Homecoming

Fairfax is having their homecoming tonight. The fireworks sent the neighborhood dogs into a tizzy. I love that word: tizzy. I attended their rival, Hamilton High. They beat us every time. We had a killer music program but an inept Athletic department that was only good for helping other teams in the city improve their record. From my kitchen I can hear the crowd cheering. They sound young, optimistic, and void of problems. That’s probably how I sounded when I was 17.

I’m almost twice that age now. Old enough to be their father. It’s a scary thought. Me being a father.

I bought lamb for the first time and have no idea how to season it. I stare at my spices and try to think of the flavors I’ve experienced when eating lamb. I’m out of my league here.  At the same time I’m waiting for my laundry to finish washing so I could switch it to the dryer, pondering when my Fridays lost their teeth. Finally a half hour has passed and I venture across the street to my friend’s building where I do my clandestine washing like some kind of laundry Anne Frank, sneaking around so the tenants of his building don’t catch me.

It’s strangely blustery. The wind is whipping. Water is flowing down the side of the road into the gutter. Its pastoral melody is strange to hear with the blare of the loudspeaker at the football game in the background and wail of fire engine sirens in the distant. But it’s the closest sound we have to a bubbling creek in this urban landscape. With the  strong wind it’s quite intoxicating for a romantic like me, although I wonder if somewhere a water mane broke. They’ve been snapping all across the city, but especially around here. Something down deep in the Earth is moving.

When I lived in Boston I got a big laugh out of pretending to not know what a riverbank looked like. I do that a lot. Pretend to be stupid.

What are your favorite topics of conversation? Is there anything that really causes you excitement? Passion? We all have something.

I’m still trying to figure out what mine is. Although I know I really like to talk about myself.

I’m drinking locally cultivated Pinot Noir and feeling quite pleased with myself. My wine rack is full for the first time in… ever, I think. That’s what happens when you work down the street from your favorite wine store.

It’s time to cook the lamb. I hope I do that poor animal justice.

They caught John Scott. Who is John Scott? It was on the every newscast. They had a field day with it. He was a 74 year-old “tagger” the police caught and joyfully assigned the label the oldest tagger ever caught. He would leave stickers around town that said “Who Is John Scott?” and if you google that his website pops up where he says who he is. Not much of a mystery.

The lamb didn’t turn out half bad, in case you’re wondering.

Last year for Thanksgiving I took part in Gobble Gobble Give and it was the most rewarding event of my year. I wish I could take part this year but Joshua Tree calls… If anyone in the L.A. area is looking to do some volunteering this year, I highly recommend checking this out.

I sometimes feel my phone is vibrating and dig into my pocket to retrieve it only to discover that I don’t even have my phone on me. Phantom Cell Phone Disorder I’m calling it. Remember when 143 meant I Love You?

Now it’s all about 142. I Love Me. Like the new cell phone ads for YOU. And YOU were Time Person of the Year. It’s all bollocks. They separate us in order to make us vulnerable, have you believing you’re special, unique and can only express this by owning various products that define who YOU are. Guess what? Fuck You. And fuck Me. We’re all in this together and we’re so much more alike than the few sore spots that advertisers strike in order to hawk their goods. No matter what Pepsi tried they couldn’t sell us Crystal Pepsi.

That makes me proud.

We live in an absurd collage.  I’m the man in the diving bell and astronaut suit. Right below the fuming volcano and Lou Reed. If God did create us because he was bored than we have something in common. If the Inuit have 57 words for snow, I have 58 for God. In the middle of the collage is a giant, smoking factory.  You enter in one door and emerge through the other side as meat.We’re nothing but macramed .

The game must be over because the night is silent except for Friday night revelers jubilantly discussing life and its myriad magical possibilities. Actually, I have no idea what they’re discussing because all you hear is chatter and laughter and your mind colors in the blanks.

When I was young I always had trouble drawing inside the lines.

Now I don’t care. I throw my paint around everywhere.

Jimmy Is Driving His Truck On Mulholland Again

The only thing keeping us from transforming is fear.

