Anybody else out there watch this? I just finished catching up on the first season while writing an article about the Chicago Bears season. Talk about cognitive dissonance…but I really, really like this show.
That Myspace thing
I’ve rotated in two more songs from our last album as we get ready to record the next CD.
The first, “Interrogation,” is a little ditty on the War on Terror, and showcases some of Faro’s tapping and other wizardry on the solo bass.
The second, “The New Guitar,” features Faro on solo nylon-string guitar. The poem is a meditation on how the difficulties of art (and life) keep us “doing it anyway.”
We’ll have new recordings from the next CD, “Americanized,” up within the month! It’ll be released at our October 6th show in Providence.
Enjoy!
Observation:
Believing that your dreams are supposed to come true, that your dreams are important, is a form of narcissism.
Pursue your visions all you like, but there’s no God-given right for you to have them realized.
If all my dreams came true, this would be a horrible world. I’m not speaking of my nightmares. I’m talking about my allegedly pure and noble dreams, my visions and aspirations. People will get steamrolled if I have my way with the Truth.
This is the very definition of our time: that it persuades us, against our better judgment, to believe that we are entitled to the realization of our fantasies.
LATER:
Hard work in the furthering of your dreams is fine. It’s entitlement to them that’s the issue — your dreams are not owed to you, you earn them.
We all dream of a better life. Who decides whether your better life is more valid than the ones whose dreams may suffer if yours are realized?
Twain’s “mysterious stranger” was more on track than we would like to think.
So…
remember how I used to have really long hair? With a ponytail down past my shoulders?
Yeah, that was kinda fun.
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New piece.
Collusion
I know a lot of people around here
and if I thought they’d believe me
I would tell them the black story of how
you did so little to save me
how you pushed and shoved past me
to get your ass out the door to where
he was waiting to take advantage of the time
and the circumstances to make
sympathy his bitch and where
she stood next to him with her finger
in the corner of her mouth and pretended
to care what was happening right in front of her as
we tangled our way past the cameras
I know are there people out there who would notice
the way we fell down the steps cradling each other as we fought but not
you, oh no, all of you who
stood there watching with your whistles and graveyards
and stared at the impossible blue of the sky while
they let us nearly bleed to death in front of the whole
stinking town and now the newspapers might as well write it up
as an example of how low everyone’s fallen when no one steps in
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And for Cowboy and the rest of the gang:
Cleansing The Undermeats
Uncle Justin
was in trouble: his sister had asked him
to watch the kids and make sure they got lunch but
his famous spinach and artichoke dip
ran out early so he called for back up from
the guy he liked to call “the
corner store.”
As soon as the “groceries” appeared
he delivered a mighty “harrumph” and departed
to his room to relive his favorite daydream
for the thousandth time this week: imagine
being forced to cleanse the undermeats
in a public shower in front of
the Grateful Dead and their legions!
“Harrumph!”
Enough mushrooms
can make even the soapiest junk
beautiful, he thought. He was certain
that Jerry would be proud of him
if he weren’t already dead,
and for real this time.
Even after his sister got home
and found the kids painted with spinach
and chowing Fruit Loops dry while “Europe ’72”
blared in the basement and the endless tour
trucked merrily through the house, Justin
kept the faith: Nothing to do but smile, smile,
smile!
And so, kids, the moral of the story
of Uncle Justin, his fabulous
(and spotless) undermeats, and
the adventure
of the spinach and mushroom afternoon, is this:
the Grateful Dead suck.
— trust me, you just had to be there
The Lady Hand
1.
the lady hand extended off the couch slightly curled at the fingers and sleeping. it’s drunk flower night. candle plants fly through the sleeper’s nose and she is gardened, rose-willed, remarked on in the literature of the tables and chairs. carpets ground themselves waiting for her.
2.
remains piled in the sink — flies slain during a recent invasion. their ghosts like politics, imagining the swat of magazines aimed at them and missing over and over. the bodies lie still, staid revolutionaries who will not agree to a truce.
the lady hand is the culprit, they whisper. no surrender.
3.
if a man enters here, he is set upon by vaccuums cut loose from their engines, gray winds drawing him in, coating him in all the old they’ve got.
these interior lands are a reservation of the highest order, dead sands, forgotten sacraments, gods unnoticed still imagining they are the drivers of creation.
4.
the lady hand stretched out and sleeping. a branch of forgetting. no argument for relevance. existence its own justification.
what the body burns at its hidden rituals is the solitary business of cells and electricity.
5.
flies open revenant eyes. multiple windows look onto a city of durable goods. the lady hand, the marble of a temple. blunt demands on time, meet the resistance of art and memory.
she has loved once or twice. eats pulp from oranges to recreate the sting of nourishment.
candle plants can exist for years on the fading glow of romantic notions. men cannot fathom their own small place in here.
6.
when the lady hand moves, the audience leaps up, applauding the triumph wrung from the misbegotten play.
if the curtain moves, it’s only to fall. the lady hand holds nothing. everything. the swooning youth, the old rigid honor of the black-tied suitor, the credits read aloud in transparent wings.
this is the medium of the candle plants, the soil of the night.
7.
aztecs, priests of drunk flower night, opened the bodies of their daughters to see if the gods were home.
knock, knock, lady hand. your house is on fire.
your eyes, your stone flavor.
danger is the blessing of the candle plants, the flies sing.
