Grim Lips

When nephews spit and pitch boom sounds from their dark (yet sacred) caves, friend, this is a calm you will never find again. This radio knows your heart so well that it sings your static through its teeth. Its the only friend you’ve ever had. Burning pitch, booming sounds from your graves, each, the old ones and the new. When you lie to even the sky, and then get off on la la las (as I do, its so hard not to), this old lie it does creep, it clicks and beeps, this ratio knows your heart, sinks your fabric to its knees.

Your heart, it’s bigger than this room, your eyes are wider than the sound when your freckles go boom, when today’s sun switches to moon and throws its old gloom onto the carpets you had in college, the rooms where you made your first stains, the brandished photographs of exploding palms, the voices that sang you that best and only calm. But the dreams won’t come, and then there’s your boyfriend’s eyes. ..He has seen children in this land.....
They place their hands in warm pockets because snow finds them when they’re falling. In their pocket they may find that broken crayon, that splinter of wood, that cause they thought good. So worth it. They brandish their photographs of their fathers, those fools, palms together with clothed eyes. Over with boulders, they’ll seek grass as their closure come spring. The world will wear a sinister gown, and it’s your prom and then it’s your wedding day.

It kills you graveyard dead.

......
I have seen children in your head.

They are on ocean beaches, distant and dear. They poke their toes toward the center of the earth, as if to place their roots, as if to say, "I am here and I take root! Let me be!" But they are just children and those are just beaches, children are not trees. This is a truth if I’ve ever known one. I was on a train once and this woman approached me with glistening eyes. She told me that there were cracks in our stockade, she spoke of elks. I pulled her teeth with a feral rabbit’s beak. The smoke that billowed out from her fingers as she caressed my perfect body that night, against her gums, while the perfect sun orbited the perfect galaxy, the milky one, the bold, and what she said I’ll never forget. "No creature can learn that which his heart has no shape to hold.".... ..As if to break me.....
That first night I could be found down by the refinery playing guitar with Travis, the smell of sugar beets, counting the stars, or the planes, or the satellites, depending on your belief or your view. It was what the poor once called the perfect night. I was there, holding onto my heart, as it skipped (as it had lots to do), singing my static through its teeth and gave birth back my spring. It’s the only friend I’ve ever had.

A bouquet of only one rose, I’ll take it. My hair will turn grey, steel, I’ll live to see it. Your hands will weld our heads together, look at what you did! You picked up the pieces, you easily fixed them, and now, like buds on dead branches, though I may not grow into what I should have grown, I will bloom before I fall. And I thank each of you for that. That I had a chance to bloom at all, in this pasture, before next winter calls.......

Our Dusks And Our Dawns

There are truths and there are Truths. My world seems like a vice-like thing, so good at keeping me in tight situations, with no air in my lungs, nowhere to go, no time to think, barely room to react, really, really, to this Truth. I own no Gold objects, nothing that can be melted down when the market crashes, all I have are old photographs and tattoos, over-weight cats and bad breath. These things will not get me far in the world to come. I saw myself through my nephew's eyes, and what I saw were truths, my age, the cities that I have lived in, the style of clothes that to him are so un-cool ("You really like to wear tight pants, don't you Uncle Steven.....")

My heaven will have Haagen Daz trees in full bloom. My heaven will host vast celebrations spanning centuries and cultures not known. My heaven, holding me, has no morning, has no night, but limitless dusks and dawns, the light is always gold, always gold, and covers me from my east to my west. There are no rear-view mirrors, no reasons to look behind, and no half-forgotten dreams, like pebbles in shoes as you walk the dusk/dawn streets. No ghost-like memories, no haunted broken promises to hide beneath your sleeve. And when you do turn your back, it's always somehow forward, always dusk, always dawn.

This heaven has no eulogy. There are no keys because there are no locks and no crushed hearts beneath thrift store lapels. Bluebottles, jays and sparrows take their rest in your hair and it never matters whether you've combed it or woken in a mess of tangles and curls. Every night is St. Valentine's Day and midsummer's eve, and everybody remembers to write. And if you somehow find yourself in a position to fight, to make fists and use them, remember this.....are you the sky or are you the bird?

There are children out in the yard singing and it sounds German and it sounds like smiling. It sounds amazing. It sounds like Saturday morning cartoons, when your heart could pound because your favorite robot was in danger....or when you realize even your favorite super hero has his faults, actual faults and even he knows fear, even he looks for his limitless dusks and dawns, that place where the light is always gold, always gold, and covers him from his east to his west. I am talking to myself again.

Take me home, where you are, where I have a house near naked rivers and vast green forests. The smell of food cooking from upstairs, your voice laughing to some friend on the phone....where the stars are sneaking through the blue sky like they just can't wait for night. Our neighbor is whistling as she tends her garden, the clock on the wall shakes out time.....and suddenly I no longer feel like a shipwreck but an island. And I am its King and you are my Queen. The sky is red and the day is on fire and the willow trees brush against a wagon of rain while the children leave to go dancing, leave to live their lives. And then its winter, and then its spring and then its the Fourth of July and the sky is on fire again and then its Halloween and ghosts steal our candy and paper our trees and then everything is turning blue. And then, suddenly, thick blankets and hot coffee in the morning. Snow, sleet and ice and I swear to god by Christmas time there will be someone else to hold you.

