Salt in the Pudding

Henry out of bed early on  Sunday grazing about— the usual stuff— pancakes, coffee,  Mescal shots, and The Times literary section.

Sean O’ Casey stuff in The Times, hardly a Yeats,  Yeats modern, new wave and industrial. O’Casey, old fashioned sitting room stuff to be read while wearing a quilted smoking jacket.

Later Henry rolls a joint and does a few lines of cocaine. In front of his computer he is off in a flash, spurred on by the dope, it (the dope) lifts the artist out of the rough into reverie.

In a dream, awake in benign and gentle climate as wind massages and wakes his senses. Laying in a rice paddy like Whitman in grassy field at one with the higher stuff, alive again.

Sounds taking on a deeper dimension,  offshoots and boughs fluttering  in  wind, crickets and grasshoppers rubbing wings chirping dry pit-a-patter rhythm in the mix.

Whitman in reverie of  “Leaves” then  talking  politics,  Jesus what a setback for the serenity of hour, like adding salt to pudding sweet.

Like taxing sacred nature of life, like taxing peace and serenity…

Henry with his head in the clouds, apolitical, ignoble, poor....

Nanno's Last Recitation

Henry hadn’t sold a copy of “Mescaline Sombrero” On Amazon.  He felt successful in an anti-social way. 

Henry  on an old bus late at night going somewhere in Mexico.  To his wonder every seat occupied by howling witches with matted raven hair. Their evilness didn't come from covens or curses, it radiated from inside. 

In the morning the bus still on the way,  to Puerto Vallarta maybe. Henry opens the window for air and sees Hemingway passing the bus at break neck speed driving a Black Corvette as he waved a bottle of Mescal about wildly, looking as though he wanted to get there.

Hemingway in the end suicidal and empty,  Henry a blank page as well,  all glory would't bring them back. 

Henry's body hurt all the time,  never a break from the pain. The bus stopped for diesel fuel and Henry dropped a few Oxycontin, washing them down with Mescal.

Henry’s  lap-top an AK 47,  words as bullets,  it didn't feel safe as evil radiated from witches brew was leaching through,  a foul oder on the bus,  he would do anything to get a story out. 

Maybe it was the last exit,  Henry going  to the abandoned movie set of  “ The Night of the Iguana ,” Seaside on the coast of Puerta Vallarta.  He would find the terrace on which Nanno recited his last poem.  When the moon crossed overhead he would read Nanno's Poem to the night sky,  that would fix Henry all right. 

Nonno's Poem

How calmly does the olive branch  Observe the sky begin to blanch  Without a cry, without a prayer  With no betrayal of despair  Some time while light obscures the tree  The zenith of its life will be  Gone past forever  And from thence  A second history will commence  A chronicle no longer gold  A bargaining with mist and mold  And finally the broken stem  The plummeting to earth, and then  And intercourse not well designed  For beings of a golden kind  Whose native green must arch above  The earth's obscene corrupting love  And still the ripe fruit and the branch  Observe the sky begin to blanch  Without a cry, without a prayer  With no betrayal of despair  Oh courage! Could you not as well  Select a second place to dwell  Not only in that golden tree  But in the frightened heart of me

Nanno's Poem most likely written by Tennessee Williams.

The Saloon (Just Checking In)

Two Centaurs doing Yoga in the Black Forest, flip-flapping,

standing on their heads, causing the blood to flow from their feet to their heads, making them feel like men.

It was the birth of the scene behind the scene. 

Circa 1969 Golden Gate Park the dead was playing, Henry gives Alva Ginsbrook a hit of acid, the scene behind the scene unfolds.

Alva composed Howl, the dead heads still trance, it goes something like this…old traces.

“Peyote solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetery dawns, wine drunkenness over the rooftops, storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon blinking traffic light, sun and moon and tree vibrations in the roaring winter dusks of Brooklyn, ashcan rantings and kind king light of mind”, 

And so on—

Later that night Henry on Grant Street walking towards the Saloon Bar  heading down hill, he sees  James Baldwin face to face. Baldwin a cranky Negro author on speed and booze allot. Baldwin looks at Henry and punches him in the face, a weak punch. Henry laughs knowing he could kick the gay Negroe’s ass. Baldwin was schizophrenic, he might have thought Henry was a dragon or a spider.

Henry makes it past Baldwin and ducks into the Saloon Bar, Janis Joplin is holding court with Hells Angel Terry the Tramp, she was a jerk when drunk and drunk most the time, the regulars avoided her. She bought acid from Terry the Tramp and hit the bricks real fast.

Max the failed sculpture, ashen beard down to his waste in overalls at the bar, same corner everyday.  After a successful show of his work in Rome circa Fifties, he never worked again. 

Max asked Henry if he believed in God? Henry says—

“ I really don't think there is anything there and a spirit with consciousness that answers prayers, I doubt it.”

And— 

“ If God is there Max better not cross him or get on his bad side.”

Max says—

“ OK Henry just checking in.”

1o Minutes

Lyrical, a smile on his face, the fat cat, doing whatever he was doing without a care, his soul semiopaque, no long hidden.   

At home drinking with people big and small, downing swigs of Souther Comfort from a gold flaked flask with a red tongue and lips logos on it. 

