Radiate Everything You Are

I'm radiating everything I am, so what?

Some months ago Thailand legalized ganja. There are a couple of things at play here— the underage and those under 5 feet tall can’t smoke, and you can’t smoke in public. 

We get fabulous weed here now, but Thai Stick hasn't surfaced. 

Sometime in the 80s a girlfriend and I went to a Taj Mahal concert in  Cleveland. At the stadium, we park the car, walk to the trunk, and lit up some Thai Stick. I inhale and fall to my knees. 

Thailand, the fleshpot of Asia, orbs to boot— Soi Cowboy, Soi Twilight, Patong, and Nana Plaza. 

You can go for a health massage, 200 Baht, and before you know it the masseuse is coming down on you. 

For dried-in-the-wool insane sex go to New York, the Anvil Bar, where barking mad boy-on-boy sex is happening.

I’ve been watching the Netflix series, The Andy Warhol Diaries, a gay-as-gay can-be series. 

Andy was the hardest-working-kid in show business. I like all of his work but am not interested in looking at cocks and rectums.

Bangkok dumps raw sewerage into the Gulf of Thailand and the currents carry the shit to Pattaya Shore, nobody swims at Beach Road beach, it's toxic, although, you can find safe places to swim in Jomtien and off Ko Lon Island.

It's no secret that worldwide municipalities dump processed fecal matter into to streams, rivers, lakes, and oceans.

It's asshat Man at it again, everything He touches turns to shit.  

I don’t think I’ll be around to see the end— maybe you will. 

The Angel smyphonia roars as the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse ride through Cloud 9.

I'm on my way to Pattaya on Thai Lion Air, it’s wonderful, wonderful, the Thais sitting straight in place, showing off their fine posture with their masks on, but don't ask for a drop of water or a peanut from the stews because you won't be able to take your face out of that fucking mask to eat or drink.

Welcome to Asia, hallelujah, 

the Chinaman won the war, and the propaganda minister was awarded The Order of National Glory or 國光勳章, the country's highest honor. 

America owes the Chinaman 6956100000 Yuan, 6956100000元 in the Chinaman's head.

Xiānshēng Chinaman counting every 元, down to the last jaio. 

Boiled Potatoes & Red Ants

 

 

Henry and Lucia wake up on the 10th floor of La Concha Hotel, the tallest building in Key West. Henry’s excited saying, 

Tennessee Williams slept here, in room 1024, maybe penning The Night of the Iguana, here, I’ve got chicken skin, baby. 

Ground control to Major Tom, Hello Henry, Lucia here, the bug guys are going to take the tent off our house by noon, let's eat breakfast at Pepe’s Cafe

They walk to Pepe’s.

Pepe’s gay Cuban, and he loves Lucia,

darling you’re the most beautiful woman in the world, I’m queer and I want you. Will it be Cubano food kids? 

Yeah, pulled pork, black beans wrapped in a tortilla, a bowl of rice pudding, and coffee.

Pepe pours 3 shots of Cuban rum and Lucia says, 

how's your liver, Chica?  

When the love couple gets home they're shocked to see that their house has disappeared, the cops and the firemen are there, and the bug guys have fled. 

Neighbors, Layla and Zeigred, new immigrants from Slovakia, explain what they saw, 

Yah, yah, she evaporated alright, yah gone in a green cloud. 

A fireman walks up to Henry and Lucia giving his account, 

when we got here there was a burnt area where your house was, forensic's gathering samples of the scorched patch, we’ll let you know.

Last month before the disappearance, a friend, a Skin medicine man known as Red Horn, spent the weekend with Henry and Lucia, drinking tequila and sitting in the sauna for hours, preachifying that their land was spooked with evil spirits.  

Red Horn would set up a pow-wow in the backyard to purify the land, but the couple worried the Native dancing would kill the lawn.

Page 3

Forget About William Burroughs, Already.

I’ve written commentaries on most cool modern writers on the lost blog, The Headbangers Ball, including Hemingway.

Earnest Hemingway grew up in Oak Park, Illinois, his father Everest  P. was a  physician, and his mother Grace a piano teacher. 

