Humble & Brilliant
by rap legend Jesse Dangerously
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Vinyl LP with Chapbook and Download
The vinyl jacket features the design by Mike Holmes in beautiful 12" x 12" eye-popping glory, and the rarely seen back cover design he also did. Each jacket is hand-assembled by Jesse Dangerously in the ultimate act of DIY bravery. The record labels are illustrated in gorgeous colour by Bryan Lee O'Malley and Hope Larson.
This package includes both the vinyl album and the chapbook in a handy duo, plus immediate download of the songs. Shipping is included in the cost.
You are going to have the greatest time with this!!
Includes immediate download of 13-track album in your choice of high-quality MP3, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire. -
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Vinyl LP + Download
Same as the Vinyl LP with Chapbook package, except no chapbook because you hate to look at words I guess.
Includes immediate download of 13-track album in your choice of high-quality MP3, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire.Buy Now $15 CAD or more
ships out within 5 days -
Chapbook + Download
64-page chapbook of lyrics and liner notes. Reads like a novel or textbook, only more brilliant!
Features a foreword written by Buck 65, several indices and appendices, and beautiful illustrations by Eisner-winning cartoonist Bryan Lee O'Malley (Scott Pilgrim, Lost At Sea) and Ignatz-winning cartoonist Hope Larson (Chiggers, Mercury, Grey Horses).
This version of the chapbook is bound using perfect binding, which is like a real paperback.
Also includes immediate download of [numtracks]-track album in your choice of 320k mp3, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire.
Includes immediate download of 13-track album in your choice of high-quality MP3, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire. -
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Digital Album
Immediate download of 13-track album in your choice of high-quality MP3, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire.Buy Now $5 CAD or more
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Professional Widowmaker
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Halifax Rap Legend
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Tim I Said No Guests!
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Holocaust Cloak
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How Shall I Send Thee?
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Write Protected
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Make Hymn Cry
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about
Jesse Dangerously IS "Humble & Brilliant!"
This gorgeous book is the greatest rap album you have ever heard, unless you have ever heard A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing or Slaughtahouse.
Halifax rap legend Jesse Dangerously has split his mind lengthwise, bisecting it along the lines that divide the synaptic processes responsible for “tough rap good times” from those governing “feeling very sad and almost crying,” and arranged this album into two hemispheres, accordingly.
Nestled inside the front cover is a gently hand-picked Internet download code, empowering you to acquire the music and raps that Jesse made all by himself, except for also with help from the finest wizards in Canada.
This gorgeous book is the greatest rap album you have ever heard, unless you have ever heard A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing or Slaughtahouse.
Halifax rap legend Jesse Dangerously has split his mind lengthwise, bisecting it along the lines that divide the synaptic processes responsible for “tough rap good times” from those governing “feeling very sad and almost crying,” and arranged this album into two hemispheres, accordingly.
Nestled inside the front cover is a gently hand-picked Internet download code, empowering you to acquire the music and raps that Jesse made all by himself, except for also with help from the finest wizards in Canada.
credits
released 10 March 2011
all beats by Jesse Dangerously except "Tim I Said No Guests!" by Jesse Dangerously and Timbuktu
all vocals by Jesse Dangerously except "Tim I Said No Guests!" and "Bring Your Girlfriend To Rap Day" featuring additional vocals by Timbuktu and Audra Williams, respectively. Oh and Jeannie Taylor sang "la la la" over the phone on "Mundane Arcana & Eldritch Lucidity."
Children's glockenspiel on "file_id.diz," and ukulele, chord organ, drum kit, and stomps and claps on "Make Hymn Cry" by Jesse Dangerously.
Tapdancing on "Bring Your Girlfriend To Rap Day" by Audra Williams.
All vinyl scratches by Bad DJ Budget Cuts, unfortunately.
Engineered by Andrew Kilgour and Dave Plowman.
Mixed and mastered by Dave Plowman.
cover illustration by Mike Holmes (not from TV, from Halifax).
included download: high res, full-colour photograph of sexy Jesse Dangerously with no shirt on by Jeff Ngan.
all beats by Jesse Dangerously except "Tim I Said No Guests!" by Jesse Dangerously and Timbuktu
all vocals by Jesse Dangerously except "Tim I Said No Guests!" and "Bring Your Girlfriend To Rap Day" featuring additional vocals by Timbuktu and Audra Williams, respectively. Oh and Jeannie Taylor sang "la la la" over the phone on "Mundane Arcana & Eldritch Lucidity."
Children's glockenspiel on "file_id.diz," and ukulele, chord organ, drum kit, and stomps and claps on "Make Hymn Cry" by Jesse Dangerously.
Tapdancing on "Bring Your Girlfriend To Rap Day" by Audra Williams.
All vinyl scratches by Bad DJ Budget Cuts, unfortunately.
