tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34345525246635662024-02-02T11:15:51.428-08:00Secret BeachWhere the kids run wild and freeL Warfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16268036263931271156noreply@blogger.comBlogger89125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3434552524663566.post-91653286762683710722016-01-21T15:46:00.000-08:002016-07-02T21:56:36.094-07:00Let's All Chant!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<iframe frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/243143445&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false" width="100%"></iframe><br />L Warfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16268036263931271156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3434552524663566.post-86337876528218280652014-07-28T17:51:00.001-07:002014-07-28T18:06:46.598-07:00Bad Blood, Good Blood<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<img alt="Bad Blood, Good Blood cover art" src="http://f1.bcbits.com/img/a1483181637_2.jpg" height="400" itemprop="image" width="400" /> </div>
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Although the Secret Beach has lapsed into a state of well-earned
dormancy, I thought I'd pop in briefly for a bit of musical
proselytizing; not a lot has <i>moved</i> me lately, musically speaking,
and when something does I want to Tell the World. <a href="http://www.thesecretbeach.org/2009_11_01_archive.html" target="_blank">The last time</a> I was
on my soapbox hyping Spenking (Spencer
Kingman to his mother), a self-released CD-R titled <i>Free Doom</i> had recently been
pirated my way, carrying an aura of mystery and intrigue. The one-time
Chicagoan, occasional indie-rock sideman (I'd been lucky enough to see
him tear the stage to pieces with a young <a href="http://www.dirtyprojectors.net/" target="_blank">Dirty Projectors</a>) and quietly
brilliant singer-songwriter was, reportedly, newly married and living in
Utah. I confess to having fed the rumor-mill, speculating here on the Secret Beach that he'd gone Mormon, that he'd had to smuggle this collection of
dark, dense songs out of Utah as if on golden tablets.<br />
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a decade has transpired since then, and much of the mystery has been
dispelled concerning Spencer Kingman the man. He's been living on the
outskirts of Pittsburgh for several years, is the father of two young
children, and teaches high school math; none of which begins to diminish
the ongoing mystery of Spenking the artist, whose latest offering is
his most public to date, released this spring on Ethereal Sequence,
distributed by Drag City and sure to blow some minds. Much of the material on <i>Bad Blood, Good Blood</i> is culled from the aformentioned <i>Free Doom--</i>finally
those golden tablets have found the light of day, comprising all of
side one and a bit of side two. But the
four new songs, radiant and otherworldly, are the real revelation here, and well worth the wait; while he might not have much time for touring or recording these days, these few transmissions make clear that suburban
family life has done nothing to tame Spencer's febrile imagination.<br />
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Spare, haunting and unusual for Spenking in its use of electronics, <u>Soda Spill</u> lurches through the shopping-center landscape of middle America. <i>Concrete islands</i>, <i>monumental signage</i>, <i>big flourescent words</i>--it's a place we all know well. But soon the familiar images begin to melt; suddenly we <i>ooze out of our sense of self </i>and are<i> frying on the blacktop. </i>What to make of the <i>shapeshifting grass,</i><i> inside-out apartments </i>and <i>soda-spill machines? </i>More alarmingly, where are all the shoppers?<i> Nowhere any people, </i>Spenking concludes, sounding a bit like Laurie Anderson, stripped of her ironic pose, facing down the void. The remaining songs are less of a departure, more classically Spenking--graceful guitar-plucking, effortlessly acrobatic melodies and profoundly disorienting lyrics. <i>I cut my eyes on a brand new magazine, </i>Spencer announces on <u>Hot Omen</u><i>, </i>channeling <span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span dir="auto">Buñuel; the lilting <u>Gravel Scrabble</u><i> </i>finds our hero <i>swimming in a shallow orbit / floating magnets spin around the room at full zoom/Gamma rays pass right through, full moon</i>--all reeled off so prettily that the dizzying language sinks in only as an afterthought. <u>Here We Are</u><i> </i>seems to ease us back toward earth with its easy, pastoral melody, but the eerie portents remain, </span></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span dir="auto"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span dir="auto">evoking weird, nocturnal worlds behind the domestic scrim. </span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span dir="auto"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span dir="auto"><i>Ball of ice divides the house, </i></span></span></span></i>Spencer sings<i>. The fires around the couch. </i> </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span dir="auto">The last time I wrote about Spenking, he was so unknown, and I was such an ardent booster, that I promised to mail any reader who asked a bootleg CD-R free of charge. With this long-overdue release I can finally rescind that offer, and instead direct discerning music-lovers <a href="http://www.etherealsequence.com/" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="http://www.dragcity.com/products/bad-blood-good-blood" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://spenking.bandcamp.com/releases" target="_blank">here</a>--and hope that, with a sufficient groundswell of interest, Spencer might cough up another round before the decade's through. </span></span></span>L Warfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16268036263931271156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3434552524663566.post-8150784733209810182014-01-14T17:18:00.001-08:002014-05-19T20:44:32.537-07:00Goodbye Posso<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">While I've posted several over the years, for friends, neighbors and the odd public figure, let it be known that I don't especially enjoy writing eulogies. There's something highly discomfiting about aestheticizing death. Nevertheless, I wanted to share a few clumsy thoughts on the passing (a stupid euphemism; he <i>shot</i> himself last week, in the middle of the day, in a downtown Minneapolis office building) of my friend Nate, commonly known by his surname Posso and loved by many. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">The requisite disclaimer: I didn't "know" Posso very well, nor can I cast much biographical light on his life; but he was my friend. For the last two Octobers, I worked and lived with him at the sugar beet harvest in Wahpeton, North Dakota. Along with six or seven other itinerant punks, Posso and I shared quarters in a cold, spartan outbuilding, built for the annual county fair and known affectionately as <i>the Chateau</i>. This past year Posso and I were next-door neighbors, I in my pathetic little pup-tent, and Posso, tentless, in a sleeping bag just north of my feet; on more than one chilly night he crawled inside my tent and suggested, half-mockingly, that we <i>cuddle</i>. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">How can I describe Posso without making him a caricature? Especially when he seemed, at times, intent on making a caricature of <i>himself?</i> I confess that I always thought of him as a bit gnomish; small, slightly hunched, with a thick, sculptural beard and manic, soulful eyes. He'd lost much of an arm in a freight-train accident, a disability which he managed somehow to downplay to the extent that I often forgot it completely, though he frequently asked me to roll him cigarettes. To be honest, I'm not sure how he carried out his taretaker duties, which in my experience required two good arms; I can only conjecture that his considerable (if twisted) charms and caustic humor were enough to endear him to his crew. Posso was hands-down one of the funniest people I have ever met. Not just his back-catalog of dark and offensive jokes--none of which, curses on my porous memory, are coming to me at the moment--but his round-the-clock attitude, the scathing way in which he confronted the world. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">I could say, euphemistically, that Posso 'lived on the margins;' more to the point, and I don't mean it disparagingly, he was a fuck-up--that was the basis for his profound sense of humor. Liquor, drugs, stints in jail, perpetual poverty. He was the only punk in Wahpeton without a tent; he never had his own smokes or booze, and was always cajoling lengthy swigs out of my half-gallon of bottom-shelf vodka. I could rarely refuse him; this last year especially, when I was suffering insane toothaches and headaches and was in a black mood throughout the harvest, Posso's humor was one of the few things that kept me afloat, and sharing my stash seemed the least I could do. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">He was an avid, obsessive dice-player, a game which I found incredibly stupid, while acknowledging its value as a time-killer; at any rate, Posso somehow made it fun. I suppose I assumed that Posso, too, was having fun--I certainly wouldn't have thought him suicidally unhappy. I <i>still</i> want to assume that he was having fun; that the bullet he put through himself doesn't negate that fun. He did, it's true, jump ship fairly early on in the harvest; things weren't going well, there was a fight about one of the dogs pissing on his sleeping bag or something, and a few hours later he was gone, back to Minneapolis. His abrupt departure depressed the hell out of me, actually. The Chateau seemed more grim than ever after he left; a day or two later I too bailed. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span font-family:="" ms="" quot="" rebuchet="" sans-serif=""><i>Why?</i> is the first question suicide often begs. <i>Why--when he had so much to live for?