New Orleans the First Part

been feeling a little restless lately been feeling like i need to get up and go somewhere been feeling like my legs need to move like my head needs to spin like like like like i

need to spin need to spin going to new orleans on saturday this coming saturday ah i do so have this fond spot in my heart for new orleans i do i do i do i have stories about new orleans it was always the mystical place to go when growing up when growing up in georgia in south georgia where you going they'd say i'm going to new orleans i'd say ah yeah ah yes you going down to new orleans you be careful down there you here i hear

there's ghosts down there

yeah need to spin need to spin it up i'm heading down to new orleans my brother lives nearby in baton rouge he's been down there a while he says he's the he likes it it's scary down there he says living down in david duke country he says there is a sign as you are entering the parish that says you are entering david dukes country by golly by gum yeah need to spin

yeah i still go to new orleans every now and then i go for business now but i didn't used to go for business i used to just go for ol' phatmike's sake i used to travel down for adventure used to be up to no good a little debauchery a little of this a little of that

one trip i turned twenty-one in new orleans i did i did i did

winter spring of my senior year of college took a break from college actually took a big big break from college i took the semester off went home and worked partied tripped a lot got my first professional writing job i was a sportswriter for the valdosta daily times i sat in the newsroom on tuesday and friday evenings and took phone calls from the local basketball coaches took down the scores chatted them up

yeah yeah got that fifty-three to thirty-seven sounds like a pretty good romp coach who had the high score uh-huh what was the big play who was the high scorer who fouled out uh-huh yeah that's a good one no coach i can't print that heh yeah okay i can say that i can say that got it it's a wrap talk to you next week good luck

i'd hang up the phone write up my stories and leave them on my editor's desk it was the evening it was dark no one else was there just old black royal typewriters on everyone's desk i liked to sit at the desk of the religious editor and leave dirty little notes typed up on her royal she had a cute ass and i liked to tell her

anonymously

and you know i didn't tell you why i was on a break from college why i decided to leave the bright lights big city why i decided to interrupt my academic pursuits well i'll tell you now i will i'm sure it won't surprise you i left school because of a broken heart yeah yeah she broke my heart and i just didn't want to stick around so i went home to the swamp hung out and got stoned quite a bit and hit on the local women redneck women i do enjoy redneck pussy on occasion and i hung out with my old buds and landed a job writing sports shit for the newspaper paid me a whopping hundred dollars a week i think that's when i decided i didn't want to be a journalist hell hundred dollars would barely support my dope habit i headed back to atlanta so i'm

sitting around back in atlanta just returned to atlanta my buddy kevin called and said hey why don't you come down to new orleans for a while you know just until the next semester starts i said dig my man kevin we called him kay-bee he lived across the hall from me freshman year he lived with chrono sophomore year i lived with chrono and kevin junior year he was my best friend funny when someone says hey he was my best friend you know that there's a story there but hell it ain't this story maybe next story ah shit why not this story it ain't like i have a point here how do you know that this ain't the story i'm telling after all yeah yeah

yeah he was my best friend he and i used to teach other to write he gave me my first journal we used to trip together we used to get stoned together we used to drink and throw up together i held his head with a cold rag on more than one occasion i remember one time he got so drunk he crawled under a table and i had to drag him out he got drunk and crawled under that table because he because

he also had been hurt deeply by a woman about a year before i had my debacle he up and moved to new orleans to manage the kitchen of a restaurant so he called me up he said why don't you come on down you can work in the restaurant and we'll party for your birthday i said

sounds fucking good i'll bring some blotter

so i made my way down to eye-eighty-five with a backpack and a sleeping bag and a little food and a little weed and a couple hits of blotter and i stuck out my thumb and no car came for a while so i let one of the little pieces of blotter slide under my tongue and caught a ride oh baby did i catch a ride i caught a fucking ride fucking magic carpet ride baby i know a car must have stopped i know that someone must have said hey buddy where you going but by golly the next thing i know i'm waking up in a field southwest of the mississippi border all cozy in my sleeping bag and i have everything that i left atlanta with except the second hit of blotter oh well shit happens

i hopped in the first car that stopped near that field he  too said where you headed i said new orleans he said i'm going down just a little north of the lake you can catch a ride on the last bit with someone else i hopped in and it started to rain the dude said i got some weed i said cool the dude said i like your earring i rolled my eyes the dude said i guess you're not that way he pulled over i got out no hard feelings he said i said none at all i stuck my thumb out in the rain my pack got wet my sleeping bag got wet i managed to keep my weed dry some old dude and what i thought was his grandson picked me up

meridian mississippi on down to laurel and ellisville through picayune and slidell over pontchartrain and down into new orleans around evening time let me out across from some dark fucking cemetary

it was still raining

i called kevin he gave me an address in metairie i caught a cab it was still raining he was getting off work i gave him a hug we laughed we joked we cried a little we had beers we went out kevin and me and a few people from work the restaurant crowd ah the restaurant crowd it's a party crowd in any city the restaurant crowd we hit a couple of bars in metairie we sat around we drank i ran my hands along the leg of one of his friends she says that calvin klein was is her uncle i said cool i said i had on calvin klein underwear did she want to see them she said

cool

and i got me a little taste of calvin klein's dna she said that she was his sister's kid going to tulane working at the restaurant maybe she lied to me i didn't care she was tasty kay-bee asked how tasty i said she was quite tasty thank you he said where's my blotter i said well it's like this and we went out for breakfast and the next day not the breakfast day but the following day i was going to turn twenty-one and kevin said let's go down to the quarter i said cool

we went down to the quarter we bought ludes we drank we sang we got into arguments you know only the kind of arguments that you can get into when you are doing quaaludes geeze ludes who would have thought i haven't even thought about ludes in ten twenty years we used to eat them like candy jesus we're lucky to be alive vitamin q we called them disco biscuits we called them fuck pills we called them ah yeah ludes we bought ludes we drank we argued me and kevin we argued i yelled at him for

leaving atlanta

i told him he was a coward i told him he should not have left me there he yelled at me he told me that i didn't understand that i did the same thing i said yeah but i'm going back i was just taking a break we yelled we fought we cried we hugged then we proceeded to get very very drunk i told him that i he was my best friend he told me that i was his best friend then on the way back to the car we sat down in jackson square to smoke a joint it was late not many people were out even in new orleans not many people were out we smoked a joint and i passed out and

