I LOVE LUX INTERIOR

Hey man, this is love. Love you Lux, love you Ivy, love you Nick and Bryan and Kid Congo. Don't mourn, memorialize. Best to all, I can't convey what the Cramps have meant to me, I got kicked out of a Holiday Inn parking lot looking for this band. Aloha to Hell. "I've lost touch with reality."

Ivy, if somehow you ever see this, best to you, love, cheers however that comes.

I don't know where to stop with this. I could talk the Cramps forever. One of the greatest bands I've ever heard or seen, a band I felt physically related to those times when I was screaming animal noises drunk in the street but as songs. At the time I never saw not being a madman as an option, I felt like I was faking it. And here was Lux doing what I wished I could be doing, and I was "out there" compared to most people I knew, but not out there like the Cramps were out there. What a fucking blessing this band was. Whoever you are, whatever you are, you can be this. Release what's in you, let it out.

Of course it helps if it's musical, especially rockabilly/psychedelia.

Nick Knox was one of the best drummers I ever saw, and he could chain smoke an entire set, flipping his sticks between cigarettes.

I don't know how to talk about Ivy - every time I saw the Cramps I chose her side of the stage, got as close as I could, watched her shimmying shoulders while she played guitar. Sexiest goddamn guitarist I ever saw, and what a player, and this is supposed to be a tribute to her man.

Because Lux - there's no fucking describing Lux. Lux was everything I wanted to be. He was fucking insane, singing his ass off, all over the stage and amps, and if you ever saw that video where the Cramps played the asylum, Lux telling the crowd, "People say you're crazy; I don't think you're so crazy," and you know he's been hearing this and living this and it's funny, but it's also why I could relate. No matter how out there I was compared to my classmates, what had it been like for Lux in school?

They were sick, they were funny, they played great rock n roll and they never had a choice about becoming a part of the mainstream. They were always the Cramps, they couldn't be anyone else and no one else could be them.

Life stripped bare left them no choice but to make this noise, these noises. I'd say RIP Lux Interior but I don't think that's an option. Rock, Lux, wherever you are. As if you could say no.

Make Room?

Obama Vs. Assault Weapons

Found this on a gun site. I spend a decent amount of time on gun websites, researching weapon details for fiction I'm either writing or editing. I don't know if the gun lobby is genuinely afraid of Obama or just using this opportunity for marketing, but I see it as promising that someone working for peace is seen as frightening. The need for AK47's in the hands of individuals is an extrapolation of the 2nd Amendment that I can't dismiss altogether, despite the number of nuts who may hold it. Trust in government is not one of my strong points. Of course, neither is trust in individuals, which is why I would feel a damn sight more comfortable with restrictions on assault weapons. Peace and love, eh?

Hail hail Baracknroll

Best Albums of the Year - 1978

It takes me awhile to put these lists together, and this is by no means final, but 1978 is to my ears one of the greatest years in rock music, and Jenny was curious so I put it together. God knows what I've left out, I didn't go through my records before doing this, just put it together tonight. Suffice to say, any big name bands left off this list were left off intentionally, but there are other things I need to work on tonight so I'm putting this up pretty quickly. And apparently I have a lot of albums from 1978 - of the zillion things left off, I think Willie Alexander's album would've been # 21. Here goes:

1 Pere Ubu Dub Housing
2 Talking Heads More Songs About Buildings and Food
3 Johnny Thunders So Alone
4 Magazine Real Life
5 David Johansen David Johansen
6 Joe Ely Honky Tonk Masquerade
7 Wire Chairs Missing
8 The Clash Give Em Enough Rope
9 Bob Dylan Street Legal
10 Lou Reed Street Hassle
11 Pere Ubu The Modern Dance
12 The Adverts Crossing the Red Sea With The Adverts
13 Bruce Springsteen Darkness On The Edge of Town
14 Southside Johnny Hearts of Stone
15 NRBQ At Yankee Stadium
16 The Buzzcocks Another Music In A Different Kitchen
17 Siouxsie & The Banshees The Scream
18 Big Star Sister Lovers
19 DMZ DMZ
20 Elvis Costello This Year's Model

I was invited to a party by J.D. Salinger

I was invited to a party by J.D. Salinger
The house was hard to find
It was a surprise party for Thomas Pynchon
B. Traven was there
Sam Beckett monopolized conversation, with his
gestures
Borges wrote down the whole thing
But ascribed the transcription to someone else
A man perhaps fiction
Whose pen and paper themselves
Would have required invention
If I had not been there to witness
The guest of honor revealing
Less than everyone knew.

In a room like this
We suppose the desk exists
Because we put things on it
And the drinks do not spill
That is, we do not see them spill
We still think we drink them
As we do not hear Salinger or Pynchon or Traven or Beckett
Or myriad others who have not spoken
Yet they cover their ears
Because what we sense as silence
They hear as screams
And even if they are wrong
Their interpretations of hallucinations
Are far more lucid
Than yours or mine of reality.
The question becomes
Why do they call it a party?

Easy Targets

The Nazis
Did not leave
Did not die
The Nazis
Were normal
And what is normal
Never dies
They were only doing
What everyone else did
As you and I
Only do
What everyone else does
Their economy was bad
Their hate was not hidden
There was never a question
Of them not killing
The question was
Which of their own
Would they disown?
The Jews
Were easy targets
The Germans were
A hateful people
As we are
A hateful people
They had built
Their own violent culture
As we have built
Ours
They could not solve their problems
So they renamed them
Called humans animals
We cage ours
In ghettos
And hope they kill
Each other
But in case they don’t
We’ve made our homes
Into cages
And we’ve bought machines
To entertain us
So we rarely have to go outside
And for those
Times when we do
We teach our children
Not to talk to strangers
We teach them to be safe
We teach them to be frightened
Or frightening
It’s necessary
In our society
And we can’t do anything about it
We may not like it but
This is as normal
As our lives
get.