Author Archives: Tony Brown
About Tony Brown
Spam thought
Got an email from a well known (some would say infamous) poet who is promoting a slam. The subject includes the line “Poetry Slams are for the Grown and Sexy!”
I guess I made the right decision getting out, huh? I’ll cop to grown, but sexy??? Not in a million fucking years.
Unless, of course, you go with the idea that everyone is sexy in their own way…but somehow, I think that interpretation isn’t what the promoter is going for.
Warning…friend list trim coming…
I’m going to be trimming the list substantially, I think, over the next few days — nothing personal, just a refocusing of sorts. If you find yourself gone and want to be back on, let me know.
overheard while flipping channels
From the judge on “The People’s Court:”
“What, you don’t like Febreze? What kind of American are you that you don’t like Febreze?”
said the stalker to the cop
seems like
i’m in hot water
today
but
i like that
see
some say
a watched pot
never boils
but i say
sometimes watching
makes the pot boil
sometimes boiling
happens
when a stare
is directed
so perfectly
it heats the pot
she wore sunglasses
whenever she went out
says she never looked my way
but i’m boiling
so
i know she was
she was staring at me
she was
she totally was
hot
Thanks to everyone
who came out to the Duende show at Storytellers last night…I loved all the work in the open, and we think we did a pretty damn good show. Some of those performances, I think, were the best we’ve ever done.
If I can ever get over the tendency to tear up during “Where Do You Live,” I’ll be a happy man.
Duende goes back into the studio now, writing for the new CD which will be a reversal of our usual process — Faro’s writing a suite of music first and I’ll be writing brand new material to go with it. Scary — never done anything like that before.
We’re hunting for gigs too — maybe a short tour in the spring, but certainly some local gigs would be cool before then; hit me up if you’re interested.
I’m in writing mode today, so more later maybe…
Coming up Tonight: Duende
From the Poet’s Asylum website:
Duende performs at Worcester Storytellers on Dec. 14th
Duende, the powerhouse performance duo of Tony Brown and Stephen Cafaro, will perform the Worcester premiere of Americanized next Friday night, December 14th at Worcester Storytellers. Worcester Storytellers meets at the Village Arts Gallery (1 Ekman Street, Worcester). The reading starts at 8:00 p.m. with an open mic; bring your short stories, poetry and charming tales to share. Duende will follow the open.
Worcester Storytellers never charges a cover. They ask you throw some money into the basket to support the artists who feature. For more info please contact Dave Macpherson (aka penny_player ).
Come see us close the year out at this all-ages show. The storm’s over and you know you need to get out of the house, and Duende CD/chapbook sets are a family favorite for your holiday gift-giving needs, as long as your family enjoys extended suites of introspective poetry on personal and political themes coupled with kick-ass electric bass and nylon-string guitar.
Seriously, it’s our premiere of the new CD in Worcester. C’mon down…
ALSO: Does anyone recall whether or not the Storytellers reading has a PA and a mike??? I’m having a complete mindfart on that…will need to get one if they don’t.
Going Back To Bed (draft, again)
If I slip away
from the evening news
to sleep in a good bed,
if i turn off the phone so no one can call on me,
if no one calls on me and I sleep easy,
if I sleep easy and then decide
I deserve the easy dreams I am given,
if I live the peaceful life I believe I deserve —
will I deserve it?
Do I deserve peace,
do any of us deserve peace
when every day we awaken
to murder stories
and shake our heads
when the worst thing that happens to us is that
the cat breaks a candle stick
while jumping from the forbidden dresser
to the center of the bed,
purring and demanding
his morning bowl?
Do I deserve a life
that allows me
to decide my day’s progress
in relative certainty,
because the sharp transition
from hell to heaven and back
is not usually ours to fear?
How can we say we deserve this life
when a switch on the radio can give us
reasons to despair the path ahead?
How easily we move
from the current “here” to the next “here,”
able to shut out “there” because it barely registers,
all other worlds collapsing safely elsewhere!
I think of our comfortable carpets
woven in their lands
taken from them by our need and our war;
their bright poppies
feeding our hip or desperate neighbors.
These are the lives we’re dealt
and we embrace them until the small moment
after the cat’s abandoned us to eat and sleep on his own,
no longer in need of us, and we lie awake on the couch,
each of us thinking:
How can I deserve this life
when luck
handed it to me?
Perhaps I am alone in this,
wondering about the sea level
and the seesaw world.
Perhaps the cat’s got it right:
call on others
to get things done
and when things are done,
slip away to sleep alone.
Perhaps I will sleep on it some more,
roll deep into the feather bed
and learn to deserve what I’ve got —
let the cat find his own food
in the corners of the basement,
let him rip off heads and feed
till he’s quiet. Perhaps I should find
someone to sleep with
who will remind me
to turn the radio off
once in a while. Perhaps
my sleeping easily
is just the cost of doing business,
and luck is just a glorified way to say
I’m sticking someone else with the bill…
or perhaps we pay,
a little,
every time
we wake up staring
into the dark.
for various friends on my list
I’m not a Terry Pratchett fan, but another LJ friend posted it and thought you might like to know that he’s been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s…
Well, I’ll be damned.
I joyfully posted a few days ago that “Lady In The Harbor,” which was published in “The November 3rd Club,” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize…and a random, insomniac look at the new edition of “Breath and Shadow” reveals that my poem “Man At The Pharmacy” has also been nominated for a Pushcart.
Considering that I’m having a bad day/week/life in general right now, this feels good.
You can check out each of these fine publications at:
http://www.november3rdclub.com
and
http://www.abilitymaine.org/breath
Cool. I needed that.
I pretty much am indifferent to this journal right now, and don’t feel much like keeping it up.
That’ll likely change again, as it always does; but this is the longest spate of indifference in a long while.
Still writing poems, got a new Zero Point Zero column in the works for posting at GP in the next day or so, and even have a couple of songs in the works (been having some interesting growth in my guitar playing of late and it’s helping me write). But this place? It’s just not compelling to me right now.
I am still reading all your posts, though. But if I seem to disappear for a bit, it’s just a lull in my own desire to share stuff. I’m feeling reclusive right now.
Tonight’s show
Had a great time tonight with ocvictor and Regie Gibson doing the Eclectic Word show. Listen to it here if you like:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/onword/2007/12/08/The-Eclectic-Word
We weren’t even all that snarky, and ended up talking about some interesting subjects. You may find it of value.
I joined Facebook not so long ago, and the more I look at it, the less reason I have for staying on it.
It just seems like a giant time suck of limited value beyond sheer entertainment — and as such, it doesn’t interest me.
So if you’ve friended me there lately, be aware of an imminent departure. Gonna give some space here to let people convince me other wise, but I don’t see much point in this.
Dark Matter 