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Former band members reuniting in a ritual of harmonic necromancy is nothing you’d call fresh.  We often forget how common the practice really is when our favorite bands “call it quits” but, if you hold on long enough (especially in this new ease-of-information age), some kind of reunion is the odds on favorite.  Don Henley, after The Eagles broke up in 1980, slayed hopeful janitors everywhere when he proclaimed the band would play together again “when Hell freezes over”.  Fourteen years later, icebergs formed on the river Styx and brimstone cooled to a rather pleasant, lukewarm asphalt.  The Rumours line-up of Fleetwood Mac, after years of incestuous scrogging and subsequent marathon treatments of silence, swallowed sixteen Cialis, shoved upwards the diaphragms, and reunited in 1997.  David Gilmour recently joined his fratricidal band mate Roger Waters on stage during a tour of The Wall and even the bros Van Halen finally caved to the weekly voicemails left by one DAVID LEE ROTH, OW!!!!  I think Weezer’s broken up six or seven times and I’ll put a wrinkled Jackson on an REM reunion within the next ten years.

I’m not going to attribute reunions to ego and the successes of days gone by, although that’s part of it.  Doing so however, typecasting the musicians as fame starved husks, implies a negative connotation and the assumption that we wouldn’t seek out the glory days ourselves.  A rare talented few get to live the rock dream, living out of the backs of automobiles that are older than they are between sets in Amarillo and Austin.  It’s a modest independence but it’s independence all the same, a debt-less existence.  Financially poor but existentially wealthy.  All of us long for a life doing what we love.  Who, having experienced that, wouldn’t pine for a return; wouldn’t hock dignity and integrity equally for even a low dosage?  Of course, an even smaller percentage of musicians are known by the masses, relevant on the tongues of the majority.  Us commoners can only dream of a temptation so real and grotesque.  Imagine the completion of your purpose, the greatest contribution you could make, with half of your life left.  Every elongated second of each empty day would beg at your loins for a fraction of the significance they once held.  No hobby or second career would suffice.  All that remains is a sun-faded rear view mirror.

Unfortunately, the sequels of such greatness rarely recapture that youthful focus, that vision which made Blur, the Pixies, and the Police innovations of their time.  But then again, sometimes reunited bands aren’t looking to continue a legacy.  Sometimes, as Pavement singer Stephen Malkmus once said, you’re just looking for a paycheck: “If you’re 40, and you leave your family and fly to Australia to do shows, and you’re doing it for the art, that seems kind of weird.  If you’re doing it for the art, stay home with your family.”  This sentiment would seemingly apply to many of the aforementioned bands, including Faith No More, the Pixies, and Rage Against the Machine who too seem content to cash big money festival checks rather than make new music.

It’s too early to see if we’ll get new albums from Refused or At the Drive-In but their reconciliations should serve as a reminder to us all that when bands break up, they’re only doing just that.  As long as the Tyrannosaurus heart of Ted Nugent still beats, there’s always hope of a Damn Yankees reunion and as St. John Lennon once replied to a young Maureen Cleaver, “Oh, definitely.  Once this chick kicks, we’re gettin’ the band on.”

An image is all that delayed action.  An image, any fucking design at all with which to vandalize such a pretentious stretch of fabric.

The inside of his thumb, white and cracked, began to sting from the constant irritation of its index.  Fratricide at an extremital level, his hands would cannibalize each other if not put to work soon.  The individual canvas fibers, recently coated with gesso, ticked away at a silent timer.

So inspired yet so blind.

So inspired..

Delightful, no?

Thanks to Batillus, Hull, and Fever Ray for serenading the day.

“With a good handshake, ever yours…”

What have I been doing besides mucking up other peoples’ websites?  Nothing productive…and that’s all I’m at liberty to say.

If you couldn’t tell by the end of ..Markakis, it’s become impossible for me to take myself seriously anymore.  Call it a lack of confidence or a simple understanding of my dire mediocrity but attempts at furthering any literary project I once had hopes of finishing seem foolish. 

The wind is not a solitary, isolated thing you know.  Gusts, like swarms of fish or birds, sweep across the countryside as collected wraiths.  Too small and quick for the mortal eye to perceive, they maneuver against all warmth as a retreating Sun forsakes all who depend on it for food and light.

Where I used to believe in the power of literature and it’s ability to inspire, I now harness a very real understanding that apathy is a comforting sentiment and not one shaken by someone with such a feeble ability to motivate.  If you’re not touching someone at their deepest beliefs and emotions, then you’re writing pompous equivalences to flatulence. Unless of course, you recognize that you are someone who simply needs to exorcise the looney tunes within in order to enjoy a decent night’s sleep.

