REWJR

NOTES FROM DECEMBER-JANUARY

2012-02-03T15:15:00.004-05:00

people in the future will have books or e-files of their text conversations and e-mails similar in idea to a compiled book of letters today

a collective of individuals is what we desire

so much hidden beneath our outer appearance and it's terrifying what lies there

humans as food for other species as a strange, unfathomable idea; esp. since assumption of human centrality posited (mostly) by christian faiths assumes otherwise as these ideologies inhabit and inform to a greater extent our basic and underlying assumptions and expectations since we learn what we should assume and expect from day one

if you are a dad and you are looking at yr children what do you think about when you do

seeing cars i think are my friends' cars all the time

elk's lodges' humming w/ christmas gatherings, hurrying around cleveland in cars that aren't mine

paucity of snow and cold as damaging / obfuscating to my understanding of this time of year; feel spacey dreamy not real but okay

a mass w/o the smearing of individuality is what we desire; this smearing / loss why communistic things usually fail

i would be standing before a river, think, you

children w/ both parents last names as new thing / style (to me)

if i go through some miraculous thing w/ you, we will be closer

if i share enough time w/ you, go to places w/ you, we will be closer

feeling of being unable to break through something, go for it fully, despite a complete desire for it

both/and thought as preferred to either/or thought

all we will never know, my mother's stories and processes, a stranger's heart, how the lives around us have unfolded or not

all yr life you may try to keep things from going away from you

what does it mean to live somewhere and nowhere, to be able to be alive anywhere, to be aware of the world and not

i love many people

there's nothing to get

THE SNOW, THE COLD

2012-01-02T18:42:00.005-05:00

December is a month of transformation for me. January too. They mean snow. They mean cold. They signify the incipience of the ending of the circle that is a year. Again, we have ridden the circumference of its course. I try to measure what the accumulation of events in the context of a year mean, what they stand for and constitute and the scale breaks, the ruler snaps.

Last January (2011) I was sitting in Buckeye Donuts in Columbus, Ohio and overheard a man tell another man that he wasn't sure if he was going to make it through the winter. Both men had conventional winter hats on and were blowing breath into hands recently relinquished of their gloves. The man who was listening at first assured the man who was speaking first that, indeed, they would make it through the winter—with some beer and football and a little getting-together, yes—they would make it through. For whatever reason, his words stayed with me that day. Out of every conversation you overhear most get sent to (what I like to believe is) the equivalent of a trash can or external hard drive for a computer—recoverable, but (probably, eventually, inevitably) forgotten. Not like yeah, man, we got it bad. Winter... And not that I find savior-like warmth in beer and football. Far from it. But there is something to be said about the snow, the cold.

We cold-snow-blessed Midwesterners of a certain latitude get something that those non-snow-cold-blessed don't. An endurance. A promise. Some combination of sadness/fatalism amalgamated with joy/carefully-calculated will. We have to get through something. There are distinct obstacles to our days. We use moments of time to tie a scarf, shovel a sidewalk, pull on gloves, or blow breath in our hands—moments that we might otherwise use doing other things. We take time. That's what December directs me to reflect on. Time. We slow down. What we assume about traveling through our days gets deconstructed. We follow our breath and feel warmth so much more fully.

In our hibernation of sorts we have dreams that tell us who we will be when it's time to wake up. And we do wake up—in March or April or May—changed inexorably, punctuated by the seasons of the Midwest.

NOTES WRITTEN WHILE TRAVELING FROM CLEVELAND TO BLOOMINGTON

2011-12-04T23:22:00.006-05:00

people from my hometown commenting on my appearance / my weight

reading my mom's texts, how formal she is in them

certain anxieties about writing manifesting

do my parents think proudly about how they have 'made' me

do you think there is something larger than you out there

not good at thinking of a specific for a category, but if you give me a specific i will tell you what it means

majority of people don't want to critically assess and deconstruct the stuff of their lives

cousin's baby 'making eyes' and riding a rocking horse, we say 'see ya later' to him and wave

old friend who works at a nuclear power plant in painesville, ohio now

very normal people who feel trapped but don't want to admit it are the majority of people in america

guy with chief wahoo tatooed on the back of his head at the bar

college girls returning to my hometown to dance with the old guys at our town's bar

girl next to me on plane comments on the 'ugly browness' of a river we fly over, i say 'humans' in response

missing someone like you can't help it, always

there are planes in the sky at all times

get warm fuzz feeling from stewardess pouring my coffee, placing a napkin on my thigh

my mum saying all her kids are a crapshoot w/r/t getting married

lots of people on this plane who used to be little kids sleeping like them again

guy next to me talks about stocks and bloomington business and multi-million dollar companies

the reproduction of the relations of production...

dead chicken pieces between heated up wheat thirty thousand feet in the sky

some guy spouting rhetoric about deserving

everyone was once a tiny animal who learned to read signs

'truth' is out there and people want it now, now, right now, got to, now, okay

do you think that we should try so hard

'FALLING' IN 'LOVE'

2011-10-25T13:12:00.002-04:00

A few weeks ago, I received a letter in the mail from someone I do not know asking me to describe the act of falling in love. After much hesitation, I decided not to write him back. But I did write something. Here it is⎯

First, I would not call 'falling' in 'love' an act. An act implies that the thing being done is being done with intention, by acting consciously. Falling in love, in all its beautiful triteness, is not intentional, at least not at first. I don't fall down the stairs on purpose, but I do feel something from it and I may throw myself down the stairs on purpose to re-create the original feeling.

I 'fall' in 'love' with the idea of you, with the movement of your body, with words you have learned elsewhere and strung together on a clothesline for me. Every moment that has accumulated in you and brought you to this moment where I am seeing you or hearing you or touching you is being effused. Your childhood, everywhere you once were, versions and past-lives, are all amalgamated here, now.

I fall in love with the incompleteness of you, with your unfinalizedness. With the knowledge that we are always becoming something we once were not. I see the route of your growth with a certain fog ahead and I want to go into this fog. I want to run into it with you, and if we lose each other in it, then so be it. I just know I want to be close to you.

Anything that happens after I realize I have 'fallen' in 'love' with you can be ended by consciousness of the realization of this. Consciousness of this realization may serve to obfuscate moments of their trueness. The falseness of interaction then may be agreed upon should both parties in 'love' understand this predicament. But still, moments together may not glow as they once did. A creative, ever-re-envisioning eye is needed, then.

I am thinking of a certain person as I write this. I am drawing from experience. I have come to know all of this only by doing it. Now, although still with much trepidation, we may call 'falling' in 'love' an act.

The strongest feeling I remember is one of the unexpected. The unforeseeable. You who appear as if out of nowhere and change me without trying, without intention. We who meet here in a single moment for the first time, and then, again, again, again. I have come to need you in my life, and I know I did not before. I know I may not once more.

THINGS I BOUGHT ON SAINTSENECA TOUR

2011-09-25T20:20:00.002-04:00

The last two weeks of August saw me traveling west for the first time in my life. Saintseneca, a folk band from Columbus, Ohio, asked me to partially fill-in for Luke Smith who could not make the trip. This would be the third tour (first, second) of 2011 I would go on, and the third out of three in which Maryn Jones would be traveling with me, filling in for Luke along my side. The tour would end in Bloomington, Indiana, where I would then live.

Three days before the tour began, Saintseneca's primary songwriter Zac Little and I drove my belongings to my future home in Bloomington, Indiana. I left $320 for a security deposit in a Langston Hughes book in my closet for Matt, whose room I would be moving into. Most of the money I made in the summer working at St. Joseph Montessori School's Summer Learning Camp had to be used for said security deposit, August's rent, & September's rent. This meant I would have a diminutive amount of money to use for the tour west. Graciously, Saintseneca agreed to pay Maryn and myself $5 a day for playing with them on the tour, translating to $75 total for fifteen days of traveling. I ended up never having to spend any money of my own, using the combination of this daily allowance, the gifts and graciousness of others (most places we played at cooked us food or gave us a free meal otherwise), and a little self-restraint on my stomach's part. In terms of food for the trip, I brought a jar of peanut butter, a bag of brazil nuts, a bag of some kind of trail mix from the Clintonville food co-op, and a bag of almonds.

I realize the utter subjective nature of this experience, understand the obfuscation and impossibility of any true-capital-t-truth that this post holds in any theoretical sense.

This is firstly an account of the things I bought on a tour with the band Saintseneca from August 14th to August 29th. Lastly, I don't know what it is.

THINGS I BOUGHT ON SAINTSENECA TOUR

8/16/11 - Order of french fries from a diner, Badlands National Park - $2.00
8/17/11 - 20 oz. coffee to-go from Wall Drug, Wall, SD - $0.64
8/18/11 - Veggie scramble, biscuits & gravy, coffee at Hungry Tiger Too, Portland, OR - $10.00
8/19/11 - Threw in for a twelve pack of Rainier Beer, Seattle, WA - $2.00
8/20/11 - Hasbrowns and bottomless coffee at Wayward Vegan Cafe, Seattle, WA - $4.20
8/20/11 - Cariboos beer at W2 Media Cafe, Vancouver, BC - $4.50
8/21/11 - Order of fried pan potatos & bottomless coffee at Bon's, Vancouver, BC - $3.30
8/21/11 - Bought a beer from Maryn, Olympia, WA - $1.00
8/22/11 - Five bananas, 2 lb bag of carrots at a Safeway, Portland, OR - $3.20
8/23/11 - Order of fries & coffee from In-n-out burger, Somewhere, CA - $2.89
8/23/11 - Tip on a free beer at Amnesia, Sanfransico, CA - $1.00
8/24/11 - Split a coffee w/ Maryn at Denny's, Emery, CA - $1.00
8/24/11 - 2 lb bag of carrots, rice cakes, grapefruit from Grocery Outlet, Oakland, CA - $3.72
8/26/11 - Footlong veggie sub from Subway, Parachute, CO - $5.30
8/27/11 - French fries and various beers from Record Bar, Kansas City, MO - $12.50
8/28/11 - Coffee from McDonald's, Somewhere, MO - $1.00
8/28/11 - Tips on free beers from O'Leaver's Pub, Omaha, NE - $2.00
8/29/11 - 20 oz coffee from Pilot, Somewhere, IA - $1.00
8/29/11 - Cobb salad from the Owlery, Bloomington, IN - $8.50

TOTAL : $69.75

Pausing to rest on one of the many long drives.

Sadie from Indianapolis.

Zeke <3 dinos.

BADLANDS.

"Tour photo"

We camped here in the Badlands.

Wall Drug cafeteria.

Our tour-mobile.

Montana gas station. Zeke likey.

Where we camped in Spokane.

Sleepy on the way to Portland.

Portland, Union Pine.

Crazy indoor-outdoor mall place in Vancouver.

Vancouver.

A bug friend.

Tented OUT!

We drove through a cloud on the Golden Gate Bridge.

Great Salt Lake.

Salt Lake City, UT

JESUS.

Trail along the mountains, Provo, UT.

The water was cold.

"Picturesque"

RAINBOW!!

Giant cloud.

RAINBOW!!

Damn / Nice'd.

You better believe it.

Stopped the car in Omaha for these next two.

Alien brother.

Slide in Omaha.

BEING GONE: POETRY TOUR REVISITED

2011-09-13T15:45:00.000-04:00

This post may be the 2011 version of another post I made about traveling.

Being gone: Writing as reconstruction, memory as re-representing / atrophying mechanism, and the existence of multiple bodies coinciding at different velocities, accelerations, decelerations and identities in spaces* usually designated as houses

*the majority of places we read were houses

+This is a remembrance, as writing is, of a certain time, a recalling of the days I shared traveling and reading poems from April 15th, 2011 - April 30th, 2011 with my friends Andy Gardner, Maryn Jones, Jimi Payne, & Matthew Whispers.

*This account was written in September, five months after poetry tour happened, and with substantial help from my tour notebook. I do not believe I could have written about this tour this in-depth from memory. I remember trying to write this back in May, closer to when poetry tour happened, without the notebook, and being able to remember a substantial amount more; but now, hardly anything comes to mind if I do not consult the notebook. The memories have been moved to a deeper chamber of the mind, perhaps, and I now need a key, pass-code, trigger, something. Of course, when I re-read the tour notebook and edited it into the following accounts, I remembered everything, I found the cloister where these instances are stored and was allowed to sort through them. Like watching a documentary of your life. But you can pause it and move around in it, smell it, touch it. Change it, even. What I've found after completing this post is that writing, when we revisit it, is held like clay in the hand of our brain, and we engage with it in infinitely complex ways, ways that elucidate, obfuscate, recreate and make new meanings with the always changing versions of ourselves that must relocate the past as time passes.

APRIL 15, 2011 — COLUMBUS, OH & CHICAGO, IL
I get home from the school I work at at 6:15 and finish packing my things for the trip. We're planning on leaving for Chicago asap, but time has decided to move faster and us slower. Andy and Maryn are milling around, getting their things ready, too. At work, this four year old Cameron and this five year old Connor, were comparing their bicep sizes, Connor telling the younger, more naive Cameron that he couldn't even fit into Cameron's shirt, his muscles were too big, you know. We leave our house (Monster House) around 7:30ish and stop by Maryn's house (the Legion of Doom) so Maryn can get something she forgot. I don't remember much of the car ride to Chicago, besides its length, and how night came on and day turned off while we were still in Ohio. We have a little trouble finding Matthew's apartment, eventually do, park, get out and hold a bunch of bananas over my head in some kind of triumph as Matthew approaches our car. We do some little celebratory-kick-off song-dance on a sidewalk and dodge some dog poop on the grass. A piece of gum I tried to throw out the window has stuck to the passenger's door and is still there and will remain there for several months. Matthew lives on the third floor of an apartment complex that is above an auto repair shop. In the morning you can hear the sound of bolts being unscrewed, a humming of sorts, a buzzing of deconstructions and working exclamations. Drink some Old Styles and sit around, talk without intent for a good minute. Matthew and Andy are looking through a leftover box of baseball cards Matthew found in his room when he moved into his apartment. Some of his roommates come home drunk, bikes in tow. We share smokes by the window and I grow tired, a little drunk. In the morning, I awake to tires being taken off cars and a roommate who asks if I'd like coffee, yes, I would, thank you, and he brings it out into the main dining room area in two glass pitchers. We talk about Cleveland. He's from Kansas. We know some mutual people, someone from Kansas who lives in Cleveland. Pack up our things and leave to meet Jimi Payne at the Flying Saucer for brunch. It is the first gathering of the totality of our tour crew. Jimi walks across the street holding a sleeping bag and another bag of other stuff. We dance and wave our arms around as he approaches. Eat steamed kale with miso sauce that is damp and one of the last greens I will eat for two weeks. Crossword puzzles are being passed around and our waiter is giving us the sign that we have overstayed our welcome, so we get up and go, coffee cups half full. On the drive to Milwaukee it snows.

APRIL 16, 2011 — MILWAUKEE, WI
We pull into Milwaukee, a city I have never been to before, the Riverwest neighborhood. We don't have a place to go yet, so we park, get out of the car, walk in a wet, heavy snow to a nearby coffee house. It is 5pm or so. Hand-painted mural walls, kombucha, vegan baked goods. Veggie chili, even. Two cops are sitting together in full uniform sipping coffee. Matthew buys me a coffee and we sit in a wobbly bench-booth, pass around crossword puzzles, kill time. Jimi and I talk about Terry Eagleton, how Jimi has watched some of his seminars on youtube, essays we've read, the book I'm currently reading. Matthew writes that we are boring on a brown napkin and passes it towards us, then to Andy and Maryn. Leave after a bit more sitting. On the way out we see a flier for the reading where it says I am from "Colombus" and that Jimi is from nowhere. Walk to Shannon and Eric's apartment, which is right next to a bookstore that reminds me of this Christian bookstore in a shopping complex in Akron, Ohio. The laundromat below Shannon and Eric's apartment is called Soapies. A harsh wind blows and I remember it is mid April, feel confused slightly. We walk back toward the coffee place, because Shannon and Eric aren't home. End up going to the place the reading is at, Cream City Collectives. Someone named Heather lets us in and gives us a little tour, explaining how things work there with a touch of pride in her voice. The place has a magenta-pinkish colored front door. It's an infoshop—slogans and insignia emblazoned and adorning the walls, black flags and zines, a lending library. Heather has to go, but assures us it is okay for us to stay there, hang out, eat our peanut butter and trail mix sandwiches, corn chips with salsa. I staple some poetry chapbooks and take in the interior of the space, which seems to have not so much window light coming in. Shannon and Eric arrive and Shannon and I go to the Riverwest food co-op. She buys me a Kombucha wonder drink with her foodstamps. The guy who rings us up effuses an unfriendly feeling, which turns out to be a misperception by me, because he is surprisingly free-spirited, soft-spoken. We wait for people to show up to the reading. Drive to a beer store. I'm going on less than seventy dollars to my name, but split a six pack of Negro Modelo with Jimi. The reading starts. A guy with a quiet voice, petite body and glasses, reads first in a chair near the entrance of the infoshop. The front door of the place is right next to where he reads and he is frequently interrupted by the squeaky door opening and closing. Two folks from St. Louis read, someone whose name on the flier was Boop. The other guy has an enigmatic Brooklyn accent. They do mostly (or all) their readings from memory, political incantations and ruminations mottled with feelings of reclamation, solidarity, the like. A friend I've met through DIY shows named Andrea reads some short, playful poems. Jimi, me, and Matthew. It feels strange to read and only have your perception of what the atmosphere is like, a mere gleaning of what people think, or know or believe, or feel that particular day. This feeling will pervade the entire tour. After the reading, Matthew tells me that we should switch poems. He reads mine, I read his. We go to a bar, play pool, drink two dollar pints of a local microbrew with Andrea and Audrey. A band plays cover songs and the lead singer / piano player has an iPad on a stand with lyrics of the songs hooked up next to his keyboard. A vending machine sells packs of smokes alongside Doritos. The night distills into itself and we head back to Shannon's place. Matthew laments a former crush that is resurfacing. Buoys bobbing. We semi-drunkenly chat outside. I fear I am not really in moments, that I see too much into the future, that I negate possibility by seeing straight to the end. Matthew says it's okay, I don't really, I am in moments, too, come on. Tea and chatting and sleep. I am first up and make tea and greet Andy as he plods into the kitchen. We go out on the roof, take in the frigid air, talk about something, I forget what. Shannon is babysitting an almost three year old named Eureka who says 'aw shucks' a lot and a baby boy named Samson. Walk to the food co-op at baby-infant pace and get some breakfast making supplies. Crossing the streets with these kids is a meaningful task, and I feel at home, a reminder of the school I work at. How every-tiny-inconceivable-thing is meaningful. I play banana phone with Eureka on our brand new fair-trade organic bananas. Jimi sells a bunch of buttons to a re-thread place. I buy a toothbrush (I haven't bought a toothbrush in my life, ever) and Jimi buys razors from the same place we bought beer at the night before. In monotone utterances we say "sell buttons, buy razors" as a kind of definitive chant for this moment of the tour. Sell some of our books to that bookstore (Woodland Pattern Book Center) that reminded me of a Christian bookstore. It is a non-profit bookstore and they have a million books of poetry from everyone on the planet. Meet some affable folks who work there and talk about our tour. When we leave, after a hearty breakfast and Dora the Explorer with Eureka, it is chilly, but warm where the sun is.