The only wind on our backs is a midnight zephyr, pushing us west, into the Pacific Ocean.

The church bells are ringing but I’m sleeping in. Tomorrow is Monday, the day all our dreams are destroyed. I’m marked by a striped shirt and a tie. Today we can pretend that our jobs don’t exist and everything is fine as long as we stay buried in these blankets.

The flowers by the bed were picked by me on my way home from the bar, my 2am rambling leaving behind decapitated flower stems. I sang your name when I rang your bell. You weren’t amused but you let me in anyway.

Have you ever reached towards someone only to realize they weren’t there?

I’m frying chicken and listening to pop songs on my computer. Someone is knocking on my neighbor’s door. When you stop and contemplate your movements — washing your hands in the sink, picking up the phone, frying a piece of chicken — you wonder how being human could be anything special at all. But it’s in this act of remembering the moment, of being one with whatever it is you’re doing, the simpler the better, that you can realize your humanity.

I’m frying chicken.
You’re on the floor doing Pilates.
Jimmy is driving his truck on Mulholland again.
Sarah has her paints in her lap and the door wide open.

The only thing keeping us from laughing is our crying…

The only escalator to heaven is broken. Has been since Galileo.

People are moving around the neighborhood, trading apartments. These buildings don’t change, just their occupants. I am the Emperor of this Ant Empire. Tonight I strolled down Fairfax and observed the comings and goings of my subjects, minding my own business, a stranger to even myself. Everybody is busily headed everywhere… I’m content to stand in my kitchen and cook chicken, music keeping me company.

A song I recognize from a past life churns up in the shuffle lottery. I listen to it while plating my chicken and scooping my rice. It reminds me of a time before I got old. I consider singing along but remember that these walls tell lies and instead pour a glass of Australian Syrah, reflecting on the grape’s journey from the vine to my glass with a freakish zeal.

Do you ever take the long way? Have you ever lost yourself in the act of going that you forgot where it was you were going?

Power lines connect us all…

I sit down to eat. A ghetto bird flies by, its spotlight floating back and forth over the Spanish tile roofs of the ‘hood. My phone buzzes, oscillates across the table and then drops to the floor. Right now everything couldn’t feel more right.

I turn on the TV, avoiding the news. I don’t care anymore. I’m not afraid to admit it. I look for something mindless and find it within seconds. On MTV they’re showing some poor schlub sitting around his girlfriend’s living room with her parents, watching his girlfriend out on a date with some popped-collar dude with a spray-on tan. I miss the music. I turn to an expose on the founding fathers, asking the question, ‘were working for the Freemasons?’… on the History Chanel. On Animal Planet, they’re exploring the dietary habits of Sasquatch, and after the commercial break they’re going to discuss the Abominable Snowman’s. Is anything real anymore?

The only thing keeping us from setting our souls free is the inability to locate them in the first place.

Rotate My Way – Let’s Dance

Come my way, let’s dance. This life is too fleeting to stay seated. Let’s let go of all the other stuff gravity holds down besides the trees.

This world of ours rotates too fast. I get dizzy in the crosswind.

It’s another windy day. I try to hold on but my hats fly off my head all the time. I go chasing them down in the breeze and from behind I look like a man whose always losing his head. That’s how it goes. Are you going my way? Let’s transgress our love.

Skating on this pond, the ice is thin, I think I’ll skate until I sink.

Even when I look like I’m having a good time I’m really not.

Our fingers trace the lips of our lovers, leaving our prints on their kisses. Wine makes it all go away, down into the ground where our lives combine with our ancestors’ to form the bedrock of all our mistakes. History repeats itself they say — the repeaters, that is, say.

I say, let’s start something new, let’s transform ourselves.

I write cinema. Behind the garbage bins, in the dark, I scrawl my name on the cinema walls while the audience chuckle and guffaw inside then galumph to their cars with popcorn bouncing through their intestines destined for the digestive deep, joining more corn than one stomach can imagine.

