Johnny Appleseed

Feeling like the filling to a Twinkie
left on the shelf after thirty seven years.
And you come along and pick me up,
instead of eating it you throw it against the wall,
where the yellow cake breaks into a thousand pieces…

I feel like the man on the moon who ate through all the cheese.

When the bills come I run.
When the boss arrives I dive.
When cops step in I grab my weapon.
When the grim reaper calls I’m out y’all.

The drummer hits his high hat. The dancers shake their ass.
The cook puts a torch to the flambe. The lights dim softly.
The poet takes the microphone and the patrons rush out the doors.

Kilgore Trout called me up, told me to order the Ahi Poke.
Hunter S. Thompson killed himself on my birthday.
I used to drink at Bukowski’s off of Massachusetts Ave,
In Boston, thirteen lives ago.

My phone rang the other day and when I picked it up
it was the sound of cats having sex; that horrible, violent
squall that turns ears quivering and receding inward.
I don’t know why they were calling at that time.
I told them to stop doing that!

Johnny Appleseed was real.
Bugsy Seagle was nice to his mom.
I dreamed of Emmanuel Swedenborg, and thus he was.
If Marilyn Monroe had lived long enough to knit, she would have hated it.

In my own mind I am famous, celebrated, larger than life.
I am king of the sparrows. I am a Californian God.
In real life I’m a hair stuck in a drain. I’m an insect
on a string, flailing, trapped, eating smaller insects for dinner.

The neighbor’s kid cries early in the morning.
I ate a taco when I shouldn’t have.
In my dream I was slapped.
The wind speaks truth.

Crank up the obsidian sky.

I want to buy a house with wooden church doors and paint them pink.

Pave the forests with occult love.

A letter came in the mail with no return address.
The envelope was yellow with a bluebird on the back…
I opened it and read the note inside.
It said: who are you and why are you reading this?

If you knew my heart, you would surely faint,
because it’s filled with Twinkie filling.

The Buildings Contain Too Much Flesh For That

Green tea in a red plastic cup.
Rubber wheels rolling over hot cement.
My sandals have gum on the bottom.
Waiting for God to say my name.

This is the dream I had last night:
I’m walking down a long road,
the sun high in the sky was a polka dot.
That’s all…

When we kiss my entire world twirls.

This summer has been so mild,
like salsa for gringos,
we rode our bikes to the beach
but it wasn’t there.

Barcelona this time of year is nice.
They say.
I want to live in a jet plane.
Use a tiny pillow for my head.
Buenos Aires has great food.
I’ve heard.

If I were king I’d make you my queen.

I wake up in the morning with the sheet on the floor.
The neighbor is yelling at her son, he’s 42 year’s old.
There is no such thing as silence in the city.
The buildings contain too much flesh for that.

Wherever you are, I want to be.

The Escalators at Bloomingdale’s

This pogo stick summer keeps going on.
My mind keeps bouncing around,
like a sparrow on speed.

When you walk into the room
my heart drums faster.
The beat is deafening.

When your blue eyes meet mine,
my caged soul oscillates wildly,
everything becomes undone.

With you I can do anything, I am alive.

I don’t like digital watches,
I don’t take pictures with my phone.
I don’t like postcards,
I don’t look through telescopes.

This heart needs unwrapping,
there’s a big blue bow on it,
and a shinny sticker that says:
‘this heart belongs to you.’

The escalator at Bloomingdale’s.
The airport people-mover.
Sixteen mules.
A rocketship.
Submarine.
Whatever
it takes
to get
me to
you!

My bed is old.
The curtains are dusty.
My clothes need washing.
The kitchen table is wobbly.
Dishes are piled high in the sink.
But when you’re here in this apartment,
I can’t help but love this beautiful disarray.

For my greatest, grandest love — I’ll miss you!

My New Computer

Packer’s new computer was waiting for him when he got home from school. It was in a big cardboard box with big, authoritative writing on it:  CAREFUL. THIS COMPUTER IS MEANT TO BE USED BY EXPERIENCE USERS ONLY.  Packer feverishly ripped open the box and heaved it up onto his desk with a thud. “Come look at my new computer,” he shouted to his mom. She came into his room, gave it a quick once-over and told him, “Wow. That sure looks like a fancy thing-a-ma-jiggy.”

