Another holiday free of normalcy. Slept past noon. Ate a giant bowl of hearty soup (sweet potatoes, carrots, brocolli, celery, five-bean mix, garlic, onion and lots of rooster sauce, spicy mustard and basil boiled down in vegetable boullion and dumped over jalapeno pepper cheese and pumpernickel) while checking the news and comments of the day. Had a good cry over the suicidal death of one of my favorites, Vic Chesnutt.
I heard this interview earlier this month and have been urging a friend or two to listen to it as our talking heads attempt to work out our issues with health care reform and all the rest.
That was enough to send me out the door. I promised myself a walk on this day free from work and all the rest. The temperature dropped 30 degrees overnight, so I layered myself in tee-shirts, a sweater and one of my Dad's coats and stepped out into a fierce Winter wind. Mindful of black ice on the sidewalk, I treaded lightly and slipped and slided my way over near Tower Grove Park, where I was surprised to find standing water on the sidewalk adjacent to the park. More surprisingly, there was standing water in some places and ice in others. I quickly tired of skating and tippy-toeing and moved to cross the park to find that mud was still splattering up on me from underneath a light dusting of snow. I love the simple details of moving about in the world when I'm not in a hurry or having cause to worry if someone else is comfortable with the situation, so I put my chin down into my layers and beat it South towards a clearer path. I had it in my mind that I would have a meal while I was away and I did. I popped into The Vine I've been eating their chicken shawarma, hummus, and falafel for years. One could order it from over a counter in back of their adjoining market. Only recently has this new space opened for sit-down dining and I hesitate to mention it, lest it be run over with idiots, until I realize that few will read this post, so... Let me say, though, that this is one of the best restaurants in town. I ate there on Thanksgiving, amidst a much warmer walk, and found myself alone in the place. Not surprisingly, the service was quick and my food arrived before my freshly squeezed pineapple juice was ready. I had an incredible salad, the juice and two falafel sandwiches. The bill: $11.09!! I've been since and the food always amazes, though the crowds have yet to appear. Only today were there other folks in the restaurant. When I shivered in the door this afternoon, there were two "dudes" chuckling over their food. They were not bothersome to me from my place amidst pillows and they seemed to know one of the family, a big guy who stood at their table and joked a bit about one of them having never eaten "anything but cheeseburgers". The young woman keeping the place clean and in order met me at a small table towards the front of the table and recommended some cardamon tea. I accepted. Soon, I ordered lentil soup and a tabouli salad, remembering all the Christmas Eve gorging from which I had not yet recovered. The bill: $10:39 Amidst my dining, I watched street traffic come and go along South Grand Boulevard while dozens of folks came and went from Jay International Food (just across the street) and Wei Hong Bakery (next door), imagining what I would do if I saw my stolen car travel by as I sipped tea. Ha! Yeah, I lost a car last weekend. Gone is the silver '99 Honda Accord I had purchased just last Spring. Stolen. I don't feel the (what I hear is) normal sense of violation, though my wallet and license were in the car and are gone, too. I have done what I can to search for them and have a new driver's license, Visa card and library card. I was able to rent a car to get to my Mom's yesterday and will soon buy another sled. C'est la vie. Ce n'est pas grave. Whatever. Stupid of me to leave things in my car and I probably won't do that in the future, but I can't honestly say that I am upset about another car gone away. I hope it made someone's days a bit easier. To sit in a small place and eat delicious food while reflecting freely as another restaurant employee enters to dine alone on his day free of rushing about is what I recieved today. Give the streets back to me more often and who knows what will happen? Return my days to me or shall I take them back? Take them, fill them with anything as beautiful and fierce as those that a Georgian songwriter has done and stash them away?
...and after I read Vic's obituary on a blog, I noticed this Swigel gem...
...and if that's not enough for you, then explain to me what the hell is wrong?
At times, I entertain. These times require an endurance of alcohol, usually. Some nights, there are folks sleeping in my apartment when I wake up. I have floor space and a futon, so it is not the worst place for them to crash. I have extra pillows. I can always offer them one of my (now dead) Aunt Zelma’s quilts if it is chilly in the sunroom, where the futon is; or on the floor near the inactive fireplace that still allows a draft in from the outside. Mine is nothing better than a crash pad unless one is curious enough to land in my bed. That’s another story.
Not too long ago, I awoke to hear another’s breathing in my place and remembered that an esteemed member of our St. Louis society had taken me up on an offer to sleep off a good session of drinking at the Royale, one of our favorite establishments. I snapped to for a bit and remembered the situation, got up to hit the can, splash some water on my father’s face (the one I see these days after such nights) and I went back to bed. Eventually, we both were ready to move on and I drove him back to his car. I don’t remember. Maybe we had breakfast. Regardless, I returned to the fabulous emptiness of my hovel to sleep some more and listen to nothingness on the radio but more NPR babble about the economy or some static-laden drivel about yesterday’s game or some long-forgotten AM pop-chart sing-songy. I did this as an attempt at sleep and probably drifted off for a few increments of 40-minute nods. Seems like I had to get up later that day and shower, get some errands done and then run off to work. At any rate, it wasn’t until a day-or-two later that I noticed that my Dad’s paperback copy of THE GODFATHER was sitting on a towel that I had placed on a flat space in my bathroom.
I have retrieved certain items from my Dad’s collection since he died a couple year’s ago. Most of them are books that he referred me to when we were all younger. Some of them I have read and have captured my mind. Some of them, I gathered as a commemoration of his spirit and efforts as a teacher and historian. There are still other items that I took along because I wanted to revisit our times of watching television and studying the institution and religion that is Baseball. I have his VHS copy of GOLDFINGER, for instance. It is an interesting enough movie of its genre and I revisit it at times, but it is certainly not my favorite. I have it on the shelf because it reminds me of Dad and that time from which he emerged: that pre-Vietnam War era during which it still seemed possible to dash about the globe in a tuxedo to uncover some unruly details about some foreign cads before retiring with a cocktail later that night...and a honey to spill it on. Huh? I don’t know. It is a comfortable place to reside, I might say. Seems less ugly than what the CIA was up to at the time or got involved with later, yes? I see photographs of Dad from back then. He was a few years out of the Army with his Bachelor’s Degree and a new teaching job and my Mom, his wife…and then me. He was sporting the slim ties and the suits. He had the short black haircut and as a young, but experienced teacher who stood six-foot-one, I’m sure he made an immediate impression on everyone at the secluded community in and around Brussels Community High School. He went on to teach high school for some 30 years, had two more kids, bought a house and eventually became a published author of American history. As I grew older, our journey into the world of Baseball became more intense and he became the proud father of a kid with a lively fastball and a place on a very good junior-college team. I had taken over writing high school basketball reports for the local paper and carried an interest in journalism into college and further to university, though never felt the final urge to commit myself to that style of writing, especially after moving to St. Louis and becoming interested in more, shall-I-say, exotic forms of writing and influences of punk rock, late-nights and politics outside of the press box parameters of a sports writer. Then I blew my elbow out and that was the end of organized athletics for me. I could feel him wishing that I’d stay with the game, become a teacher and coach or a newspaperman, but it didn’t feel right to me. He would urge me to look towards the military for training and guidance and a doorway into society, but that surely did not feel right to me and I wriggled away from his urgings. We became more distant, with less common ground to bond our conversations. Eventually, I would become completely disenchanted with Major League Baseball and corporate journalism. I was downright grumpy about society and hesitant to become involved in its machinations. I struggled to pay the bills, but kept a simple, inexpensive lifestyle and simply hoped that he’d either come to some conclusion and suggestions for a better path for me. The rest of the time, I walked and ran and caught buses to nothing jobs and hoped that something better would appear on its own. The verses of Jello Biafra sounded more truthful than anything I was reading in the newspapers, but did not hold sentiments I felt like I could discuss with my Dad. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease and survived ten frustrating and ugly years of a spiral to death: literally a mindfuck for him and the rest of the family. By the time the day of his funeral came, I was completely relieved that his suffering was over and happy that part of my Mom’s burden had been relieved. I had grieved long before his death. All the normal stuff passed through my mind, but the bitch of it all for me was that he had been chopped down early and had to endure the final decade of his life without really writing. One summer day, we drove down to Little Rock to visit with one of his mentor’s, Dee Brown, the author of BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE. It was a wonderful visit, but the gravity of the occasion was that that much older man had far more mental clarity than my Dad. Dad was still driving in those days, but would miss exit signs and it was a major relief to get home. His mind had gone. Still, that did not light a fire under me to write. I have written much more since his death than I did while he was alive, but I attribute that to the people I have met, heard read and read. There seems to be only the urgency of an occasional inspiration.
