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 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.

Van Morrison Knocked up Half the Town

               

Flora and Ted Delmar lived in Bolinas, California population sixteen hundred, a artist community that people from San Francisco visited on weekends, with famous residents Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Van Morrison who owned a ranch outside of town. Bolinas looked like the old run down town in the western "Three Bullets for Ringo". The Delmars lived in a small old wooden house, weathered and sky blue color. They were AWOL, Absent Without Leave from society and the rat race, opting out when Nixon was elected.

Flora had a trust fund from a eccentric rich uncle who lived in the East. It wasn't allot, but the Delmars could afford to live simply and past the time painting, writting, drinking, listening to music and smoking pot. Flora painted her dreams using house paint instead of expensive Rembrant paint. She would glue old newspapers and sand from the beach on the thin canvass to thicken and give it texture. Ted had a old Olympia typewriter he used to write stories with, both were moderately successful and could care less about making it. Flora had a few exhibitions in San Franciso and Ted published a book of short stories entitled ' Mescaline Sombero' on Black Sparrow Press.

One night their neighbors, Dennis and Lola Weaver, came to the Delmar house for a visit. They owned the health food store in Bolinas and were heavy drinkers like the Delmars. After eating some falafel and couscous they began to drink bourbon and spring water, passing a joint of high breed Humboldt County pot around.

Lola Weaver knew that Flora had wanted to get pregnant, bored and feeling horney, like she was in heat she said, " Oh Flora good lord what is wrong with Teddy's sperm? Try this dear, put raw oysters,  earthworms, seaweed and pumpkin yogurt in a blender then give it to Ted before you make love." Flora says " Oh fuck off Lola we all know that Dennis's sperm isn't any better than Ted's, and that your son Moonboy was fathered by Van Morrison", Lola countered by saying " Well dear my darling Moonboy has the DNA of a genius and will be a world famous musician someday,". "Sure" says Flora in reply reminding Lola that, " Van the mans DNA also carries the lousy genes of a sexed out doper, booze hound, rogue cowboy and bald fat man". Roaring out loud spontaneously the pair laughed so hard that their eyes teared.

Meanwhile Dennis and Ted were in the backyard, peering through a telescope at the night sky as they passed a joint back and forth. It was a fresh and crisp night and you could smell the ocean. The sky looked like a dark blue tarp draped over the horizon as though someone had pricked the tarp a zillion times with a needle allowing the light source from beyond to shine through the tiny holes. Ted got serious for a moment saying to Dennis " One night broh, I was looking at the sky, like we are tonight and I saw a tiny star like blue ray of light that was moving up and down, hovering near the moon for fifteen minutes, then bingo the blue ray shoots up into space and vanishes."  Dennis was skeptical and didn't believe in UFOs saying " You are not going to tell me it was a UFO, maybe it was a star that just flickered out." Ted thought for a few seconds and said, " Well it sure as shit wasn't your momma's booty"! The two good friends wrestled each other to the ground laughing.

Later that evening Flora decided she wanted to walk down the hill and go skinny dipping in Bolinas Lagoon. She wanted to bath in moon beams, asking the Weavers to come along. After splashing about and chicken fighting the couples went to their perspective Mexican blankets, exhausted, full of joy, necking a bit and passed out. Life was good for the Delmars and Weavers, whom in their different ways had escaped the rat race of the city and found simple joy in country living, living off the grid, opting for a spiritually creative life instead. Aware beings, choosing to generate the smallest carbon footprint possible, using green energy to power their houses. Not wanting to leave behind allot of plastic shit that would end up in the rubbish, more carbon based toxins taking a big dump on the precious environment, perpetuating the cycle of sedate planetary suicide.

One Christmas night Flora and Ted got magnificently wasted on Mescal. They finished putting the colored lights on their tree, which was not a pine but a huge home grown cannabis bush in a painted pot. For them Christmas night symbolized the birth of earthly innocence that was eroding, going down to the low lands as the centuries progressed. 