They were well-respected and loved by most in Oak Park, a conservative community that Frank Lloyd Wright said, 

so many churches for so many good people to go to. 

Hemingway's mother was a known performer and violin player in Oak Park, and she taught her son to play the cello despite his hesitance to learn— though later in life admitting the music lessons contributed to his writing style, why the fuck would that be? 

Hunting, peppering deer, wild birds, squirrels, and possums with shotguns was the name of the game for Earnest and his old man, they blew the shit outta anything coming down the pike. 

The Hemingway family always had food on the table, and plenty often feeding the neighbors.

Some thought Martians had a part in the disappearance of the Lucowski bungalow, one was Chester Bicep, mayor of Key West.

Unbeknown to the press, Mayor Bicep had reported the Lucowski happening to the Air Force and The National Security Association.

Some say  Martians de-materialized and transported the Lucownki house to Mars for a museum exhibit they call, 

Earthbound Humans are Odd.

I’m convinced Martians are as real as you or I, waiting for the right time to show their faces. 

I’m all eyes and ears when it comes to the Martians, they can come and go, colonize, have sex, or dance with humans up to them, but, don't ask me to get out of bed. 

Extraterrestrials eat essential carbs and protein— boiled potatoes, and red ants.

In the end, I’m convinced Martians didn’t bury the Lucowski house in a sinkhole. There's a simple explanation, a Chinaman sucked it through the center of the earth using a hollowed-out bamboo shoot like a straw.

I Need a Bit, 10 Pages Maybe

Where were we? Henry and Lucia puff on the same cigarette, a Sherman, passing it back and forth and drinking pale cream sherry. 

Henry sits on the loveseat in the bedroom wearing a bra and panties, Lucia kneels towards him and mouths his cock till he cums in her mouth, then says,

your esperma taste like salt, and floury chlorine, bebe.

The phone rings, 

Its publisher Marvin Flick, 

I need a bit, 10 pages maybe, you choose,

Marvin, give me 24 hours, you’re gonna love it. 

Henry lights a pre-rolled, LSD droplet, 

puffing and looking at his computer until the words come. 

Page 2 The Official William Burroughs Tour,

There's a pair of figure skates hung on a nail in the 

sanctuary.

As the reverend pees he looks at a kid next to him, who's pissing as well. Finished, they shake their cocks and pull their zippers up. The reverend asks,

do you like beer kid? 

In the refectory beer garden, they drink mungs of German Beer, and the loaded kid recites poetry,    

I was the shadow on the window pane.

I was the smudge and whine of missed times in the reflected sky.

The water under the lavender horizon’s polluted.

Your good kid, but what's in it for you? 

The kid says,

not a goddamn thang, Doc.

Don't use our Lord's name in vain, kid. 

In the film Drugstore Cowboy with Matt Dillion, a film about wannabe junkies and raw youth, William Burroughs plays Tom the Priest, notably saying,

Narcotics have been systematically scapegoated and demonized.

I predict in the near future right-wingers will use drug hysteria as a pretext to set up an international police apparatus.

I have nowhere else to go. There is no demand in the priesthood for elderly drug addicts.

Let's cast our minds back to the William's famous blackout shot.

On the night of September 6, 1951, William was in the living room of their bungalow with Joan, and their young kids, Billy, and Julie drinking mescal with Bill Sr.'s friend Pepe Riveraz, a lawyer.

William had a lifelong obsession with guns, there was a loaded Colt 45 on the coffee table in front of him. He considered himself a sharpshooter saying to Pepe,

I've become quite a competent shot over the years, Pepe!

Vollmer's long-time speed addiction had caused her to behave blank-mindedly and zombie-like. William tells her,

Joan, pick up a glass, walk 3 meters, and face me, put the glass on your head, and by all means keep still.

His friend Pepe didn’t take William’s actions seriously, thinking he was just playing, but Burroughs was no practical joker.

William picks up the Colt 45, aiming it at the glass balancing on Joan's head, enacting the famous archer's tale from the book William Tell.

