beatcascadian

when i was a little kid in oregon i didn't feel that i was an american at all

[beatcascadian]

When I go to Saturday Market, it’s hard to tell what I give out, what I sell, and what I simply write. Today’s take home stack, maybe a dozen like these went out. Plenty of help from fellow marketeer, Lax. Shelter from sudden rain.

[beatcascadian]

Kesey Square

A glorious grey day, we are funny and bright even when skies tell us not to be, shy despite our attempts to communicate, and safe in the knowledge that nothing lasts as long as memory.

A marvelous crowd, dancing wild and singing great tones to the masses, grinning running kids that squeal in bliss, careless and free, mad for the rush of curious wander. Knitted hats and warm layers as if this grey could deepen any second.

Still unsure, but stopping anyway to see what’s up. Everything is up in space, organized celebration falls apart into disorganized existence, which it was to begin with.

Kids engage careless while adults take great strides to not come off aloof or odd, but what does any of that matter? Doesn’t, so dance, dance fools! Dance so the fools become commonplace, this is the common space, make it whatever it could be.

-- -- --

Approaching the one hour timeslot allotted by a disconnected management group, but by simply showing up, we’ve shown them up, look what can be done with a few posts and a few calls to action, suddenly many have become one holistic gathering, and it works.

-- -- --

I’ll tell a story, of finding street poets among drunkards, with bourbon filling the gutters near cathedrals and statues and the muddy Mississippi, dancing to brass, dancing to the beat of a big easy city on the bayou.

I’ll tell a story, of a camp in the redwoods, thinking we just witnessed a Sasquatch, thinking a Yeti was after us with stolen US forest service uniform as a disguise, or maybe just to break into our tent or cooler for snacks that rainy spring break near the shore.

I’ll tell a story of now, when my mind dances around with complete strangers, but I find that to be peaceful and funny and a goofy bliss not found in the walls of my home nor the monitor of my computer nor the rows in my fresh new garden. This story is best, because the now is easiest to recall.

-- -- --

Perhaps my last poem for this space today, the sun has arrived and I’m hungry, another quality donut maybe, frosting.

[beatcascadian]

Pepto Palace

Listening to the 1975 and typing with Dandy with broken margins, and recalling the sounds from five flat typewriters lined across Royal like it was yesterday because it nearly was.

Drives through Olympia only Ben Gibbard could dream, Twin Shadow now, all echoes and dribbling.

-- -- --

Music in the living room, with neighbors. Mirrors and banjos swimming thru sand coloured liquids sending alcohols into space and then joining.

[beatcascadian]

Saturday Market

East Lawn

Ages since last stopping here, to take in wild steamy smells from food court and a band can be heard, strumming bluegrass so good.

Folks turn out on a sunny day, glad for April blue skies and increasing temperatures.

Frog comes this way, every joke book under the sun is under his arm, and by far the funniest, today is sunniest, kids play while also perplexed that it all happens.

-- -- --

Through the right pair of eyes, the person might see the phrase that I use was not quite inclusive of all the reality of excuses we use, while you are awake, you do intake oxygen, which saves your brain from waving from contrawave energy, when you sleep... -- Lax

-- -- --

“You should go ask THAT guy... to tell you a joke.”

Borrowed a quick red chair from busy lunch tables, will return when through, but in the meantime, they’ll have to set their plates but stand around, I’d apologize but it’s only half an hour, the table is only half full.

Funny, funny people are buzzing by in moseying dreams, cups in hand, smiles to pass out freely over pizza slices and exotic noodles.

-- -- --

So many new faces in town, hard to keep up, but what a day to first set eyes on such a swimming city.

We humble ourselves in community and resting in shade we find the meaning of gathering.

We’re hungry, so share some chocolate cake. We’re thirsty, some water from a flask to be refilled. Bored, so put on a funny costume, get your face painted or a balloon animal, but please, while you’re here, enjoy.

