Guns Don't Kill People, Overpopulation Does

FRIENDSHIPMATES,

Hi. How are ya. I'm fine.

I know you're wondering why I've taken on yet a new blogger name--Valentine Tremens--and I'll tell you:

It's for purposes of anonymity. As I become a more serious writer, and a more mature* citizen of this nation exercising my 1st amendment rights, and more infused with the paranoia of living in an electronic age, I don't want my personal-ranty-ravey-silly-place to be the first thing that comes up when my name is searched. That's all.

*mature in years not attitude

Here is part II of my gun poem series

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ARMS & ARMS WITH LEGS

I knew the story from the song

She didn't like Mondays, she shot the whole day down

Boomtown Rats stole the summer of '79

Kicking disco in the balls til Reagan's 80s

Flashed into existence

Nobody really hated anything enough to shoot it 

Into TVs main artery

Everyone busy (sniff, sniff, swipe) making

Powder into gold

Kids were happy in the 80s!

Chopping up their hair and holding

Out their hands for daddy's trickle down allowance

Guns were in the house but they didn't come

To school

Clinton's 90s--what a happy time!

Every baby a miracle!

Every child a precious helmeted trophy snowflake!

Those cognitive enough to watch

Such stellar lives burst onto the scene

Gagged a little at the goo goo ga ga glory

Resistant to their incipient grunge

Baby on Board, please…

I'll be happy to put your baby on a board

One clean cervical stigma

And a whack at your skullful of hormonal glitter

Come as you are to my art installation

Then I grew up & all the babies on boards

Meant something new--

They'd gone back to their Empyrean starting gates

And I was there to care for their remains

Babies on metal trays

Too small to withstand the force of our machines

We embalmed with carefully aimed

Horse needles

In the news one day a gun went bang in Kentucky

Killing a pile of rascals too old to be babies on boards

Too young to be the centerpiece on

Our porcelain slabs

We sympathized with those in our profession

That Kentucky location

Got a terrible death call in 1997

Then it happened in Arkansas,

1998, and we sympathized

And then Columbine 1999

Columbine forever until 9/11

Then we forgot

Kentucky made room for Virginia, meanwhile

Amendment 2 was being stretched like canvas

To cover the long hypotenuse

Spanning the right-to-bear angle

Criminal backgrounds searched but not seized

Mental illness wouldn't fit inside the bill

No school system trained in clairvoyance

Though it was suggested as the only real solution

You cannot pull my arms from their inalienable sockets

You can however learn not to be shocked

When you're about to get shot

Draw your arm, thinking on the right side of your feet

Meanwhile,

Chicago erupted in deadly locks & pops

New venues plowed for random violence:

Malls 2008

Military base '09

TV studio '10

Political rally '11

The theater in '12

Then the supreme Hook

Embedded in the leviathan's jaw

The Hook that punctured our raw bare feet

Because we never saw it w/ our psychic scholastic elementary

Vision

A vengeance so unthawed

The frozen finger that fell on the trigger

And stuck there like a Connecticut tongue 

In winter's vomitorium

We never saw that day until it came

We pulled the sheets over their heads & ours

Bodies who had the right but no desire

To bear the third arm all good guys must grow

Right out of their sandy hearts

I am good w/ my gun and I shoot your bad arm

With my impeccable aim

And reputation

Where do I get my badge of honor

The certificate that states

Good Guy #808 saved the day?

St. Elliot the Master Manifesto Bro amended

His arsenal in '14

With cutlery and automatic transmission

But it was still his right to own the fire in his mind

And Charleston's burning hot '15 summer

Blue eyed visitor bridging gaps

With Bible verse hypotenuse and

Bang! and Pow! and rat-tat-tat-tat…

So, what about those good guys 

Protecting on duty and serving on camera?

Projecting & perverting

A bias cut through black fabric that bleeds

But doesn't fit the

Hypo-criteria

For tragedy's patterned genre?

