Dying, Vile and Verbose

Writing, creative writing is like herding cats. Unlike a homework assignment for wayward Henry—the stuff surfaced when it was good and ready, coming from somewhere between the cranium and the navel.

Henry googling chronic pain and fatigue, his daily condition. Filing the resulting hooey and blah blah in the wastebasket of the mystery of medical science or —fucking doctors just don’t know shit and, be patient  Henry in a few more years you will be dead. 

Death a sovereign remedy and elixir, the best LSD trip imaginable or nonbeing and nothingness in the cold stark earth. 

Dying for days, months or minutes, most of it long arduous minutes. Dying, vile and verbose, pain with many faces; cold and hot, sweating and gasping, choking as you shake, dry heaves or salty spew, begging for Mama’s helping hand. 

This was the stuff of Henry’s life gone down.   Carousing maggots, drunk and feasting on rat carcass. An Inglorious fanfare, a death march, a parade without audience.

Henry the eloquent carper, the majestic party poop. Far removed from the crowd with no way back.

It was his and he owned it he thought.

Junk Speak

Henry the huckster  — eyes wide open running a hundred miles a hour into the freak show, eyes wide open. 

He didn’t have anything to write about—a Hemingway or Hunter S. Thompson would off themselves now, but not Henry, he was a truly courageous.

Henry a stranger to success in art and life, no Hemingway, no Hunter S. Thompson, no reason to off himself—no reason to write.

Writing was habit for Henry, it was constitutional, not unlike washing yourself or eating, something done without much thought. 

Henry felt nothing inside, there were no itches to scratch, feeling thick through out, like  
a spinal tap was attached to his neck, downward, numb.  

A story, this story, as a mono-dimensional protestation. Base, shameful, tiring and not required. 

Henry watching William Burroughs on Youtube—the old Colonel was spot on, “Junk Speak”  truth sayer and dragon slayer—

‘You must learn to exist with no religion, no country, no allies. You must learn to live alone in silence.’

William Burroughs

The Brewing Yuk Factor

sucks, but here it is—

Henry’s in bed, listening to Freddie King on a colored radio station somewhere in Georgia— slow-moving Texas blues, sweet and blue as rainfall.

On the fast track again— writing to get out of himself in busted-up form, a splash of color, and a crapshoot.

He’s lazy, writing’s a dull itch needing to be scratched.

Henry didn’t like people. In the old days the pikers knew their place at the gaming table, today anybody with an ache and a blog is a superstar— way too much self, self, and more self, everywhere. 

Andy Warhol, the crimson prophet of the brewing yuk-factor. 

Everybody will have fifteen minutes of fame.

There's a line of faceless yuks hanging around the block of 231 East 47th Street tripping over one another like spawning Mackerels with hard-ons for fifteen minutes of fame. 

Review of Exile on Mainstreet

The Rolling Stones looked for studios in Paris and couldn’t find any they liked. They had a truck that was equipped with a studio that could be parked by any theater or empty loft.

Keith Richard's house, Nillcote, seemed to be the best choice, near lawless Marceau and Mafia Italy. Philipe Lymen could make smack runs into the lawless Marceau, or into Mafia controlled Genoa.

Mick and Bianca Jagger (who was pregnant) were living in Paris. The musicians, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman, Mike Taylor, Bobby Keys the horn section and rhythm section were living scattered around. Mick decided they would move into Nillcote.

The Stones were exiled from the UK for tax abuse and were shaken up by it. They missed the comfort of the Brit food they were used to and the cloistered utero feeling of the safe worlds they had created in their mansions, but not the 90% UK tax. It was impossible to live at that tax rate, the UK is strange.

They felt like true expats, alone with nothing to lose. They were in a Catch-22 situation, sink or swim.

With the positivity of their leader Mick Jagger, his constant happiness and vision, his easy-going style, his ongoing joy of the whole process, Jagger was the glue that held the creative process together.

Keith on the other-hand was muddling through a junk habit and would sleep long hours. Keith would wake-up with a hangover, have a taste, back in the halo, all the time listening to the guys working on songs in the basement.

The whole band had to be ready when Keith was up and running, which unnerved Jagger who felt Keith would do better to adhere to some kind of a schedule.

Mick would sit in the basement jamming, fabricating, but truly missing his best friend Keith, who was at the beach.

