performance at Co-Lab on November 17th starting at 7:30PM
art is defined in postmodern culture by the saturation and lack of saturation of present situations. an event is an event but it is also a touchstone. eat yourself .
Hey gang, thanks for hanging out with us throughout DADA month. I know, it's over, so sad, but trust me, Marcel and all those other fun funsters wouldn't want you to ever stop, so I know I won't. Keep sticking around, and you'll see. Ol' Chris here has some twists and turns in store for you. Say boho, and say it loud. Coco!
Hey guys, here's some music from a cool guy, Matthew Treon. He's created something ambient and atmospheric and he's been kind enough to let me share it with you. Thanks Matt. Dig that sound! Click the link to hear the song!
Hey guys, the final week of Dada Month! Hooray! What a wild ride that's seen (and heard) the strange universe radiating from the Boho Coco. But do we let this final week cause endless despair, or do we trample the horizon like true fiends? Here's a picture of an ape to help you decide.
some opera guy got up at the end of his performance and began to beat a small child in the front row with the heel end of his expensive loafer
and suddenly and I rope-swinged upon the stage to arrive fashionable and bested the voluminous fiend with my suspenders for whips.
scuff! caw! I berated the fat libretto and undid an entire evening of his mystical enchantment; a bucket of yellow paint was tossed at my head, but I being quick and desperate, instead allowed said bucket to ricochet off the wall and trounce the very child I had sworn to protect.
the crowd decided to devour me, and with little warning, began to stampede towards the stage with all evil intent. just then,
the singing man decided he might instead be an ally, and with all force, he plucked me up and sang his way through the crowd of maniacs.
we were free. outside of the auditorium I clapped and clapped for my beaten savior some eighty minutes.
Hey, hokey post title? I can never tell (thanks Riddler). Here's some more trippy live poetry hoetry from the Grand Canyon Motel. Midnight never felt so good. Dada month and national landmarks coming together to create shabang wow wow.
If and then when you eat from oblivion, it is not so careful that you should away a fire escape with ugly knives. Click the post title, dada month, boho coco.
Hey, I'm reading my new poetry series 'the killers' from the wide world of Arizona. It's going to be a wild west kind of month, pardners. Oh, and what's this: this video is only part 1? Hmmm...dada!
text: the killers: loam
he turns around and is shot in the gut and Mr. Ring takes the man’s wallet. the cards are emptied into the gutter and Mr. Ring begins to laugh. he places the heat of the pistol near his own temple and chants three times,
“I’m a good man. I’m a good man. I’m a good man.”
Sister Marguerite laughs too and she folds the blinds closed. the man bleeds to death scratching his nails upon the sidewalk.
slightly above, a neon sign that promises ‘adventure in the new’ blinks out
and regains its foothold in argon and lead red.
Mr. Ring waits and gazes at the stripped mine of gold taxis blustering by. the night is his distant cousin and he knows coffee and jumpers. he walks away singing.
the killers: race
Lester cuts the noses off his victims and he puts them in glass jars and waits in his cellar for his wife to leave until he brings them all out and rolls them on the concrete.
Joe eats popcorn and has a knife.
Liam is an ugly beast; he is not evil but he has too many warts. he cuts little kids on the elbow and giggles.
Julianne doesn’t remember drinking and running over the Stewards’ only son, but she did.
Dexie is intoxicated when it happens, and hip shove the blip, he gets it up just thinking about piano wire.
Mary watches from a window and drinks up a brick or two just to stop herself from heaving irons.
I am even now waiting near an open balcony doorway and it is hot out and I am so tired.
the killers: hopscotch
Mr. Ring eats the pie slice on the corner in the summer heat with his jaundiced overalls kept clean and pert. the gaggle of school babes traipses by and he just shivs a few. screams and they run and Mr. Ring runs too, leaving his pie.
he hasn’t felt himself, the city is screaming, and the summer doesn’t want to end. Mr. Ring
tries to sing to himself about the low glut of alleys that convince others of mirror or rainbow.
a bum even now is hacking his lungs out behind a dumpster. Mr. Ring sticks him too.
the killers: wheels
in the factory, near the black door, under the rail, a knife,
grab a thing, take and do unto, a fair face, a festival, a Friday, a bunch of lost kids drinking in the night, oh,
an empty car port, an apartment window, an old record player, a jump, some justice, a stab, the man with one eye,
a black evening, the glory of night unending, another jump,
some expenditure, a rolling laugh, a never, and a never.
the killers: loop
Mr. Ring is alone in an apartment waking up to a blue coffee mug that he must smash if he is going to smile.
the open window tells him, “Oh you’re good. Oh you’re good. Oh you’re good.”
he tosses the cup away and a cat hisses.
