Bad Jacket Issue 4

EPISODE 4 A NEW HOPE

Letter from the Editors

Dear Bad Jacket, Two years ago you helped our past selves in the Undergraduate Wars. Now our current selves, laden with wage slavery and adult anxiety, beg you to help us in our struggle against the Empire. We regret that we are unable to convey our request to you in person, but our printer has fallen under attack and we are afraid our mission to see you in person has failed. We have placed information vital to the survival of adult life into the memory systems of this zine unit. Our friends and readers will know how to retrieve it. You must see this zine safely delivered to them, here and abroad.

This is our most desperate hour. Help us, Bad Jacket.

You’re our only hope.

May the force be with you, The Bitch-Ass Editors (?)

P.S. We need you. Submit up to 5 documents to badjacket94@gmail.com - for updates on issues and events find us on Facebook and Instagram @BadJacketSTL Special Thanks to The Stone Spiral & The Livery Company

Cover art by Anna Wermuth 2

Bad Jacketers

Phil Berwick (21) is the man responisble for the Merferds crawling all over STL. Marcia Camp (12) is a local artist, herbologist, and hermit.

Raven Carter (8) Here’s the nudes you asked for Alex Cunningham (48) is a St. Louis based musician and visual artist.

Melissa Darch (33) is a would be writer if she weren't a would-be writer.

Katryn Dierksen (8) will self-exile to a moon crater if mission Bad Jacket fails.

Jenni Desuza (42) My feet are on the ground. In this world, at this day and age; we are stretched in all directions- I feel it all but at my core is divinity and gratitude. Shane Devine (7) Keep your eyes open and your ears cleaned for all new OPERA BELL BAND releases, the rest of the calendar year and beyond.

Lana Dvorak (5) Texas native, rat loving actor.

Eleanore Marie Estelle (27) is a writer who strives to create beauty from her struggle with chronic physical and mental illness, in order to raise awareness and to help others like her see through art that they have a place in the world.

Fred Friction (22) is a celebrity janitor in South St. Louis, and a proud member of Alcoholics Unanimous.

Gregory C. Hartl (28) I'm a printmaker with a love of comics almost eclipsed by a love of music; uniting them is a transcendental experience that I continuously attempt to convey.

Tyler TwoPints (6) Born and raised in a desolate lead mining town. Currently traveling around with a gypsy jazz band and plotting the peoples' revolution with PYO-STL. Cops are our enemy.

Abbie R. Finley (17) S T L Jay Fleming (25) is originally from Mississippi but have

lived in St. Louis since 2000 and you can see my work at atomicsurreal.com Gecko the Mad Scientist (11) is a south St. Louis native who paints the vibrations surrounding him - ranging from music to waterfalls to cicadas - to achieve his signature Thumbprint style.

Dwayne Kennedy (7) is an STL photographer.

Elise Kehle (9) is a Marxist-Leninist "Tankie" feminist, gamemaster and bassist active in the Communist Party of the United States of America, and proud, dutiful wife of Bad Jacket regular Jessie Kehle. .

Jessie Kehle (41) has a wife that's way sexier and way more Communist than all of you--and oh yeah, and she's also an MFA student.

Mackenzie King (20) is currently pursuing a BFA in Illustration with an emphasis on pot smoking.

Denmark Laine (29) is a St. Louis poet, playwright and music critic and is the published author of "Smalltown Kings", a collection of short fiction. Jim Lemons (12) is an amateur photographer just out having fun.

Cierra Lowe (26) is armed with fearlessness and a gift for writing words as sharp as an arrow.

Benjamin Luczak (48), given the opportunity, would consume media every hour of every day, unceasingly. He's a good boy.

Lex Malaschak (6) likes honey, gallons of coffee, and Guy Fieri. Liz Miller (24) is a St. Louis native, but she is currently running away to Ohio to start a new life (aka to pursue a PhD in English). Lucy Miller (24), "Do you think the devil knows he's the devil?"

Jack Mohrman (36) STL Native | Liberal trash cuck | Craft beer evangelist Johnny Mundo (44) is a boy, nothing more, nothing less.

Peter Myers (45), at a glorious 23 years of age, currently resides

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in Kirkwood, Missouri, enjoys talking music, and would really love to catch up with you sometime or chill or something, ya know, like hit him up okay?

RC Patterson (40) is gonna be at Venice Cafe on Monday for open mic night .

Mary Reynolds (35): dancing queen who sits alone in coffee shops contemplating Tillich's theories on being versus nonbeing.

Rosie Rotter (21) is a speech language pathologist who loves to talk about feelings. Payten Samuels (18) is most likely a human, definitely an artist and geographer.

Andrew Schrumpf (47) aka Fokusgrim thinks of his grandma every time he takes a picture.

Emma Seidel (14), “Everything looks bad in the morning, except ma Versace.” Todd Smith (51) is a local writer who maintains a keen interest in things geo-political, plays golf, likes to cook, does the dishes, waits tables, and tries to keep up with the ever shifting shapes and discontents of our Brave New Weird World Order.

Zay Starling (13) sent the nudes you asked for.

G.M.H. Thompson (38) is a musician who performs under the name 'Robby Lee Oswald' as the lead singer and rhythm-guitarist of the St. Louis proto-punk band, 'Thee Oswalds'.

Insert Aiko Tsuchida (4) rectally. Chelsea VanHouten (46), "Home is just another song in a Buffalo basemen."

Anna Wermuth (cover) is an STL zinester, musician, photographer, and scientist shacking up in Colorado. Zadee Williams (23) writes depressing poems...sometimes.

Dan Wright (34) is a Midwestern son who loves and loathes the red brick town that surrounds him, he is also the author of the poetry collection Working Bohemian’s Blues and Other Poems and the upcoming Bad Jacket Book, Murder City Special.

Mark is trying to make a point on Facebook. He types with both hands, panting.

Mark: [Sarcastically, to no one] “Yeesh! What’s the friggin deal with politics!”

He gives up, exhausted, rests, tries again.

Mark: You may now seek other sources of stimulation. Good day.

Enter Jesse.

Jesse: Do you really want to know?

Mark (giving up again): At my very best I could believe that I do, but in reality I never will.

Jesse: The media and the government are trying to delegitimize the President because someone who is not in their club has moved into the top spot.

Mark posts a meme.

Mark: This documentary is lost on me.

Jesse: That’s okay, I spend more time than I should researching these people. It makes for a good story. (He reflects). I haven’t been into it in years, though.

Jesse breaks into a hearty laugh which he immediately stifles, his hand pressed to his pubis, his face contorted.

Jesse: One daren’t even laugh anymore.

Mark: Dreadful privation.

Mark: Well? Shall we do something else?

Jesse: Yes, let’s do something else.

They do not move.

Both exit with their privilege intact.

4

Sex happens when the curves of my body come alive to match our desires. Power seeps out of my pores alongside my sweat

Sex happens when who I am

as my hips hollow out the

dances with who I am becom-

space in between my longing

ing. All the while, who I’m

and your hunger.

afraid I am is watching from the sidelines.

I am made of satin and gold.

The moans that escape me are

To be a woman.

holy hymns.

To be a light that never wants

I’ll make you forget your name

to go out.

and where you came from.

Notice I am not talking about

You’ll feel like you’re drowning

love, although it can take part

until you gasp and inhale the

if she chooses.

sweetest, purest air you’ve

But do not for a second think

ever tasted.

that my satin and gold become

Mountain air.

tainted if I want to make art

Moss on the stones at the bot-

with my hips and without love.

tom of a river bed.

My body is not who I am.

An explosion that puts you

Therefore, she is wild.

back together again.

5

A city so light on her feet has never felt so heavy.

Just today, she chattered loudly in a sing-song voice of pedestrian pitter-patter and art installations.

Tonight, she’s reduced to a lonesome moan.

Night Train Express, her sword sheathed in brown paper. Her bottle half-empty, her wails whole-hearted I itch to navigate another midnight with her.

I wretch at reality, however: she will descry me once again, but our duets will never be as dynamic.

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I collect every bit of glass that wedges into my tire tread. Why? Some lady loses her diamond earring or the rock pops offa her engagement ring, rolls into the street and I roll over it and the tires pick up little bits of glass along with it.

I check under every seat cushion for a hidden hundred-dollar bill.

I know if I ever hit it big I’d stash bills all over, everywhere.

Behind the wallpaper, under bird baths, in the department store, I’d stuff the empty pockets of display suits, I really would.

All over everywhere for the keen-eyed pinchers like me.

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MAN IN A BOX

presented by ANNONYArts at Satori (3003 Locust Street) ran May 4-13, 2017. An experimental act in every notion, MAN IN A BOX is a collaboration between Tom Brady (director and resident of the Satori), Monica Newsam, and Zlatko Cosic. The show features Brady’s intense choreography and his original score, full of fuzzing and buzzing. The set consists of a giant web of netting, pegged in place by 15’ poles, which Brady and Newsam climb through like children in a jungle gym, but with the ease and exactness of trapeze artists. Onto the web is projected a feed of Zlatko Cosic’s film.

And there is, of course, a man-sized box. The show starts in total darkness until Brady is revealed with a nasty and primal look on his face, at which point Newsam pops suddenly onto his shoulders, insinuating a unity between the characters: a primordial partnership of masc. and femme.

The performance reveals a sensuality and also a deadly entrapment between these halves of perhaps one psyche. All in all, MAN IN A BOX is a riveting exploration of the confines of the human mind and linear reality.

THE VERGE presented by ANNONYArts at Satori (3003 Locust Street) ran July 13-16, 2017. Written by Susan Glaspell, directed and produced by Lucas Reilly, and performed by The Larks--The Verge was first performed in 1920, and was written off as experimental drivel at the time for its feminist conclusions, but is now revived as an exemplary rendering of the maddening experience of an intensely intelligent and industrious woman ensnared by prescribed roles of wife and mother. The play takes place inside of the Claire Archer’s (Annie Barbour) greenhouse. Claire, a mad scientist / botanist, has been cultivating new plant species, including two humanoid lady-plants personified through whimsical contemporary dance by two Larks (Lana Dvorak & Marissa Beccard), and is working on her most groundbreaking creation yet. The play spirals out into an absolute marathon of acting for the leading lady as we venture with her into desparation as her husband , lover, soul mate, sister, and daughter all fail to understand her passion for her work.

