New boots and a haircut

New Year’s Resolutions

The Internet is a funny thing— if “things” is even the category the Internet falls into— and as such it has (through no action of my own) begun to make me feel guilty for letting this Tumblr site lie fallow for so long.  See, I have this site linked to my Twitter account through a third party site, and my Twitter account is linked to my Facebook account.  At some point the third party site went on mental holiday and I didn’t really notice it happened (because I had stopped writing) and there was a backlog of posts to this very Tumblr page.  When the third party site ended its zoned-out fun-time, that backlog got dumped all at once on Twitter.  Which is not a big deal, because I don’t have many Twitter followers (alas, only 28).  I do, however, have several hundred Facebook friends (883 as of right this second), so when everything that dumped to Twitter was then real-time dumped on my Facebook timeline (five status updates within a few minutes), a few people noticed.  Suddenly a bunch of my friends who didn’t even know that I had a blog (or even that I write) started following me on Twitter and Tumblr, reading what’s here, and making comments about my writing.  Then I looked at the date of my last post.  And I felt shame.  Thank you for the guilt trip, you faulty net-propagation tool.

So here I am again.  And this is what I’d like to talk about:

I made several New Year’s resolutions around the beginning of 2012.  Now, my resolutions each year are not things I intend to change over night, but are instead goals I would like to see myself reach by the following new year.  This year I resolved to begin running seriously, to try my utmost to spend some time every day writing, to try my utmost to spend some time every day playing music, to listen to more music (again! daily!) and to get more focused on the New York City local music scene.  That and a slew of other seemingly simple well-intentioned things that (every one) turned out to be incredibly difficult feats of superhuman ability.

As far as running, I can safely and proudly say, “Check.”  I’ve been trying to become a serious runner for about four years, but I’d never run more than three miles in one go up until I stopped running last summer.  Seven weeks ago I began running again, then signed up for my first official race: a 10k in Central Park next week.  Ten kilometers is 6.2 miles.  I ran that far today before I went to work.  Last week I ran eight miles one day then seven miles two days later.  On Monday I signed up to run the Brooklyn Half Marathon on May 19th.  My friends are shocked and I’m even more shocked.  Either way.  Running.  Crossed off the list.  I am a serious runner.

As for the resolution to write every day?  This one makes me scratch my head.

The bar I work at is a small music venue.  A very new small music venue.  My first shift was the grand opening.  We didn’t have a functioning website at the time and I was strapped for cash.  I talked to the general manager (one of my best friends) and offered to run the site— I run my own band’s website, after all, so how hard could it be?— for a nominal weekly pay.  He said it was a good idea.

When the site got up and running I thought it would be a genius little plan to write a little bit about every band that was going to play every night.  I thought, “What kind of venue does that in New York City?  What small venue takes the time to tell people what the bands playing that night are going to sound like?”  The answer, obviously, is “Not a single one.”  I also thought, “How much time out of my day can that possibly take?”

Now here I need the sort of dramatic pause that you really only have the luxury of orchestrating in, well, almost any medium but writing.  That’s why I’m telling you right now to pause for a moment.

Have you paused?  Dramatically?

Good.  Ok.

I had no idea what the workload would end up being.  When I do the math, that “nominal weekly pay” works out to, oh, about half of minimum wage.  If that.  I didn’t (and don’t) care, because I love where I work and I want it to be the most special place at which anyone can ever play a show, see a show, or even just stop in to have a drink.

Then one night I told a friend what I was doing.  His immediate reaction was, “Sweet!  Dude, you have a paid writing gig!”

Let’s bring that dramatic pause back for a refrain.  Did you pause?  Good.

Holy crap.  He’s right!  At the ripe age of 34 I have my first paid writing gig.  Doesn’t matter that the pay is miniscule.  Someone is giving me money.  To write.  About bands.

On top of that?  Well, it turns out that means I’m now writing every day.  EVERY day.  And more: I’m listening to music daily.  So I can write about it.  And what I’m listening to (98% of the time) is local bands.  So I’m writing every day, listening to more music, and getting more connected to the New York City local music scene.  Three resolutions (plus a paid writing gig, something I never dreamed of) all in one fell swoop.

As for playing music every day?  Just before I wrote this I worked out a Smoking Popes cover.  I mean, I play music for several hours two or three times a week— it’s called rehearsing with my band.  But I no longer want to let a day go by that I don’t play and sing at least one song.  I can’t believe I ever let that happen, let alone for how long.  And anyway, after all I’ve already accomplished, sitting at the guitar for five minutes a day is a small commitment.

And another resolution was to keep up this Tumblr site.  I want to get back into doing this once a week.  Here’s step one in that direction.