Mr. Rind glances at himself in the mirror and places his index fingers to trace under the sockets of his eyes.
have a nice day, get a new love, go into the library, and yeah, give it a try.
he doesn’t have time, opens his doorway, tosses some knives on the hallways floor,
then slams his door shut.
the killers: grin eater
never again at work do we occupy a small cubicle where Walter took off his head
last week.
I want to go home even now, sipping coffee, staining my shirt, doing dry cleaning, sleeping in, and caring about my daughter.
Walter told me that his festival is a bright one, that it lasts forever, and that there is no music.
I can cry to think of it; I god damn love music, everyday, shit, everyday.
never again, though, I guess, poor Walt,
a man in the leper column, crowing down from the empty parking garage,
chirping, face swollen hot and red, begging not to tip or or. caution, old boy, caution.
the killers: last laugh
Mr. Ring will have the last laugh in the car near the glade spying on the tiny old man with his dog walking about rapid in the rotund fashion of parks and ardor. the radio hisses static that is comforting. Mr. Ring pops out of the car and charges mad the changelings out in the brush. first a mother, then a tiny man, then some joggers, another mother, some guitarists, and a bunch of otherwise business men.
Mr. Ring chokes and giggles, shoving his fingers in the mush, and finally he jumps into a pond and refuses to hold his breath.
his car license plate does not chuckle; it spins and read XXV-1248.
Mr. Ring dies and lets his wallet emerge to the surface of his drowning pool. pictures there, sure, and some other elements, empty plastic promises, rough cards, and a quote from some author.
“Lay in the meadow, you kind sons, have a laugh, take off your heads, get the go in the going go.”
the killers: luna
wanting to feel dangerous does not compose you into a black shirt, and to wear
your fragrance of stomach rot,
oh me,
let us go to the candy store, get some ice cream, rub it on the sidewalk,
Here is another poem I wrote at the beginning of my trip to Phoenix and the Grand Canyon. What can I say about the trip now that I'm back in Austin: the Grand Canyon is profound. Phoenix is sprawly. Mike and Rell have an awesome house. Okay. Here's a poem (look to the end of the week to see what I wrote after the trip was over...).
Phoenix Arizona 2
I have found god in the sun; he is a red pueblo, a house sans roof,
a thatcher sitting legs apart on a purple bus. in Scarborough we find our lost loves and ask them who
we once were. they reply
that you were a mountain; an elm with a crook; an unfinished oak table.
we are the empty houses sat on concrete lots in solitude and wood polish. come, taste our bread,
Hey, Phoenix so far has been expensive aspirin, a guy bleeding from his face, a girl asking if she was being filmed, a headache, a late night jacuzzi trip, and a reunion with a good friend. So, for you, here is a recording I did while listening to Jeff Buckley performing "Strange Fruit." Oh yeah! Click the post title!
A quick one before a flight: here's some more mixed sounds for you folks out there. The recordings are various interplays between Erin and myself each playing on a typewriter and a violin, and interchanging said positions. Enjoy. Look out Phoenix, here I come! Dada!
