Category Archives: Punk

Air That I Breathe

WELL, HERE’S ANOTHER SNIPPET I found from the past. Turns out Miller didn’t run. Turns out I never heard another word about this Dennis Miller for US Senate blip on the radar.

Dateline, September 29, 2003. Whoops, there it is! I couldn’t believe it. I tune in to Fox News this morning and hear within the first few minutes that Dennis Miller, yes, THAT Dennis Miller, former ABC Monday Night Football color man, erudite comedian, and political wit of some regard, is actually considering a run for the US Senate on the Republican ticket! Amazing! Just last week, on September 22, in this column, I postulated a Miller candidacy, and one week later, whammo, it’s a serious matter in the news. I tell you folks. I had absolutely no idea, had heard absolutely zero rumors, floaters, or jokes ever mentioning a hint of anything Miller might mosh within the political arena. My addendum on the 22nd was simple wishful thinkful on my part after catching a segment with Dennis somewhere on the tube, an old rerun probably.

Dennis-Miller

Dennis Miller

So the headlines are this: Dennis Miller wants to unseat two-term Democrat Sen. Barbara Boxer in what used to be a hugely democratic California, after this governorship recall thing is old news. By the way, Dennis is working on Arnold’s behalf in that race.

Probably all hinges of how Swartzenegger fares in about eight days.

But we all know where I stand on the issue of “Tell it like it is” Dennis Miller taking down a seat usually reserved for the tired old hacks of the two major parties. Miller is surely no painted saint when tallied by so-called political criteria, or perhaps he is. Was Dennis Miller the secret SNL straight-edger? I certainly don’t think Miller was any John Beluschi in terms of rocking while you’re dropping, but surely he’s no Orin Hatch, either. A man of his generation, as they like to say.

The question remains, will whistle blower extraordinaire Dennis Miller cave to political pressures to conform, and be forced to plop the political powdered wig on his big Hollywood head, and quietly play the hypocrits game as the powers that be always insist, or is this “radical middle” movement actually beginning to take root in this country?

Certainly I’m no Matt Drudge on this political beat, and Miller must have been pondering his own hat-tossing for far longer than the seven days which have passed since I put out my own obscure feeler last week, but I must have sniffed something in the air, folks, seriously.

This is actually the second time in my life that Dennis Miller has eerily poked his head into the mind and matters of your humble correspondent. But I’ve got to find that old Dennis Miller comedy CD so I can get the facts absolutely straight, and report the early 90s Miller-Thy synchronity in all its shock and awe detail. There was some joke with a punchline that had something to do with an unidentified loud-mouth at a party bragging about knowing RuPaul back in Atlanta before New York and all the fame that followed. Damn, I AM that yahoo, and have the unfinished manuscript and old Wee Wee Pole flyer to prove it! Give me a day or two. I’m off to paint some lampshades now.

This article is an automated repost from the Project Scenewash archives. Originally posted on September 29, 2003.

Whole Grains of Salt

Cracking Surface

Cracking Surface

DATELINE MARCH 29, 2004. It was bound to happen. It was bound to happen to me. After three and a half years of critical stagnation, or seven, if you count the ego-soaked swillibuster era—after compiling thousands and organizing hundreds of spewing streams of political, artistic, and theological treatise, essay, opinion, oddball blasphemy, jack wrong nonsense, half-baked curds and whey rolling up the sleeves of the duly infatuated—in a single absent-minded act of accidental shredding, the work that had filled my long gaps of inactivity has finally vanished. If I were more the conspiratorial flogstaff, I’d swear that old bean sprout leftie Len Bracken had something to do with this tragic miscue. Just yesterday, he had me worried that he wanted me to yank up some old 1994 manuscript files of a book I’d typeset for him. I still had them sitting on my drive, but wasn’t anxious to go digging for them.

This was my first mistake. I’d boasted instead of keeping my own counsel. And as is nearly always the case, I soon paid the price for my bravado, always finding new and ingenius ways to suffer the consequences of ego. Here’s my crash report to Bracken this morning:

Thanks again for the editor’s copy of your movie. I think I will take a few breaths before watching it again. In a completely unrelated event last night, I trashed and shredded my entire Scenewash Project, losing forever some 800 MB of text and graphics I had been collecting and coordinating as reference material for both the web site and my own stalled writing career, such as it is. Attempts to recover the data netted only about 200 MB of the original gigabyte of material including what was backed up by virtue of sitting on the webserver already in play, so that’s one small consolation. Bad news is that among the 800 MB was your entire archive of Guy Debord – Revolutionary, the cover I designed, the original typesetting, et cetera, all of which has been lost.

