3 a.m. on a Thursday night, drinking.

I am not the apologetic sort.
It doesn't seem odd or ostentatious for me to do something like this. Write a blog about writing, or rather the process of writing. The only thing I'm going to apologize in advance for, is the amount of times the letter "I" will undoubtedly show up in these texts. This being a somewhat personal narrative in the "TMI" generation, I think it's probably part & parcel.
Let me get you up to speed. I want to write a book. A "memoir"; whatever that is when your life isn't over yet.
I need some kind of structure to keep me writing, I'm poor with discipline. I also need some place to brainstorm, start seeding some new ideas. I'm in school, taking writing classes to better my technique, but I still need more structure. I need to learn how to write like I used to before video games & On Demand, before there was always a constant flurry of entertainment available to me. If I can get used to this format, it might be the kind of instant gratification that I'm prone to enjoying. And the practice can't hurt either.
I'm bad with grammar and mechanics. I was kicked out of a high school I paid no attention in anyway. I still read most of the time, I wrote also. I've published a few chapbooks of poetry and used to be a somewhat established "spoken word performer". Over the years, I have let alot of that stuff go.

There are reasons, of which I will surely get into here, just not yet.
Right now this is a bit overwhelming.
How to introduce yourself to yourself, and through that try to figure out which pieces of which history to tell and when.
And then there are the anecdotal issues. When these are relevant and when they should remain unsaid.

I think I'll start with an anecdote, just because this aint for real yet.
 Five months ago, I started a "spoken word band"-whatever that is. A guy I worked with, but didn't know at all had agreed to do a spoken word set with me at a friends art opening ( there is so much more to this story, but I need to learn to stay on point). His name was Johnny and he played guitar,  I had written some prose in the past. We got together over beers during the hottest week a Seattle summer could offer. Sitting on stools in his cool concrete apartment, so shyly we both went over our separate parts. Him playing some chords on his acoustic guitar. Me trying to find some old words to fit a new mood. Six beers in we had hit a groove and let it reverberate throughout his cavernous empty flat, strumming and chanting along loud enough now so the neighbors could hear. I hadn't read poetry aloud in quite some time, I had given it up in fact, yet after two hours of our first rehearsal, we hit Fifteenth Street on the prowl for drinks and girls. We were happy with our results to say the least, and we wanted the whole goddamned world to know.
Bravado aside, we had only rehearsed once and our debut show was the next week. I think we both wanted a more lasting memento of the event. I called my friend Luke who is a well known lyricist in the underground circuit; I mean, the guy had a reality show filmed around him battling strangers under the duress of constant chronic impingement. He had a studio he called the Stupid Factory in the old Rainier brewery. I asked him if he would record Johnny & I, you know, just for posterity. Again after six or so beers this groove started kicking in. When Luke asked to sit in behind the drums I initially thought he was just being polite(or drunk)
but it was such a good time it was undeniable to everyone present.
 There is audio evidence of the magic of that evening. Of course the drums weren't mic'd and not everything comes through, but the spark of an idea still remains.  Yeah, Johnny & I's show went off well even though he got laid and I didn't. But it left an indelible mark on all of us, and I think we wanted to see what we could do.

 How do you write a book about your life when your life isn't over?
Where do you begin if you're trying to be economic with words? What is the turn and where should you end?
I always figured a memoir should be like The Rosy Crucifixion, or Tropic of Cancer. the problem is, unlike Henry Miller I have had no great single love affair that I haven't already written out of me. Besides, I'm so damned careful with my heart these days I'm likely to never let myself fall in love again.
So it's obviously not a girl I choose as a catalyst. At least not one that I've met yet. I can't wait around to fall in love when I won't even allow myself the deceit of trust. That being the backbone of any love worth having.
I do trust every single member of my band though, we're a makeshift gang. a pirate crew of different styles and influences and that comes through in almost every single note we play.
So I will trust this and use them as a catalyst for right now.

So, back to the band
(I was saying how I need to stay on topic, now you see what I mean)


Michael Puglisi hates almost everything he can't hold in his hand to test it's tangibility. He seems to have no use for abstracts or quaintness. This made him a no-brainer for the band. The fact that he plays some of the best guitar I've ever heard doesn't even move him.
When you are a poet that doesn't like poetry, having a guy like this in your band is a must. If my head is like a helium filled balloon, then Puglisi is the hand holding onto the end of the string and yanking said balloon down to sidewalk level where he can kick it around. I have respect for this role, even when I know he doesn't mean it. Poets have a tendency to come off like pansies. it's good to have Puglisi around to keep everyone grounded. He can read and write music for any instrument, but he's not going to walk up to you and tell you that, he's just going to come in and do it when it's needs to be done.
Johnny & I were at the bar earlier tonight, someone asked who the "band leader" was, we both said "Puglisi".
Mike knows that he writes poems also, he just writes them on his fretboards instead of paper.

 We brought Mike in on bass the next time we got together. It was about a month after Johnny & I's debut show as Royal Brougham, or Bastard Lounge, don't remember which we settled on.