Hate, Zits, & Spirituality

                                                                       

As Henry edits Hate, Zits, & Spirituality, he's getting a sinking feeling the story is rubbish— his inner anger and hate seep between the lines, hemorrhaging through the story's seams.

Regardless, he'll publish the wounded bit. 

As the French say, 

Comme on fait son lit, on se couche. 

You've made your bed now lie on it. 

People are going to do what they do and you can’t tell them what to do because their egos tell them they know it all.

They feel love and hate inside, but it’s not cool to come off as a hater, so we hate in private, or share it with our best friend.

The less you hate the better, but hating feels good, it's addictive, like junk, cigarettes, or In and Out Burgers.

Hitler, Vlad the Impaler, and Pol Pot were consumed with hate. 

Gandhi, Jesus, Moses, and Buddha transcended hate. 

Willy Nelson the cowboy Buddha says this about hate— 

Every negative thought you have makes poisons that go into your system that will kill you and give you cancer, tumors, or whatever you can think of. 

Willy is spot on, if you’re a person who values longevity, being mellow pays off. 

But for many, rage and temper addictions are a bitch to conquer— Henry is one.

When you’re raging mad, your foot slips off the brake and you puke nasty words all over who or whatever.

Surely, going postal spritzes a few ounces of poison-ridden adrenaline throughout your system.

People who blow up regularly in public, commonly known as Type A Personalities, should be required by law to wear warning lanyards with index card-sized badges reading,

WARNING, I’M EMOTIONALLY RIGGED TO EXPLODE. MY FURY CAN BE HAZARDOUS TO ANYONE IN A THREE-METER RADIUS.  

When anger meets restraint anger usually wins— 

I’m trying to hold it in, BUT, you two-bit pint-sized motha fucker, your mama...

Meditation, and or Valium can soothe anger. 

Meditating on Valium is a boon.

During the sixties, the US Public Health Department directed municipal water systems across the nation to put fluoride in their water supplies because it helped prevent cavities. 

Kids living in the sixties consumed so much candy and pop that the fluoride in the city water systems failed to save them from tooth decay.

You could put Valium in the local water supplies, but nobody drinks tap water anymore. 

Since a lot of people drink Coca-Cola— Cherry Coke, Orange Coke, Diet Coke, Vanilla Coke, Watermelon Coke, Coffee Coke, let's put Valium in Coca-Cola.

Most folks love the mellow feeling they experience on Valium because the drug is relaxing and their troubles disappear. 

Big pharma, pharmacist, and physicians keep Valium under lock and key, doling it out, doing their part supporting the Food and Drug Administration and the DEA in the war on high times and fun in America.

Why not make Valium legal and put it in Coca-Cola to boot?

America and the world need Valium Coca-Cola, NOW. 

Leon Russell, the Hall of Fame rock star, composer, and session man played on endless recording sessions, with— The Supremes, Dion, Aretha Franklyn, George Harrison, Joe Cocker, JJ Cale, Tina Turner, Cher, to name a few.

As a rule of thumb, he made it a point to keep his mouth shut while working sessions because he despised the scene, thinking it was pretentious. 

On one occasion, while working a Phil Spector produced Cher recording session, Spector told Leon to treat him with respect. Leon Russell then jumps on top of his piano, and begins boogalooing, saying to Spector, 

fuck you. 

Everybody working the session, including Cher, laughed like loons for 10 minutes. The nut-job Phil Spector didn't find it funny.

Leon left the session and never worked for Spector again, going on to compose his own songs— a string of novel, high-powered, and emotionally stirring rock albums. 

As the newly released Leon Russell and the Shelter People CD played in a New York City limousine on a rainy night in Manhattan, the passenger, Aretha Franklyn, asked the driver to set the song on repeat,  

Aretha listened to Leon's song, Stranger in a Strange Land over and over. After the twelfth replay, she began to cry.

Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of  Queen spent his professional life fussing over his severe hormonal acne. 

He spent millions of Euros on creams, medications, make-up, even having his face sanded by a dermatologist with 200-grade sandpaper until pinpoint bleeding was observed, then having his facial area massaged with creme disinfectant and a special potion.

