Carl Creighton: Lover, Fighter, Writer of Songs

11 North Rerelease?

2010-08-20T16:07:00.001-07:00

I'm thinking of rereleasing 11 North in a physical form that wasn't created in a basement in queens with glue sticks and velcro from the convenience store down the block. Although the experience of doing that with Blake will probably be one of the happiest memories I will ever make.

Thinking 300 copies of a sleeve. Maybe a new cover image. Limited edition thing (though hopefully not limited to the trunk of my car like Minnesota is right now).

Gonna go to the Nordeast Festival and pretend I'm in one of the bands. Because it looks like a scene Gold Record Breakfast should get into.

TMNT

2010-07-12T13:43:00.001-07:00

Songs:

Ninja Intro#
Tourist Town*
Eona*
Teenage Mutation*
Human Love^
I'm Building a Machine^
Sad Clown*
Superfreak*
April I Will^
Role Model^
Starless Sky^

* - worked on by band
^ - mostly written, not worked on by band (yet)
# - only an idea, not written by anybody yet

express yourself

2010-06-30T08:53:00.000-07:00

writing lots of bits and pieces to songs lately.

OUT IN EAGAN

Out in Eagan courtin' armageddon I wore my blackest suit I did my hair all cute
Some duck-fluff haircut come and talk to me kindly ask my price i blink i bat my eyes

but i can't even sell my soul
the devil don't want it no
and there's nothing sadder than a whore who can't even sell himself

All these cars seem to drive themselves to and from the end
And I'm I'm just the same. I stay in my lane. Nowhere to go nothing to gain

cause i can't even sell my soul
the devil don't want it no
and there's nothing sadder than a whore who can't even sell himself

ONLY RIGHT TURNS

I need a way
With only right turns
I need a church that only burns

I have a wife
I need a groom
I need the world to end real soon

And they come
And they ask me
What have I done
What exactly
And I hum
The same tune
The same one
I always do

Like a wedding band
On the hand of a corpse
I will surely stay the course

But I need a way
With only right turns
I need a church that only burns

FT. SNELLING

It was a lovely day
It was a cold wave
Lilacs were dying, froze in the night

More lonely than alone
I walk through fields of stones
Written with names of those soliders who died

I see my father's face
We both have nothing to say

Gotta finish writing the Ninja Turtle song lyrics since band is already playing half of them. Hmm.

carl creighon is a pussy

2010-06-25T10:31:00.000-07:00

what kind of person am i
i work 8 hours a day and spent 7.5 of those hours doing random non-work related shit.
like updating my blog
i listened to the white album today.
i want to spend a whole day doing nothing but listening to the white album. maybe even just the first disc. Like a weekend. Saturday, disc one. Sunday, disc two.
Met DM (the D stands for David) Stith last night. He was really nice. I was a nervous wreck. Gave him a CD and tried to make my blatant act of solicitation seem ok by overstating the case. And trying to make myself feel ok about it by confessing on national internet.

reading DM (the D stands for David)'s blog. I'm gonna call him David now because we're friends. It's so pretty. He says such pretty things. I'm going to try and be pretty too.

I miss running around the lake with Vaughn. And the ducks in the lake. And Blake's kinda scatterbrained enthusiasm that matches my own scatterbrained enthusiasm. I hope we never become smileless tight pant wearing we deserve to play at a better place than this pseudo rock stars, even when we become real rock stars. David was so down to earth. I told him that.

Everyday I buy a XXX vitamin water in honor of Charles Barthelemy and a Coke Zero in honor of Patrick Sullivan. I wish my name was more Irish. Nah, Carl Creighton is pretty bad ass.

I like my job because I'm getting paid right now and my stats are still good. All I care about are stats.

Practicing tonight with Jason. I'm so glad I met Bryan. He's really cool. I'm afraid if I didn't I might have allowed my mind and body to atrophy.

I want to spend a day playing all the Gabriel Knight video games. I want to be 12 again, kneeling beside my mom and dad's bed looking at Pamela Anderson's naked boobs. All those home movies of me running around stuffing my mouth with something. High-pitched girlishness. No shame.

Do I have shame now? Yeah, but we all do. The panopticon and all that. Somebody's watching me. Started writing a song about men having sex in the bathroom.

Tuesday afternoon
Meet me in the men's room
We'll play like men do

Oh man, for innocence. Oh man, gotta write a song with oh man in it.

two new songs

2010-06-10T20:57:00.000-07:00

cumulus

rachel my angel
play my heart like a harp
coo me into the cumulus
while you daintly strum i'm coming apart

it's not your fault
it's not your fault honey

EaganCTS

Out in Eagan courting armageddon
I wore my blackest suit
I made my hair real cute

Money!

2010-06-08T16:42:00.000-07:00

CDBaby sent me $21 bucks today! yay! thanks to whoever made that happen.

Blake Luley of Toy Train fame is finishing up mixing our new baby Everyone in This Cemetery Knows I'm High/Merry Cemetery/All I Do is Dream of You. Here's the track list for the 100th time:

1. Chelsea Piers (Cold Wind Blows)
2. The White Lights Up at Bloomingdales Bring Me Down
3. Needles and Pins
4. My Own David
5. Keep Me Away From the Mirror
6. Timeless Square
7. Idaho #1
8. Heckscher Field #3
9. Cooperstown, ND
10. Alexander Hamilton's Grave
11. 7a

to do list

2010-05-25T21:46:00.001-07:00

1. practice practice practice with band.
2. wait for blake to finish mixing merry cemetery.
3. play shows.
4. record more shit.

The Future is Beneath You - band progress.

1. Leonardo - sounds cool.
2. Halfway Between - sounds cool.
3. Take it Apart - only touched once, need to touch again.
4. I'm Building a Machine - untouched.
5. Constellations/April I Will - need to touch again.
6. Saddest Clown - untouched.
7. Superfreak - Sounds good so far.
8. Role Model - untouched.
9. Tourist Town - sounds good so far.
10. Starless Sky - untouched.

Dirges (Disc 2 of the double album?)

1. Ballard-Sunder - done.
2. Baby Doll - almost done?
3. I Will (For Charles) - done.
4. Sundays and Saturdays - not started.
5. DNR - not started.
6. Pulse - started?
7. Will You Lie With Me in My Deathbed - not started.
8. Mandolin - not started.
9. Dirge 6
10. Ft. Snelling

tourist town

2010-05-20T13:50:00.000-07:00

we live in a tourist town
keep your head above the water
before the mayor flush it down
I go where there are no roads
and i kiss the farmer's daughter
where she's been god only knows

and i've learned to swim or to drown
living here underground
i can't believe the love that i've found

we work in the empire state
better keep your body moving
even if you're early you're late
and i sleep but i dare not dream
cause everything you're thinking
never quite turns out like it seemed

and i've learned to swim or to drown
slowly gain some reknown
i can't believe the love that i've found

hold your head high golden body
finely built and not but nearly god

i'd be leaving in the fairest of the seasons

2010-05-14T14:52:00.000-07:00

oh man that song is so pretty. i almost started crying to it on my way to work this morning.

so i don't really like my job. i'm on the phone all day and i hate people now. and the only thing that makes it ok is when i have band practice after work. but wednesday something horrible happened. my mom called and said there was a bird in the living room and she was too afraid to touch it. so i used that as an excuse to go home early. but when i got there, there was no bird to be found. And mom said there was definitely some kind of animal in the house. and then i let scout out of the basement and he ran towards the fridge. and i heard the sound of something eating something behind the fridge. and then this THING jumped out from under the fridge and then went immediately back in. It was almost like it was bungee-corded to something it was that fast.

And it looked like a rat without a tail. Maybe a squirrel? I tried letting it be alone so it could come out when it felt comfortable but that didn't work. And then band practice was supposed to happen and my mom wouldn't let me leave without getting rid of that darn critter. And then one time it came out and my mom was there and she freaked out and grabbed my arm and she was shaking and i thought she was going to have a heart attack and that wouldn't have been good. so i told my band i couldn't come to practice and they were cool with it. but i was bummed because i like band practice so much.

and then i had to call out of work yesterday because that darn critter was still under the fridge. and then i bought a $38 trap at the store and it worked. and i was happy because it didn't hurt the chipmunk (it was a chipmunk). But i was still bummed because I missed work and now I only worked 26 hours this week.

Here are the songs the band can play perfectly:

Big Arms
El Paso
Light Bulb
When I Go
If E'er You Lose the Will
Freedom is a Buzzword
Teenage Mutation
The Eldest
Superfreak
Sink or Swim

band practice is fun

2010-05-07T11:27:00.000-07:00

band practice is fun! Here is the list of songs we've covered.

First, songs we played at that one show:

Light Bulb
When I Go
The Eldest
Teenage Mutation
Freedom is a Buzzword

Then these:

El Paso
Big Arms
Tourist Town (which I thought sounded killer, but maybe just because I raised the melody an octave and am screaming my lungs out now like The Strokes guy)

So that's fun.

I recorded this Bon Iver/DM Stith rip-off intro song for my never to be completed Dirges album. It's called Ballard-Sunder and the lyrics go thus:

Ooooooooooooooh.

I am alone in the funeral home
All of the other good daughters and sons have gone home

And then the next song will be Baby Doll, which needs more words.

And I want to write a song about Rachel singing like an angel. A John Prine folky thing. Like the Filthy Pits storytelling but with less nonsense.

The tables were crowded and the bar was all full
Went to hear Rachel singing like an angel
And something something....

hey carl, it's carl

2010-05-05T16:40:00.000-07:00

how are you doing? I'm doing ok. just hanging out at work. got band practice today. band practice is going really well. hope we can start playing some awesome shows. here are the songs we got down almost pat:

Light Bulb
When I Go
The Eldest (or whatever this is going to be called)
An Amalgamation (or whatever this is going to be called)
Freedom is a Buzzword

Other songs we tried last night for the first time:

El Paso
Be My Best Friend (until we realized Bryan needs brushes to pull this off)
Take it Apart (Human Love)
Tourist Town

We tried April I Will once. It was cool.

Got a show May 15th at 10:15. Terminal Bar. Pretty cool. Don't know if Bryan or Mike can play. If not, I'm gonna make Craig do it with me. I don't know who the hell would come out to see us play, but whatever.

proof that i am a genius

2010-04-30T09:37:00.000-07:00

Bryan (the drummer) keeps saying that I've written 80 songs or something and I keep saying "yeah, I'm a genius," but now I thought I'd make a list of songs. I'm only including songs that I wouldn't be embarassed to play at a show because it's actually finished. Let's start with the albums...

Minnesota:

1. Smoking is Ugly
2. Be My Best Friend
3. Big Arms
4. El Paso
5. Light Bulb
6. Minnesota
7. Derrius
8. Never Gave You My Guitar (thought I fucked this up at my show last night)
9. Erin
10. Live Tonight
11. Baby's Breath

11 North:

12. Already Gone
13. When I Go
14. Christian Girl
15. If E'er You Lose the Will
16. No Color in My Dreams
17. Freedom is a Buzzword
18. I've Lost My Mind
19. Johnny After the War
20. Whalemen All The Way
21. Love Sweet Love
22. Your Heart in My Pocket
23. Fire in the Ward

Merry Cemetery (the wordiest titled songs in the world):

24. Cooperstown, ND
25. The Cold Wind Blows on the Soulless Soul
26. The White Lights Up at Bloomingdales Bring Me Down
27. Needles and Pins
28. My Own David to Kiss
29. Keep Me Away from The Mirror
30. Snuffed Out in the Prime of Your Timelss Square
31. Idaho #1
32. Heckscher Field #3
33. Alexander Hamilton's Grave
34. 7A (am I forgetting one? thought there were 12...)

Fuck this is lame. I give up.

take it apart

2010-04-28T15:45:00.000-07:00

i can outsmart
every part
of my weak heart
my brain is that big
and strong

i can outwit
every bit
of the bullshit
my heart is that weak

just have to figure out
what this human love's about
take it apart
part
by part

i can outrun
every one
of my problems
my feet are that fast
and fleet

but i can't escape
your love's too great
gets in the way
and i am too small

just have to figure out
what this human love's about
take it apart
part
by part
by part

teenage mutation

2010-04-28T15:44:00.001-07:00

too late to be
completely free
of the implication
of my own creation

halfway between
a human being
an amalgamation
a teenage mutation

i am super human not human at all

brothers' brother

2010-04-28T15:41:00.000-07:00

i am the brother to three brothers
i am the eldest of the fatherless the motherless
i am the brother to three brothers
i am the eldest of the fatherless the motherless
and it's because of this i assume the role
body and soul

i am the son of noone
even an orphan has lost someone
i am the product of a loveless conception
body and soul

25 feet of shit and concrete
separate me from the people
and the civilization

25 feet of shit and concrete
separate me from the people
and the civilization

i am a citizen of no government
noone represents me but myself
and noone else
i am a self-sustaining fuel
for a cruel and airless fire
i've no desire
to be anything other
than my brothers' brother.

dirges

2010-04-24T06:54:00.000-07:00

1. Ballard-Sunder Funeral Home
2. Baby Doll
3. Sundays and Saturdays
4. DNR
5. My Mandolin
6. Cleary Lake
7. Pulse
8. Will You Lie With Me in My Death Bed
9. Dirge for a Fly
10. The Ft. Snelling Rag

tmnt

2010-04-22T10:57:00.000-07:00

1. My Brothers' Brother
2. Teenage Mutation
3. Human Love
4. I'm Building a Machine!
5. April I Will
6. The Saddest Clown
7. Who's My Role Model
8. Tourist Town
9. Cement Sky

minnesota analysis

2010-04-20T08:04:00.000-07:00

1. Smoking is Ugly

Synopsis: I wrote the idea of this song when I was walking around New York looking at all the people smoking outside the buildings. Everyone in my family smokes, my mom, my brother, my sister, my dad. But not me. So I've always thought smoking was ugly and I kinda have this thing where if I think I see someone smoking in the corner of my eye I have to look at them and confirm that they actually are smoking. It's weird.

Oh, but the song is really about feeling guilty. Like feeling guilty about smoking, or paying too much for coffee, or living in New York when it's so expensive.

2. Be My Best Friend

Synopsis: A lot of people have helped me out over the years in ways that I can't really pay back. Like my friend Vaughn and my friend Kenny. They let me stay at their house in Queens when I first moved to New York. You get torn between feeling appreciative and feeling like you're using people. So that's what this song is about. And Vaughn doesn't have any siblings, so that's what the last line is about really.

3. Big Arms

Synopsis: I was dating a guy who was still living with his exgirlfriend and it was awkward. And I was living in Queens. And they were fighting all the time and stuff. So I wrote this after he left me in queens to go back to his exgirlfriend. And it was snowing out and I was afraid he was going to get in a car accident.

4. El Paso

Synopsis: Wrote this about the same time as Big Arms. There was this other guy that I had hung out with a few times before I started dating the guy with the exgirlfriend. So this other guy, let's call him Alex, was pretty cool. I kinda stopped seeing him when the second guy came along, just like I stopped seeing everybody pretty much. Alex was from El Paso. That's pretty much the gist of that.

5. Light Bulb

Synopsis: I wrote this song when I was living in Minnesota. My friend Leah and her brother Kurt accused me of rhyming too much in my songs (I think the explanation of the next song might play into that a little). So this was an attempt to rhyme as little as possible. And I was laying on my bed looking at the light at the time. So there you go. And it's funny because it's one of those songs you just write not thinking about anything but when you listen to it later it's even more poignant than before. If that makes any sense.

6. Minnesota

Synopsis: It's kinda funny that this song became such an emotional thing. It was really written as a joke song to my friend Leah after I moved back to Minnesota the first time. Like a "fuck you New York, I didn't like you anyway" sort of thing. And originally all the lines rhymed with Minnesota. Like "We're gonna find down the road-a" and "take a spin on the boat-a." And then Leah's brother Kurt said I was forcing the rhyme too much so I changed it. And then I wrote Light Bulb

7. Derrius

Synopsis: This song is mad old, yo. I wrote it when I was 18ish after my first guy kiss. Which might actually be my first kiss in general, I can't remember. His name was Derrius and I was afraid to go any further than a kiss with him. Thus the "just another punk ass queer when fear attacks." I have mixed feelings about the song, because as a straight guy singing it (which most people generally think I am), it's using queer in the negative sense, like when you call something lame "gay." Which I don't really like. But anyway... I think I should write another queer song sometime.

8. Never Gave You My Guitar

Synopsis: I wrote this when on summer vacation in Prior Lake. It's about never letting my sister Amanda play my guitar and having no patience for her musical endeavors whatsoever. A lot of times I'll write a song and then forget how it goes the next day. I recorded this on this little mp3 player/recorder that Jason Bauman bought me. Now I do this a lot, record stuff before it's done just so I don't forget the idea of it. Like most of 11 North comes from songs I did that with.

9. Erin

Synopsis: This is about as old as Derrius. It's about this girl I used to work with at Mystic Lake buffet. She was really funny and I thought I had a crush on her even though she's a girl. The lyric used to be "you want to turn me straight" which I changed to whatever it is now on the record because I didn't want all those young girls to be disappointed by me being into pole smoking.

10. Live Tonight

Synopsis: Really old too. Maybe even before Derrius and Erin? Who knows. Amanda liked this song a lot. Rachel Epp thinks I should make a Smashing Pumpkins' 1979ish video. That would be cool.

11. Baby's Breath

Synopsis: I can't remember anything about writing this. Just sorta spilled out of me. Oh, I changed "still waiting for your man to come and confess" to "waiting for the snow" when I started to forgive Clay for the accident.

random thoughts

2010-04-19T10:44:00.000-07:00

I'm in Minnesota now. Prior Lake. Working at Thomson Reuters. Need to book shows. Gonna record some new stuff. Started playing with a drummer and bass player in Minneapolis. They cool. Trying to find other musicians to fill us out. Blake is finishing up mixing of Merry Cemetery, which I'll get on iTunes by Thanksgiving hopefully. It's supposed to be Christmasy, but it's not really. More just dark sounding. Real dark. Here's the track list I have on my iPOD:

1. Cooperstown, N.D.

Synopsis: a song about losing your job and killing yourself. It's got me and my guitar and then some trumpet (me)/sax (neil) and some drums (blake) and a bass note thing and a ride cymbal and then finally some synth strings.

