7/21/22

My Grey Matter's Goin South

 





I’ve been hitting Xanax 20 MG over the past week, commonly known as brain erasers, writing whatever comes to mind in my voice, it’s lazy writing. John Cheever spent his life writing short stories. 

Cheevers wrote about the suburbs where he lived. He wrote about the spiritual emptiness of life in suburban America with irony and humor that toned down the darkness of his work.


His daughter, Susan Cheever said,


none of us expected accuracy from my father. He made his living by making up stories.


Cheever’s kids saw him more like Pinocchio than a father figure. 


As a writer, I’m a fucking pig, plagiarizing if I feel like it and lying to boot.


The way I explain why I haven't accomplished a fucking thing as a writer is using the Peter Principle.


People rise to a level of respective incompetence and are stuck there till they die.


It’s 1130 AM, I’m sitting in bed, where I spend ninety percent of my time, I can—


walk the dogs, 


watch the travesty Netflix,


cook some curry, 


have a drink,


down some Tramadol,


or write.


I’m nuts on films based on great literature, anything by Tennessee Williams, and others— Short Cuts by Raymond Carver, The Cider House Rules by John Irving, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, and The Green Mile by Steven King, to name a few.


Instead, Netflix bombards viewers with action films because it’s what their audience wants, loves, and where the bucks are in the movie industry, shit like— Transformers, Mission Impossible, Top Gun, John Wick, and so on. 


Comparing the plot and script of Mission Impossible to Lolita is like comparing a comic book to Shakespeare. 


If a film grosses zillions is it a good film? The answer is no, most film critics write harsh reviews on action films. Bob Jefchak, a reviewer from some rag, somewhere, wrote the following review on RoboCop


Don’t watch this under ANY circumstance; unless you’re black-out drunk or baked out of your skull because those are the ONLY two ways you will ever enjoy this ungodly junk pile.


I don't know about you but I think that's the God Damndest review I've read in a long time.


Recently ganja and kratom were legalized in Thailand, the only country in Asia to do so.


Weed doesn’t work for me, it brings me down not up. Beer and Tramadol work better.


Kratom is a tropical evergreen tree grown throughout Asia, here’s what Wikipedia says about the high—


At low doses, kratom produces euphoric effects comparable to coca. At higher doses kratom produces opioid-like effects. The onset of effects typically begins within five to ten minutes and lasts for two to five hours. Some anecdotal reports describe increased work capacity, alertness, talkativeness, sociability, increased sexual desire, positive mood, and euphoria.


Comparable to cocaine, positive mood, aphrodisiac— Jesus, give me some. 


The Mayo Clinic, the king of yellow journalism when it comes to mind-altering substances, including booze, which I consider to be mind-numbing, says—


…researchers who have studied kratom think its side effects and safety problems more than offset any potential benefits. poison control centers in the United States received about 1,800 reports involving use of kratom from 2011 through 2017, including reports of death. About half of these exposures resulted in serious negative outcomes such as seizures and high blood pressure.


1,800 reports of negative effects from poison control centers around the world between 2011 and 2017, six years. 1800 is 0.00000025% of the world population, big deal Mayo Clinic, hey Chicken Little, the mutha fucking sky is falling. 


Let’s see what the Mayo Clinic says about booze.


Moderate alcohol use for healthy adults generally means up to one drink a day for women and two drinks a day for men.


Why would gender decide if a person can have one or two drinks a day? 


Say a woman weighs 245 pounds, and a man weighs 150 pounds, the outcome would be that the fat girl gets two drinks a day, and the skinny guy can have one.


Insurance companies, doctors, clinics, hospitals, big Pharma, are holding hands, playing Ring Around the Rosie, feeding off each other to maximize their bottom lines. Particularly in America 


England has a deft scheme going as well, Brits get free medical care but are hit with a 30 to 45% tax rate needed to fund the UK healthcare plan. 


