When women complain about how men don't have feelings, I wonder if they listen to Jawbreaker.
That being said, I can't remember how many times I've felt like this.
Been hearing about you.
All about your disapproval.
Still I remember the way I used to move you.
I wrote you a letter.
I heard it just upset you.
Why don't you tell me?
How can I do this better?
Are you out there?
Do you hear me?
Can I call you?
Do you still hate me?
Are we talking?
Are we fighting?
Is it over?
Are we writing?
We're getting older.
But we're acting younger.
We should be smarter.
It seems we're getting dumber.
I have a picture
of you and me in Brooklyn.
On a porch, it was raining.
Hey, I remember that day.
And I miss you.
Showing posts with label punk rock. Show all posts
Showing posts with label punk rock. Show all posts
Friday, December 30, 2011
Thursday, December 29, 2011
give it away now
The piles of boxes keep rising, more and more of life in compartments, inventorying the legacy of inheritance and consumption, as words of gospels and epistles of sharing with others come to mind, of he who has two of something giving to the one that has none, and the thing is there's not just two, there's three there's four there's six. I didn't realized the extent of possessions until it's all pulled out of closets and from under the bed and laid out in front. Most of it was given to me, but to whom much is given much is expected right? So what does one person need with all this?
And it's liberating to pile these things to send along, to let go, to hold what is in one's hands lightly.
I take a break from this because one of my good friends from way back, my partner in geekness and grunge calls me to hang out with him and what I assume to be the companionship of his girlfriend, but I think it's possible it was a blind date setup or something. Props to his smoothness I guess, for good conversation over coffee and punk rocking it up old punks style standing in the back and nodding along while the Kids pogoed away. Nothing will come of it but getting to be geeky with a new soul was nice for a change. I wonder if it's bad that I've gone so long without the sentimental and the romance that I can't feel it for anyone anymore.
And it's liberating to pile these things to send along, to let go, to hold what is in one's hands lightly.
I take a break from this because one of my good friends from way back, my partner in geekness and grunge calls me to hang out with him and what I assume to be the companionship of his girlfriend, but I think it's possible it was a blind date setup or something. Props to his smoothness I guess, for good conversation over coffee and punk rocking it up old punks style standing in the back and nodding along while the Kids pogoed away. Nothing will come of it but getting to be geeky with a new soul was nice for a change. I wonder if it's bad that I've gone so long without the sentimental and the romance that I can't feel it for anyone anymore.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
just to wake up tells me, hell I must be brave
As I watched desert warriors play songs of protest and assertions of humanity, the drone of electric guitars, the heartbeat catharsis of calabash and djembe, the voices drawn out and chanted, as the hippies and hipsters and boomers and the girls in hijab sway and clap. They've had lives I can't imagine and struggles I can't comprehend and I'm tired from being awake from so long and zone out with my eyes closed, taking in this sound. Desert Sessions aren't just for swanky stoner rockers, after all...
I wake up exhausted, staring at the ceiling, asking for divine sustenance because it's not in me. Exhaustion and depression, post-quarterlife crisis of conscience and existence, further torpedoed by monumental shifts of power meaning more frustration for yours truly. It's not that it's so bad, but just with everything else, with the pent-up frustration, I ended up in tears today, but thankfully there was class-cutting and city-wandering and spiritual introspection as therapy to put things back into perspective.
And Mia Zapata's fabulous cut-too-short punk rock fury. It still kills me that for all the female-fronted punk bands, the Gits don't get more attention. I loved this stuff as a frustrated art kid, and as I've gotten older and dealt with more suck, it's stuck for me.
I wake up exhausted, staring at the ceiling, asking for divine sustenance because it's not in me. Exhaustion and depression, post-quarterlife crisis of conscience and existence, further torpedoed by monumental shifts of power meaning more frustration for yours truly. It's not that it's so bad, but just with everything else, with the pent-up frustration, I ended up in tears today, but thankfully there was class-cutting and city-wandering and spiritual introspection as therapy to put things back into perspective.
And Mia Zapata's fabulous cut-too-short punk rock fury. It still kills me that for all the female-fronted punk bands, the Gits don't get more attention. I loved this stuff as a frustrated art kid, and as I've gotten older and dealt with more suck, it's stuck for me.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
the phone's off the hook but you're not
I can't untangle all this, and this isn't the place to do it. I'm pretty pissed for good reason I think.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
de-punked
Is it a shift of opinion or the sharpening of age, the dissolution of the idealism once held dear, the deepening of a spiritual understanding of the darkness of the human heart.
It's hard for me to be thrilled about change when the more history I read, the more I see, it seems like a constant cycle of rise and fall rise and fall, just a new face in charge who talks a good game sometimes while the same games of power are played. Nothing new under the sun as long as this sun lights the earth and keeps it in inertia. Those who lust for power will say what they need to say and trample who they need to trample.
I've been going through old newspaper clippings at work, seeing that the same Powers That Be that rob us now were doing so as long as I've been alive if not longer, or carrying on the proud tradition of sweet talk and stealing in a suit, knowing that name recognition and party line go a long way to further rank incompetence.
I don't know where I fit on the spectrum anymore as I can't believe in either party line. You can talk all you want about saving babies or helping those in poverty, but since neither vote or donate big money to political campaigns, you don't care that much. We talk about cutting the budget, but no one wants to touch the amount of money we use to fight how many wars, how many proxy wars, how many people on the other side of the world that get killed to make us feel safer and secure. I don't believe anything's secure in this world, but then again I live in the almost-hood and divine intervention so I don't lose sleep over terrorists or much else unless I hear gunfire down the street and it wakes me up. That's kind of different.
