#172

funny thing funny is making misery bearable and horrible tolerable making life livable and heartbreak overcomeable and loneliness doable and nighttime endurable letting me make it through the weeks and months and years just because my brain tickles and my throat makes a tinny grunt what a funny thing funny is and what a joke it is not but what a lifesaver it is staving off despair long enough to survive staving off sadness long enough not to cry staving off gloom long enough to smile to connect with other human beings with these meaningless tinny grunts what a funny thing funny is in all its sound and phooey signifying nothing but lifes absurdity in all its goofy glory naked in the cosmic rain with nothing to prove and nothing provable and nothing lasting and nothing durable a whole planet nothing more than a strand of hair on the barbers floor at the end of a short day swept up tied up put out and forgotten a funny thing funny is the futile phenomenon the goal of my life the quest of my wretched existence to laugh and make others laugh and beat back the tears of frustration that threaten our eyes when we consider our vanity our silly efforts our hollow journeys and our funny bodies oh what a funny thing funny is

#171

hes a nice guy but he sure is a talker he will talk your ear off if you let him so what i try to do is just be real nice and tell him i gotta go because i got other things to do and if he asks what it is you gotta do just tell him he doesnt wanna know and try to be funny and light about it because if he senses youre being mean or if youre annoyed or something he will just go calling everyone else in the family and tell them what a bitch you are and if they dont answer i swear he will say it on their answering machines and no one ever answers his calls so hes gonna be on the whole familys answering machines calling you a bitch if you act annoyed with him or get testy and im not saying hes not annoying he is hes my brother i should know better than anyone except for maybe his ex wife god bless her the saint for hanging in as long as she did i dont know how any human being can stand the guy for more than five minutes now dont get me wrong i love him hes my brother and dont go around telling the whole family i cant stand to be around him because they dont need to know its between you and me okay and he really is a nice guy and we should all be nice to him because hes been going through a rough patch for the last twenty five years

#170

trouble was brewing for beer bandits in covina when a botched theft turned into a sideshow so what happened was three nineteen year old men went into the baja ranch market and stole a thirty pack of tecate but the clerks spotted the theft and ran after the men tackling and detaining one of them in the parking lot while another guy got behind the wheel and the third guy threw the beer and himself into the passenger seat but as they pulled off one of the employees stood in the way of the car and when the bandits tried to plow through him the employee jumped on the hood of the car causing the driver to crash into a curb and throw the employee off at which point the two men scaled a fence and landed in the neighboring car wash and while the driver ran to freedom the other one ran into the car wash tunnel behind two cars so he had to just take the beating and swishing and hot water and wax for a couple minutes and when he got to the other side two police officers were waiting to arrest the wet rat and to cap it all off the driver who escaped had left his wallet and identification in the car so the cops just called him and convinced him to turn himself in and now all three men are in covina city jail in lieu of fifty thousand dollars bail

#169

i cant wait around man i cant wait around youve been a great collaborator and youre a true friend but your excuses are too many and too much for me to handle because i have so much energy that i need to get it out get it out and i cant wait around for you to find a convenient weekend to work because you are always going to find excuses and until you realize that sacrifice is the price of art and the excuses that keep coming up are of your own making then we will never work again but as soon as you figure your shit out if indeed you ever do then ill be glad to jump back in the cockpit with you and take the beast to mach twenty up into outer space skidding around saturns rings and dipping through gaseous jupiter and out to pluto and beyond and beyond and into different universes but i cant wait around man i cant wait around so im gonna have to lift off on my own and you can try to meet me out there but ill be hard to find because ill be in strange places where people like you dont go until you decide you wanna go bad enough that you get outta your nest long enough to stretch your wings so for godsake either do it or give up but quit the flapping because i cant wait around man i cant wait around

#168

theres a pile of gear in the living room all musical stuff an amplifier a speaker cabinet a stratocaster and a gibson acoustic and a bag full of cables and shit all of the items bunched together by the door because i was too lazy to put them in their proper places after the gig four days ago and the ceiling fan spins on its lowest speed breezing down on a squat square coffee table covered with mail and netflix dvds and an empty water bottle and tippss cologne and the sunken green couch sits there depressing and i am sitting at the cluttered dining room table which is covered with all sortsa shit like my canon a1 and an empty box of 400tx and an old but functional pair of fostex studio monitor headphones and a parking violation citation which i am due to contest in court shortly and another empty plastic water bottle and typewritten notes for a short film and a plane ticket for michael tipps los angeles to chicago and a piece of returned mail and a spray bottle of magic sizing and three foul candles that certainly wouldnt be here if i had my way and my computer playing some moody tune from elevator to the gallows and all this is happening and existing when she walks through my front door and tells me she doesnt love me anymore

