Dave Christy, 1953-2010. RIP

Alpha Beat Press was a GIANT in the pre-internet lit zine days. Sure there were others, the big name literary magazines with their huge press runs, but they didn't speak to me. My first (poetry) publication outside my town was in the pages of Bouillabaisse, which was but one of the many magazines and broadsides they published.

In hindsight, I knew little of the craft. Had all these "pent up" feelings, things I would have put in songs, but it was coming too fast, and another band was falling apart anyway. No, it had fallen apart, that's right. Things fall apart. But this, writing, I needed no one else. I'm back in that day now, having received comp copy of Bouillabaisse.

And I'm like, ????, what is this. I'm in a magazine with Allen Ginsberg, and a whole lot of other "free wheeling" verse from people I'd never heard of. I'm in some shitty studio apartment I didn't notice was infested with fleas until I'd moved in, with a typewriter with half-dead ribbon. And they xeroxed the piece I'd sent, dead keys and all. With a little "junky" graphic on my page.

So there was some glee, because I'd stepped out of my provincial town into the "world at large," but also the ???? thing. As the years rolled out, I sent more to Alpha Beat. They were my window into the world outside my shit town. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to say Dave Christy was a lifeline.

The long letters and poems I sent, some published in broadsides. Some he said, I'm gonna hang on to these. How many people did he say this to. Is there really a pile of all those poems, because I sure don't have 'em. Point being, Dave always took the time for a personal reply, sometimes short, sometimes longer. We corresponded, off and on, for years.

It was hell nice to find him again last year. We traded email, and he said send me poems. I didn't know he was still publishing, but he was still doing the monthly broadside. I sent some poems, got comp broadside in mail some time later. I sent him my Dollhouse novel, signed, "I remember."

He liked it.

He was a friend.

Shave yr eyebrows & pour me out another phone

I was viewing a David Bowie youtube documentary. A facebook friend, from Peru, posted link. Who is this person. Who are many of them. Will I "clean house" there to just have people on list who I actually know or have corresponded with, as this was my original intention. Dunno.

Voice in my head, lately, is saying be cool. Don't be a dick. Play nice. Voice isn't actually saying anything, but there's the vibe. Documentary good as two of the original Spiders from Mars, interviewed. Bad part was some "experts." Producers and music critics talking ad nauseum. "Experts" always ruin everything.

I think I should "come clean" per this "voice in my head" thing in latest posts. I am not entirely bipolar, but a student of philosophy. The constant chatter of the mind is called the "mitote" in ancient Mesoamerican teachings. Some say it's a foreign installation, that this constant chatter dulls awareness.

Did you ever think about that.

Snow piled everywhere. And more coming. Why did I buy all these Angel Hair Marinara frozen entrees. Another zombie lurching down frozen food isle, stocking up between storms, maybe not able to get out for days. Worry. So much worry, but I can walk to work. I imagine walking, saying the hell with the car Thursday, Friday too.

Imagine the whole east end of Fist City just throwing their hands in the air, dropping their shovels, and disappearing till April. Me walking and not a soul in sight. Weird off-green glow in windows, roar of highway and train, down. Down-ta-down to factory machine roar until April.

Snow

View out south window this morning.

Think we got 18". Official tally was 16" at the time this photo was taken, then it snowed more. My front door snowed shut. Like 3 feet of snow pressing against it. I was in here. The voice in my head said go downstairs and look out back door. It was okay. I could walk outside.

Some snow must have slipped off the roof out front. The voice in my head said Sarah Palin bukkake, and I began the pot roast, in the crock pot. Potatoes, onion, carrots, and a brisket, salted and peppered. Quarter cup water and quarter cup hot sauce. A bay leaf. Being insecure as anyone else, I'd prepared for impending storm.

I was in here, watching TV, having a light, late breakfast, waiting for the snow to end, when I heard someone shoveling off my front stoop. Neighbor's granddaughter. Thanks. Was wondering how I'd get this door open. You shovel my grandmother out all the time, I got you back, the girl said.

Good. I said I'd be out soon, to get the rest. Then I was. A few inches of snow can be a hassle, but a foot and a half is kinda ridiculous. Sidewalk becomes canyon with mountains of snow shoveled 5' high. You have to toss the shit good or it will tumble back down. Forgetaboutit.

Finally met my new neighbor. Stepping back a bit, I live in a townhouse. A row of houses, all connected. A horizontal apartment. Because I share a walkway with my elderly neighbor it is not much to shovel her out. I go a bit beyond that by getting her sidewalk too, but still, not much.

My new neighbor on other side has a new black Mustang GT. I shoveled his sidewalk earlier this winter. I guess he, or someone, got my side today. He didn't say when I met him out back. Fucking Mustang GT. I want one of those things, but don't. My motorhead days were decades ago, when there wasn't so much traffic.

The voice in my head said fuck you Mustang GT man. We're digging out our parked out back cars, talking, then we're digging out the alley behind our houses. I didn't intend to do this, he started it. He's like half my age. Dunno how long it took, an hour. Who knows when the plows will come. It's night now, and they still haven't plowed out front.

We dug it all out, and man, I was sweating. I guess we roused the macho in some other neighbors, because I was back in here, my clothes drying out, sucking down water, when I heard them out there, shoveling out the rest of the alley. If I were 10 years younger, woulda pulled on my boots and gone back out there.