When I say goodbye, I'll say goodbye to that darkened knoll under the walnut tree and the sound of morning. I'll say goodbye, finally, to that last dusk and that last dawn....and I'll wish someone would put me on a train to someplace far away. I'll never kiss those lips again or break your heart and when I say goodbye, I'll say goodbye to you, my Truths and to you, my truths and to you, your arms.....

Fever Dreams and Fever Dreams

The worst fever dreams of my life. Tossing and turning in my bedroom, on the couch, out in the ditch, on the roofs of houses, on the freeways stretching from here to where you are. The blankets that covered me were one second your hair and the next the ocean waves and then they were a field of clouds. I could smell you the whole time. Every moment there had been crashed over me. Appletini, The Lord Fox, vorhies, broken glasses in the Ukrainian Village, a certain nap on a certain rainy day in St. Louis, fireworks from church yards, the countless dinners that were so delicious they could kill you if you weren't paying attention, and through it all your hair…. I had a dream, and I'll tell you about it. It was the world as it could be and I woke up feeling so energized aside from feeling so sick. I wanted to go running, but I couldn't find my shoes and the sky was throwing down ice. And it was then that I realized the world was still grey and fever dreams are not fact as much as I wished they could be. I just wanted to hear your voice.

I have a vision in my mind of those train tracks where you would picnic, and I see us there, often, though I've never been. It's just another of those amazing moments that never was but could so easily be, if we decided to make it so. You're wearing a dress that is justifying my entire life to me and making the whole world around us jealous, and my heart is so full of desire and love for you, I'm amazed that I am even sitting there. It's autumn and the setting sunlight is falling like waves through your hair and I could just die right there. The food is delicious, the wine is making our heads dance and it's not cold yet. There is a slight breeze softly making your curls stir. I realize it's only Friday and that we have the whole weekend ahead of us. So beautiful. I cannot begin to explain it to you. No one has any idea.

And again I look up from whatever it is I am doing, petting Sam or reading a book, and I realize I'm here, you're there, and there is no sunlight at all, there is no wine, no food, no gorgeous hair or dress, just this terrible fever and the dreams it brings me. Snow is falling outside under a thick iron grey sky and the time between now and when I get to see you again feels like forever. All my memories of you are small tortures, as beautiful as they are. It's all I can do to not get in my car and come find you and somehow let you see what I have seen. If nothing else to just touch your hair once more.

Jason Believe Me, You Can’t Trust Your Dreams

If you listen, if you find yourself listening, thus-wise, perpendicularly to the earth, you will find that not only has it all been said before, it's being said Now and more than likely will be said Tomorrow. (Run a carbon black test on my jaw and you will find….). Every human has had time to find a new creature to become, its costume. Eons. A fish or a weed or a Spaniard. The Earth has grown tired of thee. All costumes have been rented so many times (13), throughout the 13 directions of space. No one CARES anymore, you silly joker. You champion of Grit. You slick sailor in your '58 Belle Aire (my Grand Father owned one of these bitches which he had once been found driving in reverse). Gardens of sprouting flowers, all the tree tops bursting with pearls, in your infinite knowledge of Endings, you should lay down your ears and hang up your tongue and see that not only has it all been said before, its being said Now and more than likely will be said Tomorrow. Your life is a Ghost. And behind you stand a thousand more, in their line, stretching back to your first Father and your first Mother. They held beets near rivers on Wide Plains. They lifted their Stains towards the sun and thought of your thousand year old bones, though you hadn't been born yet.

Do you believe that you belong to something? Angels on harpsichords turn to smoke. You on angels turn to the coast, to the white hair of the tide of some dead sea. I wonder if you'll come back! I don't think you'll come back. Thin sun, thin faith, thinly worn as He would have you. You've sung and they have listened but has nothing changed? Is the crowd too young? Or is ours the older crowd? Think of the scene where the Megabus is waiting, taking you for a whore. Cigarette smoke streaming from your mouth in that cold October morning, it had no soul. When you showed me the vodka in your pocket I thought suddenly that maybe I should paint you a portrait of your childhood for Xmas, of you standing there near the Tree with your arms folded, with the light from some December day on your hair, I thought you'd like that, in the End, though my thoughts might be more suited for the stage. You held a beet too you know, if you think about it. The floodlights shown down upon your brow, your bust, your beet. You eventually grew a Mohawk. You shaved your head. You wore a wig. You gave in. You walked in circles for YEARS. My circles. Your circles. You were waiting for time to turn around.

You were counting on forces you could not control. Now I am nothing more than a memory (or so it seems), a picture in your head, a "Hey, remember when this or when that?" It's truthfully Wicked, and it's wonderful. This is us. This is Who We Are. I wanted to change Everything. All. But I can barely change my oil. In fact, I was checking my oil today and some dumb fuck who changed my oil last forgot to put my oil cap back on and now I don't have a fucking oil cap on my oil tank in my fucking CAR. I'm cool with that though. If I laid down all that I thought I was, spread it out in a field of wild weeds, if I saw what it was worth, if You could see, would it make ANY difference to you? If I turned around what matters most to me, would I be going anywhere more significant? Don't tell me. Really, I'm sorry that you couldn't love me back. It's true. I'm sorry that you could never care enough in these last days. It's as sad as the End of the End. But even that has its ending.

