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phlegm - one night stands with out of tune instruments in a room with blue wallpaper

by phlegm (brad hamers & slomoshun)

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  • Streaming + Download

    debut LP from Phlegm (Brad Hamers & Slomoshun)
    3SC (Three Sides Of A Circle productions) 2002
    recorded in NY

    all proceeds go directly to the artist
    Purchasable with gift card

      $5 USD  or more

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    CD comes with a 16 page insert containing all the lyrics.

    Also includes immediate download of [19]-track album in your choice of 320k mp3, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire.
    ships out within 10 days

      $9 USD or more 

     

  • Full Digital Discography

    Get all 17 brad hamers releases available on Bandcamp and save 10%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of 8 poems from The Humming Prole, La Pánica, Through Flames, Through Flames - GoCopless (maxi-single), Artax, Stone, Cat Child - c-t ch-ld, Child of No Nation, and 9 more. , and , .

    Purchasable with gift card

      $24.30 USD or more (10% OFF)

     

1.
one night stands i woke up earlier than usual today head swollen like pregnant flies caught in a spider web and i think i’m just an insect on the sidewalk of this giant city block where the sun comes up like a dysfunctional elevator riding over the hills like a blind man on his bike i need a seeing eye dog to help me out of bed without tripping over these slippers that no one’s worn in 4 years the bedroom has a different texture this early in the morning i enjoy sitting at my window i’ve been watching all these people move like broken car parts black ants in a rat maze gathering crumbs to bring home a full loaf of bread the streets bump into each other like this club’s been open all night people coming in people going out i haven’t been to a funeral in a while and i think its because i can’t stand the way my father sits when there’s death in hand shakes and hello hugs he cries like he’s singing and i’d buy his album if he ever came out with one he makes music with his tears like i do like rain in a tin can constant tapping constant tapping like a radiator shivers someone put a jacket on this house and me feed the static take my brain out and show it to me kids in the shape of pills i wish i had wings that worked in water, i’d float my way home what is this place sick of myself throwing up in front of mirrors i’m waiting for the carpet cleaner to put its foot down because i’m not cleaning this mess what is this place my images now all have curfews hibernating rituals where they leave me in the dark fuck the beat, no drums, no drums skin me and make a song for them, all of them to dance to like cocaine lines with clogs on center of dance floors in strobe spin and grind every hour away every hour that came before this one we only exist at night with forgetful minds and only the sound of this second clicking matters i’m in line single file like we are folders with labels organized like socks obligated to mates and will always fit in a drawer FUCK THIS i don’t want to look at the rebel, let’s exploit him tag his cheek to keep track of him bar coded and i need a sku check over here sku check somebody wants to purchase the X on the map clean out his wallet with a broom stick made of fallen trees and nappy angel hair i need it spotless and that means you to out now the house looks better without you in it anyways you’re crayon scribble on these antique walls and i’m a loner that needs companionship so last night i gave birth to mind through my mouth a child’s brain detached in a shopping cart up and down isles down and up back and forth jittery wheels forth and back don’t listen to my music or whatever it is i don’t want you to look like this its not fun no no fun i wear a gas mask and a hard hat to sleep stay on your own yellow brick mission there’s sky falling from the … clouds peeling themselves from the sky the sun takes a bath and little pieces of confetti are thrown all over the black rug until light vacuums its family room and opens its eye what is this place what please tell me i’m sick i seem to be comfortable in clothes that don’t fit i like playing games with no endings or overs i keep cheating on myself having affairs with attractive thoughts in persuasive clothing running around naked with strangers and netting them like spiders a thought stuck on fly paper and she’s the one that woke me up early this morning she makes me hate my music she tells me there’s answers to ever question which i think is a trick yeah she’s a trick homeless without a magician to push her back up his sleeve she makes me try to express myself like i’m some sort of puppet to my brain but i can’t leave, i’m whipped an addict to the way she thinks i can see her ideas move through the traffic like water she’s a light bulb plugged into a wall outlet my outlet out of my self i fuck her like a virgin, an unpeeled orange she orgasms ink like a broken well and my sheets are covered from head to footer we smoke cigarettes in the dark together and talk about mirrors and wheat fields and piano keys we cuddle all night like two fetuses tied up by an umbilical cord then i leave her for another early morning to stare out windows and find a different partner a different idea in a mini skirt one that fits my high expectations
2.
out of tune instruments part A – how many people don’t feel like going home tonight how many questions will you die with in your pockets how many answers do think will ever help you out how many mornings would you rather stay in bed this life tastes like cardboard and i’m boxed in this life tastes like cardboard and i’m boxed in how many people don’t feel like going home tonight how many questions will you die with in your pockets how many answers do think will ever help you out how many mornings would you rather stay in bed this life tastes like cardboard and i’m boxed in this life tastes like cardboard and i’m boxed in these walls try to talk to me but i don’t listen this world is a pool and i’m drowning part B – a tarnished man – sitting a salt and pepper shaker – still a pile of dusty clothing on a sidewalk next to a paper cup with its palm out he plays an instrument sings to the city air like rain pellets hit the gutter then the concrete then gets muffled by $90 sneakers his fingers around me like belts worn leather – wrinkled pressing notes leaving finger prints in sounds – music – like a women crying in her car plucking me – hollow sounds like a little drummer boy pounding the roof – with his fists my head like mallets on glass tables cymbals like a car crashes – bulbs popping dinner plates on linoleum we move through the world like music brushing shoulders songs with lips – dress shoes on tile floors nervous finger tips on wood desks painted nails on computer keys its all a song we’re symphonies without music stands memorizing conversations and pretending to be ourselves a guitar shaped women scratching her stomach – gently a hole in her center