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Nothing Painted Blue - The Monte Carlo Method (1998) [Scat Records, scat59, CD or LP with 7"]

Tracklist:

1. Willingness
2. Shameproof Flirt 
3. Collage Elements
4. Modern Again
5. Explorer Scout
6. Cathexis
7. Niacin
8. 2nd Class Citizen
9. Spent
10. Developer's Dream
11. I Should Be With You
12. Growth Spurt
13. Off The Face

From the booklet:

Kyle Brodie: drums, percussion, backing vocals
Franklin Bruno: vocals, eighties guitar, organ
Peter Hughes: bass, backing vocals
Michael ("The Poker" Neelon): seventies guitar
with:
Dr. Frank Bruno: announcer
Dan Clucas: trumpet

all songs by Bruno/Øpb, © 1998 Stopgap Measures Music (BMI), all rights
reserved, except as noted

Engineered by Bob Durkee in San Dimas, 1996-1997
Mixed by Bob and the band
Mastered by John Golden
Cover Photo: Guy Rohbaugh
Design: Bruno

Without Whom: Everyone above, plus Robert Vodicka; Rael Lewis; Robert,
Marla, and Rilke; Refrigerator; Diskothi-Q; Big Breakfast; Gloria Putnam; 
Alicia, Seth, & Jim Brodie; Joel Huschle; Nathan Wilson; Leo Flores;
Liz Clayton; Chuck & Kris Arnold & Eric Vogel; Eric Gordon; Philip Nickel
& Tim Christian; Sharon Fagundes; Eric Stone; Brian MacPherson;
Enrico Fermi; Arseni Avraamov & Mel Gordon; Peter Galvan; Lyle
Hysen; Douglas Wolk & Robin Edgerton; the Taco Bell on Bonita.

Death Bus: The Snooty Goose

Postal: Box 36M65, L.A. CA 90036-1047
Virtual: bruno @ humnet.ucla.edu

The band's note about Emotional Discipline's cover art:

Nothing Painted Blue wishes to apologize to the memory of
the late Wallace Berman for the manipulation of the artist's
Verifax collages on Emotional Discipline. The lack of acknow-
ledgement was inadvertent, but the appropriation of his
images was in poor judgment. We hope that this may
ultimately be understood in the spirit of respect for (and
perhaps some measure of understanding of) Berman's wonder-
ful work, rather than that of exploitation. We would also
like to apologize to the artist's son Tosh Berman, and thank
him for his graciousness in this matter. Those unfamiliar
with Berman's work are encouraged to consult
Wallace Berman: Support The Revolution,
Institute of Contemporary Art, Amsterdam, 1992.

Lyrics in the booklet! Like water in the desert! Here are the lyrics as presented. 

1. Willingness

it's your willingness that makes me uneasy
it's been thrilling, yes, but still I'm unsure
self-fulfilling kiss prophesied to please me
while distilling this compound to a pure precipitate
I'm sinking like a counterweight
and going down in flames to raise the tone of the debate

as her eager hands beckon me to her
I take meager stands but still I succumb
she's got eyes like Krugeraands and a mouth like a sewer
all this sugar and spice has become a bitter brew
a recipe I never knew
could get me off my high horse and reduce him into glue

now she's giving you the go-ahead
she makes it known that she won't back away
but the forecast says there's snow ahead
and it's too far to drive on a mid-winter day
but that blanket statement's not so warm
when I'm under you like chloroform

two good souls involved in one bad idea
golden fruit dissolved into skin, pulp and seed
but I've been spilling less of this aqua regia
since your willingness overcame my need

Some notes from me, not the booklet:

• Krugerrands (here typed as "Krugeraands") are South African gold coins. Their import to the U.S. and other countries was banned for its association with the apartheid government.
• A precipitate is the solid matter produced by a chemical reaction, where a previously dissolved substance separates from the liquid it was dissolved in. 
• Aqua regia is a highly corrosive acid used in gold refining and etching.  

