Friday, August 22, 2008

Following the Trail of Trash

Through the Cross heirs of a doomed portrayal of Genuine Imagination,
my God is reflected by a single cross reflected off of my sunshine watermarks, my tan lines of spiritual observation. Under this cross, he marks me, under this sun, I am branded an animal. I am spoken for.
Tomorrow I will awake with no recollection of the beautiful despair that the present situation of hope caused me to bleed. I will not awaken with the solitary confinement of a shallow grave, I will rise to the dusty ashes of tomorrows daylight that is resentful to break the cracks in my doors, that is pushed in between the lashes of my eyes and the wrinkles of my disbelief. I wrestle with God in the sunlight like crispy leaves on an autumn day. The carrier of the great escape lies in the beautiful loss that no one else can imagine, other than those that know what it feels like to cry under the glim twilight of spiritual self mutilation. In the end, We're all animals.
I wish there was a pleasant story to share, I wish there was a blessed feast to imagine. But there isn't. I am a beast of many dangers, of many opinions, of many layers, of many disasters. But a beast that of which is only available if I close my eyes and pretend to pray.

I am sitting on my nerves, my passion is desperation, it is the art of procrastination, the tears of joy and the laugh of insignificance. I am the inner turmoil that shades the smiling devious face. I am the hell that is created in simple poetry, I am the need for prayer and all things to cry about. I am the need for the wrinkled white flag with cindered edges. I am the inner grace that dances like a joy filled corpse across the broken jawed preconceptions that attempt to emulate the beautiful side of sin.
To write, to believe to fathom such a joy of chaos is unheard of, to celebrate the unknown and to give name to that which will never be is a joyous fire to dance in and out of. To piss on the god of the trendy, to surpass the belief that has us all fenced in, to find such a heaven and a mental glory that hasn't been touched by the jealous confusions of man who has been trained to think and taught to forget about childhood art, like force fed blood to the pavement of catastrophe, such bruised imagination from wicked and relentless actions. The closest pathway to beauty, one might find is through alienation, subordination, and the gut wrenching moment of realization that you do not only not think like the rest of the masses, but you also do not look like any of them either. It's a beautiful thought, you know, to feel like you're the only one in the world. You're the song they hate, you're the cockroach they cant catch, you're also the snowflake they read about to their children mid sleep. You're the FUCK YOU in a devious grin when you know need to say nothing. You're the beautiful stain that everyone cant stop staring at. At the same time, lets face it, whether you speak or preach or not, I think the devil has more followers than God, because he encourages you to be yourself more than his nemesis- than to follow rules and become a part of the flock. To jump into the current of the mainstream just seems to polluted for this wretch.
I remember one Richmond evening, My oldest friend Will and I were underage and pimping hobos to buy us beer. We tapped one fellow on the shoulder,
"Can you get us a case of natty light and you can keep the change?"
The hobo obliged.
After a few minutes of me smoking camel cigarettes and him nestled close to me, wondering if we were going to jail or going to get drunk, his over imaginative mind kept pulling at my jacket sleeve.
"Do you think he stole our money? Man, what the fuck, what the fuck, man..."
"Dude, it's Saturday night-- they're busy, Dude'll be out in a second..."
The seconds and minutes passed as we dawdled in front of a 7-11, toes pointed inward, like Beavis and Butthead on muscle relaxers, we just stood and twitched. We were unsure but hopeful.
Finally, the hobo rang through the swaying doors just like an Olympiad strolling through that gold tape, our fidgety behavior cloaked itself with adrenaline.
"Hey, thanks, man, we app.....reciate that..."
Our eyes and hearts dropped as we noticed we had recruited the dumbest brute on the block.
"Uh, Dude, that's not a case. Thats a 12-pack."
"And it's not even Natty Lite."
"Shit, Boys, Hell," The bum replied, "That's the best I could do. I cant give it to you in plain sight, lets just walk together, eh?"
I said with sad fragrances of embarrassed humiliation, "This way, we'll go- I live, this way.. . Come on. "
I followed the dirty ruffian carrying my twelve pack of Budweiser and nothing else, trying to figure out a way to explain it to the five other guys that were waiting on the beer I was sent to get and how it was supposed to at least get us all at least, buzzed.
Will Stuck to my steps on the crooked sidewalks out of fear and anger, his toes clung to my heels. We were baffled, but the drunkard that we'd hired, the stooge that we'd raised, could we raise a question? Could we inspire a WHAT THE FUCK?
We toddled on, behind the bearded Gonzo that left his scent in the wind, and us, stung with anger and impoliteness and general disdain. We continued to follow the man with out words, only footsteps to the far, dark end of the block.
"Well, boys, here ya go, heres yer beer, thanks for the change, I thank you. Mind if I have one before we go?"
"Shit," Will said, ripping open the box, "If you have one, we might as well all have one," Giving me a wink at the same time as tossing me an unopened can of Bud.
I grinned and popped my top and began to guzzle, with an eye on my beer and an eye on the bum.
"The name's Buddy," the old man said through a spittle rusted beard and a mouthful of lifeless teeth. "Its a pleasure to spend time with you boys."
"Likewise, Buddy, My name's Will. That there fella is Joey-Thanks for the beers, we appreciate it, and we're happy to drink it with ya."
"Aiiighht." Buddy said with a wink and the popped tab up to his drooling beard, sizing us up.
Buddy and I stood in the shadows not even a block from where I used to live, Will out on the ultra-violet concrete, smiling, sipping away at the observation and the dwindling beer.
Eventually, we forgot about the blokes sitting on their thumbs back in the apartment, not 50 feet from where we stood, as they were, impatiently chatting away about their conquests, rivals and dirty premonitions about the years to come, we continued to blaspheme and sink into reality through chaos, we began to crack beer after beer and cautiously stride into single file line as each new pair of headlights encroached around the bend. The beer began to disappear, the joy overflowed, from friend to friend, from stranger to stranger. Beer cans became the deposit under a large shadow covered bush- and when that wasnt enough, each stranger, Will, Buddy and myself found it as a haven to relieve ourselves, not missing a cackle, not skipping a beat when it came to the osmosis between three souls and blind communication. We laughed, we confessed, we nudged elbows. We were temporarily indestructible. We were three men from a long, long time ago.
Close to the end of the beer, Buddy confessed to Will and me, "I gotta tell ya, boys, I appreciate the time we've had, I do feel a lot better. I've been on the bum for quite some time and this by Golly, is what I do think I have needed and not had, Lemme tell ya."
We all stood silent under the smiling glow of a mindless streetlight.
"I just got out of jail not two months ago, out there, fuckin' California, I just got out of jail, just now have made my way here, just now. Thank you boys."
Will's eyes darted towards mine, the beer in all three of our hands, it sent the message clear- We were ok, he was just a man, hard times, hard luck. The beer charged, our worries faded, but our poetry grew. The three of us stood in a single celled circle chatting and bullshitting and contriving about our aptitude of a three man unity, the beauty of chaos. The humbled discontent of collared Gods, the stars were aligning for once and their only time.
On the end of the brews, the coughing, the swearing, the smoking, the beauty of sin, I warmed up to buddy, "Goddamn," I exclaimed, "What, may I ask, were you in for??"
"I killed a man." Was Buddy's reply.
I glared at will, and Will glared at me. All three of us broke out in hysterical laughter. The sinning was not shallow but the fear was, We cared not. The three of us, we made a sidewalk tribe, a beautiful menagerie of death, life and failure, we completed the trip of the unsane. We were beautiful. We were free, We were gleefully endangered. We were alive.
Shortly before the beer was finished, thanks and handshakes and poems were recited, we were alive and untouchable, dead and feared, beautiful and unimaginable, we wrote our names with urine in the streets and clinked cans with a murderer. We were saviors of the just, warriors of the drink and re locators of hate. Wed bitten off a piece of Buddy and he'd taken a chunk out of us. Dead cigarettes and crumpled cigarettes later, I ambled toward him, resting my arm upon his shoulder, I asked him,
"What'd it feel like?"
"What?" Was Buddy's response.
"You know, to kill a man." I said with a smile on my face and my hand still clutching his opposite shoulder.
Buddy then broke away from me, his feet equally apart from his shoulders and his eyes invading mine-
"Daaaammnn GOOD! IT FELT DAMN GOOD! HAHAHAH" Buddy grizzled out from his scraggly beard and his black eyes, "DAMN GOOD!"