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A thriving Gay community emerged in Berlin in the late 19th-early 20th century. German law still condemned homosexuality, but many factors emerged making things easier for the culture to prosper. Public crossdressing was even legal in Berlin, as long as you obtained a permit (ah, my lawful, lawful people- you can’t make this stuff up). This community experienced a strong upswing during the latter half of the Weimar Republik years, further cementing Berlin’s reputation as the center of Leftism in Germany, which in turn led the Nazis to assign Goebbels to lead their campaigns there personally. Wearing down the strength of the Left’s stronghold was critical to the strategy that brought the Nazis to power, and they of course succeeded. But too often we forget how vibrant the Gemeinschaft (community) Berlin was with tolerance, creativity, and social awareness. Among the important happenings was the first open foray of the LGBT community into film, which produced famous Gay influenced works like Der Blaue Engel (The Blue Angel), but also produced the first film with lesbian protagonists, Madchen in Uniform (Girls in Uniform). It’s actually not at all as trashy as the name implies.

Madchen in Uniform is a strong film about forbidden affection, and social disturbance in an unfeeling society.

It passes the Bechdel test (do two or more women characters share a conversation about something other than a man?) with flying colors- indeed there are no men in the film. Briefly, teenager Manuela von Meinhardis arrives at a typically strict repressive boarding/finishing school, has all her books taken, and has a hard time fitting into classes and learning the strict regimen of bible study.

Fortunately, she is assigned to the dorm run by the one sympathetic teacher (who is if anything 6 years older than her charges), Fraϋlein von Bernburg, who believes the children do better if they trust their supervisors, and are in need of emotional support. For this reason, and the kiss on the forehead she gives each girl, she is wildly popular among the students and unpopular among the teachers.

After several tender conversations with Manuela, FvB begins kissing her on the mouth (which Manuela passionately returns in a cinematic first), and Manuela explains to her that she has become jealous of the other girls, that she wants to be with Fraϋlein von Bernburg alone. FvB explains that she cannot make exceptions, but gives Manuela one of her petticoats, apparently as a token of their special affection.

After a successful school play, the girls are rewarded with spiked punch. Manuela becomes drunk and loudly proclaims her love for Fraϋlein von Bernburg, and discloses the gift of the petticoat, resulting in her imprisonment and eventual suicide attempt, with Fraulein von Bernburg forced to resign over the scandal.

In this setting, almost any form of affection could be read as subversive, as it is defying the emotionless structure of the society in which the girls are confined. The words schwul or lesbian are never used, but it is clear that the relationship between Fraϋlein von Bernburg and Manuela is forbidden for both its obviously lesbian overtones, and the mere presence of affection itself in a situation which prohibits it.

To our eyes of course, glamorizing a teacher-student romance is not the best way of advocating for sexual permissiveness, and is troubling due to the power differential and potential for abuse, but the film seems to attempt to address this by making the age dif-

9

ference seem small enough to be inconsequential, and it’s easy to see this being part of the reason for Fraulein von Bernburg’s dismissal. While this still renders the film somewhat problematic, let’s work with what we have here in discussing the film’s messages.

Early in the film we are introduced to the headmistress (or Frau Oberin) talking about the need for the girls to be emotionless to be good “Soldatenstochtern und, mit Willen des Gott, so wie Soldatenmutter”- Soldier’s daughters and with god’s will, Soldier’s mothers. This is showing the goals of the militaristic state here, the investment in futureist terms, similar to Edelman’s Ponzi scheme as children must be produced for the welfare of the state’s military aims, but existing children, at least girls, are systematically undervalued as we see in the film. People are only important in serving the state, which is interpreted here as either being or producing soldiers. The message of individual love and fulfillment against a backdrop of a society striving to exist only for war remains powerful.

The question of “outing” can also be addressed by this film, even though it wasn’t to be employed as a tactic for some decades to come. Manuela discloses her partner’s love for her publicly, resulting in tragedy for them both. While many in the Gay community (including contempories of this film) have used forcible outing as a tool to show straight society how much of its makeup is comprised of those it undervalues as well as to compel solidarity within the oppressed group, here it is played as a negative, only arising out of Manuela’s drunkenness. This definitely puts the film in the less radical camp when viewed modernly, but we must remember that the cast and filmmakers had good reason not to expose their comrades- the Berlin Gay community would be marked for death within 18 months of the film’s release, while the author, Christa Winsloe emigrated and then died fighting for the French Resistance in 1944.

This brings us to a final point of the film- its optimism that Gays could eventually win acceptance and support from straights. Towards the end of the film, during Manuela’s confinement, the other students finally decide to rebel, and go find her; whatever she and Fraulein von Bernburg have done they regard her as their comrade, and refuse to allow her to suffer alone any longer. They find her clinging to the top of the school’s needlessly big, dramatic stairwell, about to jump. Some run to pull her back over the top (spoiler- they succeed), while one rings the school’s alarm bell- an amusingly conformist gesture calling for help from the authorities, trusting that they will do something I suppose- and during this scene, Bernburg is telling Frau Oberin that what she calls sin is actually love in a thousand different forms. At the end of this scene, both Bernburg and FO run to the site of Manuela’s attempted suicide and see what the repressive ostracizing has wrought. In the film’s final shot, Frau Oberin, clearly horrorstruck at the damage done by her repressive policies, walks shakily away from the camera. This suggests such a hopeful message, that those reinforcing hetero-patriarchy will eventually see reason, that human camaraderie can transcend prejudice and allow the LGBT community to live and love in peace, and homophobic laws and rules will be regarded as shameful attacks on human rights.

This was what the Berlin Gay community was thinking and saying in 1931. Some 30,000 of their numbers would be murdered and hundreds of thousands more imprisoned in the coming decade.

My comrade Sam Borgos said it best- they made a movingly effective holocaust movie 18 months before Nazizeit began.

They just made the ending hopeful, and in so doing, inadvertently made the film that much darker to us now.

10

11

12

The mirror sees all It sees my imperfections and flaws Whether it be in the bathroom

The mirror sees all

Or in the school hall

As I sit on the floor

I wish I had love

It never talks back

Or tells me I’m wrong

And knew how to cope

It always listens

You mirror my image

When I sing a sad song

You mock my shame Damn you mirror

The mirror sees all

This isn’t a game

It catches my tears I cry and I scream

The mirror sees all

But it never shows fear

It holds all my secrets

After I’m done crying

I can confide in it

And wipe the tears away

Only I can see it

I put on a smile

When I’m done in the mirror

And go about my day

All my feelings are gone I walk out with a smile Even though I’m alone.

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A FOREIGNER’S GUIDE TO LOVE

by EMMA SEIDEL

Iktsuarpok, v. [eek-tsoo-AHR-pohk] Origin: Inuit Lit., to repeatedly go check to see if an expected visitor has arrived or not.

When your visitor never arrived, you gave up your tendency to search for him, or to itksuarpok. You gave up on looking for someone, since all it returned was disappointment and further stress. So, you simply stop looking without so much as the hope someone will look for you. Coincidentally, your expected visitor was not looking for his visitor anymore either, yet somehow you found each other.

, roman. “koi no yokan,” n. [koy-no-yo-cahn] Origin: Japanese The sense two people get upon first meeting that they will fall in love.

Note: not to be confused with “love at first sight,” as that implies the subjects are already in love. This concept is more subtle; more of a premonition of romance than “love at first sight.”

Upon your first meeting, on a Saturday on the subway, going places yet nowhere in specific (see: vacilando), when the two of you first met, you both got a sense of koi no yokan. Or was it your first meeting? You thought you recognized him from somewhere, but you decided either you had never seen him before, or you had possibly seen him but had not made any conscious memory of him. A lot of people rode the subway. Or maybe, you thought, you had known him in a past life. You were thinking all these things when he sat down next to you. You were reading a very good book that you didn’t like, and you hadn’t looked up from it since the time you sat down to the time he asked if the seat next to you was taken. You initially smiled, nodded a little and said “yes,” thinking he asked if he could sit there. He didn’t take your words literally; instead he understood your meaning, murmured a thanked you and sat down. After a moment, one in which he didn’t look at his cell phone once, he looked down at your book and asked if you liked it.

Mamihlapinatapei, n. [mah-MI-lah-pin-yah-tah-pae] Origin: Yaghan A look shared between two people. This look bears the knowledge that both parties wish to begin something, but neither wish to be the one to initiate it.

The look you and your visitor shared, when you looked up at him after he asked about your book, was nearly a mamihlapinatapei. However, while you were hesitant, you began to feel electricity and wished to initiate something. “No,” you told him, looking into his eyes. “I hate it.” He paused, then smiled a little and looked down at his hands, briefly breaking the eye contact. He looked back up and told you he hated it, too. So pretentious. You were both impressed with yourselves

14

and each other and when the subway stopped and many people cleared off, he didn’t get up and move to an empty row, but stayed next to you (see: kaapshljmurslis). You asked where he was going, and when he responded that he wasn’t going anywhere, you knew some things were about to change. Change usually scared you, but you decided you were about to become a risk taker, a gambler; it was time to start living. So, when you let your knee briefly brush against his and told him you were also going nowhere, but you know a great little frozen yogurt shop in the middle of nowhere, he just smiled and said that sounded marvelous.

Forelsket, n. [f-’REL-skit] Origin: Norwegian The feeling one gets when first falling in love; the euphoria of new love.

When you both first started learning everything about each other and falling in love, you both were overcome with a sense of forelsket. You thought no other relationship could possibly be as exciting as yours. You felt you were already in love after your first few meetings. When you first began talking, you thought the two of you could not be more similar: you had the same interests and tastes, you grew up under similar circumstances – soon, you found out you both had a similar birthmark on your right inner thighs. You thought it must be fate (see: 緣分, roman. yuanfen) since everything seemed to be going perfectly. You connected seamlessly and got to know each other very well; you thought, more than some couples who had known each other for decades. Getting to know each other this thoroughly is when you discovered your differences. Simply, while you shared interests and backgrounds, your personalities were opposites. You only took risks when you had nothing to lose; he took risks when he could lose everything. He had a quick temper and you were slow to forgive. He was the type to treat a red light like a stop sign if nobody else was near. You were the type not to cross at a cross walk if the sign said not to, even if no cars were in sight. Because of these differences, among others, you had little arguments and disagreements, but you always said the little tiffs did no damage to the relationship, but instead simply helped you learn more about each other. You agreed the disagreements brought you even closer. 미운정, roman. “miunjeong,” n. [mee-oon-jung] Origin: Korean (Note: this entry pertains to 미운정. For disambiguation, see 정 (jeong), or the Korean culture-bound concept of love, encompassing many different types of feelings, including affection, friendship, kinship, et cetera).

A type of love or connection that forms between two people who argue often.

The connection the two of you felt was similar to the reverse of miunjeong.

Miunjeong is a connection grown out of the arguments of two people, but in your case, the arguments grew out of the connection. Though you both felt closer after your dramatic make-ups, the arguments were frequent, and since you intuitively knew each other so well you knew exactly how to push the other’s buttons.

