You drove into the ocean
and hollered on your cell phone
it was three thirty in the morning
when I got to hear you drown
I was better than that
than last minute confessions
you made me your vomit bag
you made yourself a clown
9/18/2005
9/16/2005
Saw the slow men in the community centre, it was an eyeopener, so little hope and so much madness, what heroes are there among the most hopeless. Fresh heroes minted in every tragedy. Suffer and grow, and now you know. Obstacles being what you see when you take your eyes off goals, and these boys and girls had obstacles, but goddammit when there is a dream to make it to
9/15/2005
More names to be used in upcoming FIAC short stories
(the names drive the stories, see)
- Fopzilla von Steinmetz (and her pet fish Znoosle, the Curmudgeonly Coelacanth)
- Corporal Nar-Nar McMalady (who suffers from horrendous toenail clacking)
- Kyle Oswald Destructo (and his Intrepid Piss-Drunk Legionnaires)
- Ms. Norma Charles ScoopCoop aka 'La Grande Coccodrilla'
- Googa Manthumper (and her lesbian lover Violencia DeSuavia)
- Giacomini-Gerrardo Carstairs Gabrielle, curator of the Museum for Unimportant Things
- Damian Crump aka the Grump
- Hoosha Flutterbug, photojournalist extraordinaire
- Todd Blarney , one-armed Irish tour guide with false teeth
- Hamish Goldfarb-Yokahama, the Scottish-Japanese Israeli
- ... I could go on...
9/14/2005
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Ever-ready and waiting in the mist, there is the historical coughing fit, Athanasius, the great defender of the faith, dead set against Arianism ,preaching truths as he saw it, favouring the emperor who would not do it. I must organize another onslaught I must attempt the gunshot, I need more cold showers keep my power under wraps play taps upon the piano and rag rag rag again with my raggedy keyboard knees, say cheese and freeze yourself temporarily--but theoretically eternally--with the button of a digital camera
9/13/2005
The Extraordinary Sloggings of Gunther Glock
(to be edited over the next day or so -see it now in all its raw and awful ignominy)
The Extraordinary Sloggings of Gunther Glock
It was half past seven, the barges were tooting and the shipsmen were gathering at the docks to begin unloading the asparagus shipment. Gunther Glock had been out of work for 7 months, and it was his first day at the pier. He wondered how bad 600 tonnes of asparagus would stink. The sun was shining and the breeze was stiff and cool.
“Twenty-three ships,” cried the foreman, “a new record for asparagus!” The barges were creaking and banging into one another at the edge of the docks. Huzzahs went up from the dockworkers – they were proud to be among the elite in vegetable commerce. Gunther was impressed; he was in good company, and finally in the midst of better luck. “Tonight,” he said to himself, “I shall provide asparagus burgers for the entire house."
Glock, with his heart of gold, was a bit of a doofus. He often shook his fist at the common folk, and yet he was no better than a magician or a breeder of condors, which in his country-Pawtucket, Massachusetts-was not a noble profession. He hadn’t wanted to work at all, yet now he found himself dealing with the biggest asparagus shipment in the world. He hoped it was destiny, not just a come-by-chance greenery.
Eight hours of slogging flew by; the asparagus stank not as bad as he feared and Gunther Glock went home that day and to his family, who were overjoyed. Little Tessa, his daughter who had polio, was able to walk again in sheer joy at the food bits tendered forth from Gunther’s proud arms. Gunther had a newfound respect for work ethic.
The next day Gunther was excited to surpass his previous day on the job hauling asparagus. What a surprise then, when the ship came in full not of asparagus but flax seed! It was unexpected, but Gunther Glock was nothing if not adaptable. "This is what happens in a global society: capital and production shift by the hour.” Gunther Glock had read The Economist and he was acquainted with theories that bore nothing in common with reality and economists no better than common astrologers, making predictions based on the vagaries not of birds and stars but on nonsensical money market fluctuations and other exchange mechanisms producing inflation but very little real wealth. “How great it would have been to have traded in securities," cried Gunther. But today at least he would have to content himself with flax seed.
Flax does not a tasty burger make, and Little Tessa did not dance upon Gunther’s return that evening. “I promise, my young one,” promised Gunther, “I will cure your polio." And she looked at him. He continued, "For I have heard there is a vaccine.” Now Gunther did not often call upon physicians, because he was proud and he thought Tessa would get better if she just did more homework and sat up straight at the dinner table (Tess’s table manners were atrocious). But life at the dockyard has reduced Gunther's pride; he saw beyond his own foibles and decided to contact a physician.
Dr Morgan Busybody was a very busy physician, and he took care of the staff of Coca-Cola Incorporated. They called him a 'fizzician' which is a poor joke, or should I say coke. Dr. Busybody wanted desperately to see Tessa, because he was convinced polio was making a big pathological comeback; Tessa could be his guinea pig for a new treatment that would render the old vaccines obsolete, and the Busybody Solution would have to be adopted by the Medical Association. “Little Tessa will dance again,” said Busybody in a meeting with Glock. Glock was worried: would Busybody, a busy man, respect him - a mere hauler of flax seed?
“Calm yourself my friend," said Busybody, "for I have taken the Hippocratic Oath, and that means every patient is like a jewel, and I will polish Little Tessa until she shines, and dances like somebody who never had polio in the first place.”
Glock went home and told Little Tessa all that had been promised. All she wanted was an asparagus sandwich; Glock pulled out a flax burger, and Tessa was so disappointed she collapsed to the floor, twitching with polio.
For an entire week Glock slogged at the shipyards. In came bauxite in boxes, and it was moved by Glock and his coworkers sweating beneath the port’s stiff humid air. There was zinc by the barrelful, and much uranium, which was dangerous to handle. Glock kept a smile on his face, thinking how his wages would go toward the good doctor’s cure. He happily smiled even when a crates of rhubarb came crashing down beside him, pratically smushing his foot. A crane collapsed with seven men stuck inside; the entire rig fell into the water and all the men drowned. Glock was frightened at how the workers were treated. He feared an accident on the job. If he got hurt he would be unable to cure Little Tessa, for his wages and burgers were essential. Glock's colleagues sensed he was a leader and they wanted him to stand up to management for them. But Glock was not inclined to become a unionist.
But management heard rumblings of dissent and a very stern word was put out.
“There shall not be any gatherings or meeting of workers on company property after the yards are closed down," read a sign posted by the foreman. The management foreman was Wallins McSmashmouth.
McSmashmouth was an aging ex-mariner who had a leg bitten off by a hippopotamus in the Congo river. He was working for the Farming Port Contingency – the trade name of Glock’s firm - but he longed to be back on the ships. He took out his frustrations on the workers, who in secret called him 'Wantins to McSmashhisfacein'. The hippo’s bite seemed to have been infectious, for McSmashmouth was every bit as ornery and rumbling as the river horse what had felled him. Gunther Glock was deferential in most matters with management, but it seemed he could not avoid getting tripped up in controversy with this quarrelsome amputee.
“Mr Glock,” cried the foreman one day in the dock kitchen – and it was looking like a deliberate public confrontation – “you like to stir up trouble, don’t you?” And the workers looked up at the unfolding scene. Glock was taken by surprise. Continued McSmashmouth, “we don’t need trouble Glock; nobody does. Nobody ought to put it with it, And nobody here will. No sir, no trouble.” Now Glock had a mouthful of string beans. He took a glass of water and put it back, trying to swallow. “You know Glock, you have the promise of a a good worker. It seems you really enjoy this job, moving bauxite and flax seed and asparagus – let’s not forget that delicious asparagus...” Glock had trouble swallowing. He asked for more water. “… and Lord knows it must be hard take care of an unwell daughter..." Now Glock was choking. “Quiet today, aren’t you Glock?” Gunther Glock knocked over the chair and made a 'Heimlich gesture'. “Well well, run along then. Have a good one. We’re all watching you Glock."
