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1. |
Mamasong
02:56
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1) Mamasong
I know your head is weary from all this drama
you were never told that things could get like this
and though expected to make you stronger,
moments when you wish that you could be dimissed,
they creep up with intent to betray and you’ve always slayed them
and all I’m saying is
I think that I speak for the whole family
you’ve spent my whole life raising and teaching
when I say the details, we’d each differently tell
aged variations of praising and preaching,
produce a picture, the standard fixture
the whole way through, was always you.
despite how we handle the dealings, we’re glad you do.
so now I’ll sing ya something soft and sweet mama
dry your eyes, do you realize that my
insistence on being here by your side
I deem it to be muscle memory
it’s created me
I do everything I do, cuz I watched you do it first
and growing up is never easy, but it could have been far worse
had we not had a mom in sight
INSIDE OUR HEADS, BESIDE OUR BEDS
whole house fed, home fires Red
you may-a done it out of duty, but we just saw magic.
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2. |
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Ext. bugs, distant cars, Distant party drunk sidewalk group?
Guy is walking (whistling grapes “doo doo” part?)… walks right by Wesley
W: Evening Sir… I wonder if I might bother you for a cigarette?
G: sure man… mind if I sit down there… (sits down)… (deep breath, clears throat)
This is a nice stoop.
W: yeah… and a good view… look at that group over there.. they’ve been there for a while… the couple near the street is kind of quietly, but not so quietly having an argument about some girl he was talking to back at wherever they came from, and everybody’s kind of swaying back and forth… I love this town…
G: You live downtown?
W: nah, just passing through… but I used to work on a farm by Davis… these nights, man… Warm, but just dry enough and with the breeze… perfect.
(sound of opening beer Can) Want a Beer?
G: sure!, thanks… ooh Heineken… Cold, Nice.. thanks Man… My name’s Aaron…
W: Wesley, good to meet you, thanks for the smoke… you been having fun?... the town’s bumping tonight!... a bit less sleepy than I remember…
G: yeah, these second Saturday art walk nights, it’s pretty jumpin… but it’s a mixed bag… lotta suburb people come out… some lame-asses… but lots of cool cats too… I just came from the bike kitchen down the street, this bike repair co-op and there were lots of downtown peeps and friends… good beer… borrowed a friend’s bass to play a set, and just thought I’d walk the streets… there is an electricity when there’s this many people downtown…
W: yeah, man, it’s a good good thing to get people out of their houses, get the urban center social and active… I’ve noticed the light rail expanded, and I’ve heard some smart conversations while sitting here… I’m feeling good about the humanity in this town tonight…
G: yeah, I like how you put that… sometimes I can get down on this place…
W: yeah, me too …it’s a Hard World sometimes … people are so set in their ways, and those ways happen to revolve around this closed off fast paced mass paranoia… people are too busy working and watching TV to grow their own food, so they eat the shitty food the industries feed them, and then they go out lacking proper sleep and nutrition, much less a feeling of accomplishment, driving around with these pop culture notions of fashion and friendliness… we’re more worried about how we look than actually expressing ourselves to the fewer and fewer people we come into contact with… THE INDIVIDUAL… owner of things… with this sense of self-importance that makes us all more vulnerable feeling than anything ever could… nobody wants to touch anything not wrapped in plastic, you know… fucking plastic… we’ll end up full of plastic… I’m tired and ranty, sorry
G: NO, I get it man, I get it… it’s all enough to just make me drop out, you know… a local songwriter friend says in a song, “I’m moving out to the woods where I belong”..
W: Ha… that’s a good line… yeah, I did that, got out, got away… it helps, it’s fun… get out to that nature while it’s still there… I imagine the population is gonna keep growing, and those trails and the wilderness will just keep getting more and more crowded… I’ve lived on a bunch of farms, and got to know some pretty small rural communities, and it’s nice, and peaceful… but I keep coming back… to the city, to the people… you can’t escape it, really… maybe I just got bored… but, heck, even in those small communities, a fucking wal mart would come in, and it would just remind me of the rest of the world and… I don’t know. I’m addicted to being around the people.. for better or for worse.. see it all go whatever way it’s gonna go…
G: yeah, I know what you mean.. it’s much less stressful to just be mindful of doing what you can in the way of the right thing, and trying to influence anybody who will listen… but beyond that, worrying about it will just kill ya… I should get into politics…
W: man, it’s pretty hard to get into politics… you need tons of money, and it takes up all your time.. I’ve known a couple good small town politicians, and even those guys were a bit weird, and self centered… their marriages went to shit…
G: yeah, that’s what I hear… ugh.. there’re so many smart forward thinking people who could do it, but they just don’t have the money and connections…ahhh well… can I have another beer?
