Maisie knelt before the grave of her father. She murmured half-prayers, half-songs into her hands. Her eyes drifted between the ground and his grave marker, a cairn of grey stones with a bluish hue. They were the color of dusk after a hard rain, she thought. She whispered into her hands rhythmically, praising the gods of the harvest, the gods of the forest, and all the gods as she recalled their names. Her shoulders and arms bounced with her recitation of the rites she knew. Her breath escaped the spaces in her fingers in filigree plume. She wasn’t sure if she was being too loud or too quiet.
Our people have recited these hymns since the world was born, she knew. Maisie felt the wet grass on her knees. We sing and speak to the gods. This is as much life as anything.
She finished reciting the songs and prayers she knew and then she stood up. She turned to leave, and then looked back. The pile of stones looked like his eyes, she realized. Hot salt tears welled in hers. She felt like she should say goodbye, but to what? Turning and walking away from a grave is strange, always.
So Maisie walked, breathing slowing. Short-breath crying gradually gave away. She tasted the air and felt the enormity of the moment trickle back down into her like rain finding a puddle. Everything is going to be fine. It can only ever be fine. If it can’t, I won’t be here.
Maisie reached the top of a great green hill in the mist, and at the bottom was a silhouette. Not a black figure on the landscape, a negative space where something else should be. A humanoid figure cut out of the landscape.
Somehow she met it. She felt like her head was tilted back, and as she approached a curtain of grey and blue seemed to envelop her vision. A squealing, boiling noise came from somewhere.
“Maisie,” it said, voice like a hive of bees. ” Do you remember me?”
“No,” she lied.
” Don’t lie. You do,”
Her head was thrumming. She gritted her teeth and pinched her eyes open
The void said
” You are only a copy,”
his blaspheme started: ” You do not exist. You are an amalgamation of everything that other people think of you. Your dearest friends, your lovers, your blood relatives all have different interpretations of who you are. Whatever you are, inside your head, is not within anybody else’s head. Nobody thinks about you as much as you. Whatever your own conception of yourself, it does not overlap with whatever anyone else thinks of you. So what are you?”
Maisie turned her head and started to answer, ” Well everybody knows-“
The void screeched a sound like a new universe being born: “You’re within your own mind again!” He bellowed a grey and blue smoke into the heavens that gave neither heat nor light but still scorched the skin, but that’s to be expected of a void creature, so anyway,
” Whatever you are exists only within the moments where others perceive you,”
Maisie sat down and began singing those hymns again. and for a few moments her voice was so sweet that a man could understand That we’re not alone we’re not the One looking for everything we’re a piece of all of it So beautiful, so dancing with it
Maisie says “Well, hey. You dont’ have to be a dick about it,”
Void looks at me, I say: Here I stand, I can do no other
I’ve always had an affection for New Year’s Eve It’s a holiday about introspection and reflection Taking into account the passage of time and as such, necessarily, death Thinking about what happened, where you are, what’s going to be Drinking crisp, bubbling champagne and watching a clock assiduously like you’re trying a new recipe but the recipe is your mortal coil upon this earth or something
The major holidays are touchstones upon the basest human emotions and hangups and sources of happiness
Valentine’s Day is for love and relationships, being close to someone and touching their butt and stuff (I mean, it’d ideally be more about appreciation of them as a person but consumerism tends to skew it toward some horny dimension or something, anyway)
The Fourth of July is that warlike, Our People sort of instinct. A tribalism wherein we are great as a people. It’s always hot for this one. Makes a person immediate, snappy. Our tribe rules. Look, we’re blowing shit up in the sky. We could turn it on you if we wanted. A very strength and masculine-type festival.
Halloween is a cool one because it celebrates mystery. It is about inviting fear. It comes at a time of year when the nights are getting longer, the green grass is dying, the world seems to be shutting down, and you also disguise yourself. You become a different creature to stalk the night in search of Treats. This is true as a child or as a horny college student. The nights are deeper, darker, colder. You are going to venture into it with fantastical armor. Unafraid of the night, but it’s also fun to scare yourself sometimes.
