THORNS OF LIFE!

http://www.myspace.com/thethornsoflife

SQUIRTGUN RETURNS!

My punk band Squirtgun will be doing a few shows here in the US this week before heading to Europe for a couple of weeks worth of shows in July. See the very short list of our US dates. I hope some of you will try and make it out:

1.

6/24/2009 8:00 PM at Reggie’s
2109 South State Street, Chicago, Illinois 60616
Cost: 15.00

with Teen Idols, the Leftovers, and the Green Room Rockers. Advance tickets available at Ticketweb: http://www.ticketweb.com/t3/sale/SaleEventDetail?dispatch=loadSelectionData&eventId=1752304.

2.

6/25/2009 8:00 PM at The Muse
323 Columbia Street, Lafayette, Indiana 47901
Cost: $10 advance, $12 day-of-show.

4 band blow-out with Squirtgun, Teen Idols, the Leftovers, and the Green Room Rockers. Advance tickets: http://www.urgoing.to/SquirtgunTeenIdols

3.

6/27/2009 8:00 PM at Sonar
Baltimore, Maryland

Insubordination Festival
Purchase tickets: http://www.interpunk.com/insubfest09.cfm?&

THE ETERNAL (Bonus Track Version)

New Sonic Youth tomorrow...can't wait.  The guys I roll paint with are in for it.

Currently reading Michael Burkard's Envelope of Night: Selected and Uncollected Poems, 1966-1990.  Really enjoying all the donkeys and fire.  I would, of course.  Also, the whisper and volume, same time.

I'm writing tons and working tons--teaching drawing and (as I said above) rolling paint.  Good thing I have a Master's degree.  Otherwise, I probably couldn't have gotten this job.  What are you doing?  I'd love to know.  That is, if you even exist at all.  You do exist, don't you?

NORTHSIDE TAVERN TONIGHT!

Ice cream truck going by in my life.

Tonight I will play you some songs.

SIDEBROW AND THEN SUM

1) My city poem "Minerva System" went up at Sidebrow today.  Please check it out here.

2) Clearly, your glass dogs...

3) "The arsonist and barista are trading explanations of steam"--Abraham Smith

4) New Sonic Youth song "Sacred Trickster"--reminds me of Goo, which makes for rockin' new listening.

5) I'll be reading this Saturday May 16th at 7PM in Kalamazoo, Michigan for the Poets in Print Series with the marvelous Gina Myers (who I can't wait to hear read) and Roy Seeger (who I haven't met, but am looking forward to meeting).  The reading will take place in Suite 103A of the Park Trades Center at 326 W. Kalamzoo Ave. in downtown Kalamazoo  Doors open at 6:30 reading at 7.  I hope if you're in the area you can make it...

6) especially if your name is Juan Sweeney!

7) Argument.  Electric grid.  Plug in and proceed through each statement's truth value. I can't get away from logic--as much as might like to--and nobody gets away from language.  Thus, nobody gets away from anguish.  From reindeer.  It's a stretch.  Really.  Nobody gets a Way. The question is always what to do with one's hands.

8) I struck out so many times playing baseball as a kid, but somehow always in the last game of the season I connected--ground rule double and an RBI.  It was as if freed from ever having to swing a bat again, finally I was able to hit and not cry.  That was one time, and another I homered.  It felt good to hammer with the sun looking on.  A boy swings a bat and hits a ball. Now drunk on a rock in grave outer space, I marvel at connections of any kind at all.  The question is always what to do.  Or argue.  Or to feel something vaulted.  The wind up, then the pitch black.  Parents on the bleechers and all the kids screaming.

9) POEM

Today very birdsong,

sun out, no damage--

"I'm getting sleepy daddy"

Reading Philip Whalen

Dissolve me in water but let the man
speak: "I keep trying to live
as if this world were heaven."

10) is nothing.

RECORDED/RECORDINGS

My band Travel's album RECORDED/RECORDINGS w/ liner notes by Dean Young and Laurie Capps is now on iTunes.  Please check it out!

TONIGHT TONIGHT!

If you're in Cincinnati tonight, please check this out.  It's really not to be missed.

The Moor Poetry Series presents a reading by:

Joshua Beckman
& Adam Clay

Tuesday April 14th

6:30 PM

Reed Gallery (5th Floor, DAAP Building, University of Cincinnati)

Please contact 253.3503 or evancommander@mac.com for more information.


*****

Joshua Beckman was born in New Haven, Connecticut. His books include Your Time Has Come, two collaborations with Matthew Rohrer, & Take It. He lives in Seattle and New York.

Joshua Beckman’s page at Poets.org: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/381

Joshua Beckman reading “The Karate Chop of Love”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R70778g8DY

Adam Clay is the author of The Wash. His second book, A Hotel Lobby at the Edge of the World, is forthcoming from Milkweed Editions. He co-edits Typo Magazine and lives in Michigan.

Adam Clay’s website: http://www.adamclay.org/

Adam Clay reading “Goodbye to All That, the Birds Included”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WucBOIIZ5WQ