Henry the dream machine flying with angels parallel to the ground, everybody eating Sunday diner on main, never-the-less, 

painfully excited, watching everything, dancing with Molly, begging the straw-man. 

Nothing on his mind, in the now as he felt feeling the wind on his face, dancing with the devil, doing a nose dive, losing to the devil. 

Writing flow of consciousness, 10 minutes and out poetic prose. Breaking ground, new word form on the edge looking out, breaking the mouth. Quick thrills, jolts to the body, nothing to think about.

Henry saw it as "Lazy writing," having told all his stories, nothing left, writing on nothing.  

With a monkey and a duck on his back, coming home, cooking cocaine and opium together, loading it up, popping it. Nowhere at all, nowhere, no-place in no time. Standing alone and chanting out loud for 10 minutes today.  

Mr Moon

Henry  could hardly recognize it,  wanting none of it, disjointed, spurious, a mensch and clown,  feeling fooled.

Henry Lucowski and Jackie Gleason,  old moon-boys  from somewhere else. 

Bone-Tired Mr.  Moon,  hungover and coming down,  heading into darkness, 

Old Bill saying, “ When  radio waves and moon-beams breathe, dream and write Henry, dream and write,  go to nature, sound off and preachify son."  “ Write stories in the sky.” 

Writing is a slow process Henry thought— your work must have form and level. 

Laying in bed at night tweaking, Old Bill writing stories in his head,  never  the same,  wanting to finish another story.

Henry never working overtime,  full of inspiration,  trying to say something,  wondering when he would get his check.

Henry and Old Bill junked up and listening to Ray Charles on the Colored Radio, asking his baby not to go, partings part 1 and 2. 

Henry’s work somewhere between short stories and poetry, deep stuff, blind soul healing the rage. 

Not knowing much and  knowing he didn't have to do it anyways.

The Beat Hotel

In The Beat Hotel— Colonel Bill and Alvah Goldsplat—  Flaming Blue Meringue pie washed down with decanters of Moroccan Coffee and clove. “Cock Sucker Blues," By the Rolling Stones on the colored radio, WBXR,  shaking off layers of raw-hide and croc-skin. 

A  Marrakech boy siting on Alvah’s lap, Alvah reading him the Torah and Howl,  stuff from future and centuries past.

Out back on an old sofa, Bill loaded his shotgun, blowing up  beer cans, watermelons, baby dolls and old TV set.

Henry chanting with Bill, poetic stuff from dreams.

Saying—

“ Embrace all that’s dark and wicked Henry, meet them head on son, lie down and hold them tight kid, it’s the stuff of dreams”.

Mainlining a speedball, lapsing into dreams full of color, living the Life of Pi, planting Gospel Trees. Knowing there’s no place like Nashville and Memphis rock n roll, tossing seeds to the wind, two straw men asleep at the wheel. 

Chuck Berry singing “I Love You," On out of focus radio, wooly stuff loose and free, it was a  summer afternoon in New York City,  Hippy women bathing naked in Orchid Sea, a beautiful day full of rainbows.

“Isn’t it a Pity," By George Harrison playing on  Colonel Bill’s radio the room began to sway as the celling parted and rained down powdered cocaine, bathed in white light. 

 Old Bill whispers to Henry—

“ Remember Henry words belong to no one and break the law when you write”.

Jazzed on a Speed-ball

Henry Lu a man of few thoughts, not caring much for the future or the past, all choked up and trying to say something.  

Mathew Mccnaughhey, a  performance and soliloquy at the Oscar Show,  just a kid confessing on stage, replete in his tailored white tux, red hair all curled and sparkling. 

“Everyday I need someone to look up to.” (Being on top and looking down).  “It’s lonely up here,  I need God to look up too, I’m all alone, talk to me God!” And so on. 

Henry Lu looking for his shotgun and puking all over himself… pucking for Mathew Mccnaughhey,  letting it out,  getting rid of it in the bucket, purged, running through the flames, dancing. 

It’s 12 o’clock in Manhattan,  Colonel Bill out and about in Central Park with a shotgun and a metal detector looking for the pusher-man. 

“ Henry I don't write much without a fix,”And, “ I’m a lazy writer and I’m hungry, why I could mainline a mix of lightning bolts and razor,  (bleeding , juice flowing again, segment and  paragraph). 

A blind genius sees the world in black and  shades of white, jazzed in a Harlem living room, greased, Bach on electric piano. 

“Writing is art Henry, the writer paints with words, it’s been said before,  blind soul and perspiration, like a speedball.” 

Later, by midnight fixing on a paradisiacal and glorious vision...”

Henry Awake and Asleep Part Two

  

There’s  rythmn n the air tonight ~  

Henry Lee (Hooker) Lucowski, born  between a rock and a palm tree, a living doll, argent eyes and long hair. Earnest to the bone,  too big for his shoes, born a misfit, ornery and waspish. 

Listening to the Rolling Stones on W0MS, Mississippi radio, moon beams and an anthem coming out of the radio. Drinking Jasmine Tea, smoking tea, drinking mint juleps out of a green coconut, snorting thimbles of cocaine. 

