Shit Twice and Die Like a Man

Alright. These were all recorded on a 4 track some years ago. All sounds by the author except for stomping from my children upstairs. Visit the House Band page to hear these songs with your ears through your computer.

Breakfast In the Afternoon

I’ve grown into a lazy young man

My skin is all that I have

Come and take my place among the master race

I will do all that I can

to shit twice and die like a man

When I quit this place, bury me on my face

I grew up an angry young man

The anger here is as fine as sand

Don’t I look foolish now staring down at my hands

All the broken glass in the schoolyard

The broken eggs beneath Gowanus Parkway

Through the Gilded Age didn’t we thrash about and rage

I was born with my feet in cement

But I won’t die choking on sand

It’s a bitter pill for a world that exists just to pound sand up my ass

I fucked a hole in the wall

Of my house made of glass

just to prove I’m a bigger man than a billion grains of sand

I don’t go looking for wars

reeking of absinth and whores

The man I used to be – washed up somewhere on the Keys

The mist on the hills of a brand new day

Downwind the stink of Independence Day

Bull moose drops like a goose – breakfast in the afternoon

In the Back of My Skylark

On the beach – in the sand

In the backroom with the band

In the bar with a knife in my hand

In the streets – in the park

In the back of my Skylark

We can make it baby any old where

(country-style whistling)

Your feet – your hands

The way the sweat beads on the small of your back

and drips down the crack in your ass

I can weep – I can pine

I can drink a gallon of cheap wine

and throw it all up in my lap

1.8 Million Good Years

I’ve been away for almost two years

I don’t even hardly know what to do with a girl anymore

I am afraid that I have no fear

I might just grab a girl off the street in 2007 anymore

Why don’t you just make the best of this thing while your young and unbloodied by the bludgeon of time anymore

I’ve taken the time to reflect and consider my dear

Morals in a man are only the sum of his opportunities to act queer

I never claimed to be doing God’s work here my dear

17 is a very confusing, trying and difficult year

Why don’t you just give one back to your species my dear. Give it up once for 1.8 million good years

Godfrowns

Think twice before you flash me that particular set of eyes

I’ve long left off believing in particular sets of lies

You’ve got to think twice – don’t tempt me. Be a good girl – act right. You’re a smart kid – do the right thing. God frowns on a dirty mind

Azure eye shadow, tangerine lips, you combed your hair straight for the trip

Field trips make you excited – on the bus like dirty little kids

The Battle of Greasy Grass Creek

Just as George Armstrong Custer faced down the whole Sioux nation

so might I be faced with an eternity of de-famation

Just as stories of the bloody 3rd might thrill an adventuring man’s woman

so might a sanguine night at the local saloon make a modern man feel alive again

Round up your 15 best ponies and all your strongest medicine

He who rides with stiff cock have at his back the east wind

Ride with hubris and a brass band to the strains of Gary Owen

Ride against Gall, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull – 600 Sioux and 900 painted Cheyenne

Ride under Sherman and a white god up over that final ridge

Unto history, into death – one last sacrifice to this continent ancient

Crystal Ball

I never did one single thing to dissuade you

but if a better man with a bigger heart should happen to persuade you

I would take my lot for what it’s worth – there’s not a single thing on God’s green earth that could make me sit by and smile while some other boy tries to fuck you

I believed everything I ever told you

And if I lied to you it was because I thought it was the best thing that was for you

Everything I want to be – that don’t mean shit to me if you are not there to see – you make a molehill out of me

I swore up and down you would not outlast me

I thought time was on my side but it was just my ego telling lies

I thought I had a crystal ball – we were going to have a ball. And when you said what would never be I was the last one to believe

A girl like you must own her own problems

But a boy like me don’t mind when the leaves turn in the autumn

And it’s just like you to see right through every alias that I could use – you really put me in my place, momma, come and slap me in my face

The Year of the Monkey

Bad times, heartache and misery

A good woman is hard to find and hard to keep