I heard a song by Sublime on the radio on the way home from work that reminded me of parties in college and everyone singing the line about killing cops even though we were all way too young to really understand riots in Los Angeles or Rodney King. Riot on the streets, a teen-age riot, a riot of my own, and so on so romanticized. Nowell's singing about looting a store for its furniture, stealing guitars and sound equipment because the cops suck. Ironic that the the protesters in Egypt look at the Londoners acting a fool and asking why everyone's setting fires and stealing stuff if it's really about the unfairness. One man's greed enacted in a time of opportunism comes from the same root as the corporations one rails against.
The logic here is ridiculous, and I think about all the struggling store owners who lose when things like this happen, especially in communities of immigrants who often get hit the hardest because suddenly xenophobia has an outlet. If you're going to fight capitalism, there's other battles that don't hurt the average schmuck nearly as much.
As the threads of an already dysfunctional society unravel, the glamour of the masses rising up is replaced with a sense of something not quite acquiescence or fear, maybe a deeper suspicion of the motivations of not just the Powers That Be, but the people on the streets as well. Watching the way that fights break out in the middle of the street over nothing, seeing the melee on St. Patrick's Day, and knowing that this is nothing, since there are no weapons, no guns shot or clubs pounding either by the police or the rest of the people. I don't try to find a moral high ground, I just try to get through the mess to a place of peace.
I don't know what the answer is, but I don't like the answers that I'm being given. To do nothing is easy to do and often wrong, but often how good or beneficial is it to do something just because it's something to do?
It's hard for me to be thrilled about change when the more history I read, the more I see, it seems like a constant cycle of rise and fall rise and fall, just a new face in charge who talks a good game sometimes while the same games of power are played. Nothing new under the sun as long as this sun lights the earth and keeps it in inertia. Those who lust for power will say what they need to say and trample who they need to trample.
I've been going through old newspaper clippings at work, seeing that the same Powers That Be that rob us now were doing so as long as I've been alive if not longer, or carrying on the proud tradition of sweet talk and stealing in a suit, knowing that name recognition and party line go a long way to further rank incompetence.
I don't know where I fit on the spectrum anymore as I can't believe in either party line. You can talk all you want about saving babies or helping those in poverty, but since neither vote or donate big money to political campaigns, you don't care that much. We talk about cutting the budget, but no one wants to touch the amount of money we use to fight how many wars, how many proxy wars, how many people on the other side of the world that get killed to make us feel safer and secure. I don't believe anything's secure in this world, but then again I live in the almost-hood and divine intervention so I don't lose sleep over terrorists or much else unless I hear gunfire down the street and it wakes me up. That's kind of different.
I heard a song by Sublime on the radio on the way home from work that reminded me of parties in college and everyone singing the line about killing cops even though we were all way too young to really understand riots in Los Angeles or Rodney King. Riot on the streets, a teen-age riot, a riot of my own, and so on so romanticized. Nowell's singing about looting a store for its furniture, stealing guitars and sound equipment because the cops suck. Ironic that the the protesters in Egypt look at the Londoners acting a fool and asking why everyone's setting fires and stealing stuff if it's really about the unfairness. One man's greed enacted in a time of opportunism comes from the same root as the corporations one rails against.
The logic here is ridiculous, and I think about all the struggling store owners who lose when things like this happen, especially in communities of immigrants who often get hit the hardest because suddenly xenophobia has an outlet. If you're going to fight capitalism, there's other battles that don't hurt the average schmuck nearly as much.
As the threads of an already dysfunctional society unravel, the glamour of the masses rising up is replaced with a sense of something not quite acquiescence or fear, maybe a deeper suspicion of the motivations of not just the Powers That Be, but the people on the streets as well. Watching the way that fights break out in the middle of the street over nothing, seeing the melee on St. Patrick's Day, and knowing that this is nothing, since there are no weapons, no guns shot or clubs pounding either by the police or the rest of the people. I don't try to find a moral high ground, I just try to get through the mess to a place of peace.
I don't know what the answer is, but I don't like the answers that I'm being given. To do nothing is easy to do and often wrong, but often how good or beneficial is it to do something just because it's something to do?
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
if I get to choose I'll take something real...
Processing my frustration through conversation and creation, sculpting clay, scrawling verse and prayer, ripping out crabgrass in the garden, supplanting it with tropical-looking hostas and things that smell lemony, and maybe my standoffishness towards certain individuals has no small part to do with what they do.
I'm out of here in an hour to cook dinner for some friends and their kids, create, be in the sun, drive home listening to some good tunes and just to be gone for a little bit. I don't take many vacations, sometimes an early exit is good enough.
I'm out of here in an hour to cook dinner for some friends and their kids, create, be in the sun, drive home listening to some good tunes and just to be gone for a little bit. I don't take many vacations, sometimes an early exit is good enough.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
They will do what they must do
Yeah it's true
But only in part
Actions best forgotten of a desperate heart
And it hurts
This salt in the wound
But what compels them to spend their time bothering you
Don't let them touch you baby
Don't let them make you cry
Don't you waste your time
Trying to find the reason why
They will do what they must do
Yeah it's strange
That vicarious choir
Ever searching for a stage where they might sing higher
And they share
The generous souls
But nothing gets in the way of a story untold
It's not fair
The only intention's to hurt
Always there
The strategy's rumors and dirt
Don't let them touch you baby
Don't let them make you cry
Don't you waste your time
Trying to find the reason why
They will do what they must do
Saturday, May 7, 2011
mayday
It's only May and my skin is already beginning to darken, between softball (in which I am improving, though that's not saying much), and the garden, and the left side darker than the right from driving around listening to Mudhoney, ending the night at a friend's birthday party where an attempt to have a night of music-making turned into something resembling an unplanned performance art piece, as the kids were banging on pots and pans while the grownups gamely tried to coordinate ourselves through basic three chordishness.
My life has become so much more quiet and the noise was something I've become unaccustomed too, but it felt good to play music with new people even if I didn't have my own guitar and beloved Silvertone and my hands were clumsy.
too much coffee yet again. I should have been sleeping by now, not drinking tea and listening to Siouxsie and procrastinating on doing any writing or anything useful.
