LA PUISSANCE de MAI

i can't believe how great this just past month of May was. i'm so sad to see it recede into history. 
pretty much every single day was so great and sunny and joyful. so many bright hot new york days to work in; and afterward, so many warm fuzzy-sunset brooklyn evenings to hang out and drink wine with everybody in.  so many funny lunches with fellow scenics, out on strange locations, like a flock of birds landing en masse wherever, lolling exhausted & overworked on yonkers sidewalks, spring beaches or young grass.  so many blue-green algae shots from 3 Roots and so much of the 'joy molecule' that is increased by it. such a good time and such a great road trip, down to baltimore from brooklyn with beth, to read my writing at red emma. so stoked to recline on the lawn whilst back in PA on weekends, just zoning out and staring up at the sky. so many hours spent without shoes on my feet.
and so many end-of-season good vibes & good byes in brooklyn and manhattan....

and then on the second last day of May, during our sweet party on the lawn in stony run, to commemorate the month and hang out with my Knick season 2 scenics one last time, we went up the hill to see the sun trade places with its lover the moon over the Pinnacle, Pulpit Rock, Sharp's Ridge and Little Roundtop, the sacre geographie of PA landscape.
that was the perfect capper to such a majestic month.
(oh and the month started off in correct style on may's eve with that film May Morning on fandor.)

. 

man,  the whole month of May, almost zero rain or clouds, just good vibes and good times with such good people. 

i felt almost crazy and powered up with joy every day.
every day i was thinking of writing poems again, and constantly day dreaming... 

 i want every month to feel like May. because maybe after this, perhaps for me and me alone, May '15 is the new Mai '68.
i'm so bummed out to see May go, but i'm so glad to begin June Eternal as well. 

life is the only thing worth living for
    (i know its got its ups and downs)...

***

click photos to really see 

 yonkers

 transmitter park

 bed-stuy

 greenpoint

 stony run

 greenpoint

 staten island

 staten island

 red emma's, baltimore

  red emma's, baltimore

 staten island

 staten island

 

greenpoint

new arts program, kutztown

 greenpoint  (photo: cat)

red wine  (photo: cat)

 epic acre farm, kutztown

 kutztown

 easy atelier

 stony run

sean cook wood sculpture i added stuff to, stony run

 stony run (photo: cat)

  stony run

  stony run

 #ifuckedthisupdidnti

bubble house (photo: joe hiatt)

  stony run

 roundtop, sharp's, pulpit, pinnacle (and theres a face in that cloud)  (photo: cat)

dont let the good vibes ever end. dont let the bastards grind you down.

the month of May rules forever.

everyone, good luck in the future.

I AM READING STUFF IN BALTIMORE MAY 16 AT RED EMMA'S BOOKSHOP

if yr anywhere near baltimore this saturday may 16, come by Red Emma's, that famous radical bookshop, veg restaurant & coffee roaster. i'll be reading some of my words, along with Colin Seven, of UNIVERSAL ORDER OF ARMEGEDDON fame, and lately of EARLY AMERICAN fame) and Michael Fournier, of Hidden Wheel, DEAD TREND & TOOTH AND GERM fame). Fournier's new novel Swing State is just out and he's on a book tour. if you come i'll drink red wine with you. you'll hear me read stuff from Last Clean Dirty Shirt, a poem that was on a record with DRAGON TURTLE, plus the famous VOID story 'Combat Boots' which will be engraved in its entirety on the almost completed VOID monument being erected in nearby Columbia, MD, from whence that band came. (i will also be reading this story at the unveiling ceremony of the Bubba Dupree statue that is under construction in washington DC). 

/// click here for red emma's event page, or just read it all below. see you there \\\

Swing State: Punk rock authors present!

Saturday May 16, 7:30PM @ Free School Classroom

Join us for an evening of punk rock-inspired prose and poetry with touring novelist Michael T. Fournier and local stalwarts Colin Seven and Eric De Jesus!

