who is more moral?
the one who preaches the moral,
or the one who attempts to live the moral
and fails.

what is more pretty?
a dog licking its own feces,
or a model covered in makeup
walking down an aisle.

when does this end?
when one clock chimes at midnight,
or when i look out over the bridge
above a ravine
and jump.

when will one side claim victory?
the general will stand on a hill
and watch his army decompose,
or the rats will infest my small abode.

talking never solved any problems.
it was just talking about problems
until they weren't problems.

i have anger waiting to tear itself from my skin,
but i laugh instead.
i laugh so loud
that the man in the next apartment knocks
on my door and asks me what is wrong.

remember when you encouraged me to enlist in the army
and later i found out you were fighting for the other side?

remember when i fell asleep and woke up
and you were there and we feel asleep?

i say i do unto others as i would
hope they would do unto me,
but then again i don't know what they would do
unto me.

retrospectively, it is much easier to regret
the choices we made and the reasons why
we made them.

but then it is in retrospect
that we realize that we are
dwelling in a strange period in space and time.

Carbon Leaves (Mind Autumn)

   When spring comes violent from the chimneys

Of winter locker, the maids, honey blonde

Chords of Irish skein, sterilize the sanitariums

Until the chemicals make all blind, I tell—

   The sickly hounds and wolves, from stick and city,

untrimmed filthies and frothing cages of  brittle bone,

Shake in circles from the cold,

                                                and the washing rain

Under the newly sprouted leave fingers of trees—

For the past, the carbon leaves of color die to wind,

                                                vain memories,

Wilt and succumb to the hungry mouth of soil

                                                Or sink in sea.

The top side of leaf sees the sky,

The bottom sees the canines shake—

In the rain,

By the cold,

(when all shake their heads

            In fear disguised for sympathy)

the belly of the leaf sees the

                                    Heavens

And the sunned topside sees the

                                    Beasts—

   The sanitarium is a church of suckling and

Vivid impulse, prostrate in

Hay, through worn and

Wooden pews

            With thousands kneeling in prayer

            With the wind chiming sins escaping

            from tops of the canines’ heads howling—

   To the confessional with the maids

To the confessional with the priest

To the confessional flooded with rain

And Lilly pads of carbon leaves

   At the confessional door,

With the confessional door opened,

The sanitarium becomes

                                    beautiful and filthy

In the escaping flow of maiden, beast, and

   Many carbon leaf.

off the cuff, after Precious

when your eyelids start to close

i begin to think that

you'd be better off dead.

but probably

that faint smell of roses

that you leave in your wake

is a clear indication

that something stickier

is on the loose,

that

something runnier

something funnier

something sunnier

something that sins and gins more

something that blings and wins more

something that shiny new things more

something that wines and dines more

something that holds open the door

something that fucks on the floor

something that eats my roar

something that chews my lore

something that sucks my whore

and sucks and sucks until i'm so(a)r(e)

-ing

that's what I want.

and THAT is what I'm ready for.

a haiku poem

two days from right now

a tiger takes a bite out

of the gleaming jungle.

shaking in boots,

alone: the way the willow cries.

it is a long way home .

the underbelly

of the thundercloud is black,

weighted by fire and brimstone.

the roof caves inward,

the room emits a low moan.

a child falls asleep.

Margaret Little (AKA "the golden age when you could smoke inside")

Margaret was twenty-nine years old when she decided she didn't really care for her life anymore. She had given her job (a boring mix of shuffling papers, sitting at a desk, and occasionally walking through hallways) its fair shot. Her boyfriend had offered his hand in marriage, but four years had gone by and she was still working at the office, hating life, and wondering whether she should still be wearing a ring on her finger.

Her birthday didn't really mean much to her anymore. Today was her birthday. She sat at her desk in front of a Macintosh computer with a big Apple logo on the side, a black screen, and text rambling across it as if it were a foreign language. Dust and smudges could be seen on the monitor, while the computer hard drive was rumbling quietly next to her feet.

The clock to her right said 5:20 but she was fairly certain that it was 6:20. The clocks had changed recently, but some of them sat unchanged due to the fact that no one had bothered to walk to her corner of the office to change them. As for her, it didn't really matter whether it was 5:20 or 6:20.

That night she sat at home reading the newspaper in front of the television. Mark was out with friends at a sports bar, watching the Pistons play the Bullets. He had told her that he would make it up to her by taking her out the following weekend, but she probably didn't believe him.

At midnight she went to bed. When she woke up the next morning he was lying next to her, although he was facing away from her. She smoked a cigarette in bed and then she took a shower. She was supposed to meet with an old friend from college for lunch, and she didn't really care if Mark was awake when she left.

She made herself scrambled eggs for breakfast and she also ate half of a cold blueberry muffin that was left over from the previous weekend. As she washed down the muffin with a cup of decaf she realized that it was no longer her birthday. She was no longer twenty-nine. She played around with her hair for a minute and then got up and brushed her teeth.

She got into her car and drove to the nearby commercial area. She filled her car up with gas, which took longer than she had hoped because the first pump she pulled up to wasn't working.

The diner at which she was meeting her friend Jake was situated almost a hundred yards away from the road. It fit nicely in a small shopping complex in between a Friendly's ice cream restaurant and Christian bookstore. She looked at the clock in her car and noticed that she was half an hour early, so she decided to check out the Christian bookstore.

Inside the store there were cassette tapes of lots of contemporary Christian rock groups, but Margaret hardly recognized the names of any of the groups except for U2. She had liked U2 when she was younger, but now she yawned as she looked at their cassette tape. The store also contained several books that she had read as years before, such as the Chronicles of Narnia and Johnny Cash's autobiography Man In Black. There were also lots of different versions of the Bible, all in different colors.

After several minutes of bored browsing, Margaret went outside and smoked a cigarette. She looked inside the diner and saw that Jake wasn't there yet. A toy store was open at the other end of the shopping complex, so she decided to see what was in it.

The store was filled with action figures and toy cars and dolls and doll houses, assorted board games for children and also several of the newer games such as Oregon Trail that people could play on their desktop computers. Margaret went over and played with a puzzle called the Rubik's Cube, which was a cube that contained various smaller cubes of different bright colors that had to be moved around in order to have the same color cubes for each side of the cube. It was a bit mesmerizing but also boring after a while and she put it back on the shelf. She also played around with an Etch-and-Sketch, which produced about the same results for her.

She exited the toy store and made her way back over towards the diner. Her friend Jake could now be seen inside the diner, sitting at a booth and skimming the menu. Margaret opened the door to the diner and made her way over to the booth.

"Hi, Jake," she said.

"Hey Marge!" he said.

He got up and gave her a hug and she sat down and they stared at each other for several seconds with shit-eating, shy grins on their faces.

"Sorry, I was late," she said, "I got her a few minutes ago and you weren't here so I decided to look around the stores."

"Finding anything interesting?" asked Jake.

Margaret was in a brief daze as she surveyed the menu.

"Marge?"

"What?" she said, "No, I didn't find anything interesting. This area sucks."