Such an inspiration was the opening of the novel left there on the reservoir lid of my toilet. I have seen the movie a dozen times and the sequels at least half-as-many times, but have never read Mario Puzo’s novel, THE GODFATHER. The part of the book that grabbed me the other day is the story about Johnny Fontane, whose singing career had gone down the toilet after he left his wife—an act which deeply disturbed his Godfather, Don Corleone. Johnny had gone on to lead “a footloose and fancy-free” lifestyle and had eventually found that he was losing his singing voice due to the smoke, booze and lack of rest. He is scared to death that he is at his end and he knows only to come to the mercy of the Godfather to help him get a sought-after part in a Hollywood movie. You know the rest. Yeah, you know: horse’s head in the bed of the unwilling director. Yep. Much of the rest of Johnny’s story isn’t included in the movie, but it all boils down to the fact that he is coming to face the facts, he ain’t getting any younger and no matter how many “pieces of ass” he’s bagged (yeah, besides all the killing, there is lots of fucking going on in this book: it is as racy as all that…witness the joke on P. 181 about fucking Lassie!), he is feeling like he needs to clean up his act and set his course straight.
You come to these milestones or crossroads in life. They jump up and punch you right in the face. Sometimes they rip the world out from underneath you. The ankles, knees and shoulders bark with every movement. Even daily exercise doesn’t fix it back the way it used to be. Hangovers last a full day or two days. You don’t recognize the person in the mirror at first glance if you don’t look yourself in the eye.
I was fortunate to be gifted Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel THE ROAD recently for my 46th birthday. I had thought of reading it, because I like to read the book before seeing the movie and I really wanted to see it at the Tivoli, so I was sure to finish that Percival Everett novel that I was reading, so that I could get through McCarthy’s book before the movie left the theater. I love an apocalyptic tale where man is finally getting his ass handed back to him after having fucked everything up and the poetic prose of the book added to a feeling of late-night reverie as I glided through page-after-page. Finally Henry Miller’s prophecy that the air-conditioned nightmare would someday sputter to a stop had come true in this meditation. Sure I was reading the book while weary from bartending shifts, but the reading was so effortless and the verse flowed with such ease through the barren land of the father’s and son’s plight that I didn’t feel its force until late in the book. I am not a parent, so I didn’t feel a biological kinship with the father and his need to guard his son, his lifeblood. I did however feel something change inside me when the father finally died on that cold beach. Something of my pain surfaced and I did miss my Dad again. It was a relief, and I’ll tell you why.
About a month ago, I was really struggling. I was at odds with my own plight and in doubt about how much longer I wanted to make my living on my feet and away from the possibilities of a more contemplative life. I had been drinking plenty and when one night, when I finally got a night free to stay home, I made a big pot of chili and ate far too much of it. It was quite late before I finally went to bed, but I had to go while I was still full and was too uncomfortable to sleep. I was tossing and turning for hours, but finally began dozing off for minutes at a time only to awake with a startle. At some point I dreamt that my Dad was standing over me and lightly poking me in the shoulder. He was affected by Parkinson’s and I was asleep on the couch in the house in which I was raised. It was as if he missed me and just wanted me awake. But later that morning, while it was still very dark, I dreamt that he had come to me again. This time he was not alive in my dream. I could feel him as cold and black and standing over me in my bedroom. Disturbing? Yeah, ya think?
First off, Viggo Mortensen has been nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his part in the movie.
Like I said before, I didn't relate to the novel for the "family ties" of the whole thing. I liked the ending of the book because it didn't end simply with the boy being "adopted" by another family. I suspected that somethings would be left out of the film and of course I was right. One of my FB friends was commenting that all the "good guys" were dressed like scummy street punks and all the "bad guys" looked like hillbillies. Except for that sole black man and the family that takes the boy in at the end, who looked like they wandered off the set of THE GRAPES OF WRATH and that their name was the Joads.I walked into the theater half expecting the still-intact nuclear family in the end to come walking up the beach in North Face apparel, though, so I'll take the bedraggled folks from the dust bowl family and allow for some sort of suspension of belief. The NRA liked the scene, I'm sure. "Hey look, Bubba! Old boy got him some shotgun shells and him AND his kin is still alive and takin' in orphans. God Bless America!"
I almost busted out laughing when the cart thief turned out to be a black dude, but it was too unfortunately sad, especially since it calls for Viggo to go all Dirty Harry on him. I have NO idea why they made that choice. That was the only black character in the movie, right? Very odd choice.
I noticed that they didn't bother to depict the scene with the baby on the spit. Probably saved themselves a ratings slip there. I did notice that the trip to the ship, the loss of the gun and the theft of the cart was all consolidated into a few moments. The most important part of the book to me is the poetic reflection of these people in such desperation to stay alive in a world that offers very little except the immediate and apparent knowledge that death is imminent and humanity is bound to rub itself out in climates of such fear. The sadly adoring scenes of lust for a can of Coca-Cola and Cheetos and Jack Daniels and vitamin water definitely cheapened the movie for me. Another friend was equally disturbed by the product placement. I thought to myself as I was driving home, "Why no Twinkies? Those things will never rot". But I think that was a scene from The Simpsons, wasn't it?
My favorite part of the book is the very end. Not the new, "stepmother" who is "so happy" to take the boy in after his papa has died, but the last paragraph:
"Once there was a brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could seem them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimple softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery."
That's the fucking book right there for me.
"Humanity, you never had it from the beginning." Charles Bukowski from Notes of a Dirty Old Man (1969)
My crazy and mad, globe-trotting friend, Thollem McDonas is in Italy right now playing with his group Tsigoti in celebration of the new release on ESP-Disk. Read all about it below and look for them to be hitting the streets of Saint Louis with a show at the Schlafly Tap Room in May sometime.
TSIGOTI - Private Poverty Speaks to the People of the Party ESP 4053
ESP-Disk' is proud to announce its newest artist, TSIGOTI (previously known as Waristerror Terroriswar), a collaborative and improvisational quazi-punk band dedicated to expressing their opposition of war, authoritarian regimes, and violent religious extremes. Combining revolutionary politics and intelligent avant-punk fervor, Private Poverty Speaks To The People Of The Party was recorded with a group of players that have run the gauntlet of life experience and musical exploration.
Private Poverty Speaks To The People Of The Party was created with patience and dedication, yet still holds the same raw improvisational qualities of their debut recording, The Brutal Reality of Modern Brutality. Straying from the typical notion of political commentary, TSIGOTI focus their approach from an insider's perspective, exploring people who suffer being attacked, imprisoned, terrorized, tortured, brainwashed, and tricked. By expanding their sonic territory and political repertoire, TSIGOTI deliver a clever, experimental, yet accessible work of art that is true to the ESP mission - forward thinking and forever changing.
Press Quotes
"The customary digital riddles characterizing the genius of this master pianist are all but forgotten here, for this sounds more as a semi-acoustic punk album. Beaten-up instruments, muttered vocals, rhythms and keys often disrespected; the exclusive wish is crying out loud that 'we can’t do this to ourselves anymore', as per one of the tracks titles. When we compare the fusion of these sensations to a sort of feverish pagan ritual and listen to this set with the same attitude of, say, looking at a shaman dressed like a young Joe Strummer, the honesty of intentions begins to clash (pun definitely intended) with our previous ideas pretty hard. Bizarrely frank stuff. - Massimo Ricci, TouchingExtremes, Italy
"Thollem Sickofwar revs up his beatup piano and throws down on war. The results are edgy, uneven and sometimes disquieting. All in all, a rollicking success." - J. Worley, Aiding & Abetting
I'm not sure where I heard this one; probably on the radio as a cleaned-up version as I drifted in-and-out of sleep:
A man and his two sons walk into a diner and have a seat at an empty counter that is being cleared and wiped down by a matronly waitress of large bosom and apple-red cheeks. The boys sit on either side of the father. Soon enough the waitress looks down at the 12-year old and asks what he'd like to have. The boy sits back a little and smirks while he looks past the waitress to a display case. "I guess I'll have a piece of that damn pie." Immediately, the father bats the son in the back of the head with his left hand and the son goes chest down on the counter. The waitress is taken aback and gasps a bit, but recovers soon. This time she turns to the five-year old boy, leans down on her elbows and says, "How 'bout you, Little Man? What are you gonna have today?" The little boy just shrugs and says, "I don't know, but I sure as fuck ain't gonna order any of that damn pie."
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Get your car fixed
and then
crash it into your own butt.
If you don't understand,
take off your high-class dress
and masturbate while watching
or reading CRASH....or have
another lemondade and shirk responsibility.
Kill the poor.
Make wine with slave labor.
Lace dresses with little malnourished hands.
Fart in the faces of the midgets.
I'm going to watch THE DEER HUNTER
while I wait for my third pizza of the day.
Rick Ankiel sucks real good now that
"I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still in a room."