APRIL 17, 2011 — MADISON, WI
The drive to Madison is an easy one. 1.5 hours west on I-94. We head straight to the coffee house, Mother Fool's, where the reading will take place. I remember driving in Madison before on a tour with the Sidekicks, but not much else about the town. It has a loose, free-spirited vibe. Houses and shops co-exist on the same block. We pull up and get out. Meet Carrie Lorig, inhabitant and poet of Madison. She is very kind. I think I order a coffee. Free for performers. I am grateful. Contemplate buying a baked good, but remember my waning funds. Plus, the sensation of having a mostly empty stomach for days is something I have learned to be able to do. Christie Taylor reads first, in a disgruntled, remorseful tone, it seems. James Schiller reads next. He is nicely dressed and his poems feel like poems. Heavy set with metaphor, swift jumps from image to image. Not particularly lucid or accessible, but still strong. I think I enjoy it. I meet his wife, Lauren, after he reads. Jimi reads, makes the connection between his book (Austerity Pleasures) and what has been going on in Madison with the protests about recent austerity measures. I am impressed by his on-the-spot meaning making. Smoke break. I read. Meet someone named Ishmael who is a neuroscientist, works in public policy, says something about how amazing the brains of artists, poets, the like, look under brain scanners when they're doing their work. His appreciation is met with ours. We get $3.50 in donations. Go to the Weary Traveler, a restaurant / bar that has a kombucha 'factory' in its basement. Jimi gets a vodka drink that has kombucha in it. Carrie's boyfriend is with us. We split a pitcher of a dark, local beer. On to another bar, this one more sporty. Pool tables. Wrap around bar. Run into Ishmael again, talk more and more about how important his field of study is, what he is trying to do with it. He says something about trying to change the government's policy regarding science to consider neuroscience's findings more acceptable, which would ameliorate some of the old, violent myths about putative differences between people. I have a moment where I can't believe I just met a neuroscientist, think "what is my life." In the morning we wake up to sunshine and Carrie makes coffee. We part ways, putz around by the capitol building for a bit. My mind wanders to the videos I saw of protests here not even a month ago, still happening. Jimi sells some buttons to a re-sell store and we hit the road. We stop at a subway on I-94. Some place called Orange Moose Lodge. A guy watches us order food then stops me, says, "I couldn't figure you guys out. What music do you like? What's your deal?"

APRIL 18, 2011 — MINNEAPOLIS, MN
Monica who set up the show greets us at the door of the house we are reading at, Psychic School of Dream Actualization, and a feeling of deja vu overcomes me. (Minneapolis gives me that eerie familiar-warm-feeling of Ohio.) The street looks like Clifton Blvd in Lakewood. The house is welcoming, walls adorned with homemade art, upside down thriteen colonies flag, a Ronald Reagan quilt. One of those word-scroller machines has "Ayy bay bay" scrolling on it, facing the street. The house reminds me of my house in Columbus. The people remind me of my friends back home. Some more uncannily than others. My heart melts a little. Roommates are milling around—everything seems aesthetically planned out; more of an 'art' feel than a usual punk house. There is a black lab / greyhound mix named Huck. There is a worry-faced orange cat named Geo who is super sweet. In typical house show style, we wait for people to show up for the show. There is wine and beer. We go to a liquor store, Maryn and I split a six pack of something. Smoke some smokes, drink a beer on the porch. In the kitchen, Jillian is making a pizza, and I meet some punks who are trying to unionize the food co-ops. They know Matthew and a good amount of my other friends and their bands. They remind me of Kent friends. Lots of familiar feelings and faces at this reading. It is nice and comfortable, but also confuses me a bit, makes me miss people, question individuality. The you that is you. The show starts around 9:30. The first band sounds like Cold War Kids. Talk to Jimi and Jillian about Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. Something magical. Matt reads nervously next. Monica's band plays. She tells us she recently discovered the "bend" key and we all laugh at her "discovery" as she bends notes during a song. Jimi reads next and "covers" one of my poems, "All scarecrows." Ross, the singer from the first band, tells me he had deja vu during the end of the poem and into Jimi's banter. Another band plays, with horns, sounds Irish-y. People seem drunk in general. I read poems. Jimi says its the best he's ever seen me read. A journalist guy talks to me for a while. He is ingratiating to the point of nausea. I ditch out of the conversation. Walk into the kitchen where Jillian and some others are crouching on the ground, she says, "Want to perch with us?" And I do. The singer from Sorry OK has been "perching since [he] was a kid" so we all indulge for a little while. It's surprisingly difficult to do for a long time. We are laughing asking him questions. His name is "Shuge." It is one of those moments where you are building something with people and creativity flows and love is stirred around like a spirit. And then it is over. I step under a mistletoe and Griffin joins me, implores the symbolism of the mistletoe by looking up at it then at me then at it then at me. I laugh. He says, "I'll make it easy," and turns his cheek towards me. I go to kiss his cheek and he kisses me on the mouth. In the living room, Jillian is playing music of different styles, from swing to hip hop to 90's to dance. We dance a bit. Journalist guy is hanging around, trying to get some kind of a story. It is very weird feeling. He chases the dog around for a while. Leaves awkwardly as we are about to fall asleep. In the morning I wake to Geo cuddling me. Make tea with a pot Cori gives me. Jillian comes downstairs and we laugh about the night before. She makes us coffee. Jimi and her go to the Walker Center for the Arts and the rest of us stay put, make lentil soup. When we all get back together, Jimi and Jillian from the art museum, Andy and Maryn from a walk, we take off for Chicago.

APRIL 19, 2011 — CHICAGO, IL
(Once we left Minneapolis, this day seemed like it never existed.) It is sunny, 50 degrees in Minneapolis, then it snows, blizzard-style, all the way through Wisconsin and rain ushers us into Illinois. Two semi-trucks have flipped on the highway and we sit in traffic for a good few hours. I drive for approx. 8 hours and am delirious, hungry, and crazy when we arrive at the reading in Chicago at Parasite Lost, an apartment inhabited by friends Sara Drake and Cassandra Troyan. We are 1.5 hours late and most people have left. I feel too crazy to talk about anything else than how crazy I feel. We read poems, half-present, and leave to go to Matthew's apartment soon after. Eat some tasteless burritos at some late night place, drop off Jimi at his apartment and say our farewells to him, as he will not be joining us for any other days of the tour. I feel sad. Somehow on.

APRIL 20, 2011 — GRAND RAPIDS, MI
As we are trying to leave Chicago, Maryn realizes Jimi took her sleeping bag and not his. We try to go to his apartment in the morning, but no one is home. We leave the chaos of Chicago for the lovely quiet of Grand Rapids. The Ethel House, where we are reading, has an ornate wrap around porch. As we approach, Sam greets us. He is tall, lanky, blonde with a scraggly, short beard. We drop some stuff inside, walk around the area of Grand Rapids we are in. A coffee shop called Godspeed! You Black Coffee. People selling random items on the street. We buy beer from a place called Smitty's, walk back to Ethel House. There is a potluck and I eat some orange tofu w/ rice. Marlee comes home and we start soon after. We pack into a little living room annex that looks out on the neighborhood street. It's a quiet, family neighborhood. There's approx. 20 people sitting in this room when I begin reading poems. There's times when I feel defeated, pointless, about poetry and what it does, and then there are moments like this when you realize you are sharing presences, not just objects, or goods, with people, things they may carry with them for a long time, unknowingly. At least, that is my experience with poetry. We are usually not encouraged to share what is written on our hearts with each other. This is the hidden gift of doing things like this, I realize. It's not really quantifiable, which is its pain, as much as I may like it to be. Matt reads after me, then a lady named Karen reads a short story. Sam and Marlee do a performance piece together in which Sam reads the letters that make up the poem and Marlee twists her body into those letters as they are being read. I sell more chapbooks than at any other reading. I feel like I can buy an actual meal soon. And more beer, which I buy in the form of a PBR tall boy. A guy named Zach whom I met in Chicago at Zine Fest came out and he tells me he'll be in Columbus for the reading, too. Marlee tells a spooky tale about taking stuff from an abandoned house in Ann Arbor: playing cards with a stolen deck of cards from the house and relationships falling apart because of it. One of her friends walking out of her apartment to find her car gone, and to find it parked outside at the abandoned house, with a card from the stolen deck under the front tire. A cat stuck in a tree, one of the playing cards stuck in its collar. So they returned all the stuff to the house, and things seemed to get better. Recently, at a bar, Marlee took out her ID and a card from the stolen deck came out, too. We all go buy just one more beer from Smitty's. Play video games. Andy and Maryn buy tickets for the Archers of Load reunion show in Chicago. Go to sleep. In my sleep, Maryn tells me the next day, I said, simply, "Bilbo Baggins." We go get breakfast / lunch at a place ten minutes away on foot called Gaia. I get a tempeh reuben. Marlee says I have a nice head of hair and that as I age I will only become more handsome and beautiful. She has a BFA in dance from Michigan, I learn, and is parts of lots of local art groups, doing great things. After we leave we head downtown, ride the giant tire swing, and wish the Segway tour would come over to us and let us try them.

APRIL 21, 2011 — DETROIT, MI
We get into Detroit. I usually forget what happens during car rides. We took 96 and 94. I remember that. Blair, who set up the reading, graciously last-minute, lives in a house, duplex looking place. When we park outside of it, two ladies are gardening, digging up dirt and putting yellow flowers into the ground. A dog barks at me and they tell it to shut up. We're pretty early so we play catch in a field across the street from Blair's neighborhood. It's actually just a bunch of overgrown grass next to a dilapidated apartment complex. This kind of vibe is everywhere in Detroit. It's like Cleveland, but on a larger scale, encompassing a more serious air, actually frightening. Blair's neighborhood is where all the younger, more conscious, white kids move to, Matt informs me. We walk around; wherever there is a turn there is also an empty building. A football field with cleats strewn about the entrance to it. An old charter school. It's ghostly. Maryn's wearing shorts and someone at a gas station we pass yells, twice, "Ain't you cold?" Back at the apartment we have tea and Blair is making vegan sloppy joes. People are nice, neurotic, young. It is a potluck. First band is fresh out of high school style, it seems. One in an Army sweatshirt plays a handheld drum, the singer sounds like Bob Dylan, etc. I read after them, standing in the squash shaped basement. One of Maryn's ex-boyfriends is there, Jordan, and we are hanging out a bit. Blair and another guy play folk punk style songs. Matt reads last and people are engaged and engaging, asking him about his job, about his work in Chicago, the political climate there, etc. We drink and talk for several hours. Someone worries that our poetry has no heart. I assure him it is there. Matt and I get in a lengthy chat about what poetry is and what it should do. I mostly argue the "inexplicable, no intention, but directed with love and earnestness" position. Matt wants to change people's lives, the world, and now. I feel small, I say. Maryn and Jordan have emotional talk and she gets two milkcrates of her stuff she left at his parent's house. In the morning there is tea and potatoes. Our hosts are very kind, generous. We go to an island on Lake Tacoma called Belle Isle and look at plants. There is one called a "Punk Plant." Everything in this city reminds me of Cleveland. We take a photo together by the gardens and leave.

APRIL 22, 2011 — CLEVELAND, OH
When we cross into Ohio on I-90 I know where I am. We get to Coventry in Cleveland Heights around 5:30 to eat at Tommy's w/ my parents and sister. They are running late. When they arrive I feel excited to see them. See an old friend from when I lived in Kent. He tells me he is going to be a father. Our meal runs into the beginning of the reading time, which is just next door at Mac's Backs, a bookstore. I meet Suzanne, one of the owners, I think, and she is very nice. Reminds me of my writing professors at Kent State (and later I learn she knows them, shares time w/ them sometimes, amazingly). We mozy into the basement of the bookstore, sit in chairs, and stare in one direction. Mallory starts the reading w/ a story about a math teacher and goes into one about the people who shop at American Apparel. She has projections of her drawings that coincide with the story. I think about how young Jordan and her were just a couple of years ago. To see them growing is almost like how I imagine being a father or teacher is like. When I read my first poem (that includes a memory from our collective childhood) my sister guffaws and I can't finish the poem without smiling. Jordan reads poems about being nervous, I think, that I haven't heard yet and we hang around for a while, sell some books, before leaving. Cleveland feels amazing—I know all of its roads and buildings, am of its air. I can look at a person and feel home. After the reading we buy beer at a gas station and head to Jordan's house in Solon. Maryn says she likes, just everything feels like home in Ohio, in every city. We play ping pong and drink beer. Talk, talk. My sister comes to hang for a bit, I haven't seen her since she left to student teach in Greece, and it feels refreshing to hang out. We're up til 5, wake up at noon; fruit, coffee, skating, basketball, Cindy, Jordan's mom, does my laundry and we leave.

APRIL 23, 2011 — KENT, OH
More familiarity. Traveling should seem foreign, right? Not so. Walking around Kent is like having a re-occuring dream; each step is a step towards someone I know or kind of know or used to know or have seen before; into buildings I have been in before, on sidewalks I traversed for 3.5 years. The feeling is a mixture of comfort and heart-wrenching helplessness in the face of Things Can't Stay The Same. We get coffee from Scribbles, burritos from Taco Tantos, walk down by the Cuyahoga river, look around Last Exit Books. I pick up Touching Feeling by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick on a whim. People in Kent are still folky and holky, living their small lives and laughing a lot. I miss it. The Who's Your Mama? Earth Day Festival is closing up on Main Street. I got my direct deposit from the school I work at put into my bank account yesterday at midnight, so I suddenly have a boost of funds, which feels nice. Have some good talks with people about the miscegenation of poetry and music at house shows. Matt Scheuermann arrives and I feel relieved and elated to see him. We are reading at the ARM House (formerly the Vineyard) for this year's ARM Fest. I read poems and Matt reads right after me. We sneak away to Stone Tavern (formerly Professor's Pub, one of my main hangout spots / bars when I lived in Kent) and drink $1 Black Labels until we have to get back so Matt (American War) can play his set. It feels amazing to be able to be traveling and see such a good friend, share time with them, however briefly. We have to leave for Syracuse, NY—Matthew's hometown—where we will stay the night, because we have to drive to Boston the next day. Andy drives all six hours and we get in at 6:30AM, fall asleep. Wake to waffles and coffee and vegan bacon / sausage. Matt's mom is sweet-hearted. The TV is on the whole time we are there. Matt and his dad shake hands instead of hug when we say goodbye.

APRIL 24-25, 2011 — BOSTON, MA
I drive from Syracuse to Boston and we end up in traffic all the way into Boston. After two cities I used to live in, now we are in the city Maryn and Matthew used to live in before they, respectively, moved to Chicago and Columbus. Chelsea Dirck is putting on our reading at her apartment, the House of Babes, and we arrive hungry-bellied to a full table of food. We are welcomed by big hearts: a vegan feast and loving friends. Matthew immediately seems like he feels at home, talking to old friends. I still feel car-fucked, claustrophobic and the like and I try to hide for a bit. I chug water, feeling dehydrated. People names: Chelsea, Candice, Liz, Susan, "Susan's Dad," Matty, John, Connor, Jake, and a Dave, I think. Dogs: Scout. Cats: Egon. The living room is red, a large abstract painting hangs on one wall. An upside down cross. Susan's dad plays finger picked ballad-esque tom waits recalling acoustic jams. We flip a coin and Matthew will read first. Brian and the World plays quiet, compact, organized, pop folk songs. He is very tall. I read next, do this singing poem for the first time. I realize our event is more of a private party than anything. Maryn plays last. Afterward, we kind of just sit around, I'm exhausted, and hardly sociable. In the morning, I feel better, interested in life. Drink coffee and edit poems. Pet the dog and cat. Matthew and I decide to get daytime drunk. Walk around Allston. I remember being there approx. 2.5 years prior. Matthew keeps talking about how everything is changed. We go to some place with sunset in the name and get a white beer pitcher. Talk about identity and pop music. I think I see someone I know across the bar. After the bar, we buy local shitty beer from some liquor store and walk back to Chelsea's apartment. Fall asleep with Scout for a little bit. We go get vegan pizza when Chelsea comes back. Maryn and Andy are visiting Maryn's parents. Matthew and I decide to visit some of his friends in Jamaica Plains. Have some trouble with the bus system, eventually get there, go to a bar where you can bring in your own food and your dog. I overhear a buff-looking guy say "Dao Jiming! I love you man! No homo." Matthew's friend Ross comes and drives our drunk selves back to a house. We smoke on the deck and talk about fires and ice skating. Eventually we go back to Allston, fall asleep, and wake to leave for New York, again.

