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needles needling needlessly with little thread... or much of anything else...

(foolish dribbles to be written at uncertain times, on an irregular basis, from uncertain sections of the ever expending universe, and from whatever dimension I-We-Us-Them might find ourselves/ myself in …)

Tuesday, August 31, 2004

A LITTLE MORALIZING (sorry) WITH ONE EXAMPLE  

America is so afraid of death, of dying, getting old, that it does everything it can to take death out of living, and since to be completely alive and aware of life, you have to be completely aware of death and mortality, then everything becomes fake, plastic, and ironically enough since to take death out you have to take life out, everything here looks and smells of death. Fake, plastic, unnatural, still-life, embalmed death. We don’t want you to know the steak comes from the cow, and for the cow to give you the steak, she has to be killed, she had to die, so we do all the killing, cutting, cleaning, far away from your earsight and eyesight. When you get to see the steak, it is vacuumed packed under clear plastic on top a little yellow tray displayed on shelving filled with all kinds of other “meat products.” You can’t smell a thing except the cleaning product they use to clean the shelving with. It’s as if for that steak to be there on that shelf an animal didn’t even have to die. It’s all too clean, impersonal, artificial. Now, I love a good steak, but I’d much rather deal with a man or a woman in a white apron picking at large chunks of meats and cutting them the way I want them cut. Somebody I can talk to, ask questions about where the animal came from, what is the quality of the meat, what breed, what region, how old. I want to see whole or half animals hanging on hooks behind him, blood on his clothes, big knives and big saws, and the smell of meat, blood, and death. When I’m inside that butcher shop, I know I’m alive. When I’m inside the supermarket in front of that display of vacuumed packed meat entities, I am ashamed. There’s no cheating death, and by trying to do so, you just end up cheating life.

SHOPPING CENTER BLUES 

My first full day here at the house. Cleaned the little studio behind Janet and Ken’s house this morning where I’ve been living most of the last month. Brought the remaining three boxes, two trash bags full of letters and postcards from my time in Paris, and the one luggage left, the heaviest one I had kept for last. Now that it’s all out, it’s hard to believe that I don’t have anything else to show for my seven years in France. Back in the same room, my ex-bedroom that I wanted to make into my new bedroom because it’s the smaller of the two rooms, and make the other, the bigger one into my office space but the big-ass desk Brian gave me wouldn’t fit through the doorframe without taking the door off the hinges and this room already had the door off, so I put the desk in here out of laziness, keeping the larger of the two room to eventually become my bedroom. The futon Brian and Tracie loaned me is in here too, as well as the insides of my bags that I emptied on the floors. The rest of the house is empty. Maybe I’ll just live in this room and barely use the kitchen. I bought one hundred bucks worth of food this afternoon. Didn’t even put a dent in the emptiness of my large refrigerator. The freezer section is as big if not larger than my whole fridge I had in Paris. It’s desolating to have an empty refrigerator. I’ll fill it up with beers. Bought all kinds of veggies, potatoes, garlic, tomatoes, and various others fresh food products. The spice section at the supermarket is horrible. They’ve got all kinds of powdered mixtures, anything you want as far as hot bbq seasoning, Tex-Mex mixes, grill spices, garlic and lemon seasoning salts, and what have you. But as far as whole cumin for example, nothing. Various mixes involving crushed or powdered cumin, but whole cumin, totally inexistent. The same goes for other spices. I bought salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and ground cinnamon. I’ll have to take a trip to the several oriental shops and small supermarkets I’ve seen around the shopping centers... all those hundred and hundreds of shopping centers littering this city along its highways, freeways, loops, and avenues. Or I’ll have to find out where the Indian, Arab, and otherwise Eastern populations do their shopping. Probably those very same Asian supermarkets. I bought a frying pan and roasting dish. I almost bought a vegetable steamer, but it cost forty bucks, and I’d much rather have some bamboo steamers. Note: to look for when in the Chinese market. Last week I went to the “fancy” supermarket a little further down. I was craving fish. Every freaking fish displayed was filleted, cleaned, skinned, and very expensive. Not a spot of blood or fish guts. Smelled like… the plastic casing they were displayed in. I didn’t have the nerve to ask them if they couldn’t go back there behind the protective wall, the flapping doors, the “no Trespassing” signs, for some whole sardines, or some whole mackerels, or some whole trout… (none of which were for sale anyway) or anything else really where I could look into the dead fish eyes and see if I wanted to buy it, to take it home and cut its stomach open to take out the guts, clean the insides out with fresh water, the whole time taking the scents in, looking forward to eating its flesh with a little butter and a little lemon. I bought a quarter pound of boloney from the deli instead, the kid slicing it for me swearing to me with a fake Italian accent that it was imported from Bologna or whatever the name of that Italian city is. Maybe the Chinese markets sell fresh fish too, as well as spices outside of chili powder, hot or mild. I should be so lucky. And I should find the Indian shops too. When I was walking through that fancy supermarket I got really depressed, and the kid who sliced the cold meat for me kept wanting to talk to me, cheer me up. He gave me a whole slice of the stuff for me to taste and asked me a couple times if everything was alright. Sure, thank you, I said. Then when I got to the cash register, the cashier girl asked me if that was good beer, I’d grabbed a six pack of Honey Brown, she’d never tried it before, and she gave me a big smile. Sure, it’s fine I guess, it’s drinkable. That’s it, just drinkable? It’s just a beer, you know, nothing special. She gave me a hurt look like what, am I not good enough for you to talk to? I felt even worse. I didn’t want to talk to anybody, and couldn’t anybody have some good smelly fish, some food preferably not vacuumed packed… what happened to the butchers, why are they hiding, shouldn’t I be able to see the goats and the pigs hanging on hooks? Why is it I’m inside a food emporium bigger than a freaking village and it smells like lemon spice cleaners instead of the multitude of the foods displayed? I had gone in there to cheer me up, and walked out feeling like a dead log sitting in my car in the middle of yet another parking lot with hundreds of cars and the heat steaming up from the cement. No faces to look at. No young mothers pushing their children or tugging at them or carrying newborns wrapped around their breasts. No hustle and bustle, no screaming or arguing in various languages, no old men hanging out in cafes sipping their black coffees or their beers or their glasses of red wine. Nothing to look at except cars parked or parking or going back to the road. No windows to look through, just empty walls with no windows. Nothing to smell except clean floors and clean people. Nothing to listen to except clean elevator musac and the constant purring of the four lane road in front of the shopping center... In a way, it’s my fault, I could have stopped feeling sorry for myself for a second and started up a conversation with that fake accented cold-cut cutting musing boy. I could have flirted with the cashier girl. She was kind of cute with those tattoos all along her arms, and her hair dyed black. She must have been around my age, and still looking more or less like a teenager. Instead of centering on the parking lot, the ugly cars, and the heat, I could have gone to the earthy café specializing in grass drinks and smart drinks, or whatever they call them… yadiyadiyada… blablabla...

