IF YOU NEED ME
Yr not alone
You are not alone
Why’d you take the dive?
Why’d you get so high?
Why didn’t you call me?
You got one day now
It’s the first day now
You had a lost of first days
This year, babe
I thought you waved
When I saw you drown
As your heart gave out
If you need me
I’ll be there, babe
I’ll be with you
I’ll come running
If you need me
You could’ve killed yourself
You could’ve killed someone else
I wish that you’d called me
But that’s alright
I never did mind
You can do your own thing, baby
& I’ll do mine
If you need my help
I’m just a call away
& I’ll always say
“If you need me
I’ll be there be, babe
I’ll be with you
I’ll come running
If you need me”
You don’t have to sober up
Or wait until you self-destruct
I don’t care what you are on
When you curse the birds for singing songs
When yr home’s a cheap motel
When yr stuck inside yourself
When your mind is a jail cell
When you start to fall from hell
You know where I’ll be
If you need me
I’ll be there be, babe
I’ll be with you
I’ll come running
If you need me
BORN TOO BLUE
When I think about my past
Fastened tight & out of touch
Steady rhythm of my rolling dreams
They all burned out like the sun
They all burned out for they're done
I was born too blue
I forget my steadfast daydreams
Plenty I begot before
I will listen for your footsteps dear
There’s the crashing of the shore
Caught you crashing on the floor
I was born too blue
There you go slipping something in my drink
Catching bullets in your teeth
Saw me in half
Talk to the staff
I never meant to make a scene
She stuck her hair with flowers
And she caked her neck with dirt
She stood out in the rain to show
Growing flowers doesn’t hurt
Playing crazy doesn’t work for her
I was born too blue
Mercury Avenue
Life flashed before my eyes
I am alone
I took too much this time
I want to go home
No, I don’t wanna die
Please I’m afraid to die
God, I don't want to die anymore
You give me something to believe in
& now I know it’s really true
I thought that I was only dreaming
Out here on Mercury Avenue
I know how to stay alive
I’ve been here before
I roll onto my left side
Keep my eyes open
Reach for the floor
Help me I’ve changed my mind
Please, I just need more time
Just give me one more night in your arms
You give me something to believe in
& now I know it’s really true
I thought that I was only dreaming
Out here on Mercury Avenue
I won’t let go
I can’t hold on
I can’t give up now
Give me one more chance
I won’t get it wrong
You give me something to believe in
& now I know it’s really true
I thought that I was only dreaming
Out here on Mercury Avenue
HEY MAX
My name is Max & I’m an alcoholic
I’m an enlightened hedonist
I’m a glutton for punishment
I am a miracle
I am beautiful
That’s something that I’ve never said before
There’s nothing I’ve never heard before
If somebody wants to slit my throat
They’ll have to turn me on before they get me off
I want someone to say, “Hey Max, it’s gonna be alright”
I’m drinking vodka almost every night
I am the hero of the songs I write
If the cops come & take my dope
They’ll have to break my bones
I’m on a permanent loan
I pray to nothing every single night
In search of truth & universal light
I want the ultimate reality
The Santa Ana winds
The divine within
& I want someone to say, “Hey Max, it’s gonna be alright”
Robert Creeley & Walt Whitman
George Saunders & Todd Baron
Henry Miller & Anais Nin
John Cassavetes
Stevie Smith & the Tao te Ching
Jesus Christ & Baba Ram Dass
The Maharishi & St. John of the Cross
Sam Harris & Thich Nhat Hahn
Cumberland Heights
Bill & Dr. Bob
& I want someone to say, “Hey Max, it’s gonna be alright”
Alright
ROGER BALLEN: BOARDING HOUSE
Here is a selection of photos by Roger Ballen from his book Boarding House.