W: yea… (can opening sound) yeah, man, it’s a machine, and it takes tons of work to change it… makes for a good argument for some of the more drastic sentiments of our anarchistic revolutionary brothers… it’ll almost take an army of people, doing stuff like blowing up factories and stuff to influence anything outside of our current fucked up political climate… God Dammit… you just gotta keep yourself happy, and be nice to people on the whole… I guess I’ve found peace in some pretty simple living…
G: hnh… so, yeah, what do you do for say, money?.. you staying with your friends in Davis?..
W: I did visit those guys the other day, but I’m staying at the hostel up on H street… it’s pretty cheap… I’m actually specifically in town to do a job.. I’ll probably take off soon to do it… catch a guy at his house… I will tell you that I throw grapes at people, for money… I know it sounds pretty weird, but yeah… ummm, several years ago, I was in france, working at a vineyard, with a couple other intern type guys, and we would play baseball and have target practice with the bad grapes, and I just got really really good at it… like really good. I can throw them hard and accurate… so, the vineyard master, my boss, real nice guy, super interesting… ahh, the Europeans… he got ripped off by his partner… I guess they were friends, and the guy just took a bunch of their savings fund and stopped talking to him…
G: dang, that’s messed up
W: I know! …he took the guy to court and won later…
but check it out—I was pissed, so one night --I had found out where the guy lived… he didn’t even try to move away from the small town we were near… I went to his house and followed him… I knew he always wore really expensive clothing.. real priss face, and he was always going out on the town, sleezy barfly guy… so I followed him to this bar, with a bag of grapes, and right before he was about to go in, I unloaded on him… he didn’t even know where it was coming from at first, I was in this dark alley.. it was hilarious!... and man, it felt good… he was covered in grape stains and it was in his hair, and I got his eye, and he seemed in a bit of pain… but nothing too bad, and he totally deserved it… but he never recognized me, and he probably didn’t even remember who I was, such a douche… Europeans… so I went and told my farmer friend, and he was happy I did it, really, but feared he might be implicated… but no repercussions, and word spread quick about his cheating parter’s bad business ethics, and that guy totally left the small town like a few weeks later… it was awesome… and the farmer guy gave me a hundred bucks or so, and hooked me up with a job on a larger farm near Paris... those were good times… and I started telling people that I could do some damage in a non-violent way… and people totally took me up on their offers… often I’d get people in fancy clothing on their way out, I’d be hired by a scorned lover… one time a guy wanted me to ruin the computer servers at his office… that was weird… he blocked the back door partly open, and I snuck in, and just poured grapes all into the servers in the computer room…
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3. |
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2) The one thousand dollar grape drive-by
I once met a guy, and he told me of his life, and how he makes a living. Among other things, he sometimes gets paid money in exchange for throwing grapes at people. He’s very accurate, and he knows what to hit to stain the shit, and where to throw to make bruises grow. A hit man who uses grapes in lieu of more violent weaponry.
This is an attempt at a theme song for him, uttered in his voice:
Hello Pretties, Can I spit a couple ditties
Just pretend y’all are kitties, let me rub up on your titties.
