The last readings wherein the "2012" piece will be relevant:

Occurring:
November 1st. 7pm, $5. Bellingham, Wa.
Grown-Ass Poets Society @ the Green Frog Tavern
w/ Shane Guthrie.

November 18th. 4pm, free. Seattle, Wa.
Babel/Salvage Showcase @ Hollow Earth Radio.
w/Bryan Edenfield, Terra Leigh Bell, Evan J. Peterson.

December 5th. 7pm, free. Duvall, Wa
Duvall Poetry Night @ The Match Coffee and Wine Bar.
w/Open Mic.

In addition, I will be performing two Christmas-related shows, one dark, one light, but neither will contain the 2012 poem, which is probably the best thing I wrote in 2012. Natch. Or at least the most beloved-in-performance. Hopes are to have the new chapbook, Filthy Jerry's Guide to Parking Lots, available by the 5th of December, if not the 18th of November. Progress on that has been thundering along nicely.

It would be great to see you-- the nebulous, churning, "you"-- at any or all of these readings, if you can make it. The 18th will also be podcasted via the talents and generosity of the fine folks at Hollow Earth Radio. On the 1st I'll be previewing some of the new book, but also giving rousing performances of some of the Swansea Morning Coming Down pieces that, well, I won't be retiring, per say, but will definitely be going away for a while. Three years is a long time to have one (somewhat) hastily assembled chapbook as a calling card, and these poems have served me well. I'll try to do the same in stomping, shouting style at the Green Frog.

tnite:

Greenwood Lit Crawl.

I will read a series of vignettes, amongst other things.

tomorrow: David and Lindsey Get Married and I am the Pastor.

A new, fantastic point of view.

Ahem, ahem: you can now follow me on Twitter.
@graisaac
it's a whole new world.

3 versions of nerdery

1) The last few months have been a lot of gigs I've had my hand in making happen, behind the scenes, stuff like that. From the fairly large-scale greenwood litcrawl to the more frequent, but much cozier claustrophobia series, there's been a lot of collaborative planning. as such-- and because I'm currently wrangling the last bits of knowledge from filthy jerry and all things before trying to put myself out there much-- I've almost felt I'd fallen out off practice at just showing up, throwing down and leaving.
Fortunately, August has had a couple readings I've felt pretty solid about. Yes, this is the part where I post setlists and "reflect." If hearing what pieces I read, where and with whom, isn't your bag, there's a part 2 and 3 to this post that you can skip to.
August 3rd, I co-featured with Dave Wheeler and Kate Farrell in the aforementioned Kate's backyard in the Central District. We read in a round, around a fire until it got dark. The general "it" and the fire.
My set:  Unacceptable but Inevitable*/Isolation Therapy/All Things Return to the Dusty Liquor Shelf
Ambition is Critical/Little Fear of Drowning/Missing Every Day
Civic Duty/Several Snapshots*/Genus, Species and Flavour
Rugby '08
This was the first time I'd ever read while seated and it felt natural and right. I think that speaks to the success of the casual/artsy vibe, a vibe that too often falters under its own expectations.

A couple nights ago I opened for Scumeating at The Josephine, a DIY spot in Ballard, next to a bad irish bar and down the street from the Tin Hat, which it is good I don't leave nearby, because I would be there with unhealthy frequency. I did two sets, on either side of Scumeating's performance, ended on my knees, shouting a half-adlibbed ending to Filthy Jerry Gets Paid. If there were video, it probably wouldn't be as awesome as I wished.
Set: Filthy Jerry Sleeps with the Fishes/2012/Tall Drink of Water/Genus, Species and Flavour
Filthy Jerry Gets Paid
Sometimes I wonder why I do readings at venues that are at best, ambivalent toward spoketryword, but some good friends came out and I also am getting back into finding that sort of ambivalence energizing and facepunchy, instead of shoulder-slumpy.

2) The new Aesop Rock album:


It's good. Feels more isolated than his last record, as he's the only rapper and while there are hooks, there are fewer Singles than the last record had (which was still like, three? four, if you're generous?)

