a day in the life of eric lab rat

9:00ish: call from Sarah- "Get up, get out of my house" (by request)
9:00ish + 1: back to sleep
11:00: wake up leisurely
wank, shit, shower
12:30: head to columbia [college]
1: 30: procure UPass, make fun of shit with Kate
3:00: ensure 3 hour a week job T.A.ing "Math for Survival" class
5:00: sporadic attempts to work out during Daily Show, Simpsons
best omelette ever
6:00: meet up with Sarah
sneak under fence to take pictures of abandoned church, teenage drinking haven
7:00: plantains, black beans, carmelized chicken (Costa Ricans are gods)
8:00: eat over episodes of Family Guy on computer
9:30: fall into inconsolable depression about being fuck-up
10:20: leave sarah's
10:30: cry in car for half an hour
11:00: go to subterranean
talk to mattu-san, who drops names a lot and teaches me nihongo swears
11:30: Sonny Vincent (of the Testors) takes stage for mediocre set
12:30: head over to Ramon's to wish devon a happy birthday, welcome Jason back home
everyone is stoned
1:00: Family Guy; Fururama
2:00: visit Emerson at WLUW
3:00: go to Pete Wolf's place for In One Ear Open Mic's after-afterparty
everyone is stoned, but more sociable
many heart to hearts under the stars
5:00: drive to parent's house
eat sardines
5:30: stupid list

today i upended the homes of a million crickets

it was a very autumnal day

as I

in a vest as vibrant as the changing leaves
raked and swept broken glass
and East Side dust
from viaucts
near the tank on 100th and J

into a pile
the kind my dad would have e jump into
if he was a complete
sadist

home to the
whitest thing I'd ever
in a van with
a tough ass
old school
moustachioed
South Side cop
(already white)

listening to the smooth jazz station
WNUA
's
eight o'clock
commercial free
ease your way int the workday
breakfast
culminating in the song
Oh I'd Love, Love, Love, Love, Love...to Dance with My Father Again"


i firmly believe that Cat Stevens would beat this guy to death with the Koran

i mean it was white
-how white is it?-
squinting wonderbread white

--
also
--

one of the blacker things i've seen in a while

in a van
this cat
marked with a vest meant to tell the whole world
"Im gonna be claning up shit today"
and panther tattoos
meant to tel the world
"Yes, you're right...I AM black"
leaning out the window
tryin to holler at a girl comin out
the Dunkin Donuts
Officer Comiskey had run into

"hey baby, I get outta swap at 3:30"

the whole time his cell phone goin off

and here I am frettin that there's dirt in my mouth still

I hope you all learned somethin about viaducts today

the officer said as we drove back up north

there are over 1700 viaducts in the city of chicago
and this job's far from done

the last episode WZRD playlist

right now i'm doing what may be my last regular WZRD broadcast; though i will miss it I am currntly doing Radio Dysentery with Ruby Aftermath on Radio Free Wicker Park Saturdays from 6 - 8...

Tom Waits - Forever Dead
Saturday Looks Good to Me - If you Ask
His & Her Vanities - Notpartablurb
Guitar Wolf - Katsumiya Tobacco City
Rudimentary Peni - from The EPs of RP)
Astrud Gilberto - from Astrud Gilberto
Col. Claypool's Bucket of Bernie Brains - Ignorance is Bliss
Velvet Underground - Waiting for the Man (demo)
Giorgio Moroder - from Best of
Quintron - Stray Cat Strut
Medeski Martin & Wood - Curtis
Barrington Levy - from Bounty Hunter
Telefon Tel Aviv - from Map of hat is Effortless
Eyedea & Abilities - Act Right
Firewater - Diamonds and Gold
Quantazelle - Pedwards
Birth Control - from Operation
Themselves - from The No Music
RJD2 - Since We Last Spoke
Rock Rock Chicken Pox - the Girl Who Lives on the Moon
the Great Kat - Sarasate's Zapateado
Hank Williams III - from Risin' Outlaw
Dizee Rascal - Learn
Sublime - Chico Mi Tipo
Ween - from All Request Live
5,6,7,8's - from Teenage Mojo Workout
Leonard Cohen - the Future
Wesley Willis - I'm Going on a World Tour
Temporary Forever - Tempest II
Eazy E - My Name's Eazy
Mars Volta - Eunuch Provacateur
Riistetyt - from Valtion Valkina
Johnny Cash- When the Man Comes Around
Busdriver - Imaginary Places
Streetlight Manifesto - Everything Went Numb
New Grenada - Eric's Trip
Bill Laswell - Babylon Site
Motorhead - Ace of Spades
the Ex- Dog Tree
Blockhead - Insomniac Olympics
Big Bill Broonzy- This Train is Bound For Glory
the Weathermen - Daytime TV
the Roger's Sisters - Check Level
Ghost - Escaped and Lost Down in Medina
Ghost - Leave the World
Xiu Xiu - Fabulous Muscles
Haywire Mac - Big Rock Candy Mountain
Johnny Cash - I'll be Back again