A drive-by costs about twenty fitties, and
I need to let you know that I use grapes because
They break in splattering motions
Soak into your skin like a fine wine lotion
And if that don’t work then I’ll use some potion
Made up of old cat hair
And as I leave the house I leave the good music playing
for the ghosts in case they care
What I mean is, I swear
to do it by natural means
no fake screams, no shaving creams
No forcing of bad ones to stare into a
Picture inside of a picture inside of a picture inside of a frame (we are a)
Picture inside of a picture inside of a picture inside of a frame
I align with odd forces, I eat late night meals
Sometimes, six courses....for my six divorces
I will grape-drop your volvos and shiny new porsches
Cuz I Hate excess like a horse is a horse is a
Picture inside of a picture inside of a picture inside of a frame (we are a)
Picture inside of a picture inside of a picture inside of my brain
Viticulture expert, Shining up his guns
With grapes, he’s always willing and wanting to get some
I can rain stains on almost anything
Pick a dude, his attitude, give me room, I’ll make it sting
The smaller the Vineyard the grapes come from, the wider the ring they leave
Lean back, snap off, they wizz, I sing
“Inebriated, so now I thank God”
(all the girls sing)
The Forces Surrounding Him are Odd!
Something here smells like poo
and to the same degree you think it may be me, I think it’s you
On your shoe....bugaboo
The breakbeat shrug of your shoulders
opens your top secret folders
and I see now that you’ve grown colder
A heartless soulless soldier, but you’re
certainly not as tough as you look.
They’re called natural laws, and No, you can’t buy the book,
but you can buy me some grapes and tell me what they took
And I will make them pay
Viticulture expert, Shining up his guns
No one here can touch him, he’s always on the run.
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4. |
A contained stream
03:21
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3) A contained stream
Dog Balls = floral arrangement filler:
Asclepias fruticosa syn. Gomphocarpus fruticosus is a species of milkweed that is native to South Africa and may lead to death in both livestock and humans.
There is mold growing on dog balls in the bathroom
in the bottom of the house where I lived
half of it was all mine but I didn't make time
to match up her frilly with my masculine
now she lives surrounded by female compounded
you can't walk around without stepping in it.
it's here I sit, enamored with the soaps on the counter
the fragrance of flowers masking my piss
My male friends indulge me but we still don't talk of pee pee
and how it leaves our bodies, but I suspect
most of them, most of men, stand up at the privy.
They been doing it for centuries
and I'd agree but for years now, I been keeping my own house
and I'd rather sit down than clean that mess up.
I’m addicted to sitting on the toilet.
And I can leave the night lightless, shuffle to the seat
without having to leave my dreams.
And of course, in public stalls, I pee straight and tall
in fact, I focus on not touching anything at all.
but there's no place I'd rather pee
than in the house where I lived with the woman I loved.
Lifted seat, wiped the rim that no other men touched.
Ushered at once to the wisdom of a contained stream
and the assurance of comfort that only women can bring.
A household of dry toilet seats
and no one could ruin it but me.
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5. |
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4) This song’s about old people kissing
Oh No, He’s caught in a mid-life crisis.
She will die having never had seen this,
but he’s kind of optimistic about the whole situation.
Oh No, She’s caught in a mid-life crisis.
He will die having never had seen this.
Where’s the love I’ve been looking for?!
I haven’t been in love in the longest time, and I’m all out of wine.
Lost in an ocean that I call me,
looking for something to set me free.
I recoil in laughter, “I’ve finally found her!”
Lost in an ocean that I forgot,
he is all that I am not.
I can’t shake this happiness.
I’d give anything for one more kiss
I hope this love lasts for the longest time
Undressed, she’s impressed.
I never thought love could be like this.
I never thought in my wildest dreams,
that things would end up the way they seem
My life if yours, if you agree, feels so right, it had to be.
I know this will last for the longest time, cuz you got a whole lot of wine.
And now we’re bonded and now we’re together.
Flying over our ocean like two birds of a feather.
I guess what I needed was a second chance,
and if fate would call this happenstance,
then thank the lord for random things,
giving me someone to mend my wings
and all the glory that his love brings.
my soul sings, my spirit sings:
I know this will last for the longest time, cuz you got a whole lot of wine
and a bar around the corner that we can visit anytime,
and lock up, and make love in the back of.
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6. |
Activation-Synthesis
05:06
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5) Activation-Sythesis
All in all, I be about yay tall,
from the tip top of my beenie,
to the bottom of my balls,
and I stand straight,
proportioned to my body weight,
so there are many pains that my ego can alleviate
but I still know what it’s like to hate, I can relate.
So listen Jon, it’s Okay.
There’ll be good days and bad days.
