Just Out of Prison

homeless guy or some semblance of a homeless guy sitting on the sidewalk out in front of the warehouse next to franchesci's a dollar bill spread out flat on the concrete several quarters lined up around the edge this dude and this woman that i would not exactly classify as modelicious beautiful this dude he says man i just got out of prison why don't you give me money

we walk on by walk on by on by

it's saturday morning so the farmer's market is open in the little courtyard situated between the cannery and the argonaut hotel local farmers selling their marked up produce to the tourists hell why not i would i like it because jack's outside bar is open and they serve a good cup of coffee in ceramic mugs and the old man pours coffees with a shaky hand and he hands the cup to me but it's shaking so much i just let him set it down in front of me only spilling a bit my man joe he says smiling and shaking his head he says i guess you pour beers and coffees for twenty thirty years your hand's going to shake just a bit don't you know it jack's has a little card on the bar it's a bar made of cement on the bar is a little card that says they have eighty-five beers on tap the old guy says that they still sell more bud than anything else second place is anchor steam the tourists like anchor steam

baked again

the sun shines the water was wet the herb was moist and crackling in the smudge pot and i played priest of the church of the southend and walking through the courtyard i took communion the body of our lord ate little bread crumbs on a toothpick that i dipped into the little plate of olive oil but i didn't buy any olive oil but i did buy some grapes the blood of our lord very very sweet grapes i'm a sucker for a sweet grape i'm a sucker for my sweet lord it's harvest time it's also harvest time for kind green bud kay gee bee baby i'm a sucker for my sweet goddess too

sun shines my arms are tired but not tied two words only one letter off

joe and i walk through a crowd of blonde blue-eyed barbie dolls all wearing you es see jerseys and or colors we were talking joe and i we were talking about something some shit don't remember what we were talking and then we stopped talking as we walked through this crowd of beautiful nymphets perfect teeth gleaming in the san francisco sun didn't even know that we stopped talking until we came out the other side of the crowd then we noticed a little surreal wandering through a forest of lovely delights

baked again in san francisco ain't so bad ain't so bad been a while since i got out of prison

they were very cute this crowd of nymphets i think that they would have followed me had i only been playing my pipe pied piper that i am i didn't ask them if i could wear their sweet little panties on my head and it's my loss my loss

drive home with a little reggae playing on the radio kay pee oh oh kay pooh sugar sugar until it's home again home again jiggety jig out on the deck with the sun smiling upon me and the new york times until

youngest boy child and cuda and the little rat dog and me who youngest boy child calls daddy oh we take a walk through the park can't walk through the concourse it's been closed for a while they have to build this new museum it's big they're digging a tunnel they're digging a garage that will hold eight hundred plus automobiles and small trucks and this museum has copper plating all around it and a tower that soars up into the heavens it will have copper all around it as well it's big we walked around it through the rose garden over and around the japanese tea garden by the ball fields semi-pro game going on some drunk sitting in the bleachers ragging on the pitcher

popping into sliders for a burger younger boy child is known there the lady behind the counter asks him if he wants his regular he does i have one as well hey it's only yom kippor i ain't fasting the burger lady she tells me how good looking younger boy child is i smile i say thanks i guess that's what you're supposed to say we're sitting out on the sidewalk because we have the dogs every two bites someone walks by taking a movie back to le video or walking up to get a celtic cut from paul the celtic barber every two bites someone has to stop and ask if they can pet the dog we nod i can't believe the idiots who lean over to pet the fucking rotty without asking i figure they have a death wish but i don't tell cuda to oblige

long walk back we go around the other side of the concourse this time through the rhododendron garden cuda trees a squirrel the rat dog rolls in some stinky stuff been a while since i got out of prison

lawdy lawdy got to slice tomatoes got to slice onions got to make a pot of coffee stella heads off to services one and only daughter is fasting she's in a funny mood but a bit edgy she needs food i'm playing shabbas goyem i even turn on and off the lights just for the hell of it by god by moses by abraham i don't mind as long as stella wears that special outfit for me we lay out the bagels we lay out the lox we lay out the kugel we lay out the blintzes we lay out the fruit salad no wait j always brings the fruit salad

stella sends me down to the corner store to get some oh jay big el walks with me fires up a bowl words about cameras words about work words about stella taking photos for a living she's pretty good at it the big el taught her a lot but stella is a natural

