Tag: gutter & spine

The Brain-Smashing, Pity-Bashing Art of Blind Punks

“You must sing like an angel,” a woman said to me as I prepared to go onstage with my “Avant Accordion Brain Smash” act in a Brooklyn warehouse performance space. She either did not notice my hand-sewn black bustier, or decided that my white cane rendered all the badassery surrounding it null. When I began bellowing about some murderous renaissance… Read more

Machiavelli: From Grad School to the Stage to Bullying Trump, Essay 25 of #52essays2017

Sometimes I feel like I confuse friends and family with my chameleon approach to life, but in my own mind, grad school led me to the stage which led me back to the page, where I started so long ago before the eye disease. I’d like to think that my changeability stems from the need to adapt and adjust to… Read more

Origins of “Sludge” in Lady Mary Wroth and Life, Essay 13 of #52essays2017

Almost exactly ten years ago, I had an unfortunate lapse in judgement of the sexual variety, which had at least one terrible consequence and one pretty good one: The terrible shall remain my secret, but the good I happily claim, namely, a song called Sludge, destined for my band gutter & spine. At that time, playing drums and singing in… Read more