Dear diayr,
Let me write a bad entry right now. Not that my entries are normally better than bad, but I don’t even want to try to…
I don’t even want to explain what I don’t even want to try to do. I just want to type some words, without worrying about what they look like or how they sound or XYZ, just to keep me busy for a spell.
Already I realize the reason I can’t quite give up, can’t quite quit trying, and always remain on THIS side of English grammar etc., is that it seems EVERYONE forgoes language nowadays. And by nowadays I mean in the Age of Lightning-speed Microblogging. Not regular weblogging with big long posts that move slow – I mean Facebook and Twitter. ...Sometimes I feel that I should go back and change any correctness so that my updates contain more errors, like add extra typos or use slang or misspeak, because if the words of your message seem too proper, it looks like you have too much time on your hands, or like you are a fool or someone who just escaped from the Ivy League.
Has the entry started yet? Oh, sorry—here I go: a worse entry, for the sake of timekill…
My dear,
It’s sweet sixteen degrees Celsius and 97% humidity in Eagan right now. I write this because no one cares what the weather is where I live. Plus I’ve got the windows closed in my apartment, so the temp is totally different here on the sofa.
Let me tell you again what I have said many times before about a crucial aspect of this life. I don’t understand money except when it’s gone – or rather I understand that it’s good to amass money, but I don’t care to learn how to manage money. I want desperately to beam with health, but if the system that organizes life must be tit-for-tat banknotes, then I’d rather learn how to accept the inevitabilities of humiliation, pain, and death; because… you know the drill.
Now let me underline another truth that I probably have touched on before: I always do things wrong. And by things I mean sales and advertising and promotion and product placement. When it comes to profiteering I have bad timing, no timing; I couldn’t care less about marketing; so that’s why I’m typing a bunch of semi-thots at the beginning of this newspaper article and burying the lead. What’s the lead? There is no lead. But I thought that since it’s Wednesday I’d do a Throwback Thursday entry and share (that is, sweep its link to the end of the post) an old Do-It-Yourself amateur rap demo tape that I recorded more than a decade ago, in November 2004.
I don’t like that introduction. Here I’ll try another introduction…
Last night I wasted more than an hour of my time scrolling thru so-and-so’s microblog, because so-and-so was (simultaneously while perusing it for the very first time) posting excerpts from Hillary Clinton’s just-released book. I had never seen anyone attempt a feat like this before: it mesmerized me, so I stuck around to gawk. Was it interesting? Yes. Was it worthwhile? No. That’s why I decided that I need to make a major change in my life. So instead of writing any words here, I’ll post my old rap tape.
What’s the best way to ease the blog reader into listening to an album of…
It is hard to walk this tightrope: to avoid sabotaging my own presentation here, while at once making it SELF-AMUSING enough to justify the effort of putting it forward when it fails to find a fan.
I know – you don’t have to break it to me easy: I know that nobody will listen to any audio that anyone posts on any weblog – even if the thing weren’t tossed so far down on the page… even if it were just one SONG rather than a 10-minute-long album (the whole demo really is less than 10 minutes in duration: punk-short, but not so -harsh; for it's as placid in its dispatch as a glob of folk tunes)…
It’s an innocent form of nostalgic indulgence, I think: archiving one's artifacts on the internet.
Yet it's Wednesday Wisdom not Thursday Throwback.
To put it simply, I have a whole bunch of old rap demos that I wanna store publicly online, just to show them to bystanders, like how a grandmother wants to show you pictures of all her grandkids. (I don't want to SELL you my grandkids – I only want you to tell me that they're so cute.)
In my last stolen interview, I explained that as a child, if asked what profession I wanted to be when I grew up, I would always answer astronaut, while my brother Paul would choose fireman. One day I forced Paul to sit down and play his guitar into the sampler, and I sampled snippets and put them together with simple drums; then I rapped about being a fireman. Since that was HIS career choice, my lyrics were lackluster, but I've long been of the opinion that rap sounds better when you don't try too hard, when your lines don't rhyme too well, when your delivery is not too inspired, when your topics are lazy. And I only wrote one rap per track, that way you don't have to figure out a chorus or anything. As I said, it's a rap demo – like a sketch on a sketch pad, dashed off quickly, you get the idea...
*
(I'll put the lyrics below so that I can get paid for more words. And I'll upload the thing on YouTube too, as soon as I get a chance.)
