Half-Wrong
I was half-wrong
you were half-right
only you
get to decide
outcomes
in a sticky night
“D’s” in calculus
come back to haunt a mind
the world looks pretty
hurt from up here
we don’t feel
mature in these heels
there are no terms
for the deal
do what you want and then
I think about it forever
Questions
did you ever get it together?
I never opened the letter
you thought you knew better
judging me in your sweater
did it ever start to hum?
those notes you got wrong
you wouldn’t give up
although you could move up a half-tone
did it ever hit twice?
those times were so nice
now they’re gone like the ice
evaporating in the sky
will I ever see you again?
my dreams have been barren
metaphors easily matched
kisses turning to sand
questions live unanswered
in boxes unopened packed
in alphabetical order
in the back of my closet
Time’s secondhand
we watch the film
then talk about it
listen to music
consume cultural products
we talk about
your favorite novel
and try to avoid
politics
all my memories blur
with dreams
actions I take
copying screens
I wonder if I ever
felt anything that
hasn’t been
cued by hand
please give me
new experiences
something I couldn’t
imagine myself
these times have become
predictable
we all know how
this movie ends
Compulsive list-makers
I meant every cent I spent
even the money I lent
can’t have a good time
while worrying about it
now that I’m
old broke and bent
I miss everyone that I kissed
even ones that are still pissed
times good and bad
pass like gas
memories blur
dreams in the mist
still crave make art and pray
to a goddess whose attentions I betray
l just need more time
to work on these rhymes
it’s not promised
but I’ll pay it back some day
Does it make you more human?
desiring speed
craving beauty
mortgaging futures
out of vanity
do you think,
“does it make me more human?”
turn your head
to the shiny instead
it invades your bed
takes over your dread
you never said,
“does it make me more human?”
everything delicious
isn’t good for you
many nice things
would kill you
not everything new
has that ring of truth
look out now
it’s calling for you
Does it make you fly
does it make you swim
does it take you from
the heights to the depths
does it make you more human?
“Hunger Taken by Thirst” now streaming.
I saw Ivan Julian on stage with Shriekback on their 86 tour of “Oil & Gold”. Couldn’t take my eyes or ears off of him, as he was bouncing and weaving; guitar god version of Yannick Noah, smashing every note into the concrete. Formative hearing these sheets of sound over grooves, entangling the DX-7 onslaught by Andrews and Halliwell. Nineteen-year old brains were on wide-screen record.
Internet-less in that era, information was scarce; moving via British weeklies, mags, vinyl, and tape. It’d be a few years before I’d hear the work with Voidoids that made his name. But I can still see that Syracuse night in my mind now.
Decades later, I’m teaching in NYC, writing and playing; doing the two-borough hop into Brooklyn where Javier Hernandez-Miyares is holding court at 17 Frost. An art gallery performance space connected to Ivan’s studio, Super Giraffe Sound.
I peek Ivan occasionally; silent, deep in thought. I’m too damn shy to gush elegies. Until the work makes things happen.
“Hunger Taken for Thirst”. A meditation on how desire confuses us. Tunes written between Salvador, Yokohama and Bronx, scratched out with eccentric chord extensions, Brazilian funk influences, and spoken word. Just some every day culture clashes, furtive romances, and random psychedelic musings of some dude with my name and face grasping at straws. I started building the arrangements in ProTools. There was a gap in the sound the size of a countrapuntal-Picasso -of-post-punk.
Julian’s guitars go to places I couldn’t see by myself. Ripping dimensions up; painting skyscrapers orange; refusing to connect the dots. I just wrote and mumbled the songs, sketched on a napkin. Ivan and Co. sculpt the marble.
“This reminds be a bit of “Fresh” by Sly and the Family Stone”, he suggests, as he sends me the files. I am flattered and humbled by the comparison. I wish I had the funk and the costumes. The parts are so hot, I have to let them cool on the sill for another decade. You can now touch the still-molten pan and serve yourself.
A meditation on how we misunderstand ourselves and the world. Notes from the underdog, wrapped up in sounds of the night. Trumpets by Rochesterian Emily Champion; keyboards by Leon Gruenbaum; bass by Paulo LePetit, and drums by Gil Oliveira. A stellar group that exists only on my fantasy roster. Guitars by Ivan Julian.
It doesn’t do what it did
It doesn’t do
what it did
you’ve tried
to fix it
now you want
to get rid of it
people will look
at its condition
and they’ll
underbid it
so you stay
with it
resenting
its presence
yet you can’t think of it
as broken
as you live in the past
as much as the present
