Steve Subrizi

Fear of Swimming

2012-01-15T10:17:00.010-05:00

This past week, Kirsten Opstad released a studio album. She's my bandmate and one of my best friends, so of course I'm going to write about how good it is. That's what I'm supposed to do. One might actually suspect that there was something shut off inside of me if I didn't leave some sort of internet-documented evidence that I enjoyed this album that my partner worked so hard to record.

Here's the thing though: it actually is seriously good.

For those who already know and love Kirsten, this is the album we all hoped she would make. For the uninitiated: do your heart a quick favor. This is a half hour of two- to three-minute songs that will almost definitely make you feel better than you feel right now.

Kirsten Opstad sings with the weathered yet energized charm of a hip young aunt who lets you drink her liquor, tucks you into her afghan after you pass out on the recliner, and makes you an omelet at noon. She's been through all the same bullshit you're going through, and while she'll promise to cut the bullshitters "in the throat," she seems to want nothing more than to lift the spirits of everyone close to her, even--maybe especially--the women she doesn't love anymore.

Fear of Swimming is the kind of album a depressed person can and should memorize. It starts with a burst of resigned frustration, bangs and soars through the usual barrage of guilt and loss, and ends with a wistful shrug on the way to the rest of the world. Each song is a note passed during class--some sweet, some cruel, some glum, some funny, but all desperately honest.

Stylistically, it sounds somewhere in between The Mountain Goats circa The Sunset Tree (with intended compliments to Jon Crawford's production) and Kimya Dawson at her least precious. But the songs are all Kirsten's; to hear these songs is to get to know the singer. And take it from her fake ex, Kirsten Opstad is a great person to know.

<a href="http://kirstenopstad.bandcamp.com/album/fear-of-swimming">Fear of Swimming by Kirsten Opstad</a>

Coming soon: "When You Stop, the Moon Stops," the music video

2012-01-10T18:02:00.002-05:00

Yes, this is a trailer for a three minute video. Yes, we are that excited about this.

The Crazy Exes From Hell - "When You Stop, The Moon Stops" Teaser Trailer 2012 from Brent Campanelli on Vimeo.

NOÖ Journal

2011-10-28T16:48:00.002-04:00

My poem about Thom Ross, called "Buffalo Bill on the Beach," is in the latest issue of NOÖ Journal. It's named after and mainly inspired by this huge thing that he did on Ocean Beach in San Fransisco.

My song for #OccupyBoston

2011-10-13T14:35:00.002-04:00

&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://stevesubrizi.bandcamp.com/album/sweetheart-corporation-welcome-to-the-occupation"&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Sweetheart Corporation/Welcome to the Occupation by Steve Subrizi&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

I recently had my heart broken by 1% of the U.S. population. I wrote a song about it.

A new Kirsten Opstad album may be forthcoming...

2011-09-25T15:11:00.004-04:00

My fellow Crazy Ex from Hell, Kirsten Opstad, has a big opportunity. A Santa Barbara filmmaker wants her to fly out and record a full-length album for the soundtrack of his submission to SXSW.

Now, this film has got to be handed to SXSW by November 15th, so that means that if this album is going to happen, it has to happen soon. And it won't happen soon/at all without a lot of help. Hence, we are playing the game of Kickstarter.

Please do what you can. It would mean a lot to both of us.

Love,

Steve

Crazy Exes from Hell in Seven Days: Vermont's Independent Voice

2011-09-21T11:19:00.005-04:00

The Crazy Exes got our first press last week. After we opened for The Smittens at The Skinny Pancake in Burlington, VT, Colin Clary told us we'd been named Bad Band Name of the Week by Dan Bolles, Music Editor for a local paper called Seven Days. But in fact, Bolles had called our name "maybe the best band name ever." Here's the rest of what he wrote:

Band Name of the Week: the Crazy Exes From Hell. Aren’t they all? This Boston-based duo describes itself as sounding like “Violent Femmes performing Rodgers & Hammerstein,” or if “the Moldy Peaches pulled a Fleetwood Mac.” You know what? I’ll allow it. But how ‘bout this? Imagine if Colin Clary and Dana Kaplan ditched the sweet acoustic bedroom-pop thing they do with their Smittens offshoot Let’s Whisper and started writing really agitated — and really funny — breakup songs. Yeah…

reviews from people who have not slept with me

2011-08-26T10:54:00.004-04:00

Beach Sloth had some kind words to write about Newly Wild Hedgehog.

Beach Sloth calls Hedgehog "...a celebration of American things, of freedom, violence, and wildlife."

Diana Salier also had some lovely things to say about the chapbook on Goodreads. Her chapbook, incidentally, is seriously good, and I intend to write a review of it myself, but in the meantime, just read it.

Monday Night

2011-08-20T06:26:00.002-04:00

A couple of my poems appear in the 10-year anniversary issue of Monday Night. They're a little quieter and more abstruse than I usually make them.

It is 6:30 in the morning, and there is a cat in the room with me who is very upset.

My Ex-Lovers Read My Book

2011-07-31T22:37:00.004-04:00

Announcing a new blog that I just made, which will contain reviews of my new e-chapbook, Newly Wild Hedgehog, written by women who have slept with me.

I've been calling them about this, and so far three of them have agreed to participate. Admittedly, one of them is only a former make-out buddy, but that will just have to count.

Who would like to review Newly Wild Hedgehog?

2011-07-18T11:58:00.004-04:00

Perhaps it is unseemly of an author to make such a request, but it would be a great help to me, and I figured I ought to plant the idea in people's heads sooner than later, damage to my reputation for humility be damned.

First, you would have to read the book, which is free and may be found online here or downloaded to a reading device here.

If at this point you feel compelled to write about what you've read, I would (ever so humbly) encourage you to send what you write to one of the following locations:

The Scrambler
Radius
NOO Journal
Muzzle (You may need to wait on them, since they just closed submissions for their summer issue and I'm not sure how soon they'll want to look at stuff for the fall.)
Anywhere else I'm not considering.

Or, if you would rather not subject yourself to the possibility of rejection, you could add a review on the book's Goodreads page.

This would be very deeply appreciated.

Love,

Steve

Here, read my book.

2011-07-15T11:21:00.001-04:00

Open publication - Free publishing - More chapbook

Dinosaur Bees

2011-07-13T10:53:00.002-04:00

Two of my poems, "Migrating to Portland" and "Backstroke," appear in the latest issue of Dinosaur Bees. Both poems also appear in my chapbook, Newly Wild Hedgehog, which will be out on NAP this Friday!

Incidentally, this issue of Dinosaur Bees also includes a poem by Chad Redden, Editor of NAP and all-around mensch. His poem says some smart things about Hell.

The Scrambler

2011-06-22T09:41:00.004-04:00

Two pieces of mine are featured in The Scrambler today, including a heartwarming little story about a flightless bird trying to make it in the city.

Sex Pistols at Network Awesome Magazine

2011-06-17T10:45:00.004-04:00

It's Sex Pistols Day at Network Awesome, and a short short I wrote for the occasion called "Holiday in the Sun" appears in Network Awesome Magazine to help mark the occasion.

It's based on this song, in case you haven't heard it.

Get pissed and destroy, friends!

The Crazy Exes from Hell @ Valley F.E.A.S.T. 4/30/2011

2011-06-04T00:54:00.010-04:00

For a full clickable setlist, follow the link to YouTube and see the full description.

(It says Part 2, but Part 1 was just a 10-minute set of solo songs we did as people were still filtering in. Find it if you want, but frankly, this is the video to see.)

This was such a thrill of a show. We really do thank everybody who was there from the bottom of our dry black hearts.

See also The Macrotones and Chantz. What a night.

NAP CHAPS (Amanda Laughtland's, eventually mine)

2011-05-13T13:54:00.003-04:00

This July, NAP will be releasing my short e-chapbook, Newly Wild Hedgehog. It will be free to read online or download to Kindle.

But their first e-chapbook ever, Vital to Victory, is already up! It's Amanda Laughtland's wartime catalogue of fears and precautions, a striking and terrifying collection of poems inspired by women's magazines from the 1940's.

In the likely event that you need more Laughtland, she's got a chapbook of Craigslist poems available (also for free) from Ungovernable Press. It's called Take It, and it may be impossible to stop reading once started.

this Wednesday at 6:30 at Bloc 11

2011-05-07T17:32:00.003-04:00

my published work

2011-04-26T09:49:00.014-04:00

Here is a list of all the places you can find my poems and stories, all neat and in one place the way a list should be:

NAP—Newly Wild Hedgehog, a free e-chapbook (here), "The Ash Valley Tapes," "Delayed Takeoff," "Gifted and Talented Enrichment," "Many Days," and "What Leaves" (here)

Network Awesome Magazine—"Holidays in the Sun" (here)

NOÖ Journal—"Buffalo Bill on the Beach" (here)

Monday Night—"Dawn Cuts off the Capital and Then Falls Back Asleep" and "In the Land and Time of Empty Beachside Towns" (here)

The Scrambler—“This Year Will Be the Year That Counts" (here), "In Captivity, the Urge to Migrate Grows Abstract," and "One-Boy Post Post Punk Band Behind the Music" (here)

Muzzle—“Among the Other Mourners of Zion” (here)

Dinosaur Bees— "Migrating to Portland" and "Backstroke" (here and here)

Phantom Kangaroo—“After the Spawning” (here)

Breadcrumb Scabs—“Correct (Correct),” “Drinking the Water of Life Neat,” and “Ode to Deli Meat” (here)

The Montucky Review —"To the Spawning" and "In the Event That You Are Unemployed to Death" (here)

Ramshackle Review—“There There Now, Bus Buddy” (here)

The Legendary—“Lower Allston Revisited,” “My Father and I Discuss Animals,” “My Father and I Discuss Vegetables,” and “Virginia Beach, 2004” (here)

PANK—“‘A country road. A tree. Evening,’” "Radiatore," and “That’s a Pretty Song, Old Man, but I’ve Heard It Before” (here)

Twitter

2011-04-25T10:14:00.002-04:00

I guess I use Twitter now; seems useful from a promotional standpoint. #practicingbrevity

The Crazy Exes from Hell @ Bloc 11

2011-04-25T06:36:00.003-04:00

The Crazy Exes are playing a show at Bloc 11 in Somerville on Wednesday, May 11th. We go on at 6:30, so if you wanted you could catch us and still make it to the Cantab in time to sign up to read on the open mic.

Bloc 11 is a cafe in Union Square with a great (music) open mic night of its own on Thursdays, hosted by the unflappable Kristen Ford. They also make amazing soup--last time I was there I had this apple fennel soup that flat-out knocked me down. And I do not just hand out compliments about soup! That's serious. But I didn't really fall down.

Breadcrumb Scabs

2011-04-24T08:52:00.004-04:00

Two of my poems appear in the latest issue of Breadcrumb Scabs. You can read it online for free or purchase the hard copy for about six dollars.

Within three days, you will be able to get here by going to www.stevesubrizi.com. It came to my attention that there was a prettier girl in school.

Goodreads

2011-04-22T13:04:00.002-04:00

I have an author page on Goodreads now. So there's that.

What else? I've been making a lot of matzoh bark lately. All you do is melt some chocolate chips in a big pan with canola oil and a little salt, then dunk strips of matzoh in it and lay them out on some wax paper, then stick it in the freezer for 10-15 minutes. Boom. Happy Pesach.

Orange Matzoh Brei

2011-04-19T10:59:00.004-04:00

I posted a matzoh brei recipe a couple years ago that I still endorse, but I just got the idea for this new one from the French toast recipe from The Vegan Stoner (it's miles of easy recipes with adorable illustrations! Go to there).

I'll acknowledge that some people are against sweet matzoh brei; I obviously don't belong to that camp. Here's a fine article about that issue that also includes a recipe. But that recipe isn't vegan--mine is.

INGREDIENTS:

matzoh
orange juice
rice milk (soy milk, almond milk, whatever)
vanilla
maple syrup
cinnamon
walnuts (optional)
oil or margarine for frying

DIRECTIONS:

In a large bowl, mix together equal parts orange juice and rice milk, enough to cover the amount of matzoh you want to use. Add a spoonful of maple syrup and a dash of vanilla and cinnamon.
Break apart the matzoh and soak it in the mixture for 5-7 minutes, until soft.
Fry on a large pan for about 3 minutes until lightly browned. Stir frequently.
Get out the jelly, the syrup, the margarine, and/or the powdered sugar, and rejoice.

