Today’s Poem
Boy Explorer
He discovered the ancient
city the headmaster always
talked about. The fur
coats of the upright-
walking animals were covered
in a fine layer of blood.
Hiding by the wishing well,
sending an S.O.S. to the boys
camping nearby, they caught
his neck in their teeth.
The boy, alone in the make-
believe land of real savages,
tries to friend the birds,
tries to get a message out
a window no bigger than a fist.
-Jason Braun
Today’s Poem
Bread Crumbs
Anglers cannot be trusted,
the ones wading in the streams,
at least. Leaning into the current
makes a man think he can stand
squarely and render judgment
upon the deer, the kingfishers,
not remembering those he left
at home. All the trains are out
of sight now. The fish aren’t biting.
The man hikes into higher ground,
running from his reflection
in the swamp. Alone he cries,
battered and looking for crumbs.
-Jason Braun
Today’s Poem
The most beautiful girl
in town—is not. She moved
to Tanzania. Waking in a house
at the foot of Mt. Kilamanjaro
after hearing all the scratch and squawk
prehistoric birds nesting
on her roof could muster.
It’s hard to imagine this scene
without her singing and floating
off into the clouds, wireless.
“It’s not like it was in Niger,”
she writes to me, not mentioning
knives that carved the hard-won
stipend from her purse.
Strange to see her as the house-
mother for twelve college girls.
It’s Ramadan now and they all take
turns fasting with the one girl
who’s Muslim. But I pray
she doesn’t starve too long.
Back home a town still teeters
at the swing of her hips.
-Jason Braun
Today’s Poem
Revival
Willing and bound, it was love
like a man folding his knees
up in a sinking keg. Or at least
that how it feels now that I’m rising,
massaging the indentations,
pushing blood back into the skin.
I’m breathing in the brightness
and the earth beneath my feet—
well, at least I’m trying.
-Jason Braun
Today’s Poem
Dance Dance Dance
Reading Murakami and half-assing
vodka gimlets in an old canteen,
I think everything will be alright,
if I can remember enough Japanese
to say: Excuse me sir, but where
did you get that goat suit?
Moving parts inside the moving
parts, from here I go to Hawaii and back
home shoveling snow. Mysteries
don’t hide in a Maserati, money does.
My friend the actor can’t stop
his ex-wife from eating his spleen
after screwing. I understand this too
and shuffle on. If you look at bad news
long enough, you’ll find the news ink
smudged and running with your name.
-Jason Braun
Today’s Poem
Wars of One’s Own
Stealing manhole covers when the cruiser
pulled up, calling my name, like a nurse’s
aid. They clubbed me good and I thought
I saw a doctor. The cell wasn’t the kind
that makes photosynthesis but there were
some real fruits in there. I slept like a stone
growing another stone out of its head.
Joan of Arc wouldn’t put up with this shit.
But they had her on their microfilm,
too, that’s why she shaved her head and took
off to old Mexico. Boy, the banditos
will never see that coming. I tried
her a few times, enough to tire of the taste
of blood in my mouth. After that she taught
me to sell scraps and scavenge in the recesses
of the city’s guts. She said: Look where they don’t
and take what you need.
-Jason Braun
Today’s Poem
Thank You Note Cribbed from William Carlos Williams
-For Chad
This is just to say
buenos dias for helping
me get the ticket to Belize
City and telling me to stay
at Los Amigos Youth Hostel
in the island city of Flores,
Guatemala. This was the fountain
of youth Ponce de Leon
was looking for, not Florida.
Irrigator of dreams, this open air
café growing poems, along side
lizards, Aussies, eye-openings,
the Dutch kid DJ hanging
on top of chicken busses,
and the howler monkeys. The beer
was cold enough and the friends
were easy. One day, I’ll pay
you back with a red wheelbarrow
full of avocadoes, Quetzals, and songs.
-Jason Braun
Today’s Poem
At Woods Edge Hiding Out
For five nights now our hero
has been sleepless on account
of the poison ivy and the steroids
used to get it gone. He hunts
spiders that hide behind
portraits of his mother and the long-
lost dog. A doctor once told him
that fangs are full of bacteria.
The poison’s not the point.
