One interesting result of the election results is that I'm reminded my memory, especially short-term, worsens in pace with my advancing age and that ten years from now I'll still remember Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond but will have completely forgotten this motherfucking crackerchristeracistool ever existed, may his imaginary friend White Jesus Christer have Christian mercy on me, which in this fucker's soul, smaller than a pissy cat's walnut-sized brain, he constitutionally can't
Spider and Nugget, guess which one's which. Still caged from most of our main floor as Olive pissily hisses growls sulks hisses growls sulks. Spider and Nugget (and Jacko) want OUT. The vet suggested cat pheromone dispensers, they had two pumping pheromones out into the exam room we sat in, we'll plug them in when they arrive (against the wishes of our daughter who asks us please don't poison ourselves, but we're desperate). Here's Olive bitterly hearing, smelling, trying to see Jacko eat behind the cage ON THE MAIN FLOOR OF OUR HOUSE! she's pissed
I have reminded Olive that Fleabus and Napoleon and Rosie and Stanley all welcomed Olive's rescue arrival without growling, sulking, and hissing, and then reminded her of how lonely she was after Stanley died a month ago and how she walked around the house mumbling while looking for him, and when neither argument worked I strongly advised her to knock this shit off, all to no avail. I'm stupid for Tindersticks, I thought playing the new song off the upcoming album for Olive might improve Olive's disposition, nope, but it did mine, repeatedly
I am stupid for Tindersticks and this is an old favorite ☟
SPIDERS WANTING
Thomas Lux
I want you, spider: walker-on-the-ceiling, creeping black thumb. Here's my forehead, the pad for your landing. So slip down your rope, the purest advance of saliva, settle close enough to my lips.
I'll know what you know, thank you. Exhort, tell the story of the eight-leggers. Put your fur next to mine, relax down here on the pillow. You look like a priest in a multisleeved cassock so let's confess
to each other. We're beasts, twelve limbs between us, sharing one house, the same desires and industry: to design the web, live on what we catch from air, and always returning, always, to the spun eluctable cave.
I confess, I underestimated Americans this election cycle and am happy to have been wrong. I still maintain that if this had been a 51% - 49% percent Democratic victory that starting Wednesday Trump's every third word would be "rigged" and the chaos I and others predicted would already be rampant and surging. If pre-election internal polling predicted a dead heat there would have been intimidation, arrests, and violence at polling stations election day and post-election every Republican who lost would claim the race had been stolen, bombs would be dropping on Iran, and Trump would have already declared the election void, etc. Shitlords pushed to see what gains shittyism could get them, discovered there is still some shit Americans won't eat. Yet. Do not think they think the full-fascism experiment was a failure
Waited until today to not, as L says, yuck your yum. The hope and delight at seeing magacrackerchristers smacked in the head with an electoral garden shovel is joyous, joyous, I feel it too, I love it, but it reminds me of how I and many others, including you, felt election night November 2008 when Obama declared victory at Grant Park in Chicago, the relief, the pride, the belief that the magacrackerchristerist Shitlord gambit is defeatable and defeated and that shitlordism itself will now retreat rather than retrench, that shitlords will curb and temper their authoritarian instincts. That Democrats will save you. Nope. Don't forget who they report to and where their allegiances and paychecks and power and privileges and benefits lie
I forget which particularly pungent repugnant obamafart provoked that haiku, it was after my first major obamapostasy but it was in response to one of infinite Obama Serving the Shitlords, Betraying His Base farts, they came fast and fruity, one after the other relentlessly, starting within weeks of his first inauguration
That's Olive hissing at Jacko, Nugget, and Spider in Stage Two of introducing Olive to the new kittens. We take Jacko and Nugget and Spider to their first post-adoption vet visit today. I just got a text from the vet asking us to bring fecal samples like we can tell whose turds are whose. Fine metaphors abound. Hey, today is Bandcamp Friday, go buy music, let the musicians get most of the money. Buy this:
We were warned about spiders, and the occasional famine.
We drove downtown to see our neighbors. None of them were home.
We nestled in yards the municipality had created,
reminisced about other, different places—
but were they? Hadn’t we known it all before?