Sunday, August 29, 2004

MUMBLES 

(Quoting Webster's Online Dictionary)

Mumbles is a village and adjacent headland stretching into Swansea Bay close to the city of Swansea in south Wales, UK.

The name Mumbles is derived from the French word mamelles, meaning 'breasts', which the two islets at the end of the Mumbles headland resemble.

In 1806, a railway was built between Mumbles and Swansea with the intension of carrying coal Swansea. The potential for carrying passengers was soon seen and a passenger service was started on March 25, 1807, making it the first passenger railway service in the world.

Situated in the village are the ruins of Oystermouth Castle.

BAD MUMBLE THROUGH THE END OF THE NIGHT 

Clean swept up floor
The parquet is washed
Ready for sanding and waxing.

That’s what I’ll do tomorrow
Or the next day
And the next probably
Bending back breaking bumble-bee…

My new home
Almost ready for my fat ass
To move in
For me soon like getting the shanks
Flying up my ladder
Wooden section after trodden section…

It’s my old house we’re talking about
It’s my new house we’re talking about
It’s like a rerun, a replay of the game
Ten years later from this studio here
To that house there over down yonder
Next to the railroad tracks.

Funny really.

This is a bad song I sing here
For repeating what I’ve already done
Ten years ago
Redemption through repetition…

Repeat the steps which brought me once
What I though was liberty
Repeat the houses I’ve lived in before
Like going back through a chess game
To see what went wrong
To find what I didn’t find then, therefore…

The first time wasn’t good enough
So I’m going for it a second time
To see if I can fill my cup through
With…

Anything.
Pop corn if you will.

Saturday, August 28, 2004

ANOTHER ONE FROM LARKIN 

It's not as if I have nothing to say. My car was reamed during the night last night by a drunk guy going a hundred miles an hour down the little street where I was parked.

I was crashing on the couch because I had drunk too much and I didn't want to drive. Kari woke me up around two in the morning. Her and Glenn's truck got totally smashed by this same drunk guy. I merely got my break lights readjusted, my trunk pushed in closer to the rear window, and my back-left blinker busted. Their car is temporarily useless. It was hauled off by the wrecker called in by the police.

