Expired Polaroid 600 film, Amite Street, Jackson, Miss. 2009.
And by “free,” I mean, “seventy-five dollars a month,” by which I mean, “cheaper than the tickets I am getting every ten minutes because Jaxxon is in a budget crisis and trying to make up shortfalls through ‘municipal revenue sources,’ i.e., ‘ticketing the heck out of everybody.’”
If you still don’t have the latest Sandusky Review, you can snag a copy at Sneaky Beans in Fondren for a mere five bucks—and you’ll get nearly a hundred pages of poetry and drawings, plus an amazing hand-screened cover. There’s also SR4 (maybe my fave), at the blowout price of $2.
If you want to order from me, here’s the availability:
SR1: sold out
SR2: 6 left
SR3: sold out
SR4: about eight million copies left (did I ever tell you about the time I accidentally ordered 175 instead of 75. Srsly, there’s like 50)
SR5: 4 left
As always, you can read them for free online at sanduskyreview.com. I’m working at having the newest issue up in PDF form soon—it’s the fastest selling one I’ve ever done.
John Doe says BUY ‘EM! SB also has some other local Jax poetry zines and great music from the likes of Furrows and Johnny Bertram.
Forty-eight years after they
put him in the ground, kids
from Deutschland and Brasília and
Noxapater still leave empty bottles
of Jack and Jim on his grave.
Forty-eight years later and kids
still piss on Faulkner’s grave, but
they spell it with a “u,” you
made your mark old man, scraped
that palimpsest clean and new.
I was in Oxford today visiting with some friends. For dinner I had the vegetable plate at Ajax—I picked butter beans, blackeyed peas, fried eggplant, and macaroni and cheese (plus jalapeño cornbread). All that was ten bucks counting tax. The eggplant was as big as a kid’s fist. It was all quite fine. In fact, nothing can beat it, nowhere.
The view on the Square as we left and all said our goodbyes, waving to the other friends still on the porch at City Grocery:
Polaroid 600 film, New Orleans, 2008.
Hanging out at jp!’s old house down by Tulane always reminds me of “Do For Love” by Tupac.
I’m on
18th Street, and you’re
more than a decade away,
maybe dancing at Red Rocks or
in a juke joint, while I’m
tying my hair up in a ponytail
on 18th Street.
Sweat licks my ears
while I sand down the long black bench
on the third floor, scrape off
years of shuttered doors and
stolen gargoyles and
the Lyric running softcore
across the street.
I work my way down the rail slowly,
towards the ladies’ in the basement, where
I’ll stick my finger in the old chandelier
while changing a bulb and my
fillings will jump and tingle—
rubbing the polish into the brass, just like
legions of boys did before me.
I run up staircases in the dark.
I get good enough to do it
with my eyes closed, shutting out
what little light there was, my
blue suede Converse rustling
on cabernet carpet.
I carry M*A*S*H to the
projection booth and the thin hard
metal of the handles on the reels
cuts into my palms.
Meanwhile you are dancing to the Dead
and I am on 18th Street, sewing
buttons on costumes for the Wizard of Oz
and flirting with costume designers.
Alan is in black jeans, just like the song
and one day we crack open a cash register
“rescued” from Loveman’s
but there were no Mercury dimes, no
Liberty dollars.
On Saturdays I gather up the trash
and sling my bike out of the back of
the Camino, and ride through the
deserted downtown. I sand the black
bench on the third floor and listen
to the squeak and whirl of my
thrift-store cassette of Boys Don’t Cry.
Maybe you were staring at the River
while I was running up staircases in the
dark on 18th Street,
there was just me, Mount Rushmore
might as well be on Mars, and
There was never a ghost, that was
just me running up the staircases,
echoing down through the years,
just like the graffiti in the men’s
(Spike in ’47, Butch in ’63,
and me in ’95), it was me
that sat down next to her
on the mezzanine, Adam’s Rib
flickering in the dark.
Polaroid 600, High Street, Jackson, Miss., 2009.
I allegedly saw Blondie play this at Mud Island last year; to my everlasting shame, I was pretty much out of my face. Let’s say it was awesome, though! Yeah, sure! Sobriety may not be glamorous but I remember the past ten shows I’ve gone too, which is hard to say about 1997-2009.
Speaking of which . . . there is a new Hold Steady coming out, people. A NEW HOLD STEADY. You can stream three new songs at their myspaces. To say I love the Hold Steady is an understatement.* To say I look forward to seeing a whole show without falling down a flight of stairs/getting into a “shots-off” with the bartender at Chelsea/trying to drink a case of champagne is also an understatement.
Looks like the closest they’re getting is Athens & Atlanta, in the middle of the week. That’s going to be hard to justify but it looks like I’ll have to suck it up. “Heaven is whenever” is just too perfect.
*Yes, Tad Kubler commented on that post, and yes, that meant a ton to me.
Polaroid 420 Land Camera, expired 669 film.
It’s the bright red “x” in the reflection of the window that makes it for me.