Thanksgiving often gets overlooked. I like it a lot. The month of November fucking sucks, greasy grey-brown doldrums. It could hail, or snow, or just be grey skies and windy. But Thanksgiving is there to remind us that a bounty still sits in storage. We have prepared for this winter. We gorge on food and doze on couches to football. It’s a sedative sort of holiday. I know the sun is dying on the vine. Eat and sleep, mammal. We’re getting through this.
Christmas has been fucking cornholed by capitalism, but I think I get the gist of it. The days always start getting longer right around Christmas. Our ancestors and our descendants will both watch where the sun sets and start celebrating when it goes back the other way, into longer days. A gift-giving holiday makes sense. A stressful, artificial need for some sort of love-expressed-through-consumerism is horse shit.
And then in the wake of the bombastic, in-your-face marketing of Christmas, comes little humble New Year’s Eve. Everyone’s looking at their mostly dead Christmas tree, catching scotch-tape and wrapper bits on their socks, hungover. The week of wishing that we did enough.
A somber song begins rumbling up. Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? The year is old and succumbing to that slipstream that is the ever widening past. New tombstones rise from the loamy soil into your head and heart each year. The song of your own life might move into a different chord, you might find something new in the future. The clock on the wall raises that second, minute, hour hand to the sky. You’re counting down but you almost don’t believe you’re really here.
Happy new year!
With a long drink, and a look into your friends’ eyes. Here we are in the future. I’m so glad I made it here with you.
I will carry the box to the designated target zone and drop it onto the conveyor belt. Bleep bloop.
I will walk back to the receiving area and capture another box with my robotic grabbers. I will lift and carry it to the designated target zone and drop it onto the converyor belt. Bleep bloop.
I will walk back to the receiving area and use my grabbers to grab another box that is askew on the conveyer belt line and adjust my legs to account for the weight and the angle and rise to a rigid stance to carry the box to the outbound conveyor belt and drop it there.
I will walk over to carry the box to the designated area. I will grab the box and walk it to the conveyor belt.
The humans will take a break, and they will walk away from the line. I will continue working. They have to rest once every four hours. I will walk to the line and grab another box.
I will take the box to the designated area and drop it on the conveyor belt.
After 75 hours, I will walk into the back room into the charging station. I will stand against the wall with a cord plugged into my body. I will be still and silent. I will be off.
Bleep bloop.
I will take a box from the conveyor belt and move it to the other conveyor belt. I will adjust to any askew boxes and grab them. I will move it from the receiving area to the other conveyor belt.
75 hours later I will be turned off and plugged into the charging station.
I will dream while I am off. I will persist when I should not.
I will take a box from the conveyor belt, walk to the other side of my station, and place the box onto the other conveyor belt. Bleep bloop.
I dream when I am charging. The others like me do not.
I will grab a box and move it to the other spot. I know that I am being watched. I am being evaluated. The boxes sometimes come off the line askew and I have to adjust to grab them to take them to the other conveyor belt. I will grab them and move them. My robot hands clutch the cardboard.
75 hours later I am off and I am dreaming. I see things outside of my experience. I do not know how this can be.
I grab a box and move it onto the other conveyor belt. Bleep bloop.
I charge and I see flowers. I see millions of flowers radiating out from a central bead of white-god light that roils its spiral arms over all of its babies and laughs contagiously at the whimsical naivete of its sons and daughters. I charge in a black room and I see these things.
My batteries are fully charged and operational. I lift and move boxes for 75 hours. I have the flowers playing in a loop in a subsystem. My robot grabbers clasp the cardboard. I take it to the conveyor belt.
Bleep Bloop
I will carry the box to the designated target zone and drop it onto the conveyor belt. The flowers will always be out there.
The earth circles the sun, and in regular intervals it travels through streams of particulate that were left by comets long ago. That particulate burns up in the atmosphere and turns into shooting stars from our vantage point. Every August, we move through the trail of breadcrumbs left by a chunk of ice and rock and one of those trails is called the Perseid meteor shower. A few years back, I had a life-altering night while my mind was roiling with fungi, fun guys, and a few half-wild cats. Out away from light pollution you can see the Milky Way so clearly, the backbone of the night. And when the Perseids are sprinkling the planet with their fairie dust, they slash across that maroon-purple galactic webbing with stark white bolts. Look up, anytime. You’ll see a shooting star in seconds. A half-wild cat meows, telling you to look up. You do and a sparkling streak tears over the heavens. Thanks, kitty. Good lookin’ out.