Eventually we puttered off, Will and me up the steps to the broken home I had staked claim, and Buddy off to the dark carnivorous night, to wander the streets and smoke my cigarettes underneath a shadow casting bush that repelled shame and worry and animosity and fear. Just like the one that overlooked us as we drank and pissed our way out of boundaries and into reality. The joyous reunion of a tribe containing beasts that could've been but never were. A band of miscreants that deserved each other for very little time. Love and disinterest, we swallowed the God and stepped up to man.
He's not that bad.

Hours after Will and I returned home, we had found that the rest of the brothers waiting on the beer had called all of the police stations in town, giving them our names and asking if we'd been picked up. Driving around aimlessly in search of the backs of our Nikes, the glare of our smile.
Assholes we'd been called.
Funny as it may seem, we did apologize, but at the same time, we were also very grateful that they'd failed to look 50 feet down the sidewalk from my home to see me laughing and drinking and re energizing another soul that needs poetry, banter and a pale street light to receive life, a broken sidewalk to find and look up from ones shoes to find a face and a smile and someone else thats interested in knowing your name. A maze in misunderstanding compassion. It's not just a myth. It's not just a fable.
That night it was story born on the steps of a 7-11 under the clutches of a murderer named Buddy.


bud·dy /ˈbʌdi/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[buhd-ee] Pronunciation Key - \noun, plural -dies, verb, -died, -dy·ing. Informal. –noun
1. comrade or chum (often used as a term of address).
2. bud2.
–verb (used without object)
3. to be a companion; or on intimate terms.


That night, though we neglected our mainlined friends, we formed a beauty of a memory that objectified the reasons why we disbanded our tribe for a simple Buddy. That was what kind of tribe we were. We were hazed, punched, criticized and ignored for our actions, but drinking all of our friends beer was justified because we made a Buddy.
Strangely enough our Friends understood.
They went to bed stoned and curious.
We went to bed drunk and giddy.

The next night we spoke of Salvador Dali.
We had a good time.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

The Real and the Shadow

“For the very first time in the very short life of Joey Crown….he was successful at something….”
-Rod Serling , of the Fictional Character, in The Twilight Zone.


THE REAL AND THE SHADOW
(That was the name of the episode, too)

PLANET TELEX by Radiohead now paints curious graffiti on the inside of my mind- I hope there’s more to come, some sort of metaphysical climax, that’d be nice. I’ve read two different horoscopes for my Libra self today. Not that I believe in that shit, but in a single day, one has to find so many different ways of wasting time. All that it comes down to though, in my wicked little mind is that it’s just a waste of life- this time- this expensive boredom, I used to find it amazing and beautiful to find a smile in the gregarious daydreams I cultivate twenty four hours a day. Now I’m not so sure- maybe these flocks of daydreams are just spiritual manipulators and predators of ambition. Who would have thought that creativity could be such a selfish sin?
All day long, (its 12:39 am now) I’ve been up and down, on the verge of faithless tears and hollow laughter, I’ve been sifting through the ripples of my frontal lobe that makes my right eye lid shutter (I hope that’s not permanent). There is a fantastic weight of unused magic and soul and faith that pulls my reality down under the frantic thoughts and energies that are supplied by all the other lost freightliners of soul that are carrying on in their business suits and Nikes, their Ipods, and their shirts dampened by shameful tears.
We all think we’re the only ones- I do- I did and I have- All day long- I imagined what it’d be like to be the lifeless one in the casket, face pampered with rouge and whitening face paints, the possibility of teary eyed faces with no names that might surround my new found gravesite—But to my specifications- me in jeans and chucks, a t-shirt and maybe Tom Petty, Todd Snider and or Robert Earl Keen playing in the background—possibly a few others- I wouldn’t know. I’d have to construct specific instructions for the passing of me and the final exit party before I could simply “DO IT”. Eh, So- Fuck it, I supposed, it’s a waste of imagination- Sadness, I can bear- but being a restless light in a dead body I can not. It might be fun and enjoyable throwing oneself the perfect bash- whether it be promotion or birthday or whatever- but to throw yourself the perfect funeral—wine, music, cakes, beer and music and art—You’d be the only one to enjoy it and you wouldn’t even get to. Imagine the torturous mind fuck that you’d put everyone else through, Goddamn, that’s messed up. And funny in a morbid sort of way.
I STILL MISS SOMEONE by Johnny Cash just opened up on the old ear horn. That’s always been one of my favorites. The rant about specifications and their funeral just reminded me of a certain someone that asked to be buried shoeless and with coins in his pockets. I love how I cry with hell at my fingertips and heaven on the tip of my tongue about how F U B A R life is- God, What a chaotic mess that we day in and day out pretend to sweep under the rug day in and day out? Why is no one out there in the land of fake smiles and grumpy salutations not breaking down in public and crying out to the mystics of this day and age? Who are we? What do we even know? Where are we going? What’s the point?
I guess though, those that ask the questions have the right to, but no one other than those in the shadows have the answer.
In this Twilight Zone episode, there was a man by the name Joey Crown—I found it odd—I’d rummaged through the TV listings after I returned home from work- I found nothing. And as a young boy, I remembered watching the Twilight Zone- it’s always been one of my favorites, so I settled on it. Eh, Fuck it, I figured, I could surf the net while this played in the background- it hasn’t been as amazing as it was when my imagination was blooming at that age of imagination without limitations.
First it struck me as an interesting knack that it starred Joey, The musician.
Second, it caught the glint in my eye because he wanted to die.
Fuck. So I saddled up on the old ass stool and found a broke musician who sold his—he called it a bugle, but it was really a trumpet, and then danced out into moving traffic- old Joey Crown left his body and found himself in Sheol. That’s limbo for most of ya’ll. Then, after having a nervous breakdown because he couldn’t get anyone to hear, see or acknowledge him, he ran into a fellow in the shadows, backstage, who not only heard him and saw him, but knew his name.
“Hell of a bugle you play, Joey.” He quietly resolved.
Joey was happy to find a new friend.
They exchanged words and Joey shed his guilt, his unhappiness and his confusion in the remarks and confrontation in the fact that someone found him, gave him fuel for living- but the sad thing was, he wasn’t alive. He was an inanimate object lying on the curb under the wails of a screaming woman. Dead, he no longer wanted to be.
The bugle playing stranger, began to wander towards the light, and out of The Shadow he emerged, Joey Called to him, asking for his name because of the new founded confidence his only friend instilled in him.
“Gabe.” He responded with snide cantor.
Gabrielle was his full name.
Soon, eventually Joey found himself buying back his trumpet and finding the gall to go on living, musically and waking up with little or no injuries in front of the pawn shop in which he was struck down in front of. Good ole Joey Crown lived to tell the tale of lost life.
Rod Serling had a nice outro and I found it quite amusing that I can daydream about this all over again. The What Ifs? I face mentally, and spiritually.
Then Kris Kristofferson Said, “Egg Head's cousin Red Neck's cussin' hippies for their hair. Others laugh at straights who laugh at freaks who laugh at squares.
Some folks hate the whites who hate the blacks who hate the clan.
Most of us hate anything that we don't understand.”
And at that moment before my new song was over by Kris K., I …..Kind of realized, most of us hate anything we don’t understand… Yeah- I don’t understand life at all—and I never will I don’t guess- and I do hate it-definitely- but what the fuck do I want from myself? Understanding. In you-me-in those schmucks I don’t get—those fuckers I don’t comprehend. Laughable man, I’ll never get it- I’ll only continue to water that seed of anger- Deep breaths and the idea and or belief of understanding is a worthwhile dream I should cultivate. I don’t and or can’t imagine it’d be hard- it’d be more of a mathematical equation than a real roadblock. To think myself into this shadow would mean to think my way out as well. Life is very real and the flutters in my frontal lobe is my wonder tying itself in knots. Its music, interaction and joy filled attempts that straighten out these knots. If it’s not that, then it’s something you figure out when you find yourself thinking in the shadows- the darkness maybe hell but at least it’s quiet and embracing- it warms the loneliness and warns the psyche—I guess self awareness is the ultimate in confronting the exasperated demon of reality and having no control over it. The muse of loneliness usually calls our names one at a time, not knowing what the answer is a hellish exploration of oneself- you will find it but it takes a lot of self mutilated questions to find the answers. It takes a penniless clown and a drunken fool to finally see the possibilities of misfortune.
Townes Van Zandt just rang in with Guy Clark’s words of wisdom,
“Don't let the sunshine fool ya, Don't let the bluebirds tool ya
Don't let the women do ya Put your hand in mine”
I’m not really that sad any more-I recall some spectre of ancient knowledge that helps me feel at ease with myself, I got pain, I got imagination, I got amazing infinite feelings of contradictive loathing reverberating my soul to my frontal lobe, I have amazing characteristics of joy and hell, profanity and spirituality. But I also have the Beach Boys singing, “Wouldn’t it be nice”
Wouldn’t it be nice? Wont it be nice?
“We Love you, We love you a lot.” That’s Reel Big Fish.
Wouldn’t it be nice.
Understanding. Love. God. Love. Hell’s amazing selfishness of Zen? What’s anything worth? What’s the point? We Love you a lot, Because you really understand....”
If God chases you down in dreams, do not be afraid, because he’s probably running a parallel line to the devil- under the influence you may be to both- but what they really want is you to find your own path that skews away from the influence of both- and master your own love, creativity and understanding in this world that knows no boundaries between impeded righteousness and misfortune, love and desire, hell and curiosity…
“Lord, I know I don’t look like much, But I didn’t think you’d mind”
(Johnny Paycheck)
I guess I’ll go on, with my paper cut hands, my dirty knees and my whip lashed spiritual reasoning. I have a lot of right to many things- and most of the time I don’t stand up for myself. Most of the time I just let time and energy fester under my quivering skin, feeling like I have control over reality. But I guess God is reality and reality is God. You can’t control it and you never will, you’ll only be grappled with inhumanity and loveless mothering. To look up to something means discovering you’re nothing more than weak. The discovery of weakness means misunderstanding. Misunderstanding means hatred. To hate is to not care to understand. I hate life cus I cant figure it out. I hate me cus I cant figure out life. Life means nothing to me because I see more in poetic death. Poetic death though, just seems spiritually stubborn. I’m happy being a proud prolific screwhead that is bashed by life and in return bashes the God of the New Age. If anything is fucked up then it sure aint me- life’s already proved to me it’s a fucked up organism, and I just have to cope with the brutality that it concedes on all of us.
There might be a God out there, but what he’s shown me is that I do not have as much responsibility believing in him so much as I do myself. I’m gonna try.
Todd Snider sings to me right, “I just want to live until I die, I know I aint perfect, but God knows I try, I think I’m an alright Guy. . . .”