Engineered by Andrew Kilgour and Dave Plowman.
Mixed and mastered by Dave Plowman.
cover illustration by Mike Holmes (not from TV, from Halifax).
included download: high res, full-colour photograph of sexy Jesse Dangerously with no shirt on by Jeff Ngan.
tags
license
all rights reserved
feeds
feeds for about
"Wiz Khalifa meets Pat Califia;"
"Sapphire meets Sappho meets Saafir meets Jonathan Saffron
Foer;"
"not the Black Frank White, just the white Frank Black;"
"the white version of a Black Zach Galifiniakis;"
"like Buck 65 but faster and fat;"
"the teenage Che Guevara meets Christina Aguilara."
... more
discography
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Aug 2012 -
Mar 2012 -
Mar 2011 -
Sep 2006 -
Jul 2004
contact / help
For help with downloads, click here.
For all other inquiries, including help with merch, click here.
Redeem download codes here.
- Track Name: file_id.diz
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Hi, it's me again – just saying thanks for supporting with your purchase or download; that's not really important. If you're flipping the dial and just stopped for a second, let me slip in while I've got your attention. In the world of rap, you could say I'm hoeing a lonely row, 'cause I got respect for women and hate religion and homophobes.
This year, my postal codes have started with B, K, and T. I went from three jobs to just being an MC and beatmaker - not a cheapskate or someone who lacks a handle, I'd just rather drop the cheesecake on my own wax to sample.
And that's the candle I hold to the old masterstrokes, to cast and mould myself to match the passion that the past provokes.
I've never won a battle. I've sold a couple thousand CD's. My video's cute, but you won't see it on TV. Believe me, I don't need to be too conceited. I just believe in myself, like Jesus joined Jews for Jesus. Who's elitist? That's news to me! I just choose to be this dude who speaks his views on the truth how he sees it, using beats and rhymes to seek some peace of mind and give you a piece of his mind to freeze in time.
Now come with me, it'll be just fine. - Track Name: Professional Widowmaker
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What up, troop? (WHAT UP!) I came with cut up loops, and you think you got me figured out?
“Shut up, stupid!” (SHUT UP!)
I shun MuchMusic, but I still apply for grants. You can't vilify how I soliloquize and rant! You take an ill-advised chance with scant hope of success; now, stare straight ahead with your hand over your chest and chant my name like you would utter a sworn oath. Your wits are just sharp enough for buttering warm toast!
Dude, my rhymes be funny with insults. Who outshines me? None of these dimbulbs! Just made-up gangsters like Sonny Corinthos! I'm in front of you, serenading under your windows! Layering breaks like I was marinating steaks; preparing to take the cake from you prevaricating fakes. Sorry for the food rhymes, I've barely ate in days; I'm picking up crumbs like you to try and shake and bake some chicken.
You Evian drinkers are naïve and backward, coming up with nothing like dry heaves. In fact, you're repeating on a regular rotation. I've been so patient and nice, but now I'm popping your flotation device. If I was you, I'd start taking advice - dissing you is just my way of breaking the ice! I ain't gonna bite, I'm fed up to the gills. You said I wasn't ill on the internet instead of busting skills.
Ironic isn't it? You ain't got a record out! You ain't a problem, just a microscopic speck of doubt! Check it out, y'all, I'm sinister like southpaws. Step into my office, 'cause I don't make house calls. Your mouth falls open, all hopin' forever wrecked. Kids get sick of you like Paul Hogan in retrospect.
Neglect to genuflect with genuine respect and get a menu to select a course of inhuman correction for ya!
Middle-class middle-American middle-schoolers muddle through their middle-life crises, just a little too disillusioned, and it's a losing battle when the Hoosiers tip the snoozing cattle. Who's your dad? I'll prove that it's true without using confusing data.
Uncontrolled variance sunk the old experiments. The lumpenproletarians want the whole experience. It's so embarrassing with no-one carrying the weight – I'd like to punch the guy my girlfriend married in the face!
Yeah, **** ******, it's heartbreaking, come on, you're killing me! For really though, time to start taking responsibility. Wasting all the sympathy you garnered in martyrdom. Pardon the mess, come on, restart and refresh! Forget bargaining or threats; you aren't getting support cheques any more than your wife is likely to start darkening your doorstep!
(I know it's harsh, but you should hear the threats he aimed against me.)
I'm not sorry, I'm Jesse Dangerously! - Track Name: Halifax Rap Legend
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Step with bass like Ron Carter? That's a non-starter, even if there's more of you than avant-garders in Montmartre. Rolling with Joan of Arc or Napoleon Bonaparte, you could get blown apart, homie, and thrown to sharks.
Glow-in-the-dark stars don't hardly impress astronomers;
No-one in parked cars can party unless they're honkin' first.