These are the glory days….

Henry, thinking aloud and talking to himself, shrugging, hunched over, scratching his head, beatific, delighted, burnt opiates,  rocking n rolling with little queenie, dancing with Etta James, rubies and Black Beauty. 

Henry, scratching all over,  watching Taxi and Ernie Kovacs reruns on TV, happy as a pig in shit, feeling organic,  reading High Times, head knelt down before his typewriter, coming down.

There’s  rythmn n the air tonight ~  

Glow-bugs and Butterflies

Henry Lucowski on the outside floating through a red canyon out west somewhere, flying with glow-bugs and butterflies, connected somehow, aloft and adrift. 

Sucking the nectar of life from a fresh coconut through a straw, Henry in good form reading a review on a new biography of William Burroughs,  nothing new here — the story of  William had been told already—

Henry met William  in Milwaukee at an after reading reception in the late eighties. Most people knew that William was a cold fish and no one should hug him. 

Henry said hello to William over a tray of cold cuts, at that moment  feeling a chill, a contingent of radical lesbians, butched-out  and after Burroughs the misogynist. Lucowski got William out through the alley, William butch himself could understand. 

Henry's Harley— William climbed on the bitch seat and the duo was off in a flash. William had never been on a Harley and enjoyed the feeling of the wind blowing in his  face on the open road,  feeling like he was flying through empty space.

William says "Let's get high," dope could be  had in Chinatown, scar-thing up a grocery-bag full of goodies, junk, hash, cocaine, Zanex from the Chinamen, Lenny Ho,  Ho’s Laundry.

Later under the  gazebo in Henry’s backyard sitting on a dirty Moroccan carpet William  emptied and spread the stash out on a plate. The old junky says — “ Henry,  let’s shoot some speedballs pal and chase them with cool Jasmine Tea,”— 

Between Axel's Bar and Viet Nam

When I was eighteen in 1969 the Army selected me to go by troop transport from Kansas City to Washington D.C. for a meeting of AUSA, the Association of the United States Army, I was in ROTC.

I had been attending military school in Missouri since the ripe age of 13. There were rules against booze and dope at the school and the ordinance was strictly enforced. Any fellow cadet or instructor could rat on you if they smelt liquor on your breath or ganja on your person. Since I was of draft age at the time getting busted meant immediate induction in the Army and trip to Viet Nam most likely. I was against the war and was scared to death of getting my nuts shot of or worse. As cadets we heard stories how guys in Hueys on their way to combat sat on their helmets to protect their family jewels from stray flack or bullets.

I was slated to go in the Army as a Second Lieutenant in the Ifantry upon graduation. I would have made the worst platoon leader in Army history. I hated guns and couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with one, having little idea how the sights worked as well as no knowledge of maps or compasses. I would have been what they called 'fracked'or shot by my own soldiers in the back for sure. 

As for any interest in the war on my part, it was limited to how soldiers in combat used a M1 rifle like a bong or hooka to smoke opium and ganja, as well as a fascination with hairless Asian pussy. 

Terms such as, 'honor', 'serving ones country', and the general jingoistic grap of the day meant nothing to me. And the Viet Cong where much better versed in the arts of warfare and better soldiers than us. They were true soldiers who had something to fight for. 

Mostly I felt hated and despised by other young people of the time and when on leave I could see the looks of distain on the long hair's faces when they saw our military haircuts. It felt like a outcast, and all I wanted to do was to stop shaving and having to get haircuts. I wanted to  buy a van and go on a spiritual journey out west somehwere, to New Mexico or California maybe. 

Why the Army selected me to go to Washington as a representative of whatever it was they perceived me to be, it was all bullshit anyways. I saw the week long trip to attend military meetings as a booze, dope and fuck holiday. I had no plans to go to any of the meetings because no body really gave a shit back then and I wouldn't be missed. 

The trip on the troop transport plane would be my first and last thank God, because I never made it into the Army anyways. Thanks to the Quakers who helped me get out of the Army all together, not on moral grounds, but by helping me get a Section Eight, in that I was way too crazy to visit a country that wasn't mine and cut off body parts and set a glow it's inhabitants with a flame thrower. Proving I was nuts was no chore because I was and still am mad as piss. 

I bought some acid from a fellow cadet and took a few doses before getting on the plane to D.C. I spent the hours in flight listening to the Grateful Dead and the Doors on a tape player with batteries, tripping my brains out. 

On arrival in DC we where transported by military buses to Myer-Henderson Hall, Fort Myer. I was still tripping my brains out and didn't even know what country I was in. When we reached the barracks I was assigned a bunk. I immediately stripped off my uniform and put on some jeans and a tie-die t-shirt with a Dead Head logos of a skull with dread locks on it, still wearing my military issue combat boots, I hitched a ride to Georgetown. 

I got a ride from a couple of red neck chicks in their 40s, who thought they where hippies, but were only impersonating hippies for the day, wearing moccasins and bell bottoms with funny floppy leather hats. I offered them some acid, but they didn't want any because they were basically boozers not head. They had a ice bucket of beer in the trunk of their old Chevy station wagon and.