She then glanced around his dirty room and shook her head reproachfully but left the room without saying anything more. He didn’t hesitate setting his computer up. Once it was ready Packer began typing away furiously, punching the buttons with a zeal and a flourish that Picasso himself would admire. He had the machine humming and churning out information and solutions that had him amazed. Within just minutes the mathematical equation of the Big Bang was presented and the secret behind Mona Lisa’s smile was revealed. “Mom, this is incredible!” He yelled to the other room. A faint, “that’s great, dear,” reverberated back.

Packer scowled down the hallway in the direction of his mother and stood up to close the door. He quickly returned to the computer and typed a new directive. Instantaneously a woman appeared on his screen wearing nothing but a man’s tie, she was moaning savagely and looking directly at the camera. Packer panicked and quickly shut down the power, the woman disappearing to silent black.

He stood up and cupped his ear to the door but only the blare of his mother’s television set could be heard down the hall. He powered back on and after a series of technical phrases were punched in Packer’s computer returned the results of this year’s World Series three months in advance. “That’s going to be useful,” he remarked and wrote down the score on a post-it and stuck it to the wall.

Hours went by, the sun sunk and the blue sky darkened black. His mom stopped by only to remind him to pick up his room and then left to inhabit the other side of the house. She refused to watch what this new computer could do, although Packer begged, because Gray’s Anatomy was on in the other room and she doesn’t have TiVo like Packer’s father does.  “Where is he when you need to show off your new toy, huh? Nowhere to be found!” 

After she closed the door behind her Packer ran a few applications that made him king of a small island in the Indian Ocean, (just south of Thailand) and gave him a sexy tuft of chest hair that he always wanted. It seemed like this computer could do anything…

“This was the best idea ever!” Packer proclaimed out loud after he personally changed the giant television screen in Time’s Square from a CNN newscast to a Youtube video of an overweight woman falling off of a playground swing. The woman lands on her backside and her dress comes up revealing two fat, jiggly legs. Packer bellowed with laughter and then began composing an email to every living resident of Canada. ‘Why is Canada so cold?’ It began.  

It’s an understatement to say that Packer was pleased with his purchase. He worked through the summer hauling metal pipes up a steep hill where a mall was being built on the outskirts of town. His uncle paid him under the table, telling him that it was so Packer wouldn’t have to pay taxes and they both wouldn’t have to worry about pesky child labor laws. “Hard work makes you a man. Don’t worry about your back, you have plenty of time to complain about a bad back when you’re older,” his uncle lectured. Finally when Packer had enough for a computer he found one that was cheap enough and sent away for it. It arrived a day before Packer sent in the check — proving the ad correct when it claimed to be offering a one time ‘super unbelievable computer for the modern man. This machine can think for you.’

Packer liked the idea of that: being a modern man.

Midnight came and went and Packer never emerged from his room to brush his teeth or wash his face. He was too engrossed in the miracles his computer was delivering to take a break. When there was too much stuff in his room, he went to a site that made your room grow in minutes and just like that Packer had twice the space he had before. His bed was nearly thirty feet away and he could barely hear his bird Lawrence in its cage. Packer could now work his miracle machine twice as hard. He got to work changing the world. 

It was late. The floorboards squeaked as his mother approached his door, knocking gently in her pink, fuzzy slippers. “Honey, are you still awake,” she asked. A blue light was visible underneath the doorway and she could hear the buzzing of Packer’s computer. “Packer, it’s almost four in the morning and I swore I just heard the squealing of a gibbon. Do you have a gibbon in there?”

When she heard no reply she decided to see what he was up to. The door was pushed open revealing an assortment of fantastical sights. There was a trapeze troupe swinging from his ceiling. His bird Lawrence was speaking arabic to an Egyptian mummy. Miniature miners were digging for gold on a plastic Matterhorn while a choo-choo train circled its base. Her eyes widened to hub caps as she gazed at the miners. They turned and waved at her, being very real and very small, they were pleased to see a woman after so many months alone with just men.  Where Packer’s bed had once stood was a long hallway with priceless treasures lining the way to a very distant blindingly white light. She got the impression this is the hallway the newly deceased walk on their way to St. Peter.  She had no interest in traveling that way. “Packer, are you in here? Why did you make such a mess?” She hollered.