2. Shameproof Flirt

I know a girl who isn't getting any younger
almost a woman but she's got a ways to go
appetite suppressants couldn't cure her hunger
there's quite a difference between the two, you know

but ever since you took up with him
you haven't had a minute to spare
ever since you hooked up with him
it's neither hide nor hair

someone here's a dim bulb
someone here's a tightwad
someone's having phone sex when they're not committing mail fraud*
someone's eating lip balm
someone needs a stiff prod
someone get this blowtorch out to melt this little tin god

hey shameproof flirt, where does it hurt?
don't try to touch him when he's naked beneath his nightshirt
so prim and pert, so cruel and curt
dead-set on shattering the faith of a recent convert

ever since you took up with him
there hasn't been a moment to lose
ever since you hooked up with him
you've been a spitting, sputtering fuse

someone's played a bit part
someone's getting slipshod
someone got their licks in just before those kicks got outlawed
someone here's a crack shot
someone's looking slack-jawed
someone get this blowtorch lit to melt this little tin god

*We recognize and apologize for the lack of subject/pronoun agreement in
this line. 

This recording of "Shameproof Flirt" appears on a Scat Records compilation CD, under the title "Nightshirt" and specifically marked as a "rough mix" which is interesting. The peaks are all higher on the graph, and if you line the album/rough up and sync the earliest beats perfectly, by the end the two recordings are about 0.4 seconds off from each other. People who do mixing, I'm sure, could tell you exactly why. All this to say: thank you, people who mix (and master) albums. I type a lot of your names around here and appreciate you. 

3. Collage Elements 

they confiscated my library card
when they caught me in the stacks with a knife
cutting pictures of Curtis LeMay 
from a 1950 volume of Life
don't care if some scholar's annoyed
don't care if his archive's destroyed
all yesterday's current events
you see to me they're just collage elements

and I've been banned from the grocery store
I was brandishing my blade from the shelves
slicing labels from innocent cans
now they can't even advertise themselves to themselves
don't care if this package contains
nine wholesome American grains
brand names off of famed condiments
you see to me they're just collage elements

so fetch me the good scissors
and bring me a bottle of glue
and bring me a postcard landscape
to insert these elements into
sheet music and circuitry boards
chair caning and parachute cords
bus tickets and medical charts
knives and leaves and sevens of hearts
green portraits of dead presidents
you see to me they're just collage elements

4. Modern Again

Benjamin's angel on a bungee cord
the road's uneven but the pedal's floored
there's a sad conclusion that you're drawn towards
as you stare into the mirror
history stutters like it's got Tourette's
ignoring the meaning of its epiphets
there's a Luddite homepage full of empty threats
and a copy of Hejira
but if I don't seem myself these days
tell me who else can I be
peel off all these appliques and find me
(it's just me) being modern again

well, I saw Phil Spector and his entourage
with a weapons detector and some decoupage
there's a private sector that you can't dislodge
with your distancing devices
capital tells you how to misbehave
as the moshpit melts into a common grave
and the opposition was a loyal slave
with its own hand in the crisis
but if you can't watch the liquid drain
from this swollen century
mop up all this spreading stain
and find me
(it's just me) being modern again

there's a junkie shilling for a sneaker firm
and a strange suspicion that you can't confirm
that the pregnancy you didn't take to term
could have been the new Messiah
the future's fallen in a sodden heap
the past is stirring from a fitful sleep
and the insight offered is about as deep
as "We Didn't Start The Fire"
but if I can't sing this masterpiece
in the designated key
wipe off all this Jolson grease
and find me
(it's just me) being modern again

Notes on "Modern Again":

• "Benjamin's angel" I believe refers to Walter Benjamin's 1940 essay “Theses on the Philosophy of History” where he discusses the angel of history. Digging up my copy of Illuminations (tr. Harry Zohn, English translation © 1968 Harcourt Brace Jovanivich, Inc., p257-258): 
  • "This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress."
• Al Jolson was a vaudeville star famous for blackface. His legacy is slightly more complicated than that sentence suggests, but I leave it to you to look into that on your own. 
• "ignoring the meaning of its epiphets" is the line as typed in the booklets. One imagines this could be "epithets", but it's interesting to mention, so I'll mention: many botanical texts, especially the further back you go, use "epiphet" where modern botanical education uses "epithet", referring to the latter half of the Latin binomial name of a given plant species. Binomial names are genus, then epithet, and the binomial is the species name, e.g. Carya illinoiensis; Carya glabra; Carya ovata.
• Franklin may have something interesting to offer about Joni Mitchell's Hejira and Luddites but I'm not equipped to connect any useful dots there.
• Peter's backup yell on "moshpit" is delightful

