Friday, November 27, 2009
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Happy Thanksgrieving

Uncle Walt's checkered pants leaked down the front as a poodle lapped it up excitedly. The decades of nicotine stains had turned the 1972 yellow vinyl living room floor into a warm vomit-like pastiche. Smoldering cigar butts extinguished into plates of hardening gravy had now worked themselves into mash potato sky rises resembling Godzilla invading a model Tokyo set.
Al's oxygen tanked wheeled neatly into the corner of the room next to the giant Zenith console wall unit which kept the Lawrence Welk Time Life Series and Engelbert Humperdink albums from tipping over. Plastic ferns filtered the slow migration of low layered haze from Pall Malls and the irregular elderly bowel eruptions, violent at times from the medication, sending forth wind from the several aging anuses in the room as randomly as plunking down plastic markers on a Bingo card.
Wheezes, loud gasps, fits of coughing, nice teal chunks blasted into handkerchiefs, sometimes accompanied by a bit of dried blood torn from a shattered capillary deep in the lung. Occasionally a wig shifted on a head too slick from the hot sweat underneath, triggered by earthquake-like guffaws from Merv Griffin's tame one liners. Or watching Gus and Les, still relatively young, make an impressive tent pole emerge in their thick army cotton wools as a blonde bombshell jiggled on the toob. That, of course, was a miracle and its probably how we won the war.
Wise Olde Ye Sayings
Dost knowest thy wheel begot,
a Honda Civic on used car lot.
Ere long I trow thy great desire,
o' knaves of whores
who dost burn my crotch with fire!

Routing swine, thou breaking wind
thy rag wrung taint o'er
ass and chin.
A shield for shelter, a sword for striking,
a brand new banana seat for biking!
By the balls of Billy Joel!
a Honda Civic on used car lot.
Ere long I trow thy great desire,
o' knaves of whores
who dost burn my crotch with fire!

Routing swine, thou breaking wind
thy rag wrung taint o'er
ass and chin.
A shield for shelter, a sword for striking,
a brand new banana seat for biking!
By the balls of Billy Joel!
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
The Dirty South

We threw all our guns into the trunk of his rebuilt Nova and headed out the 250 miles to Trinity County. We were gonna have us a bro-down. Beer and rounds. Dick had 50 acres. Not many people would hear us, but even if they did, every one else shot into the hillside out here also. We would go unreported.
The clunking sound of the metal as we loaded the trunk; Rugers, Glocks, Smith & Wesseys. My own .357. Jimmy's 44. Then, the rifles on top. War grade. M14s. FNA2 sniper rifles. Remington. Mauser. Weatherbys. Some weird shit from Switzerland. The tactical stuff went on last. The Socom MK23, silencer. Disassembled in the case. Then, the semi-autos. The ARs. The AKs. A lattice of death. And on top, laid reverently, Mike's titanium Heckler & Koch and Steve's completely gangster gold plated Desert Eagle with diamond pearl grip, pretty as fuck.
I kept my hog leg in the back also just to break things up. The weight of the ammo nearly broke the axle, but we made sure it rode over the wheel well.
Guys retreat. 5 dicks in a car. 10 jiggly ballsacs.

We rolled in at 0 nineteen hundred. Dick was supposed to be making chili. We stopped at the convenience store a mile away and threw in 5 cases of Hams in the back seat and as many bags of ice we could fit on our lap.
The dirt road was hollowed out in places and kept scraping the muffler. And all that weight made it worse. Finally we made it to the top and Dick told us to put the beer in an old washtub out back.
'Unfortunately', he said, 'The electricity went out and the well was dry.'
We were going third world country this weekend, apparently. By day three the smell would be lethal. Electricity wouldn't be so bad, we could ambulate just fine in the dark. But no water would start to suck. I guess we could shit in a hole and have beer for breakfast.
Dick offered us up a jug of white lightnin as clear as jet fuel.
'Want some?'
'Mashed it just right. Only used enough hillside corn to swell her up.'
Dick's missing teeth made him look like a kid toucher, especially when he wore the overalls. The kind you'd see on the news. Weird stare. Falling open mouth. Half drunk already, he rocked back and forth on his heels to the balls of his feet.
I took the jug, unscrewed the top and gave her a smell. Rubbing alcohol. 'Shit will make you go blind Dick.'
'Ah cain still see.' he said.
'No thanks. I'll just stick with my beer.'
'Suit yerrself.'
I didn't need the federal government to tell me what I could and couldn't drink, but out here, you never knew what kind of piss someone had an inklin to put into a jar. Just because it gets you high was not a good enough reason to pillage your bloodstream. Dick's eyes were already halfway pilled in and I wasn't sure if it was the inbred genes or the likker. I didn't want to find out. He was just a tick above a paint rag huffer. The last thing left for him was the institution.
The chili tasted like a hooker's ass. Brown and bubbly. Strange foreign shit floating in it. I was already on my 5th aluminum can so I didn't care and just powered some of it down anyway.
'Deer meat' whispered Dick.
