BE ABOUT IT [press/ zine / reading series]

BE ABOUT IT started as a literary/art zine in 2010. We also now publish poetry collections in print and online, and host a reading series based out of the East Bay.

[thetsaritsa]

“I want to make myself almost vulnerable in front of you compulsively, obsessively”

— Alexandra Naughton, from You Could Never Objectify Me More Than I’ve Already Objectified Myself (via lifeinpoetry)

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FROM BE ABOUT IT ZINE #18: A SONG YOU LISTEN TO IN ORDER TO REMEMBER SOMETHING

LESSER – SPEED FOR GAVIN (’94 AMF COVER)

by Beach Sloth

I literally remember exactly where I was when I first heard this exact song. I was sitting in a small space between my bed and my closet. A weird hiding spot it fit me perfectly and became the “music listening spot”. For a long time, I had listened only to music on the radio but in high school that shifted over to an online realm. Online I found a whole lot more, and this was one of the first things I heard ‘blindly’, i.e. knew absolutely nothing about the artist or the music itself.

The first two tracks were fairly meandering, a lot of static and digital noise. Maybe there were hooks, maybe there weren’t. But then, seemingly out of nowhere, came this piece which snapped me to attention. A weird, distorted, potential porn soundtrack sample got melted and warped. Eventually Lesser layered a bunch of other totally random snippets for humor purposes. I think my favorite one remains the “do you sell fish here?” element. To this very day it remains one of the snottiest, outright obnoxious things I have ever heard and I love it for this very reason.

While maybe not the most technically impressive piece, the attitude won me over. I felt reflected in the sound, and the song encouraged me to go to my first music concert. Usually people see a concert with their parents to see whatever was on the radio. For me, I am a bit embarrassed that my first concert was a highly conceptual lowercase music artist Richard Chartier. I want to say something like “I saw <insert random popular at the time band here>” but I cannot tell a lie.

Upon arriving at the concert, I was asked for ID. Since I was only sixteen, my only form of ID was a library card. The person at the front desk sort of looked at me like “why is a high schooler here” but that was beside the point. In a vain attempt to ease their mind, I said “don’t worry, I don’t drink” which was true but also legally I couldn’t, so regardless of my opinion about alcohol I was prohibited by law from imbibing.

Richard Chartier’s concert was fun. At the end of the concert, some of his friends handed out a double chocolate Entenmann’s cake to celebrate his 30th birthday. I thought to myself “wow he’s thirty he’s so old”. Now I know better. Thirty is pretty young. Also, good cake.

Lesser’s song always reminds me of when I took that first step to reach out to other people. I literally put myself out there. That concert was fun. I made a few friends and started getting outside of my relatively insular home town and high school. Suddenly I understood there was a whole world out there of equally awkward kids listening to simultaneously almost silent music alongside pure noise.

It was homey. It was home.

name / location / fave sad song

Beach Sloth blogs hard. California. Low – “The Plan”

[beaboutitpress]

FROM BE ABOUT IT ZINE #18: A SONG YOU LISTEN TO IN ORDER TO REMEMBER SOMETHING

WHEN DEBBIE’S BACK FROM TEXAS

by Brian McMullen

I'm 41 and parked under an orange oak tree in South Bend. My laptop is open and propped on the steering wheel but it's hard to write. Mostly I'm just staring through the windshield.

I once had to stick up for the brownness of my hair at the DMV around the corner. "Your hair is black," they said. "It's dark brown," I said. "It's black," they said. "Can I borrow your stapler?" I said, and picked the stapler up. I held it to my ear like a telephone receiver. "Your stapler is black," I said. "My hair is dark brown. Do you see the difference?"

That was 21 years ago. My hair is one-third gray now.

Two falls ago, in San Francisco, I wandered alone around the mall downtown, a favorite pastime. I like the big bright dome on the top floor. I like the creampuffs in the basement. I walked into John Varvatos, an upscale clothing store. The greeter said "Welcome to Michael Kors!" Then he apologized for saying the wrong store name and offered me champagne.