"Yeah," he said, "I generally don't care for suburbs. I prefer either the country or the city."

"Me too. But I live here."

"Me too."

They looked at the menus for several minutes, and Jake made several remarks about dishes that he either found interesting, random, or cliché. Margaret smoked a cigarette and gave brief answers to his comments on the cuisine. After several minutes a waitress walked up to their table. She seemed to be somewhat forcing her smile.

"Hi, my name is Carmella. Do you know what you would like today? Our soups of the day are clam chowder and vegetable, and coffee is only 25 cents a cup until two."

"I will have the half-pound bacon-cheese burger with tomatoes and mayo, and Pepsi to drink," said Jake.

"Would you like chips or fries," asked the waitress.

"Chips."

The waitress wrote this down and then turned to Margaret: "And for you, ma'am?"

"I will have half a panini with ham, salami, cheese, and prosciutto. And a glass of 7up to drink," said Margaret.

"Would you like chips or fries," asked the waitress.

"Fries," said Margaret.

When the waitress returned with their drinks they each took a sip and then Margaret lit a cigarette.

"Hey, do you think I could bum one of those off you?" asked Jake.

"Of course."

She handed him her pack and he took out a cigarette and she lit it for him.

"Did you quit smoking?" asked Margaret.

"Yes, well cigarettes at least. I still smoke a cigar every once in a while with these assholes from my job that I play cards with, but in general I no longer smoke. But I like smoking, but there is just too much anti-smoking information out there these days. My girlfriend would kill me if she knew I was smoking right now."

"Yeah," said Margaret, "who is this girl of yours again?"

"She works for Proctor and Gamble, that is about all I know. She went to Penn State for college, and majored in political science."

Margaret took a couple of drags off her cigarette.

"She is fun to be around though, unlike a lot of people."

"I wish I could say the same about my boyfriend," said Margaret.

"Aren't you engaged to him now?"

"I have been for several years now," said Margaret, "But it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. I don't really know why I am still with him. I don't know what I am doing anymore."

She let out a laugh that rang with sarcasm, and he did the same.

"What are you doing for a job now?" she asked, "You had been working for your father's bank hadn't you?"

"Yeah, but they got bought and I didn't like my new boss so I quit. Now I am working for a publishing company."

"Cool."

"What are you up these days? Besides living with your boyfriend or fiancé or whatever..."

"I work at a marketing information systems office, but I am hoping to get some jobs writing in the future. I can't work in an office for much longer or else I will kill myself."

"Yeah, me neither."

"Do you still talk to Robert or Sandy or Alison much anymore?" asked Margaret.

"I talk to Robert sometimes," said Jake, "He still smokes pot a lot, I think, but he seems to be doing okay. He is working for a small advertising agency that is based somewhere in Ohio."

"Yeah, I talk to Alison sometimes on the phone. She says pretty much the same thing about him."

"What is Alison doing these days?"

"Working as a paralegal at a law office in New York."

"The city?"

"Yeah."

Their food arrived and Margaret put out her cigarette in the ashtray. It was the third cigarette she had since she had been sitting there.

The prosciutto on her sandwich was a bit too thick and it made it hard for her to chew it as quickly as she would have liked. Jake had already finished half of his burger before she had even taken three bites of her sandwich.

"What is up with women watching their weight?" she asked Jake.

"I don't know," he said, "I wonder that all the time."

"Yeah."

"Aren't you watching your weight right now?" he asked, pointing to her half sandwich.

"I guess so. No, I'm not. I'm just not hungry. I had breakfast before I came her."

"Oh," said Jake.

She looked back down at her sandwich and took a bit and then she washed it down with 7up. They each concentrated on their food for a few minutes.

Jake finished his burger within a couple of minutes. After Margaret had eaten the last bite of her sandwich that she was going to eat (she usually left the crust alone) and gotten a refill on her drink ("Excuse me, can I have some more 7up?"), she lit a cigarette.

Remnants of cooked potatoes and processed meat were sitting patiently on their plates. They each sat back and in the booth, leaning against the leather, adjusting their pants, sighing, and slightly flexing their stomachs.

"I've missed you," said Margaret.

"I've missed you, too," said Jake.

They sat in silence for a few moments. Margaret would stare at her mostly empty plate and then glance quickly at Jake, and she would see that he was doing the same.

"How long are you in town for?" asked Margaret.

"I will be here for the rest of the week, because my hotel is here. But I will be heading into the city tomorrow and most of the other days in order to meet with clients."

Margaret nodded her head a bit and twisted her lips upward as if to show that she understood this information.

"We should hang out again while I am here though, of course," said Jake.

"Yeah," she said, "Do you want to hit up a bar or something in awhile later?"

"That'd be nice," he said.

The Pink Floyd song "Another Brick on the Wall" was playing softly against the backdrop of the lame buzz of conversations and cooks and waitresses and the cashier shouting inside the diner. Jake scratched his eyes. For some reason, this made Margaret angry, and she felt like slamming his face against the table. She sat back in the booth and massaged the leather seat with her hand.

"Do you know of any good bars around here," asked Jake, "I haven't been here in years, and back then I didn't have enough money to really 'hit up' bars too often."

"There is a nice Irish-themed bar on the other side of town, and there is also a stupid cheap bar right down the street from here," she said.

"Is the Irish bar actually Irish or does it just act Irish?" asked Jake.

"I think it might be actually Irish. Or Irish-American or whatever."

"Okay. Cool."

They told their waitress they did not want dessert and they paid their bill. Outside the clouds were beginning to coalesce into dark gray pillows, and the sun was no longer as bright as it had been that morning. Margaret lit a cigarette and walked over to her car.

"What are you doing now?" asked Jake.

"I think I am going to go home and do my laundry, and then hopefully I will be able to continue reading this book that has been sitting on nightstand for the past couple weeks."

"What book?"

"It is called Women. It is by Bukowski. I don't know if I like it."

"Sounds okay."

"What are you going to do now?" she asked.

"I think I am going to go to my hotel and prepare for a meeting I have tomorrow, but I will give you a call in a few hours or so, okay?"

"Okay. Bye."

"See you later."

The drive back to her house was boring and dramatic. She was happy to see Jake, and it made her realize she needed to leave her fiancé and find something new. But she also was bored, because she had spent several years with Jake when she younger. She had gotten bored eventually of being around him, and she figured that she might get bored again if she spent too much time with him or kept in too close of a contact with him or whatever.

The song "Don't Let's Start" by They Might Be Giants was playing on the radio. She hated that song so she switched the station to NPR but she hated that too so she flipped around at random until she go to the black people station. She didn't know what song was playing, but for some reason it made her think of sex.

When she arrived home she put her laundry in the washer and turned on the television. She watched an infomercial for a few minutes until she realized she was falling asleep. She smoked a cigarette and then she pulled her pants down and began stroking her clit. She inserted several fingers and kept rubbing her vagina until she was sufficiently wet. Then she smoked another cigarette.

