Setup for Upcoming Gigs

I'm getting ready to play a few dates in Tampa, FL. For the gear heads, this is the equipment I'm going to play.

As for the bass guitar, I'm going to alternate between a modified pawn-shop Ibanez and a Fender Jazz. The strings are medium gauge round-wounds. I normally play flats, but Boss likes round-wounds.

I'll post practice footage next week. Wish me luck.

Sonnet: For the Kittens

10/09/2013

For the kittens 

This day the third has gone, congealed like peas. 

Mother readies the small grocery bag:

The dying kitten coughs its final wheeze, 

I exit the house & light another fag. 

Death has plagued this litter, and the world, too.

We’re scarcely born than the struggle begins

To nurture those or what stand in death’s queue. 

Mortality may result from immortal sins,  

But I’m no cleric and loss occasion 

For rabid lectures from a fired pulpit; 

Nor do I welcome secular equation 

On matters dear to the human spirit. 

This morning we have lost another one. 

I pray t’morrow death’s foul spell is gone. 

(c) 2013

I don't mean to gush with sentimentality, but I really do love animals. 

More "Autism" in Art (Kraftwerk)

I'm getting the Elektro-Musik itch again.

Was Andy Warhol Autistic?

According to this article in the Guardian, Andy Warhol may have been autistic.  The theory seems plausible, but does it in any way effect our appreciation of Warhol? I don’t think so. His admiration for all things plastic, that is, artistic, is echoed in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, and yet no one is studying the Irishman’s pathology! In my opinion, Warhol was the greatest performance artist in history; his art and personality were the same thing. Moreover, Warhol’s aesthetic methods oddly resemble Benjamin’s model for proletarian art in “The Work of in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” 

Anyway, whatever; the important thing is to live and create. 

Venus in Furs (John Cale is A Genius)

Sorry Reed Fans, but Cale’s eerie instrumentation made this song a success.

Out of curiosity, does anyone have John Cale’s personal phone number? I don’t have the money to hire him, but I’d like to hear his voice at least once.

Andy Warhol (Bored) at Your Funeral

Your death, cold, prolonged by disease 
Matters little to the bees
Circling the garden.
I don’t remember if it means
Much to me but
You used to sit in the garden
(You nurtured the plants)
And that is well since
You are no longer.
But I see you in the swaying trees
(even if)
It doesn’t matter to the bees,
I beg your pardon.

So many words to mince
I’m no elegist. 

(c) 2013

Awkward Tao Lin Reading (& Drugs)

Our greatest deadpanner reading under the effects of drugs.

From an essay:

"Arrive early and talk to Rita and her friends, unsure if they’re all also on mushrooms (as they’d previously agreed) because Rita giggles nonsequiturly even when sober, until an unsmiling woman in her 40s—the event organizer—approaches saying something about 'housekeeping.'"