L & I drive to York Saturday morning, I-495 to I-95 to I-695 to I-93 across the Mason-Dixon Line to PA-124 east to PA-24, to pick up Spidey certainly, Nugget maybe, L's friend, the cat rescuer, is crazy about Nugget, if she wants him she gets him, and then we get to see which other rescue kitten chooses us, I want this scenario, please please please. You may not know this, but I don't broil and baste in anger 24-7, as much as I adore broiling and basting in my anger. Did you know there's a new Swans live album?
Me neither, the fuck, I say, but not in anger. My anger. I'm not angry you're not as angry as me, I'm not asking you to be as angry as me, please believe me. My goddamn free blogging platform's blogroll feed is fucked up off and on again and again, I'm impotently furious but not furious enough to consider shuttering this angry goddamn blog, fuck me
Anger trumps despair, rimshot. In all seriousness, anger is holy with silly. Phew, in the ten seconds after bingeing on Swans and Lambchop I gave three seconds thought of giving my sillyass deserted island five game a fresh start I confirmed Swans and Lambchop are permanent members and quit before I started thinking of who once were who wouldn't be now, it wouldn't make me angry but would make me sad, this is new and possibly as good as it is frightening
Way too frequent reminder that when my daughter is my age it will be 2060, the Earth will still be here, will the world? Way too frequent reminder that this and all posts are poems, including and especially the grids
Kurt Wagner writes about the upcoming new Lambchop release *Demoed*
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I never knew what Herman Melville looked like until I was in high school. I just saw a picture in lit class and that was about it, nice beard. Prior to that what Herman looked like was really not essential to my understanding or enjoyment of Moby Dick. It was distracting at best. I thought the work was the important thing. I mean, I still don’t know what Renoir looked like but I bet he had a great beard. Great painter.
I used to fantasize that lambchop would continue as an idea well beyond my participation. Over time we’ve had at least two generations represented. A third now is beginning. And this is important to me, having the unique perspective and contributions from younger artists steering in the work we make. So i thought it would be nice, someday, that i might even step aside to watch and advise from the wings. Having a beard was never considered, but here we are.
This is to say that my idea of moving forward — aging with dignity — involves my disappearing from the notion of being the “dude,” the ego, entity, personality, figurehead, selfie guy, brand image. Who I am physically and how I appear becomes irrelevant. Allowing the concept and work to be the focus. My participation isn’t really necessary in the final presentation. Song writing, “the song” implicitly allows for such a thing, or at least it did before pop culture insisted that it be part of the package. I mean, I get it, why that is and the way things are, but I've always felt it doesn’t have to be so and there’s centuries of precedents to back this up.
Exhibit D: Andrew came up with the idea for a supplement to the new record. To ask artists we admired as both artist people and with unique voices to sing along to the initial guitar demos replacing me, thereby putting emphasis on their voices and the songs rather than my persona’s participation. A remix but backwards. Let’s admit it: Neil Sedaka was kinda goofy, but he sure could write a tune. I’m no Neil Sedaka but I sure can be goofy.
We made a list of people to ask and sent them the demos along with the finished Punching the Clown album. We asked them to keep it simple and not over think it, to keep it in the spirit of what a demo might be. Like a sketch for a painting, a demo. Sometimes they added other elements furthering their artistic involvement. It was their choice, their reaction to the premise and the tune.
Looking at it now, it does seem like one of those tribute records that happen after an artist dies or needs to raise funds for an operation or medical treatment. But I assure you, I am very much alive and all over what you hear here. Unlike cover versions of our songs, these are songs we made — I’m just not the singer. Jake, Haley, Alan, Channy, Dan, Lauren, Jenn, and Mari are.
First released cut⬇Wagner's music permanent seat in MSADI5G, derelict I am w stupidass game
ZOMBIE DANDELIONS
Regan Good
In the Green Associates lot,
horrid buttermilk tubes
loll through the iron gates,
like vein casings for vodka sausages,
wan and white.
These dandies are more monstrous than burdock or hollyhock.
Bigger than the furred buttons found in the lion’s jaw.
The whole lot: a zombie nation of twisted extroverts.
Some wound up like crazy straws or LED lightbulbs.
Once the sun shone through their tubes,
a buttery light from 1974 came on inside each stem.
