geeze louise the world it is a hectic place ain't it not i woke up this morning i wondered where did my chirruns go where did they go one and only youngest son he comes lumbering in he's a hairy teenager now one and only daughter she came through wearing her skimpy things that embarrass her old man where did my chirruns go

where did they go

woke up this morning bounced out of bed made phone calls to the other side of the ocean catch 'em while i can hello hullo surf's up dude emails emails this having a real job thing well almost a real job i mean come on no real place would hire me i fucking wouldn't hire me the dude's a stoner fucking chronic for chrissake woke up this morning lumbered down to get the paper it's my ritual don't you know i got to have the paper on my doorstep can't understand a world where i don't have a paper on my doorstep right now i get two yeah yeah we get the local rag it's amusing san francisco we're such a small fucking town i like to comb the metro section for people i might know

the lawyer schmuck he gets his name in the paper all the time he's always calling me up he's saying hey don't i look good i always tell him

he looks good enough to fuck

he likes that

i like to keep my lawyer happy so yeah the ess eff chron fucking rag of a paper fucking fish wrap of a paper but hey it's got the comics page the kids love the comics page stella loves the comics page i dig the comics page i'm not a fan of the animal genre comics the garfields and such i used to dig hobbes i used to dig opus i guess i do dig satchel and i dig rat in that new stephen pastis strip i admit though i confess though i read every comic on the page no matter what when i'm in washington dee cee and i got the post in front of me hell i even read mary worth and rex morgan em dee and apartment three gee when i go home to south georgia i read the albany herald or the valdosta daily times one of them has or used to have the phantom i dig the phantom ghost who walks my favorite all time comic is

pogo

never been a better comic strip ever

i picked up the chron off the front steps i picked up the new york times it's a real newspaper not many other real papers in this here united states of america you got your en why times you got your ell aa times you got your philadelphia inquirer then you are out looking under rocks and such i hope that i don't offend i mean yeah there are all sorts of papers with a good this or a good that but when you talk about the whole package the whole kit and kaboodle ain't much else i mean all these hotels they have you ess aa today hanging on the door knob can we dumb down america more than that i get better news from the onion fer chrissake i picked up the new york times off the front steps i walk out my front door right across the street is the bus stop little glass house with a bench behind that is the redwood grove usually someone sitting outside in the bus stop most of the times waiting for a bus sometimes just a homeless guy getting out of the rain or fog i open the door i walk out the door i walk down the steps onto the sidewalk if the motherfucker is lame if the motherfucker paper person just dropped and ran i walked down the steps

it ain't pretty

i'm naked it's a beautiful day out the sun is coming up indian summer the neighbors know after fifteen years of having us here not to look out their window in the morning less they see old john henry swinging low but the bus stop people they don't really know probably don't know this morning she looked up from her book i waved she looked back down at her book she must have bad eyesight otherwise she'd have been doing the frogger across the road

chasing down john henry

i'm oh kay with that no time for such high jinks this morning got work to do of course i need to read the paper on the john first that is the job of the chron it is my twenty minutes in the morning quick read with shit kind of paper sometimes longer on sunday downstairs a couple of calls a scan through the emails

an eye em with coolness

off for a run through the park the fucking sprinklers ambush me i'm good the sky so blue so blue so beautiful think it got that blue by sucking the blues away from our souls sucks the sadness right out through the pores good feeling vibrates sweat pours total schvitz easy run i'm no hero pigpen singing good morning little school girl i'm half running half dancing

funny how i get plenty of space on the path people just seem to part like the red sea

back just in time shower shave pack my bag head downstairs conference call sales process geezus i fucking hate process but now i'm responsible for process like i said i wouldn't hire me stella comes home i'm trying to finish the call she's just back from walking the dog at the beach she gives me the old wink wink nudge nudge i finish the call i got all of five minutes i'm already late for my plane i'm weak i chase that stuff upstairs

she has her way with me

she's such a bitch if i don't keep her happy zipper up rush down to the car fuck fuck fuck forgot the fucking sweeper it's wednesday sweeper comes on wednesday ticket on the windshield thirty bucks for nothing thanks zoom zoom down nineteenth avenue zoom zoom onto two-eighty fire up a bowl i hate to fly unassisted i mean

have you seen those crash videos on tee vee

i'm not a brave man i hate to fly unassisted i lemme tell you going through security they tell me they inform me i've been randomly selected to stand in this new glass closet you stand inside a very seductive robotic female voice tells me to stay calm that i'll hear a loud sudden puff then i need to wait for the green light it's checking for explosive evidence mister tee ess aa man tells me i want to say but dude will it detect my explosive personality but i don't they these guys in the white shirts

they don't appreciate charm

i thank him instead i move through the line take out the lap top demetallicize my body my personality i get to the other side someone is holding up my bag shit i hate that like seeing the blue lights in my rear view mirror they got to search my bag ah shit i'm thinking should i call my lawyer now they ask permission funny like what are they going to do if i say no i nod i they open her up my heart beats just a little bit faster thumpa thumpa the old palms go moist i think i should wipe them off what if i have to shake hands or something no don't wipe them off probably one of those moves that they are especially trained to look for they dig through my stuff they find a butane lighter they say follow me sir they say

we need to explain your options

aw man i don't want to know about any fucking options it's a fucking butane lighter jesus fucking christ they do zip my bag back up hand me my bag dude holds my lighter up in front of him arm extended like it's somefuckingfirecrackerfuselit i'm to follow him he's got to find a supervisor so the supervisor can

explain my options

he can't explain my options he's got to find a supervisor to explain my options the supervisor he looks at the lighter it is from the joker in amsterdam he smiles he says sir you have two options you can give this lighter to someone outside of the security area maybe a friend or relative that will keep it for you or we can dispose of it for you i select door number two i say hell it's going to run out of fluid anyway might as well get rid of it now he says thank you sir i say