and metal knobs on her face one note at a time a violin string flossing a tooth in a trumpet’s mouth a saxophone off the hook a stuttering flute trying to relate to a cymbal i fall asleep to the sound of my pen playing the paper my brain sheds scales like a lizard on the xylophone skipping records long days the speaker is an open pore sweating twisted jazz notes that read themselves out loud the saxophone is throwing up in the sink and i’m mesmerized by the sound of its dry-heaving the piano is leaving suicide notes behind and i whistle along with them waiting for the viola to break through my car windows and pull me from the wheel the cymbal crashes and so do i i bleed vinyl black drool worn out record needle on track mark its like a piano and cello making love to each other on top of a bass drum in my attic combing my hair with a bow and singing with a broken reed her mind’s one giant cd deck that won’t stay in the dash board this life tastes like cardboard and i’m boxed in bandaged with packing tape and clothed in shipping labels the moon plays the night and we all dance our way home from work there’s an entire orchestra in the car next to me and she keeps taking me out of the music i just want to fuck the cello until its got me strung out on its strings hanging damp like washed clothes whispering at the sun the music melts this life tastes like chocolate and i’m boxed in if music had a brain, i’d pick it like scab on a flower petal i’m an out of tune instrument silence
3.
a room with blue wallpaper i’m tying bed sheets around my ankles and skydiving from my dreams velcroing my feet together and lacing up my souls parachute thoughts of bungee cord jumping from my existence and landing somewhere outside of these walls i’m an apple that didn’t fall from the tree i jumped and landed on my feet then ran straight out of the forest there’s worms at my core and the fisherman are out circling the orchard looking for second servings give me a plate full of inspiration and a cup full of gasoline i’ll need enough to drive my motivation to the next town before i can refill the tank of my broken down machine my rusty purpose with 2 broken axels riding sideways on its hinges if life was in the palm of my hands i’d probably start cracking my knuckles and drop it i’m a pale piece of loose leaf never ripped from the notebook i was nurtured in an ocean that’s been taken by its own waves, lungs filled with sea salt i’ll need a dictionary to help me spell out help and a beach full of sand with a large enough opening to make myself visible to all the rescue ladders telling me i can climb but in a world full of ceilings the only stars i see have glue on their backs and i’m down to my last straw so i sip on my days moderately and spend my nights on overpriced dreams my mind’s a wallet with thousands of pictures and nothing ever worth putting words to tomorrow has been in that dressing room for 4 hours trying on the same cheap clothes it wore all day yesterday and i think i’m going to die one day but fuck it i’ll deny it until it leaves my laces untied all these topics are quiet libraries with overdue discussions and these whispering trend setters need to stop tying up my phone lines i push pinned my heart to the wall and i nailed my brain to my notebook i have trouble keeping my thoughts in line this life goes far beyond the margins and all these ideas are just blown out bulbs staple my tongue to my ears and watch my pupils drop out of their classes i’ve been force fed with crooked spoons and now i’m an ironic silverware collector selling myself to junkies who drool over my anguish lined up to watch me crack my head open on microphones and bleed all over my new pants a bunch of swaying light posts with dim eyes anxious to see the stage open up and the turntables rise fiends for a dose of my depression with their sleeves rolled up asking me to pass the needle so if i could drown my own voice, i’d do it in a lake where no one could see me because i think i like being alone i’m a tightly packaged dress shirt always hiding in the folds on holidays i throw my head in a grab bag because i want some else to wear it fuck this deflating beach ball we’ve all decided to establish residency on i hope someone kicks the ball out of bounds and beyond the stadium boundaries a round bellied planet and were all waiting for the fat lady to sing her solo so we can have an excuse to say goodbye to these blue walls i ride a dismantled bike that’s bolted to the ground and happiness keeps putting his fingers in the spokes and i wish these walls never spoke my life is a pair of pants and i’m the pocket with a hole digging myself out with a shovel and hopes of striking oil so i can loosen up these wheels, and i’d push the pedals all night to a place where a seamstress would work overtime on patching up my life i scotch taped my mind to the bed post and sewed my soul to the night stand this place goes nowhere beyond the wallpaper and all these patterns are just overused rorshock designs if this room was a women i’d call her a wishing well and throw myself inside her like a new penny but her coven is far from warm bath water rather a funnel of crushed ice and i’m falling like hail from the horizons like bad dreams shaken from morning hair i’m paging the rooster 911 telling him to quickly bring out the sun so i can better see the sidewalk my body’s an egg carton with cupped hands around my fragile wine glass my perspective’s half empty and i’ve got bright dreamy eyes like flashlights with imaginations my pillow has a trap door that i fall into after an hour of tallying my breaths so i’ll never change my pillow case and we’re just stick figures in the hands of amateur architects spending nights over drawing boards making floor plans for my tomorrows but the sunset is pink and i’m planning a picnic for me and my inhibitions, i carry food for thought in my basket case mind and eat my words every time i leave my zipper undone there’s blood in my phlegm and cracks in my walls that remind me of veins, and if i could find the heart in this place i’d put its neck in a blanket and hang it from the ceiling light i need shades for my perspectives and a window sill for my flower pot concepts talking to myself is like performing for hundreds of people i’m just a mic stand being stared at on stage everything i say is just feedback because i’m the only one swallowing my bland convictions like a fly, i’m attracted to the spotlight i’m hanging from the walls in my fly zapper bedroom that has this less than meditative hum to it: a high pitch tossing curveballs to my mind and i’m the batter without a helmet out running the bases over and over because i can’t find my way home put my brain in a folder and take me to class take me out of my tupperware container and safety pin me to the clouds leave me out to dry put a real-estate sign outside my notebook and prostitute my thoughts to the public i need some gratification and a pack of cigarettes to fill my lungs with some life decapitate my loneliness and carry my carcass from the bedroom leave the door open a crack because we all know that sooner than later i’ll definitely be back so where’s my damn bike at get me the hell out of here i need air in my tires and a bucket full of tears so i can drown my frowns every time the sun decides to go down
