turbo
perfect radio faces
ace aviatrix
consumer catalog
the sun is falling
rain is rain
k.o. star
too close to you
truth in advertising
broken typewriter
astral charts
i!d!m!
the rocktopotamus theme
you're out walking in the rain - still upset, still playing that game of box it up and give it a name. when you're home will i change my ways? lose myself in another maze, a star-eyed gaze, amazing nights and blacked out days? another hit for you to chalk up to long lost rock n' roll. where did it go? out with the kids that used to glow and dance below. and so you know that's how it goes with everything that moves you so. no not tonight.
does it wear you out? forget your feet, forget the ground. follow the particles that go up.
you think you're a diplomat, but with every argument you end, you got me second guessing me, you got me running for my pick and pen. you're politicking your way out the door.
you draw a line and find a box that fits you all too well. how is your cell? you find the time to forget that difference isn't all that bad. it's all we have. if you think that you're exempt from buying in and from contempt, then it was money well-spent.
partitioning this down until the pieces disappear, puzzling no longer over words lost in the air. it's not to say that you can't see the light for the fixture. it's just that empty frames are breaking up the motion in the picture.
her shades and cigarette smoke protect her in this light. the second hand, a smoking gun - how easily you're hypnotized. stay confident and stoic as you look in her eyes of lunar ice. she'll luminate, she'll shoot the moon and steal your heart.
hey ace, it's time to face the facts and understand - there is no magic in an empty hand. the only trick to all of this is that you still believe the dealer with the aces up her sleeve.
i've got a great idea for a brand new magazine. we'll call it america, and fill it up with excess and poverty, 100 pages of ads for products you don't need and maybe an article about what you missed last week on tv.
and i'll claim all of the applause, but i'll give you all my apologies, cause i don't make them for me.
i reach up my hand, scrape the bottom of a boat, i struggle to the surface and swim to stay afloat.
i've got a great idea for a brand new disease. we'll advertise it on billboards and it could even outsell apathy. the afflicted will buy the cure, because we won't tell them where they can get it for free: in a hand-written letter from the forgotten half of the country.
given the time to save, we can buy anything. given the time to change, we can change everything.
who will clear our blood shot eyes blind behind these trickle down tears from force-fed bill board medicine while they profit from our fears?
who will clear our blood shot eyes blind behind these trickle down tears from staring at the stars too long while they profit from our fears?
who will clear our blood shot eyes blind behind these trickle down tears from experts' empty promises while they profit from our fears?
your tv screen so comforting and magazines are constantly channelling reality. we will wake up eventually. your tv screen so comforting and magazines i never read, good (keep-me-quiet) company. but we will wake up yes we will wake up.
the sun is falling. it's collapsing underneath the weight of our manifest destiny. she's taking off her glasses to show us teary eyes, to show us what we've done.
once inspired, though i am still asleep on my feet, behind chapped lips, i'm grinding my teeth.
the things we do are empty, confused, in need of fixing. the painter paints a toolbox with the colors that he's mixing. and if there's something we should see besides our empty depiction, it's to take away this poison that everyone's been drinking.
someone is calling. the phone is ringing endlessly. we're afraid of what we'll hear. when we're taken off the hook, whose responsibility will ever keep us underneath the sun that everyone sheds and leaves behind? anyday now there will be a sunday. nothing will shine except the waste of our way.
do you think that you'll be saved and one day flown away? to a place where everyone is still waiting for that day? sometimes i think it's better too, but something steers me clear. 'cause nothing makes less sense than that - we should be happy here. but you can't live with that.
rain is rain wherever you stand. although i guess some people feel it while there are others that can't. still you make it out like you've own special cloud; the shadow only you can see and i doubt if it ever really rains on you at all.
it's all a question of l'attitude, of emphasis and of point of view. you like to accent the lonley beats. you walk along with your head down and count your listless moves.
the sun is flashing through the blinds. it's splashing summer colors on my eyes. no one will ever understand the way it looks from where i am.
a friend of mine decided that if he sails away into automatic judgements disappointment has made then he can sit exempt in his comfortable chair. the television's all that he does hear. he won't be happy 'til he turns it off and tunes in to fair.
in other words an absence is an image erased. no one can reproduce it and it cannot be replaced. but there are remnants and reflections and other things he ought to see before they fade to gray.
the sun is flashing through the blinds. it's splashing summer colors on my eyes. no one will ever understand the way it looks from where i am.
did you forget all that we said the friday when we hugged and that was it? on a couch made just for two, ten floors up and none too few. you won't forget the view.
and now you wake to subway walls and streets, infinitely meaner than they're clean.
did i surprise you with my eyes? sometimes i can be so blind. but i've lost better things than sight. you said i only look down. maybe you were right. put your head down into your hands and leave it there until the time is right - when you can hear over everything the pretty voices that you left behind.
did you forget all that was said last night when we hugged and called it quits? in your two-door midnight blue, deciding what we should and should not do.