Flora got up and changed the channel on the old TV, they only had two channels. It was Christmas at the Nixon White House,

Descartes's Colouring Book

Henry sick as a dog, he just couldn’t seem to shake the gookalygok, wondering what kind of a virus last a month? He felt doomed, disheveled, feeble, covered in green slim. 

He looked like shit as well, like an old Bulldog with scattered strands of long blond rooster hair growing out of the top of his head and a mouth full of busted up tar coloured teeth, a contender in the ugly dog contest.  

Hard to get much inspiration here, old age physically beating the shit out of Henry, a hero slumped in front of a bowl of noodle soup, despicable, invisible to most.

Dope and booze made him sick, he couldn’t take it anymore, thinking of it made him nauseous. Nausea didn’t stop  the old fool though, he didn’t know any better, ready to hit the opium parlour for relief on a whim. 

As a young man he spent hours looking at himself in mirrors, never missing a chance to catch a reflection in a window sill, now avoiding mirrors like washed-up vampire.

Wondering what there was to write about? Henry’s latest story, “ High in the Pines” took him out of his pathetic self some,   romantic stuff from the past. Henry a pus and blood filled pimple, Quasimodo dreaming of Esmeralda past… inner self fading fast. 

In front of a computer typing  away madly in a coffee shop, watching the young things sucking up university rot, beautiful and fit, the world was about them, not him, and he knew it.  Henry, poisons festering and morphing inside him, breathing goo on the innocents in mute fantasy, spreading Ebola and plague as he breathed, the destroyer of young dreams and hope.

Stopping by the Chinaman’s on the way home, he scored cocaine and Oxy-Codiene which he pulverised and snorted for a balanced high. 

A few minutes into it and Henry was rocking again, "Tumbling Dice" was playing on the coloured radio. All things were a matter of perception he thought,  Descartes was right, it doesn’t exist unless you perceive it.  “Good and bad days, feelings,” were a colouring book of perception.

Descartes’ colouring book, that's the ticket Henry thought.

High in the Pines

On a bus late one night in darkness,  Henry deep in Mexico somewhere, doped up on reefer and codeine. 

It was late at night and the driver woke him with a shove, saying…

“Gringo this is the last stop for you, get out and take your dope with you.”

Henry wasn’t sure were he was,  Rio Verde maybe.

He had no destination in mind and this city was a good as any, he liked Mexico of the Antigua, the past transported him.  

Looking for a cheap hotel he found Los Americana, the rooms were somber and rundown with mildewed brown wallpaper and old curtains made of orange lace on the dirty windows.

He laid down in bed and snorted some pulverised Codeine off a small mirror and then took a drink of mescal from his flask with a gold skull and crossbones on it, a joyous poison all right. 

Henry loved the sound of the Cantina bands, happy go lucky speed freak stuff he thought. Sitting alone and listening for hours, he would eat and drink too, copious amounts of homemade tortilla and beans while downing shots of tequila.

Henry was eyeballing  a ravened haired gal with milk chocolate skin, a Barbara Carrera in the jungle, a brick shit house of a women, Henry liked big exotic women. 

Having finished a few hard  pints he was ready to strike it up with Isabella. He asked her to go on a picnic tomorrow afternoon (How corny Henry thought?).

She says, 

“Sure gringo what is your name?” 

“Henry” he says. 

“Ok Poppy (Her name for Henry) meet me in front of the cantina tomorrow at two and bring plenty of booze and dope, I will bring beans and tortilla.”

A good trade off Henry thought.

Then Rosa says,

“ You got any coke Poppy?”

Henry surprised, happy she dug dope.

“ Sure babe,  Codeine  and killer bud too.”

Henry  turgid,  full of sex charged vision…. delicious  anticipation,  would the moment live up to the prelude he wondered?

Rosa and Henry met as planned, heading up hill looking for pine trees to lay in and lose themselves in drug, booze and sex.

The innocents spread out a colourful Mexican blanket on the pine needles and downed codeine with tequila as the smoked dope. With their heads well into the clouds, Rosa spread her legs in a debauched manner. Henry skates his hand leisurely up Rosa’s chocolate coated and wet legs ripping off her panties.