I won’t be protected, and I wont be saved, I’ll be the confused guy I’ve always been meant to be. God aint a spiritual insurance policy, it’s leap of faith- I’m not going to take the plunge and I don’t care to take it-
“Sometimes You rise above it, Sometimes you sneak below, sometime in between believing in heaven and facing the Devil you know…(Todd Snider)”
I ranted this entire time with a post thought of thinking I wasted my fucking time rambling on about hell and music. Damned be this never ending cycle of pollutant proverbs- Goddamn- Hell, Who cares, but then again, who won’t? The amazing grace of life is reality- and the inability to control it, God Scoffs at our inability to maintain control. But in the end—aint life a bitch—and fuck me if boredom aint a spiritual splinter- how the hell am I supposed to fall asleep now? I am blessed with damnation, but Gee wiz, aint I proud of my much desired state of hell. If Death winks does Jesus get defensive? Or is the author of thought awarded the badge of cowardice? Death will only let you know, and he only creeps in the shadows, spiritual prosperity will grant you relaxed blessings when you’re finally over the shallow grave that life projects. Life is right now-You better get moving.
The Idea of Turmoil and life’s stormy sea—is just a fictitious act of creative boredom.
“Troublesome waters, I’m fearing no more…(J.Cash)”

“Joey Crown, who got his clue, in the Twilight Zone”
-Rod Serling

Sunday, April 27, 2008

The Education of the Misguided

The Dude Abides. I take pleasure in hearin’ him say that, Takin’ it easy for all us sinners.

Like Last night- Tonight- I have no money- I haven’t a burning coal of ambition and I don’t understand why I don’t care if I do or not. I wont have a passion tomorrow, I wont have a plan and I wont have a heart throb angel standing over me in my wrinkled sheets whispering the directions of the lost map of life in my waxy ear, I’ll sleep the sun up just like I’ll drink you down and I’ll sleep the sun’s arch away too- just the way my drinking buddies slouch in their chair. Where I come from, its where Mornin’ comes twice a day or not at all. I feel completely restructured though- Like I’ve been rewired- It’s not a completely bad thing that I am a being that could grow stronger and taller each day if I only did not harvest it each night. I try my best to stray; most folks try their best to network. I like being the only two eyes awake between an open bottle and the shivering moon. It makes me feel alive that I’m the only person that’s rummaging through the attic of memories, falsified emotions and chucking out innate knowledge. I do my best at becoming one cold hard and merciless romantic of cosmic funnies.
Yeah, Money would be nice to have obtained, incubate and use as a lure to trap members of the opposite sex, and disillusion them in my web of green and dead presidents. That’d be the life, it it’d be the life for me. It sure looks fun to drink $100 dollar beer, to woo women and friends in with my wallet and not my mind or my heart. I’d love to be that guy.
But I find myself as a rarity, I don’t have the capability and I don’t have the heart space for it. I think life and existence is far better than just being a grand pawn in the game of money making for the makers of money. That’s the tragedy; the being sucked into the machine- being born to the carriers of the disease of inhumane sprawl—Shit out a few kids, build a few businesses, knock down a block or two of some whimpering creatures homeland and be a distracting savior to those that know no better, to be a militant champion with a suit and tie, coffee stained teeth and finger tips that are callous free. Don’t stop until your empire is built. Instill the barbaric trait in your offspring and so on and so forth. Pretty soon the street you live on has your own name on it and the corner street has your grandmother’s last name. Mission accomplished.
Nobody seems to care or notice, not at this pace of life, that’s why it’s called the Rat Race because we’re a bunch of sick and disgusting creatures that run with ambition but without a thought in our minds. Every thought and desire and ambition was given to us by our sour ancestors and unfortunate predecessors. LETS MAKE THE WORLD BETTER we think, a handful of versatile solutions to everyday living but the choices we choose weather it be diesel or olestra, and we’re only cutting our lives shorter while we plunder away searching for longevity through our worst attributes, our personal collisions between what is real and what is perceived, we’re nothing but wicked astute maniacal consumerist nomads that repeatedly buy our life piece by piece from those that pay us the money to do so, after work, that is.



