winter

The February sun taunts pale and cold
behind roiling clouds: a thick gray river
rushing above.
And trees refuse to spread green fingertips,
remain curled into brittle brown fists
sprouting from a grave white body.

Behind storm doors sealed
and unbreathing windows,
I pace. I push dishes through soapy water
with crackedskin knuckles.
I climb the stairs
just to feel my knees grind dry air.

I think back to December,
when darkness collected in pools around the day’s edges
and bedded into the ground,
just beyond unblinking windowpanes,
and we called cozy the stale indoors.

And January – how it slogged and it lumbered
slow like a stalker
closing on wounded prey.
January ice bath puddles seeping through shoes
and gnashing winds scraping cartilage from ears,
leaving the carcass
for February.

But while I pace and I push and I climb and I fall
I recall my skin drinking June and July
and the sea slapping my arms,
its brine lingering in my nose,
my hair saltwater sticky on my forehead.
The sky hot like blue flame
that singed my eyes,
and how the sun chased us
under storefront awnings,
their shadecool concrete beneath our feet.

SFB

This is a short, short story. Any thoughts, suggestions, angry screeds against me are welcome. Y’all rock.

Spying

by Sean F. Breslin

The alarm shouted staccato, and Donna sat up squinting. She had the day off, planned to take the drive up Highway 93 to the reservation, a surprise visit to her mom and little brother.

She dressed quickly, heated yesterday’s coffee in the microwave and went to the window. A moving truck sat in front of the building, parked in front of her car, and she heard movement in the apartment next to hers. Beyond the truck she saw rain like tear stains falling from clouds low over the mountains. She left her apartment soon as the coffee was done.

Sitting behind her steering wheel, Donna watched her new neighbors through the cracked windshield. A patchy rain began patting down on the furniture a man and woman carried through the courtyard. They snapped pictures together on their new patio, stood on the curb debating what should go where, teasing each other, him wrapping his arms around her in the back of the moving truck, softly tickling her sides. They looked back at her car, self-conscious, and Donna pulled away from the curb and headed north.

The road climbed smooth up to the pass before Donna had to hit the brakes and rumble onto slippery dirt, construction crews flanking her path. The Oldsmobile bucked and plodded, and Donna remembered the last time she’d come home, after Kevin walked out and stopped answering her calls. Her mother offered little, just a six-pack of Miller and a twenty for gas back to the city. Now, the guy she’s seeing, she’s lucky if he calls before midnight. He usually was dressed and out the door by sunup, leaving her alone with his leftover smell, cigarette stale and sweaty.

She reached her mother’s house, just off the highway, and found the driveway cut deep by heavy-duty tires. No car parked outside, and the cold storm door gave no response when she hammered on it until her palm was red. She got in her car and pulled back onto the road, heading home. When she got there, she stopped at her door, listening to her new neighbors make love in their new apartment while the rain fell in curtains behind her.

When Donna would return home from the call center the next day, the next week, into the short days at fall’s end, she’d see her neighbors’ silhouettes behind slats of mini-blinds, sitting down to a dinner they’d made together. They’d pass her window, coming home from a party, she leaning tipsy and sultry against his blazer as he swung the keys up to the lock, while Donna sat alone on a second-hand loveseat.

They had their first fight on a Sunday afternoon, and Donna lingered by the shared wall, reading but not. The voices came through the wall damp but clenched and steely.  When the rumblings subsided into murmurs, Donna left the apartment full, sated.

She drove without direction, past shopping centers empty like ghost towns, over the river running dark and low and impatient for winter’s first snow. She turned left, right, left, down streets she’d never visited, let her curiosity follow signs to an open house on the north side of town. The asking price was low, and she saw why: the squat bungalow by the rail yard was painted the same scabby brown as the boxcars looming like headstones nearby. Chicken wire strangled the dying lawn, littered with sticks and crabapples that squished beneath Donna’s sandals.