I tried on a sweater the same color as this car, a rusting burgundy Subaru Forester. The greeter said "Brian, that sweater really brings out the silver in your hair." It's fun to be flattered sometimes. I almost bought the sweater.

I unlock my phone and google "define flattery."

I'm trying to write about a song that reminds me of the summer of 1999. A hopeful feeling. I was 20 and halfway through college. I lived with my girlfriend's parents in suburban Chicago that summer. A house in the neighborhood where Home Alone was shot.

My girlfriend wasn't there. She'd graduated and moved to Ecuador. I slept in her childhood bed. Sat next to her brother at the family dinner table. He didn't initiate conversations but would answer yes-or-no questions about golf.

After you took a shower in my girlfriend's parents' house, you were expected to squeegee all three shower walls, plus the glass door. The goal was to leave no visible drips of water on any vertical surface. I got good at it. The barbecue sauce in the refrigerator was a brand I'd never seen.

I lived with my girlfriend's parents because I'd been offered an internship close to their house.

What happened was I'd mailed a fan letter and some of my lit mags, zines, and bookmarks to a graphic designer whose work I liked. He called to thank me for the package. "So what's your deal?" he asked. I told him I was a writer, an artist, an English major. "I've been making books since I was a kid," I said. "I view design and typography as integral aspects of authorship," I said. "Who sends fan letters these days?," he said. "You're not a good designer, but you're brave, and that's what counts" he said. "Would you like a summer internship? I can pay $300 a week."

I'd get dressed for work in front of a framed yearbook photo of my girlfriend at age 12. Her turtleneck was the color of cartoon grapes. A pastel drawing of a clown hung above her bed. My bed. The paper had yellowed at the edges. It felt odd to masturbate in the dark in front of these pictures, but there was no safer place to do it.

One of the songs on regular rotation at the graphic design studio was "When Debbie's Back From Texas" by Stina Nordenstam.

Brian McMullen lives with his two sons in rural northwest Indiana. His favorite sad song is “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore” by the Walker Brothers.

[beaboutitpress]

FROM BE ABOUT IT ZINE #18: A SONG YOU LISTEN TO IN ORDER TO REMEMBER SOMETHING

SAH(RAC)

by Brianne Agnizle

I worked at this tiny bumfuck titty-bar in the middle of a rural Michigan wasteland, so it was this pretty desolate and remote hole-in-the-wall employing only six strippers in total with one usually smoking cigarettes in the bathroom at any given time. This girl we had Charlie claimed she was the only stripper in Michigan who had a “back-road country girl” theme going on with her look, and she always played country songs to keep up with that image. It was a particularly busy night when Save a Hose (Ride a Cowboy) came over the speaker system. I was giving some guy a dance in the corner because that’s where we gave guys dances, the fucking corner, he was a younger guy late 20’s there with his buddies. So I’m hustling him in that corner telling him like Oh you’re so sexy babe Oh you can get it—and when Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy) comes on he gets this devil look in his eye like—“this is my song, you know that, don’t you . . .” Well, you and every other hick straggler who pops his ass in here boy. But I’m hustling his hick ass so I’m like Oh no way babe!

So the song goes on as I’m giving him this dance (these were no touch dances, so I’m just sitting topless in front of him on a chair spread eagle) and he starts gettin’ real seductive. Singing along with the words staring deep straight into my eyes and licking his lips all alluring like somebody’d just released his inner cowboy-stud-self. I decide to play along with it because I’m hustling—him: Save A Horse . . . & me: Ride a Cowboy!—trying my damnedest not to laugh. And he loves this exchange so much that without even changing the seductive look in his eye or his expression this man just starts crying, just tears streaming down his face out of sheer, ravishing joy. It was a beautiful moment to share with a stranger. $60 in my pocket and a good memory. I made a playlist dedicated to remembering my time working at that club with this song included among others. Each hold at least one special, unique memory.

