A Dreamy, Breezy Post about Sunshine & Rainbows & Shit

Or, What I Do in My Basement is Wholesome so Fuck You

[Sorry, I don't Mean to Sound So Defensive, I Just have to Keep My Online Persona Consistent As to Not Draw Any Attention to the Fact that I Might be a Dynamic Human Being Capable of More than One Trance-like Emotional State]

There's not many better feelings than driving through the countryside on a sunny day, the brightness carefully suppressed from damaging my eyeballs by my Bob Dylan shades, stretches of trees and farmland flashing past on either side, the windows down, a cool almost moist breeze wrapping it's invisible scarves around me and through the cabin of my car, the sun-bleached asphalt unwinding ahead, with music blasting, me singing out at the top of my lungs--

That's one thing I need to do more, but I have nowhere really to go right now. Of course, I would also have to wait for a nice day. That might be a while, at the rate things are going. I mean, I could drive somewhere just to drive--just to leave the house. Get some fresh air.

There is something to be said about driving around on a gloomy day, too: the window cracked, the fresh drops filling my nostrils with their perfume, listening to the Allman Brothers Idlewild South, the slow slosh of the windshield wipers--back in my twenties I would have had a cigarette, the menthol and tobacco wafting with the rain scent creating a sort of intoxicating potpourri.

This weekend has been more like winter than early May, though, and the only thing fun about driving around in winter is driving at night when the snow is blowing, an X-Wing Pilot flying through hyperspace. "This is Red Leader..." As fun as that is, I am not in the mood.

That's Ohio for you, I suppose. Instead of going on a drive, I have barely left the basement. I have spent a long, seemingly endless amount of time down here, re-arranging my shit--getting my organ bench from the garage, sitting my trunk on it and using the combined structure as a table for my synth and my drum machine, and moving my guitars and drum set around to make it all work. This might actually be my favorite basement setup yet.

This space really works really well as a one-man recording operation (and maybe eventually for live-streaming) but it would only be conducive for a full band if it was like a three piece or four piece, max. Four piece might be stretching it, actually. It would definitely be loud and sweaty... Gross. No, I like the idea of doing a one-man band thing, and I like the idea of being a member of a band, but I wouldn't want that band to actually practice here after we gain more members than my brother and me.

We'll see. We really just even need to actually practice more than once or twice to really be considered a thing. I mean, what else have we got going on?

One thing as a musician that I strive to do, really as an artist, in general--because actually this is also kind of the essence of writing fiction--is take my audience to a specific time and place, and fusing these two disparate media together can help make it even more real, more present... And it has been a dream of mine to do for a long time.

I did kind of a proto-version of it with my novel, Escapes, creating a playlist on Spotify that covers music mentioned in or relating to the story. I am listening to that now, actually. It has a weird mixture of jazz, rock, punk, alternative, metal, and pop, as the story covers a lot of territory musically.

With my upcoming short story collection, Asshole Years, I would like to take that idea of combining music and reading to the next level. After I finish editing and proofreading it, the collection will go into production and I can set a firm release date. While that's taking place, I will start working on an accompanying soundtrack--think Pink Floyd but with a noise punk-alternative-new wave edge.

That's really why I got an analog synth. To add to the space rock-psychedelic ambient flavor of my sound. When I used to perform regularly, I would often get compared to Syd Barrett or Pink Floyd. I don't know if that's actually true, but that's what audience members (and totally different people) have told me after performances, on more than one occasion. Anyways, I plan to start composing the new, mostly instrumental songs for the collection soon, and I will include a download code or something with the book, and really lean into that.

And actually, to tie it all together with a neat little bow, driving around seemingly aimlessly is one theme that does carry through the collection, somewhat. I guess it's good that I'm in that frame of mind. Maybe I need to go on a road trip for the inspiration.

If the goddamn weather ever cooperates long enough.

