because it is playing the weirdest Clash cover I’ve ever heard.

It’s by something called “The No-Smoking Orchestra” (I’d dig up a link but I’m lazy).

Picture a Serbian brass band with a slow ska backbeat playing “Lost in The Supermarket” and singing in a mix of Serbian and heavily accented English, with an occasional female voice doing spoken bits in Serbian.

I’m all lost indeed…

Yet another friggin’ guitar poem. FB welcome (pun intended).

When I strap it on I tell myself

Roll back everything.
Dial back the volume knobs,
the gain on the amp,
set the tone to fair to middlin’
and set the switch in the middle
to pick up both pickups.
Clean is what you want here.
Make a play at playing clean.
Pretend you know something beyond fuzz
and act like you know what you’re doing
with something beyond a barre chord or two
and a half-assed hammer-on.
Let go of your cock in favor of a kiss,
and do something less than what everyone expects
because you know the above average rock guitarist
is less competent than the average jazz guitarist
who is less competent than the run of the mill session guitarist
who knows less about sound than children who cannot play at all
but who fall to their knees in the presence of one perfect note,

and you are none of the above.

Do not ask for a blaze every time you play. Make an ember instead
for the ear. Sit a while longer yet in the bedroom,
playing more and more quietly until the sound
is not present for anyone but you, you splendid failure,
you even keeled master of no drama.
You don’t need an instrument any more
than you need a word for God.
Keep moving your fingers. Keep playing, dialed back,
tone down, gain off, volume low,
look for the note that holds everything…

placeholder for the close — what i have sucks.

*This is one of those deals, by the way, where I had to write the first stanza to get to the second. I may salvage some stuff from there, but in general, I hate it.

to the Incredibly Long Day:

9-5 class

5:30-6:30 appointment

6:30 – ? errands/house stuff

At least I got a semi-decent amount of sleep.

Boring, I know…and yet, this is who I am when I’m not scintillating.

the troll said

“i am powerful because
i am ugly”

and tipped his hat cordially
to the shuddering passers-by