Eat a Peach for Love

peach blossom share your grace peach blossom save my soul blessed be the fruit that sits in my hand blessed be the grace of the smooth fuzzy sweet jesus juices jesus lawdy

sitting softly cupped in my hands extended into the deep blue deep blue a cloud here a cloud there cool bay air whispering to my blood blessed skin share your love spread your love melt your love oh lawdy me oh lawdy my

ain't had a peach like this in a long long time ain't had a peach like this in a while sweet fruit sits cupped in my hand held close to my flaring nostrils inhaling such such such lovely lovely sweet pomona spread your gentle thighs for me the first bite the first bite first ripe peach of the season she's so firm she's giving she's so ready to burst the first bite slow the first bite timid wanting to enjoy the first bite forever

eat a peach for love eat a peach baby

the first bite teeth sliding sinking full motion she pours love spews love spouts love she is so much there is so much of her that my lips slip splash slide through and she fills my mouth she runs out the corner of my lips she bursts forth the top of my mouth spraying my nose my cheeks she just flays herself open and that first bite aw lawdy lawdy simply succulent simple succulence the most euphoric ecstatic elastic goddamn fucking juiciest thing i've ever ever ever had visit my lips sweet mary magdalene you slut you harlot you lucious orb of peachy cunt

goddamn

second third fourth bite taken so quickly so avariciously so ravenously so so so she's on my lips my chin my eyebrows my fingers my hands my wrists my arms my nose baby my nose taken so quickly she's gone my tongue swirling around around around the silky stringy pit love lashes for the last bit of moisture last bit of sweetness last bit last bit of love

damn i love peaches

and all that

 

Twenty Stella Years

stella stella do you remember do you recall down on my knees down down on my knees we were so young then could i even grow a beard do you remember do you recall a drunken night at aunt charlie's up on peachtree we were drinking it was me it was you it was go it was scotty tee there were a few others i forget yes yes i had been drinking yes yes i had and

i professed my love for you

down on my knees down on my knees baby baby strangers looking on smiling laughing down on my knees stella stella it's been twenty years

i think i call you stella i think i call you stella because of that moment i will profess my love for you to the world i will stand in the cross-roads of despair i will stand in the streetlight and wake up the neighborhood i will wake up the town wake up the world i will call for you stella i will call for you in my sleep i will call for you in my dreams i will call for you before god goddess and everyone yes i will yes i will

goddamn goddamn you are one beautiful fucked up nutty wonderful sensual superball-bouncing wild-haired tongue-twirling mind-dancing woman twenty years do you remember do you recall when you fell in love with me when you knew when you knew when you just knew that you'd send me out sealed in a pine box long before you'd set me out any other way do you remember do you recall when i courted yes i did i courted you in the official sense of the word there was process that had to be followed ritual adhered to

although i still loved breaking protocol and fucking you silly in the pale darkness of your rainbow curtained room

do you remember do you recall when i took you up to tallulah gorge tallulah gorgeous you had never been you had never visited you had never crawled down into the gaping canyon we drove up in your car in your little blue toyota it was sporty i loved that car although that car like your little dog arrow didn't care for me it ran away from me once well someone stole it so yeah i forgot to take the keys out doctor bronstein and i were like right there up by lake lanier throwing the frisbee

who would have known

i don't know how much you appreciated the intense fear and dread boiling in my stomach when i had to call you at work to let you know your car had been stolen well stella i said the good news is that arrow is ok i have her right here with me the bad news though the bad news is well do you think you can get a ride home from work i don't think i can pick you up i might be a little late yeah well it seems that yeah i'm up here at lake lanier yeah it is rather nice up here today yeah i might be a little late well it seems that someone stole your car yeah i know fucking eh huh could have knocked me over with a feather

who would have known do you remember do you recall we got to the trail head you never have taken to riding on curvy roads but you had this thing about wanting me to drive so i drive your car and the windy roads up and down we got to the trial head and then you got out and threw up i knew then that i loved you i held your head and kept your hair out of your face

we rested for a while it was still early morning i had dragged you out of bed when it was still dark we rested a little while we ingested some vile psychedelic fungus and then we climbed down to the river below it was summer and the sun she jumped high early on she warmed us she took care of us we hiked up-river we stopped to look at tadpoles in a puddle

gaggles of tadpoles in all stages the little ones with long thin tails the larger ones with rear legs and a fatter tail the even larger ones with full legs and a short fat tail all swimming about we stared at them we leaned over the puddle on our hands and knees we observed this community seven generations of frogs it seemed life birth death dinner with the in-laws graduation garden club political debate division of society class warfare civil war revolution cataclysm and regeneration

gaggles of tadpoles i looked at you looking at them and i knew then that i loved you i held your hair so that it did not get into your face

we ate cheese and bread and drank water from the brook the river as it fell over the rocks

we hiked up-river to the washing machine the smooth cylinder in the rock in the middle of the crystal cool stream whirlpool spinning us naked kiss tongue icy touch our bodies our minds our desires we were so much younger then we cared for nothing but each other the icy water goosebumps on your breasts spinning spinning touching you everywhere i spun you spun we spun and i knew then that i loved you i held your hair so that i could kiss you

we hiked up-river end of day long winding trail up the side of the canyon wall only about three feet wide thousand feet down if you step wrong to the right i found out then that you were afraid of heights not just mildly disturbed by heights but outright goddamn scared afraid of heights i'm carrying my pack i'm carrying your pack i'm even carrying your goddamn dog because you are afraid that it will fall off half way up you stop and sit down on the cliff's edge you whisper then you say then you sneer

call me a cab

i'm not moving oh stella baby now ain't the time girlfriend it's either up or down there ain't no in between right now story of our life together don't you know i'm saying 

don't want to stay here might seem warm now get's pretty chilly at night besides you're a restless sleeper you know i love that about you but but but darlin' a little rolling up here might b dangerous to your health best we get on up the path

i'm not moving call me a fucking cab you're an asshole you suck if you feel like you're going to fall throw me the dog i don't care about you you're an asshole for bringing me up here i knew then that i loved you i held your hand and walked you up the trail you just needed me to hear you

do you remember do you recall it's been twenty years since i said i do since you said i do since i stepped on the glass since that funky rabbi spoke in chicken scratch and i kissed you on the lips and it was like no matter how many times i had kissed you before it was like kissing you for the first time do you remember do you recall

sweet mary magdalene sweet athena sweet isis sweet goddess gaggles of tadpoles giggles of love

i have you stella and all that

 

Tequila Sunrise

ok ok ok i'm working on a story idea you know you know and now i'm excerpting mid-story you just have to catch up or leave it's your dime spend it as you wish

my drink is waiting for me back at the bar as is my seat my beloved barstool i climb up high in the saddle again giddyup bark bark bark yap yap hi-ho hi-ho the scenery has changed such turnover at this place the churn is incredible love love love on my left is a woman obviously by herself elbows propped up on the bar both hands in front of her

circling her drink glass with the forefinger of her right hand

something clear in a martini glass could be a martini olive possibly gives it away i amaze myself sometimes with my grasp of the obvious

long brown hair long legs crossed equally long stockings on very sheer very business-like i love a babe in a uniform dark suit white shirt good golly by god by gum bye-bye she glances over my way as I settle in i wink she smiles a simple smile lips only i swoon she giggles i pay attention act react act react jesus it’s like some hot action happening on a telegraph wire two people doing the dot-dot-dash-dash back and forth back and forth i’d like to do the back and forth right now with her right here would be fine maybe this is getting right down to my gestalt right here maybe my mother was bedridden when she was pregnant with me i didn’t get enough of that back and forth movement when i was in utero and i automatically relate that lack right back to that old escape hatch