Young Guy Debord

A Young Guy Debord

The only remains of Len Bracken on my system are those web pages I created, and whatever is posted to the web site in the Situationist section where other “conspiracy” material was archived. Of course, I had the whole mess backed up on the wife’s machine, until I dumped it clearing out space in which to edit —yep, you guessed it—The Lazy Ones not so long ago you may recall. Now isn’t that a striking irony.

Apparently when I was thrushing out the the weeds I (or some ghost in the machine) managed to drag the entire Scenewash folder containing all these working archives into the trash, and when prompted to empty I noted the size of the dump was rather high for what I presumed was in the trash by choice, but failed to follow up my suspicion with a quick peek of the contents. Result was instant disaster and chaos, regrets in a handbasket.

Bowing to fate, all this so-called scholarly work has been lifted off my shoulders, for better or worse, for the foreseeable future. The weight has lifted. One day I will regain my strength to sort through what little I was able to recover, and merge them with my paper files, and perhaps only then be rightfully prepared to sculpt a work of art worthy of all those keystrokes and hours lost in sitting. Time will always kill a mockingbird.

This post is republished from the Project Scenewash archives.

Judgement Furniture: Time Itself

Four score and seven years
ago . . . an idea took root.

These rather mundane but highly charged words have echoed across the American mindscape . . .

Freedom’s just another word for nothing else to do . . .

In the evolution of man’s flight from the biocriticisms of nature, only a few governments in the history of the modern world as we know it has ever been founded upon the premise that all men are created equal, and they have each according to its own nature, proved that embracing the convenient lie is a stronger impulse than weathering the persistant struggle of the truth.

The lemon tree does not compare itself to the pine tree in terms of equality, and neither should humanity pine for such terms nor grow sour to its own promises.

Cindy Sheehan

Cindy Sheehan, anti-war activist…

the human spirit throughout history has been shown to struggle in rising above these awkward limitations, despite a persistant weakness for oppression and folly.

Freedom of opportunity does not include molecular bias, suggesting a nod to the a priori, rather than to the revolutionary moment.

Revolution is the first resort of scoundrels and sly misanthropes, and the last resort of still honest chainthinkers who treasure today’s fleeting moment rather than yesterday’s sandbagged rubble or tomorrow’s sloganeering turned soon against themselves.

Military and articulative might is a time-worn eye for eye approach to keeping the peace in a world of chaotic and delusional equations. Turning the other cheek is axiomatic to early blindness for the many, while bringing light to the few. One must pick one’s poison, knowing you will never cheat infinity.

Envy is the cardinal regret in this knotted world of appropriation. Self-contentment is never attainable while still attached to how others may compare to one’s own stability. After the Industrial Revolution brought on rapid development and nearly everyone’s lives improved with relation to leisure time and creature comforts, so has our lust for competition and greed among our neighbors.

Work is nothing but an attempted escape from idleness. Numbers suggest many succeed and find happiness. The idle rarely stretch beyond the strains of envy. Those who do, find happiness. Is there room for both clienteles in a single worldview. Of course.

Many concern themselves with public image. While not the costliest of resonances, this public mirror of the soul cannot but reproduce a skewed version of the individual at war with himself. A man not at war with himself is either a brute or a flicker of transparency. No proverb can capture the entirety of a persona, and yet, no proverb has ever been proven completely false, despite the deflection artistry of the politically correct.

After all is said and done . . .
we will never cheat infinity.

 

There is but one approach in examining one’s life, and that is under the microscope of universal slavery. . .

Freedom is not separate from responsibility . . .

Conflict is in the untrained or overstrained eye of the beholder still a hostage to wandering irresponsibility while freedom is self-evident, encouraging, and harmonious . . .

The primary mote of conflict is “Me first!” While the cruelest season of freedom is “You too!”

Obedience to one’s thirst is not necessarily the quencher, if one’s pail belongs to another, or has been shot full of holes by one’s own conflicted handiwork . . .

The entire history of humanity is written in the soul of every newborn child. Unfortunately, man rushes in to burn those books and youth revokes itself. . .

author

Gabriel Thy, author

Many appear who speak in the name of freedom and claim to possess the message which will unlock the shackles of the mind and free the flesh.

      These new jailers are bleeders of time and are merely seeking to herd you into their private cave for a short while. Beware of these roaring lions and strip searchers. They want something you can’t give them if you value the freedom they are selling.

Commerce is not as evil as the lie that commerce is the only good.

One lad’s rebellion is another lad’s herd instinct. Neither lad is ever completely free from, nor completely included into any herd definition. This is self-evident. Why do the heathen rage so in suggesting otherwise?