The Souls of Fossils

2011-04-15T00:15:00.003-04:00

My EP/chapbook illustrated by Sophia Holtz, The Souls of Fossils, is now available on Bandcamp. So you can listen to it for free, or even download it if you pay me.

For an enhanced listening experience, you can read the corresponding poem and see the corresponding illustration to each track if you click on its name instead of hitting "play."

And if you purchase the whole shebang, you get a bonus track: it's a Sean Conlon cover!

Jade Sylvan

2011-04-07T13:59:00.005-04:00

My friend Jade Sylvan recorded an album. It's called Blood & Sand and I'm really enjoying it right now. It's a little like a slightly more down-to-earth Chelsea Girl, with the bedside feel and gently asserted breadth of Sea Change. And on the cover it looks like she's a ghost! It's cool.

The Crazy Exes from Hell

2011-04-06T05:13:00.002-04:00

We have a website now. There are even t-shirts.

The Crazy Exes from Hell

2011-03-31T12:34:00.005-04:00

We are now on Bandcamp. At http://thecrazyexesfromhell.bandcamp.com, you can hear the entirety of our new EP, Keep Your Stupid Moon, for free, and you can download it for $5.

Alternatively, you could come to our show at Midway Cafe next Thursday, April 7th, and buy a hard copy, also hear us play the whole thing plus some other songs.

More shows to come, I'm pretty sure.

NAP

2011-03-21T10:32:00.003-04:00

NAP is a new and classy-looking literary magazine, the latest (second) issue of which features five of my poems. And guess who else's poems? Howie Good's.

Howie Good is like the moon; it looks like he's following me, but really it's just that you can see him from anywhere.

The Crazy Exes from Hell

2011-03-18T18:44:00.003-04:00

Kirsten Opstad and I are officially a band. We are The Crazy Exes from Hell. We are both the lead singer and we sing songs about hating each other because we love each other.

We're working on a six-track EP that should be done within a month or so, but in the meantime you can hear us by coming to Midway Cafe in Jamaica Plain on Thursday, April 7th. More band news is sure to come.

Network Awesome

2011-03-13T14:01:00.004-04:00

Network Awesome is a TV channel on the internet, devoted to all things vintage. They have a magazine now, in which you'll find an essay I wrote about Harold and Maude and Quadrophenia. As you can imagine, it has mostly to do with driving automobiles off of cliffs.

Since I ended this essay with a suggestion that it is a good idea to deactivate your Facebook page, I decided to deactivate my Facebook page.

As I see it, the greatest trick to living in the internet age is to avoid looking like a hypocrite even though everything you have ever done can be Googled.

Marnie Stern

2011-03-07T16:59:00.010-05:00

Last night I went Upstairs at Middle East to get my face melted off by Marnie Stern, and my face got melted off, but I couldn't help but feel like I was the only one.

People don't dance much at rock shows I guess. It reminds me of when I was 13 and my father took me to see Oasis and the Black Crowes at the Oakdale Theatre. The Tour of Brotherly Love, they called it. Two just over-the-hill British bands mostly there to pay tribute to much further over-the-hill British bands. "They say Rock n' Roll is dead," a worn-out Chris Robinson said to an auditorium full of middle-aged men crossing their arms and nodding their heads. "Looks like some of you got blood on your hands." Ungrateful, yes. Those men did each pay about $50 to stand there. And what did he expect? "Rock n' Roll" doesn't charge $50 on Ticketmaster. It's a thing that happens at a bar with a half-broken PA and wristbands and plastic cups of cheap beer getting spilled all over a floorful of people who haven't given up on sex yet. At the very least, the crowd is younger.

But actually, it looks like standing around looking bored is hip among the youth. Still. As far as I can tell, we've moved from ironic 80's fashion to semi-ironic 90's fashion at some point but the attitude is pretty much the same.

I have three words: come on, people. Kurt Cobain has been dead for longer than most college kids have been alive. Marnie Stern makes exhuberant, violent, balls-out guitar music, shreds like a beast to block-rocking beats, and at the high point of the evening I counted myself one among maybe fifteen people who were moving more than their heads and their cell phone thumbs. There had to be a hundred people in there.

I'm listening to Marnie Stern's new album now. There should have been a mosh pit. Save my soul, why was there no mosh pit?

Were they shy? I'm shy to the point of eye contact being a chore. Awkward about their bodies? I flinch whenever it looks like somebody might touch my shoulder. Did they have dark pasts that made them jaded and unwilling to show love for anyone or anything again, even music? Hey, I've been hurt before. When a beat rocks my block, I still move my body.

That's not me being a hero; that's me doing what feels good. Is doing what feels good "over"? You can be disaffected and still dance. The Goths did it. The Punks did it. Shit, the Mods did it like they were getting paid for it. We suck. Let's get our asses back in the game.

Ramshackle Review

2011-03-02T11:43:00.003-05:00

A prose poem I wrote on tour called "There There Now, Bus Buddy" appears in the latest issue of Ramshackle Review, as do four poems and an interview from the unstoppable Howie Good. Seriously, that guy's work is everywhere these days, and if you ask me, it's easy to see why. Check out this e-chapbook of his on Gold Wake Press.

The Scrambler

2011-02-15T22:15:00.002-05:00

A poem I wrote called "This Year Will Be the Year That Counts" appears in the latest issue of The Scrambler. It includes a secret about one of my friends.

Muzzle Magazine

2011-02-15T15:39:00.004-05:00

My poem "Among the Other Mourners of Zion" appears in the latest issue of Muzzle Magazine along with poems by Carrie Rudzinski and Susie Swanton.

Today I found three individually wrapped breath mints and four rose petals in my jacket pocket. I know how the breath mints got there but not the rose petals. I was walking to the beach when I found these things. It sure is February.

Phantom Kangaroo

2011-02-14T10:55:00.002-05:00

Phantom Kangaroo, a new literary magazine specializing in eeriness, has decided to publish a prose poem I wrote called "After the Spawning," a kind of sequel to "To the Spawning."

"Semelparity" is the reproductive strategy by which a creature such as the Pacific salmon mates once and then dies. In the case of the salmon, its skin peels off in the ocean in which it was born.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Moisture (Cantab Awkward Date Night 2011)

2011-02-10T12:57:00.002-05:00

Last night at the Cantab, we had our annual Awkward Date Night, otherwise known as Erotic Poetry Night. This year, we played open mic sex poem cliche bingo. This mix was one of the prizes.

MOISTURE

1. The Smiths - "Stretch Out and Wait"

Let your juvenile infancy sway / this way and that way, this way and that way / God, how sex it bores you

2. Frank Zappa - "I Have Been in You"

Aw, little girl, there ain't no time / to wash your stinky hand / go in and roll over / I'm goin' in you again

3. Depeche Mode - "The Dead of Night"

We're the horniest boys / with the corniest ploys / who take the easiest girls / to our sleaziest worlds

4. The Magnetic Fields - "Let's Pretend We're Bunny Rabbits"

I can keep it up all night / I can keep it up all day / Let's pretend we're bunny rabbits / until we pass away

5. Joss Stone - "Put Your Hands On Me"

Oh I'm lovin' those hands

6. TV on the Radio - "Make Love All Night Long"

Yeah, long skirt / with the brown legs under / gonna call your bluff / gonna blow your cover / gonna sweat and moan / and be your lover

7. R.E.M. - "Star Me Kitten"

You are wild / and I'm in your possession / Nothing's free / so fuck me kitten

8. Pulp - "Help the Aged"

It's time you took an older lover, baby / Teach him stuff / although he's lookin' rough / Funny how it all falls away

9. Morphine - "Sexy Christmas Baby Mine"

Merry for you / Not too merry for me / I want you here with me / Misery loves company

10. David Bowie - "We Are the Dead"

you're dancing where the dogs decay / defecating ecstasy / locator for the virgin king / but I love you in your fuck-me pumps

11. Liz Phair - "Flower"

You act like you're fourteen years old / Everything you say is so / obnoxious, funny, true, and mean / I want to be your blowjob queen

12. Beck - "Peaches & Cream"

Give those pious soldiers / another lollipop / 'cause we're on the good ship / Menage a Trois

13. Half Japanese - "Rub Every Muscle"

When your muscles are knotty / and your heart beats like thunder / I'll be there to soothe you and release you / from the pressure you're under

14. Lou Reed - "The Blue Mask"

Make the sacrifice / mutilate my face / if you need someone to kill / I'm a man without a will / Wash the razor in the rain / let me luxuriate in pain / Please don't set me free / death means a lot to me

15. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - "Loverman"

L is for love and
O is for oh yes I do
V is for loving virtually all that you are and
E is for loving almost everything you do
R is for rape me and
M is for murder me
A is for answerin' all my prayers
N is for knowin' your loverman's gonna be the answer to all of yours, yeah

16. The Stooges - "No Fun"

Well, maybe go out / maybe stay home / maybe call Mom on the / telephone

17. P.J. Harvey - "This Is Love"

Does it have to be a life full of dread? / Wanna chase you 'round the table, wanna touch your head / This is love, this is love / that I'm feelin'

18. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Bang"

You ain't a baby no more, baby / You ain't no bigger than before, baby / I'll rub that cheek right off your lips, baby / so take a swallow as I spit, baby / As a first time you sucked / as a first time you sucked / as a first time you sucked / as a first time you sucked

19. Ida Maria - "Better When You're Naked"

I like you so much better when you're naked / I like me so much better when you're naked

20. Ad Frank & the Fast Easy Women - "The Cuddle"

If we take our lives then we can fuck in Hell

21. Original Off-Broadway Cast of Urinetown - "We're Not Sorry-Reprise"

I'm not sorry / just unsound

Manuscript Title Idea No. 3

2011-02-04T11:22:00.000-05:00

Subaquatic Mammal Beach Vacation.

But is it too Nineties?

Menues Crypt

2011-01-31T11:28:00.001-05:00

I've finally put together a full-length manuscript to shop around. It doesn't have a title yet.

It turns out my poems contain a lot of bodies of water. Eight poems include the word "water," five include the word "ocean," three include the word "beach," two include the word "shore," five include the word "river," and people and animals are swimming, drowning, and drinking all over the place. I thought about calling it Beaches. If I got it published, I could say on the thank-you page that people were the wind beneath my wings. Okay, I am definitely not going to do that.

There are also more references to herd animals and cars than I might have expected from myself. My other title idea, Buffalo, Buffalo, Drive to the Shore, seems maybe a little too silly.

Here is the last poem I wrote that's in this thing:

The Ash Valley Tapes

The ghosts in this film have forgotten
to be humans. They use their eyes
to locate danger. They use their claws
to rove through the dark. Their mouths,
octopuses solving puzzles. But they recognize

our faces, and our heroes reckon this since
the ghosts have returned. Across the oceans
and the rivers that seized them, the ghosts returned
to this very city in the desert. Now they eat cats
and tinier parrots. Their haunted heave sighs. Here,

have this can of lamb. But ghosts are no kind
of pets. If they see you cross a congested street,
they will join the traffic. If they see your head
poking out of the water, they will swipe out
their laser bows and take dead aim.

Shows in February

2011-01-15T10:53:00.001-05:00

As of February, I will live in Boston again. This is great, and one reason that it's great is that I get to play some shows.

On Sunday the 13th I'll be at the Precinct along with Michael Monroe (not that Michael Monroe) and Meghan Guidry. Bands to be announced will play after us.

***UPDATED***
Then, on Saturday the 19th, I'll be reading at the Best Damn Poetry Show in Western Mass (140 Pleasant Street in Northampton) with Thomas Fucaloro. The open mic sign-up is at 7:30 and we'll go on at 9.

I'll be looking to book some more, and I'll post them here when that happens.

Ramshackle Review

2010-12-16T12:34:00.000-05:00

Ramshackle Review is an online literary magazine on their second issue, which included poetry by Howie Good (eerie-good) and Justin Hyde (heartfelt-and-heartbeat-quick-good).

*

The Most Boring Thing

I've been in Connecticut since Thanksgiving. This is becoming a problem for me, spiritually. Last weekend I heard non-ironic use of the phrase "Coldplay wine tasting." But more troublesome than that, my parents are locked in a bitter legal battle with their neighbors over the placement of a swing set.

One day, likely enough, I will own property. The value of that property will grow more important to me than the relationship I have to the people living near it. Or that is one of the thoughts keeping me awake at night.