2. The Cold Wind Blows on the Soulless Soul

Synopsis: A song about someone I obsess about now and then. Leah said the lyrics are cheasy, but whatevs. I whistle on it. And it's the first song Rachel Epp sings on. Haven't heard what that sounds like yet but I bet it's cool. And Blake put some pretty jingly guitar on it.

3. The White Lights Up at Bloomingdales Bring Me Down

Synopsis: Really the only Christmas song on the album. Got some real weird keyboard glock thing on it. and i did the drums. and rachel epp sings on the end of this one too. It's real pretty.

4. Needles and Pins

Synopsis: About the liberty of death. Probably the coolest song on the album. Like it's the only one that could be in a car commercial, probably. Me and blake collaborated on the drums. He added a cool bass line that makes the chorus and thus the song.

5. My Own David To Kiss

Synopsis: My first blatantly gay song in like 6 years. At least the first recorded and put out for mass consumption. I want his love inside of me. Heh heh. Got some weird synth stuff (like all the other songs I guess). And we recorded one of the acoustic guitars using the inboard mic on blake's laptop. So that's cool.

6. Snuffed Out in the Prime of Your Timeless Square

Synopsis: Another song about the person I obssess about sometimes. About walking around with him in Times Square and wishing I could just follow him everywhere. Really great lyrics if I do say so myself. Blake and I played this live a couple times with him on the glockenspiel. Makes me wish I was still living there still playing that with him. Oh man. And the third verse sucked, so we replaced it with a synth solo.

7. Keep Me Away From the Mirror

Synopsis: I wrote this song when I was hung over and regretting alarming everybody with a suicidal facebook status update. Well, it was a pretty vague facebook status update and really wasn't all the suicidal at all. But I still felt like a fool. I like the oohs on this song. It's pretty epic, but longer than....

8. Idaho #1

Synopsis: The song that Blake keeps naming Idaho #2 but is actually Idaho #1. Idaho #2 is pretty cool too though. I don't really know how I feel about it. It's really short but epic at the same time, especially with how sleepy the rest of the album is... Hmm... Oh this is also the very first song I ever wrote about the guy I sometimes obsess about. I wrote it when I was about 16. Which might be why I have mixed feelings about it. But it sounds cool. And Blake quoted the throw away verse I wrote about swimming inside my head on his facebook status once, so maybe it's not so throw away after all

9. Heckscher Field #3

Synopsis: Song about a softball game I saw once in Central Park. In actuality the game happened at Hesckscher Field #1 or 2 and #3 doesn't have any bleechers, but still. Pretty oooohs and this mic thing the roommate that replaced me in Brooklyn made.

10. Alexander Hamilton's Grave

Synopsis: About smoking pot in that cemetery by wall street. It's pretty good. Rachel sings on this and sounds totally high because she didn't know what to sing, but I'm pretty sure she wasn't really high.

11. 7A

Synopsis: About meeting Vaughn and Kenny to go eat somewhere, this time 7A in the Lower East Side. And about hating New York but liking the people that live there.

This was fun. I'm gonna do one of these for Minnesota and 11 North later when work gets boring.

supermoms

2010-04-16T07:05:00.000-07:00

i wait for the elevator with my free coffee and 1.09 (+tax) oatmeal raisin cookies that are "simply to go." An elderly woman is consoled outside the elevator, told that she's in another man's prayers. The elderly woman is consoled in the elevator by a different man, told that, as a parent, he can't imagine her grief. She says that everybody has been so thoughtful. The second man is holding a box of Supermom's baked goods, probably donuts or muffins.

DOA Review, 11 North available on iTunes

2010-03-04T10:37:00.001-08:00

We got a really cool review from Bryan Sanchez over at Delusions of Adequacy, so that's pretty cool. It's here: http://www.adequacy.net/2010/03/carl-creighton-%e2%80%93-eleven-north/

11 North (Eleven North, whatever you want to call it) is available on iTunes now. It's listed on there as 11 North. So search for that.

I'm doing an in-store performance at Cheapo Thursday March 11th to promote Minnesota being on sale there. That's at 6PM and located at 1300 W. Lake Street, Minneapolis, MN 55408.

I'm on a mission to get my music on 89.3 The Current (http://minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/services/the_current/), so if everybody could call them and ask for a song from 11 North, that would be cool. Let's try When I Go, since it's straight up pop.

Minnesota Available at Cheapo

2010-02-23T16:20:00.000-08:00

So, if anybody has ever been to Cheapo, they know it is the coolest place to be ever. When I was living in New York (you know, way back when), everybody talked about how Princeton Record Exchange is the coolest place in the world. I went there and it was pretty cool. But not as cool as Cheapo in Minneapolis/St. Paul.

Well, Cheapo is about to get a lot cooler starting Thursday. My album Minnesota will be available for purchase and in the listening posts throughout the store. I'm excited to see which artists I get put between. I'm hoping I'm by Creedence Clearwater Revival and Eric Clapton or something. You'll have to go to see for yourself. I'll probably be there Thursdayish.

And I think I might be doing a signing/singing thing there sometime. Well, it's really just a singing thing, but to make it seem more prestigious, I will also sign stuff if you want me to. Like your ass or the dust cover of a Michael Crichton novel.

when you get bored

2010-02-13T21:16:00.000-08:00

what's up

2009-10-12T21:40:00.000-07:00

White Lights
Done: Guitar, Keyboard, Tom, Snare
Needs to Be Done: Lead Vocals, Cymbal, Backup vocals

Wind Blows Cold
Done: Steel String Guitar, Nylon, Whistling, Vocals, electric guitar
Needs to Be Done: Backup Vocals?

David
Done: Nothing
Needs to Be Done: Electric guitar, drums, vocals

Keep Me Away From the Mirror
Done: Guitar, Tom, Snare
Needs to Be Done: Cymbal, Vocals

Needles and Pins
Done: Guitar, Keyboard, Snare, Tom, Whole drums, Vocals
Needs to Be Done: Electric guitar?

Hecksher Field #3
Done: Guitar, Vocals
Needs to Be Done: Electric Guitar, oooooohs

Idaho #1
Done: vocals, tom, snare, guitar, electric guitar
Needs to Be Done: cymbal, more electric

Cooperstown, ND
Done: guitar
Needs to Be Done: vocals, drums, keyboard

Will You Lie With Me in My Deathbed
Done: keyboard
Needs to Be Done: vocals, who knows what else

Wake Up
Done: nothing
Needs to Be Done: nylon string, electric, vocals, drums, whatever we come up with

the d sticks

2009-10-06T07:00:00.000-07:00

I was reading my last post and realized that there was no d on the and. And I was writing a post on facebook (which I'm want to do) and realized that there was another and with no d on it. Now I've realized that the d sticks and I have to hit it extra hard to make sure it comes out on the words I need it for. And, like everything else, it made me think of life. The sticking d is like an affliction which is testing my will to use words with that letter. I might simply choose to eliminate that letter from my vocabulary, thus no longer requiring the hitting of that specific key. this plan of action might help me to lengthen my vocabulary by choosing phrases that use other letters in lieu of the things I normally say, such as using the phrases "might", "lengthen", or "in lieu" as well as eliminating conjunctions all together. But then I came to the conclusion that I like the letter d. An(d) that my vocabulary is quite fine the way it is. An(d) not only am I going to take the extra effort to hit the (d) extra har(d) to make sure that it works, I'm going to emphasis just how much I love that letter by placing it in parenthesis every time I (d)eci(d)e to use it. An(d) I'll even use wor(d)s that are completely unnecessary just to show off how much I love the letter (d). Because I (d)o love the letter (d). I (d)o, I (d)o, I (d)efinitely (d)o.

While writing this I also realized that the r sticks sometimes. But the d was sticking first, so I'm going to just try and avoid r words whenever it becomes an issue. I don't need two letters getting special attention. Plus, giving attention to the r would take attention away from the d. See, I even forgot to put parenthesis on the d's in this paragraph. Stupid r.

Oh, an I .... AND I. I hate you too now, d. And I forgot to draw the connection between the affliction that the d sticking causes and afflictions in life. So let's just say that not using the d is like not eating cheese when you like cheese but have decided that not eating cheese will solve all of your weight issues. And they're both like the Rolling Stones song "You Can't Always Get What You Want" only a lot less entertaining.

when i get married

2009-10-05T21:51:00.000-07:00

Jason Bauman will be my best man. Thanks for upating my site to redirect people here! I'd kiss you if you weren't so far away an if it didn't make us both feel a little uncomfortable.

Now that people might actually come here, I'm going to upate with something.

Saw Sufjan Stevens at Bowery Ballroom. It was cool.

all day i dream about you

2009-10-04T15:18:00.000-07:00

1. white lights
2. cold wind blows
3. my own david to kiss
4. keep me away from the mirror
5. needles and pins
6. cooperstown, nd
7. hecksher field #3
8. idaho #1.
9. will you lie with me in my deathbed
10. wake up

songs that i like that for some reason i have not decided to do for this thing:
alexander hamilton
the a stands for again (which really fits with all the other songs. but it's like all the other songs are good end of album songs and this is definitely an end of album song. so i can't have like 5 end of album songs on an album)
i am a doctor
DNR
fictional song
deep in my heart

these will probably make a good amnesiac to my kid a someday.

I should probably follow up with Blake about the stuff we've recorded.

hello all you carl creighton fans out there

2009-10-02T14:16:00.001-07:00

Blake and I recorded a bunch of songs on his tape deck. we recorded guitar for these:

White Lights
Cooperstown, ND
Keep Me Away From the Mirror
Idaho #1
Needles and Pins

Guitar and vocals for these (though we might have to redo vocals because of my speech impediment):

Hecksher Field #3
The Cold Wind Blows on the Soulless Soul (or whatever the hell I end up calling this song)

And piano (sorta) for this:
Will You Lie With Me in My Deathbed

It was fun. There's rain on a couple of the songs. It's going to be a rain-soaked lullabye. I was talking to may dad on the phone today and I asked him what the weather was like and he said "pretty rainy." That would make a good album title, right? Pretty rainy?

2009-09-22T18:33:00.001-07:00

the propaniacs

2009-09-16T13:44:00.000-07:00

The Propaniacs episode of King of the Hill Season 4 would make a good spin-off I think. Like a variety show or something.

That last blog entry post compisition journal was whiny, so

2009-09-15T15:34:00.000-07:00

In my apartment the other day I woke up and there was a dead cockroach in the purposeless space between my bedroom and the music room in the basement. It looked like a piece of paper that had been bent in half, only brown and shiny and shaped like a cockroach. I was grossed out, but then I realized that someone or something had squished the bug and saved me from it. And then I felt grateful. And then I thought it might be my cat, Scout, who doesn't really do anything useful except meow and let me pet him, which does have a use I suppose. So I was proud of him and glad that I had been spared the sight of the cockroach crawling around. And then I swept it up in the bag of cat poop from the litter box and thought about how sad it must be to die and be buried in a white plastic C-Town bag surrounded by cat shit. And I thought of Maud Martha, who spared the mouse because she identified with it and the family it must be supporting.

I think English teachers are like preachers only instead of using the bible, they use fiction. Or whatever genre they teach.

This happened about 2 weeks ago, but when it happened, I thought to myself that I should write something about this on my blog. But then I kept not doing it. And now I'm doing it, because it's never too late.

There was also this centipede that I glimpsed for a second in the music part of our basement. It crawled quickly across the floor and ended on the case to my brother's mandolin where I thought I was going to kill it, but it got away. And I have no idea where it is now. It looked about 8 inches long. It was huge. And then when I looked up centipedes on wikipedia, it said they can live between 3 and 7 years, which is at least a year older than my cat. So now I think of it as the pet I don't have to feed or take care of or even see. They also eat spiders, and I hate spiders. But spiders eat flies. But I like flies more than I like spiders and I like centipedes most of all. Even if this one only has 30 feet instead of the 100 that its name suggests.

Studying for LSAT

2009-09-15T15:28:00.001-07:00

Was studying for LSAT today at school. Logic Problems. If there are three levels of cars and only new cars can be on the first level but used cars can be on the first level and all of the sports cars are on the first level and all of the family cars are on the first level and all the display models are on the first level and all the production models are on the first level and the second and third levels don't really have cars on them at all but are big empty spaces where drunken college students end up on tuesday nights by themselves listening to the pj harvey album dry on their oversized headphones away from their facebook and away from troubling their mothers with a relay of messages which alert her of his drunkeness and depression and suicidal nightmares which all begins with a stupid message of ending it all which is completely his fault for writing so he switches the song to nina simone's "nobody's fault but my own" and thinks on leah, who didn't seem to like the nina simone song he played her, who said that she didn't understand how people listen to so much music do they know all the lyrics like she does or do they just listen in a drunken stupor on the second and third floor of the old abandoned car garage with all the forgotten cars on the first level that nobody claims and are only there for appearances and for logic questions, then which level has the Buick?

Needles and Pins

2009-09-09T21:06:00.000-07:00

Needles and Pins I feel them sticking in my skin

Is it a sin to outlive your limb

Now that that part of me is gone I must begin to reimagine who I am

What was part of me is now lying dead on the floor

Heart giving blood but it's the gift that's giving no more

Makes you wonder what the body has in store

What once was me is now lying dead on the floor

Some Joseph Looking for A Manger

2009-09-09T20:50:00.000-07:00

Feeling optimistic. I'm going to try and get my website to redirect to here so I can actually update my tens of fans about the goings on going on in my life.

Erin Regan and Charles Latham (the musician, not the famous photographer) are starting a band. Our first practice is Saturday. That should be really, really fun. Oh, I'm in the band too.

I booked a show at the Living Room in November with the lovely Ms. Rachel Epp. That should be a lot of fun. I'm going to play solo until I move back to Minnesota this winter or spring.

School started a week ago. My last semester. In January, I'll have a BA in English Literature. I'm going to keep doing music until my teaching career takes off. Or something funny like that.

Writing too many songs. Need to record some of these bitches. I downloaded an illegal copy of something that records songs. Let's see how that goes.

Coming to terms with playing music after the completion of 11 North. The album intimidates me I think. We put so much into it and to play shows with just me and my guitar or just me and the venue's piano is a little scary. But I've done it before, I can do it again.

I've been walking around a lot. I took this course in VS Naipaul and my instructor said his characters often walk around as a way of appropriation in their foreign environments. I guess I do that too. I love walking across the WB bridge. I walked to the Brooklyn Bridge the other day. That was fun.

Rachel Epp and I are talking about doing a bunch of traditional Christian songs for her mom for Xmas. I hope this isn't supposed to be a surprise and I hope her mom doesn't read my blog if it is. But this should be fun. We were inspired by Iris Dement's Lifeline album. She's the bomb.

That's all the news that's fit to print right now.

dirge

2009-08-11T22:50:00.000-07:00

Want to record a 5 song piano thing called Dirge. With these songs:

1. Funeral for Baby Doll
2. DNR
3. Walking the Grounds
4. Needles and Pins
5. In My Death Bed

Funeral for Baby Doll

I am alone in the funeral home
All of the other dead daughters and sons have gone home

Babydoll, babydoll, my sister
In the cold, cold ground
Babydoll, babydoll, my sister
In the cold, cold ground

Save a place for me at the lord's table
I will join you when I'm able
But if you see me burning in the hell below
Don't cry for me
I love you more than you will ever know

We were twins but we were born months apart
She will be so happy to behold me
I will be so happy to have my family

DNR

Technology is saving our lives
Giving us so many new ways to die
Killed in a car, shot in the eye
We can know how but you still won't know why

Science claims to master the body
Like a clock you can unlock and tidy
But even when the gears are unhid
Don't know anymore than the cavemen did

So when I die pound on my chest
When I die wish me the best
But I signed a waver and it says:
DNR me.
DNR me.
When I am dead I am dead and that's all I will be
Don't hook me up to machinery
Don't make a machine out of me
DNR me.

Waiting for a doctor to give me his thoughts
Sell me the pills I still haven't bought
It's sad it's a business it's true
When I die I'll be thinking of you

DNR me.
DNR me.
When I am dead dead is all I will be.
Don't hook me up to machinery.
Don't make a machine out of me.
DNR me.
DNR me.
DNR me.

God is not real and he isn't the wiser
But at least he's got distance and that's more than I have
When he sees me dying he'll be at least a little objective
While I will only see it from my perspective

DNR me.
etc...

Walking the Grounds

This is my day to walk the grounds
Free of the freaks in the hospital gowns.
I am not one of them I am a doctor
And a loving husband to my beautiful wife of three years
We own a farm thirty acres from here
Where we raise cattle and our children so dear
I make the rounds and then I disappear.

I'm in the prime of my youth
I eat my meals through the thinnest of tubes
On sundays and saturdays I am a doctor...

Needles and Pins

Needles and pins I feel them sticking in my skin
Needles and pins I feel them sticking in my skin
Is it a sin to outlive your limb
Now that that part of me is gone I can begin to reimagine who I am

What was part of me is now lying dead on the floor
Heart giving blood to the gift that's giving no more
Makes you wonder what the body has in store
What once was me is now lying dead on the floor

Needles and pins I feel them sticking in my skin
Needles and pins I feel them sticking in my skin
And I will worry when I no longer feel them
Just another part of me that's a ghost limb

There's nothing in coming out of those nerve endings
I feel a feeling but it's just pretending
My brain ain't getting any message they're sending
This is the time for me to begin reimagining who I am

What makes my body my hands my legs or my head
Will there be anything, no there will not, when I'm dead
This is the nothing, it's not a beginning, an end
Needles and pins I feel them sticking in my skin

Will You Lie With Me in My Death Bed

Will You lie with me in my death bed
When I'm cold and balmy, place a towel behind my head
Call my mother, tell her I'm alright
Tell my only brother I made it through the night
And when I pass in the morning light
Don't let anyone know I gave up without a fight

Will you lie with me in my death bed
My spirit be hurled, my body just be dead
Make believe you believe in a soul
Bury me in pictures, with your stories of old
And hold my hand til my hand goes cold
Where I'm going will be warmer, at least that's what I've been told

Will you lie with me in my death bed
Lie with me, with me until I'm dead
(x infinity)

writing new songs

2009-07-30T21:40:00.000-07:00

Writing some new songs...