</i> Somehow, I don't feel very troubled by Posso's wherefores. A friend described Posso to the Minneapolis <i>City Pages </i>as "sad, lost and tired." "He lived in his shoes for the past 15 years," added another. Literally, perhaps--at the beet harvest he seemed to always be sleeping with his shoes on. I can't imagine that sort of life being anything but exhausting, and his decision to end it doesn't seem far-fetched or incomprehensible. Nor, despite all the hearts that are broken over his death, does it strike me as a <i>selfish act</i>. He'd had enough; the kid wanted out. On the other hand, I do wonder why he chose the second floor of a shitty skyscraper as his last vista, or a Thursday morning in January as his final hour; it all seems so arbitrary. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Posso's numerous friends in Minneapolis have been raising money in his honor--more than $10,000, most of which is being donated to a homeless youth center. Which is wonderful, though I can't help but wonder what Posso might have done with that kind of money while he was alive--some serious partying, at the very least. And while donating money feels like a slightly tacky way to grieve for a friend, the many heartfelt comments on the memorial fund's website do attest to the impact of his life in Minneapolis and beyond. I'm lucky to have met you, Posso. You owe me a drink on the flipside. </span></span>L Warfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16268036263931271156noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3434552524663566.post-60549228536292446452013-07-28T20:06:00.001-07:002014-05-19T20:22:20.527-07:00Weirder Homes and Gardens<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzqtdQ3Nf3xr9HPjgo1vC44P0k1as1UqqK0f-Kimk6tJj7PwnwwsfJGwUhOH4nPlHCiJenzFIGvL4t0ie_WO900HqFuLCcDQ2dG_MrFvEo7CVvczI3WzC1RtgFcdur6lTDMpSQd_a4Ldg/s1600/flowers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzqtdQ3Nf3xr9HPjgo1vC44P0k1as1UqqK0f-Kimk6tJj7PwnwwsfJGwUhOH4nPlHCiJenzFIGvL4t0ie_WO900HqFuLCcDQ2dG_MrFvEo7CVvczI3WzC1RtgFcdur6lTDMpSQd_a4Ldg/s400/flowers.jpg" height="400" width="311" /></a></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">I wanted to share a bit of this delightful and curious book on flower arranging, published in 1942, which I got for a song at the always-overwhelming Newberry Library book sale. I was attracted initially to the often-striking, occasionally gorgeous photographs--heavily-saturated compositions that are almost painterly in their effect--</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx58Y5catpTqa_R5KZkJrCiYmeB1HyLQ9x2wUxpjq_jJ5LPWI9sZUFunJIMX0F2mm9BwtS0qAgH0s80JNEqYSYfQu0_-V9wxfEGsJgcy-7EOPa8pxfK4A93r1PZpkYS4fInO8HBMQKNFk/s1600/flowers_0005.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx58Y5catpTqa_R5KZkJrCiYmeB1HyLQ9x2wUxpjq_jJ5LPWI9sZUFunJIMX0F2mm9BwtS0qAgH0s80JNEqYSYfQu0_-V9wxfEGsJgcy-7EOPa8pxfK4A93r1PZpkYS4fInO8HBMQKNFk/s400/flowers_0005.jpg" height="306" width="400" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE4Egk7cY4biJjZhTCOfNIOGeT6ON3ia1gwwX6jjKAQv33e0cN4ods0Ycpq9EgIs5uLFRuWenwCTAtsJWNdJ71e3_i40LBzFZuZbm-KO2xLgP5hfgkj69tFq-sxYArLLu4-ra7X4jpplg/s1600/flowers_0003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE4Egk7cY4biJjZhTCOfNIOGeT6ON3ia1gwwX6jjKAQv33e0cN4ods0Ycpq9EgIs5uLFRuWenwCTAtsJWNdJ71e3_i40LBzFZuZbm-KO2xLgP5hfgkj69tFq-sxYArLLu4-ra7X4jpplg/s400/flowers_0003.jpg" height="400" width="303" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg036fdwYhS00TC5VpvrQvG1t0NK-gxMjNhEAWiT7MUnp-GT2FUPGUuQJD-p4n9iwlr4gRh2moFuUINtTH0ZdqVtPcAee9t8jDHrN1jkraqO-xSBgzVjGVxQTN6uKcihwLnPEBBgR5mXUw/s1600/flowers_0007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg036fdwYhS00TC5VpvrQvG1t0NK-gxMjNhEAWiT7MUnp-GT2FUPGUuQJD-p4n9iwlr4gRh2moFuUINtTH0ZdqVtPcAee9t8jDHrN1jkraqO-xSBgzVjGVxQTN6uKcihwLnPEBBgR5mXUw/s400/flowers_0007.jpg" height="310" width="400" /></a></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">--and I planned to plunder it for collage material. But a closer look has revealed some surprising dimensions to this otherwise-unassuming volume. The book, to begin with, beautiful as it is, turns out to be an 80-page advertisement for Coca-Cola. Bottles of ice-cold Coke are featured prominently in many of the arrangements, and the reader is frequently reminded of the soft drink's many virtues. Not only is Coca-Cola the perfect centerpiece for a Wistaria-covered balcony-for-two--</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3vDNKHVtltzrGcywyLBqlHOswMhBirUgmfxNRf8LL5SKQziIK5Bd-BS7_AhVYrMEGSe-ULA_Pjz1igpQeNdwt764bFnsEfGSIW6fVx5iitDPuHvPGEgv-PbclhPi5WYogGaJZBFGqtPc/s1600/flowers_0006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3vDNKHVtltzrGcywyLBqlHOswMhBirUgmfxNRf8LL5SKQziIK5Bd-BS7_AhVYrMEGSe-ULA_Pjz1igpQeNdwt764bFnsEfGSIW6fVx5iitDPuHvPGEgv-PbclhPi5WYogGaJZBFGqtPc/s400/flowers_0006.jpg" height="400" width="306" /></a></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"> --it's also the refreshment of choice, the author notes, for everyone from defense workers to badminton players. Her 'Coke Party for the Teen-age,' complete with ice-sculptures and shrimp cocktail--</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmrjhkqvaZ5kcyzIe-PWUfWHtrYafmiTidEHtGsbLXlfrOoLkxX34H-6x9Ujmwiz7jXZBtq0WgJyLUcPxbCpKSdX7aOQXRDK79TuIIZnKbMbUCJxORzYULrmczqIyJdT32BSIvZwW8ByM/s1600/flowers_0004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmrjhkqvaZ5kcyzIe-PWUfWHtrYafmiTidEHtGsbLXlfrOoLkxX34H-6x9Ujmwiz7jXZBtq0WgJyLUcPxbCpKSdX7aOQXRDK79TuIIZnKbMbUCJxORzYULrmczqIyJdT32BSIvZwW8ByM/s400/flowers_0004.jpg" height="306" width="400" /></a></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"> --promises 'social success' for the young hostess. At any rate, the product placement is anything but subtle. Then came the real surprise. The author's name was eerily familiar, and something about her expression in this frontispiece portrait also nagged at me:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtd4Xr_AfRXEqgyUdBT68j8DW_c_tAnwyDyl7U50uTvcbLVuio9nScYdkSOw_Auaj8ouLJ7ai1nfgcPp0wFi1FPPA19n-ZvOgR9PpYj_mZvMVL-2s50xo3gJeIISkueqs-WNt1Xtib5eg/s1600/flowers_0001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtd4Xr_AfRXEqgyUdBT68j8DW_c_tAnwyDyl7U50uTvcbLVuio9nScYdkSOw_Auaj8ouLJ7ai1nfgcPp0wFi1FPPA19n-ZvOgR9PpYj_mZvMVL-2s50xo3gJeIISkueqs-WNt1Xtib5eg/s400/flowers_0001.jpg" height="400" width="308" /></a></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"> An internet search confirmed my creeping suspicion: this Coke-shilling society dame was none other than William S. Burroughs' mother! And hang me if there's not a remarkable resemblance:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsaNglvbL4UiYuhGS0D6Qo2Myv2NjhjhEaGSrvbqeFrQnBeAX6sHgiuWN-ZfHBN8RqmC0k7z6EyyRwNsWjsoHnFxKgf7HdCoP2LiDqOy85r-_NL8wU1vMmyHs_Tsq3MBB4quP8XEravMY/s1600/flowers_0001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsaNglvbL4UiYuhGS0D6Qo2Myv2NjhjhEaGSrvbqeFrQnBeAX6sHgiuWN-ZfHBN8RqmC0k7z6EyyRwNsWjsoHnFxKgf7HdCoP2LiDqOy85r-_NL8wU1vMmyHs_Tsq3MBB4quP8XEravMY/s400/flowers_0001.jpg" height="400" width="293" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Now, I'd gathered that Laura Lee Burroughs was something of a square, but this is on a whole 'nuther level. <i>'There has never been a time when our homes were as dear to us as they are now</i>,' she writes in her sappy introduction. <i>We have become sentimental about them! </i>Later, she presents an elaborate 'Sweet Land of Liberty' display (<i>'For the Fourth of July, Memorial Day, Washington's Birthday, or just any day when you feel particularly patriotic, which is practically all the time</i>...')<i> </i>Still, despite the book's inherent WASPishness, and the ickiness of its corporate sponsorship, it's clear that Burroughs' mother had a creative streak, as well as some moxie. William Burroughs was, in 1942, a decade away from completing his first novel, Junky, but he was already a 'troubled young man,' as must have been evident to his mother Laura Lee; he'd severed half a finger over a gay hustler named Jack Anderson, been discharged from the Army due to mental instability, and was working as an exterminator in Chicago. With what grace, then, she is able to pull off this performance of normalcy, standing, as she does in the book, for those great American pillars of Home and Family (not to mention our national beverage, Coca-Cola.) There are so few cracks in her facade. <i>For years</i>, she admits at one point, my <i>flower decorations were a source of annoyance to my family. </i>One can only imagine! But it's there in her photograph, clear as day--that taunting, Burroughs sneer. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">This, volume three, was to be the last; the series had sold in the millions, apparently (it went for a paltry ten cents; one wonders what Burroughs made of his mother's literary success), but wartime concerns and impending modernity were pushing such quaint pastimes as floral arranging aside. I still want to cut the book to pieces, but I'm torn; it's such an odd and loaded artifact that I hesitate to destroy it. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Note: there's a lengthy article on Laura Lee Burroughs and her 'Homes and Flowers' series <a href="http://realitystudio.org/biography/like-mother-like-son/" target="_blank">here</a>, for the curious. </span></span><br />
