1. |
Zach Arnett
00:53
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¡Corre, Diablo, Corre!
Excuse me, I thought this was Logansport,
where all smoke implies burning.
Nights I sleep flat as map-
assuming Cass County: the
same and Red on every side.
Nod and I'll give reasons to.
Tomorrow I am underwater in
Cass County's still, Red quiet. So
early I'll see anything. Inside every head
is the heart of a caramelized devil!!!!
My dad and I awake and early. All of the
poachers in the early woods.
There are antlers nailed to
gunrooms all like Who Could Care?
Give a Shit? Is it impressive
to cut out a tongue? To feel
it's pebbled top-side? Plum Wasteful
not to eat it?
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2. |
Elysia Smith
01:57
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I am Quirky
I buy bruised fruit
at the local market,
hold clementines soft
in my hands like the mouth
of someone I just met.
I can’t swim in anything
bigger than
a martini glass.
But how you hear the ocean
hallowed in the concaves
of my body
makes you wonder
what other lies
I tell.
You will not be surprised
at how much you want
to believe.
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3. |
Davis Macks
02:52
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An excerpt from an interview with National Inquirer’s The Batboy:
I’ll fuckin tell ya how it was.
First, the Mother Fucker pumped me full of vitamins then
they made me do a fuckin headstand on a piece of plywood
all the while getting lifted up by a muscle boy in a spandex crotch saddle.
You should have seen those fat white people watching slack jawed!
I say put me down you Mother Fucker, I say or else
I’m gonna use these sharp, sharp claws and
I’m gonna start fuckin scratching myself in the fuckin head til
I can feel it or till my brain falls out, Mother Fucker. And he does
let me down, that Mother Fucker, and starts
bashing me in the head until I start bleeding, then
the Mother Fucker gives me a buncha iron to stop the bleeding.
Your wings will grow in soon, he says.
Your fangs will get real, real pointy like,
he says and the Mother Fucker gives me some calcium for growing
but god damn when am I gonna be more’n 4 feet up?
I’m getting right sick of this rude shit so I say
Mother Fucker, listen here, I tell em, I say,
I’m not taking no more shit, Mother Fucker.
.
Not wearing these gotdamn capes no more,
not snatchin no elephant shit no more,
not shaving no beards off no ladies no more,
not lickin no butt mud off no Russian whores no more.
Mother Fucker.
And so he starts feeding me melatonin till I fall asleep
and I don’t dream none and I wake up. Gotdamn!
Breakfast! Mother Fucker gives some eggs with sodium in em
laid out on a fresh plate with a cup full of vitamins. But
they don’t taste that bitter with a dash a pepper so I swallow it.
*************************************************************************
We Have Only Today. Let Us Begin.
Let’s turn the circle of life into
a giant flaming hoop and jump
through it with a motorcycle.
Rev that engine and wear a bedazzled
cape because we’re white with long hair and
shitty mustaches covered in bee’s wax.
Let’s ride up that volcano and watch it erupt
nacho cheese and tittie milk, all the while open
mouth kissing, slapping tongues and spitting
malt liquor in each other’s mouths like
a sexual mama bird feeding her naked babies.
Rev that engine and take a picture of
your crotch for posterity.
Let’s go to Applebee’s© and shove a Bloomin Onion®
so far up our asses that we puke spicy mayo. Our
reversal of fortune flowing like Greek statues
fashioned after the goddesses of admiration.
Rev that engine and let’s kick each other in
the nuts because this is the
collective conscious and we’re laughing.
Let’s laugh until milk comes out of our noses and
then cry as it forms puddles, then our tears
will form puddles until we run out of tears because
we’ve ran out of water in our bodies then
our bodies will form their
own dehydrated puddles.
Rev that engine and realize that we’re 60% water and
40% other shit and 100% inefficient if you do the math.
It’s funny how math is inside everything and anything
but we don’t give a shit about Archimedes and his bullshit.
Let’s climb a mountain and whisper dirty jokes.
Let’s go to a funeral and get free hugs.
Let’s rub our nuts on a sphinx and
throw toilet paper on the pyramids.
Let’s learn how to shape shift and shape shift
into giraffes wearing sunglasses and
roller skate in the Grand Canyon.
Rev that engine without a helmet because
if we crash and die then we die and
we’re dead and we’ll be dead as dead
forever but we looked cool as all hell doing
what we had to do and we fuckin’ did it.
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4. |
Layne Ransom
01:53
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Poem Addressing Leslie Nielsen
Yes yes, I remember, I had lasagna
from a box the first time I saw you
on TBS. My brace-shackled mouth
squeezed my cackles into the TV antennae,
shot them to a nearby satellite and
bounced them back through the atmosphere
into your head, so you knew how funny
it was that I adored you.
Captain Oveur asked a little boy,
“You ever seen a grown man naked?”
and my face flared red, knowing I hadn’t,
kind of because I loved The LORD but
mostly because we didn’t have internet.
You asked the flight attendant,
“Can you face some unpleasant facts?”
and I already had, that Mom cancelled AOL
because Dad loved the women in his inbox.
You said, “Don’t call me Shirley,”
and my parents laughed at once, a rare sound
that made everything seem all right.
You said, “There is no reason to panic.”
And I believed you,
but as more passengers got sick,
Mom and Dad white-knuckled Diet Cokes
on separate couches, silence hovering
in turbulent air, an ocean of carpet
between them – still, you remained calm,
assured the captain, said, “I’m a doctor,”
and taught me your secret: you dealt
deadpan with guitar-playing nuns
and little girls who take coffee black
like their men, because the best thing to
wear is a straight face when you know
the plane is going down.
