the family band in progress...

Eros&ersand

So, we've been packing up all our crap and getting ready to store it at our friends house. I had never thrown away a letter someone sent me, or a note someone wrote me until yesterday when I went through a closet full of letters and notes. A lot of those letters were from girls that I (hadn't actually) loved, and there were even some notes from highschool, mostly saying "write back, you son of a bitch." The largest collection, though, were from Tabi, at over one-hundred letters from 1995 to 2000. I had expected to burn them with Brad Rhoades at some point in time, but seeing as that won't happen before I move, and I don't really want to have to keep them just for that, I lit them on fire last night in my front yard. The smoke was epidemic or something--it even infected our home's insides. It was kind of perfect that it happened that way, though. It seems like after so much heartache (though deep in the past) the flames can be long-gone, but the smoke somehow still seeps in past the walls and into your living room. It gets sucked into the pages of your books and the sleeves of your sweaters (unless they're wool). It wasn't as dramatic as I had imagined it being when I decided to save them six years ago, but I'm pretty glad about that, too. I think the zao line says, Where blood and fire bring rest.
Yesterday was also windy, and our recycling bin was tossed in the afternoon, just after I threw all my old pictures and checkbooks in it. I found three unused books in the street, and a Polaroid of me naked (though artfully so!). It was just kind of funny I guess.
I finished (it that's even possible) arranging my first chapbook last night, which I'll send out to a few contests just for the hell of it this summer. It's called (for now) Eros & Ampersand. I think the title is a little more cheeky than I'd like, but I've got a few more days to best it. Right now the chapbook stands at 25 manuscript pages and maybe 16-17 poems. More than anything, it's just a good exercise for me to try out for fun before I have to start doing it for whatever comes after fun. I'm sending it to Burnside Review's chapbook contest, which is giving me some sort of deadline, but it will pretty much just be for me. Mostly it's about Kilnemia, love, my dad, and death, which seems pretty standard material.
I might get tattooed tonight!

Got this letter in the mail today. It wasn't mine, but it looked interesting so I opened it.

Dear Javier,
I don’t know if you remember me. But you remember Frank Musser? We both met you at a club in Tempe, when you were with your band Stained Glass Door, and then Iron Butterfly came on. At first Frank couldn’t remember who you were.
After all these years, a week ago, Frank suddenly remembered how he met you! It was at some big party out in the desert with 10 thousand people, it was your birthday, and he thinks you were in a band called Joshua Tree. He told me you worked for a dairy company and had to cut your hair for the job (you told him this at a party long ago). This was in the early 80’s before I met Frank. He was on acid at the party.
You gave me some tapes, I still have Stained Glass Door, and Space Rig. We talked a couple of times on the phone, then we lost touch. (Frank is no good writing letters. I’m his common law wife. We met in ’92.) We moved to Austin in ’00, thinking I would get in a band, but that hasn’t happened even thought I’ve played drums over 18 years and I play better than most guys. Oh well. I keep trying. (All these blokes.)
Why don’t you come and move to Austin? You play unique music! I can be your drummer. (We don’t own a vehicle.) Phoenix and the surrounding area ain’t nothing but a dead-end ghetto and that one of many reasons why we had to get out. Fred no longer does drugs, but he kept running into old connections plus the cops kept coming by and asking us questions about this person and that person, if we hadn’t left, Fred might have gone to jail or have to go to court testifying against them, possibly endangering our lives. (Plus he lived here once.) A lot of people Frank knew ended up in prison.
You’d make it fine out here. Frank told me your parents were rich and you didn’t really have to work. It’s hard to find work out here. I’ve been looking for 3 years, Frank has his job secured.
Now, I hope you remember me and Frank! Please keep this to yourself, as Frank doesn’t want ANYONE to know where we are, (but he trusts only you, in Arizona) Don’t tell ANYONE about us.
Everybody here is in to computers. We are proud to say we don’t own a computer, no credit cards, no cell phone, no SUV, Frank will never cut his hair or stop wearing bellbottoms (he gets hassled for the latter). That’s why I hooked up with him! But I do have an 8 piece double bass drum set, he doodles on an electric guitar, and we life for music—CDs, DVD—concerts, clubs, rock concerts, records, 45’s, rock movies. Austin AIN’T “the live music capitol” as its always said—that’s a myth, total bullshit. All the big rock bands play 95 miles off in San Antonio! We have a few good rock bands here: Tio Camera (psychedelic), Igniter (80’s type meal) Big Balls (AC/DC type band), Powderbum, The sword (metal) Broken Teeth, Jolly Garogers, Charter Bulldogs (hard rock) and some great blues and blues-rock bands are here, best punk band is Cruisereight, good hard-grunge band The Guest.
Rap didn’t come to Austin until 2002, much to our disgust. We don’t need that sh*t!
I could send up a photo of us but I want to see if you write back first.


yours,
Frank & Maggie

P.S. Do you know a “femmy guy” named Zam Abaullah, a bass player with real long hair, who sang and played in a band called Shadowplay? I’ve been wanting to get in touch with him. Last I heard he lived in Tempe. He talked about moving to Austin so for I haven’t ran into him (lost touch in ’97 or 98). -maggie

How can you abstract yourself and start with nothing, Hegel, how? Can you tell me that?