They proceeded to give me a tour of such hot spots as the Washington Momument, calling it huge cement phallic symbol. Then going on to explain that it was a metaphor for the monumental ego of all the male politcians in Washington.

They dropped me off in Georgetown thank God because after I saw the big cock (Washington Monument) and got my cock sucked I wanted to ditch the dogs ASAP. 

I entered the first bar I could find in G-Town, the bar was the type of place that no self respecting frat member would go to drink. It was called 'Axels'. They served up shots of cheap whiskey and beer in mugs. Patrons where served peanuts, shelling them and throwing the shells on the floor.

Axel's was filled with bikers, clergymen, professors and poets. The conversation was something from another planet to me, jaded subject matter, speaking of Nietzsche as though they were in a lunatic asylum, nothing seemed to mean anything, and being nowhere on acid was where I was at, it was a good fit.

I was just another lunatic in Axels, lost in a jungle of existential superlatives as time seemed to disappear while "Sympathy for the Devil" and "Astral Week' flowed in color out of the Juke Box in rainbow waves. 

Axels in Georgetown was a far cry from Missouri, it was as though I 

was in Dorthy's house swirling in a tornado cloud as it landed on the planet OZ. I could hardly speak a word amongst the nothingness wizards, I felt as though I had eaten a bucket of Thorazine and could only stutter, spit and babble. 

I realized that Axels was beyond anything that I had ever experienced so I made my way back to Fort Meyers somehow, I missed the entire week of U.S. Army seminars. The education I got in Axels was something you couldn't pin down on a military map. I had plenty to take back with me to the academy and it had nothing to do with war or reality really. 

It was one of those intrinsic experiences that cant be explained or translated in words. It took me weeks to get back to earth, and the earth seemed like a new horizon full of potential. 

Years later I realized the experience could be sumed up as 'when you are ready for the teacher the teacher will appear and then you will disappear for awhile'.

Henry, Awake and Alseep

Henry the louse, a slab of dead meat eaten from the inside by maggots. A parasitical failure in life who never could hold down a job. Living on a small income in a foreign country, Cambodia, drunk every night with a different whore on his arm at bed time.

When he was young he had some ambition but mostly railed against the establishment, selling dope and turning over slum dwellings for pennies here and there, small-time stuff. 

He had tattoos from a stay in the joint, sent up for a couple of years--- entrapped by a 16 year old Lolita, traveling with her over state lines not knowing she was so young. His tattoos where rough, jail-house.

A full blown alcoholic and drug addict Henry never stayed in one place for long, always... maybe he sucked too, it was easy to blame the world and never take a good look at yourself.

Waking in a modern building, a Chinese opium den, just an empty room with tobacco-stained dirty rags covering the windows, blowing in the breeze. Henry in and out of a haze, soft sunlight orange colored glow, in a dream walking and wrapped in forest leaves, feeling safe, stoping by a still pond, fish splashing water about, Henry wondering what their world was like? 

Adrift, lost, afloat, he enjoyed living in his dreams, waking to face reality from sunrise to sunset. Dreams were junk for him, a source of inspiration and self knowledge and best of all, escape.

He had a book of short stories out there somewhere? “Mescaline Sombrero," With another in the can, awesome stories, deep and surreal, moving slowly… he continued to write even though nobody bought his book, believing that was what writing was, just something a waste land for idiots.

Henry the Messiah--- psychotic some , most poets or writers felt like Jesus or Marx on a mission to save the world. Later, he merely wanted to entertain his readers and to find himself through writing, peeling off of the onion and all, wondering what was inside and later realizing--- nothing was inside.

Using booze and dope as a muse he could pound out stories, ratta tat, ratta tat, all night sessions. The writing process was hard work sober and easier when Henry was drunk.

Henry Lucowski at the end somewhere in Venice. Stumbling late at night out of a shooting gallery like Chet Baker, chasing the dragon and ending up dead--- floating in a canal, his life was worth something, but not a hell of allot. 

Johnny Believer ( Justin Bieber )

               

He was a young man who shouldn't have been normal... well?

Well, in his late teens, he was not a big fellow and he rode high in the saddle. You would see him on the boulevard jived on reefer and booze driving his paisley Ferrari in a gold speckled jump suit and orange painted Engineer Boots. The boys sweet face and smile was enough to make young girls everywhere cry. 

At times you would see him with his guitar slung on his back and you knew showtime was near. Johnny Believer  (Justin Bieber)  packed stadiums with teenage girls all over the world, he had allot of talent, the kid was a raw musician with something to say, frustrated with the feeling nobody was listening. 

The kid lived a charmed life doin the stuff any billionaire hip hoper would do... tagging, fucking girls in arena toilette stalls, drinkin, skate boarding, eating junk food, food fights, getting physical and playing grab ass. 

You wondered what was in the cards for Johnny Believer ? It seemed as though the kid was dealt nothin but aces early on, but down the line might get some deuces as his alter ego surfaces --- a grumpy cobweb covered cryptic black and white photo, covered in scar tissue, with a heart that hardly beat, tick tick doc, tick tick doc-- 

So you gotta get it on…. so fuck it throw it away… smoke da reefer say good bye… your’e free I hope darling….??? 

