The Higher You Hold Your Pinky the Fancier You Are
the poetry of the basement generation. wouldn’t ginsberg be proud? or would we be another let down? another stain on the basement couch? i’m a fiend for the drugs of the drive-thru windows, the nicotine, and sexual innuendos. i’m a friend to the likes of the drunks and the bimbos. i’m slumbering street-side, and i go where the wind blows. i’m tiptoeing on a forty-story ledge, and to fall means certain death, but to turn back would kill anything left to live for. if i am one of the few lucky enough to make it through maybe they’ll fly a flaming flag, a broken gun salute. what’s that ringing in my slightly deafened ear? it’s not telephones or church bells like everyone else seems to hear. what the fuck is that pain in the center of my chest? the beat’s somewhat irregular, but there’s still feeling on the left. and there may be no answers in the bindery of this book, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t look and look and look.
*****
Cocktails are a Dish Best Served Cold
they say the good die young, but i’m getting older. toting this baggage, i’ve got a chip on my shoulder. nothing romantic about a life like mine. time of my life and it’s fucking wasted. after this many drinks you can’t even taste it. the show’s sold out, but i’m still standing in line. i fucking hate standing in line. these selfish nights are testament to my hypocrisy. these selfless days are theory that my life’s not as wasted as me. i’m not a doctor, but someday i might be close. indecision alcoholism, that’s what i would diagnose. i might be wasted, but i won’t waste my life chasing dreams and riches that aren’t even really mine until i die. i don’t want to die. tear my portrait from the photo on the wall. i’m not the hologram found roaming in the high school hall. i took a turn for the best or for the worst. i still don’t know. i’ve got a new lease on life that’s been signed and sold. i’m famous and poor. my name adorns blacklists and wanted posters. the restless coma that comes before the storm. they say the good die young, but i’m getting older, and this is getting old.
*****
An Eye for an Eye Leaves the Whole World Dressed Like Pirates
there are sleepless eyes on city streets, swollen soles on my bare feet. our hands are right where you can see them. tell me, can you see them? again and again, we smile for the camera at every traffic light. our interrogation begins beneath street lamps tonight. we’ve all got chalk marks on our shoulders and sticky fingers in our pockets. we’re pinned on our backs with our organs exposed. our brains and our bodies are picked with scalpels and probes. we pled for our rights, we were given miranda’s, and you claim that you gave us the power to change the world. but you’ve offered us nothing but ballots and guns, religious division, and half of our lungs. but we won’t put your cadence to our beating drums. we won’t march to the cadence of your beating drums. lost in a maze of tightropes and telephone wires. let’s talk about communication.
*****
A Bologna Sandwich a Day Keeps the Irony Away
ladies and gentlemen of our beloved congregation, we invite you to take refuge from fiery rains of apocalypse skies. for we are bound not by the chains of fear and uncertainty, but by the strength of reason both nascent k’s, the dividends while you still can. don’t be scared. and now. the debtors they be locked away. we fight to keep the peace. the criminals in capitals, the follower’s in lead. we thirst for salty waters and we fast for starving souls. we sing to earless airwaves and we are scared to death of fear. you work so you can afford to entertain yourself. we entertain so we can afford not to work. we learn only to forget and we forget to finally learn. it’s hard to know anything, that’s for god damn sure. and time and time again when we find ourselves in the face of a powerful and ignorant faith, we draw salient swords of intellect and stab the heart out of the mother fucker. there’s a throbbing in this stomach and a hunger in this heart. i’ve been starving it for days on end. there’s antacid at the pharmacy, but all the doors are locked. the workers are picketing policy. rope our resignations to bleeding red bricks. shatter the windows; they’re keeping us in. cash in the stocks, the 401K, the dividends while you still can. Don’t be scared.
*****
A Vulture’s Eye View of Rush-Hour Road Kill
you ask why we care how your time is spent. who the fuck is the landlord, and who’s paying rent? why we care for the feeble and shy over privilege and power that can’t be denied. that could satisfy. why we care for the starved and abused. it’s an easier living to live being used. we’re through being used. why we share what’s as rightfully ours as the sands where we tread and the shine of the sea and the stars. save the neighborhood. our strip and shopping malls will pave the neighborhood. is that the master key ring? i couldn’t hold it anyway. i’ve got decades beneath this belt and it’s about to break. what do we carry in the bags beneath our eyes? in clusterfucks and confidence we reside. on these sidewalks we choke from these factories’ smoke and the toxins of construction air. on these rooftops we will sing until the pendulum swings bringing an end to this age of deception, destruction, despair. and you ask why we care.
