I woke up this morning and thought about what I would like to do on my birthday. More than anything else, I thought it would be good to make a post and promote the work of good friends of mine, especially the ones I haven’t seen in a long time. So, that is what this post is. It is my birthday promotion of good people’s work post. Here goes:
1) I met this guy when I was six years old in a rubber-band gun fight. He is my oldest friend. We’ve been friends for 25 years now. I have friends who aren’t even 25 years old. It makes me laugh to think that I’ve known Zach longer than these people have been alive. The picture to the right was taken when Zach and I were about 20 and had already known each other for 14 years. Zach is an amazing chef. I went to Lupa in New York when he was still chef there, and there were lines around the block. The Lupa staff were very nice, but the New Yorkers made me laugh. A lot of foodie people saw that I was friends with the chef, and eating with the chef, and when Zach went to the bathroom they came over and said things like “It’s great to see you again!” and “It’s been awhile. I’m glad that another regular is here.” I was living in Kansas at the time. I really hate New Yorkers most if not all of the time. I know it is an odd thing to feel that way. If anyone is in Las Vegas they should go to the restaurants where Zach works. I will see him in Kansas City next week when he is here for some meat thing.
2) Today is Arman’s birthday too. When I lived in Idaho we worked at the same bookstore. We had a joint birthday party once and it was insane. Arman makes some of the best music in the universe. I didn’t realize that some of the Deathcab for Cutie guys used to be in Arman’s old band until recently. I think Arman’s newest music sounds amazing. Everyone should become gigantic fans of both Eureka Farm (now defunct) and The Misadventures of Two (currently hot as an iron-poker and about to go “world-wide”).
One of my favorite Arman stories is the one he tells about how he was in a recording studio with Stone Gossard and there was a thesaurus and Stone Gossard said something like “Yeah, that’s the thesaurus Ed [Vedder] uses to write his songs.” I also like the Arman story about how he was recording the song where he shouts/chants “get me outta here!” and some girl at the radio station thought he was trapped in the room where he was recording. The get-me-outta-here song is maybe my favorite song on that Eureka Farm album. The picture to the right is of Arman and me at some party. There were a lot of parties in those days.
3) Dave Snyder is a friend of Arman’s and I met him at the same time as Arman. Dave is also in The Misadventures of Two. I think Dave is one of the best human beings. Dave is the most serious artist, in terms of work and focusing on craft, I have ever met. I learned a lot of good things from Dave, like what a good rapper Doc Octagon, aka, Cool Keith, is. Dave played bass clarinet with me while I read poems in a bar once in Pullman, WA. I think when I was reading and Dave was playing people started banging the butts of their pool cues on the floor of the level above us to indicate that they were angry and we should stop. We did not stop. That was one of the best moments of my life. I think Dave taught me that I should relax when I’m reading poems. I wrote a poem about a conversation Dave and I had once on a park bench where we talked about how we would both rather be really old, Cuban men smoking cigars at the ends of our lives than two young men, like we were, back then.
4) Michael Fairchild is another one of the best human beings and we have been through a lot. If we had been soldiers, we would say things like “yeah, we went through the shit together” all the time. Even though we were not soldiers, I think we went through the shit together. In High School, I was an Irish Bob Cratchitt and Mike was Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol. I used to sing with Mike sometimes. We have a side music project called Bluesmen for the Proletariat that I hope we start up again. Maybe I could send Mike sound clips of poems from China and he could enact sonic destruction on the clips. Mike is a musician and a writer and if anyone lives in Madison, Wisc., they should go and listen to him play. Everyone should support the career of Michael Fairchild because his work is very honest and his music makes people happy. One of the most important evenings of my life was at Mike’s wedding in the middle of the woods in Alaska next to an abandoned copper mine. Mike was wearing a kilt. When he and Jessica left, all of these friends of Mike’s (and there are a LOT of them, because he is a wonderful guy) sat around and had quiet moments in the prolonged twilight of Alaskan summer nights and watched ships along the river with their lights, and broke open crabs with their hands that some of Mike’s fishermen friends cooked and munched them quietly together until the taxis arrived to take us back to our hotels in Juneau. It was at that moment, years ago, the I felt the most at peace and thought to myself that it was good to be from the northwest and not from somewhere like New York. My love for the northwest at that moment was almost as strong as my love for Mike.
5) Josh Aiman is a painting force of nature. Currently, he is working in an outpost store on Kodiak Island, Alaska. I think he is maybe teaching art up there too. Josh drove across the country and visited me in Manhattan, KS once. We drove to The Garden of Eden in Lucas, KS and listened to R.L. Burnside albums on the way. Later that week Josh arrived at my apartment with my only apartment key in tow, in a car full of Crumb’s beauty-school students. I think the car was a Lexus. Last year Josh and some friends from Denver crashed at our place in Lawrence and went to a show. His friends kept calling him “King Hippie”. Josh is the king of many things. King of Tramps, for one. King of Tramps is a secret. Initiates are not ready for the power of King of Tramps. Here is a postcard Josh sent me once:
I am going to stop posting now, but will maybe post later with more things.