the crowd flows through in two shifts those that went to the reformed temple jew-light as stella says those that went to the conservative bordering on orthodox temple we kiss we hug most of them we only see during the holidays we started years ago drifted elsewhere but still do the holidays together we're family once twice a year

been a while since i got out of prision the moon it's set already

been a while and all that

Yom Kippor and Smoked Kippers

the hell you say

for all these sins o god of mercy forgive us pardon us grant us atonement la fah neh cha fill our souls with love our hearts with love renew our days as in the past

yom kippor baby time to get the old name written into the book of life into the book of like into the likeness of book into the likelihood of being a schnook the love baby the love baby it's all about the love it's all about the love no it's all about the guilt fuck i don't know what it's all about all i know is that

stella be draggin dragon my white ass off to temple

and i don't even have time to get baked beforehand i mean how i mean how i mean how does one enter into the holy holy holy house of the almighty big guy the sanctuary of the simple minded simon the big oven baby baking baking baking getting all shook up and doing the davening thing without a little inspirational herbal smudge bath yah jah baby

i've been married to stella twenty plus some years lived in sin before then oh my yessss yah dig been married to stella twenty plus some years been doing the tribal thing since the kids were born well really only since oldest boy child became sort of understanding of the situation such as it is as it was so i guess really only for the last fifteen years or so been an honorary member of the tribe since about that time i mean my momma bless her soul wherever it is up in heaven sitting up there on the clouds strumming her harp flapping her dainty little feathery wings bless her soul my momma she told me if you don't raise your children the way stella wants to they will grow up to be heathens just like you and i said momma rolling a phat fat doobie i said momma you is a wise soul and it ain't been so bad ain't been so bad ain't been so bad

dig

but i didn't know that it meant that i needed to go to temple

for all these sins o god of mercy forgive us pardon us grant us atonement la fah neh cha fill our souls with love our hearts with love renew our days as in the past

i mean i mean i mean those pews those pews i mean why do they even call them pews what the fuck does that mean anyway they're just fucking little folding benches for skinny folk my ass cheeks scrape the sides every time i stand up sit down stand up sit down face east put my left foot in and do the fucking hokey pokey just a little fucking folding bench like i used to sit on during my baseball games of yonder childhood not really my game i was more of a hoops player i liked the big round ball i liked the blacktop as opposed to the diamond but those pews those benches they hurt my back all that standing up all that sitting down yeah i kind of like the chanting those words that i have no fucking idea what it means i kind of like those words the rhythm the tone i mean it ain't the third baptist church down on golden gate avenue down in the hood it ain't but it's better than the staid starched methodist church in halifax virginia population eight hundred and something where when i was a kid they fired the preacher because he thought and then preached that a vote for nixon was a vote for satan i mean it ain't that either it ain't it ain't

but i didn't know that it meant that i needed to go to temple i mean i do go down to church several times a week i do i do i go down to the church of the south end and i wash those sins from my filthy mind dip myself in the ritual waters of the churning churning sea of love and lust the bay of svengali the lost cove of a thousand tourists i just didn't know that it meant that i needed to go i mean it ain't really the act of going i don't mind going sometimes every now and then i actually go on my own all by my lonesome i do i do i guess it's just the act of going with all these people all these people trying to outjew each other yeah look over there yeah that family jesus fucking christ they will stay in here until the temple kgb security that they import from israel has to come in here and drag them out because it's just time to fucking go home it's just the fact there's someone there with that little clicker at the door clicking it every time someone walks in got to get the numbers up high holidays is a good time to guilt them in to re-upping the old membership

for all these sins o god of mercy forgive us pardon us grant us atonement la fah neh cha fill our souls with love our hearts with love renew our days as in the past

yeah it do sound so good it do it do i'm just such a cynical fuck these days i can't just sit back and take it all in the sun is setting the brightness of the stained glass fades into a sweet dullness and the candles take form and dance and the arches of the ceiling soar over our heads and meet in heaven above and the bema sits majestically above the congregation and all the ark is opened and the torah is held high and the voices and the guitar and the bass and the cello and the piano marry and they float beneath my closed eyelids they do they do