15

Though he was very tender at times (see: cafune), and you loved him to death (see: roman. “ya’aburnee”), at other times he was terribly sarcastic and biting, and when he purposely started saying things that he knew would upset you, you started to wonder about the relationship. You were not so callous as to think you did not say cutting things to him as well; instead, the distinction was you knew he purposely pushed your buttons to hurt you. He would criticize things he knew you were tender about under the guise of teasing, like your slow comebacks (see: l’esprit d’escalier) or your bad driving skills. You thought you shouldn’t get upset over things like this, but you did nonetheless. When you approached him about these things, he apologized, but pointed out how silly it was to get upset over something like that. Though you definitely loved each other, you told yourself, you both also had to win all the time, for some reason unknown to both of you. It may have been because of your similarities, but neither of you would ever know. All you knew was your arguments were becoming worrisome to you. , roman “kalopsia,” n. [ka-lope-see-ya] Origin: Greek The delusion that things are more perfect and beautiful than they truly are.

Ever so gradually, the forelsket wore off you woke up from the dream. You excruciatingly painfully lost your innocence and began to wonder whether your view of your perfect relationship had been tainted by . You could not deny that you both loved each other deeply, and you still thought your love might be deeper than most, you realized your relationship was not perfect; he was not perfect.

You realized you were not required to forgive him or to put up with him. Shade by shade, you grew distant from him.

Ilunga, n. [ill-oon-ga] Origin: Bantu A person who will forgive something, i.e. abuse, the first time; tolerate it the second time; but not the third time.

You became an illunga.

Saudade, n. [sou-dayd] Origin: Portugese A type of nostalgia or unresolved and constant longing for something that may or may not exist. See also: sehnsucht.

After the two of you broke up, crushing saudade overwhelmed you. You initially had no qualms, but as time passed you regretted breaking it off, since you had once thought the two of you were soul mates, or predestined, or at the very least, supposed to be together. After enough time had passed for you to be able to forget the bad things in the relationship, the sehnsucht turned into a longing for something that did not exist: the perfect relationship you convinced yourself you had had. Hindsight is not 20/20, you discovered. This depression lasted you

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a few months, until the feeling that should have kicked in before you broke up finally arrived.

物の哀れ, roman. “mono no aware,” n. [moh-noh-noh-ah-wah-rae] Origin: Japanese Lit., “an empathy towards things.”

The gradual, sad realization that everything ends, but also the sad understanding and acceptance that this is true for everything in life.

Though you were sad, a new feeling took over: mono no aware. You began to accept that maybe you weren’t meant to be – maybe nothing was meant to be – but people still lived on and lived happily. You faked being happy and began to iktsuarpok again, thinking maybe good things don’t always come to those who wait, but maybe to those who put themselves out there. Or, maybe there was no pattern to life and it just did what it wanted. Either way, you learned to live with the sense of mono no aware, because all the people who have lived do.

From dust you are and to The prodigal son sits before

dust you will return

me

The prodigal son met with a

We met quickly, and he in-

feast in the field

dulged in the feast set in the

Here I am, imposing myself in

field

with each bite

Picking meat from his ca-

My meat on the spit

nines, wiping blood

What talents can you offer at

He’s been caught stealing,

the dinner table?

and who will tell his father

Can you sit on your hind legs

I had run ahead

so I can see you as a wolf?

Feeling my arches and heels

I found your fears while lis-

in the dust

tening to you sleep

and from the pews I remem-

Repenting for your sins, and

bered hearing

you want to be clean

17

house is yours because I can’t afford it. I guess I could move home.”

“No worries. Don’t feel rushed. You have a home.”

Pieces of Conversation

“Thank you, but this is a

Between Ex-Lovers Turned

house. It isn’t a home any-

Roommates Turned ??

more.”

--

“It’s almost march, we

“Why sleep alone when you

should finish that conversa-

can have cuddles?”

tion from December.”

“I love the way you fuck

“Okay. I want to be alone. I

me.”

dread coming home.”

“and I love the way you fuck

“I think we shouldn’t live

me. Goodnight.”

together. “

--

“I never wanted to live to-

“Do you want breakfast?”

gether.”

“Have a good day!”

--

“What do I do now? The

“We agreed to act normal 18

until I move, but you’re too

“I’m sorry that I’m still here.

good of an actor.”

I wish I could just disap-

“Sorry. This is hard for me

pear.”

too, but I want to be alone.”

“Should we still see each

“I love the way you fuck

other after I move?”

me.”

“I don’t know, but I love the

“and I love the way you fuck

way you fuck me.”

me. Goodnight.”

--

--

“I found an apartment! Will

“You don’t know me.”

you help me move?”

“I don’t want to know you.”

“I love the way you fuck me”

“Ouch!”

“Can I be little spoon?”

“I love the way you fuck

“Of course, goodnight.”

me.”

--

“and I love the way you fuck

“Come over. I love the way

me. Goodnight.”

you fuck me.”

--

“I love the way you fuck

“Do you want breakfast?”

me.”

“Have a good day!”

“Should we stop seeing each

--

other?”

“I found a job! I can afford

“I don’t want to.”

an apartment now! I’ll move

“Let’s take three weeks to

ASAP!”

evaluate what this is, if we 19

want it to be, what we want it to be.”

-“I love the way you fuck me.”

“Wait a minute… What happened to three weeks?”

“Oops.”

-“I need a ride from the airport. I’ll pay handsomely…”

“I love the way you fuck me.

Fuck me again, again, again. “ “Wait a minute… What happened to three weeks?”

“Oops.”

“Is there any mail for me here?”

“There’s nothing for you here.”

“There is nothing for me here. Bye.” 20

It blows. It sucks. (How can it do both of those at once? It’s physically impossible?) Emptiness in your chest. Fullness in your head. Heat in your eyes. The hurt just really fucking hurts. The betrayal, the lies. It weighs on you; all the possible scanarios, the doubt, the what ifs. It gets heavier and heavier until it fucking crushes you, and then you’re in the dark. You’ve felt every emotion there is to feel about this THING, and you’re broken. Realization that nothing is or will ever the same sets in, and all you can do is wait. You’re numb. You think acceptance has arrived, and then in the darkness you feel it. The tightness in your throat, the sting in your eyes, and the pain in your heart. The hurt is back and it stays. Days are too short, nights are way too long. Eventually this cold hard reality is accepted, but change is brewing inside you. Like coffee (hey, a cheesy similie). You wake up a few days (probably weeks) later and you drink that damn change latte like it’s your job. You push past the hurt and come out the other side a caffeinated power house of...of...something good. (Hey, a crappy metaphor). Something better than the mess you were even before the real mess began. You get to be your true authentic self, and you’ve learned that’s the one thing that makes all of the bullshit of heartbreak worth it.

21

The dog-eared years, tip-toe past us Time remaining, still untilled Family scrapbook, next to secret blueprints Of what’s left yet to build

And we become our fathers When they’re gone, Like it or not We are pirates, burying treasure And we always mark the spot

Very German,and maternal,“Just get home before dark, okay?”

Aware, somehow, collecting bugs and bruises Takes all goddamn day

Down the street,I hear the sound Of the ice-cream truck Being towed away

22

I am only good at depressing poems, where as yours are

thoughtful and uplifting and kind.

This poem may not be what you expect, but listen and you may

find piece of mind.

Forgiveness means nothing when you repeat the old sin,

learning to begin again and again.

People say actions speak louder than words, but words are like

daggers to the ones we love most.

When I told you I loved you, you were in disbelief. The thought of

‘she hates me’ is all you could think.

All the worries and lies, the tears you would cry-I could never

admit that I wanted to be by your side.

I put you through hell and you saw that the devil was real, she

was in front of you with her knife made of steel.

Piercing your heart, the pain was not far, as you watched her

whole world falling apart.

Sitting alone, stuck in your head; I left you wondering if I was

alive or dead.

Sometimes soft, but never like cotton.

Sometimes sweet, but always turned rotten.

You gave up your life you feel has been forgotten, just to give me a life full of opportunities and options.

These lines may be scattered and a bit of a mess, considerably this is a rough draft at best.

To finish this sadness off with a sorry, and move on to the future we bring without worry.

You love me and I love you.

23

molten red flickers orange, slipping and sloping down the length of an otherwise perfectly good mountain, now ruined, temporarily, to make room for rebirth, renewal, a chance to grow bright sun stalks, taller this time, more majestic than before. a small something, a brownish, yellowish figure, interrupted, pauses, halts, stares, at the onslaught of violence, raw crimson and Jupiter sparks rushing to greet it.

24

such is death as we imagine it, the specter overcoming us in a moment we envision will be so intense that we freeze in fear, unable to greet its majesty. we forget, or we pretend, these final moments are not like the movies. instead: a pebble dropped from a small height into a vast swathe of deepest indigo.

25

I guess you left your heart back home ‘Cause I don’t know you anymore Forgotten in a dusty corner on Arsenal among bottle caps and papers and strings Your mother was never much of a housekeeper, but I guess she did something right.

I’m sure all of your would-be brothers and sisters are jealous of your long blonde hair and your summers in Michigan.

You had an eyelash for every time I wished I was you, framing eyes like UFOs. I never understood how one of the most intelligent people I ever knew could be so goddamn stupid Walking through The Loop, in jelly shoes in the snow with plastic bags tied around your feet.

A vagrant of the universe.

Fortune’s darling.

Your favorite colors were asphalt gray and street paint yellow, And you desecrated your bras in the name of custom costume making.

So, we slept naked beneath seven different types of popcorn plaster stoned and sweet.

Fractals and dinosaurs and Hermann Hesse.

My mind mourns you because when I lost you, I lost some of the most brilliant and fascinating people I’ve ever known.

But my womb scorns you because your math degree didn’t teach you empathy, and your upbringing didn’t punish selfishness.

So, there you are.

A woman like a four-poster bed.

I’ve heard that California has a way of making people forget where they’re from.

So you stay on your side of the country, and I’ll stay on mine where you are now reduced to a handful of sequins, acrylic paint, and bones.

My feet remember how to step around a bedroom like a minefield.

And my hands still smell like graphite and butane.

But my heart hasn’t quite learned how to forgive you because it’ll take up at least two chambers and all of mine are full.

26

My existence is comprised of lovely moments Sprinkled among ruthless pain.

My bones ache as if they are as old as stars The nerves and muscles burn like them, too.

I battle each day with a severe lack of armor; I’ve grown accustomed to losing the fight.

It’s easy to become entangled in misery and sickness, The vicious chronic illness that pulls at my soul.

