We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Growing Up, Not Old

by Houston Hughes

supported by
Sean Conlan
Sean Conlan thumbnail
Sean Conlan A lot of the subject matter is rough sledding but somehow, I can't not listen. Favorite track: Open Letter to Michelle Duggar.
Tylor
Tylor thumbnail
Tylor This album stands out from anything else I have. Not quite hip-hop, not quite spoken-word. It's just brilliant storytelling on meaningful subject matter. It's a inspiring piece of creative art. Favorite track: Open Letter to Michelle Duggar.
/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. Paying supporters also get unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app.
    Purchasable with gift card

      name your price

     

1.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Amidst multiple botched hangings and calls to end the death penalty, Thomas Edison and the westinghouse electric company Attempted to prove electrocutions safe and humane by killing animals with it. The largest casualty was an elephant named Topsy; sentenced to fry in front of a live audience, in the center of a shining new amusement park. 1500 people paid a quarter each to watch her topple like an old grey skyscraper, watch her flinch and shiver, throw her trunk in the air in surrender and then disappear behind a rising curtain of smoke, Soon, the method was tested on humans. Even though the first few ran into some issues- spines exploding like roman candles, boiling eyeball fluid causing pupils to vesuvius - Luckily, we fixed it quickly enough for George Stiney, the smallest person ever electrocuted, At 14, his frame too short to reach the electrodes, so we strapped him on a stack of bibles, threw the switch in righteous justice, but when the adult-sized mask, meant to keep proper distance between guilt and innocence slipped away, it revealed his sobbing, terrified, final face to….. no audience at all. The gallows were always a stage; consider the rigging and the trap doors, The way we lined the cast up for curtain call, and then made them dance the marionette jitterbug, The oxygen deprivation shake. the guillotine similarly theatrical, included vendors, printed programs, and folks camping out for seating close enough to see the eyes keep blinking while severed necks drooled juice like rotten fruit. Those drawn and quartered would have their still warm corpses disemboweled, hacked into fourths, and dragged behind horses, paraded through crowded, shouting streets. And In roman arenas lions trained to rip christ right out of your throat left the circus maximus packed to capacity with law abiding tax paying citizens; see for most of human history, if your crime was worth the price of admission, we made certain the tax funded justice was a spectacle worth witnessing, the assumption being death only serves as an effective lesson If the whole class is present and paying attention... and then came Topsy. Not thirteen days after her spark had left her, the grotesque specter of Edison's electric elephant haunted boardwalks across the country - A nickel and a crank of the kinetoscope would let you peep show her death dance to your hearts content - the problem was, those early issues with electrocution never actually went away, and the same current that fell the elephant ran the cameras now ensuring anything sufficiently shocking could also be viewed in perpetuity, used as fuel for the anti-death penalty movement. But those in favor swore we could find a new way that wasn’t so cruel and unusual - it was just a matter of proper execution. The solution: turn it into a magic trick! Lock them in a box for long enough that no one’s still watching by the time they disappear - the secret, as always, an audience willing to be deceived. You don’t want to see that the pricetag is ten times higher than a life spent in prison; that 1 in 25 after they’ve died is proven innocent; that statistically it no longer works as a crime deterrent: because the real trick is that if you don’t see the bodies, you don’t have to feel empathy for people like Emmit Foster, who gasps and convulses when he should be asleep; thirty minutes later they realize the straps on the gurney had been too tight so their chemical concoction couldn’t kill him quite right. Robin Parks turns out to be allergic to the very medicine meant to make death quick and painless; the state races to make their drugs kill him before the reaction does. Clayton Lockett, after his IV dislodges, jolts awake, attempts to scream but paralyzed lungs keep him from breathing, so he writhes in agony, awake and aware every minute till the end. This is the entertainment you’re paying for, you're the one Inserting the quarter and cranking the handle. So even if what you see turns your stomach, you’ve still gotta keep your eyes open! Don’t you wanna get your moneys worth? Or is this balancing act we call justice only beautiful to you when you can do it blindfolded, when you don’t have to address the elephant in the room, when we don’t have to be a country struggling with the alchemy of spinning murder into mercy? Either watch every one, or end the death penalty, because the only reason to put on such a grand show in secret Is knowing that if the audience could see it they’d pull the plug.
2.
Dick Pics 02:41