when i woke up he was gone

and the sun had taken his place and i reached into my pockets and had just a little money and a little weed and i bought myself a cup of coffee and a bignet and i sat down on the bench and listened to a pretty woman playing her guitar and singing and some people dropped money into her guitar case and she smiled at them i found a scrap of paper in the trash can and pulled a pen out of my pocket and scrawled a little poem a short little poem something about waking up in the park to the sound of angels redheaded angels how she took my breath away and all i had to give her were a couple of words on an old piece of paper and

i dropped the poem into her guitar case

and she smiled at me and later came over and sat next to me and we talked she was older she lived in a little apartment around the corner she asked if i wanted to come around and drink some wine with her and i said no oh no but i lit her a cigarette and i lit her a joint and we talked a bit and we talked a bit and she touched my leg she touched my cheek and we laughed and

she had freckles

and she had green eyes and she had this deep southern accent more genteel than redneck and i wanted to nibble on her throat yes i did and she wanted me to nibble on her throat yes she did but but but

how can one put moves on an angel

and she laughed she smiled and we talked a bit more and eventually kevin came back around laughing and i laughed and we all laughed and we drank coffee and ate more sugary sweet bignets and wiped powdered sugar all over each other and on the way back to the car i thanked kevin he said for what and i said

i don't know i don't know i don't know and he said well no problem and we walked a bit more and he turned and said well hey she had freckles and i said yeah didn't know that angels had freckles and he said yeah well

some of them do you know some of them do have freckles

red hair green eyes freckles and all that

Redemption Song

the cantor changed the tunes to most of the songs at temple can she do that is that allowed i mean i am relatively new to this i was just getting used to the old ways the old school not that m ever sang in a traditional way she uses a guitar others sometime bring up congas maracas not your traditional service i understand but it slides into your consciousness in that

old fashioned hippie sort of way

it's not as distracting as the dude who just walked in wearing a hot pink miniskirt and red socks and ballet slippers but i understand it's a very hot day here today record temperatures i'm sure it's got something to do with george dubya and kyoto and global warming but i can't quite put my finger on the connection no not as distracting but still disturbing the older i get the more difficult i find to accept change

she changed the tunes changed the tunes just didn't recognize them i guess it's been a while since i've visited the temple been a couple of months i go to the one on arguello street big old temple right next to dianne feinstein's house they post a guard at the entrance to dianne's neighborhood she's a senator you know she claims to be a democrat but i think she's a fucking republican she voted for the war i don't like her

she changed the tunes i guess it's been a while lately i've been going to the church of the roof of the south end rowing club mostly getting righteous with jah and my buds not as many pews we don't really have a cantor but we have fellowship and we have god and we partake of the buddha we pass along the incense we bless our space we bless

the air

we partake of the body of jah we've been cleansed we've been baptized but this day the cantor changed all the tunes she changed she changed oh lord she changed but she can't change the way we reflect the holiness in our lives she can't change that

she won't change my son when he's bar-mitzvah'd this fall she didn't change my older son she didn't change my daughter they both stood up there they did the baruch adonai thing i kissed them on their lovely foreheads i told them i told the congregation how much i loved them how proud i was to be their old man their pop their dad she didn't change them but she nudged them along

she sings with such a lovely voice long flowing gray hair like the hippie chick she is yeah we still have hippies here in san francisco just like the song says i know that there must be some song somewhere about hippies in san francisco there must be she sings with such a lovely voice i dig the aural sensation i dig the way my heart feels when she sings

she sang about redemption mi chamocha nedar bakodesh on the roof of the south end we sing about redemption as well we sing songs of freedom we all sing these songs of freedom all we have are songs of freedom all we need are songs of freedom cause all we've ever had are redemption songs all we've ever needed are redemption songs

walking down the sidewalk hundreds of people walking toward me they part like the red sea i'm walking to freedom they part like old moses raised his staff i'm walking to freedom they part like the water parts as i plow through it they part i'm walking to freedom where are they going all sorts of people damn it's hot damn it's hot they are dressed oddly it's too hot too hot too hot for this old town we don't do hot weather

look at all the pale skin

even the dark skinned people are pale skinned in this town they look so funny in shorts and tank tops they look so sexy so hot hot hot i think that i will call you hot holly yes you young thing hot hot hot holly you just look the name all we've ever needed are redemption songs all we've ever needed redemption ain't no mental slave ain't no ain't no ain't no all we ever need is redemption

shirah chadasha shib'chu g'ulim l'simcha al safat ha-yam they come pouring down the sidewalk they come pouring down the street hundreds of thousands of them crying for freedom crying for redemption crying crying crying won't you help to sing this redemption song down on the seashore we sing we cry

redemption song and all that

Lucy

lucy honey i'm home

been a long week been a long week been a long time been a long time been a lonely lonely lonely lonely time up early up way to fucking early on the monday on the tuesday on the wednesday you follow what i'm saying here every fucking morning meetings way too early worse i had to get up early and drive to get there don't like traffic on the one oh one in the morning not my thing i mean

don't get me wrong i'm an early morning kind of guy i do indeed dig my mornings i like to get up with the darkness and bring myself to life with the dawn i do dig the dawn i'm not a stay up and watch letterman kind of guy fuck i'm not a letterman kind guy anyway not that i'm a leno guy either is it true that there's only two types of people in this country leno and letterman kind of people what about ted koppel i mean he's no slouch fuck i'm stuck in a crack i guess i don't really care for either of them

if truth be told if i'm up that late i mean if i'm up that late it's a rare moment already so it's not like the guys who are the guys make programming decisions with me in mind but truth be told if i'm up that late i'm watching some stupid sitcom i am a fan of the stupid sitcom i watch seinfeld reruns i think that the simpsons is the greates television show ever to be broadcast i dig the partridge family i dig andy griffith i dig leave it to beaver ok it ain't so much the beave as it is june standing in the kitchen in her dress and high heels and pearls i want to lean june up against the sink and lift that skirt and and and yeah yeah i want june cleaver baby

but i also had this thing for marlo thomas when i was thirteen i wanted to fuck that girl in her little hip self walking around new york new york wanted to fuck that girl i also had this thing for laurie partridge i wanted those braces on those teeth around my cock

