Get all 17 Paul Kotheimer releases available on Bandcamp and save 40%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of FOUNTAIN OF JOY, BEHOLD!, Five Songs, For Now, Terrarium, You don't have to be perfect to fulfill your dream, The Sasquatch E.P., My Message, The Kilogram of Gold, and 9 more.
1. |
The Kilogram of Gold
02:51
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When the kilogram of gold fell in the yard the other day, it knocked the downspout off of the gutter. Using the method of Archimedes, well, we measured it in the tub, and we’re pretty sure that it’s pretty pure. When the kilogram of gold fell in the yard the other day, it left a slightly unsightly crater. Astronomers say that the heavier elements can only be forged in a supernova. In a couple of days we’ll, maybe, get an appraisal. I thought that you might like to have a pinky ring, girlfriend. You always said that just a little bling can go a long way. Isn’t that what you always say? - So yeah, a kilogram of gold fell in the yard the other day. You’d think that it might be worth a fortune, so naturally, we looked it up on Wikipedia, and yeah, it’s worth about thirty grand - I mean, we’re pretty sure that it’s pretty pure. Who knows? Maybe we’ll clear off a shelf and just park it. Let us know if you’re on the market for more or less a kilogram of gold.
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2. |
Girls and Cars
03:51
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I confess that I used to write songs. Dozens of songs about girls and cars. Oh yeah, girls and cars. “Oh yeah, girls and cars”: How stupendously stupid it all seems now. The automobile is a stupid machine. It’s driving us all to ruin, and we’ll be all out of gas when we get there. And girls: Girls are whatever they wanna turn out to be. They have no need of a bald old greybeard like me. And The Past is a blur of chicken scratch in a blank book with an orange cover, left in a bookbag in a downpour then chucked in a box - a banker’s box - in three different basements so far this century. It’s archived temporarily. Yeah, that’s The Past. Hell, I can barely remember where this song even began... Oh yeah, girls and cars. Oh yeah, girls and cars. I confess that I used to write songs. Dozens of songs about girls and cars. Oh yeah, girls and cars. “Oh yeah, girls and cars.”
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3. |
Mister Beak Doctor
03:06
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Mister Beak Doctor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beak_doctor_costume#cite_note-17
As may be seen on picture here,
In Rome the doctors do appear,
When to their patients they are called,
In places by the plague appalled,
Their hats and cloaks, of fashion new,
Are made of oilcloth, dark of hue,
Their caps with glasses are designed,
Their bills with antidotes all lined,
That foulsome air may do no harm,
Nor cause the doctor man alarm,
The staff in hand must serve to show
Their noble trade where'er they go.
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4. |
Scratch Pad
02:21
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The Scratch Pad was the name of a cafe you used to go to in your Scratch Pad Cafe days - Your "Scratch Pad Cafe Days." This was way back when a couple bucks for a day-old scone and a small cup of the house blend was all that there was for dinner, leaving eight bucks for beer. Oh, the Scratch Pad, you know, was always percolating something. You had your fictional fiction writers, renegade theorists, and napkin sketch virtuosos of various ilks. And then you had your saxophone players. ...And you were a fly on the wall in a radio play set in the back seat of a cop car, and you were crushing on all the baristas. This was before they started calling them "baristas." Yeah but the Scratch Pad got a little bit scratchier there towards the end. Trust me, you wouldn't want to go back there tonight and see what's left of it. Trust me.
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5. |
What Is Up With Dad
04:19
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Scribbled indecipherable symbols until dawn. Pulled out the mower and did doughnuts on the lawn. Went to the bus stop with his trousers on his head. Then missed the bus completely and went straight back home to bed and slept for twenty-three straight hours. Poured a great big bottle of aspirin out on the bathroom floor. Queued 'em up in single file 'til the line stretched out the door of the garage. And then the neighbors called to ask what's going on and Mom said, "Everything's all right. Oh yes, everything is fine. Haven't you heard about that contest at the supermarket? Yeah, we're competing for a valuable prize." All of that was lies. Yeah, but we all were thinking, What is up with Dad? What is up with Dad? What is up with Dad? And then he went down to the basement and stayed there all afternoon, which I guess is pretty normal for a Saturday in June. But then my little sister turned and asked me, "Hey, what was that sound?" So she went down. The pool table was turned over and there was a laundry basket stapled with a staple gun over each of its legs. So she said, "Daddy, what is it supposed to be?" and according to my little sister, he said, "It's a field of cows." We helped him take it all apart and then we flipped the table over before Mom got home from Aunt Jeanine's. But we must have left the duct tape on the wash machine, 'cause she found out. And when she found out she said, "What is up with Dad? What is up with Dad? What is up with Dad?"
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6. |
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Christina Taylor Green, age 9, of Tucson, Arizona, daughter of John and Roxanna, granddaughter of Dallas Green, born on September 11th, 2001, in West Grove, Pennsylvania. She was in the third grade at Mesa Verde ...
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7. |
Temping
06:09
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A rock. A rock: A clump of rock, spat out
from molten mantle to the dusty crust
or fallen from the barren void of space
to this, our squirming, fornicating Earth,
just sits there--whether frozen in some peak
or ground to sand and mixed with muds and moss,
inanimate, inert, outside of time,
in spite of eons and their vastness. Now,
from time to time, that's how it seems, to mind
and to persist while nickel after dime
go trickling past to fill the two weeks' take
one calls one's take-home pay. It's dull,
in other words. About as dull as rocks.