put your head down into your hands and leave it there until the time is right - when you can hear over everything the pretty voices that you left behind.
yeah, o.k. k.o. star. you've come just as far as your arms can take you. so sit down and i'll explain to you what to do. if you should defeat me, you would realize that you're just lonely. so baby, close your eyes, bite down hard for round two. hours of combat have no effect. internal conflict can be so perfect.
wonder why you wonder why this is wonderful. wonder why i overlay, and trace you with a pencil.
call it a keepsake for me to take. for god's sake, this place is celestial real estate.
i am so close to being close to you. so close to too close to the two of you.
pick up on you picking up on his pick up lines. listen to the laws you lay, and lie about a great time.
i'm in no state to wait, i might disintegrate - losing every phosphate, trying to keep a straight face.
nothing platonic about you. the planets all orbit around you.
i am so close to being close to you. so close to too close to the two of you.
another day with a well stocked cupboard - i'll never go hungry again! a lifetime of frozen dinners, from the same frozen smiles and hands.
(it seems that i just couldn't resist the face on the tv.)
if i don't buy something every day, i get the shakes by evening. if i don't work late every night, i can't afford what i have already.
(shut my ears to the shouting hoards calling out my name. a target demographic shift, easy to turn a profit [these days].)
[these days] are long for all of us, for all of us.
mathematically constructed songs tap into my deepest shame. if my car can't make me happy, maybe there's nothing that can.
(and there's nothing but tv on the 10 o'clock news.)
another day with an empty cupboard, maybe i'll just have to starve myself thin. spend my days with an empty glass box with an empty glass in my hand.
(if i never leave my room, they'll never find me out. i haven't spent a cent in weeks, everyone knows that's a crime [these days].)
[these days] are long for all of us, for all of us.
i'm still here waiting for you to knock down my door, make me suffocate in a shopping mall, collapse on the floor. i don't know where to turn, i don't know who to trust. there's gin on my breath again, but i still can't keep my mouth closed.
i've spent my life choking on a famous fiction. reading between the lines now the only thing that sates me. the hunger will never disappear.
i've told a lot of lies, but this isn't one of them.
(these days are long for all of us, for all of us) for all of us.
it's impossible to speak this ever-changing line without a hope of losing anything less than time. i'm easy to forget and even easier to define - part of the curse of possessing a simple mind.
in a hailstorm of chaos this message gets obscured, like the ghostly cloud of fog that's descending upon my words. it gets lost in between the fragments of code i've strained. by the time the wires pass it through what i said is not what you heard.
you promised changes.
it's true that i can't make ammends, because i've got nowhere to go. and escape seems like easy to part, but i've got nowhere to go.
and i don't know why you're still hanging on when you don't even like having me around.
this is not to say that i don't love you, but that sometimes, i wish i didn't.
do you miss the moon setting behind the island day, the way the city and the bay would hold it like a frame? do you miss the late night kiss that once you swore away?
her arms reached out and then she waved and then you closed the gate. in clumsy folds in aging hands you drew up plans for fate. all of the conclusions drawn from lines that you create.
fireworks flashed in your eyes but you would never let them out on the canvas of this life. you were waiting all that time. trace a path before you go be sure to let us know where you left the astral charts so we can find you in the stars.
aquarius, the whitecaps kiss and bear the cold and deep. the sea you love it never failed to rock you in your sleep. it washed away the face that's all but burnt into your skin.
fireworks flashed in your eyes but you would never let them out on the canvas of this life. you were waiting all that time. trace a path before you go be sure to let us know where you left the astral charts so we can find you in the stars.
the night and water envelop the triangle of this old boat. with twilight calm above the hatch and a mainstay candle, you dispatch. criss-cross your way through all of this navigating safety's sound to find somebody that you miss.
well maybe i haven't made my decision, and maybe i don't have a lot of options, but i'm not ready to tuck in my shirt. i guess i'll spread out a little thinner.
i get lost in the parenthetical, semi-colons taken semi-literal. i get bogged down in the day to day, keeping a path clear for the future.
until i have to read it backwards, i can't begin to finish my collection. and so i can't help this cheating feeling. and when the alarm clock rings it's time to go.
there in the air, for a second. early or late, you know it doesn't matter. hey, if you care enough to listen with both ears, and meeting in the middle.
maybe i'm just stalling for time, and maybe i'll just fall down flat. commit myself to committing myself to rolling this rock uphill.
until i have to read it backwards, i can't begin to finish my collection. and so i can't help this cheating feeling. i collapse across a faded picture, and suddenly it's 3am and i'm alone.
grab on while you can, things are going fast. i don't know which is better when you say no, or when you say yeah!
hit points: 20.
iq: 32.
arms: tentacles. strength: +10.
weaknesses: none.
origins: unknown.
rocktopotamus, we'll fight you by the lake, make no mistake. you're not invincible. we've got guitars and heavy metal friends. and everyone is on our side. yeah everyone is on our side.
we're not afraid of you!