NEWS: I played live music in front of people for the first time in like 5 years the other day. My band Carpet Crawlers played the excellent Poetry Vs. Fiction event in Geneva at the fantastical Cracker Factory, aka the coolest space in the area, or maybe the world. The photo to the left (click on it) is what Carpet Crawlers looked like when we weren't playing, or between our two songs, one of which scared the hell out of people. Tyler (drums) played like Animal from the Muppets, and the acoustics of the giant room made him sound like 100 drummers at once. The guy serving wine at the other end of the building actually spilled shit when Tyler played. I played the analog synth and didn't blow people's ears out as much. On the first song I tried to make these weird fire works/bird noises. Second song was a little quieter, more like spaceships computing that was also kind of Earth-ish? It was like later Coltrane crossed with Goblin, or Zombi, but with maybe one vague concept to guide us that wasn't even a concept. College professors liked us, and some people walked out. It ruled so much. The poetry and fiction readers were excellent, and I especially liked Mike Faloon's work. I picked up his book, The Hanging Gardens of Split Rock, and I'm convinced it's great even though I haven't yet read it. He saw Servotron at least twice, what more do you need to know? But seriously I'm going to read it and you should pick it up.

Speaking of books, I need to stop buying books. I buy like four a week now. Today I got two in the mail (Charles Willeford's I Was Looking For a Street, Bruce Russell's Left-Handed Blows) and ordered another one (Bruno Schulz's The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories). I also just got Joan Didion's The White Album, and I have two Raymond Chandler books that I bought over the summer that I haven't even flipped through yet. I also got Bill Callahan's book, Hans Fallada's Every Man Dies Alone, and a copy of Bukowski's Women that I bought after I got breakfast with my friend Brady during one of his two visits this summer. This is on top of the 3-5 comics I buy PER WEEK, and the stack of books I borrowed from my dad two years ago (Hemingway, Pynchon, Mailer, etc.), and Looking For The Magic (which I started over a year ago), and Americana, which I'm almost through but should have been through back in July, when I spent a week either sitting around the house in extreme sloth-mode or going to my sister's pool and drinking Coronas. What the hell am I doing? When do I think I'm gonna read all this shit? On lunch breaks? In the 20 minutes between when I get into bed and when I fall asleep? I've finished a couple things: Julia Wertz's Drinking At The Movies and the 6th volume of Scalped. If you've read Wertz's Fart Party books (the first volume is due to be reissued shortly) or seen her work on the www internet, you know what to expect. Funny stuff, and some kind of serious stuff, but then more funny stuff. It's good. Scalped is second only to Stray Bullets in my mind. I want someone to make an HBO series out of it, but I can't decide who (like who I want to exec produce it, adapt it, direct the episodes). Oh and Johnny Ryan's Prison Pit: Book Two and the second Fuck This Life book should be added to your cart RIGHT THIS SECOND.

My music-buying has been just as bad. I went to the Antique Mall in Farmington to see if I could find a good belated b-day gift for my friend Justin. I wanted to find something cool for his garage/ping-pong area/darts room. He has a nice portrait of Kenny Rogers in there, so I was looking for something along those lines. Maybe just another portrait of Kenny Rogers. Instead I saw more used Nazi memorabilia than I expected (flags, arm bands, moderately scorched SS helmets) and got creeped out thinking about the local market for that shit, and then I bought collectible drinking glasses (Charlie Brown, Empire Strikes Back) and some older reasonably-priced LPs--Neil Young's first record, Johnny Cash's Bitter Tears, Todd Rundgren's Something/Anything?, and Rolling Stones's Flowers. Young and Stones records were musts because I've had "I've Been Waiting For You" and "Back Street Girl" in my head a lot. Cash and Rundgren could've waited, but I wanted them. Most of my favorite songs now are long as shit. Bardo Pond's "Lomand", Bo Hansson's "Migration Suite", Law Of The Rope's "Thy Own Throat", New Life's "New Life". I like short songs, too. Aias' "La Truita", Cheap Trick's "He's A Whore". The Arts' "I Am Ye Charged Black Candle Cursings", The Sapphires' "Who Do You Love". Birkin and Gainesbourg's "Orang Outan" can be hard to shake. So stupid. There are a million things I'm overlooking right now. I'll think of them later.

Anyway, I'll update this thing more. I've had complaints. New issue of geneva13 should be out maybe next month? I already wrote my piece, about Fall music/reading material. Go get the Love Pork tape and go see Beast Man in Rochester on...Thursday? Gotta double check that.