NEEDLING

For lack of current creativity, I’m going back through some of my journals to see if somewhere somehow a gem has been lain in these endless pages of... un-mentionable expletive here... which could somehow act as a booster to my seemingly dead mass of grey matter which lies in betwixt my ears inside my cranium cavity... something which might light my fire (see! SEEE!!! clichés... yikes... somebody HELP ME...) ... run on... run on... run on...


quoting Thursday 30th of October 2003:

La Revolution

At the head of nine men
including himself
they had nine rifles
500 rounds
two pounds of ground coffee
two pounds of sugar
one pound of salt
and a couple pairs of barbed wire cutters
Pancho Villa rode into history
from his hide-out in El Paso
and headed the revolution
and like another before him
who had turned one loaf of bread
and a dead fish
into enough victuals to feed thousands
Pancho turned his nine men
into a ten thousand strong army
making Chihouahoua
a hell of a place to be
if you weren’t his friend.


or from Wednesday 1st of October 2003:

American Dream

No expectations
nothing basically
all I've got is my birth certificate
saying I was born
with certification
with a stamp from the judge
with a slap from my ma and my pa
all I’ve got is a stamp in purple ink
on my forehead
that I was legal to hoe cotton
when the time came
in August and not in July
in August from sun-up till mid-day
ridding the beat-up chevy
up and down mounds
of sand and burnt weeds
with the black kids from the flats.

I asked them
I asked them a hundred times
why it was called the flats
I asked them, them kids
them white kids from my class
but all they could tell me
is that the flats was
where the black people live
though where I lived
wasn’t no less flatter than where they lived
and nobody could ever explain it to me
except this one white kid
said once
it’s called the flats cause black people
have flat noses
like they’ve been flattened by a good well deserved punch.


Or this really bad one from Sunday 14th of September 2003:

Looking for a Job

Tonight I’ll go search for work
at Galway’s on the quay
by the river
where maybe I’ll find a good song
to chant like a sailor on leave
by the harbor.

I got three dogs tattooed on my shoulder
eating each other’s tails
in a circle
that’s my life they humbly represent
the canine trinity going around
for eternity.

Tonight I’ll go search for peace
in a warm dark mug of beer
and pretzels
where maybe I’ll find that a dog’s life
isn’t such a sad song
after all.


Or this funny little entry from Friday 19th of September 2003:

Was having diner with Rick and Kyungmee. We had chicken sauted with legumes and such. I wanted to put olive oil on my bowl after Kyungmee handed it to me and she almost bit my head off.

“Oh my god, what are you doing... this is an insult...”
“You’re just like my mother, she’d make some fucking dish with rice and fish or something and I’d go for the tabasco sauce and she’d automatically snap at me saying: What, you’re gonna put that stuff on my food without even tasting it first!”
“You’re funny,” said Rick, “it’s like you grew up in America with French parents. I mean, that’s how French people are. They get pissed if you even think about salting your god damned food, it’s a fucking insult to them. And there you are, growing up in trailer-park Texas with French parents!”
“Yeah... thanks for reminding me.”

Then Rick grabbed for the Winshesterchire sauce he’d just bought and started taking the wrapper off when Kyungmee almost attacked him.

“What do you think you’re doing?”
“What! I’m checking to make sure the label is glued on tight.”
“You’re not thinking about using any of that stuff on my food, are you?”
“Are you kidding! I’d never even think of it.”

Kyungmee is boiling, turning her back to us, and Rick and I are smiling and laughing at each other.

It all started when she handed me a bowl with rice and the chicken and vegies on top of it and it looked a little dry, not bad, but like I wanted to put something in it to mix it up, and I asked Kyungmee...

“You don’t have any sauce or something?”
“Whadda you mean, sauce?”
“I don’t know... you know...”
“It’s... I-I-I can’t believe it... this is typical Korean food, and you’re insulting it... my god... the sauce is in the bottom of your bowl...”

So she grabbed my bowl back and spooned some more sauce from the dishpan to dip into my bowl.

“Hey,” Rick said, “give him all the fucking sauce before you give me anything!”

I just didn’t say anything. Then after a while I grabbed the olive oil container and started popping the cap to put some on my rice.

“Oh my god,” Rick said in a mocking voice, “you’re not gonna put olive oil on your rice!”
Kyungmee turned around from her stove as the bottle was only slightly turned and nothing was pouring yet into my bowl.
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?”
“What?”
“You can’t put olive oil on Korean rice!”
“Why not?”
“He’s just kidding.”
“No he’s not... you were actually... oh my god... on my Korean rice...”

She grabbed the olive oil out of my hand before nothing more than a drop had gotten on my rice and she put it on the top shelf out of my reach.

“It was just a joke,” Rick said to appease the atmosphere, and I was left with no sauce. Rick made a sign to me without saying anything like sorry, dude, no olive oil for your rice tonight. Then he grabbed the Whorshesterschire sauce and that was that, he wasn’t even able to uncap it.

Then there was the red hot pimente sauce that Rick had bought also this afternoon. He grabbed for that and started looking at the bottle in his hand and then at his bowl of rice. Kyungmee was bringing a wooden spoonfull of rice and chicken to her mouth when she said.

“That’s fine, you can use that.”
“You mean that sauce is all right?” I asked, “We’re allowed to use it?”

Rick laughed and Kyungmee ignored me. I squeezed a lot of hot pimente on my rice and chicken.


And few little somethings from Friday 2nd of August 2002:

Blue & Green Eggs

Have you ever been a blue or a green egg
with legs and arms sticking out two by two
wearing a swimming trunk, the kind that sticks
real tight, a sort of weathercocked condition
imposed by the board of hygienic bad taste?

And through a one way mirror glass window
they stare having a good laugh looking at eggs
bobbing up and down in the city’s public pool.

Eggs, nothing but blue and green eggs!


Dialogue about Rabbits

- Hey honey, how many rabbits you got in that belly of yours?
- Look how he’s talking to me.
- Just got to wondering about the rabbits, that’s all. Didn’t mean no harm.
- He means no harm talking to me like that?
- None.
- What exactly do you mean, then, might I ask?
- You might.
- And?
- I’m waiting.
- You’re waiting?
- For you to ask!
- Ask what?
- What I mean.
- I just asked you that.
- Is that what you asked?
- Yes.
- Didn’t you ask something else?
- Not at all.
- Bust I asked first.
- What did you ask?
- How many rabbits you’re carrying?
- Don’t talk to me like that!
- I was just repeating what I’d all ready asked.
- What did you ask?
- About the rabbits.
- Would you stop with the rabbits! And answer my question.
- What was it?
- What?
- Your question.
- It’s why you talk to me like that.
- Like what?
- About rabbits.
- Because I like rabbit stew.