Inside Out, Falling Down

I've got her under my skin,
green grass eyes and golden flesh.
My veins ache for her, relentlessly,
though we've never met,
we will...I know...we will.

She doesn't know how fierce my blood flows,
on the floor of this temple, tonight.
She doesn't know I love her, here,
in this silence, in this light,
but she will...I know she will.

I've got her under my skin,
her fingernails digging in, and digging in.
I see her face, above my lips,
our bodies inside-out and falling down.
She's in me now and holding still,
I know she is...I know she is.

(She doesn't know I love her, now,
I know she will...I know she will).

-AAB

Nothing

Do you ever have days when nothing happens...

No simple conversations, no movies to see, no mags, no papers, no great books to read, no time to think, no email to send, no pennies to borrow, to save or to spend, no smiles, no fights, no stars in the sky, no food, no water, no darkness, no light,
no songs, no art, no pen, no ink, no music to play, no songs to sing, no lovers to call, no dates to break, no friends to bury, no flowers to bring, no place to go, no paths to take, nothing to touch, protect or save, no urgent need, no mouths to feed, no gigs, no work, no impossible dreams, no booze to drink or dope to kick, no grand designs or petty schemes, no visiting friends, no hearts to break, no phones ringing, no claims to stake, no plans for lunch, no plans for dinner, no raging parties or celebrity scenes, no letters from home, no push, no shove, no major event, no signs of love, no mountains to climb, no words to repent, no laughter, no sadness, no anger to vent, no fires burning, no raging storms, no sun, no rain, no children born, no lies to tell, no peaceful sleep, no dishes to wash, no fields to reap, no magic, no vision, no worries, no stress, no clothes to wear, no wounds to dress, no money earned, lost or spent, no desire, no tears, no laughter, no sex, no god, no religion, no life, no death...

Today was not one of those days...

Sparrows

will you take me there,
to all the places you've been,
with the crosses you bear
underneath your soft skin.

will you take me there,
through the cracks in the night,
into white burning light
and the hands of our sins.

will you take me there,
with the warmth of your mouth,
we can trip all the wires,
over and over again.

will you take me there,
to watch the sparrows die,
as they drown in your eyes,
as they burn in your sighs.

will you take me there tonight, baby...
take me there tonight.

-AAB

The Beggar

He has no place with her now. His hands so dirty, worn and raw. Scraping the pavement of his desire, where only the cold wet stones know his name.

He has no place with her now. His aspect cracked and broken. Stinking of horror, sweat, wine and a lust for all that remains of a long disregarded dream.

He has no place with her now. His black coal eyes of willing rage. Burning holes in the sun, the seconds, the hours and death's voracious, ugly pallor.

He has no place with her now. His hungry heart, debauched, devoured. Cast out by a love that does not suffer a fool, the furious, the divine, the righteous, the coward.

He has no place with her now. No footprint. No vestige. No trace. No mark. Nothing to hold her face close, to kiss, to claim, to love, to harm.

He has no place with her, and now he is gone. Dissolved into shadows and acrid dust, beyond hope of Elysium's sweet embrace, a lovers glance, a state of grace.

He won't be coming home again, he won't be coming home.

-AAB

The Subways Of New York

One of the things I enjoy the most about being a New Yorker is taking the subway late at night. If you've ever done it, you may understand. There is a certain raw sensuality, serenity, peace, solitude...in the echoes and vibrations of the tunnel, when the silence is only broken by the foul wind, scurrying rats, lone musicians wailing in song, trains rumbling into distant stations or the whispers, howls, laughter and babble of lovers, drunks or the homeless...offering kisses, gropes, prayers, ranting and curses into the damp rattle and hum. In the frenetic abundance and chaos that is NY, it is one of the few moments I have the opportunity to be alone with my thoughts, ideas, inspiration, music, sadness and reflections. In NY, being alone in the subway, is a commodity I truly enjoy...except...when I'm in a fucking hurry.

Blot Out The Sun

Her anger blots out the sun
and the green is gone from her eyes

Desire dissipates, like a summer flower dying
yes, she told me once, but I had forgotten
and my fingernails are dirty still
now the green is gone from her eyes

She loved me once, it doesn't matter now
when her anger blots out the sun
tomorrow, yes, tomorrow
I'll hold her closer, closer then

I should have known, I should have cared
the green is gone from her eyes

-AAB

Sex and Religion in Advertising

I was going through some old photographs I'd taken on the road and found this one. It was taken on the side of a highway in Tennessee. I love the way they do it in Memphis. Leave it to southern Baptists to utilize sexuality in advertising the good will of the holy spirit!

