Sunday, March 8, 2015

A Feelings Dump Written After Reading 30 pages of Walker Percy, Thinking of Eileen Myles, and having one beer, am I a lightweight now? Possibly, or Shellshag excites me so


I think shellshag are a great band, like this thing that has been happening in the other room that is close to you but you will not open the door to intrerrupt that activity out of respect for it. When I first heard them play “fuck society / fuck sobriety” a cover song, at this theater for a food not bombs fest, I thought it was incredible. Why. I don't know. they watched each other while playing, snarling is the word, but its not mine, it's the word you'd use in a music zine to describe them. Look online, you can’t find a copy of “fuck society” anywhere, but once I got it in the mail for donating to razorcake, where I write reviews, but which frankly is a bearded dude show magazine to maximum’s raging radical show magazine, musically and mindfully I guess I’d like to be with maximum but I’m at razorcake, ho-hum, we pass the lesson, onto the song—It was fall when I saw shellshag and I biked there on my blue Schwinn letour, upon which I resemble a prince, especially if I am 23 and wearing my white helmet. I went by myself, leaving May Linn with her mom and her mom’s friend to hang out in the front room chatting after dinner, having pie. Her mom’s friend went to brother rice, a really nice guy from the southside, a nice guy for all of those factors is what I’m saying, he balanced being nice with knowing how to fix things, qualities which, when joined, amaze me most of all other parts of being a person, like you have these qualities that are of value to the world and see nothing to do with them but help and lounge and not charge people by money or otherwise. I left them because I wanted to see the arrivals. I love the arrivals. Why. I just do. At the theater, maybe the portage park one or maybe another, I saw a friend who I always meant to hang out with more, she was wearing a sweatshirt like my mom wears without the collar, says usa on it, a kohl’s purchase for sure, she waved and I waved and I thought, whoa, Oh my God, it is so good to see smiling almost-friends, these platonic hi and hellos feel so good to me that I can only express them on the fly, they don’t need to be analyzed or explained, so much better than flirting which is almost always bad and weird, but we waved and I was still relieved to not have to talk, so then I went inside—did I drink a beer? I always felt like I needed to drink a beer to have fun at those events, you have to hold something anyway, I must’ve had a beer, but I was cautious too because it was a Sunday night and I was teaching everything for the first time then, careful with my lesson plans and notes for class (the short story unit, I’m guessing), maybe I had two beers, what I wanted was something to eat, but the burger king was closed pardoning the drive thru and they don’t serve cyclists. I saw shellshag, watched them play that song, which was beautiful in circumstance though I know I cant explain it to you I just have to say it—“it’s beautiful,” etcetera, and then the arrivals played songs from Cocktail Molotov along some songs that were almost as old as me, and then, what? I biked home, back to Cordelia street or Cornelia street, one of the daughters from King Lear, the hangout session was over, maybe I leaned in May Linn’s doorway and explained things to her, asked how the night went, went to sleep myself and woke up to smelling trees in the courtyard, and that’s what I miss most right now, not shellshag’s great song, which is a cover anyway (I’m really coming around to covers and the thing of the performer, just this musician who has like five great songs or good ones, and the rest are not theirs at all, I think that's great and the opposite of pathetic, which, whatever, other thoughts) but the smell of the courtyard, that’s what I could go for now, greenery, with the window open, greenery with the window open and I wouldn't complain about the smokers and their cigarette butts mixing with the leaves. Jesus Christ can it be spring already?

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