4.
her 02:59
her she listens to the static on the radio sitting straight up in a chair pulling each tangled ball of insecurity off her pants black attracts lint and gloom attracts attention, unwanted she lives between walls framed by peeling wallpaper and stained ceiling tiles a painting never acknowledged good enough by the artist to be shown the forgotten child at a public festival by its parents you watched cry in the corner the milk that’s denied notice and goes sour she plays solitaire with a deck missing cards the clock snaps its fingers with repetition and claps its hands on the hour every hour the lamp reminds her of winter and she thinks of an album she used to play in her car the music was a door and if it had to be described it was wood, the soft looking wood that was crafted by a perfectionist that probably bit his nails and owned a camera, maybe smoked cigarettes and lived in a one bedroom apartment she broke the antenna on purpose one night after cooking dinner for herself but the radio is still friendly past time back yards are kept clean cut in small picture frames around the room faded photos she chooses to remember the ones that come sugar coated without bad after tastes easy to swallow hard to deny wrapped decently in faked smiles and crooked teeth she’s a jogger that never leaves her room keeps everyone across the map puts on make up at 10:30 at night and watches the mirror she needs the mirror like it needs her like her fingers need an occupation, a purpose and if it wasn’t pulling lint off her appearance it would probably be sewing table cloths or overcoats she flips through books, never reading the middle chapters, only the endings eats three meals a day washes her clothes brushes her teeth will die at age 67 and tells her children that this earth we’re all just leasing has bad phlegm
5.
apple skin 00:50
apple skin (456), peach pit (457), watermelon rind (458) uneasy stomach empty milk gallon jug-gle my heart and my brain the audience claps to the beating of my childhood back-lashed by belts welted principles through eyes undotted cross my mind like j-walking through writer’s blocks i stop at a fruit stand to pick up an orange imagine your entire life was selling fruit to strangers watching them unpeel your purpose right in front of you then walking away, backs turned drifting down the sidewalk like dry leaves that were dropped from their mother’s arms and twigged fingers i only like to listen to female vocalists because they take the place of my mother so here i am, a full grown candle stick with fire in my eyes standing in puddles of myself i’ve got wet feet and a strong urge to cry but nowhere to drip into cookie cutter images of my chocolate chip wants and dreams i’m a lost page from a book asking directions back to my daily bind from a gas station attendant pumping his own heart with a broken nozzle book worms on fish hooks food for my full plate of too much to take care of in a day, over-packed weeks, bulging suitcase of a life in a fish bowl with card sharks gambling myself away but i keep an objective fish-eye-lens perspective an optimist amidst all these suicide kings poking their queens in the heart for a self-esteem booster power sits on 2 telephone books with its elbows on the dinner table all this feet tapping and knuckle cracking make a bad instrumental for our bland conversations
6.
thoughts thinking about themselves under a projector with a cracked mirror and an unfocused lens cutting scissors along dotted lines sign your name then break the pen in half, throw it on the floor faces floored unaware of what’s in store and we’re in stores around the world ordering heroes to help us breaking news over my knee let the whips crack and now people are falling in crevasses getting backhanded by their own children and america knows the back of its hand like the back of its hand buckle down on evil and strap on your seat belt there’s people speaking in tongues i listen in ears and i wish this mute button would just fucking work saran wrapped cocoon people – well packaged and ready for inspection stickers all in lines waiting for the instructions pamphlet somebody incidentally left out of the box grab your boots and laces and pray for a shortage of chalk, so we’re never stuck between lines people painted on sidewalks by bad artists with broken brushes and civilian eye witnesses wearing wrist bands to let the blind bar tenders know that they can drink oh, this beverage on the rocks, stuck between a hard place, artificially flavored with sour blood, cut with water, diluted by salt grains, and decorated with paper umbrellas my machinegun voice drowns out your non-swimmer hand gun ass shallow end of the gene pool screams we’re power! – clenched fists, steroid biceped, dog tag leashed, phallus construct, penis high, economically more erect, viagra for your gapped teeth poverty-stricken housewife, briefcase army of hopeless ants, javelin fenced promise land we construct our lives specifically to be remembered after we’re dead time capsules, well recommended to be taken with a full glass of bullshit and before a meal off silver plates at dinner tables where children are force fed with crooked spoons we are rifle men. hunters, with wives in ovens and children in pleated skirts at a give me your future in a wooden box boarding school place blame where ever it seems to fall and grand open the cage, dress it in triangular plastic flags we hang food over heads – leave you under impressions watch you salivate while we ostracize your beating heart and make you feel unwelcome in your own head a rotten tooth in the world’s mouth -tie it to door number 3 and just wait for opportunity to start knocking venom dripping on laminated place mats critical leaks in the roof of a mouth where we must find the root canal fuck it if it really fits into our puzzle the puzzle with the pieces that aren’t even aware that they exist on a board extra sales on american flag printed head bandanas a village bully with a jock strap around his skull which belongs to a skeleton kept in a walk-in closet lynched by twisted hangers the attic of a country with off scented mothballs and dead bolted chests stuck out with pride the big man on campus in a university of midget minded fools puppet strings played like fiddles the ventriloquist makes the wooden people drink a glass of water and our back bones rot we need soar thumbs to point fingers at and digits to pull triggers keep ‘em clenched patriotism is at risk, no hang nails, only fine groomed cuticles sitting ducks waiting for the nail clippers to attack so we can pull our penises out and cock back phallus constructs flaccid and we’ve got missiles for arms let’s cut off the limbs and watch the leaves fall yes, i’m well read but best when blue a military of green capped people screaming go chaos is in the back pocket of order and i can’t find my i.d. card it makes me think of warm food in a flower pot we’re good liars, bad expressionists, but very well entertained make the popcorn and get new batteries for the remote it’s a drive in where we’re on the screen getting driven out by concepts without cars walk the plank, choose which side of the fence, walk a fence tame the offense with its elbow pads on tables, don’t touch my morality in its privates where’s the greener grass, and we’re all on pilgrimages, searching for miracle grow gardeners i’m a brick in a wall that’s getting spray painted by a graffiti artist that lost his mind when he found his reason next to the blank notebook on the floor of his room where he once hung posters of idols we all wake up in the morning trying to be salute to the button pusher wheel of fortune spinner bleach distributor q 33 bombing industrial smiley faces neck tie in slip knots, panties in bunches high caste systems and fuck the underachievers sound the horns and mute the thinkers sign your name