The vibrations in the living room were odious. Sadly Joan Vollmer has a bored look on her face, showing no reaction. One can only guess what Joan was feeling and thinking at the time—  was she wondering if William was kidding? Was she loaded and unaware? Or did she have a death wish?

Tragically, he fires hitting her in the forehead and she drops dead on the spot.

Throughout the heart-rendering scene, Billing and Julie were playing on the living room floor. How much of the bloody scenario did 3-year-old Billy apprehend? Perhaps he felt a dark bolt of energy rush through the room and his body, then understanding, something bad just happened to his Mother.

William Burroughs escaped the hard-edged arm of justice because he was in Mexico and his friend Pepe Rivera arranged for him to pay the judges off. Billy and Julie were sent to live with Burrough's rich grandparents in Kansas City.

Burroughs moved to Lawrence, Kansas in 1981, encouraged by close friend, literary agent, and short-time lover James

Grauerholz. 

They settled in a small bungalow located at 1927 Learnard Avenue. 

Just a couple years after their arrival, Grauerholz says of William, 

he became the genis loci, the prevailing spirit of the Lawrence, counter-culture.

Accounts of Burroughs’s time in Lawrence suggest he approached life there as a local, sharing his small home with 3 cats, maintaining a garden, and could often be seen walking with his cane to the local store. 

He even built an Organe box in the garden, a six-sided box constructed of alternating layers of organic materials to attract the energy and metallic materials and radiate the energy toward the center of the box. 

Patients would sit inside the accumulator and absorb orgone energy through their skin and lungs. The accumulator had a healthy effect on blood and body tissue by improving the flow of life energy and by releasing energy blocks.

So after reading about Orgone boxes, Henry and Lucia build one in the backyard and get in. After sitting for 40 minutes in the box they get out, showering with Henry, Lucia says,

Let's get back in the box, I was a few seconds shy of a major orgasmo.

It Was 4 AM wHen I PaniCked.

 

I think it was 4 AM when I panicked. I was in bed looking up, and Lucia’s laying next to me, when I realize yesterday’s story, Super Bowl I Will be Televized was dead from the neck up.  

I deleted the story here, on Twitter, and on Tweet Deck. 

Super Bowl I Will be Televized, Part 2

The last prize goes to Briana for her high-octane and dangerous halftime show. The bit was an accident waiting to happen, Briana and her dancers were laced on their platforms with thin metal wires and bubble gum. 

The words, if there were any, to her songs were unintelligible, she sang with a lisp, even falling asleep at times. 

Her show was so lousy that Rupert Murdoch refused to sign her check.  

Jenifer Lopez's halftime show last year was better, she has the biggest ass on or off the pitch.

As for the game, 2 teams were playing, one from the east and the other from the midwest.

Team east dominated the first half and the midwest dominated the second.

As the 4th quarter ticked down, it was too late for the east to do anything, the midwest had them in a chokehold. 

Another issue was, players and even refs were slipping all over the field throughout the game like they were playing on a hockey rink.

Everybody knows the refs were paid off by the Hunt family, Clark Hunt, and Tavia the lit-up cowgirl, making out like 7th graders when things went their way, Tavia says to Clark, 

the game isn’t just about winning, or love, it’s about champagne, Lear Jets, Lamborghinis, money, and God. 

Dunkin Donut Ben Affleck hawking Buenelos and coffee, fucking up at first and then on a roll, reaching out to the next in line. 

Henry and Lucia marvel at the ball player's moves, likening them to ballet, Lucia comments that, 

el grande culos turn me on, half the players are gay.

Baby, there's a new ho on the block, the NFL, they're holding and don't wanna share, it's a travesty, the NFL, picketed by beggars demanding squatters' rights for the homeless. 

The ads for the USFL games are enticing, only 8 weeks away, I'm hooked already, I'll sign up. 

USFL players move the same way the NFL guys do, dancing during celebrations, belly down on the end zone turf, and paddling imaginary bodyboards into the Gulf of Mexico.

After the game, Henry and Lucia shower and go to the beach, just bringing money.