Most British rich, rock stars and guys like Richard Branson, owner of Virgin Airlines, leave England and become citizens in countries with lower tax brackets.


Branson lives on and owns Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands, if he pays taxes at all it's surely a pittance.


The super-rich hire Greek and Jewish CPAs, experts at accounting voodoo who shuffle books so their clients don't pay a dime in tax.

The upper middle class, and middle class are the only ones paying taxes in America.


There’s a dark underworld hidden within what we perceive as the normalcy of daily life, a conglomerate of demons who will do anything for a buck.


The worst things imaginable can be bought, dreadful things, snuff films, 10-year-old virgins, elephant tusks, slaves, contract killings, a video of someone shiting in a pie, you name it. 


In that Xanax has depleted what grey matter I have left and I'm storyless, here’s a slice of a story I wrote ten years ago. 


I lived in Israel from 1978 to 1982, as a goy or non-Jew, so the rules were different for me, the country is beau coup ethnocentric.


Towards the end of my stay in Israel, I was in Tel Aviv, walking the byways, doing nothing. An Israeli policewoman tickets me for jaywalking so I tear up the ticket, throw the bits  into the air, and respectfully say to her,


fuck off bitch.


Wrong move, in no time I was sitting in a cell.


I had an Israeli soldier girlfriend, we saw each other on and off when she was on furlough. I call Yael on the jail phone, telling giving her my old man's number in New York, Victor Lucowski, who was a bookmaker and had mob connections, one of whom was Jewish, a guy named Bill Rose.


Bill Rose calls an Israeli mob pal, Zeev Rosenstein, who intercedes somehow, with someone, so I was promptly released from jail. All charges, a shit load, were dropped on the condition I leave Israel and never come back. Face it, Israel doesn't have much use for goys. 


That morning, after a night in jail, I catch a bus to the Port of Haifa, buying a one-way ticket on a ferry to Athens. 

The primary function of Greek ferries is transporting trucks across the Mediterranean Sea carrying goods from Europe to Africa and back. 

Euro truck drivers are the sleaziest fuckers on earth, noxious from not bathing, spending their time in the ferry lounges, getting drunk on Ouzo, smoking heavy, gambling on backgammon, and hitting on hippy backpackers, men or women. 


At 5AM the ferry docks at the Port of Piraeus, Athens.


Walking around Athens, there's a loose and free feeling you don't get in Israel, you can blame it on the Arabs I guess, but Isreal is wrapped really tight. Greek men move about, doing what they do, without a care in the world. Living in the minute, savoring one thing at a time. 


On the other hand, Greek women are difficult to figure out, inward, dressed in black with serious looks on their faces. More intelligent than Greek men.


Hungry, I go to an outdoor cafe, ordering, fried eggs, greek caviar known as Taramasalata, a delicious pink fishy humous, yogurt, Greek coffee known as Briki, and a shot of Ouzo.


After brunch, I roam the Athens byways, enjoying getting lost. I see Malena  Mercouri sitting alone in a cafe and I sit at an empty table near her.

Mercouri, a chain smoker still looks good at sixty—  a political activist and winner of the Cannes Film Festival best actress award for the film Never on Sunday, just one of her many thespian accolades. 


Appearing forlorn she looks at me suggesting,

join me for a drink darling.


She was a professor of Hellenic culture, I tried to steer the conversation to the weather, or rock n roll music. With a serious look on her face, she says to me, 

Did you know I’m petitioning the European Union to make Athens the cultural center of Europe, not thinking really, I say, 

Paris would be better, it’s the artistic center of Europe. Looking angry she says,


you're a nobody, fuck off little boy!

Standing she pours what's left of her retsina in my face, walking into the street crowd and disappearing.


That evening I catch the ferry to Corfu, arriving at 9AM.

Quickly finding a cafe to eat, already addicted to Greek food.


It's no wonder every city in Europe and America has a Greek restaurant.