My parents are not especially malicious or passionless people. My mother is a speech therapist for kindergartners. My father sang and played lead guitar in bands when he was my age. They live to make their family happy. Every evening for about an hour they kvetch and bark about this child's playscape. The eyesore. The nerve of them. The costs. Is this what lies at the end of the funnel of a successful domestic life?

This is not, to me, an example of "more money more problems" as much as "more money, different and more fake-sounding problems." But it's as real to them as the twisty green slide we can see from the porch. If I stay here much longer, I might bury myself alive in mulch.

four poems in The Legendary, my new book

2010-08-26T10:30:00.001-04:00

The Legendary decided to publish four of my poems.

Also, I just self-published (with no small amount of help) a book called The Souls of Fossils. It's a squarish little book with six poems, each illustrated by my friend Sophia Holtz, and it comes with a six track EP. It is a brief assessment of romantic love--by way of natural disasters, fatal encounters with captive animals, and the extinction of the dinosaurs. There will be a release party at the Whitehaus tomorrow night (Friday, 8/27).

Love Will Follow You to Your House and Hide There Until You Find and Kill It (But It Will Never Die)

2010-06-12T23:07:00.000-04:00

Here is a new poem that I turned into a song that you can hear on my Myspace. I honestly think it's much better as a song, but here's the poem:

My love for you is a dog
I have to train not to bite.

My love for you is also a cat
that hates you

except when it’s a different cat
that I have to lock in my room
when you come to my house
because you’re allergic.

If there is ever a sweetness in the morning air
that you haven’t known since you were a baby,
like the scent of a great aunt who must be dead
since the beginning of your memories, that too
is my love. Call it by its name
and it will stay.

footage (Fri, 1/22/2010, @ The Whitehaus, Jamaica Plain, MA)

2010-03-05T14:53:00.001-05:00

Finally, incontrovertable evidence that I exist.

To the Spawning

2010-02-27T23:17:00.000-05:00

I got the idea for this poem from a sketch that Carlos is working on. The poem would describe the aftermath of said sketch.

We found him over at O’Hare
running up the down escalator
wearing a gigantic salmon suit.

When we took off the headpiece
the guy was sweating like a bear
in the desert, and he was wailing.

Hours later, we got it on the radio—
there actually was another salmon,
waiting around at the wrong terminal.

I was stuck in California!

2010-02-18T11:12:00.000-05:00

Last Tuesday, Carrie, Carlos, and I flew out to do a show at UC Santa Cruz, and return flights to Boston got canceled because of snow, so Carlos and I were in Santa Cruz until last Friday night. Carrie went to L.A. to celebrate her birthday.

Meanwhile, I spent my birthday gallavanting around Santa Cruz with Carlos. We had sandwiches with avocados in them, and we went on a hike through the redwoods where we visited the Wishing Tree and the Climbing Tree and a tree that had fallen, and we walked along the wharf and looked down on the shut-down amusement park, and then we went to the Saturn Diner and I had another sandwich with avocado and a soymilkshake. It was a wonderful birthday--perhaps the best birthday that ever ended with sleeping in an airport--but the whole time I really missed the East Coast.

So I wrote my love poem to Boston. It was bound to happen. Here it is, out of my system:

Dear City of Perpetual Hibernation

In Santa Cruz, they eat citrus off of trees and sleep
wherever they fall. They think 40 is cold and grow
up to be sandalwood teapots. We will always be
too fat for Los Angeles. In Denver you could spend
your whole life chewing moss off of one mountain.
Boston,

________I left a carton of blueberries in the fridge.
Leave just a handful for me.

_________________________New York has a whole
lot of mouth and a great deal on some slightly used
electronics. I’d rather eat stale falafel out by Inman
than give them the satisfaction of their all-night cafés.
I’d rather get jilted and stuck in your hoof-worn paths
at 2 in the morning than pace their 24-hour Lite-Brite.

I filled my flask with the cabinet, Boston, please
don’t yell.

__________Nobody understands wind in Georgia.
I couldn’t tell you where they keep the salt in West
Palm Beach and I told you I’m sorry for ever living
in Connecticut, though the shiny junk hanging from
your left ear was made in New Haven. Boston, when
I get home I won’t make you talk about the surgery
you convinced me you were going to need. We can
stain the whole carpet with cheap scotch to clarify
that the old stains were never there. We can get all
hysterical and warm and not admit to a damn thing
in the morning. Your trains won’t budge for the sun
but you made me out of apologies for being tardy.
I’m awful sorry. Your face doesn’t scrunch up at all
when you cry. I never know what to say, so let’s just
get this out over the phone:

______________________You were right. As always.
If I could sprout spikes from my back and turn away
from the rest of the world, I would do it.

_____________________________________Chicago,
of all places, couldn’t get through its head where
my grumpiness came from. That’s it for America.
That’s it for any but your briny ass.

___________________________________So sit down.
Let me share what’s been keeping me busy all week.

The Day I Was an Arcade Machine

2010-02-05T19:28:00.000-05:00

Here's a poem that I'm happy with, but which might not make the final cut of the manuscript I'm putting together. Inspired by a short story by Geoffrey Forsyth.

This happened to me on exactly the wrong day:
I lost my voice, and every time I tried to speak,
brass coins would flop out of my mouth. Engaging
customers was more hellish than usual. Making
their change at the register was all but impossible.
People kept bringing back their ice cream—they
had heard how filthy money was supposed to be
and they feared for their health. I kept turning to
Bob hoping he'd send me home, but Bob was too
busy tuning the yogurt machines to be bothered.
And of course I couldn't ask him. I need this job.
I was virtually unemployable as it was, and now
I spoke in a foreign currency. These coins had
the face of a woman with cropped hair on one
side and some kind of marsupial looking down
at its empty chest on the other. I picked one up
and started to wonder, what if everyone started
doing this, like a sort of very lucrative pandemic.
If we all spoke in the same coins, I imagined,
inflation would kill us.

Plough & Stars

2010-01-28T23:22:00.000-05:00

I'm playing a show next Thursday (February 4th) at the Plough & Stars in Cambridge, along with my friend Sean Conlon and a notorious local band by the name of Sway. The show will start around 10pm. It's 21+.

I made guacamole today after work. I'd half-forgotten how satisfying it is to make good snack foods.

The Whitehaus

2010-01-21T10:51:00.000-05:00

I'm playing the Whitehaus tomorrow night, along with Tongue Oven, Illlich of Baab Ceegur fame, and house resident B. Law. The Whitehaus is in Jamaica Plain, and it is the coolest.

I don't work at an ice cream store anymore. I worked my last shift tomorrow, and every time I served a rude customer I pretended I was saying goodbye to them all. And I was.

Watsky

2010-01-14T20:14:00.002-05:00

If you haven't done it yet, you should get George Watsky's surname-titled album. Here's an example of why this is a good idea:

I played this track for my brother on my parents' stereo, and after the line, "but I love my Dad, that motherfucker read to me," my mother turned to me and said, "This is crude."

"But Mom," I said, "he's talking about how much he loves his father. You just don't like that he said 'motherfucker.'"

And she said, "Well, I guess that's it."

Seriously, though, get this album. Listen to it while walking somewhere you don't want to go, so to provide the courage you need for your journey. Put tracks from this album on mixes that you make for your friends, that they too can feel this strong. Together you will laugh at the weaknesses that make you human and worthy of love. I work at a record store now; the people expect me to know about these things.

Doing Some Shows

2009-11-02T14:46:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow night I feature at North Star Cafe in Portland. I really can't say enough about their sandwiches.

Next Tuesday night, I'll be featuring for the Slam Collective at Hampshire College. I'll be doing an hour long set, the second half of which will involve a guitar. Some of my best friends and favorite poets go there, and I'm looking forward to the visit.

Anyone who reads this should please read Shoplifting From American Apparel. If you know me, you probably know what it sounds like when I geek out on Tao Lin, but I really want some people to talk to about this book. (P.S. I don't agree with Melville House that he's the "American Murakami," I think Lin is more radical--as in new and different, but also in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sense. Okay done.)

Ian Khadan and Connor Dooley

2009-10-08T12:09:00.000-04:00

Ian and Connor are a couple of friends of mine from New Jersey. Connor runs the LoserSlam out in Long Beach, whose "rag-tag" team beat the infamous Slam Charlotte in their first bout at Nationals this year.

These two guys did a double-feature at Cantab last night, and they put on a really good show. It wasn't "rag-tag"; it was "rough-and-tumble." They managed to charm the audience without wasting time with too much banter. You could just tell how much they enjoyed performing together, and how much they enjoyed performing for our venue. I said on the mic, and it proved very true, that Ian and Connor don't play "good cop/bad cop," they play "suckerpunch cop/kick-to-the-gut cop." They brought a little bit of the funny and a lot of the heartache, and now they're touring the country, and anyone who doesn't see them should feel very sorry for missing the chance.

And their CD sounds awesome. Okay, now I'm done gushing.

PANK

2009-09-15T13:34:00.001-04:00

Three of my poems are in the new issue of PANK Magazine, which also features poems by PSi President Scott Woods and host of the Indie Feed Performance Poetry Channel podcast Wess Mongo Jolley.

I'm also featuring for Port Veritas at North Star Cafe in Portland on Tuesday, November 3rd. I'm planning to do a whole set of poems accompanied by guitar. I may cheat a little and do one or two poems without guitar, and there will definitely be some singing.

*

The Most Boring Thing

I work at an ice cream shop now. I'm still a vegan except that I eat a small amount of dairy for the job. I feel like I'm just doing what I have to do here, from a financial perspective.

I have pretty bad "first week jitters," as the Employee Handbook calls it, but it's going well enough. I served my first customers yesterday and talked to one of them about how nice Denver was in January while scooping a perfect 5-ounce medium cup of coffee ice cream, then rang it up on the register correctly.

Actually, I think this might have been the customer I made the frozen yogurt drink for. I screwed that one up a little, I think. I screw up a lot.

I remember in first grade when my teacher told my mother that I was an "absent-minded professor." I took it as a compliment when my mother told me about that, but I don't know anymore.

Maybe I'll go to grad school or something.

A Russian Traffic Cop Claims Himself The Second Coming and Commands His Followers to Keep Vegan

2009-08-29T21:02:00.000-04:00

Found this article via Newser.

"His followers, who have given up their lives to follow him, are strict vegans and are banned from smoking and drinking or handling money."

"Around 300 of them live in wooden huts in the village that has grown up around his church and which does not appear on any maps."

I'm going to say this: veganism doesn't need any more bad PR. I think there's been enough to keep us vegans looked at askance for at least the next two decades. PETA has handed out its share of pictures of scalped sheep and debased women, we've had McDonald's blown up on our behalf, plenty of liberal arts graduates have had vegan roommates they ended up quietly resenting--all and all, I think we look maniacal enough for a group of people who are just trying to leave animals alone.

And now we've got Jesusmania on our team.

I'm also going to say this, though: a sad and desperate part of me wants to join him. Never having to deal with money ever again? Living in a quiet little hut in Siberia? Which I'd build myself, giving me something concrete and ultimately rewarding to do, something directly and not just implicitly tied to my survival? Of course, it would mean never touching another glass of bourbon, but at least I would know what I was doing with myself.

Okay, I don't really want to live in Siberia. What I really want right now is bourbon.

I don't have any though.

Sean Lovelace

2009-08-26T11:51:00.000-04:00

Rose Metal Press has just published a chapbook of short short stories by Sean Lovelace called How Some People Like Their Eggs, the winner of their third annual short short chapbook contest.

I helped proofread this book and really liked it then, and now that I have it in a fashionable-looking font inside of pale yellow cardstock I like it even more. I am now going to get mushy and probably a little pretentious about it:

Sean Lovelace writes in a brisk, dry style, describing sequences of events that aren't entirely surreal and aren't entirely lifelike, which is to say that they occupy as fully as possible the world of the human mind. The wryness of his voice sometimes gave me the feeling of reading from Raymond Carver's shroom log.

The book consists mostly of first-person narratives that move and turn a little like James Tate's more fun poems, but one story, for example, is a series of diary entries from an aging Charlie Brown, each of which begins, "I wake, and hear the birds coughing."

"Meteorite," the story about 'meeting with a friend who's dying of cancer and eating bad bar food with her while feeling a little concerned about destiny' that opens the book, seems like the best, but my favorite was probably either "I Love Bocce," a story about 'a medical student mourning an unrequited crush and cathecting the sport of bocce,' or "Molasses," a story about [spoiler alert] 'feeling less motivated and responsible than one's girlfriend and starting to mow the lawn and then talking with the girl who walks through the lake selling junk from a tire on a rope and learning that one's favorite molasses store has gone out of business because of a syrup superstore opening up nearby.'

