Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Friday, September 9, 2011
Friday, August 26, 2011
"Whitney" (Tape experiments)
So here are several of my recordings as dubbed over a Whitney Houston Tape. Some drone for your day or night. If you can sit through the whole 18ish minutes I applaud you.
Whitney by Wes Swartz
Whitney by Wes Swartz
Monday, July 4, 2011
We all know the musical byproduct of the Vietnam war in the US, but what about in Vietnam?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWCeMggn8iM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4Ag-LNWyFI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWCeMggn8iM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4Ag-LNWyFI&feature=related
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Early Fireworks. Not the fourth of July.
You're missing it, screamed my neighbor, eccentric and awkward by nature yet holding onto a beer can. I could only imagine the contents of his night. I held my tongue and watched first, letting the sounds trail behind the flashing lights framed far off between the buildings of the Ann Arbor skyline.
At first I had perhaps by instinct assumed impending storms, thunder, lightning, the continuation of a rainy week, but after a few more loud cracks, passed up the notion for something more sinister, or synthetic rather. It sounded like bombs being dropped on Ypsilanti, but as my neighbor explained, he figured it was the rich folks who lived off that way having a private show just for fun.
It was not altogether different from a night a couple weeks prior. At the Eightball splitting a pitcher. Drunk. And the whole world closed in on me as I glanced at the flaming television. It was Vancouver but it could have been anywhere in North America. My mind jumped to conclusions and ultimately overestimated the degree of provocation necessary for a group of North Americans to start torching cars. Well, false alarm. Just fireworks. I postulated some other dastardly attack, thinking quite like some kid in Iraq, the evening his world lit up with embers in 2001. No holidays or special occasions for those little boys, just the complete and total upheaval of their worlds; worlds which were if not perfect, at least structured. My life was not perfect, but structured, and really there is no valid comparison between myself and such a boy, but anyway I leaned against the railing of the fire escape, pushing backwards towards the open air now littered with sound and glowing light.
And I was listening to my neighbor talk about history, old fourth of Julys in his childhood Detroit. "The sound used to just bounce around between the buildings and just get louder and louder and from all directions. It was just something, and I mean it was really something! I'm sure it had old war vets just crumbling, shit like this. Man, just crumbling!"
Vivien, the girl from #7 arrived on the stairs with questions. We told her about the booming in the sky. It was cold she said, and it was quite cold. I had earlier retreated to find a sweater which I let hang around me, unfitting of the time of year, but much appreciated. We stood assembled like that on the fire escape for half an hour at least, exchanging stories, I in silence most of the time, listening, watching the colors, thinking about July.
In Jackson, the fireworks went off and I mean, to borrow my neighbor's idiom, They really went off. It had my father crumbling I think. My memories of that July 2009 exist in silence, impenetrable even by fireworks. Dad was a strong man and the fourth was usually celebratory, but that year even I felt that war zone shock. Turn the lights off or the jerries will blow us to bits. And Imagine! The lights go off in the entire city and then you really can see the etchings made by the trailing embers, But you can't see the smoke. Only when another one goes off do you see the trails of ash in the sky. 2009 ruined Julys forever and a day. The noise echoed across dad's sickbed, made us all wish then that we could sleep, and notice that we hadn't for quite some time. He moaned, he made slight pained movements. He was not yet sixty. He was no longer strong.
I bit my lip, unnoticed. Vivien left. Too cold and she had seen fireworks before she said. So the two of us remained and I leaned and he staggered and oohed and ah-ed and I thought about Detroit, and Vancouver, and Fallujah, Beirut, Gaza, London, the horror of the blitzkrieg and the remarkable similarities of fireworks, missiles, and jellyfish. I thought about Jackson and my father's fourth of July stories I had never heard. There was so much I thought of then, leaning back against the air, testing the carpentry, wondering if I might just fall deep into something.
I sit and the fireworks end. My neighbor is praising the show ad nauseam. Some show, wowee! one hell of a display! And I say goodnight and he says goodnight and we all go inside. Some miles away some people applaud at the magnificent show and do party things. Have faces, lives, schedules, and drinks that I know nothing of. We both exist several miles away in the growing dark and I am content to let that be. Some soul smothered in wine and the darkness of the night staggers out in search of his grown children, screaming like the scene after the rodeo in The Misfits and I went to bed thinking about the coming fourth and more fireworks. In my dreams I was Clark Gable baring my drunken tonsils to the Nevada night only I am a child looking for his father; just a stumble drunk off the hood of a car.