Tension
Tension
Tension it's all that I know
I got tension in my classroom
I got tension in my courtroom
I got tension and it's everywhere that I go

And If you’re not all liquored up from the new dream from Uncle Sam, and you do in fact, live off of the grid, where does the happiness come from? Chances are you’re nothing but the ghost of someone’s pre-loved ambitions and ideas. So this is it- You’re a failure to the creator, and a failure to those that created you.
So imagine this, you’re on a dirty color-less street, wandering around, with no direction, your fists clench in your empty pockets as you squint against the dusty wind- you’re skipping the cracks in the sidewalk, so you’re basically walking in the brown, dead grass.
Scott Lucas bellows, “It’s no fucking Fun” in your eardrums. And you love it.
Your presence is to others is a distraction from their work, money and bills, you’re an open tent freak show they don’t have to shell out the ten cents to, the migrant freak show that has been left behind in mind body and spirit. Does that mean he’s confused, sad, angry and or violent? No, not necessarily- early on in the days when Amerika was still wet behind the ears, you would be called a rambler, or a tramp, possibly even a HOBO, meaning more than just a vagrant- but HOmeward BOund- the lives of the American civil war soldiers in the mid 19th century, those that were retired or free to leave, they were homeward bound, but many had no home to retreat to- they had their American issued HOMEWARD BOUND patches, and when they were not hassled or reprimanded for their parasitic gaze, so they had conversations like the whimpers of whipped dogs and they gazed out onto the landscape that was sculpting the lives and dreams of those that were fortunate enough not to have to fight in a war against neighbors, cousins and friends. The birth of freedom for so many was also the birthright of so many more, to live a life of self hatred, mental collapse, silent integrity and rich prophecies with calloused hands and dirty knees, in a sense, the trial between solitary confinement amidst freedom; and the age old yet newborn wisdom of sad individualism. The civil war is over and has long since been, but for some that gene has been passed on, it’s not the land and property we’re at war over, it is simply ourselves. The war is quite the struggle, though it does not exist around me, it exists only inside me. The fight between the ideas inserted through the contraception of advertisement, the struggle of finding myself in a refurbished society of Gods and day old literature. A sucker is born every minute, or so they say. But so is God and his new Glam-image.
The country is young, in a weird mathematical factor, yeah, definitely young factor, and at the state of it, we’re probably leading each other to a nameless grave the way we poison each other with greed and constitutional distrust, we all should know by now, life makes no sense, we should abandon the lives of the sprawling maleficent fire breathers, and learn from the penniless hobos of salvation. You may step on us, you might not care how we’re doing, or what we love, but your ambition may soon aspire to tip your hat to the mutant knowledge we pass out every day scribbled on cardboard trash with the coals of dead cigarettes. I am redefining the term of ‘Hobo’. I am homeward bound—I’ll run myself into the ground with zen and peace and all that shit before I go down in flames from the catastrophe of the shallow burning oil wells from the etiquette of today’s modern chimpanzee in his three piece suit grappling the concrete jungle that opens at 6 am every morning and closes at 11 pm every night. I’ll be that Hobo that constructs marvelous humanity in each sip of coffee and imagination, I’ll be the lonesome hero that dies every night I lay my head on that railroad bed, I’ll be that scalawag in dirty jeans whistling at the bus stop, and I’ll not be the ghoul that was built in reconstruction of the average Amkerikan male- my bones were not built in this body to give shape to the soul that delivers the forthright appearance of modern art, monotone and monotheistic.
I am a Hobo of belief, spirituality and imagination- and the beauty of it all is that I still have no fucking clue.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Alcoholiday

Tennessee is full of societal gangrene, especially in Brentwood; bloody thieves of hope stagger around in cosmic disbelief of the existence outside of money and greasy smiles and back stabs that occur at the same moment of a sincere handshake. In northern Virginia, the usual skanks of money grubbing rattle snake business, they lick the blood off of their snake skin suits and chow down on the little man and gloat with their mouth full of their victims to the next shadow of money that leans against the street sign that spells out his last name, preying upon street after street until those who aren’t smiling are simply digested, and those that survive, are rewarded with rings of fancy and a firecracker kiss from lips that represent hell and burn just as equally. The Slums of Hell are enjoyed more than the lost state of mind of a ravenous spiritual hitchhiker, in Hell, the unexpected is expected, and the imagination clots less when it is drugged from anticipation, but when you’re in the crooked pastor representing the resin scraped together through each and every spiritual trap, then anger and crime come second nature, because the ones you find kinship and companionship with, even if they are the ones in shackles, you, my friend are the Sun-Less Dead Specimen that God will never understand, much less the devil. To be alone and utterly confused is one spiritual matter. You raise your arms like a ‘Y’ to the sky and you close your eyes because you know at that moment, another life is being taken, another fire will trap the trap the cries of the young and unlived. Creative magic and reality and the noble imagination to clue it all together will create an exorcism of your soul, exiling your beliefs, your soul and your cares into the unknown mesh of the cosmos—To find yourself to be a simple body, corrupt among the living and diagnosed with opinions and life and judgment, you feel about as free as the soul of Jesus Christ—Trespass, Judge and stampede and tromp on the thoughts, ideas and claims of others, because this body knows no boundaries—exiling ones own consciousness and spitting on everyone alive or dead without a decent argument is just as good as setting yourself on fire while, knee deep in your own lazy complaints. I’d rather live and be hated than to be dead and loved.
I think God’s final sin is Vanity- Why should he be so revered? I think Michael needs to put a whoopee cushion under his fanny because he apparently forgot what it was like to never live. For me, to feel judged under a being that has no shape, that has no boundaries of misunderstanding, that is so cleansed but yet still understands my dirty mind, I think he needs to take a second thought of his acceptance- Most love him, Some don’t believe in him, and some blindly hate him- -I’m just a dude that is trying to scuffle my thoughts and dirty shoes along so as he does not get embarrassed. I do my best; I think he’s lost in silent marvel of himself.
I’m Sorry- I really am- because my thoughts are out of bounds- I answer to no one other than myself and those infinite temptations that have splintered themselves as voices in my well trained mind- I’m an unfortunate case of stool pigeon of miraculous grandeur.
In California, I found ancient Beasts bathed under the grand old sun, Devils with a giddy point of view, and drugs by the multitude. Sidewalks were warm enough to walk without shoes and street creeps were courteous enough to introduce a new needle for an adventure that they promote behind the curtains of your sleeveless imagination.
Death Metal is a prospect not everyone understands, but if you’re a politicking vibrant sumbitch that has been kicked a time or two, then it is in your roots, whether you like it or not- the deranged company I kept with, when they were not picking their teeth with the tendons and muscles of the suicidal doormen, they stood in front of this dreary rage filled tribe banging their heads and slamming their fists, bellowing fierce atrocities like ancient madmen, you don’t understand it, but you definitely get it.
Dante Aligheri understood it, as did Dimebag Darrell. The brass tax of it is that it is not noise; it is a spiritual floatation device to rise from the crevices of anger, alienation, humiliation and mortal damnation. The flailing of the limbs and the banging of the heads is a triumphant return to mans primitive side, a band of shamans they are and will continue to be, to exorcize the incoherent madness that we useful ruffians are smothered with in everyday life. The post-angst moans that give our own hearts tremors, rattle the eyes of the inexperienced, that is the new language of the modern savage, equipped with censors to operate normally in society, but we, they have discovered a way to manipulate that control and eliminate it while on stage or behind a mic. These Fantastic beings of a growing force, they are fragmented strangers with whole ideas. They are castaways and proud of it, they are a towering elite that you either consider your family, or constantly keep in the corner of your eye. The emotions that are toggled with, and the feelings that are spiritually plunged, they are strict doppelgangers of sin and virtue, they don’t tow the line, they plow both sides of it, they are the reformed leaders of societal dropouts and godless humanity, they are the carriers of the torch, the names of the blamed, and the shards of frustration that makes us all want to shave our heads.
Death rides a pale horse; and on this horse is not a man that beckons significance. On this horse rides a broken crusader, a dying breed that has been bred in all parts of the world and has no real tribe, he just scours the globe until he finds his own. And once the tribe is complete, fires are set and families are bound out of exiled alliance, we share a drink, we cut our skin and then we ignite the luscious horror that binds us. From then on, we are all respected, feared and rejected; we are the jolted bemused, the loveless trick that inspired a Satan-less smile, our thoughts lurk further than our feet can carry us, love is an uncharted territory and life is branded with the sneers of others, but we are a restrained God, a humbled demon on his last breath, a spiritual cancer that affects both sides of life and death, we are the ones that carry the secrets that only dead men know.
I wouldn’t imagine California, would be a haven for metal heads, I think of beach boys, I think of punk surfers and I think of Tanned sluts with skin thicker than an unguided ranchero’s. But it’s California, I saw a mere fraction of it, I’ve never been before and I doubt I’ll go back, maybe the faction of hell-raised significant bound truth seekers are about to throw mutiny over the circuit that controls the over flow of plastic bitches, rich whores, perfectly sculpted schmucks that walk the streets like zombified preachers of renounced Sufism, Natural healing, Jack Daniels and Fox Sports, their hands in their pockets, and their pockets, pocket less, so as to satisfy their sunshiny addiction to public masturbation.
In deep introspection, California, it may be considered the united States very own Macquarie Island, The punks and freaks and metal heads being the vermin- One blue collar tweeker might surmise, but on the other hand, these freaks of nature might be the accumulating force that is now rubbing out this new brand of dubious freak-makers that has infested the country- dumbing it down and drugging it up, so that it may rape and pillage our minds thoughts and opinions. Angry and Carefree we are, for we are not of the mind bent nation- We are the saviors with no voice, and until the cinders of the hell that still burn in the minds of those that run the free world is extinguished by the drugs they prescribe themselves, we gypsies of a non existent history, we will continue to spread the word of hope through incoherent recollection, through vengeful torment, through the fantastic reappraisal of misery and the conception of a third world life through blood and tears. The damned we may be labeled, but blessed, you will find us, if you translate the echoes impacted by rejection, tattoos, headstrong ambitious misery, and the calling of a deeper darker force that traced us, years before birth, we will always be a dying race, but we will never die. We are a homeless community of faith and anger- We are the dying breed that hell stays away from and heaven tips its hat to. We’re doomed, yet destined to be reconciled with.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