Lyrics:
1. Introduction
Hi my name’s MCB as you can see
And I’m coming straight to you from the FDP
Now the FDP is called the Fire De Partment
And that’s where I reside now inside my compartment
Back to the topic at hand
I’m MCB the fireman
Fire suit and fire boots and fire parachute
With a fire hose fiery spraying fire ooze
I sleep in a compartment that’s narrow and slim
But it has its own exit pole and built-in gym
But I also have a dog and his name is Sandy
And he eats roast beef flavored cotton candy
2. The Beginning
I used to be a pharmacist but now I’m not
Because I’m busy fighting fire cuz the fire is hot
And the fire is hot because it burns and sizzles
My dog Sandy eats turkey flavored Skittles
I’m wearing a red suit and toting a hose
And I’m riding the firetruck wherever it goes
Cuz I ride on the ladder where my feet are positioned
And when something’s on fire you can tell cuz it glistens
Like once I saw a house that was glistening bright
And it shined like a nightlight throughout the night
So I said to my boss who was driving the truck:
Hey I think there’s a fire. And my boss said: What
3. Rising Action
I’m MCB the good fireman
Riding on the back of the ladder on the fire van
Saving all people pets women and toddlers
Standing on the top of a rock with binoculars
Spotting the fire blazing deep in the distance
Hopping up and down like as if I were pistons
I’m so excited to be fighting the fire
Because fighting the fire is my prime desire
Plus I have a dog with spots I call Sandy
He drinks boll weevil flavored brandy
He really sniffs around and like finds the fire
Cuz sniffing for fire is his prime desire
But oh here it is now raging enormous
If we don’t put it out it’ll burn the forest
And here comes Bambi running out of the garage
His antler’s on fire I’m like oh my gosh
4. Continued Action
So I use my fire hose and spray it around
And now Bambi’s antler is safer now
Cuz now Bambi’s antler is not on fire
And that is a state to vehemently desire
Cuz fire can really hurt and burn your flesh
If I asked him and Sandy could speak he’d say yes
When I asked him if fire really could burn flesh
Cuz I feed Sandy crab flavored Sucrets
So now Bambi comes bounding out the garage
And he sees that his antler is all washed off
I’m MCB the super good firefighter
Never am I carelessly using my lighter
5. Excitement
I am a fireman just look at my suit
It is fire retardant yeah so are the boots
And I’m jangling around gripping onto the ladder
On the back of the fire van to go for a gander
And it’s quiet today because the sun isn’t out
And the sun is the prime reason that fire breaks out
Cuz the sun is the hottest thing ever invented
It will burn anything that’s insufficiently vented
Now my own dog Sandy is starting to bark
Which is his way of transmitting a signal to hark
So I scream immediately: Stop the van
And we come to a halt forcing traffic to jam
6. Back to Station
I’m MCB and I’m a firefighter
I’m also a ladder gripping fire van rider
When I’m cold gripping the fire van ladder
You know I’m searching out for some fiery matter
So once when I searched for fire
We were driving so fast that both my arms got tired
Cuz it’s hard to be gripping a ladder with your arm
Especially if you don’t work on a farm
So luckily we soon did arrive at the station
Cuz that is the fire van’s main destination
Sitting in the station and waiting for fire
Is undoubtedly the fire van’s prime desire
7. Climax
So I found myself in the middle of trouble
I was caught in a burning house under some rubble
Cuz I dashed in the building swinging my fire axe
And then all of a sudden I could hear a crash
So next thing you know now I’m under some rubble
Thus as I think I formerly mentioned I’m in trouble
Cuz the house is burning and the rubble has fallen
And my fire axe broke because it’s not my calling
To be swinging a fire axe recklessly about
When I enter a burning house with no way out
So I’m under the rubble and my suit has a rip
Plus I’m noticing an uncomfortable sore on my lip
So I scream for help thinking I’m going to die
Then as anyone else would I broke down and cried
But hark I hear a noise like a bark or a yelp
And I think it’s my dog Sandy coming to help
8. Climax Continued
So here’s my dog Sandy who’s come to my aid
O Sandy good dog please take me away
So Sandy gives a snarl and he chomps on the rubble
And chews on the rubble and turns it to stubble
So the rubble is gone now I can finally move
But the temperature’s rising to a thousand and two
But we don’t let the fire take our courage away
We decide not to turn we decide to run straight
Which is the best thing to do when faced with fire
Run straight through and never even stop if you’re tired
So now we’re both free and we have no burns
Cuz we ran so fast and then we jumped in some ferns
9. The Call
I was at the station sleeping in my bunk
Sandy was chewing upon a plastic chunk
Cuz there was no fire anywhere to fight
And plus it was really kind of late at night
Cuz most fires happen only during the day
Cuz that’s when then sun comes with deadly rays
And burns everything and starts all fire
But late at night it’s like cool and tired
But then all the sudden I woke up startled
Cuz Sandy had choked upon the plastic he gargled
And that woke me up cuz I’m a light sleeper
And plus I could hear the quaint sound of my beeper
Now one thing’s for sure: When my beeper is beeping
It means there’s a fire that is raging and screeping
And somebody is calling my beeper to warn me
To come and help put out the fire that’s forming
10. Alarm Procedure
The first thing that happens when he know there’s a fire
Is we all wake up even if we are tired
And then all of us firefighters put on our suits
That are red with black trim and big black boots
Then we put on our helmets and we run to the pole
Which connects the second floor where we sleep to below
And we slide down the pole till we get to the bottom
Then we take our positions on our fire toboggan
Which is our slang term we use instead of fire van
So I clutch the ladder at the back with my hands
And my dog Sandy stands right by my feet
And I feed him a bowl of goose flavored ice cream
And the siren turns on blaring loud
It hurts my ears I really hate that sound
*
More rap demo tapes available at https://demorap.bandcamp.com/
8 comments:
You thoughts about money are in line w/ what e.e. cummings says in the foreward to Is 5. "Like all obsessions,the Making obsession has disadvantages;for instance,my only interest in making money would be to make it. Fortunately,however,I should prefer to make almost anything else,including locomotives and roses."