sorry mom you know i love you but

a guy has to think about the why not just those journalistic tangibles like who what when and where and

she smiles a broader smile and a light from behind the bar vectoring off the mirror beams in on the silver tooth not the middle one not one of the ones that always goes first when you’re a kid but the one next to it on the right bounces off that tooth leaving a gleaming trail and hits me smack in the eye nearly knocks me off my perch hey ma i’ve finally met that knockout you always told me i’d meet man she’d be happy but miz knockout mistakes my heart-exploding reaction with

a sick sense of humor not that i don’t have one but not now it’s tucked away in my back pocket i’m sitting on it

she doesn’t see it that way looks down and with that sort of fake cough covers her mouth does the barstool spin and she’s out of my life forever i should chase her explain my feelings beg forgiveness do the knee-drop in front of a cast of thousands but I don’t think so geeze this ain’t television this ain't the stage and what if I read the scene all wrong it could be very embarrassing not to mention the wear and tear on my suit trousers em tee vee on to new things love is so fleeting it’s not like i cracked some insensitive joke about silver teeth and althiemers or something jesus jesus jesus save my sinful soul from these sinful thoughts but

whoa whoa whoa look out johnny look out

 to my right is the-one-the-only-miss-welcome-back-to-the-eighties-cindy-lauper-look-alike hello love is in the air love is in the hair and yeah it’s the hair it’s got to be the hair that gets to me it’s too just too you know a little too orange but also too red with streaks of yellow it’s just too too too you know and the makeup a little too much a bit of mascara dripping down her cheek and the lipstick too dark too red and the hair tequila sunrise to my right and the dress too tight too short and the stockings too black with a little run on the inside thigh pale pale pale oh that milky white and i say in my most nonchalant manner in my most genteel manner with a charm that worries my conscience but not my psyche i say

hi can i just say that you in all your splendor are making the neighborhood a better place to live and i would like to buy us a round of drinks in honor of this just-discovered truth and

she she looks at me really looks at me she says eyes bright she says what do you suggest and

i know i really know what to say and say it tequila sunrise to match your hair and

she smiles that cutesy little smile that oh you kind of smile and says oh too sweet n’est-ce pas how about a real drink martini very dry very very dry two olives and

i wave beckon yo gotta gotta go barkeep my man need two money’s here and there’s more what do i care i’m going to call her “client” hi i’m harry and

she says nice tie and

i go yeah and

she no really and

me i say thanks and

she says i’m hallie used to be hallie silverstein but now i’m thinking of hallie-go-heavy in honor of miz hepburn and mister capote bless their souls what do you think

 

end of story excerpt hope you don't want your dime back i already spent it on crack and all that

 

Ponderosa Pines

i'm all hot and bothered now by tallulah gorge don't know what brought it back into my pointy little head don't know what caused the little seed of memory to snap crackle and pop but i'm grateful to the one who lit the fire that pushed the button that pulled the trigger spent many many many

a good time

spent many a good time wasted many a good moment not to mention brain cells in said gorge said george yes indeedydee i love that woman haven't been back to see her since nineteen and eighty-two i'm sure she's aged much more gracefully than i i'm sure i'm sure she's a state park now government funded me hell i'm just a hired gun trying to make a living the best i can lord i was born a rambling man just trying to make a living the best i can when it's time to leave here i hope you understand i was born a rambling man

i mean the grand canyon hell yeah it's bigger it's deeper it's longer yeah yeah yeah but it's had all it's pubic hair shaved off it being in the high desert and all that no trees well not many trees admittedly i like a little fluff around the kitty that i'm going to explore i kind of like the act of pausing to extract one of those little love wires from between my cheek and gums i mean otherwise it's like your messing with pre-pubescence and not only is that just the slightest bit morally repugnant but you just might find yourself in jail with some bubba making you his bitch

but there is this one forest near the grand canyon hell it might be called the grand canyon national forest for all i remember for all i recall it was another one of those nights i'm beginning to worry myself beginning to be concerned my memories my recollections my nostalgia seems to be spurting up with flashbacks of hallucinogens past

my buddy chris

came back to washington dee cee to drive across country with me yes i lived in dee cee for two very long years did my time as i am wont to say i thought we thought stella and me we thought that we needed to return to the bosom of the east coast in order to raise a family we had our fun in california we had our kicks on route sixty-six now it was time to return to our real life our real purpose and for me to work hard at a job and to have a nice brick house with a green yard with green grass for the little lugnuts the little love nuggets the little chil'rens we brought forth onto this wonderful earth

boy did we make a mistake

i mean i mean i mean we learned a lot maybe too much but one morning we woke up and looked at each other and you know you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack and you may find yourself in another part of the world and you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile and you may find yourself in a beautiful house with a beautiful wife and you may ask yourself well how did i get here and we said

my god what have we done

and we loaded up the truck and we moved all our shit back to san francisco and

my buddy chris

he flew back to dee cee and he and i drove our two cars with our two dogs one rottweiller and one old english sheepdog we drove our two cars across the country had a grand old time having so many many big adventures involving friends and strangers and diners and truckers and and and a decent amount of california green that chris had illegally transported across state lines in said airplane this being in nineteen and ninety-two the statute of limitations has expired i think it's safe to tell the tale now luckily he and i now live a very very clean very morally upstanding very church-going kind of life no reason for mister tom ridge to waddle his pigeon-toed redneck pennsylvania ass over here to question us on our patriotism we now love both god and country simultaneously they are one and the same

n'est-ce pas

we drove across country we went north toward pittsburgh we drove across the mighty mississippi to saint louis gateway to the west we drove down the river to vicksburg we drove across louisiana and half of texas on over to dallas we drove up to amarillo we drove down toward and through new mexico and up into arizona azirona which of course is where we stopped to go check out the grand canyon

we were at the tail end of our trip the butt end of our trip the asshole end of our trip so we well chris sprung a little surprise on me he said he said well he said been saving these for a while now been saving these the whole trip ready to trip within the trip baby chris waved a little baggy full of dried mushrooms in front of me we were setting up camp putting up the tent popping a couple of beers this was back in my drinking days

now you understand my concerns all these memories about tripping are starting to worry me just the slightest bit i mean i mean i knew that i used to imbibe in said pastime but but but i didn't really think that i did that much but but but now as i'm recounting these tales the times the number of times they are starting to add up and to be quite fucking honest with you maybe maybe this explains quite a bit the number is getting a little too high for me the number is larger than i expected it to be i mean if i were

counting all the women i had fucked

and the number got exceedingly large i might fluff out my tail feathers or is that tale feathers and strut about like the studly peacock i profess to be but but but we're talking about the number of times that i reached out to touch the hand of god and maybe that explains a lot of things maybe not

we stopped at this campground on the edge of this very large forest of ponderosa pines a national forest i do believe i do i do we set up our tent we cooked up a little food we popped a couple of beers we watched the sun start to go down and then chris waved this little baggy in front of me he is the devil himself he is satan tempting jesus in the desert but i do not have the strength of jesus satan said sit yourself right on down beside me here and let's get down to it

we choked down that vile tasting fungus

smoked the kicker joint always good to have a catalyst always good to have something for your hands to do in the early moments remember the one about idle hands idle minds yup yup yup a bird in the hand is not as good as your cock in your hand unless your cock is in her hands then then then it's cool smoked the kicker joint always good to have a catalyst

wandered around the campground a couple of families in larger tents and campers a few climbers camping out of their cars but no groups of single horny women funny thing about camping don't run into that scene too often where did all those tales in penthouse letters come from anyway we did meet up with this guy his girlfriend and her friend they were into some future wildness that night but i get ahead of myself