The Return of the Sunshine Skinny Boy

I just got off of the phone with my old Pal, The Bag of Donuts, he is in a miraculous way, content with his occupation of drowning lawyers by hand and skinning kittens with a slug of scotch not an arms reach away. The suits, he keeps, the pelts, he fabricates into delicate sheets for his pillows or decorations for his walls. Keep in mind, he resides in a terrible city, known for their bludgeoning of animals from all walks of life, from one eyed midgets that live among the ruins of dented trash cans and semen and blood stained badly burnt old mattresses, to Sparky, the family pet that followed that awful trail of Rich and Meaty dog food laced with Prestone anti freeze because some awful neighbor who goes by the name of Davie Berkowitz is clamming up and stewing over an awful day. I have no reason to judge, simply from my previous entries, This Bag of Donuts I speak of, he has sharpened teeth and brass knuckles and a tattoo over his heart that reads, "momma didn't love me" with a pair of cross bones sheltering a broken heart, over his left breast. He isn't the kind to be trifled with, I've seen him throw the progeny of two twisted lives to the intake of a half open window with an evil grin on his face and a well greased butterfly knife in his free hand.

"KEEP DRIVING." He Said.

This Bag of Donuts I write of, he is one not one to turn your back on, he'll trample a bed of roses on a Sunday morning in front of a Cardinal and a priest, because he prefers to slam dance with the Devil on God's only day, He'll look at you with those brazen, bloodshot eyes, put his cigarette out on his own forearm and give you the butt. There's no arguing with this Bag of Donuts, there's only pleasing him, when he's not walking on all fours and growling at beings and beasts that we, normal spit-fire ruffians can not see, he's changing the future and leaving trails of scent and blood for the unsuspecting half-wits that crave the entrails of worthless savages that they see him as, he hides under layers of dirt, leaves and his own blood to bring them in; the multi celled predators that can smell blood but not trouble. They're all his victims, This Bag of Donuts; he's outsmarted God, shamed the devil and left us all in the ruins of imagination, all before breakfast, where he munches on cornflakes floating on Budweiser, out of the skulls of his enemies.

Some Slum Lords refer to him as the Sunshine Skinny Boy, no one dares ask why, though he is skinny, his skin is grey and his eyes are black, the sunshine part, whether its meant to be ironic or not, some surmise he was born to a vagrant scalawag hippie with classic case of unhinged dementia, and Karol Gellner, the son of a Czech-Jewish philosopher turned refugee, Ernest Gellner. Under the sun of the Solomon Islands, the two raised this young chick under imagination and insanity. With his mother's mental blasphemy and his father's inherent lunacy, he was spawned by a fifth of cheap whiskey and the raging hormones of two mis-educated savages that should've had their skulls smashed in at birth.

Since his arrival on this Island, Earth, the young Sunshine Skinny Boy was sold on the black market for a small bag of dirty money and a goat skin full of wine, he's sailed the wild dark oceans as a captive brute, fashioning shackles and chains on his wrists and ankles, he's read the bible seventeen times and is the only one in possession and also who has read the lost journals of Aleister Crowley.

For a short period of time, The Skinny Boy lived in Africa, among the Shankadi Tribe, who referred to him as, "Le Dybbuk," or Devil Boy. While he resided on the lone African plains, he was a castaway from any human contact, even those that had purchased him so many years ago had all either mysteriously vanished, committed suicide or went mad. The young Dybbuk ran with packs of Hyenas on the great veldts of Africa, only later on to turn on them and forsake them because he ate all of their pups, now they not only respect him, but they respect them out of fear. The Shamans of the Shankadis claim he is the Death Adder, for he is the only two or four legged creature that can scare the only vile beast that is ridden nightly by Witches that evolve as the dusk gets darker.

Not much is known of the evolution of the Sunshine Skinny boy and his progression in life, with his age, with his madness, some children whisper urban legends about the myth and life of this gothic creature we all know as The Skinny Boy or as his closest call him, Bag of Donuts. His legend is in the shadows of history, some is known but most is not, to negate the virile prosperity of the Sunshine Skinny Boy would be blasphemous, would be suicidal, his ancient trinkets of wisdom and his vast regions covered by Crowley's very own majik of great contagious proportions, one's eyes would bleed, and his sanity would flee, for the curse of The Skinny boy, rumor has it, is far worse than Gods Wrath.

Britain's very own David Courtney had a run in with The Skinny boy back in the misty, polluted streets of Chicago back in the cold rainy month of September in 1997. The Sunshine Skinny Boy approached him from under the dim halo of a sign from a bar that's about to close.

"There was this skinny fuckin' kid, giggling to himself, a sharpened blade in his hand, I laughed to myself, I didn't see anything of him, except his skinny ass shadow, my body guards approached him, to break a finger, to rough him up or what, But I told them to ignore the drugged up wanker, the fuckin' brat wasn't worth their sweat.

So, I started off down the street and started to wonder about this bloake, this fuckin' guy had a short sleeve shirt on, I figured he must be mad, So I stopped and turned around. He was fucking gone. Crazy shit.

As I stared at myself from the reflection of this pub, I noticed my two bodyguards went down, These fuckin' guys both fuckin' weigh goddamn two hundred plus pounds. I figure Sniper, but no, It's the fuckin' Sunshine boy, and he's taking their money and jewelry, and fucking not paying attention to me, and I think, What The FUCK? IM FUCKING DAVID COURTNEY, and I say, 'DO YOU KNOW WHO THE FUCK I AM?' Then he takes the ear of one of my mates and then he fucking stomps the guts of my other guard—He grins at me and he asked me, "DO YOU KNOW WHO THE FUCK I AM?" My heart stopped, my breath went away and when he breathed, and grinned, his breath smelt of a three day old murder and his teeth were fine points with bits of red stained on them, he straightened my fuckin' tie and informed me my fuckin' zipper was in the downward position, he winked at me and began to whistle as he fucking scuttled off, and a voice went off in my head, Who the FUCK AM I?"

For his whole life, The lore of the Sunshine Skinny Boy has been balanced between good and evil, between reality and imagination, The Sunshine Skinny Boy, this Bag of Donuts, he knows the meaning of life, has the precise agenda for the reason of reality and the endless possibility of dreams, those that fear him write of his absence of heart, pass the hatchet of his inhuman behavior, and wake up to the moonlit grin of his smile, facing reality for mere seconds before they're submerged into the proper hysteria of an after life.

And of course those that know him know that his grand tales of silence, murder and ransacked emotions aren't true. Well, some aren't.

I've seen him stare down a copper-head, baring his teeth, with a low grumble that comes from the bottom of his stomach, forcing it to retreat back into the cattails and dead weeds; I've seen him stand tall against the strongest bull in the pasture. And I've seen him toss a perfectly good Pabst Blue ribbon into a fire pit just because he's hooked into an energetic catfish.

I didn't know the Skinny until he was twenty-four or so- so his past maybe true. He knows nothing about me, either, not that I know of.