Around five she got a call from fiancé Mark saying that he would be home later than expected that evening. He said she could go ahead and eat if she was hungry, or if she wasn't they could make dinner later that night. She said she would make herself something to eat because she was meeting an old friend later at a bar. He didn't seemed to care and she said goodbye and he said goodbye and then she hung up.

She wondered whether he was having an affair and then she realized that she didn't really care.

She made herself a salad and coffee for dinner. For several hours she sat in front of the television; she would turn it off and try to read her book but that wouldn't work and then she would turn it on again and stop reading and then she would turn it off again and try reading again.

At 8:30 or so she got a call from Jake saying that he had just finished dinner and was wondering whether she still wanted to get a drink. She said "yes" and gave him directions on how to get to the Irish-themed (or perhaps actually-Irish) bar. They agreed to meet in half an hour.

On the ride over to the bar she put in a cassette tape of the new album by Sonic Youth. She stroked her hair and looked at herself in the rear-view mirror. When she arrived at the bar there were about a dozen people there, mostly men who had just gotten off work at the port but also several slutty-looking women who were older than here who were either talking in gossip-like conversations or hitting on the men from the port. She sat down in the middle of the bar.

On the television the Detroit Pistons were playing the Chicago Bulls. Margaret didn't know the stake of the game, but she figured it might be the playoffs because it was May and that was usually what happened this time of year (most of the boyfriends she had ever had had been fairly avid basketball fans). She noticed Michael Jordan as he was shown in close-up. He looked intense. Words flashed across the screen before a commercial saying that this was "Game 1". On a television at one end of the bar there was a baseball game playing as well.

When Jake entered the bar several minutes later she finished her drink and said hello. He was wearing a different and nicer shirt then that afternoon and he had on nicer pants. The shirt was flannel and the pants were Levi's or something, but they looked a bit too small or tight on him.

"Sorry to keep you waiting," he said, "I had to call my mom to check in. I hadn't called her since last week."

"How is she doing?" asked Margaret.

Jake raised his eyebrows to himself and let out a small sigh before he said, "She is doing okay. She bitched to me about my dad some and asked me what I was doing here."

"Sounds like fun," said Margaret.

"What are you drinking?" he asked.

"I just had a vodka-tonic. I was thinking of ordering another one."

Jake got the attention of the bartender and ordered himself a whiskey-soda before also ordering her another vodka-tonic.

"This isn't really too much of an Irish bar," he said, "They have a Notre Dame pennant, that makes sense, and a bunch of Yankees bullshit, that doesn't make sense. I also have no idea who any of the people are in those photos."

"You recognize Jack Nicholson, don't you?" she said, "Or what about Flannery O'Connor?"

"Oh yeah, I see him. But is he Irish? Hold on, where is Flannery O'Connor? " They each laughed. "I guess there is a lot of green and stuff in here, too. Like look at that neon green lamp over there. You don't see that everyday."

"Yeah," said Margaret.

"So did you eat dinner?" he asked.

"Yes, I had a salad or something. I was going to eat with Mark but he had to stay later at work."

"Bummer," said Jake, with a hint of sarcasm.

"Yeah."

"Do you have any plans for tonight?" he asked, "It is Saturday night after all..."

"No, I didn't call anybody. I've felt like staying in the past couple of weekends."

"Yeah, sometimes people aren't nice to be around, even if they are nice."

"Yeah," she said.

She was drinking her drink at a fairly fast pace, but so was he. He seemed somewhat interested in the basketball game. He asked her offhand if she cared about the game, and she said "not really."

After they had each finished their drink, they ordered more and Margaret suggested they go sit down at a table.

"I was just tired of both us, mostly you, using the game as a distraction," she said after they were both seated at a table.

"Yeah, televisions shouldn't even be allowed really in public places. People use it as an excuse so that they don't have to interact with other people."

"Exactly," she said.

"What kind of music have you been listening to lately?" he asked.

"Oh, a lot of the same stuff, a lot of older stuff, some new stuff. I guess Sonic Youth is my favorite band, but I have been listening to the Beastie Boys more than I used to also."

"I love that band," said Jake.

"I need to reconnect to music or something," she said, "I think it might help me figure out what I want to do or something."

"Yeah, I can give you some tapes or something," said Jake in an off-hand way.

Margaret lit a cigarette.

"So are you going to...stay with this guy for…how long?" he asked.

"I don't know," she said, "I should probably move out soon and give him an ultimatum or something. Or just leave him."

"Yeah."

"He doesn't really seem to care about anything. Actually, I hardly talk to him frequently nowadays. I think he might be cheating on me."

"That's fucked up," said Jake.

"Yeah, I guess so," she said.

"What do you want to do?" he asked.

"I don't know," she said.

"Can I bum another smoke off you?" he asked.

"Of course," she said. She handed him her pack and laid her lighter on the table.

They each finished their drinks.

"What would you like to drink?" he asked.

"Just get me a class of wine, please," she said.

Jake returned to table with her wine and a glass of scotch for himself. She felt uncomfortable about the fact that he had paid for her last two drinks, but she also kind of liked it.

"Remember that time when we bought a couple grams of coke and went bar-hopping all over the city with Robert and Sarah?"

Margaret laughed. "Yeah, I remember that," she said.

"We were wasted. I remember not paying for half the drinks we had that night. I wonder if anyone ever paid for those."

"Probably not," she said, "It was just really strange going into bathrooms and doing lines and then dabbing our cigs in coke and smoking them and being discreet and not being discreet and everything."

"I think Sarah puked that night," said Jake.

"Yeah, probably," said Margaret.

"I remember Robert going up to some guy that was talking shit about us and almost starting a fight."

"Sounds about right," she said.

"Do you want to go drive around this area of town after we finish this drink?" asked Jake.

"Okay, sure," she said.

They walked outside and got into Jake's car. It didn't make sense, because she didn't even ask why they were getting in his car. It was just an old habit, maybe. Or some type of subtle masculine domination. Being around him was somewhat relaxing and good, but it also made her nauseous. She couldn't stop biting her lip and she felt a headache growing, but it was possible that the drinking caused that.

When they got in the car and Jake started the engine, Margaret could hear the motor. It started much easier than in her car. She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. He turned his head slightly. He looked like a sad puppy who didn't know what to do but deep down knew what he wanted. He took his hand around her head and kissed her back on the cheek. He turned on the radio and began driving down the road.

"Where should we go?" he asked.

"I don't know," said Margaret.

When humans wait to age

Mind the field of ice bobbed
with frozen buoys of elephant heads
half-in, half-out,

which reach to arid night sky;
the try to warm at the touch of a star
tamed and at watch
of God's hovered palm--

plate between the try
and the current reality.
Let me show you this cranberry lake
of meat and time

when humans
wait to age.

Tailed Cock in a Bubble

After time--
the gin blossom grows
when black cherries are
taken from drink.

snake in the grass

there is a heat

behind my temples

and it roars hard:

summer sun on concrete.

i can sit still

or writhe

or waking dream

but nothing seems

to calm the fire within.

i'd like to think that goats

or owls or wiley things will

extract me from the wreckage

but it seems that i must

battle neck and neck

with the greyness shackled

to my footsteps.

perhaps

tomorrow

will be greener

or the submarine

will open up

beneath

the blue

and

let there be light.

but only the rabbit knows--

his warm fur

countering the coldness

in my breast--

his best

defense against

the reappearance

of frost.