Um, anyway, that's why I rap fast, usually – so you can be still impressed when I come half-assed or foolishly. Still, fourteen syllables and it wasn't about car wheels! Hey, I'm friends with Hope Larson: a dope person and a Tarheel!
I got rapping to a science, I've been practising for so long. I've got more rhymes in four lines than most rappers in a whole song they got written, and that's an achievement you kittens and cats can believe in, so at the end of the show when you go, you wish you didn't have to be leaving.
And actually, even things I don't say but let you know implicitly are so exquisitely expressed that if you could, you'd go and visit me in Halifax.
HALIFAX RAP LEGEND (No matter what anyone says, I'm a)
HALIFAX RAP LEGEND (Whether you like it or not, I'm a)
HALIFAX RAP LEGEND (Even if no-one heard of me, I'm a)
HALIFAX RAP LEGEND (Yeah, y'all!)
Your crew's overrated; you've been resting on your laurels. I serve nuts like you like I worked at a restaurant for squirrels! Yeah, that joke could have been cruder, but I guess I want the world to look upon me fondly, even when I press up on their girls.
I know you're thinking, “What's with the macho shit, Jesse D? You're more like the opposite!”
Yes indeed, but I uh thought it was... funny? Well, um, droll, and I'll exercise self-control when I damn well feel like it, or when hell runs cold - whichever comes first.
Never said a dumb verse in my life! Well, alright, but I could have done worse. I'm as good of a person as any you know, and I sped up the flow when it should have been slow.
Psyche, just kidding! Thought about doing that, but I didn't. I thought that it would make me look bad, kinda like plagiarism. Save your derision – derivative works are a major tradition in rap, even though today they could take you to prison for that.
So if anyone asks, I made all the rhythms from scratch and you can wink after. They'll never catch me, I'm a gem and not a crook like the pink panther and also a
HALIFAX RAP LEGEND (No matter what anyone says, I'm a)
HALIFAX RAP LEGEND (Whether you like it or not, I'm a)
HALIFAX RAP LEGEND (Even if no-one heard of me, I'm a)
HALIFAX RAP LEGEND (Who moved to Ottawa from Edmonton)
Now, don't you never tell no-one that I told you, but there's no such thing as acting like you know too much. No-one owes that thing you a fair shake or a good review, so don't get mad at what I am because you think it should be you.
I extend beyond me and take full court advantage, just to be remembered fondly like the pulled pork sandwich at Blue Moon down on Gottingen, or North End Diner breakfasts.
My bravado is more than kind of reckless, nevertheless it's the
HALIFAX RAP LEGEND (In Ottawa, I be the)
HALIFAX RAP LEGEND (In Edmonton, I was the)
HALIFAX RAP LEGEND (When I'm down in the States, I be the)
HALIFAX RAP LEGEND
You don't know! I could be! I have friends who think I’m a Halifax rap legend. They tell their friends, that’s all it takes.
Rap legend for real. - Track Name: Tim I Said No Guests!
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[Tim] (unruly) No scruples, peep my pupils – I don't lose sleep over stupid people. You can't recoup, 'cause I found the loophole – got no loot, just drop the needle.
Unh, non-violent, keep it peaceful. I got my own Bible, and please believe I don't balk at imbibing – the tribe is lethal. Everybody on my side, keep it live with ease, yo! Got destructive drive like El Niño while I sip vino, nothing I can't teach you.
Not the Keystone Kops, we unequal. Butchershop chop, and we Flock of Seagulls!
[Jesse] (wiseacre) We deliver shows to the third dimension to make 'em say, "EAU," like thirsty Frenchmen. Words and sentences deserve a mention here, reverse-engineered by my worthy henchmen. Save a buck getting thirty percent more, as if I gave a fuck on the dirty cement floor. My stentorian oratory is more than ordinary – you just can't! Touch! This!
You could put us on a Beats By The Pound track, and we'd still come out as dope as the Street Fighter soundtrack. Bounce back, burn you off like an ounce of fat, loose the hounds and surround and attack.
[Tim] (incredulous) Too big for OUR britches? PFFT! You're just midgets ass-kissing the last kids to get with this! Chew off your digits like a Sasquatch, up on the catwalk I'm sexy – reppin' the ramrod, unh! Can't call it, this rap packs a wallop, I'm after more knowledge and after that, call up a cab. Diabolical and maulin' em bad, Tim Wallace be abolishin' the prominent fads. Always been my motto that your posse is wack, should have kept that shit anonymous and hid in the back.
Wild west! Try to follow us? Run with the pack.
Call us Barnum & Bailey, peep the carnival act.
[Jesse] (tough guy) Get your weight up, got to get solider; even your name's nonsense like Nick Oliver. Spit polisher, didn't bother to call ahead, all I did was holler, “My squad is deffer than Gallaudet!”