#167

a moment an instant a point in time is my only existence is my only experience i have never and will never be except for in a moment unappreciated and unnoticed and defiled and rotten even before it passes people have told me to live in the moment or live for the moment but i cant because the moment is real and i live for more than real i live for divine and transcendent and perfect which exists only in my distorted memories and imagination but certainly not in the here and now i have never appreciated a point in time as i lay suspended in it but i have fully loved a moment looking back and i have reached levels of excitement bordering on hilarity anticipating moments to come but the best i have ever done with an instant is to become unconscious of pasts and futures but that happens almost faster than an instant and fades away within the same instant because time cannot even be considered in such a thought or such a thought be contained in time or ever placed on a timeline because the timeline doesnt exist in the thought and a moment only exists in a linear representation of time which may not be linear at all though the human experience of it is certainly so but in any case and despite it all i exist in my subjective timeline and waste moment after moment after moment after moment

#166

get it started get it up and started start the day take it all the way get it moving get it going push it off crank it up start it up lets go roll call up and at em wakey wakey eggs and bakey lets go rock and roll lickety split lets hop to it dont delay act now before its too late time to go we are late we are gonna be late we gotta go theres no time nows the time the time is now to get it going crank it up set it spinning never drop keep it up juggle juggle keep all those balls in the air dont let em drop have some coffee here we go vitamin b lets go now adderall start me up speedball all night long never sleep never die always go and keep it up never drop come on baby one more cup before i go before i go go go and get it started get it get it come on now we late we late lets go lets go i cant be late on your account goodbye oh no thats the alarm get up its five lets do it again i said get up dont lie down there hop to it hup one hup two roll call up and at em in formation march like ants in time in time repent clock repent youll never keep up you cant keep up cause my ticker is stronger than yours so get it started get it up and started start the day take it all the way

#165

being funny is easy except when its hard which is when youre trying to be funny and your trying mind switches into logic mode and slows your response time to an embarrassing lag if you even get a retort out at all so i guess what i am saying is that your funniness depends on something totally other than brain power or reasoning power but rather it depends on connection time and how mad your reason naturally is so maybe there is no hope for the unfunny or maybe there is some way to train this unconscious part of your brain and to excise logic and reasoning from the joke process but that still leaves the fact that you may be trying to be funny which will kill a joke no matter what so what does that say for a comedy writer like me who spends hours and weeks and longer on scripts and jokes and such does it mean that what i write can only be funny if i dont think about it thus making the first draft of everything by definition the funniest and every revision a detriment to the original product but what if i put even less though into the revision than i put into the first draft i guess that would make the revision more thoughtless and therefore funnier so maybe i should do revisions with no thought at all i can tell you one thing i aint gonna revise this rotten thing funny or not

#164

it had to be you wonderful you on the ferris wheel at the pier going over the water like we are going out to nothing to the yonder to the deep blue forever but then the lights track us back over the wood and the wild neon lattice of the machine transforms itself into infinite geometries every new moment but all i feel and all i notice is your warm hand slipping onto mine like natural like that was the right thing to do with your hand at that moment when we were on the ferris wheel in santa monica falling in love and your husband was at work in hollywood managing some bar on the boulevard not thinking that you were falling in love with me on the ferris wheel in santa monica on the pier with your hand slipping onto mine sending warmth from my fingertips up past my collar into my blushing face down to my unsure toes and the neon dancing like sugarplums reflected in your eyes looking so sure and innocent so sure that you are doing the right thing moving your hand onto my thigh on the ferris wheel on the santa monica pier while your husband is managing some bar on hollywood boulevard not thinking that what we are about to do could ever be happening as i lean in to kiss you the melody of that song keeps running through my head it had to be you wonderful you

#163

theres a somebody im longing to see someone wholl watch over me and care for me so I can surrender to my laziness and exist in calm without worry for nutrition or shelter or warmth or the emptiness that i usually feel with no one to love me and no one in my bed except some fly in fuck buddy every now and again but its not like i want a full time girlfriend or a wife or anything like that rather id like some comforting angel to spend my nights with who smiles warmly and doesnt tell me about her day and i dont tell her about mine instead we just look in each others eyes and that is enough and when morning comes shes already gone back in heaven watching over me making sure i dont step into the street in front of a runaway bus or sit on a scorpion or become infatuated with some pretty face that will soon transform into a wretched and miserable bitch that makes her top priority to make my life a living hell in retaliation for me stopping to care for her or even really give a shit how she feels anymore oh yes my angel will never let this happen to me because weve got it perfect because i love her and she loves me and we dont take more than we want to give and we dont give more than we want to take yeah thats a somebody im longing to see

