After Nashville, music was just a hobby. I tried, I quit, whatever, I got a job teaching SAT math to high school kids. I was living in my van, and got a girlfriend…
One day the girl was given new medications and snapped and was kicked out of her parents house. I didn’t have a place but I met up with her original mother, and moved in. Turns out, she was a crack baby of 6 kids who was adopted out to her parents who divorced and dad left and the mother became an alcoholic who would let people from the apartment come over and rape her child until she was a teenager so moving in triggered a PTSD situation where her diagnosed DID would come out and try to kill me, I lost my job for calling the police on her when she tried to kill herself instead of going to work. I got a new job delivering pizzas and was able to afford an apartment for the both of us where I thought she’d grow out of her psychosis but really I trapped myself with her for a year where she would scratch my skin off with her fingernails accusing me of cheating. She would get so jealous when I played music I smashed my guitar. I didn’t believe there was any way out and when she had her fingernails squeezing on my neck I couldn’t fight back and I thought ‘this is it, I’m going to die and no one can help me’. One day instead of going to work I went back home and packed up my van to run away while she was with her mom, but they drove past, saw my van, and pulled over. The girl threw such a scene her mom called the police on her, three of them tackled her into my side door and dragged her off. That was the last I saw of her, her friends and parents asked me to not get a restraining order for her college assistance. I was so insane and alone and lost I had learned Spanish so I could talk to people, I couldn’t tell English speakers what was going on. Anyways I snapped and started playing open mics every day, every where I could find them, and within 4 months I’d regained my sense of self and put together this album.
Click here to go to studio version
I bought the mandolin to try out for a bluegrass punk band that open micd and wrote this as an exercise and later bought a loop pedal to make this an intro, the concept is a dream where I’m don quixote being led by Dante through purgatorio. Perhaps it’s crazy to believe in heaven but maybe don quixote was a real knight.
This song is about the girl, the ‘muero’ quote is from Teresa of Avila. This whole album I really push myself to use the acoustic guitar like a drum, 27 years old still angry at the world. In purgatorio this would be ‘pride.’
Holy for Lia means full of holes
She fragments to fill them and find her role
Doesn’t believe in love much less her soul
Holy for Lia means folding scrolls
Creating a symbol of what they stole
Masochistic binges when vengeance is personal
Oh muero Porque no muero
Que muero Porque no muero
Crazy for Lia means holding coals
Squirming determined to earn control
The scars on her arms are taking their toll
Dreaming for Lia means setting goals
Pride in disguising her inner mole
Doesn’t believe that this will be her burial
Oh muero porque no muero
Que muero porque no muero
Crazy for mia means craving nails
Something to stab her when painting fails
Seeking independence in a safety rail
Dreaming for mia means setting sails
Balance adventure on sacred scales
Better to leave this world than ever let it stale
For the most part it’s hard to finish what we start,
we want it to be perfect, and blow right off the chart.
A snag, a bump, a fork in the road,
and right off the cart, the heart smarts with a fart *sniff
Cause writer’s block is often more like falling in a chasm,
to master it an accident, more like a muscle spasm.
I seizure and twitch with sensory overload,
but the depths of the unknown are impossible to fathom *sniff
Denim danum
John johnum?
Yes, yes ahhh yes!
Hmmm….It’s working on a job that’s severely understaffed
to call it a comedy only after people laughed.
I can’t find quiet, even in my own abode,
beating myself up, looking for a lie fraft *sniffCause it’s learning how to swim by stranding yourself out in the ocean,
like eczema destroys the skin despite the use of lotion.
It splits up and cracks where the water will corrode.
This might be the most schizo song Ive written, maybe not. And what’s more vain than singing about myself?
I scratch it til it bleeds, distracted from any abstract ebotion *sniffSo what’s all this cobbotion?
I hab a dotion about your debotion.
Here, try a bagic potion. Glug, glug, glug….
Yuk, eeyuk! Ackk!It’s clearing up your credit to keep your mood enthusiastic,
then neutering your pets in the stench of burning plastic.
Cut em’, gut em’, ready to explode,
to pretend that getting kicked in the teeth feels fantastic *sniff Cause how do you get through to a group with lunatic schematics?
