voting is really going to hurt this year

and
perhaps
for the rest of my life

for the first time
john edwards
who i've been
defending
as the
least
of the four evils
running for veep and peep

(and)
who is as
cute
as a button

lie thru his
perfect
teeth
the very first time I've heard him speak the truth
in 2000 and four

"We cannot win the war on terrorists"
paraphrased
from the cowboy's lips

and the great waffler's
runnerrupp
says he's not

resolute

he who
sent thousands
to die to
end
his daddys grudgematch

who played god
with his hand on the phone
wired
to the hand
on the switch
wired
to the man
the woman
the disabled
childlike mind
and judged wanting
and the phone and the lever
and the

paper
eyelids
crumbling
sooty
black

all of it
dropped

and the man with the teeth
and the smile
and one of a hundred biglipped, hipped, hair and tit
daughters

pierced the eyes
of the man
with the polymer hair
and
verified

that the war on terror
is ABSOLUTELY winnable

(corrupts absolutely)

guess how many?

Wednesday, December 08, 2004 thanks, pop 1. so hoobastank a big favorite of my old roommate fat smelly has printed hoodies for people who just don't know better that when unzipped and viewed from the right angle simply announce that they are stank in related news, ben affleck's chin is being shot heroically somewhere in Ontario this week, soundtrack details will come sometime midJanuary 2. in a discussion of ethics v. logic and logistics v. theoretical religious implications of human cloning, a single kid namechecked both Britney Spears' "Crossroads" and Michael Keaton's "Multiplicity" in the span of a half hour. He has no taste and is my new hero 2:22 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove Saturday, December 04, 2004 the revolution will not be peer2peered thanks to the magic of the internet I just stole the wonderful Blaxploitation vol. 2 and 4 and ironically it is all the same artists that appeared on Black Panther Soul I now know what the Van Peebles and Hampton families have known for years the only difference between revolution and exploitation is marketing 5:03 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove Monday, November 29, 2004 like we always do about this time The Happiest Day in the Year in the life of Eric Strom or the Night of 1000 Pabsts The men on my father's side have a tradition for the day after thanksgiving lovingly referred to as the Happiest Day in the Year (despite being welcomed by only a select few). What it comes down to, essentially, a day where the married men get to spend a day away from their wives spoiling their unmarried sons spending hundreds of dollars at Rolling Stone Records with the holiday coupons placed in the week's Reader, Tribune, and IE and stuffing themselves full of salty meat products, pastries and beer (sorry for not contributing in the well-meaning but completely ineffective national no-buy day but faily first, right? I might need to borrow some kidneys). This year was a bit different as my cousin Josh is now a married man himself at a ripe 30 and his overworked father now relishes a day he can spend shopping with his wife downtown as music, even jazz, becomes a much less important part of his life. Josh's brother, dropped out years ago because of the same diminished interest but they were all there for a breakfast at Manny's deli on Roosevelt, even the women. This would take the place of the hotdog stand at the end of the day, replacing Duks or Flukys with kishkes and pastrami and fist-thick potato latkes. Then Josh's wife and my sister and mother left. Then Uncle Jay and Robbie and we watched our once hearty party of five dwindle to a stalwart three. Rolling Stone Records is more of a disappointment every year, especially as better and better peer-to-peer services develop. They're absolute shit for hiphop, electronic and 'world' and this year failed to hold their own in the world of established, classic punk acts. This did not stop me from finding a handful of keepers, all but one solid, weirdish mainstream releases from the year or older albums long-lost or stolen Saul Williams - saul williams Tom Waits- Real Gone Bjork- Medulla GG Allin - Expose Yourself- the singles 1977-1991 Tool- Aenima Mars Volta- De-Loused in the Comatorium and Spinal Tap on dvd from there we went to a polish bakery and talked about urban sprawl and my sister's choice of colleges over tiramisu and pumpkin pie. It was good but not the same. Then it was time for my party, the second of the two that I've thrown every thanksgiving for the last four years at four of my last five apartments (if you hate reading about other people's parties as much as I do, I suggest you head to another blog). By the numbers, it was a good party (despite being an awful sausage fest): there was a little bit of cocaine squirreled away here and there, Loregasm was tossing out Nitrous balloons with the ease of a five-year headshop veteran and the air was thick with blunt and hookah; some hot boy-on-boy had migrated from a couch to the hall to my sheetless bed, a couple of lesbian exgirlfriends hogtied some guy in my basement and threw him off my porch. It started the way it always does. A few people show up at my house way early and it's just us smalltalking and thumbtwiddling thinking that this'll be the year it just doesn't happen when fortyfive or so minutes after the party's called for a few dozen people arrive en masse. The dj didn't have his shit togethor and I had to tell off one of his idiot friends who thought he was special for 'bein with the dj.' God bless Ukranian Village. We had a little over 200 people and the cops never showed before it petered off to its natural end around four. I found the limits of many of my friends' personal good taste comfort level when I projected John Waters's "Pink Flamingos" on a wall in my basement and most of the party fled upstairs. In a wonderful stupor I became the boxedwine fairy as I ran around the party, nursing fools with my Franzia sangria bladder and followed around Pied-piper style by someone's thirsty jailbait sister (expressly forbidden) when she wasn't showing off her bad tattoos or making out with L___. There was a little blood on my mattress (that might have been there anyway) and nothing was stolen. Huzzah p.s. there weren't really 1000 pabsts. when all was said and stacked there were a mere 8 cases of the dirty thirty variety and one eighteener accounting for a mere 258 PBRs. Next year in Israel 10:29 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove Wednesday, November 24, 2004 so lets party like it's 1995 you probably don't know it yet but the 90s are back the flannel hasn't been dusted off yet but as soon as the last of the aerosol retroclash revival cans has wheezed its final breath the roots will start showing i was riding the bus the other day when i saw an abandoned building plastered with the familiar NiN logo alongside Gwen Stefani and Loyd Banks thinking hmm Trent finally got around to making a new album but I was wrong what I was looking for was an ad for Downward Spiral: Redux full of, i assume, remixes from Halos 8 - 14 Nirvana put out two albums this year I haven't been this excited since from the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah they aren't selling as well as Bill Clinton's greatest hits which ain't half as much fun as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas which brings to life all of my 8th grade G-Funk fantasies and reimagines Alternative Radio imagine getting to relive sixth wave ska Mustard Plug: Evil Doers Beware...redux Against All Authority: Destroy What Destroys You...studio rarities and b-sides! we'll all be able to follow the Cherry Poppin Daddies reunite for VH1's take on reality even Dirt McGirt, once known as Osiris and ODB died in time to promote the anniversary of his epic Return to the 36 Chambers can you believe it's been all of ten years since tghat magical event where we all forgot our differences and learned to love again... Woodstock 94? don't you want to go back to a simpler time when you could regularly or at least for one magic weekend see such diverse bands as the Cranberrys and the Spin Doctors sharing a stage with collective soul and aerosmith musical geniuses who would not live to see their day like Blind Melon's Shannon Hoon and innovators Salt 'n Pepa only to have your whole concept of fun ripped up and turned around by an irreverent mud tossing Green Day when the children were being regaled with the topical-ish wackery of the Animaniacs and popradio really wanted to fuck you like an animal? ten years as if it was yesterday just remember the next time you read a glowing review in a glossy zine of some new band that fought their way out of some shit town melding punk an good ole amerikan country they probably sound like Seven Mary Three as my favorite reality TV star once said Don't believe the hype 11:43 PM - 3 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove character assessment Sarah's friend just came into town for a week from Tulsa with just a bag, a book, and a carton of smokes. The book is Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "Hundred Years of Solitude"; the smokes are Oklahoma-based Bronson cigarettes. What can I say? Good people is good people. 