#162

tell me where you want it and thats where ill put it tell me where you like it and i will deliver tell me where you need it and i will quench your need tell me what you wanna hear and i will tell it to you tell me what it is and i will fix it for you tell me whats wrong and i will comfort you tell me how long and i will make time pass more quickly tell me what youre afraid of and i will slay the monster tell me whats the deal and i will comply tell me who you are and i will admire you tell me how you see me and i will smile tell me when to come and i will obey tell me what is what and i will pretend to understand tell me about your dreams and i will try to follow along tell me what you hear and i will try to hear the same thing tell me why im here and i will try not to blush tell me how many before me and i will try not to be jealous tell me everything and i will be overwhelmed tell it like it is and i will listen like it is tell me some of your secrets and i will keep them to myself tell me wild things and i will treat them like normal tell me boring things and i will fall l asleep tell me you wont hate me if you wake up alone and i will tell you you wont tell me you want to see me again and i will tell you the same

#161

on the bean then off it then on it then off but i cant stay off because everyone always wants to meet me for coffee always coffee in the morning in the afternoon and at night always caffeine always putting fuel in the engine revving it up til it cant go no more and you fall asleep because you flooded the engine you pressed the primer too many times and now you can crank it as much as you want but you aint getting sparks so you just gotta sleep it off let the fuel seep out on its own but you know you gotta eventually prime the motherfucker again to get the engine running so you do it and it works but it dont run the same way somehow it runs weaker and weaker everyday until it gets ridiculous and you say hell i just gotta let the motherfucker rest for a few days before i crank her up again and you resign yourself to getting no work done which is not hard to accomplish if you can fight through the headaches but you know you got to you got to but theres your amigo calling you to meet him out for coffee in the middle of the fucking night and you know youre gonna have some and because its your first time in awhile its gonna keep you up all night long and make you hate everything

#160

opportunity knocks and i answer the door and opportunity is there so when does opportunity satiate me or when does opportunity flower into accomplishment and contentment or is contentment stagnancy and stagnancy death and by extension is opportunity all there is to life until i am ready to lay down and die or is death an opportunity in itself and is after life even more opportunity to feed the worms and creepy crawling things who shit us out and fertilize the food we eat because after all we are made of food and we become food so maybe the opportunity is to come to terms with our foodness or maybe the opportunity is to transcend our foodness and decode the complexity of the world using our iphones or maybe the opportunity is to not add to the confusion by becoming a monk and eating less food because the need is not there because i pray all day and try to think of nothing and become nothing not even food just nothingness the lack of anything which sounds a whole lot like death to me and makes me wanna go back to my old ways in which moderation is pointless and aint nothing worth doing unless you take it all the way so when opportunity knocks you gotta take it in the gut

#159

adios cigarillos i shall miss you as i lock down into business mode and clean up my everything and grease my parts so i can run clean and energized into a brave new future with nothing but my clean new energy to drive me to glory in clean and handsome style into a house on bad boy row on mulholland drive with a view of the flats where i can see my struggle from above and where i can play my music as loud as i want without disturbing anybody but the birds who fly in clean patterns to remind me of the freedom i have earned and who perch proudly on wires to remind me of the fear i left behind and i will write greater and grander and messier things to fuck up my clean new world and to remind the humans that every life is a wretched and beautiful terror and my friends will be plentiful and free as we sit in the sun and fight our demise with smiles and celebrate our wrinkles and dig deeper into the mire of our wretched and beautifully terrible lives and we talk about the times before bad boy row when we saw no hope and we will reminisce without nostalgia but remember fondly the times when we smoked cigarettes and our royal dreams were just fantasies

#158

highland park is a neighborhood in los angeles that is like williamsburg and park slope and oaxaca all mashed together with the hipsters and yuppie homebuyers and mexican families all mashed together and everybody looking at each other a little suspiciously unsure of what the other guys want with their neighborhood and the fact is that the hipsters are only here because some maven set upon the wind a rumor that all the cool kids were moving east to highland park where everybody is mashed together and the snowflake homeowners heard that they didnt have to go all the way out to glendale anymore to get a good deal on a three bedroom two bath starter home because the hipsters had started to move in and gentrify the once scary neighborhood and the mexicans and salvadoreans looked at each other and said why are these chingadores moving into the arroyo seco and driving up our rents and opening their own shops and restaurants and where are we going to go now further east fuck that puta we are just gonna stay right here and let the british come and ten years down the road when our sons and daughters have children with the crackers we will sell our houses for a million bucks so fuck em

#157

the mysticism of athletics is a concept with which i have some experience like the exaltation after a great goal or a michael jordan buzzer beater or a diving hail mary catch in the division finals or simply in the way my legs stretch out as i sprint alongside the arroyo seco parkway or channeling that blinding energy into the last push up or the long womblike glide of a good stroke in the swimming pool or the way my body changes in the mirror from day to day depending on what i do physically and what i eat transforming the holy body from one shape to another like i am both the clay and the god and my willpower is my god power because i can be as strong as i will and i can look however i will and i can feel however i will and with great concentration i can transcend with an unlikely shot or a blistering sprint or an adrenal yank of the pull up bar and the memory of transcendence will stick in my muscles and hurt for days as punishment for reaching beyond my abilities and i enjoy the pain because it just feels so goddam good