Positions for winners in the games that your life plays,
but the longer that she stays, and soaks up your sun rays,
the darker your pathways she seemingly betrays.
Let your heartstrings glaze, and with no delay,
I say we smoke ourselves silly and
we eat all the food.
I had a dream my wife’s alien baby looked a little bit like me
so I kept him and loved him, hovered above him, bandaged his wounded knee.
Telepathically, we communicated, all each other had
I called him “Jo Bob”. He called me a slob.
sometimes he called me Dad.
The chubby line between us and the stars, went on a diet when I moved to Mars
and now though our perspective’s much wider in scope, the ideas are far too large.
The chubby line between us and the moon, went on a diet when I moved to my room
and now though our perspective’s much wider in scope, the ideas are far too large.
The nightmare walking backwards through the bottom of my mind
Will always keep me sideways, walking backwards, until it finds me
And I don’t mind confusion when it’s served with a dish that’s oh so lonely.
Will you come take me away when my head starves so?
I’ve devised a plan to record all my dreams and
it would go pretty smoothly, were there not so many strands of crazy.
So, I’ll pick one or two, write them down for you,
So that you may understand, or at least which thoughts I stew.
If it’s a fact that sleeping images, Activation-Synthesis,
are formed into stories by a waking mind, then I’ll waste no more time
or speculate that theta waves turned alpha waves foretell my fate,
clean the plates, close my eyes before too late, and I wake feeling great
and we’ll smoke ourselves silly and eat all the food.
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7. |
Kathleen Keating
03:14
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6) Kathleen Keating
She was born under a Good sign, but half the letters were worn away
so her parents took a photo of it, and she still keeps it to this very day.
She says that it reminds her of how rooted things don’t always stay
so she takes her hits and she bites her lips and concedes it was meant to be this way
Her name is Kathleen Keating, and, even when she’s seething, she never lets her pushes come to shoves.
I see Kathleen Keating, passionately breathing, you know all she ever wanted was to be loved.
She says "All the words are wrong, we need a different shade and a different font!”
And though her fingers can’t quite reach it, the notion still perpetually haunts her.
Practicing her speeches, it’s always the jokes she feels she can flaunt
but, they only laugh long enough, long enough to get what they want.
Her name is Kathleen Keating, and, even when she’s seething, she never lets her pushes come to shoves.
I see Kathleen Keating, passionately breathing, you know all she ever wanted was to be loved.
She never asks me for the answers, so all I do is try to love.
Trying hard not to scare her, I lovingly push and it comes out a shove.
Even though all she wanted is exactly what she’s running from,
if it can’t be me, I hope that she believes that in due time, that love will come to…
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8. |
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7) Keep the women happy 2012
I live on noisy wood that has weathered more years than I have stood,
always reminding me that trees will never die.
You tell me, when I get home, you'd like to make my life your own.
well, they're only photos, don't be foolish.
I'm just better at documenting.
In this old house, we go around bouts.
a frightened clown of an aging fighter, providing fruit for a jobless writer.
Hurtful things we say, we'll drink them away.
When we are Kings, you'll remember that I never left you alone
Now, you may say that you're testing your boundaries.
Heart-Heavy sounds, these night time poundings.
No one can blame you or hold up a flame to
the runes that reveal all the pain that you've been through,
but we don't live inside your head.
You taught me so much, about light and heavy touch.
About how to tolerate a man just because you can.
Where the pollen blows, I suspect that's where you'll go.
Away from me, incessantly, passive-aggressively,
always telling you how I MIGHT be feeling.
(When you see Ash, will you tell him that I wish he were near?
I would tell him all about how much I appreciate
the honesty that makes all of the things that he creates become
the right way to do everything…)
There are many more worlds than these,
and a right way to do everything, so we used to sing.
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9. |
Grammasong
03:49
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8) Grammasong
She Don’t believe in spankings
She’s found that the rod frightens the child
But he’s never scared of pancakes
So she’s always cooking them all of the time
She knows that he would listen
Regardless of sugars that tempted his eyes
And she’s so grateful for this,
she wants him to come home to a pleasant surprise.
She watches him grow slowly.