I’m writing your name on the wall like I was four years-old again, reading Clifford The Big Red Dog, watching Johnny Cash sing with Oscar the Grouch. Forming each letter slow and precise, I write all our names in cursive.

You are the summation of your thoughts. More than your wallet. Your lovers. Your career. You are the circumference, the radius, the circle you draw when your synapses shoot colors through your brain and pictures develop magically, uncontrollably; shapes result symmetrically, language flows fluidly, patterns propagate themselves like small insect colonies, consciousness is self-replicating. You are the energy you set loose when you open your mouth and express yourself, when you get up and shout.

I love when we’re talking about our lives, the places we’re from, the stupid things we’ve seen, stitching up our experiences and everything else into a lazy autobiography we know by heart. It’s simple but so moving every time: these lingering conversations that take years to complete.

The way words lure me into bean-spillage and from-the-heart-speaking you’d think I was born to play the lampshade party-goer, the class clown; but I am God’s wingman and we’re tight like a buttplug in a nun’s ass,  everything you say I can deflect with my all-knowing audacity. My earthly worries dissolve with a little reminder that every day there is a sky above and earth below is a blessing and there’s nothing greater than pondering Right Now. And dancing.

This moment, Right Now.

Dancing…

You are as beautiful or as ugly as the words slipping through your lips. We are like waves and tides. Going up and down. I’m a surfer of your bullshit.

This trolley is bumping and shimmering and falls down these San Francisco hills with more velocity than my flesh can handle. Tingling with the Halloween cold air, the wind ripping through the carriage, my flesh is a million nerve endings on alert, a book in Braille.

I escaped from the pages of a novel you wrote while under the influence of the moon and sixteen illegal substances, showing up at your door with a semi colon dragging from my shoe.

I am Apollo — say my name three times and I’ll do a dance for you.

Apollo.
Apollo.
Apollo.

That’s why I love you. You do what I say.

Confetti falling from the rafters, cluttering the dance floor, we navigate through the party like bodies with sails and a steady breeze. We drift through an ocean of eyes like a pair of lonely ghosts. It’s the night before Halloween and helter skelter is in the air.

Are you going my way? Come with me, we can get all holy and transubstantiate ourselves to music.

Vampires

Tears we don’t find revolting — a lone achievement in the realm of bodily fluids. Blood. Piss. Cum. Shit. Spit. Unless its your own you don’t want anything to do with it. Tears are in rather vile company. Coincidentally – or not – tears are the only bodily fluid humans produce that other animals don’t. Chew on that.

Last night I went to a party in Sherman Oaks. It was a “vampire” party up in the hills and everybody wore fake fangs and fake blood and there was a tubful of Coors Lite I laid waste to in a pinstripe black shirt and red tie. The pool light had a red lens so it looked full of blood, sorta. There was supposed to be fire-breathers but as we were walking up the hill a fire engine was descending the other way so I assume that part of the party was fundamentally altered. For atmosphere there were torches burning around the yard and a stripper pole in the living room. It was a vampire friend’s birthday so of course there was cake. And pictures galore.

Our lives are constantly being documented by our friends. The camera flash is now a ubiquitous constant at bars and parties. We spend half the evening lifting false smiles onto our faces that by the time we go home we’re worn out by all the digital posturing, confused by the clamor of nothingness, wondering what was actually produced, there is a corrosive stunted wonderment invading our culture. Our conversations center around outfits and poses. The toasts and jokes are miserably unoriginal. The deejays don’t even carry records anymore. Oh, the woe of an aging hipster.

My new apartment doesn’t have a window to look out of so I haven’t been writing much about staring out the window. I haven’t yet found the literary usefulness of staring at walls so I’ve decided to focus on my cooking and how buffalo meat tastes so much better to me than cow and it’s probably because it tastes more like meat should, gamey, hearty.

We all live in square rooms with square windows, the walls between us grow thicker as the years compost in the yard.

We light candles and drink wine to unwind and lament the blood stains on the shag rug.