Defend your position with rhythmic mathematics,
mesmerize their minds with mean, median, mode,
and make static automatic in demented fanatics! *sniff
Emphatic! Ecstatic! Erratic!
In the attic! Acrobatic!
Yes!!! Yessss…. ooo. Aaaah.
Lala lala! Mwahahahahaha!
I’ve rewritten this song like five times at the least!
Ready to throw in the towel and just feed it to the beast!
Scratch it out, erase, flush it down the commode!
Creativity from chaos is a frenzy for a feast! *sniff
It’s walking into the spray when a stranger hocks a loogie,
or the ultimate combo, wedgie, Indian burn, and noogie.
Wait a sec, eureka! There’s a code to this ode,
just spit out the load, go up, get down, and boogie!
Gotta boogie, and it shows.
Gotta boogie, gotta boogie, gotta boogie and it grows.
Gotta boogie, boogieboogieboogieboogie boogie
comin out my nose… *sniff
Malice, the urge to kill, the only F bomb in all of CRNDLSM, so sweet.
Hey hey bug, you’re not my friend.
I don’t want you living in my skin.
Sucking my blood is so dusgustin’.
Go away, don’t make me say it again.
Hey hey bug, you’re dumb and ugly too.
It’s true, I do want to be through with you.
If I had a shoe I’d squash you.
Don’t like my attitude? Fine, well fuck you.
Hey hey bug, life is not fair.
Sit and stare, you’re utterly unaware
I could dare kill you without care.
Hey hey bug, it’s time to say your prayers.
Playing bars I thought the lazy drunks could use an educational motivational track. What’s the cure for sloth? Exercise? Learn your ABCs.
There’s a riddle in the middle; it’s a little bit of fun!
If you stumble into trouble then the puzzle’s just begun . . .
What awkward word, backward run, secures intoxication?
Do you know what this word is?
Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz?
spell it backwards:
Z Y X W V U T
S R Q P O N M
L K J I H G
F E D C B A
Why thank you officer I will be on my way!
Here’s a hunch to our conundrum half a hundred in a hum:
Add some habits, happy accident, have-at-its, and be done!
Which word invert, in slurred tongue, ensures incarceration?
You know what this word is:
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz!
inside out
M N L O K P J
Q I R H S G T
(F U) E V D W
C X B Y A Z
I’m sorry officer, it was a joke! I’m drunk . . .
This is 1000% the hardest song I’ve ever attempted, for the album I record a reciting of the story, then record the guitar part over it. I’ve only survived this whole performance twice and I don’t consider this to be one of those times. One time I wrote it out and had someone else read while I played and it took 45 minutes cause he was drunk. I usually just drop the guitar and tell the story straight. Everytime I try it’s different cause there’s so many details I don’t know what’s going to come out, one of these times I’m trying to get someone else to play music while I tell the story, but they usually just want to hear the story. All of the things here did happen except for the 18 wheeler bit, because this is a dream I piled all the stories together in one long prodigal son type deal because according to Dante prodigality counts for avarice. Whenever there’s kids around I leave out the mushrooms, one time I added an aristocrats bit to be extra gross. The coda is a secret song at the end of the album about the 18 wheeler but I’ve moved it to the end of the 5th album because they all tie together anyway.
This story starts out I’m sitting on the couch and my mom comes home, she says, ‘why are the windows open?’ so I say, ‘to let out the smell.’ she says, ‘what smell?’ so I say, ‘from the smoke.’ and she says, ‘what smoke??’ and I say, ‘from the fire.’ and she says, ‘oh my God! What fire?!’ so I say, ‘from the VCR!’ and she says, ‘will you please just tell me what happened?!?’. So I say, ‘i was watching Rush Hour 2 when I lit a candle, set it on the VCR, it got too hot, melted, caught on fire, so I threw it outside and opened up the windows to let out the smell.’. And she says, ‘jesus was that so difficult!’ then she turns and says, ‘what happened to your room?’. And I say, ‘i painted it.’ then she screams!, ‘AHHHh!!! This is my house I want you out of my house!’ and storms off to her room. So I think, I better do what she says, so I put on the new shoes she just got me, and head out the house.