The band would kibitz about on songs, Keith when in action was a taskmaster, when a song was ready, a sensation or consciousness swept through the musicians, Keith would start staring at Bill Wyman, who would tilt his bass up about 15 degrees towards the heavens, THAT WAS THE SIGN! 20 takes latter towards the final cut ( which would be hashed over in the Sunset Blvd Studio latter in LA) it happened.

The bewitching open party atmosphere is a major part of putting "" Exile"" together. There was no security, cool people walking in and out. Anita Pallenberg (Keith's wife at the time, the two of them where shooting gallery buddies), reminisces, walking into the living room and seeing a guy with a huge baggy full of smack sitting on the sofa. Of course, that was a ticket to get in on the endless partying with the family, but things got dark from then on.

Bobby Keys with a southern drawl, the band's sax player never mentioned seeing junk, but admitted seeing plenty of booze and ganja, all being used 24 hrs a day--Keys had one eye open and one eye closed of course.

Keith had a family whose job it was to score smack for him in Marceau. Tim Lyman would make trips between borders to supply and use junk with Keith and Anita.  Lyman's son, Nicholas could roll joints for the gang, that was his job. Years later Nicholas said the scene felt dark to him at times, but he also felt a charismatic feeling emanating.

The recording studio was spread out and divided into sections. The head end was an old BBC mobile studio in a truck which had to be backed up a tiny alleyway through untrimmed trees, then running wires from the head end through the ground floor of Nillcote. It was weird, everyone was so wasted. The horn section might be connected to the studio in a hallway, Bill Wyman was wired right outside of Keith's section. It just seemed like a big cluster-fuck, it was amazing anything was put together.

Keith kept a maid, Matta, who looked like a Voodoo Priestess. Jumbo Jack, the cook, who was as big as Howling Wolf, with triple size hands and wore a Top hat. He doubled as a chauffeur. JUMBO COULD MAKE Fried chicken, burritos, hamburgers, fries, veggies, pizza, peel fruit, whatever the family wanted.

Matta was a gambler and loved to play dice, she would organize crap games and got rich winning money from Jagger and Richards. Jagger got the ideal for the song "Tumbling Dice" from crap games with Matta.

Bianca Jagger in a slinky Asian style white silk dress,  radiating auras, she was the sun, at the corp of Exile, Mick's full of joy,  a father with the beautifully pregnant Bianca.

Aside: I AM GOING TO CUT UP WHAT I'VE WHAT THE REST OF THIS STORY,  AND DO AS MICK JAGGER DID, CUTTING UP LYRICS ON THE FINAL VERSION ON "CASINO BOOGIE

Started out jamming.

The Stones were always in debt, the tax under labor was 83%. It was impossible for them to live in England. And the powers at be were threatened by the Stones.

Keith felt that they were edged out of their own country (UK).

The album was raw and edgy but the reviews were terrible. 2 years later it was called the best rock n roll album ever. Mick felt the PRESS was very disruptive to his and Bianca's personal life.

Charlie Watts suffered culture shock at first but remains in France today.

Keith said it was getting cold outside and winter was coming, the tape was in the truck and everyone left quickly. Even the French Government was scared of the Devils at Nillcote, the best place for an artist to live in the world, scared of an artist? go figure, as they say.

The stones felt like exiles and they knew they had to do this album. But nobody thought it would be as good as it still is.

There was no mention in the documentary were money was coming from and who was the money manager goes unsaid.

The stones were the center of the universe at the time, music was revolution.

The whole gathering, family, players, technicians, cooks were a tribe.

Watts says Richards was a true Bohemian, he lived like a rastaman, from day to day and didn't worry about the small shit.

The best music comes when the band doesn't think they are being recorded.

Bobby Keys was an open-minded, loving and an accepting good old boy, odd guy, so straight, but totally in the Nillcote family groove.

Mick Taylor wasn't making any money but was digging it all.

It was so hot in the basement at times that Mick wrote a song and sang it while playing piano "Where's our Ventilator?"

French man goes to Nillcote, to visit for a day, he is amazed, he ends up partying with the family for six months.

Ian Stewart, who was was a stride genius, who was often called the 5th Stone was never mentioned because he wasn't at Nillcote.

Keith does an interview after shooting junk. He talks intelligently but is wain.