Baby Doll:

Baby doll, baby doll, my sister in the cold cold ground
Baby doll, baby doll, my sister in the cold cold ground
Save a place for me at the lord's table
I will join you when I'm able
If you see me burning in the hell below don't cry for me
I'm happier than you can know

Needles and Pins:

Needles and Pins I feel them sticking in my skin
Needles and Pins I feel them sticking in my skin
Is it a sin to outlive your limb
Now that that part of me is gone I can begin to reimagine who I am

Needles and Pins I feel them sticking in my skin
Needles and Pins I feel them sticking in my skin
Is it a sin to outlive your limb
Now that that part of me is gone I can begin to reimagine who I am

What once was me is now lying dead on the floor
The heart's giving blood to the gift that's giving no more
Makes you wonder what the body has in store
What once was me is now lying dead on the floor

Needles and Pins I feel them sticking in my skin
Needles and Pins I feel them sticking in my skin
And I will worry when I no longer feel them
Just another part of me that's a ghost limb

There's nothing in coming out of those nerve endings
I feel a feeling but it's just pretending
My brain getting any message they're sending
This is the time for me to begin reimagining who I am

What makes my body my hands my legs or my head
Will there be anything no there will not when I'm dead
This is the nothing, it's not the beginning. An end.
Needles and pins I feel them sticking in my skin.

Will you Lie With Me In My Death Bed:

Will you lie with me in my death bed
When I'm cold and balmy, place a towel behind my head
Call my mother, tell her I'm alright
Tell me only brother I made it through the night
But when I die in the morning light
Don't let my father know I gave up without a fight

Will you lie with me in my death bed
When my soul be hurled, my body just be dead
Make believe you believe in a soul
Bury me with pictures, with your stories of old
And hold my hand til my hand goes cold
Where I'm going will be warmer, at least that's what I'm told...

Don't Tell Blake But...

2009-06-25T08:03:00.000-07:00

Firstly, we're mastering Eleven North with Alan Douches tomorrow at West West Side Studios. That will be fun.

Secondly (the don't tell blake part)...

Well he wants to just record a bunch of songs and maybe make a , but I want to make an overly indulgent and overly long album called Metro North. To sort of go with Eleven North. Only instead of writing all these songs in a psychiatric ward, I wrote these songs listening to the Metro North go past my apartment on 116th Street. And here would be the Track List:

1. The White Lights Up At Bloomingdales Bring Me Down
2. The Cold Wind Blows on the Soulless Soul
3. My Own David To Kiss
4. Keep Me Away From the Mirror
5. Open E (You Can Play Anything With An...)
6. Hecksher Field #3
7. Idaho Song #1
8. Alexander Hamilton's Grave
9. I'm In the Spare Bedroom
10. Deep in My Heart
11. Copywrite Owner
12. Will There Ever Be Anyone
13. No Men, Amen
14. Ben, Whenever Your Secret Becomes Old News
15. Fictional Song
16. The Wagon Bridge
17. At Night I Sleep With the Devil
18. Treasure Cloutier
19. Idaho Song #2
20. 25

My favorite song is probably 25. It's my attempt at writing an annoying family carride song. Where the lyrics just go...

I am only 1 year old, I was born a year ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 2 years old, I was born 2 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 3 years old, I was born 3 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 4 years old, I was born 4 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 5 years old, I was born 5 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 6 years old, I was born 6 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 7 years old, I was born 7 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 8 years old, I was born 8 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 9 years old, I was born 9 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 10 years old, I was born 10 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 11 years old, I was born 11 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 12 years old, I was born 12 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 13 years old, I was born 13 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 14 years old, I was born 14 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 15 years old, I was born 15 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 16 years old, I was born 16 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 17 years old, I was born 17 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 18 years old, I was born 18 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 19 years old, I was born 19 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 20 years old, I was born 20 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 21 years old, I was born 21 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 22 years old, I was born 22 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 23 years old, I was born 23 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.
I am only 24 years old, I was born 24 years ago. Everything I see and do for me is so brand new.

All the way to 25. I was listening to it on the train. And I'm listening to it right now. And I think maybe when we record it I'll just kinda keep going until I get to 25. And the guitar and my singing will be consistent and annoying, but we'll add a new instrument for each verse. Like this.

1. Just me singing alone.
2. Singing with the guitar.
3. Add a triangle.
4. Add a tambourine.
5. Add another guitar.
6. Add a flute
7. Add a piano.
8. Add a violin.
9. Add another singer.
10. Add a banjo.
11. Add a kick drum.
12. Add a bass.
13. Add an electric guitar.
14. Add a cello.
14. Add another singer.
15. Add a trumpet.
16. Add a xylophone.
17. Add a trombone.
18. Add a tuba.
19. Add a whale noise.
20. Add my mom singing.
21. Add a baby crying.
22. Add a keyboard playing fart noises.
23. Add a french horn.
24. Add some yodeling.

All the way to 25. OR.... It could just be me and guitar for the 1st verse and then have different people of the appropriate ages sing the other parts. Are kids smart enough at age 2 to sing songs with words?

And then after we release the overly indulgent and overly long Metro North, we'll release the overly indulgent but not too long Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle album thing. The tracklist for that will be:

1. My Brother's Brother
2. Halfway Between
3. Human Love
4. I'm Building a Machine
5. April I Will
6. Saddest Clown
7. Role Model
8. Let's Paint the Town Red With the Blood of the Humans Instead of Protecting Them What Do They Care About Us*
9. Cement Sky

*This title is given with the provision that something as ridiculously long as it doesn't show up on the next Sufjan Stevens album, whenever that happens.

So that's about it for now. I got an A on my Greek and Latin Roots of English test!!! But I got apiphobia wrong. Apparently that is not the fear of apes.

Bullet in my Teeth: A Piece of Shit by Carl Creighton

2009-06-03T07:19:00.001-07:00

Bullet in my Teeth

Caught a bullet in my teeth
Like a bumble-bee in a mason jar
Swallowed the bullet and pulled it out my stomach

Stopped a pistol with my ear
Heard it buzzing like a humming bird
Sweetly over summers and other lovely seasons

The world has opened up and is swallowing, swallowing

Hecksher Field #3: A Poem by Carl Creighton

2009-06-03T07:12:00.001-07:00

Hecksher Field #3

Hecksher field #3 is closed forever
Or at least the winter months
I once saw a game on that field

I sat in the back
On the sunwarmed bleechers
Trading quips with the other girls
Whose men played on that field

You rotate your bat
Three times behind your shoulder
And when it came time to swing
You sent that ball sailing
And your body was running
And your face was smiling
And you team it was cheering
And for once you were winning.

Hecksher field #3 isn't closed forever
And when the summer comes
Let us play a game on that field

anything i can do to keep from studying

2009-06-03T07:07:00.000-07:00

What am I doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing wrong what am i doing wrong what am i doing wrong what am i doing wrong what am i doing wrong what am i doing wrong what am i doing wrong what am i doing wrong what am i doing wrong what am i doing wrong what am i doing wrong what am i doing wrong what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing wrong what am i doing what am i doing what am i doing what wrong am i doing what wrong am i doing what wrong am i doing what wrong am i doing what am i doing wrong what wrong am wrong i wrong doing wrong

carl creighton is taking over this blog

2009-05-20T18:31:00.000-07:00

So this blog has been almost only about music stuff, but I think I'm going to take it over and write stuff about other stuff now too.

I'm feeling kinda lonely. I miss my family a lot, but I also miss myself. I've been trying on all these different personas since I lost my job in March. When you're not doing something meaningless and stupid for 30 hours a week, you have a lot more time to think about what you actually want to do with your life. I registered for the LSAT yesterday. Part of me feels like just registering is going to satisfy me as much as actually becoming a lawyer. So I'll probably not even take the test. But I told my parents I might move back home and go to the law school at the U of M (Minnesota, not Missouri). The tuition there for a nonresident (which I think I am now) is only a little less than going to Columbia. Which is probably the best law school in the country. Which is also why I probably wouldn't get accepted to it.

I'm getting my BA next January, I think. This guy from the unemployment office called me today (well I called him back, anyway) and he grilled me about what my career goals are and about the classes I'm taking right now. He didn't believe Politics of Queer Sexuality was a real class. My mom prefers to call it Politics of Gays because she finds the word Queer offensive. Which is kinda cute.

We booked a mastering session at West Westside for Eleven North. June 26th at 11AM. I wonder what will happen after that.

Have a show tomorrow which I don't think anybody is coming to. And I have to leave right after I get done playing to see Bonnie Prince Billy at the Apollo. Which is really sleezy since the show I'm playing is the CD release party for Linda Draper, who invited me to play and is playing right after me.

I think my writing ability has gotten increasingly worse.

Life and stuff

2009-03-19T09:18:00.000-07:00

11 North is coming to an end. Just have to mix Fire in the Ward and some other little things, like make my harmonies at the end of Christian Girl less experimental (off-pitch). In the meantime I've recorded the double album follow up to 11 North on the external mic of my new lap top (thanks mom and dad)! I've devised a new method of writing songs which consists of writing the beginnings of songs and then recording this and making up lyrics for the end parts. Sometimes it works (like on this Alexander Hamilton song I wrote) and sometimes it just ends in me mumbling words like "fjksf gjdhjfuhg sjfdhufg these words suck" like on this "Will There Ever Be Anyone" song. Either way, it's cool.

Also not working anymore. And going to Paris and Dublin next week. That should be fun.

11 NORTH!! AHAHAHAHA

2009-03-05T05:46:00.000-08:00

We are so close to being finished mixing it's not even funny (thus the AHAHAHAHA of excitement and awe in the subject and not the HAHAHAHA of laughter). We've mixed all the songs but one. I can't believe how professional the songs sound. The instruments are really to die for. I've learned one important thing while making this album: the tenor sax can do anything.

Reason #35 I'm Psyched About 11 North: Sax

2009-02-23T06:42:00.000-08:00

It's got lots of sax on it now.

song order

2009-02-11T06:24:00.001-08:00

I'm thinking about suggesting this to Blake for the song order. And because he's the only person that reads this, I'm going to post it here. I thinkwe should call the album Going Going Gone. Or Get Going. Or Where the Going Goes. Because the word go in either it's present or past tense is in about half of the songs.

1. Already Gone
2. Fire in the Ward
3. Christian Girl
4. If E'er You Lose the Will
5. No Color in My Dreams
6. When I Go
7. Freedom is a Buzzword
8. Bust Out This Song
9. Johnny After the War
10. Whalemen All the Way
11. Your Heart in My Pocket
12. Love Sweet Love
12. Love Sweet Love

Fuck Facebook

2009-02-04T06:36:00.001-08:00

I deleted my Facebook account yesterday because I realized I hate it. It's kinda taking over the world and that scares me. Or at least my world. I'll be having a thought and think "I should update my facebook status with that." Like just now I was thinking that PJ Harvey's album To Bring You My Love is a perfect album, probably one of my favorites. And that I want my next album to sound kinda like that. And that's when I wanted to reduced all of these complex ideas into a facebook status update that would have said "Carl is in love with PJ Harvey's To Bring You My Love." And that's so lame, living life so that you can update your facebook status about it. And I guess it's just as lame to live life so you can update your blog. But at least your blog is a kind of independent entity. Plus, if I was using Facebook, this post would have been reduced to...

"Carl hates Facebook"

Which is what my status was two status updates ago. And then the one after that was "Carl is lovesick," which he is, but he's not sure if wants to reduce all the feelings he's having about love at the moment into a simple statement such as that. And really Carl was only updating his status like that so people would ask him "Hey Carl, why are you lovesick?" And then Carl would just ignore these questions and update his status again in a few minutes with "Carl is in love with PJ Harvey's To Bring You My Love."

I hope someday to eliminate even this blog and my myspace and make an actual independent website which is not part of some huge conglomerate networking service. If people want to ask me how I'm doing, they can call me. And if they don't have my phone number, they can email me for it. Although Gmail is bugging me too, especially Gmail chat, because if I have it open at work, I'm constantly looking down at my taskbar to see if someone has messaged me. Which is really codependent of me. Or at least dependent.

To conclude, facebook sucks, myspace sucks, gmail sucks. Wikipedia is cool. Blogger is ok. Real human interaction is best.

Song Lyrics

2009-02-03T05:42:00.000-08:00

Here's some song lyrics I been writing.

My Own David

I want my own David to kiss
It doesn't matter who it is
The name alone means quality
I want his love inside of me

The sun won't shine
The moon won't glow
The stars don't know which way to go
I'll have noone else on my lips
I want my own David to kiss

His hair is wild and Galway black
He lives his life behind his back
I play the chords and write the words
My lonesome bill, his wayward girl

The sun won't shine
The moon won't glow
The stars don't know which way to go
I'll play my bloody fingertips
I want my own David to kiss.

Best Imaginary Friend

You're my best imaginary friend
You don't exist outside my head
And the conversations that we've had
May not be real but they ain't half bad
And they make me feel less sad and alone
like a telephone with someone else on the other end

In my dreams we walk the pier
I hold your hand you pull me near
I kiss the flesh behind your ear
And it's so sincere
And I have no fear
That you'll disappear
Cause you were never here
And I knew someday
Even pretend things have an end

And the wind blows cold
on the treeless road
And the air is so cold
on the soulless road
And the powerlines are dead
And the moon is gone

Blah blah blah

Update! Update!

2009-02-02T08:53:00.000-08:00

11 North is going really awesomely. We have the following songs mixed, though we still need to touch up things I think. Or maybe Blake has touched up the things and I just haven't heard it yet. And I don't know what those things are anymore. So I hope Blake is keeping track.

Christian Girl
Your Heart In My Pocket
If E'er You Lose the Will
Love Sweet Love
Whalemen All the Way
When I Go

The following song is just me and mimi and my guitar and kinda mixes itself, so it could practically be called mixed: Johnny After the War

We want to add Eric's trombone to the following:

Fire In The Ward
Freedom is a Buzzword

And Blake has a friend that's going to play Saxophone on the following: No Color In My Dreams
Charlie needs to add bass to the following: Already Gone

Which leaves the following that can be mixed because everything is recorded: Crazy Song.

I think we should call that song Crazy Song, even though it's official title has been Aquarium Filled with Barium, I've Lost My Mind, and other variations of those two names. But I'm sick of songs with Crazy in the title and the word Crazy isn't even the song. So maybe we'll call it The Abba Song That Never Was, since it sounds like Abba.

So we just need to get that horn stuff figured out, and Charlie's bass and we should be good. And then we have to think about sequencing.

In non-11 North Related news, Blake, Charlie and I are going to go to UMD to play on Miles' radio show the weekend of Feb 20th. That will be fun. Going to try and book a show in New Jersey and maybe DC too, just so we can be as busy as possible. And playing is fun. I've been playing the accordion at shows, which is really neat. If anybody needs an accordion player, let me know. Although the accordion isn't mine...

What else... Been writing a lot of songs for the next album, 12 North (Songs for a Sad Day). It's going to be all acoustic nylon string guitar and piano. Here's the song list and sequence for that:

The White Lights Up At Bloomingdales Bring Me Down
Her or Him
Be My Best Imaginary Friend
Holding Down the Fort
All Belongs to Me
Consider Me
Desert
Tu Madre
Your Clocks Are All Telling Different Times
Deep In My Heart
Will There Ever Be Anyone
Across the Bridge

#2988 reason I'm psyched about 11 North: We're going to mix soon!

2009-01-08T14:23:00.000-08:00

Everything is really coming together on 11 North. We added accordion on the whole album. Mandolin on some songs. Organ. Actually recorded an interlude, minor key rendition of "We Shall Overcome Someday." Was gonna rename the album that, but realized it was triviliazing the civil rights movement. Might still do it though, since it's not really about the civil rights movement at all, but overcoming personal demons. Wouldn't that sound great in an interview about my new album "We Shall Overcome Someday?"

We're probably going to scrap Charlie's Spanish Harlem Incident. But maybe not. Doesn't really fit with the rest of the songs.

#113 Reason I'm Excited about 11 North: Mixing!

2008-12-19T11:58:00.000-08:00

We're going mix in a couple weeks and I'm super super excited. Everything already sounds amazing without being mixed, so I can only imagine what it's going to sound like after. Also need to record the accordion on everything and the horns on a few songs. The violin and cello sound AMAZING!!!!!