On a bet you couldn't up and gather the guts to lather it up with us, so cut the chatter. What's the matter? I don't like sucker rappers who chug a daiquiri and come running after me.
Whoah, sonny, what's so funny? I'm no jester. Go-getter, I throw money at protestors. Road tested, no rest and no shorts taken – we got your cohorts quakin' in boots, naked and bruised, knowing they gonna lose to two negative dudes who made the rules you must obey to manoeuvre through the wave of mutilation, and who's the lead vocal?
The megaboozer and the teetotal. - Track Name: Bring Your Girlfriend To Rap Day
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[Jesse] I like the politics and style of the Black Panthers and all the chicks that smile like tap dancers – that's damn sure. I like hats and have standards for raps. I can't pander to the wack or handle cat dander.
Insincere half-apologies are crummy. You can’t cure Cancer, 'cause astrology's for dummies. All up in the tummy is food from fresh recipes and dude, forget checkers, it's Super NES Jeopardy forever like Solidarity. It's all hilarity and hijinks combined with charity and kindness.
I miss timeless rap from early nineties, but I like this rhyming with a fly girl beside me. Unh! We gonna get so much DONE! Never put me on the list with no plus one!
We come so fresh, and on time? Oh, yes! I rock a Fossil watch, and not a Rolex!
[Audra] It's the best if the test is in jest when I know less. I like Blistex, T. Rex, sex, and Solex. I once got hexed by an ex into train wrecks, with some poor kid’s glove in a fire and some paint flecks.
And I’ve never done drugs, so it’s way too weird when I come down easy like Jason Pierce. Think I can rap, probably just talking. Think I can tap, probably just walking.
[Jesse] We never seen you more than once in the club, like Bill Rawles.
I'm not Lars, but you’ll see me around town with a real doll! Oh, hey – speaking of Lars, he's a homie of mine, and I don't see why you won't rewind our song about Naomi Klein. Me and my friends blow the minds of youths in the pursuit of props.
“You ever shoot a cop?”
No, but I shoplifted at Futureshop.
“Super hot!”
Aww shucks, it wasn't nothing. I'm blushing, dumb shit seems cool all of a sudden.
[Both] HALIFAX (BILBY STREET)
TO OTTAWA (SANDY HILL)
TO EDMONTON (EIGHTIETH)
TO OTTAWA (ANDERSON)
WE ROAM.
[Jesse] I get dough in the quadrillions, and when I want the people to know, I call Audra Williams. You’re coming weak with the flows, I’m not feeling them…. nanananananananananananananana.
HOME [Audra] Tap dancers have real hot hips and bums; jazz standards have all got bits I hum!
HOME [Jesse] We can only dis wack crap that has holiness, [Audra] or superstitious claptrap.
“Nuts to that, Spazmodeas,” says Audra as a child actor, taken from episode 7 of the 5th season of The Littlest Hobo.
HOME [Both] East to west, true, it never felt that far; home is just where your two imbecile cats are.
[Audra] I spent my school years tryin’ to wear no bra, crying a pool of tears to The Lion and the Cobra. I'm a fan of Love and Rockets, the comic and the band; and a hand shoved in my pocket if some hotness is the plan!
If I say, “I love the President,” I mean Bartlet on TV, and when I ask “What would Buffy do?” I’m thinking Sainte-Marie.
You want to Do Something but don’t know how? Sure, I’ll help you gladly, because “if a thing’s worth doing, then it’s worth doing badly.” (Muriel Duckworth)
When I know what to say, I don’t have to explain, like your blood knows the way from your heart to your brain.
Jesse D and I are aces when our faces hurt from smiles, spending hours in the grocery store, rolling in the aisles. And apologies are all we need to help bail out the boat when we get that sinking feeling, because true affection floats.
[Jesse] For us both, [Audra] it's one big thing to be together. [Jesse] And I quote, [Audra] "Sun and spring and green forever." - Track Name: Holocaust Cloak
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Clear the way for the profits and wage. I'm like a dog in a cage; I gotta get my bite sharper, but my bark's in the way. Hark! The Chronicle Herald modern forgotten parables. You rush a Miracle Man, you get rotten miracles.
Martyrdom's terrible. I all but lost hope, until the giant got a posse and a Holocaust Cloak. You're falling off slow, falling down drunk, piling up. Gallons of gallant effort; haven't got the guile enough.
SONIC to eventual BOOM, Masonic Temple of Doom. The room-temperature, Human Loser, adventure-chooser. To whom it may concern: I make it burn, and that's a fact. Get off my back, asshole, don't hassle me on my Hasselback!
Cadillac grills, check out the niche I fill – I told you I was gonna get ill, and if you please, I will! Read my bill and weep, I know it's some steep but paradise don't come cheap!
Alllllriiiight?
Yes yes y'all, to the beat y'all! To the beat, y'all and you don't stop!