At first I had perhaps by instinct assumed impending storms, thunder, lightning, the continuation of a rainy week, but after a few more loud cracks, passed up the notion for something more sinister, or synthetic rather. It sounded like bombs being dropped on Ypsilanti, but as my neighbor explained, he figured it was the rich folks who lived off that way having a private show just for fun.
It was not altogether different from a night a couple weeks prior. At the Eightball splitting a pitcher. Drunk. And the whole world closed in on me as I glanced at the flaming television. It was Vancouver but it could have been anywhere in North America. My mind jumped to conclusions and ultimately overestimated the degree of provocation necessary for a group of North Americans to start torching cars. Well, false alarm. Just fireworks. I postulated some other dastardly attack, thinking quite like some kid in Iraq, the evening his world lit up with embers in 2001. No holidays or special occasions for those little boys, just the complete and total upheaval of their worlds; worlds which were if not perfect, at least structured. My life was not perfect, but structured, and really there is no valid comparison between myself and such a boy, but anyway I leaned against the railing of the fire escape, pushing backwards towards the open air now littered with sound and glowing light.
And I was listening to my neighbor talk about history, old fourth of Julys in his childhood Detroit. "The sound used to just bounce around between the buildings and just get louder and louder and from all directions. It was just something, and I mean it was really something! I'm sure it had old war vets just crumbling, shit like this. Man, just crumbling!"
Vivien, the girl from #7 arrived on the stairs with questions. We told her about the booming in the sky. It was cold she said, and it was quite cold. I had earlier retreated to find a sweater which I let hang around me, unfitting of the time of year, but much appreciated. We stood assembled like that on the fire escape for half an hour at least, exchanging stories, I in silence most of the time, listening, watching the colors, thinking about July.
In Jackson, the fireworks went off and I mean, to borrow my neighbor's idiom, They really went off. It had my father crumbling I think. My memories of that July 2009 exist in silence, impenetrable even by fireworks. Dad was a strong man and the fourth was usually celebratory, but that year even I felt that war zone shock. Turn the lights off or the jerries will blow us to bits. And Imagine! The lights go off in the entire city and then you really can see the etchings made by the trailing embers, But you can't see the smoke. Only when another one goes off do you see the trails of ash in the sky. 2009 ruined Julys forever and a day. The noise echoed across dad's sickbed, made us all wish then that we could sleep, and notice that we hadn't for quite some time. He moaned, he made slight pained movements. He was not yet sixty. He was no longer strong.
I bit my lip, unnoticed. Vivien left. Too cold and she had seen fireworks before she said. So the two of us remained and I leaned and he staggered and oohed and ah-ed and I thought about Detroit, and Vancouver, and Fallujah, Beirut, Gaza, London, the horror of the blitzkrieg and the remarkable similarities of fireworks, missiles, and jellyfish. I thought about Jackson and my father's fourth of July stories I had never heard. There was so much I thought of then, leaning back against the air, testing the carpentry, wondering if I might just fall deep into something.
I sit and the fireworks end. My neighbor is praising the show ad nauseam. Some show, wowee! one hell of a display! And I say goodnight and he says goodnight and we all go inside. Some miles away some people applaud at the magnificent show and do party things. Have faces, lives, schedules, and drinks that I know nothing of. We both exist several miles away in the growing dark and I am content to let that be. Some soul smothered in wine and the darkness of the night staggers out in search of his grown children, screaming like the scene after the rodeo in The Misfits and I went to bed thinking about the coming fourth and more fireworks. In my dreams I was Clark Gable baring my drunken tonsils to the Nevada night only I am a child looking for his father; just a stumble drunk off the hood of a car.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Master Chef Destroys Vegan Recipe
So I butchered this vegan recipe I found for Edamame and Rice Pancakes by using eggs and garnishing with a little puddle of sweet baby rays barbecue sauce. Sorry chickens. Sorry vegans. I just couldn't get the damned things to stay together.
So here's how I did it in case anyone cares. (I mean they were still delicious. Just vegetarian. Not vegan)
So I boiled some rice (short grain is best. i used long. this explains my problems keeping the cakes together.) as it was boiling I added a chinese cooking wine (you could use soy or whatever. just some sort of acidic substance) and ginger (fresh is always best). Once done I mixed it in with edamame, added more ginger, added the 1 egg and mixed it all together. With a bit of olive oil in a pan, proceed to fry them just like you would an egg. There you have it. OH! and I added salt in the process of cooking. I suppose you could just add after. whatever.
