The Birth of ...The Weird

The Birth of The Weird.

When the Samurai Cowboy’s parents were out of town, given the fact that they lived in a beautiful house in the middle of nowhere, with nature, beauty, and the cops completely absent from this scenery, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to drop acid.
As I type this, Clarence Carter belts out, “How sweet it is.”
Of course like all stories and memories that become fogged and not necessarily forgotten but not completely remembered, I’m pretty sure it starts out with pot smoke.
Dashing back a few years, this is the same house that when I was a child, before I knew the Samurai Cowboy, he was the nerdy goofy kid who had trouble making friends, and then there was me, the kid who knew everyone’s name, but cared not to interfere with something so troublesome as friendship. I liked people, but I usually hid from everyone.
But our mothers decided we should hang out.
Me and the Samurai Cowboy got to be pretty good friends. Freaks, we found ourselves to be and a Tribe we found ourselves to create. Many nights together we would stargaze and speak of UFO’s and Bigfoot and how scary teachers and fathers could be. We would draw art and write hellish poetry that paralleled our devilish minds and devious thought.
BURN by Nine Inch Nails became something of an anthem between us and our young, aloof minds.
We became inseparable. I remember how as young adults how he could remember moment for moment that fateful day in elementary school when one of the school’s retards, Eddie, walked out of the bathroom at the precise moment, this impressionable young man was walking, steadfast and late to his homeroom.
This other boy, Eddie, walked out of the bathroom, armed and dangerous. Luckily for the Samurai Cowboy, having watched too many movies featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Kurt Russell, he knew that the world still revolved outside of his peripheral, the young Samurai Cowboy dived out of the way of flying feces. The young boy, laying on his stomach on the hard tile of an elementary school floor, got up feeling a cross between pride and embarrassment, dusted the leftover puke powder off of his chest and scurried to his class while the special Ed. teachers, they them selves armed with rubber gloves wrestled and detained Eddie, the poo tosser and unbeknownst to him Sculptor of the mind of the Samurai Cowboy. Student and …Teacher.
Not far after that, in the long run of classes, memories, and joints, we found ourselves, somewhere else, down the road, high on gas station cappuccinos, bound and banded together with the rest of the Tribe we grew to know as brothers.
The Tune had changed, Trent Reznor no longer ruled our thoughts and sculpted our teenage angst,….well, except for the Silent painter, that no longer walks this earth, but his story can be suggested later.
We enjoyed the angst, we enjoyed the fact that we knew we belonged to each other, mentally and spiritually, and we wouldn’t make a move or act out on thought without the others in mind. We had formed a band that wanted to hit back and burn those that hit us and burned us. But the truth was, we weren’t beaten, we were just socially out of place, we found what we wanted and didn’t strive for more, we found peace in the restless hearts and minds in the others that surrounded us. We were finally happy to have found someone to shoulder our fears, self hatred and hold us up when we were down, which was often. And we were happy to do that for those that would do it for us. Brothers are what we became and to this day, brothers are what we still are.
But we don’t speak much these days . I myself have gone back into the old familiar way of polite hugs and weekly phone calls to family, but being in touch with my old extinct tribe, I sent a text message every now and again speaking of brother hood, but when a response is passed on, it’s rarely because of young men with old souls are still grateful they still have you pinballing around in their head, they now see a hermit their angst has outlived and feel a moral responsibility just to make sure that the old familiar hell doesn’t plague you as much as it used to.
And then soon the phone calls decrease and the texts go unanswered.
But then every now and again, you get one of the above reminding you that even though the relationship is silent, every heart beat in each and every one of us still beats every one else’s name. Life can never be so cruel and yet so kind. Maybe I should take this up with my other pal, who was at this moment when we did our acid drop, the Brother we Call God. I haven’t spoken to him in a while. Maybe he deserves a text.


