Riffing on familiar themes.

napowrimos 2 & 3:

Election Night Blues

when the whole county switched to mail-in
while I was switching addresses every six months
I was rendered someone who, by default
could not complete his civic duty and therefore,
practical wisdom says, can't complain.

bullshit.
like a studio gangsta dialing 911 during a break-in
or a non-praying Christian who feels
"so disconnected from God lately," I can say whatever
the hell I want,
for all the difference it makes.

the news feeds are incrementally creeping percentages.
the social feeds are lined with friends' increasingly
anxious screen-refreshers, the occasional gloat.
longtime friends who disagree trying to out-civil each other.

I will find out soon enough just how bad it is and for whom.
Recall the Goldman quote I don't entirely agree with
but can't help, after the shrug and the sigh-- a smirk.
The hard work will be here either way. Cynicism rolls back in.
This afternoon I watched an episode of Venture Bros
and thought about how some things,

you know
don't change.

_____________________________________________________________

Where It Really Feels Like a City

Dragged past the gum-stains and the huge billboards
for made-up neighborhoods, alleys full of needles and cats
and quick high-fives, you can look up on either
side and see curtained windows, the posterchild for
changing demographics and lots and lots of people
quickly sliding down stairwells to restaurants and
offices and back again.

You have to see these things time and again
in case everything starts seeming too cute.
In case you forget that crime still happens
on blocks with dog parks.

There won't be a reckoning, there won't be
a toppling, you'll never get your art-space back,
those seedy, beer-bearded merchants
you iconify in the black-and-white photobooks
of Old Seattle, they have found new haunts
and you're not invited. The great glass
sheen of downtown on one side,
the postcard view on the other, duck
in for sushi at a well-groomed restaurant,
stop for pizza where everyone eats loudly,
constantly darting their heads back
every time the door opens.

A Heated Conversation About Steampunk

Its like all these people put on their grandpa's peacoats
and have suddenly conjured a culture that doesn't really exist

Likewhat? saywhat? Youyouyouyoudontevenknow!
how can you say tell me the 5,000+ crammed into
top hats and convention centers
don't exist. This is about a past-future that never really was.

just ask the world's major religions.
just ask the north renton ghost society.
just ask the 53 year old woman who went
as slutty hermione for halloween.

(just because it's not pretty
just because it's not your scene--
this is the future we're talking about.

this is culture we're talking about.
this is the future of culture we're talking
about

--where things happen instantly!
all bolts and gears and buildings creaking
to life fired by boys with bangs
shoveling coal into ovens)

just ask the 15 Seattle-area entertainment magazine writers
getting paychecks from inventing and dismantling Zeitgeists.

You can't say that when the hats are so cute.
IT'S TOTALLY SEXY!

ten thousand elvis impersonators, drunk off prohibition cocktails,
dancing in a circle around brand new anachronisms.
Ten thousand others taking notes and shaking heads.
Complete rolling blackouts.

__________________________________________

this month is Nanowrimo. Instead of trying to squeeze in a Novel in my spare time I want to 1) write a new poem a day or 2) edit existing pieces or pieces of pieces. I think I can do this, even while I'm in the UK. The above needs some editing but it doesn't feel like a rehash of other things I've done, so I'm happy about that.

in other news, I'm getting rid of my mattress. wanna know why? last owner had cats. THAT. MIGHT. EXPLAIN. A LOT.

JCMSUP, a couple of shows, a Saturday night with no set plans but to have no set plans.

Yesterday I observed in an e-mail to Gusta that I "am so tired it's like being jetlagged." this was doubtless partially just in anticipation of November 17-23rds complete whirlwind, but also a pretty accurate look at how time has been moving for me as of late. Even after my Big Art Show-- which was just two weeks ago-- I've done two readings, sat in on some crucial communications-policy meetings with Vera, begun my exit proceedings and been working my regular shifts at the Cafe and Loft. So even without my ZAPP hours, I'm still going at least six days a week. Even the most mellow-day three-hour cafe shifts still take a round trip of at least two hours on our city's beleagured Public Transit system. but yes. build a new deep-bore tunnel . . .