is that all

he says yes sir that's all you're free to go

i'm fucking free to go i'm fucking free to go i'm fucking free to go heart still going thumpa thumpa shit a guy can't even get get a little rasta before a dangerous mission guy can't take along a little kind green sleep aide without having to worry about calling his lawyer guy's got to to worry about some lame motherfucker in a white shirt poking his latex gloved hand inside his bag looking for shit that ain't none of his business playing around sniffing my underwear checking out my razor squeezing my little container of gold bond medicated powder man i dig that stuff smells all wintergreen don't you know tingles when i sprinkle i mean a guy's got to follow some underemployed motherfucker around like he's the middle school principal with his pants pulled up to just beneath his armpits

this ain't my kind of america

lucky i got a little something something this morning otherwise i'd be in a bad mood this ain't my kind of america i got to worry about dumbfuck here spoiling my trip spoiling my business didn't used to be this way back before old george and osama got into their pissing match before they started making the world safe for democracy wait a minute that was wilson right before we started spreading freedom yeah that's the ticket spreading freedom like it was some kind of fucking nutella

price of freedom

lucky i got a little something something this morning otherwise i'd be in a bad mood

price of freedom something something where'd my chirruns go and all that

i'm a stranger walking the streets of your fair city again tonight

dinner meeting sitting at some sushi bar up on amsterdam in the seventies sat at the bar my man dee gee he knows the sushi guy i know there's a name for the sushi guy sushi-san whatever i'm just a dumb cracker what the fuck do i know my man dee gee he knows probably he's that kind of guy he knows the sushi guy we're sitting at the bar

i want to hire dee gee he doesn't know i want to hire him he still doesn't know i want to hire him there is finesse to this maneuver i've known dee gee for over ten years he's known me we've worked together he's a mercenary with a heart once he's on your team he's there a thousand percent he's saved my ass before he's made serious money with me before we have what you might call

a history

i'm charming of course i'm fucking charming but i don't have to be we talk of old times we talk of people we've known good guys we've known pricks we've yelled at each other we've hugged each other we know stress we know the highs of success we even have a stranger link a link that goes further back although we didn't discover the link until we had known each other for a couple of years seems that dee gee's old man had worked for stella's dad in stella's dad big ass business way back when

we're all connected don't you know can't you see we chat it up we talk biz we talk shit with each other we chat it up we talk shit with sushi-san he's a dude he's chronic like me

we're all connected somehow someway sometime

sushi-san he's chronic we go around to the kitchen smoke a little dope talk my favorite subject religion god spirituality whatever the fuck you want to call it it's my favorite subject these days sushi-san he's like me he believes a little love goes a long way we don't want to place our bets on any one god we'd rather spread them out hey you never know hey it's all good some may say that i'm merely covering my ass that may be that could be but i like to think i believe out of love not out of fear my man dee gee he's more of the agnostic type that's all right

we all come around eventually

i mean i don't want to push any thing any belief any thoughts i don't want to proselytize i ain't preaching that ain't my job that ain't my purpose that ain't my cause i mean i ain't putting on the black suit white shirt skinny black tie going around door to door asking to talk asking if the word has spread to this particular household no i ain't like that although

i do so thoroughly enjoy the times that those good fellas knock on my door i sit on the front steps with them offer them a glass of water a beer a joint i'm a generous host i want them to feel comfortable at my home mi casa etcetera don't you know i do so thoroughly enjoy kicking back talking to them i want to really know

i want to know

why their god is the one and only god i mean how can that be when i can swear and yes i do tend to swear a bit when i talk to them but then again i swear most all of the time anyway i mean

fuck

why their god is the one and only god i mean how can that be when i can swear that i have personally spoken with at least three that i can recall and then there are a

few fuzzy figures

that i truly believe entered into my consciousness and took up temporary residences so i ask them i say my good man my good men the are almost always men except when the jehovah's witnesses come around sometime there's a woman in their midst although never alone although i see them downtown on the corner used to hang out in front of woolworth's giving out the watchtower i ask these good men i say i plead please please tell me how can this be it seems to me that a jealous god as you call your god it seems to me that a jealous and omnipotent god might he just might funny how the personification of their god always tends to be in the he form seems to me that he just might want to

stomp on those so-called lesser gods

give them a well-deserved ass-kicking a good old godly rumble but then there's that conundrum a conundrum indeed i mean if there is this one and only god thing going on then how the hell can there even be lesser gods and how can this one and only god be crying out about me or anyone else for that matter how can he be all pissed off about me worshiping some other god if the motherfucker don't exist to start with shit fuck hell i don't know

i think that dee gee sushi-san and i figured it out then we got stoned and forgot so it goes as my man kurt might say

dinner's over dee gee lives nearby he heads home i head down to midtown lexington in the low fifties nice long walk down the west side of the park cut across central park south over to madison down a block over to park down a block over to lexington head on down to my no-tell motel

one of those beautiful fall new york evenings moon not full but still very bright a big ol' yellow cookie up in the sky someone took out a bite might have been one of them gods i put my good coin on nibble nibble here nibble nibble there sugar cookie

i nod smile say hello to those i pass some return the smile some look away i rejoice in the connection i don't let the ones who got away bother me too much we all have off days homeless guys sitting on benches their stuff in carts their hearts on their sleeves single women walking big dogs single guys walking lap yap dogs guys driving the carriages horseless and horsed yellow cabs crawling up and down up and down prowling trolling for fares

earlier today rode in a cab driven by this punjabi dude he's reading a punjabi newspaper i ask him if he's reading from right to left or from left to right i just find it so fascifuckingnating that some people do it one way others do it another way then there's the up and down thing vive la difference he tells me that he's reading that punjabi is read from left to right we talk he tells me he's from punjab in the north of india they were the warriors they kept the hordes from breaking through to the south i tell him i'm from the south just not his south he laughs we laugh

