photography by Arianna Parsons

beautiful and out of touch

photography by Elisa DaPrato

"...an unmitigated disaster..."

"Columbia Pictures takes a cold bath. And I feel as though I need a shower."

"...maybe the worst acting I have ever seen..."

"What is wrong with the world today? The answer may quite possibly lie in this picture. Look... if you are able."

"If Gus Jeremiah Greenfield is a real person I wish he weren't."

"Run from this picture. As far and as fast as your legs can carry you. I tell you, your very survival depends on your running."

"I cannot stop itching..."

"A work of genius."

"Sunday Morning with Benmont Jefferson"

Southern Relic magazine

photography/design by Marlena Miller

the damaged half of peggy

tomorrow; you're trying to awake to

i heard a song and i said,
"how do i make that sound?"



"i'm not going to lie..."
""you wanted to hitch your ride to that""

Hollywood's Barge-Mouthed Lass -- she tells you all about the shows she loves and the people she hates. She tells you all about the people she loves and the shows she hates. A wet spot in the corner of her mouth, a catch. A circling to and fro. She says she's going to do it all. A wall-eyed looking around, lazy and vicious.

She sees a shiny thing just within reach...and she goes.

There then a mighty upheaval. A terrible jerking asunder. The world come down. An endless moving of lips with no real sound coming out save sucking.

***

We were going to go in there and play "Good Friend, Bad Friend". A poor plan well executed.

But that I could remember the look on everybody's face.

***

"You are in the Liars Club. Just not the local chapter. Not yet, Ambassador. But keep making the rounds, keep making all the dinners and all the parties. Keep writing your own press."

***

There was trouble all along Blackberry County Line. The Dog Ate Crimson was recorded during a confusing time period, to eight-track recorder. An apartment somewhere. A room that was all couch, the windows blacked out. Lafe plays lead guitar, Dollar plays everything else. We were going to call ourselves Glass-Eyed Mariner but it didn't work out, and I'm not entirely sure as to why. We were supposed to get this stuff into Melcher's hands. No luck no nada.

That was everything going away all the time, as if pulled from the body's visceral core by a gravity outward.

The tracks
1) Both He and Vivien Suffered from Disordered Nerves
2) Cold Blowy Southern Californ
3) Ozark Faultline
4) Cash Jobs Cutting Things
5) Me and My Class Issues and I
6) Erosion's Landfill
7) First Step Outside the Acropolis
8) The Habbit (Parts One, Two, and Three)
9) The Damp Mask

Everyone sucked on the same wet cigarette until the light came up -- it was the last we had. Somebody said, "Let's share." I wanted to go back there and get in bed with you but I didn't. The guitars came out, I'm singing "Dog in the Butter" and it's the way it was -- a mind roasting in the body’s juices. The smell of me unwashed, cooked. Just about ready. Just about done. Tremors rose from the tips of toes up, my chest heaved. Hair rose. "Sea Born Shivers." Rising, Lord. The eyes are telling us to go. We only have so long. "Yawn Goh Chasm." A stretch from the top of the head back. Release. And like that, the all of us went. Up onto feet, tall, headlong. Forwarding. Long, moving long and at great length, the feet moving body, the body mind. Outland. This then, the other thing. "Downcountry." No shadows, no yesterdays, nothing. A yowling valley-wide. Coming to, a scrambling. And now every thing can be seen. The detail of every little and big thing. The every surface, the every underneath. An aching complexity. The every thread of every yearn. Where it began again and again. Where you always ended, began again. You forever looking, down and in and in. Falling. Oh Lord, I'm gone -- and that’s the story of my life. That's the love of my life.

You wish to come back. You wish to come back. You wish to come back.

I wish you back.

photography/design by Marlena Miller

photograpy/design by Marlena Miller

Those were simpler, more complicated times. Dingle-dangle go the notions of change in your backpocket. Your silver things, your teeth, all the things cashed in, forgotten, refused. Sunlight cleans the room, but what of you? We were blue, and then grey, and then going off to war. I can still see you there in my mind, so ragged and bold. There was a long-running joke about checking under the toilet seat before sitting down to do your business. A rural legend about the Brown Recluse, the spider. That they like to lurk, among other hidden places, in the dark cool underneath toilet seat, especially at night. And if you don't look before you seat, you might get a surprise. That's the idea we were going for. I wrote "Brown Recluse," and then a couple of the other songs, and there seemed to be just the perfect mix of folks stopping by, playing some parts. Dollar was there. Randall. Bella Rose. Even Lafe came in, dropping something heavy, something heavenly on top of "Stonewall Jimson," and then that fabled final instrumental passage of "The Battle of Troy Robinett" -- guitar like to render you new again. Lost language. I heard it, I can tell you. It was close. Breathtaking. Dangerous. I thought for a while there I was going back in time, living inside of caves, living off the land. Short-faced bears, giant cats. A group of us camped out on the face of the thing, the sheer bangered face of the Earth, living out there. But always with the Brown Recluse. The very word brown. Also the word maroon. I almost had a thought in my mind.