30-Something Navel Gazing At My Navel-gaziest (And 13 Other Reasons Why Smooth is Better than Crunchy)

Sometimes, I feel compelled to write about politics, but then I question that urge, and ask myself if I really want to be another voice in the echo chamber. The problem with so many people feeling their opinions are valid just because they have them has kind of made holding any opinion seem absurd. But hey, you know where the US is ranked in education.

If I hold any particular political viewpoint--and it's sad that this is in fact looked at as a political viewpoint--it's that the humanities are important and provide something vital that you can't really get through facts and figures alone, unless you're truly looking at the macro. It's the humanities that help people to build empathy through the experiences of others, to get anyone to look at the macro in the first place.

It is more evident than ever that we need the humanities in our everyday lives, because not enough people are focusing on the bigger picture and how they affect it, and many seem to have a difficult time recognizing that we, as a collective of individuals, have become overly narcissistic and that it is seriously damaging our society. After all, if Donald Trump represents anything, it's narcissism more than anything else. I look around me, and look into myself, really deeply, and I come to the conclusion that too many people have stopped listening, myself too, to some extent, because they are focusing so hard on shouting out into the abyss, to the detriment of everything else in their lives. Listening, and really, actively paying attention to what's happening around you instead of hyper-focusing on what other people think about how you think about things is important and something that we often forget to do.

But maybe nuance really is dead, and we are really living in a post-nuance universe.

After all, it does seem like everything has to be a bold bright explosion of sensory overload navel gazing narcissistic masturbating pile of maggot infested horse shit, which let's be honest, is necessary to view in 4K, in order for people to pay attention. The maggots just don't seem real enough with less definition.

I am pretty sure this is what Ray Bradbury in the 50s, Kurt Vonnegut in the 60s, DEVO in the 70s, William Gibson in the 80s, Chuck Palahniuk in the 90s and Radiohead in the 2000s were all talking about in their own way, and I hope I am adding in my own small way to that conversation, because it's more relevant than ever.

As an aside, I recognize that those are just a few examples from a nearly infinite number that I could have chosen, and that there are probably many that I am even unaware of that might be better examples, but these are all ones that spoke to me in some way.

Anyways, as a Xennial, I grew up in the age when the public internet was in its infancy, before it was quite so universally accessible, and the speeds weren't really fast enough to do any significant computing, so it was easy to look out into the universe wearing major blinders, but not hard to avoid if you were open to finding things you weren't expecting. True, you had to be looking for something in order to find it, but you also had to be open to understanding it if what you found contradicted your viewpoint. That doesn't mean you had to change your viewpoint, but you had to at least question it. And you had to be looking. You didn't have to accept anything as a hard-fast rule, but the fundamental rule still remained the same. Look...

Fast-forward to today: the idea that this and others of the old rules also still apply, that you're not always right and it's a good thing to censor yourself sometimes, has gotten lost in the abyss--just look at the chatter on Facebook or Twitter on any typical day and you'll see what I mean. Of course, these rules are all interrelated.

By the way, the point of being anti-censorship and promoting freedom of speech isn't that censorship itself is wrong, it's more based on the enlightenment principle that censorship is only reasonable when it is self-governed, and you develop the ability to understand right and wrong from learning, and thus avoid making mistakes from understanding them through the experiences of others. Hence, it's okay and actually really important sometimes to withhold saying something if you're not really adding value to the conversation. True, sometimes the only value that something has is the contribution itself, but I suppose that's something you have to take the time for yourself to decide too, and that maybe, even if you decided to do something once and think something once, it does not mean that you can't change your mind when you get new information that changes your understanding of the thing.

Everyone just needs to take their fingers off the triggers and back down little, or a lot, even, and really stop and think about things, and start paying attention to what is really happening. Just because you have the ability to share your feelings instantly for the entire mega-verse to see, maybe a little filtering isn't a bad thing sometimes, or maybe even more often than not, it is a really good thing, and it's okay to think things through a little before reacting to something.