On the paint-peeled porch, Donna stopped to scrape the rotten fruit from her feet. She watched a man negotiate his way across the lawn and climb the steps, kicking his heavy boots free of mud. I doubt the inside’s any better, he said to Donna. He gave his name, Michael, extended his hand. She let him enter the house first and followed onto wood floors wet and stained with age.  He turned to her frequently, pointing out the north-facing windows that shunned the daylight, the slanted floors that seemed eager to pitch the house’s contents to the earth. She went into the bathroom, he followed. The shower head was mounted low, just inches above the spigot, and he made nervous jokes about trying to bathe there, while Donna’s eyes darted between the tub and her companion, sizing up the tub for two bodies. They left the house at a slow stroll, she quick to agree with his mocking appraisal of the house. When they reached Donna’s car, Michael asked for her number, said maybe they could tour another hovel together. She found an envelope in her purse, tore it in two so she could get his as well, knowing she couldn’t come up with a down payment.

Michael called her later that week, said there was a condo downtown they could look at, maybe grab coffee first. But they never saw the condo, just stayed in the coffee shop behind foggy windows as homeless men shuffled and weaved between the tables for a few minutes’ warmth. They met again for dinner, which turned into drinks, and led them back to Donna’s apartment while the lights next door burned a shadow theater onto the blinds.

Michael stood, hands on Donna’s hips as she tugged at his shirt, but he struggled to tear his ears from the voices next door and back to Donna’s hot breath. He asked her to turn on the radio, told her it felt like spying. She didn’t answer, just shoved him onto her flannel sheets and climbed into bed with him.

They finished, went to bed sweetly and without theater. Michael was soon asleep, and Donna stayed still in bed, awake, comfortable and lulled by Michael’s whispery snore, punctuated by the disjointed upheaval on the other side of wall.

This last video clip is from a different night, the second time we played CBGB. Not nearly as many people came. In fact, Jim couldn’t make it to the show, so Josh played bass and I did as many guitar parts as I could.

The video itself isn’t anything special, but the fact that it exists is. My father, who also couldn’t make it to New York that night, stood in front of his computer screen holding his video camera to record the primitive live feed from CBGB. He did this for our entire set, just standing there watching fuzzy images on Windows Media Player jump and shift while they made indecipherable noises that offended his sense of art and decency.

I’m not sure whether or not I want kids or not, but if I do end up having them, I hope I’m that kind of dad.

So thanks, Dad, for coming to the shows you could and even checking on us for the shows you couldn’t get to. Thanks for recording us, too, and helping me upload them so I could share them on The Potato Barn.

That’s the end of the Burn Kate Extravaganza! I hope you all enjoyed it. The Potato Barn dips its feet into the deep end next week!

This song, Never Follow A Pretty Girl To A Party, was typically our closer, simply cuz we got to jump around like idiots. The joke was that it was written about Natalie Portman, but I don’t think there’s any truth to that rumor (I refuse to believe Ms. Portman could be so cold).

This footage is fun because we just go a little nuts toward the end. I get on a chair, then get scared. I’m afraid of heights, and even the rats knew CBGB was structurally unsound. Josh disappears, then returns to shout about free CDs at the end. “Free” was really all we had to push on people, so we ran with it. Oh, and we got to end a show with “Good night, New York City!”

Today’s entry is Suburbia, which features a guitar solo by yours truly that falls short of being awesome because…well, because I was playing it. The solo comes to a climax on a high D note, on the 22nd fret of the high E string. Trouble was, I was playing a Mexican Stratocaster with 21 frets, not 22.

Now, any competent guitarist could’ve bent the note up that extra half step. Alas, I did not. On my tombstone, etched just beneath “Played a show at CBGB,” you’ll find the words “but didn’t nail the solo.”

All right. I’m done playing nerdy critic to myself. This song rocks:

After Lindsay, we went right into a song called Can’t Stand You, which I’ve heard is about my sister but that was only a rumor. Unfortunately, the camera shut off soon after we started that tune, and didn’t pick up again until we had already started the next one, Goodbye Takoma Park. Watch early in the video for Jim trying to get Josh to shut up so we can start the song. Here they are:

Next up, City Limits, a song that extolled the virtues of drinking your problems away even though none of us could legally do so. Josh actually asks if somone in the audience will buy him a beer. Enjoy:

Once upon a time, I was in a band called Burn Kate. And though we were well-known in the South Jersey punk scene, we really didn’t have that much of a following that was a) located more than 10 miles from Collingswood, New Jersey; or b) old enough to drink beer.