I could write about all that. But… I don't feel like it. I'm tired now. All day was spent helping Brian and Tracie moving their stuff out of their old house – soon to be my new home – to their brand new home & studio. Tomorrow we start giving the old home a good clean. Next week,I move in.

In the mean time, here's another one from Philip Larkin:


          None of the books have time
          To say how being selfless feels,
          They make it sound a superior way
          Of getting what you want. It isn't at all.

          Selfessness is like waiting in a hospital
          In a badly-fitting suit on a cold wet morning.
          Selfisness is like listening to good jazz
          With drinks for further orders and a huge fire.


(Philip Larkin, 1 January 1960)

Friday, August 27, 2004

MORNING MEETING 

Met up with some new faces this morning. A couple of fellows giving me the low-down, the once-over, the whatever you wantta call it for a writing group I found an ad to while surfing the web.

“What you looking for in this?” They asked.
“Structure, discipline,” I more or less answered in a few more words.
“We got those,” they said.

We talked for a good long while as we looked each other over. The group comprises of about ten folks. One of the two fellows in front of me is one of the two people who started the group a few years ago.

“We don’t mind geniuses, but what we do mind is overly obnoxious people.”
“Well,” I laughed, “I’m no genius, so I got that part down, or at least you won’t have to worry about me being no genius, or acting as one...”
“What brought you to writing?”
“Well…”
“Do you think in French or in English when you’re writing?”
“Well…”
“We had a problem once with this guy who just wrote explicit sex story after explicit sex story. We’re not really interested in that.”
“I don’t write explicit sex stories, so you won’t have to worry about that either. Though I don’t mind sex in a story if it needs to be there. Just like anything.”
“The guy was a bit creepy, basically.”
“The writer?”
“Yeah.”
“Because if I’m writing about a creepy guy, then obviously I hope he’s gonna be a creepy guy in my story. If the guy is creepy about sex, and that’s the one element which makes his character what he is, then I’m gonna have to get creepy and talk about sex in this way…”
“Yes… well, of course…”
“You know, as long as it isn’t entirely gratuitous.”
“And…”
“Sorry… but to answer your question, I started writing when I arrived in this country at the age of ten. My English teacher, and we were living in San Francisco back then, was called Mrs Tanzig, and for some reason she really took an interest in me, and that’s when I started writing poems and stories. For this reason I’ve always written in English, as I was writing for her class, for her basically, even though I spoke very bad to no English back then. I figure back then my English was terrible, now – 23 years later – it’s finally become passable, eventually I’d like it to be good, and then real good. Anyway, my written French sucks, and I’m stuck with English. English is my writing language. Does that answer your question?”
“Yes.”
“So you think in English.”
“No. I think both in English and in French. And that can be a problem because sometimes I use French words while I write in English, when there’s perfectly okay words in English that I should use instead. It’s like sex in a story I guess. If there’s no real reason to use words in a foreign language story-wise, why use them?”

The conversation between the three of us lasted a good long time, and what I’ve written up there is only a VERY PARTIAL section of said conversation, and it in no way reflects the whole conversation though I believe it gives at least an understanding of what was being talked about. A gist of what my morning was about.

I came back here with three short stories – I’d already sent a couple of pieces to the group leader before he agreed to meet me – some examples of critics by various group members, and the format of the group. The next meeting is the eights of September. They seemed like good folks, and I know I need the discipline. Meeting every two weeks, two writers/ short stories per meeting. The writers have to turn in their stories the Friday before the Wednesday meeting, email it to the other members. The other members in turn write a critic of each story, send them to the respective writers only and to the rest of the members after said meeting.

Thursday, August 26, 2004

A NIGHT WITHOUT INCIDENT 

There I was at the bar, watching and listening to the night’s activities, a poetry reading. I had gone there will the sole intention of listening and, pretentiously I can see now, decide whether or not they were good enough for me to read there the following week or the one after that.

My second beer of the night was dwindling down to its last drop. Soon I would have to decide to either order a third beer or go back home. I was a little bored, and to be honest, not feeling so comfortable. Knowing that I would have to drive home, I couldn’t drink, and then there was this woman I’d gone to college with over a decade ago and hadn’t seen in just as long. Did she recognize me? Did she notice that I recognized her? Did she not even notice me? She was looking about the same as she did back then, just a little bigger around the edges, same face, same overall look. She sat at the core table, where all the other “poets” sat. She was part of the recognizable people, one of the regulars, anybody that was anybody in the bar knew her and her friends. She read a poem of her own making using American football as a metaphor to talk about sex. Though metaphor is maybe too subtle of a concept here. I don’t like American football and I don’t know anything about it, but it wasn’t hard to understand. She used words like finding the “hole” in the “defense,” and “penetration.” Everybody in the audience thought it was real funny. And I guess that’s what it was meant to do in an irksome sort of way, make people laugh. Or maybe I was simply feeling a tiny bit of jealous because I was sitting at the bar, and somebody I had once known was part of the in-crowd. If that’s so, I’m in a sorry state.

