The 99 People You Meet in Heaven

1.       We could easily turn this into a fight, hold on, let me get my glasses.
2.       You could wear a thousand different hats and no man is ever going to notice.
3.       White chicks at this point
4.       She would walk home exhausted as a whore.
5.       “I heard you knew a lot about music”
6.       I don’t talk to you because you’re fat, not because I’m some sort of dickhead.
7.       “These fucking Greeks!”
8.       His breath smelled of rotten cabbage and bad poetry but his cock smelled like heaven.
9.       I brought all of the pills with me
10.   “Is your name Dave?”
11.   I honestly do care how awesome you think Pink Floyd is.
12.   One night Rick showed up and everyone cheered.
13.   “No, please enlighten me as to why Leslie is the way she is”
14.   I walked in and made eye contact and immediately walked out. Every time.
15.   He was so scared of her, he asked her best friend to dance to the Bob Seger song instead.
16.   They tried working out their differences with a murder/suicide.
17.   He drove all night to the casino.
18.   “What’s your band up to these days?”
19.   He only cried when white men played the piano. This is how we knew he was gay.
20.   Trying to explain George Gershwin to someone on beer.
21.   I read this thing about this thing and apparently the thing is pretty awesome.
22.   How many cigarettes do I have to give you for you to get cancer right here in front of me and die?
23.   “oh man, that chick has huge tits!”
24.   “I know!”
25.   After a shared bowl of spicy corn chowder she walked home from his dreamy bedroom eyes and was brutally clubbed to death in front of a Starbucks.
26.   “Hey hey mama said the way you move. Gonna make you sweat gonna make you groove”
27.   He ripped apart a whole gorilla with his bare hands.
28.   “I tell you what, wait right here and I’ll go get the policeman myself”
29.   This completely changes how I need to escape.
30.   She got a text message that just read “Sheila needs tht $40 u owe her”
31.   One time I decided not to breathe for a whole night. This prepared me for everything I now know.
32.   “When is your new CD coming out?”
33.   On Friday nights she would cry Mike’s Hard Lemonade flavored tears into her lonely bowl of lentil soup.
34.   Black Sabbath – Technical Ecstasy
35.   “Oh hey man…no, it’s Mike”
36.   You’ve probably told more lies in the last seven minutes than I have in the last two.
37.   “Holy shit, they’re playing an acoustic version of Swarming Vulgar Mass of Infected Virulency! ”
38.   “No, it’s Satellite by the Dave Matthews Band”
39.   “Oh”
40.   1996 called, they want your taste in music back.
41.   I was on drugs.
42.   “Hi, I’d like to report a crime in progress…there is a band performing music live and they are all white”
43.   He would always give her the parsley off his plate. Three years later she jumped out of a window and landed on a white BMW with the license plate “SPOYLED”
44.   Oh man we ate some serious pussy back then. Then of course Craig had to move away.
45.   “Man it’s pretty crowded in there. Is Rick still here?”
46.   “What city please? Wakefield. Name please? Yes, it’s September eleventh”
47.   The guitar solo from “Hold on Loosely” by .38 Special
48.   I’m the guy that plays songs but they are funny.
49.   I’m the guy that plays songs but they are progressive.
50.   Gregory
51.   I’m the guy that plays songs but they are beautiful.
52.   “Wow this beer tastes really good. Wait, am I an idiot?”
53.   “That might have been the best harmonica solo I’ve ever heard in my life, and I’m only twenty”
54.   I can’t think of any books I’ve read to impress this chick’s tits
55.   One night at a party at her place I put on some punk rock music and her new boyfriend shut it off and put Jethro Tull on. This dickhead, literally wearing one of those tuxedo t-shirts did an air-flute solo. She fucked me a week later and cried halfway through. 
56.   “Hi, I would like to buy this copy of Draw the Line by Aerosmith and put it on my credit card”
57.   They were then told to enter the room and sit until ‘the black guy’ showed up”
58.   She didn’t realize that her nose was too big.
59.   “Oh shit, that’s the guy from Agnostic Front!”
60.   He was one part Danny Glover, one part Osama Bin Laden and just a little bit Rachel Ray.
61.   “When do you guys start singing?”
62.   “This one goes out to all you crazy motherfuckers high on PCP out there tonight, it’s a little song called One by U2!”
63.   Sometimes he would show up with a suitcase so full of insecurity she would suck his dick just so he’d go home.
64.   “Kim, do you realize what today is?”
65.   He would tell me war stories about how drunk he was this one time, who he fucked, how awesome life was. He never told me if my sister was still alive.  
66.   “Oh great, we’re out of cocaine again”
67.   That guy Larry from Three’s Company vs. a teenager with a Fallout Boy shirt on
68.   Debbie could sing. She couldn’t lip sync though. Man if karaoke existed back then she would have been the queen of the town.
69.   “Yeah but I’m not your father”
70.   Incense and tuxedos. You know them. We would go over there and get high and listen to Siouxsie and the Banshees records. Man I would pay a million dollars to see those people again. That one dude never wanted me to know he was gay because he thought I would beat him up. He was kind of cute.
71.   They shared a brief fond memory of their first date at that museum as his car went careening into a tree killing her instantly, him three days later.  
72.   “Oh the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful, and since we’ve no place to go let me eat your ass while we watch Jay Leno ”
73.   “Oh great, Sting is here”
74.   That one dude that looks like he has something wrong with his ear.
75.   “Did you used to work at Panera Bread?”
76.   He needed to tell you the same thing over and over. You knew everything he was going to say three weeks in advance.
77.   “What the fuck is wrong with your cousin?”
78.   He bought a drink for her and her friend. When he got home that night he did crossword puzzles into the next morning.
79.   “Hi Candice, did I happen to leave my dignity in your car last night?”
80.   Side three of The Song Remains the Same soundtrack
81.   We talked about Ornette Coleman all night and then I woke up and had to go to work. The following night I dreamt I was on my way to some sort of gala event. I wore a tuxedo. It was odd; I could actually think clear thoughts, unlike in real life where every piece of information going into my head is barely processed before making a quick exit. When I arrived at the event I discovered it was just a group of people standing around drinking beer from countries nobody has ever heard of talking about football scores and what kind of cars they all drove.
82.   I took her to meet three women I had fucked so they could judge her
83.   The guy in the Hawaiian shirt just showed up and apparently is ready to “fuck anything with two legs”
84.   The first time you heard Shoot to Thrill by AC/DC
85.   When I think of her and that state she lives in I hope the whole place is earthquaked into the stone age
86.   Even fat I manage to surprise myself
87.   “She practically invented abortions”
88.   I need to run far away from here. I keep telling myself that and then good things happen.
89.   These men. I watch them with their women and deep down to myself know there is no possible way they know about fucking.
90.   “I’d like to report a rape”
91.   I’m too jaded and burned out to ever fall in love again at this point. I enjoy showing up in other languages. I don’t want them to read me. I don’t want them next to me and rubbing elbows with me and my family and circle.
92.   They try to get in on the fun and make jokes like I do and fail miserably. Every time
93.   “Wow that woman looks like one of my daughter’s friends, but if she was on Xanax”
94.   If I went to Egypt
95.   Currently feeling tall and small and closed in and wide open all at the same time. Better than feeling all alone in a sea of tall trees and wide open spaces. Wait, I guess?
96.   “wait, that’s the dude Taylor is fucking now?”
97.   Denise
98.   “Ladies and gentlemen, orgasms”
99.   I died once.