Freddie’s dressing room at Queen concerts was off-limits to everyone, even band members. Only his makeup artist, Jan Sewell was allowed in to do his makeup, put on his prosthetic nose, and secure veneers over his crooked teeth. 

When the concerts ended, venue janitors were tasked with cleaning the mess in Freddie’s green rooms, stinking of glue, nail polish remover, and hydrocortisone.

The dressing rooms were also awash with used cotton balls and wads of paper tissues. Walking through them was like wading throw a snowy field.

Charles Bukowski, legendary barfly, recalcitrant, and laureate of American lowlife, had worse acne than Freddie Mercury— Acne Conglobata.

Buk suffered mightily from acne during the late thirties when he attended Los Angeles High School. 

He writes in his book Ham and Rye about taking ROTC instead of gym, because he was ashamed to wear shorts, exposing the boils on his legs. 

Around this time, his old man, Heinrich, finally sent Charles to a dermatology clinic where a nurse spent hours painfully sucking pus and blood out of his large cysts and boils with a syringe. After a few weeks of the horrid process, Buk’s face and body looked worse. 

At the advent of World War II, Buk dropped out of Los Angeles Community College because he was failing courses, wanting to drink and write when he wasn't working at the post office.

By the fifties, Bukowski’s Acne Conglobata was a non-issue. Freddie Mercury, on the other hand, obsessed over his zits for the rest of his life. 

Mercury was homosexual, and looks are an issue in the gay community. 

In Bukowski’s barfly world, LA rummy bars such as— King Eddy’s Inn, Frolic Inn, and The Spot, looks meant nothing, buying drinks, particularly for women, was everything.

Recently while writing Henry was experimenting with Kush weed, a 65 percent THC strain. He smoked every few hours for four days. At first, the buzz was magic, he loved the feeling, and never wanted to stop.

By the third day mental fog and paranoia set in, and he couldn't focus on writing.

On the fourth day, he gave the weed to his Cuban wife Lucia and their lover Summer Wynd— realizing weed didn’t work for him anymore.

Here's a beat-up adage that’s been around for the last couple of centuries, longer even, possibly coined by Shakespear.

one man’s meat is another man’s poison.

So, Henry decides to give up the pot and drink moderately, augmenting booze using Valium and Tramadol (synthetic opium), thinking,  

God fucking forbid, the last thing I want to do is booze urban fashion, like the rolling rich bimbees on the made-for-TV soaps Dallas and Dynasty— sipping zinfandel from tall stemmed wine glasses by the pool and in their marble and stainless steel kitchens at 1O AM in the morning. 

There's a film, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, where— 

a high-strung coat hanger magnate, Dave Whiteman (Richard Dreyfus) rescues a bum Jerry Baskin (Nick Nolte) from drowning in Dave’s swimming pool. 

Jerry's invited to stay at the Whiteman's Beverly Hills mansion by Dave's anxious and horny wife, Barbara (Bette Midler), and their bigender son Max.

Not particularly wanting to give up bumhood, Jerry accepts the invite anyway.

One day by the pool, the woebegone tramp bonds with the family dog Mattise, who has one blue eye and one black and is depressed, teaching him to fetch. 

Soon, Mattise is on top of the world, happy as a pup. 

Barbara who’s sexually frustrated because she and Dave haven't had sex in years is beguiled by Jerry’s hoodoo on Mattise, so she fucks him while Dave’s at work, having orgasms upon orgasms.

Then Jerry bangs the young and sensual Mexican housemaid, Frida, who's been having a fuckfest with Dave Whiteman for over a year.

Frida tells Dave she's balled Jerry,  jealous he plots revenge on the sagacious bum.

Soon the two smoke dope together and spend the night talking about life by the pool, ultimately bonding.

Everyone in the Whiteman family is unhappy, Barbara's sexually frustrated, Dave's strung out because he's overworked, their son Max wants to tell them he's gay but can’t, and their daughter Jenny, played by Ricky Nelson’s daughter Tracy is anorexic. A good part for her because she was anorexic in real life back then,

Dropped by the gods from Heaven, Jerry the bum's brain is mush because the drinks 5 pints of port every day.

Walt Witman wrote money never made any man free.

The moral here is— holy fuck, shit, puke.

Money can’t underwrite happiness, but spirituality can.