Henry nonplussed says,

“ Rosa darling you have a cock!” Realising that he should finish what he started, after all, he had feelings for Rosa 

Rosa says to Henry,

“ Poppy darling didn’t you know that the Hindu God Krishna is both man and women, the lack of gender propels the God to the top of the chakra chain and into the heavens.”

Henry says, 

“ Babe we sure are high in the pines.”

Bi Polar Deers

Christmas Eve in Chicago 1990, hardly blessed with the spirit or hallmarks of Robert Frost in a horse pulled sleigh coasting through pure powdered snow delivering figgy pudding to his neighbor. 

The snow in the city was mucky, in the alley-ways wino's hovered close to old oil drums at midnight, burning anything to keep from freezing, hoping the sun would come up tomorrow and warm their bones as they caught a few winks on a park benches at Avalon or Chopin park.

It was Christmas Eve in Miami 1990, Henry worked as an orderly at Dade County Mental Health Center, unofficially, the nut-house. Henry nuts himself, the patients his brothers and sisters, he felt more rapport with them than he did with the staff. 

The Psychiatrist were particularly disengaged and alien. Freudian and Jungian therapy was a thing of the past, therapy was a thing of the past. Big Pharma: Wyeth, Pfizer, Roche, Eli Lilly, Snafu, pushing dope to heal souls and making billions was the future.

People should be allowed to medicate as they see fit, as long as they have the money to support their habits. 

When the ward nurses weren't passing pills, they were passing gas, drinking coffee in the nurse's station talking about sex and shopping, on call, waiting for people to freak-out, cups of Thorazine, hypos full of sedatives close at hand, like stun-guns.

Henry wondered how dope worked over time to stabilize psyches, emotions, brain-waves? People's bodies were resistance to drugs after time. Or could it be people (patients) in another time and place, or in a different reality would be the ones on the outside? Henry often thought, does insanity mirror reality or does reality mirror insanity?

On full moon nights the moonbeams seemed to rattle folks brains more than usual, as though the electric signal in the brainwaves did flip flops, taking some on a roller coaster rides. The selective process out on the street that determined who went to jail and who went to the nut-house, vigilance on the lookout for abnormal behavior, particularly violence or disregard for the laws of municipality, sleeping on the beach, balling on the beach, moving your bowels in the woods. Of course, legal for deers who regularly expose themselves and can relieve themselves wherever they want. But, illegal for humans who regularly hide their penises or vaginas out of modesty, or if gay and liberated, wanting to walk about nude and show themselves, holding back, having to live within the laws of  fat mayors or municipalities.

Henry thought if you were going to punch someone or take a dump in the ocean you were always better off acting crazy when the Stasi showed. If you are lucky enough to get in the nut-house, be cool, down the paper bucket of Thorazine, walk the halls nude, wrap a cigarette in the lip of the foreskin of your uncircumsized   cock, let it dangle as you move, light the cigarette and walk down the hall.  Open your jaws, pointing at your mouth like a geek, waiting for someone to throw a live starling or rat your way to chomp on, but it's OK because, your nuts pointing to your mouth, dry, saliva-less, apparent, teething like a baby.

In the morning, drink plenty of coffee, eat some grits and eggs, then chat up a girl in the ward you like, another nut-case like you, fuck her like crazy in an empty closet, then run out the door in your leopard skin speedo and go for a swim in the sea. Life is good if you know how to play the system.

I'm Al Pacino, I Got Cocaine all Over my Face,

The story of the blues, " One day you got it all and it disappears so fast ." 

Death is the great equalizer, nothing you did while alive changes what happens to you mind-wise when you die, experience in death: nothing, your'e unconsciousness, not even sleeping, your mind currents don't exist, it is nothingness, nobody knows for sure it is a toss of the coin, if God exist or not. I  doubt  hell is forever. The Jews have it right, Hell, the worst you were in life, the longer you burn, your soul then purified, ready to go anywhere, to Heaven or to live in the forest with Martians, Avatars, highly evolved on the purest level of bio-consciousness, maybe another universe, reincarnated to another universe. Nobody knows for sure yet, faith isn't enough to know what will happen to us when we die, it is just a presumption, well, if you have accepted proof that God is, not on faith, proof of God and Jesus almighty, not just because the bible says it, because your faith says it, because you see it for real? Contact me @ aloha20001@yahoo.com 

