even know what these poems mean ... I just write them"). At times he seemed to ramble, but it was a good, grandfatherly kind of rambling. At the ensuing reception, I waited out several undergrads asking the man what the poems were about (see prior parenthetic aside) or plugging their own agendas just to say hello ("you dropping out of that Bowling Green writing program was probably a very smart move," he told me -- a long story involving Carl Thayler and trite institutional political correctness in the early '90s). Was like talking to Moses, only much more cool.

johnny on the call, johnny on the alt.

2004-03-11T14:10:00.000-06:00

my roommate, Johnny Pae, gets a fundraising call from the fraternal order of police. they tell him a donation gets him a sticker for his car. they imply the sticker will get him out of traffic tickets ("now, I'm not saying it gives you license to go 90 in a 25," the retired cop tells him).

Johnny says, "that sticker will do me no good. my car is illegal anyway. to boot, I'm kind of upset with your department because some of your guys roughed up my neighbor for filming them arrest people at a party next door. They smashed his camera, which was art institute property, so I don't think I can help you."

The cop/fundraiser persists ("can WE count on YOU, Mr. Pae?"). "How much will this sticker cost me?"

Johnny asks, "Can I just stick it to the subway I ride to school?"

The officer offers to enlist him as a 'civillian patrolman.'

"So, does that mean you're going to give me a gun?" he asks. The cop/fundraiser gets serious then.

Johnny spends his free time learning obscure words from the Oxford English Dictionary. He then uses them in regular conversation, which seems to alienate the other person/people and goes against everything a I believe about the english language. He wants to get a gangsta-looking tattoo that spells out "O.E.D."

I put in Son Volt's 'Trace,' crank the volume. I love the production, the captured sound of Farrar's fingers sliding up and down the neck of his guitar. There is a nearly naïve cheesiness to some of the lyrics, but then he'll follow-up with a killer line ("slower than a 10-second buzz").
Johnny says he doesn't get alt.country. I replied a lot of it's pedestrian, but some is very worthwhile. He asks sarcastically if 'Trace' isn't pedestrian. I remind him he is the proud owner of a Cherry Poppin' Daddies disc.

at the Northland Tavern and Grill

2004-02-11T14:05:00.000-06:00

Two nights ago, Johnny Pae and I stumbled blindly into this real shithole of a dive where I used to work. Bartender was a heavily-pierced version of Paris Hilton with her hair dyed black. M was at the bar. He is 'el presidente' of a sect of the Latin Kings gang called the Jivers. He used to be banned from the establishment, but I guess he's not anymore. Dude about 40, confined to a wheelchair. Fairly affable. Drove us home at closing time in his handicap van. Pierced Paris asked if I needed my old job back. I really hope something else comes up.

I am the new year

2004-01-07T22:16:00.000-06:00

7/1/04
“I am the sun/I am the new Year” -- Kim Deal

A actually walked the entire 2 blocks to the blue line today instead of waiting right outside for the bus. It must be winter even in Hell.

Last night we had some drinks and watched ‘Amelie.’ Today seems like a good enough day for a walk. After yesterday, anyway, which was Olscamp Cold.

I need to safeguard my journals from Ling. The ‘little badger,’ as Andre calls her, got into the house while I was out and swooped through things again.

So, this is writing through the block, as the say. I find it’s usually 90-98 percent block to two-10 percent workable material, but I *am* still sifting through the re-learning phase.

The answer? Write more, of course. Last night loosened me up and I worked a chord progression and new melody around my “going places” refrain. Maybe it is.