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Ursula LeGuin used to talk of “bung pullers” — pieces that opened new gates. This is one. Meaning? Haven’t got a clue. You tell me.
Duende tonight
Sou MacMillan thisrabbit rocked the Hut, despite her nerves at not having played out for a while…
and Duende had a great night! We premiered a couple of new pieces and did some of the old ones that we’ve never done in Worcester; the new stuff felt great live and I think we acquitted ourselves well! We were really excited.
Thanks to everyone who came out and especially to those who came a distance to be there — I’m looking at you dkeali_i and . It meant a lot to see you there, all of you.
More to come; we’re going to the studio with new stuff ASAP and the new CD will be out on October 6 at our show at the Perishable Theater in Providence.
Again, we’re psyched. Thanks for supporting us.
why people in this country aren’t shooting each other over this stuff I cannot fathom
Bush, in New Orleans, tells the people that real progress is being made and that if you’re constantly in the middle of it, you can’t see it.
The same day, he asks for 50 billion more for Iraq.
Buck up, little campers. Our leader is on the job.
TOMORROW NIGHT
At the Java Hut, 1073-A Main St in Worcester:
DUENDE!!!
and now…added to the bill…
DAILY MOUSE!!! (aka Sou MacMillan, aka thisrabbit !!!!)
9:00 PM. Be there. We’re gonna rip it up…
Tom Chandler
Is the poet laureate of RI, and he was our feature at Gotpoetry tonight.
And he was terrific. Go see him and buy his stuff if you can!
Duende on Thursday will be HOT
Come to the Hut on Thursday night and witness the thrill of the show. Faro and I rehearsed all afternoon…and there are FOUR new pieces that will likely be in the mix…
also…
if all goes well, there will be another new piece for the Cantab…think of an older poem…someone might be playing some three cowboy chords really, really fast with a lot of distortion on an electric guitar while a certain bass player rips the place apart…
BREAKING NEWS…SORT OF
News outlets are starting to break the news that Alberto Gonzales is preparing to resign.
This is great! MoveOn.org will congratulate themselves. Georgie will be able to nominate an equally, if not even more, amoral snake. He’ll fly through the process, or be stalled in committee for a bit but make it through anyway. Gonzales will be pardoned for all the crimes he didn’t commit in office, and the whole merry go round will go off again.
If we’re very lucky, maybe George will nominate Harriet Miers for the post, and she can breeze through the process because she’s already been vetted!
I’m waiting with bated breath for the Left to cheer the hollow victory.
STAY TUNED, EVERYONE!!!! WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!
Mutilations
Whenever they do it
it is dark and they move swiftly.
They do their work
as carefully as artists.
Whoever they are
they go for the intimacies first,
removing lips and tongue,
eyes, the heart, the anus and the genitals.
Whatever they leave behind
is lucky. It’s left alone
by scavengers and other beasts.
Its neighbors low and scoot away in fear.
However they do it
they do it without shedding blood.
They do it without leaving
a signature.
Wherever the body is finally taken to
and burned, the grass will not grow there
for a long time to come. When it does,
the living will have to decide whether or not to eat.
Ever so, ever will be:
mysterious dead left behind,
perpetrators gone, survivors shivering,
body by the wayside, spring on the wind.
Heads up: Area Duende shows on the way!
Faro and I are rehearsing to be ready for shows in the area over the next few months. New stuff, new CD to drop shortly, and all that good stuff.
August 30 (this Thursday): We’re performing at the Java Hut at 9:00 as headliners for a good evening of poetry and music. My mouth isn’t one hundred percent yet, so we’ll be resting (or I will) periodically so Faro can show off his chops while I recover. Still we hope to perform not only stuff we didn’t do at our last shows in Worcester, but maybe some brand-new-to-everyone stuff too. I hear tell thisrabbit‘s on the bill too, and who knows who else?
Sept. 19 (Wednesday night): We’ll be featuring at the Cantab on Mass Ave in Cambridge, MA. Definitely some new stuff there. We’ll be doing at least a couple of cuts off the new CD; maybe even recording for some live releases.
October 6 (Saturday night): Premiering our new show, “Americanized,” at the Perishable Theater on Empire St. in Providence, RI. Expect a chapbook/CD release.
November 11: Featuring at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge! Probably some collaboration with the Jeff Robinson Trio as well. Can’t beat that — two basses, percussion, and Jeff on sax. I feel superflous. Maybe I’ll just sit back and listen.
November 29: We headline the new poetry night at the Hotel Vernon in Worcester’s lovely and puzzling Kelley Square. Brave the traffic and be there.
December 14: The lamented Storyteller’s Open Mike returns (hey, where is this gig? gotta find out). We’re there, and we’ll be having fun. Figure on Faro doing “Carol of the Bells” solo on bass (you have to see and hear it to believe it) in a nod to the holidays.
More to come soon, I hope.
And if you’re in NYC, I’ll be performing a couple of poems solo as part of the reading for the November 3rd Club’s contributors/editors reading at the Bowery Poetry Club on — when else? — November 3rd at 6 PM. It ain’t just me of course — Jane Cassady, Michael Cirelli, Brian Dauth, Lea Deschenes, Guy LeCharles Gonzalez, Gary Hoare, Rachel McKibbens, Lynne Procope, Skip Shea, Jackie Sheeler and Patricia Smith; hosted by Victor D. Infante. C’mon down!
Dark Matter 