The judging of the poetry was pretty bad. They gave high points to just about everybody. There were a few “poets” out there who deserved better, and didn’t get it. The first fellow who climbed up on stage deserved better. His poem though pretentious, was built and studied and went from A to B in block upon block manner. I found that the subject and presence of the poet on stage won over form of the poem and the music of the language spoken; that music was misunderstood as needing to be sung rather than being created within the words and the rhythm of the poem; that in your face shock images of subjects – sex, HIV, aids – rather than developed content won over more subtle not necessarily in your face poems with a core theme; that often a “poem” needed a moral, a last line of idea to round it up which pretended to “teach” you the listener something about life rather than showing us in succinct images for us to interpret the micro-elements of life the poem could have talked about… and so on… but I am being way too harsh (especially considering my poem The Hero which I published earlier this week on this blog… ouch…)

There was a real nice ode to B.B. King. A narrative portrait of his life which was well done. I think that poet got descent enough points to make it to the second round, though I didn’t hear the last two rounds. In the end, I was too worried about driving home.

There was this young woman with a red shirt on. Earlier in the night, I had taken residence in a booth far away in a dark corner of the room, and I noticed her at the bar. I think she was looking my way. I don’t know if she was looking at me or not. She stayed at the bar a long time, and I kept taking my eyes back to her. She had somehow grabbed my attention. Probably her red shirt. Or maybe her dark brown hair, though I’m starting to sound cheesy here. It took a long time for her to get her drinks. Lots of people and only one barmaid. Eventually, she got up with two drink and walked to the other end of the room where she sat next to another girl along the back wall.

Shortly after that, getting back from a trip to the urinal, my booth had been overtaken by three individuals. I walked around the place trying not to look uncomfortable, to look as if I assimilated, as if I was part of the crowd. Nobody seemed to notice me, to pay any attention to me, to merely remark that I was alive… a spot opened up and I went to the bar. I ordered my second beer. There, my feet firmly on the foot bar, my ass in a comfy stool, my elbows on the bar, the rows of bottles along the mirror, the barmaid working away, a beer new fresh cold beer in my hand, I felt safe.

The poetry slam was well underway now, my second beer was nearing its last drop, when the girl in the red shirt came back and stood right at my side leaning against the bar her back towards me. I didn’t move. I sat there enjoying the heat emanating from her body to mine. It was like she was a toaster oven or something. And the heat she produced had a fragrance to it which reminded me of a peach cobbler. I didn’t try to talk to her, or make a nuisance of myself in any way. I froze and looked as relaxed as I could in such a situation, as if she wasn’t even there. She stayed there a long time. So long I was afraid to turn around to grab my beer on the bar. I didn’t want to lose that proximity to her, that perfect distance where I could feel the pulse of her blood flowing through her veins without touching her, where I could smell her body breathing, without pushing into her private space… and most of all, I was afraid to accidentally touch her and have to face her, look into her eyes and apologize to her… that “sorry” which when innocent remains just that, simple… but at this point, if I had to look into her eyes and say anything, I’m sure she would have read my lust in a nano-second, and I was afraid of the rejection her whole body and facial expression which were sure to follow, and I was even more afraid of the potential invitation to talk to her, the challenge women give you in such places to prove to them that they might possibly take interest in you, the need to crow and flap our feathers without looking as if that is what we are doing. I froze, not able to grab my beer, just barely capable of enjoying myself in a really selfish way.

A few minutes after she went back to her table, I ordered a third beer, drank it slowly, listened to the other poets, forgot about the girl I knew once in college. I felt incompetent. Could I go up there on that stage and talk into that microphone? Whether or not what I wrote was worthy had become second priority, hell whether or not they were worthy of hearing my stuff wasn’t even in the ballpark of decisions anymore, it was now whether or not I could go up there without pissing myself. I had come back down to earth and the living humans who inhabit it.

I left after the last poet of the first round did her stuff. There was the whole city to drive through now, in the dark with bright lights from other cars coming at me, and my sometimes lack in perception of depth worrying me. What scares me the most are those big avenues with stop lights every block or two. I cannot always tell which lights are green and which are red, they all seem to jumble together into a big mash of bright lights dancing together.