And yet, at the end of my day, I return to you We converge, and effortlessly You make me forget every single thing that I can’t do.

I lay on your chest Your arms wrapped around my porcelain body Tightly comforting, but gentle not to hurt.

I look up at you, but you don’t see me; Your eyes closed in serene elation.

I listen, each breath dissolving my suffering.

In that moment I am completely convinced That I can do absolutely anything, And my life is perfect.

27

28

This time last year I was sitting in the baggage claim terminal of Hawaii’s International Airport, Blondie’s “The Tide Is High” piping over the intercom, with a suitcase full of ice packs and shark meat. I didn’t yet appreciate the implications of this, but I felt certain the Polynesian spear-fisher who sat next to me on the plane had something to do with it. I remember because we’d discussed at length his tribal face tattoos and how he’d bit a TSA agent for smirking. He was moonlighting as a poacher for Somali pirates, harpooning tiger sharks in the South Pacific.

“They’re just after the fins, you understand,” as Captain Russell, the poacher, explained, “So I save the meat and sell it on the black market.” Considered a delicacy in many parts of the world, some less reputable sushi joints in Miami would pay top dollar for a shipment of raw shark. Even five-star kitchens have to turn to the culinary underworld when their high-rollers request something illegal off the “special” menu. I mean, who hasn’t stood in front of an endangered species at the zoo and thought, “I wonder what it would taste like?” Oh what? Like you’ve never considered what wine would pair best with grilled panda?

A thin trickle of pink blood was running down the side of the suitcase. My hands were sweating, I was tired, hungry and hadn’t slept for days. How did this even happen? I should’ve thanked my lucky stars the case wasn’t loaded with fen-phen, condoms and .22 caliber bullets. But still, it was a miracle Russell had smuggled it through security in the first place. So there I was: jetlagged, alone, with no money, carrying a stranger’s luggage filled with contraband seafood. How long before this stuff spoils and alerts everyone to the fact that I’m dragging around Fisherman’s Wharf in the middle of July? What to do? Abandon the incriminating bag on the nearest carousel? No, too late for that, I thought. That 6 foot, 200 pound Polynesian will be looking for me. Probably already thinks I stole it. If he catches me without his precious fillet-o’- shark he’ll beat me into mangled chum. This island is too small to be making enemies. I’m stuck with it.

That is, at least until he arrives. What’s keeping him? He should’ve been off the plane by now.

It’s not like a towering beast of a man like him, with black spirals inked all over his face would be hard to miss amongst the other passengers. And what a crowd! Your basic American tourist fare: Tommy Bahama shirts, cargo shorts, flip-flops. People who dress like they were all bought in a gift shop. I’m not one to knock colorful clothing, but the Hawaiian shirt is just a moo moo with buttons.

I was deep behind enemy lines. This is Don Ho’s idea of a good time. Blue-haired retirees shuffling from one luau-themed buffet to the next. Muzak lagoons, matinee floorshows, rhinestone karaoke. It’s a geriatric playground. It’s Branson with palm trees. And I’m in big trouble if I can’t find a way out of this Old Spice waiting room and get to a taxi. So what are you complaining about? Big deal. You’re on a tropical beach with white-as-salt sand. You should be drinking good spiced rum, lazily wandering the streets at sunset, watching the brown-skinned beauties play in the surf. Sleeping in a pink hotel and dreaming you’re Ponce de León surrounded by pirate gold and samba dancers. How, you ask, does a down-on-his-luck writer, born with

29

a plastic spoon in his mouth, suddenly find himself on this accidental vacation? I was on a plane back to Berkeley, California for a job interview. An upstart online journal called AquariU.S. – a health and spiritual wellness zine based out of San Francisco that catered to New Agers – was in the market for some new writers. They published articles on everything from ch’i healing to acupuncture, from Feng shui to astrology, and from green smoothies to pet rocks. Personally, these hippie gimmicks were always too sparkly for me. Most of these people are just bell-ringers and crystal-danglers. They’re in it for the warm fuzzies of self-help and cosmic rays of goodness. There’s a seeker born every minute. It is the religion of ME in which nobody is wrong, everything is positive, all paths lead to God and a better life is just a happy thought away.

What a lollypop and a bandaid!

Anyway, with the new upswing in legal marijuana gaining ground in more and more states, modern journalism was experiencing a windfall of opportunity. AquariU.S., along with other newspapers like the Denver Post, were hiring on history’s first professional pot critics: writers on their staff of columnists who regularly sample and review regional, varietal or vintage strains of weed for the informed consumer. I couldn’t believe it. When I read their email I thought it was some kind of cosmic prank call. Yeah right, “Cheech & Chong, Editors-in-Chief.” But after a few follow-up phone calls I had scheduled an interview and booked a flight to the West Coast. I even created a special playlist on my iPod to listen to on the way over: 1. Niyorah- Positive Herbs 2. Keznamdi - High Grade 3. Notch - Jah Mexicali 4. Collie Buddz Come Around 5. Inna Vision - Irie Insulation 6. CHEZIDEK - Leave the Trees 7. Mr. 83 - Miss Mary 8. Sizzla - Got It Right Here 9. Eek A Mouse - Ganja Smuggling 10. Zionomi - Roll Yuh 11. Ras Attitude - High Grade 12. Linval Thompson - I Love To Smoke Marijuana 13. Barrington Levy - Under Mi Sensi 14. Jah Mason - High Grade 15. Tribal Seeds - The Garden 16. The Green - Good One 17. Sounds of Jah - Legalize It 18. Paua - Natural 19. Jah9 - Steamers A Bubble 21. Alborosie - Herbalist 22. Richie Spice - Pon Di Corner 23. Josh Heinrichs Ft SkillinJah - One Love 24. Marlon Asher - Ganja Farmer 25. Bob Marley - Easy Skanking 26. Cocoa Tea - Herb In My Garden 27. Luciano - Free Up The Weed 28. Hayley - Natural 29. Aswad - Just A Little Herb 30. Culture - International Herb 31. Keys of Creation - Free Up the Herb 32. Bascom X & Gyptian - Burn the Cannabis 33. Mighty Diamonds - Pass the Kutchie 34. BUBZ - Da Pakalolo Song Admittedly an odd assignment, especially for me, an ex-actor and street poet with definite libertarian leanings. Morally I’m completely in favor of personal freedom and with individuals expressing their freedom in the most untidy manner. This whole writing gig is nothing but my own attempt at subversion for fun and profit. But in my heart of hearts I despise drug culture.

I’ve lost too many friend to that line of work. They’ve all turn into twisted little anti-geniuses or chronic bed-wetters. I’ve seen that old tragedy play out too many times: addiction, jail, rehab, relapse, madness, death. There are many advancements being made in the field of medical marijuana; a number of cures and health benefits being discovered that should be made available to patients. I also advocate for its recreational use, it’s safer for your body than alcohol. But everyone I know who smokes lives by the phrase “Excess In Moderation”, stoned in their bedrooms, staring at the ceiling under a pile of Cheetos, jerking-off to some Grateful Dead poster.

The choice is yours, but don’t feed me any dreck about how drugs are an oracle that can free

30

your mind and transform awareness. That’s ape shit. If they did, then druggies would be a tribe of prodigies, not a clusterfuck of sunburnt wasteoids.

My flight to California had been rerouted to Hawaii after some potential “bomb threat” at the airport. Which is how I wound up here: stranded at Honolulu International, suitcase full of tiger shark, looking anxiously about for a big angry dude with a harpoon. I nervously fingered my pack of Djarum Black cloves, wanting to step outside for a smoke but also afraid if the Captain caught me he’d think I was making off with his loot. What to do? I can’t leave the case at lost and found. All it takes is one jumpy airline attendant to report my face once they smell something fishy and it’s off to the back room with me. Those customs officers would think they hit the mother load: the biggest international poaching ring ever uncovered in legal history.

“What about the elephant ivory, son? Is that how you get your kicks, you sick bastard?!” I should have spotted Captain Russell by now. The guy’s the size of an MMA fighter with face tats. How do you miss that? The soft tinkle of ukulele music drew my eye to an outdoor tiki bar just beyond the glass exit doors. I could use a drink. I stepped out into the hot tropical sun and ducked under the thatched awning to grab a stool by the bamboo counter. The teakwood shelves were well stocked with amber bottles of rum: dark, white, aged and spiced, from Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Martinique, the West Indies. There were also glass decanters of cane syrup, coconut water, blue curacao and Kahlua. The bottles were displayed among Christmas lights and painted totems as well as stray limes, kiwis and pineapple. A giant blue marlin was tacked above the mirror. The counter was dotted with little canna lilies between the lava stone ashtrays. The sign above the bar had the name “Sumatra Kula” carved onto what looked like a piece of driftwood. For the first time since landing on this island I could finally relax. This place had a real Trader Vic’s kinda vibe to it. The tacky elegance of Don the Beachcomber where you’d expect Jack Lord to stop by with Playboy bunnies for mai tais after a long day on the Five-0 set. I lit up a clove as I carefully anchored the suitcase on the stool beside me. The tiny dribble of blood had spread and now looked like I was transporting the remains of a hacked-up stewardess. “Rock-A-Hula Baby” by Elvis came on just as the bartender wandered over to greet me, “Aloha, what’ll ya have?” An elderly man in a ‘50s bowling shirt and straw hat, his skin was so lined and tanned he looked like teriyaki jerky.

“Rum and coke.”

“You want a lime in it?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“Then what you want is a Cuba Libre.”

He then veered off into some rambling diatribe about Fidel Castro and Mexican drug cartels, half of which I was able to process. I was too preoccupied with looking over my shoulder, just waiting for a cop to ask about that stain on my suitcase. Damn you Russell! I’d barely known the man for five hours and already he was ruining my life. Out of all the empty seats on the plane he had to sit next to mine and leave his criminal operation in my overhead compartment. He’s the reason. The pube in my soup. It’s because of him I’m hiding out like a marked man, sitting on enough endangered marine life to put me away in an eco-terrorist’s prison forever. What’s the fine for shark finning? I don’t know, but I’m sure I’ll be sleeping in a refrigerator box, best case scenario. I’m sud-

31

denly reminded of Captain James Cook and his ill-fated visit to these shores. The natives welcomed him as their god but eventually grew tired of his demands, killed and ate him. Let that serve as a warning to Westerners who think that paradise is just a plane ticket away. The world is not your private country club. Respect the local people and traditions. Don’t turn their king’s land into a golf resort. Know that sooner or later the spirits will grow restless and the sons of the mighty chieftains you once mocked will impale you on a spit like a suckling pig.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. Well, here we go, I thought. I wonder if forensics will even have anything left to ID after the tide rolls out? Russell loomed over me, his long, straight black hair tied back into a warrior’s topknot. He smiled an ugly grin, flashing his silver tooth like a threat. He was still dressed in a camo tank and swim trunks with a necklace of shark teeth. The tribal tattoos on his cheeks curled and pointed like black hooks.