A jaguar jumped out from behind a Dutch windmill and almost scared his mother out of her robe, but then when it began reciting the most beautiful love poem to her she relaxed. “Do you know where my son is?” She interrupted the jaguar, growing impatient now. “My loveliest of rose, your son has ventured to Xanadu and won’t be back for quite some time. Let’s not be bothered with him and unwind on my velvet branch instead. I love to lay about with my legs dangling below, you know,” the jaguar purred.  She contemplated the large cat’s velvet branch but decided that was out of the question. “Well, when he comes back can you please remind him that he needs to pick up his room! Look at this mess. Is that an empty pizza box from Tuesday? Christ! I don’t know what comes over that boy sometimes!”

Packer’s mother slammed the door behind her and the shaking of the wall caused a trapeze artist to miss the bar and fall to the floor, breaking a leg. The jaguar looked out through the window, contemplating the yellow moon while it licked a lone paw. “What loneliness we’re capable of,” it mused, it’s fur shinning like a silverfish, its lambent, waxy eyes dancing in the blue light.  “What a mess this life is. All we do is consume and lay siege.”

The big cat looked around laconically and belched. A small piece of Packer’s flesh flew from its mouth and fell to the floor where it lay next to the empty pizza box that inflamed his mother’s ire. The computer continued working its miracles. His mother reached her room where she laid her head on her pillow and wistfully thought of Doctor McDreamy. Somewhere in the Indian Ocean an island kingdom was mourning the loss of their king.

The Gray Gloom of Morro Bay (The Dead Don’t Sail)

The rock, protruding from the Earth like a wort,
stands sentry over the bay while pelicans and other
winged sea-things dive for fish under the watertop.

My coffee is growing cold in its mug while I stare
at the boats anchored in little boat rows.
Around me the docks come to life with the sound
of chains clinking and bells tolling,
and men with beards yelling about sea-things.

I do not know if coffee beans grow on vines,
like wine grapes,
or underground like potatoes.
Do you?

There is a chocolate chip cookie sitting on the counter.
If cookies could talk, this one’d surely be begging for me
to come over there and relieve it of its misery.

It’s a tough life for a cookie: born of the heat,
death by mastication, judged by its chips.
I try not to judge, but I’m just no fan of oatmeal.

It’s August, but I’m in a sweater as the
gray gloom of Morro Bay inserts itself into
this poem. Now that the stranger is here,
I can’t make it go away, so I might as well
hold its hand and say, “Why, your clouds
aren’t so bad. Not as depressing as, say,
rain in Madrid in March.”

A man and his daughter walk by.
The daughter is blind and holding a cane.
They are laughing about something
the father said. He puts a tender arm
over her shoulder. What does she think
about the clouds? Or the laughter of
seagulls?

I hear the put-put sound of
a small boat chugging out to sea.
There are four passengers on it,
one of them wears a bright yellow
and black cap.
From here, it looks like she has
on her head a giant bee.

It’s not such a lovely
day for a sail, but not so bad either.
To be alive, I assume,
is good enough — for the dead don’t sail.

Three Men

Jerry woke up and felt like his head was a microwave. Not just that it was a microwave, but that there was actually a bag of popcorn inflating inside his head, going ‘pop-pop-pop’, and that a little wheel was spinning around. Outside his window a small bird chirped loudly for its mother, waiting to be fed its breakfast. The sun was hot as a heating lamp. Jerry wiped the sleep from his eyes and tried to stand up, wrongly believing that perhaps he was still dreaming. This is what dreams sometimes feel like, he thought. When his feet touched the wooden floor of his apartment it was incredibly hot, filled with smoldering embers, and his legs wobbled unsteadily beneath him. Jerry instantly fell to the floor in a crumpled heap and popcorn dribbled out of his mouth.