I took the back darker roads, preferring the lights of incoming cars blinding me for a few seconds, to the arrays of lights coming in from all directions. I drove home without incident.

Sunday, August 22, 2004

WAS TRYING TO BE CONSTRUCTIVE AT THE CAROUSEL LOUNGE THIS AFTERNOON 

Was at the Lounge having a beer and working on part of a long poem I want to have done by the end of the week. The following piece of mumbo jumbo might not seem like much to most people, but it's been around on my desk for quite some time now, and it's about time for me to get it out of my hair. Anyway, working on the following poem, whether or not it's any good or worth the time I've spent on it, is better than going through the day feeling sorry for myself. If you have something to say, feel free.


THE HERO

It's a grand piano the hero
macho man lost his violins
the cellos
matter fact the entire string section
left him
stopped following him hours ago.

The brass section
they were never really with him
they were around
but were too cool too hip
and hit dodge at one point.

That's all we know.

The piano is alone
the city is dark
the street lights are out
the cars are asleep
the kids with nothing to do
except hang out smoking
looking cool
and give you tough looks
that go nowhere
have gone to bed already.

We're talking no music
except for occasional high pitched keys
then low pitched by themselves
in a cordless harmony.

The melody is gone.
A touch maybe a kiss
pushes a potential melody
tingeing upon silence
going off on a fringe
like a bubbly tangent lost in an endless vacuum.

Having missed or forgotten
or both
where the artery was
which way arrows point you in the wrong direction
it's maybe a melody
          one which fits nowhere anymore.


          The music burns for the melody…

          Flirts somewhat like caresses enjoying the hair on your arm
or drops falling one at a time on the skin unaware…

          On sweating hips, drops play themselves quietly evasive
from one end to the other
          a very slow leak of boiling-hot oil…

          A melody which peeks... pokes... picks fun...

          A melody which isn’t a melody at all
till time has passed
till notes are dropped, stacked
tossed so far apart
that it took that long to hear
          this is the melody accumulated.



Slow naked keys touch themselves
somewhat introverted
they uncover shy messages
compressed within each other
wooden and splintery.

It took hours to hear
where the messages might be hidden
like notes climbing on slow scales
never quite reaching the top
before falling back down like a passive rollercoaster
finding a little more melody on each climb.

The hero moans
crouched down on four feet
barely hanging on to the music sheets.

Faster, he thinks, higher
he wants to go faster and higher faster.

He wants to play the melody to its end
to get it over with
and done for
          now that he’s found the edge…

But the melody etches on one damn note at a time.
The drops keep the same pace like tick tack.
The hands pull one hair out
                    then another one later.



It's a grand piano the hero
macho man lost his violins
the cellos
matter fact the entire string section
left him
stopped following him hours ago.

The hero is alone.

SMALL PROBLEMS WHILE DRIVING 

I got bugs all over on my scalp
crawling around in there
in that mass of hair
I carry around on top of my head.

Tiny little critters zipping by
ghostlike in betwixt cylindrical filaments
making their homes
in that mass of growth
I parade around like a furry crown.

I scratch the crawling itch
of a thousand infinitesmally small fingers
beating boredom
dreamlike taps on my scalp

And successfully miss
each and every one of them
traveling on top of my head
like a thousand passenger pilotes
I'm chaufering around town.

DISCOVERING WHAT'S BEEN AROUND A WHILE 

Glenn lent me this book last night, Philip Larkin's Collected Poems.

We were watching a most boring movie by R. Redford. The only thing good in that movie is the young girl who plays one of the leading roles. She's the same actress who, a few years later, played in Lost in Translation. She's good. But Redford's getting old, nostalgic of things which never existed, and pounding cowboy cliché upon good country life in America cliché.

Here's a poem by Philip Larkin that Glenn read out loud before handing me the book:

     This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
     They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
     And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
     By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
     And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
     It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
     And don't have any kids yourself.

(by Philip Larkin, April 1971, from his book High Windows, published in 1974)

Glenn had loaned me this book once already when I did some house-sitting for him and Kari a couple years back. For some reason, I had just skimmed through the pages quickly, and hadn't really read any of the poems. I've certainly seen his name around for a long time, and I had plenty of opportunities to read his work. Where have I been? He's good. He's damn good.

Monday, August 16, 2004

JUST CHILLING 

I decided not to work this afternoon. I'm tired. So I said to Janet, "Janet, I'm pooped, I think I'm gonna go home."
"Well... Francois... I don't know what to say."
"You know, it's just not working out for me today. Nothing of what I'm doing seems to be constructive in any way, and..."
"And you're pooped. You need a nap."
"Exactly."
"Well then, Francois, I think you just need to go home then."
"That's what I'll do."
"Alright."
"I'll finish the bathroom up tomorrow."
"Alright then, but there won't be anybody here tomorrow, and you'll have to be by yourself."
"That's fine, Janet, I think I can handle it."
"Well..."