My life has become so much more quiet and the noise was something I've become unaccustomed too, but it felt good to play music with new people even if I didn't have my own guitar and beloved Silvertone and my hands were clumsy.
too much coffee yet again. I should have been sleeping by now, not drinking tea and listening to Siouxsie and procrastinating on doing any writing or anything useful.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
i wanna be instamatic, i wanna be a frozen pea
I know it's just a matter of time before every band I like is dead because I latched on to the sound of previous generations, but Poly Styrene, a half-Somali teenager with braces and a lot of snark who scared Johnny Rotten (though in fairness that doesn't seem hard to do), died of cancer this morning and had I known earlier I would have played a whole lot of X-Ray Spex and totally alienated all three of my listeners.
The X-Ray Spex were one of the first punk bands I got into, thanks to college radio and my friend Megan whose mom was one of my mom's roommates. At their every-so-often-reunion-gatherings, all of us kids would be turned loose while the parents reminisced, but since we were all pretty geeky, the younger ones would play video games and we would read each other's fantasy novels and watch The Simpsons when we weren't hopelessly losing in basketball to her older brother.
Despite her fear of crazy born again fundies, we got along well, graduating in culturation from an endless repeat of Billy Joel's Greatest Hits while making friendship bracelets when we were ten to listening to Elastica, the X-Ray Spex and other assorted Brit-rock, trading high school stories while trying to figure out what college would be like. I don't think either of us had any idea about what would be coming.
The X-Ray Spex were one of the first punk bands I got into, thanks to college radio and my friend Megan whose mom was one of my mom's roommates. At their every-so-often-reunion-gatherings, all of us kids would be turned loose while the parents reminisced, but since we were all pretty geeky, the younger ones would play video games and we would read each other's fantasy novels and watch The Simpsons when we weren't hopelessly losing in basketball to her older brother.
Despite her fear of crazy born again fundies, we got along well, graduating in culturation from an endless repeat of Billy Joel's Greatest Hits while making friendship bracelets when we were ten to listening to Elastica, the X-Ray Spex and other assorted Brit-rock, trading high school stories while trying to figure out what college would be like. I don't think either of us had any idea about what would be coming.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
seeing green
Did you know almost half the girls in Cleveland are half Irish, half Polish? That is a fact I made up just now. - Bridget's right it seems.
Like many of my generation and possibly the previous, many of our parents were no longer obligated to marry within ethnicity, as the common bond of Catholicism tended to be sufficient, and we were mostly potato-eating peasant stock anyway on either side anyway, with some sense of diluted and abstract ethnicity.
I don't identify strongly with either side, as my parents and grandparents have little in the way of nationalistic tendencies, though I've evidently got rabble-rousers of the Easter Rising variety from way back when. I don't do much for St. Patrick's Day because while I enjoy infrequent libations, I don't drink in large quantities and can't stand large masses of drunk people. I don't like most bars. I think corned beef is gross, never tell anyone to "Erin Go Bragh" and the caricature of Irish culture gets to be a bit much.
It was bad enough in grade school doing fake stepdancing in music class or having your first grade teacher suggest adding "O'" or "Mc" to the front of your last name which looks really stupid when you've got a long certain ethnic surname like mine.
I dig the poetry and art, and the mythology and the music, but not on March 17th. Some people I know are way into the whole Irish festival thing and seeing these sucky local bands that sound great when you've chugged too much Guinness but having a fiddler in your group doesn't make it more authentic, and IRA t-shirts are not cool.
Still, despite my previous paragraphs, this is the best Deep Purple tribute act turned 70's punk band ever. I think one of the reasons why "The Kids" go back to the early punk acts has to do with some sense of relevance to the current situation paired with anger and power chords.
Like many of my generation and possibly the previous, many of our parents were no longer obligated to marry within ethnicity, as the common bond of Catholicism tended to be sufficient, and we were mostly potato-eating peasant stock anyway on either side anyway, with some sense of diluted and abstract ethnicity.
I don't identify strongly with either side, as my parents and grandparents have little in the way of nationalistic tendencies, though I've evidently got rabble-rousers of the Easter Rising variety from way back when. I don't do much for St. Patrick's Day because while I enjoy infrequent libations, I don't drink in large quantities and can't stand large masses of drunk people. I don't like most bars. I think corned beef is gross, never tell anyone to "Erin Go Bragh" and the caricature of Irish culture gets to be a bit much.
It was bad enough in grade school doing fake stepdancing in music class or having your first grade teacher suggest adding "O'" or "Mc" to the front of your last name which looks really stupid when you've got a long certain ethnic surname like mine.
I dig the poetry and art, and the mythology and the music, but not on March 17th. Some people I know are way into the whole Irish festival thing and seeing these sucky local bands that sound great when you've chugged too much Guinness but having a fiddler in your group doesn't make it more authentic, and IRA t-shirts are not cool.
Still, despite my previous paragraphs, this is the best Deep Purple tribute act turned 70's punk band ever. I think one of the reasons why "The Kids" go back to the early punk acts has to do with some sense of relevance to the current situation paired with anger and power chords.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
on the street where nobody lives
I was in frustrated with the world mode this morning, finding catharsis in songs about the messed-up-ness of the world and those who run it, jittery Reagan-era post-punk, third world protest singers, apocalyptic roots reggae, played requests for midwest 80's three-chord goodness dedicated to a Cleveland punk rock mainstay that I was too young to have known.
"Sometimes I just wish the world would stop", someone said to me this morning, and I sometimes wish I could wake up without hearing about some crazy disaster made by nature or humans here or there or somewhere.
I was so sick of staring at a computer screen yesterday but recovered quickly upon coming home and changing clothes and running back out to play with enamel, digging into the cupboard and discovering copper wire used for cloisonne, fascinated by the process of melting, removing glowing gold red-hot metal from the kiln, twisting the wire into swirls with a pair of pliers as the copper discs cool, learning that I have so much at my disposal, everything except a forge to do small-level metalwork to make things. Mondays have become days I look forward to for this alone.