Yes yes y'all, to the beat y'all! To the double beat-beat that makes you freak!
Now, what you hear is no mistake – I undertake to overtake and motivate the young. I take no backtalk and no debate. Hats off to derby girls on rollerskates.
I hold your fate in my hands and I squeeze, I'm “overweight” and goddamit, I wheeze like Accordian Peas. I make a Hype City Soundtrack. How you like me now? I got it down pat!
Now, rap's what I call music. I ain't slept for twenty years, it's not my fault you did! Sure as my eyeballs' blue-ish and my beard's thick, I'd be proud of my future self when I was young if I could hear this, seen? Big up every massive, every crew! When we say, "Backburner wrecks every posse," then the response is "yes we do!"
Backburner wrecks every posse! “YES WE DO,” and that's the facts you grapple with. Even as a pacifist, I know you have to have your asses kicked and that's just it – I'm still outfoxing fox hunters.
My carry-on bag is just a little box of boxcutters.
Long hot summers spent on tour with my other friends, throwing shows and voting to overthrow the Conservative government. I must have been sick the day they asked everyone to answer the question of whether to mess with the Status of Women Canada. If that isn't bad management of the mandate the land handed 'em, dammit, son, then I'm not Jesse D: the most handsome man on planet Earth (and I am, for sure).
Yes yes y'all, to the beat y'all! To the beat, y'all and you don't stop!
Yes yes y'all, to the beat y'all! To the beat, come on and go off and go off
I'm a legend, but steppin' toughly ain't for me though. Getting threatened by seniors at the Buffy Sainte-Marie show? Max Rebo jizz-wailin', told you let the Wookiee win! My ship's sailing, it's all over like your hoodie print. Now what's with this hustle? You juggle a couple puppet tricks? I'm real, you just can't see me like Snuffleupagus.
Bust it, kids: muscle isn't everything, I muddle wits. You knuckleheads can muzzle it before the brewing trouble hits.
Nineteen seventy-nine, Rappers Delight dropped over pop culture in October, and so did I! Opened my eyes the way anything you feel could, so when I'm pushing forty, I'm a “p-push it real good!”
C'mon, we're grown-ups now, we're not children, it's time to get it together like Scott Pilgrim. Stop illin' 'cause I'm not feelin' Bob Dylan. What more can I say? ___ ______'!
God willin', I'm Godzilla – I'm killin' 'em. You're run of the mill and I'm one in a million. Humble & Brilliant, that's me in a nutshell. I'm not a DJ, just a rapper that cuts well.
Well, maybe that's an exaggeration, but I got a leg up on a rapper that lacks an imagination, plus I bask in the admiration of a handful of fans in all nations, and I plan to make a statement that stands to last for ages.
Yes yes y'all, to the beat y'all! To the beat, y'all and you don't stop!
Yes yes y'all, to the beat y'all! Drop the rhythm that'll make your body rock.
Dance! - Track Name: How Shall I Send Thee?
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“I want everyone to listen to me.”
I rap for fun, man, I rap for kudos; I rap to throw you poseurs on the mat with judo; I rap you up and smoke you like Macanudos;
I rap you on the knuckles for acting pseudo-intellectual or stupid either, skeptic through to true believer; S-T-U-C-K U-P or H-U-M-B-L-E. See, my LED's are maxed out like low credit. My signal hot. You want a hot single? Then go get it.
“Here, Fido, boy! Fetch, boy, fetch!” You got a pop fly hit, there's just one catch: I got my mitt. It's not my fault; I'd be out too if they caught my ball.
I watch drywall peel and bump your record when I want to relax and feel like I'm a legend. You comedy acts are frail and unprotected, still reeling from the message that you got to...
Pay dues, kid, make music, Stay true... don't do what them
Fake dudes did, played stupid with grade school wit, you were made to
Raise roofs, kid, make music, stay tuned in; don't do what them
Fake crews did, they blew it. That ain't you.
Yeah, I slept on 'em hard – they looked soft! Old school, new school, they hooked off. I'm fascinated; how'd they get a passing grade? “No studying,” and never went to class for days.
Mark my words, you get marked on a curve. We used to serve marks and herbs with sharp words. Smart nerds would spark original texts – that's the real hardcore, it's not a physical test.
You digital, hexadecimal, intellectually less-than-vegetable... Since when is this respectable? It used to be detestable and wack to lack keenness. I grew up idolizing Black geniuses!
Young men and women from tenements/inner city slums and suburban pretty homes honed the rap idioms. Whether literate or not, never idiots. “No not even a little bit,” but like you, they had to...
Pay dues, kid, make music, stay true... do like the
Greats do and did, play student with all praise due, then you will
Raise roofs, kid, make music, stay tuned in; don't do what them
Fake crews did, they blew it. That ain't you.
