How it might go at this very site in the near future.

Several thoughts on year-encapsulating sorts of posts. Because I feel enough has happened this year that I should try to talk about it * some * how. Still, short of a Graham's Year In A Short Novella, not sure. So a format is inevitable. Ways it may yet happen:

-->Month by month, in Song Quotes.
Pros: Concise, emotionally evocative, vague enough to protect the guiltocent.
Cons: So very LJ, circa 2001.

-->Month by month, in Numbered Poem form
Pros: Hey, look! A new poem! (and folks will give it a pass, since its obviously a Personal Piece. . .)
Cons: Hey, look! A new poem! (no way, in the annals of Graham's Numbered Poems, this gets anywhere close to Genus, Species and Flavour.)

-->Film an interpretive dance in full-snow-goose outfit, post on youtube, link here.
Pros: Majestic!
Cons: None.

-->A 2-part summary: Wales, U.S.
Pros: Splits pretty much right in half, conveniently enough for archival purposes.
Cons: Bo-ring.

-->Compare/Contrast with 2006,7,8 in terms of goal-reaching, time-management and personal progress.
Pros: Would probably compare largely favorably.
Cons: So very Seven Habits of Highly Motivated Success Stories . . . or Patrick Bateman.

-->Do what I often do sometime mid-January and shrug it off and look ahead
Pros: The whole "looking ahead" thing.
Cons: See beginning of blog post.

Stay tuned. I bet you can't wait.

Okay, enough of that, let's rally.

I'll fore-go the whinge, the life lessons and minutiae and just talk about a few things I'm really excited about/interested in right now:

1.) Saturday's reading at the Halfway House. These are my favourite sort of readings; ones in non-trad venues, often to non-poetry types with completely different reference points to most literature/spoken word crowds. I know that when I get published these opportunities will be making themselves scarce (self-published is so much more punk rock) so I'm excited they still happen now. Hoping for a few of these back in Seattle. But we'll see.

2.) Getting "Zombies," "Get Smart," "Flicking Ash," "Neo Takes the Blue Pill" "Fear of Drowning" and "Story Problem" solidly off-book.

3.) Arriving in Seattle. Leaving is Shit and Going Home Again is Always Confusing, but there's a long list of good things too.
3.2) Meeting my new sisters. Had a convo online with Titu and she typed better english than a lot of my friends do in Chat.

4.) London in two weeks. I do like that city. Seeing Shane and Becca there.

5.) The Threatmantics record. I'll post more about this later.

6.) The way that the unfinished Marina Quay Building (wales' tallest!) and the acompanying crane stands as a symbol for so many so many so many things about this town. Because if you wrote it, it would seem contrived.

June! Everything faster than everything else.

Over a year ago I had a post called "It being March already is fucking up my chi." I think this is true, still-- i.e. perhaps my chi remains fucked up, from last March, but the fact that it is now June seems more in line with how I feel than had it continued to be May. Which is good cuz I sure as hell can't change it.
and this month is filling up. I don't have a dayplanner but maybe I should:


June 1st: Today. Return to work.
June 5th: Minion Fest-- The Antagonist's Print Relaunch. Featuring DJ Sets from Punk John, Gothfunc and er, we'll go with Kilogram, who will be playing all the hottest* indie punk, post-rock, garage metal, ugly country and synth-thrash. F'reals.
June 11th: The Crunch, featuring Simone Mansell Broome.
June 12th: Possibly, tentatively last day of work and subsequent Rhyddings-Goodbye Party*.
June 13th: Happy Birthday, Mom. Also, Mystery Action at The Halfway House, featuring Lewis Watkins' new band, visual art from Dan McCabe and a spoken word set from myself.
June 15th: Happy Birthday, Dad, Brielle*.
June 18th: Last Crunch I'll be at for a while. Doing a farewell-type feature and hopefully "moving" lots of "units" to fund my "trip" to "London."
June 19th: Gig in Cardiff with Mab Jones at O'Neil's.
June 20, 21st: IOI reunion in London. Probably grab tea with Katie Weston and maybe look up Nia as well for while-I'm-here hellos. Happy birthday me.
June 30th: MC for Gemma June Howell's "Inside the Treacle Well" booklaunch.
July 3rd: Stuff Happens 2! MC/Organise/Oversee/Promote. Featuring Peter Read, Susie Wild, Leslie McMurty, Wood Ingham, Liza Penn Thomas, uh, Adam, loads more people and artists. Launch of the Global Poetry System website.