#156

duke and carmelita meet on the wrong side of a blind curve in baja and fall instantly in love attracted like one crazy magnet to another then duke sneaks carmelita over the border and they live in some kind of peace until creeping desperation takes over duke and he needs to go to nashville to become a country singer so duke gets an annulment of his previous marriage to tracy and he and carmelita plan to get hitched and save up enough dough to go east but before their wedding date rolls around carmelitas pops kicks the bucket so they have to hike it down to old mexico so carmelita borrows janies passport and they go to the funeral in san quintin where duke meets carmelitas drug running brother salvador and arranges to run a load of coke over the border but when they go to the pick up spot and carmelita understands whats going down she flips out and shoots duke and shoots salvador and a henchman so she is stranded over the border with gangs after her but the gangs think that she is janie because of the passport she dropped in haste at the pick up point

#155

gotta do your math homework buddy get onto your computer and log into your account like youre some adolescent in neuromancer or johnny mnemonic and crank out your homework which is checked by computer and you get instant feedback and meaningless digital rewards that your second you can keep in your second house as you lead your second life online and develop fully into a person with whom i have nothing in common and no interest to talk to and the generation gap has closed on my generation of swine who were born before the internet existed and only learned what it was with difficulty in ninth grade so that it wasnt impressed on our dna and we retained a strong sense of self awareness but now the yuppies of the eighties have given birth to a whole breed of maggots that grew up connected to the internet and to a multitude of devices because their yuppie parents bought up every device and digi knick knack that ever existed so their little maggot spawn would have a head start over all those poor bastards from the barrio who still have to go to the public library to use a computer but shit i am just your babysitter so hop onto your macbook and do your homework buddy

#154

come on in here to the third bedroom which of course is the master with beautiful hardwood floors all around and back in the kitchen all stainless steel appliances and vaulted ceilings in the living room and a beautiful lemon tree in the spacious yard and all of this for only six hundred dollars a month and you may ask how this is possible and i will tell you how its because when you sign the rental agreement you are also agreeing to do small and annoying errands and non repayable favors for me at my request which basically means that i will find out when you are most busy at which point i will call you early in the morning and plead with you to do an errand which involves you driving all the way across town to do something unimaginably annoying and to make it worse you wont have time to do it and when you tell me so i will plead pitifully and use words like desperate and need until you feel guilty because you did sign the agreement so you do the errand and call me to tell me its done but i dont answer so you leave a message asking me to please give you some more warning next time and then i send a text message back that just says k

#153

the boys broke the banister and i gotta tell mom and dad for crissake we were doing just fine besides a friendly tiff about if and when they were too mean to each other and then the rubber band ball falls down the stairs and breaks the goddam upright on the banister i was just sitting there on my computer when i heard a thud crack crash and i shouted out what was that and then silence and then i said i said what was that guys then i walked around the corner to find that the rubber band ball fell down the stairs and snapped the upright like a twig and they were all like he was playing with the rubber band ball nah ah it wasn't me it was him and i said i dont care go put the rubber band ball back upstairs and i held the two pieces of the broken upright in my hand and said this costs money and they hung their heads as if money were some magical heavy thing which had an importance beyond their comprehension and then after they put the rubber band ball back upstairs they tried to walk right out the front door right under my nose as if it was a normal thing for ten year old boys to do to just leave the house without telling anybody

#152

coffee cuppa coffee in this crazy multicultural cafe in east hollywood called sabor y cultura where a table of eight middle aged nerds plays mysterious board games and four black ladies crowd around their elderly mother on this mothers day sunday and the asian barista pours a beverage for a dominican looking fellow and a mexican guy in a dodgers cap hunches over his laptop with his headphones on bobbing to an unheard beat and the korean guy on the couch who looks like he is waiting for someone and the clean cut persian businessman flipping through the back pages of the la weekly and the long haired metal scum finger pecking on his tiny netbook in between biting his nails and the swarthy fellow of indeterminate ethnicity with a mohawk that doesnt match his fiftyish years and me the white guy writing in his notebook at a round table pressed against the wall spying on all my crazy neighbors of the next hour or so who are busy talking or gaming or listening or surfing or reading or serving or asking or daydreaming or whatever else like the redhaired guy that looks just like louis ck with an inscrutable expression who must be thinking of something he doesnt want to be thinking about