APRIL 26, 2011 — NEW PALTZ, NY
Maryn forgets some beer in the fridge of Chelsea's apartment, and we almost wait for a roommate to come home from work or class to let us back in, then decide, no, we should leave for New Paltz. It is sunny and hot on the drive. I am sweating a lot, reading Eagleton's How to Read a Poem. We arrive to a group of people sitting outside of a house on Mulberry Street. Leslie is in town and it feels good, again, to see a familiar face. New Paltzians seem of the Kent-Ohio-type: free spirited, slightly socially awkward, stuck in that small town enclave of private discovery. It is a beautiful day and after eating a dish Leslie and Kate cooked for us, we take a walk down by the river, across a bridge. Mountains in the distance. A walk to the beer store and back to the house. We make it back to the house, more people have shown up for the reading. Leslie asks me to walk to another beer store with her. We talk about small towns and cities, how I would probably be getting more hours, a higher paying job, at the school we work at if I stayed, but I'm moving in the Fall. I buy Maryn a Sierra Nevada at the beer store and we head back. Matthew, Maryn, Leslie, and I stand in a small circle about to drink a Mountain Brew beer together, when we decide we should all give a small speech. I talk about how my ancestors guarded valleys, lived in the mountains in Germany. It is a terrible beer. The show begins w/ Kate reading from her perzine No Better Than Apples. She talks like someone I used to know. Her words are carefully chosen, her stories well thought out and engaging. I remember one about meeting a feminist writer, one about the awkwardness of her Dad. Matthew reads all new poems next and then I go. People are watching outside through the windows. A finger-picking local named Tom Christies plays slow (too slow) acoustic jams. The big show is next: Lepideptera Puppet Co. A full-fledged puppet show w/ Kate and friends about a monster that steals pies in a small town. It's over-the-top and fun, w/ live music being played, flashlights and a "light" person. Afterwards, as the title of the play promises (There will be pie), there is a wide array of pies. We mill around until we decide to go for a walk about town. There is the oldest functional street in America. Run into a guy named Allen who is related to the original founders of New Paltz. He's walking around drinking beer. He tells us facts about town. Local fauna. Leslie tells me stories of her life when she lived here, asides of what happened where, how a professor and her walked around this pond. When we are walking around the campus of SUNY, it starts raining a little. Then a lot. Suddenly we are laughing and caught in a torrential downpour, clothes soaked, barely able to see anything, a half hour from the Mulberry house. When we get back, we strip down to our undies and dry off with towels. My shoes are ruined. We have a beer, life is ridiculous. Pretend like we're going to watch a movie. Fall asleep. In the morning, we're slow. Bagels and coffee. It is muggy out from last night's rain, the day's heat. We walk to Inquiring Minds Bookstore, where Kate works, to get Leslie's car keys. I put some of my books in the store and buy a book by Jacques Lacan. Dry some clothes at a laundromat Leslie used to work at. Tofu scramble and hasbrowns at Bistro for $3 before we leave.

APRIL 27, 2011 — PHILADELPHIA, PA
The second half of this tour feels like being in fast forward. Days pass as less, moments get sucked into whirlpools, and next thing you know, you are on your way to the next place. In Philly, we read at an anarchist bookstore called Wooden Shoe Books. We are the only people reading, which makes me nervous, and I don't expect anyone to come. Surprisingly, approx. 10-15 face us as Matthew and I read our poems. The reading is less laid back than every other reading; there's chairs in rows and a question and answer session after we read. A guy named John asks us, more or less, what it is like to live as "punks," in cooperative ways, without much money. He wants some of our "underground adventure" stories. The reading is billed as "Punk as poetry, poetry as punk," so I anticipated this a little bit, but still, I feel a little surprised. I tell him, this is just what I do with my life, it's not anything I feel like is crazy. We sell books to the store and nonchalantly trade contact info. Some of Andy's friends show up and we meet them down at a fountain somewhere. Andy is psyched to be there, apparently it's a famous skate spot. Drive to the house we are staying at, after getting lost quite a bit, and I feel out of my head. The people we are staying with are all 19-21ish and remind me of me being that age. Mariyah makes me tea and us pasta. Matthew and I and some other people write an exquisite corpse poem. I feel anti-social. In the morning, we go to a cafe where "Left and Leaving" is being played. Andy's trunk won't close, so I buy a bungee cord from some hardware store. Latch it on and hit the road.

APRIL 28, 2011 — PITTSBURGH, PA
We are greeted by a low-key room of people in Pittsburgh. Meet a handful of them, including Daniel, whom I have met before at a bonfire at 15th House in Columbus. The house we are reading at is called Cyberpunk Apocalypse which functions secondarily as a writers' collective that hosts shows, readings, and has a one month writer residency each month. I'm impressed. We head to the house behind the main house, where the writer-residents live, and are offered food and beer. Andy Folk, the current writer-resident, has made seitan "hot-pockets" which are delicious. It's quite the welcoming atmosphere, though maybe not traditionally. People seem bereft of excitement, but not in a disappointed way, more so in a way that signifies this is how they always are. Art Noose, of the zine Ker-bloom!, is hanging out. We go buy beer. In Pittsburgh, you can only buy small quantities of beer in bars, so we end up getting a 24 pack. The reading begins when we get back in the living room. A circle of 15-20 people are listening to us read our poems. Andy reads stories from the zine he is working on about a band called "Whack." After the reading, a bunch of folks go out dumpster diving as it is the end of the semester at the nearby college, and there is sure to be lots thrown away. We stay back, hang out with their black lab named Grandpa. Then to the "O" for huge orders of fries. Matthew can't eat them, because he has a peanut allergen and they are fried in peanut oil. We get lost trying to find Andy's friend's house. Find it. Sit around and smoke smokes, talk about people we know in common. Back at Cyberpunk Apocalypse, I use the internet, drink beer, and read Rilke before falling asleep. Tomorrow we will be back home. In the morning, I go to the back house and help cut potatoes for breakfast. Others wake and come out and we have waffles with gravy, a dish Art Noose tells us we better like or "we can get gone," (jokingly). When it is just me, Art, and Daniel, we talk about writing, what books we're reading, and what poets are "for," how accessible poetry should be. I feel myself being made into a perception, and vice versa. Memory of this conversation later affecting thoughts about me—who I am, what I believe. It is something I have learned to be calm about—to just be as much in something as I can, with truest words, earnest foot forward. We say goodbye and get lost leaving the maze of Pittsburgh. Close to back home.

APRIL 29-30, 2011 — COLUMBUS, OH & BLOOMINGTON, IN
I stopped writing when we got back to Columbus. I don't know why. Maybe I didn't think I needed to record everything anymore. Why? A feeling of home. The feeling that you know these people, that they know you, and that you all can make the necessary and wonderful discoveries about each other without having to record every single day. Something will last. We trust forgetting when we are home. Trust that the things we will forget and the things we will remember will be necessary things. This trust must be close to some kind of definition of love, affectation. I tear up thinking about it. In the very least, this is how it feels to me.

—

WOLFS TOUR NOTES

2011-08-01T14:28:00.004-04:00

WOLFS, a band i am in with maryn jones and amanda bartley, went on a week long midwestern tour this past week. what follows are notes i took while on the road. the six song cassette tape we released for the tour can be downloaded by clicking HERE (zip file). howl.

KENT, OHIO—JULY 23RD
ed talking about not eating a lot—
"one meal a day"—
health as enigma—
four beer me—
desperate rappers spouting pigeon shit mouth-ass—
bobbing heads no one is there—
woman hate=man hate—
diy kids neurotic nice—
"lonely people talk too loud"—
jojos burning roofs of mouths—
what is a jojo—
brett leaving early—
cuyahoga river wading—
maryn upset about sexist rappers—
tikaani and scott's dog and h.a.m. cat—
all wolfs—
sitting under the kent stage—
no free bread—
co-op carob cashews bananas kombucha wonder—
enough time to build an empire or have a few kids—
owner of last exit books grasping my hand—
never remembering his name—
he'll be having a kid soon—
maybe i'll be back in kent soon(?)—
anthony's cafe double hasbrowns bottomless coffee—
how slow the owner walks—
with what care he gives to things—
attending to objects as if they were sentient—
faces i recognize—
wonder if they'll talk back—
(now or later on, should i remember)—

SOLON, OHIO—JULY 24TH
jordan's basement sports souvenirs affluent—
cleveland hummus veggie chips organic popcorn—
always coffee can be made—
everyone speaks the same—
goggle swimming=mind blown—
attraction—
leftover neighbor grad party food—
the awkwardness of wealth—
"klassic klopp: the best of adam klopp (already)"—
gnocchi pasta grapes chicken breast veggie plate—
"RANCH ON RANCH"—
mum and pops arrive old—
ladies from kent i know—
vegan cupcakes i don't eat—
jon's moving to cbus as i'm moving to blooms—
not too far of a drive—
ping pong laughing—
behind the back playing style—
jordan smoking a blunt—
abstraction of identity vs reality of identity—
abstract abstractions abstracting—
talking about meeting "famous" people—
mallory and justin sane—
jordan and mal break up what—
tofurkey sandwiches with mustard—
painting toenails gold in the morning with amanda—
writing letters to kim cody—
books surrounding me encompassing me—
luce irigary's this sex which is not one—
keurig coffee—
jon leaving while everyone is sleeping—
waking up jordan to say goodbye—

KALAMAZOO, MICHIGAN—JULY 25TH
older man greets us at the house—
"name's ken"—
"don't mind me"—
reading amelia earhart books sitting outside—
reading irigary—
david's facial expressions / affability—
whale dunking painting—
david's "expired" co-op food dinner—
hugging him gratefully—
buying us local beer michigan—
michigan feeling really good—
shot of non-homogenized milk in the morning—
blow up mattress like wrestling a bear—
there's another show in town—
simplistic male desires (= "having a girl" "solving" "sadness") are foreign to me—
trying to understand every action thought process as okay—
dancing around after the show—
peggy taking a sip of beer after finishing each song—
hoping i am effusing an earnest sense of care and candor—
two beer me—
trying to find the right word—
"collaboration(?)"—
no(?)—
jared red beard cowboy hat hugging david—
everyone has stayed at monster house before—
bathroom with a screened porch connected—
zeus cat asleep on a rug in bathroom—
indecisive coffee confrontations—
machias maine—

GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN—JULY 26TH
marlee and john hanson yoga-ing in the front yard as we pull up—
using handsome as a pronoun—
head hair mop thick—
common grounds coffee shop joanna "therapy was good"—
cocorosie's "lemonade" playing—
laughing at me saying "straight up coffee"—
"tuesdays with marlee"—
sobriety ten weeks sweet—
sam's feast from dad's garden—
other sam telling me he loves me my toenails—
neighborhood kids playing around on a boxspring in front of the house—
jumping spinning posing (for us)—
marlee's candor and beauty—
amp troubles—
neighbor's coming over as we finish playing—
light of the back porch illuminating marlee dancing sam playing—
orange tearing up wood—
circle standing sitting fire—
kid named justin smoke rolling—
dog named miss-chief—
slipping into dreamland watching "riding in cars with boys"—
maryn awake til sunrise—
loading out into light rain—
driving in rain rain rain—
rain rain—
burning bag floating over us fire sitting—
aa meetings and being sober—
general feelings of depression and sarcastic reflections upon how this seems genetic or place specific—

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS—JULY 27TH
gas station that's flooded wet feet—
wanting to stand in a puddle until it evaporates—
lake michigan so close yet so far—
no place to park—
no space for dark—
chicago skyline toothy half smile into sky—
tall tattoo roommate sam—
napped out talking about aliens—
matt walsh kind smile—
milkshakes at earwax—
sweating like cactus—
i gets monies at quimby's bookstore—
traveler guy who wants to hop on the show—
waiting for food hungry bellies—
matt whispers quiet guitar defeated tone—
parents-house-ness of the house / show space—
cutting knuckles on doorway carrying amp—
pasta dinner zucchini tomatoes—
guy from ball hall jake who loves cleveland—
guys recording the show blonde beard—
feeling feelings—
feeling myself feeling feelings—
not letting people treat me more than themselves—
"you're so ohio"—
rainstorm lightning strike continuous sheets of rain—
fish in a gallon jug—
sitting on countertops guessing ages—
coshocton craigslist cabin—
ancient aliens georgio guy—
"how am i alive"—
sultan's falafel breakfast cop who glares at us—
car almost hitting us—
vegan sxe hardcore spouting vegan rhetoric—
slamdancing for fake and for real—
light leftover rain in the am—
the smile before a cry—
upturning of lip before falling down—

BLOOMINGTON, INDIANA—JULY 28TH
jake's house pizza making pa troubles—
lisa's house to get other pa—
familiar facial expressions items phrases—
hands eyes kind—
feeling like a commodity—
feeling very comfortable—
warm feeling old last year—
younger kids show up early for show—
can't find wallet—
beer store—
jared—
lisa's fennel garden tea—
"two headed boy"—
failed and semi-failed garden talks—
year of rain—
handing paul an envelope full of monies—
dirty endearing basement—
bones joke—
suprisingly present—
having sisters named erin / writing songs and poems about or for them—
"for the parents"—
"everyone ever"—
kroger cash back cassette purchase—
connection—
periperformative speech acts pervading—
walk to rockets vegan pizza split izzy—
eyes locking like doors—
eyes locking—
remembering all—
packing in matt's van—
"fat angel"—
jake's room a/c—
not saying anything—
three beer me—
bid-time—
waking up to toby and ryan leaving for work—
typing a draft of an email to parents whose children i taught—
"the moon fell down"—
jake's new smart phone—
tweeting that WOLFS is at the owlery (jk)—
actually the restaurant is full ferreal—
rolling deep table of eight—
"HTFML"—
remembering(?)—
going away tape song playing eating—
gluten free grilled tempeh sandwich side salad fry steal coffee bottomless—
bloomingfoods apple cream soda licorice—
feeling at home(?)—
already(?)never(?)—
"who am i"—
two hundred and fifty plus dollars—
leaving actually leaving—
backroads and 64e to cincy—
practicing nasty natty accent—

CINCINNATI, OHIO—JULY 29TH
sweating—
asleep in the car reading irigary—
trying to make iced coffee at circle k—
everyone buying polar pops—
troy's apartment sun roof unicorns playing wood floors—
throwing keys down from fourth story window in a dress sock—
guy walking by nervously looking up like at god—
mashed potatoes for dishwashing barter—
jerry thinking i'm super high—
ohio river sitting hudepohl milwaukee's best—
"six buds deep and i realize...i'm a fuckin' lizard"—
silly people getting valet—
river waves river glass river rivering—
things thinging—
demarcating kentucky ohio—
switching to ohio area codes—
spelling last names wrong—
windows down hatchback guy fridge—
curry potato rice chips salsa milwaukee's best—
art show space—
four beer me—
drinking water—
evan's dad quiet voice calculated—
is there a pa—
there are practice amps—
final friday gallery hop dressed up people in and out weird—
who is everyone—
guy dancing in what i decide is a "toy soldier" manner—
leaving early—
71n—
free coffee kid at gas station says its cool yo—
shaky hands—
home(?)—
home—
columbus tooth sky night night—

ASSUMING SIZE GOES VIRAL

2011-06-12T18:31:00.001-04:00

The collectively organized press I co-run with some very awesome people, Monster House Press, is SOLD OUT of our first release Assuming Size. This is due, in-part, a recent poetry tour I did in the Midwest and East coast. For those more digitally apt poemers, here is the chapbook in its entirety, via Issuu.

ENJOY.

Also, the chapbook isn't necessarily sold out in all places. Check out our WHERE page for a store near you that carries our books!

AUSTERITY PLEASURES DROPS

2011-03-31T13:09:00.003-04:00

Monster House Press, the cooperatively run small press that I co-founded, has released its second chapbook of poetry— Austerity Pleasures by James Payne.

The chapbook is available to purchase for $4 ppd from the info page on our website.

Any interest in reviewing or interviewing w/r/t the chapbook should be directed to richard@monsterhousepress.com

I'M IN CHICAGO

2011-03-26T01:33:00.000-04:00

for CHICAGO ZINE FEST

Come say HELLO at the Conway Center at Columbia College tomorrow from 11-5

I'll be tabling with Monster House Press homies, poem books in tow

POETRY TOUR

2011-03-19T12:53:00.038-04:00

Fellow poet and friend MATT WHISPERS and MYSELF will be embarking on a poetry tour in about one month.

We're going to be reading poems and connecting our lives with other lives at places that are typically called HOUSES, COFFEE SHOPS, ART SPACES, SPACES, INFOSHOPS, ZINE LIBRARIES, and UNIVERSITIES.

We're doing this thang DIY styleeee.

ANDY GARDNER is driving us in his un-muffled, recalcitrantly red Ford Contour.

MARYN JONES is (probably) making the trip, too.

JAMES PAYNE is reading at the first four dates with us.

&&&

Here are the tentative dates and cities and shows and knows.

It will be updated and edited, probably until the day we leave:

APRIL 16 - MILWAUKEE, WI @ Cream City Collectives (632 E. Clarke St.) w/ James Payne, Sean Arnold, Boop, Andrea Lutz, Jeremy Behreandt, Cat Ries, & Matt Plain.

APRIL 17 - MADISON, WI @ Mother Fool's Coffee House (1101 Williamson St.) w/ James Payne, Chris Taylor, & Jason Schiller. 7 PM. [FABU EVENT] [FLIER]

APRIL 18 - MINNEAPOLIS, MN @ Psychic School of Dream Actualization w/ James Payne, Sorry OK, Thousands and Thousands, Hollow Boys. [FABU EVENT]

APRIL 19 - CHICAGO, IL @ 1622 S. Allport St. w/ James Payne, Wendy Spacek, & Cassandra Troyan.

APRIL 20 - GRAND RAPIDS, MI @ 441 Ethel Ave. 8PM. Donations.

APRIL 21 - DETROIT, MI @ Ladie's Moose Lodge (1524 W. Hancock) w/ Like Phineas Gage. 8PM. Donations. [FABU EVENT]

APRIL 22 - CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, OH @ Mac's Backs (1820 Coventry Rd.) w/ Jordan Castro & Mallory Whitten. 7 PM. Donations. [FABU EVENT] [FLIER]

APRIL 23 - KENT, OH @ The ARM House (formerly the Vineyard) for A.R.M. FEST II (154 N. Depeyster St.) w/ American War and many, many more. 11AM. Donations. [FABU EVENT]

APRIL 24 - BOSTON, MA @ House of Babes (66 Empire St.) w/ Brian and the World, Maryn Jones. 8PM. Donations.

APRIL 25 -~~DAY OFF~~

APRIL 26 - NEW PALTZ, NY @ 14 Mulberry St. w/ Kate Larson, Lepidoptera Puppet Opera Co. Tom Christie. 7PM. Donations. [FABU EVENT]

APRIL 27 - PHILADELPHIA, PA @ Wooden Shoe Books (704 South St.) 7PM.