Under the skin motes of half-eaten
insect carcasses collect, calling up
bad blood and fester. The white
walls of our hero’s house are stippled
and smeared where books, boots
made a death mask with eight legs.
-Jason Braun
Today’s Poem
Bird Dead on the Mississippi Shore in St. Louis
I set out for the meeting with champagne
meant to celebrate something that happened
when I hadn’t been looking. Celebrate not sinking.
Dust off the bottle. These things I say aloud.
Meeting friends, I pass the bottle to the girl
with ice, salad, and a bag to put all this.
People living and working in tugboats
pass, still living like Huck Finn except
for their very fancy phones. We gather
at rivers edge to sit on stones and drifted
tree trunks. We pretend to fish and the fish
don’t notice. A log shifts under the girl’s foot,
revealing a dead bird. The flies scatter and we
scram into the house on the hill.
We feed the mosquitos without noticing,
we’ve been uncorked.
-Jason Braun
Yesterday’s Poem
Characters Castaway
Moonpie is the god-talker and king of the cantina,
he trades us shrink-wrapped, air-tight
sweeties for the plantains, boars fat hung
around rib and hind, and a million little fish.
Mamasan is the nurse made of nightingale,
toothache, and codeine.
Me, I’m the man in the middle of them—
the cold current, featherless buzzards
scrounging and the thieves.
-Jason Braun
Today’s Poem
Skipping School and Some Things
I didn’t believe in dumbing down,
not for the teachers, who one day,
reaching to the bottom of a mason
jar, had no answers for my questions.
Remembering Plato or Socrates
was easy. I also drank the poisons
of my day and called them Hot Damn.
Girls from other schools liked
the way I leaned. My best friend
ran internet service provider
during our senior year, when
we weren’t sitting at the coffee shop.
I skipped school, drove over
the river into St. Louis’s Washington
University. A little man lectured
on Darwinism, this you couldn’t get
in Waterloo, Illinois. Keep crawling
you’re not out of the cave yet.
-Jason Braun
Today’s Poem
Misremembering
It is a foolish thing to forget
your hometown, wrapping
it around a banjo riff,
and joking with city folk
the toothless and cow-tippers.
When the water rises again
from the sinkhole to take
back all your kin, it will
find you on that downtown
rooftop praying to the god
of your parents.
-Jason Braun
Today’s Poem
Triptych Mirror
Like hairpins made of bone, everything beautiful
about you calls for it’s lost flesh
and nothing I can say into your mouth
makes a goddamn difference.
Once, all this mapped skin wasn’t a curse.
It was a girl who looked to long in the mirror.
-Jason Braun
Today’s Poem
The Long Terms
I had just closed the door
at your last word. Stepped
like lighting in two ten and half
shoes on the hardwood.
This is what long term
relationships look like, she said.
Her in the corner of a bar leaning
into some guy from work, me stewing
in the wash back and slowly growing
cro-magnom in my grin.
Therapy ain’t cheap. I’ve spent
too long studying stagecraft and nonverbals,
writing’s not on the wall—it’s who touches
who first and how long until they break
doors, red lights, clips, zippers, and nylon.
-Jason Braun
Fidelity Stron…
Fidelity
Stronger than the theater’s bass, more
fuzzed out than the old TV tube could muster,
this is how I hear you. Talking under
water or in hailstorm of stones and crows.
They said redundancy is good for radio,
so many signals get lost, and people
aren’t always listening close to the sounds
our words are making. Oh, Marconi,
I know you’re still out there keeping
an eye on me and her. You’re caught
in the rafters or in the half glued egg-
crate studio of some kid looping high-hats
louder that his parents plate-break and door-
slam. What songs and sons would we’ve
birthed into the charts and the stars.
-Jason Braun
Today’s Poem
A Box To Be Born In
Because I was the second
child. Because I was born
months before my father’s
death. Because its impossible
to count the kindness, favors
my widowed mother granted
me. Because the tender needed
to reprimand a wrist went
against my sister. Because
a dead man’s son is a white,
walking, and sinless shadow.
