The Blue Hysteria

All the Same Eyes
by Tim Veseley

A mother and her kids,
An eleven a.m. trip,
Down the street from where they live
To a grassy little stop
That someone's called a park,
'Cause it's routed in the wood.

A mother and her kids,
And they all have the same eyes,
And they're greener than they're blue,
And they love each other, too.

A mother looking tired,
Always weighted under
'Cause no one else brought food.
And it's a (Sunday) slow afternoon,
'Cause there's no one else around,
And the TV drags her down.
Under weight of growing up from the ground.

I aspire to work so hard.
All the gold is buried in the park.

A mother and her kids,
Walking hand in hand in hand,
And they all have the same eyes.

Motorino
by Martin Tielli

It's a sign.
Pure white thing, believe you me...
Sacrifice all your problems for a motorbike.
Fafafafa-faca bella.

Eh, I'm not gonn-a stay.
I'm just gonn-a go.
Oh, can't you see?
I'm in love.

Donna mio!! Sacrosanct!!
I'll nostro mondo interno e simplice.
Monte Baldo e un sasolin.
O! Face bella!

The pain of feeling too much and knowing too little.
The Autobahn on a motorino.
The Fear of being attacked, then punching too soon.
The canoe that cruised the moon.
The unmovable moon.
Far above the Ravens.
In silent shifting blue.
In my flying canoe.
It's a sign.

Why fry the sane sound of nothing too fast?
It's just a simple drone.
It's just an oooooooooooooooo.
It's just that sound of the ground that seems to fall around us,
Move our feet and gently pound us.
I've been blessed with the perfect choice.
It's inside.

Something the Committee Thought You Should Hear
by Dave Bidini, Don Kerr, Martin Tielli, and Tim Vesely

70 seconds...
2 hundreds...
30 seconds...

Fat
by Dave Bidini

When we were kids we ran like INTERPOL.
I killed a copper with a puck of coal.
Put a rock through a saint, made a stained-glass hole.
In the back of the class, we giggled, sniffing rush.
The best of friends, we rode the Islington bus.
Your gum was sweet but the chewing was tough.
I got drunk, I threw up on gin I mixed with orange stuff.

This dream we call familiar
Is like death in golden wraps.
Now if that's true and we both know that,
I'm sorry if I said you were...

Bye bye, Mr. No One.
Bye bye, Mr. Woebegone.

I cracked my head when I fell from the highest rung.
Two poster children wagging blue-green tongues.
Drank pop, ate Pez, laid down and played dumb.
Crashed through a snow fence, some stitches were sewn.
Your face was a window, I crawled from my home.
My life was yours, your blood was my own.
I don't know what I would have done if you never ever left me alone.

This dream we call familiar
Is like death in golden wraps.
Now if that's true and we both know that,
I'm sorry if I said you were fat.
(And I know you still don't like me for that.)

Hey! I don't even know who you are.
I don't even know why I came.
I can't remember your name.
Everyone's a robot when you're a zombie.
I don't even know who you are.
Everyone's a robot when you're a zombie.
You look like someone's been shot.
You look like someone you're not.
Everyone's a robot when you're a zombie.

(Stony.)

Bad Time To Be Poor
by Tim Vesely

It is a bad time to be poor,
'Cause we don't give a shit no more.
If you want to go for help, don't look next door.
The line's been drawn and staked outside.

I see to trying to lay the blame
On the folks in charge who hide in shame
For growing up with an open purse,
And learning not about being alive.

Haven't I done enough to burn out?
Haven't I been there to help out?

It is a bad time to be young.
What's left to us can't be undone
Without it riding on our backs
When young and poor go hand in hand.

It is a bad time to be poor,
And feeling winter through a crack in the door.

Sweet, Rich, Beautiful, Mine
by Martin Tielli and Tamara Williamson

Sweet mouth...
When you formally say you are mine,
Will you bitter, and look up,
Confess you don't understand, and
Actually hate who you know?
It's pitiful, but it's you
In full glamour.

Sweet face...
Twisted and stiffened in a boring place.
With such a rich mind,
Life could be jewelry.
It's pitiful, but it's you
In full glamour.

You're rich,
('Cause) You're/So beautiful,
And you're mine...

Sweetest ass...
Can I take you away from this trash?
If you'll pack up the movie
That you are directing,
A documentary of some foppy old sop star
With a pomp like a cockatoo.
Is that who you're portraying?
Or some tiresome injustice
That's replaced by another
In the end, is that what you're saying?
(Is that what you're saying to me?)

Four Little Songs
by Dave Bidini

Four little songs...

(One, two, three?)
Four little songs...
It would make us happy if you sang along.

