11.18.2008

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Scattered Brain

The usual apologies for not writing/promises to write more often, etc. I know there are a few of you who like to read the diary. I think that's great and that's the reason I like to spend at least a little time on it, and not just use it to channel sheer blather. I like for there to be some inspiration in the thing. Below are the scraps and shavings of several attempts to get the diary page going again. I have only a rough idea of when these were written or what frame of mind I was in, but it should give you an idea of how scattered my brain has been this past year

 

July?

trainwreckIf you were my neighbor you would be facing real madness by now. Whoever is running the railroad next door has either left a locomotive on the wrong part of the track or a switch is busted somewhere. The air is filled with the never ending din of clanging bells day and night. This goes on for days at a time. The railroad is trying to make the denizens of the vicinity of St. Claude and Montague insane, it would seem. The folks around the corner have a strange look to them, like they haven't slept in a while. Late at night when we go to bed there it is. In the day when there's a lull in the traffic there it is as well.

 

August?

bugsthe roachesThe other day i noticed a month long gap in my calendar. This will send a chill down the spine of any professional entertainer, but its especially galling when you book yourself and can't place the blame anywhere else. I said to myself "let's use this time wisely. What are some rainy-day projects we've been meaning to get to?" The press kit was an obvious hole in my showbiz arsenal, so I decided to make sense out of that bleeding morass of clippings and photocopies, rusty staples and paperclips.. I started digging through the piles and after a few seconds the table was covered with scurrying bugs--roaches and silverfish and lord knows what else. What more perfect metaphor for my show-business career, I thought to myself. Instinctively. Grinning ruefully at the perfection of this metaphor before me for my showbisness career I reached for some newspaper and began to roll it up into a weapon with which to smite the offending bugs, but stopped myself. Haven't these insects, I reminded myself, expressed more interest into your misshapen career than even the most desiccated show-business professional? Are not these bugs making a home in your history? Despite various claims to the contrary, dear reader, I do not possess a heart of ice...

 

September?

GrapesAnd balls to this. It has been many months since I've looked at this god-forsaken diary page. I will do all I can as an American to bring about its dismantling. It has been a burden for too long for my family. My strength is gone and so are my people. We are bewildered and grasping at social entitlement programs like medicare and medicaid, which are buckling under the strains of so many uninsured ...

 

October?

Dora's GroceryJesus God it's time to give it a rest. And I shall make Mr. Jimmy (not his real name) my role model. And of course you know Mr. Jimmy. Now here was a man who opened up grocery stores in the most economically depressed places on earth and seemed to turn a profit.  Here was a man who, with the ever present aid of his demure and winsome wife Linda, drove home the idea of a safe and clean place to get food--grains and vegetables. canned goods and dried beans. Booze and mops. Soap and Newspapers. You would have thought that a business like this would have been a proud legacy for a man like Mr. Jimmy and his wife Linda, but some immense stink has descended on our little neighborhood. One day out of the blue Dora's closed its doors and not even a slot to lodge your complaints.

Grocery2All of you in the Greater America can in no way appreciate the day when I saw the local grocery wrested from the brutal hold of the Jordanian nazis who rendered simple bananas into tortured slugs not even fit for the trash. Who broadcast an ugly orbit of shit feelings with each transaction. Warm beer. Flies. Hostility. Despair and Terror accompanied each purchase of Orange Fanta or boiled peanuts. The gaping maw in my gut--the sickening sort of rage that I feel is the result of that scab bastard pulling the braces off the teeth of this neighborhood. No more of Mz Linda's daily fresh cilantro! No more the daily deliveries from Klienpeter's  dairy in Baton Rouge! Ice cream! Orange juice! Go fuck yourself! No more Raisin Bran or biscuits. Gone the comprehensive display of latin American spices...

 

Today

hmmm...so goes several false starts of a diary page over the last year or so. Much has happened: Mardi Gras, French Quarter/Jazz/Chaz Fests, a brutal summer and presidential election, shows in NYC and the Bay Area, car calamities and other events large and small. Now we are on the edge of winter and lots of stuff is looming on the horizon. The Fingerbowl is going to play again at One Eyed Jack's this Friday. The show will be recorded for possible release, granted that we remember the songs. There is always the threat of a new Tin Men cd, and the Valparaisos may just have to do another one as well. An outfit called the Threadheads has agreed to produce a cd for me doing my own songs (several other friends have shown their support as well), which will begin next week over at Piety. The Theater of the Damned continues over at the Saturn Thursday nights at 8 and the Tom Paines are still doing happy hour every tuesday at the Circle Bar. These are No Cover shows, so not much risk. Also look out for the Mama's Boy reunion show at One Eyed Jack's on Saturday Dec. 6.