because I feel better and don’t want to jinx it.

I’m ripping a bunch of CDs onto the laptop and it’s fun to think of the mixes that will happen when Sleater-Kinney, AC/DC, Breakestra, My Chemical Romance, and three discs of traditional and modern flamenco music are introduced into the shuffle pool.

Also adding some Sonic Youth, some Ornette Coleman, and some 70s soul to the mix…a little “Across 110th Street,” anyone?

Maybe some Roots, some Public Enemy, some Gang of Four, some fado, some Nick Cave?

The shuffle technology is cool shit — although I have to confess I still prefer a good freeform radio station like WFMU, which keeps the old anarchic spirit of the 60s-70s underground radio alive. I think good radio will always be my preferred medium for music. Surprise me, baby.

It’s not the one I originally planned to post — that one’s got an American Idol metaphor in it, and I’m gonna wait till next month for that one. This one had a more immediate inspiration.

The Zero Point Zero Regular Column!

Very much more than Nothing!

Please go, visit, comment. First one in a while and I need to get going again.

I was in Barnes and Noble tonight spending Xmas gift cards. I wandered into the music section and found myself in an amusing dilemma: I was standing in front of a rack of featured recordings and saw Ani DiFranco’s most recent album sitting next to the most recent album from My Chemical Romance.

My instinct was to pick up the Ani, as I’m pretty much current on my collection and like to stay that way; but something made me decide to switch up and grab the MCR album instead.

I couldn’t have told you who My Chemical Romance was if you’d held a gun to my head. I knew I’d heard the name, was all. Since I had free money I decided to just do something on a whim.

So let me just say that the decision to go for this album was a pretty damn good one. Completely different from my usual fare, and I like it a lot — will need to listen to this a couple of times before I decide what it is I like about it. It reminds me a little (not musically so much as emotionally) of when I first heard The Mars Volta — that same sense of being taken by something unexpected.

Shows the value of doing whimsical stuff sometimes.

No NYE festivities for this boy tonight — the cold/flu thing’s in full effect.

Have a grand fucking night and happy happy to all.

I just watched a video of Saddam being hanged — bad quality camera phone footage. I noticed that unlike the earliest reports had said, he was not hooded and certainly didn’t seem afraid so far as I could tell from the shitty resolution.

Did get a closeup of his face afterward. His neck broke at an odd angle and he was staring straight up, eyes open.

Why do I watch these things? Because I hate the sanitizing of brutal news and actions. I think one of the reasons that capital punishment remains popular here is because people are so insulated from the realities of death and execution in general.

Anyway, about that juxtaposition: I caught the video on a site with Google Ads. Directly above the video frame was one which read:

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
Browse through our wide selection and find exactly what you’re looking for!

I didn’t.

___________________________

Waiting for the Ambien to work before I sleep…

___________________________________

Famous Last Words at the New Year’s Eve Party

I should drive home but
I think I’ll wait a bit
until I’m sleepy —
I don’t want to miss anything.

___________________________________

Dear Mr. President Scott “Zod” Woods:

I think you should have a virtual press conference here on LJ so that all of the aspiring journalists and interested parties could hear your thoughts on the future of slam, PSI, and other things poetic.

You know — post a request for questions and then take what you get.

Naturally, I wouldn’t expect that this crowd would ask you any SERIOUS questions…in fact, I’m actively discouraging it right here and now for the record. Your snarkiness is what I’d like to hear, especially as it relates to things like the prop rule and the group piece rule and why slam isn’t a required activity in all public schools and what you plan to do about it, dammit.

This is, of course, just a request from an unworthy constituent and therefore meaningless unless I am living in Florida in an election year, at which point it becomes a mutable and tension fraught exercise in the nature of reality and the integrity of our democracy — but I digress.

Your most humble servant,
Tony “pain in the ass” B

head hurtin, runny nose, achy body feeling. In other words, I’m gonna be sick. My apologies for missing the party at Ralph’s — just couldn’t handle it.

In other news: I just saw “Boondock Saints” for the first time a couple of days ago and loved it, despite the many “Pulp Fiction” references (or perhaps because of them). Good flick, highly recommended.

I’ll have a new Zero Point Zero column up on the Gotpoetry site in the next couple days. Two words: American Idol. That’s all I’m gonna say.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled post-debauchery drunk browsing.

Xmas was fun. I’m tired.

Maybe new poem later — got a few lines kicking around that have been begging for completion.

Hope yours was good, too.

What emotion drives you most — love, hate, anger, envy, compassion, something else?

Be honest. Be ruthlessly honest.

It’s anger for me. Sometimes it’s a full-on rage, more often it’s a slow simmer. I’m rarely if ever at peace, even if I try.

Honestly, I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. There are saints and pacifists in this world. I’ve never been either and can’t see myself becoming either. Rage isn’t unnecessary or implicitly harmful. Violence held in reserve for extreme situations seems OK to me.

I have been perpetrator and perpetrated upon. I have been sinner and victim. I have been the peacemaker and the warrior. All those things are part of me, but I know I have been a perpetrator more often than most people would like to admit about themselves.

It’s untrue to say I am indifferent to that — but I do accept it, and change is unlikely at this point.

Who are you? Tell me. Tell us. Most of all, tell yourself.

I’ve just uploaded the first “new” poem MP3 I’ve done since I started that Myspace. It’s a recording of “”The Hole.”

Please feel free to check it out. I still need to get a Faro and Tony cut up there, so I think that’ll be soon.

It’s here: http://www.myspace.com/poetrybytonybrown

Also, delrica — haven’t forgotten, I promise. I just need to bug him again.