Billy, looked like a goat, a poet-goat, with a wispy beard, living  in  Fort Lauderdale, Florida in the 80s, it was a horrible time for popular culture, disco, not making much use of rock n roll. He sold weed, not liking the feeling he got on speed, he liked cocaine enough, but was living in a place that didn't have much cocaine, drinking was good he would  get drunk, every night loving it and arrested from time to time by the long arm of Dade County Police, most the time arrested for nothing, arrested once for flipping the bird at a lady cop, walking the street after having a few drinks, never for dope.

He didn't have a car, he road a Piaggio moped. It had a good engine that hummed, he would take back roads, drive on canal roads. 

There were allot of great parks, you could lay in the grass and smoke a joint, listen to nature, the moped didn't need a state plate, it meant freedom of movement.

Billy was bi polar, retarded, had autism, was psycho, and had parkison's decease, but he he loved nature, it was all he needed really. He didn't know at the time he was bi polar, he was self medicating.  Self-medicating,  unaware of psychotropic meds, drinking and getting high, realizing that there are levels of drunkenness, meds work under the bridge, so to speak, but levels of drunkeness can coexist with meds. Billy found his level, avoiding black outs, and problem drinking, relaxing, enjoying life, in privacy.

He could control his drinking, drinking was a gas, he would push it to the limit, he was not a guy for say, 2 drinks, he prefered drinking bottles of booze.  Billy was a Buddhist, reading works by Buddhist authors, Alan Watts, the Bagavid Gita, stories of the childhood of the Dali Lama, he liked Henry Miller as well.

Billy took a trip with some gay pals, they drove, loaded with dope, bags of weed, downers mostly. Four of them ending up in Tampa, all the others gay except for Billy, thier car parked in a spa with a swimming pool, the gay pals getting out and goint to the spa to fuck their brains out, fair enough. Billy got out of the car and started walking around Tampa. He ended up taking a bus back to Ft. Lauderdale, he had to work on Monday. His friends must have stayed for a while. Billy didn't spend allot of time in gay circles, but had worked with gay people. 

He liked to take trips to Palm Beach, he would drive there in his Renault, he could score in East Palm and go drink in West Palm. He would stay for the day and drive home at night, only 60 miles from Ft. Lauderdale on the Florida turnpike, get out of the car and light up at rest stations or in parks, so you didn't smell up your car with weed, the highway patrol will stop you for nothing, and if they smell weed in your car, the feel very rejected by their fathers.

Billy bit his nails, it was a habit he couldn't kick, he was a nervous person, he would get hang nails and fungus under his nails. 

In West Palm Beach Billy would score weed, he could buy a kilo from a Jamaican he knew well, the short drive to Ft. Lauderdale was a breeze if you keep with-in the speed limit, 62 MPH was a safe speed, Billy never drove drunk while transporting weed, he must have transported 1000s of kilos around Florida over 2 years.

He once had his car hijacked when he lived in Chicago, he was in Cabrini Green, once again scoring a dime bag. He went up stars in one of the projects, to an apartment with everything striped out of it. It was bare cement, with a kitchen table, one guy at the table who seemed to be the owner of the shooting gallery, knocked Billy out, taking his car keys and stealing his car, they found the car, an orange Volkswagen Beatle weeks later, the parts had the engine striped it had to be sold as junk. 

Billy walked north to the CTA station, got on a train and went home. Didn't want to be bothered with reporting it to the cops. Knowing the sinking feeling you get as a prisoner or suspect in jail, the authorities attitudes, big attitudes, allot about attitude with them. For the prisoner it is grayness, grey hell. 

He would put the kilo of weed in the trunk of the Renault, the kilo hidden in a banana box, knowing the dope dogs could find it. Billy was just lucky, he could blend into the shadows somehow. He never was busted in his life for selling weed, but he had been brought in for drunk driving, disorderly conduct. 