That's another thing the humanities can do, if you let them: they can help you develop a little emotional intelligence. Emotions are primal but trainable, if you take the time to question yourself a little and be willingly to admit that sometimes you have bad ideas and that it's good to learn from others, you will be better off. Can I just say here, yay multi-culturalism! And I am not sorry if that offends you because fuck you.

I know I can be guilty of being ignorant sometimes too, and it's safe to say that I have had plenty of bad ideas over the years, and many of them involved alcohol, but that's neither here nor there. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that I am better or worse than anyone, but I am saying that I try to hold myself to higher standards than what my actual nature sometimes wants me to, and that's a good thing.

Also, it is not my intention to be lecturing anyone, but take what I am saying for what it is, nothing more, nothing less. Maybe you agree, maybe you don't, and I am open for a real, intellectual debate about it, but other than that. I am right and you are wrong, so, as they said it in The Midnight Gospel, put that butt plug in the asshole of your universe.

Music That Kicks My Ass and Other Three, Four and Five-Letter Words

Today's blog post is brought to you by the schwa and 40 oz bottles of Miller High Life. I plan to spend the better part of today figuring out how to play the guitar solo in the Kingsman classic version of "Louie Louie" because to be quite frank, it's about goddamn time.

By the way. I also really love the original, the Richard Berry and the Pharaohs version, and the Toots and the Maytals version is also high up there. Joan Jett and the Blackhearts? Hell yes! That version slaps too, as the kids say. I wonder, did the Ramones ever cover it?

Unfortunately, it does not seem like The Ramones covered  "Louie Louie" (that I could find in a 30 second Google search) but, of course, if they did, it would probably kick ass!

Anyways, I am getting a bit off topic, or least on a different tangent about the same topic, and I do really want to talk about this guitar solo. As a self-proclaimed "Louie Louie" super fan and someone who's been playing guitar for roughly...25 years...Jesus...I feel a great amount of shame that I don't already know the entire Kingsmen version by heart. The rest of the song, of course, is a cake walk. I am determined this time around to get it, though. Give me a few years and I will get a bar band together that will play nothing but EVERY goddamn version of the song I can find.

This solo, when I have attempted to biff my way through it before, like what ends up happening most of the time that I attempt to learn someone else's song, I always end up jamming on my own thing. Call it a habit or call it a curse. I'll let you decide. I guess that's probably why my guitar playing has never gotten real complex. I have learned a bunch of catchy riffs but never the complete song unless it's just straight chords. I have also learned scales and chords and shit, but the best way to learn how to apply the theory is by learning to play songs...Naturally...And I have never really really done that on a serious level.

Giving up on learning it is not an option this time, though. And I am going back to other songs learn them in entirety, as well. I am hoping by the time this whole epidemic things is over, I will come out of it a better guitarist (and a better drummer too...but that is a whole different blog post).

It's taking a while to get to a point where I am ready to record, and that's okay, but I hope to start before the end of the year, and I think that timeline is totally reasonable at this point. I might tide myself over by getting out the old drum machine and throwing something fun together for old time's sake.

At least I don't need to work a whole lot on my bass playing to get into recording shape. That will more be a matter of coming up with the bass lines, and that I usually just improvise because that's what works well for me, I think.

Anyways, what it all comes down to is that I am going to use this time I am stuck inside to create something to listen to, hopefully. We'll see. I will certainly give it the old college try.

On that note, I have some jamming to accomplish. See all you crazy folks on the other side!

Standing in Mr. Vonnegut's Shadow

The longer it stretches between posts, the more it seems like a chore. Even though, when it comes down to it, it's really not. However, even if some posts are strung out between long stretches, I would just be shitting the bed in a major way if I gave it up after nine years. That's how you know I plan to keep this blog indefinitely for some time. It's pride related.

Actually, I've been blogging much longer, but nine years is how long I've maintained this particular website in some form, which existed even before I bought this domain name. When I first started it, I kept it up as just a plain-old Blogger website called Out in the Fringes. The original intent for this particular domain was to ramble about whatever was at the top of my head and also to publish my original fiction.