#112 Reason I'm Psyched About 11 North: I'm Still Crazy

2008-11-16T13:03:00.000-08:00

Roughs sound great

2008-11-08T12:42:00.000-08:00

Got 9 roughs from Blake. They sound really really really cool. There's such a contrast between the songs. None of them really sound the same. Here's the order I'm thinking now with some notes(and the cover I'm thinking now is left, by Tavie Phillips or KITH fame):
1. Aquarium Filled With Barium and Vintage Wine All The Fish Will Die So On The Dead Fish We'll Dine Until We Die Or Don't Mind That I've Lost My Mind - still need to sequence the entire thing from what we recorded at the studio. Gonna start out with a snare march thing and then some piano and other stuff.
2. Fire in the Ward - Rough sounds amazing. It's an I-Pod commercial. Crazy but still danceable.
3. Your Heart in My Pocket - Need to record everything. Doing that today at Blake's place.
4. Christian Girl - The shaker is really cool, as is the tambourine. And my guitar playing is okay.
5. If E'er You Lose the Will - DARK! Blake had this idea to use the xylophone instead of a lead guitar for this riff I had written... sounds like a horror movie. So I think the scary xylophone at the end would work really well with....
6. No Color In My Dreams- starts with xylophone, but completely different feel than If E'er You Lose the Will. Think the guitar, bass and drums sound really in sync. And this song has the same chord structure as...
7. When I Go-but this song is a punk song and No Color in My Dreams is a pop country thing. Also gonna have a lot of harmonies and string stuff, so I think it will be cool to show how you can do two completely different songs with the same chord structure
8. Freedom is a Buzzword. Sounds absolutely amazing. We're so sexy on this one!
9. Whalemen All The Way - a little scared about this... sounds kind of like a mess with my guitar work being out of time and drums being a little murky, but I think we can fix it. I think it's going to sound like a Smith song when we're done with it, which is always good.
10. Love Sweet Love - Probably one of the prettiest songs I've ever done. With Erin Regan on harmony it's going to be really really good.
11. Charlie's Spanish Harlem Incident - We all kinda farted in the beginning, but should be able to fix. Sounds like we're playing at a loud bar except for the loud part. Like a place with sawdust and peanut shells on the floor. So the Rodeo Bar basically. I wish the booking guy there would get back to me...
And introducing a whole new song we didn't even plan to do!!!
12. Already Gone. Played it for Blake Thursday and he liked it a lot. It's a shame we didn't get to it in the studio because it sounds really good as a band. I think we're gonna try doing it with sequencing, but maybe we could go in the studio sometime too. Who knows.
Going to Blake's in an hour or so to record vocals for When I Go and pretty much everything but strings for Your Heart in My Pocket. Wish us luck.

Future song from Future Album

2008-11-04T06:31:00.000-08:00

Her or Him

Hear you have a kid that you don't know
The mere mention of her or him hurts you
Say you have a contact issue or some minor surgery of the eye
I know that ain't true
I know that's a lie

Hear you have a wife that you don't where she's at
You're afraid she's sleeping 'round you're afraid she's getting fat
Say you have a family member or your favorite character just died
I know that ain't true
I know that's a lie

'Cause it hurts more than losing a limb
The darkest hour ain't before the dawn it's when the sunlight begins to dim
But we'll say a toast to the future and fill our glasses to the brim
And we don't mention your her or him...

Her or him
Is he white or black as night
Her or him
Is she saved or damned for life
Her or him
Something else about something else
Her or him
Something cool and clever here
Her or him
Blah blah blah blah
Her or him
Is she her or is he him

#7 Reason I'm Psyched about 11 North: Charlie Barthelemy

2008-10-30T17:48:00.000-07:00

Charlie Barthelemy is not only my best friend, he's also a damn good bass player. He bought all these pedals, like the big muff, which we used on Aquarium Filled with Barium and Vintage Wine... It's so cool. It's like a song off of PJ Harvey's To Bring You My Love. Hey Blake, since you're the only one that reads this... Let's make every song sound like a song off of PJ Harvey's To Bring You My Love, ok? I think Christian Girl would sound good with the under water vocals that are on I'm Just Working For the Man.

Charlie is also a great person and I love him. And one of the songs has his name in the title! It's going to be the first song we play at our show this Saturday. You should come to our show. The song is called Charlie's Spanish Harlem Incident and it's about Charlie seeing a man get shot in Spanish Harlem. The lyric goes, "Charlie said he saw a man get shot in Spanish Harlem..." It's not going to be the first song on the album, though. Probably third from the last. It's going to have horns and noise of people from Blake's roof. Speaking of Blake, you should visit his blog at http://thehomesickcollective.blogspot.com/. It has all the cool techy stuff he's doing on the album, like the list of microphones he used on different instruments. For the finger picking acoustic he apparently used the AT4060 & 4038 with the API preamp. I don't know what that means, but I do remember two black microphones being there. That's some fancy shit. Sounds great whatever he did. I think. Don't have the rough demos yet, which is probably good because I will not be able to do anything (such as work or school) once I have these.

#6 Reason I'm Psyched about 11 North: The drums, bass and guitar are DOWN!

2008-10-28T08:32:00.000-07:00

Whew. Brant, Charlie and I got all our studio work done at Seaside Lounge this past weekend (10/25/08-10/26/08). 10 songs (well, 9.5, since Aquarium Filled with Barium and Vintage Wine was recorded in bits that we're going to put together later). First thing, Blake Luley is amazing, and I'm not just saying that because I think he reads this blog. He was really great at setting everything up and some of the ideas he's been having about the songs have been spot on. The only songs we didn't do are Your Heart in My Pocket, which is going to be just guitar and strings, and Pain Medication, which is a little up in the air since I'm kinda butchering Debe's masterpiece. But maybe it will work. I'm going to YouTube a video of Brant and I figuring out Fire in the Ward in the studio tonight or tomorrow. So look out for that.

#5 Reason I'm Psyched About 11 North: We're Recording This Weekend!!

2008-10-22T10:10:00.000-07:00

Time flies when you're having fun practicing for the best album ever created by man. 11 North is going to be so new the people will go mad for it. My brother says I should make an album like Nebraska which has just me and a guitar. So instead of doing that, I've done the exact opposite. This album is going to have weird random noises and drums playing over drums and electric guitar solos instead of just strumming the same chords the acoustic is playing... and a recorder and coverart that wasn't made by me and a producer that is cool and we might even tour to promote it and multiple tracks of my own voice instead of just one like my brother said and we're definitely going to tour and we're going to play shows in new york too because if you can make it hear you can make it anywhere and my school work will suffer and my stomach will get bigger from networking in bars at 2am and my bank account will disappear completely and the music will be great and i'm puting it all on the line for you the loyal listener but we can't do this without your support so please donate what you can and i'm going to set up a paypal account so people can buy the cd from me or make donations or whatever and i'm going to get paid for the shows i play and people are going to read this and the music is going to be great it's going to have a trumpet and a cello and a violin and chimes and noises and people yelling in spanish at eachother and streams of consciousness and other people singing and the flute even though i don't know any flutists and i don't know where the flute would go on any of the songs and organ solos and i learned how to play the accordian so that's going to be on there too and someone else might pay for it instead of me so i can go on tour and promote it and we can all make money and i can buy tavie new glasses and hire her as my pr person fulltime and i'm going to get a website that doesn't just say blog and myspace on it and i'm going to delete my myspace account because i think it's evil even though it's effective i hate networking i love music the music is going to be really really great and trumpets

remember these song titles carl

2008-10-14T06:05:00.000-07:00

Fish out of Water
Head of the Table

OCD

2008-10-13T19:23:00.000-07:00

I just noticed while listening to my song "Christian Girl" on iTUNES for the 112th time that I've listened to Christian Girl 112 times. That's a lot of times. It's beating all the others songs, of which only ones by me are really in competition. The highest that isn't by me is a song by Erin Regan called "Building Jumper" which I have the privilege of singing on for her album. That's at 28. The highest song that has absolutely nothing to do with me is Radiohead's 15 Steps from their album In Rainbows. That's at 25. I'm so sad. Even sadder is that I have two versions of Christian Girl on my iPOD. The other one is at 47. Really, really sad.

#4 Reason I'm Psyched about 11 North: The Songs Keep Coming

2008-10-13T19:08:00.001-07:00

I keep adding songs. What started out as a 4 song EP is now looking like it's going to be longer than Minnesota. Here's the list and order I now have set in my i-Pod. I should probably tell the rest of the band this too. And Blake. But I suppose we'll record what we can and then put those together.

1. Your Heart in My Pocket*
2. Christian Girl*
3. Fire in the Ward
4. No Color in My Dreams
5. Pain Medication (11North Remix)
6. I've Lost My Mind
7. Whalemen All the Way
8. If E'er You Lose the Will
9. 'Til the Sunlight
10. Charlie's Spanish Harlem Incident
11. Freedom is a Buzzword
12. When I Go*

*These songs all sound the same.

Buy Minnesota

2008-10-13T05:09:00.000-07:00

Please buy Minnesota. It's hard to convince my mom that it's a good idea to record another album when I still have a bunch of copies of the old one. So buy it. Especially if you've already been listening to it without paying for it. You can buy it here:

ANTIFOLK.NET
iTUNES
CDBABY

#3 Reason I'm Psyched About 11 North: I'm not from Washington

2008-10-07T06:03:00.000-07:00

I was listening to the new TV on the Radio album "Dear Science" and there's this song where Tunde says something about ghettoblasting. I don't know what a ghettoblaser is (well, I do now because I just wikipedia-ed it and I'm disappointed). We don't need musicians singing about stuff you, the everyday American, don't understand. We need a musician that can speak directly to the people about things they really care about, like death and love and religion...and death...not some big professional things like "ghetto blaster" and "half-hearted holograms." I won't confuse people with these sort of ideas because I am just a regular person like you and I have no ideas. So when it comes time to buy my album this November (well, probably later, like May), you have to decide if you want to keep listening to those smug "artists" that only try to confuse you with big words and inteligence, or you can listen to me, an artist that might not have as much experience and may not be the best suited candidate for the position, but dog-gone-it, will win your heart. The decision is yours. Maverick.

#2 Reason I'm Psyched about 11 North: Best Band Ever

2008-10-02T20:59:00.000-07:00

I love the musicians I get to play with. Charlie Barthelemy and Brant Benefield are amazing. I had so much fun playing with them on Minnesota. Mimi LaValley, Erin Regan and Rachel Epp are going to be singing. Carley Whoihaventmetyetanddontknowherlastname is playing cello. Cello! I can't wait to meet her! Cello is pretty. Nate Metzker is letting me borrow is accordian. Eric Whoihavemetbutdontknowthelastnameofbecauseiamignorant is playing trombone. Trombone! And what else... Me! I'm great! And Blake is probably gonna play some guitar stuff on it. And the mixing and stuff that he's going to do is an art unto itself. Oh yeah, this is going to be fun.!

Myspace sucks

2008-10-02T05:58:00.001-07:00

How come when I upload songs to my myspace it will say that they're there but they're not there? I wish this was a myspace support message board so that someone would help me and I wasn't just complaining for the sake of complaining. Although that is fun too.

I recorded two songs last night, because I was so excited about not feeling really sick. But now I'm really tired and I feel sick again. I think I'm a masochist. Also got some studying done for my Christian History class. The Didache is a morality book from the 2nd century AD that describes how the Eucharist and baptism should be performed. It also demonstrates the hierarchy of the church at an early period with the mention of bishops and presbyters.

I'm so tired.. How tired am I? I almost tried to take a dump in the urinal at work. And by "almost tried" I mean that I for a second walked towards the urinal and almost pulled my pants down. And by "almost pulled my pants down" I mean that I thought about how silly it would be to pull my pants down and how tired that I would have to be to do such a thing and how funny that would be on my blog. And by "how funny that would be," I mean funny ha ha, not funny strange.

#1 Reason I'm Psyched about 11 North: It's New

2008-10-01T14:49:00.001-07:00

A lot of people (including myself) have said that debut albums are great because they represent the best songs an artist has ever written up to the recording of the debut. Take me for example. I've been writing songs since I was about 14, so "Minnesota" meant the best songs I had written over a ten year period. Kinda. There were some better songs I wrote when I was 16 and have forgotten. But for the most part, Minnesota was a bit of a hodge podge of songs I've always wanted to record. Most of them just happened to be about missing home, which then became the album's theme.

Well, if that debut album thing is true, that means that every album after the debut is a piece of crap, because it only represents the best songs written or revisited since the last album. Like Martha Wainwright was on the radio the other day talking about her new album "I Know You're Married But I've Got Feelings Too," and she said that she had to record a song from a long time ago because the record execs (whoever they are) said they wanted a new album and she didn't have enough material. So that's horrible, although her album is really good.

What am I saying? I don't really know, because I have the flu and I can't think straight. But what I think I was trying to say was that...oh yeah. 11 North is new! All new material! Which is.... good.

Ok, I'm starting over. 11 North is NEW! There's one song on there that I wrote a long time ago because the record execs were pressuring me and a song by Debe Dalton that may be older than I am... but other than that, it's NEW!!! And instead of thinking of the theme after choosing the songs, I've actually used the theme to write and compile the songs. So it's like a real album, not just a hodge podge of crap. All the songs are about being crazy, or dying. And Whalemen All the Way doesn't have anything to do with anything. Oh, and either does No Color in My Dreams. But they're pretty songs, so I'm doing them. Or Christian Girl. But they're all related. I mean, they're all sung by me. So that will be the theme of my album. Crazy songs and songs that are sung by me.

Welcome Carlcreighton.com Visitors!!

2008-10-01T14:36:00.001-07:00

My website (www.carlcreighton.com) has been pretty defunct since I moved away from home and lost the freetime necessary to maintain a website. I was going to try and put up a wordpress thing which would be as easy to update is this here blogger thing, but it hasn't happened yet. So right now www.carlcreighton.com consists of a page that says "blog" and "myspace." And the blog comes here. Because this is my blog. And now that I think people might actually read it, I will actually update it.

Minnesota got a really cool review at Absolutepunk.net, which you can read here: http://www.absolutepunk.net/showthread.php?t=581082.

Everyday I think I'm going to post a different thing about 11 North that I'm psyched about. I might even do a numbering sort of thing. I'm going to start right now...

11 North

2008-09-29T06:35:00.000-07:00

I google my name whenever there isn't anything to do at work and apparently this blog actually comes up. So I'm going to blog more often. At least until I have a decent website going.

I'm making an album next month called 11 North. It's going to be really cool. The theme of the last album was being away from home. You can probably guess the theme of this one by the song titles. Here's the track list thus far:

1. I Lost My Mind
2. Fire in the Ward
3. Christian Girl
4. If E'er You Lose the Will
5. No Color in My Dreams
6. Whalemen All the Way
7. Charlie's Spanish Harlem Incident
8. Pain Medication

Surprisingly enough, the songs are all pretty upbeat. Or at least the tempo and instrumentation are. Pain Medication is by Debe Dalton, but the rest are mine. I'm really excited about doing her song. I recorded a scratch at home and sounds really neat. It's going to be part Cabaret part Sigur Ros. I might even try playing a guitar with a cello bow. But probably not.

This is going to be my debut album with Rooftop Records. Recording two days at Seaside Lounge and then spending a bunch of time adding vocals and other stuff at Blake Luley's apartment in Brooklyn. So you better be patient.

because i could not stop for death

2008-08-21T13:56:00.000-07:00

My coworker just said "I wonder if you can have a midlife crisis at 29..." And I said, "Well, it depends on when you die."

Right after I said it I became very sad. There was this woman I knew that died when she was 22 and her mother, when consoled by strangers, could only say, "My daughter was middle aged when she was 11." This mother was herself middle aged, at least if she lives to be 114 like most people.

Why is hilarity the only thing that ensues? I've never heard of anything else ensuing.

On a less poetic note, today was my last day of classes. Until Wednesday. Had a final on American Poetry written before 1914. I was so tired that I don't think I made sense. Got 6 out of 7 of my VS Naipaul books at the library. That was awesome.

I'm really tired.

dishonesty problem

2008-08-18T15:07:00.001-07:00

I wish I wasn't so dishonest to people. All the time. Nothing but dishonesty from me.

Had to read this for class today. I think it's stupid. I've underlined the parts I actually read:

1 I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air, Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same, I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin, Hoping to cease not till death.
Creeds and schools in abeyance, Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten, I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard, Nature without check with original energy.
2 Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with perfumes, I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it, The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.
The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the distillation, it is odorless, It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it, I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked, I am mad for it to be in contact with me.
The smoke of my own breath, Echoes, ripples, buzz'd whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine, My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood and air through my lungs, The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and dark-color'd sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,
The sound of the belch'd words of my voice loos'd to the eddies of the wind, A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms, The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag, The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and hill-sides, The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising from bed and meeting the sun.
Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? have you reckon'd the earth much? Have you practis'd so long to learn to read? Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?
Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems, You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left,) You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books, You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.
3 I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the end, But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.
There was never any more inception than there is now, Nor any more youth or age than there is now, And will never be any more perfection than there is now, Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.
Urge and urge and urge, Always the procreant urge of the world.
Out of the dimness opposite equals advance, always substance and increase, always sex, Always a knit of identity, always distinction, always a breed of life. To elaborate is no avail, learn'd and unlearn'd feel that it is so.
Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights, well entretied, braced in the beams, Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical, I and this mystery here we stand.
Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.
Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen, Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn.
Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age vexes age, Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself.
Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man hearty and clean, Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be less familiar than the rest.
I am satisfied - I see, dance, laugh, sing; As the hugging and loving bed-fellow sleeps at my side through the night, and withdraws at the peep of the day with stealthy tread, Leaving me baskets cover'd with white towels swelling the house with their plenty, Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization and scream at my eyes, That they turn from gazing after and down the road, And forthwith cipher and show me to a cent, Exactly the value of one and exactly the value of two, and which is ahead?
4 Trippers and askers surround me, People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and city I live in, or the nation, The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new, My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues, The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love, The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or loss or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations, Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news, the fitful events; These come to me days and nights and go from me again, But they are not the Me myself.
Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am, Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary, Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest, Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next, Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.
Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders, I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait.
5 I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you, And you must not be abased to the other.
Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat, Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not even the best, Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.
I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning, How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn'd over upon me, And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart, And reach'd till you felt my beard, and reach'd till you held my feet.
Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth, And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own, And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own, And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers, And that a kelson of the creation is love, And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields, And brown ants in the little wells beneath them, And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heap'd stones, elder, mullein and poke-weed.
6 A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.
I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.
Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord, A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt, Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?
Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.
Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic, And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones, Growing among black folks as among white, Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same.
And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
Tenderly will I use you curling grass, It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men, It may be if I had known them I would have loved them, It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out of their mothers' laps, And here you are the mothers' laps.
This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers, Darker than the colorless beards of old men, Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.
O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues, And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing.
I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women, And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps.
What do you think has become of the young and old men? And what do you think has become of the women and children?
They are alive and well somewhere, The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it, And ceas'd the moment life appear'd.
All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.
7 Has any one supposed it lucky to be born? I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.
I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash'd babe, and am not contain'd between my hat and boots, And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good, The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.
I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth, I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and fathomless as myself, (They do not know how immortal, but I know.)
Every kind for itself and its own, for me mine male and female, For me those that have been boys and that love women, For me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be slighted, For me the sweet-heart and the old maid, for me mothers and the mothers of mothers, For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears, For me children and the begetters of children.
Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded, I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no, And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot be shaken away.
8 The little one sleeps in its cradle, I lift the gauze and look a long time, and silently brush away flies with my hand.
The youngster and the red-faced girl turn aside up the bushy hill, I peeringly view them from the top.
The suicide sprawls on the bloody floor of the bedroom, I witness the corpse with its dabbled hair, I note where the pistol has fallen.
The blab of the pave, tires of carts, sluff of boot-soles, talk of the promenaders, The heavy omnibus, the driver with his interrogating thumb, the clank of the shod horses on the granite floor, The snow-sleighs, clinking, shouted jokes, pelts of snow-balls, The hurrahs for popular favorites, the fury of rous'd mobs, The flap of the curtain'd litter, a sick man inside borne to the hospital, The meeting of enemies, the sudden oath, the blows and fall, The excited crowd, the policeman with his star quickly working his passage to the centre of the crowd, The impassive stones that receive and return so many echoes, What groans of over-fed or half-starv'd who fall sunstruck or in fits, What exclamations of women taken suddenly who hurry home and give birth to babes, What living and buried speech is always vibrating here, what howls restrain'd by decorum, Arrests of criminals, slights, adulterous offers made, acceptances, rejections with convex lips, I mind them or the show or resonance of them-I come and I depart.
9 The big doors of the country barn stand open and ready, The dried grass of the harvest-time loads the slow-drawn wagon, The clear light plays on the brown gray and green intertinged, The armfuls are pack'd to the sagging mow.
I am there, I help, I came stretch'd atop of the load, I felt its soft jolts, one leg reclined on the other, I jump from the cross-beams and seize the clover and timothy, And roll head over heels and tangle my hair full of wisps.
10 Alone far in the wilds and mountains I hunt, Wandering amazed at my own lightness and glee, In the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass the night, Kindling a fire and broiling the fresh-kill'd game, Falling asleep on the gather'd leaves with my dog and gun by my side.
The Yankee clipper is under her sky-sails, she cuts the sparkle and scud, My eyes settle the land, I bend at her prow or shout joyously from the deck.
The boatmen and clam-diggers arose early and stopt for me, I tuck'd my trowser-ends in my boots and went and had a good time; You should have been with us that day round the chowder-kettle.
I saw the marriage of the trapper in the open air in the far west, the bride was a red girl, Her father and his friends sat near cross-legged and dumbly smoking, they had moccasins to their feet and large thick blankets hanging from their shoulders, On a bank lounged the trapper, he was drest mostly in skins, his luxuriant beard and curls protected his neck, he held his bride by the hand, She had long eyelashes, her head was bare, her coarse straight locks descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reach'd to her feet.
The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside, I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile, Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy and weak, And went where he sat on a log and led him in and assured him, And brought water and fill'd a tub for his sweated body and bruis'd feet, And gave him a room that enter'd from my own, and gave him some coarse clean clothes, And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness, And remember putting piasters on the galls of his neck and ankles; He staid with me a week before he was recuperated and pass'd north, I had him sit next me at table, my fire-lock lean'd in the corner.
11 Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore, Twenty-eight young men and all so friendly; Twenty-eight years of womanly life and all so lonesome.
She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank, She hides handsome and richly drest aft the blinds of the window.
Which of the young men does she like the best? Ah the homeliest of them is beautiful to her.
Where are you off to, lady? for I see you, You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.
Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth bather, The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved them.
The beards of the young men glisten'd with wet, it ran from their long hair, Little streams pass'd all over their bodies.
An unseen hand also pass'd over their bodies, It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs.
The young men float on their backs, their white bellies bulge to the sun, they do not ask who seizes fast to them, They do not know who puffs and declines with pendant and bending arch, They do not think whom they souse with spray.
12 The butcher-boy puts off his killing-clothes, or sharpens his knife at the stall in the market, I loiter enjoying his repartee and his shuffle and break-down.
Blacksmiths with grimed and hairy chests environ the anvil, Each has his main-sledge, they are all out, there is a great heat in the fire.
From the cinder-strew'd threshold I follow their movements, The lithe sheer of their waists plays even with their massive arms, Overhand the hammers swing, overhand so slow, overhand so sure, They do not hasten, each man hits in his place.
13 The negro holds firmly the reins of his four horses, the block swags underneath on its tied-over chain, The negro that drives the long dray of the stone-yard, steady and tall he stands pois'd on one leg on the string-piece, His blue shirt exposes his ample neck and breast and loosens over his hip-band, His glance is calm and commanding, he tosses the slouch of his hat away from his forehead, The sun falls on his crispy hair and mustache, falls on the black of his polish'd and perfect limbs.
I behold the picturesque giant and love him, and I do not stop there, I go with the team also.
In me the caresser of life wherever moving, backward as well as forward sluing, To niches aside and junior bending, not a person or object missing, Absorbing all to myself and for this song.
Oxen that rattle the yoke and chain or halt in the leafy shade, what is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.
My tread scares the wood-drake and wood-duck on my distant and day-long ramble, They rise together, they slowly circle around.
I believe in those wing'd purposes, And acknowledge red, yellow, white, playing within me, And consider green and violet and the tufted crown intentional, And do not call the tortoise unworthy because she is not something else, And the in the woods never studied the gamut, yet trills pretty well to me, And the look of the bay mare shames silliness out of me.
14 The wild gander leads his flock through the cool night, Ya-honk he says, and sounds it down to me like an invitation, The pert may suppose it meaningless, but I listening close, Find its purpose and place up there toward the wintry sky.
The sharp-hoof'd moose of the north, the cat on the house-sill, the chickadee, the prairie-dog, The litter of the grunting sow as they tug at her teats, The brood of the turkey-hen and she with her half-spread wings, I see in them and myself the same old law.
The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections, They scorn the best I can do to relate them.
I am enamour'd of growing out-doors, Of men that live among cattle or taste of the ocean or woods, Of the builders and steerers of ships and the wielders of axes and mauls, and the drivers of horses, I can eat and sleep with them week in and week out.
What is commonest, cheapest, nearest, easiest, is Me, Me going in for my chances, spending for vast returns, Adorning myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me, Not asking the sky to come down to my good will, Scattering it freely forever.
15 The pure contralto sings in the organ loft, The carpenter dresses his plank, the tongue of his foreplane whistles its wild ascending lisp, The married and unmarried children ride home to their Thanksgiving dinner, The pilot seizes the king-pin, he heaves down with a strong arm, The mate stands braced in the whale-boat, lance and harpoon are ready, The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches, The deacons are ordain'd with cross'd hands at the altar, The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum of the big wheel, The farmer stops by the bars as he walks on a First-day loafe and looks at the oats and rye, The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum a confirm'd case, (He will never sleep any more as he did in the cot in his mother's bed-room;) The jour printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his case, He turns his quid of tobacco while his eyes blurr with the manuscript; The malform'd limbs are tied to the surgeon's table, What is removed drops horribly in a pail; The quadroon girl is sold at the auction-stand, the drunkard nods by the bar-room stove, The machinist rolls up his sleeves, the policeman travels his beat, the gate-keeper marks who pass, The young fellow drives the express-wagon, (I love him, though I do not know him;) The half-breed straps on his light boots to compete in the race, The western turkey-shooting draws old and young, some lean on their rifles, some sit on logs, Out from the crowd steps the marksman, takes his position, levels his piece; The groups of newly-come immigrants cover the wharf or levee, As the woolly-pates hoe in the sugar-field, the overseer views them from his saddle, The bugle calls in the ball-room, the gentlemen run for their partners, the dancers bow to each other, The youth lies awake in the cedar-roof'd garret and harks to the musical rain, The Wolverine sets traps on the creek that helps fill the Huron, The squaw wrapt in her yellow-hemm'd cloth is offering moccasins and bead-bags for sale, The connoisseur peers along the exhibition-gallery with half-shut eyes bent sideways, As the deck-hands make fast the steamboat the plank is thrown for the shore-going passengers, The young sister holds out the skein while the elder sister winds it off in a ball, and stops now and then for the knots, The one-year wife is recovering and happy having a week ago borne her first child, The clean-hair'd Yankee girl works with her sewing-machine or in the factory or mill, The paving-man leans on his two-handed rammer, the reporter's lead flies swiftly over the note-book, the sign-painter is lettering with blue and gold, The canal boy trots on the tow-path, the book-keeper counts at his desk, the shoemaker waxes his thread, The conductor beats time for the band and all the performers follow him, The child is baptized, the convert is making his first professions, The regatta is spread on the bay, the race is begun, (how the white sails sparkle!) The drover watching his drove sings out to them that would stray, The pedler sweats with his pack on his back, (the purchaser higgling about the odd cent;) The bride unrumples her white dress, the minute-hand of the clock moves slowly, The opium-eater reclines with rigid head and just-open'd lips, The prostitute draggles her shawl, her bonnet bobs on her tipsy and pimpled neck, The crowd laugh at her blackguard oaths, the men jeer and wink to each other, (Miserable! I do not laugh at your oaths nor jeer you;) The President holding a cabinet council is surrounded by the great Secretaries, On the piazza walk three matrons stately and friendly with twined arms, The crew of the fish-smack pack repeated layers of halibut in the hold, The Missourian crosses the plains toting his wares and his cattle, As the fare-collector goes through the train he gives notice by the jingling of loose change, The floor-men are laying the floor, the tinners are tinning the roof, the masons are calling for mortar, In single file each shouldering his hod pass onward the laborers; Seasons pursuing each other the indescribable crowd is gather'd, it is the fourth of Seventh-month, (what salutes of cannon and small arms!) Seasons pursuing each other the plougher ploughs, the mower mows, and the winter-grain falls in the ground; Off on the lakes the pike-fisher watches and waits by the hole in the frozen surface, The stumps stand thick round the clearing, the squatter strikes deep with his axe, Flatboatmen make fast towards dusk near the cotton-wood or pecan-trees, Coon-seekers go through the regions of the Red river or through those drain'd by the Tennessee, or through those of the Arkansas, Torches shine in the dark that hangs on the Chattahooche or Altamahaw, Patriarchs sit at supper with sons and grandsons and great-grandsons around them, In walls of adobie, in canvas tents, rest hunters and trappers after their day's sport, The city sleeps and the country sleeps, The living sleep for their time, the dead sleep for their time, The old husband sleeps by his wife and the young husband sleeps by his wife; And these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them, And such as it is to be of these more or less I am, And of these one and all I weave the song of myself.
16 I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise, Regardless of others, ever regardful of others, Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man, Stuff'd with the stuff that is coarse and stuff'd with the stuff that is fine, One of the Nation of many nations, the smallest the same and the largest the same, A Southerner soon as a Northerner, a planter nonchalant and hospitable down by the Oconee I live, A Yankee bound my own way ready for trade, my joints the limberest joints on earth and the sternest joints on earth, A Kentuckian walking the vale of the Elkhorn in my deer-skin leggings, a Louisianian or Georgian, A boatman over lakes or bays or along coasts, a Hoosier, Badger, Buckeye; At home on Kanadian snow-shoes or up in the bush, or with fishermen off Newfoundland, At home in the fleet of ice-boats, sailing with the rest and tacking, At home on the hills of Vermont or in the woods of Maine, or the Texan ranch, Comrade of Californians, comrade of free North-Westerners, (loving their big proportions,) Comrade of raftsmen and coalmen, comrade of all who shake hands and welcome to drink and meat, A learner with the simplest, a teacher of the thoughtfullest, A novice beginning yet experient of myriads of seasons, Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion, A farmer, mechanic, artist, gentleman, sailor, quaker, Prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician, priest.
I resist any thing better than my own diversity, Breathe the air but leave plenty after me, And am not stuck up, and am in my place.
(The moth and the fish-eggs are in their place, The bright suns I see and the dark suns I cannot see are in their place, The palpable is in its place and the impalpable is in its place.)
17 These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me, If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next to nothing, If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are nothing, If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing.
This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is, This the common air that bathes the globe.
18 With music strong I come, with my cornets and my drums, I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play marches for conquer'd and slain persons.
Have you heard that it was good to gain the day? I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.
I beat and pound for the dead, I blow through my embouchures my loudest and gayest for them.
Vivas to those who have fail'd! And to those whose war-vessels sank in the sea! And to those themselves who sank in the sea! And to all generals that lost engagements, and all overcome heroes! And the numberless unknown heroes equal to the greatest heroes known!
19 This is the meal equally set, this the meat for natural hunger, It is for the wicked just same as the righteous, I make appointments with all, I will not have a single person slighted or left away, The kept-woman, sponger, thief, are hereby invited, The heavy-lipp'd slave is invited, the venerealee is invited; There shall be no difference between them and the rest.
This is the press of a bashful hand, this the float and odor of hair, This the touch of my lips to yours, this the murmur of yearning, This the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face, This the thoughtful merge of myself, and the outlet again.
Do you guess I have some intricate purpose? Well I have, for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on the side of a rock has.
Do you take it I would astonish? Does the daylight astonish? does the early redstart twittering through the woods? Do I astonish more than they?
This hour I tell things in confidence, I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you.
20 Who goes there? hankering, gross, mystical, nude; How is it I extract strength from the beef I eat?
What is a man anyhow? what am I? what are you?
All I mark as my own you shall offset it with your own, Else it were time lost listening to me.
I do not snivel that snivel the world over, That months are vacuums and the ground but wallow and filth.
Whimpering and truckling fold with powders for invalids, conformity goes to the fourth-remov'd, I wear my hat as I please indoors or out.
Why should I pray? why should I venerate and be ceremonious?
Having pried through the strata, analyzed to a hair, counsel'd with doctors and calculated close, I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.
In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barley-corn less, And the good or bad I say of myself I say of them.
I know I am solid and sound, To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow, All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means.
I know I am deathless, I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter's compass, I know I shall not pass like a child's carlacue cut with a burnt stick at night.
I know I am august, I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood, I see that the elementary laws never apologize, (I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by, after all.)
I exist as I am, that is enough, If no other in the world be aware I sit content, And if each and all be aware I sit content.
One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself, And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten million years, I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.
My foothold is tenon'd and mortis'd in granite, I laugh at what you call dissolution, And I know the amplitude of time.
21 I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul, The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me, The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into new tongue.
I am the poet of the woman the same as the man, And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man, And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.
I chant the chant of dilation or pride, We have had ducking and deprecating about enough, I show that size is only development.
Have you outstript the rest? are you the President? It is a trifle, they will more than arrive there every one, and still pass on.
I am he that walks with the tender and growing night, I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night.
Press close bare-bosom'd night - press close magnetic nourishing night! Night of south winds - night of the large few stars! Still nodding night - mad naked summer night.