we talked about god

that's my favorite subject walked around the park not through the park thought about walking through the park the moon was shining bright plenty of light wouldn't have been a problem usually i walk through the park but this time i walked around the park

i wanted to catch a smile or two and i did

i stop at one of the corner grocery stores i call it a bodega because i heard the term on en why pee dee blue and i think it's cool stella tells me i'm an idiot she never ever heard the term bodega when she was growing up in new york never heard the term until what's his fuck on en why pee dee blue said it i stop in the bodega i buy some cookies some chocolate milk

hey i'm stoned i'm heading to my room with only a television screen to keep me company i invite along the cookies and milk it's a party i can't find elimidate on the telly i'm beginning to think that it's not on anymore i'm a little bummed i buy a porno they have gay and bisexual porno on the hotel systems now ain't life fascinating ain't life grand i buy one called aa sea dee cee some guy gets into a limo with some hot couple guy number one sucks the cock of guy number two while gal sucks the cock of guy number one

they're not wearing numbers and i don't have the playbook so it's difficult to tell the players apart but after watching for a while i don't think the cocksucking does it for me does that mean i'm not bisexual i guess one never knows until one tries it out not tonight though the double penetration on the gal now that gets a little hot a little back door a little front door flip her over and try it again a little tittie pinching a little moaning the glamour shot to the face i abuse myself i take advantage of myself the hotels are so considerate to provide lotion i go to sleep big day in the morning new day in the morning

more meetings got to be charming all over again

walking the streets talking about god and all that

the living the dead they meld they come together they tear apart they tear us apart we tear them apart we the living they the dead we the dead they the living we're the same connected through the ether connected through souls touching touched to be touched

ashes to ashes dust to dust light to light

i don't know i don't know we're all headed that way two of us have headed that way we're here to look over the wall to look through the window to glance through the doorway two of our own walking in that world

wish we could see them wish we could talk to them wish we could just say a couple of those things just a couple maybe something we forgot to say forgot to mention did you remember to turn off the stove did you leave the water running can i pick up your laundry

how do they pick up and leave so quickly they think thirty forty fifty years of hanging around with us and they can just disappear just fade away

here's our goodbye

here we are standing in the window waving wanting them to come back not wanting to let them go a dad a grandfather a friend just a guy just a stubborn old guy who made his way in the world who married a beautiful woman who had three beautiful daughters who lived past who outlived his beautiful wife who outlived one of his beautiful girls who outlived most of his friends he faded so slowly into that other world

a sister a mother an aunt a friend just a woman a beautiful woman a creative force the goddess herself working through her through her hands creating beauty from beauty creating beauty from nothing creating such beauty that she can never leave us totally behind she leaves such a legacy

little baby girl can cuddle up with a blanket that grandmom made we all wish we could leave such things behind

a man who commands respect a woman who commands love family who are family who are family they leave a hole in our hearts they leave us here alone with each other

we are left with memories we are left with love we are memories we are love we are family we are friends we are simply people missing people

ashes to ashes dust to dust light to light

somewhere over the motherfucking rainbow somewhere somewhere yeah motherfucking nigger lover

how bout that shit how bout them words almost what you might call

incendiary

well well well maybe so maybe so let's start a riot i'm in the mood i'm in the zone i'm ready to rumble wake up and piss motherfucker the world's on fire

driving down for my saturday morning baptism going for the sprinkling going for the full dip listening to one of my favorite radio stations on saturday morning kay poo kay pea oh oh eighty-nine point five on your radio dial san francisco community radio dude brother on the radio he came on he mic'd in he said he started talking about what he called his coon of the week award yeah yeah

coon of the week

right in the middle of some fine reggae run he piped in he brought up somebody's name i can't remember who it was he brought up somebody's name with a full dose of humorous sardonic contempt brought up the name of some brotha out there some black dude some fine gentleman of african descent who he deems complicit in his interactions with whitey called this dude the

coon of the week

now i don't want to go and get all reactionary i don't want you redneck motherfuckers to get all excited thinking that i'm jumping over to your side with all your hey if they got themselves a black history month a latino cultural heritage month why can't we have some sort of white heritage kind of memorial kind of day week month

stupid fucking rednecks stupid fucking niggers stupid fucking beaners stupid fucking kikes stupid fucking gooks stupid fucking faggots stupid fucking wops stupid fucking micks stupid fucking krouts stupid camel-fucking sand niggers stupid fucking injuns domestic and imported stupid fucking papists stupid fucking polacks stupid fucking flip heads most of them are transvestites anyway stupid fucking chicks with dicks stupid fucking broomstick up the asshole wasps stupid fucking hippies stupid fucking frogs

last week in amsterdam maybe two weeks ago had dinner with friends of ours stella and me we swapped houses with them last summer became friends i called them last week maybe two weeks ago when i was in amsterdam we sat outside in their back yard we sat outside enjoying the dutch indian summer i don't think they called it that we sat outside drank after-dinner coffee talked chatted

they spoke english good for me i didn't speak dutch shame on me

dirk my friend he said thirty forty years ago we were an idealistic people we prided ourselves on being tolerant we preached tolerance to the world it was easy at the time we were quite the homogenous people not too may people of color in our midst we could preach harmony of diversity without being diverse ourselves

dirk my friend he said fast forward to today this past year we had one of our own assassinated theo van gogh film maker distant relative to vincent outspoken critic of orthodox islam an orthodoxy producing splintered individuals that eventually killed him

dirk my friend he said so now it's different we have our own orthodoxy embedded in our so-called tolerant society an orthodoxy that refuses to let us even discuss the possibility that there may be some spoiled strains of islam that there may be ideas taught by certain sects of islam that call for this kind of action that call for the violent deaths of those who might dare critique