Charlie and Mick walk into the present location of Nillcote, looking around in 2010 Mick says to Charlie on film, " there was no master plan," and "boring, old recording session, who gives a shit". Mick was the anti-christ of rock n roll those days." Alan Ginsburg crowned Mick the KING of the World Hippiedom.

Keith & Mick can play like John Hammond in duo and they often do, even now.

The Stones like Ray Charles loved country music too. Keith saw country music and hill people to be like a hallucination in the forest clearing festooned with Tibetan Flags nomads.

Rock is a beautiful Navajo blue turquoise stone on gold caldron to mix things up in…..Keith

The basement was the center of the universe, drink-in Jack, smoking ganja, coca, play as loud as they wanted. It was like recording in a sauna.

Pallenberg calls it a labor of love.

When Bianca and Mick were married it was supposed to be a secret but didn't stay a secret.

Bobby keys could play all reed instruments and taught Charlie about time settings: 2/4 mostly, to count 2 counts to every 4 beats in a measure, 1+2+. 1 and 2 and down on the 1 & 2, up on the ands. Charlie was a quick learner and always played as though he could crack any second, following Keith. 

Nillcote was never empty, there were few disruptions though.

Like true alcoholics they would only eat one meal a day you could drink Pernod, spring water, Jack Daniel, Fresh juice, great Champagne, Coke-Cola, whatever you wanted.

Charlie Watts says it is hell for everyone, but not for Keith.

Keith would sleep for a whole day, so when the group the regular players went to bed, Keith would just work with whoever was there. Usually, Jimmy Miller, who adored Keith, would stay up with him and a few others. Jimmy Miller could play drums. Affable good ol boy Bobby Keys would stay, Keys has a big heart even today.

Allot of the Stones music is all from their hearts, played with open hearts and empty minds.

Keith's people were watching TV and they were robbed, 8 guitars, some amps and stuff, there was no security at Nillcote except JUMBO JACK who was cooking. It wouldn't be that way today, impossible, but the free flow love seemed to work as security.

Keith's Mum once said that Keith was born with a good ear. An utterly-amazing ear, Mrs. Richards was just being modest. Listen to "All Down the Line" Alternate Take. Keith plucks 1 note into the air and the harmony is slightly off, but it rocks you to the bone. Don Was says " They open up, "All Down The Line" Alternate take as far as you can.

Mick says "there was no control."

They split to LA. And the emotions and love they were giving out through the album drained them emotionally

Casino Boogie, the lyrics, was inspired by Burroughs cut-up method, Mick would write 3 to 8 words on type paper and write 3 to 9-word phrases, write them down with a felt tip pen and cut them into pieces while smoking and sing them.

Anita Pallenberg says it was a beautiful world, she and Keith liked to go to a deserted beach, smoke ganja, Keith would jam and sit cross-legged on a indian blanket.

Charlie Watts says they mixed the album constantly. Mick and Charlie designed the album cover.

They used the beat photographer Robert Frank's photos. He recommended they film stuff with Super 8.

Mick doesn't like anything you did yesterday he is interested in tomorrow, that keeps him going, CW

Keith did junk to hide from the glare of the press, it was his halo armour. He felt like the junk covered him and protected him, he was the coolest person on earth with it, the shit was like a shield for Keith, he lived in his own universe at Nillcote and still does,  in his own Beduin cushioned library. Today's Keith Richards is more of a book freak with an unreal vocabulary and not a junky. He still enjoys a smoke of ganja and snort of Rebel Yell!

_________________________________

Aside: When the album " Exile on Main Street" was released I was one of the first to buy it. I smoked ganja, drank German Beer and listened to it over and over again, wearing out the grooves. 

REFERENCES: THE FILM WORK OF STEPHEN KIJAK AND THE INTERVIEWS ON THE DOCUMENTARY BY THOSE WHO WERE THERE.

Steam Rolling Through Life

Henry Lucowski fucked, jilted by most and himself too. He was junk, the lot of it was. The Henry thing reeking, feasted on by maggots and grub-worms, bare-bone and all.  

In Wa Wa Coffee Shop, not liking the past, Henry the steam roller, rolling through life, melting it down, dumping hot ash on the junk, it was the past and he hated it. 

