Sunday, September 26, 2010

Ode to Pad Scrabble Poetry


Ahmed & Ayla


On Saturday, September 25, five brave, brilliant souls met at the crack of noon to play a round of scrabble. Afterwards they attempted to hammer out a line of poem or two of the words crafted from that anvil of fierce competition. Cafe Racer was the location chosen by Ahmed, the cunning organizer, in the Ravenna Neighborhood a couple doors south of the Trading Musician (a store where I got majorly ripped off on the purchase of a Boss DR-550 mkII drum machine eighteen months ago; if you want to buy it, it's for sale; make me an offer).


Ayla, Melanie, Elise
Café Racer was a nice joint sporting a lot of character that is typically lacking in that sterile corporate American environment. Their brunch menu was excellent. I had a mean chili omelet. My only criticism was that they didn't have any hot sauce even remotely hot enough for my poor burned out taste buds. A slice or two of habanero pepper would have lit a match to that cold spot in my palate. Thus, I didn't even bother to add any of their vinegar and salt confections to the meal, which I must add stuck to my ribs till eight o'clock that evening. Everyone was pleased with what they ordered! Also there were a few people, not in our party, sipping on pints of thick muddy water.

We played by the rules as prescribed by the authors of scrabble, because of this one of the players bluffed us, twice, by slipping in these made up words Divy and Zu. None of us wanted to risk loosing a turn or points to challenge him. The players present were Ahmed who scored 117, Ayla 102, Elise 78, Tory 106, and Me 70.

Elise her skin a canvas of song & Tory
Hear are the words in the order they were played: gates, sex, bat, gib, lox, zeal, lines, like, me, me, qi, ace, an, face, far, gob, tit, toy, loin, cone, pad, pe, divy (Ahmed’s first made up word), jupe, mean, notes, ran, jo, meats, tire, jog, toys, rise, aw, wo, rile when, en, do, di, zu (Ahmed’s second made up word), cow, chi, iv (Tory slipped this abbreviation in), no, am, im, elf, bun, and ui.






Elise’s Poem:

Like sex
One face
One line
Loin to loin
Mean gates rise
Like one ran far
I tire
Done




Tory’s Poem:

Qi or Chi
Mean notes ran far
When leaves tire
Ode to one when
Lines divvy gates
Do done did
Rise to like me
Mean face like me
Jupe the ode
Notes tire
I tire
Rile me mean
Jog on
Divvy toys and bats
One leaf tires
Mean note ran far




Ayla’s poem:

Notes rise like one ode
Zeal ran far, I ran like
I ran like notes ran an ode
No tire when I face gates
No zeal, o, no I am like a face
A face like one when lines rile


Sex toys jog like an ode ran a loin
A far leaf

I ran far when gates like rad
Lox line one face I like a zeal
Done, I am done

....look how tight the spread was and how rich these words are...
we should have acted like poet's and played for money
next time we can honor Bukowski and Carver

Ahmed’s Poem: Loxy Lady

A jupe a wo a no,
zeal and line and chi.
hers. me.

A face a bun a run,
lox and tire and qi
her note. mi.

A pad a gob a mean
zu and zex. i.v.
her toys. me.

A rise a tit a cow,
di and meats divvy
her elf. her leaf. her meat.

A rile a jog an aw,
done when one like qi.
her one her gate her bat,
her n. her am. her loin.
an ode.



My Poem:

Meat Gate's notes
I V leaf
Like divy cow sex

Ode
Lox di loin
Meats
Gob tit toys

When lines like sex rise
Jupe ran far
Bat face gig
Elf tit pad
Do loin done
No one ran


That's all there is for today. Feel free to try an arrangement of these scrabble words yourself and jot them down in a comment box below. Thanks!

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Catchy Bad Tracks

 
It seems like every Asian restaurant and store I've gone into the last few days has been playing that same pop song by Lady Gaga. But it's not the whole song. I always seem to arrive in the same spot in the song. Not the beginning or the end just that annoying middle.

I know you think you're special
When we dance real crazy
Glam-aphonic, electronic, disco baby
I like you a lot lot
All we want is hot hot

Boys boys boys
We like boys in cars
Boys boys boys
Buy us drinks in bars
Boys boys boys
With Hairspray and denim
Boys boys boys
We love them!
We love them!