Blaise Pascal
There is a lot of deep-breathing involved in a life that includes chronic pain, lost friendship, addiction, hangover, disappointment and the search to get yourself cured by exercise, wrestling with self-doubt and taking advice from those that can see from outside of your wretched subjectivity. You find yourself in another universe at times. You find yourself anxious and longing for the comfort of your former rut. You find yourself yearning for another one and are afraid that you'll seek out the same old path, but with different faces, voices and stranger bartenders. You're tempted to rip away from the whole game. Drop all your crutches and crawl away from home to see what the universe will throw at you without all your shields and masks. Skip town, quit the job, shave the head, sell the car and walk to somewhere else.
"Basically, I have one feeling...the desire to get out of here. And any other feelings I have come from trying to analyze, you know, why I want to go away...See, I always feel uncomfortable and I just want to...walk out of the room. It's not going to any other place or any other sensation, or anything like that, it's just to get out of "here."
Richard Hell (from a PUNK Magazine interview with Legs McNeil that was quoted from in the oral history by McNeil and Gillian McCain PLEASE KILL ME)
If you're lucky you know that all of it will pass and your vision will clear. If you're tortured, you don't know. You are certain that there are no options. The flood of emotions is like an acid trip. If you haven't had the experience before, you panic. You start thinking "crazy thoughts" and if you don't have anyone to talk to that can tell you that the moment is indeed not all, you jump to extreme conclusions. There is no light at the end of the tunnel; or if there is, it is the afterlife calling you to the other side. I don't have any answers for those that have mental illness or behavior issues. Get help and be good to yourself. There is something: BE GOOD TO YOURSELF. You can be an asshole to others and treat them unfairly and you can also do the same to yourself. I think there should be a new and all-encompassing commandment to take the place of those ten that we've seen handed about and "down" to us: DON'T BE AN ASSHOLE! I was in St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan once. There was a mass going on one morning, but there were people milling around taking pictures and sight-seeing. Anyway, I was turning around from wherever I was pointed when a baglady grabs my sleeve. I look down at her and she asks me if I read the Bible and I told her that I had, indeed, read the Bible. She says, "That's good. Then you should know the only commandment!" "Yeah? The golden rule, you mean?" "No, Dummy! The only commandment is DON'T BE AN ASSHOLE!" and she kind of harumphed and walked away.
"In all probability committing suicide would be the proper course, yet I find myself reluctant to take the final step. Periodically all through my life I've contemplated doing away with myself---either by jumping from a tall building or preferably shooting myself through the temple. At moments such as the present I find my existence overwhelmingly futile and know it is pointless to continue on when there can be no change. It is simply that I haven't the nerve. I lack the drive required to push myself over the brink. It is like all I do---at the crucial moment I fail. I am as negative as one can imagine and have always found it more difficult to finish even the simplest task if the opposition becomes even slightly evident. Certainly there can be no wrong in eliminating a nonentity. What is particularly strange to me is that---although I feel little other than loathing of myself and fully recognize my insignificance---and am weary---miserable---discouraged---and wish for death---way down inside something remains stubbornly alive."
Suicide by Herbert Huncke from his journal and The Herbert Huncke Reader
So, people are in pain and misery and they freak out and think that they can't live inside their own bodies and decide to end their lives. It is heartbreaking stuff leaving friends behind to deal with the mess, even if it is only emotional. I may end up having more to add to this, but I write it only as an introduction to this fascinating documentary. Enjoy and notice the mention of St. Louis and an unnamed bridge in one of the stories. Oh and Jay Farrar pops up on the soundtrack singing Son Volt's World Waits for You from their 2005 album Okemah and the Melody of Riot.
...and read this if you haven't. The posts are interesting and shed much light on the extreme emotions surrounding the act of suicide. It can even piss of the advertisers!
...and finally, here is a song that our friend Hunter S. Brumfield penned, recorded and that later became a fan favorite of the band Bad Folk (reprinted here from Tim Rakel's blog, Trashcanvas):
The Laughing Song (lyrics by Hunter Brumfield III)
He's sorry that things turned out as they did, it's a god-forsaken shame small was the box in which that he hid to temper his poisonous brain he reached for the stars, came back with stumps (maybe stubs?) in a downpour, yearning for rain (though i was told "urine" was the lyric, i thought "yearning" more poetic and gave Hunter credit for the ambiguity) happiness got him once he hit bottom gonna laugh his way through all the pain
Believe him it's easy to drink and be sleazy as your conscience just limps along mistaking freedom for license, he screamed in the silence and his echo said boy you're all wrong well, life is absurd, haven't you heard? keep laughing boy, that's your best bet
Sometimes, you get the idea that you are living a special life. You think you are on to something. You are convinced that your existence on the rock is somehow a little bit better than the lives of the rest of the monkeys. You witness the beauty of a sunset or a car crash or perform, perfectly, a straight-set badminton victory. Perhaps you feel a little bit better about your status on the planet because you sat in on a jury that put away a guy who molested his step-daughter through her entire childhood or you performed a double mastectomy on a jive-ass transvestite. Sometimes, all it takes to feel like you are doing things right is to enjoy a sandwich. You bite into a concoction that makes your saliva perform like godcum on the first Sunday and you feel lucky. You can sit back sipping your Sanka and remember how you slammed it home after the give-and-go and Karen slipped your socks off.
Sometimes, you are an idiot. Sometimes, you get the wind knocked out of you by a 25-mile-per-hour, 295-pound psychopath because you forgot to raise your hand for the fair catch as you set to recieve the punt...and you realize you forgot to wear your cup. Most of the time, it is the little disappointments that will drive you nearer to the idea of practicing a series of little suicides or one big one. Read the man: Bukowski. -------------------------
The Shoelace
a woman, a tire that’s flat, a disease, a desire: fears in front of you, fears that hold so still you can study them like pieces on a chessboard… it’s not the large things that send a man to the madhouse. death he’s ready for, or murder, incest, robbery, fire, flood… no, it’s the continuing series of small tragedies that send a man to the madhouse… not the death of his love but a shoelace that snaps with no time left … The dread of life is that swarm of trivialities that can kill quicker than cancer and which are always there - license plates or taxes or expired driver’s license, or hiring or firing, doing it or having it done to you, or roaches or flies or a broken hook on a screen, or out of gas or too much gas, the sink’s stopped-up, the landlord’s drunk, the president doesn’t care and the governor’s crazy. light switch broken, mattress like a porcupine; $105 for a tune-up, carburetor and fuel pump at sears roebuck; and the phone bill’s up and the market’s down and the toilet chain is broken, and the light has burned out - the hall light, the front light, the back light, the inner light; it’s darker than hell and twice as expensive. then there’s always crabs and ingrown toenails and people who insist they’re your friends; there’s always that and worse; leaky faucet, christ and christmas; blue salami, 9 day rains, 50 cent avocados and purple liverwurst.
or making it as a waitress at norm’s on the split shift, or as an emptier of bedpans, or as a carwash or a busboy or a stealer of old lady’s purses leaving them screaming on the sidewalks with broken arms at the age of 80.
suddenly 2 red lights in your rear view mirror and blood in your underwear; toothache, and $979 for a bridge $300 for a gold tooth, and china and russia and america, and long hair and short hair and no hair, and beards and no faces, and plenty of zigzag but no pot, except maybe one to piss in and the other one around your gut.
with each broken shoelace out of one hundred broken shoelaces, one man, one woman, one thing enters a madhouse.
so be careful when you bend over.
---------------------------
You find yourself crying at work one day and realize you are nothing like you thought you were and it all seems hopeless. Every second is another dagger set between your ribs. You want to go back to your youthful days of self-destruction and have visions of your grave or you dying, alone.
...and then, you don't know exactly what it is...somebody pisses you off or the world tilts slightly under a full moon...the waitress spills hot coffee on her tits and smiles instead of screaming.
Something cracks and you are able to see a way to go on.
...and this has nothing to do with anything, except it made me laugh.
Charles Bukowski (1920-1994): A friend of mine recently found himself in the bustling metropolis of San Pedro, California, the whimsically dumpy harbor area of Los Angeles, famous for not really a whole lot else as far as I know other than being where the Great American 20th Century Poet Charles Bukowski is buried, underneath a modest in-ground marker that reads “Don’t Try.” This was, of course, the advice Bukowski gave, while he was still alive, to poets, writers, and everyone else looking to become the type of person that makes a city famous for being buried in it. But in death, I think it was his advice to humanity in general, his final pearl of wisdom imparted to mankind. Don’t try, at anything. Just be. There’s a certain amount of disingenuousness inherent in this statement; after all, when Bukowski was still just a alcoholic mailman, sending hand-copied manuscripts to magazines and publishers, he was definitely trying. And you don’t write as many poems, novels, and screenplays as Bukowski did during his life without putting out some effort. But just like the more spiritual epitaphs usually found on the gravestones of the honest Christian men, Don’t Try is more of the goal, the life’s lesson learned. It’s the advice Bukowski would have given to himself, a fittingly narcissistic thought for a man who made a career out of relating his sexual exploits, drunken loutishness and otherwise self-serving behavior. He was like Thoreau with a taste for booze, choosing the slums of LA, instead of Walden Pond, as his personal purgatory, with women and barflys serving as his woodchucks, ants, and squirrels. And like Thoreau, he didn’t remain there forever; after the slums had served their purpose he moved on, eventually living, and eventually dying, in the comparatively upscale San Pedro, a white wine-sipping old timer. My friend went to the graveyard to pay his respects. The people there had no idea what he was talking about. They finally looked it up, gave him directions and sent him out there; no historical monument, no literature about the life and work of the late great Charles Bukowski. Just a plot number. He found the grave, there with all the other graves. There was nothing spectacular about it. It could have been the grave of anyone, and I guess it is, as far as most people are concerned. Except it says, right on there. Don’t Try.