Generally speaking, Sean Lovelace's stories are hard to sum up; I feel that they are very complete and good.

I'm in West Palm Beach for the National Poetry Slam

2009-08-05T16:22:00.000-04:00

West Palm Beach is like the inside of a gigantic mouth. Our hotel is an ice cube on its tongue. The other buildings are the teeth. The person whose mouth this is flosses too much but still has bad breath, possibly from drinking too much.

Connor's been carrying around his huge bottle of Tullamore Dew. I wrestled two of my best friends last night for no reason. This is the least depressed I have been all summer.

Peanut Butter Stir-Fry

2009-07-08T16:35:00.000-04:00

This is my easy meal that I make when I want an actual meal but don't want to work very hard. I also consider it a good recipe to have if you're a vegan house guest in a non-vegan home, and you end up in a situation where it's acceptable or expected that you make dinner. You don't have to ask for any special ingredients. You just say, "Alright, do you have peanut butter, soy sauce, rice, and some vegetables?" because those are the only really necessary ingredients.

INGREDIENTS:

water (okay, I mean besides water)
1 cup rice
peanut oil (or just vegetable or canola oil, whatever)
1 clove garlic
1/2 pound tofu, sliced into thin triangles
1/4 cup peanut butter
2 teaspoons soy sauce
1-2 tablespoons chives, chopped
a handful each of onions, carrots, green peppers, mushrooms, and/or whatever other vegetable you want, chopped
salt and pepper and maybe some hot sauce to taste

DIRECTIONS:

Start the rice.
Coat a medium-large pan in the oil and put it on medium heat. Crush the clove of garlic with the side of your knife and slosh it around a little in the oil. (Alternately, you could mince it and put it in with the vegetables later, but I find this trick easier--"bruising," they call it).
Fry the tofu for about 3 minutes a side, so that they're just golden. (Since you've already got some protein in the peanut butter, you can totally leave out the tofu if you feel like it).
While the tofu is frying, put the peanut butter in a bowl and add 1/4 cup of water, and mash it with a fork until it's a nice creamy texture. Mix in the soy sauce and chives (chives, again, aren't really necessary, just delicious. I actually use green onions more often).
Take the tofu off of the pan and replace it with the vegetables. Throw in the salt and pepper, plus some hot sauce if you want. Stir-fry the vegetables until they're slightly browned, or however you like.
Throw the vegetables, tofu, and peanut butter sauce into the rice and mix it together, gently enough so as to leave the tofu more or less in tact.

I have this as leftovers all the time. Leftovers of this will be my dinner in about an hour. I am not unhappy about this.

Getting published a little online, just remembered that I have a blog

2009-06-28T13:40:00.001-04:00

Okay, so I knew I had a blog all along, but I didn't know what to put here for a couple of months (combination of writer's block and feeling too lazy to try new recipes).

Yes though, the first part is true: a couple of online literary magazines have decided to include some of my poems. Here are three of my poems on Mad Swirl, and here is their poetry forum on which my poem "Cozy" appears.

Also, Word Riot has accepted "2029" (known by those familiar as "The one where I kill Sam") and (to my amazement) "Seaweed Baby," a 30 line poem from the perspective of a crying infant caught in seaweed. I'll link to them again when they put those up.

Both of these magazines have published work by Sarah Morgan, who just completely rules. I keep saying that her use of imagery is destructive in a really satisfying way, and I that's the best/only explanation I can seem to conjure as to what rules about her poetry. I will admit that I may or may not know what that even means. She says she has exciting news for me, but she won't tell me what it is, so I don't know what that means either.

Sam wanted us to adopt a cat when we move in together and name it Meaning so that when s/he gets lost we can say that we're "looking for Meaning," but I told him no, because "come on."

JOB APPLICATION please pass along

2009-05-21T14:59:00.000-04:00

"...the goal of production no longer lies in any specific market, any specific set of consumers or social and individual needs, but rather is transformed into that element...that has no content or territory and indeed no use-value as such, namely money."

--Frederic Jameson

"i am going to pay someone a lot of money
to turn around and go home"

--Tao Lin

This is an open application for the position of Professional Pac Man Player.

My "resume" is that I will play Pac Man in front of you,
on the Free Pac Man website, on your MacBook,
and you will see that I have a natural talent.

I have maintained four extra lives at one time (April 29th, 2009).

I have consistently eaten all four ghosts
before they can even blink.

The numbers that I have generated
have exceeded the quintuple digits.

This can be a new form of customer service
for your corporation or private business.
Let me show your clientele.

I will pace the same maze
so many timesthat people who work
for companies that work for you
will swell with all the purpose
of someone who makes food or houses.

I will eat so many of the ghosts who chase me
that your American investors
will stop being terrified
of peoples that they don't understand.

I will consume so many white dots
in such gorgeous succession
that I will make the adolescents
at your fast food restaurant feel great
about eating the rainforests.

Most of all, I will try.
I believe in giving extra effort
all the time, every day,
and in having fun working hard,
in reaching for every fruit,
no matter its value.

The World's First Kiss Was the Ocean Kissing a Rock

2009-05-09T01:02:00.000-04:00

It's been a little too long since I've straight-up posted a poem, hasn't it? In case you agree, here's a poem I've been picking at for a couple of weeks now. I'm working on setting it to music, so I'll tell you when that's done and on BadMovieCommercialSpace.

When I imagine kissing somebody for the first time,
I always imagine us in a kitchen--

and of course the window is open
and the sun is just about to go down
and some sweet bread that needs a lot of time
just went into the oven,

even though, in my life,
most kisses in kitchens
occur at house parties,
and are bourbon stale
and overdone.

I was daydreaming on the 66 bus,
groceries hammocking my feet, when
an old man with small glasses and no neck
told a girl with thick sunglasses across the aisle
that she looked very good today,
and that he hoped she had a good day.
He was smiling like someone
who has never heard of pornography.

By the trees at Brighton and Cambridge,
the pigeons were chasing each other,
and I watched one of them fly away, as steady
as the first bubble from the bottom of a pot.

Dreams, 5/6/09

2009-05-06T11:50:00.000-04:00

I dreamed my sister and I were on a ship back from Italy, and the plane landed behind a gigantic mall, and only the two of us and three of our friends went into the mall.

We went to the food court and ordered sweet potato fries, and the woman at the counter said that they'd be out in three to four hours, so we walked around.

All the shops were closed, and no one had anything to say, which was strange because one of the friends was Carlos, who always seems to have something to say about something. Then we walked back to the food court and finally got our sweet potato fries.

Then I dreamed that I was in a diner with the Gringo Choir and a few other Emerson people, including our rookie slammer Peter. They had something called Psycho Fries, which Max asked about, but the waiter said that they weren't very good and kind of tasted like shrimp. I ordered the sweet potato fries.

Then I dreamed that my neighbors and I got together on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, and we were going to race our cats.

One of my neighbors in this dream looked a little like Bea Arthur, and she kept making comments about my roommate's cat Butch being fat, and not in a joking way. She kept giving me a really dirty look. We ate lunch in her backyard, and after having asked me about how I was doing as a vegan, she dumped a pile of chicken wings right onto the table in front of me. Graciously, however, she also gave me a bowl of sweet potato fries.

The cat race ended late in the evening, on my front porch. Butch was in second or third place (Bea Arthur's cat got buried). The cats started brawling, and everyone else saw this as just the second leg of the race, but I really thought some cats were going to die. I tried to get between Butch and this bigger orange cat that was chasing him, and thankfully the orange cat got distracted.

Butch then plopped down under the porch and watched the other cats wreck each other. I watched too, dismayed.

I have shows now!

2009-04-21T13:35:00.000-04:00

And I'm even telling you about them this time!

This Friday, for example, I'll be doing a reading at Church of the Advent (over by Charles/MGH)with my friend and esteemed colleague Christopher Kain, who just last night gave a beautiful feature to the Emerson Poetry Project. I'll be reading some of my quieter poems, but there will still be drinking and probably cussing.

Also, on Sunday, May 3rd, I'll be playing a half-hour set as part of an acoustic night set up by another one of my friends, singer-songwriter Tony Lovell. I'm on at 9, but you should get there by 7 if you can, because that's when Tony goes up, and he is fun.

The other dates are on my "shows/readings" menu to your right. I'll post more about them as the dates near.

I Fucked Up!

2009-04-19T11:39:00.000-04:00

First, I had a show at Gallery 263 and didn't say anything about it on this blog (though I guess that's mostly okay since most of you got invited on Facebook? I hope.) I have a few shows coming up in the next month or two, and I promise I'll tell you about those as soon as I do some fact-checking.

Then, when I played that show last night, I covered this song, "Pablo Picasso," and introduced it as a song by one of my favorite songwriters John Cale, when in fact, it is by another one of my favorite songwriters, Jonathan Richman.

It was a weird mistake for me to make, since the song is on The Modern Lovers' self-titled album, one of my favorite albums and the main thing that I listen to when I'm delirious on good weather and salty air and full of love for my home city. But John Cale was the producer of that album, and (here's where the slip comes from) he covered this song on his (unbearably cool and Eno-ful) 1975 album Helen Of Troy. I heard that version first. Anyway, here's my version:

Vegan Matzoh Brie

2009-04-11T17:24:00.000-04:00

It's Passover, and you know what that means: no bread for the Jews. If you're a real fan of Jewishness, you know that that also means no cereal, no pasta, no flour tortillas, and no whiskey or beer (or gin, but that is of less consequence to me).

If you're a vegan, however, you already know that restriction is the mother of invention, which is to say that you will eat delicious things that you would not have thought of eating otherwise.

One of these things is matzoh brie. You will eat matzoh brie.

You might be curious to know what matzoh brie is--basically, it is French toast, but since the "toast" is made out of the flattest and hardest of "breads," it is delightfully crispy and, I dare say, fried egg-like. It is easy to make; you will make it; it will be so good.

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup soymilk or other non-milk

2 ripe bananas

a pinch of cinnamon

some matzoh (yields about 8 sheets' worth)

oil for frying

DIRECTIONS:

Put the soymilk, bananas, and cinnamon into a blender and puree them until smooth. Pour the mixture into a wide bowl.

Break each sheet of matzoh into three or four pieces and soak them in the soymilk mixture for about three minutes.

Fry the matzoh in oil until it's browned on both sides, which shouldn't take long, so watch out--it's best if they're still pretty soft anyway.

HEARTILY RECOMMENDED: Pour on some sugar and/or jelly, or some maple syrup. Some people prefer their matzoh brie more savory, like they fry it with peppers and onions and put ketchup on it, but I was never one of those people.

The Gay Republicans

2009-04-05T21:41:00.000-04:00

a Trevor Byrne-Smith joint starring me and Sam Teitel, "The Two Sensitive Guys" (a name that grows more ironic with our every action).

Come to New York City and watch me read poems and play guitar.

2009-03-30T23:26:00.000-04:00

My friend Paris and her friend Allison are opening a new art collective space in New York City. They've named it Epoh Owl (I have to admit that I don't know what that name means; Wikipedia doesn't have Epoh, BabyNames.com doesn't have Epoh, so I'm at a loss, but I do love owls).

Epoh Owl's grand opening is this Friday, and as part of the celebration, I have been invited to do whatever I want in front of a microphone for half an hour. According to Paris, there will also be "electric blue ambiance," "flavor from both coasts," "an authentic Farolito runway," "dancing," and "mystery."

INFORMATION:

Epoh Owl is(/will be here on in) at 38 Marcy Avenue (at Hope Street), in Brooklyn.

The opening begins at 7.

Admission is $3, but it goes to help make this art space a permanent thing, so I would call that a bargain.

My set begins at 7:45.

The festivities will last until roughly 11pm, at which point I will have had a lot to drink and will probably do something foolish. Or actually maybe I'll just behave myself and go to sleep, since I'm supposed to stay with Paris, who will have her mom with her.

I read my poems at a church this morning

2009-03-22T16:29:00.001-04:00

It was out in Salem, at a little Unitarian Universalist church right by the commuter rail. Sam got us the gig through his UU connections, but he was still in Oregon today, so I did it alone.