It will be a miracle if my car even fucking STARTS tomorrow morning.

Selling Out Isn’t Possible by Kevin Barnes

Are you a sell out? Yes. Don't let it bother you though, cause apparently I am also a sell out, and so are your parents and everyone you've ever known. The only way to avoid selling out is to live like a savage all alone in the wilderness. The moment you attempt to live within the confines of a social order, you become a sell out. Once you attempt to coexist you sell out. If that's true, then selling out is a good thing. It is an important thing. If we didn't do it, we'd be fucked, quite literally, by everyone bigger than us physically who found us fuckable.
The pseudo-nihilistic punk rockers of the 70's created an impossible code in which no one can actually live by. It's such garbage. The idea that anyone who attempts to do anything commercial is a sell out is completely out of touch with reality. The punk rock manifesto is one of anarchy and intolerance. The punk rockers polluted our minds. They offered a solution that had no future. Of course, if the world would have ended before Sandinista! was released then everything would have been alright. It didn't. Now we have all of these half-conceived ideas and idiot philosophies floating around to confuse and alienate us. I think it is important to face reality. It is important to decide whether you are going to completely rail against the system or find a way to make it work for you. You cannot do both -- and if you attempt to do both you will only become even more bitter and confused.

When I was younger, and supported my parents, I chose to float between the two. A lot of people choose to do this. There are so many confused young people running around now polluted by this alloyed version of the tenets of the punk rock manifesto. Of course they're confused. It isn't possible to be in chorus with capitalism and anarchy. You must pick one or the other. Very few people are willing to do it, though. The worst kind of person is the one who sucks the dick of the man during the daytime and then draws pictures of themselves slitting his throat at night. Jesus Christ, make up your mind! The thing is, there is a lack of balance. When capitalism is working on a healthy level, everyone gets their dick sucked from time to time and no one gets their throat slit. It's impossible to be a sell out in a capitalist society. You're only a winner or a loser. Either you've found a way to crack the code or you are struggling to do so. To sell out in capitalism is basically to be too accommodating, to not get what you think you deserve. In capitalism, you don't get what you think you deserve though. You get what someone else thinks you deserve. So the trick is to make them think you are worth what you feel you deserve. You deserve a lot, but you'll only get it when you figure out how to manipulate the system.

Why commercialize yourself? In the art industry, it's extremely difficult to be successful without turning yourself into a cartoon. Even Hunter S. Thompson knew this. God knows Duchamp and Warhol knew it. Some artists are turned into cartoons and others do it themselves. I prefer to do it myself. at least then I can control how my cock is photographed. Why should it be considered such an onerous thing to view the production of art as a job? To me, the luckiest people are the ones who figure out a way to earn a living doing what they love and gain fulfillment from. Like all things in this life, you have to make certain sacrifices to get what you want. At least most of us do. If you're not some trust-fund kid or lotto winner, you've got to slave it out everyday. People who wanna be artists have the hardest time of it 'cause we are held up to these impossible standards. We're expected to die penniless and insane so that the people we have moved and entertained over the years can keep us to themselves. So that they can feel a personal and untarnished connection with our art. The second we try to earn a living wage or, god forbid, promote our art in the mainstream, we are placed under the knives of the sanctimonious indie fascists. Unfortunately, there isn't some grand umbrella grant that supports indie rockers financially and enables us to exist outside of the trappings of capitalism.

The thing is, I like capitalism. I think it's an interesting challenge. It's a system that rewards the imaginative and ambitious adults and punishes the lazy adults. Our generation is insanely lazy. We're just as smart as our parents but we are overwhelmed by contradicting ideas that confuse us into paralysis. Maybe the punk rock ethos made sense for the "no future" generation but it doesn't make sense for me. I like producing and purchasing things. I'd much rather go to IKEA than to stand in some bread line. That's because I don't have to stand in a bread line. Most people who throw around terms like "sellout" don't have to stand in one either. They don't have to stand in one because they are gainfully employed. The term "sellout" only exists in the lexicon of the over-privileged. Almost every non-homeless person in America is over-privileged, at least in a global sense.

Obviously, I've struggled with the concept. I've struggled because of the backlash following my songs placement in TV commercials. That is, until I realized that the negative energy that was being directed towards me really began to inspire my creativity. It has given me a sense of, "well, I'll show them who is a sellout, I'm going to make the freakiest, most interesting, record ever!!!" ... "I'm going to prove to them that my shit is wild and unpolluted by the reach of some absurd connection to mainstream corporate America."

I realized then that, for me, selling out is not possible. Selling out, in an artistic sense, is to change one's creative output to fit in with the commercial world. To create phony and insincere art in the hopes of becoming commercially successful. I've never done this and I can't imagine I ever will. I spent seven years not even existing at all in the mainstream world. Now I am being supported and endorsed by it. I know this won't last forever. No one's going to want to use one of my songs in a commercial five years from now, so I've got to take the money while I can. It's the same with pro athletes. You only get it while you're hot and no one stays commercially viable for long. It's not like Michael Vick is going to be receiving any big endorsement deals anytime soon. As sad as it may seem, one of the few ways most indie bands can make any money whatsoever is by selling a song to a commercial. Very very few bands make enough money from album sales or tour revenue to enable themselves to quit their day job.