Since then, I have figured out better ways to publish my fiction and poetry, but on this website, I have spent all of these years honing my randomness, and it's as sharp as a bent thumb-tack against your ass through two layers of pants: you'll still feel it but it's more of a minor annoyance. Overall, I like to think of myself as a cross between Hunter S. Thompson and the more meta side of Kurt Vonnegut, with maybe a splash of F. Scott Fitzgerald, but I'm probably in reality just a poor man's Chuck Palahniuk from the Midwest, but way less cool.

For a while, I aspired to write more stream-of-consciousness, especially after reading Ulysses and Mrs. Dalloway, but I am far, far from that skill-wise so it's better that I stick with what I've already established. I do feel like reading these stream-of-consciousness texts has at least colored my writing in an interesting way, even if I don't dive into the deep ends of the style like I originally wanted.

On the less rigidly academic end of the spectrum of my influences, a friend from grad school introduced to me Harlan Ellison through "Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman." I was of course, familiar with him a little even though I didn't know it because of the original series Star Trek episode he wrote, "The City on the Edge of Forever," but "Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman" inspired me to buy the collection where it appeared, Paingod and Other Delusions, which I am nearly done reading. I definitely need to read more science fiction like this, which I would say exists in a similar universe as Vonnegut, but also Ray Bradbury, George Orwell and Phillip K. Dick, which all have also inspired me in some way.

This split between more "literary" and more "pop art" in my influences definitely explains why I don't stick to one genre or another or really even consider that when I go to write a story. The ideas just come and I just write them. There's no real grand plan, at least not to my knowledge. My styles are slowly merging, though.

That doesn't say as much about my current short story collection, Asshole Years, due out some time in 2019, as it does my next baby, Xennial, due out Election Day 2020. I am really excited for both, but Xennial will have all brand new stories, and they are all more in the style where I'm heading that the styles where I've been.

Speaking of which, I have been thinking about it recently, and I might eventually release the rest of the stories from my first collection, Tales from the Fringes--the ones that didn't end up in Asshole Years. A lot of what's left originally appeared in this blog. Not all did, but many of them, if not most, did. It has been almost exactly a year since I published something. My most recent book, my second poetry collection, Idiot Parade, came out on May 12th of last year. If I wanted to publish these remaining stories as a collection, I wouldn't really have to do much. It is, of course, possible that I have already planned for this and a completed manuscript already exists lol

Hmmm, maybe I'll consider it. I would be tempted to rename it, though. I don't know. It's definitely not my main priority right now. That is in getting Asshole Years finished. We'll see what happens, I guess.

Procrastination Paradise

Greetings, fellow humans of 2018. It’s been quite the year, eh? I know it has for me. It started off strong—my Akron Soul Train Residency came and went (and went extremely well) during the first quarter of the year, and then my inspiration to write kind of fizzled after that, with maybe a few short bursts here and there. Maybe I just used it all up and needed to refuel—I don't know.

I’m not even really sure where I’m going with this blog post, to be honest. Not that that’s ever stopped me before. No, I’m going to do like I do and just sort of wing it. See where it goes. Put fingers to keys, words to screen, and hopefully, after the dust settles, what I write will make some semblance of sense. Maybe even have some coherence.

We'll see, I suppose, but I wouldn't get my hopes up too much.

Black Sabbath's Paranoid is spinning on my record player, because I needed some “Electric Funeral” in my life. This was recorded before they spent more money on cocaine than on the music. It should at least be a 50/50 split. I don’t know. Cocaine has never really been for me, and I feel like, at 36, I’m too old to start that shit now. It would just be sad, at this point. Too mid-life crisis-y for my taste.

