Medical Exercises for Music
Examples, to be completed:
1. Classical…………………Parkinson’s Disease
2. Rock………………………Acne
3. Folk……………………….Hay Fever
4. Alternative………………Epilepsy
5. Electronic……………….Myopia
6. Proto-Punk……………..Diabetes
7. Jazz………………………
8. Blues……………………..
9. Country………………….
10. Salsa……………………
11. Christian & Gospel…….
12. Soundtrack…………….
13. Hip Hop/Rap……………
whoa shit i almost forgot:
In the future everyone will be famous for $15.00.
Public Illumination Magazine
Public Illumination Magazine was the first magazine to publish my writing in New York City back in 1982. I remember standing in front of the Gotham Book Mart and seeing that issue in the store window and thinking what a thrill it was. Writers were required to use “an obligatory pseudonym”; I chose “Mike Topp.” I’m still a frequent contributor (though the magazine has since forced me to use various pseudonyms, including “Fitty Sense”) and PIM remains my favorite magazine. PIM’s website: http://www.mondorondo.com/pim/.
Below is from the LA Times:
Public Illumination Magazine (a.k.a. PIM) is entering its 28th year of publication. PIM is a little magazine (2 3/4 by 4 1/4 inches on slick paper) devoted to art and writing (never more than 250 words per contribution). Each issue has a theme. The first issue in December 1979 was devoted to telephones, followed by others on virulence, mass transit, little girls and on to hair, climate, and miracles.
Contributors are being sought for the forthcoming issue on space.
Just To You Know
Just to you know…In case you email back tonight I won’t respond. I’ve got a Tombstone Pizza in the oven and plans to watch a movie on TV.
Needed
What this country needs is a good five-cent iPhone.
“Polar Express III”
** (2007) Tara Reid. Double agents kill an inventor for his wooden spaceship, but his girlfriend will not let them have it.
Sirowitz, Topp, and McAbee January 23
Wednesday January 23 (8 pm)
Issue Project Room (232 3rd St, 3rd Fl, 718.330.0313 )
$10
Families, like poems, often conflate trivial affairs and matters of extraordinary importance. Two books by Hal Sirowitz — 1996’s Mother Said, followed eight years later by Father Said — thrive on this exaggerative impulse. The former poet laureate of Queens begins each compact poem with moments stolen from a long, claustrophobic car trip, but each ends with a quick shift in subtext — the depressive habits of a quirky uncle, say, or the hushed secret behind Mom’s glaring reprimand. Of equal note is one-line soothsayer Mike Topp, who reads from his work-in-progress, The Lonely Life. Littoral provides music as well, in the form of gruff singer/director Cory McAbee.
– Joel Withrow
Which Gay Bar?
Which gay bar should I choose?
I can’t decide. Can you?
Fiddlesticks? The Boiler Room?
The Slide? The Dungeon?
The Electric Banana?
Persuasions? Nowhere?
Which gay bar should I choose?
I can’t decide. Can you?
(Thanks, and a tip of the hat to Sparrow.)
Grandmother
It makes me mad when people say I didn’t treat Grandmother well when she was sick. Maybe it was because of that one time I dropped her in the hallway when she had to go to the bathroom and I just stood there and laughed and laughed.
Mike Topp - Guardian Mention
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/11/the_story_as_oneliner.html
Games
Red Light, Green Light is one of the most difficult games to play. Variations include calling Yellow Light, which has no consequence. Another difficult game is bridge. There are over fifty cards and a good percentage of them have to be held in one hand so that your opponent doesn’t see them. A Japanese game called Go is another difficult game to play.
A Morse code translation of a haiku by Issa.
.. /_. /… /. /_._. /_ / … /, ._ _ /…. /_._ _ / _._. /._. /_._ _ /?
._ _ /. / ._ / ._.. / ._../ _ _. / _ _ _/
_ /…. / ._ / _ / ._ _ /._ / _. _ _ /
Fact File
In the privacy of his home Jesus wore slacks. He was the first god-man to do so.
The government uses most of your tax money to help foreign countries that want to change their names. “It’s very expensive, what with court costs and ordering all new stationery, so we like to help them out,” says one IRS official. “‘Myanmar’ cost us a bundle and everyone hates it. Let’s face it, people liked saying ‘Burma.’ Now no one even talks about the place.”
The English invented homosexuality in 1067. It was originally a strategy to fight inflation in the aftermath of the Battle of Hastings, but it became all the rage among guys who liked to suck dicks.
