Revolution on Canvas, Volume 1 Read online

  For Charlene Rogers

  Copyright

  Grand Central Publishing Edition

  Collection copyright © 2004 by Ad Astra Books, Inc.

  Epigraph is excerpted from “lars jansson: ballads” by Gerald Locklin,

  copyright © 2004 by Gerald Locklin. Used by permission.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Grand Central Publishing

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  www.twitter.com/grandcentralpub

  Grand Central Publishing is a division of Hachette Book Group USA, Inc.

  The Grand Central Publishing name and logo is a trademark of Hachette Book Group USA, Inc.

  First eBook Edition: November 2009

  ISBN: 978-0-446-57004-6

  “one of these days, I’ll learn from my mistakes and not rush to opinions before I have given works in any medium the time and full attention they deserve.”

  —Gerald Locklin from “lars jansson: ballads”

  Contents

  Copyright

  Foreword

  Introduction

  William E. Beckett

  Jarrod Taylor

  Nate Barcalow

  Colin Frangicetto

  Dan Arnold

  Jeremy Talley

  Jonathan Newby

  Gabe Saporta

  Bobby Darling

  Joseph Karam

  Shane Told

  Mike Burkett

  Vincent Reyes

  Russ Rankin

  Aaron Barrett

  Evan Jewett

  Evan Jewett

  Derek Kiesgen

  Phil Pirrone

  Bob Nanna

  Aaron Pillar

  The Autumns

  Rich Balling

  Anthony Green

  Brandon Bondehagen

  Kenny Vasoli

  Chris Martinez

  Nick Torres

  Brandon Phillips

  James Muñoz

  Adam Fischer

  Tim Mcilrath

  Joshua Partington

  Nate Ruess

  Marc Mcknight

  Jason Gleason

  Chris Haynie

  Mark Thomas Kluepfel

  Jamison Covington

  Robert Monroe

  Joseph Troy

  Joey Cape

  Gared O’Donnell

  Steve Scavo

  Justin Pierre

  Jon Orison

  Chris Sheets

  Jason Cruz

  Derrick Sherman

  Andy Hermes

  Tim Elsey

  Mike Elliott

  Keith Goodwin

  Matt Embree

  Matt Embree

  Brian Martinez

  Scott Gross

  Jared Draughon

  Andrew Low

  Alex Hovis

  Jesse Kurvink

  Jeff Davis

  Danny Smith

  John Bowers

  Craig Owens

  Nico Paolo Sy

  Aj Brown

  Christopher Hindley

  Gregory Itzen

  Emergency

  Christopher Zerby

  Chris Haynie

  John Gourley

  Chris Tsagakis

  Jason Cruz

  Chris Hughes

  FOREWORD

  When I first heard Dead Kennedys’ “Too Drunk to Fuck,” I thought, “This is great! Someone using the F-word in a song.” I remember slam dancing around my government-subsidized apartment punching holes in the walls. It was the next best thing to saying, “fuck you” to your boss, your teachers, hell, even to your parents. At the time I didn’t even know the complete meaning of the song, I was hooked on the fact that the catchy chorus kept repeating the word fuck (it wasn’t your average pop radio love song). On closer inspection, I became more aware of the sarcasm and irony in the lyrics. It was a frat boy chant denouncing stereotypical frat boy behavior. I had a Punk Rock epiphany.

  I thought to myself, after years of AC/DC and Rush, there was finally music with a lyrical content that went beyond telling stories about fantasy worlds, and bar room bravado. I wanted to hear more. Instead of getting “shook all night long,” my brain and value system got a wake up call. These Punk Rock poets were speaking out about the ills of government, the shortcomings of a Napoleon complex and the hierarchy of economic classes in our nation’s capital. I learned about politics, psychology and sociology by reading the lyrics of Jello Biafra, Ian MacKaye, and Steve Polcari from Marginal Man. Here were prophetic, pro-active speakers using music as a tool for change.

  Twenty years later, the values that I learned about growing up in the D.C. scene still hold true. Actions speak louder than words, but it was those words that inspired action. Too many bands out there underestimate the influence their lyrics have on people, and that irony can be a double-edged sword. Responsibility is literally in your hand.