The language of knowledge is alphabet dirt. It can neither oppress nor elevate without an accompanying conspiracy of oppressors and flatterers working an organizing grift. Evolution of language is a natural phenomenon as a byproduct of freedom. Codification of language is a welcomed conspiracy with commerce but its oppressive tact along the rules of exclusion is a ruthless agenda. This is not freedom but an unnatural stratafication of freedom.

The abolition of conflict is not as desirable as the identification and clarification of freedom in its most solid or acute states.

Preferring to accept without retaliation the premise that it is quite self-evident to the honest mind that the flesh does indeed inform the spirit as does the spirit inform the flesh far beyond the powerful intrigues of rote socialization, should we ask and thus expect to quantify this quality of physical nature? Is true androgeny and one unvaried race the sole solution to what ails the human species at this very critical time of its departure from a bloody past our ancestors and our peers have left us?

Is anyone truly prepared for the centrifugal forces of the 21st century as things gear forward leaving far behind this bloodcurdlin’ past, or is our quandry just a long fillibuster aimed at delaying the inevitable yawn, making haze as Dylan now puts us, travelin’ on a slow train with a long time to go yet before we ferry out of steam, blow ourselves extinct, or finally realize our best bet is to muster enough strength to simply say to ourselves what the commoners say, that we must keep on keeping on because none of us is gonna change soon enough to make that much a difference except as bit players on a rugged landscape made of mind and mischief, merriment, moxy, mules and mediocrity.

But such is time and perfect timing, off time, under time, in time, time and time again, sloppy time, never time, Miller time, tea time too. Neat time, time in a bottle, my time, the time of my life, time to shape up, time to get a job, all the way to the point where it’s time to get married the fifth time.

      Shallow time. Shag time. Sane time. In the time it took to drive a bus off the cliff on a Seventies cop show, that’s show time. Time to go to the bathroom. Time this. Time that. Time warp. Time tunnel. Time is where the heart is. Time enough to think of a good response this time. Time to grow up. Time to eat and run. Time to suck him off. Time to beg the difference. Time to cut the mustard. Time to pick out a receiver downfield. All the time in the world. Time to wipe my ass. Timex time. Time to cash a cheque. Time to win the battle but lose the war on drugs. Time it took four angry women to satisfy each other in a dark room nearby. Time to write a novel. Time to brush her hair the same way her sister used to brush her own. Time to draw a conclusion at the bottom of the class. Time to mark a certain number of correct answers to the questions with a number two pencil. Time to give up a lost cause. Time to shut down the chicken farms along that river. Time to read the classics in their original language. Time to make lunch bags before the children race off to school. The time it takes to build a universe only to have it collapse in your face is nothing like the time I helped Aunt Mardis rip through a chocolate cake in the olden days of French ascendency. It takes time to learn to ride a bicycle. Time to reap what one sows. Or maybe not. Maybe that time is instantaneous time, time accurately remembered. Time to sing before she swallows. Time to harvest a generation. Time to swallow before you hang ten. Time to look before you cross. By the time it took to dig the Erie Canal times had changed. It’s not about time, it’s about attitude. By the time I get to Phoenix many husbands won’t have time to take out the garbage. The driver swore to the witness that he didn’t have time to stop. Time takes a holiday but time never vacates the premises. Time laughs at odd moments but time never bargains with leftover sandwiches. Time is that which doesn’t kill you. Time kills that child inside only to seemingly reappear later. Time is a long, cool woman in a black dress. Time is kinky. Time paints by numbers. Time is a disease of the pancreas. Time is a heart-shaped tattoo on Wendy’s breasts in the window in Times Square. Pi is a timeless equation. Time understands all wounds. Time wounds all heels. Time is an asset. Time is a pain in the ass. Time is only as good as your next biological movement. Time is the needle in the haystack. Time is secondary but don’t tell her that. Nothing like a good time in the sack to make time fly. Time has no fear of flying, but Erica and Henry both knew what having a good time was about, and it was not about time, but the enjoyment of time. Grown-up time. There is no such thing as time travel today, but recordings keep time in ways none of us truly understand past its fetish draw, but time was when a fine time was had by all, double time, life plus time. Time the unfortunate child born without legs who beats a faster smile than you do. Observe that same child pursue the purses some fancy to trick time into measuring time with old technologies in a world that presumes time can’t reverse itself while it can so readily repeat itself dipped in statistics. Time is a two-way mirror. Time is a dirty joke flooding the muddy Missisippi. Time is nothing but what you in coveralls or somebody else makes it, but it’s time you don’t try to tell me about how much time it would take to make the timeless world safe for plastic people most suffering a bad sense of timing. Of course, there’s never enough time to transcend one’s station, especially when mobile. Time is far too formidable a friend on feverish afternoons to let stand in the cold rain. Without time on my side I perish with the daffodils. Time is a time-honored sport everyone must play in order to graduate. Time forgives. Breaking rules for time is not always bad timing, or timing it just right. Time scars. Scabs grab the moment to make time while others bargain, losing time to others, until another time comes. Time is a stiff upper lip in a compromising position. Time defers to gravity, but for one writer, time is nothing but a madcap schemer bought and sold on the installment plan, money paid back over time, but then two-timing Old Doc Celine didn’t live in San Francisco during the beat era among hipsters who liked to mix up time. Time is a nightmare to Klaw’s girls who prefer time raw and risky than their less time-tortured sisters. Time dresses up for special guests. Time is the major importer, exporter of stolen goods across state lines in situations where time is barely legal. That’s time standing in the shadows, losing her shirt to timeless romance. Time is nobody’s business but the rates are skyrocketing. Time is colorless, odorless, tasteless. Time left is time right on time. Time left to itself is useless. Time blows tall buildings to the ground. Time grounds water tables and small asterisks into dust bowls older than TIME ITSELF because time is the wind in the sails of marginality itself.