“Just because you smoke a lot of bud doesn’t make you Haile Selassie,” he said.

“Look man,” I groaned, “Can you at least let me finish my drink? I just got it.”

“Where’s my stuff?” he rumbled.

“Right here,” I said handing him the blood-stained suitcase, “You got mine?”

“I did,” he began, “But I ripped it apart in the men’s room when I found there were only clothes in it.”

“Great.” We can add almost naked to my list of problems.

“Six bucks for the Cuba Libre,” the bartender chimed in.

“About that,” I said, “The big guy just threw everything I own in the toilet. So I’m a little strapped for cash. Will you take an I.O.U.?”

The bartender looked at me as if I’d told him I was from Planet X. “Haole tourists!” he snarled, “Never changes. You come over here, you think you own the place!”

“Hey, I’m good for it, man!” I insisted, “I happen to be a licensed pot critic on very official business.”

The old man tried to pry the glass out of my hand, “What do you think this is, Club Med?!”

“It’s on me,” said Russell slapping down a wad of cash on the bar, “And give me one too.”

Begrudgingly the bartender took the money and sauntered off like a whipped dog.

“Thanks man, I owe you.”

“I know,” Russell grinned, “Which is why I have a proposition for you.”

“Oh Shiva!” I spat, “Come on, I’m not even supposed to be here. I’m stuck on a layover. I’m already an accessory for one crime. What’s next? You want me to murder a foreign diplomat?”

“You said on the plane you’re a drug expert.”

“Pot critic!” I snapped, “For a newspaper. And no. Not anymore. Now that I’ve missed the interview.”

“We’ve got a pretty big delivery coming in later tonight. For one of our high-end customers here in Honolulu. We could use an extra set of hands.”

Or rented mule, I thought.

32

Forget equal payHow about equal status?

Before I’m treated like a valued employee, I’d like to be a human Forget Sex EducationI would rather a man know where my eyes are (up here) Where his hands go (off me) Than know how to find my g-spot.

Forget Spanish, French, Latin, Greek, Russian, Japanese, C++, How about the meaning of “no”?

Of “I don’t want to talk right now” Of “Please leave me alone” Of “I will not smile”?

Forget burning my bra, I have to burn the shirt I was wearing at that concert Where you grabbed my stomach I have to burn my hair you grabbed and smelled I have to burn my hands, my legs, my butt That you grabbed when I walked past.

Can I burn every whispered “I’d fuck you?”

Can I protest every drive-by holler?

Can I march against your lingering eyes?

What can I do to be a human?

And why is it my responsibility?

33

I love to sit I tried so long to preach truths

and watch my silence

but truths only got me

make others nervous

what you’d expect

I like saying nothing

I’m not ready to preach lies

if I have nothing to say

just yet

There’s the fan

But I will rewrite

the watcher

a couple of forgotten bromides

the ladies man

and sign my name to them

the loser and then there’s more

My friendly smile is not all I

Basic decency

am

are now standards

though that is to be expected

that are way too high

Bones howl and cough I see children run down streets

Chaos comes in many forms

Mad in love

Only some of them accept you

Sainted hotels stare across the

Begging to be invisible

street

in an age

at sainted hospitals

where all must be accounted

Simplicity used up

for

Too much for too many

Explosions in the distance of

So many want to be the ghost

the prairie

most are lucky just to be an

Tarantula walks across the

echo

glass screen tied in twine

34

I heard god through this sky, God like angels singing in seraphic blares from Diamond coated tongues.

God like narrow crack of light through the door but, still, yellow, and gleaming.

God like strawberry milk dripping down sunburnt chins onto thin black tights.

God like I search for in the back of your bleeding throat and cut up lips.

God like yellowing corners of folded up maps in the glove compartment because who uses those anymore?

God like the leaves I pressed into books to read (their veins and study their edges) later.

God like chapped calloused hands holding a lukewarm beer (as the sun meets the earth again).

God like throbbing hearts (against countable ribs) when hands of boys travel to new places.

God like wine burning my esophagus and the yellow blur of my mother’s pill bottles.

God like fucking a man I love.

God like airing out the room when it’s 30 degrees to rid the thick air of its putrid stench because that’s what heartbreak is.

God like pride in changing my tee shirt after four days and washing my face in cold water.

God like tears that come years too late.

God like books I pretend I’ve read and people I pretend I like.

God like gravel cutting into hands and knees.

God like holding your own hand when you pray because who is god really, who is god at all.

God like worship in an empty church with an empty mind to an empty sky.

God like disappointment and crisp white vestments.

God like sin and stinging remorse.

God like the devil Waltzing with me in three four time to the beat of the heart beneath the floorboards.

God like vinegar being spit in the mirror at the repulsive reflection of a godless woman.

God like witches and darkness and stars.

God like evil, like malevolence and pain.

God like fathers who hit their girls.

God like drinks that seem to pour themselves.

God like anguish and hatred and fear.

God like me.

35

Old album or new album, each listen to something by Kendrick Lamar is a new experience for me.

There’s no shortage of lyrics to zero in on, or new meanings to interpret. That being said, I see one common thread through Kendrick Lamar’s work that both unites all of the albums together, but also makes them different, and I believe that thread can be traced back to a singular line on a now six-year-old song.

Schoolboy Q’s first album released under the Top Dawg Entertainment umbrella, S​ etbacks​,came out in January 2011. On the song “Birds & tHe Beez,” Schoolboy Q wrestles with leaving the dangers and the risks of drug dealing behind. Kendrick features on the song, and at the end of his verse trying to convince Q to leave the game, Kendrick challenges Q, “Blue pill, red pill, choose now: birds or the beez.” The TDE crew references gang activity frequently across all of their albums, and the reference here is pretty on the nose, with blue for Crips, red for Bloods. But like the best Kendrick lines, there’s a deeper meaning here. Kendrick presents Q with a Matrix scenario: choose the blue pill to remain in the world of “birds,” a slang term for cocaine, or choose the red pill and focus on rapping and the things it can provide, from safety, to financial security, to the “beez.”

Clickbait title? Sure, I agree. I’d be lying if I said that part of the inspiration for the title wasn’t that anyone who says J Cole is the best rapper in the game needs to tell themselves they’ve made a huge mistake. But to the larger point of this article, I call Kendrick Lamar “The Arrested Development of Rap” because there are multiple callbacks and references in his work to an idea that seemed inconspicuous at the time, namely, the “birds and the beez” line.

The structure of all of Kendrick Lamar’s TDE albums, S​ ection.80, good kid, m.A.A.d city; To Pimp a Butterfly, a​ nd ​DAMN.​,is essentially the same: the first 75% or so of each album consists of Kendrick attempting to understand and justify his presence in both the “red pill” and “blue pill” worlds from a number of perspectives, and he tries to organize his thoughts and come to a conclusion on one of the final songs. That conclusion, or lack thereof, then influences the album that succeeds it.

Let’s run down all of the Matrix references across Kendrick’s albums, starting with S​ ection.80​: Section.80, ​July 2011 “The Spiteful Chant”: “I’m faded off of that Nuvo, chilling with two hoes in here And they tie my laces, living the Matrix as them pills disappear Me and my niggas just acting bad, HiiiPower conglomerate Living that life and counting this cash, old friends I no longer have”

“Rigamortus”:

“And this is rigor mortis And it’s gorgeous when you die Ali recorded And I’m Morpheus, the Matrix of my mind”

In “The Spiteful Chant,” Kendrick has taken the red pill; he’s drunk, in a club, and financially successful, but he’s far removed from any of his real friends. However, he’s taken the blue pill in “Rigamortus,” and he makes aggressive, combative threats to anyone he sees as in his way. By the end of ​Section.80, ​on “Ab-Soul’s Outro,” he’s conflicted and somewhere in the middle: “See, I’ve spent twenty three years on the earth searching for answers ‘til one day I realized I had to come up with my own I’m not on the outside looking in, I’m not on the inside looking out I’m in the dead fucking center, looking around You ever seen a newborn baby kill a grown man?

That’s an analogy for the way the world made me react My innocence been dead”

Kendrick’s self-perceived lack of innocence is then played out across his next album, g​ ood kid, m.A.A.d city​.Here are the literal and figurative “blue pill, red pill” mentions from GKMC: good kid, m.A.A.d city, ​October 2012 “Backseat Freestyle”: “Goddamn I feel amazing, damn I’m in the Matrix My mind is living on Cloud Nine, and this 9 is never on vacation”

36

“Money Trees” “It go Halle Berry, or hallelujah Pick your poison, tell me what you’re doing Everybody gon’ respect the shooter But the one in front of the gun lives forever”

The reference on “Money Trees” to the blue pill vs. red pill choice is figurative, not literal. Kendrick assigns Halle Berry to the blue pill, to represent lust and a focus on the earthly matters and temptations of his environment, and “hallelujah” to the red pill, to represent the rejection of all elements of the environment in which he grew up. It’s important to note here that both of these options are described as poisonous in the next line; in other words, Kendrick is telling us he’s trying to figure out a way to exist in the “middle” of this decision. “good kid”: “But what am I ‘posed to do when the topic is red or blue And you understand that I ain’t, But know I’m accustomed to just a couple that look for trouble And live in the street with rank”

By the end of g​ ood kid, m.A.A.d city, ​Kendrick has become completely disillusioned on the options he presented to Schoolboy Q on “Birds & tHe Beez”: he’s mentally enlightened but still in a violent environment on “Backseat Freestyle,” struggling over a choice between two harmful options on “Money Trees,” and dismaying at his reality on “good kid.” After all of the events detailed on GKMC, he asks himself on “Real” at the end of the album: “Should I hate living my life inside the club?

Should I hate her for watching me for that reason?

Should I hate him for telling me that I’m seizin’?

Should I hate them for telling me “ball out”?

Should I hate street credibility I’m talkin’ about Hating all money, power, respect in my will Or hating the fact none of that shit make me real?”

Kendrick has now realized that the choice that he gave to Schoolboy Q nineteen months earlier trapped him, but he’s now in a new mental space, and he’s interacting with the world around him in a different way. You could almost say that he was a caterpillar….who turned into a butterfly…..

To Pimp a Butterfly, M ​ arch 2015 “For Sale?”: “You said Sherane ain’t got nothing on Lucy I said, ‘You crazy?’

