Saturday Morning Kelly Cove

kelly cove ocean beach daybreak clouds way low hovering over the water it ain't fog just low low low a few surfers out on the water already out on the flat water waiting waiting waiting patient me and cuda walking down the beach

if i face west i may see god

if i face east i see humanity

i look down and see the world's shit

logs shells piles of seaweed long and sinewy all wrapped up piled up on the beach like some loosely tied gordian knot looking like so many dead aliens staining the coast for miles starfish sand dollars driftwood every now and then some man made trinket a bottle a purse

old fisherman asian most of the beach fishermen are asian polynesian long pole with bigass reel stuck into the sand leaning on some unipod with a fork at the top his line way way way out in the surf maybe he'll catch a surfer talking to some guy just another guy on the beach a walker like me wearing his hat like i'm wearing my new hat

his is like one of those australian outback hats like you might find in banana republic mine is as you must know by now is a pork pie hat

he's smoking a cigar king of the beach like he has a broad grin he seems to be speaking to the fisherman with rational knowledgeable authority i respect that we need leaders that can smoke a cigar and grin me i've finished an early morning bowl i know i know aren't you a little old for a saturday morning wake and bake and the honest truth is yes i am but i had to get up early to help stella get ready for a photo gig so while i was up and the morning being just so beautiful and the beach so right there and available and and and

i've finished an early morning bowl and i have his same grin just more one of early morning euphoria and less one of leadership

i'm not leading today i'm just melding

big fucking boat on the horizon surfers bobbing up and down in the surf more come three five seven they wade solemnly into the cold water to face her to plunge into her foaming cunt a common mission on their mind a common fashion as well wearing their taught rubber armor jumping bellyflopping onto their boards as they slide through her first breaking wave on the way out

an old wet bouquet of flowers orange and yellow and peach daisies a coconut bleached from the water but with some writing and a swastika painted on in faded red the writing is faded smudged can't make it out but the swastika doesn't leave much of a mystery

a cold glass of water thrown in my morning bummer i move on down the beach

a huge fucking railroad tie bigger than two of me and just as fat with these long wicked bolts protruding through just laying there quietly laying there the finger bone of some bridge washed away somewhere the remnants of a dock long since gone some crazy hippie's art project

more bouquets three four some with napkins tied around them thrown from some party boat a wedding cruise some ritual where the bridesmaids all make a wish and toss their bouquets into the water sending their marital blessings to the heathens beyond perhaps maybe something else maybe another wedding the groom just didn't show up the bride pissed drives down to the beach and throws everything into the water last night during low tide tied all that remains are the bouquets kind of fitting although

i would have preferred to have found the wedding cake

a big fucking clay pot floats around bobs an unlikely vessel about maybe ten yards out i wade out and grab it it's big about twenty-four inches across with all these intricate clay candle holders built in scattered about kind of pretty i lug it up the beach it's heavy it bumps up against my leg as i walk i consider tossing it then reconsider switch hands switch hands again cuda wants the ball i'm carrying a fucking pot taking it home finders keepers i'm a beach combing man 

it broke when i set it down on the cement stairs leading back up to humanity x-dog and the sextones inc and other graffitti tags on the sea wall bright red and fresh must have been a good friday night

the rain starts

i towel off cuda and get into the car

the rain starts

morning and all that

Richmond Blues

two dykes walking down the sidewalk on post around japan town two dykes talking on the sidewalk one says she says to her friend she says i thought about wearing a dress tonight and the other dyke her friend she looked over in what sounded to me like quite the sincere reply she said with raised eybrows reaching up to her short crew cut hair dyed bleached white she said no shit

i looked over at stella and winked we were going to dinner a little japanese in japan town a little donburi for my soul i looked over at stella and said if you had worn that dress tonight i'd have interrupted your dinner beneath the table and she winked back and said yeah i know i'm hungry tonight

i wore my new hat stella bought me a new hat it's a pork pie hat i've been looking for the perfect pork pie hat for the last couple of years and stella she up and finds me one the other day some hat store on valencia it's grey it's gray it's got a nice feather probably from some endangered species

dyke number one and dyke number two they sauntered off to the streetlight behind me and stella saunter on to the streetlight ahead i'd like to say it was misty foggy or grant you some such romantic imagery that we had to huddle in our overcoats and i had to help her jump daintily over a puddle at the curb but alas no such luck this night no such luck no such

