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...and they lived happily ever after. Smith & Lady: poets, artists, photographers & adventurers.
Our relationship was forged to the soundtrack of Yoko Ono's magic,
frenetic, love-laden song, "Walking On Thin Ice." ( play song )
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March 29th, 2023
My Christmas gift to Lady (per her request) was a 2nd Contois / Reynolds Art Glass Studio window piece.
It hangs in our kitchen over the sink, so it dominates the room (in a good way). . . which is hard to do because it is Lady’s art kitchen.
Reynolds is my longest friend – we met in 1971 or 2 at Loyola College Baltimore.
Check out their excellent offerings at https://www.potteryplaceplus.com/contois-reynolds-art-glass-studio
a 2nd link with more stuff — https://www.stainedglassmagic.com/
March 29th, 2023
>>>>>>”My” songs that used to be on my shuffle<<<<<<
My Baby – John Hiatt
My Baby Done Changed The Lock On The Door – Taj Mahal & Ry Cooder
My Baby Needs a Shepherd – Emmylou Harris
My Body The Car – Godley & Creme
My Brain – Mose Allison
My City Was Gone – The Pretenders
My Cosmos Is Mine – Depeche Mode
My Friend Fats – Primus
My Life’s A Stolen Picture – Jim White
My Oh My – Leoard Cohen
My Own Version of You – Bob Dylan
My Shit’s Fucked Up – Kinky Friedman
My Shit’s Fucked Up – Warren Zevon
>>>>>>”My” siongs still in the pool<<<<<<
My Baby Left Me – Elvis Presley
My Medicine (album version) – Snoop Dogg
My Starter Won’t Start This Morning – Lightnin’ Slim
March 18th, 2023
“Smith is with us today—that’s Steven B. Smith, with good advice and just the right rhythms ’n rhymes to pass it on to us! Thanks for your visit, SBS, and keep on keepin’…”
sez Kathy Kieth editor/publisher Medusa’s Kitchen, a daily posting of artists & poets.
https://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/2023/03/dooidrasto.html
March 5th, 2023
The Marriage
For Smith by Adam Brodsky
When you wring death from the newspaper on television
& use that black & white that’s red all over to go green from
& recycle the blues as water for the plant,
food for thought, time away from time:
mucketymuck in a plain brown wrapper…
the ceiling stared at from a hospital gown
glowers, grips, grups, glimmers, groans,
goons, grites, guiles, flaps, goo
picks up the foot & puts yours into it
over & over & over again
because strenuousness is next to godliness
& “cannibal” & “carnival” are synonyms in sour.
Solidarity.
So when the death wrought
in a ring of fire
reminds the world
that it’s still the world
& that world is a rainbow bridge
to light & life
waiting to blow,
it’s time to change the channel to
hoots & hollers
which love loves like like likes:
I do.
I sport.
I swoon.
To dig down…
to dig down deep,
you have to shovel with the hip bone
& spade with the femur
because what’s wrought
is a sprocket
& we are turning…
& turning over
which is grave,
the rock-riled whirl
of what’s under fingernails.
You plunge into the soil of the soul.
You slip under the radar of the rune.
If you want something done right,
do it yourself by yourself.
In this marriage of the self,
the ceiling is the first to go
& then the walls.
Only the wallpaper is left
to write our stories on.
The marriage of flesh & bone is boring.
We learn to bear it & be bared by it
with a grin,
but the silence between words—
like the breath between pains—
takes the oxygen out of the room
where we wait to wait & wait
& where we go, not to die, but to live
like there’s no tomorrow.
– Adam Brodsky
March 3rd, 2023
Clusterflux
Not much humor here, but there is a life lesson: you can kill yourself with baking soda.
