Won’t Stop

…to live outside the law, you must be honest…
-Bob Dylan, Absolutely Sweet Marie

It’s a good thing I don’t care about what you think then, isn’t it?
-Your Writer on Facebook this week

Last week on Writing On The Air cohost Martha Louise Hunter asked me where I get the time to do it all.  God bless her.  We were talking about this blog and how 600 words a week is the least I can do if I’m going to call myself a writer.
“Of course there’s Letter Day,” I told her and cohost Joe Brundige, “and I’m posting a poem every day for the month of April celebrating National Poetry Month.”
I told them that All in the wind was book 2 of the 10 that will be published through Yellow Lark Press, beginning with September in 2015 and ending with a collection, as-yet-unnamed, in 2025.
“10 books in 10 years is great, a fine goal,” I went on.  “-but I’m only making up for lost time.”
Brother Joe and I share a symmetry, and experience the joy of communication that can happen between two stringently honest people.  It took appearing on the show twice for me to realize-I am doing the thing.  It’s good when that happens, as opposed to the slave driving I’m usually doing with myself and the crippling feelings of despair anyone reading this blog is, by now, all too familiar with.

I finally booked Boston.  I’ll be speaking at the Middle East Corner with the Reverend Kevin O’Brien and bussing down to Philly the day after, for the Philly release of All in the wind.  Joe and I recorded an episode of Chillin Tha Most at the mansion last week, and it should be on the net next Thursday.  Last week was the kind of week I’d like to have every week, with gigs and radio appearances almost every day.   I kept on pushing till the light of day.  Which is heaps different than the life I’m living in my head, where it’s never enough and I’m only a day working coward.  What’s next is complicated but simple in terms of intent.

I’m quitting this gig.  Moving out to the east side.  Minimizing.  Scaling down.  I’m not sure how it will look or how to even vaguely monetize poetry and the spoken word-but I’m full of ideas and already making half my imminent rent with the gigs I’m already playing.  It’s strange to be striking out now but hardly unlikely.  I’ve long since abandoned anything resembling the common tropes of being an American.  I don’t have any kids, don’t even have a girlfriend.  But I’ve got a passion for media and all forms of communication.  I hope to get further invested in print and broadcast media.  Before I fly out to Beantown the MAMU should be fully assembled and my next purchase will be a touring vehicle.

It took me a while to wrap my head around it.  I had to keep it to myself and it made me resentful.  I couldn’t talk about my plans on here, there was some bad blood about me leaving but there doesn’t have to be.  I’ve started paying my taxes, I got a new dentist and a healthy line of credit.  Everything is moving as it should.  My next venture will be some time researching topics for the blog, so’s to avoid the kind of soul searching pap and whine that she hates and can appear on Going For The Throat when its weekly deadline is on my neck.  Your ideas are welcome, as are paying gigs-do you have a story for me?  Can we find a way to pay my freight so I can come to your town, speak and play?  Please chime in, in the comments below, or drop me a line at: jamesmichaeltrainer@gmail.com.

This east coast jaunt will be a short one but I’m thrilled to be sharing the stage with the Reverend Kevin O’Brien, Duncan Wilder Johnson, The Droimlins, and Jim Healy in Boston.  The Philly release of All in the wind is stacked, with award winning poets Charlie O’Hay and Lamont Steptoe reading.  By the time I go back to work I’ll have played at least 3 shows on the east coast, sold some books and burned hundreds of miles.  I’ll be exhausted, which is how I like it, and plan to be in the coming months.  Into it, no stops, full bore.

See you on the East Coast motherfucker.

The man in me will hide sometimes to keep from bein’ seen
but that’s just because he doesn’t want to turn into some machine