Eating like mad I take a break, starting up a conversation with a middle-aged Greek man, telling him about my encounter with Malena Mercouri. He laughs and says,


forget it, the bitch has the biggest ego in Greece. Hey, I need someone to care for my goats, feed them and give them water. There’s a place you can stay overlooking the sea, and I'll pay you a stipend.


It was a godsend, I was broke again. 


Backpacker traveling during the seventies was different from the lot of today’s digital nomads, who have credit cards, stay in decent hotels and drink lattes at Starbucks— I was broke half the time, and didn't have a credit card for backup, forced to do under the table blackwork to survive.


The shack on the hill was made of black rock, cave-like and damp inside, with a cot, a table, and a chair. 


It loved the baby goats or kids, who sprung about in the most humorous and intriguing matter. 


I spoiled the kids, feeding them sugar cubes and carrots. 


The bull goats were a different story, I learned to treat them with respect, moving cautiously around them.


On the beach there was a commune of German hippies living in tents, nudists who lived free, smoking hashish, taking acid, and screwing freely.


Pink Floyd, Bob Marley, and Procol Harum blared from their ghetto blasters at all hours. 


Soon I was partying with the German freaks, enjoying the feeling of getting naked with them and the marvelous drugs they had.  


Occasionally I'd get laid on the beach or in the water, getting it on with a golden-haired Frau, sex was spontaneous with them


Finally, the beach commune was waited by the Hellenic cops. The Greek farmers in the area were offended by nudism, and the cops found assorted drugs stashed in tents and under rocks.


The Party was over, I missed the baby goats, and never saw the German hippies again. 


I had no idea what I was arrested for, the police didn't find drugs on me.


My lawyer was a fat, bald public defender who didn’t speak a word of English. 

After a ten-minute trial, I was sentenced to a year in jail, not knowing why because I didn't understand Greek. The dicks transported me, fettered in leg and arm cuffs to a prison in Viros, resembling a medieval dungeon. 


I survived the grey misery by laying in my bunk and astral projecting for days at a time, spending more time in the heavens than the black hole.


In six months I was released. Again I couldn't tell you why, the trial and jail time was a blur to me.


After doing the calculus, I figured the traveling drug and sex fest through Israel and Greece was like a tattoo.

Something nobody could take away from you.

7/5/22

A Sea Cruise for Broken Hearts.

 






When I write, I write what I feel, with an eye on art— that's it.


Bless the rich and the poor, jockeys, Greyhound bus drivers, the unglamorous, the glamorous, used car salesman, technocrats, jailbirds, reptiles, movie stars, and most importantly, the misunderstood.  


We need blessings, feel-good blessings from the heart. 


Holy Saadus are Rasta yogis with their heads in Samadhi burning off world karma.


The Saadhu are clean living dreadlocked charismatics, celibate ritual freaks who walk every corner of India naked except for loincloths and rainbows of ash.


The saga of Hustler publisher Larry Flynt is a real bitch, Flynt is in a wheelchair, shot in the spine by an Evangelic nut who figured shooting Larry would save the world from smut. 


Millions of people get off on legal-aged smut, billions are spent on porn. 


The movie The People Vs. Larry Flynt was too long, and Flynt's bit as the judge in the film was flat. Woody Harrelson and Courtney Love were galling to watch on screen like two positive ions colliding, both Yang.


Lenny Bruce, like Flynt, was obsessed with taxing white bread morality, blowing wades of cash on lawyers, bucking heads with district attorneys and judges, and spending half their lives in courtrooms, places most people want to avoid.


Dustin Hoffman played Lenny in Lenny. A film that cost a fraction of what The People Vs. Larry Flynt cost. Lenny, as a film, was the real thing, a knock-you-in-the-face black and white bromide fix.


In the seventies, at UC Berkeley, a wooden crate was placed somewhere on Hearst Square. One at a time people stood on the soapbox doing their best to orate. Some orators had followers, and some were booed off or forcibly removed.  


The younger Berkeley students mostly ignored the orators as they crisscrossed the square. 