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The time was great, it was the bloody ‘90’s, we were graduating High School, we had shit classes and each other, what else could we ask for, especially when our best friend was the Samurai Cowboy, the same fuck that was best friends with the best drug dealer in town. Purple Haze, That is. In a town like ours, it couldn’t get any better than that. Drinking beers, playing checkers and babysitting a baby crow when the Samurai Cowboy and our dealer, we’ll call him Everett, watched NASCAR and drank Red Eyes while the J passed around, we didn’t have anyone else, didn’t need anyone else, we just had Everett, the guy who took us in, let us smoke in his house, sleep on his couch, and shake his hand, as long as we kept it in the family. He trusted the Samurai Cowboy and the Cowboy trusted us, we made affiliates, we made friends, we were a part of a stomped, underworld dream, but it felt good to us, and it made sense, we were brothers, and we had a father (Everett) that would take care of us, and watch out for us. Everett never fully put his trust in the rest of us, but if we were with the Cowboy, we were taken care of. Come to think of it, the first place I went after watching my father cry for the first time, when my grandmother died, the Cowboy uprooted me from all the negative and sad feelings, and took me to Everett’s, we smoked the purple and they made sure I was happy. They made sure that I knew that death made sense, and that death was inevitable.
The Crow, a few Red Eyes, and a couple of puffs and the lazy summer sun made me realize that not only life is beautiful, so is death. I had a beautiful day after the death of my grandmother, especially since I knew how unhurried she was. I got a purple haze sense from my best friend and our much older dealer and mentor that life should be celebrated, not mourned. My grandma and grandpa were finally together. When I think of her, the first two things I think of are me and my brother pissing her off so much that she called and demanded my other grandma to come and pick us up because we were too much for her to handle and how, my brother and I, children of rock, influences of the Beach Boys, Elvis Presley, and Bruce Springsteen came to sedation when she and grandpa played what we called ‘The Superman Song’ via tape player whenever they drove us around, her deaf and him blind, shooting around town, lord knows what the fuck classical music they had to put us in restraint, but it was beautiful and we requested it every time.
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Back to the operation, the situation, the limelight, the Acid.
The Cowboy’s parents and sisters were out of town. Some of them. For a while.
Lord knows where we found it, found it, bought it, but his house was the stable, and this is where we gave him his new name, where each of us discovered a new identity in ourselves, Once weak and riddled with rumors and disgrace, we stuck our tongue out and with the sugar cube melting between our teeth, we grinned at each other, and the rest is history…..a very small piece of history, that not a soul will know about, but a piece of history, nonetheless.
I remember placing a rotting and dusty carpet over my back that was laced with laundry rope and referring to it as my Papoose. The next thing I know was, ‘God was complaining about his horrible day and all the King cared about was getting his way…’
From then on, The Prophet, just preached and smoked and bantered incoherently about the clouds, about the sins, about the beauty of insignificance and about the beauty about being lost. For a few hours, about five or eight, we were a tribe of God-Less Tulpas that could make laughter start and stop, stop the rain with our wishes and face our sadness with no problem, we were the kings of Gonzo, we were the amazing beasts that were never meant to be, but we were, ……for just a few hours.
Good enough for us, those that were physically beaten, mentally tortured, spiritually taunted and generally despised, we were the weak becoming strong, the soulless emerging as Gods, the ones once born to endless night, now finally opening our eyes to sweet delight, we emerged like foul creatures with a smile on our faces and the reflection of open arms on each of our retinas. We found something more than each other, we helped each other discover that dark pit in the heart of each other, we made heaven out of hell. With torturous tears and sad smiles. We welcomed it, we knew it, we knew nothing else. Sadness was a beautiful thing, but only when you had someone else to share it with.
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At some point, I “The Prophet” and God cursing with mumbles below me because I could not drop enough cigarettes to him, he rattled and bitched like a new found bitch in an un fill able position; this is God we’re talking about. I scribbled in my notebook, with Jim Morrisone-esque notions, enjoying God’s pleas, his worries, his distaste of how things worked.
Fuck it, I thought, He cant touch me, he’s way down there. Bitch.
As long as I keep dropping smokes, he wont care, he’ll just whine, which is what I imagine the real God to do. After a few smokes I refused to drop him anymore just to see if the real God would do anything. Nothing happened. But my Friend God got violent.
While I was being dangled over the very same banister that I’d been tossing cigarettes to satisfy my own personal God, It was then that we finally named the notorious demon belcher we now refer to as The Samurai Cowboy.
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On the horizon we saw two fully grown horses stamping and shaking their heads in disgust, and pity for the fact that they had more power than we had over them. They only half trotted when The Samurai Cowboy chased them across the empty field, waving a machete while driving a lawn mower that was almost as old as we were.
The Samurai Cowboy stood up as he gave his best Walt Whitman YAWP as the giant creatures trotted slowly just to appease his madness. A young man riding a dusty old piece of shit to herd a pair of animals that could easily crush him without any sense, but this fucker, tailed behind them with his foot on the gas, his arm in the air, a machete slicing away the thought clouds that he may or may not have, all the while, mowing the pasture.
While God lowered me down, He noticed the shock in my eyes, just as I did in his.
We broke out into supreme laughter.
The Samurai Cowboy was born. Whether the Horses liked it or not, The
Prophet, God, and The King Sure as hell loved it.

