zabrecky makes himself disappear

or if you're taking over, then it's over

LA is a city that always dangles a carrot three feet away
from the noses of its citizens. this arrives to screen,
by phone, from my friend who holds microphones and wails
in an attempt to corral all the searing noise around him
into a cohesive statement. beat. riff. rhythm. anthem,
even rising to the sky, but stopped at last by smog.
songs try their best to find their way out of the city,
in the bumping trunks of riders, in the collapsing chanteuses
somewhere just outside hollywood, the bricked off lofts
of silverlake. I can't get back there. I can't get into it.
I can't even name a street that isn't already famous,
despite the hours behind the wheel of a twelve wheeler.
Someone tells me something about Bukowski, the city making
him what he was. About sleaze and punk and availability of
everything. i think about a poem I wrote ten years ago and
how I heard the subject turned to magic after a collection
of late 90s new wave songs failed to advance his neighborhood.
he is probably on stage tonight, somewhere on the second floor
of a tall building, wearing a funny hat and introducing
women in fancy underwear to a crowd who don't have shows that night.
_________________________________________________________

the opening quote is from Robert Lashley, of Scume Eating, etc, who are in LA right now, or leaving it, on their way to Spokane. The prompt was from Theresa Mitchell, from a while back, who told me to write about a musician who influenced me. I was ostensibly going to write about Rob Zabrecky, from Possum Dixon, a band I liked in High School, but obviously, I ended up writing about LA. As you can tell from the time of day and sloppy prose style, i wrote it at work.

Call it romantic predict-a-text*

*for best results, scroll to the video and press play. listen to song while reading the entry. this one is just a song; there's no video to go with it.

First-- A poem from January. You might remember it. This version is slightly edited.

Swansea,
I have met so many girls
with fast laughs and careful smiles
who've known you far too long
whose tired eyes would do
so much better
elsewhere.

This, we have in common.

T and I broke up yesterday. It started Wednesday morning when I was walking her to work and I made one of my brilliant "here'ssomethingcasualthatactuallymeanslots" comments about how I could, you know, really get used to this. Then Saturday night at Sin City (there's an entry coming about how all my relationships in Wales have seemed to start or end at Sin City) she writes me a note on her phone about "I think I'm falling for you way too fast."
I think Pantera's "Walk" was playing in the background at the time.
So she came over to mine yesrafternoon, dodged the crowds of baby-dedicators and we hashed things out in my room. It was either going to suck a lot now or suck a lot in a few months; selfishly enough I would have preferred the latter. Because then all the leaving-related-angst could be packed up into one misty-eyed suitcase, i could write a note on the airplane and mail it as soon as I got back. But the intervening months, helping me pack, scribble goodbyes, those would have been hell on her.

So I guess I'm taking this one in lumps.



long. fucking. sigh.

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!