somewhere in there add: at least 2 Graffiti Walks*, maybe recording with Punk John, a trip to Newport with Dave Beer*, loads of more Seeing Wales and More of the UK While I can, the whole packingandgettingridofthingsthing and of course lots and lots and lots of genuine, meaningful, reflective times, unforced and completely natural. ahaha.

* probably 3 songs by McLusky, a Pavement (for a sense of history) and like, something by Neko Case and about half of "Lets Stay Friends."
* I may actually die from various bodily failures at this point, rendering the rest of the list moot.
* Hey Brielle, do you want any sweet Welsh swag?
* Taking pictures of, not making.
* At Cardiff Central I heard someone talking about Newport and took it as a sign from God that Dave and I and maybe Roy need to go to Newport and get very very drunk. I'm not even kidding.

It's like the Awesome Nameless Summer Poetry Project, but will probably get a title soon. Part 1.

Today I got an e-mail from GPS with a contract and everything. Something about invoicing them. I've never "invoiced" anyone before; largely because I'm usually on the other end of that equation and because most of my dealings are with friends. This, however, is with a large, poetry-based corporation.

More on that later. With regards to the Other End of my cash-acquisition, I'm currently working on a new Chapbook to complete in time for a top-secret lock-in fundraiser at Lewis' band's practice space beginning of April.
Yeah, I know.
Something about a "top-secret fundraiser" sounds eight ways to dodgy, but still. . . I like reading in cramped, poorly lit spaces. If my words don't hit people, specks of saliva will.

So I'm currently going through a list of potential poems for this book. I want it to largely consist of pieces I've written (or heavily edited and completed) here in Swansea, I want it to have a strong Sense of Place, but I don't want it to read like a poetry-based laundry list of images and places; I find that heavily themed works get real stale real fast.
So. I've got a list of titles here, some with links to them, others you can easily find on this blog, others are yet unseen in online form and we'll let that stay the case.



First off, the Poems I Wrote Pre-Wales, that for whatever reason I Feel Strongly Enough About to consider including
Story Problem
Zombies and Paint Thinner
Dinner For One
Watching Films About Death
Little Red Corvette
Cavities
Caleb Barber Loses His Teeth to Meth
Everyone Has Something
Murder Ballads

Poems I've Written in Swansea, More or Less About Swansea or Places in It or about General 'Welshness'-->(*Marks one that needs a good bit of work)
Beneath the Cathedral
Paintings of Famous Satanists
Rugby '08
Rugby '09*
Rucksacks*
The Cafe Across From the Train Station
Glasgow Weather and Inappropriate Footwear
Carmarthen Train #1
Its What We Writers Do (For Jen)
Christmas Light Gallows*
Tall Drink of Water
Black Pudding*
Isolation Therapy
At the Chip Shop
Beck House D 3.1*
Ambition is Critical*
Swansea-Cardiff Blues (Bellngham Edition)*
Earl Grey
All My Friend Back Home (Start a band about this one)*
Tired Eyes