To be continued...Maybe?

The Day of the Horse Fly

Tonight I’m keeping the radio down low, only one light on and I’ve padded the floors and walls with all the towels and blankets I can find. I’ve even demolished my bed, placing it’s mattress and box springs guarding the hollow walls carefully, my clothes hung up over windows, over my drawing table and bookcase, just to absorb all the noises so that the visitors don’t hear me and come creeping by. I’ve turned off my phone, and I’ll sit in the dark, slowly drink with a pair of socks stapled around each beer I have so as not to reflect light or have a sound reverberate off of the can. I’m even typing this under a black sheet. The Light that is on, I find it under a winter jacket, I trace the lines that stream across the floor, using it as a fenced in haven to locate my necessities, the beer, the drugs, and the gun, the stolen credit card and all of the money from my bank account, I withdrew earlier today. My money is set aside in case things get hairy, if I have to throw my record player out the window and make a run for it, and the credit card is to be used for gas as far and as long as it’ll take me. The gun of course, is not for the visitors, it’s merely from protection from the restless screw heads that meddle in my trash, peek in my windows and gnaw on my doorknobs. A basic and original creation, they are a simple mix of cold blooded drunks and mopey renegades with light fingers. Basically useless, they are, smart as a junkyard dog and five times as slow.
If worse comes to worse, and I wind up being accosted by the visitors and the local drug store ruffians, and if the progress of the night looks bleak, I might save my bullets, block all exits to this house and turn the stove on, cover the downstairs with siphoned fuel from my neighbors jeep, and just set the place on fire, that seems to be the most reasonable solution. Lives will be lost, but sanity would be gained, and perfection would be just around the block. Of course, not until I’d sliced deep gashes into every two tires in a 3 block radius, because when it comes to survival, one can never go far enough.
There’s no greater joy to see the flaming apocalypse in your rearview mirror as you pull out onto an empty road, smoke some Jamaica imported Hashish, crack a beer and turn on the radio to listen to the madness as it unfolds, pop tiny blue pills to keep my eyes open, because I figure if you’re gonna face apocalyptic madness, you might as well be mad yourself, in a nuclear winter, no one wants a run in with someone who speaks perfect English and wears clean clothes. Savages will reign and the meek shall be buried in a shallow trench, if they’re lucky.
The howls outside my window still seem distant—I can not tell if it is the wailing of the winds or if it is the caravan of the moaning visitors, or the crazed life ridden fanatics already starting multiple fires miles from here. The crying adolescents, the burnt pregnant wives and other drunken slobs piercing the night with their materialistic souls going up in smoke. Damnation before eternity, they recite the Good Book and trample each other while trying to escape.
The visitors are not a bad Race, they are a mute origin-less species that may have existed before, in this world or in another, I can only catch glimpses of them, through the corner of my eye, or in the swift swivel of my head and neck. They never stay for very long, a threat they are not, but a pest they are, in a moderate crowd I do not catch them, but by myself and with creeping eyes alone, they stupefy me all hours that the night and day the clock has time for. I have outgrown weary of this being spied upon by shy recessive spirits of uneffusive circumstances, I am attempting to camouflage my body and mind and spirit from these calculating ethereal introverts, these bastards of imagination. And might I add, an entire village in rubble ruins and also in flame is a lot of work just to remain stable. But to create happiness, to meddle with Utopian sincerity, one must be a bastard to one race of people, a liar to others, a loser to some, and a mindbender to a chosen few and eventually a destroyer of all, only so that the utopia can be constructed of hell and lust, tears and bones and the inability to further your emotions because you’ve already seen it all. The succubus of lethargy, being too lazy to hate is the key to understanding the point of life. It makes you feel better when you allow your enemy to pass you in the fast food line, his devil is shamed and your soul warms itself, regardless if the Great Spirit has become your spiritual Lamprey or not- you shed a devious grin and an altercated vision of another mans point of view.
The house is still quiet, since I’ve begun this passage, I’ve rubbed garlic on my neck and urinated a circle around my tent that houses me, my alcohol and my typing machine, thank eternity, I haven’t heard a peep, nor have I seen a mangled mess approaching me through a beer glass reflection or the corner of my eye. Things seem quite calm at the moment. I pray to the predecessors that share my last name, and have a marble mailbox and a pine home; thanking them for the retribution my sinful sanity has provided. No fire is necessary here, not yet, anyway, my narcissistic gluttony has proved its worth, my trigger finger is now relaxed and the wailing has ceased.
Though transfixed I am, with the itches above each temple in my head, I am reminded of horns or antlers, I am stubborn to wistfully believe that I am man, animal or an un intend creation, modeled after a failed belief, survivor after a failed conception between God and beasts, a remainder that still smiles in the dark, a suicidal delight that lightning wouldn’t even touch. Bereavement is wept with miscalculated sorrows on the same scale as I was produced, as also when I die.