Glock awoke in the infirmary. It was worse than a polio attack: he had choked on a dozen stringbeans and the glass of water had not helped. There was also the matter of his public dressing-down by MCSmashmouth, but that embarrassment would hit later. The nurses had put an ice-pack on his fingers and shoved a popsicle down his throat. the staff also removed his wristwatch and had attached it to a respirator. He asked "What time is it?" and he pointed to his watch. “Or should I say, is there any hope for my watch?” The nurses diffused his fears. “We simply put your watch there to amuse the children watching at home, Mr. Glock. “Smile, you're on reality television!” And Glock stared at the camera dangling before him. “This is how hospitals must raise money these days,” said the nurse, "it’s a very lucrative concept, and our ratings are through the roof!” Glock tried to smile, but he was also thinking he should get back to work. “Can I have my clothes back, ma’am? I must go unload the crates of figs.” The nurse smiled, “Sure thing Mr. Glock, we’ve put a chip in your brain to track you, so if there’s any problems we’ll know about it.” That was very considerate of them, thought Glock, though perhaps irksome they had not consulted with him first, - but then again the medical field had its ways. “Thank you," said Glock, "it’s better than a chip on my shoulder,” and they both laughed. Glock had a lame sense of humour. He wondered whether the transistor in his brain would set off metal detectors, but decided it was best not to think about it, which in itself is ironic.
Boxes and crates had to be unloaded in a hurry. Because of his choking fit Glock was behind schedule and he had to make up time. That night he went home more exhausted than usual. Little Tessa was not well at all. She was upset about her continuing polio and also a poor grade she had received in gym class. “Teacher says kids with polio can’t play volleyvball,” she explained through tears, “but I tried to play anyway and kept getting tripeed up.” She cried in Glock’s arms. Life was never easy.
The next day there was more confrontation with the foreman. “Glock” he cried on the docks, shoving a page in our hero’s face. “What is the meaning of this report? Your brain transistor has cost us half a fortune!" McSmashmouth showed Glock an invoice for $900 for a brain implant. "It’s coming out of your paycheque. Hope you’re happy working like a slave this week... And don’t think I don’t know about you trying to organizing the men afterhours at Stoolie’s bar."
Stoolie's was a hangout for the dockworkers, it was a diner greasy place with a lot of scum underneath the linoleum tables.
The Extraordinary Sloggings of Gunther Glock
It was half past seven, the barges were tooting and the shipsmen were gathering at the docks to begin unloading the asparagus shipment. Gunther Glock had been out of work for 7 months, and it was his first day at the pier. He wondered how bad 600 tonnes of asparagus would stink. The sun was shining and the breeze was stiff and cool.
“Twenty-three ships,” cried the foreman, “a new record for asparagus!” The barges were creaking and banging into one another at the edge of the docks. Huzzahs went up from the dockworkers – they were proud to be among the elite in vegetable commerce. Gunther was impressed; he was in good company, and finally in the midst of better luck. “Tonight,” he said to himself, “I shall provide asparagus burgers for the entire house."
Glock, with his heart of gold, was a bit of a doofus. He often shook his fist at the common folk, and yet he was no better than a magician or a breeder of condors, which in his country-Pawtucket, Massachusetts-was not a noble profession. He hadn’t wanted to work at all, yet now he found himself dealing with the biggest asparagus shipment in the world. He hoped it was destiny, not just a come-by-chance greenery.
Eight hours of slogging flew by; the asparagus stank not as bad as he feared and Gunther Glock went home that day and to his family, who were overjoyed. Little Tessa, his daughter who had polio, was able to walk again in sheer joy at the food bits tendered forth from Gunther’s proud arms. Gunther had a newfound respect for work ethic.
The next day Gunther was excited to surpass his previous day on the job hauling asparagus. What a surprise then, when the ship came in full not of asparagus but flax seed! It was unexpected, but Gunther Glock was nothing if not adaptable. "This is what happens in a global society: capital and production shift by the hour.” Gunther Glock had read The Economist and he was acquainted with theories that bore nothing in common with reality and economists no better than common astrologers, making predictions based on the vagaries not of birds and stars but on nonsensical money market fluctuations and other exchange mechanisms producing inflation but very little real wealth. “How great it would have been to have traded in securities," cried Gunther. But today at least he would have to content himself with flax seed.
Flax does not a tasty burger make, and Little Tessa did not dance upon Gunther’s return that evening. “I promise, my young one,” promised Gunther, “I will cure your polio." And she looked at him. He continued, "For I have heard there is a vaccine.” Now Gunther did not often call upon physicians, because he was proud and he thought Tessa would get better if she just did more homework and sat up straight at the dinner table (Tess’s table manners were atrocious). But life at the dockyard has reduced Gunther's pride; he saw beyond his own foibles and decided to contact a physician.
Dr Morgan Busybody was a very busy physician, and he took care of the staff of Coca-Cola Incorporated. They called him a 'fizzician' which is a poor joke, or should I say coke. Dr. Busybody wanted desperately to see Tessa, because he was convinced polio was making a big pathological comeback; Tessa could be his guinea pig for a new treatment that would render the old vaccines obsolete, and the Busybody Solution would have to be adopted by the Medical Association. “Little Tessa will dance again,” said Busybody in a meeting with Glock. Glock was worried: would Busybody, a busy man, respect him - a mere hauler of flax seed?
“Calm yourself my friend," said Busybody, "for I have taken the Hippocratic Oath, and that means every patient is like a jewel, and I will polish Little Tessa until she shines, and dances like somebody who never had polio in the first place.”
Glock went home and told Little Tessa all that had been promised. All she wanted was an asparagus sandwich; Glock pulled out a flax burger, and Tessa was so disappointed she collapsed to the floor, twitching with polio.
For an entire week Glock slogged at the shipyards. In came bauxite in boxes, and it was moved by Glock and his coworkers sweating beneath the port’s stiff humid air. There was zinc by the barrelful, and much uranium, which was dangerous to handle. Glock kept a smile on his face, thinking how his wages would go toward the good doctor’s cure. He happily smiled even when a crates of rhubarb came crashing down beside him, pratically smushing his foot. A crane collapsed with seven men stuck inside; the entire rig fell into the water and all the men drowned. Glock was frightened at how the workers were treated. He feared an accident on the job. If he got hurt he would be unable to cure Little Tessa, for his wages and burgers were essential. Glock's colleagues sensed he was a leader and they wanted him to stand up to management for them. But Glock was not inclined to become a unionist.
But management heard rumblings of dissent and a very stern word was put out.
“There shall not be any gatherings or meeting of workers on company property after the yards are closed down," read a sign posted by the foreman. The management foreman was Wallins McSmashmouth.
McSmashmouth was an aging ex-mariner who had a leg bitten off by a hippopotamus in the Congo river. He was working for the Farming Port Contingency – the trade name of Glock’s firm - but he longed to be back on the ships. He took out his frustrations on the workers, who in secret called him 'Wantins to McSmashhisfacein'. The hippo’s bite seemed to have been infectious, for McSmashmouth was every bit as ornery and rumbling as the river horse what had felled him. Gunther Glock was deferential in most matters with management, but it seemed he could not avoid getting tripped up in controversy with this quarrelsome amputee.
“Mr Glock,” cried the foreman one day in the dock kitchen – and it was looking like a deliberate public confrontation – “you like to stir up trouble, don’t you?” And the workers looked up at the unfolding scene. Glock was taken by surprise. Continued McSmashmouth, “we don’t need trouble Glock; nobody does. Nobody ought to put it with it, And nobody here will. No sir, no trouble.” Now Glock had a mouthful of string beans. He took a glass of water and put it back, trying to swallow. “You know Glock, you have the promise of a a good worker. It seems you really enjoy this job, moving bauxite and flax seed and asparagus – let’s not forget that delicious asparagus...” Glock had trouble swallowing. He asked for more water. “… and Lord knows it must be hard take care of an unwell daughter..." Now Glock was choking. “Quiet today, aren’t you Glock?” Gunther Glock knocked over the chair and made a 'Heimlich gesture'. “Well well, run along then. Have a good one. We’re all watching you Glock."
Glock awoke in the infirmary. It was worse than a polio attack: he had choked on a dozen stringbeans and the glass of water had not helped. There was also the matter of his public dressing-down by MCSmashmouth, but that embarrassment would hit later. The nurses had put an ice-pack on his fingers and shoved a popsicle down his throat. the staff also removed his wristwatch and had attached it to a respirator. He asked "What time is it?" and he pointed to his watch. “Or should I say, is there any hope for my watch?” The nurses diffused his fears. “We simply put your watch there to amuse the children watching at home, Mr. Glock. “Smile, you're on reality television!” And Glock stared at the camera dangling before him. “This is how hospitals must raise money these days,” said the nurse, "it’s a very lucrative concept, and our ratings are through the roof!” Glock tried to smile, but he was also thinking he should get back to work. “Can I have my clothes back, ma’am? I must go unload the crates of figs.” The nurse smiled, “Sure thing Mr. Glock, we’ve put a chip in your brain to track you, so if there’s any problems we’ll know about it.” That was very considerate of them, thought Glock, though perhaps irksome they had not consulted with him first, - but then again the medical field had its ways. “Thank you," said Glock, "it’s better than a chip on my shoulder,” and they both laughed. Glock had a lame sense of humour. He wondered whether the transistor in his brain would set off metal detectors, but decided it was best not to think about it, which in itself is ironic.
