If anyone knows of good, friendly, all ages venues for poetry in Kansas City MO, can you let me know? One of our young’uns at the Hut is moving there to go to college, and it would be nice to send her off with a place to go to once she gets there. Tonight’s her last night in Worcester, so there’s some urgency to this.
Thanks!
do not pretend
you haven’t grown up to be
one of those boys
who sits on the grass
at the highway rest area
counting thongs
and nudging your friends.
you have, because you are,
I’m watching you do it.
do not gloss over your snickering
when you are called on it,
when it is pointed out
that you only began to snicker
when a black couple pulled watermelon
from a picnic basket, especially when
the white couple next to them
did the same five minutes before
and you saw nothing. do not
play that game.
how did this happen?
all the things you should know,
things you should know better than — you’d think
we’d be past this by now — but here we are
and you’re not showing much progress —
so stop with the “dothead” cracks,
the defensive rationale for using the word
“bitchslap,” the “mustache ride” T-shirt.
stop calling everything you dislike “gay.”
and then there’s the predictable comeback,
after all it’s a free country,
you’ve got freedom of expression
all over your ticked off smooth little face
and you’re not afraid to use it. it’s just
talk, you say. you don’t mean it, really, really,
not like that, never hit a woman, just a joke, gay friends,
no racist bones, fuck you, fuck you, PC sumbitch
fuck you.
now I get, of course,
that the nuances of language are in general a mystery to you
and that you don’t know the difference
between “camel jockeys” and “dotheads”
just by the way I heard you use those words
five minutes ago
so I was never expecting much to come of this.
so, then, one favor only:
stop pretending
you aren’t the kind of guy who does this.
do not play the whistle past the lynching tree
game. do not tell me you never
saw a roofie in a friend’s hand
and said nothing. do not tell me
you never kept the awkward boys who didn’t date
away from your high school lunch table,
and don’t tell me you wouldn’t do it again.
do not tell me you aren’t the kind of guy
who flips off a confrontation over this shit
and laughs with his buddies all the way to the car
and does it again as soon as you reach
the next place you mingle with the rest of the world.
just tell me you’ll remember it
when you first hold your own son,
when he grows up and asks you to explain the way things are.
just tell me you understand that first things last.
tell me something
surprising. tell me
it’s gonna end someday.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2007/07/firefighters_ba_1.html
That link will take you to a story on a mill complex in my hometown of Uxbridge that is burning down as we speak.
Those of you who remember the very first incarnation of Speak, the poetry reading that I ran in my hometown for a while, will recall this as the mill that was next to Woodland Spice and Tea on the other side of the railroad bridge. It was home to various art organizations over the years; I ran a poetry workshop at the old Youth Center there, and there are still a lot of small businesses and artists who make their home there — or rather, made their home there. was deeply involved with things going on there, far more than I was.
The factory whistle at Bernat’s was the soundtrack to the town’s life for my entire childhood. My grandmother worked there. The factory made the dress overcoats for the Navy during WWII, and the color of those coats was known officially as “Uxbridge Blue.”
In my head, I hear:
Homeless…homeless…
moonlight sleeping on the midnight lake.
— Ladysmith Black Mombazo, from Paul Simon’s “Graceland”
There really aren’t any words of my own for how I feel about this.
It took me exactly the same amount of time to drive back from VA to MA as it did for me to drive to VA from MA.
Grrr.
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I’m performing tonight at a benefit for homeless causes down in Middleboro, MA. The event starts at 6:30 and there are poets, musicians, etc…I go on around 8 or so.
This is going to be a weird gig. Faro had to pull out of the show due to a family obligation. Since the specific request of the organizers was to have Duende, and even more specifically for us to do the New Orleans / Katrina piece “Do You Know What It Means,” I offered to pull out if me solo wasn’t what they wanted…I also offered to try and get a_solitaryman to try and fill in on a guitar arrangement of the music, since he helped us produce the track to begin with and knows the music cold (sadly, he was unavailable). Barring those options, I told her I’d do the show solo.
So…instead of all that…the organizer (who, I think, didn’t quite get that I had some definite opinions about the options) went and hired a guy to write out the bass chart for the piece from the CD and learn to play it. (This happened while I was in VA, by the way.)