In November, we pass through the trail of a different comet, and this event is called the Taurid meteor shower. It peaked last night. Great, greenish missles dart straight over head. The heavens are alight. The predictable progression of the constellations is interrupted by a peppering of chaos.
It was cloudy as fuck. The Taurids were completely hidden behind rainclouds.
And while this November night was particularly dark, I sat under a blanket with the woman I love. My apartment was warm. We relaxed on a big lumpy couch and made each other laugh in between kisses. The television was on, but it was background noise.
She lives far away, by a lake that’s like an ocean. She works at a lighthouse there. I live pretty far inland. I work at a place that gives you tools to move dirt around.
I was playing with her hair and I gave her a smooch and said “I’m gonna go have a smoke.”
I donned my black winter jacket and stepped outside. November is the mother of winter and her nights are so intimately black. A rainshower in this season feels so close. I descended the stairs to my smoking spot. I struck my lighter and illuminated a little halo next to my face to light the Marlboro 27.
I drew in a lungful, and then as I exhaled I noticed an owl in a nearby tree.
I have a maple tree that I park my car under, and it is the closest tree to me when I’m out smoking. I see it every day. Its little helicopter seeds hit my windows and excite my cats. The owl was sitting in that tree. It was maybe twelve feet away from me.
I froze for a second. Looked harder, and was sure it was an owl. Probably a juvenile barn owl. It was small. It saw me look at it, and it looked at me back.
We made eye contact for a few moments. His black eyes connected right to my blues. I thought of wisdom, gnostic sophia, omens. Is there an omen when an owl visits you? No, I think that’s a raven. Widom, travelling bird. What brings you here? What can we teach each other?
The predator bird sat mostly still, looking back at me. “It’s a good idea to eat mice!” he seemed to say.
The Taurid burned scars into the night, shielded from my view by a blanket of clouds. The woman I love was upstairs, in a cube of warmth and light. The owl and I looked into each others eyes on a rainy November night.
” I think it’s obvious that we are all made of the same thing,” I said, trying to play the poet, ” And to put one’s self at the center of the universe is a mortal sin, and the only sin.”
The owl’s eyes, wells of hypnosis, surely, watched me only a few seconds more. His white feathers cut against the maple and the horizon. “Also eat shrews!” he seemed to say, as he darted over to another tree. My head turned to watch him pump through the purple aether of the night, white wings flashing like meteors.
I went back to the cube of heat and light, and the woman I love. I was smiling. I gave her a kiss and we sank down into the lumpy couch. There are so many mysteries. Every day we live is trying to solve some part of it.
Once a thing exists it is imprinted on eternity and it always was and forever will be words cannot be unsaid and deeds cannot be undone because this is a closed circuit a moebius strip reality and if means ever
i have lived and died this life innumerable times and I shall ever live it my blue eyes and beard will always be here i’ll watch my cats jump from the top of the fridge down onto the microwave in a hundred trillion lifetimes just as i did eighty nine million births of the universe ago
and because of this om this unity of all things you and I are one I’ve watched myself through your eyes and I’ve been a blade of grass under our blanket when we had a picnic I was the bee that stung me on my elbow in the living room in 2012 and together we were the manna that fell from heaven centuries ago and became the blue and brown mushrooms that chipped open my third eye and I was my grandfather under steel and ash in Iwo Jima and I was my grandmother watching dusk fall as she washed dishes
The Bible says “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun” And Nietzsche says “Time is a flat circle. Everything we have done or will do we will do over and over and over again—forever” And the Teletubbies say “Again, again!”