  Rusty Pistachio

  H20

  INTRODUCTION

  If you’re reading this book, you’ve probably seen them— in a library or a bookstore or on a subway—posters of Shaquille O’Neal or Cameron Diaz or Al Gore (holding favorite books) and telling you to do one thing: Read! Somberly clad actors on the big three networks say the same thing. And so does my 17-month-old son (about 219 times a day)—“Read, read, read, Da Da!” And so I do. He crawls in my lap and off we go into lands of primary colors and levitating fruit and numbers dressed like people and farm animals. It’s not sophisticated stuff. He’s not yet ready for Hamlet or Camus or even a standard-issue Grisham novel. But by reading these little books now (these books whose A-B rhymes invade my sleep and whose monosyllabic words cloud my lectures at school), someday he will be. Admittedly, I am lucky. I was brought up with books, frequently read to, taught to read well by both teachers and my parents. My son will have the same luck as Shaq and Cameron and Mr. Gore and me. So the statistics say. Reading parents produce reading children.

  I am always deeply affected—saddened mostly—that so many of my students come from homes where there are no books. Most of them will attest to this, when asked, without hesitating—some of them, oddly, with a bit of bravado. Unfortunately, it’s no wonder that these students are the ones who struggle with even basic writing. It’s no wonder that the source of their struggles (those with learning disabilities not withstanding) is of course the lack of exposure to reading materials, and often reading parents, at home. Obviously, the students to whom I refer here have at least basic literacy skills or they wouldn’t be able to survive even the first semester of college. Of course there are those far worse off than those who can eke out a C- in freshman or even remedial composition.

  So what about those who can’t read a sentence? How can they be helped? And who will help them? There are innumerable reasons—individual and systemic—for illiteracy and weak reading and writing skills. Economic issues of course come to everyone’s mind first. How can a child learn to read and appreciate books if there is no money for books and no one to take the child to the library or to sit with him and sound out the word “ca, ca, carrot” or “butterfly”? Many parents are simply not available because of second (and third and fourth) jobs. This combined with the simple fact that many parents can’t read well themselves makes the origins of illiteracy far less mysterious. Illiteracy, like poverty, is hereditary.

  But there is hope and hel
p. And there are people who care. The musicians whose ideas and words that are featured in this wonderful book are committed to making people aware of the problem of illiteracy in the United States and of the programs available to combat illiteracy. Programs like the National Center for Family Literacy (famlit.org), to whom the proceeds of this book will be donated, succeed in improving the literacy skills of both kids and their parents by bringing them together in a supportive environment and teaching them side by side, so that they learn together, improve together, and encourage each other to work toward a common goal—the goal of making their family a literate one. How beautiful.

  John Payne

  Associate Professor of English, Cypress College

  In an attempt to preserve the integrity of the work, we have chosen to leave the text as it was when we received it. It’s not our business to decide who meant what where, and we don’t want to insult anyone with blanket editing that might sacrifice what was meant by the work in its original form, whether it be on a type-written page, or a drink-stained napkin.

  WILLIAM E. BECKETT

  The Academy Is…

  Realization.

  Enter The Author.

  Home. Security. Illusion. Ego. Self. Lust. Blame. Sloth.

  Betrayal and Fear.

  Enter Panic.

  Journey. Road. Quest. Reflect. Chaos. Discover. Condemn.

  Adjust and Change.

  The search has begun. This is Page One.

  Men meet your maker, I give you “The Author”.

  He may look familiar because he looks like your mirror.

  You’ve lied like a lawyer, but don’t deny it when you’re

  face to face with demons dancing off of mirror images

  reflecting all that you wanted. So far from perfect.

  Enter The Mirror.

  Onward, we will strive for betterment.

  Take it for what it’s worth, this truth that you’ve realized.

  You’re not who you thought you were, it’s time you see the other side of what you have become… Nothing but

  Single serving selfish chapters of sacrificial moral standards.

  No stranger to apathy in Bold situations. Take your time to make it happen.

  Bring your mirror, and spare your excuse for a self-serving mystery.

  This is a drastic endeavor. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

  Take it, or leave it, if you will.

  From this point on, it’s Courtrooms and Battlefields.

  The way you thought it would all work out… we’ve hit

  Autumn.

  Just follow the storyboard. The Fall of The Author.

  From this point on, it’s Exposure and Recovery.

  take it, or leave it, if you will.

  Exit The Author.

  JARROD TAYLOR

  In Reverent Fear

  The Spokes of a New Tyranny

  we’ve set our mark upon the baron shade we’ve made,

  with the taste of our mistakes and the heat of our decrees.

  the broken sped throughout into the air of distant plains,

  i’m holding up your prudence and betting further dares.

  still rusty with subjection and fruitful in our march,

  you’re downstairs and i’m here spinning clever fate in the dark.

  with the hate in your remarks when you’ve spoken only love,

  i’m praying for health and you’re praying from above.

  so we danced and we laughed at the normalcy of good fortune,

  her eyes ever glowing in sickness and in health.

  with focus and chemistry we took the world alive,

  sorting through musings of a life i cannot provide.

  she’s in love with ideas i’m in love when she cries,

  her neck gently bending and shaping the night.

  the morning is begging us awake yet holding softer,

  she’s the taste of a millionaire, and i’ve the wallet of a pauper.