In vineyards where the bee’s hymn drowns the monotony,
we slept for peace, joining in the great run.
He came up to me.
It was all as it had been,
except for the weight of the present,
that scuttled the pact we made with heaven.
In truth there was no cause for rejoicing,
nor need to turn around, either.
We were lost just by standing,
listening to the hum of wires overhead.
We mourned that meritocracy which, wildly vibrant,
had kept food on the table and milk in the glass.
In skid-row, slapdash style
we walked back to the original rock crystal he had become,
all concern, all fears for us.
We went down gently
to the bottom-most step. There you can grieve and breathe,
rinse your possessions in the chilly spring.
Only beware the bears and wolves that frequent it
and the shadow that comes when you expect dawn.
Reminds self I live seven miles and work two miles from nuclear ground zero if in fact the first direct side-effect of the heavily anticipated Trump electoral humiliation is Trump angrily dropping nuclear weapons on Iran and the descent into nuclear world war that follows and my concurrent incineration in the literal fallout. Vital Reminder One:
Life in the Rootcanalocene. I confess, until a month ago I thought there'd be a major false flag operation in the week before the midterms, someone lighting a firecracker backstage at a Trump rally while Gestapo Miller cuts Trump's earlobe with a razor blade, ICE running down brown people on a crowded street and starting a riot, shooting bystanders, etc, but I now think shitlords want Trump to react to a humiliating defeat exactly like you thing Trump will react to a humiliating defeat so shitlords can spend the next two years blaming Democrats for the devastating repercussions of Trump's reactions to a humiliating defeat, confident Democrats in power won't let them down. Vital Reminder Two:
Meanwhile, Olive is not happy about Spiderjackonugget though Spiderjackonugget are happy with us. Jacko will stay Jacko, Spider will stay Spider, Spider the black cat, I'm a cat-whisperer in general and a black cat cat-whisperer in particular. We're already buds. Olive smells him on my hands and hisses at me for my betrayal. If I was a betting man I'd bet the Senate goes 51-49 Democrats with Fetterman as the manchin, it's a proven gameplan, not predicting it, just the most likely outcome and safest bet. Vital Reminder Three:
The old mule delivers the goods. Nugatory diddlings are on the decline. Stateliness has its day.
There are indeed many encouraging signs in the weather and in handshakes. Still there are those who mistake dark clouds for raffish hucksterism. They have never savored the elation of an empty crystal ball.
To them I say, seconds will call upon you in the morning. Tonight there are dreams to be thumbed through before the complicated, awful business of summoning beautiful particles after the horse is stolen.
We drove to York PA to pick up two rescue kittens and drove home with three
Tiger is Jacko nee Jack nee Jackson, L gets to rename him if she wants. His place in our lives wasn't planned but he auditioned hard, the clown, and got the job. Black is Spider, we expected to take him home, Jacko's blood brother, I get to rename him if something gongs in the next calendar week, I'm not crazy about the name Spider but (am about Spider) it fits better than anything yet gonging, he's an athlete, the name is tilting towards keeping. Orange is Nugget. Nugget will be Nugget
Nugget's near future includes getting his balls lopped-off. He's a munchkin (yes, we're aware of the potential health problems of munchkins), we're told there's money in them balls, is why they weren't scythed before, we're not in the Nugget sperm business. He's barely bigger than this photo, I have never seen a smaller cat his age. He's wonderful, fully interactive. He will never be able to jump from the floor to a sofa or bed and so far is afraid to jump off the bed but when playing he hops to keep up with Jacko and Spider who love him like a brother so maybe Jacko should be Jacko and Shadow Shadow
L & I drive to York Saturday morning, I-495 to I-95 to I-695 to I-83 across the Mason-Dixon Line to PA-124 east to PA-24, to pick up rescue kittens, Spidey certainly, Nugget maybe, L's friend, the cat rescuer, is crazy about Nugget, if she wants him she gets him, and then we get to see which other rescue kitten chooses us, I want this scenario, please please please. You may not know this, believe this, but I *don't* broil and baste in anger 24-7, as much as I adore broiling and basting in my anger. Did you know there's a new Swans live album?