Let’s say you’ve been texting a beautiful lady. Things are going great so far But you need a way to escalate the conversation to the next level. You don’t want to put in the effort to create meaningful dialogue And you’re no good at flirting through traditional routes Like genuine compliments or non-homiphobic jokes, So what do you do? Easy! Send a dick pic! Sending a dick pic is the fun and flirty way to indicate Just how special you really think your lucky lady is. And when you send a dick pic, You’ll know you’re in good company, From senators and sports stars To that one guy at the bar who she only gave her number to so he’d leave her the hell alone, Men all over are sending their special sweetie phallic photos. It’s a great way to break out of the friendzone, Reconnect with an ex, Or drop the subtle drunken hint That you’re ready to become housemates with benefits. So let’s you’ve laid down the solid ground work with “hey”, and “sup” And at some point she sent you the winky face, Which everyone knows translates as “bring on the bulge and balls boy, game on!” But what do you do now? Step 1: take your dong out. And not just partially; Unleash the kraken! If the Anthony Weiner incident has taught us anything, It’s that keeping things under wraps Might make her mistakenly think that you have a modicum of modesty, Or some sense of embarrassment! Let you fuck flag flap freely in the breeze Like it was waving immodestly over a used car lot! Step 2: Wash your dick And while you’re down there, Tame your unruly pubes With some generous manscaping. You don’t need to shave completely, Just remove enough so it doesn’t look like an afro is starting to grow a mutant thumb Step 3: Make sure your camera is quality: No lady likes a grainy grundle! Step 4: lighting and composition Think about what kind of mood you want to invoke with your dick. Do you want the shot to seem playful and spontaneous, or more refined? Is your dick a hard worker, or a high roller? Treat your penis as if it were a canvas, And you are dickcaso, dickelangelo, dongatello, cockael, or van gogh… only if you’ve been circumsized If you’re taking the picture at home, Make sure to remove anything embarrassing from the background; Nothing will ruin a dick pic faster Than that old crusty sprite bottle you’ve been ejaculating into. Side note: If you’ve got herpes or HPV, Consider strategically placed rhinestones, Or as it’s better known, Peenjazzling Step 5: the delivery now that you’ve put in all this preparation, Why waste it on just one person? You are Oprah and you’ve got cocks to give away! You get a dick pick, and you get a dick pick, Everybody gets dick picks! If anyone doesn’t like it, You can always pretend it was unintentional By replying with a throw away line like: “oh, sorry! My bad! That was supposed to go to my grandma.” But no matter what happens, never let yourself get discouraged! Just because every woman so far has rejected your hot, throbbing resume is no reason to stop lobbing those sweet scrotal selfies; Keep on flinging your insecurities into non-consenting inboxes long enough and surely someone will validate your existence, even if just out of pity.
3.
WalMart 02:55
Hello. Welcome to WalMart. Can I help you find something today? I see the far off neon glow glaze your gaze as you enter, Amidst the hum of incandescence, The staccato chorus of barcode readers And the subtle percussion of pushcarts Pregnant to bursting with your bundles; Because it’s 3am, and who else is open? Because you don’t want to drive to separate places for your diapers and your lightbulbs; Because it’s… cheaper It’s just… cheaper, And there is no shame in being so shallow (your pockets, I mean) Paint me as evil if you want; it’s always easier to throw stones when you don’t know the glass house is made of mirrors, An amalgam of all that “American” has become Besides, I’m used to having a target trailing me. I was born as an Arkansas 5 and dime in the land of ambition, I grew on a cannibalistic diet of ma and pa stores and blood from the cut-throat hunt of predatory pricing, Now, I scout new sites to plant my feet Like conquistadors, Manifest destiny of capitalism And the smallpox of big box Hiding in my designer blankets In mexico, I bulldozed an ancient alter for my parking lot; In Nashville, I relocated civil war bones for my bathroom And you, Minimum wage slave, Have the audacity to complain about your bondage When you’re the one paying for these retail chains. I don’t have to work to suck your blood With your wallet hemorrhaging the way it does So come , and make fun of the trailerpark trash that blows in While spending the cash That builds the trap which holds them captive, Come, and tell yourself the stealing from me is ethical Even when it means not buying locally either, Come, And roam my aisles like forlorn lovers Looking for the puzzle piece product to fill the hole you’ve carved out of your hearts in my image, my costumers my beautiful consumers, leave me if you like but know another will always rise up to take my place in this relationship… When a race of alien archeologist Come to uncover what mattered most to us, They will be welcomed into subterania By old, wrinkled plastic smiling baggy faces, The remains no culture could ever break down So welcome to Walmart How can I help you?
4.