Think I'm going to re-examine my personal relationship with god and start praying more often! Please feel free to join me in this revelation and "COME" as often as humanly possible. Amen.

The Delicate Hour

You are inside me. Like time, like air, like water. I think of you, I breathe. I think of you, I'm alive. I think of you and I'm aroused, revealed, free and nothing else matters. I think of you, as I walk, as I desire, as I drift and wander alone because you are not here. I see you in the faces of strangers, friends, lovers, enemies. I see you in all of them, beneath the skin, beneath the flesh, beneath the marrow. I think of you when it's dark, cold and unforgiving. When the thought of you washes away the fear, the anguish, the memory and the dirt from my feet. I think of you and wonder, if the man I am is worthy of you, your love, your divinity, your sorrow...when we're on the floor, broken, raw and ashamed. When every shadow bears the face of angels. When every whispered word, cuts to the bone. I want to kiss you now, hold you, fuck you, touch you, speak too you in tongues and in the darkest hours, when there is no mercy, embrace you. I want to know no illusions, no fear, no hesitation as the world dissolves and you are there, naked and alone but for me. I think of you, in this graceful, delicate hour and all there is...is the thought of you.

-AAB

Strange Fruit

Moby recently sent me this photograph and video. Racism always inspires the same visceral reaction. It would be an understatement to say that I was not enraged, moved beyond tears and filled with an immense sense of anger, despair and revelation. Even though I have seen these images many times before, each time, the impact is as absolute. They have never failed to reanimate the horrid realities of the ignorant, hate fueled, racist and violent roots of America's past. In sharp contrast, I was also completely elevated and enlightened by the video, song and Billie's power, courage and spirit. Though the photo and the song are almost 70 years old, I believe they will reverberate in the human psyche forever.

This story must be remembered, not only to remind us of the lowest aspirations of man, but his highest. And though there are thousands of similar stories regarding man's depravity, inhumanity and cruelty, from Darfur to Guantanamo, Abu Gharaib to Auschwitz...each story can help us to remember, understand, aspire, transcend and prevail to the highest aspects of our nature and humanity.



So...here is the history of the song. It was written by a New York activist named Abel Meeropol after seeing the Shipp/Smith photograph. On an side note, Abel was also the adoptive parent of the children of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, the couple who were executed in the 1950's for allegedly spying for the Russian KGB.

"Strange Fruit"
Single by Billie Holiday
Released: 1939
Genre: Blues
Label: Commodore
Writer: Abel Meeropol

"Strange Fruit" is a song most famously performed by Billie Holiday that condemnsAmerican racism, particularly the practice of lynching and burning African Americans that was prevalent in the South at the time when it was written."Strange Fruit" began as a poem about the lynching of two black men written by a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx Abel Meeropol, who used the pen name Lewis Allan (the names of his two children, who died in infancy). Meeropol and his wife were also the adoptive parents of the children of the executed alleged spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg in the 1950s. "Strange Fruit" was written as a poem expressing his horror at the lynchings, and was first published in 1937 in The New York Teacher, a union magazine. Though Meeropol/Allan often asked others (notably Earl Robinson) to set his poems to music he set Strange Fruit to music himself and the song gained a certain success as a protest song in and around New York. Before Holiday was introduced to the song, it had been performed by Meeropol, by his wife, and by black vocalist Laura Duncan, who performed it at Madison Square Garden.

Meeropol said later that he had been inspired by seeing Lawrence Beitler's photograph of the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Marion, Indiana. "Strange Fruit" was eventually heard by Barney Josephson the founder of Cafe Society, New York's first integrated nightclub, who introduced it to Billie Holiday. Holiday performed the song at Cafe Society in 1939, a move that by her own admission left her fearful of retaliation. Holiday later said that the imagery in "Strange Fruit" reminded her of her father's death, and that this played a role in her persistence in performing it. The song became a regular part of Holiday's live performances.

Holiday approached her recording label, Columbia, about recording the song, but her producer John Hammond—the man credited with originally discovering her—did not support her choice, and Columbia refused to record the song. Holiday arranged to record it with Commodore, Milt Gabler's alternative jazz label in 1939. She would record two major sessions at Commodore, one in 1939 and one in 1944.