I said good-day to Sal and drove on out of there direction Glenn and Kari's place who weren't home. They had gone to work like good citizens and not come back home whether or not their head hurt. Thank goodness Brian and Tracy were home for lunch so I went in to see them. You see, last night whenever I left their place it was dark. The sun had long fallen down bellow the horizon, and because of this very natural fact of daily occurance, I had forgotten my sunglasses on Glenn and Kari's living room table, since, whenever the sun is down I have no need for my sunglasses and thus rarely think anything at all about them. Brian and Tracy have an extra key to get into Glenn and Kari's place. That's exactly what I did. And there were my sunglasses.

Now I'm home. I took a much needed shower. I'm having an early afternoon beer, I'm listening to Glenn Jones Sunday show on WFMU, and I'm surfing.

While reading through the blogs on Arts Journal I found this really great site all about poetry, Oldpoetry.

Saturday, August 14, 2004

LISTENING TO WFMU TRYING TO BURN TIME

Surfing. Reading up on T.C. Boyle a little. Also read this essay by Lisa Singh, who talks about growing up both Hindu and Jewish. Good stuff. Now I don’t know what to do with myself.

I haven’t thrown out the trash since I moved in here. Mostly empty beer cans. I don’t want to place them in my landlords’ recycling bin because I don’t want them to know how much beer I drink. Vain, probably, surely… but probably wise as well. Tomorrow I’m heading to my parents where the whole family is getting together except for my little sister since she’s in Minnesota. Two N’s, only one S and one T. I first tried two S’s, then two T’s, then two S’s and two T’s before adding an extra N and deleting my added but unnecessary extra S and T's (for that annoying spell-checker underlining red line to go away). MinNesota. Saying the state’s name out loud and realizing that it needs two N’s. As I write this… because I have nothing else to do and I’m tired of surfing, I’m trying to pronouce the word if it only had one N rather than two. Not so simple. What would it sound like? Uhm… maybe it doesn’t make any difference whatsoever. It just sounds to me as if there are two N’s when I say Minnesota to myself. I say Min-and then-nesota, rather than Mi-and then-nesota. Of course, unless I try real hard to get it more or less right American accent-wise, when I pronounce the State’s name without thinking about it, it sounds more like Mee-Nézota.

Webster's Online Dictionary says: Minnesota is the 32nd state of the United States, having joined the Union on May 11, 1858. Its name is commonly abbreviated as 'MN' or 'Minn.', and is taken from the Dakota (Native American tribe) words for 'sky-tinted water'.

Alright. Time to crack another tall-boy, and go read another story from the T.C. Boyle's "Without a Hero" short story collection.

Cheers and good night.
SATURDAY NIGHT BLUES

Soft headache type of night sleeping through most of the afternoon, drove around through the hills and the rich neighborhoods with tall fences and houses hidden behind tree-facades and electronically secured walled-in gates. Listening to KUT on the car radio, with that famous voice from Chicago telling me stories as cruised for more than one hour an a half, not knowing what else to do with myself. I didn’t feel like the preppy college bars downtown, nor their opposites the gruffed-up scrounge tattooed places. Didn’t feel like much actually, though I knew I couldn’t keep sleeping if I wanted to get any descent sleep tonight, so I went on an aimless drive trying not to feel sorry for myself, nor get into an accident. I eventually made it by Brian, Tracy, Glenn, and Kari’s places. Nobody home except Kelly & Quero the dogs. I said my hellos and got back into my automobile figuring what I needed was some cheap food without the cheap frills and kitch American gringoness of a plastic nation, so I opted for a small taquerilla next to the shell station where I’ve stopped to buy Gatorade and water before going into work a couple of times. It’s not far from the D.P.S. office. Walked in. See-through plastic table tops, Coors Light neon on the back wall, and Mexican music playing just a tad bit loud. A couple of companeros having a beer in the back, light blue walls, and linoleum floors. I sat down, and the waitress brought me a menu. I ordered a Miller, she brought me a Miller-Light. Then I ordered a Tortas de Lengua. Just one, she said questioningly, with a slight nuance of disappointment. Are they big enough, I asked making a sign with my two hands to show her what I felt big enough was to me. She said, yes, no problem. Okay then, one is enough. All the sudden I felt better in this place, with the Mexican music playing, and the waitress smiling at me. Didn’t seem so bad after all, this America where I’m apparently stuck for the time being. I opened a book of short stories by T.C. Boyle and read “Hope Rises” before, during, and after my diner. I took my time with the tortas, eating one bite at a time, really not wanting to leave this taquerilla. I felt good there. The story was entertaining. Lots of frogs and toads dying. Crazy Berkley professor with dead frogs in his jacket pockets. A couple trying to find hope, a reason to continue living. New York city a little bit. And my tortas de lengua was the best part. Large chunks of avocado, some sour cream, and not too much cheese. I sipped my second beer slowly, and checked out the double door in the back of the restaurant which opened every once in a while and let in a loud breezes of different Mexican music than the one playing in the dining area. Back there, I presumed, was the back part of the business with a night bar, club thing going. Walking in I saw a pool-table sign flashing in red and blue neon. I smiled at the prospect of discovering that backroom pool bar some night, not tonight though, as was I wanted was not the loud Tex-Mex beer songs, but just simply the sandwich and taking my time. I stayed over an hour in there before paying my bill, leaving a tip for the waitress, and heading back to my car via the corner store for a six pack.