Henry’s mind like a cess pool, taking all the shit in the world in and pushing it out further down the stream, scared to death of it.

This a mental process he had learned while serving time in San Quentin, a coping mechanism that keep him from going over the edge. 

Henry hated himself without reservation, consequently he stopped looking inside and in the mirror. He could see beauty in others and things, but not in himself. 

( Bukowski “ Born into This,” on You Tube spurring Henry on )

So Henry kept at it, the writing, for absolutely nothing. G-d knows why? 

The feeling of emptiness never left him these days. He felt his spine was tapped from the vertebrae nearest his brain, down.

Henry was stuck here.   

Angel Headed Hipsters

Henry in a shit-hole, not suicidal,  just holding on—a hand full of nothing. 

Microscopic razor-blades, intercellular antagonist flowing through his veins.   

Henry at Wah Wah coffee shop, he stopped in from time to time. Chocolate and coffee for breakfast offering temporary relief from pain, even cocaine was temporary, everything was. 

Reading “HOWL” by Allen Ginsburg—

“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,

angel headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night…”

Henry thinking on  “HOWL” some —a poem of desperation,  pathos about modern revolutionary heroes, victims of excess and predators of the “Negro night?”

Henry’s mind a space ship flying no-where he thought. 

Reading over today’s writings he realised his mind was gone, afloat on a  river of shit, and so it goes. 

It Did His Pain In

Henry one eye open and one eye closed, he could pick and choose this way. The same with his mind, open to some closed to the others, he had a “Cross-eyed heart.”

Born with a good ear, at times he felt music could heal him, it took him away.

Henry hardly on fire,  no burning issues on the table, frankly he didn’t care.

Having told all his stories, lacking fire in the gut, it made it hard for Henry to write.

It was sad that he had nothing after a life-time of G-d knows what? 

The ghastly nothingness  Henry felt in old age was reminiscent of Sartre— the cool soberness of existentialism—Henry’s final stop in life before death. 

 “Most of the time, because of their failure to fasten on to words, my thoughts remain misty and nebulous. They assume vague, amusing shapes and are then swallowed up: I promptly forget them.”

Quote from Sartre’s “Nausea.” 

Existentialism the soul-eating virus that changed the equation of life in old age—Henry would meet it face to face— it was nothing he thought.

Henry pitied the writers, the spinners of yarns, the glorious fiction, the mystery, the spy, the ghoulish stuff.  Writing fiction was lying for him.  

Telling the truth was tantamount  for Henry— it did his pain in.  

Making it Rain

Maybe another candy bar would jump-start Henry, more coffee he thought.  Coffee and candy for breakfast.

In Wah Wah Coffee Shop, Muddy Waters on the box,  Henry particularly loved “King Bee” and “I’m Ready,” the stuff Muddy did with Johnny Winters.  Muddy a heart as big as a deer, the King Buddha of the universe, waves of love flowing outward from his heart.

In the old days Henry figured Muddy could make it rain—It was the stuff of Orgone Energy, Wilhelm Reich, orgasm sex rays rising into the heavens, spreading universal love, making it rain.

Henry  mad or high enough to believe he could make it rain in those days.

Henry’s mind—then and now, A queer world, a roller coaster ride,  the past forgotten as a matter of psychic survival, ZEN>

Henry's dream— to be known as a poet and writer some, to ramble through the  USA and read in coffee shops and bars,  to make it rain for folks.

Henry and Muddy Waters could make it rain alright.

The Edge or Something

When Charles Bukowski was asked how he got through life? He said,  “ One candy bar at a time…”   Buk funny in a dark way, a horrific   humorist, the wino  spinning out modern Twainisms .

Henry  almost awake, slumped in his chair.  At Wah Wah Coffee Shop early enough to get a good chair and to be left alone.

The world is full of everything you can imagine and Henry wanted none of it, he had enough, he didn’t need anymore— 

Aside: Henry often pricked himself with a needle to provoke feeling. 

There was nothing new under the sun— There was technological innovation to boot— A new robot, a new gun, a robot with a gun, flying monkey robots with guns that carry computers— Onward and out, then forward until they crash.  All the rarified metal and plastic junk ending up in a non degradable dusty-dung heap.

 Two more paragraphs lets keep it cool. When it came to his stories Henry a whore who couldn’t give it away. He would do anything for attention, it was shameful.