'Cured it out in muh shed.' he said.
It was getting dark. By now I was up to 13 cans. I couldn't walk in a straight vector. I laid down in the kitchen next to the bloodhound's water bowl. Every once in awhile a tail would swipe my nose.
I woke up somewhere around 4 in the morning, mouth dryer than an old lady's clam sandwich. I was dazed. The room was moving. And I needed some drank, other than beer. W-A-T-E-R.
The faucets were all dry. One of Dick's property lines was suppos' to be a crick but that was a long way away and I hadn't a flashlight. My mouth was so dry my tongue was sticking to the inside of my cheek and my lips pursed up like a horny trannie. I opened cabinet drawers. I hunted outside a ways. I finally found the old washtub where we stored the beers, thought maybe I could suck off some of the melted ice, but Jimmy and Steve had used it to clean their feet in. Their dirty socks were draped over the side.
I went back into the house and had an idea. I went into the bathroom and popped off the lid on the upper deck of the toilet's water tank. I looked in. It seemed clean, for the most part. Should be fresh, technically. A couple flakes of something floating on top. My lips dryer'n old cunt, I didn't care anymore. I lowered my entire head down like a horse right into the back of the shit tank. It was even cold! Didn't taste no bad either.
'Aaaaaah' I bubbled underwater, drinking it in soundly.
Then I put my head against the wall and tried to quelch a wretch.
I went back in, but this time I put my entire head into the water tank and just drank it down and down. It felt so good to get some water in me, even if it was dirty. I guess if toilet water was good for a dog, it was good for me too. But tank water should be okay.
I lay my head back against the wall again.
'You okay in there?' Mike asked.
'Yeah, just taking a breather.' I said.
The next morning we all had sore assholes from the fire chili. We each took turns out in back, 4 or 5 shits apiece. Must have been that deer meat gone bad.
We went fishing just after noon. I chipped my tooth on a lead weight I tried to close over the line, but caught me an eleven inch brown. Later, we emptied out the trunk with our mean toys. We put them in a wheelbarrow then all of us went out over the mountainside the guns all a-clickety-clack as we hit bumps on the back edge of Dick's property.
We started with the handguns, popped off a couple hundred rounds. Mike then took out his semi and started rocking it. He shook like a Parkinson's patient, shells flying out the side like a golden rainbow, a few hitting me in the arm. Still warm.
I asked if I could use the Desert Eagle. It had a scope on top, which was good for a 44 to keep the weight down when it tried to jump on you. I tried to one hand it but it popped way too hard. I did some Dirty Harry moves. Quoted a few of his lines before emptying out the handle. Then, I went gangster. Horizontal. The fire slanted out the end like a flame thrower with the tracer ammo. The peppered dirt on the hill looked like fire smoke.
By the time we were done, we probably unloaded 3 g's of ammo. Then we walked back to Dick's. Later Mike and Steve came back with what looked like a kilt boar. They ran a fence post through the front and back legs and carried it along. But when they got closer it wasn't no boar. It was a baby calf.
'Whar did you get that?' I asked.
Dick looked nervous. He didn't have no calves on his property.
'Better not have poached. My neighbor don't take kindly to strangers pinching his live.'
Mike seemed unhitched also. 'Steve told me it would be okay. We only went in about 10 yards across the fence. It was right there and your damn chili gave us all the shits.'
Dick looked pissed.
Steve then walked the kill over to his Nova and loaded it in the back. 'I don't see nothing.'
We loaded our guns and got in. The calf didn't move. ... at first.
About 20 minutes down the interstate, the calf starts to twitch. Pretty soon, another minute later, this thing is bucking, sideways.
'I thought you put a clean kill on that thing Steve!' I said.
'I did. Right in the head. Zero shot.'
Mike screamed as it bucked and broke out the rear window, smashing it clean through with a hoof kick.
'Shoot it!' screamed Steve.
'In you car? You want me to shoot it in your car, while you're driving?'
'Yes!' shouted Steve.
I grabbed my hog leg and put it under the calf's jaw to spread the cranium up, WHAMMO, and in the process took out a tenth of the car's roof. The calf stopped kicking, instantly, but it took a big old runny shit on Mike as its bowels loosened out like a heap o' rope gone slack.
'You like your new moon roof?' I asked.
When we got back in, we hung the calf up. Steve told us he was the real shit. He knew how to cut a kill. A real badass. But when he knifed open the stomach, the bile ran out and it ruined the thighs. The intestines spooled out onto the floor like movie theater reels.
'I want to age it here.' said Steve.
'In your garage?' I asked. 'What about the mice? That shit is gonna rot.'
'No it won't.' he said.
A couple days later he had us over for ribs. They tasted like hell. Tough, sinewy, flavorless. Apparently it was the only thing on the young bull that didn't rot right out. All that trouble; a poach, a smashed rear window and a shotgunned car roof for a half dozen pounds of rib meat. Not to mention the mess in his garage.
I guess it makes sense down here in the DS.