Boxes and crates had to be unloaded in a hurry. Because of his choking fit Glock was behind schedule and he had to make up time. That night he went home more exhausted than usual. Little Tessa was not well at all. She was upset about her continuing polio and also a poor grade she had received in gym class. “Teacher says kids with polio can’t play volleyvball,” she explained through tears, “but I tried to play anyway and kept getting tripeed up.” She cried in Glock’s arms. Life was never easy.
The next day there was more confrontation with the foreman. “Glock” he cried on the docks, shoving a page in our hero’s face. “What is the meaning of this report? Your brain transistor has cost us half a fortune!" McSmashmouth showed Glock an invoice for $900 for a brain implant. "It’s coming out of your paycheque. Hope you’re happy working like a slave this week... And don’t think I don’t know about you trying to organizing the men afterhours at Stoolie’s bar."
Stoolie's was a hangout for the dockworkers, it was a diner greasy place with a lot of scum underneath the linoleum tables.
9/10/2005
2pm whippersnappers
guess jube jubes in a jar
stare at her afar
wait till they close the bar
and walk her home to doorstep
leucocytes and fistfights, morbid dizzying heights of vocab flex, she had a hex for every smile, wriggled out from every hug, so cynical her nipples bled vinegar, asking - begging - to be slapped.
he was a shrivelled dink, small on think and big on blather, lathering his borrowed opinions, rinsing repetitions, dissimulation and yawning putting out his neck on a block.
Jezebel my angel hold on to your hair, look at the mirror and marvel, your wrinkles relax and your face is marble. Sparkles make you beautiful, shining in neon, done up till Sunday with bubble gum and burnt sugar... (Now Jezebel won't even blush in her rouge, and her lips were lined by a marketing stooge.)
Slucking spitting bile, reviling your guile, wittiness with acidity is so easy - but I like your shallow shivers, glassy eyes, reminds me of riverboat casino-chatter and frozen apple pies.
Pharmocology is greener and user-friendly, well-medicated in political correctness and gender-neutral nomenclature, I was trying to bake a cowperson cookie but was stampeded by reality, so I rejected tradition in its totality and flew the solipsistic skies
stare at her afar
wait till they close the bar
and walk her home to doorstep
leucocytes and fistfights, morbid dizzying heights of vocab flex, she had a hex for every smile, wriggled out from every hug, so cynical her nipples bled vinegar, asking - begging - to be slapped.
he was a shrivelled dink, small on think and big on blather, lathering his borrowed opinions, rinsing repetitions, dissimulation and yawning putting out his neck on a block.
Jezebel my angel hold on to your hair, look at the mirror and marvel, your wrinkles relax and your face is marble. Sparkles make you beautiful, shining in neon, done up till Sunday with bubble gum and burnt sugar... (Now Jezebel won't even blush in her rouge, and her lips were lined by a marketing stooge.)
Slucking spitting bile, reviling your guile, wittiness with acidity is so easy - but I like your shallow shivers, glassy eyes, reminds me of riverboat casino-chatter and frozen apple pies.
Pharmocology is greener and user-friendly, well-medicated in political correctness and gender-neutral nomenclature, I was trying to bake a cowperson cookie but was stampeded by reality, so I rejected tradition in its totality and flew the solipsistic skies
9/09/2005
fridge bits
I love mornings 6 to 8
caffeine a stop-gap measure
I don't have animosity
u seen my nephew, curly Joe?
shake dressing out of the jar
clean up toast crumbs
moist wet rag to cover scars
noah shuts eyes, awaits the flood
switching
between moments, dialogue, episodes of mash
antennae high on alien signals
asteroid shaves your cheek
do aspire to meet the president
you, mr. janitor? crucial
clone a sheep a sheep a sheep
smelling salts? wasted on sleepyheads
once I had a scooby doo lunchbox
nesting swallows in the larch
I could multiply like a computer
but Google made me obsolete
so here's my brain to the highest bidder
food stamps would suffice
imagination, quantum zaps
u heard the latest from Condi Rice?
and a dozen hellos to my sweet saviour
my roses read for you alone
eggshell-delicate, sheltered in a superdome
when you sigh I feel the hurricane
caffeine a stop-gap measure
I don't have animosity
u seen my nephew, curly Joe?
shake dressing out of the jar
clean up toast crumbs
moist wet rag to cover scars
noah shuts eyes, awaits the flood
switching
between moments, dialogue, episodes of mash
antennae high on alien signals
asteroid shaves your cheek
do aspire to meet the president
you, mr. janitor? crucial
clone a sheep a sheep a sheep
smelling salts? wasted on sleepyheads
once I had a scooby doo lunchbox
nesting swallows in the larch
I could multiply like a computer
but Google made me obsolete
so here's my brain to the highest bidder
food stamps would suffice
imagination, quantum zaps
u heard the latest from Condi Rice?
and a dozen hellos to my sweet saviour
my roses read for you alone
eggshell-delicate, sheltered in a superdome
when you sigh I feel the hurricane
I'm drowning, toss me an anchor
A big mistake a big mistake.
Do not follow the rabbit down the hole.
If a big sweaty man with a yellow nose asks you for a banana, do not give it to him. He will only shove it up his nose.
An exploding toad has its uses.
Big ideas come in little plastic bags.
Wear pink underwear and you'll be smited.
Carry a troubadour's knickers wrapped around your wrist.
An alleyway is a bad place to argue about Steinbeck.
Never lend a parrot your socket wrench. He will use it to loosen your nuts.
Do not follow the rabbit down the hole.
If a big sweaty man with a yellow nose asks you for a banana, do not give it to him. He will only shove it up his nose.
An exploding toad has its uses.
Big ideas come in little plastic bags.
Wear pink underwear and you'll be smited.
Carry a troubadour's knickers wrapped around your wrist.
An alleyway is a bad place to argue about Steinbeck.
Never lend a parrot your socket wrench. He will use it to loosen your nuts.
9/05/2005
horsetorcher II
Garble garble, and tug, pull and let stretch, let it bleed. Push it twist shove it stick, bend crumple crease crush chew smash hammer into a sheet rope it in a wire crowd it to death bang it with cinder blocks flatten it cram into toasters slide smother it choke it coax coerce suggest finesse shrinkwrap and stack beat back with a board clamp it down shackle into bits sluice it stirred whip it steamroll iron out under anvils pressurewash with firehose and hang on a line to dry.
(serves two: me and you)
(serves two: me and you)
9/04/2005
Sizzle
(25 seconds, just flirting)
Hey gorgeous
you move nice
like that belt
makeup flattery
u working out?
beauty mark right dimple
peach fuzz
bouncy bouncy
-sexy even
in
sweat pants
Hey gorgeous
you move nice
like that belt
makeup flattery
u working out?
beauty mark right dimple
peach fuzz
bouncy bouncy
-sexy even
in
sweat pants
9/03/2005
Hot-diggety!
Liquor stinking breath, wrestling Death under a trestle, Satan hellbent on mortar shells and pestilence, big bang helplessness and the sound of silence. Boohoo, this is you: vain barbells and leg presses, deep purple dressings on a black and blue face, laced veils and sweetened entrails, weary of eradicating the entire rat race. A woman’s wink sidelong at a bar, premonitions of a car crash in Iraq, her tenderest lash puts me on a rack, this drunken beauty queen - she weaves her own sash. I don’t wanna wake beside her in the trash.
Alight in a good place, the lightness at her waist, chemicals superfluous, clouds whirl perilously sweet, a beat leads me blind like a chocolate lab, exit this maze by my own right hand. Sums and figures, statistics lie and liars swagger, wipe the dagger clean, unsheathe a dream, flag a train and lay new tracks, there’s a man somewhere with a mountain on his back.
Be a crab and claw - or a lioness with cubs securely in her jaw. Bloated pigeons, wizened crows, sulking in secrets nobody knows. Topple those deadly hydrants and fire the hose, the fresh breeze blows, so head down to Momo’s and order Dom Perignon, sure it ain’t New Years but I got my freak on.