APRIL 28 - PITTSBURGH, PA @ Cyberpunk Apocalypse (5431 Carnegie St.) w/ Andy Folk. 7PM. [FABU EVENT]

APRIL 29 - COLUMBUS, OH @ Monster House (115 W. 10th Ave.) w/ Ryan J. & Saintseneca. 9PM. Donations. [FABU EVENT] [FLIER]

APRIL 30 - BLOOMINGTON, IN @ The Owlery (212 S. Rogers St.) w/ Ryan J, Tara J. 10:30PM. Donations. [FABU EVENT]

___

I'll have copies of Assuming Size, think tank for human beings in general, & the newest release from Monster House Press, Austerity Pleasures by James Payne.

Come see my face and say things to it. I'll greet you affably, promise. <3

( )

2011-03-03T13:23:00.004-05:00

Intention and a malleable heart.

My sister in thessaloniki, greece

2011-02-24T13:28:00.001-05:00

I have to ride the school bus
to and from school every day
and in the front are the little babies
(pre k and k) and they barely know
english so they just scream
in greek the whole ride home

When i subbed
for the sixth grade class
there was a little boy
named stephen
(pronounced stee-fen)
who is chinese
and does not
know a lot of english

and when they didn't have homework
in a subject he would yell

NO HOMEWORK PLAY GAMES
NO HOMEWORK PLAY GAMES
NO HOMEWORK PLAY GAMES

Monster House Press

2011-02-19T16:12:00.001-05:00

Monster House Press, the cooperative publishing house I co-founded along with Ryan J. Eilbeck, Jack Ramunni, Josh Kleinberg, Aaron Miller, Maryn Jones, Andy Gardner, and Zac Little now has a dot com website.

In October, MHP released its first chapbook of poems, Assuming Size, and by the end of February or the beginning of March, is set to release a full-length chapbook of thirty poems from James Payne entitled Austerity Pleasures.

And many more things to come.

Monster House Press is a not-for-profit publisher of chapbooks and other pertinent texts from Columbus, Ohio organized on cooperative principles which include (but are not limited to): collective decision making, the equitable distribution of menial and meaningful tasks and actions, the open discussion of vision, goals, and hopes, and a not-for-profit participatory economic model.

the breadth of everything and

2011-02-14T18:52:00.004-05:00

i zone out and think about everything all at once
not everything all at once consciously
everything all at once unconsciously

but conscious enough or partially enough
to know it was everything that shot off as synapses
but not conscious enough to understand
the depth or complexity of that everything

to name it - i just felt it, you feel?

in the morning i chose the wrong pan to make potatoes in

i drank coffee and it didn't work

i ate cream cheese on bagels and cookies with frosting at my job

ronan tells me in a whisper,
(because ellis was napping nearby)
that he loved me
and all the depersonalization
went away

and i knew where i was again.

valentines

gallant times

malevolent rhymes

those be some benevolent pines, dad

left and leaving just ended and the sound
of the record circling itself is cathartic

i didn't realize it at first, but this is definitely an all lowercase blog post

here is a (my) heart for you—

<3

FEB

2011-02-02T16:18:00.002-05:00

Reminds me of Cleveland and Langston Hughes poems. Icicles in the bathtub and sledding into creeks. The smell of my mother's coffee, of her hands. The dog catching snowballs in his mouth. Holding hands and linking arms, breaths like smoke. A slow gratefulness etching its way into the facial muscles of people I used to see every day. Quiet gifts of their own type.

I slipped into a puddle off a curb while holding a head of kale on my way to eat said kale and a faux-kielbasi dinner at a friend's house three blocks away from my own. I stood up quickly, so as to persuade my body it did not get hurt, that I would be fine, and so as to not have onlookers come up and ask me if I was okay. (Am I afraid to be cared for?)

The film Groundhog's Day has not yet failed to make me shed tears. (Or at least, it has made me cry the last two times (once in 2009, once in 2010) I watched it—(and watching as a kid doesn't count, because, at that point, I had not yet realized that life was long and that being angry in yr everyday did not take you any closer to a more desirable life situation).)

Two snow (icy rain) days at the school I work at in a row. Two days of not doing things I should be doing, despite free time.

Here's a story told to me by three five year olds from the aftercare class I teach:

There was a burger, his name was burger. He smelled like burgers. He was walking down the street and he went to Max & Ruby's and he started jumping up and down grouchily. And he poofed out his eyeball and he went back home and started flopping the eyeball down. And then he ate his wife and he had some childs. He burped. And then he went to piano.

Started sprouting some lentils and brewing kombucha again. It is cold in my house and the kombucha is growing at a very slow rate.

I am reading poems February 12th at Phil Kim's poetry night @ Kafe Kerouac w/ Tory Adkisson (poems), Phil Kim (poems), Marie Corbo (from Cleveland, songs), Mary Lynn Gloeckle (This is My Suitcase, songs) and Zac Little (Saintseneca, songs, roommate love).

I think about my parent's lives. Their drives and days and relationships. How they imagined their parent's days were. The dialogue between those imaginings. That gap thats gap-able. Intractable, still.

I'm going to be tabling / hanging out at Chicago Zine Fest on March 25th-26th. Come say hi.

Hearing back from grad schools sometime within the next couple months.

Monster House Press (w/ newly added members Aaron Miller, Maryn Jones, & Andy Gardner) is currently editing / designing James Payne's poetry chapbook Austerity Pleasures, to be released sometime in February or March.

I think I'm starting a band. We'll see how that works out...

New year

2011-01-05T19:12:00.001-05:00

Really like how the year 2011 looks typed or written out, it seems really good, hopeful

When it turned from 2010 into 2011 I was in Louisville and it started pouring seemingly at the same time as it hit midnight

I stayed calm on the outside whilst furtively yelling and partying inside

I was not drinking

At the after-party there was a guy sitting in a chair looking discontented and dismayed and like he was taking notes in his head about various people and every time I looked at him I thought "David Foster Wallace"

Felt able to drastically change my personality / habits / life on January 1st and at the same time felt lame for feeling this feeling, then felt lame for feeling lame about being able to change

Yesterday at the school I work at the kids were taking turns dancing to John Denver and it was this one boy's turn to dance and he started breakdancing (or at least as close to breakdancing as a 4 year old can accomplish) and his face looked very intent and focused and he danced for several minutes, until we clapped him out of the center of the circle, I smiled a lot, then turned and made snack, still smiling, I almost couldn't stop feeling pleasant after that

Envisioned a book consisting of the unpublished e-mails of someone famous after they die, between maybe an ex-lover or someone else of close comfort or just like all of the person's emails ever, or selections of emails, etc.

Envisioned someone getting their password and leaking the emails to the internet before said book came out

I have drank ~10 beers this year, been actually drunk once

I was interviewed at Radioactive Moat (here)

Today it is 6:57 PM and I have eaten an everything bagel with hummus and drank 3 cups of coffee

Going to make rice and kale soon I think

Love January as a month

Wish it was snowing in Columbus

Monster House Press is becoming an actual collective of people and releasing more books soon (here)

I have been very carefully / non-intentionally de-commidifying my life for the past ~5-6 years

Forgot to make my bed before going to work today and I came home and didn't care when I saw it

Read a story called "Kidding Season" by Lydia Peelle about a lame kid (baby goat that is unable to walk ) that is left behind by the protagonist and the protagonist realizes he left the lame kid behind as he is about to jump off a pier into the first warm water of the season in a new town he ran away to and he sees his feet and it reminds him of the lame kid. He stops and these two sentences happen, which are very poignant sentences that I like very much: How many days? How many days did the kid fix its eyes on the crest of the hill, waiting for him?

Many men have failed to show me empathy in my life

James Payne sent me my first email of the new year

I am almost twenty-three

Midori

An x-mas gift, of sorts, from the beloved james payne

2010-12-25T09:23:00.000-05:00

James Payne reads the entirety of our recent four-way poetry chapbook, Assuming Size, at his blog Banalization.

I read poems by Sharon Olds

2010-12-15T19:01:00.003-05:00

and John K. Samson, and others @ www.jamespaynebedroom.blogspot.com and do other silly / musical / whatever else I am thinking about doing type things there almost every day.

James Payne posted mp3s w/ streaming ability at his blog Banalization (http://banalization.blogspot.com/2010/11/assuming-size-reading.html) of our (Jordan Castro, James, Ryan J., & myself) reading-release of Assuming Size, a poetry chapbook.

Monster House Press, which released Assuming Size, now totes a (albeit underdeveloped) web site.

I am reading in Kent at House House (202 E. College Ave., Kent, Ohio) with Jordan Castro, Brett Olsen, & Lisa Mirkovich on Saturday Dec. 18th @ 7PM.

At the school yesterday the children I work with made a giant snowman out of cotton and paper, I said to them "We're going to make a snowperson, we're going to the art room, let's go."

I found a photo of me holding the first book I ever wrote, when I was 8 years old, a Halloween story with a plot vaguely similar to a Goosebumps book, but with more heart and candor.

I have been making the same faces all my life.

Today at the school the children I work with sang a carol of Jingle Bells to my friend Amanda, the aftercare secretary.

Applied to grad school at Indiana, Wisconsin & Iowa.

I burned lentils and rice this morning, I forgot I was cooking them and they burned a black bottom on the inside of the pan.

I heated up some carrot and potato soup I made last night instead.

A neighbor let me borrow her de-icer-scraper thing for car windshields and just told me to leave it on her porch because she had to go, but that I should use it cause I need it.

My to-do list currently says "benefit bank->food stamps" and "secret santa monster house".

Might grow a winter beard.

Interview w/r/t Assuming Size

2010-11-14T22:24:00.001-05:00

James Payne, Jordan Castro, and myself were interviewed by Jordan GIllespie at Some Moths regarding our new poetry chapbook, Assuming Size, and several other personal points of discussion.

The interview took around an hour and our conversation delved into the ontological and geographical disposition of Midwesterners (ie., us), sewing machines and chapbooks, the purpose of poetry, being "punk," food, & the implications of relating and growing up with the internet at dial-up reach.

Assuming Size can be bought for $2 here.

Interview here.

Several things will (have) happen(ened)

2010-11-07T15:23:00.005-05:00

Oh my, several things have happened.

Got the flu, took the GRE, drank three bottles of Morning Blend juice and two bottles of Cranberry Blend juice, hung up my grandmother's blanket on my window as ersatz curtain, played saxophone at the American War vinyl release of Rhetoric, and released a new poetry book.

It snowed in Cleveland, but not in Columbus. I am jealous of Cleveland for doing things like this. The meaning in bundling up. Warming against each other. I dreamt I moved back to Cleveland at thirty-five years old and lived alone, or with a cat, and it is winter and I am playing music in a band with some sad, caring people. We are walking down Cedar Road with coffee and joking about something we will soon forget we joked about.

____

Assuming Size, the first poetry chapbook from Monster House Press, has been printed and copied and is ready to disseminate. More info on this poetry release is here and here and here. There is a Goodreads page here. Even further information and coverage is forthcoming.

To buy, paypal $2 to richardwehrenbergjr@gmail.com (pay button below), or send an email to the same email address to pay in a different way.

If interested in reviewing, interviewing, or doing anything else press related for Assuming Size, email monsterhousepress@gmail.com.

____

And several things will happen.

There are a few readings in support of Assuming Size —

November 10th in Oberlin, Ohio at Black River Cafe (15 South Main Street), 9:30 PM. Readings from Richard Wehrenberg, Jr., and Ryan J. Music from American War.

November 27th in Columbus, Ohio, Official release-reading at Kafe Kerouac (2250 North High Street), 8 PM. Readings from all the authors—Jordan Castro, James Payne, Ryan J., & Richard Wehrenberg, Jr.

____

More will always come.

Hope you are well.

Thank you, friends.

Assuming Size; a forthcoming four-way poetry book from monster house press

2010-10-15T06:26:00.002-04:00

The newly founded not-for-profit publishing house Monster House Press, situated in mercurial Columbus, Ohio, is releasing its first poetry book, Assuming Size, a foursome featuring poems from Jordan Castro, James Payne, Ryan J., and myself.

Assuming Size; cover image by Maryn Jones

I have two new poems in the book entitled "All scarecrows" and "If you'll have me (versions)". I designed and edited the collection, which will be un-officially released at Monster House in Columbus, Ohio on Monday, October 18th with musical performances from Pheramones, Delay, and Madeline, and a once-in-a-lifetime shared stage moon-pull reading from Ryan J. and myself (show flier below).

Assuming Size will be available online within the next few weeks and at several readings in support of its release in Columbus (@ Kafe Kerouac, November 27th), Oberlin (@ TBA, November 10th), & Kent, Ohio (TBA).

The book is twenty-some 5.5" x 4.25" pages with a sewn spine & screen printed covers by our very own Shout Out Loud Prints.

If you are interested in booking a reading in support of Assuming Size send an email to richardwehrenbergjr@gmail.com

If you are interested in reviewing Assuming Size or promoting or doing an interview in support of the book for your blog or web site send an email to monsterhousepress@gmail.com

Monster House Press

More information, updates, and the like in the near future.

DANKE!

things i remember about d.i.t. fest; a short list; unorganized

2010-09-20T10:14:00.001-04:00

pulling swish cheese off of a veggie wrap my sister gave me, feeling surprised & excited that there were sprouts on it

tao lin not understanding how to pronounce my dog tikaani's name and then biting a piece of his apple off and dropping it on the sidewalk for him to eat

becoming depersonalized whilst drinking beer under the main street bridge by the cuyahoga river with ryan, jake, lisa, vacation, allen, & several other people

greg thinking maryn jones was my sister

dancing on merch table chairs to american war's set with will, theo, lisa, & toby

monstrosity's set

speaking gibberish to several people

going into kent historical society with toby, staring at how change is inconceivable and always-already unprecedented

remembering how to play saxophone after not playing for a year and remembering most of the parts for the no target audience songs

speaking quietly / being taciturn in a small circle with jordan castro, tao lin, noah cicero, sam pink, brittany wallace, megan boyle and others who were present and interested in poetry / literature

cops coming the first day because of too many people standing in the street

counting one hundred and twelve one dollar bills

making innumerable pots of coffee

lisa's mom taking band photos of letters in the basement in the kid's room

my mom grinning at me really hard after i finished reading poetry

trying to remember people's names

being the "umpire" for slugging percentage's "game"

feeling sad saying goodbye to my dad

rain

saturday morning, waking up at 7:45 am in the vineyard, a person in a white van knocks on the glass door and asks to come in for the donated pastries and cakes, says he has to feed twelve people

ken dix waking up from the basement when pheramones start their set at noon on day two

overwhelming indelible insistent love

Essay on "Stages"

2010-09-08T12:47:00.000-04:00

James Payne posted an essay i wrote at his blog Banalization entitled "The Stage: Hollow (Solid) Relations."

DIT FEST FOUR

2010-08-20T22:40:00.001-04:00

I help book and organize (along with good friend and musician Matt Scheuermann) Do It Together Fest, a music, poetry and literature festival in the city I previously called home: Kent, Ohio. DIT Fest was originally conceived in the summer of 2007 and is now in its fourth year. I am beyond elated to relinquish and reveal the lineup for this year's festival which will happen September 10th & 11th at the Vineyard and Professor's Pub in Kent.

Friday September 10th

6:00 - 6:20 = Toby Foster (IN)
www.myspace.com/tobyfoster
6:30 – 6:50 = Letters
www.letterstothemoon.tumblr.com
7:00 - 7:20 = Ashley Brooke Toussant
www.myspace.com/ashleybrooketoussant
7:30 - 7:50 = Bobby Stevens
www.myspace.com/bobbystevens
8:00 - 8:10 = Sam Pink (IL)*
http://www.impersonalelectroniccommunication.com/
8:20 - 8:40 = Galgozy/Zeleny Duo
www.myspace.com/galgozyzelenyduo
8:50 - 9:00 = Ryan J.*
http://www.friendsandwieners.wordpress.com
9:10 - 9:30 = Andy Cook & the Wanderloons
www.myspace.com/andycook
9:40 – 9:50 = Richard Wehrenberg, Jr.*
www.simperingfool.blogspot.com
10:00 - 10:20 = Signals Midwest
www.myspace.com/signalsmidwest
10:30 - 10:50 = American War
www.myspace.com/americanwar
11:00 - 11:20 = Defiance, Ohio (IN)
www.defianceohio.terrorwave.com

Aftershow @ Professors Pub

11:30 – 11:45 = Cleveland Undercovers
www.myspace.com/clevelandundercovers
11:55 – 12:15 = Slugging Percentage
www.sluggingpercentageband.blogspot.com
12:25 - 12:45 = Sloppy Joe
12:55 – 1:15 = Monstrosity

Saturday September 11th

12:00 - 12:20 = Pheramones
12:30 - 12:50 = Girl Fight (PA)
www.myspace.com/girlffightband
1:00 - 1:20 = Heads Held High
www.myspace.com/headsheldhigh
1:30 - 1:50 = Worn Out Tigers (PA)
www.myspace.com/wornouttigers
2:00 - 2:20 = Vacation
www.myspace.com/funvacationfun
2:30 - 2:50 = Playoff Beard (PA)
www.myspace.com/playoffbeardpgh
3:00 - 3:20 = I Am the Sky
www.myspace.com/iats
3:30 - 3:50 = Hold Tight (VA)
4:00 - 4:20 = Bethesda
www.myspace.com/bethesdaband
4:30 - 4:50 = Light Years
www.myspace.com/lightyearsohio
5:00 - 5:20 = Underdogs of Nipomo
www.myspace.com/underdogsof
5:30 - 5:50 = Reverse the Curse
www.myspace.com/reversethecursemusic
6:00 - 6:20 = New Creases
www.myspace.com/newcreases
6:30 - 6:50 = Three Man Cannon (PA)
www.myspace.com/threemancannon
7:00 - 7:20 = The Hit and Miss Engines (PA)
www.myspace.com/hitandmissengines
7:30 - 7:50 = Asinine
www.myspace.com/asinineohio
8:00 - 8:20 = Jordan Castro *
http://smokingonanemptystomach.blogspot.com/
8:30 - 8:50 = Gunnerson
www.myspace.com/gunnersonmusic
9:00 - 9:20 = Noah Cicero *
http://noah-cicero.blogspot.com/
9:30 - 9:50 = Two Hand Fools
www.myspace.com/twohandfools
10:00 - 10:20 = Tao Lin (NY)*
http://heheheheheheheeheheheehehe.com/
10:30 - 10:50 = Annabel
www.myspace.com/annabelrock
11:00 - 11:20 = Tigers Jaw (PA)
www.myspace.com/tigersjaw
11:30 - 11:50 = The Sidekicks
www.myspace.com/sidekicks
12:00 - 12:20 = Delay
www.midwestrock.org/delay

* denotes poetry or literature reading

Do It Together Fest is a donation based festival and relies upon attendee donations to help make it what it is. All donations from attendees help pay for gas for out of town musicians / writers and support the Vineyard and its multiple outreach programs.