dirk my friend he said i'm of a very liberal background one might say radically liberal background and i am ashamed of the orthodoxy this liberal orthodoxy where we can't even fucking discuss possibilities where we simply build walls around those like ourselves and think that we must speak with a common tongue with a common point

coon of the week

brother on the radio brother on the radio he says he says he had to go out of his way to put down another brother clamp down on him for working with whitey for talking to whitey now i've heard this guy before he ain't a bad guy he don't sound like a bad guy he seems to speak of jah love peace and freedom and loving thy neighbor and all that sort of good vibration groovy kind of thing

and i know i probably don't agree with the brother that he is putting down probably vehemently disagree with the brother with the uncle tom attitude but come on man come on my brotha

coon of the week

that ain't going to get us anywhere i told dirk i replied to dirk i said yeah i know what you mean we got that same thing going on in san francisco we're such a fucking liberal city we're such a fucking peace love and tie dye town that we forget what it's all about we forget the bigger picture we have to frame all conversations in black white hispanic asian got to have an asian on this board got to have a fucking dyke on that board got to have the semblance of diversity red and yellow black and white all are precious in his site

hey my granddaddy he told me he'd check out a saucy sister strutting her stuff down the street he'd elbow me in the side he'd wink he'd say boy don't tell your grandma i ever said this but boy let me tell you one thing let me just tell you

it's all wet and slippery and pink on the inside

i'd nod like i knew what the hell he was talking about and go back to drinking my coca cola sliding some salted peanuts into the narrow bottle neck watching the fizz as carbonation met salt my fucking redneck grandpa talking to me about pussy not meaning to preach diversity hell he wouldn't have been able to even spell the fucking word much less use it in a sentence

i don't mean to get all idealistic here i don't mean to get all rodney king hell i'm as guilty as the next person hell even more so probably guilty as sin itself but how many generations will it take how many years is it going to take for us to look past this shit for us to not need a black history month for us to not need to fucking appreciate the latino heritage fuck fuck fuck i don't care i don't really fucking care i am anxious for the day i am ready for the day where we just appreciate each other

that's all ain't much

coon of the week shit ain't moving us in the right direction ain't setting us on the right path i mean it ain't as bad as some texas redneck dragging the black dude behind his truck ain't as bad as wyoming fag bashers crucifying the gay dude on the barbed wire fence ain't as bad as rounding up all the moslems after nine one one ain't as bad as rounding up all the slant-eyed bastards and putting them in concentration camps during dubya dubya two ain't as bad as gassing six million kikes

but it's bad

makes all the other stuff easier to get away with makes it easier to kill somebody makes it easier to shrug it off

coon of the week theo van gogh rednecks nigger lovers and all that

lawdy lawdy blow the whistle throw the flag

this piling on shit ain't right ain't right at all what's a family to do what's a family to do exactly thirty-five days after her sister takes the plunge to the dark side goes off into that night the old man goes what the fuck is that all about what the fuck

old man take a look at my life i'm a lot like you

orphan girl stella is just another orphan girl joining me her orphan boy back on a jet plane back on a jet plane heading to new york new york doing the funeral thing i fucking hate funerals this funeral shit is getting too fucking old this this this fuck this funeral shit

old man take a look at my life i'm a lot like you i need someone to love the whole day through just look at my eyes you can tell that's true stella goddamn goddamn i'm digging deep my shovel it's heavy it's so fucking heavy my old man he took a couple pints of my blood when he left your sister hell she left took a couple pints more fucking aa baby i'm digging deep i'm running on empty

how many more how many more shit i didn't even like your old man i couldn't stand your old man

i mean it's not that i didn't like him it's just that he could care less about me about any of us about any of us except how we might reflect him hell your mom bless her hateful soul at least she emoted at least she spoke her mind at least she declared she asked

why can't you marry one of our own why do you have to marry some cracker goyem

at least she looked carefully at the situation studied the situation yeah yeah came away with the conclusion that ain't necessarily the one we all wanted but hell at least it wasn't about her she thought what she thought because of you she didn't like me because she loved you

i can dig that i can second that emotion i know that feeling hell i didn't like your old man because i love you your old man can rise up from the dead and kiss my cracker ass i could give a shit only because i love you

old man take a look at my life i'm a lot like you the only time i ever really engaged your old man was when i got him to talk about himself i was in new york once i visited him in his high rise in the clouds we went out to dinner i said so sid tell me how you became so great he didn't hesitate to tell me pious motherfucker

we're lucky he wasn't religious can you fucking imagine

remember when he cornered me in that room had to have the talk you know the fucking talk he wanted to talk with me i kind of felt he was talking at me but i'm splitting hairs here he said he ranted he stood on his pulpit and said but phatmike he said do you have a plan have you written down your plan have you thought at all about your financial future he didn't want to help he just wanted to preach he just wanted to show me that he did better for you than i did for you

fuck he didn't know the first thing about loving you i do

he barely knew the names of our kids could care less about what they did where they went who they were i hate him for that he treated you like shit and i hate him for that he lauded his money over you and i hate him for that he slapped you once and i hate him for that he left you all alone and took your mother and i hate him for that he waved his arrogance in front of you and i hate him for that he was a cold motherfucker that justified his emotional frigidity in the name of a higher sense of decency honesty and fairness and i hate him for that he spoke ill about others in the family and i hate him for that he had disdain for the world around him and i hate him for that

he died like most other of us shits are going to die and i hate him for that he left you an orphan and i hate him for that

you just know baby you just know that i got your back you just know that i got enough hate for the both of us you don't worry your pretty little self about this part of it you don't have to deal with this part i got it down i'll do the hating for you i'll cross my fingers during kaddish i'll walk over later and piss on his grave i'll curse his name and spit i'll laugh at his pitiful existence and thank him only for blessing me with you

fuck your old man fuck your dead old man i fucking hate him there i said it you don't have to

baby i just want you to know i just want you to understand that it's oh kay for you to love your daddy you go ahead and grieve for your daddy you go ahead and cry and miss your daddy i'm telling you right now that's the right thing for you to do that's the way of the world that's what good daughters do they grieve for their daddies they miss their daddies

you love your dad go ahead and love your dad he was your dad you only get one dad

fuck your old man i love you dead daddies and all that

 