"Strange Fruit" was highly regarded and in time became Holiday's biggest selling record. Though it became a staple of her live performances at the time, Holiday's accompanist, Bobby Tucker, later commented that Holiday would break down after every performance of it.

The "strange fruit" referred to in the song are the bodies of African American men hanged during a lynching. They contrast the pastoral scenes of the South with the ugliness of racist violence. The lyrics were so chilling that Holiday later said "The first time I sang it, I thought it was a mistake. There wasn't even a patter of applause when I finished. Then a lone person began to clap nervously. Suddenly
everyone was clapping and cheering."

The club owner immediately recognized the impact of the song on his audience and insisted that Holiday close all her shows with it. Just as the song was about to begin, waiters would stop serving, the lights in club would be turned off, and a single pin spotlight would illuminate Holiday on stage. During the musical introduction, Holiday would stand with her eyes closed, as if she were evoking a prayer.

The song became an instant success and came to be the piece most identified with Holiday, and was ultimately to become the anthem of the anti-lynching movement. The dark imagery of the lyrics struck a chord, and can be said to have planted one of the first seeds of what would later become the Civil Rights movement of the 50s and 60s.

Dust

Why are you chasing devils my love? Do they drink with you and laugh remorselessly when your rage comes. I can smell them on your breath like death. Are you afraid my love, afraid of the pain that clings to every morning, like dust on the shelves? Are you afraid when you sleep, when you scream, when you fuck? Is love the only solace the day brings, but too late, too little, too much? When you left, my heart soared...but no further than these walls that ache for your presence. I cursed you my love, for not having the strength to hang on, for letting go and falling into the emptiness. Do you like it my love, need it, want it. That emptiness that binds us, holds us too the promise of all regret and insolence. Why are you chasing devils my love...why? Because they are there, as I am. Bursting with the same rage, the same love, the same bitter pills of illumination. Don't leave again, don't leave again my love, nor chase the devils. My hands are softer than those jagged edges you call home and my stomach is empty.

-AAB

"LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!!!"

This is by far one of the most funny, strange and sad videos to recently come out of youtube. As I watched the pathetic spectacle, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry (I laughed, then felt bad). It's a testament to the pure power of celebrity and the media's depravity.





So, for fucks sake, LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!!!

(Actually, the more I watch this...the more I sympathize. The media are pariahs, leaches and bloodsucking maggots...right?).

"A Response To: The Question"

The question is more of a metaphorical one. The metaphor being: If you share with me, your mortal coil, your thoughts, your desires and I, in return, love, vilify or otherwise revel in your soul, will we be any closer to the truth of who we are. Obviously, I say, unequivocally...YES!

It is also a statement made out of my desire to connect with my "friends". To decipher and understand the banality, glory and truth of who I am, who you are, who we are. Of course there is no simple answer. Our spirits, soul and human core is obviously more broad and complex. But, the question remains: a singular, direct, honest appeal for us to reveal and revel in our humanity via dialogue, communication and the recognition of our own existence. Our precious and rare collective singularity.

Here are some profound examples of this question or similar metaphors. Of course, I'm not nearly as eloquent nor as brilliant as Shakespeare, Descartes, Einstein, Henry Miller or Horace. Hence, I have too paraphrase.

1. "I think, therefore, I am" -"Cogito, ergo sum" (Latin: "I think, therefore I am") or Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum (Latin: "I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am") is a philosophical statement used by René Descartes, which became a foundational element of Western philosophy. "Cogito ergo sum" is a translation of Descartes' original French statement: "Je pense, donc je suis", which occurs in his Discourse on Method (1637). (See Principles of Philosophy, Part 1, article 7: "Ac proinde hæc cognitio, ego cogito, ergo sum, est omnium prima & certissima, quæ cuilibet ordine philosophanti occurrat.")

2. "I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that". -An excerpt from Shylock's defense in "The Merchant of Venice" by William Shakespeare, Act III, Scene 1.

3. "To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd".
-An excerpt from Hamlet's soliloquy in "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare, Act III, Scene 1.