Ahoy, good reader.  Tis I, the rageful poet, about to turn it out and kick out the jams.  I been kept too long, cooped up and strung along working for the man.  I just blasted some Dylan and now all is quiet in the mansion, so I’ll sit down and get to work.  It’s what I do.  600 words is sometimes all that keeps us from a landslide-ain’t that right Brother, Sister?  It’s a shame that issues of interest are often times only tossed off by the Author.  The problem with storytelling, last week, for example.  I’m not sure I’m making a point most of the time and honestly I’m ok with simply making sense.  I need to keep my pen and wits sharp, so I tie it on and have a go as a lion tamer and therapist.  I peel my skull cap back, lower the fourth wall and invite you in.  A most narcissistic exercise, this.  Maybe D.C. Bloom is right but if it wasn’t for your devoted readership and wonderful comments I might hang it up.  The answer may be to do it more but in the meantime I’m glad to be doing it once a week, while I remodel and even find another model altogether for getting my literary&journalistic ya-yas out.  In short, I couldn’t be happier to find that what’s wrong with me has taken a seat at the literary table.  This is literature, you know, you don’t believe me ask Brother Ignacio.  Whether or not it’s journalism will be my charge and challenge in the dark “post-racial” New Century.

The old model was set by a 17 year old skinhead standing on his homey’s steps on a stupid night in the suburbs.  It’s when I first saw a copy of Rollins’ One From None.  Allot has happened since then.  Things have transpired to disabuse me of my dreams, had me do a double think- which is what homelessness will do to a guy.  Maybe I never had what it takes, I got scared and cold, sold out and went all in and the middle class jackoff caregiver before you is only a product of fear.  If I hadn’t heard this story so many times I might believe it.  I’m old, and wise, enough to know that life is made of choices we make and there are choices that are still being made.  The music still plays.  As tired and oft repeated are the voices of doubt within me, there’s a stubborn kernel of a dream I’ve had for so long it’s a part of me.  It’s driven me, gotten me through the countless times when I thought I blew it, flipping burgers in Crum Lynne, working as a sexton at First Lutheran 17th&Spruce, a landscaper in the projects of North Philly and, the second longest job I’ve ever had, working as a busboy for the White Dog Cafe (2004-2005).  Maybe I should consider my current gig as the second longest and reconsider that I’ve been working at my Art, however inconsistently, for 24 years since that night in Upper Darby when I knew I’d be a published poet.  But here’s where things get screwy.

I’ve had 3 books published while working here and it’s been nothing like the 17 year old man in me’s dream to be a punkrock renaissance man, full time and on the road for most of the year-like Hank.  It pains me to consider plugging in to another machine-an $800 1 bedroom apartment, a rental company requiring your income to be 3 and 1/2 times that, with 6 months prior rental history, while I’m making payments on a new car and being gouged by AT&T.  The rub is, as much as it pains me, maybe this is the way.  Despite myself and the dream, I’m able to be the Artist I always wanted to be, I just need to be nestled in somewhere, warm&quiet, working full time for a monthly payment that goes nowhere.  If it’s what’s right, why does it feel like failure?  Am I so fucking hardwired that I don’t know what is good for me?

Something has presented itself and it’s a return to my roots.  Ain’t the best neighborhood and a bit out of town.  Super cheap and solitary.  The point is I worry, will I sacrifice too much comfort, and only be raw and uncomfortable out there below the red line-and my work will suffer?  Or, if I choose comfort, and care for myself in the prescribed and proven effective way, working full time and trying to keep my head up AND do Art-will my work suffer?  No easy answers here.

Looks like I solved the problem with storytelling.  You’re welcome.

Took a woman like you
to get through to the man in me
-Bob Dylan, The Man In Me

Out of the Bag

For years they had me locked in a cage
then they threw me onto the stage
-Bob Dylan

Ho hum.  Howdy motherfucker.  Trainer here, with the wisdom.  In the days following the election I didn’t know what to feel, let alone how to put it into words.  That’s because the focus of this blog has always been myself.  I didn’t have it in me to be selfish, and would never expect you to be into it either, after Tuesday night’s rude awakening.  I didn’t want to say I told you so, as if that ever helps anything except the pride of the fool saying it.  I know why I didn’t vote, and I’ve seen the readership of this blog decline for making that known, but I was still horrified at the result, and suffered bad constipation (among other things) as the reality sank in.

We’re fucked.  I’ve lived long enough to feel that way 3 other times in my life, and all of them have to do with the highest office in the land.  This feels different though, and I’m different, and as twisted and dark as it is right now, I’ve nowhere to hide.  The last time a candidate who won the popular vote was denied the Presidency, I was 25 years old.  I had, or thought I had, plenty of time to fuck around.  I got lost in West Philly.  I devoted myself to the Arts, even got involved in the battle for free radio.  I fought as much as I wanted to and even though between me and myself it’s never enough, I can look back proudly on that time, my Radio Days.  The truth is it wasn’t enough and it’s never enough but it was the end of the Century and I sure had a good time.