ONE: Do you like it? I like it.
You were good, you were shrapnel, quick.
But your knife blade wouldn't stick.
A tool is a weapon when a love goes sick.
You were bored of me...

Three little songs...
We make them up as we go along.

TWO: This lady's shaped like the Tour de France.
A thousand wheels besieged the city of romance.
The cigarettes all burn like hay (hey! hey!).
A yellow jersey stained red, cabernet.

Two little songs...
Chorus-Verse, and you can't go wrong.

THREE: Huge creatures plowing the streets tonight, right, right.
Ruin an ambush, set the sky alight, light, light.
On the carousel (of life)...

One little song...
Just one more part then we'll move along.

FOUR: (Strange men, as strong as bears and as fierce as wolves.
Hungry men, hungry for the skins of beaver and mink and otter.)
I had a dream I stood in Neil Young's kitchen.
He looked superior, and I felt like retching.
I said I had to go away.
He said, "No you must obey
The laws of the universe,
And the laws of the second verse.
You're only as good as your last song.
It's better to burn-out than to be proven wrong.
Your voice will sound like a giant gong."
I cracked my fingers and my brain goes...
(Goo goo goo goo goo, yeah yeah.)

(Four, three? two, one...)
No little songs...
We made them all up and now they're gone.

An Offer
by Tim Vesely

See what I have to offer, and take your time.
Then maybe make an offer that makes you mine.

You reason hard and sober, that's half way true.
Then after you've had your water, I wine, I wine.

I tear an open letter to better you to see.
Now I feel so much better. Do it, do it to me.

I came down for a walking and to talk with you.
We get joined at the forehead like we're meant to.
I offer me to you.

Never Forget
by Don Kerr

I just want to thank you.
Okay, well, I'd like to please you too.
But if I just can't have you,
I will never forget.

I'd like to alert you.
I hope that I'll never hurt you, too.
And if I can't even flirt with you,
I will never forget.

'Cause in your eyes I see the sun,
I feel the rain, I hear the birds
Flying every day.
It's in the ice melting,
And my heart beating in the heat of my fever.
How could I ever forget?

Been hiding everything.
Inside me is exploding, too.
The shelter that you show me,
I could never forget.
Becoming just something.
Be leaving every single thing.
Behind me there's nothing left
I will ever regret.

Out on the street I see your smile
On every baby, every tree,
Every animal I see
Your face, it's in the sun shining
And the moon crying in machines
In the weather in my dreams.
I could never forget.

Julia, where ya goin'
With your chicken, Dale?

The Idiot
by Martin Tielli

Every time you call, I'll be there to swab away the fears.
If you want me to stand by you, I'll be your defense.
You were on the phone in a heap of diahretic tones,
And I'm sitting here all alone.

Peter. Peter.
I'm the idiot who got there before I was there.
Dancing the dance before the DJ set up the speakers.
Cheater. Cheater.
All I remember is someone's spit on my face,
And not knowing which head it belonged to.
Peter. Peter.
I need some advice.
I'd always rather be drinking.
I'm always waiting for the fun to start.
I'm always waiting for the fun to come.

Was it just the teeth that we ate, or all the ears we heard?
Was it just the clown that we touched, or all the apes we punched?
Was it just the smell of my own nose?
I'll never breathe again.
It left me all alone.

Connecting Flights
by Tim Vesely

I assumed that you all know
What it is you want, and where to go.
That you've got it written down somewhere,
And filed under "I Don't Know."

I assumed that weaknesses are rare,
Just not enough to knock me instead down two flights of stairs.
You're two flights ahead of me.
Just leave me to be that I'm right.

Figured that I'd heard my call
To welcome to the airport all
Passing through connecting flights.
Make just enough to break my fall down two flights of stairs.

You're two flights of stairs.
You're two flights a way ahead.
Just leave me for dead, that I'm wrong.
You're two flights ahead.
Just hang me and leave me for dead.

Feed Yourself
by Dave Bidini

(Put down the megaphone.)

A cage of turtles, a cone of hemp
Was how he reeked, what he was smoking.
An "A" that's circled on knees that bent
Behind the trees, behind the woods.
"I shouldn't have taken that pretty black hit.
It wouldn't have mattered 'cause the band was shit.
I spent the night retching in a rolling stream.
Am I drunk or did I hear a scream?"
Meanwhile, the triple sport chip off the block,
He had an urge: a weird feeling.
It was a pretty good night for a walk in the woods
By the ravine, along the trail.
They probably beat him up when he was young,
Or locked him outdoors for sucking his thumb.
They dressed him well, educated him clean,
Must have taken his heart when they removed his spleen.

I was scared, but I was so far from it.
They called in the cops and they screamed "Red Level!"
The killer boy's like a wannabe punk.
One dead girl in a submarined trunk.
Ah, what's the use in crying? I'm armed.