Civic politics ASIDE. . .

Jesus Christ Made Seattle Under Protest went really well. We had about 90 people through in three hours; I don't know if that's a ZAPP-at-artwalk record, but it was enough to get some nods. Wanted to post some pictures up here but still don't have a working computer and while I'm sure there is an equivalent of the "right-click" function on a mac, I dunno what it is.
Plus, right now there aren't a lot of pics of the artwork itself. A bunch of people standing looking at walls is not a great rep of an installation.

The following week I did a spoken word gig at the Rendezvous with Police Teeth, Connecticut 4, Garden Variety Tsar and the Mill Kids. The usual MC with a piece or two between each band. Katrina Miller bought me inappropriate amounts of whisky for a weeknight and I pulled out a few pieces I hadn't done in guite some time. It was a good good-bye for Keenan, who I'm coming up on 10 years of friendyness with and she and her fiance are heading to Athens, Ga.

Setlist
Rock Radio
___
Little Red Corvette
My Emergency's About to End*
___
When Saying Mean Things About Strangers
Like Taking Communion
___
Sex Standing Up*
Get Smart!
*It is amazing to me how many times I edited this one back in the day and how LONG it still is and not in a way that is particularly great.
*Debut. I got a lot of laughs and I think I made people uncomfortable. Which is what you want from Sex Standing Up? Heyo!

Then on Sunday I went with Brielle, Emily W, Elissa W up to B'ham for a Your Hands Your Mouth reading. There were lots of readers so my set looked like this:
What Reunions Are Often For
Tunnels
Extra Wide Bathtubs
Flicking Ash

In two weeks there's a reading here for YHYM; the last one here at the house was one of the highlight memories of this year that didn't involve being out of Washington State. I'll be probably busting out a rehearsal set for my Nov. 18th set at the Crunch, which I'm pretty excited about.

Now if I could just write some new stuff. . .

Breezy dismissal of the last 9 months.

grinding down/ramping up.

"Oh, like the downtown street acronym."

Here is what I'm working on now.

I haven't committed myself to drawing in any capacity since a few of the Lobster Manor show posters, and this is way bigger than that. This is kind of huge and terrifying.

". . . but those first two novels were just so. . . so. . . icky."

Tonight I had a free ticket to see Jonathan Franzen, whom Time Magazine calls the "Great American Novelist" or whatever, speak at Benaroya Hall.

He was smart and funny and very human, talking about the necessity of personal growth to continued relevance, the difficulty of humanity in literary fiction and things like that. I decided to take it as a good thing that many of the things one of the most successful/respected modern american writers said resonated, rather than dwell on *which* particular parts of the talk were hitting home and why.

(i mean, i noted those in the graham-needs-a-life-coach section, not graham-is-a-writer section, though the two are not separate)

also: knew I would be an Uncle by early next year. Now I know I will have a Nephew.

Fire Ant Fire Dance

Back in my days with the fire ants I was a ravager.
The bodies of crickets, the bodies of mice, bodies of
other, weaker ants. We had rituals for these things,
songs and chants and traffic through our underground mazes
was its own rhythm, its own catharsis.
Things were heavy often, the weight of a load nearly crushing
my thorax but I only ever had one at a time and I knew which
direction to walk with it. Through grains of sand that twitched
my antennae. Clods of dirt as big as my head. We owned the yard.
The blades of grass. Swarmed rocks until no grey stone left,
just the thousands of us, in our glory.
Then the child came, big and fat and stupid with hard treaded
feet, stomped our mounds. The elders fled. Tunnels
collapsed, the temple destroyed and the queens crushed under
relentless stamping.

But you should see what we did to that kid's leg.