During the eighties, MoMA, New York's modern art museum positioned a crate in the lobby, walling it off with velvet ropes

a soapbox where Joseph Beuys could hold court, orating to museum-goers.


Beuys sought to inspire creativity in his listeners. He believed we all shared the capacity to shape our lives and the world around us, like an artist creating a work. 

We invent ourselves as we go along.


Alto sax GOAT, Art Pepper's recordings have mind-blowing sound because the masterpiece discs were upgraded by placing platinum reflection film on the surface to get higher quality sound. Remastered by people like feat, the invisible man. 


Another legendary artist, Marlene Dietrich, created her own lighting effects for close-up takes. She had a good teacher, director extraordinaire Herr Joseph Von Sternberg who used butterfly lighting to enhance her features.

Marlene Dietrich was a vamp, a Deutscher frau who played characters seductive and treacherous. She was highly sexed, but, appeared heartless to many, playing at love. The torch song, Falling in Love Again, was written for her, to this day it's her song 


Falling in love again

Never wanted to

What am I to do?

I can't help it


Love's always been my game

Play it how I may

I was made that way

I can't help it


Men cluster to me

Like moths around a flame ________> amazing lyric.

And if their wings burn                         

I know I'm not to blame


Falling in love again

Never wanted to

What am I to do?

I just can't help it



Frau Deitrich was a member of an elite group of entertainers who became bigger-than-life personas. Such as— Marlon Brando, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Bella Lugosi, Annie Nicole Smith, Madonna, and Orson Welles. All morte, except for Madonna, who's vegan and has plenty of orgasms.


A few minutes ago, sitting up in bed typing this, I stared at the fuzzy whiteness of my word processor for a few seconds, I was nowhere, spaced out, it was Brain Zap.


Maybe you've experienced it.


Brain Zap is electrical current passing through neural pathways that hiccups.


A blackout isn’t a seizure.

Writer’s block isn't synaptic, it's psychological. I never get it, writing stream-of-consciousness bits comes easier than horror or more adventure-oriented stuff.


I saw a video of Joyce Carol Oates on Facebook— Joycey as her friend Jan calls her, stares at the camera gleefully like she just got off the phone with Jesus saying,


it's of the utmost importance to arrange your writing day so you can work alone and uninterrupted. 


That's donkey ca ca Joyce,  learn to multi-task.


The kingdom of God is for the broken-hearted.

Something Mr. Rodgers said, 


I'm an atheist, but broken-hearted only paradise sounds wonderful, like a sea cruise for broken hearts.










6/20/22

Savage Nuns w/ Rulers, Trust in God or Else

 



Pinky and I found another condo in Pattaya by the Sea worse than the other one— priced at a whopping 47 dollars a month.

There’s a sliding glass door we keep open and a small arched terrace that opens onto a field of young Eucalyptus trees emitting a scent like burning incense. 

I have nicknamed the room, the Birds Nest because we’re surrounded by stuff and feel cozy as chicks in a nest.

Our old condo is ten blocks down the road, seaward, so Pinky bought an electric scooter for 85 dollars, a fragile thing I’d be afraid to get on, but she claims it’ll hold me. 

We have more than a few suitcases to haul so she uses the fly-weight scooter, moving things bit by bit like an ant carrying broken grains of rice.

The days at Pattaya by the Sea go by slowly, and I catch myself looking at the clock twenty times an hour— This town's all about the sea and rental pussy, neither does much for me. 

For starters, I hate the sun, which like fire, will burn you if you let it, and nothing is more bogus than paying for sex with someone who’s not into it, saying every few seconds, 

are you finished yet? 

Then finally,

my friend’s waiting with her motorbike downstairs.

Pinky’s inventive, she uses rank milk mixed with water for facials, picks leaves from bushes to flavor soup, does our laundry by hand, and makes aloe vera sandwiches with sprouts, tomatoes, and mayo. She grew up on a cocoa farm in Northern Thailand spending her days roaming the forest looking for edible insects and fossils. 