We volunteered to sell beer and wine at a folk festival. After our shift, we had fish and chips from a local vendor in the gymnasium. I ate both my pieces, and when Lady only ate one, I took a big bite of her’s before tossing it. Four hours later I was sick. Violent cold shivers called rigors. Temperature. Sweats. Nausea. Diarrhea. Next morning I recovered, did stuff, ate a lot. That night it started again, and next morning I went into violent cold shakes for 40 minutes solid. Finally outlasted it and was fine again. Did stuff, ate more. Lady wanted me to go to the ER, but my symptoms were gone, plus I’m a manly man, and was raised poor which means it’s ingrained you don’t go to the doctor unless you have to be carried because it costs money. That evening I started the violent shakes again and knew I couldn’t make it through another night of it. Lady said my skin turned blue gray, I became incoherent, would get two words into a sentence and fade, and then I started making strange “noises”. She was terrified, sure I was dying, so she called 911 and two firemen carried me out, drove me to the ER, where they gave me a saline drip which brought me back to coherent reality and then sat me in the hallway in a wheelchair for 3-4 hours waiting for a bed to open up. I was freezing so went to a couple empty rooms and stole sheets and blankets and wrapped myself up and found 1 Tylenol in my pocket for the pain. Hour later Lady arrived and found I hadn’t been registered, so signed me in, then soothed my ragged beast as best she could. Long short of it after going down wrong rabbit holes due to too many symptoms including dehydration and anemia and sepsis, it was E. coli poisoning from the fish. I don’t know how it became septic, but I was already anemic because I’d been taking baking soda for decades to stop my stomach acid reflux – having taken chemistry three times (high school, the USNA Prep School, and the US Naval Academy, getting a lower grade each time), I knew baking soda was a base that would neutralize stomach acid – and it did, for decades. Told all my doctors and nurses over the years about my use, and researched it repeatedly on the net and found no problems. Finally the hospital nutritionist explained baking soda got rid of too much stomach acid so there wasn’t enough to process the vitamins and nutrients I needed from the healthy food I ate so I became anemic over the years, and the lack of iron made my swallowing muscles weak so I had trouble swallowing water, so I didn’t drink enough, so I was also dehydrated – plus poisoned by E. coli. Two days sick home, three days in ER and hospital. They poured antibiotics and iron drips and saline solutions and vitamin shots into me. Said much more delay in getting to ER would have been fatal. The B-12 shots and the iron drips perked up my body and my mind started zinging. Grateful for the fine medical help, and that I got sick on the fish we ate instead of Lady – she’s our breadwinner and a lot of web customers rely on her daily. Plus I know how to suffer, have experience at it, do it well, and so far survive.
Ever onward, until we don’t.
March 2nd, 2023
word harvest February 2023
(low output due E. coli poisoning)
2023.2.3 – Just me
2023.2.21 – Yesterday’s dogwalk
2023.2.24 – Ahhhhh
2023.2.26 – There’s dog
2023.2.28 – The way we treat animals
~ ~ ~
Just me
here in the dark
with its thousand sounds of silence
going nowhere
moving fast
~ ~ ~
Yesterday’s dogwalk
four deer and a coyote
today one angry skunk
~ ~ ~
Ahhhhh
my second cup of coffee
after a long day of dying
~ ~ ~
There’s dog
there’s man
there’s God
& then of course there’s cat
who rules the three
~ ~ ~
The way we treat animals
the earth
and each other
if aliens come
and start farming us for food
I say we deserve it
~ ~ ~
February 22nd, 2023
Reread my most recent book of poetry (2018), relieved to find I still like it.