 

london calling to the faraway towns

short hop across the water plane leaves amsterdam at six arrives in london at six ain't that something earth is round time zones blur my sleep patterns heathrow express into paddington station take one of those cool cabs with the jump seats over to regents park checked into my hotel four stories up then head out to dinner

fancy french food that costs way too much money bad enough it's expensive in pounds quite troubling when converted to dollars luckily the amount of food is inversely proportional to the amount we pay so i'm not getting fat but don't you worry sweet stella don't bother yourself with silly such silly stewing emotion i'm still your phat one always getting phat for you baby

i think my dick got bigger

though hope you don't mind back to the hotel in another one of those cool cabs with the jump seats walked back into my hotel the hotel that has no buttons inside the elevator i tell some machine where i'm going it tells me what elevator to take the doors of the elevator open up i step inside the doors close there are no buttons inside the elevator

i feel like maxwell smart

but with a bigger dick zip up to my room strip down to my boxers a tee shirt open up my fourth floor window lean out my fourth floor window light up a little something from amsterdam i'm in a non-smoking room i lean out the window the blue smoke floats out over the park out over great portland street

i'd rather be in some dark hollow where the sun don't ever shine than to be all alone knowing that you're gone what caused me to lose my mind

this is not a love song but i been gone from home more than a week i miss my home i miss stella i miss one and only oldest son who leaves for college on saturday i miss one and only daughter she's not going anywhere but she's growing up too fast i miss one and only youngest son he's sticking around for a while i miss my dog cuda hell i even miss the little runt dog that pisses on the floor just to piss me off i miss swimming in the bay i miss running on the beach i miss i miss i miss

the blue skies of san francisco

so blow your whistle freight train take me far on down the track i'm going away i'm leaving today i'm going but i ain't coming back

this city i mean london this city has been going crazy something about cricket dudes wearing white outfits carrying around paddles throwing balls here and there swinging that paddle this city has been going crazy something about the ashes and the bloody aussies the english have won some super bowl like event and the city is going crazy but you know in that proper english sort of way i'm happy to be part of the good feeling in my meetings i always congratulate the boys across the table

jolly good

me hell it feels good to be back in the swing of things myself swinging with the big bat standing at the plate a year ago i was down now i'm not pendulums swinging sort of like time zones i guess back in the swing of things back on top of things big swinging dick of cockiness and love and perseverance

i take a run through regents park in the morning beautiful morning with the sun out i get lost end up asking a cabbie the whereabouts of my hotel he points me in the right direction i had been walking around it for twenty minutes just didn't know it i shrug my shoulders meetings in the morning take a train down to hook meetings in the afternoon take the train back to waterloo station dinner in the evening at this kosher restaurant

orthodox jews sitting there with their goyem clients and friends i had lamb they gave me soy milk with my coffee after dinner and i later sit back in the window in my room gazing out across the park more blue smoke the whole trip it's a blur so many meetings so many things to follow up on so many opportunities so many ways to fuck them up

i'd rather be in some dark hollow where the sun don't ever shine than to be in some big city in a small room with you on my mind

stella stella

i've traveled half way round the world to talk television talk shit one day you're going to turn on your tee vee and it's going to be doing some wild and wonderful shit and then you'll think ah phatmike he told us it was coming stella stella she called me round five thirty in the morning said oh baby i thought you'd be up what time is it there i forgot that she called until talking to her later in the afternoon after

more meetings

i read the paper on the train headline story some guy walks into a store shoots his ex-girlfriend shoots himself back home not a big deal story happens all the fucking time common story line man finds woman man loves woman man loses woman man stalks woman woman gets restraining order placed against man man goes crazy shoots woman shoots self

page bee twelve in the metro section

man shooting girlfriend hits the headline of the mail hits the headline of the times this is fucking news lead story on the eye tee vee news on the bee bee cee world news competes with the fucking cricket games for attention apparently this don't happen too often here so when it does they put it on the front page there's a lesson to be learned i just don't know what it is what the fuck do i know

i'm a dumbass american

the only way that would have made front page san francisco chronicle dallas morning news ell ay times richmond times dispatch chicago tribune atlanta constitution the only way that sort of thing would have made the front page back home number one way she the dead chick the victim she would have needed to be blonde and beautiful number two way the dude the perp he would have needed to be big black and famous in an oh jay sort of way of course it would help if she the chick the victim had been pregnant or from wealthy stock

ordinary every day murder just don't get us off probably the result of too much law and order tee vee my favorite show don't you know that's meatloaf every wednesday kind of tee vee regular as metamucile you got your murder in the first five minutes the next half hour you got your detectives tracking down the murdering asshole the last half hour you have your basic valiant prosecutors battling overpaid lawyers wearing very nice suits then it's a wrap see you next week same bat time same bat channel

dig

four of us piled into the elevator in this old old old old building it's on the list eddie said can't do anything to this building without going through forty-seven committees we pile into the elevator eddie in his manchester accent eddie tells us this story about how they piled into this same elevator last year this really big guy was with them probably north of three hundred pounds

the elevator stopped

like stopped moving didn't go anywhere the door stuck wouldn't open big dude fainted fell against the mirrored wall in the back of the lift mirror cracked mirror broke they didn't get out for another hour just as soon as eddie finished telling the story