1-27-16

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Thank you for reading this long piece. You won't regret it when I'm a famous poet. Err…whatever.

p.s. I just heard there is a moratorium on childbirth in Central American due to this new virus that causes babies to be born with tinier-than-normal heads.

I've always though a childbirth moratorium would be a wonderful way (possibly the ONLY humane way) to get the population of the planet down to a reasonable number of people. 

Because guns don't kill people, overpopulation does.

This Is An Octopus Diary, Not a Kraken Journal...

...or a Squid Manifesto.

FRIENDS,

Though the new year actually begins on Mar 21, I will conform to the bank's decree & wish you an all-caps HAPPY NEW YEAR right now!

And though I don't believe in new years that start in January, I do know that the end of December is when America goes underground to have its spiritual orgasm. And there's no better time to reset all your dials than after a spiritual orgasm, so that's what we all do.

We make new pacts with ourselves. We decide we're going to do better things, be better creatures not so beholden to habit. I have no problem with this aside from the obvious one-- we should be having spiritual orgasms far more often! Then we could decide to better ourselves more than once a year.

What have I resolved to do in this new year? 

1. Return to writing for editors rather than myself. Last year, writing got very loud and ugly. I stopped submitting work and tried to remember why I ever started writing in the first place. I couldn't remember. 

I realized that my years as a student, an apprentice, an audience are over. At my poetry firm, I am the coffee person, because I can't say whore, slave or blower w/out getting fired.

2. Forget more stuff. Because remembering stuff is for losers, apparently. Remembering is a lost art. Only forgetful people get far in life.

3. I can't remember what else I wanted to do this year. I guess that's a good start.

Pixel is God and music is an Aquarius

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One thing I usually do at this time is list the music I liked most from the previous year. Did I forget to do that last year? Yes, because I was still crying too much to make lists of music. 

So here is a list of my favorite music from the last TWO YEARS!! Maybe not newly released, but newly discovered by me:

1. ANALOG REBELLION = this guy Daniel Hunter was a MySpace phenomenon. Now he's an independent nontractor. Check out 'Full Frontal' and 'Ancient Electrons.'

2. COEUR de PIRATE = do you love beautiful pop songs sung sweetly, sickeningly in French? I thought so.

3. DAMAGED BUG = slightly experimental, slightly discordant, jangly bug wing of delight

4. DAMON ALBARN =  'Everyday Robots' was Albarn's 2014 release that really charmed me through my nervous shakedown.

5. DE-PHAZZ = they landed on my radar well past their heyday, but if they haven't landed on your radar yet let me just say "better late than never."

6. ELECTRIC PRESIDENT = do I like EP because they remind me of Analog Rebellion? Probably.

7. EXCUSES FOR SKIPPING = punky one minute, poppy the next, always enjoyable. Check out 'Tonic For Hysteria.'

8. GUTS CLUB = I can't describe it--you'll just have to listen for yourself (I'm sure it fits into some sub-sub-genre but I haven't memorized all of those yet!!)

9. HOP ALONG = Do you enjoy gritty, range-y, joyously pissed off girl singers? Me too.

10. MORNING HARVEY = remember a few years ago when I was obsessed with dreamy beach pop (how's that for a sub-genre?) Well now I'm kinda favoriting upbeat mod psyche-street rock like Morning Harvey!

11. PARQUET COURTS = the U.S. version of Morning Harvey (who are Australian)

12.  And speaking of Australia--new releases from COURTNEY BARNETT and TAME IMPALA last year were much appreciated

13. While here in America we heard from THE DEAD WEATHER, METRIC, and PHANTOGRAM much to my auditory pleasure.

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Okay friends…I didn't have much to say except "Happy New Year and here's a list of music" so I'm gonna go now.

You can rest assured that I will find things to write or draw about as the year chugs along. Patience, my darling owl-faces.

Photoshop a dick to this and call it art!!