My hair is all mullet on top and Navy SEAL around the bottom. Bottom? Top? Fruitcake. “No offense to myself meant,” said Jon Stewart to his good pal last night. He was talking about looking like a snow monkey, about how “You know what I look horrible in these days?” or some such. Punchline: “Pictures!” He was talking about aging with the friend with whom he’d started working some twenty- seven years previous. It seemed an honest bit, one with which I could certainly relate. “None taken,” he added, a bit mumbly, off-the-cuff, in response to himself, sitting next to his longtime friend. “Who wants a hairnet full of fruitcake?” That was just me punching backwards, something I do on occasion for a bit of extra energy.
I’m certain that he didn’t originate the notion, but I just heard him say it (in that slightly grammatically incorrect way) on a special on YouTube, this one by People magazine
about the end of The Late Show this week. My dad died less than a year after I moved to San Francisco, where I now happily reside. He was 58, which is how old I will remain
for around three more weeks, give or take a day. The way I remember it, the last thing he said to me was I love you, Del. And he did. My little brother passed overnight in the cab
of his stationary pickup truck. He was at my Aunt Patti’s place in Missouri. He was 47, and it had been less than three years since I helped him come visit me here in California.
It was the only time all four of us (me and my siblings) were together at any one of the many places I’ve lived since leaving home for college back in 1985, which had been and still is one of
the happiest extended weekends of my entire life. There were three great-grandparents, two of whom I got to spend much time with and I remember each well. And, of course, all four of
my lovely grandparents, each of whom I knew well and with whom I had the great luxury of spending countless hours. My maternal grandmother, Mabel Louise Van Meter, was among them, and
was my chief inspiration for becoming a diarist and a poet (and who most likely was the inspir ation for any of those rare qualities I have that a consensus might judge morally good). There
have been others, like my pal Kim, with whom I’d stay up talking nonstop, each of us mostly over the voice of the other, well into the night so many nights during my first twenty years
on the West Coast. And there was Kevin, who, of all of the long list of poets’ and artists’ names and numbers I’d been given by friends in Boston before moving here to the left coast all those
years ago, was the first to respond to my shy ask once here, and took me post haste to the Black Cat in North Beach to hear a couple of poets read, and who introduced me, I believe, to every one
else who was in attendance. But I swear that the death that hit me the hardest in my life lived thus far was that of Sepia the Cat, who was but 13, yet had been with me for almost all of those years,
moving with me here, first to live on Anza Vista and then Nob Hill. Having missed almost no day without her during most of her life, and a significant portion of mine, I can say that the pain of her passing hit
me harder than I would ever have imagined. It was stark and it was tangible. So it seems that I have been one of the lucky ones. And on that notion, and in general, I would most sincerely concur.
Your Title Track is a Tidal Wave (three random and recent favorites from the world of popular music)
Leikeli47 is unmasked in this simple video, and I love it, her Bad Guy (she is definitely referring to herself in this one. Now I need to go back and read up
on the reason why she has no mask when
she has most times I’ve seen her perform
(if not all up to now?). What’s that all about and how does it compare with, say, the masked experiences and impetuses of Sia, DJ Blend, Daft Punk (who were not always masked but nonetheless hid their faces), Orville Peck (who word has it was a punk singer in New York in a previous incarnation), Lynx (my favorite of all of these, whose story I really want to know)? It’s Leikeli47’s best song to date from my meager perspective and it is playing on repeat on YouTube more regularly than any other video this past month.
Next is not her title track, but the first song
on Demi Lovato’s album from this year. Lovato
is an artist that has over the years been for me intermittently hot and cold, and who I’ve never had in rotated play, I think, until this song: Low Rise Jeans. It’s a
clear tribute to Britney, especially with
her choices for percussion and beat (plus the song opens with an ethereal riff by what appears to be a choir, followed by Demi’s singular word intro, “Work”). The chorus has her in her “low rise jeans. You don’t need your imagination.” But that sexual common denominator is prefaced by a mind/body dichotomy: “My head and my heart wanna ge-get to know ya/But my lips and my hips, they got other plans.” Lyrics to go along with the
worthy chill summer vibes of the music.