Hey guys, here is a movie poem I made with random verse in the spirit of dada. Also, I'm heading out of town (!!!) for Phoenix and the Grand Canyon, so the posts may lack slightly in the coming days (but I'll try not to let that happen; trust me, the desert is a giver). See you in the ever after, boho coco, dada, and all that shebang. Look out Mike, here I come!
text for the psychedelic impaired: dada movie poem
doddering tots speck sprock oh oh levy a cook jump lay the periscope and a porcupine brigadier catch catch languish sanguine socket plug festival
How is your week going little la las? Here is an angry poem (but playful).
tortured writer
he has dreams of branding his lines into flesh and the dissenters, the what’s-it-meaners, the that’s-nonsensers, and their tongues to stew in a cauldron composed of cantos. blister in mouth, of eyes to engulf flaming skyscrapers of simile. he desires to construct airplanes of his stanzas and send them crashing picnics. the hemisphere engulfed in pentameter and the world construed in free free verse.
Hey neon freaks, here is the 500th post for austin new blog. Holy crap, I never thought we'd make it. As per Erin's request, I'm singing hallelujah right now. To celebrate, here's a new series of poems from my heart to yours.
air stream: slip
advantage on the bus goes he fat kid eating a chocolate bar with a gold wrapper;
he lets it to the wind and
one thousand cities eat each other alive.
on the bus, we sink into the tepid
oh oh
give me a break sings a child but the car beside has the dim cat girl reading a magazine about galoshes and she smacks gum
air stream: hip kids
I see the hip kids wishing they were hobos
an alley fight
some other vagrant happiness and a drum fire
we bus through the city and
an explosion in place of glass growing
I imagine my flesh instead
all through the land go faster go faster!
air stream: bofo
leave me wheels kid no the road
we don’t exist.
gone daddy gone in the blip towns
we watch little children parade in pink and blue down the strip into a government history museum
air stream: lights
so go down to the creek I don’t believe in candy clouds kids give it in the back seat we smoke a derby and horses loose in the pasture I
want to see the whole world pass
under glass.
cats and flies and milk cartons that dance, oh
we should slip the ocean when we arrive
air stream: bottles of
give me a drink I go eighty
marshmallow face on the old man in the diner in the middle of nowhere I hit the trailer hitch and the chicken cages exploded in
white feather.
someone has to set it right drive on into the nether
father you are the barrel of gasoline
we all drink
air stream: balderdash
we crazy types flinch the quick stream air foil on the camper and
ask a question of the doves spiraling in the desert.
we want women in the small closets of the old Amish house, the burned gas station.
a trail to nowhere is heaven I am
simple and I fall in the highway
and... here's a picture of an orangutan, because I know the real reason you all come to the sight.
Hey folkie folks, here's the second part of Matt Winter's Co-Lab installation (featuring work by Shanon Crider, Nicole Neely, Megan Stroech, Laura Green, and moi, and others!). These pictures and videos were taken on the night of the opening (last Easter). It is here finished, and today, gone! If you missed it, weep in a dark room and smash an egg on your face. If you saw it in its glory, drink a glass of champagne and toss that fucker into a parking lot. Dada month continues...
I've spent the last week re-reading the lyrics to that jim croce song
in the street, uncomfortable prattles of hewn mechanisms fumble through the neighborhood
like tarps, covering every bed every house covered in aluminum siding pamphlets detailing poems uncovered by pulleys pulling tarps off of them and over beds
My girlfriend taking off an itchy dress
her bare feet tripping over Bertrand Russell as a book
Hey guys, I was over at Co-Lab the other day (613 Allen Street; colabspace.org) to help out Matt Winters, a great artist, with an installation. He drew all over the walls in patterns and I wrote some stuff. Also, check out Miguel in one of the videos. Here's some pictures and videos of the whole thing. Also, go check out the space on Sunday to see it finished in all its glory. Thanks a lot to Matt Winters and to Sean (who runs Co-Lab). Boho coco! Dada!
a video of Miguel, Slyvie, and Matt all drawing
a picture of my completed portion of the drawing, featuring my 'unhappy generation' poems
All aboard, welcome, bon voyage, and yes, let us away to the storied halls of European Command.
what to get for the man who has everything? we live inside of concrete bunkers, bombs away, the happy winter, we all remove our clothes and lie in the grass. EU tells us to move, but we're American, and we salute the grand nothing.
ground control to savage: we have inbound, riot control, ground troops, guns, machines, cogs, elephantine air raids, and simple silence. savage to ground control: smoke and rockets, send out the infantry.
onward good lads, victory is painted in gold sounds and silly; boom goes it all. EU sush the silence factory. bright lights, hush the siren even now does not still.