I always wanted to go to art school, but what some mistook for raw talent was really well-intentioned mediocrity and enthusiasm, and I didn't have the funds to buy my way in. I worked hard to be average, to get B's to correspond with my A's in all things writing, meanwhile admiring the work of others for whom creation seemed effortless. I'm finally getting where I want to be, and thankfully in a place where I don't have to worry about student loans or costly materials (thanks City of Cleveland in a totally non-sarcastic way) to keep on learning.
I've started sketching out ideas, working old aesthetics into new things, enthralled with the alchemy of colored powders of lead and glass with names like "garnet," "delft," and "amulet," that the luminescent hues that I fell in love with going through the part of the museum where all the old stuff is, is something that I can make my own.
"Sometimes I just wish the world would stop", someone said to me this morning, and I sometimes wish I could wake up without hearing about some crazy disaster made by nature or humans here or there or somewhere.
I was so sick of staring at a computer screen yesterday but recovered quickly upon coming home and changing clothes and running back out to play with enamel, digging into the cupboard and discovering copper wire used for cloisonne, fascinated by the process of melting, removing glowing gold red-hot metal from the kiln, twisting the wire into swirls with a pair of pliers as the copper discs cool, learning that I have so much at my disposal, everything except a forge to do small-level metalwork to make things. Mondays have become days I look forward to for this alone.
I always wanted to go to art school, but what some mistook for raw talent was really well-intentioned mediocrity and enthusiasm, and I didn't have the funds to buy my way in. I worked hard to be average, to get B's to correspond with my A's in all things writing, meanwhile admiring the work of others for whom creation seemed effortless. I'm finally getting where I want to be, and thankfully in a place where I don't have to worry about student loans or costly materials (thanks City of Cleveland in a totally non-sarcastic way) to keep on learning.
I've started sketching out ideas, working old aesthetics into new things, enthralled with the alchemy of colored powders of lead and glass with names like "garnet," "delft," and "amulet," that the luminescent hues that I fell in love with going through the part of the museum where all the old stuff is, is something that I can make my own.
Monday, March 7, 2011
mummies and madness
So we've been massively entertained by the absurdity of English Pravda, with its lurid reports of Yeti femme fatales seducing "Caucasian Men," the space aliens ritually sacrificing our cattle in the great Intergalactic Slaughterhouse In the Sky, and this item which would be worthy of many world leaders right now who are in the hot seat but doubtless still want immortality.
Our favorite commie tabloid with tells us that mummification is the new cryogenics, so I hope Hosni Moobie, Pooty Poot, Silvio, and Mr. Muammar, are paying attention.
Our favorite commie tabloid with tells us that mummification is the new cryogenics, so I hope Hosni Moobie, Pooty Poot, Silvio, and Mr. Muammar, are paying attention.
Monday, February 28, 2011
it's all blueprint, it must be easy...
I was in line at the bank this weekend listening to old men talk about how it sucks that people are revolting in Libya because that means their gas prices are going up. "I'm for freedom fighters and all, but I gotta fill my gas tank too."
I couldn't shake the depression this weekend, forcing myself to not be alone with my unproductive thoughts, not wanting to explain and articulate because my jaw is sore and I wonder if I'm just adding to the noise, if I've been doing it wrong, if what seems to make sense now will be something I will regret later.
Because I can't play these games of ladder climbing and career hopping and what people call love but usually ends up being a total mess full of regret. I'm just not interested in dealing with that. I can't compete and it doesn't look fun or fulfilling. I've got no debt, I can sustain myself and have enough to share, I've got creative outlets and spiritual sustenance. I wonder if I'm crazy for not trying harder, if I'm just another slacker wasting my life like all the burnouts I used to hang with, or if this kind of race is even the one I should bother running.
"I'm not playing with you / I clean forgot how to play....we'll draw a blueprint, it must be easy, it's just a matter of knowing when to say no or yes. frustrating, frustrating, always waiting for the bigger axe to fall.
a patient game that i can't find my way to play. never mind what's been selling, it's what you're buying and receiving undefiled..."
I couldn't shake the depression this weekend, forcing myself to not be alone with my unproductive thoughts, not wanting to explain and articulate because my jaw is sore and I wonder if I'm just adding to the noise, if I've been doing it wrong, if what seems to make sense now will be something I will regret later.
Because I can't play these games of ladder climbing and career hopping and what people call love but usually ends up being a total mess full of regret. I'm just not interested in dealing with that. I can't compete and it doesn't look fun or fulfilling. I've got no debt, I can sustain myself and have enough to share, I've got creative outlets and spiritual sustenance. I wonder if I'm crazy for not trying harder, if I'm just another slacker wasting my life like all the burnouts I used to hang with, or if this kind of race is even the one I should bother running.
"I'm not playing with you / I clean forgot how to play....we'll draw a blueprint, it must be easy, it's just a matter of knowing when to say no or yes. frustrating, frustrating, always waiting for the bigger axe to fall.
a patient game that i can't find my way to play. never mind what's been selling, it's what you're buying and receiving undefiled..."
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
and I say I don't like it, I know I don't want it...
There's no sound worse than the dentist's drill going down into your jaw, looking up and seeing gloves flecked with blood. "You did so well," she says as I spit pieces of broken molar into the sink and mentally curse my irresponsible youth, family genes, and the past three years full of car crashes and stress that wreaked general havoc on my little snarky mouth, while thankful to have insurance and live in an industrialized country where there's things like local anesthesia even if half my face is temporarily paralyzed and my grin has a glint of silver in the back like a fortuneteller's.
I'm uncharacteristically bitchy today, still sore, unable to wake up despite having coffee in my system, contending with "I'm fighting the system even though I'm totally the Man and don't even see it" boomers way too early in the morning. Quoting Jim Morrison like it's new and fresh and deep was the last straw and I got a bit more vitriolic than usual. Maybe it's the residual Novocaine still coursing through my bloodstream that made my lips get a little looser but given that I smile so much, most of the snark and generational antipathy went unnoticed.
when the fact of the matter is you just don't care
to comprehend or understand a single word I say
Seriously, I just want to go home and listen to the Bad Brains right now.