-Jason Braun
Today’s Poem
On Visiting the Home of Mark Twain in Hannibal, Missouri
Over two hours in a borrowed car
before we park and navigate
through the small river town stone
streets. This is not Whitman’s
song of myself, learned astronomer,
or pontification on a Brooklyn bridge,
this is the story of the poor. The gap-
tooth owners and the shoeless folks
in cut-off jeans. They live
in close proximity to their animals.
This was the land of straw hats,
moonshine, and slave owning.
Twain didn’t have it easy, transcendental
high roads were washed out.
That’s why he sent Huckleberry
down the river of machinations,
with a white boys memory
of what it’d be like to runaway
on a raft with a man like Jim.
-Jason Braun
Today’s Poem
Small Talking With a Ghost
After the bi-plane buzz wore off,
she still floated for weeks, into arms
of children. She taught them ABC’s
and taught me to read the iambic line
aloud. After eating barbeque in Brooklyn,
walking arm in arm, mouth to mouth
pass brownstones and the decade’s
momentary decay, she turned the prop
once or twice before it caught, taking
her and our old-fashioned fantasy away.
-Jason Braun
Jason and the Beast Featured in The Belleville News Democrat:
Jason and the Beast — Puck would like this music
Published: July 19, 2012 Updated 3 hours ago
By Video, story and photos by Zia Nizami — News-Democrat
It’s Saturday night and a small group of hiphop fans sip Miller Highlife in the dark corners of the Firebird in St. Louis as they wait for the show to start.
The opening act, Jason and the Beast take the stage. As saxophone player Adam Sirgany improvises over DJ Matt Jones’ driving hip-hop beats, Jason Braun starts rapping in a spoken word style more akin to beat poet Allen Ginsberg than Snoop Dog.
I am that merry wanderer of the night I am that sight the Beast let loose in Bookhouse Well read but Faust read too in smoky light Stretched tight as snaring drum or strings of Strauss I have lead young lovers ‘stray with serpent tongue Hitting graveyard shifts at coffee shops Spiked the preachers punch Smoked the teacher lung Skipped out on tab but didn’t stiff the bellhop I learned my tricks from Beatniks Let’s Drink to them let’s drink to us Let’s skinny dip with dead of river Styx And knock the dust off Ken Kesey’s bus.
— “The Beast in the Bookhouse.”
Watching Braun confidently belt out his cerebral verses, you would think you were watching someone with a lifelong affinity for the written word. You would be wrong. “I didn’t learn to read till I was 6 and I didn’t enjoy reading till I was 17,” said Braun. “I didn’t even read books on my own volition until my junior year of high school, so I was really a late bloomer.” Braun, 34, grew up near Hecker and attended Waterloo High School. His interest in writing and literature was sparked during his junior year in high school.
Watching Braun confidently belt out his cerebral verses, you would think you were watching someone with a lifelong affinity for the written word. You would be wrong. “I didn’t learn to read till I was 6 and I didn’t enjoy reading till I was 17,” said Braun. “I didn’t even read books on my own volition until my junior year of high school, so I was really a late bloomer.” Braun, 34, grew up near Hecker and attended Waterloo High School. His interest in writing and literature was sparked during his junior year in high school.
“It was Shakespeare that really brought me around. Through reading it aloud, I was able to hear what we were talking about and I was able to make guesses about what these words meant,” Braun said. “He wasn’t writing something to be inflicted as a sort of punishment to high school students. He was writing a show. I didn’t get pleasure for reading the words silently , but to hear the ideas, the jokes — to hear the show.”
Braun started writing poems when he was a senior, and went on to join “Jupiter Jazz,” a musical group that combined indie rock with hiphop and spoken-word poetry. After Jupiter Jazz broke up, Braun started working on a collection of sonnets that would become his first solo album entitled “Birth of the Beast.” His stage name “Jason and the BEAST” is an acknowledgement of the duality of good and evil that exists in all of us. “The idea was a Jekyll and Hyde kind of thing. It plays on the idea that every rapper has a real name and a stage name,” Braun said. “People think poetry is reserved and calm and they think hiphop is aggressive. I wanted to dramatize that misconception and prove that they are the same. Inside all of us there are these various beasts. “
Artists like the Wu Tang Clan and the Beastie Boys may have inspired Braun to become a rapper but he also has some truly “old school” influences.