An open letter to Michelle Duggar star of 19 Kids And Counting, who helped repeal an anti-discrimination amendment in our city by sending out robocalls claiming non-gendered bathrooms would lead to an increase in predators molesting children. Dear Michelle Around here, Everyone has heard the joke, about your body and the clown car, both Overflowing with humans for our amusement, But I think you you are are a traffic jam, or an airport, or something people are always moving through, but never their final destination. The day your future husband came to convert you, all smiles and bible to hide his intentions, Did he mention then that his brand of christianity came with an “always open” clause on your body? That following his version of god meant saying “no” would never again be an option? Or did he wait until after the wedding, till the first night you didn’t feel like being known biblically to let you know your skin was scripture you could never again keep sacred from him again? When I see you on TV labeled “reality” preaching the male fantasy that women are created to find men and serve them. I wonder if that’s just him, his voice echoing through the cavern he has carved out of you. Now, You are the buzzing hive of a home to which your sweet drones will always return. But when your husband touches you, does it feel like he is only breaking you open for honey, for the fruits of his pollination, and your labor? Michelle, when is the last time his hand moved up your thigh Like he was searching for more than a container for compost, an open hole to hold his filthy seeds until they sprout? Is this why you make you girls wear skirts like blackout curtains, Blouses like body armor, Build firewalls against the outside world Strong enough to withstand culture wars, So you can keep them as long as possible from the man you assume will also fuck them empty, Will excavate any sense of self esteem So that they can be filled with whichever perversion of scripture or pleasure he pleases? Michelle, we cannot makes laws based on believing we all touch each other with your family's brand of husbandry, that we are all just out to plow someone who we can treat like fertile dirt. You can’t assume the worst from the world Just because that’s what you have to go home to every night, just because you’ve never had anyone inside you who could love you as more than a 9-month calendar, as a tally sheet, 17, 18, 19, and still counting. Michelle, I think you dialed me by mistake I think your automated anatomy was trying to robocall for help, for paramedics or police, To dial just those three digits you need, But by now your body has long forgotten the meaning of “stop”, So your fingers trembled over and over and over. until they found me, and thousands of other numbers in my city Who heard something in your voice they mistook for honesty, but was only truthful in its fear; Michelle, The word monger means to traffic, means to move through. I don’t think you oppose this law Just because someone with claws like your husband’s or your sons might hollow your daughters into tunnels to pass through. I think you oppose it because the bathroom may be the last place that you still feel safe from him.
5.
Every country wants to be beautiful, Some just need a little more help than others do. And That’s what we’re here for; The shining surgery center on top of the hill, A neon beacon for all to see: United States Plastique Surgery. Welcome to your wartable consultation. Now we’ve taken the liberty to map out on your body Target areas we think could use some reconstruction, Just the standard procedure: The Governmentectomy, We go in, remove your current ruling regime And replace it with a new one we’ve crafted for you personally. And we can assure you, It’ll look so convincing Only those who look closely will know it’s not the real thing. The first step of the surgery Will be 24-hour news coverage of the area in the media- It’ll help to numb things up. Then we’ll begin by going in And eliminating those pesky pockets of resistance and spots of insurgency – They can become cancerous if left untreated. We’ll make a few injections of spec ops – (yes it’s technically toxic But it’ll smooth things out in the long run) – And once we’ve made those initial points of entry, We’ll begin the real scalpel rattling, Call in the whole team, and Declare a war on “ugly”, We’ll make you look beautiful like the kind of bronze statues You’ve probably watched them topple on TV. We’ll break you Bone by home, And then set the mold so that you’ll heal in our imagine. Bleach your skin till it’s marbled And no longer seems so foreign. Now, if your body cooperates, We can prop up your dictatorship With a prosthetic election, But that’ll only hold for so long, So we prefer to just go ahead and directly implant the democracy. [be careful with that thing – you might put somebody's eye out] Once that primary procedure is complete, We can move to a few of the elective surgeries: Military augmentation and oil field liposuction. Neither is required, But we’ve might as well while we’ve got you under. We tend to not come in with a specific exit strategy, But generally, We’ll try to close you up quickly And move on to our next client, within 5 to 10 years. Now sometimes, Your body will reject the new government, But don’t worry if your stitches get civil-war-torn, We offer free lifetime replacement procedures and reconstructive surgeries. And the best part is, You don’t owe us a thing up front. Our tax-payer sponsored healthcare ensures all your costs are covered. We have happy customers from all over the world, Including Panama, Hawaii, Grenada, haiti, Cuba, The Phillipines, Afghanistan, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Guyana, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, Iraq again, Syria, and more! Don’t believe me? Here’s a testimony from one of our satisfied customers: We can’t be sure of your full recovery period, And it’s definitely going to sting. But we assure you, As doctors, We follow the “do no harm” oath of Hypocrates; Otherwise the term “surgical strikes” would be terribly misleading. You know, Some people may try to call you Frankenstein. I think it’s odd how often they confuse Who was the doctor And who was the monster.