At Dog Beach, they sit in chairs watching the swimmers, and the ski boats, long surfboards, and canoes in the horizon.  

Eating peanuts they’re harassed by seagulls so they cross Beach Road to the Moon Dog Cafe where they take a booth, Henry tells Lucia, 

seagulls are like stealth rats.

Remember our pet woodpecker, Pedro? 

The bartender writes down the order as Henry says, 

we’ll have raw clams, oysters, bbg'ed octopus, shredded lettuce, lime, garlic, and olive oil,

and to drink, folks? 

rum cocas, of course,

I’ll place your order with the raw chef and then make your drinks.

Jimmy, mixes coca paste, mint leaf, soda, and brown sugar and pours it into a pitcher. 

The rerun of Super Bowl I’s playing on the overhead TV, Ray Charles sings America the Beautiful, America's Black Alternative Anthem. 

Here's what they say,

Oh, beautiful for halcyon skies for amber waves of grain.

For purple mountain majesties above the enameled plain, America, America, God shed His grace on thee, till souls wax fair as earth and air and music-hearted sea.

One Way to Cortorro, Amigo

Back in the 80s, Henry and Lucia were living in Key West. One day their phone rang, and it was Lucia’s mother who says, 

Chica, I’m dying, you need to get here pronto, 

sí Madre, I'll be there soon.

Henry books a flight to Havana on Aero Mexico departing in the afternoon.

They drive their Vespa scooter to Key West International Airport, park, then roll their suitcase to the checkout counter, and pay by credit card. 

There's an hour to blow, at Jungle Cafe they drink cafecitos and eat buñuelos, imported from Cuba. 

In a few minutes, Aero Mexico’s flight 243's announced, and they board. 

After taking off they fly for 30 minutes and land at Jose Marti International Airport.

At Cubano Customs they show their passports, getting through without a hitch. 

Outside at Arrival, they walk to a sitting taxi, an old 54 Chevy. Lucia tells the driver in Spanish, 

Chico take us to the Vapor Inn. 

At the inn they pay the driver in dollars, get out of the car and walk to the front desk, pay again, and go to their room.

The room's nice, with antique furniture and a window view of a grotto covered with gardenias and roses. Lucia calls her brother Miguel, 

were’s mama staying? 

Hospital Navos, here’s the number. 

Lucia calls her mother in room 167, she answers, speaking Spanish,  

darling bebé, I’ve missed you, good news, good news, my cancer is in remission and in stage 4, bring Henry to the plantation. 

Oh, great news mama, we'll take a taxi to the plantation. 

Lucia's mama Maria lives in a commune on a sugarcane plantation outside of Cortorro.

The couple goes shopping at State Run Store #13, buying paper bags full of essentials— dried black beans, rice, canned pork, loaves of white bread, beer, and a sack of coffee beans.

Back in their room, they pack the supplies in canvas bags and go out to a waiting taxi,

one way to Cortorro, amigo.

They go south on E 117, driving for 45 minutes then reach the  Orthia Castro Commune where they meet Lucia's brother, Pedro and walk to mama’s small wooden house. 

Inside, Lucia packs away the provisions and Pedro says, 

mama will be home tomorrow.

We sit in the living room, sipping hot cubacristo and rum, Pedro says, 

tomorrow you’ll be expected to work in the cane fields, this is a socialist commune. 

At sun up Henry and Lucia ride on the back of a Russian tractor. 

In no time they’re pruning cane plants with hooked knives, cutting off side shoots and leaves. 

Henry cuts his hand, so, he and Lucia walk to mama’s house, collect their shit then make their way to the highway, catching a taxi back to the Vapor Inn.

After showering and taking a nap, they go to the El Tropico Disco, ordering Rum Cocas at the bar, specialty drinks mixed with coca oil, rum, and quinine. 

They turn, holding their drinks, watching hot Latins gyrate pelvically, north and south. Henry who has his arm around Lucia says, 

the Latins sure can move, white people are stiff, it’s as though they have a corn cob up their ass. Chinese are the same, they have a Longan up theirs.