Burnt out, wanting to end it here, wanting to get to the essence of it quickly, so here it is the ultimate lazy man's ending, a quote.

 “THE EDGE, there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.”
 
Hunter S. Thompson

“Ars est Celare Artem”

Over the last couple of weeks Henry wondering, mulling over the “why” of writing.  His work short of august, not getting there, Henry a voice in the crowd not heard,  apolitical to boot.
 
Henry at Wa Wa Coffee Shop... thinking,  wondering if the great writers had a burning passion to get the word out. 

Hemingway looking at a blank page, giving up and offing himself, his writing kept him going like junk, when it died he died. 

Henry out of juice too, dragging the g-d damn thing around like a fat wife or herpes.

He knew what it was to be powerless over something and to live in pain, it was the kind of stuff that accompanied you in old age, like a shadow you couldn’t shake, or that fat wife with herpes.

Henry wanted to get a story out,  always the same, g-d knows why?   The junk's itch, an irritation that had to be scratched and dealt with from time to time.

Take the award winners, the lionized and lauded, Henry secretly hating them —  jealous and envious.

Henry beyond having had enough of it, beyond not caring about it,  between the cracks somewhere, only occasionally coming up for air and not liking what he saw.

Wondering if you could call his stories, “Stories”? It wasn’t story telling, more a process of waste management.

The biggest service Henry could do for his readers was to keep it short and sweet.

Well?—

“Ars est celare artem”

True art is to conceal art— and so it goes, maybe Henry was on to something after all.

Brigitte Bardot Where Are You?

Henry on top of  his typewriter, caressing it some, at it again, not wanting to write,  pushing himself to do it. In  a vacuum writing story after story with no feedback.  Having a good wank and talking to himself that’s all it was,  it was pathetic, why bother?

Maybe if Henry straightened up some, it would be easier to write.

Lately obsessed with Bridget Bardot, she was pure light for Henry, legs spread, lovely bush airing out, eternally innocent, the French angel flying high over Paris in the sky spreading, wings wide open too.

Henry particularly loved her first film, “Manina, the Girl in the Bikini.”  Young Calve the hero and adventurer kissing Bardot  by the sea.  Henry imaging it was him who was kissing her,  her young mouth, what it tasted like, feeling the warm fluids inside the mouth, it was an easy kiss for Henry.

In Wah Wah Coffee Shop,  Roy Buchanan on You Tube, Roy a strange bird playing the guitar in strange ways unheard of by man. His work  diverse,  songs tailored to fit new sounds discovered and invented on his guitar.

Life offering nothing new for Henry, it was as though he was locked into it, a lousy, stinking pattern, not for him at all, oh well and anyways, it was overwhelming.

The French painter Modigliani, absolutely nothing to live for, painting in a vacuum, great stuff … nobody cared. In the end, drunk and stoned on the street selling sketches nobody wanted for five francs, later found dead on the street.

Modigliani’s life proved that people in the mainstream are--- stiff in a vacuum occasionally peering out at the world---

Henry speaking to you from his heart he had nothing to hide,  Brigitte Bardot where are you?

Green Chains

Henry looking at a blank page early Sunday morning at Wah Wah coffee shop. The same paltry fat chick, same place everyday, first to get the newspaper, sitting on it so no one else could read it. It was the little stuff that chafed him.    
 
The day hot as hell, Henry barefoot on asphalt in  Devils’ Square making mental reverence to  German soldiers frying eggs on the decks of their tanks in the Sahara, wondering if he could fry up an omelet on Devils’ Square asphalt?

Waiting for the fat chick to surrender the newspaper, fat chance, hoping she would drop dead soon, visualizing it. 

Later Henry stuffing his nose full of high octane Bolivian Cocaine, needing the inspiration here, plugging in the jute box, listening to “Rocks Off” by the Rolling Stones and later Roy Buchanan. Trying to get his mind off the woeful and onto the higher stuff.

Out of dire need Henry aligning himself with great poets. 

 
“Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,  
Time held me green and dying  
Though I sang in my chains like the sea. “
 
From “Fern Hill” by Dylan Thomas…

 
Life a prison for him and many, toiling in green chains…

Henry at the end of the grand experiment too, his green chains wilting and turning brown, wanting to say something.

