5.31.2010

amboy crater

Cognitive dissonance. Amboy Crater has it. Heck, she's full of it. Up to the gills and down to the fat around her ankles.
Amboy rides in the back of Will Crater's Nissan, even when it's cold, with her Pitbull Terrier, Arlys.
She listens to Maya Arulpragasam, M.I.A., and pines for the forests of northern Sri Lanka. She wants to be a Tamil Tiger. Live off curried shrimp and rice with coconut juice. An occasional mango. Maybe some pine nuts. She doesn't know about the recent genocide. That's what Maya called it.
Amboy wants to get a tiger tattoo. Will won't let her. He got one in Sturgis in 1985 and nearly died from the resulting staph infection. He contracted Hep C at the same time and is slowly dying of cirrhosis. Liver failure. It's a sad, unfortunate situation. Amboy's afraid she'll catch the Hep C. That's why she rides in the back. With Arlys. No tattoo.




5.30.2010

happy boy

I was walkin' down the street on a sunny day
hubba hubba hubba hubba hubba
Feelin' in my bones that I'll have my way
hubba hubba hubba hubba hubba

Chorus:
Well, I'm a happy boy (happy boy)
Well, I'm a happy boy (happy boy)
Oh, ain't it good when things are goin' your way? Hey hey

My little dog, Spot got hit by a car
hubba hubba hubba hubba hubba
Put his guts in a box and put him in a drawer
hubba hubba hubba hubba hubba

(chorus)

I forgot all about it for a month and a half
hubba hubba hubba hubba hubba
I looked in the drawer and started to laugh
hubba hubba hubba hubba hubba

beat farmers

laser cat

Laser cat lives in the crotch of a tree in my backyard. He is useful. The power of his lasers illuminate the patio after dark. He can kill an ant from a great distance. It has been rumored that he can even fly. Like a squirrel.
Last night, I caught laser cat rifling through the papers in my briefcase. I know he uses my laptop when I'm not home. I had to get new credit cards. But what he was doing reading the company's collective bargaining agreement with the union of service workers, I cannot determine. Maybe he is a spy. On a double-super-secret mission.

5.28.2010

beads from arletta

Arletta Wounded Arrow lives in Wanblee on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. She is the prettiest girl in town and an accomplished dancer. She made a pair of beaded mocasins and gave them to me. The beadwork was on the soles. When I asked her why, she said, "These are for your journey. When your feet no longer touch the ground."
I hope I don't need them soon, but when I do, that's what you'll see as I fly away. Beads from Arlettta.

you

You used to have all the answers. You still do. You just know. You just do. We watch things on VCR's. With you the paving stones on the streets in Rome are on fire. Sharing a bottle of wine on the Spanish Steps we threw two coins into the fountain. One to say we were here, another to say we'll be back.

5.27.2010

so we shot ourselves into outerspace

Hitting 94 East towards St. Paul. Gotta visit St. Joe's. Need more skin grafts.
Get in the door. See the surgeon. He suggests a pre-surgery debridement. I think, cool. Cause that means morphine sulfate and percoset. It's how I originally met Bigfoot. After a CAT scan  in Phoenix, I used my hospital-drug-induced imagination to shape-shift. Into a splinter-cat. Right outside of Vancouver, BC. I guess it's raining in Vancouver, but I don't give a fuck. I'm coming home tonight.

In Vancouver,  my favorite writer, already dead, introduced me to Washington Weelford. A Canadian Bigfoot. He gave me a screech owl and a pine cone. We consumed edible roots and fermented chokecherries.

Then me and Washington shot ourselves into outerspace. I'm not sure whether I ever came back.

PS: The writer's name is David Foster Wallace. RIP David.


5.26.2010

sack tap

I live in the Sweet Part of the City. I drive the freeway everyday. Sack taps slow me down. One sack tap brings everything to a grinding halt. Then I get to the office. I have reserved parking on P1. The spaces are small. I've been tapped twice. No note. No apology. But I have remote server access to real time digital cameras. When I find you, and I will, prepare for a different kind of sack tapping.

5.25.2010

cheeseburger, no bun

that's what I was told at the deli today. initially befuddled, and before i could inquire, i was asked to select a secondary cheeseburger delivery platform bread-wise. my consternation was evidently apparent as a manager was quickly summoned to explain. conventional buns had been sold out, she said. there was a supply glitch. nobody's fault. just a sequence of unfortunate events. 
i requested an accommodation. a discount, so to speak. my request was circumvented. i was presented with a cheeseburger on buttered, grilled sourdough. it looked tasty. it was. with fresh lettuce and tomato. i'll probably order it that way again. not soon. they must be punished for not being more clever.

5.24.2010

where does it go

Wonder where it goes. As a cat, my intellect is limited. I lose so many things everyday. My toys, my favorite rug. My heart. I wonder where it goes. It never comes back. No matter how much I wish it would.

how to really leave

1. Leave.
2. Don't look back.
3. Don't go back.
4. Forget.
5. Renew.
6. Repeat.


5.23.2010

writer

You see him quite wrong, evidently, and would persuade me that he is a genial creature, full of sweetness and amenities and superior to his talents, but I fear he is harnessed to them. He is too consummate an artist to have a thread of nature left. He daunts me! I have not the key.

5.22.2010

amity

Amity Amity Amity Amity Amity Amity Amity caught stars in her arms
Hello hello kitty happy in in New York City Amity walking like a lucky charm
I'm a neon sign and I stay open all the time
So let's go, go go go

Amity Amity god don't make no junk but it's plain to see he still made me
He told me so
I'm good to go
I'm ready to go

'Cos you laugh and talk, and 'cos you make my world rock
I'm so, so so so
Amity Amity Amity Amity Amity Amity Amity good to go

5.21.2010

je ne sais pas

I don't know. Maybe her or better yet her. One's there, the other's here. Seems obvious doesn't it. It ain't. Not to me. Long distance, I have the friend of a lifetime. Up close, I have new uncertainty, intrigue. Both are challenging. Both require attention and thought.  Maybe it's just a kissaway trail.

