The 1980s live again on May 24!
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Nuclear Christ (a poem, 1983)
Nuclear Christ
for Mr. Norman David Mayer
I.
“I have a bomb! I have a friend!
We’re gonna die! Stop to pretend!
Why don’t you listen to me”
This was Norman Mayer’s plea.
We’ve lost control of ourselves
Like masturbating giants
Getting off on death –
We worship the weapons, we
Count them like toys, we
Cannot decide and we
Will not listen, Mr. Mayer
Must die to show this
World, this shot dear world –
He was sixty-six, old and angry not mad –
He could not escape the shackles
Linking all of us together –
Of course you can die, it was
A good day to die, Mr.
Norman David Mayer, hating
Like a Nuclear War, his
Ashes smoulder still in
Arlington National Garden.
II.
He wandered and tried, failed, and tried
Consumed by desire and the Greatest
Fire the World was going to see
His parting – dies as he
Lies bleeding: “I have a Bomb!”
His baby blue snowsuit all a mess
He didn’t expect to make it anyway and
He dies because we love Death
No large surprise He dressed
Like Superman or Captain America –
Mr. Norman David Mayer was
Labeled insane by authorities
Who think they are sane but
Aid the ones with the evil keys to
This massive prison we call Home –
A van full of Air and Will He
Was there at the biggest
Phallic Symbol of them all,
It looks like a missile How
Sleek and defined – Pointed
At God – Now, what
Do they have in mind?
III.
“I have a Nightmare” Three
Years on a beach on an
Island smoking dope Do you
Think that made him crazy now?
Most would say content He
Only knew there’s no escape
No matter where he ran away
So he moved on through his life as we
Cranked the rack The
Walls grow larger He was torn
And He waited and He hated and
He saved like none of us could –
And he gave his life for
Something Undisputably Good you
Know He’s right because this
Very second the Bombs are ticking
Atoms splitting Tomorrow we
May join Him The newspaper
Headline reads “A Victim of an
Unyielding Will” His flesh was
Mortal yet his spirit sails on until…
New! – “Anarchy Love” Re-issue!
Now available again – the revamped version of the revamped version of the original from 1983… it’s safe to say that this song has finally arrived! While “Anarchy Love has the slowest tempo of any other Submensa song, the power comes through as each point in this meditation on love floats on Jim’s ethereal volume pedal before shattering like glass into a thousand echoes. The lyric and vocal delivery of this song is a reflection of a life’s work – begun as a young man, revised in middle age, culminating now in a true epiphany gained from a life lived. Punk rock is the best mode of expression, ever!
The Submensas @ Zen West 2.15.25
Song #10: Reason Wrong!
Song #10 in our set list is one of our finest – the most Gang of Four-sounding song we have (and I LOVE Gang of Four). “Reason Wrong!” uses ‘reason’ as a verb to provide faux advice on how to succeed in life. The lyrics cite examples of faulty logic which succeed in notoriety, and then the song applies this motif to the modern phenomenon of ‘going viral’. The song, then, provides a bridge from the ‘80s, in which 2/3 of the song was written, to now, where we add a verse and update the arrangement. A special shout-out in this song goes out to our bassist Vernon, who laid down the original snarky bass riff back in the 80s. Jim channels Andrew Gill (RIP) with sustained guitar feedback that captures the jarring cognitive dissonance that this new-world counter-logic produces. The song itself was not formally recorded until 2023 – see the link below.
Here’s the chorus:
Reason Wrong
It will cure you
Conscience won’t affect you
Reason Wrong,
We will believe you
‘Cause we reason like you
Cynical, no? But it’s such a FUN song!
This song was recorded previously live only
See for yourself – we released it as a single in 2023:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMV-T-P59WE
Come see us open the show tomorrow night in Baltimore!
Song #9: Consumer Report
I hear that Macklemore has a new protest song called “F–D Up”, and it’s doing pretty good – more power to the man. But we’ve had a couple of protest songs kicking around for some time. Song #9 in our set list is “Consumer Report” – a song that does call up Ralph Nader’s old magazine and proposes a few more products that should be recalled. Some of them aren’t products, but whatever. This song has been revised and expanded since its 1986 origins and now features fabulous vocal orchestration and a fun new chorus that propels this song through four verses of escalating customer complaints. Featuring a really jangling hook of a guitar solo that Jim opens the song with and reprises throughout the song. “Consumer Report” is the next song scheduled for the studio… can’t wait. Here’s the final, all-new verse:
Recall the web with you inside
Recall the good people on both sides
Recall the plastic from out your brain
Recall the debts that don’t get paid –
‘Cause the brakes don’t hold, the brakes don’t hold
And the pistons keep running on…”
> Don’t miss the fun this Saturday night!