You ain't stupid. You ain't a phony. If your homie wants you dumbing it down, he ain't a homie. Your friends say I'm soft and a clown, but they don't know me. Take a moment, now, I'm a break it down slowly.
You got a fuel source, you got potential to blaze real bright for days, but you feel like essentially enslaved to the gentlest waves and tides, so your best foot drags behind. You got a major mind, why don't you prove you're smart? Eschew the charts, use your heart to pursue the art!
If that's corny, sorry, but dude, look – would you rather be yourself in the end, or a shrewd crook? If it's the latter, I beg your pardon, I judged you wrong. Look me in the eye and say it's so, and I'll trudge along. Otherwise, I'm gonna stand behind you, but I'll be damned if I use a heavy hand to guide you, just try to...
Pay dues, kid, make music, stay true... you got to
Make moves swift, take cues in, break rules. I'll watch you
Raise roofs, kid, make music that makes YOU grin, don't do
What I say you gotta do, just play the part of you, 'cause me? That ain't you! - Track Name: Write Protected
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Memories and reminiscing, ever missing yesterday,
Settled in a retrospective haze.
Never even said I needed evidence to take away,
I just gotta make it stay the same.
“Remember that shit? I know you don’t remember jack!”
Hot seasons, seeking out breezes and the shade. Between grades on beaches. Freezing lemonade.
Before we measured heat in degrees of centigrade, we lived in an age of reason; then it changed. When it rained, it poured, and when it snowed, it stayed. I met a kid and played and didn't need to know his name. Rode a bike to school, ball games and drum lessons.
First communion, confirmation, confession.
Undressing for a bath in the tub, fat and unpleasant, acting tough but lacking guts. Laughing it up in class, but had to duck out the back in a rush, 'cause kids were mad and destructive – that sucked.
Had enough battered trust to know not to try no more, just draw Ghostbusters, robots and dinosaurs. Hide indoors. Why endure quiet riots and silent wars? I tried to horde a private source of life support that I could store as memories.
Not breathing, asleep without dreams and yet awake, I see vague, uneasy shapes that jet away.
Before we measured feet in centimetres in the day, I feel it all receding. Who needs it anyway?
I clutch at vapours, take a stand, unsteady though. Like a “Paper Snake,” I can't let it go. Blank tapes ready, ain't they pretty? Hey, kids, I'm really gonna take it with me.
“My video cam is gonna shoot you,” so you can live forever in the future.
I practise permanent taxidermy and that way, I know I'll never lose you.
There's a hole in my head where rain gets in, and sets in the vague impressions, sloshes about and then washes out and leaves me plagued with questions.
Spatial relations, textures, tastes and objects I got, but I can't place a face out of context. I must confess, I just guess and cross fingers. Lost in thought, wishing lost thoughts lingered.
Hot winters, late summers in strange beds. Uncomfortably numb, functionally brain dead. Frayed threads bind my various cells; I'm losing my mind and it's scary as hell.
Maybe it's just as well I can't tell when my grip starts to slip on things my hands held.
Some would just lie down, not me; I will nail everything to the ground that I see.
“I got cha, I got the video camera! I gotcha, I got the video cam!” - Track Name: Mundane Arcana & Eldritch Lucidity
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Kids read spell books but can't spell. Look, they're trapped in a bell jar instead of hung up on bell hooks. James L. Brooks, Mel Brooks, a clouded outlook.
“You ain't a chicken, you a loudmouth schnook!”
Shook, ain't no such things as halfway homes. Cub Scouts stubbed out in the ashtray.
That's “gay” – not to say I don't like men kissing. It's like the middle of the day went missing. This candle's all wicks and none of your beeswax.
Handlebar, kickstand, rubber sole, peace activist building quicksand castles on a slow day, like kids can't have 'em no more, no way.
Brocaded vests? That's no way to dress! Now, with no major threats, you get okay'd to death. Go make your bed and lie wired wide awake while a whole day of stress leaves you no place to rest.
Best of both worlds, big girls and boys mope; One wretched, the other destroys hope. Unchecked, sour candy swells with stupidity.
Mundane arcana. Eldritch lucidity.
“Living in my own world; I’m awake! I’m asleep! Through all seven days of the week!”
Monday: Hate Mondays, drink coffee. Shower every all day, get the stink off me!
Tuesday: Blues at bay from the radio morning show mediocre media rodeo, here we go!
Wednesday: Hump day, make the joke weakly. If you don't got a quote to say, don't speak to me.
Thursday: Start to need a drink in the worst way; thirst makes it hard, lurch my way to first base. Thank God it's
Friday: Fried like a snake on the highway. Set my teeth on edge and my pager on vibrate.
Saturday: Cartoons from dawn to noon. All I wanna do is rendezvous with an ingenue
Sunday: Guilt-ridden, oughta haunt the pew. Run, pray I don't see my face on the news.
