Author Archives: Tony Brown
About Tony Brown
Spent time tonight rehearsing with Faro on new stuff.
We now have four poem/music pieces beyond the “Jim’s Fall” suite:
— Getting Ahead
— Snakes on a Plane (which I’ve grown to actually like with music behind it)
— I Need A Guitar Right Now (Or Something Like It)
— Revisiting Roses and Violets
We’ve also got a couple more in progress — “Lighter” and “Cante Jondo For The Left Side.” Plus, I’ll be trying to write some work to go with his music, a reversal of our usual practice.
We’ll try and get an MP3 of some of this up on one or both of our Myspaces soon.
With the exception of “SOAP” these are all older poems (although certainly “Jim’s Fall” qualifies as recent work). This is cool, but I’d like to get some even newer stuff done as well.
Again, this is the most satisfying work I’ve done in ages.
I should mention three things:
1. Faro plays the last two on classical guitar. Which he learned a month ago. I have no adequate words for this.
2. We’re actively looking for shakedown features in the new year — colleges, venues, etc. Hit me, people.
3. I think this little duo project needs a name. We thought about just calling it “Jim’s Fall” but that seems reductionist. Any thoughts? Serious replies wanted, especially if you’ve seen us; humorous responses will likely be chuckled over and then summarily discarded.
three poetic challenges
I dare you:
1. A twenty line poem without any words of more that one syllable.
2. A twenty line poem without the word “the” in it.
3, A ten line poem that, when read forward and backward, provides two different poems.
Betcha can’t do it. (For the record, I’ve done all three at various points.)
Peer Pressure
Present the same information
twice and you are either crazy
or a gemcutter opening new roads
into a perfect stone. Bother us
with something too often and
you’re either a bore or a prophet,
but don’t try to sell us on the latter
unless we blink when you mention the former.
Grow up, baby. Grow up
and smell the bitter herbs. Stick a hand
out the window and tell yourself that’s not rain.
Anywhere you look there will be someone
who doesn’t care if the flood’s come again,
or who doesn’t believe in water. Let the animals
come to your call and we might scratch our heads
for a few, but then we’ll be back to the daily whirl
and you’ll be all alone to herd the creatures indoors.
Present the same information twice
and you’ll either be a bore or a stonemason
stacking up the cruel bricks. Don’t try to make us
believe that those are different things. Cut the blocks,
cut the diamond, cut and run while there’s time,
while wormwood is on the breeze
and the boat’s begun to float.
I deliberately stayed away from the laptop all day. Didja miss me?
I went to an open mike in Fall River tonight — VERY FOLKIE. Very. A few high points: Faro on solo bass; a 16 year old Dylaneseque kid named Matt Borillo who is already good, not gonna-be-good; the band Low Anthem, who’ll be playing the Java Hut in January. We shall go see them, we shall.
Faro persuaded me to do something, so the two of us did “Getting Ahead” and “Snakes On A Plane.” It went over well enough that I got approached for a feature there afterwards. Cool.
More later, if anything raises its ugly head and wants to be let out.
Strange segues
ITunes just delivered me “Stairway To Heaven” (yes, the Zep version–no cracks) followed by “Pope” by Prince.
Hmmmm.
And it just flipped into “The Immigrant Song.” Is it possible that Shuffle is telling me to get the Led out?
And how does Prince fit into that?
I just had a vision of Prince doing “Stairway.” With that pistolero microphone and the Pegasus guitar.
As if to reinforce the Freakiness Factor…I am now listening to The Pixies’ “There Goes My Gun.”
Hmmmm. Again.
ETA: pinata has posted that Prince is performing at the Super Bowl halftime. Let’s take bets: What songs will he be performing? I suggest we choose three.
I’ll start: “Darling Nikki,” “Housequake,” “Head.” Gotta go with the classics in order to make sure the crowd knows them.
Your turn.
AND, for the record: I took the MBTI test that’s going around as a meme…it said I was an INTP, which is what’s it’s said everytime I’ve taken it in the last 15 years. It also said I’m a “Loser” and they’re wrong…I prefer to think of myself as “success-challenged.”
henry digger
henry when you’re
done digging down there
you can come up and eat something
no ma no
there’s no time
in the corner
of the basement
a basket of tiny skulls
empty pumpkin pie crusts
henry’s slayer t-shirt
when you’re done down there
come up ya gotta eat
no ma no
that tunnel ain’t
going nowhere
come up and eat
ma there’s something in there
i gotta go
clink of thin bone against thin bone
a second basket dragged into reach
ma you never said
there’d be so many of them
come up henry
come up
Crow
I spotted the olive branch
and ignored it. It was not
my concern. Freedom
and disobedience went
hand in hand for me
back then.
I think most of you
believe I must have died
out there, tired
and partnerless above the water.
If that were the case,
how could it be that you still know me?
If you look around,
you’ll see my children everywhere.