I am unsure if he knows my adopted Gypsy parents called me dur-dikki-mengri, or "The Far Seeing Thing". Or if The Skinny boy knows that my Lakota parents called me Nolothanchan, or, Nobody.

The Sunshine Skinny Boy is my friend; his blood may be black and riddled with sin and the salt of the earth, but I am not one to resurrect the sins of others, nor is he into the manipulated necromancy that violated our youth, and whether good or evil resides in he or I, I know that we have found each other, whether he is Good or if I am evil- Two paths have crossed and minds are currently being bent- our love of imagination and madness maybe what binds us, or maybe because we both have seen blood spill of tragic proportions, or maybe we're just looking to settle down our rough and rowdy ways, as Saturday nights of mayhem and beheaded enjoyment don't raise our eyebrows anymore. We've may have even retired from old men, madness and the played out spiritual transgressions into youthful dreamers and calm patients of limitless boundaries, in life and in the mind. Maybe he and I, this Bag of Donuts, we've paid our dues, he may have transcended in to Sunshine and Sunshine only and it even maybe possible that I, I have become Somebody. It will take both of our imagination to lift dead spirits, but I think the guile our spirit can invoke will be more than enough.

Now that we've domesticated Hell, I think it's time to have a run at the world that rests above it, here we come, marvelous insubordination. Sunshine and Somebody.

12:57 am, Feb 07.

Monday, January 28, 2008

THe Ballad of the Broken Boy and a Lucky Puppy

I was born in the back of a ’76 Chevrolet, my daddy was drunk and my momma was biting her tongue about my real daddy. The pleather seats were maroon, so they called me red. That was in the wilderness of Felts Woods, back in Carroll County, Va. The game warden was present and that’s why I’m still here, and not marked with a twig and stick grave marker. Shortly after the birth, with my momma stable, in the pickup bed I was placed, tied off on the dog’s collar, that old dog’s leash. Lucky was his name. Me and Lucky Puppy traveled back together, my arms around his leash, her leash around my neck. If Daddy hadn’t been pulled over for drinkin’ and drivin’ then my demise woulda been had, there in the prime, gorgeous nature of toothless ruffians, nameless wanderers and fish that practically 'catched' themselves in the beautiful splendor under the banner of heaven.
Nope, I was yanked up out of that pick up truck, placed in my momma’s lap and instead of a damned nipple of some sort, my daddy placed a harmonica between my toothless gums and my crying, on the bumpy road home, I played the saddest song, but love smudged my tune, even Lucky Puppy sang along, bouncing along in the back with out the company of the discharge of my devious soul.
Back home, home is where I found myself to be, wicked on all fours, courageous in discovering nature, saying hi to the animals, being beaten by muddy neighbors, cursed by drunken lustful whores that scathed the country side with their muddy heels and their beer stained halter tops, I paraded my ineducation while I munched on crab apples and shot my BB guns at cows and dogs named Duke. When I wasn’t being a careless urchin between imagination and landscape, I was covered in poison ivy vines and my mascara made of dirt was being made into mud by my tears of woeful torment. I’d climb trees like a feral child escaping his assailers, I’d screech and holler as my brothers of blood stalked me with a lust for my pain and my tragedy at their finger tips.
A wild child by accident, I roamed with potato chips in my back pack and a dull blade in my front pocket, inhabiting empty houses and churches, starting fires on purpose and by accident, I lost my individuality to the scorching torment of dirty knees, a dead god and a family that forgot his name in place of Lucky Puppy.
Dignity was a shallow pain that buried itself into my frontal lobe like the ‘chinky pins’ that I used to pick from the trees to feed my mouth and my imagination.
Lucky Puppy was the first to run away from home, each morning on my daily round up and choke chain trail of tears on my way to school, we’d pass this dog with a three legged skip on it’s way to a faraway lands and happiness that only dogs that skip can dream of, we’d pick her up, force her back into the caravan and turn around, only to drive her back to the land of the land of madness, free meals, free pain and all the land you can cry on. Only lucky puppy could figure her way out of anywhere, she used her Beagle sense of smell to find her way back to the emotional concentration camp, my tear stained eyes always forced me to sit in the middle of an untouched wilderness until my eyes were to dry to cry anymore, then I’d have to wade through briars to find my way home.
Looking Back now, I find that Im damned with the recollection or memory that I thought I blacked out during High School. The Hair in my eyes, the trench coat that kept my knees company, the cigarettes that kept me quiet, the friends that I had made to make me feel normal, the personality I’d developed, The beautifully rotten life that made so much sense to misery and none to me, and I just went a long with it. The cuts and tears with my artistic silent rants in my skin with knives and push pins, the sad bastard music that kept me company and the blue skinned fiends that knew every one of my secrets, my friends—Fuck, each and every one of them is gone and long gone- faraway in the silent graveyard of Sheol. Past. Present. Love. Happiness. The Present. Life. The pushover that sucks your soul out and leaves you alive and hollow, nothing to speak of- No one to talk to. The memories that rape your soul and eject your willful power to over come the notches you’ve carved on your spiritual belt. The side you allow others to see, is a broken serpent of a lost relic that coils in fear anger and despair, lashes out and is a ruiner of progress.
I am but a broke down poet, with only past recollections to show the crossers of our paths. I stagger like a stranger through a dust bowl town, memories seem to mean too much to me and I mean too little to friends, for now I’ll just bow my cap and trudge on through the lost infidelity of self demoralization.
I’m still alive. Proud I am not, but curious why. There is a spiritual wind that sweeps away ones questions once they’re asked. If they’re answered or not, is not up to me, perhaps they are the answers on your tombstone.
I care, I think, I wonder, I’m misunderstood, I put too much emphasis on reality and push too much on the unexplained explaining the unexplainable.
I know I’ll never know and I’ll never be able to extinguish the burning question of WHAT THE FUCK. . . . it hurts, and it’s bothersome, but then again, what aspect of life is not?
‘Round about the time I retired from the trees of a hapless monkey, a preacher ran over Lucky Puppy, though she was no longer the puppy that raised me -- I’d grown to be a young man, and she’d grown to be an old woman, though she no longer attempted to escape the thorny premises, she stood by me loyal and care free, unafraid of my lost child hood lacerations and completely enamored by our orphaned accomplishments, the thunder carried over her last rites, the preacher said not a word, to her or us.
With a busted gut and a gun to her head, She howled and moaned, crying to God and man.
And with a tearless sigh, I accepted the facts of life. The ruiner of reality is reality itself. All that is imaginable is able to be shot down, that which is unimaginable, is most likely at your karmic doorstep.
Life is a broken weave of stories, knitted only by regret, torment, memories and hate and painful love.
Fuck Christ, Goddamnit do I love Life, even though It’s a mother fucker.
I sure Hope once I arrive, God doesn’t mind the pranks I’ll play on him.
(1:28 am Jan 27)

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Fool's Paradise

"The fool who persists in his folly will become wise."

-William Blake

I was nearly home, about sixty miles or so, the opened twelve pack was sitting in the passenger side seat, but it was no longer a twelve pack. It had probably about nine or ten left. I picked it up a good safe distance because by the time I would've reached my planned destination, it would be too late to buy beer, and I've always been a simple kind of guy, I like the joy it brings, and I don't think midnight during the work week is a good time to start a glue sniffing habit.

The radio was up, with some pill addled sicko with a raspy voice and a unique handle on life was complaining about the same old shit. My driver side window doesn't work properly, it scratched the ultimate hell out of the glass, so I don't use it. So when I have to resort to flinging my beer cans out the window, I have to slow down from passing all of the other traffic on the road, merge in to the quiet lane, roll down the passenger side window with my car's cockpit fancies, numerous buttons I rarely touch, and then with a simple gesture, my hair is whipping in my face, seventy five miles an hour, just so I can throw an empty can out for decoration on this stretch of this once beautiful American landscape.

As a born and raised grand country boy, I too, am against the wretched machine heads that spew their wealth like trash across the country side with visions of grand accomplishment, but as far as taking your trash to the dump is concerned, I don't mind. Nor do I mind throwing trash on trash. As far as my beer cans being littered and riddled up and down the east coast major highways, I consider it marking my territory.

