let's go to a show!

 

yes, i was at this show.  my second punk rock gig.  i was 15.  i found this flyer this afternoon looking up the band, rebel truth.  they were from sac.  the first time i saw them perform was onstage in the multipurpose room of my jr. high school.  the singer/guitarist [can't remember his name] had leopard-print dyed hair.  i was sold!  on his look & the band's sound.  a few months later, my friend, tim [chim-chim], introduced me to punk rock proper in the summer of 1982 changing my life in every way.  i started going to shows.  i was - am - a naive dumb-dumb but was also a quick learn.  i remember tim chatting with bob mould after husker du's set.  i didn't know who he - or the band, husker du - was until a little later when someone played for me their first LP, land speed record.  what put me in mind of the band rebel truth was an older punk working at Trader Joe's i saw this afternoon.  he reminded me a lot of the look of that singer/guitarist.  the punk at TJ's was ol' skool cool.  who brought me right back to my own hardcore days.  as thomas wolfe said, you can't go home again.  but you can, at least, visit the neighborhood!

a bard's eye view of sac

 

re/port

 

look upon my Works, ye Mighty, & despair!

                          

absolute music

brilliant live performance by REM of one of my very favorites of their songs.  i grew up in the heady days of what was once called 'college rock'.  the world turned new, passionate, & magical when i first heard this band's single 'radio free europe' on a, quite literally, college radio station.  this song, 'fall on me', is gorgeous in every way.  structure, harmonies, that angelic bridge.  i saw them live on their GREEN Tour. would love to see them perform live once more.  as you can see with this performance this band was - is - special & utterly embodies the phrase ABSOLUTE MUSIC.  

happy new year!

here's to another trip around the sun!  sure 2025 doesn't sound or look much different than 2024.  but we are thick in la comedie humaine.  e.g. just a couple of months ago our incoming president mimed fellating a microphone onstage!  oh my!  as the great bugs bunny would say, 'it is to laugh!'  i might even break a rib or have a heart attack from all the hilarity.  at any rate, we are now a quarter way into the new century.  our world has shifted into a new register.  even if i can't define it very well, i get the sense, like i did at the end of the Cold War, that we are living in a new era.  we are living in the FUTURE, no?  if so, where are the flying cars?!  where is my jetpack i was promised that would be waiting for me in the FUTURE!  wherever this Weird Road that all of us are travelling on takes us at least we are on the journey together.  

i don't do new year's resolutions but i might take up the briar.  smoking pipes is cool, right?  i will do what i do.  read/write poems.  listen to music.  watch really bad movies.  observe the world as it is & do what the cuban poet omar perez suggested all poets do, observe & have fun, & have fun with what you are observing.  cherish my family & friends.  & know that the world, & everything in it, in all its terror & beauty, is a magical place.   my life is made of the world; i will do what i can, a la james dickey. & try not be afraid of the blank page.  making mistakes can be a beautiful art too.  

below is my new t-shirt given to me as a christmas present by my sister in law.  she always picks the perfect gifts!  so beware the dangers of CATNIP MADNESS to your felines!  it started with one sniff!

happy new year 2025!  

as always MAKE IT COUNT!

 

good vibrations

 dylanthomasesque

i'd rather live off of guile & beer & poetry & music & movies & kindness & love & family & friends in life & in the art 

i'd rather live off the terror & ecstasy of this modern life 

odi et amo mon ami

watching from such great heights

'it's hell on wheels!'

 

it's the friday nite after xmas & you wanna hear some sloppy drunken live rock&roll!

'it's only rock&roll but i like it, yes i do!'