A couple o' kids Calvin and Hobbesing across your chest. Put it on your torso and walk around. Hand dyed and printed, colors vary. very hot and cool.
Sizes XS-XL, XXL(in white)
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Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Blue skies and yellow vinyl sunshine, happy kids and a sad kid and hymns for a New Time Religun. Get old or die tryin'. Gnarly 22x28" poster/lyric sheet by Sean and Adric, pencapchew.org. Cover collages by Meg Coss. megcoss.com
Includes unlimited streaming of Old Blues
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
I was barely 4 in 1989, struck blind for the first time,
by television ads for Ninja Turtle toys,
I had to make them mine.
That Christmas, my mom taught me a very important lesson,
totally by accident,
while trying to alleviate my crazed obsession.
She was desperate, taking buses out to Harlem just to comb,
through the toy stores out there,
they were all sold out closer to home.
And as luck would have it, some poorer kid wound up deprived,
she bought the last one in the store,
Salvation had arrived.
...
I woke up before the sun, and lay in bed anticipating,
too innocent to know that the pleasure of Consumption
is in the waiting...
so when I tore of the wrapping,
and finally held it in my hands,
I felt bereft and destitute,
and I couldn't understand.
Tears of shame, for my ingratitude,
plus the rube's humiliation,
at having bought the seller's ruse,
proved a potent combination,
which nourished a fresh suspicion,
of a bankrupt Cartoon Culture,
and my own inherent greed,
and its empty, rapacious longing
for some Shit I didn't need.
Proprietary Love is Lust, and Lust is Pain,
it doesn't really matter what you're trying to find,
when Want gets warped and starts to stifle,
and it curdles into Need,
the fulfillment is unkind.
...
So I spent my childhood trying not to want to much,
feeling guilty if I got it, but still enjoying the warm rush.
Every school year, buying new clothes, or a skateboard,
or some coveted new shoes,
but eventually I learned that I preferred the worn out clothes
with less to lose.
One day, playing in the mud, 10 years old, feeling inhibited by Pain
that I felt for the nice clean outfit I'd so foolishly worn out in the rain,
while my friend wore his black sweatpants every single day,
and didn't have to care,
that's the way I wanted Life to be,
and the same went for my hair...
Morning after morning in the mirror with the comb,
self-consciously flailing,
until one day I left it alone,I was fed up with failing.
It looked better unattended to, so that's the way I left it,
and I applied the same principle to clothing and shoes,
and this Freedom manifested,
as a reversal of the way I used to feel about possessions.
I enjoyed watching my shoe soles wearing down.
I had found a fresh obsession.
I got a material thrill,
watching Time make its impressions,
as it kept passing by,
and it kept passing by.
...
And on a dark and stormy school night,
14 years old, stoned and alone, in bed scratching my head,
I felt a bump at the top of my scalp,
I thought it was a pimple so I picked it 'til it bled,
and in the bathroom mirror, sifting through my hair,
I was shocked to discover the plasma-weeping stump of a mole
that I never knew was there.
I was shaken and deeply disturbed by the sensation,
of not knowing my own body,
too young and too stoned,
I was scared,
but then I fell asleep and I forgot it,
and I thought that it forgot me,
for about eleven years.
...
When I left home, I applied myself
to living just below my means,
going hungry in the afternoons,
ending days alone with rice and beans.
I knew that Money = Freedom,
and so I didn't want to spend it.
I felt ashamed to have a safety net,
I'd never want to ask my dad to lend it.
I'd spent my angry, failing teenage years being told
I'd never make it,
unless I managed to shape up and repent,
but all it took was a part-time job, and the luck of finding
cheap rent.
Pretending to be poor at the grocery store,
saving up for nothing but peace of mind,
I kept the receipts from deposited checks
as totems of proof that my Freedom was mine...
But that was all a bunch of bullshit,
and I was just a little hypocrite,
denying change to the homeless guy,
for the sake of preserving my unearned and underserved pride.
...
But one thing I learned from my years of self-enforced frugality,
is that the less you're forced to work to earn your keep,
the less The World of Wants can warp your reality.
Because the less you spend your money,
the less you think you need it,
and the less things that you want,
the less you wind up feeling cheated.
...
Time passed...
And eventually I aged into a looser state of mind,
which allowed for generosity, and favors done in kind.
...
Time passed...new fears,
and suddenly I found myself aware,
of the scarce resource of years.
...
Tree rings of fat, twenty pounds every several years,
and the waves of hair, crashing higher and higher,
revealing the stone that that stoned kid feared.
Oh dear,
Time is near,
it's Here.
...
Having spent my life,
trying hard to learn the lesson,
to not want anything I can't have and don't need,
now,
how do I apply this Knowledge,
to my own aging body?
I stare into the mirror and repeat:
Anything I can't have I don't need,
Anything I can't have I don't need,
Anything I can't have...
I don't want what you're selling me.
I am exactly what I'm supposed to be.
Nothing more, or less,
than this one breath,
exhaling now.
ageless ftc jams, diggit. https://shyb.bandcamp.com/album/dust-from-1000-yrs https://shyb.bandcamp.com/track/wash-us-out-to-sea https://shyb.bandcamp.com/album/thanksgiving Bad History Month
Proceeds from this excellent new darkambient/neofolk comp from LEFT/FOLK goes to benefit American Near East Refugee Aid. Bandcamp New & Notable Jan 10, 2024