Sean Penn >>> Triple Threat
Close Encounters Of A Lame Kind

Just look at this. There's a fucking city on top of a flying saucer! A fucking Atlanta or an Albuquerque just floating and shit. Probably not LA though. Too much suburban sprawl. It would fall down the side, all those... illegal ALIENS (hahahahahahahaha).
I know. Pretty stupid. But if you look, its also a flying saucer in the shape of a guitar. A UFG. An unidentified flying guitar. At sum bad shit sombudee be takin. And that's just what I would do too if I was a band in the 70's. Pink Floyd did it with giant walking asses. Why not having a flying guitar too? That's what cheap drugs did back then, it turned everyday things like paper clips and ice cream scoopers into real cool crap.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Shit Of A Thousand Wipes
You will know it when you get there.
First, it will have to be an Anchor Steam shit, preferably preceded by a large Round Table Canadian bacon/pineapple, thick crust.
Your shit will be of a hardened brown variety. Dark as mud.
When you begin your wiping proper, you won't think anything of it at first.
But when you get to wipe 39 you will begin to question your predicament.
The black on the TP does not seem to be diminishing in its feedback.
You continue to wipe nonetheless, aging considerably as time goes by.
You try adding forwards wipes along with your backwards ones.
No avail.
It only brings out more mud.
And, yes, still wiping as I type.
First, it will have to be an Anchor Steam shit, preferably preceded by a large Round Table Canadian bacon/pineapple, thick crust.
Your shit will be of a hardened brown variety. Dark as mud.
When you begin your wiping proper, you won't think anything of it at first.
But when you get to wipe 39 you will begin to question your predicament.
The black on the TP does not seem to be diminishing in its feedback.
You continue to wipe nonetheless, aging considerably as time goes by.
You try adding forwards wipes along with your backwards ones.
No avail.
It only brings out more mud.
And, yes, still wiping as I type.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Random Shit Caking The Right Side Of My Brain And Falling Off Into The Waffle Batter Below
My mom went to high school with that retarded guy named Radio. Took him to senior prom. Got pregnant in the back of the limo. And I am the result. Except I didn't get any FM genes, only AM. I got the NPR side of him; calm, cerebral, and catatonic.
The midget from Kid Rock is wholly gay. Have you seen him dance? He's like an Irish clogger with a gerbil clogging up his corn maker.
Sweet dill pickles can crack off in your asshole, so be careful.
I have a rare talent for battle rapping which I usually employ during job interviews. I judge an interview successful or not to the extent that I coat the HR hiring manager's face with the light dew of expectorate.
When I hambone, I only use my right thigh for it is most reliable. It is my consistent, go-to smack-R-roonie.
I like the dirty south, but I have to ask. Why is the south dirty? Besides the fact that instead of dogs catching frisbees in midair with their teeth at parks, they use children. Also, a little factoid: A lot of dumb hot chicks that don't wear shoes in hiked up flower dresses hauled around in wheelbarrows by toothless boyfriends. They should have traffic lights in the shape of that crazy combination! And sure, I can also get dirty like that. Especially when you watch one uh them Appalachian mountain mommas hold up a Mountain Dew to her red hot cheek in July on the steps of the County welfare office. Its real and organic.
Cracklins are good eats. There's nothing better than watching your heart turn into a sinking catcher's mitt on an MRI. Especially when you're enjoying a countrified Slim Jim wrapped in bacon.
If I was ever implicated in a crime of passion like Ojay, my weapon of choice would definitely be a lawn dart. This comes from my decorated background in picnics and Norman Rockwell American culture studies.
Speaking of, I'm multiculturally sensitive. When I'm in the 7/11 looking for condoms, I'll ask the man at the counter, 'Yo Shithead(pronounced Shuh-heeeet-head), whar's the dick bags at?' Then, I make sure to bow very low to the ground.
The midget from Kid Rock is wholly gay. Have you seen him dance? He's like an Irish clogger with a gerbil clogging up his corn maker.
Sweet dill pickles can crack off in your asshole, so be careful.
I have a rare talent for battle rapping which I usually employ during job interviews. I judge an interview successful or not to the extent that I coat the HR hiring manager's face with the light dew of expectorate.
When I hambone, I only use my right thigh for it is most reliable. It is my consistent, go-to smack-R-roonie.
I like the dirty south, but I have to ask. Why is the south dirty? Besides the fact that instead of dogs catching frisbees in midair with their teeth at parks, they use children. Also, a little factoid: A lot of dumb hot chicks that don't wear shoes in hiked up flower dresses hauled around in wheelbarrows by toothless boyfriends. They should have traffic lights in the shape of that crazy combination! And sure, I can also get dirty like that. Especially when you watch one uh them Appalachian mountain mommas hold up a Mountain Dew to her red hot cheek in July on the steps of the County welfare office. Its real and organic.
Cracklins are good eats. There's nothing better than watching your heart turn into a sinking catcher's mitt on an MRI. Especially when you're enjoying a countrified Slim Jim wrapped in bacon.