On the Cover
Vatican officials padlocking the bathrooms in response to the depredations of Pope Pius VI (1637-1701).
You Better Believe It
A friend writes:
Baseball was actually invented in 1768 by Ethan Matherson in Rhode Island Colony. But for some reason he gave it a silly French name (”Fifi ball”), so it never caught on.
Ayn Rand’s pussy hair was hideous—”As bristly as the whiskers on a boar’s snout,” according to one report.
Recent Celebrity Scent Lines
Eau de Roger Clemens
Andy Rooney’s “Desire”
Man Salve por Rupert Murdoch
Weather/Politics
Suspiciously warm… Axis of Evil… Disingenuously chilly… Last gasp of the insurgency… Deliberately foggy… Mission accomplished…
Overheard
“Let’s talk about everything first and then we’ll talk about the other stuff.”
Algorithm
Because you do not have a personal trainer you are fat. Because you’re fat I’m fat and this means our children are fat and our neighbors are fat. But they make velour track suits for us because they’ve heard about you.
Smoke Like a Chimney
Bill successfully smokes like a chimney. Bill’s dog tries to smoke like a “chimenny” but fails. Bill’s dog is given a nicotine patch.
The Meaning of Various Movies to Jeff Johnson (2007)
Young Road (1984)
Patrick Swayze plays “Don,” a hunky, hot-blooded truck stop employee
who must fist fight daily to ensure that his customers have the right
to drive their rigs while intoxicated, receive discreet oral sex from
swarthy Latin men who are dressed as women, and pretend they’re in a
union. Things aren’t much better at home, where Don’s parents have
been butchered by the local sheriff for extreme ugliness. Due to
poverty, Don can’t afford to give them a proper funeral, so the dogs
just sleep on top of the corpses. He also plays older brother to both
Rob Lowe “Cade,” a teenager so stupid that dumb things keep happening
to him, and whom also gets a lot of moms in their Tulsa neighborhood
pregnant, as well as a barely recognizable pubescent Paul Giammatti
“Gary” who dabbles in arson and may or may not have taken the bolts
out of a popular merry go round that even poorer children depend on
for entertainment. Vince Van Patten stars as their nemesis “Giffey” a
rich preppy teen who turns out to be having gay sex with the Senator
who wants to shut down the truck stop. ZERO STARS
Tomorrow’s Hope (1999)
Jessica Tandy stars as a grandmother to Brittney Murphy “Hope,” a
naive girl that no one thinks is particularly beautiful or funny.
Tandy must cope with really awkward feelings when the untalented Hope
tries out for her high school’s Sass Line (a combination Pom Pon +
Krunk unit) but ends up getting stalked by pervy janitor Gordon Jump
“Dutch” who mops most of the hallways at school with a mixture of old
toilet water and his own semen. ZERO STARS
Dinky (1985)
Phil Collins stars as a jewel thief with a cock so small it can pick a
lock. His brother “Louie” Bob Hoskins is married to a poodle that
farts. ONE STAR
Calypso (1997)
Hugh Grant stars as a millionaire douchebag “Oliver” who is cuckolded
by his supermodel wife “Tammy” played by Posh Spice and is given even
more millions in the subsequent divorce settlement. He promptly sinks
the money into a Caribbean bar that has live reggae and stuff. He
hopes to reclaim his dignity by bonding with his subservient colored
employees, but behind his back they agree that he is a fucking
asshole, and when he eventually kills a teenage boy by jet skiing
drunkenly, trying to impress “Vicki” Minnie Driver a cosmetic dentist
from L.A. who is in the midst of a divorce herself and whom sometimes
plays an acoustic guitar on the beach and sings original songs that
have no choruses or bridges–there’s a riot and the town burns down
the tavern, accidentally killing the island’s beloved oldest resident
Patchy, and a cynical drunken Australian ex-pat played by Bryan Brown.
ZERO STARS
Recommended
-Punkrocker (Iggy Pop) - Teddybears
-The Return of the Player - Michael Tolkin
MIKE TOPP HAS A NEW BOOK OUT!!!!!
He likes diamonds and grapefruit juice and hairy-chested men who insist on walking everywhere. You should really buy a copy of SHORTS ARE WRONG. Large format, art by David Berman, William Wegman, and Will Yackulic. Order a copy for $12 from mike_topp@hotmail.com
Recent Reality Shows
Celebrity Death Threat
One-Hour Martinizer
Buy a Condo or Die
Now That a Strange Insect
Now that a strange insect cleans our house the bathroom is the first room I show off when company comes over.
God Ticklish
Say theology scholars