1) I met this guy when I was six years old in a rubber-band gun fight. He is my oldest friend. We’ve been friends for 25 years now. I have friends who aren’t even 25 years old. It makes me laugh to think that I’ve known Zach longer than these people have been alive. The picture to the right was taken when Zach and I were about 20 and had already known each other for 14 years. Zach is an amazing chef. I went to Lupa in New York when he was still chef there, and there were lines around the block. The Lupa staff were very nice, but the New Yorkers made me laugh. A lot of foodie people saw that I was friends with the chef, and eating with the chef, and when Zach went to the bathroom they came over and said things like “It’s great to see you again!” and “It’s been awhile. I’m glad that another regular is here.” I was living in Kansas at the time. I really hate New Yorkers most if not all of the time. I know it is an odd thing to feel that way. If anyone is in Las Vegas they should go to the restaurants where Zach works. I will see him in Kansas City next week when he is here for some meat thing.
2) Today is Arman’s birthday too. When I lived in Idaho we worked at the same bookstore. We had a joint birthday party once and it was insane. Arman makes some of the best music in the universe. I didn’t realize that some of the Deathcab for Cutie guys used to be in Arman’s old band until recently. I think Arman’s newest music sounds amazing. Everyone should become gigantic fans of both Eureka Farm (now defunct) and The Misadventures of Two (currently hot as an iron-poker and about to go “world-wide”).
One of my favorite Arman stories is the one he tells about how he was in a recording studio with Stone Gossard and there was a thesaurus and Stone Gossard said something like “Yeah, that’s the thesaurus Ed [Vedder] uses to write his songs.” I also like the Arman story about how he was recording the song where he shouts/chants “get me outta here!” and some girl at the radio station thought he was trapped in the room where he was recording. The get-me-outta-here song is maybe my favorite song on that Eureka Farm album. The picture to the right is of Arman and me at some party. There were a lot of parties in those days.
3) Dave Snyder is a friend of Arman’s and I met him at the same time as Arman. Dave is also in The Misadventures of Two. I think Dave is one of the best human beings. Dave is the most serious artist, in terms of work and focusing on craft, I have ever met. I learned a lot of good things from Dave, like what a good rapper Doc Octagon, aka, Cool Keith, is. Dave played bass clarinet with me while I read poems in a bar once in Pullman, WA. I think when I was reading and Dave was playing people started banging the butts of their pool cues on the floor of the level above us to indicate that they were angry and we should stop. We did not stop. That was one of the best moments of my life. I think Dave taught me that I should relax when I’m reading poems. I wrote a poem about a conversation Dave and I had once on a park bench where we talked about how we would both rather be really old, Cuban men smoking cigars at the ends of our lives than two young men, like we were, back then.
4) Michael Fairchild is another one of the best human beings and we have been through a lot. If we had been soldiers, we would say things like “yeah, we went through the shit together” all the time. Even though we were not soldiers, I think we went through the shit together. In High School, I was an Irish Bob Cratchitt and Mike was Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol. I used to sing with Mike sometimes. We have a side music project called Bluesmen for the Proletariat that I hope we start up again. Maybe I could send Mike sound clips of poems from China and he could enact sonic destruction on the clips. Mike is a musician and a writer and if anyone lives in Madison, Wisc., they should go and listen to him play. Everyone should support the career of Michael Fairchild because his work is very honest and his music makes people happy. One of the most important evenings of my life was at Mike’s wedding in the middle of the woods in Alaska next to an abandoned copper mine. Mike was wearing a kilt. When he and Jessica left, all of these friends of Mike’s (and there are a LOT of them, because he is a wonderful guy) sat around and had quiet moments in the prolonged twilight of Alaskan summer nights and watched ships along the river with their lights, and broke open crabs with their hands that some of Mike’s fishermen friends cooked and munched them quietly together until the taxis arrived to take us back to our hotels in Juneau. It was at that moment, years ago, the I felt the most at peace and thought to myself that it was good to be from the northwest and not from somewhere like New York. My love for the northwest at that moment was almost as strong as my love for Mike.
5) Josh Aiman is a painting force of nature. Currently, he is working in an outpost store on Kodiak Island, Alaska. I think he is maybe teaching art up there too. Josh drove across the country and visited me in Manhattan, KS once. We drove to The Garden of Eden in Lucas, KS and listened to R.L. Burnside albums on the way. Later that week Josh arrived at my apartment with my only apartment key in tow, in a car full of Crumb’s beauty-school students. I think the car was a Lexus. Last year Josh and some friends from Denver crashed at our place in Lawrence and went to a show. His friends kept calling him “King Hippie”. Josh is the king of many things. King of Tramps, for one. King of Tramps is a secret. Initiates are not ready for the power of King of Tramps. Here is a postcard Josh sent me once:
I am going to stop posting now, but will maybe post later with more things.
1 comments:
Thanks for the kind words.
Happy birthday to us!
-Arman
XOXO
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