The sunlight coming through the ice-covered trees was so amazing that despite my wooziness and aching jaw, I drank tea with my adopted aunt and then drove along Riverside after seeing the the Valley was closed off and took lots of pictures of glittering branches.
Oh well, life goes on. I'll feel better tomorrow.
I'm uncharacteristically bitchy today, still sore, unable to wake up despite having coffee in my system, contending with "I'm fighting the system even though I'm totally the Man and don't even see it" boomers way too early in the morning. Quoting Jim Morrison like it's new and fresh and deep was the last straw and I got a bit more vitriolic than usual. Maybe it's the residual Novocaine still coursing through my bloodstream that made my lips get a little looser but given that I smile so much, most of the snark and generational antipathy went unnoticed.
when the fact of the matter is you just don't care
to comprehend or understand a single word I say
Seriously, I just want to go home and listen to the Bad Brains right now.
The sunlight coming through the ice-covered trees was so amazing that despite my wooziness and aching jaw, I drank tea with my adopted aunt and then drove along Riverside after seeing the the Valley was closed off and took lots of pictures of glittering branches.
Oh well, life goes on. I'll feel better tomorrow.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
is this my world?
I read, I listen, I watch, and I'm just a bystander not wholly innocent, an observer.
These systems in other countries, built upon entitlement, intimidation, and corruption, are finally beginning to crack, but I wonder what will replace them, how they will rebuild. So much of history is just one despot after another, talking a different game, but doing the same things all while talking about bright new tomorrows and hopeful futures.
I've got no love for self-absorbed and self-important boomers of either partisanship and their culture wars and politics, the smokescreens of cynical manipulation. Whether they're politicians or unionistas, they'll get what's theirs while the getting's good, the perks they feel entitled to by coincidence of birth and privilege and let the rest of us deal with the fallout.
These systems in other countries, built upon entitlement, intimidation, and corruption, are finally beginning to crack, but I wonder what will replace them, how they will rebuild. So much of history is just one despot after another, talking a different game, but doing the same things all while talking about bright new tomorrows and hopeful futures.
I've got no love for self-absorbed and self-important boomers of either partisanship and their culture wars and politics, the smokescreens of cynical manipulation. Whether they're politicians or unionistas, they'll get what's theirs while the getting's good, the perks they feel entitled to by coincidence of birth and privilege and let the rest of us deal with the fallout.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
premature thaw
Usually my public transportation commute is unremarkable, as the Rapid is generally crowded with other souls who work banking hours and kids on the way to school, but yesterday was consistently entertaining, with the three teenage girls from the hood affecting convincingly posh British accents no doubt acquired during 10th grad English earlier that day, advising each other on the etiquette of a proper prom date and making snarky jokes about each other's mums riding the mechanical bull at Cadillac Ranch.
Not to mention disco-dancing middle-aged crackers with their CD walkmans and the Honduran couple watching the music video for "Whoomp! There it is" on the guy's phone so everyone can hear it.
It's getting warm in my fair city and it's starting to prematurely come alive once more in all of its absurd glory.
Yesterday was the first day in this new year when it was almost warm enough to roll down my windows and listen to music again, even if the heat is turned up as well. Hoodie weather is a beautiful thing and I can't wait until the days get longer and I can dig my bike out of the basement and wander the streets of Cleveland and the dirty shores of Lake Erie.
>
This isn't Stravinsky, but the anarchic spirit and emotion are there in homage, and even though my little sister isn't into anything with loud guitars and ragged vocals, being a Millenial Indie Kid, she's stolen the t-shirt with the above design from me multiple times. The music majors I know are disappointed when I explain that it has nothing to do with Igor and everything to do with an unhinged one-album punk band including two future members of Fugazi.
Not to mention disco-dancing middle-aged crackers with their CD walkmans and the Honduran couple watching the music video for "Whoomp! There it is" on the guy's phone so everyone can hear it.
It's getting warm in my fair city and it's starting to prematurely come alive once more in all of its absurd glory.
Yesterday was the first day in this new year when it was almost warm enough to roll down my windows and listen to music again, even if the heat is turned up as well. Hoodie weather is a beautiful thing and I can't wait until the days get longer and I can dig my bike out of the basement and wander the streets of Cleveland and the dirty shores of Lake Erie.
>
This isn't Stravinsky, but the anarchic spirit and emotion are there in homage, and even though my little sister isn't into anything with loud guitars and ragged vocals, being a Millenial Indie Kid, she's stolen the t-shirt with the above design from me multiple times. The music majors I know are disappointed when I explain that it has nothing to do with Igor and everything to do with an unhinged one-album punk band including two future members of Fugazi.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
what do you want for nothing?
I spent this morning sleeping in, not wanting to wake up from my cocoon of blankets and my grandma's feather bed, staring up at the ceiling talking to God and trying to reconcile the workings of my brain with my soul and its frequent dark nights. There's a disconnect there so often, between the heart and the head, something not quantified by biology, the reconciling of the rational and the impossible to empirically explain.
I was too depressed to attempt to make coffee so I poured myself a bowl of cereal and sat on the floor because I really don't have a comfy reading chair, listened to a lot of 70's punk and general rockitude about being angry young and poor and such. Thinking about "Hiking Metal Punks" made me feel much better, due to my Parma teenage metalhead roots and corresponding absurdist sense of humor, which tells you everything you need to know about the state of mind I'm in. And damn, the Bellrays are a good band, especially live.
This weather and the constant struggle to not get sucked into the oblivion of working and sleeping. Now that life has become less chaotic, I've been painting on the weeknights when I'm not making bowls and dishes, and itching to start playing music again in a creative way.