Predream

I wanted to tell you I smiled today.

This idea made my lips go:

            left corner up,

            right corner up,

Teeth; soul luke warm in eye water—

            The idea:

            PREDREAM.

Is a reality.

Is a reality of a moment behind

the face of the clock.

Is reality encased in matter.

Is reality measured with

            reality’s measuring tools

            that do not exist.

            PREDREAM:

Certain things do not exist!

            Sharp reality.

Is beautifulality

without the romantic…

Really, it is.

            romanticism:

Is an immunodeficiency

Is a creator of fear, of taboo,

Of unwarranted glory, reward,

Competition,

            time.

Romanticism created/creates time.

            The to do—

Kill romanticism to

take all of its blood.

Fill writing with ugly, human,

time-laden romantic blood

and

Produce the timeless, divine, and

Sublime—…a sharp reality,

The PREDREAM.

Homophobia

Look at those feet go swish switch tap snap up goes the cane down goes the cane over the
neck of the bent stereotype

Look at the child carefully hang from pencil washer string the jar makes candy crystal
needle numbs the memory

Look at the when the stigma was made black monster a marvel a culture feeds and flees

Goddamn thumb up its ass

the internet should be free

Pistols and Artifacts

Pistols and Artifacts

There are collections of pistols

racked in cherry,

mahogany, glass cabinets

owned by men of women—

Polished and loaded

between legs

of wine, dinner parties, cabarets

and the sun’s of a bourgeois

season son.

The collectors watch their cabinet

by night, when

lightning charges

the pistols

in uncanny light;

visible then,

steel pistils in religious right.

Others collect, in cabinet,

only the knowledge

of the Indiana Jones artifact,

repossessed,

for women,

from kingdoms overgrown.

When stigma pawnshops

call in the middle of the night,

the collector sleeps happy

from adventures under the sun.

Inside the cabinets,

women see artifacts taken by

pistols and pistols protected as

artifacts and under the sun,

they shrug, comfortably fond of the

understood flower. 

just found this

tao lin article really cool

chilling in parks

sweating in cities

daytime seemed longer when i was younger

i guess it is sometimes

who was that person

my memory gets clogged sometimes

it is 3:37

yesterday we were in the milky way

am i on the right side of history

actually i dont really care

the other day my leftovers grew some mold

good thing they were in the fridge

minx

sometimes i forget what its like

to be your friend.

you show up with your short skirt

and your red cardigan,

and your complimentary colors.

you take a drag of your cigarette

and you ask me to help you finish

that one project you

just don't

have the time to do.

and i look at you like i recognize you.

and i speak to you like i know who you are.

and i agree to help you

like my car isn't rusting at the edges

like the hedges

don't need a good pruning,

like the wallpaper isn't peeling

like my shadow hasn't felt

like a heavyweight champion lost

at sea, clutching driftwood

staying adrift,

remaining afloat

until land loses its grey fuzz

and with great luck becomes

a sensible, reliable saviour.

you're like the cat around the corner:

always there but never seen.

maybe i'll leave you

a saucer of milk.

maybe i won't.

I Believe We Write God's Mistakes

For years I have watched the rain

run beads down many, many things—

Today I watched one drop

Run so electric

down her chest

I saw

animals

2x2,

crowd her on the deck—

On the couch,

before the fog,

the lamp left,

rainbowed our light

to the right,

and

she will come in from her smoke,

and tell me:

time was written like that.

american stereotype-what i would think of america if i came from another planet and then learned english and was given a weird 50s/60s education

norman rockwell
aaron copland
dwight eisenhower
johnny carson
walter kronkite
baseball
football
people excited about god or jesus on radio or television
george washington

Two Poems

Holy 3-Dimension

Day in day

The wavelength I ride

Goes up and down like

Carousel saddles in the sun

When it buckles

I see

The many colors that make black

When it binds

I feel

The white from every color

Dyed and threaded through

the Eye of an angel

Wasteland, The

The mare slammed her

Foot into the grass of the

Pasture

The dew dropped its

Droplets into the mud of the

Heaven

Spades blossomed, Queens and Kings

Made love and the Jack watched over

Eleven bastard children

Sarah - PayPal :
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You :
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you sound like a parrot, you know?

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Interview with Mick Jagger, 1970

 

Mick Jagger lifts his cigarette to his mouth and sucks from his bike tube lips.  He flippantly puts his knee up to his chest and then puts it back under the table before he takes a drink of coffee.  I don’t want to start the interview until he finishes his cigarette, he doesn’t look ready to talk about music and I thought he’d rather be 6 inches up a girl than sitting with me.  Fortune gave me this interview with him, getting the interview while he was still in New York only happened because I promised him good coke if he ate eggs with me.  I don’t have any coke but I’m waiting to tell him this until the end.  This diner won’t hold his pompous blow up when he finds out.  It’s raining out and he still has sunglasses on.  This kid doesn’t know left from the bottom of a bottle and he is the swinging sex symbol of America, the accented punk that makes the girls like spring morning grass?  I can’t tell if he’s looking at me but he looks like he wants to tell me something and I doubt it is his opinion of the eggs.

            “I was in the fuckin’ basement when I came to, man,” he said.  I turned on the recorder and tried to look at him like it didn’t matter that I could finally get the check from my editor. 

            “Which city were you in?” I asked.

            “I didn’t know at the time, man, but I know now it was Detroit.  It was after a show.  The basement was pitch black except for some light from a lamp. I was sweating so much I thought it was raining in the basement.  I was, like, where the fuck am I? You know?  No one was there and I was in some basement that had a dirt floor.  I was caked in it.  All I had on were pants, man.”

            “That must have been pretty startling,” I said.

            “It was, man.  There was nothing in this basement but a shovel and a box the size of a freezerbox full of photos.  I was shakin’ and I needed somethin’ to drink, I had dirt all in my mouth.  There weren’t any steps up from the basement.  There was a metal ladder up through a hole in the floor.  I climbed up into the kitchen and still no body was there.  All the windows were boarded up but I looked through a crack in one and saw I was in a neighborhood that scared the shit out of me.  Just empty lots, junk in the yards, and the sky greyer than I had ever seen it.  Listen, man, I’ve done a lot of shit, seen a lot of shit, but never had I been so fuckin’ scared for my life.  I just had a feeling I was a dead man. I had no idea where anybody was, man, I had no idea where I was or what the fuck had happened to me the night before,” he said.  He lit another cigarette and leaned forward on his elbows.  The white t-shirt he had on had a hole in the chest pocket from the corner of his cigarettes.  His fingers nails were long and he had a habit of picking his teeth with his pinky when he wasn’t smoking.