5. Explorer Scout
(for Jared Negrete)

where's your compass gone now
it's time you faced it
you've done a little bit more
than just misplaced it
off the beaten track
to a different drum
ask yourself, how come
you're really lost this time?

as you sift through the soil
for flakes of pyrite
tell yourself you'll be back
in camp by twilight
coming in like some
brave explorer scout
now you're finding out
you're really lost this time

the pennknife in your hand marks
a cross upon the bark
of all the living landmarks
you stumble over in the dark

the buddy system broke down
your neckerchief's come loose
you see a puff of smoke down
on the cliff a ways but it's still no use

you're a being beyond
all recognition
you've got maps of a place
beyond their vision
before you wave and shout
think of all they lack
why on earth go back?
you're really lost this time

chuck your old canteen
drink straight from the stream
now it doesn't seem
like you're really lost

Notes: Jared Negrete disappeared on a Boy Scouts trip in San Bernardino County, at the age of 12.

6. Cathexis

you cut me off
with a wave of the hand, with a word and a cough
and you, you cut across
every longed-for division, remainder and loss
and you
say that everything we've lived for is wrong
and you
keep your membership up but you never quite belong

you cut the dose
to an eighth of an ounce, still you're near comatose
and you, you cut it close
with your worn paperback of Le Mots et les choses,
you move
like you've tightened your belt past the final notch
and you've
been bisected before but you never let me... 

watch how your balloon's been patched
you might get your surface scratched
walk away as if you're unattached

apostrophes, catastrophes
you think you've seen the last of me
but you can't cut persimmons from a pomegranate tree
but you can cut me to ribbons with your keen sense of irony

you rise
from the cutting-room floor to the ceiling fans
your eyes
break the narrative up into wipes, dissolves, and pans

plans abandoned once they're hatched
form and function, still mismatched
walk away as if you're unattached

Notes on this one:

• Le Mots et les choses, eng. The Order of Things, is a Michel Foucault book about, I am paraphrasing with every cell in my layperson brain working at 110% here... epistemology through time, and how societies decide over time what systems of information are given the designation of "truth" or "knowledge" as opposed to "belief" or similar terms. 
• The song's title: "cathexis" is a translation of a Freud-originated concept about allocating great mental/emotional resources to a specific target. This could be an idea, object, person. So romantically speaking, cathexis toward a person comes first in the exciting early stages, and then ideally you move to more of an actively maintained, enduring love. And then branching out from that, the idea is, if you don't have a person, maybe you cathect to something else to vent your natural desires in some way. That's the theory, anyway.

7. Niacin

flatten me out* with your compressor-limiter
walk me around the well-patrolled perimeter
something to improve my circulation
something to improve my circulation

flatten me out 'til the projection's Mercator
bring me a phrasebook and a French interpreter
so I can get the gist of the conversation
something to improve my circulation

(ch)
it's iron and niacin
you say we're deficient in
but if alcohol thins the blood
then mine has been
as paper thin
as garlic skin

forcing a foreign body down the ureter
show the results to the assistant curator
buy yourself a spot in the exhibition
something to remove my inhibitions

(ch)

hollow me out and fill me up with eighty-proof
leave me to pickle underneath a shady roof
put me in a jar for preservation
something to improve my circulation
improve my circulation

(ch)

*This should really be "narrow me down," sorry

8. 2nd Class Citizen

you come to seek employment information
your signature slides off the application
the moment that you pocketed your pen
the census taker comes but doesn't count you
you cast your vote but what does it amount to?
a choice of indistinguishable men
and whether you cast one or two or ten
they'll treat you like a second-class citizen

in the street the children all harass you
and their parents pull them closer as they pass you
your landlord thinks he's got you pigeonholed
the underwriter turns you down for Blue Cross
I hope you have a fragment of the True Cross
to keep you and protect you from the cold
you're going to need some real insurance when
they treat you like a second class citizen

now it's your word
against their word
it's the pure word
against the swear word
they can find you
by your accent
now they're behind you
with a blackjack, a gun and some muscle relaxant

the train stops at a classified location
the p.a. blasts the names across the station
you suffer every mispronunciation
as they shove you by the hundreds in a pen
you're nothing but a first-rate specimen
of a second-class citizen

