These days I'm hosting a poetry reading over at a friends coffee house in downtown Glendale on Sunday nights. I'm always down with new poets and new faces dropping by. We start at 6pm. Afterward we go over to the poetry radio show across the street and read. Faith starts her show at 8pm.
I'm also helping with a talk show once a month called Grand Ave. Live . I do a bit of writing, I'm the music director and science correspondent. We slug our way through that train wreck on the first Thursday of the month. It's worth seeing. : )
I play solo gigs sometimes, but most times I play with my band Paper Box . The gigs I throw up here are a mix of poetry, music and basically any performance thing that comes up.
There was something I was trying to say, somewhere at the beginning, but I've lost track since then. It was something grand involving angels and flashes of sulfur, Sam Colt, that great mathematician and humanitarian who made all men equal and Einstein who gave constant definition to their mass efforts as a species. But the tune was lost in the vibration of an infinite set of eleven dimensional strings. Eleven dimensional angels dancing on the tip of my pen. Don't give up yet! I know the answers are there, between my personal demons and the physics of godhood, lying dormant in the folds of time, burning away my memories and flashing the ice in my veins to steam. I tried holding on to the love in the form of sex and devotion. Tried being lost in the comfort of good food and song washed down with plenty of cold beer. Explored in midnight conversation that broke with the dawn on tired and happily caffeinated minds. Sought the clarity of thought possible only two thirds of the way down a bottle of tequila and buried myself in books trying to understand and remember. But it still eludes me. I'm afraid to speak because I'll reveal too much. I'm afraid to think because I know that sin lies in thought not action. Afraid to stay silent because I am all alone inside here. So I'm whispering compromise hoping that no one hears the blasphemies stuck in my throat. Afraid someone will catch my quiet ranting and be infected with grand ideas involving angels and sulfur, choirs of brimstone, redemption and that first moment when things went so terrifyingly wrong. I am scouring old songs and ripping lines from crumpled poems hoping I can coax from subconscious plays of words what is really driving this shit storm of systematic learning and failing. There was something I was trying to say, somewhere at the beginning, something grand. But I am seeking with desperation and desire, forgetting that it cannot be sought, only realized suddenly and with subtle and staggering clarity.
Take some time to see what the full band is doing. We have demos from our recent studio time up on the Paper Box myspace page. Or you can check out the Paper Box Website .
I also have other sites up. They have a few different songs from my first album up.
http://www.purevolume.com/jonathanstandifird