I spoke to him last night — nice guy, but I’m a little worried, since his first words to me after pleasantries were exchanged were, “So…was he playing a five string bass on this?” And when I said yes he said, “Ohhhh…ok….”
I just got off the phone with Faro (who thinks, as I do, that the whole situation is pretty funny) and learned that he doesn’t even use all five strings on the piece.
I don’t have high hopes here, but professionals soldier on…We’re getting together around 5 or so to go through it.
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I need a break and some money and some hope and some answers and a quick and painless death followed by paradise and tea cosies on my head as a sort of reward for going through some of the pain I’ve been going through lately.
Either that or a cup of coffee.
Ah well, Icchus is sleeping next to me on the couch and that helps.
Twenty-five years ago
when we were both still drinking
all the time and the Depot Lounge
was our favorite spot,
Davey was the undisputed king
of the Black Knight table. When Ron
replaced it with Space Invaders, Davey
stopped going to that bar.
“You don’t play a video game,
you learn it. You play
pinball,” Davey always said.
“You don’t learn life,
you play it.” I ran into him
the other day at Shaw’s Market
and he found a way to say it again,
still pissed about it, even as his son
moped around the two of us, these aging men
bitching about time and stupid changes
while he watched the cute blonde in the produce section
stack grapes in neat rows so the customers
could easily pick them off one bunch at a time.
normally, a trip to DC wouldn’t be a big deal…it’s about the limit I’ll drive for a gig and I come down this way fairly often…
but when I average 20 miles an hour through southern CT and NY, and it ends up taking me close to ten hours…
it’s not so much fun.
Heading out now. Will be online later this evening, I hope. If not, will be back Friday night.
I leave tomorrow for McLean, VA for work. Back Friday night.
I’m performing in a benefit for homeless causes in Middleboro, MA on Saturday night, sans Faro, unfortunately, since he had to back out due to a family committment. Details at the Myspace page:
http://www.myspace.com/poetrybytonybrown
Next week, I’ll be in Harrisburg PA on Thursday and Friday, also on business.
Duende will be performing at the Cantab as a feature on Sept. 19, and Lizard Lounge as a feature on November 11. Always looking for other bookings…
Most of you know that I’ve been in bad financial straits for a bit.
I was scheduled to go to Austin, TX for NPS. I’ve been waiting for a ticket voucher I earned through a product rebate to book flights — it was for a full price ticket.
The voucher hasn’t arrived, so I started booking flights today, thinking I could scrape by with money.
I hunted all the appropriate websites. I found a decent fare (277 roundtrip) and booked it through Priceline.
Priceline took the booking, but stated that they were having processing trouble and would e-mail me the confirmation.
I received an e-mail about an hour later stating that the processing center had lost my information, and I had to rebook.
In that hour, the flight I’d looked to be on had gone up by close to 200 dollars.
I can’t afford to go — can’t drive because I need to sleep with my equipment and can’t do that in a car.
Unless I hit the lottery like now, I can’t go.
This is terrible — I had agreed to go to do a bunch of stuff, and now it’s all gone.
Last straw.
It’s kind of an odd piece for me…think Les Barker and you’re on the right track musically. As for motivation, I just wanted to write something unreservedly… silly.
Reprobate
Oh, I’ve been exposed to lots of things
And seen the world of culture,
You might say when it comes to art
I’m a sort of culture vulture,
From Balinese performance art
To cabaret in Soho,
I’ve heard a bit of everything
And I know the good from the so-so.
Poetry from slam to school,
Paintings from Pollock to El Greco,
Outlaw country hardcore bands
And Bauhaus to roccoco.
But I never thought that I’d exclude
Any form of expression
Until I realized that there
Was art that caused depression.
Chorus:
And it’s still a big surprise to me
I seem to have chosen
I’d rather hear “The Humpty Dance”
Than listen to Beethoven.
(4-6 fingerpicked bars of “Fur Elise”, followed by:)
“humpty hump…do the humpty hump…”
From underground to concert hall,
From night club to recital,
The thought of hearing classical
Can make me suicidal.
There’s something in a string quartet
That sets my teeth to grinding,
There’s something ’bout an orchestra,
My brain begins unwinding.
The lowbrow art of everyday
Appeals to my sensations,
And as far as I’m concerned,
It gets my commendation.