Michael T. Fournier's new novel "Swing State" concerns itself with flagging Northeastern mill economies, fireworks, reality TV and baking. He's also the author of "Hidden Wheel" (Three Rooms Press) and "The Minutemen's Double Nickels on the Dime," an installment of Bloomsbury Press's 33 1/3 series. Fournier is the publisher and co-editor of Cabildo Quarterly, a broadsheet literary journal, and plays drums in Dead Trend and guitar in Tooth & Germ. He and his wife Rebecca live in western Massachusetts with their cat. Updates available at michaeltfournier.tumblr.com
Eric de Jesus was born of Filipino jackals in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania during the very death knell of the summer of love. He is the founder and curator of the Easy Subcult label and the American Typewriter Press. His books include Cult Of The Moon (Sloow LeyLines Press, Belgium 2008) We Won't Be Here Forever (Future Recordings, Oakland 2010) and innumerable stories and spoken recordings. de Jesus's work has appeared in Giant Robot, Exile Osaka, Raw Pogo On The Scaffold and other publications. He enjoys splitting firewood and walking the dark forests of other countries. He would love it if you listened to him reading here: ericdejesusspokenword.bandcamp.com
Colin Seven was born in Baltimore into a blue collar world on the 2nd of June 1973 and raised on skateboards, bicycles and Saturday morning cartoons. He left school at an early age and spent his formative years traveling the United States playing in rock and roll bands. His primary literary interests are repair manuals and technical journals pertaining to vintage motorcycles and rare firearms. Building engines, world travel and hanging out with dogs are among his favorite past times. Although rarely seen in public, he is reported to be easily approached and pleasant to speak with. colinseven.wordpress.com

DINDI, FLY ME FAR THE FUCK AWAY

fly me far the fuck away right now.
perhaps to nice, or rio, ibiza in 1968.

LA PUISSANCE de AVRIL

 the past week in april 2015, it looked like this to me.

click pics to enlarge.........

 bathroom selfie

 rebecca graves' studio, williamsburg

 new yorks' alright if you like saxaphones. and condos and yuppies and bakeries and traffic.

 moss icon 2015 at brooklyn night bazaar, like an american joy division.

 our lawn back in pennsylvania. now just about warm enough to loll around in all day. and all the kale, spinach, beets, chard, brussels and broccoli seeds are now popping up, stretching toward their lover the sun.

 my heart and i agree

 the first asparagus from our garden, from crowns planted 3 years ago, bought from good ole james weaver, and finally, after 2 seasons of growing then dieing back, theyre ready to eat.

 feeling good vinyl vibrations

/ / /

oh and what else? 
i'm supposed to be in the new issue of HERO Magazine, the UK men's fashion mag, talking about fanzines and RAW POGO ON THE SCAFFOLD. buy the new issue, i think its released tomorrow, or this week. and it features justin beiber on the cover. imagine taht, me and justin beiber, united in struggle. break down the walls. with men's fashion!

END ON END ON END

look. out on our lawn back in PA, the elemental beings are pushing the crocus toward their lover the Sun to propitiate the god of spring. what goes around comes around.

#crocus #spring #rebirth

LE MAL DU PAYS

le mal du pays -

"a groundless sadness called forth in a person's heart by a pastoral landscape"

WINTER ENDS AND SPRING IS GOD

spring

is

 

coming

i worship the spring. spring is everything to me.

i was made for spring,

and to live in the worlds inside my head.

 ftw

CLICK THE ABOVE PHOTOS TO REALLY SEE THEM...

DUPLICATE. UNTIL RESPONSE

i'm in this show at hooloon gallery, curated by laris kreslins, with a lot of other good peeps.

its a cool concept on laris' part. 

my pieces are on their ways; one to a random person up in brattleboro picked blindly from a phone book, the other to the gallery itself. i'm currently living in greenpoint, brooklyn while working on The Knick again, and am not anywhere near my little studio back home, with all its familiar pens, brushes, smells and utensils. so it was a weird exercise to make any kind of art that wasnt for a movie or TV show while up here in a strange, sparse sublet.....

go to the opening on february 7th if yr near philly. i'll split brooklyn, drive down to philly and get wasted with you.

click this pic for more info!!!!!!!!