The next time I knew we were fucked was in the next race, 4 years later, and the country had gone stark raving mad for War, and persecuted you for saying otherwise.  The news media in the Land of the Free was onboard.  It was fucked.  It still is.  If we can’t agree on the intricacies of hegemony and U.S. interventionism, then surely we agree that the luring of our young men and women to fight for a lie and come home to a country that doesn’t care about its mentally ill is treacherous, inhumane and wrong.

The collapse of the market and federal bail out that ensued is the watershed moment, good Reader.  It’s when the capriciousness of the Bush dynasty came home to roost.  As progressive and even glorious were the advances made by President Obama, the mess he inherited and how he handled it, has fucked us, the People of the United States for the remainder of this country’s existence.  Something exceptional would have to happen.  Vigilance was needed and a tireless commitment to righting the vessel.  None of those will be forthcoming.

I think it’s worth mentioning that little would be done under Hillary, either, and business is as business does could be the slogan of either party in this cracked oligarchy we will be living in for the rest of our lives.  The little that Hillary would’ve done might’ve been enough to keep spirits up, and her election might not have emboldened the homogeneous bigotry of this country like Trump’s has, but they would still be out there and deals would still be cut in there, hand over hand in her Oval office or his-certainly our inhumane actions abroad aren’t going to change no matter who is President.

The DNC is broken, or, it’s only fulfilling what it always had in mind.  The Republican Party should be over and done with, except that they rule the House and the Senate.  The fact that a reality TV star ran on a non-policy of hate and fear, lost the popular vote and will be President is fucked.  His attitude and bias is piggish and without compassion but even the 47% of people who voted for him will tell you that.  Great writers have already concluded that this is the American character.*

You don’t need to hear it from me that we’re fucked.  If you’ve tuned in and read me-I thank you.  The fact that I started this blog aiming for an outsider’s voice either more critical or accurate than mainstream media, but only came up with a self-help journal and reason to go on, spend a couple hours writing instead of going out to the bougie store for a pack of triple 5s or hanging myself from the chandelier in a dead confederate palace on a slow Tuesday night in Hippie Town is what it is.

I want you to know, though-despite your kind words and appreciation and readership that’s kept me from swinging-I have really let myself go.  I’ve let my writing go because on the eve of ruin in the Land of the Free, I was without words and the only thing I could come up with was a parable about getting old.  Don’t get me wrong, getting old is a thing and a very sad thing when you consider how far I am from my goals and how slow going it’s been.  Every shock of the world and hysteria brought on by charlatans of the news media was dealt with by putting my head back in the bag.  Now I’m sober and the story is the same.

I’ve been here almost 5 years, been posting on here for 6.  I don’t have the spring of youth in my step and I’ve retreated so far inside myself that it took the election of a diabolical asshole to wake me up to the reality-I’m not living to my potential.  It’s a popular refrain down here at the Office.  I’ll never know if the Inner Critic is just on overdrive or if I should just be doing more.  I’ve still got a monkey on my back though, and Art has been re-purposed again as vital, life saving and something to live up to.  This is just the beginning.

See you on the streets motherfucker.

Ab irato,
Jim Trainer
Going For The Throat
Austin TX-Portland OR

“This much madness is too much sorrow.”

…one day I will finally and fully unreel the inner-diatribe of self sabotage. I will have fully documented the script that grinds out any high hopes or goodwill about living like a cigarette butt. And it will be here, online, out in the open for all to see. And we will laugh.
–Emotional Physics

