jazz licks

All my appetites satisfied, there is nothing left but the dishes. Clean up the kitchen, wash down the floors, find some dignity in that day-to-day activity. We need to clean the rug, to be outdoors, I need to hike the moors, to climb the hills, he needs to pay the dealer, to figure out his bills.

I dropped you off in evening and you kissed me on the cheek. Now it's the middle of the night, and I want to have a fistfight.

So much piffle, the dribble swill, the repetitive motions every morning, and so much love and you can’t even see it. Why do you sit there stare and wonder; you are a coward. I am Circe, turning men to pigs and eating their bones. I am Flash, I am Lightning; you are not any of these things. You hopeless romantic, you can't anthropomorphize a thundershower – it’s a slap in the face to Reason. (Haha, I said 'reason' with a capital R)

Bless those who sweeten the world. Bless them with more than sugar. Bless them with money, wine, and health.

I was putting all my madness on this screen, so everything else could be rational, straightforward and good.

The autobiographer threatens me with his record of iniquity: “I’ll tell you about my first kiss. I’ll tell you about the first time I shoplifted. I’ll tell you about the first time I stole a car. And the first time I rolled a bum. First time I got into a fight. Soon, I’m going to tell you everything… It will scare the hell out of you.”

I was conjuring something from nothing, defying laws of conservation of mass, laws of energy I couldn’t afford to believe. I had to believe in miracles. There was a time I couldn’t offer anything but reason, then one day I took it all away and torched it before I realized what was happening. Now I was drifting free, anchorless and in excruciating bliss. I had become one of my poems. They were prophetic that way. I couldn’t control what got written, and I was wondering how what was written presently would impact me down the road. But I didn't care; I wasn't even capable of caring. I was on the other side. I had swum through that river, I was done stinking from self-deception and obscene toothless excuses. I was done lying. I couldn't afford to any more, because by the time we get to the end of it all there's just one brilliant explosive instant supernova where we get remember everything that's true.

Hitcher Without a Face

(written in 4 minutes, for reasons unclear. miracle is, it's somewhat sensical)

Hitchhiker Without a Face

Driving by the road, there's another man
listening by the radio held firmly in his hand
claps along with Scott Joplin, and
rags away the time
he asks me to get hitched, and that, today, seems fine.

He wanders to my four-door and
thanks me for my kindness
his is a sullen, grizzled glare that
softens a moment to fondness

I ask where can I drop him
he whispers ‘any place’
his eyes are twitching nervous
- he's a man without escape

I collect my wits and step the pedal
the roadway is our task
men who drive, must arrive alive
with seltbelts firmly clasped

the hours melt like snowflakes that my windshield wipes aside
the cars droning are, my passenger moaning
his fishlike exterior quietly deboning
I’m pondering his faceless hide

Suddenly, yow - a crack of lightning brights the dash!
us riders scream and lurch
I yelp a fast reliable prayer (– that’s funny,
I’m not a man so easily churched)

Don’t wonder what happened the morning after, when the hitchhiker left the road
My bags were stolen and interior soiled,
with foul sausage slims and empty whisky skins, and so
it’s clear that man was no Tom Joad.


(missing a few stanzas methinks?)

poor old Stelvio

The children in the playground were giving Stelvio the middle finger, because he was shouting at them, “Hey, kids, betch’oo can’t guess what kind of toys I have for you at my house!” and he cackled. The children responded with a volley of one-finger salutes that would make you blanch, or at least pause for a millisecond, and then maybe you'd adjourn to a pub for a couple of Molsons, and curse to yourself about kids these days having no manners. Well that’s exactly what Stelvio did. Old Stelvio was a bit of good for nothing. I mean, he never had a job or even a fixed up car; instead he drove a Fiat Panda, and if that’s not a shitty car then neither is a Lada Niva...

romantic drivel

mystery would not be kind if
opened up, hung on a line
and vision fails in infrared, so
feel the heat in what’s unsaid

a gaze can speak in any tongue
with soft breath more than empty lung
catch the drift from a nod or wave
point’s as clear as a crying babe

In waking dreams of dumb and blind
where mermaids sing in harmony
I study a secret chemistry,
measuring the best of me
awaiting her clandestinely.

(alright, who wrote this crap??)

The MegaRant is almost ready!

If you want an advance peek at this harrowing collection, leave me a comment below with your email address, and I'll send you a WORD file of the current State of the Union of the MegaRant. I would really appreciate some feedback on this one before I attempt to finish it off - so please, hit me with some MegaGiveAndTake and ask for your copy. Continue to be a part of online history!

unfiltered cupcakes

(Meet the surly frontliners at the sewage treatment plant - find out what they put up with!)