Me neither, the fuck, I say, but not in anger. My anger. I'm not angry you're not as angry as me, I'm not asking you to be as angry as me, please don't be as angry as me unless you can't help being as angry as me. There. Are. Four. Lights.
My goddamn free blogging platform's blogroll feed is fucked up off and on again and again, I'm impotently furious (but not furious enough to consider shuttering this angry goddamn blog, fuck me)
Anger trumps despair, rimshot. In all seriousness, anger is holy with silly. Phew, in the ten seconds after bingeing on Swans and Lambchop the last two evenings I gave three seconds thought of giving my sillyass deserted island five game a fresh start and confirmed Swans and Lambchop would be permanent members then quit before I started thinking of who once were permanent members who wouldn't be now, it wouldn't've made me angry but would've felt excoriatingly disloyal, I broil and baste in my anger as long as it's not aimed at me, fine metaphors abound
Way too frequent reminder that when my daughter is my age it will be 2060, the Earth will still be here, will the world? Way too frequent reminder that this and all posts are poems, including and especially the grids
Kurt Wagner writes about the upcoming new Lambchop release *Demoed*
⬇
I never knew what Herman Melville looked like until I was in high school. I just saw a picture in lit class and that was about it, nice beard. Prior to that what Herman looked like was really not essential to my understanding or enjoyment of Moby Dick. It was distracting at best. I thought the work was the important thing. I mean, I still don’t know what Renoir looked like but I bet he had a great beard. Great painter.
I used to fantasize that lambchop would continue as an idea well beyond my participation. Over time we’ve had at least two generations represented. A third now is beginning. And this is important to me, having the unique perspective and contributions from younger artists steering in the work we make. So i thought it would be nice, someday, that i might even step aside to watch and advise from the wings. Having a beard was never considered, but here we are.
This is to say that my idea of moving forward — aging with dignity — involves my disappearing from the notion of being the “dude,” the ego, entity, personality, figurehead, selfie guy, brand image. Who I am physically and how I appear becomes irrelevant. Allowing the concept and work to be the focus. My participation isn’t really necessary in the final presentation. Song writing, “the song” implicitly allows for such a thing, or at least it did before pop culture insisted that it be part of the package. I mean, I get it, why that is and the way things are, but I've always felt it doesn’t have to be so and there’s centuries of precedents to back this up.
Exhibit D: Andrew came up with the idea for a supplement to the new record. To ask artists we admired as both artist people and with unique voices to sing along to the initial guitar demos replacing me, thereby putting emphasis on their voices and the songs rather than my persona’s participation. A remix but backwards. Let’s admit it: Neil Sedaka was kinda goofy, but he sure could write a tune. I’m no Neil Sedaka but I sure can be goofy.
We made a list of people to ask and sent them the demos along with the finished Punching the Clown album. We asked them to keep it simple and not over think it, to keep it in the spirit of what a demo might be. Like a sketch for a painting, a demo. Sometimes they added other elements furthering their artistic involvement. It was their choice, their reaction to the premise and the tune.
Looking at it now, it does seem like one of those tribute records that happen after an artist dies or needs to raise funds for an operation or medical treatment. But I assure you, I am very much alive and all over what you hear here. Unlike cover versions of our songs, these are songs we made — I’m just not the singer. Jake, Haley, Alan, Channy, Dan, Lauren, Jenn, and Mari are.
First released cut⬇Wagner's music permanent seat in MSADI5G, derelict I am w stupidass game
ZOMBIE DANDELIONS
Regan Good
In the Green Associates lot,
horrid buttermilk tubes
loll through the iron gates,
like vein casings for vodka sausages,
wan and white.
These dandies are more monstrous than burdock or hollyhock.
Bigger than the furred buttons found in the lion’s jaw.
The whole lot: a zombie nation of twisted extroverts.
Some wound up like crazy straws or LED lightbulbs.
Once the sun shone through their tubes,
a buttery light from 1974 came on inside each stem.
The light both weakened and fed the dandy as it grew