It was a small congregation of friendly small-towners. They gave me coffee beforehand and hummus and bread and salad afterward. I read these poems:

Meditation on a Signature

My signature
on the screen
at Trader

Joe's, where I have purchased
70 dollars' worth of health food
so I can go back to living at home

looks like I didn't used to believe
my own signature would ever look
when I was in the third grade

learning cursive. They were teaching us
how to write with our hands casually
without stopping. I thought I would

always write my name carefully. I thought
that my name was too important to scrawl.
I also thought my stuffed shark loved me,

which is ridiculous
because in most cases
sharks do not love humans,

but before one's trust in the inanimate,
before one's love for the ungiving of love,
even before one's ability to stop mid-word,

belief in one's name must be the first to go.

*

Some Very Cheerful Moments Happen To Me When I’m Too Depressed To Appreciate Them Fully

Sometimes, when I'm depressed,
I find myself somehow
walking down Harvard Avenue
wearing or carrying something
that would seem more fitting
for a non-depressed person
to wear or carry, like I'll be carrying
a stuffed monkey with fairy wings
that meows like a cat when you squeeze its hand,

and an old-ish lady who looks like she's been crying
will stop me and say, "Where did you get that little guy?"
and I'll have six beers in me, so I'll have to say, "What?"
and the old-ish lady will say, "Where did you get your friend?"
and I'll say, "My friend gave him to me. Here, check this out,"
and I'll squeeze his hand, and he'll meow like a cat,

and she'll chuckle and look at me
like she's completely done crying
and say, "What's his name?"
and I'll say, "I don't know.
What should his name be?"
and she'll look at his red and pink shirt and say,
"Happy. Happy--Heart."
and I'll say, "Happy Heart.
Okay." and I'll smile a little,

and I'll kind of want to ask if she's been crying,
or talk about why I've been crying,
but instead I'll turn back around
and continue walking home,

and I'll pass out over the sheets of my futon,
and at some point in the middle of the night
I'll toss to the corner of the futon
and squeeze against something
and get woken up by a meowing sound,
and I'll think it's my housemate's cat,
but it's Happy Heart,

and I'll smile again, and fall back to sleep
before remembering how depressed I am.

*

Okay

When I was two years old, I fell
and caught a huge splinter in my chin.
My mom says I bled a lot but didn’t cry.
I still have the scar under my beard.

Earlier today, my housemate’s cat clawed me in the face.
I thought my eyebrow was going to bleed. Meanwhile,
the cat kept rubbing up against the chair and meowing
as if she wanted me to keep on petting her.

My face has been in a small amount of pain all day.
I’ve been considering writing a song called
“My Cat Just Clawed My Face.”
I wouldn’t call it, “My Housemate’s Cat
Just Clawed My Face,”
or even, “My Cat Clawed My Face
On The Day That I Wrote This Song
(But Now I’m Okay).”
Sometimes, when you’re writing songs,
you have to lie a little bit
so listeners can sympathize with you better.

My housemate’s cat is usually a better cat.
Her name is Sundance. She is tiny and hyper, and graceful
except that she always bumps her head on low furniture.
I love her even when she claws me.
Sometimes I think that I love her so much
because I’m always a little afraid that she’ll claw me
and therefore always a little grateful that she’s not clawing me.

The great thing about cats is that they’re such chaos,
it makes them the perfect creatures to adore.
I could start shutting doors behind me,
avoid Sundance’s torn-apart cardboard scratching box
every time I go to my refrigerator,
or I can stoop down and give her a pat on her knuckle head,
no clue if she loves me or hates me,
enjoying the company for a second,
and maybe just minding my eyes.

*

Reading at this church was a really calming experience. I felt more like I was sharing my story, and less like I was performing my work--not that the latter can't be uniquely rewarding, in its way, but there wasn't any pressure. I'm kind of glad I didn't say yes to reading off of the higher pulpit. They had one pulpit that looked like a one-person elevator, further up on the wall than the organ platform. Actually, that might have felt pretty awesome.

I think that even the fullest life must be so full of regrets.

Slam Poem #10 (All Religions are the Same)

2009-03-20T16:41:00.000-04:00

Muhammad's Wikipedia page tells us
that the great prophet led the believers
to battle with tribes twice their size,
and that these tribes were slaughtered
into submission to an all-seeing god
just before the prophet's farewell tour.

A white guy with dreadlocks told me
that Buddha looked at his finger
and that Buddha saw the Buddha
and that Buddha killed the Buddha.

Jesus's PR representatives confide
that Jesus flipped the merch tables
in a church, and that he could be "kind
of a righteous asshole sometimes."

They teach us at Jewish camp
that Abraham used to be named Abram
until he started talking to God,
and God told him he should totally
put "ham" in his name. We imagine
that his son loved that story.

Someone named Fred wrote
about someone named Zoroaster
Zoroaster climbed a rock once,
jumped twice, slipped a little,
straightened up and sat down
on a beetle (though this
he would never know).

Slam Poem #10 (Stop the War)

2009-03-20T16:38:00.000-04:00

.0 (The American Flag)

The daughters of the revolution
sewed red stripes on the American flag
to symbolize their brothers' blood
which ran through their uniforms
onto the streets and the soil
that was supposed to be freed.
A century after their deaths,
they were granted suffrage.

.0 (The Star of David)

If you tell me the star of David
is burning on a stranger's lawn,
then please call that a desecration
of the star of David. We can bow
our heads together for this stranger,
but after that, I want you to tell me
about the last time you picked up a rock.

.0 (The Peace Flag)

Every week, I walk through Brookline Village
to buy groceries, and I see the town elders
holding up rainbow peace flags and picketing
a war for which their president has announced
an exit strategy, and I can see them walking home
after a couple of hours, alone, going to bed, hoping
to dream, once more, of their glorious war in the Sixties.

Slam Poem #10 (Sexually Transmitted Diseases)

2009-03-20T16:37:00.000-04:00

When I say sex
you say love

When I say love
you say marriage

When I say marriage
you say big house

When I say big house
you say prison

When I say prison
you say you've never been to prison

and I say me neither
and we both agree that's pretty lucky

because we've both done some bad things.
Everyone's done some bad things

because things are fun to do
even when they're bad

but you have to be careful.
Everyone should be more careful

especially around people who have been to prison
because they had to sit in a room with one other person,

whom they probably didn't like, for a long time,
and if they don’t like you, that could remind them of some bad things.

Slam Poetry Ate My Balls

2009-03-20T14:57:00.000-04:00

Last weekend, I coached the Emerson College Slam Team (a.k.a. "the /b/ team") at the College Union Poetry Slam Invitational (a.k.a. "College Nationals"). The team was made up of my friends and excellent poets: Maxwell Kessler, Carrie Rudzinski, Carlos Williams, George Watsky, and (our rookie) Peter Lundquist. We made finals and took home 4th place.

I'm very proud of my team for getting to finals, and all four of them gave extremely good performances of extremely good poems, and the crowd seemed to love all four of them like long-lost children. Some other teams, such as UPenn and UC Santa Cruz, put up some really good poems in slams that I saw last weekend. That said, I came home with some freshly agitated opinions...

Many of the performance poets I know will agree with me when I say that Slam Poetry is one of the stupidest inventions of the 20th century (ranking just under the neutron bomb or the self-spinning fork, depending on which definition of "stupid" you're using). It was designed to steal poetry back from the academics, but now that poetry belongs to the people, it's just a really flimsy centerpiece for this community of orators, too many of whom seem less interested in the craft of poetry than they are in half-informed political grandstanding.

The main problem with slam, structurally, is that it forces the judges, randomly selected audience members, to give public scores to the poets. Audience members who have never seen a poetry slam before are especially encouraged to judge, so not only do they have to evaluate art in front of a crowd of strangers, but they very well might have to do so while forming their taste in said art form.

But the biggest problem with public scoring, as many slammers will tell you, is that a lot of poems that get performed at poetry slams deal with hot-button issues. Understandably, most judges feel uncomfortable giving a low score to a bad poem denouncing a hate crime, but they might give a low score to a great poem about, say, the troubled life of an ambulance driver.

I feel that poetry is an inherently valuable addition to social discourse. When people listen to any well-written poem, they are moved to think about the world in a way that they have not thought about it before. To submit oneself to an evening of good poetry is to appreciate existence on a higher level than usual--which, frankly, is good for humanity. Bad poetry at its best is boring; at its worst, it appropriates and trivializes the struggles of humankind, all of which deserve more attention than it takes to write a half-assed poem and perform it without having revised it thoroughly. Any mechanism that favors poor writing of a particular political persuasion over effective writing is a harmful one.

Still, Emerson's victory, paired with the Cantab team also taking 4th place at Nationals (and the recent attendance boom at the Cantab) gives me hope that good poetry is on the rise, and that it might soon overshadow the gaudiness of slam.

Roasted Pepper Walnut Pesto

2009-03-01T20:53:00.000-05:00

Radiatore

My favorite kind of pasta is radiatore.
I eat it in pesto fresh from the pot
and pretend that I'm eating radiators.

It's like when somebody tells you that
the world is on their shoulders
or that their heart belongs to you,

because unless you're some kind of heart realtor,
or a titan, or a giant, these situations are impossible--
it just humors us to pretend for a while.

*

I mostly just got this pesto recipe from about.com and further simplified it, but I cannot stress enough: radiatore is the most satisfying shape of pasta. It's like the golden rectangle--it's objectively perfect.

INGREDIENTS:

2/3 cup of roasted red peppers
2-3 cloves of garlic
1/3 cup of walnuts
3/4 cup of fresh basil, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup of olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
a package of radiatore (or other inferior craterous pasta)

DIRECTIONS:

Prepare the pasta in a large pot.
Put all the other ingredients in a blender and pulse until smooth. If it comes out too dry, add more oil. This is a delicious pesto that goes well on crackers or pita chips, if you're feeling snackish.
Pour the pesto onto the finished pasta and mix it around.

I won't get in trouble from plagiarizing from about.com, will I? If this post is illegal, then I'm sorry, please don't take legal action against me, I'm just an unemployed English major.

"Hip-Hop Debut"

2009-02-21T10:55:00.001-05:00

I've been recording sort of a rap this weekend. It guest-stars Sam. I put it on MySpace. The lyrics disparage MySpace. Modern life is full of contradictions. Anyway, you can listen to the track here, on my stupid MySpace page.

Beyond MySpace being a tacky and annoying website, I suppose my problem with it is a somewhat narcissistic one, which is that I don't like the feeling that when I make music, I'm competing with everyone else in my entire generation. The good thing about MySpace is that it empowers people to make music and share it, but that's also what irritates me about it.

Part of the problem is that not everyone should make music. I know this is really snobby to say (not to mention very un-punk), but imagine if a website came out that made everyone think they could just wake up and be a lawyer.

There is a difference, I think, between the assertion that anyone can make music without corporate appropriation--the punk and indie phenomena--and the opportunity for anyone to make music and then whore it out on the internet while Rupert "The Boston Herald" Murdoch makes fat bank off of obnoxious advertisements.

Obviously, I can't completely condemn something in which I continue to participate, but I'll say this: I hate that thing bands do where they friend strangers who like bands that they like, probably using some sort of robot. Fuck that.

Dream, 2/15/09

2009-02-16T09:58:00.000-05:00

I was standing with my father and his work buddy somewhere in the Southwestern US at dusk. The moon was gigantic. We could see the moon and the Rockies as if they were on a gigantic HDTV.

My father was telling his work buddy about my trip to Chicago (I think to explain to him why I've been drinking so much), making fun of me for chasing after this college ex-girlfriend of mine. "He was hoping there'd be a--what's the word I'm thinking of, Steven?" He was looking at me like I was in on the joke. "It sounds like the name of an exotic bird, I think it starts with an 's'..."

I finally got fed up and threw a rag in is face. "Why do you have to mock everything I ever care about?" With that, I stormed off, wishing I could enjoy this majestic evening in the field behind the power plant.

Later, I got out of bed to go to the bathroom. The bathroom was like a camp bathroom--it had rows of urinals and curtained-off showers--and it was hospital green. There was a boy in a big t-shirt at one of the urinals, and I started toward him thinking it was my brother. I wanted to complain to him about our father.

But it wasn't my brother. He looked like my cousin David, but he was much thinner and didn't recognize me. I backed off and went to a urinal at the opposite end of the bathroom.

A second later, I heard him coughing very intensely, and from the corner of my eye, I could see that fluid was flying from his uncovered mouth.

After hesitating a little, and without looking right at him, I asked if he was okay. He said "Yes, I'm fine" very indignantly.