Poem to Sherry Larkin

Poem to Sherry Larkin

I’m having the strangest day and it reeks of you,
though I’ve only been awake an hour or two.
I woke mid-snore and picked up a book of poetry
we once fell asleep to, you listened to me read

about some town that neither of us had heard
of, let alone visited, some maverick thought spurred
by who knows what led me to pull it from the shelf
and read it to your wide child eyes.  God knows what else.

I stole the eyes bit from cummings, I won’t lie.
And I looked up Philip, you must be related.
You must forgive me, my meter is terrible.
But your eyes, they are wide, and blue like sky
and hungry like a kid’s mind, never sated,
and today I woke up drunk and incorrigible.

Every once in awhile I think it’s healthy to write something really bad.  So I woke up and did that this afternoon.

This is dedicated to my dear friend Sherry Larkin.  And no, to my knowledge, she is in no way whatsoever actually related to Philip.

The book of poetry mentioned is Making Certain It Goes On, the collected poems of Richard Hugo. The particular poem was “Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg.”

The e.e. cummings poem I stole “wide child eyes” from is called, stupidly enough, “i love you.”  The only link I could find to it online is another tumblr site: http://bit.ly/e5E9vC  This poem has always been special to me… It’s not a well known poem of his.  It’s in the back of the collected works.  Way back.  A girl named Naomi who lived in a different suburb of Dallas than I did called me in high school, many years ago.  I had my own phone line, which was a big deal back then.  I guess it must be like getting a cell phone as a kid now?  I don’t know.  No one even had pagers back then, let alone cell phones.  Naomi got my answering machine, and she recited that cummings poem (“i love you”) on the tiny cassette that was in that machine.  She didn’t love me; we had merely been talking about e.e. cummings a week before, and that was her favorite poem of his.  I was in love with Naomi’s best friend.  I was not in love with Naomi, nor was she in love with me.  But I listened to that poem— recited in her very earnest voice, not in love with me but in love with the words themselves— until the analog data was worn off the face of the tape wound up in that cassette.

4 a.m. and waiting for trains

4 a.m. and waiting for trains

I listen.  The tunnel is full
of muffled roars.  Drops
of rain, done falling hours
ago, make their way to the tracks
in a chorus of plops and splats.

At the bar, the fat man I just spoke
with knew my heart was hungry.
But not what for.  He said Zappa,
I countered Beefheart.  He offered
“Dark Side,” I corrected “Meddle.”
He asked, “Cohen?”  I answered “Drake.”

He said a good woman.  I said a still
room with a good view and a pen
and paper.  A guitar, too.  A bottle.
And a phone.  The old coiled cord
and rotary sort.  Someone to call,
scribbled hastily on a hotel pad.

Then: as many hours I’d need
before I decipher the numerals
and dial to say, “Listen to what I’ve made!”

Do I need to explain the context of this at all?  I think it’s all there, in the poem.  This isn’t the strongest thing I’ve written— actually, I have to confess, I save my strongest poems for submission to journals, and most journals will refuse anything previously published, even if it’s just on a blog with fewer than twelve readers (like this one).  But like a mother of an ugly child, I am still proud of each bit of verse I crap out.

So yeah, here’s the poem I promised you by the end of the week.

Interesting statistic

So I’ve sat at my computer for about four and a half hours doing nothing practical.  Then it occurred to me, I should catch up with this website.

Which leads me to the statistic: It takes approximately four and a half hours of just messing around for me to accomplish anything productive.

It is sad, but the main reason I’ve neglected New Boots for so long is that I’ve been wasting time on Facebook.  That’s right.  I rejoined Facebook and stopped being active here.  I’ve been exploring everything that New York City in the summertime affords to the recently single.  I’ve actually been writing quite a bit, and I can’t wait to share some of it with you (later this week, I promise).

For the moment why don’t I share a fragment I’ve been working on, which hasn’t quite made it into a poem yet:

There’s a shard of light driven
through me. Cue not your
sympathy, though it renders me
(to some) disabled. I can see
things other’s ghosts ne’er will.

That’s it for now.  I have to get up at 8:00 a.m. to head to Fire Island for the day.  So, it’s a promise.  Look here within the next week for a full new poem.

thekidthatnevergrewup asked: heyyyyyyyyy.. okay.. its been a while..
i'm the guy who used to be 'dreaddinc.tumblr.com' but then i left cause my school friends found me.. so now i made a new account.. and i was dying to get some of the old folks back but couldnt.. then i went on disqus and found my old account with out messages on it.. so yeah.. finally found u.. u said u wouldnt stop writing but it seems like u have? .. thats to bad though.. ..
anyways tc
keith..
<if u ever get this message>

I haven’t stopped writing, I just haven’t published it here for some time.

I think of you often, and actually wondered where you had gone.  I met an Indian couple from Abu Dhabi three weeks ago, and you came up in conversation.  I was actually worried some tragedy had befallen you, and I am glad to know you’re okay and back with us.

I promise, I will write more here soon.  I am sorry I let you down.