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i Shawn!  I just turned on the radio for the first time in many moons.  This is a result of a article in the paper today that said that record sales were down and so everyone's looking for the next big thing, but no one knows what it is. The article mentioned one band I liked and said the radio stations are more open minded now. Right now it's on 91X.  It's some kind of R&B soul tune. Hm. I trapped and caught a fab phrase from the article: "When grunge was big, a lot of stations niched-out on grunge...".  What would this sentence mean to someone in 1911?

 

ATTRACTED TO THE BRIGHT- PURPLE TONGUE, DRIPPING WITH SWEET NECTAR -- THE INSECT THEN  MOVES UPWARD TOWARD THE LIGHT STREAMING IN THROUGH THE TRANSLUSCENT WINDOW PANES ON THE TOP OF THE HOOD.   ONCE INSIDE, THE INSECT BECOMES CONFUSED BY THE ARRANGEMENT OF CHAMBERS, AND IS UNABLE TO ALIGHT UPON ANY SURFACE DUE TO THE EXTREMELY SLIPPERY, POLISHED SURFACES.  IT EVENTUALLY BECOMES EXHAUSTED AND FALLS DOWN THE TRUMPET,  BECOMING ENSNARED IN THE RETRORSE HAIRS THAT CONVERT ALL WRIGGLING ATTEMPTS TO ESCAPE INTO AN INEVITABLE DOWNWARD SLIDE, FINALLY DROPPING INTO THE PIT OF DIGESTIVE FLUIDS THAT GATHER AT THE BASE OF THE PLANT.

G

eez, you guys are totally rude. You could have told me, "Hey we're focusing on wedding preps on our SD visit and we probably won't have time to see you," and that would be totally cool. But what you did is most definitely uncool. It's not like you.

I

called Melissa and asked her what she was doing for Easter. Melissa said she was going to a lunch for Christian singles at her church on Easter.  That was interesting as I myself have never been to a church that has any functions for singles. Anyway, I had to do something other than sit around by myself all evening. So I went ahead and went to the performance art pot-luck that I told you about at the Starve Theatre of El Campo Ruse on Saturday night. Now that's a happening place. I wish you could have come. It was a four-hour weirdness fest extravaganza.  You can bring a performance, food, or cash.  There was rice, beans and coffee.  Candlelit tables. And a real mish-mash assortment of characters unlike any I've ever seen:

• A folksy retro-nova-poetry group consisting of guitarist with pigtails Teresa, a lead poet woman in a purple dress and stockings (Mary Leary), and a dude. All played guitar. Sometimes in tune. Sometimes everyone in a different key for effect. I think I might have been flirting with Teresa, she was cute and came and sat next to me but I was paralyzed by my stupidity. I always feel like I shouldn't talk when music is playing.

• A hip black chick in dreadlocks that did a great lyric poetry set on such topics and Industry (N-das, N-das, N-das. N-das-tree. Where's my job?! N-das...).

• A country western group with singer/lead guitar Willy Kyoti, his companion Carol-Ann (a very Appalachian dressed beautiful happy woman with waist-length long blond hair, 6'0", knee length cowboy boots, long dress, and electric mandolin), and Ed the bass player. Songs about a women who was "like a whip-o-will, yes she was like a mountain sunset", about "legalize-it", about "damn-the-BLM for taking my land away". (My favorite from a musical and lyric point of view.)

• A guy with a big tummy wearing a custom, form-fitting shiny-black rubber domination outfit with chains, hand-cuffs, and whips, beating himself while eruditely reciting the philosophical benefits of sadomasochistic homosexual sex.

• A group consisting of a guy playing an electric guitar with an electric vibrator/sex-toy through a fuzz-box while his emaciated androgynous girlfriend paraded around wearing dark glasses and shouting into a telephone handset and then threw the telephone on the floor and blasted it to smithereens with a trio of deftly placed shots from her 44-caliber semi-automatic handgun. (This was my favorite piece from an experimental point of view. It reminded me of the Settel and Lippe piece at Miller's first technology concert.)

N

ot only that but the beans were really really good--the best beans I've had. Wha'd they put in those beans anyway? A good mix of different beans. Big beans, little beans. Yum. And just wander up to the buffet table for more coffee. I got totally wired and pumped up and then came home and wrote music for the first time in a long while. It was really inspiring. The mysterious Iraqi guy I've told you about was there with his seven-foot tall reggae pal.

A

lmost every group had a piece dealing with how close they'd been to suicide, which I found to be very interesting.  It seems there's a certain genius and true originality that comes with bipolar disorder (manic-depressiveness). I think that it's possible that some heavy-metal/alternative suicide music could be therapeutic, actually preventing suicides. I think the problem's also partially hormonal -- I'm thinking of teen angst here.

I

 tried adding grape jelly to my eggs after church but they didn't turn green. So it must depend on some ingredient only found in some types of grape jelly. What brand do you use?

A

fter returning from church on Easter, I talked to "Tommy", a beggar on the corner. He told me a joke that involved a guy falling off a ladder and breaking his pecker the night before his wedding and having to get a splint for it.  He said he lived in a shed down the street--the owner let him stay there in return for occasional chores.  He said he he smoked pot because he had too many thoughts and it was the only thing that calmed him down enough to focus and function.  His girlfriend was a blond surfer street-chick. He said he avoided the soup kitchens because they put psycho-active mood-disorder control drugs (he named a few) into the food. Downtown was "too square". It was full of "psychiatrists and social-workers".

T

hat's all for today. There's nothing new on the radio, by the way. It's the same old dull stuff. No wonder no one wants to buy. Bye.