Thanks for reading and hope to see you there!

blinded by heart, cut my hair short

2010-08-20T02:33:00.000-04:00

some recent text messages

2010-08-04T21:20:00.001-04:00

Richard i woke up this morning missing you terribly
hope the heat is not bothering you too much

Coffee sounds so noice.

Hey. Sorry. I ended up not going
to big whole foods.
Went to kroger instead.
I've been pretty sad
and in a weird mood all day.
Kinda just wanted to go alone.

Oh no I got drunk!!!!

What's in guiness that makes it not vegan

I just bought kombucha
for 2.99 at a gas station
in santa cruz!

When I am done with Violence, do you have
any Lacan texts i could borrow? Lol?

What's going on tonight? Anything?

By the way did you get my note?
I didn't want you to think I was like indifferent
about seeing you read because i really wanted to

read my last skype messages, dude!

When can i get my car back?

You put the CHARD in RICHARD!

Steph said you have mothers to spare?

Ugh. I fell asleep after babysitting. So tired. FUCK.

Are you okay? We're worried about you!

If y'all like kimchi we just made a couple of jars
n we could trade.

Drunk in austin texas

2010-07-28T19:17:00.003-04:00

when cars pass, young gallivanting girls talk about the night in front of them, it sounds like fast forward, how appropriate, how symptomatic, to speed through life like that, a blur of intention

with you life is lucid and picturesque, vaguely pastoral, we are in a moment and it is its own but it is also linked with all the others, the quiet gift of unspeaking

i can't remember certain things happening from the day, of course, until i do, i mean i stumble upon memory, and the feeling that i had lost it until then beleaguers me incessantly, it preoccupies and preempts current and future action by daming the river of my mind's confidence

no one made funny faces in photographs back when photography was so slow, so lengthy, when pictures became throw away, deletable by finger tip, a do-over in second, this is when photography became false in a new way, both the tableux of the past, those fixed posed photographs of civil war soldiers, and the representational cultural-symbolic photography of today, are staged operations, in very distinct yet interrelated ways

those forgotten, those who did not have the ability or the care to document their history, their lives not included in this homogenized traipse of humans

stomp
stomp
owch

Notes on Relating

2010-07-07T03:35:00.001-04:00

we are coming together with our own personal histories—all the despair, the beauty we, in each of our solitary, autonomous ways—(the way we are each of ourselves, chained to it, in a sense)—histories with conflict, histories that accompany one another, individual expectations, definitions, deaths, specters, ideologies, rinsing into & over each other, merging or merely slipping past. we celebrate those who fit with us, and nod & let pass those who do not—knowing they may find us again, in a more symbiotic manner, in another time & place.

Foodstuffs

2010-07-01T17:30:00.000-04:00

Friend and fellow musician / writer Andrew Alan Gardner accompanied me on a monthly grocery shopping expedition to a Kroger in Columbus, Ohio on May 31st, 2010. What follows is an archive of the dietary habits of almost a week of eating the food that we bought that day (and other food outside of that grocery shopping). To better illustrate, to further expound and intensify the following understanding of our dietary habits, the following scientific facts and empirical evidence (which can in no way be ideological or subjective) about ourselves follows—

I follow a mostly strict vegan diet, consisting (preferably) of high amounts of greens and other vegetables, fruits, grains, et. all, but allow the occasional dairy in my diet if the food has been dumpstered / donated or if it is going to be thrown away (or is just lying around or I just decide to eat something). I have been vegan for two and a half years. Should also be noted that there is a certain doubt I understand myself as having towards being a vegan, that transcends "ethical" or "health" arguments, that posits veganism not as something I "submit" to due to feelings of guilt, but as something I have, in a way, become accustomed to, in a similar way to how one's diet is determined from birth by the socio-economic circumstance of one's family. Not to feign certainty, nor to feign a "naturalization" of such a diet, the things I eat and buy tend to move towards a cause as to how they were made and where they were grown, albeit with some compromise due to my own socio-economic status, my own whims and desires, my own sense of what foods seem to "fit" with my body in a more natural (to me) way.

Andrew follows a vegetarian diet, that which consists of dairy, vegetables, grains, fruits, et. all, though, excluding the flesh of animals. Andrew has been vegetarian for two and a half years.

Both of us come from middle class suburban families of Cleveland, Ohio and are considered independents in governmental tax terms.

I drink alcohol. Andrew does not.

We both understand the utter absurdity of such a "study" and have some feelings of melancholy / uncertainty as to the confusion of the routes and paths food takes to be consumed by a person. Theory aside, this is what happened, what we did, our intentions, moral or ideological, our own, or not.

Andy's Foodstuffs

My Foodstuffs

Our Receipts & Hand-written Lists of Food Eaten with Time (click to enlarge)

"Think Tank" Second Pressing

2010-06-14T15:06:00.000-04:00

Jordan Castro and I used about ten hours of the eleventh day of June to 'press' (print & fold) eighty-two copies of the second edition of our split chapbook of poems think tank for human beings in general. The first edition of one hundred copies disseminated to various corners of the earth after the original release date back in November. Copies of the second edition are available HERE (or by simply paypaling $3 to richardwehrenbergjr@gmail.com). To encourage sales of the chapbook, Jordan is offering a deal related to the release of his new solo album "Anti-American", which you can read about on his blog, HERE.

Encouraging a comparison of two products.

I traveled by Greyhound from Columbus to Cleveland. Bus was a little late arriving to depart; people complained, were unruly, seemed unhappy. The passenger in front of me texted incessantly and listened to headphones. Once he sang the phrase "I'm bringin' sexy back" and no one responded. I sat in the back of the bus which smelled overwhelmingly like an unflushed toilet, but eventually, I became inured to it. A nun type lady glared at me and others disapprovingly. She looked like a kind of smug bird. A monk type man missed his bus and became flustered and started raising his voice. I ate a greasy deep-fried hashbrown wedge and drank a medium black coffee. Read a little of Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism & Schizophrenia and paused in thoughts about desire, longing, & loss for the extent of the two and a half hour ride.

( )

Jordan pulled up in his silver pod of a car around 11:45 am. I push into a blue cardigan after peeing at the Greyhound station in Cleveland. It felt chillier as I stepped outside, I assumed, because of Lake Erie's wind chill. Sun on my face, I felt a warm rush of a home feeling. Jordan talked about various topics in a disorganized manner. He bought some beer while waiting for me to arrive. I hadn't seen him in four months or more, though it felt like we had just walked away from each other and were simply re-convening. As if I had just stopped in the bus station to pee and he had waited outside for me. Time as a fluid that passes in a multiplicity of avenues and drains. We get to Solon and eat some brand of veggie burgers I had never heard of, put on a pot of coffee and begin printing.

The authors of think tank, Jordan Castro and Richard Wehrenberg Jr

One more thing my friends, if you will have me: I have decided to share another one of my poems from the chapbook with you. HERE is that. The poem is called "excuse me". Two other poems from the chapbook can be found here and here. And finally, a video of our ten hour process of making the second edition of think tank.

Want to do an interview or review think tank ?
E-mail all requests, tirades, propositions, et. all, to richardwehrenbergjr at gmail dot com

Thank you for reading.

(Photos by Mallory Whitten)

Effigy Zine, Ideology Poem Set, Pittsburgh Reading

2010-06-04T13:04:00.005-04:00

Matt Whispers, a Chicago writer and friend, releases a zine of his poetry called Effigy, of which the 7th issue recently dropped. The special thing about this issue is that it features not only the wonderful poetry of Matthew, but also showcases guest writers Anthony Marvullo, Ben Block, Rosy Phinick, Ryan J., and myself. I wrote a three poem set specifically for this issue called ideology. My first poem from the collection:

ideology (1)

quite frequently i have visions
of ‘capitalists’ and ‘anti-capitalists’
relieving themselves, so-to-speak,
of their animosity towards each other
in the form of two or three of each type
huddled in a quiet apartment with a dimmed lamp
massaging their genitals together like bonobos do,
reconciling their disparate ideologies
in this sexually rudimentary way,
collapsing the binary of themselves
by coming together like this.

i am seeing them in this environment
as though through plexiglass,
like some jane goodall-slavoj žižek
amalgamation with glasses and clipboard
taking notes like—

friedman mounts marx
with determined facial expression
or chomsky and goldman,
after heated ‘foursome’ with rand and reagan,
share some oatmeal.

and of course, if you construct a category
you will find people to fill it—
you will be able to tuck them in tight
and tactfully assign them ‘essential’
characteristics and expectations—
you will reduce them to necessaries
and sufficients, causes and effects,
essence before existence—

but when we speak of each other,
let it be of our innards, of our collective
biologies and consciousnesses, of the mutability
and clayness of our days, of the pieces of each other
we have gifted away and taken in simultaneously
to be made a part of our-loamy-selfs,

to be made a part of (and here, i cannot resist positing this)
our hearts, those overworked and rusted signifiers,
which we seem to have shackled, which we seem
to have assigned straight-jackets for the times
when they have raised their pickaxes to the layers
and locks we have bricked around them
to chip away, however slowly, at whatever
myths, presuppositions and simplifications
we might have made up in our relations.

i have been imagining myself waking up quietly,
emptied of fallaciousness and facade, insistent upon
identifying the totality of our epoch and dismantling it,
re-positioning the tiny truths that remain into every
mud-crack of my step, every trap-door of my syntax,
until it becomes easier to love each other again.

I have about 10ish copies, if anyone would like one it is possible and plausible to paypal $4 (shipping included) to richardwehrenbergjr@gmail.com or e-mail me to figure out another way to send me the cost of the zine.

The other two poems I have in the set are a longer prose poem and a shorty short poem, numbers 2 & 3 of the ideology set, respectively.

____________________________________________________________________________________

And a reading (!)

This Saturday June 5th I will be reading some poems and prose in Pittsburgh at a house called Helter Shelter (4936 Harrison St.) for a one day fest called "Music is for Everyone". Starts at 5PM & is donation based.

I will also be playing with the band Letters to the Moon at this fest. Other performers / readers include: dream girl and the nightmares (a collaboration of female readers and musicians), wifebeater, the committee for getting attention, critter, hit and miss engines, broken neck, masochrist, nectar of the gods, and dj drop that.

Aurevoir meine freunde.

Hiram, Ohio

2010-05-24T13:54:00.001-04:00

On Saturday, this last twenty-second day of May, my roommate and fellow writer/musician Ryan J. & myself trundled towards the imperturbable farms and fields of Hiram, Ohio to convene with a pile of our friends at a treehouse in the woods. Three stories tall, two rooms full of throwback video game systems, a trove of chips, oatmeal creme pies, & various other junk foods, beer bottles, we stood amongst the trees watching the rain clouds circle around us. We huddled around a fire, shared stories, faces, movements. It had been decided that a few of us would share songs too. Andy Cook played first on a little stage off to the side of the fire pit. Narrative folk tunes. Bobby Stevens followed, similar deal, more old-fashioned sounding folk. A Hiram local sat on the stage and crooned some trite love songs, endearing in such a place. Ryan J. & myself played around 11pm in the country darkness, sending off our voices into the field surrounding the woods, into the ears of our friends. There was a little lamp on the stage, the warm glow of fire to the left of us, for light. I read a poem called "ideology (2)" to end it. American War played after us, the voices of our gathering taking over, our own harmonies and jokes, our goading and leading and love in cahoots with his songs . Midnight, singing along like I can't shake this loneliness. In a moment, together, somehow. Light rain fell invariably. We sat around the fire until sleep tapped. I closed my eyes and fell into sleep by the dwindling flame on the backseat of a mini-van. Woke up at 7am to a foggish rain falling on my face and climbed the ladder to the treehouse and curled up to the sounds of squirrels climbing, birds warbling early morning songs, songs always, songs.

Videos follow of two songs Ryan J. & I played together. His song "Lie With Me", and mine "( )".

More and more, I am imagining myself as a dad

2010-04-28T20:58:00.002-04:00

Litany Towards Fear

The outline of a wallet
in my dead father's jean backpocket:
How do you tell someone
mostly i feel afraid

While dusting off old
bowling trophies: browned-gray,
wrinkled nineteen forties
photograph once fastened to a wall
lies to wait

A new short story / self-reflection

2010-03-31T12:34:00.000-04:00

My story 'Leaving' has been published in print & on Issuu (above) by Kent State University's literary magazine Luna Negra. Many other writers, whom I also have the privilege / ability to call by the economical term friends, have pieces in the magazine too.

The story is placed on page ten (or pages 6-7 on the embedded Issuu thingy) with a white and kelly-ish green background. Here is an excerpt from the story that is interested in ideas / feelings:

"I remember doing things, but the images come back blurry, the sounds fuzzed over with a kind of television static. I would be so baffled at the loudness of the moments of good-bye that I could never say good-bye how I wanted to. How I wanted it to feel. Impermanent, never-lasting. Knowing I’ll see you soon. But it was always deafening. The syllables screamed through megaphones at me. Announcing the death of something. Not sure what. Everything just seemed to move towards leaving. Continually, forever. When I went on to new places I knew I would leave them eventually, and this thought preoccupied most of my actions. I would seem half-interested. People wouldn’t come to me for passion. I would stutter my speech or speak like I lost my voice, lifting my arm timidly, too busy thinking of how the movement of my arm was a movement towards an end. I don’t think I knew it exactly in those words, but that was the feeling."

Here is an excerpt from the story that is more interested in occurrence / observation, and which switches tenses / time:

"Look at Grey Cat lounging under the oak tree next to the swing set, head resting on his front paws. Scan the yard for movement. Start walking. Summertime. Nothing to do. Collect a bucket full of toads. See them hopping around on each other in it, not knowing what’s happening. Light a fire, feel cold. Rub your arms, smooth out the goosebumps popping up like tiny snow-capped mountains. Feel warm. Watch the sun drooping down, peering over the Huber’s roofline. Squint at Mrs. Huber’s voice from the kitchen window. Crouch behind a tree around a small fire. Matches, lighter fluid on the ground. Crumpling paper. Fire crackling. Toads burning. Grey Cat chewing on something. Not saying a word.

We trudged back inside, Grey Cat peering in at us through the cloudy glass door with a lamenting look, left to work through the night shift alone. Mrs. Huber made spaghetti and meatballs. We sat in chairs too big for our bodies, and poked at our food. Aaron held forks in a fist, like how you hold a knife when you are stabbing at something. I sat under the weight of light bulbs burning, eyes blinking in awe and smallness behind glasses too big for my face at how I had ended up at where I was today. Where I was right now. The ever-present now. Everything gleamed, the plates reflecting the overhead light. Mr. Huber came into the room. He was a man who looked like a clown without makeup on, the mouth squirmable like earthworms, lips the color of pinkish dirt. He said something about the smell of the food and sat down rubbing his hands together."

The story seems to fluctuate between these kinds of paragraphs, that is, paragraphs that present images and their ideas, the situational feelings of a youth posited onto a whole, a composite of two separate times perhaps aptly called movement, perhaps developed beside a feeling of impermanence, positioned between / beside paragraphs that state with vague reference to this already stated, overall theme / idea, that simply show the people, things, places, that evoke the particular feeling.

Some people who have read it have called it more of an essay than a short story.

On becoming a poem machine & accessing unconsious-poetics

2010-03-19T14:35:00.000-04:00

I was one of several attendees and tablers at the Chicago Zine Fest this past weekend, March 12-13th. An impossible amount of zines were displayed, a seemingly endless amount of coffee and various nuts were allocated, and most persons seemed to be in good spirits. Someone was dressed as a rabbit, someone else was dressed as a gorilla, if that signifies anything. The main event was held at Columbia College in Chicago. I mostly sat at my table with my roommate Ryan J and Mark of 'The Fury' zine and talked to people who were walking around. Some people seemed out of control or just shy and neurotic. James Payne advised me a day earlier to write a 'poem' or 'aphorism' on the spot, so I did.

I am unsure how many poems I wrote, but it seemed like a lot. Like maybe 30-40 short poems. It worked like this: the person interested in the poem would tell me the title / subject of the poem and then I would write something pertaining to it. One of them was called "Rock 'N Roll" and went something like "I can't believe / Elvis was once considered 'edgy,' / seems so lame, / like Santa Claus or something." Another I wrote for Amy from Toronto appropriately or lazily titled "Canada" went something like "I like a lot of bands from Canada, / like Constantines, the Weakerthans, Propaghandi, & Christine Fellows / when I think of the word 'Canada' / it seems really cold." Overall, I think it went okay. Some people didn't seem to get it, or just didn't think it was as interesting as others did.

Huffington Post wrote an article HERE about the success of DIY publishing that the Chicago Zine Fest signified, which features seminal zinesters Anne Elizabeth Moore and Jeffrey Brown, and in which I am featured in the picture section (also pictured above) holding a poem I wrote called "Writing & Zines." In the caption I am being represented as some kind of poem machine that "writes poems on demand." It illicitly proposes some questions I find to hold significance, mainly these:

Am I merely a perpetual, capitalistic machine that simply spits out throw away poems? Have I somehow become the antithesis of the Ideas I hold, however uncertainly? By becoming a "poem machine," by writing seemingly apolitical poems, which in their simplicity, their concern for merely surface level observations, and status-update-like phrasing, do I, as a subject of my praxis, become Ranciere's "a part of no-part," an in-between, which in many people's eyes, inevitably becomes subsumed into the overarching ethos-pathos of oppressive capitalistic production, of reproducing the relations of production in a way that ensures the prevailing 'values' ( = if you do not hold fast with certainty the values of those Excluded, you will become neither, or you will become exploitable to those Included) of said relations of production? No answer.