100 Best White People I've Ever Met

A mans best friend is not a man or a dog.

Telling me that you care is just one of a million things.

She tells me stories that Mother Goose would kill for.

We speed down the highway, and I still can’t get a commitment.

Wish I was taking a vacation in a month. Don’t ask don’t tell.

We spent weeks at a time together.

Will it stop being the latest issue of the newspaper?

My favorite night this year was in May.

I expected to forget what I went for, and then I found her.

The reasoning behind all of this is grounded in bad punk records.

She is short.  She just waves at me.

Her favorite song was my favorite song 10 years ago.

I hate to think that I am not clear all the time 24 hours a day.

We smoke heroin because we don’t talk to each other anymore.

She is short as well. Real smart. I can’t believe I was in awe of her at one point. “She’s one of us” we say.

There was a small pile of dirt left at my door, methodically placed there to get to me. I hear them out there.

She made me think back to six years ago and go over all sorts of letters and notes.

I have a series of things I need to always do. Never walk down stairs in front of anyone.

My guitar sits there now rusty and out of tune, waiting to be completely retired at any minute.

She sends me messages I never delete

We talk and talk and when it gets down to waking up in the morning, I still have the book open.

I lose touch with people for a day and I feel like an exhaust pipe.

The best thing I remember was looking over and realizing the mountain would not tell me I had a call.

She looked best in the morning. Once a girl can look that good, that early, an inch away, she has me.

We make out and never talk about anything. Nobody knows, and nobody ever will.

She is on my mind more than she’s in my mind.

The other thing I need to do is always flush the toilet when I leave a bathroom, no matter what I did.

Long letters from her are rare but truthful.

It always feels like this when I get around to talking about it. Clear and concise.

I watch them smoke many attractive cigarettes in fifteen minutes.

I acted like I was one of them. I acted like I meant it. I asked for paper.

They complain and complain, wonder if they’ve ever smiled

Once they break in though, they have me. I never let them break in.

I swear I never want anyone to get hurt. I’m always good hearted in the long run.

She wears this shirt that makes me just want to watch television with her.

We had a good time, and then I went on my way. Two more tornadoes, and a brush with the police.

Every morning I need to look out the window for two minutes before shower.

The key is to flip it when you can see that it’s not stuck to the pan.

They are out there, arranging more piles of sand to fuck with me. I hear them.

Disgusting dudes with no cocks.

I take these days in stride now, you can tell me if I am “too much for your mirror”.

I was almost attacked by Stevie Nicks riding a Unicorn last night.

Blues music is my only outlet now. It sucks when you’re not allowed to spit in private.

The night he died.

I wonder how many have tried to forget they even met me

She was scared as a bunny rabbit on crystal meth.

Phil Collins.

Right now, I feel like I could jump out this window and fly.

She, the song by Kiss.

I wish I could run on back to Virginia Beach right now. The only place I’ve ever felt so shitty and so good.

I’m perplexed at how they operate. It’s almost like trying to teach a duck to write poetry.

I never got to cook tons of meals like I wanted to.

There are more than one ways over the moat.

I would piss people off at work, and then ignore them until I face them at the copy machine. Three nails at a time.

I opened up my eyes today. More than they’ve ever been open before.

She made her way in, and looked around, and realized she couldn’t redecorate.

I only lied seventeen times today

The last time I was at an amusement park I fell of the merry-go-round. Now I see stars over everyone.

I knew it was wrong.

We talk about what it will be like to walk around Heaven on Quaaludes.

She has a funny way about her. Even when she is angry with me.

Some day I will stop looking at the hand obsessively.

We walk and argue about who fucked less people.

I knew she was bad news when she asked me if I liked “The Fucking Doors”

Massachusetts has a funny way about making you feel like a goddamn loser.

We play phone tag, and I play connect the dots.

Wait, I think we just killed each other.

I hate them, and when they look at you like they do.

I need to open doors at the bottom of staircases after they have been properly closed.

Wait until I show them all

He comes home, checks his messages, and checks his arms. Everything is there, he sleeps.

That faggot Mark

We drink and I make pretend I’m interested. This is how we get along.

She takes her pretty time while I look at old scratch marks on my left arm.

Finally I find her, and she ignores my eye contact.

Once you have them down, you need to start again. It’s so tedious now.

In your spare time, you should not do what you do in your spare time. You are losing.

Married and never happier, yeah okay.

It’s funny how many times I doubted what was happening to me. Now I write instructions.

The way it goes is this: you work for me, I work for you, and the money goes to the house.

I should probably be worried about this.

Gifts I never gave or received, how sad it that?

He tells me I should go for it. I ask him what he has invested in this. “----- -- ----- --- --------“.

Rain came and I shit my pants.

Not sure if I want to die on cement, or a bed.

I met her and immediately made phone calls the next morning.

My one and only way to catch on is to just move on. Look, I know what you’re doing.

We spent time on the rocks, frozen.

We pretend we don’t see each other, and then I fuck it up.

So exhausted I have to be awake when I sleep.

My one last hope for survival, hmm

We walk on red bricks.

Taking time off from time.

She looked at me once.

It’s lonely out here.

Massachusetts.

Evenings.

Lonely.

Never.

Done.

Out.

