Tuesday 28 February 2012

morning haiku mangle 2/28/12

give me coffee
give me coffee
give me give me
chocolate milk, eggs
more time.

Saturday 25 February 2012

giglist

appearing, in one form or another, at the following public-ish venues:

March 17th Greb Bem's poetrybirthdayextravaganza (columbia city, seattle)
March 28th feature at Broken Mic @ the Baby Bar/Neato Burrito (Spokane, Wa)
May 16th The Breadline @ Vermillion Art Bar. W/Roy Seitz, Megan Kelso (Seattle)
December 5th First Wednesday @ The Grange (Duvall, Wa)

this possibly sets a record for farthest-out booking. hey internet! more gigs. alll about gigggs, gigs and giiiiigs.

Monday 13 February 2012

Canada Island!



not drugs and I have spent the last three days in Victoria, Canada. it is a good place, full of historic architecture, beautiful views, and a record store called Talk's Cheap, which is sadly closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Not drugs and I inhabit a large, brick organic cafe across the way with multiple Tom Waits-related paraphanalia and hey, the servers are friendly. Who knew.

If you are a native of Seattle (like me) and you ever feel weird about how wealthy/posh/boouizhay Seattle's gotten over the last fifteen years, go to Victoria. You'll feel better.

The suite was a penthouse one, given by one of Not Drugs' professional friends, and we sat in awe of the wealth that it felt like we had, the view we enjoyed, the hot tub we lounged in, and the ability to still eat frozen pizza in a penthouse suit and drink Canadian Club. There is a CD player there. The only CD we had with us was Shabazz Palaces and that is fine.

Wednesday 8 February 2012

Leftovers from 2011, part 2 of 1 (or maybe 3)

in 2011, there were songs. Oh yes. and there were bands. and there were songs by bands and bands banning songs they used to play and I didn't so much make a list of "the best of" because I am still hearing songs that came out in 2011, and probably will be, well into 2017, because that is how music works. Rarely does anyone simply immerse themselves in "the now" in a way that doesn't also make them look a little bit silly. Here are some songs that I heard a lot of times in 2011, most of them on purpose. I'll bet you could get a good buzz on if you made a drinking game out of the ones that I'd already posted at some point, and forgot about. Most of these are just sound, but there's a couple videos.



Mogwai's album from January is still good 90% of the way through (that opener is a snooooze) and should not be relegated to any sort of bins. This song sparked my interest in actually checking out Mogwai for real, since people had been assuming that I already liked them for years.



The Obits are one of those bands that deserve a bigger following, but most of their fans listen to no new bands except the Obits. They will never write a hit, but they have a lot of cred, and sometimes they write things that sound like hits from a weird alternate-universe mashup of 91-93, 1980, and 2001, just after "fell in love with a girl" came out. "Moody, Standard, and Poor" is a good record.



I assumed Blue Sky Black Death were from Bristol, or France, or Latvia because of their gorgeous instrumental beats/melodies. Guess they're from Seattle. Huh.



. . . of course, everyone and everyone and everyone's mom who knows that Shabazz Palaces are from Seattle because HOLY SHIT SHABAZZ PALACES EVERYONE! EVERYONE! SEATTLE HAS RAPPY TYPES! EVERYONE!



"lana del ray" "odd future" "___________"



Brielle moved to Chicago this year. Go, Brielle, go!



I was gonna do a whole double-entendre thing about this band being called The Men, but realized it would be labored and hackneyed. If they were just called "Men," though, that'd be awesome.

(see also, a few posts down, the Thee Oh Sees clip for the continued up-bubbling of punk/psych/garage from various bits of the nation)



Chuck Klosterman pissed this band's fans off. I won't post a link, I'll just say that Klosterman's gotten fuckin' lazy in recent years, and tuneyards fans are touchy folk. Less people need to write about how a Feminist Woman Artist writing about rough fucking is a Statement, and more people need to write about how it is awesome.



Stay weird, Annie.



One night, after working 13 hours combined jobs, a little drunk off beers from work, I wanted to listen to something funny and aggro and weird and didn't feel like FOTL (I know, RIGHT?!) and so I loaded this video up to play this awesome song by these awesome rappers and the internet in Rainier Beach is so slow that it never played and I was angry at 3 a.m. and put on an episode of "Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia" but it woke up my housemate, who had to work at 8 a.m. so I had to turn that off as well. Marty has since gotten the internet fixed.



Momma's gonna buy you a mockingbird.



This song can play from start to finish three times in a row, starting at Westlake Station and ending at Northgate Transit Center. The sheer fucking amount of times this has soundtracked the sunset over Lake Union, or the roll out at rush hour by exit 173, or the absolute lack of any view at all.

Thursday 2 February 2012

Leftovers from '11 (part 1 of 1, or maybe 3)

or the Less Vague, Less Angsty Version

This post went missing for a while and could probably use editing/adding to. But as much as I love reflecting, I'd much rather start looking forward. still, there's a certain gnawing regret everytime I SAY I'll do a big wrap-up post and don't, so here you go. . .

People
The Big Stories this year: Rachel "Not Drugs" Hug and Zion Monillas at the beginning of the year and the passing of Aunt Betty and Nana near the end. Rachel, being the girl who I am boyfriend to, was introduced to me by mutual friend Star, who was pretty sick of my vague, glum pronouncements about not getting any/meeting rad girls. In an effort to solve at least one of those problems, on the 2nd of January Star brought Rachel and I together under the roof of St. James'Catholic Church. It took a few months to convince Not Drugs that I'm not a total waste of time, but we've been together for a while now and its going well. She is super awesome and my girlfriend and gush, gush, etc. I'll stop before you get sick.
Zion Monillas is my nephew. He is almost One. He has lots of dark hair and was birthed by my sister Amara.
Nana and Aunt Betty's passings happened within a month of eachother, making for a lot of funeral in little time. Both are tremendously missed.
Roy Williams visited in February, bringing a slice of South Wales with him. good week.


Writing and performing
So, while I did take a few solid stabs at things like National Poetry Month and other such productivities, this wasn't as great a year for new hot brilliance. That said, I did something like 15 readings around the state, so that's at least an event a month. Highlights include the first (and heretofore only) Muxbo Symposium, the Claustrophobia kickoff and Cheap Wine and Poetry. Not Drugs and I launched the Claustrophobia Readings Series, somewhat in limbo at the moment as we ponder forward movement with it.
Now the Host of Works in Progress at Hugo House.

Living
In 2011 I've had three different mailing addresses, and four living spaces. This is as stressful as it sounds, though I gotta shout out my friends for helping me out when I needed it.
I bottommed out sometime late '10 on doing Really Cool Internships For Free For Great People. . .
still, working/finding/searching for work has largely been a series of discouragements or ego bruises. Interviews, a week-long tenure as a canvasserI don't interview well. I still work at The Loft, tend bar at Orcas Landing (scroll down) and occasionally pick up extra tutoring shifts.

Travel
Korea! See posts about it from earlier this year.

Aging
I am 30 years old now. completely different, exactly the same.

To be continued? Posts about Twin Peaks, about Being In A Relationship, about Politics, about writing with little time to do so, fighting monsters, creating more interesting ways to reflect on years. . .