Heap on praise; be crazy! eat nothing but water for three or four days, start a parade, freshly mint the good old days, dedicate them to her gaze; rattle the cages but don’t get lazy. And do not watch quietly the firelit night. Instead, burn up right inside of it: fire is light.
Agree? Yes, quite easily. Agree agree - but not with me. Please let me be. Agree with yourself and your heart and the stars. But as for me, pay no mind. I’m just the scenery, and I’m doing fine.
But dance? Yes, dance! Dance and prance. Dance and prance and prance and dance. Do it all night. Do it all morning. Dance! Yeah. Do it in your underpants.
Alight in a good place, the lightness at her waist, chemicals superfluous, clouds whirl perilously sweet, a beat leads me blind like a chocolate lab, exit this maze by my own right hand. Sums and figures, statistics lie and liars swagger, wipe the dagger clean, unsheathe a dream, flag a train and lay new tracks, there’s a man somewhere with a mountain on his back.
Be a crab and claw - or a lioness with cubs securely in her jaw. Bloated pigeons, wizened crows, sulking in secrets nobody knows. Topple those deadly hydrants and fire the hose, the fresh breeze blows, so head down to Momo’s and order Dom Perignon, sure it ain’t New Years but I got my freak on.
Heap on praise; be crazy! eat nothing but water for three or four days, start a parade, freshly mint the good old days, dedicate them to her gaze; rattle the cages but don’t get lazy. And do not watch quietly the firelit night. Instead, burn up right inside of it: fire is light.
Agree? Yes, quite easily. Agree agree - but not with me. Please let me be. Agree with yourself and your heart and the stars. But as for me, pay no mind. I’m just the scenery, and I’m doing fine.
But dance? Yes, dance! Dance and prance. Dance and prance and prance and dance. Do it all night. Do it all morning. Dance! Yeah. Do it in your underpants.
9/01/2005
Killing the messenger
(msn frustration)
Why procrastination, no attention span nation, MSN beckons and teases, your decisionmaking increases in difficulty, Hick’s law more info takes more time, exponential complications, paralysis frustration, shut down the computer and be alone, open up connections and be overwhelmed, binary on and off, like scott summers shooting laser beams with every blink, all or nothing, I wish there was a happier medium. More intelligent yet more feeble with each innovation, specialists chasing nothing down to infinity like the graph of 1/x, x>0. Nuance yourself down to the bone, the threshold for necessity long since broken, everything now is superfluous. Report body counts on a hurricane, essential news, all views identical texture each digit indistinguishable, need analog to make this analogy, otherwise it’s monotony in stereo liquid crystal flat screen ads for ice creams and we scream louder each ad more expensive because attention is a singularity. This is what happens when you take the short run view, ignore the laws of thermodynamics and who pays for the ads? The consumer. Infinite desires overwhelm scarce resources, finite needs. TV screens should split up into smaller rectangles each with different sound throwing its voice at different parts of your ears and my remote control navigates me through the cocktail party so I pick out one conversation from many instead of the constant one-a-at-time parade of theatre that relic from the railroad age. Why captivate an audience at a movie theatre; is the linear storyline worth the perceptual inefficiency? Media need not be discreet, soon it will be the mass neuro medium. That’s how drugs work anyway I think.
Why procrastination, no attention span nation, MSN beckons and teases, your decisionmaking increases in difficulty, Hick’s law more info takes more time, exponential complications, paralysis frustration, shut down the computer and be alone, open up connections and be overwhelmed, binary on and off, like scott summers shooting laser beams with every blink, all or nothing, I wish there was a happier medium. More intelligent yet more feeble with each innovation, specialists chasing nothing down to infinity like the graph of 1/x, x>0. Nuance yourself down to the bone, the threshold for necessity long since broken, everything now is superfluous. Report body counts on a hurricane, essential news, all views identical texture each digit indistinguishable, need analog to make this analogy, otherwise it’s monotony in stereo liquid crystal flat screen ads for ice creams and we scream louder each ad more expensive because attention is a singularity. This is what happens when you take the short run view, ignore the laws of thermodynamics and who pays for the ads? The consumer. Infinite desires overwhelm scarce resources, finite needs. TV screens should split up into smaller rectangles each with different sound throwing its voice at different parts of your ears and my remote control navigates me through the cocktail party so I pick out one conversation from many instead of the constant one-a-at-time parade of theatre that relic from the railroad age. Why captivate an audience at a movie theatre; is the linear storyline worth the perceptual inefficiency? Media need not be discreet, soon it will be the mass neuro medium. That’s how drugs work anyway I think.
8/31/2005
August 3
(found this in my rant archives... made me laugh out loud)
August 03-05
August 03-05
I was told I was the best in the world, I was told I would go far, but look at me now, sitting and clacking upon the plastic and far from love, liberty, ecstasy and goodness. Stuck here in the smelting iron core, breathing char and fumes and burned by every kind of cinder. I was once the great prodigy of the West, a darling child of sunshine and a conveyor of delights. Then I was struck by black lightning; my whimsy wilted and my spark went cold. No company can I keep, for I weep at inopportune moments and frighten the children. I have tried to keep a garden, I have learned a bit of the kitchen; I have become expert upon the loom. But I have no lady to welcome me home in the evening; I have no more inner twirl. There are certain fibres that are stunted, and certain frying pans that no longer sizzle. My utensils are reduced to a few dull spoons. I am spent of ideas and I want to break some skulls. Can you lend me a sturdy sledgehammer? I will pick up my landlady and swing her by the feet against the wall.
My sister called me “cabbage face” on several occasions this month; I have no idea what it means. I have a cabbage stench, this is true, because my shower hasn't worked for a month. I would dunk myself in a lake but my town is landlocked and not free. How appropriate.
My grammar homework is particularly difficult today; I am still a student and have not graduated though my lengthy academic sojourn has reached Guinnessean proportions. I need staples for my stapler; my pencil sharpener is overflowing with mouldy shavings and the carcasses of potato bugs. I could vacuum them I suppose but I don’t believe in electricity. As in, I don’t trust the science. Whatever happened to kerosene? Good things never go out of style. Electronica, Schmelectronica. My only friend in this world is a ham sandwich and I ate him a half-hour ago. Not many people are about to shit their friends out their asses before evening. I give me one hour till my next bowel movement. Then my friend will join all the others down at the filtration plant. Life is a grand and glorious circle, sure, but some times you just end up shit down the pipes.
I was happier, oh, about 5 years ago, but that was before the dotcom bubble. Not that I invest, but I thought with there being no 'bubble' at the time, there would also be no 'Bubo'. I make a lot of decisions based on pun potential, see, and I feared greatly the 'dotcom Bubo,' because I greatly fear death by internet-borne medieval plague. I am afraid of germs so I wipe my hands diligently after every encounter with a stranger, sometimes on the stranger’s own forehead. I have not been slapped yet this week but then again I haven’t been out, as I’ve been writing. There are so many germs on this keyboard; all you people who don’t sterilize your mouse, you really make me puke.
I like to write sometimes, just like other people sometimes like to have enema bags shoved up their brownhole. I also like spelling. But really I prefer hang-gliding, at least from what I can tell from the happy hang-gliders on tv. I have never glided myself, because as I said my town has no elevations or bodies of water. Sometimes I wish I lived in a global village. My cousin Edgar, he would be the village idiot. He at least has more problems than I do, and I take great comfort in that.
8/30/2005
Statue of a homeless man
they wanted to erect it
in front of city hall
it seemed appropriate
but the council was embarrassed
at the stir it would cause;
they tried putting it in queen's park
right outside the legislature
but it was not a provincial matter
and besides, said the mpps, it's too political
they tried outside a church
- they wanted it inside a church -
finally they plonked it on the corner
six feet of bronze and pigeon shit
and no one kept it clean
and no one watered the roses
he wasn't a great man
or a rich man
even a brave man
so why do we cast him in bronze
what did he ever do?
but everyone who saw it
knew that it sure belonged
and was right
and was clever and brilliant and ironic
occasionally a young child
approached and read the inscription
'dedicated to the less fortunate'
and the next moment he was
spitting on a hobo
'how appropriate, how appropriate'
in front of city hall
it seemed appropriate
but the council was embarrassed
at the stir it would cause;
they tried putting it in queen's park
right outside the legislature
but it was not a provincial matter
and besides, said the mpps, it's too political
they tried outside a church
- they wanted it inside a church -
finally they plonked it on the corner
six feet of bronze and pigeon shit
and no one kept it clean
and no one watered the roses
he wasn't a great man
or a rich man
even a brave man
so why do we cast him in bronze
what did he ever do?
but everyone who saw it
knew that it sure belonged
and was right
and was clever and brilliant and ironic
occasionally a young child
approached and read the inscription
'dedicated to the less fortunate'
and the next moment he was
spitting on a hobo
'how appropriate, how appropriate'
8/29/2005
Zounds!