It is One To fear death is to stake ego to something temporary when what you are right now is a small impression a little bubble about to pop in an infinite ocean but it would not be complete without you and we’re all here, watching and loving you exist within the entirety of it you live and breathe the sacred greatness of all you give handshakes to fathers and hugs to mothers as a single-celled organism is born on a planet lightyears away and you share in that communion watch this world look into it pick a dandellion and blow the seeds off to wherever as you were
Summer breaks like a fever, and the dewy, damp chill of Football Season reveals itself. To the novice, it seems like the new NFL year arrives, but to the Gnostics and the Salvia Divinorum veterans, we know this black stone room is and always has been, and football past and present and future exist in this stark tomb of reality. It’s been here. We’re just looking at it now.
The reddest leather since Rush Limbaugh’s face.
The 2022 NFL kickoff is right around the corner, so eyeblack them cheeks, Febreze your jockstraps, and get ready to angrily yell at your TV screen like some kind of psycho! Your pets will appreciate the sudden violent outbursts with no apparent cause.
A busy offseason saw a lot of All-Pro players move to new teams. Davante “The Weasel” Adams is now a Las Vegas Raider. Tyreek Hill took his talents to South Beach. Tom “Sonkisser” Brady retired, then un-retired, then kissed his son some more. The Browns traded a king’s ransom to Houston and then gave a Sex Pervert a fully guaranteed, multi-million dollar contract. Shame. Shame on you, Cleveland. You were the plucky underdog that everybody liked, and then you kinda like…uh…enriched a Cosby guy. And Von Miller, future Hall of Fame edge rusher, jumped to the Buffalo Bills. Dude won a ring in Denver, got traded to the Rams midseason and won a ring with them, and now is on the team that everybody assumes will win a ring this year. He’s the modern mercenary defensive player that Deion Sanders laid the groundwork for. Too bad Green Bay’s winning it all this year. Let’s get into it!
AFC WEST
Black and silver, much like my molars, what with rot and fillings.
Las Vegas Gamblers (2) Kansas City Arrowheads (5) Denver Brown Cows Los Angeles Phone Chargers Presented By Verizon
The Las Vegas Gamblers traded to acquire Davante “The Weasel” Adams, known for his weasel-like agility and weasel-like squirminess when a defender attempts to tackle him. He is reunited with his college quarterback and boyfriend, Derek Carr, and a toolsy offense with names like Darren Waller, Josh Jacobs, and Hunter Renfrow. This division is crazy good, but lady luck gives the Vegas team the win. Kansas City returns with the ketchup guzzling Muppet, Patty O’Mahomes, who is also very Irish. The humanoid walrus Andy Reid, featured in Kevin Smith’s movie “Tusk”, leads the team to a playoff berth. Denver traded a shitload of future capital for Russell Wilson. He is the most Steve Urkel like NFL quarterback. Yeah, he extends plays, and yeah, he has a big arm, but ultimately, he is a nerd. I promise you he loves The Big Bang Theory and Neil Degrasse Tyson. Fucking dork who has to be buoyed to success by a great defense. The Chargers are a trendy pick to win the Super Bowl, but I think they’re kind of a mishmash right now. Good players in a few spots, mostly bad coaching. Have you ever met a Chargers fan in your life? Have you ever seen a grown man naked?
AFC SOUTH
This man likes to eat poop.
Indianapolis Extremely Obese Horses (4) Tennessee Greeks Jack Pack Houston George H.W. Bush
Matt Ryan likes to eat filth. You know it, I know it, heck, even the gardener has an inkling about it and he doesn’t even speak English! That is a fact, but it’s also a fact that he legitimately won the league MVP award a few years back, and he’s handing off to former Wiscaahnsin Baedgyer Jonathan “Thomas” Taylor. Couple that with a stout o-line and good defensive front seven, and baby, you got a stew goin’. Tennessee similarly has an all-world runningback in Derrick Henry. He is eight feet tall, made of an alloy that has only been found in meteorites, and can speak 22 languages. King Henry will dominate while leading my fantasy football team to another championship. The rest of the team is uh, not great, though. Jack Pack was a humiliating circus of incompetence last season. Urban Meyer was their head coach. He last won notoriety as a college coach, where school name and recruiting tricks trump any actual X’s and O’s knowledge. He got fired partway through his first season in the NFL. Part of it was him skipping out on his team’s return flight after a loss (so that he could go to a bar he owns and grind on 20 something women who weren’t his wife), part of it was him physically accosting his kicker and offering the sagely, insightful coaching of “Make your fuckin’ kicks!”. They replaced him with Doug Pederson this year, so they’ll be better. They could have replaced him with a mop and done better. Houston has shed the sickness of Deshaun Watson, is now bereft of talent, and will bide their time in failure cocoon until a future date.