Lawrence was inside a movie theater watching an expensive Hollywood action film in thundering THX sound, tossing popcorn into his mouth, every other piece trundling to the sticky floor below. For no apparent reason, Lawrence couldn’t remember what movie he was watching, and why all of a sudden a plane was on fire and why a handsome man in a suit with greased black hair was piloting the plane. Around him people were on the edge of their seats, their mouths hanging open in suspense. Instead of following the movie, Lawrence was completely lost, overwhelmed by the odd sensation that he was a baby bird in a twiggy nest. And that he was starving.  When he went to grab another handful of popcorn to throw into his mouth he was shocked to discover his popcorn was replaced by seeds. They crunched coarsely in his mouth, adding to his confusion.

Leroy was out early working his fields, sprinkling seeds along the plowed furrows that stretched far into the distance. Even though it wasn’t yet nine in the morning the sun burned oppressively overhead, causing beads of sweat to drip down Leroy’s face. A rumbling coming from the sky caught his attention and he looked up to spy a plane zigzagging back and forth, its engines sputtering and a trail of black smoke coming from its tail. He wiped his brow and watched the plane drop and regain altitude and drop again, appearing in the sun like some kind of drunken bird. Leroy, never one for philosophical musings, was caught off guard by a strange epiphany. “Why, it’s like a dream,” he muttered as the plane caught fire and plummeted to the Earth. He took a rag out of his back pocket and dried his forehead and went back to his work planting corn.

The Kids Got It Right

To a kid born in the 70′s, 2010 seems a long way from the polyester days of my toddlerhood, but at times I feel like I’m still trapped in pajamas with attached booties, being bounced on the lap of a relative I barely know. Except the relative is now an adult me, and the lap is my fragile bank account. The pajamas? They’re this personality I’m stuck with that makes me scared of my own feelings, resigned to live in the cold shadows of my insecurity, and nervous to stick my big foot out and walk forward like the cartoon man in those famous R. Crumb drawings.

There’s a knocking at my door, it’s the landlord, what is it he is seeking?
There’ s a rustling in the trees, it’s bees, whose skin do they want to sting?

I gave up coffee for green tea. I gave up drag racing for this rocking chair. I gave up breathing under water for this life of books.  Change is inevitable, persistant, and invincible. It keeps slamming into walls, blowing off roofs, and doing its best big, bad wolf impersonation.  

There’s no whale for me to be eaten by. There’s just the last song we slow-danced to. There’ s no Christmas sweater on my back. There’s just the missing puzzle piece you found under the couch. If I was rich I would buy myself enough time to make this getaway complete. I would get Banksy to paint my cave.

I put my thoughts on the computer and the computer puts them into a shape we collectively recognize: letters, words, paragraphs. The computer receives my soul’s input and regurgitates it to you. The weather inside the computer is always overcast. The screen is always white. The characters little ants in a snowfield. My thoughts walk around in this cyber-snowfield, wondering if they’ll be seen among all that white; in the endlessly vast, busy nothingness that is the Internet, will they find a warm place to sit and express themselves?

Do they even know what they are? These words… do they know they’re the children of my searching, frangible mind? My brain being a network of neurons and tissue, my mind being the collections of experiences, feelings, emotions that make me “me”. What will happen if the network melts but my flesh continues on, will I cease to be “me”? The kid in the pajamas with attached booties stumbling through life trying to find his place in the mirror. If I don’t have a brain, will I still have a mind? If I didn’t have arms, or legs, or ears, or a mouth, or eyes, will I be worth talking about?

Nobody listens to ghosts. You can’t play it safe. It won’t get you anywhere.

Life is a dangerous enterprise. If nobody ever hurt you, that wouldn’t be a life. We struggle to find some comfort here on this craggy space-rock: a career, the girl we love, a place where we feel comfortable. Along the way, indecision, bad luck, lack of confidence will do its best to impede our progress. And once we get there, the meat grinder will masticate it to pieces. Once you’ve found your contentment, you better hide it in a very good place; or better yet, prepare to have it ripped away. Stolen. Lost. Bamboozled.

I’m in a good place right now. My hat is tied on tight. Love has taken pity on me. The moon spins like a disco ball in starfilled skies just for me.

Meanwhile, the sun shoots solar flares at the Earth. While we float around the universe I count my shoes and watches and try to figure out how to stay planted in this place. As satellites freeze in the coldness of space I dance around the Earth wearing the shroud of turin as a cape.

It’s a universal ambition of young children to hide in small spaces, build blanket forts, and pretend to be invisible. Everyday as an adult I seek some time to myself, where I can envision myself as meaningful and large, and hide from the brunt force of my ennui.