My first thought is, there’s a nice little donut shop down the street, they’re still open, I’m going to get some donuts. While I’m walking along the feeder of the freeway (the road to the donut shop), the grass gets looser with mud, and I don’t want to get my new shoes all muddy, so I stop and measure the dry patches where I’ll take each step. When I have a clear path, I reach a big first step, and sink straight up to my knee, throwing me completely off balance. I have no choice but to take my next step and pull my muddy leg out, but sink that foot up to my knee, and now I’m stuck waist deep wriggling on the side of freeway. The suction of the mud is so tight, when I pull my back leg out and shake off the mud, I didn’t even notice my shoe had come off completely. My mom is going to be so mad at me, so I reach my hands in to feel for it, I reach my foot back in hoping to find it, but it’s gone. I think there’s no use saving the second shoe stuck in the mud, and definitely can’t go home right now, so I think the only thing that can ease my situation, would be those donuts.
As I reach the entrance to the donut shop, two police officers happen to be leaving, see me covered in mud, and want to ask a few questions, like why am I covered in mud, have I seen any groups of kids out roaming around, if I have any identification. Apparently there had been reports of vandalism and they’d just run a quick check on me, only a seconds later returning with his gun drawn ordering me face first to the ground. I comply and he handcuffs me jarring me into the metal backseat of the squad car next to what appears to be a drunken homeless man. He then drives us to downtown Houston where 60 mph means 75, and signalling will get you cut off, and red lights are just what come after yellow, so when the officer makes eye contact to ask, ‘why are so nervous?’ I just say, ‘my arms will break if you crash’. Just relieved to arrive at Harris County alive, the drunk man leans over to me, and vomits in my lap…
Harris County jail is awful. Pretty much standing room only, all night they hustle you from room to room to organizing into categories all the offenses. In one line the man behind me collapses forward smearing his drool on my shirt, when I reach the judge he tells me I had a warrant for not paying a ticket for not have insurance, if I plead innocent they’ll detain me until someone posts bail and take it to trial, or I can plead guilty and be released in the morning, time served. I had things to do, so of course I plead guilty. 5 o clock the next morning, I’m hunched up on the floor in the last room, freezing, trying to get any amount of rest, waiting to be released, when I hear someone in the corner missing the toilet, and all their urine makes its way to the drain on the other side of me, soaking my shorts and my hands…
When I get out of jail, there’s two options: I can either find a pay phone, call my brother, have him drive downtown to pick me up, OR I can find the bus station, because in my wallet is a round trip ticket to Phoenix Arizona to watch Alice Cooper play a Halloween concert at his home state fair, which may be the only opportunity I ever have to witness such an event, the decision is clear, but when I get to the bus station, the driver won’t let me on without shoes. Nevermind the mud piss and vomit, I needed shoes, so I go to the gift shop and order a crossword puzzle, a pen, and a granola bar, have them all bagged separately, combine all the contents into one bag, and tie the other two bags around my feet, and voila! They let me on the bus…
On the way to El Paso, probably the hottest part of the Texas desert, the air conditioning on the bus goes out. Now I have a bit of a glandular problem, and I start sweating. I sweat so much puddles form in my plastic bag shoes, all the vomit and pee remoistens and the stench is so unbearable, the bus driver pulls over and refuses to go any further until we have a new bus. None of the passengers had the patience for this, so after one old lady emptied her perfume bottle over my head, and several other passengers followed suit, and they locked me in the bathroom, the driver was satisfied enough to continue the journey…
Yes! I’ve arrived at the fair, all the familiar smells and sounds, crowds morphing as I rush to find the auditorium. I’m in such a singular state of mind when I pull the door open, a greater force at the exact same time pushed open from the other side knocking me over, spilling beer all over me. Spiderman helps me up apologizing, offering me some beer. I tell him I don’t want to miss the show, but he informs me I’m just a little too late, so since I was there I said okay and partied the night with the Avengers. They bought me beer, turkey legs, an Alice Cooper cd, it was pretty awesome. The next morning I woke up on some carpet with a cat licking my face, an old man at a table offered me some grapefruit, ‘just go down this street, make a right, then a left at the next street, take it down about 20 or 30 lights and the Greyhound station is right there at the corner, you’ll see it,’. ‘thanks’ and that was it from the mysterious house in Phoenix…