I am equally irked by our Age of Lightning Speed Microblogging & how we must dumb ourselves down and scatter a lot of shiny objects in order to attract 'customers.'
Oh well. I sold a book the other day. I think it was about my 5th for the year. Kindle. Makes my yearly net profit as a writer about $5. Hah. Time to make locomotives and roses.
Cummings is brilliant: I LOVE that quote & am proud that my thought brought his wise words to mind! ...Locomotives and roses: that’s a nice combination. I like the idea of making the latter. Handcrafting them; machining them... & yet with my luck, the instant I join you two poets in this field of employment, our corporate overlords will declare that there’s not enough time for our trains to be stopping and smelling so many flowers — it’s damaging prospective sales!! — therefore we must boost profits by fusing our manufactured goods into a single gimmicky product: LOCO-ROSES.
(Sorry – that joke struck me as clever when I first dreamt it, because of how the syllables match; yet now that I’ve gone to the trouble of typing it out, I’m embarrassed how labored it appears. But as usual, I can’t bear to delete my precious flop.)
After your description of the market-frenzy that the online multitudes engage in – “dumbing ourselves down” and “scattering a lot of shiny objects in order to attract ‘customers’” – it’s impossible for me to resist repeating these lines from our comrade Whitman’s “Song of Myself”:
I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain’d,
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
[ . . . ]
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things...
And I know that you mean for your book-sale news to be taken as disappointing (incidentally, here I stand with you in experiential solidarity!) but I try also to consider such injustices in light of the life of our savior Van Gogh, and the many other greats (heroic Blake) who were treated likewise by their own awful eon. I think it’s a travesty, and our complaint is wholly justified; so I’m only mentioning the following perspective as a well-deserved stimulant: In an age that allows the fraudulent clerks of multinational corporations to be rewarded with untold wealth for disfiguring our world, maybe it’s the flipside of an insult to find you’re an underrated artist.
P.S.: I was just reading the little bit of an interview with Berryman which I stumbled on today (I’ve been trying to read a little about him wherever I can find it, after you made me aware of him – I just got his book in my hands, and I am so far loving it), and he makes the following remark, which is not earth-shattering but has something to do with the above dilemma, if you choose to see the terms of his contrast “blame & praise” as similar to our problem of economic neglect versus overcompensation:
“...if I were talking to a young writer, I would recommend the cultivation of extreme indifference to both praise and blame because praise will lead you to vanity, and blame will lead you to self-pity, and both are bad for writers.”
Your joke was perfect. I'm glad you left it in. hahaah. I like those quotes too and I'm glad you're getting on with Berryman. He was right about the harmfulness of praise and self-pity. I think I used to be more self-pitying with regards to my obscurity, but I've since given up the notion that I'll ever be able to live off the fruits of my writing. Now I just hurl it all out there and hope something sticks.
I tell ya, I've really been enjoying blogging lately, and you are partly to thank for that. A while ago, you said you'd written all you needed to say in your books and are now just blogging. At least that's how I understood it. I'm doing the same for at least a year. I think it was Bukowski who said the angels will never find you in the shadows. Blogging makes me feel a little like I've come out of the shadows.
Ah I’m SO happy to hear what you say here: about your enjoyment of blogging—I’m every bit as much enjoying reading what you’re unveiling from “out of the shadows”...
When you say “Now I just hurl it all out there and hope something sticks,” you remind me of Whitman again (forgive my W.W. obsession) – his “noiseless patient spider,” which “launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself”; and how the poet juxtaposes this creature to his soul, which he describes as being “Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,” – that’s like us on the internet, ha! – so if the actions of the soul of the poet mirror the spider’s, I see no difference between the poet and a modern-day blogger, as both are “Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them...”