I finished The People of Paper yesterday instead of attending bio100, introduction to biology for nonmajors, which is the last class I need to pass before graduating. I figured I'd just read for a few minutes before lab while sucking on a coffee, but the lure of Merced de Papel and the scarred tongues and lips that had tasted proved seductive and crushing in the best way. I haven't read too many novels on my own in the past six months--only People and Infinite Jest come to mind--but they've both slayed me something fierce.
With only ten days(ish) until we leave Tempe for Tucson by way of Oregon, I'm trying to pack up my books, trying to figure out what I should read before I start school in August. I think that means I'm bringing along some Kierkegaard and a few books of poems to Oregon, but mostly I'm saving some dough for a glorious trip to Powell's poetry section. I'd like to pick up Beckian Fritz-Goldberg's new book, something by Dean Young, more Jane Miller, Richard Siken's Crush, and maybe a few sweet-a superises. Also, definitely have to pick up the summer issue of Tin House, featuring the likes of the great Diana Park. The more I hear about things Arizona MFAers are doing, the more frightened I am about being down there. I really hope that I make the most of the opportunity down there--put my balls to the notebook, pass it around the workshop, and let everyone have a cut at them. I pray for buoyancy in my poetry, causing each poem to rise to the top of the terd pile.
I'm going to smoke a cigar and put together some notes I've been scribbling in the Moleskin, hopefully try and come up with a few prompts for some poem drafts. It's the first time in a while that I've got multiple poems in various stages of draft/semi-polish all at once. It feels good to be able to have enough newish stuff sitting around to be able to choose what I want to work on each day.
I'm still not tattooed; it seems that it is impossible for me to have a smooth transaction with a tattoo artist.

Haven't you heard the news? adam and eve were jews.

I was supposed to get started on a new tattoo on the old arm this past Monday. My tattooer, Jason, had another idea. Evidently he was surprised to discover that morning that his girlfriend has been the recipient of the aciaint bane of young men and women unawares: the preggers. He called as I was on my way to the shop, cancelled, and together we decided on today, Thursday, being the new tattoo time.
Well, some other freakish event happened today and I didn't get tattooed today either. Preggers, sure, I can understand that. Today I didn't even ask; I figured it really didn't matter much why. Hopefully this will spell g o o d deal if I ever actually get a chance to sit.
In an unrelated note, I've been reading Pablo Neruda lately, but for the first time in Spanish, which has been quite unexpectedly rewarding. Said readings have been out of a dual-language edition, so, if pressed, I'd have to admit to occasional cheats over to the other side of the page, but I am excited, just the same.
Other recent poetry readings have found me returning to Norman Dubie after Matt Fahy borrowed my copy of Ordinary mornings of A coliseum. He brought it back with comment on how freaking crazy it was. In opening it again, I found the same. Just when I felt the end of a phrase coming up, and a line break to confirm that intuition, the next line would be a coup de grace nightmare climax. It's the great kind of crazy, and reading it makes me feel grateful to have studied under him.
I've also been reading Bretall's excerpt of Kierkegaard's Postscript with the intention that if I feel strong after finishing those 55 pages, I may take a crack at the full text. This has been the first attempt at any non-Wittgensteinian philosophy in about a year, and it's really refreshing to be back wading in those hard-fought but worthy waters. Also, I'm taking a graduate seminar on Plato in the fall at University of Arizona, and their philosophy program is phenomenal, so I feel like I better bring my A-game.
Finally, I've cracked into The People of Paper, which, thus far, is both beautiful and relaxing. It is probably the nicest-looking book I own; I'm happy to see the words inside do it justice.
I've been writing a fair amount, trying to build up a hefty-sized satchel full of poems for Tucson in the fall. "They" say that it's a really, really good idea to start out one's MFA with plenty to workshop because not much gets written creatively in that first term. We'll see.

it's on like donkey kong

alright friends, I'm giving this thing a whirl. I never get a chance to talk to anyone, and I'm thinking this might serve as some sort of evil that has become necessary.