That morning oooo well now.. the Believer got up and got his dick sucked… the little thing wasn’t very big but he sure as hell didn’t need viagra ….. I mean the little shit could stay hard for hours and all the dope in the universe didn’t mean a hoot.

You know  Figaro Lucowski the author was quite a boy in his time who who later got of the subject and lapsed into a hedonistic coma…. where where we… Johnny Believer ok..

Of course the author doesn’t know a friggin thing about him but he will give voice here as best as he can… Believer came into to this life with his eyes wide open like a Dolphin or a baby Seal… maybe the boy was a angel who tumbled to earth… part Lucifer and a part Gabriela but who the fug would-a thought that God meant for him to make so many lady cherubs bust their sacred and sweet little cherries…

You could hardly call what I do “”Art””, Really I just want you to love me some and buy my book… I started this story on the Believer consciously and then lapsed into unconscious comatose of sorts … It's just a exercise Godamn It.

Comparing Johnny Believer to any historic phenomenon…maybe Elvis, Jesus and you know who… Billy Budd… well they were fresh and virginal you know…tired of normal ladies, normal fucking and looking for a goddesses to drop in their lap from the Heavens. Or, maybe like Capote, Tennessee Williams  or Burroughs heroes in the money hole~

But that wasn't Lucowski or the Believer… they were straight until bored…. 

And that is it people… after so many orgasms the hip start looking for another way out and out... oooo we just wanna score some.

South Milwaukee Outcast

Life, Christ almighty, like Frank Sinatra singing "That's Life, sometimes you're up and sometimes your down." Jesus pure spirited, the king of the world, he liked to party, drink wine. The Evangelous have no ideal what Jesus is about unless they take psychedelic drugs and open up, then Jesus will truly open up......

Wednesday was a grind for Frank Brickhousky at the Riverside Leather and Dye Company. A Nasty smelling place on the Milwaukee River that processed dyed cow and cattle skin sent smack  from the killing floors and slaughter houses all over the Midwest, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Chicago, Omaha. All kinds of skin, Hereford, Brahman, Texas Long Horn, Holsteins, Jersey Reds.

The leather plant was in the middle of town, you couldn't miss it, the die and chemicals running into the Milwaukee River gave off a precise oder, a certain smell, a mix of  cowshit, cement, oil paint, and sulfur.

 On Wednesdays Frank's job was dying the skins that arrived on semi-trucks, all Holstein skins, cows who stopped giving milk, used for dog food and to make leather accessories. Holsteins were a particular bitch for Frank to dye, neutralising the black and white color to make lighter pastels skins used in ladies wear. Dying black skin for bikers chaps and jackets was no problem. To make the pastel colors Frank would drop the black and white Holstein skins into a alkaline and acid mix, fading the skin color, then running them through a large spinning barrow like a cement mixer with sand in it fading the colors further.

Frank Brickhousky was brought up on the South-side of Milwaukee, his old man, Stan, a polish house painter and a drinker  told Frank the fumes from the oil paint caused him to drink. They would buy Schlitz and Pabst beer by the cases, wooden cases in those days, straight from the brewers, returned with the bottles and replaced with more terrible Milwaukee Beer. 

Milwaukee had a church and a bar on every block in those days and still might today, everyone was working back then. Working men, factory workers could afford to go north to the Dells in the summer, go deer hunting,  fishing. Jobs were past on from father to son,  the women were housewives, playing stupid but aware, laughing at everything, bee-hive hair-dos, making donuts all the time, Paczki.

Frank's best friend was Crazy Kurt, he was a greaser, with long sideburns , acne scares, a brillant mechanic, a misfit. He worked at Harley-Davidson and would ride his Harleys all year long, putting chain-spikes on the wheels when it snowed. Kurt was a machinist at Harley, the go to guy. Kurt had 3 Harleys, all Road Kings. He was married to them, walking into his living room, you had to be careful not to trip over Kurt's broken down bike, totally broken down, to the piston springs.

Some nights Crazy Kurt and Frank would drink with their friends. They would drink boiler makers, a shot of whiskey dropped in a large stein of beer, eat pickled eggs, stored in gallon containers on the selves, smoke filter-less Lucky Strikes and Camels. The Tuxedo, home for gonzo bowlers, non compos mantis, tough south side working class Polish dudes that didn't give a shit about n, allot of the guys were World War II veterans. Crazy Kurt was a demolition specialist during the big one, his motto... 

" Point it out and I will blow it to bits  "

 The regular guys at the Tuxedo were all bowlers, and guys from other bars bowled too,  they had teams with names like...

"The Ballbusters",

 "Piston Fuckers"

 "12 Inches of Joy"

 " The Bozos"

 " The Dip Shits"

Saturday night was the bowling league finals, it was " The Dip Shits" vs "The Bozos"

Crazy Kurt and Frank played for the Dip Shits, The Bozo's were no clowns, and were favoured,  the Dip Shits needed Crazy Kurt  to win, he was a psycho bowler.  The tournament began after the playing of  the "Polish Nation Anthem" followed by "Louie, Louie."