3)
All the jokes I want to make, leaving
a new Comic Book movie
with my Dad
are a bit to arch for him,
a bit too newb
for a true believer.

The in-car cd player
stays silent.

The cranes over downtown spark in sunset.
There is no media I can use to improve my standing.

I almost titled this post "elf-promotion" but that would have just been silly.

tomorrow! two readings. one here at the school, where I'll continue to erode my reputation as a responsible adult and then:

prepping breadline stuff today. none of this can change the fact that I'm premium-level irritated that you now have to enter HTML for line breaks in blogspot. you can't just press "enter?" no, you cannot.

RIYL: Gigs upcoming/recently past, wishing for windows

I wish that the North Seattle Community College library had its computers right by the windows, like the lab at Swansea U. Because on a day like today when the rain is a little too sog-making for even an avowed sun-indifferent like myself, the best thing ever is to stare out the window with some coffee, while making minor progresses on various projects. The guy at the computer next to me is watching a preview on youtube for "terminator 5." While I'm not going to get too hung up on the artistic integrity of the work of any actors who went on to be politicians, I'd really rather the series just left in at the end of 2; with the metal hand sinking into moltenness. This month I've got two really exciting gigs: first up, on Sunday, I'm "sharing" at Weird and Awesome with Emmett Mongomery. The show, which I think I've mentioned here before, is one of my faves in Seattle. This'll also be the first time I have a gig where I'm basically just supposed to talk. Not do poetry, host something, perform the improv, or give a class presentation. I am excited and curious to see what my brain makes me do. Music break: More or less what I've been listening to while waiting for the new Future of the Left record. The following gig, in a few weeks, is a spoken word thing. I've probably also mentioned The Breadline here, or in other places, before. Stoked to be featuring. Working on some new shit, some new reading formats for old shit, all these things. I guess I should, for continuity's sake mention two previous gigs and their setlists: one at Laura Wachs' Hear/Art Series, where I read: 2012/Knuckledragger/Ways You've Addressed the Fact of being Homeschooled/Little Red Corvette/Rugby '08/National Dreams/A Little Fear of Drowning/Story Problem. I believe I've covered the subsequent gig in Everett. If not, may the demons of pedantry re-claw their way into my blogging habits. A few weeks ago I went to Spokane, featured at Broken Mic, decided I really like Spokane (at least the downtown) and read the following: Zombies and Paint Thinner/Read It Like a Goodbye Note/Secrets of the Hi Score Champions/Genus, Species and Flavour/Ambition is Critical/Hearing Foster the People in Rainier Beach/Little Fear of Drowning/Story Problem. Okay. Now when I lose my reading copies, I can scour my own blog to confirm that yes, a piece I wrote six years ago still often functions as a closer.

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.

growth/entropy/roath/centipede/statshots.

claustrophobia went well saturday. watch the videos here. Tomorrow I read at Northwest Playwrights Alliance's Literary Salon. Right now I am at NSCC, printing out some poem copies which I will doubtlessly just fucking wow audiences with. Friday I'm doing the same sort of thing, but at a giant Christmas Light Event where I used to work. Then the next day I am going to read at Elyse Brownell's (you can find her poetic works online or in links above) going away party.



I just deleted a whole bit I was going to post that was just going to read too much like, well, someone's personal blog. There is drinking for such things.

Silence, Communication, Rosemary and Thyme

Thursday night I participated in Silence and Communication (check out the link two posts down, I'm feeling lazy.)
You can read The Stranger's review, which describes things pretty well from an audience point of view. It went well, and while I believe that Greg Bem, Matthew Thompson and Jason Conger (who probably also have links I could link to, but, lazy) put together a fantastic reading lineup, the concept was well-executed enough it almost didn't matter who the readers were. It was a whole piece. A concept. Plenty of folks showed up to support their friends, but there wasn't a feeling of a "headliner" or what-have-you. That said, definitely enjoyed a lot of the specific pieces on their own as well.
As for my part, I read a piece called "context(subtext)" that existed prior to getting the invitation, but hasn't made it out much, so I hacked it up. The event consisted of straight up poetry, prose pieces, sound poems, noise music, performance art, etc etc etc. Alllll sorts.