Song #8 – Strange Graves
Song #8 in The Submensas’s set is “Strange Graves” – a true ‘long-lost’ song. A classic punk song in the vein of The Clash, it was a fourth song recorded for our 1986 EP, “Twilight in Beltland,” but was left off the vinyl because I wasn’t satisfied with the vocals. I intended to re-record the song but that never happened, and the master tape of these sessions has been long lost. But now this two-minute song has had a renaissance, and is back as a boppy little number with jangly vocals and an upbeat guitar riff. We put “Strange Graves” on our 2012 compilation, “Trading Cards of Glory”, but it’s a little grainy because the recording was from a CASSETTE. So we now have a great new version. Here’s how the song starts…
How many times will the world rock and roll,
Before it finally breaks asunder?
And how many mixed-up little piles of debris
Will you and I be buried under?
A strange grave here/ A strange grave there/
all graves/ are strange
… and then I list a bunch of ways to die. The meaning of the song is a little interpretive, but I would say it has to do with choices and how we’ll end up in the places that we’ll end up in… It’s like a mini-version of Jim Carroll’s “People Who Died”. (It’s two mins, whereas Jim Carroll’s song lasts five and a half.)
Song #7: Virgin Junkie in America
Song #7: ” Virgin Junkie in America” – The seventh song in our set is the oldest active song in our repertoire, going back to 1984. A while back, my beautiful daughter Sonya and I were discussing The Submensas, and she asked me what genre we were. I thought for a bit and replied, “Poetry rock.” Sonya’s priceless reply: “Dad, no one’s going to listen to poetry rock.”
Fnord!! I had to admit she had a point. People seem to think that somehow matching a poem directly to a song somehow makes a mush of things – most rockers wouldn’t be comfortable sitting in plush armchairs while Plath wannabes make obscure connections… HOWEVER…”Virgin Junkie in America” is EXACTLY a POETRY ROCK song that will absolutely rock your socks off. Definitely NOT your mama’s poetry rock! (Or, maybe it is) The snakelike rhythm, cascading drums (and a classic Darryl drum solo) and knifelike guitar work all feed into the emotional journey of the song as I recount the story of a person’s destruction at the hands of an indifferent society. The opening lines:
The virgin junkie pawed through the ashes of the past,
In the mega-mausoleum, she is sinking down…
Down, down, down to her knobby knees –
You can hear her thirsty pleas, thirsty pleas….
It goes on from there.. And ends with “Give it up, you GUMMY SACRIFICIAL LAMB!”
Man, I just love belting out that last line!
DON’T MISS THIS SHOW!
Song #6: Save the Changes
The sixth song in our order is “Save the Changes”, which, to be blunt, might be the most in-the-moment song in our repertoire, even though it was written a couple decades back. The title is the refrain, and, yes, as we undergo changes in our world today, it should be pointed out that some things have been changed for the good and need to be saved. “Save the Changes” is built on a classic punk riff but also features soaring musical orchestration as Jim does his best single-guitar Agent Orange imitation and the band cuts loose for the entire end of the song.
There is no favorite line. The more these lines get read, the better. Here ‘s the whole thing:
SAVE THE CHANGES
So much history,
So much debt stacked endlessly,
We store it in machines,
But they don’t have the memory-
The special word programs
Are making short work of the ages,
But what has really been done lately,
And where’s our way to liberty wandered?
Save the changes,
‘Cause once they’re gone,
They may never come back
Save the changes,
We may never be back
This way again . . .
There’s no story to tell,
There is just this situation,
We ponder through the piles,
Searching for a panacea-
Lately its been better,
Tomorrow not so sure,
I think it’s changing as we speak.
More like it was before . . .
Save the changes,
We’ve come too fucking far
to turn back-
Save the changes,
Some day it’ll come out
Sounding right-
Nothing is ever finished,
The editing goes on and on,
We take what we can handle,
We share what we can understand-
The special word programs
Hold the keys to generations,
Everything we work for,
Echoes throughout time
Save the changes,
‘Cause once they’re gone,
They may never come back
Save the changes,
We may never be back
This way again . . .
Song #5: Love You!
#5 in The Submensas’s set is “Love You”, a 2-minute power-pop-punk song that is aptly named, though it is not the usual love song. It’s about carefree, untethered romance – carpe diem, so to speak. Here’s the opening lines:
Asphyxiated minds
And penetrated souls
The only thing that’s happening
Is holding on to you* –
Yet I am not sure where the song comes down – it’s kind of ambiguous as to whether this is a love song or a kiss-off song. I guess it’s both – the ‘literary ambiguity’ that we all know and love. Right up there with David Bowie.
Musically it’s got a great, danceable beat and a guitar lead in the middle that simulates a brisk afternoon fling – that’s exactly what you were thinking, right, Jim?
“Love You” is also available on Spotify and I-Tunes etc
* dontcha love the slant rhyme “souls” and “you”? I mean, they both have a “u’…)
Damon Norko 