Frank and  the Dip Shits had to start without Crazy Kurt, he was late, way late, they were behind by 350 points in the 10th frame of the last round. Out of nowhere you could hear the clear-cut sound of Harley pipes in the bowling alley, it was Crazy Kurt, wasted, he wheeled his Road King around on the carpet and on the lanes, bringing it to a stop and parking it behind the tournament area,  revving the pipes to show he meant business.  Crazy Kurt took one look at the score, seeing the Dip Shits were losing bad,  pulled a hand grenade out of his saddle bag, pulling the pin and throwing the grenade at the upright pins blowing them to bits, a loud noise echoing through the halls, saying to the Bozos….

"Well clowns, who wins?"

Crazy Kurt and Frank would go up north to the Dells in the summer time, Kurt was absolutely mad, he would lay home-made land mind type bombs underground to hunt deer, getting a kick out of blowing the creatures to bits, when they went fishing Kurt would throw a hand grenade in the water,  collecting all the dead garp and bass that floated to the surface.

On the way home Kurt and Frank stopped at the infamous Ed Gein's house, the serial killer from La Crosse who would murder and skin his victims, they busted the door down and it smelt like death inside. There was a meat hook on the wall,  Kurt took it down, taking it as a souvenir to remember his vacation up north. The friends pulled out a bottle of schnapps, sitting down at Ed Gein's nasty kitchen table, a dark wooden table, drinking shot after shot on the very table Gein had feasted on: grilled human flesh and giblets, the two laughing, wondering how Gein seasoned the meat, if he needed tenderiser, salt, pepper, steak sauce?Kurt telling Frank he was going to hang him on the meat hook, skin him alive and make a pair of bowling shoes out his skin.

Living in the winter climate of the north, on hot summer nights you felt extra horny,  a hooker in a bee-hive with a chop-stick in the doo, walked in the bar wearing a asian style dress and striper pumps. Kurt, Frank, Frank's old man Stan and the rest of the Dip Shits were falling all over themselves. She was ready to take them all on, Chico the bartender locked the  front door, the hooker, Cherry, pulling their chains hustling them, she was a pro, lubing herself with Vaseline first and passing out condoms saying...

" Come on you maggots lets see what you can do?"

Intimidating them to get the upper hand, saying while taking them...

"Have you cum yet? Yawn"

" Is that all the meat you got?"

" Is this your first piece of ass?"

What could have been an ugly gang bang turned into a big nothing, Cherry taking the wind out of the Dip Shit's sails, only Kurt got off, the rest freaked. Cherry walked out of the Tuxedo with a grand, feeling nothing much, in good shape.

Crazy Kurt took a short road trip to the dog track on the Wisconsin-Illinois border on his Harley. He won big time, just luck he didn't know shit about greyhounds, he spent his winnings on a machine gun.

The Dip Shits were having a barbecue at Polaski park on the south-side, it was memorial day, potato salad, brats, coleslaw, a keg of Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer, at 9 pm it was getting dark,  Mexican teenagers,in leather coats, approached the Dip Shit picnic, menacingly,  waving zip guns, twirling knifes, Crazy Kurt cooly walked to the trunk of his car, not giving a shit, calmly opening the trunk, pulling a grenade out and his newly purchased AK 47, walking towards the latin rebels, holding his machine gun in one hand and a grenade in the others, he says...

"OK you wanna fuck? Let's go dudes, bring it on,"

Crazy Kurt the bad of the bad, rebels, teenage wimps, eyes like rabbits caught in head-lights, just getting the fuck out and going somewhere else.

Later that Summer at the Tuxedo, Cherry showed up again looking hot, she wasn't there to hook, she was hot for Kurt. They sat at the bar and drank for a long time, both outcast, they had strong feelings for each other, Kurt took Cherry home on his Road King.

A month later Cherry and Kurt had the wildest Polish wedding in the history of South-Side Milwaukee at Polski Hall, the Dip Shits were the best men. Shots of schnapps lined up on a long table with a paper table clothe, 10 year olds kids under the table, sneaking shots, nobody gave a shit, kids and adults wasted. 

Cherry and Kurt lived together the rest of their lives, they had 5 kids, feral little freaks who they never layed a hand on, untamable, wild in the streets, Kurt and Cherry not carrying if they to grew up to be wild child's like their parents, as long as they had fun.

The Mighty Mohave

Henry lost in the Mohave at 10 am, a hand full of mescal buds, plenty of bottled water, a cell phone that worked to got get through to Las Vegas. Loving it, waving a  hand-size crucifix wrapped in rattle-snake skin in one hand and a marimba in the other, the Cactus was wavy, the colors pierced your eyes, purples, pinks, red, green, the dry desert air is healing.

He was living in Las Vegas looking for a job, a salesman. He had a few rentals apartments in Jersey, in no hurry to get a job, he was lazy and hated work, saying... 

"People  punching time clocks, terrifying, terribly disrupting to your bio-rhythms, as bad as Orwell's "1984". 

Henry loved everything about Vegas, the cheap food and booze, cocaine everywhere, he wasn't a gambler though, he liked getting high and walking the streets, enjoying the light show, waterfalls of  purple, light green and golden colored water, walking through a psychedelic wave. Going to bars drinking some, talking to women, meeting people.