come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.
–Lucille Clifton

Aho good reader. I have gone independent. Thanks to Rubina Martini and the Independent Publishing Resource Center, I have 83 poster pressed and perfectly bound, black on yellow copies of September, my latest collection of poetry. Sometime after Farewell to Armor was released, I came to the sad realization that a publisher isn’t required to do anything for you. Assuming it’s in their best interest to sell books is a mistake and grossly overlooks what a publisher actually does for your publication. I owe allot to WragsInk. They came along at just the right time. I just got off a 2 year unemployment jag/drunk. I had to leave the premises, I had a little over two grand in savings, $2,500 of which was owed to Gioconda Parker for Yoga Teacher Training, and I totaled my car on the onramp to Ben White one rainy night that spring. I was in trouble. It was the usual kind, nothing that couldn’t be beat with a few years of hard labor or shifts as a bartender-but my real work would suffer and I’d have to stay underground for the remainder of my 30s. Without the work, the sum total of my life would be a brutal and tiresome slog and succession of day labor, shit jobs and dysfunctional relationships. I’d have to consider all options including the great shame of going back home, with my tail between my legs and not even a college degree for all my trouble. In a last ditch effort I called up Maleka Fruean and booked a reading at Big Blue Marble Bookstore. It was at that reading I would meet Richard Okewole; and begin sifting through over 250 poems to come up with the final manuscript for Farewell (and fall in love with the editor in the process). That book kept me alive. Kept me current. Prompted me to reach out to great writers like Don Bajema and reconnect with great writers like Butch Wolfram. The rest is history except I wasn’t pleased. I wouldn’t be pleased until I published my own book and founded my own press. A heaping 2/3 of that goal has been completed. I’m back from the Pacific Northwest and I’ve got 25 days left to achieve my goal. Looks like another crash course and this time it’s business. But if the past 2 months are any indication of how this’ll go down, I’m gonna have to make some changes. Some much needed ones, long overdue. My psoas is cranked tighter than a clock spring. I’ve been smoking a pack of triple-nickels every day since the summer. I’ve got big ideas but most of the time I just sit in their thrall, daydreaming and smoking on the roof. I understand the importance of rest. And I know for sure I’m gonna need a partner in crime. It’s high time for me to finish my teacher training and get back on the path of health and happiness. We both know about the dirty decades I spent, living with my Art above all else. My goals seared through romance and contentment. My focus narrowed to the barrel of a gun. I was never sure if I could make it but was certain I would die if I didn’t. It’s time for some integration, some inclusion, something other than the madness of a dayworking poet, at odds against the fucking world. I quit drinking. And I can’t really see a reason to go back to that lifestyle. “No-chance” was a great myth.  It fueled me on but it’s just a myth.   As it is I feel like my days are squandered in a retroactive doubt, which is another blog post entirely.

It’s time to finish what I started. I’ve pulled myself up and out of the ashtray. The struggle to become an aritst is over. Now is this surrendering to being one. To go forth into this world I’ve made. The dream cracked wide. My chosen destiny.  

stick with me baby, anyhow
things should start to get interesting
right about now
-Bob Dylan, Mississippi

Join me.
Trainer

Universal Love&Hate

Sometimes the silence can be like thunder
sometimes I wanna take to the road and plunder
Could you ever be true?  I think of you
and I wonder

I quit drinking in February. But I made the decision to in November. Like a true alcoholic, I tried to drink on, thought my shrink and everybody else was wrong, I could have a drink every night and be fine.  But after a fated 13-hour bus ride from New Orleans in February (and leaving on dubious terms to begin with), I had 4 drinks at the bougie store, effectively doubling my limit in a matter of days.  Of course it was good to see Brother James and to drink a few with him on a rainy day in the Quarter.  But I couldn’t rely on myself to keep it on a leash.  I loved drinking way too much and besides, all it took was a real bummer of an end to my vacation and a stressful journey back to send me over the limit and into my cups.   I had built up announcing that I quit drinking in my mind.  I would let you know ceremoniously and in a big way.  Oh well.  It’s fitting though, I’ve left the party from the backdoor and now I’m gone.

Sobriety hasn’t softened me or made me copacetic and bland.   The truth is I have uncovered a well spring of anger and hatred once I got out of the hole.  I’m done feeling sorry for myself and now I just hum on a steady flow of hate and agitation.  I feel misunderstood by most people which isn’t anything new, I just don’t have an instant remedy for it.  And my work on the spiritual path has paid off.  For example, at brunch this morning, instead of flipping the table over, I restrained myself and sat awhile in my anger.   The folks I was dining with would have to deal with me being uncomfortable, closing my fists and looking around like something feral and mean.  I didn’t have to hide.  Nor did I want to.
So I’m at odds with the world again.  Just like old times.  8 out of every 10 people I meet and interact with every day won’t get me and, now that I’m not drinking, the ones who could at least humor me while engaged in the pastime of consuming alcohol have moved to the outer circle as well.