From bedbugs to broomsticks, boredom with old tricks
A grandson with sidekicks, eventually girlfriends
Sex in the tree limbs, Somebody free him!
But please don’t inform him of the balance of fate
that his dreams remain boundless after staying up too late.
(from grandson to his lover:)
This feels new. I used to isolate the traits I talked of hating;
my excuse for stopping waiting.
But not with you.
You’re like a shiny package high on shelftops,
and I am Two.
Waiting for you to fall,
for I am too small.
Take you home wrappings and all.
There’s something that I have to tell you;
my grandma needs me very much
And I’m over there for coffee, and about twice a week for lunch.
Basically I just eat pancakes, while she talks about her day
and she needs this. Hell, I need this,
so if she calls, could you please say
that I’m gonna be a little bit late tonight,
but I’ll try to make it soon, and
I won’t forget her coffee, or the paintings for her room.
She talks at length about Meredith (who’s five years dead)
and I just smile and shake my head at the funny things that Meredith said.
And the table’s filled with Marmalades, freshly made,
and taffy wound in sloppy braids, from past parades.
Well assured my love life provides a wife,
she offers me a spotty knife and rises.
“going to get more coffee”, I’m-a just have to wait.
She crosses the kitchen tile with a shambling idle gait.
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10. |
Depressingly Normal
02:22
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9) Depressingly Normal
He pushes his chair back, brushes off his ass.
Slides right past her, out of class.
The teacher, he don’t skip a beat.
She stretches her legs, crosses her feet
So he steps out into the street, finds it hard to breathe.
Stretches his head up into the sky.
She comes walking by, she don’t say Hi.
She’s just doing what she has to to get by
but it don’t hurt him any less, and he must confess
he can’t get his ego to deal with the fact that
she don’t feel compelled to call him back.
Because he’s having trouble moving on.
Time is healing nothing and his sadness won’t stay gone.
He’s having trouble moving on.
No matter what they say, his inner pieces remain torn.
Drives past her house every night, not looking for a fight.
In fact, he don’t expect her to be outside.
He’s just making sure that she’s alright, at least, that’s what he tells himself.
But back home on his bookshelf, journal volumes swell
with stories of loathing that he can’t tell
pictures of lust that he’ll never sell,
you would think that she has cast a spell.
Because he’s having trouble moving on.
Time is healing nothing, and his sadness won’t stay gone.
He’s having trouble moving on.
No matter what they say, he’s having trouble moving on.
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11. |
Pretty Bright Light
02:53
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"Sometimes our light goes out, but is blown again into instant flame by an encounter with another human being."
- Albert Schweitzer
********************
Well, it’s a
Pretty Bright Light, but it doesn’t need to be.
Any one of us could burn with intensity
enough to make the whole world pause,
jaws dropped, just watching the light show.
Countless little fires, maintaining a flame
ample to attract, yet remain self-contained.
At some point, each one of them will turn unstable.
Some will die down, and some will burn through kitchen tables.
A little fuel can be an addictive thing.
Locked in the light, and you’ve stopped listening.
Harmonies conjured for the roaring, you sing
Louder and Louder
You become your everything.
And then
your light dies down
and you can make out some friends and stranger gawking,
awkwardly standing around.
And you can see inside of each one of them
the neat little fires that are burning within
and the cold-between feeling upon your skin.
You huddle in closer and then it begins.
You ask me if I thought that you were being obnoxious.
Well, maybe just a little, but it’s just what the moment needed
and the tone of your voice was honest and true
and I notice that from inside of you
a few random flickers of flame start licking
upwards and outwards towards me.
And I get a little excited, something inside ignites and
Two Fires become a big big Light.
So Bold Robot, Be Brave, be sated and safe
in the fact that it only takes one spark in a couple of people,
to pull us out from the dark.
Bold Robot, Be Brave, and keep a moderate pace
so you don’t burn out before we get the chance
to let our flames intermingle again.
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Be Brave Bold Robot Sacramento
"BE BRAVE is the sort of band who make me reconsider throwing in the towel every time I listen to their inventive pop
masterpiece ‘Take A Deep Breath’. There are few occasions when you hear a band for the first time and know implicitly that you are going to love everything that they do. This is one of those bands."
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