The day in the desert started to unfold psychically, vultures eye balling you, rubber-necking, flying like crows, sloppy flyers, lazy waiting to score road kill, eat some rat-tail,  the garbage man of the desert, taking flight, cooling off some. Crude paintings of vultures on rock walls, on the hills, pulling you, shaking you, if you put your ear on it, the rock moans old secrets, it goes into your bones.

Travis Henderson wondering the desert, in the film "Paris, Texas," a shaman, like Jesus in the Sinai, speaking to the Devil, Travis exorcising his own devils. Travis and Jesus walking miles in the desert, not eating, not drinking, seeing the Devil inside the body of a decaying vulture, not feeling right, smelling death, running away into the desert, people looking for Travis, worried.

On the ground, using binoculars Henry watched a slow flying descending Virgin Airline jet on the way to Vegas, thinking the powerful jet engines must blow huge payloads of spent carbon fuel out. Enjoying the open spaces in the uncluttered open desert, luckily, not roped up in an airplane seat, like being in a straight-jacket.

At Dusk, Henry loaded his BMW dirt bike, finding the main road back to Vegas. His  hotel the "Lazy Suzy" in a lousy city neighborhood, a meth neighborhood full of hookers. Henry felt sorry for the girls, they could have been anything before they took fucking meth, cheerleaders, nurses, who knows, the devil drug meth, Henry liked psychedelics and beer, he hated speed. Henry wouldn't hire the hookers on his street for all the tea in China. He would rather practice celibacy. The johns, lost lonely fat white and hispanic men dudes, who lost the art of making love.

He loaded up a cooler with ice and filed it with german beer. Laying around the room, listening to music, his cell phone rang, a call from a strip joint, talking about a job as a light show technician. Henry wanted the job...

" I want this job, I got a tripped out light show in me , blue lights, fast blinking pink strolbs, light-o-rama, stuff you would enjoy on acid watching hot chicks pole dance, trying hard not to cum in your pants?"

The boss a young guy says....


"OK dude you can start next week on thrursday be here by 5 o' clock, don't fuck up on me...."

Great, Henry thought, what a job, you could go to work high, listen to cool music, plenty of hot women around, his lucky day.

There was a knock on the door, it was a hooker, Henry knew her and she rarely hit him up for money, not much, 10 bucks sometimes. Henry invited Claire in for a beer, she was a mess, he told her she should go to rehab, get out of hooking that she was going to get HIV, the usual stuff. Claire woke up one day and she was a hooker on meth, giving truck drivers blow jobs. Claire didn't care what Henry said, she talked about people, names like, Emerald, Chrystal, Angel, Poppy, Dusty, Trip-Boy, all meth users. It bored Henry, he asked Claire to leave, wanting to go out, he put his only suit on, brown with a cotton shirt and green Hawainana tie.

Wearing converse all stars, he walked to the park and smoked a joint on a park bench, enjoying the view, heading to "Lucky Ladys," having a few drinks, meeting his friend Goth Melva, she was nice, very educated, smoked cigarettes too much, liked Trent Razor, Iggy Pop, Lenny Kravitz, music Henry had no idea about. Henry asked if she would like to go to Casares Palace with him and drink a few bottles of wine, she was thrilled, couldn't wait. 

They sat at the small bar near the pool, it was like a dream, Henry asked Melva if she wanted to dose on some chocolate mescaline? They dosed and ordered the cheapest bottle of wine on the menu, they looked into the stars, coming on, feeling very natural, connected to everything and everybody. Henry loved Vegas it was the greatest place in the world if you didn't gamble, kept a low profile, enjoyed the people, enjoying laughing at times to yourself.

Vegas in place, stuck there, not going anywhere, good, bad, indifferent, it isn't a monument, ( what kind of a monument for what, you can't think of anything), (a monument to the investors of the properties? OK so what? It doesn't mean much.) Vegas an achievement of engineering excellence, it will never be one of the wonders of the world, made to look rich, extravagant, garish, not hip really, but fun on drugs.

Melva and Henry headed for her place at 5 am in the morning, they crashed out, Henry used her computer, wrote some, going to bed scared him, bedtime was the loneliest time, he crashed on her sofa, having to lay their without a computer in his face, stuck with himself, trying to meditate, wanting to treat the world right.

People who predict the end of the earth, an impossible thing to do, astronomers approximating the downward spirals of asteroids, saying it can happen someday, in 400,000 thousand years maybe. Nostradamus, poetic predications, lofty unspecific writing, like the bible, open to interpretation, waiting for all the bad stuff to happen in the world and not much of it ever happens, not enough to end the world. Jesus never comes, you just die eventually, not the end of the trip.

Melva and Henry headed out to the desert on his motorcycle. Stoping for a drink at a small run down indian bar, Henry took a picture of the place, it was rustic, a 100 years old, like out of a western, old weathered, light blue painted wood. There were two Navajos Indians at the bar, guys with long white hair in solid green flannel shirts, slowly sipping Grainbelt, not drunk, silent, enlightened. Melva and Henry drank a few beers, lit a joint and passed it over to the Navajos granddads, they grinned from ear to ear, mouths full of white teeth. 