In my experience, it’s better to use drugs to help find inspiration, rather than relying on them for inspiration. It’s a subtle difference, but an important one. It’s best this way, when they're more of a tool than a crutch. I’m finding that meditation works really well for that, too. It’s also much healthier. I’m no spring chicken anymore, so I have to think about that shit. I’ve already started falling apart enough—I don’t need it to get any worse.

Finding inspiration can definitely be tricky. It might not always be, but sometimes it is. Even if I know what I'm going to write about, even if I’ve already brainstormed it and outlined it and all that business, actually sitting down and punching it out is the hard part.

Of course, it doesn’t help that I am something of a first-rate procrastinator. Even in grad school, even during my short but busy journalist days, I have always been one to wait until as close to the deadline as humanly possible to complete an assignment. It usually always worked out for me, which is probably why I have kept doing it all these years. The results speak for themselves, anyways. Well, it has gotten me this far.

Every writing advice column/blog/magazine is loaded with the sorts of advice that the aspiring writers who subscribe to them will follow and have varying degrees of success with in the real world. I used to subscribe to that advice, too, writing so many words a day or for so long a day, or whatever it happens to be this week, but to be honest, I think the best advice I have ever gotten is to just find what works and stick with it, no matter what the experts say.

The key is to just keep, keeping on, even if that means only sitting down every once and while, when the inspiration actually does strike, and getting out what I am able to get out during that time. I just keep doing it, no matter what. Eventually, something will click and I’ll finish what I set out to finish. It might not turn out how I originally thought it would, but that’s okay. It’s almost always for the better, that way.

So maybe I’m doing more guitar-playing than writing right now, but that’s okay. I will come back around to the writing again. See? I’m doing it now. That’s all the proof I need. It might not be the thing I need to focus on writing, but it's something. That, the short story collection, might be far from done, but if I continue pushing myself, continue story by story, page by page, word by freaking word, no matter how long it actually does take, I will get it done, and it will turn out exactly like it's supposed to turn out.

Maybe the trick for me is motivating myself through sitting down and writing a blog post first, because I feel pretty super-jazzed about writing right now. Hmmm, maybe there's something to that. I'm not sure, but I'm just going to go with it, because at least it's working now, and that's all I really need.

Major Announcement, Complete with Fanfare

Hola mis amigos y amigas! Que tal? Es Sabado y estoy escribiendo un "blog post" para ustedes!

For those of you who don't speak Spanish: Hi friends! What's up? It's Saturday, and I'm writing a blog post for you!

And that's all for today's Espanol para Gringos, 101, brought to you by Sabado Gigante (RIP) and Medalla Light.

I'm in a good mood this morning for a few reasons. For one, I didn't have any obligations so I was able to sleep in past 9. Not to mention, it's shaping up to be a beautiful day weather-wise. However, the main reason I am just bubbling over with enthusiasm before noon on a Saturday is that I am ready to reveal the cover of my Akron Soul Train chapbook.

Drumroll, please. Spotlight ready... Curtains! Fanfare!

(front cover)

(back cover)

There you go. Hopefully not too underwhelming, or overwhelming. Hopefully just the right amount of whelming.

Yes, Idiot Parade is the title, and I want to ensure the PC Police that I don't mean that in a negative way. It's in reference to a line of one of the poems contained inside, "Expectations."

It will be approximately 50-60 pages of all free-verse and blackout poetry. My original intention was to also include flash fiction in it, but I instead plan on releasing another chapbook/short collection this summer that is exclusively fiction.

Anyways, this is also the first official publication of Gott Press, my own imprint. It seemed time to create more of a separation between myself and Createspace, and this was a great opportunity to do so with some of the stipend I received for being an Akron Soul Train Fellow. It is important to me to have complete creative and artistic independence so I can say what I want to say in the manner I want to say it, and this will ensure that I will continue to be able to do so. I have wanted to do this for a while, and I am excited about the future and the many books I plan on releasing on this label. More to come on this!