New Jersey

walking on the highway feels much worse than driving down the highway who knows what’s going to hit you
who knows what car is going to splash you speeding through the puddles
walking through gigantic well lit parking lots has a certain allure to it but it’s all over for me now now
I have the comfort of air conditioning and Art Blakey in stereo on CD
even walking along the busy highways you get to at least see every little thing on the ground
you can pick things up that you would otherwise not even see
license plates and beer bottle caps
maybe even some money
maybe an adult magazine or a letter that someone threw out the window
there are all sorts of thing I’ve thrown out of my car window for this exact purpose
I don’t want to litter the earth like that but I want to make that walk down busy highways exciting for someone as the drive now is just boring and doesn’t give me a chance to see what’s all over the ground
remnants of some fight that blasted by at seventy miles an hour
remnants of a love affair gone bad that just got thrown out the window in the form of a cigarette butt and a photo of some sunny resort town with out of towners wandering around like moses
useless artifacts that I got to collect on trains planes or automobiles
useless artifacts that the world never gets to see
speeding people getting their kicks by giving me and the rest of my people little objects and ideas to ponder
in the breakdown lane you at least need a hobby when you walk like that
the big parking lot lights tickling the clouds with obnoxious industrial orange light
it’s intense how bright yet dark and murky somewhere like New Jersey is in the middle of the night
there are all sorts of great places to walk there
there are all sorts of good stretches of highways for you to collect these artifacts
I recommend it to anyone looking for a hobby
I recommend it to anyone who thinks they have seen it all
you haven’t seen anything until you’ve walked five miles down the New Jersey turnpike with a quarter bottle of vodka in you and a wallet full of business cards
people throw these things out not knowing of me and my group of people that collect this stuff
I arrange it
I take it home and spread it all out on the floor of the garage and let it tell me stories
all the objects on the cold cement floor have their own little histories to tell me
all the objects tell me these interesting stories
if they don’t have anything to tell me I put a little yellow tag on it marked “needs story”
I then assign it it’s own history and story
this object belonged to a man with two kids one wife and a job that requires him to be on time every day and make sure people under him get things done so that he can feed his kids and get to throw things out for me and my people to collect
he’s on to me he’s on the take with us he sees us like chain gangs in orange vests on the side of the road collecting the objects to lay out on my cold cement floor out in the garage
sometimes the men and women will put their phone numbers and addresses on the objects so that I can get in touch with them and tell them everything is okay with said object
sometimes when I assign my own stories to the objects I like to track the former owners down and tell them about the stories I gave their artifacts
“no there will be no time capsule Mister Fredericks you won’t see the object again you discarded the object so I could bring it to life on the cold cement floor of my garage”
I like to spend a good long Sunday evening arranging the objects into groups this group was owned by all women from Florida over the age of forty
this group had more than one owner
this group is my favorite group
as you can see it’s arranged elaborately on the cold cement floor of my garage as it’s a special object that has almost mystical powers that normal people would not be able to understand and that is why it is in the special group right there in front it’s like the king group of objects the big pimp daddies all get their own little seat in the house these objects get taken into the house and get the royal treatment they have big long histories that only I know about someday I may tell the stories of the objects
people that are not on to this whole thing would call us pack rats or useless
once this catches on though the stories will all be told
I will have lines around the block waiting to sit there and listen to the stories that the objects tell
I will have all sorts of secrets to tell people that want to be in the know
yeah the highway is more than just a thing that connects places and people
it’s a place that creates histories and stories beyond what I ver thought imaginable
half of my stories I tell that people may think are lies come from these objects
on Sunday evenings when I spread them on the cold cement floor in my garage the objects never collect dust they are shined and treated with the utmost care and love more that what I give to people as the objects are all people
little friends of mine that tell stories and give me reason to wake up every day
I look forward to collecting more of these objects over the years to show people and teach people about
if someone ever wanted to join the group with me I would let them in on all the secrets as the objects are not going to just talk to anyone and start telling stories to just any old person off the street
there is a long long long history with these and one day I will document it I promise
yeah that’s what I will do I will write the best novel and nobody will know about my muses
they will think I am just a great story teller
they will all praise me and want to know where the inspiration comes from
I will never let the secret out as I will write the novel anonymously
I will write it from the point of view of all the objects
the ones in my favorite group
the group that sits in the front row
those objects have the best stories
As I collect more of these the stories will only get bigger and better
for now though I will spend my time developing the skills to write the stories for the blank objects
the ones with no history about who owned them previous to me
you will all see
you will all be jealous that you cannot make things like this happen on the cold cement floor of your garage
if it’s one thing I am passionate about it’s this and I can now make it happen
the word is out the objects are in my possession
hidden somewhere arranged into little groups like I said
little groups that will tell the stories of a million men and women
little groups that tell me the stories that I see as some of the most amazing stories
perhaps I will keep this all to myself from now on
perhaps I will let them just talk to me from here on out
I told the story here now
the story stays on my cold cement floor out in the garage
this winter will bring stories this winter I might change and let it go public
I’m just not sure I trust people to understand anything about this whole thing
I just don’t know if it’s time yet
I guess when it’s time I will let the stories be told

Purgatory

I Come in here and see all the reasons I don’t want to be here. Unfriendly faces that are supposed to be friendly. Walking around town and seeing people I thought were supposed to be a lot more friendly, these Jesus people they love one another, but no one else. If they don’t know you, forget it, you don’t get anything. I hope they all burn in hell for eternity. I don’t want to be in this shitty place anymore. If it means doing shitty things to make money to get out of here I’ll do it, what do you got? I don’t feel any sort of connection here any more. I don’t feel like I am “turning my back on my home”, this place sucks, every single thing about it. Let me tell you how I really feel though.

At this point it doesn’t matter who will let you down, it’s just a matter of when they will.



I hate that they can’t stop it. Can’t stop the attempts to impress everyone and me with witty remarks and knowledge about shit nobody cares about. I can’t read or hear anymore of it as it makes me disappear for a day or five at a time from all of this. Asking for advice and opinions about things that are happening to nine people away from me, that I haven’t seen in however many years, who knows really. Whatever it is I am talking about here, I have no idea. Oh yeah, I’m not like you and don’t ever agree with anything you say. It never means anything and never will. You’d be better off leaving me alone. Sure I can lie for eternity and keep entertaining your ego a tiny bit every other week, but for the most part if you disappeared from my life completely I wouldn’t care even a little bit.

Whatever and whenever all of this crap washes over me, which is almost every other day I never know how I am going to react. Like someone with anger issues, most likely not. I know when to shut it off, I know what lines I am not supposed to cross over. Sometimes though, I imagine a life without knowing how and when to turn shit off. I imagine how many fights I would have gotten into. How much more shit I would have broken. How many friendships and relationships ruined. At one point though, I learned how to be a pussy about shit I guess? Or just be more of a behind the scenes shithead. At this point though, ignored and left to my own thinking and time wasting I spend way much more time figuring out how all these fucks do things. I sit around and think about who and what I despise and am left with a small handful of people and places and things to do. What a cliche that is though, eh?



