Good morning, all intrepid dreamers; all radical informalities; all temporary insanity. Welcome to Words From The Midwest: The Last.

Yes, this is the last of these things I will do for the simple reason that I am tired of doing them and want something new and more interesting in my life. Yes, something new. Maybe I’ll begin another series, but no. I won’t. I will start something altogether different, but, in a way, the same. Maybe a zine. Yes, definitely a zine. Well, maybe…no. Yes. I will start a zine. Something like McSweeneys or Cream magazine. I will write about Music and Socialism and Gun Control; philosophies of Life and Death and the Afterlife. I will condense my ideologies into warm and tribulent diversions for the 20something, millenial, Yuccie to appreciate; to devour. Rolling Stone is dead. We need something new, something better. We need something that is sheenless and mundane. We need a New American Bible, released quarterly, for free. We need something that will refuse to give the new U2 album a five star review, because it sucks on principle. We need a goddamn media revolution.

But I live for hyperbole. Maybe I won’t do something new. Maybe Words From The Midwest will continue…

No, no! This is the last. I’m telling you true. But…oh, dear. I was going to write about Big Star…

My first issue! “The Near-Perfect Band” it will be called. All about Big Star. All about how they changed the world of Music and were ignored for it. All about how they, more than, perhaps, any band of the 70s, deserve the Hall Of Fame and will never get it.

But what to call the zine itself? “Titular Nomenclature”? Too subversive. Ah, but it needs to be! No, it must be simple. I must be trite and without pretension…“Made Up”? No, too proclaimy; too understated. What then, what? I’ll have to think about it. It will come. Maybe it should be a made up word. Maybe something strong, like “Titan”. No, no. Titan Magazine…too strong.

Regardless. Words is…Ah! Words From The Midwest! It’s the perfect title! I’ve already come up with it!

No, no. Taken. This is Words. This is done.

And so, in this, my last paragraph of a book that will be published by the end of the day, I bid you adeu. This blog, this Tumblr where I am writing, will morph into something else…A clean and futile website for all things Supposed. A will for an eternity beyond our submission to greatness; a goddamn trendless, contortionary Tale. This is still the Midwest, I presume. There will still be Words, I am sure. But as far as a dictate of our greatest faults to recognize the way a life is led? No thank you. This has been less fun than anything I’ve ever written. But I do hope you enjoyed yourselves. For the time being, read my other books. They mean more to me than anything I have forged onto the internets.

And, while you’re at rereading this plague of distaste, listen to The Supposed So. There’s some okay music he makes.

Regards,

Michael

Good morning, all wants and needs; all booking shows; all stupid recordings. Welcome to another edition of Words.

I prefer to take a step back from my essays on music and such to just have a post where I just write and see what happens.

I really don’t even have anything to say. Really, I don’t. But it’s almost obligatory in my mind that this series must continue, becoming at least a hundred pages altogether, compiled into a paperback book and put up for sale. No one will buy it. I’m sure of that much. At least not right away. My mom will read it and either like it or not but she – I know – has been reading these things all along. And she is, perhaps, one of only a small handful. But no matter. I soldier on. Because nothing I do is really for anyone else anyway; it’s for me. It’s so I have something to do. It’s so I can go to bed every night knowing there’s a little bit more of me down on paper or recorded to tape, sent into the ether of the internets for an unsuspecting audience to one day be garnered, pulling me out of obscurity and, perhaps, out of poverty as well. And I do have some hope of this actually happening. But the question of when is most certainly always on my mind.

Maybe I’ll tell you that I watched Whiplash again and it’s so fucking good. It’s really one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. That last scene, man. You gotta see it if you haven’t. As a musician, that shit was empowering as shit. And J.K. Simmons sparkles.

What else, what else…

I’ve got some shows coming up.

I’ve also been reading a whole hell of a lot and it feels good to do so.

Whatever.

I’ll cut this short here, because all I really wanted was a couple paragraphs to tide you – myself – over until the next time when I’ll write about Big Star. Otherwise, this is pure, unadulterated nonsense.

I’m out.

Regards,

Michael