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5. |
Ryan Rader
04:56
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On Fire
Wes Clapp was fired from work, so I invited him over for drinks. When he arrives, Nick, Sam, myself and the television are one - the video game is called NBA Hangtime, the console is a Nintendo 64, and there's an ashtray on every surface because we need them. Scrolling through the rosters of the mid-nineties heavyweights, we fawn over Dennis Rodman's ability to push people down whenever he goddamn wants, and lament that Latrell Sprewell is not very good and doesn't even have a 'choke' option. The heads of the characters are pastel blurs, and John Stockton looks like Stephen Colbert, in a pixelated, antiquated sort of way. The game moves at a ridiculous pace - it's full of uncalled fouls and goaltending and occasionally Reggie Miller will be on fire, throwing the ball from halfcourt and sinking every shot - just like it used to be.
This was mostly the entire night, at least what I can recall of it. Wes left, seeming defeated. I don't know him too well but he's a nice guy - and guys like me seem less pernicious next to guys like him. We got lit, yelled humorously for a while, normal night, especially since it's Spring Break and I'm in the midwest. Sam went to his room and Nick slept on the couch and I wondered what my free throw ritual would be when I bounced upstairs to pass out.
* * * * * * * *
The next day I realize I have fourteen hundred dollars in my bank account from my federal tax return and that a tsunami has just devastated Japan. I owe the state eighty bucks but I consider it a wash and remind myself to save at least eight-hundred of it for a car. Nick gets fired, but he's less than shocked and more than happy to drink a couple pitchers of beer with the usual cast. The band I play bass for had a show, and it took a sharp turn into surreal darkness when a guy drunker than my recently rich-ass gets huffy about a t-shirt. Sam and I are both oblivious because we are on the brink of obliteration and this little fella slurring about how I was 'unprofessional' was mind-boggling and buzz-killing - I guess my sense of humor didn't appeal to his fine sensibilities. The last time I wanted to punch someone was over three years ago, and I was surprised to see my fists ball up when he insulted me and then tried to shake my hand - but that is a low move, even if you're loaded. The issue was more or less resolved, money was made, beers were drank, and I decided that I didn't want to sleep alone, so I found a bed a little bigger than mine and someone who didn't mind sharing it with me.
* * * * * * * *
I don't get a chance to sleep in late but it's probably better that way. The sun is out and the wind is out and I'm not hungover. I consider my budget and decide to buy some tea. The whole process takes about forty-minutes - I ride the bus to campus, withdrawal three brand new twenty dollar bills, exchange one of them for four wrinkled Lincoln's at my job and joke that I'm taking bets on when I'm getting fired. A few of the people giggle - I've been working here for a lot longer than most of them, and most of them are terribly boring. The place used to be filled with Dennis Rodman's and Charles Barkley's, now it's a bunch of Detlef Schrempfs.
I leave the shop and walk north. The city is overrun with potholes due to a particularly icy February (in the sense that ice would fall from the sky every other week.) There's a small caravan of vehicles that two men with shovels are following. They stop and go up the avenue, scooping asphalt from the truck and into the holes. I think these guys could use what I'm buying.
I pay for the tea and sit with some nice jam-rock people for a while while someone plays Super Mario on the Nintendo Wii. You can actually see Mario's mustache wiggle under his nose whenever he jumps. We've come a long way, baby.
* * * * * * * * *
The wind died down as I walked back to campus to catch the bus home - but I decide to give Nick a call and see what he's doing, which is nursing a hangover through the healing properties of orange gatorade and pistachios. I ask him if he's heard about the Tsunami, and he says yeah and we focus our attention to the computer. We both have beers and cigarettes and the internet in our hands, and we consume them. I tell Nick to pull up a particular video: It's taken from a helicopter floating above vast areas of farmland, and the massive flood carrying homes and cars rolls over the landscape. The newscaster narrating the events almost laughs a little when a house that is on fire floats effortlessly with the tide. Nick and I agree that it's all pretty amazing in the awe-inspiring sense and that the flashing neon parts of Japan are the parts you don't want to be in at the moment. We wonder if a series of cats will eventually pop up out of nowhere and provide commentary on the tsunami. The jokes help - I'm not proud of them, the pithy jabs at death we take with our witty fists, but they help me, and they help my friends.
Nick says that our boss didn't even fire him directly, and that if he can't get his job back he's going to call him out for being a timid idiot, which he is. I tell him to do it, he says that going out quietly from that sandwich prison wouldn't be his style. I agree. We part ways and make vague plans to drink later at a mutual friend's house. Fifteen minutes later, I'm still at the bus stop. There's a clear view of the road the bus comes from and when it swings its weight around that corner it almost seems like it will tip over and spill people all over the sidewalks and pothole infested road. But it doesn't - I get on, and I know where my stop is.
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6. |
Derek Miller
03:05
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Song: "Away"
Written and recorded by Derek Miller.
More at: http://indianastatepark.bandcamp.com/
or for a throwback: http://flannelgraphrecords.bandcamp.com/album/missile-crisis-b-w-bob-hampers
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7. |
Carebear
02:24
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Song: "Chips for Chaps" or "Chapstick Steve"
Written and produced by Carrington Clinton.
More at: carebear.bandcamp.com/
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90s Meg Ryan Muncie, Indiana
In 1989 Meg Ryan immortalized herself as Sally Albright.
Throughout the next decade, she mesmerized us all.
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