I've started a blog. If ya got some time check it out and leave a comment or three.

www.thecureforyourales.com



We’ve all had those nights. Not the kind where we total a car or wake up saying, “Where are my pants? And why am I in the women’s bathroom…at Wendy’s?” (Although, I’m sure plenty of us have had that experience on at least a couple of occasions - I’m looking at you Frankie Kickball.) I’m talking about the kind of night where we’ve said, “Well, if Pabst is good enough to win the blue ribbon, it’s good enough for me.” The next thing you know you are punching a police officer’s horse in the mouth in Millennium Park. Ok, maybe I’m still thinking of Frankie Kickball. Maybe you are a little more tame. Still, your stomach is a wreck and you know what comes next…

The morning after. When The sun shines through your window like God’s flashlight. When your alarm goes off forty-seven times over the course of 6 hours because you keep hitting the snooze. When you finally wake up because you hit your head on the edge of the futon. When your temples pulse on the corners of your face like night club sub woofers. When you’re so dehydrated you gasp for air like someone poured Irish sandpaper down your wind pipe. When your head spins like helicopter propellers and you can’t tell if you need to down a gallon of water or throw up a bucket of vodka. When you have to face the moments you can’t remember or don’t want to. The next morning. When you have to call into work. The next morning. When you turn to this blog.

The entries you find here are the cure to your hangover… but it’s not that simple. This blog is not just about your trip home from Margaritaville. It is a metaphor. It is the exploration of finding the remedy to what ails you. How do you deal with a bad breakup, getting laid off, your rent check bouncing, or the Jonas Brothers dying in a tragic Six Flags teenage mob stomping? How do you deal with the day after? It is looking back in retrospect, not to prevent it from happening again, but how to deal with it better the next time. This is a career poet/bartender’s take on the path to feeling better and moving on.

These are a few of the pieces our National Poetry Slam Team worked on this year.  The Mental Graffiti National Slam Team: Tristan, K.Krown, Billy Tuggle, Alvin Lau, and myself.  For those keeping score we came in 6th place in the country.

Dearest Family,
It is somewhat common knowledge that one of the etymologies of the
word "zombie" is often traced back to Creole & Bantu origins.
Folklore of the dead coming back to life has been found in literature
throughout history. Although typically the eeriest and most
believable stories do come from tales of Vodou.

Anyway, during some of my daily research I came across the story of a
man named Clairvius (found below...no pun intended) which only helps
support my case for the government and chemical warfare being one of
the most likely causes of The Eminent Zombie Invasion (which I will
from here on out refer to as The EZI, Pronounced [eee-zee]). It is
also one of the few tales that leave open the window for hope, a cure,
a recovery, a second chance at real life.

Marked By Sobering Sincerity,
your friend. your nephew. your brother. your son.
Daniel Sullivan
--------------------------------------------------------
Clairvius Narcisse was a Haitian man said to have been turned into a
living zombie with the use of a combination of drugs. His case
attracted considerable interest and some scientific investigation at
the time.

According to reports, Clairvius was poisoned with a mixture of various
natural poisons to simulate death. The instigator of the poisoning was
alleged to be his brother, with whom he had quarreled over land. After
his "death" and subsequent burial on May 2, 1962, his body was
recovered and he was given a paste made from datura which at certain
doses has a hallucinogenic effect and can cause memory loss. His new
'master', a bokor (sorcerer), then forced him, alongside many other
zombie slaves, to work on a sugar plantation until the master's death
in 1964. When the bokor died, and regular doses of the hallucinogen
ceased, he eventually regained sanity (unlike many others who had
suffered brain damage from being buried alive) and returned to his
family after some time, though only after finding his brother had
died.

Narcisse's story was popularized in the book The Serpent and the
Rainbow by Wade Davis, who is currently an "explorer in residence" for
National Geographic. Although many are critical and suspicious of Mr.
Davis' work, since his morals, as detailed in the book, prevented the
necessary scientific experiments to prove his hypothesis that
Clairvius Narcisse was drugged with a neurotoxin that simulates death,
it is scientifically possible. The poison apparently used was derived
from the puffer fish, which produces a well known and highly
documented neurotoxin (tetrodotoxin) that produces paralysis and in
modified form can mimic death through reduced metabolism and heart
rate. The secretions of the poisonous cane toad Bufo marinus were
apparently used as an anaesthetic companion drug, while the
resuscitating, mind-controlling drug was said to be made from the weed
Datura stramonium.

Dear Friends & Family,

In 1968 there were riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago protesting the war. "The eyes of the nation focused on Chicago and we decided who we were, what side we were on, and what we would fight for. Chicago changed minds, Chicago changed politics, Chicago changed the Left, Chicago changed the media, Chicago changed those who were here and those who watched from far away, and Chicago changed Chicago."
-Dean Blobaum

This Thursday is the 40th anniversary of that riot. It is also the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech.

