Monday, September 30, 2013

poem: Evaluating


Evaluating

dysfunctional in competitive environs X long
which flags wave on boat masts?
skull and cross bones
the snake
don't tread on me


cabin cruisers on trailers on the hilltop have holes in them
morning glories grow over top of the moldering fleet
there are still tiny pennants on spindly antenas
miraculous screw propellers frozen fixed
motors rudely jerked around
jumper cables coiled in  tall grass
gator clips standing like cobras
bitten  batteries thirsting for acid so vital to the imagination
empty gas tanks
not prepared for flooding

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Secular Sunday Sermon


Why are people jack-offs about spirituality?   This angel is a stone-chilly athiest, but affirmative action is in full effect.  All human thought and feeling deserves the care of a buxom vivacious librarian.  Secular cherubs surround  those ideals of responsible beauty.

 Such as the infinite possiblities.  You can't fish metaphysics out of your half-gallon glass bowl with button hole thread and bent saftey pin.  Only a mile-long telescope will do.  All forms of worship get a write up in the blog soon I get a handle on what's up with all doggone wonderful seekers.

There appears to be an up-tick in cult activity, and I like that too.   What would religious practice be without the creative forces of a snake handler?   Quantum physics has a way of helping people groove on incorporeality, which even more conservative church groups seem to also groove on, though on a different plane.  I'll break bread with just about anyone.  It is a cornerstone of my personal faith that eats go down the hatch, no matter what caused Genesis.    For the brick and stained glass window set, there are even special allowances (no blasphemy or saying 'fuck') for extreme piety, mass hysteria, and, of course,  any and all religious experiences are fair game for a spirited group discussion.   Bleeding palms  are  a popular topic in the breakfast nook.

Most important of all, the power of metaphor has it's unifying effect. Picture a sixy foot tall flour sifter, the wire interior works whirring, the Great Earth Mother vigorously turning the crank, the fine powdered grain material, all kinds of it, in all consistencies, in all relations between life and the supernatural, being gently mixed and sorted.  It is confusing, yet necessary.  Affirmations.

fiction: Clem's Crossing Over


Zeniths and nadirs come in a gradient of heights and declivities.

Clem had reached an under-pinnacle.  And he had in front of him, spread around him on his few square feet of safety, many of both his extremes.  Like spilled Cracker Jacks.

 There are worse  conditions than Clem's, e.g. bamboo shoots under fingernails, or a slow physical mangling courtesy of angry Ton Ton Macoutes,  but he was at a point where certain people buy a bus pass, and ride the buses all day, for no particular reason.  Except for the absence of a goal.  Clem was like a cockroach, still moving, after being struck with a rolled up Wall Street Journal.  His investments were in differing stages of decline, as was Clem.

Too, it was his relations with other people that dropped him an ontological notch down the cosmic bumper jack beneath our souls.  It ratchets people up and down, with equal effort either way, simple as physics.   All souls come equipped with a spare tire.  Clem had neglected to put air in his, and he was depressed.    And on the 'outs.'  His portfolio of penny stocks all failed, in sequence, at least those that he hadn't sold too soon.  The thrill of making a profit was  replaced with "Jesus Christ, I should have waited."  His friends in the online stock trading community stopped answering his e-mails.

  Short-lived though joy is, the slow burn from watching the remaining stocks decline enjoys its longevity, as Clem rides aimlessly on a city bus.   People in that type of condition always, invariably, find themselves in imagined debates with Dick Cheney, and with solipcised social breakthroughs, in a chance encounter with the Bush Family.  In this childish rescue fantasy, he was even given a fraternal nickname, like W had for Carl Rove.  W called his dear friend and staff person 'Turd Blossum.'  Clem was longing for that apex of earthy  prestige.

At the same time that he lived the life of a day trader, he lived in a shitty house in the slum he felt he belonged to.  Women from his ethnic grouping, as if Clem was really in a group, were less than scarce, while he saw, daily, an abundance of beauty  in women of color.  A fucking stupid term for a person, none-the-less, crossing cultures is a bitch.  He realized that everything, libido included, came in  lever operated, indexed levels.  Came the day, on the bus, that a conversation changed his life, for a little fucking while.  Her skin was the kind of radiant brown, like lighted from within, and the pale blue ink on her fore arm was alive.  Men like Clem respond to enlivening, gentle colors by going loosy-goosy.

She looked at his right hand a moment.   "Are you into Snoop Lion?"  She was sharing a seat, riding from downtown to Oakland, she to return videos to the library, Clem going both somewhere and nowhere at the same time.  He saw that she was looking at his ring, a bright stainless steel lion's head, large enough to span two knuckles.  Thinking slow, for a quick squirt of the mind, as Clem was cursed, he recalled that Snoop Dog had changed his stage name to Snoop Lion, and had committed his songs to inner city peace and nonviolence.  Clem first said, 'no' but then stammered, "well, yes.  I love the Snoopadelics, they're a really tight rock band, and I love the way Snoop fused rock and hip hop.  The man is a genius."