  JARROD TAYLOR

  In Reverent Fear

  The Butcher/The Barber

  Cinnamon glowing the vices that I want to be bound to. The calming breaking down the rain on the asphalt. Wet with fever like I’m missing the better. And I know this is just the beginning. Still I wait, with suitcase.

  With the math of you and I aside… it’s the skin on your jawbone, woven into you. One more pausing silence. Two dimes on your eyelids. Third time’s a charm, and the fourth time is too far. I adore mi amor. I am the patron shaking and you’re only dreamed. Pure and Golden, here are gifts from the thousands before. To HEAR the voice of the angels, “Raise anew!”

  I’m recovered because you’re warm in truth. Still I wait, with suitcase.

  With the math of you and I aside… it’s the skin on your jawbone woven into you. You are my serenity, when I think of you, I forget to breathe.

  NATE BARCALOW

  Finch

  Veins coarse, wet, abrasive. Dimwitted

  Happiness

  On and on about the neverminds of Me

  Scratch your bloody itch-

  This is The Tourniquet-

  One more for Innocence, with a sad face

  Looking at this…

  Well, what’s left of It.

  Never a dull moment

  A Lonely Desert Night to build a Fire

  Warm this abandoned meat-

  Reckless and ignorant

  A Victim of black and white.

  COLIN FRANGICETTO

  Circa Survive

  What It Means to Travel the Straightest test Line:

  placed, so out of focus

  somehow i find myself inside the frame

  within this concrete empire

  i

  swear

  to

  leave

  stand and absorb all the scapes of the land

  stare harder, with intentions of figuring it all out

  and then held for ransom,

  who would make this trade?

  the blurring rails and power plants

  have me thinking that ive lost the way.

  DAN ARNOLD

  A Static Lullaby

  …Of course I hear you!

  You’re the taste upon my lips when I wake.

  Sometimes you’re the only faith I have.

  Searching…always searching for more.

  I’m enslaved by you, but you make me feel as free as can be.

  I want to touch you.

  I’ll catch your scent on the air and my feet don’t

  stop, they can’t stop! We must keep dancing in your name!

  MUSIC

  The only air I breathe.

  JEREMY TALLEY

  The Bled

  Perfect Teeth

  i taste your wife your kids your new car.

  accessories.

  i taste your game show grin. your perfect teeth.

  i reach and miss. i spit at ceiling fans and sundowns.

  your name under my pillow. your eyelash on my lips.

  make a wish.

  you sold me everything.

  i taste your new home in flames.

  i taste your calloused typewriter paws.

  oh so television.

  success.

  your secretary is the mistress i never had.

  glowing.

  i smell your teenage daughter’s tears.

  she reeks of sedatives.

  i need this.

  i try to become you.

  anything to escape this sk(prison)in.

  JONATHAN NEWBY

  Brazil

  Your Name Ajain?

  ok

  you just walked out the door with the won’t-ever-happen-again

  ok

  it was supposedly incommunicado

  ok

  not that I’m jealous or upset or feel strange in any way

  well …ok

  JONATHAN NEWBY

  Brazil

  A Poem About Love and Hate in the Informatio
n Age

  10010111000101101001

  10010010101010101001101010

  1010010110LOVE101001001

  100101011010010010101001

  11010010100101010101010

  0101100101HATE0101001010

  01001010010101001010.

  JONATHAN NEWBY

  Brazil

  Logic

  Four commuters are riding in a train car. One gets up to use the restroom. Upon his return he finds another passenger has taken his seat. The woman next to the passenger that took the first passenger’s seat is wearing a red overcoat. The man across from the woman wearing the red overcoat is not the passenger carrying the briefcase. The man with the briefcase was there from the beginning and has not moved. Seconds later they were all killed when the train derailed.

  JONATHAN NEWBY

  Brazil

  Three Haikus

  irony of chance

  on the corpse of truth I dance

  bitter end romance

  ...

  honestly I’m not

  nothing happens fast enough

  words confuse the thought

  ...

  seconds tick away

  the illusion starts to fray

  je suis désolé

  GABE SAPORTA

  Midtown

  The Tragedy of the Human Condition

  I’m still waiting for the news dad,

  That she’s gone and never coming back.

  I can’t go on because the strength I had is gone

  And I find it hard to get out of bed

  Oh yeah, don’t you know it’s true son,

  You can’t really know someone.