There are hammers in the air
and scales at the fair
dunkin donuts everywhere so
let’s jump down the hole
Fashion is a crime
lemon twists align
mimicry sublime
where statues taste like pomegranates
Pulpify your face
smack it with a mace
don’t untie the lace
because the oysters go ‘pip pip pip’
Yellow as the snow, simmers
colons take a blow
pass a cup o jo
Hemingway was a barnswallow.
Drag walnuts abroad in a paper bag
lengthen your tart-skirts for an episode of ‘Maude’
drain widget barrels; replace with sod
I can vouchsafe these timbits for eternity
Convents in Uruguay will be cleansed, and
grandfather clocks can make amends
a bridge of molten brass suspends
the cloudstuff over the peninsula
Midgets will tickle thickly
unless batty bricks suspect trickery
and then there is no piggishness
that ever goes unpunished
So waft your crackles with black impugn
untether the maypoles o'er the dune
and curse at a moon with your heart on a spoon or
drink a pitcher of sulphuric acid.
and scales at the fair
dunkin donuts everywhere so
let’s jump down the hole
Fashion is a crime
lemon twists align
mimicry sublime
where statues taste like pomegranates
Pulpify your face
smack it with a mace
don’t untie the lace
because the oysters go ‘pip pip pip’
Yellow as the snow, simmers
colons take a blow
pass a cup o jo
Hemingway was a barnswallow.
Drag walnuts abroad in a paper bag
lengthen your tart-skirts for an episode of ‘Maude’
drain widget barrels; replace with sod
I can vouchsafe these timbits for eternity
Convents in Uruguay will be cleansed, and
grandfather clocks can make amends
a bridge of molten brass suspends
the cloudstuff over the peninsula
Midgets will tickle thickly
unless batty bricks suspect trickery
and then there is no piggishness
that ever goes unpunished
So waft your crackles with black impugn
untether the maypoles o'er the dune
and curse at a moon with your heart on a spoon or
drink a pitcher of sulphuric acid.
8/26/2005
aTypical Night on College St
(a story about Toronto, ethnic diversity, and misanthropic annoyance)
I walked into the pizza parlour and there was a game of Twister in full swing. Ha they should call it Swinger I was thinking, but I kept it to myself: Nobody appreciated wordplay here. I could be nonchalant if I had to, so I did a 'swing' over to the counter and asked for a slice of cheese pesto basil hold the cheese. Luckily there was a pie coming fresh from the oven, so my timing was impeccable. I sat at a stool and read the downtown hipster rags, stealthily eyeing the pseudo-pornographic ads in the back and wondered what it would be like to run a brothel.
I sat for hours and organized my bills, made appointments and inserted them into my agenda, you know, regular pizza-parlour stuff. The Twister match would get loud and occasionally violent; a small Asian girl took a lead pipe and shattered the kneecap of a more elderly participant. That’s College Street for you. I sighed and lighted a cigar. Most diverse city in the world.
The police came, handed me a $500 fine for smoking in a restaurant. My ‘But there’s smoke coming from the pizza oven, so what about that?’ defence got me nowhere; I was out on the street a half-grand poorer but a lot more knowledgeable about how to cripple someone during a Twister match.
The night sky was alive with fireflies and lots of bats. Like most people I was afraid of the flying mice, but someone said they were a good source of protein, and even if you didn’t walk around with your mouth open hoping to catch a free meal, they kept the insects to a minimum. But they didn't eat the fireflies, I thought; something about sonar-based creatures and glowing-ass-based creatures respecting each other’s turf. I wondered if bats, if they could read, would like to read McLuhan, and I figured hell the bats have a better chance of understanding that shit than I do. Then I realized I left my water bottle inside the pizza parlour, but fuck it I was on my bike and headed for the Mod.
The Mod Club is a box-like centre of testosterone and hair gel that smells like the worst mixture of colognes you could ever conjure on a Saturday night—but I guess some people must like it or why would they be there. I don’t enjoy dancing, but I do like checking out strangers on the sidewalks. The way folks act on sidewalks tells a lot how they act in other situations, like on patios, or in restroom lineups, and hey maybe that’s about it. So perhaps it's not a very useful activity, but since I was on worker’s compensation I had plenty of time to explore every frivolous mental cul-de-sac that beckoned my free spirit.
There on the walk was Tina Schultz, extraordinarily tall with a limp, a teamster from Brampton with massive frizz hair and a slender ivory cane. She was a bit of a ringleader, had an entourage of about a dozen, a zoo really, including a barking macaque and a pygmy elephant fresh out of the Isle of Dr Moreau. 'Schultzie' is what her cronies called her; she was sassing up to this twenty-something Portughino who, for his part, was showing off for his Mustang buddies. "Half the people in this city don’t even speak English," I said to myself aloud, and thank god nobody understood me; and then I thought, I wish farting was like a language because if I went to someplace where they only fart in Swahili and I decided to fart in English then nobody could tell I had farted. But it was just another flatulence fantasy.
Standing beside Schultzie was Gouda McPherson, a pig of a woman absolutely stenching of cheese and onions. Gouda was a Scottish-Greek from the outer Hebrides who sold deep fried Mars bars out of a truck to stupid tourists at Queen and Bay. She had the evening off from the truck tonight, so I guess it was her cousin Bela minding the chocolate and handing out heart attacks like so many direct marketing flyers. Gouda was determined to get some action tonight, she said, even if it meant getting liquored to the tits and swooping across the dance floor on a chandelier. Men can’t resist angels flying down from heaven she crowed, and she made a halo motion around her head. I thought that if the Church of Scotland and the Greek Orthodox Patriarch ever got together they’d either excommunicate Gouda or announce proscription ie ‘kill her on sight’ and I’d be all over that like a bounty hounter on a stooge.
Behind McPherson were the Benson triplets, three College mollies straight out of a Ricky Martin video: tight abs and even tighter wallets. Cheapskates beyond belief, but everybody’s got some tragic flaw. The Bensons—Jessa, Tessa, and Odessa—would do well in a trashy Harlequin romance and hell I'd have given my small intestine to be their flowing-locked Fabio. Low IQ, sure, but they had abs you could bounce a coin off or start a fire with, and that fire’s nothing compared to the fire I got down below but then again these girls were only 17 and I don’t wanna get hauled off to 51 Division. They were so cheap, and who wants to pay for these girlies' slushy-and-gins? Not me, I got so disillusioned with the low-budget trio I nearly tipped the bouncer off about their fake IDs.
I knew a couple other people in the lineup and I said hi as I was waiting for Troy and Loni. T & L were my friends from high school who had suggested we gang up at the Mod. Anyway my sidewalk hellos were smooth like unsalted melted butter: there was Liuna Giulioni, an acquaintance from my volunteering days selling bingo cards to hopeless seniors at Delta Bingo; also Greg-Theodore Jones-McCutchen, part-time tennis pro at the lakeside Boulevard Club who I often spat at as I rode by, because I mistook him for the Ocean. Beside Jones-McCutchen was a large wolf-gorilla of a man, Cronkite Glumph, a half-Alsatian, half-collie of an ape with massive teeth and a leather horse-collar round his neck. He was drunk on zinfandel and singing showtunes. Gay as a fruitbat, I thought, although I felt a desire for fruity pomegranates myself. I missed those exotic Mediterranean treats: at College and Dovercourt it was mango mango mango with the occasional banana and I was too lazy to walk down to the Metro at Crawford so I was stuck with myself complaining and waiting for my ticket to the Big Show to arrive.
Troy and Loni showed up half-past-midnight; they were liquored to the dicks and stinking of rye. Troy was a one-hooch pansy, easily drunk and short of courage otherwise, although tonight was somehow different; he was all gumption and lothario, aiming to break his streak of lonely luck and maybe bed one of the Benson triplets. Fat chance, Troy was less capable with the ladies than a one-armed cadaver in a high-tech space shuttle. And then there was Loni, barely conscious most of the time, and drooling and spitting the rest. Loni lacked basic skills; mine were mad and sterling in comparison. I swear Loni once asked a stop sign out on a date, so hammered he thought it was Kate Moss. Ok I’m exaggerating but I was clearly the most studly of my sadass trio and that meant not one of us would work up the nerve to even say hello to the Benson triplets, but who gave a rat’s padoodie because I dismissed them ages ago.
