it's friday nite & you wanna 'be bop a lula!'

Trailer-Poem / Jonathan Hayes

                                  

                                  Unable to hold my chopsticks

                                  while watching The Perfection

                                  — I'll never eat Chinese food again

 

weeds

push & pull of weeds in the garden

                         i bend to the task

it is by poetry i unfuck the world

catching up

a friend texted me '& how are you'

whereby i thought about the litanies 

of anguish i feel regarding our uncertain

days on this third rock of the sun

but could i admit to ecstatic moments

like stepping outside the building after

a long day at the office where the mind

is shot & the feet are sore until

two blocks away the skies erupt into

a violently unexpected downpour 

when i text my wife 'it's fucking raining'

thinking that it will clear up i continue on

rather than getting pissed at getting soaked 

the wet of my shirt against my skin 

the petrichor of the new rain on the city streets

i am, in spite of myself, happy 

when a homeless man sees me taking shelter 

under a tree & says, 'how the hell did you find

the only dry spot here!  it is pouring, you 

are some kind of genius at staying dry'

which cracks me up & i tell him i'm no 

freaking genius but thank him for his 

good thoughts when he then says, 'stay dry

brother' & i say, 'you too brother'

whereby my happiness increases 

& i text my friend in reply, 'all is well here

in my domestic bohemia, in other words 

the same old same old, which is really a gift'

& i realize the routine things & the unexpected 

things are really a gift to experience

despite all the miseries visited upon us 

& the ones we cause because well shit

 

& fuck & fucking goddamn it all

move on move down move up

but moving we do because in the end

we got no freaking choice

it's sunday nite & you want to hear shakepeare's sonnet 116 in Original Pronunciation

independent record store day

today was it.  we met our good friends b. & c. to comb a local indie record shop for the auspicious day.  we bought a turntable as a family chrismas present.  we own still a buttload of LPs.  however, mine have been beaten & weathered while anna's remain in pristine condition.  plus, i must've been on a purge of vinyl decades ago because many of my beloved records, like the revered local punk band, tales of terror's eponymous1984 LP (a band that is said influenced kurt cobain), is missing.  i bought that record when it was a brand new release.  there were only a few thousand copies pressed.  & so when we set up our new turntable we went thru our record collection expecting to see tales of terror.  but no!  i don't know what happened to it.  did i give it away?  did it get lost in the intervening 40 years?  i don't know!

but i vowed today that if i found that album it is coming home to me. but, alas, no.  rather, searching thru the bins of the store, The Cave, in the punk section i discovered that record labels will produce specialty pressings of beloved albums for independent record store day.  the first thing i needed to get over was the sticker-shock on the price of the new vinyl.  the prices varied, around $21 to $45 bucks, depending on how many copies were pressed.  but then i took a step back.  if that record cost 12 bucks in 1982 & it costs 35 bucks in 2024 that even outs on account of inflation.  also, even tho vinyl is a popular item for music aficionados physical media has become a niche market.  because most music fans, including this dude typing, listen to music via a digital platform.  

again, going thru the bins of at The Cave brought out my inner 15 year old.  i loved it & had a blast.  i had several choices, like the d-beat crust british punk band, discharge, here nothing see nothing say nothing [1982], that i once owned & made a shitload of cassette recording off it, & a collection of live performances by the germs.  i do have still in my possession the record, gi [1979], by the germs which is pretty battle-scarred thru decades of listening.  but instead i chose a special pressing of group sex [1980] by the circle jerks, a great punk LP.  anna picked up a special record store day pressing by the english beat.

it's been a long, long while since i was in a record store.  i used to make regular stops at The Beat here in town when it was still around.  i used to feel self-conscious for being an older dude in a record store when record stores were still the place to get music.  like today, i felt a bit weird because my music knowledge is pretty extensive in respect to the punk bands that i grew up on & loved.  so when i was going thru the bins i was shouting to anna here is this & that done by whosit & so & so.  but i realised that as i was doing that kind of thing a woman around my age was also going thru the same bins.  no doubt she also has extensive knowledge about her choses genre of rock&roll.  she couldn't help but hear my outbursts & i'm sure she was thinking to herself, shut up poseur!  stop trying to impress! 

c'est la vie!  the world continues to churn & turn.  i'm nearly ready to set up shop in geezerville but i am still the punk rock idiot of i was at 15.  i am a different person, of course, but i love music, punk music especially, & to be at a record store looking for good music was something special.  as a sage from the 1980s said, you spin me right round round like record baby right round round round!

'i'm ready for a wild friday nite!'

 

absolute music

5:37 of ecstatic sadness.  a song for crying yourself to sleep.  david roback's quiet guitar.  hope sandoval's ethereal voice.  the pauses.  the phrasing.  the simplicity of the melody.  if gorgeous despair has a sound it is this song.  art at the first intensity & the highest order.  as if beckett on MTV, 'i can't go on i shall go on.' a great beauty.