Cooleridge on a Bucking Bronco

 
Henry walking the hallways and alleyways of his mind, he could see their faces, babyish youth. At first sweet and innocent, later on with a hankering to rip things up, he could see them, their faces painted white against the back drop of the night time arcade, resolute not knowing, cooking up something dreadful.

Henry lazy, fazed and fantasying. Dreams and art were inseparable, it had been that way for hundreds of years, maybe thousands. Pipe dreamers smoking opium, Samuel Coleridge writing on the iffy nature of soul.

“The body,
 Eternal Shadow of the finite Soul,
 The Soul's self-symbol, its image of itself.
 Its own yet not itself—“
 
Writing addictive like opium, addictive for Coleridge, the William Burroughs of Romantic Poets, allot of folks using dope to make fresh art. Dope and art inseparable.
 
Henry ruminating  later in Wah Wah coffee shop about a recurring dream of the Old City in Jerusalem, a city of his design through the mind’s eye, flowing and circular, the yellow break road  with danger in the creases, chased by hell hounds and Nazi headhunters.
 
At Wah Wah another day Henry wanting to wrap this story up. He was without inspiration and had nothing to say, just needing a little filler here, a couple more paragraphs.
 
He couldn’t be bothered much with people anymore, most people talking shit, even scientist and doctors. Politicians full of shit for sure, there was a major disconnect between what they said and what was going on.
 
In the end—LIFE— a bucking bronco ride we hold on too with hammer and tongs till the ride was over, some let go and fall off into the Heavens.
 
Henry wondering how much longer he could hold on?

Henry Itching

 

Blasted,  writing like a fire ball, crashing with head empty, the power came and went, it never asked you if it should, you had to reach out for it.

It was a difficult mix, getting blasted, measuring out just enough to make it (writing) easy.  Henry could write best on reefer, his worse stuff was “Drunk writing”.

The great ones just had it, working hard, born to do it. Henry was the laziest writing under the sun. Sadly it got down to doing it because he had to, an addiction, not a higher calling for him.

Writing alone wasn’t fun, reading your stuff at coffee shops and in bars would be great fun.  It was Henry’s dream to tour the USA and read his stuff to small crowds.

At times a feeling would well up inside of him, the feeling like a whore house on Saturday night, it was as though the order that held the world together was eroding. It was a great feeling like a world wide party, like anything was possible. It was a feeling of full blown self love, as though the shadows of past failure and self doubt melted away. 

Henry in old age on automatic pilot,  no more psychic lessons to learn, soul waiting for what came next.  Maybe the ones who died  young had to come back and do it again? Henry finished, just waiting.

The internet was the biggest diversion of the century.  Think of the work hours lost to social media. Henry would rather dick around on the net than write. It must have been different for your Hemingways, Dos Passos and Henry Millers, they, dedicated to their craft.

Henry would rather be somewhere else than where he was, always itching.

Fat Chance Henry

Henry didn’t want anything in or out of the world, having to siphon every bit of fire to get through the day took most of his energy.

Besides the usual, the spirit drip-drip stuff, he had a dose of the Chinese Virus to boot, like a hurricane in the tubes, more powerful than a speeding anti-biotic.

Sometimes between dreams he rose above decaying physicality, seeing with clarity, dancers in his head filling the joints of brick-work to a better day, mind breaking-lose, free for awhile. 

Dreams for Henry better than real life. His dream-machine, psyche and libido caressing the inside stuff. Waking a let down ending sadly with an understanding— real life never as good as dreams.
 
In Wah Wah coffee shop watching old men drink coffee,  gray as  print on a newspaper, prune-faced. Henry old too but, his mind was a whore-house, potty and zealous, digging it, life's a boon. The grey-haired and prune-faced fucks bored the living shit out of him.

Old artist rocking on into old age, the Bukowskis and William Burroughs turning old age in for kicks, riding the bucking bronco,  juiced to the moon, Henry loved these guys.

The Rolling Stones playin on colored-radio somewhere near Memphis. Henry heaping on some fine cocaine, his nose full of the stuff. Keef Richards spinning rainbows on a banjo,  fuck a star, a drink in Arizona, down and out in West Virginia, you  get what you need.

Back at Wah Wah coffee shop another day, Henry wanting to wrap this up, there wasn't much left inside, his work lacking,  a recurring pain, writing for what and who knows why?
 