8:56 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove Tuesday, November 23, 2004 fat girls fuck j*hnny l*ve no one should be famous for partying until they're at least steaming dead of accidental overdose, syphillis, or erotic asphyxiation. Death to self promotion. The following is my letter to L*z Armstrong, party columnist and editor of the politicalish Buddy "Gallery" newsletter Lumpen, who has been drawing my ire for the past two months. It will be sent out tomorrow, when I give a shit about finding her email adress. Tonight is the night for anger. Dear L*z Armstrong, Stop. Your anecdotes are not interesting. Stop. Your stories are not poignant. Stop. The Reader does not need a weekend party wrap up. I've been reading your "Chicago Antisocial" column for about two months now and I'm still not sure why it exists. The only thing less fun than reading about a party is reading about a party that you've missed, and the only thing worse than that is reading about a party that you've made a concerted effort to avoid. In almost every column I've read, the last has been the case. I just don't see the point. You write as if you've found Chicago's seedy underbelly, and uncovered some seething Factory-era Warholian underground utopia full of sweat and hedonism. The truth of the matter is that you're writing about a number of well-advertised shows and parties at places with names, full of the same superficial assholes with the same deconstructed fashion sense on major streets in the same neighborhood. The truth of the matter is that your Wicker Park scene-humping is not only transparent, but years past relevant. Your stories don't seem to aim for that "snapshot of a specific time and place in Chicago" quality that might lend them a bit of credence. They are just braggadacio, masturbation. You are not a hedonist, just a self promoter, just another fun loving drunk like the Lincoln Park moms dancing on tables in Coyote Ugly and the wrinkled cocktail souses staring awkwardly from spreads in CS. I have been reading the Chicago Reader for as long as I can remember and can't conceive of a time when they dedicated a whole page so regularly for so much fluff and I don't think they need to. If you want to tell us how trashed you were this weekend and how great your bar friends are, go work for the Red Eye. Stop. sincerely, Eric lab Rat fuck anyone who gets paid to write and produces absolute horseshit while i'm blogging on myspace (56 and countuing). please tell me if there's anything I've missed, or any glaring spelling/grammar errors. Salud.
[NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: GOD I WAS A RUDE ASSHOLE, SORRY]
7:50 PM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove gentleman junkman i'd say they were deceptive if they weren't so fulla grey but there were blue skies today, for the first time in weeks an I'll swear they musta been the beautifullest things I seen in weeks what I hadn't pulled outta dumpster an it seems that's all I seem to do these days is grab shit outta trashcans 's if I don't got hands fulla shit an trash I can tell you a lotta things about this neighborhood like furniture is made of wood and doesn't go nowhere til electrical tape don't do the job no more and toys and art don't have much shelf life to em a lot of people are buying colorfully boxed organizers which may very well be why i'm finding so much great old shit that don't fit on shoe trees an messenger bags I can tell you I'm not the only one drinking Albertson's brand vodka and every other brick in the area code's had a Negra Modelo smashed against it and... when the street light catches that glint in your eye that foil really looks like it's gold that's a lie it always looks like foil the gold foil you find on Negra Modelo bottles which sometimes can do a body more good than any brick a gold i walked through alleys for hours yesterday with my roommates but it's standing at a bus stop half an hour today that gets me i need to learn patience or foregive foreget or just plain fuck em but if i die to morrow a one day old hermit they'll be able to say man, this guy had a lot of crap yesterday's finds: a Simpsons dartboard, ottoman, antique ashtray, stack of wildlife encyclopedias and pre-Buddy Lumpens, New Kids on the Block "Hangin Tough (Live)" vhs, leather fannypack [nate], burlap handbag and raw materials for making a loom [tania], sweaters, mirror, rug, frisbees [2], bootleg version of the ABC miniseries version of Homer's classic "Odyssey" vhs copied for some boyscout troop, and emo sweaters out of Mister Rogers wet dreams a couple weeks back in the Onion a joke horoscope told me more than any legitimate picayune ever done: Libra (Sept 24) People might praise the ineffable human qualities of your post-lyric poetry now, but after you're gone, all they'll talk about is your great parties. which is all I've ever really expected 7:07 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove Monday, November 22, 2004 ukranian village, 2:00 AM you don't hear very many planes fly overhead on my block but when it's really quiet under Sarah's comforter you can hear a cargo train grunting and chugging along through the salthills on Grand I've heard it but I've never seen it I've heard it but not in my apartment with the cats scratching and pissing and humping each other on every surface cartoon mpegs blasting from across the hall and playstations from below Eastern European domestic disputes and a half dead computer wheezinh a whir from its sad old Pentium i've taken to scrounging the alleys as more and more families flee to the suburbs in fear of a changing climate a revolving door of musicians and mexicans more and more cool shit gets left behind today there were two twin size boxsprings, two twinsie mattresses, a frame, two sets of sheets (one soiled) and two cushions (in four different places) a couple teddy bears, and sleeves to Neil Diamond and Frank Sinatra records what I did find: there's a basement apartment on Walton and Campbell that has a pet rooster a pet rooster who believes the sun rises at 2 in the morning, despite evidence to the contrary and a sign on St. Mark's Cathedral: What is missing from CH CH? UR 1:19 AM - 1 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove my life as a moment through nell's peripheral vision it's about midnight we're projecting American Splendor onto a wall in my basement on the couch, kyle is smoking the hookah nate and tania are making out behind the couch, I'm fervent grunting away with a 20 pound weight in the hope that I won't have to live out someone else's depression in an all too familiar body 1:14 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove Saturday, November 20, 2004 cta friends vol. 1 as i boarded the 49x northbound this afternoon the first thing i noticed was a man, asleep. He was either homeless or a drug adict but he was sleeping with his head against the window, mouth agape. As I traced his contours I found an uncapped pen connecting his hand to a fully completed crossword puzzle. I looked around. there was a man who looked like Dr. Cornel West if he was a pimp, a Ricardo Mantelban if he was a zombie, the bastard son of James Earl Jones and Ray Charles in front of lane tech, a butchy girl from the basketball team spits through her braces into a cell phone, "We can't fuck this one up! ...You can't fuck this one up" a little Mexican girl from a computer science charter school with a skateboard that stands upright at waist level, half sleeves of cutter bracelets, a backpack covered in white-out graffiti, and knuckles with extensive wallpunch scarring the sleeping man, who is most likely either homeless or a drug adict groggily hits on her when he wakes up, locking on and imprinting like a newborn robin, asking, "have you ever heard of this band 'the Sex Pistols'?" before explaining that he used to play in this little band called Public Image Ltd.