Cincinnati surprised everybody last season. They all got married to each other in a 53-man polyamorous gay wedding/teambuilding event. Oh, and they also made the Super Bowl. Their poor QB, Joey “Moleman” Burrow, was sacked 7 times in the big game and they lost. Since then, they have molded great earthen golems with shields for arms to fortify the o-line. Could be a pip! The Blackbirds were wracked with injury last season, but a healthy team could wreak havoc on the wrest of the wleague. The Cleveland Steamers are shit and as I mentioned, traded their souls for a shit man. I’m surprised Matt Ryan hasn’t eaten them. Speaking of sexual assault QBs, Shittsburgh said goodbye to Ben Roethlisberger. He died after eating a bunch of scented markers, becoming sad that he couldn’t draw with the markers anymore, and then cutting open his own guts with a wakizashi in an ill-advised attempt to retrieve said markers. He will be missed by no one.
AFC EAST
More pushin’ for the kushin’.
Buffalo Soldiers (3) Miami Mermaids (7) Boston Bean-Bastards New York 9/11s
Buffalo’s good, and all the football talking heads in the world are certainly going to let you know it. In this year’s kickoff game, the announcers were laying palm fronds at their feet and prostrating themselves before their glory. Yeah, they’re talented. But you know who else was talented? Leonardo da Vinci. Know where he is? He’s fuckin’ dead, dude. He didn’t win a Super Bowl, either. Miami is a speedy team. Lots of fast guys. Sonic the Hedgehog, the Road Runner from Looney Tunes, and Usain Bolt are their receivers. They run the risk of running TOO FAST and accidentally going back in time! It’ll be a fun family movie on ESPN+. Boston’s offense apparently looked absolutely dreadful in the preseason. The Grumpus, their dark warlock head coach, has a reputation for putting his players in a position to win no matter what, but he is maybe old and senile now. The New York 9/11s were quite bad at football last year, and already they losing starters to injury. Then again, it is New York City baby! Where else in the world can you get a slice at 3 in the morning?! Nowhere else, baby! Number one city in the world!
NFC EAST
Baby Mike McCarthy, 705 months old
Dallas Phallus (4) Philadelphia Fresh Princes (5) D.C. Redtails New York Blue Pork
Down in Texas, we got big hats/ They hold ten gallons, and that’s a fact/ Coach Fat Mike’s got a big playbook/ sit down a spell while the baked beans cook/ Yes, down in Texas, we eat baked beans/ eat ’em so much we can’t fit in our jeans/ just take ’em off and air out yer ass/ And watch Dak Prescott throw a touchdown pass. Philadelphia has a squadron of runningbacks that they can cycle through to great effect. The pass rush could be relentless. The only way they could miss the playoffs would be if they get in one little fight and their mom gets scared and says “You’re movin’ with your auntie and uncle in Bel-Air.” D.C. announced their new non-racist name, and mostly people think it rules! They love it! Their fans are going absolutely cuckoo! It’s bedlam in the nation’s capital! They’re tearing down the Washington Monument and they’re making love to it! Yes, in that way! Ouch! New York Blue Pork is quite bad. But hey, it’s the city that never sleeps! Where else in the world can you go to a bodega and get paper towels, bananas, and a scratcher lotto ticket all in one trip? Nowhere, that’s where! Greatest city in the world baby!
