americana hotel

hey honey, 
let's go back to the americana hotel. 

we can stay in the room with the seaside view. 
where i swear the horizon reaches all the way 
to lonely england.

we should pack now 
I want to leave tonight, 
before the dust unsettles 
and whips up anguished 
against the boundary of the frontier lands.

but hey baby, we've got to go
before the sun stops obliterating the shrouded winter days. 

(although these days i love you the most, when your shoulder blades smell like moss and eucalyptus and rotting fennel carried by the summer fog from the marin coast).

let's bring the kids this time, they don't need much.
they're quiet now,
not like when they cried like the wind at any perceptible provocation.

they've outgrown the pink onesies and strained foods,
not aware of dream and the deathshead moths that flutter-bop on the rocks 
as waves destroy below.  

i'm packing our record collection too. 
we can play them on the electra tuner when we get there, 
sitting on the dusty couch next to the texas two-step couple. remember them?
they'll be there - they always are.

him with his wide-striped shirt a little unbuttoned 
and you can see the red splotchy bulge of his belly pushing out
covered in fine black hairs 
like ants on the circumference of a molten hilltop, 
converging before dispersing 
to the leftover corners.

she always looks a little funny at us, with wrinkles around her dried-out lips 
oklahoma prairies

when we dance, we can salsa, tango, swing, or fouette 
across the grand collapsing ballroom, 
with the faded wooden planks tilting beneath our feet.

let's go before the sky says no.

maybe we just forget the kids. 
we can drop them off with you sister - 
she's always happy to see them. 
she'll take them out for hot fudge sundaes at that little place down the street 
with the wrap-around porch 
and the american flag 
dangling on the bent pole

our america the way i remember
with marching bands on memorial day

and fireworks in the field on the 4th of july.

when i believed in the special scent of sulfuric smoke 
magic in the humidity

and my dad’s shitty cigars he smoked to keep away the mosquitos.

Low in NYC at the Concert Hall (at the SFEC) - 3/20/13

The primary challenge for any band that trafficks in slower and more delicate songs is how to engage and create depth instead of getting lost in their own limited-dimensional weavings.  The veteran “slo-core”/minimalist (and whatever other inadequate descriptor) band Low has continually solved this dilemma by creating multi-textured songs, sometimes glacially building over repeated phrasings, sometimes with rough, distorted guitar countering ethereal, yet full vocals, and with usually some form of a steady bass and brushed percussion undercurrent that provides foundation on which the tonal layers can soar.  Even at their quietest, slow-moving, they are masters of tension building.

Jay DeFeo at the Whitney

On a cold, grey, dirty end of February night, the Whitney was buzzing with a moderate crowd for the opening of the excellently curated, well-rounded Jay DeFeo retrospective at the Whitney Museum.  When I arrived, the crowd in the lower reception area was in full swing, chattering away, eyes darting over their plastic cups of house red or white, crunching on absurdly long breadsticks, and fat, lovely Cerignola olives.  A pleasantly entertaining rag-oldtimey jazz combo were tooting and shuffling, adding an extra layer of whimsical thickness that contrasted the black-clad attendees. (The invites called for “festive attire” - largely ignored, or more likely, simply interpreted as maybe adding an extra scarf of more black, with the exception of color hints peeking out, or partially exposed tattoos.) After some well-spent time amongst the social buzz, and myself and my companion for the evening broke upstairs to actually see some art.