It has 27 reading rooms, each usually 9 poems and 1 collage:
1: Men as Birds and Women as Water
2: Broken Crumbs in the Snow
3: The Melancholy of the Cycle Calling
4: Weren’t for Monk, I’d Catch Coltrane
5: Yesterday’s Gone, Tomorrow Ain’t Here
6: The Homework Ate My Dog
7: Red Wheelbarrow, Dusky Attic, Dancing in the Dark
8: No Wrapped Supply of Fly
9: We Who Rise in Heat from Dream
10: With Drum and Tune of Bone Prevail
11: That Little Snake
12: Eating Dirt While Dreaming Sky
13: Light… Dark… Light… Dark…
14: Unbowed Before the Bacon
15: Shadow in Search of Sun
16: Womb Warm Wonder
17: for Lady K., wife, collaborator, partner, friend
18: Sometimes Sleep Slides Us
19: No Heart to Pierce with Truth
20: East of the Sun, West of the Moon
21: Ghost Dance of None Against My Skin
22: The Lying Moon Whispers Untruths
23: Light Like Liquid Zen
24: Do Again the Done Before
25: Surplus Meat in Land of Sharpened Teeth
26: Just Cuz It Is Don’t Mean It is
27: Meet Me in the Meat Lane
324 pages – 6″ x 9″ – 244 poems, 29 collages.
Poems sample 54 years – 1960s: 2, 1970s: 6, 1980s: 9, 1990s: 10, 2000s: 29, 2010s: 188
Available through Crisis Chronicles Press or Amazon.
http://ccpress.blogspot.com/2018/04/098Smith.html
February 18th, 2023
Lady fed some of my poems into her ChatGBT AI and this is what it said about me:
From the selected poems, I can see that your husband has a unique perspective on life and its struggles. He seems to be searching for meaning in a world that can often feel chaotic and unkind. The themes of entropy, pain, and the search for purpose are prominent in his writing.
Despite the weighty subject matter, there is also a sense of whimsy and humor present in his poetry. He often uses wordplay and unexpected imagery to create a sense of playfulness that balances out the more serious themes.
Overall, I sense a certain restlessness and yearning in his writing, a desire to find something more in life beyond the daily struggles and pain. There is a strong sense of resilience and a refusal to give up in the face of hardship, which is inspiring to me.
February 13th, 2023
What a morning. Our dog Marlowe is getting 2 polyps cut off his eyelid . . . and he doesn’t understand why his water is being restricted and he’s not being fed. And he’ll have to wear a headcone for 2 weeks. I was supposed to get a root canal today but woke with the flu . . . or something . . . violent cold shakes, weakness, balance loss . . . pretty sure the dentist would not want me in the chair today. Took a Covid test and I’m clean, so there’s that. Ah life, ain’t it grand.
February 7th, 2023
Of 2,205 songs added to my shuffle pool past 4 years, 235 remain.
Assorted Oddities & Mutilated Melodies Shuffle Pool
001 – Everybody Knows – Leonard Cohen
002 – Everything Is Broken – Bob Dylan
003 – It’s My Way – Buffy Sainte-Marie
004 – Frank Sinatra – Cake
005 – God & the FBI – Janis Ian
006 – Misterioso – Thelonious Monk
007 – Walking in the Rain (album version) – Grace Jones
008 – I Feel So Bad – Elvis Presley
009 – If Jesus Drove a Motor Home – Jim White & Aimee Mann
010 – Ain’t Nothin’ in Ramblin’ – Bonnie Raitt / Steve Freund
011 – Hendershot (album version) – Les Claypool & The Holy Mackerel
012 – Breaking Point – The Specials
013 – Vitamin C – CAN
