NEW BLOG! THIS ONE IS DEAD.

Parallel Bathroom Mirrors by Wes Swartz

Miami: A collection of tape samples

A "live" tape mix I made the other day. 


  Maimi: A Collection of Tape Samples by Wes Swartz

"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

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

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.

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. 

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.

Noam Chomsky Responds to Osama Bin Laden Killing

This is one of the best responses to Bin Laden's assassination that I've read. 


http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/2652/noam_chomsky_my_reaction_to_os/

'Same with the name, Operation Geronimo. The imperial mentality is so profound, throughout western society, that no one can perceive that they are glorifying bin Laden by identifying him with courageous resistance against genocidal invaders. It’s like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk… It’s as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes “Jew” and “Gypsy.”'
-Noam Chomsky

A skyline like bad poetry

I recorded these songs in the Jackson Bandshell with a casio, my mac, and a guitar. Here's to all the Jackson kids.
   casiojackson by Wes Swartz

Maybe some day i'll die

One day when im 59

Then I will learn to fly

up into the alleyways into the night

I am like a mountain range

with pockets full of chump change

writin bad poetry.

Standing in the street light

with hands in my pockets

trying to bum a ride to the coast

if this is my town

this is where I used to play

not in Cougar Mellancamp way.

just the kind of way where you know

doesn't matter if you stay or if you go

you are already here

always gonna be here

In summer there's an open door

with faces looking out to the street

Heart skips another beat

An accident on first street

One car into another

And death to both their bodies

there's Jesus Christ in Jackson kids

with golden eyes and heavy lids

they don't know if they can take it

scrawny arms resolved to make it

Plastic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EqQIaA7WvI

So this is a handmade 16mm film of mine. ROUGH CUT! so please excuse any mistakes (especially the mistake with the french. Yea, I know "photo" is feminine.) spray paint, stencil, dry adhesive letters, inks, scratch, etc. Here are some stills:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EqQIaA7WvI
I'll have an HQ final done eventually and uploaded on vimeo.

Enjoy!

Apartment number Three

Day one without a Facebook, I'm back in ann arbor, taking stock of everything. Got a new neighbor today. He's a seemingly dimwitted kid, but nice enough. Funny how it works, each time someone new comes along someone old has to go. I had come up through the fire escape and gone straight to my room. As such I had not noticed the situation on the second floor till I ventured out to pay the rent, late. Plue plastic gloves and police investigators on the stairs and a dead man in his room, that's all. I got on my bike and rode down William to State street.

It would rain, cooling the dense heat, dulling the intense flavors of the flowering trees and that hint of death smell which was still stuck in my nostrils. I would all but slice through the hot air, followed by a junket through the cool, damp, rain and...It occurred to me, I never knew the guy. There he was, dead and I was lolling around.

There was that one time, a couple months ago when to my surprise I discovered that an old bearded man lived in apartment #3, not an asian grad student like I had previously thought. That one time, I hauled several hundred pounds of film equipment up the stairs to my hovel, the bearded man held the door in silence. “Thank you,” I uttered. If speech was a heartbeat he'd have already been dead back then.

The investigator stopped me to ask a few questions. “That's about it,” I said to him. “I only met him that one time.” Wonder how long he sat there. It seemed to me a man who lives alone in a house full of college students in a town like Ann Arbor is bound to do some rotting before his death is discovered. I suspect only a shallow depth of loneliness will drown a man, and in our own private isolations, the ten or so other people in the house could not have noticed the breadth of this man's existence, let alone it's abrupt edges.

Come to think of it, sound seems to greet you more than people do, living in a place like that. Late at night, in the clutches of insomniac happenings I would startle at an habitual cough, rattling through the heat vent. It was a sorrowful hack. Sometimes I wondered if I was the only other person alive who could hear it, that cough that would be carefully inspected by blue-gloved hands and packaged under a white sheet, the remnants condensed into several pages of legal pad notes or Febreezed into deep, dark corners to diminish and degrade.

To the attendees of The Bin Laden White House Lawn Memorial Wake and Jubilee, Go Home.

With help from Mark Twain, who as a dead man, speaks the truth, a prayer for those of you keeping vigil tonight;
"O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended in the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames in summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it,"
Do you scream tonight like one thousand Afghan and Iraqi children, your bodies covered in ash, moments after the luminescence and sound? The war isn't over so go home till we kill another 1,000 then have a reunion, but this time bring the grill and listen to the sound of that raw meat sizzle. Serve with ketchup and devour. You earned it. Have a beer! I'd spring for a Sam Adams tonight, and flip that hat around bro! You might get some head after this!
If you're lucky you might even get to see a picture of his corpse though I realize you have delicate stomachs and are still getting over the shock of the wedding. But weddings so close to funerals can only mean great things, right?

Here it is!

My pointless blog I started when in the midst of a stifling depression; Summer 09. Hope I can create something interesting for everyone.
-wes