"Paintings"
So I wake up because I’m tossing and turning in the bed because you know I have some issues with some issues I have how funny is that I keep myself up late at night like this so I have been reading this book it’s just a non fiction book about ummmm people I guess don’t really need to go into detail but it says a good thing to do is to wake yourself up in the middle of sleep and then write you have the most creativity and your thoughts are actually the most crystal clear they can be so you know I toss and turn in bed keeping myself awake because I have some issues with some issues I have and I wake up and hey here I am again shit what did I write in here earlier hahaha I make myself laugh so not to mention the fact that there was a guy standing at the foot of my bed while sleeping you see when this guy gets in those mean Ihateeverybody moods he needs to throw satchmo on the stereo to sing me to sleep because I have some issues with some issues I have and he helps me out he makes it all better see

Okay, look at me now cool as a cucumber I stay up late and then get up early and turn into the doctor so not to mention that I wake up and there are snakes all over the floor of my room probably from the guy that was standing there watching me sleep it’s cool though satchmo is so much more powerful than the evil doctor that comes into my room and puts snakes on the floor and makes me itch like I do I have itches all over my body all weekend he put fleas in my bed that cocksucker put fleas in my bed bedbugs is the more polite thing to call them I guess flea is a mean thing to say it’s like saying bitch or cocksucker or motherfucker or communist so yeah it’s funny because I don’t fucking dream anymore how fucked up is that that’s not fair perhaps because I watch so many movies that I don’t need to dream who cares anyway dreams mean nothing but a bunch of random images that are useless in the long run like the issues I have with some of these issues I have right now

Imagine me as fireman coming out of the building like superman or yeah forget that imagine me as superhero here to save the world from mean evil people like myself when I have those issues that I have imagine me like totally top ten style with gold rings on my fingers and a handful of cash they pick me up in jaguars and drive me far and take me to exotic places where we can forget about how to make a good cup of coffee and forget about the issues I have with some of the issues I have imagine me like the big time and shit ya know like the big time no guys coming to visit me in the middle of the night that are part of that network of people who fuck with me I talked about them and people just laugh and point and make fun like the little boy who cried wolf or fire in a crowded theatre it’s a bit funny that anyone would think that I’m this big meany who hates and spits venom in real life never takes himself too seriously I mean takes himself too seriously I mean fuck I can spell I can’t form good sentences but fuck I can spell gosh darn it but fuck if anyone ever says that I am a big jerk and I shouldn’t say this and I shouldn’t say that about this person and that person than they don’t know me and they can go sit in a theatre with little boys who yell fire and throw wolves with rabies at girls with pony tails

I once threw a jellyfish at a boy on the beach he cried and threw sand at me and my mother slapped me across the face and told me to apologize I never ended up becoming friends with him or even having a homosexual encounter I think the one thing they teach you is to never have a homosexual encounter with a boy who throws a jellyfish at your face I did all sorts of bad mean things like that when I was a little boy I threw a brick at my brothers friend because he said I sucked at football I showed him how it really was with my dallas cowboy cheerleader looking self and then a kid attacked me at age ten and I stabbed his hand with a rusty pipe

Let me tell you about it and make fun stories out of the absurdity of it all as it stands now though I can’t take people chasing me into the house because they watch me from the woods I can’t take myself too seriously I have a good amount of time left when I think ahead of a living clean lifestyle you watch me I can live like the bathroom sink with bright white and shiny like a new bathroom sink you know I can live like that like a guy that is clean like the bathtub in the convenience store outside of Knoxville Tennessee that I hid from a homeless man with an erect thumb for twenty-three minutes I can make things out of words that don’t need to hurt people or confuse people if I need to watch hello my name is christian I live in Massachusetts I enjoy good film fine food and louis armstrong once a week.

I have a plug sticking out of my head that tells me to keep going and yeah I want to say one more thing, picture me like on fire and shit like the king of the world of whatever I need it to be ya know like picture me big time.

Drive West on Sunset

There is a way to do business like I want to do business without causing a scene you know. So after a few conversations with “yeah, I know” littered throughout them and witnessing things first hand, I realize I need to move. Not move, but move my head across town. Watching three blonde girls with gross tits and tight pants drink a trio of “colorful drinks” with all sorts of fruits and shit hanging out of them is a funny sight I see from time to time. They all went home to their vibrators and Justin Timberlake posters, while their boyfriends were out with the boys holding up Britney Spears pictures to the light to see if you could see anything underneath her clothes.



I want to hold hands in the desert. Sometimes I feel like I am driving into the desert, and we will spend eternity there, talking and balancing a steady diet of shitty coffee and arguments about strength. The only way for me to completely move is to never show my ID to anyone again. Move into this new place. I want the memories of fishing boats and walks on piers and cooking chicken and rice for two and movies about apes and people with no arms and drives to Maine and even faster drives home and blow jobs in the middle of the night and bags of candy with just the black ones left and carnivals with no rides for me and complete contentment with this that and the other thing. Who wants the glass of whiskey with a phone number sticking out of it? Not I , I have that. Well, I had it. I don’t want anyone to get in the way of this. This is why the fingers never do the walking anymore.



This is why my dream has come true. My dreams always come true after 5 or 6 nightmares in a row. Dreams of tables for one. I like that I can’t taste blood anymore. I like that I don’t have to take acting classes and all of that fun stuff. I like that I can be held down at gunpoint and still have a good time. I know the limit now. I know the way to San Jose. I know where to find the sunlight and easy living. It ain’t about finding it every day though. It’s all about me. It’s about me all the time. Fuck that, I don’t need to sign any papers. I don’t need to move myself into any new homes and shake hands with the devil and all of that. I now know who my friends and enemies are. It can’t be that bad, you just don’t know what you’re talking about, now come over here and pick my teeth out of this tree for me I can’t feel my legs and my dad is going to kill me for what I’ve done to the car. Sick? You are definitely not sick, you want to feel sick. You just don’t use your brain ever. I make apologies and I send greeting cards to you and you still think it’s all okay. You don’t realize it moves on. It all moves along slowly.



Magicians with baseball hats making your trust disappear. I like showing people the same tricks they showed me. I like smashing books and notebooks full of sugar and spice and everything nice. I like when I can get up in the morning, literally roll out of bed and have a million things to say about her. I was thinking about her before bed and I thought good things and nothing bad. Who cares what the neighbors say? Who would care what the folks downstairs would think. I’m not turning this car around and heading home I know that much. I could sit here and wonder and write letters and make phone calls like I did a month ago, but I have no real reason to act like a lollipop anymore. Why be a sucker when you have better neighbors that are more than willing to lend you sugar? Curiosity. Jealousy. They happen for a day at a time with me.



They come out of my room and they kill me with eyes that look right through me. The eyes stop at one place and don’t move from there. I want things from people. I want them to just shut the fuck up most of the time. I want people to give me things now. I gave way too many things for years and then turned into a sucker all the time. I want to go back to mutual decision making, and mutually administered back rubs and phone calls. There isn’t time for the advice of Jack Daniels right now, that’s so two lives ago. That’s so 16 years ago. I swallow things and spit them out when they taste like hair spray and whiskey. I throw them against the wall as hard as I can so I can see the blood splatter all over the place. I have these visions of blood all the time. Vivid, detailed scenarios of what it must be like to be involved in a disastrous car wreck. I had to pull off the road four times last week because I thought a truck was going to hit me head on going 75 miles and hour. I pictured this big metal thing coming through the window and me trying to duck, and just having my head ripped wide open and screaming from passengers and brakes and glass and all of that. No blood, just glass and crying. I’m too confident in that car. Too confident I won’t hit the big truck. The big trucks kill me. The big trucks haunt me anytime I’m on the highway.