But, if anything, I hope playful communication serves the hand of connecting, in some way, our lives and all the grandiose importance we seem to have to apply to it. This said, I will take the next step and call for a reclamation of the poems I wrote, and posit a philosophy to accompany my actions this past weekend.

__

PROPOSITION FOR RECLAMATION OF POEMS WRITTEN @ CHICAGO ZINE FEST

If I wrote you a poem at the Chicago Zine Fest last weekend, you should email me the poem, and if I get enough, I will publish them on this blog or somewhere else (contact me if you are interested in publishing this potential 'poems on the spot' series).

It might follow that this project will serve as an example of the praxis of communicating the thoughts of the unconscious (which I mostly write from when writing poems) and how this may be related to more sincere communication. In the synthesis of the poetry form with topical philosophical aphorisms, in the amalgamation of playfulness and thoughtfulness, this poem set may display the kind of communication and language I am used to using with those around me whom I love dearly: it is a kind of speech that revolves significantly around sarcasm and joking, but also depends just as much on the truth of the moment, of an awareness of desire, and not repression of said desire. In hope, if more people would learn to access this kind of language, this way of communicating our collective lives with each other via the so-named unconscious-poetics style (and to further-develop, this means being conscious of one's desires / unconscious, being aware of what language you are using or is using you, like a mutation of Sartre, a "being-for-itself-for-others") would this lessen loneliness and oppression? Seems difficult to say, but as with most things, cynicism does not feel like an option either.

2010-03-01T13:31:00.000-05:00

chicago zine fest (march 12-13, 2010)

is coming up not this coming, but next weekend and will be a wonderful event.

i would try and come if you live in the greater midwest region of the united states

or if you are from anywhere else and have an interest in self-publishing / zines / diy culture

independent publishers, writers and the like, both 'more' and 'lesser' known, will be making appearances

all of the things happening are free of charge, i am pretty sure

here is the list of people exhibiting work

here is the list of people reading at the zine fest

they will appear and say some words that will empower, 'in general,' "the proletariat" >"the bourgeois"

they will say things about doing-it-yourself and doing-it-together

i will be saying things, ie reading poems and prose, at a "post-zine fest show"

it is on saturday march 13th at 7:30 pm @ ball hall (1621 n kedzie #3) chicago, il

music from eric ayotte (bloomington, in) / letters to the moon (columbus, oh) / world's smallest puzzle (wi?)

other readings from aaron cynic (chicago) / rosy phinick (chicago)

let us come together, 'some-effing-how'

'<3'

poem

2010-02-24T12:57:00.000-05:00

louis althusser strangled his wife to death

because he didn't ever get out of some psychosexual stage, maybe

someone wrote a book about it, the implications, 'reasons', et cetera

i would like to read it someday

i wonder about jacques lacan's diet, sometimes.

you should read jacques lacan or louis althusser

in fact, stop reading this right now and go read them.

but i am afraid you may find them to be esoteric

and return to this page

and curse my name

and maybe you will think

i am esoteric

( = intended for a limited audience, incomprehensible to most )

it is hard for me to imagine who could possibly be reading this.

what i am trying to say—

if you have the time

you should read lacan

or althusser

and then email me

maybe we can talk about

ISAs or "the Orders"

or interpellation or the unconscious

this may take months

i will try to promise to stay alive.

I did a thing, Ryan did a thing

2010-02-21T15:59:00.000-05:00

Myself reading "what 'achieving minor celebrity status' means"
Monster House, February 18th, 2010

Ryan J. performing his whole set of poetry & prose
Monster House, January 18th, 2010

( Let me interpellate you to my ideology )

2010-02-18T15:04:00.000-05:00

I have a new story published online by Slingshot Litareview called "Object".

There is a deal of sorts happening that is related to my ‘story’ / slingshot litareview, in which one may, after writing something about my ‘story,’ slingshot as a place for writing, or another piece at slingshot at one’s blog or elsewhere, win some very fine books from Josh Kleinberg's personal library.

Check out the book deal / details HERE.

Adam Robinson has posted about this, too, at HTMLGIANT.

Parting words / advice: I am reading poems and prose at Monster House in Columbus, Ohio tonight, more info.

I am doing a new thing

2010-02-11T20:18:00.000-05:00

James Payne Bedroom Concert Series

This is what it is like—

2010-02-09T19:10:00.000-05:00

hung our diplomas on the bathroom wall

ten haiku & thoughts on haiku livin'

2010-02-02T14:19:00.000-05:00

a snowman waiting

for his orange carrot nose—

the smell of winter.

a friend lights a smoke

fending off an angry wind

victory smile.

dancing around me—

the violins of crickets

this welcoming song

my father leaving,

only the shadow of him

an echo of rain.

twilight and a moon—

some bus stuttering towards me

pushing through the fog.

after you have left:

the thrum of your syllables

letters in your name.

this schoolyard empty

but still the sound of children,

ghosts of some youth.

waking from his sleep

the pig flaps his head around,

snorts and walks away.

next to you in bed

i feel blindly for your hand

end up with the foot.

the first sun of spring—

a snowman melts quietly,

no way to say it.

____________________________

i wrote these haiku after studying eastern philosophy and religion, primarily zen buddhism and haiku, for fifteen weeks. i remember thinking about relating with certain "haiku poets" for what words they wrote down and trying to envision their bodies in front of me, like their bodies sitting at the coffee house with me, looking around at the modern world with me.

i think the "haiku poet" i most related / felt like i could have been / been friends with in a past life is kobayashi issa. here is one of his haiku i enjoy for its lack of action:

The man pulling radishes

pointed my way

with a radish.

another:

New Year's Day—

everything is in blossoms!

I feel about average.

kobayashi issa 'straight-chillin'

i remember reading something like "haiku cannot be reduced to a form, it is a way of life, a way of seeing things." r.h. blyth had this to say about life in the same book i read about haiku and eastern philosophy:

"The great problem of practical, every day life is thus to see things properly, not to valuate them in some hard and fast moral scale of virtue and vice, use and uselessness, but to take them without sentimental or intellectual prejudice."

i think this 'sums up' haiku and zen buddhism without reducing them too much.

it seems like this idea of letting things happen to you, letting life come into you without prejudice towards it, presupposes something, a certain calmness and availability of your immediate surroundings, eg. in a city over stimulated with "things" how could one not have prejudice towards certain objects, certain people, certain places. it does seem ideal, though, to not have this prejudice.

it seems cities are not ideal for a "haiku lifestyle," that cities might be places where lonely people 'flock' and only become lonelier, where they become glazed over with so many "things" that the word lonely does not make sense to use, because one is around so many things and to be lonely would not make sense. plus, in a city it is less likely that radishes will be pointed towards you by a man pulling them.

&&&

haiku then, and its supposed objective way of living and seeing the world, like the many mediums and forms of expression one can use, will be, if i am being cynical, co-opted, and if i am being indifferent, used, by western or modern writers who are more acclimated to individualistic tendencies, the propagation of the self above the other, above the ostensible group, because groups are imagined, constructed in their minds.

this 'co-option' or 'use' of the haiku form is necessarily only being called co-opted or used, because it was used one way for so long a time as to be able to be considered its own "thing," with its own properties and values. it seems people want to think culture is innate and specific to a place, which it is and it is not. it is in that it develops somewhere specific, but in no way is it constrained to stay there, in no way does it belong there specifically. it only starts to belong there when people decide it belongs there, that it is of one place innately.

would haiku care if it was being moved towards being used for more subjective purposes? or would that violate its own "rules"? when one says "i have no preconceived notion of how to live my life, about what is good or bad, etc." is this not a preconceived notion itself? it depends on how one looks at it, ones attitude and perception of it, like anything, i suppose.

an oldish short story and a new poem

2010-01-25T14:05:00.000-05:00

one of the first short stories i wrote is now up at pangur ban party.

it is titled "Bigfoot" and is set in northwestern washington state.

i wrote it after reading miriam toews's novel a complicated kindness.

one of my newest poems is up at ana carrete's web site poems about expiring.

it is called "hummus" and is set in kent, ohio.

i wrote it after remembering when i ate "gone-bad" hummus.

my chapbook, with jordan castro, think tank for human beings in general

is now available at quimby's in chicago, illinois.

there should also be a few copies left at mac's backs

on coventry road in cleveland heights, ohio.

i also have 3-4 copies of the chapbook left.

check out the site here if you want to order one.

i have recently moved to columbus, ohio.

i live in a house with ten other people.

our house puts on four-ish shows a month.

we are called monster house.

i am scouring craigslist for a part time job.

nothing seems to be happening.

i just watched "manufacturing consent."

it seemed slightly outdated, but still interesting / relevant.

i think noam chomsky seems pretty nice.

i want to listen to him speak about hegemony

and u.s. intervention in latin america

as i am falling asleep.

calm, collected, articulate, mmmm.

being gone (writing as reconstruction / show remembrances)

2010-01-17T16:42:00.000-05:00

this is a remembrance, as writing is, of a certain time, a reconstruction of the days i spent traveling around playing music and reading poems from december 28th, 2009 - january 9th, 2010 with my friend toby foster.

people (in order of appearance)

toby foster, richard wehrenwolf, ancestors, rozco, american war, underdogs of nipomo, the committee for getting attention, homeless gospel choir, maryn jones, big spirit, matthew shelton, call me chainsaw, dylan sizemore, dustin and the furniture, madeline ava, dinner, kids are goats, mark ciolek, like bats, henry, will toodles, vera maleta, sam pink, jordan castro, bobby evers, matt whispers.

dec 28 2009, kent, oh @ house house

the co-op house i have lived in since august. seems like a good number of people can't come because they do not want to brave the roads. a heavy snowfall has fallen. toby parks his car on college ave and a snow plow comes down the road twice and almost hits his car both times. lisa and i make chili. bri comes. cailey drives from dayton with her friend (a pattern: forgetting names) and the pig. ancestors plays first. courtney plays a song she had written hours before on piano that is very nice. rozco plays after tim gill shows up. tim gill doesn't stop talking about the pig the whole show. he seems drunk. toby plays. american war plays. i play. it is my cd release show / moving away front kent show / graduation "party." an elaborate vegan mermaid cake is made and maimed. it is a nice and home-ish kind of show. the next day toby, lisa, andrew, and me walk down along the cuyahoga river with tikaani (dog) and climb under a bridge, holding our limbs close to our bodies for warmth. we drink scribble's coffee and eat burritos from taco tantos. we leave at ~5PM to go to the soggy dog house.

dec 29 2009, lakewood, oh @ soggy dog house

we arrive in lakewood to the soggy dog house and find ken dix and a few others huddled in ken's room. brett and chris arrive at the same time as us. a few others begin coming into the house and we start drinking beers. this turns into a few drunken people upstairs in the hallway as more and more folks begin to show up for the show. eventually underdogs of nipomo play in the basement. toby plays next upstairs. then american war. then myself. a handful of people become drunker as the night progresses. i think it is going to be a usual soggy dog night, where after the music is over certain people stick around and drink beers and share stories, smoke smokes, and in general have a good time, but most everybody ends up leaving and we go to bed around 3:30AM slightly drunk in an empty house. wake up to tim gill, rozco, and kaley walking in the door with a twelve of "milwaukee's best" and glazed faces at 12PM. ask us about going to el jalapenos for lunch and margaritas. sanders gets off work. try to go to melt for vegan grilled cheese sandwiches and decide not to because of a 2.5 hour wait. end up at el jalapenos with a group of ~10 people. have a few margaritas, listen to tim gill laugh insanely loud, eat bean burritos and rice. talk about how there was a pig at the show in kent. smoke, getting a little drunk. go back to the soggy dog. hugs. leave for pittsburgh.

dec 30 2009, pittsburgh, pa @ 222 ormsby

get to this space that used to be a grocery store and are greeted by 3 people we don't know and a case of "pabst blue ribbon." it is a skinny fridge case. there is a quiet pit bull-ish dog named jughead sitting on the couch. i sit next to him and take in the smoky conversation. toby's friend (name...) who set up the show comes out and greets us and has some cigarettes and we wait for others to arrive. a stout, short haired girl playing under the name the committee for getting attention sings us some songs about life and work, the brash nature of our days. some people leave. some people show up. a well dressed man drinking a large bottle of "yuengling" under the guise of homeless gospel choir plays next. he reminds me of something, something that seems endearing and nice, but you can feel something underneath that is slightly off to you, just a little, but it's okay. maybe it is just the alcohol. i play next. there is a little audience-artist interaction that makes me feel good. some words are exchanged about ohio or something. toby plays after me. it seems like a good number of people know / like him. a girl named meagan, who i met at do it together fest in kent, is there and i give her a cd and a zine. i sell a chapbook and a cd. some guy seems like he wants to play some songs, confirms that he knows a few lady gaga songs on guitar, and some people gather around him and they sing one of them ("ga ga, la la," etc.). homeless bro plays a few more songs, covers i think, including an endless mike and the beagle club song. homeless bro and his lady leave, give toby and me their half-drunken yuengling bottles. we end up getting beer for free, it seems, always. max, who lives at ormsby plays a few songs. most people leave. the girl who set up the show cooks us vegan ravioli. we ruminate over how to make tomato paste into tomato sauce. it is done. another girl gives toby and me ~6 "keystone ices." we drink them while eating pretzels. it is snowing. hard. we fall asleep. wake up and walk around the house a little bit. say goodbye to max. hit the road.

dec 31 2009, columbus, oh @ various new year's parties

get to columbus after an easy drive. i have trouble parking, though. knock on the door, maryn jones answers and lets us in, gives us a tour of her soon-to-be-left home. we sit around for a while, i think. some of her roommates are dressed up and partying a bit. we decide not to go out to eat and instead walk to kroger, buy a sweet potato, green pepper, some beers and head back. fry a bunch of veggies with spices together and have a meal. i buy a bottle of pinot noir for ~$10. start drinking it. more people show up. dancing, singing, etc. meet up with ryan starinsky and pat crann and another friend. go to monkee's party. cross streams with pat crann. finish peeing before he is done and as people in the living room are counting down for the new year. laugh about it. try some tofu pot pie jesse made. call people you care about. forget your jacket and get sick the next day from walking around columbus all night with just a sweater on. go back to maryn's around 1 AM. people have started smoking inside. feel slightly pissed, then light a smoke. feel mildly attracted to some people dancing around you. eventually feel tired, have drunken conversations, and walk to the monster house to fall asleep. 5AM. wake up and feel not necessarily hungover, but a little sick. eat falafel from "ali baba's." leave for cincinatti around 5PM.

jan 1 2010, cincinatti, oh @ bike haus

drive to cincinatti and again i have trouble finding the house. find it, troy comes outside. immediately think about how i like his mustache. gather some things and bring them up the two flights of stairs to the warehouse style home called "bike haus." look around at some show fliers from previous shows. get offered a "pabst blue ribbon." drink four of them. troy, mitch, and a girl (name...) are making food in the kitchen. matthew shelton and a cello player show up. he brings some odd italian bean for an appetizer for the potluck. it is a very salty bean. troy brings out vegan chili, rice and beans. someone brings dumpstered muffins, maybe. we eat lots of food. troy starts to make gin and tonics. i drink one, slowly. more folks show up. troy asks me to play first. i sit in the "living room" in front of the t.v. in a chair and people sit on couches and listen. it is the first show i decide to read some poems from "ttfhbig". seems like people enjoy it. no one buys any "merch." i feel okay. matthew shelton plays next. he makes me feel calm and old. he is considerably older than most people we play with on tour and it is refreshing. he has a low voice and plays in open d, i think. a lyric i slightly recall: "my mind is a radio, always changing stations." toby plays. call me chainsaw, a bro who looks like he is completely wasted, but in reality is straight edge, plays next. he sings songs about school as a factory, reminiscent of billy bragg. he seems nice, but slightly self-deprecating. he reminds me of my friend brett. maryn jones and big spirit join us for the first of four shows together. jordan (big spirit) has his dog with him named florida. maryn has her two cats, aslan and timmy. timmy has thumbs. they have animals because maryn is moving to st. augustine, fl and jordan is moving to savannah, ga. dustin and ardilla are there. i finish my gin and tonic. toby plays. jordan plays. maryn plays. as each of them play it seems like more and more people are leaving. some guy tries to give troy money to play some songs. he has a handle bar goatee / mustache. he sings songs about "making love" and sometimes his voice gets very loud. i feel slightly uncomfortable. he is nice, though. eventually i get another gin and tonic. troy talks in a provocative way it seems. seems like he has a very upbeat worldview / positive attitude all the time. maryn, jordan and i try to go to a bar called "grammer's." it is closed. jordan buys lemonade and rolling papers from a gas station. we go back to bike haus and sit around smoking smokes and drinking gin and tonics til 5 AM. eventually we go to sleep. somehow, troy wakes up at 9ish to go to work. he comes back as i am waking up. i read a few stories from honored guest. toby wakes up and gets a "miller high life" and gives it to jordan in bed as a joke. jordan drinks it. maryn begins to drink her leftover gin and tonic. it takes us a long time to get in the car to go get food. we try to go to someplace called "loving cafe." i feel slightly perturbed by their sign. it reads "be green. go veg. save the planet." i think about what "saving the planet" is supposed to mean. 'play of signifiers,' 'language,' etc. turns out it is closed anyway. we go to a much more appealing place called melt. i get a "veggie cheesesteak." toby gets vegan nachos. the 'nachos' are sunchips. i feel detached and hardly say anything the whole meal. we leave. i forget to tip. listen to pheramones in the car and feel good. get back to bike haus and maryn and jordan are talking about getting bloody mary's. pack up our stuff and toby and i leave to go to lexington. listen to why?, the weakerthans, and delay. toby feels sick from staying up late / drinking.