3 whole days since I left my house, I sleep all the way to El Paso. The driver says, ‘everyone off the bus, take your things with you, you will get on another bus for the rest of the trip’ no problem. We all get on the new bus, but when we get to San Antonio, the driver says, ‘everyone off the bus, you can leave your things, you will get back on this bus.’. So I do, the bus goes off gets cleaned and fueled and comes back, but they won’t let me on cause I don’t have my ticket. ‘i left it on the bus, it’s in my bag let me get it.’. My bag is gone. I tell the manager, he says it was probably swept into the dumpster down the street if it was on the floor. The bus can’t wait, but I can board a later bus if I find it. So I run to the warehouse down the street, the employees point to the dumpster of my bus numbers trash, I look inside, and there is my Alice Cooper cd, smashed, my crossword puzzle bent up, so I crawl in to look for my ticket, only to slip on the rim and land face first in garbage juice. I dance in the dumpster for 20 minutes forced to give up. There is no one I can call for help from here, I can’t get on a bus, so I decide to find I-10 East, and eventually I’ll get to Houston…
San Antonio is a terribly designed city, nothing makes since, after 30 minutes I was totally lost. At one point I reached a dead end, and turned around to step in some glass. Sitting on the curb, pulling shards out of my feet, a train pulled up and stopped, blocking me in the dead end, stretching pretty far in both directions. I have no idea how long it will sit there, but then I felt a tap on my head. I look up and there’s nothing there, then a tap on my shoulder so i seat it, it’s sticky, and then I hear them, and discover first hand that San Antonio is home to one of the world’s largest bat caves, and those are baths pooping on everything. I scream and start climbing…
Climbing across the train like I’m on monkey bars I start giggling at the ridiculousness of the situation. Then I start singing, the first song I ever wrote,
If you’re unsure about being insured
Get your ass covered, or be covered in turd
Ladidadida ladidadida
You get the picture, and as I’m singing this the train starts to move again. So I try to climb faster. I get to the edge and I’m already moving too fast to trust the ground to catch me, and with no idea where I’m going now just waitt til it’s slow enough and jump. That’s when i felt the tickling on my leg, working its way slowly up my hip. Im scared to swat it, and try to shake it, but it kept crawling up my back, until I could see it on my shoulder, an enormous stink bug, and I panic and swat and let go and everything is a blurry mess…
I completely understand how ridiculous this all sounds, and the more I assert all these things happening the less true they sound, but I have relived this over and over for years because of how unbelievable it all is. I get up off the ground, minor cuts and scrapes, and just start walking back the way I came. It’s a pretty wide field on both sides of the tracks and a almost a wall of trees beyond it. I’m watching the uneven ground as I walk in the tall grass, tired, sore, hungry, and I see suddenly mushrooms growing in cow poop. They’re brown, so I pick one and the stem turns purple, and I know immediately that these are hallucinagenic, and I know they won’t kill me, but may curb my hunger, so I eat them, and others I find in other cow poops, and sure enough I start hallucinating…
The colors, the sounds, everything is crystal clear, I feel like skipping and laying down and going home and going further, and I’m sweating, and stretching, and the clouds grow dark. Within minutes the sky is dark and lightning cracks, rumbling thunder. The rain pours unrelenting, like walking on a river bed. I’m dancing and laughing hysterically, shouting at the thunder, as everything washes off of me. The mud, the vomit, the piss, the perfume, the beer, the garbage juice, the blood, the bat poop, the stink bug, everything, and almost as swiftly as it came the sun was back out, water drops reflected off every blade of grass, and I felt clean. I was clean, but soaking wet, so I took off all my clothes and laid them out on the tracks, and laid myself out staring at the clouds, and I saw little rectangles forming on my skin, thinking, rectangles, right angles, all right, I am all right, I am boxman, everything will be alright…
