2nd Decade Retrospection

I remember my mint-condition soul,

the color of dinosaur skin

(I miss my foreskin).

Ever since sin tarnished my semigloss

complexion I've been

so sensitive.

And my sense of inner goodness

is loose.

If not for a few well-placed rainy days

and a hyper-extended guilt receptor,

I would have forgot my mother.

Lost on a cloud, lounging

nine lives from

holy or wholesome,

I intend to wash my hands of these moments

since I've been my name.

Strangers

Nothing gentle about it

Some assholes

Piercing the witching hour

One fatal fall below my window

I listen up once they leave

The land

Silent out to the freeway whispers

An accident may be

What I'm asking for

As I watch secrets hover

Beaming through the dark

Swelling and dropping

Off the face

Of a rearview mirror

Frozen in Waiting

Standing at the bus stop like stone guardians

Too cold to look up, too bored to shiver.

Resisting the urge to glance down the street, for

It will not change Time.

Parents' peers exit parking structures and,

Keenly aware that it is Friday Night,

Walk casually to bars and restaurants

Rarely paying attention to these grave keepers of the corner.

Hooded cement faces,

Absorbing all the mundane excitements

Doomed to a fate of waiting forever

Because it just went by like two minutes ago.

Nothing but time...

Now, who are these ladies with amazing legs?!

Invading the crosswalk and turning the head of at least one statue

They march briskly in heels and

Shiver at the stronghold door

Until some boyfriend lets them in.

Almost Enough

You don't have to tell me you love me

even if you do.

It's almost enough

It's enough

If dimes can be worth more than nickels

Then we can be worth more than friends

Even if we feel like less

It might be a matter of giving up,

it might be a matter of what I want

and what you need

I can't be biased

So I can't make sense

But I can almost see it all

Next time the world ends, it won't be so bad

Laughing is good

Smiling is ok

OK

I woke up from a dream about how Mt. Dewmsday

looms way above eye level. And what can

you say?

I'm going to turn into a stoner and I'm going to die.

Not that I foresee either of these things actually happening.

In my dream, swine flew like vultures,

pink encircling pale blue, feathered with clouds.

Impossibly beautiful,

the colors made me think of

female and male babies.

And my stoner eyes

without the pupils.

So I set to staring at them.

And bet that scaring me

was all they needed to do

to make me feel

dead.

As an empty bag of shit.

So I quit paying attention,

giving guilt the shoulder like ice,

and started feeling ok.

Looks like yer in paradise,

smell its bouquet.

Its piss-colored

citrus flavor

dooms you

to stay awake.

Smiling til you feel good

then laughing the gloom away.

Fair Stephen

Tax mane

Printing the zines was like 200 bux, so divided 12 ways that means $15 each. Or whatever you see fit, depending on how much money I owe you already, or if you only had one page in the zine, it seems like it's not fair for you to have to pay as much as us with 3 or 4. But I don't know.

Talk to me and we can figure out the best payment method for you, whether it be money, firm hand shakes, foot massages, etc.

K thanks

Steve's Zine Pics

2020

The Meaning of Death

Based on a True Story

Based on a True Story

Based on a True Story

 

There is a young woman who lives in Cochrane, WI

In a little house on the Mississippi River

Me and my brother stopped in front of it last summer

We were taking a break from pedaling and she was taking a break from not smoking.

 

So we talked for a minute

She had long brown hair

She said she hadn’t been living there long

She invited us in.

 

My brother said no

I was kicking myself for not saying yes

It would have been a good place to sleep

And a good place to find some late-night lovin’.

 

Oh well, we stretched our legs, she stretched her lungs

Lighten up, it’s only life on earth

There will be plenty of chances for nicotine buzzes and romantic encounters

Maybe I’ll go back there someday and fall in love with her.

 

No, that’s not what I want

I want a simple, beautiful, erotic, heartbreaking one-night stand

And then to move on to the next town

For another one just like it.

Semifinals

Her is the deal: 

The ones that are pretty much unanimous, as in like, 3 or more people voted for them, are embolded, and the ones that like 1 or 2 people really wanted I put in parentheses. 

This kind of doesn't apply to Joe or Ben or Colin or John because they still have stuff that not everyone has seen. For theirs, I just put some in neither bold or parens because I wasn't sure.

Hopefully we'll be able to fit everything that anyone wants in the book, but maybe we should all comment if we want something that isn't here or is in parentheses.