Across town there was also a “white trash” party we were prepared to dash off to should the vampires go on a bloody sucking spree. I had a bag of clothes in the trunk of my car to make the transition from goth to hillbilly, but alas the night didn’t feature a wardrobe change. We loitered in the yard till three in the morning pointing out Orion’s Belt and imagining the various possibilities in the night sky until the mist rolled in and the torches assumed an eldritch glow. We were all princes and princesses of darkness, for a night… some more than others.

Tonight I’m pondering what to do with the piece of pork defrosting in my fridge and if I should get Mexican crema for the mashed potatoes and which wine to open to compliment it all.

I decide against the crema because I’m frankly too lazy and as I peel the potatoes for a minute I let my mind lose itself in the task of preparing my meal — one of the best things life has to offer, both eating and forgetting oneself for a moment.

Immeasurably Different

The craters of the moon collapse in a crestfallen crescendo.
Brittle light shining upon the dried-up, skeletal beechwood trees
cast an uncanny  reflection of the heavens,
illuminating my lonely face a paler shade of pale,
a ghostly, chalky alabaster tombstone white.
It makes its mark by betraying everything it touches.

The shadow of the moon… it’s no better.

And still you whoop and holler, like you won the lotto.

The Dodgers were knocked out of the playoffs.
A sewer line broke in the street the other day.
Water flowed everywhere, like a river.

The currents brought me to her river bank.
She said her name wasn’t important
and for an evening I believed her.
We dined on lobster and other animals
of the sea… the night treating us less
cruelly than it should have.

The wine sits in a glass with a W on the outside.
The grape was crushed in 2005,
when time was measured differently.
And I was measured differently.
She said I drank too much and she was right.

A solitary sea crab stuck to the hull of the ship
makes its way across the bay and lets go with a slip,
lands near the pier where the surfers hang around
and buries itself in the soft sand, into the ocean ground.

Inside its shell it will live out the rest of its days.
You and I held hands while we listened to the waves.

It was 2005 and the year before was 1993.
The only difference between now and then
is I buy soy candles now. I only mention it since
humans have a need to measure these things.

They want meaning for the tick,
and religion for the tock.
Or else time doesn’t mean a thing.
Needy things we are…
Needing meaning.
Needing religion.

But where I live it’s all goddamn dandelion gossamer.

The Serious Moon

As wonky as the weather in Los Angeles has been lately, so have my moods. My coconut juices have been sloshy and rather incoherent, in a bad way — I can’t make up my mind about anything. What to order for lunch? What to write about on artofstarving? Whether to buy an inexpensive couch, or a really nice one. All things that don’t really matter, but I’ve struggled needlessly anyway. I’ve been a worrywart and a sourpuss, and even I haven’t enjoy hanging out myself lately.

Some other things that bug me…

Handicap people make up less than 2% of the population but account for more than 33% of toilet stalls. That is prejudiced and unfair to those of us needing to go to the bathroom who don’t have the luxury of rolling around in a seat on wheels.

It’s going to be my number two priority to see more stalls for the un-handicap.

Number one priority is seeing to it that more tall urinals are available. Those little urinals makes it too easy to pee on your shoe.

I’m kidding, of course… I never pissed on my shoe before — that would be uncool.

We take our health for granted. At least I do. Every morning I try to feel the joy of being alive, of awakening as a fully conscious, sentient soul and appreciate what a special blessing that is; but sometimes that alarm clock just isn’t your friend, and you would gladly offer any ransom to retrieve a couple of hours of precious dreamtime.

After I shower I wipe the water off my body before getting out. Less water absorbed by your towel means you have to wash it less often, saving water. I’ve trained myself not to feel cold a sorta jedi-zen mind over matter, where before I’d immediately jump into a towel like I just climbed out of some iceberg-infested waters, now I barely need one. I just drip dry like some future apocalypse shower.