I think the kids got it right.

We Can Be Kind

In our souls is a little man,
with a little calculator,
and little plans.

We wear shark skin smiles in perfect daylight,
stand on shiny stars while we drink the moon.
We listen to snow fall in our round, glass globes,
swallow luminescent fireflies on summer nights.

We hang from nooses,
in our striped ties.
We tightrope walk,
in our high heels.

We do the Macarena at weddings.
Spread sunburns over our bodies.
We worship a multitude of Gods.
Share our saliva on ratty couches.

Come be human with me,
and we can be kind.
Come sit in the sun with me,
and we can unwind.

In our hearts is a little girl,
with a little plastic doll,
wearing little pearls.

“I’ve Been Waiting For You”

Many, many moons ago and across countless oceans there was a tiny island left all alone. The land rose gently towards the center of the island, making the entire place look like a small anthill. A protective reef kept the water near shore calm and clear, a wonderfully serene blue. Many beautiful fish colored this area.

On this tiny island there was a small kingdom. The people were of a benevolent nature, used their land wisely, never experienced war, and never, ever tempted the Gods of the ocean by sailing past the reef. This was forbidden.

Their Gods were many and wise. They were musical people and named their children lyrical, poetic names. Everything on the island was at it should be, everybody thought, for there was plenty of food and nothing besides the sea a threat.

One day, the same day actually that a rainbow formed in the reef and arched towards the center of the island, so that it appeared to be a colorful handle from which the Great God of the Clouds could lift the island out of the sea, two children were born simultaneously. They were both beautiful children, with sea glass for eyes and skin so pure it shone radiantly.

The people of this island knew how to read the clouds, and the messages from the Gods, and so they decided the boy, whom they named Eternity, and the girl, thereafter known as Melody, should be joined in marriage when the time was right, and would assume rule of the kingdom. This was their fate from the very first day of their lives.

Although the children were unaware of their destiny, they immediately took a liking to each other. They could often be seen playing down by the waterwheel, making paper ships and sailing them down the stream, or running along the beach, holding their arms out and pretending to be a bird in the wind. They were imaginative, creative kids and all the adults delighted in the stories they concocted. For creativity is a quality that the Gods take special interest in.

Eternity would often go swimming down by the coral or rowing in his boat, paying close attention not to drift out past the reef and into open sea, for he was a good boy and followed the adults’ wishes. But, oh, would he stare off at the vastness and dream of what was out there. Although everybody knew that everything they could see with their eyes was all the Gods wanted them to know, and so not much, Eternity would still imagine that there was something else out there amid all that blue; maybe another island, maybe more kingdoms like theirs? His wanderlust was thick and tangible and he would often share these thoughts with Melody, laying on the hill and staring at the clouds.

One day while Eternity and Melody were helping baby turtles cross the hot sand into the water, Melody spotted something visible beyond the waves. It looked similar to their little canoes but much larger, with giant pieces of cloth sticking up from the base. They had been told that anything beyond the reef wasn’t real, was just a figment of their dreams, so Melody rubbed and rubbed her beautiful turquoise eyes, trying to erase the apparent apparition.

“It’s a ship!” Eternity shouted with glee. He jumped up from the sand and threw his hands high in the air. ”It’s here. It’s real.”

“We should tell the adults,” Melody cautioned, not sure what to believe, even though she was the first to spot the ship. “They should come down here. They’ll know if it’s real.”

“Go tell them,” Eternity answered, “I’m going to see if I can make contact so whoever it is doesn’t leave. This is a historic day, Melody!” He was feverish with excitement, jumped in his canoe and had his paddle dancing through the water in no time. Heading quickly out towards the reef, he grew smaller and smaller in the distance.

Melody turned and made her way back to the adults quickly, not sure if the sighting was good news or bad news, and feeling troubled to leave Eternity in the water, especially now that the wind was starting to pick up. She got to the village at the base of the hill and shouted proudly that they spotted a ship at sea and for everyone to come and look.