another 10 from *not here*

Friday, November 19, 2004

Alaskan Men

Susie's Alaskan Men to be exact
it's a catalogue/travel guide full of single Alaskan men
meant to lure
lonely women
away from the continental united states
with promises of a good life and
low competition
in Alaska
(America's secret sausage fest)

I know this because when I got to work today, this woman Maria (who I believe is technically my boss) was leafing through it in the lounge

every now and then she'd come across
a group of firemen
a guy with a cute dog
a guitarist
a balding man trying to pull off a goateed Kenny G look
and she'd run to the front desk and giggle with Toni

it was somewhere around the third time she cooed "Ooh, look at his arms. I've got a thing for arms," here talking about some sea cow of a man with fat arms

that I realized
she wasn't joking

Now
confused and
reasonably reasonable
I pondered why she
a not-bad-looking
kinda cute
late 20s early 30s
woman would be looking for a man
and an opportunity toescape
viz a vis Susie's list when I realized

Christ

I work in the goddamn math department

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Thursday, November 18, 2004

alley finds

yesterday:

a suitcase full of toys and assorted kid's crap from the 1980s, including, but not limited to a He Man (Master of the Universe) villain with a hornet's visage/demeanor, Boy Scouts patches, Panda sunglasses, baseball and basketball cards, scribble drawings, cars and motorcycles

today:

a 30X illuminated microscope and 8X magnifier
Panasonic ministudio Dat recorder/mixer
Boss guitar tuner
and a photo album full of boring pictures of ducks and sunsets in San Francisco and midwest marathon cyclists

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Sunday, November 14, 2004

shortsighted

when the rest of the world was
mourning
Ol Dirty Bastard and Yasser Arafat
I was with Her
at a punk show in Pilsen

two forties deep and well on my way to
ruining
another evening
togethor

Sarah tells me I should stop giving these people I don't know
this modicum of trust

she has a long time ago and
they can't touch her
anymore

maybe that's why it was me and not her
crouched in some alley
i'd been pissing in
split knuckles split lip
front to back rip in my dress pants' crotch
I didn't get into a fight I
did it to myself