by the time we had circled the campground a couple of times the old mutual scrotum tickling thing kind of kicked in i notice that chris has this shit-eating grin spreading like four miles in either direction from his gnarly unshaven face and he says looking over at the edge of the forest he says

let's go climb a tree

you got to understand that at this phase in his life chris is an arborist he climbs trees for a living he climbs trees big old motherfucking trees like a couple of hundred feet tall with a live chainsaw and knives and rope and other such tools of industry and trade all attached to his body to his belt he's looking at these trees they aren't that big ponderosa pines these ponderosa pines at the edge of the forest aren't that big although i know they can get pretty fucking tall

we wade out into the forest the moon is full and high by this time chris and i are full and high by this time the dogs are following us about chris starts running through the trees i start running through the trees i look behind me and all that we can see of the dogs is their gleaming white crest commercial teeth flashing in the moonlight like some cujo fucking creatures chris stops suddenly he says points at a tree it's about thirty feet tall he points at a tree and he says this one is yours i start to shimmy up he gets beneath me and pushes

i feel like i'm in some black and white red skelton sketch two fucking clowns climbing all over each other trying to get up this tree i reach the lower run of branches he leaves me and starts climbing the one right next to mine we reach the top and we sway in the gentle breeze like some teenage girl's poetry until chris takes it upon himself to swing the top of his tree all the over to mine where he grabs me pulls me back like some rubber band and

let's go

sending me swinging back and forth back and forth back and forth lawdy mercy lawdy mercy i'm flying

fucking cujos barking on the forest floor

i'm flying i'm flying screaming screaming screaming oh baby i'm screaming swinging at the top of this tree hugging her tight dancing naked under the ice blue moon her bark scratches my bare chest deeply bloody trails of passion like the stubbleof my beard roughly meeting the softness of your inner thigh

i marry thee

i sing and kiss her full on the lips her butterscotch aroma crawls through to strangle my soul suck my soul as we consummate the union spiritual merger physical merger the pain is pleasure as the blood runs with semen is this how jesus felt down her stout trunk entering her through a million tiny crevices

she shudders under the moon with her wild

florgasm

pine needles float to the forest floor oh lawdy oh lawdy we bounce back down bounce back down bounce back down to the forest floor fallen needles between our toes betwixt yesterday and tomorrow among life and the everlasting our mother who art giving birth every single fucking second since creation hallowed be thy cunt thy gaping cunt

floating floating floating cujo barking pine bark pine needles drifting spreading make my bed and sleep in it swing low sweet chariot coming forth to carry me home

ponderosa pines and all that we wander back to camp find our way back to camp sweet lord of mercy don't know if we've been gone ten minutes or ten days don't know it ain't live it's memorex crack the glass crack the crystal bring it on home to me in a little red wagon middle-aged dude pulling a little red wagon filled with firewood i look at myself ten years later which is now as i write this i see myself then and now

ponderosa pines and campfires and campfire girls with uniforms whatever happened to the campfire girls did they merge with the girl scouts i mean the scouts do have the cookie thing going for them camp fire girls what did they have gummy worms i don't think so think they're extinct maybe i can find me a good used campfire girl uniform and convince stella to wear it

ponderosa pines smell like sweet butterscotch

ponderosa pines i sing to thee

and all that

Tallulah Tripping

sugary sweet tits the north georgia mountains the beginning of the appalachia or the end depending upon your perspective there's always the deliverance thing coming up whenever you mention north georgia and somebody will just have to just has to try and imitate the dueling banjos thing from the movie making some sort of twang some sort of nasal tone twang sound emanating from the throat

fucking fools

what do they know what the fuck do they know probably some ignorant redneck with latent homosexual tendencies or some stupid yankee that is simply fascinated by the southern rural gay lifestyle

i went to college with james dickey's neice she lived in a house on charles allen one street behind ponce where we had a house my room mates and me i didn't really know her we went to some of the same parties we smoked a few joints together i never fucked her i don't know anyone who did but i'm sure it happened hey it was college for crying out loud everybody was fucking everybody else it seemed we james dickey's neice and me we probably just never got around to it had we both been on the six or seven year plan maybe we would have had occasion to fall into each other's arms maybe not

fucking fools

they made dickey's book into a movie burt reynolds he was a star jon voight he was a star ned beatty he was a star i think he had a hard time getting work after he got fucked in the ass and then and then and then

the people of north georgia all became victims of the squeal like a pig syndrome

ok ok ok some of them maybe did and still do enjoy a little buggery but hey i don't think that this particular pastime is limited to north georgia i mean i seem to recall quite a bit of buggery going on in the catholic church over the years i've never really partaken of the male anal sacrament but but but

a butt's a butt i guess

i ain't about to go passing judgement on a little rear-end fucking i mean i mean i myself may get a little kinky every now and then what man or woman among us ain't guilty of that sin i'm almost sure no animals were harmed in the making of that movie and i can guarantee that absolutely no animals were harmed in the writing of this piece

i didn't even stop to jack off in the middle of said writing not that i'd be saving any potential babies by not doing so seeing as how i've had the ol' snip snip figured three kids was enough jesus fucking christ do you know how much private college costs nope i didn't even stop to jack off

they made dickey's book into a movie young jon voight climbs out of this canyon dickey made up the name of the river he called it the culawahasee river but there is no such river i guess he did so to protect the names of the innocent or possibly to protect himself from the vengeful who knows who knows only the academically inclined really and truly give a shit the real name of the river is the tallulah and the canyon wall that he climbed with that bow on his back belonged belongs to tallulah gorge the marketing materials now call it tallulah gorgeous it's a state park now

didn't use to be didn't used to be

back when i was getting around north georgia it was private land belonged to georgia power but they didn't seem to mind if you climbed down in there lots of people died though i remember one time we me and a buddy we climbed down there i had my dog with me we were tripping and as we got to the bottom there were these guys

carrying one of those orange cages with a guy strapped down into it he had a strap going across his forehead so that it wouldn't move and when i looked at this guy in the orange cage i looked at this guy in the orange cage and i said peering through my dilated pupils i said hey hey hey allen what the fuck are you doing down here in this orange cage

and the guy said the guy in the orange cage said allen is my brother i said no shit i hadn't seen allen in over two or three years and here i am climbing down into tallulah gorge having eaten probably one too many mushrooms i blame shanley the guy i was climbing with or maybe i blame my dog what the fuck here i am at the bottom of tallulah gorge and i run into this guy from south georgia strapped down in an orange cage

shanley and i put down our packs and helped them carry the fucker out of the canyon is it just me or is the world just a smaller place when you are under the influence of hallucinogenic potions

one of the wallendas strung a wire across tallulah gorge back in the seventies and walked across it the river was still is thirteen or fourteen hundred feet below him it would have smarted just a bit had he fallen he didn't fall for a while there the base for the wire stayed up on the cliff's edge don't know if it's still there i haven't been there since nineteen and eighty-one

i don't think allen's brother fell from a wire i think he was just drunk and fell from a rock he broke his back i heard through the south georgia grapevine many months later

but yeah i used to go to tallulah gorge i used to climb down into the canyon and sleep on the big flat rocks in the middle of the river we'd go down and hang for a few days and then climb back out one time i went with bert and kevin and keith this story this little tale this little blog of mine i'm gonna let it shine this little blog of mine i'm gonna let it shine this little blog of mine i'm gonna let it shine let it shine let it shine let it shine this story is about bert and kevin and keith

