Dust Bowl Gansters

(Concert/Music Reviews)

My crippled bankroll needed a breather this weekend, and although I recently saw them in Rochester, I decided to go to The Felice Brothers show. Taylor Hollingsworth opened up for them and I was pleasantly surprised by his solo performance. Although his young voice conjures the ghost of Daniel Johnston, his writing is spangled with very profound and beautifully absurd lyrics.

Ian Felice strikes me as a modern day vaudevillian tweaker. I say that with artistic love. He rocks, sways and winces like a marionette attached to the dusty wild west. Any band that has more than one mustache rules, and Christmas, the dice throwing bass player is obviously goddamn pimp.

I envy their rowdy and drinking ways on stage, but hope I don't read about a canceled tour due to 'exhaustion'...

With a shifting focus,

B.

You are not lonely, nor are you alone

Mix

II.

We are friends, no?

The rotund Jew with milky blue eyes, hooded by worried brows looked at me and explained his position "I didn't feel good and if I stayed home I would lay around and just eat." I sipped my coffee and contemplated why I was there. The William Burroughs look-alike pursed his lips and said, "My wife died 3 years ago." The pock marked Italian chirped, "This place is like a bar, you see all the regulars here like you would at a bar." I couldn't agree with him more. It is a way to be close to people without letting them in. Once they get in, they rummage around and see how messy, insecure, dreamy, lovely and foggy your life really is.

Excuse me, why am I here? "I am a card player sir, and my car broke down near the edge of town and I am just looking to get some coin to get back on the road. I have a lady the next town over waiting for me. We plan on moving to the country as soon as I get fixed up real proper, sir. Three tens? I have aces over eights, you win again."

Affectionately yours,

B.

The Lonely Librarian

I.

The Kiss of Death

I am approaching the year long mark of my reintroduction to poker. I thought I might have written much more on the subject, but I must say that I have been hesitant to go in-depth with the whole thing. I think it's time to play catch up with the topic. One of the points of this blog was to address some of these issues, but I can't help but feel incredibly self conscious about the experience. People generally have a distrust or preconceived picture of what kind of 'folk' we are. Degenerate, swindler-type-snake-oil-salesmen. I don't define my existence as a poker player, so why the guilt? (Although I did name the blog in accordance with the lifestyle)Might you label me childish and morally unkempt? Well, I have to get over that b/c even though I don't define myself as such, I take it pretty fucking serious nonetheless. Maybe it's my seriousness that I feel foolish about...Do I really think I can make it as a player? At any moment I could stop playing-the money could run out-the game ends. I already feel the game approaching the end as it is. The name of the blog would then be changed to The Failed Librarian or The Recreational Aging Musician or no, I got it: The Surrealist Librarian. I think I like that better, anyways...What does that say about the amount of energy I have shoveled into this locomotive? Could the energy have been better placed, such as relationships, creativity, grad school, etc? Perhaps, but right now I am having toooo much fun alone and lonely in Buffalo. Kenmore, NY to be exact.

With psychological wanderlust,

B.