Space Bomb

Here's a pic of me in 1964 in the little car my dad built from a bomb he said he found on some island in the Pacific in WWII. I think he really bought it at the Navy surplus store. I raced it in the soapbox derby, came in third. It was after the race he said to me, do you know what a sociopath is son? Having not won I'd thrown a tantrum. No, I said.

Here's the thing, he said, (he often began his father/son talks with here's the thing) you can't win 'em all. He then got that wistful look on his face. And as we were putting the bomb-car in the back of the truck he said, you will get on pot, take up guitar, and have girls following you around. This will spoil you. Some years later, you'll be hanging out on street corners with bebop musicians. This will spoil you too, but you won't know it. You won't know anything at all till you're 50 or so, and then it will be too late. You won't know it's too late becuase you'll be off dope by then and on something else. You'll be a born-again Christian or a Buddhist. That's a sociopath.

We were in the truck and driving back. Are you a sociopath, I said. Yes, Daddy's a sociopath. Everyone's a sociopath. I laughed, we were laughing. We pulled into a burger joint. A girl on roller skates skated over, took our orders.

reversible bubble coat

Day three of four day weekend. Not much. Had some plans, but lazy. Geminid Meteor Watch. Tiger Woods. Need new vacuum cleaner. Go to new indie bookstore, midtown Fist City. Hello. Hiya. Local author section? Sure, okay. Me too. Really? Yup. Bring some over. Okay. This is nice. What? Bought some used furniture here. Used to be used furniture store.


That hard winter they came down Green St with blow horns, 2AM. YOU MUST CLEAR THE STREET OF ALL VEHICLES FOR PLOWS. IF YOU DO NOT, THEY WILL BE TOWED. All the neighbors come out with their shovels. Dig, push each other out, 2AM. Groggy. Some huckster charging for a shovel and push. No. We pile our cars in cleared pkng lot some blocks away. Walk back, groggy, defeated. When I go to midtown I see this. I see the pretty woman my age I left standing on the corner. I'm swinging a wine bottle. I'm bent beyond recognition.

This is really unprofessional

When I first logged on today, I hit the link to this site and it came up Error 999, and I felt momentary panic immediately followed by a sense of relief with the thought my blog was hacked and everything was gone.
It was not, just some browser thing.
I did outright delete this blog some months back, but blogger has this thing, you can retrieve it.
So I did.
I did delete my MySpace New Left site a while back, and nobody noticed.
I recently deleted a bunch of facebook friends, who probably didn't notice either. If you're on facebook, you can do this too, it's fun, and nobody really dies.
On leaving work, I went to put air in my tires (the one was low, ding a rim low), and it was cold and just this black hoodie and 75 cents for 3 minutes of air and the whole row of stores behind gas station on 29th vacant now. Owners from middle east, somewhere, and none too friendly. I first went to 7-11, but their air machine fucked, and they tore the gas pumps out there recently. 7-11 people from middle east also, but more friendly.
Are they tunneling under the city like Vietcong.
Should I build a tunnel or bomb shelter.
I did not check tires with gauge, just kicked them till they seemed right.
A kid watched me from a car her mother was gassing.
I went in for cigs (I know I should quit), and a black woman with blonde hair came in. Not ghetto. Does it seem racist to say I know the difference. Would it seem racist if she viewed me as white trash in my black hoodie, with 3-day stubble. What about the middle east people, looking at us, coming and going for gas, cigs.
Not many white people go there, like none.
On arriving home I notice how my clothes smell, because I haven't smoked all day.
My clothes smell, I smell like the solvent I use to wash ink off the press I run.
It's a shitty damn smell to have to breathe in all day.
To follow you home.
I'm still wearing this stuff.

Non-update

Amazon is selling Dollhouse for $2.77. So if you've been on the fence about buying it, here's your chance. Of course, I'd prefer you bought it directly from Thieves Jargon Press, but holy hell, $2.77 is a pretty good deal. I'm kinda like, fuck Amazon for that, and wondering about the profit margin, but I guess I don't care. The book came out in 2007 to good sales, as far as indie publishing goes, but sales have dropped off in the last year.

There's an illusion people have about being published. You prolly know some people who say, "One day I'll write a book." In their minds is sitting on the couch Tom jumped on Oprah. It's more like a delusion. Yes, I've had it too. I admit it. It sometimes happens to people; they have the right book at the right time and all hell breaks loose. There's something else too, with musicians. You know, everything is clicking, then they go into the studio to record a record. (This is an old joke with longtime musicians, how the record broke up the band.) This happens with writers also. Everything is fine, just fine, just writing along, some people digging it, then the book comes out and all a sudden there's readings to do, marketing strategies, paperwork - yeah, all the shit you hate about the world of commerce, the shit that made you wanna spill your guts on the written page, and now you're doing it.

Disclaimer: This is in no way a gripe about people who have published my work. I'm grateful they found value in what I was writing, and for their efforts. I wish I were a better writer, moreso, a better promoter.

So I was saying. All a sudden you're not writing, you're marketing, or you have some ridiculous blog with autobiographical posts, and the ocassional obscure poem, or emotional outburst. (See below)
I once worked with a guy. You know how people are in workplace, talking about people who have worked there, still work there, the shit that goes on. He was one of those "one day I'll write a book about this" people, and keeping that in his head grounded him somehow. I'm not being condecending about him, I think it's good. Anything one can do to keep themselves out of the everyday rabble and negative things is good. I doubt he ever called himself on the writing a book thing. Sometimes it's better to have some illusion, some promise hanging in one's head, than to actually dive into it.