Delete this tomorrow

It was weird. When I moved in here in '96, I didn't notice at first. Because one of the rooms was pink. Not just pink, but PINK. Something needed to be done about PINK room immediately. I guess I went to hardware store, came back with paint. Teal. And semi-gloss gray for trim. Die PINK room, the voice in my head said. This was my Corona year, and the voice in my head also said, please don't have a PROBLEM.

Because I had a PROBLEM, not so much per drinking (okay, there was a problem), but a PROBLEM with empty beer cases piling up. I mean, sweet Jesus, you wouldn't believe how many empty cases I left at apartment, when I moved out. So, painting and please don't have a PROBLEM. Because it's okay to trash an apartment and not leave a forwarding address, but this is your house, etc.

But what. Previous owners must have been hell smokers. Washing the walls before paint. Imagining them just smoking all night and day. And farting beef farts. I mean, sweet Jesus, the shit that came off the walls before paint. And who likes green shag carpet. Oh, someone with cat-piss stains underneath, I found.

The weird thing I didn't notice was peg-locks on the outside of bedroom doors. Who does that. Were there children screaming. Are there ghosts in the walls. Have I tamed them.

Doom

20 reasons Global Debt Time Bomb explodes soon.
Great Depression II? Many say it's coming, and this author makes some good points.

I recently viewed Michael Rupport's "Collapse 09" documentary. In it, Rupport ties population explosion since 1900 to oil, and that growing populations will not be sustainable when we run out of oil. And we will. Rupport makes many valid points. As the film ends we find he cannot pay his rent and is facing eviction.
Independent journalist Michael Ruppert predicted the global recession. Now he's foreseeing an imminent energy crisis.

Hmmm, let's look at this -

Holy hell.

Wait a minute, baby

It's a long walk uptown, &
careening, & cold. I begin
running. I run as much as
I can, half-mile or so,
walk the rest. I'll eventually
be able to run most of the way.

When I get there, there's free
hot coffee. They drink coffee all
day. They drink & chainsmoke.
Didn't I tell you this. I did not
speak of the machines, they
could eat your arm, and I did

not speak of tales heard of people
being drug through the machines,
nothing but bones & some pulp
spit out other end. People are
cold, baby. They look thru office
windows like watching TV.

Did I tell you about Dean, the
foreman. I know I did but what
I did not say was I found in Dean
a father figure I was lacking. It
began snowing, & your song came
on the radio. You do not know it's
your song, I put you there,

in my head, singing, so the machines
would not eat me.

What was that?

Something. '''O''' forget it.
When the fever breaks you're
standing in a room gnawing on
a chicken bone, your sweaty
tee shirt stuck to the wall.
That song is again running
thru your head, it's not just
a song, but a memory.

Presently on 10th street.
Mike has gone to cop dope
from one of the many neighborhood
dealers. We stand there, looking up.
Up at the night sky. It's your first
visit to NYC. It's 1983, I think.
Said song - Red Skies at Night -
in head.

Skies not red, off yellow. They
on radio in head. Mike comes back
with the goods, you still have the
Mustang. We are going somewhere
unknown. We end up at St. James
Hotel, on 45th st. Did you ever
see that movie, Big, with Tom
Hanks.

That's the place. Whores in the
lobby. You are asked if you want
the room for an hour as you look
at the whores. You say all night,
pay the man, go up with your two
band mates. Tension of the 80's
in air, Red Dawn. It's winter.

Use the heroin, go downtown,
St Mark's. Walk around, talk,
this and that bar, go back, more
heroin. Hotel room two rooms. Big.
Bed, two couches. Hole in wall used
to be fireplace. TV with nothing, but
radio works. This not the end, let's

stay up late. We have so many plans.
Not going back so tag the walls, NL
logo. Mustang parked by NY Times bldg.
That was funny, racing cabs up the
avenue, we'd better get back. It's
snowing in Manhattan. It's really
coming down in Jersey, car all over

the road. We trade drivers so we
can shoot the last of the heroin
on the way, nutty. Tires barely
legal. Heater non-functional, and
hole in exhaust pipe sending fumes
into car. That's the R&R life. Leave
windows open a crack. Down, down

through New Jersey into PA. Lehigh
plateau tundra, down further between
mountain ridges, white knuckled half
nod down-ta-down to Fist City hovel
where it all wears off.

The physical world

What is it to have half a head cold. It's a little weird. Seemed to hit full strength yesterday, but still not much snot. Slight fever. Guts a little fucked up.
Today the fever seemed to hit harder. At work in black hoodie. Hey, you cold? No. It's Monday, and I look more like the grim reaper with hood up. There. There you go, grunge puppets.

Either the fever broke or I worked up a sweat by mid-afternoon. Still a little swimmy in the head. More than usual. Something going around. Bindery super looked like the walking dead this morning. Two people called off.

Been buried in work, after slow times last year. Word on the street is businesses are restocking inventories after cutting to the bone during recession panic. I'm seeing this in microcosmic sense.

What does it mean to worry about these things now. When I was broke, I never gave it much thought. Just thinking day to day. Will I ride my bike in the snow, or take the bus to work. When I worked across the river, I rode through everything. Rain, snow, whatever. This was 20 years ago. Seems a long time, but I was 32 for cripes sake. People at 32 are supposed to be more stable. At least have a car.

Those were barfly days. Someone who was leaving town offered to sell me his car for $500 and I said no. A couple weeks later, he said he'd just give it to me. I again said no. Those were anarchy days. The rule of thumb is people with nothing want to burn the world. People with something want to become part of the community, build a world.