the elevator stopped

like stopped moving didn't go anywhere the door stuck wouldn't open the mirror behind us fogged up from the heat rising from our bodies see man gets a little panicky sweat pouring off his forehead jay man leans over tries to pull the door open with his fingers we call the emergency number listed they say they'll be around in five minutes or so we call eddie's office some dude comes down with a screwdriver and a can opener

pries open the elevator door we take the stairs pull out the dry erase pens get to drawing lines circles and arrows we make a list we check it twice we shake hands make plans for next time

my man vee somehow he ends up in london as well we go to this most righteous indian restaurant best food i've had all trip might be the best indian food i've ever had we me and my man vee we walk later walk through the park the moon is shining never seen the moon shining in london before hell even saw some stars out we sat on a bench in the park he brings out a little am ster dam we sit and talk smoke and talk for a couple of hours into the late late evening

basic bullshit talk tinted with love and respect i'm leaving in the morning he's leaving in the afternoon i'm leaving on a jet plane just like i knew i would going home to see my baby going home to see my babies he's doing the same

so blow your whistle freight train take me far on down the track i'm going away i'm leaving today i'm going but i ain't coming back

london calling and all that

sunday night midnight i guess it's really monday morning the clock being so fucking arbitrary sunday midnight in am ster dam just finished dinner with the team my new team doing the collegiate thing bonding team building rah rah cute young thing sitting across from me she's drinking laughing all the mixed thoughts going spinning swinging mixed thoughts she's drinking laughing all the mixed thoughts she's so vivacious and laughing she's me twenty years ago worse she's my daughter my precious one and only in just ten years i'm chatting with the others they're

all drinking

laughing turned to giggling as they drink more and more and they sort of leave me behind in ways because they're drinking and i'm not drinking but i'm with them they crack up they roll at my dumbest jokes my stupidest comments it's too fucking easy before long i'm entertaining them amusing myself

we ate meat

we wandered away we paid the bill we paid in euros just like we knew what the fuck we were doing we paid split danced through the streets back to the hotel they the others they all went upstairs to their rooms i mean i assumed that they went to their rooms i mean they one of them at least one otherthan me i guess i'm one of them i don't want it to be a them and me thing i mean they're

my team

one of them of us he's israeli he's my age he tells me of war of when he was young he was in the army in a special part of the army some kind of specially trained advanced team meaning he went in quietly did bad shit got out quietly went to lebanon in eighty one was it eighty two went up the coast to lebanon did bad things got out then after three years his wife said he had to get out he was a sergeant she outranked him jewish wife you know he left the army he did his career thing and then the first bush war

alon he says he's telling me this story he says what the fuck did bush care about kuwait he didn't care about kuwait

then the first bush war it happened the eye rackies shot scud missiles into israeli apartment buildings alon he got called up he and his team he got called up when they sent scuds he got called up he was sent to eye rack it was a secret thing no israelis were supposed to be fighting in this war they flew up there in a you esse plane he flew up to eye rack in a big old plane landed in the desert he drove a humfuckingvee kind of jeep off the airplane

drove across the desert

a missile hit his jeep blew him the fuck up blew him to fucking smithereens they airlifted him out of there they flew him back to tel aviv they operated on him for almost twelve hours three different teams working on his blowed up self he lives of course had plastic surgery lots of stitches it took him six months to recover

that was not fun shit man alon he said that was not fun shit man i lost a month of my life one whole month passed by and i don't remember a fucking thing alon said i don't remember a fucking thing

fuck

sure kind of one-upped me a little bit there me and my little fucking stubbing of the toe

fuck

we wandered on over to the hotel they went up i wandered on up to the rastafarian coffee house sat at a table took out my little black moleskine my bic click baby smoked a joint at least part of a joint i took notes i jotted down

shit

i jotted down things i wrote a poem i listed out some to do's i let yellowman get into my head got meetings on monday doing the dance doing the soft-shoe atop a bucket of beach sand scattered across the floor across the show floor people wanting television shit we got the television shit baby

shit

i smoked i toked the pen scrambled on paper yellowman floated floated sugar melted sugar spun i'm the only one in there lights low yeah a fucking black light putting the da-glo magic onto a bobbie marley poster sunday night i guess a slow night i don't mind

i drank a chocomel

i went back to the hotel the taste of the dutch yoohoo still chocolatey down my throat the room my hotel room opens up to me i do the hygiene thing i do the naked thing i slip slide between the sheets i'm asleep finally

eye rackey bad shit moleskine magic and all that

 travelogue stardate in the year twenty five twenty five if man is still alive abraham martin and john and hell throw in judy and punch what the fuck getting got on a jet plane but yeah i kind of do know when i'll be home again it's just that it's only that i don't know i can't project i can't predict  jesus baby i can't even fathom what simple pleasures await me

hopped a jet plane to amsterdam

brother in a blue suit white shirt red tie white hair like he just walked out of church in lafayette louisiana walks in says hello to the rasta barista purveyor of kind green bud he nodding his rasta locks forward in that slight bow to allah fashion he says hello brah but in an over the top sort of way rather in that way you do every morning to the guy you see there in that exact same spot at the bus stop every fucking morning hey how's it not bad can't complain blue suit he slides over some of that pretty blue money some coins the barista rasta dude he slides over a little baggie of magic adios a demain

yeah i hopped a jet plane to amsterdam

got off the plane my man bee the hindu warrior by my side we stumble it's nine in the morning in amsterdam we've just landed we've gone through customs we've checked in the hotel we've walked across up to the dam over to new market into my favorite little place the jolly joker we purchase we acquire we roll and light up a nice phattie godwhatacivilizedplace jesus would be proud of the good citizens of amsterdam

beautiful blue autumn skies out september breeze we sit at the open window ganja blue ganja smoke rises up and out to the heavens an offering to vishnu himself