Name / Location / Favorite Sad Song

Brianne Agnizle / Michigan / “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” – The Beach Boys

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FROM BE ABOUT IT ZINE #18: A SONG YOU LISTEN TO IN ORDER TO REMEMBER SOMETHING

A MOVIE ADAPTATION OF THE METAMORPHOSIS BY FRANZ KAFKA SCORED BY MODEST MOUSE

by Cand Torrance

I am walking back to my parent’s house in 2013 around the time that pitchfork puts out a documentary out about the lonesome crowded west

Where you can watch people from sub pop talk about how the album has momentum

How Seattle couldn’t slow down

It tries to capture some of the sounds from tour

You’d start by playing the album on cassette

CD

On Spotify

It lives in all of the places between destinations

It spells out road maps

Points out truck stops

to anyone born after 1992

And I use it to get to where I need to go until I get to go further

A lot of this time in my life is fitting shit in between a trail of recommended videos on YouTube

Coming to terms with how much time I won’t be able to dissociate with

Before vyvanse

I am seventeen listening to a seventeen Isaac Brock talk about pre birth as a character select

A fallacy of informed choice

You’re born any way you want to except you have no idea of knowing what you could need

“In the place before you’re made

They give you all these options like

Have you got wings

Or have you got feelings

Or can you breathe underwater

He chose lifting ten times his weight

And natural body armour

[…]”

Do I have to say it’s Kafka esque when he came out as an insect?

I’m reading it as a manga

I’m hearing things until I see them

I fill in the blanks with these ad libs when I can’t add more to senior musical improv

I get into posting poetry on Tumblr around this time

I embody expression but only as absolute mantra

“White lies fall off my yellow teeth

I couldn’t convince you but I believe

White lies fall off my yellow teeth

I couldn’t convince you but I believe”

—-

Someone else got me to listen to this band ten years ago but it’s fine, I solicit good takes only

You don’t surrender songs after a bad breakup because you’re stubborn and art was never that trivial to begin with

So many songs sit like a resin

You’ve been telling yourself you want your voice to drop since you were 13

Cand Torrance has been publishing poems online intermittently since 2014. She has been listening to Modest Mouse since 2009, her favourite sad song by them is “Lives.” She has lived less than a mile away from any given body of water for the last 26 years. She currently lives in Toronto, Ontario.

[beaboutitpress]

FROM BE ABOUT IT ZINE #18: A SONG YOU LISTEN TO IN ORDER TO REMEMBER SOMETHING

FUCK THE DUMBSHIT

by Cory Bennet

I got this CD by the North Bay band, Sabertooth Zombie, called “Midnight Venom” from my friend Jason. He handed it to me when I was looking for some Spiderghost pressgang/Sammy Winston zines in this cardboard box he had on a shelf. The album was released in 2006, I was a senior and in love with a woman who I would ultimately betray, years later, in my increasing need to be high. But “Midnight Venom” changed my life, both sonically and lyrically. I wanted to write stories that felt like these songs, particularly the last song, “American Eyes Part II (Rat Bones)”

“I’M THE SHOPPING DEAD / I FUCK ON ESCALATORS / I’M THE STRAY CAT SEARCHING FOR RAT BONES (AND LOVE).”

The track is only 1 minute and 56 seconds and then silence until the 6 minute 25 seconds mark when a guitar riff comes from the void and explodes into a song that has kept me sane for 14 years. I didn’t know it at the time but it was a cover of an All Bets Off song, “Dismantle” that was recorded in 1998 and featured on the compilation “A Call For Unity. Hardcore Worldwide.”

I listen to “Dismantle” when I am apathetic or drifting towards nihilism. All Bets Off soon became a very important band for me, this is the band Sammy used to sing for. He’d go on to sing in Ramparts and Grace Alley before burning to death in his Echo Park home on the 4th of July. Another good reason to hate that day. Sammy is a certified Bay legend and after reading his zines I started to take writing seriously, here was someone who I had been looking for, telling the stories I experienced.