Whiskey BLT

2009-02-09T15:17:00.000-05:00

Today I was just fed up with going to places that had delicious tempeh BLT's and then getting home and not being able to make one for myself. I went to the North Star Cafe in Portland for the Tuesday night slam--delicious tempeh BLT with sunflower seeds. I stopped into Good Earth when I was in New York on my way back from Philadelphia after my show at The Fuze--delicious FBLT with avocados and this ridiculously excellent bread. They all had their own spin on it.

So I went out to Star Market (well, WholeFoods first, just for the vegenaise) and got what I needed, because this was happening. I was just about to make my tempeh bacon with apple cider vinegar, but then I said, "No. Not apple cider vinegar--they'll be expecting that. I'm using whiskey." So here is my take on the vegan BLT.

INGREDIENTS:

1 8-ounce package of tempeh, sliced lengthwise into very thin strips
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons whiskey (Maker's Mark is delicious and eco-friendly, but I just used Jim Beam because we had some lying around)
1 tablespoon maple syrup
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon of canola oil
a tomato, sliced
crispy green of choice (I used baby arugula because I felt like being a fancypants)
avocado (optional, but again, fancypants)
vegenaise
bread of choice

DIRECTIONS:

In a trey or large bowl, mix up the soy sauce, whiskey, syrup, and garlic, then place the tempeh strips into the mixture. Let them marinate for about 15 minutes while you slice up the tomato and maybe some avocado.
Fry the tempeh in oil over medium heat, about 3-4 minutes a side, until browned. Meanwhile, you can toast the bread if you want it toasted (I keep my bread in the fridge, so I did this).
Spread vegenaise on both sides of the bread, then pile on the tempeh, lettuce, tomato, and avocado, in that order. Chop that thing in half and eat it with some chips and a soda pop. A pickle would be a really nice touch.

Beer Flowers

2009-02-07T12:31:00.000-05:00

I took this recipe for Cauliflower Pakoras and pretty much just changed out the water for beer.

INGREDIENTS:

about 2 cups of cauliflower florets, sliced 1/2 inch-thick (other vegetables such as broccoli could work as well)
/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup beer (pilsner or ale preferable)
canola or vegetable oil for frying

DIRECTIONS:

In a large bowl, combine the flour, chili powder, salt, baking powder, and beer to make a smooth, thick batter. It should not be runny. If necessary, add more beer 1 to 2 tablespoons at a time. Mix well.
Warm 1/2 inch of oil in a medium skillet on medium heat. The oil is ready for frying when a drop of batter quickly crisps.
Coat the cauliflower slices in the batter, and carefully place them in the pan to avoid splashing the hot oil. Don't crowd the pan.
Cook until golden on both sides, turning once, for 2 to 3 minutes on each side.
Transfer to a paper towel to drain. Serve as soon as possible.

This cheese-like sauce from Veganomicon works well as a dipping sauce. I increased the amount of flour to make it thicker and more of a dip. I also added minced olives because I had some leftover olives to use up. Incidentally, I used the leftovers of this sauce in my breakfast burrito this morning. It was a good idea.

Cheezy Sauce

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups vegetable broth or water
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
pinch of dried thyme (crumbled in your fingers)
salt and pepper to taste
pinch of turmeric
3/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon yellow mustard
a few olives, minced (optional)

DIRECTIONS:

Whisk together the broth and flour until dissolved.
Preheat a saucepan over medium-low heat. Place the oil and garlic in the pan and cook about 2 minutes, stirring often.
Stir in the thyme, salt, and pepper.
Add the broth, turmeric, and nutritional yeast, and raise the heat to medium. Stir constantly for 3 minutes, until the mixture bubbles.
Once the mixture is bubbling, stir and cook for about 2 more minutes, then add the lemon juice, mustard, and olives. Keep covered until ready to serve.

my birthday is next Wednesday

2009-02-05T12:43:00.000-05:00

In six days, it will be Wednesday, February 11th, and Sheryl Crow and I will both be another year older. I'll be 22; Sheryl Crow will be 46 (I looked it up on Wikipedia).

I don't know what you should get Sheryl Crow if you're going to her party or whatever, but here's what I want:

A job. I've been applying at local places here and there. The ones I'm really hoping for are line cook or waiter at Veggie Planet or clerk at Brookline Booksmith. I would be open to doing other things, but mainly I want to work at a place that offers goods or services that I believe are "good," like vegetarian food or books. I don't really want to work at an office and be unclear about what I'm helping accomplish, but I guess that would be acceptable at this point. Just help me be able to pay my rent and I will not have very much room to complain.
A small-to-medium amount of fame. I don't really want to have to be on TV or go to huge award ceremonies; all I want is for more people to listen to my music and/or read my poetry. I want to achieve the level of fame where knowing my name makes people feel hip. If you help me accomplish this, maybe by burning my CD for some of your friends, that would be really cool of you. I'd tell people you're cool.
A band. This would help me achieve the level of fame aforementioned. If you play a percussive instrument, you'd be especially valuable to me as a bandmate. Raya, do you still have your xylophone?
A robot servant. My first girlfriend got me an awesome little wind-up robot for my birthday the year after I broke up with her. It carries a little tray that I think I lost.
Negative-one heart. No heart, no feelings. It's simple math. Don't make me explain why this would be good.
A Maker's Mark and tonic with a lime. Come to Cantab Lounge for erotic poetry night and buy me this to drink, then maybe remind me not to use my phone until tomorrow.

Breakfast Burrito

2009-02-03T11:05:00.000-05:00

I've been doing this lately, when I wake up too late for a light breakfast but early enough to make brunch. It's really easy and good. This serves one because I wake up alone.

COMPONENTS:

a tortilla
Sweet Potato Hash Browns
Tofu Scramble
Black Beans

before you do anything, heat the tortilla on a big pan for like a minute. This will make the tortilla nice and pliant and a little crispy. That sounds contradictory, but it makes perfect sense--we call that a "paradox."

Sweet Potato Hash Browns

INGREDIENTS:

vegetable oil
a sweet potato, grated
choice of vegetables, diced (I do onions and red peppers, but you could probably just not even do any if you wanted)
a dash of cumin
salt and pepper

DIRECTIONS:

Fry the sweet potato in the oil over medium heat. You could use the same big pan from the tortilla. Just make sure the shreds are all spread out. Leave it frying for a few minutes.
Dice up the vegetables, if you didn't already. Stir the sweet potatos and let them fry for a few more minutes.
When the sweet potato looks like it's starting to soften up, throw in the vegetables, cumin, salt, and pepper. Stir periodically until it looks done, probably about 10 minutes. DURING THIS TIME...

Tofu Scramble

INGREDIENTS:

half a block of extra-firm tofu
vegetable oil
a clove of garlic
choice of vegetables, chopped (I do onions and either carrots or spinach. You'll probably want to use at least one vegetable in this, or at least I would.)
a pinch of thyme
a dash of turmeric
salt and pepper

DIRECTIONS:

Press the tofu to remove excess moisture.
Crush the clove of garlic and fry it in the oil in a big pan or wok over medium heat. Leave the skin on the garlic--that keeps it from burning, and then you just take the whole thing out at the very end (I learned this from a cooking show I saw at Raya's house).
Throw in the vegetables and fry them until, for example, the onions are starting to carmelize, if you're using onions--until they should look like they'll be done soon.
Smash the tofu and stir it vigorously into the vegetables.
Add the thyme, turmeric, salt, and pepper. Stir and cook for just a few more minutes. ALSO DURING THIS TIME...

Black Beans

INGREDIENTS:

about half a can of black beans

DIRECTIONS:

Just cook some black beans in a pot.

TO ASSEMBLE:

Put the sweet potatoes, black beans, and tofu scramble into the tortilla (I do it in that order because I find it the least messy). Make sure not to overstuff.
Fold two opposite ends of the tortilla into the middle.
Holding those ends in, roll another end over the stuff, to the opposite edge of the stuff.
Fold everything, as is, on top of the remaining end. The burrito should be finished. Put some guacamole or salsa or something on it. Delicious.

I find it particularly therapeutic to cook myself a big breakfast. Big dinner and even big lunch has more of a stress factor because it feels like the day is going to end and be totally over if I don't finish this meal in time, but when I cook breakfast I feel centered. I feel like anything is possible today, so I might as well start by making myself some delicious food. I recommend this to anyone who doesn't have to get out of bed and immediately hurry to work or something.

I really need a job though.

Come see me and Sam read in Cambridge this Monday

2009-01-27T00:44:00.000-05:00

This Monday (Groundhog Day), Sam and I will be the featured poets at the Stone Soup Poetry Series, which takes place at the Out of the Blue Art Gallery starting at 8pm. We'll probably be starting our set at around 9, but you should come early and do the open mic unless you really have to be late.

This is the only local stop we currently have booked, so unless you want to pay us to read in your basement (doable, btw), here's your chance to be a part of the Two Sensitive Guys experience.

my "Fuck Chicago" mix

2009-01-25T15:53:00.000-05:00

I will admit that it's unfair of me to say, "Fuck Chicago," but my bias--based on the week I spent there to play The Green Mill with Sam--is so great that I reserve the right to make a mix and call it that. I could explain to you what happened in Chicago and why I feel this way, but I think the songs--well, they're more interesting. There are also some poems about it here.

*

FUCK CHICAGO

1. "I Don't Want to Get Over You"-- The Magnetic Fields

I guess I should take Prozac, right? / And just smile all night / at somebody new

2. "The Denial Twist" -- The White Stripes

So now you're left denying the truth / and it's hidden in the wisdom in the back of your tooth, you need to / spit it out in a telephone booth while you call everyone that you know / and ask them, "Where do you think she goes?"

3. "It's All Over" -- Willie Nile

It's all over / It's all over / It's all over / It's all over / It's all over / It's all over / It's all over now

4. "Favorite" -- Neko Case

Oh lie, I thought you were golden / I thought you were wise / Caught you returning to a house you caught fire / But I know that I was your favorite / and I said Amen

5. "Everything I Try To Do, Nothing Seems To Turn Out Right" -- The Decemberists

[The title pretty much says it.]

6. "Seymour Stein" -- Belle & Sebastian

Promises of fame, promises of fortune / L.A. to New York, San Fransisco back to Boston / Has he ever seen Dundee? / Won't he hire a limousine? / Seymour, send her back to me

7. "Just Like Honey" -- The Jesus & Mary Chain

I'll be your plastic toy

8. "Nobody's Fault But My Own" -- Beck

Treated you like a rusty blade / a throwaway from an open grave / Cut you loose from a chain gang and let you go

9. "I'm Free Now" -- Morphine

I've got guilt, I've got fear, I've got regret / I'm just a panic-stricken waste, I'm such a jerk / I was honest, I swear / the last thing I'd wanna do / is ever cause you pain

10. "Country Mile" -- Camera Obscura

Once again, I'll be the foolish one / thinking a blink of these lashes would make you come / Don't you worry, don't get in a state / I don't believe in true love anyway / Oh, who's been pessimistic now?

11. "Say You Miss Me" -- Wilco

I've been losing my mind / wasting my time

12. "Glory" -- Liz Phair

You are shining some glory on me

13. "Fly" -- Nick Drake

Please, give me a second grace / Please, give me a second face

14. "How Do You Think It Feels" -- Lou Reed

How do you think it feels / to feel like a wolf and foxy? / How do you think it feels / to always make love by proxy? / How do you think it feels? / And when do you think it stops?

15. "Pink Bullets" -- The Shins

When the kite lines first crossed, we tied them into knots / To finally fly apart, we had to cut them off

16. "Where You've Been Hiding" -- Architecture In Helsinki

I wrote you a letter in capital letters saying all that I care for / all that I care for is / where you've been hiding

17. "Imagination (Is A Powerful Deceiver)" -- Elvis Costello

I see a look of recognition, so well hidden in your eye / and your game show regulations, they just don't seem to apply

18. "Who's Your Girlfriend" -- Adam Green

People like me should not have a phone

19. "2:45 A.M." -- Elliott Smith

I'm going out like a baby / a naive unsatisfiable baby

20. "It Wasn't Me" -- Jenny Lewis with The Watson Twins

I'll use a pop song to clear my name / Beneath the bridges of fame it's always nighttime / I'll end with a closer and say goodnight

21. "Every Little Bit Hurts (Live)" -- The Spencer Davis Group

Come back to me / Darling, you'll see / I can give you all the things that you wanted me for / if you will stay with me

22. "Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod?" -- The Mountain Goats

And alone in my room / I am the last of a lost civilization / and I vanish into the dark / and rise above my station

23. "Boxers" -- Morrissey

Losing in front of your hometown / the crowd calls your name / They love you all the same

*

When your last-track pick-me-up is a song by Morrissey, I guess you're in kind of a Place, huh? Well, so it goes.