Qveen Herby was half of the popular dance duo Karmin who rose up the charts quickly in the mid-
2010s, but after establishing themselves firmly as rising stars on the dancefloor, they dropped their label and she has been independent ever since, putting out albums most every year, along with a self-help podcast, and she seems super-respected yet seemingly glossed over
by critics, perhaps because she’s hard to
pinpoint genre-wise. She’s Qveen Herby. Her
latest album, Isle of Qveen, opens with an upbeat
song called Aura Poppins, and if you’re thinking Disney, you’re on the right track. Always expect the unexpected and yet absolutely fun danceable down to diva R&B sensations (Sensational is another song on the album – I could have picked any of the songs on this one to showcase; she collaborates with
a favorite fringe singer of mine, Thot Squad, as well,
on this record) to just plain old-school crooning to Eminem-level super-fast rap. Here are the first few lines from the song:
Freaky little kinky, super raw, super fly Got a spoonful of sugar, love to show a little thigh
Coochie clean, aura poppin', bitches know that I'm hot (hot!)
Supercalifragilistic, yeah, that's what I thought
And that’s just three songs that I highly recommend anyone
give a good listen, if you have the time. Thank you for indulging.
I’veintermittently thought I would love to be a pop music critic,
or at least megaphone for those I find worhtwhile. And there
are always so many songs just out that give me redundant joy
so this is an attempt to do just that, offering it up, spreading
the word in hopes others will find the same joy I do with each.
So, late night Talk shows.... To Each their own? Probably. But for decades, I’ve had a few Heroes behind these nighttime interview desks. All things must End, I know. But it is Not without a long drawn out sense of dis
Comfort and disgust with (what was once) Our fair country’s Leadership (not to mention its almost intolerably Bleak forecast) that the show’s Eulogy brings. Rest in peace to the better portion of late night Television. May you not be gone forever.
Words blur in the mind’s eye. There are times when my voice spews as if the spigot’s turned to blast. But once in a while there comes a drought. The world spins wordlessly around a box of flesh that holds a frustrated but ever-worsening nausea. Who can turn this chaotic turpitude into a pleasant pie (if not at least a distinctly edible casserole)? Not I.
Try to. Even for an audience of one (I mean, there’s no one here but me). Don’t just try. Turn your head a round (I mean snap out of it!). Down here is no place to be. And you (I ) should know. I do. There are other things besides comedy that might suffice. A stasis is too easy to maintain. Just say NO to the status quo. Imagine being locked inside of a box. No joke. Elevate that in ternal mono. You know? Yes, you know. Show yourself no body’s perfect. This is what you do (I do).
Unless I truly believed in the fiction of television, or have forgotten the truth we knew as children about anything we regarded as ancient,
this is one of the stupidest questions ever. Of course I have, and resound ingly! It’s gone, it’s gone, it’s gone! Back then, when I asked that question,
how naive I was. Speaking of ancient, it’s as if all of my life I had been aging in reverse. Or if there was a kernel of wisdom ever earned, it was the invasive
species that would inevitably obliterate this existence, the seed at the bottom of that question mark that, now that I see it so clearly, has grown into a vine
hell-bent with dementia. I’ve moment arily come around to find I have curled maturely into a vine, into a position I’d
call faetal, if I could even remember
the word. The ancient human shrinks into a child. Shrinking still, it crawls into oblivion before it remembers to forge for itself a legacy, or even just
a mausoleum. Scooting its hands and knees upon the earth as it disappears upon a horizon no longer his, was it ever a sensual being? “Oh, heavens!”
replies Lucinda. “When we last saw him, he was mumbling indecipherably.” “It’s true!” “I heard him, too!” They had no
i keep on counting what the jar contains. the landlord’s texted twice and means to call. there’s something to be said for what remains.