7.
tree branch 01:12
tree branch 1 we bought a table no one sits at she makes phone calls and says nothing picture a gold fish, one eye, in a 6 ounce cup, no water what is the square root of a circle without a face and how do you change a penny one cents-less mind on one track the table’s used as a symbol for family it suffices hi, i’m here because it’s the correct thing to do not because i want to enjoy myself i walked to the store and traded in my happiness for first quality clothing i wear them around, out to dinner parties, barbeques, even in the shower i’ve tricked myself into believing i’m a magician i guess i am it’s like saving all of your life to die with nothing it’s just the concept that matters? like planning a vacation i’m a plan book a journal bought, never written in i built this brand new house to live in 3 days before i died concepts but what happen when i move into a solitary confinement cell with no down payment and a mortgage rate to die for? 2 picture her smoking a cigarette on a seesaw
8.
tip-toeing on a piece of string (i hope i’m over reacting) we talk on the phone you’re only 11 presses away sometimes i feel pressed against the wall but my ego wears press-on nails and must be careful about what it puts it’s finger on i wouldn’t want to come out wearing a costume that costs less than i’m worth looking shamefully over estimated and mis-under-stood but sometimes my anxiety lives out of a suitcase - it just won’t settle down and worries are like land mines hidden well, but sometimes explode and i’m left without a leg trying to run from my problems my tears stay bottled up it’s getting cold and once this plastic cracks i’ll have to learn how to swim but i’m terrified of water because the diving board keeps looking at me funny in that non-humorous way that has only my fears laughing because we all tend to giggle when shaking hands with discomfort and i’m afraid i’ll never fall asleep if you walk out now but it would probably be more like getting dragged like a small fragile child or a newport 100 getting close to the filter i’ll never clean this ashtray make this bed or vacuum the carpet i’m scared and scared to say it the world and everything that surrounds me is a giant halloween mask i could never look at in the store because it reminded me of shit i never knew No, don’t accelerate at green because i’m following close behind and that car coming from the left is totally disregarding the red, i’m stuck on yellow hoping to be charismatic enough for others to mock me but i seem to be the only existing snail in a field of lizards the only speed limit sign on a highway of impatient blind drivers it’s all moving too fast and i can’t find the stop button it’s not a movie we’re not stars and you won’t even be given enough credit to appear in the credits it will all pass and i’ll be in the car with the staring driver But I don’t want it to it seems like we’ve just met and i can still remember how much you valued family they way we sat at dinner the way you never wanted anyone to know when you were hurt the early days and i hope my cries come home tardy the first impressions and second guesses, third degree burns and i still want to anticipate the forth-coming albums the high notes and low notes the second guessing because at least we’re guessing at all and i’ll put my hand on the stove for a third of the time we spent together to replace the emptiness i fear that i hide from in closets under clothes, trying to break the knob and hope someone comes to find me someone that looks like you and there’s no clones or good enough impressionists to wear your smile like you do so back when i would give you a hard time, i just wanted to be held by your attention cupped in your fingers like falling water i’ll be the faucet all day, if you keep washing your face and i don’t want to write anything that looks like this again at least not this soon so please keep calling
9.
a bad math problem and i’m wrapped up with myself my mind’s a rubber band always snapping to the tunes i used to hear on the radio the radio is a room and i’m trapped up inside running my head into the walls just trying to stay alive i knew you never understood me always pretending to catch my lines i’m alone in a body that wants to kill its own mind this is a hoola-hoop contest a ring around the rose garden festival where we avoid the thorns and fiend for the petals metal made men – made in china’s black-market backyards – guarding doors and windows i just can’t get inside myself, lately i’ve felt withdrawn and exiled drawing blanks on the faces of drawn out days looking in mirrors that reflect a stranger so i never talk to myself unless my mother’s not looking, i’m looking for a cause because i need the effects, i’m a gratification junkie that just won’t accept its own reflect – shunned by my own light, i’m searching to find darkness give her my ring and make her my wife i want to fuck spider webs and have children that won’t be bugged become one with my image so i’m never perceived as too much of anything start collecting push pins to mark maps of my soul so i never get lost again without a way out load up my car wash off the windows clear the drive way and lock myself inside but i’ve come to find that my car, well, its kind of like my inspiration out of gas with a flat tire trying to fuck the parking spot it married 4 years ago but too impotent to finish off anything so i just sit in it and check myself out in the rear view mirror dwelling on a fogged up past the criticism is thick my high beams seem to be dim i’m putting paper bags on my face and suction cupping my image to the frige i’m senseless trying to buy gumballs and help them call home always running short and wishing i was a little bit taller holding constipated pens that refuse to take a laxative i’ve taken out my spinal cord and attached it to a guitar i play myself over and over but i still can’t learn the words i need a karaoke machine and a teleprompter i’m losing sleep, staying up all night writing letters on my eyelids tyring to help my brain burp and my heart cough up its phlegm expressing myself is what keeps me myself but lately i haven’t been myself and don’t know how to express that so i wander the streets in search of the express train but there’s no fast way out of here i’m stuck under flesh poking and prying its just me and a mic stand having a staring contest under a spotlight of the wrong color i’m seen under buzzing light bulbs that came out the womb of strobe in a hospital bed next to neon i’m a black light called tie dye blow my eyes i wipe tears with tissues that’s really my shirt so i walk around wearing my feelings i buttoned my heart to my sleeve it’s laminated and mass produced but everyone’s dyslectic and reads me wrong