Yes & on the dilemma of bookmaking vs. blogging – I’m happy about your determination: I can tell that you’re impassioned about what you’re doing now... & to regard your new surge is at once elating and inspiring! ...You and I obviously care about books very much – the form is so lasting, so dignified – and yet it’s healthy to recognize the defining traits of one’s age: we live in the fast-fast-now-now BOOM; so what’ll happen is that someone possessing wisdom or heart or eloquence (or all the above) will yield to the enticement of immediacy (or whatever you want to call the allure of our time) and end up leaving behind compositions that the subsequent ages (which shall not share our age’s thrill for speed-of-transfer, once our BOOM goes BUST) will enthrone as nonpareil.
That is my long and winding way of saying something simple: If we write great blogs, they’ll end up as books anyway. Someone perceptive will be proud to discover them and bind them. I see this as good news, and a win-win for us.
Everything you say is exactly what I've been thinking for the past month or so. It's refreshing to know we are in complete agreement. I have now written 2 novels and one poetry book, so I feel no guilt in stepping away from those two forms and developing this 3rd, always with the thought in the back of my mind that, as you say, "If we write great blogs, they’ll end up as books anyway. Someone perceptive will be proud to discover them and bind them."
re: recognizing the defining traits of our time. In a way, I think I've been fighting against them all along, and my hatred for Facebook especially bears witness. But now that I've turned to blogging (coundn't they have come up with a better word for it? haha), and not just half-ass blogging as was my former wont but the primary writing I do, I feel like for the first time I'm moving with the current. Suddenly it's not THAT much of an impossiblity that some wayward Vasco da Gama will wash up on my shore. If he does, he'll find your shore too, and vice-versa.
I was thinking last night how getting yourself discovered on the internet, and also making personal connections on it, and fostering those connections, is like some huge modern game of chess. It's what the people of our time are doing, and it really can lead somewhere, something I refused to believe for years, having been convinced that everyone I met on the net was really just an android or self-configuring robot (developed by some hairy-knuckled guy sitting in his grandmother's basement) rather than a living breathing human being. It was a mental block.
But, anyway, the good thing to know is that in the end all that counts is the writing. You can network as much as you want but if the writing is shit, or mediocre, or even just good, it'll come out. Truth always comes out.
So we play the game of chess, knowing we have that advantage over the rest.
I’m almost embarrassed that I keep responding at length to your replies here—I always start by telling myself “Keep it brief!” (for the sake of politeness) but the stuff that you bring up is so central to my thinking, even central to my way of living, that it’s hard to curb my enthusiasm...
Your idea rings true to me: comparing the online world to a chess game. Someone, I can’t remember WHO, said something, I can’t remember WHAT or WHERE, so I must paraphrase:
With regard to his style of playing chess (and now the meaning of this is enhanced by your social-networking analogy), a friend said that Duchamp was more concerned with the strangeness & beauty of an unexpected move than with winning the game.
I think my point is this: I am fine with losing the internet game, as long as I do so bizarrely.
...& I’m thankful that you reveal your former hatred of the computer universe, because my own soul’s path took the same curve; and I like that you say “I feel like for the first time I'm moving with the current.” EXACTLY I feel that too. It’s hard to kick against the pricks. (And if you can’t join em, beat em!)
I've actually never played chess, but in how I imagine it to be played, I'm in total agreement with Duchamp's sentiment. Some people are just obsessed with the BOTTOM LINE: LIKES, FOLLOWERS, SO FORTH! If you really wanna get those, it's very easy. All you have to do - to continue with the aquatic metaphors - is jump in the piranha pool and like and follow people all day. I admittedly stick my toes in the pool sometimes, more than you for sure. I've been luring people to my blog lately via the Wordpress reader. But at least I don't swim w/ the piranha, and at least I don't compromise my art for the sake of it. That's the most important thing.
Hey I am cheering for whatever you’re doing in the way of developing a readership: I salute your efforts; I find it all fascinating: you’re finding that sweet spot of intelligent energy-use, where you get the highest benefit without wasting any valuable genius – I applaud this, simply and happily! For myself, I learned, after my time at Facebook, that, even if it came to me, I wouldn’t be able to handle popularity – so I just do what gives me pleasure, which is writing and sharing stuff; and if any of the hashtags or promo tools ever seem fun or appealing to me, I’ll jump right in and use them too. ...So best of luck with the Wordpress reader (this is the first I’ve ever heard of that)—I’m just glad that you’re sharing your work, to remind the rest of us that there are people who still care about life’s eternal aspects... the passion, the heart, the daily struggle, the big and small questions... & again I think of Whitman (“A Clear Midnight”):
...pondering the themes thou lovest best,
Night, sleep, death and the stars.
P.S. Hahaha!! I’VE never played chess either!! ...SO glad to finally know a fellow chess-not-knower!
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