well, our kitten sees handsome ghosts

Sunday, 22 July 2007

Ryan works as a security guard in the Oroville Hospital. He plays guitar. Soccer, too. He got pulled over in Texas and shot at in Afghanistan. Since he couldn't come to last Sunday's concert, Yuri and I played some songs for him in the other Ryan's bedroom. The indie cowboy Ryan. I mean, things didn't start out so well. When we got to indie cowboy Ryan's house, Rochelle was filling out a police report and comparing bruises with blonde ironyard-worker Ryan.

Three Ryans?

I know.

Anyway, good music will find you. I don't care how shifty or stoic your look. Here is some good music pining after you right now:

Frontier Ruckus



Green tomatoes. You can fry them: they're delicious but not ripe. Frontier Ruckus maybe isn't quite ripe, but neither is your heart. They sound like the Appalachian Neutral Milk Hotel. If you're anything like me, that band description has been on your Christmas list for a good several years. And you are like me. Here, look at my hands. We both have hands. Yours are a little bigger.

Let's say you stained the knees on your jeans. No, wait, slacks. Gray slacks. Let's say when you picked off one of the grass blades it turned into a key. Since you're a cool bitch, you knew this key would open that old brick shack down the street from the Antique Tool Museum. Inside the brick shack, you found singing saw, banjo, gas station light, moss on a well pump, snare brush, and some brown-eyed antelope singing "Anna let's die in some dim town." Pretty soon--one or three seconds later--you wouldn't want to sleep anywhere else.

Okay, so you want the antelope to scream a little. Maybe he will. You'll just have to wait and wait for the rest of your life, your sweet and thorn-pricked life.

Listen to the EP (and best) versions of songs on their MySpace -- also with a link to buy their EP

A Drum and An Open Window
Dustin and the Furniture



Hmm, what do you think: once you become aware of your own youth, hasn't it slipped off? Ah, but you still have your relation to others, and everyone else is still moving their heads in that off way, saying odd things you once understood or will understand in the future, and all those little brothers and mothers let you know where you stand, even if you're blindfolded and stepping a little unsure.

A Drum and an Open Window are Yuri and Whisper from Boston, MA, and they play that xylophone/melodica/banjo antifolk or twee folk that lives in your attic. Really. The twee folk run away when you peek, but still live there, stealing your cell phone charger and eating your berries. I played some songs with these guys in Oroville last Sunday. Before the show, we visited the Chinese Temple, ate all the blackberries of Oroville (see? I told you), talked a lot about classic Coca-Cola and less about armed robbery. Listen to "The Mom Song."

Dustin was there too, and he managed to identify a random group of rowdy Hawaiian boys as a band. How did he know? Dustin just knows. Don't play poker against him. Seriously. His music is like that too. I mean, don't play poker against his music. Don't play poker against his beard. Just refrain, kid. Listen to "Rap Song" instead.

Listen on yonder MySpace: A Drum and An Open Window and Dustin and the Furniture

In fact, listen to these songs too:

"Hannah We Know" -- Tiny Dancers (video link)

Speaking of attics, Britain has again produced one of the world's best pop band. What, you think they stop? They don't fucking stop.

Where the Ocean Meets My Hand -- Billie the Vision and the Dancers (free album)

Speaking of the World's Best Pop Band Belt (coming soon to your local wrestling federation), Sweden's Billie the Vision and the Dancers have given away another free album. All of the songs are good. Even the ones that read like tour diaries. Golly shit! My favs: "09. I Saw You On TV" and "10. I've Been Having Some Strange Dreams" plus Hello Saferide duet "07. Overdosing With You."

"Matagorda" -- Black Before Red (song)

If Paulie Mac accompanied your summer drive past old high schools and thrift stores and that one gully park shaded, hidden, and filled with pianos.

"Bad Times Are On Their Way -- My Darling YOU! (song)

A major FU to the last song. A little punk maybe, sneer too big for their cheeks, but who wants to grow into their sneer? We just want to make some noise.

"Dixie" -- Gill Landry (song)

When this song comes on: "Everybody please shut the fuck up and stop dancing and fake your southern accents and give somebody some fucking handshake drugs and a hug. Ahmen."

Dear Andrea -- Eileen Myles (live poetry)

"Spare me the postmodern experimental poet bullshit. Honey, think hard." I don't know the linebreaks, but the love is still there no matter what I don't understand.

I Haven't Got a MySpace Because MySpace Fucking Sucks -- Pete Green (song)

Well, um, I mean, I got one. You might. But this guy doesn't. What he does do is springy-dingy British wit, rhyme chops to boot. Megan's new favorite song.