#151

hummina hummina summer is coming the weather is warming and hummingbirds humming around my canyon window in the last weeks before i move my carload worth of personal possessions to a fortified compound in the barrio of highland park where i plan to spread out in the three bedrooms of the main house and set up a writing office in the grand finished garage out back where i will write my masterpiece as the great rob fitterman scoffed not believing in the idea of the masterwork ha tell that to richard wagner who probably would have beaten rob to death with a potato which i heard is all wagner could afford to eat in his early days as an unrecognized genius in his own mind or a goddam maniac in my mind but whats an unrecognized fellow like me got to say about genius when i cant even get recognized as a real writer by my friends and family who have the manuscript proof that i do in fact commit words to paper at a frequent and often feverish rate and which i will soon string together in masterful fashion in my mad garage of verbal alchemy within my fortified compound in highland park when the weather is high and you can stretch right out and touch the sky in the summertime hummina hummina hummina

#150

keep me outta this buster i dont want no part of your insanity alternate universe trip from hollywood on buckboard to inside the movie from prokofiev to my funny valentine without a bridge or an approach just boom and there you are the characters shift taking one anothers personae like it aint no thing like its some cubist story where each character is every character seen from all angles at once flicking on the screen and then there in real life lights out transformation green skin and now youre him wait what surreal thing am i seeing and what does it mean and if it means nothing then does it matter and what matters in the first place does any art matter even if art changes the world we live in does change matter who decides what matters i suppose entertainment matters because when entertained youre not thinking about the futility of thinking about what matters i like laughter but whether laughter matters or is just a freakish spasm of the chest and throat is entirely possible though that doesnt change its entertainment value even if you dont value entertainment you gotta admit that laughing is all right whether it matters or not for that matter

#149

first day on the job coming right up parked outside about to meet the old babysitter or nanny whatever you want to call her and she is gonna show me the ropes yeah show me how my monday through friday for who knows how long is gonna be hopefully not that long but it will be awhile judging by my current level of screenwriting success or maybe not considering the uptick of good things people are saying about our stuff and claiming they are going to do with it ha we will see wont we in this infamous business in this infamous city of infamous lies and broken deals and stabbing backs and pissing on hydrants and other primal rude stuff that makes this place as gloriously fucked up as any place in cyberspace and beyond jeez i am surrounded by towering mansions and manicured lawns that the tenants take for granted heebie jeebies in manicured mansion land pickpocket feeling reeling from the big bread zone i seem to have infiltrated honestly with the threat of monotony around every turn its just a placeholder he tells himself a way to get by until the purse pops and he absconds with his brain to mexico city twenty two million people on the otro lado and the promise of the unknown

#148

welcome to the valley of the shadow of los angeles the san fernando melting pot of weirdness and blandness and myth and surface and hidden doors in unassuming strip malls magic hidden place out in the open hidden by universal citywalk hidden by improvement districts hiding dive bars for the good freaks and private rooms for the bad freaks hidden by all the normal folks with no clue these stories are going on around them the heroin dealer next door hidden by the bobs big boy sign and the money laundry hidden inside the karaoke bar and the prostitutes hidden beneath the hand carwash sign on ventura boulevard and the ghosts hidden between the lost years of the mission and the entire porn industry hidden right out in the open in unmarked warehouses or proud office buildings and the swingers hidden in suburban splendor off moorpark and serial bodies hidden in the tall grass of neglected orange groves and the deception of audiences hidden in the great stages of warner brothers and the choice the love the desperation hidden on the curves of mulholland drive

#147

procrastination is the mother of depression and i am her grievous child the pitiful orphan within the robe of the ghost of christmas present with a minnesota twins cap and a beaten down pair of wranglers looking all in all like an emaciated michael moore with some sort of fear transmuted into anger turned inwards then outwards depending on my momentary fortitude looking not seeking running without destination like some uncharismatic forrest gump cursed with a good brain and motivational idiocy setting myself up to be a twenty first century emily dickinson with piles of manuscripts and notebooks and a hard drive full of words at my funeral they will all say who knew that he was a writer and from beyond the grave will shout back i tried to tell you lousy motherfuckers i even sent you scripts to read and i put my music up on facebook and itunes but you never bothered to consume it because who knows why because im a poor self promoter because my humility got in the way of tootin my own horn because shyness kept me from schmoozing the fat cats instead of talking to the shy dude in the corner

#146

of course i can prove the baby is mine its my wife isnt it hey are you saying my wifes been humping around behind my back why thats impossible im home everyday at five thirty when would she have time during the middle of the day why shes got house chores to do like tidying and fixing dinner and shopping and such why it amazes me that she gets done what she gets done during the day and to think youd accuse her of having an affair why sure we have a garden boy that comes over and sure we have a pool boy but your not saying no way jim why theyre only in their twenties they wouldnt be attracted to an old woman like my wife well i guess youre right thirty ones not too old for a woman these days hey i know my wifes attractive i dont need you reminding me you might give ideas youre making me paranoid you know that why i havent been suspicious or nothing til you come around here stirring up the pot now listen here mister are you trying to tell me something are you the one diddling my wife no im sorry jim but your the one that put the damn idea in my head