If I was ever implicated in a crime of passion like Ojay, my weapon of choice would definitely be a lawn dart. This comes from my decorated background in picnics and Norman Rockwell American culture studies.
Speaking of, I'm multiculturally sensitive. When I'm in the 7/11 looking for condoms, I'll ask the man at the counter, 'Yo Shithead(pronounced Shuh-heeeet-head), whar's the dick bags at?' Then, I make sure to bow very low to the ground.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Friday, August 14, 2009
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Ain't No Thing
1
In the beginning there was nothing and it was good. There was nothing at all and nothing to comprehend it. Nothing was all there was(or should I say wasn't?). Nothing to even process or understand the nothing. Total unrecognition. Indeed, no cognition whatsover. An absolute coma throughout the empty fuck hole of space sucking all light into it like a cosmic blowjob, like Carl Sagan with Alzheimers going down on Stephen Hawking, then having Hellen Keller break it all down to us afterwards using Power Point.
In a word, there was absence. No initial spark to fire up the creation, not even two trillion nuclear wars could undo this kind of heavy weight entropy. It would look like someone trying to ignite a fart with a Bic while scuba diving. No way to capture the anus fuel.
You need to understand this. Behold! Way back before there was time, a kind of ancient autism was all there was, staring out into miles of black space, like wheeling a senior over to a window with a view of a brick wall and parking them there for the next week. Now the wall is inside their head. It was all that ever was in their head in the first place; bricks and mortar. Their thoughts, frozen. Their existence, incarcerated in the amber of no time.
The emptiness of non-existence is what made the Hasidic Jews go mad during their Ezekiel studies which is why they were encouraged to marry if they were to go on to become rabbis. They needed some cock-footing to remain sane like a professional rock climber, use their dick like a rope and attach it to a carabiner. They needed to knock that fucking pussy right out of the ballpark. Otherwise their stare would begin to resemble the heavy black rain-soaked coat worn by a hitch hiker sanded faceless by the side of the road.
We all need to understand this, that our existence is the first and the last miracle. That we are not alone. That we are here. Take the time to share this with the one you love. I know its corny and hallmark, but you are caught up with them in time and space, the people that you love and even the ones you hate comprise the miracle of who we are. Remember that. Take the time to hold them against this huge expanse of nothingness. Suddenly they will be the most important discoveries in your life.
The alternative is too much to bear. Outside of this creation, the entire universe is as dead as Paris Hilton on her second bottle of cough syrup and chopped up, snorted No Dos when she falls asleep with her eyes open and then hits her head on the end of the coffee table with her panties pulled down around her shins.
In the beginning there was nothing, just this dead stare. And then...
...for no reason, faint noise slowly erupting.
A subtle pulse which grew louder wave upon wave until, instantly, you know the song, a song that no one had to tell you the name of. Here it is. Listen to it and understand its commonality. Its universal ability to set the world order into place. This was the first act of all creation, the organ keyboard working into the opening riff with the volume control knob. Subtle. British Marshalls tearing a hole into the flat, obsidian universe like a jackhammer.
Or it could be the opening riff of Led Zeppelin's Black Dog, repeated over and over, and with it an explosion of light into history and time. No one will forget that riff. No one.
But then again, it could be this Presley classic that accompanied the first few days of creation as well. As done by Sabbath.
Instantly recognizable even to the deaf ears of the unborn, huge riffs taking shape, chiseling chunks out of space, creating form, objectifying the nature of mankind, as God spoke, each chord blasted its way into our future with reckless violence like a bouncing Chevy lowrider fucking a Bond girl on top of a skyscraper, hopping across the ledge, as chunks of concrete mortice fall to the street below.
2

From the moment I saw this album cover, I wanted to own some land and haul sticks around like this old man. As a young kid, something I can't quite name spoke to me about this picture. Something timeworn and indigenous, something storied, perhaps he had survived a few of life's tragedies; the boot liquor wars, joint disease, the potato famine, a shrunken limb forcing him to adopt a cane or perhaps a wife who had died years ago but then he kept going it alone.
And back in his autochthonous village, the overturned carts left in the street, starving livestock, silos burned by bombing raids, he escaped to come here in his last days; a stone cottage in a small grey field next to a stream. Everyday he cut firewood then cleared the broken pieces into a pile of sticks to haul back.
This meant something, who could outlast who. This was his fight against what didn't exist, his testimony that nothing could beat him as long as he could keep getting up and put on his wool jacket, grab his pruning saw and put another dent into nature.
I wanted to be that man. I, too, had bought some land wanting to understand it. Rejecting a complicated life, I knew that a kind of truth could be found in hard work and that reward came from the degree to which one exerted their self. Bowing down before the evening clouds pressed up against the moon and rising up with the thieving sun and walking uncertain distances alone. Putting an order into things and carving your notch into existence. All of this held the secret of knowing what can never be known. So you go about your business here trying not to be so important, trying not to know so much and remain hidden.