Next time you see a commercial with one of your favorite bands songs in it, just tell yourself, "cool, a band I really like made some money and now I can probably look forward to a few more records from them." It's as simple as that. We all have to do certain things, from time to time, that we might not be completely psyched about, in order to pay the bills. To me, the TV is the world's asshole boss and if anyone can earn some extra bucks from it and they're not Bill O'Reilly, it's a good thing.

She Died and My Cushion Didn't Even Help

I brought a cushion to the funeral but it rained and instead of being buried they put her up in the tree because the leaves were so wide the rain wouldn't hit her. It was actually pretty wonderful though a lot of folks were freaked out about it. I don't know. I sat and thought it was pretty wonderful and I thought that if I ever die, which I DOUBT, then I hope its raining and I hope they put me up in a palm tree and then I thought how dramatic it would be if they put me in a palm tree and then lightning struck me and my body FLEW OUT towards them and it was like I was playing one last joke on the world of my friends and reletives. But I figured that if I ever die, which I DOUBT, I'll probably be buried in the ocean or maybe by then I'll be buried on Mars or Europa anyway and really if you think about it it never rains in those places and even if it did there aren't any palm trees anyway.

Thoughts Threw Frosted Windows w/ Giant Birds, Buddha and Missed Things

I had a dream last night where the Universe was fully explained to me and it was so simple! So simple, in fact, that I cannot recall a single detail. But I remember it was quite beautiful and obvious. The only other thing I can say about that is that as I was coming back to consciousness the first thought I had in my head was that Buddha was super right on about it all! I wish I knew why the fuck I was thinking that. And now I have a strong hunger for food. I also had a dream that a group of pagans or druids were holed up in the middle of the woods outside of Ann Arbor, it was actually more like a swamp, and in the very back of this swamp was an old graveyard and in the very back of this graveyard was the largest tombstone except that the tombstone was knocked down and whoever's grave it was (they were important) had been dug up and it was empty. So there were all these druids or some crazy shit hanging out around this empty grave and their leader had antlers like a deer and he was also robed and hated everything. So this girl had disappeared from the city and everyone somehow knew that the druids had her and were keeping her hostage in this empty grave and I also remember someone telling me, "The Thunderbird sits on the over-turned headstone and kills anyone it wants". A Thunderbird is some crazy shit and I guess it was being controlled by these druids and just picked up this girl in its scary claws and took her to the swamp. We were all about to go into the swamp to rescue her when I woke up. I might have had this dream before.

There is other stuff too but its all too weird to think about. Oh yeah so I was driving to work today after waking up from my Buddha was right dream and on NPR they were talking to these Buddhists in Ann Arbor who go diving into garbage for stuff like coffee pots and diamond rings to sell and I thought it was weird all this Buddhist stuff all at once and I was trying to decode the message if there was a message and THAT'S when I realized it had snowed and by this point my coffee was cold and I was late for my Building Systems class so I had to put the Buddhist stuff on the back burner and its still back there simmering. I'm too hungry to figure stuff like that out. I'm also really tired too, so tired in fact that if you actually knew in your mind how tired I was you would call me and try very hard to convince me to go home and sleep for a while even though its like 30 minutes away, "It don't matter none!" you would passionately say to me and you know what I'd probably listen to you because I'm THAT TIRED.

The funny thing about all this is that I sold my car, I sold my hats, I sold numerous pints of blood, I sold my bed, my dresser and my books, I sold my shoes. With the money I made I went out and bought a new car, some different hats, some fake blood, a new bed, an Ikea dresser and some books I haven't read, and some crazy shoes. I put all these things where I thought they should go and when I sat down to look at them all I realized I missed my other car, my other hats, my real blood, I missed how comfortable that old bed was, how well my clothes fit in that antique dresser and how good those books were, really when I thought about it hard enough, how those old shoes were so much more comfortable. So now I walk everywhere, I comb my hair, I am careful not to cut myself, I do not sleep, my clothes litter the floor, my books are paperweights and my feet are constantly bare. The end.

The Lamp of Power from The Seven Lamps of Architecture

"In the edifices of Man there should be found reverent worship and following, not only of the spirit which rounds the pillars of the forest, and arches the vault of the avenue - which gives veining to the leaf, and polish to the shell, and grace to every pulse that agitates animal organization - but of that also which reproves the pillars of the earth, and builds up her barren precipices into the coldness of the clouds, and lifts her shadowy cones of mountain purple into the pale arch of the sky; for these, and other glories more than these, refuse not to connect themselves, in his thoughts, with the work of his own hand; the grey cliff loses not its nobleness when it reminds us of some Cyclopean waste of mural stone; the pinnacles of the rocky promontory arrange themselves, undegraded, into fantastic semblences of fortress towers; and even the awful cone of the far-off mountain has a melancholy mixed with that of its own solitude, which is cast from the images of nameless tumuli on white sea-shores, and of the heaps of reedy clay, into which chambered cities melt in their mortality."