Smile O voluptuous cool-breath'd earth! Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees! Earth of departed sunset - earth of the mountains misty-topt! Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue! Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river! Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake! Far-swooping elbow'd earth - rich apple-blossom'd earth! Smile, for your lover comes.
Prodigal, you have given me love - therefore I to you give love! O unspeakable passionate love.
22 You sea! I resign myself to you also - I guess what you mean, I behold from the beach your crooked fingers, I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me, We must have a turn together, I undress, hurry me out of sight of the land, Cushion me soft, rock me in billowy drowse, Dash me with amorous wet, I can repay you.
Sea of stretch'd ground-swells, Sea breathing broad and convulsive breaths, Sea of the brine of life and of unshovell'd yet always-ready graves, Howler and scooper of storms, capricious and dainty sea, I am integral with you, I too am of one phase and of all phases.
Partaker of influx and efflux I, extoller of hate and conciliation, Extoller of amies and those that sleep in each others' arms.
I am he attesting sympathy, (Shall I make my list of things in the house and skip the house that supports them?)
I am not the poet of goodness only, I do not decline to be the poet of wickedness also.
What blurt is this about virtue and about vice? Evil propels me and reform of evil propels me, I stand indifferent, My gait is no fault-finder's or rejecter's gait, I moisten the roots of all that has grown.
Did you fear some scrofula out of the unflagging pregnancy? Did you guess the celestial laws are yet to be work'd over and rectified?
I find one side a balance and the antipedal side a balance, Soft doctrine as steady help as stable doctrine, Thoughts and deeds of the present our rouse and early start.
This minute that comes to me over the past decillions, There is no better than it and now.
What behaved well in the past or behaves well to-day is not such wonder, The wonder is always and always how there can be a mean man or an infidel.
23 Endless unfolding of words of ages! And mine a word of the modern, the word En-Masse.
A word of the faith that never balks, Here or henceforward it is all the same to me, I accept Time absolutely.
It alone is without flaw, it alone rounds and completes all, That mystic baffling wonder alone completes all.
I accept Reality and dare not question it, Materialism first and last imbuing.
Hurrah for positive science! long live exact demonstration! Fetch stonecrop mixt with cedar and branches of lilac, This is the lexicographer, this the chemist, this made a grammar of the old cartouches, These mariners put the ship through dangerous unknown seas. This is the geologist, this works with the scalper, and this is a mathematician.
Gentlemen, to you the first honors always! Your facts are useful, and yet they are not my dwelling, I but enter by them to an area of my dwelling.
Less the reminders of properties told my words, And more the reminders they of life untold, and of freedom and extrication, And make short account of neuters and geldings, and favor men and women fully equipt, And beat the gong of revolt, and stop with fugitives and them that plot and conspire.
24 Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son, Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding, No sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart from them, No more modest than immodest.
Unscrew the locks from the doors! Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!
Whoever degrades another degrades me, And whatever is done or said returns at last to me.
Through me the afflatus surging and surging, through me the current and index.
I speak the pass-word primeval, I give the sign of democracy, By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms.
Through me many long dumb voices, Voices of the interminable generations of prisoners and slaves, Voices of the diseas'd and despairing and of thieves and dwarfs, Voices of cycles of preparation and accretion, And of the threads that connect the stars, and of wombs and of the father-stuff, And of the rights of them the others are down upon, Of the deform'd, trivial, flat, foolish, despised, Fog in the air, beetles rolling balls of dung.
Through me forbidden voices, Voices of sexes and lusts, voices veil'd and I remove the veil, Voices indecent by me clarified and transfigur'd.
I do not press my fingers across my mouth, I keep as delicate around the bowels as around the head and heart, Copulation is no more rank to me than death is.
I believe in the flesh and the appetites, Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.
Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch'd from, The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer, This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.
If I worship one thing more than another it shall be the spread of my own body, or any part of it, Translucent mould of me it shall be you! Shaded ledges and rests it shall be you! Firm masculine colter it shall be you! Whatever goes to the tilth of me it shall be you! You my rich blood! your milky stream pale strippings of my life! Breast that presses against other breasts it shall be you! My brain it shall be your occult convolutions! Root of wash'd sweet-flag! timorous pond-snipe! nest of guarded duplicate eggs! it shall be you! Mix'd tussled hay of head, beard, brawn, it shall be you! Trickling sap of maple, fibre of manly wheat, it shall be you! Sun so generous it shall be you! Vapors lighting and shading my face it shall be you! You sweaty brooks and dews it shall be you! Winds whose soft-tickling genitals rub against me it shall be you! Broad muscular fields, branches of live oak, loving lounger in my winding paths, it shall be you! Hands I have taken, face I have kiss'd, mortal I have ever touch'd, it shall be you.
I dote on myself, there is that lot of me and all so luscious, Each moment and whatever happens thrills me with joy, I cannot tell how my ankles bend, nor whence the cause of my faintest wish, Nor the cause of the friendship I emit, nor the cause of the friendship I take again.
That I walk up my stoop, I pause to consider if it really be, A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.
To behold the day-break! The little light fades the immense and diaphanous shadows, The air tastes good to my palate.
Hefts of the moving world at innocent gambols silently rising freshly exuding, Scooting obliquely high and low.
Something I cannot see puts upward libidinous prongs, Seas of bright juice suffuse heaven.
The earth by the sky staid with, the daily close of their junction, The heav'd challenge from the east that moment over my head, The mocking taunt, See then whether you shall be master!
25 Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sun-rise would kill me, If I could not now and always send sun-rise out of me.
We also ascend dazzling and tremendous as the sun, We found our own O my soul in the calm and cool of the daybreak.
My voice goes after what my eyes cannot reach, With the twirl of my tongue I encompass worlds and volumes of worlds.
Speech is the twin of my vision, it is unequal to measure itself, It provokes me forever, it says sarcastically, Walt you contain enough, why don't you let it out then?
Come now I will not be tantalized, you conceive too much of articulation, Do you not know O speech how the buds beneath you are folded? Waiting in gloom, protected by frost, The dirt receding before my prophetical screams, I underlying causes to balance them at last, My knowledge my live parts, it keeping tally with the meaning of all things, Happiness, (which whoever hears me let him or her set out in search of this day.)
My final merit I refuse you, I refuse putting from me what I really am, Encompass worlds, but never try to encompass me, I crowd your sleekest and best by simply looking toward you.
Writing and talk do not prove me, I carry the plenum of proof and every thing else in my face, With the hush of my lips I wholly confound the skeptic.
26 Now I will do nothing but listen, To accrue what I hear into this song, to let sounds contribute toward it.
I hear bravuras of birds, bustle of growing wheat, gossip of flames, clack of sticks cooking my meals, I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice, I hear all sounds running together, combined, fused or following, Sounds of the city and sounds out of the city, sounds of the day and night, Talkative young ones to those that like them, the loud laugh of work-people at their meals, The angry base of disjointed friendship, the faint tones of the sick, The judge with hands tight to the desk, his pallid lips pronouncing a death-sentence, The heave'e'yo of stevedores unlading ships by the wharves, the refrain of the anchor-lifters, The ring of alarm-bells, the cry of fire, the whirr of swift-streaking engines and hose-carts with premonitory tinkles and color'd lights, The steam-whistle, the solid roll of the train of approaching cars, The slow march play'd at the head of the association marching two and two, (They go to guard some corpse, the flag-tops are draped with black muslin.)
I hear the violoncello, ('tis the young man's heart's complaint,) I hear the key'd cornet, it glides quickly in through my ears, It shakes mad-sweet pangs through my belly and breast.
I hear the chorus, it is a grand opera, Ah this indeed is music - this suits me.
A tenor large and fresh as the creation fills me, The orbic flex of his mouth is pouring and filling me full.
I hear the train'd soprano (what work with hers is this?) The orchestra whirls me wider than Uranus flies, It wrenches such ardors from me I did not know I possess'd them, It sails me, I dab with bare feet, they are lick'd by the indolent waves, I am cut by bitter and angry hail, I lose my breath, Steep'd amid honey'd morphine, my windpipe throttled in fakes of death, At length let up again to feel the puzzle of puzzles, And that we call Being.
27 To be in any form, what is that? (Round and round we go, all of us, and ever come back thither,) If nothing lay more develop'd the quahaug in its callous shell were enough.
Mine is no callous shell, I have instant conductors all over me whether I pass or stop, They seize every object and lead it harmlessly through me.
I merely stir, press, feel with my fingers, and am happy, To touch my person to some one else's is about as much as I can stand.
28 Is this then a touch? quivering me to a new identity, Flames and ether making a rush for my veins, Treacherous tip of me reaching and crowding to help them, My flesh and blood playing out lightning to strike what is hardly different from myself, On all sides prurient provokers stiffening my limbs, Straining the udder of my heart for its withheld drip, Behaving licentious toward me, taking no denial, Depriving me of my best as for a purpose, Unbuttoning my clothes, holding me by the bare waist, Deluding my confusion with the calm of the sunlight and pasture-fields, Immodestly sliding the fellow-senses away, They bribed to swap off with touch and go and graze at the edges of me, No consideration, no regard for my draining strength or my anger, Fetching the rest of the herd around to enjoy them a while, Then all uniting to stand on a headland and worry me.
The sentries desert every other part of me, They have left me helpless to a red marauder, They all come to the headland to witness and assist against me.
I am given up by traitors, I talk wildly, I have lost my wits, I and nobody else am the greatest traitor, I went myself first to the headland, my own hands carried me there.
You villain touch! what are you doing? my breath is tight in its throat, Unclench your floodgates, you are too much for me.
29 Blind loving wrestling touch, sheath'd hooded sharp-tooth'd touch! Did it make you ache so, leaving me?
Parting track'd by arriving, perpetual payment of perpetual loan, Rich showering rain, and recompense richer afterward.
Sprouts take and accumulate, stand by the curb prolific and vital, Landscapes projected masculine, full-sized and golden.
30 All truths wait in all things, They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it, They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon, The insignificant is as big to me as any, (What is less or more than a touch?)
Logic and sermons never convince, The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul.
(Only what proves itself to every man and woman is so, Only what nobody denies is so.)
A minute and a drop of me settle my brain, I believe the soggy clods shall become lovers and lamps, And a compend of compends is the meat of a man or woman, And a summit and flower there is the feeling they have for each other, And they are to branch boundlessly out of that lesson until it becomes omnific, And until one and all shall delight us, and we them.
31 I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars, And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren, And the tree-toad is a chef-d'oeuvre for the highest, And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven, And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery, And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any statue, And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.
I find I incorporate gneiss, coal, long-threaded moss, fruits, grains, esculent roots, And am stucco'd with quadrupeds and birds all over, And have distanced what is behind me for good reasons, But call any thing back again when I desire it.
In vain the speeding or shyness, In vain the plutonic rocks send their old heat against my approach, In vain the mastodon retreats beneath its own powder'd bones, In vain objects stand leagues off and assume manifold shapes, In vain the ocean settling in hollows and the great monsters lying low, In vain the buzzard houses herself with the sky, In vain the snake slides through the creepers and logs, In vain the elk takes to the inner passes of the woods, In vain the razor-bill'd auk sails far north to Labrador, I follow quickly, I ascend to the nest in the fissure of the cliff.
32 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, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.
So they show their relations to me and I accept them, They bring me tokens of myself, they evince them plainly in their possession.
I wonder where they get those tokens, Did I pass that way huge times ago and negligently drop them?
Myself moving forward then and now and forever, Gathering and showing more always and with velocity, Infinite and omnigenous, and the like of these among them, Not too exclusive toward the reachers of my remembrancers, Picking out here one that I love, and now go with him on brotherly terms.
A gigantic beauty of a stallion, fresh and responsive to my caresses, Head high in the forehead, wide between the ears, Limbs glossy and supple, tail dusting the ground, Eyes full of sparkling wickedness, ears finely cut, flexibly moving.
His nostrils dilate as my heels embrace him, His well-built limbs tremble with pleasure as we race around and return.
I but use you a minute, then I resign you, stallion, Why do I need your paces when I myself out-gallop them? Even as I stand or sit passing faster than you.
33 Space and Time! now I see it is true, what I guess'd at, What I guess'd when I loaf'd on the grass, What I guess'd while I lay alone in my bed, And again as I walk'd the beach under the paling stars of the morning.
My ties and ballasts leave me, my elbows rest in sea-gaps, I skirt sierras, my palms cover continents, I am afoot with my vision.
By the city's quadrangular houses - in log huts, camping with lumber-men, Along the ruts of the turnpike, along the dry gulch and rivulet bed, Weeding my onion-patch or hosing rows of carrots and parsnips, crossing savannas, trailing in forests, Prospecting, gold-digging, girdling the trees of a new purchase, Scorch'd ankle-deep by the hot sand, hauling my boat down the shallow river, Where the panther walks to and fro on a limb overhead, where the buck turns furiously at the hunter, Where the rattlesnake suns his flabby length on a rock, where the otter is feeding on fish, Where the alligator in his tough pimples sleeps by the bayou, Where the black bear is searching for roots or honey, where the beaver pats the mud with his paddle-shaped tall; Over the growing sugar, over the yellow-flower'd cotton plant, over the rice in its low moist field, Over the sharp-peak'd farm house, with its scallop'd scum and slender shoots from the gutters, Over the western persimmon, over the long-leav'd corn, over the delicate blue-flower flax, Over the white and brown buckwheat, a hummer and buzzer there with the rest, Over the dusky green of the rye as it ripples and shades in the breeze; Scaling mountains, pulling myself cautiously up, holding on by low scragged limbs, Walking the path worn in the grass and beat through the leaves of the brush, Where the quail is whistling betwixt the woods and the wheat-lot, Where the bat flies in the Seventh-month eve, where the great goldbug drops through the dark, Where the brook puts out of the roots of the old tree and flows to the meadow, Where cattle stand and shake away flies with the tremulous shuddering of their hides, Where the cheese-cloth hangs in the kitchen, where andirons straddle the hearth-slab, where cobwebs fall in festoons from the rafters; Where trip-hammers crash, where the press is whirling its cylinders, Wherever the human heart beats with terrible throes under its ribs, Where the pear-shaped balloon is floating aloft, (floating in it myself and looking composedly down,) Where the life-car is drawn on the slip-noose, where the heat hatches pale-green eggs in the dented sand, Where the she-whale swims with her calf and never forsakes it, Where the steam-ship trails hind-ways its long pennant of smoke, Where the fin of the shark cuts like a black chip out of the water, Where the half-burn'd brig is riding on unknown currents, Where shells grow to her slimy deck, where the dead are corrupting below; Where the dense-starr'd flag is borne at the head of the regiments, Approaching Manhattan up by the long-stretching island, Under Niagara, the cataract falling like a veil over my countenance, Upon a door-step, upon the horse-block of hard wood outside, Upon the race-course, or enjoying picnics or jigs or a good game of base-ball, At he-festivals, with blackguard gibes, ironical license, bull-dances, drinking, laughter, At the cider-mill tasting the sweets of the brown mash, sucking the juice through a straw, At apple-peelings wanting kisses for all the red fruit I find, At musters, beach-parties, friendly bees, huskings, house-raisings; Where the mocking-bird sounds his delicious gurgles, cackles, screams, weeps, Where the hay-rick stands in the barn-yard, where the dry-stalks are scatter'd, where the brood-cow waits in the hovel, Where the bull advances to do his masculine work, where the stud to the mare, where the cock is treading the hen, Where the heifers browse, where geese nip their food with short jerks, Where sun-down shadows lengthen over the limitless and lonesome prairie, Where herds of buffalo make a crawling spread of the square miles far and near, Where the humming-bird shimmers, where the neck of the long-lived swan is curving and winding, Where the laughing-gull scoots by the shore, where she laughs her near-human laugh, Where bee-hives range on a gray bench in the garden half hid by the high weeds, Where band-neck'd partridges roost in a ring on the ground with their heads out, Where burial coaches enter the arch'd gates of a cemetery, Where winter wolves bark amid wastes of snow and icicled trees, Where the yellow-crown'd heron comes to the edge of the marsh at night and feeds upon small crabs, Where the splash of swimmers and divers cools the warm noon, Where the katy-did works her chromatic reed on the walnut-tree over the well, Through patches of citrons and cucumbers with silver-wired leaves, Through the salt-lick or orange glade, or under conical firs, Through the gymnasium, through the curtain'd saloon, through the office or public hall; Pleas'd with the native and pleas'd with the foreign, pleas'd with the new and old, Pleas'd with the homely woman as well as the handsome, Pleas'd with the quakeress as she puts off her bonnet and talks melodiously, Pleas'd with the tune of the choir of the whitewash'd church, Pleas'd with the earnest words of the sweating Methodist preacher, impress'd seriously at the camp-meeting; Looking in at the shop-windows of Broadway the whole forenoon, flatting the flesh of my nose on the thick plate glass, Wandering the same afternoon with my face turn'd up to the clouds, or down a lane or along the beach, My right and left arms round the sides of two friends, and I in the middle; Coming home with the silent and dark-cheek'd bush-boy, (behind me he rides at the drape of the day,) Far from the settlements studying the print of animals' feet, or the moccasin print, By the cot in the hospital reaching lemonade to a feverish patient, Nigh the coffin'd corpse when all is still, examining with a candle; Voyaging to every port to dicker and adventure, Hurrying with the modern crowd as eager and fickle as any, Hot toward one I hate, ready in my madness to knife him, Solitary at midnight in my back yard, my thoughts gone from me a long while, Walking the old hills of Judaea with the beautiful gentle God by my side, Speeding through space, speeding through heaven and the stars, Speeding amid the seven satellites and the broad ring, and the diameter of eighty thousand miles, Speeding with tail'd meteors, throwing fire-balls like the rest, Carrying the crescent child that carries its own full mother in its belly, Storming, enjoying, planning, loving, cautioning, Backing and filling, appearing and disappearing, I tread day and night such roads.
I visit the orchards of spheres and look at the product, And look at quintillions ripen'd and look at quintillions green.
I fly those flights of a fluid and swallowing soul, My course runs below the soundings of plummets.
I help myself to material and immaterial, No guard can shut me off, no law prevent me.
I anchor my ship for a little while only, My messengers continually cruise away or bring their returns to me.
I go hunting polar furs and the seal, leaping chasms with a pike-pointed staff, clinging to topples of brittle and blue.
I ascend to the foretruck, I take my place late at night in the crow's-nest, We sail the arctic sea, it is plenty light enough, Through the clear atmosphere I stretch around on the wonderful beauty, The enormous masses of ice pass me and I pass them, the scenery is plain in all directions, The white-topt mountains show in the distance, I fling out my fancies toward them, We are approaching some great battle-field in which we are soon to be engaged, We pass the colossal outposts of the encampment, we pass with still feet and caution, Or we are entering by the suburbs some vast and ruin'd city, The blocks and fallen architecture more than all the living cities of the globe.
I am a free companion, I bivouac by invading watchfires, I turn the bridgroom out of bed and stay with the bride myself, I tighten her all night to my thighs and lips.
My voice is the wife's voice, the screech by the rail of the stairs, They fetch my man's body up dripping and drown'd.
I understand the large hearts of heroes, The courage of present times and all times, How the skipper saw the crowded and rudderless wreck of the steamship, and Death chasing it up and down the storm, How he knuckled tight and gave not back an inch, and was faithful of days and faithful of nights, And chalk'd in large letters on a board, Be of good cheer, we will not desert you; How he follow'd with them and tack'd with them three days and would not give it up, How he saved the drifting company at last, How the lank loose-gown'd women look'd when boated from the side of their prepared graves, How the silent old-faced infants and the lifted sick, and the sharp-lipp'd unshaved men; All this I swallow, it tastes good, I like it well, it becomes mine, I am the man, I suffer'd, I was there.
The disdain and calmness of martyrs, The mother of old, condemn'd for a witch, burnt with dry wood, her children gazing on, The hounded slave that flags in the race, leans by the fence, blowing, cover'd with sweat, The twinges that sting like needles his legs and neck, the murderous buckshot and the bullets, All these I feel or am.
I am the hounded slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs, Hell and despair are upon me, crack and again crack the marksmen, I clutch the rails of the fence, my gore dribs, thinn'd with the ooze of my skin, I fall on the weeds and stones, The riders spur their unwilling horses, haul close, Taunt my dizzy ears and beat me violently over the head with whip-stocks.
Agonies are one of my changes of garments, I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person, My hurts turn livid upon me as I lean on a cane and observe.
I am the mash'd fireman with breast-bone broken, Tumbling walls buried me in their debris, Heat and smoke I inspired, I heard the yelling shouts of my comrades, I heard the distant click of their picks and shovels, They have clear'd the beams away, they tenderly lift me forth.
I lie in the night air in my red shirt, the pervading hush is for my sake, Painless after all I lie exhausted but not so unhappy, White and beautiful are the faces around me, the heads are bared of their fire-caps, The kneeling crowd fades with the light of the torches.
Distant and dead resuscitate, They show as the dial or move as the hands of me, I am the clock myself.
I am an old artillerist, I tell of my fort's bombardment, I am there again.
Again the long roll of the drummers, Again the attacking cannon, mortars, Again to my listening ears the cannon responsive.
I take part, I see and hear the whole, The cries, curses, roar, the plaudits for well-aim'd shots, The ambulanza slowly passing trailing its red drip, Workmen searching after damages, making indispensable repairs, The fall of grenades through the rent roof, the fan-shaped explosion, The whizz of limbs, heads, stone, wood, iron, high in the air.
Again gurgles the mouth of my dying general, he furiously waves with his hand, He gasps through the clot Mind not me - mind - the entrenchments.
34 Now I tell what I knew in Texas in my early youth, (I tell not the fall of Alamo, Not one escaped to tell the fall of Alamo, The hundred and fifty are dumb yet at Alamo,) 'Tis the tale of the murder in cold blood of four hundred and twelve young men.
Retreating they had form'd in a hollow square with their baggage for breastworks, Nine hundred lives out of the surrounding enemies, nine times their number, was the price they took in advance, Their colonel was wounded and their ammunition gone, They treated for an honorable capitulation, receiv'd writing and seal, gave up their arms and march'd back prisoners of war.
They were the glory of the race of rangers, Matchless with horse, rifle, song, supper, courtship, Large, turbulent, generous, handsome, proud, and affectionate, Bearded, sunburnt, drest in the free costume of hunters, Not a single one over thirty years of age.
The second First-day morning they were brought out in squads and massacred, it was beautiful early summer, The work commenced about five o'clock and was over by eight.