I decided eventually because I am breaking the man's laws, then hell, I should probably break only one at a time, So, I slowed down.

Yes, I was swerving every fifteen minutes or so, but I was using blinkers, I found my behavior completely acceptable. I had gum. One working window. The trick is, if you are drinking and driving and you fear being nabbed, one open window does wonders for the aroma in your car, and especially being an ex tobacco junkie, in my pockets and in every crevice in my dear old car, one can find gum and mints. Life has it's limits, but then again, it doesn't.

"No, Officer, I haven't been drinking and driving.

Why is there an open twelve pack and no cans?

Well, Sir, I quote my great grandfather in saying, 'Stand in the road and be a friend to man.' I gave a homeless wino outside the gas station from which I purchased these beverages who asked me for my change or a beer. I have no change, and frankly, well, I know what it's like to want and need a beer, so he received quite a few. I'm not a lecturer, I'm a man flawed just as much as he, so he, lucked out, Officer, Sir.

No, Sir, I realize I shouldn't encourage that behavior. No, I'm afraid I don't remember what he looked like, he was white, about my height.

Yes Sir, Thank you for the concern, Why, thank you have a nice night yourself."

Once Johnny Law was satisfied after groping my moral lies, he gave me my license, a tip of the hat and scuttled off in the gravel and broken glass. Once on my own again, I buckled my seat belt, checked my mirrors and generally took about five minutes to see if this clown was on to me or not, either way, I didn't care. I kept my passenger side window down and this time I opened the sun roof.

I put my car, Finney, into first gear, lowered the emergency brake, my brake lights shining into Johnny Laws eyes for about ten seconds, and then I left the e-brake on and took my foot off the brake and popped Finney into neutral. I scrambled for cd's.

It was Todd snider that I found, and at that moment of my exasperated Johnny Law, So close on my ass, that goddamned fog light still blighting my eyes, threw his blue lights on, sat for a millimeter of a second, and then his back wheels threw gravel all over my crushed beer cans, he darted off into the night, his car's wails were absorbed by the concrete, animal carcasses and the tamed wilderness, and I watched him slowly disappear into the night, Finney's clock read 10:53 pm, which meant it was really 10:48. Mysterious, devious eyes shined at me in the rearview-I cracked a beer and peeled rubber into late night traffic, a semi wasn't startled, but that driver for the bus of junior high Jesus teachers sure swerved. I started to sing along, I also rolled down the back two windows with a drunkards ease.

I wasn't far off, The beer was growing warm so I had to drink it faster, but that still posed a problem upon my arrival at my desolation unit, my palace of despair, me, this cretin of ingenuity, driven by a drunkard named Finney, to his one and only palace of despair. Hysteria has never been a problem for this mind of moral erosion.

Step ahead to Track 2.

There's a truck turned over on the highway
Flares burning out of the snow
Freezing rain in the passing lane
I got forty five miles to go

Forty five miles
Forty five miles
Man that's gonna take all night
I should have known right away that something was wrong
When I started thinking things were all right
Things were not all right

My old man's sick, my sister's going broke
They're closing down my favorite bar
I got a smoker's cough and now to top it all off
I think I'm gonna wreck my car
I'm gonna wreck my car

They say life goes in stages like seasons
I say something about all of them sucks
It's as hard to be hot as it is to be cold
You're either out of control or you're stuck
You're either out of control
Or you're stuck

So take whatever road that you want to
Careful of the ice and the snow
I ain't got time to change my mind
I got forty five miles to go
Forty five miles
Forty five miles
Man that's gonna take all night
I should have known right away that something was wrong
when I started thinking things were all right
Things are not all right


Forty Six miles later, I was pulling into my lonely parking place littered with Marlboro butts and the decaying tree that stands sickly above Finney's resting point.

11:38 pm. Fuck, I guess I didn't need to buy the beer way back when. I'll be damned.

Finney coughed up waste like the tail pipes of cars usually do, I comforted him with my ass leaning against his wing, I looked down the street and back again.

"I feel like drinking some more, but this solitary shit is driving me fucking nuts."

I patted Finney's head like he was my child, also of ancient Mule-Like decent, "fuck it," I thought.

I could still buy beer and drink it in the cozy confines of God's Lap, my grinded subconscious, my regrets and fears down there in the dungeon constructed of hollow poetry, but I figured Finney provided enough of that, So I hit the pavement, found myself at the bar whose bartenders slouched lower than the regulars, the bar that had the etchings, promises to the devil in the bar top 'for just one more drink in exchange for the queasy soul' they had to promise. Bartenders with heavy hands and high skirts, if regret was a businessman with his mouth duct taped and his hands bound behind his back, then this was the launch pad of deceit and misery. With my eyes glazed over, I stared at a rerun of a boxing match that happened before I was born, terrible music infiltrating my ears, whiskey bleeding into my beer and a smile stained on my face, somewhere in this tangled mess I consider my life, I'm alive and some kind of invisible angel makes excuses for me, or not, I slip by God unknown and unannounced, I'm free and roaming, I'm a guy with a sense of humor for a soul, I'm a guy who rides the slippery slope of loneliness. Watching Saddam H. swing from his leash is enough to drink for all the reasons right and wrong. If anyone wants to join me in the toast to a falsified life and sarcastic dreams, I'll be the loner at the bar to say 'cheers' to reality. Because I know reality will be the first to turn its back on me. I commend imagination for making me feel so blessed.

The past is old and dead. Memories of Nightmares. I function and fight. The past is a culvert running under the road of insight and the drainage ditch is what we need to reflect upon life.

"I should have known right away that something was wrong
when I started thinking things were all right
Things are not all right"

Though, Drunk, I am. I am, Indeed, Still alive. I thrive and function. I smile because I still don't understand anything and know now that I never will.

Things are all right.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Death From Above

they say 3 percent of the people use 5 to 6 percent of their brain
97 percent use 3 percent and the rest goes down the drain
I'll never know which one I am but I'll bet you my last dime
99 percent think we're 3 percent 100 percent of the time"

-Todd Snider




The sun is bright, but the day is cold- like a fools gold paradise while staring out the window with a frosty coca cola in your hand, thinking that's is as cold as it's gonna get.

There are brutes and monsters surrounding your every movement- they cackle and taunt you with 'your mom' jokes, spitting tortillas in your face while they coax you with shallow dreams of a monster called margarita.

Then you find yourself a regular in a Mexican restaurant frequented by whitey and whitey only, having your hand shaken by a Hispanic who rolls his shirt in knots and uses too much hair gel and speaks with a lisp.

After that, You look around the room, find recovering alcoholics with their noses buried in their self help books stuffing their faces with iced tea and salsa, using their only distraction as a tool to conceal their deliberate attempt to spy on lovers, to spy on rock and roll slug heads, happy couples giving each other orgasms under the table while they stare into the reflection of each other in the sunglasses that loopily mangled for decoration yet are not prescription but at the same time they refuse to take off.

Yuppies that like to imitate Harvey Keitel with their worn leather jacket to make up for the beer gut and muscles. Children that run amok like wild Indians on the plains of carpet and tile. Native workers that stop in stride and allow the young blonde new species of human to at first step on their toes and in ten years, to finally walk all over them.

I found this monster margarita sitting in front of me, a hollow globe with a mere glass stem holding it up, "I thought I asked for a not so small one", I happily complained. Then I wished I had a diving board and my swimming trunks. Or at least a goldfish with whom I could share with this joyous blessing on a Sunday afternoon, golden with laughs and blessed with friends that threaten to kill you every other minute. In other words, a good fucking day.

Halfway into my cheese burrito a band of happy go lucky whores of God asked us if there was alcohol in those gargantuan things.

Yes.

"Which one of you is driving?"

Heads were shaken, faces uprooted to a maroon tinge due to the spawn of last minute conscience.