A rank affair looking for an exit, a way out,  getting worse not better.

Of course he would like to think that his shit was great art, ha, fat chance Henry.  

Cocaine Take My Pain Away

Henry half in the bag, cob-webs in his head, it was often like this in the morning. He didn’t like early dead-lines and appointments because they triggered the lunatic in him, a blind mad-man at the wheel of a killing machine, Henry the road-menace. 

In a dream and not wanting to wake up, wanting to get deeper inside the dream. Henry in a masters level creative writing course, loving every minute of it,  at a half-open window taking notes, a lazy-eye on long-haired field-hippies playing frisbee outside on the green, the other eye on Tolstoy, Raymond Carver and Tennessee Williams.  

Henry a prisoner of brain-rot and political self-deception, an exile in a foreign country without an english speaking university. If he was in the US he could live his dream and study creative writing, this unlikely because he was broke. 

The US a nation of over-weight buffaloes lost-in and wondering a waste-land, brains frozen, roaming the tundra looking for a cheap meal wanting more than was on the plate. They didn’t need Henry and didn’t want him. 

The odds of Henry making it as a writer were slim to none.  Henry hungry still, wanting to make it and find a sponsor to bank-roll a modest tour. He craved it, going on the road, reading to small crowds in bars and coffee shops, it wasn’t about money for him.

Henry wondered about his work? He didn’t write like anyone, and rarely told stories anymore, he wrote what came to mind, a lazy writer crazy about many short story and poetic prose writers. He knew to be kosher and washed you had to write-out your passion on the page, you couldn’t pretend.    

He would think about the story he was writing on any given day, this story, maybe it was empty, ho-hum, dull. Yet, The Stunning Matures Daily had published his work for a few years now and he had close to 20,000 hits on his website, Busted on Empty. 

After the work on the page settled some, it appeared to be bonafide and legit to him. 

Henry had lost his edge maybe —the great-writers of the Twentieth Century seemed to be honed and fine-tuned, never  blowing hot and cold— Someone on Twitter had told him that his work was cool, industrial-strength. Henry feeling his latest stuff was milquetoast, maybe he would get the edge back, or was the hipster in him a ruse. The iconoclast had wilted and dropped off the vine a few years back.  

Watching the Pro Bowl, channel surfing back and forth, spell-bound watching  “Fourteen Years of Caligula” on the History Channel. The Pro Bowl players hardly trying, feeble compared to the emperor,  Caligula had a set of balls and he wasn't afraid to tackle and mix it up. 

Henry getting old his body ached, all the cocaine in Tony Montana's cigar boat wasn't enough to take it away. There were things in life you were stuck with, stuff the Mayo Clinic couldn't do anything about. 

Jesus Gone Away

Trying to make the most of the holidays in a Buddhist country, it fit him like a hand-made shoe, the mantra of Christmas and the rest, fuck-it he thought. Henry and Jesus a million miles away from each-other, in his heart knowing it was safer not to bother, it was brain-clutter, a dirty old man in the nut-house.  

Henry at it again, writing what-ever it was, sitting in Wah Wah coffee shop, sucking up a bowl of noodles, chile peppers burning his mouth, choking on the stuff, happy to finish it and get to the coffee.  

Wondering whey he bothered with it, the writing or the chile peppers. In a vacuum with-out feed-back, an old punch-drunk boxer in the last round just about out and hanging in there, going down. 

Henry’s literary dreams, dream-prose  wrapping itself around you, 3 D poetry breathing, alive, poised to attack. Waking-up and graving the stuff, it was junk for him.  

What the others thought didn’t matter, he just did it that’s all, there was no reason for it and who said there had to be?

Henry moved from Milwaukee to Hawaii when he was fifty.  The East different, old and new at the same time. A Banyan Tree on top of over-grown roots above ground rising into the heavens, or,  not wearing shoes in the house, eating rice instead of potatoes, eating cross-legged on the floor, eating raw-fish, asian-phobic stuff, things unthinkable for some in the West.  

Twenty years after moving to the tropics nothing turned Henry on much anymore, cocaine was still a kick but it didn’t last. Life didn’t last either, not even for the washed and converted. 

In the end you were left with a big question mark on the page, that was OK Henry thought, there was nothing you could do about it anyway.