"I've been short on posts lately, and some friends have complained that I'm slacking.

This is a) 'absolutely untrue', as I'm still posting about 3-4 times a week, and b) this is 'relatively true' - I used to post sometimes 10 times a week.

I guess this is a rite of passage for every blogger - working through the slow periods, etc. - getting your second wind after being online for over a year (my first blogday was this past March 1 - though technically it will be Feb 29 2008, since I started on a leap year - happy belated bloggiversary to me)... anyway I am sorry.

But in that vein, check out the following excerpt of pure 'keyboard brine' which my fingers pumped out last night. The following bit took about 3.5 minutes to write, and will probably take about 3.5 days to make sense out of; it's unedited, with all typos left to scar your eyeballs:

Mar 20-05 rant

Velevet was the ordeer of the moment, ghte ghoul I was feeling in the yard, it was umberto eco the thirds most understood write in the western hemopsere this iss the meaning we hope to cleave that when people come toghet in the flu cod the moment it will not ver overided by some know itall from inside a cpu, I was rock and roll keyboardist I could open ip the ocean with these owreds tot the rhytrhj of the sambe, the eat in the eating the ehteral moment the coddled truck driver who doesn’t’ get fired because ehje got some piece of blakcail over the management, things like that the corruption that makes your vlood shiver and th emietahpora that doesn’t do uyou any good,. He threw a bit of tumbleweed in to the truch and I was stuck with his overlordish swampo neck , the tallest beast the bovine smelling smalts the heifer of neglect. Into the brain pan that I saved for easter lamb’s faces I stuck three tablets of cyanide to murder the lamb should thet ever decided to strat form the flock and the ot gt. God you have forsaken your littlest lamb, said the motion of the people in the nightimte it wsa their unspoken mass communication between them, this new kind of group telepathy and this occaiosnal lucidity within moment of hwoling rage, thi sis the shame the rteaser what makes you think I still jave all my marvels, this is smeagol and gollum at their most existential and tearing at each other with their shrivelled cave man dfleh, he never would have left the cave if it weren’t gfor the good and great thoughts that made men wantr toi edplor5e the wordkl . I was carving out ad face in to the mpoutina dn it was the greatest I ever saw, she was blonde and green eyed and her ears were like two slices of beef liver, covered with onins and mashed potatoes, overprices becaue of the college street location but that is the wat it is when you psay for nostalgia. This is the moment of pure truculent agony, this is the moment of the firestorm the first fistfight, the flowing glowing coals of the firelight, I was touchin on a river of gunk, to find some trsesre I was propesctign for thoughts so many drift by and sad I have to toucht tjem all so I was coing to invest a more effiecent boioiler some sort of process to improve my yields but there can never be a separate a cujltued pearl spearete form the rest it is na moment of torment and neglet, it is a moemtn of pure electoral fishiness.,

So, dear reader, you see the (extremely) raw materials I have to work with. And this is a typical first draft! Then again, with these kinds of 'horrible ramble posts' I don't even consider myself a writer. I'm more like a coroner, searching to find cause of death, or a forensics investigator struggling to reconstruct a crime. Eventually I will edit the above into something I find quasi-coherent, and serve it back as a 'filtered cupcake'. And that process could take a long long time - certainly more than 3.5 minutes. For my own self-serving vanity, I just want you to realize how much work I put into this lil' flea circus.

Yours in cupcakes,

~Freddie FIAC, chief cupcake foreman"

ps Please don't ask me to explain why the flea circus matters in the first place - it's years before I'm answering that one :-)

Three billion women

And all for me
It’s the playboy galaxy
There’s Betty and Zoe and Sherry
and Constance and Penelope

They smile at me
Call me cute
I’d ask them out
but
The point is moot

She's not “can you whistle my tune?”
it's just
“toot my flute”
-So I sit and eat my
Jujee fruit


(he mocks himself)

more ouija sentences

A heaven in my mind, did not unwind the fine fickle twine from my life line, the high climb, the happy swine I was, rolling in time with my rinds my brine and my slime.

These are thin moments, unnoticed torments, unanswered phones, draughty open doors and dust blown from secret shelfish tomes... My bones have owned me, my skins have clothed me; I am no one if not a gnome from Nome, a roaming nomad wiping feet politely on notepads, boring alone with no privacy into virgin dirt, sharing intestines on this telepathological prototype, hammering at hierarchy, histrionic in real time, cleansing weighty wordiness from a senselessly shocked and sleepy high society.