The bouncers at the Mod were all Irish, renegade Catholic monks with brown frocks, each guarding his post with a 20-lb mace. There was a tiny deacon distributing communion wafers laced with ecstasy over at the side entrance. It was the kind of thing that hurts the reputation of the Church—you know, drugging the laity and all (and probably stealing their wallets). It was half past midnight, I was reeling from Twister, stinking of pizza and just wanting the night to be over so I could get home and instant-message my online girlfriend in Israel.
I had recently learned about telephoning strangers on Skype. I met a very nice girl who was from Haifa; she a Palestinian born of a strict Muslim family and quite likely the most enchanting creature on Allah's green and spherical earth. Witty and wise even in her broken English, Aliayah conveyed loneliness and yearning that transfixed our two souls together as one. The loud and gangly timbits I hung out with in Toronto simply could not match her sweet plaintive 'otherness'. What I mean is that 'once you go Arab, everyone else is just a Scarab (beetle)' which is the stupidest proverb I’ve come up with so far. Aliayah had skyped me out of the blue one morning at 6am, told me about her rainbow-coloured birkah and the trouble she’d gotten into with the local imam for listening to Arab techno music, and it took us about 15 minutes to fall in love. A sweetheart like Aliayah doesn't skype herself out of the sky without a grand cosmic reason. She reminded me of smiles and fluffy pink cotton candy, sundresses in springtime and the warm perfumed body of the mother of us all.
Anyway Aliayah was on my mind, in my heart and even ringing in my ears—since I had gone swimming in the Lake and taken a lot of water. I didn’t have time for the mollies on College, they were all metro and retro, coiffed to the jackboots and spitting trendo-talk like a veejay on amphetamines. Even though one of them, Elsa von Slutsky, a receptionist at the Gladstone chocolate factory was always giving me the eye. My slut sonar was usually on buzz, but Elsa snuck up on me. She was all makeup and glitter, fishnet and stilettos, with a red-pink wisp of curly Q hair and cleavage that hypnotized me with sickly sweet nausea.
I stepped back when I saw her. “Are you sure that strapless dress isn’t illegal?” She cried over the music "Johnny, dollface, where’s the fire? You so hot tonight it makes me sad I don’t own you and make you my love slave!” Not that forward even for Elsa, I thought—she got around faster than Andretti on a Ferris wheel—but her advances made me queasy. I said "Elsa, you must be on fire yourself; in fact I can’t remember a time you didn’t have three firefighters on top of you." I was cranky, still groggy from the pesto and pissed off about my $500 fine.
The night was long, there was dancing—which I did not enjoy—and lots of ogling carried out by Troy and Loni. They wanted to hook up with the Benson triplets, but I dragged them away at the last minute when I whiffed an undercover vice cop picking out stooges and jotting down notes. Reading police reports online made me wise to what the fuzz were trying to pick up: seems a huge pederasty ring was about to be busted, and I wanted no association with those perverts. I grabbed my boys by the scruff and escorted us to the night-side open air. Outside, the constellations were glowing stronger than usual, as though the heavens were sending a message. “That message is,” I squawked in my worst Brooklyn accent, “never mess wit da guys at the Mod.” I was thinking of nonsense faster than a fish drinks his own piss, but hey I was missing Aliayah and just pining for my bed.
The next morning I picked up my messages: there was one from Elsa. Seems I had forgotten the keys to my bike lock down her cleavage and she wanted to know when I could come by and get them. She would be likely be showering, but "what a nice surprise it would be" if I popped in on her. I called back and left a message that I was out of the country and I hoped she'd enjoy my fifteen-speed forever. I resolved to walk down to the Urbane Cyclist to look for a new bicycle. The things you do just to avoid Elsa von Slutsky.
It was a smoky kind of morning, made me pine for a cigar, but I had a few things to tick off my checklist.
Number 1: find a bookie.
A bookie, yes. I was hoping to win at horses, I knew my ship was coming in on a fancy mudder called Eileen. I was a gamer, I was bold, but I was also short of cash and so my grand scheme was on hold. I wondered, how often did Elsa get short of cash and sell her body to unscrupulous layabouts? I would have to sell my own blood or maybe loan a kidney if it came down to it, because Eileen this horse of mine was a pass to Sweetride-land. I was sick of the College St. convenience stores and kinkos and hoboes, the wasted men and sullen stares of emasculated overcompensating Gino youth looking forward to a lifetime of beer and football, all punctuated by 3am fisticuffs and vomit down an alleyway. My horse’s name was Eileen and they said she could run on water. Unfortunately the race was on a dirt track, but still if she could elicit that kind of hyperbole she showed promise. I realize in my later years that nobody likes a literalist.
I walked out on the street and I realized I forgot my mobile at home. I looked around for a phone booth and a phone book. I turned onto College and Elsa von Slutsky stood before me like a vibrating cow of Hades, full of snort and effusiveness, quick to heat up and slow to mellow kinda like a spicy chai milkshake that nobody ordered but you drink it anyway—it leaves you bloated and way past due for an enema. Elsa left me all groggy inside, I wanted to swat her and make her go away, but her permanence was unavoidable, and plus she had my bike keys.
“Thanks but no thanks Elsa” I said in a voice too loud to be suave, “I just purchased a new two-wheeler so keep those keys wherever you found them.” She grabbed my hand and rubbed them across her massive silicone chest. I looked at my molested fingers and wished I had a blowtorch, to burn off the forever tainted skin. I ran away down the street and she chugged after me in her high heel leather boots, still dripping firefighter grease from whatever debauched session she held in her weekend whoring parlours, and she was crying "Johnny come back! The bike keys are just an excuse! You don't understand..." but I knew her all too well.
I might have blacked out but when I got back to my room and there was a one-line chat-skype from Aliayah. “Is it warm in Toronto?” Right now, too hot. An email from 51 Division news alert service said three rookie undercover police triplets had arrested three men from Woodbridge for “attempting to solicit for a lapdance in a public place” and purchasing alcohol for minors. Ha. I connected a few dots and realized with my smoking fine I couldn’t hit the track anyway. Fuck it. To make it with Eileen the horse I would have to go back to Elsa and maybe sell my bike.
I whispered to Aliayah to forgive me when I dialled the number. I looked outside my basement window. It wasn’t smoke, it was fog. “Please don’t pick up,” I thought, but she did. I said, “Elsa, darling. I’m sorry about this morning.” She said something but I interrupted. “Listen, forget the bike. Are they hiring at the chocolate factory?”
I walked into the pizza parlour and there was a game of Twister in full swing. Ha they should call it Swinger I was thinking, but I kept it to myself: Nobody appreciated wordplay here. I could be nonchalant if I had to, so I did a 'swing' over to the counter and asked for a slice of cheese pesto basil hold the cheese. Luckily there was a pie coming fresh from the oven, so my timing was impeccable. I sat at a stool and read the downtown hipster rags, stealthily eyeing the pseudo-pornographic ads in the back and wondered what it would be like to run a brothel.
I sat for hours and organized my bills, made appointments and inserted them into my agenda, you know, regular pizza-parlour stuff. The Twister match would get loud and occasionally violent; a small Asian girl took a lead pipe and shattered the kneecap of a more elderly participant. That’s College Street for you. I sighed and lighted a cigar. Most diverse city in the world.
The police came, handed me a $500 fine for smoking in a restaurant. My ‘But there’s smoke coming from the pizza oven, so what about that?’ defence got me nowhere; I was out on the street a half-grand poorer but a lot more knowledgeable about how to cripple someone during a Twister match.
The night sky was alive with fireflies and lots of bats. Like most people I was afraid of the flying mice, but someone said they were a good source of protein, and even if you didn’t walk around with your mouth open hoping to catch a free meal, they kept the insects to a minimum. But they didn't eat the fireflies, I thought; something about sonar-based creatures and glowing-ass-based creatures respecting each other’s turf. I wondered if bats, if they could read, would like to read McLuhan, and I figured hell the bats have a better chance of understanding that shit than I do. Then I realized I left my water bottle inside the pizza parlour, but fuck it I was on my bike and headed for the Mod.