The adults gathered around but didn’t follow her down to the beach to her chagrin. “No,” they told her. “It can’t be. You guys must be making things up again. There is nothing out there. Go get Eternity and tell him to come to dinner. Doesn’t it smell good?” Melody had to admit that it did smell good. It was her favorite: zucchini, squash, carrots, and peppers in coconut water, with onion and ginger mixed in for flavor.

As she approached the beach she realized that she was happy that there was nothing there afterall, as the adults all agreed. She felt it was best that Eternity was wrong and the Gods were right, this island home is all there is; but when she reached the shore something was tragically wrong. The clouds had darkened terribly. The sky was black as midnight and the wind was savagely whipping her hair in front of her face. It was as if a monster storm was raging in only this one location. She could even see blue sky behind her where the village lay.

She scanned the water and yelled for Eternity, pleading with him to get out of the canoe and come to dinner. “It’s your favorite: zucchini and squash and carrots. Please, Eternity! Where are you? Everybody is waiting! It’s so dark!”

Melody couldn’t see him, nor could she hear him. He was gone. All she could hear was the thunder of the waves crashing on the reef. Even inside the protected zone, the water sloshed around violently. She had never seen the ocean like this: black and churning.

She screamed for what seemed to be a lifetime and then she sat down on the sand and cried. Tears streamed out of her eyes and carved a channel to the sea. Eventually the skies cleared and it was possible to scan the water, flat as a stone now, and just as empty. Her eyes could not find him.

She felt achingly hollow inside without Eternity. Her stomach was tied into giant knots. What would she tell the adults? They weren’t supposed to go near the reef, and she had let him take the canoe all by himself, this was all her fault. How foolish of her!

The Gods must be upset, why else would they take Eternity away?

She was hopeless, her soul was crushed, and she had a yearning to be with Eternity at any cost. She never realized before how much a part of her being he was and how badly, she too, wanted off the island. Without turning around to say goodbye she slowly waded into the water and gracefully swam down deep, her body turning into a shimmering rainbow of colors as she made the coral her new home.

When the adults came and looked for the children they were nowhere to be seen. A great sadness inflicted itself upon every individual in the kingdom. “We should have believe Melody when she told us there was a ship!” They wailed. This was a bad sign for sure, they thought. Everybody was so distraught and mournful they, too, took to the water, becoming a pod of blue whales that would sing a lonely, baritone for centuries, homelessly drifting throughout the oceans.

The fated pair would be separated for eons, assuming different identities along the way, but always feeling like a piece of their soul was missing, that it was out there in the universe, in the shape of a person, waiting to join them again and be whole. 

There was the time when Eternity was a pirate and noticed a glint in the Caribbean water, but shook it off because everybody knows mermaids don’t exist. When the Great War happened, and Melody was nursing the fallen, a soldier across the room raised his head and she thought she recognized him from somewhere, but told herself she was just being foolish and went back to bandaging the amputee.

And one time when Melody was a golden poppy and Eternity was a bee, he almost landed in her petal.

Their reunion finally occurred early in the 10th year of the second millenium.  Melody, now a beautiful Mexican-American girl with stunning blue eyes, the color of the sacred shore they spent their youth on, recognized Eternity from a dream she had, even though he was wearing a lucha libre mask in it. When Eternity, eight years older now than her, with salt & pepper hair and stubble on his cheeks, saw Melody he knew in his heart that this was the girl he had dreamed about while under the sea, on the mountaintops, in those hot air balloons, and in the clattering trains for the last 999 years of his many lives.

They instantly fell into each others’ arms, holding each other for what seemed like infinity, making up for lost time, staring into their distant and vague memories, and now the future taking shape before them, the two intertwining together like strands of DNA.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she confided.

“I’ve been looking for you,” he replied.

The World As We Know It

If the world as we know it began with an explosion of gas (and I have no reason to believe or not to believe in this theory) than I’m inclined to think of my insignificant flatulence as a small tribute to our creation. I’m not trying to be crude here — that’s just a pleasant side-effect — but rather to illuminate how our bodies are elegant vessels of life and small reflections of the cosmic miracle that is the universe, even the stinky gas that sometimes leaks out of our black holes is a miracle unto itself.

I was flying in an airplane on my way back from Costa Rica when I looked down and saw the long, snaking coastline of Central America and it dawned on me that I really have no idea how anything works in this world: not coastlines, not airplanes, not gravity, and not my asshole. It was all a mystery to this dumb passenger who was impatiently looking around for a stewardess to refill my Jack & Coke.