wandered through the city followed the canals ah the ladies of amsterdam it rivals new york in the spring on a beautiful day in amsterdam the lovely lovelies love to show off their lovelies it is so lovely when they are pedaling slowly on that bike toward me leaning over the handle bars me stuck in the middle of the bike path staring at the pair of ladies trying so desperately to escape that low cut blouse her cute little bike bell

ding-a-linging ding-a-linging

as if she has spotted us in our wake and bake glory minus the wake since we never went to sleep having been flying all night so perhaps it's simply it's just a morning bake right alongside the biscuits fresh out of the oven she's spotted us and she is going to run me over it's personal my eyes glued to her lovely lovelies dangling over the handlebars i'm jealous of those handlebars i'm jealous of that bike seat i want to be that bike seat my man bee grabs me by the arm and yanks me off the path and i follow i lead i walk side by side with my warrior friend we cross town amsterdam being the small burg that it is cross over into the jordan over near the anne frank house block away from the anna frank house

i know that i should make some sad telling statement about the horror the absolute horror about anne and her family and her story but another day another time another brother where art thou a block away is my favorite pancake house pancake haus my man bee never having had dutch pancakes we gorge our stoned selves on pancakes it is a glorious meal

from there it's out and about rambling rambling ramble on rose through the town it's a big conference in town fifty thousand people all fucked up with video and money on the brain it's so fucking surreal to wander the streets hear a hey how are you from across the street across the canal there he is haven't seen him since the last conference

we eat indonesian food for dinner six or seven of us we stick my man vee with the bill he's quitting his job we're helping him rack up some tremendous fucking expense account submission my my tsk tsk i have a curry we wander back to the jolly joker lo and behold i haven't been to sleep in over twenty-four hours maybe thirty-six hours i can't sleep on a plane not a wink thank god for shitty movies we acquire we purchase we select a little hashish we borrow the house bong we sit at the bar and inhale yes we did inhale

i have eyes-opened opium dreams about the lovely lass with lovely lovelies oh they do bounce gently as she laughs with her friends she has a bit of foam from her cappuccino on her cheek just a spot white with a brown tip of cinnamon

my tongue stretches slowly unrolls gently across the room

darts onto her cheek and snaps up the tasty froth

we my posse my crew my two live crew we talk of love we talk of business we talk crudely of women and the acts we like them to perform we talk of politics my man raygun a loyal fan of ronnie reagan don't ask me why i love the dude anyway he can't help himself in that regard but he would give his left arm for any of us we sometimes have vicious arguments but not tonight not this night i stand there with my arm around him he is turning older than me on sunday i love him because i am no longer the oldest in the crew in the posse i no longer have to be

the old hippie

in this crowd i can be content with the second slot we talk of love we talk of business we talk crudely of women and the acts we like them to perform my tongue stretches slowly unrolls gently across the room

i snatch the cookie sitting on a napkin on her lap leaving a wet spot oh my she might have to have that dry cleaned

day one is over i get lost wandering through the alleys trying to find my way back to the hotel i have no sense of direction when it is daylight and i am in familiar territory i have no chance now i'm a guy i can't ask for directions i wander around thirty minutes longer than i probably needed to wander around finally find my hotel an american hotel in a foreign land big american rooms big american prices a chocolate on my pillow i eat it i stuff it down my gullet tear up the room looking for more alas they only left one

the dutch are so fucking cheap

but such beautiful people all blonde and wispy and busty i want to be a bicycle seat in amsterdam in my next life her sweaty damp thighs wrapped about my very being my very purpose day one is over i finally find my hotel i finally end my search for chocolate i finally slide into bed slide into bed slide into sleep

up and at them in the morning it will be time to work it will be time to do business it will be time to pump up i hear the roulette wheel whirring whirring round and round there is money spinning about there is money in the air

morning biscuit bake pancakes vishnu and all that

 

such. dreams; of sweetness.  such.  memories; of sweetness.  cherished; owned; possessed.  eyema fucking wobbly.kneed child; greedy with. gourmish; desires.  wanton; tastes.

sweet.  potato.  pie.

sho do dig that sweet potato pie like it right out of the oven sweet sweet sugary sweet crunchy brown sugar toasted on top ever put your finger right down in there ever felt that funky juicy funky steaming funky creamy funky firm hot hot hot so hot it burns your finger scalds your soul scoop up a little in a spoon blow whispery blow whistle softly it trembles on the spoon melts warm on the tongue let it move from one side of the mouth to the other taste spreads oozes slides between the teeth flushes the cheeks hot heathery heat warm all the way down down down

coconut.  cream.  pie.

oh coconut baby cream oh pie baby oh baby oh been chillin in the fridge got those little sparkly wet droplets frozen in time upon those taught browned waves of fluffy fluffy whipped up egg whites of frothy lust love to put my lips down onto that slightly elastic yet so easily torn flesh my hands behind my back me on my knees before love herself open my lips and let my tongue dart through parting the froth tearing the brown diving down down slithering scooping retracting repeating and again and again into the custardy cream below

sitting up with creamy smile little pieces of coconut lodged between the teeth damn what a grin

blackberry. cobbler.

teenage memories of pure wanton desirous joy believing not that life could be this amazing that first plunge into that first slithering of virginal-to-non-virginal transition into worlds hitherto unknown unfathomed except in some deep dark recess of your primordial being warm warm berries sweeter than the air itself heaped between layers of the butteriest cobbler dough so soft so so soft and dense dissolves into slippery slurppery sugar on the lips perhaps just teasingly just playing with your tongue perhaps a dollop of vanilla ice cream on the edge dripping melting slowly the sweet cream melding into the purpley velvet of the blackberry juices get a little bit of it all onto the spoon dripping off the edges onto the white linen napkins momma gonna be upset lips surround slides down the back of my throat

coating my tongue with lusciousness licentiousness giggles and joy

homemade. peach. ice cream.