There are no alternatives. There are none. Either you are or you are not because this existence itself is so fragile. You have to carry it around with you like a bird with a broken wing and you have to nurture it wherever you go. This thing inside your heart, you have to take care of it and feed it. You have to take care. Existence. We are. Testimony against that which isn't. Put your mark on this world. Its all you have. The fight against non-existence.
And sometimes in church, half asleep, dozing in and out, it hits you again, suddenly like a collision from the side by a train. You realize how many eyes are watching you from afar. All of them looking into this world from beyond this world. Some of them never knowing what life is, only seeing it at great distance and so they are curious. Others, fallen, now asleep who peer into your world understanding what they used to know even as it quickly fades from view. How quickly the dead forget what it was like here, their hands that they used so often, now its like 'What are hands? What are feet?' They start forgetting the moment they are gone, back into the white light's fine eraser. This is what makes life so precious. Understand this. This is no accident, you here, reading this now. You are a part of this voyeuristic journey. You are one who will also look into the deep recesses of space and find out how empty they are, and you will then know that everything you lived here was the richest treasure of all. Compared to nothing, this is everything. You must take fate by the throat. You must take life and run with it. You must take every denial of life and garrot it in front of the giant list of excuses you use to keep you from this moment. Do whatever it takes. Place a loaded gun on the nightstand as a reminder. When you pray, hold it between your legs with both hands.
And so I pick up sticks and pile them up by the roadside next to the brush. Later I will light them on fire and watch the flame rise up into the sky. I will use my hands and work my legs under the sun until I tire. And in the quiet evening I will go in and love my wife and kiss my children. And I will ask for nothing else but to be left here in this place among my kin for it is my heritage. The glory and strength of not having to prove anything to anyone. Of just being. Of just existing. Breathing.
In the beginning there was nothing and it was good. There was nothing at all and nothing to comprehend it. Nothing was all there was(or should I say wasn't?). Nothing to even process or understand the nothing. Total unrecognition. Indeed, no cognition whatsover. An absolute coma throughout the empty fuck hole of space sucking all light into it like a cosmic blowjob, like Carl Sagan with Alzheimers going down on Stephen Hawking, then having Hellen Keller break it all down to us afterwards using Power Point.
In a word, there was absence. No initial spark to fire up the creation, not even two trillion nuclear wars could undo this kind of heavy weight entropy. It would look like someone trying to ignite a fart with a Bic while scuba diving. No way to capture the anus fuel.
You need to understand this. Behold! Way back before there was time, a kind of ancient autism was all there was, staring out into miles of black space, like wheeling a senior over to a window with a view of a brick wall and parking them there for the next week. Now the wall is inside their head. It was all that ever was in their head in the first place; bricks and mortar. Their thoughts, frozen. Their existence, incarcerated in the amber of no time.
The emptiness of non-existence is what made the Hasidic Jews go mad during their Ezekiel studies which is why they were encouraged to marry if they were to go on to become rabbis. They needed some cock-footing to remain sane like a professional rock climber, use their dick like a rope and attach it to a carabiner. They needed to knock that fucking pussy right out of the ballpark. Otherwise their stare would begin to resemble the heavy black rain-soaked coat worn by a hitch hiker sanded faceless by the side of the road.
We all need to understand this, that our existence is the first and the last miracle. That we are not alone. That we are here. Take the time to share this with the one you love. I know its corny and hallmark, but you are caught up with them in time and space, the people that you love and even the ones you hate comprise the miracle of who we are. Remember that. Take the time to hold them against this huge expanse of nothingness. Suddenly they will be the most important discoveries in your life.
The alternative is too much to bear. Outside of this creation, the entire universe is as dead as Paris Hilton on her second bottle of cough syrup and chopped up, snorted No Dos when she falls asleep with her eyes open and then hits her head on the end of the coffee table with her panties pulled down around her shins.
In the beginning there was nothing, just this dead stare. And then...
...for no reason, faint noise slowly erupting.
A subtle pulse which grew louder wave upon wave until, instantly, you know the song, a song that no one had to tell you the name of. Here it is. Listen to it and understand its commonality. Its universal ability to set the world order into place. This was the first act of all creation, the organ keyboard working into the opening riff with the volume control knob. Subtle. British Marshalls tearing a hole into the flat, obsidian universe like a jackhammer.
Or it could be the opening riff of Led Zeppelin's Black Dog, repeated over and over, and with it an explosion of light into history and time. No one will forget that riff. No one.
But then again, it could be this Presley classic that accompanied the first few days of creation as well. As done by Sabbath.
Instantly recognizable even to the deaf ears of the unborn, huge riffs taking shape, chiseling chunks out of space, creating form, objectifying the nature of mankind, as God spoke, each chord blasted its way into our future with reckless violence like a bouncing Chevy lowrider fucking a Bond girl on top of a skyscraper, hopping across the ledge, as chunks of concrete mortice fall to the street below.
2

From the moment I saw this album cover, I wanted to own some land and haul sticks around like this old man. As a young kid, something I can't quite name spoke to me about this picture. Something timeworn and indigenous, something storied, perhaps he had survived a few of life's tragedies; the boot liquor wars, joint disease, the potato famine, a shrunken limb forcing him to adopt a cane or perhaps a wife who had died years ago but then he kept going it alone.