“I thought if I want to prove hip-hop is poetry, why not use the tools of the old guard, of the staunch formal poets, and turn it into hip-hop. The first sonnet that I said ‘This should be a rap song’ was the ‘Beast in the Book House.’ It starts ‘I am the merry wanderer of the night,’ which is a line from Puck in Shakespeare’s ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream.’ So I take that line and imagine how a modern day Puck might be and I put in a little bit of autobiography.”
Braun lives in Edwardsville and is working on his master’s degree in English at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. He also teaches undergraduate English classes. His editor and faculty adviser, Valerie Vogrin, has a strong appreciation for his music.
“What I think is brilliant about what Jason is doing is that he is trying really hard to combine all of his various passions, his passion for music, for the spoken word, performance, for the written word, poetry, for classic poets,” said Vogrin, a professor of English at SIUE. “He is also really interested in contemporary culture whether it’s hip-hop or rap. It really enlivens all of it. It brings people my age who go to a performance (and) we get one thing out of it and people coming at more of the hip hop angle get a different thing out of it.”
Braun’s latest project is “Made This For You— The Mix Tape is Literature.” The songs are interspersed with excerpts from Braun’s KDHX-FM (88.1) radio show, “Literature for the Halibut,” and recordings Braun made with his iPhone while he was hanging out with his friends.
Braun has also developed an iphone app called “Paradise Lost Office” that provides business advice and a guide to office politics based on John Milton’s poem “Paradise Lost.”
After his set at the Firebird, Braun spends time talking with members of the audience about his music and passes out copies of his new CD.
“When I’m putting on shows, I think that’s a form of teaching. I want to be entertaining first but I also want to kick knowledge,” Braun said. “People are makers now and I believe it makes them better fans as well.
“I believe, whether or not anyone gets famous, writing a song or writing a poem or making a film — I think if you do that you’ve enriched your own life. You’ve taken a risk and you’ve made a small mark on the world even if it’s just for friends and family to see.”
Welcome To The Jason and The Beast Email List and Jasonandthebeast.com
Thanks for being here, as Jay-Z, in what I believe is his most thoughtful incarnation, has pointed out to his crowds, “You could be anywhere in the world, and you’re right here with me.”
It’s my belief that 99%of the people that come to underground hip-hop shows like ours are artists themselves or are in the process of becoming artists–to say nothing of the fact that they are uncommonly sexy artists. This is an asset to the community, and I look forward to co-creation within the Jason and the Beast fan base!
Of course, if you’re not interested in making your own songs, poems, apps, etc, I’m still very happy to have you here. The support and interest non-musicians have for hip-hop artists is invaluable to the survival of this music in its ongoing creative development.
To that end I’d like to invite all of you, to an upcoming show in the St. Louis area. Jason and The Beast will be appearing Saturday, June 16th at Johnny’s Sidebar at 109 E. Main St, in Collinsville, IL. We’ll go on at 10pm.
For those of you also interested creating songs, poems, apps, and more stayed tuned! I’m working on putting together how-to’s and interviews with other creators on these topics. But, in the mean time, here are a few links to get you started:
Ruth Gerson wrote a great article for the Huffington Post about how to start writing a song at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ruth-gerson/how-to-write-a-song-for-w_b_893649.html
Chad Mureta wrote one of the best introductions to the business of app creation for Tim Ferriss’ blog at: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2012/04/22/how-to-build-an-app-empire-can-you-create-the-next-instagram/#more-6688
Thanks,
Jason Braun
Jasonandthebeast.com
Show Review of Jason and The Beast, Robb Steele, Bus Driver, and Buck 65
Show Review of Jason and The Beast, Robb Steele, Bus Driver, and Buck 65
Converging on the Firebird from the outer fringes of hip hop, Buck 65 andBusdriver, along with Robb Steele and Jason and the Beast, gave us proof that underground hip hop is still like the Wild West, full of pioneers and prospectors mining gold.