-- -- --

South Lawn

Robbie left to get hydration, and I’ve chatted with nearly every vendor, in tie dyes and sunny faces, the shine glints off this machine from beams cast beneath quaint stout noble banks, tiny towers over little squares, where denizens roost for the long days ahead.

[beatcascadian]

Kesey Square

It’s strange when familiar greasy smells get strewn together ripe with late afternoon skunky pleasure, drifting wildly and idly from loopy mechanical dustbins and pedestals.

Tax exempt complexes cast shadow in the corner, frozen shirtless naps with heads to rest on red square type stone. I’ve had to explain Ken Kesey to more 90s kids than simply suggesting they look around and see his influence. They wrestle with both concepts, and shyly walk away.

[beatcascadian]

Kesey Square

Fellow vendors raise eyebrows at punks down the way cussing each other back and forth. Could use a smoke at some point, hey, my first customers!

Discussing hamburger farts, dazzling the thimble’s worth of sunshine we have now is tremendous.

Glad for shoes and interrupted vegan solidarity. Folks coming or going or bother singing songs and writing always and we’re tired and where are the other folks? Isn’t something happening here?

-- -- --

Facing Sizzle Pie today, as if to curse pepperoni, or at least cast its odor back to the bricks. Typical and pleasant, meanders and trash cans, bank towers and dollar joints advertised, soon maybe a companion, but for now, just passing glances.

Sounds about right, wondering how hard Berners are partying in Portland following this morning’s rally, some arbitrary figures on TV screens telling us who might, just might be our next supreme leader.

Approaching that four o’clock chime, and wondering again about those dollar joints I’m hearing so much about. Is Dandy coming down? Now a poem shared.

These are frightening circumstances, where faces become more familiar with time, we see the same repeating features. Women in 50s with pink and purple locks smoke cigarettes amid cocktails, and a stranger in Eugene for the first time ran out of gas and is trying to roll on. CBD and THC and usual typical conversation, mostly cloudy Friday, downtown and the same.

-- -- --

No one knows how they feel about PVC in swamp coats, art canvas carried to be hoisted and positioned lobbyside, just so, not to interrupt, and a nibble of this, a puff of that, toke that shit, just another sip of those, mystery chocolates and Dolphin RVs, funny sculptures and vape pens.

Daisies and daydreamed dizzying, punk jackets and punk hoodies and snappy jangle strings beside me, obvious out of towners mixing with townies, we’re bored by what we smell and fixate on what is silent.

-- -- --

I’m a dude, she’s a dude, he’s a dude, we’re all dudes. Dig it. We donate more than find contribution, it’s a fair share, space to collaborate without knowing for certain that’s what’s happening.

I don’t really have beef with the giant boxes forming around this place, other than I can’t afford them, and never really like when I can.

We must have more shamen and shawomen than we can count, all wanderers sticking fingers to the sky to test the rain makers. No one’s getting wet, just yet.

[beatcascadian]

MeowTOWN

If I were to actually do mescaline, I wouldn’t actually want to be at a place. Not playing anything, kinda have to pee. Took me a minute for that one, Dave. Yeah. Do the things you haven’t done.

[beatcascadian]

Kesey Square

Shouters try to capture their friends, against all odds they shout names and hope their loved one responds, which they do, and they’re united in a walk to wherever down funny Broadway and this kid can feel the acid and now this kid is tripping, and the dog is not Russell, and I like that sweater guy, and it’s great to see a skyline from the center of it.

-- -- --

Discussing Mardi Gras jailers trying to make a buck and a nug to take home to the kids and wife. Smoky bubbles right where I left them, people avoid this corner like a line of cop cars down the streeted darkness lit bright with red and blue pronouncing to the neighborhood that indeed, something’s up.

Not a spot of attention, even moved grumpy out of the frame of a visitor’s cell phone memory of a statue I don’t think she understood but I moved aside anyway.