This is one main reason Jack Daniels isn’t going to help me. He helps boys gather information about girls they would otherwise not give the time of day to. It helps girls forget they have any pride or respect. It helps nobody really. It helps me turn my love into comedy. It helps me walk down the street and find comedy at every corner as they all swerve and stumble through their little lives. It helps me get to the bottom of things a lot easier.



When I hit my exit I’m gonna get off and drive so fucking far away from here. When I hit my exit, I’m gonna drive to the beach. I love the vast ocean in front of me. It sort of scares me and makes me feel good at the same time. It’s all too big. I don’t want the big things anymore. None of the big issues to deal with. None of the day to day bullshit I seem to get myself involved with all because someone is a loser and I don’t want to shake his or her hand. I want this to end. Well, it has ended at this point. It has started to show it’s face in different ways now. I want this room to be a whole new center of attention for me. I don’t like the outside anymore, there’s far too many dangerous things happening, and far too many people I just don’t want to see ever again. Just those people I meet from time to time that don’t do a thing for me. I don’t mean my friends, maybe the people who know certain people and this and that and the other thing. No substance usually.



You don’t even understand the winter, it makes you weak, it makes you complain and complain and never want to be alone. You can’t even handle what the winter does to people. I like to watch what it does to people like you. Taking your emotions and building them up until February arrives and you have a nervous breakdown and can't handle anything whatsoever. You can’t handle the way it freezes everything you have and puts everyone away for the night. The nights are so lonely and desolate. Your car makes all this noise and only you get to hear it. You get to pull into the frosted driveway late at night depressed yet again, thirty something winters and you still can’t get it right. “I’m gonna move to Texas”, you’re going nowhere. Go up to your bedroom. Don’t lock the car in this weather, the locks may freeze. The night wants you to just shut the fuck up and go to bed. You’ll go to bed and like it. Nobody is out tonight, nobody is calling you tonight. You and the freezing wind and the frustration. Snow comes and you still can’t figure out why the winter does this to people every year. It doesn’t though, it’s just you. You and your weak self can’t handle loneliness. You can’t go at it alone. You can’t sit by the fire by yourself. You can’t go a few days without speaking a word. You need the interaction, you need someone to hold you from time to time, that’s not asking much right? Everyone needs that. Everyone needs the adoration and warmth of another human being. You need it constantly. Some place warm to hold your heart and not squeeze it so tight, especially in this winter. This dead cold winter. The summer is your time of year. Hot nights by the pool, no complaints from you. Everyone is home for vacation. Everyone is always around. You all get to get together and talk about how much the winter sucked. Nobody is hearing you though. You make jokes and comments about this one and that one, and can’t remember the last time someone held you in their arms and looked you in the eye. People, they seem to look away from you all the time. People, they seem to not want you. The summer is your time, and it’s ending quickly. What do you do, do you go for the gold and not turn back, or do you drive the straight and narrow road straight into it. I once drove my car off of a pier because they said I wouldn’t. Jumped out at the last minute and walked home with my new shoes and made sure I didn’t get sick. I don’t get sick often. I drive my car off of piers and don’t get sick. I drive my car into seasons. Slow dead cold seasons. I drive my car into this bullshit all the time. I know how to enjoy the ride now. I realize now that there is one way to approach this, with the car in drive, headlights on, seat belts fastened, clean windshield, and a full tank of gas.

Master of Puppets

I can push and be pushed into any situation. I try to make my own decisions here and there and really, I never do. I let situations dictate them. I don’t think I’ve put more than a few minutes into a choice in a long time. I have no fucking patience for sitting around thinking if it involves other people. I can just as easily ignore people forever. I can leave them alone and never pick up the phone again if I need to. Most people can’t do this, they are weak and always cave in. I think because everyone ever has failed me I don’t put any kind of stock into people at this point. Everyone is selfish at the end of the day including me. If I had it my way right now I would disappear into the middle of the country somewhere. Miles away from the ocean and the internet and coffee and listening to people ramble on about things I have no interest in, listening to the same questions over and over. Miles away from every single person invading my privacy, family, friends, strangers, I volunteer information all the time so the invasion doesn’t really exist, but really. Someone thinks I have something interesting to say. They must be blind, or have some other motives. Hmm.

Until I get back to reality and living some sort of new routine, this routine is the one. Staring at a ceiling fan, listening to animals in the back yard, watching people read their bibles, fat housewives sucking on milkshakes disguised as coffee drinks, all whites all the time. I sleep three hours a night, the rest of the time I am waiting for some sort of alarm to go off. The rest of the time its all noise all the time. Nowhere to go to avoid their deafening voices and taunts and uninteresting feelings about life.



Early morning dream 06/02/10:
Was in some sort of pantry area trying to run some sort of device that needed to be hooked up to a tank of gas and it was not working. Tank eventually came disconnected from hose and flew around small area before crashing into a wall.



Looking back now on trips I have taken, people I’ve taken them with, certain areas of the country and which were the best. I’ve never done extensive traveling with another person really. When I did it had a specific function, moving. The whole trips were complete stressful times for the majority, and there was nothing really relaxing about those trips. Trips I’ve taken in New England have been okay. Some have been hard to deal with because of whatever weather we were having, and usually the trips were too short. I know everything that’s here at this point for the most part. I’ve been to the top of Maine and looked across a river at Canada, and to the bottom of my least favorite state, Connecticut. So I feel like I’ve seen almost every inch of New England that I need to see. It’s impossible for me to get lost in Massachusetts.

Maybe because they are more recent, or because of the company I was with, or because I am better at traveling than I was say ten years ago. My trip to Disneyland for my birthday last November with G was great. Great that it was early in our relationship and although still didn’t know each other as well as we do now, it was great to spend my birthday at that place I loved as a kid with someone I love. Our trip to Morro Bay/San Luis Obispo this past March was also great. I didn’t know if it would be the last time I saw her or not since I was moving back to Boston a couple of weeks later. That is a great area of the state and I think I really fell for her there so it was particularly bittersweet to leave that day. I couldn’t write enough shitty songs and poems about that smile and well, other things.

Now that I have been back here, and have listened to all of these songs that remind me of here and then remind me of there, I feel like I really want to go back there. I know what is here and I know what is there. I put these things on a scale the other night. Ups, downs. Pros, cons, you know...It’s noisy and crowded here. If I get to the ocean here, it is rocky and cold and I feel like I am pushed against the sea.