We were pretty desperate to change that, so we worked at getting shows in bars and in other areas beyond Camden County. We played a few bars with moderate success, but our crowning achievement (this will be etched on my tombstone) was playing the fabled New York City club CBGB, where bands like the Ramones, Blondie and the Talking Heads got their starts.

We dragged a few friends along to make it seem like we had fans, which didn’t turn out great for them (my buddy Steve got two $50 parking tickets). Still, they came, and for that we were grateful.

Like the band, the club is now defunct. But my father–the awesome, super cool person that he is–also came to New York that February night, video camera in hand, and taped the show. All this week, The Potato Barn will feature video from that show and my own commentary on our flawless (HA!) performance.

This first number is called Lindsay. Listen at the end for Jim apologizing to the audience for putting them through this. Here, making our Internet video debut*, are Josh Kates, Jim Campolongo, Mike “Monkey” Cousin, and myself, as Burn Kate.

*If anyone knows of any video of us on the Intarweb, quit hiding it from me.

I now pronounce you happy and legal...I hope!

I apparently have a knack for ending up in states that knock down same-sex marriage rights.

On Thursday, the New Jersey Senate turned down a bill that would have legalized marriage for gay and lesbian couples. Proponents had hoped to get the bill passed before Gov. Jon Corzine, a Democrat, leaves office in two weeks. Corzine had promised he would sign the bill into law. His successor, Republican Chris Christie, said he would veto a gay marriage bill.

I wish I could eloquently explain why I think same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, but I can’t do it as well as others can. For me, it’s just something I feel is right, like anything else defies logic and decency. It’s a feeling that comes from somewhere within me, call it a soul or core or spirit or whatever. I think it’s the same place that feelings of love or laughter come from.

In any event, the Jersey vote is just another in a series of failed efforts on same-sex marriage, and it’s time the backers of same-sex marriage need to take a step back from the political system. In continuing to push for doomed ballot measures and legislation, marriage equality advocates are handing over momentum to their opposition. Each defeat gives people in other states and representatives from other communities a reason to think it’s all right to vote against equality.

It’s not right. It’s wrong.

But homosexuality is something still feared and misunderstood by large swaths of the population. As long as that fear exists, there won’t be the political will to change anything. Calming those fears is essential to building support for marriage equality.

That’s why New Jersey activists should take a page from Basic Rights Oregon, a group that has turned their sights away from the judge’s bench and the executive’s desk, and instead focused on the family dinner table. They’ve started a campaign called Marriage Matters, which asks everyday people to talk to their friends and family about why marriage equality is important to them and why same-sex couples deserve the right to marry.

 These people aren’t famous, or powerful, and they’re not trying to reach out to politicians or lobbyists. They’re reaching out to people they know, who trust their opinions on everything from music to relationship advice. These conversations aren’t going to change policy overnight the way a law or court decision would. But they are going to change public opinion over time, which will do more for the cause of marriage equality than any one vote.

But gay rights activists are tired of waiting. NJ.com quoted Garden State Equality chairman as saying: “We are not waiting out the term of any new administration to bring equality to same-sex couples in our state.” That frustration is understandable. But marriage equality will not happen without broad-based support (2/3 of all voters, not just those under 30). That support does not yet exist.

So. Since I’m apparently in the business of making New Year’s Resolutions, I’m going to change one person’s mind this year about same-sex marriage: my father’s. (Dad, if you’re reading this, consider yourself warned.) I’d ask all of you reader-folks to do the same.

Of course, if you don’t agree with marriage equality, I’d like to talk to you, too.

The Potato Barn is coming back with a vengence, people. And starting Monday, we’re kickin’ it old-school with a week-long series of videos and commentary. Get excited.

First off, the feature: reporter Sarah Mirk and I rode the wheels on the bus round-and-round the Portland area, taking in all the sites.

Next up, Hip Hop High! Efforts are underway in Portland to bring a recording arts charter school to the area.

And finally, someone set fire to a local union’s office building. There aren’t any leads on the arsonist yet, but the union isn’t shying away from the possibility that the fire was ideologically motivated.

Thanks for reading. Again, check back periodically for updates, and get ready for a December to remember (lamest rhyme ever).