&
with tears and blood streaming
ass and pride bruised
I couldn't fight my way out of it
she wouldn't let me

so I tore into brick wall and chain link
my own skin and bone
howling blubbery into the night
refusing her lips
(like only a fool would)
refusing the touch of her hand
through the holes in my coat
&
slept half the night
alone at her side

I'm not supposed to trust people but I'm supposed
to trust you

of course I trust you
to have the reason
to know
that you could do better

and better will probably come along before not too long

I'll never refuse another kiss

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plant a crack rock for Dirt McGirt

When Iwas 13, my friend Greg (at the time, "G-Dogg") and I had run away. We hadn't really run away so much as had wandered off and lost track of time to the point where there was a fanatical familial search party combing the beach for us. We were in some rich beachside community in Indiana or Michigan or Wisconsin or somesuch notIllinois place. I had dragged him along on a trip to visit whichever family member it is that used to have that get togethor. I'm not sure but I figure they've since passed since I haven't been there for some time.

I hated these trips and relished in the opportunity to take G-Dogg with me.Togethor, we frightened my cousins, who asked if we were in a gang. More than that, although he was my best friend I never saw him. His family had lived underneath his grandparents in a building that tended to get caught up in drive-by crossfire. Just before eigth grade his family had relocated to Crystal Lake, Illinois. Essentially, the Sticks. They lived a block away from the General Store and I never saw him.

Because of this we stormed the beach like kings. We were kings. We were two kids from Chicago in a place that wasn't. I had a bright green buzzcut and a Gomez Adams moustache; I was growthspurt thin for the first and only time in my life. We ran unil we were lost, talking to high school girls and starting shit with locals, acting much drunker than we could have been for what little we'd stolen, and singing at the tops of our lungs.

We sang, or screamed the lyrics to the most antisocial popradio bands that we knew: Metallica and Nine Inch Nails, Bone Thugs N Harmony and Wu Tang, the Offspring and Pantera, Dr. Dre and Snoop Doggy Dog, Ministry (to the extent that you could sing the songs from "Psalm 69: the Way to Suck Seed and the Way to Suck Eggs"...think TVII). More than anything else though, we sang, or warbled ODB. We had both just gotten Ol Dirty Bastard's first LP, "Return to the 36 Chambers" and spent the afternoon singing "Shimmy Shimmy Ya" and "Snakez", running in and out of the clear water and making fun of yuppies.

At some point I'd lost my shoes around someone's campfire and we found out how dark the world can actually be at night somewhere in the world outside of Chicago. When my Dad finally came across us we were yelled at in a manner unfit for men of our stature. We yelled back. We pouted. G-Dogg was not allowed to come with us on any more family outings, and we soon fell out of touch.

I was not meant to see Ol Dirty Bastard in concert. One of the two concerts I was banned from before high school was the Wu Tang Clan at the Aragon Ballroom (the other was Ministry at the Vic). When Terence Byas called me up with a free ticket to see Wu Tang on tour with Rage Against the Machine in Tinley Park, I had to go to the Bat Mitzvah's of one of those aforementioned stuck-up cousins in Northbrook, and when I stood at the counter at the Clubhouse, money in hand, trying to get a ticket for Ol Dirty Bastard, solo at the Metro, the indie rocker at the counter told me that he had been arrested the day prior, and postponed the tour.

Ol Dirty Bastard has been in and out of jail ever since and, to my knowledge, has not played another show in Chicago since. He died yesterday evening in New York. He would've been 36 tomorrow.

Rest in Peace Russel Jones

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Wednesday, November 10, 2004

3 bullshit posts in a row...I'm motherfucking Superman
Current mood: dreadticipation

i've been rather depressed and paranoid this week. maybe it's too much work, or too much extra pressure as I put off work, maybe it's the whole midterms stigma, maybe it's the changing of the season, or maybe my relationship is heading for the shitter and i haven't fully realized it yet, but I've decided to list a few good things here and now

class got out early and I'm getting paid for it now, as I type this

John Ashcroft has resigned

I have, in my backpack, the abominable snowman that co-starred with me in the 2003 Nell Taylor student opus "Too Many Monsters"

Hotmail has raised my storage ability by like 6000 per cent

I will be featuring at The Cafe (actually called that) on Lincoln Avenue, March 1st 2005

if my relationship isn't secretly over and Sarah hasn't tired of me in her heart of hearts, she will be dazzled by my incredible birthday gift-buying prowess

Now it's off to 5 or 6 hours in the photo studio. Toodles

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Why Settle for Being Spiritually In Tune w/ the Universe when you can Bling it up?