i may not finish the whole story i may only get to part of the story but if i don't finish it i guess you'll just have to know that i got tired and went to bed maybe didn't go to bed maybe only sat back rolled a phattie and went out and crawled into the hot tub with stella hoping to get me some hell this is california we do that out here don't you know but if i don't finish this story tonight maybe i'll come back and finish it tomorrow or friday

bert and kevin and keith and i all went to college together this is before kevin lost stella in a poker game and moved to new orleans this is before bert lost his anal virginity and moved to san francisco unbeknownst to me and stella although i thought i saw him once downtown as i was riding on a bus i looked out the window and i did the old double-take saying no it can't be looked again and yup there he was going into some building downtown

bert is dead now he died of aids in the late eighties and

his brother had to come to san francisco and get his body his brother didn't know to call us we lived in san francisco by then he did call beth i'm kind of surprised that beth didn't call us she casually mentioned it like a year later we went to college with beth too she was stella's room mate at the temp sleazo apartment complex i never fucked beth i wanted to though i went through my want to fuck beth phase we all did at one time or another some succeeded me i didn't beth didn't mention that bert even fucking lived in san francisco until like a year after he died

blew me away

keith hell i don't know whatever happened to keith he was is canadian his dad moved to atlanta to make more money he said that doctors didn't make money in canada any more this was in the seventies i don't think doctors make much money here in the good old you ess of aa either these days but i'm not too worried about them going hungry i'm more worried about them operating on my sorry ass after they've shot up one too many bottles of demerol

bert and kevin and keith and i climbed down into the gorge we picked an early saturday morning early spring still a chill in the air still a little ice on the rocks we had decided the night before the old lightbulb lit up atop of our pointy little heads as we were sitting around doing bong hits

we really used to dig the bong we had this club we called it the twenty-one club we named it thusly because in order to join the twenty-one club you had to consume twenty-one bong hits and you had to consume these twenty-one bong hits while this one lou reed song played this song was exactly twenty-one minutes long so yeah you had to do twenty-one bong hits in under twenty-one minutes many tried few made the cut the only woman to make the cut was peggy she had has large breasts i fucked peggy on her birthday once she's a doctor now she and stella are good friends

bert and kevin and keith and i we thought it would be a good idea to hop in the car drive up from atlanta eat some mushrooms climb down in the early morning light and have mother's magic kick in and slap us around the rocks and water by the time we hit bottom literally not figuratively

we thought it a good idea and we made it so we took keith's car went tearing up four forty-one winding up through the foothills and into the mountains about a two two and a half hour drive we arrived alive around three or four in the morning we curled up into our respective corners of the car i was on the back passenger side curled up and went to sleep woke up around dawn walked down the path smoking a joint to go find some coffee at the little tourist up on the bend of the highway walked back up the path to the trailhead

not much of a trail had to climb a little hand over hand to get where we wanted the sun coming up over the canyon ridge as we fell down figuratively not literally down the cliffside into that gaping cunt of a canyon walked up-river hopping from rock to rock when

she smacked us with her devlish love like all four of us got our scrotums tickled all at once we all looked at each other and grinned from ear to ear we hopped those boulders like we were billie fucking goats heading up-river until we got to this large flat rock this rock face must have been the size of a quarter city block on a slant with the river pouring voraciously through a channel that it had cut over the generations and smack dab in the middle of this flat rock was this cylinder

this cylinder was no more than three feet in diameter six or eight feet deep and it was perfectly round and the water poured down into it from this little rock precipice shot down into the hole and swirled around and leapt out the downward side we called it the washing machine a natural and constant whirlpool

we got naked in the crisp morning and took turns sliding into the washing machine she spun us around in her icy clutches screaming with love trippy drippy love and joy and fresh air and times square and the trees all around us and the just-used-to-be-ice-now-i'm-river water scrubbing away our sins and the fucking squirrels and blue jays man i dig the blue jay the stellar jay is one mean fucker scrubbing away our sins

and we climb this big boulder had to climb kind of a technical climb but only about fifteen eighteen feet up we climbed this big boulder butt naked and baked in the early spring mountain sun and smoked a phattie and chatted about things chatted about life as a twenty-year old chatted about life as a spoiled fucking college student chatted about shit about back home

bert winter park florida keith toronto ontario now atlanta kevin new castle pennsylvania phatmike valdosta georgia

we all made up nostalgic shit about back home not a fucking one of us could would ever go back maybe keith did don't know where he ended up

we talked about all the trippy things you talk about when you are tripping there is the mandatory period of time when you have to each describe the feeling that mandatory period of time whey you each have to describe how the cliffs were melting breathing vibrating glowing changing colors depending of course of where you were in your respective trip there is that mandatory period of time

when you start to bum out when you have to dig deep it's the last run of the day last wave of the day can't give it up yet can't just give up you just got to suck it up for this last run draw down on the old reserves baby this is what separates the men from the boys happens every time you know it does baby breathe breathe get through this part you'll be fine

sometimes you just don't make it bert didn't make it that day

it came time to climb down we were naked the sun couldn't hang around for us all day time to climb down and get dressed got to make the climb up and out of the gorge bert couldn't climb down we all climbed down we looked up and there is bert sitting up top about fifteen eighteen feet up legs hanging over the rock head poking over all we see is naked legs and a head he says

i'm not coming down it just doesn't make any sense

ah fuck aw come on now bert it's getting cold better come on down you made it up there you can make down no i can't i can't make it down it doesn't make any sense for me to come down why should i even bother to come down ah fuck aw come on now bert get your fucking ass down here no no i don't think so you guys go on i don't think i'm going to make it fuck fuck fuck nothing worse than someone having a bad trip to really fuck up your own

shit shit i get dressed kevin lights up a joint we're thinking this through i hit the joint grab bert's clothes and climb back up the rock and give him is clothes come on bert get dressed and come on down fucking eh man we need to climb out of here before it gets dark no no no i don't think so

we spend the next hour trying to talk bert off the fucking rock i'm thinking we leave him down here with a bottle of whiskey and a hand grenade he can use whichever one he's pleased to do fuck fuck fuck finally kevin climbs on up kevin always was the sensitive one kevin always was the logical one kevin always was the rational one he climbs up and whispers something into bert's ear takes him by the hand and helps him on down

bert climbs down climbs down climbed down onto the canyon floor down on igneous rock down on north georgia granite down on terra firma baby we all hug bert he needed a hug jesus fucking christ i mean i know i'm tripping was tripping he kind of fucked that up but jesus fucking christ bert bert bert what the fuck were you doing

i don't think that bert and i were such good friends after that funny the way that works but kevin he and bert became much much closer after that i think i was jealous probably i mean kevin remained my best friend for another few years but but but there was always that fucking rock

hanging there

hanging there

hanging there

why didn't the fucker just climb down the rock like he was supposed to i don't know

i don't know i only knew i only know the rocks the water the crisp cold and all that

