Berlin

Ticket is purchased.

Going alone.
It wasn't supposed to be this way.
But I fucked up.
Your voice is as calming as ever, and putting up with my shit. As ever.

It was very nice. Oh, honey, it was paradise.

Cover Star: reflection
Headlining Band: Lou

When Your Number Isn't Up

"Did you call for the night porter?
You smell the blood running warm
I stay close to this frozen border, so close I can hit it with a stone
Now something crawls right up my spine
That I always got to follow
Turn out the lights
Don't see me drawn and hollow
Just blood running warm
No one needs to tell you that
There's no use for ya here anymore
And where are your friends?
They've gone away
It's a different world, they left you to this
To janitor
The emptiness
So let's get it on
When the sun is finally going down, and you're overdue to follow
But you're still above the ground
What ya got comin' is hard to swallow
Like blood running warm
Did they call for the night porter
And smell the blood, blood running warm
Well I've been waitin' at this frozen border, so close you could hit it with a stone."

(Lanegan)

The dark descends through the Promised Land. I hit the city. Going to another one soon. Without that dress I bought for you.

Without that dress I bought for you.

Cover Star:a ship comes in everyday
Headlining Band: Mark

At Three O'Clock In The Morning, Babe, Well...

Sigh...

Cover Star:I think she's gonna be huge
Headlining Band: I think these guys are gonna be huge

Once She Drew A Picture...

...and stuck it in my pocket.

Cover Star:Friday Afternoon, August 21st
Headlining Band: Mr. Lanegan

Everything Comes Tumbling Down

I've been thinking about a friend of mine who is having a particularly bad week. A really bad week. Here's hoping things get better. They always do. Or they don't. I'm raising the glass anyway...

Cover Star:Karolina
Headlining Band: The VU, from that famous Chelsea Flea Market acetate

Loss

So, the non-traditional narrative goes like this:

It's presumptuous to think that it's always about you. Or me. Never believe anything you read here. Or see here. Really. If you want to know the truth, talk to me. It's really easy. You have a phone right?

Some of this is true. Most of it is something else..

Cover Star: Ms. Smith
Headlining Band: STT

Dichotomy

Why is it that you feel like you can do anything you want to, but when you think that someone else is doing something that you don't approve of, you feel...

...jealous?

This prayer is for you, my love...

Cover Star: Karolina
Headlining Band: Mr. Cave

It's Sad When You Leave Me Alone

Too drunk to go driving and all I hear is....maracas.

Cover Star: April, photo by her, obviously
Headlining Band: STT

Miss

"It is easy to be beautiful; it is difficult to appear so. I admire you, beloved, for the trap you’ve set. It's like a final chapter no one reads because the plot is over."

- Frank O’Hara

You Made That Dance Seem So New

Cover Star: J
Headlining Band: Team Sleep

Metallic

The taste in my mouth tastes like aluminum foil, through no fault of my own, just my chemicals being judged by my senses.

When you have no one, no one can hurt you, right?

Right...

I hurt, metallicaly.

Cover Star: K
Headlining Band: Soulsavers doing a Will Oldham cover...thanks, Em.

Shake Your Halo Down

Mutual support system.
Good friends are often unappreciated or ill-defined.
Not mine, dammit.

And in the meantime, there's a new interview with me online. Thanks Cristina!

Turn the music off. Listen to this instead:

Cover Star: Dean Martin, Steve Allen & K
Headlining Band: DC to NYC, Dischord to Epic, successfully battled Hodgkin's Disease, reunited and playing NYC 09/02/09.

Was That A Bruise Or A Kiss?

"Veins and a rope.
Gold hair wrung out.
Laughing.
From back of the
sheep-shack, a high bleat hum.

Veins map the hair pillow.
Strung out. I'm sleeping.
Its the kind of a nap, though, you don't wake from.

Sky of gold.
Pink and lazy in a pond I lay.
Take it slow.
Drunk and crazy in a pond I lay."