Estas muy loco, Henry, sometimes you need to keep your thoughts to yourself, the bar is filled with Latinos, burro,

you should feel guilty for skipping out on chores at the Orthia Castro Commune, you can’t be depended on Lucia. 

Let’s dance darling, 

the couple’s glued to the present, feeling on fire as they dance. Lucia’s bra and pantyless in a knit skirt, moving like a snake on the dance floor dress, seductively, where every male eye in the place is on her.  

By midnight Cinderella and her bo are tired so they catch a taxi to the Vapor Inn, lay in bed, and pass a 1/5 of  Trader Vic’s Chocolate Liqueur back and forth, then swallow a cup of shrooms from the commune, feeling like they can raise their arms and reach up to the moon, pulling themselves up into the galaxy. 

When life is good, it's good anywhere, even in Cuba.

Pussy and Shots of Tequila

 

 

In 1983, I drove to California in a Dodge Polera.   

Newport Beach is known to many as the most conservative city in America, not even good conservative, more extreme right-wing bordering on fascism conservative. 

At the Booty Club, on beach bar row, I dance the night away to Steely Dan, the Eagles, and the Beach Boys, the Southern Cal bands of the day.  

Out of nowhere, someone from security, a woman, comes up behind me, screaming as she 86es me,

you're 86ed freak, 

I didn't do nothin, I was dancing, you see. 

The she-bull throws me out the door and onto the pavement. 

When the police show they handcuff me, laughing and saying,

zip it and get in the car asshole. 

On the way to Newport County jail, a cop reads me my rights. 

you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you? With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to me? 

it ain't me, you got the wrong guy, I'm innocent,

you indecently waved your cock at people, pointing the thing at them, we have a witness.  

At Newport County Jail after being searched I'm thrown in a cell with 6 Mexicans. 

For dinner, the finks hand out metal plates of salami sandwiches and grape kool-aid, ungraciously, and heavy-handed without love, someone asks the jailer,

hey, Gringo, where's the tortilla? 

Close to midnight, I'm laying face up on a hard metal bench trying to sleep, when a voice says, 

I'm your public defender, are you Henry Lucowski? 

yes sir I am, I didn't catch your name,

Jack Hansen, 

tomorrow's court, see ya there, Henry. 

By noon we're standing before the judge, Alfa Freeman,

eyeballing his bushy eyebrows and the scar on his chin. 

There is no substantial evidence that you have commented a crime, no pictures or videos Mr. Lucwoski, so I'm dismissing your case. You're articulate and bright son, I wish you luck in life. 

Praise he, I'm a freeman, Jack Hansen chauffers me to my car at Balboa Pier.

As recommendations go, getting the fuck outta dodge is a good one. 

Speeding, I take Highway 5 south to Tijuana, way fucking stoked to be out of California.

At the border, I hand over my driver's license to Mexican Customs, making it through. 

Turning my Polara right at Revolution Boulevard, I drive directly to La Azteca Bar, finding a booth in the shadows.   

A woman with a blond wig and short skirt on hands me a roll of toilet paper saying, 

your gonna need this hijo, 

why thank you chica, 

do you enjoy eating pussy handsome? 

Yes, washed down with a shot of tequila.

Drinking shots they reminisce about life,

shit from the 60s, innocent times, and times of total chaos. 

What's your name pumpkin? 

Ganja, and you are?

Henry, Henry Lucowski. 

Ganja's from a good family, farmers from Michoacán. 

Take me to Michoacán, she says over and over, 

I'm attracted to her so I give in. 

They drive towards Michoacán, eventually getting a room at the  Peckerwood Motel where they sleep through the night.

That morning on Mexican Highway 2 stopping in Pedro's Cantina, they eat Buñuelos out of paper bags and drink hot Mexican coffee.

After breakfast, they begin the long journey to Michoacán that's a 29-hour drive, Henry says, 

I'm pulling over now, I need a deep kiss, right now babe. 

But What the Fuck do I Know?

 

I’m staring at a blank page wondering what to write. Can a writer feel at some point he has nothing left to say? Like, Hemingway or Hunter S. Thompson towards the end of their lives, feeling like things are all over?