jan 2 2010, lexington, ky @ crucial fun house

get to crucial fun house (which used to be called "the man-cave") 'right on time.' kids are hanging out. seems like they are considerably younger than kids from other shows. we bring in our stuff. i take a poop and the toilet doesn't flush, feel worried, ask anthony quietly about how to flush it. there is a picture of a naked man on the bathroom wall and a naked woman. turn the water on for the toilet and flush. again, i play first. maryn and jordan miss seeing me play for the second time in a row. the show is in an attic space of sorts. people sit and i stand to play. meet a girl named tessla, i think, while outside smoking. jordan and i 'bond' via nietzsche and various jokes and smokes. melodie makes vegan cookies. everyone else on our tour plays. a person named dylan sizemore plays. he sounds like eric ayotte kind of and sings about 'a better world' or something. i enjoy it, i think. i sell / trade a few cds. there is a melodica after the show and lollipops. i feel disoriented and do not talk much. i look at people and try to think about having conversations with them, but that is as far as it goes. seems like i smoke a lot of smokes. people are talking, it is loud. mitch from cincy gives me a "miller high life." i have two-ish. troy, toby, maryn, and maybe someone else shotgun beers in the kitchen. toby spills some beer in the drying pasta. we eat pasta. people seem to be joyous and absurd. eventually i just go to sleep on the wood floor in the attic. i think i take some melatonin. i wake up occasionally to toby making high pitched noises in his sleep next to me and feel disoriented. forget where you are. we wake up and head over a few blocks to "sweet butter." most everyone is still asleep.

jan 3 2010, lexington, ky @ sweet butter

there are eggs and oatmeal and mimosas. there is oatmeal and mimosa and water in my mouth. there is florida the dog. there is dustin and ardilla. there is toby playing some songs. there is me playing some songs from the kids album. there is jordan playing some songs. there is maryn playing some songs. dustin plays a bunch of jonathan richman covers. it is nice. two people i don't know are there. lounge with florida on the ground in the sunlight a bit. feel warm. eat more oatmeal. eat toast with "magic" coconut oil on it. sit around. go play tennis with dustin. lose terribly, kind of. go back. dustin tells me he wishes he is a professional tennis player. the inside of the house seems like it is the house from "jumanji." jordan, toby, and me smoke smokes. go back in. ardilla says we smell gross. dustin says that is rude to say. i take a shower. feel 'refreshed.' jordan asks someone on the phone if he or she knows "richard wehrenwolf from kent, ohio." they don't. we start driving to knoxville, i think.

jan 3 2010, knoxville, tn @ birdhouse

again, i get us lost driving into a city. we find the space with some help from madeline ava, who also set up the show. place seems sweet. bottom floor is community space for art shows and upstairs is full of rooms rented to artists. madeline tells me they cook food not bombs in the kitchen. there are multiple rooms. i meet a man outside named ______ and he tells me about the house and about his life. he seems smug, chain smoking. i like his voice, it is calm. madeline plays first. she plays ukulele with a drummer who plays with brushes and a high-hat and the rim of a bicycle. the songs are cute or something and i highly enjoy her shelby sifers cover. i play next. seems like people are standing far away from me. i think i play good. jordan tells me he highly enjoyed it. it is the first time maryn and jordan make it to a show on time to see me play my "real" songs. a family that is there leave as i am outside and the mother pauses and turns to me and says "liked yer songs, thanks for playing." jordan plays next. i tell him how i like his song that ends with a meditation on the phrase "become who you are" and i tell him he should play it so he sings the phrase like seven to eight times. maryn plays. seems like people like her a lot. she sings quietly and finger picks delicately on a classical guitar. jordan is burning cds on the merch table. toby plays. seems like people everywhere know / like him. i look at madeline and she is filming him and mouthing the words to his songs. i think about how it would be cool if she had filmed one of my songs and puts it on youtube or something. she does. madeline offers us bagels. my half is warm and slightly toasted. we find out jordan and maryn are staying with some other person. toby and i go back to madeline's house, say goodbye to maryn and jordan. have an indoor picnic. talk about various things. i take some melatonin. fall asleep. wake up and decide to meet jordan and maryn at waffle house to say one last goodbye, as they are not playing in athens with us. i eat hashbrowns with onions. madeline films toby and i and talking about sandwiches. i say that a sandwich with my name would have broccoli on it. i feel like i don't know what i am talking about. we drop off madeline and drive to athens.

jan 4 2010, athens, ga @ 534 meigs

the drive to athens is snowy. we drive through the smoky mountains. on the way before the mountain there is every store possible. lots of "as seen on tv" stores. an iron cast factory outlet. lots of other funny stores. i say something like "seems like the landfill for products that no one wants anymore." toby laughs. toby wants to stop at all the mini-golf courses / arcades. i feel slightly depressed. we stop at a gas station on the way up the mountain for coffee, gas, and smokes. toby gets a call from a brazilian pizza shop in chicago telling him he "got the job." he seems excited. we drive up the mountain more. i read more stories from honored guest. one about a lady and husband who lose most of their money in a desert town. there is a lawn care person named dennis maybe who likes the wife because she reminds him of his nanny who died young. the stories are scary, but in a weird people wanting things and doing weird things to get what they want kind of way. we stop and take pictures as we get higher up the mountain. eventually reach the peak, and don't stop to take pictures, though a significant number of people do. drive down. more stores. lots of stores. seems scary. seems like a joy williams short story. keep driving. get to athens. get to 534 meigs st. a girl (name...) answers the door. the house is empty. laura carter of nana grizol / other bands owns the house and asks if we want to rent it. funny. theo of nana grizol who set up the show arrives with foods. collard greens. potatoes. soysauge. tastes really earthy. some more people show up. the house is empty because it used to house all the orange twin records / stuff. the floor is red. there is a faux-bar with "pabst blue ribbon" and "fancy drinks" to buy during the show. i drink ~3-4 pabst blue ribbons. toby plays first. there is a fire outside. people seem quiet and docile, but also like they are genuinely enjoying the show, like they are people who have been to so many shows over the years that they do not seem like they are waiting to be entertained or amazed by the music, but like they like the overall feel of a house show / hangout with friends. it is different, it is nice. no one buys anything. i vaguely meet a few people. smoke some smokes. i play some songs and read some poems. dinner, the bassist for nana grizol's solo acoustic project plays next. he sings some words like "honey i shrunk the empire." his guitar playing is sloppy, but in a good way. people seem interested and psyched to see him play. he finishes after people egg him on to play another song. he doesn't have any. his name is jared i learn. we clean up and leave to go back to the orange twin "eco-village" house with theo and laura and another roomate (name...). i eat an egg for the first time in quite a while. seems quiet in the house. seems like a house i would imagine myself living in one day. the dogs, alice gertrude and fatty, are amazing creatures. we go to theo's room and watch "no country for old men." i have seen it before. we go to bed. wake up and have good, rich coffee with the housemates. sit in a sunlit room and feel warm. laura is hanging out then suddenly gets up and realizes she has to be somewhere in five minutes. i meet the chickens whose egg i ate the night before. theo feeds / gives water to the chickens. there is a duck that hangs out with them. we go on the internet. we leave, reluctantly a little bit. drive theo into town and take off for tennesseee again. stop at "sluggo's" in chattanooga. eat a "berliner." feel almost uncomfortably full.

jan 5 2010, murfreesboro, tn @ 1002 harrison

drive into the strip of stores before the college town begins. think of how it seems like alliance, ohio, where mount union college is located. don't think about much really. get to the house and meet shannon who set up the show. ~4 people hanging out in the living room eating food. i feel terribly ill. coughing every 2-5 minutes. shannon takes us to her apartment to eat food before the show. her downstairs isn't heated. her room is. we make tea and "amy's no cheese pizza." go back to the house the show is at. seems like people like candy and soda there. they go to the store and buy sour patch kids and coke and skittles and some beer. seems like there are two distinct groups of people: "party people" and "show people." levan shows up. he seems high. he has some "magic berry" or something that turns off certain taste buds. says they seem like a 'scam'. he plays under the name kids are goats. he sounds like a hip hop artist playing neutral-milk-esque acoustic songs. i can dig it. he is high. he does a "doom-jam" at the end of a song and asks toby if he got it on film. a lot of people laugh. i feel genuinely warm from listening. i play next. somehow i can sing decently. i feel very comfortable and have good audience interaction. doesn't seem like an audience at all really. i sit down when i play. people seem interested. some "party people" become "show people." then go back to being "party people." toby plays. i eat some sour patch kids. some people buy cds from me. a guy offers me a beer. i drink it slowly, feel sick. more people show up with beer and seems like a party is happening. think "is a party happening." drink another "budweiser." someone says "...it's murfreesboro." some people talk about things a lot of people have been talking about that we have encountered on the tour: certain bands, certain fests, etc. feel bored and vaguely think 'eternal reoccurrence.' go back to shannon's house and drink medicinal tea. feels really good. go on the internet. toby looks at a cookbook. we fall asleep. wake up and shannon has made vegan muffins and apple slices and brings us orange juice. i feel taken care of and grateful. we leave and get a little lost on our way out of town.

jan 6 2010, columbus, oh @ monster house

it is our longest drive yet. toby has me take over after doing a good four hour solid block of driving. we stop at waffle house. seems packed trying to find a parking spot by the monster house. troy from cincy is there when we get there. his third show seeing us this tour. amanda lets us in. it is quiet at first. my brother, sister, and matt scheuermann arrive as kind of a surprise. but i had a feeling they would be here. we hug. my sister has made a vegan chocolate cake. "with applesauce, not eggs" she says, "hope it's okay." it is. ryan is running around somewhere. it gets to be about 8:30 and ryan asks me when i want to play. i say first is fine. i set up in the living room and start strumming and waiting for people to settle down. the show seems well attended and later we confirm, there were a lot of people. dana is there taking photos. i play some songs and read some poems. i feel the monotony of playing the same 6ish songs every night transforming into something positive. i have taken control over the songs and they are really mine, it feels like. but still i like to give them to people. i just get better at performing them. holding the notes in, pushing them out. most of all the good people i have met in columbus are in the confines of the monster house and it feels good to see them all. i will be living here soon. i try and understand what that will be like. there is no real way to fathom, to attempt to understand a future situation. something is always kept from you. "mark c. and the invisible three" play next. mark is steve smith's (from the sidekicks) brother. there is an uncanny resemblance in pronunciation of words and vocabulary and looks in general. basically if my brother started writing songs i'm sure he would sound like me too. makes sense. he is sloppy on the guitar, but still interesting and he sings about the comforts of love and some other stuff, like feeling nervous and wanting to stay in one place, but then not really. i have a slight smirk on my face the whole time he is playing. he finishes and i feel intense feelings of 'he will be really good soon.' like bats, a pop-punk band from chicago that toby knows a little, plays next in the basement. they are the gritty, lawrencearms-esque type band who write catchy songs, and seem like "good dudes," it's just, i can't get into it. there is too much of it. i stay upstairs. mark buys a chapbook and album from me. troy from cincy makes me a gin and tonic and buys a chapbook. there is an exceptional number of people hanging out. there are people drinking forties. toby plays next upstairs. people seem to be brushing past me to sit closer to him. some people seem like they are trying to sing along. i sing along. sitting next to andy gardner. get up when toby is halfway through his set and stand next to austin who asks me how it feels to be twenty-two, and i say "i don't know" my birthday is at midnight. he laughs. toby finishes. it is around 11:40ish. henri plays next. troy hands me another gin and tonic. i don't feel drunk, kind of like i just drank medicine though. henri plays a song with the phrase "marxist love" in it and it is midnight. after the next song everyone sings for me. earlier, someone went up to andy gardner and shook his hand and said "happy birthday richard" and he said "thanks! but i'm not richard." henri plays some more songs. he seems to strain his voice to sing loudly. similar to AJJ or NMH. kind of. afterwards, a bunch of people are in a kitchen and they are hovering around a cake with two candles on it. a man blows them out and everyone sings. everyone has party hats on. my sister seems like a beautiful person to me when i see her taking photos of us all. someone lifts me up in the air. i am slightly drunk and enjoy it. eventually calm down, people leave, go to sleep, you know how it goes. we eat buckeye donuts falafel and fries the next day. ryan starinsky has a snow day and doesn't have to work. i am twenty-two.

jan 7 2010, bloomington, in @ 11 11

it has snowed and we expect more as we leave columbus. toby drives. i feel like i fall asleep, but i don't. we get to ryan and jared's house. there is already a bunch of folks there. it is a potluck. there is great bean / guacamole / vegan sour cream with chips. i meet some new people. i see some recognizable faces. ginger is there. matt tobey is there. paul baribeau is there. eric ayotte is there. some other people i know from bands / the music 'scene'(s) are there. i feel nervous. a person named will toodles plays first. he looks young and sings about 'taking control of our lives' and 'resistance' maybe. he seems idealistic. low voice. broad shoulders. hat. he sings a song about monsters, inspired by a poem his mother used to read to him when he was young. there is a girl in the front row smiling at him the whole time. people seem attentive. there is a dog named hugo and a cat named 'small cat' or scott maybe. hugo jumps on the couch on top of ginger and matt. ryan takes him upstairs as i try to tune to play. i forgot my tuner in murfreesboro, and i feel like my guitar isn't staying in tune at all. it seems okay though. i read some poems after playing some songs. when i am reading the poem about my dog, i look to the right and hugo is standing on the stairs whimpering a little bit. people are laughing and eventually hugo comes down when i finish the poem. toby plays after me and he apologizes because he thinks he will not be able to sing. he does fine, we all think so. vera maleta plays last. she reminds me of christine fellows and i ask her outside as we smoke "have you heard." she has not. she has an interesting vocal range. her last song is really good. she puts in a cd in the player and sings along, harmonizing with two of her own voices. no accompanying guitar. i feel a slight vibration moving down my spine like a sound wave, or a ripple of water. i look around at everyone watching the same thing as me. show's over. we go sledding. i think i get a little frostbite, then try to think if that is possible. we make a chain of ~7 people and sled down the hill. there is a husky there named "geronimo." we head back and get warm. izzy gives me a poster of the show she screen printed. it looks really nice. we talk for a little and fall asleep.

jan 8 2010, bloomington, in @ snowed in day

i wake up and read a story from like life. toby comes downstairs. ryan comes downstairs. it has snowed an extreme amount and is still snowing. jared and ryan go buy something to make breakfast. ryan makes tofu scramble. there is toast with the scramble. we kind of sit around for a while. i read more. toby goes into town to talk to eric ayotte about their tour in spring. izzy goes to have band practice with her band. they both come back eventually. we talk about getting pizza. go to some place and order two vegan 'pepperoni' pizzas to share with ~6 people. the breadsticks are really good with some garlic sauce. we finish and go across the street for chico sticks. leave for chicago. i fall asleep for a little bit. get to chicago to toby's house around 10PM. contemplate "going out." stay in. catch up with matthew a bit. feels good to be 'finished' with tour kind of. fall asleep on the couch.

jan 9 2010, chicago, il @ funhouse

wake up to go get breakfast with ryan, toby, and geoff at the handlebar. i get the "vegan breakfast burrito" toby and ryan get "vegan biscuits and gravy" geoff gets the "tofu scramble" mish-mash thing. it's very good. walk to a grocery store and buy supplies for dinner. toby goes to the library to pick up books he ordered before we left for tour. he is late returning a book and has to pay a dollar fine. we walk back to the house after and sit around a bit. go to the upstairs apartment and hang out with leslie, olive, matt, hawk the cat, and bum the cat. start making the noodles for the pasta. toby has a hand crank machine that makes noodles and a drying rack. put spinach in the flour so the noddles are tinted green. dry them on the rack. start stirring the sauce. toby does the majority of the cooking. he is really good. he comes up with the idea to make lentil meatballs. mmm. we wait for a little bit for the noodles to dry. clean up the downstairs, get ready for the reading tonight. talk to jordan castro on skype, figure out how he will be able to read even though he will not be able to come. have dinner. it is amazing. light some candles. listen to the b flat project . jamie is there. shannon from milwaukee is there. some other people start to show up for the reading. bobby evers and company arrive in good spirits it seems. a girl asks me if i am a poet and if i smoke and then calls me a "true poet." i understand her, but wish i didn't. sam pink gets there and is drinking a red bull and peeling an orange or a clementine maybe. i feel vaguely nervous meeting him, but quickly dissuade any feelings of the sort. he is nice. he reads first. he reads about aldi's products from a magazine and assures us the clementines are great, he has some at home. interaction with audience members is really funny. poems get better and better. i like the multiple perceptions poem. he finishes after reading for maybe ~7 minutes. jordan castro is "sitting" on a stool and is inside of my computer. i move him to on top of the television and plug his voice in through the television. the experience reminds me of a bad science fiction prediction of the future via a t.v. episode or short movie or something. we turn off the lights and it is just jordan's face talking to a room full of people. if someone looks in from the street i wonder what they are thinking. he does good. he reads a poem about people in the room. asks "does sam pink have boots on." people laugh a lot i think. technology does not fail us. we say goodbye. move him back into the other room. bobby evers reads next, a short story called "the [something] of our love." it is entertaining and funny. laugh quite a bit. almost acts out the character's in the story. it works. i read next, about 6 of the 9 poems from think tank for human beings in general and one poem called "mom." seems like i do well. someone farts right before i start reading the first poem. i try to say interesting things about each poem, but usually just say "forget everything i just tried to say." seems okay. matt whispers reads next. he reads softly. the last time i saw him read he had read with emotion and hand motions, and in general, an urgency in his face. tonight he seems dejected. it is still good. his new poems seem good. it is his unofficial effigy poetry zine issue six release. people seem tired. after he is done some people get up to leave. i mean to say goodbye to sam pink but he slips out before i get the chance. people are still talking to jordan through my computer and he is flashing "mad cash," and pieces of paper that say things like "I <3 Richard" and "smokingonanemptystomach.blogspot.com" with a swastika beneath it. eventually everybody leaves minus a few people. matt, shannon, ramsey, ramsey's friend [name...], jimi payne and i go to a sport's bar called "blitz." stay til 3ish. talk to jimi about philosophies of language. drink "budweiser" bottles. ~3-4 of them. feel slightly drunk. go back to the funhouse and fall asleep. wake up, get falafel, drop off some chapbooks at quimby's, take the blue train downtown and get on the megabus back to cleveland. at the rest stop i eat pumpkin seeds and fries and drink snapple peach. when i see cleveland i feel really excited, like your organs are moving around inside of you creating a massage type sensation on parts and places in your body that usually do not get massaged. so you feel good. is this what being gone means.

