on new jersey, your inner nag

i admire people who still look up even when the giant asshole in the sky shits on them.  i have to think they were just programmed differently, but shit doesn’t get them down and that’s what i love.  me, if i see a shitstorm i do what i consider a normal thing:  i run towards open sky.  some people stay put because of family or something.  some adherence to a code or an ideal i never really understood.

which is why i came back to new jersey in the first place.  i thought i was missing something.  i told myself there was a reason i popped out of a new jerseyan vagina and that i owed it to myself to figure it out.  it’s now been just over a year, and i’m 30 now, and i still don’t know any secrets.  i thought i would learn it like at a university so in my mind i always imagined graduating new jersey before i left again.  i would figure out the key to happiness here and take it with me wherever i went.

i realized on my october 14 that the secret was just to get out alive.

i realized also that most of my life has been an exercise in muffling my inner nag.  when i drink tap water it says “don’t drink that” and when i work a 9-5 desk job it says “go to europe” and when i listen to it i enjoy being alive.  i think the real cause of disease is that inner nag.  if you ignore it, you’re fucked.  if you listen, you’re saved.

the club, and so they played chess

i’m a writer but i believe the best things are impossible to write down.  they can only be experienced.  how do you describe a mushroom trip?  how do you describe a relationship that runs so deep that the only way to explain it to yourself is to shake your head and say something under your breath about a previous life?  you don’t, you just have a secret handshake with everyone you know who has gone through it too.  for me that’s the best and the worst part.  it connects you deeply with those people who get it, but it alienates you from the rest.

the key then is to keep experiencing.  the more experiences, the more secret clubs you belong to.  and your greatest connection with someone will be something you’ll never talk about, even if you could.

josh’s father passed away.  and josh sent around an email, “the bob club”.

Bob believed in relationships and, as opposed to the Buddhist “non-attachment” strategy to life, he believed in really getting attached.  Bob thought of himself and everyone else as “club members” and all he had to do to connect with someone was to find their common club.  My dad was part of the musician club, the motor cycle club, the Jewish club, the smoking club, the father club, the naked hot tub club, the comedy club, the brownie club, the sweat lodge club, the Epstein club, the sculptor club, the good dog club, the loving partner club, the garage sale club, The shitty gas station coffee club, the amazed by cool shit club, and thousands of other clubs that helped him connect with different people.  None of these clubs were exclusive and there was never a dress code.  After my dad died, hoards of “club members” came, called, and wrote to grieve, celebrate, share, love, cry, laugh, roast, and connect.  I was filled with love like I had never known.

it’s like that scene in the movie version of mother night.  a beautiful book and a beautifully faithful movie.  george kraft and howard campbell hang out for the first time and kraft gives campbell a knowing look from the couch.  both of their wives passed away.  they were part of that club.  and so they played chess.

oh, mikko

What is an average day like for Mikko Aspa?
Wake up. Start doing e-mails, process orders. Deal with many things related of running mail order, label, and record store. Day ends basically when I go to sleep. But due [to the] flexibility of running your own life, there is plenty of listening to records, sexual activities, nighttime whiskey shots, and urination on female body. I would like to have more time for artistic purposes, but at the moment it is limited.

from this

Bill Hicks – Depressed

Drink up have fun there is no death don’t suffer don’t feel guilty god loves you no matter what you do you are the perfect and holy child of god and as my friend Jimmy Pineapple would say – case fucking closed.

But I get depressed, you think I don’t?  You think I’m wearing black in the summertime cuz I’m a fucking ray of sunshine, dude?  The fact that we live in a world where John Lennon was murdered, yet Barry Manilow continues to put out albums.  Man, if you’re gonna kill somebody have some fucking taste.  I’ll drive you to Kenny Rogers’ house.  Get in the car I know where Wham! lives.

Bill Hicks – Positive LSD Story

Wouldn’t you like to hear a positive story about LSD on the news, to hear what it’s all about perhaps?  Wouldn’t that be interesting, just once?  Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there’s no such thing as life, death is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves.  Here’s Tom with the weather!