            “So I went to the front door.  There was nothing in this house, man.  The furniture had been burnt and trash was everywhere.  A piano missing the two front legs was in front of the front door but that didn’t even matter because the door was boarded up from the outside.  Every window was boarded up.  All I wanted to do was get out.  Then I heard someone smash a lot of glass up stairs.  I mean it was violent. Crash! And then they started pounding on the walls or something but it scared the shit out of me.  I was so high…”

            “I thought the Rolling Stones made a public statement that they don’t do drugs?” I said.

            “Who the fuck are you?  Smart question.  We don’t use drugs,” he said.  “Anyway, you want to hear the story or not?”

            “Yes, please continue,” I said. 

            “I was freakin’ out, man.  I had never been so scared.  I had no out and I wasn’t about to die in some fuckin’ dump for nobody to find me.”

            “Why were you so afraid your life was at risk?” I asked.

            “Because I was still so high I get, you know, all paranoid like, and you think the worst, man.  So I ran back down the ladder to the basement.  I didn’t know what to do.  I thought I’d dig my way out so I took the shovel and started digging as fast as I fucking could.  I got tired really quick and because I thought someone was coming after me I sat in the half dug foxhole and buried myself as much as I could, man.  I only got my legs buried but I thought that was good and I sat holding the shovel, watching the hole in the floor.  I went into a trance staring at that hole, man.  I thought to myself, I’m a fucking savant.  I’m so far gone that I have brilliance that only one in a million have.  Then my mind just goes, you know?  I start thinking I have a soul unfit for the body and I am everything.  I knew at that point I was an angel and all I wanted to do was paint.  You know you get that urge just to do something?  I just wanted to paint.  I thought I was the only one who could’ve created myself, I knew that I had painted myself alive.  I was going like that until Keith stepped down onto the ladder.  He was naked and holding a shotgun.  He goes, ‘Mick, you down there?  Let’s get the fuck out, we need to get to the plane man!’  Can you believe that?”

            “No, that’s pretty remarkable,” I said and took a sip of my coffee.  This kid thought he just told me the greatest story there ever was.

            “Alright, man, I’m leaving.  Don’t fuck yourself up, Matty,” he said.

            “It’s Malakai,” I said.

            “Right.”  He assaulted the waitress with his gaze and walked out.  I was supposed to make an interview out of that.  I was going to tell my editor I quit and go back to teaching Marx at the community college.

a new poem

i have nothing to say.

butter rum bean

From the floor up the maple glow of the veneered bar swam and swam.  I took her by the waist and led her to the dance floor.  She stood herself ready before me and the music poured into the maple glow and the smoke grew thick.  Her hand was on my shoulder and our right hands held fast and we made a ship and wandered through the maple music sea.  It was dark and the maroon carpet walls muffled the scrapes of our feet and the music swallowed our dash across the maple sea.  The voice of Blake poured from the jukebox and the smoke rose as the music filled the room.  We wandered and steered our ship through the waves and nothing existed outside us and the maple glow of Blake’s bass voice and the neon firelight and the dancing fingers of the dark.  I felt not her and she felt not me and no longer did we need to breath because the music took us far into the maple sea.  The bartender made the last call from the house of glass and light and mirror behind bar.  We steered our ship from the dance floor to the dark fingers at the shore of the maple sea.  We were heaven’s butter rum bean pebbles anchored for away from the maple glow of the sea that filled that moment.   

the skin on the back of my neck tingled as i stared into the fire.

james sat in a chair snoring with his mouth wide open.

i peeled a banana and opened my book.

the dim light of the evening was all but gone and only the burning fire provided me with light.

i was reading a book by goethe and the sentences seemed to blur together.

"i only wished i had never known her."

"the clock on the mantle said midnight."

an extreme wave of boredom was settling over me so i slapped myself in the face.



i opened my phone and played poker for half an hour.

the wind outside was whipping the tree branches against our loft.

in the room down the hall i could hear my other roommate mark having sex with his girlfriend.

i tried to concentrate on my book, so that it would not seem obvious that their intercourse was audible.

a half-eaten corn cob sat on the table next to me.

i picked it up and examined it.

i stared at it for several minutes.

it showed no sign of life.

Inginio, el chori, llevando totomoxle a los toros de lel carnaval en San Francisco Cajonos, Oaxaca Mexico.

El Torito Encoetado en el primer dia de la fiesta de Xagacia, Oaxaca, Mexico.

sublime form

I would like to dedicate this poem to me

writing only because I want to write beauty

and not because I have beauty to write.

Charlie Bukowski didn’t think of the beauty

that he had in his life. 

He didn’t think he

had any so he wrote because he was good at

writing.  He didn’t fool anyone. He didn’t

have anyone to impress.

He did what he wanted

when he wanted and he was a sexist, alcoholic

bigot and the people worshipped him for it.

I do not worship him but I take a knee in his

presence and read the ink he wrote

over gold letters

like the bible. 

I want to go back and

delete everything in this poem that does not make

it edgy and ugly like Bukowski.  I think I have many

people to impress if I only write for those wanting to

be impressed.  All I would have is sheep when

I am not a Shepard. 

I am North of salvation. Sounds beautiful

but what the fuck does it mean? Nothing,

so I impress the reader by drawing back to the only

line that has worked so far:

I do not worship him but I take a knee in his

Presence and read the ink he wrote

over gold letters

like the bible. 

This poem is growing fatter

though I have fed it nothing. Simile. Metaphor.

I write for that audience I have created that will only

ever be impressed and confused.  I invite that audience

to my greatest reading in a great beautiful hall. I burn

the hall into scorched velvet and crispy grasshoppers.

I no longer have an audience.

I will never again have

an audience I trust.  I cannot trust what I don’t create.

When I trust what I create its not trust.  The mercy of

the real is there to absorb you and critique you until

all but honesty is left of you.  And even then its not

good enough.     

El Saber

Sabiendo que alguna vez
Te pude conquistar
Hoy que nos vemos alejando
Sabrás que no fue sola

Mi culpa

Cuando al verme
Envejecer no podrás
Ni complacer
Mi ultimo deseo

Y dirás

Que algún día
Fuimos el último deseo
Que complacimos
Hasta el último deseo

De aquel distante futuro

Aun que no quieras ser
Mi penúltimo querer
Quisiera que por hoy
Pudieras reconocer

Mi conocimiento

Y que sepa el público!
Que algún día te conquiste
Que algún día fuiste mía
Que algún día te conocí

Y que algún día
Nos encontraremos

Mi Señora

Después de haber
Compadecido con tu querer
Quisiera simplemente pedir
Que por un segundo

Pretendas entender

Haber complacido
Todos tus nacimientos
Todos tus últimos deseos que hoy
Ni tú sabes reconocer

Y menos responder

Quisiera que pudieras
Complacer mí un deseo
Mi último ruego
Que seas primeramente

Una señora

Que por último
Y primero
Pongas por
Delante

de Todos los demás

Una sonrisa

having left the table, reassessing now after the tide has turned, has always been tricky
it is precisely for this reason, and others like it, that i left in the first place
sure i have meant what i have said, occasionally, but how is that any better
so we'll start from block one, hello how are you doing,
yo, me llamo me llamo
tu, te llamas te llamas
i por ti
me ando meando

