jeepers creepers. now that’s a letter.

I have Multiple Sclerosis. I had an attack, a pretty severe one, over Easter weekend and had to have my third 3 day steroid infusion therapy in 3 months. This is like being poisoned. Here, one week later, I am now able to write and sit up and act like a big human being again. I had to finally quit drinking, my last significant vice, because my liver enzymes were 100 times what they should be and now I’m suicidally depressed and toxic, I can’t drink and weed makes me paranoid.

shit.

I wasn’t trying to 1 up you there. Just the facts.

So are you in Michigan? Is the baby here? What the heck is going on?

love to the whole family from our family.

Hi.

I really must confess, this stay at home dad thing is really tough. I love it but it’s literally from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep. But we’re starting to settle into a nice rhythm, so…hi.

I wrote something today…a poem. The one I have to write each year to keep that title. Nick quoted someone, I can’t remember who, with “The time you are a poet is when you are actually in the act of writing a poem.” guh.

—————————————————————————————

In response to your comment, I’ve got to admit I don’t think I’ve ever written a poem.

No, that’s not true. Guh. I do that all the time.

“Do you remember ten speed bicycles?” she asked

“No,’ I answered ‘I’ve never ridden a ten speed bike! Oh wait, yes…turns out I’ve ridden a ten speed bike hundreds of times.”

I’m such an idiot. It’s not lying, it’s about stretching and believing. Taking it as far as I can, see how it works out, and then go back to my own reference point.

What was I saying?

Oh, I said I didn’t write poems. But I do write poems.

Poems like this. That encapsulate a part of me, framing it in such a way you can find something out about me. Something that you do, too. And then you are not alone.

I do act a little brash. No one else seems to, so it leaves it to me. Someone must be brash.

If my poetry is anything, it is some weird, sad tension. That’s what you can see here.

———————————————

ok.

and…

here are the first two tracks off the bEATINGeRIC performance cd at “The Big Noise !!!”. I don’t know if you were there. I remember Jim and Jason and a couple people but I can’t remember if you were there. Anyhow, it describes that year or two pretty well. Right out of rehab I was involved in a crew of experimental folks that really helped. I started doing alot of theory based stuff. This is the turntable one, with the 8 turntables, 3 tape decks and a couple of pedals. I’ll post the others shortly. Let me know when you’ve downloaded them.

that’s it frau

 bEATINGeRIC track no. 1 [4:19m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
 bEATINGeRIC track no. 1 [3:21m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

So, so much…ahhhhh…I’m listening to Mastadon. Have you heard this band. If not, feel free to illegally download it onto your computer. I give you permission. They are very good…but I digress, I started this letter to tell you of a very big, a very long in the coming event. Let me get the specifics out of the way.

That’s right. It’s been coming to this for a long time.

Alleman v. Traenkner for all the marbles.

February 22nd and 23rd at the Liminis Theater both nights starting at 8pm.
located at 2438 Scranton Road in Cleveland Ohio. Just a left turn from 90′

admission $12 for regular folk $9 for students

So, those are the details. See, just before the last election, Sophie was just on her way and I was playing with a band that used to exist, called ToBoxWithMan with a violinist and a guitar player named Dan Raible and the whole nine yards, so we were playing a show at he Beachland Tavern and the main actor from Hedwig and the Angry Inch sang a song, accompanied by a man on acoustic guitar, about something…freedom, John Kerry, something, Then we played and I was so disgusted with the world that I announced my candidacy for President of the United States. Well, it’s that time, and Nick Traenkner has picked up the gauntlet of the opposition.

The subjects are the usual. Death. Power. Violence.

For ongoing conversation and to the minute detail please reference:

http://www.experimentalbehavior.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=6912

I know it may be tough for you to make it from Colorado on such short notice, but please, act out an effort and then report as such.

I love you, and love that you’re back in my life as if you’ve never been away.