"Hey Charlie"
I landed on the ice with a giant “thud”, and got up immediately. I think I had been running but I’m not sure when I think back to that night. Charlie wanted to catch up with me this night, but I wouldn’t let him. I ran, and ran, and ran. Charlie always had a slew of questions to ask me. Charlie always wanted me to tell him a story “from the old days”. I liked Charlie, but he was just too much sometimes. Charlie always wanted me to lend him a cigarette, although he never gave back the “lent” cigarettes I gave him. Charlie was never in love from what I can tell. He was always telling me of some girl he was with the night before, but I was never interested. In retrospect I guess I should have been a bit nicer to Charlie. Charlie pushed. Charlie outright bugged me most of the time.

I don’t think many people knew of Charlie. I never told my friends about Charlie, or the day I met him in the coffee shop. Charlie was sitting at the stool two over from me, and when the large construction man left, Charlie introduced himself. I had seen Charlie around my building, but had no clue he lived in it. In fact, he lived right below me. I didn’t really pay attention to anyone there, except for the couple next to me, whom I HAD to pay attention to because they were so loud. Arnold and Louise, what a fucking couple they were. So anyway, this particular night, it was raining, which made the ice on the ground even more slick than it was. I was coming home from my friends’ place where we had just watched television for five hours straight. Charlie saw me turn our corner, and started in with the questions. What's up? You staying up? Every once and a while I would let Charlie in and we would hang out and get high. Tonight I wanted to go to bed right away. I’m going to bed Charlie. I’m not doing anything tonight Charlie. I started yelling a little. I’m GOING IN CHARLIE! Charlie kept at it. I started running down the street in fear at this point. After the thud on the ice, I made my way into the apartment building.

Charlie came to the door five minutes after I got in. Can I come in? Just for a minute. Charlie was in love apparently. He had mentioned this one girl a bunch of times, but I had never paid attention. I hadn’t been in love in three years, so I guess I was a bit jealous of Charlie. I all of a sudden felt a little compassion for Charlie, and listened to him. Hey remember the time you told me you fell in love with that girl, and she turned out to be your cousin? Yes I remember that Charlie. Remember you told me that it was much bigger than love, and that every time you were with her you felt like she was a part of you? Yes I remember that Charlie. That’s how I feel right now. Who is she Charlie? Her name is Darlene, and she works at the pizza place up the street. Oh, I think I know who you’re talking about, you’ve mentioned her before right? I offered Charlie a cigarette. He said he was quitting. Your loss I snapped. Darlene obviously doesn’t smoke I take it? Yes, she does. Oh. I’m going to marry her. You are? Yes, I think I am. The horoscope says I probably will. And that’s a good source of information for you Charlie? It never lies to me. How come every time I look at it Charlie, I ignore it if it doesn’t say anything good, and when it does, I ignore it anyway?

The next morning Charlie was on his way to the store when he dropped in the middle of the street. It seems a brain tumor fell him. I guess in retrospect Charlie was a good man, he just bugged me a bit too much. The one night when I finally let him have his night with me he dies the next day. I visited the pizza place after Charlie died to see Darlene. She’s at home with her husband the guy behind the counter told me. It turns out that Charlie was indeed in love with Darlene, but this was news to Darlene. Charlie wanted so bad to have love in his life but was denied it over and over, so he made up stories. I miss Charlie. I have no love either, and Charlie had some love, he seemed to love me, but I had none of it to give him when he was alive. My friends now have all gone on and pursued their dreams of moving out of this city, and into homes with their wives, and girlfriends. Today I went down to the coffee shop and sat at the counter next to this policeman. After he got up, I moved into his seat, and asked the man next to me if he was enjoying the unusually warm weather in January.



"Novembre"
Lets cut out the small talk

We are sitting next to each other and that’s all

I am not an interesting person

I am not an interested person

I have nothing to give you really

I can give you stories

I can follow you home

I am good at that

I can make you think I am someone else

I am good at that

I can let you think you know me

In the middle of the night though

I am pulling strings

I’m plotting revenge on you

You’ve done absolutely nothing to me

I know you’ve done harm to others though

I see through you all the way to Hawaii

I sit up late at night writing letters to your friends

I spend hours devising ways to harm you

I sit around inside my head

I’m no better than you

You are truly better than me, which is why I do this

You win one battle

In the end though, I win ten

You fight three battles

I fight none

And I still come out on top somehow

The second you asked me what my name was

That was the first mistake you made

You wife and kids seem nice

I’m really sorry

Really, I am.

What Are You Looking For?

Dream # 23 last night (05/26/10)
I’m on some flimsy wooden raft in the middle of this rough waterway. I can see land on each side of me. Waves are reaching twenty feet high. The horrifying nature of the ordeal knocks me out in the dream.

-------------

One time in the 80’s I would put cologne on when I went out for the night. Like Polo cologne. What a fucking loser. The second I stepped outside someone should have smashed me in the face with a pink aluminum softball bat six times. I wonder if wearing cologne has ever worked for anyone. We were just going to the ice cream shop and then home.

--------------

If I try and think back to around ages 6-10 it is kind of blank. We lived in Los Angeles, I seemed pretty occupied with Kiss records, dirt bikes and Suzanne Somers. I don’t remember what a day was like. What time did I wake up? When did I eat? What did my voice sound like? All shit I really don’t want to know, but it seems odd to think of yourself that young and how you were. I think with me it would freak me out as it would be me before I was a fuck up.



Dream # 11 (“a few months ago”)
I’m in some weird canyon. It’s dry and tanned everywhere. Everything is sunny bright yellow and light dirt. One hundred yards away or so I see a group of people standing around talking. A loud chuckle erupts every few minutes. I try and move towards them but every time I do one of the people in the group does some odd motion with their hand and a bolt of electricity comes shooting out of their hand, striking me on the leg so I can no longer move.



Her name was Stacie. She worked in some office downtown or something. Theodore knew her from Popeye’s Fried Chicken. At night she would drink wine until she passed out in the living room. One time Theodore took her to see some Robin Williams movie and she threw up all over his cock behind a Cracker Barrel out on Rt 6.



I can remember plenty of things from my teenage years, and some from my twenties. Other than that, everything gets blurry. Same with being a teenager, why would I ever want to know what that kid was like? Sometimes I talk to friends from that era now, ex-girlfriends from when I was like fourteen and the terms boyfriend and girlfriend didn’t really mean much anyway. Their last impression of me is of a fifteen year old kid or something, How odd. I imagine if I was even remotely the same as I was then I wouldn’t have a single friend. I was pretty awkward and quiet and introverted and angry and whatever else unfortunate word you can think of.