Nico Vassilakis tore up the above paper into a microphone for his piece.


Sole Repair, photoed from the balcony. Once the event got going I didn't have much time or energy to take more pics. Suffice to say there were a lot more people there.

I was pretty damn out of it the whole day/night. This added an additional level of surrealism to the experience for me. Note how it looks like my face is falling off.

I do not remember whose head this is the back of.


We sat in chairs around the room. I was in chair number 9, next to Jarrett, who sometimes wears a hat similar to those which I used to own.

Wait I thought you said VIOLENCE--

Tonight is the Silence and Communication Event at Sole Repair

I think it'll be pretty sweet. Spending the next couple hours making some arts with papers and pens.

Let me tell you how to sequence your next record:

Set 1: Rules For Riding the King County Metro/Little Fear of Drowning/Neo Takes the Blue Pill

Set 2: You in Your Heyday/Like Taking Communion/Story Problem

^Show last night with Cristina Bautista & Gold Parts and Police Teeth. I started ordering whisky drinks thinking they were comped/drink ticketed and then received three tickets good for PBR. It was very hot in the rendezvous. I had lots of good advice for other people about how to run their businesses, bands, marriage.

Petty Pains of Modern Life and Why White Zombie are the Best Band Ever

Recent life in Bullet-List Form

>>> Brielle, youngest of the bio-sisters, is somewhere in the midwest (not colorado, har har) right now, highwaying her way closer to Chicago,



where she'll study art and writing at the Art Institute of Chicago. The absence there is palpable, rather than symbolic, as I've been living in the same house as her the last year and a half.

******> Soon that will change. Investigating (limited) housing options now. They include beacon hill, chinatown (ostensibly), capitol district (what I'm calling that space between Pine and Jefferson and 12th and 20th that is literally Central District but increasingly co-opted by 'hillsters) or probably places in suburbs that are affordable but far away from everyone i know and everything I want to do.

>work. have had little luck/fucked up my interviews for full-time jobs. stop that, brain. >still, some digging and pestering have yielded some freelance tutoring opps, some freelance blurb-writing opps that are still in-process.

in.
process.
this is the frustrating part; waiting for writing samples to be cleared, etc, before I can go full-bore. Things I would have been more confident in before a summer of job-hunting. Confidence is key. Irony.<<<<<<<<

(Not much to do but keep at it. Dig in. Make it part of you until it doesn't have to be. All sorts of mantras to make the demoralizing slog of Craigslist and numbing rigor of cover letters into some sort of arch-masculine chest-pound.)



!!!!Tonight, however, Jake Tucker and I will drown our respective (and very different "sorrows" in beer at various town-based places and then I do a gig with Cristina Bautista's new band and Police Teeth, whom have been mentioned here before as fine individuals and purveyors of good-time, rootsy folk music, which is the best type of music for humans to make. Here is them covering White Zombie and then playing their own song about trashing living rooms and jumping fences:



and the original:



so good.

also: anyone notice how the ads for Colombiana are basically "check out this hot chick killing shit?" or perhaps more specifically, "check out this hot south american chick killing shit?"

"I haven't heard right since we started this band."-cg

"Noise" means a lot of things to a lot of people. A "noise band" could be basically a rock band that puts their guitars through lots of pedals and never muffles their feedback. To that end, you could describe almost half of Nirvana's catalog as "noise rock." To other people, noise is a nearly entirely electronic affair, a more ambient lull, etc.
last night i read poetry with three noise bands, two of which were an entirely improv-ed affair with shouted adlibbed lyrics, guitar destruction and a healthy sense of catharsis. I'd read with My Printer Broke, (comma is part of the title) when there were violins, keyboards and such involved (many destroyed by the end of the night) but I think they did just as well as a two piece, switching instruments, etc.