Roses are red, violets are blue But me and you both pushing up daisies if I (want you)”

“Complexion,” actually in Rapsody’s verse: “Call your brothers magnificent, call all the sisters queens We all on the same team, blues and pirus, no colors ain’t a thing”

In short, not only is choosing the blue pill or the red pill dividing Kendrick’s community, but both ​ options lead to evil/the devil, embodied by Lucy on “For Sale,” and eventually, death. Kendrick says as much on “Mortal Man,” at the end of TPAB: “...Just because you wore a different color than mine’s Doesn’t mean I can’t respect you as a black man Forgetting all the pain and hurt we caused each other in these streets If I respect you, we unify and stop the enemy from killing us”

And thus, the plot and structure for Kendrick Lamar’s latest album, D​ AMN..​Without providing any spoilers, listening to the tracklist all the way through from songs 1-14 results in the life and rise of Kendrick Lamar, due to respect and understanding between two people close to him.

Listening to the tracks in reverse leads to Kendrick’s death, as he is brought back into the world of the “blue pill, red pill” choice.

DAMN.,​April 2017 “BLOOD.” “Is it wickedness?

37

Is it weakness?

You decide Are we gonna live or die?”

“DNA.” “My DNA not for imitation Your DNA an abomination This how it is when you’re in the Matrix Dodgin’ bullets, reapin’ what you sow And stackin’ up the footage, livin’ on the go” “DUCKWORTH.” “It was always me vs. the world Until I found out it’s me vs. me”

In my HUMBLE. opinion, I think there are a variety of reasons you can and should call Kendrick Lamar the greatest rapper alive, and surely one of the greatest ever. Obviously he’s had commercial success, but you can also see his cultural influence through things like his partnership with Reebok (more blue pill, red pill stuff!) and the use of the TPAB song “Alright” during protests around the country following police shootings. All that being said, what I think makes him the best is that he’s the Arrested Development of rap. Yes, many rap artists outline their perspective on the world through an album. But with Kendrick, we see his perspective on the world change across ​every​ album. The struggles that Kendrick has, the questions that he asks himself, and the realizations that he comes to are different across his discography, but they can all be traced back to a single line delivered at the very beginning of his mainstream career. *** I mentioned at the very beginning of this article that I always find new insights into something that Kendrick is trying to get across each time I listen to him. Researching for this article was no exception. Near the end of “Mortal Man,” the last song on T​ o Pimp a Butterfly​,Kendrick is having a “conversation” with Tupac Shakur, and he tells Tupac, “In my opinion, only hope that we kinda have left is music and vibrations, lotta people don’t understand how important it is. Sometimes I be like, get behind a mic and I don’t know what type of energy I’mma push out, or where it comes from. Trip me out sometimes.”

Tupac then responds, “Because the spirits, we ain’t even really rappin’, we just letting our dead homies tell stories for us.” These are the last words that Tupac “speaks” to Kendrick in their conversation. Kendrick does respond to Tupac, with a single word. Maybe this is me being too tinfoil hat fanboy of Kendrick Lamar….but the word that Kendrick uses to respond to Tupac is “Damn,” and I find that to be amazing.

An institution Of evolution & devolution, Of evil notions & devil potions, Pollutions, Illusions, & dull teardrop oceans.

I’m a monster of will, An animal of determination, A being pure that burns to rule, A prince of arrogance, A king of confidence, A lizard confidant, A serpent of sibilance, A snarling, saturnine destroyer, A strangling sorcerer, An antichrist & an anarchist, A kiss of rage & irreverence, A reckoning, A wrecking crew, A wrecking ball, A revelation, A revolution, A backbench rebellion,

I’m the wolf that bays at the doors of the apocalypse, The minstrel that brays at the gates of insanity; I’m the creature from the depths of the black lagoon, The titular villain of every ‘50s B Movie, The jester betraying his kingdom

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to doom, The Joker staring down Batman’s motorcycle with a machinegun in the middle of a darkly road, The devil in the mind of Ivan Karamazov, Fyodor Pavlovich, Nozdryov, Raskolnikov, and Chichikov, too,

A disease,

A pleasure-machine & a ticking time-bomb, A cunning cardsharp & a rancorous fiend, A liar, a lover, a rogue, and a fool, A sailor on waves of madness & wonder, A satirist weaving corruptions & plunders, A saturnalian eruption & a going-under, A scholarly knave of sadness and thunder, A savior who braves the chances and blunders Of satyrs & sitars & Sullas & rules.

I’m The Devil’s Playground, A minor djinn’s petting zoo, A menagerie of lies, A Mephistophelean safari of maddening delusions, A maniac in a mirror factory armed with a sledgehammer, A million years of warped & wicked luck,

I’m a bull in a chinashop of pure imagination, A minotaur of crude imitation, A labyrinth of rude indignation, A touch of golden procrastination, A lion roaming through webs & wastes of myth & magic, A Roman ruin, The ruins of time, The mansions of eternity, An illuminated manuscript, The lost relics of Titus, The Ark of the Covenant, A Pandora’s box, A cloud serpent, Quetzalcoatl & the twilight of the gods.

A patch of briers, An off-key lyre, A sultry mire, A daemon’s ire, A idol’s pyre, A bomb’s red wire;

Unstable & uneven, Dazed & confused, Slanted & enchanted, A leprechaun & a lucky charm, A platypus in Yugoslavia: An anachronism, A jaded schism, A broken prism, A plundered pyramid Inside which eyes can only find A cold stone coffin, empty:

I’m just analogue, A whisper in the dark, A lurker opaque, A rumor obscure, A wicked messenger, A shadow, A fantasy, A reverie, A dream,

I’m nothing, Nobody, A graveyard wasteland shattered throne, A wandering wind, scattered unsown, An idle saying, sources unknown, An urban legend, suburbia grown, An Apocrypha, A chimera, A charlatan, A highwayman, Scylla & Charybdis, Alibaba & the Forty Thieves, Odysseus & Achilles, Aladdin’s lamp & a flying carpet, A Trojan horse & a Grecian god, A hand of fate & a wheel of fortune, A well where dwells some vague phantasm, A rabbit hole & a wonderland.

A nightmare, A dark horse, A steeplechase, A chariot race, A pale steed,

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I am the King of Crows I am the Prince of Dreams There’s nothing that I know I’m never what I seem.

Around the Area of the areola, Abrini’s that cat in the hat.

Attacking aircraft in Belgium.

Jim CroMagnon man puffs a Marlboro.

Fucks chicks in South County Pens with Jim CroMagnon condoms Jim CroMagnon man fears God. Jim CroMagnon man fears Allah in schools due to Shiria’s laws.

Jim CroMagnon man wants to put a gat to the head of the cat in the hat if that cat dares to attack the places that no American cares about.

Jim Cromagnon man lives in a man cave trailer. He paints effigies with the blood on the side of his trailer in urine with paint brushes that are the hands of unarmed black men.

Jim CroMagnon men gathered to protest Shiria on a sunny day, armed with His right to oppress and not be oppressed.

Jim CroMagnon man is an artist.

He paints womens faces leaving rouge from her head to her ankles.

Jim CroMagnon men gathered to protest Shiria on a sunny day, armed with the Bible and legal liable.

Jim CroMagnon Man is a farmer when it’s time to harvest He concentrates on Muslims in Calais to cull them.

Jim CroMagnon men gathered to protest Shiria on a sunny day, armed with His right to oppress.

And a small army Armed with AR 15s.

Robustly built and white powerful,

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you can see his sculptures of teeth in concrete.

Jim CroMagnon man noticed some Crows, Black Panthers also armed and ready to protect a mosque by any name.

Jim CroMagnon man wonders “Why aren’t they niggers in jail?

They are going to kill us and Obama did nothing to stop it.”

“I use to get feels on chicken, now I throw Shields on the giblets To stop that samanela shit” The affair begins She glares at his Rare merits he inherited He stairs at men And tares at them From with in Love isn’t what he wished it was He dabbled in the rabble Of political channels Listless in flannel, emotions hidden Like a monk Til that speech by the rising Conservative Christ Donald Trump

They said it was the worst fucking idea they’d ever heard. I looked at the straw and sticks (horses. the Amish. Transcendentalism.) and bricks (inner city. Samuel Slater. Modernism.) and decided that mine had to be the most fabulous house ever made. I cemented it with glitter glue and imagined that when the wolf showed up his retinas would be so scorched by colored eyes that he’d sink to his knees. But it didn’t happen like that. It gets maddening, watching the sun amplify first the greens, then the golds, then the purples, day after day. The wolf finally appeared yesterday, and he just shrugged and said, “I see what you’re going for, but the Dadaism thing doesn’t work for me.”

I’m wondering if it’s time to bring in the wrecking ball. Apply for a factory job. Hop on a horse.

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The songs of children tell no .... lies They live each moment in sacred testimony to the wonders of the world Wonder soon forgotten by the wrinkling of grape skins and browned bananas left on the kitchen counter little hands grasp wooden toys grasp my knee -uncertain secure thoughtless Pure and open -between breaths up I am opened Once a day up Then I’m sewn

again - I am tired

Breath goes away Exhaustion Sleep-pray To the moon; to the whispering of trees moaning beyond the tattered curtains and dirty glass reaching up up up

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beyond the arguing and the peace Up Above the pollution, politics, homework, dinner, lights, protests, bills, tv, play, fear, dog barking, walks, grocery lists, up bath time, sweeping, pick

the toys, stories, lies, more bills

The breath of sleep The rise and fall of lungs and ribs and skin The Fluttering of eyelashes untying knots once again up Opened

once again

Time is too eager to leave me behind My mind is too eager to forget I am tired I am sacred I am eager to take my breath up

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Our currency is wiped out, and the dollar has no more value.

All that matters now is how big of a rock you carry, the bigger the ( ( ( rock ) ) ), The more valuable you are!

Big men carried big rocks around taking other people’s rocks, because their rocks were bigger (obviously).

Eventually, these men would just sit on the side of the road, and have HUGE rocks attached to their backs. They wouldn’t move, but when you went by them you had to give them your rock.

Because their rock was bigger and that is the law.1 Then, two men got together and picked up an even bigger rock, and then no one could compare to how big this rock was! This was a monumental moment in rock-dom.

We started to have rock factions, 15-20 people would gather round to carry a rock, but

it wasn’t even a rock anymore, it was a

boulder. Naturally, these rock factions warred

with each other, and it was gruesome battle. The leaders of these factions wouldn’t even help carry the rocks anymore, they just stood on top and gave instructions!!! It would lame.

After decades of war, we finally had the Great Rock Council of 2089 in Budapest (can’t

remember what country that city is in), and a decree was made.

If we all do handstands, we

will all, as one, hold the biggest rock possible; Planet Earth. It was fucking brilliant.