FORTUNE TELLERS MAKE A KILLING THESE DAYS

“…The ‘KEEP OUT’ Sign was pushed aside, we went out and stared at the autumn leaves and danced like Gods among the stars…”
-Joe Fiction




My Canine teeth are sitting in an empty beer mug that’s now full of whole milk; I’m cleaning off the blood stains off of the wall with detergent, warm water and Colgate, the old fashioned kind. Though my right eye is swelled shut, and my glasses have been shattered and left deep cuts around my eyes and their brows, I’ve used Gorilla glue to patch up the gashes, I’ve got a magnifying glass held up in the crook of my elbow while I gently caress the mixture onto the spatter on the wall, I told my room mate Joseph we should just repaint the entire downstairs, not to mention re carpet it as well, he claims too many questions will be asked, too many bills will be raised and too many philosophies will be captivated, not to mention we will probably be publicly flogged and stoned in the cracked streets of the red white and blue Lennox Village, and that would mean bad press for our mothers, who will eventually have to come down off of their opium high to say to the press that they are sorry for the wretched souls their DNA has brought forth upon this earth. Public humiliation is far worse than being stoned to death- One still lives and limps on, with a target on his or her back, being ridiculed by a ten year old with a leash around his waist, and at the other end, an obese Barbie princess with blue hair and a Marlboro hanging out of her lips, rotted with cold sores. Fiendish howls by wolves in human skin, causing your heart to palpitate from shame. Yes, Death is far better than Humiliation.
As the glue pinching my wounds together locks together, Joseph is outside, in the backyard, bleaching the concrete and setting the rubble, trash and aftermath on fire, we’ve tossed in about a can and a half of incense, to mask the smell of bodies burnt, just in case there are any retirees around these parts, but the air is calm and quiet now, I think we’re actually in the clear, but a neighbor gets nosy, then, sadly enough, well, we’ll just have to take his or her head, fingertips, teeth and toes and bury them in an undisclosed location, Joseph, he’s in the construction business, so he knows where the best places are to bury problems. You just find out where cement and concrete are gonna be dumped two nights before, the second night, you dump the problem, cover it with lime and the next day, cement is delivered. Problem solved. If you forget the Lime, then God be with you, because once summer time arrives, it’s gonna smell like a mortuary without embalming fluid and potpourri. Joseph’s got it covered, the Bowie knife, the shovel, the lime and even the concrete, all I have to do is supply the jokes and beer just to keep things deflated.