The Man With The Thistledown Hair Speaks About My Dream 3

I once had bitten the head of a snake clean off. The snake was a blue-black ribbon that came from the hair of some kid's grandmother down the street who had orange juice trailing from her fingertips, and milk shooting from her metal breasts in the wildest of directions. If you can imagine a world in two dimensions instead of three, milk was shooting in two dimensions. The snake made the sound of a TV switching off and my tongue became swollen and warped, seriously, as time bent and swiveled around my salivary glands. Saliva from snake and man mingled and fell fast together like embraced lovers and where they landed, on the grassed earth around me, an entire civilization sprang up and artists and guildsmen and hunters and kings and whores and lecherous men with snake tattoos who worshipped the half man, half snake god (who I swear must be me), all paraded down their gilded boulevards and shook drums and trumpets and knifed others as they went. A comet of a tooth sprang from a mouth, mine, the snakes, and landed in their midst ending their history as quickly as it had started and they were NO MORE. This, all happening in the briefest of moments, like when you look over your shoulder when driving to change lanes, was so. So it was that I fell down to my knees, the snake springing up, headless, from that very vista, and, embracing, we circled the Earth in a hollowed out coconut, or a tennis ball, or a fried chicken. The stars behind, below and above us all winked in and out and sprayed us with vibrant electricity and behind my closed eyes there were lighted elephants and lighted ladders, all going this way and that and below there remained the Earth, like a hollowed out coconut, or a tennis ball, or a fried chicken. The Beatles liked to write pop songs. When our orbit began to slow, the snake found feathers springing from its headless neck and we flew over field and farm and chased cows into lakes or over cliffs, depending on where we were and what we felt like doing. I didn't realize that we were sharing bodies and minds and that there were feathers EVERYWHERE now and they were big and bigger and there was no limit to their softness. I don't know how feathers spring from nothingness. I don't know how snakes without heads become men without hearts. I don't know how stars spray electric elephants and lighted ladders. I don't know how kingdoms spring from spittle on ground around your feet. I don't know anything. My mind is a mile wide and a millimeter thick. Ants aren't anything, they don't live in grandmother's hair. They don't make the sound of TVs switching off. Fuck ants. The Beatles won't make anymore songs. I thought I was dreaming but my ankles weren't mine.

Faring Thee Well, Tour Blog, Butterfly Knife

ear friends, relatives and enemies,

As you may or may not know, as of this Friday, June 8th, I shall be on the road until the end of July traveling with me band Canada. It is our first full national US tour and we'll be criss-crossing the country for almost 8 weeks. I just wanted to let you know that though I won't be around physically, if you ever have need of me, feel free to call me. I will be checking my email as often as I can, but it may only be a couple of times a week, if that.

Also, upon returning from tour at the end of July, I will no longer be living in Ferndale but will be sharing a farmhouse with some bandmates in Ann Arbor and I wanted to pass on my new mailing address. I will no longer be getting any mail to my Ferndale address as of August 1st and will instead be getting mail at my new address.

So please make note and feel free to send letters, postcards, pictures and candy to me at that address. I won't be seeing most of you for some time but know that you are and will remain in my thoughts as I snake down countless roads through the lonely winds of this sprawling land called America. Be well and safe and I hope this summer treats you well.

Steven Rajewski II

Also, you can read our tour blog and find out what kind of strange danger we get ourselves into..... thecanadianfront.blogspot.com

The Dream of the Albino and the Silent Glass

I have been having incredibly detailed dreams lately. For those of you who know me, this is unheard of. Usually, if I dream at all, I wake up with a completely blank mind. Lately though, the dreams are still entirely vivid even when I'm in the shower 15 minutes later.

I had one last night that I thought was worth sharing....

I found myself walking down a poorly lit high school hallway towards the gymnasium. On the walls were posters for the Army and Navy, telling me I could be a Hero if I wanted to. As I approached the doors to the gym, there was a card table with some students behind it, they looked like they were selling tickets of some kind. When I walked up to the table, one of the students looked up at me with a concerned look on his face and asked me what my 'code name' was. I had no idea. As I stood there confused, my old high school friend Luke walked out of the gym and saw me and said, "Vassal! You made it!". So, I looked at the student behind the table and said, pointing to myself, "Vassal".

When I walked into the gym with Luke, there were bleachers on three of the four walls; behind me, to my left and straight ahead. They were completely filled with people, who were all sitting in total silence. We walked straight ahead across the gym to the far set of bleachers. In the middle of the gym floor there extended a line of people waiting for something. At the head of the line was an old man in a white suit standing next to a cart filled with glasses of what appeared to be champaign. As we walked past him and the line of people, I looked to my right, where the line was leading to the wall where no bleachers were. There I found a strange sight.

Against the wall, was a very narrow but high set of bleachers. At the top, on a sort of floor, surrounded by a set of strange looking musicians dressed all in black, sat another old man, an albino, and he was looking sternly at the person at the head of the line. The only sound in the gym was the music that was coming from the musicians surrounding him..... It was something that you'd hear on the jukebox from Twin Peaks, something the dwarf would dance to. Very unsettling. As we passed the line and the old albino and his musicians, I looked back to see what was happening and I saw this:

The person at the front of the line would grab a glass of champaign, drink it down, and then throw the empty glass as hard as he could at the old albino at the top of the bleachers. As the glass approached the old albino, he would start blowing very, very hard and the wind created was so powerful that it knocked the empty champaign glass back down to the floor, which I just realized was covered with broken glass...although it didn't make a sound as I stepped on it. The person who threw the glass looked disappointed and left the gym. Everyone in the bleachers was paying very close attention to all of this, but remained completely silent and unmoving.

