Breath

Henry’s last story “ A Peculiar Vision” was written in March— four or five months ago. In the dry time Henry thinking daily or nightly that he was finished, nothing else to say, dried up, kaput, time to off himself like Hemingway or Tennessee Williams. (Williams out in a kind of slow booze and dope fizzle, not a bang really.)

Simply put, he had nothing to say anymore, he was empty inside, there was nothing there, just some shit and a little blah, blah, blah. 

He was sick inside, his head thick, abandoned, neither robust or spiritual. 

At nights Henry would walk to  Seventh Street, the greatest show on earth— Whores and strumpets, sailors and sinners, here and there, chanting mantra forever—Henry could find some peace here. 

Come little children into the arms of Jesus, let him embrace you and lift you up!

Walking the dark and cold streets, through the city canyons, Henry felt poetry at work around him, perfuse, passing through it all. Silent whispers and breath keeping it all going.

People on the streets, just shadows to Henry and he invisible to them. They had breath enough to make it to the next stop he thought. Enough breath to pass the graveyards and slaughter houses, enough to make it home tonight—Henry was no different he needed breath too.

A Peculiar Vision

Henry looking at photos in a lazy way, breezy, feeling lovely, gazing the work of great photographers. 

He liked photographers that were on the lip of it, the ones that had a freakish and peculiar vision to share.

Folks like Diane Arbus, Robert Maplethorpe, William Eggleston, Robert Frank and Man Ray to name a few. 

Viewing their work transported Henry to queer places, lonely corners in small-towns and ghost-towns.  A world at the other end of the orbit: Carnivals, freak-shows, asylums, chemical-factories, subway tunnels and garbage-dumps. 

Henry loved the hip photographers, the lost and broken ones, the truth sayers, the spark-plugs transferring—a momentary vision worth a thousand words. 

He liked the black and white film “Cocksucker Blues,”  a  two part film by Robert Frank. A junk trip full of raw meat, bouncing hippy-girl breast, chickens and goats, all of it in the isle and seats of a 727. 

In “Cocksucker Blues”  Robert Frank magnified everything using grainy film shot at odd angles. In editing he cut the film up, splicing in queer ways, making the film look more insane than it's reality really was, allot of people liked it that way. 

Robert Frank and other peerless photographers gave a wide birth to day to day parallel strata like it was a rampaging Rhino.    

"How I hate those who are dedicated to producing conformity."   William S. Burroughs  

Henry loved the part of all art that didn't conform.

Writing is It's Own Reward

Henry thinking—holy fuck come on people! Nobody reading his stories @ Busted on Empty anymore—

Henry’s last two stories only eighty hits between them, he was averaging two hundred hits per story before—he didn't know why people were losing interest in his work.

Why keep writing?—There was nothing  in it for him. 

Henry old, his body ached inside and out, weedy and weak-kneed,  everyday a endeavor.  

Booze and dope a temporary fix.  Henry— a life of misdirected addictions, he was fragile and bedazzled.

Nothing he loved worked anymore, the magic evaporated.

Henry wasn’t grousing, this self-depreciating expose— an exercise  in literary method. 

Literary method a phrase he invented a few seconds ago, it was his method of checking his wits. 

His work neither apropos or spot-on. 

Henry didn’t write for money or glory, none of that for him— he wrote because he wanted to be read.

Writing is its own reward.

– Henry Miller

Henry Junked on Beer

Henry drunk some, at it again, listening to the Rolling Stones, junked on beer.

Lately, unable to write without a drink, needing to get mildly intoxicated to pull it off.

It was months between stories,  Henry lazy, uninspired. 

The other day a fan of his work, John May, sent him a SMS on Facebook.  John said he loved Henry’s stuff—John loved all the real stuff out there—Bukowski, Hunter Thompson,  William Burroughs.

John asked him why he didn’t write more, Henry could only say he felt tapped out, in a vacuum. Ten years of writing and not a word from anyone, John was the first.

Henry was a big fan of Herbert Hunke—

Hunke a Times Square and Coney Island junk/ hustler for allot of years. Hunke junked the beats for the first time, Burroughs took to Junk like a pro. 

Burroughs wrote on Junk, way out there,  cranked up, it moved him, he was on the moon. He could see the future.

Henry wrote on beer like Bukowski, Junk too much for Henry. 

