In like squished peeps.

The new project from GI and Not Drugs.

the judge said "i will never die."

On a rare slow day, I've finished "Blood Meridian." Combine with a started-great-got-weird last night still weighing on the brain and all its attendant grogginess the mill of students and teachers and the un-comma-ed neo-biblical writing style of Cormac McCarthy and you have a day of inclement unexplainably strange sadness whirring through and under the clicks of computers and the slow mumble of minds seeking expansion that may never come.

futures.

Revolutions are real things,

but are poems about "revolution" about the real thing?

this afternoon, at the North Seattle Community College Espresso Lounge, myself, Lindsey Walker and John Newman read as part of the school's Year of Learning program; the theme for the year is, yup, "revolution."
So vague, but so specific; many of the students at North are international students, some are here directly due to displacement brought on by real, violent, terrifying revolutions. So, given my limited scope of experience with these things, I wasn't sure what to read; I support proactive and sometimes risky measures for change (my next post will probably be about Occupy______) but I am not an anarcho-socialist, by any strict measure, and my own experiences with violence involve seeing a few barfights and hitting someone over the head with a broom when I was 14. That said, the definition of "revolution" was intentionally left squishy-- Lindsey read about science, medicine, the pharoahs. John read about the Civil War, 1963 (in a piece about the '60s that didn't make me want to puke) and finding anonymous notes in library books. I read about Wales. More specifically: Culture Vs. Cause (or Enough with the Marley Already if Folks are Actually Dying)/ Neo Takes the Blue Pill/ Dongtan-Hwaesong-Suwon-Seoul/ Swansea-Cardiff Blues (bellingham edition)/ Ambition is Critcial (Swansea Edition)/ Quake Theories

First piece is perhaps an extraneously mean-spirited jab at collegiate hippie types (and bob fucking marley posters) which I wrote about six years ago, just after graduating the first time. The last poem is new, about earthquakes and what happens to Seattle. Things were well set-up and there were actually a lot of people there. (noon on a thursday? who knew.)Cousin Justin hit up the reading after a too-brief hangout beforehand, where we test-drove Ford Focuses and hey! Free coffee.

Tuesday night I had my first taste of facilitating at SPLAB Living Room a task I felt underprepared for. It's a hard working and dedicated group of writers that shows up, founded by Paul Nelson and running for over 10 years. (this is it's second in Columbia City, prior it was in Auburn.) Unforseen and unfortunate circumstances-- I don't feel like blogging grief right now-- prevented much prepwork, but things went well anyway. See above about the dedicated and talented writers.

Anyway. Lots of family is out, I'm working a lot and soon will start putting together a new book/chapbook/manuscript. Longwinded, I know.

Someone Else's Countdown

It was a day we didn't have a host, so each of us took turns, rushing toward the front, our nearly-paper Denny's uniforms crinkling with starch, gleaming with the grease in the air. I had a ponytail then, so people sometimes thought I was as old as I am now. A man in light denim and a white fisherman's beard ordered something fish-based to go. That had never been our specialty. He sat in the oval by the windows looking out to a gas station and a parking lot. The cook forgot something and he nodded, saying it was for his wife, so we'd better redo it. He waited, payed, tipped well, mentioned that his wife really liked this Denny's and this dish was her favorite. I nodded and said Well I hope she gets better, I said, so you can both come in and sit down. Oh, he said, and leaned on his cain. She's not getting better.

Terrible seconds turn to days and still I cannot show my face

at some point I post blog full on about the new bartending job vs. the current bartending job and old bartending job and its all likely made of venn diagrams and photos of women holding beers at chest level.
nonetheless: Hillman City is like the southend equivalent of Crown Hill. Not. Ballard. (columbia city.) But, as everything in the southend is basically facing south, you have orient things that way. the potential-new-regular got the joke, even as for the fifth time in the evening a man got up to exhort the crowd on the virtues of Merle Haggard (not hating, btw) and I wondered. Things.

Ín plainspeak, I've meant to post many great things to here, to buddyhead, to whatever media source most speaks to you, but I am now working three jobs and will probably have to move again soon.

so, it's 330 am, I'm just under an hour off a 15 hour work day and no sleep in sight, unless this Elysian Loser Ale kicks in soon. Oh, Grunge, the things you gave us will always carry the ghosts of things you took away.

me five years ago, two years from now/fuck it, here's an old song.

back at the loft:

Because of technology, there is no more serious injury, bad illness or death. All people live forever, like vampires or demons.

from a student's short paper assignment about the Future, and Possible consequences of technology. (she also addressed the idea that with people living forever, innovation would stagnate and birth rates would plummet.)