<br />L Warfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16268036263931271156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3434552524663566.post-41613221316314378712012-12-19T08:36:00.000-08:002012-12-19T21:44:14.854-08:00Propaganda<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />L Warfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16268036263931271156noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3434552524663566.post-29654805039066083532012-03-20T16:31:00.003-07:002014-05-19T20:33:55.826-07:00A Season in (Gay) Hell<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">-<span style="font-size: small;">-"Gay Hell" being a coinage of famous gay-person Rufus Wainright, used to describe his one-time descent into substance abuse and sexual profligacy. Now, my misadventures have got to be pretty damn tame in the grand schema, but after several consecutive nights of Going Out, drinking and dancing and kissing and heavy petting with some very pretty boys, I wake up with an ominously sore throat that can only turn into something worse, and indeed by late in the afternoon I'm curled up in my bed at the Hotel Princess (so gay!) with a very high temperature, boiling sweat and freezing clammily by turns, drifting in + out of a succession of maximum-strength fever dreams--in short, very sick. In my delirium, I am at first convinced that the only explanation can be mononucleosis: the dreaded Kissing Disease! I kissed one too many boys and now I am being severely punished! And how desperate and odious does my filthy little pink-whitewashed hotel room begin to feel: mosquitoes lunging mockingly at any inch of exposed skin, the sickly stupor of the air, and the ambient hotel-sounds which vary from grating to inexplicable--one tenant has some DJ mix on repeat which plays only the two-or-three-second hooks from today's Top Songs, like an insta-vomit version of being at the Gay Club; some other lost soul is standing out in the hallway for over an hour, piteously repeating <i>Lucia... Lucia... Lucia,</i> until Lucia miraculously opens her door and tells him to get bent. Wait, mononucleosis lasts for like a month, right? I can barely muster the strength to walk the five feet over to the toilet. Am I going to be bedridden here in this awful Hotel Princess for weeks on end, paying for my piddling little sins? The only thing that's able to cool my overheated mind is watching the movie <i>Mall Cop</i>, dubbed into spanish on local TV. Even in my dilapidated state, I'm able to comprehend nearly all of the dialogue.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The next day I'm able to consider my situation a bit more lucidly. Who says it has to be mononucleosis--could be <i>any</i>thing! I leaf through the Health section of my Mexico guidebook, probably a bad idea; with a painful sore throat and spiking fever, I'm just as easily a candidate for malaria, or the exotic-sounding <i>dengue fever</i>, which is transmitted through <i>mosquito bites--</i>yes, those fuckers have been chomping on me for weeks now, leaving monstrous welts all up my arms and neck. Or, it comes on like a lightbulb, maybe just yr. everyday flu! With the help of some horsepills of aspirin I'm able to sleep through most of the day and night, still too weak to change habitations though the cruelly-named Hotel Princess is becoming ever-more repugnant to me. And then today, the third full day of my mystery illness, I still feel awful but find the strength to pack my bag and change hotels--a few blocks eastward to the Hotel Tuxpan. And just as I get to my new fourth-story room and begin killing bugs, the room about me begins to slide about like a madman. For the first minute I think my fever hallucinations have returned; then the screaming of people out in the street suddenly wakes me up to EARTHQUAKE! The second minute or so I'm just spacing out, like, <i>whoa, dude, an earthquake</i>; and finally I have the presence of mind to evacuate the premises, as everyone else is doing. Out on the street, earth no longer trembling, it's a great chance to meet my new neighbors--this guy named Cholo introduces himself, says he lives in the same hotel, moved down here from SoCal ten years ago to avoid life imprisonment. Says if I need anything, weed, whatever, just holler Cholo. Normally I would, I say. Really. But I'm pretty sick right now. I think I just need to get some more rest. Hopefully I'll be feeling better soon. </span></span>L Warfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16268036263931271156noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3434552524663566.post-46582046602473210102012-03-12T11:58:00.000-07:002012-03-12T12:59:46.829-07:00Mexico City, Second Impressions<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Which, I wonder as I wander, might be considered the Worst Job in Mexico City? Oh, there are miserable occupations anywhere you go, but there seem to be some true bummers here. Pity, por ejemplo, the poor organ-grinder in the streets of El Centro--not just the grinding, which must be hell on the arm, but to have to listen to the same insipid jingle day-in-and-day-out, like driving an ice cream truck but without even any ice cream to sell. Nor, it seems, do they exactly rake it in. Perhaps more profitable is the position of bathroom attendant--some of the busier WCs probably make out quite well at four or five pesos a head--but then there's the fact of having to work in a <em>bathroom</em> all day, not that easy on the soul, I imagine. Or, the young mothers selling marzipan candies in the Metro, so profoundly zoned-out from intoning <em>marzipan-marzipan-marzipan</em> for hours on end that they don't notice their little children playing in rivers of subway-filth? Or maybe, the dozens of poor sacks passing out leaflets for eye exams in the optical sector of downtown, whose leaflets no one wants and whose voices are run-ragged from repeating <em>Examen</em> <em>Gratis</em> to the point of total meaninglessness? I understand feeding your family or putting yourself through school, but I can't imagine there aren't days when these unsung martyrs of the megalopolis wake up and just can't possibly face another ten hours of organ-grinding or marzipan-hawking.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">It turns out that the Teatro Coliseo, across the street from my rat's-ass hotel, is not a derelict porno theater as I had assumed, but is in fact one of D.F.'s two <em>lucha libre</em> arenas, with fights every Sunday at five, and with balcony seats going at a mere thirty pesos apiece, attending was a no-thinker. And how excited was I? Very! But the truth is, friends, from my balcony-vantage at least, that <em>lucha libre</em> is a teensy bit boring--just regular "wrestling," with predictable good guys-bad guys scenarios, laboriously-choreographed fight sequences and marginally-sillier costumes than the American breed. Really, the most interesting part was the crowd commentary--I doubt I'll ever hear such colorful variations on the word <em>puta</em> as long as I live, and the fat, shoeless man down the row from me who kept up a persistent chinga-tu-madre whistle throughout the show was the very model of obstinate, brainless raunch. Not even the female wrestlers were spared--in fact the heckling intensified during their segment. But, for all that, I'll probably be back next weekend</span>. </span>L Warfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16268036263931271156noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3434552524663566.post-78549338585732411342012-03-10T16:21:00.000-08:002012-03-10T16:23:42.614-08:00Mexico City, First Impressions<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Plaza Garibaldi (not my photo)</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">My <em>guidebook</em> says that Andre Breton said that Mexico is the Surrealist country par excellence; now, I know zilch about Andre Breton, and even less about Surrealism, but check this: Plaza Garabaldi late on a Friday night, some fifty mariachi bands playing all at the same time, creating such an absurd din as I've never heard in my short life, and a raucous, wasted crowd to match, drinking beer out of what appear to be half-gallon cups, alcohol literally flowing between the flagstones; this young man with a bit of an unholy look in his eye takes off his shirt and starts smashing empty bottles, creating a little mountain of broken glass which he proceeds to lay upon. As I'm the only person paying him the least bit of attention, he waves me over and insists that I stand on his chest, hissing <em>todo, todo</em> when I'm not giving him my full weight. After which he stands up, brushes himself off and walks away. And around two in the morning, when I'm plenty lacquered and thinking of heading back to my dirty hovel of a hotel room, I notice this kid wandering through the crowd <em>electrocuting</em> people. I mean, he's got this device hooked around his neck, with two handgrips attached by wires, and he's giving people what looks like some pretty heavy voltage. Of course, I <em>have </em>to give it a shot, so I sidle over and he kind of grins as he hands me the handgrips. He cranks the thing up pretty damn good, almost to where I can't handle it but not quite, and afterward I think he's going to ask for money but he just smiles and walks away. Then I notice there are actually a <em>bunch</em> of kids walking around with similar devices. So I track down another one, and come on pretty macho as he gives me the reins and starts revving it up. <em>Mas, mas</em>, I keep saying as he cranks it higher and higher--and then it's at the point (past the point!) where I really can't handle it, but the thing is that at that high voltage it's impossible to let go the grips--I'm totally at this kid's mercy, and he just keeps staring at me as I beg him to please cut the juice, and for some reason I'm being seriously electrocuted in the middle of Plaza Garibaldi while fifty mariachi bands play at two in the morning. For this heavy session he charges me ten pesos, but settles for seven.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Or, check this: this afternoon, actually just an hour or two ago, I head over by the Insurgentes metro stop, where there seems to always be something interesting happening, and in fact there's a little <em>blues </em>festival going on, this band of pretty frazzled old Mexican dudes with an incredible woman singer is playing, and of course, what should they dive into as I approach but <em>Sweet Home Chicago</em>. "Esta cancion is sobre mi ciudad," I beam to the blissed-out alcoholic next to me, who gives me a big hi-five. But actually the band is totally righteous, way better than any blues band I've ever seen <em>in</em> Chicago. And then this other band starts playing, and I head across the plaza to dash off a blog post at the internet cafe, and as I'm typing it starts raining, and then it really starts raining, monsoon-strength, and the music cuts out and I peek outside and the tent above the stage has collapsed, and the whole crowd is trapped inside, and then so help me god it starts hailing, hailing like a stone-cold motherfucker, and the whole plaza is covered in a thick blanket of hailstones, right now. I gather this does not happen often here. Actually, I really don't know what does and doesn't happen here but it seems like some rather Surreal things tend to happen here. </span><br />
