4 Hour Hard On

If you're
reading

these words,

I’m already
dead,

face fucking
down

in blue mountain
stream bed,

splayed wrists they
runnel--candy-apple
red, fish belly
wrists which

arterial gills
fed…

That stream bed
an unforgiving
20/20 mirror,

no colder could
it run,

nor reflection nearer
undone. In mean sheen of
stream bed, I knocked up
poor head,

upon my sodden
flesh, a keening
wolf pack fed.

To be dog-eared,
hoarded, savored in
stages--every writer’s dream
through the unforgiving ages,
but if you’re

reading these words
I’ve gotten

Over,
instead!

--oh,

the classic
stacks you could've
taken to your bed,

passages
from resilient
souls ought
have nourished
your furious
head…

As it is,
my ellipses …
string a
frieze

of serial outcast
wink ;-- ... ;- this firebrand
by his own hand has bled the last
dregs of ink.

--Ian Mackaye. Didn’t I see you in Las Vegas one day in 107 degree heat, assisting a man who was having a seizure right in the middle of Spencer Street where it meets up with Tropicana Boulevard?

--You may have.

--A Sky Blue Japanese Sandal-Type Thong from Vons. I recognized the brand. You stuck it between the guy’s teeth, to keep him from biting his tongue off.

--Grand Mal...

--It certainly was.

--No. I mean, the name of your book. I like it. The title, anyway. The book, I don’t know, ‘cause I haven’t read it…

--Certainly. I mean, of course. It hasn't been released yet.

--But you’re definitely on the right track, with a title like that.

--Very kind of you to say so.

--Don’t mention it.

--Let’s switch gears, Mackaye: The term, STRAIGHT EDGE. You coined it. Yes?

--Yes

--Some people I’ve spoken to in the past have gotten the wrong idea about the term. They equate it with some sort of Bad Ass Skinhead Ethos. That’s not it, right?

--Right. Not. It.

--Please describe It, in 10 words or Less.

--No Chemicals, No Pretensions, Just the Art, Even if It Killz…

--Awww, man. That’s Eleven. That’s eleven words!

--Sue me.

--Ahem... Switching gears again: Do you think it’s possible that you, Ian Mackaye, hate the Canadian band Nickelback, as much as I?

--It’s possible, yes.

--Hypothetical Conundrum: Means of Torture—and which would you choose?... Assuming you had to choose. One or the other. Got it?

--Uhhhh, yeah.

--Number one—orally gratify Rosie O’Donnell, for one hour. Number two—listen to nothing but Nickelback songs for the same time period, in an enclosed space with the volume cranked to the absolute max.



*sound of a great musician, drumming his fingers* … …

*sound continuing / time elapsing*


--Mackaye? You okay?

--Yeah. Hey, dude. You into Star Trek?

--Totally

--Then what you just laid on me is a Kobayashi Conundrum,
like from the Episode M-5? An impossible situation.

Therefore I respectfully opt out.

--Awww, man. I guess I can respect that.

Myself, I would go down on Rosie in a hot second, if it meant I didn’t have to listen to one bar of a Nickelback song.

--Man, you must really hate that band!

--Yah. But I love Leonard Cohen.

--No Argument there.

--Hey, Ian did I ever tell you: I hung out with Mike McCready in rehab one time? We rolled Top cigarettes. Watched Perry Mason, and Judge Mills Lane on a black and white T.V. Also on PBS, that Painter Guy. Bob Ross. McCready and me both, as strung out as we were, really had an affinity for old Bob Ross. A Mellowing, and a Cleansing… Of sorts. For the time, Being.

What do you think of that story, Mackaye?

--I think it’s about the most pathetic fucking thing I’ve ever heard in my life.

--Not exactly Straight Edge, huh?

--Uhhhh… No.

--Lastly, not leastly: Fugazi is NOT breaking up. Right?

--We’re never broken up, because we live in your MIND.

--Wow. I never thought of it like that.

--You keep slingin’ those Seizure Poems, now. But eschew the Von’s Flip Flops, and Rosie Tinted Glasses. Keep the Bite in your work, and a clear Sight.

--I see… I WILL, I mean.

--Ciao, bro.

--Adios, Ian Mackaye!



Bad Mouth

A SHORT FLICK BY
JEM COHEN & FUGAZI



Glue Man

August is certainly
Four Hour Fugazi Month.

No question about that.



Now,

repeat after moi:


I don't wanna
be defeated

I don't wanna
be defeated

I don't wanna
be defeated


I DON'T WANNA BE DEFEATED!!