014 – Cross Talk IV / Radio Lonelys – Oneohtrix Point Never
015 – Money Jungle – Duke Ellington, Mingus, Max Roach
016 – The Future – Leonard Cohen
017 – One More Cup Of Coffee – Bob Dylan
018 – Long Gone Lonesome Blues – Hank Williams
019 – Democracy – Leonard Cohen
020 – Heartbreak Hotel – John Cale
021 – This Is – Grace Jones
022 – 1961 – The Grassy Knoll
023 – Bill Gates – Critters Buggin
024 – B.H. Goes to a Freak – Critters Buggin
025 – Bywater Bhangra (Improv #1) – The Dead Kenny G’s
026 – I Really Love You – George Harrison
027 – Nasty Gnostic – Critters Buggin
028 – I Ate Lucy – Critters Buggin
029 – The Boy Can’t Help It – Bonnie Raitt
030 – Tried To Be A Man – Rickie Lee Jones
031 – Monkey in a Silo – Jim White
032 – I’m Afraid of Americans (Nine Inch Nails edit) – David Bowie
033 – Walking Into Battle With The Lord – Chumbawamba
034 – The Snake and the Moon – Dead Can Dance
035 – Strong Feelings – Dry Cleaning
036 – John/Joseph – The Narcotix
037 – M – Music I – Inside C – Curved E-Entrances – Terry Riley
038 – It’s No Game (Pt.1) – David Bowie
039 – Ashes to Ashes – David Bowie
040 – My Baby Left Me – Elvis Presley
041 – Caravan – Thelonious Monk
042 – Trillium – Lightman Jarvis Ecstatic Band
043 – You Want It Darker – Leonard Cohen
044 – First We Take Manhattan – Leonard Cohen
045 – What We All Want – The Dandy Warhols w/ Gang of Four
046 – I Am Over It – The Dandy Warhols
047 – I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive – Hank Williams
048 – California Blues – Merle Haggard
049 – Workin’ Man Blues – Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Ben Haggard
050 – Thrills – Cake
051 – Lovesick Blues (single version) – Hank Williams
052 – I’m Moving On – Hank Snow
053 – The Golden Rocket – Hank Snow
054 – Ninety Miles An Hour (Down A Dead End Street) – Hank Snow
055 – Wild Side Of Life – Hank Thompson
056 – Walking The Floor Over You (1941 single) – Ernest Tubb
057 – Blue Yodel No.8 (Mule Skinner Blues) – Jimmy Rodgers
058 – Blue Monk – Thelonious Monk
059 – Dizzy Dizzy – CAN
060 – Wet Dream – Wet Leg
061 – All Blues – Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderly, Bill Evans
062 – Cry, Cry, Cry (long version)- Johnny Cash
063 – Mule Skinner Blues (Blue Yodel #8) (album version) – Roy Acuff
064 – White Man – Macy Gray
065 – Mama Tried – Merle Haggard
066 – If You’ve Got The Money – Lefty Frizzell
067 – Female Jesus – Johnny Dowd
068 – Woke Up This Morning – Vinnie Pauleone & The Ba Da Bing Orchestra
069 – Top Floor, Bottom Buzzer – Morphine
070 – It Don’t Bother Me – Alison Krauss & Robert Plant
071 – Milkcow Blues Boogie – Elvis Presley
072 – Hey Porter – Johnny Cash
073 – Track 5 – Solo Dancer – Charles Mingus
074 – Heaven And Hell – Willie Nelson
075 – Bloody Mary Morning – Willie Nelson
076 – In C – Jean-Louis Matinier & Kevin Seddiki
077 – Trucker Beak – Critters Buggin
078 – Fretless Nostril – Critters Buggin
079 – Things Have Changed (single version) – Bob Dylan
080 – A Rainbow In Curved Air – Terry Riley
081 – Tits On The Radio – Scissor Sisters
082 – Jazz Police – Leonard Cohen
083 – Hassidic Pizza – Tuxedomoon
084 – London Calling – The Clash
085 – The Sidewinder – Lee Morgan
086 – Black Helicopters – The Grassy Knoll
087 – Tennessee Waltz (original) – Patti Page