My first introduction to this song occurred August 9th at Watertown Coffee on 12th Ave between Cherry & James Street. An old acquaintance, Kim Rule, whom I met when I first moved to Seattle in the open mic scene invited me to Monday night Karaoke. Since she is a singer/song writer, I asked her to choose the song for me and be as cruel as possible. I'd never heard it before so I did it Bill style by talking my way through the song and changing lyrics on the fly to make the narrative funnier. It was fun. A few people were rolling on the floor laughing while I was doing the "boy, boy, boy," line. I'm going to have to have a Karaoke party there in the near future like welcome back winter. That sounds like a good theme. Hmm

This evening while I was mixing the ingredients for corn bread, the chorus was stuck in my head like a schizoid voice skipping back in time to the same spot. And i tried to change the words to: Girls, girls, girl / Like 'em in the back seat / Girls, girls, girls / They spend our money / Girls, girls, girl / With Daisy Duke's and short skirts / Girls, girls, girls / We %&$# them / We #&^% them. But that was short lived. Soon I was humming away to chorus as it was written.


Finally, I got the song out my head with this movie I picked up at Everday Music that (also happened to be playing Lady Gaga too) I saw once back in good old 1988. It stared Anthony Michael Hall, Robert Downey Jr., and Uma Thurman called Johnny Be Good. I must say, this has got to be the worst film I've seen in my life. And I'd much rather have Lady Gaga flowing through my head instead of this horrible story. I paid $1.95 for the skuff dvd that I can never get back. Young Uma Thurman was the only redeeming part of the movie in that she is just as sexy-sultry as she was in Gattaca, which I think is still a great sci-fi film today.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Thursday, September 16, 2010


Mom 2008 at her 70th Birthday Party

Looks like my mom’s not coming to visit Friday for the weekend. She’s been having some health problems for the last few weeks. The doctor said it was mud in the gallbladder. Tomorrow morning a few hours after I pass (or fail) the second drive test down in Tacoma, she will have an extensive gallbladder test.

I’m sad. She was crushed to cancel out of this weekend. I have no idea how many days my mother has left to walk this earth (in this form). I hope that it is nothing too serious. I hope that she will be able to come up in October. 


2007 South of Depoe Bay

It has been many years since the two of us hung out and even longer for just dad and I. Neither one of my parents have seen my life in the city. My father retired from Spirit Mountain Casino five-six years ago. So, that would be 2004 or 05 and I moved to Seattle, December 27th 2003, I don’t know where I’m going with this. I’m certainly glad I got that sticky left arrow key fixed without prying it off.



The last time just the two of us spent time together was when Kirk and Miryam got married two years back in Bend, Oregon. In near by Sisters, I purchased a cool square dancing shirt with a Les Paul on the back, a heavy-duty leather belt, and big brass and pewter colored buckle with a horse head on it (that often draws peoples attention down there). And the time before that was the summer of 2007 when we went to the coast together. I bought her lunch in Newport at a fancy restaurant on the wharf. I put a dollar in a machine and had my fortune read by Zoltar. I also purchased a black Pendleton cowboy hat near a lighthouse a bit south of Depoe Bay.



In some ways I’m a little relieved, only because a bug has compromised my immune system and my energy levels are on the down-low side. I have, however, been dosing myself with a super immune system booster concoction. If you wanna give it a try it works to lessen the symptoms. Here’s the recipe (in the order you place the stuff in the blender):


2 vine-ripened tomatoes
1 segment of garlic
¼ cup onion
6 red jalapeño peppers
1 habanera pepper
2000 milligrams of pulverized vitamin C pills
40 drops tincture of golden seal and Echinacea
1 Tlbs raw ginger root
1 Tlbs organic apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon lime extract
1 –2 cups apple cider (to lubricate the blending blades)

blend until creamy then add ice or a dash of water if concoction is too sweet and turn the machine back on and make it smooth.


It’s late. I gotta get up a five o’clock to get ready for the dive test.



The Sleeper has Awakened


Monday, September 13, 2010

Thursday, September 9th, 2010 Failure

...Backing into the wrong side of the road...
For the past month, I've been trying to get my license back. Why on earth I ever let the dam thing expire, is beyond me now. Oh well, Ce la Vie, such is life, we live and we learn. So all you out there in blobland: NEVER LET YOU DRIVERS LICENSE EXPIRE ! ! !

I took the written test three weeks back on Agust 17th and passed it with a near perfect score. The lady who served me, let me walk away without a drivers permit. I even asked for one and she said I didn't need it. I later called and found out that I couldn't practice or take the drive test without a permit. So, I went back in on Saturday, 9/21, early in the morning to stand two hours in line before the shop opened plus an additional two hours after the doors opened to pay an twenty dollars for a permit. Thus, far I am sixty dollars into it. And those bastards in government jobs have ripped me off twenty bucks. According to the DOL website, if I had bought a permit instead of a written test, I would have gotten two tries (which I only used one) at the written test for the same twenty dollars. I am never voting a pay raise for one of those mother fuckers ever again. As you can see, Tolkien is a huge literary influence on my life. If you've never read the Hobbit or Lord of the Rings then you might not know what I'm talking about.