What did it matter we thought, we lived over the hill and down the street, This band of merry pranksters we are, we aren't out to be lectured by a simpleton who is too weak to not only be lassoed into life not only by the vague image of the American dream, but also by God, he who has taunted and harassed us all at one point or another. This spiritual snitch was bludgeoning a good day into something to think about. In other words, he was ruining the good times, and now in reflection, I suppose our actions were doing the same to his. Then this fuck, this cretin, this marvel of spirituality, stood up in his trench coat, squinted through his coke bottle glasses, rubbing his bald head, said he wanted to give us a bible, and out of the three of us, he said, "How many of you are there? Three?" Answering his own question.

Then Like beaten and wounded savage captives, we all eye each other, thinking that we are yes, too drawn in by realities pleasures and Satan's fruitful gifts, he's counting more of us or we're too dumb or drunk to notice one of us is either dead or a dumb brute, manifested with human like qualities and a similar name of that we might call our pet, if we were responsible enough to care for it.

God's Whore meets Gods accidents.

Unlike him though, thank God, (ironically enough) We have restraint. It could have gone:

"Which one of you is driving?"

"Your Mom."

"Your Boss"

"Don't worry I have a plastic Jesus on my Dashboard."

Then of course this whimsical pastor, this stunning spiritual STD handed us TWO cards for the three of us, apparently it was me who was handing them away as soon as they touched my sinful fingers. I've often surmised that I was truly damned and only the truly blessed could see this and figure it out. It gave me a Grinch like smile to know that this hypothesis was not a waste for all of those sleepless nights.

Watch what you say to someone with nothing, It's almost like having it all…

Fifteen minutes later, the Grand tale of the monstrous margarita was over, the goldfish would be dead, swamped in ice cubes and salt- Then all eyes fall on the rascal, the loon, the deedless Orton that puts his hand and picks up my burrito like a lonesome traveler crossing a barbed wire fence- taking a large bite out of it—Scattering it's innards on the table and his shirt. I was nothing but giggles.

Now on my laptop, on it sits a card, entitled, "A BOOK FOR OUR TIME" call this number or visit this website to receive your free copy of this new no nonsense bible, free of charge…

I only would have to sacrifice my name, my email, my sanity and my friends to find solace in losing everything physically to gain it all spiritually, to be sad now for however many years this old ticker has is to be happy for eternity, should eternity exist. Why not sacrifice it all? Especially for a popular myth, a solid dream of 'if'?

I declined. Loneliness is part of the game. Im not sure of life's rules, nor do I care, so long as I wake up and aspirin takes care of the headache, that's fine with me, cus I know a thought like God will not take care of Heartache- Im not sure of much, I don't know if God or the Devil exists, but I know that Misery Loves Company- So Im sure the Devil is my comrade 24 hours a day- So I assume that God is alive out there, somewhere, straddling the horizon, pleasing the peasants like Pastor Bob, the rapist of my reality.

But the only reason now that God exists is because we were created from him-God Loves a sinner, He must love me- 'Those without sin, shall cast the first stone' Those blokes must be boring- God doesn't thrive on those Pastor Bobs that pass out pamphlets at 2:30 in the afternoon, wheres the fun in that? Gods not with them, God is with the ones that put the baby in the microwave, the ones that watch too much TV and then reenact in a crowded school or shopping mall. God Loves fuck ups and Pastor Bob proved it. God was thanking us for our Deviancy personally on his Day, Sunday, while we pounded drinks larger than our heads and spoke lavishly about each other's moms and God himself because without bastards like us, God would not have his daily chuckle. We are the black sheep of reality, but the spoiled children of Jehovah. Godless our Brethren consider us. Blessed are we, those of us who bounce off the retarded morals of common man- we are the gleam in God's eyes, keeping up what is alive. Not only do we hate it, We revel in it.

Six Beers, one Red Bull and a snippet of rum later, I turned the card over, the card that pastor Bob Gave us, if we call the Number on the back or visit the website, we can get our copy of the Bible.

THE RECOVERY VERSION it says is brilliant text.

Maybe, I thought, Since God and my boys, we're all tight like that, It's him, the Man, God, Himself telling us to slow down? I mean, buckets of Margaritas on a Sunday afternoon? Since he loves us so much more than Pastor Bob, he's using ole Bob the Whore to tell us to slow down. But then again, Chaos is more acceptable than mythical planning. It's probably just a reflection from Plato or some Goddamned Everclear song.

I might be under criticism from my fellow creatures and alien peers, but if God is our ringleader, then I must remind you, remind him and all of us of Proverbs 31, 6/7: "Give beer to those who are perishing, wine to those who are in anguish; let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more."

Yeah, God's listening, and he's naked playing the bongos, thankful, finally of some form of understanding. Satan? He's just a guy that I live with. And yeah, The Man loves him too.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

The Stock is Low

The stock is low in all parts of the country, and the wicked dingbats that helped it plummet are on their thrones of speed, ready to throw the book at the ones that try to bend to rules to feed their mouths or feed their addictions.

Buildings that were once constructed with pure gold have been stripped overnight by wild hillbilly creatures with a lot of rope and an overly muscular inbred cousin named Jim-Bob to raise and lower each up and down these fantastic towers—only to go home to their shacks lit only by human hair to melt the gold down- attach it to tiny hooks and then, only to swallow them in a gulp of back country old fashioned radiator moonshine. If you wonder why, it is because after four days inside the intestinal tracts of Jim-Bob, these golden trinkets will look like your great grandmothers heirloom.

The dogs outside the hut will wail, the cold wind will give the house goose bumps, and the baby will be fed a formula of powdered milk and cheap drinking whiskey, so as not to wake mother in her inspired drunken slumber.

Yes, the stocks are low and people are selling their kids and cars, houses and writing off their hired help with items they consider trash but the help calls, "muy bonita!" Soon they will break bread over the same three legged table, whipping their children like dogs because the prayer wasn't over before he started grubbing into the monthly issued cheese.

Houses across the country are being salvaged for their books, the shelves themselves, antique guitars and all things made of wood only so they can be smashed and made into a huge bon fire in the middle of the living room in a ready made fireplace made out of their grand pianos guarding the home made chimney with salvaged bullets not yet fired but already covered in blood, guarding their fire and the few remaining bullets and books soon to be used as kindling. Their mansions will be skeletal reflections of how glorious and boastful life used to be, now the idea of being rich will be reversed when one hasn't so much property he has to patrol nightly from the devious drooling beasts that lurk on the edge of the shadows their giant houses cast.

No, It's a sad state of affairs in this country so pillaged and wise. We've become the broken bums of literature and fiction that has a half drunken bottle of George Dickle in his ragged coat pocket, in fingerless gloves we carry on about peace and life and liberty and helpful hints to reach the golden age God failed at teaching us. But We don't listen to him or each other- We flaunt our flags until they're in shreds standing half mast above the rubble of our homes and emotions. The Rich don't get richer. The Rich die Quicker. Hail to the Chief, here comes a grand slam.

Yes, it sounds like an honor to live in the land where the rich get fed to that broken bum with more etiquette than Queen Elizabeth herself- to me, that would be fine- That would be an honor- to be among the rest of my thugs, cripples and freaks, drinking lemon juice and whiskey, gallivanting next to a fire at three am lit by one part Earnest Hemingway, one part Tennessee Williams, two parts Ralph Lauren. If that were the case, You might find me happy, you might find me smiling without the Irish Coffee—But here in this land of the silver tongued devils, nothing happens accordingly to the book of revelations, it actually happens in the exact opposite way—In this town Called Brentwood—The meek are lying in shallow unmarked graves across this town, under liquor stores, under houses, balled up and stuffed into dumpsters like the result of a careless sixteen y ear old nine months after her mistake. Unaware and uncouth are the endangered remainders of the meek that wallow in this town—We are, they are dying slow, quick, painful deaths by the hands that support many rings of pure gold- They stomp us to dust, suck the marrow out of our bones and skin us, only to wear the skin of the meek just to fool the 'man that comes around' when the end of the bible finally succeeds. And once it does, Jesus H. Christ himself will be kidnapped and savagely beaten by this gang of metropolitan gang bangers, these renegades of Calvin Klein, these clumsy knights of Target and Martha Stewart.

These soulful rapists will be wearing the skin of the meek only to bury the Lord's only son with the rest of us spiritual beggars and the devil will have no help in defeating these lawless creatures that run amok solely between the hours of 9-5.