*****
Beware the Long Arm of Deputy Do-Wrong
print my fingers. cuff my hands. shackle my ankles right where i stand. right’s where we stand. tripe and tongue man paddy wagons. we’re free to bear our arms, but it’s criminal to bare our feet. so we cry in the face of the jester. laugh in the face of the king. a junkyard of squad cars, private jets, and limousines. sing can and will be used against us in a court of lawlessness. we will be misjudged by a jury of our peers. our sentence will be handed down on a golden platter, on magazine covers, and prime time television. and they all say that we’re biting at the hand that feeds. throwing fists with the knuckles of the hand that kneads this bread of life that tastes so sweet. disguising our own bitter self-defeat.
*****
Emergency Broadcast System Overhaul
beyond the solemn signs of our future, there’s a hope that stands against the trials of time. beyond the certainties of our failures, there’s a hope that burns a never-dying light. desperate for answers, discovering questions. stumbling on theories too far-fetched to mention. we marched arm in arm at the feet of iron gates. history rewritten as we shift tectonic plates. raindrops rot the sheathing, grow the weeds, and wet the sand. they run and pool and puddle on the surface where we stand. we slip and fall, but we get back up again. If you try to snuff a fire with a flag it’s going to burn. this train is boarding. these doors are boarded up. this movie’s boring, but we still can’t seem to get enough. so climb aboard. this train’s about to leave the station headed for a destination still unknown. our hearts and hopes will leadus to a better nation to call home.
*****
Credits & Liner Notes
THANKS FIRST AND FOREMOST TO ANYONE WHO HARBORS ENOUGH INTEREST OR PITY TO HAVE PURCHASED, STOLEN, BURNT, PIRATED, TRADED, OR OTHER- WISE PERPETUATED THE GREATER EXISTENCE OF THIS RECORD. AN ADDITIONAL SINCERE-BUT-RELATIVELY-ASEXUAL THANKS GOES OUT TO ALL OF OUR FAMILIES, FRIENDS, FANS, AND SUPPORTERS. A BORDERLINE INAPPROPRIATE THANKS GOES OUT TO JEFFERSON, J-MAC, THE LETTER Z, CLINT JONES, THE JUST ROCK PR FAMILY, ]CROSSWELL, SHIPWRECK, OUTLAW, SWINDLE, TUBA, ALEX AND STAY VOCAL, SCOTT AND CAMERON MYERS, OLDER, KARL KEETH, THE QUATCH, BRICKERHOFF, FLEENER, ZACK ATTACK, SERGIO, K-MONEY, BILL MOORE PC, BURKIE, CHARLES D FOR DISEASE, RACHEL LYNCH, ALI MORRIS, MARY, BAUDLER, NICK OWNBY, PREM, CAROL AND THE STAFF AT PAJARO DUNES, TOMO, DIJON AND IMPERIAL RIDE SHOP, FAIRBANKS, THE RICH BOYS, TIM AND WESTPORT WEENAY, THE LEMP ARTS CREW, HENRY WORTEN, THE J-SQUARED CREW, THE MAYONNAISE ASSASSIN, ALEX MILLER, IDA NICOLOSI, COLONEL DIDDY, ROBBY, YATES, ZAFARI, A KAY FOR T7, THE ASHCRAFTS, THE O’BOYLES, THE FRIENDS SUSHI CREW, THE BIB DRUMS CREW,AND ALL THE OTHER BANDS WE’VE BEEN FORTUNATE ENOUGH TO SHARE THE STAGE WITH. AN ALMOST DISGUSTINGLY INCESTUOUS THANKS GOES OUT TO GNARLY DAN MYERS FOR MAKING THIS POSSIBLE. EVERYONE ELSE NEEDS TO GET A JOB
THE IDEAS PRESENTED IN THIS RECORD ARE A BY PRODUCT OF OUR SUFFERING THROUGH THE STATE OUR CURRENT SOCIETY AT QUITE A TENDER AGE. REFLECT UPON THEM IF YOU WISH, FIND INSPIRATION IN THEM IF YOU CAN, AND DEEM US IDIOTS IF YOU MUST. JUST BE SURE TO REMEMBER TO ROCK THE FUCK OUT