I turned to my friend Luke and asked, "What is going on in here?" He simply said, "You'll see. Look." He pointed back to the line.

Another person was drinking his champaign. After he finished, he went to throw the glass at the old albino, like the last person did, but stopped at the last second. The old albino started to blow but there was no glass. Just as he stopped blowing the person in line then threw the glass. The glass sailed through the air and smashed against the bottom of the old albino's seat, sending shards of glass everywhere. The musicians stopped playing..... The room was completely silent. The other old man serving the champaign at the head of the line looked very angry. He pulled a long serrated knife from his white coat and started slashing at the man who had thrown the champaign glass. All you could hear was the sound of flesh being cut. He kept stabbing the man until he was no longer moving. Some people came out from another part of the gym and carried away the body. The musicians started playing again. The next person in line reached for a glass of champaign.

That is when I woke up.

Gross Miscalculations on the Concept of Happiness

It is 4:02 am and I cannot sleep. I worked at ze kafee shoppe until 3. Wanted rest. Body exhausted. Mind zipping too quickly. I want to be dreaming of a world where I am not afraid of rice wine. Wise is looking at me wondering what the fuck I'm doing awake. We are usually spooning at this time.

I am attempting to write a blog detailing the most magnificant four days I've ever lived. These days are the days spent traveling the East Coast with Page France and Canada. June 28th 2006 might have just been the best day of my entire life. If nothing more, it was the best Canada show in the history of The Canadian Front. Also, things I am wondering....who invented the pin-cushion, why is my plant dying, i think my eyes are traveling backwards in time but the rest of my body is here in the present.

I have too many things to do tomorrow. One of the things I do NOT have to do is join ASCAP. For it is done. I have recently joined Netflix though and I am addicted. Wise is trying to get me to lay down.

But before I do I wanted to express via pixels to the universe that my heart is filled with a brilliant love for you all. And I miss the way summer used to smell when I was a boy.

Heading dreamward.

He, that be me, The Esteban

How I and The Wise Created a Demon of the Second Kind to Defeat the Pirate Pugg

46 minutes ago I became officially finished with the Spring 2006 semester at LTU. Last night I stayed up late finishing a collage self portrait showing my agony and nerves a-raging across a landscape of fear and worry. The class did indeed enjoy it. And now I'm done.

And it is sunny. If I wanted to, I could sit completely still for the rest of the day and not worry about homework or building systems or the names of impressionist painters. It feels so good I could cry.

15 days.

I would like for you to contact me, if you are reading this and enjoy my company, to hang out soon and often. All I have is work. And rock performances. I want to spend as much time around a vast multitude of folk as is allowed by state law.

Also, as I lay in half sleep this morning, listening to the Wise cry to be let out onto the porch, in between thinking of throwing him against the wall, I also thought of some strange things. Like, being rid of all oral languages. Instead replacing communication through food....for instance....a half eaten icecream sandwhich could signify that I need a ride to the grocery store. Or a withered apple to signify that I am late getting my taxes done. A pile of seven grapes, three green and four purple (one of which has been peeled of it's skin) could mean that my favorite show, Knight Rider, is on in twelve minutes so please go get the potato chips.

Or what about squirt guns? We could all carry around squirt guns and squirt eachother to communicate....maybe in morse code?

Basically, I'm tired of hearing everyone's voice. Grab a granola bar or a Super-Soaker and let's chat.

Actually, I love your voice. My favorite voices are those of Mollie, The Wise, my dad and of course Tom Waits.

I'm going to go read a book in the sun now. I'm free all summer now. Let us get together and create moments.

A Treatise on the Science of Arms

This weekend was a murderous one. I barely survived. Overnight shifts at old coffee shops, Canada concerts inside of Blind Pigs (afloat in a sea of drunkeness, bachelorettes and ashtray noses). Late nights. But good nights. But also nights that put me further behind schedule with my semester project. The problem = design an urban studio for Tulane University in New Orleans. The solution = panic, wasted time, a full and violent loathing for my instructors which directly leads to a complete lack of desire to attend studio. If I can somehow manage to pull it off by 2pm on Wednesday I will be treated to a lovely concert in Ann Arbor with the incredible Chris Bathgate and Annie Palmer as well as Canada's friends The Dardenelles. Booze will exist inside of me. I will exist in a system of strings and wires that moves my elbows and knees as an audience member admiring the terribly wonderful tremors of live and lovely music. Mouthfulls.

In a few weeks I hit the road with Page France. Every time I think about it I shake and shiver. The record will be out by then. In hands, in ears. I'll be in a tree. I am most nervous and excited about playing at The Mercury Lounge in New York City. I'm currently downloading a Joanna Newsom concert from June of 2004 which took place at The Mercury Lounge. I became even more anxious and excited knowing that I'll be performing my songs upon the very stage where less than two years ago Joanna did the same. I want to drink lemonade with her and hug her in between gulps. I want to watch her fingers flip between stretched strings. Though our bones break and our souls seperate, though our bodies recoil from the grip of the soil, with her songs in my head I shall never have a long face.