Bocci Ball

his face twisted into a wrinkled grimace i could tell he genuinely hurt he hurt i guess i know how he felt i guess there are a couple of ways that he could go i mean he's a man on in his years he's lived a long life you might think that a modicum of wisdom had seeped into his soul that he understood the joy of a child ok maybe not a child a budding adolescent you might think that by now he just knew he understood

on the other hand i can understand understand he's reached this fine age in life he's attained a certain status in the world he deserves a little peace and quiet a little time to himself i can understand i guess

and it's all about bocci ball don't you know don't you know don't know

i had to drive out to walnut creek it's not that far from san francisco when you're talking distance but lemme tell you lemme advise you hell let me warn you it's a whole 'nother world out there i liken it as i refer to it as it can only be described as kansas across the bay

it ain't kansas it but i'm sure it's dorothy it's toto almost cut my hair happened just the other day it was kind getting kind of long i could have said it wasn't my way but i didn't and i wonder why i feel like letting my freak flag fly yes i feel like i'm owing someone

to get to walnut creek from san francisco you have to go through the caldecott tunnel it is quite the transforming experience you approach it from the bay bridge heading straight toward these couple of hills that separate berkeley from oakland then the highway just disappears into this series of tunnels three of them the right one going out the left one coming in and the middle one alternating bipolar depending on the time of day the day of the week

going into the tunnels you are still in civilization to some degree i mean it's oakland it's berkeley it's not san francisco it's the burbs no doubt about it but 

it's a burb that is more urban than sub 

when you come out on the other side your world opens up on this lily white enclave this dell of plenty whose inhabitants have slowly built lovely lovely homes up the sides of the hills of this wide valley at the end of which is walnut creek and mount diablo

oddly scary in that stepford wife kind of way

i really don't know too many people that live here in this valley i'm sure hey i'm sure that the locals are just as hospitable and just as friendly as they can be this valley is the beginning of the republican stronghold in northern california they voted for arnold voted for george big backers of prop thirteen parked on the lovely subdivision streets of this valley are some very nice automobiles very nice automobiles 

car washes and car detailing are big out here lots of water spraying on big cars big trucks big ess you vees lot's of water baby just imagine that scene in cool hand luke where they are digging the ditch or tarring some road or picking some weeds or doing one of those things that prisoners do on highways just imagine the scene when the hot redneck chick with the tight shirt comes out to wash the car yeah baby yeah just like that out here girl except in this valley in this valley they let someone else drive their sweet hot vehicle through the car wash and the illegal hispanics in orange uniforms dry them off cars with sweet dry shammies 

technically though it is very dry very brown in the summer not much water not much water here everything is brown except for the golf courses they are very green

we drove out to rossmoor it's a retirement community butting up against walnut creek proper it's huge i think it's something like three hundred and seventy-five thousand square miles give or take a few houses and condos all neatly arranged all neatly tucked away on various hillsides around pristine clubhouses my youngest son has been invited to a bat mitzvah the girl's grandparents live in rossmoor they are using one of the clubhouses for the service and the party it's an interminably long affair the service itself was three hours reconstructionist i think thank the goddess that we weren't invited only my son was invited he went to camp with the girl

that's his problem not mine

in front of the clubhouse sit three quite large bocci ball greens all very very well kept not a blade of grass out of line as smooth as the view of a flat-earth society member we arrived early to pick up my son my wife stella she goes into schmooze that's what she does she schmoozes she does it very well she could turn professional i think when we were younger you should have seen her work a bar no one was safe if she wanted to engage you there was nothing you could do about it you just had to succumb you just had to give in but you did so willingly and somewhat gleefully i know i did never regretted it never regretted

she hit me with a cowboy boot once but i deserved it

she threw our wedding ring out the door once but we found it later

she once swung at me i ducked she missed and fell down i helped her up

she fucks my brains out every now and then i kind of like that

might be because i had the flu last christmas and lately i'm not feeling feeling up to par it increases my paranoia like looking in my mirror and seeing a police car but i'm not giving in an inch to fear because i miss myself this year i feel like i'm owing someone

in front of the clubhouse sit three quite large bocci ball greens all very very well kept not a blade of grass out of line stella went inside i could not find the energy to meet someone new with forty-five thirteen year olds screaming why em see aa while a thumping bass line poured from two monster speakers courtesy of the deejay

ah the deejay the legendary deejay what would a b'nai mitzvah be without the deejay don't go cheap is my advice a cheap deejay is a recipe for party disaster if you're going to spend the money anywhere spend it on the deejay go cheap on the food nobody really cares or remembers go cheap on the decorations nobody really cares or remembers except your sister-in-law but that is upset done for sport not necessarily out of attention to nor care for detail spend the money on your deejay then you can relax and go outside and smoke some phatties and relax during the festivities

i've been there i know

i hung outside found myself a bench near the middle green time being about six pee em the sun hung out over the west ridge and the air sat kind of still and these guys wearing white outfits come around they are wearing white shorts and white polo shirts and white deck shoes and white socks and one of them sported a white brimmed hat that said calloway golf 

they had white hair too but they wore no grimaces

yet

they were hauling cheap roller suitcases which they parked near me and opened up to extract four bocci balls each and a couple of small straw mats they started setting up to play and i moved over to the bench right behind them and started talking to them asking them about the game

different size balls i found out 

renni one of the guys renni he had heavier balls he grimaced later but not because he had heavier balls

seven pounders they are not round they are rounded like a wheel that's a little ovoid they are weighted to one side so that they will roll in an arc renni is a master he told me what the right word is but i forget it there are three levels one of them is called lead but i forget the other two maybe one is called the skipper but that sounds a little too gilligan i was far from my element i was way out of my element 

i may have been suffering from vertigo 

whatever the proper term to be applied renni was in the best category or so he says i just think he was a ringer he 

beat this other guy like a redheaded stepchild

the other guy i don't know if i even got his name let's call him bill for simplicity's sake this other guy bill he only recently had taken up the game he used to bowl though renni called it lane bowling i reckon he did so as not to confuse me so i did not mix up lane bowling with lawn bowling bill used to play golf too probably still did but he quite lane bowling his back hurt

renni rolled the little white target ball to the other end of the court it looked like a cue ball i think maybe renni stole it off one of the pool tables inside the clubhouse i asked him if he did he said no i believed him renni looked like an honest sort

bill and renni were white guys with white hair wearing white clothes i don't think they were virgins i mean they mentioned grandchildren so they must have had some of the old nookie nookie at some point in their life although their wives wouldn't have been the first jews to have an immaculate conception so who knows

renni rolled the little white target ball to the other end of the court and then they took turns rolling the bocci balls toward the target absolutely serious absolutely still absolutely absolute in their focus a little squat none of this fred flinstone twinkle toes approach to the line nope nope nope a little squat legs slightly spread apart one in front of the other right hand holding the ball swinging gently don't throw it roll it roll it arc the roll play the arc set that baby down right next to the target

easier said than done

bill is wide of the target quite wide renni makes it look easy i'm talking to them each time that they are on my side of the green we talk technique we talk competition we talk the concentration the focus required i'm thinking that this would be a most cool game to play whilst tripping my brain out on peyote just play it for hours getting to know the green the ball the target becoming just this little catalyst in the universe with my only goal my primary directive my sole mission being to unite said ball green and target

i don't think renni is tripping he is about to begin the grimacing thing but he may be tripping i guess hell who knows what kind of meds those people are on he seems to fluctuate between this manic contentment and and and this seriously expressed dislike of things he simply does not understand nor appreciate he really didn't like the kids running around from the party a couple of them ran across the green and he blew a gasket i was looking around for the portable heart-attack paddles just in case just in case

shock 'em up shakalaka

i see his fist clench and unclench clench and unclench his face goes into this yes goes into this grimace he yells at the kids but they don't hear him i walk over put my arm around the shoulder of one of the kids i lean over and i whisper that i'm going to break his fucking legs if they happen to find their way onto the green again they go back in

renni asks me what i told the little fuck i tell renni that i threatened to break the lugnut's legs renni's grimace goes away

finally finally finally now i've proven my loyalty now i've proven my stewardship i've proven my curiosity for the game shown my respect given my respect to the gods of bocci i ask renni if i can have a swing at it i mean after all bill is throwing them wide he's no athlete if he can be out there i can get out there and lay that baby down next to the cue ball renni says sure come on down

i take my shoes off because i'm not wearing nor do i own white deck shoes

i didn't wear white either my socks were white but i wore jeans and a burgundy tee-shirt that had an image of two fists coming together beneath the words no enemy hell i'm quite sure that my underwear wasn't white either i think i was wearing my gumby boxers i asked renni if it was okay me not wearing white he said it was okay this time

i picked up the first ball renni walked halfway down bill stood next to me renni pointed to where i should plan my arc i rolled the ball and it went way way beyond the target and into the dirt gutter at the end of the green i rolled another same thing i rolled another it was wide twenty thirty feet i rolled a fourth it was wide twenty thirty feet as well but on the other side i rolled a fifth and got it quite close to the target thank you i was quite proud got myself an attaboy from renni the next three were thirty forty feet wide one in the gutter

i felt good

there's no moral to this story there's no underlying meaning to this story there's not even much of a story here i simply visited this fairy land to the east of san francisco i played bocci ball we finally liberated our son and three of his compatriots we drove back to san francisco that's it

when i finally get myself together i'm going to get down in that sunny southern weather and i find a place that's safe to laugh separate the wheat from the chaff i feel like i'm owing someone

bocci ball and all that

 