ok ok ok ok yeah i sometimes also delve into the western i do dig that movie channel that is all westerns i'm into the john wayne jimmy stewart henry fonda thing my three favorite westerns of all time though are in this order the wild bunch the magnificent seven and the man who shot liberty valence don't get me wrong i do indeed dig the spaghetti westerns clint was cool and i even have a soft spot in my heart for

cat balou because that was my mom's favorite movie and ok ok there is always painted wagon where fucking clint eastwood sang he is indeed a closet homosexual hell look at him then i guess i would probably have fucked him myself i don't necessarily consider myself a homosexual not having had a homosexual experience to speak of well not recently not when i've been sober at least not that i can remember at least remember well hey it's none of your fucking business who's dick is being sucked by whom

clint eastwood was most cool in the outlaw josie wales but the book was much better been been been a long week

just finished my week just had lunch with this crazy fucking israeli you have to be in the right mood to do deals with israelis you have to be ready to get down get a little dirty laugh tell each other to fuck off trash them trash their product skills solution suggestions whatever it's just the way it is the art of the deal the raw deal doesn't matter if it's cardboard or floating processor gate arrays or fucking garbanzo beans it's the art of the deal

it's never lying i mean it's never considered lying it's just doing what you have to do to get the deal no one is being deliberately fucked it's just the way the game is played it's marbles for keeps don't be a chump because chumps are not respected but don't play anyone like a chump that ain't cool that ain't in the code

he said this i said that we met in this hip little art cafe in the inner sunset velvet underground playing in the background open windows right on the park beautiful skies warm for san francisco all these em dee wannabe's sitting around with their little med school notes the web hipsters are starting to come back a number of them sitting around with their laptops all sorts of cute young things popping in and out for coffee the

one beautiful thing

about this seventies thing coming back is the reawakening of the halter top all sorts of beautiful breasts bouncing by makes me want to stand up and show the world my hardon speaking of which my man peter and i were having coffee this morning out in aquatic park hanging out a bit after our swim and we took note of two pigeons fucking right in front of us big stud pigeon on top popping pigeon pussy didn't take long he jumps off he's strutting around like there's no tomorrow chest puffed out wings spread just a bit he's telling his buddies hey

i fucked her you should too all these

beautiful breasts bouncing by passing pigeons popping pigeon pussy fucking sox on fox baby i do love a beautiful day in san francisco but ok ok ok ok sometimes the return of the halter top ain't necessarily such a beautiful thing i mean some things are better left out not being known but hey i guess it's all good my sense of beauty my sense of what is pretty ain't the end all but baby baby baby i guess we all deal in that realm of style over substance sometimes

i fucked her you should too all these lovely lovely pigeons my man s went back to the you kay had the red-eye my man r went back to hong kong my boys from tel aviv are still in town being in a room with forty guys going through numbers and strategy and numbers and feature sets and numbers and competitive analysis and numbers and we're forty guys in a room and each and every one of us has just finished eating burritos and never do you ever plan on a big enough meeting room and we're forty guys just off a burrito grunge and it's a small room and it ain't pretty it ain't so much the smell as it is

the green mist that stings my eyes

but today it's over just a couple of meetings a couple of phone calls my lunch with the israeli stereotype i had tomato and mozarella he had some foccacia bread sandwich he had diet coke i had double shot americano pump it up baby i have a poker game tonight going to win some money going to win some dough going to win going to win

it's all the same it's all in the deal it's all in how you play the cards that you're dealt i don't mind pulling for the flush don't like pulling for the straight

i like hanging in my town ain't a bad town to hang in where else is life this good where else can i hang out in a cafe and drink coffee and do my work and walk across to the park and smoke a phattie and come back and drink some more coffee and be surrounded by beatuful bouncing breasts and wink at the carriers the supporters the owners of said bouncing breasts hey hey hey

life is beautiful and all that

rain prayers

rain rain go away
come again some other day
if i die before i wake
i pray thee lord my soul to take
eenie meenie minie moe
c'mon rain let it go
eenie meenie minie mae
take me rain no take my way

i believe in the goddess, the god, moses, jah, jesus, buddha, muhammad, bill faulkner and my dog cuda
   who some believe to have created the heavens the earth and all in between
   and i believe in peace i believe in love

who were conceived of and by the holy spirit
   consorted with virgins and harlots and
   suffered beneath the yoke of oppression beneath the wheel beneath the thumb
   some were crucified some were arrogant some had fleas but not all died

each who descended into the hell of my thoughts into the hell of my dreams
   into the depths of creation
   the miasma of creativity

and then arose from the ashes broke free of these earthly entanglements

who ascended through my loins into the heavens
   and sits in the lap of the goddess
   who shall who shall who shall forever more be one with love

i believe in this holy spirit the holy sacraments of the mother
   the communion of love and lust
   the forgiveness of sins
   the resurrection of the body
   and life everlasting

i believe i believe i believe and i speak baruch ata adonai allah akbar namaste fuck me you wild animal of a whore ride my cock like the goddess you are

i burn the sugar to touch your hot caramel i burn the kind green bud to get closer to you sweet goddess i give thanks i ask for blessings i am supine i am prostrate i bury my face in your lap and cry and cry and cry

and cry

little black eddie
sat on his dump pile
fingering nuclear rubble
   maybe he'll fry
   maybe he'll die
maybe he'll simmer and bubble

eenie meenie minie moe
seasons come seasons go
eenie meenie minie mae
the rain yeah she goes away

blue skies and all that

Tale of Two Cities

ah the milky way the milky way it's so milky it's so way way way ah the milky way i do so dig the milky way it's so milky

first city santa cruz

sunday santa cruz boardwalk on the beach sunday santa cruz the j-man day his day the third day baby on the third day sunday santa cruz boardwalk on the beach got to give the guy his day arising from the dead and all that i mean it's a cool trick but i got to tell you i am much more impressed with the peace the love the healing the fucking beatitudes baby that's the part that melts my butter

sunday sunday santa cruz me and kids their friends followed the path over the hills and through the woods dropped down into santa cruz home of the banana slug i hear they're quite delicious when washed and sauteed with butter white wine garlic and shallots hell ain't much that ain't good when sauteed with butter white wine garlic and shallots

