Die Kinder, a musical project I am a part of w/ Kari Jørgensen & Ryan Eilbeck, released a six-song tape at Skylab Gallery on May 5th in Columbus, Ohio.

Download the songs for free HERE (or direct zip file here)

OR if you would like a physical copy of the tape via mail, paypal $4 (ppd) to richardwehrenbergjr at gmail dot com

OR get in touch at the same email address for other ways to get the tape.

Reach for the strange fruit.

I was a kid one time.

‘Winter’ in Bloomington [ft. Lakewood / Cleveland, Ohio]

mrlisa:

sidekicksohio:

The music video for the song “Baby, Baby” from Awkward Breeds.  Directed by Jon Washington.

I love these people, and I love this band. The Sidekicks are currently touring all over the place; I highly recommend you go see them.

STEVEN!

(Source: youtube.com)

Cleveland, Ohio

1937

December is a month of transformation for me. January too. They mean snow. They mean cold. They signify the incipience of the ending of the circle that is a year. Again, we have ridden the circumference of its course. I try to measure what the accumulation of events in the context of a year mean, what they stand for and constitute and the scale breaks, the ruler snaps.

Last January (2011) I was sitting in Buckeye Donuts in Columbus, Ohio and overheard a man tell another man that he wasn’t sure if he was going to make it through the winter. Both men had conventional winter hats on and were blowing breath into hands recently relinquished of their gloves. The man who was listening at first assured the man who was speaking first that, indeed, they would make it through the winter—with some beer and football and a little getting-together, yes—they would make it through. For whatever reason, his words stayed with me that day. Out of every conversation you overhear most get sent to (what I like to believe is) the equivalent of a trash can or external hard drive for a computer—recoverable, but (probably, eventually, inevitably) forgotten. Not like yeah, man, we got it bad. Winter… And not that I find savior-like warmth in beer and football. Far from it. But there is something to be said about the snow, the cold.

We cold-snow-blessed Midwesterners of a certain latitude get something that those non-snow-cold-blessed don’t. An endurance. A promise. Some combination of sadness/fatalism amalgamated with joy/carefully-calculated will. We have to get through something. There are distinct obstacles to our days. We use moments of time to tie a scarf, shovel a sidewalk, pull on gloves, or blow breath in our hands—moments that we might otherwise use doing other things. We take time. That’s what December directs me to reflect on. Time. We slow down. What we assume about traveling through our days gets deconstructed. We follow our breath and feel warmth so much more fully.

In our hibernation of sorts we have dreams that tell us who we will be when it’s time to wake up. And we do wake up—in March or April or May—changed inexorably, punctuated by the seasons of the Midwest.

people from my hometown commenting on my appearance / weight

reading my mom’s texts, how formal she is in them

certain anxieties about writing manifesting

do my parents think proudly about how they have ‘made’ me

do you think there is something larger than you out there

not good at thinking of a specific for a category, but if you give me a specific i will tell you what it means

majority of people don’t want to critically assess and deconstruct the stuff of their lives

cousin’s baby ‘making eyes’ and riding a rocking horse, we say ‘see ya later’ to him and wave

old friend who works at a nuclear power plant in painesville, ohio now

very normal people who feel trapped but don’t want to admit it are the majority of people in america

guy with chief wahoo tatooed on the back of his head at the bar

college girls returning to my hometown to dance with the old guys at our town’s bar

girl next to me on plane comments on the ‘ugly browness’ of a river we fly over, i say ‘humans’ in response

missing someone like you can’t help it, always

there are planes in the sky at all times

get warm fuzz feeling from stewardess pouring my coffee, placing a napkin on my thigh

my mum saying all her kids are a crapshoot w/r/t getting married

lots of people on this plane who used to be little kids sleeping like them again

guy next to me talks about stocks and bloomington business and multi-million dollar companies

the reproduction of the relations of production…

dead chicken pieces between heated up wheat thirty thousand feet in the sky

some guy spouting rhetoric about deserving

everyone was once a tiny animal who learned to read signs

‘truth’ is out there and people want it now, now, right now, got to, now, okay

do you think that we should try so hard

Fall in Bloomington (2) [ft. Columbus, Ohio]

forbitterandforworse:

(The above sketch was from Wednesday when I learned some tragic news about the much-loved Monster House.)

My former home. RIP, June 1st, 2012. Heart.

BEREA FEST VI, BABY.

(Source: tooimpatient)