#145

los angeles is a place where living things go to die and dead things go to live and hibernating things go to get sunburnt and grapes go to get sunkist and bums go to get some style and writers go to see the dark side and desperation goes to flourish and cars go to sit in traffic and beer goes to be drunk by drunks and pot goes to be vaporized by pot scientists and the skinny go to get skinnier and the fat go to stay inside and the mexicans go to see their families and the armenians go to escape genocide and the koreans go to take over downtown and music goes to get its veneers and christians go to get scared and the sun goes at the end of the day and old cars go to get pimped and the cool breeze goes to fan the flame and maniacs go on their way to hell and wisconsin goes to be in the american idol audience and serial killers go to inspire noir stories and boulevards go to be seven lanes wide and the high schoolers go to eat at in n out burger and the strange businessmen go to work in a strange cluster of tall buildings and words go to page before the brain fries on pavement

#144

nice pen ben what a nice pen that is whered you get it whered it come from last time i saw a pen like that was in a display case at the amsterdam airport in eighty nine i was there for vacation just visiting anne franks house and stuff and that nice art museum there with all the famous paintings and all and i tried weed there i didnt like it it made me paranoid i thought my kids were gonna find out oh and i tried shrooms you know the ones that make you see things so i was in this big park they got there and i said hey theres an ear in that tree and my friend was like shut up youre seeing things because of the mushrooms and i was like i dont think so look and he was like oh shit i see it too so we walked closer and it was a big papier mache ear some crazy artist had made up and stuck it in the tree and we started laughing so hard my chest started seizing up i think partly on account of the mushrooms but i couldnt stop even though it hurt like hurt to laugh but anyway nice pen ben

#143

jesus god how much agony can one soul take without even the promise of some goddam ecstasy even wagner had some joyful moments amid his potato eating misery of unproduced madness and here i am in blustery laurel canyon pissing into a ditch my mind turning mushy from lack of outcome i think i am a good writer because everyone tells me so but i cannot get anything to come of my productivity in fact i cant even get a job to support myself and i am gonna have to move into some flophouse closet with bunkbeds and used syringes and beer cans full of newport ashes and sticky floors maybe i should get a job at a hostel and just be impoverished until a magical quentin tarantino moment materializes out of the ether because all this proactivity is getting me nowhere at the speed of light speaking of which isnt calfornia supposed to be sunny and warm and not cloudy and blustery and cold like it has been since november when the rains started and all these quality screenplays started pouring out of me to no satisfying conclusion but what choice does a lowly writer have but to keep pressing on in the face of jesus god how much agony

#142

dont go in the water theres an earthquake in japan and some tsunami waves are supposed to hit california any second and the sudden waves might pull you out to sea and theres this picture of a real live whirlpool i saw in the paper that looked like one of those old japanese paintings where its some sort of sea disaster with boats all scattered everywhere and debris so prominent nervous laughter the buildings look helpless and just shattered by the water with gas explosions and nuclear power leaks and so many dead it reminds me of nine eleven and the weird feeling of helplessness and horror and unexpected emotion welling up in my eyes because i am suddenly conscious of the abrupt end to so many stories without reason and so it is that so many of the faithful asked then as they ask now why would a good god allow such horrible events to pass and god as always answers them with unflinching silence and the unfaithful sigh and ponder the merits of enduring and the bigger meaning of love and then without thinking tell their children dont go in the water

#141

pick a pocket wallet sticking out of the back pocket or better yet in the breast pocket just bump into the guy and shake him down or roll a drunk on the subway then go to the nearest bar and max out his credit card on champagne and throw a few bucks to the pigeons outside the mission jesus taking money from people not even stores or businesses that steal from you no just innocent people walking the street going to work or going home or going to national wholesale liquidators to get some cheap light bulbs i guess you might as well go to an internet cafe and get on amazon and order yourself some electronics or rare books but where to send the products not your apartment and not a friends apartment maybe just have amazon hold the product at the local post office so that no one can trace you at all or you can just take some rich guys cash and use it to feed your poor wife and kids who think you are at work at a real job not just bumping into tourists in times square and looting their pockets why not figure out how to hold up a bank it is more admirable

#140

when one adjusts oneself to poverty it aint nothing to think about except for periodic panics around april fifteenth and rent time and bill pay periods but rice is filling and grape nuts are cheap and if you can quit the smokes like i did you can live on forty bucks a week no problem plus rent costs of course but even with such a low spending rate money runs out and employment becomes necessary almost paramount and such pride tied up in making a living wage and dont even think about taking a girl out when you cant support yourself better to just wait out the prime of your life and meditate as your testosterone drains from your blood and when you reach middle or maybe old age and you are solvent finally you will have no interest in sex and so it is you just missed participating in the cycle of life instead contributing words and music and movies to the world not children but who is to say which is the nobler with overpopulation such a concern but also consider the glut of media content and how long it takes for greatness to rise to the top of the bucket o fruitful o despair o confusion