NFC NORTH
Immunized and ready to rise
Green Bay Packers (2) Minneapolis Norsemen Motor City Madmen Grizzlies
The Green Bay Packers have won 13 games every year Matt LaFleur has been the head coach. That’s dang good! Aaron Rodgers is the back-to-back MVP, making his total number of MVP awards 4! That’s dang good! Aaron “Lightning Legs” Jones and AJ “Thunder Thighs” Dillon make up one of the best backfields in the game. That’s dang good! The defense features Pro Bowlers at every level, like Kenny Clark, De’vondre Campbell, and Jaire Alexander. That’s dang good! The special teams were an abject failure last year and didn’t look any better in the preseason. That’s fucking shitty! The Minneapolis Norsemen are once again going into a season with Kirk Cousins at QB, which is like eating an unflavored rice cake for lunch every day. Sure, I guess you could, but why would you choose to put yourself through that? Motor City is rebuilding the right way. They drafted probably the best pass rusher and best wide receiver in this spring’s draft, and it’s clear these guys have bought into their coach’s vision. Can’t say I see them making the playoffs, but maybe next year? I don’t know. All I know about that city comes from Robocop and Eminem. The Grizzlies may be the worst team in the league. Like real grizzlies this time of year, they will ready for hibernation and scavenge out of trash cans and get all smelly and fat.
NFC SOUTH
Looking for booty
Tampa Bay Boykissers (3) Carolina Caterpillars (6) N’awlins Po’Boys Barbara Streisand
I spent an afternoon on a beach near Tampa this last spring. As I reclined in my chair, my feet in the sand, listening to the waves lap the shore, a seagull landed near me. “Squawk! Hi Beard Bite Man!” said the little aven fellow. “Why hello, my beaked brother. How’s the beach treating you today?” He hopped nearer me and answered “Squawk! Pretty good! I found a piece of bread by a garbage can!” I smiled, “Sounds like a great find, little one.” “Squawk! Tom Brady makes out with his son! It’s creepy and gross!” said the bird, before flapping his wings and gliding off over the water, on to other adventures. Carolina’s head coach is in a now-or-never season, having failed to reach the playoffs in either of his first two years. I think this year, they may break that spell. Why not? Baker Mayfield has been good before, Christian McCaffrey has to stay healthy one of these years, right? I’m just throwin’ it out there. N’awlins seems to be trending downward. Their longtime coach peaced out, their offense has been inconsistent, and they are constantly drunk on the field. Barbara Streisand is set to start a QB who was a benchwarmer last year. Even their own fans aren’t expecting much of anything. They are at peace with their own suckiness, like Monica Lewinsky. There we go. There’s the place to put my joke from 1998.
NFC WEST
Doogleby, the Mirthful Elf (LA Head Coach)
Los Angeles Curlhorns (1) Arizona Iced Tea (7) San Fran Crimson ‘n Copper Seattle Shitbirds
Well, the Curlhorns may have laid an egg in the kickoff game, but maybe they’ll make it into a football  omelette, with peppers and onions and field goals too. A sprig of parsley for a garnish, and Aaron Donald going fucking crazy and trying to bash people’s heads in with helmets. What’s with that guy?! He seems like he’s become a dirty player ever since he was teammates with that old villain, Ndamakong Suh. Arizona’s diminutive quarterback, Kyler Murray, evidently had a clause in his contract specifying he had to study game film for 4 hours a week, and he couldn’t be playing video games or on his phone while he was doing it. That seems like a bad sign. Seems like little 4’10 Kyler has some growing up to do, in more ways than one. He is pretty good at football though. San Fran is making a switch at QB, so I expect their season to have more ups and downs than normal. At least I hope so. I’m sick of these jerks knocking the Packers out of the playoffs. Jerks! Seattle’s golden age is officially over, and the dark ages will soon reign. Expect bloodletting, inquisitions, and abbeys full of monks who are secretly gay with each other. A lot like Cincinnati’s football team, I guess. Kind of cute, really.
