Post-festival moans

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.

CAPTURED

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.

Cleansed.

I HAVE NO IDEA

The Good Stuff and the Rest


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/29/1/79 He 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.



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...and now watch this episode of IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA!!!!

Beer blogs differ. Yep, they do.

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/

Another St. Louis place to click for beer news is here.
http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/lager-heads/
Remains to be seen how they continue since Adam Jadhav left.

This is a small, but interesting collection of beer lovers
http://www.aleuminati.com/

...and by gosh and golly, look at the name of this blog.
http://thankheavenforbeer.com/

I happened along this one night while looking for a friend.
http://cheepbeer.blogspot.com/

But this one is perhaps the scariest of all and is not about beer at all, now is it?
http://cheapbeer.blogspot.com/

Only Cannibals Take Heart

ONLY CANNIBALS TAKE HEART

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 have a squeem

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.

Sunday en Sol: Lindy's rebuttal

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.