Sorry For Feeling Good. When I was young I wrote everything down. I wrote things down for myself and I wrote things down for other people. Lots of people did the same for me. I still have scraps of paper, song lyrics, and letters from my teens. I find bits stuffed into record sleeves, photo…
Category: writing
Forever Young
What’s more depressing than turning 40 when you’re a perpetual punk rock teenager in a body that’s aging without your consent? Realizing that there are zero punk rock songs about turning 40. And WHY are there no punk rock songs about turning 40? Because Punk Rock just turned 40 last year. Yup. ’77. Argue the…
Who Wrote Holden Caulfield
I spent years visiting the city before I actually moved there at 20, and even with an address to speak of, I still ended each day with the consequential feeling that the city didn’t want me. There were exactly three things that kept me coming back. A boy. A man. And a book.
Pillbox
The box held a myriad of other decades-old scraps of discontent in the way of I’ll-see-you-after-work notes from old lovers, apologies, concert stubs, old house keys, and empty drug bags. That was my metaphorical pillbox. It brought up a question in my mind: How would I describe what goes into a pillbox in one word? The word I came up with is ‘Arsenal’. I also wondered how my pillbox of today differs from my teen-aged one. Because I sure as hell hope I’ve made some progress since then. The arsenal theme has stayed on. It’s still my finger on the trigger, but the weapons are wiser, and I work like hell to keep them pointed away from me these days.
True Love Ways
I moved through the desert on a camel one day. Its name was Michael Jackson. I looked up at the pyramids, wondering which was the “Great” one, and I was unimpressed. You were in bed somewhere on the east coast with your arm wrapped around a girl whose name you never knew. In fairness, she didn’t know yours either, but she’d glance at your drool on the pillow for the next couple weeks…and she’d think about it. But she wouldn’t remember.
Look On Down From The Bridge
I sensed the pain of ten lifetimes in his dilatory reach. It seemed to be ages before his bone-bare fingers found their simple target. I remember thinking that he would be so much happier if he were dead. Surely, it doesn’t end this way, does it? Surely, there must be so much more… Three days later, the County Coroner came for his body. That is what this haunting, Portuguese orchestration of notes that the world calls Fado feels like. It’s not the type of music whose Sound you describe for another. To describe Fado is to capture a feeling.
My Letters
The Fastbacks : My Letters The Fastbacks were introduced to me by a penpal. I can’t help but think that the lyrical content was greatly inspired by songwriter Kim Warnick’s very similar experiences to mine, writing letters to strangers. The song is on 1991’s “The Answer is You” Double 7″ release. The picture you’ll see…
Three Imaginary Boys
It’s been a month since the last post. Inspiration has been sparse, but it came by way of a perfectly dated hotel room in palm springs last night and my unerring acumen for finding surviving segments of unspoiled mid-century allure; the patina of decades past warming my soul and fueling the creative fire. The first…
Waltz #2
My last blog caused an upheaval, on a myriad of levels, for which I was vastly underprepared. I’m shifting this entry to what I write the most yet choose to share the least; my prose. It’s typically very dark. This particular piece, written over a night and a day, bled onto the page with a constant…
I Need You
We encountered one another on the threshold leading into the show. He muttered something incoherent and I punched him in the face. He fell backward and into a crowd of punks and skins on the sidewalk. It was raining. That picture stands out in my mind. I kicked him while he was down. I implored him to hit me back in front of everyone else. I wanted to know the reason he saw it fit to do so in private but not publicly.
beth blaszczyk : What We Do Is Secret 