6.
1 I got my first god from my father Before I even understood what one was. And even though it was second-hand, Seemed centuries old and more than a bit worn, I believed in that god, because I got it from him. He taught me to respect it, So I kept it locked up In a rosewood case Next to the kitchen table, And that’s where it stayed Until early morning Sunday When we’d all pile into the dilapidated station wagon, And go down to town for the God show! It wasn’t till I got older that I realized It wasn’t actually about the gods So much as it was the community, A whole room full of people Celebrating the one that that keeps them feeling safe 2. I keep my god in a steel box underneath my bed, Between the photograph of my mother And love letters from an ex girlfriend Scribbled in eyebrow pen. I don’t pull them out much anymore Except when I’m alone And the world begins slowly closing in, I’ll squeeze it between my palms till my fingertips tremble, or hold it up to my temple Whisper my fears to it And listen to the cold silence As it echoes in the shells 3. there’s a man down on the street corner With a sandwich board And he’ll sell you the type of god that’s illegal now, The kind that’s ready to kill a man at the drop of a hat, The kind you pull out when your woman cheats on you Or your sun turns out to be gay, The kind with hammer-cock like held prayer breath, With barrel like a pulpit, The kind of semiautomatic brimstone spitter They don’t allow in pleasant company anymore 4. Of course the founding fathers intended for us all to have gods! If someone comes along with a god and threatens you, You don’t want to be the only one without a god, do you? And nobody wants us to be like England Where not even the police carry one! Really, what’s gonna keep people from raping and stealing If they don’t think a god will? That’d be like trying to take “in guns we trust” off our money! This country was given to us by our almighty gun So that we could have the freedom To carry our gods Where ever we gun-damn please. A good conservatives knows that any form of god control is un-American; 5. You haven’t forgotten what happened, Have you? All it took was a few men with an unwavering faith in their guns To take down those two towers. And they didn’t even have a god! If everyone on that plane’d had had a god You know that never would have happened… It almost makes you doubt the power of your own gun. 6. The Safety Manual: Kids, Never point a god at someone, even to joke around. If you see a god in the area, please leave immediately. If your friend wants to show you a god, just say no! Parents, Keep your gods away from children! Children don’t realize That gods are tools, And might instead treat them like toys, To threaten people around them. Remember: Gods don’t kill people, People with gods kill people
7.
Haiku 02:56
Cheese dip is like a Terrorist to my asshole; call it al-queso if bob Dylans voice was used for police sirens: whew whew whew whew whew Radiohead won’t play creed at their live concerts. Pretentious fuckwads Kennedy used to be methodical. After Dallas? Scatter-brained Indiana Jones 4 was awful; made no sense: Refrigerator Republicans make a laser weapon; call it the Ronald Ray-Gun Santa Claus, Big Foot Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy Jesus Fucking Christ Jesus the gymnists crossbar routine scores: ten, ten, ten, ten, ten. Nailed it. Woman who knows how to get what she wants online: Amazonian? I want you so deep Inside me, my fetus can Give you a hand job Some girls bleach their ass holes. Dated a hippie once who had hers tie-died Punctuation sex: she’s on her period, so I’m in her colon
8.
Predator 02:41
Hi there, America Chris Hansen here With to catch a predator Why don’t you have a seat? What did you think was going to happen? Did you really believe the effective strategy Was to yell at yourself repeatedly: Don’t think about little girls. Don’t think about little girls. Don’t think about little girls. While you build the runways for Toddlers in Tiaras, While you take the path Britney Spears blazed and pave it into the Miley Cyrus superhighway? When did you realize The color of money Is the same as unripened fruit? But with enough lipstick and blush you can makeup for age by painting juvenile into bloom? Why are your most common search terms: Teen, cheerleader, barely legal, schoolgirl, Why is labiaplasty Even a word? When you see a woman matured, Do you want less? Does the word “reduction” Sound sexy to you? Do you prefer veal Over steak, the taste of flesh from legs too tender to understand “sprint”? History seems to indicate this started in the 60s. Is it a coincidence That submission becomes sexy At the same time women’s empowerment begins building? Are you scared to find the 19th amendment Hidden in her hips? The word “no” tucked between the creases of her lips? Is this why you hunt for skin too young to be fortified with lines of resistance? Thin, Doesn’t mean tall and slender for you, does it? It means small, compliant, Pliable, Plywood, Did the image of Twiggy, Her Barely sprouted breasts and easily breakable limbs Suddenly turn you into dendrophile, Leave you salivating for saplings To scratch your initials into? You squirm like schooldesk, Test day, No good answers. You ask question Like why the age of consent Isn’t consistent, I won’t say you’re wrong. I will say That even you, broken clock, Can be right At least twice a day If you choose not to move your hands. Do you hear them ticking? Is each day past puberty A countdown to uselessness, A bomb, Filled with slow-motion shrapnel Called “old”? Is this show How you justify yourself? Sit in your couch and denounce their perversions Just a little too loudly? But You like seeing them like this, don’t you? Deer caught in headlights to for you to fawn over. You connoisseur of schadenfreude. You’ve turned guilt into a spectator's sport, But when you turn off the television, It always becomes a mirror.