…my comrades in arms, I bid you farewell… 
-J.Wheeler

Ultimately, my suspicion about vices has proved to be true.  Without a go to, without a release, I have discovered a fount of anger and agitation.  It’s ok I know what to do with it.  I’m still smoking, which makes even less sense.  I meet awkwardness, boredom and the aforementioned hatred with one burning, a cigarette in hand.  I smoke so much sometimes I need to take a couple ibuprofen for the headache I get from the nicotine.  Triple nickels have made it hard to quit.  On the road, when I was smoking Black Spirits or worse, it was easy to envision myself as a non smoker. I couldn’t wait to quit.  But as soon’s we pulled in and unloaded the Boss, I took the van around the corner to the bougie store for a pack of 555s, State Express, my luxurious damage.  This post is meant to clear things up between you and I.  I’m doing well.  Never better.  My hatreds are still burning, strong.  If I haven’t forgiven you I probably never will but an apology is never a bad idea, unless of course I don’t like you, in which case do us both the favor and just ignore me.  I’ll do the same for you. At the party and at the show.  Just fuck right off.  She knows who I’m talking about.  Don’t you worry good Reader, you and I’s solid. Thick as thieves.  I’m gonna need you in the coming days, when I’m at rope’s end without anything to grab ahold of.  I wish I could ascribe to some kind of universal love.  I wish I could take ‘er easy.  But I never have and probably never will.  “Too intense” is their problem.  I am awakening and it’s painful and that’s fine.  If pain is the price then I’ll gladly pay.  I’ll stay true to myself even if it means I’m the bitter Buddha, at the dark end of the guru spectrum, getting my ya-yas out with an inexhaustible work schedule and rock&roll.  You heard me right, it’s time to get the band back together.  It’s been too long.

I’m sick of love, I wish I’d never met you
I’m sick of love, I’m tryin’ to forget you
-Lovesick, Bob Dylan

“summer’s here and the time is right for fighting in the street”

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Bob Dylan’s Birthday Bash
Hosted by D.C. Bloom
at the Whip In
1950 S I H 35
Austin, TX 78704
7-11pm

You ain’t going nowhere else than to the Whip In on May 24th to celebrate Bob Dylan’s 73rd birthday! And the time it ain’t a-changin’ … It’s pretty firm. It’s gonna start at 7 pm in the beer garden! … The Man in me – D.C., that is – is gonna host this million dollar bash that will cost you NOTHING to attend! (Tips appreciated, though, natch … ) I want you, I want you, I want you (to come) so bad! … I pity the poor immigrant and/or native born citizen who misses this party!! Bob’s gonna be 73, but we’re gonna be forever young on the 24th cuz not even a hurricane or an idiot wind is gonna keep the following folks from singing a few Bob Dylan songs for ya’ll! … As host of the evening, all I really wanna do is open the evening by singing a couple myself and then introducing Ashley Monical, Don Pedigo, Mo McMorrow, Jim Trainer, Nathan Hamilton, B Sterling Archer, Pete Minda, Danny Fast Fingers, Amanda Pearcy, Josh Luckenbach, Dana McBride, Leeann Atherton, Amy Zamarripa, Cary Cooper, Jean Synodinos, Penny Ney, and the Girl From the North Texas Hill Country. Pete Minda’s band will be serving as the house band for the evening! And we’re gonna be callin’ em the Elston Guns, after the stage name a youthful Robert Zimmerman used in Hibbing, MN. Performers being added hourly, so check back! … Oh, and there WILL be cake!!! Come!!!

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Bedpost Quickies

A Sex&Relationship Based, Open Performance Series, And Spinoff of the Wildly Successful Bedpost Confessions

Tuesday June 2
at the
ND
502 Brushy Street
Austin, TX
Sign Up’s at 7
Show Starts at 7:30

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Friday June 6
Melodie’s Cafe
Cardinal Arms
Mark Thousands
Jim Trainer
Kettle Pot Black
Andrew Meoray Milgore
2 E Lancaster Avenue
Ardmore, PA 19003
7:30pm

After cutting his teeth for years backing legendary bluesman Shakey Lyman in Philadelphia, Jim Trainer came down to Austin, TX following that Americana sound. He wanted to emulate the taut economy of song and high lonesome poetry he heard coming from all those great Texas folk and country outlaws.
Enlisting the talents of Justin Kolb (Jesse Dayton/Bobby Flores) on upright bass and Billy Brent Malkus (The Texas Sapphires/Nathan Hamilton) on telecaster and harmonies, Trainer was able to realize his roots-rock sound and vision. The acoustic combo has performed at Momo’s, the Scoot Inn and Romeo’s when not attending to residencies at the Whip In and the Beale Street Tavern. Trainer now plays solo the Third Thursday of every month at House Wine in the 04 (details below).
The characters Trainer writes of know pain and heartache but it doesn’t stop them from being in love with the gamble of life. His songwriting takes the listener with him down that dusty road where his anti-heroes might find redemption and Victory even if it means losing on their own terms.

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Saturday June 7
An Evening of Poetry&Spoken Word
Don Bajema
Charlie O’Hay
Jim Trainer
Big Blue Marble Bookstore
551 Carpenter Lane
Philadelphia, PA 19119
SHOW TIMES TBA

Please join us for a great night of poetry and spoken word. Jim Trainer returns to Philly to perform and read with great writer Don Bajema and wonderful poet Charlie O’Hay.

Jim Trainer is a communicator. Growing up in the hardcore scene of the early 90’s taught him everything he needed to know about the real work. Jim Trainer believes in rock and roll. It may be our only salvation in this dark world. He’s carried the torch for independent media, broadcasting as one of the early voices of Radio Volta(88.1fm)and writing for the Philadelphia IMC’s Wire in the early aughts. He’s appeared as The Reason, broadcasting on WKDU 91.7fm while writing for its Communiqué. He’s been the driver for several internationally touring metal bands taking him to every state in the Continental U.S. He’s followed that Americana sound all the way down to Austin, TX where he works as a Singer/Songwriter and contributes to Verbicide Magazine. “We are not that different, you and I.” If you hear his voice on the air or read his words on the page, Jim Trainer is trying to break down the separation they have built between us. Jim Trainer believes you can be set free and that communication is the key.

Novelist, screenwriter, actor and performer Don Bajema was born in St. John’s, New Foundland, Canada in 1949. He is the author of two highly acclaimed collections of short stories, Boy In The Air and Reach, now published as one volume, Winged Shoes and a Shield, by City Lights. As an actor, Bajema first appeared on stage in the West Coast premiere of Sam Shepard’s “Curse of the Starving Class”. With a lead role in the 1983 film “Signal Seven”, Bajema began a long-time collaboration with groundbreaking independent film director Rob Nilsson. He had a lead role in Nilsson’s 1988 Sundance Film Festival Grand Prize winner “Heat and Sunlight” and he wrote and starred in the 1996 film “Chalk,” which Nilsson directed. He has appeared in more than a dozen feature films, most recently Carl Franklin’s 2002 film “High Crimes”. A favorite on the “spoken word circuit”, Bajema has toured extensively in the US, Canada and Europe, performing at hundreds of clubs, theaters and universities. He has shared the spoken word stage with the likes of Hubert Selby, Lydia Lunch, Henry Rollins, and Jim Carroll. He is a former world-class track and field athlete who competed in the 1972 US Olympic trials and played football for legendary coach Don Coryell at San Diego State University. He currently lives with his family in New York City.

Charles O’Hay is the recipient of a 1995 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts fellowship in poetry. His poems have appeared in over 100 literary publications including Gargoyle, South Carolina Review, Brooklyn Review, West Branch, Mudfish, and New York Quarterly.
The author lives with his wife and daughter in eastern Pennsylvania. Far From Luck, his first full-length collection of poems is out now through Lucky Bat Books and available on Amazon.com.

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Austin’s No Shame Theatre
5 Minutes Anything Goes
Salvage Vanguard Theatre
Manor Road
Austin, TX
Sign Up’s At 9:30 PM
Show Starts At 10:00 PM

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Third Thursdays at House Wine
Roots, Blues&Rockabilly provided by
Jim Trainer
every Third Thursday at
House Wine
408 Josephine Street
Austin, TX 78704
7-10 PM
The Next Third Thursday is Thursday June 19

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