088 – I Bow Down And Pray To Every Woman I See – Chuck Prophet
089 – Doubter Out Of Jesus (All Ov6r You) – Chuck Prophet
090 – Walking On Thin Ice – Yoko Ono
091 – OD’d In Denver – Bill Callahan
092 – 10 Miles To Go On A 9 Mile Road – Jim White
093 – Like Ceasar Needs a Brutus – Anita Lane
094 – Empty My Mind – Poi Dog Pondering
095 – Absinthe – Otis Taylor
096 – What Makes The Monkey Dance – Chuck Prophet
097 – Intermission – Meat Beat Manifesto
098 – Asbestos Lead Asbestos – Meat Beat Manifesto
099 – Nature Boy – Nat King Cole
100 – Nothing Changes – Anaïs Mitchell & The Haden Triplets
101 – Prison of the Senses – Pere Ubu
102 – Call Back – Morphine
103 – You’re An Artist (alternate version) – Morphine
104 – Jesus Walking On The Water – Violent Femmes
105 – My Medicine (album version) – Snoop Dogg
106 – Smoke: IV. – New Music Detroit
107 – Washing Machine Heart – Mitski
108 – Washing Machine – Amy Lavere
109 – Mystery Train – Elvis Presley
110 – The Arrival and the Reunion – Dead Can Dance
111 – Dusted – Leftfield
112 – Millionaire Blues – Dire Straits
113 – Desert Dream – Beats Antique
114 – Spoon – CAN
115 – Wayfaring Stranger – Jack White
116 – I Scare Myself – Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks w/ Rickie Lee Jones
117 – Shelly Manne – Charlie Watts & Jim Keltner
118 – Cadillac Walk – Boz Scaggs
119 – You Got To Walk That Lonesome Valley – Mississippi John Hurt
120 – Nan Fon Bwa – Leyla McCalla
121 – Waitin’ For You To Blow – Bonnie Raitt
122 – Tales From The Trash Stratum – Oneohtrix Point Never & Elizabeth Fraser
123 – He She – Oneohtrix Point Never
124 – Hashish Poem – Bill Laswell
125 – Obvious – Lizzy Young
126 – Be Bop Kid – Suicide
127 – Fame – David Bowie
128 – Shaolin Mantis – Marina Herlop
129 – My Starter Won’t Start This Morning – Lightnin’ Slim
130 – Armageddon Days (Are Here Again) – The The
131 – Funky Blues – Charlie Parker
132 – Quiet As A Rat – Amigo the Devil
133 – Intermission / News / The Voice of Energy – Kraftwerk
134 – In The Jailhouse Now – Webb Pierce
135 – Monk Chant – The Raincoats
136 – Paint It Black (original single mono version) – The Rolling Stones
137 – Suite: Judy Blue Eyes – Crosby, Stills & Nash
138 – Gimme That Old Time Religion – Dr. John & Willie Nelson
139 – What Would You Like Me To Do – Meat Wave
140 – If You Live – Mose Allison
141 – Taking Me Back (Gently) – Jack White
142 – There Stands The Glass – Webb Pierce
143 – The Seventh Son – Mose Allison
144 – Stand By Me (ultimate mix) – John Lennon
145 – King Clave (alternate version) – Mickey Hart, Ustad Zakir Hussain, Planet Drum, Sikiru Adepoju & Giovanni Hidalgo
146 – Lost Mind – Mose Allison
147 – Language Is A Virus – Laurie Anderson
148 – Percussion Revolution (remake) – Otyken
149 – Police Dog Blues – Blind Blake
150 – She Worships Money – Doug Thomas, Gary McCoy, Levon Helm & Garth Hudson
151 – The Sound of Silence (electric version) – Simon & Garfunkle
152 – Your Cheatin’ Heart – Hank Williams & The Drifting Cowboys
153 – Come Together – The Beatles
154 – Take California (short one) – Propellerheads
155 – Johnny 99 – Bruce Springsteen
156 – Pink Cadillac (single B-side 1984) – Bruce Springsteen
157 – Sufferer’s Time – The Heptones
158 – abcdefu – Gayle