Some days the photocopier will change
its metered wheeze into a song--
a minimalist techno-pop lament,
like Nine Inch Nails, but pianissimo.
At times, the wear and tear on pallet jacks
backed in the corner near the loading dock
will make a little installation piece:
Still Life With Microwave. The Lost & Found
at the reception desk will overflow:
Dickensian details, compulsive lists
of human attributes fit for Flaubert:
One brown glove, deeply worn; an envelope
with post mark 1996; ear phones
with one of their foam earpad things detatched;
a plethora of hand-held gizmos; phones;
a shawl; a watch; umbrellas of all kinds;
and so on and so on, 'til Five O'clock,
but not today. Today is just a rock,
a chunk of hematite or dolomite
or granite flecked with iron from the moon.
A thousand million years of sitting still.
And then a coffee break. And then the same.
Then lunch. Another billion more. The sun
exhausts its fuel, subsumes the planet Earth
as a red giant, melting all of this.
I vaporize. Then go out for a smoke.
Then back again. Another billion years.
The galaxy thins out into the void.
Four fifty-nine. Four fifty-nine again.
Four fifty-nine again. Four fifty-nine.
Again. Again four fifty-nine. Again.
The gods relinquish Form and Formlessness.
The Cosmic Embryo aborts Itself.
The Universe Is Not. --Four fifty-nine.
It never was, began, or ceased to be.
There's no such thing as time, or space, or rocks,
or paperweights made out of plastic rocks
that keep the time sheets on the boss's desk
from floating off into the yawning void
before they're tallied up and double-checked,
submitted, filed, paid out, deposited,
and spent. And spent. And spent away. Outside
the building where I work these days, there sits
a sort of charming piece of public art:
A statue, human size, a mannequin
parked on a bench, in thought. The regulars
in my department, as you might expect,
have given it a name. They call it Bill.
Bill knows what time it is: Four fifty-nine.
It's still four fifty-nine. Still is. Still is.
Still is. Four fifty-nine. Still is. Again.
Four fifty-nine. Four fifty-nine. Again.
Again. Again. Still is. Still is. Again.
--And so on 'til it's Five. And then, the end.
Good night, Bill. Good night, plastic rock. Good night,
reception desk and Lost & Found. Good night,
lamenting, plaintive photocopying
machine. Good night, Still Life with Pallet Jacks
and Microwave on Loading Dock. The Earth
is long since dead. The sun's collapsed
into a pulsar at the trailing edge
of some uncharted spiral arm, and time
and work and jobs and money don't exist.
It's Five O'clock. I'm taking off. Good night.
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8. |
Records
03:44
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9. |
My Time Machine
03:07
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In my time machine, I erase all my old regrets and win all of my bets about the future, 'cause I've been there. And in my time machine, I remember tomorrow just as clear as any yesteryear's sweet sorrow. But forget it, 'cause if there's anything I learn from chasing after old Jules Verne, it's that it's better just to forget it, and that's how my time machine comes to be parked in orbit, give or take a minute or two, around now.
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11. |
Wisconsin Night Song
02:42
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I called for my baby at her apartment long about a Saturday night. The dress she was wearing, man, she sure looked out of sight. I said to her, "Darling, girl, you sure do look all right," and we went out. We went to a dance, and a combo was playing two-step music all night long. I said to myself, "Man, tonight this band can do no wrong." Just then they broke into my girlfriend's favorite song, and it went like this. - Me and my girlfriend decided to duck round the corner for a late night snack. We told all our friends in a minute we would be right back. Instead we went out walking, and the sky was velvet black, and we made out.
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12. |
We Are Not Poor Here
02:34
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We are not poor here. We live out our days in church mouse luxury: A casserole dish and a brown beer. A bushel of farm-fresh while we pay off the loans. We know how to overwinter. Hell, we're practically wholesome. In a few years, we'll splurge a little. Maybe tear down that old garage. We've got a few keepsakes: The rack with the good china and a Liberty silver dollar from 1922. And we are not poor here. We live out our days in church mouse luxury: A casserole dish and a brown beer. A bushel of farm-fresh while we pay off the loans. We've had a few good years. If we're lucky we'll have a good few dozen more. For we are not poor here. We are not poor here. We are not poor here.
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13. |
The Old Red Rooster
01:30
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Oh, the old red rooster, he's the color of the barn. There's a reason why he's the color of the barn. And the reason why is that the barn was painted to be the color of the old red rooster. And the old white hen, she's the color of the hen house. There's a reason why she's the color of the hen house. And the reason why is that the hen house was painted to be the color of the old white hen. Now you may say that I'm as dumb as a fence post, but there's a reason why I'm as dumb as a fence post. And the reason why is that the fence post needs paintin' 'cause right now it's about the color of a old grey fencepost without no paint.
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Paul Kotheimer Urbana, Illinois
For well over 30 years now, Paul Kotheimer has been writing songs. And then recording them. And then putting them together
into albums.
At first, way way back in the actual 1980s, he used a cassette player and a microphone from Radio Shack. Now he's the proprietor of Pillow Monster Home Studio, complete with lots of musical instruments and recording gear and one actual pillow monster. YAY MUSIC!
... more
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