TomFlannery.com

Have a lyric but no melody. I hope to have this resolved by the end of the day. One is not much good without the other, unless you are a poet or Yanni. I am neither, thank God.

Poetry to me is like paintings. Art-wise, I can’t tell the difference between what hangs in the ritzy museums and what hangs in the average hotel room. And reading a book of good poems and reading a book of bad poems seems a very similar experience. In fact, I avoid reading any poems whatsoever, especially the ones that don’t rhyme. If you’re going to write poems that don’t rhyme, you may as well just write obtuse prose and market it to college professors. They eat that shit up. And if you’re going to write poems that rhyme, why not add a melody and a screaming guitar? It sure is a lot more fun. And you’ll get more girls.

On the subject of not understanding, I could go on forever. But I’ll end with jazz. I’m tone deaf when it comes to jazz. I’m sure there’s such a thing as good jazz and very bad jazz, but…..and I know this is heresy and all that, but to me the lounge dudes at the Holiday Inn and Miles Davis all sound sorta the same. Out of tune, out of time, and totally stoned on something.

I also don’t understand why “Wednesday” is spelled the way it is. No wonder everybody is speaking Spanish these days. English doesn’t make any sense.

In a bit…

–tf