Hell is what I'm closest to, oh well, you tell me - what else am I supposed to do, huh? - Track Name: Make Hymn Cry
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Something should be punished for making her cry.
Something cruel had made her cry.
If I only knew what it was.
Was it God?
Vast and high like a rainbow.
Sad and deep like when the organ plays.
You must remember this.
You've got to understand.
Yes, I'll kill it. I'll make it cry.
Even if it's God, I'll make God cry.
I'll kill him. I'll kill God,
and not be sorry.
(distilled from the short story “Boy on a Train,” by Ralph Waldo Ellison) - Track Name: Triptych I: Hot Commodity
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“Du sovas,” in Swedish, and then, in German, “Willst nicht glauben.”
As a young man, I would hate my peers for horndoggery, and stay up late with tears and pornography for company. It was years before novelty gave way to drudgery. I fear I probably failed to form properly. Poor non-believer robbed of all his common decency. Godless heathen and Jesus doesn't want him either. Fine with me – I'm not just teasin'. I copped some Z's in Sunday school, carved through the horseshit and argued abortion.
You're just toeing the line. I read the Bible, it left me blind – it said that women were unclean twenty-five percent of the time! What is this hideous shit? Leviticus isn't legitimate, idiot! If you really get into it, so little is good that we should get rid of it. Pardon me, the garden of Eden is rich in allegory, but you ruin it when reality's switched for childish stories.
Form and tradition are sort of worse than neglect. You've gone swimming; both porn and religion distort a person's perspective on women.
“Let the record show their religion was filthy”
The pages featured nekkidness, the book wasn't Genesis. Unclean young teen, slowly budding feminist strolling up the edifice, old enough to get it twisted. The total of the benefits was never listed. The toll is hard to measure; it always starts with pleasure and ends with swollen parts that could stay cold and hard forever.
Shut it off shut it off shut it off shut it off shut it off, god, I wanted it to be pretty but it's not but it's not but it's not but it's not. Why?
I look for smiles that don't look plastered on for pity, just to make 'em say, “unhhh,” like Master Don Committee. I have this monster in me and I don't think pictures put it there, but did the monster put the pictures out there? Or was it in the air all the time?
We all want it! Some of us can't have it! Is it fair to malign, compare it to crime or call it a bad habit? Consider the jackrabbit – it's not too vague, the bunny logo – we ain't all singing “I Got You, Babe,” like Sonny Bono.
It's a bloody nose, though; nobody knows which way to tilt the head. Trying not to spill the red wine, we let it be filth instead. It seems like guilt is dead, and shame just makes denials rise higher. Judge, jury, and therapist declare a mistrial by fire.
I admire strangers as objects in proxy sex but is it dangerous? The answer's not yet obvious, but how could it not be yes?
So is it like cars where we shrug and accept the casualties?
Why is it men can fuckin' dismiss the threat so casually?
“You are sleeping... (spit on it)
You do not want to believe.
You are burning people."
At the beginning, it was Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon who had the opinion porn was a bad thing that happened to women. They petitioned and got commissioned to draft a proposition in opposition, but the law's position was the constitution would not permit them.
I don't think it was a bad decision, but I do think we have to listen 'cause as it stands, it's a man's man's man's world that women just happen to live in. It's sick how when I say "we" in this case, it's gender specific – just a simple tic to tick off the list for those who can never quite remember statistics.
It goes together like December and Christmas, discovering the True Meaning of Othering; one shudders to think that that's what makes us massive racists, but moreover passive rapists. When all we want to do is masturbate, it's exacerbated, which exasperates us, and makes it all the harder to prevent. Once you've started to resent the scent of martyrdom and stuttered your defense.
Is it smarter to pretend we don't know what they're talking about?
Come on, it's your sisters, mothers, aunts, grandmothers, daughters and their friends. - Track Name: Triptych II: Hot Property
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I will never forget the way her face contorted when I said, “no,” and let her know for sure that I was sure that we should let go. It wasn't just chagrin – I watched the castles of her future crumble, ushering in a time when I would never touch her again.
I tried to leave, but I was naïve, doing my best, held hostage in my own home with suicide threats. Hell, only human, I guess; fractured under too much high stress. I'll never not have a spot for you in my chest, but big deal.
Nine years scared of starting back at loneliness, high fears and hurt made the parting acrimonious. I dried tears and worked to make the extrication delicate, but lots of worries had me phoning, yelling at the cops to hurry.
Fuck. I'm telling it wrong, out of order and one-sided. The things I can't forgive at this point are ones I did, mostly. That's a given. There is no sweet after-image. I hold the face I made her make that day as a ghostly apparition.
“Get out my life, woman,
I don't love you no more.”
“I left the girls’ hearts broken,”
Long time coming, wrong time arriving. Killer timing. The wages of sin garnished, tarnishing my silver lining, undermining fun designs, underlined my lack of a spine. You want to take a shot?
