pablosmoglives
pablosmoglives

pablosmoglives

Replacing my blog at http://pablosmoglives.wordpress.com


The Organic Tease (is punk mean?)

31 Jul 2022 7 minute read 0 comments Nathan Payne

"I always said punk was an attitude.  It was never about having a Mohican haircut or wearing a ripped T-shirt.  It was all about destruction, and the creative potential within that."  Malcolm McLaren   While checking my last article for typos, I was...

Breaking My Guitar Out Of Jail

30 Jul 2022 4 minute read 0 comments Nathan Payne

My guitar is in jail.  It was convicted on 5 counts of rocking too hard in the free world, and was sentenced to 3 years in the Kemp Calaboose in Kemp, TX.  Bonnie Parker of Bonnie & Clyde fame once spent the night in the Kemp Calaboose.  According to...

Requiem Mass in NY

26 Jul 2022 6 minute read 0 comments Nathan Payne

"There's a hole in this country, where its heart used to be."  John Rich "The song is heroic because the song confronts death."  Nick Cave   There's a scene in Man On Wire, the documentary about the guy who walked a tightrope between the World Trade...

Beware The Fabulous Leaks

21 Jul 2022 6 minute read 0 comments Nathan Payne

"The words of the prophets are written on thesubway walls, and tenement halls." Simon & Garfunkel   I like street art.  Always have.  Nothing beats the street for checking the artistic pulse of a city.  While I'm not one to criticize art museums for...

"La Catrina" Strikes Again

17 Jul 2022 6 minute read 0 comments Nathan Payne

The recent shooting death of a 21-year-old mariachi singer at the hands of her jealous 79-year-old husband in a restaurant in Mexico City highlights the dangers of playing with fire, whatever side of the death table you're sitting on.  What leads a 2...

The Dangerous Person's Guide To Camping Alone

13 Jul 2022 26 minute read 0 comments Nathan Payne

I came across a video on Bitchute tonight, dramatically titled "SOLO Camping: SUICIDE -- Don't Do It!"  The title demanded my attention, so I clicked on it.  The contents of the video were pleasantly disappointing, like a comfortable chair with bad u...

Pin the Gender Identity on the Holodomor Victim

9 Jul 2022 5 minute read 0 comments Nathan Payne

WARNING:  THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES AND CHALLENGING IDEAS.   I have never believed in food allergies.  Of course, I understand:  in certain rare, extreme circumstances, they exist.  There's always some kid who turns into a purple tornado e...

NYC the place to be

4 Jul 2022 23 minute read 0 comments Nathan Payne

In 2017, I went to New York to see a show an actor friend of mine was putting on, based on my album All The Diamonds You Can Eat.  Not only was the play named after the album, but the plotline followed the jagged narrative he read into it (which is c...

Good Morning Hollywood

2 Jul 2022 17 minute read 0 comments Nathan Payne

There's a lot more hope in this story than there is in This is a House of Warship, even if the hope is synthetic.  The darkness isn't really less dark, it's just high, or perhaps more stupid, if only because it takes place in Hollywood, a place that...

This is a House of Warship

1 Jul 2022 14 minute read 0 comments Nathan Payne

This is a story I wrote for a book I published in 2012.  It's a snapshot of a certain mindset I was in when I lived in Chicago in the late 90s.  I was recently looking at a map of Chicago and the horror and beauty of those days hit me all at once, an...