In The Backseat
Sorry it’s a mess
You can throw all that in the backseat with the rest
Of the evidence
& the ghosts of the backseat
There’s a wig left over from Halloween
Parking tickets
Unread magazines
& a collar from a dog that’s not mine anymore
In the backseat tonight
Time slips from work
Cans of La Croix
7 empty packs of diet cigarettes
A lot of my stains & yr stains & her stains & our stains
Pair of white sneakers a half size too small
Used books of matches
2 tabs of 3-year-old acid
& a wet bathing suit in a ziplock bag
So the mold doesn’t travel
To the backseat tonight
A self-help book I bought for someone else
& a 10 page letter I could’ve written myself
About what a sick motherfucker I am
A Sonny Rollins CD in a Bryan Ferry case
Breast cancer awareness hot pink keychain mace
That I bought for her
But I keep now
In the backseat tonight
Expired registration
A polaroid from high school of me & Adam
& a girl we were in love with
A box filled with clothes for Good Will
I tried to sell to the girls at Squaresville
But they want Fall designer clothes
Hey man
It makes me feel like a saint or a least not myself
In the backseat again
There must be something of hers she forgot to take
Her chapstick
A sock
Her hair ties
Her bobby pins
Whatever it is
don’t throw it out
Just throw it in the backseat
I pulled over and slept in the backseat
I went off my meds in the backseat
I drive much better from the backseat
I get carsick in the backseat
I went down on her in the backseat
I OD’d in the backseat
The things we lose carry so much weight
Everything I lost takes up so much space
In the backseat tonight
Time Forks Perpetually toward innumerable futures in one of them i am your enemY BY FRank STANFORD
Here is “Time Forks Perpetually Toward Innumerable Futures in one of Them I am Your Enemy” by Frank Stanford
Japanese Death Poems
Here is Japanese Death Poems, Written Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death, compiled by Yoel Hoffman.
The Killer Inside Me
Here is The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson. It’s a pulp fiction Crime & Punishment. Stanley Kubrick said it was “probably the most chilling and believable first-person story of a criminally warped mind I have ever encountered”.
Peter Falk, John Cassavetes & Ben Gazzara
Here is chaos.This interview on The Dick Cavett Show in 1970 with the stars of Husbands is a nightmare version of the Rat Pack. It is uncomfortable, messy, and completely real. There are so many types of human emotion on display simultaneously. Cassavetes famously tried to get real feelings out of his actors and this interview feels like an attempt to show ugliness uncensored on TV. It can be boorish and borderline bullying, but I’m glad it exists. It predates Andy Kaufman, Nathan Fielder, and the Safdie Brother antics. It completely dismantles the talk show format & the pageantry of Hollywood.
Head of Gerda Boehm
Here is Frank Auerbach’s
Head of Gerda Boehm
oil on board
44.5 by 37 cm. 17½ by 14½ in.
1965.
Cocaine & Rhinestones: Okie from Muskogee
Here is “Breaking Down Merle Haggard’s “Okie from Muskogee” from Cocaine & Rhinestones. It's a lesson in nuance and narration.
‘Just This One Time’ by Jimmy Webb
Here is “Just This One Time”. Robert Francis first showed me this song, but the more cleaned up yet equally brilliant Glenn Campbell version. This version’s messiness hits me harder. I love schmaltz when it's a little ugly. When the saccharine is honest and the corners aren’t smoothed and the cracks show. Ringo’s reverb drenched drums explode their way through the song like meteors hitting Jimmy Webb’s raw plea. This is the kind of song that’s soaring over-the-topness speaks to the romantic side of me.
24-Hour Invada Records playlist
Here is Warren Ellis’s 24 Hour Invada Records playlist. Over the pandemic, this kept me going for a few days when I was living alone in a basement studio apartment in Madison, Tennessee, trying my hardest to stay sober and waiting for my hair to grow back after I had shorn it off after running out of things to do
Harry Gruyaert
Here is a Harry Gruyaert photo taken in the Soviet Union. Russia. Moscow. 1989.
ESG’s 1981 self-titled EP
Here is ESG’s 1981 self-titled EP.
I was going through my father’s record collection in Germany when I was 19. First I saw “You’re No Good” listed on the cover and assumed it was a band covering Dee Dee Warwick’s classic. I then saw that this was produced by Martin Hannett (Joy Division, New Order) and there was a thank you to Tony Wilson (Factory Records). I put the needle onto the 12 inch record and what came out was the slowest, sludgiest, minimal, funk groove I had ever heard. I danced like some goth caveman to that first side of the vinyl, invited my friend “Cowboy” James over to get high with me and dance some more. He was as astounded as I was that we had never heard of this dirge-y kraut-y call and response incantation. After months of listening, I played it for Adam Gunther who informed me that this was an EP and meant to be played at 45rpm. I had been listening at 33 ⅓. .
‘Husbands’
Here is a trailer from John Cassavetes’ Husbands from 1970. It’s a movie about men and their inability to say what they feel. It is about what isn’t said in friendship in male friendships and how male friendships are often about activities and codes rather than words.