Bill Hicks – Goatboy Will Figure it Out

I’m walking down through the West End one day right, and this busload from Iowa gets off the bus, these big cow people, right, bump into me, and I go flyin’ into this… adult bookstore.  And my hands are in my pockets and I took ‘em out and money flew out of my hand, wafted down onto the cash register, and this guy hands me a magazine.  How embarrassing.  I go home immediately to the hotel, throw it away, towards the garbage, it breaks open, face up, on the bed.

email to jaz

that gin blossoms record, new miserable experience, it’s so fucking fantastic.  the first couple notes and i’m hooked all over again.  the guitar riffs for “found out about you”?  fucking killer.  “hey jealousy”s cred as a top-notch pop song?  undeniable.  and i’m listening to the lyrics tonight for the first time, you know actually paying attention to them.  i’ve sung along to them for years without paying attention.

it’s really depressing shit about alcoholism, losing love and chasing after it once it’s gone.  asking psychics if “she’ll” come back again.  drinking till things seem new again.

honestly, i’m really resonating with them, and i’m looking for answers anywhere i think i can find them.  so i start looking into the singer.  is he married?  did he ever find love?  did he cure his alcoholism?  i’m looking for a light at the end of the tunnel, you know?  for one of the few people i resonate with to tell me that things are going to be okay.  that life gets better.

and i can’t find anything about the singer, but it doesn’t matter because he didn’t write the lyrics.  doug hopkins did, and he shot himself in the head shortly after “hey jealousy” went gold.

j.

apparently by amiri baraka

I hear
your voice
down the hall, through the window, above
all those trees, a light
it seems
& you are singing. What song
is that The words
are beautiful.

We Are Champions

Thank you Shelby Cobras for putting it all in perspective:

Yes, I certainly do hate you, Mister Heavenly. But I also kind of love you, for proving one thing: THE CHASM OF FOULNESS THAT THE HUMAN SPIRIT CAN ACHIEVE, WHEN CHALLENGED, IS INFINITE–JUST WHEN YOU THINK YOU’VE FOUND ITS ABSOLUTE BOTTOM, THAT BOTTOM FALLS OUT, REVEALING AND EVER-EXPANDING PIT OF DESPAIR BELOW. THERE IS NO GOD AND NO REDEMPTION. WE ARE ALONE IN THIS LIFE, EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US. BUT AS LONG AS WE CAN LOOK INTO THAT PIT–TO FACE THAT SICK HORROR AND SPIT IN ITS FACE–WE ARE CHAMPIONS.

bringing her back home

i wanted her to leave an almost empty soap bottle behind,
or a sock.
i have
places between
couch cushions for
things like those to get lost in.
she was supposed to misplace them when packing her things.

james versus the dynamic status quo

“I was so Naropa before I actually went there.”

untitled 101210 (and i think when i stop)

and i think when i stop missing my
sneakers and i land somewhere
i used to call home- i will miss
you most when i hear someone-
no, anyone, no someone-
say, “you don’t know”. my belly
will sink to my sneakers and my
mind will seek your face- your
eyes lined black, bright in the
morning and smiling back like
you love me. my hands will be
cold all winter and i’ll tell people,
“cold hands, warm heart” and
momentarily forget where i am
because i’ll want to be with you.
i left home behind me so many
times before but always my heart
came with. home’s a long way
from where i’ll be tomorrow. if
home is where my heart is then
it is in the crease in your bed
where two twins make a queen-
the place i slept when i loved you
most, when your skin was like
earth and i dug caves in it
while we slept. the cherry tomato
bruise on your neck that
betrayed my preferred affections.
the bed that had space for
a mountain and a valley lake
against it. we watched hobbits
and goats and serious men from
there, laughing and fucking quiet
enough to keep her from waking up.