“Dismantle” is a song that at first appears to be something other than itself. Beginning the song by singing in earnest and not screaming is a reflection of the opening lyrics: “Well everything’s alright, I’ve got everything I’ve always wanted but still I feel like something’s missing” and then the tone of the song completely changes from an upbeat melodic hardcore track to that d-beat classic All Bets Off sound that could’ve only came from San Francisco. In the cover by STZ, Cody follows Sammy’s path and continues to sing: “Powerless I sit as I watch my world fall down around me I’d scream for help but who would listen?” And the last word becomes a guttural plea for help, a scream and a growl that exposes the emotional hue of the song. “I'm determined to endure. Fuck the dumbshit. I'm determined to endure. Dismantle. Survive. Break free from the shackles of the daily grind. Dismantle. Survive. Kill your elders. Free your mind. Ten bony digits are wrapped around your throat. Pressure's applied and you start to choke. You can't see the light but you can smell the death, tell me what would you say with your last breath?”

This has been about three songs but I could not separate them because they are interconnected and changed the trajectory of my life.

Sammy used to email me poems and short stories and I published them in my zine under his name or sometimes he’d use a nom de plume. I wanted to do a showcase of his work so I asked him for 30 pages of poems or stories. He sent them to me and I made my replica of the zine and formatted it on my laptop at night. I sent it to this press in Oakland I had worked with in the past but before they could print the zines their warehouse burned down.

In an interview with STZ by Scene Point Blank after the release of their record, they were asked, “What does ‘Midnight Venom’ mean?” The singer of the band, Cody answers “We’re all punks, we hate the world, and we spit nasty black venom in nighttime excursions. Fuck America.”

I play this song to remind myself of the passion and intensity of the love I once carried with me. The song, these bands, bring me to a time when everything we did felt radical. Our way of expressing these notions was through crime, graffiti, tattoos, drugs, and a self-destructive outlook that we thought was revolutionary. We didn’t feel sorry for ourselves, for the lives we had been given, for the youth that was stripped away from all of us. We were empowered by the intoxicating effects of ideology. I wanted to die but in a manner that expressed how I lived and loved. I wanted to die for my friends. My burning anger of my youth has been replaced by sadness from all that time has taken away from me. This includes the shit that has been my own fault. All the times I painted myself into a corner and instead of walking across the room and making a mess, I burn the building and wait for my turn. I’m still waiting, I’ve been in that same room for fifteen years and I can’t put the fire out, and it never stops, the wooden walls burning for the rest of my life. Listening to these bands are the exhale that has been stuck in my chest since birth.

Cory Bennet lives in California and favorite sad song is “The Carpenters Son” by Nothing

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FROM BE ABOUT IT ZINE #18: A SONG YOU LISTEN TO IN ORDER TO REMEMBER SOMETHING

