There’s a new virus in town, a real freak show, that makes Covid look like Bambi. Introducing Monkeypox.
Monkeypox is novel— everyone in the world knows you have it because your face and body is covered with lesions.
The origin of Monkeypox is a matter of speculation by officials, who initially declared it was sexually transmitted, which always seems to be the first culprit.
You would think the genesis of the virus is the usual stuff— animals, bats, monkeys, hyenas, eating them or getting bitten.
Eventually the officials— have you seen an official lately? Do they wear lanyards with cards reading— OFFICIAL?
Anyway, the officials have now decided there are no documented cases of Monkeypox being spread by sex— instead, more conventionally, it’s transmitted through close contact with infected people or contaminated materials.
So Monkeypox is spread the way covid is when viral droplets in the air get into bodily openings— mouth, eyes, and nose.
Lucky for us, Monkeypox, discovered in a lab in 1958, will only have fifteen minutes of fame, this time around.
I have been struck down by the making ends meet blues— payoff for a lifetime of failing to prioritize money, but I ain’t busted yet.
When I go broke you’ll see a blog post here reading,
Figaro Lucowski has offed himself, overdosing on laughing gas slash Nitrous Oxide— busting a gut all the way to Heaven.
Being destitute is the heaviest burden imaginable.
The homeless, who are everywhere, have the hearts of lions— how else could they endure?
Street people live to drink and dope, it’s all they have, and most likely the shit’s the reason they’re down.
For some unorthodox authors, living rough, drifting, and using is the wellhead of their writing.
When Charles Bukowski’s father discovered he’d been writing stories on the typewriter they bought to help with his college work, his old man tossed the manuscripts, the typewriter, and his son’s clothes out onto the lawn. Bukowski took ten dollars from his mother and caught a bus to downtown LA where he rented a cheap room.
After working menial jobs in LA for a few months he caught a bus to New Orleans, finding work in a warehouse and saving his money until he had enough to quit and pay his rent in advance so he could stay in his room all day and write.
When he ran short of money, he tried to live on candy bars to postpone getting another— eight-hour job of nothingness.
Jack Kerouac used drugs like amphetamine, marijuana, and alcohol, to fuel his writing. He wrote Dharma Bums in three days, jacked up on bennies.
The Beat icon drank cheap wine and wrapped himself in a canvas tarp to keep warm at night in the Big Sur wilderness— living rough as he traveled the US, later writing On the Road.
Hunter S. Thompson used everything imaginable to fuel his riotous writing, but, he wasn’t one for living rough on the road, preferring luxurious hotels if the bosses at Rolling Stone Magazine would flip the bill.
For the last month, I’ve been living in a dump in Pattaya, Thailand, coming to terms with it by telling myself a great artist has to suffer—cough, excuse me I've choked on a peanut shell.
Yet, feeling sublime, working on my laptop, listening to epicurean jazz, roasted on Tramadol— writing, a little dope, and good music can elevate you above the milieus of life
I live in bed, sitting up, inclined on a few pillows set at an angle against the headboard, with my laptop on my forelegs.
Everything in the world is at your fingertips on a computer— the breathtaking, the laughable, and the grotesque.
I eat in bed too, because I’ve lived in small rooms most of my life. But, the only thing I don’t do in bed is screw— sad, isn’t it? Beds are made for sleeping and screwing.
As for sleeping, sleep hallucinations freak me out. They are different from dreams— you know right away when you wake from a dream that you were dreaming. In a sleep hallucination, you may not be able to figure out what is real and what isn't for several minutes.
Several minutes of hanging out to dry on a clothesline in gagaville— your head feels like mush as it’s sending a message to the rest of your body to keel over.
When I get out of bed in the morning, I put on my jockey shorts and go to the kitchen to make coffee, mixing it with hot milk.
I think most people in the world need the jolt they get from caffeine, be it coffee or tea before they begin their day.
Starbucks is out for me because lattes are pricey, and their brew is overrated. There's a chain of coffee houses here in Thailand called Amazon, which is half the price and less pretentious than Starbucks.
Years ago while traveling second class by train in India, just a bump above sleeping on the floor, I was wakened by the sound of squeaking brakes, getting out of my wooden seat and walking the aisle, looking for the privy.
As you would guess, the water closet was rank— a hole that opened up right onto the tracks. If you're traveling in India second class on a tight budget it helps to have a sense of humor. So, I drop my cut-offs and let it fly, pitying the Untouchables living near the tracks in tar paper huts, polluting their groundwater.
I wash up at the sink outside of the WC, splashing my hands and face with brown water— afraid of catching cholera if I brush my teeth, and rinse.
Walking the aisle of the succeeding car I spy an animated brown man in a white robe squatting near a large black pot of boiling milk, Masala tea, sugar, and freshly, chopped ginger. He’s one of the trains Chaiwallahs, tea makers.
He hands me a large metal cup, it's Masala Chai tea. I drink two more cups of the savory brew standing astride in the aisle of the shaky train.
Back at my seat, an old Indian woman is sitting in my place, I surrender without a fuss, sitting on the floor. Eventually, for kicks, I climb on the moving train's rooftop— sitting there holding onto a vent for dear life as the Indians who are jam-backed by my side laugh at me.
Soon the train reaches Pondicherry Station, my destination. I grab my canvas bag and get off, at the station entrance I get in a bicycle rickshaw, taking the slow road to the Butterfly Hotel, next to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram.
I take a cold shower, and change my clothes, wearing light cotton slacks, a t-shirt, and rubber slippers.
In the area outside the hotel, I notice a group of European devotees from the ashram, exchanging blissful looks, knowing they are too high for me, I avoid them.
Downtown, walking the bustling city streets I look for Shantytown, where the poor live.
At Shantytown, I follow a water-logged pathway passing dried mud huts with blankets as doorways, in no time smelling burning hashish, scoring a tola for a thousand Rupees.
Back at the Butterfly hotel, I lay in bed, tuning in a cheap plastic radio as I puff burning hashish in a clay chillum, listening to sitar and tabla music on the local radio station, getting higher and higher until my body is hovering on the ceiling looking down at myself in bed.
This is a good place to end this story within a story, on the ceiling of the Butterfly Hotel.