and one of my first, more experimental playlists from a couple years back

sound collage:
Griot Galaxy - Liberty City Rundown
Antipop Consortium - A Knot in your Bop
Celestina Boninsegna - Trovatore, Tacea la notte Placida
At Western Campfires - Cool Water
Red Ink - Track 1
Bhundu Boys - Chimbira
Great Speeches of the 20th Century - John Glen
Niet? Da! Da! - tracks 2, 3
Ani DiFranco - Promised Land
Urban Species - Listen
George Clinton - Nubian
Arable Farmland-Bent Media Om - Warp

Linval Thompson & U Brown - Train to Zion
Shellac - My Black Ass
Band of Bees - Angry Man
Bjork - One Day
Count Basie - Goin to Chicago Blues
Saturday Looks Good to Me - I Wish I Could Cry
Cabaret Futura
88 Fingers Louie - Try it Again
Visions of Vespertina - the Garden
Frankie Sparo - Sleds to Moderne
the Cramps - Naked Girl Falling Down the Stairs
Payday at the Polka Party - Zosia
N.O.L.A. - Atom Kraft
Ries - a song
Malade de Souci - Tracks 1, 2
King Crimson - Picture of a City
Ladysmith Black Mambazo - Tsuya Uz' Ekhaya
Gravediggaz - Diary of a Madman
Kevin Ayers, J. Cale, B. Eno, Nico & the Soporifics - Driving me Backwards, Babies on Fire, the End
Pascals - Wedding Polka
Muggs - Chasing Shadows/Tears
Love Peace & Poetry - Brazilian Psychedelic Music - O Bando
the Stooges
Roky Erikson
Easy Star All Stars - Money
the Stranglers - Strange Little Girl
Burnside Project - He Never Knew
Illegal Teenage Bikini - I'm Still Not Job
Dinky
Dirty Three - Alice
DJ Vadim - DJ Vadim

racially yours**

this morning I went to an eye doctor who sadistically burned and dilated my eyes and pupes so that everyone was rendered into amorphous humanoids classifiable only by race, sex and age relative to size and posture

1. In one of the swankier 7-Elevens in one of the busier downtown intersections I watched an old white lady purse four forty Oh Zees of Miller Genuine Draft (160 ounces) and purchase a fifth
a fifth forty
not a fifth of booze
bringing it to an even 200 ounces
(math)

2. As my eyes started to clear up, I got on the red line where I spotted a young black girl with big pink plastic circle earrings. inside of the circle were the words 'Mrs. Kutcher'

(as in the actor
whose fiancee
is old enough to be
the girl's
grandmother
and his mother)

i guess hollywood just isn't ready

3. before getting off at the dreaded Wrigleyville stop, an old black man who seemed a bit titched. In his hands was a dog eared cover of the Illinois Rules of the Road booklet with tumblerless Jesse White's broad grin cheshiring from the cover. He pulled a pen out from behind his ear and started leafing through the small booklet. As the train eased to a stop I saw that scrawled across every page passages like:

THE NEGRO MAN/IS NOT A FREE PERSON/ WHAT MUST TO BE DONE/ IS TO KILL ALL THE WHITE PERSONS


* (asterisk [sic?]) "Racially Yours" is the title of an album by Milwaulkee band the Frogs. The Frogs fucking own
* (addendum to the asterisk [sic, i think]) the 'asterisk' [sic, probably] is a little magical star that grants wishes

*'SIC' is a word frat boys use to describe somethind a Bostonian would say is 'wicked pisser'
Ex. "that band the Frogs...from Milwaulkee? Motherfuckin sic, right?"
"Indeed, hella"

this message has been brought to you by the CONCHA Y TORO company's 'frontera' merlot
(750 mL - 13.0% Alc. Vol)