9. Spent

you've collared a freak
but it looks like you've captured the wrong man
the dollar is weak
and it's making me look like a strong man
so you took my twenty
gave it one little rip
now you owe me plenty
since you pulled out my security strip

your new man of steel
sets off every alarm in the airport
he signed for your meal
and if you're game for that it's a fair sport
but I'll give him some credit
in his eager toupee
but how quickly he shed it
when the maitre'd brought back his Visa in strips on a tray

it's not surprising but it's still tough
how could you fall for that powderpuff
you always could take a compliment
but you're priceless, he's worthless, and I'm spent

diastolic over systic
shopaholic in the business district
did you find any takers
for his line of secondhand pacemakers

you plan your escape
but there's something gone wrong with his ticker
so you roll back the tape
where he leaves you the land and the liquor
it's a long healing process
and his chances are slim
but the burden's Blue Cross'
and a policy won't be the last thing you take out on him

I'm too exhausted to call your bluff
thought you were made out of sterner stuff
don't mean to sound like a malcontent
but you're priceless, he's worthless, and I'm spent

10. Developer's Dream

from April to August the fields fill in
each harvest they empty out again
from mattress to mattress you wheel and spin
in circles tight as your abdomen

do you know what it's like to give
out assistance that nobody needs
do you know what it's like to live
surrounded by weeds?

from weakness to weakness, from strength to strength
to keep this I'd go to any length
from Haven to Garey, from Holt to Towne
I'll carry each burden you throw down

do you know what it's like to throw
out your love like a handful of seeds?
do you know what it's like to grow
surrounded by weeds?

in this country where some must fail
you grew straighter while I stayed frail
and bitterness can corrode the soul
so wipe my name off that honor roll
same old flag up a new flagpole
in the square where the town was founded
have you ever been surounded?

as developers' dreams turn real
with a pen and a fistful of deeds
do you know what it's like to feel
surrounded by weeds?

from paycheck to paycheck, the way we live
while they check how good our credit is
"from castles to condos, we'll build your dreams"
they want those, unlikely as it seems

Notes on this one: 

• Holt Avenue is a central road that runs east-west through downtown Pomona, CA. It changes to Holt Boulevard as it runs east toward Ontario.
  • Garey Avenue runs north-south, and is the divider for E Holt Ave/W Holt Ave in Pomona
  • A few blocks east of Garey is N Towne Ave/S Town Ave. 
• "Haven" may be a reference to The Haven, a music venue on 2nd Street. 
• All that to say: at the very least, "...to Garey, from Holt to Towne", describes movement through the downtown center of Pomona.

11. I Should Be With You

This is a Mark Szabo song. No lyrics in the booklet.

12. Growth Spurt

there's been a strange change come over Danny
these last few summer months
school's in and all at once
he's got a good three inches on any
forward in our city
he's playing varsity
Daniel's having a growth spurt, when's mine?

ninth grade, they chose us last
tenth grade, he's lithe and fast
while I'm still in line

I used to stand and smile next to Sandy
in pictures arranged by height
said cheese and overnight
I guess that diet full of chips and candy
stopped being nourishing
meanwhile she's flourishing
Sandra's having a growth spurt, when's mine?

once we would walk for blocks
now she gets rides from jocks
while I wave and whine

youth is not a sweatshirt
and hope is not a watch
and they'll never turn up in the lost and found
but someone's going to get hurt
just as sure as whisky's Scotch
and I don't want to be the one to wait around

see all the downtown store windows boarded
the shops have moved or closed
meanwhile the strip malls rose
'til all the Daily Report reported
was our swelling density
hot nineties edge city
Upland's having a growth spurt, when's mine?

13. Off the Face

I'm going to disconnect my phone
I'm going to take my meals alone
I'm going to vanish off the face of the earth
I'm going to swallow my own tail
I'm going to sail beyond the pale
I'm going to vanish off the face of the earth
you can seek me somewhere mountainous
or on some deserted plain
but you'll never see my countenance again
I'm going to dwindle 'til I seem
more insubstantial than a dream
I'm going to shrink beyond redeeming or rebirth
I'm going to radio the base
and tell them, shoot me into space
I'm going to vanish off the face of the earth

you can seek me in the barrio
or in Bel Air and Brentwood
but I'm out of this scenario for good
I'm going to dwindle 'til I seem
more insubstantial than a dream
yeah, you can argue you can scream for all your worth
I'm going to leave without a trace
my very memory I'll erase
when I vanish off the face of the earth

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