Happy New Year. We spent ours at Dave and Brent’s. Jeremy and Leah were there with their youngest son Lennon. We hung out in the living room an enjoyed having kids.

I had to go downstairs tonight to get two containers of breast milk out of the freezer…Michelle goes back to work tomorrow …and I noticed how a house looks different at different times. Like tonight, The house, the inside of it, looked much smaller. It’s night time and the snow makes all the windows white and bright. I’m lucky to be warm inside it.

I love and miss you,

I had a dream the other night. Michelle and I smuggled ourselves into China, through airplane luggage holds and under the seats of train passengers, etc.. when we finally find ourselves in China it looks alot like any European country. Like that square that River Phoenix wakes up in in Italy in “My Own Private Idaho” (which increases in value and meaning with multiple views, as does “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”) because I’ve never been off this continent, meaning I’ve been to Canada and Mexico (I think we went as far as Mexico).

So, Michelle and I, now in China, fight. About something…I can’t remember what, but it’s tense around here, a little stressful with the new baby and Sophie so I could be working out something through the argument in this dream. That will probably stay in my subconscious, or unconscious. But we fight and then she says she’s leaving. I say “What the…I haven’t got a passport.” She pulls hers out and we’re beside a well appointed train. I woke up before I find out what she would have done. She would have stayed and found a way to smuggle me back, or make an escape together, but she would ave stayed. Probably the way she’ll somehow smuggle me into Heaven if that becomes an issue.

I hope married life is treating you well, and do imagine you have a little one of your own. You’ve been father and caretaker to so many others.

I’ve put myself on a very late schedule and am writing this quite late, so now I’m off to play a little CD$ and off to bed.

Please send gamertag.

I have to go to work today at noon so this letter won’t be very long. I just wanted to mention to you the Solstice Party I went to last night. It was certainly strange.

I don’t think you met him but Frankie has a new bofriend, Jacob. I ike him quite a bit. Very free and anarchistic in all the good way and a great sense of humor. So he throws the party and there’s a big bonfire, and I promised I’d never sit around a big bonfire and read me stories, but I did. And I think the new people there, new to me at least, were a little taken aback. I hadn’t realized how most of my stuff deals with me doing bad things or strange, drformed characters with hearts of gold or beautiful people with hearts of coal, but it was actually nice. I drove back on the turnpike and got lost 4 gosh darn times. at one point, I was being forced to turn onto the onramp of a freeway with no recourse, so I pulled onto the side of the roaf and turned off my lights and waited for the coast to clear up, then ran in reverse about a 1/8th of a mile and then back onto the main road and swing over to the other side of a four lane road to turn into a burger king parking lot. I got coffee and a piece of their bad apple pie and drove home.

Hope your solstice was a good one. I love and miss you.

Maturity is something you can’t talk about or explain, or I would imagine care to try. Let me preface this by saying I do not believe I am mature, I may be maturing, which is different that aging, or just aging.

What makes me bring this up is this whole second baby thing. I find myself in the middle of something. On the one hand I have a home life with a beautiful, intelligent wife and crazy girl and a new girl with very simple needs, and it falls to me now to punish her when she’s bad, and today…I had a talk with my big girl, about being big and being nice to her mother and all that, not punching and hitting, then we sat in the living room, her on my lap and we talked about some stuff and then she hopped down off the couch and tried to kick the cat. A good, big kick. Well, I picked her up and told her how bad it was to kick the cat and I looked at her and said “I know how it feels to want to do bad things.” and I do. I told her I think about bad things all the time, have bad thoughts all the time. I have thoughts about punching people pr kicking them, but I stop myself from doing it. You have to stop when you have those bad feelings, control yourself, and then do the right thing. See, I am aging…I know from observation the right thing to do, I believe maturity is when I start to do these things myself.