THE MOST EMO STORY IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE

i wrote this little story 7 years ago as the summer was ending. for my bud adam and his band INDIAN SUMMER's post humous discog on adagio recs.
i challenge you to name every emocore reference in the first few lines.

and btw, i still love INDIAN S, natch.
***

 

go here,

diekreideherzen

its the cool tumblr that thought well enough about it to post it: 

FUCT

no shit, this awesome image of jon arbegast was either the first or second slide i ever took. 1983 at the Trench in bethlehem PA. on my dad's ancient ziess ikon; 35mm ektachrome. its in the Erik Brunetti book out on Rizzoli. i used to hang out at the trench when i was young punker kid. luckily for me, my parents' house wasnt very far away. the Trench  was a magical mess.

SPRING

fall to winter 1985 while dying for the spring

R.O.S on a college radio show around the same time i got this

the AMERICAN TYPEWRITER PRESS

you should go over to EASY / AM.TYPEWRITER and pre-order this thing now. the Last Clean Dirty Shirt collection features writing (poems and long fiction) by me and some of today's finest writer heads, all affiliated with american typewriter through common cause, friendship and /or hang-outs and readings in Paris. click on dudes' names for more info. and these are just some of them. really though, we're hoping you would naturally support small presses and living/breathing writers... 

featuring:

Jon Vance (MOSS ICON), Matthew Wascovich (SCARCITY OF TANKS), David Barnes (SPOKEN WORD PARIS),  Colin Seven (UNIVERSAL ORDER OF ARMAGEDDON), Eric de Jesus (WE HAVE HEAVEN),  Tony Alberto Rigetinni (SPOKEN WORD PARIS), Jayne Amara Ross (FAREWELL POETRY) and more.

107 pages, perfect bound, wrapped in an obi, limited first edition. 100% excellent.

and after Last Clean Dirty Shirt we will be collaborating with Lisa Busby of goldsmith's college, university of london (as well as of SLEEPS IN OYSTERS and Editions Of You fame) to release a cool art book having to do with her Shit! I can DJ! project.
get stoked, she's rad.

Before this excellent 2013 year is over, we are hoping to publish a book of Mike Rimm's short stories and postcards. (you the kuztown legend is famous for his awesome postcards).
plus a collection of writing and photos from some of our young farmer friends.
and i we would love to reprint boxsets of CRAP RAP and CONFLICT fanzines one day but who knows....
wouldnt all those things be well worth reading?
yes you think so.

visit the am. type's new tmblr too!

KISS THE GOAT

drew this quick for my little sister's annual birthday party extravaganza. brush pens + ink on bristol.  ST. ANGELS feature  good old Brian Walker of MR YUK and LVHC fame btw....

kiss the goat

EPIC MOMENTS OF 2013

2013 was a good year. heres a list of some of the epic moments that went down. and some photos. and here's to 2014 being epic 24/7 365 all the way through to a year from now.....

(CLICK THE PICS TO ENLARGE)

2013 started correctly with a new years day hike to pulpit rock with kane and karen and ben

*****

heidi's stony run party was odd but warm. and then splitting that to do WHH live at WXLV (what a weird night!)

oh yeah, a few days after heidi's party, WHH was on Tripping Balls with Brother JT and that was definitely one of the epic nights of my year. how could it not be.

*****

getting up to  jones beach on long island on a winters day to start working on Amazing Spiderman  2

*****

then painting gigantic 4 or 5 story green screens high above a fake (and pretty imptressive) times square for spiderman. in freezing temps and through multiple windy snow squalls.

*****

WHH at the church with valgeir sigurosson
(was a sweet and holy night)

*****

tara's tree walk... with a bunch of us obsessing over our woodstoves & cutting firewood at every chance all winter (you know, free heat and all), tara decided to educate all of us on the trees that surround us. while she's not doing FURSAXA she's working at hawk mountain and living in the dark wood you know. it was a cool derive around her and cook's property, checking out trees and their bark and branches. and then cook broke out the whiskey snow shots.