Dream # 20 (05/24/10)
Some guys voice saying “the rooms are fifty dollars each, and no you can’t play that guitar in here and the cat has to stay in the car”

-----------

His name was Ian, he worked for the Public Works Department. In the summers as you tip toed back home from the beach to avoid burning your already half charred feet you would see Ian driving around in one of those orange trucks. He was happy to pick up other people’s trash. At one point he bought a lottery ticket and told everyone he was going to win enough money to finally leave town. On the night of the drawing he was killed by a car walking his dog (the dog also died). His numbers did not come out. All of those orange trucks have those numbers he played painted on the side of them now. The numbers have never been drawn.



This man is always in here. He kind of makes me nervous. You will see him here in the afternoon and if you drive by or stop in later at night he’ll still be here. Some days he will take his shoes off while he is sitting there, Other days he has all of these items with him, drinks, three or four of them. It appears he orders probably the cheapest drink and then just sits here all day. Some days he makes phone calls on his cell and is louder than he needs to be. The main deal though, his eyes. He has that look in his eyes that just says “I’m crazy”. He just sat down and two women got up in left. Imagine having that power? You sit down and people just leave because you are weirding people out. I would jump off a bridge if that happened.

----------

I feel disconnected all over the place now. These last couple of years, losing touch with people, getting back in touch with them but then feeling like everything is different. I feel like an intruder sometimes. Like I have no place in any new circle of friends. This is why it was tough in California. Who wants to be the new guy ever? I’d rather wallow in nothing and be this person instead. Everyone I know already is fine, and unless it’s via them, her, etc I can’t imagine getting into some new group of people. Wait, I don’t think I’m actually being serious here. Strange how sometimes words just come out of you because they feel good to say or type out. Sometimes shit can just come out of me like this that holds no bearing on reality. I feel like I wrote lyrics like this quite a bit.



Speaking of lyrics I recently started putting an entry together from my old band’s lyrics...particularly our last album as I enjoyed writing them, performing them, recording them and ultimately coming up with the final product which would have been our fourth album but was never released. I’m still thinking of releasing it though as I feel like it needs to be put out, even if only like sixteen people buy it.



Dream # 8 (“a long time ago”)
On this long highway that has been seemingly going on for hours and hours. The sky is huge, biggest sky I have ever seen in my life. Everything is bright and almost hurts my eyes. I finally reach the horizon and just fly off into nowhere.

-----------

I can’t imagine another version of her than the one I know and have grown to love. Different feelings getting tugged in every direction. Different emotions and ways to go about each day. When I think of every last good memory we have, winding roads, old baseball parks, Disneyland, towers and monuments and gorgeous blue skies and gorgeous smiles and hair to make me feel warmer than anyone else will feel. When I think of everything invented in my brain though, I don’t trust myself, I don’t trust anyone else. I don’t want to have to listen to what anyone else tells me about my feelings and life aside from her and I. I don’t want to worry about strangers and long lost friends who think they know how I am. Nobody knows how I am, what is best for me or where I need to be. The only thing that matters to me right now is her smile.



Dream # 1 ("a couple of years ago")
Not dangerously high above the ocean, but high enough that it would hurt to fall. She approaches me and I grab her face inside her hooded sweatshirt and kiss her. I fall asleep to this every night for a year.

Hey, I Can Do Arson You Old Bat

Last night could barely get to sleep. Hearing noises and seeing things. This house I am in now, the last house on the left of a dead end. Woods behind it, some nosey old people in the neighborhood, It’s my grandmother’s old house, part of the family and hopefully it will be where I grow old some day who knows, maybe it will sell and allow me to grow old somewhere else. A nice big yard, a pool that is out of commission right now and a neighborhood any family would want to raise their little white kids in. The neighborhood feels like the kind of place where every other house probably voted for Obama, has at least two Norah Jones CD’s in it, yet if a black person was walking down the street they would probably call the police.



Trying to get to sleep here some nights is impossible. I don’t believe in ghosts or anything I can’t see with my own eyes that is/was scientifically proven to me. I’m sorry but it will never happen. I know some people become born again Christians or sudden believers in God and that kind of thing, but honestly, ghosts, monsters, demons, Jesus, God, magic, planets aligning, crystal balls and that kind of stuff, I can’t imagine ever believing in it. Forever I will just continue to dismiss it. Maybe someday I will have some sort of event in my life where I suddenly “believe” in the unknown, but nowadays, highly unlikely. As much as I like to talk shit and make jokes about it, I don’t think less of people who “believe”. I just think you’re all fucking crazy. Heh.



So yeah I am convinced the house is haunted. Or people/things from the woods are trying to get in through the basement. I hear them late at night scuttling around down there. They know specifically that I am staying in this house so they are targeting me as they have in the past. Seems like everywhere I have lived they visit, spy, watch ,all of that fun stuff. I’d like to think I am imagining things sometimes, but really, come on. In California this never happened. Maybe the nature of just not feeling settled in ever is taking it’s toll and now I’m seeing things. Hotels, floors and couches has been the norm since August 4th last year. Maybe they are following from years ago. I’ll get to the bottom of it someday I swear. In the meantime I do my own spying all day and all night and know where they are and where they watch me from. It’s a mutual thing.



So I had this once, I was walking through this series of buildings, this complex if you will. It started with me walking up a balcony in some sort of theatre. A real steep balcony, with soft lights on the stairs, and red velvet at the top, glowing from another series of 4 or 5 lamps of soft light. It was elegant, but dirty at the same time. Contradicting the red velvet on the walls was a dirty, grimy, sticky cement floor. Old dried up soda, and chocolate covered raisins. Cigarette butts, and dank beer smell. There was a group of people sitting in one of the aisles. 5 or 6 people that looked familiar. No faces whatsoever, but they looked real familiar. As I passed them, they started blurting my name out. Right at this moment, I was all of a sudden with a girl with no face, no personality, nothing, just “a girl”. We were rushing by them, and I seemed to feel particularly embarrassed by the whole situation for some reason. We made our way out into this courtyard type are that was real European looking. Lot’s of real old buildings with amazing stones, and windows and doors. The doors. The fucking doors. No, not Jim Morrison and his Doors. Doors I kept opening. Looking in the rooms and hallways for something. One doorway would open to a wall. Another doorway would open to a long hallway with more doors along the walls inside it. There was one door that held the room I always see in my nightmares. A big room with huge ceilings, and a floor that is basically big rusty beams. Real damp, and dark this room. I always end up in this room. Scaling the walls, trying not to “fall in”. This room is huge, probably 20 yards wide by 30 yards long. I opened this door and shut it immediately. The next door I opened there was a man there. There was a stairway that looked exactly like the one in this old apartment building I used to hang out at. Four stories high, old wood banisters. Doorways with apartments you’ll never see. So I open this door, and this tall blonde guy with a Hawaiian shirt on. I pick the guy up by the collar and heave him down the stairs. I run down after him swearing. I throw him down the next stairway. I run down after him, and do it again. I do this until he’s at the bottom, and start kicking him in the stomach over and over. I go back into the courtyard. The alarm clock goes off.