Don't get me wrong...I'm not suggesting we riot. I am saying this DNC has a similar extreme potential to affect Chicago, the world, and each of us personally. This Thursday 8.28.08 Barack Obama will deliver his official acceptance speech for the Democratic Nomination. It is the day he officially takes on his role as our symbol of hope and change. It is an important day for Chicago, for the United States, and for the world. It is a day to remember history and celebrate the future. It is a day to celebrate.

I am hosting a gathering of close friends and family at my apartment Thursday at 7PM to watch the speech with the people who are closest to me. I'm projecting it on an 8 foot screen and my folks are bringing a few extra folding chairs. If you're interested in joining us let me know.

With Hope,
Sully

When I was in junior high I saw an episode of "Full House" in which Rebecca, Uncle Jesse's boo, had a pimple the day of their wedding. DJ told her to put toothpaste on it and it worked. For some reason this always stuck with me much like many lessons I learned from the show (eating disorders, racism, jealousy, stand-up comedy, and motorcycle safety just to name a few).

Last night before I went to bed I put colgate on a pimple and said in the mirror, "Here's to you Rebecca."

This morning that pimple...totally dried up son!

True story. The only side affect is that I look like this now:


Current Music: "Forever" by Jesse and The Rippers

(I write lists when I cop out of writing real poems.)

Things unboxed, left behind, given away, or tossed out:

-Ideas had for songs I should've written (I don't know sheet music)
-An unpaid cable bill
-Saturday morning mariachi music
-A set of keys
-A desk with shelves that sag like a forced smile
-Second hand smoke
-The box that split open stuffed too heavy with high school photos
-The ghost glue outlines of Danielle's rabbit graffiti
-The day that never happened

Things unfinished, undone, incomplete, or reworked:

-My left shoelace
-Dishes from breakfast
-The rope to her window
-All seventeen of my insecurities
-The numbers I leave out
-Poems on the desk, under the bed, on the fridge, in notebooks, in my head, for her,
clipped from the tribune, screamed into the pillow, etched in the bathroom mirror
-The search to describe my hands
-Unpatched on the walls of my room...an arrangement of small whole notes

The Fish in the Stone
by Rita Dove


The fish in the stone
would like to fall
back into the sea.

He is weary
of analysis, the small
predictable truths.
He is weary of waiting
in the open,
his profile stamped
by a white light.

In the ocean the silence
moves and moves
and so much is unnecessary!

Patient, he drifts
until the moment comes
to cast his
skeletal blossom.

The fish in the stone
knows to fail is
to do the living
a favor.

He knows why the ant
engineers a gangster's
funeral, garish
and perfectly amber.
He knows why the scientist
in secret delight
strokes the fern's
voluptuous braille.

This is the sound of your eyes moving underneath their lids—
how blankets are kicked heavy to the foot of the futon.

This is the sound of a couplet licked clean from the page—
how this unmistakable rest      works.

   I wonder where you are
   when your eyes move that way:

     if the sound of those movements
     is your pop's yell from the roof of the house
     for you to check reception of channel 9
     and grab him a beer,

     if you travel to a sea more ethereal
     rigged with seahorses foreva,
     a lasso braided with smoke tossed
     to catch the corner of a crescent moon,

     if you nightmare something awful
     until your leg spasms like heat lightning,
     a monster under the bed
     or a zombie in the courtyard.


This is the sound of my imbalance—
how we try to match the air.

This is the sound-ready crisp of an open window—
how we reach for definition...

   how we don't do those things
   that we guess others do:

     how we spill chestnut wine
     from plastic cups,
     how you wipe it up with a pair
     of my clean white socks,

     how our fingers shift
     like gummy worms
     when we hold hands
     on Ashland Ave,

     how we both say fuck
     too much in public
     but argue quietly
     before bed.

This is the sound of your eyes moving underneath their lids--
how my toes turn icy with the blankets on your side,

how our limbs tie knots against the turning pillow,
This is the sound of our unknowing.

Personal Poem #9

It's 1:12 a.m. in Logan Square it's the 16th of April
and it's probably 1:12 in Evanston but I'm
on Schubert & Spaulding         I'm lifting free-weights and drinking
Pu Er Imperial my brother sent me from France they told
him it was the healthiest tea ever in life or something
to that affect    I'm thinking how odd    we make it
all our own     like Brooklyn     like South Bend
like Paris like 42nd St
            I always have
come on too strong or too flash-rock but learn
to walk like wind-chill and thread hood to blanket
how to click warm and noise on a couch-bed
            No
and I never thought J-Rock would still tie
Sarah's hair to her chair over for years again
while we bounce quarters off the table leaf and compare
beer chins
      and I think I was thinking
when I am ahead I'll be somewhere like smoke rings
clap-hands, quick step, and able to hold on
swishing around rent week behind my wrinkles
speech loud bounced off the curtains
vulnerable     reaching     and tough