*the latter is a verso from pinotepa, oax., mexico

existent

For sixteen years I was a tent carny and only the circus knew it.  For those sixteen years I did not know sleep because I snuck away at night to a cubicle in an office in a metal-glass rectangle in the clouds of the night sky.  I worked on the seventy-fifth floor and the street lights below looked like the naked bulbs on the rails of carny rides.  I typed and I typed and I worked fast like Bukowski and made many beautiful reports and graphs and spreadsheets that I collected in a drawer for no one to really read.  I cut my finger one night and typed the reports until the only letters left unprinted were q-z.  I worked alone while a black man cleaned the office floor.  I told him he should work for the circus.  He told me this was his circus.  I asked how that was possible and he said he could not afford the circus.  I told him that when I was a kid I dreamed of sneaking away to work in the office during the hours of the night so I could feel time in my heart like cold plums between my toes and know wine like the poet and women like a titan.  He said his balls hurt because he had 20 year old jizz in there that he could not get out.  He said he did not know the taste of wine but only the feeling.  He said a doctor told him how much time was in his heart. I told him to go to the circus.  He told me that he was at his circus.  How do you explain to a man who thinks the circus is all around him that the circus cannot be sufficed time nor hidden from the eyes?  How do you explain that the circus is the only thing a man should truly appreciate in life?  He told me that if the circus was the only thing a man could appreciate in life then he’d appreciate his life.  I asked if I could try on his spectacles.  He allowed me and I saw some exotic place I had never seen before.  To my left there were lions with teeth and beards and elephants with skirts.  I had never seen this before.  I asked him what it was that I saw.  He said it was the circus.  I looked again.  There were clowns in pastel body paint drinking liquor from bottles and the most beautiful women I have ever seen with six arms and two breasts.  This is what you see? I asked.  This cannot be the circus I said.  I work at the circus in the day and sneak away to the office to write many beautiful reports all night.  He said I was right, I worked for the circus during the day.  He asked for his spectacles back.  There were all my beautiful reports in front of me and my city below me asleep.  I thought how much longer I had until morning and had to return to the circus.  My heart beat and I could not remember what the circus looked like or where to go or how to get there or who I was there and for the first time I considered the oddity of waking to resume my job at the circus that was never there.

dichtomies/mochotomies

extroverted/introverted

shy/asshole

pale/dark

bland/any rand

white/blue

everyday/anyday

beginning/end

arcade fire/pink floyd

mike/micah

noah's ark/flooded deserts

cherries/peanuts

aids/herpes

optional/questionable

rational/imaginative

dreams/nigthtmares

andrew worthington/andrew duncan worthington

narcissicism/indulgence

loco! coco? whatever

laws and laws and claws and clause and time and clocks and cocks and tick and tocks and waits and gates and almost completely make believed you were my mate and fate and not fate and cash and change and splashing water or deranged tame and semi-sane or semi-insane.

i went to the bike store to buy a bike and all i got was a chain that broke and then i woke from my dream and realized it was my dad's car and i was speeding down the interstate from ohio to michigan and the sky was that kind of gray-pink hue that looks how puke would look if it were beautiful. i ate a few clementines and walked around a graveyard which sat across from a high school football stadium and then i yawned and fell asleep by the grave of a guy who served in the spanish-american war.

bill clinton was president when i first realized how babies were made. i shoved my penis against the bed and tried to make an inanimate baby. i wanted to make a friend to cuddle with. my mom took me to church the next morning and i ate doughnuts in sunday school. i prayed to god for guidance with my erections and fantasies. that was around the time that i stopped beliieving in santa claus, or even the spirit of santa claus, although i guess santa claus is okay.

i stared smoking cigartettes because i wanted to look cool and get fucked up in a very minimal way. i stopped smoking cigarettes because some things never end. when my great-grandfather was 29 he rode broncos and when turned 30 he was in africa killing beasts that got in his way as he walked along dirty muddy paths. he smoked dutch tobacco. sometimes he rolled it into cigarettes and sometimes he put it in a pipe.

the second time i awoke from my dream there were loud drums playing futuristic primitive beats in a big grassy field. everyone was taking their science text books and throwing them in a large fire. i watched with great interest and had sporadic spontaneous grins slash across my face. it is a disgrace the apathy and disregard we have for ourselves and all those who attempt to preach to us. as for me, i say "fuck the preacher" and "fuck the teacher", but i am using the word "fuck" in a very ambiguous sense. you must have sexual relations with them in some way even if it is only in your own person. but you also have to kill them, so i leave the big decisions up to you.

one should either learn to lock their door or close their unlocked door or lose their love for the possessions that own their life.

in the middle of the night i dreamt of my best friends from the university all stoned and moaning in a mansion in the french countryside that had been turned into an opium den. sex was veery casual and fun. staring was a good experience too, although that one was still fun after the drugs wore off, i think. everything made sense to me for a little bit, and then i realized i was dreaming awake.

zapruder zeppelin

How the voices of friends change

On the radios.  I am everything not

War so I wish to join the ranks of

Murder. The radiation of death I

Want personally, the gun powder

Burnt nostrils and untethered pulse,

The black eye and purple muscle.

Punched silver and eggplant may

Be my only chance, i.e. parri

Passu for the word lover’s at bat.

Weak from concussive plumes of

Smoke, Ginsberg’s book duc-taped to

my chest, I run ‘til I feel nothing

in my wake and step. All shrapnel,

Every bullet, I call by name, every

Criticism stopped between pages

600 and 9-fifty, one index from any

artery.  When I’m ready, may I grow

not into washable chalk lilacs or such,

but nature  alive for the wind. Like

no one before me, I make my own

in this war and suffering of

depreciated souls, bones, and stripped

locomotives. I don’t want war to be

a thing of the past but an art

that I hate against humanity. I become a

prince of peace, a poet,

my wager as a priest.

poem called "vague/specific populations of various cities"

nyc-8,363,710

mexico city-8,841,916?

tokyo-12,790,000

cuyahoga falls, ohio-50,398

akron, oh-217,074

red hook, ny-10,408

tivoli-ny- 1,163

poughkeepsie, ny-29,871

los angeles-3,833,995

chicago-2,853,114

cleveland-433,748

columbus-754,885

new orleans-336,644

rio de janeiro-6,093,472

washington d.c.-599,657

toronto-2,503,281

montreal-1,620,698

edmonton-730,372

vancouver- 578,041

london-7,556,900

glasgow-580,690

edinburgh-471,650

dublin-505,739

belfast-267,500

manchester-464,200

paris-,203,817amsterdam-762,057

waterloo-29,315

cherbourg-

42,318

berlin-3,431,700

budapest-1,712,210

rome-2,730,125

madrid-3,213,271

barcelona-1,673,075

pamplona-197,275

moscow-10,524,400

warsaw-1,711,466

prague-1,242,002

casablanca-3,672,900

st. petersburg-4,661,219

istanbul-12,697,164

cairo-6,758,581

mecca-1,700,000

baghdad-6,554,126

jerusalem-

763,600

tehran-8,429,807

mumbai-13,922,12

kabul- 3,568,500

shanghai- 18,884,600

beijing- 17,550,000

hong kong- 7,055,071

hanoi-6,500,000

saigon-7,123,340

bangkok-9,100,000

sydney-4,399,722

houston-2,242,193

seattle-602,000

san francisco-808,976

miami-

	362,470

venice-florida-21,015

venice-270,660

orlando-230,519

panama city-813,097

santiago-5,278,044

havanna-2,400,300

san juan-422,665

detroit-912,062

pittsburgh-316,718

philadelphia-1,540,351

boston-

	620,535

baltimore-637,455

charlotte-716,874

lynchburg, virginia-72,596

nashville-

	626,144

atlanta-537,958 (

savannah, georgia-132,410

memphis-132,410

bitch poem

looking at you

is like not

cleaning the dirt

from under my nails.

