i blame my hangovers on el nino
i blame my tired eyes on the sun
the flights of seagulls keep me pasted to the sand
the tv is a shimmering demon, desperate for my love
i took a hit and it took me two hours to find the courage
to hold your hand again
People trying to sell me shit on every channel. Man, people know what they want, they don't need someone to tell them. Are there any people more narrow-minded than the 'bots that produce the info-mercials that dominate late night television. Doesn't anyone realize that that's when people need to see good programming the most, in those last desperate hours before sleep and oblivion. Sheryl Crow has great legs. Sometimes I lose my self-confidence. It helps to rebuild me when I remember that I am a Tool fan. Strange as it sounds, just thinking how I identify with the band and how I have the capacity to appreciate them helps me remind me of who I am. Cats is still at the Winter Garden Theater. In a reading Bukowski gave he says "The trouble with these people is that their cities have never been bombed and their mother's have never been told to shut up" I feel like those are the same people who design these info-shits. I'm writing on a pad right now, drinking Southern Comfort and Pepsi in front of the tv and writing on a tiny pad., and I realized I need bigger paper. Every time I turn the page to a new, blank space, I get intimidated. That happens anyway, but it happens with alarming frequency on such a small pad. Taking that idea farther or further or fuck her, maybe I should get 10' x 10 ' canvas and spill out the words in big splashes, building one upon another to create fantastic waves of sentiment and drama. Remember airplane art, with the jet engines and the big sheets and people paying 1000's of dollars for a sheet with some paint splashed on it and why not me it would get me out of these fucking inspection tickets on my car and fill my life. 2 bad things are happening I am down to the last drops of SoCo and also at the end of another page. Goddammit, it really is an obstacle because if the words aren't already there I can't make a good bridge to the next page. Christie Brinkley isn't fooling anyone with that exercise thing-a-ma-jig bullshit. I am sitting here exhausting my options, as one of the Baldwin Bros. bangs two Blondes on USA network. USA, huh? My ass. USA is driving trucks, drinking beer, wearing flannel shirts and "owning" guns. I don't want to just maintain in some fucking atheistic bullshit melodrama of a life. You can never really get away from what you've done. I can't see myself just going to bed. I can't remember the last time I just went to bed. The "Biography" of the year is on Lady Di and killer Dennis Nilsen is on another channel talking about how he had to pull up the floorboards in his kitchen to remove the bodies of his victims when the weather got warm and they stank. And how am I going to get this candle-wax off of the coffee table? You can never really get away from what you've done. They are showing "Save the Children" commercials in the middle of a special on the Minds of Serial Killers. They? We. Us. Me. "No one is innocent."
So why is it that I can't walk down the goddamn street without being literally friggin' fascinated by someone. Just looking at people, the way they are dressed, the expressions on their faces, the manner in which they carry themselves. It get so gripped by it. I am constantly making up little nicknames for people (Sports-boy, non-confrontational man, geeker, miserable little dwarf, bizzaro) that are generated by the impression they give me in a split second. They aren't all negative.
I can't stop analyzing someone once they catch my interest. I was downstairs in the little take-out place in my building, and there was this guy sitting on a stool waiting for his order. He just struck me as being so overwhelmingly PASSIVE. Timid, but not like a deer (poised and tense, every muscle ready for flight). A slippery kind of timid, like if I was to try and put my finger on his forehead he would sort of jelly-up and melt and slide out of my reach, whimpering and breathing heavily. I was tempted to just jump at him and shout "GET OUTTA HERE!" I really think he would have flown out the door, probably through it. He almost fell off his chair when they called out his order. It would take a second to beat him in a staring contest. Yeah, he was a wimp, soft and meek, so what, I know, but it's more than that to me. It's not about a feeling of superiority. I want to understand him. What the hell is he thinking, that he gives off this aura of passivity? How the hell does he get anything done ? He probably goes to 24 hour supermarkets in the middle of the night to shop unmolested by the eyes of others (like mine). Maybe he gets his food delivered, always the same guy from the same place, but he is still nervous when the bell rings, still hesitant counting out the money. Absolutely agonizing over how much to tip and usually tipping too much.
Maybe his relationships have been brief and clumsy, too intimidated to speak his mind or his heart. Such frustration he would feel, at times so much that he actually does something, puts his foot down in some way. Attempts to have some kind of impact. Maybe it was just a word, a gesture, maybe a touch. (I'm reminded of so many movies, where the ordinarily good hearted half-wit rapes the beautiful young girl, out of confusion and a surge of repressed emotion and sexual energy, or Lenny in Of Mice and Men) And then later on, more agonizing, paranoia, what have I done? All the while just trying to be known by someone, to be understood.
But how can you show someone who you are when what you are is a jellyfish ? I would try and understand him, I would listen, but I don't think he would ever have the capacity to tell me. This man is in his mid '30's, I guess, and the pieces of his personality are too firmly set in place. The where-with-all to relate to someone from a perspective other than this abject passivity isn't there.
Is he one of those people that quietly off themselves in some uptown apt. ? He kept to himself. He didn't get out much. He didn't have many friendships (and those he had were incomplete, lacking a depth of understanding due to the deficits in his abilities to be understood). He was a good worker. Never missed a day and all that kinda shit. Is that who I am looking at ?
I'm staring at this man, searching his face for some answers to these questions. (And I am silently pleading for him to say "What the fuck are you staring at ?") I'm accenting his nervousness and most likely pushing him deeper into the hole he is hiding from the world in. With a nervous patter he is out the door, head down and walking quickly away from the restaurant. Then he is gone. Leaving me with all these questions and some lo mein with too many bean sprouts.
The perfect morning
for sleeping in.
Grey and cool, a quiet house.
And I have no trouble
picturing you.
Your face, half under the covers.
Your hair spread out on the pillow
behind your head.
I see the bend of your knees.
And your arms pulled into your chest,
your hands close to your mouth.
I hear the slow, soft, steady rhythm
of your breathing.
Most of all
I feel the warmth of your body,
contained under your blanket,
held tightly in my mind.
or, to go another way...
my fist feels fucking fabulous
my hand heavy, hard and huge
and i can see everything
smashing to pieces around me
under lights the vivid colors
of my disease
Ron, leaning on me drunkenly on the subway
(we have been drinking for hours)
and I tolerate it
I actually offer my shoulder to him
In the haze
And he, child-like, resists, so I force him
Then he is asleep
Quickly and heavily
Leaving me to wonder
At my tolerance
And then he is up
Puking between the cars
i have the drugs
and i know the short-cuts.
i can get us lost real fast
right where we want to be.
it's a piece of cake.