He loved the feeling you got in your mind when you smoked weed, a relaxed, elevated feeling, the pureness you felt inside when you where high, the feeling that you didn't need a thing in the world. Billy had thought of opening centers in the hills of South America were people could go to be happy, get  cocaine therapy sessions with trained counselors, a cocaine resort, on the ocean, providing fresh cocaine leaf grown in the area, or high quality crystal cocaine. Sessions to work on positivity and stress, with an all organic Japanese diet. Saving months of time in therapy, the cocaine like a truth elixir, patients entering life with a new sense of exhilaration, turning to the rain and the wind , excited.

Billy had a fetish for the wild man poet Chinese-man,  Lao Tsu, Tsu sure did have a fresh approach to life,  he lived life simply, in nature, in a wood burning cabin. Drinking, drinking  rice wine writing poetry, looking at the snow cowling a field. Saying beautiful and persuasive words were not beautiful, but the snow on the field was blameless.

Most nights Billy would stay home is his apartment, cooking Chinese food listening to Chopin drinking red wine, smoking weed, writing, listening to music, domesticated, he had lived alone most his life, he new he wasn't the only one in the world who lived alone, that living alone had it's advantages, some people who live with others envy people who lived alone and vice-versa, Billy wanting a love that understood him like everyone else, someone who liked his writing, someone who could be a mother at times, a friend more.

Hunter S. Thompson thought that writing was the bottom-feeder of all the arts, music is much more powerful, ok so what? All kinds of music, whatever people like, if it makes them feel full, good. Hunter came as close to being a supreme being as anyone in recent history, allot of big musicians revel him, he was only a writer. Dylan in line too, the way he plays, he's a jammer, when he plays live, he plays minute to minute, inventing it. Martin Luther King or Ray Charles modern day saints. Knowing how to lay out the code, sounding it out, half way to the moon. Martin Luther king, the best Jesus so far, the man on the edge of the universe man.

But what does it all mean, what will happen on earth? Think about the most positive scenario and that is what will happen as long as we all think that way, that is what will happen. It is cheers to the universe, take a drink to its longevity everyday, because it isn't going anywhere soon.

Henry's Dream

Henry didn't have much on his mind and had even less to write about,  retreating into dreams to see what he could come up with, chasing the offbeat and surreal.

The barriers of his dreams were layered with walls, like the bijou sets in “Gone with the Wind” filmed at Culver City, a historic street with a view of the suburbs painted over at the backdrop to meet the needs of the scene. 

Henry knew the colors of his dreams, there were three, brown, amber and red, red to highlight; accentuated lips, script, flowers, hearts, nipples, vagina lips and so on. The black and white backdrop took up sixty percent of the dream scene, the rest brown and amber, with the occasional red highlight.

In his dreams Henry would wonder through the city streets which felt like small movie sets. He would often meet his parents who had been dead for many years and they were always broke. Many dreams involved apartments or houses that were closing in on him and falling down around him,  the hound of foreclosure was always at his back as well. 

He had little connection with the people in his dreams feeling that they could turn on him at any minute.

Frightful dreams such as  being in a
concentration camp, being chased by demons or zombies were strictly in black and white, no shades of amber, brown or red highlights here. 

Henry the voyeur, just a huge eyeball viewing the show, other times walking, sitting, flying through it, and sometimes talking to the folks in his dreams.

His favorite dreams involved walking through streets and going to hear music or to eat, although the food had no taste and he couldn't hear the music. 

There was a film with Robin Williams called “ When Dreams Come True” about Heaven and Hell, Henry thought the scenes of after life were more like dreams, at any rate, best graphics of dreams ever. 

One night Henry had an enlightenment dream, one moment he was walking around a Zen-do wearing a robe naked underneath.  Later, at an event put on by Microsoft in a open field somewhere. There was allot of dope there and bands played, Hare Krishna monks were serving delicious food, which Henry ate but couldn’t taste. 

He smoked some pot and felt very alive, not saying anything as nothing happened around him , he full of enlightenment. Nobody noticed or gave a shit because they all were enlightened plenty, they didn’t need any help from Henry. 