James Lindsay

2009-01-22T17:26:00.000-05:00

James Lindsay is one of my favorite local poets and has inspired my work quite a bit lately. He's the kind of poet who makes you believe that he's writing to you off-the-cuff until he suckerpunches you with his subtle imagery and wit. I just found his website and thought I'd post it. It's http://www.wasjameslateforworktoday.com/.

I'm re-posting this poem of mine from 365/365

2009-01-16T12:11:00.000-05:00

I already posted this on the public and private 365/365 sites, but I thought I'd put it here too, since it's a pretty complete articulation of how I'm feeling right now, and then I'd just add that I'm home and I'll be blogging here again. There will also be a couple more vlogs on the Two Sensitive Guys blog.

*

Cozy

I want to be knitted alive into a body-sized cozy
made of organic fair-trade soy yarn
by very creative people who are skilled at knitting.

While these creative people knitted my cozy,
I would feel like I was being touched by the feelers
of large furry insects who were curious about me.

The cozy would wrap my body completely,
leaving no openings wide enough for anyone to see any of my face.
(To survive, my body could maybe develop photosynthesis.)

They could leave me in a hip art gallery
and hipsters could come and look at me lying there,
and I wouldn't have to worry about doing anything to impress them.
I wouldn't have to worry about doing or saying anything ever again.

This year I'm trying to write one poem per day.

2009-01-04T12:17:00.000-05:00

A bunch of my friends and colleagues are doing it too. You can read them all here.

Again, all of my blogging this month will be done with Sam here.
It's mostly video blogs. We incorporated a puppet.

From now until February, read the Two Sensitive Guys blog.

2008-12-26T13:32:00.000-05:00

I'm probably not going to post anything here while I'm on the road because I'll be posting to the Two Sensitive Guys blog instead. So go there for video blogs, road mixes, and the occasional old-fashioned word-style weblog entry.

*the Two Sensitive Guys blog*

Latkes

2008-12-24T12:22:00.001-05:00

Okay, I just made latkes. I mixed up:

- 8 potatoes, grated

- 1 onion, finely chopped

- 1/4 cup cornstarch

- 1/2 tsp salt

- 1/2 tsp pepper

- 1/2 cup matzo meal

- 1 tsp baking powder

They fried up nicely, but the cornstarch made them too gummy, so I called my Grandma for advice. After a little back-and-forth about how I don't eat eggs anymore, she suggested I add a little oil into the mix, and if that didn't work, put in a drop of milk.

The oil did the trick, but I tried some soymilk too for the last couple of batches just to see what that did. It all worked out pretty well.

When I made latkes with my friend Raya last Saturday, we used egg replacer instead of cornstarch, which worked perfectly, but I wanted to show my parents that vegan cooking didn't necessarily require a bunch of weird stuff you wouldn't ever have to buy otherwise.

We also used three tablespoons of flour instead of the matzo meal. I just used matzo meal this time because we happened to have some lying around (this happens most often when you are Jewish).

We also used chives instead of onions, and that was really good. Have them with applesauce. Hell yes.

Happy holidays, everybody.

This is why I keep going to open mics that aren't at Cantab on Wednesdays.

2008-12-23T22:58:00.001-05:00

Tonight, I went up to The Space in Hamden. Tuesdays is their open mic night, and when I used to spend more time in Connecticut it was one of my main hangouts. I only saw some of the people I had hoped to see--Steve Rogers, Rob Messore, and a bunch of the other staffers and regulars were M.I.A.--but I did see one open mic-er who made the trip completely worth it.

She had to be younger than 13. Her name was Elizabeth (Browning? I think? I wanted to get her last name, but I didn't know how to do it without looking creepy). She did two songs on the piano, which she played minimally but proficiently. Her melodies were natural, elegant, and catchy, which would have been impressive enough, but her lyrics were the really striking part.

The two lines I can remember were "I'll need my boots to walk in the rain" and "I am into your war." She actually made me wish I had brought more seriously good songs. I just did my Batman song and "Fossilized Love Letter" and walked away feeling somewhat inadequate but happy that at least I was bested by extremely fresh and young talent.

Brownies

2008-12-22T13:00:00.001-05:00

I made these brownies for a party on Friday, which was supposed to be pretty big but due to the weather turned out to be just four guys getting drunk and playing Rock Band (it turns out that you don't have to sing the right lyrics in order to get a high score--knowing this makes Rock Band a lot more fun. This also applies to regular karaoke).

Basically, I was out of soy butter and wanted to make something, so I found this recipe and changed it up to be more of a culinary risk. The risk paid off. Try making this for a party this season, if you're going to one.

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon chili powder (trust me, they won't be spicy, just delicious)
3 tablespoons applesauce
(for texture and moisture--more makes them breadier, less makes them gooier. It can be left out.)
1 cup water
1 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
some chopped walnuts (if you want)

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350.
Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl.
Stir in the moist ingredients (and the walnuts if you decided to use them).
Pour the batter into a baking pan and bake it for about half an hour. Let cool for at least 10 minutes before cutting.

Not to be a dick, but why are brownies ever non-vegan? This is just easier and I think cheaper. Eggs are messy. I am legitimately asking this question, so someone please make these brownies and then tell me why eggs are better to use so that I can experiment and make a vegan alternative.

2. Short Prose

2008-12-18T08:21:00.000-05:00

Consumers frequently send us letters (sometimes several pages long!) thanking us forproviding the perfect sentiment to help them begin, enhance, or mend relationships.Often that sentiment is short prose, which may include one or more of the following: casual tone, word play, powerful imagery, fresh insight, humor, whimsy, and surprising(yet relevant) word choices.

Examples
Sometimes the best thing to do is just look in the mirror and say,
"What shoes go with this stress?"

It's your day!
So don't even pretend
you're not the center of attention.

Necessary things in life- Lip gloss Coffee Speed dial Perfect jeans Shoe sales Friends like you
Sometimes when we're hanging out together, I'll just look at you and think to myself,
"Is there anything better than this?!"
(There isn't.)

Write a short prose sentiment for each of the following three situations:

1. Keeping in touch with a college friend at Christmas

I'll be missing you over the break, pal,
but when I sit down to Christmas dinner,
my family gathered around, our heads bowed,
you'll be right there with me--
I'll see your face on the glorious body dangling from that big wooden "t."
You know I would kill for you just as quickly.

2. Helping a co-worker cope with trouble at work

A word about your boss:
he is not the invisible hand that deals Solitaire;
he's the secretly anxious smiley face on the top of Minesweeper.
So click. Drag. Blow up whatever.

3. Teasing a relative who's having a milestone birthday

Here's just one more reminder
that life's a rat race
and you're a few laps ahead of the rest of us.
A quick word about the finish line:
It's a trap.

about the poems in Textured Vegetable Protein-Based Miracle Subsitute

2008-12-13T14:23:00.000-05:00

The Buzzing Searchlight of Responsibility (0.3 pg): This poem is about wanting to stay in bed instead of participating in the world. Its main character is Batman.

Graduating the Weekend (1.1 pgs): This poem is about graduating college and still living in an apartment that your parents are paying for, and not knowing what to do and being scared of your landlord. I costar in it with my roommate's cat, Butch. read it here

Decorative Squash (2.3 pgs): This poem is about those little squashes that you see in store windows around Thanksgiving time, and how they make me angry. read it here (it comes second)

Four Greeting Cards (0.6 pg each): I wrote these four poems in the style of Hallmark greeting cards (more on that here).

The Buzzing Heat Lamp of Romance (0.8 pg): This poem is about how complicated sex lives can get, and how boring that is even though pop media makes it out to be a big deal. It stars Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, and Julia Roberts.

We've Been Calling Him No-Name (1 pg): This is a flash fiction about a stray cat.

Kwansaba for Dennis the Wayward Manatee (0.3 pg): This poem is about this.

Meat Joke (0.4 pg): This poem is about how non-vegetarians sometimes stigmatize vegetarians and vegans, and how uncomfortable that can be for everybody. read it here

Poem Written via Text Message (1.3 pgs): This is one of three form poems in this book. Each line is 20 characters long and each stanza is 160 characters long, except for the last stanza, which can be shorter, like an envoy.

After Watching the Detectives (1.2 pgs): This poem is about a very tense and difficult evening I shared with someone I really loved.

My Heart is a Professional Hurricane (0.6 pg): This is the book's second form poem--it's a ghazal. The title comes from a poem by my friend Carlos Williams. read it here / listen to the song

To Imitate Their Natural Habitat (0.3 pg): This poem is weird.

My Eagles Adieu (1.3 pg): In this poem, I speculate on how Napoleon must have gotten pretty depressed when he was in exile.

One-Boy Post Post Punk Band Behind The Music (0.4 pg): This is the final form poem in the book--it's a "13 ways," which is where you write 13 sentences that say the same thing, which I interpret very liberally. It's about being 13 years old and pretty depressed. listen to the song (it comes second)

How to Invest in the Future of Teenagers (0.8 pg): This poem is about this.

Going-Away Party (1.2 pgs): This poem is about how my friend Artie is going through a divorce, but most of my other friends and I are a little younger and mostly just drink and flirt. It takes place at my friend Jess's house.

my chapbook is experiencing technical difficulties

2008-12-11T15:23:00.000-05:00

The first 100 copies of Textured Vegetable Protein-Based Miracle Substitute came out of Hampshire College's printing center with what I feel are some substantial issues. Basically, the font is huge, which screwed up the line breaks in ways that make me uncomfortable, and the page numbers are wrong and on the spine side of the page. This is largely my fault for designing it in Microsoft Word and then not asking Sam for a proof. Sam's the one who handed this in, but he's been having a very bad week, so I'm cutting him some slack.

It was recycled paper, so that makes it slightly less awful from an ecological stand point, doesn't it?

Anyway, I'm still excited to get copies of this book to people. I'll be giving you a play-by-play of the chapbook a la Tao Lin soon. For now, I'm off to New Jersey.

I made a blog for Two Sensitive Guys

2008-12-09T15:13:00.000-05:00

It's here. We'll be vlogging on it, and posting tracklists from our mixes, and maybe regular-blogging a little too.

The Providence show is tonight! I'm excited to do this. Simone tells me that the venue is a vegan bar and grille. I'm like, "Yes."

Here's a thing I would like to do with my life: open a vegan bar and grille, and then start a weekly open mic in it. I don't have anything approaching business know-how though, so I'd need someone to help me a lot.

UPDATE: It turned out that the venue was Ryk McIntyre's venue, which is a non-vegan cafe, and not Jared Paul's venue, which is the vegan one. So now I've got egg on my face, so to speak.

Heh. Egg. Veganism. Ryk would like that one.

a pencil drawing and a ghazal

2008-12-05T14:27:00.001-05:00

This poem is going to be in my chapbook, which will be out very soon. I also made it into a song and put it on myspace. I accompany it here with a drawing of my heart getting drunk:

My Heart is a Professional Hurricane

after a poem by Carlos Williams

He tells me the job is seven days on, twelve days off.
He doesn't get paid much but insists that the work is rewarding.

He steals my food and sleeps on my floor; he spends his pay on booze.
He had been prowling monster.com for months when he met you.

But then he heard your voice and said, "Hallelujah! Let's get whiskeyed."
And he peeked at your ear and threw his chair at my sternum,

and he felt you walk upstairs, and the place went dark,
and my ribs stopped moving for seven seconds, then shook for twelve,

and he felt you walk back down, wearing your hair like a heavy crown,
and my lungs' echoey hallways got used as the town evacuation center.

He is remorseless. He must have had four years of desensitivity training.
You cannot stop him by predicting him, or by looking at the floor.

You cannot stop him from drunkenly shouting about your rocky whisper.
He is convinced--I guess by shadowplay--that you've got these really big eyes.

new book by Matthew Klane

2008-12-05T08:54:00.000-05:00

Matthew Klane has a new book. The significance of this is mainly that Matthew Klane is a very clever wordsmith and this book is probably unlike pretty much anything you've seen. It's probably something like if Dadaism happened now but intentionally made sense. Word(s).

A second Hallmark writing exercise is forthcoming. I'll probably be reading from that whole mishigas on Sunday.