And back in his autochthonous village, the overturned carts left in the street, starving livestock, silos burned by bombing raids, he escaped to come here in his last days; a stone cottage in a small grey field next to a stream. Everyday he cut firewood then cleared the broken pieces into a pile of sticks to haul back.
This meant something, who could outlast who. This was his fight against what didn't exist, his testimony that nothing could beat him as long as he could keep getting up and put on his wool jacket, grab his pruning saw and put another dent into nature.
I wanted to be that man. I, too, had bought some land wanting to understand it. Rejecting a complicated life, I knew that a kind of truth could be found in hard work and that reward came from the degree to which one exerted their self. Bowing down before the evening clouds pressed up against the moon and rising up with the thieving sun and walking uncertain distances alone. Putting an order into things and carving your notch into existence. All of this held the secret of knowing what can never be known. So you go about your business here trying not to be so important, trying not to know so much and remain hidden.
There are no alternatives. There are none. Either you are or you are not because this existence itself is so fragile. You have to carry it around with you like a bird with a broken wing and you have to nurture it wherever you go. This thing inside your heart, you have to take care of it and feed it. You have to take care. Existence. We are. Testimony against that which isn't. Put your mark on this world. Its all you have. The fight against non-existence.
And sometimes in church, half asleep, dozing in and out, it hits you again, suddenly like a collision from the side by a train. You realize how many eyes are watching you from afar. All of them looking into this world from beyond this world. Some of them never knowing what life is, only seeing it at great distance and so they are curious. Others, fallen, now asleep who peer into your world understanding what they used to know even as it quickly fades from view. How quickly the dead forget what it was like here, their hands that they used so often, now its like 'What are hands? What are feet?' They start forgetting the moment they are gone, back into the white light's fine eraser. This is what makes life so precious. Understand this. This is no accident, you here, reading this now. You are a part of this voyeuristic journey. You are one who will also look into the deep recesses of space and find out how empty they are, and you will then know that everything you lived here was the richest treasure of all. Compared to nothing, this is everything. You must take fate by the throat. You must take life and run with it. You must take every denial of life and garrot it in front of the giant list of excuses you use to keep you from this moment. Do whatever it takes. Place a loaded gun on the nightstand as a reminder. When you pray, hold it between your legs with both hands.
And so I pick up sticks and pile them up by the roadside next to the brush. Later I will light them on fire and watch the flame rise up into the sky. I will use my hands and work my legs under the sun until I tire. And in the quiet evening I will go in and love my wife and kiss my children. And I will ask for nothing else but to be left here in this place among my kin for it is my heritage. The glory and strength of not having to prove anything to anyone. Of just being. Of just existing. Breathing.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
The Alligator Sonata
1
My kid has a game on his Nintendo where you take care of a pet. It starts out as a puppy, you name it, then it grows into an adult. Of course you have to pet it so it doesn't shit on your digital carpet. Or maybe there's a scrolled up newspaper icon you can latch onto and smack it across the nose. I tried beating his dog the other night. I wasn't able to.
I thought a game like this would be more for urban kids stuck way up in the 65th floor of a Manhattan apartment, their pale, atrophied limbs needing an excuse to be used, at least their thumbs. Not my kid who lives in the country. Out here we make pipe bombs and then bring them to church to critique their weak points in-between armageddon references. When we want cereal in the morning for breakfast, first we have to kill it.
2
They should make one of these pet games for paraplegic children. Instead of a dog, maybe a turtle. They could probably manipulate a turtle through their $10,000 tongue driven system. A turtle only moves once a day. Its little green tail wipes away the urine tracks behind it. And its hard shell reflects all the ugly stares from strangers over the years.
Maybe we should put paraplegics inside hard cases. Put a 2.5 horsepower weed eater engine in there with a push-button start. Slip a skateboard under there. Then they could go to the beach, crawl into the jetties and if someone tries to make fun of them, they could pull their head into their shell.
I'm just trying to offer up some solutions here. The world is full of problems. I'd like to think I have something that might help make it a better place. Pay it forward and shit. I feed pigeons breadcrumbs. Free Tibet. Vote No on 8. Rah rah rah sis boom bah.
3
I think we should have a game where it starts out as a fetus. You navigate it through amniotic fluid for 9 months, but first you have to dodge an abortionist's steel claw.
The game doesn't stop. The game never stops. It keeps going, forever. You have to keep navigating this person through high school, college, its first job. Pretty soon, your digital person begins to lose its hair, its reproductive prowess, its fashion sense. It starts to move slower.
You continue navigating this person through a pair of divorces, a brief cancer scare and its first emotional breakdown. By the time the game is almost over, on the last level, the person has nearly lost its mind. All it can do is sit in a room and shit out its paper thin, state-issued night gown next to an archipelago of stainless steel machines. You gave it a name when you first began playing, but now it forgets its name. It doesn't answer to it anymore. It just sits there rocking back and forth next to a pixelated curtain.