At one point in time, all of the best vacations I have taken have all revolved around me seeing a band, usually Phish, before that, it was the Grateful Dead. Most people who know me in person state that I definitely don’t seem like the type that would be into either of those bands. I don’t look like a “hippie”, but I learned years before, when I spent time in the punk rock scene for years, that it had nothing to do with what you looked like. Anyway, I just remembered my first trip by myself twenty years ago.

I bought this book listing every single Grateful Dead show available on tape from 1988-1995 or something like that. I opened it to February 25th 1990, in Oakland, California. I was twenty years old at the time. I was going to take a train from Boston all the way to San Francisco, and meet my best friend at the time, Derek there. He flew. I had never been away from home by myself for a long period of time, so this two week journey to see two Grateful Dead shows would prove to be a stepping stone to what I would still be doing ten years later, and define when I really feel myself. On the road, by myself. Previous to this show, I saw the band in the summer of 1989 and then a “famous” show in New Jersey in October of 1989.

So I get on this train in South Boston and I’m immediately feeling elated to be leaving, seeing the band, and seeing parts of the country I had never seen. I was a painfully shy person, but being on a train for four days straight will make even the most timid person a “life of the party”. I think we were maybe two hours into the trip, we stopped in Springfield, Massachusetts. The train was relatively empty, and I was lucky enough to score two seats, so I could sit at the window. In Springfield the train sort of filled up and I see this character walking down the aisle. About five feet tall, cowboy boots, denim jeans, a denim jacket, long black “ZZ Top beard”, and sunglasses (it’s 9:30PM in the dead of winter), a duffel bag in one hand, and a guitar slung around his shoulder. I of course make eye contact with him, and he immediately sits down next to me.

“HOW YA DOIN BUDDY, I’M JIM (I can’t remember his name at this point), WHERE YOU GOIN!!?”

“Ummmm, San Francisco.”

“WELL IT LOOKS LIKE WE’RE TRAVELING TOGETHER, I’M GOING TO DENVER!!!”

“Excellent”

Yeah, real excellent.

So he starts talking and doesn’t shut up about music and traveling. It was interesting, but his voice, and overall demeanor made it a little hard to take him serious. The best part was yet to come though.

“YOU LIKE VODKA???”

“No, I don’t really drink at all”

“WELL IF YA DO, I GOT PLENTY”

He opens his jacket and has two fifths in each inside pocket of the jacket, two nips in each breast pocket, opens his duffel bag, and he literally, no joke, had a little bit of clothing, and what looked like 6 more bottles of vodka. I got up and went to the restroom, and he showed up in there.

“OH THERE YOU ARE, HEY YOU WANT A SWIG OF THIS OR WHAT????”

“No really, I’m all set”

So we get to Albany and I know what I have to do. I knew that we would be switching trains in Chicago in the morning, but I really couldn’t deal with him anymore. I got out of the train and went into the station and asked if I could get a room for the night on the train. It would be eighty bucks. I forked down the money and got my upgraded ticket.

I went back in and told “Jim” that they fucked up, my ticket stated I was to be in another train. A likely story, as anyone who knows Amtrak, you buy a cheap ticket, you sit wherever the fuck you want. I went to my room, and it was literally about the size of a stall in a restroom…okay the handicapped stall (which begs the question I often ask myself when I perpetually use the handicapped stall, can I get arrested for using this, or get a ticket? I mean it does seem to me the same crime as parking in one of the handicapped spaces, but the room in there is great, you get those railings in case you’re sick, drunk, or handicapped; it’s a whole new world in there. I imagine the women’s room to have a similar affect on me if I was to ever walk in a “good one”[as opposed to the one I was in at Saratoga Springs, New York, which was so dirty I thought I was in the men’s room]). It was tiny nonetheless, enough room to stand, and fold down the bed which was right against the window.

Waking up in Ohio the next morning was an absurd feeling. Ohio. Who lives in Ohio? Guided By Voices. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and ummmm…some other people that apparently love corn. So Ohio is pretty boring…on the train at least. I won’t ever just say a state is boring if I haven’t stepped on the soil there. Driving through Nebraska is as boring as watching ice melt, but when you get out and walk around a little, late, in the middle of a chilly, damp night you realize there’s nothing like it in the world. Nebraska.

So we arrive in Chicago, where you get to get on the double decker train. Much bigger, much more exciting. I still hadn’t seen “Jim”, but I was aware we has around. I did see him in the middle of the night actually for a couple of minutes at the bar (“why is he buying drinks with all that he has on him?”…I figured it out, he was just making his drinks even stronger, that’s apparently what you do or something when you’re a big drinker. Up the ante a little). The next time I saw him was in Denver where he was getting off. I went up to him and, knowing he was getting off for good and said:

“Hey Jim, I was looking for you the past day and a half to see if you wanted to hang out, we were supposed to be traveling together and all that…well, hopefully I’ll run into you again…have a good life”

It’s funny, all of the people I met on that first train ride it always ended with “Have a good life” What a strange departing phrase. There was no internet, well, not that I was using anyway, so there was no e-mail exchanging, and I was certainly not going to write anyone letters. I met a lot of great people. The most memorable after “Jim”, were the two old black men from Mississippi who got me drunk and told me stories about segregation, and John Lee Hooker and that kind of stuff. I have an amazing picture of one of the men reading the newspaper at dawn that I will post on here some day when I remember to scan it.

The other guy was an African fellow who was with me from Denver to San Francisco. He didn’t speak very good English, and he had a ton of money. He owned farms, had a big family, and traveled the world from time to time. Sam was his name. When we got to San Francisco, neither of us had been there before so we sort of hung out for a little while, until we got our shit together. I took a good photo of him at the San Francisco train station that I’d also like to put up here. I love meeting new people. I especially love it when I’m traveling though. You can’t really rely on small talk at all. You don’t have to make impressions though either. I like to put on an act from time to time when I meet people traveling. “Yeah, I’m a policeman in Boston” So this first trip was the first of a dozen of these, most of them small ones with friends, but I did three summers where it was two week excursions by myself that were both healthy, and bad for me at the same time. I had this a little on the first trip.

The train ride home got tedious. “Shit, Indiana again”

For subsequent summers, I will probably not be going on the same type of excursions though. There are no tours to follow around at my age. I am going to go somewhere though.. Either way, I need it again, and it can’t come any fucking sooner. That’s it, I’m going across country again.