Last night I watched her on the terrace of our third-rate condo as she stood facing the Eucalyptus trees looking like a jungle witch in a trance, reaching out, connecting with something as the trees swayed in the nighttime wind.

Writing isn’t coming easy, it’s taken me a week to write three pages, but I’m going to finish this bit today. 

My last story, I’d Do Anything For a 4F was a flop. It’s a good story, but, the last paragraph recounting a fuck with a Black woman on a storeroom counter likely alienated some.

A favorite Twitter friend, @FerialPoetry, said the sex bit made her blush.

As a card-carrying atheist, I don’t follow Christians on Twitter. Being a Christian is the easy way out, that’s why so many guys in the joint convert. 

Take David Berkowitz, alias the Son of Sam, who shot four innocent New Yorkers in the seventies and is presently serving four life terms at Shawangunk Correctional Facility in upper state New York.

Berkowitz is a Jew who’s accepted Christ, so he’s forgiven of his sins and given a ticket on the A Train to Heaven when he dies. 

Absolved of his sins, David will have peace of mind, but in truth, he'll never go to Heaven because Heaven is nowhere to be found.

And, if there’s no Heaven there’s no Hell, a perk for us all.

Life without God and church opens a world of possibilities as it frees you from guilt— spawning good feelings inside. 

There’s a marvelous scene in the film The Night of the Iguana, adapted from the play by Tennessee Williams, where The Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon, played by Richard Burton, is delivering an atheist sermon in front of a group of hostile parishioners.  

Appropriately enough the sermon is about the weakness of man and calls for forgiveness for those who go off the straight and narrow.

Shannon quotes a passage from Proverbs that seems to describe his own shortcomings—

He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls.

Finally, the disapproval of his parishioners proves too much for Shannon and he breaks down, shouting angrily at the congregation as they hastily leave in the rain. Meanwhile, Shannon rants against their narrow interpretation of religion—

I will not and cannot continue to conduct services in praise and worship of this angry, petulant old man in whom you believe. You’ve turned your backs on the God of love and compassion and invented for yourself this cruel, senile delinquent who blames the world and all that he created for his own faults. 

Tennessee Williams lived a Godless life, he was a party animal— addicted to booze, Seconal, and sex. In later years as his addictions began eclipsing him, he was baptized a number of times by a Catholic bishop, hoping it would bring goodness back into his life, unfortunately, the baptismal voodoo didn’t work and he died of an overdose soon after. 

However, he choose to live he was the greatest playwright in history, he brought ranchy soul to broadway, thank God.

I just deleted a few paragraphs on the dark side of Mother Teresa— as a product of Catholic school, I couldn’t bring myself to talk shit about the sister— fearing she might come back from the dead and rap me on the knuckles with a ruler.

Anyone who went to Catholic grade school in the sixties remembers being smacked around by nuns.

The offenses that brought down the wrath of the sisters included talking back—which was my specialty—swearing, fighting, fooling around in church, throwing snowballs at girls, and so on.

There was a nerve-racking randomness to the way punishment was measured out. A wisecrack might bring a dirty look one day and a slap the next.

If there was an upside to the nuns' use of corporal punishment it was the spirit of camaraderie it fostered among us . It was us against them, all the way. We were united in our defiance of the nuns' authority—and the church's, for that matter.

We are near the end so I’m going to conclude with a bit on Ken Kesey, the author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which affects all writers. 

The following is from a 1994 interview in the Paris Review.

INTERVIEWER

Your only formal studies in fiction were as a fellow in Wallace Stegner’s writing program at Stanford. What did you learn from Stegner and also from Malcolm Cowley?


KEN KESEY

The greatest thing Cowley taught me was to respect other writers’ feelings. If writing is going to have any effect on people morally, it ought to affect the writer morally. It is important to support everyone who tries to write because their victories are your victories. So I have never really felt that bitter cattiness writers feel toward their peers.