Leonard Cohen Was Right

fell through Kerouac’s backyard in American summertime
clotheslines snapping like the iron curtain
belts humming along with our fathers
up there
bright on the billboard with a Lucky
and a smile
with Vietnam came the hard autumn
and TV and rock&roll
we might not have got fooled again but
the skies stayed grey
to the brink of Nuclear Winter
and to substitute for our phony youth
we took on a phony naivete.
Autumn in America,
with doom and catastrophe
always
someplace else, far away
from where we grovel at the feet
of celebrity
and clog the information super highway,
the single greatest advent and benefit
to the village of humanity,
with nothing but our vanity.
a great man once said
“I detest history.”
and I agree but I’m including you
and telling you
I don’t believe in anything
this poem isn’t political
this brief rundown of American history
incomplete
but what do you want from me?
I just live here.

my smile is full of pain
beneath the streetlights
waiting
for her Boxter, my fling-
we’ll ride on down below
the poverty line
open the bar and sit in the cool dark
spiking Topo Chico with cheap bourbon
unconvincing laughter in the afternoon
getting over you

 

 

 

matador blues

my capes must’ve dulled-
they no longer flash
or catch the high sun
and the young señoritas
don’t know the dignity
of my final bow,
they only look on
as he enters
so foolish&young.
Does he know
that these hot afternoons
in the prime of his life
will never be as beautiful
as all the muscle
&grace that
he must put to the sword
to win their love?
And that even their love
is vain and cruel and
fleeting-
covetous only
of youth&death?

perhaps he will-
if he doesn’t die first.

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Shrieks of Paradise, Correspondence&Rails#21: Fun Fun Fun Fest 2009

1500 North Street#A
Austin, TX 78756
512-203-6288

10/26/09

Heather Shofner, Jackson Ellis
Editors, Verbicide Magazine
verbicidemagazine.com

Fun Fun Fun…won’t get fooled again…contact for bands and performers…PR contacts…Advice

Heather&Jackson!

Compared to Austin City Limits (ACL) and South By Southwest (SXSW), this one should be a blast.  ACL blew through town weekend before last.  Austin may boast itself as the live music capital of the world but this once homegrown concert series featured headliners Ben Harper and Pearl Jam.  Plus, fans had to deal with something called “dillo dirt”–a
combination of compost and treated sewage used as fertilizer for the fresh laid grass in Zilker Park, and the incessant rain we been under since the summer broke.  But what would a music festival be without over-hyped bands and mud?  Let’s not forget the port-o-potty situation either.

The horrors of ACL are nothing compared to the notorious South by Southwest Music Conference, which of course I’ll be pitching to you shortly.  To prime you, imagine a music festival as big as SXSW; featuring on average of over 1,800 bands for two warm&crazy weeks in March.  Now adjust yourself to the reality that although SXSW is hosted by a city with over 200 venues and an estimated 1,990 musicians, it is not kind or supportive to any of them.  Maybe it’ll make more sense when you discover that sponsors of SXSW include PepsiCo and Miller Lite.  If it doesn’t make sense and your as non-plussed as me then perhaps you’ll understand that the fuck-ton  of traffic that descends on this already small&congested town like a  nightmare hipster-parade is not okay even if some out of town band gets signed.

I would hope that a music festival created by those in “the scene”such as Fun Fun Fun Fest wouldn’t try to insult me with something as mundane as Ben Harper for $145.   I’d like to catch some sets from some great independent bands and see what these punkers
can do with a music festival.

Rest assured that between Cayte and me you will have a story on your hands.  

Port-o-Potty’s-Ahoy!

Your Writer,
Jim Trainer
Austin, TX