no

we're at dinner sitting across from m and n we've known them a long time our kids are friends spend some holidays together i'm bored i don't even know what we're talking about i order katsu and uni stella orders a couple of funky hand rolls m orders some boring tempura thing n spends three hours and forty-five minutes ordering three or four pieces of nigiri and a hand roll jesus fucking christ oh kay oh kay oh kay it's not that i'm bored i'm not bored i just feel like i'm swimming upstream in some thick inane pudding-like morass of conversation and i feel my brains leaking out of my ears they're just fucking melting there's this voice in the back of my head who is screaming screaming screaming jesus fucking christ i should have just followed the two dykes i should have grabbed stella by her long curly hair and dragged her after the two dykes just to hear them no shit about dresses anything would be more stimulating than this dreck i mean i love these guys i mean i guess i do they wear on me m seems to be such putty to me if i didn't know better i'd guess she was a suburban housewife with a tendency toward cooking sherry and valium

no

she just seems that way

hey maybe it's just that only the night before on friday night i played cards i played poker somebody brought a little kif somebody brought a little hashish i felt a little inadequate with only a couple of buds of some of northern california love mabye it's just that i was simply feeling the aftershocks of jah love feeling the trembles of skank running through my lymph nodes shit my brain was bouncing on a feather mattress and i still was sharp enough to slice through her jello

oh man i'm mean tonight i just get in these moods i guess maybe i'm an artist in his black period maybe i'm just an asshole on occasion hopefully it's not a permanent gig like debbie reynolds in las vegas but i gotta tell you i gotta just admit i gotta get down on my knees and confess mother mary let me nuzzle your breast sorry sorry baby but i just get this way stella i think she understands at least she still holds my hand sometimes she might scold me but i don't mind

especially if she wears that special outfit

we walk walk prance we saunter on through japan town down the very very seventies wrought iron stairway to the faux stone indoor patio complete with fountain with fern out onto post street past the kabuki theater around to fillmore across the geary bridge to the fillmore where gillian welch is playing we have tickets we get this special access have a box up on the second level we have to wear a special sticker on our shirts and jackets to get in it's kind of cool in that lazy elitist sort of way we're sitting up there above the crowd we're at the show we're not part of the show wavy gravy is in the booth next to us we get our own special waitress that comes over and takes orders and brings drinks i have a coke they drink beer n asks me if i'm packing i said no i asked him if he was packing he said no bummer we'd probably get the wicked eye if not the boot anyway people got this phobia about smoking indoors in public venues these days

i mean i don't drink anymore really and i still want a cigarette when i walk into a bar it's just so sacrilegious they came into the temple and pissed on the alter

some band came on i never heard of them they were pretty good they were from nashville david rawlings played with them but he called himself butch they played a number of bluegrass traditionals kind of cool forget their name something about old crow medicine show or something like that dude played a cool fiddle they left and then gillian welch came on david rawlings played with her this time he called himself david rawlings i guess it's a doctor jekyll kind of thing i can understand

stella is such a powerful woman that i sometimes too have to take on an alter ego they tend to differ but i prefer superman

they played all the songs that you would expect them to play i guess that's what happens

i mean they were oh kay i guess i just felt so removed sitting up there in that little booth that i felt that i could have just been sitting in my car smoking a phattie listening to them on a cee dee and been a little better off i mean i played the create a story behind this character and that character as i scanned the fans beneath me long haired dude not old hippie long haired not biker long haired but somewhere in between and his hot younger babe arms wrapped around each other battling tongues and sucking the life out of each other i hope he has money for her lots of young things in gillian style dresses and wearing those cute little cowgirl boots dresses just made for flipping up and onto their backs as they lean over the sofa for you i bet they are wearing sweet cotton panties beneath that calico dress oh my and the pig tails just ideal for grabbing and holding tight as she leans over that old stressed leather soft and rewarding a couple of biker dudes over beneath the balcony over near the bar these guys are big classic redneck big not a good idea to make a snide comment about gillian around them some charlie dancing by himself to some slow song he's had twelve beers too many then his wife left him and then his girlfriend left him and just before the show some hooker told him she was too busy