Henry and Melva wanted a teepee. He could be the next Bugsy Siegel, bringing employment to the Indians,  building 20 teepees, a swimming pool and bar, psychedelic drugs available, beer, wine, no whiskey, the works. A place where people were coached to live in peace, by caregivers, a place to come and die and reach the Great Spirit. To be buried Indian style, your body laid out to dry up in the sun, on an elevated tarp on poles, maybe for the vultures to munch on. 

People could come to Henry's Indian Village and feel things deeply, trip and party in peace, safe, opening up to one another, heart to heart, sitting on a blanket cross legged, facing each-other, looking into each-others eyes, full of joy, seeing, feeling everything nature has to offer, wrapped in flora.

It would be the " Longest journey that starts with the first step" one teepee and a well.

A Short Story

Deep frying scorpion tales in sweet sauce, drinking tea on the porch, odd insects, new ones not discovered, high pitched twitching sounds, other-wise silent in the jungle, birds are still strong voices in the universe. 

The village had no electric, you never heard the news, no hot showers, no TVs, computers. Henry missed writing and music the most, he didn't care about talking to anyone, the tribal people loved Henry, he was old, had white hair and a beard, harmless, an old uncle who could pay his way. 

Henry rented a house there, he could ride his Honda Dream into Pai to get supplies. 

Eventually he bought a  Honda generator and built a shelter for it under his village house so he could run a lap top computer, write and get stories out.

The world hadn't ended, Henry didn't believe the world was going to end at all, he knew that sacred hearts aflame and the league of  angels watched over us, and would take us all the way to Paradise, Paradise? I would rather live on Hollywood Boulevard, but once you get a taste of paradise, you might change your mind, everybody headed to paradise, too bad or too good, maybe full of the best thing ever, never as fun as Hollywood Boulevard.

So many different ways to approach writing, Henry spending a lifetime angry, blaming the system, whatever the system was, he didn't know. Wanting to approach writing in a different way. Writing in repentance, brilliant, you could throw up a lot of smoke or confuse people, looking brilliant to millions of readers, hmm, hehehehe, LOL. 

Henry wondered if Bukowski was brilliant like Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer.  Bukowski learning his craft by studying journalism while young in community college.  Bukowski wrote all the time, finding a voice, a horse-headed brain-child with the balls the size of grapefruit. Disenchanted,  light years away from the brilliants, Mailer, Vidal, Kerouac, John Cheever,  Capote, Tennessee Williams, closer to Steinbeck, who he liked, but never, never as good as Cheever, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, by far the mast of 20th and 21st Century literature.

Maybe being gay had something to do with it, Henry's favorite writers regardless, not giving a flying fuck, the three gay angels, the best of the best, Cheever and Williams by far better than Capote, Truman a master of his craft, deep thinker who enjoyed psilocybin.

Bukowski beat down early from the start, plenty enough by hard times, bitter, writing angry when society needed angry realistic writers. Pounding out his word like a drumbeat or smoke signal on the typewriter, a lot of people hearing it.

There is room for all kind of writers in this world, some are better than others, some are masters, others just work at it, aspiring to be, developing their craft, it is art, therapeutic, it is a good thing, we all need to have art forms as hobbies, it can save you from yourself.

It took Henry a long time to learn allot of things, especially that working regularly and being passionate about what you do is utmost.

Henry decided to order a Waffle at the hippy cafe in Pai. He didn't like talking to anyone. A small down in the Thai hills that had become 3 star hide away for young back packers and older expat artist. Pai was full of second hand book stores, henry had read it all, preferring to write 14 hours a day to reading.  If you read Shakespeare, what-a you gonna do? Write like him? Who in the fuck could read it, and how could you write like him anyways? 

Leaving town headed home, a herd of  baby Water Buffaloes were blocking the road, lead by a group of young monks in orange robes, bald. The Buffaloes were pure brown, blending in with the ferns, vines and red dirt. People love animals, they are innocent and talk with their eyes and bodies. You get the feeling they have huge hearts and fear us but would talk to us if we stopped eating them.

He had a date that night with a beautiful Asian women, He was nervous about meeting her, knowing she would turn him on, knowing she needed help, she was  up against it, having to make hard choices in her life. They met at Starbucks, later he met her daughter, fat. It is tough as hell being obese, especially for women and children, everybody. He would have easily taken on the beautiful mother without the kids, the fat daughter he had no idea what to do with. It was hard to love fat people even though you knew they suffered so much, being obese, the ultimate modern self- torture.

Henry, a world apart, not wanting anything, loving the free world, with allot of different mind sets, Henry had his own and it was way out there, an  odd insect, feeling the distinct pain of others. Knowing he could do little, offer a little bit, what he could for now. Feeling the rawness of it, powerless, life is cruel.

Henry, 62 years old, it was too late for him to complain and he knew it wouldn't help, , not kidding himself, going through life into old age and coming face to face with the raw choices people make everyday in the third world. Heart wrenching stuff, your first reaction is to blow it off, the sadness of having to go somewhere else in the world and  sell you pussy to survive,  just awful, making the planet a worst place to live. The world such a grand place, you gotta love it.

Henry a wasteland, stuck in time, facing mortality, useless to anyone, lazy, just wanting to get high all the time, fucking around trying to write, doing it anyways no matter how many people read him