Today I received the final/mastered copy of This Cursed House. I've heard this record so many times now I don't even know what to think anymore. I need to not listen to it for a while. I need to think about new songs. I need to finish the next 48 hours as quickly and as skillfully as possible so that I can sit in the yard and balance new thoughts between my open ears.

That's all I want right now. To lay the entire day in the grass with a book and a headphones. To not have to worry about sketching and explaining, cutting and pasting, drafting and diagramming, typing and sighing.

To simply feel the sun shave my face with it's millions of tiny blades. To watch the grass wave. To watch geese gather wind under wings. To watch ants climbing the mountains of sidewalks.

And once that is all taken care of, I want to play as many rock shows as is allowed. These things I wish in the name of all that breathes and stretches it's knees, that shakes it's sleeves at the gathering breeze.

Send me your pillow and your favorite blanket so that I may rest easy.

The Countless Rings of Saturn Thrill Me

I seem to be unable to get enough sleep lately. I cut getting to work and school on time DANGEROUSLY close. This is with coffee. Someone is drugging my food, I'm sure of it. It isn't the Wise because he appears to be drugged as well most of the time. So that leaves The Dis and Prefontaine. I keep planning on sitting down to question them but I always end up being too tired. I think they are aware of my suspicions though.

I think there is a bat or a squirrel trapped in my basement. I found one of the basement windows open last week and now every twenty minutes or so I'll hear a squeek coming from the basement, and it's always coming from a different location. I am too afraid to go down there like a real man and capture the beast. I worked up the nerve twice so far and stood there waiting for it to make a noise so I could at least figure out where it was and hopefully see what it was, but it must have been aware of me and decided to keep quiet. I'm afraid it is starving to death and soon we shall find a corpse. Either that or one of the cats will find it and decide to bring it into my bed one night while i'm trying to sleep. Or, my luck, it has rabies and will in turn infect each and every one of us until we are all defeated.

Next week is my spring break. I am in such dire need of this. I feel so burnt out lately. Between the long drives to Lansing in an attempt to finish this record, and the drives to shows, and school and work and a plethora of smaller obligations, I'm generally kept at full speed throughout the day, every day. I can't remember the last time I was just able to go out and get a drink with a friend or simply just hang out with someone outside the band. No wonder I feel so drugged in the morning. My body does not want to have to go through another day like this. I mean, it beats having nothing to do, but I sometimes feel I need a mountain to sit on or a forest to hide myself inside for a month. Grow another beard. Learn to speak to birds. Climb some trees, scrape some knees, sit and stare at the clouds for a bit.

Joe is in New York. Saul is with his woman. I seem to be the only one at our house lately, the place is my own private castle. It's nice and lonesome all at once. Especially with the demon monkey in the basement biding it's time.

Some exciting developments on the Canadian Front. Fall Records wants to release a Canada EP this summer or later this year. New songs are already being created. The tour in May with Page France is slowly taking shape. Baltimore and Boston are so far confirmed, DC and New York are being worked out. This is exciting since it is something I've always wanted to do but was never able to. Another dream I can scratch off the list. Also, we have friends in each of those cities who haven't been able to see us yet. Also, Fred Thomas has asked us to tour with Saturday Looks Good To Me for two weeks in June and to also possibly have some of us play with him in his band to back him up. Though nothing has been confirmed yet, this would definitely make this summer one of the best in recent memory, and trust me, last summer was pretty fucking brilliant.

I really just want this record to be done more than anything. I'm tired of being worried about it and nervous about it. I just want it to be finished so I can relax a bit.

I need a good masseuse. For real.

This weekend Pincado. Next week Chicago. Next weekend, hopefully, an ending to This Cursed House.

Oh. And I turn 28 on Friday. Pray for me please.

To The Man In The Arena

"It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly...who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at best, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

Pincado, That Mythical Town

So, tonight i find myself in Pincado, the town where i was born, was raised, and from which i promptly fled in search of a better life when i knew i wasn't going to find it here, amongst the fields, forests, factories and, well, cheese. I've been in relentless persuit ever since. I have definitely made progress, i've definitely gotten closer, and i've definitely seen some things. I've even, on a few occasions, felt like i had arrived there, to that better life which i always wanted, but it always continues to elude me.

It's always a strange event to go home, to the place you are from, especially when being gone for a long time. That's where i find myself tonight. My parents look older, the house seems smaller, i feel a bit misplaced. These are all generally sad things to feel, especially on the night before Thanksgiving. For a brief moment i wonder how many more good years i have left of this, before it's gone. But then, of course, you can't think that way, can you. So i stop thinking that way. But it's still strange being here, in these walls. I used to do my Cheerio dance right over there, under the stairs, when i was a baby. I would upturn a bowl of Cheerios and then dance on top of them, to the delight of anyone lucky enough to catch me in the act. Yes there are pictures. This room i'm in right now, it used to be my bedroom. I lost my virginity in this room, i also felt the first pangs of real Loss in this room too. Now it's where my parents watch their favorite show, Lost, on TV. Funny huh? Yeah. Right above my head is where my first band used to practice, Dandylyon Whyne. Small town pop-punk at it's worst, that is until one Travis Pickard appeared in my life in a puff of smoke. But that is an entire other story. This whole house is one giant photo album. It's fun and painful to look at all at the same time.

