the summer of the wham-o!

it was a sunny summer day...we were throwing the frisbee around, dreaming of better things...we were speaking of true existence..."i don't know why i am running around this place"..."of course you don't, this place doesn't exist", i thought as the red spiral flew back and forth... i remembered sitting in advanced placement history, my favourite class...but even there, something was missing...i would stare out of the window, up towards the hi-way and wish i was there, going, moving, traveling...anywhere but here...inside, the talk was about taft getting stuck in a bathtub, and churchill meeting roosevelt in his birthday suit...what was real to me was the road...the endless movement, away from desks with their obscene captions carved in ivory...and i thought back to frisbee throwing afternoons...with my good and trusted friend...telling me it is all about the flotation, about letting it all disappear into the blue sky...about listening to the allman brothers on a saturday afternoon...i understood...i believed...and as i glanced one more time at the saucer...it read, "let yourself go"...damn the answer was everywhere...even on that cheap piece of plastic...

a night at the station

sunday was a lovely night...a little cool but i could stomach it basking in the warm embers of music and friends...but as the embers died and night grew darker things changed...i walked into the station and looked at the big crackling board, forever shifting times and places...seeming random but knowingly in control...i realized that i had a while to wait, so i sat crosslegged by the wall across from metal seats filled to the brim with travelers, and watched the dark show put before me...it started with some shouting...one strange individual, for no reason that i could discern, began screaming at a fellow sitting before him...incessantly berating him, "c'mon mutherfucker! why don't you get up and fight me...you piece of shit get up and fight...fucking pussy get up and fight"...and on and on with the same remarks ad infinitum while the focus of his rage sat silent and still, looking up at, and right through the madman...after awhile the man rose, and instead of walking away decided to fight the madman...they danced around like two old and slow sparring partners, all the while the berater still berating, and the beratee still silent and clownishly mocking the madman...a few punches were thrown, but nothing serious, and then once again the fellow sat down...i thought maybe the incident was over, and i could go back to listening to the muzak pump 'the rising of the moon' through the cavernous hall...this was not the case...once again the yelling began and with even greater fury...the needle on the record was evidently stuck on keywords like "mutherfucker, cocksucker, shithead"...i decided to focus on the other side of the station where a couple was having what i thought was a fight...however, maybe it was simply foreplay, because the tone and volume were not at peak levels...they both had eastern european accents and the fellow did most of the talking, "you are nothing but a worthless piece of trash, you slut you would be nothing without me, i should beat the shit out of you in front of all these people you whore"...and she would reply in an equally strong accent, "fuck you, i don't need you, you don't even have the guts to beat me, you weak slimy shit, you aren't even a man"..."i'm not a man, let me hear you say that after i've beaten you to a bloody pulp you dirty whore"...well you get the idea...i was surrounded by anger...normally this might affect me more, but on that night i just stared at the endless tiled floors stretching onto the infinite tracks...and in the trance inducing atmosphere of the station i rose from that place, and left the dirt and the grime of the world of shadows behind...i thought back to the earlier bliss of the evening and remembered the minstrel's words..."we walked him to the station in the rain, we kissed him as we put him on the train, and we sang him a song of times long gone, though we knew that we'd be seeing him again"....

the outlaw blues

realization emanates from the outlaws, from the shadows at the edge of existence...did you ever see the 'holy see' do anything but cover up an abuse scandal...did you ever witness a boy scout leader as anything other than a pillar or a deviant...of course not, because nothing important ever comes from these people...they have plastic on their couches and furniture from the time of louie the fourteenth...when i was younger i was over at an acquaintance's house and sat in a chair to tie my shoes, his parents lost it...what? i thought, do they have a problem with shoe tying?...of course this was not the case, the worry was about the couch...why care about the boy...the couch damnit!...that is where the fear lies...appearance is important, standing and rank...bank accounts...but when the starlight hits them, when night becomes day, the twilight, the morning sun...when it penetrates, the truth is told...their dusty bones revealed, their rotting flesh exposed...their organs, cooked in the dirty texas sun...the buzzards will get you too...and as the outlaws live behind bars, so do the moneyed savages...one set of bars to keep 'em out, the other to keep 'em in...in the end we all eat, we all shit, and we all die...and although you might think the grass is greener on the hill, in reality the indivisible sun roasts us all...the forest is burning and the desert is at your door...