5.17.2010

charlotte zoolander

Los Angeles, CA. My friend Steph's daughter, Charlotte Zoolander. She is so fashionable, she has so much style and class. Must have got it from her mother.

almost gone john

John is a painter by trade and lives in the basement of the house I am renting. He's a morose son of a bitch. Tall, thin and laconic. He mopes around, lamenting his lack of work, but he don't seem to try too hard to get any. Instead, he sits in the dark, "just thinkin' about things". That's what he told me. I figure him for an imminent suicide. Figure each time I go downstairs to the laundry room, I might find him hanging from the floor joists.
I ain't seen him around lately. Neither hide nor hair. Maybe he's on the lam. Maybe he's just gone or almost gone. Later John.

5.15.2010

dick peterdick

Dick Peterdick was a roper, bulldogger and bareback bronc rider hailin' out of Kyle, SD on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. He was also a meth cook and quick draw specialist. Some say he was a shape-shifter. It's too soon to tell. Dick's legacy ain't foretold and Dick ain't nowhere to be found.
Some say he became a three-legged dog. Others say  he's a magpie. He was last seen in Hays, Kansas south of the rails down by the cottonwoods along the creek. Everyone knows he keeps his guns clean and his powder dry and sells methamphetamine to the suburban crowd in Kansas City. The toothless, Mountain Dew fueled dumpster divers. Dick's crank wasn't much better than cheap trucker speed, cut with strychnine to bring on a fever.
Dick rode the roughstock series. Couldn't afford the PRCA events. Slept in a Dave Ellis cowboy bedroll in the back of his '96 F-150.
No topper. If it rained, he moved under the truck.
You can only live like this for so long. One day, the chills build and the drugs kill the liver. Dick Peterdick saw it coming. But, by the time it passed, Dick was down. Broken heart, broken spirit. Dick died.



5.10.2010

cleveland onionpockets

Cleveland Onionpockets lives in Morongo Valley, California just north of Palm Springs. His yard ain't got no grass. His home is a hollow metal cylinder laid on it's side. He don't got  windows or heat or air. It smells pretty bad in there what with his staph infection and all.
Cleveland raises spiders. Big spiders. He skins them, tans the hides and makes fur jackets for Barbi Dolls. He sells these in Quartzite across the border in Arizona at the flea market. He rides his old Schwinn 3-speed bicycle over there once every three months. After he tops the valley it's an easy ride. Spider skins are light.
The jackets sell for $40 apiece and Cleveland usually sells out whatever he's brought along. Money in pocket and a song in his heart Cleveland tools back down one hill into the valley and up the other into the mountains hosting the grand city of Morongo Valley. He buys a carton of straight Pall Malls and a case of Keystone Light beer. He sits outside his cylinder in a purloined patio chair and roasts a potato over a cardboard fueled fire. The streetlight overhead lights up his piece of the world.
Cleveland used to ride bulls on the southern Cali circuit, pining for the PRCA NFR in Vegas. But, dang if he didn't get thrown hard against the steel of the chute, smashing his elbow and injuring his brain. The doctor said,  Cleveland, your brain is broken. You ain't the same.
He felt the same, except for the elbow, but forgot where he lived and just wandered off, winding up in Morongo. He had followed a spider through the Mojave and was struck by lightening next to a Joshua Tree. He didn't eat and he didn't have any water, but he was never tired, hungry or thirsty. He had no money and had worn through the soles in his shoes. He was taunted by the Trickster,  Iktomi, but he did not yield.
Forty days later, Cleveland emerged from the Mojave and came upon what was to become his home. The cylinder. It was built to divert flood water but was large enough diameter-wise for him to stand up in. He inspected it and gave it a nudge. And another. It groaned and rolled. It kept on rolling, rolling right across Paradise Lane and coming to a stop in a weed-choked vacant lot. His broken brain told him he was home.
He was. And he's still there, raising spiders under the streetlight.




a fond farewell

I see you're leaving me and taking up with the enemy
The cold comfort of the in between
A little less than a human being
A little less than a happy high
A little less than a suicide
The only things that you really tried
This is not my life
It's just a fond farewell to a friend
It's not what I'm like
It's just a fond farewell to a friend
Who couldn't get things right
Fond farewell to a friend
This is not my life
It's just a fond farewell to a friend

pretty (ugly before)

Sunshine been keeping me up for days
There is no nighttime, it's only a passing phase
And I feel pretty, pretty enough for you
I felt so ugly before
I didn't know what to do
Sometimes is all I feel up to now
But it's not worth it to you, 'cos you gotta get high somehow
Is it destruction that you're required to feel?
Like somebody wants you, someone that's more for real?
Sunshine been keeping me up for days
There is no nighttime, only a passing phase
And I'll feel pretty another hour or two
I felt so ugly before
I didn't know what to do
I felt so ugly before
I didn't know what to do
I felt so ugly before
I didn't know what to do
Ugly before

5.01.2010

some time

It can take some time. Sometime. Like waiting for the pizza guy or the laundry cycle. Or making a new friend. Adopting a cat. Growing a cactus. Filling a swimming pool. Buying new shoes. Sweeping the patio. Downloading anything.
But if you listen you'll hear the world's energy. Sometime time turned into whenever. Whenever turned into now. Welcome to right now. Where are you?