Again, my apologies to vegans. I tried. I failed. I added to global chicken suffering.
So I boiled some rice (short grain is best. i used long. this explains my problems keeping the cakes together.) as it was boiling I added a chinese cooking wine (you could use soy or whatever. just some sort of acidic substance) and ginger (fresh is always best). Once done I mixed it in with edamame, added more ginger, added the 1 egg and mixed it all together. With a bit of olive oil in a pan, proceed to fry them just like you would an egg. There you have it. OH! and I added salt in the process of cooking. I suppose you could just add after. whatever.
Again, my apologies to vegans. I tried. I failed. I added to global chicken suffering.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
a couple old poems
For Dad,
Having seen the brown
rusted 1977 VW bus
grown over with weeds
and frowning,
saw myself today
with father's mustache
reflection in a storefront.
Moved a little,
shaved it off.
Having trouble finding mementos
in a dozen different places
(when mourning.)
Have seen my bicycle alone,
sun-lighting on a Cuban street
and was jealous.
Have seen cigarettes balanced
autonomous on a cill
sputtering cold.
Have not been a frequent smoker
but will continue to accumulate change,
spare time, and matches.
Have seen the green moss clinging
to lonely, cement, foundations and thought
it looked a hell of a lot
like the moss
clinging to the wheels,
Father's rusted 1977 VW Bus
and my small eyes carrying me
along the dark highway
like headlights, fatherless,
in a cascading bravado of glare.
_________________
It's the 12 tibetan deities”
said Andy Lopez. The guy looked past us
“look fucking sweet in the apartment” he said
And he bought the thing.
In the goodwill,
Andy told me about the spaces
in between whistles and paint strokes
“the silence creates the longing”
for voicemail conversations
of dead air
dead
because of course. Because
is no reason to cry
but makes a good
visceral reaction to bibles,
girlfriends, well wishers. Happy thoughts
taped over acid worn holes in film strips
when we hurried to cover up the mess.
The loss of capabilities.
The human tree turned to wheelchair frailty.
But that sound is gone.
We are a silence when the whistling stops
and alone with our portrait of
the deities.
“you know there are known to be strange
coincidences around these paintings”
Andy was not too close to my father
But he gave a great goddamn eulogy,
and I knew he was talking serious.
I savored that moment
when silence was replaced by conversation.
We arrived next to the painting
and parted later as the wife beater clad
wife beater waddled off
with as much culture as he could carry.
I make for the street and the door
clatters and sputters to a close,
its rickety hinges a raucous.
But that Beauty dies and leaves no sound.
Funny how it happens anyways.
_________________________________
We Study Wars on Youtube
I sat for long intervals where bright screens killed my irises,
Destroyed my eyeballs and turned my backbone into paste.
They told me it would happen in intervals
The slow ripping of my stomach when I ate the redskins.
“Them damned injuns should be shot!”
Because of fightin words and ideas I exist!
So we all sat around crying and planting irises.
“Oh my! Oh my! My fingers are shot!”
She cried, daubing them with paste
This is revolution when they said, “Redskin!”
And “Manifest Destiny!” progress in little white lies and in intervals
Time passes. Shit happens in intervals
And hundreds of little boys don’t exist
Anymore because revolution said “troop increase.” Redskins
Done cut their sweaty child fingers like topping irises
And she sews them frantically, smearing them with paste
She sits back, wipes her brow. Downs the shot.
Redskin downs another slug
Secret war begins.
I exist to be shot
in the head so I can watch my insides spatter in intervals
Of mathematic bookpressed starbucks sonfabitch paste.
The little boys that don’t exist anymore all existed
To be shot in the head. Poke out their irises.
“Who won the pennant?” “The Redskins.”
And who will wander with friendly eyes to trick the Redskins?
Which flattop will stumble rez trailer park gardens crunching irises?
When the liquor runs dry they ration flour. Eat in intervals
Kind of like our 3 meals, but in weeks, flour sacks. Exist
-ing. “Well, you can mix it with fat and water to make a paste.”
Momma slapped him. He said “doesn’t do a damned thing, tooth paste!”