Helpless mental static for  Clem.  Wouldn't a cow, woodchuck or gazelle better symbolize peace and nonviolence, then would a lion?  Alrighty, it takes the strength of a lion to address the times, irrespective of purpose.

He knew he had said too much, yet he  sensed in the woman beside him the capacity to forgive and forget social awkwardness.  His johnson was tumescing, not to it's full length and girth, but it was  to some degree more sensual than in the moments preceeding.   "That's a strong symbol," she said, still looking at his ring.

  It was soon after that his segmented judgement, coiled in the tall grass, split at the valences, and restacked itself into a column, like a maypole.  He was going somewhere, then, and if you go there, you can't go back.  Clem was clear in mind,  as he was ever likely to get.  A white man needs to rock and roll.  And with certainty, Clem needed to get hip.  He was out a long way.  He had been neglecting his obligations.  A  man needs to rock and roll.  There are higher levels of  aquiescence, but not for day traders  like Clem.  His mind filled with lyrics to a song. Foxy Lady, by Jimi Hendrix.  He let the sound take him away.

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Journal of Slum Dwelling


Redemption grows like weeds here on the North Side.  All the pentillion sallow highrise apartment complexes look exactly alike, but each is distinguished by the rotting sagging houses in spitting distance.  Each hovel and vacant lot has it's own special smut and fungus, weeds, rats and remnants of cyclone fence.  It used to be feared that modern buildings would result in mind numbing monotony.  Not so.  And it is decay that deserves gratitude.  Thank you, each and every collapsed front porch.  Weakened girders are like an action flick.  I'm not bored.

By the by, there may be some sort of reparations owed bracket fungus and corn smut, too.  They are an oppressed and underprivilidged blight.  The smut is more like erotica.  Milk weeds have been working their pods off to give this slum some charm.  Where are their keys to the city?

Best, the highrises are loaded with people who are infirmed, stable, thriving , if shabbily cared for.  I love it here.  It's a place that deserves itself.


Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Bad Asetheticism


Some souls have a serious case of the dark sides.  Picture a faceted glass paperweight on black construction paper.  The fella' is gloomy.

I've been keeping mum about my beefs and griefs and most the neighbors do the same, offering up courtesies comparable to doilies and  a crystal  container of hard candy.  A mark of good people.  How odd that outward appearances have come to mean so much.

If Ronald Firbank were here, I'm certain he'd agree that aestheticism is a valid applied philosophy.  A ride on the 8 bus yesterday affirmed this maxim.   Some sweet cheeked organization installed a chi-chi looking semi-circle flower garden about eight feet in radius, butting into a complex of ugly street, directly in front of what used to a homeless encampment under the three bridges the city peon mass transit  passes under.    For the past many years, there has been a tent city there, but the city Jiffy Popped up   empty cyclone fence enclosures to keep the homeless people out.  The enclosures would be perfectly perfect for warehousing political prisoners and other super-undesirables.  Man, how resource management in Pittsburgh bums me out.  But that little garden sure cheers me up.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

local politics


I had this meeting at the City/County Building.   Walking down the blue star dust hallways there were goats and vultures, people were beating kettle drums, short Jewish men were clashing cymbols, people were burning inscence, lighting opium pipes using sterno cans.   An old woman kept gesticulating at me.  She accused me of causing her car to catch fire.

I had to talk to some one.  I had a problem with a ticket.  I was aked into a room.  Everyone was wearing paper beaks.  Some of them where big birds.   They are going to send me an e-mail.
As I exited the halls, like a snail, portly accordian players sat in folding chairs.  I've become morose.



Saturday, September 14, 2013

Orange Fitzo's Fuss...a continuing biker saga..fiction.




You may have seen me standing around in one of the bar fight scenes in 'They Saved Hitlers's Brain,' because I was an extra in it. Solid extra. One time I got to hurl a man out a window, in some other B movie. They was calling me near every week to go somewhere looking scary, and I was making near double the minimum wage, had my own trailer, and of course my bike, so those were "yesterdays when I was young' like Roy Clark would sing. Things are pretty fucked up now. Been out of show business long. Long in the tooth. Got respiratory fits.

The wife hasn't forgiven her delusions, and still intends to hurt me, kill me , what ever, probably through the use of some type of henchman, or henchmen, and that's the topic of this paganistic sermon.

I was not fucking other men's bitches, but the wife's paranoid. I did not offend her family code of schizophrenia, but she is the type of woman so determined for revenge she'll sleep with only the most hide bound ex-green berets and mercs so she can round up a posse. Old ladies are better at it than Wyatt Earp. Reminds that I served as an extra in dozens of western movies, standing around a saloon. Don't want my friends thinking all I did was biker films, because I was already a biker, like I have no talent. That sort of behavior has become a sore point here in the Winnebago I holed up in. People always look for worms in a perfectly green granny smith. Life is a tart green apple, and people are fucking worms. Pardonez. I'm embittered.

Alright, it was a tragedy that time I had a speaking role in "Surf Nazis Must Die," and I made a poor choice of comments, it got back to some powerful Jews in the film business, and I got my poor ass black balled. Jeez folks are vindictive. 