Here I am reading from my series 'the broken jaw gang: dagger.' Camera work by Matt Savage; drunkeness by me.
Also: hey, again with Matt Winters. He is a local artist and he is doing a large installation piece at Co-Lab. He' drawing all over the walls and wants some poems there too. If anyone is so inclined, I'll be there Thursday (and Matt Will be there all week), so stop by and say high and trace your hand on a wall or something. Ahh, sweet dada.
Here's the words to the video: the broken jaw gang: dagger
they down at the church yard used to chase me through the winding cemetery just behind,
but I didn’t care. I was a rebel, you know?
I used to get little kids to tie ropes through bike wheels and
lock them to chrome bars. I used to go out to the piers and drop old computer monitors into the drink.
I was that guy – yeah – that used to play with laser pens in old alleyways and trace words on brick walls. Yeah – that was me.
oh, also:
the broken jaw gang was not something easily come upon. I used to beat myself up nightly trying to come up with some name that described the old rolly polly feeling of the non-jump life.
of course, that doesn’t make all that much sense, but, c’mon, what type of criminal do you take me for?
so, like I was saying: it’s not the chasing that matters anyway,
it’s the thrill and the thrush of the fall – if you do fall – and the snap of the ankle when falling occurs.
simple, really. well, okay.
go get yourself a good old dagger and place it in your mouth, sweetheart.
Hey guys, the drawing in this movie is titled 'oracione,' hence the title of the movie. Okay. How's your week? Also, thanks to Shannon Crider for throwing such fabulous art crits, and hey now to Matt Winters who will be drawing on the walls of Co-Lab all week. Boho coco!
Hey fellows, during this month of dada, I will be posting various sounds I recorded for thirty seconds. For this one, I recorded wind chimes in five different sessions, then played them all together. It's a chimey world, baby; windy too. Just click the post title and hear the random beauty (is that too hokey? I'll say yes, but, c'est la vie).
here's a poem inspired by the chimes
windy balcony
a bland rocking chair to creak along with the hum of the bicycle kids ganging in the street below
Hello all, here's a little something new from me to you to celebrate this glorious month. Basically, I constructed a cube from weighted paper and draw letters and colors on it. Here's a little more in-depth display for the visually inclined. Boho coco!
phase 1
phase 2 (watch that man)
phase 4 (skipping phase 3)
phase 5
phase 6
phase 7
phase 8
...and, because we all like movie pictures strung together at high speeds, here is a film featuring my dada word construct.
Hey guys, here is a video of a shadow reading in the guise of Monet. I call it my artist poem series (creative, yes), and I hope you get your freak on.
text: artist poem 1:Monet
Monet complained daily to his wife, "oh, I just don't like asparagus," and he would nap in an old Buick "give me a cigarette, love" he'd hiss waltzing the tips of Niagra. "oh to jump!" he would sound. orange paint stained the sides of his pants' pockets. "it's a modern affair, this...this... this...sad chase to the bottom of everything." he read newspapers and snapped pictures of celebrities depicted there-in. next he'd cut slices from the photos, toss 'em in a bowl, and eat 'em like cereal or salad.
Here is a gradation in pictures of golden lion tamarins. Did I mention that dada is nonsense? Is it? Did I?
By the way: I was walking along a parking lot with my brother Ryan tonight, and we came across a DWI warded off testing zone. Traffic cones, large buses, some cars, the works. And as my brother and I were walking into the test sight (keep in mind: nobody around, 11:30 at night, two non-drunks looking to get drunk), some cop whistles at us and tells us not to enter the zone. "This is a barricaded area, can't you tell?" he asked us, pointing to eight strikingly small traffic cones that formed a rectangle. We grumbled. Oh, here's another variation on the tamarins.
So we just gave the cop some lip (all my brother, I promise) and went about our way. Is it a power trip? How useless are we, sometimes? Oh, but he should have been shooting up a crime alley, right? Ah, sweet dada...give me some time to be a clown, or a criminal, or something. This all really happened. And here's another version of our cute little guys.