1. Meeting Consumer Needs (Sendability)

2008-12-03T10:47:00.000-05:00

At Hallmark, one of our goals is to provide a variety of products that meet a variety of consumer needs. Greeting cards, for example, provide a range of suitable messages for occasions ranging from celebrating the birth of a child to mourning the death of a grandparent. [...]

First, consider this consumer need: A single woman wants to send a card to her 32-year-old friend from church whose husband has just died tragically.

Next, write a brief evaluation of each of the following six sentiments’ sendability for this situation.

Finally, choose the one you consider most appropriate for the situation above. Or, if none of them seem quite right, create a sentiment of your own.

Sentiment 1:

Saying “we’re so sorry”
seems insignificant
in the face of your loss.

Please know we’re keeping you close
in thought and prayer.

[...]

Sentiment 6:

This bright young life
was a light in the world…
a candle of hope,
warmth, and laughter.
This bright young life
has departed too soon
but will shine in our hearts
ever after.

Sentiment 7:

When I try to imagine what you’re going through,
I imagine us going on a long camping trip,
and we start climbing on trees,
and then you fall off of your tree
and land with your right leg in a bear trap.

I know that I don’t know what you’re going through,
but I think I know why you climbed that tree—
we tend to spend so long on the ground,
and up there you can stop and really look around,
though now you must feel like you’re minus one knee.

If a husband is what I have come to understand,
your tree’s apple, your hole’s poultice,
you’ll have some trouble standing up now,
and I would love to be your crutch,

but I know that if your husband was your leg
then surely I am closer to a fingernail,
and so I urge you to pick me
if you feel that urge,
and know that urges come

not from extremities, but from the heart,
and when you feel it beating,
you are your heart,
and when you breathe,
you are your lungs,
and though breathing and heartbeats are boring things,
you need them both if you want to go camping.

And if now is the long, disastrous camping trip
of your life, then let us find you a seat—
you could probably use a seat.
We’ll find you a bench.
Sometimes life is a picnic,
and this morning you stood
at the kitchen counter.
I watched you make us sandwiches.

Spoken Word Poetry in Forsyth Chapel

2008-12-02T14:45:00.000-05:00

Sunday, December 7th at 2 pm

featuring Sam Cha, April Ranger, Steve Subrizi, and Nicole Terez

As the burial place of poets Anne Sexton and e.e. cummings, Forest Hills Cemetery presents an afternoon of spoken word poetry, to honor the progressive, experimental work of its legendary residents. Spoken word poets bring a vitality to reading their poetry, using rhythm, intonation, and expression to engage the audience and enliven their words. Hear four young poets from Boston's Slam Poetry circuit perform their work. Poets include members of the 2008 Boston Cantab slam team. April Ranger, Sam Cha, Nicole Terez, and Steve Subrizi will perform.

Admission: $5

Directions to Forest Hills

James Caroline at the 11/5 Prop 8 protest

2008-11-30T14:39:00.001-05:00

I'm disappointed that there aren't more crowd pops, but maybe it's the sound. Pay special attention to his use of the words "defend," shield," and "safety." Damn.

Hallmark emailed me back!

2008-11-26T12:24:00.000-05:00

Dear Steve Subrizi,

Thank you for your interest in a Creative Writer/Editor position with Hallmark Cards.

This sounds like they're taking me seriously. It's obviously a form letter.

All writing roles at Hallmark are full time and are at our headquarters in Kansas City, MO.

This takes care of whatever sincere interest I had. I don't want to have to keep explaining to people that I don't live in the "Kansas City" Kansas City. But let's just read on a little bit...

To evaluate your writing style, we would like for you to complete a short writing assignment (attached).

Jackpot.

So I now have a page worth of sentimental writing prompts, the results of which I will post here at the estimated rate of one per week. My goal here is not to land the job.

2SG kick-off

2008-11-25T12:41:00.000-05:00

WELL, the Two Sensitive Guys tour is officially underway (I'll be linking that once we start our video blog). We had our basement show at Kevin's and it was a really good time. He had a bunch of stuffed cardboard boxes from his work set up as chairs, and blue Christmas lights all around, and Sam's friend Nicole (who drew the cover for our just-about-done chapbook) hung up some paintings that were very graphic and disturbing in a good way (I'd link to her, but I couldn't find her on Google). We filled the room, which is to say that there were twenty-odd people down there, including some of my favorite Hampshirites.

Sam and I traded off poems for an hour, with Kevin doing a two-poem spotlight in the middle. I opened with "Meat Joke," we broke in the middle for Kevin, and then Sam opened back up with a poem called "Psalm" about street preachers, and I closed with my "serious poem," which concerns a friend of mine who wanted to kill herself, but the end of the poem is uplifting I think.

This is going to be a really good tour. Sam and I feel that we balance each other out very well. He does very intense confessional work, and I'm usually ironic and/or goofy (except when I'm begging my friend to keep on living).

Most of the time, I feel like humor and irony are the most effective tools for expressing my thoughts on depression and media and other socio-political topics. But other times I feel like I'm locked in a room with a polar bear with earmuffs and a deer with two eyepatches and two talking muffins and a sunburned zebra, and we all just want out.

But then I write another poem about dinosaurs. It's just what happens, and I'm becoming more and more okay with it.

*

Anyway, I ended up staying at Hampshire for about three days. On one hand, going to bars and shooting billiards with Sam, Charley, and Kevin (can't find him either for some reason) was an extremely good time. On the other hand, this is my idea of a self-destructive day: waking up hungover, drinking a cup of black coffee, going on a long car ride to comic book shop (even if Adam Stone is there watching The Muppet Show), eating greasy Chinese food and drinking a Dr. Pepper, showering and rushing off (into the cold cold night) to perform poetry with your slam team at Emerson to open up the room for Jared Paul.

My body felt like one of those Mech Warriors, and my brain was this stupid kid who just barely knew how to work the controls, and my friend who owns the game was like, "You're doing it wrong! Give me the controller!" But I just wanted to finish the game and go home. Which is what I finally did, and now I'm all well-rested, which I'm enjoying a lot. The road is going to be interesting...

Two Sensitive Guys get the fuck on the fucking road

2008-11-22T11:16:00.000-05:00

T-Bird and I start our tour tonight at Kevin Devaney's house. If you want to go but don't know how you'll get to Northampton, I'm really sorry, but it's probably too late for you. You could try calling people? I don't know, it's a long shot. But don't worry, there will be lots of other opportunities to see us.

The Emerson Poetry Project on December 1st for example. About that show: no, we still don't know where it's going to take place, but! I've decided to have a special limited edition "EPP EP" ready. My album is/will be called Soy Replacer, and there are already seven tracks in the works that will be done and on a disc by then. What will happen is that you will give me $3 and in return I will give you a CD in an intricately folded piece of paper with the track listing on it and before I give it to you I will draw a picture on the front, special and just for you.

I feel really good about these recordings. They may be my best accomplishment of my life so far, which isn't saying that much, but still.

recording recording recording

2008-11-18T22:06:00.000-05:00

As I've mentioned, I've been doing some recording lately. Actually, I've been doing a lot of recording lately--I laid down two tracks just today! I'm hoping to have an album done by January that will be a sort of an audio-companion to my chapbook (Textured Vegetable Protein-Based Miracle Substitute, which will definitely be out by then).

Three tracks are done, and you can listen to two of them here. There's a fourth track that's almost done, which is the one about Batman that I was talking about. I need two people, preferably women (not to be sexist, but, you know, women's voices usually sound different, and that's the sound I need) to do backup vocals. It's a pretty simple part, which I prerecorded in a model track. If you'd like to help me out on this, let me know. We could do it before Cantab or EPP or something.

tour dates

2008-11-17T10:17:00.000-05:00

My friend Sam Teitel and I are going on a poetry tour. We call our tour Two Sensitive Guys because we are very deep and have feelings and shit.

These are all the shows we have so far:

November 22: Basement show at Kevin's house in Northampton
(doors at 7:30, show at 8:00; 12 Union Street, Northhampton, MA)

December 1: Emerson Poetry Project, Boston, MA
(same night as the "prom slam," in which slammers perform the lyrics of pop songs; time and location TBA.)

December 6: Sam's Living Room at Hampshire, Amherst, MA
(tentative; door at 7:00, show at 7:30; Enfield, mod 57, 893 West Street.)

December 9: Gotpoetry Live, Providence, RI
(doors at 7:30, show at 8; 300 Thayer Street.)

December 11: LoserSlam at Inkwell, Long Branch, NJ
(show at 9, suggested $5 donation; 665 Second Avenue.)

December 12: The Bridge Café, Manchester, NH
(show at 7, $3; 1117 Elm Street.)

December 16: Port Veritas at North Star Café, Portland, ME
(show at 7; 225 Congress Street.)

December 18: The Ship, Worcester, MA
(show at 8; 1 Millbury Street.)

December 21: Worcester Poets Asylum, Worcester, MA
(doors at 5:30, show at 6; 335 Chandler Street.)

January 3: The Mercury Café, Denver, CO
(showtime TBA; 2199 California Street.)

January 4: Denver Youth Slam Workshop, Denver, CO

January 5: Pretty Boys School For Public Speaking, Denver, CO
(show at 7; 17th and Wazee.)

January 11: The Green Mill Uptown Poetry Slam, Chicago, IL
(showtime TBA; 4802 North Broadway Avenue.)

January 13: Safe Smiles at The Trace, Chicago, IL
(show at 10, $3; 3714 North Clark Street.)

January 30: Philadelphia, PA
(details forthcoming)

February 10: Brandeis University, Waltham, MA
(show at 9; 415 South Street.)

There might be a gig in Indiana too, and after all of this, we'll be doing a reading at Stone Soup . I'll let you know.

Steve Subrizi

Fear of Swimming

Coming soon: "When You Stop, the Moon Stops," the music video

NOÖ Journal

My song for #OccupyBoston

A new Kirsten Opstad album may be forthcoming...

Crazy Exes from Hell in Seven Days: Vermont's Independent Voice

reviews from people who have not slept with me

Monday Night

My Ex-Lovers Read My Book

Who would like to review Newly Wild Hedgehog?

Here, read my book.

Dinosaur Bees

The Scrambler

Sex Pistols at Network Awesome Magazine

The Crazy Exes from Hell @ Valley F.E.A.S.T. 4/30/2011

NAP CHAPS (Amanda Laughtland's, eventually mine)

this Wednesday at 6:30 at Bloc 11

my published work

Twitter

The Crazy Exes from Hell @ Bloc 11

Breadcrumb Scabs

Goodreads

Orange Matzoh Brei

The Souls of Fossils

Jade Sylvan

The Crazy Exes from Hell

The Crazy Exes from Hell

NAP

The Crazy Exes from Hell

Network Awesome

Marnie Stern

Ramshackle Review

The Scrambler

Muzzle Magazine

Phantom Kangaroo

Moisture (Cantab Awkward Date Night 2011)

Manuscript Title Idea No. 3

Menues Crypt

Shows in February

Ramshackle Review

four poems in The Legendary, my new book

Love Will Follow You to Your House and Hide There Until You Find and Kill It (But It Will Never Die)

footage (Fri, 1/22/2010, @ The Whitehaus, Jamaica Plain, MA)

To the Spawning

I was stuck in California!

The Day I Was an Arcade Machine

Plough & Stars

The Whitehaus

Watsky

Doing Some Shows

Ian Khadan and Connor Dooley

PANK

A Russian Traffic Cop Claims Himself The Second Coming and Commands His Followers to Keep Vegan

Sean Lovelace

I'm in West Palm Beach for the National Poetry Slam

Peanut Butter Stir-Fry

Getting published a little online, just remembered that I have a blog

JOB APPLICATION *please pass along*

The World's First Kiss Was the Ocean Kissing a Rock

Dreams, 5/6/09

I have shows now!

I Fucked Up!

Vegan Matzoh Brie

The Gay Republicans

Come to New York City and watch me read poems and play guitar.

I read my poems at a church this morning

Slam Poem #10 (All Religions are the Same)

Slam Poem #10 (Stop the War)

Slam Poem #10 (Sexually Transmitted Diseases)

Slam Poetry Ate My Balls

Roasted Pepper Walnut Pesto

"Hip-Hop Debut"

Dream, 2/15/09

Whiskey BLT

Beer Flowers

my birthday is next Wednesday

Breakfast Burrito

Come see me and Sam read in Cambridge this Monday

my "Fuck Chicago" mix

JOB APPLICATION please pass along