10.
peach pit 00:52
apple skin (456), peach pit (457), watermelon rind (458) uneasy stomach empty milk gallon jug-gle my heart and my brain the audience claps to the beating of my childhood back-lashed by belts welted principles through eyes undotted cross my mind like j-walking through writer’s blocks i stop at a fruit stand to pick up an orange imagine your entire life was selling fruit to strangers watching them unpeel your purpose right in front of you then walking away, backs turned drifting down the sidewalk like dry leaves that were dropped from their mother’s arms and twigged fingers i only like to listen to female vocalists because they take the place of my mother so here i am, a full grown candle stick with fire in my eyes standing in puddles of myself i’ve got wet feet and a strong urge to cry but nowhere to drip into cookie cutter images of my chocolate chip wants and dreams i’m a lost page from a book asking directions back to my daily bind from a gas station attendant pumping his own heart with a broken nozzle book worms on fish hooks food for my full plate of too much to take care of in a day, over-packed weeks, bulging suitcase of a life in a fish bowl with card sharks gambling myself away but i keep an objective fish-eye-lens perspective an optimist amidst all these suicide kings poking their queens in the heart for a self-esteem booster power sits on 2 telephone books with its elbows on the dinner table all this feet tapping and knuckle cracking make a bad instrumental for our bland conversations we all make small talk and buy large mirrors for our bedrooms i want to fall asleep next to my life and watch it snore all night i need a reality check made out to cash and a trumpet player to follow me around each day do starving artists use their change to buy lunch or cd’s i want a stage made of food and an audience with ears that work i need a woman shaped like a candle holder and a mother who can blossom leaves, a father who can grow fruit, and a full milk gallon in my refrigerator imagine your entire life was selling your problems to strangers watching them unwrap your purpose right in front of you then drifting away like shrink-wrap in the wind down the sidewalk
11.
the public execution of the man with one finger (feat. Nobs) the beginning fuck i can’t find my way home fuck i can’t find my way home there’s a fly in my salad a rip in my t-shirt a stain on my name tag fog in my glasses excuse me…here’s a napkin you’ve got some testosterone hanging from your lip there oh look, he’s dressed up as a bicep today…how cute and he’s even taught his dick to speak coming out of profile to fit his profile slapping his tongue in the air saliva swirling what’s with those ……um….you’re wearing there poke me with a fork you dumb fucking rhetoric shoot up mommy drip juice fell out the loose ionic cooking pot latex pot holders, push and squeeze push and squeeze, we’ve got a beautiful cliché here two balls and where’s the hoop he’s got a long belt and no pants so he goes around beating people who looked like him when he was small yeah it feels good and manly masculine silhouettes the sun of an alcoholic moon who stayed out at bars all night and came home walking through the door like fatigued wrinkled condom slouched and used …slippers…huh? come on …you can do better than that…..put some ummff into it i get my character deficiencies from my father sport workout tape with legs and the only place i feel at home is on the playing field i just got out of the gym……. Ok now…stop making a good time out of his clothes you smidgen of hope hey you stepped on my shoe fucker pull out your y chromosome and lets play show and tell here’s a good ice breaker standing over there look at this kid …ha , come on girl watch this i’ll make him look different, by lumping up his fucking face thinks he’s big time like some over-inflated arrogant wrist watch or something using all those big words watch me expose my insecurities by showing you how i make myself feel better what the fuck are you looking at i must be some sort of ……uh i don’t know ?…..uh, piece of finger food to make this dumbbell ironing board pull out his tongue like that picking on me…….alright wait calm down and count up to 10 put your penal cord back in the wall socket, settle down and just use the napkin i gave you earlier ok oh and… yeah motherfucker (i usually don’t write shit like this……..oh looknow he’s justifying himself again) Nobs: Don’t hate me cause i’m suitable To become the laughing stock on the trading floor I’ve paid these whores in wasted time to brainstorm and try to come up with the best one-liner they can Little boys trying to be men In pairs of pantyhose… watering down their remarks I don’t suffer… i enjoy watching you try hard to get in that girls’ pants Fuck the fuck offs and piss ons Insecurity had a child and named it you Believe in yourself and you can accomplish anything As long as it’s directly related to the humiliation of me He talks weird and silence makes sense Patience is a word i’ve learned to use…along with ignore Uhh…you’re a pig whore Good one thesaurus man Unintelligible eligible bachelor With 3 sluts on the side in case of backlashes from mediocre punch lines People like you are like people like you Get it through that thick head Dickhead Follow those rats that are chasing the piper In search of cheesy solutions The conclusion is at the end of the book stupid Read up and re-up on that drug called macho You fucking skipped a couple chapters I don’t stutter… i speak your language… Hi! Take that middle finger of yours and stick it up where you talk out of Those clothes are so yesterday… look at the car he’s driving Look in the mirror and call yourself a sexy bitch Faggot Pretentious pieces of shit who walked out of the dump without a guardian Your Freudian concepts are as necessary as that tattoo is Taboo sick… the pleasant sight of your failure doesn’t reimburse me I I smell I smell Insignificance… masked by the cheap cologne you use to try and hide that manly body odor I’ll give you some change to call your mom and tell her you’ve made a new friend named acceptance Shit… he gave you the wrong number I feel for you… Is it that time of the month again? For idiotic comments spewed out of the mouth of someone in self- denial I’ll take the abuse… you get that noose ready Don’t forget to kill yourself when you get home sticks and stones may break my bones But words won’t do anything but assure me of your small dick size Imbecile! Stupid : {
12.
