Prose

Various prose works predominately posted by Gerald Biggs. Hosted writers and sites will eventually show up through this page via feed. Please talk to us about any inquiries.

 

Soundflower Skype and Ableton Play Nice

We’ve written a new article on playing music with Skype. In this article we cover using MOTU, Soundflower, and Ableton to route audio through Skype. It uses no external wiring or mixers. This reduces potential latency from running in and out of your computer. Other audio interefaces should work well with this setup.

February 11th, 2010 Posted in Prose | No Comments »
 

Arizona Literature Zine Review: Water Science

The secret agent at Middle Class Mirrors has released the second edition of their zine Water Science. The contributions are from Arizona writers and abroad, with some favorite local illustrators.

The second release is a treat. For once, a zine’s poetry seems to shine stronger than its prose. If you dread flipping through a publication with terrible hope, no expectations, and shame – give this one a shot.

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January 26th, 2010 Posted in Prose | No Comments »
Tags: arizona zines, reviews
 

Good Hunger and Meth Itch

I wake up and try not to think about food, because the sky is pouring sun through my window and I slept hungry. I pour kibble into my dogs bowl, she sniffs it and walks around me wagging her tail. Waiting for me to eat, so she can eat. I can’t tell if she’s paranoid I’ll steal the food from her mouth, or if she needs to see me eat first.

I open the door. The day is hungry too, eating little clouds like popcorn. Laughing at the show beneath it. My stomach is relocating last night’s desperate pickle around its room, I gave it so much empty space to decorate. I’d give it an aquarium of wine and a proper sofa of a sandwich to sit on. Memories of east coast sandwiches cooking in the street, the smoke caramelizes the bricks of old buildings and draws pedestrians around them.

The fridge has some rice and beans for me. My stomach can start out with a rock garden. I eat a few bites and Mora eats some food behind me. Mora from a house where the landlord starved her and yelled and yelled at her. We never looked back at him, still in his house shouting at the television. Punching walls, wearing sunglasses after fights he’d lose at bars.

Hunger still in my gut, I leave the house. I want to feel the sun before its too strong. When it makes your teeth so hot it burns your gums. The road is open, full of parked students’ cars, no one else is walking down Farmer today. No one walks here unless they are forced. The road is too wide and vulnerable.

A student catches a ride on this tricked out ATV, college bar rap from its speakers. We look at each other, mutual spectacles with too much distance to convey a message. I want to tell him the spot he’s parked on is where a girl cut her self and ran bleeding over the streets, until an ambulance strapped her down and took her away, threatening to kill us all.

A few years ago, this guy Hausner and a buddy, drove around town taking potshots at anyone walking alone. The Baseline Killer worked himself into the fear of our homes, corner stores. The summer was burning us up, friends mad on booze and heat ruined each other. Shouting into palm trees. I was getting the DTs, and trying to get a ticket out of town. Today neighborhood streets are still emptied out, cars gasping over speed bumps.

I get coffee, to have an excuse to be around a crowd. It’s a bad, stale scene. Erections asphyxiate in their jeans. But sometimes I get a discount, and the noise is good for me. Places where you show up and purchase something, just to show people that you have a face and a voice. Somewhere in the city, you’re trying to breathe and feel good, just the same as them.

The old man asks me about the book I’ve got. An author in LA trying to make rent.

“I have a friend that lived there. Went from Arkansas.” He trails off, trying to give a memory to a stranger so it doesn’t die in his head.

A couple sit across from me. She’s got the bruise around her eye and regards him with cautious obedience. They got the meth itch, and he sends her on an errand just to get her out of his sight. She looks back at him, but he is focusing on his hands. Where do you go with problems this big, across from the table from you? While a girl tries get get a barista’s number so she can fuck the fashion out of him.

I get out before the blood becomes lead in my legs. The sun is still watching us, but its not an asshole yet. People are making signs, or biking. The sharp smell of an Italian restaurant, where the waitress can’t understand my appetite.

I go down to the best grapefruit tree in town, where the fruit rots off as the owner eats none of it. I’ve never seen who lives there. And I’ve never eaten a grapefruit from anywhere else. I wait all year for the grapefruit to be ready. I only take one, they are bigger than my fist. I pretend I’m in a land of abundance, I follow the sounds of birds and grab a full pocket of walnuts fallen around a tree. The dog park is busy, I keep thinking Mora could find true love there, if she stopped trying to kill them.