<br />L Warfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16268036263931271156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3434552524663566.post-70035778779033000062012-03-06T20:03:00.000-08:002012-03-06T20:03:18.092-08:00Filing<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Earth from Tejamulco</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Filing a little report from San Cristobal de Las Casas, a city in Chiapas, Mexico about which I know pretty much zip, and in which I plan to stay just long enough to rest my head a few hours and brush my teeth--call it snap-judgement, but hearing the strains of B. Marley's </span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Redemption Song</i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> emanating from a gringo bar is pretty much a deal-breaker as far as I'm concerned.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I didn't particularly <i>want</i> to leave <a href="http://thesecretbeach.blogspot.com/2012/02/domingo-no-parque.html" target="_blank">Xela</a>! I was developing fond feelings for the place. But, en el mismo tiempo, the western highlands were beginning, after two weeks, to make me feel penned-in, claustrophobic--the literal crunch of a valley-town, bounded by misty-mountains, but also a more general claustrophobia: the obscenely-crowded buses, the markets so thick with humanity that movement is hardly possible, the sidewalks that can't accomodate even two simultaneous pedestrians. This trapped feeling came to an appropriate head on my way <i>out </i>of Guatemala, when our bus got mired in a traffic jam for the ages, the road from Huehuetanango to the Mexican border closed by a mudslide, apparently a chronic problem in the area--cars immobile for miles, and, tipicalmente, the logjam used as an impromptu open-market, vendedores by the dozens hawking Pollo Camparo and peanuts to marooned drivers. When finally the road was cleared and we pushed through to la frontera, the change was sudden and dramatic--crossing the Mexican border, the land seemed to open up with a great sigh, with room at last to breathe.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Also, to be honest, certain aspects of Xela were starting to turn on me, after only two short weeks; the slimy pupusas were beginning to make me queasy, the local firewater, Queztalteca, was making me even queasier, and my beloved student protesters, <a href="http://thesecretbeach.blogspot.com/2012/02/domingo-no-parque.html" target="_blank">La Huelga</a>, who seemed to be in the park every other day, were starting to make me a bit uncomfortable with their unrelenting provocation--for all their high-minded ideals, every other word they uttered was a <i>puta</i> or a <i>verga, </i>and my feelings were admittedly hurt when one of their orators singled me out of the crowd and mockingly addressed me as <i>Mr. Jones</i>, as in <i>You know something's happening here but you don't know what it is/Do you, M.J.? </i>(R. Zimmerman). Hurt my feelings, because, I'd actually put a great deal of effort into understanding what was happening, spending several hours painstakingly translating their obtuse <i>boletines</i>. I mean, anyway, singling gringos out of the crowd is too easy, shooting crabs in a bucket or whatever.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">But, for all that, what a thrilling final few days in the highlands! A bizarre sex-encounter up in the hills (right in the shadow of <a href="http://thesecretbeach.blogspot.com/2012/02/domingo-no-parque.html" target="_blank">Cristo Viene</a>, in fact); a grueling and invigorating two-day hike up Tajumulco, the volcanic peak that is the highest point in Central America; an almost-equally grueling + invigorating crush on an adorable Belgian boy on said hike (unfulfilled!); and the dramatic return of normal bowel functions, after a long stretch of inoperability. Needless to say, wholly new and different adventures await me in Mexico City, after God-knows-what kind of bus trip, and I'll try to check in again before terribly long. </span></div>L Warfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16268036263931271156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3434552524663566.post-38382909265718586592012-02-28T16:19:00.000-08:002012-03-07T14:09:23.479-08:00Domingo no Parque<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;">For those attempting to keep a tab on my whereabouts--debt collectors, government agencies and the like--I am currently basking in the warm embrace of Xela, Guatemala, a gorgeous and bustling city in the country´s western highlands. I have been here a bit over a week, and am coming to, uh,</span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> love </i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;">it, insofar as a visitor can really love any place; surrounded by shapely hills and volcanoes, with shifting layers of sun and cloud warping and wafting through the valley and minibuses by the thousands carrying mostly-Mayan cargoes to and from the outlying towns of San Felipe, San Andres, San Miguel, it´s a place that seems to change every time I look at it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;">From the window of my cozy room just south of city-center, I can see pretty much just one thing: nestled in the hills which loom to the south, are the massive letters prolaiming </span><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">CRISTO VIENE</b><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;"> (CHRIST IS COMING), and perched just above that, the even larger, oblong billboard advertising </span><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">TIGO</b><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;">, the Guatemalan cellphone company. I try to resist easy symbolism, but there´s something undeniable about the juxtaposition--the telling clash of old + new, the inevitable conflation which follows--is it that Cristo Viene Con Tigo, or is one superceding the other? Either way, it´s the first thing that greets me upon waking.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;">I´m studying Spanish 25 hours a week, and pretty well-pleased with my progress, if I may say so; unfortunately my cerebral cortex is drowing in so much spanish that I´m afraid my english is suffering mightily. But, I soldier on, and I´ll attempt some little adventure-postcards from the road, for my faithful few followers. Yesterday, for instance in El Parque Central, what one might imagine to be a sleepy Sunday in the park unfolds in always-surprising ways--first, on one side of the park, a freestyle BMX competition (I´m hit by a flying bike!), then, on the other side of the park, pouring down 12e Avenida, a massive procession of Catholic faithful, observing </span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Cuaresma</i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;"> (Lent) dressed to the sacred nines in black ´n purple finery, belching up thick clouds of incense, carrying a huge flourescent-lit float upon which Cristo is preparing to die, and followed by a brass band playing dolorous marching-music--it takes the procession upwards of an hour to circle the park, moving at such a somber speed, and by the time they´re back at 12e Avenida dusk has passed and they´re candlelit--</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;">--And just as the procession is receding, frankencense still heavy on the breeze, with a round of explosives the student-revolutionaries known as <a href="http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huelga_de_Dolores" target="_blank">Huelga de Dolores</a> come tearing down the <i>other</i> side of the park, dressed in their ¨traditional¨revolutionary-garb of black robes-black masks-black hoods, and climbing aboard a makeshift wooden stage, complete with booming sound system, commence to clear the air with their thundering Anti-Church/Anti-State rhetoric. I manage to comprehend a good part of the lengthy program, heavy though it is on wordplay and seeting poesy, but at some point I become confused as to what´s going on and end up getting pushed onto the stage with a handful of other dazed and less-than-willing audience members. There is, maybe, something in the Guatemalan character that balks at getting up in front of a crowd; but imagine <i>my </i>terror when the guerilla-MCs start firing questions at us--what are our names, ages, provenances, etc.--I´m expected to orate in frickin´Spanish in front of all these hundreds of people? ¡Dios mio! I try to make an escape but am shoved back into place by one of the black-hoods--these kids don´t fuck around. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;">When they get to me, my fright and confusion cause me to answer </span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">unconventionally</i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;">: I tell them my name is El Diablo, I´m from the United States, and... I´m a afraid of speaking in public!, a rather inspired series of answers that seems to win me the favor of the crowd, who hoot in what I hope is approval. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;">It turns out we´ve been brought onstage for a dance contest of sorts, set to various types of Guatemalan popular-music--a diversion, to give the audience a break from revolutionary proselytizing. I´m matched up with a very short and rather plain woman who makes up for her lack of looks with sexy and enthusiastic dance-moves, and, odd-couple that we are, we quickly become the crowd favorites. In addition to some seriously-competitive ass-shaking, there´s a segment where each man has to win the favor of his partner by means of amourous discourse. Knowing full well that I´m no Shakespeare of the spanish language, I decide on the following, hoping that the sarcasm shines through: </span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Mi amor</i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;">, I croon into the microphone, getting down on one knee, </span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">if you will come with me, we can live in the United States and make a lot of money</i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;">. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;">The audience, gladly, eats it up, and my partner and I are subsequently crowned king and queen of the dance--I walk away with a complimentary condom, by way of a first-place prize. I feel kind of bad, besting Guatamaltecos on the own turf--but it´s hard to agrue, you´d have to agree, with American Money. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">And, fuck it, for some bonus mega-mind-blowage, check out this asbolutely bonkers youth gamelan from Bali, who apparently play every Thursday behind the <a href="http://www.lonelyplanet.com/indonesia/bali/images/ubud-water-palace-bali$23516-92" target="_blank">Ubud Water Palace</a>:</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/orUftdTlDow?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>L Warfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16268036263931271156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3434552524663566.post-30053102969180341082012-01-31T20:43:00.000-08:002012-01-31T20:43:04.525-08:00A Child's Garden of Noise<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I'm back on the <a href="http://www.moniker-records.com/secret-beach-jukebox.html" target="_blank">Secret Beach Jukebox</a>, after a mega-extended hiatus, with an epic piece (also just published in Chicago's own<a href="http://thelandline.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"> Landline</a> quarterly) exploring the back-alleys of so-called <em>childrens' music</em>. Featuring such almost-legends as the Tinklers, Human Skab and Old Skull, and guaranteed to blow yr. mind with shit like this:</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/QtEmcruWTso?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>L Warfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16268036263931271156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3434552524663566.post-4281951168231750152012-01-21T19:38:00.000-08:002012-01-21T19:38:58.469-08:00The Field, pt. 2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-small; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img height="225" id="il_fi" src="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2012/images/01/17/t1larg.gingrich.jpg" style="padding-bottom: 8px; padding-right: 8px; padding-top: 8px;" width="400" /></span></div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Oh, but in a sudden twist, Gingrich scores big in South Carolina--indeed, people do <a href="http://thesecretbeach.blogspot.com/2012/01/field.html">love their Money!</a> In his victory speech Newt (no last name needed!) made repeated jabs at Obama, the "foodstamp President," promising that he'd instead be the "paycheck president"--oh, but Newt! I'd much, much rather have the foodstamps! You'd never imagine the feasts they allow me! Do you mean to suggest that you're going to take away my <em>foodstamps</em>, you walking porkchop?--you <em>pustulated meatball of a presidential candidate</em>? You will <em>never</em> take away my foodstamps! Paycheck president my ass, paychecks are fickle. But of course Newt cannot, will not, could never gain the final prize--he is too blindingly piggish, too obscenely porcine to ever win hearts en masse. Mark my words (tm)! </span>L Warfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16268036263931271156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3434552524663566.post-63978196568032121002012-01-20T21:53:00.000-08:002012-01-20T21:53:18.343-08:00The Field<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcdF2HnyskFd79CAAMn336K_zteZYV_sjaZDLZyqDUc9tGqB9P2S-0QoRqe87VmlietX2l_2A6oWZ1BYQwmzoeefjbeinHnSnizVIltvXHC1X_sbXwWHewegTn5zzdm_OwlDoppCIB_T8/s1600/120120111152-bts-debate-abortion-00004527-story-top.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" nfa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcdF2HnyskFd79CAAMn336K_zteZYV_sjaZDLZyqDUc9tGqB9P2S-0QoRqe87VmlietX2l_2A6oWZ1BYQwmzoeefjbeinHnSnizVIltvXHC1X_sbXwWHewegTn5zzdm_OwlDoppCIB_T8/s400/120120111152-bts-debate-abortion-00004527-story-top.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">My take on the GOP field, for those few souls who might possibly be interested in my unwashed opinion: the admittedly boring race has come down to the four fundamental cornerstones of modern politics, as respresented by (<em>in one corner!...) </em>the Money Candidate (Gingrich), the Family Candidate (Romney), the Religious Candidate (Santorum) and the Internet Candidate (Paul). No great shocker when the Family Candidate (his wife of 42 years has multiple sclerosis and is sometimes too tired to cook! <em>"I like peanut butter sandwiches and cold cereal,"</em> he assures her<em>--"We could do fine with that as long as we have each other</em>") eventually wins the day; of these core conservative pillars, Family runs deepest and broadest. Conservatism and family-rearing are ancient, unholy bunkmates and enjoy a strong philosophical alliance whose mantra--<em>Take Care of Your Own</em>--might as well be on the Republican Party letterhead. Mark my words!</span>L Warfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16268036263931271156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3434552524663566.post-46893096217016418892011-11-25T18:33:00.000-08:002011-11-25T18:33:38.721-08:00Black Friday v. 3<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Dragged my sick ass out of bed today for my third annual Black Friday Photo Safari at the State St. Macy's. I don't know exactly why I keep coming back, other than it being a way for me to participate in the debauch without dropping any lucre--it's not as if the scenery changes much from year to year. Although, there did seem to be a few more of these guys--thanks, #Occupy!--hanging around the fringes:</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDzY9urJ9HhXA1u9csXsv3YOTfGjs4nrQHeAU0Sa29_JX-l-enEufpBxjfBnHmMU5UBv9qQvOFMC1Q5E94yqQP8hOa_-AyaTo2IKYi2735pAd-37ZSL474dZ6hM4Dq6vD8lsvJLVcxICU/s1600/DSC03223.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hda="true" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDzY9urJ9HhXA1u9csXsv3YOTfGjs4nrQHeAU0Sa29_JX-l-enEufpBxjfBnHmMU5UBv9qQvOFMC1Q5E94yqQP8hOa_-AyaTo2IKYi2735pAd-37ZSL474dZ6hM4Dq6vD8lsvJLVcxICU/s400/DSC03223.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicWu0NqCt8pDCMuZEtWDBuzUBCP92c2DC9yy0e6MJKNlpT4bzBWiVNHrUo1G-stcQ-gn5wE-EZ1BHeWJT7lkHLP0I82vn46qh7E6LyliskeHCwHKuQR53XJBKRLjyWaN7z0Z6pQNh7Otw/s1600/DSC03093.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hda="true" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicWu0NqCt8pDCMuZEtWDBuzUBCP92c2DC9yy0e6MJKNlpT4bzBWiVNHrUo1G-stcQ-gn5wE-EZ1BHeWJT7lkHLP0I82vn46qh7E6LyliskeHCwHKuQR53XJBKRLjyWaN7z0Z6pQNh7Otw/s400/DSC03093.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">plenty of bacon--</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnuiF2t2vzgUxIDs1tGFup8opRZ3Okh4uZjMCkM-lT0BURwDm5YWytu99eJLFQ0auAi5l9SoE__XZzsVXh7hbDLyOR2xpgj6HmBDcIZ0VIPsNP0ivrkX-vX8g7AlJ0n00WfgqJ7Upru3g/s1600/DSC03122.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hda="true" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnuiF2t2vzgUxIDs1tGFup8opRZ3Okh4uZjMCkM-lT0BURwDm5YWytu99eJLFQ0auAi5l9SoE__XZzsVXh7hbDLyOR2xpgj6HmBDcIZ0VIPsNP0ivrkX-vX8g7AlJ0n00WfgqJ7Upru3g/s400/DSC03122.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">and some rather photogenic odd-couples--</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWx4ip18wVYLtN-z6uQZnpZhAgXzXsi4ILy2Eo9MQwhf7etVJnLaVA2lmAqKQdnfSOMtKCT-BsE-QG6CpXqG5L9CFWeuZMqJM4k9k4s_Rqs0-gmF9CaXCZLdL6_aAXTmSeJlPc5NlTGhA/s1600/DSC03140.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hda="true" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWx4ip18wVYLtN-z6uQZnpZhAgXzXsi4ILy2Eo9MQwhf7etVJnLaVA2lmAqKQdnfSOMtKCT-BsE-QG6CpXqG5L9CFWeuZMqJM4k9k4s_Rqs0-gmF9CaXCZLdL6_aAXTmSeJlPc5NlTGhA/s400/DSC03140.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLUR9rONYAr7XqvdK73xoOsPUFOhyphenhyphen_qcl-71q6OUf0L_zzKbt7z0PsEtLFfWCA0Vd0KNYAtvcWUIbWRW-B4qedcAYQXiGJRoGCYeAhpyQHDr_6MfwajOF-UrmFiLGXaMbPi4Q49TJGDLM/s1600/DSC03134.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hda="true" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLUR9rONYAr7XqvdK73xoOsPUFOhyphenhyphen_qcl-71q6OUf0L_zzKbt7z0PsEtLFfWCA0Vd0KNYAtvcWUIbWRW-B4qedcAYQXiGJRoGCYeAhpyQHDr_6MfwajOF-UrmFiLGXaMbPi4Q49TJGDLM/s400/DSC03134.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>--<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">the challenge of this type of photography being, of course, that people (with the frequent exception of small children and the elderly) don't much like having their picture taken by strangers while they're trying to shop or whatever, forcing me to shoot-from-the-hip to avoid wrath-incurring. People, get real--yr. phizzogs aren't proprietary product!</span>L Warfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16268036263931271156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3434552524663566.post-16153148608354954672011-11-01T23:16:00.000-07:002011-11-04T10:08:44.400-07:00Sugar Mountain 2011<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwZJSZqgk7nj8wxkI5PwtMlQCjbmfTSylpg4ayUadHOdem3pTdMMjWxH4H956bA7B12SNNYSQXM8QECygS0bw_ya5UjEuEkgRldZy4eLKGJFjlNIOhyUC0aTfGp0miA_X8TJkw7FkDJAI/s1600/1152.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" ida="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwZJSZqgk7nj8wxkI5PwtMlQCjbmfTSylpg4ayUadHOdem3pTdMMjWxH4H956bA7B12SNNYSQXM8QECygS0bw_ya5UjEuEkgRldZy4eLKGJFjlNIOhyUC0aTfGp0miA_X8TJkw7FkDJAI/s400/1152.