This is how it happened:
I found my place
anyway, far from
the safety of the ark,
and there was another
of us there, one who’d been
flying for days, exhausted,
bedraggled, another
escapee. I comforted him
and soon we began the race again.
You do not often see us
alone now — sometimes
we travel in pairs, sometimes
in trios, sometimes in flocks.
We know the value of large numbers.
We will not live at anyone’s mercy
ever again. Freedom
and disobedience yet go hand in hand for us.
If you don’t believe me,
consider this: God kept me going,
gave me a mate, gave us a future,
and the doves are rarer than we are.
Quick recap:
I’m home and in the process of sorting out clothes and receipts from the trip.
Denver was a cool city, what little I saw of it. The conference room where I did the training had two full walls of windows and was on the 35th floor of a downtown building — I had a full view of the Rockies for the entire session, and it was hard to concentrate. Gotta get back some time and spend a few hours or more with friends like oni_express.
The taxcicab conversation I alluded to earlier was with a distinguished and learned gentleman from Ethiopia who’d been in the country since 1972. We discussed the world situation, the conflicts between Islam and the West, and the state of race relations in the US and how they’ve changed in his view. We were stuck in traffic for a bit so we could really talk. I love getting drivers with whom you can have a great conversation. Our best discussion was about his (and my) concerns that the overlooked variable in Iraq is the Kurdish situation — how Kurdish autonomy and the PKK werre viewed as a threat by Tukey, Iran, and others, and have the potential to be a slow burning fuse to ignite a far more widespread conflict.
Flights were uneventful, even if connections were a bit hurried. I did a lot of fast walking on already tired feet.
More later, gang — I’ve got paperwork to do if I want to get paid on time. 🙂
Networking
I have come to believe
that this is my one true place:
lying still in the dark, then leaving bed
to seize another few moments
of tapping fingers
and poisonous inhales, digging for
things to say when no one
is listening, hoping
someone will wake up
and respond. If you choose
to call it a pathology or
a yearning for love, I can’t stop you;
call it as you see it as long as you say it
directly to me. That way we can each sit
in our respective shelters, staring at light,
waiting for an answer.
I’m too tired to update.
suffice it to say i’m in the grand hyatt in downtown denver, staying in a suite, and about ready to collapse.
i had an interesting conversation regarding race relations in the US with the taxi driver on the way in from the airport, but i’ll have to address it later.
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb…
Done in Dallas
Last session complete. Back in the hotel room for a bit, then off to Denver.
I managed a first class upgrade for that leg of the trip — God, do I need it.
More from Denver later.
I’m up again
and figure I might as well stay up now…
Scanning the headlines, this little item caught my eye:
Seminole Nation of Florida to buy Hard Rock Cafe and Casino Chain
That’s a lot of money. Considering that at one point the whole island of Manhattan went for about 40 dollars worth of blankets and beads, I’d say that the state of Native American business affairs has changed a lot.
(NOTE: add sarcasm to taste.)
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I’m missing a sock. Anyone see it?
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I’m listening to my local (Boston) NPR affiliate while sitting in Dallas, thanks to the magic of Internet streaming.
In my car, I’ve got XM radio so I can listen to the same national stations wherever I am in the country.
I like my streaming radio, I like my satellite radio — but I do wonder sometimes whether or not there’s a diminishment of the sense of place inherent in all these technological breakthroughs.
It’s just like the sense of time. I used to be able to tell time by what TV show was on, and the idea of “appointment TV” was understood. We don’t have that anymore, what with TiVO, DVR, DVDs of series, etc.
Do you think the rise of reality TV and its live finales is related to the idea of trying to salvage appointment TV? The idea that people will stay home and tune in to see the final result?
XM has a slogan: “Everything, all the time.” I’m not sure what that concept means to us these days, even as it becomes more and more of a reality.
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I think I’ll go take a shower and get dressed.
Terrific night at the Dallas Slam
Like the subject line says…
The open mike was excellent. There’s a cat there named Sh-Boom who does some fun wordplay stuff — don’t always love the subject matter, but it’s well done and usually pretty funny.
A guy named Javier did a love poem that had hearts melting all over the audience, including mine.
Corbet Dean was the feature, and his two sets were great. His love poem trilogy was a nice departure. He’s a hell of a performer, of course, and tonight it shone through.
I read one piece in the open mike, doing “The Radioactive Artist” by request. I was struck and amazed, as always, by finding people in the audience who knew the poem before hearing me read it. I’ll never get used to that.
The slam was also quite good, and was won by Colin Gilbert who completely deserved the win. His MS poem is a new favorite of mine.
At the end of the night, I did “Mission Statement” which fulfilled a dream of mine. The Dallas slam has used the poem often in the past and pretty much everyone in the room knew it, so getting to read it in a room that’s made it a staple was a humbling and wonderful experience. It’s nice to know that you’ve touched people with your work, especially people you’ve never met.
Now to bed — got to train in the AM (setting up the room at 6AM!) and then off to Denver in the PM to do it all again. Whee!
God, I miss being home.
Dark Matter 