Teach Your Children

teach your children well teach your children well crowded plane back from new orleans i'm tired i'm drowsy tired need to get back to san francisco need to get back to the sanity that is not new orleans on an expense account i don't think that they eat vegetables in new orleans unless they are deep fried in something i think that they deep fry salad even the oyster po'boy though baby the po'boy though baby it's good heart attack on a fucking french roll not too shabby

heart attack baby

crowded plane i'm settled in i'm reading my book jose saramago the history of the siege of lebanon i'm digging it i've settled back i'm settled into one of those long eerie folds within time sure the damn clock continues to tick fucking tock but it seems to be stuck like it's spinning its wheels but we're just not moving nothing absolutely ever never ever happens when you are on a plane time simply

stops

even the thoughts that you have while on a plane don't really count they don't really exist your brain is traveling way too fast through space for any such thought to survive teach your children well

she is in the middle seat she is dressed like doris fucking day matching pedal pushers and top not quite pink but not quite red i'm sure there's some color to describe it my palette is simply not that sophisticated a little tiny bit of midriff showing spaghetti straps she speaks suddenly seriously i'm coming back from visiting my son he is a lieutenant first lieutenant west point don't you know he's in clarksdale tennessee really stationed in fort campbell he's been in three years now going to west point you have to commit to four years after you graduate he's trying to decide whether or not to re-enlist but at the same time he's applied to the rangers that's another three year commitment he was in iraq for a while he's going back he likes being back here but he feels that he needs to be back there with his friends one of them was killed

she spoke suddenly seriously she says

i live we live me and my husband we live in santa rosa what do you think about kentucky we're thinking about moving to kentucky our son seems to love it there i hope that he doesn't re-enlist but i think that he's going to re-enlist she has red hair bright red hair and it's teased up a bit doris day circa nineteen sixty-five teased up a bit and she has green eyes she she she says i'm not saying much i try a couple of times she is fast she is on a roll i let her go open it up baby you're on a straightaway now baby just put it the floor and let her fly i got my big basket out just just just

i hope that we're not late i really want to get home we're over there in long term parking we've still got to drive up to santa rosa when do we land oh geeze at six traffic will just be just be so awful we need to drive to santa rosa another two hours i want to get home and get some rest i'm being interviewed on en bee see tomorrow morning i started this group this organization we want to raise awareness of those in our military we're trying to get a stamp you know all the branches army navy marines even the coast guard oh yes all branches we want to raise awareness did you know that there is some secret committee that decides what goes on stamps they don't answer to anyone i heard karl malden was on this committee i wrote him a letter he hasn't responded yet but i sent it a week before we left we've been with my son for two weeks teach your children well

so i asked so i asked why did your son choose to go to west point i mean the way i hear it to get into west point you really really have to want to go to west point she frowned and said yes yes yes it was very difficult he got accepted into you see davis and west point we sort of wanted him to go to davis he had his heart set on west point we had a hard time with it he had a hard time with it you know it was a very very hard school you know that they weren't allowed television sets in their rooms their first year yes i'm serious

i have a son he is seventeen he doesn't want to go to west point he wants to go to swarthmore he wants to go to reed maybe he wants to go to whitman maybe he's thinking oberlin i can pretty much thank my lucky stars that he doesn't want to go to west point i mean i guess it's important that our great nation have a war college i would prefer that we have a peace college instead at least as well as don't you know

i mean i mean i guess i can dig the whole honor and dignity and respect thing but i'm not really down with the uniform thing i guess the boots could be pretty useful for backpacking but really i started wondering started wondering if i would support him if he really wanted to go and i concluded

you got to be fucking kidding me

 i'm thinking i'm thinking i'm thinking i would convert to islam join the communist party write threatening letters to the president claim that he is queer as a fucking three dollar bill i would do pretty much anything that that that would taint my son's chances of getting into such a school i would make sure he would fail the background check even if i had to substitute my urine for his during his medical test because i can guarantee you that my urine would not pass nope nope nope

i don't ask her why

why would i ask her why don't see what good that would do it's a done deal he's been he's out he's a contributing officer in herr bush's war fuck you george bush fuck you dick cheney fuck you donald rumsfeld fuck you paul wolfowitz why oh why would you give your son over to one of these bastards the litmus test for a just war needs to be each leader electing to go has to send one member of their immediate family in the first wave i want to ask her why would you give your flesh and blood over to those fucks i don't see georgie's little girls looking all sweet and tight in camouflage

i don't ask her why

why the fuck would i ask her why i may be a prick but i'm no asshole i'm not totally insensitive but i just have to wonder what the fuck are you thinking yah yah if you can't prevent him if you can't prevent him from going i guess you have to support him sort of like if your kid came to you and said hey pops i'm really into buggery with sheep i know you aren't into sheep yourself but i'm going to go out and buy me a couple of sheep and just get it on have me a little fleece fucking so i hope you can simply support me in my beliefs hell i think people who are into fleece fucking like to do so while wearing uniforms

probably just a coincidence yeah probably

she wants to move to kentucky she misses her boy she'll uproot her entire life been living in santa rosa for thirty-five years she'll throw it all away to move closer to her boy just so she can see him before he gets back on that plane to go wherever it takes him

she has a website well her group has a website she told it to me i forgot it don't think that i would have given it to you anyway not in my nature to promote such goings on she has a website her group has a website her group wants to build awareness whatever the fuck that means she wants a stamp i want to ask her why not have a group that is building awareness for the peace corps building awareness for unicef what the fuck what the fuck i guess that would be hurtful

she already looks pretty fragile she's a small woman her eyes have that questioning look that it was all going so well before he went off kind of look only son fruit of her loins this boy once suckled at her breast how difficult it must be how wrenching it must be of course she wants everyone to love her boy uniform and all hell i can't stand the other side in my kid's basketball games who can blame her for waving the flag in such circumstances evil though they may be evil though they may be

i don't ask her why

i don't ask her what makes a boy want to grow up to join the army and shoot people i never had to register for the draft i'm in that little bitty window that opened up right after the vietnam war and lasted three four years where we didn't even have to register those that are a year younger than me had to register my son has to register next year i'm so torn i'm so torn what would i do if he came to me and said dad i'm not going to register i don't believe in it i guess first thing would be such an outpouring of fatherly pride realized in my bawling like a baby second thing would probably be oh shit here's where i test my beliefs i guess i guess

i've put out feelers loose ones but feelers nonetheless jobs in vancouver toronto montreal would canada let him stay where can i go where can we go i'll go wherever we have to go change our names he already dyes his hair green blue orange he's already dying it red this weekend to match his date's dress for the prom fuck you george bush fuck you dick cheney fuck you donald rumsfeld fuck you paul wolfowitz

and yeah fuck you lady who sat next to me on the plane fuck you who would send your sons send your daughters hey i know it's hard hey i know it's difficult hey i know it's heart-wrenching but fuck you anyway fuck all of you i spoke to moses at the burning bush i spoke to jesus hanging on the cross i spoke to vishnu sitting in the clouds i spoke to buddha sitting in the wilderness i spoke to mohammad on the mountain they all said they all said

what the fuck are you thinking

i love my son she loves her son she wants to move to kentucky fruit of her loins and all that