So how is everything where you are? Are you in Michigan or Canada now. I heard you got married and I coulodn’t be happier. I wish the world was full of time and each day was as long as it needed to be for me. Then I wouldn’t miss anything. But as it is I miss alot and don’t care. The world seems to exist about 45ft. in every direction from where I’m standing at any moment. I’ve given up on effecting change nationally or locally or any change at all. There is something to be said for the act of creating something and maybe for destroying something, and I’m going to create stuff to say and writie and then allow it to fall to nothing. I hope you’re feeling as zen.

As Cary Grant once said “Holy Moly. I had no idea my brain operated this way.” Interesting guy…one of my hero’s.

Well, I ended up having to punish her, my oldest, so I’m writing this to the tender sound of her sobbing and whining in the background. Perhaps it’s shown.

I miss you very much and will write again soon.

The day after Thanksgiving. It was quiet yesterday. Michelle’s mom and step dad came by to make dinner for us and see the new baby, then they left and we slept, sophie going back to youngstown with the grandparents.

Today, a filling fell out of my back tooth. needling pain. gotta get that taken care of today.

as for other things goin on today:

HARPO MARX born. today. The Marx Brothers were a group that spun out of control and everybody loved it. They are all three mad and you should read a short book about them if you get some time. A long book if you have alot of time. I imagine we would have been pals had we been rockin the same time period. same with john lennon. and maybe stalin.

obviosly, Aurthur “Harpo” Marx wins the Freddy Mercury prize as well.

a quote from Mr. George Bernard Shaw: (keepng editorial comments to myself, but a fine quote)
“The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time.”
- George Bernard Shaw

hmmn. lovely.

and today, in music news, the first jukebox was used at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco in 1889. I was 10 and I remember giving it a little knock, Fonz style, and starting to spin the Piano Sonata #14 in C Sharp. By Beethoven…duh. Then I gave my trademark thumbs up. “Ayyyye.”

and finally your moms are all very proud of the important work you are all doing. today. in 2007. unless your mom has passed away, which is a shame, but she still looks down on you and smiles, knowing your thoughts and desires are pure. Or maybe not.

until tomorrow. and go to www.thefoolhardy.com it’s brents new cavs blog and it’s awesome.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Stella Irene.

You must get tired of this.

I…somehow…don’t, though. I still enjoy it. Thinking and feeling one way when I drive in my car to a place and when I get there, I turn off my car and shut the door and lock the whole thing and walk to where I’m going and then just feel like crap the minute I step inside. Because someone is reading a poem in an old phony made up voice about Republicans being like snakes in the grass and Lawyers being wolves that eat something, babies probably. I don’t care…not anymore, about an impotent poet saying for the thousanth time that something must be done.  I didn’t know that no one gives a gosh darn about my political vews. They just don’t. They don’t really much care for their own political views. Oh, but you’ve got to be smarter than that. You have to sneak it in if you can, but even then,…there is none left. People hope that their elders have grown past the pettiness of self gratuity, but they haven’t. The elders hope the younger generation with develop a respect for them out of fucking no-where. Go. Go to Tibet and hope that you can fix your ignorance and self-centeredness. Piss and shit. Where have all my funny stories that don’t mean anything gone. People will read whatever they want into the Topiary Garden Murders of 2001, and the girl dressed in my mothers nightgown, cutting carrots into a boiling pot while the Red Human-Headed Bull paces at the bottom of the stairs.

That girl in the story, she stumbled across my trail on the internet and sent me a note that said that she thought of me often. That she still had the picture that she drew of me that night, that night we slept together even though she was the room-mate of my ex and she was the ex of my room-mate. Screw it all. Nobody got hurt. Nobody cared. Except for the two of us that night. We cared about each other. And the note lifted my heart. I’m thakful for so many memories. I’ll have stories and plays for ever. And don’t worry, I won’t mention your name. I now your happy with a husband and child and so am I. But that doesn’t diminish the past.

There is a well of feeling and thought and emotion in each of us and hate and love come from that same well.