Author Archives: woodhashope

miniature meanings

(to the tune of that song in Hotel Chevalier)

it’s getting to be a long winter
began before even the fall
with not much to do but look into
the future, it’s but a black wall

so you deactivated yer facebook
to reconnect with what’s for real
and wonder why suddenly space looks
barren and boring, like jail

and you take to the road with some project
and yer fooling yerself, well aware
cuz evryone’s on electronics
and without them, there’s nothing to share (but a glance, little words)

The Arcade Fire took home the Grammy
Tho it seems no one knows who they are
And it means you have to reexamine
The meaning in striving for stars

That one world yer in’s insulated
As all other worlds on this one
How few venture out their own bound’ries?
What work’s ever really been done?

And it frees you from winter and caring
How long you have til spring arrives
Expecting, recalling, comparing
Those “ing” words controlling our lives!

Linguistics thought #6

W , what a weird letter
Double – U ?
First, no, those are V’s.
Second, it’s a mouthful.
From now on, the letter W is simply pronounced “dub”.
Web addresses start “triple-dub dot whatever…”
Unless you feel like saying “sextuple-U”
(which is still shorter than what we say now)

Or rather, “we” or “wo”. Like, whoa.

Anyway, I’m on a bus to Rosendale NY for tonite’s show, I love that little town…

New Mexico, Maybe?

very soon there is a new music video coming out for “Right Together, Left Alone” directed by Brandon Vedder, who also made the great “Judas” video for The Shimmies. There will also be a digital EP, five songs, pay what you like, from Shatter Your Leaves records. More on that and much more soon…

you may have noticed i’ve moved the blog onto my website itself. hope this hasnt screwd things up for you.

Sangeleno New Year

Ring the bells, and bang the drums
The sun foretells, a new year comes!
Rain or snow each afternoon
Earth eclipsed the winter moon
Still we hum a harking tune: A new . year . comes.

Hey all. Out west for a couple weeks getting some new balls a-rolling and tending the old fires. Thought i’d share a photo: director J Cody Baker (center) sets up a shot in the Ojai hills for the new video Won’t Be A-Findin Her There. It was an awesome three-day shoot and we’re all excited about the beautiful things Cody and his fantastic crew captured. can’t wait for you all to see it.

I haven’t kept a diligent dream record lately, but in a way it has made the dreams a little more intense. Last nite included:
I’m at the beach near my childhood home at nite. Much of the town is there, something is happening. Enormously tall waves are rising 40-100 feet, but aren’t yet crashing down on us. Still we gotta evacuate. On the road back to town, on foot with a flashlite, I spot a bear. No problem at first but when he does spot me he becomes a buffalo and charges. I dash up a hay loading chute thing made of logs but he rams it repeatedly, breaking logs and collapsing it and I am stuck.
I’m in the hills, at Rainbow Ridge, where the water is the purest. Someone says that other water molecules are blurry and poisonous, this is clear. The lake has a huge inflated thing floating on it, one of those things people bounce off. There are ancient stone pillars capped with busts of heads toppled and overgrown all around. At the base of a redwood tree my feet get warm, I look down and see a dug out pit where old bark lays burning as embers, glowing and sparkling orange. I pull some black charcoal from the ground down upon the burning bark, extiguishing (or at least managing) it.

Dig your self. Live your self
Give your self some time

Johnny

NYC Autumn Show

Hey, I’ll be venturing out to play a show, possibly my only show this Autumn…

Monday 18 October 2010
The Silent Barn
915 Wyckoff Avenue; Ridgewood, NY

with Gregory and the Hawk, Will Stratton, Echoland
Doors at 8, $6, All Ages

Cigaret Rag video!

Enjoy!

johnny

free live download

OffTempo.com has a free download of my recent show in Seattle which was a blast, and also Rachel’s set from the same nite.

rebel $$

i got a horrible sudden fever – smoked two cigarets the other nite and sore throat in the mornin. the next mornin was my friend’s wedding and i handled it alright. the energy was hi, but by midnite i felt like dyin. achy messd up chills. my friend from boston blames herself – says “evry time i come to town, you get sick!”

got to bed around two, and tho it’s crazy hot in nyc i pulld out all the blankets and wrappd myself like a cocoon. no cool drafts, no head out, after a few midnite get-ups, i drank a bunch of water and then the vivid-yet-abstract eternity dreams came, and the sweat broke

i was in a void, an endless black space, on a grand spiral lens. rocks and famly members – it was all about pickin the right ones, and tyin them together right. the “normal” ways are no good, nothin is working. i get one lens set up and when i reach the next, i find they are out of sync with each other. for hours of real time and years in the dream, i workd to find an answer or a cure.

these are only impressions, there are no words or even pictures for the place i was and none of this is accurate. but it’s the closest i can get, and i recall a sudden epiphany, an enlightenment of sweat and problem-solving, where it all lined up and made sense. i understood the past and problem, i understood the people, i could feel my throat as soft as bone and knew i was moving downhill, that i could sleep in and wake happy and healthy, tho weak and exhausted for not eating in some 36 hours. (i had many liquids. it was not just a puzzle, but a battle, like defeating orouboros to steal his crystal eye!

SO, epilogue: now free to have normal, linear dreams i dream Rachel and i arrive to play a show in southern california, but it’s really more like ghetto midwest. the sky is a heavy gray and the buildings are squat beige brick, the people in puffy black coats and smileless. i walk into the sporting goods store where we are sposta play, and it’s like the place to be, evryone hangs out there tho i can’t understand why. the most drab depressing browns evrywhere and what do they call that fake wood-paneling wall stuff from the 70s? baseball bats, and two cops ask what i’m up to – i’m not gonna play a show right? oh no sir, just… who knows what! then two drunk girls approach and i try to pass but one stumbles into me, grabs and pulls me down to the floor with her. she says “well aint you the most prostitutin muthafucka in these parts?” like some sort of come-on (at best) or legal deal-sealer (at seediest).  ”no maam i’m really not but thanks all the same” and i litrally dust myself off and walk on outta there.

these suspicious bots

hey, i’ve discoverd that the spam-filter on this blog has been busy and has blockd many comments from those of you who have written. so this note is simply to let you know i appreciate your appreciation, and have not been willfully ignoring your outreaches!

love

johny

A Horse With A Piano

I suppose I ought to use this Opportunity
The final hours of a three-day-plus ride
The final hours of a seven-month absence,
Or presence,
Staring at the lighted sign
“EXIT, Restroom other end”
Trying to fix my eyesight and wondrin
Why I suddenly see double!
Yet the ghost-double is 20/20.
Trying to blank my mind
Waiting for enlightenment, now!
Cuz enlightenment is easy…

“With nothing to read, I just go on writing”
I remember writing that not far from here, DC
October 26th? And now May 28th,
And living it again.
The city is imminent! Evryone complains
About the long ride, or the weather,
And I stare straight ahead at this
Galaxy of molecules,
The constellation in the red sweater,
And laugh unstoppable,
Picturing Mr. Patrick tell the Dalai Lama,
“I’m glad to meet you too.”

Evryone has their problems
And complaining is ridiculous.
The world has its problems,
And complains.

Third-world violence,
Hand-held streaming video,
Both keep you awake!

What am I working for?
Not in a sad or bleak way,
But shouldn’t I be farming?
Why is the internet in my face?
What’s with the trains?
Another fool, fed by fame,
Is soon to say he’s starving.
One second fearing he’s unwatched,
Next afraid of how he acted in sleep.

What can I say but complain,
Or state the obvious?
Words are useless!
Language is propaganda!
Me with words,
Like a horse with a piano.