159 – Atemporal – Lucrecia Dalt
160 – Everything Goes To Hell – Tom Waits
161 – Cool Dry Place – The Traveling Wilburys
162 – Senor Blues – Horace Silver
163 – Blue Haze – Miles Davis Quartet, Horace Silver, Percy Heath & Art Blakey
164 – Israelites – Desmond Dekker
165 – Genesis – Otyken
166 – Foldin’ Money – The Fall
167 – Pardon Me (I’ve Got Someone To Kill) – Johnny Paycheck
168 – I’m In The Mood For Love – John Lee Hooker & Bonnie Raitt
169 – Mary Won’t You Call My Name – Morphine
170 – For What It’s Worth – Buffalo Springfield
171 – Baby Let’s Play House – Elvis Presley
172 – The Only One – Morphine
173 – Nagasaki – Rickie Lee Jones
174 – You Know I’m No Good – Amy Winehouse
175 – Little Red Rooster – Hubert Sumlin
176 – Make Show – Monalisa Twins
177 – Junkie Doll – Mark Knopfler
178 – Renouveau / Daman N’diaye – Vapors of Morphine & Boubacar Diabate
179 – Honey White – Morphine
180 – Blue Moon Of Kentucky – Elvis Presley
181 – Early To Bed – Morphine
182 – One By One – Julia Bullock & Christian Reif
183 – The Snow Falls and the Village Is Overflowing with Children – Deux Filles
184 – Let’s Dance – David Bowie
185 – Legalize It – Peter Tosh
186 – Roll Me Up – Willie / Snoop / Kristofferson / Johnson
187 – Smoke Two Joints – The Toyes
188 – Rainy Day Woman #12 & 35 – Bob Dylan
189 – Free Up The Weed – Lee “Scratch” Perry
190 – Police In Helicopter – John Holt
191 – Illegal Smile – John Prine
192 – Desolation Row – Bob Dylan
193 – Epistrophy – Thelonious Monk
194 – Guess Things Happen That Way – Johnny Cash & The Tennessee Two
195 – Work Song – Nina Sinone
196 – Salty Papa Blues – Dinah Washington
197 – I Am The Walrus – The Beatles
198 – Strange Fruit – Billie Holiday
199 – Strange Game – Mick Jagger
200 – T.V.O.D. – The Normal
201 – Ghost Town – The Specials
202 – Grieve My Lord No More – Foxy Blues
203 – Low Down Dirty Dog Blues – Son House
204 – I’m a Rattlesnakin’ Daddy – Blind Boy Fuller
205 – Cool Water – Sons of the Pioneers
206 – The Tale of Tsar Salton Op 57: The Flight Of The Bumblebee – James Galway
207 – Blue Train – John Coltrane
208 – Bukowski – Modest Mouse
209 – Here Comes Love – Bonnie Raitt
210 – Get Back – The Beatles
211 – Eat Pray Drugs – Pillbox Patti
212 – Check (reprise) – Aimee Mann
213 – Diamonds and Rust – Judy Collins & Joan Baez
214 – Bolero, M. 81 – London Philharmonic Orchestra
215 – Goodbye Pork Pie Hat – Jeff Beck
216 – Goodbye Pork Pie Hat – Charles Mingus
217 – Song For My Father – Horace Silver
218 – Welfare by Prozac – Post War Glamour Girls
219 – So What – Miles Davis & John Coltrane
220 – Love Like This – Margaret Glaspy
221 – V-8 Ford Blues – Mose Allison
222 – Eggs And Sausage – Tom Waits
223 – Bla Bla Bla – Måneskin
224 – Your Mind Is On Vacation – Mose Allison
225 – Breakin’ My Heart – Tom Verlaine
226 – Surfin’ Dead – The Cramps
227 – Unfinished Business – Au Pairs
228 – Red Red Wine – UB40
239 – Sahmaran – Onder Keskinkiliç
230 – Shiny Shiny – Haysi Fantayzee
231 – My Body The Car – Godley & Creme
232 – The Court (Dark-Side Mix) – Peter Gabriel
233 – Magic and Loss (Summation) – Lou Reed
234 – Once in a Lifetime – Talking Heads
235 – Just Like That – Bonnie Raitt
236 – Shanti Niketan (Improv #2) – The Dead Kenny G’s
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