So you want to be a writer by Charles Bukowski
if it doesn't come bursting out of you in spite of everything, don't do it. unless it comes unasked out of your heart and your mind and your mouth and your gut, don't do it. if you have to sit for hours staring at your computer screen or hunched over your typewriter searching for words, don't do it. if you're doing it for money or fame, don't do it. if you're doing it because you want women in your bed, don't do it. if you have to sit there and rewrite it again and again, don't do it. if it's hard work just thinking about doing it, don't do it. if you're trying to write like somebody else, forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of you, then wait patiently. if it never does roar out of you, do something else.
if you first have to read it to your wife or your girlfriend or your boyfriend or your parents or to anybody at all, you're not ready.
don't be like so many writers, don't be like so many thousands of people who call themselves writers, don't be dull and boring and pretentious, don't be consumed with self- love. the libraries of the world have yawned themselves to sleep over your kind. don't add to that. don't do it. unless it comes out of your soul like a rocket, unless being still would drive you to madness or suicide or murder, don't do it. unless the sun inside you is burning your gut, don't do it.
when it is truly time, and if you have been chosen, it will do it by itself and it will keep on doing it until you die or it dies in you.
So, I have to think that Buk would appreciate this bit of drunken idiocy
So I know you can't see it through the glare of the flash, but it says something amidst the mispelled scribbles. Who is going to make this bumper sticker?
DON'T TRY BUKOWSKI TRY BUKKAKE
Of course, it is disgusting, but can we not reward a play on words and the recognition of our most worthy poet? Oh, you don't think he's culturally worthy?
I dare you to read this book and neglect his prowess!
"Our misery that afternoon, in which the smell of tears mixed with the scent of sun cream, was a reminder of the rigid, unforgiving logic to which moods appear to be subject, a logic that we ignore at our peril when we encounter a picture of a beautiful land and imagine that happiness must naturally accompany such magnificence."
"It is perhaps sad books that console us when we are sad, and to lonely service stations that we should drive when there is no one for us to hold or love." from THE ART OF TRAVEL by Alain De Botton
“The sky is a buffoon’s attempt to conceal chance.” Cassandra Stark Mele, “In Case of a Storm” 1995
To You, Cloudy Girl
Darkness and rain fall silently on rocks where no brains understand. Happiness is more than a mood, kid, and a smile is less than bliss. It’s a façade like the sunshine that only clears when vapor’s gone.
The moon exists when it’s hidden. There is more to nature than weather. We are fools to hang our consciousness on such thin, categorical tethers. No revelation is there—no unseen truths, just a continuing spray of babble. Just remember, now please, don’t despair. Our spirits aren’t lost when no longer here.
If we wait, another mood will pass. My lips eclipse will no longer persist and my teeth will show like blue sky. If you stop to consider this inevitability; if you wait for it to happen; if you listen and watch as the process unfolds; then your patience will be more than any bottle could ever hold.
You will see that your waiting can carry you further than any flittering flight of a fit.
So please try to find a hole in the wall of balled up sounds that tell you all is in your mind, that completely dismiss the soul.
The mind is only a means. Science is but a key. But to find the way to unblemished truth we must wait indefinitely. For if we rush past all the clues towards an end for which we lust, we’ll miss the meaning of every connection as gods smile while we wait for the bus.
Contact: Ryan Harris New Music Circle nmc.ryan@gmail.com 314-479-3001 www.newmusiccircle.org
But, what if...? ST. LOUIS, MO - September 2, 2009 - New Music Circle opens its 51st consecutive season of innovative arts presentations on Saturday, Oct. 3, 2009 at the Mildred Bastian Theatre on the campus of Forest Park Community College. The concert starts at 7:30 pm, and features composer/performer James Hegarty's new work, eXscapement, showcasing solo pieces for piano, interactive robotic sound objects, and video projections. He will collaborate with his artist daughter, Anna on the project.
In addition to the opening concert on October 3, the organization has booked a full season of the finest new music talent from an international scope. Featured presentations include Larry Ochs Sax & Drumming Core (Oct. 9 - Sheldon Concert Hall), Rob Voisey's 60x60 Dance (Nov. 8 - MadArt Gallery), local electronic composer John Tamm-Buckle (Mar. 13 - Kranzberg Arts Center), and granular systhesis pioneer Curtis Roads (May 1 - Mildred Bastian Theatre) performing a new work FLICKER TONE PULSE with video artist Brian O'Reilly.
New Music Circle will also continue its CAMA program, now in its third season, by empowering five artists to produce new collaborative works utilizing local talent. The five CAMA artists for the 2009-10 season are Tom Hamilton, James Hegarty, Craig Hultgren, Kelsey LaPoint, and Van McElwee. They will help produce and present a variety of artistic adventures that blend new music, video, dance, and performance. Among the CAMA events, one in particular will feature a collaboration produced by Hegarty that blends the visual art and music of Zimbabwe Nkenya and Douglas Ewart. Ewart was a past president of the acclaimed AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians), based in Chicago, IL. Nkenya, a multi-talented local improviser, has played and recorded throughout the United States.
A full listing of the season's events with detailed info can be found by downloading our newsletter at the following link: New Music Circular. Tickets to all New Music Circle concerts are $15 at the door, or $7 for students/starving artists. Season ticket memberships can be purchased for $80 (regular) and $40 (students/artists), and include admission to all 10 of NMC's presentations. For more info on tickets, please contact newmusiccircle.info@gmail.com, or visit www.newmusiccircle.org
Finally, in celebration of New Music Circle's 50th birthday - the 50th year since the 501(c)(3) was actually incorporated, NMC will host a birthday party at the Kerr Foundation Building on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009. For more details, please visit our website.
NMC logo New Music Circle is a not for profit organization dedicated to presenting a variety of cultural events emphasizing contemporary music and enhancing Saint Louis' reputation as a significant location for the creation and performance of improvisational and experimental music. NMC has presented a continuous season of concerts since 1959, making it one of the oldest organizations of its kind in the United States.
The goods produced in the factories of space and time Are not all that great. Bring some wine, Because the desirables of this world are not all that great.
Heart and soul are born for ecstatic conversation With the soul of souls. That’s it. If that fails, Heart and soul are not in the end that great.
Don’t become indebted to the Tuba and Sidra trees Just to have some shade in heaven. When you look closely, My flowering cypress friend, you’ll see that these trees are not all that great.
The true kingdom comes to you without any breaking Of bones. If that weren’t so, achieving the Garden Through your own labors wouldn’t be all that great.
In the five days remaining to you in this rest stop Before you go to the grave, take it easy, give Yourself time, because time is not all that great.
You who offer wine, we are waiting on the lip Of the ocean of ruin. Take this moment as a gift; for the distance Between the lip and the mouth is not all that great.
The state of my being – miserable and burnt To a crisp – is proof enough that my need To put it into words is not all that great.
You ascetic on the cold stone, you are not safe From the tricks of God’s zeal: the distance between the cloister And the Zorastrian tavern is not after all that great.
The name Hafez has been well inscribed in the books, But in our clan of disreputables, the difference Between profit and loss is not all that great.
-Translation by Robert Bly
...and, of course, on days like today, I think of Bukowski who wrote about days like today. He said that it is good to fall asleep behind the sofa for a couple days. Lie around in the dark for a couple days. Take time for yourself. Let the juices replenish. You have to do it,you know? If for no other reason than to remember what a crazy, fucking life you live and how mad and beautiful it all is when you let it be.
Just survived another crazy weekend of bartending and rock n' roll and thought to share this piece that was written after another crazy weekend behind the bar. Oyster Festival, Saturday Night, 2006 You had the winner last night. I commended you this morning as I woke myself up laughing on my lonely mattress in my South Side flat. We were side-by-side amidst a sort-of war, battling glasses and masses who wanted more beer, more shellfish, more vodka. "Give me more delusion ten minutes ago", their faces said. A man the size of two Coke machines was banging a less-fortunate patron's head off the bar above us, unbeknownst to us at the time. Soon he would threaten to send a manager into the afterlife. But downstairs, you said that you had a serious problem. I, in my selfish-brood, said that I kept imagining that I might carve up people's faces with the remnants of a broken bourbon bottle.