*****

when spring hit, so did the kayaking!

*****

man, i realize, now that i'm thinking about it, that i spent a bunch of time on tara & cook's creek this summer. one of thee most epic evenings was when we tubed down and ended up getting caught in a gigantic scary thunderstorm. then we ran all the way back to their house hoping trees wouldnt fall on us.

and i caught the largest trout i ever caught, on the bend down cook and tara's long driveway. the thing was that right before i caught it i'd said to cook "watch. trout on first cast". i said it only half seriously. but upon landing it and measuring it against sean's arm (it went from his finger tips up to well past his elbow) i felt guilty and terrible and gently released her back into the creek.   

*****

the day & night before the virginvlle film fest is always a special time every year. 2013 was no exception. just look at this photo right after we got the screen erected.

and this is how Stinson de Jesus-Tinsman remembers his time at this year's fest:

 *****

july 4^th at Professor Longnair's (i mean  kristen's) roman baths in the woods. yes. roman baths deep in the woods on her 20+ acres, built by genius engineer PJ Macintosh, around a perfect and perfectly clean spring. epic moments late at night for sure.

*****

worked all fall on The Knick which is an upcoming HBO or Cinemax show by stephen soderbergh. seriously long days, but good times living and working round brooklyn and the east village. working with some solid peeps and good scenics. and living for a while in ernie sandidge's studio for super cheap (one of the benefits of working with him). definitely some epic sets and laughs on this job...

*****

picking up max and vicky. one of my big sisters and her son came back to the USA from australia for a thanksgiving  visit. its always epic seeing them after a few year's absence. but they had to split and  now i miss them again.

*****

oh yeah, i was chuffed to be published in issue #5 of Belleville Park Pages, that cool poetry journal from Paris. you should buy one or subscribe. theyre currently blowing up....

oh and the WE HAVE HEAVEN / 20 GUILDERS split LP came out on Nod and Smile records. it looks and sounds pretty epic, even if i do say so my own self. buy one. 

*****

a bunch of other epic things happened but i can't remember them right now. plus this is taking too long and the other wood stove out in the studio needs tending. but suffice to say that 2013 was a decent year. and 2014 promises to be even more decent. especially when the Last Clean Dirty Shirt collection of writing comes out. and Lisa Busby's book. and also the first collection of Mike Rimm's stories. i am very stoked to start assembling that one for publishing, on AMERICAN TYPEWRITER of course!

i hope we see each other around. be well 24/7 all year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(and now that you read all of this, why not read THIS old post recounting  20 YEARS OF NEW YEARS EVES)

the AMERICAN TYPEWRITER PRESS's 'commercial' (if you will)

books availale right now from American Typewriter (which is of course the publishing imprint of the easy subcult) include TULIP HAS A ROOM by Jon Vance, WE WONT BE HERE FOREVER by me, Eric de Jesus, LATE MALL BUILDER/NEW MIDDLE AGES from a gallery show i curated last year, featuring a nice long essay by Art DiFuria, and the RAW POGO ON THE SCAFFOLD BOXSET of course.

coming next is LAST CLEAN DIRTY SHIRT, a collection of writing by am typewriter affiliated authors from ohio (mathew wascovich), paris (jayne amara ross, david barnes, alberto tony rigetini, james jewell & antonia klimencho), pennsylvania (me, dave parise, dan sevem, mike rimm and annie ej ryan), baltimore (jon vance, collin seven) and more.

pre-orders start very soon

you know you'll wanna read one....

and after that we will  be collaborating with Lisa Busby of goldsmith's college, university of london (as well as of SLEEPS IN OYSTERS and Editions Of You fame) to release a cool art book having to do with her Shit! I can DJ! project.
get stoked, she's rad.

and before this excellent 2013 year is over, we are hoping to publish a book of mike rimm's short stories and a collection of writing and photos from some of our young farmer friends.
wouldnt those things be well worth reading?
yes you think so.

info and ordering here.

or just watch the video above a hundred times

......THE END IS NEAR......