***

thank you for reading that, if you made it this far. well done.

touring

2010-01-06T02:07:00.000-05:00

i have been driving around in a car with my friend toby foster.

at this moment we are in murfreesboro, tennessee.

we have been moving our bodies inside of various houses

and playing songs for various amounts of people

in various amounts of cities.

i have been reading some poems too.

i was going to post this before i left for tour, but i forgot or something.

we have played in the following places:

dec 28 2009, kent, oh @ house house

dec 29 2009, lakewood, oh @ soggy dog house

dec 30 2009, pittsburgh, pa @ 222 ormsby

dec 31 2009, columbus, oh @ various new year's parties

jan 1 2010, cincinatti, oh @ bike haus

jan 2 2010, lexington, ky @ crucial fun house

jan 3 2010, lexington, ky @ sweet butter

jan 3 2010, knoxville, tn @ birdhouse

jan 4 2010, athens, ga @ 534 meigs

jan 5 2010, murfreesboro, tn @ 1002 [street name]

jan 6 2010, columbus, oh @ monster house

jan 7 2010, bloomington, in @ 11 11

jan 9 2010, chicago, il @ funhouse

EDIT

i am going to do a short review of each show when i get the chance in a new post.

~~places we are going to be:~~

the saturday event will feature readings from:

jordan castro (via skype), sam pink, matt whispers, bobby evers, and me.

8PM, no dranks, coffee/tea provided, $3-5 donation.

show your faces people.

ps- i have recorded a new album which is available for free download here

most of an e-mail from my fiction writing II teacher

2009-12-28T01:48:00.000-05:00

Hello people,

You people have probably forgotten we once had a class together, what with the attention spans of youth today and the way your fancy new technology allows you to jump quickly into fresh, new associations.

But let me give you some historical perspective and remind you who I am. My name is (teacher's name) (I recall many of you simply calling me "Pat"), and I taught a Fiction II class that you were enrolled in during the Fall semester of 2009 at Kent State. You may have moved on from that class but I have continued with it, reading the final works you submitted. I am nearly done.

And, now, before I enter your various grades into The Big Machine and reduce our experience together to a Data Point on your Life Graph, I wanted to make a few last remarks to you.

In the last class you brought in paragraphs to read from each other's work And Richard Wehrenberg (BA ‘09, Arts & Sciences) read from Rae's work:

"... I remember getting him a birthday gift and writing ‘I love you' on the card, and my mom hovering over my shoulder and making a face. She suggested I instead write ‘I like you a lot' and I started to laugh until I realized she was serious. Not that it will make much of a difference now, but I wish I'd written ‘I'm just smitten with you right now.'"

As I recall Richard said he picked the paragraph because it suggested how difficult it was to find the right language to speak to one another. Perhaps he said meanings get confused or we choose our words too loosely and our own intentions change. I thought it was a nice selection by Richard (KSU ‘09) -- about the difficulty of the writer's task.

. . .

I think the reason the image from the birthday card paragraph is sticking in my head, though, is not because of what's written or what's regretted. I think it's the mom I identify with. I don't usually identify with parents, but maybe its because in the paragraph the mom is a teacher -- hovering over the girl's shoulder and making a face. "Is that really what you want to say?" she asks the birthday-card writer.

And I feel that's mostly what I end up doing in my ostensible role as a teacher. Hover over your shoulder. Make a face. "Is that really what you want to say?"

In other words, I am asking, is that really what you believe? Is that the truth? Honestly? Are you writing that because that's what other people write? Do you even know what you want to say? Is that really what you want to say?

Sometimes I ask "Do you want to say it like that?" But that's a different question -- the it is assumed -- and the question has more to do with technique and maybe even story structure or form. Generally, though, I am far more interested in what do you really want to say?

I honestly feel your language skills and sense of form will come out of your desire to say something. A keen sense for words and structure are skills you must have, but if you develop them for their own purpose, they can lead to skillful, purposeless writing.

If your writing always begins with "Is that really what I want to say?" -- and your writing is infused with your purpose to speak to the reader -- your appetite to say something will bring about your skills and form. Not that those skills come easily, but they come with practice. And it's difficult to practice writing without purpose -- without the appetite to say something. Also, there are endless ways to write well, all sorts of forms.

To me, the best writing I've seen in any of my classes this fall clearly attended to this question first: "What do I really want to say?" Weaker writing started with, "What would make a good story?" or "How do I write a good story?" God forbid: "I have an interesting idea for a story!" Interesting? Interesting?

Interesting is easy. Know what you believe and what you want to say -- that is much more difficult. It's nearly impossible. It takes time. Self reflection. It takes time and space and patience and it is the difficult part of writing. Also it is the part that can be skipped over -- and on to the next paragraph.

I stress all this now, to remind you -- in an unrealistic and overly simplistic way -- what good writing is and why it is worth doing.

There is a lot of good writing in the world. And there will be a lot more by this time tomorrow. But a lot of it is just written well, and nobody is sitting behind it. Sometimes it is altogether heartless. At its worst, good writing lies -- to sell itself, or sell some dream, or simply to make itself interesting.

Anyway, I'm glad I won't be looking over your shoulder anymore, and making faces. You can make your own faces. And question yourself.

Overall, despite the actual classroom, I liked you people, and enjoyed reading what you said. I won't say I loved it, but I enjoyed it a lot.

drunk and playing with the dog in the snow

2009-12-21T23:03:00.000-05:00

thingy-things

2009-12-14T12:07:00.000-05:00

glen binger has reviewed think tank for human beings in general

at the broad set writing collective. check it out HERE.

many thanks to glen and the broad set.

this, too:

i have decided to post some artwork and make a page for it called detached werewolf.

i work best in mixed media (or putting together and using whatever i find to use).

if you want anything done, check out the site and send me an e-mail.

i am a college graduate in one week

could i be considered a robin hood scholar

after writing a thirteen-page essay about the myth's undecidability

hi.

utilitarianism and the inate purpose of machines, objects, etc.

2009-12-08T20:53:00.000-05:00

don't think i would identify as a utilitarian, at all

i feel there are certain sentiments in utilitarianism that could be nice

this song isn't really totally utilitarian, anyway

mainly because it doesn't have a notion of 'right' along with the notion of purpose

like not "make me something somebody can use and be happy using"

just

"make me something somebody can use"

vague

"and you're so weary with loitering between here and there, and then and then, beauty and function..."

what does "an action is right insofar as it promotes happiness" actually mean

what is happiness

"the heart is a badly built bridge"

"happiness" doesn't seem like some thing that can be turned into numbers,

calculated on a scale and weighed against other things

but it has been

make me something somebody can use

2009-11-24T18:45:00.000-05:00

collaborative drawing with my brother, dean wehrenberg 'the artist'

wrote two blog posts and two theoretical papers in one day (wowowowow)

2009-11-23T22:20:00.000-05:00

sam pink has interviewed jordan and me about our new chapbook over at htmlgiant.

that's a lot of links. just wrote a paper on sartre's idea of man being condemned to freedom and residing in bad faith in the world. earlier wrote a paper on richard wright's haiku and his reconstruction of humanity within nature via his haiku. i feel slightly like getting annoyingly drunk or sleeping like a snorlax.

does anyone want to "talk more closely" with me via email and see if our "personalities click" and potentially get a "free" chapbook

i am "re-positioning myself in the universe" in columbus, ohio in january, probably january 8th

pig haiku, ow

2009-11-23T17:10:00.000-05:00

our pig bit my nose
when i was trying to give
little pig kisses

just wrote eight pages about richard wright's haiku

computer giving a poetry reading

2009-11-14T13:28:00.000-05:00

"(still) claiming power over turnips" from think tank for human beings in general

computer giving a poetry reading from richard wehrenberg jr on Vimeo.

i thought it was a pretty good reading. the reader's name is "Alex". 'he' got a little too excited sometimes and some words felt rushed. it was 'his' first recorded reading though, so 'he' must have been frightened, at least a little. what image(s) will i portray/what will people think of me eg. will people watching this video think i am annoying or something. feel nervous about my face sometimes.

chapbook release/reading tonight (!)

you can order jordan and i's chapbook "think thank for human beings in general" (cardstock cover, no gloss, 'better than' copy paper pages, hand-folded/assembled) by paypaling $3 to richardwehrenbergjr@gmail.com or by emailing me at the same address and working something else out.

more ordering/chapbook info HERE

a plethora of thank yous

poem from think tank for human beings in general

2009-11-08T19:01:00.000-05:00

what 'achieving minor celebrity status' means

i am telling otto orf
that tempeh is basically
fermented soybeans
as he is chewing
curried cauliflower
at a foodnotbombs serving

he says ‘i achieved
minor celebrity status
up in cleveland
as a soccer player’
and throws his thumb
over his shoulder, as if
pointing to cleveland

i say ‘cleveland crunch’

he says ‘i can’t
give up my meat’

we allow silence

i imagine ellipses
floating from his lips

he says ‘so you are
the spokesperson’

lisa says ‘eh no.
we don’t have one
really’

jen says
‘autonomous group’

greg says ‘factory farms’

i am nodding
but not too hard

otto is listening

i try to look at him
‘harder’

he has a ponytail
and his arms
are crossed

his face seems kind

he gives us five dollars
and says ‘if my wife comes back
tell her i’m at the loft
knocking back a few’
and chuckles
and looks around
in such a way
that implies
a dense disconnection
with his immediate environment

we understand this

he walks away

------------------------------

this poem is one of 9 poems i have in the book
jordan castro has 9ish poems too
we made 100 copies of the chapbook, folded by hands
stapled/printed by machines (they are nice machines)

if anyone wants a chapbook e-mail me and we can arrange something
we are selling them for $3, they cost about ~$1.50 to make (paper, ink, etc)
or come to the reading in kent next saturday (flyer in previous post)
or if you can paypal $3 to richardwehrenbergjr@gmail.com

alice cone, a creative writing professor at kent state is reading
jordan castro and i will be reading from the chapbook
matt scheuermann will be playing some songs under his moniker american war

i think a lot of my poems in the chapbook are about trying to structure your world with labels like 'enemies' and 'genius' and 'bad' and 'good' and realizing those things don't actually exist, and feeling defeated or almost stupid and then grateful. there is also a poem about my dog. some other 'themes' of poems might be wanting to imbue meaning into events, people, things, and having thought negatively about "the inherent meaninglessness of things", and then saying 'eff it' anyway and taking it into you for whatever it is. the "undecidability" of pretty much everything, et cetera...

are you feeling okay

chapbook release @ north water st gallery in kent

2009-11-04T15:26:00.000-05:00

will i form a band named 'nom chompsky'

2009-11-01T23:24:00.000-05:00

we finished printing this today
release is november 14th

i have been enjoying [this] lately

november 14th, yo

2009-10-22T20:10:00.000-04:00

mass producing copies of this this weekend

split chapbook with jordan castro
'think tank for human beings in general'

will maybe post a fact post
about the book/release show info later

this is my dog, and a poem about my dog

there was a parade today

2009-10-10T14:08:00.000-04:00

i wanted to start walking in it
but it seemed like you had to have candy
to throw at people

someone threw a box of dots at me
i said 'i can't eat these'
the girl said 'give them to a little kid'
i was going to say 'i don't want a little kid to eat these'
but she was marching away from me
out of communicable distance

there was a float that just said 'usa' on it
with some college kids waving
i don't understand the term 'homecoming'

what if i was a ford truck man

people cheered and clapped
some sang and danced

saw a friend, said he was going to get 'obliterated'
it was around noonish

i went to the farmer's market
and bought carrots, banana peppers, edamame beans,
asian eggplant, and regular eggplant

the carrots looked so good, have dirt on them
'picked this morning'

i tried wearing collared shirts

2009-09-30T00:50:00.000-04:00

i tried wearing collared shirts, but they just don't take to me. my middle section of my body looks funny. my hips are child-bearing hips. maybe i just need to find the 'perfect' collared shirt that feels good. when i tuck collared shirts into my pants i feel awkward. like too much of my butt is showing.

don't think this is important

it is starting to become cold outside

should i shower

drinking 'kombucha' was an intense experiment
when i drank the 'strands of culture' i felt like i was doing something nuts

should i switch to a raw vegan diet

feel like i would die

or maybe become super-alive and understand things better

heard somewhere that certain things in food affect your mood

like how fast food makes you depressed or something

seems weird, should really research things more

this is something i do know:
there are not nearly as many cones as rods in the periphery of eyeballs so when you are looking at something in your peripheral vision, the color is hard to identify.

everyone in my psychology class 'had their minds blown' when my teacher said colors only exist in our heads. seemed okay to me.

readings about eyes on wikipedia is nuts

jordan and i's chapbook is nearing completion
might even have a title for it...hmmmm

'good' feeling

2009-09-27T21:19:00.000-04:00

when someone plays a song
at a house show or something
and in the recording of the song
there are a lot more instruments
than just the one person playing the song now
and other people in the room in this moment
begin to hum or sing the other instruments' parts
usually out of tune and half-sarcastically
usually laughter follows and a vague sense
of meaninglessness ensues which allows
a sort of comfort that no one is really
in 'authority' and that we are all here, really

'mandatory audience participation'
feels terribly awkward.

this is a 'good' feeling.

sentences from draft of a short story

2009-09-24T18:59:00.000-04:00

Still, she heard patients admit regrets, hide in confidences, leak out confessions, dive into the words of their former life. Still, she took their blood pressure and listened to their hearts, waiting for one number to appear over another on the machine. And in this, in her relations, in how she said how she felt to other people, she was the same. But inside, she was doing something. She was breathing, recollecting, becoming. She was eating kale for the B vitamins. She was drinking wine (responsibly) out of plastic bags. Her bookshelf, which she had organized chronologically years ago, began to get read again. She read the romance novels she had read ten, fifteen years before, now, deconstructing their plots, re-constructing the faces of the characters in her mind. She made them do different things. She even wrote new endings in sharpie over the words of her old life. She suddenly felt missionary.

lorrie moore & nietzsche

2009-09-21T18:55:00.001-04:00

when i read fiction and i read philosophy
and then talk about the authors and their books
with people, i find it more endearing
that people refer to the authors with their full name

i dont know
it just seems like
lorrie moore is 'realer'
or something, than nietzsche.

derrida, foucault, sartre, camus, nietzsche
all seem like things more than people

damn

i feel like

2009-09-18T20:33:00.000-04:00

if someone asked me seriously
for all of my possessions
i would do it

is this scary
is this good

if i retreated
from my things
if nothing is mine
would i be able to find food

would my want for nothing
really be okay

maybe that is
one way to see
if you think all
is meaningless

weird

list about do it together fest

2009-09-16T20:03:00.001-04:00

-seemed outside of rhetoric (for the most part)
-was peaceful, minus one fight outside
-someone who worked at the vineyard at some point said
'there's beer cans in the kids' room'
-jordan castro said the word 'penis' a lot
-a lot of people called me 'the man', with positive connotations
-a lot of people told me they had initial negative feelings about poetry and now have positive feelings about poetry
-played the music videos for 'i'm a thug' by trick daddy and 'take it to the house' by the slip n slide all-stars on the big projection screen
-at 2 am, pheramones played in an alleyway and the 30 persons who were there 'went crazy' (picture1, picture2, picture3)
-read in front of the most amount of people i ever have (picture)
-went way longer than it was supposed to

tomorrow

2009-09-10T18:30:00.000-04:00

reading at do it together fest

2009-08-30T10:00:00.000-04:00

will be reading at do it together fest on sept 11

friends named matt whispers, gabz ciofani, ben ryant, ryan eilbeck, & jordan castro will also be reading, as well as a handful of bands

first year of having poetry

third year of dit fest

i like the possibility here

but what usually happens is people get drunk

think it will still be ok though

if you like music check out the bands too

there are some good ones

boxes ready to go

2009-08-21T15:08:00.000-04:00

moved into a new house on college avenue in kent
is a 'party street'
parties were 'raging' until at least 330am when i fell asleep last night
we have 2 cats and 3-4 rats
a front porch with eleven chairs and 2 desks
a basement we are bleaching the walls, mold is bad for you
books

i have constant internet at this house
will probably be more active with my online personality
there is an OSU 'O' painted above our fireplace
was confused, unsure if former folks who lived here knew where they were

i am now officially a member of the kent housing cooperative
working cooperatively seems like a 'step in the right direction'

trust

sister

2009-08-10T01:10:00.001-04:00

"do you think there was a tornado when the dinosaurs were around"

"why does this happen"

dust

2009-08-08T12:05:00.000-04:00

'haven't read a whole book all summer'

thinking about the previous statement
i feel 'stupid'
or 'lazy'

will i have lessened my potential intelligence
by not reading a book this summer

should i stop hanging out with people
and playing music and strictly read/write
in a room and listen to eskimo snow on repeat
and drink coffee and get a burrito sometimes

do books give you intelligence, really

feels like you decide to be intelligent
not sure

gaining knowledge seems like going through
testimonies of lots of intelligent people
so you can argue better in 'real life court'

or stay in your room all day

i think this summer has been practicing intelligence
not reading about it

have read parts of a miriam toews book
about a small town called algren in canada
a roland barthes book about what pictures mean
and maybe some other pieces of things on the internet

thinking about it feels 'gross', kind of
pretty good reads though

want books to just float into my hands
to know they are supposed to be read by me

there is too much of everything, maybe

read books in may
but summer is in june

guess this critique of myself
is just based on the definition
of when a season starts/ends

would feel more 'gross'
if i didnt read a whole book
for maybe a year or something

am moving out today
books are all in a box

'first' internet publication

2009-07-29T03:12:00.000-04:00

'richard wehrenberg jr'
got a poem published in the kent state university
student literary magazine 'luna negra' recently online.
the poem is called 'mom' and is available in print by e-mailing me.

check it out here:
Luna Negra

in other 'news':
+still working 'hard' with jordan castro on a split poetry book.
+poetry reading at DIT FEST in the works.

i should have clicked suggestion 9

2009-07-26T18:50:00.000-04:00

or written poems about each of the suggestions

i wonder where whyville is

it seems irrelevant asking why chris brown 'beat up' rihanna

he was probably 'wasted' or something

people who search for a 'better' answer must be stuck

or 'addicted' to popular culture and honestly

think justice must exist in this situation

i can see their faces looking astonished

looking at the picture of rihanna's face

'beaten up' by chris brown

i think they are the 'truest believers'

and probably ready to do

'important things for society'

but do not have the resources

or economic fortitude to get going

damn capitalism