HEYAHEYAWAHHEYATOMAHAWK Redskins!
We all shot at boys who existed to be shot
at, praying "Blessed is this human waste," in quiet intervals
and I sat watching computer screens, burning my irises.
I was blind after that but people still screamed and shot
In the wars that exist because wars exist
Because the wars that don’t exist do so because somewhere redskins
Sit waxing stoic. Spaghetti westerns. Tonto. They eat paste.
Yet still,
No wars for stomped irises.
Having seen the brown
rusted 1977 VW bus
grown over with weeds
and frowning,
saw myself today
with father's mustache
reflection in a storefront.
Moved a little,
shaved it off.
Having trouble finding mementos
in a dozen different places
(when mourning.)
Have seen my bicycle alone,
sun-lighting on a Cuban street
and was jealous.
Have seen cigarettes balanced
autonomous on a cill
sputtering cold.
Have not been a frequent smoker
but will continue to accumulate change,
spare time, and matches.
Have seen the green moss clinging
to lonely, cement, foundations and thought
it looked a hell of a lot
like the moss
clinging to the wheels,
Father's rusted 1977 VW Bus
and my small eyes carrying me
along the dark highway
like headlights, fatherless,
in a cascading bravado of glare.
_________________
It's the 12 tibetan deities”
said Andy Lopez. The guy looked past us
“look fucking sweet in the apartment” he said
And he bought the thing.
In the goodwill,
Andy told me about the spaces
in between whistles and paint strokes
“the silence creates the longing”
for voicemail conversations
of dead air
dead
because of course. Because
is no reason to cry
but makes a good
visceral reaction to bibles,
girlfriends, well wishers. Happy thoughts
taped over acid worn holes in film strips
when we hurried to cover up the mess.
The loss of capabilities.
The human tree turned to wheelchair frailty.
But that sound is gone.
We are a silence when the whistling stops
and alone with our portrait of
the deities.
“you know there are known to be strange
coincidences around these paintings”
Andy was not too close to my father
But he gave a great goddamn eulogy,
and I knew he was talking serious.
I savored that moment
when silence was replaced by conversation.
We arrived next to the painting
and parted later as the wife beater clad
wife beater waddled off
with as much culture as he could carry.
I make for the street and the door
clatters and sputters to a close,
its rickety hinges a raucous.
But that Beauty dies and leaves no sound.
Funny how it happens anyways.
_________________________________
We Study Wars on Youtube
I sat for long intervals where bright screens killed my irises,
Destroyed my eyeballs and turned my backbone into paste.
They told me it would happen in intervals
The slow ripping of my stomach when I ate the redskins.
“Them damned injuns should be shot!”
Because of fightin words and ideas I exist!
So we all sat around crying and planting irises.
“Oh my! Oh my! My fingers are shot!”
She cried, daubing them with paste
This is revolution when they said, “Redskin!”
And “Manifest Destiny!” progress in little white lies and in intervals
Time passes. Shit happens in intervals
And hundreds of little boys don’t exist
Anymore because revolution said “troop increase.” Redskins
Done cut their sweaty child fingers like topping irises
And she sews them frantically, smearing them with paste
She sits back, wipes her brow. Downs the shot.
Redskin downs another slug
Secret war begins.
I exist to be shot
in the head so I can watch my insides spatter in intervals
Of mathematic bookpressed starbucks sonfabitch paste.
The little boys that don’t exist anymore all existed
To be shot in the head. Poke out their irises.
“Who won the pennant?” “The Redskins.”
And who will wander with friendly eyes to trick the Redskins?
Which flattop will stumble rez trailer park gardens crunching irises?
When the liquor runs dry they ration flour. Eat in intervals
Kind of like our 3 meals, but in weeks, flour sacks. Exist
-ing. “Well, you can mix it with fat and water to make a paste.”
Momma slapped him. He said “doesn’t do a damned thing, tooth paste!”
HEYAHEYAWAHHEYATOMAHAWK Redskins!
We all shot at boys who existed to be shot
at, praying "Blessed is this human waste," in quiet intervals
and I sat watching computer screens, burning my irises.
I was blind after that but people still screamed and shot
In the wars that exist because wars exist
Because the wars that don’t exist do so because somewhere redskins
Sit waxing stoic. Spaghetti westerns. Tonto. They eat paste.
Yet still,
No wars for stomped irises.
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