The first act of the night was Jason and the Beast, featuring Jason Braun (one of the hosts of 88.1 KDHX’s Literature for the Halibut) on vocals, Adam Sirgany on the saxophone and Matt Jones behind the turntables. Trying to label this trio with generic terms like “rap” or “hip hop” isn’t possible, as their set transcended the traditional norm and could have easily been a re-enactment of a Beat Generation-era poetry slam. I wondered the entire time if I should be snapping my fingers instead of clapping. Overall the set had a bit of a film noir feel and would have been equally at home in “The Maltese Falcon” or a Charles Bukowski reading.
Braun’s delivery was more like a spoken-word performance than a rap act, his timbre and cadence meshing well with the background music. His lyrics are poems that tell vivid tales of life, often drawing inspiration from classic literature and artists, such as Milton’s “Paradise Lost” and the photographs of Cindy Sherman. With his long hair and mustache, Sirgany looked like a young “Blue” Lou Marini while playing some fantastic runs on his baritone sax, creating a river of notes for Braun’s vocals to sail on. DJ Matt Jones created a great mood for the set. His scratches didn’t seem out of place given the atmosphere set by the sax and vocals, and he dropped some samples that were reminiscent of old 3rd Bass and Del the Funky Homosapien tracks.
Matt Champion Writes at KDHX.org
Me and Adam give a director’s commentary for, “Made This For You: The Mixtape As Literature.”
How it happened:
I wanted to do something special for the 2012 American Writers and Poets Conference (AWP), which was to be held in Chicago at the end of February. I conceived the project as a sort of audio guide to the present and future of literature, and on February 19th I went into Will Jones’ Yellow Hat Studios with the tracks for this album in sequence. Still, I was unsure if anyone else would dig the “mix tape” I had built out of three tracks from a finished album recorded over two years ago, three tracks from an unreleased album recorded a year ago, six tracks recorded two days prior to final production, and an assortment of sometimes candid and sometimes orchestrated audio clips of varying fidelity, which I whittled down from seven hours worth of iPod voice memos and radio show interviews. Determined to have a finished product before leaving St. Louis for the AWP, Will Jones and I completed the album at around 1:15AM on the 21st—just a week before the release and so close that it was yet to have its title, “Made This For You: The Mix Tape As Literature.” I want to show some love to Will for helping me pull this off. I’d like to add a special thanks to KDHX 88.1 and Sou’wester Literary Magazine if possible.
Track by track:
“Turning It On,” This first bit contains SIUE grad students and a professor at Stagger Inn, a short clip of Adam Sirgany’s (He’s an SIUE Graduate Student with Creative Writing Specialization.) Saxophone from Vince Café, and novelist Lloyd Kropp either from a selection of Literature for the Halibut or a recording I did of him at Sacred Grounds in Edwardsville.
“Inferno” is a retelling of Dante’s story with Eliot and Shakespeare thrown in for good measure. Emily Sudholt is singing the hook. (She interned at NASA, by the way.)
People that are somewhere in this track are: Will Jones, Jerry Hill/ DJ Uptown, Mic Boshans of Humdrum and Nee, Elaine Holtz, Dan Meehan of Humdrum, Dan McKenzie, Emily Sudholt, Josh Evans, Shae Moseley of Ghost in Light, Dustin Sendejas of Arts & Sciences, Jon Weiss of Arts & Sciences
“Ander Monson, I’m Losing You,” This was a section of a prerecorded interview. This section of the interview wasn’t aired on KDHX as his phone was cutting out. But Monson’s book, Other Electricities, has been described by Michael Martone as being, “Like Franklin’s discovery of the electricity we do know, Ander Monson’s luminous, galvanized book represents a paradigm shift. The frequencies of the novel have been scrambled and redefined by this elegant experiment.”
“Faust” self explanatory, right?
“Taking Shots At Legends: Bob Dylan Now Works For Cadillac,” This was a late night think tank featuring me in a bad mood about Bob Dylan. I love Freewheeling Bob Dylan, but do not love Cadillac. Neil C. Luke and Nate Fisher (SIUE Grad Student in Creative Writing) speak up for dear old Bob. I’m not especially proud of this moment. But this mix tape idea wasn’t about clipping moments where I’m proud of myself. There are plenty of moments where I’m on there stuttering, more on this later (if you ask).