Ivan

I don't know how many feet below sea level New Orleans is but I hear it's going to flood
and all that shit
that runs down the mississippi
and gets dropped on their doorstep is gon'
find its way back home

they've got all these above ground tombs
on the swamp
cuz when it rains too much
anything that you tried to bury gets drug up in the water

so they stack em
shelf like

shelf

life

(pun)

and when the spooky kids
watch too much media
read too much
listen too much
they take big hammers
and bring all sorts of unrest
to the tired bones
behind
cement placards
and take little
forgetmenots
to Anne and Trent

so with two feet of water
standing
in the show me your tit
city
they're gonna be
using femurs like oars
as they steal
every body

any body-

a witch doctor
southern cop
cajun mob
done tried to hide
down the brine

an get rode like gondolas
in and out of that ole gothic church
offa frenchmen and decaturs
where the crusts junkies
and runaways
trade somas and
outpunk each other

building dams
like tattooed beavers
paw wrapped around neon
plastic
souvenir glasses
of the official drink of New Orleans
26 ounces of fruit punch
and Southern Comfort
blended with crushed ice

ironically
titled
the Hurricane

showroom dummies

three of the elementary schools I went to
in Chicago
were built to the same model
some industrialized European
1800s
Brick and gravel

full of a million greens and browns
eternally stretching hallways that
gave the corresponding ghosts a run for their money

cardboard
posts
lifting black pioneers
like Shirley Chisholm that they’d never teech you about in texts
but you could fatten up on with
a wandering eye and a slow pace

the lockers were copper
to green to
beige
with rust to match the playground

and rumored
bomb shelters
glowing furnacerooms
and teacherslounges
full of booze

the Garbage Pail stickers have peeled off the lockers at Stone Academy
the tape that held up untold genereations
of boy bands and pop stars
have torn and yellowed
like everything else

this year
they have bullet holes and kabbalah tattoos the
population has shifted from black and Korean
to Hispanic and Pakistani

are they still ripping open cardboard boxes and
doing headspins
at
Franklin and Field
?

does Mrs. Fountaine
still talk about Jesus
and lecture Manic Panic headed boys
about self respect
?

do they still have nothing better to play in the computer lab
than
Oregon Trail . Math Blaster . and Arkanoid

are boys like me still
sifting through glass and syringes
blacked lighters and butts and bottle rockets
for nails and screws for
the
robots
they think they can build
?

is there a boy like me
in sweat pants
and a t-shirt ordered from a cereal box
that has to leave the room
to go to LD class
?

does every head turn
every time
to watch him do it
?

does the hallway still smell of French Roast coffee and mimeograph

Are there still smokes hidden in the field between Decatur Classical and the old folks’ home?

is Mr. O’conner dead yet?

did bald Mister Jones cut his beard yet?

did Franklin cut its music program yet?

are the Latin classes dead yet?

with the whole country overweight is it ok to be the fat kid now?


Maybe it’s all a ghost
in the sense of some
Ultraviolet finferprint
and
none of it is dead
Amy Cross and Claudia and Alia Rajput and Jane Quach and Yolanda
are still the most beautiful things to ever have their teeth lit up
by a ray of the sun

there’s still jive talk and menthol breath
under the hair nets in the kitchen
where they hand out your tray and lunch
(after the truck drops em off)
as you
single-file
to the
cafetorium

they’re still
maneuvering
frozen
granite inclines
on cardboard
sleds

the backs
of
green bus seats
are still riddled with
. 2
Pencil holes

And

ten years past
it’s all still
inked
on my permanent records

green eyed bandaid (adhesive stripper)

[writing exercise. mp3s on random/nonstop writing... can't really do stream-of-consciousness but this was a reasonable facsimile though the computer decided i wanted to hear a lot of tom waits and techno and mWord kept capitalizing shit...goddamn capitalists]

[Tom Waits – clap hands]

a wolf is sitting on a stool in the kind of bathroom
that you sit in
and He
a He
in the women’s room

(because men do not have the kind of bathrooms
where you have a place to sit
unless you
are shitting
or
sneaking a wank)

thumbless
adept
perfectly
maneuvering a tube of lipstick

and he is rubbing his legs together
teeth bared
engrin
like a ladymantis with a gutful of lover
or girl
in the back of class
highway patrol shades
halftinted
teased hair and
ruby lips
sneaking a wank

tose curled
tongue snaking around a curse

but he is not lady bug or schoolgirl archetype
he is he
putting on lipstick
in a womens restroom
with courtseying pedmark door
and bulb-studded mirror like a hipsters belt

and air blows through
yellowed teeth

[dead kennedys – straight A’s]

as he mentally
rips through the clownsuit
next to him
rips through his fur

just another naked man
three mile grinning
yellow teeth
a retractable hardon

thumbless
hitchhiking his way west

(because that is the way you traditionally go
if you’ve yet to learn your lesson or slay the dragon

[mike patton and rahzel- live]