 

Teach Your Children

teach your children well teach your children well crowded plane back from new orleans i'm tired i'm drowsy tired need to get back to san francisco need to get back to the sanity that is not new orleans on an expense account i don't think that they eat vegetables in new orleans unless they are deep fried in something i think that they deep fry salad even the oyster po'boy though baby the po'boy though baby it's good heart attack on a fucking french roll not too shabby

heart attack baby

crowded plane i'm settled in i'm reading my book jose saramago the history of the siege of lebanon i'm digging it i've settled back i'm settled into one of those long eerie folds within time sure the damn clock continues to tick fucking tock but it seems to be stuck like it's spinning its wheels but we're just not moving nothing absolutely ever never ever happens when you are on a plane time simply

stops

even the thoughts that you have while on a plane don't really count they don't really exist your brain is traveling way too fast through space for any such thought to survive teach your children well

she is in the middle seat she is dressed like doris fucking day matching pedal pushers and top not quite pink but not quite red i'm sure there's some color to describe it my palette is simply not that sophisticated a little tiny bit of midriff showing spaghetti straps she speaks suddenly seriously i'm coming back from visiting my son he is a lieutenant first lieutenant west point don't you know he's in clarksdale tennessee really stationed in fort campbell he's been in three years now going to west point you have to commit to four years after you graduate he's trying to decide whether or not to re-enlist but at the same time he's applied to the rangers that's another three year commitment he was in iraq for a while he's going back he likes being back here but he feels that he needs to be back there with his friends one of them was killed

she spoke suddenly seriously she says

i live we live me and my husband we live in santa rosa what do you think about kentucky we're thinking about moving to kentucky our son seems to love it there i hope that he doesn't re-enlist but i think that he's going to re-enlist she has red hair bright red hair and it's teased up a bit doris day circa nineteen sixty-five teased up a bit and she has green eyes she she she says i'm not saying much i try a couple of times she is fast she is on a roll i let her go open it up baby you're on a straightaway now baby just put it the floor and let her fly i got my big basket out just just just

i hope that we're not late i really want to get home we're over there in long term parking we've still got to drive up to santa rosa when do we land oh geeze at six traffic will just be just be so awful we need to drive to santa rosa another two hours i want to get home and get some rest i'm being interviewed on en bee see tomorrow morning i started this group this organization we want to raise awareness of those in our military we're trying to get a stamp you know all the branches army navy marines even the coast guard oh yes all branches we want to raise awareness did you know that there is some secret committee that decides what goes on stamps they don't answer to anyone i heard karl malden was on this committee i wrote him a letter he hasn't responded yet but i sent it a week before we left we've been with my son for two weeks teach your children well

so i asked so i asked why did your son choose to go to west point i mean the way i hear it to get into west point you really really have to want to go to west point she frowned and said yes yes yes it was very difficult he got accepted into you see davis and west point we sort of wanted him to go to davis he had his heart set on west point we had a hard time with it he had a hard time with it you know it was a very very hard school you know that they weren't allowed television sets in their rooms their first year yes i'm serious

i have a son he is seventeen he doesn't want to go to west point he wants to go to swarthmore he wants to go to reed maybe he wants to go to whitman maybe he's thinking oberlin i can pretty much thank my lucky stars that he doesn't want to go to west point i mean i guess it's important that our great nation have a war college i would prefer that we have a peace college instead at least as well as don't you know

i mean i mean i guess i can dig the whole honor and dignity and respect thing but i'm not really down with the uniform thing i guess the boots could be pretty useful for backpacking but really i started wondering started wondering if i would support him if he really wanted to go and i concluded

you got to be fucking kidding me

 i'm thinking i'm thinking i'm thinking i would convert to islam join the communist party write threatening letters to the president claim that he is queer as a fucking three dollar bill i would do pretty much anything that that that would taint my son's chances of getting into such a school i would make sure he would fail the background check even if i had to substitute my urine for his during his medical test because i can guarantee you that my urine would not pass nope nope nope

i don't ask her why

why would i ask her why don't see what good that would do it's a done deal he's been he's out he's a contributing officer in herr bush's war fuck you george bush fuck you dick cheney fuck you donald rumsfeld fuck you paul wolfowitz why oh why would you give your son over to one of these bastards the litmus test for a just war needs to be each leader electing to go has to send one member of their immediate family in the first wave i want to ask her why would you give your flesh and blood over to those fucks i don't see georgie's little girls looking all sweet and tight in camouflage

i don't ask her why

why the fuck would i ask her why i may be a prick but i'm no asshole i'm not totally insensitive but i just have to wonder what the fuck are you thinking yah yah if you can't prevent him if you can't prevent him from going i guess you have to support him sort of like if your kid came to you and said hey pops i'm really into buggery with sheep i know you aren't into sheep yourself but i'm going to go out and buy me a couple of sheep and just get it on have me a little fleece fucking so i hope you can simply support me in my beliefs hell i think people who are into fleece fucking like to do so while wearing uniforms

probably just a coincidence yeah probably

she wants to move to kentucky she misses her boy she'll uproot her entire life been living in santa rosa for thirty-five years she'll throw it all away to move closer to her boy just so she can see him before he gets back on that plane to go wherever it takes him

she has a website well her group has a website she told it to me i forgot it don't think that i would have given it to you anyway not in my nature to promote such goings on she has a website her group has a website her group wants to build awareness whatever the fuck that means she wants a stamp i want to ask her why not have a group that is building awareness for the peace corps building awareness for unicef what the fuck what the fuck i guess that would be hurtful

she already looks pretty fragile she's a small woman her eyes have that questioning look that it was all going so well before he went off kind of look only son fruit of her loins this boy once suckled at her breast how difficult it must be how wrenching it must be of course she wants everyone to love her boy uniform and all hell i can't stand the other side in my kid's basketball games who can blame her for waving the flag in such circumstances evil though they may be evil though they may be

i don't ask her why

i don't ask her what makes a boy want to grow up to join the army and shoot people i never had to register for the draft i'm in that little bitty window that opened up right after the vietnam war and lasted three four years where we didn't even have to register those that are a year younger than me had to register my son has to register next year i'm so torn i'm so torn what would i do if he came to me and said dad i'm not going to register i don't believe in it i guess first thing would be such an outpouring of fatherly pride realized in my bawling like a baby second thing would probably be oh shit here's where i test my beliefs i guess i guess

i've put out feelers loose ones but feelers nonetheless jobs in vancouver toronto montreal would canada let him stay where can i go where can we go i'll go wherever we have to go change our names he already dyes his hair green blue orange he's already dying it red this weekend to match his date's dress for the prom fuck you george bush fuck you dick cheney fuck you donald rumsfeld fuck you paul wolfowitz

and yeah fuck you lady who sat next to me on the plane fuck you who would send your sons send your daughters hey i know it's hard hey i know it's difficult hey i know it's heart-wrenching but fuck you anyway fuck all of you i spoke to moses at the burning bush i spoke to jesus hanging on the cross i spoke to vishnu sitting in the clouds i spoke to buddha sitting in the wilderness i spoke to mohammad on the mountain they all said they all said

what the fuck are you thinking

i love my son she loves her son she wants to move to kentucky fruit of her loins and all that