Take a spot at the back of the line.
Yeah, I did some foolish shit while you just licked your ghoulish lips. I tried so hard and so often 2 quit, but I was 2 legit. Swamped in bad investments, dishonest indiscretions, glad you pompous adolescents all thought it was interesting. Fair-weather friends act like they wear leather skins. Scared of getting 'em wet, and that's a fear that never ends.
It was exciting de-friending me, citing moral ascendancy, taking perverse pleasure, making the pressure worse, whatever.
If you're not my friend now, you never were. And if it makes you feel better, tell yourself that it's for her! Just pick the one you fancy and think of yourself as her champion, but whichever she is, you can't have done half of what I did for her so FUCK YOU.
“Get out my eyes, teardrops,
I got to see my way around.”
“But nevertheless, I’ll say it again – that these are the people that we call friends.”
It was trying circumstances. I know others have had worse, I'm just saying – I fucked up, but I'm not a bad person. Always felt no-one wanted me, never turned it around, so when my heart was a hot property, it burned to the ground.
Can it hurt now to confide that I take a certain amount of pride in knowing that, for a moment, half the world was down to ride?
All the hurt and disgrace served to replace the smirk on my face with a tear in my eye, but you can't erase what I carry inside. I dare you to try!
Buried alive, I tunnelled in the dark to where I heard voices come from. Should have left certain choices undone – I could have destroyed someone. But at this point, dumb grudges and regrets are so useless. We were all of us adults, and mostly wove the threads of our own nooses. Blown fuses and badly patched wiring, plus corrosion, meant we put ourselves through a trial by fire in the resulting explosion.
Some of us walked away tall, some of us crawled. I wish only the very best for everyone that was involved. I'm sorry.
“When girls dressed in black they all look so mournful and common sense just don't get used by mere mortals. You can't hide the flaws in the story you're building, but are you still willing?
The responsibility becomes an afterthought when one remembers the reasons they should've stopped; there's no pretending that you forgot.
For all my fauxs pas I just said, ‘excuse me.’ It was the simplest things that always confused me. I never stopped, I never looked both ways.
How come no-one told me that sometimes it takes a grown man a long time to learn just what it takes a child a night to learn?
I could have used those words.”
I've got gaps in my photo albums, a head full of gaping wounds, a heart that's scraped and bruised, and the hard won grace to lose. But I stand up straight under the weight of my regrets, and the faces I have let fall, I will take to my death. - Track Name: Triptych III: Cold Comfort
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Let him sleep, he gotta rap tomorrow. He's got a special seat in the back of the car. Practise your part, quit acting bizarre. Play the back, don't tear the care package apart.
Black isn't dark enough, craft isn't art. Accidents happen, ask Captain Picard. A crash in the market like smashing your cart in the back of a car in the parking lot – smart. Starting off markedly marred on your Argosy, arch and sardonic, sarcastic remarks.
No flattery, march down to Battery Park where a Tombstone awaits you, Robbie, I'm sorry.
Spine-tingling, don't touch his body. My story is hardly minority. Already by ignoring me, you've marred my authority. Lights out – pass the narc.
Rub your lips with laudanum, baby.
“Knock yourself out.”
Let her be, she had a long hard day; eyes hidden like Wong Kar-Wai. In no “mood for love,” it's a hard slog. Under the duvet, she covets a guard dog.
Takes precautions like Werner Herzog, weighs her options to turn her hurts off. Major obstacles plague her obstinate onslaught – thought bubbles pop like dot com stock.
Comstock law, keep your thoughts on lock; non-hot, it's wrong to want to watch a pawn dishonoured, debauchery gone soft. Gotta be on the sauce. Stop, I want off!
Fond of her face, haste to bring laud. Barometer replaced the king cod. The drama was a waste? I think not. I promised her a place to drink scotch and monitor the plot of the modern Madonna's honour guard. They thought of her as common, but hot as a sauna – not a problem.
Atomic panic, quantum mechanics. You wanna get calm but can't – you're not a laudanum addict! NO!
Rub your lips with laudanum, baby.
“Knock yourself out.”
You only want to settle your nerves, eh? Get a little of what they peddle or purvey. I'll put on any blinker they invent for me; known to be the number one tincture of the century. Injury came pleasantly, began to reel. It rendered me insensible in Flanders' Field, like “Surrender Dorothy.” A fog has drifted over me. It's Robert Smith and Morrissey cavorting with Emma Bovary.
Had I only known the Mona Lisa was stoned silly, I would have got stronger off things that won't kill me. No, really. I figure it's a risk that I missed in the midst of mixing ignorance and bliss in the misty dusk/twilight. Only problem is I just wanna die like Jolie Holland, and I don't care how, this ain't a passion play.
I'm getting out the old-fashioned way.