Earlier an off-duty co-worker, drunk on scotch, had smashed a glass of straws against a pillar, showering the bar with shards of detritus. He did so despite the fact that the brewery's owner was sitting next to him. Welcome! Said the chards to those sitting with ice that would never melt in their drinks on their clothes. Thankfully, not in their eyes. But you, sensing a need to lighten the mood, said, "No, I have a serious problem. I can't keep my hands out of my pants." I insisted that you climb atop the rail and lessen the crowd with your lust, almost barking the order, in jest.
After that, the rest of the night shed its gravity and no one was shooting at us. I knew that all was quite manageable even though we had lost quite a bit of faith and hope, plenty of bodily fluids, including a little blood. It was all quite manageable and we could sort out our regrets and do our second-guessing later after double-douching the place, locking the safe and going to our reserved places of rest to awaken in twisted sheets, though mine were less twisted than usual thanks to you, my friend.
NOT WHAT YOU SAW what you believed the memory captured no approach in sight a faint sense of ease pleasure and then vanished but dripping from all of your being.
The total number of abortions in the United States is as low as it has been since 1974 according to the Guttmacher Institute (GI), an organization that strives towards "advancing sexual and reproductive health worldwide through research, policy analysis and public education.She looked me right in the eye and grabbed my unit. ">"'I Would Want to Give My Child, Like, Everything in the World: How Issues of Motherhood Influence Women Who Have Abortions," was published in the January 2008 issue of the Journal of Family Issues./cgi/content/abstract/29/1/79He cooed in my ear something so boyish that I forgave the bald spot and the obviousness of the recent purchase of the Hummer and agreed to marry him. "The majority (61%) of U.S. women who have abortions are already mothers, more than half of whom have two or more children," said a GI report.I don't know, Man. Have you seen the way she cringes when she says, 'creepy old guy'."In many cases, women choose abortion because they are motivated to be good parents," the GI report continued. I would totally wipe the ass of his spawn with a big ol' smile on my face. I mean, FUCK, look at 'im! "Women who have no children want the conditions to be right when they do; women who already have children want to be responsible and take care of their existing children," reports GI.Yeah, Dude, he's fucking pussy-whipped to the zillionth power. I don't think he's gonna show tonight. Probably at home groaning out Elvis tunes or out poking through smaltzy crap in a mall.The Northeast had the highest abortion rate, followed by the West, the South and the Midwest, GI concluded. There was no further statistical analysis included in the report to indicate whether play on turf or grass was conducive to termination. Baby, I don't care if he's jumpin' the fence and playin' for both teams, that boy is FINE! Mifepristone (commonly known as RU-486) and Misoprostol (trade name Cyotec) are abortofacients. Dude, I HAD to wash the sheets TWICE!!! HA HA!!!."A survey of over 3,000 adults over the age of 57 years, challenges some stereotypes that may be held about the eldery and sex…over half of those over 75 years remained sexually active," said an AARP study. "You might as well say Real Men Love Santa Claus/the Easter Bunny/Flying Spaghetti Monster," he scoffed, pointing at the bumper sticker on a Ford Windstar full of kids.
______________________________________________________________________________ ...and now watch this episode of IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA!!!!
Those of you that have seen me in action know that I like to drink beer. You might also know that I like to taste some of it. I am a quiet guesser in hope of wisdom and luck, so I dig around and listen to the others. I'm no expert on the world of bloggery, so I don't know of a lot of the worthwhile blogs on the interwebeer. I'd like to point out this first one, though. Mike Sweeney has upped the intelligence level of the St. Louis beer lover. http://stlhops.com/
Perhaps I should take heart that you even speak to yourself in that seldom-viewed blog that I can't seem to find on mornings when I search for such nothings, but only cannibals take heart.
Prescribe downtime and contemplation to figure out this mess and sweep the bunnies from their corners, but I like their crunchiness on the souls of my bare feet and downtime is not about sweeping.
Were I to walk to the answer, it would only take a month. I would find you in a dozen faces. I would find us in trouble again. I could do it only to distance myself from whatever future they say there is... or I could do it for focus.
The capitalists say I have four days free of extraneous cash and work to cypher it out.
I shoot you as you shoot me, but we don't recognize the barbs.
Why just this morning, I thought it was just another ache or pain. Rolled over and groaned, nearly breaking my schwanzstucker off in the process.
Only then did I remember that I was dreaming about running after you, west on Magnolia to Kingshighway and east to Sauget.
I am going to write something on here soon. I have to sit down and do it. Been running around and getting it out of the way. Clearing a path. Doing the math. Eating the spam. Puttin' mustard on yo ham. Makin' it glam. Pouring gasoline in your Uncle Samsonite drill bit luber.
I knew I needed a fact-checker in my life and it just so happens that the songbird that has wrenched my heart from many distraught places and amazed my mind with ventures inspired by what I can only categorize as magical realism is a proud tour guide as well. Lindy wrote me in response to this blog and the ones that I will add soon. I thought I took notes and maybe they're still in a clutter somewhere, but here is all you need to know before you read this blog and the others. I will correct them when I have time, or maybe I'll leave them as is: fiction from the eyes of a stupido tourista. "Well.... few inaccuracies, but ok. However, just to preserve my image as a top-notch professional tourguide, you should note that niether the Indian place nor the Sunday flea market (which is famously known as El Rastro) were in Sol... actually, Sol is just that low place with all the shops in the middle of the little dip between my house and the other side of up-the-hill, around that ugly statue of the bear humping a sickly-looking tree (it happens to be the symbol of Madrid, commically). We didn't actually do anything in Sol, as best as I can remember, as I think Sol is touristy, boring, and snobby. We ate Indian food in Lavapies (the old Jewish district, now hippieville), and El Rastro is in nearby La Latina. My bike got stolen from Pl. Tirso de Molina. Montera is a street, the Plaza is Gran Via, and I passed out in an alley behind Montera a week before you came... The night before the airport, I was chasing my crazy friend all over Lavapies and La Latina cause she was drunk and trying to get me to go to dodgy places with her and random guys on the street and I was worried she was gonna have her buzz killed in a hurry if I didnt talk the crazy bitch into just going home. The museums are near Atocha, and the gay district is Chueca. The Bull Fight area is all called Ventas. Anything we did around my neighborhood, including the Russian resaurant, the Nick Cave bar, and the bars we went to with Javier, all happened in Malasaña, the main neighborhood of the Movida Madrileña back in the 80s." Lindy took me for another walk Sunday morning. We returned to Sol, the very center of Madrid and the very center of Spain, where there was a street bazaar taking hold of the morning in Puerta del Sol. You know the scene, thousands of homo sapiens waddling around looking at one thing and then another, touching the fabric, twiddling the trinkets under tents. Here there is a souvenir shop. Over there, somebody is peddling food.
Here's a musician, there a pick-pocket waiting for an easy mark. Couples in love. Couples bored to shit. Couples who haven't met and those that wish they had not. This was much of the same, but my groggy head and the change of scenery made it novel...and I was in Spain to see through Lindy's eyes and that is what I did for most of the day. The most interesting displays of wares were on the streets where folks had their artifacts and relics laid out along the walls on blankets, not tables or stands of any sort. Books, postcards, records, trinkets, old radios and other appliances were on display. Lindy bought a doll with a white porcelain head to send to her friend Rose, who collects items that Lindy shares an interest in, but which she can't afford to add to the organized clutter of her small room and in her bags when it is time to travel. We escorted that doll up and down streets for a bit and then started cafe and cervezaria hopping. As much as I was following Lindy around, I was also watching and listening with my own sensibilities, so I caught a couple scenes with the camera and the snapping of one shot, caused a shop owner to hiss me away, which I knew he would. I have an eye for the absurd and I wanted that picture, so I took it, but I knew someone wouldn't like it and a Bukowski piece immediately came to mind. I can't find the actual poem anywhere, but I've heard him read it on a recording. It goes something like this: I was walking down the street and I had my camera with me As I passed the shop window I noticed the mannequin there. I photographed the mannequin in the shop window and immediately the shop owner came running out and screaming, What are you doing?!!! What are you doing?!!!
Nothing, I said, I just took a picture of the naked mannequin. I really wish you wouldn't do that she said. She had made me feel guilty and I had done nothing really wrong.
I started to walk away but then spun around and crouched to one knee and I shot her again.
The trouble with these people is their cities have never been bombed and their mothers have never been told to shut up.
Something wasn't right with taking pictures. I took it anyway. Luckily the walls and the street pussy didn't mind one bit.