That said, I'm not sorry I dove in.

I was looking at this today.

authentic shrunken santa head

what is this shit abt
doppelgangers
& archangels
edges scraped off
rectangular head
o, the days
tragic, fractured
humble, archaic
humorous
bubble of sky
drip slow
awkward
movements a
puff of air=
1,000 years
of broken bones
war to war in
endless
slapstick

Sawing heads off zombies & vomiting down their necks

Smurf in front of craft store ringing Xmas bell
pulls out Kalashnikov, mows down several consumers,

gets taken down by half-wit janitor just on his
way into mall.

We are coming down the mountain with canaries
in cages, JFK dead in back seat.

My sisters play canasta in the kitchen
with my mother, who is making dinner.

I feel a calm hand on my chest that is
not actually there.

Brains!

Right shoulder ache.
All day.
Ache runs up right side of
neck, like there's some
mutation there. Think
there's some gland there
& think abt it in sci-fi
manner. Did you ever see
that movie. The Manitou.
Hell funny. It's not that,
I'm sure. It's from work
I do with right arm. The
hanging of plates & cleaning,
all right arm things.
But imagine some mass
mutation. It begins with
some stress, then people
saying to each other, I
don't feel quite right.
Maybe they don't say anything.
Maybe you're just in your
cube, not paying a whole
lot of attention to what's
going on around you, feeling
a little flakey, then the
walls torn down in co-
worker riot. Boss flopping
on floor & shaman bursting
from his neck. Short little
shaman, like a lawn dwarf,
eats bosses brain, jumps up
on desk. Do not look in his
eyes. Or blood-red spot in
forehead, that's a wormhole.
Say, oh, it's the transfiguration
of the species, & have a little
snack. Wait. Hide. Because we did
not come here to save you, we came
here to eat you.

Trouble

I got my first apartment when I was 31. Sure, there had been other places, but this is not about that. This is not about shared apartments or rooming houses. Or my last months in NYC living in a rehearsal room south of Times Sq. And this post, as well as many of the others is not about not being able to write anything of merit. Of opening a word doc and everything I type in it seems contrived. And when I write in here I do not feel that, because it really doesn't matter what I type in here, it's just a notebook or something, and I feel no motivation to send anything to any lit-zines anymore anyway, and there's no personal axe to grind with any specific person per that, just some tiresome disinterest.
No.
This is about a place. It's a bit of a cartoon actually.
I was mid-way through the wandering years. I once counted all the places I'd lived in between 1985-1993. Uh, 15 or so. I think. For a while there, I never unpacked, even if there was someplace to stow my clothes and stuff.
This place was all my own. A big one bedroom apartment.
This is about the blues.
See, the final version of New Left broke up a year earlier, and good riddance. Dunno what I was thinking. Like I could re-create some spark with new players. In hindsight it was dumb, but I had to try. Just had to.
So, the blues. Once in my own apartment, got on this blues kick. Dunno why. Blame a woman. That's it. I'm just saying that's what it usually is. I found Robert Johnson and Leadbelly. I went to learning the open tunings on guitar, figuring out their songs. The people from the bar would come over and we'd pass around the guitar, but it was mostly me playing. We were all dumb-assed poor, no cars, some dumb job to go to during the day. I really don't know what they did, they just came over and we'd drink into the night, smoke weed.
The big apartment spooked me. I didn't want to fill it with stuff like people do.
When the smaller apartment upstairs became vacant, I moved up there.
Cheaper. Someone was throwing out a sofa on bulk trash pick-up day, I dragged it up there. I bought some 2nd hand tables and stuff from the thrift store. I had a sleeping bag to sleep on, hell, I still don't own a proper bed.
I liked that I was still moving, even if it was just upstairs.
I didn't feel "crazy."
And the drunks still came over.
And Frank moved into the apt I'd vacated.
Frank was older, drove a taxi, part-time junkie, and guitar player. He turned me onto Howlin' Wolf. He showed me some open tunings I didn't know. He saw me for what I was and am, someone who liked a real story, told some tales. Of living in NYC in the 60's, hanging out with Jimi Hendrix. Frank knew Bo Diddley too. Oh, Mike and Linda showed up around this time, just as strung out as I was when I left NYC.
I guess it was Mike who introduced me to Frank, as Mike got a job driving cab, that's where he met Frank.
Come to think of it, it was Mike who told Frank about the apartment I'd vacated.
Oh, wait - I'm cooking dinner...
So some odd circle of friends. I didn't realize till later Mike and Linda were still chipping with Frank. If you don't know, "chipping" is still messing with junk, but not enough to get addicted. I mean I think they were, knew Frank was.
Frank was getting over something too. A failed marriage. He was feeling old. He loaned me some records, and I loaned him my 12-string. He really liked that guitar. When I gave back his records he asked if he could keep the 12-string for a while longer. Sure, I told him. I was on something new anyway, blowing blues harps with pick-up band uptown.
I'd get off work, ride my bike home, go to the bar, pile down beers, then ride my bike uptown. I think it was winter. It was. And riding back after playing cold as all hell. And riding back uptown the next morning to work. There was 4 years of this, riding a bicycle everywhere. Miles. Through everything.
And one day Frank was just gone. I heard he moved to Portland OR.
He took my 12-string with him.