Once the fire got roaring, he called me out there, he had two towels in his hands, the tossed me one and then we began to strip, we threw our clothes into the fire, and we even threw some more kerosene in, just for safe measures, then we rifled down a shot of Old Crow, and threw our sweat and blood covered towels into the rising flame as well. The cool night air grew stinky as we sighed and tossed our favorite shoes into the blaze; we took a few steps back and then took another shot. Joseph had to pull me away further because I didn’t notice I was standing in the smoky whirlwind, my nose was swollen and my eyes were rejecting vision altogether, I’d like to say that they were burrowing into my skull, but I got no keen introspection to back that up, I was just a smoked turkey with morbid sweats and blood under my nails. Joseph said I should probably slam my fingernails in the car door a few times so that they’d drop off, so I could eliminate the blood under them that has accumulated. I declined and rested my fingertips in a mixture of peroxide and iodine, and for every shot of Bowman’s vodka I take, another shot goes into the mix, just to help polish off the agony of another.
Now the cackle of the fire and the silhouette of the bodies Joseph describes taunt my ears as the soundtrack of White Zombie renders my imagination unstoppable, with my eyes sealed shut, I feel my ears are wide open, and even though I don’t hear any sirens, I feel like we should extinguish the fire, bag the ashes and empty it into the cloudy marsh of rainwater and sewage that are less than a block away from our scorched home. He says the bones, especially the heart(s) needs more time to break down, chemically, in the fire, and to be patient, in the mean time, he opens a beer for me and himself, lowering the paranoia level with his choice of playing “HANG ON TO YOUR EGO” by the Beach Boys.
I say, “they ran with ole’ Charlie Manson, The beach boys did…”
“Fuck, Aint that a coincidence, you want some more White Zombie, then?”
“No, this is cool.” I blindly state.
My knuckles are swollen and bruised; I hold the beer bottle to them more than I am nursing from it. Life is certainly funny; after White Zombie and the Beach Boys came a lonely ballad of Dan Reeder singing Damn, You should’ve wrote a Book in A cappella, it was slow and soothing, as my nerves released their grip, my eyelids felt soothed, I slumped down in the frozen chair in front of the blazing fire, I didn’t know what part of me need to be warmed, revitalized or what part of me needed to get under the nurturing influence of deterred cold denial and the ruthless drink. So my body relaxed and my frown eased itself into a flattened smile, I sighed and spit blood into the fire and put my broken canine tooth into an empty bottle and hid it in the trash. I figured having a broken smile was far better than a full fledged frown and anyone who is willing to accept that smile will be a veteran of spiritual warfare, a castaway of someone else’s dreams.
Their lives and souls are far too fragile and cryptic to judge, because everyone knows he who is riddled with sin he can not judge anyone more than he already judges himself. Sinners we are, and as Sinners we stick together, the tightest band of honest thieves you will ever meet, the reformed spiritual gangsters we are, we will never achieve perfection and we know that, we mope in reality and succeed in tragedy, trouble is our neighbor and sorrow is our friend, and we cant help but to be the red cross of those that trespass against us. Weep not for us brothers; our sins are there to help guide you through your own.