Chorus 2:
And it seems to me a big surprise
That the tunes to which I’m partial
Sound more like “Daydream Nation”
And less like Brahms’ “Pastoral.”
Mozart, Bach, and Berlioz
Receive their due from history,
But Tom Waits and the Residents
Are more my cup of mystery.
If all you take away from this
Is that I am a cretin,
This cretin hops with pride and joy,
Unwashed and unbeaten.
And if all you take away from this
Is disdain and rejection,
I’m proud to hold the banner high
For contrarian selection.
Chorus 3:
And it seems to there’s no surprise
To the path that I have chosen,
Since I understand Grandmaster Flash
More than I understand Beethoven.
I’m proud to say I have no shame
In thus blowing my cover,
I’d rather have my iPod set
To Beethoven rolling over.
Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki says the US can go home anytime it wants, as one of his ministers expresses frustration that the country’s being treated like an experiment in an American Lab.
Here’s a link to the story: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/07/14/iraq.military.ap/index.html
Seriously, this ought to be the test of whether or not Bush and Co. truly believe their crap rhetoric about Iraq being a representative democracy and a truly sovereign nation. If they want us out, we ought to go, no questions asked. That’s the way that stuff is supposed to work, right?
And as for the minister’s comments — really, is there anything to say about that that he didn’t say? He’s right, of course. And that’s precisely why the US troops aren’t going anywhere for a bit — say, 10 years or so.
This is funnier than it should be:
Hetfield Held Up for ‘Taliban’ Beard
AOL
Posted: 2007-07-09 10:13:25
Filed Under: Music
(July 9) — Metallica’s Live Earth performance almost faded to black before it even happened, thanks to British airport officials who held their lead singer at a terminal because of his “Taliban-like beard.”
According to the British newspaper The Times, as reported by the New Zealand Herald, metal pioneer James Hetfield was held up and subjected to a line of questioning due to his facial hair following a tense week in the United Kingdom after foiled terror plots and an attack in Scotland.
The Times reports that airport security officials were embarrassed and let Hetfield go after he explained he was a member of the legendary rock band.
Tangentially, I know it’s deeply uncool to say it, but I’m still a Metallica fan — I’ve liked all the albums from the beginning, and think the crap they take for not being the same band they started as is pretty uncalled for. If you’re writing the same poetry (oops, I mean music) at 40 that you were at 20, you’re pretty much, um, AC/DC. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I think change and experimentation are ok.
Rumors that Metallica’s next album will be named “Tales of the Great Satan” remain unconfirmed at press time.
Icchus has kind of stalled in his adjustment process — stays under the couch all day, then cries off and on and haunts you all night. I’m worried that it might be too much of a change for him — will give it another day or so and if it doesn’t shift much, I may have to return him.
sniffle.
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GotPoetry.com has a cool new feature that allows you to create a fully formatted chapbook from the finished poems you’ve posted on line at pretty much the push of a button.
I’ve been planning to play with it for a bit and create a new chapbook. Noticing that the theme of a lot of my poems lately have ot do with what it means to be “American.”
Anyone else have any interesting themes in the their work lately?
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Listening to Miles on a warm afternoon — specifically, “Seven Steps To Heaven” — is a glorious thing.
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I need a NYC fix soon. Would love to hunt down a feature for Duende, or myself solo as second choice; barring that, just get down and soak up some NYC summer.
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Business trips this week and next to McLean VA (this week, Thursday nite/Friday AM) and Harrisburg PA (next week, Thursday/Friday). The second one is a sudden request, which is good because I’m broker than broke right now — still dumbfounded as to how I’m going to afford Austin.
Speaking of which — I’ve been emailing Mike Henry in follow up to a couple of emails regarding NPS events he sent me a while back, and I’m getting no response. I know he’s crazy busy right now, but I am getting antsy about not having info. Any idea who to get in touch with that might be less crazed right now?
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I picked up two cheap CDs this PM when I was over at Circuit City getting a laptop stand (this thing gets warm). Both are of traditional Indian ragas, something I used to listen to a lot at one point. Am looking forward to this.
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I’m a hermit these days, but that’s OK. Waterfire in Providence tonight, I think — cheap and pretty.
Dark Matter 