Jonathan Lee Riches Ponders Early Retirement
Jonathan Lee Riches, who for the past four years has conducted from various federal prison cells one of the greatest sustained performances of legal theater the world has ever witnessed, announced in a recent filing that he is considering retiring, at least temporarily, from writing lawsuits in order to, in his words, “give my fingers rehabiliation.”This latest suit names the Guinness Book of World Records alongside Granger’s Index to Poetry and Fear Factor as defendants, and charges them with, among other things, invading his privacy and hurting his feelings by awarding him such sobriquets as “Jonny Sue-nami” and “The Patrick Ewing of Suing.” The slights seem to have occasioned an unprecedented burst of self-reflection, as Riches contemplates the toll the four thousand lawsuits he claims to have filed worldwide have taken: “I’ve filed so many lawsuits with my pen and right hand that I got arthritis in my fingers, numbness in my wrists, crooked fingers, I got bags under my eyes for sleepless nights suing the world…. I eat, sleep, and think lawsuits. I flush out more suits than a sewer. I’ve sacrificed my time, dignity, and prison trust account filing lawsuits.”
Such is the plight of the greatest American poet this young century has produced. For the reference to Granger’s is not accidental: however delusional he appears, Riches is keenly aware of his rightful place in our literary firmament and the ultimate nature of his larger project. His lawsuits are merely a springboard into the kaleidoscopic miasma of global pop culture, celebrity worship, infotainment, and current events delivered via perpetual CNN news ticker that makes up the divorced-from-reality reality we daily navigate. Riches is one part Whitman, one part Burroughs, and several parts French postmodern critical theorist of your choosing, only he’s doing time for identity theft. It makes perfect sense then that he would object that “The Guinness Book of World Records have no right to publish my work, my legal masterpieces. The defendants sent me threatening letters because I sued ‘Riches v. Black History Month’ in Iowa, and President Adminadinejad of Iran filed a[n] amicus in that case, [I] also got screamed at for filing ‘Riches v. I can’t believe it’s not butter’ and ‘Riches v. convicted child molesters,’ I’m in danger, and I seek a restraining order against the publication of my name. I pray for relief.”
Jonathan Lee Riches, we pray with you.
Funkyzeit mit [Franklin] Bruno
I don’t have my copy yet (cough, cough), so I can’t testify that the artwork I put together for it this past spring came out as intended, but according to this post on Fayettenam’s myspace, Local Currency, the Franklin Bruno singles compilation, is now available via direct order along with an Easter basket full of extra goodies I’ll leave it to label impresario Scott Jacobson to tell you about. The CD itself does us the considerable favor of collecting Franklin’s seven-inch EPs of the ’90s—Hermetic Geometry, The Irony Engine, A Sand Dollar Relief Map, and La Radia—and a large helping of compilation appearances from the same era all in one place. These songs, the Hermetic Geometry ones in particular, were my introduction to Franklin’s writing, and a big part of the reason I spent most of a decade playing in a band with him. (The other reasons were the women and the money.) (What?)I was reminded of, and exasperated by, this same songwriting brilliance more recently when I headed down to New York City to play bass on a bunch of new Human Hearts songs, the moniker Franklin’s adopted as his 21st Century nom de rock. The thing about Franklin’s songs, and perhaps the thing that’s kept them from reaching the audience they deserve, is that they conceal much of what makes them amazing, both lyrically and musically; they’re like ingenious puzzles, seamless on the outside, wondrously complex on the inside. Working up my parts I realized again that this was truly the only way to fully appreciate them: to sit down and actually learn these songs, figure them out, bring their secrets to light. If you’re a musician, try it. If you’re not, ask a musician friend, watch as he’s driven crazy trying to figure out what’s going on, then behold the look of admiration and satisfaction that spreads across his face when he gets it. Or she, of course. Franklin’s an equal opportunity enigma.
On the drive down I reacquainted myself with maybe my favorite Franklin album ever, band or solo, 2002′s A Cat May Look at a Queen. In its seeming simplicity and directness it defies much of what I’ve said above, but here’s the song during which my girlfriend, Patricia, not a huge music person and one not generally given to overstatement in any context, turned to me and said solemnly: “Your friend is very talented.” That he is.
I’ll Be Damned, I’m Playing Some Shows
Two of them: at home this coming Sunday, July 5, at the Bug Jar in Rochester, and the next night, Monday, July 6, at Mohawk Place in Buffalo; you’ll wanna check with the venues for set times and whatnot, as I sure as hell can’t tell you. Both shows are with Manishevitz alumni Sonoi, from Chicago. Manishevitz toured with the Mountain Goats a few years ago and they were great in a kind of Televisionesque odd interesting guitar rock way; from what I’ve heard Sonoi starts there and gets kinda kinda ambient and droney with it. Me, I’ll be playing synthpop songs about Juan Manuel Fangio. Exclusively. Because that is what I do now.
Almost All the Popular Songs Are About Love
Giants of the 20th Century, anyone? Definitive, transcendent artists? You got your Picassos, your Nabokovs, your Bergmans. I like Joe Frank (wiki; web site; partial RealAudio archive).
Here’s an excerpt from a 2000 program, Karma, Part 6, that came up on the ipod the other day and, in its mordant humor, hints at the nature of his larger project. It’s also clear from this that Joe Frank has never heard Furniture Huschle.
Hello 21st Century
Your eyes do not deceive you. Long-neglected, hopelessly obsolete, Web 0.0 fivetools.com has been dragged kicking and screaming into the future. Or at the very least, into the present. That counts for something, right?
All of your old favorite content resides to the right, with all its original urlage, links preserved. (Most of them, anyway. I’m using bandcamp now to host the PPH stuff and will migrate the DiskothiQ stuff over there too eventually. Just seems easier, and better.) But now you can also subscribe (!) to a feed (!!!) and stay abreast of regularly added new content (exclamation points to infinity). So please do. Subscribe, I mean. Figuring out how to make WordPress do what I wanted it to was a pain in the ass.