If you have been following my journey as an Akron Soul Train Fellow, you probably recognize the cover as a picture of the art that was created during my Happening at my Fellowship Kickoff party. I really liked how it turned out and it seemed like an appropriate use of this piece. The back cover, you might be able to tell, is the same picture, cropped slightly differently, and heavily edited with the photo editing software of my Samsung Galaxy S9.

Idiot Parade will be released on May 12 with a party here in Akron (more info TBA soon). I will be reading from it, as well as a few from my first poetry collection, Live Organ Transplants, and maybe some of my flash fiction, as well. There will also be live music and booze, and copies for sale. Stay tuned for more information!

I have one more official week left of my Fellowship. It has gone fast and I have thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it. That being said, I have plenty of work to do before May 12th, so that is only the official end. Really, it's a beginning, too. All my hard work and struggling the past 15 or so years is really starting to pay off, and I am excited about what the future holds.

Now it's time to go out and enjoy this beautiful sunshine. It's a good day for a drive through the country, and I am feeling especially inspired to create more art. Hopefully, you take advantage of this gorgeous day, too!

What's Happening?!

It's about high time I posted something since my last post was in... October. Whoops. Well, there goes my marketing plan. Just kidding, I don't really have one of those. I know I probably should but I don't really care. I just want to make my art, write my writings, do my thing.

On that subject, March 1 starts my Akron Soul Train Fellowship, where I will spend a very busy month creating an original work of art, which I can loosely describe at this point as a poetry/blackout poetry/flash fiction chapbook. I also have an interest in collage art and screen printing so there will likely be elements of that involved too. I hope to find a tasteful way to combine all of these elements but I guess we'll see.

As for the topic that will be the focus of my writing, I don't really have that either. I am going to see where my inspiration will take me, but if you are familiar with what I do, it will probably be a combination of existential angst, political rants, dark humor and general weirdness/absurdity. If that sounds interesting to you, there will be a couple of opportunities for you to get a firsthand account of what this will be all about.

On March 2, I will be kicking this whole thing off right with a party, which I thought would fun to make a Happening. If you are not familiar with what a happening is, well, time to do some reading. Or you could just watch/listen to this lecture by Happening Artist Allan Kaprow:

If this sounds like something you'd being interested in  and  you live in the Akron area, I would love to you see you there:

https://www.facebook.com/events/2470934783132054/

If this isn't really something you'd likely do, but you are into poetry, hate right-wing propaganda and have always wanted to tear apart some books and scribble in the pages, I am having a Blackout Poetry workshop on March 10. It does cost $15.00 but materials are provided and it's at a coffee shop so you can get your caffeine fix while you stick it to the man! If that sounds like fun, please check out the facebook invite for more information, and be sure to get your tickets on Eventbrite:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1157145331088578/

The Control Room

Photo illustration courtesy of Geralt on Pixabay.

Sitting here at my computer, listening to conversations going on out in the yard below and back though the french doors, from the kitchen, which sits across the semi-lit gulf of dining room that separated me in my study from the conversation I had just momentarily parted from.

Scrolling down through my music, I hit upon Wilco, and have a sort of moment of Zen as everything all around me connects through the music I play, and I feel slightly outside of it all, on a parallel plane, sitting at the helm of the control room of the universe.

I play "Radio Cure," which feels in my gut the right song for that exact moment, the thoughts all swishing through my brain floating on my office chair on the waves of a deep red lake of Merlot, the wine class sky distorting the world outside in a sort of hazy otherworldly blur, and I smile, the notes of the song falling all around me, like a misty rain, warm in my sunlit face, closing my eyes as I look up in the vast open eternity beyond the illusion of blue skies and clouds... The song climaxes, the hairs on my arms standing as the rush of sonic pleasure runs through me,"Our distance has the way of making our love understandable" soaring...

My mind drifts back to my physical surroundings, the dark of the night, the fluttering voices broken by the occasional outbreak of laughter. I let the album play on, grab a handful of cigars from the humidor on my desk and absorb into the rushing current.