#139

far east feast disoriented in the orient kabuki theater masks violence meekness machismo submission samurai epic musashi miyamoto from savage maniac killer to wise and noble fencer of middle age only a few hundred corpses to wisdom killing whoever insults him or whoever challenges him or whoever he so pleases fending off ambushing armies and slicing the life out of opponents with a single stroke pursued by women he has forsaken hunted by men he has never met taken in by geishas challenged to duels at sunset in rice paddies and gates to cities on beaches bushwhacked by brigands mount fuji in the distance wisdom years away and with wisdom comes heavy sadness and deep wrinkles between the eyes obnoxious laughing zen priest is always so hysterical why wont he shut up and let me out of this tree let me out of this attic give me some advice that doesnt put my life in peril offer me shelter from the brigands feed me bathe me clothe me just dont trick me there is a long way to go after my battle with the great longswordsman until i find something something

#138

highway man ramblin round nothing but a suitcase full of bottled tears not a care for himself or anyone else harmonica soundtrack in the dusty desert town to town barroom girls dancing like a diamond shines it sparkles before she speaks a shot of booze to get him through just enough fuel for the endless drive through nothing to nowhere waiting round to die nothing but a desert sunrise stops the flow but once a day at the end of another lost night on the lost highway waking up beneath the stairs that lead to gypsy sallys love for a night and nothing more careful not to let his suitcase spill because the shame will fall with the rain the blues are the song wont be long til he ties on his flying shoes satisfaction no longer a thought in his ramblin mind riddled with rot full of holes of memories as tired as his feet as far away as a mountain moon no desire but to not be there wherever that may be shenandoah shadows melancholy on his soul the sound of weariness in his throat no hope to rest easy or rest at all because there has got to be traveling on forever and ever til he lays down to sleep forever and ever wearily

#137

lonely woman ornette coleman the shape of jazz to come i dont understand it but i cant stop listening to it even though i sort of hate it the squeals the meaningless runs the harsh imprecise harmonies the rhythmless drums the squirrelly bass line the shrill mix but there is something there something musical in the noise dark and slinky around alleyway corners with berettas and stilettos outside a speakeasy is she gonna charge me at the end of the night or just get up and go i would like a double whiskey neat and  filterless lucky strike smoke curls up until it meets the big cloud yeah thats lonely woman but eventually is something else like joyful mania right before a breakdown right before you realize heaven is hell and everything good is a bad chemical reaction in your brain knowing the speed is gonna put a vice on your head in the morning piggies squealing at the slaughter bacon call and response on the killing floor maybe in bed reaching and reaching for the heavy moment here it comes here it comes nope not yet but maybe eventually

#136

doctor certified its the phd dildo phd designed for perfect vibration and ultimate stimulation clinically tested for perfect size shape and comfort get yours today available everywhere just look for our phd packaging and the surgical blue unit this aint no toy ladies its the architecturally perfect foreign stimulator professionally designed and clinically tested to give you the best orgasm you could ever know better than sex even good sex even great sex hell even the best sex of your life this is the element youve been missing a device to carry your body to the heavens in a few minutes and leave you there as long as your duracell lasts with a patented logarithmic curve to stimulate your g spot and a vibrational pattern designed and certified by university trained vibration experts until your clitoris meets the phd dildo it hasnt lived it will be delivered to your doorstep in a discreet parcel but big things come in small packages ladies enjoy it at home at the theater in the car or on your lunch break keep it in your purse and rub one out in the bathroom forget all those other dildos this is the only one youll ever want or need batteries not included

#135

the beat rock and roll crazy girls strip club going up in a couple hours lead singer birthday bash biggest show of my life strippers on stage dancing along with the beat the beat that drives the hips mad makes em go bonkers for the public trust sex appeal groove music get into the groove your girlfriend already has dont forget that when you take her to the show sweat and testosterone and physicality on stage rhythm and blues shake it shake it for this twenty first century nowhere man child of the beat the snare the kick out the jams pure energy libido aurally insane unbridled fury the beat the boom the pulsing hips dont stop allow them to move your feet to stamp your head to fling your hair to irrepressible beat the public trust it cant be stopped the momentum the lap dance tunes rising and rising the tension the beat the tubes glowing the speakers vibrating the cables serpentine shirts off cant be stopped it aint only rock and roll sister its the beat the beat the beat