"EVERYONE IS CRAZY WITH THEIR OWN LIFE", SHARON VAN ETTEN'S ARE WE THERE

by Curtis Moyer

I first discovered Sharon Van Etten's music in The OA (Netflix). During the first season, there is an episode where she sings "I Wish I Knew" a capella. Her voice was captivating, resonating with a deep pathos singers have rarely reached for me (Hannah Reid of London Grammar is another). After watching The OA two or three times I decided to look Van Etten up, and I've been blown away ever since. Van Etten's catalog is jam packed with great songs. I spent the end of 2017 listening to her four albums on shuffle-repeat. But so many songs, from her 4th album, Are We There stuck out, so I began listening to the album by itself. Are We There is Van Etten's magnum opus, every track is incredible. Released in 2014, this powerful album got people's attention, even more than her previous album Tramp. Are We There builds upon Tramp's sound but reaches beyond it. Van Etten's vocal melodies are arguably what keep you listening. Her musical arrangements aren't overly complex or convoluted, allowing her voice to stand out and carry each track. Van Etten's vocal range is otherworldly, her ability to hit exceptionally high melodies and sustain them ("Our Love") while also hitting a lower end ("Tarifa", "Your Love is Killing Me") feels rare. Her voice creates an unusual relationship in contrast to the instrumentation, while full of heart-wrenching pathos her voice also contains a subtle and cathartic optimism, giving her songs a duality difficult for any artist to pull off, particularly one steeped in so much pain and sadness, but she nails it every time. Her lyrical content only adds to the vocal depth of each song, she is not a lyricist dependent on strict cohesion or irritating end-rhyming. Are We There is an album she has said was difficult to make both creatively and emotionally, given the lyrics are from a place of pain, trauma, and abuse. Van Etten is an alchemist at transmuting her own pain into devastating material. "I Know" is a song which literally feels like a hug (How often can you say that about a song?). "Your Love is Killing Me" is about an abusive relationship, one where the speaker lacks power "You like it when I let you walk all over me / you tell me that you like it" both in the relationship and their own inability to walk away from the pain. Are We There is my favorite Van Etten album even though I'm a person who lacks relationships, the bulk of Van Etten's lyrical content. I suffer from depression and anxiety; while I've tried treatment multiple times, and until recently nothing seemed to stick. The You-I relationship within the majority of her most powerful songs I've always read as my own internal and external selves ("You Know Me Well"), constantly getting in the way of one another and ruining relationships and friendships before they get off the ground. Codependent neediness verses independence, the anxiety of abandonment and inevitable pain, the crippling depression of regret...etc. Van Etten's music, particularly Are We There, acts as a mirror to whatever I may be feeling and has helped ground me against unrelenting internal enemies whose job is making the day-to-day struggle difficult. Are We There's concluding chorus captures what exactly living with MDD/PTSD/Anxiety feels like: "Every time the sun comes up I'm in trouble".

Curtis Moyer / on instagram @cmopaints / “Rennen” - SOHN

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FROM BE ABOUT IT ZINE #18: A SONG YOU LISTEN TO IN ORDER TO REMEMBER SOMETHING

SATURN SONG AND SWINGIN' PARTY

by Emma Guinn SATURN SONG - BEACH HOUSE

On June 30, 2017, Beach House released their B-sides and rarities album, the misfit masterpieces. On June 30, 2017, I picked up the keys to my new apartment, and had a tangible resolution to escape a dark corner of my life. I latched onto Beach House like they were my late grandmother's pearls. I became more myself every time I listened to them. They illuminated the path to the most beautiful corners of my mind and soothed my growing pains. The fourplex sat to the back of a property with primarily an old bed and breakfast, smack dab in the middle of town. The first thing my landlord told me of the 110 year old building was how a previous tenant had a one night stand with the guy who invented acid. There was a radiator but no air conditioning, and I'm not sure which detail was more absurd for a small Texas town. I didn't care. It was just me, barefoot, learning all the creaks in the wood floors. Just me, sweating bullets, listening to the ethereal piano loops tickling the idea of a void full of hope. I stepped into a new era. It was the day my life began as the person I am now, and I remember it clear as my reflection in the courtyard birdbath.

SWINGIN' PARTY - THE REPLACEMENTS

I hated summer. How long it was, how it hurt to breathe, how heavy my limbs became, how dismal it was when the wildflowers were replaced with brown, crunchy grass and sticker burrs. I miss it ardently, but I never want to go back. It can only exist positively through the rose-colored glasses I situationally invented for it, much like my toxic ex. We would climb on the roof to watch the sun disappear over the cemetery. One of us had to pass the cans of Lone Star up the ladder. On July 4th we had a kiddie pool instead of an ice chest. I stood in it for relief making a game of kicking the booze around while watching the boys on the dirt bikes. I'd only leave the pool to ride on the back, zooming past the headstones. The dead didn't mind--I asked them once while on mushrooms. Kissing the sweat off each other's upper lip was gross, so I avoided it and interjected into the same patio conversations I'd heard so many times I could recite them from memory. Once I was so bored and drunk in the garden that I tried sobering up by eating all the onions while waiting for my ride to the bar. The walk home after last call was a mile uphill and usually we were fighting or fucking by the end of it. When we bickered so aimlessly and fervently that we lost a whole uneaten pepperoni pizza, all I could do is crack another cold one on the porch and pour one out for that lucky son of a bitch.