its something i want

to do

but resist doing

because

lately

on most days

i think dirty is better.

but in the end,

i scrape the dirt.

i scrape it all away

until the half-moons

on my smooth nails

glow like the sweat on

your upper lip

when i caught you

in the dark

like a jackal

teeth bared

in the whitenesss

of a lie you won't escape.

don't

you

worry,

darling...

only

your soul

will

suffer

from

the weight

of your

fading shadow.

Fate

"Hey dude, you want a beer?"

"Sure," I said. I had been walking on my way out the party to go home, but I could not refuse a beer. I took the beer from an Asian guy. He was standing against the refigerator that contained the beer. I opened the beer can and nodded at him and said "Thank you."

Outside on the back porch of the house there were several dozen people smoking cigarettes or talking to people smoking cigarettes or standing awkwardly in a circle of conversation and not saying anything. I saw my friend James talking to a couple of girls. I walked over towards him.

"What up dude?" he said when he saw me.

"Not much," I said, "Just chilling."

He introduced me to each of the girls and I told them my name, but then thirty seconds later I realized I had forgotten their names already. They seemed to be talking about Buddhism or something. I stood there and watched. Nothing ever struck my mind in terms of something that would be worthy for me to say.

I scanned the crowd and saw a dude named Ted from a sociology class I had taken the year before. He was talking with a couple other guys. One of the guys was seated at the table. It looked like he was rolling a joint. I walked over and said hi to Ted and then I went inside.

I saw a girl who was a drug dealer in the living room and I asked her if she had any good pills. She said all she had were shrooms and pot.

I said, "Fuck."

The party had seemed to die down somewhat suddenly in the past fifteen minutes. I began to leave the house and on my through the kitchen I saw the Asian dude again. He was still standing alone by the refigerator. It seemed he had decided that his fate for the night was to be the gatekeeper to the beer. He asked me if I wanted another one. I said no. By fate for the night was to go home and sleep alone.

prone

plastic

my stomach did that rumbling thing it does, when it's not really rumbling but more of a dull gurgling emptiness.
except i'm not sure if it's even gurgling. and it's certainly not empty, i guess. not exactly moving, is what i mean, i suppose.
i thought, "sandwich".
i am wearing orange socks, and i walked downstairs in them.
the kitchen was dark, and i opened the fridge without having turned on the lights.
the white light from the fridge made everything inside so colorful yet so bland at the same time.
i forgot why i had opened the door and stared at the contents of the fridge.
heinz ketchup, big and red. that's not what i wanted.
i shut the door.
i turned the lights in the kitchen on and grabbed a plate and two knives, one for the mustard and the other for the mayonnaise.
i started untwisting the twist-tie from the plastic bag of bread. when i was done with that, i pulled at the plastic and it rustled open, revealing another hermetically sealed package with no reasonable way to open it.
i tugged at it. it rustled.
i tried to open it in a way that would force the thin layer of plastic to split. it rustled.
i yanked. it rustled.
it rustled.
i got out the scissors and cut it open.
i slathered my pieces of wholeweat with mayonnaise and mustard. then i wanted to add cheese.
i took the cheese out of the cheese drawer in the fridge (which is also used for cured meats), but it was in shrinkwrapped plastic.
i thought to myself, "i'm too lazy".
i thought to myself, "don't be lazy".
i pulled at the corners of the cheese package. nothing happened.
i used the scissors to cut open the cheese package. the plastic end fell onto the counter.
i pushed the closed end of the cheese package towards the open end. it rustled, but nothing happened.
i pulled at the loose end. it rustled.
i squeezed at the closed end. it rustled.
i used the scissors to open up the packet of cheese and then cut a piece from the block.
i got a ziploc bag out of the drawer to put the cheese into, now that it was opened. it rustled.
i couldn't get the ziplines to match up.
i did only when i pulled it shut from one side to the other.
i opened up the cheese/cured meats drawer and took out some turkey. the first meat i'd eaten in almost a week.
it made me feel bad to think about eating.
i tried to open the ziploc bag of turkey, but instead i ripped the bag.
i took out some pieces of turkey and then put them on to the cheese, which was on the mayonnaise side of the sandwich.
i closed the sandwich with the mustard side.
i squished my hand down into the bread to make the sandwich thinner and less puffy.
i opened the drawer and got a bigger ziploc bag out for the turkey, because i had ripped the one it came in. it rustled.
i flipped the bag around the turkey to push the air out of the ziploc. it rustled.
i opened the refrigerator door and looked down at the vegetables as i slid open the drawer reserved for cheese and cured meats.
i shut the refrigerator and picked up my plate.
i turned the lights to the kitchen off behind me before i walked upstairs.

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Walking through

I opened the door and sat down at a table, or I knocked the table over.

I leaned back in the chair while letting out a sigh of exhaust, or I picked the table back up.

I put my elbows on the table and rested my head against it, or I knocked the table back over.

I turned around to make sure there was no one around me, or I heard someone behind me and stabbed them with a pen.

I turned my attention back on the table because no one was behind me, or I watched as the person behind me died from ink poisoning.

I left the room because I was bored, or I stayed in the room and watched the person die.

I went into another room where I tried to open a can of beans, or I ate the dead person's body.

I couldn't remember how to use a can opener so I yelled for help, or I pooped out the dead person's body.

I was aided by my sister when she heard my yell, or I sat and pooped for several more minutes.

I watched as my sister opened the can for me, or I wiped my ass and flushed the toilet.

I ate all the beans in the can in one gulp and then realized that I hadn't offered any to my sister, or I began to think that I had pooped too soon after eating the dead person's body.

I laughed with my sister about how silly it was to eat so many beans so quickly, or I didn't care how soon I had pooped.

I turned on the radio and my sister looked for a station, or I left the bathroom and walked towards a room with no lights.

I told my sister I had to go poop because of all the beans I ate, or I entered the room and sat down at a table.