some charlie dancing by himself

they played all the songs that you would expect them to play i guess that's what happens we leave after the first set it's late well it's late for me at least it's about eleven thirty late for me i need to be naked in my bed around midnight

they played all the songs that you would expect them to play stella bought a cee dee made by the other guys the medicine show guys she slides it in on the way home we drive down geary out toward the richmond through the masonic street tunnel we have the windows down we ride with the windows down and the heater on we like to feel the city as we drive through it i like to have my hand out the window the fog hits us as we emerge from the tunnel that's what i dig about the richmond wet lights hit the street and the condensation on the windshield stella cranks up the heater a couple of notches

pat o'sheas hasn't been open for a long time i haven't been in much longer the coronet theater is being torn down to become some old folks home excuse me senior center assisted living whatever interesting that they are building it there when right behind is the city columbarium there's a great taqueria panchos they make their own tortillas some new so called discount pet food store there must be five of them on geary street between here and the beach how many fucking dogs can there be in this neighborhood we go left at seventh and stop at the little mini safeway at cabrillo pick up some milk pick up some fruit pick up some cereal they're going to rebuild this thing probably some mixed use thing it's all the rage in the other neighborhoods condos on top grocery store ground floor parking underneath

more people in the hood i like to think of it as more nubile women running through the park prancing down wearing lycra and tight sports bras totally for my viewing pleasure

back in the car another five blocks and we're home

saturday night in the richmond

and all that

Lost Coast

the radio goes off at four ay em nothing like the strong authoritative voice of the female variety telling me about somebody bombing somebody shooting somebody cutting the head off of somebody telling somebody they can't get married to some same somebody telling somebody also of the female persuasion she can't have control of her body because somebody like to tell others what to do it's four ay em nothing like an authoritative female voice to make me rise with a hard on yes ma'am yes ma'am i'm ready ma'am i salute thee oh baby

two cars me and noah in one my man pete and his brother tom and their friend bill who happens to know noah from a prior life and a partial current life all of a sudden i'm early morning hurled into a surreal subconscious rendering of it's a small small world after all it's a small small world my world is spinning the street lights are still on bill gives me his cell phone number i program it into my phone and it's gone before i get into the car we pull away we zoom zoom across the golden gate bridge we're heading north

the fog kisses us goodbye as we head up the waldo grade into the tunnel

plans to meet in petaluma for coffee we space on the exit better call bill fuck don't have his number he drives so fucking slow my dead blind grandma drives faster we pass the exit we're in santa rosa we better call i don't have his number any more fucking pete won't carry a cell number hell i'd remember pete's cell number just met bill don't remember his cell number what the fuck guess we'll keep going ring ring pete calls he had to call home wake up the wife to look on his desk for my number i'm hurt he hasn't memorized my number i get over it we make plans to meet north of santa rosa noah and i grab coffee at a mighty fine ay em pee em except it ain't so fine restrooms ain't exactly restful acutally a might bit disgusting

we then make subsequent plans something about subsequent planning that makes it all sound so together so tight so well thought out subsequent plans to meet in ukiah for breakfast but not before noah and i indulge in a bowl of our favorite herbal breakfast our own up close and personal wake and bake while listening to air america on ay em radio i guess we can have assholes on both the left and the right the thing is i find it absurdly funny when the right wing nuts go crazy on us i just try and tell myself that there is really no way that people can really feel that way it just can't be but when i hear it with a liberal spin it just sounds hateful i hate to go rodney king on everybody but i do just wish we could fucking get along anyway the bowl is sweet and tasty noah spices it up a bit with a little fine kif powder of the goddess we end up downtownukiah at the maple restaurant i have a couple of eggs over easy with rye toast they don't have grits sorry no grits only hashbrowns i have hashbrowns

next stop garberville for some reason the post-breakfast bowl has me stuck like an old phonograph needle i keep calling it gar-bee-ville we got ourselves some bright bright sunshine and a town full of hippies and tourists and redneck hippies and out of work foresters and a little shop that is a combination barbershop and purveyor of used firearms mostly of the rifle variety i peek in spy some kenny rogers looking motherfucker with a pair of eighteen inch scissors doing the snip snip thing around and around the alleged brain-carrying orb of some jimbobjoebob racks of rifles with yellow price tags suspended from the triggers racks lining two walls but the mirror behind the barber chair making it seem like there are rifles everywhere