If you've already lit the shot, just put your finger or a piece of gaffer's tape over the stupid flash on the Fuji Instax, ok?

how are you?
fine

Cover Star: Karolina
Headlining Band: The band that recorded "Get Your Goat"

It Makes Sense To Forget What It Takes

"Tamed by Miltown, we lie on Mother's bed;
the rising sun in war paint dyes us red;
in broad daylight her gilded bed-posts shine,
abandoned, almost Dionysian.
At last the trees are green on Marlborough Street,
blossoms on our magnolia ignite
the morning with their murderous five day's white.
All night I've held your hand,
as if you had
a fourth time faced the kingdom of the mad -
it's hackneyed speech, its homicidal eye -
and dragged me home alive. . . .
Oh my Petite,
clearest of all God's creatures, still all air and nerve:
you were in your twenties, and I,
once hand on glass and heart in mouth,
outdrank the Rahvs in the heat
of Greenwich Village, fainting at your feet -
too boiled and shy
and poker-faced to make a pass,
while the shrill verve
of your invective scorched the traditional South.

Now twelve years later, you turn your back.
Sleepless, you hold
your pillow to your hollows like a child,
your old-fashioned tirade -
loving, rapid, merciless -
breaks like the Atlantic Ocean on my head."

- Robert Lowell

Thanks, Lauren.

Headlining Band: Hayden

Hold My Hand

Guitar solo, lyrics, etc...

sigh

Cover Star: T
Headlining Band: Peter FUCKING Dennis Blandford Townshend

You Need Not Worry, You Need Not Care

I'm tired. And sweaty.

Cover Star: T
Headlining Band: Raymond FUCKING Douglas Davies

Part Of Your Skull Starts To Break Away

"make out when you pass out on the sofa kissing any little child that comes along i'm gonna leave on the record too loud for you to hear me spreading technicolor blood i hate it i love you i hate that i need to know what you do when our love passed out on the couch you're fateful i'm hateful and i ruin any kind of fun you have in mind like make out when you pass out on the sofa kissing any little child who comes along"

Cover Star: T
Headlining Band: X

Dilemma

"A dilemma (Greek δί-λημμα "double proposition") is a problem offering at least two solutions or possibilities, of which none are practically acceptable; one in this position has been traditionally described as "being on the horns of a dilemma", neither horn being comfortable; or "being between a rock and a hard place", since both objects or metaphorical choices being rough."

So:

How do you take a photo of yourself as a silhouette walking?

Tripod is not the answer.

And here's the deal: the camera has to be from your POV.

A camera crane IS the answer, but when's the last time you saw that?

Exactly.

Cover Star: Kate
Headlining Band: The most recent Radiohead song. Released today. About the last living British survivor of WWI, who died last week. Think about that. I mean, that this band already wrote, recorded and mixed a song about him.

His name was Harry Patch. He was 111 years old.

www.jamesmgraham.net

Catastrophe

Cover Star: Me
Headlining Band: Shutter

www.jamesmgraham.net

Sounds Like

Cover Star: You
Headlining Band: Boris

www.jamesmgraham.net

He Used To Do Surgery For Girls In The Eighties

I told the man to cut it all off.

He said, "Nooooo...."

Fuck.

Gravity always wins.

Fuck.

I could blow through the ceiling, if I just...

Fuck.

Turn and run.

Fuck.

If I could BE who you wanted all the time...

Fuck.

It wears me out.

Cover Star: Hair
Headlining Band: Fake Chinese Rubber Band

www.jamesmgraham.net

She's The One That You Really Want

A friend of mine said this to me about her.

He was right. Still is. And I still do.

This is going to be harder than I thought.

Especially at night.

Cover Star: Her
Headlining Band: Linda and Richard Thompson

www.jamesmgraham.net

Where Do We Go From Here?

Sometimes someone saves your life and they don't even know it.

Sometimes all you need is a friendly and intelligent ear.

Some bartenders have the gift of pardon.

Gail did that last night.

Thanks Gail!

Still trying to figure out the haircut, but your advice was well-taken.

Cover Star: Home Away From Home
Headlining Band: Some stupid Talking Heads reference

www.jamesmgraham.net