When discussing high and low culture it is crucial to also consider the context of the times and the effect they have on culture itself. In our postmodern era, with the media being as it is, accessible to almost everyone in the world and everyone in more developed locales, the distinction between high and low forms of culture has blurred. Instead of separate forms or levels of culture, a global culture is beginning to emerge.
What is “serious music” today? How many people are actually aware of the existence and works of contemporary classical composers? Personally speaking, not many. The majority of people today listen not to music that was painstakingly composed by someone with a pen, staff paper and a piano, but to music that was generated in a matter of hours on sophisticated music software; the popular artist’s voice has been digitally altered and corrected, leaving a song free of even one single mistake. Even composers who write music in a more traditional or classical vein – those who may still be considered part of a more highbrow musical form – use computer programs that can transcribe notes or even create arrangements for an entire orchestra without lifting a finger from the computer’s mouse. The process of creating and the process of listening is no longer wholly tangible, physical. What we have now is a mess of media.
Remember the days of the vinyl record? I don’t, so I’ll stick to talking about tapes and CD’s. Back in the good old days, I remember reading about the release date of my favorite band’s next album in a magazine, being excited about it for weeks beforehand and saving every bit of money I had just to be sure I could go and get it on the day it came out. I would walk back home with the album in my hands; so eager to listen to it I couldn’t help but open it up to admire the artwork on the album leaf and the print on the disc itself. The next part was almost a ceremony. I would walk into my room, cradling my new treasure to my chest, and shut the door behind me. I would turn on my boom box, open the CD tray and then gently remove my shiny new disc from its case before delicately placing it in the stereo. I would hit play, sit back on my bed and listen to the whole album through – or at least until I was interrupted for dinnertime.
This concept will be totally alien to the next generation. They will be so used to having music at their fingertips all the time that they will not even be able to comprehend the rush of frustrated excitement one feels when struggling with the vacuum-wrapped CD case. In fact, it’s getting to be that way already, and the people of my generation are the remnants of those who still remember what it is like to hold music in one’s hands. We do not even have to wait anymore for an album to be released before we can listen to it; there are hundreds, if not thousands, of websites that allow you to download “leaks”, unreleased tracks and/or albums. So, already, the anticipation and eagerness is removed from the listening experience. To add to this, nowadays no one goes to the music store anymore. It’s all on iTunes, so why bother walking down the block? And if you can’t find it on your friendly Apple Corporation music program, it’s on a different website that allows you to download it right away after you punch in your credit card number – we don’t even pay for these things physically anymore. Listening to music on your computer is one thing; at least you have to stay relatively nearby it to be able to hear it. But now that literally everyone has an iPod or some sort of portable music device that allows you to store millions of songs, we all have music everywhere, all the time.
It was always so satisfying for me, once I had amassed enough CD’s to fit into a CD wallet, to flip through my albums, debating which one I felt like listening to. Now I just scroll through my iPod, hoping that I can move my finger fast enough to get from the letter A to the letter L in less than two minutes. The physicality of the music experience is gone, and, I think, some of its value and meaning, too. We don’t listen to music as actively anymore, we merely hear it. We have it playing constantly in so many situations that it is no longer music but instead a sort of comforting background noise. Very rarely do I find the time or the concentration to actually listen to an album anymore. Instead, I play an album while I’m reading for class, checking my email or driving my car. And as much as I enjoy listening to music almost constantly, I feel like my appreciation of it is somewhat lessened through the music’s accessibility.
Things are bringing about change in different ways than iPods and iTunes, though. The Internet is revolutionizing the way we hear and discover music. Websites such as MySpace, Pandora and the Hype Machine are responsible for the emergence of hundreds of thousands of new musicians whose songs are all readily available for instant listening. Anyone with a computer can be a musician, and, through MySpace, the entire world can hear your songs. As fine and good as that may sound – everyone has a chance to be an artist – it is actually destroying music. Music, historically speaking, has come to be well known through its musical value or superiority, not through blog hype. Technological advancements have made things so easy for us we even have our music recommended to us by computer-generated algorithms instead of discovering it for ourselves.
We’ve all seen an image Britney Spears on a can of Pepsi, Justin Timberlake on a Burger King placemat; music in popular culture is no longer about the music, but the money. Pop stars are churned out by major record labels that work with other industries to exploit the artist’s moneymaking potential to the maximum before spitting them out, making way for the next young and beautiful (and most likely not very talented) singer. According to Donald N. Wood, “ours is a post-intellectual era. We are experiencing a cultural transformation that is reversing four hundred years of intellectual evolution.” In an age of globalization, where more people worldwide can more easily recognize Ronald McDonald than their nation’s leader, we are beginning to lose our grip on intellectual value.
High music, such as opera, is today being converted into another moneymaking scheme by the music industry. Take a look at Il Divo , a group of male tenors created by American Idol pop-judge Simon Cowell. Like so many other pop acts today, this group was put together by Sony BMG and paraded around the world singing opera hits. "Popera," as it is called, clearly exemplifies the merging of this once high form of music with a lower, commercialized form. High art is commercialized, too. Museums worldwide with works by famous artists have three-hour lines of Hawaiian shirts and sandals clad tourists waiting to shuffle in not to see the art itself but only to have gone to this famous location. Then, on their way out, after hastily having taken a digital photograph of every piece in the entire museum (which they will most likely never even browse through again), they stop at the gift shop to buy a postcard of a work whose artist’s name they have never heard. High literature no longer exists. Instead, we are left with Tom Clancy bestsellers and books that we buy because Oprah suggests them. We glean our values from the media, basing them upon television and biased news reports. R. Cronk, author of Consumerism and the New Capitalism says, “The traditional cultural values of Western society are degenerating under the influences of corporate politics, the commercialization of culture and the impact of mass media. Society is awakening from its fascination with television entertainment to find itself stripped of tradition, controlled by an oppressive power structure and bound to the credit obligations of a defunct American dream.”
The world is becoming westernized and homogenized, based off the American consumer culture we have all played a part in creating. Having grown up in Thailand, I have seen first hand how Asian popular music seeks to emulate not its own traditional music but that of western, and particularly American, pop music. It is this homogenization of music worldwide that is creating a world culture, and it seems to be following the path that low culture set out for it. This combination of technological advancements, the rise of consumer culture and globalization is driving the general population away from high art, music and literature, and towards a mass-produced and advertised form of culture: our new traditions are emerging.
Even politically speaking, we as a whole feed what is handed to us. There are those of us who may complain, disagree, or even protest, but in general, we do not fight for what we believe in on a large scale. We have seen the effects of war and fighting on our country and others’, but today we do not speak up for ourselves. If you compare my generation to that of the youths in the late 60’s and early 70’s who actively sought change in the nation, we are doing nothing to combat the problems we face in this world. Instead, we write in our blogs about how terrible the state of international affairs is before we pop in a microwave meal and settle down in front of the television for tonight’s E! Top Hollywood Stories. We have reached a point in time where things have become so easy for us all we have to worry about is ourselves. This collective narcissism that we have only recently established on our planet is what is causing the decay of our collective intellect. We, through consumer culture, have been reduced to an obedient mass, following the directions of our television sets and the Internet. Culture itself, what it once meant, exists no more.