I did two sets, one after My Printer Broke and one after Scumeating. As such: set 1:Neo takes the blue pill/about last night/little fear of drowning/the most important meal/beneath the cathedral/isolation therapy The last two I performed with CG making creepy sounds on the guitar, which added a certain tension to otherwise fairly quiet pieces. Set 2:Bloodmoney/Our Favorite Radio Station/Paintings of Famous Satanists For "paintings" I was joined by the last band, Waiting for the Pagans, on noise. It's more challenging to read over two noising guitars, but it was a fun collab. When WFTP played, they turned their amps up all the way and proceeded to fuck their guitars up with hammers, boots, the floor and their own faces. It was unbearably loud, harsh and pretty damn riveting. As Fiona put it "Your set was marvelous. . . and completely terrifying."

Scumeating combine elements of noise, sound-collage, space-rock, punk and disco over driving backbeats, with Robert Lashley (award winning poet and playwright) howling lines like "GET YOR CRACKHEADFRIENDDS OUTTAMYHOUSE!" It isn't something with a direct comparison, but is pretty damn awesome.

Anyway, good night. Next up: I also do weddings.

A unit of work:

Saturday was the zine release party for Erg: A Work Zine at Rainey and Jon's house in the CD. The zine is beautiful (and not online, so unlinkable) and the readings from Martha Reiner, Sierra Nelson, Jonathan Shapiro and Rainey Warren were rad. I did a set near the beginning that consisted of the following pieces: missing every day/isolation therapy/loft poem #3/bloodmoney/neo takes the blue pill

its nice sometimes to give older pieces that don't usually get out much a little air. after that we drank lots of wine and beer and ate oranges and started fires in fire pits and I wasn't the worst off there by any means. we made sure the fire was out before troddling home.

Falling down is not magic

Thursday's Hoarse reading--complete with welsh magicians, cake, lots of awesome readers and deepstomach laughter-- and last night's Drink for the Kids (benefitting Vera) were good but sitting completely alone in my house without music on, tacos impending, this is good. Soon I will watch Peep Show and sleep.

But! It should be noted that I'm not just imagining how fun the Hoarse! readings are, or how (coughcoughterriblewordalert) "vibrant" and "diverse" (ughgross) Seattle's "literary community" (AAAAAAAAAAGGGGH!) is, as evidenced by Emily Wittenhagen's awesomely enthused manifesto of the this is why we do this variety.

I like the part about Jurassic Park.

Feeeeels like the first time.

I once wrote about that song (but not ABOUT THAT SONG, you know, deep) but have since abandoned the poem. Still like the song.

Tonight, in Belltown, at a theater with a lot of red curtains I'll be reading at the HOARSE! release party for issue #3. Houdini.

"This reminds me of bellingham.""this reminds me of ellensburg."

In everett last night I read the following poems in the following order: doot doot de doot(summer)/pink laces and kierkegaard/fear of drowning/genus, species and flavour/bellevue/most important meal/body party/rugby '08/swansea-cardiff (b'ham ed)/story problem
For the record. The open mic was mainly guitar players but there were a couple interesting folks who got up and simply read. The crowd was supportive and I succeeded in feeling okay about the whole thing. Sold some broadsides, but the quagga remain.

It is still weird doing a reading with your folks in the front row.

The drive to and from Everett, what with stopping to get/drop off people/acquire necessary goods was around 3 hours of driving.
I don't hold to the popular-with-some belief that all suburbs are terrible, soul-crushing places, but Lynnwood, Wa., which is pretty much designed to be driven, still saps a whole lot of time getting from one place to the next. Yeesh.

tonight, rachel and i will hope her car doesn't break down when we drive to georgetown with the intention of drinking beer, being in fun places and getting the fuck away from cap hill for a night.

content soon?
content, soon?
maybe.

appropos to Music: I think the Dum Dum Girls are aptly named. I got their doing the Youtube-hop game from Male Bonding, who I think are pretty good.

The Mason Jar of Timeliness Says You Just Missed a Guarantee.

Workburrow. Arrived at the Library an hour early (like I usually do) with the intention of listening to music, writing, sending necessary corrospondences (like I usually do.) Network was down. Spent some time with Devils and a maple bar.

Shortly after arriving at my shift, computers flicker back on and the students swarmed. I tend to intend to Write Something, but company time isn't my time and I suppose it's not fair to grump out on a poor student for interrupting a haibun about Concrete or some such thing.