My first trans-Atlantic flight was non-eventful. THANK GAWWWWD!! I sat next to a quiet Africaner, in front of some giddy Atlanta mommas and behind a guy from Costa Rica who was entertaining a big girl from New York who was headed to Portugal to meet her sister, do some hiking and hostelling and eventually hook up with her parents in London. Yes, I eaves drop proudly. I passed the time nodding off and on in between visits from the various flight attendants. I was too delirious to get much serious reading or writing done and set my mind to relax in the interest of hitting the ground running once I made it out of the airport in Madrid. I suppose I was a little giddy at having made it to the last leg of my journey to Spain and at the prospect of being so close to finally bringing the visit to Lindy to actualization, but my stay at the Ramada on Thursday night had allowed me to chill and I really just wanted to endure the flight, jump into whatever fun Lindy had planned for us and wake up after a long nap in a foreign country for the first time in my life. The luggage came around on the carousel eventually and I followed the signs saying "Salida Way Out" to that place where the weary travellers are greeted by loved ones or drivers holding signs with their names on them. That's the plan, anyway, but when I got there, Lindy had not. I walked back and forth along the front of the aeropuerta a few times before finding a place on the floor where I reclined with my bags like a drunken hippy happy to be in a place where I could relax. She eventually showed up reeling from the previous night and morning, and of course, as sweet and apologetic as she could be. What's more important is that she regailed me with the tale of her late arrival which I gladly took in as we navigated our way out of the airport and onto one Metro and then another. There she was having been drunk late into the night, passing out in Plaza de Montera and awakening to find that her bicycle was no longer locked up where she had left it when she went to visit friends. So she came home to crash for a couple hours, but slept through the alarm. Charming girl, that Lindy. She's the only one I'd jump the pond for, to be sure. We negotiated the Metro and popped up out of the ground at Plaze de Espana to drop my bags at her flat on Calle de Pez. We had an errant lunch and beer with one of her flatmates down at the end of the calle. Lindy was thinking that the place served paella, but it wasn't on the menu or special board so I settled on the tortilla which was delicious, like a potato and egg quiche. It was there that I imbibed my first Spanish lager, the Mahou Cinco Estrella. I'll only say that it is a fitting cerveza to wash down such food. Many of you know of my love of big ales. I was not in Spain or on vacation to dance with the same, though, so I happily accepted the first and then the second bottle...or did I actually receive the second bottle. There seemed to be a bit of a lag between the service of our food and whatever follow up may have occured afterwards. No worry.
That night, we retraced her steps down Plaza de Montera and the exact center of Madrid and Spain, an area called Sol. We dined on Indian food and at a Morrocan restaurant with outdoor seating called Restaurante Baisakhi. An eight Euro special included, among other things, mixed ensalata, two entrees (one being Korma de Pollo) and most importantly two glasses of red wine and two shots of some sort of apple schnapps. Soon we ambled about to make it to a couple bars and made it an early night.
April 3, 2009 ----Sitting in the Atlanta airport on a Friday afternoon approaching 5 p.m. and on Concourse E the air is full of motion and excitement; unlike last night's experience at the Memphis Airport, where everyone---well, many, were frustrated and bitchy. Many of us missed flights or had flights cancelled towards the end of a long day due to a thunderstorm that had swallowed up the area. To the south and east, the weather was more severe, but a thunderstorm is enough to cause flight delays and plans had to be changed. Tired of watching those racing and pacing up and down the concourse, I am reading THE ADVENTURES AND MISADVENTURES OF MAQROLL by Alvara Mutis: "A caravan doesn't symbolize or represent anything. Our mistake is to think it's going somewhere, leaving somewhere. The caravan exhausts its meaning by merely moving from place to place. The animals in the caravan knows this, but the camel drivers don't. It will always be this way." There are many empty symbols in these airports, but some of us think we are more important or full of purpose than the others. My gripe over missing the connecting flight to Amsterdam Thursday night was not the delay in arriving in Madrid and missing prescious time with my dear friend, Lindy. Nor was it the downtime waiting for the next flight or the further delay waiting for the mechanics to check on the jet which eventually delivered us to Madrid Saturday afternoon. No, Hell is other people, and the Hell for me on Thursday night was listening to the prima donna assholes and twats bitch and whine about the distress in their lives at having to miss a flight. It was too much like work for me: that sound of petty bickering. Of course, as you might imagine, nearly all of them wore looks of anxiety, fear, astonishment or anger on their faces as they held cellphones to their heads and vented to friends, lovers, co-workers, airline representatives and hotel clerks. Just a drop of inconvenience had dropped into their lives and painted their faces with this ugliness. Watching and listening to their antics and fits of hysteria and dramatization, I wondered what it must be like to be so cluelessy priviledged, accustomed to service upon order or utterly unprepared for a kink in their linear progression down the straight road. I would prefer that my life ticked along with efficiency and precision when I'm paying to move it along at a certain rate, I suppose, but I don't find the need to flip out when I am not having my rim tongued with the delivery of my prescious beans and franks by boys in freshly pressed polyester tuxedos. What's the point? The worst of the bunch were women. There were three in particular who I hope never again to see or hear from ever again. The first and most angry was a Dutch woman. She was legitimately frightened, it sounded like, about being stranded at Memphis International. After snorting and moaning at the woman behind the Delta Airlines desk for atleast 20 minutes, she moved on with her instructions as we all waited in line. I would see her later trying this act on a small group of airline security folks. I didn't stick around to see how they dealt with her antics. The second was an elementary school teacher who had left her second graders a day before spring break to get a head start on her trip to somewhere and it most definitely wasn't Memphis. Upset because she was going to have to shell out 80 bucks for a hotel room instead of sleeping at the airport, she pointed out, "We teachers are used to pinching pennies and these people are unpinching them!" This all in a huff to the woman behind her in line. "Well, they're not going to get away with this. That's all I've got to say." Somehow I thought that we couldn't be fortunate enough for that statement to be true, so I switched her half-assed and pathetics comments to mute and put my face into an issue of The New Yorker and a piece about solitary confinement. I saw our teacher step to the desk to address the same woman who had absorbed the hysterics of the Dutch woman. If Ms. Teacher was laying down the law, she did it quietly and swiftly, for she certainly denied us any theatrics and was soon on the bus to the Ramada Plaza with me and many of the rest of the party. It was on that shuttle that she divulged to some other stranger the rest of the details of her day and why it was all "so crazy" and she was lightening up and sounding less threatening as she shared it all with him, and by association, all of us. She was over for me as I looked out the windows to try to figure out how far away from downtown we were being delivered. The Hell of Thursday night in Memphis came in a threesome, however...and no, not that kind of threesome. Our third damsel in distress was a fit brunette on a sales trip to Atlanta. She, too, couldn't believe that the weather had her delayed. I know because she said so on her cellphone. She was the only associate that was going to miss tomorrow's meeting; and she was putting all of this in as overtime; and she couldn't believe it because she had already spent $30 of her per diem at the airport and now, NOW! she was going to have to stay at this MOTEL! "Oh my GAWD, I don't even know the name of it, but they didn't have anything else and OH, MY GAWD! It's a Ramada. We're pulling up now. Yeah, a RAMADA, can you believe I'm going to sleep in a MOTEL?!! Oh, and they wouldn't release my luggage." Yes, I had both ears full and was about to begin a little-bit of a fevered dance of my own if I didn't get out of the group of terribly put-upon people. As soon as the van was in park, I was out the side door and at the rear bumper to retrieve my duffel and get to the desk to check in. One woman was occupying the sole clerk and Ms. Oh-My-Gawd was on here cellphone reaching into her purse and attempting to walk into the second position. She stopped, blocking two other folks just behind her with her contorted corpse and that was all I needed. A quick step to my right and I was at the desk. I had card, ID and confirmation number ready when Shaniqua looked up in my direction. I was up to room 340 to dump my bags and back downstairs by the time Ms. Oh-My-Gawd was approaching the elevators. She was still on the phone, so I didn't stop to press her with some mack. I darted to the unmanned computer in the lobby, shot the 411 to Madrid via email and marched down a rainy patch of nowhere, somewhere outside of the I-240 belt, south of Memphis. My goal? Food, liquor, beer or anything better to do. I stomped through and around puddles and mudded-up sidewalk past car dealerships and chicken shacks seeing nothing promising amidst the neon signage beyond, ducked inot a Citgo about a quarter mile away from the motel. I grabbed three tallboys of high-gravity lager and paid my money to the cashier behind the bulletproof glass, but not before he carded me (!!) "I must be looking good tonight, eh?" I said, getting no comment from the clerk. No matter. By the time I re-entered the lobby, the line was down to four souls. I walked on down the hall with much urgency and hit the stairwell door just as Ms. Oh-My-Gawd was coming down from her room. "OH MY GAWD!!!" she shrieked, astonished that there was somebody else in the motel, using the same door as she...at the same time. I stepped aside to let her pass and began laughing. As I lunged up the first flight of steps, I cackled in falsetto mockery, OH MY GAWD! and was up the steps, down the hall and into the room to order a pie, strip, shower and redress. I was finishing my first slice of Memphis BBQ pizza and cracking open the second can when John Stewart was going over all the hubbub about Mrs. Obama touching the Queen of England. THE HORROR!