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Aficionados have noticed that it's been quite some time since I last weblogged, and diehard fans may already have intuited why--I've been off-the-grid for most of October, working (once again!) the sugar-beet harvest in eastern North Dakota. In addition to sweetening your breakfast cereal, the beet harvest provides temporary, high-paying employment for a growing number of itinerant freaks (er, <em>punks</em>), who flock to the upper midwest each year to rake in two or three thousand bucks, a relative goldmine in our social stratum. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I described last year's harvest in some detail, and if I'm unable to lavish the same attention on this year's edition it's only because my poor brain is too truly fried. I will say that this year's harvest exceeded all expectations; it got off to a grindingly slow start, and the general forecast was for a piss-poor year--meager crop, crap weather, scant wages--but in the end we worked quite a bit, walked away with a couple of healthy paychecks and had some chart-bustingly debaucherous Good Times in the interim. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">I won't go into the laborious nuts-n-bolts of working sugar beets--I <a href="http://thesecretbeach.blogspot.com/2010_10_01_archive.html">did so last year</a>, if you're really curious--but will offer at least some high(low?)lights from the last whirlwind few weeks, in no particular order: endless games of drunken, delirious rummy with heavy-metal soundtrack, as well as an rowdy, epic game of Acey-Deucey, quite possibly the silliest card game ever concocted, in which a growing crowd of broke+bored beet-harvesters gambled away the last of their pocket-change, reduced to wagering with pocketknives and bottles of booze; my trusted tape player, which pulled me through a 132-hour marathon out at the factory with scintillating books-on-tape (Walter Tevis' awesome <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Fell_to_Earth_(novel)">The Man Who Fell to Earth</a>) and bitchin' music (e.g. Beck's flawless <em>Midnite Vultures</em>, maybe the mostly deeply funky record ever made by a white dude) that fueled mid-shift dance parties, as well as my trusty fellow-taretaker Bill--Northern Californian fireball, humorist and artist-extraordinaire, with whom I had long talks ranging from crude and potty-mouthed to heartfelt and erudite, and with whom I also "decorated" the tare-shack with explosive sharpie graffiti, much to the baffled consternation of the day-shifters, who responded to our intricate witticisms with unvarying <em>fuck u, queer</em>s--I'm afraid our more daring pieces ("<a href="http://www.fargodiocese.org/news/October2011/PrayAndFast.pdf">Fast and Pray for More Butt Sex in North Dakota</a>," Bill's naked lady getting sprayed by a leering skunk, etc., may have contributed to management's unprecedented painting-over (with black paint!) of nearly all tare-shack graffiti at the end of the harvest; and the steady, vigorous substance use which culminated in a small-scale riot and an orgy of bottle-smashing our last Saturday night and a pretty wicked porn shoot on Sunday (for details you'll have to wait for the Full Metal Faggot 2012 wall calendar--I'm certainly not spilling them here). There's just no telling what ~25 world-class fuckups can cook up, in terms of mischief, mayhem and inspired time-killing, over the course of three and a half weeks.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Few of us beet harvesters, it's true, have very worthy or extravagant plans for our two-or-three thousand-dollar payoffs; most talked of buying crummy used cars, or having ample beer + cigarette money for the winter months, and assuredly we'll all be dead broke again by the time we trudge back to Wahpeton in late 2012. But such is the romantic life of the itinerant punk-laborer, all booms + crashes, hilarious ups and equally hilarious downs. </span>L Warfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16268036263931271156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3434552524663566.post-90123920423178064802011-08-30T09:06:00.000-07:002011-08-30T09:28:02.119-07:00On a Final Note<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="300" src="http://www.viceland.com/blogs/en/files/2011/08/dumbass12.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dumbass judge Rotten Milk with contest-winner Meg McCarville </td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">In a final dumbass twist, my Spitbutt antics (<a href="http://thesecretbeach.blogspot.com/2011/08/dumbassed.html">see below</a>) have been recounted in sordid detail<a href="http://www.viceland.com/blogs/en/2011/08/29/spit-butt-was-the-last-straw/"> over at Vice Magazine</a> as part of their <em>Ultimate Dumbass</em> coverage, and the "band" was apparently more than the author could handle--<em>Spitbutt Was the Last Straw</em>, blares the headline. I question the veracity of the report (I certainly don't remember <em>crying</em>) and take vehement issue with the portrayal of my "bandmate" as a "fat wasteoid type," but I suppose having a performance described by freakin' Vice Magazine as "the ultimate act of degradation" is an honor of sorts--a highly dubious one, but an honor nonetheless. And now, after all these years, my bared bum has finally found its way onto the 'web--it was bound to happen sooner or later. Hi, mom!</span>L Warfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16268036263931271156noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3434552524663566.post-28027914010499227412011-08-28T07:35:00.000-07:002011-08-28T07:35:24.969-07:00Dumbassed<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/xxgn5HO7wNk?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I'm proud to report that I--and my impromptu "bandmates"--walked away with (tied-for) third place in Friday night's inaugural Ultimate Dumbass competition, cementing my position as one of Chicago's preeminent dumbasses, as if the matter were ever in question. Brainchild of New Orleanian-cum-Chicagoan/hairy-weirdo <a href="http://ithoughtiwenthere.tumblr.com/post/2673691996/davitt-terrells-new-album-cover-buyoant-sea-is">Davitt Terell</a>, Ultimate Dumbass was pretty much as advertised above: a contest to find the "dumbest band possible," both <em>dumb</em> and <em>band</em> being very much open to interpretation--perfect fare for the waning days of summer, when minds everywhere have melted into viscous goo. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">I mean, being dumb is pretty easy, right? Sure, but there's also a zen-archery aspect to it--achieving drooling imbecility only really works when you're <em>not trying</em>. Consequently, there were a number of contestants who totally overreached in their quest for dumbness, missing the point entirely: the Sylvia-Plath-in-drag who stuck her head in a microwave, the "guitarist" whose cardboard axe housed a smartphone that played guitar-solo videos off of YouTube, even the great Randall + Drew, whose grotesque take on nu-country was hysterical (<em>I got a beer belly on the back of my head</em>--best lyric of 2011) but not particularly <em>dumb</em>. Closer to the mark were such half-baked acts as <em>Didjeri-Douchebags</em> (pretty self-explanatory) and <em>Sonny and Share</em>, whose drunken-karaoke version of <em>I Got You, Babe</em> was as charming as it was pointless and retarded. Then there was Davey Hart, of <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/WISHGIFT/180144614829?v=info">Wishgift</a> fame, whose adult-baby routine--shitty diapers 'n all--definitely merited the third-place award that we would ultimately share. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">As for my act: I certainly didn't <em>plan</em> on competing--if I had, I'd surely've overthought the whole thing--but things were getting rowdy, I was deep in the cups and <em>Spitbutt</em> just came to me in a flash. What could be stupider than having somebody spit all over my butt? Enlisting a couple of last-second volunteers--<a href="http://lotoballshow.com/">Loto Ball</a> in a brilliant and fortuitous turn as guest-vocalist and Mortville mastermind Clayton B. as the lucky butt-spitter--we took to the stage, I promptly depantsed and the rest was history... Clayton, for his part, went well above + beyond the call of duty, drenching my butt in what turned out to be vomit, and the judges were duly impressed. "That," pronounced Rotten Milk, "Was really stupid." </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">I can't quite say who won second-place--I'll admit to some pretty serious lapses of memory--but celebrity judge <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCSHSPGJKjg">Meg McCarville</a> very much blew all other contestants out of the water with her end-of-the-night showstopper. Despite the inherent dubiousness of a judge being allowed to compete, she unquestionably earned her gold medal by pepper-spraying herself in the face, point-blank (followed by a very convincing display of grievous injury and temporary blindness)--elevating the terms of the contest in a single stroke by presenting dumbness not as a performance but as a <em>way of life.</em> Her left-field victory makes McCarville the future queen of Ultimate Dumbass 2012, ensuring some out-of-this-world dumbassery in next year's contest. Mark your calendars, and <em>get started on yr dumb band, doods! </em></span>L Warfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16268036263931271156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3434552524663566.post-42708044524657133702011-08-10T21:47:00.000-07:002011-08-10T21:47:13.154-07:00The Glow<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">It was announced this last week, to little fanfare, that the city of Chicago was to begin replacing its sodium-vapor streetlamps, which have since the mid-70s bathed the nighttime city in their distinctive pukey-orange glow, with a more-energy efficient (and much less orange) model. I rejoiced at the news--I've always found the city's Glow more or less nauseating, particularly on overcast nights when the reflective cloud-cover makes it especially pukey and unnatural. And I'm by no means alone; an architecture critic for the Tribune once described the lights as a "city-wide orange abomination." Of course when you live in the Glow night in and night out you don't really notice it any more--it's when I return home from time abroad that it's always hit me with a sinking<em> ugh</em>. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">They've already replaced the lights all down the stretch of Western Avenue I ride almost daily, and the change is indeed striking. Might just take some getting used to, but y'know what?--I don't think I<em> like</em> it. The new metal-halide lamps certainly give off a cleaner, brighter, less queasy-making light, but they also feel somehow... clinical. The old Glow might have been downright ugly but it's been the Glow of my youth, steeping so many of the joys, pains and drunken episodes of my early life in its off-golden radiance. Chicago readers will know exactly what I'm talking about, but for you out-of-towners here are a few photographic examples, various friends of mine basking in the old Glow: </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcyyhwdHlPG8cqmrcUkGVk9lSDxiuOW6luFR8Ha_3HS72dUNt9oJTjh8JezHjUgooOfdtvuHVflxFp7gWLd6d8e5e9mr_rxFPxJzedx5KRhU13FLIjSc64zwmSvCCkkM_6_4ad4rmbRJ0/s1600/703.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcyyhwdHlPG8cqmrcUkGVk9lSDxiuOW6luFR8Ha_3HS72dUNt9oJTjh8JezHjUgooOfdtvuHVflxFp7gWLd6d8e5e9mr_rxFPxJzedx5KRhU13FLIjSc64zwmSvCCkkM_6_4ad4rmbRJ0/s400/703.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh45UvXFacDD6x5bLMRqcBx5GEhyphenhyphenzWPDm3MYrmAdlhsqK7o3Fmb3la580lK1Jy3OZl8pk8J26ZG1vqY-R1-IstzYMUGH0l2YgBf_c3rCJPPUR5gRRgef8JHrWxsIaU2brgwsTTltn0_7F0/s1600/675.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh45UvXFacDD6x5bLMRqcBx5GEhyphenhyphenzWPDm3MYrmAdlhsqK7o3Fmb3la580lK1Jy3OZl8pk8J26ZG1vqY-R1-IstzYMUGH0l2YgBf_c3rCJPPUR5gRRgef8JHrWxsIaU2brgwsTTltn0_7F0/s400/675.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWIYG2r6jv5TAh-bO8BlycFiVtyw-mEYqsmhxvb4SpFtwiVXOaZCh85MT9WFpjKDUnvVxdzEtGxoTkWM3JKzQpU1vsZzhk8fcY3qKfrmEhTvCs7eQ3oMn4wUPFAOEdwfeA3rgnJosmdBw/s1600/676.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" naa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWIYG2r6jv5TAh-bO8BlycFiVtyw-mEYqsmhxvb4SpFtwiVXOaZCh85MT9WFpjKDUnvVxdzEtGxoTkWM3JKzQpU1vsZzhk8fcY3qKfrmEhTvCs7eQ3oMn4wUPFAOEdwfeA3rgnJosmdBw/s400/676.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">The new lights, 'much as I thought I'd appreciate them, make me feel like I'm in <em>Toronto</em> or something, and I think I might miss that awful old Glow after all, when it's gone--fortunately, this being Chicago, they'll be lucky to have the project completed within the decade. Tan while you can! </span><br />
L Warfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16268036263931271156noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3434552524663566.post-45546369372849044172011-07-21T05:33:00.000-07:002011-07-21T05:34:14.107-07:00'Porked<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"> <img height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGcuRDWfdaPPuoLqNUbCA8RskMvDdQD6cnb9Wf02cTFf-b0etwXf5yPZ5CKk8PS2nd-giSxjumGtrl7abfLl9H5yEtgyZz53mJFMpONT8t5udx4_CLOJsZx1gDoplUDtOGKTgj_-OR3YM/s400/IMG_1152.JPG" width="400" /></div><div class="separator" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Over on the long-neglected <a href="http://www.moniker-records.com/secret-beach-jukebox.html">Secret Beach Jukebox</a>, I look back on the three days of peace, music and drug-sweat that comprised last weekend's incomprable<a href="http://www.biiitchpork.tumblr.com/"> Bitchpork</a> festival. So hot! So loud! Relive the mindfuckery!</span></div>L Warfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16268036263931271156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3434552524663566.post-72255190499079748182011-07-11T22:20:00.000-07:002011-07-11T22:20:44.439-07:00Bonne fête à moi<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img height="299" id="il_fi" src="http://www.cute-wallpaper.com/backgrounds/party/party-poppers.jpg" style="padding-bottom: 8px; padding-right: 8px; padding-top: 8px;" width="400" /></span></div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I'd like to take a moment to publicly thank my Friends for fêting me with style yesterday, as the hour of my 31st birthday approached--they know how to put a smile on an old man's face. It was, I think, the first proper Birthday Party of my adult life. Usually I throw together something dinky at the last hour; last year's mini-party in the Victoria Park waterfall, for instance, was picturesque, high on charm but low on birthday-related boisterousness. There was definitely something to be said for this year's more debaucherous cut--five gallons of heavy hooch, three kinds of cole slaw, a DJ playing booty jams and a kiddie pool with inflatable throne upon which I drunkenly reclined, receiving gifts and feeling like a Pharaoh, or at least an LA playboy. Even better, the fifteen minutes of pure love bestowed on me by merry alchemists <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gztt0fhY4kY">Shree Shrine</a>, whose performance was an embarassment of riches featuring prayer bowls, freshly-popped popcorn, a five-minute volley of party poppers, half of which landed in my lap, confetti everywhere and an incredibly sincere version of <a href="http://new.music.yahoo.com/liam-warfield/tracks/capture--177751247">this song</a>, which I wrote and recorded in an hour way back in 2006. The whole thing was just off-the-charts sweet. Followed by full-blooded rock-n-roll testifying from Bret Koontz and John Wheatley--couple-a guitar-wielding hotheads with whom Secret Beach readers might be familiar--including a rousing, reach-for-the-stars rendition of </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Queen's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgzGwKwLmgM">Don't Stop Me Now</a> from John that gave me a crucial second wind, several cups deep into the hooch as I was. That and the fine weather, bounty of delectable foodtuffs, plentiful inebriants and all-around excellent company made for a <em>special evening</em> that tickled me in all the right places. Thanks, y'all!</span>L Warfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16268036263931271156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3434552524663566.post-63589766270011419542011-07-03T22:37:00.000-07:002011-07-03T22:38:17.428-07:00Hot Dogs, Get'cher Hot Dogs<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPS1X8smA_MremAkvOxG5_iwpyf7hpRUb50JpupR-N_ZReEfFbdwuSO-518sE4be4SVulauA1mIWL_e91gZizMjnzOxNkfXz3izrfA3nzp1YNav6cKtrqMIqtuE5YMKMCDUv-dfxsc3So/s1600/costco-getty-images-450.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="272" i$="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPS1X8smA_MremAkvOxG5_iwpyf7hpRUb50JpupR-N_ZReEfFbdwuSO-518sE4be4SVulauA1mIWL_e91gZizMjnzOxNkfXz3izrfA3nzp1YNav6cKtrqMIqtuE5YMKMCDUv-dfxsc3So/s400/costco-getty-images-450.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">So, </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I've been hanging out a lot with my mom, who's been pretty sick, and is recovering from some major surgery, and today my visiting aunt Julie took her and I and my kid sister out to Costco--to stock up on garbage bags and other household basics, but also just as a sort of field trip for my mom, who hasn't been able to get out a whole lot this summer. It was my first-ever visit to the behemoth that is Costco, and my mom, who was wearing a hot pink peasant dress and in high spirits, suggested that there might be an "article" in it for me. I'll admit that I couldn't think of anything especially <em>newsworthy</em> about my first visit to Costco, but I think she thought that on this Independence Eve I might be able to mine the Costco Experience for, y'know, insight into the American character or something. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Which is a tall order; Costco, of course, is just a really big store, where they sell really big portions of everything under the sun, and, well, <em>duh</em>, that's pretty American--no Pulitzer for investigative journalism there. But as I've sat by the window with my pipe this evening and reflected on the day's events, I do find the vistas of Costco coming back to haunt me, and concede that the subject could merit a few words. The most memorable image, for me, was the spectacle of a dozen or so cow-eyed suburbanites, <em>wrestling</em> (as my sister put it) over half-portions of hot dogs that were on free sample--I'd say that in itself summed up the national mood pretty well, if it didn't seem so obvious. Apparently tasting stations are a major aspect of shopping at Costco--with everything from turkey burgers to gelato being offered, in gratis li'l demi-portions, one can (and does!) make a whole meal of the free samples. The other thing I found striking was the bizarre dimensions that products seemed to take on when sold in such massive quantities; looking at 24-packs of jumbo body lotion bottles, for instance, I couldn't help but imagine some overfed giantess sitting on a chaise lounge somewhere and moisturizing yards and yards of undulating flesh--I mean, who else is ever going to get through five gallons of skin product?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">People like my mom and aunt and sister (and I) seem to wear a protective layer of irony when doing something like shopping at Costco--we're at least a little bit enlightened in that we can recognize the total obscenity of it. But this intellectual sense of remove didn't stop up from shopping enthusiastically--filling our (oversized) cart to capacity and topping it all off with gargantuan frozen yogurt sundaes. The deals are just overpowering. And, people like my mom (and aunt), who are post-operative and simple can't get around all that well have pretty legitimate reasons for wanting to stock up on toilet paper and dish soap. The place even struck a consumerist chord or two in me, at moments--I, who do half my shopping at the dollar store and generally only buy things when I have to. It sure <em>would</em> be nice, I found myself thinking, to have twenty pounds of coffee in my freezer, and be done with those shitty mornings when I've run out of the stuff and have to leave the house for my waking fix. Unfortunately, the one thing I <em>really </em>wanted to buy today--a portable li'l crackbox to play tapes on while I bike across town--Costco didn't carry. They may sell 'most anything else you can imagine (including, my mom joked, coffins), but I guess cassette players are just beyond the pale of obsolescence. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Anyway, my mom <em>claims</em> to read my 'blog on occasion--so here ya go, mom--not only did I complete your assignment but I turned in my copy the same day. Next time, though, can we go to the park or something?</span>L Warfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16268036263931271156noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3434552524663566.post-77081108808509393052011-06-26T21:23:00.000-07:002011-06-26T21:28:35.773-07:00Pride<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL8P8bIPivuOe4xAxr_84rH3xoQR5tvh_YfEsAUKQuiMbCWdYE2xMYiMunWAUsDEpE_-ctT1v-4ppWRCtQ0o0GmNz_VOrvzeiMznqiBKb3c3Q0KJ4W1az39BW25Z2JCCC5MapLy0B1Kn4/s1600/4053305820_2bd771dfc8_b%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="270" i$="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL8P8bIPivuOe4xAxr_84rH3xoQR5tvh_YfEsAUKQuiMbCWdYE2xMYiMunWAUsDEpE_-ctT1v-4ppWRCtQ0o0GmNz_VOrvzeiMznqiBKb3c3Q0KJ4W1az39BW25Z2JCCC5MapLy0B1Kn4/s400/4053305820_2bd771dfc8_b%255B1%255D.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">After the unqualified hysteria of the Pride Parade, my neighborhood is so blessedly calm and quiet, the soft li'l June breeze wafting so sweetly through my window, where I sit spliff-smoking and, y'know, <em>blogging</em>. Must I really slog through gay disneyland every year just for some homo action? Can't cute boys just come wafting through my window?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">I do the parade thing pretty much annually, though I never really have what could be considered a Good Time; I don't travel with a gaggle, preferring (?) to hang solo and "people-watch," as I charitably describe it to myself. And indeed, there is always a surfeit of human spectacle, as some 500,000 people, half of them tanked on Four Loko, wile out on a short stretch of Halsted Street. I'm consistently impressed by the people who bring their young children to the parade--not because kids shouldn't be exposed to sexual diversity, but because Pride can be so extreme and debaucherous, on par with Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras. Impressionable as youngsters can be, you can imagine the lasting impression on a kindergartner watching, say, a fat guy with pierced nipples and superman underwear grind a telephone pole, coloring the kid's early conceptions of what the word <em>gay</em> might mean.</span><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">To be fair, the parade proper does put up a civilized front--waving politicians and corporate sponsors; it isn't until mid-afternoon, when the barricades come down and the alcohol is flowing torrentially, that the real freakydeak gets underway. I myself started early on the sauce, choking down cheap vodka+juice on the corner of Halsted and School for the bulk of the parade, hoping that the booze might lend me the bravado (otherwise sorely lacking) to come on to handsome strangers. But in fact it just made me sleepy, and I had to wander over to the lakefront and nap it off. Surprisingly sober and refreshed after an hour in the grass, I returned to the epicenter, where sheriff's work-crews were making an absurd attempt at cleaning up, poking with pushbrooms at the mountains of empty cans and worthless parade swag--beads, skittles wrappers, cardboard fans from Congresswoman Jan Schakowsy--while ever-drunker hordes still massed the parade route. Feeling not quite up to speed, I considered getting another bottle--maybe at thirty I'm too old to get drunk twice in one day, as I decided it against it and settled for banging on a newspaper box for an hour or so, my clumsy way of being <em>festive, </em>until the post-parade atmosphere started feeling desperate and I headed home...</span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">No lessons or insights here--just a couple descriptive paragraphs and, soon, bedtime. I imagine Halsted Street is still bangin' at this hour, looking more and more Hieronymus Bosch, the cops losing their patience as the revelry begins to sour, and the thought makes me glad to be ensconced in my little apartment. If any cute boys do feel like wafting through my window, though, I'll be here, and I'll leave a little light on fer ya. </span></div>L Warfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16268036263931271156noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3434552524663566.post-2463955601868338712011-06-19T09:44:00.000-07:002011-06-19T09:44:17.959-07:00A special place<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-small; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img height="154" id="il_fi" src="http://fatpenguinblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/02/broken_lock.jpg" style="padding-bottom: 8px; padding-right: 8px; padding-top: 8px;" width="300" /></span></div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Confidential to the cowardly li'l bitch who stole my bike from outside Pete's Fresh Market, while I was inside buying groceries for my cancer-stricken mother, at 10:00 on a Sunday morning: May the earth open up and swallow you whole, and send you, screaming all the while like a little girl, down unto the deepest, foulest depths of Hell; and may Satan, by means of introduction, ass-rape you repeatedly with a triple-pronged hot-poker, making ground chuck of your innards; may he gouge out your eyes with bolt-cutters, and flog you with bicycle chains, and drag you, whimpering but still conscious, across a vast plain of barbed-wire and fire-ants until each and every pore of your skin is a locus of infinite pain; and may your mother be made to watch as your ravaged carcass is strapped to a flaming 12-speed and paraded through the various neighborhoods of Hell for the amusement of lesser sinners, who howl derisively and pelt you with dog shit; and may all this suffering and indignity be only the first hour of the first day of your retribution, and may the punishment continue across countless millenia, becoming evermore grotesque and unspeakable.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Failing that, can I please have my bike back?</span>L Warfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16268036263931271156noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3434552524663566.post-81738162410747574072011-05-28T23:04:00.000-07:002011-05-28T23:14:06.167-07:00Marchin' Down State Street (Again)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTs78k70smEpByT5oy_2nsuVNFqedhvBwL4ir62r5b00OlCGTnAPJ_Z3K2mAaYNfTvysEYAR1BVrdDvlJzYdGpGcjaPzSqMRCLPzjhSiU56IdalblmCWFDKCC4NsC8-KWp8ue1OaPzi7w/s1600/61958711.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTs78k70smEpByT5oy_2nsuVNFqedhvBwL4ir62r5b00OlCGTnAPJ_Z3K2mAaYNfTvysEYAR1BVrdDvlJzYdGpGcjaPzSqMRCLPzjhSiU56IdalblmCWFDKCC4NsC8-KWp8ue1OaPzi7w/s400/61958711.jpg" t8="true" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Memorial Day Parade - borrowed from the Trib</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Wish I had grabbed my camera before leaving the house this afternoon--the Memorial Day parade caught me by surprise, coming down State Street. I didn't even know Chicago <em>had</em> a Memorial Day parade; there are so many f-ing parades in this city (St. Patrick's Day, Thanksgiving, Fourth of July, Gay Pride, Bud Billiken, et cetera) that even a certified parade-lover like me can't possibly keep tabs on all of them. And I do love parades. Even in this modern era of obnoxious corporatization, parades remain a highly entertaining form of human spectacle--outlandishly-costumed paraders strut symbolically down the main drag and engage in a whole spectrum of highly-charged behaviors, depending on the occasion; from the shirtless grinding of gay day's go-go boys to Shriners spinning circles in their mini-cars.</span></div><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Today's parade was a type I rarely come into contact with--the military parade, probably one of the oldest activities known to man. There's a terrifying beauty to the military parade. It certainly has an intoxicating power--military parades played a huge part, for instance, in the growth of Nazism in the 1930s. Today's parade was interesting because it seemed to skew heavily toward ROTC and JROTC contingents--formations of nervous, pimply teenagers-in-uniform, almost of of them black and Latino, many of them girls, shouldering drill rifles and marching in lockstep. There was some oddly-funky drumming here and there, and chants ranging from the traditional <em>sound-off </em>to the whimsical <em>I'm a Steamroller Baby</em> (if you're ever bored, check out some <a href="http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=military+cadence&aq=0sx&oq=miitary+ca">military cadences</a>--lyrically, they can be pretty brilliant and off-the-wall). But pomp and drumming aside, you realize that you're basically watching the next generation of baby-faced cannon-fodder pass by, and the parade takes on a melancholy hue, draped in a gauze of late-spring rain. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"><a href="http://travistravis.com/">Travis from ONO</a> was there, repping for AVER, the gay veteran's organization, and banging a big drum--and our new mayor, shaking hands at the ceremony for Gold Star Families. There was a 21-gun salute, which I'd never before witnessed and didn't realize was actually just seven guns, fired thrice, and an over-the-top rendition of <em>America, the Beautiful</em> sung by a honey-throated old veteran; and even, thank god, the requisite sprinkling of rain-or-shine protestors, handmade signs warning against US intervention in Libya. And so parade season begins in earnest, with weirder and more debaucherous processions on the horizon--see you in the streets!</span>L Warfieldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16268036263931271156noreply@blogger.com0