There are no more points to score, no rotating coins to collect, no more life points in the shape of a red, beating heart that will extend your lives. All the lives you lived over the years. All the lives in this one life.
My kid has a game on his Nintendo where you take care of a pet. It starts out as a puppy, you name it, then it grows into an adult. Of course you have to pet it so it doesn't shit on your digital carpet. Or maybe there's a scrolled up newspaper icon you can latch onto and smack it across the nose. I tried beating his dog the other night. I wasn't able to.
I thought a game like this would be more for urban kids stuck way up in the 65th floor of a Manhattan apartment, their pale, atrophied limbs needing an excuse to be used, at least their thumbs. Not my kid who lives in the country. Out here we make pipe bombs and then bring them to church to critique their weak points in-between armageddon references. When we want cereal in the morning for breakfast, first we have to kill it.
2
They should make one of these pet games for paraplegic children. Instead of a dog, maybe a turtle. They could probably manipulate a turtle through their $10,000 tongue driven system. A turtle only moves once a day. Its little green tail wipes away the urine tracks behind it. And its hard shell reflects all the ugly stares from strangers over the years.
Maybe we should put paraplegics inside hard cases. Put a 2.5 horsepower weed eater engine in there with a push-button start. Slip a skateboard under there. Then they could go to the beach, crawl into the jetties and if someone tries to make fun of them, they could pull their head into their shell.
I'm just trying to offer up some solutions here. The world is full of problems. I'd like to think I have something that might help make it a better place. Pay it forward and shit. I feed pigeons breadcrumbs. Free Tibet. Vote No on 8. Rah rah rah sis boom bah.
3
I think we should have a game where it starts out as a fetus. You navigate it through amniotic fluid for 9 months, but first you have to dodge an abortionist's steel claw.
The game doesn't stop. The game never stops. It keeps going, forever. You have to keep navigating this person through high school, college, its first job. Pretty soon, your digital person begins to lose its hair, its reproductive prowess, its fashion sense. It starts to move slower.
You continue navigating this person through a pair of divorces, a brief cancer scare and its first emotional breakdown. By the time the game is almost over, on the last level, the person has nearly lost its mind. All it can do is sit in a room and shit out its paper thin, state-issued night gown next to an archipelago of stainless steel machines. You gave it a name when you first began playing, but now it forgets its name. It doesn't answer to it anymore. It just sits there rocking back and forth next to a pixelated curtain.
There are no more points to score, no rotating coins to collect, no more life points in the shape of a red, beating heart that will extend your lives. All the lives you lived over the years. All the lives in this one life.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Not Just Another Football Team
This story needs a soundtrack to go with it. Click the video and pause before reading.
You need to understand. You need to know and the story must be told.
January 19th, 2003. Oakland Colesium. In the parking lot. The Lord was angry with us and the sun was approaching high noon. I had my brauts on the cue in the back of my pickup truck, guarded by Lou and his Rot. Homeland Security had their eye on us from the start.
We borrowed a complete draft kegging system from the Ace of Spades downtown, came with its own ball lock and regulator. All we had to do was connect the CO2 bottle we picked up from Bevmo. It looked like a damn bomb in the back of his truck, but the taste was rich and retained a thick, creamy head. We were so spoiled.
I was starting to get one of those beginner buzzes, the early warm fuzzies. I felt powerful yet resigned. And as I poured more into my red cup I began to feel separated from my surroundings, just a bit, like a hamster lost in the bottom of a zipped up sleeping bag.
When you are surrounded by asphalt, blue sky and makeshift mosh pits, there is a wonderful feeling of eternity that begins to creep up on you. I leaned my head back against the rear window of the truck and stared up at the clouds. I will try to describe it to you like an armless amputee trying to wipe his ass. I will be shit out of luck, but here it goes. Please forgive me if I sound like a queer: You know the unspoken things. The history that leads you here, yes, before you were even born. It comes in waves and, remembering, lifts you to high places. You are invincible, one of the chosen ones. You were all here before and will be here again. This is just another battlefield, this football game, except this time the line of scrimmage will not end in mass casualties like Iwo Jima or Omaha Beach. This is just another day, like any other, except this time your childhood dreams of watching Jim Plunkett go long on a fake and pitching it out to Marcus Allen on a reverse or Lyle Alzado rip an offensive linemen's helmet off or Lester Sticky Hands Hayes wrapping receivers around goal posts are all coming true today. This is what you have been waiting for and even if they don't win which they probably won't, matters not. The fact that you are here now is all that does matter, with the rest of the inconsequentials, Raider fever baby, the black hole, the place where the cameras will not come. Its like Beirut. The Sunni Triangle. A strike on the West Bank. Here in this parking lot, a total blackout.