there's the beach there's the pier there's the cliffs off to the south there's the boardwalk in all it's glory past present and future there's the log ride there's the typhoon there's the twister there's the cyclone there's the hurricane there's the bumper cars yeah there's a ferris wheel a haunted house and great googlie mooglie there's the giant dipper it's hell she's a beautiful sight to behold she's big and old and shapely with lots of hills great and small and it's made out of wood big ass wooden structure it shakes rattles and rolls baby she's the queen

but set off by the rail on the beach side is my favorite i don't even know what you call it it's that concession that used to be when i was a kid back in georgia at the county fair it used to be this big bell on top of a pole and you hit this base with some huge fucking sledge hammer and tried to ring the bell but this one at santa cruz on the boardwalk it's one of these new fangled ones it's got lights and there ain't no bell there's just this round scoreboard looking thing at the top of this pole and you

fucking wail on this base with this big ass heavy sledge-looking hammer

but it's kind of cartoonish like something bugs bunny would have bonked old yosemite sam on the noggin with 

and the scoreboard gives you this number and if you hit that base hard enough and get a big enough score then you get your classic boardwalk prize you know a stuffed animal a big green hairy snake plump with poly-fill sewn in indonesia with nothing but love 

if you hit it hard enough the lights all go flashing and some computerized voice programmed to sound like what someone thinks a santa cruz beach surfer dude is supposed to sound like it says smart-ass things to you like oh wow dude that's awesome or oh dude bummer weak

it attracts a small crowd i was honored to be a part of this crowd we milled about my kids were off riding rides me i'm digging the dudes with the hammers we milled about we watched we cheered we jeered it was all good fun all these guys with their girlfriends wives lovers mistresses in tow trying to win the stuffed doll just knowing just knowing that the stuffed doll was the ticket to the best blow job he'd had in months maybe years

when they fuck up when the numbers ain't quite right they turn around and laugh nervously someone in the crowd would lean over to his buddy and say you know it's all in the technique it don't matter how strong you are it's in the technique

mostly hispanic guys a couple of brothers one asian dude with his family some biker dudes this one white guy with his girlfriend tall stringbean kind of guy blonde he wailed with the hammer he walked back to his girlfriend she was hot she slipped him some tongue when he handed her no tossed her the stuffed dinosaur green she had red hair from a bottle maybe copper and wore a cheap leather jacket he sported a baseball cap that said guns n roses and he wore a black long-sleeved metallica t-shirt

he was me or rather i was him in nineteen hundred and seventy-seven except my hair was longer in that lynrd skynrd kind of way and i was sleeping with a woman ten years older than me ah man the things she taught me

second city san francisco

i walked the dogs it's monday now not sunday on sunday i walked the dogs too then i went to santa cruz the boardwalk i walk the dogs most every day but now i'm talking about monday when i walked the dogs that's what i'm talking about

i walk the dogs in the woods across from my house i walk the dogs there a lot big redwood trees big ferns a couple of campers they come they go

i found a bomb

usually when i'm out walking the dogs i find stuff you know a car gets broken into a purse a backpack gets stolen they get what they want they throw it in the woods often i find them i walk the dogs early it's like aa em baby i find stuff i look inside to see if there is any identification sometimes there is and i track them down and get them their purse backpack whatever seems to be my job my role in the neighborhood just trying to make the neighborhood a better place to live

i return lost property

so i found this black bag a laptop bag it was perched up in these ferns like someone had thrown it down there i picked it up i opened it up there's this set of ski goggles there's this ace bandage there's this shoe box i open the shoebox and there are these long cylinders three of them wrapped in electrical tape with wires coming out and going over to this other thing that's all electrical tape

i admittedly i will gladly admit i flushed a bit i definitely went pale a little bit i'm quite proud i didn't piss my pants but but but i might have had i thought about it a bit i put it down on the ground gently even i didn't just toss it down i gave this box the respect it deserved

i mean i don't know that it was a bomb i don't know for sure it was a bomb don't know that it wasn't either kind of scary looking

i call my lawyer he always knows what to do in these kinds of situations he says call the police i call the police non-emergency dispatch number five five three oh one two three the first thing the dispatch lady asks me are they policepersons the dispatch people she asked me if it was fucking ticking i'm thinking

does your fucking watch tick lady

i will bet you a lot of money that your fucking watch doesn't tick things don't tick anymore it's like she got her job through the raymond chandler talent agency is it fucking ticking is she fucking kidding i wonder if the bomb on the train in madrid was fucking ticking tick tick tick fucking tock

the police showed up a couple of minutes later first patrol car pulls up i'm in front of my house she doesn't pull up to the two open spaces at the curb she just stops in the lane blocking traffic no flashing lights i would have really appreciated some flashing lights i walk her across the street down the path behind the bus stop into the woods show her the bag show her the box shoe her the bomb she looks at it she won't touch it she looks at me and says

you shouldn't have opened the box

i'm like well if i hadn't opened the box i wouldn't have called you and someone else would have opened the box it's just a fucking laptop bag in the fucking woods for crying out loud she called her sarge

sarge was a big man a large man hell he was a fat fuck i'm surprised he made it down the hill i'm afraid he's going to fall down the little hill going down into the woods he looks at it he won't touch it he looks at me and says

you shouldn't have opened the box

no shit sherlock he calls the bomb squad a couple more cars pull up i got to go to a meeting i say later they say thanks i say no problem they stand around looking at the box at the bomb

i don't know it was a bomb i don't know i left i had to go to a meeting i didn't wait for the bomb squad they didn't leave me a little note saying hey it really wasn't a bomb but thanks for calling it was nice to meet you no not saying holy shit dude you found a real live fucking bomb you're fucking lucky to be alive don't you know that

you shouldn't have opened the box

nope nothing no note no nothing

i went to my meeting the bomb thing fucked up my swim didn't have time to go to the water felt a little grumpy about that fucking bomb thing

and all that

Easter

.easter

,and all that

cause for celebration

,and all that

let's make a snuff film show the son of god getting the shit kicked out of him let's make him a white man in this film because all the fucking catholics and evangelists in the countries with money hell they're white of course jesus was a white man lots of white men in jerusalem couple of thousand years ago let's make a snuff film we'll make three hundred million buckeroos almost as good as porn maybe we can squeeze in some good sex before we off the old guy blood doesn't show as well on white skin as it does on black skin but i don't think we can sell the jesus as nigger story it just doesn't fly in birmingham doesn't fly in boston doesn't fly in cleveland baby just doesn't fly let's make a snuff film we could make mary magdalene be black maybe after all she was a prostitute after all after all heh heh wouldn't it be a bit of a joke to show the jay man getting it on with a black mary mag maybe that could be the underground version we still got to make money don't you know let's make a snuff film