 

Bourbon Street

aw lawdy sho' is cool sho' is wild sho' is something to tell sho' is something sho' is something shakalaka baby shakalaka

new orleans the third part first thing i notice is that new orleans ain't quite so appealing if you are not drinking i mean i mean don't get me wrong don't take me the wrong way don't take me for my money don't take my virginity i find it so precious i mean i do so enjoy watching the fine young things prance down bourbon street it is indeed a unique place ain't much like it elsewhere in the country and i do so enjoy kicking back with my buds and watching them get seriously shitfaced but but but

we've fast forwarded up to the present i'm on a plane coming home to san francisco after spending four days in new orleans business convention all sorts of things specific to cable television we all converged on the city with dollars in our pockets burning a hole in our pockets rained lucky dogs and cats all day saturday heard they canceled jazz fest on friday turned into a mud pit on saturday rained a little bit on sunday still a mud pit we poured into the convention hall on monday morning to be greeted by booths containing em tee vee aitch bee oh fox sports network ee es pee en hustler playboy spice and all of us technology providers that are just trying to earn a living

bringing the world more television

i mean i mean i mean we ain't exactly out curing cancer or sending a man to the moon or digging wells in third world nations or chasing down tuna boats or throwing buckets of red paint on people wearing fur coats but hey we really are trying to make the neighborhood a better place to live the more tee vee that i can bring you the more likely i'll keep you off the streets and take away another potential target for all those muggers and buggerers and rapists and scam artists and sad sack stories and homeless people that make life a potentially hazardous proposition yes indeed boys and girls step right up there's bound to be something in this five thousand channel cornucopia of scripted love that

you want to see

been in the industry for ten years or more i know a few people i know a lot of people we're all familiar we're all comfortable with each other we've all seen the other in some quite possibly very comprising positions two hundred mile rule and all that my tight group of buds though my core group we're good we've been through the wars we've laughed and hurled vomit together we have we have

used to be we hung out and talked drinking restaurants and pussy but we're talking years ago when we all had to impress each other now we hang out and smoke phatties talk deals and still talk pussy but now more in the remember when mode but who gives a shit about the booze or the restaurants the restaurants in new orleans in my humble opinion are a little overrated i mean brennans and commander palace and the like they are getting a little long in the tooth i mean it ain't no accident that new orleans is the fattest and that ain't phattest i mean fattest city per capita in these here united states of america 

okay okay there is nola's and there is emeril's and they are quite amazing places and

oyster po'boys are good

which are really only good after midnight after two joints or if you've been drinking and since i don't drink any more i guess that just leaves me with enjoying my po'boy with a couple of joints best deals are discussed after midnight after same two joints as well although i still remember the solution and accompanying power point slides that i put together while sitting in an amsterdam cafe for several hours which i thought absolutely brilliant and sent to my team with said thoughts only to look at them later after a little sleep and a little coffee that perhaps they weren't quite so brilliant after all but hey

the hashish was good

i'm in some bar some blues bar go figure a blues bar in new orleans the band has taken a break the bar is empty now quiet a woman and her boyfriend come walking in i'm talking to them they are from hot springs arkansas she is about two hundred and thirty seven years old he is older they want to dance they are disappointed there is no music i tell them not to worry the band would be out soon we chat they are not married but he is her special friend she tells me i ask her if she is still a virgin and tell her i wish i wish

i wish i were still a virgin because i'll never have that first time ever again

she laughs her son is the editor of the times-picayune that's a heavy job her daddy owned the cotton gin in england arkansas when she was a girl she married divorced and had been that way for the last thirty-five years and she liked it that way she asks me what i do and when she couldn't really understand what it was that i did i just told her that i distributed gay porn videos and she seemed to like this

although she later asked me if the club we were standing in was a gay bar i said i thought it was quite a happy place ha ha ha and she pinched my cheek in the great auntie sort of way and said oh you teaser

my main man groove daddy comes in he's just coming in from some other bar and says hey hey hey you gotta come check this out groove daddy has been out wilding in the bars fresh from getting on his knees drinking strange colored shots pouring from test tubes which are neatly ensconced in the cleavage of some cute shapely waitress groove daddy comes in and grabs me by the arm telling me i have to come with him

i follow

and walk into a bar down the block and there are two women young women college coeds as they might say on some of the racier websites that happen to grace my computer screen from time to time they give groove daddy a hug they are shapely they are downright beautiful there is something wrong with the story but i don't care because well hey one of them she is quite buxom and she gives me a hug and those orbs of love press up against me and i forget my question

we talk we chat we talk we chat groove daddy buys them a shot it's her birthday the shots come in test tubes groove daddy has one hot babe number one has one hot babe number two has one i have cranberry and soda lime please they do the shots they do another they're talking to us they're making all sorts of innuendos they tell us that they are meeting more of their friends right across the street right across the street at the hustler club they want to see strippers on number one's birthday

number is one is wearing a thong you can tell because the dental floss part of said thong is rising up out of those tight levis i lean over i whisper into her ear i lean over i whisper hey baby that must be one cute orange thong you got on and then number two asks me if i want to share a lap dance with her

and the light goes on over my dim little bulb of a head ah yes ah yes these girls are way too cute way too cute and we're way too fat and old and hobbling on convention floor feet and the light goes on groove daddy is ready to go ready to go ready to go i say i say hey groove baby hang on we'll meet them over there in five minutes we'll meet them remember we have to attend to that

something something

know what i mean and groove looks up at me in a drunken stupor tequila stupor his eyebrows raise in that drunken question mark says says says 

whatchyoutalkinboutwillis

i lean over and whisper into number two's ear baby we'll be right over you run over and get us a table here's a twenty buy some drinks we'll be right over ok thanks stay cute we'll be right over they skip out literally skip groove grabs my arm hey man this better be good this better be right dude dude i say dude they're strippers he says what he says what i say dude they are strippers they work there and i nod toward the open door looking across bourbon street and the cuties are talking to the bouncer at the hustler club in a most friendly most familiar sort of way i say

let's just go light up a phattie

so we went back to the blues club listened to some young black chick sing sitting on the dock of the bay then slide into an aretha set and she was hot she was hot she was hot and we smoked cigarettes and we stepped out and smoked phatties and others joined us and we shot the shit and we shot the shit and we shot the shit and made passes at the waitresses like old assholes are supposed to do

and we told jokes and we told bad jokes and we argued and we laughed and we slapped the table on cue and we and we and we just

did all that until the wee hours the wee hours and then we stumbled back down bourbon street left on bienville right on royal down to our hotel my room is on the second floor overlooking royal a couple of us head up my man groove daddy my man v my man b we sit around we tell more lies we smoke another phattie they leave i do the toiletry thing brush my teeth wash my face close the curtain turn off the lights and

it's still so bright in my room that i can read my book

fucking neon from the street still pours through still pours through still pours through

and that's just the first night and all that

 

Water Falls

i fell into your eyes little miss i fell into your eyes little miss and i'm still falling such lovely pools such lovely pools shimmering shimmering shimmering such lovely pools i beg them to dance but the moonlight sweeps in and takes them away shimmering shimmering i'm down on my knees and those lovely pools giggle and that little nose wiggles nostrils a-flare wiggle giggle lovely lovely natural sugary sweetness just like grape nuts baby crunchy crunchy little miss little miss little miss solitaire i fell into your eyes and all that

amen