Church music has kept me fresh in playing with other people, and having a bassist who also digs the sounds that I like makes it fun, but after listening to lots of power chords and waves of shoegaze guitars and realizing that yes I do have a singing voice that isn't totally terrible. My pedals are at my parents' house, and I'm thinking about borrowing my dad's reverb box that wires into the amp to make it even more echo-y and amazing.
And I haven't done anything remotely zine-ish since my early twenties but upon conversations involving pretentious literary journals purchased by academia, rejection letters, access to cheap printing, and the glories of poemetry and DIY ethics.
I miss the evenings spent with my Lorain County crew, staking out a table at Arabica with ample supplies of scissors and glue sticks, using a typewriter to make it look more authentic, thinking we had all the answers (damn I was a self-righteous as only a punkass 20-year-old can be), and loving that smell of fresh carcinogenic toner when we got our finished creation back from the local printer.
We put out about four or five issues, including one completely absurd one made on a Giant Eagle copier at midnight, but matrimony, writer's block, and general geography left us on a hiatus as permanent as that of Fugazi, and non-LJ blogging has enabled me to process out my thoughts in real time.
These fine ladies have done an awesome job compiling some of the Rust Belt experience, and have inspired me to contemplate the possibility of more culture in these parts. It used to exist, and definitely still does, but I'm so out of the loop both by slackerness and connections that it's making me want to create my own noise and invoke the glory days of "Our Band Could Be Your Life" that I never lived through.
I was too depressed to attempt to make coffee so I poured myself a bowl of cereal and sat on the floor because I really don't have a comfy reading chair, listened to a lot of 70's punk and general rockitude about being angry young and poor and such. Thinking about "Hiking Metal Punks" made me feel much better, due to my Parma teenage metalhead roots and corresponding absurdist sense of humor, which tells you everything you need to know about the state of mind I'm in. And damn, the Bellrays are a good band, especially live.
This weather and the constant struggle to not get sucked into the oblivion of working and sleeping. Now that life has become less chaotic, I've been painting on the weeknights when I'm not making bowls and dishes, and itching to start playing music again in a creative way.
Church music has kept me fresh in playing with other people, and having a bassist who also digs the sounds that I like makes it fun, but after listening to lots of power chords and waves of shoegaze guitars and realizing that yes I do have a singing voice that isn't totally terrible. My pedals are at my parents' house, and I'm thinking about borrowing my dad's reverb box that wires into the amp to make it even more echo-y and amazing.
And I haven't done anything remotely zine-ish since my early twenties but upon conversations involving pretentious literary journals purchased by academia, rejection letters, access to cheap printing, and the glories of poemetry and DIY ethics.
I miss the evenings spent with my Lorain County crew, staking out a table at Arabica with ample supplies of scissors and glue sticks, using a typewriter to make it look more authentic, thinking we had all the answers (damn I was a self-righteous as only a punkass 20-year-old can be), and loving that smell of fresh carcinogenic toner when we got our finished creation back from the local printer.
We put out about four or five issues, including one completely absurd one made on a Giant Eagle copier at midnight, but matrimony, writer's block, and general geography left us on a hiatus as permanent as that of Fugazi, and non-LJ blogging has enabled me to process out my thoughts in real time.
These fine ladies have done an awesome job compiling some of the Rust Belt experience, and have inspired me to contemplate the possibility of more culture in these parts. It used to exist, and definitely still does, but I'm so out of the loop both by slackerness and connections that it's making me want to create my own noise and invoke the glory days of "Our Band Could Be Your Life" that I never lived through.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
this ain't no picnic
I've been through this rollercoaster of emotions before, in regards to certain pressing issues at hand, and know that I'll endlessly repeat these for quite some time until the next round of cuts comes around.
I'm a people person by nature, but tend to avoid those who make me nervous, especially when they have a lot more power and when this could really affect one's future. I gingerly bring up the suggestion that in the future of skeleton crews and general austerities, that there are a lot of other things that I've done before, could do again, and yes I know that there's such a thing called training do I look that dumb, because you seem to think so.
And I know it's stupid that it makes me mad. It's one thing to be ignored. I'm fine with that. It's a whole other thing to not be taken seriously, to feel like the word of one person or the unfairness of one incident when the person lowest ends up getting the blame totally invalidates the fact that I show up on time, heck, early, every day, learn from my mistakes quickly, and do whatever is asked of me, and go above and beyond on a regular basis. I get along with everyone, even the people I don't care for so much.
It's been like this awhile now, but when there's balance sheets involved, the sword of Damocles, the Axe of Austerity, it just adds to that sense of helplessness and frustration. At least there's always nerdy disenfranchised 80's punk to get me through the rough spots.
I'm a people person by nature, but tend to avoid those who make me nervous, especially when they have a lot more power and when this could really affect one's future. I gingerly bring up the suggestion that in the future of skeleton crews and general austerities, that there are a lot of other things that I've done before, could do again, and yes I know that there's such a thing called training do I look that dumb, because you seem to think so.
And I know it's stupid that it makes me mad. It's one thing to be ignored. I'm fine with that. It's a whole other thing to not be taken seriously, to feel like the word of one person or the unfairness of one incident when the person lowest ends up getting the blame totally invalidates the fact that I show up on time, heck, early, every day, learn from my mistakes quickly, and do whatever is asked of me, and go above and beyond on a regular basis. I get along with everyone, even the people I don't care for so much.
It's been like this awhile now, but when there's balance sheets involved, the sword of Damocles, the Axe of Austerity, it just adds to that sense of helplessness and frustration. At least there's always nerdy disenfranchised 80's punk to get me through the rough spots.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
they all will have exquisite taste but everyone will look the same
In discussion of musical taste and such, I don't think I'm terribly ashamed of my guilty pleasures. As Randal has astutely observed, any sense of guilt has been imparted by the society of either corporate entities or scenester elitism. We like what we like, whatever that is and however that is perceived.