Some people believe that charity is its own reward, others find solace in living life to the single dictate of the golden rule, and yet others can only get by comfortably with the knowledge that pure chaos theory reigns the cosmos supreme. I for one find solace in money karma.

what Money Karma boils down to, is that if you put enough love out there, it'll come back to you

an example:

the other day
in downtown Grand Rapids
I give a lady one of my last dollars to buy a fortie
after she compliments me on my hair
then I got drunk on Bells
and nothing much happened
until Monday, near Columbia
after I've opted to miss class
a scraggly Abe Lincolnwith a Sharpied-blue beard
is peeking up at me from under one of it's own folds in the curb
I scooped him up and bought mouth-watering Harold's chicken and Wild Cherry Pepsi w/ it
giving the rest to another homeless woman
later, the accursed Columbia College vending machine denied me my packet of skittles
unwilling to pay double and
unable to jar it loose with my boots
i opted to leave
ruing my charity

at Osco
the woman at the counter
dazzled by my hair
rings up only my graham cracker Animalitos
and not the other items
netting me the animal cookies, some lemonade, and Pringles Pizza-licious chips
for a cool $1.02

all was right in the world again

the dual morals of this story are
1. i have a much better haircut than diet
2. money karma is the way to success so give, give, give
Unfortunate drawback: it takes a lot of the fun sincerity and acumen out of helping folks

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get up, Standup

So I read something interesting and kinda weird in a reputable newspaper on the bus earlier today. Well, it wasn't so much a reputable newspaper as it was the youth-marketed tabloid subsidiary of a reputable newspaper, the Tribune Co. Chicago Red Eye. Well apparently, some conservatives in Congress, cocky after their big win last Tuesday, are pushing legislation that would require all doctor to warn prospective patients that getting an abortion might cause pain to the poor, defenseless ittybitty fetus.

Ain't that a fuckin nail in the heart?

Well I think that I can do the Republicans one better (which is rare because they usually throw me for a fuckin loop). I think that this time they're not going far enough. I think that radiologists should be warning patients that their chemo treatments might be hurting causing pain to their tumor.

SURE, some rich LIBERALS in MASSACHUSSETTS may try to tell you that a tumor is nothing more than a brainless, soulless bundle of cells but I happen to watch networks like FOX where Richard Murdock's fine programming offers shows like "Ripleys, Beieve it or Not!" wherein I've seen a 200 lb. tumor removed from a 250 lb. woman and this bad boy had teeth and it had hair.

Ponder this for a moment because 22 years ago in the year of our lord 1982 when a jaundiced, little bouncing baby Eric lab Rat was born 6 pounds, 2 ounces at Illinois Masonic, he didn't have hair; and he didn't have teeth. Now you tell me who the undeveloped one is.

Besides, chemotherapy is not as pretty as it sounds. You see, all that chemotherapy is is the process of putting someone in a teeny tiny little MURDER ROOM to get teeny tiny little doses of RADIATION POISONING from teeny tiny little DEATH RAYS...and what is the byproduct of such rampant and unchecked usage of radiation?

Radiation poisoning (aforementioned), nuclear fallout, nuclear waste and...flipper babies (which only lead to more people getting abortions.

So if you want the mass murder of innocents to end andf you want to defeat apartheid, where regular tumor-Americans are relegated to the status of second class citizens...........

I don't know, send me an email or somethin
ericlabrat@insideoutboy.net

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Sunday, November 07, 2004

untitled


yesterday

i amtrakked through dozens of small towns with

dead trees, blue skies, and names i've never heard of

to a yawning union station

with titty mags littered by the elevators

and tourists reliving the untouchables

I was home

no trees

grey sky



i didn't cut my wrist

but when i pulled back the braxelets on my left arm

i found that they'd dug in to the skin

leaving much longer impressions than the girls i don't see anymore

who'd given them to me a year and some change back

two apartments ago

plus an extended stay with my parents



when i found my way to their yard today

there was a tree i'd never noticed before

full of bald and veiny branches that

unnoticed

unfolded an arm

twenty-three steps onto my parents balcony

where it could grab them as they lie limp

and motionless

worlds apart in their big bed

as though completely alone

to drag them back into the dead earth

overplanted and processed

as infertile as they are

to skip the inevitable



we've been rooted in this place for too long

and I need to pull myself out




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a day in the life of eric, gentleman test animal [Grand Rapids edition]
Current mood: empty

-wake up in Grand Rapids at Sarah's parents' house
have gibberish conversation with her dad
fall back to sleep
(it's very likely that this is a dream)

between 11 and 12 (Eastern Standard Time) wake up
i'm absolutely certain about this one
shower
spend a good 45 minutes trying to get my mohawk up,
before i opt to give myself a haircut
finish hair and Sarah's Mom's spray

1:00 Sarah takes me on a tour of downtown grand rapids
apparently everything she remembers is still there but has moved
around a few blocks
1:30 hit best record store i've been to in a while
spend 25 dollars and 39 cents on the following vinyl
-Sem Estilos Para Definir o Nosso Odio (Brasilian HC compilacao)
-The Cars "Greatest Hits"
-Grand Palominos "Visions of Excess"
-The Woggles! "Teendanceparty"
-The Morlocks "Emerge"
2:45 realize we've spent entirely too much time there
rush across town, making many wrong turns
3:10 family gathering at Sarah's, too many people
3:15 corn dogs!
3:30 i notice i'm getting drunk
3:35 four types of lasagna based on two recipes
3:50 sober up as everyone else starts getting drunk
4:?? presents are exchanged
pillows, money, mechanical santa who blows bubbles
sarah and i are both given novelty voodoo dolls
Voudun Detente! Voudun Detente! Voudun Detente!
5:?? sarah gets in an argument, browbeating w/ various family members,
cries
when i fail at trying to console her, hide in the basement
watch bootleg Billy Bob Thornton highschool football movie w/ Sarah's little cousins until her Dad decides to show various people the basement's surround sound
6ish everybody leaves
6:30 watch "Joan of Arcadia w/ Sarah's parents
7:30 her Dad, drunk, decides to show me the jeep, tears ass off the lawn blasting tribal drum music
7:37 we're back at the house and he apologizes
7:40 accuses me of defensive and violent body language as I slice myself a bit of cake
threatens: you're lucky you're still alive now boy
7:45 LEAVE
blast awful-but-endearing Lansing hardcore demos we got for free at the record store (Listen to FTM at www.severedrecords.com, the "only website that matters")
8:30 miss Zatoichi:the blind Swordsman at UICA, real cool fuckin place
8:45 head around corner to Morning Star 75, see cool local band Paucity
moog-heavy spacey rock
9:45 leave when the dude from the Dismemberment plan gets on and starts playing songs that sound like they should open up a morning newscast or be the theme for some sort of PBS cartoon where a scientist takes a multiethnic group of school kids through time to learn and avoid things like pogroms and the black death
10:30 some bar whose name i forget
alright jukebox, Bells on tap, creepy old photographer who tells me
"never catch yourself behaving"
making out in the darts hovel
11:45 meijers
cheap condoms, goldfish crackers, hairspray for Sarah's mom
lube, beer and vodka for Sarah's sister and her roommate
chewable children's vitamins
12:30 smoked ribs, cheese, lemonade and grenadine
12:45 David Lynch shorts
1:?? fall asleep on the couch watching "Monty Python's the Meaning of Life"