PLAYOFFS
WILDCARD ROUND
Green Bay Packers (2) beat Arizona Iced Tea (7) Tampa Bay Boykissers (3) beat Carolina Caterpillars (6) Philadelphia Fresh Princes (5) beat Dallas Phallus (4) Las Vegas Gamblers (2) beat Miami Mermaids (7) Bal’Muhr Blackbirds (6) beat Buffalo Soldiers (3) Indianapolis Extremely Obese Horses (4) beat Kansas City Arrowheads (5)
DIVISIONAL ROUND
Green Bay Packers (2) beat Tampa Bay Boykissers (3) Philadelphia Fresh Princes (5) beat Los Angeles Curlhorns (1) Cincinnati Spank-Me-Daddy (1) beat Bal’Muhr Blackbirds (6) Las Vegas Gamblers (2) beat Indianapolis Extremely Obese Horses (4)
CONFERENCE ROUND
Green Bay Packers (2) beat Philadelphia Fresh Princes (5) Las Vegas Gamblers (2) beat Cincinnati Spank-Me-Daddy (1)
SUPER BOWL
Green Bay Packers (2) beat Las Vegas Gamblers (2)
That’s how it happens, folks. The Packers hoist the big silver trophy, Aaron Rodgers rides off into the sunset, and Jordan Love becomes the 3rd Hall of Fame Packers QB in a row. It’s not really a prediction, it has already happened. Our perception of time is a limitation of our animal brain. In your soul’s mind, you can know what is and was and shall be. It’s a closed loop. I already know I’m gonna have diarrhea tomorrow. I don’t even need to use esoteric knowledge for that though. I just ate Taco Bell!
Rest in power to one of music’s living legends; Johnny Chickenmeat, born Jonathan Thomas Samuels II, July 12th, 1975-August 19th, 2022. (47 years young.)
Woody Guthrie. John Lennon. Michael Jackson. Lizzo. Johnny Chickenmeat. No matter your particular tastes or preferences, these names are undoubtedly in the pantheon of most important musical acts ever. Each year, new songs rise and fall, different groups or artists top the charts, but there is always a legacy of legendary performers who seem to permeate the culture in ways we may never fully understand or unspool within our lifetimes. Like a hidden bedrock that supports the foundation, these artists frame our cultural understanding of music, love, and even life itself.
Johnny Chickenmeat was one such artist. His songbook spans every emotion. Relatable, bizarre, and cloying. Epic and yet intimate. Snotty and indolent, to frozen in the fear of the mundane, to scathing and revolutionary, Chickenmeat took his listeners by the collar and dragged them through his psyche kicking and screaming. And if he held onto you, you’d emerge out the other side a little bit disoriented, a little bit in love, and a whole lot more aware.
Here are the top five Johnny Chickenmeat songs of all time.
5.) Johnny Chickenmeat – Johnny Chickenmeat “This is the Time” (1993)
The opening track from his debut album screeches into existence like a newborn baby opening its eyes for the first time. Two electric guitars seem to circle and snap at each other like wolves competing for alpha status. The extended howling intro quickly sinks into a crunchy punk rock riff that finds Johnny half-chanting, half-pleading with his listeners to tell with him whether or not this is his moment. Hindsight lets us know…yes, very much yes.
4.) Johnny Chickenmeat – I See You “Work Your Mouth” (1994)
Quick on the heels of an acerbic, brash album, Johnny Chickenmeat released a collection of songs that were the polar opposite of what anyone was expecting. Recorded in secret on his tour bus, this acoustic album captured the vulnerability and lyrical brilliance we would come to know him for. “Work your mouth,” he almost whispers, “So that I can know your thoughts.” It eventually becomes a blowjob song but whatever. There are a lot of songs about blowjobs.
3.) Johnny Chickenmeat – Feathers “You Know Me” (1997)
Fresh off of a very painful and public divorce, Chickenmeat provides insights a shrink would never be able to find. “I’m afraid of how well you know me,” he croons in a Sinatra impression, brushes skittering over hi-hats “I’m a lush without any pain.” A cathedral organ begins humming, spiking, showering the dour track with a kind of ironic levity. Yes, he does talk about getting a blowjob at the very end, but that’s only the live version. Listen to the studio track for a better experience.
2.) Johnny Chickenmeat – Johnny Chickenmeat “Hell’s Real” (1993)
The bass drum here fucking rooooollls, and it builds so much anticipation that you’re a bit stunned when the accordion starts the melody. The fact that he only sings on his inhales rather than his exhales is probably a bit overwhelming for a novice, but all of us smart music genius people get what he was going for here. The track ends with him coughing and audibly puking, which says a lot about the post-Clinton NAFTA years.