Emma Guinn resides in Portland, Oregon, and her favorite sad song is “Tears In The Typing Pool” by Broadcast

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FROM BE ABOUT IT ZINE #18: A SONG YOU LISTEN TO IN ORDER TO REMEMBER SOMETHING

BEIRUT

by Halim Madi

April 19th 1995. Tim McVeigh parks a rented Ryder truck loaded with 1 ton of Nitrate Ammonium in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, and ignites a timed fuse. At 9:04am, the surrounding area looks like a war zone. A third of the building is reduced to rubble. Floors flattened like pancakes. Dozens of cars incinerated. Over 300 nearby buildings damaged or destroyed. August 4th 2020. A container with 2700 tons of Ammonium Nitrate enclosed explodes in the port of Beirut.

Do the math

The glass

of a thousand buildings binding

in its frame

a million windows breaking

free. Glass a metaphor

for a torn nation searching

for its seams

stuffed

grape leaves

وراء عنب

my grandma’s specialty

leaves bulging at the hem

Teta — why

do they taste different every time and

have you been skimping on the meat and

can we ever demand consistency?

That at least misery should come in a single flavor — where

do I file this complaint?

The department of plagues, the ministry of

curses. Glass a metaphor

for transparency

a careful exercise in keeping things at bay

a city bursting

at the irony

cutting

rebels

loose

unsure

which of two hymns to hum now

1.

لبيروت

[Li Beirut] meaning To Beirut sung by the grief struck voice of Fayrouz kissing the forehead of Beirut’s rocks, the ribs of its houses, eating the sweat-soaked bread of its people, picking flowers blooming in the slit a wound left in the throat of a teen, watered by the tears of their mother mourning a glory made of ashes.

2.

بيروت ست الدنيا

[Beirut sett el dounia], Beirut lady of the world carried by Majida El Roumi. An accusation borrowing the voice of the perpetrators. A girl’s finger pointed at the nations whose envy fed the wars that fed on our city. A dagger where we thought we’d find a rose. An invitation. To rise from the rubble like a revolution born from the womb of sadnesses.

Mama you sang the first one often

the second during bombings and assassinations

Fayrouz, the chronic voice of grief

Majida the acute screech of indignation

Both voices blasting the kitchen windows where Teta

folds the grape leaf over the filling

rolls, keeps tucking the left and right sides

until every grain is contained

This container

outdid every war we’ve known

Tonight, my city is

alone in the night

one with the night

The bed you tucked me into

covered in shards

Name / Location / Favorite Sad Song

Halim Madi / San Francisco / “Dead of Night” by Orville Peck

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from be about it zine #18: a song you listen to in order to remember something