.it's easter

,and all that

crack me a fucking egg i'm hungry might as well fricassee the rabbit while we're at it give the bones to the dog let's see if the rabbit can get himself back out of that hat trick baby redemption redemption redemption get down on your hands and knees and receive the blood of christ receive the flesh of christ hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done at macy's as it is in heaven

.it's easter let's celebrate i'm going to the boardwalk at santa cruz i'm heading down to the beach i'm going to buy my kids some tickets an entire string of them say here kids go ride the big dipper get your picture taken smile cheese it's easter oh yeah forgot we just finished passover hmmm hmmmm love that matzoh makes me a little constipated though spring planting season is upon us better plant better plan better plan on planting some peace love and tie-dye tie-die we're all going to die maybe some of us on the cross maybe some of us by natural circumstances mysterious though they may be

.it's easter let's celebrate

,and all that

Sounds of Silence

ah sweet sounds of silence when did i last hear them when did i last witness when did i last realize that silence that silence that silence just doesn't exist in my life even when i wake up in the morning even when i rise i hear something not an alarm i wake naturally get up around five i just do i'm an early man stella she sleeps even when i wake there is sound even when i meditate there is sound even when i swim there is sound i feel like i need to be immersed in some sensory deprivation tank close me in take away the light take away the sound let me float in saline solution just

let me be

ah the sweet sounds of silence maybe one day maybe one day i feel that day will be the day i die that moment immediately after the explosive sound of the gunshot there will be silence it may not be pretty my gray matter splattered all over my pillow but that won't be my concern hell i'm not the tidiest person in the world today i mean come on really

hygiene is so fucking overrated

i have a cool pillow though it would be a shame it would be quite the shame probably have to throw it out it's not like stella could just lean over to one of the kids and say hey pssst j want daddy's pillow it's not so bad you can just turn it over and the bloodstains won't show no i think she'll have to throw it away i mean she'll have to deal with the police first but 

she'll get away with it she's smart besides

i'm sure she can claim justifiable homicide i see it all the time on television it's not like it's never happened before i'm sure the big e my attorney could get her off i mean he's my friend and everything but it's not like i would be around to complain and the guy has to make a living i mean he's got a couple of kids both of them still in private school hell only one of mine is left in private school but we do have one that's a junior in high school starting to look at colleges

my oh my

they do want a lot of money he's on an airplane right now as we speak heading back east to look at schools it being spring break and all that hell shelled out more green for him to go to elementary and middle school than i ever dreamt i could spend in college now he's going to college better go find that crap game in the alley better find a higher stakes poker game than the one i played in last night

i mean it's a good old time but i just can't win college tuition when the bet is limited to three bucks yeah yeah yeah i know the main purpose of this game is to roll joints and get very very stoned and we do quite a good job at said activity but it ain't going to pay for college but hey stella knows i'm heavily insured we're responsible adults we're good parents i'm the dad i'm the breadwinner i'm bringing home the fucking bacon i'm heavily fucking insured ain't no poster of me saying wanted dead or alive it just says this mofo is worth more dead

but they made me take blood tests all sorts of tests so all you ladies can rest assured the insurance company would not put that kind of ticket on me if i had some wicked ess tee dee baby i'm clean clean clean i told them why don't you just run it through for a few more tests just to make sure vroom vroom done like a fucking whistle baby

if she places the gun right behind my ear i understand i won't feel anything but it will be very very loud and if she fucks it up if she really fucks it up and the gun like slips off and fires into the wall or something i will be deaf so that silence thing maybe i'll have answers but i don't know because then i'll probaby have that ringing thing going on probably drive me bananas probably drive me to the old loony bin hopefully in a nice sports car i hear though that the banana industry is really fucked up right now that ninety percent of all the bananas bought in the grocery store in the you ess can be traced back to the same fucking banana plant from several hundred years ago and that does not make for a diverse genetic makeup baby

that's why i should be fucking as many racially diverse women as i possibly can get my hands on doing my thing for the future baby doing my thing for the good of mankind probably why stella is definitely going to put the gun to my head but only after she takes the razor to my balls but my friends if you cannot live on the edge if you cannot live on the edge then you live in the middle and living in the middle is like living in the midwest and we all know that sucks big green donkey dicks hey

no offense intended

i'm sure i'm sure that des moines is quite the nice place hey i've been there it was in nineteen and eighty-eight and it was in february and they were having the caucuses and i was tripping on ecstasy and you know through the tripping haze it was quite the fascinating place but i have to tell you the next morning okay it was afternoon when we woke up but the next morning that des moines was one strange fucking city not a mountain or ocean nearby but there was this river

em eye ess ess eye ess ess eye pee pee eye baby it was a big fucking river old man river i think that they have to move the city every three to five years because of the flooding they say at least they know in advance when they have to move the city they can tell when it's coming not like those faggot earthquakes they have in california they sneak up on you in the subway yank down your pants and just shake you like jello baby

yeah so might as well stay on the edge stella i hope you make it quick don't use a knife i really have this phobia about a knife if you use a knife please slide it across my throat when i'm asleep and i hope you will have remembered to sharpen it like i taught you go against the grain and use a little olive oil get it really really sharp i don't want to be stabbed that looks so fucking painful when i see it in the movies and don't douse me with gasoline and then wake me up right before you apply the match i mean shit that ain't cool that ain't cool

pushing me in front of the bus as we're walking down the sidewalk probably i wouldn't feel a thing just that one glance of you smiling as you give me that quick push i mean i'm always the gentleman i always walk on curbside that's part of being raised a southern gentleman always walk on the curbside of your woman protects her from being splashed by those cars speeding by so it wouldn't be that hard just a quick shove when the muni bus was cruising by wham bam thank you ma'am i'm flatter than a fucking blueberry pancake on banzai's plate i hope that you use cane syrup i so much prefer it to maple syrup black and thick