The Dragon
a tank
black
stainless so you can see your face
and a million ghosts in its exterior

(because a million is a good number to say

So by the time the sun is setting
On naked feral
Arizona
he is railriding

pulling lever up and down

[Tom Waits – all stripped down]

with steam engine
behind
chugging along

it has personal stake
John Henry stake
and family estate

so for the honor of the picket white fence
and Pittsburgh steel black
chug chugs behind
helpless to the conductors heed

the wolf is helpless
but to pump

and chug

pump

and chug

like motherfucking

son

and moon

[and you will know us by the trail of dead – clair de lune]

Helpless and drunk
black liquor rich
ad big dipper sipping
til the rails hit a dip and he finds himself
tripping

just a wolf allallone
in the cold and the snow

and the jackhammer
metronome
hangover
rhyming

he needs a little bit of some hair o the dog
and in his case that means sex

so he finds himself
in a bathroom
of a hotel
with the something-french smell

putting on lipstick

[plaid – Prague radio]

And clownsuits
In the sh/glimmer of
Bulb mirror
Tears

and

he’s

going

to

hit

the bar

black
clear
freen
brown
black
green
shoes
gown

no longer clear

when he starts to dance

only his toes touch

heels snag

there may not be music playing

and it’s as if the floor is covered with olives and silt


he wakes up
naked and smeared

in someone elses
bed
blood
story dream

gathering trousers
and fire escaping

[klute-three of us]

Radios ring
and sirens squeal as if the king has arrived

and here he is about to sneak out into the desert
-perhaps we’re in Nevada now-
Are we west enough (?)
or do we need to hit the pacific
or is it the atlantic
or do we need to ford the pacific and not stop
Til we hit the atlantic

At the statue of liberty
Paw printed and licensed and ordered leashed and
curbed

And this is no metaphor
Just a writingexercise wolf
In trousered man pants and
Caked lipstick
Considering the big apple

Where you can breathe
The dust that
Was desks and people
And the same steel that scraped the sky
Is the same steel they use to make tanks

Remembering his quest means

Remembering the man of la mancha never wins

An old cartoon that insomniac eleven year olds would watch at four in the morning
Don Coyote never won

[more Plaid]

John Henry’s heart gave every time

And even the men that brought down the twins
in a redeye flight to the city that never slept
Did not make it out
to the (Ala Akh)bar to
brag over a pint

so…

cashed and
broke

a five day
(which in dog years is 35 days which in Anglo's calendars is 7 weeks)
Shadow
(the name of my exgirlfriend’s pup)
full body

[Clint Mansell- Abandon]

finds himself
in the city of seraphim
in front of a tank
that does not have a name

but was built on the grave of a million incans
(a good number to say; probably culturally, historically inaccurate)
That were burned to choleric angels

He sits
___xican standoff
a game
you hear about in movies

for one full rotation of the sun
or seven full dog’s-rotations of the sun
and names the tank Alek

which is the name of a boy
who took a bullet for an old friend of mine
whose name I’ve long forgotten

[Leonid Desyatnikov – koylbeljnana]

another WZRD playlist

Aesop Rock - Float
Ralph Nader- How Long, How Long
Hed Arzi Music - tracks 1 & 2
Mendelbaum - No Hiding Place
Amon Duul - Im Garten Sandosa
Ziggens - Sober Up
Ruby Falls - the Brave Ones
Max & Harvey - Big Amoeba Sound
Asylum Street Spankers - Winnin the War on Drugs
Juice Bros- Clam Bake
Hi Standard - theme from the Pink Panther
Neptune - Soul Pride
Pogues - Whiskey You're the Devil
Ventures- Walk, Don't Run
Joseph Arthur - Big City Secrets
Mr. Bungle - Pink Cigarette
Kenny Rogers - What Condition My Condition was In
Rahzel - What Condition My Condition was In'
Boom Boom Satellites - Fogbound
Future Sound of London - Elysian Feels
Camper Van Beehthoven - L'Guardiente
Was (Not Was) - I Feel Better than James Brown
Muggs w/ Everlast - Gone for Good
Flanger - Quicksilver Loom
Sid Vicious - (I Did It) My Way
El Stew - Something Awful Happened
Wailing Wall - Night Horse/Crazy Nights
Rachel's - Frida Kahlo
Ziggens - Strange Way to Live
the Virus - Take What's Ours
Bootsy's Rubber Band - Night of the Thumposaurus People
Hott Beat - Organs of Desire
Glen Gould/Dmitri Shostakovich - Quintet for 2 violins, viola, cello & piano in G minor
Teddy Brannon - Mixen w/ Dixon
Evil Stig - Drinkin Song
Fires Were Shot - Subslumber
Cocksparrer- Bird Trouble
Rev. Horton Heat - Lonesome Man
Guru - Insect A (Mental Relaxation)
Thee Hydrogen Terrors - the little Belgian
R. Crumb & His Cheap Suit Serenaders - Hula Girl
Black Dice - Island
Big Sandy & His Fly Rite Boys - Parts Unknown
Matthew Shipp Quartet - Critical Mass
Wesley Willis - Polkaholics
Bollweevils - Utopia
Klezmatics- khsidim tants
Saul Williams
RJD2 - Making Days Longer
Adicts - Sound of Music
Tar Babies
Los Crudos
4 Skins
Gil Scott Heron - the Revolution will Not be Televised
Shel Silverstein - the Great Smoke Off
Pogues - Lorca's Novena
David Byrne - don't fence me in
Tom Waits - All Right with Me
Roky Erikson & the 13th Floor Elevators - Night of the Vampire
Duke Ellington - Agra
Sage Francis - Different
Ocean 11 - the Best of Love
Petulah Clark - Crying through a Sleepless Night
Tom Hermann - Jack