poignant moment:

on the way to the train this morning we see a billboard:
Kent County is Great! Keep it that way: Vote Republican!

the billboard was hanging over the backside of a Freemason's hall

me and sarah slept most of the trainride over and got home depressed...probably more drained than anything and looking like something
the cat dragged back out. It's alright. Sarah's grandmother likes me and so does she. that's all i need. If you happen to find yourself in GR next Saturday, i suggest that you see Human Order and (Los?) Eske playing with Don Knotts and other at 10 N Weston. Bye

10:02 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove



Thursday, November 04, 2004

everyone must die


the cunt using the computers at columbia college's library to look at friend requests on myspace who looked at me all shitty when all the computers were full and i asked if anyone was getting off soon- dead

the dumb fucks who let all the computers in the underground get infected with popup spyware cpu syphillis- dead

51 per cent of the nonfelonious 18-plus year old american voting public- mildly wounded and severely lectured

ohiowaian and floridian nader supporters - ethnically cleansed

the vending machine that wouldn't spit out my 2.5 ounces of Nabisco brand cherry fruit snacks- dead

all the broken ATMs that tried to keep me from getting my caffeine and Harold's chicken before the next 8 hours of school - incinerated


my own damn unhealthy body- eviscerated


more to come soon
it's time for class
so anybody wants to talk about the prospect of repopulating the earth with a head in a jar wearing a ratty mohawk

talk to me later

fuckin' growl, yo

fuckin growl

Wizard playlist 2.0

the Specials- (this is the) dawning of a new era
Mixel Pixel- Desert Falcon
Odd Nosdam
Charlie Parker- Laura
Langhorne Slim- Loreta Lee Jones
Rivel- isine
Bombay the Hard Way
the Clash - English Civil War
TV on the Radio - staring at the sun
R. Crumb & his Cheap Suit Serenaders
Melt Banana- introduction for Charlie
Amon Tobin w/ Eric Truffaz
Sage Francis- crack pipes
Caetano Veloso- come as you are/the Carioca
Angel Corpus Christi - I'm 18
Wesley Willis Fiasco - the Bar is Closed
Mariade Barros - Mi Nada un Catem (Women of Africa)
Firewater - I often dream of trains
Lumberjackass- turn all lumpe
end- o hell with everybody
Asylum Street Spankers- lullaby of the leaves
Omoide Hatoba- atelite Groove
Azita- Wasn't in the bargain
x-ray spex- i am a poseur
murs- the pain
Acid Motherhood
Estradasphere- elderly normal samurai tortoises

yep...88.3 fm, every monday
8 to midnight

olderish WZRD playlist

Varukers - the Bob Blast
the Business- Harry May
A. Dvorak- Adagio
Tracy & the Pastics- quaasars
Smoke Jon- sasatteru
Polyponic Spree- Hold me now
Vic Vacuum & the Attachments - my body is a toilet
Patti Smith- last hotel
Bebo & Cigala - inolvidable
Rufus & Ben Quillian - Satisfaction Blues (Old Time Hokum Blues)
the Pleasure Fuckers - Schizophrenia
Wayne Horvitz & Zony Mash- with space on top
lake of dracula- blues fantastique
Macha- D-D-D
Klute- Desert Storm
Kid606- Wickid Megamix
the Adicts- Smart Alex
Big Black- kerosene
Matthew Shipp - fir play
Aiyb Dieng - boka devotion
Dr. Octagon-
Edith Frost- Temporary Loan
Molasses-
Ozomatli-Cumbia de los Muertos
Juice Bros- 13 years old
Ausia- Idiot's Delight
Great Kat- Sarasate's Gypsy Violin Waltz
Ballgagger- dog star
Last Poets- King is Home
Justin Hinds & the Dominoes- Miss Vendell
Magnetic Fields - I thought you were my boyfriend
Jane Jensen - More than I can
Mojo Nixon- Are you Drinkin w/ me Jesus?
Son House-President Kennedy
Klezmatics- khsidim Tants
Colleen- Ritournelle (Delivery From Secial Low Price)
King Missile-the story of Willy
Anti Flag- red white & brainwashed
Japonize Elephants- fuck the farmacia
Raincoats- you're a million
the Slugs- tomorrow
Miriam Makeba- Pata Pata
Los legres de Teran- La Toma de Torreon
Nick Cave + the Bad Seeds- west country girl
Metallux- Mexico

listen to my ass every monday from 8 to midnight every monday on WZRD 88.3 fm
no really, do it

lunchmeat

bongload is an anagram for bolognad (or as some brutish Americans would pronounce it
'baloneyed'
_)

the last time I was bolognad

i was in a holding cell near Bridgeport and the guy across from me was going bonkers
banging his head against the little
pentagonal
window
and in the peaceandquiet
we both shared
fell asleep
on our shoes