360 proof window shutters blink caution the dam in your sockets may overflow open eye ducts bleed stains on my shirt anger has its period - drip on a pad- i draw question marks music is playing in the sandbox with a shovel i’ve been digging the same hole since i came out of one exclamation point its been a black and white polariod warped by leaking faucet and i wish these damn memories would learn to cry for themselves heir looms passed down the table blowing off wigs, reach for the salt i’m a family broken at the seams thread knotted and a needle without an eye i’ll build my own fucking haystack where’s the quit button and the promising tomorrows that slept in my playpen left to go right in a maze without corners paradise is paper umbrellas and i never swallowed the side dishes undercooked bedtime stories lullaby’s without kisses are curdled dreams and she’s beautiful in her crevasses the creases and folds the cup of her ass but baggy clothes and mittens keep me drinking she wears herself inside out to tease me brain like clockwork mechanics plucking springs churning it’s my down fall and i follow gestures like batons drunk circles doing themselves undone veins tied around my neck you strangle bottle necks and find climax at empty bottoms connected by wires, down throat alcohol swabs put a cork in it you need to take care of your problems give them an ice pack and bandage their mouths shut i can’t hear myself shut up mind hiccups sing from the top of your lungs then jump because i need to watch this house is a river and you were always to couch stuck to teach me to swim tired of waking up down wet dieing every morning is like an open shower curtain my painting is smeared and i was always terrible at revision but good at staying in touch with my emotions we’re pen pals that hate each other but glued at the seams play me like a fiddle tie my strings around your finger then tickle my brain until it falls out of its bedroom fuck your farewell waves and pretty postcard shore lines how could i say goodbye when good is a relative term and everybody’s using it but i can’t relate to them my blood must be green and my family must be a bush i’ve been trapped in a backyard thinking about how your forehead wrinkles indian style in a sandbox with more dirt than sand
13.
undersit 05:12
undersit the scent of candy yams and daffodils that have the word spring tattooed to their ankles doing a three legged race toward my open door: - morning and it looks like garbage dumpsters that were dressed by cesspools when i walk outside one foot on the planet’s back and the other on carpet that needs to be washed the air tastes like cotton candy that took a bath with sweet pickles spiced with whatever i think grass would taste like: - 6 am and i’m off to pretend i know what i’m doing put on my tight sweater vest i bought in the conformity outlet and i’m off to mechanically separate smiles with my well dressed counterparts and shoot up vials of artificial intelligence on my half hour breaks i’m unemployed in the mind but my body is a store mannequin forty hours a week without this job my week would be an empty glass with one annoying crack that needs to be filled with something so i might as well rise with the sun and pretend we all have a purpose to live out get up get out and give our time to the grandfather clock in exchange for a paper or plastic bag stuffed with lifetime achievements let’s all live out the next-door neighbor’s dreams and get a pat on the back for being well behaved here’s a biscuit for being my billboard and were all poster children taught to hang out with the rich kingpins its operant conditioning in cubicles and our favorite color is green tighten your neck ties and go add to the traffic jam on a interstate high nearest you ----------- i now collect pay checks instead of stamps and stamp on smiles for the customers i’m a customer to the corporatist give me a percentage off and i’ve got it on nice and trim buttoned up and enough to hide my face who wears the pants ironed mind’s blowing steam fold it on the creases, i’ll bury you in your loop holes the sight of grown humans in a circle indian style playing duck duck goose who’s the oddball we can toss around the ping pong table i’m tired of trying on pants and hemming my thoughts to fit into a shoe that’s never been my size she’s more than just lunch breaks and drive thru meals personal phone calls and faked sick days - life and it looks like webster dictionaries that were dressed by thesauruses when i go inside punch the clock knuckle up and think about kicking the manager in the face the days are like left out milk in your mother’s favorite glass and people who will only eat from one specific plate we’re all china ware waiting for a second serving but someone’s got to scoop the corn i wonder if when i was 2 i ever thought it would be like this childhood in mismatched socks running through the grass the limits, the boundaries grass stains and cuts on knees now its 24 hour planners, coffee stains, and pay cuts a big cycle and we’re all in a whirl wind that lost its spin swimming doggy paddle towards a boat with no oars and we’ll do anything for a stage even if its under construction with ripped curtains and bad lighting we’re all in a dark room wearing sun glasses and black clothes trying to act developed but getting angry at whoever steps on our toes misery loves company and i’m in the kitchen fixing hors d’oeuvres we live in a cafeteria sitting at tables where we feel welcome we’re all in the same arena just eating different refreshments from which ever concession stand treats us best all up on alarm cackles in the shower and out the door but my mind is fucked and not ready to birth a new way of life so i abort my fears and pretend comfort fits me like the shirt i bought for work to work 5 days out of a 7 day week at a hated job but supposedly i love to make money bulging wallets and gaudy old ladies the scent of farina and babies breath that have gang signs burnt into their backs doing a drive by past my open window -the alarm clock ------------------------- driving to work is like chirping birds muzzled by tint and the respirator that’s been installed in my dash board i don’t even know how i it make there but i do, every day, every time the sun opens its cataract eye it’s like a record with turrets syndrome stuttering and drooling each day has needle marks on its face like a whore heron junkie that sells his body and masks his face we all wear potato sacs and someone’s got a gun that yells start when its pushed too far and we all race until three seconds before the finish line when we realize we’ve done nothing yet --------
14.
windows 03:18