The Mod Club is a box-like centre of testosterone and hair gel that smells like the worst mixture of colognes you could ever conjure on a Saturday night—but I guess some people must like it or why would they be there. I don’t enjoy dancing, but I do like checking out strangers on the sidewalks. The way folks act on sidewalks tells a lot how they act in other situations, like on patios, or in restroom lineups, and hey maybe that’s about it. So perhaps it's not a very useful activity, but since I was on worker’s compensation I had plenty of time to explore every frivolous mental cul-de-sac that beckoned my free spirit.
There on the walk was Tina Schultz, extraordinarily tall with a limp, a teamster from Brampton with massive frizz hair and a slender ivory cane. She was a bit of a ringleader, had an entourage of about a dozen, a zoo really, including a barking macaque and a pygmy elephant fresh out of the Isle of Dr Moreau. 'Schultzie' is what her cronies called her; she was sassing up to this twenty-something Portughino who, for his part, was showing off for his Mustang buddies. "Half the people in this city don’t even speak English," I said to myself aloud, and thank god nobody understood me; and then I thought, I wish farting was like a language because if I went to someplace where they only fart in Swahili and I decided to fart in English then nobody could tell I had farted. But it was just another flatulence fantasy.
Standing beside Schultzie was Gouda McPherson, a pig of a woman absolutely stenching of cheese and onions. Gouda was a Scottish-Greek from the outer Hebrides who sold deep fried Mars bars out of a truck to stupid tourists at Queen and Bay. She had the evening off from the truck tonight, so I guess it was her cousin Bela minding the chocolate and handing out heart attacks like so many direct marketing flyers. Gouda was determined to get some action tonight, she said, even if it meant getting liquored to the tits and swooping across the dance floor on a chandelier. Men can’t resist angels flying down from heaven she crowed, and she made a halo motion around her head. I thought that if the Church of Scotland and the Greek Orthodox Patriarch ever got together they’d either excommunicate Gouda or announce proscription ie ‘kill her on sight’ and I’d be all over that like a bounty hounter on a stooge.
Behind McPherson were the Benson triplets, three College mollies straight out of a Ricky Martin video: tight abs and even tighter wallets. Cheapskates beyond belief, but everybody’s got some tragic flaw. The Bensons—Jessa, Tessa, and Odessa—would do well in a trashy Harlequin romance and hell I'd have given my small intestine to be their flowing-locked Fabio. Low IQ, sure, but they had abs you could bounce a coin off or start a fire with, and that fire’s nothing compared to the fire I got down below but then again these girls were only 17 and I don’t wanna get hauled off to 51 Division. They were so cheap, and who wants to pay for these girlies' slushy-and-gins? Not me, I got so disillusioned with the low-budget trio I nearly tipped the bouncer off about their fake IDs.
I knew a couple other people in the lineup and I said hi as I was waiting for Troy and Loni. T & L were my friends from high school who had suggested we gang up at the Mod. Anyway my sidewalk hellos were smooth like unsalted melted butter: there was Liuna Giulioni, an acquaintance from my volunteering days selling bingo cards to hopeless seniors at Delta Bingo; also Greg-Theodore Jones-McCutchen, part-time tennis pro at the lakeside Boulevard Club who I often spat at as I rode by, because I mistook him for the Ocean. Beside Jones-McCutchen was a large wolf-gorilla of a man, Cronkite Glumph, a half-Alsatian, half-collie of an ape with massive teeth and a leather horse-collar round his neck. He was drunk on zinfandel and singing showtunes. Gay as a fruitbat, I thought, although I felt a desire for fruity pomegranates myself. I missed those exotic Mediterranean treats: at College and Dovercourt it was mango mango mango with the occasional banana and I was too lazy to walk down to the Metro at Crawford so I was stuck with myself complaining and waiting for my ticket to the Big Show to arrive.
Troy and Loni showed up half-past-midnight; they were liquored to the dicks and stinking of rye. Troy was a one-hooch pansy, easily drunk and short of courage otherwise, although tonight was somehow different; he was all gumption and lothario, aiming to break his streak of lonely luck and maybe bed one of the Benson triplets. Fat chance, Troy was less capable with the ladies than a one-armed cadaver in a high-tech space shuttle. And then there was Loni, barely conscious most of the time, and drooling and spitting the rest. Loni lacked basic skills; mine were mad and sterling in comparison. I swear Loni once asked a stop sign out on a date, so hammered he thought it was Kate Moss. Ok I’m exaggerating but I was clearly the most studly of my sadass trio and that meant not one of us would work up the nerve to even say hello to the Benson triplets, but who gave a rat’s padoodie because I dismissed them ages ago.
The bouncers at the Mod were all Irish, renegade Catholic monks with brown frocks, each guarding his post with a 20-lb mace. There was a tiny deacon distributing communion wafers laced with ecstasy over at the side entrance. It was the kind of thing that hurts the reputation of the Church—you know, drugging the laity and all (and probably stealing their wallets). It was half past midnight, I was reeling from Twister, stinking of pizza and just wanting the night to be over so I could get home and instant-message my online girlfriend in Israel.
I had recently learned about telephoning strangers on Skype. I met a very nice girl who was from Haifa; she a Palestinian born of a strict Muslim family and quite likely the most enchanting creature on Allah's green and spherical earth. Witty and wise even in her broken English, Aliayah conveyed loneliness and yearning that transfixed our two souls together as one. The loud and gangly timbits I hung out with in Toronto simply could not match her sweet plaintive 'otherness'. What I mean is that 'once you go Arab, everyone else is just a Scarab (beetle)' which is the stupidest proverb I’ve come up with so far. Aliayah had skyped me out of the blue one morning at 6am, told me about her rainbow-coloured birkah and the trouble she’d gotten into with the local imam for listening to Arab techno music, and it took us about 15 minutes to fall in love. A sweetheart like Aliayah doesn't skype herself out of the sky without a grand cosmic reason. She reminded me of smiles and fluffy pink cotton candy, sundresses in springtime and the warm perfumed body of the mother of us all.
Anyway Aliayah was on my mind, in my heart and even ringing in my ears—since I had gone swimming in the Lake and taken a lot of water. I didn’t have time for the mollies on College, they were all metro and retro, coiffed to the jackboots and spitting trendo-talk like a veejay on amphetamines. Even though one of them, Elsa von Slutsky, a receptionist at the Gladstone chocolate factory was always giving me the eye. My slut sonar was usually on buzz, but Elsa snuck up on me. She was all makeup and glitter, fishnet and stilettos, with a red-pink wisp of curly Q hair and cleavage that hypnotized me with sickly sweet nausea.
I stepped back when I saw her. “Are you sure that strapless dress isn’t illegal?” She cried over the music "Johnny, dollface, where’s the fire? You so hot tonight it makes me sad I don’t own you and make you my love slave!” Not that forward even for Elsa, I thought—she got around faster than Andretti on a Ferris wheel—but her advances made me queasy. I said "Elsa, you must be on fire yourself; in fact I can’t remember a time you didn’t have three firefighters on top of you." I was cranky, still groggy from the pesto and pissed off about my $500 fine.
The night was long, there was dancing—which I did not enjoy—and lots of ogling carried out by Troy and Loni. They wanted to hook up with the Benson triplets, but I dragged them away at the last minute when I whiffed an undercover vice cop picking out stooges and jotting down notes. Reading police reports online made me wise to what the fuzz were trying to pick up: seems a huge pederasty ring was about to be busted, and I wanted no association with those perverts. I grabbed my boys by the scruff and escorted us to the night-side open air. Outside, the constellations were glowing stronger than usual, as though the heavens were sending a message. “That message is,” I squawked in my worst Brooklyn accent, “never mess wit da guys at the Mod.” I was thinking of nonsense faster than a fish drinks his own piss, but hey I was missing Aliayah and just pining for my bed.
The next morning I picked up my messages: there was one from Elsa. Seems I had forgotten the keys to my bike lock down her cleavage and she wanted to know when I could come by and get them. She would be likely be showering, but "what a nice surprise it would be" if I popped in on her. I called back and left a message that I was out of the country and I hoped she'd enjoy my fifteen-speed forever. I resolved to walk down to the Urbane Cyclist to look for a new bicycle. The things you do just to avoid Elsa von Slutsky.
It was a smoky kind of morning, made me pine for a cigar, but I had a few things to tick off my checklist.