#134

blow gabriel blow archangel of jazz show em what youre working with lips to the brass and toot toot bebop hiphop all over the map lightning runs and modal madness melodious thunk and silvery funk keep it up and dont drop the ball eyes closed and locked into the music another tuneful dimension marijuana concentration lost in the sublime yap of the band the unit sweating together like one monstrous body of beat a force of groove an undeniable thing on stage of a different time of five four signatures and tijuana clubs of another decade but here you are and it doesnt matter spotlight limelight nobody cares that you traveled through time because youre transporting us to a time before our grandmothers were born better than vinyl its live in the flesh all eyes forward all feet tapping highballs empty gin rickeys everywhere smoke rings curling girls falling in love to the holy notes of the horn and the unholy beat and the kinky harmonies i for one lay myself down and rise up to meet you in the skies now blow gabriel blow

#133

one fish suckfish shark coming now to get swallowed up by a killer whale and out the anus to recombine with its plankton brethren lap around the globe from pole to pole frigid water ring the world equal latitude straits and storms on a submarine of scales and bones and guts prey hunted by an angry sea of darkness just below the surface hidden depths with ghoulish angler fish dangling the light to you swinging it fishing for idiots like a car salesman in atlantis twenty percent off free mats never been driven off the lot just buy it if you dont somebody will come on travel on to the reef and swim with the warm weather freaks why does good weather always attract such losers in their colorful clothes there should be one reef in the world where they dont allow douchebags but thats not the case so back to the gulf stream not bad its temperate and if you like cold weather its only a couple of miles and head inland if you want the west is stormy in the winter but its better than the arctic or the goddam reefs and a whole helluva lot better than being trapped in one of those net farms

#132

its raining in sunny la up in laurel canyon as i try to quit smoking in this perfect coffee and cigarette weather with the smoky mist out over the hills and a damp seattle fifty four degrees aching for coffee in the air the smell is weak without the tobacco and without the magic bean and my jaw is tensing up thinking about these life giving elements that death loves so well and i am about to break and go get some dunhills but i wait i am fine it must be those damn vitamins i took making my heart beat fast and my toes tap and my eyes dart and my thoughts race man it feels like adderall but it is nothing but one of the last desperate stages of withdrawal pleading for a fix telling me how nice it would be to have just a little of this and a little of that just once just to ease off the stuff you know you dont wanna just quit cold turkey because you will feel awful its better to wean yourself so just go buy a pack and smoke one and put the rest in the drawer and you can give them to your smoker friends or just have one whenever its rainy and cold like today

#131

cigarette cigarette no cigarettes headache plus no coffee headache the horror the pain the pain in the puss for godsake i have withdrawal symptoms which means i was addicted which means the nicotine and the caffeine were not having as much effect per dosage as when i first started hammering the black and tar the bean and leaf which means when i have my next dose of cafe i am gonna be crazy and i am gonna shit my pants so i should wear an old ratty pair of underwear so i dont spoil a good pair because i cant afford new underwear right now i should write that down on an index card and tape it to the wall behind my computer so i dont forget just like i did with that note card there now to remind me to write harvey a check for 13.65 which is such a pitiful amount and i have to call millie the accountant to whom i need to sign over power of attorney but i dont wanna think about such bullshit right now because i have a fuckin headache which i know will go away in two more days if i stick to it i will

#130

the leopard image sticks with me as a black flag waves on the system and the coiled sex attacks like a leopard without knowledge of its frightful grace and pearly fangs and sweet blood from the veins on its tongue it doesnt even care it doesnt want blood or food it just has to be graceful and violent because thats what it is a pretty little hate machine it doesnt know it has spots it lunges without calculation but some emotion some joyless satisfaction of an instinct a beautiful kill it stalks like it was made of black fire flicking tongue motionlessly moving too fast to see or too slow to detect unpredictable scary and so violent so why so pretty why cant you not admire the pretty hate machine of long coiled muscle and deceitful coat and dagger teeth aimed for your heart the violence the crime of it the pure crime of it all yet he is better than all the rest of us put together that violent fuck that hateful killer of innocent things that beautiful beast

#129

there is a hawk tooth stuck in my craw and iggy pee in my ee are that is all folks musicologist on a long and winding road to hell with no possible escape on hades horizon orpheus prancing around like little richard on goofballs making fun of his friends that have to use walkers to amble around and around we go on a merry go round of dream fears and a leopard on stage that doesnt know how beautiful it is as it stalks and lurks and screams search and destroy and rise above all this meaningless shee it that is where our program comes to an end to be continued on the next installment of meaningless bull run in pamplona and ernie hemingway drinking from a wineskin like a basque nomad no gonad main character named barnes or something is better than nothing said fannie farmer from in utero the baby passed into the next next world yup straight from the inside to the other side where things are even more boring than womb life because there is no other side just dirt and worms and silverfish and slugs or biohazard bags and dumpsters