None obey'd the command to kneel, Some made a mad and helpless rush, some stood stark and straight, A few fell at once, shot in the temple or heart, the living and dead lay together, The maim'd and mangled dug in the dirt, the new-comers saw them there, Some half-kill'd attempted to crawl away, These were despatch'd with bayonets or batter'd with the blunts of muskets, A youth not seventeen years old seiz'd his assassin till two more came to release him, The three were all torn and cover'd with the boy's blood.
At eleven o'clock began the burning of the bodies; That is the tale of the murder of the four hundred and twelve young men.
35 Would you hear of an old-time sea-fight? Would you learn who won by the light of the moon and stars? List to the yarn, as my grandmother's father the sailor told it to me.
Our foe was no sulk in his ship I tell you, (said he,) His was the surly English pluck, and there is no tougher or truer, and never was, and never will be; Along the lower'd eve he came horribly raking us.
We closed with him, the yards entangled, the cannon touch'd, My captain lash'd fast with his own hands.
We had receiv'd some eighteen pound shots under the water, On our lower-gun-deck two large pieces had burst at the first fire, killing all around and blowing up overhead.
Fighting at sun-down, fighting at dark, Ten o'clock at night, the full moon well up, our leaks on the gain, and five feet of water reported, The master-at-arms loosing the prisoners confined in the after-hold to give them a chance for themselves.
The transit to and from the magazine is now stopt by the sentinels, They see so many strange faces they do not know whom to trust.
Our frigate takes fire, The other asks if we demand quarter? If our colors are struck and the fighting done?
Now I laugh content, for I hear the voice of my little captain, We have not struck, he composedly cries, we have just begun our part of the fighting.
Only three guns are in use, One is directed by the captain himself against the enemy's main-mast, Two well serv'd with grape and canister silence his musketry and clear his decks.
The tops alone second the fire of this little battery, especially the main-top, They hold out bravely during the whole of the action.
Not a moment's cease, The leaks gain fast on the pumps, the fire eats toward the powder-magazine.
One of the pumps has been shot away, it is generally thought we are sinking.
Serene stands the little captain, He is not hurried, his voice is neither high nor low, His eyes give more light to us than our battle-lanterns.
Toward twelve there in the beams of the moon they surrender to us.
36 Stretch'd and still lies the midnight, Two great hulls motionless on the breast of the darkness, Our vessel riddled and slowly sinking, preparations to pass to the one we have conquer'd, The captain on the quarter-deck coldly giving his orders through a countenance white as a sheet, Near by the corpse of the child that serv'd in the cabin, The dead face of an old salt with long white hair and carefully curl'd whiskers, The flames spite of all that can be done flickering aloft and below, The husky voices of the two or three officers yet fit for duty, Formless stacks of bodies and bodies by themselves, dabs of flesh upon the masts and spars, Cut of cordage, dangle of rigging, slight shock of the soothe of waves, Black and impassive guns, litter of powder-parcels, strong scent, A few large stars overhead, silent and mournful shining, Delicate sniffs of sea-breeze, smells of sedgy grass and fields by the shore, death-messages given in charge to survivors, The hiss of the surgeon's knife, the gnawing teeth of his saw, Wheeze, cluck, swash of falling blood, short wild scream, and long, dull, tapering groan, These so, these irretrievable.
37 You laggards there on guard! look to your arms! In at the conquer'd doors they crowd! I am possess'd! Embody all presences outlaw'd or suffering, See myself in prison shaped like another man, And feel the dull unintermitted pain.
For me the keepers of convicts shoulder their carbines and keep watch, It is I let out in the morning and barr'd at night.
Not a mutineer walks handcuff'd to jail but I am handcuff'd to him and walk by his side, (I am less the jolly one there, and more the silent one with sweat on my twitching lips.)
Not a youngster is taken for larceny but I go up too, and am tried and sentenced.
Not a cholera patient lies at the last gasp but I also lie at the last gasp, My face is ash-color'd, my sinews gnarl, away from me people retreat.
Askers embody themselves in me and I am embodied in them, I project my hat, sit shame-faced, and beg.
38 Enough! enough! enough! Somehow I have been stunn'd. Stand back! Give me a little time beyond my cuff'd head, slumbers, dreams, gaping, I discover myself on the verge of a usual mistake.
That I could forget the mockers and insults! That I could forget the trickling tears and the blows of the bludgeons and hammers! That I could look with a separate look on my own crucifixion and bloody crowning.
I remember now, I resume the overstaid fraction, The grave of rock multiplies what has been confided to it, or to any graves, Corpses rise, gashes heal, fastenings roll from me.
I troop forth replenish'd with supreme power, one of an average unending procession, Inland and sea-coast we go, and pass all boundary lines, Our swift ordinances on their way over the whole earth, The blossoms we wear in our hats the growth of thousands of years.
Eleves, I salute you! come forward! Continue your annotations, continue your questionings.
39 The friendly and flowing savage, who is he? Is he waiting for civilization, or past it and mastering it?
Is he some Southwesterner rais'd out-doors? is he Kanadian? Is he from the Mississippi country? Iowa, Oregon, California? The mountains? prairie-life, bush-life? or sailor from the sea?
Wherever he goes men and women accept and desire him, They desire he should like them, touch them, speak to them, stay with them.
Behavior lawless as snow-flakes, words simple as grass, uncomb'd head, laughter, and naivete, Slow-stepping feet, common features, common modes and emanations, They descend in new forms from the tips of his fingers, They are waited with the odor of his body or breath, they fly out of the glance of his eyes.
40 Flaunt of the sunshine I need not your bask - lie over! You light surfaces only, I force surfaces and depths also.
Earth! you seem to look for something at my hands, Say, old top-knot, what do you want?
Man or woman, I might tell how I like you, but cannot, And might tell what it is in me and what it is in you, but cannot, And might tell that pining I have, that pulse of my nights and days.
Behold, I do not give lectures or a little charity, When I give I give myself.
You there, impotent, loose in the knees, Open your scarf'd chops till I blow grit within you, Spread your palms and lift the flaps of your pockets, I am not to be denied, I compel, I have stores plenty and to spare, And any thing I have I bestow.
I do not ask who you are, that is not important to me, You can do nothing and be nothing but what I will infold you.
To cotton-field drudge or cleaner of privies I lean, On his right cheek I put the family kiss, And in my soul I swear I never will deny him.
On women fit for conception I start bigger and nimbler babes. (This day I am jetting the stuff of far more arrogant republics.)
To any one dying, thither I speed and twist the knob of the door. Turn the bed-clothes toward the foot of the bed, Let the physician and the priest go home.
I seize the descending man and raise him with resistless will, O despairer, here is my neck, By God, you shall not go down! hang your whole weight upon me.
I dilate you with tremendous breath, I buoy you up, Every room of the house do I fill with an arm'd force, Lovers of me, bafflers of graves.
Sleep - I and they keep guard all night, Not doubt, not decease shall dare to lay finger upon you, I have embraced you, and henceforth possess you to myself, And when you rise in the morning you will find what I tell you is so.
41 I am he bringing help for the sick as they pant on their backs, And for strong upright men I bring yet more needed help.
I heard what was said of the universe, Heard it and heard it of several thousand years; It is middling well as far as it goes - but is that all?
Magnifying and applying come I, Outbidding at the start the old cautious hucksters, Taking myself the exact dimensions of Jehovah, Lithographing Kronos, Zeus his son, and Hercules his grandson, Buying drafts of Osiris, Isis, Belus, Brahma, Buddha, In my portfolio placing Manito loose, Allah on a leaf, the crucifix engraved, With Odin and the hideous-faced Mexitli and every idol and image, Taking them all for what they are worth and not a cent more, Admitting they were alive and did the work of their days, (They bore mites as for unfledg'd birds who have now to rise and fly and sing for themselves,) Accepting the rough deific sketches to fill out better in myself, bestowing them freely on each man and woman I see, Discovering as much or more in a framer framing a house, Putting higher claims for him there with his roll'd-up sleeves driving the mallet and chisel, Not objecting to special revelations, considering a curl of smoke or a hair on the back of my hand just as curious as any revelation, Lads ahold of fire-engines and hook-and-ladder ropes no less to me than the gods of the antique wars, Minding their voices peal through the crash of destruction, Their brawny limbs passing safe over charr'd laths, their white foreheads whole and unhurt out of the flames; By the mechanic's wife with her babe at her nipple interceding for every person born, Three scythes at harvest whizzing in a row from three lusty angels with shirts bagg'd out at their waists, The snag-tooth'd hostler with red hair redeeming sins past and to come, Selling all he possesses, traveling on foot to fee lawyers for his brother and sit by him while he is tried for forgery; What was strewn in the amplest strewing the square rod about me, and not filling the square rod then, The bull and the bug never worshipp'd half enough, Dung and dirt more admirable than was dream'd, The supernatural of no account, myself waiting my time to be one of the supremes, The day getting ready for me when I shall do as much good as the best, and be as prodigious; By my life-lumps! becoming already a creator, Putting myself here and now to the ambush'd womb of the shadows.
42 A call in the midst of the crowd, My own voice, orotund sweeping and final.
Come my children, Come my boys and girls, my women, household and intimates, Now the performer launches his nerve, he has pass'd his prelude on the reeds within.
Easily written loose-finger'd chords - I feel the thrum of your climax and close.
My head slues round on my neck, Music rolls, but not from the organ, Folks are around me, but they are no household of mine.
Ever the hard unsunk ground, Ever the eaters and drinkers, ever the upward and downward sun, ever the air and the ceaseless tides, Ever myself and my neighbors, refreshing, wicked, real, Ever the old inexplicable query, ever that thorn'd thumb, that breath of itches and thirsts, Ever the vexer's hoot! hoot! till we find where the sly one hides and bring him forth, Ever love, ever the sobbing liquid of life, Ever the bandage under the chin, ever the trestles of death.
Here and there with dimes on the eyes walking, To feed the greed of the belly the brains liberally spooning, Tickets buying, taking, selling, but in to the feast never once going, Many sweating, ploughing, thrashing, and then the chaff for payment receiving, A few idly owning, and they the wheat continually claiming.
This is the city and I am one of the citizens, Whatever interests the rest interests me, politics, wars, markets, newspapers, schools, The mayor and councils, banks, tariffs, steamships, factories, stocks, stores, real estate and personal estate.
The little plentiful manikins skipping around in collars and tail'd coats I am aware who they are, (they are positively not worms or fleas,) I acknowledge the duplicates of myself, the weakest and shallowest is deathless with me, What I do and say the same waits for them, Every thought that flounders in me the same flounders in them.
I know perfectly well my own egotism, Know my omnivorous lines and must not write any less, And would fetch you whoever you are flush with myself.
Not words of routine this song of mine, But abruptly to question, to leap beyond yet nearer bring; This printed and bound book - but the printer and the printing-office boy? The well-taken photographs - but your wife or friend close and solid in your arms? The black ship mail'd with iron, her mighty guns in her turrets - but the pluck of the captain and engineers? In the houses the dishes and fare and furniture - but the host and hostess, and the look out of their eyes? The sky up there - yet here or next door, or across the way? The saints and sages in history - but you yourself? Sermons, creeds, theology - but the fathomless human brain, And what is reason? and what is love? and what is life?
43 I do not despise you priests, all time, the world over, My faith is the greatest of faiths and the least of faiths, Enclosing worship ancient and modern and all between ancient and modern, Believing I shall come again upon the earth after five thousand years, Waiting responses from oracles, honoring the gods, saluting the sun, Making a fetich of the first rock or stump, powowing with sticks in the circle of obis, Helping the llama or brahmin as he trims the lamps of the idols, Dancing yet through the streets in a phallic procession, rapt and austere in the woods a gymnosophist, Drinking mead from the skull-cap, to Shastas and Vedas admirant, minding the Koran, Walking the teokallis, spotted with gore from the stone and knife, beating the serpent-skin drum, Accepting the Gospels, accepting him that was crucified, knowing assuredly that he is divine, To the mass kneeling or the puritan's prayer rising, or sitting patiently in a pew, Ranting and frothing in my insane crisis, or waiting dead-like till my spirit arouses me, Looking forth on pavement and land, or outside of pavement and land, Belonging to the winders of the circuit of circuits.
One of that centripetal and centrifugal gang I turn and talk like man leaving charges before a journey.
Down-hearted doubters dull and excluded, Frivolous, sullen, moping, angry, affected, dishearten'd, atheistical, I know every one of you, I know the sea of torment, doubt, despair and unbelief.
How the flukes splash! How they contort rapid as lightning, with spasms and spouts of blood!
Be at peace bloody flukes of doubters and sullen mopers, I take my place among you as much as among any, The past is the push of you, me, all, precisely the same, And what is yet untried and afterward is for you, me, all, precisely the same.
I do not know what is untried and afterward, But I know it will in its turn prove sufficient, and cannot fail.
Each who passes is consider'd, each who stops is consider'd, not single one can it fall.
It cannot fall the young man who died and was buried, Nor the young woman who died and was put by his side, Nor the little child that peep'd in at the door, and then drew back and was never seen again, Nor the old man who has lived without purpose, and feels it with bitterness worse than gall, Nor him in the poor house tubercled by rum and the bad disorder, Nor the numberless slaughter'd and wreck'd, nor the brutish koboo call'd the ordure of humanity, Nor the sacs merely floating with open mouths for food to slip in, Nor any thing in the earth, or down in the oldest graves of the earth, Nor any thing in the myriads of spheres, nor the myriads of myriads that inhabit them, Nor the present, nor the least wisp that is known.
44 It is time to explain myself - let us stand up.
What is known I strip away, I launch all men and women forward with me into the Unknown.
The clock indicates the moment - but what does eternity indicate?
We have thus far exhausted trillions of winters and summers, There are trillions ahead, and trillions ahead of them.
Births have brought us richness and variety, And other births will bring us richness and variety.
I do not call one greater and one smaller, That which fills its period and place is equal to any.
Were mankind murderous or jealous upon you, my brother, my sister? I am sorry for you, they are not murderous or jealous upon me, All has been gentle with me, I keep no account with lamentation, (What have I to do with lamentation?)
I am an acme of things accomplish'd, and I an encloser of things to be.
My feet strike an apex of the apices of the stairs, On every step bunches of ages, and larger bunches between the steps, All below duly travel'd, and still I mount and mount.
Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me, Afar down I see the huge first Nothing, I know I was even there, I waited unseen and always, and slept through the lethargic mist, And took my time, and took no hurt from the fetid carbon.
Long I was hugg'd close - long and long.
Immense have been the preparations for me, Faithful and friendly the arms that have help'd me.
Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like cheerful boatmen, For room to me stars kept aside in their own rings, They sent influences to look after what was to hold me.
Before I was born out of my mother generations guided me, My embryo has never been torpid, nothing could overlay it.
For it the nebula cohered to an orb, The long slow strata piled to rest it on, Vast vegetables gave it sustenance, Monstrous sauroids transported it in their mouths and deposited it with care.
All forces have been steadily employ'd to complete and delight me, Now on this spot I stand with my robust soul.
45 O span of youth! ever-push'd elasticity! O manhood, balanced, florid and full.
My lovers suffocate me, Crowding my lips, thick in the pores of my skin, Jostling me through streets and public halls, coming naked to me at night, Crying by day, Ahoy! from the rocks of the river, swinging and chirping over my head, Calling my name from flower-beds, vines, tangled underbrush, Lighting on every moment of my life, Bussing my body with soft balsamic busses, Noiselessly passing handfuls out of their hearts and giving them to be mine.
Old age superbly rising! O welcome, ineffable grace of dying days!
Every condition promulges not only itself, it promulges what grows after and out of itself, And the dark hush promulges as much as any.
I open my scuttle at night and see the far-sprinkled systems, And all I see multiplied as high as I can cipher edge but the rim of the farther systems.
Wider and wider they spread, expanding, always expanding, Outward and outward and forever outward.
My sun has his sun and round him obediently wheels, He joins with his partners a group of superior circuit, And greater sets follow, making specks of the greatest inside them.
There is no stoppage and never can be stoppage, If I, you, and the worlds, and all beneath or upon their surfaces, were this moment reduced back to a pallid float, it would not avail the long run, We should surely bring up again where we now stand, And surely go as much farther, and then farther and farther.
A few quadrillions of eras, a few octillions of cubic leagues, do not hazard the span or make it impatient, They are but parts, any thing is but a part.
See ever so far, there is limitless space outside of that, Count ever so much, there is limitless time around that.
My rendezvous is appointed, it is certain, The Lord will be there and wait till I come on perfect terms, The great Camerado, the lover true for whom I pine will be there.
46 I know I have the best of time and space, and was never measured and never will be measured.
I tramp a perpetual journey, (come listen all!) My signs are a rain-proof coat, good shoes, and a staff cut from the woods, No friend of mine takes his ease in my chair, I have no chair, no church, no philosophy, I lead no man to a dinner-table, library, exchange, But each man and each woman of you I lead upon a knoll, My left hand hooking you round the waist, My right hand pointing to landscapes of continents and the public road.
Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you, You must travel it for yourself.
It is not far, it is within reach, Perhaps you have been on it since you were born and did not know, Perhaps it is everywhere on water and on land.
Shoulder your duds dear son, and I will mine, and let us hasten forth, Wonderful cities and free nations we shall fetch as we go.
If you tire, give me both burdens, and rest the chuff of your hand on my hip, And in due time you shall repay the same service to me, For after we start we never lie by again.
This day before dawn I ascended a hill and look'd at the crowded heaven, And I said to my spirit When we become the enfolders of those orbs, and the pleasure and knowledge of every thing in them, shall we be fill'd and satisfied then? And my spirit said No, we but level that lift to pass and continue beyond.
You are also asking me questions and I hear you, I answer that I cannot answer, you must find out for yourself.
Sit a while dear son, Here are biscuits to eat and here is milk to drink, But as soon as you sleep and renew yourself in sweet clothes, I kiss you with a good-by kiss and open the gate for your egress hence.
Long enough have you dream'd contemptible dreams, Now I wash the gum from your eyes, You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every moment of your life.
Long have you timidly waded holding a plank by the shore, Now I will you to be a bold swimmer, To jump off in the midst of the sea, rise again, nod to me, shout, and laughingly dash with your hair.
47 I am the teacher of athletes, He that by me spreads a wider breast than my own proves the width of my own, He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher.
The boy I love, the same becomes a man not through derived power, but in his own right, Wicked rather than virtuous out of conformity or fear, Fond of his sweetheart, relishing well his steak, Unrequited love or a slight cutting him worse than sharp steel cuts, First-rate to ride, to fight, to hit the bull's eye, to sail a skiff, to sing a song or play on the banjo, Preferring scars and the beard and faces pitted with small-pox over all latherers, And those well-tann'd to those that keep out of the sun.
I teach straying from me, yet who can stray from me? I follow you whoever you are from the present hour, My words itch at your ears till you understand them.
I do not say these things for a dollar or to fill up the time while I wait for a boat, (It is you talking just as much as myself, I act as the tongue of you, Tied in your mouth, in mine it begins to be loosen'd.)
I swear I will never again mention love or death inside a house, And I swear I will never translate myself at all, only to him or her who privately stays with me in the open air.
If you would understand me go to the heights or water-shore, The nearest gnat is an explanation, and a drop or motion of waves key, The maul, the oar, the hand-saw, second my words.
No shutter'd room or school can commune with me, But roughs and little children better than they.
The young mechanic is closest to me, he knows me well, The woodman that takes his axe and jug with him shall take me with him all day, The farm-boy ploughing in the field feels good at the sound of my voice, In vessels that sail my words sail, I go with fishermen and seamen and love them.
The soldier camp'd or upon the march is mine, On the night ere the pending battle many seek me, and I do not fail them, On that solemn night (it may be their last) those that know me seek me. My face rubs to the hunter's face when he lies down alone in his blanket, The driver thinking of me does not mind the jolt of his wagon, The young mother and old mother comprehend me, The girl and the wife rest the needle a moment and forget where they are, They and all would resume what I have told them.
48 I have said that the soul is not more than the body, And I have said that the body is not more than the soul, And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's self is, And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud, And I or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the earth, And to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds the learning of all times, And there is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero, And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheel'd universe, And I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.
And I say to mankind, Be not curious about God, For I who am curious about each am not curious about God, (No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about death.)
I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least, Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.
Why should I wish to see God better than this day? I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then, In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass, I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign'd by God's name, And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe'er I go, Others will punctually come for ever and ever.
49 And as to you Death, and you bitter hug of mortality, it is idle to try to alarm me.
To his work without flinching the accoucheur comes, I see the elder-hand pressing receiving supporting, I recline by the sills of the exquisite flexible doors, And mark the outlet, and mark the relief and escape.
And as to you Corpse I think you are good manure, but that does not offend me, I smell the white roses sweet-scented and growing, I reach to the leafy lips, I reach to the polish'd breasts of melons.
And as to you Life I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths, (No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before.)
I hear you whispering there O stars of heaven, O suns - O grass of graves - O perpetual transfers and promotions, If you do not say any thing how can I say any thing?
Of the turbid pool that lies in the autumn forest, Of the moon that descends the steeps of the soughing twilight, Toss, sparkles of day and dusk - toss on the black stems that decay in the muck, Toss to the moaning gibberish of the dry limbs.
I ascend from the moon, I ascend from the night, I perceive that the ghastly glimmer is noonday sunbeams reflected, And debouch to the steady and central from the offspring great or small.
50 There is that in me - I do not know what it is - but I know it is in me.
Wrench'd and sweaty - calm and cool then my body becomes, I sleep - I sleep long.
I do not know it - it is without name - it is a word unsaid, It is not in any dictionary, utterance, symbol.
Something it swings on more than the earth I swing on, To it the creation is the friend whose embracing awakes me.
Perhaps I might tell more. Outlines! I plead for my brothers and sisters.
Do you see O my brothers and sisters? It is not chaos or death - it is form, union, plan - it is eternal life - it is Happiness.
51 The past and present wilt - I have fill'd them, emptied them. And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.
Listener up there! what have you to confide to me? Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening, (Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)
Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)
I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab.
Who has done his day's work? who will soonest be through with his supper? Who wishes to walk with me?
Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late?
52 The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.
I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yaws over the roofs of the world.
The last scud of day holds back for me, It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow'd wilds, It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.
I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.