Some sense of sonic pretentiousness has probably always existed, at least according to my dad, who said that back in his day the people who listened to the MC5 weren't the people who listened to Yes weren't the people who listened to Gram Parsons. He has all of those in the record collection that I'll probably end up with since neither of my siblings own a turntable.
I saw a lot of bands live that I didn't care about, but I enjoyed the company of my friends who did. I went through some unfortunate musical phases just like most people, and have found that I haven't bothered with Nine Inch Nails or Stabbing Westward and the like since my teens, and haven't listened to Pavement since leaving Kent.
Guilty pleasures? Hmmm... I don't feel guilty, especially as I get older and there's less social pressure to be cool. I was never cool anyway. I guess the closest thing would be that I've got a soft spot for old-school hardcore and certain dancehall cuts. A lot of people my age pretend like they never listened to the Goo Goo Dolls or Staind, and gave me a hard time for still admitting that I love Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam.
Being in College Radio Land, I know that while certain parts of my musical palate run towards the obscure and esoteric (pre Pol-Pot Cambodian garage rock, Ethiopian jazz, New Zealand post-punk, Turkish psychedelia, Colombian hip-hop), my mainstays are profoundly pedestrian. I love my way uncool grunge bands and boomerific classic rock and pretty much any band that rips off Neil Young and Crazy Horse. I own 90% of U2's recorded output. I'll take the Red Hot Chili Peppers over Can any day.
And unlike my younger self, I'm less likely to judge you based on what you like, unless you're really into the Insane Clown Posse or something. And I might find it funny if you still rock a House of Pain jersey unironically. I've been around enough really awesome people with questionable taste and enough really nasty people with "good taste" to know that I infinitely prefer the former.
Besides, oh hipsters of the Internet, to paraphrase a Less Than Jake song title, "Some of My Best Friends are Metalheads."
Some sense of sonic pretentiousness has probably always existed, at least according to my dad, who said that back in his day the people who listened to the MC5 weren't the people who listened to Yes weren't the people who listened to Gram Parsons. He has all of those in the record collection that I'll probably end up with since neither of my siblings own a turntable.
I saw a lot of bands live that I didn't care about, but I enjoyed the company of my friends who did. I went through some unfortunate musical phases just like most people, and have found that I haven't bothered with Nine Inch Nails or Stabbing Westward and the like since my teens, and haven't listened to Pavement since leaving Kent.
Guilty pleasures? Hmmm... I don't feel guilty, especially as I get older and there's less social pressure to be cool. I was never cool anyway. I guess the closest thing would be that I've got a soft spot for old-school hardcore and certain dancehall cuts. A lot of people my age pretend like they never listened to the Goo Goo Dolls or Staind, and gave me a hard time for still admitting that I love Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam.
Being in College Radio Land, I know that while certain parts of my musical palate run towards the obscure and esoteric (pre Pol-Pot Cambodian garage rock, Ethiopian jazz, New Zealand post-punk, Turkish psychedelia, Colombian hip-hop), my mainstays are profoundly pedestrian. I love my way uncool grunge bands and boomerific classic rock and pretty much any band that rips off Neil Young and Crazy Horse. I own 90% of U2's recorded output. I'll take the Red Hot Chili Peppers over Can any day.
And unlike my younger self, I'm less likely to judge you based on what you like, unless you're really into the Insane Clown Posse or something. And I might find it funny if you still rock a House of Pain jersey unironically. I've been around enough really awesome people with questionable taste and enough really nasty people with "good taste" to know that I infinitely prefer the former.
Besides, oh hipsters of the Internet, to paraphrase a Less Than Jake song title, "Some of My Best Friends are Metalheads."
Friday, January 28, 2011
suburban angstas "we're not the first and we know we're not the last..."
One of my friends from the hallowed slacker Tri-C days of yore, who made the Cleveland Scene for Dumbest Quote of the Year for selling a parental-advisory-stickered CD to a grade schooler saying he'd "sell it to a fetus if he had to," declared that if he was elected Mayor of Strongsville, he would change the mascot on the downtown water tower to the Wu-Tangs instead of the Mustangs due to the high volume of suburban hip-hop fanhood in said land to the south.
My east siders find it supremely ironic that the white kids of the southern suburbs adored the crew while mostly oblivious to the whole Five Percenter thing, but it was what it was. And ODB's stage crash was infinitely more awesome than Kanye's. For the children, indeed.
There will always be suburban kids who love hip-hop for the same reason that white kids have always turned to African-rooted music. It's danceable, freaks out their parents (see: jazz, early rock and roll, etc), and is eventually co-opted into a sanitized mainstream culturally acceptable form, usually getting whiter in the process. The next musical form that freaks out/totally annoys the future white suburban parents my age who loved A Tribe Called Quest and the Roots will probably have African diasporic roots too.
My dad can't stand hip-hop but loves Beck, and made up parody lyrics to "Loser" when it came out that became an inside joke with his fellow truck-driving coworkers whose careers involve purveying bread of all kinds to the good people of the hood.
Meanwhile, in Crackerland, as it's been since the 1960's, there will always be disaffected youths who will turn to loud music with electric guitars that may or may not freak out their parents even if they don't understand this new sound that the Kids are into these days.
While the medium on which the music is recorded may change (see cassettes, vinyl, compact disc, MP3), The Kids will more or less look the same regardless of decade and are somewhat interchangeable, as what's basic yet never terribly fashionable can never go out of style. Jeans, black t-shirts, basic footwear usually of the Converse variety, zip-up hoodies, the occasional Joey Ramone leather jacket? The haircuts may vary in volume, the glasses may look different, but the basics are still there.
The Kids may not be getting stoned, but they love kung-fu movies, played Stratomatic in the 60's and 70's (because in the inner suburbs, it's still acceptable to be into sports and music), videogames from the 80's until now, guitars if they were available, and still probably spend a lot of time driving around aimlessly listening to music and discussing high school politics, and dishing snarky pop/subculture commentary at an all-night diner or the nearest coffeeshop.
