A Chanticleer For Leibowitz

May 6, 2008 – 11:15 pm

When Walter visited us at the commune, he didn’t talk philosophy. He made a big production out of fishing and communing with nature.

In fairness, he was communicating with nature, but it was more with all things mysterious.

Walter was a curious soul. He was tall and squinted at the world through his glasses.

When he looked at you, you got the feeling he was looking at a scene that somehow didn’t include you.

He didn’t talk much, and it never occurred to me to engage him in a conversation about himself.

But just for my own entertainment I asked him, “Do you think the pope is the Vicar of Christ?”.

He didn’t smile when I asked that, he being a Catholic convert.

He looked beyond me, as if he saw St. Augustine with his pears, before he was a saint.

Then he said, “God is a lonely lover”.

I could buy that.

Posted in Life, My Personal Life, Philosophy, Tragedy | No Comments »

Welcome To Mankind’s After Party

May 5, 2008 – 8:51 pm

At the commune we used to walk around naked a lot— who needs clothes when it’s 98 degrees and humid and you don’t have Baptist hangups?

We’d smoke joints and work in the garden and laugh at the expressions on the faces of the rednecks who were driving around in the woods and stumbled upon our “nudist colony”.

It was funny to watch Mr. Natural walk up to their pickup truck (it was always a pickup) and ask them, “Can I help you?”, his dick hanging there nonchalantly in the breeze.

I’ve never seen so many tongue-tied goobers.

One night I went over to the dome to get high with Natural and his ‘old lady’. I didn’t bother to put on any clothes.

So there I was sitting au naturel in the rocking chair while the Naturals reclined on the mattress that served as a platform for his comedy act when we heard a car drive up.

It was night, so we didn’t know who it was till they got to the screen door.

It was the beachside movers and shakers come out to bless us with their presence.

Mr. Natural threw me a blanket and I covered up, not that I was ashamed, but I knew what they were going to think.

I’ve always been ‘psychic’ that way.

The glint in their eyes said it all when they came in, but I just played it cool.

I thought it was too bad I didn’t have a hard-on, though.

It would have been a blast.

The fallout.

Posted in Art, Gurus, My Personal Life, Naked | No Comments »

One Step Closer To The Glory Hole

May 3, 2008 – 10:12 am

When I look at any so-called “open system that must stay equalized” that yet somehow stirs up improbable hurricanes, I feel justified in my scepticism.

The state of perpetual emergency imposed from above by some local lord feels artificial.

What dilettante bohemians consider medicine for the soul might not be your cup of tea, but an anarchist’s utopia could be a portal to something better if your imagination had free rein.

The natural world is our native planet— if we’re lucky the energy and elements combine to make our lives worth living.

Peace and understanding are possible, if you can see past the DMT-hungry cannibals scooping the brains out of your skull like it was tasty pudding.

And people think zombies don’t have preferences.

Soul rebel.

Posted in Babylon, Dance, Grateful Dead | No Comments »

My Soul Needs Crazy Medicine

May 1, 2008 – 11:14 pm

Tomorrow I’ll drink the joy juice.

That’ll shake things up, inside and outside this skull.

Everything old will be new again, and I’ll be myself for a change.

Don’t worry, it’s no worse than Iggy Pop.

The real magic is inside us, anyway.

Some of us just need a good kick in the ass every now and then.

That’s why I have both hands on the knob that steers my ship.;-)

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Justice Is Relative For Comics

April 26, 2008 – 11:52 pm

If Lenny Bruce was alive, he’d have his place in the sun, now.

Who could offer more scathing commentary on our all-too-human foibles?

The inward tension oozed from his pores.

If junkies get relief from the existential buzz, no wonder they’re addicts.

Just living is work when you don’t have a maid.

In this material world that we do such a fine job of messing up.

I always thought wisdom was spelled out in the commonplace things that happen in everyday life.

It just takes an artist to see it, sometimes.

Bugs are everywhere.

Posted in Art, Babylon, Lenny Bruce, Life, Outlaws | No Comments »

No Fancy Pants Required For A Spiritual Dancer

April 25, 2008 – 10:50 pm

Mr. Smooth said that cars run better when he’s a passenger.

I thought it was a smug thing to say but I have to admit it’s true, at least when he rides with me.

He’s not the swivel-hipped rebel from some forgotten vignette now showing on YouTube— he’s more like someone with no space left in his heart for anyone else’s reality.

Some things you just have to take at face value.

I mean, I really don’t consider the energy it takes to pay attention expendable for any megalomaniac who comes along.

Some of them call it a steampunk world, but I say it’s all relative.

Posted in Dance, Life, Psychology | No Comments »

Since I Threw The Gun Away

April 24, 2008 – 1:42 am

A lot of people are all right until they get success poisoning.

The first time I saw Mr. Natural blast a big fat cottonmouth moccasin out of the pond with his goose gun, I thought he was just playing Davy Crockett— then I tried it myself.

I hate to anthropomorphize evil-looking snakes, but somehow it felt like a holy mission when the bastards started going after the baby ducks, as if the depredations of the clever-ass raccoons weren’t bad enough.

The goose gun, such an ungainly apparatus, did the job and held a very tight pattern, all the better to atomize the spawn of Satan.

It made you feel like a righteous barbarian— adrenaline is a self-affirming drug.

Still, shooting swamp snakes with shotguns is no more sporting than dropping rabbits.

At least we ate the rattlers— barbecued.

But now I’d rather live and let live, even when it comes to vipers.

I’ve got the bullets!

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