x-x-x-x-x

Mike iLL

| | | — | | Yes, it has been months and thank you to Jerm Pollet and Darcy and others who’ve mentioned missing it. The diary usually comes in place of sleep (as now). What goes on since four months ago? This diary is about pain isn’t it? Up at the Underground Playground hidden away in the snowy abandonment of the summer retreat of the wealthy, The Irresponsibles, from Boston hosted an insane event featuring live music, poetry, and drinking, smoking and carousing. I came accross and incredible book there called Some Ether, by a young poet named Nick Flynn. He had a quote in the beginning of the book that went:

‘Tis a joy to be hidden, But disaster not to be found.

Or something like that. I forget who it was attributed to. That began the section entitled, Invisible Woman. About his mothers suicide. The first poem is called “A Bag of Mice” and it basically goes, I dreamt you wrote your suicide note in pencil, on a brown paper bag. Inside the bag were five little mice and the edges of the bag were on fire and burning down. And the mice scurried the bag accross a shorn field and as the fire reached the carbon letter, it’s message was released into the air and the mice grew wilder.

I was blown away. Flynn put it much better. I bet Danny Shot knows who he is. Andy Action’s not playing with us much these days. He decided to climb out of the trenches and shave the lice out of his hair and maybe be human for a little while. Really, he’s just moving to trenches where there’s heated water. He’s still totally on board as a fan, love, brother and cohort. Currently producing three songs for our new release. Good news (maybe). Bar None Records is planning to release our next CD. The name of the band is going to be Mad Happy, and I’m thinking of calling the record “Feel Good Music for the Broke Middle Classes”. Writing that title just made me think of Peter Montgomery and the Irresponsibles and how many really beautiful songs they have. And how gorgeous it really was up there in the snow at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. So, Andy Action gave Jim D and I photo albums full of pictures from our last tour for Christmas. Here’s Jim D in Memphis at the edge of the Mississippi, with the bridge to Arkansas behind him. Here’s a shot from the stage at the Java Cabana. Well, the section of the floor we used as a stage anyway. Here’s Rusty with his tattoo’d face replacing the window that got smashed when we played the punk rock house in Little Rock. Shot’s of Caryn “Loveless” Hill and Andy within minutes of waking up (Andy’s already on his cell phone, Caryn’s covering her face). Thanksgiving dinner with Cheryl and Tex’s family. Here’s me leaning against a wall full of band names you’ll probably never hear. The two girls that wanted a CD with (yet unrecorded) “I’ll Be Around” on it. Jim D with his arm around the local panhandler. Could you imagine becoming that? The local panhandler? Sometimes think I almost could. Where ARE we now anyway? The world trade center’s gone and most of the flags are at least very dirty if not discarded. Everybody’s “broke”, whatever that may mean to you. And life goes on with me tryina be a great artist and… That reminds me. Dig this. Edgar Allen Poe had a nice idea to end on. The four ingredients to a happy life; Life in the outdoors, The love of a woman (person, let’s say), the creation of a new beauty and detachment from ambition. Notice he doesn’t say absence of ambition. Peace, prosperity, good luck, Goddess be with you, happy Martin Luther King day.

Love, mike

15/03/2001