Friday, August 13, 2004

ROOKY HOUSE PAINTER

Well, if I've learnt anything this week, it's this: don't keep your mouth open when painting the ceiling with a roller.

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

PLAYING IT COOL

Started painting a house yesterday. Should be enough work for most of the week. I could have painted most of the house yesterday except for the trimmings, but the organization of the work is all backwards which means they started me working at the same time as the plaster guy covering the cracks in the walls… and there are loads of cracks in the walls… which means I might have one wall completely painted and all the others are painted in patches. I have to wait till he puts another layer of plaster and that it all dries up good. In the meantime, Janet, the landlady, got him working on another project in the house, a beam made of two 2x6’s glued to each other and stuck up to the ceiling of the main room to hide a crack which goes across the ceiling from the air-conditioner unit to the hallway. She wants it to look like the beam is suppose to be there because that particular crack which goes in a straight line, probably between two pieces of dry wall which weren’t placed up there with the greatest care and always fall prey to the house’s foundation movements… that particular crack is almost smack in the middle of that room and divides the room in two. To put a beam up there is not so incredibly outlandish. It’ll be the only beam showing through a ceiling in the whole house, but who cares about that? Today I have to help Sal, the guy plastering and currently building the beam, instead of painting. I’m hoping I’ll be able to sneak in the kitchen and prime those few bits of walls, and maybe even paint it this afternoon.

Work. I haven’t even gone out there looking for it and it’s falling on my lap. My mother calls me last night to tell me she spoke to a French friend of hers who runs a liquor store up north of town. He’s the manager and though his store is too far north, he told her for me to come in this week, fill out an application and he would try to find me a spot in Austin central. I don’t know if working in a liquor store is such a great idea. The pay is mediocre, but then you get commission on sales if you push the top shelf products.

Was having breakfast with Ken and Janet the day before yesterday. We were at the house to be redone waiting for Janet’s property manager. We waited thirty minutes when Janet decided we should go have some coffee and breakfast at Waterburger. Sitting in the booth after ordering the food and coffee, Janet asked me what I was going to do about work. I don’t know, I answered, I’m not too worried about it yet. Then, just to say something which would make it sound as if I’d actually thought about it more than I have, I said I was thinking maybe to go into Threadgills – local bar-restaurant-music venue well known in the area – and I only mentioned it because the other day Glenn was telling me he’d worked there and that as far as restaurant work is concerned it was a good place to be. Free food and drinks, cool boss, good atmosphere, good folks, and descent pay for the type of work. I only mentioned Threadgills to have something to say, and Janet said, well… Ken knows the boss, Eddie’s a good friend of Ken’s, and I’ve known his various wives throughout the years. We left it at that. Yesterday, Ken asks me how to spell my last name, how old I am, and what I’d like to do for work if I got a job in such a place. I told him, Bartender. You ever bartended before? No. You ever waited on tables? Sure, but mostly I’ve done kitchen work… prep-cook, fry-cook, dishwasher and all around kitchen boy.

This type of work, liquor-store clerk and kitchen worker, isn’t exactly the type of work I had in mind. But I ain’t even out there looking. Mostly because I don’t have to at the moment, meaning I’m doing okay on money, and secondly because I don’t rightly know what I want to do. So far doing nothing and simply hanging out having a few beers has been working out quite alright. I think I’ll continue doing that for a while, and if some little job falls in my laps, what the hell, I’ll try it out for a few days or a few weeks.