Alison

-This Morning

-Trying to figure it out

-(Bridging Milwaukee)

 

Mary

-I wanted to leave years ago

-A vase

-Clue

-(it takes place in the mall)

-(feb 14^th, 3 am)

 

Andrew

-Again and Again

-Every 3000 miles

-(places you read about in books)

-(I forgot it was ash Wednesday)

 

Ariel

-Crystal ridge

-Berkley

-paper towel

 

Kev

-love poem

-flowers

-(coming of age stuff)

 

Colin

-quit daydreaming

-your father’s folklore

-(note to self-subconscious)

 

John

-xylem and fungi

-flashing stop signs

-I found life in moving forward

-must I feel old

 

Ben

-welcome to ohio

-sprinter’s stretch

-(pay attention)

-(time)

 

Joe

-mt tuesday

-incubated

-(advice)

-(coming home)

-(crows)

Steve

-meaning of death

-2020

tinkle

2020

The gas stations succumb to beer,

the strip malls are overcome by fear,

democracy is defeated by free enterprise,

and finally,

nature is destroyed by reproduction.

And it doesn’t matter whether the chicken came in first place or the egg.

And who are these people who stay awake while you sleep?

Where do those live whose devil is your god?

And does it scare you to think that antibiotics may eventually be the undoing of the human race?

But by the time you’re 30 your world might as well be over anyway.

So if the world finally quits teetering on the edge of destroying itself and goes down like the Titanic, you will be able to have peace of mind as you dress up in your Sunday best. And have one last half-hearted laugh at all of it.

And maybe smile sweetly at the memory of a few things.

Like being sad for your mother when she seemed bored, or feeling 249 dollars poorer, or letting go of your capsized fantasy.

It would jerk a final tear, which would gush out of you like grey water from a washing machine through a lint trap down the utility sink drain.

As if suddenly you realized everything you wanted to say when you sat there in silence wondering whether silence was better anyway. 

And with your insides cleansed, they would leave everything that holds them in behind, and quietly dissolve into the horizon. 

Hard To Get

 

Deer in somebody’s front yard

I stop to say hi

You just stare back at me

And when I make a drunken advance

You turn and stalk away.

 

I want you.

I want you to trust me

I want you to see how earnest I am

I want you to have so much faith in me that you’d let me touch you

I’d be a liar if I said I hadn’t considered bestiality in the back of my mind somewhere

I’d never lie to you.

Even if it meant losing some of my innocence in your eyes

 

You used to be a fawn

And now you are the most seductive, elusive thing in the world to me

But when I see you run away, I know you are as helpless as you’ve always been

 

And I know that this is how it’s meant to be

This is how the creator meant for it to be

You will remain an eternally beautiful mystery

Because everything I can’t understand about you

Makes you beautiful to me. 

The Checker of Doors

Why is it that we demand of ourselves such vigilance in the nightly routine of locking the back door? Is there perhaps a person who walks the neighborhood trying every door just in case one unlucky house owner slipped and forgot his or her responsibility? A Checker of Doors? And if the Checker of Doors were so lucky as to find an unlocked door, would it behoove him or her to enter and find whatever it is the Checker of Doors seeks?

But perhaps the Checker of Doors seeks only this: an unlocked door.

MINITS 6/11/09

1. Next Meeting: Wednesday, 6/17 @ 2:00 pm (Mafia will be here, he'll have your dick)

2. If you have a tinkle of new writings, post them and bring them to the meeting too.

3. Post your picks of your own work and print them for Wednesday.

- We can start critiquing the nominations on the blog

- Let's just communicate a lot

4. Friday the 19th is still the 'dead line'. Except for Mary. And anyone else who has to go to Cleveland.

5. Collaborations in the works

- James and John: 3D piece (high likelihood) (respect & dignity)

- Joe and Steve: 4D (animation for Mt. Tuesday)

- Joe, Colin, and Ben: photos

- full group collaboration/assignment discussed: Milwaukee, video confessional, real confessional, Tanner's first reconciliation, matrimony, have a chat room and print it out, send someone to Milwaukie, Oregon the night of the show and Skype with them)

6. Blood Orgy

7. Moms

- Will they be invited???

- Will they write poems about each of us?

- Will they write poems about James

8. THE MESSAGE (WHAT DO WE WANT TO TELL PEOPLE?)

- discussion about preserving connections despite distance, adapting, The Internet, addressing the name "Milwaukee Travelogue"

- the blog is a shared space that we are now incarnating

- are people going to care about us that much?