hot sizzling hot august afternoon giving way to cool cool balmy dusky evening sitting round the back porch pouring on the ice pouring on the rock salt that bucket between my legs held tight by my feet encased in pee eff flyers shoestrings ragged my name my girl's name stained in darkest blackest india ink on white canvas wrapped around each other in peter max style letters turning the handle of the crank turning the handle hearing the grind pour on more salt sweat pouring from my forehead the effort the work grueling for a young teen wanting more wanting results wanting can't wait for the time that magic moment that tick of the tock around the clock that lets me lift the lid lets me dip in a finger twirl it around embrace the edge pull it out all white and creamy chunks of sweet sweet fruit just plucked from the tree at the edge of the grove off the road that takes me to moultrie

sometimes

white creamy ice cream and peach melting on hot worked up tongue goddamn

little jack horner sat in his corner eating his christmas pie stuck in his thumb pulled out a plumb good boy and all that

ain't it funny ain't it so funny sometimes this and that a little stimulus on the left sends you careening off to the right

me and the deacon of the ark he picked me up this morning it's a monday morning seemed like a sunday morning but it's a monday morning we celebrate this day we honor this day all their labors all of our labors but i ask myself i look into the mirror i say like i'm with the family sitting around the passover table i say

why is this day unlike all other days

to be honest i just don't know i mean yeah i'm pro union whatever the fuck that means in theory my bleeding heart accepts embraces the need for unions you got your basic capitalist sitting over here you got to balance that out with your basic union just the way it is just the way it's supposed to be black white up down left right good evil but i've never been in a union i've never had a laborer job

i mean unless you count the summers i spent picking tomatoes baling hay picking tobacco a little construction work and delivering firewood but that was before i became a college graduate it was just assumed that you worked shit jobs until you graduated college kind of the carrot stick thing about staying with college

although it seems that my english degree didn't really set me up for one of those high-paying investment banking type jobs that's all right that's oh kay though it was good enough to get me on an ultimate team out here in san francisco i mean hell i had roof over my head i had kind green bud i had stella getting naked with me i had my ultimate team career could come later

but i never joined a union

i listened to bob dylan though that's pretty close me and the deacon of the ark he picked me up this morning we went down to the water we communed with the goddess we swam against a pretty good flood tide we showered outside we sat on the roof with brother joe and partook of the sacrament the deacon drove me home we listened to bob dylan live nineteen seventy-five knock knock knocking on heaven's door came knock knock knocking in my head

i saw pat garrett and billy the kid when i was in the seventh grade

i lived in this town in southside virginia this town halifax we didn't really have a movie theater the next town over south boston it had a movie theater i saw gone with the wind there i saw the reivers there that was the first and only em rated movie that i ever saw it had steve mcqueen i didn't realize it was from a faulkner book until i was maybe seventeen i didn't really know what a faulkner book was when i was in the seventh grade anyway ignorant fucking cracker that i was probably still am

i lived in this town halifax to see a new movie though to see a movie made within the last six months though we had to drive over to danville about thirty forty miles away two ways to get there you could take five oh one you could take the back way route three sixty it was a wide curvy country backroad

kathy powell's momma she drove us it was kathy's birthday i went with my friend joe exum kathy was joe's girlfriend cynthia smith came along too she was my girlfriend i mean in the seventh grade sense i mean we did the smacky mouth thing but i don't recall getting my finger all stinky i think joe told me that he did with kathy but i don't know if i believe him or not he might have he was an operator he had an older brother

we stopped on the way and had milk shakes

at this little drive in this little out in the middle of nowhere country burger drive in then we all got into the car we piled into the back of the powell's station wagon kathy's momma she sat up front and drove us four kids piled into the back of the station wagon and we sped around all those curves on the way to danville around the curves and up and down the hills and we sat in the back our hands all over each other sliding around on top of each other no seat belts hell no seats just a blanket spread across the back we laughed and joked and then

i got carsick and tossed my cookies

luckily only puked on my own pants and the blanket in the corner but it kind of smelled kathy's momma was pretty good about it she pulled the car over she wiped me down best she could she tossed the blanket into the woods we all sat in the seats of the station wagon i sat up front i didn't look into the back seat she pulled into a country store right outside of danville she bought me a pair of jeans stiffest damn pair of jeans i ever put on they were too big i had to roll up the pantslegs she kathy's mom she threw away my other pants

she bought me a toothbrush and some toothpaste i used them

we went to the movie we saw pat garrett and billy the kid kris kristofferson he played billy he died without his boots bob dylan he sang his song he sang about knocking on heaven's door i think he won a grammy it the movie was in black and white i know now it was an artistic sam peckinpah kind of thing but back then i kind of wondered

we had popcorn and drank cokes i felt fine funny how neither kathy nor joe nor cynthia really said anything about me throwing up in the car me and cynthia we broke up but not for another three or six months she got mad at me because we had a pool party at joe's house one night the girls had a changing room near the pool joe showed us where we could look into the room through a hole in the wall we looked in through the hole in the wall cynthia smith she was standing there all naked and nubile with her long blonde hair she was as waspish looking as her name implies cynthia smith she saw us staring probably heard us laughing she pointed up at the hole and yelled she got mad at me i think we broke up after that

that's oh kay later that summer i fell in love with deborah wallwork she was a year older she had horses we use to ride those horses they were really ponies i guess we rode them all over southside virginia she taught me how to get the stinky finger we used to hang out at the sugar shack up in the barn up on the stacks of hay we'd smoke cigarettes and then we'd kiss and then she taught me to slide my finger in that pot of honey

honey be so sweet be so sweet honey be so sweet

we never listened to bob dylan me and deborah we listened to neil young and carlos santana and johnny cash

i got out of the deacon's car he let me out in front of my house bob dylan he still played on the stereo i heard him singing as the deacon pulled away from the curb i think i hear that song always in my soul i think i'll always hear that song always

bought me some new jeans a toothbrush and all that