the fridge holds mustard, which more or less explains the general philosophy of it all. i keep on counting what the jar contains.
a wheat penny turns up. my grandfather’s veins ran thick with joy for these. i let it fall. there’s something to be said for what remains.
i thought by now i’d have a little more to show. the plains of middle age were not supposed to sprawl like this. i keep on counting what the jar contains.
the bus pass expired. it’s fine. the fog complains against the window in its usual drawl. there’s something to be said for what remains:
four dollars, eleven cents. some small terrains of copper, silver, verdigris. that’s all. i keep on counting what the jar contains. there’s something to be said for what remains.
The Ecstasy of Drowning Peacefully as an Older Man (Unfinished Stories of Importance That Go in Improbable Directions Leaving Mysteries and No Real Solutions Along the Way)
Rather than drowning in flesh (because my flesh wants to drown, and this has become such an intense part of each
of my days) – let us not talk of the natural ways that seem easy, I would think, to under stand this flesh-drowning need
which, now that my lungs are filling up with liquid. It tastes of fire that is hot as blazes. These words might come across
as confusing, as trying to fit well with what is happening, my new way of feeling pleasure for pain. But Do you have any painkillers?
is the butt of some sick joke that my mind has been telling itself on such a regular basis here in the, can we call it the twilight of my
years? Hence, what confusedly transpires, all too peacefully I might add, is the not knowing at all whether I am drowning in ecstatic throes.
An aside: as the mind goes differences seem less and less clear if not altogether irrelevant between mind-games (which I always read more as fun and games) and
It was opening night and we were pacing the green room and the vomitoria. And trust me, it’s not because anyone was vomiting. That’s just a myth started by
some dumbass who didn’t understand Latin and than confused his ass for a lazy susan.
We were sissies for romance. We liked to dangle from the chain like half of a puzzle necklace (be it Pis- or gah from
either side of the heart that had cracked
into two). Do you remember that night when
we realized it was just nirvana? Not the grunge
band. They were as religious as we got, which was pretty fuckin’ religious. We mourned a week, those of us who were sober enough, when
Kurt lost his life. A solid majority felt certain that Courtney had taken it, and with intent. In a few weeks it wouldn’t matter. The boy bands would have already affected us enough
We dance in the dark, forget the anger of what we blame
on the day. —Frank O’Hara
and i keep counting pennies. hoping for what? perhaps a couple of reese’s white chocolate peanut butter cups? i’m not sure, and i won’t get all wrapped up in
those kinds of thoughts. but i do continue to count. placing them in front of the oven that joshua left in stacks of twenties. twenty pennies to a stack. i carefully take out the
canadian ones and anything else that doesn’t look like a normal united states penny, even though they are now extinct, to be made no more. i wonder who else is doing the same
thing as me right now, somewhere in this god forsaken country, in the middle of this very night.
as you spiral deeper into the labyrinth i think of all the things i have to tell you if only i could yell loud enough. i do the yelling anyway, even if there’d be no way
you could discern the echos from the original, and in that way you have of taking things apart and putting them back together in a never before thought of fashion (at least by me), you’d likely
devise a terror-gram out of what i may or may not have been yelling down into the depths, where your footsteps—as if they were ever discernible.... anyone who glides their way through each day
as you do has no need for shoes or feet or placing either upon the cold, dark ground. i wonder if this is an example of the evolution of birds or how they must have gotten up there by dreaming thousands
and thousands of nights about other planets and wings, or sometimes inadvertently floating their way into the dream of a cartographer who is only half asleep at best, dying of scurvy and just having
puked up that last albatross, so as not to choke to death by natural causes. later in the night, the bones of a quail puncture his intestines. it’s one of the most painful ways to go, i’m told, still stuck in a state
of narnia where the children i’ll never have refuse to sleep a wink. lost at sea. lost in space. either way, it’s always such a tragic disgrace.