The masses were becoming restless. We were getting our war footing on. Kickoff was fast approaching, a sight the majority of us would only see on tonight's ESPN post show highlights. We were poor, all of us out here. We just wanted to be a part of the circus. Metallica knew that. They came here to honor us, the fan, those who could only pretend to be inside the coliseum. It didn't matter. You would have to know the troubled history of this team and its owner. You would have to know why it never mattered whether or not the Raiders actually ever won a game. It was never about winning. It was about mastering the art of the loser. That's what being a real fan is about. Loving the colors. The Raiders were always picking up losers and sopping them up like truckstop gravy with a dry, crusty dinner roll contract. The second chancers and the comeback kids, the bum knee throwbacks, the traded journeymen. All of the wounded. When it came to talent, we always got sloppy seconds. But boy did we love them. The rejects knew it also. Al Davis picked them up on the cheap, then reshaped them.
Romanowski, violent felon.
Jerry Rice on his last knee.
Barret Robbins who we learned that morning no showed.
Stubblefield.
Tyrone Wheatley.
Shabbaz.
Jerry Porter.
Mo Collins.
Sebastian Janikowski the headcase.
And Rich Gannon.
All of them assembled as one team.
God help us.
But then the shit started. Right when James began to scream in the beginning of this second video...
I look over and there's this totally wurked dude hanging onto the edge of my truck, arms stretched over the side, squatting down and laying out a thick line of brown tapered shit right next to my rear tire. 'Hey!' I shouted, 'BRO, yo you need to back right the fuck up!' Then I empty out the last third of my beer into the side of his face. 'Hey, back it up!' but he doesn't hear, he just keeps bearing down.
Just then the fucker lifts his head up and looks like one of those Disneyland pirates, the one holding that big clay jug with XXX on the side. Missing chicklets, one dead eye and a sun burnt forehead so beat red it looked like a birthday party balloon. Stoli and day old salami breath comes off him, then an eruption of corn and a little bit of hot dog burst out of his mouth and cakes down his beard, hitting his chest, rolling off in clumps which tumble onto the ground in large pancake-sized dollops which splatter my rims.
Oh man, why do I have to be on the receiving end of this? It ain't right. But then I look back over and there's Lou standing over him pissing straight onto the top of his bald burnt head. Yellow drops run down his eyes and, blinking, he screams at both of us 'You sonsofabitch!'
And sure enough, like clockwork, here come the cops. You know when someone starts a fight? Its usually the guy who throws the last punch who gets in trouble, not the shit starter. Well, today, that's us.
Usually the cops have a look-away policy on drunk and disorderlies with tailgaters, but not today. I guess there's a limit to the 'disorderly' clause. You can't give a hobo a man shower. That's where they draw the line, even when Metallica's playing and your ears feel like they're full of pea gravel.
*Click* *Zip Zip* I feel the cold metal hit my wrists. Then I watch as the hobo walks away into the crowd and I am pulled up with a gloved hand that has dug into the deep ditch of my armpit. Same with Lou. As the cops drive us out, I see about 15 black jerseys reach into the back of our truck and grab our little kegger.
I tell the cops. They don't seem to care. Just keep driving forward.
Game. Over.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Monday, July 13, 2009
A Troubled Shit
I woke up in pain. Rolling to my side, I tightened my jaw then released like a fish trapped in a sportsman's bucket, a hook through its mouth. The sensation shifted, as did the tiny riot police mobilizing on the perimeter of my gut, all of them now striking the palm of their left hand with the club in their right, waiting for me to make another move.
Moaning like a late, third trimester expectant crackwhore, I immediately grabbed my asshole with my right fist, clenched hard, then shoved in my thumb like a cork to keep the mud from squishing its way out. I ran to the bathroom like Dick Pryor with his hair on fire.
An untaxed red bell pepper erupted out my chute, just the bullnosed tip, like some kind of Toucan's beak. I could have sworn it had an eye on the end of it peering around like a security camera. It looked like a clown shoe, bright and shiny, one of Ronald McDonald's after getting soaked in old, french fry grease.
It was a stop gap surprise. That was just the fuse apparently. After the shoe came out, an explosion ensued. A roiling myriad of colors blew out, Jackson Pollock style, all over the rim and bowl. Winston Marsalis was blowing out a trumpet solo. Just ad libbing. He killed it, too.
I'll let you know how the toxicology reports come out next week.
Moaning like a late, third trimester expectant crackwhore, I immediately grabbed my asshole with my right fist, clenched hard, then shoved in my thumb like a cork to keep the mud from squishing its way out. I ran to the bathroom like Dick Pryor with his hair on fire.
An untaxed red bell pepper erupted out my chute, just the bullnosed tip, like some kind of Toucan's beak. I could have sworn it had an eye on the end of it peering around like a security camera. It looked like a clown shoe, bright and shiny, one of Ronald McDonald's after getting soaked in old, french fry grease.
It was a stop gap surprise. That was just the fuse apparently. After the shoe came out, an explosion ensued. A roiling myriad of colors blew out, Jackson Pollock style, all over the rim and bowl. Winston Marsalis was blowing out a trumpet solo. Just ad libbing. He killed it, too.
I'll let you know how the toxicology reports come out next week.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
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