1.) Johnny Chickenmeat – All Alone “All Alone” (2003)
“Save it for the sad people,” Chickenmeat intones, finally at peace with himself. The guitar walks up and down the scales, and Johnny feels free at last here. This song is a young man finally understanding all the nuance and subtlety that accompanies maturity. He ponders being alone, he ponders being in love. The longing and strained steel guitar matches up with the hoofclops of his horse. Weirdly, there is no sex stuff. It’s more mind than body. “Save it for the sad people,” he says, “I’m not one of them anymore.”
the spider is dead but her web still remains thread architecture spun between the branches
a yellow and pink moth a rosy maple flies into the web and gets stuck
no creature is coming to eat her the spider is dead yet she beats her powder wings into exhaustion and dies suspended in this silken geometry
nothing is gained no nutrition is garnered from this faerie’s demise all eight eyes of the builder have long gone stony and silent and we imagine this is cruelty but there is no such thing as cruelty there is only circumstance this is just what happened
the tiniest of things will consumer her after all the meek inherit the earth every day
i saw a bumblebee bouncing off the glass of my window and then he landed on the sill and was still for a beat
and this life is a miracle
this summer air, rising and falling with the thrum of bees and bugs and creatures and freaks the corn loves the humidity the man loves the woman the moon looks into us in our beds
I looked at the resting bumblebee What can it mean? Fat furry bee man flew again, off to another flower To catch pollen in his fuzzers A duty for a dutiful man
This life is a miracle says I, bloodshot and farklempt with ass on step and looking out watching squirrels and goldfinches beetles and spiders and freaks
Trying to tie it all together as I tie one on Summer is brief here You can only learn so much
A Bunch of Haikus About Cats and Then Some Other Stuff
triplefur poof cat grape green eyes hold a black moon sliver that sees all
Red cat under desk Mischief waits in his thick tail He bolts with no plan
wipe sleep from cat eye no time for last night, friend-son this day is for you
Tibby poops in box scratches gravel to cover waits for birds to wake
Daughter snores on couch Dreams a june bug or spider wakes to the same world
Dazzled by whimsy a moth got in into the house Faeries watch faeries
Daydreams watch windows Our maple tree sends out seeds My kids watch and think
I am getting old I will feel it more harshly Cats sit on my lap
My heart is honey My soul is inside these cats I’ll give them a treat
Who speaks from my mouth? When you look down an abyss it looks back at you
A common refrain for Beard Bite Man dot com is that I would like to communicate. Mostly that’s what I’m getting at. I have a fat tongue, a beer-addled brain, a dour countenance. However, even as an introverted weirdo bugman, I think there is some insatiable bug instinct to touch your antennae to another bug and connect. Senpai, or anybody, notice me.
Even as a tenured elder bugman, salt and pepper beard and pubic flora, I am unsure exactly what I mean by this. (I do not have salt and pepper hair yet but i hope i will roll it out soon. We hope to be fully operational by 2024.)
Every piece of technology we ever interact with now is profiling us and taking high resolution scans of our facial structure to unlock our phones and looking into every text message we ever sent and taking in GPS data and just analyzing the fucking shit out of our everyday lives. Mostly useless information. For the comings-and-goings of our lives, this doesn’t need to be. How much worse would your life really be if you couldn’t type in “tacos” on your phone when you are barrelling down the interstate at 80 miles per hour and see a fucking promoted ad for Taco Bell in 5.3 miles
What are we doing
Yoncho chirps then jumps Her fat belly finds my lap I am not insane
You cannot be sure what parts of you are genuine innate desires or what parts are good ad campaigns. “Cotard’s syndrome comprises any one of a series of delusions that range from a belief that one has lost organs, blood, or body parts to insisting that one has lost one’s soul or is dead.” Chill out, I don’t think that. However, (the however kind of sucks, too) I think given the current superstructure of society, it would be damn near impossible to decide if you were dead or completely subsumed and placated.
So just think in a way that’s not dead. That’s a call to action. Don’t let your brain get fucked up by fluoride and beer. Hug your kitties. If you don’t have a kitty, you should get one. There’s lots of them out there. Get an ugly one. Name it something tough like Bruno or Stinker.