Bukowski saying—

“Stay with the beer,  beer is continuous blood, a continuous lover.”

Bukowski, Indian cigarettes, beer and wine, late night writing sessions with Beethoven and Brahms on the radio.

I was fairly poor

but most of my money went

for wine and 

classical music.

I loved to mix the two 

together.

Henry like a steam engine moving slowly down the track, rolling steady. 

Writing was music and melody, splashing paint on paper, it got easier.

Fools Paradise

Good luck Henry plenty of juice, gassed, feeling warm inside. 

Sunday afternoon, laying in a bed, room dusted with white energy.

Blind with clear vision, junked up, in the gut of the volcano.

Rattling the bones of collective soul, upward and out, going to Mars. 

Mars silent, still and empty for a million years. A nice place to go.  

Astral projecting,  hitching a ride on an angels back, Sitting cross legged like Geronimo on red Martian hill. 

Looking to the sky, star objects imploding and exploding simultaneously, kaleidoscopic.

Henry transported, moved, powerless, orgon energy, getting off on Mars.

Looking down from far above, the Earth a fools paradise.  

Henry's Dream & a Song

Henry’s cell phone didn’t ring much. In the day (some day, in some time frame, most likely in the past) a phone call often lead to an romantic event—a date, a good meal, long nights of passion. 

Occasionally things would fall into place with just a dash of protocol if you were lucky—the meal a wash and the sex even quicker—

Was life losing its thrill value in the age of social media?  

Dreams still marvelous for Henry, a turn on for him. He dreamt about anything, dreaming at any speed and in any color—dreaming about sultry Negro ladies dancing in a red poppy fields wrapped in banana leaf. Dreaming about baseball, Negro fellas with big fingers catching baseballs in their caps and whisking them about, playing hialeah in Cubano nights, drunk on Havana Club.   

Or— a Chinese gal in a third floor loft, the walls full of paintings and photos of red flowers, a feng sui arranged dust covered open space— she,  sharing love and jasmine smiles for gold coins. 

Dreams aside, living still a boon for Henry. The head-stuff was the best, he was there allot, it was his place. It (the head-stuff) was the easiest thing in the world, playing out in slow motion. 
  
 In the final count—Henry wasn’t “ Back “  he was ”Never there”. None of it was his, he never wanted it anyway. The others, the big folks, the ones who wanted it disparately could have Henry’s share. 

“I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive.”   Henry Miller

My Work is Awful

Henry,feeling beastly, burning up inside, cravin, dope, junk. 

Did u see the film, “Night of the Iguana?"

The Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon, in exile, pursued by a Lolita, breaking down in Mexico, outside of Mexico City, on the bay somewhere. 

Henry didn't care for Lolita's he preferred beautiful middle aged women.  

He, Henry, the writer, writing graphically, paint on the page. 

Henry loved the Little Walters, Dylan Thomas's, Jack Kerouacs, William S. Burroughs, and the Hunter S. Thompsons of the world. 

There were more than a few on the list, they were super heroes, all dead of course; including, Charles Bukowski, James Carver, Francis Bacon and Ernie Banks, true champions of the the poetic, paintin, blues and sports world, a lengthy list. 

They lived in a Century  where g-ds roamed the desert plains, loaded carrying little, outcast in their own way, outside of the world, breaking down allot of the time. 

Henry, hardly the best, surreal, just a touch, fragrance of dried flowers and incense, great ganja,  vagina everywhere,  Henry loved it all.  

A lot of folks loved Henry’s stuff, an elite few, the high rollers and king pins. 

Henry,

—oddly out there, craving human touch and connection—

The Soul Maggot

Henry laying in bed at 6 am, just awake from a dream. He dreamed he was a full-blown narrative writer who worked at it. 

He had a taste in his mouth of what he wasn’t and what he was, but overall he felt like a slothful and sullen shadow of a writer.

The soul-maggot was eating him from the inside and he felt shameful and inadequate. 

William F. Burroughs called it a parasitic being—

Every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage.

After reading Burrough's take on it he was, point blankly, a matter of factly, without prevarication, scared shitless and wondering—should I be worried? 

Henry soul-bound and circumscribed saying,

I don’t give a shit! 

I don't give a shit! was the salt of the earth,  the armor the dreaded soul maggot couldn't penetrate.   

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?