Sides of bacon get me quakin; cholesterol and menthol, cancer sticks and cancer stripes, we tots slurping lollies, in trollies, in desks, at a board meeting, in a casket, not long for this life, so please please find me a beautiful wife; I just want someone to treat real nice.

You knaves, you sit in caves, crow about your peer-pressure tactics, progressive taxes and pats on the backs. Reward inanity, cheer for incompetence. Vampires suck blood, mediocrity relieves anxiety. It's work less, not worth less; enjoy leisure, celebrate senselessly, tis the season, tis the season - as long as you fit in you don't need a reason. It's 'A equals B', it's you and me - it's the Golden Age of Stupidity.

Paddy's riff

yo yo I'm lean and green
a guiness machine, bash my
fists with smithwicks pricks
- a dream-age teen, shamrock sheen, leprechaun
mean, rainbow rims and gold-tooth grin,
a woolskin weave, kiss me clean, i'm
a blarneystone beam, crossed peat and Shaw,
Joyce me raw, shlonk my jaw in a dublin crawl,
the post-pub brawl, they're
drunken on the Mall,
so gay this way, pray
in your pints, high as kites
lowlife punks and bandwagon skunks with good old boys
and lifelong stoolies 24 hours of freshness, foolishness and folly bloomin
with Molly in Paddy's
daylong daze.

take a 5-minute metaphysic and call me in the morning

(loopiness factor: 9)

I am writing in a total vacuum. Finally I'm behaving according to theory

It is a test, to be swallowed by a whale, to be like Jonah or Job in the Bible... those are always the best stories the ones that stick they call it ancient scripture but really if it's still around it's because it’s relevant NOW and only now and at its apex. All histories in the present are at their apex. Ancient history is the most relevant thing, if we still remember it; who can forget it. I need to study calculus to understand why things seem like a snapshot but over time they fade. This is a reverse-Polaroid present; instant retinal imaging crumbling into the biased contingency of memory.

The person I was ten minutes ago, where did he go? No no Mr Hume, I believe in cause and effect cause and effect, the best the language I needed to invent to make a mark in my chosen field. Sure the brightest men may not be on television; at least they have their circle of friends among whom original ideas still circulate - a small hope is all a good man needs to exploit. This is the consolation for the ivory towered principals, this is the reward for the maggot breath midget? I am not even thinking these thoughts as they tumble out into the screen; they are passing through gaping holes I decided not to sieve, like an asteroid hurtling at you from the edge of a tunnel.

(On prosody): There are cadences that allow me to control my universe, and then there are rhythms that own me completely and to which I submit; I turn off my brain. Then I am pure trusty scribe, asking no questions, having blind faith in my stream of nonconsciousness, allowing all manner of outrage atrocity to mingle with beauty; pandora’s box meets the garden of eden. I used to write things for the fun of it, now I write out of morbid curiousity to see what can be conjured from fingers that have their own volition, educated by the unconscious rhythms of a practised guitar pick. There are notes on a guitar that follow one another; there are certain letters that make a certain word; there are certain words that my fingers are trained to emit in their complex reptilian cerebellar patterns. Call it a semantic photon - a discrete indivisible sentence packet - oh but that's fallacy fallacy language is productive and infinite meaning does not obey the laws of thermodynamics, meaning can be created and never destroyed (at least perhaps in the mind of the God). Meaning is metaphysical? - sorry but what's the point of saying something if I'm not able to comprehend it?

Interesting concept: Quantum Artists - unpredictable in space and time, having no fixed meaning point except upon observation, can be be pinned down only within a certain ranges of aesthetic probability.

I never thought first-person subjective analysis could be offered as strong proof of anything, then again it is the internet and everything's permissible. So I chose to exploit freedom, to bash any remaining shackle to bits and (irony) leave another temple in my wake.

I try not to mix-tape my metaphors, but music is a permasoundtrack, medley of elision one tune into another, and I’m self-referential like a rapper; I’m humble like a monk.

how to get rich quick

(today's obsolescence = tomorrow's leisure trend)

man i am tired

here's some random clauses, which should inspire me for the rest of the post:

the more complicated the instrument, the more beautiful the art

or

use space shuttle technology to draw doodles?

and - at what point will the surgeon general realize that computers are making me stupid?