It snowed heavily for the first time today. There are inches of it outside everywhere you look. This year has disappeared so quickly, in a matter of weeks it is going to be New Years Eve again, and last year's still seems like it was only a few months ago....I've been drinking whiskey tonight. I opened up the cupboard to look for chips, or some kind of salty snack, and Mr. Jack Daniels was there, looking at me....and i looked back. And i had this flashback to when i was a teenager, opening this same cupboard and seeing my parents stash of whiskies, which they NEVER OPENED...and i remembered secretly opening a bottle, and slowly over the course of a summer drinking from said bottle, a sip here, a small cupful there, always filling it up with water, to make it look like nothing was gone....and of course, you can only do that for so long before the whiskey starts to resemble something a little less than whiskey. But for some reason my parents never caught on, or decided to let it slide. Either way, tonight i find myself drinking whiskey, straight, out of a Garfield cup that shows him on a teeter-totter, saying to himself, "I'm not one who rises to the occasion.".....and yes, i replaced my stolen whiskey with fresh Pincado water.

Life has been good to me as of late, i cannot deny, though that slippery life i continue to search for still eludes me to this moment. I remain poor, and struggling to get through school, after all this time.....those that i truly care deeply for remain far away from me, for some reason, and are greatly missed, and i remain feeling incredibly unlucky and maybe even slightly cursed....i rarely get to see my family, the ones that know me best, and who i feel sadly distant from....and then of course there are my allergies....yikes.

But then there is Canada. We just had our first practice with our official drummer, Ryan. It was a magical, historical moment for me. After all these years of playing music with people and being in all sorts of bands, this was THE practice of a lifetime. We played through every song, with Ryan, for the first time, and it was flawless, it was like a dream, the kind of dream i would have when i was young and dreamt of being in a good band one day, and it was happening to me....somehow, without ever playing with us before, he knew each and every song and played them as though he had been playing them for years....we sounded real and full and right....i imagine that that is what the Beatles must have felt on more than one occasion....like what was happening in that room was rare and true and incredible....it was surreal and i felt like crying i was so happy, as did Joe and Saul and Aaron and Amy....i felt like i was 15 again and in love for the first time.....i felt like after all these years things were finally going right....added to that the fact that our first two shows were at The Magic Stick in Detroit, and went extremely well, and that we continue to get shows with great bands at great venues across this State, these things alone come close to almost making up for all of those things that i feel i am missing....almost.

I know you are out there somewhere tonight, doing what i can only imagine, shaping strange destinies and altering the course of small histories as you go....you, that elusive piece of the puzzle, that thing that i continue to reach for, in the dark, i can feel you as my fingers brush against you as you retreat further into the distance. We've met before, we almost had it figured out, you and i, and one day you'll fit into place and things will somehow all make sense, the puzzle will be complete, and i can go to bed at night and wake up every morning knowing that after all this time and after all this work and worry, that i at last have you, that life i have always wanted. At least i have to keep thinking so.

I guess sometimes you just feel like writing. Happy Thanksgiving.

Steven

Thistles, Thorns and Thumbs

I've been hanging out a lot lately with this season by the name of Fall. She is very nice to me. She is very colorful and bright. She is around here somewhere today. She makes me want to leave school and go home and spend the day in my basement writing songs and drinking coffee. Making mini-albums about silly things like birds that fly with wilted wings and die of broken things, like hearts.

Instead I'll sit and draw sketches of pictures of photographs of buildings that do not exist. This one cup of coffee will continue to not be enough. I will also sit and think about the apple, crackers and pbj sandwhich i brought with me to work today for dinner. Because I am already hungry.

Tomorrow there is an ArchiLecture here at school. The speaker is Syd Mead, the guy who designed the buildings, sets and worlds of Blade Runner, Aliens and Tron. I would be lying if I said I wasn't excited to hear what someone like that has to say. I am tempted to sneak in a flask of whiskey which to sip and relax with. Instead I will sneak in hot coffee and a donut.

Before kids came kid-dinosaurs who shopped in diamond candy
stores. Their mothers went berzerk.

Tom Waits, Abandoned Bus Stops in the Desert, Photographing Ghosts

Another dream of Tom last night. Joe and I were invited to his distant ranch somewhere in a part of the United States that never existed. When we arrive there is dust everywhere, and the yard is littered with old pickups and cadillacs. He comes out to greet us and his handshake is firm and fatherly. He smells like safety and god. He says some comforting things that only a perfect being would think of saying and leads us into his home. On the walls are old pictures, plaques, trophies for events that shouldn't exist. The place seems like the place where all good people go when they reach the end. There is a great sense of safety, calm and warmth. His wife, Kathleen, cooks us dinner. Some kind of steak or pork chop, gravy, heavy stuff. I'm so in love with this man I don't have the heart to tell him i'm a vegetarian and i DEVOUR the entire meal. My body understands this and does not rebel against me (thank you body). He takes me and Joe, who also devoured his meal, with a deep and overjoyed grin on his face, out to this abandoned part of town, to the post office, covered in dust, and leads us to a post office box. He pulls out a key from his front pocket and motions us over. He tells us we have to see this. He opens the box and it's suddenly morning and the Wise is meowing at me for his breakfast.

To photograph a ghost, stop picturing their face, and think of years ago.

She

She was born to be

a woman I would know.