Because I Am Not…

Because I am not a famous psychologist
Because I am not a suicidal maniac murderer
Because I am not an ambulance chaser
Because I am not a microphone handler
Because I am not a serpent on the cross
Because I am not a nifty gynecologist
Because I am not a film at six and eleven
Because I am not a university clone
Because I am not a fireman in suspenders
Because I am not an Indian Chief
Because I am not an attorney bound by law
Because I am not a politician of smiles
Because I am not a police officer’s duty
Because I am not an actress in chains
Because I am not a cute little puppy
Because I am not a superior attitude
Because I am not a voice in the wilderness
Because I am not a flea on a hog
Because I am not a multisport hero
Because I am not a military genius
Because I am not a drug addict’s dream
Because I am not a skid row banker
Because I am not a fashion designer
Because I am not a race car driver
Because I am not the music of all ages
Because I am not a good swimmer
Because I am not a five-star hotel
Because I am not a flawless woman
Because I am not a cancer without patience
Because I am not a comic book character
Because I am not an alpha male
Because I am not a static engineer
Because I am not a wreck on the highway
Because I am not a telephone signal
Because I am not the end of all wars
Because I am not just another statistic
Because I am not a dying rain forest
Because I am not a complex number
Because I am not a religious zealot
Because I am not a rumor on the grapevine
Because I am not a straight-edged razor
Because I am not a pint-sized rock star
Because I am not a jar of orange Tang
Because I am not a flowerbed lover
Because I am not a ‘65 Mustang
Because I am not a needle in the haystack
Because I am not a word without meaning
Because I am not I am here.

Let’s Try This Again…

Dirty Foot

Each memory's a killer…

It’s obvious. I’m aging and settling into focus with what’s left of my fevered boyish charms. Still an urban punk multimedia artist, despite my best intentions. In March ’06, however, I rented studio space in Wheeling, WV to concentrate on painting, and get to videoediting all those punk & hardcore bands I taped in several DC clubs in the early 90s. Whether slopping fistfuls of paint onto a scrappy canvas or editing clips of “stone deaf forever” video, or tweaking my several websites, brutally observing the whole wanton juggernaut backwards and forwards, from left to right and right to left, both my short list of friends and long list of enemies will say I’m a straight shooter. Okay, whatever, slogans are only wordsuck. Meanwhile, I also run a slamming Internet radio station which plays gobs of punk, goth, and industrial electronica, plus a little bit of quite a bit else, or just enough to disturb every snot-nosed pseudo-purist out there so vigorously stuck in their ways it’s painful to watch and worse to hear. The fact is this, I may respect your taste in music, even if it’s not my own Brunhilde, but I spin my own.

RADIO SCENEWASH

Aiming straight for the brain, right between the ears…

So beat it on over to the Project and fire up RADIO SCENEWASH, armed for the battleground where art and politics beat each other up and few are they who seem the wiser. Follow the links to Live365.com, sign-up, and start listening. Gotta have broadband though. No dial-up weenies here.

Writing from one’s own nostrils. Yeah. I’ve done my share. Any bibliophiliacs out there with a few dimes to spare might pony up to buy my book: THE SILENT CULL AND OTHER MECHANICAL IDEAS. If you’ve read enough dead end poetry to last a lifetime, and prefer to just look at the pictures, then wander over to the art brut section of MY LIFE, and grab some swag.

Art with a strong emphasis on the voice of truth (one day at a time). Studies in stress…

Or just go away. If we have nothing in common but the dull human ache of disinterest, why bother? Go play someplace else.

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