And These Are About Girls or Concepts or came from Ryan's prompts and aren't necessarily tied to Wales
Ellie
Donkey Kong Country
New Poem For Old Plasters
We Laughed at the Same Thing (M4W)
Clippers! Clippers! Clippers!
A Little Fear of Drowning
Flicking Ash
24th Ave, NE*
Cities that Exist in Movies*
Children Go Missing Every Day
Context and Subtext
Ways In Which Gloriana Flotsam McGrew Will Probably Die, Since It's Always So Fucking Glamourous With Her (addressed to the subject)
Pigeon Bait
Children Go Missing Every Day
Forward Thinking
Boyz*
Three Counts of Public Urination
Enough With the Cape Already*
Genus, Species and Flavour
I am the tired orphan*

yeah. So about 15-20 poems out of those. Plus a few that are very much in my head but not on paper yet. Some are shoe-ins, but it really depends what sort of thing I want to make and what purpose I want it to serve for me and how long. Which I'll talk about later. I've tagged a lot of places you can find some of the mentioned poems.

All this talk of leaving when it still feels so far away.

Today is a heavy internet day for me. So be it.

For Lent this year I'm going with the old standby of giving up booze. There've been the odd occasions in the past when (for lent or other reasons) I've given up booze where the fact that I really didn't want to meant I needed to; this time the fact that I'm not bothered about it means it's all just as well.


I mailed off my visa app yesterday. The weight off my shoulders is tremendous. I probably have about 2 -4 more months in Swansea now and I've got shit to do. Among the things I've got planned:

--> Help Theresa move forward with her plans; she sent off an application to Grad School in Cardiff yesterday and will be looking to move soon. I like our parallell trajectories in some ways; we're helping each other along. Also, do more fun stuff with her now that I'm not in perma-whinge mode.

--> Global Poetry System. On March 27th there's a workshop in London I go to (this may be one of the few notable Lent Exceptions I allow myself as long as its determined ahead of time) and we'll get some events nailed down. The idea being to schedule a series of events related to poetry found in unconventional places and presented in new and unusual ways. It's a UK-wide deal and I'm Swansea's guy for it.

--> Pare down my collection of books, clothes and CDs; when I do move I want to minimise shipping costs. Maybe get the odd new item to supplement; I can throw out five old T-shirts I never wear a lot easier if I have one new one I think is rad.

--> The Crunch. Get that shit official; talk to Academi and get funding so we can pay features from out of town. Find someone to host in my eventual absence. Keep the momentum we have.

--> I still owe a few people Letters from Wales. It's way more exciting (when you're in Seattlingporthamland) to receive Letters from Wales than from Stanwood.

--> Tunes with John. Demos at least. Something to remember the Unnamed Trio by.

--> I'm thinking of making an extended version of Swansea Morning Coming Down with 15-20 poems in it; mainly ones written since coming to Swansea. Maybe a few old standbys. It'd be a cool thing to have as a record of a specific time and place; plus I could schedule a few readings and sell them. I'm broke.

--> See more of Wales. Preferably the parts that weren't bombed to shit by the Luftwaffe and subsequently paved over.

--> Get a few more pictures of this town, country and my friends that aren't taken inside Mozart's Wine Bar or The Office. This will possibly be the most difficult.

There Goes Sickness: 10 Days in 2009.

January 1st.
Started the year off watching London Fireworks on TV at Annmarie and Roy's house. Not that impressed with fireworks or TV, so the obvious recourse was a 9/11 joke.
Later Roy and I made pizza and unholy mixtures of fake drinks while I quoted entire Future of the Left songs at passerbys.
The day itself was a long one; 7 1/2 hours of busy busy serving hungover and still-drunks their ham and egg cures. Beautiful.

January 2nd
Jen goes back to the states, leaving hordes of weeping men in her wake. I wave but do not cry because I know I'll see her again. Probably overstayed my welcome and Jess and Johns watching '80s Spiderman cartoons and bad music videos.

In Luv Wit A Stripper, Indeed.

January 3rd
Sat in Monkey and tried to write a poem for the New Year that was more than a few lines long. It's something anyway. Writer's block persists. Milk Money doesn't think my story about comics and sex is weird enough for their "weird issue."
Witnessing slow trickle of Seattlingham friends onto facebookspace in a weird internet-consolidation plan.