I know temp work sucks, and a life it is not,
But it's a job. Hell, it's a living.
"For a sweet tomato, for such a party girl
Is what I am. (So party on!)
Like a box a chocolates and a Beatles song,
These are the things you can always count on:
Like the moon, it's face, a wide-open space.
I swear I it's where I go when he gets on my case."
But one minute you're here, and the next you're not,
Then you're a dot on a blotter.
The cops caught wind, they cashed her in,
They found the boy. He said he tried to save her.
But they questioned him up and down with a stick.
They traced his blood and found his sweat in her spit.
So they locked him in a cell with four grey walls.
"We got one dead girl, but the kid won't crow!"

When I was young I thought that things were good and fair they pulled my hair they pushed me in they forced me down city of sleep city of sheep.

The best boy triple sport killer is calm
Carving the bird. He loads the plates.
Outside in the street a vigil of girls
Sing songs and hold candles.
He loves his mom and he loves his own bed,
He loves the things that Jesus said.
"If you can't be pure, she might as well be dead."
He hears a voice through a hole in his head.
But suburban sharks, they love their blood in the parks.
They want their peace. They want their druthers.
We've gotta be safe from all the junkies who rape
And all the blacks and single mothers.
Those welfare-types and those punks will run.
They'll find a rank place with the immigrant scum.
A girl was murdered, a boy was hung.
That was our first summer that we owned a gun.

In a black or white neighborhood, don't walk!
Feed yourself. Feed your children.

A Mid Winter's Night Dream
by Martin Tielli

In the Winter. In the Winter's time.
Sidewalk shrinking... and you?

TV's twinkling. The sky cushioned my ditch with a couch of snow.
So soft. So deep and so cold. And you?

Sweet sweet silence. I'm already gone.
Pleased to meet you. You speckled my throat like a junkie'd prick,
So cold, so blue, and shallow.

It hiss like snow do
As though fish's could know any better
Underneath the ice in suspension.
It feels like your mouth.
A drip of spit on the end of your tongue
Falls into the ice and cracks like thunder
And a dream I had of girders
And an abandoned truck in the underground parking lot
With the keys in the ignition.

If I be the crane, if you be the site inspector
Who had a scotch at lunch and a problem with his wife?
You didn't notice

The truck, the wires,
The white silence of the coming blue fires,
The sabotage of a giant thing that would benefit the workers.
It's all too much. A spirit can't sink any deeper
In to dope, dope, dope, and submission.

It's a dream I have. Yeah, it's what I think I know.
'Cause if all this pain and endless anger has somewhere to go...
If I had the permit to, all hail Leo Copter!

And you would like my face.
You would like my face.

Sweet, sweet silence. I'm already gone.

My First Rock Concert
by Dave Bidini

My first rock concert was a stadium affair.
Our dads drove us down to the front gates there,
And we looked at all the people and all their rock-n-roll hair,
And for the very first time I smelled dope in the air,
And we saw ELO, but they sucked.
But Meat Loaf was wicked, so we gave it up for the fat man.
(Gave it up for the Meat.)

My second rock show, I was offered some pot,
But I refused to be swayed or to be caught by a cop.
Geddy, Alex, Neil: they played penultimate rock,
And for the very last song they set off five flash pots,
My friends had an epileptic fit.
But the crowd cheered him on 'cause they thought that he was dancin'.
(Though that he was a fool on his back.)

My third rock show was an epochal day,
It was out at the Ex, beneath the Alpine way.
Aerosmith and Goddo, they were okay,
But when I saw the Ramones and it changed the way I saw the world.
I saw everything.
So I bought a leather jacket, cut holes in my jeans.
When my parents saw my pants, then they took away the car keys for two days.

The Specials, Gang of Four, and all the new wave.
I saw the Birthday Party play with Nick Cave.
I saw XTC twice, I thought Paul Weller was Christ.
I even met Michael Stipe, he was distant, but he was nice.
Joe Jackson saved my life:
At Massy Hall, I got up and I started to dance.
Big ol' cop, he grabbed me, and he pinned me against the stage.
Cop reached down, and he took the hat off my head.
Then Joe reached down, and he took the hat off the cop's head.
So I wriggled free, and I ran up into the balcony and swan- dived.

Now it's many years later and I'm up on the stage.
Sometimes I feel a little like a bird in a cage.
Under these lights, you're either a mouse or a sage.
Music belies one's actual age.
Is it just a passing churn (yeah, could be, could be)?
Like a rusty car, hair style, or an old shirt (shirt, shirt),
A CHUM chart, an 8 track, or a gate-fold's double live.
Oh yeah, I was there...