Number 1: find a bookie.
A bookie, yes. I was hoping to win at horses, I knew my ship was coming in on a fancy mudder called Eileen. I was a gamer, I was bold, but I was also short of cash and so my grand scheme was on hold. I wondered, how often did Elsa get short of cash and sell her body to unscrupulous layabouts? I would have to sell my own blood or maybe loan a kidney if it came down to it, because Eileen this horse of mine was a pass to Sweetride-land. I was sick of the College St. convenience stores and kinkos and hoboes, the wasted men and sullen stares of emasculated overcompensating Gino youth looking forward to a lifetime of beer and football, all punctuated by 3am fisticuffs and vomit down an alleyway. My horse’s name was Eileen and they said she could run on water. Unfortunately the race was on a dirt track, but still if she could elicit that kind of hyperbole she showed promise. I realize in my later years that nobody likes a literalist.
I walked out on the street and I realized I forgot my mobile at home. I looked around for a phone booth and a phone book. I turned onto College and Elsa von Slutsky stood before me like a vibrating cow of Hades, full of snort and effusiveness, quick to heat up and slow to mellow kinda like a spicy chai milkshake that nobody ordered but you drink it anyway—it leaves you bloated and way past due for an enema. Elsa left me all groggy inside, I wanted to swat her and make her go away, but her permanence was unavoidable, and plus she had my bike keys.
“Thanks but no thanks Elsa” I said in a voice too loud to be suave, “I just purchased a new two-wheeler so keep those keys wherever you found them.” She grabbed my hand and rubbed them across her massive silicone chest. I looked at my molested fingers and wished I had a blowtorch, to burn off the forever tainted skin. I ran away down the street and she chugged after me in her high heel leather boots, still dripping firefighter grease from whatever debauched session she held in her weekend whoring parlours, and she was crying "Johnny come back! The bike keys are just an excuse! You don't understand..." but I knew her all too well.
I might have blacked out but when I got back to my room and there was a one-line chat-skype from Aliayah. “Is it warm in Toronto?” Right now, too hot. An email from 51 Division news alert service said three rookie undercover police triplets had arrested three men from Woodbridge for “attempting to solicit for a lapdance in a public place” and purchasing alcohol for minors. Ha. I connected a few dots and realized with my smoking fine I couldn’t hit the track anyway. Fuck it. To make it with Eileen the horse I would have to go back to Elsa and maybe sell my bike.
I whispered to Aliayah to forgive me when I dialled the number. I looked outside my basement window. It wasn’t smoke, it was fog. “Please don’t pick up,” I thought, but she did. I said, “Elsa, darling. I’m sorry about this morning.” She said something but I interrupted. “Listen, forget the bike. Are they hiring at the chocolate factory?”
8/23/2005
Poem poem
(Questioning the beggar)
Curious is the loom
diving into doom
flying on a broom
the sky goes boom and
shouts its hallelujah
Bell jingles
nerves tingle and
wind whistles
thorns prick skin
as you pen your next epistle
Look for me Sunday
ask for deacon Joe
clearing a throat, jotting
sermon notes
my private public speaking
Streets wake early, late
set a date! congregate! fulminate!
sly wry grin = ‘do not wait’
I’m never drunk, so
why this blasted hangover?
Shake me down; feel em up
wolf to pup, toad to tad
fling a coin in my
styrofoam cup
I’m worth every penny
Think big! Analyze a regicide
deconstruct a tsunami
or, pick apart a raccoon-crow roadkill and
write the most layered, thrilling sitcom pilot about nail polish remover and the canaries who wallow, swallow, lie fallow and cry golly and if that's what you really really
desire then
just don’t call me late for dinner
Curious is the loom
diving into doom
flying on a broom
the sky goes boom and
shouts its hallelujah
Bell jingles
nerves tingle and
wind whistles
thorns prick skin
as you pen your next epistle
Look for me Sunday
ask for deacon Joe
clearing a throat, jotting
sermon notes
my private public speaking
Streets wake early, late
set a date! congregate! fulminate!
sly wry grin = ‘do not wait’
I’m never drunk, so
why this blasted hangover?
Shake me down; feel em up
wolf to pup, toad to tad
fling a coin in my
styrofoam cup
I’m worth every penny
Think big! Analyze a regicide
deconstruct a tsunami
or, pick apart a raccoon-crow roadkill and
write the most layered, thrilling sitcom pilot about nail polish remover and the canaries who wallow, swallow, lie fallow and cry golly and if that's what you really really
desire then
just don’t call me late for dinner
8/21/2005
The lovely (blank)
Hip and little, a tawny tribble without a bib, I was friends with a squid, we swam amid liquid and froth, underwater moths seeking light underneath the frozen wastes of hoth, circumnavigating alien worlds and every time I heard her name I twirled, what squirrelishness and coquettishness, fool I was, lame, foolish games for broken hearts, tired of subduing beauty via art (to be appreciated only by impotent old aesthetic farts). She had a smile that shattered the pretense of museums; galleryisms wilted with her gaze, exhibition galas folded after one or two days; to a man she was a maze, a labyrinth for days twisting inside myself, to gather nerve, debating bluntness versus stealth, and would romance flower sooner - or, keep it waiting on the shelf? I knew her name years in advance, was given notice of her coming - but was I prepared; materializing here, out of air, could I forestall that jaw-dropped stare? No no friends, I was squashed in midair, flattened by her fair, sputtering all my rockets, left bare, no weapons, no words, bare-faced and barely speaking, butterflies floating nausea as she beamed upon my hall and graced my overgrown buffoonish ears with her spare voice and left me wishing I had gall, to reconnoitre, to take in all her figures, to figure her out, to take her hand and steal her digits, to ask her out, to actually make that call...
8/20/2005
Memoirs of a Sand-Castle Builder
A lot of people sit and wonder at the sky, and I look at them wondering, and I think, man isn’t it wonderful that people wonder at the sky. But then a truck usually comes along and smacks us from our reverie, but hey that’s what I get living beside the hog-rendering plant.
I was born on a farm in Haiti, which produced (and still does) a lot of sugar, and that product grew to be the only thing that was traded, due to IMF policies urging us to grow only cash crops for trade instead of focussing on a domestic food supply initiatives like they did in Cuba after the collapse of communism, but hey Castro wasn’t built in a day.
Besides free trade economics I was told many other lies as a child. Among the worst line fed to me was ‘never build your house on sand’. That’s about the worst possible advice you could give to future International Champion of Sand-Castle Building, which is what I became. Five years running my edifices towered over Wasaga Beach on Ontario’s Georgian Bay, and they withstood the assault of seabirds, waves and trouble-making nine-year-old Filipino boys (the sand-castle grounds were beside Camp Manila, a way-station of wealthy Catholic troublemaking children from the Philippines). Life and adolescence was full of delicious ironies. A house built on sand indeed. Clearly I was preparing myself for a lifetime of pain. And grit-stained sandals. For I was a champion of sand castles, and life for the champion entails the dedication of misery, defiant self-reliance and lone-wolfish independence that only the elite can know.
Pueblo had a leathery face, piercing black eyes and wingspan of near eight feet. He was not, in fact, a gigantic parrot, but despite his appalling lack of English he could mimic, parrot-like very well, a true champion; indeed Pueblo was to mimicry what I was to sand-castle building. That’s how good he was. I know that somewhere up there Pueblo, God rest his soul, is enjoying himself on the Wasaga Beach of Mimicry, up there in heaven.
Pueblo died on a Tuesday night. He was in attendance at the football match when the terrorists set off their bombs. I had eaten a lot of canned beans that evening, and so when I heard the low rumble followed by the gaseous explosion, I thought little of it. Then grandma came running in from the sugar cane and cried in broken Spanish-Italian “Il Football! El Pueblo – e morto!” Clearly the news was too shocking for mere French. I could eat nothing for a week, until after the funeral. Then one evening at a boathouse while the radio played a Beethovean dirge I heard one phrase ‘Canada – go to Canada’ - ringing in my ears. It was the posthumous disembodied voice of Pueblo. My best friend had loved me, it seemed even beyond the grave. I got down on my knees, fearing the wonder and might of the Maker, and so happy that finally Pueblo had learned to speak a bit of English. That night I gorged myself on tacos, thinking of Pueblo’s soft floury tortilla-like hands as I did so.
8/17/2005
HOPE
Parkdale in the winter
Hope is a keyboard. Hope is a harpsichord. Hope is a piano.
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