[beatcascadian]

Jackson Square

Just arrived and surprised to find a reversed bench. Trying to send this wonderful machine ancient sound around enough for someone to drop their pity in its case for shy poetic troubles. Crashing around downtown sounds, a train perhaps, or at least wonderful music. Tabasco and Plaza d’Armas, which came first? Money’s on the hot sauce. Some Creole delicacies perhaps, maybe pralines or voodoo, to take home and torment the mantle? Maybe I’m fine without being disturbed. Maybe tourists have spent their money on less personal tokens of a journey beyond dreams. Music swells, but not the jazz I fell in love with the first and last time I came to this square. My life is full of squares.

Little girl peers over my shoulder, checking up on what I’m doing, this American nut! Likes the sounds of these strokes, the voices carrying on between chapel, public art and river, a million outsiders going nowhere, all the time in the world. Funny how these things just happen. I wonder what goes through minds when they see this cacophony. More than just me, the music and strange smiles, everyone lost along the main old muddy vein of a country beyond the vast bayou.

Emma from New Zealand can’t help herself, curiosity got the best of her, and of her family’s wallet, I’m making the initial upfront cash of my dream by my own effort, without clocking in, without bothering with payroll, but by simply being open and kind as ever. Keep going, I see the appeal. “Kicking it old school!” the tourist hollers. Smells circulate as a booth is set up for face painting. A new band strikes up, and awkward folks pass, and a photo of me is snapped by a nearby phone. Such wonder they say. What nonsense and such a pleasure, glad everyone has a place to enjoy.

I lay my artwork out, bare it to the strangeness as Andrew Jackson, astride a bronze equine monstrosity, tallyhos along the river. Folks are still almost unnerved by the sight of me, I’m glad, though after that first taste of cold cash, I find it hard to get them to do more than just gaze and move along. Starlet with a camera, smoking cigarettes, matching baseball caps and dizzy daiquiris “Whoa, a typewriter!” I love these cameras, but I love your money more. Send me home with something to show for myself. You point and squint against the sunlight, keep texting, the booth beside this bench continues its popup particulars. The cigarettes smolder and dwindle and still, show me the money. Maybe the acoustics cause discord, mixed with brick and mortar and iron columns holding back railings and drunkards.

The music gets dramatic, banging against the flapping of international flags and the people they represent. I almost wonder if I offer up what folks didn’t know they needed, but maybe instead they should give more indication than just a boring nod. Take another photo, I do not mind. Any publicity is publicity. Something I could use as I enter this campaign.

Debra from Arizona but now Mississippi stopped for a piece of art, Portland bridge, Glenn Jackson, huh, Jackson Square, a connection, her daughter is from Seattle, my mind is in Paris, my heart in San Francisco, my soul in New Orleans.

Then Jana, a homicide detective on break, coming back now and then to her former beat because it makes her smile. Now a pigeon, orange eyed, ducks its head around curious as well. I have no bread for you poor bird. A Marlboro is stoked in passing, and maybe one in seven notices, and one of those seven will bother to ask what I’m doing. Smile away, dawdling meanderers. Adverts for walking tours, for those more intrepid than those on top deck hop on open top nonsense. I’m not knocking their presence, because all tourists go home upon leaving their change on the bar, trading for white styrofoam togo po boys and a limey green hand grenade. What’s the attraction? What couldn’t simple beer do for you? A couple hangs on each other for the long haul, and obvious outsider almost Eugene street kids, are these kids everywhere?

“Don’t see that very much!” Nothing said so far is that far off. Something in you gets it, but you still don’t bother beyond a nod and a dash of bewilderment.

The booth is now all set up, and perhaps a happy relationship will form here, where all parties benefit as cash is carried from pocked to twisted sad pocket. Arguing Pink Floyd tshirts, maybe not an argument, just lively conversation. Everyone everyone everyone must pay, they can’t just hang out for free, they have to pay their penance. Like an offering in the collection, an energetic exchange, a divine duty to share among ourselves, and find something truly valuable.

[beatcascadian]

Rue de la Course

Seemingly monied and not without passive observation, these dawdlers mingle with two blank eyed doglettes under each arm. They hate chairs, they hate this coffee, they hate the sun and each passerby with frothing little teeth and miniature growls. Their owner, in wraparound suns and just as solar red shirt, stares in awe at the single tapping sight in front of him, sitting in a plastic chair around the corner on Oak, paying everything attention.

Three nights so far in this city. What first grabbed my attention were the sidewalks, which are either sinking tiny pits or the crumbling remains of decades past, depending on which block you stand. Watch your feet.

The blinding red asshole on the corner has turned the groups table so as not to have cappuccino disrupted by fascinating words describing the same cups of coffee, the same skateboards and earbuds. Only seeming different because they meander a different space. Same FedEx purple shorts, same price for mani pedi, same red newsprint boxes on the corners covered in propaganda. Same kids in same strollers, same little coughs from little lungs. Same jostling keys and greetings and pharmacy and okay the streetcars aren’t everywhere, and if they were, they’d at least run on a schedule.

They seem to stop and drop anyone anywhere, and weave through the fanned grid with some apprehension toward traffic control devices. Old man got off to wander the center of the intersection, waving at those kids and dodging his cane around the wayward stroller. Streetcar whirs by, another just behind, I see no indication of scheduling.

What next grabbed my attention was the unabashed inebriation of any street within a mile of endless parades, towering two story trains of tractors and revelers, dropping shiny sparkles and rounded lead on any drunken head brazen enough to whoo for them, me.

Same teenage girls passing dismissive glances, while mother in heels flashes back to make sure the horns aren’t directed at them. Another streetcar, again at no particular time, and Perry shows up from the few blocks that way in shades to tell me I seem productive and we should eat something. The old man is digging at some shit lost in the rails, but the kids have been dropped elsewhere. Between the laughs I can’t understand to the smashed up posts and poles and entire vehicles along narrow streets that need no explanation, it is evident that some wave has permeated this town, call it a deluge of hilarity.

-- -- --

In confidence. If you can prove that some real estate is laundered, the gov’t will seize it, and you get a finder’s fee. Fed False Claims where something is crooked, tax fraud... Some 18 year old girl just died because she didn’t have her medicine. I swear, I just spotted that turd from Barn Light... Or at least his maybe younger hipster equivalent. All this talk of laundry is making me want to find out about a rug store I know. Fuckin fighter jet?! Two of them, and the library found out about it, thinking of Kesey Square, I hope they lock it down, but after Katrina, the charity scams... Ask the church! Ash Wednesday, drink the wine of Christ. Paying horrid salaries to Goodwill directors, go to Europe and find these secondhand shops selling American shit, put it on a ship and make a killing. A whiff of crappy bullshit, some perfume, is there another drag queen over my shoulder, hollering at the drunks to get the fuck out of the way, this tuffet won the shit out of Bourbon Street. If you have to sleep in your car, park on an incline, that way the seat becomes horizontal. I never slept at Georgetown, and why would I, Arlington and malls, can’t have anything taller than Washington’s cock. Get students to buy me lunch, girls only eat salad, so take advantage of their expected femininity, there are some rich motherfucking bitches at Georgetown, daddy gives me this and that, but the meal plan is a scam. The same thing at the University of Eugene, I actually like that folks just walk by instead of standing and “Excuse me, sir! Is that a typewriter?” And I just glance.

[beatcascadian]

Save Kesey Square

Find kindness in every stranger. Shake hands and don’t be afraid of germs.

Juggling bubbles in Kesey Square, the jangling of wheels and those with coffees. Italian restaurants and royalty checks, Portlandia rises and DVRs and always a good place to stop and enjoy.

Cindy and Francie just stopped from Friday Harbor to inquire about my process, and folks are showing up with equipments for expression. Developers peer down from Bell + Funk windows and don’t quite know what they’re seeing.

Still the smoky bubbles loft toward no one in particular, and again this sounds like the pricked up ears ringing in the past. A sort of daze settles in, and we wrestle with what to do in such short times. Make rhymes and pass out enthusiasm like a plate of free donuts and a gifted chair.

Reporters are curious and absorb too much of the wrong thing. Let’s just get people down here! Let’s consume what is freely ours and proclaim that we are here, we are vibrant, we are expressive. Photos snap all around, this is not an individual effort, make that clear, make that the message.

Line up the shot, and how appropriate and such inspiration! Keep snapping those shots, only makes this nonsense better…

Scribbles and notes and zoom features and makeup. Networking and much determination. Kesey wants us to express this space. Kesey wants us to write our own story, a unique story.

The community will make clear the intention of this space. This is not an individual effort. We are all here for different reasons, but for the common purpose. Focus the energy at the center of gravity for our little micropolis.

This is freaking folks out, and it’s perfect. Stop taking pictures of me. Take pictures of this space, of this effort. It is not a sole effort. This is community. This is collective.

People mingle and chatter and create this new reality for an old problem. Sure, buy some damned donuts. Buy a slice of shit pizza. But before you plug another dollar into another till, plug a few restful minutes into a conversation in this Square.

Consider this your living room. This is your living room.

Folks float by, and don’t know what to think, and that’s good.

Hedin’s on him now. We do need music to go with this machine. Old school community pirates. Whiteaker don’t give a shit. How do we feel about this space… How do we feel about this space… Pizza stuffers still look quizzical. Did Gwen go somewhere? They don’t properly  promote this space. It’s an art venue. Paper mess of paper messages.

Old boss among many wanderers by and grimaces at having to say hello and I don’t care I’m doing this now, ain’t this beautiful.

Thanks for coming Mark. Go interview Ammon Bundy’s lawyer, a local lawyer! Good lead.

Kids wander by now, they still don’t know. Don’t get a real job. I just quit my real job. Fuck real jobs. Hang out and share what you know and can do. Folks will transfer the same to you. Share the wealth accumulating around you.

[beatcascadian]

Pepto Palace

Sarah doesn’t believe that my typewriter has a little tippity tap tap tap to it.

Work hard for the money, so hard for the money. Frothy filthy month rain into pockets from above or below, trickle up and over like a green bridge beyond the moon.

-- -- --

i will not hit two letters at once.

These are the words I’ve always wanted to write.

i will not hit two at once.

please and be pleased bond and be bound. satisfy and be satisfied. SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSsssssssssh. i will go to the ocean.

[beatcascadian]

holy cow

I went to the bank this morning, ate chocolate chip cookies at the counter and complained about my card. Called David on the way, free food sounds better than Skyrim, picked him up after I passed up free pencils. We went to Lotus Garden because the Holy Cow! I wanted doesn’t exist anymore, and neither of us really wanted awful waffles anyway. I ate long life vegetables and could smell his sweet and sour, and we shared fried tea for twenty bucks. Banks came in too, his only words were “poke next Saturday, Dave.”

I bought four boxes of incense, Sun, Earth, Moon and Neptune, and a blue lapis ring that I bent later on. Potala Gate is so peaceful, a stuffy balding suit stopped to look and feel the comfy linen racks out front, and I could see his eyes caught on singing bowls and jade.

I dropped David back at Meow Town by breaking several laws and loudly muttering, okay yelling, not at, just passed the pigs for harassing an old lady all in green, and I guess bike cops can pull over nice old ladies in cars without insurance, and I guess cops can also shoot people, why can’t pigs fly. Later in the day, those light and airy vegetables dissipated, but I’d already gestured boldly at terrible drivers of Subarus disregarding my crosswalk all lit up with the white man, I have the right of way.

I got hungry in the evening at work, asked for my Hop house burger medium-rare, garlic fries and a root beer. Cost more than the David date, but now it’s 4:44 and my karma just exploded. David said in Skyrim, you give gold coins to poor people, and you upgrade and do cool shit. I just make nontopian grids without fountains in my video games. I’d given a woman two dollars because she had asked for it, nothing more. No sign, just do you have money?

There are parts of today I’m not telling you. There are parts of today that didn’t register. There are parts of my day I can’t help but share. There’s a part of the day we couldn’t share. There are parts of some days, more parts than others, that drag on or don’t work or just plain never happened, and I think we get confused by all that day after day.

I held my head this morning in an endless rabble, and just remembered there are Cow Tales in my bag.

[beatcascadian]

Passed by along this morning's walk. Incidentally, today completely rocked.

[beatcascadian]

peopling

Fire demon flails wild with lighter fluid spraying into armpits maybe, spins dragons under Virgo and speculation, a joke in poor taste but only because I'm not Irish. So nonchalant and not at all morose. I now welcome hospitality, Occupy tent sandwiches when the car wouldn't car any further than 8th and Monroe from 6th and Adams after a neighborhood test drive hoping it was a fluke last night. Pitch in two extra loaves from Buy 2 because community, the trainyard and grave bard because community, organs and wheat and spacetime and ecoregions because community. We pass around salsa and vape hookah in a garden prison fence, like love except love is a forcefield of pillows and cuddle circles. Shots of red rum all spicy pure Cuban, climbing a tree to heaven and postulating the alternate reality that I fell and broke an arm, but I only saw stars and the flickering embers of a party dying down.

[beatcascadian]

quiet dank

Yer the stonedest personest thing I've heard of, it wasn't behind the desk! Space position, legal transaction, mind expression, I know you can't buy or sell until October 1st, every stroke, that's why I like ink, that's a really pleasant ding! Keep in line, fine the time, I've never played this game, gotta think fast with this game, pretty good and not so be light, I'm talking about the night. It's hanging out like a brick haus hot house tomato and sunshine now lost, gone. Gravity bites, fucking gracity insult sky wonders and element stronghold, hold me down, make me brown, it's enzymes and end times. Affirm the negative, insist the positive, range of motion and locomotion, rolling out and jamming keys in splatter paint all walls and solace. Singing French connection to the holy dynamite, flashbang and hand grenadine, simple syrup string cheese incident, phish with a Ph. disco biscuits and Betty Crocker Penny Lane. High hat ching ching china bell, drum beat heart heat soul patter of fett ack! Boba. Yoda Yogi Yanni, Andrew who does poems, red hair? Yeah, like poetry on the street corner, sharing poetry red head chubby black dude that makes good poetry, are you a fan of good poetry, sir?

[beatcascadian]

Independence Day

The 4.2(0) earthquake at 8:42 this morning, folks roused from sleeping in as they’d please thank you, stand in suburban yard and ask why of the heavens and elements, what wrath, what trembles! Telling the neighbor across Bauer, did you feel that?! The whole metro felt it, then news warns of the big one, due tomorrow! Due yesterday! Due in a hundred years! Due never and ever, shake this lowly agriculture, these beltlines and coburgs, an old river with new roads and streams of decay to the benefit of fresher fruits of spirit.

Robbie’s basement, found a sad dry nugget to cool me down, it’s nice alone down here, Hans Zimmer feels interstellar, and I can’t care less how I spend my time as the futon squeaks as machine jostles and I like that word in lap, a tremendous swell then clam up because I feel I’ll never quite readjust old fingers to new keys or is it the other way around that I practice with Mavis Beacon, I don’t like this A very much.

Last night’s immature responsible two beers Jackalope, it is the idea of that bar, and we explored those ideas. There hitchhikers got two rides where they wanted to go as I sped along pointing out basalt and lighthouse and clearcuts and why it hasn’t rained and it hasn’t rained and why that means wine and weed should take the back burner in sharing these crops.

Bumper stickers and rattles in the front end tell a long story of travels on windy OR 34 or 126 or 138 to those miserable towns I continue to spend my youth oh youth I’m still young. Through and up over around little coast rivers, big coast trees all cedar fir and spruce. Rusted railroads and timber trestles soon to carry dirty coal from elsewhere to where to.