Saturday, August 07, 2004

GOOD NIGHT LOLLYPOP, MORNING’S JUST DOWN THE CORNER GLOW

Bloody hell. I’m out of beer. Just cracked the last one. That means I’ll have to go to bed soon. Didn’t put the AC on tonight cause we experienced a cold front today. It’s only eighty degrees or something, maybe a little less. Was able to walk outside late afternoon and not break a sweat from merely moving my left eyebrow upwards in amazement at it not being as hot as I expected it to be. That’s what you call a drop in temperature.

“Into the eye of the storm…” Calexico sings at the moment, “hit the ground.”
FIRST VICTORY OVER AMERICA

Didn't go to the knife door-to-door training day on Thursday. Didn't even call them. Decided I simply couldn't be one of those sleazy men. Plus I had to find my own leads, meaning the company even though they promised NO cold calls and NO door to door, they give you NO leads to start with... and I though that was really cheap of them. Plus, once I bothered to read the fold-outs I was given, I understood it to be one of those multi-level marketing pyramid schemes. You even have to pay for the "show kit," what you use to make the sales. Those people are worse than the missionaries coming to your door in white button-up shirts and black ties forcing bibles down your throat. It's a cult thing. With prizes, bonuses, and different levels of acceptance into their system.


RESOLUTION NUMBER ONE

Down yonder sleeps my destiny I can feel it. Up there in them plains. By the border next to a road-side beer joint in Tejano country. That’s where my future snores away, where the beer flows thicker than grapefruit juice in a peach orchard. T-bone steaks flapping over the plate’s styrofoam lip… and a baked potato stacked to the hilt with sour cream, bacon bits, chives, melted pasteurized cheese, and non-salted butter. Or was that a chicken-fried steak you were after, honey sweet? Thick brown onion gravy slopped down from the plate with some down-home corn bread? ‘That what you’re looking for, son? Jalapenos stuffed with cream cheese and garlic salt. Guacamole with a twist of lemon… That’s my future staring at me straight in the face. Pink Cadillac dreams. Rusted trailer park blues. Taquerilla mama fry me some frijoles, some huevos rancheros for breakfast, hang me a velvet portrait of Jesus and of Elvis next to each other, burn me some Easter candles to the Aztec Gods, bring out your butterfly knives, your sub-machine guns, your rusted revolvers and the Seventh Cavalry. I’m ready. My balls are burning against the wall. Get your hands ready for a shoot out... Eastwood pause, Lucky Luke shadow... hands tingling hovering near the holsters... Moricone music building up, getting us ready for a transitional scene anytime... anytime now... we're ready... just go ahead and SHOOT!

FIRST BREAKDOWN

Something’s drastically wrong. I’ve spent over twenty two hundred bucks this week. I’ve got a new car, new clothes, and cheap beer in the fridge. I no longer have any money anywhere in any bank or on any credit card… that I know of. I’m living in a tiny studio behind my landlady’s house paying no rent in exchange for a little help here and there. And I feel as if something is missing, something is not right, something is wrong. The other day Tracy said I looked middle class. My car, the one I just bought, is the nicest cleanest car I’ve ever owned, the clothes I’m wearing insinuate that I’m a clean honest respectful dependable type of guy, my bank says so far I have great credit… keep it up sonny… they’re sending me new credit cards in the mail, though I don’t have a real address yet. Shit. I even did all that on purpose so as to get an office job with air conditioning and a swiveling chair, buy a duplex house so as to rent half of it, live the American dream, baby. What the hell am I doing? Something is drastically wrong with me. I need drugs, alcohol, more drugs, more alcohol. I want pills, powder, and strong drinks. I’m in America for god’s sake. In Texas only a few hundred miles from the border. Tomorrow, I’m cleaning a house for my landlady, and her property manager should give me some cash for doing that. All I need is fifteen bucks to fill the gas tank, another few bucks to buy a couple cases of beer, and enough energy to drive down to El Paso. That’s the goal, my man, Pancho’s hide out, the mystical border town, the passage through the mountains, the oasis in the desert, the door to America, the gates to hell, hell being freedom from bushwacking lies and masturbatory dreams of prayers in school. Did you hear? Midland-Odessa, only two hours from Snyder, Bush country, pure inbred bible-thumping Dubya Wanker Oil country, half those city’s respectful leaders were arrested in a prostitution ring. You know why? Cause there’s nothing to do there. Can’t even drink, them being still in the middle of prohibition down yonder in them there parts. Forgot what I was talking about. Forget about it. I need not grass but white powder. I need not beer but plastic gallon Turkey drinks. I need not this city but the desert peyolte sunset macadam redneck trailer-park bars. Something called Lavern’s or something called Conchita’s. WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING HERE?

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