War ended! Religion was unnecessary! Money was completely pointless! All because we just needed to do handstands. #Communism?

Eventually, our hands became feet, and our feet became hands. It was just due to hap-

pen, thanks to evolution. But it was fine! Society was thriving, and our arms became really strong so we could just run around to wherever we wanted. But then one day, someone picked up a rock with his feet-hands, and he was the richest man again.

-Fin

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Seeing promotion for “Pure Comedy” was at times like watching a celebrity in the making. Fans of Misty, myself included, have come to crave his beautiful merging of folk rock, classic orchestra, and verbose use of intellect and humor; he’s both created and satisfied a distinct niche in popular music. Now, he’s presented part three. I’ve seen interviews where the artist says despite the subject matter, he began writing the album before the election of 2016. The gargantuan centerpiece of the record, “Leaving LA,” was actually debuted, albeit in a much condensed iteration, while touring his previous album, “I Love You, Honeybear.” The songs have been waiting to get here. And there’s a lot of them.

Now I’m a sucker for a quality double album. “Quadrophenia” may be my favorite album from my favorite band. An artist with enough gall to demand twice the listening length from their audience needs to justify the decision, to have a true vision. When pulled off, the results can be breathtaking. When it falters, it can pull down the record as a whole. So where does that leave “Pure Comedy”?

Lyrically, the music is on point as always. If a 75-minute opus on the reality that is our own depression isn’t enough material for Misty to draw on, I’m not sure what other prompt could suffice. Here, he not only touches on humanity in America’s 2017, but uses the idea as a vehicle to contemplate our entire history. The latter is a crucial distinction, and one he does a more than admiral job of picking apart throughout the album. To list everything Misty’s got beef with would spoil the record. Yes, “Pure Comedy” is a reaction to the times. How can it not be, with a title like that?

But it’s also a sweeping essay about life itself, the eternal trap we all face by simply being born, the textbook definition of human nature. Most importantly, it’s about our innate inability at true change and, depending on how you look at it, whether acceptance on that end is tragic or comedic. This paradox may best be observed through the artist himself. For the uninitiated, Joshua Tillman is the man, Father John Misty the alter ego. Much can and has been said about what precisely Tillman has gained artistically from choosing to record under the moniker, but what it may boil down to is a sense of removal for Tillman. Playing devil’s advocate while having a double to take the fall for more personal tunes is his way of having his cake and laughing at it too. Imagine the character now taking aim at human existence, and you can start to see the record taking shape.

Ultimately there’s plenty to take in (even for a double album), but herein lies my biggest gripe with “Pure Comedy.” While they can and frequently do co-exist, there’s a difference between “art” and “entertainment.” Music doesn’t need to be fun, but like any art, that doesn’t mean it gets a pass at holding an audience’s attention. In terms of material for analysis and discussion, Misty’s crafted a cornucopia. But unlike his two previous installments, sometimes “Comedy” can just get in it’s own way.

The first 6 songs on the record breeze along (which actually says something considering one is a 13 minute number set to the same chord progression). The second track “Total Entertainment Forever” finds Misty “imagining” a world dominated by a search for constant happiness and lost to the very real need for contentment. It opens with a narrator that bangs Taylor Swift through virtual reality, and ends with all our corpses suctioned to vessels wiring unfiltered enter-

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tainment: the idea here being entertainment parasitically infringes on our own fiber of being, just enough, so it totally destroys us. To Misty, there’s no fighting our future, because it’s already here.

It’s depressing, but if that’s where we’re at, then what’s point? The follow up, “Things It Would Have Been Nice to Know Before the Revolution” is a massive pill wrapped up like candy.

It’s pleasing in that the song itself is quite beautiful- as always there is something undeniable about Misty’s voice that feels familiar and comforting. His modern Don McLean drawl merges with a steady rise of strings and horns, and the song composes itself seamlessly. But it’s still a pill; he’s essentially singing about how protesting climate change is meaningless. How we aren’t all going back to before cars and whatnot, so screw it.

After “Revolution,” comes “Ballad of the Dying Man,” a hilarious take on the true voice of the internet. The first half concludes with “Birdie” and “Leaving LA,” a high bar set for the second act. The album getting in it’s own way? Unfortunately, this is where it begins to drag.

Take “A Bigger Paper Bag.” It’s a fine song, and as inviting a tune about narcissism can be, but it’s problem is it doesn’t work hard enough to distinguish itself from those around it. The same can be said, largely, for the four songs that follow. “Two Wildly Different Perspectives,” a tongue in cheek take on gun-control (and maybe policy as a whole), doesn’t push the ideas or the music behind it to the lengths we know Misty’s capable of. “When the God of Love Returns,” “Smoochie,” and “Memo” suffer from the same problem, with “Memo” probably being the standout. They are quality tracks from a great writer, but sonically they don’t offer enough variation to keep the stretch very interesting. The album becomes dominated by a piano and Tillman’s creative mind. On a compilation of this scale, too much of a good thing registers as a valid complaint.

Luckily, we’re given a stronger and more memorable finale.

The penultimate “So I’m Growing Old on Magic

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Mountain” is among the most beautiful pieces Tillman’s ever written. With a title like a reflective Zeppelin cut, the track finds Tillman wrestling with aging, a rock star willing for youth despite a good look at who’s still left at the party. The twisted nirvana he describes is aching and inspiring, and the song may have a partner in “Leaving LA.” They both feel like Tillman at his most vulnerable, no longer detached from the subject matter he’s critiquing, but fully a part of it, a human human. The closing song, “In Twenty Years Or So,” lends itself to similar interpretation- Tillman’s officially a part of the train wreck, no longer a mocking outlier.

Which is oddly comforting when reflecting on “Pure Comedy.” Here we have Tillman’s gift, an album with roughly the thesis, “We’re All Fucked, So Laugh About It.” It seems logical to return to art versus entertainment: both can make you think, so what’s the big difference? And more importantly, what does trying to define that difference, on an individual level, say about us as people?

Maybe we just want something to distract us. That would, in my opinion, make the most sense. It’s not hard to look around in 2017 and crave escape. I think Tillman knows the feeling.

There’s a line in “Leaving LA” where the artist confesses that each major release has allowed him to close the gap between his alter ego and true, genuine self.

Misty versus Tillman.

It’s a nice subversion, meta enough to be sad, and honest enough to pull him back from drowning in this big joke he’s put together. But it also rings false in it’s context, and I don’t think Tillman’s letting himself or his audience off that easy.

Listening to 75 minutes about our collective history of screwing up this “life” thing is personal choice.

But if you make the trip, at least there’s someone to remind you we’re all part of this weird, human experiment together.

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Bad Jacket had a chance to sit down with local musician and visual artist Alex Cunningham to unravel the mysteries of art and music. Alex performs music in no less than three guises (solo violin, guitar in Hardbody, and violin in Vernacular String Trio) with releases on the Personal Archive label. You can catch Hardbody at the Schlafly Tap room on October 21st.

Ben: You’ve recently released an album entitled Ache on the Personal Archives label based out of Dubuque, Iowa. I was listening to it early today and it’s really great. There’s a whole lot of different types of sounds in it. I don’t know what I was expecting because I had heard some of your music that you had put out before on Soundcloud, some solo violin pieces, but Ache has some really loud and distorted violin, some quiet stuff, some weird chirping sounds. How was the recording process for that? Did you do it all in one take?

Alex: Yeah, it was all done in one take. It’s kind of different than other stuff I’ve done recordingwise. All of my other solo stuff is acoustic violin improvisations and this was partially composed and I fed my electric violin through a bunch of effects. It was recorded out at Bird Cloud Recording in Edwardsville where I did my first release two years ago, a tape called Kinesthetics that was all acoustic. It was recorded with Ryan Wasoba who recorded the first one as well. I work-shopped the piece live for about two months before I recorded it. It’s split into different, partially-composed sections and within each section I can play as long as I want, keeping within what structures I had in mind sound-wise. So it allows me to create subsections on the fly within pre-planned sections. I played it live two times the week before the recording date. It’s a lot louder than anything I’ve ever done.

B: It’s definitely something that you can live inside. It feels big and there’s a lot of things going on.

It feels like a headspace.

Alex: I’ve always thought my solo violin noise sets had, I wouldn’t call it a limited range, but I’ve always wanted more low-end. It’s something you don’t associate with the instrument, which is why I wanted it. On this recording I did some stuff where I have ridiculous low-end. I pitch shift two octaves down in some sections so there’s really crazy bass going on.

B: That’s awesome. Were you going for like the sphincter-loosening stuff?

Alex. Precisely.

B: Now improvisation is a big aspect of the music you make and the territory that comes with that is like one-take, playing in the moment, playing off your gut. What do you think the benefits are for doing something in one take? What appeal to you see in improvisation?

A: Well, 1) if you’re playing improvised music you do things in one take anyways because that’s the nature of the music (plus trying to recreate something you arrived at through improvisation is going to be weird every time) and 2) it can be a great (and for the same reasons terrifying) medium if you’re broke. It’s just a lot better for recording. I interviewed this guitarist Toshi Dorji, from North Carolina, and I had a similar question, “How do you pick what improvisations you put on an album?” and he said essentially “I have this amount of time and I have this amount of money and I pick what I like from what I was able to record in the window I had.” It’s basically that. There’s not like some thought-out universal recording prep for people that like improvising. They feel like they get their optimum creative performance out of improvising. That’s their medium.

B. I don’t know if you know the rapper Milo. There’s a great quote where he says “matters of process become matters of place” You don’t sit there and go like “Oh, Ideally I would do this to get the most out of my recording” but it’s more particular to the place and how many resources you have.

A: Yeah, totally. It’s not like a really great watercolor painter is doing that as some calculated cost/ benefit strategy over another medium. That’s just the method that feels right and gives them their favorite results.

B: I also think it’s interesting you said often the process relates to how money you have. Technology influences music as lot as well. The pop song is 3 min because that’s how much they could fit on wax at the time. And from your perspective as an experimental musician, you’re creating your own context for you music. Do you think with experimental or improvisational music you need some sort of prior knowledge to get into it or do you think that it’s just as accessible as a pop song?

A: I don’t think you really need any prior knowledge to get into experimental music, though of course understanding context and history adds to your enjoyment. A lot of the people I know that are really into experimental music or play noise or something were punks as teenagers and I think they came to this music from listening to those things: heavier music, punk outlooks. I don’t think there’s a point of entry that you need. But obviously you’ll be into more things over time and I think that the more and more sounds you expose yourself too, your ears adapt in terms of what they can take in and even what you think qualify as music. The more types of music you listen to the more connections you can see and the more appreciation you have for different types of sounds. You start to discover people who like to combine genres and produce new stuff that falls in between those genres.