of thee i sing

and all that

Car Coolness

my first car was a sixty-seven mustang fastback two plus two with a two eighty-nine high-po with a little crane cam and a holly six fifty carb and a hurst shifter on top of a three-speed transmission and the wheels oh man the wheels were so fucking cool sixties all around that's the good stuff it could get up to one oh five in the quarter but wouldn't top end at over one ten body though wasn't in too good a shape probably about ninety percent bondo painted primer grey inside lights didn't work back window wouldn't really roll back up if you happened to roll it down brakes didn't work so well kind of a bummer when you've just finished a quarter mile run and had to come down off one oh five before the fucking stop sign let me know that a row of pine trees was only a couple of lanes away i paid four hundred dollars for it

i sold it to my friend stuart for three hundred seventy-five

my second car was a seventy-one barracuda a fucking cuda white two-door three-eighteen two-barrel a sweet engine but mostly factory beige naugahide interior small backseat but you could maneuver if you had to i dipped my dick for the first time on the hood of the cuda the hood was still warm we were parked out in a field down below the elks club looking out over the elks club pond summertime warm night breeze flowing in off the swamp hood still warm pussy so hot she was older than me she wanted me to fuck her on the hood still warm i so so wanted to do what she wanted me to do so i did and it was hot so hot so hot on the hood still warm i took that car to college never got laid like that again like that again the cuda didn't age so well so well i lost a snake in the trunk once i drove up from home my brother had given me a snake an oak snake i was going to put it in a terrarium my brother put it in a box i put it in the trunk it wasn't there when i got out of my car in atlanta i mean the box was still there but the snake it was gone my girlfriend anna she wouldn't get into the cuda for a week anna is a whole other story long long story the back window leaked the floorboard in the back used to get damp used to get wet i dropped some weed seeds behind me i could roll a joint while i drove i was good this was back when weed had seeds seeds fell behind me dirt got in the back somehow hey i'm not mister clean baby water seeds dirt i went away for about ten days i came back and there were little mary-wanna sprouts growing in the back of the cuda

the cuda died

my third car wasn't a car it was a sixty-eight vee double you camper with the pop top i had entered my follow the dead sleep wherever the van happened to stop phase of my life i was in college it was my home away from home i drove it to northern ontario it went forty-five miles an hour through the smokey mountains i had an eight-track tape player that was actually an old home stereo that i had rigged up to work in the car one time we were going to an ultimate tournament in athens and we were getting very righteous on the way there one saturday morning in august there was so much smoke in the van a dude pulled up beside us on the highway and started to wave at us we waved back friendly hippies that we were they waved a little more frantically and pointed at the back of the van and we looked back to discover that there as much smoke coming out of the back of the van as there was inside the van then we saw flames come out the back we pulled over the doors opened smoke plumed out of all open doors i bravely popped open the back lift and flames poured out followed by black smoke thing is cheap vee double you engines had cheap paper air intake hoses it caught on fire they just do that we got back in the van and drove it on into athens anyway we had a game to play we couldn't drive faster than twenty twenty-five miles an hour without the engine overheating

the van died

i didn't have a car for a while i drove stella's car to san francisco from atlanta when we moved out here

my fourth car was a sixty-five ford falcon futura convertible with a straight six cool blue white top eeeeee-lectric top it was the ultimate of cool all original except i put in a great stereo it rocked i drove it everywhere i moved from san francisco to washington dee cee fool that i was took the falcon with me that hardass city killed my car it was a california car i will never forgive dee cee for killing my car bush the first was president i blame him too

my fifth car was a nineteen eighty-nine toyota celica gee tee never had a problem with it i drove it across country with my rotty my first rotty her name was lydia we named lydia after lydia lunch she was a cool dog it was fun going across country with her my main man chris drove stella's car it was a eighty-nine bee em double you three twenty five it was red he had my sheepdog with him i had two dogs at the time a rotty and a sheepdog her name was holly we named her after holly go lightly i watched that movie the night my oldest son was born still one of my favorite movies i loved the book too truman capote is fucking cool the end differently you know the movie the book the celica was a good car but kind of boring i mean it went like a bat out of hell it was black it had cool lines it was sporty in that madison avenue kind of way