black and thick black and thick black and thick just like a nice sticky ball of hashish sitting on the tip of a pin that is stuck through some bar coaster and sitting under a glass smoke rising just waiting for you to tip the glass and inhale hash under glass quite the delicacy don't you know sometimes you can get it like a gel chase the dragon down a sheet of aluminum foil ahhhhh black and thick smoke arising

the only sound is the sizzling gurgle of frying hash oil on the foil then absolute silence total silence as you hold your breath then the solid knock knock knock of your heart starting back up and the rush of air smoke tar shit flowing out of your lungs yes that absolute silence though you have it for like three four five seconds

absolute silence there's more than one way to find it absolute silence

she'll get away with it she'll get away with it that's okay that's all right i don't mind i hope she does it means a lot to me it means an awful lot to me how else will she tell me she loves me what greater way could she express her love i mean as long as i got this fucking sword hanging over my head it ain't never it ain't never it ain't never going to get boring

sounds of silence

and all that

Nice Day

ah san francisco down by the water the touristas the touristas they wander aimlessly money jingling in their pockets my man peter says you can always tell the ones from europe man it's their shoes they always have the different shoes i nod yeah never noticed but he's right they always do they do indeed aquatic park is teeming with the touristas today and why not

the weather is wonderful the sky it's fucking blue blue blue danube baby a wisp of a cloud here a wisp of a cloud there out by the bridge you can see the fog she's going to rush into greet us later this afternoon she's going to come wrap her chilly arms around us it's like when your wife crawls into bed with cold feet and you've been asleep for only about thirty minutes but

for now for now the sky it's fucking blue the wind is picking up the water was a little choppy i drank a lot of water on my swim fucking current was rushing in must have been four maybe four and a half knots we tried to swim tried is the key word here we tried to swim against her but after about ten minutes we changed course and tried to swim around her the water's getting warmer you know if it gets any warmer it might attract the amateurs bad enough these fuckers come out here in their wetsuits their sissy suits all black with neon markings us southenders we just wear our speedos and a cap we don't need no stinkin' wetsuits

but as we were coming out of the water today there was this lovely lass very shapely lass she was a dophin club member they have rules lots of rules we don't have any rules probably because most of the southenders can't read she was wearing a wetsuit that injected both peter and me with an instant rubber fetish peter rubbed his oil lamp to ask the genie to provide a zipper in the young cutie's crotch area for instant access he wanted to play the bull seal game i thought it lovely sport

in the sauna we talked iraq everyone hates bush i know i know i know we're so out of touch here in san francisco we're so not with the rest of the country we're so fucking strange here in san francisco well let me tell you bush is a fucking anyway we talked about iraq we talked about this situation this fucked up situation it's a catch fucking twenty-two whatcha going to do whatcha going to do for bush to really fuck up here and for us to get rid of bush a lot of people are going to have to be killed but if bush doesn't fuck up here and he stays he's going to figure that this is the right way to do things and a lot more people are going to get themselves killed

in the sauna we talked iraq it's on everyone's mind at least here in ess eff most of us hell ninety-eight percent of us think that george dubya is a war criminal on par with milosovic guy in the sauna he's a fireman he's a working man he's a union man he tells a joke he says that george dubya goes to congress and says ok ok ok i got the proof that these eye-raki's got weapons of mass destruction i got the proof i got the proof here it is it's a receipt that my daddy got from saddam for all them weapons we sold 'em by god i got proof we all laugh we all laugh but it's a nervous laugh it's a scared laugh

up on the roof we see a sailboat coming ripping into the cove comes close to hitting a rowboat sailboats not allowed in the cove it's cruising in leaning all the way over cutting a hard corner wind whipping the guy in the rowboat rowing like hell to get out of the way if he had the leisure to stop rowing he'd be flipping the guy off if he really had the time he'd stand up and pass water with the wind hoping to get a fine pissy mist across the bow into the skipper's puss

small bowl sizzle i love the sound of the fire on weed sizzle oily moisture sizzle crackle ah she flows like water into our lungs yah jah me and jah me and jah nibbling at the day not getting greedy don't need to fucking seize every day most days one need only to nibble take what you need leave the rest for the others plenty of the day to go around to everyone including me and jah

most days i dig my life this is one of them

up the hill for coffee our man scotty isn't around he's skipped he's no longer to be found the barrista knows not where he went yo man where is scotty oh man scotty he's gone new guy had to walk him through making a fucking au lait dude i miss scotty he got the americano down though i guess he's learning them one at a time that works that works he ain't scotty but he's ok but then scotty wasn't scotty on the first day either this dude may work out he's a little slow

not like you expect longevity in your coffee jockey but i find these transitions very very difficult and emotionally trying i mean if it's me and jah walking in i like the dude to pop my order down i'm down with the familiarity scotty knew my americano now i got to break in a new guy me and jah need to break him in

my man peter and i plan our next trip short one this year just up to lost coast couple or three days with a backpack beautiful hike check out these lesbians he knows that grow great weed in mendocino then become one with the tule elk the big trip has to be summer two thousand five cross the sierras a reenactment of five years ago when we almost died

six days sixty miles sixty pounds on our backs coming across the sierras off trail peter said trust me i know the way fucking moses man peter's brother ted big calder crazy joe me a few bottles of bourbon joe liked to wake up and mix tang in his vodka no need for water and a lot of weed and ibuprofen we have to do it one more time before we're too old last time ted hurt his knee with fifteen miles to go calder wanted to just prop him up against a tree with a bottle of whiskey and a hand grenade in case the bears came but we got him home

this time we're too old one of us probably won't make it better get my cracker ass back in shape one pass we had to climb hand over hand i looked at peter aa kay aa moses are you fucking kidding me we made it next time we might not be so lucky

hey sugar the cute young touristas walk by i love it when they talk in an accent i love it when they have that eurotrash look yeah baby i don't care if you are telling me to go fuck myself just smile when you're saying it and use that accent yeah

nice day in san francisco and all that

Columbine

ah geeze knock knock knock heavy fucking knock it's fucking midnight i'm getting ready to go to sleep for crying out loud all right all right all right jesus fucking christ i'm coming i'm coming heavy voice almost stereotypical voice i'm thinking fuck fuck fuck heavy voice saying this is the police i need to talk to you

ah geeze ah shit quick look around sweep the roach off the desk throw it in the trashcan make sure my dope is in my suitcase somewhere slide into my jeans open the door it's fucking barney fife except young and republican looking just like they grow them in the denver suburbs i'm in a hotel about three miles from columbine he looks like he just walked off the set of reno nine one one