We have a catch all phrase for stuff that doesn’t fall in any category. “Experimental” is a term that refers to a billion different micro-genres B: IT’s something that exists for easy classification.

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A: It’s basically like saying “Other” B: That question stems from people telling “I don’t know how I’m supposed to enjoy say this free jazz record.” Analogously, if you’re in an art museum and see an Abstract Expressionist painting like a Jackson Pollock or a piece of Pop Art that looks like a cartoon, the reason that’s there is because of the history of art which lead up to having those pieces in the museum. I guess some people feel they need that context in order to appreciate music you wouldn’t hear on the radio. But other times it’s just “Wow, I haven’t heard this sound before. This is really broadening my idea of what music can do” A: I think there’s stuff that you can appreciate within that experimental catch-all that you don’t need prior context for. And with something like with jazz, context can be great because freer stuff is subverting what came before. But there’s other stuff that you can experience as a giant, visceral event. Like the first noise show I saw, I knew what noise was but I didn’t know the history of it at 15 years old. I saw John Wiese play a harsh noise set on a giant club speaker system. It was a visceral “holy shit” moment that I didn’t need a knowledge of the entire history of 20th century avant-garde sound to have, you know?

B: That’s a really great point. When I was a senior in high school, I was getting burnt out on music with a narrative and I started listening to drone and It was really awesome. Just listening to tones and, sure, the tones would change but you weren’t getting stories like “I’m in love with a girl” or “this is about a breakup.” It was just: here’s this piece of sound. I think you’re more likely to get a visceral experience from music you aren’t familiar with than with something you are. Like the shock of the new.

A: That’s not to say you need the entire history of jazz to appreciate jazz, you can go see someone doing improvised sax solos at a bar and that can be a totally visceral thing without knowing where that came from. And if we’re talking about music in relation to art, I think the means that music is digested is different than high art like you mentioned, because with high art or something like that there’s definitely a venue and a medium to take it in. Going to look at a Pollock on the walls is different than waking up and putting on a record and making breakfast. And that’s different than waking up and pulling a picture of some Warhol piece up on your phone and drinking coffee.

That makes “high art” a little more didactic because there’s an institution involved and there’s this one codified way we consume it, whereas music is much more amorphous in the way you consume it.

B: You can see it at the gallery, you can see it at the bar, A: Totally. So then, maybe, inherently, you need less academic understanding of music to enjoy it?

B: I would agree with that [laughter] B: I just want people to listen to more interesting things and I think you can tell them that you don’t necessarily need some context or academic prior knowledge to enjoy it.

A: And there’s not one place where you have to go to see music. That’s not to say you can’t see visual artists in different places, but you can see really prominent experimental musicians just about anywhere. If you look at some free jazz players and their tours, they’ll play at spaces that are grant-funded but they’ll also play at bars. Within that, I feel like there’s a lot more context in which music occurs than say “high art.”

B: My first free jazz show was my friend’s family’s free jazz band and I saw them at a coffee show with like 3 other people. My friends and I got really hopped up on the bottomless coffee and watched him, his dad, and his brother, just make sounds for like an hour. My favorite part was when they stopped, because I had never seen improv music before and I didn’t understand how you could just stop and my friend goes “How do they know when to stop?” and my other friend said “Because they’re GODS.” We knew he was a great drummer, but he was doing a lot of stuff I had never heard on a drum kit before. So if we’re talking about preconceived notions of music that might not be as popular, one other notion is that experimental music or free jazz is a kind of “put on,” or some kind of act or performance art, A: Well it’s not a very lucrative one. For a put-on to be successful, you’d have to get something lucrative out of it. There aren’t too many examples of that. Even with relatively successful older players, there are decades upon decades of critics and people not getting it or just ignoring it. I think the “put-on” feeling comes from artists who aren’t monetarily successful saying “Oh I could do that” about the work of someone who they think is successful or work that comes across as super contrived and conceptual that also has a lot of money behind it. You’d be hard pressed to find someone who’s doing goat squeals on his saxophone who’s also raking it in. And touring in of itself is can be super rough. So I think the “put-on” argument with types of experimental music is silly.

B: That argument might come from people who think everyone takes themselves super seriously in the art or experimental music world or people who feel like they that stuff isn’t for them or that they don’t belong there. But you definitely can. As you said, there’s context for all of this stuff, bars or art galleries. I like what you said about Gallery Space because I was listening to this Vince Staples interview where he was upset about the current state of music PR because it was all about the artist and about the artist’s personality. He would rather have his music go be somewhere where people can consume it and not have to ask him how he felt about it or what his music is “actually” about.

A: That gives an inroad to the music. So I can get that. But also if you deny the stories, the artist’s personality, of course we like those elements. We listen to stuff because of the personalities and the stories behind things. It’s all part of the complete package. I don’t know how I feel about all of that. You can’t really separate the stories and how they recorded a piece of music from the music itself.

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B: Yeah I really like the story behind the Miles Davis album Jack Johnson, because he was late and the band is warming up in the studio waiting for him, recording, and he sees Herbie Hancock and is like “We’re going to go record now.” He drags Herbie in there and there’s a Casio keyboard that Herbie had never played on before and he plays this amazing stolo that he just figured out how to do.

A: Exactly. That’s what I’m saying. All those little anecdotes, we love that shit. We’d be in denial to say we completely separate all of that and just listen to pure sounds and judge it on its merit alone.

B: I don’t know if you’ve heard of the book The Recognitions. There’s a part where one of the characters says “What’s any artist, but the dregs of his work? the human shambles that follows it around. What’s left of the man when the work’s done but a shambles of apology.” He was really tired of valuing the artist over the work when it came to writing and art. Speaking of art, you make some yourself. You’ve made many flyers for gigs around St. Louis, art for Already Dead Tapes, and even designed your releases on Personal Archives [“Parlance” by Vernacular String Trio and “Ache”]. How do you see that in relation to your music? Is like an extension of your music or like maybe a neighbor?

A: I don’t know, maybe both? I don’t think about it a ton. It just came out of necessity. I just started doing flyers out collages. I don’t draw, so I thought I could try that medium. It started out as joke flyers that I made for my college radio station’s events and eventually I got more into it.

I stopped wanting to make more humorous stuff. Eventually it was a natural extension because it came out of necessity, like “Oh, we’re putting on a show” and we need someone to make the flyer so I’ll do it. It was a total DIY thing for eliminating the middleman. If I’m confident I can make something that will fit then I’ll do it.

B: I’m always interested in artists that make their own cover art. I don’t know if they see it differently than their music or the same. Because I’ve been using a lot of visual art metaphors to talk about the music. I wonder if there’s a link.

A: I don’t really think about it too much. I just kind of do it. Of course, a fortunate side-effect of doing art for your own flyers and releases is an evolving unified aesthetic, and that’s something I’m happy about. I feel like there’s recognizable and reoccurring themes and imagery in the visuals I use with flyers and album art, but that’s grown unconsciously for the most part. A unified aesthetic is, for better or worse, almost unavoidable if the output is coming from the same person or group of people. It can definitely evolve, grow, and get better.

If I’m working on art for my own release or something, I don’t really have pre-conceived ideas about imagery going into it. I basically “play.” I work on a bunch of different ideas until I stumble upon something that I know fits. When I hit something that works, I know it. The accidents are always best.

Alex’s “20 Great ‘Experimental Music’ Albums and Possible Gateways (in no particular order)” 1 Sonny Sharrock – “Black Woman” 2 Pauline Oliveros, Stuart Dempster, Panaiotis – “Deep Listening” 3 Anthony Braxton – “For Alto” 4 Merzbow – ‘Frog” 5 Alice Coltrane – “Universal Consciousness” 6 Maja Ratkje – “Voice” 7 Evan Parker, Derek Bailey, Han Bennink – “The Topography of the Lungs” 8 Peter Brotzmann Octet – “Machine Gun” 9 Bernard Bonnier – “Casse-tête” 10 Flying Luttenbachers – “Revenge” 11 Masayuki Takayanagi – “April is the Cruellest Month” 12 Joe McPhee and John Snyder – “Pieces of Light” 13 Bernard Parmegiani – “De Natura Sonorum” 14 Albert Ayler – “Spiritual Unity” 15 John Oswald – “Plexure” 16 Naked City – “Grand Guignol” 17 Okkyung Lee – “Ghil” 18 Ghedalia Tazartes – “Diasporas” 19 Kaoru Abe – “Winter 1972” 20 BYG Actuel Series albums

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“Miley’s Backyard Looks Nothing Like Yours.”y “Al-Qaeda’s Top Bomb Maker Is Still Alive.”y y-Yahoo daily news headlines, April 30, 2014 As to the latter statement, this is great news because it perpetuates a threat, and threats keep us vigilant—vigilance being the down payment we make on our loan of Freedom. By “Freedom,” of course, we do not mean the action of a windowless metalloid ball flipping off between the bumpers of an arcade, with its suggestion of sheer determinate randomness, like some puppet on-a-string, this crazy pinball motion off a bumper, which epitomizes a model of the Self that expressly contradicts our standardized notion of Freedom, the one that everyone is familiar with, Grades K-to-Grave.

Nevertheless, to be fair, it must be said that no one knows with any certainty what it is, this “Freedom,” except in relation to what it is not, namely: tyranny, slavery, imprisonment, the need to relieve oneself, any of several obsessive-compulsive cognitive-behavioral disorders or, presumably, being al-Qaeda’s “top bomb maker,” who stands inexplicably opposed to whatever it is that we designate as “Freedom.”

Miley Cyrus, to the well-publicized contrary, embodies the perfect foil to this best bomb deviser of al-Qaeda. Why? Easy answer: Miley “twerks,” and furthermore boasts a twenty-two-foot tall teepee in the backyard of her Los Angeles Hills home. She’s a twerking girl, owns her own place, and likes large, obelisky things. So, for lack of a better, more determinate construction, Miley’s twerked-out teepee represents an ideal symbol of Freedom, what Freedom means.

Incidentally, as corollary to the aforegoing, we should note that the statement “Al-Qaeda’s Top Bomb Maker Is Still Alive” is patently unfalsifiable—such are the wonders of the “Free” Press! Even if this nefarious designer of anti-American explosive ordnance should get killed, or otherwise lose his day job (word up: Miley doesn’t clean her own teepee!), then the next bomb maker in line would be, by definition, al-Qaeda’s “Top Bomb Maker,” and so on.

Promotion, you see, is only a drone strike away if you’re in al-Qaeda—and where’s the “Freedom” in that?

Twerk on, Miley Teepee, and let Freedom ring!

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