Time went by so fast like this when I finally stood up to walk back to San Antonio, I was a sun-dried tomato, my clothes were stiff and felt like sandpaper on my raw blistering skin. But I do what I gotta do and I wasn’t far from San Antonio, and I found I-10 in the daylight, and an 18 wheeler pulled over to give me a ride. I figure I might be more dangerous than he is, but I tell him my story and he brings me all the way to Houston, sharing a joint when we got a flat tire. He even gave me a couple dollars, and dropped me off at the donut shop on the side of the freeway, where I had started this entire journey. When i get to the desk, I know exactly what I want, a dozen donut holes, a cup of coffee, and a pen…
This is absolutely, the MOST, un-com-for-ta-bull, thing I have ever done. On top of everything, THIS is the climax, this is the craziest, most unbelievable thing, but I have to say it, I cannot just lie to myself and pretend it didn’t happen, for the sake of I don’t know even know. The donut shop is pretty busy, there is only one seat available by the window, the other man at it is dressed up in his suit and tie, his briefcase and a newspaper. I figure he won’t mind if I sit down next to him. I open up my beat up crossword puzzle, and out of the corner of my eye, I see this man reach over, open up my bag of donut holes, and eat a donut. I am slightly out of my mind, and don’t know how to talk, so I eat one, making a loud and obvious gesture of it. I don’t think he noticed, cause he took another, so I eat another one. After a minute he took a third donut, and even though I want to say something, if I haven’t said something to this point how can I say something now? So I take two donuts, then he takes another, then I take three, and he takes another, but then he looks in the bag, looks at me, then crumples up the bag and leaves without saying a word. I’m feeling a little smug, here ya go guy, and I drink my coffee and finish a pretty easy crossword, and when I get up to go home, there is an unopened bag of donut holes. My hands start shaking, I read this in a book not a week earlier, this can’t be real, it’s like my brain exploded finally after mountains of pressure, and I shout out loud, ‘Douglas Adams lives!!’ and I ran out the door. I ran all the way home…
I get to my house, and my mom is sitting on the couch, she says, ‘oh my God what happened to you??!’ and I remember what happened the last time she asked me what happened, so I take a deep breath, and say, ‘well I was on my way to get donuts when I was arrested for not having insurance, I had to get on a bus to see Alice Cooper play a Halloween concert at the Arizona State Fair but they lost my ticket on the way back an 18 wheeler brought me home and I got a free bag of donuts.’. Her eyes are just wide, and she says, ‘what happened to your shoes?’ so I say, ‘they were eaten,’ she says, ‘what do you mean they were eaten?’ so I say, ‘in the mud!’ and she says, ‘ what do you mean in the mud??!!’ and I say, ‘on the side of the freeway!!’ And she screams, ‘Aaahh!!!!! Why can’t you just tell me what happened??!!!’ and stormed off to her room. And as I’m laying in bed relaxing trying to put some kind of lesson together from all this, I remembered that song that popped into my head,
If you’re unsure about being insured,
Get your ass covered or be covered in turd!’
Ladidadida ladidadida
Ladidadida ladidadida…
This song made me a local legend, there was a place I played every week they would yell sandwiches, I got so tired of playing it I would change it up, I’d play as fast as I could, or as slow as I could, I played it backwards, on the mandolin, I switched the English and Spanish parts, I did it vocals only. It didn’t get that reaction many other places, but if I go in nowadays someone will shout sandwiches cause they remember me 8 years ago. Oh yeah it’s gluttony, clearly…
This sandwich is delicious.
It’s my favoritest type of meal.
Drives me nuts, like a giant-
functional-beltbuckle-steering wheel…
Vegetables, they’re digestible,
so salivatingly edible I’m drinking drool.
Animals, I’m no cannibal
but I’m never full, pig or bull…
Mooooo
That greasy cheese cuts the easy ease
from my arteries and my stool
My glutton butt won’t button up.
I love it, but now I’m immobile…
Don’t call me fat, I’m not down with that.
I swear, I’ll eat your cat on a pizza!
Hey gatita, conoces misa?
Misa? Si! Mi salchicha!!
Meow?> Meow?
Here kitty kitty kitty kitty
ROWWWLLL ROOWWLLL hisss!!!