They don’t make stewardesses like they used to.

In fact, they don’t make them at all, they’re called flight attendants now, I’m pretty sure. And they’re not the beautiful, leggy things that used to hang out at the Regal Beagle with Larry Dallas and Jack Tripper, but older, wider and often hairy individuals who push their carts through the aisle not with flirtatious smiles but with surly grins. This also means they don’t make stewardess fantasies like they used to. At this point I would gladly trade a just-in-town-for-a-night affair with any modern day stewardess, er, flight attendant, for one of those little plastic Jack Daniels bottles and half a can of flat coca-cola.

I really enjoy hanging out in airport bars. There is a thrill in knowing in just a couple of hours you’ll be landing in a new city and be far away from the people whose elbows are propped against the counter next to yours. In Hollywood you don’t have that comforting piece of hard fact. At an airport bar you can get into a fight over politics or religion and not worry about offending anyone. Unless, of course, they’re boarding the same plane as you, in which case, careful whom you insult over a bowl of peanuts.

What’s the best/worst insult you’ve ever been called? One time a man I “accidentally” cut off in traffic rolled down his window and yelled, “Learn to drive, you dick sucking caveman!”

My memory won’t let go of this incident for some reason. I think of all the interesting scientific/historical facts it has pushed out of my mind to secure its place there and cringe. The reason, I think, that this insult is so durably entrenched in my consciousness is I just can’t imagine many cavemen giving fellatio to other cavemen. Maybe it did happen and my lack of imagination is to blame but I doubt it. The image is sublimely ridiculous to me and everytime I think of it I can’t get it out of my head. I take it to the next level and picture cavemen dancing to electronic music, coifing their scraggly, grizzly beards and drinking martinis, etc..

What did I say in response to the absurd insult? I laughed and shrugged my shoulders, which just made him madder. He drove away, flipping me the bird behind his back. I’ve often found that the best thing you can do to really upset someone after they’ve insulted you is to not care.

Defeat Hate with Apathy. Ghandi would be proud.

I consider myself a writer and a poet and a muckracker. Hunter S. Thompson would spit on my Steve Maddens if I told him that. He wrote a couple of good books but what does he know? He put a gun in his mouth and took the cowardly way out after a lifetime of tough guy posturing. My father and his girlfriend recently informed me that growing old is not for sissies. I would have to agree with them, quivering as I am in front of a mirror of thinning salt & pepper hair.

Some days I plan to run the L.A. marathon. Other days I just hope to make it home in one piece. I’ve got the heart of a lion but it doesn’t always know when the right time is to roar. I’m a light that never goes out but is too dim to see in the daytime. In my heart is a burning fire that is icy cold. The treadmill keeps spinning long after I step off, just to let me know that it’s better than me. It can go 13 marathons in a row as long as the chord is plugged in. But can it understand a joke, or write a poem, or look into your eyes and kiss your gentle, moist, waiting lips?

What is it that pulls two people together? That indescribable attraction you have for someone that makes you never want to be apart? Some use the word “chemistry”.  Some call it fate. Some lovers are supposedly “star-crossed”, but I never quite understood what that means.

I fell in love at first sight when the most beautiful brunette in the world walked in the room and went straight for a chicken wing. I noticed it first by a churning in my stomach. That eventually transformed into a longing I thought could only be satiated in a dream. Through some kind of magic my love was returned. What’s it called when you’re living a dream you don’t want to wake from? Paradise? Nirvana?

Time seems to pass so quickly in a dream. One second you’re sliding down a water slide and the next you’re smoking a hookah with a belly dancer in Morocco. We try to remember them when we wake up, to hold them in our hands and analyze them, but mostly we’re left with just fragments slipping through our fingers. Dreams are numinous shadow-shows our subconscious puts on to remind us we’re passengers on a spirit-train.

I used to meditate regularly. I used to light incense and stare out windows. I used to take long walks in the woods, my hands folded behind my back, noticing the color of birch trees and the songs of thrushes.

They say we get wiser as we get older. I think that’s just something old people say to justify their opinions. Take it from me, I’m a pretty smart dude!