windows TIN CAN: today has turned to ash again i ash my cigar on my carpet and i’m just a pet trapped inside your cage like heart shaped birds with broken wings i broke my mind on the edge of your perfect smile (blue) brad: if i was a room i’d knock down my walls for windows to jump out of myself so i’ve been thinking about flying away but just can’t seem to get my window open i find it hard to say no to my hesitation so i just sit and watch this lady walk her dog on a leash and i think he knows i’ve been taking cigarettes from his ash tray every night after he hangs his heart up with his robe i smoke because i like the shadows it makes on my walls and there’s a whole pack of kids out there crying in their rooms right now tired of being put out on the sidewalk we are slowly burning cigarettes losing little pieces of ourselves each day our “ends” are filtered through fables we’ve been pretending for centuries smoke me until it burns your finger tips there’s an ash tray that lies on its back sunbathing with no soap in the corner of my porch it’s like this burial ground for dead conversations i once met this man who could blow out question marks and i never understood what it meant he said he smokes because he likes watching his breath float away i’m a cloud trying to shape up and touch the ceiling when it’s quiet i sit on my floor with an ash tray on my lap and smoke the 2 drags left on each cigarette lying in their cemetery eventually i can hear ignitions turning over and cars starting…like people preparing themselves for another day and i want to leave, float through my window and fly away if i was a room i’d knock down my walls for windows to jump out of myself TIN CAN: today has turned to ash again i ash my cigar on my carpet and i’m just a pet trapped inside your cage like heart shaped birds with broken wings i broke my mind on the edge of your perfect smile
15.
home suite home i’ve been painting her with my eyes shut on a giant canvas we all call life with its rips and stains she’s a blue dot on my blankness and i sketch myself as a spilt pitcher she’s a puddle of tangerine juice on my kitchen tile her rippling smile’s got me waving goodbye to my not so baby powder fresh problems her round hills with nipples like water-wells her breasts like sand buckets on skin colored shore lines i’m a coloring-book without lines and she’s a pack of crayons colored wax with wicks long as the nights we’ve spent tied up in each-other’s thread unraveling from our pin cushion hearts hit the hay to become two needles in the stack she caught my eye as if i had thrown it to her time flies with a wing span of 4 feet hanging out from under bed sheets where the street ends and we stare at the sky like we’ve never seen it before blow out the stars like candles this place is a fern garden and i play around in the rose patch stretching her petals apart and pulling on her stems tongues with legs like joggers off sidewalks puddles in pot holes splash around like water bugs flower pot g-spots in gardens with tools chap stick on tulips on top soil overturned i’ve got thorns stuck in the skin of my memory like bubble gum on walls stick to me like velcro catch the connecting flight at 9pm we can play horseshoes with the sun rays you can paint me night and outline your day around me like shadows in the shape of soda bottles spill me out for the dead moments lost and drink me up for the life we’ve caught in fishing nets like fireflies with 100 watt ideas her wood burning oven is heating my whole house and i’ve got sweating pillows i perspire from my eyes the way she moves makes my tongue trip over itself i want to eat meals off her breast plate and stick a straw in her heart she’s an eye lash on my carpet she’s been saving all her dandelions for a heart implant and a mind reduction soul searching with a butterfly net and an old mayonnaise jar i want to be her canvas i’ll be a burgundy spot on her blankness i want her to paint me with her eyes shut
16.
who 05:30
who who is the genius the one who creates the puzzle or the one who solves it? i want to teach my pessimism to start the washing dishes and my anxiety how to make a noose out of shoe string i want my frustration to learn to fuck tranquility and i want a sedative for my irritability and i want an ability to erase myself from the treasure map i want an excuse for my reasoning to go home with my logic and a staple gun to give to my lack of attention span i want to learn how to read books backwards and write my autobiography from the ending i want to sweet talk the seasons into coming home with me i want to plant metal flowers and learn to grow up the hard way i want to erase the ash tray from deck so my anxiety stops shivering and i want to paint a landscape on my windows so my pain stops trying to get inside i want to break all these pencils and use the lead for a bullet then write my name on its back so i can touch someone’s life i want to be the train in your head and the passenger sitting inside the rain in a puddle and the tear on your cheek every time you decide to cry i’m the aspirin you swallowed and pride you washed it down with the summer that burnt through your ego’s tanning lotion i’m the off beat drummer in my chest i’m the cotton club support capitalism deep throater the karl marx grass planter utopia on a bumper sticker theme song i’m the worn soul on the shoe you couldn’t fit into the lines between the words and all the people waiting in them i’m the world on steroids throwing around other planets i’m mother earth divorcing the grandfather clock i’m a thief taking my words back and i’m a broken heart in sling i’m a girl who throws up in the toilet and a family man who prays before meals i’m a microwave dinner, an under-cooked and overprocessed set of moral standards a checking account with unbalanced distribution of rights i’m making molehills out of mountains i’m bird shit on the window of opportunity and the only thing knocking at my door is loneliness i’m the nights you undress the tv with your eyes i’m the blinds, jealous of the windows i’m the garbage bag dry humping the wind the cavity tooth in a comb used to groom society’s mind and i’m the glitch in the system the sysco food product of an environmental gang rape the white robed bent up halo printed security blanket the nail in a splintered nation of cross eyed taxi cab drivers i’m a pair of glasses with a crack in my perception and i’m a broken toddlers toy left in the kitchen garbage cramped under all the left-overs questioning my purpose i am a thing writing something and wondering who the fuck i am who what how i want to stop my heart from beating up my brain i want to be a street light and block out the darkness i want to buy a unicycle for love and be its drive i want a half hour break and 2 weeks worth of healthy days a paid for afterlife and a sneak preview trailer for purgatory i want to understand comprehension and get braces for my vices give a nicotine patch to my cigarette pack and drink my bottled up fears i want to tell him that his goals are just metal poles and a net and i want to give him a pair of brand new cleats i want to be super star with a light switch and a battery in the sun i want this song to remind you of a moment in your life and i think i want too much i need a burner in my mind so i can record my thoughts i want her to write all over herself and jump in an envelope i want to mail myself to the post office i want her not to cry everyday i want the speakers to stop popping the ears to stop ringing and the phone to hang itself up from the