Subvert
fuck art make noise
In addition to Bandcamp and Bandwagon, I am now publishing my music on Subvert. Subvert is new, but it looks promising. One very nice advantage Subvert has over the other two is that you don't have to publish albums one track at a time. You can batch load everything from one screen, and then go back and add track details later.
I'm told that the more details I include on a track, the more likely that people are to download or buy it. But I don't always have time for details.
and itself chin of through about but having know the
write understand to body don’t myself about world world want
also me something but something under through know only experience
the world i understand the just attempting my realize body
the like help the experience cares that who world rubbing
i to i experience give that fuck am experience so
i fuck by to i body talking my my and
through i write the inspired also hair why was know
my about now about a anybody the don’t i because
would also my of understand but my
also talking about through i world that me i about
am who help but realize body anybody experience know the
i my don’t like that experience a body i myself
about know the world through only world but something the
write don’t the i chin and why my fuck cares
through and also to so understand having inspired understand but
body my attempting itself my of want fuck the something
because by rubbing would experience i also of write under
experience give world understand was to know my my about
the to the i just now hair
the fuck something would that i but but write my
know just world through the also want to through give
my am having something my the why experience anybody world
the world help fuck about now under and understand realize
only through rubbing understand hair that of body don’t the
but experience myself the because of to i like world
about itself also chin to body don’t know about i
talking experience so was by the cares know also a
me about i i and body who inspired my my
my write i i attempting experience understand
It's All One Story
I am not a disciplined writer. I don't even like to call myself a writer. I don't get writer's block. I get writer's fright. I've said this before. Why does writing frighten me? Because when writing, I can't lie. I can't hide.
I've had a full beard for the last few months. I just shaved it off. Like this: sideburns gone leaving the full van dyke. Took a shower. Another look in the mirror. Grungy looking. I thought I liked that. Nope. Like this: mustache gone. This has been my look for decades. Quirky goatee. I thought I liked that. Nope. Like this: shaved it all. Ugh, that chin. Lack thereof. I hate the way I look. Round head. Weak chin. No upper lip. Scarred and lumpy face. Scared face. Sad face. All those times I said, "But I am smiling." Lies.
Shaving was hard. I lifted and put down the trimmer a few times before I found the nerve to just do the sideburns. I've been planning to do some self portraits with the beard which is why I thought shaving it was hard.
Looking in the mirror, I thought, OK, this could still work for the photos I have in mind. But I found myself lifting and dropping the trimmer again. The mustache also had to go, so it went. Still staring, starting to feel regret. But why? My upper lip is one of the few body parts I like. It's not full, but it looks soft, sensitive. I like the sleek lines of it. And the goatee hides the weak chin. This is the look I've worn for a few decades. It suits me. It has been my most comfortable mask. Goatee, meet trimmer. Ugh, that chin. Go back two paragraphs.
"My work here is done," I said to my therapist last week. It was a joke, with a little bit of truth in it. The prior several days I was productive, in a way. I wrote a lot. For hours at a time. Thousands of words. Most of it wasn't creative writing. Wasn't personal. It was perfunctory. It served a purpose. We met on Wednesday, but we were supposed to have met on Monday.
On Monday, I wrote personal. I started with a few paragraphs on what the photo meant for me. But then I followed my thoughts and I wrote about my young self. I remembered a specific moment walking alone as a child. It's one of the memories that has always been there, but never examined. The moment was benign. I was simply walking on the side of the road, looking down at the sandy shoulder, and I found, and picked up, and placed in my pocket, a rusted bolt. It felt like I had found a treasure, and I hoped I found more.
This memory has occurred to me many times, but it hasn't held any specific meaning or significance. That I was aware of.
In the essay I was writing I also wandered into my teen years and my twenties. I was remembering times I spent walking with a camera, taking photos. I was also making a connection between my new passion for walking with a camera and those earlier times.
I am not a disciplined writer. I don't even like to call myself a writer. I don't get writer's block. I get writer's fright. I've said this before. Why does writing frighten me? Because when writing, I can't lie. I can't hide.
I want a bumper sticker that says, "I'd rather be dreaming." And by "dreaming" I mean "hiding."
On Monday, writing about a photograph led me to connections with myself on different timelines. And while I didn't realize it until Wednesday, I may have grokked the significance of the roadside walking memory. Something happens to me when I'm writing. Something that explains my fear of it.
On Monday, as I was writing, I lost myself in it. Which is weird because of something I'm gonna say in a minute. I wrote through the time I was supposed to be on Zoom with my therapist. I wrote through an email reminder, a calendar alert, and a text message from Brian.
Neil Young was once heckled while performing. Some guy shouted, "Neil, your songs all sound the same!"
Neil replied, "That's because it's all one song."
These here words are all one story. Some of your favorite writers do it, so why can't I?
"My work here is done," is what I said after telling Brian about the roadside memory. Because in that moment, in the telling of it, I recognized the significance of the memory and why it has stayed with me.
In that moment of finding and claiming a rusted bolt, I was... interested... curious... pleased with myself... I was also out in the world, alone, and I felt safe. I was proud of myself for feeling confident and capable in my body. Something in my little brain made a note to self: Remember what this feels like.
I said to Brian, "it feels like I have finally re-connected with my pre-trauma self."
When I sit to write, I can't hide. That's it. That's my fright. I have to take my mask off. I write things that I can't speak aloud.
Writing, for me, requires a state of mind that I have been avoiding forever. It's also the missing piece that I've always craved.
To be able to write, I have to stop hiding. I have to allow myself to be seen. Creativity, for me, requires spontaneity, vulnerability, and honesty. These don't come easy to men like me. Children of the Secret.
In writing, by revealing my secrets, I find myself. And I have to keep doing it. It's not a compulsion. It's more like a release, a surrendering, a confession, and a love letter. Because my work here will never be done, I write.
i used to by opium from a guy who wore renfaire clothing and always made me listen to him sing 'shelter from the storm'
i just cut ties with a grifter poet who'd been grooming me for a few months, i don't know what his end game was gonna be, but it was a'comin. i'm tired
i'm a yankee, not proud but i can live with it. also a damn yankee because i went to the south and i stayed
in 1976, i rode in a saggy airport limousine to key west, we had to get out at railroad crossings. that was the first time i knew a teenage girl who got raped
i know what a boot pushing your face into a hard packed snow bank feels like
once, when my father's fist sent me flying from my dinner chair to the corner of the kitchen, my mother shouted, "Frank, stop it!" and i yelled, "Yeah, Frank, stop it!"
Gnewt used to sandpaper his face and then treat it with gasoline. this was in order to remove his acne. it worked
my teen girlfriend left me because i told someone that she was being sexually assaulted by her uncles
i cried so many times when i didn't know what i was crying for. i still do. i like it
i spent fifty years or so hiding from myself. i am proud of that. i like to say that i'm not ambitious, but that was... something
one time me and friends were tripping. one time, hah! after everyone else was done, i was not. i yelled, "turn on the lights" for an hour or two
i danced on gravestones while singing all the songs from Godspell. the lighting designer was pissed because i cut my hair on opening day. he never told me that he was using my hair for an effect, or i wouldn't'a done it
the happiest i've ever been was when 250 fifth graders stomped their feet while chanting my name, "Peter! Peter! Peter!"
i've never been more embarrassed than when i hung myself on stage. i didn't mean to do it. i suppose if i didn't regret some things, i'd regret that
"Y'all Deserve A Break Today!"
Don't Touch Me
More music than noise in this one.
This is one of the first songs I have published. My young granddaughters used to like to leave random selfies and voice recordings on my phone. One such voice recording by Madeleine sounded like scat singing, so I took that and made this.
This is a detail of a bust stop shelter I've been walking past several times a week for the last 7 years. This detail is only a small part of the shelter, every surface of which was used by local artists, writers, sages, and gangsters, broadcasting their urgent messages to the world.
I'm speaking of it in past tense, because the city just demolished and removed it. The removal of bus shelters and sidewalk benches is part of our "war on the unhoused," but in this case, it was probably just because they considered it an eyesore. I've never seen anyone occupying it who wasn't waiting for a bus.
I loved this shelter and I regret not taking more pictures of it. I would have, had I known it was going to be erased. I appreciate graffiti of all kinds, including tags. And stickers, and flyers, and posters for local events. A couple of local straight edge punk clubs are always represented on the exterior panels. But there are also posters for art exhibits and sidewalk sales and community events. What some consider vandalism or defacement, I see as cultural markers and neighborhood beautification. Signs of civilization. Urban sigils.
This image can't be full appreciated unless you download it and zoom in. I've assembled a surrealist poem from just a few of the fragments.
Hi Karen Williams,
Stop Eating Pussy
Fuck Fascists
Kill All Nazis
Kill All Democrats— scratch that
Kill Democrats
OFF WITH HIS HEAD
Fuck an erect cock— scratch that
ABOLISH ICE... with flaming flames!
Atonement & Enlightenment
Q&A Session
with venurable mastur
lectchures Cost $20
“YOurFeowlochure Awaits”
* SCRAM *
— Greg Gray, The Mano
T/Making photos is helping me get through this dark time—
Alert! ICE activity is taking place right now at 12th and Clay Sts!
Run down stairs, put on my shoes, lock down my phone, then,
"Pam, I'm gonna run out for a few minutes."
"OK. Thanks for letting me know."
(Glad she didn't ask where I was going.)
Fortunately, for me, when I got there 12 minutes later, all was calm with no signs of ICE. I hope it was a false alert and not the aftermath of a successful kidnapping.
As I was saying, photography helps. Even just sorting through hundreds of similar digital photos, organizing, tagging, and deleting is soothing. But editing is the best part, which I enjoy even more than printing. It's become my home meditation practice.
I occasionally sit in silent meditation for 30 minutes or more, but I've never been able to cultivate a daily or routine practice. I'm a little better with my yoga practice, which is a form of moving meditation. I get to the hot studio at least 3-4 times a week. But more and more I find myself wanting to go outside with a camera and wander without a plan. Discovering photographs in the wild is what I imagine sport hunting is for people who hate themselves.
Sometimes I compose photos in my living room or yoga studio attic, but I rarely like the result. I won't say I get a more or better results roaming the city, but I enter a completely different mind set.
I remember walking a lot as a young child, alone. Usually with my eyes down on the ground, looking for treasure. Discarded and rusted bolts or metal scraps were the best. I can still see the pavement and sandy shoulder of Pond St, not far past the cow fields.
One time after school, I was acting out on the bus, while it was still filling with my fellow fourth graders. I don't remember what I did to deserve it, but the driver told me to get off. Without hesitation or alarm, I did. It was no big deal. I would walk home. It wasn't far, maybe 3 or 4 miles. I almost made it. When I was less than a mile from home, the bus driver pulled up behind me, in his own car.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"Walking home."
"Get in." I did and he drove me the rest of the way.
As a teen I went out almost nightly. I would walk a mile to the main road, hitch-hike downtown (4 miles), hang out at "the benches" or find my way to a keg party, which were typically in the woods on the outskirts of town. Then I would attempt to hitch-hike home, which often meant I would walk home. I never minded. The dark is quiet while the town is sleeping.
For my last two years of high school, I journeyed further, another 4 miles, to hang out in Woods Hole. The late night hitch-hiking from there was almost pointless, so those nights I would often walk the full 9 miles home.
I began making photographs in high school. I used my father's cameras. A twin-lens Yashika and a half-frame Olympus PEN. Black and white. I unloaded the film from the cameras by feel with both hands slid backwards through the black sleeves of a changing bag. I would wind the film onto plastic reels, insert the reels into plastic tanks. Then the chemicals, the red light in the dark room, the enlarger and the prints. I only remember a single photo from that time. It was of my brother Gregg swinging on a rope in the woods. It was an action shot that caught his delighted face in perfect focus, surrounded by blurry trees and leaves. I was proud of that one.
While living in Oakland from 1980 to 1987, I continued making photos, this time with a Nikon FM2. I rented time in a community dark room. When I moved to Atlanta in 87, I brought with me a large box of negatives and photos. I was proud of a lot of those photos, too. I loved leafing through them and I eventually arranged the best of them into a few scrap books.
What happened to them? I don't know. I still have maybe 8 or 9 photos from those collections. There in a box somewhere (I know exactly where.). I don't remember when or why I sold my Nikon and I always regretted it. I vaguely remember throwing all the negatives away. So much of my life is vague. Blurry memories.
Pam and I took a lot of snapshots of our life together and we still have those. My old black and whites are buried under them. But those are snapshots and not like the photographs I used to love making.
As a child, teen, and young adult, I was also creatively writing. A lot. Poetry, creative non-fiction, short stories, musings, and a manifesto or two. I threw all of it away in another fugue state of which I don't much recall. Purging is what it was.
In writing this, which I thought was going to be about a single photo, I am starting to sense more of the patterns of my life. Remember more of the paths I've walked.
Getting back on point, I'm making photos again, and I am walking again. Not at night, although I'm tempted. I've got a new (old) Nikon FM2, the exact model I had in the 80's, and several other film cameras, old and new. I also continue to shoot digitally. I'm sure it was having an iPhone that slowly drew me back into making photographs.
But I'm also sure that rediscovering my creativity is a result of remembering who I used to be. Before all those years of trying to remake myself. I don't want to be who I used to be. But I think I'm ready to be who I was meant to be. Still figuring that out.
house substitutes
require kansas issue issuence issei
licenses and
identification cards
to reflect
the credential holder's sex
at birth
holder's sex holders
at inception
intended or otherwise
what does this mean for
you?
upon publication
this law in the kansas
you're kansas
credential will no
longer
be
valid
yours and you'z alone
a lone again
additionally if you please
note that legislature
did not include
a grace period
a period of grace
if your you're name is
grace period
dot dot dot
for updating
credentials you're
your
MANe
means that once
the law is
officially your current (electricity)
will be invalid
immediately, and
immediately, and
immediately, and
dit dit dit and
ad infinitum
you are may be a subject, to
additional penalties
if you are you're your
operating a vehicle
without a valid credential
penalties additional
what to do do
you said do do
you need to do you
pursuant to
this new law gender /
sex indication
on the face of your
on you're face
you are face current
credential
does not match your sex
assigned at birth you are directed to surrender
your current credential
to the kansas division
of you're you are vehicles
upon surrendering
you credential you
will be issued a
credential reflecting
the gender you're you are yours
identification
consistent statutory!!!
requireMANts
if you questions
regarding procedures obtaining
ill legally complaint credential
please please please me
the division of you're vehicles
your visit you are
local driver licensuous orifice
can your appeal this notice
you're a peel a pee l
yes
no no no!!!
if you believe your
this notice error
gender genderer genderee engendered endanger endangerously engaged endangered endigienous
your appeal
appeal rights
are available
however be advised
that the filing of an appeal
will not
dot dot dot
preserve you your validity
of you're current (elasticity)
credential associated
driving authority
for additional visiting
a dove exam station is (genital)
a veil able
we apologize for you
cause you're you
the inconvenience
is ours
punishable by you are
your fine you are jail