i sold the celica

my sixth car was a nineteen eighty-six jeep grand wagoneer it was fucking huge it had two gas tanks it used to cost me fifty sixty dollars to fill it up this was when gas was only a buck fifty maybe only a buck twenty i loved that fucking truck i called it the beast the fucker got maybe ten miles to the gallon it was very ecologically irresponsible of me but i liked it i liked driving down the road smoking weed in that monster i would drive in the far left lane on the golden gate bridge in that monster nothing scared me i guess i know how arnie feels in his hummer i ain't saying i'm proud of this thing because when i look back it was not very responsible of me like i said before but i did love the beast

someone stole the beast they found it three weeks later the cop he called me said he had good news bad news the good news they found my truck the bad news was that the only way they could tell it was my truck was the charred remains of the vin the doors had been stripped and stolen the engine had been stripped the wheels and tires had been stolen it had been torched

my seventh car was a sixty-eight firebird it was cherry three-fifty rebuilt chevy with a holly six fifty and edelbrock chrome manifolds and headers and a be and em ratched shifter and the wheels were sooooooo cool and the wheels were so cool and it had flowmaster exhaust that purred like a snoring tyrannasaurus rex my buddy noam cut a cee dee of redneck jewish music and he recorded my firebird revving and laying rubber it was cool stella said my having a thirty year old redneck car was better than having a twenty year old redneck girlfriend

the firebird died when it threw a rod going down one oh one at ninety-five miles an hour up near santa rosa coming down off he hill from calistoga

my eighth car was an eighty-six bee em double you five twenty eight eye it was a cool car but it was kind of boring then one day it didn't pass the smog test and so i donated it to the temple i got a tax write off good thing since i couldn't sell it because it didn't pass california smog test the firebird never passed smog either but i found a guy who liked muscle cars up in petaluma and he passed me don't tell anyone i think the statute of limitations has passed anyway

my ninth car was a camry i gave it to stella she liked it i got her car which is an avalon it's a toyota i look around at avalons now i look at people who drive them it's not my crowd in my casual observations i have noted that only old people and asians drive avalons

and me

i drive an avalon

the thing is i kind of like it it is big and it is fast and it has a great stereo and it is comfortable in that old person kind of way and i kind of like it i must be getting old

and all that

Peace and Freedom

hippie chicks and jiggly hippie chick titties bouncing around and around with rasta locks flying about floating about bouncing about like slinky petite loaves of warm golden challa fresh from the oven the glow of jah love a vibrant aura as the sun peeked in and out of the rushing fog sweeping in through up and over the polo fields pouring through the opening the trees tall california pines pouring through like milk into a pitcher

blackalicious followed by string cheese followed by spearhead hippie boys with wispy beards and rasta locks and bright orange yellow purple pants and some kind of sandal and some sort of bob marley hat and some sort of shit eating grin big white teeth whispering chocolate ganja balls five dollars deeeeelicious speedway meadow will be some sort of dusty the field in this grass is going to need some serious help tomorrow

must have been thousands there must have been thousands

wild man in a purple shirt long sleeved button up black pants black pork pie hat bit of a gut on him looks english fifty maybe fifty-five dancing like some sort of dude he's my hero when i grow up i want to be just like him there must be five six cute little young hippie chicks dancing around him he's passing each of them his pipe she'll take a hit and then he'll take a hit and then the next cute little hippie chick took a hit then he took a hit then the next then him again all the time dancing arms weaving in and out jump up leg out spin around down up arms weaving

he's my hero when i grow up i want to be just like him

peace and freedom day nine eleven in san francisco michael franti decides to have much love and wildness in the park speedway meadow brings in the love brings in the crowds free event people stream in through the park walking by my house throngs and thongs i imagine bouncing by my house me and stella and cuda joining them wandering through the woods down by the strange statue of the soldier standing on the giant piece of granite world war one memorial it never ends does it maybe if we stopped putting up statues of war heroes what the fuck is a war hero he saved his mates he gave his life he killed a lot of the enemy he cried sometimes late at night