.............

Okay, that was shit that happened last week.



This week I'm in the hospital, on my fifth oxycontin, and my man who keeps the Winnebago on his front lawn brought me a gallon of JD. He's been letting me stay in the rusting vehicular shell. Has agent orange. Likes some company. He let's me in the house sometimes. Good peep. This here's just a short update. Seems some of the ex's fuck-pals managed to jump me. 

Dude was just aking me  what the minimum wage was like back in the 1960s.



good of you to ask...
... rents on trailers was way, way cheaper before certain bastards came in and 'developed' my former haven. I was making the equivalent of five bucks an hour, after you do some math. You might compare my standard of living, at the time, with that of an entry level sand hog. People flipping burgers earned fly shit. 

Thursday, September 12, 2013

infested fiction





'Take that, you little assholes," Ron Frownie said as he sprayed pesticide into the blue plastic grocery bag that was suspended from the handle on a cabinet and serving as temporary trash container. The recoil from spraying up close sent the cloud of flying bug spray back out of the bag and towards Ron's sour little face. He side stepped, as might Master Lee, if the Legend was fighting fruit flies. It was a war of spirit, Ron was certain. He then re-entered his fighting stance, and peeked into the bag. The few living insects walked in the slick of poison, defiant, injured, seeking fruit.

Racing for his cell phone, he called the CDC. "How long does flying bug spray work for,huh. Just tell me." he ordered, as if speaking to some lying traitor. The person on the other phone offered to refer his question to the executive director, when she gets in, sometime in the afternoon. She was in an important meeting, and would get back to him. "Well how the hell do I know when the next wave of fruit flies will hatch?" he screamed, the air in front of him lousy with tiny flying bugs.

Snapping the phone shut, he finished his eight cup of coffee, studying the grounds at the bottom of the dollar store ceramic mug. "Are those all coffee grounds, or have I been drinking the little bastards?" he thought. His world view was busy changing.

It was seeming to him that banana peals, apple cores and peach pits were the ambrosia in hell. They were the Masonic hand gestures. They were the scrawny sociopaths who sell smack to fund world terror. They were Jim Jones, drawing his followers to the Finito Cool Aid. Ron hatched a plan. "From here out, I'm throwing all my garbage out the window."

The mist of fruit flies jeered. "Won't work, Ron. There's a fat shitload more of us than there are of you."

"I'll quit eating fruit all together." Ron said with resolve.

"Then you'll get constipated, asshole," the flies replied. "You'll get colon cancer, shithead."

Fifteen minutes later Ron was back on the cell phone, "Can you at least tell what kind of diseases the fuckers carry? Anything worse than cancer?" 

Monday, September 9, 2013

Terminal Duds



Compulsions are petals. Must be pulled from the daisy, tossed in the gentle autumn. Gratification. Emotional well being. I mail ordered a dozen black swat caps, at a tempting, orgiastic wholesale price.

The hats are a jazzy quick fix for hair loss and the dread milquetoast oldster look people get at middle age, like a dunning letter against aesthetics.

With that itch stratched, I 'm thinking about white dress shirts. There is a company that sells them in eight packs, at the lowest price on the market per unit. This is the same principle as the swat caps. I need to cover sartorial needs once and for all. Soon, I will have enough swat caps to cover the bald spot on the back of my head, until natural causes, misadventure or apocolypse ends need for duds. Will be doing the same thing with blue jeans, but not right away. I'm still working on accessories. Doubt I will have to buy another neck tie.

Anyway, the goal is to establish a simple wardrobe, then never shop for clothing, of any kind, again. Though still mortal, I seek shopping death. I am killing the need to buy duds. But by degrees. Death by smart shopping.

skinny jeans are desperate
It's like the hospice patient who keeps yelling, "don't turn off the light. I'll die if you turn off the light."

For some reason, nurses often flick off the over head bulb, and the patient buys the business. Too bad. It was inevitable. But he or she might have hung in an hour longer.

It's that pathetic when people wear their 'skinny' jeans, like they won't begin gaining weight, as long as they wear the magic pants.

I'll lead, I'm strong, I've been through this. Hold my hand if you feel queezy. Size thirty. Soon as I pull them off, it feels like gobs of fat are traveling from the Milky Way to my ass. 



Soon, I'm prepared to
outfit a band of stooges with dark, frightening beanies. It's the era of self-appointment. Free range brown shirt action. I've decided to be a culture nazi.

I'm building a puppet theater.
 

Saturday, September 7, 2013

two readings



Been narrowing things down lately, then I'm gonna fan back out.   The project called 'The Not-Too-Social Hour is still in the work, but for now, it's mostly short poetry and prose readings on youtube.   Grooveth.



Haven't been doing squat on Facebook. Tired of opprobrium.  Eeeek.  But will resume silly stuff soon.

One more announcement:   Black and white acrylic paint on heavy paper, ready to hang on your lovely walls, at affordable social artist direct to you prices.  Also have wood sculptures available, found object pieces, much orgiastic joy of creative spirit.

Dollar Store Theater