(Eat more pussy)
My flabbergastin flab is saggin,
lets puff a magic dragon and get some fuel.
Midnight invada’ in my fridgerata’,
there is no Dana, only ZOOL!!
Sandwiches I love sandwiches
I’ll eat sandwiches everyday.
Sandwiches, I see sandwiches.
So many sandwiches, Hooray!!
Sandwiches
Sandwiches
Sandwiches
Sandwiches
GUAJALOTE!!
GobbleGobbleGobbleGobbleGobbleGobbleGobble…
Sandwiches
One time I wrote a poem and gave it to a girl and got a girlfriend that way, so years later when I was lonely I wrote this to give to a girl and it did not go well. I don’t remember what the cure for lust is but math works pretty well.
Hey, you have two feet!
That is too neat!
Cause I have feet too,
and they’d like to meet you.
They’d get to know ya,
and try to show ya
domain and range are
no stranger danger…
This songs a cop out
to asking you out
cause I’m a chicken
who’s panic-stricken.
Hahaha, that’s an
exaggeration.
I’m a late bloomer,
wanna-be crooner,
I’ll de-bra you sooner
with algebra humor…
Excuse me, I don’t mean to be obtuse, but I really think you’re acute girl.
No? Then you must be a square, cause you got all the right angles.
Well I like circles too, if i can be a tan gent to your curves…
This song is about
me asking you out
cause you’re the winner
of a corny joke spinner.
Well roll a pinner
and go to dinner.
Just put your shoes on,
bad-odor-b-gone,
we don’t need a coupon
for a double entendre…
What I meant to say was: if you’re a hyperbole, the area under your curve should find my natural log.
Do I need to spell it out for you? The integral of E to the x is the function of you to the in.
Ladies love my calculus, it’s long and hard and you can do it on the desk…
Alright I’ll admit it,
there is no limit
to what I’ll commit
to get your digits.
Once I got em,
we’ll data plot em
to get to the bottom
of our least common
denominator!
King Tutankhamun?
Two feet in common!
So Virgil can’t go to heaven and trades Dante off to mother Mary, I spent a good deal of time doing rosaries and wrote a song for my own mom cause you know god-complex, messianic delusions all that. I figured the album needed another mandolin for balance.
This holiday kinda frightens me,
with its mania, flowers, and expectations,
but it also might be enlightening,
with phone calls and a few visitations.
Before my views mistook for teasin’ ,
there are some women in each generation
who for some or other, whatever reason,
definitely do not deserve celebration.
But my mother,
I love her.
Mom,
thanks for being strong,
taking care of us for so long,
and forgiving us when we were wrong.
It’s to you, I dedicate this song.
I know it’s not a to be excused,
blaming life’s duties and obligations,
or how I can be so easily confused
by sales and the effects of inflation.
Though all she’s suffered has made her tougher,
especially our insubordination,
to raise this kid the phrase ‘I love her’
definitely deserves reiteration.
My mother,
I love her.
Mom,
it’s been so long since we’ve spoken,
but absence makes heart feel broken.
To think these things, my throat keeps chokin’,
hopin’ your door’s still open
My mother,
I love her.
Last song on the third album, I used to have a secret song after this but I moved it to the end of the fifth album. Only 14 more songs between 2 albums to go so CRNDLSM is almost over then I’ll start Ellís Luiz. This song is waking up from the dream, sound effects and percussive playing I try to sound as electric as possible. If you made it this far I hope you’ve enjoyed it,
On a boat in the sky, we’re floating on steam,
the sun and the moon, stars in between.
Gliding along the stream unseen,
where wind and misty water team,
the gleam in her eye begins to dream.
Electric language longs for meaning.
Into the sea, the rocket ship slips.
Everything under the surface lip flips.
Urging forward, losing its grip,
the structure, ruptured, rips in strips
while sipping words that begin to drip
electric language, love eclipsed.
Traveling on this train in a trance,
a surging impulse serves to enhance
the primitive engine energy chants.
As tunnel walls crumble, extinguishing lamps,
heaven and earth merge at a glance.
Do we have what it takes to go the distance?