on every
there have been many tried and true
band names
unveiled at rerun concerts
ostensibly for the
entire live audience
but which,
once they are studied
for a crucial
figure,
gradually appear
new again
like hot spiders.
Here are mine.
Oakland, Los Angeles, Chicago,
Austin, New York
A’la Carte.
But here too
are twenty-five possible
spellings.
Purple is
so popular it can be
printed on a T-shirt
just by adding (or
adding without)
a Y.
I found myself
buying T-shirts at H&M
last weekend,
why not a new one
next weekend, too?
The motivation
behind these choices
comes from a place
of health (but still
we have to pay) and survival.
Ideas on how to appear
trickle down from city-centre
designers.
No doubt second-hand
number plates will also
bloom and bloom again.
The debate
explained
to a generation
who remembers
gone-by
locations like
Atlanta, Birmingham,
Kansas City.
Bands name games
over 40 years
and how the general
public identifies
with then and now.
You know that we got it wrong
when you listen to
one of those songs
where after the names have
washed over you
the lyrics are
stereotypes.
Myself, too, am
one of these
in all three boroughs.
I was at UCLA in the early 90s
with a band called
Sutter Brown
who were
featuring the guys
who were renamed
as posthumous prostitutes
in 1994, as women
denigrated as overly thin
and as unconscious victims of
a bad sexual experience.
We used to
pretend all these times
that, hey, we were
messing with the
American dream.
Still, we carried on
throughout this with our
onesies on
standing out as the underdog
most of the time.