Heed the warnings children, whistled to you through the branches of trees once full of leaves.  The wraiths come, heralds of stinging feet and numb fingers.  Feel them on the back of your necks as you curl into bed, unable to cover yourself completely from the drafty window.  There they dance and celebrate their reign, knowing that your every thought in the coming months will be to the discomfort they wrought.

This is my update.

He looked to the window, covered in thick curtains that were purchased to do as they did now: block the entry of any light.  Only a thin line of shadow peeked at the edges.  Much like the delicate kitchen candle, it only provided light enough to illuminate nightmares; give form to fright.  Closing eyes only surrendered one of the few lines of defense available though he wanted badly to put the anxiety aside and sleep.  Turning his back to the ajar villainy birthed similar ascensions of fear.  Minor pacification came only from staring the wickedness down in false bravado as the examination of any movement held priority over everything, including breath.  The repeatedly staggered rise of his chest under the heavy blankets resembled the spastic peaks of someone sobbing.

Then…a brief, slow sound.

It lasted only seconds but long enough to invite investigation.

A search for source begged an encore but one did not immediately follow.  He was forced to try and remember it exactly, drawing upon all the past sounds of his life for possible explanation.  It was a subtle, dull sound like fingers down the railing of a stairwell but softer.  It was movement certainly.  Not sudden and not intentional, it belied concealment.  He and the closet had so far existed with an unspoken understanding of each other’s existence but now that silent perception was confirmed.  There was little reason for the beast within to hide.  Knowing this, the paralyzed man lay as a captive; waiting for what he knew was watching him all along.

As if it had been holding its breath the entire time, a long slow exhale rolled from the vertical depths.  Another soon followed and an audible pattern of breath occupied a fraction of the oppressive silence.  Understanding now that concealment was no longer a required burden, it existed openly but still waited to divulge its true intention.

Panic stricken, the man searched the inhabited darkness with pleading, agonizing eyes.   Any shift in hue or shade, any protrusion from within was searched out.  As desperately as he desired an identity to the horror before him, he couldn’t bring himself to scream out for answers.  Fear paralyzed him further, taking what movement was left from the fall of so many years prior.  In younger days, an able body and the confidence of youth may have propelled him into the closet where whatever monster now terrorized him would be slain.  Not now though.  Now, broken and old, he could do little more than hold back the tears of fully realized fatality.

The black moved again.

The sound that first betrayed the creature’s concealment repeated itself, longer this time.  It stirred unrestricted, posturing itself for a pounce upon the man.

He foresaw a great jarring, the bed shaking violently as an impossibly fast hobgoblin sprang from nothing and straddled him with gnarled, curled horns ready to split him from pubis to chin.  Or perhaps a vampire had been his stalker this entire time, a pale Nosferatu with blood encrusted fingernails and the eyes of a lover’s longing.  All the demons of childhood fiction were given credence by something residing where nothing should.  Life’s infinite opportunities were seen only now in the finality of their waste.

Finally, the yearned for revelation transpired.  From the impossible blackness, death’s own chamber, the terror slipped forward.  Out of the darkened closet and into the dancing, dwindling candlelight an extremity protruded.  The appendage curved upward, rising from the hanging globes at its root.  The form itself was familiar and not at all what he expected.  This intruder was not the creation of Hell.  It was but flesh and blood who had simply grown tired of waiting on the disabled grandfather’s slumber.  A man…with boner.

A Midwest Vacation has seen little development although the advance for the cover has been paid to the artist.  He’ll no doubt have the cover completed far before the first draft is done.  The Trismus Candidate, after a format obsessed review, has once again undergone an attempt at a better layout but Lulu persists in their design inflexibility.  Imperfection is simply unavoidable, I’m afraid.  The hardcover edition has been brought down in exchange for a still-in-process paperback which is listed but not recommended (currently).

Dax Sterner’s website is coming along.  You can check that out here.  Buy his book.  It’s good.  Also, peep Rick Hiltbrunner’s new(ish) web comic Skidmarks Johnson.  It’s like looking into a dirty mirror.

“With a good handshake, ever yours..”

Digital versions of LIB and The Trismus Candidate are now available for 99 American coppers.

The Lounge Act Podcast is getting a bit of a makeover.  The next episode finally brings to fruition the full vision of the show and the website and Twitter feed will soon reflect that.  As a bit of an aside (or perhaps forewarning) I’m going to need musicians for the next episode so those that would be interested in having some cocktails and talking shop should get a hold of me early.

Psychiatry vs. Science: this has weighed on my mind a great deal lately.

Progress has slowed but remains measurable for A Midwest Vacation.  I’m still hoping to have that completed by the end of the year.  I can see all the pieces now, I just have to make them fit.

It was a fortunate week.  I heard new Back When and Good Sir..

“With a good handshake, ever yours..”