This post-shower process also gives you a chance every morning to get acquainted with your body, to explore your flesh. As you wipe off the water, think, ‘this is my arm. This is my elbow. These are my lungs. This is my chest. This is my birth mark. ‘

When I come upon a pimple, I say, ‘this is a pimple. It is evil and a pest. We are sworn enemies.’

When you think about it, and I do an oddly large amount, so much of our lives are spent eating in restaurants, cooking in kitchens, and personal maintenance in the bathroom. Every now and then we come out for drinks at the bar.  One time we stayed up till four in the morning talking on the couch… I remember famously Johnnycakes was discussed. The moon had a serious glow that night. Sometimes the moon does that… get all serious.

A serious moon casts a strange light in which every thing looks like a facade, like there’s no depth or insides to any of the buildings, the trees resemble cardboard.

I’m trying to live with less these days but the more stuff  I get rid of the more I get to fill the space — and I live in a small apartment, too small for all my things. My books have become a burden. They’re already in my head so what good are they doing stacked in the closet? The bookcase and all those titles are nothing but vanity lined up, my desire to inform the world of my sophisticated tastes.

I bought a shirt I don’t really like because it was a great deal, only $20, down from $145; but I don’t have a pair of pants that goes with it so I’ll have to buy some jeans. Be careful of anything that is too good of a deal. Be careful of how the mind rationalizes things that are ultimately counter to what is good for it. The mind is a turbid, steaming mudpool of confusion, and we’re swimming blindly in it everyday. I need shoes now too.

If Jesus came back to Earth would he ever be believed? It’s a catch-22 where anyone who claims to be Jesus is immediately dismissed as insane, as a charlatan. What if Jesus came back and just gave up this time? Spent his days drinking beers and hustling folks at pool? That’s rhetorical of course.

I could blame these thoughts on the moon, and its serious glow, but I’d rather own up to my quirks. I’m constantly craving the cringe, lost in stunted wonderment. I’m perpetually baffled by all the new things there are to learn, people to meet, places to go. I could blame these moods on the planets’ alignment or some karmic equation coming to fruition, but I don’t really feel like placing blame, because I don’t bad for them, there’s no blame to be had, these thoughts are what keeps the flashlight lit, exploring the swamp, these sundry Sunday nights.

Swimming Both Directions

I am a person that discerns Target from Wal-Mart, someone who absolutely adores trips to Target, but would never be caught dead in a Wal-Mart. I know it makes no sense at all, yet I won’t change. I know it doesn’t matter what clothes I buy, yet I spend days contemplating the next outfit I plan on purchasing.

I loathe the state of our culture, while cherishing its more low-brow, inglorious feats.

I am a walking contradiction, a fish swimming in two directions.

The lights in the night sky sparkled celestial-brilliantly and I remarked, “oh, what a pretty star,” when my astronomer, buzz-killer friend corrected me. “That’s a satellite, dumbass.”

I get home from bowling league and I thought to myself, ‘what’s the difference between a gutter ball and a strike but the slightest of wrist-flicks!’ Star or satellite, what difference is it to me?

As a species, we’re 99.9% the same. But it’s the 0.01% of us that gives us our personality, and our identity, and those key elements drive capitalism, makes this whole show work. Where would we be without such special feelings about ourselves? I am and that’s an important thing to be. This is my time here on earth. I’m going to do it!

The soy candle burned low. The evening drew to a rather unremarkable end. I sat there in my kitchen amid the stainless steel and wondered what my humanity has to sacrifice to be human.

I was hungry, but too tired to eat. I decided to read to fall asleep, hoping that somewhere in my dreams I’ll exist on Icarus’s cloud. I opened the book and was stolen from my life.