January 4th
First official writing commission of '09: Bio for the new Police Teeth record, which comes out in February and kicks ass. They promise to pay enough for a few more cans of soup and give me over a week to get it done because motherfuckers move slow. (rimshot.)


January 5th
Somewhere in here I should mention I am working all of these days at least at different points. And that I might not be labeling these right. . . the fifth was a tuesday, right? Date with Theresa. We like each other more than the date was good, if that makes sense.

January 6th
Planning meeting for re-kicking-off The Crunch. Viva Coffee and posters!
(sub-category: Neil used to hang out with Teenage Fanclub when they were practicing and how vibrant the scene was back then but fuck it because he was just listenting to the Beatles all the time anyway. )
Soooooo. . . yeah. Your point?

Record practice demos for as-of-yet-unnamed-band with Punk John. On a cassette tape in the Uplands there is the base genetic material for "So Much For Aging Gracefully" and "Bedlam." My keyboard sounds like a cross between a musical instrument being played by a retarded rhinosceros and a coffee grinder.

January 7th
Post-work: More date action. Better date action. Perhaps the choice of better bars or a yes! to bridging that awkard gap between her saying "I think this is where someone goes for a really awkward kiss" . . . and going for the really awkward kiss.

Pre-work: two years worth of poety by Shane Guthrie.

January 8th
Work makes me want to get fucked up something fierce.
"But Graham, doesn't work always make you. . ."
Not always. But friday night it did, so me, Adam Burns, Punk John head to Mozarts. John gets called back and Adam and I spend the night giving advice to an emotionally distraught woman (most of it involved violence and/or Adam putting his hands over my ears and saying "Don't you want to have sex with this man??!? I do!")
Adam S. gets off work and we swing by the Jess' house. She is still up. Leave at 5.

Here's where the problem with hanging out with The Guy Who Knows Everyone in Swansea comes in; it's five a.m. and I've achieved my goals for the evening (noble as they are) but walking along Sketty someone leans out their window--
"hey! adam! It's my birthday! come on up!"
And we spend the next two hours with Nate, DJ from Slamonthebreaks and his friend-whose-name-I-forget talking about Art and Swansea's Potential and blah blah blah blah. I want to see 8 a.m. from the other end next time.

January 9th
This day had several false starts and all plans to play more rock and roll were canceled.

Not canceled, however, were the plans to fuck up the mix with Adam S, who looked at me the previous night with sad, sad eyes and said: "I really want to get drunk somewhere. . . that is not Mozarts."

Crowleys, The Office, Sigma. I always think I'm pretty down with Metal until I am in a place that only plays metal and caters to metalheads.
Adam: There are so many people I know here . . . and I don't want to talk to any of them.

January 10th
I, er, miss church. Again.

So. That's the first ten days. Since then I've nearly been lost on the Gower, got the completed poster for The Crunch, soaked in more of The Prisoner, broke glass in Wood Towers and have at least had ideas for things to write next.

Tonight is Framework Social.
Tommorrow is The Crunch.

Viva 2009!

. . . or can I get you another sloe gin. . . fizzzzz?

So I'm one month in and already behind. I have three rough mental sketches for stories to be completed this month. But I do not have three rough drafts.
Gah.
Still, in about three minutes I'm heading out with Shane and Becca to write poetry in some secluded corner of town much like Shane and I have been doing whenever we can for the last ten years of our life.

In lieu of progress, I'll post some of the things I write with Shane because those almost always rule.

my previously hinted at 'thusiasm for 12 Angry Months hasn't ebbed, btw. Now I just need some girl to break my heart so I can really "feel" it. Er, or something.

Genus, Species and Flavor--

(a poem with pieces missing)

1.
I sit in the park when it is too hot for walking.
Watch the girls pass in their sundresses. Still.
I’ve always prided myself on not being one of those guys
who sits in parks.

