{"id":162658163,"date":"2026-02-25T03:45:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T08:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=162658163"},"modified":"2026-02-24T15:45:42","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T20:45:42","slug":"on-performing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=162658163","title":{"rendered":"On Performing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\u201c[Singing] was sensuous, a pure pleasure, which didn\u2019t take anything away from the emotions being expressed\u2026Music can do that; you can enjoy singing about something sad.\u201d – David Byrne, \u2018How Music Works\u2019<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

A plug up top, in case you catch a case of the TL;DR flu. I am reading poems TONIGHT, February 25, at Neon Mic Night. Neon Mic Night is a bimonthly reading series hosted by my friend Ben Neispodziany. Really cool people like Kathleen Rooney and Heather Christle and Johannes G\u00f6ransson have read at this series. Now, I am on the bill. The reading is at The Whistler, 2421 N Milwaukee Ave. Doors are at 6, reading at 6:30, and I\u2019m reading first, so be fuckin on time, my fellow degenerates. Also reading is Shipwrecked Sailor Blog favorite LJ Pemberton and cool-as-hell Juli\u00e1n Martinez. Last time I saw LJ at Neon Mic Night, she read a genuinely moving essay called \u201cI Fucked Your Mom, Dude.\u201d Like, an essay with that title made me wistful about lost youth and sentimental about family\u2014LJ rocks. And I\u2019ll be doing shit like \u201cTHE TREES MY DUDES THE TREES<\/a>\u201d before you get to hear LJ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"a<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It may be strange to admit, given that I don’t do it much, but I crave performing. I\u2019ve thirsted after being on stage since I was around 13, covering “Brainstew” at the middle school talent show. That aspect of my life seemed permanently back-burnered. After all, the likelihood of me seriously joining a serious three- or four-piece band is low. It sounds nice, sure. The practical aspects of really being in a band, though?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s see: Brendan and I have our three<\/a> somewhat amorphous<\/a> projects<\/a>. When Mike can drum for us, that\u2019s great. Records aren\u2019t easy to make, but we\u2019re always writing songs, so a record isn\u2019t prohibitively hard, either. If we want to play shows? Well, we can play acoustic. Once you start getting into re-arranging songs for a three-piece or finding a bass player, well. Then, we gotta find a rehearsal space, plus venues, and suddenly what doesn\u2019t seem like a big deal feels like a huge lift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"four
we did take a good publicity photo once (credit: I am sorry I do not remember, possibly one of our moms)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

My band broke up when I moved to Chicago in 2006. Until about 2012, I tried to make a go of solo acoustic stuff. Can\u2019t sing lead, though. In 2011, I went on tour with Since Forever, Brendan\u2019s band, filling in on bass. That was a blast, but obviously impermanent. In 2015, the first Shipwrecked Sailor record came out, with the explicit idea that it\u2019d be a bedroom project. In late 2016 or 2017, I joined Solipse on bass. We practiced every week\u2014Charles and Mike made for a fun hang\u2014but only played three shows while I was in the band. We mutually parted ways when my kid was born. Two years later, the first b & the shipwrecked sailor record came out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"a
“hey kids, wanna know what 2007 was like?” (credit: I doubt she wants to be named, shoutout to my college roommate)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Do you see all the almosts? Do you see why, after playing shows all the time in high school, I feel like not really a performer<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enter poetry. And podcasting?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pattern was not apparent to oblivious 20-to-22-year-old me, but the 1317 Revolution (the reading series that Charles Gabel, Quin Slovek, and I ran in college) was largely another place to put High School Me\u2019s show-organizing energy. After college, I did some readings around the city, before burnout\/lack of confidence\/alcoholism made me stop seeking out readings. The impetus behind starting The Line Break<\/em> (Bob and I started talking about it around 2016, did some test episodes in 2018, got started in earnest in 2020) was finding a way to reach back into the scene. Contribute<\/em> something, by reading and gushing about other people\u2019s poems. But also, the podcast is a performance.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thinking that performance was now entirely relegated to the digital space was a mistake, though. An understandable mistake, given the \u201cpivot to video\u201d panics and podcast boom of the 2010s and given the fact that I was officially a House Husband, but a mistake nonetheless. Hell, money-minded people would probably say that de-emphasizing digital space in 2026 is a bad idea (\u201cwhy don\u2019t you read The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You<\/em> over Twitch stream?\u201d the clueless capitalist asks). The digital space is a tool, for sure\u2014I meet just about every writer who is on The Line Break or The Lazy & Entitled Podcast on the Internet. Though not all of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are some poems I won’t be reading tonight<\/a>, but that I like a whole lot. Hope to see you at The Whistler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"a
ok one more baby Chris picture, mostly because I miss that guitar like hell (credit: I’m sorry but I don’t remember. I have a couple guesses. If you want credit, reach out)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sorry you got an email, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chris<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201c[Singing] was sensuous, a pure pleasure, which didn\u2019t take anything away from the emotions being expressed\u2026Music can do that; you can enjoy singing about something sad.\u201d – David Byrne, \u2018How […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":162658172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94,169,10],"tags":[48,39,276],"class_list":["post-162658163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry-reading","category-shipwrecked-sailor-blog","category-wednesday-column","tag-poetry","tag-poetry-readings","tag-the-whistler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162658163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=162658163"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162658163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":162658180,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162658163\/revisions\/162658180"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/162658172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=162658163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=162658163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=162658163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}