Jackson, Miss., completely unstable Polaroid film.

I’d basically abandoned Polaroid photography due to the inherent unpredictability of the Impossible Project film, but Ryan Kost’s soft, lovely pictures dragged me back.

Taken today, with PX70.

Polaroid 669 film (expired)

Plaster-of-Paris bust of Elvis Aron Presley from a long-forgotten pawn shop in the Delta

Polaroid 600 film, y’all

THE LEGENDARY KC COMBS

Yes, she’s been on crutches since 1999

Yes, this is at Juan’s on Magazine in May of 2008

Yes, we are going to see X + Detroit Cobras

Yes, I told you about this in 2008

Yes, she’s my big sister

Yes, she’s the one who sews the Hiss Lab cassettes

Yes, X is still thee best

“And Belhaven used to be such a nice part of town.”

I. LET’S GO TO THE BOATS

Baby I just got paid
It’s not much but we made rent &
got the phone cut back on. Let’s
walk to the Jitney and get a case
of High Life and we’ll take my car.
I got a full tank and we can be there
in half an hour.
Let me play blackjack for a bit and
I won’t tease you about the slots.
Baby I just got paid, let’s
go to the boats. It’s Thursday night
and there’s no way they’re booked, the
Ohio Players are tomorrow night, I
bet they’ll comp us a room.
I know I’ve been a
pain in the ass lately
let me make it up to you.
I know you have to work
so we could come back
tonight if you want.
Maybe swing the late shift
at Martin’s, no cops
between Commerce and
Saint Mary.
Aw come on baby
let’s go to the boats.

II. NOT LIKE THAT LIKE THIS!

We broke up
like poor people.
Noisily +
with tears. Not
as bad as it
coulda been, blue
lights on Saint Mary at
3:23 a.m., mascara
drooling down
cheeks and
shattered vinyl all
up in the front yard,

I don’t want him here,
tell him not to come back
round here no more,

ma’am we can’t do nothing
unless you file charges
I just want you to tell him
not to come back here no more,
she mumbles, her tired left foot
clad in green velvet Converse
nudging a cracked copy of
Malcontent & Adored
through the monkeygrass.

We were pretty bad, but
we weren’t that bad.

We weren’t front yard bad.
We weren’t which one of
those snobby bastards next door
called the po-leece bad.

So I lied when I said we
broke up like poor people, but
then again I lied
about a lot of things.

III. [JUST LOOK INTO HER FALSE COLORED EYES]

I was so tired of listening to that song it’s just not that good. It’s kind of silly and I never got what made it a pop masterpiece or whatever it was you were always saying. One time I was bringing Best Wok over when you were sick and walking up those brown stairs—who paints wood brown—and I could hear that reedy little voice floating down from your place “you’ll have the fireplace burning bright,” like a Christmas carol almost, and even though it was the flu and I was trying to do something nice for you I damn near turned around and left. I figured I could text you and say that something came up with daddy and I had to go check on him all just because I was so worn out of hearing that song and you playing it over and again. But there is little else in the world worse than being sick and alone and I just stood there looking at the bag—they put the food in a damned Wal-Mart bag—and there was gravy pooling in the bottom of the damned bag and I didn’t want to get it in the car. So I kept going up those brown-painted stairs.

IV. MANNISH BOY

The flames shudder on
delicate little filaments
ablaze in Our Lady of Guadalupe
glass.
I turn both taps all the way open.
After a minute or so the water
fades to pale chocolate, and I
can hear the water heater in the
kitchen begin to groan & rattle.
I wonder if it’s rust or
Yazoo Clay that changes the color.
Turbidity, they call it on the letters
from the City. I had to look it up.
Two college degrees, one public one
private, and I had to look it up. From
the Latin turbidus confused, turbid, from
turba confusion, crowd, probably from
Greek tyrbe, confusion, first use 1626,
synonyms roiled, cloudy, foul, muddy.
Of course it’s muddy. Half an hour from
the Mississippi but of course the damned
bathtub is full of muddy water.
Can’t get away from
the Delta, can’t untangle myself from
this fucking place
after twenty years.
Twenty years.
I pad on my toes back
to the bedroom & turn
Forever Changes up. I light
another candle. I am lighting
a lot of candles lately.
This one’s for wealth &
prosperity, got no idea
why it has a picture of
a black Jesus. At least I guess it’s a
black Jesus, hell it could be
just about anyone, there’s a
whole biography on the back
but it doesn’t help much.
I wish I could read Espanol.
I wish you were here to
read it to me, patient &
a little haughty that I can’t
roll my Rs. I’m
from Alabama we barely have Rs,
I’ll say, and you’ll
laugh & bite my ear.
The pipe behind the fake
tile linoleum clanks +
shakes. “Let’s go
to the boats,” I say to the candles, to
the hot muddy water, to the
ghost of poor Arthur Lee singing
“The Good Humor Man
He Sees Everything Like This,”
I say to 2008, to your ghost, yr
ghost, summertime’s here and
look over there, oh
the trumpets swell, o the
swelling trumpets & the
boombox whirrs to a
soft shuddery stop &
flowers everywhere in the morning.

Essential:
Bobby Anderson’s “Pho You”
Love, “The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This”
Furrows, “Strings Overhead“

This makes me happier than I can tell you on a Sunday night.

Original Los Buddies Polaroid.
2008 PF story on the Buddies—complete with “Libido” download.
Los Buddies on the myspace.

KC Williams hand-sewed the slipcover for each cassette, and each label was hand-typed by yours truly. Each of the limited edition cassettes also came with an insert talking about the band and where you could download the songs. Oh yeah, it was on one of my Polaroids.

You can check out the Furrows at their Bandcamp page or order their new record at Elegant Trainwreck. Hiss Lab cassettes are $5—for two great songs & two great pieces of art! Snag one at the next FURROWS show.

Out of the limited edition of 30, here’s the first ten, along with examples of what the total package looked like.

Polaroid 600 film, Smith-Corona typography, Jackson, Miss. 2007.

Are the Overnight Lows the best rock & roll band in the world? ARE YOU TRYING TO PICK A FIGHT OR SOMETHING MAN YOU WANT TO FIGHT OH WE’LL FIGHT

O, you say all good A-sides deserve an okay, slightly weaker B-side? FINE THEN

Polaroid 600 film, Smith-Corona typography, Jackson, Miss. 2007.

PX600 Silver Shade. Mississippi State Fairgrounds, January 2011.

Got a blister on my finger
got it from a hammer.
What’s your favorite band
you wouldn’t know it.
What’s your favorite game
(Kid Icarus, but the
passwords were a joke).
Got knots in my stomach
didn’t need that malt.
Stagger Lee threw seven,
Billy swore he threw eight,
blue lights Dopple
across the ceiling again.
Why does YouTube try to
autocomplete to “Last Caress” live,
nobody wants to hear that.
Want to reread the Kree-Skrull War
but can’t stand Rick Jones.
I got something to say, I got
something to say.