there has been enough anxiety
frustration
desperation
self-loathing
rage
in my twenties
to ruin any good seafood pasta
at any good beach-side restaurant
on any good birthday
and there has been far too much inertia
indecision
insensitivity
melancholy
doubt
and navel-gazing journal entries
instead of outrageous fantasias that trigger the senses
or sensual fantasies that trigger outrage
and there has been much too much too much too much
(the last refrain italicized, please)
of me giving you too little
of you waiting on me to straighten my eyebrows
and those we go to for seeming afar
turn our offering to piss
and those who come for our offering
we see fit to seem afar to
and those who are there and offer everything, finally
we give the piss to put in escrow.
but I have watched enough Attenborough
to know the dolphins
from the snakes
and I also know
artists
thinkers
leaders
tinkerers
contrarians
lost souls
holy fools
lecherous dwarves
early Raspberry Pi enthusiasts
star composers with no green card
20yo rappers with no fear of the army
fourth grade heroes with no dads
people who rail against the government as a service
people who rail against their exes with no malice
people who watch Mad Men while making jewellery and still understand it
people whose teenage selves gushed with Kafka but we didn’t know and now it’s all lost
people who got into entrepreneurship instead of retirement
people who got into piercings in their 30s and it works
people who got sweeter with age
people who are always in good spirits when it comes to good spirits
Casanovas with no social media who seduce from a wheelchair
English Lit grads who’ve actually read Paradise Lost
overachievers not afraid to apologize
golden hearts
survivors
the worldly avatar of the city of Thessaloniki
more than one good stand-up comedian
now you might think I skipped a pill—and for all I know I did
chasing auroras for my thirtieth
socks chilled and tea in thermos
what do you know? I still can’t help looking at my phone
soft glow of tidings and well-wishing
and me looking for you, I guess
though at the time I may not know:
the new year takes a few more days
before it settles within me.
Lake sensed familiar undercurrents of tension, as each artist sought to ferret out information about his or her fellows—weasels, bright-eyed and eager for the kill, that their own weasel selves might burn all the brighter. These tensions had eaten more than one conversation, leaving the table silent with barely suppressed hatred born of envy. Such a cruel and cutting silence had even eaten an artist or two.
—THE TRANSFORMATION OF MARTIN LAKE, Jeff Vandermeer
-Factory Records are not actually a company. We are an experiment in human nature. You’re labouring under the misapprehension that we actually have a deal with, er, with our, our bands. That we have any kind of a contract, er, at all, and I’m afraid we, er, we don’t because that’s, er, [hands him the “contract”] that’s the sum total of the paperwork to do with Factory Records, deal with, er, their various bands.
– [Reading:] “The artists own all their own work, the label owns nothing. Our bands have the freedom…”
-“…to fuck off.”
-Oh, yeah, quite… quite right. “The freedom to fuck off.” [Chuckles] I don’t have to deal with you at all.
-Correct. But my epitaph will be that I… never literally nor metaphorically… sold out. I have protected myself from ever having the… dilemma… of having to sell out, by having… nothing… to sell out.
-Tony, you’re f***ing mad.
-That’s a point of view.
—from 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE
Now I am quietly waiting for
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern.The country is grey and
brown and white in trees,
snows and skies of laughter
always diminishing, less funny
not just darker, not just grey.It may be the coldest day of
the year, what does he think of
that? I mean, what do I? And if I do,
perhaps I am myself again.—MAYAKOVSKY, Frank O’Hara (from Meditations in an Emergency)
the Budafoki amended 