One of my fellow peons from a generation old enough to have birthed me claims that in another 15 years, the Kids will no longer be listening to Slayer, but I disagree. For one thing, Slayer's older than I am, and their first record came out the year I was born.
17 years later, The Kids in my day mocked me for my love of U2 while extolling the virtues of Hell Awaits at the lunch table, while we regretted that we were too young to see Minor Threat or Nirvana or Led Zeppelin way back when and wondered if that new Alice in Chains song on the radio meant that maybe Layne Staley wasn't totally far gone yet.
My friends often had to turn their band t-shirts inside out (this was the post-Columbine era and any band t-shirt suggesting anything involving death and destruction was suspect), made fun of our valedictorian who didn't know what a pentagram was, and one of us, who also played on the football team, bore a startling resemblance to Kerry King, especially when he got tattoos post-graduation.
Even if you didn't know how to play anything else on the guitar, you knew how to play "Iron Man," and "Smoke on the Water." Every hardcore punk band I saw threw in a few bars of "Reign in Blood" when requested.
Maybe we Parmanians were just 20 years behind the times, but I'm sure there's kids sitting in a cafeteria right now listening to 70's punk, classic rock, and 80's thrash, just like we did. My little sister likes all this weaksauce indie, but her boyfriend's skater bros look just like my metalhead friends from back in the day.
I got the warm fuzzy feeling when I watched two teenage girls at My Mind's Eye buying pre- Blood Sugar Red Hot Chili Peppers albums on vinyl because I remember being that age and starting to delve into the underground gradually, or when my cousin posted pictures of his first electric guitar and is now presumably wailing away.
So boomers, thanks for Hendrix and Black Sabbath. We don't want to admit that we're still kind of like you (because who doesn't become their parents eventually?), because we insist that the sounds of our youth are the best they could be, but we have to give credit where it's due, and we have you to thank for spearheading the soundtracks and subcultures for disaffected and usually brilliant loners. Now, go retire so we can pay your pensions and stay employed.
Thanks.
My east siders find it supremely ironic that the white kids of the southern suburbs adored the crew while mostly oblivious to the whole Five Percenter thing, but it was what it was. And ODB's stage crash was infinitely more awesome than Kanye's. For the children, indeed.
There will always be suburban kids who love hip-hop for the same reason that white kids have always turned to African-rooted music. It's danceable, freaks out their parents (see: jazz, early rock and roll, etc), and is eventually co-opted into a sanitized mainstream culturally acceptable form, usually getting whiter in the process. The next musical form that freaks out/totally annoys the future white suburban parents my age who loved A Tribe Called Quest and the Roots will probably have African diasporic roots too.
My dad can't stand hip-hop but loves Beck, and made up parody lyrics to "Loser" when it came out that became an inside joke with his fellow truck-driving coworkers whose careers involve purveying bread of all kinds to the good people of the hood.
Meanwhile, in Crackerland, as it's been since the 1960's, there will always be disaffected youths who will turn to loud music with electric guitars that may or may not freak out their parents even if they don't understand this new sound that the Kids are into these days.
While the medium on which the music is recorded may change (see cassettes, vinyl, compact disc, MP3), The Kids will more or less look the same regardless of decade and are somewhat interchangeable, as what's basic yet never terribly fashionable can never go out of style. Jeans, black t-shirts, basic footwear usually of the Converse variety, zip-up hoodies, the occasional Joey Ramone leather jacket? The haircuts may vary in volume, the glasses may look different, but the basics are still there.
The Kids may not be getting stoned, but they love kung-fu movies, played Stratomatic in the 60's and 70's (because in the inner suburbs, it's still acceptable to be into sports and music), videogames from the 80's until now, guitars if they were available, and still probably spend a lot of time driving around aimlessly listening to music and discussing high school politics, and dishing snarky pop/subculture commentary at an all-night diner or the nearest coffeeshop.
One of my fellow peons from a generation old enough to have birthed me claims that in another 15 years, the Kids will no longer be listening to Slayer, but I disagree. For one thing, Slayer's older than I am, and their first record came out the year I was born.
17 years later, The Kids in my day mocked me for my love of U2 while extolling the virtues of Hell Awaits at the lunch table, while we regretted that we were too young to see Minor Threat or Nirvana or Led Zeppelin way back when and wondered if that new Alice in Chains song on the radio meant that maybe Layne Staley wasn't totally far gone yet.
My friends often had to turn their band t-shirts inside out (this was the post-Columbine era and any band t-shirt suggesting anything involving death and destruction was suspect), made fun of our valedictorian who didn't know what a pentagram was, and one of us, who also played on the football team, bore a startling resemblance to Kerry King, especially when he got tattoos post-graduation.
Even if you didn't know how to play anything else on the guitar, you knew how to play "Iron Man," and "Smoke on the Water." Every hardcore punk band I saw threw in a few bars of "Reign in Blood" when requested.
Maybe we Parmanians were just 20 years behind the times, but I'm sure there's kids sitting in a cafeteria right now listening to 70's punk, classic rock, and 80's thrash, just like we did. My little sister likes all this weaksauce indie, but her boyfriend's skater bros look just like my metalhead friends from back in the day.
I got the warm fuzzy feeling when I watched two teenage girls at My Mind's Eye buying pre- Blood Sugar Red Hot Chili Peppers albums on vinyl because I remember being that age and starting to delve into the underground gradually, or when my cousin posted pictures of his first electric guitar and is now presumably wailing away.
So boomers, thanks for Hendrix and Black Sabbath. We don't want to admit that we're still kind of like you (because who doesn't become their parents eventually?), because we insist that the sounds of our youth are the best they could be, but we have to give credit where it's due, and we have you to thank for spearheading the soundtracks and subcultures for disaffected and usually brilliant loners. Now, go retire so we can pay your pensions and stay employed.
Thanks.
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