“Overhearing Black Power Poems,” is a response to a reading the that the Eugene Redmond Writers Club put together at the Mo History Museum featuring Haki R. Madhubuti, Amiri Baraka, and my former SIUE professor Eugene Redmond. The track features SIUE Graduate Creative Writing Students Adam Sirgany on sax and David Rawson on bass.
“Adam Says It’s About Fame,” Adam Sirgany, Tim Harvey and me, running our mouths at Stagger Inn.
“The Thermodynamics Of Laundromats,” is a Dan Meehan original beat, we think. I sent it to him and he thinks he remembers recording it for me at my old place in St. Louis.
“Adam Doesn’t Save The World,” Adam Sirgany running his mouth at Stagger Inn.
“Matt Madden’s Dream Machine,” Artist and Author and Friend Matt Madden, exert from Literature for the Halibut.
“Giant Man, After Matt Kindt: Graphic Novel As Poem And Song,” Matt’s book is also becoming a movie, but there’s already an River Front Times story on that.
“How Many Purses David?” David Rawson runs his mouth at the Stagger Inn.
“Basquiat” is another massive track with all or most of these people: Will Jones, Jerry Hill/ DJ Uptown, Mic Boshans of Humdrum and Nee, Elaine Holtz, Dan Meehan of Humdrum, Dan McKenzie, Emily Sudholt, Josh Evans, Shae Moseley of Ghost in Light, Dustin Sendejas of Arts & Sciences, Jon Weiss of Arts & Sciences
“He Marries The Legless Woman,” Lloyd Kropp taken out of context in a recording of him I did at Sacred Grounds.
“The Fly,” Features Carl Pandolfi of The Lettuce Heads on drums and bass, and Adam Sirgany on sax.
“Extra,” Adam Sirgany, Tim Harvey and me, running our mouths at Stagger Inn.
“Reanimator” is a true story about this Scientist Mark Roth. (www.esquire.com/features/best-and-brightest-2008/bringing-back-the-dead-1208)
“Scott Phillips In French And Jedidiah Ayres In Laughter,” clipped from Literature for the Halibut.
“Alma Mater,” is me, the geese, and a memory.
“Is The Book Dead, Al Katkowsky?” is clipped from Literature for the Halibut.
“Lowdown Redhead Blues: How My Ex-Girlfriend Slept With Ryan Adams While I Was In L.A.” Also true story. Recorded live at Venice café with the iPhone in my pocket. Adam Sirgany and I had never played together before that night. We don’t know what that drummers name was, but we liked him, and still do.
“Dundee” is clipped from Literature for the Halibut.
“Faux Pas” Adam Sirgany on sax and David Rawson on bass.
“Really Creepy Breathy,” David Rawson runs his mouth at the Fine Dinning Hall at SIUE.
“Death By Blackhole,” is writing for astophysicist, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who has a book by the same name. The track features Carl Pandolfi of The Lettuce Heads on drums, bass, and piano.
“Curtain Comes Down,” is Lloyd Kropp taken out of context in a recording of him I did at Sacred Grounds.
Jason Braun is Jason and The Beast. These are his friends who helped him on this:
Will Jones (Producer/ Engineer)
Jerry Hill/ DJ Uptown (Produced a number of tracks)
Mic Boshans of Humdrum and Nee (Drums, Found Object Percussion)
Elaine Holtz (Keys)
Dan Meehan of Humdrum (Guitar, Keys, Bass)
Dan McKenzie (Fife, Bass, Vibes, Atari)
Emily Sudholt (Vocals)
Josh Evans (Engineering/ Bass/ Guitar)
Shae Moseley of Ghost in Light (Drums, Bass, Backing Vocals)
Dustin Sendejas of Arts & Sciences (French Horn)
Jon Weiss of Arts & Sciences (Trombone, Tuba)
Matt Kindt (Logo)
Carl Pandolfi of The Lettuce Heads (Bass, Piano, And More)
Adam Sirgany (Sax)
David Rawson (Bass)
Tim Harvey
Lloyd Kropp
Al Katkowsky
Matt Madden
Ander Monson
Jedidiah Ayres
Scott Phillips
Valier Vogrin
Neil C. Luke
Nate Fisher
jasonandthebeast 