4. "A human being is a part of a whole, called by us "the universe", a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest...as a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." -Albert Einstein

5. Any genuine philosophy leads to action and from action back again to wonder, to the enduring fact of mystery.
-Henry Miller

6. Tu ne quaesieris, scire nefas, quem mihi, quem tibi Leuconoe, finem di dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios temptaris numeros. Ut melius, quidquid erit, pati. Seu pluris hiemes seu tribuit Iuppiter ultimam, quae nunc oppositis debilitat pumicibus mare Tyrrhenum: sapias, vina liques et spatio brevi spem longam reseces. dum loquimur, fugerit invida aetas: carpe diem quam minimum credula postero -Horace, Ode 1

So...the question stands...and should always be asked...

Who are you? And...who are we?

Thank you for inviting me into the mystic...


P.S. This post may seem a little pretentious or bombastic...but I mean it, with all my deepest sincerity. So...take it...or fucking leave it...

"Artists Who Shit Where They Eat"

I was having dinner tonight with a group of friends and something that was said in conversation struck me, invigorated me and reverberated like a .22 caliber bullet in my brain.

I'll preface this briefly:

The comment was made by an acquaintance of mine who is a painter, sculptor and artist. He is deeply intelligent, soulful, charming and funny and I've always respected him for his wit, insight and charisma, though we've never really known each other beyond surface chit-chat, mutual acknowledgment and (I presume) casual respect. From what I know, he has become successful enough as an artist to enjoy the fruits of his labor. So, what he said (through my perception) is basically this: Is art something because it is beautiful or meaningful, or is it something simply because a museum, gallery or critic or friend says so? (This is no revelation or new thought mind you) but it is a quintessential question and it reminded me...for example, of the art exhibit "Cloaca".

I quote:

"Cloaca is a giant machine that makes shit. At one end of the machine, they pour 2.6 gallons of water and a meal from a fancy SoHo restaurant. 27 hours and 33 feet later, a nozzle squirts out a well-formed piece of crap".

"Basically, Cloaca is a computerized mechanical system designed to mimic the human digestive process. The machine, which eats better than the majority of us, chews the food using a meat grinder and a garbage disposal, then passes it through six reactor chambers that use various chemicals to do the job of a digestive system. At 2:30 PM every day a crowd gathers, and the machine dutifully drops a shit onto a conveyor belt. The crowd cheers. Hooray for shit!"

"Why is it art when this machine shits on a conveyor belt in a museum? And why don't the cops think its art when I take a shit on the sidewalk outside the museum? As Duchamp teaches us, there are two ways to look at Art: Cloaca is shit that is art, or Cloaca is shit that is shit. There are two ways to look at Cloaca: Cloaca is shit that is art, or Cloaca is shit that is shit".

This is the fundamental point:

"As shit art, Cloaca has engendered some important thinking. But as shit, Cloaca has played another role: making fools of the literati. From the outsider's perspective, it's pretty funny to watch a bunch of book-learnin' types waiting breathlessly for shit, and then applauding when it arrives. Cloaca makes the wildest stereotypes of intellectual snobs a complete reality".

"In its most essential reading, Cloaca (and my friend) directly confront the contemporary state of confusion regarding when or where human life begins and ends. Through a monumental simulacrum tracing the path made by what we eat from the mouth to the anus, Cloaca forces us to see this process as something more than simply mechanical and catch ourselves in the act of self-identification and realization".

My initial reaction to my friends comment was anger! And as I examined my anger and it's roots...I had an epiphany! I was angry because I'd not given it any thought myself. I'd not deconstructed, chewed the fat, nor examined my own art enough to mock it, revel in it, destroy it...create it. I felt vain, self absorbed and stupid. I was angry because I'd held the belief that I was in control, and my perceptions of "art" were set, immutable and unchallenged. My ego, had become my undoing. By limiting myself to these set perceptions, this comfort zone, I'd built a wall around my own creativity and ability. I'd forgotten to break down my own barriers and revel, laugh and examine the irony of my own "shit". Intellectual snob...indeed!

From my perspective, the primary function of art is to question, convey or otherwise enlighten our human perspective, viewpoint or realizations of life...in it's highest form...life! Yes, shit is shit...but it is also our highest aspiration...because we are alive, and we can shit, love, laugh, fuck, create art and procreate...

I am learning not to be an ignorant snob...nor take my shit...for granted...

In the immortal words of Descartes, and in honor of the conversation..."I think, therefore, I am"...

In the immortal words of my friend: "Shit it, and they will buy it"...

In the immortal words of George Carlin: "Buy your own shit, this shits mine"...

Ok...enough shit...