notches on his belt

lots of booths lots of bumper stickers lots of buttons not much support for mister bush the basic food booths you got your falafels you got your burritos you got your jerk chicken you got your samosas you got your roasted corn on a stick you got your vegan corn dogs you got your chocolate ganja balls you got your anti-israel booths you got your green party booths you got your free mumia booths you got your nine eleven was an inside job booth you got your conspiracy booths conspiracies of all flavors you got your tee shirts booth i almost bought a bob marley one world tee shirt but then i didn't i had some potato masala and a thai tea i bought some chocolate ganja balls off this black dude with a wide grin and these cool wooden bowls filled with different flavors i got one espresso one cinnamon one pecan stella yelled at me well not yelled at me really we just sort of had a disagreement she says i should grow up i joked and said i wanted to grow up like the guy in the purple shirt she smacked me there is love in that smack i understood but i wanted them anyway i'll hide them i'm a jerk i just couldn't pass them up the dude he says yeah man i think one of the balls is good for two people he was quite the stoner i think that i will split the ball into four pieces four people

my two oldest kids were there somewhere oldest son ends up somewhere in front of the stage he's loving spearhead loving string cheese his sister is off in the crowds with her friends we're pretty far back just jammin in the dust with cuda it's a peace and freedom rally oldest son hung with us for a while then he got bored and found his friends one and only daughter she is fifteen she is too cool to even to begin to hang with the old rentals she's got radar i know if we come within fifty yards of her she is emotionally notified and alerted but i can call her on her cell phone and tell her that i love her and she says aw dad

there are thousands there must have been thousands

it's a peace and freedom rally it's nine eleven leftists get up on the stage between bands and chanted dogma yeah yeah i know i dig i even believe some of it maybe half of it i get impatient the anti-israel speeches make me irritable no rational reason hell i even understand most of it hell i think sharon is a pig but there's this whole thing growing up just being christian you get this israel thing then growing up and marrying stella she's a member of the tribe my kids are therefore members of the tribe yeah yeah i know being jewish ain't being israeli yeah yeah i know but stella has this whole thing this whole sense of loyalty drilled into her head since she was like unborn and me i have to be loyal to the chickie chickie i love so out of love i get all irritable when the leftists talk about israel not my fault that's just the way it is

there are thousands out here there are thousands there must have been thousands

lots of love lots of love in the air sweet ganja floating through the air everyone smiling i mean just everyone is smiling everyone is just happy happy happy there's a lot of love there's a lot of love everyone who walks by gives cuda a pat gives her a rub lends her a kind word sweet sweet cuda she grins that rotty grin

it's a peace and freedom rally so easy walk through the park fifteen minutes from the house down a windy wooded path down to john eff kennedy drive down through the sweeping meadow there were thousands must have been thousands beautiful day beautiful day lucky us lucky me

lucky us lucky me

peace out

and all that

The Pusher

join me she said

many many years ago many many ages ago many many lives ago many many mighty moe catch a tiger by the toe if it hollers let it go baby many many she opened the door

join me she said

wild wild wildness electric hair electric ladyland sweetest ass i ever lay eyes or tongue on her eyes so bright eyes that said winking twinkling eyes that said just fucking shut up and trust me country boy i've stolen your heart what else do you have to lose what else can i take from you that is of any value i have what i want give me your hand and

join me she said

people standing around they don't notice me i don't notice them i don't i don't crowded room crowded house crowded yeah just so fucking crowded she's standing at the edge she's impatient i want to dance i want to play i want i want i mean she has my heart might as well play what else can she take

join me she said

she opened the door she opened the door and walked on through tossing up my heart and catching it most of the times sometimes on the first bounce sometimes catching and balancing it on her painted toes like pele like freddie adu she laughed and sauntered on into the darkness of the other room her giggle floating back surrounding me rushing over me through me like the late afternoon fog coming in off ocean beach

goddamn the pusherman she knows what i want she knows what i need she knows she knows she knows

join me she said i did i did i did i danced on through the door i followed that giggle on through the darkness i groped i spun i'm still spinning goddamn oh goddamn the pusher i say goddamn goddamn the pusherman sweet sweet addiction she playfully squeezes my heart just to let me know she can and teases who do you love who's your friend who's your mamma who's your sweet aunt susie oh baby baby who do you love

goddamn join me bite me scratch me squeeze me slap me pinch me pull my hair and call me your dog let me grovel at your feet let me let me let me sprinkle rose petals in your bath let me let me let me anoint your feet with scented oil let me let me let me

join me she said

i found her i held her i whispered sweet lies into her delicate soul i sang savage love songs i told depraved tales of lust and wanting i just did i just did i just did and she spun my heart on her finger and blew softly and blew storms and blew my mind

goddamn the pusher