The other day I watched The End of the Tour, a film about a month-long interview of author Henry David Wallace by Rolling Stone columnist David Lipsky. And frankly, the film left me flat because there was little talk about the art of writing. Instead coming off as a bullshit session and party. 

Lipsky would ask questions like, 

why do you wear the headband, David? And the author would answer, 

why did you have to ask that? 

Wallace answered in a deeply wounded manner often.

To see what the interview was like I listened to an excerpt from it on YouTube, and indeed it was a bullshit session.  

Anyway, I wanted to see what Wallace’s work was like, so I downloaded his only available book on PDFdrive, the other was in Turkish, Girl with Curious Hair, and after reading a few pages, I found I loved his work, here’s an excerpt for you,

It’s 1976. The sky is low and full of clouds. The gray clouds are bulbous and wrinkled and shiny. The sky looks cerebral. Under the sky is a field, in the wind. A pale highway runs beside the field. Lots of cars go by. One of the cars stops by the side of the highway. Two small children are brought out of the car

by a young woman with a loose face. A man at the wheel of the car stares straight ahead. The children are silent and have very white skin. The woman carries a grocery bag full of something heavy. Her face hangs loose over the bag.

She brings the bag and the white children to a wooden fencepost, by the field, by the highway. The children's hands, which are small, are placed on the wooden post. The woman tells the children to touch the post until the car returns. She gets in the car and the car leaves. There is a cow in the field near

the fence. The children touch the post. The wind blows. Lots of cars go by. They stay that way all day.

What came to mind reading the extended paragraph was a Norman Rockwell painting, or the Dust Bowl days of the Great Depression.

Wallace’s characters in the bit are as nondescript as shadows, and now I see what all the fuss is about.

Henry Foster Wallace committed suicide at 46 in 2008, and the act had nothing in common with Hemingway and Hunter S. Thompson, authors who offed themselves because of extended writer's block, and poor health. Foster had suffered from depression throughout his life and was a powerful writer to the end. 

Watching The End of the Tour left me with a foul taste in my mouth, then I read some of Girl with Curious Hair, and was gassed. 

 

Let’s stay the course here, moving on to Thomas Pynchon. 

Some years ago I wrote a story, Hey Babe, it’s the High Hat Club which included a bit on Pynchon.

Thomas  Pynchon earned a B.A. in English from Cornell University in 1958, then spent a year in Greenwich Village living  Bohemian life and writing short stories. 

In 1960 he moved to Seattle and was hired as a technical writer for Boeing where he worked for 2 years, eventually leaving the company to write full-time. 

In 1963 his first novel V was published, a cynical tale about a Zelig-like character who time travels and shows up at crucial times in European history. 

The novel won the Faulkner Foundation Award which would be the first of many awards for Pynchon. When Pynchon's 3rd novel Gravity’s Rainbow was published in 1973 it won critical acclaim from American literati.  

Pynchon’s heavy use of metaphor is meant to seduce his readers to use imagination rather than reason. Basic themes such as— system vs freedom, reality vs illusion, and life vs death are paired opposites that interact and work as engines that power his work.

Years later in 2014, his book Inherent Vice became a Hollywood film, winning an Oscar for Best Screenplay, another accolade for Pynchon. 

Thomas Pynchon is a world-famous recluse, who makes JD Salinger look like Mohamed Ali or Jack Sparrow. Pynchon hasn’t appeared before the media since 1963, reigning supreme among reclusive novelists. 

When Gravity’s Rainbow won the National Book Award, another trophy, Pynchon, as you would guess sent someone else to accept the award on his behalf. 

After reading 20 pages of Pynchon’s book V, I threw the book into a metal trash can and poured lighter fluid on it, then lit it,  and watched it burn and diminish into a small grey mound of organic ash matter. 

Burning V was more fun than reading it. 

Most likely, Thomas the-escape-artist Pynchon is hiding away in upstate New York, in Steuben County maybe, sitting on a lone stool in front of his basement bar drinking and staring at his collection of awards, carefully hung on the wall,  

but what the fuck do I know?