* Let's just make stuff and see what happens. 

a. we will have show and tell days

b. maybe a theme will arise from that

c. if not, it's ok

d. make sure that we hang out a lot

e. let's just make sure we do some shit, you know?

f. we can work together at Kevin's/Kevin's dad's studio

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

MINUTES - 6/9/09

~*!'~*NEXT MEETING THURSDAY (tomorrow) @ 10:00 pm*~'!*~

BRING YER PICKS FIR THA ZEAN PLS

~*!'~*CVW WELCOMES YOU ANYTIME AFTER 3 pm THOUGH*~'!*~

The Show = Friday, July 31st @ Jackpot

- Theme, name?? (webster says "travelogue = a movie, book, or illustrated lecture about the places visited and experiences encountered by a traveler.") 

-Other things I remember discussion of regarding theme/name: distance, leaving home, the group intimacy, "an exhibition is the turning inside out of the blog"

- Joe and John are flyer wardens

- Think about how we want the schedule to go: gallery opens at 6:00, readings in the gallery throughout, music starts downstairs at 9:00?

The Zine

- We want to have the final content decided by June 19th

- Colin, Ariel, Steve are printing wardens

Greatest Hits

Mary

http://milwaukeetravelogue.blogspot.com/2009/04/i-wanted-to-leave-years-ago.html

http://milwaukeetravelogue.blogspot.com/2009/04/she-folds-her-hands-across-her-lap-and.html

http://milwaukeetravelogue.blogspot.com/2009/03/it-takes-place-in-mall.html

 

Colin

http://milwaukeetravelogue.blogspot.com/2009/04/your-fathers-folklore-and-literal.html

http://milwaukeetravelogue.blogspot.com/2009/03/twelve-mile-poem.html

 

Android

http://milwaukeetravelogue.blogspot.com/2009/04/places-you-read-about-in-books.html

http://milwaukeetravelogue.blogspot.com/2009/03/again-and-again.html

 

Ariel

http://milwaukeetravelogue.blogspot.com/2009/03/crystal-ridge.html

http://milwaukeetravelogue.blogspot.com/2009/01/berkeley.html

 

John

http://milwaukeetravelogue.blogspot.com/2009/03/xylem-and-fungi.html

http://milwaukeetravelogue.blogspot.com/2009/03/must-i-feel-old.html

http://milwaukeetravelogue.blogspot.com/2009/01/milwaukee.html

 

Joe

http://milwaukeetravelogue.blogspot.com/2009/03/from-mount-tuesday.html

http://milwaukeetravelogue.blogspot.com/2009/03/incubated.html

http://milwaukeetravelogue.blogspot.com/2009/03/script-february-25th-late-afternoon.html

http://milwaukeetravelogue.blogspot.com/2009/03/rainy-friday_02.html

 

Ben

http://milwaukeetravelogue.blogspot.com/2009/03/sprinters-stretch.html

http://milwaukeetravelogue.blogspot.com/2009/03/pay-attention.html

http://milwaukeetravelogue.blogspot.com/2009/02/time.html

 

Alison

http://milwaukeetravelogue.blogspot.com/2009/03/cloth.html

http://milwaukeetravelogue.blogspot.com/2009/01/trying-to-figure-it-out.html

 

Kevin

http://milwaukeetravelogue.blogspot.com/2009/03/love-poem.html

http://milwaukeetravelogue.blogspot.com/2009/01/flowers.html

http://milwaukeetravelogue.blogspot.com/2009/01/ohhhh-comming-of-age-stuff.html

Open the window and crack a smile

My mom noticed the skin off my nose. How can I put this delicately.......I was wearing a grandfather clock on my face and............ .  Well, you get the idea! I know he's not your best friend either, father time that is. But let me tell you about how much fun I had pumping classic rock out of my window on the third floor for the people in the alley to dance to last night. 

For real

Who is this for, 

my friends?

The answer most likely is: just myself. 

I need something . . . 

Like a metaphor.

That comes from a place I can't understand by thinking about. 

This is like finding my way home by using the wireless internet in a cathedral in a dream I'm having for the second time. 

And then videotaping myself shooting myself in the head with a fake gun on the beach just after sunrise without noticing a lady and her puppy behind me because the waves in front of me are so loud. 

Check it

http://www.asocialevent.com/Project_htmls/travelogue/travelogue.html

This is on the website of Paul Druecke, the artist who I collaborated with for MAM After Dark. I'll see if I can get more of the story from him, since there's not a lot of information on the site. But he has some other really interesting things on the project list.

The Meaning of Death

A murder of rows passed by my bed, I said, "Excuse me, could one of you please tell me the meaning of death?" One fell silent while the rest laughed louder. I grew tired trying to decipher the cackles and the quiet and I fell asleep, dreaming of myself falling through a world full of laughter, neither with me nor at me, but I awoke to the sound of the silent bird's wings and smiled, because I never hit the ground.