-

though a Mericancheese 'n'bologna floornap
always goes better
with a bongload
than a bum rap

word

nooner

everyone in the goddamn world is online right now
if we were all to fire bottlerockets straight up in the air at 12:15
a worried homeland security
would shut down
the airlines
and the news woyld
air
a collage
of everyone's
goddamn
wideyed headtilt myspace tittypics
and our tattoo artists and
reforma (whoever the fuck they are)
would get a lot of press

vote kerri

kerri fuckin strug

she's a winner all the way
just so long
as she doesn't start cryin like a bitch again

straight up bitching

on friday night
i was able to make a noisy room
shut up and listen

to what i had to say

but you were not there to see it

on saturday night
i helped a room
thick with silence

(in that way where you could hear
the crickets dropping pins and
smell the tumbleweeds stampede)

and you were not there to see it

on friday
before i went to the party
where i would see everyone i saw
at the party on sunday
and would've seen
at the party on saturday

i was screwed over
by a venue i've never played
before

i performed and won the crowd over
in two
had my mike hut
in a twonce
finished and stormed straight to my car
where i cried
because i'd been drinking

and you were not there to wipe the tears
(& that is why they fled)


there's a line in one of the poems
that i didn't get a chance to read

that paraphrased

asks if i should give up the goat
the way i put down the pipe
and forget this little writingactingdreaming dream

that i ask myself all the time

and am asking now

along with that question
of
where will you be
next time
when i don't see you?

[i have a nagging fear that i am guilt tripping
(here). ]

response to stranger who wants to be my myspace friend for some reason hitherto unknown or mentioned

(Subj) if epicurians killed my metaphysics professor midsemester...

(Body:) was he ever really there?

do i really receive a grade?
(6 letters of the alphabet later and the answer is yes)

the first two pages of your friends
on average
have variations on the same haircut

weird, no?

in other words
hello


----
it comes to no surprise that i've yet to receive an email back

roger's park

1.
the corner of glenwood and lunt smelled like drugs and urine
when i passed it at 8

well I sure enjoy drugs
and my body naturally produces urine as it absorbs NaCl from food

so I thought

maybe I've been here before and
just missed myself but
i asked around &
apparently
I hadn't

2.
last week
there was a wheelchair
stranded
next to a mailbox on the corner of glenwood & lunt
across the street from
the Heartland Cafe

and I thought
'Damn, they got another one'

anecdote

i am not a morning person
in the morning i am capable of maybe three things
one is making out
if i am so lucky as to have the option presented to me
and the second i'm not so sure about
(though mentioning it
I'm sure
makes me a more well-rounded person)

so me and _____
are waiting for the Red Line train

being far too adorable
for a guy with a half-foot mohawk
and a girl with piercings you can't see
unless you're a REALLY good friend
or have superpowers

and there's a curious
older man waiting with us
at the Jarvis stop
wearing clothes that seem to be
a retro throwback
to the older men of his childhood
in the 30s

a maroon mushroom cap
glasses so thick they
could stop hollow-points

and we're doing our
asshole
eternal youth
snarky thing

taunting him
in between
flicks of tongue

and he's doing his
disapproving
older gentlemen
right-of-way
thing

judging us
(i assume)
from his furrowed brow

she gets off
and the whole world
is a little bit darker
and this old man's spectacles
are focusing his glare on me
and as he gets off the train he walks towards me
and hands me a folded piece of paper

i wait til he heads off
and read it:

Please be adviced that you are not Jewish because you act like Goy!! You are not allowed to have hebrew tattoo on neck!

(the tattoo is the name of my grandfather who brought us to this country)

the punchline is that this note was scribbled on the back of a form trying to collect money for the Religious Zionists of Chicago

the moral is...
do not feel guilt

the person you're judging
is doing the same goddamn thing back
or not paying attention

and everything is right in the world
as the laws of irony
remain
cruelly enforced

white label friday

we must be the same person cause we wear the same paint

today it's
mud and
chipped green nail polish and
shame

it's not that i don't trust you
but it's
that bottle
that your little hands
which you've noted are just about as big as mine
and white than anything under the sun
seem to be scraping the bottle

it's that
(second)
bottle

it's that twenty-minute window
where you drop your pretensions
and love strangers
until someone you know
disrupts it
with themselves

their own bullshit

and i never want to hurt you but
sometimes
i really want to hurt you
a little

where all that's left in the morning is an
aura
of
guilt

we know how to press each other's buttons

and i like you too much

it's just that
...


i've dated adicts

i've dated alcoholics
exclusively
for over a year now

i've known
biblically
junkies, classical pianists, mud wrestlers, mural painters, old friends, dominatricees, choir girls, jazz dancers, smokers, drinkers, face-splitters, blood-spitters, deejays, sculptors, tattooed, pierced, and retail, bloody retail, retail, retail and girls who just need a way to escape

and lord there's so much you seem to want to escape

and mourners and morning sex and every other day, i'm mourning sex

and cutters, and whores
(not the way men mean when they call someone 'whore' but..
((whores))
and catholic buddhist wiccan atheist suicidal seeking treatment met at a party girls with husbands whom live with their fiancees

and maybe i'm a scumbag too

and it's starting to hurt like _____
but the word is two heavy
for people who can't even hold their heads up high
so we look at each other
with salt in our eyes
and whisper

i like you too much

date entry level position 3.0

FUN WITH REAL PEOPLES' NAMES!