How soon until there are group 'arithmetic' classes - math for fun; math to kick back, relax and socialize! - just like we have group aerobics (pick up math hotties)? As soon as a basic human faculty - calculation - is made obsolete by technology that eliminates cognitive work (computers), then as our brains atrophy from disuse, mathematics becomes a desirable social-leisure activity. And once a leisure activity, there is real money to be made. Did private gyms exist before automobiles made physical exercise unnecessary? I don't think so. And so it will be with arithmetic social clubs.

So yeah, I’ve decided I'm starting up a 12-Times Tables salon. Let's get together and multiply out loud: fifty bucks members’ fee, payable every six months. My profits increase exponentially!

Seven minutes spent recalling the weekend

Sweet success

we need another reason to get upset
something to hate
rancour and bitterness, fuel for our wittiness
we need someone to tell us no.

Romangstic

Dreaming, of mounties gunned down, the streets running with blood, the ice that kills you with cracked hips, the salt that corrodes through clothes, winter on its way out. We are melting slowly, slowly. Bitterness does not last through spring; there is the pain of rebirth. Phoenix again. Let’s head to Arizona, I cannot forget that man I love. He is a bus driver; I will follow him – on muleback if I have to - into the grand canyon of my heart. I am dodging reproaches, following that bliss; I am doing what the movie screens tell me is good. I am going to fade into that good Warner Brothers sunset. I will let those credits wash right over me.

Extreme Birthday Fun

We are scavengers in this city
We crawl ten kilometres
East to west, to do our best
I knocked over a hobo just to snag a bus transfer
I never used to be this coldblooded
But there’s a fake marble trophy on the line
And the winner gets all the biotches?

Unsolicited wallet-based enthusiasm

(incoherence factor: 8)

Hey, you all must check out my new wallet: it can out-‘wallet’ billfolds from around the globe! My new wallet - I call him Thurman the Wallet - was a great alligator once; now he ensconces my legal tender, but this is upward alligator mobility. Fie fie on the naysayers– tis a drama, an epic of crocodilian proportions, an alligatorial allegory! ...and where prithee are the fish wallets, the snakeskin billfolds; the marmoset coin-containers? This lack of mammalian moneybelts is a consumer monstrosity! Are lactating and fur-bearing non-bovines only fit for good-luck keychains? An anecdote: once there was a jackrabbit in my kitchen- Herbert Fuzzbutton by name - I sawed off his foot for luck, and he wailed most drippingly. So yes, I am a pig for wallets. I am the fiend who chases wallets down alleyways and out from around corners, and when I chance upon a virgin ‘wall’- as I call them – my yelp is gleeful and girlish! I do enjoy wallets, how they flap open exposing their leathery gums to the outside world; how they allow phalangeal access to credit cards, library cards, birth certificates and other hosts within the cornucopia we call sociomonetary flavour-plastic. If I ever won the lottery, I would probably use half the winnings to buy more wallets! What better way to proudly display my gambleriffic success? In sooth I tell you I cherish my portafolios and I wish I had a half-dozen more! My collection shall be ever-burgeoning; do you understand what I am saying??

dripping descriptor

...Queen Street's home to those with small asses, I catch myself thinking, as the ennuied Vietnamese pouts behind the counter– she hates her job – while the Portuguese teen with pink sweater and chopsticks in her hair froths milk; the cash register clanks rusty. The radio plays canon pop out the speakers; it’s morning music, predictable as a prayer book...

Rugged and hatless

(rambles on individualism?)

Draidle my indecision, wheedle and cause elision, I collect fragments in a jar for shards, the larder pantry and the collection of brain lint: Sweet causality, I turned myself into a special effect, a notable glimmer on a much larger and deeper surface; no more dull totalitarianism for the mind, more like one small star among billions, my little solar system with its own laws of gravitation, exceptions to the general theory. The confidence of an absolute, the fog of special relativity (I fell in love with my third cousin? ;-) ); I am a prime candidate for hemorrhoids – shit or get off the pot. (the opposite of a watertight argument, someone more interested in asking questions than proving self-righteousness.)

I was listening to Lucio all day - he was on a desperate erotic stomp. He sang a song for a song that could find a girl. Who knows where she is; send the music after her. On the radio, passed along by satellite beacons, she catches your intentions an ocean away. (I’m not romantic; I can’t trust birds, roses or rainbows to relay messages; I won't let smoke signals do my dirty work.)

Don’t ask me to sacrifice myself to you, she says, I won’t live for you. You can’t make me happy – it’s not within your power. I can help you live for your own sake though - there is no greater favour. I will let you die, if you don’t let me live… Let me live, and I will help make it possible for you to live…

So stop taxing me! And turn off your vicious medieval philosophy of death.