he needs a better fitting shirt those steroids he's taking are causing him to bust out all over i'm stoned my man v and my man b had only left the room like thirty minutes ago ah shit i don't need this for crying out loud i hate dealing with officers of the law i hate it even more when i'm stoned at least v had smoked a cigarette maybe it doesn't smell too much can they

pop you for smoking in a non-smoking room better look into that for next time

he's got a gun it's in it's proper place in his holster and all that but fuck it's midnight and i have this guy in a uniform with a gun at my door and and and ok i'm just a little bit buzzed hell it's fucking midnight who isn't stoned by the time midnight rolls around hell if you're not you're not hanging out with me so barney he says in his very very officer of the law type of voice he says do you have a car out in the parking lot and i say excuse me he says do you have a car out in the parking lot we've apprehended two individuals that were breaking into cars i say no i don't have a car i'm not wearing a shirt i feel like reaching down and scratching my balls but don't he says fingering his little fuller brush suburban redneck mustache he says ok and

he leaves

no apologies no sorry i bothered you at midnight can i offer to buy you a drink hey how about them giants no none of that just an ok and walking off me i walk out onto my balcony i'm only on the second floor the hotel is only three stories tall it's the figgin' suburbs have i ever mentioned how much i loathe the fucking suburbs i mean i can dig the rural scene and all its fucking pastoral wonders and nature and trees and and and cows and dirt and all that but i just don't get the burbs baby especially the fucking burbs in the middle of the country in that area between the sierras and appalachia they scare me especially those ones with gates around them and names like pleasant valley carved into stone columns at the gate entrance ever read tortilla curtain by t.c. boyle two worlds clashing cool book tell'em at your local non-borders bookstore that joeschmuck sent you did i mention i really don't like the burbs jesus fucking christ

i walk out onto my balcony i light a cigarette and gaze down on two youngsters two youths two yutes they are sitting on the curb their hands are behind them i look more closely they're wearing restraints they don't look too comfortable i glance down the row of balconies and three or four rooms down there's some other guy out on his balcony smoking a cigarette looking down i guess officer barney banged on his door as well maybe he's banging his girlfriend now as well hell maybe banging his boyfriend my gaydar didn't go off but it's been malfunctioning quite a bit lately he did have the gaystache thing going on and there is that uniform thing

i go back into my room can't sleep not tired anymore i roll another joint it's something to do i'm bored with porn i walk back out onto the balcony i fire it up ah yes ah yes i do so enjoy a phattie on the balcony i keep a cigarette lit i'm so fucking sly my attorney tells me that there is no way in hell that a forty-five year old white guy with a job with a profession is going to go to jail for smoking a little weed he was talking about san francisco where he and i walk down the sidewalk on our evening neighborhood patrol with phattie in hand i wonder if it also applies to denver the suburbs and beyond

i mean i never hesitate to fire up on the sidewalks of new york i never hesitate to fire up when i'm returning my car to hertz at the airport hell i more often than not leave half a joint in the ashtray as an offering to those that work there good karma and all that don't you know i never hesitate to fire up in my hotel room even if i have a non-smoking room for crying out loud who the fuck cares these days i often leave half-joints in the drawer of the nightstand sometimes tucked into the pages of the gideons bible unless it's a marriott then i tuck it into the book of mormon i mean what would jesus do shit i bet that he wishes he had a big phattie going when old pontius pilate was kicking his ass all the way up that hill shit i bet

mel gibson was twisting one up on the set of his jesus snuff film anyway

i'm smoking a cigarette and a phattie on the balcony taking in the evening's activites taking in the sights these two poor mofo's sitting on the curb with barney and andy hovering over them can't figure out why they are waiting another patrol car comes cruising up lights flashing must be a big night for the locals two uniforms get out geeze louise maybe they're getting their little see es eye kits out put out some of those little yellow cones string up some of that yellow tape spritz spritz spritz that magic blood finding concoction i'm waiting for the professor from gilligan's island to come popping over to figure it all out

i lean on the balcony rail i gaze out across the prairie i always wanted to say that i gazed out across the fucking prairie well now i have i can move on to the next thing in my life goals my friend one must have goals don't you know

i lean on the balcony and it's midnight thirty the light from the marriott sign doesn't give me access to too many stars but i can see the windows of the hotel across the parking lot another cookie cutter hotel with another sign maybe it's sheraton maybe it's fucking la quinta baby it sure as hell ain't the w it ain't the four seasons i can tell you that not down here in columbine country where every store has a national advertising campaign because there ain't no store that is locally owned it's all starbucks and kmart and wendy's and and and jamba fucking juice i mean what the fuck is this smoothie shit they put fucking ice cream or frozen yogurt hell it's a fucking milkshake you drink a couple of those every day and you're one fat fuck

i can see the windows i can see the glow of televisions of those that can't sleep as well i can even see a couple of silhouettes moving thereabouts i can see clearly now the rain it's gone but i can barely see through my own confusion i can barely see through the fog of manhood i can barely see through the shit of shinola

but i can see beauty i can see love i can see asphalt i can see cars and i can see two dudes in handcuffs

chuck d of public enemy sings fuck da po-lice and all that

Go Down Moses

go down moses the burning bush told us the burning bushes floated all around us there were so many bushes on fire fiery bushes lawdy lawdy all sizes and shapes i bet there were shaved bushes as well you know they never shaved that kitty when i was that age it's a nineties thing but these burning bushes they said take your people and move them across the desert load them back up into your big white lincoln and move them on across the desert 

yeah yeah it had to end it all had to come back down to earth we had to return we had responsibilities we had jobs we had families we had commitments we had not enough money to stay probably not enough balls to stay when you get right down to it but but but we had to finish out the night we had to step out into the saturday we had tits to oggle we had young firm asses to study we had we had 

just a little bit of time

i returned to the poker tables i made my return several hours after my departure and most of the fucking table remained right down to my new drunken friend the one who so crushed on elaine with the

green eyes

he persisted and he had new he had new he had new rivalries new entries on his list of those that needed him to take their money not for financial gain oh fucking eh no not for financial gain for for honor for purity for fucking chivalry for christ sake we tipped glasses my grapefruit juice and his vodka tonic he had moved on from the earlier bloody bloodies he remained an ornery drunk i still felt camaraderie i still felt close