9.
1986 04:41
To my father, Who I have never met. In a grade school library, I discovered myself in a book series dedicated to astronomical concepts and objects; the rings of saturn, the dead volcanoes of mars, how stars are formed, But the one that really captured me was about Halley's comet. Like all comets, It’s a happy accident. and would have remained an unremarkable object if not disturbed from its rest at the edge of our solar system in precisely the right way so that every 76 years, we get to see it firework its way into our star, emerge few days later unscathed and then vanish for another 3 generations. Legend born of coincidence Insists that its appearance meant something special - It was there for the invasion of Hungary, the death of king harold of england, it may have even been the star of the nativity, ...But unless I’m still alive in 2061, I’ll never get to see it except in pictures, Because the last time it showed up was the year I was born, 1986. ********* January of that year, my mother came home crying that the sky was falling, That the world was ending. Her father let her be, assuming she, like the rest of the nation, was mourning Challenger Whose mission to study halley's comet from space Had ended earlier that day in disaster. Back in her room, She sorted through the wreckage of a pregnancy test, And found me in the debris. *** To my biological father, who I will never see even in pictures, People often make the mistake of thinking shooting stars are comets When they’re actually meteors. The differences between them Is that a comet shines for months at a time thanks to the dusty ice it’s collected along its journey. A meteor is just a chunk of rock and iron only memorable for the fire it produces for a few seconds when it crashes through our atmosphere Or the damage it leaves if it manages to make landfall. But the interesting thing about meteors is that even though they can be tools of extinction, We now believe that the seeds of life on earth may have rode in on one, A love letter flung from some disaster Half a galaxy away. **** When you took my mothers virginity the way an asteroid took the dinosaurs, No warning, all fury, did you blame gravity? Was her mass just in your path at the wrong moment, and you didn’t know how to respond but with collision and violence? 9 months later, she gave me up for adoption, flung me to the far corners of her universe, afraid I too would be a crater-maker. But after a few years of wandering around the word “son”, I decided to try to find her, I’m not sure why, It just felt like some unseen force was pulling me back. We’re friends now. And I think she finally believes that Halley’s appearance in 1986 Predicted more good than evil. *** To my mother’s rapist, wherever you may be, I spent a long time wondering if I should come after you, Only to realize that following an asteroid Would requiring burning up alongside of it. So Instead, I’m just gonna try to shine long and bright enough to outlive you, To eclipse you, To ensure no one ever again gets us confused, Living every day to prove that, unlike you, I don’t have to rely on violence to make an impact, That I am not defined by the disaster that caused my existence, That the difference between a comet and an asteroid isn’t just in their trajectory, it’s what they’re made of. And maybe, if I’m lucky, somewhere between your great burn out and your hole in the ground, You’ll catch a glimpse of me in the sky And regret the day you decided A moment’s explosion Was worth never knowing your son. Because even though I won’t come after you, I know enough about the universe to tell you that things have a way, eventually, of coming back around.
10.
Sex Ed 03:56
Sex ed as taught to me By an upbringing in the religious south: 1. my 6th grade gym teacher: “never touch your penis, especially if it feels good, because Jesus is watching you. You’re going to start growing hair down there and in some other places too. The important part is: sex is like double stick tape Or a paper heart your partner cut pieces out of, or a pizza… The point is, Having sex with more than one person makes you broken and worthless and no one will want to eat you.” 2. a particularly ill-informed classmate: “You just put your wiener into the hole she pees out of and then you pee in there, and you fall asleep like that and then the next day, she either poops the baby out or vomits it by dislocating her jaw, like a snake. But the best sex is anal; that’s when you pee in her nose!” 3. From a book my parents gave me entitled “gods plan for your body”: When two people love each other very much, they get married and that makes a baby. just don’t touch your penis, especially if it feels good Jesus is watching. 