3.
Hard pressed to note the differences between
Jackals and Hyenas; thinking hard I remember that
Jackals are part of the dog family, distant cousins
of something you might keep in your house and Hyenas
have the menacing laugh.

Either would scavenge my corpse.

5.
Bulbous, round and pink,
she eats her hot dog as if
giving head.
She even licks the mustard off
with the tip of her tongue, a
girlish giggle and hand over
her mouth, as if to say "little ole me?”

Still, she puts a lot of teeth into it.

-2.
I don’t know the difference between Mammoths and
Mastodons. Genus and species?
Which would fell easier
under pre-dawn man’s spears?
which would feed
a family and for how long?
Did they use mammoth meat for romantic dinners
or did they have smaller animals for that?

23.
Depending how much you believe Al Gore,
the ice caps are melting pretty damn fast.
Depending how much you believe Robert Frost,
this could be the perfect apocalyptic compromise.

I personally can’t wait for the thaw.
I want to see whose bones were trapped
in there, all that time.

3.141 . . .
Late winter
in my darkened room
I photo collage.
Some times I forget how pretty you were,

____________________________________________________________________

this is one I'm still working on. this is version 1.5. it might seem like the pieces are in random order (a la the numbers) but it's actually quite on purpose. I almost cut the last stanza entirely, but decided it worked strong as an ending.
Thoughts?
Drastic changes or improvements will be posted once I'm a little happier with them.

Had a meeting with Stevie today. Basically she told me to keep writing and send her stuff when I had it. Approved my idea (which I stole from Sarah) for a loosely-linked series of shorts. Progress still needs to be made in a serious way if I'm to meet June goals for short story writing.

Ides

This year is moving too fast. It already being March was not in my plans. The impending homelessness come September is another thing. I was going to continue with this blog entry but I think that perhaps listing off the things I have not yet accomplished that will be necessary for sustenance in the next month wouldn't help much. somehow the whole "it'll be alright, just one thing at a time" has always worked for me in the past, but always just barely.

I guess it's not "barely" time yet. but there's also little to no support system for actually getting through the practical parts of life.

radio silence, etc.

In lieu of staking out the pub with a sketchpad

I am sitting at my laptop with a fresh hot cup of (instant) coffee, not because I need coffee to be awake at 5pm, but because the image of the writer at his computer with a cup of coffee is about as ingrained and romanticized for me as the image of the writer in the corner of a wood-paneled bar drinking whisky and staring grimly at a notebook. All those times I went to Caps with my journal and a pen and sat at the counter or in the corner? Yeah, the night might have ended with me at table with two to several others of various acquaintance and myself a few more drinks in and dollars out than I intended at the start. But I really only did go to write, and maybe just as important, feel like I was writing. The rest started out bonus and ended up an expected (sometimes regrettable) part of the routine.

A week into 2008 and I'm working on working on setting new routines. I'm a creature of habit but I get restless quickly. Kat told me I shouldn't worry about in October living in a not-my-home country without a job or place to live and a still fairly useless degree, pointing out that I crave the instability. Also, that it's only January and I always seem to skate right under the razor's edge in these sorts of situations.

The three weeks before courses resumes I have an extensive list of accomplishments to enact, ranging from general cleanup of my room to looking for work to getting some financial stuff sorted out with loan companies to sending off submissions of poetry and criticism to various publications. It's not a list of entirely crucial things, but it is entirely crucial I get at least some of it done.

I put too much sugar in my coffee. I think part of the romantic image has the coffee black. I can see why.

It'll be another week or so until everyone not-from-Swansea is in town again post-break. I'm not sure there's enough regular routine leftover from Sep-Dec to fall into, but there's the possibility of resuming friendships that were just starting come break. Re-orient myself to be a little more here-focused, a little less letters-from-home focused.

Most of the time I've got that Tom Petty feeling (the future is wiiiiide open) but there are days when I feel like October can't come fast enough so I can skate back into something familiar, wish I was doing so much more, and not have to deal with the pressures of actually doing it.