ceiling fan i want fans or do i i want to think myself away i want the federal bureau to get something in its eye i want to write a world and move into it i want a rent free mind and a common fee that’s just sense i want a moving van for my abandonment issues and an empty fish tank for all my tears i want a belt for when i decide to hold up my memory banks and a baggage check for the luggage under my eyes i want to teach my clock to work with its hands and find the sleep i lost three nights ago i want the division between church and state to multiply itself into recognition and all these good church going conditioner bottles to stop washing their hair i want sandals for the amount of feet between here and home and a welcome mat for the dirty souls trying to break into my kitchen i want to eat inspiration for dinner and wash it down with black ink i want to fire the wind and hire the earth as my typist and write a life for myself and send it to an editor i’m a salary trying to cut itself and drown corporate worlds in my blood i’m a needle trying to shoot itself and overdose on my own vanity i’m a padded wall trying to seize the moment i’m a air conditioner trying to vent itself and i’m a loaded gun trying get all this anger out i’m a skyline trying to reach its limit and a popping speaker that’s taking speech classes i’m a thing writing something and wondering who the fuck i am who what how
17.
apple skin (456), peach pit (457), watermelon rind (458) uneasy stomach empty milk gallon jug-gle my heart and my brain the audience claps to the beating of my childhood back-lashed by belts welted principles through eyes undotted cross my mind like j-walking through writer’s blocks i stop at a fruit stand to pick up an orange imagine your entire life was selling fruit to strangers watching them unpeel your purpose right in front of you then walking away, backs turned drifting down the sidewalk like dry leaves that were dropped from their mother’s arms and twigged fingers i only like to listen to female vocalists because they take the place of my mother so here i am, a full grown candle stick with fire in my eyes standing in puddles of myself i’ve got wet feet and a strong urge to cry but nowhere to drip into cookie cutter images of my chocolate chip wants and dreams i’m a lost page from a book asking directions back to my daily bind from a gas station attendant pumping his own heart with a broken nozzle book worms on fish hooks food for my full plate of too much to take care of in a day, over-packed weeks, bulging suitcase of a life in a fish bowl with card sharks gambling myself away but i keep an objective fish-eye-lens perspective an optimist amidst all these suicide kings poking their queens in the heart for a self-esteem booster power sits on 2 telephone books with its elbows on the dinner table all this feet tapping and knuckle cracking make a bad instrumental for our bland conversations we all make small talk and buy large mirrors for our bedrooms i want to fall asleep next to my life and watch it snore all night i need a reality check made out to cash and a trumpet player to follow me around each day do starving artists use their change to buy lunch or cd’s i want a stage made of food and an audience with ears that work i need a woman shaped like a candle holder and a mother who can blossom leaves, a father who can grow fruit, and a full milk gallon in my refrigerator imagine your entire life was selling your problems to strangers watching them unwrap your purpose right in front of you then drifting away like shrink-wrap in the wind down the sidewalk
18.
yellow 03:30
yellow (feat. girl) (where did you go) walking blindfolded hands tied eyes shut tongue tied i talk to my walls and walk on a flat line heart made of lemon family of cutting boards the morals of a carving knife with your crafty tongue speaking in wooden architecture stencil in my thoughts and erase my blue outlines rough around the edges with a nail file in your pocket you make my brain cringe eyes tear mouth jump out of itself you’re the dirty leak in my ceiling the drip in the sky leaving the ground’s make up smeared my emotions splash in puddles wet socks making my feet cold i’m fucking hesitation in the back room while wearing a yellow helmet the day yawns in my face i can’t take your intensions bad breath you left me wrapped in a black garbage bag with nothing but a styrofoam cup i watch your lip stick dry up around the cup’s open mouth you’ve branded my life broke the wish bone early i’m walking around shirt-less like this world owes me late fees being the early bird without an appetite for worms is like being gagged with a wooden spoon you splinter my hopes and clot my microphones i beat myself with the mic stand and tie myself to my front door with the mic cord you’re a juggler with fast hands and a lemon heart squeezing me dry (where did you go) walking blindfolded hands tied eyes shut tongues tied i talk to my walls and walk on a flat line
19.
conclusion 02:28
conclusion i went to sleep later than usual today up all night boarding up my windows and putting lip stick on my walls the sun goes down like a depressed man drowning in his bathtub i’ve got the cello tied up to my bed with dirty socks and i’m ready to fall asleep with my arms around it’s neck i find comfort in music but the drums won’t face my problems so i broke my walkman on the pavement and walked away like a man wearing jogging shoes and a peace sign button there’s misplaced street signs and that’s a metaphor but i can’t find it the directions are obsolete and i’m a turned down stereo-type that won’t stop at gas station for assistance i’m a one man show that won’t give up the ball but i can’t dribble so i lose traveling without a carry-on wondering my existence for a shelter so it’s over it’s done complete lock the sliding door and set the alarm get undressed and turn off the television the lamp goes out and nobody tucks in my sheets the radio plays softly like a piano with laryngitis background noise for my upfront dreams of becoming a highway with punctuation when i grow up i’ve got my license to be human in my pocket and i can’t wait to bump into the painter whose been coloring everything in blue the neighbor’s light just got turned off and i see the world from a sound proof box there’s no real conversation just moving lips and over exaggerated gestures the wind bullies around the plants outside and i hope i get at least an hour of sleep

about

The only full-length album by Phlegm.
Recorded 2001
Released 2002

credits

released March 5, 2002

all lyrics & vocals by Brad Hamers
production by Slomoshun
cover art by Jennifer Griffo

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all rights reserved

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about

brad hamers Portland, Oregon

writer, music-maker, collage-maker,, performance-maker, loud dreamer, mental gymnast

(member of: Through Flames, Child Of No Nation, Cat Child, Dust On Snow, Two Ton Sloth, Phlegm and Al Límite Collective)

Artist at Shrine13

www.bradhamers.com
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