Well, so it goes with Henry’s dream, everybody must have different dreams he thought. 

Mohave Blues

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.

Henry Yellow and Weak

Henry feeling yellow and weak inside,replused by modern culture. At times thinking he would welcome a fast death, unsure of what was on the other-side, but knowing it would be more pleasing than the slop the world was dishing out. 

Everyday was much more of the same, all the booze, sex and food in the world didn't give him any relief, but writing emptied the junk of his soul. 

Perhaps it was the depression that comes with aging,  the future offering nothing,  friends would tell him that he was old and must accept the big nothingness of hoary life.

Henry thought of William S. Burroughs, it was unimaginable that the Colonel lost his fanaticism for writing in old age, surely the magic existed for him until the end.

Or the good doctor Hunter S. Thompson, Henry wondered what the doctor was feeling inside that moved him to shoot himself? Writers block?  Where his juices dried up? 

The workings of soul and mind are Gordian and knotted when it came to the creative process in old age Henry thought. 

It is often said that the average man in modern times lived in first class luxury compared to kings of old, but it was clear to Henry that luxury didn’t make people happy, that happiness was an inside job, perhaps just a matter of letting go. 

Buddhist non-attachment was the stuff Henry thought, most the time Henry didn’t give a flying shit, a appreciable state of mind for him. If you have Skype you have seen the emoticon of the little man dancing without a care in the world, that was the ticket for Henry all-right. 

Henry thinking of Bukowski towards the end of his life, pie-eyed and ripped every waking moment, a chick hound who let the ladies rattle him, his psyche up and down, he was uncontrollably attached to it, the booze and the woman his fountainhead for rage, but the Mahler and late night writing sessions delivered him.

Many times finding peace was a simple matter achieved by jumping out of the habit box we put ourselves in. For Henry (Not unlike Bukowski) it was dialing in the classical music and writing instead of chatting on the net(Chatting, a vapid experience).

Henry rarely ended his stories with
—one for the coach— inspirational speeches on artistic creativity,  after all the fuss, inspiration is always with us, we just loose track of it sometimes. 

Flaming Arrows and Cherry Bombs

Henry on a cold, cold morning driving on a frozen lake, his 1963 BMW doing figure eights and cluster fuck spins. In the trunk there was a bow with arrows wrapped in sack, soaked in petrol for a some flaming arrow action later that night. 

The forest a backdrop to the lake, a picture washed in sepia and bronze light, the leafless tree limbs and twigs accentuated the scene, symbols of nature, graphic color like you would see in Jackson Pollack painting. 

He loved the aroma of the forest, burning leaves, melting coconut butter, fresh grass shoots,  deer musk. 

Henry didn’t hunt game,  preferring pyrotechnic stuff that tantalized the senses,  shooting flaming arrows at night, sometimes he would attach Cherry Bombs or flares, creating an outrageous light show with sound.

Later Henry went to town for a drink—  Walden, Maine a small town with a Maple Syrup mill and a L. L. Bean outlet. 

Antler was a bar where Jack Kerouac hung out in the seventies. You could find all types of people there, bikers, priest, poets, bums, business men, all with their heads submerged in their drinks and not one of them wanting to talk about Kerouac. 

Henry at the bar eyed a gal with dreads and feathers in her hair, approaching her he asked what here name was. Her name was Sparrow, she was a poet. 

She invited him back to her place,  she lived in a cabin near a cornfield. After a few drinks he lit Cherry Bombs and Roman Candles almost setting her cabin on fire. She told him to get the fuck off her property and never come back.  Henry made a big impression on her

Just another day he thought. 

The Moon Filled the Sky

On Sunday morning Henry went outside to walk his dog,  Blue, walking past the garbage bins on the driveway Blue began to sniff   like a police dog. 

Henry, curious to see what was inside the cans took off the lids, the cans were full of lotus pedals and the garbage had evaporated. The aroma was saccharine, Henry watched as the flowers turned into doves and flew into the air … It was a miracle he thought.

And the moon filled the sky…

It was the beginning of the days of milk and honey Henry thought, he was feeling like Mose or Bob Dylan, prophetic, then wishing for something sweet down the road. 

