Been pretty solidly offline for a couple of days…

Just got in from recording “The Jim Poems” for a CD. It came out remarkably well considering the environment and our equipment (recorded live, vocals and 5-string electric bass, to a digital 4-track). Minimal post production to be done…should have it available as a chapbook CD combo for the Java Hut premiere on Sept. 24, and for the NYC premiere at Bar 13 on October 9.

YAY! Exciting — my first CD, which I once swore I’d never do; I’m kinda opposed to spoken word CDs as I feel that they “freeze” performances. The number of poets I’ve heard covering work they only know through CD scares me, because I generally feel that what I’m hearing is impersonations of the original poets. I like it when someone can take a poem off page and make it their own without losing the original intent.

Of course, that would imply that the original poem was well-written enough to stand up to such interpretation.

Anyway, adding the music feels different to me — not sure how; perhaps because Faro and I developed the performances together as a single piece of art, not as an “accompaniment” to the poems I wrote. It seems natural to me to try and capture it.

PSYCHED.

I’ll be catching up on mail really soon, I promise.

EDIT: Are any of you jazz heads out there familiar with a movie called “Riffs?” I’ve not seen it, can’t find if anywhere online. Faro’s seen it once, and is looking for a tune from the movie — a really amazing bass duet featuring a Jamaaladeen Tacuma type funk player and a melodic, Jaco-esque partner. The movie was NOT a documentary and the actual players weren’t in the movie. He has the tune on a CD someone made for him with no identifying info.

Thanks in advance…

I’m fine, for those of you who’ve asked. Thanks.

I’m staying away from TV and radio and heading into the old job to lay some flowers at the memorial.

If I’m on here at all again today, it’ll be much later.

I’ve been sitting with the guitar tonight…that makes me pretty happy…

I’m trying to work up some reasonably competent second and third postion chord changes for a new song I’m working on. This sudden burst of songwriting is kinda weird, as I’ve written about four songs in twenty years.

Maybe I’ve been working up to this. Maybe it took me this long to be ready to do this.

Not questioning too much. Just enjoying it.

I’m watching the NASCAR race tonight.

I’m going to the race in Loudon NH next weekend.

Am I the only NASCAR fan in this crowd?

Addendum: Gotta say it — I think snobbery and elitism keep a lot of people ignorant of the appeal of NASCAR. I know I never even dreamed of watching a race until recently.

In the earlier post I mentioned a headache.

Please change “headache” to “migraine.”

My eyes hurt. Going to hide in the dark. Bye.

CNN will be streaming their real-time archive of the coverage of 9/11 on their site on Monday, starting at 8:30 AM. So if you want, you can relive the whole thing just the way it happened.

I won’t be watching, but I can understand why someone might want to see it.

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In other news, I have a headache.

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Just finished reading the Bob Dylan interview in Rolling Stone. I hadn’t picked up RS in a long time, so it was interesting to see the rag. It seems to have improved from the last time I read it.

I tend to agree with Dylan’s approach toward his music, where he says that he doesn’t listen to his albums and thinks of them as documentation more than as discrete works of art. I kinda feel that way about my books — I get focused on the next thing almost as soon as I’ve finished one.

An example: the set I’m planning for the shows on 9/24 and 10/9 (the Jim Poems, accompanied by Faro on bass) is really exciting and I think it’s going to kill (especially the ending), but in reading through the poems I’m already seeing a next set that continues Jim’s story, and I’m starting to get impatient to get these performances out of the way so I can “move on.”

This stands in direct contradiction to my own frustration with poets who don’t get up to read “unless I’ve got something new.” While I read new stuff all the time as part of the editing process, I think it’s critical NOT to abandon older work in favor of the fresh. Poems continue to resonate and change after they are “done.” We bring new things and experiences to them, and the reading of them changes (or at least, it should).

We have such a narcissistic streak — we think the latest and greatest stuff we just came up with needs to be heard immediately. Robert Bly once said that the urge to be excited all the time, to experience novelty, is a form of narcissism, and I agree with him. Life isn’t always new and exciting, and neither are we.

As I said, though, I’m as guilty as everyone else. I fight the tendency all the time. I try to balance the amount of new and old I do in open mikes and features. After all, the old poems are likely new to SOMEONE in the audience, and if you wrote them well enough, they should stand up.

I am tired of:

— poets who self-promote endlessly in a really ego driven way
— vicious posts to e-mail lists that end with “one love”
— people who believe winning a slam = being a good poet overall
— ridiculous claims as to personal popularity
— my own envy at those who succeed through such petty crap

— in fact, I’m just tired of trying to be myself in a scene that seems to thrive on masks

I’m still angry with the world, but it’s moving toward a deep sadness now.

It’s hard to deal with a situation where there are no clear rules, and where the conflicting emotions all run so deep. All you can do is feel your way toward something like peace.

It’s even harder when you are a peripheral player and don’t know how to support the people going thru the worst of it.

I’m fine, by the way…it’s not a situation that involves me directly. It’s not 9/11 related. It’s just something I want to help with and I’ve got no personal resources to help the people involved.

Fuck Steve Irwin and his need to dominate animals. I never liked the guy, and I find his death by a relatively innocuous animal to be more than a little poetic.

However, he long ago said he wanted to have his death shown, if it happened and was filmed during one of his adventures. He wanted people to understand the nature of what he did, to know that he died doing what he loved, and to underscore that interactions with the natural world carry a level of uncertainty and danger.

I can respect that. So let’s see the damn film and quit being so squeamish, y’all. It was the man’s express wish.

While we’re at it, I think Americans need to see a little more actual, closeup death on their TV screens and a little less sanitized stuff. Let’s make ogrish.com the background to Katie Couric’s newscasts from now on.

I’m kinda hating on the world tonight, for a reason I can’t divulge, and I don’t care who knows it. I’m in a Robinson Jeffers kinda mood. Blow the fucker up and I’ll be happy to fry with the rest of creation.

There will likely be other poems written about Hurricane Katrina, but right now the only one I ever need to hear again is “34” by Patricia Smith. I’ve heard it twice…damn. DAMN.

Tonight, at Gotpoetry Live…

pswordwoman, aka Patricia Smith!!!!!

If you’re close by, be there. If you’re not, catch a plane and get here.

8 Governor Street, Providence, RI, 7:30 or so (sign up goes up around 7:15 or so). I expect a full house.

YAY!!!!!

After recently finding myself in a reverie about how “these kids nowadays” have never truly understood the beauty of the packaging and the art on old LPs, I have officially decided that it’s time I start calling myself “curmudgeonly.”

here’s another freak death for you to consider:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/09/04/canada.afghan.ap/index.html