rifles rifles everywhere and not a soul to shoot

short long windy drive down to the coast down to shelter cove the fog kisses us hello one of those wet smooches where she winks and you know her loins are wet you know her cunt is so soft you know you know kisses us hello and says hey baby glad you could make it i hope you're ready for me because i'm going to rock your world my head swoons we load up our packs slap them on my waistband is fucked up i take it off thank god for duct tape thousand and one uses ah that's better the trail is the beach it's the lost coast baby sixty undeveloped miles of california coast trail starts on black sand beach

hiking up the beach all black sand soft sand beautiful to look at sucked to walk on we were committed we were down in the book for five miles one step after the other after the other black sand is a demon but satan threw down hundreds of yards of ocean polished gravel pebbles millions of pebbles crunch squish crunch squish one step at a time luckily we baked in the parking lot find a rhythm got to find the zone one step at a time i walk alone i like to walk alone i like to put my head down hold on to the straps of my pack and just walk head down one step at a time zen and the art of walking on the beach with a fifty pound pack

the fog she blows softly up the leg of my hiking shorts

big rock on the beach about forty fifty feet high looked like cuda's head cuda's big old head should have brought cuda she loves the beach

big ass black sea lion follows us it's out in the water about twenty yards we are walking at water's edge it's high tide time water on our left mountains on our right going up couple thousand feet must have been a fire ten twenty years ago greenery bursting out and around charred silver towers shadows of life that was a source of life to be

the black sand she is a fucking bitch she fucking sucks fucking sucks she takes my boot and gently holds on i attack her i fight her she just sits back sits black and waits she's patient she knows that she will win she does i become the sand i am the sand i am her

the black sand so wet so smooth so cool as i slide my two fingers deep inside she kisses the tips and begs for more the kelp floats in her undulating waters her shivering hips thousands of little black alien heads floating atop like some curious pubic patch that goes on forever

we break for camp we slide into her high tide she's pissed in a lovely playful way we slide in she shakes us up a bit roughs us up a bit spits us out sputtering she forgives us and shows us a quiet spot a beautiful little spring mountain water feeding a pool in the rocks overlooking the beach the chilly waters ease the calf muscles

the fog tickles our nipples

pete pulls out a six-pack that he has graciously hauled mule-style up the beach he cracks one with a very very satisfying effervescent pop fizz we all hit it the sweet sweet lager goes down it goes down good it goes down good

gather the drift wood the dry seaweed we use an old redwood log as a windbreak and start a small fire we eat some chocolate covered ganja balls we smoke a little weed bill passes around a bottle of whiskey we tell lies we tell stories we wander off stumble off down to the water's edge the tide is out the tide pools come to life the glow of the moon pours through the fog we can't see the moon but we know he's out there somewhere the foam of the breakers glows like my jimi hendrix posters used to in my teenage black light powered youth

we can't see them but we know the crabs are skittering about the sea urchin is hula dancing in the tossing water the water the water

more lies more stories did you see the debate last night yeah yeah maybe if we just close our eyes all that will go away they can't get to us up here can they we could just stay here the rest of our natural born lives and further never leave they can't find us up here we can see the distant sporadic house light of shelter cove five miles down up on the hill they can't see us we are invisible we don't exist we have followed big sister wendy to never never land and yeah captain hook may show up from time to time but it's all in good fun don't you know

black sand crunches in darkness as well as light

moonfog kisses me good night vivid ganja dreams in full high definition wide screen eyelid theater the roar of the breaking waves breaking crashing providing solace providing comfort knowing we won't hear the bears as they wander down from the hills i hope they like beef jerky

i forgot to put the beef jerky in the bear cannisters

moonfog kiss me good night

moonfog kiss me take me naked in your bosom rock me gently wrap me gently in your soft soft blanket moonfog kiss me and tickle me with your moist nose let your tongue lap behind my ear nibble nibble your chilly chattering teeth making me giggle beneath the warmth of my down bag drift with me travel with me walk with me down the path down the lane down the crowded busy streets of my mangled tangle mind

moonfog kiss me good night

 and all that