Something exquisitely beautiful like being in the literary vanguard, (A  movement of contemporary artists on the cutting edge of a new literary style.) 

Henry beyond trying to write like heroes write,  adrift somewhere and on his own. 

Enjoying what writers enjoy,  being able to go anywhere in the universe without leaving their study. 

Henry flying with angels playing conga drums on his computer keyboard as…

The moon filled the sky.

Life as a Cottonwood Tree

Henry flying with angels a couple of decades ago, looking for a landing pad or a warm and safe place…. reaching his mother’s womb at some point, liking it in there.

It was one of those times when $1.99 seemed like more money than $2.04…

When the Doctor delivered infant Henry he got to feeling that life from here on was going to be a uphill climb.

And Holy Moses if drudgery and pain wasn’t the nature of waking reality and the material world to a tee, it was as though a flash, a two decade flash illuminated Henry that very moment.

Henry felt his journey through life was a death march run by corporate America and US.gov.com.

If his life was a mighty Cottonwood tree, burgeoning  with leaves as eureka moments giving breath,  in the autumn of his life the leaves disappeared one by one.

And below the Cottonwood tree there was a river, this river cascading  through his life past,  death and beyond.

And so it was for Henry as he continued to write feeling his work was unlike  others, the others having sold out,  politically and grammatically correct, yet;  jejune,  plain vanilla,  dishwater, a literary community of panderers. 

Henry the writer's writer, choosing to live in it anyways.

Stuff of the Gods

On Sunday Henry turned on the TV to watch the news about the coup in the country his was living. The TV was shut down by the military, they didn’t want news spread that ran contrary to the party line, he felt like he was in a Orwellian box of some kind, with Asian politics moving more and more to the right.

Thinking,  “Oh what the hell,  I live in my head and don’t give a hoot about politics.”

Henry enjoying detachment as an outlet, realizing that the world of dreams was for him, after all, it was the source of most spiritual life and inspiration. 

Henry cared little about  things out of the realm of dreams  and spirit, never looking in the mirror, throwing on unmatched clothes, never washing behind his ears, bored sexually, caring little about extras, existing only to hover in the spirit world.

He counted steps as he calculated angles thus taking the most expedient route from A to B, this allowed him to spend less time in the material world and more time up on the magic mountain. 

On Twitter Henry followed other authors, wondering why they all wrote the same? Romantic horror spy thrillers, where were the Bukowskis, the Burroughs, the Hunter S. Thompsons? Was something wrong with Henry? Or did his writing style set him a cut above the rest? He would prefer to believe the latter. 

After all Henry was writing about higher stuff you know, the stuff of the Gods…

My Soul is on Fire

Henry the louse, smoking a joint and listening to the Rolling Stones, home alone in the afternoon ready to do anything that didn’t smell of work.

Thinking about a walk in the desert to collect old Spanish Crucifixes and peyote buttons,  looking for Jesus in the empty expanse finding  odd  flip flops and empty plastic bottles.

The Sun was blazing hot so Henry took off his blue jeans and tossed them in the air,  G-d only knew how he would get back to town, naked no less. Feeling native he took a piss and a dump under a cactus tree, wiping himself with sand such an odd sensation, the sand, itching the anus, nice in a way, he didn’t stop immediately.

Henry lost by nightfall,  navigating by moonlight,  hopelessly looking for his blue jeans, tripping on Coyote remains,  finding sacred peyote buds on downed cactus,  nice and ripe. 

The Peyote would  get him through the night, he had some Mexican Mescal and reefer as well.

He was coming on, dope so sweet he thought. Looking up, the sky opening, as all the colors in the rainbow falling to earth, Henry feeling jubilant, peeking too.

The kid tearing it up, getting funked. The sky raining white crystals that covered the landscape turning matter into saintly energy. 

Henry as usual the mensch fucked up in the desert, feeling absolutely alive and full of love. With open arms reaching the edge of the sphere begging out loud to Creation, howling —

“ Don’t hold back,  lay everything you got on me— oh my soul is on fire —“

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.”