Last Thursday, September 9th, I took the drive test with three practice drives under my belt and failed the test. I didn't even make it all the way through the exam before failing it.  

See, it says Not Qualified to drive...
I saved my score sheet so I know what I need to practice on just in case you want to be reminded of the different categories: backing, parallel parking, park and start on a hill, starting, lane travel, traffic control devices, stop signs / flashing lights, traffic signal lights, mechanical operation, left turns, right turns, uncontrolled intersections, following, passing, right-of-way, and general driving performance.

I failed the test with a fatal error. The tester wanted me to back around a corner to simulate backing into or out of a alley into traffic. Here's what happened. In my mind, I visualized that I needed to be on the left side of the street instead of right side, but in my mind left and right was reversed. Left-right reversal errors are not unusual for me to make. My day's not complete until I confuse my left with my right a hundred times. And this is why I believe that I have Jewish blood in me, because when I was learning the Hebrew alphabet in college, writing right to left felt more natural to me than writing left to right. After ten credits of Hebrew, I unlearned six years of the Special Ed class I was in all the way through elementary school where they taught me how to write left to right. I was all screwed up in this part of the exam.

On Friday, September 17th, I am taking it again down in Tacoma. I hope I pass it this time.
What gets me though is that when I was 16, I passed the drive test on the first time with nearly a perfect score. And everybody I practice drove with could see nothing wrong with my driving skill. It was as if I never had a seven year gap in my drive history. I wonder how many people with twenty-plus years of driving experience could pass a DMV drive test?


Wednesday, September 8, 2010

The Reality of it Seems Real Now

First Concert -- Daryck Porter -- Age 14

The reason it didn’t seem real was because it wasn’t. Oregon is part of my past and it is highly unlikely that I’ll ever return there as long as I can maintain this youthful intensity—my prows.

Of course, my closest friends will think I’m stupid once they find out what I’ve done; for turning down financial stability in favor of riding this tumultuous bipedal-cycle on the edge of ruin. I will most likely fail and spend my twilight days laying in the gutter from this apocalyptic quest (to uncover what has been hidden in me; to empty and dig out Iron John's pond I stare into searching for that psychic wound that propels me) to pen and perform that perfect poem. Seattle is my home. I’d like to be buried in Lakeview Cemetery or have my ashes scattered over Capitol Hill in the same manner in the “Great Escape,” the tunnelers got rid of the dirt.

Rivers of Light
My mother kind of understands. My father seems disappointed that I could not sacrifice my dreams in favor of financial stability. However, neither he, nor my sister have sacrificed anything pertaining to their core being or purpose for living here. My father is a provider. His Swedish immigrant folks wanted him to be a college professor, but my father's dreams for himself didn't contain their desires. He tried, but he couldn't do it. He dropped out of grad school and joined the army. He called his folks the day before Christmas Eve and told them he wasn't going to make it for dinner, because he was in boot camp. His folks were crushed and in one sense, they never forgave him.

Another tolkienesque side stream: My folks have always preached to me about (a golden calf called) healthcare. Perhaps I someday will care; when I'm laying---a ward of the state in a county hospital---in my own urine and excrement, sores oozing pus all over my body, praying and screaming in my head for deliverance, and where the only word I can utter is a forelorned "hello..." to a government runn staff wehre nobody cares. To me it seems that if you aren't lifing your life now then you're dying and there is no amount of (affordable) healthcare, investments and IRA's, high paying jobs, and saving plum full accounts that will keep a body alive when one has nothing left to live for. It preplexes them that I have lived this way. I understand now why poets die poor and alone.
Painted Pinholes of Stars 

I realized after the job interview on Friday, that what is going on down in Salem and Lebanon are all about my sister’s goals of building an empire. My father is going for broke to finance this venture. There are other factors in play and I’ll talk about them when I can, later. After the interview, I realized that I too can do as they are doing, that I can choose where I want to live, that I can make my own decision about my financial future, that I can and will be going for broke in my own venture.

Friday, in the realization of this, I was born again new. A new Seattle opened her womb to me. I have shed all the chains that tied me to yesterday. So, I can single-mindedly peruse my literary goals and finding the financial support to make it happen. I no longer live between two states. I am water. Fluidity. I am the combination of solid and gas. I no longer sublimate.

Supernova
Friday, I celebrated this birthday by going to the Slayer, Megadeth, Testament concert at WaMu. I celebrated by going into the pit and doing the metallic mosh dance. I got creamed down into the cement floor picked back up and slammed back down again. It was exhilarating. I took some random fantastic photos and two of them fit together like a poem.











Ronnie, Randy, & Daryck Porter













This me a new green seedling and at peace












I think I can. I know I can. I can become.




A public artist.