I HEARD THAT CALI NEVER RAINS

by Jasyn Brackett I was in London during the summer solstice, and sunlight was still visible at 10:30 PM. This stunned me. I couldn’t stop marveling about it, because it’s impossible for that to happen at home. San Diego is magnitudes south of the UK, and the sunset times don’t fluctuate as much. I have unclear memories of visiting the Old Globe Theater, the Tate Modern, Speaker’s Corner at Hyde Park, or any other landmarks. I do remember when my host, Trevor, took me on the London Underground to some place called Islington to meet his buddy. I don’t remember the dude’s name. He and I introduced ourselves, and after I spoke, he perked up. “Oh, wow! I love your accent!” He became instantly excited about my heavy Southern Californian accent. He was hopping up and down a little bit, like a child about to receive a lollipop. For the first time, I felt exotic. I hadn’t known that I have the cadence of a surfer. We had some kind of activity planned together, but Trevor’s friend diverted us. With his eyes hopeful, he exclaimed, “You’re going to record the outgoing message for my office phone!” “Alright, sure, just tell me what you want me to say,” I flatly said. I played it cool, but secretly, my ego was swelling as we walked to his workplace. This guy wrote a script for me on a scratchpad. I spoke naturally and without exaggeration: “Hey, I’m either on the phone, in a meeting, or away from my office. Leave me a message, and I’ll contact you as soon as I’m able.” I looked back at the guys. “Was that good? Want me to do it again?” “Not at all, that was brilliant! The clients will love it! You’re a one-take man!” That night, I prepared for bed while music videos played on the TV. I was removing my boxer-briefs when a song began with a hovering, airy synth pad. Suddenly, a celebratory beat arrived, featuring an especially buoyant bassline. Also, Kanye West started yelling a bunch of stuff right when that rhythm began. This was the first time I heard Estelle’s “American Boy,” and I was in love with the disco track. Estelle sang directly to me. I was the American boy that she’s likin’. She wanted me, and my being an American was a big factor, somehow. This was a dozen years ago. I’ve had countless experiences that were way more formative. But I so deeply felt desired and unique. For a week, I was the exotic one. I like to sing “American Boy” when I’m at karaoke, Kanye verses and all. I sing it to revisit that overwhelming, if immature, sensation. If I perform it well, I’ll feel the crowd’s adulation. In small and healthy doses, it’s a fun feeling to have. It’s an ephemeral attraction, a guilty vanity, and a playful novelty.

name / location / favorite sad song Jasyn Brackett / San Diego / “Rubber Band” by the Trammps

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from be about it zine #18: a song you listen to in order to remember something

THAT SATURDAY MORNING RETURN

by Jeremy Hight Just graduated from San Francisco State with an English degree and that minor in creative writing. Had to scramble to find a place and any job I could grab. Twenty-five years old and wondering what the past meant, the future might ever be and that daily sense that surely the ground itself and gravity was not something to trust completely.

I lived in my friend Frishta’s place on Jones while she tried post graduated (and ultimately failed) to find a job in New York. I was so tight on money that I put syrup on top ramen that morning and told myself it was pancakes. Fog burning off and a Saturday after a week of making minimum wage off market hustling dumb market research garbage in a little room with no windows and the world seeming maybe just ready to fly off into space, sink into the ground whole or just possibly lead somewhere.

This song [Saint Etienne “Nothing Can Stop Us Now”] saved my life that day and those months. This is not hyperbole by any means. I have fought clinical depression and anxiety since I was in diapers and always will. I write this tonight after learning yesterday a good friend took his own life. He texted us all and then that was it. This song for years is a place I go to late at night. It is one of those little islands where things seemed so uncertain but also so raw and real (like they do know of course but in other ways). The 60’s drum fill samples and flutes lift and float and the message is of fighting adversity, of pushing on.

That moment also was when I knew I would fight as hard as possible to both stay on this earth and keep writing despite all the great uncertainties including the huge ones inside. I am listening now and I am back in that kitchen smelling the air planning a day off and the world being a great open mouth uncertain but alive in all directions. Tomorrow I will help plan the memorial for my friend and share memories with his other friends, tomorrow the world will still roil wound with chaos and politics, the future is still so unclear and gravity itself still feels like it might just be ready to let go and shuttle us all into the air. Now this song is everything though as it has been with every listen and for a few moments the world again is that Saturday morning with so much ahead and the decision to live on.

Jeremy Hight / Los Angeles / Saint Etienne “Nothing Can Stop Us Now”

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Thursday, March 25 at 5pm PST: just a little reading to celebrate be about it zine #18 and share some of the writing within the issue.

Featuring: Alexandra Naughton, Bri Agnizle, Beach Sloth, Brian McMullen, Cand Torrance, Cory Bennet, Halim Madi, Jasyn Brackett, Marie, Merritt Waldon, Nate Logan, Peggy Morrison, Sylvia Sommer, and more!

Join zoom here.