4. my middle school chapel assembly: “This is a twenty foot tall high definition erect penis coated in rotting, syphilitic flesh. This is a twenty foot tall high definition vagina sprouting HPV flesh tower flowers and oozing puss. This is what will happen to you if you even think about sex Unless you protect yourself By only making love inside a church-ordained marriage with the christian partner god intended for you. Also, condoms are satan’s little finger puppets, STDs are so tiny they can travel through them and anyone who tells you differently is in league with lucifer.” 5. my first glimpses of porn: Sometimes a woman gets on top of a man, And sort of bounces up and down on him And she has fun, but if he starts making too much noise, She put his penis in her mouth… I think she’s threatening to bite it off if he doesn’t shut up and make her happy more 6, my first partner: Despite me wearing three condoms simultaneously And her using so much spermicidal lubricant it felt like fucking a jar of jelly It was still AWESOME 7. my mother, after discovering the reciept for those condoms in my car: You are a disappointment to me and to Jesus, and if you’re going to live in sin and fornicate for any purpose but to procreate, then you deserve all the AIDs he can give you! 8. I reached 16 and lost my virginity without knowing what a period was, how girls pee, how a condom works, or that the clitoris even exists Because I grew up in Tennessee, where it’s a crime to teach anything that could be considered “a gateway to sexual activity”, where parents have the legal right to keep their children out of any sex ed classes, and where those classes are not required to be medically or factually accurate. So thank you republican voters and lawmakers for ensuring abstinence-only education is a staple of conservative states; thank you for the high teen birthrates and STD occurrence in those same states; thanks for ensuring an entire generation feels shame about their bodies; and thanks for making sure that I think about Jesus every time I masturbate.
11.
Rich people church just got an atm in the lobby. Not the front lobby, but the back one; they’ve had one in the front since back when they installed the coffee bar and the gift shop; rich people church has a gift shop, has cross shaped snuggies, has ten plagues finger puppets, has creepy porcelain bible dioramas, has collectible jesus figure with realistic karate chop action has books like “fifty shades of pray - how to bring the “biblical“ back into your bedroom” has t-shirts that try too hard to play on words, like “need an ark built? I may Noah guy” rich people church has a worship team, has a five piece piece arena rock band, has a competitive choir with coach and choreographer to ensure they practice praising perfectly . has a production crew to run the sound, the lights, and the jumbotron. Rich people church has jumbotron...sssssss So big you can see pastor ricks spit as it baptizes the entire front row. So, rich people church is essentially just a concert plus a motivational speech rich people church is where rich people meet once a week, where lawyers and doctors and politicians discuss rich people things, like “brunch”, like “golf”, like “the inevitable destruction of the middle class by a combination of stagnant wages and labor automation” like “yacht clubs” Rich people church believes the Prosperity Gospel, believes god will direct money towards people who SHOULD have it, believes your poverty is a test or a punishment, But don’t ask them how they know the difference. But Rich people church needs to ask you to make a few small changes, like “blessed are the financially insoluble in spirit” like “give unto caesar what is unable to be hidden in offshore accounts” like “the love of money by people who haven’t worked hard enough for it is the root of all evil” rich people church can afford to genetically engineer the special breed of miniature camels that CAN fit through the eye of a needle! rich people church makes religion a fashion competition, where they always know what’s “in”. Rich people church makes you think about how both christians and dollars come in denomination. Rich people church just adorned its lawn with the largest crosses IN ALL OF CHRISTENDOM ...at least until the rich people church up the street finishes theirs next week. Rich people church bought up cheap land for its new expansions, increased the value of the neighborhood, but changed the color its neighbors in the process. Rich people church has great acoustics, is a perfect recording booth, an echochamber completely deaf to everything happening just outside. rich people church does not like poor poet, does not like him needing to get back change from the offering plate, does not like him placing the christ action figures in inappropriate positions does not like him entering the gift shop with a whip yelling about money lenders, rich people church has a security staff to kindly escort poor poet outside. poor poet wouldn’t mind, except rich people church has poor poets parents. has poor poets parents perpetually preoccupied preparing for paradise by paying people to peddle prosperity, paradoxically by preaching parables praising the piety of practicing pure poverty by parting with property Preposterous? Probably. But rich people church has always cared more about making dollars than sense. Choir: At rich people church we surround ourselves with the comforts of those blessed with wondrous wealth, but when faced with the poor, all we can say is that money, our lord, works in mysterious ways. Amen

