DaDa : Turnbuckles : Month

oh dada month, will you ever call back

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!

michelangelo bids you a fond farewell

Insert Call (Mine Is You).mp3

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!

puddles

rain fell
in shifts upon poor
Ungertown as
the march of the dada
tore apart
the
adjoining coffee shops
lining the boulevard





we shout yes
yes
as
a scoundrel tramples
the flower shop down the way





and then the ancient three
toed god
of the ending hour stands and clamors
for
the ears and wounds of the
sad sad
as they climb into the puddle





we now and ever
are
kept and when the puddle is dried
again the gods
rejoice the dada
are free!

who's the man with all the sexy ladies

Rich Tuttle!

monkey around a little while longer

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.

the world's longest and shortest ovation

From a magazine:



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.

woo yeah.mp3

Click the post title! Woo! Yeah!

devour yourself

More from Arizona.

beware!

Even now there are luminescent objects circulating the aerie!

the edge of darkness

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.

lost highway.mp3

I found this in the desert. Boho. Dada.

artist poem: cezanne

bitter-strange fruit 3.mp3

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.

from the middle of nowhere

Here's a video of me outside the Grand Canyon reciting mad poetry from the middle of nowhere. Dada month in Arizona!

greetings from Arizona

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,

and gut the next pig that comes across
us.

they all deserve it,

bitter-strange fruit 2.mp3

Some more audio from Jeff Buckley's song "Bitter Fruit," influencing my dada brain. Click the post title and eat up.

what I think of Phoenix 2

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,

live on our lawns.

what I think of Phoenix

Two poems for you to understand what I have felt and seen in Phoenix (by the way, Mike and Rell are super duper cool):

Phoenix Arizona


hot rods and babes
crying
in the Phoenix sun,
we
have seen so many tons of concrete
billowing into the sky
beyond the red mountains

and we are in love.
the Mexican counter girl
watching the elderly,

we have begun to transform into the sliver
of light beneath
the dark roomed door,
we have
lifted our flesh and seen the mirage
that exists beneath.

the skateboard kids and the loser
with the bleeding face,
fragrance of disassembly,

and wasted times.
the light rail will save us; the hotel
waffles in the breeze.

Arizona


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,

live on our lawns.

artist poem: cezanne

another drawing from matt savage

untitled 13

My little brother is a cool dude.

bitter-strange fruit 1.mp3

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!

variations on a theme 1: typewriter and violin 1 and typewriter and violin 2

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!

variations on a theme 2: violin 1 and violin 2

variations on a theme 3: typewriter 1 and violin 1.mp3

dada movie poem

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

lament for tortured writers

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.

for the man who has everything

500th post!

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.


BOHO COCO!

co lab part II

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...

dada sounds: gimmie.mp3

But what can we give? Ask yourself, everyday, what oh what can we give?

Answering Machine

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

an amalgam of potassium and magazines


and im convinced
the operator
is his girlfriend.

artist poem: robert rauschenberg

Happy Easter!



a little poesy for you day:
a
a
an aphid lingers
asphalt oh a number
benumbered raw
and listless

co lab

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


here's a video of me writing on the wall


here's a video of the final part I did

european command

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.

sounds: singing.mp4

Hey, listen up. Click the link.

little brother drawing day!

Hey guys, here are some drawings from my little brother, a very gifted artist.


"hippy"


"spacetime"


"untitled 9"

portrait of the artist as a young drunk

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.

dada sounds: dada poems

Hey, here is five different instant poems played on top of each other. Enjoy dada...click the post title.

bike and staircase, a photo series

Up the railing
we
must find the blue ornament
resting
on
the lazy couch,
smash it,

rearrange the damned thing,
and give it to the next
passerby.

if he be emasculated, if he
be
tiny and dry around the mouth, if she be
ported and derived, if
she be a bubblegum chew
harp ditch,

then so be it.

as we rearrange the fragments
of
the smashing, such thoughts need
not enter.

light movie: oracione

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!

damien hirst

A video of a shadow. Is it Damien Hirst? Boho coco...

...vs. shadow

Can you dig it?

shoes vs. socks...

Which will win?



vs.

dada sounds: wind chimes

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

and green cars slipping beyond
into
the night;

my metal chimes are a disaster

construction of dada

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.


Have a nice day

artist poem: monet

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.

another post of poems

Because we all have love in our hearts when we see concrete falling down into an alley and smashing a dumpster.


the happy bird blues 1


I fly and fly and fly –

say, hey, guy –

and smack-a-daisy right
on the window

and down down my tumble
bumble

a stumble I have a great
olfactory
loss in my miserly twenties –

baby


the happy bird blues 2


she had those greystroke feathers
just

lusted in the dust bowl

and as I fell
I shouted –

hey, baby, come to my wing, I have knowledge and I ripple across ponds –

and it was easy to clank
thud the muddy banks
of
some sleeping home in the arch
neighborhood
of

the big reveal


the happy bird blues 3


get me a new town
I don’t
disco like the crazy
babes
in the winsome burbs

I have a sensation towards
cracking
in the spice factory
in
the district at the edge of town

oh say
I am that other thing lying
in tall grass
with

sharp features
and some glass

and –

hey, watch it


the happy bird blues 4


I have one note to sing
and I’ve been singing it over and over
in the market square

lush feathers
and queens
bleating out the ring
spring

pouncing from bookstores and
eating the sidewalk
like garbage
compactors

oh
no wisdom
there up
in the blue
blue

monkey fight!

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.