[beaboutitpress]

cohabitating

thunder woke me, jacked into a busted amp - i’ll say the fuzz is intentional

and try to splice the hours, the summer’s small tragedies like Jorge Ben from laptop speakers - bored-ecstatic, hard-panned

send me to sleep a few more hours. there are no synth tones to make it easier no singing saw choirs to lift me their tremolo has become passé, teenage utopian

i don’t know how you feel, can you tell me? i won’t know how you feel til you tell me

load me in the hell dumptruck or take me up to the tiki bar in the sky

we’ll discuss our mutual hates talk about power like it doesn’t apply you’re a medium, show me days to come - fireflies, surplus time

draw out the excess of my chest briefly i can be the boy of your dreams past two, with dim lamplight on i do the reading, there’s nothing better to do

[beaboutitpress]

Utopian Universe (A Poem by Reza Ghahremanzadeh)

We’re standing in a special world

with beauty beyond measure,

it’s utopian and it’s dreamy,

a universe of pleasure.

Everywhere you look

there’s a glimmer or a glint,

the ground’s as soft as satin

and the air tastes just like mint.

It’s a place that is devoid

of violence, blood, and fights,

and every person’s aura

shines like neon lights.

The glass tree dances wildly

with the light that it reflects,

heartbeats beat in unison

and every soul connects.

The firmament above

performs some kind of spell,

a million different shades of blue

from teal to majorelle.

Everything is calm

and you never feel unsteady,

goddesses of the silver moon

throw stardust like confetti.

It’s a place where you can live

an eternally pure existence,

watch cowgirls ride their unicorns

off into the distance.

Everything’s weird and wonderful

but never out of place,

every field is covered

with sheets of sparkling lace.

People swim at night

in golden lakes and pools,

the flowers that grow upon the banks

glisten just like jewels.

Here your vision’s clear

and here your soul is stronger,

the days are sweet like candyfloss

but their sweetness lasts much longer.

[beaboutitpress]

A poem is "the everything"

The world doesn't care if I write another word,

Armageddon and dying aside,

My silence would be the same

The dead bellowing out in their peaceful sleep--bellowing about journeys in lands I used to know.

  The world cares not about my similes and metaphors,

Or my socially-conscious and polite poetry.

About the moon's thread,

Or the echo of change lifting the curtain of the crowd.

  The world care not,

But a poem is a dream we can't quite get to.

A poem is the perplexed city standing still in the century

A poem is  blind man scurrying to the street corner, like the dead, like the crowds moaning for the politician, like a sideways reality, like whichever direction God might be.

A poem is "the everything"

A poem is the world.

A  poems is the chance to get to elsewhere.

[beaboutitpress]

my fuckin 5 yr old self

kissed 3 boys in Kindergarten

My first 3 kisses

I’m cooler than any Lauren or Katie.

Never had a boyfriend though

in a day where a one day hookup

counts – You throw up six fingers.

Yeah right.

I have boy friends.

Boyfriend.

I hate that word. So juvenile.

Like can we grow up pls

Did I ever grow up

if I never had one ?

Why did I have to have my horny stage when I was 5 ? ?

GOD WHYYY

Now no one fucking gets me.

“Ask the token brown girl out”

Being sad is cool.

Cry me a river !

and drink up the tears

(you’ll be less thirsty)

Where’s my Indian prince ?

The one my parents promised me.

You could spend a lifetime looking for

someone. How sad.

I wasn’t raised like you

don’t know how to play your game

but sucks to suck

I already won .

[beaboutitpress]

State Supplements

Weak opening. The other project had bangers, still these songs rebuild a whole childhood, composed entirely from pure nostalgia. This is a lot better than slowed down popular songs from 2013 Gorgeous jams you got here, the compression on YouTube really detracts, really digging the pipes, I feel a lot of Donkey Kong feelings, this is the story of an AI being born, maturing, and eventually becoming all powerful Sounds like a particular Hall & Oates song, but too damn smooth to be samples, is that my grandma singing? Does that mean you really love it? The current year has performed an illegal operation and must be terminated.