The light both weakened and fed the dandy as it grew
I am pleased to reaffirm I'm not the drooling fanboy I hope I never will be so I'm disappointed but not surprised I'm underwhelmed by the new Lambchop, as good as it is it hasn't saved me, I wanted it to, you can vouch, my fault for wanting another Bible. < (listen gratis once)> Punching the Clown gets better with each listen to the songs I didn't hear until last Friday but my favorite songs had already been pre-released. Unslayed, me, that's my complaint. Only me can save fucking me. Fine metaphors abound
AT FIRST I THOUGHT I WOULDN'T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT IT
but then I thought keeping quiet about it might appear even ruder. At first I thought I had died and gone to heaven but that scapegrace the unruly sun informed me otherwise.
I am in my heavyset pants and find this occupation of beekeeping charming though I have yet to meet my first bee. We don't know if I get to keep the hat and veil.
"Too hot," he said: "Too hot for everything!" He so caring, so mundane. "...to have you on board." Bulgarian choirs everywhere stood up and sang the song of the rent. It was lovely. Now I shall take a short vacation, proof that I am needed here. Nobody wants my two cents
anymore, I believe. To some it was like skating in summer. A small turret perched over the lake. It exploded. That's the way I feel about people taking me out to some nice repast, and afterwards you go home and go over everything that was stated. I prefer flowers and breathing.
Not reactivating My Sillyass Deserted Island Five Game beyond elevating Lampchop, who may already have a permanent seat, who remembers? from one of the permanent rotating members to an irrevocable permanent seat, Lambchop, the only drug that eases my bouts of dark despair at my dearth of hope for my daughter's life in the clusterfucked world I leave her (and I find myself wishing often for an on/off switch I could flip so I won't be a geriatric burden while she navigates the constantly worsening gruesomeness of the United States of Assholes). How's that for a Blog Days of Summer in a dying Stringtown, Blegsylvania post for you?
Gets better, me, every time I listen to that song. When my daughter is my age it will be 2059, the earth will still be here, will the world? The blog is getting more bot pings than ever, I told a friend, and what's truly weird now is that the latest mass sweep is not coming from the giant AI-shitlord bot farms but from seemingly private citizens on their home's local internet providers
each looking at an archived old post, is creepy, and my friend said, you know every fascist overlord and their shock troops are documenting and hording every nasty thing you say about them and I said yes, I'm counting on it, it's the only on/off switch I can contemplate enabling now even if I'm not the one that will throw *that* switch. More damning evidence of my treasonous opinions in grid below, but first
Too many people do not understand that Dump's Army is double-dipping with immigrants, it thrills the bass and just as importantly trains and gives ICE live target practice for when they're coming at you after the imminent coup
I am 9/10ths of the way through Henry James' *The Ambassadors* and will finish it tomorrow if I don't today so the burden of honoring a promise to living and dead former English professors and current and past friends will be honored, and get this, I will read another, though James' misuse of pronouns (any *she* referred to is not necessary the one I was taught it should be - I can only think this is intentionally muddying) is annoying as fuck. More signs of our coming apocalypse - it's closer and coming faster than most of yinz think, yo - embedded, along with the rest of the monologue (whether this gag is temporary or permanent until it isn't TBD) in the grid. Tropical Storm Bertha? Sweet, this will be in my head the next few days
Also too, three days from today is this shitty blog's domain renewal date, nothing has changed payment-wise at my end and though the blogging platform continues self-enshittification apace I expect them to take my money and renew me another year, but if I'm not here Saturday.... Hey! Lambchop has released a third song from upcoming album *Punching the Clown,* full album drops a month from yesterday
Strange world that my yodels haven't changed but more colleagues and friends and family members no longer think I'm so batshit crazy. Required gag: when my daughter is my age it will be 2059, what world?
Shitlords are happy to waste trillions of dollars on the Iran War if it helps speed up the dismantling of Social Security and Medicare and every fucking thing in the safety net plus the theft of every peasants retirement funds, I said to my ex-polisci professor and friendly acquaintance and for the third time in a row after calling me smart but batshit crazy for decades he said I'm probably right
Among the dead I cannot find you. Let me rest here a minute beneath these six leaves, crippled tree slightly taller than I am in a Manhattan sidewalk like a streetlamp in a forest where I'm lost.