songs

2008-08-07T09:06:00.000-07:00

Doing an EP thing I think. Supposed to do 4 songs, 2 acoustic and 2 with the band. Which will they be? Here are the choices:

1. Already Gone
2. Fire In The Ward
3. Your Heart In My Pocket
4. I Knew a Christian Girl
5. If E'er You Lose The Will
6. What A Friend God Has In Me
7. No Color In My Dreams
8. Mary the Screenwriter
9. Charlie's Spanish Harlem Incident
10. Love Sweet Love
11. Freedom is a Buzzword

I'm thinking.... No Color In My Dreams. Fire In The Ward. Your Heart in My Pocket. Charlie's Spanish Harlem Incident.

Christy Weston-Damnit

2008-08-06T17:18:00.000-07:00

Young, beautiful and full of vim and vigor, Christy Weston-Damnit tumbled through the throng outside the entrance/exit of Penn Station, an edible bouquet slung over her left shoulder. Today would be a day of love and gift giving, far from the days of longing and regret which pocked Christy’s past like gum stains on the sidewalk. She had even dressed up for the occasion, trading her New Balance trainers for a pair of pumps, designed by an expensive designer but built by an inexpensive factory worker or machine or whatever. Every step shoved her size 9 feet deeper and deeper into her size 7½ shoes, causing her to wince and grunt with every stride. The spikey bouquet dug into Christy’s ample back fat, a feeling that, she believed, was similar to that felt by Christ when he carried his cross to the crucifixion. The pain was worth it, even welcomed. Christy would surely be rewarded 7-fold by the admiration of her beau and his coworkers. The bouquet was for the ever affable, ever affection Carl Creighton, of Sterling Info Systems fame. For the weeks leading up to their 3rd anniversary, Christy had been searching for just the right edible gift to give the man of her constant thoughts and sentiments. Perhaps an edible crocheting kit, complete with edible yarn and needles. Or maybe an edible child which spoke three languages, could use the toilet and tasted like caramel. She even thought of giving Carl edible food, but this idea seemed too audacious for consideration. And then her coworker Kiki, of Generic Hostels fame, received an edible bouquet from her boyfriend Charles, of Citigroup fame. At first Christy, also of Generic Hostels fame, was enraged at the site of this gift. Why hadn’t she received an edible bouquet from Charles? The fact that Charles wasn’t dating Christy was beside the point. But Christy did have her own boyfriend. What about him? Why hadn’t Carl given her an edible bouquet? Gifts were things given to those you love. And they were in love, right? Her rage was apparent in the refusal to partake in the fruity, chocolatey goodness of Kiki and Charles’ shared love. She had only said, “No thank you” when offered a pineapple daisy half dipped in milk chocolate, but the tone in which she said it betrayed an entire lifetime of emotional neglect she had heretofore kept hidden. Sometimes this anger erupted during a packet stapling or the unjamming of the spacebar or backspace key. But for the most part, Christy’s bitter, resentful attitude towards the world and everyone in it was kept to a minimum amount of exposure. And sometimes Christy’s hatred could be turned into a productive force, such as buying a gift for someone else only because she resented that person not buying it for her. Not only would Carl appreciate the thoughtfulness of such a gift and feel horrible for the lack of thoughtfulness on his part, his coworkers would certainly share these sentiments. Like Kiki and her Mango Kiwi Blossom, Carl and his Berry Chocolate Bouquet would be the buzz of the office from lunch until at least the close of business, maybe even the following morning. The gift not only fit the edible requirement Christy had set for her fat lover’s anniversary present, the flower aspect would also solidify her position as the male in their heterosexual relationship. In her days of loneliness and despair, Christy was often charmed by the emasculation of men. Neutering those with which she was romantically involved to be even more fulfilling. She would even carry and deliver the bouquet herself to Carl’s office, further demonstrating her manliness. No Mexican delivery man with a wife and three kids to feed was going to steal this moment away from her.

"You can't come into the office without an appointment," the threateningly beautiful receptionist said in lieu of a greeting.

"Excuse me? Don't be so rude. I come bearing gifts!" Christy opened the dismal hospital blue bag covering the somewhat still fresh arrangement of chocolate covered berries, pineapples, cantaloupe and grapes. The receptionist, who had been receiving expensive and imaginative gifts on a consistent basies since the removal of her braces at 10, didn’t blink.

“You can leave that here. Who is it for?”

“Carl Creighton. That’s C-R-E”

“Carl? Are you sure? There’s a Carly in Accounting. And a Charlotte in Data Entry.”

To be continued

walkng

2008-08-06T15:14:00.000-07:00

I walked from school (68th and Lexington) to work (17th and 8th) today. It was supposed to be fun, but I ended up walking through Times Square and all the people were starting to drive me crazy. At least when you're walking through a crowd you have the option of changing crowds and staring at people as you pass them by, unlike the train, where you're stuck with the same crowd and staring causes people to stare back for duration of your trip. Pretty deep, huh? I was all sweaty after. Being sweaty at work is really fun.

Shared my fruit with coworkers. Changed my Facebook status to In a Relationship just so that my coworkers would think the fruit was from my imaginary girlfriend/boyfriend.

cats

2008-08-05T18:59:00.000-07:00

My cats (Icky and Scout) won't stop fighting with eachother. I need to get them neutered, but I can't find any place in new york that does that. Bob Barker would be ashamed. Well, places probably do that, but it's such a normal thing that the websites don't mention it. I wonder how much it costs. Anyway, I found this website - The Cat Practice - which, among other things, says it will agree to take care of your cat for the rest of its life should you pass away. What does The Cat Practice ask for in return? An insurance policy for $10,000 dollars with The Cat Practice as the sole beneficiary.

Several clients have expressed concern over the years about what would happen to their beloved cats in the event of their death. Often, the family or friends can be counted on to maintain the health and happiness of the pets, but sometimes there is no one available who could be trusted to provide the same loving care that the owners do.
Over the years we have agreed to take on that responsibility for some of our clients. A possible solution to ease your mind would be the following, which you should discuss with Dr. Sullivan. The Cat Practice / Dr. Sullivan will agree to assume all responsibilities for the cat’s care for life – feeding and medical expenses. As you realize, cats generally live 15-17 years, so expenses could easily mount up. If we agree to be your cat’s guardians, we would require you to take out a $10,000.00 life insurance policy with Dr. Sullivan / The Cat Practice as sole beneficiary. We will keep your cats here until we can find them a first class, loving home and assume financial responsibility for their medical care, for the rest of their lives, even if they are residing in a private, adopted home. Obviously, it is easier to adopt out cats who do not have the risk of costing their new guardians a lot of money due to chronic or catastrophic illness. As well as Dr. Sullivan’s agreement, you should leave careful instructions with neighbors or relatives or even directions in your home that in the event of your demise, the cats should be taken directly to The Cat Practice. So, to this end we offer this service as an option for you to consider.
I hope this is helpful. As I said, I have had many clients who were very troubled that their dear cats might end up at the ASPCA or other agencies which do Euthanize unwanted pets. So, as to this end, we offer this service as an option for you to consider.
- The Cat Practice
http://www.thecatpractice.com/felinehealth/whathappens.htm

What if your cat dies right after you die? What if The Cat Practice just cashes your check and throws the cat away? You wouldn't know because you'd be dead. You could assign a member of your family to constantly check up on Dr. Sullivan to make sure he's taking care of the cat, but this member of the family would probably be more inclined to take care of the cat for you for less than $10,000. This makes me sad, especially since we're in New York and there are a ton of rich old ladies that would buy into this sort of thing.

6:53PM Treat

2008-08-05T15:53:00.001-07:00

7 strawberries, 5 covered in chocolate. Two pineapple daisies half dipped in chocolate, one canteloupe ball, one tiny pineapple daisy not dipped in chocolate.

cellular work teams; vision and future platform migration; re-engineered customers; services reconfigurations and additional up-selling components.

Reason I'm going to move back to Minnesota #1: Radio stations ask you to play on their shows without even being prompted, unlike in New York where you can email radio people constantly and get absolutely nowhere.

We Shared a Fly

2008-08-05T09:44:00.000-07:00

We Shared a Fly

We shared a fly
Flew from your knee unto mine
That's all
Two strangers on a train
Never to see eachother again
But we'll always have that fly

Beats spending $1000 on a website

2008-08-04T16:36:00.000-07:00

I'm going to write a book about Phyllis Wheatley called, "Phyllis Wheatley on a Hill" in which a 24 year-old white male from Minnesota living in New York begins having weird dreams about Phyllis Wheatley right after moving to Spanish Harlem. Phyllis Wheatley, for those who don't know, was a slave from Gambia that was taught English by her slave master's daughter and began to write her own poetry in the style of John Milton and Alexander Pope. Some people, mostly white, see Wheatley as the first African-American poet because she was black and wrote poetry. Other people, such as black people that take pride in the African-American cannon and don't think a slave that was simply parroting the words of her oppresors should be considered the beginning of what would become a very distinct black narrative voice, think otherwise. My book won't really discuss this stuff. It's just going to be about the 24 year old guy and maybe mention once in a while that he has dreams about Phyllis Wheatley. Sort of the way Phyllis Wheatley never talks about her experiences as a slave, but only mentions the fact that she was a slave, usually to accentuate some other point, like national patriotism or her Christian faith.

Today was a very poetic and sentimental day. Spent 10 minutes dismantling an edible bouquet that was sent to me at work in error. It had already been sitting there for 2 hours before I got to it, and since the tag said to refrigerate at least 4 hours after receiving, I decided to just keep it. My name was on the tag, so maybe it wasn't sent in accident. I kept it. Under my desk. For 4 more hours. And then, when I thought everyone was gone, I brought it to the kitchen and tore it apart. It's going to be in my book and may already be in a book, since it was such a sentimental and poetic moment. It looked so beautiful before I started taking it apart. Daisy-shaped pineapple slices dipped half in chocolate. Chocolate covered strawberries. Grapes. Cantaloupe. All the fruit were on these little spears stuck in styrofoam at the bottom of a basket masked by lettuce, so that it looked like a bouquet and not just a bunch of fruit on spears. By the time I even got a chance to look at it, 2 hours after it should have been refrigerated, the chocolate was beginning to melt and were sweating the moisture of the surrounding fruit. Dew.

I slid all the fruit off of the spears and placed them into a bag to keep for later. The end result was a basket not of fake flowers but of cold, sad looking spikes. If I ever have a bad break up with someone and go completely psychotic, I'm going to send them an edible bouquet without the fruit, just the spikes. I wonder if they'd charge extra for that.

The blue bag of fruit looked like a morgue bag and weighed about 8 pounds. A dead baby. That was chopped up into little daisy shaped pieces and dipped in chocolate.

Spent the weekend practicing with people. I think it was one of the most fun weekends I've had in quite a while. Sang and played with Mimi LaValley on Saturday at her space in Queens. I played a tiny little Casio (or something like it) keyboard on her songs while she played drums. It was like the Carpenters, only we're not related and she wrote the songs. I don't think Karen Carpenter wrote the songs, right? Sunday I sang with Rachel Epp in Central Park. Some German guy on a bicycle said she had a great voice. I agree. We wrote this song together, with a melody very similar to Amazing Grace.

Central Park, All the white people
Sunday morning run
Under a tree with the rotten apples
Searching for a gun

The sun is bright, the day is light
Until the night has come

Central Park, All the white people
Sunday morning run

The grass is wet but it's better than dirt
Singing songs for fun
We hear there's a law, you can take off your shirt
Especially if you're a nun

The sun is bright, the day is light
Until the night has come

The grass is wet but it's better than dirt
Singing songs for fun

After I ditched Rachel, I practiced with Brant for about 2 hours. We're playing a show at the Rodeo Bar on Tuesday, August 19th for 3 hours, so this was good practice. Learned new songs. Redid the old ones. Then went to Cilantro and had two margaritas with him and Deana. Told them about Phyllis Wheatley.