earlier today

so this big guy
who looks like he's a unitard away
from a 1930s wrestler biopic
goes up to me
in wrigleyville...
"Hey Red,
i know you'll play my game

(and he's got the casual southern confidence to back up
his Stone Cold act)

"...you punch me in the stomach as hard as you can, and if my knees buckle i guarantee i'll give you an ice cold one"

and holds up a bag
wet with 6 sweaty cans of Busch

unfortunately
i learned years ago
from a 3 card monte maverick
not to play games with overconfident figures
you meet on the el

perhaps another day
but tonight
i aim to keep my teeth

the hurricane in america's wang

why is it hurricanes always seem to wait til the weekends to strike

it's rather courteous of them

makes me think that the doomsday weather machine
sits
in the hands of a Fortune 500 CEO

bent on destruction

but not on work time

mother nature may fracture many things
but not the established 9-5 work week

we're on the verge of a bull market goddammit

and i need to get away from cable news

today's soundtrack

2 eggs, beat
with milk
3 types of cheese:
swiss
chedder
and laughing cow garlic and herbs
folded with lox, pepper, and louisiana hot sauce (we're out of sriracha)

the perfect goddamn omelette
with three strips of canadian bacon

and far too much npr

i was supposed to do community service again

missed it
again

kinda far to go
for a 15 dollar ticket

for crossing cta cars

that i forgot about

shrug


[ive been wishing i was dead for most of the day
trying to open up veins with a bitten-jagged fingernail
and could probably use a really deep hug
thank you for reading the addendum]

an honest republican convention

the
always-on-top-of-things
GOP entertainment machine
sets up
a
video-montage
of elephent-themed parodies of
popular
urban
top 40 hits
culminating in
"The Real Lynne Cheney"
by 'Dem-inem'


everyone is given a sacremental [sic?]
bag of dirt and ground remains
of drywall, mousepads, cessnas, and skin
from the holy

Zero Spot

which they eat
to gain their power

9/11's power

the heads are ripped off
of the various
supportive signs
and placards
to reveal pitchforks

melded down
from obsolete
texas electric chairs
(a few were
actually
the 25 cent vibrating kind
from the long-unpopular Country Bear Jamboree at Diznee
but nobody knows the difference)

everybody
advances upon
an effigy of john kerry

that laura bush
has frantically
ironed the wrinkles out of
to the point where it no longer looks
like the long faced
east coast
"liberal"

the crowd splits
so that the
black and latino delegates
as well as those from
ohio and nevada
can have a first
swing

they poke it until vietnam hero medals
(purple hearts
orange stars
yellow moons
and stem cells)
spill out

they swoop in to
devour

because
of course
the medals are really
chocolate

which attract
a stampeding
tongue-wagging
michael moore

when ashcroft attempts
to
eat his heart
a valve ruptures
and
oil begins to spill from his fat flynt gut

he is hooked up to a machine in florida
paid for by bush's richfolk tax cuts
and doped up
with yellows paid for by bush's
slight loosening of the prescription drug belt
and kept alive
by jeb
who
has power of attorney over
all vegetables
in the panhandle state

halliburton lays claim
to the drilling rights to
the northern half of the
portly
be-oscared
documentarian
and
dick cheney finally has enough money to retire

paving the way for a smooth
transition
to a 2004
bush/mccain
mccain/giuliani
giuliani/shwarzenegger
century fifth

[this should be the last polipiece for a while]