(i am scrambling
to compile the
things i know
time will
have me
forget.)

ohrwurm- you don’t know

she sings on the way up the stairs-
behind us is a beach, with anarchists
and a statue of a man in the sea (he

looks so real from the ferry boat.)
our bikes are waiting at the top,
where we can see buildings that look

like boats, foggy ports, and a bridge
far away.  children are playing in
the sand and she says “close your

eyes to see what is yours.”  our bikes-
no, her bikes- are spooning, looking
so cute for hunks of metal and rust.

she sings “you don’t know anythin’
’bout me” and it wiggles in my ear too.
i don’t even know the original song.

ohrwurm- oh danny boy

i hear the creak of worn out bikes,
and you sing “oh danny boy” like animal.
(who decided i would have to leave
you behind?)
i lead when i know where we are-
so you lead most the time.

a liter of singing wine, or, a haiku for biking back home

the wine in your hand
looks good on you.  what a shame
we have to drink it.

untitled 101210 (the air is thick)

the air is thick with shower fog
and i think you are
perfect through it.  i want
to take a picture
but no- i’d rather
see you
like this,
again.

untitled 100610

sometimes love felt like a cloud and
i couldn´t tell if it would rain or open
up for the sun. sometimes it felt like
a boat and i always knew there was
a wave out there to topple it. some-
times it felt like a mosquito in my tent.
today love feels like a stone house in
tuscan hills. i may have moved in yes-
terday but i know the place withstood
bullets and temptations and vices and
hail as big as gallbladders and i think i
would like to stay.

multinational dirtytalking, or, a love haiku from BP to the earth

this is just to say
i want to spill my oil
all over your gulf

someone else’s suit

right now a man you don’t know
decides on the better of two
eight-thousand dollar suits
and buys it with interest
from your dollar bill.

money is created so more money
can be created so more money can be
created so more money can be created
and i don’t have to say it anymore to
tell you it never stops. our money is
proof of our debt. the more we got,
the harder we work for someone else’s suit.
today it’s eight thousand dollars and you know
tomorrow it’s more. inflation ain’t by chance
it’s by design and who do you think wins
the inflation game? no shit it’s the
motherfucker in the eight thousand dollar
suit.

you got to think harder.

expand your mind so that all the world’s evil and good
can fit in it and not just what you are told.
al queda is a fiction like jesus christ is a fiction,
a myth we are taught as bad and as good,
but the baddest wear suits and the goodest get killed by ‘em,
so how do you expect to see it?

you got to think harder.

you got to wonder why we want a biggest tv,
you got to ask why drugs sell so good,
why terrorism so bad,
why we working so hard but still can’t make it,
why one thousand folks own all the world’s yolks,
why we spend so much on health yet we the most
fucked up people in the developed world,
why we looking to fake leaders for fake answers
to fake problems.

you got to think harder.

why the news programs feel so formulaic?
why they all feel the same?
why they always trying to fear me?

you got to expand your mind.

it ain’t up to policies to change what we do,
it ain’t up to vaccines to not get the flu,
it up to you and no-fuckin-body else but you.

you know you’ve joined the revolution
when you think for yourself and no
motherfucker in an eight-thousand
dollar suit can make a dime off you today.

there ain’t no power over free thinking minds,
which is why they killed all the time.

one day there got to be more free thoughts
than guns that can scare them down.
one day there got to be more
love than money made off it. one day we got to realize
we can still love someone who don’t use the
right toothpaste, we got to love ourselves.

one day we got to give up our standard of life for one we
can share with the whole class.

one day we got to get angry.

one day we got to notice the motherfuckin
soil is wrong and there so much pig shit in it
we got to put organic on a sliding scale.
one day we gonna see organic soylent green
at whole foods, it’s true.

but they got no power over a free thinking
mind.

—

skip to 12:00 in

new blog, etc

for those interested i am essentially moving over to death metal gap year for the indeterminate future.  my focus has shifted from poetry to documenting my trip abroad, for which i depart august 2.  it is a one way trip, and since i can’t seem to do anything the “normal” way, there are two twists to it:

1. the backbone of my trip is heavy metal. throughout august i am attending one festival after another in germany and the netherlands. in between festivals i hope to catch bands in smaller, much shadier and filthier settings. my imagination sees me watching black metal in smoky, unknown, underground bars where there is no admission fee and everyone is in black.

2. i am traveling by motorcycle. i am shipping my 2004 triumph bonneville black to germany and will wave hello to poor backpackers as they hitchhike or navigate train schedules.

if you are interested in following me throughout this journey, you can at the new address.  i may still post something here but i suspect it will be pretty sparse.  i am however keeping up with the “quit it with these poems already” section, so stay tuned there for random cool things the internet throws my way.

just thought i’d let you all know.  thanks for reading me so far, and i hope to see you in my new digital home

j.