two  fuckers sat down at the other end of the table a fat fuck and a tall skinny fuck almost like jack fucking sprat and his fat fucking wife i mean the dude had a fucking burger king bag no not a bag it was a friggin' burger king knapsack full of heart attacks on a bun he shoveled them into his fat fucking pie hole like they were em and ems i smoked cigarettes and blew the smoke his way just to see if the combination of partially hydrogenated fat animal fat and cigarette smoke could indeed cause cardiac arrest i could hear the tick tick tick all the way across the table

two fuckers pretended not to know each other yes we're the great pretenders pretending that we're not alone i played with these guys no they played me they let me ride along for a while they worked me they chatted me up they played with my ego with my id with my fucking dick for all i knew let me saunter along for a couple of hours thinking i could play with them we talked hunting and fishing and fucking and then they started taking my money grin fucking me the entire time and i honestly fucking enjoyed it thought it a good value for my entertainment dollar

i had a final cigarette blowing smoke at the fat fuck said vayos con dios motherfuckers and cashed in my chips all in all not too bad i lost the money i had won and maybe fifty more not too bad not too shabby not too fucking shabby

wandered the billagio for a while totally amazed at the wondrous amounts of breasts and youthful probably most enthusiastic ass their young studly escorts walking protectively by their sides their inexperienced hands on the small of their backs thinking knowing that the sandman and i were merely window shopping but never really knowing due the amount of drool on the sandman's chin should have put a sign on his back saying harmless old codger but hey

they paid their money they took their chances

you could look into the eyes of these studly young escorts and know if they'd get laid that night you could tell you could sense whether or not the dude had it in him to take it all the way whether he was there just to watch over his sister girlfriend cousin to make sure that she was not fucked over the couch located in the sitting area of some dirty old man's suite whether he had it in him to follow through he had a lot to prove he had to prove to his friends his other college age friends that he could drink until he passed out and fuck

let me tell you pal not everyone can pull that off it's humbling it's very humbling if you get in too far over your head you best just go off into the corner put a nipple on that bottle of cheap mexican beer that makes you look cool and suckle yourself too sleep because all you have to offer this fine specimen of female fucking is a flaccid dick and vomit breath dig

yeah yeah we wandered me and the sandman smoking cigarettes talking shit the young things rolling their eyes at us but hey at least the hookers wanted us two stopped sandman and me we were flattered one was very very you know with a tattoo on her thigh i wanted to get close and check out the artisanship they were impressed we stretched out our cocks told them we had a suite at the venetian got their cash registers all oiled up and then we moved on not enough money balls not big enough fear is man's biggest motivator

two slices of pizza at the venetian back to the room for late night baking smoke swirling around the fire alarm in the room everyone passes out not me i have my final addiction to take care of i need to watch elimidate before i fall asleep sandman yelling at me to turn down the volume he's fucking lucky i feel too self-conscious to jerk off to the hot babe in the elimidate hot tub because i'd just have to spew jism into the socks i know he's wearing tomorrow shit how does he really know that i didn't do it after all he was too stoned to remember

how did those socks feel my friend

wake to meehall's call at nine how did he get up so early wake to meehall's call hey hey come on down and play poker with me i'm up hundreds i'm winning hundreds he's been on a roll since early early how did he get up so fucking early he's roaring he's on a roll he's a fucking texas fucking holdem fucking god he is he is he is i tell him that i'm getting stoned and getting in the car to head back across the desert i hope he can join us he says we're pussies i agree he laughs he joins us

first a trip back to the pool need to wake and bake more smoke threatening the fire alarm waves of sugar at the morning poolside jockeying for position to catch the first rays of the sun to catch morning ra as he roars over the false horizon of the vegas skyline a sea of bikini clad sugar all laid out stretchted out on chaise lounges chaise lunges their sweet patooties popping up out the brown toasters that are the lounge chairs bronze brown sugar sprouting little orbs of fruit cherry blueberry lime

ah geeze it's magically delicious

but those trix baby those trix are for kids and maybe for dirty old men oh baby i'm still a kid i'll dress up like your little lord fucking fauntleroy i'll be your beaver cleaver baby you can be june you can stand in the kitched wearing that little dress don't know what color it is because you are black and white like my imagination and that cute little string of pearls and that sweet little apron and those heels oh baby baby you can spread me on your sandwich like i'm your guldens golden honey homey mustard

stuff the trunk with useless suitcases roll up the journey joints pile into the car i need a newspaper i need a paper can't start sunday morning without a newspaper can't find a decent one until we reach bakersfield and it's the el aa times not the new york times but it will do in a pinch better than any fucking nevada paper the big news of the morning is when one of the troupe one of the crew too personal to actually identify the motherfucker one of the troupe you know it ain't me since i'm writing it and i'm not really using the i word as i'm saying it one of the troupe says

my first wife had two vaginas

hey it's true he swears up and down man oh man how do you satisfy that without having two cocks but i'm driving so i try to blot it out of my mind too much distraction pass me the fucking joint i think we rented a non-smoking car

big es you vee on the side of the road smoke pouring out from beneath the open hood hey for you fucking limeys that may be reading this that's the fucking bonnet you pansy motherfuckers what do you guys know about cars anyway the ones you made all fell apart until they went out of business and had to be acquired by american megacorps

big es you vee on the side of the road definitely debilitated beautiful woman standing behind hands on her hips nothing but attitude baby pissed off aura bouncing off our car like the state patrol's radar her boyfriend husband captor kidnapper up front staring into the abyss of the smoking engine highway patrol dude walking away with a fire extinguisher that boyfriend even with that really cool john deere hat he ain't getting laid tonight

road goes up through the hills goes down through the hills loops onto interstate five we best take the direct route home something about being baked and driving across the desert and listening to the grateful dead playing estimated prophet china cat sunflower moving into i know you rider into dark star something about it

long periods behind the wheel leaves a lot of time to just think to just ponder to just finger the old belly button but i'm so stoned that i can find nothing to think about

we drove and drove and drove and the city of las vegas remained behind and the sins of the mind remained with us and we drove and we drove and we drove and elijah is going to drink his glass of wine and on any other night we may be somewhere else but on that night we were driving

next year some of you may be in jerusalem but i'm heading for the desert

the desert and all that