how do you cure SANDEE BUTZ? you give em the PHIL REIMAN

[rimshot for the rim joke]

aging

right now
somewhere in the world

a kid born during the clinton administration

is really
truly
enjoying a blow job

streese

bi polar
does not mean an eskimo who likes men and women

for some reason
its always better to start out with a
(bad)
joke

i'm so busyy right now that i have to budget time to break down and cry in bathrooms

and even when i'm working

which may as well be a new concept for me

i'm getting phone calls from my mother yelling at me

for not cleaning up rooms in houses i haven't seen for weeks and shouldn't have still been staying in for

months

and then she cries

and why is it the only times that she calls to complain

happen just before the times when i need to suck in my sperm and ask for another couple hundred to help me get by for a while?

and as i'm tipping my penis to the ground for all the dead men, real men who were able to support themselves and do their thing at the same time I'm realizing how much these whiles between these phone calls keep gettin shorter when there's nothin to show

and i'm pretty sure that

right now the only person who doesn't just see me at work or some sort of workish art thing is Sarah and she made the mistake of getting me a job at her office, i mean she's

clingy

but not like i am

and if i don't leave her alone for a while we may never have sex

because

i can see that look in her eyes fading

the way your eyes start to narrow when you're looking at the sun for too long
(and cmon who doesn't like the sun?)


i'm preparing for
mass
failure

the show

the collective

tutoring

sarah

the apartment

taniakylenate

to be honest i've failed at staying interested in this post, i believe i won't finish it...i'm not being (or attempting to be) clever, i'm just failing

data entry position part 2

day 3
i shit you not
this adult (read: grown ass) woman who works at a law firm has this name:
Candy Graham

I'm gonna call all the local stripper stables and see if one got loose. Don't worry, we'll have her home soon

email to elitist roger's park green party member

dear wanky upper middle class marxist type,
> after receiving your email i nearly choked on the goat brie i was
lightly
> nibbling; next time you
> should put out a warning before cluttering my inbox with such
inflammatory
> rhetoric. Though it almost was my undoing, it did work as a sort of
call to
> arms, and the wake up call i needed. I went ahead and talked toi
this Earth
> of yours and she said that she will be thanking you. A couple years
from now
> she will thank you from under the fumes of Haliburton tanks in
Alaska, she
> will thank you. From under the smoke of terrorist-searching bombs


in response to:
Dear Wanky Upper Middle Class Liberals,

I support Nader/Camejo, the Green Party, the Green Alliance, the Fourth International, etc. because I know (I don't believe, I know) that if humans and many other species on this planet are to avert being destroyed by global climate catastrophe brought on by capitalist poisoning of the planet, there must be a break from the parties of death and oppression.

If you put down the brie for a second and look at www.greensfornader.net or www.marxsite.org for example, maybe you will begin to understand. I don't hold out much hope because most of you are petit bourgeois caught up in your priviledges and thus too blind to see the reality that faces the vast majority of people on this planet, but oh well. I won't waste much time on this list, but, really, get a clue, any candidate has a right to run, the Junior Party of murder and oppression doesn't have the right to deny these candidates access and you don't have that right either, even if Toni Morrison won't be at the inaugural if the dumber mass murderer wins in November.

Me, I could care less who wins. Have a nice night.

Alex
Green Alliance


------
it's fun
for everyone
when leftists fight

data entry position

9 to 5
for two weeks
came across the following people's names

1 Sylvia Jew (whose law firm used the last name, first initial email adressees making her jews@somethingstereotypicallyjewish.com)

both of my Grandmothers were named Sylvia

2 Dwight Stickrod


if my name was Dwight Stickrod you would already be my bitch

line of the night

so i'm having a really inane conversation about ___________
i don't remember
when
from the other side of the room
a living room
not a bar,
from the only one i don't really know
an adorable little dreadlocked redheaded thing.....
so the best thing about my boyfriend going to prison was, i guess, i got to keep his skateboard

twinkle

you can lead a horse to a hipster fashion show but you can't make him appreciate a feathered mullet

Nell notified me today of a trend
swelling
out in the open
underneath our noses

the counterculture kids of today are becoming tattooed caricatures of the stereotypes of yesteryear
the miscarried ghosts of nuclear families past
so forth

what are the rebels doing to seperate them
from the backwardness of their boomer parents?

knitting
sewing
baking
and throwing fashion shows


betty crocker is the new bettie page

the empowering part
(or variable)
is
that now
they're allowed to really
and
truly
enjoy getting fucked
by people they
meet at lofts
and wherehouses
with bad haircuts
and tight pants

you've cum a long way baby

mi corazon

a shitty house party
from the mouth of crazy steve to my ears
the rumor of the [long amount of time]

los crudos is reuniting and playing tomorrow
at Cermak & Morgan
which is I think the fiest del sol (or party at Saul's)

unfortunately'the los crudos
in question
was nothing more than a mariachi band
who shared the name

which would have been
god-damn
right-on
if only they played an oompah-pa-pa cover
of hardcorgoizmo