credits

released June 30, 2016

All tracks:
Words by Houston Hughes
Mixed and mastered by Justin Velte: facebook.com/JMVStudios

Cruel and Unusual
Music by Randall Shreve: www.randallshreve.com/store.html

Open Letter to Michelle Duggar
Music & arrangement by Skyler Greene
Keys by Joseph Hitchcock: www.paperanthem.com
Additional recording by Skyler Greene

Gods & Guns
Music by Shawn James: shawnjamessoul.bandcamp.com

1986
Music & arrangement by Skyler Greene
Additional recording by Skyler Greene

Sex Ed
Recorded by Skyler Greene live at “My Open Mic” at Dickson Street Pub, 2016-03-06

Rich People Church
Music by Justin Velte & Houston Hughes
Additional recording by Skyler Greene
Choir:
Jackson Jennings (www.facebook.com/jacksonjenningsmusic),
Trista McVey, Michelle Redmond, DM Shepherd

Album Artwork
“The World’s Oldest DJ” by Joëlle - facebook.com/ThouARTjoelle


For more of Houston Hughes
www.facebook.com/PoetryByHouston
Contact/booking/collaboration requests: HoustonRH7@gmail.com

This album was made possible thanks to the continued support of
the local music and arts community of Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Thanks:

to Justin Velte, for friendship and professionalism that both exceed any I’ve found in another human being;

to the poets and performers of Last Saturday, particularly Doug Shields, Molly Sroges, and Audrey LeBert, for the friendship and community that dug me out of a deep writing hole;

to Skyler Greene, for his gifts of time and energy and vodka, and for creating a space for performers to try out new and weird things;

to Randall Shreve and Shawn James for allowing me the immense pleasure of collaborating with the giants on whose shoulders I stand;

to Brad and Madeleine, for encouraging madness at every step;

to the audience of Last Saturday, for restoring my faith in myself after it had all been lost.


All tracks copyright Houston Hughes, 2016.

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Houston Hughes Fayetteville, Arkansas

contact / help

Contact Houston Hughes

Streaming and
Download help

Report this album or account

If you like Houston Hughes, you may also like: