Archive for September, 2009

howl.

By On September 28, 2009 In people With 7 Comments Permanent Link to howl.Permalink

America I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing.
America two dollars and twentyseven cents January 17, 1956.
I can’t stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb.
I don’t feel good don’t bother me.
I won’t write my poem till I’m in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I’m sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
You made me want to be a saint.
There must be some other way to settle this argument.
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don’t think he’ll come back it’s sinister.
Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke?
I’m trying to come to the point.
I refuse to give up my obsession.
America stop pushing I know what I’m doing.
America the plum blossoms are falling.
I haven’t read the newspapers for months, everyday somebody goes on trial for murder.
America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies.
America I used to be a communist when I was a kid I’m not sorry.
I smoke marijuana every chance I get.
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses in the closet.
When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid.
My mind is made up there’s going to be trouble.
You should have seen me reading Marx.
My psychoanalyst thinks I’m perfectly right.
I won’t say the Lord’s Prayer.
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
America I still haven’t told you what you did to Uncle Max after he came over from Russia.
I’m addressing you.
Are you going to let your emotional life be run by Time Magazine?
I’m obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week.
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore.
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
It’s always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious. Movie producers are serious. Everybody’s serious but me.
It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again.
Asia is rising against me.
I haven’t got a chinaman’s chance.
I’d better consider my national resources.
My national resources consist of two joints of marijuana millions of genitals an unpublishable private literature that jetplanes 1400 miles an hour and twentyfive-thousand mental institutions.
I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of underprivileged who live in my flowerpots under the light of five hundred suns.
I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers is the next to go.
My ambition is to be President despite the fact that I’m a Catholic.
America how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?
I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as individual as his automobiles more so they’re all different sexes.
America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500 down on your old strophe
America free Tom Mooney
America save the Spanish Loyalists
America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die
America I am the Scottsboro boys.
America when I was seven momma took me to Communist Cell meetings they sold us garbanzos a handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the speeches were free everybody was angelic and sentimental about the workers it was all so sincere you have no idea what a good thing the party was in 1835 Scott Nearing was a grand old man a real mensch Mother Bloor the Silk-strikers’ Ewig-Weibliche made me cry I once saw the Yiddish orator Israel Amter plain. Everybody must have been a spy.
America you don’t really want to go to war.
America its them bad Russians.
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians.
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia’s power mad. She wants to take our cars from out our garages.
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Reader’s Digest. Her wants our auto plants in Siberia. Him big bureaucracy running our fillingstations.
That no good. Ugh. Him make Indians learn read. Him need big black niggers. Hah. Her make us all work sixteen hours a day. Help.
America this is quite serious.
America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set.
America is this correct?
I’d better get right down to the job.
It’s true I don’t want to join the Army or turn lathes in precision parts factories, I’m nearsighted and psychopathic anyway.
America I’m putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.
-
[allen ginsberg - 1956]

for sarah.

By On September 27, 2009 In family, friends With 5 Comments Permanent Link to for sarah.Permalink

I can’t tell you how long I’d ignored this footage in my hard drive.

but with Sarah’s birthday just around the corner, I forced myself to go thru it.

it was a good weekend – his birthday weekend, actually.

and these are just the scenes we can show you.

it ends sad, both the story and the rough little vid.

but that doesn’t mean it ends badly.

just sad.

so, sure – a crap birthday gift if you look at it that way.

but maybe it’ll bring back a load of good things.

and the people you shared ‘em with.

I think that’s what a good birthday would be.

hello, dalai!

By On September 26, 2009 In people With 4 Comments Permanent Link to hello, dalai!Permalink

it’s not a rare occurrence that I wish for a life more stable. a paycheck that matches the previous one, some nice things like a hanging decorative that holds both your out-going mail and your keys. a group of work pals that all share drinks and gripes on friday afternoons, things like this.

I think about this a lot.

but then, I wake up to an email of a friend having a spare ticket to see the world’s most spiritual guide and am able to drive out to long beach to take her up on the offer.

and then I stop thinking a lot about that.

I’m not bragging here, as all of my travels seem to be byproducts of generous people, but I’ve come shoulder-to-shoulder with the [previous] Pope in the Vatican. I’ve wailed at the Wall in Jerusalem, bathed [albetit, quickly] in the Ganges and have thrown offerings into the holiest volcano in Indonesia.

these things are brought up for boast by any means, only to say I’ve been lucky enough to share space with some intense spiritual energy.

but all of those combined pale in comparison to watching the Dalai Lama climb down from his perch, a perch he spoke to the thousands of us today, and reach out his hand to the young monks who for so many dawns asked him for help.

you can say what you want to about religion, about Christianity or Islam. about virgins in Heaven or a lesser-attractive St. Peter. there might be coins to help you cross that river of limbo or they might be used to feed the cows you don’t dare eat.

say what you want. believe what you want. pray to what you want. and ask things from them.

but there’s no denying the energy that this man brings to the world.

we all walked out giddy, a line formed not from a bottleneck, but from everyone letting everyone else in front of them on the escalator.

a reminder, if nothing else, that we’re all sons of Abraham – and that loving your neighbor is good. but loving 1000 of your neighbors is better.

‘pray to the God you want’ he said.

and for a brief moment, each person uncomfortable quasi-kneeling in their chairs, or some of us on the hard concrete, we did.

and for that brief moment we were comforted.

so think very carefully about what punishment lies.

and consider with all sincerity the jealousy that supposedly abides.

in a God, or many.

who wouldn’t want you to be reminded.

cause theirs has no hair and mine had a lot.

but when you’re closing your eyes,

it’s hard to differ.

oh, the things that drive us.

By On September 17, 2009 In aric s. queen, books, life With 2 Comments Permanent Link to oh, the things that drive us.Permalink

over the past week, I’ve written more than 20,000 words in the novel. I’ve been diligently staying off of Facebook [for the most part, of course], and have thrown myself into getting the first draft done.

I’m not a writer, but have friends who are. different things drive them – be it love, tragedy, money or for the simple fact that they like writing.

I suppose that all of those things at one point or another have driven me.

but none more than what you see here.

it started with a little patch on my chin, this was during my time in Nepal, stuck due to the Bangkok Airport riots and not being sure how I was going to get home. a family doctor would tell me that ‘it wasn’t a big deal, happens to some guys and was probably just stress related’.

but it kept spreading.

and I started freaking out.

it was called alopecia areata but I stayed away from calling it that – mainly in due part to an episode of Arrested Development where the guy has it all over and basically becomes the laughing stock of the entire episode.

I laughed a lot when I saw it myself.

this was before I got it.

it might grow back, it might not. in some places, little white hairs grow and in some places they do not.

am I scared it will spread to my head? of course I am. but then again, I like hats, so as long as I get to keep my eyebrows, I’ll be able to deal with it.

but recently, I’ve taken it as a push.

do I consider myself to be ridiculously good-looking? no. a strong 7 and that’s the truth.

do I think I’ve gotten some of the opportunities I have been blessed with because I’m on the better end of the cute stick?

yes I do.

so, the thought of not having decent looks to sell whatever it is I’m doing scared me.

shallow? self-obsessed? sure. I’ll admit to both of those.

but it made me start writing. a whole lot.

and if you see the novel picture of me in a beret, please don’t think I’m trying to be arty.

it’s just that I received a hard lesson on what is really important.

and hey, I used to draw a goatee on myself when I was 13 with a Sharpie – and I’m not adverse to trying it all again.

just please God, let me keep the eyebrows.

the miroir noir.

By On September 13, 2009 In films, music With 3 Comments Permanent Link to the miroir noir.Permalink

I feel like an asshole. seriously.

how long has this film been out and how long have I had it sitting in my ‘movies’?

this little piece called ‘the miroir noir’.

don’t get me wrong, I like the arcade fire. always have.

but have liked them in the ‘will listen to an entire album all the way through and not get tired of them’ like them.

but I’m halfway through their doco shot by vincent morisset [someone who I'll be stalking quite a bit now] and am floored.

fucking floored.

it’s artsy, but a good artsy. I need to find out who the d.o.p. was because he deserves a mention…ah – found it: vincent moon.

wow.

that makes sense.

fuck me, it’s good.

I’m serious.

do what you need to – just get your hands on it.

best band, by far, of the past 10 years. by far.

I spent about half-an-hour on youtube and all I could find was this – but it at least gives you an idea.

YouTube Preview Image

go [ahem] canada!

my favorite prefix

By On September 9, 2009 In family, my nephew With 2 Comments Permanent Link to my favorite prefixPermalink

it’s not often you’ll find me saying ‘I wish I had a phone’.

cause, see, for almost 11 weeks now, I’ve made it through life without one.

it’s quite nice.

last night, I really wanted a phone.

’cause, as timing would have it, I get an email from my baby brother Alex.

call me asap. it’s important, was what I had in front of me.

I can’t, I have no phone.

and then nothing back.

well, now, I freaked.

lost the plot.

emailed my mom, dad, sister.

even googled the worst things imaginable.

but would have never of guessed.

that I could have spent all of that time.

thinking of what to buy.

where to take.

the reason for his urgency.

’cause coming this May.

to a sister-in-law near me.

is someone who will call me

uncle.

chang + ping.

By On September 8, 2009 In uncategorized With No Comments Permanent Link to chang + ping.Permalink

[if you can see this, click here]

I can never actually describe the place I first lived in when I randomly moved to China.

but here’s a look.

as stated – nothing was done to the color or contrast, it’s actually like that.

and you wondered why I drank a lot that year.

this. and there. you. and a few of us.

By On September 8, 2009 In family, friends, life, travel With No Comments Permanent Link to this. and there. you. and a few of us.Permalink

[if you can't play this, click here]

a collection of old clips I thought long gone.

so here’s to gaby. to scott. ben and nicky. ruru. anna. sarah and alonso.

sitting on my terrace.

[and once more to scott.]

the family.

rsv. p.

By On September 8, 2009 In family With No Comments Permanent Link to rsv. p.Permalink

I still don’t know what to get him.

do you?

and please tell me you find the irony in the fact that neither of us can get there.

I mean, in the flesh.

no doubt, he’ll have us both in his pocket.

but it’d be nice to sit on either side.

you send something from your end.

and I’ll do the same.

if it all goes like it used to go.

the good guys will drink and laugh.

and the rest will just think we like to drink and laugh.

which is fine.

lebbeus woods

By On September 6, 2009 In people With 4 Comments Permanent Link to lebbeus woodsPermalink

you’ll notice I didn’t have a catchy title for that.

or, for this.

it’s ’cause I don’t know much about design. or architecture.

sure, I might buy you a frank lloyd wright lego set for your birthday to make you think otherwise.

but I really don’t.

I’ll even admit to being lost and somewhat bored during yesterday’s visit to a studio.

the colors were great as were the drawings, but it’s like talking to a 12-year old about when Dylan went electric.

I walked around while they spoke of people I’d never meet.

printing techniques I dared not ask about.

and colors that seemed more fit for a menu.

and so I walked.

there was a big ridiculous fish and chairs made out of cardboard.

lots of white walls and a few white chairs for the white people who came to see.

but I saw something that caught my eye.

[it wasn't the fish]

something sci-fi-y.

something cool.

it had lots of plans and numbers and a few metro signs.

I knew what berlin looked like – and this was berlin.

knowing this was berlin gave me confidence to ask.

I would spend the next 20 minutes hearing about michigan’s lebbeus woods.

of a metropolis-meets-blade runner-with-a-bit-of-orwell-thrown-in vision.

a political statement of east-and-west. of connecting [yet, non-stopping] underground lines.

of people.

of hopes.

and free-thought.

anarchy [in a form].

and things.

but.

knowing nothing about him, I’ll let you find out if you want.

to be honest, I didn’t find a whole lot about what was behind ‘berlin free zones 3-2′, but the explanation was good enough for me.

and the spaceships.

but it was cool.

and by talking about it later that night.

I found out he was behind the chair in 12 monkeys that they didn’t mention.

oh, they mentioned the chair.

just not him.

[they eventually would.]

so, read all about him if you want.

I think I will.

[and don't let that fish scare you]

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