In the baggage room at Greyhound Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997)
I In the depths of the Greyhound Terminal sitting dumbly on a baggage truck looking at the sky waiting for the Los Angeles Express to depart worrying about eternity over the Post Office roof in the night-time red downtown heaven, staring through my eyeglasses I realized shuddering these thoughts were not eternity, nor the poverty of our lives, irritable baggage clerks, nor the millions of weeping relatives surrounding the buses waving goodbye, nor other millions of the poor rushing around from city to city to see their loved ones, nor an indian dead with fright talking to a huge cop by the Coke machine, nor this trembling old lady with a cane taking the last trip of her life, nor the red capped cynical porter collecting his quarters and smiling over the smashed baggage, nor me looking around at the horrible dream, nor mustached negro Operating Clerk named Spade, dealing out with his marvelous long hand the fate of thousands of express packages, nor fairy Sam in the basement limping from leaden trunk to trunk, oe at the counter with his nervous breakdown smiling cowardly at the customers, nor the grayish-green whale's stomach interior loft where we keep the baggage in hideous racks, hundreds of suitcases full of tragedy rocking back and forth waiting to be opened, nor the baggage that's lost, nor damaged handles, name-plates vanished, busted wires & broken ropes, whole trunks exploding on the concrete floor, nor seabags emptied into the night in the final warehouse.
En la consigna de la Greyhound
I En las profundidades de la Terminal de la Greyhound sentado como un estúpido sobre un camión de equipaje mirando al cielo esperando la salida del Expreso de Los Angeles preocupándome acerca de la eternidad sobre el tejado de la Oficina de correos en el cielo rojo de la noche del centro de la ciudad, mirando con pasmo a través de mis gafas me di cuenta estremecido de que estos pensamientos no eran la eternidad, ni tampoco la pobreza de nuestras vidas, irritables encargados de equipajes, ni tampoco los millones de sollozantes parientes que rodeaban los autobuses diciendo adiós, ni tampoco otros millones de pobres apresurándose de ciudad en ciudad para ver a las personas amadas, ni tampoco un indio muerto de miedo hablando con gigantesco poli junto a la máquina expendedora de Cola, ni tampoco esta temblorosa anciana con su bastón que emprende el último viaje de su vida, ni tampoco el cínico portero de la gorra roja que recoje sus propinas y sonríe mirando el machacado equipaje, ni tampoco yo mirando en derredor mío al horrible sueño, ni tampoco el mostachudo empleado negro de Operaciones llamado Spade, repartiendo con su maravillosa larga mano el destino de miles de paquetes express, ni tampoco el marica Sam en el sótano cojeando de plúmbeo baúl en baúl ni tampoco Joe en el mostrador con su crisis nerviosa sonriendo cobardemente a los clientes, ni tampoco el ático gris verdoso estómago de ballena donde guardamos el equipaje en detestables estanterías, centenares de maletas repletas de tragedia balanceándose de un lado para otro esperando ser abiertas, ni tampoco el equipaje que se pierde, ni tampoco las asas rotas, las desvanecidas placas de identificación, los alambres reventados & las cuerdas rotas los baúles enteros reventando sobre el suelo de cemento, ni las talegas de marinero vaciadas de noche en el almacén final.
SEPTEM FAITH Angels are falling by the dozen. Having coaxed hope from men and children, they've got Catholic guilt and yearn for a flavored vodka to put out the flames. Torn away from contemplation, they smoke and drink and call in sick. They know that this won't mix well with their Pfizer candy and blind faith won't pay the bills, but the leader of the free world keeps his fellatio secret and preaches peace with firepower and lottery tickets. Penny said, "I know things will get better", then fell out of bed, bruising her face on a piggy bank. Ezekiel hopped a bus and a train with one ticket to nowhere but the blur away from his head that was beginning to talk about moving to a better city anyway. The needle is beyond E and bounces every time we hit a pothole. When angels turn to fear and the glue's not as sticky, I searches for an answer to signal me home, I heard an old man say to his eggs today. The bomb technician was a poodle that said, "I hope I know what I'm doing", before his matter painted the white walls with crimson and fur. That from the chattering bush in Tower Grove Park, as a horse clip-clopped through the sky, hot on the trail of a giant carrot, bobbing on the end of a string tied to a stick which nobody can see. A hipster prints out bumper stickers that read, "It's an egg, not an omelet". Sweating, Luther awakes. Sun creeps through the blinds and he slides his thumb over the "on" button. The chorus sings, "Why does there have to be a morning after?" The DJ croaks. Luther knows he'll feel better if he gets up and swallows a whale's load of cold water and bicycles hands free through the streets and alleys in the afternoon sun, looking at the despair in every set of eyes and maybe a smile from those who think they're getting away with something. He'll hawk up two or three barrooms and wash the rest of it off when he gets home. He likes the way it laughs as it swirls down the drain and the way that laughter echoes in the shower. Everything's gonna be all right...until he can't do this in the middle of the day any longer. Or until he has to explain it to someone who has no idea or would rather not be reminded that Angels are falling by the dozen. Having coaxed hope from men and children, they've got Catholic guilt and yearn for a flavored vodka to put out the flames. Torn away from contemplation, they smoke and drink and call in sick. They know that this won't mix well with their Pfizer candy and blind faith won't pay the bills, but the leader of the free world keeps his fellatio secret and preaches peace with firepower and lottery tickets. Penny said, "I know things will get better", then fell out of bed, bruising her face on a piggy bank. Ezekiel hopped a bus and a train with one ticket to nowhere but the blur away from his head that was beginning to talk about moving to a better city anyway. The needle is beyond E and bounces every time we hit a pothole. When angels turn to fear and the glue's not as sticky, I searches for an answer to signal me home, I heard an old man say to his eggs today. The bomb technician was a poodle that said, "I hope I know what I'm doing", before his matter painted the white walls with crimson and fur. That from the chattering bush in Tower Grove Park, as a horse clip-clopped through the sky, hot on the trail of a giant carrot, bobbing on the end of a string tied to a stick which nobody can see.
A hipster prints out bumper stickers that read, "It's an egg, not an omelet". Sweating, Luther awakes. Sun creeps through the blinds and he slides his thumb over the "on" button. The chorus sings, "Why does there have to be a morning after?" The DJ croaks. Luther knows he'll feel better if he gets up and swallows a whale's load of cold water and bicycles hands free through the streets and alleys in the afternoon sun, looking at the despair in every set of eyes and maybe a smile from those who think they're getting away with something. He'll hawk up two or three barrooms and wash the rest of it off when he gets home. He likes the way it laughs as it swirls down the drain and the way that laughter echoes in the shower. Everything's gonna be all right...until he can't do this in the middle of the day any longer. Or until he has to explain it to someone who has no idea or would rather not be reminded that Angels are falling by the dozen. Having coaxed hope from men and children, they've got Catholic guilt and yearn for a flavored vodka to put out the flames. Torn away from contemplation, they smoke and drink and call in sick. They know that this won't mix well with their Pfizer candy and blind faith won't pay the bills, but the leader of the free world keeps his fellatio secret and preaches peace with firepower and lottery tickets. Penny said, "I know things will get better", then fell out of bed, bruising her face on a piggy bank. Ezekiel hopped a bus and a train with one ticket to nowhere but the blur away from his head that was beginning to talk about moving to a better city anyway. The needle is beyond E and bounces every time we hit a pothole. When angels turn to fear and the glue's not as sticky, I searches for an answer to signal me home, I heard an old man say to his eggs today. The bomb technician was a poodle that said, "I hope I know what I'm doing", before his matter painted the white walls with crimson and fur. That from the chattering bush in Tower Grove Park, as a horse clip-clopped through the sky, hot on the trail of a giant carrot, bobbing on the end of a string tied to a stick which nobody can see. A hipster prints out bumper stickers that read, "It's an egg, not an omelet". Sweating, Luther awakes. Sun creeps through the blinds and he slides his thumb over the "on" button. The chorus sings, "Why does there have to be a morning after?" The DJ croaks. Luther knows he'll feel better if he gets up and swallows a whale's load of cold water and bicycles hands free through the streets and alleys in the afternoon sun, looking at the despair in every set of eyes and maybe a smile from those who think they're getting away with something. He'll hawk up two or three barrooms and wash the rest of it off when he gets home. He likes the way it laughs as it swirls down the drain and the way that laughter echoes in the shower. Everything's gonna be all right...until he can't do this in the middle of the day any longer. Or until he has to explain it to someone who has no idea or would rather not be reminded that Angels are falling by the dozen. Having coaxed hope from men and children, they've got Catholic guilt and yearn for a flavored vodka to put out the flames. Torn away from contemplation, they smoke and drink and call in sick. They know that this won't mix well with their Pfizer candy and blind faith won't pay the bills, but the leader of the free world keeps his fellatio secret and preaches peace with firepower and lottery tickets. Penny said, "I know things will get better", then fell out of bed, bruising her face on a piggy bank. Ezekiel hopped a bus and a train with one ticket to nowhere but the blur away from his head that was beginning to talk about moving