floods of boredom

"i wish that you were here with me to pass the dull weekend, i know it wouldn't come to love my heroine pretend"...i have been walking around in a daze for at least a week...i can truly understand the relativity of time when i am in this state...everything melts away and i am left with nothing...it is quiet today and unseasonably warm...that is nice, but that is about all that is nice about the day...the hours and days speed passed and i dont feel any older, except when my body chimes in with a new sickness, ache, or pain...i try to get lost in things, like baseball games, or long lonely walks, in order to forget for just a little while longer...i am afraid when the time comes to finally start anew somewhere else, that i will not be able to let go of this stinking pile of crap of a life...i will not be able to let go of the bombing, and the suffering, of the hatred, and the plagues of this world...and consequently will be pulled back into another life of this constant repetition and boredom...have you ever had a religious experience that led nowhere but the realization of constant boredom...a boredom so all pervading that even while you were having the religious experience you were bored...well, it has happened to me...i wonder if this mass suffering bothers anyone else...people seem to revel in it, to wallow in the darkest corners of human behaviour...to feed off it...sure, maybe if someone was going to kill me, i would kill them...i don't know, it hasn't happened yet...but self defence is the least of the darkness that occurs on this planet, and all of it is supported and heralded by one side or another...i know that this is how it is and how it was and will be, but it seems as if we could of done better than this...owell, i guess you can see that my dark cynicism is simply romanticism plus reality...sometimes though it just makes me sick, seeing only an endless night...the kind of night i used to have in new orleans before the epic floods...laying in bed, sweating through the sheets, nearly swimming in the humidity...with no hope of sleep, no hope of morning, and surrounded by the madness, shadows, and sounds of a doomed and haunted city...

another dream mr. smith?

heading off to dreamland last night after the academy awards was as simple as any other night...except in the quiet hours of r.e.m. sleep i dreamed i was strangling george clooney...i do not have an opinion of george, he is just another smiling face in hollywood as far as i am concerned...but in the dream i could feel every aspect of the strangulation...i could feel my hands growing tighter and tighter upon his neck, and the crushing of his larynx...the gasping and subtle destruction of his life was of no interest...and i felt nothing emotionally...it was simply an action and his was a reaction...i left him for dead and the dream continued without incident until i tried to dispose of the body and saw him comically running and jumping into a lake in the back of the house with a dog...a golden retriever i believe...and swimming for his life...it was hysterical...i guess even in my most maniacal dreams i am incapable of murder (only attempted murder)...i awoke with one sliver of sun conveniently placed on my eyes...the one inch the shade would not catch...and it struck me, woke me, annoyed me...i sat up and put on a chain with the virgin mary on it...i was rummaging through my grandparents' old house this weekend and found it...it was my grandfather's and since he was gone goodbye i figured he would not mind me taking it and wearing it...although i am no believer in organized religion, especially the biggies...i have always loved the virgin mary...i do not believe the virgin part, but it has been a couple thousand years so i am willing to let the myth slide...i guess all i am trying to say is that if you can't trust mary, who can you trust...so i like her and that is that...just another good soul, traveling in the moonlight, giving birth in a stable...like most of us, she didn't ask for any of it...it was what it is...

down the tracks to nowhere

i grew up by the train tracks...no, not on the other side of the tracks, and not so close that every time the old engine passed it shook the trees and rattled the walls...but close enough that when that lonesome whistle blew, it shook me to my very soul...maybe that is why i love trains and train travel...the whistle, like the lone wolf's call, with its approaching freight, felt like a hurricane rumbling into town...i used to walk the tracks often...even as a kid i realized that no one would bother me on the tracks...the tracks, more solitary than a country road, lent me peace...i had only the ties, miles, and steel rails swimming in the summer heat for comfort...now that i think about it, there was a dreaminess to summer on the tracks with the heat waves rising slow...as seventh graders we used to have a club dedicated to trains...the intention was to walk through a tunnel on the edge of town...it never happened until college when a member of this train society and yours truly finally decided to take the leap...it was a great day, the sun hot and the tunnel cool and dark...and even with college age bravery, it took courage with every movement, to reach for the unknown...inch by inch, back through time, to the days of our infant youth, we walked...with every step we could hear the water seeping and dripping, and see the solitary light on the other end...we remembered and regressed without a word...in every cold dark move toward the light, we became our fundamental selves...and finally after much exertion, we arrived at the tunnel's end which in the past was never seen, but always imagined...at that moment there was a solemn melancholy that pervaded the scene...we had made it to the other side of the tunnel, but as we looked around we realized, it was nothing more than what we had left behind...and as we looked at each other and looked back at the distant light from where we had came, we understood...the journey lead nowhere, and we still had to return home, and walk through the tunnel once more...