Twenty Questions

Twenty Questions:

1. What is the strangest, most invasive question a complete stranger has ever come up to you and asked?
2. Why does the moon look so beautiful when I’m out jogging alone?
3. A Pabst Blue Ribbon takes away the harsher thoughts, but then I’m left with just the tender ones, is anyone willing to trade?
4. Do you have a bashful bladder?
5. When you listen to songs that you used to listen to with your love, do you ever feel like singing along, and then when you do it slowly morphs into a shout until you’re angrily belting it out the open window?
6. This pizza I’m eating is high in calories, but it makes me feel good; do you ever masturbate while watching the news?
7. Do you ever think about calling someone and then all of a sudden they buzz you? And you think it’s ironic, or a coincidence, until you realize it’s neither, because it happens all the time.
8. I’m masturbating while watching the news. Do you like pizza?
9. I’m right here. Go ahead and touch me, but only if you’re sure you’re going to leave a dent. Are you confident you’ll be able to affect me? I’m only going to let you do this if you’re serious.
10. I’ve got so many things I want to know about you, we can play twenty questions all night long. If I told you I was a confectioner of conversation, would you believe me?
11. Does modern art make you upset?
12. When you see attractive mannequins in store fronts, do you ever imagine having sex with them? As a kid, did Smurfette make you horny? (Okay, that’s actually two questions, I’m cheating)
13. Oceanic travel used to be highly dangerous… what people used to do to come to America!  Does growing old scare you.
14. What’s your favorite piece of sushi? You’re not allowed to say yellowtail.
15. The day after drinking my throat is always so parched. It’s because we’ve been talking again until dawn. Why are your words so dry?
16. If time isn’t a curved bow, why do you play it like a fiddle?
17. Whistling in the restroom is an aggressive, anti-social act; what’s your favorite tune? If I can guess it, you owe me a peach.
18. The world is round and ripe and if it were a piece of fruit you’d take a bite; so how can you really expect anyone would let you carry it around in your hand?
19. I like tea. Do you like tea?
20. We’ve got all night. If I went outside and began to yell at the rockets we shot to the moon, would you come stand besides me and shout and shake your fists also? Or call the cops? I need to know before I hold your hand.

Alkaline Heart

It’s Saturday night and a holy thirst is inside me,
I want the week to die, executed by foggy memories.

You worshipped me like Jesus Christ at a toga party…

I’m throwing my hands in the air like Buddha.

You ask me what I’ve done with my life?
I’ve walked this world for 33 years.
What more do you want?

We all have a robot in our heart,
With gears to oil and screws to turn.
He knows how to get the party started.

This heart is gullible and alkaline and on fire…
Don’t pour water on it.

Shucked Oysters

The menus taped to my door.
The vinyl spinning on the record player.
The shucked oyster shells stacked on the plate.

Conversation fell around us like confetti on New Year’s.
It was too loud to hear her name but it sounded like Constance
and I couldn’t help but think that that sounded like Constants
and that falling in love was just too much work,
so I refilled my drink from the bar by the pool
instead…

It was hot and the sun was  big and bright
so I wore plaid shorts and headed west
where it was too foggy and cold
to comfortably wear shorts.
(Especially if they’re plaid.)

This city is too crowded to be so lonely,
my friend complained, and I looked at him,
and knew exactly what he meant, but lied instead,
and told him what a great place this was to live.

I don’t think John Keats was
someone I’d want to meet.

You always knew the way to my death star.
You always knew how to blow me up.
We watched the VCR and laughed at the punchlines.
Not realizing everything around us was crumbling.

You are a little lightning bug in a jar.
The night turns in flashes.
Catching last call at the bar.
Stuffing ones into our caches.
Hopping on the last train to Zanzibar.

Found sand in my shoe but I haven’t been to the beach.
Gravel pieces dropped into the hourglass. Boulders of time.
I’m a clogged drain, begging for your sweet and sour refrain.
The whispering in my ear. The spread of ink on the page.
Lost track of the rail – we’re eating up our emotional right-of-ways.
Everything surrenders when the street sweepers come and
brush away our dreams. The streetlights bleed blood red, bleating.
La Brea contaminates its arteries, like a junkie, or a fist in a crowd.

The satellites keep a steady watch on my lurching, half-muscled gait,
a-stumblin’ home, perched forward in time. Head full of the saints arguing,
conspiring, crapulous.

I’m here, but I’m not me. John Keats
was not someone I think I’d like to meet.