Last night was my first night actually Hosting Hugo House's Works In Progress open mic. We ran it about the same way, save that after 9pm the time limit drops from 5 to 3 minutes and instead of playing a soothing A chord on an instrument of folky troubadors, I clear my throat all growly-like to let people know when they're finished. Some good readers last night and good energy. I thin people tipped Garth more than they did me.

Pics to follow, probably.

Cheap Wine and Poetry

Went well. Seattle poet/promoter Greg Bem recorded it and you can listen to it on the internet.
I performed first, opening for Sierra Nelson, Rebecca Hoogs and Emmet Montgomery. I genuinely enjoyed everyone who read-- Emmet did a sort of genre-blurring comedy/autobio/poetry set (you could say he "gave a talk"), Rebecca read some smart, occasionally sexy "page" poetry (don't like those distinctions) and Sierra was clever but-not-smug and adorably quirky (sounds waaaay more condescending than I mean it to, but oh well.)

I apparently also now feel entitled to refer to all these folks by their first names.

Set List
Zombies and Paint Thinner
Little Fear of Drowning
Flicking Ash
Saying Mean Things About Strangers
Genus, Species and Flavour
Ambition is Critical
Rules for Riding the King County Metro

Likely the biggest reading I've done in Seattle so far. Great night.

The Month of February.

This ends here, tommorrow.

The past: Feb '11 may be a banner month for readings. End of January, at the slam, Sara Brickman comes up to me and says "Hey, wanna do a reading for First Friday at Theo Chocolates? It's part of a benefit for Northwest Network, which provides support for LGBT survivors of abuse. The theme is loosely on love and nonviolence.



Do you uh, have any poems like that?"

Set
Lightbulbs (for Mom)
Not Like a Gas Stove at All
Best of All Possible Outcomes
Story Problem

I read with Sara herself and Mary Lambert.


In a chocolate factory. With free samples. I wasn't sure how thematically connected I was, but it went well. Afterwards Roy and I went to see William Elliott Whitmore at El Corazon.

The next reading was Feb 7th, with Shane, at Poetrynight. We did the whole Ourobouros book, minimal banter, applause til the end. It went over well, but the evening was dampered by the news of Ken Warfel's passing.

On February 11th, Marty Stegner and I launched what will likely (possibly) be a Series entitled the Muxbo Symposium. There were banjos and slides of crying children and home-brewed beer (Pale Poet Pale Ale) and fake mustaches and I did a set alongside a prose piece by Steve Barker and poetry sets by Zac Fulton, Jay Steingold and Anna Wolff. Everyone had hella fun.
Set
Songs About Fucking Steve Albini
A Brief Thanks for the Diners that Understand
Paintings of Famous Satanists
Little Fear of Drowning
Actually, it was the Worst of Times
Neo Takes the Blue Pill

My titles are ridiculous. I know. It's part of the fun. Two of those were never-been-read-new. I wore a fake mustache the whole time. I will probalby not do that again.

Most recently, on Thursday the 24th, David K Wheeler released his book of poems Contingency Plans. I recruited Terra Leigh Bell, who finished up a chapbook (about damn time) just in time and we got a pretty good crew into Elliott Bay Books' basement. Dave's friends made pie. Our sets seemed to compliment eachother (you know, similar themes but not THE SAME, similar styles but not THE SAME, etc) and Heather and Sean (cousins) made it and Josh made it down from Lynnwood which I was surprised by. I read the following*:
Sea Lions
Cavities
Ways You've Addressed Being Homeschooled
Swansea-Cardiff Blues
Explorer
Pink Laces and Kierkegaard
Best of All Possible Outcomes

The home-schooling poem went over best, surprising, given it's specialized subject matter and the fact it was it's first outing. Afterwards the bunch of us headed to Oddfellows where Josie Beck (formerly Hammond) bonded with Brittany over St Louisness and Josh made fun of them both.

*I don't post this stuff just to be myopic; it's something I actually geek out about with regards to my friends' sets, or bands I like. "Hey, what are you gonna play tonight?" "I dunno, I still need to throw a set together."

like that.