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you can be handsome i'll be pretty

OCHO #10

Full disclosure: A few of my poems hung out in OCHO #9.

Um, OCHO #11 is already out. But I want to talk about OCHO #10 because I got a free PDF version in my email. Didi Menendez, publisher of MiPOesias, publishes OCHO print-on-demand through Lulu.com. And what else should you buy but poetry? Those infomercial lights that illuminate your dresser drawers right when you open them? What, is your dresser a refrigerator? Do you store apples in it? Don't be an ass.

When OCHO started, each issue had eight poems, but now the name is more like Motel Six. A complete list of things unlike Motel Six: airplane hangars, hurricane shelters, my eyes. Menendez eschews the aesthetic myopia that ensnares most poetry rags edited by people who write clauses like "eschews the aesthetic myopia that ensnares." OCHO resembles a more frequent and poetic version of those NOW! compilations. The variety, I mean, not the suck. OCHO will deliver your scraggly first person Bukowski yawp, your elliptical la-la, your one style of poetry with a lot of abstract nouns, your search engine collage, your sexy confessional monologue, your syllabic freakout, your snarky syntactic inversions, your self-referential sigh, your cigarette poem, your childhood recollection + dialogue--okay. You get it. I mean, you didn't even read that whole sentence once you saw how long it was. We all like different shit. I like playing T-Ball and screaming.

Some of my fan vote all-stars from OCHO #10 include: the Amy duos of Amy Gerstler and Amy King. Amy Gerstler gives us the phrase "skinny dipping regret," our collective lack thereof, and this smiling sort of line that is like climbing a ladder out of a mine into a smile.

My friend and former haircare mentor Kasey Mohammad has this epic poem called "All of Me" which alone is worth the nine buck plunk. Not even shitting you. Witness these random, out-of-order quotes!

  Part of me wants to feel bad for being such a beeyotch. Another part of
  me slaps my own hand, face, and every other part of my skin it can
  make contact with. Then another part of me beats that part up because
  you never know if you don’t try.

  Part of me feels deprived of the presence/friendship of other black
  males. I still want them only and I mean only if they are not touching
  my chest at all. A part of me understands the “personal touch” aspect,
  but then another part of me is not much in favor of this practice. And
  then another part of me sort of gets it a little bit.

  Part of me thinks of everyone in the future having their own personal
  helicopters. But then another part of me believes we’re going to die, all
  of us. Die a horrible, horrible death. And then another part of me says,
  let’s dance, whee, and there’s a fistfight in my mind. And then another
  part of me opens my eyes to see all these beautiful white birds I am
  blessed to have in my life.

--from K. Mohammad's "All of Me" in OCHO #10

Other favs: Emma Trelles's restaurant review and Letitia Trent's sonic gum crystal spark (those blue crystals that electrocute your teeth).

Was that a long blog post for one magazine? Probably. I should've included something practical, like a recipe for sexy avocado tacos. You should Google such a recipe while buying OCHO #10.

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hamfisted sandwich

Thursday, 12 July 2007

One of my friends is having a birthday today. We never hang out. Picture the opposite of razzmatazz.

Overdue: commentary (inevitably sodden and unelegiacal) on San Francisco, OCHO #10, Arcata hippie goats, and good music. Is this a "substitution" post? Of course not. These are not pinch hitter sentences. I care about these sentences, their birthdays, their razzmatazz.

What did you think I was going to talk about? Christianity?

Oregon tomorrow. Hello again, Oregon.

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holy drum twitch

Sunday, 8 July 2007

I am like the end of a slap tired. That tired.

I am in McKinleyville, CA. See above.

The reading went well. Logan talked about it. My danke to Logan, Elliot, Clay and everybody else in the slobberingly lovely Bay Area. Except that fucker on the way home from Mel's. Not him.

More tomorrow. I want you all--your sexy minds.

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once again berkeley is next

Saturday, 7 July 2007

7/7/07 Ringo Starr Birthday Poetry Extravaganza:

Elliot Harmon
Logan Ryan Smith
Mike Young

FREE
Pegasus Books @ 7:30pm
2349 Shattuck Ave.
Berkeley, CA 94704

Also: this band Frontier Ruckus is my favorite new band. They are near my age. Listen to "Dark Autumn Hour," "Mohawk, New York," and "Mona and Emmy." Oh! Maybe especially "Adirondack Amish Holler," best version of which is found on their MySpace. Or, you know, all of them. More extensive wax coming soon. Fiends!

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