Some of us are stronger than this life.
The sky above the wasted yard was like a tight sheet of white aluminum. We were all standing there when Shithouse rode out. He was looking for someone to throw his weight down on. The workers were too. Get it over with. Get the day over with and head back to the mess and to the shacks for a greasy meal and a tepid shower. That’s when Butch stepped up. Shithouse was barely off his outrigger when Butch stepped up.
“Yeah?, ” Shithouse glowered down on Butch but what he meant was “FUCK YOU WANT WHITE BOY.”
There was a time in my life when I didn’t care. A blind, self-immolating 20years falling upwards into shoretown jails and ghetto back yards. A time of wrecked cars, 6am bottles of rye, real damage against myself and my friends and everyone. It was around the end of the damage years when shit was at its worst. That’s when I hung out with Butch the most. The Year of the Cock and into ’06, or the Never Ending Summer of Evel Knievel as we refer to it here at the Office.
They’ve been ripping up 8th street so my life’s been on a kind of fuckall pause. No concentration. No privacy. And the insipid beeping from backhoes&loaders backing up and down the street from 7am until after 6 at night. And, Claude, our French-Canadian plumber, has been up on the third floor installing a new bathroom and getting rid of the black mold in Camp’s place.
These rueful&infuriating distractions were nothing compared to the bad blues that came down over us at the office over the last week or so.
Turns me on so loud, turns me on so loud it’s like no sound. It’s a button pushed, says AIR RAID! AIR RAID!
Chief, from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
I always liked Chief’s description of electro-shock therapy. Snows of static start the dissociation. From my disconnected place I can see the ugly&the untrue in all. That’s how it feels, anyway. I sense nothing but lies. I’m completely isolated with Chief’s holy white pain coursing through me. Hell is real, hell is a place. The blues are real. They come over me. They take over, shut the rig down. I get mean&withdrawn. I have no tolerance for any graying of the black&white. Ambiguity is my enemy. If you are vague you are lying and are soon thrown to the lions and the outer circle.
Who’s to blame for the bad blues? Would it matter if I could blame it on someone or something? I doubt it.
I’m still paid visit by this horrible friend who’s never welcome and stays on anyway. Death pulling up a chair, smoking all your cigarettes&drinking all your booze and molesting your girlfriend.
That’s about the smack of it, Pilgrim. Discord&dissaray and tiny tests of sanity pin-pricking the days into excruciating minutes outside-total fucking war inside. This time through the black was the most informative I can remember. Or maybe it’s because I’m awake now. I know that Greyhounds&Slavedrivers might get you through the painful afternoon but the night will come, it will find you and it will find you out. The blues’ll keep you until the rueful morning, when it hurts the most. When you fare your body, gage your surroundings and are suddenly thrown into the realization that you were born to trouble and this ain’t the high life but a hardlined grudge match with death&ruin. The sun comes up&in. And it hurts. After all this time it’s not even a question, more of a-Oh. I did it again. Dread rearing at the onset of another bullshit day filled with pain. A combination of weariness and fear. Coupled with a vodka headache and a mass of something black and deadly in your chest from a pathetic pack-a-day habit.
The reason I am telling you about Butch and the bad blues is simple. Ol’ Butch Hammaday’ll be guest blogging on here very soon and I’m sorry you haven’t heard from me in a while. I been on junkyard time. Been pacing the bleak-black and hated landscape of my psyche. I was checking in and I didn’t like it. I was watching them and I didn’t like that either. So, yeah, Butch and the bad blues. Bad blues kept me from letting you know that I’ve been compiling&editing and reworking my poetry from the Spring and Summer. WragsInk will be putting out a volume of the stuff. We’ll be doing a reading here in Hippie Town to celebrate it and Anthology Philly‘s (in which I am featured) release.
Also, I’ll be playing singer/songwriter Amelia Card‘s CD Release/Going Away party this Friday. I met Amelia at Skinny’s Ballroom where she hosts an open mic every Monday night. Amelia is one of my very favorite singer/songwriters here in Hippie Town. She’s really got an original thing happening, fresh but still very traditional. I like traditional/roots music. It’s why I slid down here in the Year of the Monkey. I came down for the sound. Also b/c of a thrice-bitter meltdown that’s somehow rewired my nervous system and conditioned me to jolt and rip out any connection that gets too close. I got burned. Big deal. My time in Philly was a circus and there’s a sucker born every minute, although some people feel like a sucker every day of their life when they’re living in a town where they shoot you for your shoes. I digress. Big things are happening, we’re gonna shake it on down this fall, cut it loose and let it die. Aho. We’ll be trying to get some work done at the Office despite the fuckall drilling&beeping and insufferable chiggers. Despite rounds won by a bad bitch of motherfucking blues. Aho. The terrible summer is over.
Going for the Throat 