to a better city anyway. The needle is beyond E and bounces every time we hit a pothole. When angels turn to fear and the glue's not as sticky, I searches for an answer to signal me home, I heard an old man say to his eggs today. The bomb technician was a poodle that said, "I hope I know what I'm doing", before his matter painted the white walls with crimson and fur. That from the chattering bush in Tower Grove Park, as a horse clip-clopped through the sky, hot on the trail of a giant carrot, bobbing on the end of a string tied to a stick which nobody can see. A hipster prints out bumper stickers that read, "It's an egg, not an omelet". Sweating, Luther awakes. Sun creeps through the blinds and he slides his thumb over the "on" button. The chorus sings, "Why does there have to be a morning after?" The DJ croaks. Luther knows he'll feel better if he gets up and swallows a whale's load of cold water and bicycles hands free through the streets and alleys in the afternoon sun, looking at the despair in every set of eyes and maybe a smile from those who think they're getting away with something. He'll hawk up two or three barrooms and wash the rest of it off when he gets home. He likes the way it laughs as it swirls down the drain and the way that laughter echoes in the shower. Everything's gonna be all right...until he can't do this in the middle of the day any longer. Or until he has to explain it to someone who has no idea or would rather not be reminded that Angels are falling by the dozen. Having coaxed hope from men and children, they've got Catholic guilt and yearn for a flavored vodka to put out the flames. Torn away from contemplation, they smoke and drink and call in sick. They know that this won't mix well with their Pfizer candy and blind faith won't pay the bills, but the leader of the free world keeps his fellatio secret and preaches peace with firepower and lottery tickets. Penny said, "I know things will get better", then fell out of bed, bruising her face on a piggy bank. Ezekiel hopped a bus and a train with one ticket to nowhere but the blur away from his head that was beginning to talk about moving to a better city anyway. The needle is beyond E and bounces every time we hit a pothole. When angels turn to fear and the glue's not as sticky, I searches for an answer to signal me home, I heard an old man say to his eggs today. The bomb technician was a poodle that said, "I hope I know what I'm doing", before his matter painted the white walls with crimson and fur. That from the chattering bush in Tower Grove Park, as a horse clip-clopped through the sky, hot on the trail of a giant carrot, bobbing on the end of a string tied to a stick which nobody can see. A hipster prints out bumper stickers that read, "It's an egg, not an omelet". Sweating, Luther awakes. Sun creeps through the blinds and he slides his thumb over the "on" button. The chorus sings, "Why does there have to be a morning after?" The DJ croaks. Luther knows he'll feel better if he gets up and swallows a whale's load of cold water and bicycles hands free through the streets and alleys in the afternoon sun, looking at the despair in every set of eyes and maybe a smile from those who think they're getting away with something. He'll hawk up two or three barrooms and wash the rest of it off when he gets home. He likes the way it laughs as it swirls down the drain and the way that laughter echoes in the shower. Everything's gonna be all right...until he can't do this in the middle of the day any longer. Or until he has to explain it to someone who has no idea or would rather not be reminded that Angels are falling by the dozen. Having coaxed hope from men and children, they've got Catholic guilt and yearn for a flavored vodka to put out the flames. Torn away from contemplation, they smoke and drink and call in sick. They know that this won't mix well with their Pfizer candy and blind faith won't pay the bills, but the leader of the free world keeps his fellatio secret and preaches peace with firepower and lottery tickets. Penny said, "I know things will get better", then fell out of bed, bruising her face on a piggy bank. Ezekiel hopped a bus and a train with one ticket to nowhere but the blur away from his head that was beginning to talk about moving to a better city anyway. The needle is beyond E and bounces every time we hit a pothole. When angels turn to fear and the glue's not as sticky, I searches for an answer to signal me home, I heard an old man say to his eggs today. The bomb technician was a poodle that said, "I hope I know what I'm doing", before his matter painted the white walls with crimson and fur. That from the chattering bush in Tower Grove Park, as a horse clip-clopped through the sky, hot on the trail of a giant carrot, bobbing on the end of a string tied to a stick which nobody can see. A hipster prints out bumper stickers that read, "It's an egg, not an omelet". Sweating, Luther awakes. Sun creeps through the blinds and he slides his thumb over the "on" button. The chorus sings, "Why does there have to be a morning after?" The DJ croaks. Luther knows he'll feel better if he gets up and swallows a whale's load of cold water and bicycles hands free through the streets and alleys in the afternoon sun, looking at the despair in every set of eyes and maybe a smile from those who think they're getting away with something. He'll hawk up two or three barrooms and wash the rest of it off when he gets home. He likes the way it laughs as it swirls down the drain and the way that laughter echoes in the shower. Everything's gonna be all right...until he can't do this in the middle of the day any longer. Or until he has to explain it to someone who has no idea or would rather not be reminded that Angels are falling by the dozen. Having coaxed hope from men and children, they've got Catholic guilt and yearn for a flavored vodka to put out the flames. Torn away from contemplation, they smoke and drink and call in sick. They know that this won't mix well with their Pfizer candy and blind faith won't pay the bills, but the leader of the free world keeps his fellatio secret and preaches peace with firepower and lottery tickets. Penny said, "I know things will get better", then fell out of bed, bruising her face on a piggy bank. Ezekiel hopped a bus and a train with one ticket to nowhere but the blur away from his head that was beginning to talk about moving to a better city anyway. The needle is beyond E and bounces every time we hit a pothole. When angels turn to fear and the glue's not as sticky, I searches for an answer to signal me home, I heard an old man say to his eggs today. The bomb technician was a poodle that said, "I hope I know what I'm doing", before his matter painted the white walls with crimson and fur. That from the chattering bush in Tower Grove Park, as a horse clip-clopped through the sky, hot on the trail of a giant carrot, bobbing on the end of a string tied to a stick which nobody can see. A hipster prints out bumper stickers that read, "It's an egg, not an omelet". Sweating, Luther awakes. Sun creeps through the blinds and he slides his thumb over the "on" button. The chorus sings, "Why does there have to be a morning after?" The DJ croaks. Luther knows he'll feel better if he gets up and swallows a whale's load of cold water and bicycles hands free through the streets and alleys in the afternoon sun, looking at the despair in every set of eyes and maybe a smile from those who think they're getting away with something. He'll hawk up two or three barrooms and wash the rest of it off when he gets home. He likes the way it laughs as it swirls down the drain and the way that laughter echoes in the shower. Everything's gonna be all right...until he can't do this in the middle of the day any longer. Or until he has to explain it to someone who has no idea or would rather not be reminded that Angels are falling by the dozen. Having coaxed hope from men and children, they've got Catholic guilt and yearn for a flavored vodka to put out the flames. Torn away from contemplation, they smoke and drink and call in sick. They know that this won't mix well with their Pfizer candy and blind faith won't pay the bills, but the leader of the free world keeps his fellatio secret and preaches peace with firepower and lottery tickets. Penny said, "I know things will get better", then fell out of bed, bruising her face on a piggy bank. Ezekiel hopped a bus and a train with one ticket to nowhere but the blur away from his head that was beginning to talk about moving to a better city anyway. The needle is beyond E and bounces every time we hit a pothole. When angels turn to fear and the glue's not as sticky, I searches for an answer to signal me home, I heard an old man say to his eggs today. The bomb technician was a poodle that said, "I hope I know what I'm doing", before his matter painted the white walls with crimson and fur. That from the chattering bush in Tower Grove Park, as a horse clip-clopped through the sky, hot on the trail of a giant carrot, bobbing on the end of a string tied to a stick which nobody can see. A hipster prints out bumper stickers that read, "It's an egg, not an omelet". Sweating, Luther awakes. Sun creeps through the blinds and he slides his thumb over the "on" button. The chorus sings, "Why does there have to be a morning after?" The DJ croaks. Luther knows he'll feel better if he gets up and swallows a whale's load of cold water and bicycles hands free through the streets and alleys in the afternoon sun, looking at the despair in every set of eyes and maybe a smile from those who think they're getting away with something. He'll hawk up two or three barrooms and wash the rest of it off when he gets home. He likes the way it laughs as it swirls down the drain and the way that laughter echoes in the shower. Everything's gonna be all right...until he can't do this in the middle of the day any longer. Or until he has to explain it to someone who has no idea or would rather not be reminded to rinse, lather and repeat or let go, let gods. Brett Lars Underwood, 2008
"He's got a lot of irons in the fire", she whispered, several feet away from the bar not knowing that he hears everything.
Everything!
It is quite maddening sometimes. Or atleast it used to be. Now he can weave mariachi with chainsaws; bowed cymbals with bees buzzing; bird calls with babbling seamen and jingling trinkets.
He doesn't mind at all, you see.
It just the music of his city.
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