I owe too many people letters. I wrote my mother a letter a week ago, and still haven’t sent it. I’ve been writing a letter to a man in California for 10 years now. I wonder if he still is pissing in the sink.

Maybe I’ll finish his letter, and buy myself a meal. Freeze the other half and send it to him with the letter. He is probably just as hungry as I am, and the distance gets shortened. Hope he likes rice and beans.

January 20th, 2010 Posted in Prose | 1 Comment »
 

Pigeon Religion – Warm Insides Cassette

Drone Errant has released a Pigeon Religion Cassette, recorded and butchered at Yobs by me, Gerald Biggs. Within the first 3 minutes of recording, I threw up a mixture of Sriracha and Tecate in my mouth. By the end of it, one of my bar stools had snapped in half. One of their friends appeared to be using the remaining portion as a suppository. This is what I get for unlocking my door…

PIGEON RELIGION – “WARM INSIDES” CS
Resurfacing their burnt scalps for a cassette release, Arizona’s Pigeon Religion offer up two new tracks of fuzzed out “punk” from their confused, barren territory. Taking cues from prior state acts such as Kor-Phu, Mighty Sphincter, and Jr. Chemists, they seem to be carrying the torch for the style Arizona has been remembered for. These tracks could easily fit into Placebo Record’s back catalog. A true modern oddity.

December 4th, 2009 Posted in Prose | No Comments »
 

Ongoing upcomings

Nixed the mp3 players. Enjoy the free downloads.

More skype updates later this week. Hoping for new recordings and an updated “how-to jam with Skype.” In case you don’t want to read a long article – the basic rundown is you will always experience some type of latency from the audio interface, to your internet connection, and so on.

Hungry Locust Broadcast Composite is a roughly finished mix where Holy Zoo’s recording was synced and layered with Filthy Grin’s, each side is panned slightly. It’s headphone music.

We are going to test some different programs out there for a basic review. Hope one of them is worth a squat.

November 30th, 2009 Posted in Prose | No Comments »
 

Phoenix & Tempe House Show Venues & Ideas for hosting shows

House Show Venues in Phoenix, Ideas about how to do them was written about being involved in doing house shows specifically around Phoenix and Tempe. It’s unfinished, but I’m impatient. Publishing prematurely will push me to finish it timely.

November 10th, 2009 Posted in Prose | No Comments »
 

I’m ok I talk too much

Drifting through Phoenix on rail. An overweight lady sleeps on the bed of her cheeks, mickey mouse sweater faces me. Middlemen congregate to check their watches against each others’, shifting in disagreement with their prostates. I ask them for the time, they write it down on a sheet and charge me a dollar with no refunds. I have 15 cents, so they tell me it’s 10 seconds.

At home, listening to a girl scream at her worried dog barking at the gate. The dog ain’t cute now so chill the fuck out, she’s curdling milk in the curls of her blonde wig. I imagine her with bug eyed sun glasses and a dress she used to wear when she was ten with cowgirl cut jeans and high heels with silver revolvers as badges. I imagine the milk factory vibrating all the way to my pillow, galloons of cream and bacteria pumped from one section to the other, until they pump into idling semi’s gleaming. I imagine the workers all in white, white clipboards held by clean manicured hands, and an astronaut princess watching over them to choose her favorite one, putting her toenail clippings and lemon juice, at a statue of the goddess of fertility.

I quit my job to treat my body. I quit my body in entertainment. My dog is having nightmares I have no language to stop.

October 24th, 2009 Posted in Prose | No Comments »
 

How to Play Music Through Skype

Our article attempts to explain our reasons for choosing Skype for playing music online. We briefly and inaccurately slander all other methods of jamming online, and sloppily discuss how “we” do it. The article will sober up and improve with time, an egg sandwich, and guilt.

Note: This will be part 1 of a multiple attempt exploration at online collaboration for music. Other attempts will discuss different hardware and software (such as JackPilot).

September 28th, 2009 Posted in Prose | No Comments »
 

Writing with Cubital or Carpal Tunnels Syndrome

I am attempting to post writing and notes, live recordings from the tour with Stephen Steinbrink, Hell Kite, and Glochids. On the tour, my condition worsened dramatically. I can barely type or write on paper. I’ve been struggling for days to try and finish at least the Detroit leg of our trip. I’m at loss, for the larger body of work. I will soon switch to recording and posting mp3s of my writing. My posts might come much slower simply because my writing will be, what I say.
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July 3rd, 2009 Posted in Prose | No Comments »